The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[Matt Allison]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I am concerned that If the "anti-Trump" adherents continue, soon the forum will be left with less than 10 paying members.

Sorry Ben, but no one is going to chill on dumping on Trump.

The normalization of his incompetence is what put the U.S. in hell for 4 years, and no normal citizen is interested in making that mistake again.

If MAGAs find it increasingly difficult to defend him, then perhaps they should take the hint and reassess their membership in the cult.

[John Cotter]

On 9/22/2022 at 7:52 AM, Matt Allison said:

John and Jeff bringing out "the devil made me do it" defense for their pal Vlad.

Good luck with that one, guys.

I’ve provided a link below to a talk in 2015 by Professor John Mearsheimer about the Ukraine crisis which has proved quite prescient.

 There are other talks about it by him since then on YouTube, including at least one since the Russian invasion last February, where he essentially repeats his thesis that US imperialism in the form of NATO expansion in eastern Europe represented an existential threat to Russia necessitating a response by Russia which would have devastating consequences for Ukraine.

Can you cite any flaw(s) in Prof Mearsheimer’s analysis, Matt?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4

[Benjamin Cole]

3 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

Sorry Ben, but no one is going to chill on dumping on Trump.

The normalization of his incompetence is what put the U.S. in hell for 4 years, and no normal citizen is interested in making that mistake again.

If MAGAs find it increasingly difficult to defend him, then perhaps they should take the hint and reassess their membership in the cult.

Matt A-

It is great that you are an anti-Maganian. Go for it! 

The Trumpers can defend to the hilt, as they wish.

But there is no reason to personally denigrate forum members with views opposing your own.  

Civil and collegial conversation, regarding the JKFA, or the Deep State in the current context, is certainly a positive. 

If your constructive arguments are strong, they will carry the day. 

Anyways, the reading audience here is minute.  No elections will be lost or won due to what was said in the EF.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Matthew Koch]

2 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Matt A-

It is great that you are an anti-Maganian. Go for it! 

The Trumpers can defend to the hilt, as they wish.

But there is no reason to personally denigrate forum members with views opposing your own.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Matthew Koch]

4 hours ago, John Cotter said:

I’ve provided a link below to a talk in 2015 by Professor John Mearsheimer about the Ukraine crisis which has proved quite prescient.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4

Hi John, 

I went back and started reading your posts, I like that you cite information and links. Keep posting don't let the midWits in the thread discourage you ; ) 
 

 

[Kirk Gallaway]

9 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

W-

I think the EF is trying to attract new members, and given the state of the current fundraising effort...new members are needed. 

It might help the EF if we addressed each other in civil and collegial tones, aside from being good manners and the usual low bar for intelligent discourse. 

If you regard Trump in low regard, that's fine. 

If I am dubious about Pelosi, that's fine.

There is no need to disparage someone else's viewpoints. 

I suspect some new members have tested the waters and found the discourse dispiriting, and so...departed. 

I am concerned that If the "anti-Trump" adherents continue, soon the forum will be left with less than 10 paying members. You could form your own chat-room at that point,  and the EF left to vanish. 

 

What are you taking offense at here? Whenever your challenged in any detail, you answer in short, glib responses. The conversations never grow or get anywhere,  and you act hurt that anyone would dare challenge you.

By the sheer volume of your posts , you're obsessed with demonizing HRC, Liz Cheney and Pelosi. What is this problem you have with assertive women? Give me an example of a woman you admire? In 2 years, I've never heard one example.

Let me give you an example of your hypocrisy. You were the foremost China hawk here, which was fine with me.You were always attacking Nancy Pelosi as being the globalist instrument of the CCP.  Then Pelosi goes to Taiwan, and you do an about face and accuse her of trying to score points solely to make some commentary on "new age women's assertiveness". Or were you just embarrassed that she showed more balls and has steadier conviction than you? You're certainly more impossible than any date I've had.       heh heh

Since you also did an about face from the Ukraine super hawk position. Why shouldn't we question someone whose emotions just change with the wind?  

[John Cotter]

1 hour ago, Matthew Koch said:

Hi John, 

I went back and started reading your posts, I like that you cite information and links. Keep posting don't let the midWits in the thread discourage you ; ) 
 

 

Thanks for the compliment, Matthew. I’m not sure where I am on that bell curve – a midwit or nitwit depending on the time of day probably.

[Kirk Gallaway]

17 minutes ago, John Cotter said:

Thanks for the compliment, Matthew. I’m not sure where I am on that bell curve – a midwit or nitwit depending on the time of day probably.

John,  I really like the last conversation you and W. had and I wish there were more of them. I have seen one of Mearsheimer's  talks at the beginning of the conflict. It looks like it could be this one.

We definitely have people here who bring up the U.S. involvement in Ukraine in 2014, Russia's history , Nato expansion since the dissolution. Oliver Stone, a big favorite here, after interviewing Putin, was incensed enough to make a whole movie supporting Putin's "Ukraine Nazification" claims to provide some context for his eventual invasion, which I saw.

I don't have an hour and a quarter to cite where I may disagree with him. But i thought he was well spoken and his tone was moderate.

[W. Niederhut]

On 3/13/2022 at 9:51 AM, W. Niederhut said:

      Princeton historian Stephen Kotkin pointedly disagrees with the late George F. Kennan and David Mearsheimer's opinions that NATO expansion is responsible for Russian Federation aggression (including Putin's invasion of Ukraine.)

 https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/stephen-kotkin-putin-russia-ukraine-stalin

March 11, 2022   

Excerpt

Remnick: We’ve been hearing voices both past and present saying that the reason for what has happened is, as George Kennan put it, the strategic blunder of the eastward expansion of NATO. The great-power realist-school historian John Mearsheimer insists that a great deal of the blame for what we’re witnessing must go to the United States. I thought we’d begin with your analysis of that argument.

Kotkin: I have only the greatest respect for George Kennan. John Mearsheimer is a giant of a scholar. But I respectfully disagree. The problem with their argument is that it assumes that, had NATO not expanded, Russia wouldn’t be the same or very likely close to what it is today. What we have today in Russia is not some kind of surprise. It’s not some kind of deviation from a historical pattern. Way before NATO existed—in the nineteenth century—Russia looked like this: it had an autocrat. It had repression. It had militarism. It had suspicion of foreigners and the West. This is a Russia that we know, and it’s not a Russia that arrived yesterday or in the nineteen-nineties. It’s not a response to the actions of the West. There are internal processes in Russia that account for where we are today.

I would even go further. I would say that NATO expansion has put us in a better place to deal with this historical pattern in Russia that we’re seeing again today. Where would we be now if Poland or the Baltic states were not in NATO? They would be in the same limbo, in the same world that Ukraine is in. In fact, Poland’s membership in NATO stiffened NATO’s spine. Unlike some of the other NATO countries, Poland has contested Russia many times over. In fact, you can argue that Russia broke its teeth twice on Poland: first in the nineteenth century, leading up to the twentieth century, and again at the end of the Soviet Union, with Solidarity. So George Kennan was an unbelievably important scholar and practitioner—the greatest Russia expert who ever lived—but I just don’t think blaming the West is the right analysis for where we are.

John,

    Chris Barnard and I have discussed Mearsheimer's opinions about Ukraine on a few occasions here.

    I tend to agree with Princeton historian Stephen Kotkin's contrary view (above.)

[Douglas Caddy]

[Matt Allison]

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

Princeton historian Stephen Kotkin pointedly disagrees with the late George F. Kennan and David Mearsheimer's opinions that NATO expansion is responsible for Russian Federation aggression (including Putin's invasion of Ukraine.)

So their argument was that NATO expansion made it necessary to bomb schools, dog shelters and civilian apartment buildings?

Putin wants to reassemble the Soviet Union. Because he's out of his mind and never got over its demise.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Matt Allison

[Douglas Caddy]

[Joe Bauer]

2 hours ago, Douglas Caddy said:

HA!

[John Cotter]

5 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

John,

    Chris Barnard and I have discussed Mearsheimer's opinions about Ukraine on a few occasions here.

    I tend to agree with Princeton historian Stephen Kotkin's contrary view (above.)

Thanks for the link to that article, William. I hadn’t read it before. It’s an interesting article, but it’s riddled with flaws and projection.

I won’t recite all of them. I’ll just mention one of them. At one point Stephen Kotkin says:

“[The Russians have] been in this bind for a while because they cannot relinquish that sense of exceptionalism, that aspiration to be the greatest power, but they cannot match that in reality.”

The flaw here is that there’s no evidence that Russia aspires to be “the greatest power” and Kotkin has provided no such evidence. Russia is indeed, as Mearsheimer has said, a great power, and that’s self-evident.

However, there’s a crucial difference between being a great power and the greatest power. It’s a difference upon which, arguably, this whole Ukraine crisis – and indeed a possible global existential crisis – turns.

Because, ironically, there’s only one country in the world which aspires to be, and has largely succeeded in being, by dint of its military aggression “the greatest power”, namely, the USA.

The USA’s objective is to maintain and extend its unipolar global dominance. Since this is obviously an existential threat to Russia, Russia has no option but to fight against such dominance, which fight, if successful, would result in a multipolar geopolitical order.

That’s what I mean by projection. Kotkin’s thesis is essentially the Manichean “evil Russia vs good USA” one that I mentioned previously. It’s a thoroughly perverse perspective because, if anything, the preponderance of morality lies not with the aggressor, the USA, but with the victim of the aggression, Russia.

The question I asked Matt about what flaw(s) he could cite in Mearsheimer’s thesis remains unanswered. Kotkin purportedly addresses this question: He argues that NATO’s eastward expansion was necessary because Russia’s pathological aspiration to be the greatest world power needed to be countered. I have already rebutted that argument above.

Mearsheimer, Kennan and the “Realist” US geopolitical experts (including, God forbid, Henry Kissinger) were right. As Mearsheimer said, the only rational approach would have been to have a buffer zone of neutral countries between the respective domains of the great powers in question, the USA and Russia.

The current crisis is the result of the USA’s elimination of such a buffer zone.

[Matt Allison]

41 minutes ago, John Cotter said:

I have already rebutted that argument above.

You've done nothing of the sort.

Passing off your fantasies and alternate realities doesn't work here. Sorry.

Remind me again of the last time the U.S. annexed land illegally?

You can't, because they haven't, and thus your silly arguments are a joke.