Liam: Trump Isn’t *MY* Guest

 Politics, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jul 142018
 

Liam Fox has claimed that Trump protesters have “embarassed” themselves by protesting Trump’s visit to the UK. He claims that we have a tradition of being polite to guests (at least until they throw up on the carpet, piss in the wine, and try to have sex with the host).

Well, I didn’t invite that jumped up rancid little toad who is Putin’s lickspittle and quite possibly the closest thing we’ve seen to a major free world leader being a Nazi. So I am under no obligation to be polite to the bankrupt crook.

Besides which, with his unreasonable and unhinged attack on NATO, Trump has been pissing in the wine, so it would not be unreasonable to slam the door in his face. Of course I’m not being “diplomatic” but I’m not a politician so I’m not being paid to be polite to the kind of person resembling that which you instinctively scrape off your shoe.

To USians who might feel a bit insulted by how their president is being treated; well if you did your job properly and didn’t elect someone with the brains of a pea-sized petrified panda turd who separates children and puts them in concentration camps then we might treat them with a bit more respect.

Did The Cold War Ever Go Away?

 Politics  No Responses »
Mar 112018
 

Or did it just get a fresh coat of paint?

The news that a former Russian agent has been killed; almost certain by the Russian FSB. Think about it – who else would it be? Nobody else wanted him dead and Russian Today has been talking about how traitors in the UK will meet their end.

Russia has been subjected to secret police gangsters since the Tsarist era (the Okhrana). And yet whilst in the past, Russia’s leaders have supported the secret police, today’s leader (Vladimir Putin) is an old Chekist himself. Thus today’s FSB have less inclination to restrain themselves than any time in the past, and they didn’t show much restraint then!

Russia is today a rogue state prepared to resort to the kind of tactics that can lead to war, and it is not just their practice of killing traitors on foreign soil. Just look at their interference with the US election (we may not have a smoking gun, but plenty of Russian hands smell of cordite), the Ukrainian “adventures”, and suspicious activities in Syria.

In practice there is little we can do to change Russia; it has to come from within. All we can do is keep our defences up, try to avoid antagonising them, but not kowtow to their gangsterism either (a difficult line to balance).

Yes that means conventional arms, and unconventional defences too – Internet warfare can be dangerous or at the very least disruptive. And yes the spooks in the old-fashioned trenchcoats also need to get tooled up.

It also means not expanding NATO any more than it has already been.

Walking The Beach

Should Politicians Be Profiled?

 Politics  No Responses »
Feb 282017
 

With the enfant terrible Trump in charge of the USA and petulant Putin in charge of the Russian bear, it seems like an interesting idea to subject politicians to psychological profiling to determine their suitability for public office and power over us.

When you look at the list of monstrous political leaders we have had over just the last 100 years – Hitler, Pol-pot, Stalin, etc., the idea of testing politicians to find out if they are psychos or loonies starts to make a great deal of sense.

The first complaint about this would be that it would be an invasion of privacy. Well we don’t need to know the details; we simply need to have a trustworthy organisation certify that person A is suitable (or unsuitable) candidate.

The second issue is determining just what makes a suitable or unsuitable candidate which is something we need to persuade a bunch of psychologists and psychiatrists to propose.

The final issue is to get politicians to agree to it, and there we can simply refuse to vote for any candidate who has not been certified.

Is Putin Another Hitler?

 General  No Responses »
Aug 152014
 

To anyone who is aware of the history of Nazi Germany’s actions leading up to Word War II, there’s something alarmingly familiar about Putin’s actions recently.

Germany lost a lot of territory after World War I, and Russia lost a lot of territory after the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Germany annexed Austria in what became known as the Anschluss, and in a quite similar move Russia annexed the Crimea.

Germany “rescued” the German minorities from “repression” in Czechoslovakia by annexing the parts of the country with large ethnic German populations; Russia appears to be trying the same thing in the eastern Ukraine.

It is probable that Putin is not trying to emulate Hitler by exterminating a whole “race” of people, but Hitler wasn’t considered to be a monster just because he tried to exterminate the Jews (and other minorities he didn’t like), but also because he was a military adventurer who provoked one of the deadliest wars in history.

And Putin does seem to be in the early stages of something like that.

Julian Assange and Pussy Riot

 Politics  2 Responses »
Aug 182012
 

Last night I caught someone droning on about the similarities between the case of Pussy Riot and Julian Assange, and that with the right of freedom of speech comes the responsibility for responsible use of that right. I very quickly turned off as any comparison is ridiculous.

Pussy Riot are in prison today as a direct consequence of their attempted use of their right of free speech; whereas Julian Assange at most is facing legal trouble as an indirect consequence of his use of the right of free speech. Certainly on the face of it, Julian Assange’s legal troubles have nothing to do with the Wikileaks website.

It is certainly true that Pussy Riot’s actions inside the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow was to some extent ill-advised. They could well be guilty of some sort of aggravated trespass crime, but it would seem to me that they are being punished for something else – their imprisonment for 2 years is by far out of proportion to what they have done. And it appears that even the victim (the church) also believes this is excessive as they have asked for leniency.

It is true that insulting someone’s religion in their place of worship is perhaps going too far for a protest, and perhaps should be punishable by a couple of days in prison. But sending them to prison for two years looks to everyone like an excuse to put them away to stop them protesting against Putin‘s autocratic rule. The funny thing is that Putin’s minions could not have done something more effective at demonstrating that his regime is a repressive one.

Julian Assange on the other hand is effectively charged (the UK courts have made it plain that he can be regarded as being charged with the crime even though a peculiarity of the Swedish justice system means he hasn’t as yet been charged) with some sort of sexual misconduct. Which on the face of it has absolutely nothing to do with his Wikileaks activities. Whilst there may be some oddities about the case, the only possible action for an honourable man would be to go to Sweden to answer the charges.

The conspiracy theorists would argue that this is all just a way of the US getting their hands on Julian Assange to rush through their own court system to punish him for “treason”, espionage, or some other crime. It is highly unlikely that Julian could be legally extradited for treason (which is likely to cause a considerable amount of laughter considering that Julian is no a US citizen) or espionage (which is after all at an international level purely a political crime). But it is just about possible that there is some US involvement in the charges he faces in Sweden – perhaps simply as a way of harassing someone whom the US government has a certain amount of anger with.

It is really rather extraordinary that Julian is claiming political asylum with Ecuador in preference to relying on the justice systems in the UK and Sweden; frankly he has better protection in either Sweden or the UK from any US actions than he would do in Ecuador which although has granted him asylum for publicity reasons is far more likely to let the US quietly grab him in exchange for a few billion in foreign aid.