Neutrality

[odyssey06]

(Living Standards) Yes they were.


I have never heard anyone say this before, what are you basing it on.


I never said there was nothing noble about Poles wanting their freedom from that system.

What I said was that I would not give my children's lives for freedom from that system.

In the Polish election the Social Democrat candidate and former communist Alexander Kwasniewski was chosen by 52% of the electorate over Walensa. That would suggest that many people who lived under the Soviet system didn't see it as tyranny. Indeed they didn't move to overthrow the system because of its tyranny but because it was failing to deliver prosperity. Now I am in danger of changing the topic, my basic point is that nothing is worth having your children's lives lost in the mud of some battlefield.

The Soviet system was setup to plunder Eastern Europe in the sense of directing its economic output to serve its ends - including so called Warsaw Pact and so called Soviet republics which were just colonies of Russia. We can see that Russia was plundering Poland etc by the collapse in Russian living standards when these countries became independent, and Poland etc prospered. Russian living standards were inflated by plundering the economic output of Poland et al.
Its military strength was inflated by directing the manpower, technical resources, physical resources, economic output of Poland etc also. That is also plunder.

He was not running on a platform of a return to the previous system. In fact, according to Wikipedia:
His political course resembled that of Wałęsa's in several key respects, such as the pursuit of closer ties to the European Union and NATO. Kwaśniewski also continued the transition to a market economy and the privatization of state-owned enterprises, although with less energy than his predecessor.

So your claims about the Polish election are highly dubious and without foundation.

Nothing is worth having your children's lives lost in the mud of some battlefield? So surrender no matter what, even to Nazis? A policy of abject moral bankruptcy and surrender which would lead to slavery and tyranny and gulags and deaths camps worldwide.

And in relation to the USSR etc it means if your child does grow up to see it as tyranny... their lives lost to the Gulag. It was a tyrannical, totalitarian society.

 

[cremeegg]

So your claims about the Polish election are highly dubious and without foundation.

Ok, you are right Walensa beat Kwasniewski in the 1995 presidential election, and Russian living standards were inflated by plundering the economic output of Poland et al. Meanwhile back in the real world.

 

[Purple]

I put up Pearse's poem the fool previously, a man prepared to fight for his ideals, his version of 'Fundamental freedoms worth fighting for, but not I think yours.

I agree with James Connelly when he said that Pearse was a blithering idiot. I've no time for him or his weird version of what Ireland should have become.

Anyway, back on topic; the bottom line is that if everyone took our stance then Russian tanks would roll across Europe. Thankfully other countries have foreign and defence policies which are not based on some fanciful, bombastic, delusional and self aggrandising version of their place in the world.

 

[Purple]

And in relation to the USSR etc it means if your child does grow up to see it as tyranny... their lives lost to the Gulag. It was a tyrannical, totalitarian society.

Poland, or specifically the Second Polish Republic which was established at the end of the First World War, was invaded by Lenin's Red Army in 1920 in his first attempt to obliterate Poland from the map. The Polish fought them off bravely.

During the period up to the Second World War its per capita GDP grew by more than 60%. That all changed in 1939 when it was invaded by Germany, their ally Slovakia, and the USSR. That ushered in a period of unparalleled destruction followed by the atrophy and oppression of communism.

If my children were facing that future in 1939 I'd have fought to try to stop it.

 

[odyssey06]

Poland, or specifically the Second Polish Republic which was established at the end of the First World War, was invaded by Lenin's Red Army in 1920 in his first attempt to obliterate Poland from the map. The Polish fought them off bravely.

During the period up to the Second World War its per capita GDP grew by more than 60%. That all changed in 1939 when it was invaded by Germany, their ally Slovakia, and the USSR. That ushered in a period of unparalleled destruction followed by the atrophy and oppression of communism.

If my children were facing that future in 1939 I'd have fought to try to stop it.

And this was one of the ways the Russians \ communists went about securing their tyranny over Poland... and no doubt Russia has similar plans for Ukraine if it falls. And others if it gets to them.

Katyn massacre - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Purple]

And this was one of the ways the Russians \ communists went about securing their tyranny over Poland... and no doubt Russia has similar plans for Ukraine if it falls. And others if it gets to them.

Katyn massacre - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Yep, not forgetting what was called the second Katyn massacre in 1945.

The Second Katyn was the mass murder of over a thousand such prisoners in 1945 (the first Katyn massacre was the mass murder of almost 22,000 Polish officers by the Russians in 1940).

Russia had attacked Poland in 1920 and again in 1939. In 1945 they were an army of occupation, not liberation.

 

[Purple]

Ok, you are right Walensa beat Kwasniewski in the 1995 presidential election, and Russian living standards were inflated by plundering the economic output of Poland et al. Meanwhile back in the real world.

Colonies are always run for the economic benefit of the colonising power and make no mistake, Russia was the colonising power in Poland. It was the Russian Empire by another name. What Russia is doing now in Ukraine is the same thing.

 

[Itchy]

Leo Varadkar warned against "excessive caution".
"The majority of officials advisory bodies and academics will recommend caution - playing and safe conservative with a small 'c'."
But he said that this is "not always the best advice".

In his speech, he warned that the EU needs to prepare for an attack.
"We have to be prepared for the consequences of an attack on an EU country, and how we would respond to that."
"Our geography and neutrality do not protect us as in the past."

Harris 'ready for the challenge' following election

Fine Gael Leader Simon Harris has been elected Taoiseach in the Dáil.

www.rte.ie

 

[Purple]

Harris 'ready for the challenge' following election

Fine Gael Leader Simon Harris has been elected Taoiseach in the Dáil.

www.rte.ie

That's a welcome dose of reality.

 

[Itchy]

That's a welcome dose of reality.

A day late and a dollar short, unfortunately.

Obviously the message is loud and clear at EU Council.

Macron has rearranged the chess board in any case. https://apnews.com/article/france-u...hat-it-means-06175e3b80bb17b369e4acba1bbc87b1

NATO veto on Western action is removed/diminished at least. Necessary measure given the political positions of the US and Germany. Putin only responds to strength so that will necessarily involve raising the risks, unfortunately. It would be better to support Ukraine militarily, but unfortunately, we have chosen the sanctimonious path.

 

[Purple]

It's 30 years this week since the start of the Rwandan Genocide.
Nearly a million Tutsis and thousands of moderate Hutus were murdered in 100 days in a country slightly larger than Leinster. It took three months for the Rwandan Patriotic Front to beat the French backed genocidal forces. The outside world did nothing to help, despite the clear knowledge that a real genocide was taking place. A truly shameful failure which showed the racism of the West and the utter powerlessness, deep corruption and total ineptitude of the UN.

That genocide led directly to what is referrer to as the Congolese Civil War but was in fact a war fought in Congo (Zaire at the time) between up to 14 countries over the next 2 decades. It was the deadliest war since the Second World War, resulting in the deaths of around 5 million people and the displacement of 2 million more.

We, or course, were neutral.

Anyway, the protagonists weren't white or Jewish so nobody here cared.

 

[Itchy]

Harris confirms Government plan to abandon ‘triple lock’ restriction on troops

‘Absurd that Russia would effectively have veto’ on Irish peacekeeping deployments, Taoiseach says

www.irishtimes.com

“That is not to say – and this is distorted time and time again at home – in any manner of means a move away from military neutrality, which Ireland is intends to absolutely keep,” he said.

Which is absolutely true, in fairness.

 

[Purple]

Harris confirms Government plan to abandon ‘triple lock’ restriction on troops

‘Absurd that Russia would effectively have veto’ on Irish peacekeeping deployments, Taoiseach says

www.irishtimes.com

Which is absolutely true, in fairness.

I'm delighted that we are taking the veto over our decision to deploy our military away from Putin and Jinping. I think of it as restoring our sovereignty.