this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2022
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I don't hate Russia at all. I admire the Russian people. It's Putin that's created a mafia state, rewarding corruption that favors him, poisoning his rivals, and perverted the truth. Imagine what Russia could be with Kasparov at the helm. It's like what could the CCCP have been able to accomplish without Stalin purging anyone with a mind of their own?
Imagine thinking Kasparov, who is literally an insane person, should be at the helm of anything. Putin is terrible, but he is a direct result of the western "help" Russia received after USSR collapsed. When US advisors came in and gave us Yeltsin under whom the country was robbed and people were literally starving. The reason Putin is in power is because he managed to reign that in and create some stability. As shitty as Putin is, he's no worse than the kleptocrats running the west. Of course, lacking any capacity of self reflection you can't see that.
Likewise, Stalin was a product of USSR being under constant aggression from the west from the day it was formed. In times of hardship you inevitably get people like Putin and Stalin at the helm.
Westerners had a great opportunity to integrate Russia into the west back in the 90s, instead they chose to try and fuck Russia over. Now Europe has a hostile nuclear power on its border that's becoming increasingly more belligerent.
Finally, a crack of truth! This might be the first thing we've ever agreed on. Of course, it was cynical realpolitik from the west that let the Russia wallow into mafia state it is now. America has it's own oligarchy to deal with. And the world has much larger problems to grapple with beyond that. It annoys me that Putin is acting up now, distracting us from addressing the issues that will define this century.
Putin wouldn't be acting up now or even be in power if the west didn't continue to create pressures that selected for somebody like Putin to take charge. And there were plenty of opportunities to deescalate the situation in Ukraine. NATO chose not to engage with Russia in good faith, and this is the result.
Continuing to treat Russia with belligerence will only continue making the situation worse. People in the west are convinced that Russian economy is going to collapse any day now, but just for the sake of the argument consider if that doesn't happen. Unless one side decides to act like adults and try to resolve this situation without adding more fuel to the fire then we're going to have a third world war, and humanity will possibly go extinct. These are the stakes.
You misunderstand. It's not belligerence. It's contempt. Putin imagines a much stronger hand than he actually has. Visions of the glorious CCCP still dance in his head. But that's long gone. If WW3 spills out of this, it's because the real superpowers of the world, not Russia, get dragged into this.
Call it what you like, the west chose to have an adversarial relationship with USSR and later with Russia. The contempt stems from the west thinking that it has some sort of superiority, and Russians don't feel that they're inferior. Meanwhile, Russia is literally one of the biggest military superpowers in the world. The only country with a bigger military is the US and it's not able to deploy its whole military in European theatre the way Russia can. Of course, WW3 could easily lead to a nuclear exchange between Russia and the US at which point it's the end of humanity. People such as yourself continue to drive the world towards this scenario.
No, no, no! Adversarial implies a match among equals. Look at France. They actually stood up to the US. And got shut out of middle east oil every time. So they took their lumps and went nuclear. Rather than cry about American hegemony, they formed their own economic block, for reals. Do they go around trying to destabilize the world with deceit in order to make themselves look bigger? No! They did the hard work and paid their dues to remain free and proud. Russia could do that, if they abandon their strategy of trying to win by cheating. You cannot deepfake success.
You're right, Europe is not equal to Russia in any way. Russia has a far bigger territory, more natural resources, food security, large scale industrialization, and a huge military. You have a caricature of Russia in your head that's completely divorced from reality. I implore you to actually read up on Russia and educate yourself.
LMAO, if they stood up to the US then the war in Ukraine would not have happened.
EU is not an independent economic bloc, and it's at best a secondary power. Now, EU jumped on the grenade because US told them to and will suffer the most from the sanctions. Meanwhile, US will shore up its economy by forcing EU to buy things they bought from Russia from US at a big markup. Furthermore, being cut off from the Russian energy supply will lead to deindustrialization in Europe making it further dependent on US. Europe is by far the biggest loser in all this, and European governments acted against the interests of their own people because US told them to. Here educate yourself on how the world actually works https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/11/americas-real-adversaries-are-its-european-and-other-allies/
Yeah they do but. Go read up on Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, and all the African countries France fucked up. You don't even know your own history. Pathetic.
That's an interesting euphemism for saying brutally exploited third world countries robbing them of their resources. This is the "hard work" you're talking about https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/sep/02/child-labour-on-nestle-farms-chocolate-giants-problems-continue
Cheating at what exactly? Russia reindustrialized since 2014 and became largely self sufficient through their hard work. Meanwhile, the west continues to subjugate countries around the globe and use slave labor to prop up its lifestyle.
By relying on memetic warfare, like Brexit, rather than domestic reforms. They did the world a disservice by assaulting truth with the concept of fake news. Ironically, their anti-vax propaganda came back around to Russia and now they're trying to deal with it in a population cynical of what the government says already, so good luck with that.
Buddy, the west has far more widespread control of the media and drives massive propaganda campaigns against its own public. Literal books have been written on the subject. Go read Inventing Reality by Parenti or Manufacturing Consent by Chomsky. Pretending that Russia comes anywhere close to this level of manipulation, especially in the west, is absolutely hilarious.
The mere fact that you think that Russian propaganda is some sort of an outlier clearly shows how effective western propaganda is.
Yes, I agree you. I would love that we address the extraordinary power that Murdoch and Koch have accrued while no one was looking. Again, I wish Putin would act like a big boy, shut up, and sit down so we can deal with the real problems of this age.
Putin has literally been trying to get the west to sit down and talk like adults since the 90s. The whole reason for this conflict is that the west has contempt for Russia and refused to take it seriously until now. Framing it as Putin being the only problem is precisely the reason for the whole mess.
Whining to the west doesn't work. France walked a long, hard road. Vietnam didn't complain about it's plight, it adapted. India didn't cave into the American sphere and look at them today. Those countries built themselves up, they didn't try to succeed by dragging everyone else down. Russia's current strategy is deeply flawed.
Nobody was whining. Russia said it had red lines that needed to be respected, and the west chose to ignore that. Now there's a war. As I've repeatedly pointed out, and you continue to ignore, Russia also adapted by reindustrializing and becoming largely self sufficient. I guess you can't acknowledge that since it doesn't fit your narrative.
Not sure how Russia's current strategy is flawed actually. They will create the security they desire in the west. They have two large trade partners in the east. Their economy will be far less affected than western economy because unlike the west they actually prepared for this. Unipolar world is now over.
Consider how immature that is. "You better not stand too close to me, or I'll beat up my next door neighbor!" The west is like, "Are you sure you want to do that? We won't invite you to anymore parties and we'll give him our spare guns..." Now Putin is crying that they made him get shot. An idiotic miscalculation of historic proportions.
Cheaters never prosper. It's not creating security, but serfdom. All the lies, the assassinations, the war crimes have finally come home to roost. Because of Putin's megalomania, Russia is now captured in China's orbit. Great, now you don't answer to western masters. Now, it's eastern masters.
Yeah, let's consider how NATO has been expanding east for the past 30 years and destroying countries. Let's also consider that NATO set the precedent for what Russia is doing in Yugoslavia.
Meanwhile, none of your moralizing matters in the end. Russia had concerns, and they made them clear. The west had a choice to take them seriously or not. The west chose the latter and that led to a war.
Meanwhile, the only idiotic miscalculation of historic proportions was in trying to cut Russia off from world trade. That very clearly hasn't happened, as all the western bankers knew it wouldn't. However, it absolutely did undermine the legitimacy of the western financial system.
India now trade with Russia using rupees, China trades with Russia in Yuan, and even America's best friends the Saudis won't return Biden's calls while talking about switching to yuan for their oil payments to China.
Precisely why the west is failing today. The west brutally enslaved billions of people in the global south and has been enjoying a high standard of living plundering their labor and resources. Those days are rapidly coming to an end my friend.
Meanwhile, I've repeatedly explained to you that I don't live in Russia and I don't have any stake in Russia's future. I absolutely think Russia will fall into China's orbit and will become its client state. Just like the country I reside in is a client state of the US.
The problem for Europe however isn't whom Russia answers to but where its resources and energy come from. If European leaders had any brains they would've integrated Russia into Europe as an equal partner and secured Europe's needs the way China will secure theirs now.
Yes, the top 10% wealthiest (the West?) enjoy a life on the backs of the rest. That has to change, simply from the carbon output. How do you convince westerners to sacrifice their comfort? Thanks, Russia?
I hope Europe uses this opportunity to curb their dependence on carbon-based fuel.
That's clearly not going to change by choice. Most people in the west refuse to sacrifice their comfort or to think about what the true cost of their lifestyle is. Only way anything will change is when the western hegemony is dethroned by the people whose necks the west stands on.
It would be great if Europe actually tried to curb their dependence on fossil fuels, but doesn't look like there's any meaningful plan to do that. Germany won't even reopen its nuclear plants which is the only realistic option. The whole reason Germany asked Russia to build nord stream 2 was because reneweables weren't meeting their energy needs.
Meanwhile, becoming energy independent requires energy. Europe needs to create industries and to manufacture power plants to produce energy going forward. Where is the energy for that going to come from?