Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
Makes a change from the Putin apologists of the right. We used to have one on here, who was an itinerant flint knapper.
With all due respect, doctor, fuck off
I have never been a "Putin apologist"
Is Putin right about Wokeness? Yes. Is he a fascist thug? Also yes
Hitler was good on cars and motorways; Stalin was a charismatic war leader; Fred West probably laid a fine patio. Life is full of paradoxes
You're trivializing it with those examples. Putin's reactionary views on social and cultural matters are integral to his politics and world view. It ought to give you - at the very very least - pause for thought that you share them.
No, it doesn't, Putin is right on this one subject: perhaps it takes a cold-hearted enemy to appraise us correctly.
Putin is also a war-mongering maniac who needs to be taken out
Meanwhile:
Explain for us what you believe "woke" is to be, and which bits of it you might find yourself agreeing with one of the most homicidal despots of our time on?
Stuff like this. I agree with Putin on this:
"Putin brought up Martin Luther King’s remarks about judging people by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.
“Countering acts of racism is a necessary and noble cause,” Putin said, “but the new ‘cancel culture’ has turned it into reverse discrimination, that is, reverse racism. The obsessive emphasis on race is further dividing people, when the real fighters for civil rights dreamed precisely about erasing differences and refusing to divide people by skin color.”"
Of course, he might have said all this just to stir trouble, and he doesn't mean it, yet we have all learned that when Putin says stuff - eg "I am going to invade Ukraine" - he often means it. So I take it at face value. And I agree with him
The most convincing analysis of Putin is that he has many faces. This is the 'face' he presents to court disillusioned westerners. We might think 'Putin is right', but it is really all just an elaborate stunt, and we are being played.
I actually think it is both
I reckon Putin really does think this about Wokeness, but he has also identified it as a weakness in the West, to be exploited. Therefore by correctly analysing the problem with Wokeness, out loud, he can further stoke the Culture Wars which he believes are enervating us
Indeed, one reason he over-reached and invaded Ukraine was, perhaps, because he incorrectly decided the decadent Woke West was now too spineless to react.
As for his specific views on race, I sense he believes that too. He often references race and culture - he often boasts that Russia is multiracial and multicultural. He's not an "ethno-nationalist" in the strictest sense, tho he is happy to draw on Russian-ness when it suits him - cf his use of the Orthodox Church
This makes sense when you comprehend his ambition: which is to restore the Russian/Soviet Empire. That can only be multiracial and multicultural, by definition, it cannot be "pure Russia". And, when you have severe demographic problems, you also don't want to alienate minorities who might usefully join your army
It is a shame that I can't dig out the "unFascist Britain" threads from soc.history.what-if
This was an attempt by some very able amateur historians to conceive of a version of Fascism that would have worked in 30s Britain. They stopped, partly because it was worryingly plausible.
Part of it involved a variation on racism - an extension of the whole Kipling Imperial thing. As long as various races help out with The Empire, they would be Good Eggs, and should be Treated Decently*
I am getting a certain familiar vibe from Putin on this....
*Not equally, of course.
Roderick Spode's Black Shorts are what make me entirely confident that it could never have happened here. ridicule is the most useful tool in the anti-fascist shed.
Makes a change from the Putin apologists of the right. We used to have one on here, who was an itinerant flint knapper.
With all due respect, doctor, fuck off
I have never been a "Putin apologist"
Is Putin right about Wokeness? Yes. Is he a fascist thug? Also yes
Hitler was good on cars and motorways; Stalin was a charismatic war leader; Fred West probably laid a fine patio. Life is full of paradoxes
You're trivializing it with those examples. Putin's reactionary views on social and cultural matters are integral to his politics and world view. It ought to give you - at the very very least - pause for thought that you share them.
No, it doesn't, Putin is right on this one subject: perhaps it takes a cold-hearted enemy to appraise us correctly.
Putin is also a war-mongering maniac who needs to be taken out
Meanwhile:
Explain for us what you believe "woke" is to be, and which bits of it you might find yourself agreeing with one of the most homicidal despots of our time on?
Stuff like this. I agree with Putin on this:
"Putin brought up Martin Luther King’s remarks about judging people by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.
“Countering acts of racism is a necessary and noble cause,” Putin said, “but the new ‘cancel culture’ has turned it into reverse discrimination, that is, reverse racism. The obsessive emphasis on race is further dividing people, when the real fighters for civil rights dreamed precisely about erasing differences and refusing to divide people by skin color.”"
Of course, he might have said all this just to stir trouble, and he doesn't mean it, yet we have all learned that when Putin says stuff - eg "I am going to invade Ukraine" - he often means it. So I take it at face value. And I agree with him
The most convincing analysis of Putin is that he has many faces. This is the 'face' he presents to court disillusioned westerners. We might think 'Putin is right', but it is really all just an elaborate stunt, and we are being played.
I believe it is both
I reckon Putin really does think this about Wokeness, but he has also identified it as a weakness in the West, to be exploited. Therefore by correctly analysing the problem with Wokeness, out loud, he can further stoke the Culture Wars which he believes are enervating us
Indeed, one reason he over-reached and invaded Ukraine was, perhaps, because he incorrectly decided the decadent Woke West was now too spineless to react.
As for his specific views on race, I sense he believes that too. He often references race and culture - he often boasts that Russia is multiracial and multicultural. He's not an "ethno-nationalist" in the strictest sense, tho he is happy to draw on Russian-ness when it suits him - cf his use of the Orthodox Church
This makes sense when you comprehend his ambition: which is to restore the Russian/Soviet Empire. That can only be multiracial and multicultural, by definition, it cannot be "pure Russia". And, when you have severe demographic problems, you also don't want to alienate minorities who might usefully join your army
I wonder if Putin's best time to invade would have been November/December 2020:
1) Trump still in power but disputing election. 2) GDR Merkel in power. 3) Alpha covid spreading fast in western Europe and the USA. 4) Vaccinations only just starting and about to become a source of dispute in Europe. 5) Russian military possibly better and the Ukraine military possibly worse.
I think there probably *are* some Nazis in Ukraine.
We mustn’t think Ukraine was some kind of Scandinavian, participatory democratic paradise before the War.
It’s desperately poor and hideously corrupt, even by Eastern European standards.
Kelensky has an opportunity to cleanse Nazi elements as part of any peace-deal.
The Ukrainians that I've met said that there was a tricky balance, but you'd be left in no doubt that they all wanted Ukraine to succeed as a nation.
I don't think you're right about poverty or corruption either. Who knows about Nazis? Someones specialist subject for some reason. They really did blow their cogs in the last century.
I think there probably *are* some Nazis in Ukraine.
We mustn’t think Ukraine was some kind of Scandinavian, participatory democratic paradise before the War.
It’s desperately poor and hideously corrupt, even by Eastern European standards.
Kelensky has an opportunity to cleanse Nazi elements as part of any peace-deal.
Looking at the size of their support in recent years, it's not absurd to think that without the war which has been ongoing since 2014, they might have disappeared as a coherent organisation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
Plus, Orwell himself claimed to be a lefty, which is a pretty good sign. Your analysis, as a student, was correct
"When the Duchess of Atholl, impressed by the anticommunism of Animal Farm, invited Orwell to address the Right-wing League for European Freedom, he wrote back: “I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence on this country.”"
Makes a change from the Putin apologists of the right. We used to have one on here, who was an itinerant flint knapper.
With all due respect, doctor, fuck off
I have never been a "Putin apologist"
Is Putin right about Wokeness? Yes. Is he a fascist thug? Also yes
Hitler was good on cars and motorways; Stalin was a charismatic war leader; Fred West probably laid a fine patio. Life is full of paradoxes
You're trivializing it with those examples. Putin's reactionary views on social and cultural matters are integral to his politics and world view. It ought to give you - at the very very least - pause for thought that you share them.
No, it doesn't, Putin is right on this one subject: perhaps it takes a cold-hearted enemy to appraise us correctly.
Putin is also a war-mongering maniac who needs to be taken out
Meanwhile:
Explain for us what you believe "woke" is to be, and which bits of it you might find yourself agreeing with one of the most homicidal despots of our time on?
Stuff like this. I agree with Putin on this:
"Putin brought up Martin Luther King’s remarks about judging people by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.
“Countering acts of racism is a necessary and noble cause,” Putin said, “but the new ‘cancel culture’ has turned it into reverse discrimination, that is, reverse racism. The obsessive emphasis on race is further dividing people, when the real fighters for civil rights dreamed precisely about erasing differences and refusing to divide people by skin color.”"
Of course, he might have said all this just to stir trouble, and he doesn't mean it, yet we have all learned that when Putin says stuff - eg "I am going to invade Ukraine" - he often means it. So I take it at face value. And I agree with him
Well I'm happy to be on the other side of this argument from you and Putin. To be antiracist you have to think about race and this does have pitfalls. But it's better to do that, and try and avoid the pitfalls, than it is to bank on ingrained white supremacy being best eradicated by pretending it doesn't exist.
The BIB is the part I have a problem with. We would all be much better off if nobody ever thought about race. Let's set an example.
Makes a change from the Putin apologists of the right. We used to have one on here, who was an itinerant flint knapper.
With all due respect, doctor, fuck off
I have never been a "Putin apologist"
Is Putin right about Wokeness? Yes. Is he a fascist thug? Also yes
Hitler was good on cars and motorways; Stalin was a charismatic war leader; Fred West probably laid a fine patio. Life is full of paradoxes
You're trivializing it with those examples. Putin's reactionary views on social and cultural matters are integral to his politics and world view. It ought to give you - at the very very least - pause for thought that you share them.
No, it doesn't, Putin is right on this one subject: perhaps it takes a cold-hearted enemy to appraise us correctly.
Putin is also a war-mongering maniac who needs to be taken out
Meanwhile:
Explain for us what you believe "woke" is to be, and which bits of it you might find yourself agreeing with one of the most homicidal despots of our time on?
Stuff like this. I agree with Putin on this:
"Putin brought up Martin Luther King’s remarks about judging people by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.
“Countering acts of racism is a necessary and noble cause,” Putin said, “but the new ‘cancel culture’ has turned it into reverse discrimination, that is, reverse racism. The obsessive emphasis on race is further dividing people, when the real fighters for civil rights dreamed precisely about erasing differences and refusing to divide people by skin color.”"
Of course, he might have said all this just to stir trouble, and he doesn't mean it, yet we have all learned that when Putin says stuff - eg "I am going to invade Ukraine" - he often means it. So I take it at face value. And I agree with him
Well I'm happy to be on the other side of this argument from you and Putin. To be antiracist you have to think about race and this does have pitfalls. But it's better to do that, and try and avoid the pitfalls, than it is to bank on ingrained white supremacy being best eradicated by pretending it doesn't exist.
I sort-of agree with you, but the problem is that concentrating on 'race' (as in anti-racist) leads to problems. For instance, you can be anti-racist, anti-sexist, pro-disabled, anti-homophobia, etc, etc.
At the end of the day, it becomes better just to treat people as people. If you meet someone you don't know, try to treat them nicely unless you need to, until they prove otherwise. And hopefully they will do the same for you.
We all have more in common than that which divides us.
Your approach works best for individual interactions.
Kinabalu's approach works best for looking at massive organisations and state institutions.
I think there probably *are* some Nazis in Ukraine.
We mustn’t think Ukraine was some kind of Scandinavian, participatory democratic paradise before the War.
It’s desperately poor and hideously corrupt, even by Eastern European standards.
Kelensky has an opportunity to cleanse Nazi elements as part of any peace-deal.
The Ukrainians that I've met said that there was a tricky balance, but you'd be left in no doubt that they all wanted Ukraine to succeed as a nation.
I don't think you're right about poverty or corruption either. Who knows about Nazis? Someones specialist subject for some reason. They really did blow their cogs in the last century.
What balance are you talking about.
Check out the economic stats to see how poor Ukraine is, and read up on its specific corruption issues. They are of course interrelated.
https://twitter.com/sfmnemonic/status/1504687870006620163 Drawing Bayesian inferences after extensive sampling, I've determined that it's 99-percent certain that anyone who uses "woke" as pejorative will turn out to be a fuckhead. Please don't blame me for pointing this out--it's just science.
Personally I think the use of an adjective like 'pejorative' as a noun is a bit of a twunt signal.
Makes a change from the Putin apologists of the right. We used to have one on here, who was an itinerant flint knapper.
With all due respect, doctor, fuck off
I have never been a "Putin apologist"
Is Putin right about Wokeness? Yes. Is he a fascist thug? Also yes
Hitler was good on cars and motorways; Stalin was a charismatic war leader; Fred West probably laid a fine patio. Life is full of paradoxes
You're trivializing it with those examples. Putin's reactionary views on social and cultural matters are integral to his politics and world view. It ought to give you - at the very very least - pause for thought that you share them.
No, it doesn't, Putin is right on this one subject: perhaps it takes a cold-hearted enemy to appraise us correctly.
Putin is also a war-mongering maniac who needs to be taken out
Meanwhile:
Explain for us what you believe "woke" is to be, and which bits of it you might find yourself agreeing with one of the most homicidal despots of our time on?
Stuff like this. I agree with Putin on this:
"Putin brought up Martin Luther King’s remarks about judging people by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.
“Countering acts of racism is a necessary and noble cause,” Putin said, “but the new ‘cancel culture’ has turned it into reverse discrimination, that is, reverse racism. The obsessive emphasis on race is further dividing people, when the real fighters for civil rights dreamed precisely about erasing differences and refusing to divide people by skin color.”"
Of course, he might have said all this just to stir trouble, and he doesn't mean it, yet we have all learned that when Putin says stuff - eg "I am going to invade Ukraine" - he often means it. So I take it at face value. And I agree with him
The most convincing analysis of Putin is that he has many faces. This is the 'face' he presents to court disillusioned westerners. We might think 'Putin is right', but it is really all just an elaborate stunt, and we are being played.
I actually think it is both
I reckon Putin really does think this about Wokeness, but he has also identified it as a weakness in the West, to be exploited. Therefore by correctly analysing the problem with Wokeness, out loud, he can further stoke the Culture Wars which he believes are enervating us
Indeed, one reason he over-reached and invaded Ukraine was, perhaps, because he incorrectly decided the decadent Woke West was now too spineless to react.
As for his specific views on race, I sense he believes that too. He often references race and culture - he often boasts that Russia is multiracial and multicultural. He's not an "ethno-nationalist" in the strictest sense, tho he is happy to draw on Russian-ness when it suits him - cf his use of the Orthodox Church
This makes sense when you comprehend his ambition: which is to restore the Russian/Soviet Empire. That can only be multiracial and multicultural, by definition, it cannot be "pure Russia". And, when you have severe demographic problems, you also don't want to alienate minorities who might usefully join your army
It is a shame that I can't dig out the "unFascist Britain" threads from soc.history.what-if
This was an attempt by some very able amateur historians to conceive of a version of Fascism that would have worked in 30s Britain. They stopped, partly because it was worryingly plausible.
Part of it involved a variation on racism - an extension of the whole Kipling Imperial thing. As long as various races help out with The Empire, they would be Good Eggs, and should be Treated Decently*
I am getting a certain familiar vibe from Putin on this....
*Not equally, of course.
Roderick Spode's Black Shorts are what make me entirely confident that it could never have happened here. ridicule is the most useful tool in the anti-fascist shed.
Which what was so clever about the "unFascist Britain" idea - it removed all the laughable elements and replaced them with boring British sounding things. No "papers" - but "log books" to be scrutinised by Proper British Plod. No silly uniforms etc etc.
Makes a change from the Putin apologists of the right. We used to have one on here, who was an itinerant flint knapper.
With all due respect, doctor, fuck off
I have never been a "Putin apologist"
Is Putin right about Wokeness? Yes. Is he a fascist thug? Also yes
Hitler was good on cars and motorways; Stalin was a charismatic war leader; Fred West probably laid a fine patio. Life is full of paradoxes
You're trivializing it with those examples. Putin's reactionary views on social and cultural matters are integral to his politics and world view. It ought to give you - at the very very least - pause for thought that you share them.
No, it doesn't, Putin is right on this one subject: perhaps it takes a cold-hearted enemy to appraise us correctly.
Putin is also a war-mongering maniac who needs to be taken out
Meanwhile:
Explain for us what you believe "woke" is to be, and which bits of it you might find yourself agreeing with one of the most homicidal despots of our time on?
"A hospital has finally admitted a woman may have been raped by a transgender patient after denying the possibility of an attack for almost a year, the House of Lords has heard.
"When police were called to the unnamed hospital in England, they were allegedly told by staff that 'there was no male' on the single-sex ward, 'therefore the rape could not have happened'.
But almost 12 months later, they revealed one of the patients had been trans. "
Without getting into the Trans debate again, this is particularly bad behaviour by the hospital who only finally admitted that the rape had taken place after video evidence emerged to prove it. They knew it was possible he rape had taken place but preferred to call the woman a liar than admit their policy was wrong.
I simply find it mind-boggling that we have reached this stage of lunacy
And that people can think that finding this story equally hilarious and horrifying, is taking a position in a "trans debate." There isn't a real trans debate any more than there's a gay debate or a votes for women debate, there's simply boring prudent housekeeping measures which are obvious to anyone vaguely sane.
The debate - the meaningful practical one which tends to get buried under culture war action, lurid edge cases, and "what is a woman?" chinstroke - is whether or not to reform the GRA as per what the May govt were going to do and what I believe the Scottish govt *are* doing. I'll be interested to see if Labour put it in their manifesto. It's a tricky one for them. I think they'll want to have it there but it's a political risk.
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
Plus, Orwell himself claimed to be a lefty, which is a pretty good sign. Your analysis, as a student, was correct
"When the Duchess of Atholl, impressed by the anticommunism of Animal Farm, invited Orwell to address the Right-wing League for European Freedom, he wrote back: “I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence on this country.”"
https://twitter.com/sfmnemonic/status/1504687870006620163 Drawing Bayesian inferences after extensive sampling, I've determined that it's 99-percent certain that anyone who uses "woke" as pejorative will turn out to be a fuckhead. Please don't blame me for pointing this out--it's just science.
Personally I think the use of an adjective like 'pejorative' as a noun is a bit of a twunt signal.
Yes, but that's not what it is there - grammatically ambiguous.
"As pejorative" seems to be "in a pejorative manner" - note the lack of indefinite article.
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
1984 and AF are profoundly "anti-communist". Orwell always rejected the anti-left interpretations.
Orwell was a lifelong Democratic Socialist and saw Bolshevik Communism as the enemy of the working class. He supported the postwar Labour government and seems to have regarded it as the closest thing to his ideals he was likely to see.
I think there probably *are* some Nazis in Ukraine.
We mustn’t think Ukraine was some kind of Scandinavian, participatory democratic paradise before the War.
It’s desperately poor and hideously corrupt, even by Eastern European standards.
Kelensky has an opportunity to cleanse Nazi elements as part of any peace-deal.
Looking at the size of their support in recent years, it's not absurd to think that without the war which has been ongoing since 2014, they might have disappeared as a coherent organisation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion
Their vote share nationally is negligible.
It’s good that they seem to be electorally unsuccessful. But it’s mighty odd - don’t you think - that in 2014 they were incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard.
I think there probably *are* some Nazis in Ukraine.
We mustn’t think Ukraine was some kind of Scandinavian, participatory democratic paradise before the War.
Err, there are plenty of Nazis in Scandinavia. Probably proportionately similar to Ukraine.
Ok, whatever. You know what I mean. Fascist elements in Ukraine are quite well attested.
It is a bit more than 'some Nazis' - the Azov Brigade is a 2500-ish strong armed group that has now been incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard. You may or may not think that's justified by the military situation - it's hard to argue otherwise, but it is a genuine Nazi group officially bearing arms as part of the Government. The nearest thing we could imagine to it would be Churchill enlisting Moseley's black shirts part and parcel into the Home Guard.
My annual moan about daylight saving. Why can't we put the clocks forward on the first Sunday in March?
Agree. And now we have Brexited we are free to do this; you can't in the EU (tho they are also thinking of abandoning the time-change).
"Since 2001, EU summertime arrangements have been governed by Directive 2000/84/EC, setting out the obligation on all Member States to switch to summer-time on the last Sunday of March and to switch back to their standard time ("winter-time") on the last Sunday of October"
I think there probably *are* some Nazis in Ukraine.
We mustn’t think Ukraine was some kind of Scandinavian, participatory democratic paradise before the War.
It’s desperately poor and hideously corrupt, even by Eastern European standards.
Kelensky has an opportunity to cleanse Nazi elements as part of any peace-deal.
The Ukrainians that I've met said that there was a tricky balance, but you'd be left in no doubt that they all wanted Ukraine to succeed as a nation.
I don't think you're right about poverty or corruption either. Who knows about Nazis? Someones specialist subject for some reason. They really did blow their cogs in the last century.
What balance are you talking about.
Check out the economic stats to see how poor Ukraine is, and read up on its specific corruption issues. They are of course interrelated.
Balance - there's a Russian speaking vs Ukrainian speaking thing.
Corruption - I've not seen that although I will say there're quite a lot of ex-military 'managers'
I think there probably *are* some Nazis in Ukraine.
We mustn’t think Ukraine was some kind of Scandinavian, participatory democratic paradise before the War.
It’s desperately poor and hideously corrupt, even by Eastern European standards.
Kelensky has an opportunity to cleanse Nazi elements as part of any peace-deal.
Looking at the size of their support in recent years, it's not absurd to think that without the war which has been ongoing since 2014, they might have disappeared as a coherent organisation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion
Their vote share nationally is negligible.
It’s good that they seem to be electorally unsuccessful. But it’s mighty odd - don’t you think - that in 2014 they were incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard.
Re immigration, Stephen Bush, formerly of the NS, is now at the FT. He started today.
https://www.ft.com/content/8e941a78-4d4f-4bdf-9e3a-2f290ab342ac Your country’s ability to do these things is a pretty good test of how effectively governed it is. If your planning and housing system doesn’t have enough flexibility and spare capacity to accommodate some refugees, you almost certainly have a sclerotic planning and housing system. If your community colleges can’t provide them with good enough language skills — people who were already working and living perfectly happily in another country — to enter your labour market, you almost certainly have a very bad adult education system. And if your political class doesn’t have the wit to allow anyone with a valid Ukrainian passport visa-free access to your country, then you almost certainly have a low-wattage political class.
If your country cannot do any of these things, congratulations! You are almost certainly the UK and you are almost certainly heading for a second successive lost decade.
Hugely admire Stephen Bush - who has helped make NS readable for the first time in years.
However, OTOH you could depict UK differently by careful selection eg:
If 29% of your babies are born to foreign born mothers you musty be doing enough right to attract such numbers of younger people to live here.
If your labour market has millions of foreign born people in it, from top bankers to factory cleaners you must be a very attractive destination.
When you are not a proximate country to a millions strong army of refugees, but you are known as a top destination for foreign born people (see above) it is sensible to put some barriers in the way to unlimited entry, and slightly moral to do so before compassion fatigue sets in, not after.
There is no lost decade. people in UK are perfectly capable of being happy, unhappy, fulfilled or unfulfilled without state assistance or getting richer.
(NB having said all that, the Ukraine visa thing has been badly handled).
Disclose.tv @disclosetv · Mar 15 JUST IN - U.S. Senate passes the "Sunshine Protection Act" by unanimous consent to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
1984 and AF are profoundly "anti-communist". Orwell always rejected the anti-left interpretations.
Orwell was a lifelong Democratic Socialist and saw Bolshevik Communism as the enemy of the working class. He supported the postwar Labour government and seems to have regarded it as the closest thing to his ideals he was likely to see.
There’s a strong argument that full-fat Orwell, is a bit like “Blue Labour” on steroids, and the key to a bit majority in England (as opposed to in the U.K.).
Balance - there's a Russian speaking vs Ukrainian speaking thing.
Anecdotally, several of my friends who are Russian-speaking Ukrainians have adopted Ukrainian spellings of their names and started speaking in Ukrainian with their families since the war started. It's totally galvanised a sense of Ukrainian nationhood that might have been ambiguous before.
It's curious to hear the stories of Ukrainians who have had arguments with relatives in Russia. One guy on the Six O'clock News said that his relative was accusing Ukrainians of killing Russians. I wonder where they think such killings are taking place and in what circumstances.
https://twitter.com/sfmnemonic/status/1504687870006620163 Drawing Bayesian inferences after extensive sampling, I've determined that it's 99-percent certain that anyone who uses "woke" as pejorative will turn out to be a fuckhead. Please don't blame me for pointing this out--it's just science.
Personally I think the use of an adjective like 'pejorative' as a noun is a bit of a twunt signal.
Yes, but that's not what it is there - grammatically ambiguous.
"As pejorative" seems to be "in a pejorative manner" - note the lack of indefinite article.
My annual moan about daylight saving. Why can't we put the clocks forward on the first Sunday in March?
Leave the clocks alone.
There's so much evidence that giving everyone a small dose of jetlag is incredibly damaging and all for the sake of what we call the time - it makes no difference to how much daylight there is.
I think there probably *are* some Nazis in Ukraine.
We mustn’t think Ukraine was some kind of Scandinavian, participatory democratic paradise before the War.
It’s desperately poor and hideously corrupt, even by Eastern European standards.
Kelensky has an opportunity to cleanse Nazi elements as part of any peace-deal.
Looking at the size of their support in recent years, it's not absurd to think that without the war which has been ongoing since 2014, they might have disappeared as a coherent organisation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion
Their vote share nationally is negligible.
It’s good that they seem to be electorally unsuccessful. But it’s mighty odd - don’t you think - that in 2014 they were incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard.
Imagine if the BNP were adopted into the Met.
Give the opposing ideologies, isn’t a better parallel the Communist resistance in France during the war? Not something we (or the notional French government we’re fans of but something to be worked with).
Off topic, I think it’s a mistake from Ofcom to ban RT.
I don’t think there’s much evidence it’s particularly damaging, and the Russians are likely to retaliate by banning the BBC from operating in Russia which will be a big loss.
Are the BBC still in Russia? I thought most journalists got out when they passed a law that potentially endangered foreign journalists.
To answer my own question, the BBC's Steve Rosenberg is in Moscow.
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
1984 and AF are profoundly "anti-communist". Orwell always rejected the anti-left interpretations.
Orwell was a lifelong Democratic Socialist and saw Bolshevik Communism as the enemy of the working class. He supported the postwar Labour government and seems to have regarded it as the closest thing to his ideals he was likely to see.
Via @SavantaComRes 10-16 March, Changes w/ 24-28 February.
Some Labour gains in Scotland
This endless Scottish stasis may be about to shift
See the indypoll on the last thread. NO is ahead by 5. Sturgeon is obvs not going to call - or even try to call - indyref2 next year. It’s off the agenda
As this becomes obvious unease in the SNP will increase. There is a fundamental split between the gradualists who are content, for now, with devolution, and the maximalists who want Indy tomorrow
They might split as the next referendum recedes into the distant future
Who gains? Possibly Scottish Labour, if they are canny (which they generally aren’t, it must be said)
Article by an Indy-supporting journo on why she thinks Nicola may stand down. I'm not so sure. The Yes vote is down a little, but hasn't tanked. Politicians who get to the top generally have to be dragged out of office. All the same...
"The First Minister is therefore caught for now in a painful double bind, unable to delay a referendum campaign for much longer without alienating ever-larger groups of independence supporters, and yet unable to campaign actively for independence without a high risk of alienating the very undecided and fearful voters she most needs to persuade; and all of Scottish politics seems caught with her."
Actually quite a sensible article. She says indyref2 is half a decade away, I reckon it’s a decade away, but it is coming - eventually. A vote in the early 2030s answers the generation question, it also gives the SNP time to solve the currency and EU puzzles, which they demonstrably haven’t done, so far
The Union will be tested again. Just not yet
Perhaps. Assumes the currency and EU problems are solvable, of course. Which they aren't. Nor are pensions, tax, etc either apparently.
Perhaps the SNP need a spell out of power at Holyrood and then can come charging back in. No sign of that either, though.
That is probably what they do need. Defeat. The whiff of stagnancy and corruption is strong in Holyrood. No party should reign forever.
A good scenario for the SNP would be a narrow election defeat, then 5 years of incompetent Coalition/Unionist government in Holyrood. Then the Nats could point and say See?! - with a vigorous new leader they would then win a big majority, and a new mandate for an indyref. By that time - 15 years after 2014 - they could also argue: a new generation is here, Scotland has the right to ask once again
I don’t believe Westminster could or should resist in that situation. = Indyref2
Yeah, maybe.
BUT that would need SNP to lose power in 2026, which they won't, as they'll be put back in by the Greens whose growth will compensate for any SNP decline. You need to understand the electoral system for Holyrood, and the List vote. The stagnation at Holyrood is just going to continue ad infinitum.
Of course. I was dreaming.
It’s actually quite shit for Scotland. Labour really fucked up with Devolution
Perhaps when Sturgeon goes the tectonics might change…
"Indyref2 delay due to Ukraine would 'hand Putin veto over democracy in Scotland' claim SNP"
That SNP MSP should thank herself lucky she got her independence referendum in 2014 and Boris unlike Putin did not send in the armed forces to bring her nation firmly back within the bosom of the mother country.
She can then wait a generation until she is allowed an indyref2
That is an appalling thing to say. Lots of people are dying in Ukraine. You treat other people's lives as if they are nothing. I wonder how brave you would be if you were in the frontline rather than sitting behind your computer.
Oh your doing your liberal thought police whinging again.
I did not say Boris should have invaded Scotland to bring it back into the bosom of the mother country as Putin has invaded Ukraine did I? In fact I said precisely the opposite.
Just this government should continue to refuse indyref2 for a generation
Sorry I'm obviously wrong just like everyone else who posted that, that was a spectacularly insensitive statement. You are cavalier with others lives as you showed the other day. You talk about bravery and guts but only when it is others lives you are willing to put on the line. Not your own. I think @Topping hit the nail on the head the other day regarding your bravery. I have lost all respect for you re your comments about Falkland's veterans and I'm sure you would not have had the courage to make those comments to their faces. This has nothing to do with being a liberal and all to do with being a decent human being whether a Tory, Liberal or Socialist. This isn't political, it is about being decent.
Balance - there's a Russian speaking vs Ukrainian speaking thing.
Anecdotally, several of my friends who are Russian-speaking Ukrainians have adopted Ukrainian spellings of their names and started speaking in Ukrainian with their families since the war started. It's totally galvanised a sense of Ukrainian nationhood that might have been ambiguous before.
I just have a few friends there. No changes of name.
Balance - there's a Russian speaking vs Ukrainian speaking thing.
Anecdotally, several of my friends who are Russian-speaking Ukrainians have adopted Ukrainian spellings of their names and started speaking in Ukrainian with their families since the war started. It's totally galvanised a sense of Ukrainian nationhood that might have been ambiguous before.
Yes, it might be the making of a unified Ukrainian national identity long-term.
So often, throughout history, that's been how they've formed.
My annual moan about daylight saving. Why can't we put the clocks forward on the first Sunday in March?
Leave the clocks alone.
There's so much evidence that giving everyone a small dose of jetlag is incredibly damaging and all for the sake of what we call the time - it makes no difference to how much daylight there is.
Utterly moronic.
But, that fact will never stop the six-of-one half-a-dozen of the other debate each year.
Makes a change from the Putin apologists of the right. We used to have one on here, who was an itinerant flint knapper.
With all due respect, doctor, fuck off
I have never been a "Putin apologist"
Is Putin right about Wokeness? Yes. Is he a fascist thug? Also yes
Hitler was good on cars and motorways; Stalin was a charismatic war leader; Fred West probably laid a fine patio. Life is full of paradoxes
You're trivializing it with those examples. Putin's reactionary views on social and cultural matters are integral to his politics and world view. It ought to give you - at the very very least - pause for thought that you share them.
No, it doesn't, Putin is right on this one subject: perhaps it takes a cold-hearted enemy to appraise us correctly.
Putin is also a war-mongering maniac who needs to be taken out
Meanwhile:
Explain for us what you believe "woke" is to be, and which bits of it you might find yourself agreeing with one of the most homicidal despots of our time on?
Stuff like this. I agree with Putin on this:
"Putin brought up Martin Luther King’s remarks about judging people by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.
“Countering acts of racism is a necessary and noble cause,” Putin said, “but the new ‘cancel culture’ has turned it into reverse discrimination, that is, reverse racism. The obsessive emphasis on race is further dividing people, when the real fighters for civil rights dreamed precisely about erasing differences and refusing to divide people by skin color.”"
Of course, he might have said all this just to stir trouble, and he doesn't mean it, yet we have all learned that when Putin says stuff - eg "I am going to invade Ukraine" - he often means it. So I take it at face value. And I agree with him
Well I'm happy to be on the other side of this argument from you and Putin. To be antiracist you have to think about race and this does have pitfalls. But it's better to do that, and try and avoid the pitfalls, than it is to bank on ingrained white supremacy being best eradicated by pretending it doesn't exist.
The BIB is the part I have a problem with. We would all be much better off if nobody ever thought about race. Let's set an example.
This is fairly basic game theory.
If you could be sure everyone would not think about race yes that would be great.
If you know even 5-10% of the population will treat minority races badly, then you either need to accept minorities, on average, will get a worse deal, or mainstream society needs to think about race.
Wishing the world as you want it to be, does not solve a real problem. And this is all before we get into the unconscious bias that impacts as much as the 5-10% of racists.
I think there probably *are* some Nazis in Ukraine.
We mustn’t think Ukraine was some kind of Scandinavian, participatory democratic paradise before the War.
It’s desperately poor and hideously corrupt, even by Eastern European standards.
Kelensky has an opportunity to cleanse Nazi elements as part of any peace-deal.
Looking at the size of their support in recent years, it's not absurd to think that without the war which has been ongoing since 2014, they might have disappeared as a coherent organisation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion
Their vote share nationally is negligible.
It’s good that they seem to be electorally unsuccessful. But it’s mighty odd - don’t you think - that in 2014 they were incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard.
I think there probably *are* some Nazis in Ukraine.
We mustn’t think Ukraine was some kind of Scandinavian, participatory democratic paradise before the War.
It’s desperately poor and hideously corrupt, even by Eastern European standards.
Kelensky has an opportunity to cleanse Nazi elements as part of any peace-deal.
Looking at the size of their support in recent years, it's not absurd to think that without the war which has been ongoing since 2014, they might have disappeared as a coherent organisation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion
Their vote share nationally is negligible.
It’s good that they seem to be electorally unsuccessful. But it’s mighty odd - don’t you think - that in 2014 they were incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard.
Imagine if the BNP were adopted into the Met.
Give the opposing ideologies, isn’t a better parallel the Communist resistance in France during the war? Not something we (or the notional French government we’re fans of but something to be worked with).
I’m not enough of a historian to know to what extent the Communists were absorbed into whatever remained of the French security forces.
Regardless, I’d prefer to keep out-and-out nazis out, rather than in. Zelensky has inherited the situation but one must hope it is addressed in due course.
My annual moan about daylight saving. Why can't we put the clocks forward on the first Sunday in March?
Here is something radical: How about the whole world works on the same time. I mean what number does it matter when you get up, go to bed, start work, stop work, etc.
Makes a change from the Putin apologists of the right. We used to have one on here, who was an itinerant flint knapper.
With all due respect, doctor, fuck off
I have never been a "Putin apologist"
Is Putin right about Wokeness? Yes. Is he a fascist thug? Also yes
Hitler was good on cars and motorways; Stalin was a charismatic war leader; Fred West probably laid a fine patio. Life is full of paradoxes
You're trivializing it with those examples. Putin's reactionary views on social and cultural matters are integral to his politics and world view. It ought to give you - at the very very least - pause for thought that you share them.
No, it doesn't, Putin is right on this one subject: perhaps it takes a cold-hearted enemy to appraise us correctly.
Putin is also a war-mongering maniac who needs to be taken out
Meanwhile:
Pathetic. Within a minute I could find a dozen photos of the Queen meeting Putin. Does that make her a Putin apologist?
Off topic, I think it’s a mistake from Ofcom to ban RT.
I don’t think there’s much evidence it’s particularly damaging, and the Russians are likely to retaliate by banning the BBC from operating in Russia which will be a big loss.
It should never have been offered a freeview slot in the first place. Not sure how the ban works but if they are also banned from online broadcasting somehow, then that would be imo wrong.
https://twitter.com/sfmnemonic/status/1504687870006620163 Drawing Bayesian inferences after extensive sampling, I've determined that it's 99-percent certain that anyone who uses "woke" as pejorative will turn out to be a fuckhead. Please don't blame me for pointing this out--it's just science.
Personally I think the use of an adjective like 'pejorative' as a noun is a bit of a twunt signal.
Do you have a problem with "The good, the bad and the ugly"? Otherwise where do you start to move from normal adjectival nouns to "twunt signal" adjectival nouns?
I think there probably *are* some Nazis in Ukraine.
We mustn’t think Ukraine was some kind of Scandinavian, participatory democratic paradise before the War.
It’s desperately poor and hideously corrupt, even by Eastern European standards.
Kelensky has an opportunity to cleanse Nazi elements as part of any peace-deal.
Looking at the size of their support in recent years, it's not absurd to think that without the war which has been ongoing since 2014, they might have disappeared as a coherent organisation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion
Their vote share nationally is negligible.
It’s good that they seem to be electorally unsuccessful. But it’s mighty odd - don’t you think - that in 2014 they were incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard.
I think there probably *are* some Nazis in Ukraine.
We mustn’t think Ukraine was some kind of Scandinavian, participatory democratic paradise before the War.
It’s desperately poor and hideously corrupt, even by Eastern European standards.
Kelensky has an opportunity to cleanse Nazi elements as part of any peace-deal.
Looking at the size of their support in recent years, it's not absurd to think that without the war which has been ongoing since 2014, they might have disappeared as a coherent organisation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion
Their vote share nationally is negligible.
It’s good that they seem to be electorally unsuccessful. But it’s mighty odd - don’t you think - that in 2014 they were incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard.
Imagine if the BNP were adopted into the Met.
Give the opposing ideologies, isn’t a better parallel the Communist resistance in France during the war? Not something we (or the notional French government we’re fans of but something to be worked with).
I’m not enough of a historian to know to what extent the Communists were absorbed into whatever remained of the French security forces.
Regardless, I’d prefer to keep out-and-out nazis out, rather than in. Zelensky has inherited the situation but one must hope it is addressed in due course.
Well, as I suggested the other day, Putin is currently addressing it in Mariupol, for better or worse. The longer the conflict continues, the less of a Nazi problem Zelensky is going to have.
My annual moan about daylight saving. Why can't we put the clocks forward on the first Sunday in March?
Here is something radical: How about the whole world works on the same time. I mean what number does it matter when you get up, go to bed, start work, stop work, etc.
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
Plus, Orwell himself claimed to be a lefty, which is a pretty good sign. Your analysis, as a student, was correct
"When the Duchess of Atholl, impressed by the anticommunism of Animal Farm, invited Orwell to address the Right-wing League for European Freedom, he wrote back: “I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence on this country.”"
He may well have been a lefty *in his spare time* but what he is famous for is two great anti-totalitarian tracts which are as it happens anti *left-wing* totalitarianism. This all started with the suggestion that Orwell is "to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making", and that is simply not the case.
It's curious to hear the stories of Ukrainians who have had arguments with relatives in Russia. One guy on the Six O'clock News said that his relative was accusing Ukrainians of killing Russians. I wonder where they think such killings are taking place and in what circumstances.
Well, they are.
Otherwise, the Russian army would have overrun Ukraine about two and a half weeks ago.
Exactly who is to blame is a rather different question...
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
Plus, Orwell himself claimed to be a lefty, which is a pretty good sign. Your analysis, as a student, was correct
"When the Duchess of Atholl, impressed by the anticommunism of Animal Farm, invited Orwell to address the Right-wing League for European Freedom, he wrote back: “I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence on this country.”"
He may well have been a lefty *in his spare time* but what he is famous for is two great anti-totalitarian tracts which are as it happens anti *left-wing* totalitarianism. This all started with the suggestion that Orwell is "to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making", and that is simply not the case.
https://twitter.com/sfmnemonic/status/1504687870006620163 Drawing Bayesian inferences after extensive sampling, I've determined that it's 99-percent certain that anyone who uses "woke" as pejorative will turn out to be a fuckhead. Please don't blame me for pointing this out--it's just science.
Personally I think the use of an adjective like 'pejorative' as a noun is a bit of a twunt signal.
Or you simply jump to unwarranted conclusions about people who don't speak your particular register of English. OED, Collins, Websters and dictionary.com all have pejorative as both an adjective and a noun. That is good enough for me.
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
Plus, Orwell himself claimed to be a lefty, which is a pretty good sign. Your analysis, as a student, was correct
"When the Duchess of Atholl, impressed by the anticommunism of Animal Farm, invited Orwell to address the Right-wing League for European Freedom, he wrote back: “I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence on this country.”"
He may well have been a lefty *in his spare time* but what he is famous for is two great anti-totalitarian tracts which are as it happens anti *left-wing* totalitarianism. This all started with the suggestion that Orwell is "to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making", and that is simply not the case.
I note you've ignored my response to you. Fair enough. But you're wrong.
The NATO demand is relatively straightforward, but the disarmament one seems like it would be tricky to word, given I doubt it would be a reciprocal disarmament.
From BBC: Moscow and Kyiv are "halfway there" in agreeing on the issue of Ukraine's demilitarisation, and their views are most aligned on Ukraine's neutrality and giving up on joining Nato, Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky says.
The Russian Interfax news agency quotes Medinsky as saying negotiating teams have been discussing security guarantees should Ukraine no longer attempt to join the Western military alliance.
President Vladimir Putin yesterday told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan what Russia's precise demands were for a peace deal with Ukraine.
Chief among them is an acceptance by Ukraine that it should be neutral and should not apply to join Nato. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has already conceded this.
There are other demands in this category, which mostly seem to be face-saving elements for the Russian side. Ukraine would have to undergo a disarmament process to ensure it wasn't a threat to Russia. There would have to be protection for the Russian language in Ukraine.
It's notable that all the leaks come from the Russian side. I suspect this is because they want to paint the Ukrainians as unreasonable
https://twitter.com/sfmnemonic/status/1504687870006620163 Drawing Bayesian inferences after extensive sampling, I've determined that it's 99-percent certain that anyone who uses "woke" as pejorative will turn out to be a fuckhead. Please don't blame me for pointing this out--it's just science.
Personally I think the use of an adjective like 'pejorative' as a noun is a bit of a twunt signal.
Or you simply jump to unwarranted conclusions about people who don't speak your particular register of English. OED, Collins, Websters and dictionary.com all have pejorative as both an adjective and a noun. That is good enough for me.
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
Plus, Orwell himself claimed to be a lefty, which is a pretty good sign. Your analysis, as a student, was correct
"When the Duchess of Atholl, impressed by the anticommunism of Animal Farm, invited Orwell to address the Right-wing League for European Freedom, he wrote back: “I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence on this country.”"
He may well have been a lefty *in his spare time* but what he is famous for is two great anti-totalitarian tracts which are as it happens anti *left-wing* totalitarianism. This all started with the suggestion that Orwell is "to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making", and that is simply not the case.
Wasn't it you who wondered out loud whether there had ever been a real regime that described itself as fascist? Perhaps Orwell had a better grasp of the subject...
I think there probably *are* some Nazis in Ukraine.
We mustn’t think Ukraine was some kind of Scandinavian, participatory democratic paradise before the War.
It’s desperately poor and hideously corrupt, even by Eastern European standards.
Kelensky has an opportunity to cleanse Nazi elements as part of any peace-deal.
Looking at the size of their support in recent years, it's not absurd to think that without the war which has been ongoing since 2014, they might have disappeared as a coherent organisation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion
Their vote share nationally is negligible.
It’s good that they seem to be electorally unsuccessful. But it’s mighty odd - don’t you think - that in 2014 they were incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard.
I think there probably *are* some Nazis in Ukraine.
We mustn’t think Ukraine was some kind of Scandinavian, participatory democratic paradise before the War.
It’s desperately poor and hideously corrupt, even by Eastern European standards.
Kelensky has an opportunity to cleanse Nazi elements as part of any peace-deal.
Looking at the size of their support in recent years, it's not absurd to think that without the war which has been ongoing since 2014, they might have disappeared as a coherent organisation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion
Their vote share nationally is negligible.
It’s good that they seem to be electorally unsuccessful. But it’s mighty odd - don’t you think - that in 2014 they were incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard.
Imagine if the BNP were adopted into the Met.
Give the opposing ideologies, isn’t a better parallel the Communist resistance in France during the war? Not something we (or the notional French government we’re fans of but something to be worked with).
I’m not enough of a historian to know to what extent the Communists were absorbed into whatever remained of the French security forces.
Regardless, I’d prefer to keep out-and-out nazis out, rather than in. Zelensky has inherited the situation but one must hope it is addressed in due course.
Yeah you’re not wrong. To be fair, I’ve only ever really met one dedicated BNP member and one concern being around him with a loaded rifle would be whether or not he was intelligent enough to point it in the right direction.
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
Plus, Orwell himself claimed to be a lefty, which is a pretty good sign. Your analysis, as a student, was correct
"When the Duchess of Atholl, impressed by the anticommunism of Animal Farm, invited Orwell to address the Right-wing League for European Freedom, he wrote back: “I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence on this country.”"
He may well have been a lefty *in his spare time* but what he is famous for is two great anti-totalitarian tracts which are as it happens anti *left-wing* totalitarianism. This all started with the suggestion that Orwell is "to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making", and that is simply not the case.
As Dorian Lynskey says in that Unherd article, the terms "left" and "right" as political identifiers, are nowadays probably more confusing than helpful. They are also absurdly vague
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
Plus, Orwell himself claimed to be a lefty, which is a pretty good sign. Your analysis, as a student, was correct
"When the Duchess of Atholl, impressed by the anticommunism of Animal Farm, invited Orwell to address the Right-wing League for European Freedom, he wrote back: “I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence on this country.”"
He may well have been a lefty *in his spare time* but what he is famous for is two great anti-totalitarian tracts which are as it happens anti *left-wing* totalitarianism. This all started with the suggestion that Orwell is "to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making", and that is simply not the case.
He was very active in left wing politics and writing his entire adult life. Only interrupted by fighting for the very left wing Anarchists in Spain.
If that is *in his spare time*, I wonder what his day job was?
Makes a change from the Putin apologists of the right. We used to have one on here, who was an itinerant flint knapper.
With all due respect, doctor, fuck off
I have never been a "Putin apologist"
Is Putin right about Wokeness? Yes. Is he a fascist thug? Also yes
Hitler was good on cars and motorways; Stalin was a charismatic war leader; Fred West probably laid a fine patio. Life is full of paradoxes
You're trivializing it with those examples. Putin's reactionary views on social and cultural matters are integral to his politics and world view. It ought to give you - at the very very least - pause for thought that you share them.
No, it doesn't, Putin is right on this one subject: perhaps it takes a cold-hearted enemy to appraise us correctly.
Putin is also a war-mongering maniac who needs to be taken out
Meanwhile:
Explain for us what you believe "woke" is to be, and which bits of it you might find yourself agreeing with one of the most homicidal despots of our time on?
Stuff like this. I agree with Putin on this:
"Putin brought up Martin Luther King’s remarks about judging people by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.
“Countering acts of racism is a necessary and noble cause,” Putin said, “but the new ‘cancel culture’ has turned it into reverse discrimination, that is, reverse racism. The obsessive emphasis on race is further dividing people, when the real fighters for civil rights dreamed precisely about erasing differences and refusing to divide people by skin color.”"
Of course, he might have said all this just to stir trouble, and he doesn't mean it, yet we have all learned that when Putin says stuff - eg "I am going to invade Ukraine" - he often means it. So I take it at face value. And I agree with him
I certainly wouldn't take anything he says at face value. You still haven't explained what you believe "woke" to be
It's a term of abuse to yell at non tories.
I don’t like the word “woke” just because it’s intended as a form of abuse and because the meaning varies, but I what I find interesting about the world we live in is that I used to be viewed as massively socially liberal (supported gay marriage 25 years ago to give one example) and yet these days I am seen as a social conservative for holding what I think are pretty mainstream views such as:
- I think everyone has a right to offend others, always, with no associated legal risk (the risk should be they get seen as a cock and barred from places by their owners).
- I oppose positive discrimination.
- If you have a sex change op then out of politeness I will address you as you want to be addressed, and mostly I will treat you as the gender you wish to be, but I think there are circumstances in which you cannot be treated as the gender you wish to be.
The fact that many of us feel we get demonised for thinking such thinks gives rise to the sense of a “woke mafia” that does so, I think.
"I think everyone has a right to offend others"
So, you'd be OK if the Daily Mail ran anti-Semitic cartoons like Der Stürmer?
Basically, yes, and the penalty would be to be viewed as the lowest of the low, and I’d hope lose all advertising and have no one prepared to print it. We can all agree that example is outrageous, but where do you draw the line?
Ah, so if we didn't like what The Daily Mail was doing, we could cancel it?
I know, I know - it's a tough one.
Because the problem is that there is a line. Incitement to violence (or shouting fire in a crowded theatre) is clearly over it.
But a steady drip drip of dehumanisation can have much the same effect.
I don't know the answer: clearly one should be able to speak freely, but we have to be incredibly vigilant about those who push falsehoods as fact.
So people are bemoaning the Ukrainian economy for being corrupt. Of course it is!
Why do you think a complete outsider like Zelensky got 72% of the vote in 2019? Because they were fed up with the existing order. Maybe he's been all talk and no action. I'm not qualified to judge. But dealing with corruption whilst handling covid and the threat of invasion from your much larger neighbour is hardly an easy task.
There was also the complete transformation of the parliament in 2019. The country is now pretty united in wanting to pursue closer relations with the EU rather than Putin's Russia. What does that tell you? Putin must being feeling very isolated.
Makes a change from the Putin apologists of the right. We used to have one on here, who was an itinerant flint knapper.
With all due respect, doctor, fuck off
I have never been a "Putin apologist"
Is Putin right about Wokeness? Yes. Is he a fascist thug? Also yes
Hitler was good on cars and motorways; Stalin was a charismatic war leader; Fred West probably laid a fine patio. Life is full of paradoxes
You're trivializing it with those examples. Putin's reactionary views on social and cultural matters are integral to his politics and world view. It ought to give you - at the very very least - pause for thought that you share them.
No, it doesn't, Putin is right on this one subject: perhaps it takes a cold-hearted enemy to appraise us correctly.
Putin is also a war-mongering maniac who needs to be taken out
Meanwhile:
Explain for us what you believe "woke" is to be, and which bits of it you might find yourself agreeing with one of the most homicidal despots of our time on?
"A hospital has finally admitted a woman may have been raped by a transgender patient after denying the possibility of an attack for almost a year, the House of Lords has heard.
"When police were called to the unnamed hospital in England, they were allegedly told by staff that 'there was no male' on the single-sex ward, 'therefore the rape could not have happened'.
But almost 12 months later, they revealed one of the patients had been trans. "
Without getting into the Trans debate again, this is particularly bad behaviour by the hospital who only finally admitted that the rape had taken place after video evidence emerged to prove it. They knew it was possible he rape had taken place but preferred to call the woman a liar than admit their policy was wrong.
I simply find it mind-boggling that we have reached this stage of lunacy
And that people can think that finding this story equally hilarious and horrifying, is taking a position in a "trans debate." There isn't a real trans debate any more than there's a gay debate or a votes for women debate, there's simply boring prudent housekeeping measures which are obvious to anyone vaguely sane.
https://twitter.com/sfmnemonic/status/1504687870006620163 Drawing Bayesian inferences after extensive sampling, I've determined that it's 99-percent certain that anyone who uses "woke" as pejorative will turn out to be a fuckhead. Please don't blame me for pointing this out--it's just science.
Personally I think the use of an adjective like 'pejorative' as a noun is a bit of a twunt signal.
Do you have a problem with "The good, the bad and the ugly"? Otherwise where do you start to move from normal adjectival nouns to "twunt signal" adjectival nouns?
Actually I do have a problem with 'the good' - my economic statistics professor talked about 'the good' for an extended period in a lecture once and I wondered why he was going on about 'good people' before I eventually having a eureka moment and realising he was talking about 'goods and services'. I shared my revelation with the wider lecture group to much mockery... Without such abuse of the language this would never have happened.
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
Plus, Orwell himself claimed to be a lefty, which is a pretty good sign. Your analysis, as a student, was correct
"When the Duchess of Atholl, impressed by the anticommunism of Animal Farm, invited Orwell to address the Right-wing League for European Freedom, he wrote back: “I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence on this country.”"
He may well have been a lefty *in his spare time* but what he is famous for is two great anti-totalitarian tracts which are as it happens anti *left-wing* totalitarianism.
Who better to critique left wing totalitarianism than a non totalitarian lefty?
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
Plus, Orwell himself claimed to be a lefty, which is a pretty good sign. Your analysis, as a student, was correct
"When the Duchess of Atholl, impressed by the anticommunism of Animal Farm, invited Orwell to address the Right-wing League for European Freedom, he wrote back: “I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence on this country.”"
He may well have been a lefty *in his spare time* but what he is famous for is two great anti-totalitarian tracts which are as it happens anti *left-wing* totalitarianism. This all started with the suggestion that Orwell is "to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making", and that is simply not the case.
I note you've ignored my response to you. Fair enough. But you're wrong.
I was hoping that answered it.
"I have read everything he wrote and written a thesis about it" is not, in any case, much of an argument. Nor is "But you're wrong." Again: we can all agree that he fought fascists in Spain and commies in his writings. He was anti totalitarian. If you think he enunciated specifically left wing doctrines which are misappropriated by the right, let's be seeing an example.
So people are bemoaning the Ukrainian economy for being corrupt. Of course it is!
Why do you think a complete outsider like Zelensky got 72% of the vote in 2019? Because they were fed up with the existing order. Maybe he's been all talk and no action. I'm not qualified to judge. But dealing with corruption whilst handling covid and the threat of invasion from your much larger neighbour is hardly an easy task.
There was also the complete transformation of the parliament in 2019. The country is now pretty united in wanting to pursue closer relations with the EU rather than Putin's Russia. What does that tell you? Putin must being feeling very isolated.
Who is bemoaning?
I’m just pointing out it’s a big problem. It’s not relevant to the war, and certainly not intended as an excuse for Russian aggression.
It’s relevant though to issues like possible EU accession, and any post-invasion settlement.
Makes a change from the Putin apologists of the right. We used to have one on here, who was an itinerant flint knapper.
With all due respect, doctor, fuck off
I have never been a "Putin apologist"
Is Putin right about Wokeness? Yes. Is he a fascist thug? Also yes
Hitler was good on cars and motorways; Stalin was a charismatic war leader; Fred West probably laid a fine patio. Life is full of paradoxes
You're trivializing it with those examples. Putin's reactionary views on social and cultural matters are integral to his politics and world view. It ought to give you - at the very very least - pause for thought that you share them.
No, it doesn't, Putin is right on this one subject: perhaps it takes a cold-hearted enemy to appraise us correctly.
Putin is also a war-mongering maniac who needs to be taken out
Meanwhile:
Explain for us what you believe "woke" is to be, and which bits of it you might find yourself agreeing with one of the most homicidal despots of our time on?
Stuff like this. I agree with Putin on this:
"Putin brought up Martin Luther King’s remarks about judging people by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.
“Countering acts of racism is a necessary and noble cause,” Putin said, “but the new ‘cancel culture’ has turned it into reverse discrimination, that is, reverse racism. The obsessive emphasis on race is further dividing people, when the real fighters for civil rights dreamed precisely about erasing differences and refusing to divide people by skin color.”"
Of course, he might have said all this just to stir trouble, and he doesn't mean it, yet we have all learned that when Putin says stuff - eg "I am going to invade Ukraine" - he often means it. So I take it at face value. And I agree with him
I certainly wouldn't take anything he says at face value. You still haven't explained what you believe "woke" to be
It's a term of abuse to yell at non tories.
I don’t like the word “woke” just because it’s intended as a form of abuse and because the meaning varies, but I what I find interesting about the world we live in is that I used to be viewed as massively socially liberal (supported gay marriage 25 years ago to give one example) and yet these days I am seen as a social conservative for holding what I think are pretty mainstream views such as:
- I think everyone has a right to offend others, always, with no associated legal risk (the risk should be they get seen as a cock and barred from places by their owners).
- I oppose positive discrimination.
- If you have a sex change op then out of politeness I will address you as you want to be addressed, and mostly I will treat you as the gender you wish to be, but I think there are circumstances in which you cannot be treated as the gender you wish to be.
The fact that many of us feel we get demonised for thinking such thinks gives rise to the sense of a “woke mafia” that does so, I think.
"I think everyone has a right to offend others"
So, you'd be OK if the Daily Mail ran anti-Semitic cartoons like Der Stürmer?
Basically, yes, and the penalty would be to be viewed as the lowest of the low, and I’d hope lose all advertising and have no one prepared to print it. We can all agree that example is outrageous, but where do you draw the line?
Ah, so if we didn't like what The Daily Mail was doing, we could cancel it?
I know, I know - it's a tough one.
Because the problem is that there is a line. Incitement to violence (or shouting fire in a crowded theatre) is clearly over it.
But a steady drip drip of dehumanisation can have much the same effect.
I don't know the answer: clearly one should be able to speak freely, but we have to be incredibly vigilant about those who push falsehoods as fact.
It is interesting to note that Adolf Hitler and Goering found the anti-semitism in Der Stürmer over the top and gave Streicher a bit of kicking over it.
Makes a change from the Putin apologists of the right. We used to have one on here, who was an itinerant flint knapper.
With all due respect, doctor, fuck off
I have never been a "Putin apologist"
Is Putin right about Wokeness? Yes. Is he a fascist thug? Also yes
Hitler was good on cars and motorways; Stalin was a charismatic war leader; Fred West probably laid a fine patio. Life is full of paradoxes
You're trivializing it with those examples. Putin's reactionary views on social and cultural matters are integral to his politics and world view. It ought to give you - at the very very least - pause for thought that you share them.
No, it doesn't, Putin is right on this one subject: perhaps it takes a cold-hearted enemy to appraise us correctly.
Putin is also a war-mongering maniac who needs to be taken out
Meanwhile:
Explain for us what you believe "woke" is to be, and which bits of it you might find yourself agreeing with one of the most homicidal despots of our time on?
Stuff like this. I agree with Putin on this:
"Putin brought up Martin Luther King’s remarks about judging people by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.
“Countering acts of racism is a necessary and noble cause,” Putin said, “but the new ‘cancel culture’ has turned it into reverse discrimination, that is, reverse racism. The obsessive emphasis on race is further dividing people, when the real fighters for civil rights dreamed precisely about erasing differences and refusing to divide people by skin color.”"
Of course, he might have said all this just to stir trouble, and he doesn't mean it, yet we have all learned that when Putin says stuff - eg "I am going to invade Ukraine" - he often means it. So I take it at face value. And I agree with him
I certainly wouldn't take anything he says at face value. You still haven't explained what you believe "woke" to be
It's a term of abuse to yell at non tories.
I don’t like the word “woke” just because it’s intended as a form of abuse and because the meaning varies, but I what I find interesting about the world we live in is that I used to be viewed as massively socially liberal (supported gay marriage 25 years ago to give one example) and yet these days I am seen as a social conservative for holding what I think are pretty mainstream views such as:
- I think everyone has a right to offend others, always, with no associated legal risk (the risk should be they get seen as a cock and barred from places by their owners).
- I oppose positive discrimination.
- If you have a sex change op then out of politeness I will address you as you want to be addressed, and mostly I will treat you as the gender you wish to be, but I think there are circumstances in which you cannot be treated as the gender you wish to be.
The fact that many of us feel we get demonised for thinking such thinks gives rise to the sense of a “woke mafia” that does so, I think.
"I think everyone has a right to offend others"
So, you'd be OK if the Daily Mail ran anti-Semitic cartoons like Der Stürmer?
Basically, yes, and the penalty would be to be viewed as the lowest of the low, and I’d hope lose all advertising and have no one prepared to print it. We can all agree that example is outrageous, but where do you draw the line?
Ah, so if we didn't like what The Daily Mail was doing, we could cancel it?
I know, I know - it's a tough one.
Because the problem is that there is a line. Incitement to violence (or shouting fire in a crowded theatre) is clearly over it.
But a steady drip drip of dehumanisation can have much the same effect.
I don't know the answer: clearly one should be able to speak freely, but we have to be incredibly vigilant about those who push falsehoods as fact.
Yes I think there’s a different question over provable lies about specific individuals. And I know there will be inconsistencies in saying that. But I can work it through when I’m absolute ruler.
Broadly, this is why I don’t have an issue with Twitter or the like deciding what is or isn’t acceptable on its own platform. It’s their train set, and then “cancelling” someone is different from the law banning a statement.
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
You thought Parisian chapters of Down and Out were turgid?
My annual moan about daylight saving. Why can't we put the clocks forward on the first Sunday in March?
Here is something radical: How about the whole world works on the same time. I mean what number does it matter when you get up, go to bed, start work, stop work, etc.
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
You thought Parisian chapters of Down and Out were turgid?
Were you reading a different book to me?
Likewise, Homage to Catalonia. One of the best books about the Spanish civil war - or any civil war. Essential reading if you are interested in that period of history
So people are bemoaning the Ukrainian economy for being corrupt. Of course it is!
Why do you think a complete outsider like Zelensky got 72% of the vote in 2019? Because they were fed up with the existing order. Maybe he's been all talk and no action. I'm not qualified to judge. But dealing with corruption whilst handling covid and the threat of invasion from your much larger neighbour is hardly an easy task.
There was also the complete transformation of the parliament in 2019. The country is now pretty united in wanting to pursue closer relations with the EU rather than Putin's Russia. What does that tell you? Putin must being feeling very isolated.
Yep. Removing immunity from prosecution for politicians, sacking all he regional heads and most of the heads of he secret police, banning oligarchs from owning media empires. It is no wonder the Russians were pissed off with him. They were frightened his contagion might spread.
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
You thought Parisian chapters of Down and Out were turgid?
Were you reading a different book to me?
Obviously our Systeme D works better than Ishmael's. But chacun etc.
Makes a change from the Putin apologists of the right. We used to have one on here, who was an itinerant flint knapper.
With all due respect, doctor, fuck off
I have never been a "Putin apologist"
Is Putin right about Wokeness? Yes. Is he a fascist thug? Also yes
Hitler was good on cars and motorways; Stalin was a charismatic war leader; Fred West probably laid a fine patio. Life is full of paradoxes
You're trivializing it with those examples. Putin's reactionary views on social and cultural matters are integral to his politics and world view. It ought to give you - at the very very least - pause for thought that you share them.
No, it doesn't, Putin is right on this one subject: perhaps it takes a cold-hearted enemy to appraise us correctly.
Putin is also a war-mongering maniac who needs to be taken out
Meanwhile:
Pathetic. Within a minute I could find a dozen photos of the Queen meeting Putin. Does that make her a Putin apologist?
How do you know she doesn't have a picture of Putin hanging above the bed in Sandringham?
Given the level of confirmed losses, never mind estimated ones, this actually seems like rather concerning news. BBC:
Russian forces "remain largely stalled across" Ukraine, but have around 90% of their "assembled combat power still available to them", a senior US defence official says.
My annual moan about daylight saving. Why can't we put the clocks forward on the first Sunday in March?
Agree. And now we have Brexited we are free to do this; you can't in the EU (tho they are also thinking of abandoning the time-change).
"Since 2001, EU summertime arrangements have been governed by Directive 2000/84/EC, setting out the obligation on all Member States to switch to summer-time on the last Sunday of March and to switch back to their standard time ("winter-time") on the last Sunday of October"
Makes a change from the Putin apologists of the right. We used to have one on here, who was an itinerant flint knapper.
With all due respect, doctor, fuck off
I have never been a "Putin apologist"
Is Putin right about Wokeness? Yes. Is he a fascist thug? Also yes
Hitler was good on cars and motorways; Stalin was a charismatic war leader; Fred West probably laid a fine patio. Life is full of paradoxes
You're trivializing it with those examples. Putin's reactionary views on social and cultural matters are integral to his politics and world view. It ought to give you - at the very very least - pause for thought that you share them.
No, it doesn't, Putin is right on this one subject: perhaps it takes a cold-hearted enemy to appraise us correctly.
Putin is also a war-mongering maniac who needs to be taken out
Meanwhile:
Pathetic. Within a minute I could find a dozen photos of the Queen meeting Putin. Does that make her a Putin apologist?
How do you know she doesn't have a picture of Putin hanging above the bed in Sandringham?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
You thought Parisian chapters of Down and Out were turgid?
Were you reading a different book to me?
Likewise, Homage to Catalonia. One of the best books about the Spanish civil war - or any civil war. Essential reading if you are interested in that period of history
I read that when too young, I should fish it out again.
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
1984 and AF are profoundly "anti-communist". Orwell always rejected the anti-left interpretations.
Orwell was a lifelong Democratic Socialist and saw Bolshevik Communism as the enemy of the working class. He supported the postwar Labour government and seems to have regarded it as the closest thing to his ideals he was likely to see.
I think you're agreeing with me, but who knows?
Yes, that was Malmesbury rowing in the same direction. He'll never get in the same boat but he will occasionally row in the same direction. It happened on Wednesday as well.
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
Plus, Orwell himself claimed to be a lefty, which is a pretty good sign. Your analysis, as a student, was correct
"When the Duchess of Atholl, impressed by the anticommunism of Animal Farm, invited Orwell to address the Right-wing League for European Freedom, he wrote back: “I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence on this country.”"
He may well have been a lefty *in his spare time* but what he is famous for is two great anti-totalitarian tracts which are as it happens anti *left-wing* totalitarianism. This all started with the suggestion that Orwell is "to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making", and that is simply not the case.
He was very active in left wing politics and writing his entire adult life. Only interrupted by fighting for the very left wing Anarchists in Spain.
If that is *in his spare time*, I wonder what his day job was?
He also reportedly had extremely bad BO, and if that isn't a classic left-wing hallmark, I don't know what is.
Given the level of confirmed losses, never mind estimated ones, this actually seems like rather concerning news. BBC:
Russian forces "remain largely stalled across" Ukraine, but have around 90% of their "assembled combat power still available to them", a senior US defence official says.
Sounds alarming but makes sense in sheer troop numbers. Say 7000 are dead, that probably means 15-20,000 are injured
Putin started with a force of more than 150-180,000. So 90% are still there
Makes a change from the Putin apologists of the right. We used to have one on here, who was an itinerant flint knapper.
With all due respect, doctor, fuck off
I have never been a "Putin apologist"
Is Putin right about Wokeness? Yes. Is he a fascist thug? Also yes
Hitler was good on cars and motorways; Stalin was a charismatic war leader; Fred West probably laid a fine patio. Life is full of paradoxes
You're trivializing it with those examples. Putin's reactionary views on social and cultural matters are integral to his politics and world view. It ought to give you - at the very very least - pause for thought that you share them.
No, it doesn't, Putin is right on this one subject: perhaps it takes a cold-hearted enemy to appraise us correctly.
Putin is also a war-mongering maniac who needs to be taken out
Meanwhile:
Pathetic. Within a minute I could find a dozen photos of the Queen meeting Putin. Does that make her a Putin apologist?
How do you know she doesn't have a picture of Putin hanging above the bed in Sandringham?
Good point. Who knows? There certainly would have been one of Hitler if Edward VIII had remained on the throne
Apoart from the points noted earlier, it's worth noting that most respondents don't favour incorporating anything beyond Crimea and the East, so if Putin decided to try to occupy all the way to Kyiv and even Lviv, he'd have a lot more domestic persuading to do, quite apart from the military challenge. In practice the negotiations are going to come down to (a) definitions of neutrality and security and (b) the future status of Crimea and the Donbas.
Maybe some sort of UN peacekeeping line as in Cyprus could make (b) negotiable (also thereby covering security), with final status kicked down the road for later resolution.
The shape of the ending peace deal seems pretty clear.
Ukraine gives up Crimea. Donbass/Luhansk have their status changed either through autonomy, devolution or referenda. Ukraine says it does not intend to join NATO but keeps open the right to join EU, or perhaps commits to not being a full member of the EU but not ruling out some form of closer links. Russia recognises Ukraine's right to exist and its right to have its own military. Sanctions start to be lifted, with reparations paid to Ukraine out of Russian assets frozen in the West.
Should be do-able quite quickly, think the war is over this time next month. It is a loss for Russia with them achieving virtually nothing they did not have before the (2022) invasion, but enough for Putin to claim a win back home given his control of state media and the false war objectives he told his home audience.
The trouble is that whilst that may bring an end to this episode it will encourage Putin into further adventures in places like Central Asia. I think that would be as bad, in its way, as the Versaille solution.
I agree. Giving Putin something in return for a quick end to this intense period of the conflict guarantees that he, or his successor, will be back for more of the same another time, whether in Ukraine or elsewhere.
At this point it's Ukraine's decision, and they may decide that they will be better placed to fight again later, rather than continue fighting now.
I don't think it gives Putin much of a win. I think it's open to the Ukrainians to accept.
It gives him a win because it allows him to get out of the war without punishment and having achieved at least some of his aims. So what does he have to lose trying exactly the same thing again in a year or two?
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
Plus, Orwell himself claimed to be a lefty, which is a pretty good sign. Your analysis, as a student, was correct
"When the Duchess of Atholl, impressed by the anticommunism of Animal Farm, invited Orwell to address the Right-wing League for European Freedom, he wrote back: “I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence on this country.”"
He may well have been a lefty *in his spare time* but what he is famous for is two great anti-totalitarian tracts which are as it happens anti *left-wing* totalitarianism. This all started with the suggestion that Orwell is "to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making", and that is simply not the case.
He was very active in left wing politics and writing his entire adult life. Only interrupted by fighting for the very left wing Anarchists in Spain.
If that is *in his spare time*, I wonder what his day job was?
Wikipedia has details of the POUM who Orwell fought with.
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
Plus, Orwell himself claimed to be a lefty, which is a pretty good sign. Your analysis, as a student, was correct
"When the Duchess of Atholl, impressed by the anticommunism of Animal Farm, invited Orwell to address the Right-wing League for European Freedom, he wrote back: “I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence on this country.”"
He may well have been a lefty *in his spare time* but what he is famous for is two great anti-totalitarian tracts which are as it happens anti *left-wing* totalitarianism.
Who better to critique left wing totalitarianism than a non totalitarian lefty?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
Orwell is actually presented with a huge problem by Jeremy Corbyn. This divide between cuddly tweedy pub going English socialists vs Jew-hating communism sort of breaks down when you look at how seamlessly the one morphed into the other.
Makes a change from the Putin apologists of the right. We used to have one on here, who was an itinerant flint knapper.
With all due respect, doctor, fuck off
I have never been a "Putin apologist"
Is Putin right about Wokeness? Yes. Is he a fascist thug? Also yes
Hitler was good on cars and motorways; Stalin was a charismatic war leader; Fred West probably laid a fine patio. Life is full of paradoxes
You're trivializing it with those examples. Putin's reactionary views on social and cultural matters are integral to his politics and world view. It ought to give you - at the very very least - pause for thought that you share them.
No, it doesn't, Putin is right on this one subject: perhaps it takes a cold-hearted enemy to appraise us correctly.
Putin is also a war-mongering maniac who needs to be taken out
Meanwhile:
Pathetic. Within a minute I could find a dozen photos of the Queen meeting Putin. Does that make her a Putin apologist?
Personally, I'd be much more embarrassed being photographed with Bono than Putin.
At least Putin's evil will die with him; Bono's evil will curse humanity for decades.
Makes a change from the Putin apologists of the right. We used to have one on here, who was an itinerant flint knapper.
With all due respect, doctor, fuck off
I have never been a "Putin apologist"
Is Putin right about Wokeness? Yes. Is he a fascist thug? Also yes
Hitler was good on cars and motorways; Stalin was a charismatic war leader; Fred West probably laid a fine patio. Life is full of paradoxes
You're trivializing it with those examples. Putin's reactionary views on social and cultural matters are integral to his politics and world view. It ought to give you - at the very very least - pause for thought that you share them.
No, it doesn't, Putin is right on this one subject: perhaps it takes a cold-hearted enemy to appraise us correctly.
Putin is also a war-mongering maniac who needs to be taken out
Meanwhile:
Explain for us what you believe "woke" is to be, and which bits of it you might find yourself agreeing with one of the most homicidal despots of our time on?
Stuff like this. I agree with Putin on this:
"Putin brought up Martin Luther King’s remarks about judging people by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.
“Countering acts of racism is a necessary and noble cause,” Putin said, “but the new ‘cancel culture’ has turned it into reverse discrimination, that is, reverse racism. The obsessive emphasis on race is further dividing people, when the real fighters for civil rights dreamed precisely about erasing differences and refusing to divide people by skin color.”"
Of course, he might have said all this just to stir trouble, and he doesn't mean it, yet we have all learned that when Putin says stuff - eg "I am going to invade Ukraine" - he often means it. So I take it at face value. And I agree with him
I certainly wouldn't take anything he says at face value. You still haven't explained what you believe "woke" to be
It's a term of abuse to yell at non tories.
I don’t like the word “woke” just because it’s intended as a form of abuse and because the meaning varies, but I what I find interesting about the world we live in is that I used to be viewed as massively socially liberal (supported gay marriage 25 years ago to give one example) and yet these days I am seen as a social conservative for holding what I think are pretty mainstream views such as:
- I think everyone has a right to offend others, always, with no associated legal risk (the risk should be they get seen as a cock and barred from places by their owners).
- I oppose positive discrimination.
- If you have a sex change op then out of politeness I will address you as you want to be addressed, and mostly I will treat you as the gender you wish to be, but I think there are circumstances in which you cannot be treated as the gender you wish to be.
The fact that many of us feel we get demonised for thinking such thinks gives rise to the sense of a “woke mafia” that does so, I think.
"I think everyone has a right to offend others"
So, you'd be OK if the Daily Mail ran anti-Semitic cartoons like Der Stürmer?
Basically, yes, and the penalty would be to be viewed as the lowest of the low, and I’d hope lose all advertising and have no one prepared to print it. We can all agree that example is outrageous, but where do you draw the line?
Ah, so if we didn't like what The Daily Mail was doing, we could cancel it?
I know, I know - it's a tough one.
Because the problem is that there is a line. Incitement to violence (or shouting fire in a crowded theatre) is clearly over it.
But a steady drip drip of dehumanisation can have much the same effect.
I don't know the answer: clearly one should be able to speak freely, but we have to be incredibly vigilant about those who push falsehoods as fact.
You are confusing a problem of censorship with one of education.
Censorship is the cure for incitement; education is the cure for the drip, drip of dehumanisation.
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
Plus, Orwell himself claimed to be a lefty, which is a pretty good sign. Your analysis, as a student, was correct
"When the Duchess of Atholl, impressed by the anticommunism of Animal Farm, invited Orwell to address the Right-wing League for European Freedom, he wrote back: “I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence on this country.”"
He may well have been a lefty *in his spare time* but what he is famous for is two great anti-totalitarian tracts which are as it happens anti *left-wing* totalitarianism. This all started with the suggestion that Orwell is "to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making", and that is simply not the case.
He was very active in left wing politics and writing his entire adult life. Only interrupted by fighting for the very left wing Anarchists in Spain.
If that is *in his spare time*, I wonder what his day job was?
Wikipedia has details of the POUM who Orwell fought with.
Given the level of confirmed losses, never mind estimated ones, this actually seems like rather concerning news. BBC:
Russian forces "remain largely stalled across" Ukraine, but have around 90% of their "assembled combat power still available to them", a senior US defence official says.
I presume (could be wrong) that means that 10% of their force has been knocked out (dead, injured, captured, etc). In other forums, they mention a figure below which a unit is essentially out of action: ?70%?. In other words, if a unit loses 30% of your manpower, they're out of the fight until the get replacements.
The Russians will not have been losing their men equally; some units appear to have been very heavily hammered; others will hardly have been engaged. But in addition, not every man is a fighter; many will be on logistics and other duties.
Losing 10% of your force in three weeks in not good.
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
Plus, Orwell himself claimed to be a lefty, which is a pretty good sign. Your analysis, as a student, was correct
"When the Duchess of Atholl, impressed by the anticommunism of Animal Farm, invited Orwell to address the Right-wing League for European Freedom, he wrote back: “I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence on this country.”"
He may well have been a lefty *in his spare time* but what he is famous for is two great anti-totalitarian tracts which are as it happens anti *left-wing* totalitarianism. This all started with the suggestion that Orwell is "to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making", and that is simply not the case.
He was very active in left wing politics and writing his entire adult life. Only interrupted by fighting for the very left wing Anarchists in Spain.
If that is *in his spare time*, I wonder what his day job was?
Wikipedia has details of the POUM who Orwell fought with.
Yes. Shit. To link is good, but to read and understand the content linked to, prior to posting the link, is divine. I don't need to because I already knew that seeing the POUM close up was the single thing, short of working at the BBC, that turned Orwell into a hater of Stalinism.
Makes a change from the Putin apologists of the right. We used to have one on here, who was an itinerant flint knapper.
With all due respect, doctor, fuck off
I have never been a "Putin apologist"
Is Putin right about Wokeness? Yes. Is he a fascist thug? Also yes
Hitler was good on cars and motorways; Stalin was a charismatic war leader; Fred West probably laid a fine patio. Life is full of paradoxes
You're trivializing it with those examples. Putin's reactionary views on social and cultural matters are integral to his politics and world view. It ought to give you - at the very very least - pause for thought that you share them.
No, it doesn't, Putin is right on this one subject: perhaps it takes a cold-hearted enemy to appraise us correctly.
Putin is also a war-mongering maniac who needs to be taken out
Meanwhile:
Pathetic. Within a minute I could find a dozen photos of the Queen meeting Putin. Does that make her a Putin apologist?
Personally, I'd be much more embarrassed being photographed with Bono than Putin.
At least Putin's evil will die with him; Bono's evil will curse humanity for decades.
So people are bemoaning the Ukrainian economy for being corrupt. Of course it is!
Why do you think a complete outsider like Zelensky got 72% of the vote in 2019? Because they were fed up with the existing order. Maybe he's been all talk and no action. I'm not qualified to judge. But dealing with corruption whilst handling covid and the threat of invasion from your much larger neighbour is hardly an easy task.
There was also the complete transformation of the parliament in 2019. The country is now pretty united in wanting to pursue closer relations with the EU rather than Putin's Russia. What does that tell you? Putin must being feeling very isolated.
Yep. Removing immunity from prosecution for politicians, sacking all he regional heads and most of the heads of he secret police, banning oligarchs from owning media empires. It is no wonder the Russians were pissed off with him. They were frightened his contagion might spread.
The lack of support they got whilst people were focusing on rapprochement with Russia is sad.
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
Plus, Orwell himself claimed to be a lefty, which is a pretty good sign. Your analysis, as a student, was correct
"When the Duchess of Atholl, impressed by the anticommunism of Animal Farm, invited Orwell to address the Right-wing League for European Freedom, he wrote back: “I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence on this country.”"
He may well have been a lefty *in his spare time* but what he is famous for is two great anti-totalitarian tracts which are as it happens anti *left-wing* totalitarianism.
Who better to critique left wing totalitarianism than a non totalitarian lefty?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
Orwell is actually presented with a huge problem by Jeremy Corbyn. This divide between cuddly tweedy pub going English socialists vs Jew-hating communism sort of breaks down when you look at how seamlessly the one morphed into the other.
Solzhenitsyn had some er.... interesting views on Russian culture. Though he has been shamelessly appropriated by Putin & Co.
Orwell was writing about precisely that problem - that decent socialists would be down on their knees kissing the arse of Stalin at the drop of a hat.
Given the level of confirmed losses, never mind estimated ones, this actually seems like rather concerning news. BBC:
Russian forces "remain largely stalled across" Ukraine, but have around 90% of their "assembled combat power still available to them", a senior US defence official says.
I presume (could be wrong) that means that 10% of their force has been knocked out (dead, injured, captured, etc). In other forums, they mention a figure below which a unit is essentially out of action: ?70%?. In other words, if a unit loses 30% of your manpower, they're out of the fight until the get replacements.
The Russians will not have been losing their men equally; some units appear to have been very heavily hammered; others will hardly have been engaged. But in addition, not every man is a fighter; many will be on logistics and other duties.
Losing 10% of your force in three weeks in not good.
Quiz question. Which left winger of historical fame is most often used on here by right wingers seeking to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making? Is it a) Martin Luther King, or b) George Orwell?
Orwell's non-fiction I find too turgid and obvious to read. The bits I see quoted - the praise of ghastly Kipling, and that plonking nationalism essay, are tory. 1984 and AF are profoundly anti-left. I have no idea how you have persuaded yourself otherwise.
He's anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, not anti-left. He fought fascism in Spain. He represents a distinctive brand of slightly nostalgic English socialism, which does have some small-c conservative elements and rather romanticises the English working class. Richard Hoggart is another in that tradition. To answer your question, I persuaded myself of this when I wrote a thesis on him at university and read pretty much everything he wrote.
Plus, Orwell himself claimed to be a lefty, which is a pretty good sign. Your analysis, as a student, was correct
"When the Duchess of Atholl, impressed by the anticommunism of Animal Farm, invited Orwell to address the Right-wing League for European Freedom, he wrote back: “I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence on this country.”"
He may well have been a lefty *in his spare time* but what he is famous for is two great anti-totalitarian tracts which are as it happens anti *left-wing* totalitarianism. This all started with the suggestion that Orwell is "to make a facile point that actually misunderstands almost completely the point that the original author was making", and that is simply not the case.
He was very active in left wing politics and writing his entire adult life. Only interrupted by fighting for the very left wing Anarchists in Spain.
If that is *in his spare time*, I wonder what his day job was?
Wikipedia has details of the POUM who Orwell fought with.
I like the idea that "Impossibilism" is a strand of ideology.
AND HE ABSOLUTELY LOATHED THEM
He wasn't as far as I know particularly "active in left wing politics".
So I am still asking the question which started this: what allegedly distinctively left wing utterances of his are misappropriated and misrepresented by the right?
My annual moan about daylight saving. Why can't we put the clocks forward on the first Sunday in March?
Or not at all because we never put them back in the first place
mind you 9 am sunrises in New Year/January would be miserable
I think it's the 3:30 pm sunsets that are miserable.
Make summer time permanent, at any rate for the southern and eastern parts of the country.
Ooh, hooray, the twice-yearly arguments about daylight saving time. I'm fully in favour of how things are at the moment - clocks back in October, forward in March. I can't be doing with late sunrises. Early sunsets are an acceptable price to pay. BST is good, though, because sunrises much before 6 are a waste of sunlight.
Comments
1) Trump still in power but disputing election.
2) GDR Merkel in power.
3) Alpha covid spreading fast in western Europe and the USA.
4) Vaccinations only just starting and about to become a source of dispute in Europe.
5) Russian military possibly better and the Ukraine military possibly worse.
I don't think you're right about poverty or corruption either. Who knows about Nazis? Someones specialist subject for some reason. They really did blow their cogs in the last century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion
Their vote share nationally is negligible.
"When the Duchess of Atholl, impressed by the anticommunism of Animal Farm, invited Orwell to address the Right-wing League for European Freedom, he wrote back: “I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian totalitarianism and its poisonous influence on this country.”"
https://unherd.com/2022/03/why-the-left-is-split-over-ukraine/
Kinabalu's approach works best for looking at massive organisations and state institutions.
Combine them as appropriate and it will be great.
Check out the economic stats to see how poor Ukraine is, and read up on its specific corruption issues. They are of course interrelated.
"As pejorative" seems to be "in a pejorative manner" - note the lack of indefinite article.
Fighting has reached the centre of the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, according to reports.
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko told the BBC:
Yes, they were really active today. Tanks and machine gun battles continue. Everybody is hiding in bunkers.
More than 80% of residential buildings in Mariupol are either damaged or destroyed, he added, and 30% of them cannot be restored.
There’s no city centre left. There isn’t a small piece of land in the city that doesn’t have signs of war.
Orwell was a lifelong Democratic Socialist and saw Bolshevik Communism as the enemy of the working class. He supported the postwar Labour government and seems to have regarded it as the closest thing to his ideals he was likely to see.
Imagine if the BNP were adopted into the Met.
"Since 2001, EU summertime arrangements have been governed by Directive 2000/84/EC, setting out the obligation on all Member States to switch to summer-time on the last Sunday of March and to switch back to their standard time ("winter-time") on the last Sunday of October"
https://transport.ec.europa.eu/transport-themes/summertime_en#:~:text=Since 2001, EU summertime arrangements,the last Sunday of October.
So this would be a big, palpable Brexit benefit, which the government claims to want. Do it
.
Corruption - I've not seen that although I will say there're quite a lot of ex-military 'managers'
Economics - left alone they'd thrive.
However, OTOH you could depict UK differently by careful selection eg:
If 29% of your babies are born to foreign born mothers you musty be doing enough right to attract such numbers of younger people to live here.
If your labour market has millions of foreign born people in it, from top bankers to factory cleaners you must be a very attractive destination.
When you are not a proximate country to a millions strong army of refugees, but you are known as a top destination for foreign born people (see above) it is sensible to put some barriers in the way to unlimited entry, and slightly moral to do so before compassion fatigue sets in, not after.
There is no lost decade. people in UK are perfectly capable of being happy, unhappy, fulfilled or unfulfilled without state assistance or getting richer.
(NB having said all that, the Ukraine visa thing has been badly handled).
Disclose.tv
@disclosetv
·
Mar 15
JUST IN - U.S. Senate passes the "Sunshine Protection Act" by unanimous consent to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.
There's so much evidence that giving everyone a small dose of jetlag is incredibly damaging and all for the sake of what we call the time - it makes no difference to how much daylight there is.
Utterly moronic.
mind you 9 am sunrises in New Year/January would be miserable
So often, throughout history, that's been how they've formed.
If you could be sure everyone would not think about race yes that would be great.
If you know even 5-10% of the population will treat minority races badly, then you either need to accept minorities, on average, will get a worse deal, or mainstream society needs to think about race.
Wishing the world as you want it to be, does not solve a real problem. And this is all before we get into the unconscious bias that impacts as much as the 5-10% of racists.
Regardless, I’d prefer to keep out-and-out nazis out, rather than in. Zelensky has inherited the situation but one must hope it is addressed in due course.
Otherwise, the Russian army would have overrun Ukraine about two and a half weeks ago.
Exactly who is to blame is a rather different question...
So maybe the whole argument is redundant
If that is *in his spare time*, I wonder what his day job was?
I know, I know - it's a tough one.
Because the problem is that there is a line. Incitement to violence (or shouting fire in a crowded theatre) is clearly over it.
But a steady drip drip of dehumanisation can have much the same effect.
I don't know the answer: clearly one should be able to speak freely, but we have to be incredibly vigilant about those who push falsehoods as fact.
Why do you think a complete outsider like Zelensky got 72% of the vote in 2019? Because they were fed up with the existing order. Maybe he's been all talk and no action. I'm not qualified to judge. But dealing with corruption whilst handling covid and the threat of invasion from your much larger neighbour is hardly an easy task.
There was also the complete transformation of the parliament in 2019. The country is now pretty united in wanting to pursue closer relations with the EU rather than Putin's Russia. What does that tell you? Putin must being feeling very isolated.
"I have read everything he wrote and written a thesis about it" is not, in any case, much of an argument. Nor is "But you're wrong." Again: we can all agree that he fought fascists in Spain and commies in his writings. He was anti totalitarian. If you think he enunciated specifically left wing doctrines which are misappropriated by the right, let's be seeing an example.
I’m just pointing out it’s a big problem.
It’s not relevant to the war, and certainly not intended as an excuse for Russian aggression.
It’s relevant though to issues like possible EU accession, and any post-invasion settlement.
Broadly, this is why I don’t have an issue with Twitter or the like deciding what is or isn’t acceptable on its own platform. It’s their train set, and then “cancelling” someone is different from the law banning a statement.
Were you reading a different book to me?
Russian forces "remain largely stalled across" Ukraine, but have around 90% of their "assembled combat power still available to them", a senior US defence official says.
Didn't all the EU countries change the date at which they changed their clocks to the British one?
Putin started with a force of more than 150-180,000. So 90% are still there
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/POUM
Bunch of Tories.
Orwell is actually presented with a huge problem by Jeremy Corbyn. This divide between cuddly tweedy pub going English socialists vs Jew-hating communism sort of breaks down when you look at how seamlessly the one morphed into the other.
At least Putin's evil will die with him; Bono's evil will curse humanity for decades.
Censorship is the cure for incitement; education is the cure for the drip, drip of dehumanisation.
Make summer time permanent, at any rate for the southern and eastern parts of the country.
Marxism
Libertarian Marxism
Centrist Marxism
Trotskyism
Impossibilism
Anti-Stalinism
Fuck me, it's JRM with extra waistcoats.
I like the idea that "Impossibilism" is a strand of ideology.
The Russians will not have been losing their men equally; some units appear to have been very heavily hammered; others will hardly have been engaged. But in addition, not every man is a fighter; many will be on logistics and other duties.
Losing 10% of your force in three weeks in not good.
Just for Topping, IMV, IANAE, etc, etc...
Orwell was writing about precisely that problem - that decent socialists would be down on their knees kissing the arse of Stalin at the drop of a hat.
He wasn't as far as I know particularly "active in left wing politics".
So I am still asking the question which started this: what allegedly distinctively left wing utterances of his are misappropriated and misrepresented by the right?
I'm fully in favour of how things are at the moment - clocks back in October, forward in March. I can't be doing with late sunrises. Early sunsets are an acceptable price to pay.
BST is good, though, because sunrises much before 6 are a waste of sunlight.