2 ms·

> read Spycatcher I'm not going to read a whole book to respond to an internet comment, especially when it sounds like it's from someone with vested interests

by lmm 1y ago

> read Spycatcher I'm not going to read a whole book to respond to an internet comment, especially when it sounds like it's from someone with vested interests very much on one side. > in the post-war/cold war era, Britain, particularly the upper classes, was fucking riddled with soviet agents, mostly British-born communist sympathisers who were activated by the USSR, and many of them could have been stopped from doing huge damage if simple vetting had been in place What "huge damage" was done? Britain was if anything doing better for itself in that era, and the USSR's success record speaks for itself. > do you think it's a coincidence the vetting stopped when the soviet union collapsed? No, of course not, that removed the funding and the excuse, as well as laying bare the complete failure of the intelligence establishment to accomplish anything useful (given that they'd been unable to see it coming).

permo-w 1y ago
this is genuinely fascinating. your viewpoint is that you want the BBC to be disbanded because they didn't reveal anti-soviet vetting 30 years ago, anti-soviet vetting you don't support because you actually don't mind there having been soviet spies, because the USSR had a great "success record" and the UK was more socialist at the time? and you clearly knew this when you wrote your original comment? which leads me to the conclusion that your original comment was written as some kind of bizarre attempt at soviet apologism through an angle of attacking the BBC how insanely odd and anachronistic. honestly, well done for maintaining such ideological rigidity for this long, I'm genuinely not-sarcastically impressed. it's like you woke up from a 30+ year coma
- lmm 1y ago
  I meant "success record" sarcastically. The USSR didn't achieve much, the whole spy vs spy game did more harm than good for both sides, MI5 themselves did far more damage to British democracy (witness them going after Wilson) than the people they were supposedly protecting us from. The whole security establishment has always been a con from top to bottom and the BBC shouldn't have cooperated with them (although yes, they're far from alone in that error of judgement).
  - permo-w 1y ago
    you may well be right about all of this, and who knows what damage the security establishment is causing right now in their efforts to "protect us", but nonetheless, I think it's incredibly unfair to blame the BBC for doing the same as every other institution in the country would have done if MI5 came knocking. you're setting the bar higher than any institution of any kind has ever reached

by lmm 1y ago

permo-w 1y ago

this is genuinely fascinating. your viewpoint is that you want the BBC to be disbanded because they didn't reveal anti-soviet vetting 30 years ago, anti-soviet vetting you don't support because you actually don't mind there having been soviet spies, because the USSR had a great "success record" and the UK was more socialist at the time? and you clearly knew this when you wrote your original comment? which leads me to the conclusion that your original comment was written as some kind of bizarre attempt at soviet apologism through an angle of attacking the BBC how insanely odd and anachronistic. honestly, well done for maintaining such ideological rigidity for this long, I'm genuinely not-sarcastically impressed. it's like you woke up from a 30+ year coma

lmm 1y ago
I meant "success record" sarcastically. The USSR didn't achieve much, the whole spy vs spy game did more harm than good for both sides, MI5 themselves did far more damage to British democracy (witness them going after Wilson) than the people they were supposedly protecting us from. The whole security establishment has always been a con from top to bottom and the BBC shouldn't have cooperated with them (although yes, they're far from alone in that error of judgement).
- permo-w 1y ago
  you may well be right about all of this, and who knows what damage the security establishment is causing right now in their efforts to "protect us", but nonetheless, I think it's incredibly unfair to blame the BBC for doing the same as every other institution in the country would have done if MI5 came knocking. you're setting the bar higher than any institution of any kind has ever reached