The US remains a shameful pussy about ATACMS, while the UK is putting the 'Great' in Great Britain again by providing Storm Shadow.

Twitter

Ukraine Battle Map on Twitter

US is making an absolutely terrible decision by not sending ATACMS. Ukraine should be able to defend and stri... https://t.co/gl0wQFz7Uw

Read more from Twitter

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2023/05/09/no-atacms-to-ukraine-following-u-k-move-00095936

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_Shadow

YouTube

British Patriotic Song: Rule, Britannia!

"Rule, Britannia!" is a British patriotic song, originating from the poem "Rule, Britannia" by James Thomson and set to music by Thomas Arne in 1740. It is s...

And in more Ukraine effect / a meme I could not resist:

Interesting.  I was under the impression that Japan is located thousands of miles away from the North Atlantic.  

The British aren't really "the dread and envy of them all" anymore though.

China - Japan - US .Has nothing to do with Ukraine and day by day less to do with democracy as it seems Western countries are racing China for the most autocratic spied upon regime we can still wrap into hair thin cellophane of democracy thanks to MSM propaganda machine.

By any objective metrics, democracy is long gone what we now have are sort of fascist autocracies, folks just don't understand that for most people change from democracy to an authoritarian regime is imperceivable so folks are in denial of actual state . Nazis and Communists said and promoted their model as democracy, same as today whatever regime can pretend to be a democracy with a strong MSM propaganda machine.

By any standard its harder to vote out a senator or a congressman than a CCP politician. Getting a third party on a ballot is about as doable as running against CCP with a new party.

Any and all tensions with China are drummed up in Washington, fearing the demise of its hegemonic power cajoling of serfs like  Japan is just part of the process.

funniest thing is that most Western countries, starting with the USA, are not democracies themselves, both technically and in a spirit of things

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/america-is-not-a-democracy/550931/

and while US claims to be all pro-democratic, they have a long and spectacularly bloody history of supporting a broad variety of authoritarian, totalitarian and generally bad regimes across the world. So, for them the "democracy" is just a convenient tag that could be attached or detached at their own whim.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor for example.

farmplinker2 said:

The British aren't really "the dread and envy of them all" anymore though

At least for today they are:

Honestly the part about supporting dictators while preaching democracy is not new or even problematic . countries have interests, not friends Bismark said and its 100%true

Much post WW2 Europe was in run on the authoritarian system almost into late 70's , Spain,Portugal,Grecce,Turkey and many other countries had strong autoritarian streaks . so up to 80's there is little Liberal democracy to be seen even in Europe. but compared to today most had more freedom in the 80s and 90s than today, Stazi that was so despised in the 80-90s would now look like regular boyscouts. Merger of corporate and governmental powers with little if any oversight is at its core fascism no mater how much cellophane you wrap it in.

Orwells 1984 is being enacted at the blistering speed these days. 

Any ways politicians do what politicians do but please just refrain from using democracy a justification for anything its as real as freedom fries.

Mr. T (MrT4) said:

Much post WW2 Europe was in run on the authoritarian system almost into late 70's , Spain,Portugal,Grecce,Turkey and many other countries had strong autoritarian streaks . so up to 80's there is little Liberal democracy to be seen even in Europe. but compared to today most had more freedom in the 80s and 90s than today, Stazi that was so despised in the 80-90s would now look like regular boyscouts. Merger of corporate and governmental powers with little if any oversight is at its core fascism no mater how much cellophane you wrap it in.

Are you on Drugs?
Most of post WW2 Europe indeed had been ruled by authoriatarian systems but not because of the three countries belonging to NATO (Turkey is not part of Europe BTW) but because of the Iron curtain and the communist dictatorship.
Downplaying the inhuman and brutal Stasi is just so far out it makes me wonder if you ever read a history book. These people routinely incarcerated and murdered people. For no good reason and with no resposibility to anyone. Writing they look like boyscouts nowadays is utter bullshit. These guys where on par with Gestapo, KGB and all the other murderous secret police organisations that scourged the world during the Cold War.

Mr. T (MrT4) said:

Orwells 1984 is being enacted at the blistering speed these days.

Did you even read 1984? If yes its obvious you did not understand.
There is a huge difference. The lack of data protection in the internet is not a feature its a bug. Furthermore people are fulle aware and decide to (mostly) ignore the matter. If they would not and awareness would impact the current business models things would change in record time. The surveilance by western inteligence agencies, while certainyl questionable, doesn't lead to people disappearing. They do not incarcerate and murder critics or people they do not like. They are held responsible. Even people who are convicted of terrorism have rights. Its not even the same sport as what autoritarian regimes did and do.
In 1984 and real authoritatian regimes people have no say. They also get no information. Most important they have no rights. All of this is so much not the case today its not even comparable to the situation during the Cold War era or the fictonal history in 1984.
There are a few places that fit the Orwellian dystopia on earth these days. The most obvious one is North Korea. They a pretty damn close. Including the use of new speak with death due to famine relabled to population density adjusments or such BS. A runner up is China. There is none in Europe or the "Western World". Not even most of the less developed countries qualify.

I dont think you understod me right or i haven writen it right.

Not downplaying communist authoritarian regimes in Eastern Europe, its just that aside from a couple of countries west or better jet south Europe were mostly authoritarian almost til 80's , better in the sense of being market economies not being more democratic, and like mentioned Democracy is a very broad concept, so not quite certain where you draw the line on what is and what is not it in any case we are running on thin ice in EU and US is no better just look at the shit show for next elections, the guy that won this time around by hiding in the basement and every MSM outlet and CIA spook running interference, is looking to be fast tracked to another mandate possibly by sweeping under the rug of any and all rival candidates, and we all see that guy doesn't know where he is most of the time, you literally have people handling him around on live TV and folks holding the plug to the cameras. Biden is utter definiton of Pupet at this stage , if he wins next term they will be running a corpse around pretending he is still alive as Kamala Harris might be just too stupid to even run as a puppet. 

I don't think data protection is what is driving the overwhelming surveillance and censorship landscape, first round of extremely invasive state apparatus kinda grew post 9/11 , and since it has only grown in size and scope , courrent post COVID , disinfo free speech BS is ridiculous, Germany actually leads the push for persecuting speech with 8500 or so cases under investigation.  And of course, its not just speech that is being regulated, broad aspects, everything from your money to your house hold heating its getting out of hand , and then in EU there is an unelected EU commison that is drafting cca 70+% of all legislature that is then adopted by member countries, and scope of EU commission powers is growing even tough is run by most incompetent folks we could fins in EU , with Ursula that is walkinf and talking desaster in every post she ever held, now wants even more powers.  Its crazy to hink that authoritarians in Poland and Hungary are more democratic than most of the rest ,crazy years ago you would think these were the problem children of EU now it seems the problem is at it core. Who the fuck voted for the new green transition that is being showed down our throats on wings of Ukrainian war , 

Governments that are always the no1 source of disinfo are now pretending they are policing speech to protect against disinformation, beyond laughable after 2 years of nonstop lying over covid and big tech being onboard is like mentioned base premise of fascism.