The ‘Oikophobia’ of the Right
Ed West has written an excellent analysis of why so many people on the populist Right are either pro-Putin or regard Putin’s Russia and Zelensky’s Ukraine as morally equivalent. He thinks these conservatives are suffering from ‘oikophobia’ – Roger Scruton’s word to describe the loathing of their homeland by some elements of the Left. The reason Jeremy Corbyn and his fellow travellers always side with Britain’s enemies, no matter how unsavoury, is because they cannot stand Britain and the West and siding with our enemies is a way of expressing that contempt. West thinks that some elements of the Right are now suffering from the same phobia. Here is an extract:
During the Cold War various politicians, writers and artists were prepared to apply a completely false equivalence between the two superpowers. Indeed, one or two of the USSR’s defenders are still MPs today. In the U.S., Angela Davis’s career has not been harmed by her open support for America’s enemies; indeed, it seems to have helped. Others went on to bat for various murderous regimes, including even revolutionary Iran, which Foucault praised as “the most insane” (yes it really was, you old paedophile).
So the far-Left’s initial moral equivalence on the Russian invasion is normal and predictable; it would be worrying if they didn’t side with our enemies, or claim that ‘both sides’ were at fault – if only the anti-bully alliance hadn’t provoked the bully into bullying its neighbours, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Were aliens to invade earth next week, in some Independence Day or War of the Worlds-style scenario, you’d get at least 10 Labour backbenchers blaming America for the conflict. Their radio waves provoked them, or something.
It’s not that they particularly like what Putin stands for, it’s just that they can’t envisage a situation where it’s not our fault, a form of narcissism in which America and her allies are all-powerful and morally culpable. But the radical Left also believe that supporting the West means supporting the values they believe to be in control – the forces of conservatism, capitalism and neoliberalism, all of which will be empowered by Western victory.
That is a fairly rational calculation, and it’s noticeable how some conservatives now come to a similar conclusion. They don’t hate their inheritance like the radical Left, but they hate what their home has become, where progressives wearing the skin of the civilisation they have killed, like a zombie Western civilisation. They also feel that any victory will only further strengthen those in charge.
That perhaps explains why so many populists have badly misjudged this conflict. As Eric Kaufmann wrote this week: “I watched as Tucker Carlson and J.D. Vance defended Putin, or adopted the Kremlin’s critique of Ukraine,” Carlson calling it a “pure client state of the United States State Department”. While there are claims for a realist case “tempering Ukrainian demands and accommodating reasonable Russian security concerns, the inability of some to reject the moral equivalence of Ukraine and Russia was glaring”.
Like oikophobes in times gone by, some on the Right have created an imaginary foreign country to reflect on their own society’s shortcomings. “The perception that Russia is a masculine, white, Christian country unafraid to stand up for its traditions forms part of its appeal to conservative populist thinkers,” Kaufmann writes. “‘Putin ain’t woke,’ Steve Bannon said last month. ‘He’s anti-woke.’ The Russian President’s 2019 interview with the Financial Times, when he declared that liberalism has ‘become obsolete’ clearly impressed many Western conservative populists. Against Drag Queen Story Hour and self-flagellation about the sins of the past could be set Putin’s macho, Christian, nationalist Russia. Clearly, some populist elites took the bait.”
None of these beliefs about Russia are really true, as Kaufmann points out, for “any honest appraisal of Putin’s Russia would reveal that its religiosity is weak, immigration substantial, and the Eurasianism of Putin and Alexandr Dugin would readily trade cultural homogeneity for more territory… Putin’s Russia is a ramshackle, corrupt, aggressive despotism. It is not ‘really hot stuff’ as Donald Trump put it once. It is not a post-woke paradise.”
But then that doesn’t really matter. Like British radicals praising a French Revolution that was first a bloodbath and then a dictatorship, their real concern is with home – the oikos. And perhaps they fear that any victory by the West in 2022 will further entrench a largely progressive-dominated establishment, including now the military, which has followed the great inversion of the past few decades. That is why, in foreign conflicts as in much else, Right is the new Left.
Worth reading in full – and while you’re at it subscribe to Ed’s Substack.
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Contrast Mearsheimer’s solidly realist analysis, and Col Macgregor’s unflinching recognition of reality, with Ed West’s shameful kowtowing to the fantasies of the warmongers. As the Ukrainian war shows, some conservatives have come to hate the West West’s blancmangery basically seems to assume that selected cases of disapproval of developments in our society and the actions of its rulers and its elites must represent irrational self-hatred, because – reasons. And the “reasons” seem to be that in this case he doesn’t agree with the reasons for the disapproval. Obviously all Ed West’s past rantings against the problems in our societies aren’t irrational “oikophobia”! Oh no, those are quite different. But anyone who disagrees with the “Putin evil mad aggressor” hypothesis that supposedly explains everything about the Ukraine situation, well they are obviously irrational and need a good smear term to define them by. Of course there’s nothing wrong in principle with disapproving of actions being taken in your own society, or by its leaders, or of ongoing trends. That’s what conservatives do, by and large. What Ed West is doing here is following the woke playbook used so effectively to defeat his own positions in the past – creating or adopting… Read more »
Of course there’s nothing wrong in principle with disapproving of actions being taken in your own society, or by its leaders, or of ongoing trends. That’s what conservatives do, by and large.
True conservatism is in fact interestingly dynamic. It requires alertness, curiosity and flexibility to conserve that which is regarded as worth conserving (and all conservatives make their choices with regard to this).
I have great respect for the genuine conservatives I know. They are serious, thoughtful people who make alliances carefully. They are also, in my experience, more likely to be interested in the views of others than those who describe themselves as “liberals”.
Well put.
It is inherently dynamic of course because as conservatives we know that society will change, come what may, and that past change has led to what we are defending now. It’s about the pace and nature and motivation of change, and the particular changes proposed.
There’s no mystery. What he refers to as the ‘populist right’ are advocates of German socialism while Jeremy Corbyn and company are advocates of Bolshevik socialism.
The German socialism is also yours as you whitewash an actual warmonger or, more accurately, a socialist dictator.
That’s all nice and dandy except for one inconvenient fact: Since 2004, the border between NATO countries and Russia is east of the Balticum. This means there has been no NATO expansion towards Russia for 18 years and that those hypothetical NATO nuclear weapons could already be placed much closer to the Russian home than the Ukraine – which would have to become a NATO member or otherwise formally allied with it first – would enable. Lastly, the NATO has a military presence in eastern Poland and the Baltic states of less than 5000 soldiers coming from something like 20 different countries which is supposed to act as a deterrent. One really has to wonder if these troops have other orders than Run as fast as you can in case of a Russian invasion. Anything beyond that would amout to an entirely pointless suicide mission. This leaves us either with something like Well, maybe Putin is an extremely large dinosaur and it took 18 years for nerve reflexes to travel back and forth before a reaction could occur or with the more reasonable observation that Putin isn’t reacting to anything but acting on his own account and presumably, partially inspired… Read more »
Tripe. You can juxtapose for all your worth, whether it is the US interfering, NATO being aggressive, western arms manufacturers forcing the armed conflict with seemingly no meaningfully comparable Russian acts; there are rarely any “black or white” situations where military action happens. It has clearly escaped your attention that European countries – NATO members – have reduced their armed forces consistently. That is either foolish, deluded, well intentioned, economically driven or something else. What it is not is “aggressive”. The Soviet Union and now it’s successor the Russian Federation have pushed their hegemonic demands far far beyond their immediate borders – whether that is “equivalent” to US /Western/NATO/EU aggression I don’t know. There are some events that are deeply troubling to me; US politicians enriching themselves and their families in Eastern Europe – if that is due to their political “service” ,they are as corrupt – imho – as Blair; internecine conflict throughout Eastern Europe being stoked by ANY external party are just two. Whether Putin is Christian or not – I doubt he is sincere – or a Communist or not – Champagne variety possibly – is very irrelevant. There are only two parties shooting at each other… Read more »
As a personal practice, looking at my own faults and overcoming them is practical and achievable. Looking at other people’s good qualities and emulating them is also achievable. This does not engender any self-loathing, but encourages more responsibility and concern for others.
Why should this not apply to nations?
Most of the “right” and “left” are cheeks on the same Uniparty arse.
Sometimes, the middle way reeks a liitle.
Wasn’t Miranda was arrested while searching for the middle way?
Indeed. Anything that isn’t part of the “arse”, has to be either prefixed with the word “extreme”, or is instead ridiculed persistently by our meeja until the sheeple join in so as not to stand out.
I very much doubt that it is, ‘worth reading in full’.
I’m beginning to learn that is the case whenever the phrase “worth reading in full” is anywhere near the words “By Toby Young”
It’s basically an ad hominem attack on those who consider that it’s all a bit more complicated than “Putin is a crazed, evil dictator”.
If you’re interested in seeing what an ad hominem attack looks like, it’s worth reading in full.
Ed West’s analysis begins with the false assumption that the conflict is one of good against evil. It is not. Neither Russia nor Ukraine are “good” or “evil.” Maybe if they were then siding with evil could be dismissed as some sort of “phobia.” But it’s just an inaccurate description of a more complex situation.
Both sides are acting in their own interests. It is not irrational or immoral to point out what those interests are, nor is it “siding” with any side in particular.
Looking at the present state of Ukraine, I’m not sure it’s been acting in its own interests…
Looks like the looting Globalists private little playground.
Neither country is good or evil per se, but one country is perpetrating an evil act upon the other.
Just saying that Russia is acting in its own interests is not an appropriate standard of how we would want countries to behave to each other.
“Neither country is good or evil per se, but one country is perpetrating an evil act upon the other.
Just saying that Russia is acting in its own interests is not an appropriate standard of how we would want countries to behave to each other.”
This kind of judgementalism without context plays into the hands of the powerful, manipulating opinion.
It’s based upon profound dishonesty or delusion about how the world actually works, similar to the falsehoods about a supposed “rules based global order” that Russia is supposedly breaching by using force to defend what it (with considerable justice) sees as its vital security interests in Ukraine.
If you want to establish a world in which states are forbidden from using force in this way, then your first targets are the most powerful states (primarily in recent years, the US hyperpower), who both do more harm when they act and have more strength to feel secure without using such force.
But that is not yet the world we live in, and by pretending we do when it suits the interests of the powerful we merely allow our selective outrage to be a tool in the hands of the powerful.
The Russian government is acting in a way which is theoretically prohibited by the Atlantic Charter. While the proponents of that might like to be recognized as global, moral authorities, they’re no more entitled to that than any other conqueror who put his imprint on (some part of) the world before.
This is the biggest problem here, and why we cannot have a reasonable conversation on the topic. If one is to point out that the EU and NATO are not innocent in this, and that they pushed Ukraine onwards despite knowing full well that Putin will retaliate, then one is immediately branded as a Putin lover. The “you’re either with us or against us” mindset is very strong, and this is what they were hoping to achieve with the intense anti-Russia, pro-Ukraine propaganda.
I just hope everyone realizes that, at the end of the day, we are talking about innocent people on both sides, both in Ukraine and in Russia, that wanted nothing to do with any of this, that didn’t want to have their homes bombed, and didn’t want to get sent into war to kill civilians and die on some foreign field for someone else’s goals. And that this is all happening because greed corrupted the people that should be protecting us to the point where they gambled with other people’s lives and they lost. And innocent people are paying the price.
Very well said. And still they push. As each day passes I am more convinced that the West wants this war, it just can’t be openly seen to be wanting this war. Except the people doing the actual fighting, suffering and dying, on both sides, had nothing to do with the decision making.
Excuse my ignorance, but who is Ed West?
I know a Fred West, is that him?
Russia is wrong in this conflict as it invaded a souvereign state.
For me as for Russian it all started in 2004 when Putin killed democracy in Russia, then occupation of Abkazia and S.Osetia in 2008, then Crimea and Donbas in 2014.
Russia is a fascist state (and I lived here and I can’t go back to Russia because I will be jailed for my views) and Ukraine is a democratic state.
In Russia there wasn’t any change of power since 1917, think about it.
So for any person who has some knowledge about Russian and Ukraine it’s obvious that there’s right and wrong sides. That’s why so many Russians inside of Russia wants Ukraine to win. And they want this war to continue unless Putin’s regime fail.
Have you ever heard about new flag of Russia to distinguish those Russian from fascist Putin’s Russians? Have you ever heard about adopting a new swastika by Russian government?
‘Putin’s Russia is a ramshackle, corrupt, aggressive despotism.’
Really? This trope being trotted out again without any evidence. I certainly don’t see this when I look at contemporary Russia, nor do I think Putin would have been able to get away with 25 years of decline, despotism or corruption whilst maintaining such popularity – but oh yes, I forgot we’re not supposed to believe Russian opinion polls, they’re corrupt too 🙄
There is plenty of evidence. For example, Transparency.org lists Russia at 136 out of 180 countries – https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021/index/rus
Have you ever been in small Russian towns and abandoned villages in Ural and Siberia?
There are about 3000 abandoned villages in Spain; so can you call Spain corrupt and despotic on that basis?
Yes I think that Spain is corrupt and their treatment of Catalonia and Basque Country as well as tolerating Franco until 1975 makes me think that Spain only in the beginning as wel as Ukraine (it’s corrupt as well).
Tell me when opposition party won president elections in Russia? The answer is never ever in the last 100 years.
I don’t follow Spanish politics but from my understanding in Spain it’s happened in 2018, right?
But @crisisgarden comment was about “look how strong and democratic is Russia”, right? It’s not related to Spain.
I’ve been to Vyborg and Leningrad. It was grim. Ugly, horrible, grey, depressing. People sitting beside the roads selling what they had to sell. Think ‘India without the sunshine’.
If Russia got its own house in order, it could make a lot of extra money from tourism. But people are scared to go there, as there’s no guarantee they can ever get out again! The rest of your life down a lead mine? With no shoes?
I’ve twice been to Moscow, wasn’t scared then and wouldn’t be scared now.
Well, Ed is correct, but anyone with a brain has known this for years, and Orwell stated it clearly 80 years ago. English “intellectuals” LOATHE England.
Are you really incapable of distinguishing between loathing particular politicians, policies and attitudes, and “loathing England”?
Particularly as the targets of West’s smears here are the very ones resisting the leftist actual hatred of England that manifests in woke radicalism?
Sigh. Not all leftists hate England – even these days.
That’s a fair point, though fwiw I didn’t say nor would I argue, that “all” leftists hate England. but I think it’s entirely fair to say that a lot of leftists and a lot of leftist ideology is based on precisely the “oikophobia” that Scruton identified and West misuses here.
British socialism…is imbued with a sense of the past, and the remembered experience of hardship. In the sentiments of the British socialist, all political action, all social inspiration, take their meaning from their antecedents, and the more firmly rooted these antecedents are, in a historical experience of community, the more claim do they have on our support. We are products of our national history, and to the extent that we find in the past the traces of a spirit that presently moves us, to that extent are we rightly moved, and to that extent are we heartened by our community with the men and women who have gone before. Scruton, Fools, Frauds And Firebrands – Thinkers of the New Left, 209 With a tweak here and there, this could be a rallying cry (not that we conservatives do rallying cries) for conservatism. Scruton describes to a tee my old school leftist muckers. I have often told these friends they are conservatives waiting to happen, they just need to abandon their view that the Tories represent conservatism, and (somewhat in turn) abandon their quaint view of socialism. Our old school British ‘Labour’ friends understand and appreciate the concept of nation and… Read more »
“He thinks these conservatives are suffering from ‘oikophobia’ “
You would think Toby would have grown out of such spurious, pathetic pathologisation of dissent, after the experience of the past couple of years, but apparently not, to judge from the obvious glee he shows at finding a “brain sickness” he can accuse people who disagree with him on this issue of “suffering from”.
Sad, really.
Toby scrambling for articles to support his dubious position on Ukraine since most visitors here are against him?
Total codswallop.
The same actors who brought us Afghanistan, Iraq & Syria are at play here, it’s not rocket Science!
“The same actors who brought us Afghanistan, Iraq & Syria are at play here, it’s not rocket Science!“
Yugoslavia too, importantly.
Describing the UK-US axis as an “anti-bully alliance” is rich. Having had to watch through my hands as countless soul-destroying invasions of sovereign countries were perpetrated on innocent civilians in my name by said “anti-bullies” in some vague World Police mission based on completely fabricated evidence, I cannot agree with such a definition.
We (UK, US and various hangers-on) have killed countless millions of foreigners with our ham-fisted attempts at changing the world down the barrel of a gun. And for what? Nothing has happened except billions of taxpayers’ money shovelled into the coffers of the military-industrial complex, and countless citizens radicalised by the violence we rained upon their heads.
What this irrelevant screed boils down to is, “my bully’s better than your bully”, which is a fairly pathetic position. Acts of aggression are evil whatever the motivation; to pretend that somehow Western bombs are morally acceptable is either woefully naive or a simple continuation of the shameful neocon tradition of Bush, Blair and Cheney.
For so long, elements of the right have mocked the ‘SJW’s’ insistence on focusing their efforts on the minutiae of social complaints in the West, when there are far bigger problems elsewhere. ‘Why don’t you go and protest for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia’ we have all heard time and again.
Now, we can all see that a massive deprivation of liberty and the rights of the individual are under way, and so many ‘neo-SJWs’ who are so desperate to complain about the smallest threat to freedom in the West, will not even raise their voices to complain about the obviously much bigger problem elsewhere, much less go out there to do anything about it.
Exactly the same logic.
Just more ad hominem. The truth about Ukraine is not pretty and if we live in a democracy we should discuss not resort to more empty abuse. Nor do you have to be a supporter of Putin to say this. Atrocious.
I dislike any form of discrediting or undermining the views of people who do not feel the same way as the accepted views / narrative (Toby, you should know how for example the average Brexit voter has been painted). We label them, call it an anti-vote, etc but it seems we can’t just accept that people have a different opinion to us.
Let’s clear-up this current situation in Ukraine: The ‘good guys’ are the neo-nazis attacking the innocent civilians of separatist regions for 8 years, propping up a US installed puppet PM and protecting the interests of the US bio weapon labs.
Everyone got that? Ok, good.
I could have done without reading that word salad of self defined, right on political key word bingo strawmannery tbh. I feel like my IQ dropped 10 points just reading it, if that’s what passes for honest academic opinion based on investigation, we’re in deep shite.
He calls himself a “History obsessive interested in why things are.” but doesn’t seem to have bothered to find out before running his mouth off on a dozen tangents.
He’s not “interested in why things are” at all, he’s interested in telling you how things are, and calling you names if you disagree.
Your last sentence seems to describe our increasingly social-media-corrupted times.
The inability of the west to view things from the perspective of Russia (its politicians at the very least) is what has got us here. Call them all the names you want, they dont care. They think they are doing what is best for them. Thats not to agree with or excuse what they are doing. Biden is on tape in the 90s saying NATO pushing east will lead to conflict. Trump said it recently. We only hear one side of the story, especially now. Sorry but after how our media has acted in recent years i would trust what came out of RT just as much as the beeb. If you have a bear in your house, you might not want it there, it might damage the furniture. But do you want to get too close or try and force it out. The bear thinks it has as much right to be there as you. It will defend itself. Or you can try and understand how it thinks and accomodate it to a certain degree, even though not ideal. Unfortunately this bear has seen you tying your rainbow laces and arguing about pronouns. If China invades Taiwan, do you… Read more »
I truthfully don’t understand the arguments that you are making:
– Do you actually believe that NATO will invade the nuclear-power Russia? If not, then you must accept that Putin’s fears are baseless. In which case, surely he does not have a right to invade other countries based on false beliefs. Russia would be safer if it also took Moldova – would it be morally good to do so?
– We would not stop China indeed, so are you saying that it is immoral for us to try to stop Russia? If we cannot stop every murder, is it immoral that we stop any?
“Do you actually believe that NATO will invade the nuclear-power Russia? If not, then you must accept that Putin’s fears are baseless. “
Why would NATO not attack Russia, when it has attacked countries targeted by the US sphere regimes in the past, and the US in particular is full of rabid hatred of Russia?
Objectively, the only thing holding back NATO is the Russian nuclear deterrent. Would you accept your own government relying on that alone? Not many in the west during the Cold War were willing to abandon all other sources of security because “we’ve got nukes”, and rightly so. These matters are far more complex than that.
Objectively speaking, though, given the actual facts of the past three decades, those who view Russia as legitimately threatened by the US and NATO have far more strength in their position than those who shrill “obviously we won’t attack because we’re the good guys”. That’s basically an infantile position.
And viewed from the Russian perspective, things look far more menacing than they do from the relaxed security of a neutral perspective
No i dont think NATO would invade Russia personnally. I dont see why they would unless they were purposely trying to start WW3. But Putin does think that is a threat. Thats the point. NATO involvement in Ukraine was a red line. He obviously thinks the red line was crossed, whether we think it was or not. No he doesnt have the right to invade. No one has the right to invade another country, but it doesnt work like that in reality. Us in the West hardly have the moral highground there. What do you think the Cuban missile crisis was about. The US would never allow Russian or Chinese military hardware in a foreign country within striking distance of America. Im not defending Russia but critising the naivety of the West in allowing itself to get into this position. If having a block of non NATO countries between the West and Russia is the price of peace its worth doing imo. The economic cost of sanctions on Russia will be the punishment.
You summed it up nicely there Doom Slayer ” which group of despots do trust the least/ most”
If I could have one wish granted before I die (I am 80.2 now) it would be to have an honest truthful moral leader – somewhere anywhere!
It would help if we remembered the wise Victorian insight from Lord Palmerston.
“England has no eternal friends, England has no perpetual enemies, England has only eternal and perpetual interests”
Whatever we think of Russia, they will defeat Ukraine in this war – because the West is not prepared to boots on the ground to stop Russia.
So the question is only how many Ukrainians are we prepared to sacrifice to keep social media entertained.
Far fewer would have to die if we stuck to looking after the interests of the United Kingdom, rather than the hysterical ravings of the Twitter mob.
“Far fewer would have to die if we stuck to looking after the interests of the United Kingdom, rather than the hysterical ravings of the Twitter mob.”
Yes, this is the case for non-intervention as a general rule.
However unpalatable it may be we need to urgently seek terms with Putin’s Russia and then tell Zelenskyy to accept them.
We used to have these things called “diplomats” who were skilled in such a task, and the British had the best in the world.
I wonder what happened to them.
I wonder what happened to them.
They are all away on gender awareness courses.
In truth, we don’t really need to seek terms, all we need to do is butt out, as the Americans put it.
Weren’t most of Britain’s best in the world diplomats somewhat bolstered by the gunboat-based backup?
Now they work for Serco and G4S. It’s better money and safer working from home in the Cotswolds.
Interesting to contrast the way opinions are manipulated to support wars of choice and confrontations short of open war. There are clear differences in how people broadly aligning with left and right are manipulated to manufacture consent, but there are also crossovers. The dominant interventionist force in the past three decades has been liberal (ie leftist) interventionism, and liberal interventionists, being of the left, tend to use leftist arguments to target left-leaning people. It’s about humanitarian protection, about altruism as a human motivation, about fighting racists, homophobes, “bigots” of various kinds, it’s about internationalism and opposing bad nationalism. On the right, arguments relating to national pride are used, claiming it’s about supposed altruism as a matter of supposed national greatness, appealing to military strength and the need to “stand up” to supposed bullies, and supporting good nationalism, making false parallels with different situations in the past (Hitler, the Cold War etc) to demonise those who oppose action. They dishonestly smear those who disagree with any current action by falsely associating them with those who disagreed with different actions in different contexts in the past. But the genuinely decent and wise folk regardless of political allegiance are in fact neither the… Read more »
(Emphases mine)
So it is emphatically not an ‘Oikophobia of the Right’, then. West tacitly admits he is drawing a false equivalence. That’s ironic.
The article refutes itself.
Yes, like oikophobes, but this does not make these right-wingers oikophobes (as we’ve established according to Scruton’s definition and West’s admission that conservatives do not fit the definition), it just means there are some vague similarities which have nothing to do with oikophobia per se.
Strange article.
Touche!
Those who would identify as traditional conservatives no longer recognise the state we live in. The woke agenda is sometimes referred to as cultural Marxism, in the 1980s it was called the loony-left, now it is the mainstream policies of all the ‘liberal’ parties that govern our land. I say liberal, but they are extremely illiberal and dictatorial to those who call for respect for traditional values. It is not that we on the traditional right hate our home, but think it has been taken over by a self-aggrandised elite.
As for Ukraine, the MSM narrative is to simplistically blame it all on Russia, and ignore the wider context, such as the influence of Western powers to pull Ukraine away from its older alliances. The propaganda to hate Russians is obvious, immoral and absurd, while neo-Nazis support the present government in Ukraine. The propaganda of sympathy for refugees is also hollow when we are seeking to prolong the war by sending more arms into the nation. We should be working for peace.
US biolabs and gain of function research. Anyone who allows that on their soil is not fit to govern.
That would probably apply to our lot and their enabling of the secret ‘rendition’ flights across the world.
It seems that most who get to govern aren’t fit to do so.
Obviously, Russia must invade China next! At least, the existence of such a lab, and one that’s been getting money from America, has been proven.
Where do you think Novichok was developed and is stored?
This is dangerous nonesense. This is not about hating the West – this should be about how we are being led down a very dangerous path. Just as the Americans armed the Taliban because they were the enemy of our enemy, we are arming literal Nazis in the Ukrain. Not just people a bit right wing, but actual Nazis who want to exterminate the Jews and create a ‘white-only’ country. This is an excellent discussion on Unheard. https://youtu.be/MUgKTfe-IqA
The really weird thing is, Israel seems to be arming them as well, given that they’ve been spotted sporting Tavors.
I wonder how Ukrainian refugees are going to feel when they are dumped in places like Dewsbury and Burnley.
“‘Putin ain’t woke,’ Steve Bannon said last month. ‘He’s anti-woke.’ “
Bannon conveniently ignores the obvious fact that Putin is the foremost practitioner of cancel culture in the world, he permanently cancels his opponents and critics.
I suggest both Toby and Ed hop across to The Telegraph, and read the comments on any of the stories to do with the Ukraine. It’s a veritable orgy of people calling for the deaths of all Russians, inflamed by the articles I the newspaper itself…………………. If these are the sensible people…count me out.
“Excellent analysis” Toby?
I think not.
The truth is not a left/right issue.
And the truth is that Russia has been deliberately provoked into entering Ukraine to stop EU/US/NATO imperialism and in the words of Putin and Lavrov “De-Nazify and de-militarise”.
No other country would have put up with enemy missiles on their border.
You don’t have to be left or right to go out and seek the truth instead of relying on highly biased main stream media.
And it does not mean you hate your own country.
Yes!
Where on this earth do you think Russia has its missiles – pointing inwards?
I don’t hate the West, I hate the dismantling of the West and those who allow it or enable it to happen. Putin and Zelensky are morally equivalent. The suggestion otherwise is the typical liberal naivety that I’d expect from an infantilised privileged class whose lives are so comfortable and soft they’ve never had to take a hard look at their own side.
There is no, none, zero, zip difference morally, militarily or ethically between what Putin is doing now and what the West did in Iraq, except in Putin’s favour he has killed far, far fewer civilians and there actually are weapons of mass destruction in the country he’s attacking.
Its not the West we hate, it’s the globalists and their useful idiots.
I thought I might stop reading after the bit about how the Manchester Guardian started life, if he got that so wrong what hope for the rest? But I ploughed on. My thoughts for what they are worth, is that most western commentators seem unable to put themselves in the minds of others. The struggles across the world are not so much to do with territory as ‘civilisations’. That is why the vast majority of the world’s population live in countries that are not conducting any sanctions towards Russia at all. Indeed several very populous ones are actively finding ways to trade outside the remit of ‘the world’s reserve currency’. Mr Tucker, ridiculously mentioned in the article, has correctly identified the enormous risk the US is taking by encouraging the break up of the USD position. The US economy cannot survive the loss of the ‘reserve/petro currency’ position, its debts would be too great. The Russian ‘civilisation’, the Chinese ‘civilisation’, the MENA ‘civilisation’ ( including NATO Turkey), the Indian subcontinent ‘civilisation’ are not the same as the western one. They may have McDos but they have different values and mindsets. Everything, everywhere cannot be measured or valued against the values… Read more »
Surely, even if not a paradise, Putin’s Russia must be non-woke, rather that post-woke? Or did I miss it’s woke stage?
Oops! Its….
If Ed West seriously thinks that Zelensky is a moral icon, he is so far beyond degenerate as to be monstrous that he is allowed to be employed by a single organisation in the UK.
Ed West should be castrated if he does not state, categorically, without need for debate, that the Kiev Government headed by Zelensky has been killing civilians in the Donbass throughout his Presidency and with his tacit support.
There comes a time when moral filth like West need banning for life from the media.
He hates everything decent, since he supports the Ukrainian nazis whose murdering the past 8 years precipitated the current crisis.
Any attempt by West to say that supporting Zelensky is an act of decent people should see HIS children murdered.
See how he likes having his own children dead.
His own fault….
Bari Weiss offers some similarly deluded pro Zelenskji drivel in her latest, but at least she can see that Russophobia is wrong and that the West has some serious credibility issues.
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/things-worth-fighting-for?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxNTQ3NDkyOCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NTA0MjI5MjYsIl8iOiJtVkJSVSIsImlhdCI6MTY0NzQ0NDY3NSwiZXhwIjoxNjQ3NDQ4Mjc1LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjYwMzQ3Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.M4EMlID5XkQ92rFjZ-htJGCffUAfVBw25CzemrikqH4&s=r
I’m so glad to have it explained to me why I actually think what I think.
I find it ever so helpful, and super persuasive.
Just like it’s been since the Brexit debate started, and I was assured that I only really wanted to leave the European Empire because I was a thick xenophobic thicko.
So, do please carry on, I’m sure it will be a winning argument any second now.