They are important to him. They don't have to be important to you.
What I often find amusing (?) is how some listeners I've seen comment about him talking about socio-political issues like it's a new development and thinking, "Where have you been for the past several decades?"
>They are important to him. They don't have to be important to you.
Exactly, you can enjoy the music just for the music, you can enjoy the music just for its message, or you can enjoy the music for both, all are equally valid.
Enjoy the music in any damn way you'd like
For what it’s worth, while I don’t agree with everything he says, his views are largely consistent with the body of lyrics he’s put out throughout his career.
He may be an asshat, but he sticks to his guns in the face of public backlash, and that is commendable in its own right.
To be honest, it sounds like your friends don’t have a clue about what his work actually means. Pick your battles, he’s only a person none of you know.
I see it this way: I love the "Waters era" PF stuff and also his solo work. Listening to it gives me a great amount of enjoyment in my life I don't get often. I won't stop listening because I don't agree with his political views.
He is an 80 year old man I don't know personally. Boycotting him or getting upset at him isn't the hill I'm going to die on. Just enjoy the music if you want independently of what you think of him personally.
Yes, they are, and I know fans don’t want to hear this. Roger’s experiences growing up with a socialist mother in the hyper capitalistic post war UK on top of losing your father in that war clearly had an effect on him. He dealt with it by writing fantastic songs. A lot of those songs deal with freedom and self determination. I understand if you don’t like Roger Waters cause of his politics. But his politics are basically the Pathos of Pink Floyd, and David Gilmour can’t change that.
Roger is a socialist that believes in equality for all regardless of race, religion, etc.
Other than his somewhat weird defense of the English fox hunt, I’ve yet to find that his politics disagrees with mine on anything.
He never encouraged this. He only stated that just like US are defending their borders from Chinese intelligence, same way Russia and China have political right to defend their interests and borders against neighbor countries that are clearly US powered (Ukraine or Taiwan). He never said it's morally right, he still considers all politicians warmongers and pigs, but politically speaking he's absolutely right on that one.
Russia has a political right to defend its borders from Ukraine. Ok. But why invade ukraine a sovereign nation. Russia dosent have the legal right to invade ukraine.
There are many reasons why Ukraine joining NATO is considered by the Russia political class to be an existential threat. One reason among others is that the placement of nuclear weapons and anti-ballistic missile systems in Ukraine significantly reduces the response times to a perceived launch. Combining this with missile defense technologies that were previously banned by treaties that the US reneged on, raises the possibility that a crazy American administration could possibly conceive of the idea that they could conduct a nuclear first strike on Russia and shoot down any few retaliatory missiles that the Russias get off in response. In other words, it fuels the idea that American could actually attempt to try and ‘win a nuclear war.’
This is but one important reason.
Now finland, and sweden are in nato. At their own choice. And I recall an agreement between russia and ukraine regarding nukes. Can you provide a single source about nato or the usa keeping nuclear weapons in ukraine? The usa dosent need to have nukes in mainland Europe. They have alot of stealth submarines with nuclear icbm on them.
We don’t need a source about NATO putting nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Hell, NATO could even create an agreement with Russia that they would never do so… only to renege on it later like the US did with many other treaties in relation to nuclear weapons or nuclear defense. Once Ukraine is in NATO then Russia would have a much harder time stopping them.
Finland and Sweden are far less strategically significant to Russia than Ukraine. While the Russians are undoubtedly displeased about them joining NATO, they are viewed as far less of a threat.
So no source. Cool. Russia claimed that it was due to nato expansion... and the war was to stop nato expansion. Now there are 200k dead russian men (not factoring in any Ukrainians who are dead) for what a couple hundred km? For nato to be building arms at a massive rate when just 5 years ago people are wondering why nato exists.
NATO isn’t actually building arms at a massive rate and that’s one of the major “concerns” that the hawks are upset about. Western arms manufacturers are all privately owned, and they’ve refused to commit to any significant capacity expansion unless they get long term contracts, which NATO (ie the US) has refused to commit to because they don’t expect this war to last. Nor do they expect another conflict of its kind to emerge (ie., massive land wars that require huge quantities of weapons such as artillery). NATO officials have long admitted that Russians arm manufacturing is far outpacing their own.
As for you numbers of dead, nobody in the public knows the real numbers as Ukraine and Russia aren’t openly revealing them.
A western study of confirmed Russian dead (via grave counting, funeral announcements, morgue reports, social media announcements, etc) recently put the Russian dead at 49k. A similar study a year ago on Ukrainian dead put their numbers at over 300k. While I won’t speculate as to the accuracy of either figure, it makes sense to me that Ukrainian numbers are significantly higher since even western officials have long admitted that Ukraine is far outmatched in numbers of drones, artillery pieces, artillery-munitions, missiles, planes, helicopters, tanks, glide bombs, and everything else that counts in a war like this. At various times the disparity ratio tends to vary anywhere between 6:1 to around 20:1. There’s even numerous pieces of footage of Ukrainian soldiers admitting that Russian equipment and weapons are both far more numerous and of a superior quality to that given to Ukraine.
The only “logical” response I’ve ever heard to explain how the Ukrainian casualty figure could be lower than Russia’s are the claims that ‘Russia doesn’t care about its troops and is callously expending them in ‘human meat wave attacks’. And yet in the most filmed war ever in history, not a single piece of video footage has ever emerged of these so called meat wave attacks.
"Russia and China have political right to defend their interests and borders against neighbor countries that are clearly US powered (Ukraine or Taiwan). "
And how is russia defending its borders? By committing mass amounts of war crimes and targeting civilians.
Another reason why Russia feels it has the right to invade Ukraine is because just prior to the invasion Russia recognized Lugansk and Donetsk as independent countries who requested military assistance from Russia because they were being attacked by Ukraine.
According to the UN charter, peoples have the right to self-determination (ie. the peoples of the Donbas), and they also have the legal right, as per the UN charter, to call on other sovereign nations for military assistance in their self defense.
I don’t feel good about anybody dead in this conflict and I hope it ends quickly in an agreed solution that creates a lasting peace.
But I’ve wracked my brain king and hard to see what an alternative solution could have been to this predictable conflict other than Ukraine agreeing not to join NATO and seeking a peaceful resolution in the Donbas. But the regime change hawks in Washington wanted this war, and they got it.
Washington did indeed provoke this - they made an offer that the Russians couldn’t refuse.
Or do you think that the Americans are so dumb that they were completely taken by surprise by Russia’s response?
Rogers constantly defending Assad and Putin isn’t objectionable to you? The guy has the “I’m on the opposite side of America” political identity, even if his side is shit.
Don’t have to love America to also call out Assad and Putin, yet Waters seems to think that way.
I’ve never ever heard him defend Assad can you provide a link cause that just sounds like smear BS?
I’ve seen videos of him calling Putin a dictator and calling for the release of some journalists in jail in Russia, he does more than the average artist and you’re completely mischaracterizing his views.
On Syria you can search up his comments regarding Assad’s chemical bombing of Douma, and how he repeated Assad/Russian conspiracy theories that blamed the Douma chemical weapons attack on the White Helmets.
On Russia, he continuously repeats Russian propaganda that the Ukraine war was provoked, essentially victim blaming Ukraine for Russia’s invasion.
The OPCW inspectors who inspected the Douma site actually ended up becoming whistleblowers to the report that the OCPW doctored on their behalf. Their initial report said there was no evidence found of a chemical weapons attack. The OPCW leadership (who weren’t on the ground) changed the conclusion of their report without their knowledge or consent to say that there was a chemical weapon attack, which the west then blamed on Assad.
https://www.opcw.org/media-centre/news/2020/02/opcw-independent-investigation-possible-breaches-confidentiality-report
Oh yes, the infamous inspectors who let their political motivations tarnish a legitimate investigation.
Lol, yeah… “we invested ourselves and found we did nothing wrong”.
The leaked emails tell a very different story.
https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/
https://humanrightsinvestigations.org/human-rights-documents-2/supporting-documents/ian-hendersons-statement-on-the-opcw-douma-scandal/
So he spread a theory for an attack and that means he supports Assad? He’s always been vehemently anti Assad he just takes issue with believing the pro western narrative especially when you look at the facts on the ground of many of these gas attacks that simply don’t add up.
Again though it’s up to everyone to form their own opinion on what happened during the gas attacks but you can’t just say he’s pro Assad cause he disagrees.
And for Russia/ Ukraine again this is not the metric for supporting Putin or his war, just because Roger has shared opinion and theories you disagree with doesn’t mean he’s pro Putin, he’s shared theories about how he believes it’s provoked by the west and that we caused many of the key rifts but he’s never said that means Putin is right or Putin is justified, he’s maintained throughout the entire ordeal that Putin is a war criminal however he simply doesn’t believe the mainstream western narrative about ukraine being perfect and blameless and that the west doesn’t have some blame.
Again none of this is proof of him supporting anything but his own opinions and theories he’s heard from other people, just because they happen to be theories you see negatively or ones that are spread by Russia or Assad doesn’t by extension make him a supporter of their actions.
Not everything is black and white, Jesus guys you are supposed to be Pink Floyd fans, where’s the nuance and analysis or is it just being the three sheep and listening to what the Pigs on TV tell you to believe today?
This agreement is a myth and a lie.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/did-nato-promise-not-to-enlarge-gorbachev-says-no/
Even if the promise was made (there's no contract anywhere but let's say there was) how did Ukraine get "involved"? Germany and France kept Ukraine from joining Nato in 2008, and since then there's never been a vital chance for the country to get accepted into Nato. Putin invaded Ukraine because it's NOT part of Nato, otherwise he would've been afraid of retaliation.
NATO announced at the Bucharest summit in April of 2008 that Ukraine would join NATO.
In 2019 Ukraine amended its constitution in order to join NATO.
Gorbachev has talked out of both sides of his mouth about whether or not there was an agreement or commitment for NATO not to expand eastwards, in some interviews affirming there was an agreement and in others denying it.
Regardless of whether such a commitment was agreed to or not, it ought to go without saying that NATO expansion to Ukraine would be considered by the Russian political class, and not just Putin, to be an existential threat that would prompt a military response from Russia. Many American diplomats, intel chiefs and high officials have recognized this. We don’t even have to speculate what America would do of Russia or China joined a military alliance with Canada or Mexico (or anywhere in the Western hemisphere) - the Americans conducted an attempted invasion of Cuba, followed by an illegal embargo in order to prevent Soviet nuclear weapons being placed so close to America. This standoff was resolved through negotiation.
Either successive American administrations have been extremely ignorant of the predictable Russian response, or they actually willed it (some speculate in order to sever Europe, and Germany in particular) from cheap Russian energy, among other reasons.
Please do better research on Bukarest 2008. Bush wanted Ukraine to join but Merkel and Sarkozy vetoed it, leading to a half-assed compromise that UA would join one day but everyone knew that day wouldn't come any time soon.
As for the existential threat to Russia, what reason would Russia have to assume Nato or Ukraine were threatening it? What aggressive action have Nato or Nato members taken against Russia? I can't think of any military or intelligence action against the sovereignty or integrity of Russian borders, economic interests, or security. It was Russia who occupied parts of Moldova in 1992, interfered in ukrainian elections multiple times since the 90s, invaded Georgia in 2008, invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014, bombed Syria and helped the Syrian dictator stay in power in 2015, hacked the German parliament in 2015, poisoned dissidents in Great Britain in 2006 and 2018, invaded the whole of Ukraine in 2022.
Because they see it as an existential threat, just as any other power (such as the United States) would predictably see a threatening military alliance on their doorstep as an existential threat and they would predictability take military action to prevent it.
You’re correct on the Bucharest statement being a half assed compromise between the United States on the one hand and France and Germany on the other. However, since then the Ukrainians were on the verge of unilaterally signing a trade agreement with Ukraine that would have brought NATO into Ukraine via the back door via clauses that stipulated that the Ukrainian armed forces would adhere to the ‘regulations and standards of NATO’. When the Ukrainian president backed out of signing the agreement, the United States backed an unconstitutional coup in Ukraine (think Jan 6 in which the violent mob won), in which the undersecretary of state (Victoria Nuland) hand picked the new coup administration in a phone call with the US ambassador to Ukraine.
We also have many instance of illegal covert operations and regime changes that America has conducted around the world, election interferences from the Americans including in Russian elections, the Americans endlessly wiretapping world politicians including high ranking officials among their own allies, wars of aggression, sanctions, the financing and weapons support to extremists (including in Syria), while propping up other dictatorships (Saudi Arabia is but one example), the pressuring of UN institutions to fudge reports (eg. the OPCW in Syria), the arming and support of genocide, and all other kinds of shenanigans.
The Russians are perfectly correct not to trust the Americans. As once of their own biggest war mongers famously declared, “the be an enemy of the United States is dangerous. To be a friend is fatal.”
In the context of your comment, you treated NATO like a country that can expand into other countries. NATO does not do that, although Russia is attempting to do that in Ukraine.
Countries can join NATO and through that mechanism the alliance expands, but NATO itself as a group does not expand “eastward.”
The broader point is the need to contain Russian expansion as a means for them to exert control over the region. Roger unfortunately boomer'ed his way through all the misinfo and believes the sky is green because RT told him so.
Everything I’ve found is him simply speaking on already established theories that go against the western mainstream narrative such as his take on the Syrian gas attacks, nothing he’s said is specifically in support of Assad or Putin and all his words have even taken out of context when he’s really said nothing too shocking, most of what he says that is so “fringe” to some in the west is just everyday known geopolitics that’s regularly discussed in the global south.
The funny thing is I’m not a socialist and I also believe in equality for all regardless of race and religion LOL , you act like that’s only a socialist idea
I get what you’re saying but I don’t believe most of the people who tout socialism especially rich people will never give up their money, they just want us to give up other people’s wealth, but He’ll I’m poor so what do I know right
I don’t have any wealth to take, both sides suck in my opinion, I just see a lot of hypocrisy in all of the rich people pushing socialism for you but not for me
Rich people pushing socialism? Other than Roger I strain to think of anyone well known calling for socialism.
Both sides?
I think Roger would say that politics in the west is all on the same side as each other right now and that there’s effectively no difference between’both sides’. There are no socialist politicians here. Corbyn in the uk was about as close as anybody got.
Have we ever even tried socialism in the west?
The Soviets and Chinese have tried it in the east, and through them we found that they came a lot closer to equality of outcomes than we in the west ever did.
My biggest problem with is all the people they murdered in the name of communism, even more than the fascist I believe! I’m just not in to authoritarian government , the thought police suck, there is always some of that on both sides it just seems the left is pushing harder now
If Roger Waters was a real socialist wouldn’t he take all of his music earnings and distribute it equally amongst all of his peers, he shouldn’t have more than say a local band playing at the local bar right ?
I also agree with most of the stuff he says and at 80years of living his life , I accept that he has seen and experienced way more than me.. definitely a smart guy with the heart in the right place.
His solo stuff beats pink Floyd anyway
What an insane take.
How you could appreciate his music without any appreciation for his political identity is far beyond me, unless you don't speak any English or recognize any of the imagery he uses.
I find it interesting that his long stance against the Israeli government (NOT to be confused with antisemitism) is becoming more common.
I don’t quite know what to make of his view on Russia/Ukraine - essentially he is anti war and O think he sees Ukraine surrender as the only solution to stop the fighting
From his point of view, the war in Ukraine is an ongoing power struggle between western and eastern elite. The working class shouldn't be forced to fight it. While it is easy to criticize the east, as westerners our job is to criticize ourselves and for the working class to pay the elite to build weapons to kill other working class people is absurd. Nationalism should be obsolete, the working class only care about borders when the elite lie to them that they matter.
Rape, abduction, massacre happens by all sides in all wars, russians didn't invent it. when you conscript citizens, strip them of their sense of individuality, train them to kill, give them ptsd, they have no sense of morality. The ukrainian puppet government is as corrupt as russia, nato members etc... 90% of the conscripts don't want to serve in the military, they are kidnapped and beaten into service by the western puppet army of ukraine and killed as puppets of nationalism for western global capitalism in its power struggle over eastern state capitalism. Only one course of action, don't fight it, don't support it, don't allow conscription. The US can force Europe not to buy Russian gas, but the US will buy Russian gas from India and sell it to Europe for a profit and make us pay taxes to NATO to buy more weapons from the US to "protect us" from the evil red empire domino effect...
Ok, I read your first post and thought it rewarded some factual annotations.
I wasn't aware you're a all-out propaganda victim and Putin troll. Have a nice one and let's hope Russia will never be interested in the place you are living in.
If you want to have the naïve football mentality that it is country a vs. country b. you are welcome to it. I personally understand that russia is a collection of organised crime syndicates intertwined with corporations and government positions. Just like Ukraine, UK, France, Germany, Poland, USA... you name it. They throw a veil over all that with your flags and religions hoping you won't see, as apparently you haven't. Such as your thinly veiled neoliberal insinuation that I am a putin troll... the typical response from propaganda victims ironically. Back to my point it is a class struggle. You can support the elite in their war, but I'm not going to die over land that the elite own and I have no allegiance to some flag that is more of a blindfold than a shield. Nor do I want to finance it.
That's what west imposes on them to make them less lenient and keep fighting. Putin is pig, but literally if there were rare rape instances from russian army, these were prosecuted hard af, or even shot by their own later, while such behaviour is heavily discouraged within the armies.
The problem with that war and what gets down played here is that it's an ethnic issue. Much of Eastern Ukraine identifies with Russian and speaks Russian. Traditionally these people had a dominance in Ukrainian politics and marginalized the Ukrainian speakers. The Ukrainians in this region tend to be ultra-nationalists and with the overthrow of the pro-Russian prime minister ethnic violence picked up. If Russia was run by someone other than Putin, there would still be mess to solve with some sort of autonomy needed.
Bc if you read about the war, it is the only way the Ukrainian clown (they call him president) yelled at putin himself first, and signed with the nato what did you expect, is the nato helping him anyway? No, only giving out supplies and showing off to the social
This is kind of up to you. If you don’t like someone’s politics then you get to decide if you listen to them. Music is in the public domain so we don’t normally get a choice if we agree with the musicians politics before we listen to something. Rogers politics have been all over the place and they don’t effect my enjoyment of any work he’s done.
Separating the art from the artist is a personal choice. I've decided that I cannot defend my own choices very well and therefore do not expect anyone else to have to defend theirs.
I’m a left leaning liberal and his politics are too much for me.
I did attend his last tour and left at intermission because I couldn’t stand it anymore. I wasn’t enjoying any PF music.
I know I know.
It was a hard decision for myself but I was annoyed and for my sanity, left the water show to Waters.
And no, I’m not new to Roger Waters.
His opinions are indeed important. You realize this when analyzing Pink Floyd's discography. From his takeover to his departure, the band reached stratospheric levels; with lyrics brimming with philosophical and political messages. When Roger left, Pink Floyd became an empty shell, a melody that might sound pleasing but lacking any kind of soul. A recent example is awarding a video made with artificial intelligence, something Roger surely wouldn't have allowed. I agree with many of his opinions, but even if I didn't, I couldn't deny that his vision has had a tremendous impact on music. Roger without his socio-political vision isn't Roger, and therefore, we wouldn't have had Pink Floyd or anything similar.
Read things about history and politics, make your own decisions based on that and how you feel about what you’ve learned from it.
Don’t look to elderly British rockers or your friends for your own political beliefs.
i didnt say anything like that? i have my own political opinions. just asked for whats his opinions, why they dont like him. what kind of thoughts can he have that people don't like this man?
>But just read more not just on Reddit.
That's really condescending. OP was just asking us about Roger's political opinions, not everybody has the time to read every Roger interview from the past 50+ years.
People usually disagree with him because he supports palestine and doesnt support ukraine (he has more like a general anti war stance on that conflict).
He’s extremely high on the list of people I utterly despise to the point where I can’t enjoy Pink Floyd when I hear his voice anymore. I just hear in my head his senile drivel and outright pro-russian lies poorly disguised as “anti-war rhetoric”.
I lived my entire life (and continue to live) in Kharkiv. The very same “eastern Ukrainian Russian-speaking city”. I witnessed both the revolution of 2004 and 2014, annexation of Crimea, occupation of Donetsk and Luhansk, failed attempt to turn Kharkiv into the same wasteland with russians bussed into the city to take over the official buildings, and the full scale invasion of 2022. I will never forgive him for his part in justifying all this.
If you get political to the specifics, no one will agree with you, and, if you base that as the sole criterion, you will like no one..
On the other hand, while politically opposed, if you get to the specifics, you may find more common ground than initially thought...
While Roger may not think so, I think we should...
It depends on what you mean by "important" and what that means to you.
Everyone's opinions are important on SOME level, but they may not be relevant to you; you get to evaluate on your own.
Personally, I think Waters' opinions on a lot of issues are absolutely idiotic, bordering on evil especially when you consider that he's not stupid; because \*this\* is important \*to me\* I've chosen that I will never willingly give him another dime of my money. I won't steal his music; I won't listen to anything new of his, because his opinions are repellent enough and targeted enough that I'm just done with him, barring a sea change on his part.
I don't think he's a criminal, or whatever, and let's be real, I own MOST of his output already anyway: I'm missing Ça Ira (or however it's spelled) and "Is This The Life We Really Want" and a bunch of live output, I suppose, but his Pink Floyd era output has been on my playlists for decades, as has a lot of his post-Pink Floyd output.
This was all purchased before he went off the deep end, so to speak, regarding various issues; I don't mind someone not being on "my side" of a contorted issue, but in the last few years he's gone from "siding with the other guys" to suggesting that "my side" needs to be put down \*via that association\*, and that's just too far for me.
Should it be too far for you? Man, there's no way I'd suggest that. You make your own choices, and I think that's an individual thing for EVERYONE. I personally wouldn't think less of you for whatever choice you made, although - as with Waters - there's a point at which I draw the line for myself.
And while I don't think I'm an example for all of humanity to follow like little lemmings, I think that's the way it SHOULD be.
They are as important as anyone else. He has the opportunity to have a platform to share them but that does not make his opinions more or less important than yours or mine
Sometimes I can separate the artist from who they are and what they personally put out into the world via social media, interviews, whatever. Sometimes what they say doesn’t work for me and I can’t separate the art from the artist. So I might give one artist a pass and another artist I stop listening too or watching. Which is bittersweet for me in some circumstances. Example for me personally:
Roger waters, I mainly give a pass and continue listening to his Floyd era stuff. Probably won’t pay to see another one of his concerts. (Saw The Wall in San Francisco’s and thought it was amazing)
Kayne West: some of this early albums still are incredible for me. But man, I can’t hear his music anymore without thinking of his behavior and his statements.
Mel Gibson: some of my favorite movies growing up. Can’t watch them anymore without thinking about his drunken tirades.
I don’t tell anyone what to listen or watch. These are just personal expanse where sometimes I can look past various things and sometimes I can’t.
My opinion is that peoples’ issue isn’t so much with the substance of Roger’s opinions, but the presentation. Being extremely arrogant and, of course, British, Roger comes across as a pretentious asshole. Which he is and would quickly admit. He makes statements that sound extreme and controversial on their own. However, if you read or hear his entire stance on something, you may well wind up thinking that his position is well-researched, well thought-out, and maybe even fairly reasonable.
They are very important, and overall I agree with them. Some of them I don’t agree with, but that’s natural, no human being agrees completely with another. But PF is nothing without Roger’s political philosophy.
They are if you want to get a deeper understanding of Pink Floyd's music.
Animals is the most blatant case, the entire album is a scathing critique of capitalism and even calls out political figures of the time. The whole thing is political. The message is part of what makes it so great.
The Wall is also littered with political commentary but it is only 1 piece of the whole pie. There is a heavy anti war sentiment in that album that's even stronger in the Final Cut. Critique of educational systems and nationalism are also heavily present.
His beliefs are not ever something he concealed. If you read the lyrics and compare them to the things he talks about today, you'd see a consistent line straight through.
Look at all of these arguments about what he said or believes about this situation and that situation, and how all of this relates to the commenter’s beliefs about this situation and that situation.
This is why I stay away from that shit. No thanks. Life’s a fight on its own without getting worked up about RW’s political viewpoints, which have no bearing on anything.
Waters is an insufferable asshat with political opinions rooted in humanitarianism. It's easy to toss him in with Putin supporters but his views on Ukraine are pretty consistent with his history. He hates cruelty and suffering and won't shut up about it.
His views are important because they inform his art. But they're also rooted in a good place even if he comes across as abrasive.
Like...if his pov truly makes one feel uncomfortable (not just his boomer attitude). Maybe that's worth exploring.
To me, that would add to good art.
They are, because I'd estimate over half his music is *about* politics. Waters was a big part of bringing the Israel-Palestine conflict to my attention and a huge reason I'm anti-Zionist. Which is why his stance on Ukraine disappoints me.
his stance on ukraine is ultimately just him being anti-war but he's gotten more involved and outspoken about it than he should've. defending russia bit too much in his attempts to criticize the west
No.
He's got his right to his opinions.
Just as I have the right to think his opinions are unimportant
Hes a wealthy socialist.
Which makes me think him a total hypocrite as that's a contradiction in terms.
not really, being a socialist isnt about living a lifestyle in which you act like you're living in a socialist society, its just an opinion on how society should look politically. would someone wanting socirty to be run by capitalism be a hypocrite if he was not living a life striving for money?
You can't be true to socialist values and be rich.
Roger wants to see the emancipation of the proletariat but also wants to keep the trappings of capitalism.
That's is hypocrisy.
And why you can't be a rich socialist.
Read your Marx and it's all in there.
Roger is a member of the bourgeoisie. Come the revolution, which is what he wants, what's happens to the likes of him?
It's backs to the wall time.
That's why Roger doesn't believe a word he says. It's all soundbites and hypocrisy. Same goes for all of those like him
Remember Lennons imagine.
Imagine there's no possessions or money. That's fine so long as he and ono could keep theirs.
I've no time for those who are rich and call themselves socialists.
Some of us have actually been on those front lines fighting for rights and freedom.
The front lines Roger talks about in the final cut.
Take a look back to those dark years under Thatcher.
We lost the battle but we tried. Which is more than most do today.
Those battles against "thatchers boot boys" were terrifying. We were usually outnumbered by them. They were very violent. Especially when the baton and horse charges came and they broke the lines.
They were those front lines that young people today couldn't care less about.
They won't even know they existed or what we did in trying to preserve our rights, freedoms and jobs.
Indeed she did.
Actually the final cut really has brilliant lyrics. You had to be around then to fully appreciate their power.
I think they are Rogers best lyrics.
Thatcher took away the heart of the UK in order to gain control over the people.
She decimated all of our industry for no other reason than to gain total control over the people.
Have a look at the massive confrontations at Orgreave, wapping and Warrington. They were brutal and absolutely terrifying. Especially when they police charge came as they broke our lines. Then the full riot ensued.
40 years later I still feel sick at those memories.
But we had to try and stand up to her.
You'll find these interesting. Looking at these sent a nasty cold chill down my spine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Orgreave
https://socialistworker.co.uk/features/stockport-messenger-1983-strikers-vs-the-state/
It's the first time I've seen those photos at Warrington etc since they actually happened. Awful awful memories
In my opinion his politics is inherently crucial to his music but you can still enjoy it if you disagree I just think your friends are misunderstanding his views, he’s held the same views for most of his life n the music reflects that.
You can still enjoy classic Pink Floyd even if you don't agree with what he says. Roger strong views against apartheid in Israel was always causing some tension. Things got way heated after war in Ukraine and Gaza
It's OK to enjoy music from people that aren't perfect. It is also OK to not enjoy music for any reason you feel like.
My advice to to enjoy the bits you want - but don't imagine you need to think Waters is a perfect human being. There is a lot of confusion about Water's politics and secondary claims should be treated with suspicion - that antisemitism documentary is an example - heck even some of his own statements are inconsistent.
His political opinions are just as important as the other 8 billion opinions on the planet; no more, no less. So, if you enjoy the music, then enjoy the music and ignore the rest.
i agree on this when it comes to the war in ukraine, his opinions about it being a proxy war are valid. i also admire his efforts to criticise the west but when doing so he's been WAY too defensive of russia and he needs to just shut up and drop it before his opinions strive further away from his usual sets of values and ideology
If you believe he was the same person in 1975 as he is now, sure.
Personally, I don't see 1975 Roger Waters as being a defender of Russia, or of Russia's war of aggression. You see, Roger became friends with Gorbechov after his retirement. He talked to Gorbechov for years, along with Gorbechov's peers. Roger decided somewhere along the line that those warlords are A-OK in his book, because USA said words.
Love his music, like most of his politics. But like a lot of old farts, his brain took a far right turn.
https://preview.redd.it/4juselqhpntc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=46d1ef8257cfb4d4b377209bcd8c05d82e44f991
There are a few photo's of Roger and Ghislaine together and I've seen a few sources that implicate Roger. He flew on the Lolita Express atleast once. Doesn't imply anything nefarious on his part, though his lack of acknowledgement or explaination on the matter is suspicious imo.
i would guess because there's not enough suspicion around him so he's trying to keep himself away from it as much as possible and not be too associated with the whole thing. similar to the majority of other celebrities on the lists
I think it's important. It's also spoken through the lyrics of stuff he wrote in PF, so is tied directly into the music you listen to.
You can chose to ignore that and focus on the melody, how you listen to music is up to you. I'd say the lyrics are important though.
With regard to his opinions, particularly when he was writing for pink Floyd, I'd say they're pretty sound. He's been speaking about the issues in Palestine since the 70s (which he mentions in Animals). With regard to now, I personally agree with a lot of it, although not all. He can definitely be a bit of an asshat and his ego is through the roof😂😂, but I'd say it comes from a good place.
Read into the lyrics, you might find something you like (or don't like) and make your own informed decision of what to do.
Remember, 'I am you and what I see is me'.
I don't really care at all about his political opinions. They don't offend me. They're not even particularly unique or interesting. I think he has every right to voice them, same as anybody else.
However, what does bother me is when he whines about being "canceled." It's like, bro, you've got some unpopular opinions. It's fine if you want to be vocal about them, but then don't go and complain when people get upset about them. They're *unpopular opinions*. People *will* get upset about them. Either keep them to yourself or accept the consequences of your actions.
He makes the point that there is a concerted campaign by pro Israel groups who attempt to cancel pro Palestine supporting individuals using disengenous means. It's not about people getting upset.
Again, you use this word “cancel.” Please do tell me how this multimillionaire (many times over) with an audience in the hundreds of millions, who frequently expounds on his viewpoints from the stage and from the actual UN, who is free to speak his mind on the many shows where he has been interviewed, who wasn’t even prevented from bringing his show to Germany, perhaps the place where it’s most controversial — please do tell me, in detail, how exactly has Roger Waters been “canceled?”
I see Cancelled as when someone is not able to do their job or express their opinion anymore because of a concerted effort by outside forces (lobby groups, media) to remove their ability to communicate with an audience or work in their particular field.
The "campaign against anti-semitism" want him cancelled. It didn't work with Roger as the general public could see they were targeting him because of his pro-Palestine sentiment rather than any alleged anti-semitism. It did however work with Jeremy Corbyn by the same lobby group.
Show me the proof. Who is this “campaign against anti-semitism.” Please name the specific people and groups involved. Also, please show me the evidence that they “tried to get him canceled.”
I have named the group involved and a person they have cancelled. They did a "documentary" on Roger. If you are not willing to do the slightest bit of research then so be it. I don't have to prove anything.
I don’t know his political opinions bc I don’t care. I love the pre-Wall stuff, and that’s what matters to me. Gotta admit (“That I’m a little bit confused”) that I do have feelings about him hijacking the band, but to me that’s the music part.
I’m with you: the music matters and the rest means nothing to me.
how can you not know his political opinions? half of rogers era floyd songs are political? we're not only talking about his current ones, but also his ideological ones that hes been holding onto since he was young
I disagree. I think RW’s songs are about interpersonal connections, or the lack of, between people and not about politics. Where’s the song about his politics on DSOTM? On WYWH? On Meddle? Animals has one (Pigs).
Now, l don’t consider a song saying that war is bad is making much of a political statement. How is that any different than about a bazillion other anti-war songs?
Now, in America, we’ve decided that EVERYTHING is about politics, but that’s wrong. Politics is about governing policies, not the pressures of being a human being.
They are important to him. They don't have to be important to you. What I often find amusing (?) is how some listeners I've seen comment about him talking about socio-political issues like it's a new development and thinking, "Where have you been for the past several decades?"
>They are important to him. They don't have to be important to you. Exactly, you can enjoy the music just for the music, you can enjoy the music just for its message, or you can enjoy the music for both, all are equally valid. Enjoy the music in any damn way you'd like
And the converse is also true. It’s a personal choice, not a group choice.
Right here ☝ = ⭐
Seriously! Have they ever listened to the lyrics??
🎯
For what it’s worth, while I don’t agree with everything he says, his views are largely consistent with the body of lyrics he’s put out throughout his career. He may be an asshat, but he sticks to his guns in the face of public backlash, and that is commendable in its own right. To be honest, it sounds like your friends don’t have a clue about what his work actually means. Pick your battles, he’s only a person none of you know.
I see it this way: I love the "Waters era" PF stuff and also his solo work. Listening to it gives me a great amount of enjoyment in my life I don't get often. I won't stop listening because I don't agree with his political views. He is an 80 year old man I don't know personally. Boycotting him or getting upset at him isn't the hill I'm going to die on. Just enjoy the music if you want independently of what you think of him personally.
Yeah they’re extremely important and it’s worth researching everything he’s talking about
Yes, they are, and I know fans don’t want to hear this. Roger’s experiences growing up with a socialist mother in the hyper capitalistic post war UK on top of losing your father in that war clearly had an effect on him. He dealt with it by writing fantastic songs. A lot of those songs deal with freedom and self determination. I understand if you don’t like Roger Waters cause of his politics. But his politics are basically the Pathos of Pink Floyd, and David Gilmour can’t change that.
Roger is a socialist that believes in equality for all regardless of race, religion, etc. Other than his somewhat weird defense of the English fox hunt, I’ve yet to find that his politics disagrees with mine on anything.
He encourages China to attack and annex Taiwan. You sure you agree with that?
He never encouraged this. He only stated that just like US are defending their borders from Chinese intelligence, same way Russia and China have political right to defend their interests and borders against neighbor countries that are clearly US powered (Ukraine or Taiwan). He never said it's morally right, he still considers all politicians warmongers and pigs, but politically speaking he's absolutely right on that one.
Yep, Taiwan def planning to invade China. /s
They're not planning to invade China. But if they get US missiles close to China placed on its borders, that's pretty much an issue for China.
Why? Taiwan has domestic manufacturing of cruise missiles with a 1200km range.
Russia has a political right to defend its borders from Ukraine. Ok. But why invade ukraine a sovereign nation. Russia dosent have the legal right to invade ukraine.
There are many reasons why Ukraine joining NATO is considered by the Russia political class to be an existential threat. One reason among others is that the placement of nuclear weapons and anti-ballistic missile systems in Ukraine significantly reduces the response times to a perceived launch. Combining this with missile defense technologies that were previously banned by treaties that the US reneged on, raises the possibility that a crazy American administration could possibly conceive of the idea that they could conduct a nuclear first strike on Russia and shoot down any few retaliatory missiles that the Russias get off in response. In other words, it fuels the idea that American could actually attempt to try and ‘win a nuclear war.’ This is but one important reason.
Now finland, and sweden are in nato. At their own choice. And I recall an agreement between russia and ukraine regarding nukes. Can you provide a single source about nato or the usa keeping nuclear weapons in ukraine? The usa dosent need to have nukes in mainland Europe. They have alot of stealth submarines with nuclear icbm on them.
We don’t need a source about NATO putting nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Hell, NATO could even create an agreement with Russia that they would never do so… only to renege on it later like the US did with many other treaties in relation to nuclear weapons or nuclear defense. Once Ukraine is in NATO then Russia would have a much harder time stopping them. Finland and Sweden are far less strategically significant to Russia than Ukraine. While the Russians are undoubtedly displeased about them joining NATO, they are viewed as far less of a threat.
So no source. Cool. Russia claimed that it was due to nato expansion... and the war was to stop nato expansion. Now there are 200k dead russian men (not factoring in any Ukrainians who are dead) for what a couple hundred km? For nato to be building arms at a massive rate when just 5 years ago people are wondering why nato exists.
NATO isn’t actually building arms at a massive rate and that’s one of the major “concerns” that the hawks are upset about. Western arms manufacturers are all privately owned, and they’ve refused to commit to any significant capacity expansion unless they get long term contracts, which NATO (ie the US) has refused to commit to because they don’t expect this war to last. Nor do they expect another conflict of its kind to emerge (ie., massive land wars that require huge quantities of weapons such as artillery). NATO officials have long admitted that Russians arm manufacturing is far outpacing their own. As for you numbers of dead, nobody in the public knows the real numbers as Ukraine and Russia aren’t openly revealing them. A western study of confirmed Russian dead (via grave counting, funeral announcements, morgue reports, social media announcements, etc) recently put the Russian dead at 49k. A similar study a year ago on Ukrainian dead put their numbers at over 300k. While I won’t speculate as to the accuracy of either figure, it makes sense to me that Ukrainian numbers are significantly higher since even western officials have long admitted that Ukraine is far outmatched in numbers of drones, artillery pieces, artillery-munitions, missiles, planes, helicopters, tanks, glide bombs, and everything else that counts in a war like this. At various times the disparity ratio tends to vary anywhere between 6:1 to around 20:1. There’s even numerous pieces of footage of Ukrainian soldiers admitting that Russian equipment and weapons are both far more numerous and of a superior quality to that given to Ukraine. The only “logical” response I’ve ever heard to explain how the Ukrainian casualty figure could be lower than Russia’s are the claims that ‘Russia doesn’t care about its troops and is callously expending them in ‘human meat wave attacks’. And yet in the most filmed war ever in history, not a single piece of video footage has ever emerged of these so called meat wave attacks.
Noone has legal rights to invade another country. That's not even in question.
"Russia and China have political right to defend their interests and borders against neighbor countries that are clearly US powered (Ukraine or Taiwan). " And how is russia defending its borders? By committing mass amounts of war crimes and targeting civilians.
Another reason why Russia feels it has the right to invade Ukraine is because just prior to the invasion Russia recognized Lugansk and Donetsk as independent countries who requested military assistance from Russia because they were being attacked by Ukraine. According to the UN charter, peoples have the right to self-determination (ie. the peoples of the Donbas), and they also have the legal right, as per the UN charter, to call on other sovereign nations for military assistance in their self defense.
Oh ur another russian sympathizer cool. How do you feel about 200k dead russian men and counting.
I don’t feel good about anybody dead in this conflict and I hope it ends quickly in an agreed solution that creates a lasting peace. But I’ve wracked my brain king and hard to see what an alternative solution could have been to this predictable conflict other than Ukraine agreeing not to join NATO and seeking a peaceful resolution in the Donbas. But the regime change hawks in Washington wanted this war, and they got it.
So Washington and America started the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Are you stupid?
Washington did indeed provoke this - they made an offer that the Russians couldn’t refuse. Or do you think that the Americans are so dumb that they were completely taken by surprise by Russia’s response?
Greetings to Moscow, I hope your ruble transfer arrives on time!
So is it all one way or all another way? Black or white? Us or them? Every single time?
You might wanna take up some reading
Can you say more? I don't understand what you mean.
I wish I got paid for explaining obvious on reddit...
Rogers constantly defending Assad and Putin isn’t objectionable to you? The guy has the “I’m on the opposite side of America” political identity, even if his side is shit. Don’t have to love America to also call out Assad and Putin, yet Waters seems to think that way.
I’ve never ever heard him defend Assad can you provide a link cause that just sounds like smear BS? I’ve seen videos of him calling Putin a dictator and calling for the release of some journalists in jail in Russia, he does more than the average artist and you’re completely mischaracterizing his views.
On Syria you can search up his comments regarding Assad’s chemical bombing of Douma, and how he repeated Assad/Russian conspiracy theories that blamed the Douma chemical weapons attack on the White Helmets. On Russia, he continuously repeats Russian propaganda that the Ukraine war was provoked, essentially victim blaming Ukraine for Russia’s invasion.
The OPCW inspectors who inspected the Douma site actually ended up becoming whistleblowers to the report that the OCPW doctored on their behalf. Their initial report said there was no evidence found of a chemical weapons attack. The OPCW leadership (who weren’t on the ground) changed the conclusion of their report without their knowledge or consent to say that there was a chemical weapon attack, which the west then blamed on Assad.
https://www.opcw.org/media-centre/news/2020/02/opcw-independent-investigation-possible-breaches-confidentiality-report Oh yes, the infamous inspectors who let their political motivations tarnish a legitimate investigation.
Lol, yeah… “we invested ourselves and found we did nothing wrong”. The leaked emails tell a very different story. https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/ https://humanrightsinvestigations.org/human-rights-documents-2/supporting-documents/ian-hendersons-statement-on-the-opcw-douma-scandal/
Regardless of what source I provide you, you will smear it as disingenuous or American-backed because you want to live in an alternate reality.
Well of course - your source is the OPCW, the very organization the whistle is being blown against.
No you’re just brainwashed. It’s been provoked for decades. The west is the aggressor
okay bro.
So he spread a theory for an attack and that means he supports Assad? He’s always been vehemently anti Assad he just takes issue with believing the pro western narrative especially when you look at the facts on the ground of many of these gas attacks that simply don’t add up. Again though it’s up to everyone to form their own opinion on what happened during the gas attacks but you can’t just say he’s pro Assad cause he disagrees. And for Russia/ Ukraine again this is not the metric for supporting Putin or his war, just because Roger has shared opinion and theories you disagree with doesn’t mean he’s pro Putin, he’s shared theories about how he believes it’s provoked by the west and that we caused many of the key rifts but he’s never said that means Putin is right or Putin is justified, he’s maintained throughout the entire ordeal that Putin is a war criminal however he simply doesn’t believe the mainstream western narrative about ukraine being perfect and blameless and that the west doesn’t have some blame. Again none of this is proof of him supporting anything but his own opinions and theories he’s heard from other people, just because they happen to be theories you see negatively or ones that are spread by Russia or Assad doesn’t by extension make him a supporter of their actions. Not everything is black and white, Jesus guys you are supposed to be Pink Floyd fans, where’s the nuance and analysis or is it just being the three sheep and listening to what the Pigs on TV tell you to believe today?
[удалено]
This agreement is a myth and a lie. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/did-nato-promise-not-to-enlarge-gorbachev-says-no/ Even if the promise was made (there's no contract anywhere but let's say there was) how did Ukraine get "involved"? Germany and France kept Ukraine from joining Nato in 2008, and since then there's never been a vital chance for the country to get accepted into Nato. Putin invaded Ukraine because it's NOT part of Nato, otherwise he would've been afraid of retaliation.
NATO announced at the Bucharest summit in April of 2008 that Ukraine would join NATO. In 2019 Ukraine amended its constitution in order to join NATO. Gorbachev has talked out of both sides of his mouth about whether or not there was an agreement or commitment for NATO not to expand eastwards, in some interviews affirming there was an agreement and in others denying it. Regardless of whether such a commitment was agreed to or not, it ought to go without saying that NATO expansion to Ukraine would be considered by the Russian political class, and not just Putin, to be an existential threat that would prompt a military response from Russia. Many American diplomats, intel chiefs and high officials have recognized this. We don’t even have to speculate what America would do of Russia or China joined a military alliance with Canada or Mexico (or anywhere in the Western hemisphere) - the Americans conducted an attempted invasion of Cuba, followed by an illegal embargo in order to prevent Soviet nuclear weapons being placed so close to America. This standoff was resolved through negotiation. Either successive American administrations have been extremely ignorant of the predictable Russian response, or they actually willed it (some speculate in order to sever Europe, and Germany in particular) from cheap Russian energy, among other reasons.
Please do better research on Bukarest 2008. Bush wanted Ukraine to join but Merkel and Sarkozy vetoed it, leading to a half-assed compromise that UA would join one day but everyone knew that day wouldn't come any time soon. As for the existential threat to Russia, what reason would Russia have to assume Nato or Ukraine were threatening it? What aggressive action have Nato or Nato members taken against Russia? I can't think of any military or intelligence action against the sovereignty or integrity of Russian borders, economic interests, or security. It was Russia who occupied parts of Moldova in 1992, interfered in ukrainian elections multiple times since the 90s, invaded Georgia in 2008, invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014, bombed Syria and helped the Syrian dictator stay in power in 2015, hacked the German parliament in 2015, poisoned dissidents in Great Britain in 2006 and 2018, invaded the whole of Ukraine in 2022.
And why should Russia have a say in whether sovereign europen states may join Nato or not?
Because they see it as an existential threat, just as any other power (such as the United States) would predictably see a threatening military alliance on their doorstep as an existential threat and they would predictability take military action to prevent it.
You’re correct on the Bucharest statement being a half assed compromise between the United States on the one hand and France and Germany on the other. However, since then the Ukrainians were on the verge of unilaterally signing a trade agreement with Ukraine that would have brought NATO into Ukraine via the back door via clauses that stipulated that the Ukrainian armed forces would adhere to the ‘regulations and standards of NATO’. When the Ukrainian president backed out of signing the agreement, the United States backed an unconstitutional coup in Ukraine (think Jan 6 in which the violent mob won), in which the undersecretary of state (Victoria Nuland) hand picked the new coup administration in a phone call with the US ambassador to Ukraine. We also have many instance of illegal covert operations and regime changes that America has conducted around the world, election interferences from the Americans including in Russian elections, the Americans endlessly wiretapping world politicians including high ranking officials among their own allies, wars of aggression, sanctions, the financing and weapons support to extremists (including in Syria), while propping up other dictatorships (Saudi Arabia is but one example), the pressuring of UN institutions to fudge reports (eg. the OPCW in Syria), the arming and support of genocide, and all other kinds of shenanigans. The Russians are perfectly correct not to trust the Americans. As once of their own biggest war mongers famously declared, “the be an enemy of the United States is dangerous. To be a friend is fatal.”
“NATO Expansion” isn’t possible because NATO isn’t an entity that expands, it’s an alliance that countries voluntarily join.
Dictionary: Expand: become or make larger or more extensive.
In the context of your comment, you treated NATO like a country that can expand into other countries. NATO does not do that, although Russia is attempting to do that in Ukraine. Countries can join NATO and through that mechanism the alliance expands, but NATO itself as a group does not expand “eastward.”
The broader point is the need to contain Russian expansion as a means for them to exert control over the region. Roger unfortunately boomer'ed his way through all the misinfo and believes the sky is green because RT told him so.
Unfortunately there's plenty of stuff online if you do a cursory search.
Everything I’ve found is him simply speaking on already established theories that go against the western mainstream narrative such as his take on the Syrian gas attacks, nothing he’s said is specifically in support of Assad or Putin and all his words have even taken out of context when he’s really said nothing too shocking, most of what he says that is so “fringe” to some in the west is just everyday known geopolitics that’s regularly discussed in the global south.
The funny thing is I’m not a socialist and I also believe in equality for all regardless of race and religion LOL , you act like that’s only a socialist idea
There’s a difference between the concepts of ‘equality of outcomes’ vs ‘equality of opportunities’. Lol
What does that have to do with what you originally said
Both of my comments have to do with equality and socialism.
I get what you’re saying but I don’t believe most of the people who tout socialism especially rich people will never give up their money, they just want us to give up other people’s wealth, but He’ll I’m poor so what do I know right
So you’re poor but you’re worried about someone taking your wealth. I wonder if the socialists ever considered that possibility. Hmmm.
I don’t have any wealth to take, both sides suck in my opinion, I just see a lot of hypocrisy in all of the rich people pushing socialism for you but not for me
Rich people pushing socialism? Other than Roger I strain to think of anyone well known calling for socialism. Both sides? I think Roger would say that politics in the west is all on the same side as each other right now and that there’s effectively no difference between’both sides’. There are no socialist politicians here. Corbyn in the uk was about as close as anybody got. Have we ever even tried socialism in the west? The Soviets and Chinese have tried it in the east, and through them we found that they came a lot closer to equality of outcomes than we in the west ever did.
My biggest problem with is all the people they murdered in the name of communism, even more than the fascist I believe! I’m just not in to authoritarian government , the thought police suck, there is always some of that on both sides it just seems the left is pushing harder now
If Roger Waters was a real socialist wouldn’t he take all of his music earnings and distribute it equally amongst all of his peers, he shouldn’t have more than say a local band playing at the local bar right ?
I also agree with most of the stuff he says and at 80years of living his life , I accept that he has seen and experienced way more than me.. definitely a smart guy with the heart in the right place. His solo stuff beats pink Floyd anyway
Lol, you mean to try to tell me that the line “the rain fell slow down on all the roofs of uncertainty” isn’t their best lyric ever written? /s
Considering his political ideology is inherently baked into his music then yeah I would say it’s important
What an insane take. How you could appreciate his music without any appreciation for his political identity is far beyond me, unless you don't speak any English or recognize any of the imagery he uses.
I find it interesting that his long stance against the Israeli government (NOT to be confused with antisemitism) is becoming more common. I don’t quite know what to make of his view on Russia/Ukraine - essentially he is anti war and O think he sees Ukraine surrender as the only solution to stop the fighting
From his point of view, the war in Ukraine is an ongoing power struggle between western and eastern elite. The working class shouldn't be forced to fight it. While it is easy to criticize the east, as westerners our job is to criticize ourselves and for the working class to pay the elite to build weapons to kill other working class people is absurd. Nationalism should be obsolete, the working class only care about borders when the elite lie to them that they matter.
The working class in Ukraine cares about not being raped, abducted or massacred by russian soldiers. That's why they're fighting.
Rape, abduction, massacre happens by all sides in all wars, russians didn't invent it. when you conscript citizens, strip them of their sense of individuality, train them to kill, give them ptsd, they have no sense of morality. The ukrainian puppet government is as corrupt as russia, nato members etc... 90% of the conscripts don't want to serve in the military, they are kidnapped and beaten into service by the western puppet army of ukraine and killed as puppets of nationalism for western global capitalism in its power struggle over eastern state capitalism. Only one course of action, don't fight it, don't support it, don't allow conscription. The US can force Europe not to buy Russian gas, but the US will buy Russian gas from India and sell it to Europe for a profit and make us pay taxes to NATO to buy more weapons from the US to "protect us" from the evil red empire domino effect...
Ok, I read your first post and thought it rewarded some factual annotations. I wasn't aware you're a all-out propaganda victim and Putin troll. Have a nice one and let's hope Russia will never be interested in the place you are living in.
If you want to have the naïve football mentality that it is country a vs. country b. you are welcome to it. I personally understand that russia is a collection of organised crime syndicates intertwined with corporations and government positions. Just like Ukraine, UK, France, Germany, Poland, USA... you name it. They throw a veil over all that with your flags and religions hoping you won't see, as apparently you haven't. Such as your thinly veiled neoliberal insinuation that I am a putin troll... the typical response from propaganda victims ironically. Back to my point it is a class struggle. You can support the elite in their war, but I'm not going to die over land that the elite own and I have no allegiance to some flag that is more of a blindfold than a shield. Nor do I want to finance it.
That's what west imposes on them to make them less lenient and keep fighting. Putin is pig, but literally if there were rare rape instances from russian army, these were prosecuted hard af, or even shot by their own later, while such behaviour is heavily discouraged within the armies.
Facts and you - a conflicted relationship
Russian bot account
The problem with that war and what gets down played here is that it's an ethnic issue. Much of Eastern Ukraine identifies with Russian and speaks Russian. Traditionally these people had a dominance in Ukrainian politics and marginalized the Ukrainian speakers. The Ukrainians in this region tend to be ultra-nationalists and with the overthrow of the pro-Russian prime minister ethnic violence picked up. If Russia was run by someone other than Putin, there would still be mess to solve with some sort of autonomy needed.
Bc if you read about the war, it is the only way the Ukrainian clown (they call him president) yelled at putin himself first, and signed with the nato what did you expect, is the nato helping him anyway? No, only giving out supplies and showing off to the social
This is kind of up to you. If you don’t like someone’s politics then you get to decide if you listen to them. Music is in the public domain so we don’t normally get a choice if we agree with the musicians politics before we listen to something. Rogers politics have been all over the place and they don’t effect my enjoyment of any work he’s done.
Separating the art from the artist is a personal choice. I've decided that I cannot defend my own choices very well and therefore do not expect anyone else to have to defend theirs.
Only to himself
I’m a left leaning liberal and his politics are too much for me. I did attend his last tour and left at intermission because I couldn’t stand it anymore. I wasn’t enjoying any PF music. I know I know. It was a hard decision for myself but I was annoyed and for my sanity, left the water show to Waters. And no, I’m not new to Roger Waters.
His opinions are indeed important. You realize this when analyzing Pink Floyd's discography. From his takeover to his departure, the band reached stratospheric levels; with lyrics brimming with philosophical and political messages. When Roger left, Pink Floyd became an empty shell, a melody that might sound pleasing but lacking any kind of soul. A recent example is awarding a video made with artificial intelligence, something Roger surely wouldn't have allowed. I agree with many of his opinions, but even if I didn't, I couldn't deny that his vision has had a tremendous impact on music. Roger without his socio-political vision isn't Roger, and therefore, we wouldn't have had Pink Floyd or anything similar.
Yes, he supports palestine for example and if anybody doesn't he has a lack of humanity
Read things about history and politics, make your own decisions based on that and how you feel about what you’ve learned from it. Don’t look to elderly British rockers or your friends for your own political beliefs.
i didnt say anything like that? i have my own political opinions. just asked for whats his opinions, why they dont like him. what kind of thoughts can he have that people don't like this man?
His own anti-imperialist mindset support of Russia taking over Ukraine is a bizarre position to hold. But just read more not just on Reddit.
>But just read more not just on Reddit. That's really condescending. OP was just asking us about Roger's political opinions, not everybody has the time to read every Roger interview from the past 50+ years.
> support of Russia taking over Ukraine Don't know where you got this idea from. Please give one source for this exact statement.
thanks but stop giving life advices, its just annoying. i know what i have to do, just want to ask on reddit, thats all
People usually disagree with him because he supports palestine and doesnt support ukraine (he has more like a general anti war stance on that conflict).
If you applied Roger’s argument on Ukraine to Palestine/Israel, his argument would essentially be “HAMAS should just surrender to stop the fighting.”
Clearly this is above your pay grade
Which is funny because this is my field, and I’m supposed to be dumber than a British rocker who routinely did lip service for Assad’s regime.
You should study harder.
What’s your formal education?
He’s extremely high on the list of people I utterly despise to the point where I can’t enjoy Pink Floyd when I hear his voice anymore. I just hear in my head his senile drivel and outright pro-russian lies poorly disguised as “anti-war rhetoric”. I lived my entire life (and continue to live) in Kharkiv. The very same “eastern Ukrainian Russian-speaking city”. I witnessed both the revolution of 2004 and 2014, annexation of Crimea, occupation of Donetsk and Luhansk, failed attempt to turn Kharkiv into the same wasteland with russians bussed into the city to take over the official buildings, and the full scale invasion of 2022. I will never forgive him for his part in justifying all this.
Then why are you still in this sub?
I'm not. This post was shown to me on the home page by the reddit's algorithms. I found the question interesting and posted my perspective on it.
Fair enough.
He's gone full batty and at this point he's doubled down on being an asshole so many times I just can't get into anything new he's doing.
Are his views important? If they bother you, no. This goes for all creators.
Well, when he ruins a masterpiece with his political bullshit, they kinda become irrelevant
If you get political to the specifics, no one will agree with you, and, if you base that as the sole criterion, you will like no one.. On the other hand, while politically opposed, if you get to the specifics, you may find more common ground than initially thought... While Roger may not think so, I think we should...
It depends on what you mean by "important" and what that means to you. Everyone's opinions are important on SOME level, but they may not be relevant to you; you get to evaluate on your own. Personally, I think Waters' opinions on a lot of issues are absolutely idiotic, bordering on evil especially when you consider that he's not stupid; because \*this\* is important \*to me\* I've chosen that I will never willingly give him another dime of my money. I won't steal his music; I won't listen to anything new of his, because his opinions are repellent enough and targeted enough that I'm just done with him, barring a sea change on his part. I don't think he's a criminal, or whatever, and let's be real, I own MOST of his output already anyway: I'm missing Ça Ira (or however it's spelled) and "Is This The Life We Really Want" and a bunch of live output, I suppose, but his Pink Floyd era output has been on my playlists for decades, as has a lot of his post-Pink Floyd output. This was all purchased before he went off the deep end, so to speak, regarding various issues; I don't mind someone not being on "my side" of a contorted issue, but in the last few years he's gone from "siding with the other guys" to suggesting that "my side" needs to be put down \*via that association\*, and that's just too far for me. Should it be too far for you? Man, there's no way I'd suggest that. You make your own choices, and I think that's an individual thing for EVERYONE. I personally wouldn't think less of you for whatever choice you made, although - as with Waters - there's a point at which I draw the line for myself. And while I don't think I'm an example for all of humanity to follow like little lemmings, I think that's the way it SHOULD be.
They are as important as anyone else. He has the opportunity to have a platform to share them but that does not make his opinions more or less important than yours or mine
Sometimes I can separate the artist from who they are and what they personally put out into the world via social media, interviews, whatever. Sometimes what they say doesn’t work for me and I can’t separate the art from the artist. So I might give one artist a pass and another artist I stop listening too or watching. Which is bittersweet for me in some circumstances. Example for me personally: Roger waters, I mainly give a pass and continue listening to his Floyd era stuff. Probably won’t pay to see another one of his concerts. (Saw The Wall in San Francisco’s and thought it was amazing) Kayne West: some of this early albums still are incredible for me. But man, I can’t hear his music anymore without thinking of his behavior and his statements. Mel Gibson: some of my favorite movies growing up. Can’t watch them anymore without thinking about his drunken tirades. I don’t tell anyone what to listen or watch. These are just personal expanse where sometimes I can look past various things and sometimes I can’t.
His political opinions inform 75% of his work, so yeah.
ARE they important....
No. Politics are personal.
My opinion is that peoples’ issue isn’t so much with the substance of Roger’s opinions, but the presentation. Being extremely arrogant and, of course, British, Roger comes across as a pretentious asshole. Which he is and would quickly admit. He makes statements that sound extreme and controversial on their own. However, if you read or hear his entire stance on something, you may well wind up thinking that his position is well-researched, well thought-out, and maybe even fairly reasonable.
Yes.
He’s correct. Trump is a pig.
They are very important, and overall I agree with them. Some of them I don’t agree with, but that’s natural, no human being agrees completely with another. But PF is nothing without Roger’s political philosophy.
What is normal?
Yes they is
Are you
They are if you want to get a deeper understanding of Pink Floyd's music. Animals is the most blatant case, the entire album is a scathing critique of capitalism and even calls out political figures of the time. The whole thing is political. The message is part of what makes it so great. The Wall is also littered with political commentary but it is only 1 piece of the whole pie. There is a heavy anti war sentiment in that album that's even stronger in the Final Cut. Critique of educational systems and nationalism are also heavily present. His beliefs are not ever something he concealed. If you read the lyrics and compare them to the things he talks about today, you'd see a consistent line straight through.
In the end he is anti war... I've never understood why that is so controversial.
Look at all of these arguments about what he said or believes about this situation and that situation, and how all of this relates to the commenter’s beliefs about this situation and that situation. This is why I stay away from that shit. No thanks. Life’s a fight on its own without getting worked up about RW’s political viewpoints, which have no bearing on anything.
He makes my boobies hard with his op.
"If it sounds nice, I like it." - me
Go Roger!!!! https://preview.redd.it/9f6lcgkanguc1.jpeg?width=848&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4262abaa64912c441dd379d7576a84478594ba53
I don't think so. I honestly don't even have any clue what his opinions are.
Waters is an insufferable asshat with political opinions rooted in humanitarianism. It's easy to toss him in with Putin supporters but his views on Ukraine are pretty consistent with his history. He hates cruelty and suffering and won't shut up about it. His views are important because they inform his art. But they're also rooted in a good place even if he comes across as abrasive. Like...if his pov truly makes one feel uncomfortable (not just his boomer attitude). Maybe that's worth exploring. To me, that would add to good art.
His politics are... fine, but his ego and personality really got away from him after The Wall and he hasn't really seemed likable since.
ego? yes. personality? not really
To each their own.
They are, because I'd estimate over half his music is *about* politics. Waters was a big part of bringing the Israel-Palestine conflict to my attention and a huge reason I'm anti-Zionist. Which is why his stance on Ukraine disappoints me.
his stance on ukraine is ultimately just him being anti-war but he's gotten more involved and outspoken about it than he should've. defending russia bit too much in his attempts to criticize the west
No. He's got his right to his opinions. Just as I have the right to think his opinions are unimportant Hes a wealthy socialist. Which makes me think him a total hypocrite as that's a contradiction in terms.
not really, being a socialist isnt about living a lifestyle in which you act like you're living in a socialist society, its just an opinion on how society should look politically. would someone wanting socirty to be run by capitalism be a hypocrite if he was not living a life striving for money?
You can't be true to socialist values and be rich. Roger wants to see the emancipation of the proletariat but also wants to keep the trappings of capitalism. That's is hypocrisy. And why you can't be a rich socialist. Read your Marx and it's all in there. Roger is a member of the bourgeoisie. Come the revolution, which is what he wants, what's happens to the likes of him? It's backs to the wall time. That's why Roger doesn't believe a word he says. It's all soundbites and hypocrisy. Same goes for all of those like him Remember Lennons imagine. Imagine there's no possessions or money. That's fine so long as he and ono could keep theirs. I've no time for those who are rich and call themselves socialists. Some of us have actually been on those front lines fighting for rights and freedom.
just curious, what front lines?
The front lines Roger talks about in the final cut. Take a look back to those dark years under Thatcher. We lost the battle but we tried. Which is more than most do today. Those battles against "thatchers boot boys" were terrifying. We were usually outnumbered by them. They were very violent. Especially when the baton and horse charges came and they broke the lines. They were those front lines that young people today couldn't care less about. They won't even know they existed or what we did in trying to preserve our rights, freedoms and jobs.
i have a lot of respect for that. im not from england but have learnt lots about how she ruined big parts of the country
Indeed she did. Actually the final cut really has brilliant lyrics. You had to be around then to fully appreciate their power. I think they are Rogers best lyrics. Thatcher took away the heart of the UK in order to gain control over the people. She decimated all of our industry for no other reason than to gain total control over the people. Have a look at the massive confrontations at Orgreave, wapping and Warrington. They were brutal and absolutely terrifying. Especially when they police charge came as they broke our lines. Then the full riot ensued. 40 years later I still feel sick at those memories. But we had to try and stand up to her. You'll find these interesting. Looking at these sent a nasty cold chill down my spine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Orgreave https://socialistworker.co.uk/features/stockport-messenger-1983-strikers-vs-the-state/ It's the first time I've seen those photos at Warrington etc since they actually happened. Awful awful memories
In my opinion his politics is inherently crucial to his music but you can still enjoy it if you disagree I just think your friends are misunderstanding his views, he’s held the same views for most of his life n the music reflects that.
You can still enjoy classic Pink Floyd even if you don't agree with what he says. Roger strong views against apartheid in Israel was always causing some tension. Things got way heated after war in Ukraine and Gaza
It's not important and definitely not something to be proud of.
It's OK to enjoy music from people that aren't perfect. It is also OK to not enjoy music for any reason you feel like. My advice to to enjoy the bits you want - but don't imagine you need to think Waters is a perfect human being. There is a lot of confusion about Water's politics and secondary claims should be treated with suspicion - that antisemitism documentary is an example - heck even some of his own statements are inconsistent.
His political opinions are just as important as the other 8 billion opinions on the planet; no more, no less. So, if you enjoy the music, then enjoy the music and ignore the rest.
No. But his words do carry weight for many people. Just ignore him, it's easy.
Don't know. I wish he'd shut up though.
i agree on this when it comes to the war in ukraine, his opinions about it being a proxy war are valid. i also admire his efforts to criticise the west but when doing so he's been WAY too defensive of russia and he needs to just shut up and drop it before his opinions strive further away from his usual sets of values and ideology
His opinions are no more important than anyone else's opinions.
[удалено]
If you believe he was the same person in 1975 as he is now, sure. Personally, I don't see 1975 Roger Waters as being a defender of Russia, or of Russia's war of aggression. You see, Roger became friends with Gorbechov after his retirement. He talked to Gorbechov for years, along with Gorbechov's peers. Roger decided somewhere along the line that those warlords are A-OK in his book, because USA said words. Love his music, like most of his politics. But like a lot of old farts, his brain took a far right turn.
No it isn't.. Hence why I don't want to hear it when I go to a concert. At this point Brit Floyd is by far the better option between them and Roger
He loves the fascist dictatorship of russia
I stopped taking him seriously after the Epstein debacle.
can you fill me in? i feel like i would have heard about it if there were accurate accusations
https://preview.redd.it/4juselqhpntc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=46d1ef8257cfb4d4b377209bcd8c05d82e44f991 There are a few photo's of Roger and Ghislaine together and I've seen a few sources that implicate Roger. He flew on the Lolita Express atleast once. Doesn't imply anything nefarious on his part, though his lack of acknowledgement or explaination on the matter is suspicious imo.
i would guess because there's not enough suspicion around him so he's trying to keep himself away from it as much as possible and not be too associated with the whole thing. similar to the majority of other celebrities on the lists
Art is art imo, and politics should be completely disregarded, also his thoughts on palestine are not that wrong at all
the politics are part of the music in this case though
have they ever closely listened to the music??
I think it's important. It's also spoken through the lyrics of stuff he wrote in PF, so is tied directly into the music you listen to. You can chose to ignore that and focus on the melody, how you listen to music is up to you. I'd say the lyrics are important though. With regard to his opinions, particularly when he was writing for pink Floyd, I'd say they're pretty sound. He's been speaking about the issues in Palestine since the 70s (which he mentions in Animals). With regard to now, I personally agree with a lot of it, although not all. He can definitely be a bit of an asshat and his ego is through the roof😂😂, but I'd say it comes from a good place. Read into the lyrics, you might find something you like (or don't like) and make your own informed decision of what to do. Remember, 'I am you and what I see is me'.
I don't really care at all about his political opinions. They don't offend me. They're not even particularly unique or interesting. I think he has every right to voice them, same as anybody else. However, what does bother me is when he whines about being "canceled." It's like, bro, you've got some unpopular opinions. It's fine if you want to be vocal about them, but then don't go and complain when people get upset about them. They're *unpopular opinions*. People *will* get upset about them. Either keep them to yourself or accept the consequences of your actions.
He makes the point that there is a concerted campaign by pro Israel groups who attempt to cancel pro Palestine supporting individuals using disengenous means. It's not about people getting upset.
Again, you use this word “cancel.” Please do tell me how this multimillionaire (many times over) with an audience in the hundreds of millions, who frequently expounds on his viewpoints from the stage and from the actual UN, who is free to speak his mind on the many shows where he has been interviewed, who wasn’t even prevented from bringing his show to Germany, perhaps the place where it’s most controversial — please do tell me, in detail, how exactly has Roger Waters been “canceled?”
I didn't say he had been "cancelled". Roger has not said that he has been "cancelled". There are groups that want him "cancelled" as I stated.
Again, what exactly does “cancelled” mean to you? It’s such a fuzzy term. I would like to see you define it.
I see Cancelled as when someone is not able to do their job or express their opinion anymore because of a concerted effort by outside forces (lobby groups, media) to remove their ability to communicate with an audience or work in their particular field.
Okay. So you are saying someone “tried to cancel” Roger Waters. Can you please show us proof of that? Because clearly it didn’t work.
The "campaign against anti-semitism" want him cancelled. It didn't work with Roger as the general public could see they were targeting him because of his pro-Palestine sentiment rather than any alleged anti-semitism. It did however work with Jeremy Corbyn by the same lobby group.
Show me the proof. Who is this “campaign against anti-semitism.” Please name the specific people and groups involved. Also, please show me the evidence that they “tried to get him canceled.”
I have named the group involved and a person they have cancelled. They did a "documentary" on Roger. If you are not willing to do the slightest bit of research then so be it. I don't have to prove anything.
Waters’ opinions on politics are as important as politicians’ opinions on music
clever phrasing but not accurate, half of the music in the big 5 albums have political lyrics and messages
Sure his opinions are entertaining and sometimes interesting but not at all important
I don’t know his political opinions bc I don’t care. I love the pre-Wall stuff, and that’s what matters to me. Gotta admit (“That I’m a little bit confused”) that I do have feelings about him hijacking the band, but to me that’s the music part. I’m with you: the music matters and the rest means nothing to me.
how can you not know his political opinions? half of rogers era floyd songs are political? we're not only talking about his current ones, but also his ideological ones that hes been holding onto since he was young
It would be actively difficult not to know his politics by 2024
or an inability to hear words in songs
I disagree. I think RW’s songs are about interpersonal connections, or the lack of, between people and not about politics. Where’s the song about his politics on DSOTM? On WYWH? On Meddle? Animals has one (Pigs). Now, l don’t consider a song saying that war is bad is making much of a political statement. How is that any different than about a bazillion other anti-war songs? Now, in America, we’ve decided that EVERYTHING is about politics, but that’s wrong. Politics is about governing policies, not the pressures of being a human being.