Good Ole Brooksy

- Biggus Dickus: Go tell that to the people of Donbass who are being bombed by the Kiev army. Or to the Russian people whom Putin saved from Yeltsin-era misery. You probably wouldn't come back alive.
Maybe I should give myself an avatar mocking Adolfina Merkel, Benito "Mussolini" Draghi, and Josephina Hillary Rodham Clinton dze Jughashvili a.k.a. Lady Stalin. Or maybe [s]Caliph[/s] President Barack *HUSSEIN* Obama.

^ In which country do you live? I live in one of the countries bordering Russia, an ex-soviet country for the last 25 years with a reestablished independence and the Crimea story could have just as well happened here if we weren't in the EU and NATO. Russian jets are crossing our air space every once in a while for whatever reason. If Putin had his way, I wouldn't doubt he'd love to bring USSR back and let me tell you, it was a fucked up regime. Putin is an authoritarian leader with a totalitarian tendency and some smaller countries around Russia are scared for their safety.

I live in Slovenia which is in EU, but I have relatives in Odessa and Moscow. Putin is authoritarian, that's granted, but he has to be. Non-authoritarianism was tried in Russia under both Gorbachev and Yeltsin, and the former brought about the collapse of the USSR, and the latter almost brought about the collapse of Russia itself.
And why would Putin want the USSR back when just this year, he openly condemned Lenin and said Lenin put a ticking bomb under Russia. If anything, if he could, he would bring back the Russian Empire.
Also it's interesting to note that the Ukrainian nationalists are chanting things like "Muscovites on knives" and "Hang the Muscovite", while they beat up any pro-Russian / pro-federalist presidential candidate in 2014 and burnt alive 200 people in the Odessa trade unions building, where the lucky ones to survive it were then beaten up, arrested, and are being held in prison to this day without trial.
They also tried to remove the co-official status of the Russian language as the first thing after the illegitimate Euromaidan coup d'État (where a *DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED* President and Government were overthrown), to which Crimea responded by leaving Ukraine and joining Russia, while the Donbass responded by peacefully protesting and demanding federalization, and after numerous (including the movement's leader Pavel Gubarev) were arrested for political reasons, by doing the exact same thing Maidan did - taking over government buildings, to which Ukraine responded by sending the Ukrainian Armed Forces at them, half of which defected to the pro-Russian side, leaving only western Ukrainian battalions, mostly carrying Nazi insignia such as modified Wolfsangel, fighting for Kiev.
Yes, Russia obviously then decided to arm the Donbass rebels, but then again, the US has also armed the "moderate" Syrian opposition (who promptly forwarded the weapons and ammo they received to ISIS who were advancing until Russia stopped them), so if the US can do it, so can Russia.
And the Baltic countries have no better. Just in Latvia alone, there's SS veterans parading in Nazi uniforms.
Also, why, if Putin wants to grab land so much, has he not grabbed, say, Kazakhstan where he would have a damned good reason to grab (the Baikonur space launch station), or Belarus. And why would he have offered to return 2 off 4 disputed Kurils to Japan (though he took back that offer after Japan refused to recognize the accesion of Crimea to Russia).
And about EU and NATO - Slovenia is on both. The EU has thoroughly fucked this country up economically, as they even demanded Slovenia stop producing sugar because otherwise EU would produce too much of it and "couldn't compete with cheap sugar from Latin America". Very good union working in the interest of its people, what can I say, that has no problem cutting jobs in its own member states in order to preserve them in Latin America. And as far as NATO is concerned, we did not need NATO to defend us until Yugoslavia collapsed, and even then we won the 10 days war against the Serbs without NATO help. And Yugoslavia was able to successfully resist Stalin's takeover attempts. So what we need is not EU or NATO, but the return of Yugoslavia, as under Yugoslavia, at least when Tito ruled, we prospered, under EU and NATO, we have increasing unemployment, increasing taxes, and decreasing income. European integration is a good idea on paper, but in practice it has been distorted by the idiots ruling the EU. And we should be non-aligned rather than in NATO like America's sheep.
Also, my relatives who live in the USSR, have a bit different story to tell about it than yours. A story where people were not worried of their future, where when you finished schooling, a job waited for you, and where while you couldn't go to the central square and yell "Fuck the Government", you at least didn't have to worry about the risk of ending under a bridge.

Oh, and please don't bring up Holodomor. Everyone, myself includes, agrees that Stalin was a barbaric tyrant (though he did save big parts of Europe from Hitler's rule, and I'm grateful to him and the other Allies for that, as well as to Yugoslav partisans), but to exaggerate a mass starvation due to incompetent economic policies and a half-assed barbarian attempt to solve the resulting disaster into a genocide supposedly designed to eliminate Ukrainians, is an absolute absurdity.
Just consider that the anti-Russian Ukrainians were mostly on Polish territory back then as they tend to be Galician which was fully Polish-controlled. The USSR controlled the center, east, and south which never had a high degree of nationalism, and instead mostly had pro-Russian sentiment, starting from when they asked the Tzar of Russia to save them from the Poles-Lithuanians centuries earlier (while the Galicians were fine with that). So essentially Stalin would have genocided pro-Russian Ukrainains? For what purpose?
Add the fact that more people died in Kazakhstan than Ukraine, and that people died throughout the USSR, including in Russia itself. So where's the genocide? Mass starvantion - absolutely. Genocide - absolutely not.
And in any case, holding the Putin regime responsible for Soviet-era crimes is stupid, and even worse is hating all the Russian people for the crimes of Soviet-era leaders.

Was Fairy Feller not listed on the track sheet(s) for the multitrack tapes? I seem to remember some of them being included in the Rainbow book, but don't have it to hand to check.

A couple of questions for Greg, if he's allowed to elaborate:
- Had "Big Spender" been damaged on the March tape, or did copyright problems lead to its exclusion?
- Is there any extra footage from the March show available from the better quality source used in the recent BBC documentary?

[QUOTE]

[b]Battler wrote: [/b] - Biggus Dickus: Go tell that to the people of Donbass who are being bombed by the Kiev army. Or to the Russian people whom Putin saved from Yeltsin-era misery. You probably wouldn't come back alive.
Maybe I should give myself an avatar mocking Adolfina Merkel, Benito "Mussolini" Draghi, and Josephina Hillary Rodham Clinton dze Jughashvili a.k.a. Lady Stalin. Or maybe [s]Caliph[/s] President Barack *HUSSEIN* Obama.[/QUOTE]

You can have whatever avatar you wish. I don't give a toss.

[QUOTE]

[b]Battler wrote: [/b] I live in Slovenia which is in EU, but I have relatives in Odessa and Moscow. Putin is authoritarian, that's granted, but he has to be. Non-authoritarianism was tried in Russia under both Gorbachev and Yeltsin, and the former .......[/QUOTE]


You raise good points. Obviously neither Putin nor Obama should be looked upon as saviours but neither of them should be defended either as nothing is black and white. I won't comment on the Ukraine issue, but it is clear that each side had their interests and Putin obviously did too.
I live in Latvia and I've seen a lot of interviews of veterans and have talked to people living during the time of war. I don't know about your country, but most people who lived here were either taken from their homes by either side or joining Nazis since they thought they'd help liberating their land from Soviets. At the time they didn't think Nazis were trying to occupy land themselves afterwards. Either way, all of whom I've heard talking about it have stated they fought for their country and homeland and not ideology or leader. They had to fight and so they did, often situation being 2 brothers on enemy sides. Obviously, I can't claim hundred percent as it's impossible to know what all the soldiers were thinking but most of them just wanted everyone to leave their home and go away yet they were forced to fight and take sides either willingly or by force. A few old veterans that are still alive going to put down a flower somewhere and reminisce of their war times don't really bother me, perhaps wearing an SS uniform is not the best choice though. May 9 Victory Day is no better for my country as to a lot of people here associate it more with celebrating an occupation, not to mention that it's quite laughable that 85 % of the 'veterans' parading in Soviet uniforms were barely born by the time of war anyway and have more medals and badges than they can hang on their chest. Liberation was all and good except for the fact that they forgot to go away for 50 years.
Yes, they stopped producing sugar here as well, I wouldn't say it was the best choice as by now we barely have any export.
Baltic states all on their own can't defend anything here even with Nato help, but it still gives a little bit of extra protection if something happens. I take a neutral stand on the whole union thing anyway. It wasn't great here pre-2004 and it's not great now either in the EU. Still better than the early-mid 90s when a lot of people had barely enough money for food.
Please don't defend USSR (even if just for the sake of argument). Yes, USSR did have several good things like you mentioned (hey, some of my country's best films and music was made during that time, though nor Queen nor Michael Jackson or anyone for that matter ever came here on tour) but they are overwhelmed by the not so good things. Huge censorship, stores practically empty and even then having endless queues, impossible to travel out of USSR (North Korea much?), when my grandmother was invited to Australia and even sent a ticket by relatives that moved there during the war, she was denied. When those relatives from Australia came here, they decided to go to country side to their old home, their car was followed for 50 KM outside the capital by some dark coloured car. My grandgrandfather was held up and interrogated by KGB for several weeks. Needless to say, he never talked about what happened there. All he did was fight in the war on the nazi side because it was nazis that happened to take him instead of communists. And not to mention the Stalin era repressions - many thousands of people deported to Siberia for whatever ridiculous reasons (like having a semi-national type of book from pre-war period, since because of that you're a traitor). They did it during the night, knock knock, get all your clothes and pack up, we're leaving after 15 mins. Then they toss you in a freight train and off you go. There are stories of some people managing to return back after some years only to be sent back again! You happened to have a bigger house than someone else, you get deported and they send in others to live and share your house instead. My grandmother was almost deported in 1949, I wouldn't be here if she didn't get lucky. They had many sleepless nights waiting for the moment that fortunately didn't happen. Needless to say, today she is absolutely glad that it's over now.
So there. I don't know how you can turn a blind eye to all the unfair things that happened and lack of basic human rights that were available back in the days in the western world and are available here today and you say it was good because people had a job in which they could accomplish nothing in anyway. Yes, people weren't living on the streets and that's a good thing. But it's not like today everyone lives on the street! Something tells me you wouldn't be too happy living there today as wouldn't I and even more so people that lived in the west and never experienced any of this. My bottom line - yes, a few good things but they hardly excuse the 90 % rest of the bullshit. Yes, it's stupid to blame all the Russians and Putin for the crimes that happened. Though I'm clearly not a fan of Putin and I do believe he'd accept a chance to create something similar to what once were had he been offered a chance. Russians are good people in general, as are all nations. Though what irritates me is that there is still a small percentage of Russian people here who still think of themselves as superior and privileged and refuse to learn the country's language though living here for decades. Some of those people living near the border of Russia, when interviewed by the TV, say that they only watch Russian TV channels and would love Putin to just come here and take hold of everything. And I don't respect these people in the least bit. In 2012 they went as far to make a referendum about giving Russian language official status, they lost though. Still, that's a small percentage and there are cool Russians who actually speak the language and are nice people. So it makes no sense to blame all the Russians for what the Communist Party did decades ago. I'm growing tired of writing so I'll probably stop here. These are my thoughts and I don't really feel like debating further. What I meant by all this, let's not justify anything that happened and the fact is that communism is bad, maybe not that bad on the paper but in real life it just can't exist together with basic rights. And yes, Putin is not nearly in the same league as Hitler and Stalin. Still, I do have concerns about my country, call that rusophobia if you want.

I suppose everyone wants to vent their frustration due to a lack of goodies being released from the Archives. I will not join the queue. Things could be better, however.

>> Please don't defend USSR (even if just for the sake of argument). Yes, USSR did have several good things like you mentioned (hey, some of my country's best films and music was made during that time, though nor Queen nor Michael Jackson or anyone for that matter ever came here on tour) but they are overwhelmed by the not so good things. Huge censorship, stores practically empty and even then having endless queues, impossible to travel out of USSR (North Korea much?), when my grandmother was invited to Australia and even sent a ticket by relatives that moved there during the war, she was denied. When those relatives from Australia came here, they decided to go to country side to their old home, their car was followed for 50 KM outside the capital by some dark coloured car. My grandgrandfather was held up and interrogated by KGB for several weeks. Needless to say, he never talked about what happened there. All he did was fight in the war on the nazi side because it was nazis that happened to take him instead of communists. And not to mention the Stalin era repressions - many thousands of people deported to Siberia for whatever ridiculous reasons (like having a semi-national type of book from pre-war period, since because of that you're a traitor). They did it during the night, knock knock, get all your clothes and pack up, we're leaving after 15 mins. Then they toss you in a freight train and off you go. There are stories of some people managing to return back after some years only to be sent back again! You happened to have a bigger house than someone else, you get deported and they send in others to live and share your house instead. My grandmother was almost deported in 1949, I wouldn't be here if she didn't get lucky. They had many sleepless nights waiting for the moment that fortunately didn't happen. Needless to say, today she is absolutely glad that it's over now. << Interesting because my mother traveled to SFR Yugoslavia without problem when he met my Slovenian father and then married him here. She grew up in Khruschev and Brezhnev era USSR and she doesn't recall any huge censorship. Heck, she recalls that they were listening to stuff like The Beatles on Voice of America and noone touched them because of that. She had more problems here in Yugoslavia, where she was instantly contacted by the UDBA (our version of the KGB) and asked to spy on the USSR for them, which she declined. Not to mention the Cult of Personality of Tito here in Yugoslavia while the USSR did not have one since Stalin died. And while I don't like how the Soviet regime behaved to your family, I can still understand *WHY* they did it - your relatives did after all come from a country belonging to the bloc that was categorically opposed to the Soviet Union and socialism. And if you think people from USSR and even Western communists were treated any better in the West, you are wrong. You just need to remember Joseph McCarthy and how he persecuted any communists in the US, to the point of destroying their careers. Real freedom, what to say. Add to that the racial segregation (Jim Crow laws) that were in vigor in the US at the time as well as ethnic segregation ("This fountain is for colored people only", "No entry for dogs or niggers", "Offering jobs to everybody - the Irish need not apply", etc.), and you don't really have a country much better. And is EU right now really any better? Most people are so poor they don't have money to take advantage of their right to travel. A lot of people are unemployed and have bleak prospects for their future. We are inviting in hordes of immigrants, quite a few of whom end up shooting our own people or detonating themselves (think Paris 2015 and Brussels 2016), but whoever criticizes the EU or calls against uncontrolled immigration gets called a racist, xenophobe, Nazi, and sometimes even arrested by the police. Sovereign debt gets used by Germany and Brussels to blackmail countries, just ask Greece how well it is for them. They threatened with exiting the EU, and instantly the German forced them to sign an accord favorable to Germany and very unfavorable to Greece. Conservative views are being suppressed and/or ridiculed in the name of political correctness. And most EU member states are decreasing democracy, including by banning more and more types of referenda until none will remain in the end. The people's will is overridden by the word of EU lites and the governments throughout the EU representing them. Elections are completely useless as they have become just a choice between different brands of the same excrement. And in addition to that, the EU itself is the US's lapdog, and it looks like soon the last regulations we have are going to be torn down to make it easier for the US to export their GMO-laden food here. It's done in the form of agreements known as TTIP, TAFTA, TISA, etc. And of course it's all done in secrecy, the public doesn't even have the right to know the details, nor to have a say in it. In addition, we are being spied on without the need to follow us with dark cars. The NSA, GCHQ, etc. just snoop on whatever we say on the Internet. And at least the US and the UK are full of people being detained without trial. >> Though what irritates me is that there is still a small percentage of Russian people here who still think of themselves as superior and privileged and refuse to learn the country's language though living here for decades. << They shouldn't have to learn the country's language. They are an autochtonous minority. Why can we Slovenians have no problem with Italian, Hungarian, and even Roma minorities in Slovenia, we give them full rights and all, while all of you non-Russian European ex-Soviets seem to be so nationalistic. It reminds me a lot of the Croats and the Serbs, and we all know how well their nationalism ended for former Yugoslavia. And your attitude is identical to them. It is also identical to that of the Italian fascists who demanded that all Slavs on territory occupied by Italy started speaking Italian. Children were beaten up in schools for speaking Slovenians, and all places bore signs saying "Here only Italian is spoken". >> Some of those people living near the border of Russia, when interviewed by the TV, say that they only watch Russian TV channels << And a lot here, myself included, only watch Italian TV channels. By your logic, we should all be forced to only watch Slovenian TV channels, or else deported to Italy, even if we're not ethnic Italians. >> and would love Putin to just come here and take hold of everything. << I certainly would love Putin to annex Slovenia. He would make order in a blink and make this country prosper, same as would happen if we just left the EU and reformed Yugoslavia. And as a matter of fact, if NATO and Russia were to go to war against each other, I would defect to the Russian side. >> In 2012 they went as far to make a referendum about giving Russian language official status, they lost though. << If Italian, Hungarian, and Roma can have official status in parts of Slovenia, and if Slovenian state media can have broadcasts in those three languages as well as German (for Carinthia), there is literally no reason for all those ex-Soviet states not to recognize the rights of the ethnic Russians. As much is also stipulated by the UN conventions in vigor. And why can Belgium have three official languages (French, Dutch, German)? Why can Germany recognize the official status of Upper and Lower Sorbian in Lusatia, Ripuarian and Plaatdüütsch in northern Germany, and Bavarian in Bavaria? Poland can recognize that of Pomeranian and Kashubian? Hungary that of Slovenian? Italy that of Slovenian, Friulan, Ladin, Sardin, Austrian German (in Bolzano) and French (in Valle d'Aosta)? Canada that of French in Québec? The US that of Spanish? Heck, even third world countries like Bolivia and Perù have no problem granting minority rights to the likes of Quechua

[QUOTE] [b]Battler wrote:[/b] And while I don't like how the Soviet regime behaved to your family, I can still understand *WHY* they did it - your relatives did after all come from a country belonging to the bloc that was categorically opposed to the Soviet Union and socialism. And if you think people from USSR and even Western communists were treated any better in the West, you are wrong. You just need to remember Joseph McCarthy and how he persecuted any communists in the US, to the point of destroying their careers. Real freedom, what to say. Add to that the racial segregation (Jim Crow laws) that were in vigor in the US at the time as well as ethnic segregation ("This fountain is for colored people only", "No entry for dogs or niggers", "Offering jobs to everybody - the Irish need not apply", etc.), and you don't really have a country much better. And is EU right now really any better? Most people are so poor they don't have money to take advantage of their right to travel. A lot of people are unemployed and have bleak prospects for their future. We are inviting in hordes of immigrants, quite a few of whom end up shooting our own people or detonating themselves (think Paris 2015 and Brussels 2016), but whoever criticizes the EU or calls against uncontrolled immigration gets .... >> Though what irritates me is that there is still a small percentage of Russian people here who still think of themselves as superior and privileged and refuse to learn the country's language though living here for decades. << They shouldn't have to learn the country's language. They are an autochtonous minority. Why can we Slovenians have no problem with Italian, Hungarian, and even Roma minorities in Slovenia, we give them full rights and all, while all of you non-Russian European ex-Soviets seem to be so nationalistic. It reminds me a lot of the Croats and the Serbs, and we all know how well their nationalism ended for former Yugoslavia. And your attitude is identical to them. It is also identical to that of the Italian fascists who demanded that all Slavs on territory occupied by Italy started speaking Italian. Children were beaten up in schools for speaking Slovenians, and all places bore signs saying "Here only Italian is spoken". >> Some of those people living near the border of Russia, when interviewed by the TV, say that they only watch Russian TV channels << And a lot here, myself included, only watch Italian TV channels. By your logic, we should all be forced to only watch Slovenian TV channels, or else deported to Italy, even if we're not ethnic Italians. >> and would love Putin to just come here and take hold of everything. << I certainly would love Putin to annex Slovenia. He would make order in a blink and make this country prosper, same as would happen if we just left the EU and reformed Yugoslavia. And as a matter of fact, if NATO and Russia were to go to war against each other, I would defect to the Russian side. [/QUOTE] "And while I don't like how the Soviet regime behaved to your family, I can still understand *WHY* they did it - your relatives did after all come from a country belonging to the bloc that was categorically opposed to the Soviet Union and socialism." - do you realise how mad that actually sounds? You can see why they did the terrible things they did to 50+ thousand people. I can't see it since they were people who never deserved it. A country that can basically do nothing to defend itself yet its views are the reason good enough to understand and justify what happened? "communists in the US, to the point of destroying their careers" - communists were no better than nazis and nazis were shot after the war. Communists won the war but they were no saints. How can you compare what happened to nations to what happened to a few communists who put their hand in oppressing those nations? Most of them got a freaking medal in Moscow anyway. "And is EU right now really any better? Most people are so poor they don't have money to take advantage of their right to travel." - YES! At lease you have a CHANCE. And if you study and work really hard, you might just end up with enough money to travel somewhere once a few years. "We are inviting in hordes of immigrants, quite a few of whom end up shooting our own people or detonating themselves (think Paris 2015 and Brussels 2016), but whoever criticizes the EU or calls against uncontrolled immigration gets called a racist, xenophobe, Nazi, and sometimes even arrested by the police." - thankfully this hasn't happened here (yet) so I won't comment. I'm not too keen on the immigrant swarm too. "Conservative views are being suppressed and/or ridiculed in the name of political correctness." - in Soviet Union there were no Conservatives. There was just a Communist Party with 98% elected rate (to give an illusion of choice, people went to elections to elect the same party, always.) Of course racism is not good, that's not the point. I'm surprised my language of 1.5 million speaking actually survived after the intense russification for 50 years. If one said it was wrong, he got locked up or ended up missing somewhere. All the papers and official jobs were in Russian. People were not allowed to go church if they wanted to. People couldn't travel out of the USSR, couldn't complain, didn't know what a freaking banana or a burger is. When Stalin died, my grandma is school was forced to cry and she didn't even understand how it is bad that Stalin had died. Much like when a North Korean leader dies (though I've no idea if they genuinely are brainwashed enough to actually cry for real). How in the name of everything such a system is justified AT ALL? The reason why there is big Russian minority here at all is because Stalin deported thousands of people and sent in a lot more Russians in their place. And that minority has grown into a pretty big one. But no matter, what's been in past remains there. I don't care about what language each minority speaks by themselves. Though if I can't get most jobs in my country because I don't know Russian (and I'm not very good at it) something is pretty wrong as I shouldn't have to know it yet it is basically demanded. And it is wrong for people to live decades in a country yet refuse to respect it and its people by at least contacting to non-Russian people in the official language. Again, not all people but a certain percentage. Most people I know talk to Russians in Russian. Few Russians talk to Latvians in Latvian because they don't think they should. But they should, even if just to tolerate one another and show respect. You don't go to the UK and speak to everyone in your own language, instead you try to adapt because it is in general an English country! And my country is in general a Latvian country, with certain traditions, certain language. If I go to Slovenia with an intention to live there for a while, I would start learning Slovenian because it's common sense! They can watch whatever channel they like, but the thing is about principle. Some of them don't even know who the current president is and I'm not joking. I wonder what are they even doing in this country instead of travelling across the border. But they can't be bothered, they'd rather have Russia come to us. Yes, EU has a lot of problems. As every system. I personally don't care whether my country is in the EU or not as long as there is no foreign authoritarian / totalitarian government here. You won't change my views and I won't change yours. I would suggest you to try and build a time machine. Or in worst case, the borders of Russia are open. Either way, I wish you well.

@ to dear Mr Battler, or whatever his combating alias is.

You are full well entitled to your opinion, but could you please not turn a music-related topic into a holy war battlefield? You do realise most of your arguments concerning the matters mentioned are invalid, don't you?

This thread has gone full retard, although it was pure shite from the first post anyway.

I agree. But I'm sorry for expanding the off-topic, I felt like I had to. Anyway, there won't be any more from me concerning politics. Hardly my favourite subject :)

>> "And while I don't like how the Soviet regime behaved to your family, I can still understand *WHY* they did it - your relatives did after all come from a country belonging to the bloc that was categorically opposed to the Soviet Union and socialism." - do you realise how mad that actually sounds? You can see why they did the terrible things they did to 50+ thousand people. I can't see it since they were people who never deserved it. A country that can basically do nothing to defend itself yet its views are the reason good enough to understand and justify what happened? << What I meant was, I can see what the motivation for the Soviets' actions were. Also, you haven't even elaborated if your relatives' experiences from the Stalin era or after it. My mother's experiences are from after the Stalin era (Khrushchev was leader at the time). She had to learn Ukrainian in addition to Russian at school. She was able to emigrate to Yugoslavia without problems, the only country she was unable to travel to, was Romania because at the time Romania's borders were the ones actually closed. She and her friends listened to Voice of America without any KGB person every bothering them about it. In the post-Stalin era, people at the very least had an idea what Western music was. Queen's Live in Budapest '86 was shown in cinemas in all European socialist countries, the Soviet Union included. >> "communists in the US, to the point of destroying their careers" - communists were no better than nazis and nazis were shot after the war. Communists won the war but they were no saints. How can you compare what happened to nations to what happened to a few communists who put their hand in oppressing those nations? Most of them got a freaking medal in Moscow anyway. << Uh what, I am talking about people like film directors, musicians (think Pete Seeger), etc. who had no part in politics, and may or may not have adhered to communism or socialism. But just the accusation was enough to get their careers ruined under McCarthyism. And no, persecuting someone for their political views is NOT OK. >> "And is EU right now really any better? Most people are so poor they don't have money to take advantage of their right to travel." - YES! At lease you have a CHANCE. And if you study and work really hard, you might just end up with enough money to travel somewhere once a few years. << That is IF you find a job, which is becoming harder and harder in present-day EU, especially now that all production has been outsourced to cheaper countries such as China. >> "We are inviting in hordes of immigrants, quite a few of whom end up shooting our own people or detonating themselves (think Paris 2015 and Brussels 2016), but whoever criticizes the EU or calls against uncontrolled immigration gets called a racist, xenophobe, Nazi, and sometimes even arrested by the police." - thankfully this hasn't happened here (yet) so I won't comment. I'm not too keen on the immigrant swarm too. << But it has happened in Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, etc. >> "Conservative views are being suppressed and/or ridiculed in the name of political correctness." - in Soviet Union there were no Conservatives. There was just a Communist Party with 98% elected rate (to give an illusion of choice, people went to elections to elect the same party, always.) << No, I mean in the EU (and the US). Anyone expressing a conservative view in at least the western parts of the EU, gets called a homophobe, transphobe, racist, islamophobe, xenophobe, misogynist, rapist/rape enabler(!), etc. Quite a few people have had their careers ruined because they happened to made a comment on Twitter that some idiots on Tumblr deemed *phobic, and the Tumblr idiots reacted to it by contacting their bosses and spreading falsehoods. >> Of course racism is not good, that's not the point. I'm surprised my language of 1.5 million speaking actually survived after the intense russification for 50 years. If one said it was wrong, he got locked up or ended up missing somewhere. All the papers and official jobs were in Russian. People were not allowed to go church if they wanted to. People couldn't travel out of the USSR, couldn't complain, didn't know what a freaking banana or a burger is. When Stalin died, my grandma is school was forced to cry and she didn't even understand how it is bad that Stalin had died. Much like when a North Korean leader dies (though I've no idea if they genuinely are brainwashed enough to actually cry for real). How in the name of everything such a system is justified AT ALL? << That's funny because my mother was baptized at an Orthodox church, and had to learn Ukrainian at school. She also emigrated to Yugoslavia with official permit. She also knew what bananas and burgers were as she listened to Voice of America without anyone being bothered about it. Of course, Stalin had been dead for 2 years when she was born, so she never experienced Stalin-era repression, but to equate Stalin-era repression with that happened after he did, is ridiculous. And she condemns Stalin, by the way, as do I. Let me also remind you that the same supposedly evil socialist USSR is where Gorbachev came into power and started his reforms. And it doesn't look like he had the KGB knocking on his door for it, neither was he sent to Siberia. And tell me how 2016 Ukraine is any better than the Soviet Union anyway - pro-Russian politicians get beaten up, students at universities get forced to sing the Ukrainian anthem at gunpoint, there is rampant famine as prices have skyrocketed while wages have gone down massively, ethnic Russians in Donbass are being bombed by what is supposed to be their own army, children in schools are being taught that ancient Ukry dug out the Black sea and then fought and won wars against Persians, peaceful protesters get sent to prison, and so on. >> The reason why there is big Russian minority here at all is because Stalin deported thousands of people and sent in a lot more Russians in their place. And that minority has grown into a pretty big one. << So you think not a single Russian moved to Latvia during 200+ years of Latvia being ruled by the Russian Empire? That's hard to believe. And as the Romanians in Moldova can tell you, the Tzar's russification policies were just as bad as Stalin's, if not worse. Also, add the fact that Stalin was not even Russian himself - he was Georgian! So while I agree he was a bastard who needed to be shot, he certainly was not a Russian nationalist, nor he had the reason to be one. >> But no matter, what's been in past remains there. I don't care about what language each minority speaks by themselves. Though if I can't get most jobs in my country because I don't know Russian (and I'm not very good at it) something is pretty wrong as I shouldn't have to know it yet it is basically demanded. << Most jobs (that are still left) here demand the knowledge of English, Italian, and Croatian/Serbian. Or Hungarian instead of Italian in Prekmurje, probably German in Carinthia. Somehow Slovenians have no problems with that. And Italian, Hungarian, and German are as much a symbol of past rule here as Russian is in Latvia - remember that Slovenia was for most history divided among the Republic of Venice, the German/Austrian Habsburgs, and Hungary (that later the Habsburgs took over anyway). And we have actually endured abuse from Italians and Germans during 1920-1945, but yet, people here don't complain they have to know those languages to get a job. >> And it is wrong for people to live decades in a country yet refuse to respect it and its people by at least contacting to non-Russian people in the official language. << But given the fact a lot of the Russians have been in Latvia for centuries, by UN and EU directives, Russian should have minority status in Latvia. Again, if Italians and Hungarians can have minority status here which grants them the right to live without ever s

[QUOTE] [b]cmsdrums wrote:[/b]

… I work for an organisation many thousands of times bigger than QPL, and you will have personally benefitted from my employer, so your personal and petty insults really don't work on me I'm afraid. And if you're going to call me a twat, don't then say 'sorry' for doing so, as that's rather spineless and pointless! Shame.[/QUOTE]


GB: Oooooooh! cmsdrums. Get you and your "organisation many thousands of times bigger than QPL"

I think I struck a nerve.

You teasing tantaliser you… "I will have personally benefitted from your employer" will I. I'm all suitably intrigued and impressed now.

Is your company ANDREX? Is it toilet rolls that I've benefitted from, from your employer?

That would be appropriate for so many reasons!

What happened here...???

Also, I just want to say that I'm English but I live in Moscow, Russia. Don't believe everything you read about Russia and Russians. They have their problems (who doesn't) but this is a great place to live and work.