Arthur Scargill, President of the National Union of Mineworkers, circa 1985. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
In July 1984, Margaret Thatcher gave a speech to the 1922 Committee about the miners who had been on strike since March. “We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands,” she said. “We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty.” Working men fighting to save their jobs were now a metastasising cell that must be obliterated.
I remember it well as it was my birthday, and my friends immediately started to make stickers and badges. I went back to my Mum’s house proudly sporting an “Enemy Within” sticker on my pregnant belly. A Thatcher-supporter, she said I was a reason why women should not be given the vote.
Back then, everyone I knew in London supported the miners. We hated Thatcher and understood this to be a battle between the capitalist state and the working class, an attempt to crush union power once for all. If you ever had doubts, you didn’t show them out of solidarity. This still carries for those who want to romanticise the strike as the last great civil war. War changes lives forever and the miner’s strike changed this country forever, its ghosts popping up in Billy Elliott, Pride and Sherwood.
Today, a three-part series starts on Channel 4, Miners’ Strike 1984: The Battle for Britain, and, 40 years on, it makes for essential viewing. Through interviews with striking miners and scabs, with those working in the shadows to defeat it on the government’s behalf, with the police and with reams of extraordinarily violent footage, this is intense, visceral stuff. To reckon with the defeat of the miners — and it was a huge thrashing — is to gaze on a gaping sore that some argue leads all the way to Brexit. But reckon with it we must.
In 1984, Britain was home to 173 working collieries, but the richest seams of coal had already been mined and it was becoming more expensive to reach what remained. The answer was mechanisation, which meant redundancies. Thatcher wanted three things: a confrontation with “the Yorkshire Stalin”, Arthur Scargill; to close inefficient pits in order to grow the economy; and to break the strongest union. The National Coal Board said it would close 20 pits; Scargill told his men that it would be 70. And so they downed tools.
While the strike was indeed about jobs, the documentary reveals that it was also about so much more. Going down the pit was the most money a lad with no qualifications could make. But nor was it just about wages. It was about something more intangible: a sense of self, of masculinity, of community. Or as they said 40 years ago and keep saying in these films, it was about “the future”.
In some pit villages, there was no alternative. The pit was not simply somewhere men worked but the centre of their clubs, associations, their entire world. The soot-covered nobility of the miner’s face is easy to mythologise. But this was horrible, filthy, backbreaking work. When actual miners turned up at the benefits I attended, working-class heroism became flesh with all its less noble needs, and middle-class activists gave themselves to the cause in more ways than one.
What Scargill had on his side was his ability to command flying pickets; his refusal to hold a national ballot, though, meant the fragmentation of the workforce. The Nottinghamshire miners, for instance, wanted to keep working as they considered the strike unconstitutional without a national ballot. The result was that, in some pits, strike-breakers were bussed in on coaches with grills over the windows for protection. It allowed Thatcher and the Tory press to paint the strike as nothing more than mob rule based on violence and intimidation. And so an industrial dispute became an existential one, a battle between good and evil. The revelation that NUM funds were sequestered, as part of its dodgy dealings with Gaddafi, only further undermined the cause.
The identification of miners with their own local area rather than their whole industry is what for some Marxists call the “deterritorialisation” of capital. This division was further exploited by David Hart, the sinister figure who appears as Stephen Sweet in David Peace’s fantastic novel GB84 and is often referred to as “the Jew”. This super-rich, Right-wing libertarian told Thatcher that a deal didn’t need to be struck, that the miners could be defeated. He set about funding and aiding those who wanted to go back to work. An actual enemy within? Certainly, this was the state intervening in a highly suspect manner. The government distanced themselves from him as soon as possible.
Their other shocking intervention, and one they couldn’t distance themselves from, were the new “techniques” of policing. The police were now being sent across the country, and actively and brutally working to protect the interests of “capital”. This was not a neutral peacekeeping force. They could now use roadblocks to turn away anyone they deemed to be a flying picket. They could beat up miners and then arrest them; their own police footage shows them at The Battle of Orgreave where they corralled minors into a field and then charged at them with baton-wielding mounted police. This was a battle alright, medieval and one-sided. The breaking of heads, the breaking of will, the breaking of collective action. It hurt; it clearly still does.
The strike may well have taught us something about power and the strength of people standing together, but where did that idealism go? The pits were always going to close. There are just six mines left, the rest of our coal imported. Was it a fantasy that all these men could even keep their jobs in that time of deindustrialisation?
To see the fate of those abandoned places is heart-breaking. Heroin moved in, as it always does. Oh and fancy Bang & Olufsen shops. Those with big redundancy payments like to splash out on something fancy for their homes, something they can control.
The sadness of all this was apparent when I was interviewing ex-miners in a working-men’s club in the late Nineties, and every man described himself as “retired undefeated”. They had, in other words, been made redundant after the strike. Now they were at home mostly looking after the kids, though they did not want to say that. They had turned down jobs in service industries because they were from a generation who thought that men’s work was manual work.
It was a Sunday lunchtime in the club, so there were strippers. Only a few women were there, and the men called them “pudding burners” — as they were out instead of making the Sunday lunch, as they should be. I wondered a bit about what kind of community we were all busy “protecting”, having seen the remarkable resilience of the miners’ wives during the strike. It turned out that many of the women now had two or three jobs and were getting by. They had adapted in a way some of the guys just couldn’t.
Perhaps all this has something to do with the difficulty of admitting that you were once on the losing side — and the fact that it’s still hard to understand what that even means. Something bigger than the closure of certain coal mines was at stake here. It was, after all, as much a story of demoralisation as deindustrialisation. This country lost the idea that the working man or woman could ever really win again, and that wound still weeps.
Suzanne Moore is an award-winning columnist and journalist. She won the Orwell Prize in 2019.
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SubscribeI find it astonishing that any Russian could hold up a N*zi flag after what they did to the people of Russia (and the rest of the USSR)
Russians like Putin worship strength.
They wish they had it, and will follow anyone who displays it.
I’d be interested in what you mean by “strength”.
The ability to act unbounded by any constraints.
Indeed, as with the heirs of the Third Rome, opposition is seen as heresy, and therefore rebellion against the dictates of the Almighty.
Or as Russian supporters of Putin term all opposition:
“Satanism.”
“The ability to act unbounded by any constraints.”
I don’t think that’s indicative of the Russian personality. I can think of number of Russians who would not fit your idea of a people unbound by any constraints, unless you regard as unconstrained a love of their country and a memory of a country that goes back further than Communism. And opposition to what? Are Putin and the people of Russia the same? Russia has had many leaders, they are not the person who holds the reigns of power. In fact they are probably not so different from you, but with a longer history and a world of pain. You have conflated “Russians” and supporters of Putin and it doesn’t work. Their strength is the ability to survive.
A great many Russians accept that their nation should be unbounded by any constraints. That’s what drives Putin’s regime.
Indeed, any significant nation on their borders is deemed a grave threat to Russia. It must then be defeated. But when it is, Russia is confronted with another threat as great or greater.
If they take Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics will be seen as a “N*z*” threat that must be neutralized. Then it will be the Scandinavians and Germany. Then France and Britain. Unable to compete in other areas, Russia can only respond with force.
And that’s been the Muscovite dynamic for the last 800 years.
Luttwak describes the same phenomenon WRT the Roman Empire.
It never changes. It never CAN change, without a basic restructuring of the entire edifice.
Of course some Russians want something different. But explain exactly how they can do that.
All efforts so far have failed.
“A great many Russians accept that their nation should be unbounded by any constraints.”
You’re going to have to make that comment a lot clearer to convince me of anything like that. By the way, a Muscovite is someone from Moscow. That’s not necessarily indicative of Russia any more than Washington is indicative of America.
Edit: rereading your comment I see you did actually say “Russians like Putin” and “supporters of Putin.” But then you did go on to say “ a great many Russians”. So now I’m not quite sure who you mean.
Sorry, do you seriously think that any Russian’s opinion matters, except Putin’s?
Yes he has to worry about what people think. But as is always the case in Russia, he has the tools to crush any dissent.
…Until he doesn’t, and the cycle just begins anew, with a new autocrat.
Moreover, one cannot understand this war without understanding that the Russian federation goes back to Moscow, not Kyivan Rus.
The former stems from Mongol ways of governance, the latter from Slavic and North European traditions.
Muscovites (the people who prop up Putin’s regime) are fearful of any change, any deviation from the norm, whereas people from Ukraine are much more anarchic.
And have far better senses of humour.
Sorry, do you seriously think that any Russian’s opinion matters, except Putin’s?
Yes he has to worry about what people think. But as is always the case in Russia, he has the tools to crush any dissent.
…Until he doesn’t, and the cycle just begins anew, with a new autocrat.
Moreover, one cannot understand this war without understanding that the Russian federation goes back to Moscow, not Kyivan Rus.
The former stems from Mongol ways of governance, the latter from Slavic and North European traditions.
Muscovites (the people who prop up Putin’s regime) are fearful of any change, any deviation from the norm, whereas people from Ukraine are much more anarchic.
And have far better senses of humour.
“A great many Russians accept that their nation should be unbounded by any constraints.”
You’re going to have to make that comment a lot clearer to convince me of anything like that. By the way, a Muscovite is someone from Moscow. That’s not necessarily indicative of Russia any more than Washington is indicative of America.
Edit: rereading your comment I see you did actually say “Russians like Putin” and “supporters of Putin.” But then you did go on to say “ a great many Russians”. So now I’m not quite sure who you mean.
A great many Russians accept that their nation should be unbounded by any constraints. That’s what drives Putin’s regime.
Indeed, any significant nation on their borders is deemed a grave threat to Russia. It must then be defeated. But when it is, Russia is confronted with another threat as great or greater.
If they take Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics will be seen as a “N*z*” threat that must be neutralized. Then it will be the Scandinavians and Germany. Then France and Britain. Unable to compete in other areas, Russia can only respond with force.
And that’s been the Muscovite dynamic for the last 800 years.
Luttwak describes the same phenomenon WRT the Roman Empire.
It never changes. It never CAN change, without a basic restructuring of the entire edifice.
Of course some Russians want something different. But explain exactly how they can do that.
All efforts so far have failed.
“The ability to act unbounded by any constraints.”
I don’t think that’s indicative of the Russian personality. I can think of number of Russians who would not fit your idea of a people unbound by any constraints, unless you regard as unconstrained a love of their country and a memory of a country that goes back further than Communism. And opposition to what? Are Putin and the people of Russia the same? Russia has had many leaders, they are not the person who holds the reigns of power. In fact they are probably not so different from you, but with a longer history and a world of pain. You have conflated “Russians” and supporters of Putin and it doesn’t work. Their strength is the ability to survive.
The ability to act unbounded by any constraints.
Indeed, as with the heirs of the Third Rome, opposition is seen as heresy, and therefore rebellion against the dictates of the Almighty.
Or as Russian supporters of Putin term all opposition:
“Satanism.”
I’d be interested in what you mean by “strength”.
Well ok, isn’t it equally astonishing that they might hold up a Russian flag after what they’ve done to themselves over the years? And never mind the flags – is it not astonishing that the west is now drowning in Marxist doctrine once again even after its been repeatedly shown to bring poverty and horror to everything it touches? Seems we are all hell bent to relive the darker parts of history these days.
The power of the neo-Marxism lite (TM) is twofold – it’s American (and we all know that American is right wing, and classless, so they couldn’t possibly be Marxist); it’s Crap Marxism (I’m not sure whether Marx is rolling, laughing or crying in his grave), and we all know that crap sells.
<the west is now drowning in Marxist doctrine>
that’s a surprisingly pessimistic comment. Did I miss something? Examples?
Maybe pessimistic but not entirely wrong. I guess examples are going to depend on one’s perspective.
Is this a serious comment? You really don’t see the influence of Marxist post-modernist thought all around you? I guess the short answer is, yes, you missed something.
Maybe pessimistic but not entirely wrong. I guess examples are going to depend on one’s perspective.
Is this a serious comment? You really don’t see the influence of Marxist post-modernist thought all around you? I guess the short answer is, yes, you missed something.
But neo-Marxism in the West is also a joke outside of a few campuses.
As long as one can laugh at it, it’s no danger–anymore than Trump is a danger.
“But neo-Marxism in the West is also a joke outside of a few campuses.”
I don’t think that’s true. Laughing at something does not amount to resistance. Marxism may not be obvious but it’s infiltrated our institutions under the guise of a number of social initiatives. Your complacency is perfectly fine with those who work at it.
An unworkable system always collapses in the end.
The USSR, Trump, and soon our self-deluding campuses.
Where the latter ARE deluded I hasten to add. Just because academics avoid confrontations doesn’t mean they actually agree.
Just out of interest, why do you group Trump with Russia and the campuses?
All three are illiberal.
All three want to shout down–or on occasion, beat up–people who disagree with them.
The damage from Trump and the campus idiots is limited because, for now, rule of law still prevails.
Tweedledee, Tweedledum, and, in Trump’s case, Tweedledumber.
All three are illiberal.
All three want to shout down–or on occasion, beat up–people who disagree with them.
The damage from Trump and the campus idiots is limited because, for now, rule of law still prevails.
Tweedledee, Tweedledum, and, in Trump’s case, Tweedledumber.
Our economies are barely recognizable as capitalism anymore. And they are indeed collapsing … for anyone paying attention.
Just out of interest, why do you group Trump with Russia and the campuses?
Our economies are barely recognizable as capitalism anymore. And they are indeed collapsing … for anyone paying attention.
An unworkable system always collapses in the end.
The USSR, Trump, and soon our self-deluding campuses.
Where the latter ARE deluded I hasten to add. Just because academics avoid confrontations doesn’t mean they actually agree.
“But neo-Marxism in the West is also a joke outside of a few campuses.”
I don’t think that’s true. Laughing at something does not amount to resistance. Marxism may not be obvious but it’s infiltrated our institutions under the guise of a number of social initiatives. Your complacency is perfectly fine with those who work at it.
The power of the neo-Marxism lite (TM) is twofold – it’s American (and we all know that American is right wing, and classless, so they couldn’t possibly be Marxist); it’s Crap Marxism (I’m not sure whether Marx is rolling, laughing or crying in his grave), and we all know that crap sells.
<the west is now drowning in Marxist doctrine>
that’s a surprisingly pessimistic comment. Did I miss something? Examples?
But neo-Marxism in the West is also a joke outside of a few campuses.
As long as one can laugh at it, it’s no danger–anymore than Trump is a danger.
Every culture has its fair share of fascists, we we all know, even Jewish as has been widely documented. Radical political movements are a natural home for neuropaths everywhere.
Russians like Putin worship strength.
They wish they had it, and will follow anyone who displays it.
Well ok, isn’t it equally astonishing that they might hold up a Russian flag after what they’ve done to themselves over the years? And never mind the flags – is it not astonishing that the west is now drowning in Marxist doctrine once again even after its been repeatedly shown to bring poverty and horror to everything it touches? Seems we are all hell bent to relive the darker parts of history these days.
Every culture has its fair share of fascists, we we all know, even Jewish as has been widely documented. Radical political movements are a natural home for neuropaths everywhere.
I find it astonishing that any Russian could hold up a N*zi flag after what they did to the people of Russia (and the rest of the USSR)
As charming a bunch of thugs are you could hope never to meet.
There are two unanswered questions: how numerous are they, and how effective are they on the battlefield? Any twit can tote the ironmongery and look tough, but war has a habit of separating the men from the boys.
As charming a bunch of thugs are you could hope never to meet.
There are two unanswered questions: how numerous are they, and how effective are they on the battlefield? Any twit can tote the ironmongery and look tough, but war has a habit of separating the men from the boys.
Just a miniaturized version of Putin’s Russia.
Killing people on “enemies lists,” and separating children from their parents for adoption by Aryan…I mean Real Russian parents is no different than anything Hitler did. Indeed, taking Ukraine in 1941 was his main reason for expanding the war, just as it was for Putin in 2022.
The mobile crematoriums haven’t yet been used on people like Zelensky. But they certainly are used to “disappear” dead soldiers, whose families might otherwise claim compensation from the “Reich.”
This is a society slipping into a psychotic delusion, just as Germany did in the 1940s. It feels weak, and surrounded by enemies–enemies of its own making. Anything is now possible.
And some of those possibilities are worse than what Rusich wants.
Just a miniaturized version of Putin’s Russia.
Killing people on “enemies lists,” and separating children from their parents for adoption by Aryan…I mean Real Russian parents is no different than anything Hitler did. Indeed, taking Ukraine in 1941 was his main reason for expanding the war, just as it was for Putin in 2022.
The mobile crematoriums haven’t yet been used on people like Zelensky. But they certainly are used to “disappear” dead soldiers, whose families might otherwise claim compensation from the “Reich.”
This is a society slipping into a psychotic delusion, just as Germany did in the 1940s. It feels weak, and surrounded by enemies–enemies of its own making. Anything is now possible.
And some of those possibilities are worse than what Rusich wants.
A key figure in the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has claimed to a Finnish newspaper that 20 or so Finns were fighting in a British battalion, commanded by a former United States Marine Corps general. There are not many former United States Marine Corps generals, so which one do we think that it is, and why? It is rubbish, of course. But just as you can bet your life that there are British and American Nazis fighting on the other side, you can bet your life that there are British and American pure mercenaries in the Wagner Group. We have no interest in whether that or the Kraken Regiment won, just so long as it did not bother us, which it would have no cause to do unless we had been foolish enough to have backed its enemy. Yet on a cross-party basis, Britain is indeed engaged in such folly.
Indeed.
And think how foolish the US was to back Britain in WW2. Simply allowing Hitler to dominate the European continent would have saved 10s of millions of lives. It was a crime far worse than anything NATO has done recently.
And Churchill’s refusal to enter real negotiations with Hitler was just as unconscionable.
How can the West bear the guilt of their aggression in WW2?
Can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic. Nazis meant to quite literally murder the entire world except those with Germanic descent, and even that last part is open to interpretation. I think they weren’t sure what to do about the French and the Italians for example. If Britain allowed a murderous monster to proliferate at its doorstep I don’t think the end would be good for anyone.
That was clearly sarcasm on Martins part
Oh, and the leader who ordered people to be tortured and killed once the Russian Army rolled into every capture Ukrainian town wasn’t doing the same thing?
A million Ukrainians have been exiled to Russia for “re-education” and/or confinement.
Once you say that Ukrainians can’t exist because they are “N*z*s, you have to start killing anyone who still claims to be Ukrainian.
It’s the only way to mobilize at least part of the Russian population against an external enemy.
That was clearly sarcasm on Martins part
Oh, and the leader who ordered people to be tortured and killed once the Russian Army rolled into every capture Ukrainian town wasn’t doing the same thing?
A million Ukrainians have been exiled to Russia for “re-education” and/or confinement.
Once you say that Ukrainians can’t exist because they are “N*z*s, you have to start killing anyone who still claims to be Ukrainian.
It’s the only way to mobilize at least part of the Russian population against an external enemy.
Of course, it was the Soviet Union that won the War in Europe. But the key point here is that there are Nazis on both sides. Neither need bother us. Unless we were foolish enough to back the other lot. Sadly, we are.
Stop falling for Cold War propaganda.
Russia’s offensives would have been impossible without half a million Ford trucks, 7000 aircraft, and 12,000 tanks and other vehicles. Their offensives would have culminated long before they made any decisive breakthroughs.
And after 1942, the Luftwaffe had almost entirely withdrawn from the Eastern Front to stop UK and US bombing. After that Russia had a free hand.
The contribution of each side to victory was about 50/50.
Indeed, that’s why HIMARs have stopped Russian advances since summer. The Russians can’t transport enough supplies to the front to launch a significant offensive.
Learn something about WW2–and the present war.
… and don’t forget the German tanks that were withdrawn to be sent to the Mediterranean, before the Battle of Kursk.
… and don’t forget the German tanks that were withdrawn to be sent to the Mediterranean, before the Battle of Kursk.
Stop falling for Cold War propaganda.
Russia’s offensives would have been impossible without half a million Ford trucks, 7000 aircraft, and 12,000 tanks and other vehicles. Their offensives would have culminated long before they made any decisive breakthroughs.
And after 1942, the Luftwaffe had almost entirely withdrawn from the Eastern Front to stop UK and US bombing. After that Russia had a free hand.
The contribution of each side to victory was about 50/50.
Indeed, that’s why HIMARs have stopped Russian advances since summer. The Russians can’t transport enough supplies to the front to launch a significant offensive.
Learn something about WW2–and the present war.
Of course, it was the Soviet Union that won the War in Europe. But the key point here is that there are Na*is (you can’t say the word in comments on a post about them) on both sides. Neither need bother us. Unless we were foolish enough to back the other lot. Sadly, we are.
One might even go so far as to say “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart.” Kind of takes the wind out of the whole, ‘their n*zis are worse than our n*zis” narrative.
The man who said that fought all his life against a totalitarian regime.
And while he thought Russia, Belarus and Ukraine should stay united, he said he would never send his son to fight against Ukrainians.
The difference between Solzhenitsyn and Putin is the difference betwixt Heaven and Hell.
The man who said that fought all his life against a totalitarian regime.
And while he thought Russia, Belarus and Ukraine should stay united, he said he would never send his son to fight against Ukrainians.
The difference between Solzhenitsyn and Putin is the difference betwixt Heaven and Hell.
One might even go so far as to say “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart.” Kind of takes the wind out of the whole, ‘their n*zis are worse than our n*zis” narrative.
Can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic. Nazis meant to quite literally murder the entire world except those with Germanic descent, and even that last part is open to interpretation. I think they weren’t sure what to do about the French and the Italians for example. If Britain allowed a murderous monster to proliferate at its doorstep I don’t think the end would be good for anyone.
Of course, it was the Soviet Union that won the War in Europe. But the key point here is that there are Nazis on both sides. Neither need bother us. Unless we were foolish enough to back the other lot. Sadly, we are.
Of course, it was the Soviet Union that won the War in Europe. But the key point here is that there are Na*is (you can’t say the word in comments on a post about them) on both sides. Neither need bother us. Unless we were foolish enough to back the other lot. Sadly, we are.
Indeed.
And think how foolish the US was to back Britain in WW2. Simply allowing Hitler to dominate the European continent would have saved 10s of millions of lives. It was a crime far worse than anything NATO has done recently.
And Churchill’s refusal to enter real negotiations with Hitler was just as unconscionable.
How can the West bear the guilt of their aggression in WW2?
A key figure in the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has claimed to a Finnish newspaper that 20 or so Finns were fighting in a British battalion, commanded by a former United States Marine Corps general. There are not many former United States Marine Corps generals, so which one do we think that it is, and why? It is rubbish, of course. But just as you can bet your life that there are British and American Nazis fighting on the other side, you can bet your life that there are British and American pure mercenaries in the Wagner Group. We have no interest in whether that or the Kraken Regiment won, just so long as it did not bother us, which it would have no cause to do unless we had been foolish enough to have backed its enemy. Yet on a cross-party basis, Britain is indeed engaged in such folly.
“including depraved acts like killing a puppy,”
What am I meant to make of this statement? Is it the worst thing he’s done, is it the only thing they have on him. The story’s not really very helpful and certainly doesn’t enlighten me. I’d like a bit more depth about their activities besides being seen in a swimming pool and seeking information on NATO.
Follow the links (I did) all the way to source and you will find zero primary evidence for most of the really horrific allegations – puppy killing, being neo Nazis etc.
Of course, these are nasty, brutal people as any mercenary group would be. But this article is a caricature of western coverage.
There are primary sources and videos of both sides doing awful things – on the Ukrainian side, more so than the Russian in fact.
But western sources, fresh from Iraq and Libya, with Western weapons actively used even now in Yemen, having overlooked the Donbass atrocities since 2014, trying to pretend the Russians are morally inferior – is the precise reason the rest of the world views their campaign with contempt.
“Follow the links (I did)”
I did. In case it was missed I was being sarcastic. These stories are a sort of poolside war correspondence, where writers, far removed from events, scan the internet, finding a few references to individuals or events in other articles (also without reference to sources), then joining the dots in a way that suits their angle. There’s a lot of writing like this nowadays. Find a well known or historical figure, find some way to tie them to some fad or trend, make vague connections and leave conclusions vague and meaningless.
The dynamic in Donbas has been: one side shells, then the other responds.
As many people have died on the Ukrainian side as on the Donbas.
All Putin had to do was 1) allow blue helmets in to separate the two sides.
Or 20 declare Donbas part of Russia, like Crimea.
Instead, he chose to use it as a bargaining chip.
And when that failed, he chose to move on to the greatest failure of his life, and possibly the greatest failure in Russia’s history.
“Follow the links (I did)”
I did. In case it was missed I was being sarcastic. These stories are a sort of poolside war correspondence, where writers, far removed from events, scan the internet, finding a few references to individuals or events in other articles (also without reference to sources), then joining the dots in a way that suits their angle. There’s a lot of writing like this nowadays. Find a well known or historical figure, find some way to tie them to some fad or trend, make vague connections and leave conclusions vague and meaningless.
The dynamic in Donbas has been: one side shells, then the other responds.
As many people have died on the Ukrainian side as on the Donbas.
All Putin had to do was 1) allow blue helmets in to separate the two sides.
Or 20 declare Donbas part of Russia, like Crimea.
Instead, he chose to use it as a bargaining chip.
And when that failed, he chose to move on to the greatest failure of his life, and possibly the greatest failure in Russia’s history.
Follow the links (I did) all the way to source and you will find zero primary evidence for most of the really horrific allegations – puppy killing, being neo Nazis etc.
Of course, these are nasty, brutal people as any mercenary group would be. But this article is a caricature of western coverage.
There are primary sources and videos of both sides doing awful things – on the Ukrainian side, more so than the Russian in fact.
But western sources, fresh from Iraq and Libya, with Western weapons actively used even now in Yemen, having overlooked the Donbass atrocities since 2014, trying to pretend the Russians are morally inferior – is the precise reason the rest of the world views their campaign with contempt.
“including depraved acts like killing a puppy,”
What am I meant to make of this statement? Is it the worst thing he’s done, is it the only thing they have on him. The story’s not really very helpful and certainly doesn’t enlighten me. I’d like a bit more depth about their activities besides being seen in a swimming pool and seeking information on NATO.
Funny how war tends to bring out the worst in people. Reading this all I can think of is the brilliant line from “Breaker Morant” after Lord Kitchener lectures a subordinate about the motives of the enemy: “They lack our altruism, sir?”
Funny how war tends to bring out the worst in people. Reading this all I can think of is the brilliant line from “Breaker Morant” after Lord Kitchener lectures a subordinate about the motives of the enemy: “They lack our altruism, sir?”
Ok, maybe I’ve been desensitized to violence a bit somehow, but I did expect to read something more horrific than that there having read the start.
Duplicated
According to sources he cut “off its head and allegedly” ate it. It doesn’t say what part he ate, the body or head. So, yeah, quite a serious problem.
Puppy eh? We cut the heads off cute lambs and eat them.
In fact those who live ‘in the wild’ seem to view the personal slaughter of their food as more ethical than getting factories to do it and package it nicely.
I was thinking similar – that lambs are routinely killed and eaten, and even puppies are killed sometimes if no one will look after them. But then this seems less like a case eating food than an explicit display of cruelty.
There’s a massive difference between killing animals for food and doing so simply to prove how cruel you can be in my opinion
A downvote? So somebody believes there’s no difference between killing an animal to eat and killing one out of sadism clearly
You can get downvotes here not because of your comment but because they didn’t like what you said about another article.
But I’m upvoting you today Brett!
But I’m upvoting you today Brett!
You can get downvotes here not because of your comment but because they didn’t like what you said about another article.
A downvote? So somebody believes there’s no difference between killing an animal to eat and killing one out of sadism clearly
I was thinking similar – that lambs are routinely killed and eaten, and even puppies are killed sometimes if no one will look after them. But then this seems less like a case eating food than an explicit display of cruelty.
There’s a massive difference between killing animals for food and doing so simply to prove how cruel you can be in my opinion
Puppy eh? We cut the heads off cute lambs and eat them.
In fact those who live ‘in the wild’ seem to view the personal slaughter of their food as more ethical than getting factories to do it and package it nicely.
Duplicated
According to sources he cut “off its head and allegedly” ate it. It doesn’t say what part he ate, the body or head. So, yeah, quite a serious problem.
Ok, maybe I’ve been desensitized to violence a bit somehow, but I did expect to read something more horrific than that there having read the start.
This is ridiculous! A Russian, let alone a Russian patriot, would never allowed it to be photographed holding / promoting a Nazi flag or any other German Nazi symbol. I am afraid you’re completely ignorant of how and what the Russian public, even 80 years after WW2, thinks of Hitler, German Nazis and the WW2, which, by the way, they call “the Great Patriotic War”.