The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[Bob Ness]

14 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I confess to never hiring goons, and I will defer to your expertise on that matter. 

 

Not goons really. You don't send a Rabbi to conduct a Church Revival. Gotta tailor to the audience so to speak.

[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.

Re-posting this commentary for Chris B. 

Chris has recently re-posted his Mearsheimer video and repeated the old Russia Today mantra blaming NATO for Putin's democidal invasion of Ukraine.

The last time I checked, Ukraine was a sovereign nation with a democratically-elected President, and the Russian Federation had become a totalitarian police state where journalists and opposition politicians were being poisoned and/or sent to the Gulag.

[Douglas Caddy]

 

Meeks, McCaul introduce bill to document Russian war crimes in Ukraine | The Hill

[Benjamin Cole]

11 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Now that Putin has obliterated any signs of human habitation in Mariopol, and de-populated the area, what's he going to do with it? Plow it all under and build a gigantic seaport?

Steve Thomas

 

This is ugly. Is the Biden-NATO policy of only supplying light arms to Ukraine really viable? 

[Douglas Caddy]

 

 

U.S. envoy to Moscow says Russia ties sunk to 'Mariana Trench' depths (msn.com)

[Douglas Caddy]

 

 

Putin 'followed by thyroid cancer doctor': Specialist 'spent 282 days' with Russian President | Daily Mail Online

[Douglas Caddy]

 

 

Cult expert claims this never-seen-before footage features Ginni Thomas discussing Lifespring experience - Raw Story - Celebrating 18 Years of Independent Journalism

[W. Niederhut]

Is Sergei Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible Putin's favorite movie?

I re-watched Eisenstein's 1944 classic, Ivan the Terrible, Part I, last night.  Stalin admired the film, along with Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky, (1938) and used both films for propaganda purposes during WWII.  (Part II was suppressed until 1958 in the USSR.)

Eisenstein died of an alleged heart attack in 1948, at age 50.  Stalin hated Ivan the Terrible, Part II, and halted the filming of Part III.

Both films (Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible) feature scores by Sergei Prokofiev, and Nikolai Cherkasov in the starring roles, but the DVD sound quality is terrible.  (A high quality modern recording of the Prokofiev score for Alexander Nevsky, by the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, is only available on VHS tape, and I was able to buy a copy of the VHS many years ago on eBay.)

The themes have resonated in Russia (and Soviet) history-- that the Rus need a powerful despot to protect their Third Rome from enemies within and without-- the Livonians, Crimean Tatars, Kazakhs, etc.

In both films, the nefarious Western Europeans are depicted as sinister, beardless Papal legates who conspire to undermine Russian unity and despotism.  (The nefarious Papists are also featured in Mussorgsky's classic opera, Boris Godunov.)

Not much has changed in that regard during the past few centuries of Russian history.

https://www.amazon.com/Ivan-Terrible-Pt-Nikolai-Cherkasov/dp/6305090211/ref=sr_1_7?crid=1UMWNDPC7PJ1W&keywords=ivan+the+terrible+dvd&qid=1648835273&s=movies-tv&sprefix=Ivan+the+Terrible%2Cmovies-tv%2C105&sr=1-7

Edited April 2, 2022 by W. Niederhut

[Douglas Caddy]

 

Inequality Doesn’t Breed Populism. Social Immobility Does. – DNyuz

 

[Steve Thomas]

https://twitter.com/CREWcrew/status/1509953746817765381

 

Steve Thomas

Edited December 26, 2022 by Steve Thomas

[Benjamin Cole]

5 hours ago, Douglas Caddy said:

 

Inequality Doesn’t Breed Populism. Social Immobility Does. – DNyuz

 

If populism is the antidote to globalism...is populism so bad? 

[Benjamin Cole]

Trump famously bashed Nato as useless. 

Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and everyone said Nato had been revived. 

Then Russia reduced Mariupol to rubble, and put armored columns deep into Ukraine. 

Zelensky asked Nato for 1% of its armor and airplanes---the heavy weapons, not just the light weapons provided so far. 

Nato refused. 

Is Nato useless? Why is Putin allowed to dictate terms of battle in Ukraine? 

Poland has shown real leadership regarding Ukraine. They have accepted millions of refugees, have offered boots on the ground to repel Putin. 

Poland will come out of this horrible conflagration as heroes. Zelensky, in his way, also. Putin will be the villain, and deservedly so. Xi as a dark figure. 

Biden will not be remembered at all. 

 

 

 

[Ron Bulman]

2 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Trump famously bashed Nato as useless. 

Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and everyone said Nato had been revived. 

Then Russia reduced Mariupol to rubble, and put armored columns deep into Ukraine. 

Zelensky asked Nato for 1% of its armor and airplanes---the heavy weapons, not just the light weapons provided so far. 

Nato refused. 

Is Nato useless? Why is Putin allowed to dictate terms of battle in Ukraine? 

Poland has shown real leadership regarding Ukraine. They have accepted millions of refugees, have offered boots on the ground to repel Putin. 

Poland will come out of this horrible conflagration as heroes. Zelensky, in his way, also. Putin will be the villain, and deservedly so. Xi as a dark figure. 

Biden will not be remembered at all. 

 

 

 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

WASHINGTON — After serving as White House press secretary for more than a year, Jen Psaki will leave the Biden administration for MSNBC, where she will serve as a host and on-air expert. The departure, first reported by Axios, is expected this spring.

---30---

So...the media, the multinationals, the government...the blob. 

[Benjamin Cole]

56 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

 

Willie Nelson.