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I googled Galloway and he has young Stalin on his twitter profile pic. Never before had Stirlitz been so close to failure.

by bushin 8y ago

strainer 8y ago
Sure Galloway has a soft spot for Stalin - obviously he considers him misunderstood - history written by the victors and all that. I wouldn't know. But the issue here is how does such an eccentricity significantly connect him to the modern Russian government or media? And also the others, as is being suggested - as a group.
- philwelch 8y ago
  I'm not sure how "having a soft spot" for one of the most notorious mass-murdering warmongers of the 20th century makes someone "anti-war".
  - strainer 8y ago
    Like I said, there may or not be a reasoned historical debate behind it I dont know. He is known as an anti war campaigner, because he has been a prominent campaigner against military aggression in our time.
    - notahacker 8y ago
      Even his staunchest defenders would be forced to admit his campaigns against military aggression are selective and more influenced by a continuation of Cold War "anti-imperialist" realpolitik than actual pacifism. He's been outspokenly supportive of Russian involvement in Syria, and he was the member of the anti-war campaign over Iraq that achieved notoriety by calling for Arab armies to join the Iraqi "martyrs" in fighting Western forces rather than the more mainstream position of advocating a cessation of hostilities altogether...
      - strainer 8y ago
        I think he is most "influenced" by the thought of lasting international peace and security for everyone, and perhaps justice too, though I fear that is most difficult of conditions to resolve. Would that Russia critics could admit their involvement in Syria has been hugely stabilizing to a situation which almost fell into the hell which Libya was thrown into by air strikes...
        notahacker 8y ago
        I prefer to judge him by what he actually does and says (and he's an unusually eloquent speaker and persistent campaigner rather than some gaffe-prone blunderer) and not than some Platonic ideal of what he actually might represent. We're talking about someone that agitates against any form of air strikes by the West for months, then when Russia announces plans to launch air strikes against exactly the same target, gushes that it's going to be a Stalingrad-like triumph over fascism all over again. We're talking about somebody who highlighted Saddam Hussein's human rights abuses right up to the point where the West decided he was actually more of a threat to regional stability than Iran and forcibly ejected him from the neighbouring country he invaded, at which point George started meeting people who were naming their sons Saddam and felt obliged to fly to Iraq after the war to salute Saddam's indefatigability and wish him future victories in person and deliver deputy the writings of Sun Tzu to advise them on "patriotic resistance" against any future threats. And we're talking about somebody who goes off the fairly coherent and very widely-supported anti-war campaign script in 2001 to call upon Arab armies to join the Iraqi "martyrs" in rising up against the West in Iraq. If all this is in the name of "long lasting international peace and security for everyone" as opposed to because he really, really wants to see non-Western forces prevail on the battlefield, it's difficult to see exactly how....
        strainer 8y ago
        I try to look deeper than just Western and non-Western forces. I believe Galloway and all the people concerned here do sue for peace given any fair prospect of it and recall Galloway was active against Apartheid in South Africa. Craig Murray was too even while he was a british civil servant under Thatchers government at the time (who considered the ANC simply a terrorist organisation). Regardless of the summary of George Galloway, Craig Murray, Robert Fisk, John Pilger, David Edwards etc. that you would put up for debate, and of these suspicions of extra-national interest suggested here as "realpolitik" and "zone of sympathy" -- the persons own wikipedia bios should be technically even handed if not charitable, so that the Wikipedia reader (and supporter) doesn't have to fill in a case for the defence or the prosecution themselves to achieve balance.
    - philwelch 8y ago
      There's a long, dark history of Anglo-American "anti-war" campaigners being nothing more than sympathizers to the enemies of those countries. Orwell had these people's number in 1945 (https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...): --- The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to the taking of life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of the western countries. The Russians, unlike the British, are not blamed for defending themselves by warlike means, and indeed all pacifist propaganda of this type avoids mention of Russia or China. It is not claimed, again, that the Indians should abjure violence in their struggle against the British. Pacifist literature abounds with equivocal remarks which, if they mean anything, appear to mean that statesmen of the type of Hitler are preferable to those of the type of Churchill, and that violence is perhaps excusable if it is violent enough. After the fall of France, the French pacifists, faced by a real choice which their English colleagues have not had to make, mostly went over to the Nazis, and in England there appears to have been some small overlap of membership between the Peace Pledge Union and the Blackshirts. Pacifist writers have written in praise of Carlyle, one of the intellectual fathers of Fascism. All in all it is difficult not to feel that pacifism, as it appears among a section of the intelligentsia, is secretly inspired by an admiration for power and successful cruelty. The mistake was made of pinning this emotion to Hitler, but it could easily be retransferred. --- 60 years later, and "pacifists" like Galloway evidently have no problem pinning that emotion onto butchers like Stalin, Putin, and Assad. I'm not British and I don't have a horse in this race; I don't really know who Galloway is and from what I've heard, I don't care to. But the evidence presented in this thread certainly presents as symptoms of Orwell's diagnosis.
  - sah2ed 8y ago
    Both can be true. After all, humans are a contradictory mess. Hitler for instance saw to animal welfare [0] while also perpetrating ethnic cleansing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_welfare_in_Nazi_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_welfare_in_Nazi_Germany

I googled Galloway and he has young Stalin on his twitter profile pic. Never before had Stirlitz been so close to failure.

by bushin 8y ago

I googled Galloway and he has young Stalin on his twitter profile pic. Never before had Stirlitz been so close to failure.

strainer 8y ago

Sure Galloway has a soft spot for Stalin - obviously he considers him misunderstood - history written by the victors and all that. I wouldn't know. But the issue here is how does such an eccentricity significantly connect him to the modern Russian government or media? And also the others, as is being suggested - as a group.

philwelch 8y ago
I'm not sure how "having a soft spot" for one of the most notorious mass-murdering warmongers of the 20th century makes someone "anti-war".
- strainer 8y ago
  Like I said, there may or not be a reasoned historical debate behind it I dont know. He is known as an anti war campaigner, because he has been a prominent campaigner against military aggression in our time.
  - notahacker 8y ago
    Even his staunchest defenders would be forced to admit his campaigns against military aggression are selective and more influenced by a continuation of Cold War "anti-imperialist" realpolitik than actual pacifism. He's been outspokenly supportive of Russian involvement in Syria, and he was the member of the anti-war campaign over Iraq that achieved notoriety by calling for Arab armies to join the Iraqi "martyrs" in fighting Western forces rather than the more mainstream position of advocating a cessation of hostilities altogether...
    - strainer 8y ago
      I think he is most "influenced" by the thought of lasting international peace and security for everyone, and perhaps justice too, though I fear that is most difficult of conditions to resolve. Would that Russia critics could admit their involvement in Syria has been hugely stabilizing to a situation which almost fell into the hell which Libya was thrown into by air strikes...
      - notahacker 8y ago
        I prefer to judge him by what he actually does and says (and he's an unusually eloquent speaker and persistent campaigner rather than some gaffe-prone blunderer) and not than some Platonic ideal of what he actually might represent. We're talking about someone that agitates against any form of air strikes by the West for months, then when Russia announces plans to launch air strikes against exactly the same target, gushes that it's going to be a Stalingrad-like triumph over fascism all over again. We're talking about somebody who highlighted Saddam Hussein's human rights abuses right up to the point where the West decided he was actually more of a threat to regional stability than Iran and forcibly ejected him from the neighbouring country he invaded, at which point George started meeting people who were naming their sons Saddam and felt obliged to fly to Iraq after the war to salute Saddam's indefatigability and wish him future victories in person and deliver deputy the writings of Sun Tzu to advise them on "patriotic resistance" against any future threats. And we're talking about somebody who goes off the fairly coherent and very widely-supported anti-war campaign script in 2001 to call upon Arab armies to join the Iraqi "martyrs" in rising up against the West in Iraq. If all this is in the name of "long lasting international peace and security for everyone" as opposed to because he really, really wants to see non-Western forces prevail on the battlefield, it's difficult to see exactly how....
        strainer 8y ago
        I try to look deeper than just Western and non-Western forces. I believe Galloway and all the people concerned here do sue for peace given any fair prospect of it and recall Galloway was active against Apartheid in South Africa. Craig Murray was too even while he was a british civil servant under Thatchers government at the time (who considered the ANC simply a terrorist organisation). Regardless of the summary of George Galloway, Craig Murray, Robert Fisk, John Pilger, David Edwards etc. that you would put up for debate, and of these suspicions of extra-national interest suggested here as "realpolitik" and "zone of sympathy" -- the persons own wikipedia bios should be technically even handed if not charitable, so that the Wikipedia reader (and supporter) doesn't have to fill in a case for the defence or the prosecution themselves to achieve balance.
  - philwelch 8y ago
    There's a long, dark history of Anglo-American "anti-war" campaigners being nothing more than sympathizers to the enemies of those countries. Orwell had these people's number in 1945 (https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...): --- The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to the taking of life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of the western countries. The Russians, unlike the British, are not blamed for defending themselves by warlike means, and indeed all pacifist propaganda of this type avoids mention of Russia or China. It is not claimed, again, that the Indians should abjure violence in their struggle against the British. Pacifist literature abounds with equivocal remarks which, if they mean anything, appear to mean that statesmen of the type of Hitler are preferable to those of the type of Churchill, and that violence is perhaps excusable if it is violent enough. After the fall of France, the French pacifists, faced by a real choice which their English colleagues have not had to make, mostly went over to the Nazis, and in England there appears to have been some small overlap of membership between the Peace Pledge Union and the Blackshirts. Pacifist writers have written in praise of Carlyle, one of the intellectual fathers of Fascism. All in all it is difficult not to feel that pacifism, as it appears among a section of the intelligentsia, is secretly inspired by an admiration for power and successful cruelty. The mistake was made of pinning this emotion to Hitler, but it could easily be retransferred. --- 60 years later, and "pacifists" like Galloway evidently have no problem pinning that emotion onto butchers like Stalin, Putin, and Assad. I'm not British and I don't have a horse in this race; I don't really know who Galloway is and from what I've heard, I don't care to. But the evidence presented in this thread certainly presents as symptoms of Orwell's diagnosis.
- sah2ed 8y ago
  Both can be true. After all, humans are a contradictory mess. Hitler for instance saw to animal welfare [0] while also perpetrating ethnic cleansing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_welfare_in_Nazi_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_welfare_in_Nazi_Germany