Top City Homo posted:

NO gently caress YOU DAD posted:

That or Kendall and Umunna "threatening" to refuse to serve in a Corbyn shadow cabinet. I know people who were wavering between Corbyn and Burnham who are now clear Corbyn voters just to get rid of those two.

NO gently caress YOU DAD posted:

Are you mental? He's nothing like Galloway. Gorgeous George is a self-serving rape apologist who's demographic is the Islamic far right and blames his election loss to a Muslim woman (who he also accused of lying about domestic violence) on "racists and Zionists".

The only things he has in common with Corbyn are the Stop the War Coalition and Palestine, and even then Corbyn did it properly by promoting dialogue between the factions while Galloway was shouting about how he personally doesn't believe in Israel.

Jose posted:

everyone is making the mistake of mixing his personal politics with the fact he's a dork who very rarely came off well on tv until it was too late

Sheng-ji Yang posted:

im not british so i would appreciate one of you weirdos telling me about him but i read a couple of articles in the Guardian and he seems like hes pretty cool and might actually win the labor party leadership election? also he really likes wearing a Lenin hat with sandals + socks apparently

Ivor Biggun posted:

All you need to know about Corbyn is that the Murdoch papers hate him.

Eat the rich.

Top City Homo posted:

join the tories dipshit

Pinterest Mom posted:

i was going to make another post clarifying that i meant like on the left

but then i remembered that the democrats had had their own goldwater

Miltank posted:

Who do you think the Dems Goldwater was? Bernie is the closest I can think of.

ultrabindu posted:

Where do I go to sign up for the leadership ballot?

Sheng-ji Yang posted:

im not british so i would appreciate one of you weirdos telling me about him

Top City Homo posted:

http://www.theweek.co.uk/63681/chuka-umunna-pulls-out-of-labour-leadership-race

pointsofdata posted:

He also has a soft spot for Russia, easily my biggets problem with him. Hopefully he sorts that out then wins the nomination

quote:

Tomorrow will see a four-way meeting take place as Russia, the United States, the EU and Ukraine discuss ongoing tensions in the latter country.
But while the endless drama of meetings, lurid statements and predictions and mass demonstrations catches the world's eye, something more significant and fundamental is taking place in international politics.
As the US moves into relative economic decline, China's expansion and Russia's huge energy reserves and location are moving the politics of the world to a different place.
Russia and China have reached a momentous agreement to sell gas and do business in either of their own currencies - but not in dollars.
As with Iraq's 2002 move from dollars to euros, the new means of exchange downgrades the US dollar as the international currency of choice, but now on a far bigger scale.
The broad historical sweep since the end of the Soviet Union showed two decades of unipolar US power. But now the resurgence of Russia and the enormous economic power of China are ending that.
The history of conflicts since 1990 is grim. Hot wars took place in the Gulf, in the former Yugoslavia, in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, all involving the US and Nato.
The period saw the European Union cement its relationship with Nato, and more recently the US shift its military focus to the Asia-Pacific region as it now sees China as its main rival.
The EU and Nato have now become the tools of US policy in Europe.
The US remains overwhelmingly the military superpower. It seized opportunities in 1990 and in 2001 to increase its military spending and develop a global reach of bases unmatched since the second world war.
The expansion of Nato into Poland and the Czech Republic has particularly increased tensions with Russia.
Agreements Gorbachov reached before the final demise of the Soviet Union and subsequent pledges that Ukraine's independence would not see it brought into Nato or any other military alliance appear to have been forgotten by Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen in his increasingly bellicose statements.
Indeed, a huge joint exercise is planned for this July between Nato and Ukrainian forces. This can only make an already dangerous situation even worse.
On Tuesday night the Stop the War Coalition hosted an extraordinarily well-informed public meeting on the crisis at the Wesley Hotel in Euston, London.
Jonathan Steele, a former Guardian Moscow correspondent, outlined the situation expertly, noting that coverage has been dominated by two Hs - hypocrisy and hysteria.
While there were democratic forces in the Maidan protests motivated by falling living standards and corruption, there were also far-right nazi groups involved.
The far-right is now sitting in government in Ukraine. The origins of the Ukrainian far-right go back to those who welcomed the nazi invasion in 1941 and acted as allies of the invaders.
Stop the War officer and long-term anti-war activist Carol Turner pointed out that the sanctions against Russia are confused and controversial, largely targeting individuals, while the effect on Germany of any broader-reaching economic sanctions would be huge.
And already Gazprom has increased the price of its exports to Ukraine.
The overall issue is still one of the activities and expansionism of the post-1990 United States.
Turner referred to statements made by the US in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse. In an article in the International Herald Tribune of March 9 1992 Patrick Tyler of the New York Times outlined the new strategy by which US defence secretary Dick Cheney was preparing for expansion - and many future conflicts.
Tyler wrote that "the classified document makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower, whose position can be perpetuated by constructive behaviour and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging US primacy."
The author of this strategy, Paul Wolfowitz, specifically divested it of any role for the United Nations, which had been used to provide a mandate for the Gulf war of 1990-91 while the Soviets were preoccupied with their state falling apart.
The plan was never to remove nuclear strike aircraft from Europe or reduce the role of Nato, despite the end of the Warsaw Pact.
"We must seek to prevent the emergence of European-only security arrangements which would undermine Nato," Wolfowitz warned.
Wolfowitz wanted to make arrangements in eastern Europe similar to those in the Gulf, where Saudi Arabia had been armed as an ally for regional wars. Now it is acting as a US ally in the Syrian conflict.
On Ukraine, I would not condone Russian behaviour or expansion. But it is not unprovoked, and the right of people to seek a federal structure or independence should not be denied.
And there are huge questions around the West's intentions in Ukraine.
The obsession with cold war politics that exercises the Nato and EU leaderships is fuelling the crisis and underlines the case for a whole new approach to foreign policy.
We have allowed Nato to act outside its own area since the Afghan war started. The Lisbon Treaty binds the EU and Nato together in a mutual alliance of interference and domination reaching ever eastwards.
The long-term effect of the behaviour of US Secretary of State John Kerry, backed by the EU and the British government, is to divide the world. An ever-growing and more confident Russia-China bloc will increasingly rival Nato and the EU, meaning a new cold war beckons.
Would it not be better if when the four powers sit down together they looked at agreeing on a neutral, nuclear-free Ukraine, the possibility of de-escalating the crisis and cut out the hypocrisy of feigned moral outrage from a country that has invaded many others, has military bases scattered worldwide and whose arms industry has made billions from the death and destruction of so much life in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Peace campaigners in Britain need to look at the dangers of the mutual defence agreement with the US and the way it ties us into all their strategies. We also need to look at the role of Nato overall.
The Nato summit due in Newport, Wales, in September is a good opportunity for us to express our opposition to the strange notion that expanding a nuclear alliance east makes us safer.
It does not. It makes the whole world infinitely more dangerous.

Skeesix posted:

Just looked this up. This literally killed any interest I had in the man.

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-972b-Nato-belligerence-endangers-us-all#.Vb_igflViko




Poland? Czech Republic? gently caress that guy.

OvineYeast posted:

What's wrong with that, exactly? Like, explain, because those bolded things are entirely reasonable, and the things that aren't bolded too.

Skeesix posted:

Yes, it is totally reasonable that the US provoked Russia into invading Ukraine by expanding NATO. That is something that is solely decided by the US and other western powers.

It's totally not the case that Russia invaded Ukraine because (A) Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons in a treaty with Russia that supposedly guaranteed their territorial sovereignty and (B) Ukraine is not a member of NATO so other countries won't join the fight.

Also gently caress the democratic self-determination of the Ukrainian people because there was a small minority of far right nationalists in the demonstrations that brought down Yanukovich.

Skeesix posted:

Yes, it is totally reasonable that the US provoked Russia into invading Ukraine by expanding NATO. That is something that is solely decided by the US and other western powers.

It's totally not the case that Russia invaded Ukraine because (A) Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons in a treaty with Russia that supposedly guaranteed their territorial sovereignty and (B) Ukraine is not a member of NATO so other countries won't join the fight.

Also gently caress the democratic self-determination of the Ukrainian people because there was a small minority of far right nationalists in the demonstrations that brought down Yanukovich.

Tesseraction posted:

So I see the Corbyn thread is now going to be the Cold War II geopolitical shouting match thread.

walgreenslatino posted:

now and forever

big scary monsters posted:

Corbyn's stance on NATO-Russian tensions and their effects on Ukraine will no doubt be the deciding factor in the leadership election, as it is an issue the British people are well informed on and care deeply about.

walgreenslatino posted:

Yeah not only are you reading things he didn't say, these things you're claiming are "the real reasons" are not. Russia didn't invade Ukraine because they weren't a member of NATO and don't have nuclear arms. Those are just potential stumbling blocks that did not exist and thus did not deter an invasion. They're not casus belli.

Russia invaded because they feared losing regional influence after the defeat of a pro-Moscow government and the encroachment of western influence which, uh, is exactly what Corbyn says. Whether or not you support the sovereignty of the Donetsk People's Republic, it's silly to not believe that the eastward expansion of NATO and EU influence is scaring Russia.

Skeesix posted:

Whatever Russia's reasons, they don't combine into a legitimate reason to invade.

quote:

On Ukraine, I would not condone Russian behaviour or expansion

quote:

In an interview with BBC Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis, the Labour leadership front runner said Blair and others who made decisions that led to what he described as an “illegal war” in Iraq, should “deal with the consequences.”

Maitlis noted that many of Corbyn’s supporters felt strongly that Blair should be tried, and asked if he agreed.

Corbyn said: "I think there are some decisions that Tony Blair has to confess. He needs to tell us what happened.

"What happened in Crawford, Texas in 2002 in his private meetings with George Bush?

"Why has the Chilcott report still not come out - because apparently there’s still debate about the release of information on one side or the other of the Atlantic.

"And at that point Tony Blair and the others that made the decisions are going to have to deal with the consequences of it.

Pressed on whether he thought Blair should be tried for war crimes, Corbyn answered: “If he’s committed a war crime, yes. Everyone who’s committed a war crime should be.”

Pinterest Mom posted:

Gum posted:

way to parrot pro-saddam talking points, corbyn