Hypocrisy

 

 

Hypocrisy:  The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.

Hypocrisy seems to be gaining ground these days, with examples springing up all around. It is something I don't like but when practiced by those pretending to be better and cleverer than us mere mortals, it really aggravates me. So I thought I would mention a few examples:

Beginning with one that came to my attention today. On November 25th, the US regulator for telecomms, the FCC, announced a ban on deployment in the US of telecomms equipment made by, among others, Huawei. That is a ban effective 25th November 2022. The same gang (US government) had carried out a round of brow beating of European nations in 2019, basically forcing European nations to take out and replace their Huawei 5G equipment. The UK Security/Intelligence services had previously done an examination of Huwaei equipment going into UK telecomms systems and given it a clean bill of health. The Yanks shouted at Boris who responded with an "Oo Err Mrs" moment, followed by an edict that all Huawei kit would have to be removed. So, for almost 3 years, it was deemed necessary to eradicate Huawei from Europe on the grounds it was a security risk, while continuing to happily install and commission it in the USA. That's hypocrisy!

How about the UK's lunatic fringe, particularly "Just Stop Oil"? During their recent anti-social behaviour, sitting down in busy roads etc, causing massive disruption to many, and personal distress to others, I couldn't help noticing a couple of points: First, where and when these people found themselves in court for breaching injunctions etc, it became obvious that these people, in the main, came from a certain class; the comfortably off, presumably well educated class and second noticeable feature was their dress. Look for them on the internet and there are hundreds of images, showing them wearing rugged boots with rubber or rubber substitute soles, high-vis gilets, nylon or polyester garments etc. While telling us we must "Just Stop Using Oil" in our daily lives, they seem quite comfortable in wearing clothing that relies for its production on oil! Even if the boots were of natural rubber, have you seen how many tons of diesel fuel is used in the ships carrying the rubber to these shores?

A bit more hypocrisy, featuring once again the world leading exponents of the art, the USA. Currently, they are telling us how the Russian attacks on Ukraine's power infrastructure constitutes a "war crime". Does it now? If true (I don't think it is), was it not a war crime when the US announced in the 1990s how it was going to attack Iraq, beginning with bombing the Iraqi electricity system with carbon fibre filaments, designed specifically to (a) disable the grid and (b) to make it more difficult to restore electricity supplies. Or, what about bombing the crap out of the Yugoslav electricity system because the Yanks wanted to assist Kosovo in their independence grab?

And speaking of independence grabs, how about Ukraine? The regions of Donetsk and Lugansk sought and were granted autonomy within Ukraine in 2014/2015. Note: they were not seeking independence. They chose that route only after 8 years of Ukraine shelling and bombing of civilians and total disregard for the Minsk Accords? Such a flagrant desire to look after themselves (How dare they!) was greeted with contempt and a US led movement to refuse to recognise their self-determination.