Urgh. I hate people who talk about leaving Russia. It's so mainstream among the current generation D:
And if you think that Russia is the worst there is... well just look at what Europe did to Libya.
The difference between Russia and the West is that Russia is nakedly run by gangsters and terrible, authoritarian people. They are people who would poison you or put a bullet in your head in broad daylight if they felt you were a threat, keeping up a thin veneer of democracy or "managed democracy" to ward off international sanctions. They'd also invade and destabilise your country, install puppet dictators (the more brutal the better), even annexe it and falsify elections, if they felt it was necessary. Screw the UN, screw NATO, screw the EU, screw any international organisation that criticises them. They've got their own.
The West is run by pretty much the same people but they are at least compelled to keep things "civilised" and behind the scenes by the nature of Western society and the norms that we are accustomed to - read "England, your England" by Orwell if you want to understand this concept; how "England", as Orwell saw it, could never truly fall to Fascism or Communism or any extremists. Our establishment wouldn't last long if they started doing the stuff the Russian establishment gets away with; modern Russia was created in the gangster revolution of the 1990s after all. The West has not experienced such turbulence.
All this said, I can look at both sides and understand that they are both nearly as bad as each other. Instead of just saying "well, they're both as bad as each other so I'll just support my own side out of blind patriotic/nationalist loyalty", I'll criticise whichever one is topical. If I hear about Russia intentionally destabilising Ukraine to further their Imperialist, geopolitcal ambitions, torturing the North Caucasus and supporting mass murderers like Assad I will criticise them. If I hear about the British/American invasion in Iraq, orchestrated entirely for the benefit of big business and oil, leading to a year of constant bombings and deaths and now this tragedy with ISIS, I will criticise them. If I hear about American drone strikes killing 60 children in Pakistan, the majority of them since 2008 (all with Obama's approval, making him a more successful child murderer than Adam Lanza) I will criticise them. Give criticism where criticism is due, don't use some wooly concept like "they're both as bad as each-other" as an excuse to avoid it or, even worse, support the misdeeds out of bad nationalism.
In other news heavy criticism is being leveled at Tony Blair at the moment for his actions in Iraq and also for the fact that he is now blaming the collapse on the West for not intervening in Syria. The Daily Mail is now calling him "Crusader Blair" or something.
I'm fine with this, Blair deserves everything he gets and more, the problem is that he seems to have become the fall guy for the rest of the Labour Party and most of the British political establishment that supported him in Iraq. I don't hear enough criticism being leveled at William Hague for his support of the Iraq war. I even heard old John Prescott laying all the blame on Blair recently, despite the fact that he was Deputy Prime Minister. There's Scottish Labour MPs coming up to Scotland telling us we're "better together" and "stronger militarily" with a "seat at the top table" and "punching above our weight" and all that utter, utter bollocks, grinning for the cameras despite the fact that they
voted for the Iraq War. Whenever they hear the argument "independence would keep us out of more illegal wars like Iraq", they then have the cheek to tell us it's "not relevant" to the independence debate. The Iraq War was what politicised me and convinced me more than anything that independence was the answer.
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Topic: Sheb's European Megathread: Remove Feta! (Read 1779823 times)