The crisis in Ukraine

[AndySir]

It was a bit repetitive, and protracted bout of "Yes it is", "No it isn't" but don't approve of deleting posts wholesale on the grounds that they were dull.

[clv101]

Generally PowerSwitch doesn't delete posts. I never used a forum so reluctant to delete posts or ban members - it's probably to our detriment. So I do find it odd when folk complain about posts being deleted here!

[AndySir]

Generally PowerSwitch doesn't delete posts. I never used a forum so reluctant to delete posts or ban members - it's probably to our detriment. So I do find it odd when folk complain about posts being deleted here!

That statement does not tally with my experience. I have had quite a number of my posts deleted, sometimes running to pages, allegedly for the sin of being 'off topic'.

[biffvernon]

Wasn't that just a thread that accumulated an awful lot of personal abuse and was therefore deleted, your posts getting caught up because the disentanglement process would have left the conversation a confusion?

[adam2]

I would not delete posts for "not toeing the party line" nor for being "boring", I have however deleted several posts in this thread that consisted of personal attacks or insults, and may have deleted others that although acceptable in themselves no longer made sense as they replied to or quoted deleted insults.

I do not normally delete off topic posts, unless extreme. but I can, and do split topics so as to place the off topic posts in a suitably titled thread of their own.

[emordnilap]

just another point of view diametrically opposite to the bias:
Don't be writing the US off just yet.

AND....

Do you really want to be left alone in a world where Britain is the lone light of the free world, the US disappeared and the EU swallowed up and plundered by Russia hmmm?

Vis a vis Russia and the USA, don't you think it's rather the other way around, at least if the USA has anything to do with it. In other words, whilst the evidence is both voluminous and overwhelming for the USA seeking to dominate the rest of the world, by proxy if it can and more directly if it can't, what evidence do you have that a contemporary Russia has similar aims?

Contrary to 50 years of deceit, it was quietly conceded that the main concern was not the Russians, but rather what is called "radical nationalism", meaning independent nationalism not under US control.

The US always wants an 'enemy' to justify its imperialism. The very idea of this putative 'enemy' - always a US creation - is merely a cover.

[mcewena1]

Why has no one suggested that we begin to improve our relations with Russia and turn it into a friend not an enemy. We are going to be tied to their gas sooner or later. Life in Russia is not bad, it is no longer the fearful state of the communist era. The people in Crimea voted to be Russian so that tells me life there is not bad. What do we have to gain by being an ally of the US. We get stuck in their wars and we get Israel as an "ally". Russia would probably welcome us with open arms, not because Britain has much to offer nowadays but it does still have control of various choice plots of real estate scattered around the globe, Gibralter, Falklands ....... Our standard of living and indeed society as we know it depends on cheap energy. Russia hs it. Believe me if we made the switch the rest of Europe would soon follow.

Sooner or later we're all going to need to learn Russian or Mandarin anyway.

[RenewableCandy]

It's probable that Russian culture is nearer to our own than American culture is. At least, for the European part of Russia (west of the Urals).

I don't think the majority of Brits realise how very differently people in America think and view the world than we do here. The type, and depth, of religious feeling being an obvious difference. The individualism being another (except, of course, if you happen to be so individual that you hang your washing to dry in the wrong place... )

[Little John]

Going on the basis of the Russians and Americans I have met, putting aside the linguistic complication of speaking the same language as Americans (or, perhaps, despite it), I can say I feel more culturally in common with the Russians. Though, there are significant differences between myself and both of them.