Ukrainian Socialists Have A Bone To Pick With Lefties In The West.

[CumbrianLefty]

Roger Waters is the poster child of this phenomenon of "lefties" and "pacifists" suddenly becoming authoritarian fascists/tankies when it comes to Russia/Ukraine. At absolute best, they are cowardly appeasers who should have learned from Chamberlain. At worst, they expose themselves as really not caring about tyranny and violence and genocide at all as long as the perpetrator is not friendly to the US.

As a someone who loves Pink Floyd it’s been a punch to the guy but the rest of the band has been really based on the issue

Waters has always been a strange man, though.

Don't forget, it was he who voted Tory at the 2005 GE as a protest after Labour banned hunting.

[CumbrianLefty]

Sorry to be a pedant, but it is the UK ambassador to the UN who is actually "on the Security Council".

(regardless of PM)

[CumbrianLefty]

Sorry to be a pedant, but it is the UK ambassador to the UN who is actually "on the Security Council".

(regardless of PM)

I assume everyone on this forum knows this, so indeed a very pedantic comment. It was shorthand for "an ambassador following the orders of ...". If we're going to have to write as literally as you demand, we will need a lot more words on this forum and a lot less clear writing. Next thing you know you cannot write a PM is in "the driver's seat", because actually he's not in a car but in the PM office!

Yes it was a highly pedantic comment, and deliberately so

But there may be a grain of relevance to it on this occasion, nonetheless. An incoming PM Corbyn was likely to face significant resistance to his foreign policy in particular, especially if it was (as was all too depressingly plausible) basically designed by Seumas Milne.

[CumbrianLefty]

"Tankies" are annoying but have zero representation in government and certainly zero influence on policy direction in America or almost any other Western country

They are massively over-represented online, though.

[CumbrianLefty]

Again, whilst he has always had "issues", I do think we need to beware of viewing RW's whole life and artistic output though the prism of the 80 year old pro-Russia (and at least borderline AS) crank that he is now.

There were widespread accusations of British incompetence and even callousness as far as the Anzio campaign (where his father perished) is concerned, and of course the son of Commander Waters was well aware of this. Plus as far as WTTBF is concerned, I don't think he "blames" George VI for the war, rather its a dig at the obvious insincerity of his "rubber stamp".

Its one of the most powerful lines in a generally brilliant song IMO (and a lot of his output at that time *was* pretty self-indulgent - Two Suns In The Sunset may just be the most wrist-slittingly depressing thing ever put to vinyl)

Yes it was one of the justest wars ever, and we were the good guys. That doesn't make everything the Allies did beyond criticism, or alter the reality that war is by its very nature horrible and hellish.

So he gets a pass from me tbh. Oh, and I also quite like The Division Bell