The Politics Thread

[2399]

UK government accused of meddling with tradition by axing 2011 Queen's Speech


Read more: news.com.au

[Prufrock]

Maybe we'll get a State of the Union instead?

[Hoboh]

UK government accused of meddling with tradition by axing 2011 Queen's Speech


Read more: news.com.au

I'd do away with elections and all the rest of the money syphoning show if left up to me, I'd keep the queen though but do away with the rest of the windsor rent a mob

[Prufrock]

Wasn't sure where to put this, here seemed the best place.

Read two articles by Daniel Hannan, hereand here.

Am I allowed to agree with them, yet still think him an arrogant, odious, see you next tuesday?

[thebish]

Wasn't sure where to put this, here seemed the best place.

Read two articles by Daniel Hannan, hereand here.

Am I allowed to agree with them, yet still think him an arrogant, odious, see you next tuesday?

the problem with all these political philosophies is all the wars and conflicts they create and the countless millions they kill...

hang on... isn't that religious faiths???

oh... maybe it's just humans....

[Lord Kangana]

Erm, I'm sorry but Stalin's crimes were as odious and equal to Hitler's. There is still a difficulty in the west of understanding or even obtaining the facts relating to the Soviet Union/Eastern Front during Stalin's reign and the second world war. For example, he personally blocked any attempts to calculate the Soviet deathtoll at Stalingrad (believed to be around the million mark) and in a wider context through much of the early part of the war, for fear the population would believe it too high a price to pay. It is only recently that its become possible to start to understand just how murderous and barbaric both his regime and the Eastern front were in that period.

On a secondary note, the Red Army laid waste to much of the territory it conquered/reconquered during the period '43-45, mostly because of the day-to-day brutality with which the Soviet troops lived, and propaganda designed to propogate those actions. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia had welcomed the Nazi's as liberators from the Soviets, were complicit in their crimes, but also suffered an immense amount of murder and oppression from the Germans. When the pendulum swung the other way, they were seen as collaborators (there were at least 2 SS divisions raised inthe Baltic and around 3 million 'Hiwis' fought for the Germans). They paid a heavy price for 'liberation'.

All in all, I think left wingers have to be careful in putting Stalin in their own camp. After all, he was essentially a right wing economist (the most successful in that countries history) he achieved that by any means necessary, including genocide, mass migration, persecution... Thatcher would be proud of his economic record and his impersonal pursuit of it.

[Prufrock]

Erm, I'm sorry but Stalin's crimes were as odious and equal to Hitler's. There is still a difficulty in the west of understanding or even obtaining the facts relating to the Soviet Union/Eastern Front during Stalin's reign and the second world war. For example, he personally blocked any attempts to calculate the Soviet deathtoll at Stalingrad (believed to be around the million mark) and in a wider context through much of the early part of the war, for fear the population would believe it too high a price to pay. It is only recently that its become possible to start to understand just how murderous and barbaric both his regime and the Eastern front were in that period.

On a secondary note, the Red Army laid waste to much of the territory it conquered/reconquered during the period '43-45, mostly because of the day-to-day brutality with which the Soviet troops lived, and propaganda designed to propogate those actions. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia had welcomed the Nazi's as liberators from the Soviets, were complicit in their crimes, but also suffered an immense amount of murder and oppression from the Germans. When the pendulum swung the other way, they were seen as collaborators (there were at least 2 SS divisions raised inthe Baltic and around 3 million 'Hiwis' fought for the Germans). They paid a heavy price for 'liberation'.

All in all, I think left wingers have to be careful in putting Stalin in their own camp. After all, he was essentially a right wing economist (the most successful in that countries history) he achieved that by any means necessary, including genocide, mass migration, persecution... Thatcher would be proud of his economic record and his impersonal pursuit of it.

Aye but you'd do well to tell a lot of folk that. All of which is cock-end (but correct) Hannan's point. That said I don't like his implication. Stalin's crimes were as much to do with communism as Hitler's were with socialism. He is on much more solid ground when talking off overbearing statehood.

[William the White]

Stalin's crimes were vile but not in the same category as Hitler's.

Genocide - the destruction of a race of people by virtue of their race, the 'final solution of the Jewish Problem' is a different kind of crime than the barbarism of Stalin which seems to me to have many antecedents in tyrannies throughout the ages.

I don't think Stalin came close to genocide at any stage of his bloodstained tyranny. This is NOT to minimise the sufferings of the millions who died because of his orders.

They were both unspeakable bastards. Hell roast them. Slowly and eternally.

[Lord Kangana]

I believe the treatment of the Tatars in the Crimea is considered an act of genocide.

[William the White]

I believe the treatment of the Tatars in the Crimea is considered an act of genocide.

I know that claim and I think it's dubious. But I'm not prepared to argue the case very strongly, it somehow feels distasteful, worse than that, when you are dealing with the deaths of huge numbers of real people. I think there is an argument for that definition and I wouldn't criticise anyone for holding that position.

But I think Stalin's crimes, even this one, were a million miles away from Auschwitz and the attempted industrial murder of an entire race by Hitler.

[Lord Kangana]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportatio ... ean_Tatars

You can almost hear the echoes of "resettlement".

Sorry, their crimes were comparable. Both in their numbers, their inhumanity, their brutality. The one common thread that links the two (and as I have mentioned throws the likes of Thatcher in their camp) is the cult of "strong leadership". You'd be amazed how many eighties policies cross-referenced both these regimes, and indeed how much the two (supposedly ideologically opposed) regimes mirrored each other.

Kind of like the old Life of Brian moment "You don't need to follow me, you don't need to follow anybody". Well people do feel the need and this is what we get.

[William the White]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportatio ... ean_Tatars

You can almost hear the echoes of "resettlement".

Sorry, their crimes were comparable. Both in their numbers, their inhumanity, their brutality. The one common thread that links the two (and as I have mentioned throws the likes of Thatcher in their camp) is the cult of "strong leadership". You'd be amazed how many eighties policies cross-referenced both these regimes, and indeed how much the two (supposedly ideologically opposed) regimes mirrored each other.

Kind of like the old Life of Brian moment "You don't need to follow me, you don't need to follow anybody". Well people do feel the need and this is what we get.

I agree with most of this... And the part i disagree with I've already said and don't need to restate... Though even I, as the most anti-thatcherite I know (!) think edging her into the same camp is highly tenuous...

[Lord Kangana]

Its the ethos of complicity when dealing with problems. It isn't a direct comparison of their crimes, its a psychological explanation of why they attain power.

[William the White]

Its the ethos of complicity when dealing with problems. It isn't a direct comparison of their crimes, its a psychological explanation of why they attain power.

Yes, I understood that, i still think it's tenuous - there was nothing like the cult of personality around Thatcher as around almost any long-standing dictator...

[Lord Kangana]

Have you ever listened to the child-like sycophants wax lyrical about her on those vox pop programmes about politics in the eighties? She fits the model perfectly.

[Worthy4England]

I'm guessing we were right to take out some nice person that was gassing Kurds then?


maybe we should have just turned a blind eye?

[Zulus Thousand of em]

I believe the treatment of the Tatars in the Crimea is considered an act of genocide.

I know that claim and I think it's dubious. But I'm not prepared to argue the case very strongly, it somehow feels distasteful, worse than that, when you are dealing with the deaths of huge numbers of real people. I think there is an argument for that definition and I wouldn't criticise anyone for holding that position.

But I think Stalin's crimes, even this one, were a million miles away from Auschwitz and the attempted industrial murder of an entire race by Hitler.

Katyn Wood, and similar activity to wipe out the Polish imtelligentsia and officer class, is way up there with Adolf. Both as bad as one another in my view.

[CAPSLOCK]

Zulus, this is worth a watch

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katy%C5%84_%28film%29

Its available in the usual places

[Lord Kangana]

I'm guessing we were right to take out some tw*t that was gassing Kurds then?


maybe we should have just turned a blind eye?

The one we funded to do it for a generation? That one?


If you're referring to the invasion of Iraq, we waited a bloody long time to 'liberate' their population from persecution. Considering we encouraged the ethnic minorities of Iraq to rebel against Sadam in '91, then stood by for a decade as he decimated them, complicit in the knowledge of what he was doing. That is of course after decades of our help, as a buttress to the scary Iranians.

f one was a cynic, one might be tempted to believe that the reason we invaded Iraq was because he was the leader of a movement to change oil values to the Euro. Which would have bankrupted America. One might be tempted to think also that the hundreds of thousands of lives lost previously and subsequently were something the American administrtation doesn't give two shiny shites about.

[Worthy4England]

I'm guessing we were right to take out some tw*t that was gassing Kurds then?


maybe we should have just turned a blind eye?

The one we funded to do it for a generation? That one?


If you're referring to the invasion of Iraq, we waited a bloody long time to 'liberate' their population from persecution. Considering we encouraged the ethnic minorities of Iraq to rebel against Sadam in '91, then stood by for a decade as he decimated them, complicit in the knowledge of what he was doing. That is of course after decades of our help, as a buttress to the scary Iranians.

f one was a cynic, one might be tempted to believe that the reason we invaded Iraq was because he was the leader of a movement to change oil values to the Euro. Which would have bankrupted America. One might be tempted to think also that the hundreds of thousands of lives lost previously and subsequently were something the American administrtation doesn't give two shiny shites about.

If one was a cynic one might indeed believe it was motivated by other than "high principals". One could also suggest son just wanted to finish what dad never did. The fact he's no loner there to gas part of his population is a decent enough by-product. Either way, we were right to take the bastard out.