When the so-called “Leader of the opposition” opposes protest against a new unelected head of state, out of respect for the previous unelected head of state, you know you live under totalitarianism.
Except almost all dictatorships do at least have the form of an election. Indeed, some of the worst dictators in modern history have been genuinely elected, an unfortunate fact we generally prefer to elide.
Over a week of mob hysteria in the UK helps us to understand how.
The psychological phenomenon of societal emotional spasm is fairly well studied but still not necessarily fully explained. How we get to a stage where, in 2022, newspapers are seriously promoting as miraculous clouds that “look like the Queen”, double rainbows or meteors, is a difficult question.
What is not in the doubt is the tendency of deluded mobs to turn on those who do not join in – and the capacity of the unscrupulous to exploit that power.
Attempts to intimidate people out of protesting against the monarchy appear broadly to have succeeded. We saw some hideous attacks on free speech over the last week, including people arrested for holding up placards, for peacefully expressing vocal dissent, or even for carrying eggs or blank pieces of paper.
A number of figures have stood up to come out arguing for freedom of speech – Andrew Marr, Martin Bell, John Sweeney, David Davis, Joanna Cherry, Michael Russell. These are all figures who broadly represent a liberal consensus in society that seems to have gone. As I know all but one of them, I hope they will forgive me for saying they tend to be slightly passé.
Nobody in power, in Westminster or in Scotland, has asserted the importance of freedom of speech, while opposition leader Keir Starmer has done the opposite, emphasising “respect” for authority as more important than freedom of speech, a position taken by anti-democrats everywhere.
There are two arguments used against freedom of speech at present:
1) We should honour the dead, and respect the sanctity of the mourning period.
I do not in general dismiss the value of all societal convention, and I have a certain sympathy for this approach. However, the difficulty is that the accession of a new monarch happens at the moment of death of the old monarch. The latter cannot be used to stifle all protest at the former.
The Establishment quite deliberately conflates the two in order to prevent protest. We have the extraordinary and macabre spectacle of the corpse of the late Queen being carted around the country and her coffin put on public display.
If people really cared for her, I would have thought it much more respectful to bury her, but the monarchist hysteria has to be dialed up past 11 for the longest possible period, and the excuse for suppressing dissent has to be maintained.
Young Rory, who was viciously, physically attacked for heckling sexual abuser Prince Andrew at the Edinburgh procession and then arrested, handcuffed and charged, was widely condemned by the media for disturbing a funeral. But it was not a funeral. That funeral is still not until Monday, when this farce finally ends.
The correct word for what we have witnessed so far is not a funeral but a series of bizarre obsequies. The state is demanding that all citizens be obsequious.
There is a reason that word has such negative connotations, and if the UK had educated journalists rather than state stenographers they might explore it.
So much has been entirely irrational. One moment that stuck in my mind was criticism of Liz Truss for failing to curtsy to the coffin of the Queen when it arrived at RAF Northolt. This was described as “grotesque” – as though curtsying to a corpse were not itself an image straight out of Edgar Allan Poe.
The concomitant of stretching out the period before poor Elizabeth is finally put to rest, is to use that period to maximum political advantage for the introduction of the new King, while his mother’s aura still shines.
We have the deliberate confusion of the two processes. Both the man in Oxford who merely asked “who elected him?”, and the woman in Edinburgh who held the sign saying “Fuck imperialism, abolish the monarchy”, were at the specific proclamation of the accession of King Charles III – events separate to the obsequies. Yet both were condemned for lack of respect for a dead Queen.
We also have the extraordinary spectacle of Charles, immediately after the death of his mother, abandoning his mourning and bottling his grief while shuttling furiously around Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales for entirely political events.
This did not have to happen. This is absolutely not a tradition. Nothing remotely like it has ever happened before.
There was no reason whatsoever why Charles had to visit the Scottish parliament, the Welsh senedd or the assembly in the north of Ireland, now. This could have waited until after the funeral. He could even have had a week of rest and reflection after the funeral before embarking on a tour of the nations.
There was a deliberate decision to hold these political events in Edinburgh, Belfast and Cardiff, aimed at strengthening the monarchy and union, while the corpse was still metaphorically warm, in order to maximise the political bounce for the monarchy from Elizabeth’s death.
Part of this calculation was that, if Charles’ first visit as King was after the funeral, there would be political protest at the accession in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, possibly quite substantial.
There is absolutely no modern precedent for a royal tour between the death and the funeral of the previous monarch. It is, when you think about it, disrespectful.
Edinburgh is explicable in terms of Elizabeth dying in Scotland, but Belfast and Cardiff?
Which tells us that “King Charles III” would have still taken advantage of the mourning period to make his power consolidation visit to Edinburgh, no matter where his mother had died.
There is nothing more cynical. We are whipped up to observe emotional mourning, while those who you would expect truly to be in mourning are engaged in cold, political calculation.
One of the darkly amusing things about the last few days was to witness all of the deluded monarchists on social media excusing Charles’ extraordinary tantrum in Northern Ireland about a pen, on the grounds that he must be exhausted making this tour when his mother had just died.
But the answer of course is that he did not have instantly to dash to Northern Ireland at all, leaving behind the rites for his mother. He was doing so for political gain.
It is a capricious God who supports a royal family so much he makes clouds in their image and celebrates them in rainbows and comets, yet makes pens leak on them “every stinking time.”
2) Protest May Cause a Breach of the Peace
This is a truly sinister argument. What it amounts to is this:
The mob is encouraged to beat up dissidents, so the expression of dissent is illegal.
It is quite literal fascism, the exertion of violent force by thugs in the street to quell dissent, with the state backing the thugs and criminalising the dissidents. That is precisely how all fascist regimes operate.
It is now being used shamelessly. None of the thugs who attacked Rory in Edinburgh has been charged. Rory has been charged with a breach of the peace.
If a breach of the peace is an action likely to provoke disorder, then the persons to be charged should be those who decided to put on display in positions of great honour a man who avoided a trial on sex trafficking by payment of £12 million pounds.
One sign of how emboldened the dregs of society are by this period of mob rule, is the quite extraordinary number of people on social media actively defending Prince Andrew, something that was extremely rare before the death of the Queen.
On twitter, it is interesting how many of those defending Andrew show the characteristics I identified of British government troll units. These are very low follower numbers for an account claiming to have been in existence at least ten years, and a timeline consisting entirely of retweets.
The rehabilitation of Andrew is another of the political purposes to which Elizabeth’s death is being put, to which we are not allowed to object on grounds of “decorum” and “respect”.
Now I would not personally have done what Rory did, in the presence of a coffin. But that is a question of etiquette, taste and demeanour, not of the criminal law.
Anybody who had been paying attention ought not be surprised that the Scottish prosecutorial service is happily channeling this fascism and people are coming up for trial for breach of the peace, including the young woman who did nothing but hold up a placard at the outdoor, public proclamation ceremony.
On Sunday, Police Scotland have banned Yestival, an annual Independence rally in George Square, Glasgow, on the grounds that the Queen’s funeral is on the next day, 400 miles away.
The organisers have quietly rescheduled the event, but I shall turn up anyway to bear witness to my beliefs, because I object to being told I may not express my political opinions. I don’t expect there will be more than a dozen of us and nothing in particular is organised to happen – no stage and no microphones. Unless the mere fact of my existence is held by the fascists to be a breach of the peace, I am not sure how it would be illegal. But they may find a way. This is Scotland 2022.
In the long term I am not downhearted. Propaganda works, and I have no doubt whatsoever that monarchism and even unionism will get a measurable opinion poll boost from the current shenanigans.
But it will not be true that the replacement of a popular monarch by an unpopular one will, in the medium term, strengthen the monarchy. Public and press access will be stifled to suppress awareness of Charles’ appalling high-handedness and temper and the way he treats staff
But you can’t make this man popular, and his Queen Consort will be a constant reminder of how he treated his unfortunate first wife.
As for the mob hysteria, I am of the generation that was sent to church every Sunday of my childhood. I recall the sermon every Palm Sunday pointing out that the same rapturous crowd that hailed Jesus into Jerusalem, called for his death five days later.
All the great religions contain a lot of good sense within their mysticism.
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Oh phooey! Pretentious tendentious claptrap from so many opinions here. Just to put another 2 penn’orth on the table. IMHO we need the Monarchy for the following reasons: firstly it gives continuity to democratic governments which have access to someone who remembers all the ones that went before, and the advice which they gave based on their experience and good manners; secondly it gives the seal of approval to any changes in our national legislation. You might think our elected representatives would do just fine without their majesties checking their homework, ensuring that all the stages have been completed according the the law of the land, before signing royal assent to new laws. I don’t. I think we would be in a dictatorship before you can turn round three times and click your shiny red heels together. Thirdly our MPs are so stupid that not one of them stood up and told Boris that he had no right to usurp the Royal Prerogative and prorogue Parliament. Only the monarch has that right and Boris waved a piece of paper signed by a member of the privy counsel, and masqueraded as the Queen. The Speaker should have stopped him. For a bit more theatre, the beefeaters could have been called in to remove him to the Tower. He had no right to do it, just to suspend Parliament for 2 weeks so that we crashed out of Europe with no deal. The royal prerogative is for the purpose of inviting the leader of the next largest party to form a government and try to get legislation passed, when a minority government cannot pass enough votes, or if they can’t pass enough votes either, to call a general election. Boris is not stupid, but rules don’t apply to him. The monarchy is important because we have a constitutional monarchy. Chris Mason gave a very good explanation on the BBC news as the news of Elizabeth’s death was conveyed to Parliament, live, as events unfolded.
Charles has been given a job to pull together national unity, so pay a little consideration to events on the world stage, and why we might need to pull together, or at least appear to. If Truss has this fortnight’s grace to put together a government and some policies, let’s hope they will help the trouble ahead to be headed off with a better government. I am not at all confident that she will have that inclination though. The loss of our human rights act may just be the beginning of some very hard times to come, if she doesn’t get her act together in a way that capitalises on the possibility of national unity.
@Alyson, or the Queen was ‘stupid’ or ignorant of her own quasi-Constitution in allowing her Prime Minister to prorogue Parliament? How could she be forced to do something against her own law? Isn’t that one of the most important duties of her job she just failed?
Was the monarchy that dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and his elected majority in the Australian House of Commons and called a new election against the will of the Prime Minister and an elected majority in the Australian House of Commons a constitutional monarchy?
@Lysias, was that a royal coup? The power that the hereditary British monarch can exercise through imperial royal prerogative powers are vast, unaccountable and highly secretive. What exactly was going on when the Governor General secretly granted Australian PM Scott Morrison’s request, unknown to his fellow ministers apparently, for extra ministerial powers?
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2022/sep/15/governor-general-delayed-giving-scott-morrison-additional-portfolios-in-2021-foi-documents-show
The Queen was reported to be furious – small paragraph near the bottom of a page in a broadsheet newspaper – but to be powerless to stop Boris from usurping the Royal Prerogative – and it was shown that acting as he did, on the signature on a piece of paper signed by a member of the privy council, was unlawful. As per usual Boris was not prosecuted for treason. The privy counsellor was not dismissed.
” The monarchy is important because we have a constitutional monarchy”.
We have a monarchy but unfortunately, the thing we don’t have is a constitution. And before anyone comes up with the ” we have an unwritten constitution” claptrap, I would venture to suggest that an unwritten constitution aint worth the paper it’s not written on because such an animal can be anything you want it to be or say it is.
An unwritten constitution is every bit as valid as scribblings on a napkin such as the American one. Probably more so as it tends to be more durable and less prone to idiotic misinterpretations such as has happened with the the US 2nd amendment.
Exactly the same is true of Common Law.
The whole point of a constitution is to set out the powers and competencies of the various arms of government and define the restrictions on those powers. For example, the POTUS can veto bills sent to him by the Congress, but if both houses of Congress pass legislation with large enough majorities (I think it’s two thirds voting in favour) then his veto is null and void. With an “unwritten constitution” such checks and balances are not really possible, especially in the UK where there are no constraints upon the power of the executive (i.e. H.M. Government) and no Parliament can be bound by any of its predecessors. This renders any constitution whether written or unwritten essentially worthless. So even a written constitution in the UK would be worthless under the present political setup due to the fact that the Executive and Legislative arms of government are essentially one and the same.
Britain is a republic ruled by an executive president called the Prime Minister who can do what he/she wants provided that they have a Commons majority. The “monarch” obeys orders or loses the money, trains, planes and automobiles. Thick Eddie VIII was sacked by Stanley Baldwin for trying it on.
Britain isn’t a democracy and England has been a republic since 1688.
A rather grandiose statement which you repeat ad nauseam in almost every thread on this blog. As my old maths teacher used to say to me “Would you care to show me the working-out?”
Stop being lazy and look up the Coronation Oath Act 1688 Hovis Junior.
A rather quaint interpretation of the said act, however republics tend not to have Monarchs as head of state. England was a republic for the 4 or so years between 1649-53 until Cromwell became “Lord Protector” and hopefully will become one again but I doubt either of us will live to see that happen.
Incidentally, why the epithet “Junior” ?
“….our MPs are so stupid that not one of them stood up and told Boris that he had no right to usurp the Royal Prerogative and prorogue Parliament.”
Erm….Joanna Cherry?
Was the monarchy that dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and his elected majority in the Australian House of Commons and called a new election against the will of the Prime Minister and an elected majority in the Australian House of Commons a constitutional monarchy?
150 plus republics in the world suggest we can easily do without a monarchy
Hysteria is the right word for the poor sods queuing up but I don’t believe the media and politicians who whipped them up believe any of it. Perhaps Sturgeon does but certainly not Truss or Starmer who both diagnosed royalty accurately before it was expedient not to. For their own ends the politicians and media want to be seen respecting the royal family. Some are too stupid to know where to draw the line, hence you get the Speaker Lindsey Hoyle saying the queen’s death is “The most important event the world will ever see”. I think in the long run all this hoopla will prove counterproductive. Many former colonies are already poised to abandon the monarchy once the queen is buried. If Charles lives as long as his mother it’s quite likely he will be the last king. The media have oversold the royal family in this period and have forced too many people to actually think about them.
@Brian c, indeed, although at least we were spared the non-trivial spectacle of the Queen nuking us all, yet even that might not have trumped the BBC’s schedule on the Queen’s death. Just how much more important was her life than the life of one of her commoners, or even lower in the scales, a foreign commoner? Are we talking millions of times more important? Billions? Will she be canonized as an Anglican saint? Brought back as an idolatrous hologram for Christmas? Just where is the line these days? (apart from snaking like a harbinger of the fall of the gods around London, of course)
‘hence you get the Speaker Lindsey Hoyle saying the queen’s death is “The most important event the world will ever see”.’
– and a senior figure in the Anglican Communion appears to nod along in agreement, Brian.
I’m by no means an expert in Protestant theology, but would have assumed that, for most of its adherents, the most important event the world will ever see would be a toss-up between the resurrection of Christ and His second coming.
Kudos to Currant Bun editor Victoria Newton for managing to keep a straight face, although she couldn’t resist a bit of an eye-roll.
I’ll leave the last word to Dara O’Briain (assuming it’s really him – no blue tick):
https://twitter.com/daraobriain/status/1571450712252350465
If Hoyle actually managed to say that with a straight face, I really am impressed.
Thanks for your reply Glenn. Speaker Hoyle’s hyperbolic royalist histrionics are most likely genuine. From Wiki:
‘In the days after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in August 1997, Hoyle asked for a new national children’s hospital to be built as a memorial to her. A few days later, Hoyle wrote to airport operator BAA, operators of London Heathrow Airport, urging them to change the airport’s name to Diana, Princess of Wales Airport. Neither proposal was carried out.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsay_Hoyle
(Apologies to any Irish speakers for forgetting to use the proper bo Gaelic orthography in Dara Ó Briain’s name in my previous comment. Still in shock about St Mirren today – the result not the Green Brigade’s antics. Tá aiféala orm.)
Unbelievable.
Forgive my lack of a better reply – I am aghast. My wife informed me (just seconds ago) that we missed this evening’s official minute’s silence. The most momentous opportunity which can occur just the once, in the infinite history of the universe as told when time itself ceases to exist, and we missed it.
Thanks again for your reply, Glenn. According to Hoyle, it was only the Queen’s funeral that was “the most important event the world will ever see” – or was it her passing? He wasn’t entirely clear. Anyway, it definitely wasn’t the minute’s silence on Sunday, so I wouldn’t worry too much about forgetting all about it. For what it’s worth, I think the Green Brigade should have organised a minute’s silence during the minute’s applause at Mirren Park earlier in the day, to maintain some ‘constructive ambiguity’ about Celts fans feelings towards her and avoid being tarred as just the mirror image of the more antedivulian Huns fans.
Thanks also for linking to the Time article about the appalling rabbinical shenanigans in Noo York (and no doubt plenty of other places) in your comment below. I didn’t know about that – it’s certainly a mind-blower (if you’ll pardon the expression) and more useful ammo to use against “The-Jewish-state-of-Israel-is-the-frontline-in-the-existential-war-between-our-Enlightenment-values-and-theocratic-barbarism” types, not least in my own family.
Brian c, what world are you in? Sturgeon has said she attended the funeral as part of FM role, fair enough. She is on record saying once Scotland is independent there should be a referendum to decide if royalty should continue in Scotland.
Truss and Starmer support continuation of royalty.
I agree about the mass hysteria generated by the media, establishment and the police. Elizabeth was 96, everyone knew she was going to pop her clogs soon. I reckon the appointment of Liz Truss as prime minister finished her off – not about to deal with a Margaret Thatcher wannabee for the next how many years, leave it to Charles.
This obnoxious piece of sanctimonious claptrap has just been published….
“Dear Mummy, Mother, Your Majesty, three in one. Your Majesty, it has been an honour and privilege to serve you. Mother – of the nation, your devotion and personal service to our nation is unique and singular; your people show their love and respect in so many different ways and I know you are looking on honouring their respect.
‘Mummy, your love for a son, your compassion, your care, your confidence I will treasure forever. I have found your knowledge and wisdom infinite, with no boundary or containment. I will miss your insights, advice and humour. As our book of experiences closes, another opens, and I will forever hold you close to my heart with my deepest love and gratitude, and I will tread gladly into the next with you as my guide.
God Save The King”
From the dodgy Prince Andrew, lover of (almost underage) young girls when he was in his 50s.
I believe that a very wealthy pervert republican is attempting to split the royal family and accelerate the progress to republicanism in the UK. I suspect that we would be given a presidential choice of yes-men. We already have an extreme right wing PM, and a similar politically biased head of state would be the icing on the cake. If this had been 20 years ago, I’m sure we would have had President Jimmy Savile.
Now it seems we might have President Andrew Windsor being lined up for our votes.
Yeah Rosemary – that’s what I thought too – it was the final indignity.
She really lost the will to live.
Wouldn’t anybody?
deal with the govt? It will be interesting if environmentalist Charles says or does anything to stop the fracking proposals
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/which-countries-still-have-monarchy
Zerohedge (“visit for the news, stay for the comments”) just published a short review of monarchy worldwide.
A few factoids from said review:
Many see the benefit in having a stable and consistent form of tradition and decorum at the country’s head of state.
“The Crown is an integral part of the institution of Parliament. The Queen [now King] plays a constitutional role in opening and dissolving Parliament and approving Bills before they become law.”
-– BRITISH PARLIAMENT
Japan’s royal family has been a prime example of stability, having reigned in the country for more than 2,600 years under the same hereditary line.
Some claim, however, that there is no function of monarchy in the modern day, and complaints of monarchies’ immense wealth and power are rampant.
For example, according to the Dutch government, King Willem-Alexander’s budget for 2022, funded by the state and thus, taxpayers, comes out to more than €48 million.
Most monarchs are hereditary, inheriting their position by luck of their birth, but interestingly, French president, Emmanuel Macron, technically serves as a Co-Prince of Andorra.
“The Crown is an integral part of the institution of Parliament. The Queen [now King] plays a constitutional role in opening and dissolving Parliament and approving Bills before they become law.”
Open up the job to competition. I will do that at a fraction of the current rates. One thing the royals never have to do is to sell their labour. Some might have jobs of sorts but basically they just make money from what they already have, much from taxpayers, which is lots.
Just as well for them that they never try to sell their labour! What are they trained for? Cutting ribbons with a scissor and wolfing large amounts of free grub and booze. On second thoughts, maybe they could go into low-level politics?
“Many see the benefit….”
that’s a weasel phrase used when people want to claim their opinion is the dominant and not-to-be-questioned opinion. So that’s not even a fact. Here’s a fact: there are 150 odd republics in the world – that’s MOST countries. we don’t need the royals.
https://www.jewishpress.com/news/jewish-news/king-charles-iii-was-circumcised-by-jewish-mohel-cherishes-uk-jews/2022/09/09/ ?
This is NOT a spoof. Both bizarre and intriguing !!
Thanks for that Monte.
From the article in the Jewish Press:
“The royal family tradition of hiring Jewish mohels to circumcise their sons goes back to Queen Victoria.”
I ask myself, why?
The Rabbinic explanation for circumcision is:
“as God says, it will be a sign of the Eternal covenant between God and Abraham and all of his descendants. The text makes it clear that circumcision must occur on the eighth day of life and falls to every Jewish male. Those who choose not to obey this commandment, continues God, will be cut off from the Jewish people for breaking this sacred agreement.”
One of the King’s titles is “Defender of the (Protestant) Faith”
I read somewhere (Jimmie Moglia?) that the administration of the Catholic Church has for some time recognized the seniority of Judaism in the Abrahamic Faiths.
Could it be that the head honcho of the Proddies also does so?
“One of the King’s titles is “Defender of the (Protestant) Faith””
Since the title “Fides Defensor” was awarded by the Pope, I expect it was “Defender of the (Catholic) Faith”
” in 1543, the Parliament of England conferred the title “Defender of the Faith” on King Henry VIII and his successors, now the defenders of the Anglican faith, of which they remain the supreme governors.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defender_of_the_Faith
From the same source,
“”Defender of the Faith” has been one of the subsidiary titles of the English and later British monarchs since it was granted on 11 October 1521 by Pope Leo X to King Henry VIII.” and, more to the point, “King James V of Scotland was granted the title of “Defender of the Faith” by Pope Paul III on 19 January 1537″
In any case the vast majority of the Christian faith is common to both Protestant and Catholic churches. It is quite possible to defend it without taking sides.
You have to be careful with that particular tradition. If they’re _really_ doing it the old school way, the moyen cleans off the blood with his mouth, through, err, suction. As a result, any STD can be readily passed on.
https://healthland.time.com/2012/06/07/how-11-new-york-city-babies-contracted-herpes-through-circumcision/
My local council set up a barrier behind which people could leave their floral tributes:
Number of bunches of flowers so far—about 30. Nothing like the number they were expecting.
Anyway, here is the wonderfully-off message Clive Lewis:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/16/idea-of-monarchy-as-symbol-of-duty-or-sacrifice-a-lie-says-labours-clive-lewis
Good for him.
Haven’t heard such straight talking since Gorgeous got the boot.
There’s hope yet for the Labour party!
Well done and said, Clive Lewis, you are expressing the nations reluctance to play the game which has gone long in the teeth. Glad I helped your campaign, pity about the likes of Owen and Mason, turncoats and stalinistas.
the media, particularly the BBC, wanted this to be bigger than the death of Diana – I think they failed
Your find of the Kim Jong-il funeral BBC commentary over the current tripe-fest is a winner. Well spotted. Of course if confronted with the dissonance, the BBC slime-moulds would try to weasel out of it.
All the politics aside, as I don’t really care enough about this to comment, I do think psychologically that what we are seeing is more a failure to mourn than mourning itself. Mourning does not happen on schedule, within a week max of the death 24/7, televised, in bright daylight across all key locations. Mourning is largely hidden, messy, erratic in location and destination. The fact that the public is doing all this scheduled mourning actually shows that they are not mourning, and why would they really mourn the death of a symbol, the death of someone who was to them like a character in a book? The fact that Charles is being manhandled into doing the manic, scheduled mourning I can only really see as a plot against him and his feelings and there is likely to be a backlash against this, both from him (cursing the pen) and from a public who will have to admit at some point that he wasn’t, not even this week, allowed to feel, be and act like a human being. And who wants someone who isn’t, to be their leader? It’s the machinery of British society at its stiff upper lip (or curtsey to the coffin) worst. Horrible.
He doesn’t strike me as somebody who’d submit to being manhandled into anything. Please reveal who is doing the manhandling and what their motives are.
I would say that it is a total myth that he could assert many choices of his own. Maybe manhandled is too strong a word but I mean it is all scripted and arranged on his behalf, and by advisors presumably.
“Please reveal who is doing the manhandling and what their motives are”
Do you really think that King Charles has personally planned the entire show of his mother’s obsequies? Of course not. The planners are the people who are telling him what to do, whether he wants to or not.
Yes, old Freud would have said something about the choice of the object to curse too. Pen = organ of (re)generation 😉
Yes I do think it was his idea. There’s next to no evidence he is puppeted by anybody. The spider letters, extramarital affair, carrier bags of Arab cash etc all suggests he only does what he wants regardless what others think.
Bayard …who is doing the manhandling
Camilla
Has she been buried yet, poor old woman? I find the tradition of traveling around the country with a dead body disgusting. In the 21st century, is it really impossible to bury the body, and carry out mourning ceremonies without it? A portrait and flowers would suffice, a perfectly civilized way of honoring the memory. Otherwise, it resembles some kind of religious parade with relics.
Said to me recently: “we do this sort of thing so well…”.
Disgusting indeed, but she probably isn’t in the box anyway, it’s all showbiz. Bread and circuses.
Stevie, linguistic question. As a non-native English speaker, when trying to understand the meaning of texts, I rely not only on the dictionary, but also try to capture emotions. I take this passage in your comment ‘in the box’ as a demonstration of disrespect. I’d like to understand, is it really so? And, if this is disrespect, then am I right that it’s directed not at the queen, but more at her entourage, who are trying to create more pomposity?
Thanks
Tatyana, ‘In the box’ could be classed as disrespectful, however it’s a form of British black humour that delights in upsetting hypocrites and deflating the pompous, by for example stating literal truths. Another favorite for a crematorium funeral would be ‘in the oven’.
Examples include: Billy Connolly, Jerry sadowitz, Monty Python, Derek and Clive.
It’s also the case that comedy can provide an escape valve for emotions during periods of extreme grief.
So yes, no disrespect to the queen as a person but I really hate the circus !
Well, I’m glad to say that my ability to understand people is not yet exhausted. My logic was that if you wanted to show disrespect to the queen, you would rather use something like (sorry) “old bitch in a coffin”.
We also have many euphemisms for sad things, and many of them are examples of extremely black humor. Most decent are ‘to glue the flippers’ and ‘to play the wooden box’.
Re. the circus 🙂 a Russian joke:
At the funeral, the deceased was praised so much that the widow twice approached the coffin to see who was lying there.
Stevie Boy.
I agree it’s all just extreme pageantry for the masses, I caught a glimpse of King Charles III and his brothers and sister walking behind the coffin, dressed in full military regalia, with more medals on their chests than an African dictator would have.
> I find the tradition of traveling around the country with a dead body disgusting.
No, it wasn’t travelling around the country. The cortege was travelling *down* the country, directly along the main roads to London. There was a stopover on the way, in Edinburgh, for ceremonies to be held there, because she was (officially) queen of that country too.
Funerals in Britain often take place a week or more after the death (though in NI it’s usually 2 days), so there’s no excessive delay. Family viewing of bodies is conventional for people to say their final goodbyes and to help them appreciate the loss, but standing in queues for hours to see a box covered with a flag seems a bit silly.
All the pomp and pageantry is of course ridiculous and out of the ordinary, but that’s part of the point – to mark a major world event. This is the largest gathering of world leaders in decades. The changing of a leader – even a symbolic one – is marked in a similarly lavish ceremonial way around the world (even in Russia).
All those trumpets and bagpipes and bugles are on parade because of tradition, but as with other rituals there is an underlying purpose to stir the emotions and bring the community together to affirm shared values. Many people don’t want any part of it, of course, and (as you can see here) they’re quick to say so. That shows there are certain key values they don’t share – and even want to protest against. As is our right.
I’m happy to leave the deferential servants to bow and sing and whatever else they want to do, without poking fun at them. I’m sure there’s plenty of things I do that they would find equally ridiculous.
Only one former party leader not present. Jeremy Corbyn, the only one who truly represents the underprivileged and disenfranchised of British society!
Dawg, thanks for the explanation. Respect for the feelings of people around, I understand and support this. It can be called tolerance, respect for decorum, or sincere interest, in any case, it’s good. As well as keeping people united. Anyway better than discord and enmity.
I can only think of three American Presidents whose deaths have been similarly honored: Lincoln, JFK, and FDR. The first two had been assassinated, and at least Stalin thought FDR had been assassinated as well.
Perhaps you think of it as ‘coming together of people who want to express their grief’ but it has been two weeks of the Establishment/ Royal family flexing their might and untouchable wealth and nearly suffocating people with it.
It is a calculated exercise in showing their power not just to citizens of the UK but to the wider World.
But expressly a show for citizens of the Four Nations it is to maintain the status quo by coersion, manipulation, brainwashing and by force for non compliance.
And using the mob to turn on dissenters.
Even the coverage is incredibly selective , the ‘Lying in State’ at St. Giles, in Edinburgh wasn’t particularly mobbed by locals in fact in the morning there was no queue for some hours as noted by English tv commentators on live news. Edinburgh demograph has changed dramatically in the last few years, it is unafforable to locals. Many people have cashed in their expensive house in London to buy a cheaper expensive house in Edinburgh, recently, there is a huge influx of foreign nationals even since Brexit perhaps persuaded to take up residence by the “anti-soshial” media windows on the world that endlessly promote Scotland not forgetting the perrenial tourists and if you havent already been pushed out of Edinburgh economically you notice that the community village feel has been all but destroyed permanently.
The news even tried to pigeon hole certain folk in the queue that they interviewed and had one pegged as a local even tho’ he said he wasn’t, although they kept labelling him as local because he was slightly strange looking ..reason for picking him out anf then telling viewers he is a typical local.
Whilst accession/succession might be automatic (or so they were very determined orchestrated it to have us accept; the tours and proclamations were deliberately conflated with the mourning rituals, as in Edinburgh even on the same day but some hours apart. So that the outrage and anger that was whipped up against the lassie who’d written a sign to hold up at the ridiculous proclamation was oppressive censorship and portrayed as if not treason, but gross disrespect of “dearly departed much loved..etc etc”
As there was also a private family funeral for the Queen at Windsor then Andrew being prominent in the cortege/ vigils ad nauseum favoured son or not was just inviting comment, (even if shouting it out in the street was bad taste) it was also fair comment. None of the Royals have an ounce of judgement in what is in bad taste.
I’d say that was the Hans Christian Anderson moment.
The entire fortnight has had a sinister oppressive undercurrent to the lot of it.
They basically used the Queens death , funeral rituals to lay their Establishment cards in the table.
“We are in charge look at our power don’t dare challenge it.”
And not just on the question of monarchy. But warning against dissent in general.
And they milked public sympathy and mass hysteria to try to superglue the Union back together.
Given the government of the last 3-10 years prorogueing of Parliament, deliberately abandoning young and old to die, or be destroyed by covid complications and lack of emergency care to tackle immune over reactions.. much of which might have been prevented even by delivering emergency prescription through letterboxes and not risking any doctors…they could have asked Amazon the non tax paying giants of distribution to help for free.
The gaslighting of people who were ill and deliberately withholding information to the general public or even misleading them to this day so much so that some dont believe there is a new very potent virus.
Reopening of society without any provision for the vulnerable to get shopping or adequate protection in care homes leading to continued and rarely commented on deaths of both..sometimes even of young children.
Censorship and total info-vacuum over the vaccines, the ban on travel of people who were not recently infected but couldn’t get covid passports i.e. those who contracted it in 2020. Not to mention the deliberate crashing of Sterling and all the thievery by the Tories and cronies surrounding Brexit and the Pandemic and really This big pageant of might that has just been put on in the guise of mourning may as well have been the Nuremberg Rallies because it certainly felt like them. The new Public Order Acts are in place just in time for the Instant Poverty Budget.
If you look our history, at the decades of boom and bust since the beginning of the 19th century and you will see that the Establisment elite have been destroying the quality of life for workers repeatedly just as people begin to gain traction for better pay or better conditions and over again the economy is trashed one way or another to stifle the masses not forgetting annihilating generations all at once in wars weakening families who remain resulting in (pandemics) poverty induced mortality or prolonged misery usually both. Deliberate policies to maintain power. Sometimes pageants by this elite are dressed up as public engagement.
Hi Tatyana, hope all is well with you. I agree, I think it is very odd especially as bodies start to decompose after a fairly short time. The mourning/religious parade is just show business in my view. It’s a way of keeping the masses loyal. The various jubilees over the years have the same tone and the level of engagement by the population is extraordinary. I was in England in 1977, 2002, 2012 and you couldn’t move for the celebrations. Scotland was different, not interested.
I can understand the attachment the older generation may have for Elizabeth, herself. I remember the death of George in 1952 and how gloomy, austerity ridden, and rationed everything was. Also, the Americans had started another of their never ending wars a few years after the end of WW2. On George’s death, Elizabeth became queen and we had a great big party which was the coronation. Suddenly, there was colour, fun etc. To me and many of my generation the world did change and I suppose we correlated it with the coronation. That could explain a lot of things but not the hysteria surrounding Elizabeth’s death. The same thing happened at Diana’s death.
Hi, Rosemary. Thanks, I’m well and hope it’s going well in your place too.
Bodies decomposition, I wonder is this the reason that ‘the box’ might be empty? Seems logical, or there would have been (I’m sorry!) a vomit party instead of the solemn ceremony.
I hope the queen’s finally having her rest. After all, they’re not going to make a product of taxidermy out of her body, as we here did of Lenin. I find it even more disgusting and only hope they do not sell tickets to visit his Mausoleum.
Me personally reminded all of my family that I wish to be cremated after my death. I think that my body is maybe my only truly inalienable property, so I try to keep it well and happy. Don’t want it turn into something unpleasant.
She’ll be embalmed and the coffin is lead-lined.
Controversially, Princess Diana’s body was embalmed in Paris straight after that infamous crash. Diana’s body was not taken to a refrigerated mortuary for security reasons. The man who carried out the procedure, Jean Monceau, went ahead without official written consent from her family – as French law requires.
Mohamed al Fayed, the father of Dodi al Fayed, who also died in the crash, insists the procedure was ordered to obliterate chemical traces of a pregnancy.
Interesting, is lying embalmed in a coffin is what the queen agreed to? They cannot do this against her will, right? Poor thing, facing the end of her existence she had to recognize that even her own body doesn’t wholy belong to her and should yet serve her country. I mean, death is a very intimate moment, it would really be more respectful to let her rest in peace like any other human being. Making a show of dead people is no respect at all.
Tatyana,
I thought open-caskets were the norm in Russia?
Everyone here knows how after his death in 1953, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s remains were embalmed and put on display next to Vladimir Lenin.
Our UK news recently showed pictures of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in an open casket. Prior to that we saw ultra-nationalist firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovsky in one. That’s quite an unusual sight here.
Yes, open coffins are the norm. The deceased is buried no later than the 3rd day, more often on the 2nd day, it is believed that one night spent within the house is enough for all relatives to have time to say goodbye. That is to Orthodox tradition, Muslims have their own and as far as I know they bury the body the same day before the sunset.
I do not approve of any embalming or display of the dead. It’s kind of an unhealthy tradition. After all, anyone who wants to honor the memory is free to bring flowers to the cemetery.
By the way, another great way to show respect is to build a monument. We can bring flowers to the monuments. Also, in Russia, the Eternal Flame burns near the monuments of soldiers who fought against Nazism.
I must say it hurts to see in the news how neighboring countries are now dismantling these monuments. Hypocrites, they say that in this way they are fighting the memory of communism. But we see them destroying monuments to soldiers, and not at all to Lenin or Stalin.
Estonia, Narva city, with 80% of russian-speaking population, authorities demolish 7 monuments, one of them is T-34 tank of WW2. It was put on pedestal to commemorate freeing Narva of Nazis. Foreigners who oppose were threatened to have their residence permits revoked. Estonia annually holds SS veterans parade, as long as I know, the same ‘event’ is norm in Latvia and Ukraine.
A memorial in an Episcopal churchyard for Confederate soldiers who died in a battle outside D.C. in 1864 was desecrated during the madness of 2020.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSLnuos5pkw
The mourning of Kim-Jong 11’s death in North Korea [ see above ] looked positively restrained compared to the orchestrated grief-fest displayed in Britain’s national sycophantic response to Lizzie’s death. Brown-nosing is deeply inbred into Britain’s DNA.
https://www.thejc.com/news/news/israels-president-herzog-taking-own-transport-to-queens-funeral-1rQIeFEJH55OGRCv1SM7mM?
So the head of the only Apartheid State invited won’t be taking the bus like all the others.
O/T.
A chink of light in what is otherwise, a long dark tunnel to freedom.
“Julian Assange has been awarded the “keys” to Mexico City in recognition of his dedication to uncovering the truth.
Gabriel Shipton, the WikiLeaks founder’s brother, accepted the honour on his behalf at a ceremony in Mexico on Wednesday.
He described the award as a “significant” step in the campaign to free his sibling from prison.
Mr Assange’s family were invited to the country by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to receive the award and attend events today marking Mexico’s independence.
Mr Lopez Obrador is a vocal supporter of Mr Assange and has pressed US President Joe Biden to drop efforts to prosecute the journalist.”
https://www.globalresearch.ca/assange-awarded-keys-mexico-city-recognition-uncovering-truth/5793863
President Obrador is a good man. After Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan he suggested that the UN could propose a 5-year ‘truce’ and countries better focus on productive activities, create jobs, serve the poor and seek the cooperation of nations and peoples for development.
Can you be a genuinely neutral, ‘good man’ or woman, in power, in today’s world?
As interconnected as it is in terms of trade, every decision is perceived through the lens of taking sides in the great global struggle between East and West for supremacy. Look at the threats made over NS 2.
Even being a peacemaker; calling for ceasefire and/or negotiations to settle a dispute, is perceived as favoring one bloc over the other in this an age of big power proxy wars. A clash between the US and China seems inevitable sadly, because the US not only sees China as having the potential to unseat them economically, possibly even scientifically, they also genuinely have a hatred for the CCP’s ideology, even the watered-down, Chinese, market-oriented reformed version of communism.
I do hope China isn’t goaded into attacking or invading Taiwan because of reckless, western Chinese mainland sail-by provocations. Time and demographics are on China’s side. An invasion has the potential to trigger WW3, a greater potential even than the brutal stalemate morass in Ukraine, imho.
I think ideology means nothing to the US. After all, they ‘work’ with many regimes in our world and even call them friends. I think the truth is about money.
Taiwan’s TSMC: US want to control it. When it turned hard to control it, they started investing huge money into similar manufacturing facilities inside the US, at the same time feeding the conflict in between China and Taiwan.
Now, Pelosi is supporting Armenia in their conflict with Azerbaijan. This territory is the key to the ‘North-South’ trading route project. (We currently bring goods there by ship across the Nothern Europe, via Atlantic and Mediterranean. The N-S railway would make it twice or thrice cheaper and faster).
Kazakhstan is the key to the new Silk Road that China is trying to build. I expect more troubles in Kazakhstan soon, perhaps in Mongolia too. Fight for democracy, Western values etc., according to the usual list of goals in every color revolution.
Trading routes, global trading routes, pipelines, seaports. Easy way to earn good money is to ‘keep the gates’.
Yes, Taiwan’s TSMC leads the world in state-of-the-art semiconductors. Though China has been luring away many of their top engineers by offering to triple their salaries on the mainland.
China faces other problems though : Dutch company ASML is the world leader and basically the only option for the advanced extreme ultraviolet radiation (EUV) machines used in the photolithography process. Based in the Netherlands the US has put pressure on their govt not to sell advanced equipment to China, claiming they will use it to produce items with military application, which is likely, but that’s true of many things, chips are in everything. The US is seemingly using every means at its disposal now to prevent or more accurately, slow China’s technological advancement. Threats of secondary sanctions imposed on allies and Western govts don’t even complain at this preposterous overreach because access to the US market is far more important.
Re:
‘Time and demographics are on China’s side.’
Thanks largely to the one-child policy, China’s demographic outlook is awful, Goose – and the ongoing mass abortion of many of their female foetuses (which seems to appal pro-choice Western feminists for some reason – surely they’re just a bunch of cells that have XX chromosome pairs instead of XY ones in their nuclei?) won’t exactly help matters.
Lapsed Agnostic,
“and the ongoing mass abortion of many of their female foetuses”
I doubt if Saint Attenborough will object. He thinks there are far too many people on the planet anyway…_
Thanks for your reply Digger. As he’s only a couple weeks younger than Her Late Majesty and his brothers are long departed, surely it can’t be long before St David sets a good example by reducing Earth’s human population by one himself. I can imagine that the subsequent coverage of that event may be even more gushing than we’ve seen the past week – at least on the Beeb.
(For clarification as regards my previous comment: by the phrase ‘just a bunch of cells that have XX chromosome pairs’ I was referring to aborted Chinese female foetuses and not to pro-choice Western feminists. Apologies for any confusion.)
There is a good German word for what is being done to the late Queen: Leichenfledderei. Strictly speaking it means ‘body-stripping’ or ‘robbing of dead people’, but I think it suits this undignified procedure quite well.
greetings
Frank
Met with some resistance, they were ordered to change the family name from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the more English sounding Windsor, in 1917. They’ve always been treated by the establishment as more like a marketable product than a real family.
And again when the Queen married, Prince Philip was ordered to take her name, rather than she take his, as Victoria did with Albert.
Around the same time, when the Provisional Government in Russia was urging Britain to accept Tsar Nicholas and his family, George V and his advisers would not go along. They were afraid their presence might cause a revolution in Britain.
It came out in 2014, on the anniversary of WWI, that George V on Aug. 1, 1914 ordered Foreign Minister Grey, who was hesitant, to find a reason to declare war on Germany. “You have got to find a reason, Grey!”. The King’s reason: without Britain in the war (a war British policy had secretly fostered), Germany would win, and Britain would lose her independence.
So now we have King Charles the Third or as they might say in the Republic of Ireland:
King Charles the Turd.
The mass flag-shag by the corp-0-rat media and the state broadcaster will be forgotten in a week. Construct a Camberwell Carrot and let it pass.
My view too. The media cycle is very quick these days and the public’s attention span is limited to about 5 days. Ironically, the establishment must know this too, hence why they think they can rehabilitate Andrew’s public image so quickly.
Without wanting to be insulting to royalists, most of the coverage over the last seven days was just toadying froth. Presenters sat around projecting qualities onto the late Queen; anyone watching the BBC will have heard guests lavishing praise on the Queen’s unrivalled compassion; the Queen’s unmatched humour; the Queen’s unparalleled wisdom – very North Korean at times. There is no factual basis for those claims, they were merely assertions made by people who either didn’t know her personally, or in some cases those who will have spent no more than a couple of minutes in her company, if that. The presenters should have stuck to praising her commitment to what she saw as her duty, which is uncontested, even among those who favour a republic.
@Goose, commitment to holidays, foreign dictators, the arms trade, her own and family’s enrichment, covering up sex crimes, clinging on to Empire, suppressing and lying about imperial history, but as someone who secretly fought to exempt themselves from every imposition and tax (except the least expensive option), never, never duty. She never paid her dues. Please don’t speak on behalf of all republicans.
Is it over yet? What was all that?
Yes I believe so, but from tomorrow we will do recaps of last 10 days.
You mean the Queen is still dead ??
I am sure she will resurrect. ? in a week or two considering her age.
Looking forward to see the highlights of last 10 days.
The “country people” and the followers of Jesus were the celebrators on Palm Sunday; the authorities told Jesus to shut them up. And it was their rent-a-crowd who were rounded up to bay for crucifixion before Pilate, while the former group were sleeping outside the confines of the city.
Over the period the people have been treated by the media like a goose, forced fed an enormous quantity of Bernays sauce.
Meanwhile in Paris on Sunday there was a huge demonstration against the war and the sanctions on Russia. Reported by France 24, D.W. Sky? Not a chance.
In Prague, the Czech Republic demand that the government take into account the interests of its country first of all.
https://youtu.be/h6XEgcexTH4
Moldova is not happy at all, they urge their Sandu woman to go to Russia and get a gas contract
https://youtu.be/oydJsFm6ZRs
Opposition in Moldova makes funny social ads
https://pikabu.ru/story/oppozitsionnaya_sotsialnaya_reklama_iz_moldovyi_9470788
Germany is protesting too, Cologne and Kassel are anti-war, Leipzig are unhappy with energy price.
Pikabu in their best tradition, invent jokes:
“1942… 2022… 80 years after Stalingrad. History repeats itself. Again, we are freezing because of the Russians. But this time we are already smarter – we thought why go to Stalingrad, we can freeze at home. (Germans) “
HI Tatyana,
I live in Prague and moods started changing with the appearance of Mercedes, Lexus, tank-sized SUVs, more often than not with blacked-out windows and containg military age men [ not that I would push them to go to war ]. Some are beginning to remember that Brezhnev wasn’t Russian. PM Fiala is now considered to be Ukraine’s finest premier. It almost seems that Western govts have an interest in destroying their nations, almost gleefully.
Hi, Ewan2. Thank you for the opportunity to look at the situation in your country.
I heard criticism from the Germans towards Mrs. Baerbok, when she said that the support of Ukraine matters much more to her than the opinion of her own voters.
I think that your Prime Minister Fiala has a similar position. The Russian Wiki says he also has strong stance on another nation:
“Fiala supports the State of Israel and believes that from the point of view of international law, the recognition of the Palestinian Authority as a full-fledged state is an illegal act. He criticized Foreign Minister Tomas Petršicek, Minister of Culture Lubomir Zaoralek and former Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg for their joint statement dated 23 May 2020 condemning the planned Israeli annexation of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria”.
Hi T, it does seem a little odd to invade Palestine and wonder why people are horrified by an invasion of Ukraine. I think it is time to set up some kind of global diplomacy to look at all the invasions, attacks, sanctions around the world.
I’m not Czech, Ewan is a British/Celtic name, spelt the Scottish way.
It all reminds me of Kin Dza Dza when everyone has to greet PJ, the hologrammic leader – Koo
Best estimates of this ‘huge demonstration’ in Paris put numbers at a few thousand.
Moldova’s problem is that they have no forward contract with Gazprom so have to buy at the ‘spot price’. In simple terms they’ve become victim to Russian profiteering.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/moldova-chooses-alternatives-russian-gas-2022-09-20/
Sahra Wagenknecht seems to be challenging official western policy. Is there hope for western Europe?
Sahra Wagenknecht addresses the German Bundestag after the Maidan coup –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCTEFAPsco8
https://www.dw.com/en/german-opposition-leader-calls-for-security-union-with-russia-dissolution-of-nato/a-37154925
She wants a “collective security agreement” with Russia and the dissolution of NATO.
Ask the Poles and the Baltic States what they think of that?
What’s the point in asking them? They’ll do what their US overlords tell them to do.
well why? I would ask a few questions.
In Poland – how do they manage to be a 98% ethnically pure state? Aren’t they in the EU, so must be obliged to accept their share of migrants.
Estonia – recently stated that traveling to Europe is a privilege and Russians should be deprived of it. Don’t they think that heating and hot water is also a privilege?
Latvia – are they familiar with the UN resolution on the glorification of Nazism and how does this correspond to the annual March 16 parades of the SS legionnaires in their country?
Lithuania – stating that Russia is a terrorist state, did you make the same statement on the war in Iraq?
With such a Russophobic policy that does not seek compromise but only confrontation, it is not surprising that NATO membership is their only chance. They have done too much already with their own tongues.
Evidence for that claim?
After all, unlike Russia the Baltics are democracies and Poland is an imperfect one.
None are autocracies like Russia or Belarus.
This time I pretend not to notice your intolerably impolite demanding tone. I will even do you the favor of giving links in English so that you can understand what is written.
Demographics of Poland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Poland
Estonia
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/outrage-as-ss-men-hold-anniversary-celebration-in-estonia-552327.html
Kaija Kallas statement
https://twitter.com/kajakallas/status/1556903576726896642?cxt=HHwWhIC8hbzjnZsrAAAA
“Stop issuing tourist visas to Russians. Visiting #Europe is a privilege, not a human right. Air travel from RU is shut down.”
Bloomberg on this
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-11/estonia-tightens-russian-visa-rules-as-scholz-skeptical-of-ban
Lithuanian parliament May 10 this year
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/10/1097911440/lithuania-russia-terrorism-genocide-ukraine
On SS commemoration day in Latvia. You print Leģionāru piemiņas diena and read whatever pleases you most. Google even runs a big banner on top of the page, to remind you it’s March 16.
Or,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_Day_of_the_Latvian_Legionnaires
Now, if your desire to know the sources of my statements is sincere, then please take the trouble to give yourself at least the appearance of good manners.
In what way is the UK, where neither the actual Head of State, nor the effective head of state (the PM) is directly elected, more of a democracy than Russia, where the Head of State is directly elected?
“I am going to ask you to begin our study of Democracy by considering it first as a big balloon, filled with gas or hot air, and sent up so that you shall be kept looking up at the sky whilst other people are picking your pockets.
When the balloon comes down to earth every five years or so you are invited to get into the basket if you can throw out one of the people who are sitting tightly in it; but as you can afford neither the time nor the money, and there are forty millions of you and hardly room for six hundred in the basket, the balloon goes up again with much the same lot in it and leaves you where you were before.”
(c) George Bernard Shaw
“George Bernard Shaw’s admiration for Mussolini and Stalin demonstrated his growing belief that dictatorship was the only viable political arrangement. When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in January 1933, Shaw described Hitler as “a very remarkable man, a very able man” and professed himself proud to be the only writer in England who was “scrupulously polite and just to Hitler”. His principal admiration was for Stalin, whose regime he championed uncritically throughout the 1930s. Shaw saw the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as a triumph for Stalin who, he said, now had Hitler under his thumb.”
Might’ve been a good writer but was really naive when it came to politics.
“Might’ve been a good writer but was really naive when it came to politics.”
Spot on about what is erroneously called “democracy” in this country, though.
You’d prefer Hitler or Stalin?
You may be surprised to discover that there are other options available.
Wagenknecht is former co-leader of a tiny insignificant left wing group which is in the process of splitting into two even less significant groups. Nevertheless she previously described Putin’s invasion as ‘imperialist’ and ‘a crime’ so whilst she might be confused over some sanctions she is not supporting the invasion.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/19/germanys-die-linke-on-verge-of-split-over-sanctions-on-russia
Pears, are you trying to climb the integrity initiative ladder by slapping a lonely Sarah Wagenknecht?
At least she is not joining Ms Bearbrocks, or you, making sucking noises at Nazis backsides in Ukraine, Uk, America and increasingly Canada.
You should be ashamed of those people who are being rubbed out in Ukraine in your name and the suffering this caused. Not that you care much about poverty here or the relentless impact the sanctions have on us and the rest of Europe due to profiteering of greedy privatised conpanies.
You are excusing nationalism of the worst kind, whilst being opposed to granting Independence and a benign nationalism in Scotland, presenting the views of a confused chimera.
As yet the public is totally unprepared for a nuclear exchange currently talked up by bbc gatekeepers and no doubt, you will find an excuse to spread this idiocy, more fear, war rather than loosing control of crumbling economies, financial systems and over the people in this country. Shame on you.
Just pointing out that Sarah Wagenknecht is not as influential as you might be led to think. What was the rest of that about?
“Michelle Donelan, the culture secretary, tells Times Radio that 250,000 people saw the Queen lie in state – not a final figure but would be less than the 300,000 who saw her father George VI (and significantly less than Whitehall estimates)”
https://twitter.com/patrickkmaguire/status/1572111215144611840?s=20&t=_QsI_GpzmC7nJK7qJOsjLQ
For context, last weekend in Dublin 410,000 people paid to watch Garth Brooks …
I don’t believe 5 billion people watched the funeral yesterday.
I know that large numbers of us in the U.K. didn’t.
Some republicans at a football game were singing ‘ if you hate the royal family, clap your hands’ – the broadcaster dubbed over it ! Come on you bhoys?
There are 10 days before the largest popular demonstration of protest since the one that stopped the Poll Tax as hundreds of thousands of households cancel their Energy Bank Payments.
C3 poo and the Crown can only survive by declaring a debt jubilee that has been completely manufactured over the last 18 months.
5 billion! Pity, I haven’t seen it. Must be some big event.
The queen’s funeral – is it possible to imagine a better moment to draw the world’s attention to the really important things? I see Pussy Riot running to perform their beautiful singing! I can even see a group of bare-titted Femen pushing Pussy Riot away to win this best chance ever!
No?
“Respect and Duty” ad nauseam. Why? Because we are being groomed for war with China.
You say Prince Andrew is a “sexual abuser” what evidence do have for that Craig ? Aren’t you making assumptions with no evidence in the same as you accuse others of doing in the cases of Assange and Salmond ?
A sleazy creep, I would agree.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17663429/prince-andrew-deal-sexual-abuse-accuser-virginia-giuffre/
You suggest it’s only an assumption without evidence that Prince Andrew is a “sexual predator”.
I suggest Prince Andrew’s massive £12 million pay out to Virginia Giuffre, an otherwise unknown American before Epstein, may suggest otherwise. He had the option to go to Court. Why otherwise such a massive pay out? Just his natural little known Royal generosity perhaps?
Generosity is easy when it’s someone else’s money.
Seems to me Craig is having his cake and eating it. If he approves of someone there is no sexual misconduct and it is a media frenzy, eg Assange and Salmond. But if you are Prince Andrew then no evidence required, you are a paedophile !
Hypocricy ?
Innocent until proved guilty. Is that still true ? Or maybe nowadays the truth is what social media and the MSM say it is.
If we only believe what the MSM and social media tell us is the truth, then Assange must be guilty !
was the multimillion payoff a social media fabrication or do you choose to just ignore it, for reasons best not speculated about?
So Zoot, in that case you presumably believe Salmond and Assange are sexual predators too ?
Well, I wouldn’t tell Craig that, if I were you.
Er, Salmond was acquitted….
I know independence supporters aren’t generally fans of Royalty but I have to say that the ending of the funeral yesterday was possibly the most powerful thing that I’ve ever seen in my life. It was just fantastic and I urge anyone who hasn’t seen it to pop along to YouTube and watch it. You will not regret it.
Aside from the spectacle, I came away with some thoughts. King Charles isn’t anywhere near as popular as the Queen was, so that’s the first thing that occurred to me but as most will be aware, these pageants are full of symbolism and what I got from it was firstly, the breaking of the wand. That for me, symbolised the break up of the Union. Secondly, the lone piper and the lament fading into the distance, I understood as Scotland going it’s own way.
Like I said, it was very powerful.
These three things seem to me at least, that they have conceded Scotland and we will become independent sooner rather than later because it’s already been decided.
they don’t even break the wand – that’s how fake it all is
Wow! George Robertson, former NATO Secretary General has just more or less admitted that NATO “provoked Putin” into invading Ukraine.
We knew that this was the strategy for NATO (the US) to have a proxy war against Russia, but this is significant confirmation of that mad strategy by Chicken George.
After a few minutes his Ch4 interviewer, presumably prompted by her editor, tried (with no success) to have him “clarify” his statement.
So we may well be seeing NATO hubristically claiming “credit” for this madness in light of Russia’s presumed defeat.
Or is chicken George freelancing?
“Wow! George Robertson, former NATO Secretary General has just more or less admitted that NATO “provoked Putin” into invading Ukraine.”
Of course they did, and it is a mark of the current hubris of the West, even as neo-liberalism crashes and burns in front of our eyes, that their “WTF are you going to do about it?” attitude is becoming ever more blatant and being reflected in the unapologetic and shameless lying of the liberal MSM. Contrast this with the anti-war sentiment of what must now be called the “alt-Right”.
The simple reason for the poor performance of the Russian military is that their armed forces have not been fighting almost continuously since WW2, as have those of the West. If you don’t use it, you lose it.
Fred. We must be using different news sources because I’ve seen no evidence of poor performance by Russian forces.
Whilst the West talks, Russia just gets on with the job. To date, Ukraine has lost most of its operation centres, military infrastructure, Crimea, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye and hopefully Odessa and Transnistria will follow. Yes, there has been advances and retreats but that’s the nature of war.
The West has a lot of experience in applying overwhelming force against small, poorly armed states but has never, since WW2, had to fight any opponents on equal terms. Yet they have been beaten almost every time – Vietnam, Afghanistan comes to mind.
Russia is doing just fine, unlike NATO, EU, UK, USA.
You need to look more closely, maybe stop relying on Scott Ritter et al. In recent months the Russian advance has slowed to a crawl and a counter-offensive by Ukraine has taken back 8,000 sq km (an area roughly the size of North Yorkshire), Russian troops couldn’t run away fast enough leaving much of their equipment behind. Putin was expected to announce a general mobilisation (against the most impoverished country in europe!) but appears to have had second thoughts. It’s estimated that the war is costing Russia $1 billion a day so the question has to be asked as to how much longer they can afford it.
In their previous Soviet guise the Russian army was also forced out of Afghanistan and prior to Ukraine their main experience has been crushing fledgling democracies in East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia etc.
I forgot:- Transnistria is officially part of Moldova and nothing to do with Ukraine.
“He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day”
I am sure that, if you were in charge, safely behind the lines, you would have ordered the outnumbered Russians to stand and fight to the last man. I have noticed in previous post of yours that you have the reckless courage of the non-combatant in great measure. The Russian advance has been slow for the same reason as the Ukrainian counter offensive was able to take back so much territory, which is that the Russians are trying to fight this war, like the US, with in the main Ukranians and they don’t have enough of them.
“the Russians are trying to fight this war, like the US, with in the main Ukranians”
Now that’s a new one. Have you a source?
Not a single one, no, but a modicum of research will show that the main work of fighting is being done by the Donetsk and Luhansk forces, albeit supplied with weapons from Russia, just as the West is supplying Ukraine with weapons.
Their main experience then was not W W 2 ?
Firepower warfare is like that; it was begun by Falkenhayn in the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive in 1915, Verdun in 1916 and by the Anglo-French, who did it better, on the Somme in 1916. The Second World War was another crawling bloodbath as were the Korean and Vietnam wars. You may notice that the Seppoes have stuck to Ruritanian enemies since.
My assessment of their Ukraine campaign is based purely on what the Western legacy and social media have provided, since I do not read/speak Russian. However, given this limitation, I believe that it is still possible to conclude that it has been, in the most charitable view, a complete cock-up, while a less charitable view (mine) would see those who “planned” it facing a firing squad for the lives, on both sides, needlessly lost through their incompetence.
Before the first Russian boot or tank track crossed into Ukraine, all major rail junctions, road bridges and runways capable of handling NATO resupply aircraft west of the Dneiper River should have been subject to a missile barrage until all were knocked out. Assuming that the Russians have at least some real-time satellite coverage of Ukraine and did not totally lose track of military developments there post-1991, and especially post-2014, the next targets should have been their air force (fixed-wing no longer able to take off) and air defence systems, communications systems and the military infrastructure built up by the Americans post-2014, especially around Odessa (this last seems to have been the only one of these targets completely taken out in the first few days of the war). Finally, the Russian troops in Belarus pre-February 24th would have performed the same function as Patton’s phantom army in SE England pre-D-Day: a potential threat (to Kiev in this case) that drew enemy forces away from the intended invasion areas, but which did not actually engage until some time after hostilities started, if at all.
Russia then attacks out of Crimea (west along the coast and inland east behind the front lines established in Donbass since 2014) and west from Belgorod towards Kharkiv and then Dnipro (again behind the front lines established in Donbass since 2014) with air support but without drones, at least at this stage (the Ukranians admitted early on that they could only fly their drones when the Russians did because of the latter’s electronic warfare capabilities). From then on, a competent, rapid Russian campaign would have surrounded, but not taken, Mariupol, Kherson and Odessa in the south and Kharkiv in the east as it moved towards Dnipro and cut off large numbers of Ukrainian troops in the Donbass. Attempts to repair rail, road and runway infrastructure west of the Dneiper River would be subject to repeat missile attacks to prevent NATO resupply.
That is what should have happened. Why it didn’t is for military historians in the future to tell us.
“hopefully Odessa and Transnistria will follow”?
You actually want the Putin regime to occupy Odessa and Transnistria?
In whose interests?
As Peter Lavelle points out, every time Nato helps Ukraine, it gets smaller.
And while the UK mourns its queen and congratulates its new king, our ever-present supervisors from “the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations” are biting their nails in an attempt to invent new protest statements on upcoming events. September 23-27 four regions will hold referenda on joining the Russian Federation.
if preliminary polls reflect reality, then the accession will take place and this “special military operation” will receive the legal status of “military actions to protect our territory”.
Discarding all kinds of emotional assessments, it would be interesting to know what international law says about this? Does it support the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states without exception? Does it support the right to self-determination for all peoples? Or does this rule say “except for the Russians”?
Kosova and Serbia come to mind.
International law will say that the referenda were fixed and therefore invalid. As with Crimea residents won’t get the option to vote for the independence many of them are said to want.
At times the complete ignorance of international law put forward in your comments quite astounds me. The absurdity of your argument speaks for itself and the questions you propose are utterly moronic. A spoon is a teacup and why is the gravy red?
How are the refugees that have fled Kherson going to vote? A group of bandits cannot just invade a bank, sending a large part of the employees into exile, hold a sham referendum and declare the bank theirs!!! International law does however require states to respect the international borders of other sovereign countries. The people of Kherson never asked Russia to invade and there is nothing to suggest they wanted to be invaded or liberated by Russia (such as mass demonstrations) – the elected mayor of Melitopol is in exile. All regions of Ukraine voted for independence from Russia 31 years ago. ( https://twitter.com/0SandAmper0/status/1572385257659289600 ). The kremlin lies are shallow and neither the invasion nor the annexation of territory has any basis in international law.
Uttery moronic? To be honest, I don’t mind. Your assessment sounds a little insulting, but probably well deserved, because I am not an expert in law, politics or any other related fields.
I would very much like Mr. Murray to respond to these events by writing a blog. Preferably in simple language, without these traditional European lamentations, without dramatic artistic comparisons. Something educational, logical, convincing, with references to international law – like an article in a textbook, or like his report from the trial of Julian Assange.
The problem with the modern newsreader (I am one) is that education through reading isn’t possible. All the news now is some kind of emotional sketches, as if I’m listening to a stand-up comedian.
“International law does however require states to respect the international borders of other sovereign countries.”
Like Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, or don’t Muslim countries count?
“Any referendum planned by invading forces contravenes international law and will have no legal force, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said in a statement.”
Hope that answers your question Tatyana.
”International Law”? Whose international law? In any case who decides which is the invading force? is it the Russian forces or the Nato-Nazis that are the invaders? What is clear is that Russians do not want to live under Ukrainian Nazism with its Hitler Youth Camps instilling in children evil racial nonsense to the effect that Russians are an inferior race and should be exterminated. Of course US/UK imperial warmongers will not accept any referenda the results of which they do not approve; which is why they never held democratic referenda in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq etc asking whether the citizens of those countries wanted to be invaded, but just went ahead and exterminated some ten million of these peoples. As Paul Craig Roberts has pointed out, Putin in fact is something of a weakling. As Tatyana will be able to tell you, many Russians hold it against Putin that he did not intervene to protect those Russians under attack from the Western satrapy called Ukraine back in 2014. Putin’s apologists assert that this was to gain time to build up his forces; but as Poroshenko has confirmed the Ukrainian nazis had no intention of implementing the Minsk Agreements, but used the time to build up their own military with British and US equipment and ‘advisors’! Now Russia is not Korea or Vietnam or Iraq, nor indeed is it Grenada. Where do these imperialist cheerleaders who offer up nonsense about International Law here think this is going to end? Paul Craig Roberts for one has affirmed that Putin’s procrastinations have gravely increased the danger of nuclear war.
Here above mentioned the opinion of the OSCE, which should monitor security in Europe. I’d like to know how the OSCE adopted a declaration on aggressive nationalism back in 1993, they had so much time to figure it out, but turned out to be blind to see anything in Ukraine?
As for international laws, I reason in simple terms:
We are not alone in this world and there are other countries around us, right? So, between these individual countries there must be some kind of agreements, such as international laws, right? International laws are agreements that all parties have agreed to abide by. The key here is precisely that the law works when all the participants have agreed to abide by it. (Otherwise, it cannot be called international law, but rather “the desire of one of the parties”) And no less important component, the law is the law if it also provides control over the implementation. (Otherwise it should be called “the desire of all parties”)
For example, if a Londoner says that he wants to sell London Bridge to me, then this is just his desire. If I agree to buy London Bridge, then this is our mutual desire. We can even put it on paper and set up a few oversight committees, but it will still be just an intent to make a deal until the money is transferred.
Perhaps someone calls my reasoning moronic again, sorry, I don’t have others for you.
I see the situation in the modern world, that countries cannot agree among themselves on what is good and what is bad. Either humanity has forgotten how to make deals, or, more likely, everyone is trying to squeeze the greatest benefit in each transaction.
Tatyana.
It will step it up a gear, if the Donbas republics decide to join the Russian Federation at the end of the month, in your opinion will that mean an attack on either of them will be the same as an attack on the Russian Federation and will turn the SMO into a full-scale conflict?
Putin’s speech seemed to suggest this, in the hope of finishing this conflict sooner than later, though it’s always a risk committing the majority of your forces, especially with Nato probing for a weak spot.
Tatyana
I also found these comments from Putin very revealing.
of today – as of yesterday or the day before – 121 ships left Ukrainian ports. Only three of the 120 ships headed for the poorest countries under the UN food programme. Some 35 percent, maybe a bit more, of the grain exported from Ukraine went to European countries, to non-poor countries, and definitely not to the world’s poorest countries. And only 4.5 percent of the shipments were sent to the poorest countries under the UN programme.
…
The same applies to our fertiliser exports. This is something unprecedented. I would say this has been an outrageous and shameful decision by the European Commission to lift the ban on the purchase of Russian fertilisers – but solely for their countries, for EU member states. But what about the world’s poorest countries.”
And this.
“You have probably heard about 300,000 tonnes of Russian fertiliser stuck in European ports; our companies are saying they are ready to provide it for free – just unblock and release it, and we will donate it to the poorest countries and to developing markets. But they are still holding it, and this is absolutely astonishing.”
It will indeed be the poor of the under-developed world that will suffer greatly.
“Any referendum planned by invading forces contravenes international law and will have no legal force, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said in a statement.”
Presumably unless those invading forces hail from the US, because, as you know, they are just “spreading democracy”.
Pears Morgaine.
Is this the same OSCE that had personnel caught and imprisoned for spying for Ukraine and the West?
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/20/osce-ukrainian-staff-russian-court-00057715
The same OSCE, where a certain person insisted that Russia comply with the Istanbul agreements on the withdrawal of troops from Georgia and Transnistria. That would seem to be a good call for trust and peace! If you do not take into account that it was a certain Colin Powell, moreover, in that notorious 2003, when he was still shaking a test tube at the UN calling for an attack on Iraq.
So the OSCE was a great idea, but the implementation…
US Center for Public Integrity published this:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160204171614/http://www.nbcnews.com/id/22794451/#.VrOHhz3P33h
… it was calculated that from September 2001 to September 2003, the US leadership made 935 statements about Iraq that were not true. In particular, President Bush made 259 false statements (231 about Saddam’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, 28 about Iraq’s ties to al-Qaeda), and former Secretary of State Colin Powell made 254 statements.
*Istanbul agreements refer to the OSCE meeting in Istanbul in 1999, where the CHARTER FOR EUROPEAN SECURITY was signed. If you are not familiar with the document, it’s based on two principles: collectivity, in which “the security of each participating state is inextricably linked with the security of all others”, and “the primary responsibility of the UN SC for the maintenance of international peace.” The OSCE has been identified as one of the main organizations for the peaceful settlement of disputes in its region and one of the main instruments in the field of early warning and conflict prevention.
from these fact I conclude, they speak of trust in 1999 and 4 years later they attack Iraq on false pretext. So, what is the point of UN and OSCE then? A stage to speak? Or what? Is there any mechanism to hold perpetrators to account? Has anyone been put in jail? Was there a tribunal?
European security, that was the question asked by Russia from NATO in the end of the last year. Literally, no one state should secure itself in a way that endangers other states. That was the question about Ukraine joining NATO, and security guarantees for Russia.
Everyone in the West just laughed at the question, saying “Oh, freedoms, Ukraine is free to join, open door policy, etc etc”. This answer is not a treaty, but desire of one of the parties. Not a deal.
And look where we are now? Mobilization has been announced here today. Everything is very serious. If you do not know what day to consider the first day of the WW3, then I suggest today.
Hello, OSCE, where is your early warning and conflict prevention???
Did you read that link RoS? You may have missed the bits about ‘kangaroo court’ and ‘sham trial’.
Maybe not surprising that ad hominem attacks on the OSCE are the best people can do.
“Ukrainian Nazism with its Hitler Youth Camps instilling in children evil racial nonsense to the effect that Russians are an inferior race and should be exterminated.”
Please tell me that was satire.
If only!
Satire?
Azovian, Trizub, Carpatian Legion for kids under 4 years, Sechevik, Slobozhanina, Sokol etc
You may like Lemberg Jugend. Even the Bellingcat had to report on them, since they attacked Ukrainian Roma people.
Daily Mail reported on kids too
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3195711/Now-CHILDREN-taking-arms-Shocking-pictures-inside-Ukraine-s-neo-Nazi-military-camp-recruits-young-six-learn-fire-weapons-s-ceasefire.html
“Shocking pictures from inside neo-Nazi military camp reveal recruits as young as SIX are being taught how to fire weapons (even though there’s a ceasefire)
– Azov battalion, the far-right militia defending the port city of Mariupol, eastern Ukraine, runs the course for children
– During the week-long course, they teach so-called ‘Azovets’ how to fire weapons and survive in a conflict zone
– Camp comes under command of Andriy Biletsky, who once admitted that the battalion ‘do not like ceasefire at all’
– Conflict broke out in April 2014, when separatists rebelled against rule of Kiev’s new Western-looking government”
You may also like cute Ukrainian kids shouting “Death death to Moskovites” filmed by NBC back in 2017
https://youtu.be/CpV16BQfbrQ
Amazing how people like you try to look innocent asking if it is satire.
Pears Morgaine.
I’m well aware of what the article says, I chose that article to highlight the OSCE’s actions in the Donbas knowing fine well that it would be denied, if I had linked to a pro-Russian site, you’d have screamed blue murder, of its bias. However, I know which side I believe, and it’s not the OSCE’s.
Just as I believe the IAEA is working for Western/Ukrainian interests, by trying to compel Russian forces to leave the ZNPP, which has come under attack from Ukrainian shelling. Imagine what would happen at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant if the RF pulled out, we’d have a nuclear incident blamed on the RF but committed by the Ukrainian forces, and then there’s the OPCW and Douma, and the inspectors who were sacked for revealing the truth.
Can any official Western body really be trusted when it comes to Russia, and its allies, I think not.
“Ukrainian Nazism with its Hitler Youth Camps instilling in children evil racial nonsense to the effect that Russians are an inferior race and should be exterminated.”
“Please tell me that was satire.”
Pears Morgaine.
Unfortunately, I cannot.
“Introducing the Ukrainian Youth Association of America (CYM-A), an old crypto-fascist cult under the heavy influence of the “Bandera movement” since 1946. The OUN-B & its partisan army, the UPA, collaborated with the Nazis during WW2 & the Holocaust —”heroes” according to CYM-A.”
https://twitter.com/mossrobeson__/status/1129366371098353665?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1129366377075302402%7Ctwgr%5E06b63aca1621f9a7c413b22ee69c96025844c478%7Ctwcon%5Es2_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fconsortiumnews.com%2F2022%2F08%2F31%2Fscott-ritter-the-death-list%2F
@ Pears Morgaine
“Please tell me that was satire”
I’m sure you’re well enough informed Pears to know very well that, sadly, very sadly, that is very far from satire.
Further to the subsequent posts above try this, where the Azov youth camp leader seeks to marginalise the Nazi influence among the trainers while sporting Waffen SS Wolfsangels and a Nazi Sonnenrad (Black Sun) tattoo and the youth trainer sports Swastika and Totenkopf (Death’s Head) tattoos while training kids, one in particular with a “White Pride” tattoo.
See from 9.30: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiBXmbkwiSw
Feel free to reply, as most would, with a mea culpa and gratitude for the enlightenment.
Breath not held.
Peter, thanks for this video. I’m amazed that this was filmed so long ago, and how the Guardian’s position has now changed.
I understand that after the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine needed to find a base for building its own national identity. And I’m very sorry that it was the Nazi ideology that was chosen as the base.
Ukraine could have taken General Chernyakhovsky or Marshal Malinovsky as national heroes, and then they would proudly say “our ancestors were heroes who fought for the freedom of our country, against Nazism.” But they chose Bandera and Shukhevych, and now they are proud of the heroes who fought alongside Hitler.
I cannot perceive the condescending attitude of Europe towards these Ukrainian realities as support for poor victim Ukraine. In my eyes, swinging hyper-tolerant Europeans are trying to find excuses for supporting enmity against Russia. They invent all sorts of interpretations of the reality, as if doubting whether it’s Nazism or not. I’d like to address them to probably the best expert on this issue – the Jews. They have excellent experts at the Yad Vashem memorial.
Well a far cry from the ‘Hitler Youth’ but it would appear to contravene the UN Charter by militarising children. Shocking and I’m sure you’ll want to join me in directing equal condemnation towards:-
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/04/17/russias-fast-growing-youth-army-aimst-to-breed-loyalty-to-the-fatherland-a65256
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/children-as-a-tool-how-russia-militarizes-kids-in-the-donbas-and-crimea/
Shocking and I’m sure you’ll want to join me…..”
Tell me this is satire!
Bet they are not a patch on our Boy Scouts or Cadet forces, though.
Pears Morgaine
Are you joking? Have you looked at your own link? Children from Yunarmia paying tribute to Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space? Children from the Yunarmiya laying flowers at the monument to anti-Nazi soldiers of the Second World War? Are you going to put them on the same shelf with the Ukrainian camp Young Azov? Do you honestly think that people around you are so stupid?
The founder of all these organizations Andrey Biletsky, a refined racist and Nazi. Classic Nazi, old style.
Not only youth camps, they also have the Civil Corps of Azov in Ukraine, formerly Patriot of Ukraine. Here is their ideology:
“All foreign ethnic racial groups will be subject to restriction and control, with their subsequent deportation to their historical homelands. Proceeding from the fact that we, Ukrainian social-nationalists, consider the so-called “human races” as separate biological species, and we consider only the White European (without including the so-called “southern Caucasians”: the Mediterranean, Caucasian, Pamir-Fergana and other races are also biologically different from us biological species), we consider it our direct duty to exclude any interracial (interspecies) contacts leading to interracial (interspecies) mixing and, ultimately – to the extinction of the White Man.”
The source I cite is Jewish communities of Ukraine who reported on them
https://web.archive.org/web/20190107000752/http://www.hadashot.kiev.ua/content/batalon-azov-i-politicheskie-ambicii-neonacistov
didn’t hesitate to use words
“The Azov battalion originated from Biletsky’s paramilitary national socialist group called “Patriot of Ukraine”, which propagated slogans of white supremacy, racial purity, the need for authoritarian power and a centralized national economy.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20150929211222/http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/25/us-ukraine-crisis-azov-idUSKBN0ML0XJ20150325
Die Welt had courage to name their real names.
“Now the man with the short haircut has climbed another step up the career ladder: he has been in charge of the Kyiv region’s police force since the beginning of November. Civil rights activists are appalled. Because Wadim Trojan is notorious as a neo-Nazi in Ukraine. Until recently, he commanded the Azov Battalion, a mostly right-wing volunteer force in eastern Ukraine. In addition, he is said to belong to the militant “Patriots of Ukraine” and maintain connections with the “Wotanjugend”. Ironically, a right-wing extremist is now responsible for security and order in the Kyiv area.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20170907070753/https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article134280586/Rechtsradikaler-wird-Polizeichef-in-Kiew.html
Far cry, you say. Oh, yeah, ancient Indian symbols – we’ve heard enough of this bullshit.
Pears Morgaine.
The Moscow Times which at its peak had a circulation of 55,000 (printed version), is financed by the Dutch government, and reported through a Western prism of what it thinks is relevant to the West, it took the West side on the downing of flight MH17 and it also took the West side on the conflict on Syria. The Dutch government funded newspaper, which is entirely now online, since March 2020 also supports Ukraine against Russia.
The Moscow Times is owned by TMT LLC, which is supported by the Dutch Foundation Stichting 2 Oktober which again is funded by the Dutch Foreign Ministry and state entities like the Dutch Postcode Lottery.
As for the militarisation of children, I totally oppose it; more so, if it lauds Nazism.
I see that Russia is getting on with the process of de-Nazifying Ukraine by giving back hundreds of the Azov Nazis they captured in Mariupol, including top commanders Denys Prokopenko & Svyatoslav Palamar, in exchange for…..washed-up, short-arse oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, plus a few mad Chechens. I hope they know what they’re doing.
“Or does this rule say “except for the Russians”?”
All the rules in the “rules based order” say “except for the Russians”. Russia can do no right. The US can do no wrong. Those are the rules.
For the Empire and its loyalists the law gets put aside when it becomes an interest of the Empire, then it is superceded by the right to protect, or the threat of weapons of mass destruction. It truly is an Empire of lies and hypocracy.
Dear Mr. Murray,
Re: your tweet on English violence, you might find the book “Karl Marx on India” interesting… it includes articles by Marx on the behaviour of the british army during the Indian insurrection of 1857 .. from the NYDaily Tribune
what i find amazing is that we have had saturation coverage by the BBC and mainstream newspapers, yet did they devote a hundreth of that time to the 200,000 plus people that died of Covid?
Everything seems to have got back to normal pretty quickly after the imposed mourning period which just shows what a charade it was. My thoughts on the more momentous announcements this morning from Russia was, is this the way forward for Scottish independence? Just do it, but before doing it, prepare to deal with the consequences of doing it so that there can be no going back.
The UK Government will never, willingly, allow Scottish independence – regardless of any referendum. As said before, the only solution is the ‘Irish Solution’, if you want it you have to take it, and by force if necessary. Then you have to be prepared for war on the streets and maybe 50 years or more of struggle. In the end you may end up with a divided Scotland – an independent republic bit and a UK bit.
IMO – It’s certainly mass hysteria to think the SNP and UK Government are ever going to deliver Scottish Independence.
“The UK Government will never, willingly, allow Scottish independence – regardless of any referendum.”
It will be interesting to see what happens if the Northern Irish try to hold a referendum on Irish reunification. I suspect it will be the Scottish experience all over again and then some.