pirana6
Go Cougs!
+682|6251|Washington St.
I think this was our 'Russia-Ukraine' thread? Thanks for the informative title mac.

Anyway, it seems they're back at it again

Missiles allegedly fired from civilian districts of Donetsk and Yasynuvata, in eastern Ukraine, have fallen on the town, cutting its power, water and heating and injuring at least one citizen, according to Polish Radio.

Local authorities have not ruled out evacuating civilians, while Kiev has demanded a ceasefire.

The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine has confirmed that tanks, artillery and missiles are being used around Avdiivka.

Meanwhile, SMM observers reportedly heard more than 400 explosions and many series of machine gun fire over four hours on Sunday night.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has cut short an official visit to Germany. At least eight Ukrainian soldiers have died and a further 30 have been wounded in Avdiivka since Sunday.
http://www.thenews.pl/1/10/Artykul/2913 … ka-Ukraine

http://www.newsweek.com/while-trump-fid … ine-550603
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3680
Russians are testing the new administration. They are waiting to see if and how Trump will respond to them intensifying things in Ukraine.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3413
please don't revive this thread. i can't take any more shahter and his sophistries and platitudes. the guy see saws between 'you know nothing about russia western moron' to 'well obviously everyone knows that it's so obvious what's your point?'
coke
Aye up duck!
+440|6669|England. Stoke

uziq wrote:

please don't revive this thread. i can't take any more shahter and his sophistries and platitudes. the guy see saws between 'you know nothing about russia western moron' to 'well obviously everyone knows that it's so obvious what's your point?'
QFFUCKINGT
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3680
In retrospect the Tienanmen Square Massacre was the right move for China. Probably the best move in fact because it taught all of those pro-democracy people a lesson.

In the time since the massacre, the democracies of the world are in decline economically, and socially. Meanwhile China is living its best life.
https://fcache1.pakwheels.com/original/3X/f/a/fa11f81d89b4c0c2f1360e50cc6f6f3722ab6d97.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6066|eXtreme to the maX
Democracy =/= Economics
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3680
You think they would be as well off if they were democratic?
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
coke
Aye up duck!
+440|6669|England. Stoke

SuperJail Warden wrote:

In retrospect the Tienanmen Square Massacre was the right move for China. Probably the best move in fact because it taught all of those pro-democracy people a lesson.

In the time since the massacre, the democracies of the world are in decline economically, and socially. Meanwhile China is living its best life.
Fuck me, they changed the entire direction of that river.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3680
Bored Johnson. It's amazing that the conservative parties of the English speaking world pick just the worst people.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3413
and it is specifically the conservative parties and their own apparatuses that choose these people. we've had two prime ministers in a row now that got the job without any mandate from the people, only internal leadership contests and party-politics. not only would most british people never vote for BoJo as PM, even fewer would vote for a politician campaigning on a hard brexit 'no deal' platform. absolutely shocking.

i give him until september unless he makes a drastic about-face and goes back on his election platform.

Last edited by uziq (2019-07-23 08:33:48)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6066|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

and it is specifically the conservative parties and their own apparatuses that choose these people. we've had two prime ministers in a row now that got the job without any mandate from the people, only internal leadership contests and party-politics. not only would most british people never vote for BoJo as PM, even fewer would vote for a politician campaigning on a hard brexit 'no deal' platform. absolutely shocking.

i give him until september unless he makes a drastic about-face and goes back on his election platform.
Well, May did have an election.

Otherwise unfortunately you're projecting there.

The 'British people' did vote for Brexit, they did vote for the Brexit party in the Euro elections, I'm sure the average moron does believe a bumbling Churchillian man-baby is the best person to lead the country, and without any understanding of the consequences they would vote for Boris Johnson and still vote for a no-deal Brexit.

I think the steady dumbing down of education, political discourse and the steady brain-drain (of which I am a significant part) has left Britain a nation of morons doomed to drown in their own excrement.

I give Boris Johnson until September before he faces a no-confidence defeat and has to call an election.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2019-07-23 18:48:30)

Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3413

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

and it is specifically the conservative parties and their own apparatuses that choose these people. we've had two prime ministers in a row now that got the job without any mandate from the people, only internal leadership contests and party-politics. not only would most british people never vote for BoJo as PM, even fewer would vote for a politician campaigning on a hard brexit 'no deal' platform. absolutely shocking.

i give him until september unless he makes a drastic about-face and goes back on his election platform.
Well, May did have an election.

Otherwise unfortunately you're projecting there.

The 'British people' did vote for Brexit, they did vote for the Brexit party in the Euro elections, I'm sure the average moron does believe a bumbling Churchillian man-baby is the best person to lead the country, and without any understanding of the consequences they would vote for Boris Johnson and still vote for a no-deal Brexit.

I think the steady dumbing down of education, political discourse and the steady brain-drain (of which I am a significant part) has left Britain a nation of morons doomed to drown in their own excrement.

I give Boris Johnson until September before he faces a no-confidence defeat and has to call an election.
may had an election and lost her mandate. it was a singular disaster. no prime minister in recent history has gambled on such a safe gain and lost so terribly. the election she called precipitated the entire current parliamentary crisis, as she lost her majority and had to suture the conservatives to the DUP. boris inherits that legacy, but worse -- if even two or three tory's defect to the lib dems or another party, then he has no majority at all and cannot even constitutionally form a government.

let's look at the numbers. 92,000 people voted for the next leader (0.2% of the population). the conservative party membership is overwhelmingly white (97%), male (71%), and septuagenarian (over half are over 65). they are not representative of the british body-politic no matter how you try to spin it.  what people voted for in a referendum (52:48 split) does not suggest there is some overwhelming call from the british people for a hard no-deal brexit, either. in fact, the entire leave campaign was conducted on the mendacious lines that leaving would be easy, that we'd be better off, that the land of milk and honey would be ours, etc. in fact, a no deal brexit as pursued by johnson (now, anyway) and the hard-line european research group (i.e. british tea party) will probably make the pound drop to an equal value with the dollar, and cost the economy £90 billion a year. ok, sure, people really voted for that in all cognisance.

there is no way boris johnson would have become PM by winning an open general election, as i claimed.

very modest of you to claim you are a 'significant part' of the brain-drain. i can only hope you're kidding. is that perhaps because, being white, you consider yourself to have a bigger brain relative to other brits? phrenology is very in vogue in your household, isn't it?

Last edited by uziq (2019-07-24 02:53:51)

uziq
Member
+492|3413




Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6066|eXtreme to the maX
May was elected PM by the country, sorry.

Political parties pick their leaders and hence the PM ie Johnson, the UK does not have a Presidential system, once again, sorry.

The Brexit party swept away all before them in the Euro elections - thats a pretty clear mandate.

Brexit in any form will be an unmitigated disaster - but the British people voted for it and in the Euro elections endorsed whatever Brexit/UKIP's version is, draw your own conclusions.

When I left the UK the sky turned black, birds died rooted to their perches, women tore their hair, what can I say?
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3413
may was given the PM role by cameron resigning. she did go on to 'win' an election, if you can call it that, by losing lots of seats and having to form a coalition government with a bunch of religious zealots in northern ireland. my point was nobody voted in the conservative party based on her or her policies. that turned out well...

you keep talking about european elections as if they have ever meant anything. voter turnout for them has been ridiculously low for decades. no surprises that it became a rallying issue for the brexiteers, who probably voted for an MEP for the first ever time in their lives. but, yes, undeniably they won and they won 'bigly', which says as much about the piss-poor state of the opposition and the lassitude of remainers than about the strong national determination to quit the EU. funny how the same brexiteers that have such a huge popular support can't get elected to a single parliamentary seat in a full election, eh?

13 million people out of a country of 66 million voted for brexit about 3 years ago. a lot of the polls suggest that, even on a generational level (i.e. new voters being enfranchised, oldies kicking the bucket), the proportion of leave:remain could have changed. a second referendum would be a chaotic and disastrous affair, i agree, but stop going on and on about how there's an overwhelming mandate for brexit. i know it suits your little englander, kill-all-muslims, multiculturalism-has-failed worldview, but unfortunately it's just not true. the country is well and truly divided.

we can both at least agree that after brexit and now the humiliation of johnson, the tory’s are finished for the foreseeable. the brexit right and farage followers have no real loyalty to conservative principles, and the moderate middle class aren’t going to forgive them any time soon. approval ratings for brexit and the conservatives in the under 35s are very low.

Last edited by uziq (2019-07-24 09:33:23)

uziq
Member
+492|3413
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n15/james-meek/the-two-jacobs

We find ourselves in a fantastical place: deep in the mire of post-Brexit politics before Brexit has happened. Brexit used to be about leaving the European Union. The contest for the Tory leadership, just drawing to a close as I write, has been a glaring signal that quitting the EU may not be the referendum’s gravest outcome. In the past three years the meaning of Brexit has shifted. First, what was supposed to be a future event with bureaucratically limited parameters became a rallying cry for a diffuse set of resentments. Now, the marshals of those resentments are poised to take over the government. The nominal result of the leadership election always seemed certain: the Conservative membership – in size, gender and wealth quite similar to the gentry-only British electorate of the 18th century – might as well have been answering the question ‘Which politician called Boris Johnson would you like to lead Britain?’ But the true winners in a Johnson victory are the insurgents who have worked inside and outside Parliament to make their version of the ideas propelling the Brexit cause into a ruling ethos for the nation. The new prime minister will live in a nice house in the middle of London, but it won’t be his house. Nigel Farage, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Arron Banks bought it for him. They own 10 Downing Street, and they own him.

[...]

Short-term tax breaks and giveaways from public funds for client groups whose votes you hope to win, combined with a determination to scapegoat and squeeze minorities and the ‘undeserving’ poor, is the very essence of populism. So is the assumption that patriotic-cultural gestures and spectacles like the launching of aircraft carriers or the birth of royal children will serve as compensation for mean lives. The Faragist twist is that while Johnson may be a self-centred cynic, as his enemies portray him, others in the future elite, like Rees-Mogg and Farage himself, genuinely believe in the sacramental character of these spectacles. The Faragist skinny state is unlike the neoliberal skinny state in that it isn’t simply about cutting public spending and taxes, but about a polarisation of resources, helping the culturally favoured with shallow buy-offs like Help to Buy, grammar schools or new houses for non-immigrants only (a Ukip policy). It’s about boosting a certain psychogeography of heritage while letting other realms wither: no to overseas aid, yes to a new royal yacht. In the early outlines of Faragism you can glimpse an ideology rather like Putin’s Russia: a low-tax, high-inequality consumer capitalist society that offers a trickle-down cascade of patronage, demonisation of outsiders and militarist-nostalgist spectacle as a substitute for common wealth.

Last edited by uziq (2019-07-24 16:19:24)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3680

Uzi wrote:

i agree, but stop going on and on about how there's an overwhelming mandate for brexit.
It's like this too in the U.S. when it comes to anything our conservative party does. Conservative minority governments pass policy that a majority of society rejects but they are able to remain in power because of things like the electoral college, and senate. You have a bunch of older folks ruling over societies increasingly made up of people who hate them and they hate back.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6066|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

may was given the PM role by cameron resigning. she did go on to 'win' an election, if you can call it that, by losing lots of seats and having to form a coalition government with a bunch of religious zealots in northern ireland. my point was nobody voted in the conservative party based on her or her policies. that turned out well...

you keep talking about european elections as if they have ever meant anything. voter turnout for them has been ridiculously low for decades. no surprises that it became a rallying issue for the brexiteers, who probably voted for an MEP for the first ever time in their lives. but, yes, undeniably they won and they won 'bigly', which says as much about the piss-poor state of the opposition and the lassitude of remainers than about the strong national determination to quit the EU. funny how the same brexiteers that have such a huge popular support can't get elected to a single parliamentary seat in a full election, eh?

13 million people out of a country of 66 million voted for brexit about 3 years ago. a lot of the polls suggest that, even on a generational level (i.e. new voters being enfranchised, oldies kicking the bucket), the proportion of leave:remain could have changed. a second referendum would be a chaotic and disastrous affair, i agree, but stop going on and on about how there's an overwhelming mandate for brexit. i know it suits your little englander, kill-all-muslims, multiculturalism-has-failed worldview, but unfortunately it's just not true. the country is well and truly divided.

we can both at least agree that after brexit and now the humiliation of johnson, the tory’s are finished for the foreseeable. the brexit right and farage followers have no real loyalty to conservative principles, and the moderate middle class aren’t going to forgive them any time soon. approval ratings for brexit and the conservatives in the under 35s are very low.
So basically you don't like what democracy delivers and the country should be run by people who agree with you, never mind the will of the people.
The country is divided? Wow that never happens anywhere, not ever.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3413
no, my point is that every representative system has imperfections and things like voting and process reform exist for a reason. who would have thought that putting one of the most momentous decision in a country’s history to the people would have shown where the splits are in the old timbering? duh. we’re not exactly talking a one-term election here where ‘my team’ didn’t win, or a single-issue vote that i disagree with. it’s the next two or three generations’ entire future, from the economy upwards.

sorry but ‘you lost, get over it’ doesn’t quite settle things. every process has faults, every political decision is contingent, every legal ruling reversible. thank god we have parliamentary procedure which, lord knows, has its merits as well as its demerits. your entire idea of referenda issues is facile. what is populist is not necessarily what is popular. what a highly contested (and legally contestable) referendum laid out is not ‘what democracy delivers’. the fact we are staring down the barrel of a no-deal brexit national suicide is as much what internal conservative party politics has delivered as anything. the majority of the country has been forced into a backseat since 2016 (a large number of the original brexit-supporting moderates have been alienated by the ERG).

stop being so obtuse all your fucking life. your whole approach to any debate seems to be to reduce positions to their most simplistic. you confuse boorishness with some sort of edgy cynicism. i’ve said that i think a second referendum is hopeless; i’ve said that brexit is a done thing; but in looking at the numbers and, you know, polling data since 2016, i’m saying the picture is complex and divided in ways that go far beyond the two-party system, or even traditional class and social divides. your rhetoric of ‘you lost, get over it’ is malignly stupid. it’s not a cricket game.

Last edited by uziq (2019-07-24 23:04:01)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6066|eXtreme to the maX
You're making patently erroneous statements and projecting your views on the populace.
may was given the PM role by cameron resigning. she did go on to 'win' an election, if you can call it that, by losing lots of seats and having to form a coalition government with a bunch of religious zealots in northern ireland. my point was nobody voted in the conservative party based on her or her policies.
May won the election with the largest minority share - you know, thats how most governments around the world win elections.
She went on to achieve majority through a deal with the unionists.
What thought processes the average person went through I don't know, and you don't either.

Of course the situation is complex, what should the nation do, not have a government unless 99% of the population vote for one party?
What about the 1% who didn't vote for them, wouldn't it be unfair to them? How do you resolve that?
Not everyone gets what they want in an election, its not a sack race at kindergarten.

Britain has been turning to shit for decades and this was a factor in my emigrating.
The rot really got worse with Blair, Cameron fucked up and look where we are now, Brexit and a likely war with Iran to suck up to the Americans again - all so the jews can bring Aslan back to Middle-Earth.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3413
right, i'm arguing nonsense over this issue. meanwhile you're a typical expat sat over there tanning like a gammon and talking about 'it's all been going to shit ever since i left...'. have you actually fucking listened to yourself? you sound like every moron who ever opened an irish bar on the costa del sol.

the decline narrative: easy recourse for anyone who has checked out of doing any actual reading or thinking on a topic.

Last edited by uziq (2019-07-25 01:57:01)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6066|eXtreme to the maX
Ah insults, doesn't really move your argument forward does it?
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3413
you're not making any arguments. saying the UK is going to shit and has been since you left is not an argument. you're not putting forward anything except your emotional hang-ups and complex relationship with your place of birth. i'm sorry you feel conflicted on this issue, i really am.

i put forward the numbers involved in the current choice of conservative PM. i cited the polls and figures stating that he has low support in parliament and in the electorate. he will be blocked in parliament (motions were tabled against his policies even before he assumed office - a first for any PM). he will face defections and possibly a no confidence vote. he has high support only in a very skewed and unrepresentative conservative party faithful - the card-carrying, membership-fee-paying inner sanctum. all of these are facts about the state-of-affairs. what i am saying is that we are currently being led into a hugely momentous decision by a cadre of extremely right-wing ideologues, beholden to brexit/faragism. if their views genuinely represented the views of the majority of the british people, why haven't any of farage's lot ever been elected? that the brexit party did better than the conservative party in the MEP elections, when the conservatives didn't even stage an election campaign or do any canvassing, is hardly clear proof of 'national backing' for no-deal farage politics. a sign of the current political elite being rudderless and lost, yes; a sign of widespread disaffection with the process, yes; but you're going too far in saying that the 'everyone' of Leave (i.e. 52% of the ref) wants to leave on boris johnson's terms.

you talk about me wanting to find a society where everyone agrees on everything by an overwhelming majority. great counter-argument. that is clearly what i am saying. sigh. the fact is that right now the minority-rule party is itself fractured over this process, with many voicing aims to vote against the government and collapse their own party. the fact is that right now the margins are so slim that even 2-3 MPs voting against their own party could deadlock politics. the fact is that right now, the current new government are going to push for a brand of brexit that was only conceived as the absolute worst case scenario 3 years ago (if it was discussed at all in the celebratory rhetoric of the times). the fact is that right now we are looking at a hugely complex reality that has changed drastically from that which was voted on in the referendum. please, i am not looking for '99% agreement' on anything.

get a grip and don't be so conceited as to talk about 'moving arguments forward'. you post tripe.

Last edited by uziq (2019-07-25 03:12:57)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6066|eXtreme to the maX
Oh sure, however:

A) Thats how the system works - first past the post means the majority don't get what they want, the largest minority does. Other systems don't really work a lot better. I'm not sure what point on this you're trying to make.

B) The UK has gone to shit, as evidenced by:
I) the population voting for stupid shit
II) there not being a politician in the country with a pair of balls or any motivation besides venal self-interest

Its all very depressing, I'm well past caring really, my only regret is still having any money in pounds.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2019-07-25 03:17:13)

Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3413
i'm not criticising first past the post. i'm saying the legitimacy of the current government, whose composition and policy has changed so much since the last general election, is up for question. this is not some radical or specious view of my own. the common consensus is that we are heading for an inevitable general election within a matter of months. why is that the common understanding? because half of the PM's own party don't trust him or support him, let alone cross-bench or in the general electorate. we are being led off a cliff by a fringe bunch of loonies – the people that stymied and rejected the 'moderate' option pursued by may (which was in-itself alienating of 48% of the referendum). that's the only point i made and you came back with 'well, hurr durr, sorry you didn't get the result you wanted, you lost', etc. etc. yet again being an obtuse fucking moron.

great argument there. 'people are voting for stupid shit'. good to know you're so well-versed in politics.

you live in australia and talk about politicians with balls? lol okay.

Last edited by uziq (2019-07-25 03:21:28)

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