Despite impressions to the contrary, the post-Stalin USSR was not a terrorist state regarding its own citizens. Of course there was no free political process or freedom of speech. But someone speaking out of turn or departing from Orthodoxy in some other way was not sent to the gulags or still less the recipient of a bullet to the head. The softer gentler Communism instead deployed professional oblivion as its preferred control mechanism. For example an offending scientist would be fired from his job, have his published papers rescinded and forced to eke out a living as a road-sweeper or some such.
Realistically, how much different is it in the West ('they hate us for our freedoms') today? We all know what happened to James Watson, whose treatment has become common practise. (By the way Dr. Watson failed to listen my admonishment that apologies, no matter how grovelling, cut no ice with the latter day NKVD, only whetting their appetite for blood).
Football fans will be aware of the furore over Cardiff City's ex-Manager Malky MacKay who fell into dispute with the club's billionaire owner, one Vincent Tan, a James Bond style villain straight from central casting, what with omnipresent dark glasses and leather gloves, evil rictus smile. Malkey sued and the football world was at one with the popular Scot against the evil Chink, who was generally seen as representing the worst of the billionaire carpetbaggers whose money is destroying English football.
But then Malkey's world collapsed. Tan's acolytes had parsed 10,000 text messages and 70,000 documents and discovered - are you holding on to something solid? - that he was.....a RACIST, a HOMOPHOBE and an ANTI-SEMITE! Cue uproar. Everyone got into the act, all of the MSM, all the race industry quangos. Beyond the usual rent-a-quote 'shocking', 'disgraceful', 'worrying' were more sinister demands along the lines of 'he must never work in football again'. This in the knowledge that football is the only thing knows.
Poor old Harry Redknapp tried to defend his friend by pointing out he wasn't a murderer or a paedophile. Which, while undoubtedly well meant, was not terribly helpful, serving only to place his offence on a somewhat lower level than the ones he mentioned. And what exactly were those offences that have ruined his career and had police undertaking dawn raids on his interlocutor's apartment?
'FKN CHINK. HOPE THERES ANOUGH DOGS IN CARDIFF' This was in relation to the Korean Sung Yeoung Ki and that country's culinary tastes.
'A GAY SNAKE' .. does the insult refer to the guy being gay (but I thought we should now admire men who take it up the ass?), a snake, or the juxtapositioning of the two?
'I hope she's looking after your needs. Bet you'd love to bounce on her falsies' This regarding a female agent known to both of them
And he referred to the Maccabi Tel Aviv club as 'the Jews'.
Whoops, I nearly forgot. There was the terrible case of poor Ibrahim Farah. 'He used to call me his little Egyptian but I'm Welch and my parents came from Somalia'.
And my friends, that's about it. From 10,000 texts and 70,000 documents. That is what has transformed a successful manager into a pariah with no prospect of work in the foreseeable future. Not only that but it has transformed the image of arch-villain Vincent Tan. Listen to this for hyperbole: 'It has taken the moral sword of a despised ogre...to clean up a mess that lays bare the corrupt soul that infects the game' So, for having got some flunkeys to trawl through private correspondence between friends (albeit on company equipment) and leaking them to the police and general public, Tan has been transformed into a 'moral sword' wielding paragon of justice. You know, this is all just so sick it pains me to even write it down.
And back to my original point: How is this different in any way to the latter years of the USSR? The only difference to my mind is that Soviet citizens knew they weren't free.
Realistically, how much different is it in the West ('they hate us for our freedoms') today? We all know what happened to James Watson, whose treatment has become common practise. (By the way Dr. Watson failed to listen my admonishment that apologies, no matter how grovelling, cut no ice with the latter day NKVD, only whetting their appetite for blood).
Football fans will be aware of the furore over Cardiff City's ex-Manager Malky MacKay who fell into dispute with the club's billionaire owner, one Vincent Tan, a James Bond style villain straight from central casting, what with omnipresent dark glasses and leather gloves, evil rictus smile. Malkey sued and the football world was at one with the popular Scot against the evil Chink, who was generally seen as representing the worst of the billionaire carpetbaggers whose money is destroying English football.But then Malkey's world collapsed. Tan's acolytes had parsed 10,000 text messages and 70,000 documents and discovered - are you holding on to something solid? - that he was.....a RACIST, a HOMOPHOBE and an ANTI-SEMITE! Cue uproar. Everyone got into the act, all of the MSM, all the race industry quangos. Beyond the usual rent-a-quote 'shocking', 'disgraceful', 'worrying' were more sinister demands along the lines of 'he must never work in football again'. This in the knowledge that football is the only thing knows.
Poor old Harry Redknapp tried to defend his friend by pointing out he wasn't a murderer or a paedophile. Which, while undoubtedly well meant, was not terribly helpful, serving only to place his offence on a somewhat lower level than the ones he mentioned. And what exactly were those offences that have ruined his career and had police undertaking dawn raids on his interlocutor's apartment?
'FKN CHINK. HOPE THERES ANOUGH DOGS IN CARDIFF' This was in relation to the Korean Sung Yeoung Ki and that country's culinary tastes.
'A GAY SNAKE' .. does the insult refer to the guy being gay (but I thought we should now admire men who take it up the ass?), a snake, or the juxtapositioning of the two? 'I hope she's looking after your needs. Bet you'd love to bounce on her falsies' This regarding a female agent known to both of them
And he referred to the Maccabi Tel Aviv club as 'the Jews'.
Whoops, I nearly forgot. There was the terrible case of poor Ibrahim Farah. 'He used to call me his little Egyptian but I'm Welch and my parents came from Somalia'.
And my friends, that's about it. From 10,000 texts and 70,000 documents. That is what has transformed a successful manager into a pariah with no prospect of work in the foreseeable future. Not only that but it has transformed the image of arch-villain Vincent Tan. Listen to this for hyperbole: 'It has taken the moral sword of a despised ogre...to clean up a mess that lays bare the corrupt soul that infects the game' So, for having got some flunkeys to trawl through private correspondence between friends (albeit on company equipment) and leaking them to the police and general public, Tan has been transformed into a 'moral sword' wielding paragon of justice. You know, this is all just so sick it pains me to even write it down.
And back to my original point: How is this different in any way to the latter years of the USSR? The only difference to my mind is that Soviet citizens knew they weren't free.


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