This is despicable

[Dead_Meat]

Originally Posted by JammyJim

At least she didnt get caught by the fat arms of american law enforcement

Or by a potatoe munching and farming american. Go IDAHO!


Oh and galloway is a bit of a cock tbh. Anyone who goes on Bigbrother and says he 'did it to raise awareness of the issues' and not to 'enhance/destroy' his public image is an outright fibber.

Next time I'm in Idaho I'll drop several thousand tons of radioactive waste by the side of the road and happily pay the $300 fine considering the several million I'll have made from promising to decontaminate it.

WIN WIN!

[furball]

Originally Posted by JammyJim

At least she didnt get caught by the fat arms of american law enforcement

Or by a potatoe munching and farming american. Go IDAHO!

You're comparing a nature reserve to Luton. Congratulations.

[JammyJim]

I dont believe the road next to the house we have in florida could be considered a nature reserve...unless you consider american buildings 'natural' and big roads 'the most beautiful nature spot ever'..


Those signs were just ones i found on google. Ive seen them on highways and on main roads most places in the states. Its fairly normal for 300 - 500 dollar fines for dropping anything from a can of coke to a packet of "chips".

(If you are seen doing it)

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Marilyn Manson

Galloway is the morally bankrupt arse-licker of whichever tyrant the west currently dislikes,

So he's morally bankrupt because he said he salutes Saddam, basically.

Well, it's certainly not something I would do but it's hardly the worst thing ever. Especially when compared to politicians who have actually bombed other countries, started wars, etc.

I disagree with the "my enemies enemy is my friend" philosophy which a lot seem to follow, but I wouldn't call it morally bankrupt. It's just a different moral position than I would consider appropriate, given the circumstances. In some circumstances it is necessary to "support" (in the loosest sense) people who aren't saints. In fact, most people are in that position. It's easy to say "Oh yeah Chomsky has my love" because, with the greatest respect to the man, he is only an intellectual. It is quite easy to not commit crimes when one simply sits in a comfortable home in Boston writing magazine articles It is much more tricky to be so blameless when you are ruling a country, or fighting imperialism from the jungle of Latin America. And so while it is effortless (and requires no bravery) to "support" Chomsky, it is harder to do the same with Castro, or the IRA, or the EZLN, or Chavez or Morales or al Sadr or whomever else who actively (for whatever reason) oppose the primary imperialist forces in the world.

On the issue of "supporting" Saddam and the idea of "a pox on both your houses", I'll quote Jean Bricmont (apologies for the length, I don't have an online source for this) :

The ecologists, the socialist left, the traditional Communist parties,
the Trotskyites and most of the NGOs have opposed the war very feebly.
Their positions have been undermined by the ideology of humanitarian
intervention and all serious references to socialism in their program have
been abandoned. Part of this left has substituted the struggle for human
rights for its initial aims of social improvements or revolution.

As it is difficult for these movements to defend the war of the USA against
Yugoslavia and Iraq, they adopt the rather convenient position of "Neither,
nor." "Neither Bush nor Saddam": this enables them to avoid any criticism.
Of course I can understand why Saddam Hussein is not liked. But the
implications of the "Neither, nor" position go well beyond this.

First, it does not recognize the legitimacy of international law. It does
not distinguish between the aggressors and the aggressed. Just to make a
comparison: it would have been difficult, during the Second World War, to
affirm "Neither Hitler, nor Stalin" without being considered a collaborator.

Second, this approach underestimates the extent of the damage caused by the
United States since 1945. Since the end of the Second World War, they have
been intervening everywhere in the world to support or install conservative
and reactionary forces, from Guatemala to the Congo, from Indonesia to
Chile. They have been busy killing the hope of the poor for social change
everywhere. It is they, and not Saddam Hussein, who want to overthrow Hugo
Chávez. The Vietnam War was nothing to do with Saddam Hussein. Even if it
is admitted that Milosevic and Saddam Hussein have been demonized, putting
them in the same category as the USA at the world level is, for them,
totally unjust and false.

Finally, what upsets me most with this "Neither, nor" attitude is the
position that we assume, by adopting such slogans, towards our own
responsibility.

When we see policies that don't like in the Third World, we must begin by
discussing them with the people who live there, and do this with
organizations that represent large sections of the population, not with
little groups or isolated individuals. We must try to see if their
priorities are the same as ours. I hope that the alternative world movement
will create channels of communication that promote a better understanding
of the viewpoints of the South. For the time being, the Western left tends
to stay in its corner, having very little influence in its own home base
and indirectly playing the game of imperialism by demonizing the Arabs, the
Russians, the Chinese -- in the name of democracy and human rights.

What we are mainly responsible for is the imperialism of our own countries.
Let us start by tackling that -- and effectively!

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally Posted by Ste

It's quite bemusing how much people have bought into this idea that he's morally bankrupt from the media attention he's got.

I don't think he's morally bankrupt from the media attention he's got, I think he's morally bankrupt based on what he believes in:

Originally Posted by George Galloway

If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life. If there was a Soviet Union today, we would not be having this conversation about plunging into a new war in the Middle East, and the US would not be rampaging around the globe.

Originally Posted by George Galloway (Upon meeting Saddam Hussein)

Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability

I can't think of any other relatively prominent politician in the UK who openly salutes dictators, and laments the collapse of totalitarianism, and with it world's most brutal and murderous regime in terms of sheer body count, so I think the idea that there are worse politcians than him, at least in terms of political views, is a rather perculiar persepctive to say the least.

It's incredible how differently people react whenever the Soviet Union is mentioned in comparison to how they would with Nazi Germany, even thought the former was much more murderous and just as much a blight on the planet; how people like George Galloway are tolerated and even lauded in some quarters, while BNP types are beyond the pale. It's a bizzare attitude.

So basically, yeah, I think it's pretty fair to say that he's morally bankrupt for supporting murderers and being in favour of dictatorship and being basically an illiberal and hypocritical shit.

[furball]

Originally Posted by JammyJim

I dont believe the road next to the house we have in florida could be considered a nature reserve...unless you consider american buildings 'natural' and big roads 'the most beautiful nature spot ever'..


Those signs were just ones i found on google. Ive seen them on highways and on main roads most places in the states. Its fairly normal for 300 - 500 dollar fines for dropping anything from a can of coke to a packet of "chips".

(If you are seen doing it)

Certainly Idaho has a big nature reserve. I can't speak for the rest of the USA though.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Marilyn Manson

It's incredible how differently people react whenever the Soviet Union is mentioned in comparison to how they would with Nazi Germany[...]It's a bizzare attitude.

Not really. If someone says they lamented the days of Stalin, then sure they're a nutjob, and they're way off any kind of respectable political spectrum. But then the days of Stalin were not really comparable to the days of Gorbachov or Khruschev or anyone else for that matter. Trying to pretend the Soviet Union was one continuous state of massacres is of course a bizarre attitude, but fortunately (most) people can see the distinction.

If NAZI Germany had gone on for another 40 years or so, with almost all of the massacres finishing 30 years ago then perhaps it might be a comparable situation.

Galloway may be right on this, in a sense. I'm not convinced the people (as a whole) of the fSU have it that much better now than they had it twenty years ago, for instance. And globally, the collapse of the USSR has been generally negative (as he says) politically speaking, as it's created a uni-polar world. Of course, the end of (realistic) chance of MAD is definitely a positive step forward but perhaps SALT could have achieved that anyway.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Marilyn Manson

I think the idea that there are worse politcians than him, at least in terms of political views, is a rather perculiar persepctive to say the least.

I'd imagine most people evaluate a political figure based on actions as well as rather abstract political views. If someone says they think Ghengis Kahn was the greatest bloke ever then yeah I guess it's pretty disturbing, but it hardly matters unless it affects their practical politics.

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Not really. If someone says they lamented the days of Stalin, then sure they're a nutjob, and they're way off any kind of respectable political spectrum.

Why should we divorce the personality of Stalin from the system which he inhabited? Stalin was a logical continuation of the murderousness of Leninism, and Leninism was the fundamental basis for that state. Even at their most restrained and moderate, the personalities who inhabited the Soviet Union never stopped believing in the totalitarian 'ideal', or indeed, in practising it. The state had wickedness and barbarism warped into it, it's history was saturated with it; the people who supported it more or less carte blanche were either foolish or borderline psychotic.

Galloway is actually given a chance to deny that he's part of the Stalinist left in that interview the quote is from, but he merely says that saying that he is/was part of such a group would be "a rod for his back."

Yeah, he's obviously greatly keen to distance himself from anything distasteful.

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Trying to pretend the Soviet Union was one continuous state of massacres is of course a bizarre attitude, but fortunately (most) people can see the distinction.

You do realise that the Soviet Union was continually imprisoning and murdering people en-masse from the October revolution right up to 1956, when the Gulags went, don't you? Which is to say, forty years out of a total seventy or so.

That's a greater percentage of total time in it's history spent massacring and murdering en-masse than Nazi Germany during the total of it's history.

How many decades does a state have to be engaged in genocide and murder before we greet those who give their to it their general support with moral outrage? Five? Seven? A hundred years?

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

I'm not convinced the people (as a whole) of the fSU have it that much better now than they had it twenty years ago, for instance.

That's an argument in favour of total political inertia and in any case that is most clearly not his argument, which is clearly based around geo-political and statist concerns.

[JonnyBGood]

One should never, in understanding for why people commit murder, condone it yourself.

[JonnyBGood]

I struggle to see how you imagine the legacy of hitler's crimes to have diminished when the single largest geopolitical problem in the modern world is directly caused by the holocaust. Nor do I think MM was urging a return to rampant jingoistic imperialism again

[JonnyBGood]

Are you saying that because of the disparities in scale? Because I really don't think the colonial powers were directly responsible for a billion odd deaths.

I am aware of the problems of the middle east and the relative causes of it. While it would be as much of a trouble spot today as, say, Central America, it would be putting mildly to say that a huge number of the most violent and extreme problems in the Middle East are due to the existence of Israel. While the politics of Balfour and many British politicians supported the idea of a Jewish homeland, or at least Jews living in Palestine, the Holocaust changed the paradigm of how the nation would arise, from probable long-term gradual integration to immediate aggressive expansionism.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Marilyn Manson

You do realise that the Soviet Union was continually imprisoning and murdering people en-masse from the October revolution right up to 1956, when the Gulags went, don't you? Which is to say, forty years out of a total seventy or so.

It's not about the "percentage of time being evil" it's about what the situation was like at the end of it. Galloway's remarks were about if the world was better off without the Soviet Union after it collapsed. Trying to analyse whether this is true in 1990 doesn't mean trying to work out what happened between 1918 and 1956 or whatever other period you're interested in.

How many decades does a state have to be engaged in genocide and murder before we greet those who give their to it their general support with moral outrage? Five? Seven? A hundred years?

By this logic, anyone who likes the British state (as it is now) should be condemned because of our actions in Ireland, India, Africa, etc. Do you follow such an argument?

That's an argument in favour of total political inertia and in any case that is most clearly not his argument, which is clearly based around geo-political and statist concerns.

His argument does tend towards the geopolitical, but that seems a perfectly legitimate argument. If the American state collapsed and China then seized the opportunity to invade Taiwan and kill half the population, it'd be perfectly legitimate for someone in Taiwain (or their supporters) to say "Shit, kinda wish the Yanks were still around."

However, I think it's difficult to analyse the USSR without referring to the citizens of Russia and her neighbours, and I suspect Galloway is including their plight in his assesment.

[JonnyBGood]

While I'm not disagreeing with you, although your smokescreen and political elites comment would probably meet ridicule from most, I think you're reading too much into my point. The creation of Israel as it happened is directly due to the holocaust and this is the single largest geopolitical problem in the world. I'm not saying it's bigger than all the other problems or that the Middle East would have been a nice place without it or that Britain, France, the US and others didn't really **** it up. With your kind of historical approach is difficult to lay real causal blame to anyone or anything bar the first amoeba who poked whatever passes for a protoplasmic head up and thought "this would be a nice place for a government".

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

With your kind of historical approach is difficult to lay real causal blame to anyone or anything bar the first amoeba who poked whatever passes for a protoplasmic head up and thought "this would be a nice place for a government".

That's probably a good thing. Most complex chain of events can only be "blamed" on individuals or even individual states in very simplistic analyses. There's also very little point, outside of the pure joy of moral indignation.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

That's probably a good thing. Most complex chain of events can only be "blamed" on individuals or even individual states in very simplistic analyses. There's also very little point, outside of the pure joy of moral indignation.

Okay but being unwilling to acknowledge which states/individuals contributed and to what approximate extent can lead to a total suspension of practical moral judgement.

[JonnyBGood]

I really don't think the best interests of the US are served by indiscriminate slaughter in palestine and while it's covered up rather nicely most of the time I think the whole approach would be rather different without the existence of israel as it is and problems such as the massive number of refugees, the intensity of religious fervour and the level of extremism as it is would not really exist.

[Phang]

anyway, turns out there was a Green candidate

[Cannon_Fodder]

So you voted for him right?

[dda]

What would Brian Boitano do?

[Appocomaster]

Originally Posted by sniborp

So you voted for him right?

wanting to vote green, he walked to the polling booth.
Unfortunately, it took him so long to get there it was closed by the time he arrived.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue

Don't you? Why is that?

Because a violent and aggressive populace is not a subdued and productive one. It's simple pragmatism.

[dda]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Because a violent and aggressive populace is not a subdued and productive one. It's simple pragmatism.

Surely if they had more stringent littering laws, in the Middle East, the problem could be solved.

[Cannon_Fodder]

Originally Posted by Appocomaster

wanting to vote green, he walked to the polling booth.
Unfortunately, it took him so long to get there it was closed by the time he arrived.

Damn solar powered cars.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Side fact: George Galloway has not got the lowest voting attendance in Parliament. However, the people he is ahead of are Tony Blair (who's generally otherwise engaged), the Speaker and Deputy Speaker (who can't vote), members of Sinn Fein (who don't vote) or dead.