Sure wasn’t the best agreed but wasn’t that bad either , but after Covid and Brexit , the service sector has suffered with not getting staff they would have usually got from Europe who generally were polite and wanted to serve . Currently there seems to be a major lack of that post Brexit and Covid .
And from my experience it’s the late teen /early 20’s who at bars will do anything not to serve and potter around slowly stacking glasses and if it’s in shops/retail they look so miserable especially if you ask them for help or ask about something you want to buy.
We would get bollocking from management if we weren’t willing to help or be polite and smile and greet customers. Just doesn’t seem to be those standards from my experiences.
I do from older staff , especially my local supermarket checkouts or corner shop .
Just my experience and I know it differs for all .
Accept certain inalienable truths
Prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too, will get old
And when you do, you’ll fantasise that when you were young
Prices were reasonable, politicians were noble
And children respected their elders
What I’m saying is an MP is publicly saying we’re at war directly with russia. That’s dangerous. Maybe it’s just semantics but I still think he should shut the fuck up
I don’t. What’s dangerous is thinking our country’s involvement in this conflict isn’t being seen as anything other than ‘direct’ by Russia. The US and Nato might say that as we don’t officially have any troops in Ukraine, we aren’t at war… but I doubt that the people being killed by the weapons they supply see it that way.
What we’re seeing played out now is Russia’s own Cuban Missile Crisis - the bloody reaction to dangling the carrot of Nato membership to a country that is on a key strategic border of one the world’s super powers, albeit declining. A country that is the gateway to Russia from Europe. And it’s something they, Nato, promised they would never do.
The US would never allow Mexico/Canada to enter a union with say China, and have a bunch of China’s weapons and troops on it’s border. They would go into Mexico/Canada and royally fuck shit up. Ukraine is Mexico/Canada in this analogy, and it’s the poor Ukrainians who are paying the price, having their country and futures destroyed because of midguided foreign policy.
Countries that border Russia have suffered from that proximity for a long time with little benefit. If those countries want to strengthen their position in Europe (or NATO) and moved away from that ex soviet shithole it’s misguided? Are they not allowed to distance politically from Russia?
The issue is more that Putin is an psychotic egomaniac
“Are they not allowed to distance politically from Russia”
What Ukraine wants doesn’t matter to Russia. Putin’s Russia doesn’t give a shit about what Ukraine wants - much the same as the US wouldn’t give a shit what Mexico wants if it were to pal up with China and potentially place Chinese weapons/troops on it’s borders. Russia holds the greater power in the region and can and will chuck it’s weight around to protect it’s interests. Without US and Nato support, Ukraine would have had a new puppet goverment installed a month or two after the Russians went in Feb '22 - one that’s more amenable to Russia’s interests and has no intention of trying to join Nato.
Ukraine is a buffer zone between the powers in the East and West. Militarily, it’s the key to Russia from Europe. The idea that Russia would just sit back and let Ukraine join Nato was not going to happen.
Also, what Ukraine wants isn’t so black and white either - half of Ukrainians were not interested in joining Nato. You have large swathes of the country, especially along it’s East and in Crimea, that had no interest in Nato membership, and were more or less happy with status quo of how things were before the Maidan revolution. The way Western media portrays Ukraine as being a homogenous entity, with the same political ideals and european aspirations, is just not true. Did you vote for Brexit? I didn’t, but here we are. You have large swathes of the country whose first language is Russian (even Zelensky’s first language is Russian, not Ukrainian), that are not allowed to speak Russian anymore in public - all official documentation, educational text books in schools, road signs, doctor’s appointments etc. are now only in Ukrainian. When I was in Kyiv a couple of years before this all properly kicked off, most people in Kyiv were speaking Russian, not Ukrainian. Not the case now, at least not on the street.
I’m no Putin fan, I think his treatment of the LGBT community in Russia, the killing of his political rivals and the false democracy he presents to the world is abhorent He’s an FSB thug who wants to hold on to power as long as he can. However, I don’t think he’s psychotic - he’s nothing if he’s not calculating. He considers himself a Russian patriot and sees what is happening now as him protecting the interests of Russia and fighting back against Western expansionism and the threat of weapons on Russia’s borders. He doesn’t care what is best for Ukraine. He only cares for what is best for Russia. The US and Nato either didn’t look at the situaton from a Russian perspective, or they actively goaded it into conflict.
Yeah his treatment of political enemies is completely sane and reasonable. He is a killer. The calculating part of it seems to have given away to some psychotic madness.
Your mexico/US analogy falls down because we already have the northern European countries like Finland and Norway that border Russia and are in NATO.
Ukraine membership is a pretext for a land grab of one of the most agriculturally important parts of Europe.
Why are we debating this is in the GE thread by the way? Sorry
What should they have done? Because it seems to me that “western expansionism” is mostly former Russian states who want fuck all to do with his mental, failing regime.
“Yeah his treatment of political enemies is completely sane and reasonable. He is a killer. The calculating part of it seems to have given away to some psychotic madness.”
Definitely not reasonable - he’s a ruthless cold blooded killer that eliminates his enemies. Psychotic implies that he’s lost grip on reality, when I think he’s very aware of what he is doing. He’s just an awful ruthless man rather than mental imo.
“Your mexico/US analogy falls down because we already have the northern European countries like Finland and Norway that border Russia and are in NATO”
Finland membership - that happened in 2023, after this all kicked off.
Norway - Since Natos inception, Norway have largely remained neutral and had good relations with Russia: Norway–NATO relations - Wikipedia
Ukraine membership is a pretext for a land grab of one of the most agriculturally important parts of Europe.
I agree, they’ve been selling off land to european and US investors for years
That’s enough internet for me today. Not sure how this turned into a rant about the situation out there either. I just dispair at the way the whole situation is reported without any nuance to the causes why and the background that led to it. I’ve got Ukrainian friends scared to leave their house for fear of being press ganged into the army. They just want to live their life and they are being thrust into someone else’s war and it makes me sick. Putin, The US, Nato, the great game - none of that means anything to them in their normal life, yet they are now in a situation where they might die because of it.
No worries mate. I get you 100%. I strongly dislike a lot of things the US does and in particular their foreign policy. For once I don’t feel this one is fully their fault
You are implying Ukraine can decide to leave Russia’s sphere of influence and Russia will just accept that and allow weapons and troops to be placed along it’s main military strategic border. Everything is rosey, no hard feelings. I agree that all nations should be self determinate - sadly that’s not how the world works. ‘Might is right’ as much as it shouldn’t be.
I suppose what I’m saying is that Putin seems to have designs on his neighbours. Finland and Sweden certainly fear that. Should they not have been allowed to join NATO? I’m not sure how much of a brilliant idea it would be to placate Putin. In his calculus I think he’d view it as weakness and act accordingly.
I believe any country should be allowed to join Nato if they decide to, but I’m a realist and see that tipping the balance of power in a region has consequences.
The new Sovet Union narrative doesn’t seem to make any financial sense - Russia hasn’t the means to be able to think about producing an army big enough and well enough funded to be able to do that.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economy hasn’t been anywhere near strong enough to be able to fund an army big enough that could have any hopes of holding that much territory. They are having a hard enough time fighting a US and Nato armed Ukraine.
But isn’t that exactly what you were taking issue with, though? That by arming Ukraine we are provoking Russia? Without outside help the Russian army would have rolled right over them.
It’s all just posturing and no different to the end of a night in a pub when someone looks at you funny, winks at your GF or knocks your beer over. You give it large, so do they and no one wants to look the weaker bloke.
Utterly pointless and always has been over the ages.
Some countries are enriched a certain way and other countries want some of it so why not do fair deals and get the world working like a machine that benefits all? Nah, dudes want to look hard and want to feel superior and be seen to be getting/having more that the other.
We’re all just twats.
When Ukraine 2.0 first kicked off, I kept getting into conversations with randos in pubs that were very “we’ll tooo be faaaairrrrr” and having to eventually walk away.
“Yeah but it’s the last thing between Russia and Europe of course they don’t like them joining NATO” - I DONT GIVE A FUUUUUUUUUCK
It’s all just fucking billionaire bullshit outdated imperialist fuckhead games. IDGAF what russia has to say about their neighbors joining or becoming closer to NATO. It doesn’t matter. They weren’t part of the conversation. They’re a whole different country.
One guy had the fucking nerve to say “iF yOu WoZ pUtiN yoUd PrObbly InVaDe uKrAiNe tOo”. Closest I’ve ever come to sucker punching a stranger. If I said anything like that to some of my family they’d put me in hospital.
No, that’s not what I’m saying. The ship had already sailed long before Nato started arming Ukrainians. The whole reason Russia went into the east and Crimea after Maidan was to sure up it’s easter border and have greater access to the Black Sea for it’s naval defence. They see Nato as an army on their border, and an increasing pro european Ukraine, one that might eventually join Nato and allow weapons and troops into the country, is not good for Russia defence. What is happening in Ukraine is a direct result of US and Nato’s foreign policy in Ukraine and Putin’s reaction to it.
