We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
A couple days ago, Russian internet caught on fire, and it is still ablaze. Although Alexei Navalny was already under arrest, instantly judged by the ad-hoc court assembled right in the police department, his team published a 2-hour investigation into Putin’s past, present, connections and all his assets.
Here it is with good English subtitles. As of the time of writing, it racked up just under 40 millions views and 2.5 million ‘likes’.
I read that this video had racked up forty million views, and I thought, “that’s impressive”. 40 million is quite impressive for a two minute clip that goes viral.
Then I realised that it was two hours long, not two minutes. Wow.
I watched the first 3 minutes (does that count as a ‘view’?) and was amused by the following:
This is not only an investigation, but also, in a sense, a psychological portrait
I really want to understand how an ordinary Soviet officer turned into a madman (…)
[Putin] has gone completely mad.
People who do not believe, as i do, that the modern Western diet made us all mad (albeit not “completely mad”) will understand Navalny’s words very differently from how i understand them.
It does indeed take nearly two hours to watch though. If the English subtitles were edited into a text article, with a few pictures taken from the video, that would be a useful link, and some people would read it who will not watch the video.
Some things are very unlike the west. There are several references to ‘apartments’ and their square metre size, both in the study of Putin’s earlier life and in the details of recent payoffs to minor players (the big players get billions). If you know Russia, you know how horrendous was socialist architecture under communism, how relatively little has been done to fix this since it fell, and so how much status and convenience can reside in the right apartment.
Some things are, I hope, unlike the west – Putin’s assassins, for example. Epstein didn’t hang himself, but in Putin’s Russia he would have much company.
Some things are ‘the same but different’. Putin got rid of inconvenient prosecutor Yury Skuratov via a phoney sex tape and fake charges. Biden got rid of an inconvenient Ukrainian prosecutor by threatening to withhold US aid.
Some things sound very like the west. Calling Putin “Mikhail Ivanovich” in shell company discussions sounded like a deeper-cover version of calling Joe Biden “the big man” in some Hunter laptop emails.
Some quotes sounded like they could apply to more deep states than just the Russian one, as when they said a core Putin principle was that
“corruption is the foundation of trust”
or described how
“Putin realised fair elections are a terrible thing – because they can be lost.”
Almost all of it simply examines Putin’s empire of state-organised corruption. After a bridging Tolstoy quote, the final 4 minutes moves from example to theory, explaining why “they will never have stolen enough” and thence to proposed action
if they refuse to hold fair elections then we will take to the streets
I wish them the very best of luck – and fear that in Russia they will need as much as fighters of fraud in the west, and then some.
Great video. Correct.
And – you get a psychological portrait of Putin as Navalny promised.
Putin is a primitive – simple – person. A muzhik. He likes to accumulate material riches, the more – the better – infinitely. And to show off. Putin denies the palace is his – but he knows that everybody knows it and is content with it. A unsophisticated person.
He is also a murderer, but as dictators go – he has murdered few people, only what was strictly necessary to keep power — maybe a dozen or so…
Xi in China is much worse. Dictators which are content with a palace are benign as dictators go.
I also think that Putin will rather like this video, and the fact it was published – though he will make a show of punishing Navalny for it.
And of course it rings deafening Trump administration bells. Every time Trump needs to appoint someone who is not a Swamp Creature, up pops Mr Cleany McCleanarse, recommended by impeccably clean Republicans. Trump appoints Cleany and hey it turns out that Cleany is an old friend of Swampy McSwampface, or is married to Swampy’s daughter, or Cleany’s son is on the board of GrandSuck Inc with Swampy’s Uncle.
How do you go about draining the swamp, when the swamp creatures control the sluice gates ?
Don’t be ridiculous, Shlomo Maistre (January 21, 2021 at 3:45 pm). Your Trump, Coolidge, and Reagan list omits even such candidates as Truman (“Show me a politician who got rich in public office and I’ll show you a crook” – quoted from memory) and Teddy Roosevelt (if the + in your 100+ years just lets him in), as well as Eisenhower and a long list of presidents that were obviously safer and less-freedom-threatening to be ruled by than Putin. Besides his personal flaws, Putin is also more dangerous in his context: the US has customs of freedom, armed citizenry and separation of powers that Russia never had nearly as strongly (and 70 years of communism weakened what their history had given them). I’d much rather be under Putin than under Stalin if that were the only choice, but my comment above clearly notes the areas in which I do, and the areas in which I do not even, compare Biden to him. The valid analogies are powerful; they can only be harmed by such wild overstatement.
Near the start, the video has a discussion of Putin’s early life working with the Stasi. Which US president had that vile a training?
If you want to reply, feel free, but I’ve made my point and will not engage further in this.
On a friendlier note, thanks for the link to the article on the problems of building your own twitter. I am more optimistic, but grant the issues. I wonder if hosting in Poland or Hungary may become profitable.
Besides his personal flaws, Putin is also more dangerous in his context: the US has customs of freedom, armed citizenry and separation of powers that Russia never had nearly as strongly (and 70 years of communism weakened what their history had given them).
This is an important point … in Shlomo’s favor. To some extent.
In the context of the US Constitution (what is left of it) Putin or even Mussolini would very likely do less damage than W.Wilson. Arguably, less damage than Obama. We’ll see how much damage Biden’s puppet masters manage to do, but unaccountable committees do tend to do more damage than individuals.
But i would agree that no other POTUS in the last 100 years has been worse than Putin, not even in context.
I wonder if hosting in Poland or Hungary may become profitable.
If i were Trump, i’d invest in a server farm in Poland, and another in Hungary.
If you know Russia, you know how horrendous was socialist architecture under communism, how relatively little has been done to fix this since it fell, and so how much status and convenience can reside in the right apartment.
I don’t actually know Russia, but i am living in a Soviet flat right now. (Out by the end of the month.)
I can’t say that i like it, but i can say that i like it better than i liked English housing or Danish housing. English and Danish central planners have, or used to have, little regard for single people.
There are scenes in The Death of Stalin which take place in Khrushchev’s flat. (Or maybe the flat of some other top apparatchik, i don’t remember.) You might want to check it out.
You might also want to check out Jason Matthews’ Red Sparrow trilogy for insights into Putin’s Russia. Best spy novels i ever read, and i have read Fleming, Le Carrè, and Ken Follett. (Though very little of their output.)
As I understand it, Putin is popular with the Russian people, which is unsurprising as he has put the country back on its feet and given its people some pride. Living standards have risen, and he has effectively blocked Globalist attempts to continue plundering the country, as happened under Yeltsin.
He has also successfully countered the US/Saudi sponsored IS barbarism in the Middle East.
I doubt the Russians care that he has a palace but the “West” does…whilst ignoring the corruption of it’s own politicians.
I wholeheartedly concur with Schlomo. Putin is far from perfect. but he is an unashamed patriot, and has stopped the disease of cultural Marxism from infecting Russia.
No wonder the self loathing woke western elites hate him.
Don’t be ridiculous, Shlomo Maistre (January 21, 2021 at 3:45 pm). Your Trump, Coolidge, and Reagan list omits even such candidates as Truman (“Show me a politician who got rich in public office and I’ll show you a crook” – quoted from memory)
A good line does not a good ruler make.
and Teddy Roosevelt (if the + in your 100+ years just lets him in)
Why would you rather be ruled by Teddy than Putin?
as well as Eisenhower and a long list of presidents that were obviously safer and less-freedom-threatening to be ruled by than Putin.
So are you under the impression that if by some magic Putin were transplanted from 2020 Russia to 1950s America he would have ruled 1950s America like he is ruling Russia today? Do you think there may be reasons why Eisenhower was “less-freedom threatening” than Putin that have nothing to do with either person?
For instance, the United States is not Russia, so this may have something to do with it? Also, the eras in which they ruled are different – perhaps this is something to consider? Mostly, though, Russia is not the USA. 1950s America would NEVER have permitted Obama to pass Obamacare; heck, 1950s America never would have permitted the Department of Education to nationalize education of our children. Eisenhower was dealing with a VERY pro-freedom groups of folks. So maybe it’s not that difficult to not be a threat to liberty when the people, the culture, and the courts all value liberty far more than modern Russia does?
Besides his personal flaws, Putin is also more dangerous in his context: the US has customs of freedom, armed citizenry and separation of powers that Russia never had nearly as strongly (and 70 years of communism weakened what their history had given them).
Well, this is very much my point. They are different countries. I’d rather be ruled by Putin than by Eisenhower – that is NOT the same as preferring to live in Russia in 2020 than in 1950s America. I’d rather live in 1950s America – but that’s not at all because of Eisenhower. In fact, one could argue that the freedoms of 1950s America and the virtues of Eisenhower were both largely in spite of Eisenhower and not because of him.
You are comparing apples and oranges. Different peoples, different eras, different universities, different media, different religions, different external threats, different internal threats. Completely different situations in every way.
If Eisenhower ruled Russia for much of the last 20 years it would have probably become far less safe, secure, and free than it is today (which, I admit, is not saying much, but Russians will be Russians – every group of people on earth have different average predilections, cultures, values, etc).
I’d much rather be under Putin than under Stalin if that were the only choice
We agree!
but my comment above clearly notes the areas in which I do, and the areas in which I do not even, compare Biden to him. The valid analogies are powerful; they can only be harmed by such wild overstatement.
Biden is literally an empty suit. I’m sure you think that if Biden ruled Russia for the past 20 years than Putin then Russia would be better off today. But this is because, no offense, I’m not sure you appreciate how difficult it is to rule Russia. Russia doesn’t have the rule of law that America has. Russia does not have the world’s most powerful central bank like America has. Russia does not have a culture that values freedom like America has. Russia does not have a Bill of Rights like America has. Russia does not have a second amendment culture like America has. I could go on.
It’s more difficult to rule Russia than America and if Biden ruled Russia for the past 20 years instead of Putin, then Russia would be much less free, secure, and safe than it is today under Putin.
Near the start, the video has a discussion of Putin’s early life working with the Stasi. Which US president had that vile a training?
I don’t care about “training” or “words”. I care about actions. Putin’s actions have been generally quite good for The People of Russia, despite obviously some major personal flaws and some immoral actions like assassinations to maintain power (America starved 500,000 Iraqis to death in the 1990s and Madelaine Albright said it was worth it….) Russia was not going to do great no matter what in the decades after the collapse of the USSR for many different reasons. Putin has managed a bad situation quite well, though far from perfectly and he has managed it much better than most POTUSs would, considering the weak people POTUSs tend to be. Strength and security are the parents of real, actual freedom experienced by the people. As we see today, when the government feels less secure there is less freedom. All history teaches us this.
If you want to reply, feel free, but I’ve made my point and will not engage further in this.
Well, if you change your mind I’m all ears. I’d certainly like to read your thoughts.
On a friendlier note, thanks for the link to the article on the problems of building your own twitter. I am more optimistic, but grant the issues. I wonder if hosting in Poland or Hungary may become profitable.
Np, Niall. Glad you read it. It’s such an important article I think so thank you for helping to spread word of it.
Yes Poland and Hungary are awfully interesting these days…
Well if you must believe Albright, then believe her when she finally apologized for her infamous performance. “I shouldn’t have said it,” she said during a speech at the University of Southern California (a month after the September 11 attacks). “You can believe this or not, but my comments were taken out of context.”
Why did she apologize in 2001 for comments she made in 1996? Why did she claim in 2001 that her 1996 “comments were taken out of context”?
Could one reason be that most people interpreted what she said to support exactly what I said in my comment? Probably.
But lets say you are right and the 500,000 number is substantially higher than the true number. Is the number of Iraqis killed by American policies in the 1990s higher than the number of people Putin has ever killed or ordered to be killed?
That question is rhetorical, which is why my original point stands.
Obviously my underlying original point was and is that Putin is not that bad compared to America when it comes to killing people, mass murder, etc. Didn’t think I’d have to spell that out, since it’s pretty obvious if you read my full comment instead of, for instance, literally copying and pasting out of context. 😉
The mention of Putins early life working with the Stasi puts me in mind of the German Hausfrau who, when asked to be an informer, bravely refused and became the de facto leader of the free world revered by bien pensants everywhere.
The Salisbury affair was either a botched operation with a possibility of success reminiscent of one of Baldrics cunning plans or a misinformation exercise, a forerunner of useful tales of Russian intervention in elections.
“Russia was not going to do great no matter what in the decades after the collapse of the USSR for many different reasons. Putin has managed a bad situation quite well, though far from perfectly and he has managed it much better than most POTUSs would, considering the weak people POTUSs tend to be. Strength and security are the parents of real, actual freedom experienced by the people. As we see today, when the government feels less secure there is less freedom. All history teaches us this.”
Agreed. Putin is a cunning and able muzhik. He is a muzhik in the sense that he is not a learned, sophisticated intellectual. But that is probably for the better.
Trump wasn’t an intellectual either. I doubt he ever read any book in his whole life (unlike Reagan). So Trump was a muzhik too. (Not that I admire Trump as a leader… a muzhik only goes that far).
Alexander Solzhenitsyn – whom I greatly admire, also thought Putin was good for Russia. Let’s agree that for all of Putin’s flaws (like being a murderer) he did well for Russia. Most (if not all) of Russia’s leaders or rulers before were probably worse or much worse.
We surely can enumerate the bad things Putin did, too, which are many, but on balance – it could have been much worse.
“Didn’t think I’d have to spell that out, since it’s pretty obvious if you read my full comment instead of, for instance, literally copying and pasting out of context.”
What I read was, you defending Putin by stating that the US caused the deaths by starvation of over 500,000 Iraqis, and Putin killed fewer.
If I incorrectly decoded your context, I apologize. I’m hoping I did, because the “unworthy” part indicated that I felt the remark was out of your on-line-here character.
A challenge I have to those defending Putin, or at least going down the “but he’s not as bad as Genghis Khan, Stalin, Mao, insert name of utter bastard” line is why don’t you go and live in Russia for a couple of years, and report back with your experiences?
What I read was, you defending Putin by stating that the US caused the deaths by starvation of over 500,000 Iraqis, and Putin killed fewer.
I said:
Putin’s actions have been generally quite good for The People of Russia, despite obviously some major personal flaws and some immoral actions like assassinations to maintain power (America starved 500,000 Iraqis to death in the 1990s and Madelaine Albright said it was worth it….)
Quite possibly the 500,000 number is incorrect and the true number is significantly lower – even if this is the case my point still stands. I went on to clarify:
Obviously my underlying original point was and is that Putin is not that bad compared to America when it comes to killing people, mass murder, etc.
So what I’m saying was and is: A. virtually every government kills people B. Putin is no exception and C. Putin has not killed as many people as America has over the same time frame (and it’s actually not remotely close)
What is so controversial about these facts? I recognized and I said that Putin does immoral actions like assassinations.
If I incorrectly decoded your context, I apologize. I’m hoping I did, because the “unworthy” part indicated that I felt the remark was out of your on-line-here character.
Well, I apologize if I was/am misinterpreting why it is that you said my comment was “unworthy”. Could you please explain/clarify specifically and why you said it’s out of my on-line character?
“Could you please explain/clarify specifically and why you said it’s out of my on-line character?”
You tend (in my opinion) to be fact-oriented and mostly realistic.
You have quoted a particularly scurrilous libel put out by the Lancet that we caused the starvation deaths of 500,000 Iraqis through sanctions put in place to cripple Saddam H. (Actually, their number was 567,000 children.)
It was crap.
“Whereas it was widely believed that the sanctions caused a major rise in child mortality, research following the 2003 invasion of Iraq has shown that commonly cited data were doctored by the Saddam Hussein regime and that “there was no major rise in child mortality in Iraq after 1990 and during the period of the sanctions”.
But there are worse things in this world – and no I am NOT being sarcastic.
Mr Putin will go in a few years, but Russia will still exist.
Russia will still exist because, in spite of being a thief and a murderer, Mr Putin is NOT trying to destroy Russia – not trying to destroy Russian culture and the Russian people.
Can that honestly be said about most Western establishments – in relation to the culture and peoples of Western lands?
Frankfurt School Marxism dominates most of the West – it does not dominate Russia.
I repeat – Putin will be gone in a few years, and Russia will still exist.
Will the United Kingdom and the United States still exist in a few years?
Joseph Biden has just ordered (signed the Executive Order – even if he no longer has the mental capacity to understand what he has just ordered), Frankfurt School training for Federal Employees – including the military.
Anti racism, anti sexism, anti homophobia – how evil, patriarchal “whiteness” (not a skin tone – what is meant is Western culture and beliefs) must be hunted down and exterminated.
This is normal in the modern West – including in Britain.
You tend (in my opinion) to be fact-oriented and mostly realistic.
Well, thank you.
You have quoted a particularly scurrilous libel put out by the Lancet that we caused the starvation deaths of 500,000 Iraqis through sanctions put in place to cripple Saddam H. (Actually, their number was 567,000 children.)
It was crap.
Okay, fair enough. I cited a number that is incorrect – obviously didn’t realize it at the time.
Thanks Teresa and thank you bobby for correcting the error. I should have researched it before mentioning it.
A challenge I have to those defending Putin, or at least going down the “but he’s not as bad as Genghis Khan, Stalin, Mao, insert name of utter bastard” line is why don’t you go and live in Russia for a couple of years, and report back with your experiences?
Well, I have considered this and if the culture of America and legal status of liberty in America continue to deteriorate rapidly I might relocate. Were it not for the existence of Israel, my destination, in such a scenario, might conceivably be Russia. Unless, of course, whoever comes after Putin (when he eventually passes away) mucks up the solid work he has done.
But more broadly:
1. Anecdotal evidence is not particularly persuasive one way or the other, to me at least.
2. Personal experience is just a series of pieces of anecdotal evidence all drawn from the same person – thus massive selection bias that would torpedo any study based on it. My experience of Russia (were I to live there) would not necessarily be at all indicative of most people’s experiences there.
3. I did not compare Putin favorably to “Genghis Khan, Stalin, Mao, insert name of utter bastard”. I compared Putin favorably with the United States in the sense that Putin has killed (or ordered killed) far fewer humans than the US government has over the same period of time. Obama’s drone strikes is just a drop in America’s big bucket.
Also I strongly concur with pretty much everything Paul Marks has said in this thread.
A challenge I have to those defending Putin, or at least going down the “but he’s not as bad as Genghis Khan, Stalin, Mao, insert name of utter bastard” line is why don’t you go and live in Russia for a couple of years, and report back with your experiences?
Putin is bad but he’s certainly not as bad as those named.
I lived in Russia from April 19 2015 until April 1 2018. I’ve also visited for two weeks in December 2014 and 11 days in January 2020. I was a foreigner working in a Russian-owned company, on a Russian salary, the same as department managers had, though I was purely technical (a couple of senior purely technical Russian engineers also had this salary). Other than dealing with visa matters and registration the company didn’t do anything for me different than they would do with any employee. I had to find my own apartment, do my own shopping, get around the same as any Russian would — no chauffeur or maid or whatever as it seems many people sent to Russia by a foreign company have. I didn’t even have a car for those three years.
If you want to get involved in politics, go to demonstrations, or make a company that becomes too successful too quickly then Russia is a very bad place to be.
If you just want to live a quiet life, raise a family, buy an apartment or house (or build one) and you have a good enough salary to afford private health insurance and private schools then Moscow and St Petersburg (and some others .. Kazan, Ufa …) are quite pleasant places to be.
The banking system is good, fast, and modern, whether you use the government Sberbank or Citi, VTB, Raiffeisen, Alfa. It’s on a par with New Zealand and in my personal experience far far better (having lived there also) than banking in the USA.
Home internet and mobile phone service is fast, reliable, and very cheap. My mobile phone service cost $6 a month and my 100/100 unlimited internet $10.
Uber and Yandex taxis (now combined) are reliable and cheap. Restaurants and cafes have good food and excellent service — they don’t survive long if they don’t.
I didn’t see any petty corruption. The city and suburban streets are safe, even at night. Walking home from the metro at 1 or 2 AM I’d always see well-dressed women walking alone, unafraid. I didn’t come across any dishonest businesses. Tradespeople were competent (I would say overqualified, in general) and efficient.
There is no question that conditions for most people in Russia are vastly better today than they were in 2000 when Putin came to power. I would not say that Putin did a lot to cause that other than I think he was largely responsible for vastly decreasing the amount of corruption ordinary people come across in their daily lives.
There is high level corruption. The government is run as a mafia. All or most of the people who own large businesses, especially formerly state-owned businesses, came by them by corrupt means. Elections are a farce — not I think in the actual vote counting, but in controlling who is able to get on the ballot paper in the first place.
All the people at the top are there to get personally obscenely wealthy. The thing you can say about it is they seem to believe it’s better to milk the cow than to shoot it, and the milk is more plentiful if the cow is healthy.
I’m happy to visit Russia any time. I sure as hell don’t want to live there permanently or be a citizen.
Thanks to Bruce for the informative post.
I surely don’t think Putin is the ideal leader for Russia (or any other country). What I especially hated is Putin’s claim that the fall of the USSR was the biggest catastrophe that befell Russia.
I would definitely prefer Navalny over Putin…
But the ideal leaders or situations we can imagine are not the ones possible in real life. Russia usually. normally, maybe always, had leaders much worse than Putin.
Neither was Trump the ideal leader for the US, not by far… he was just better (much better) that the alternative (Hillary or Biden). A low bar to pass.
Johnathan: “why don’t you go and live in Russia for a couple of years, and report back with your experiences?”
That was demagoguery. You should have at least some knowledge of the subject before you engage in such rhetoric.
Just by chance you got a very good answer from Bruce Hoult.
But he is NOT trying to destroy Russia – he is not trying to destroy Russian culture and the Russian people.
The Frankfurt School Marxist establishment of the West is trying to destroy Western nations – destroy the culture and people of Western nations.
In politics one must always the basic question “what is the alternative”?
If the alternative to the disguised dictatorship in Russia is FranKfurt School stuff (“Critical Race Theory”, “Third Wave Feminism”, “Trans rights” and all the rest of it) – then NO.
Just NO.
These is another alternative…..
An alternative that is neither the dictatorship of Mr Putin or the Frankfurt School Suicide of the West.
An alternative that is represented, for example, by the democratic government of POLAND.
That is also imperfect – but I prefer the government of Poland to either the Putin dictatorship, or the Frankfurt School madness of Britain, the United States and so on.
To the extent that Western liberals support Russian dissidents like Navalny, it’s (1) to try to undermine Putin, who the liberal clerisy state as gospel is the number one enemy to America and the West, and (2) because they think Navalny and his Russian supporters will do the bidding of western liberals. The Western liberal cares about the kind of Russian that joins Pussy Riot. They don’t care one bit for the average Russian person. If Navalny or anyone similar took power in Russia and disappointed these western liberals, you can bet pretty strongly the western liberal media will start calling him a Stalinist, fascist, pick your insult of choice, etc.
Just wanted to say that i tend to agree with everything that Paul Marks wrote here. I cannot say that i definitely agree, but that is because of my ignorance. I have never been to Poland, for instance, and i cannot read any Slavic language: how can i say whether Poland is the best hope today?
In Europe, i see no better hope than Poland and Hungary. But that might be because i am short-sighted.
Perry,
The destabilising of Russia’s neighbours, eg the Ukraine, can safely be left to the CIA.
As the USA has recently itself demonstrated, it only likes democracy if the right result is produced.
From what I’ve read Navalny has said he wouldn’t give Crimea back to Ukraine. He says he deplores how it happened but effectively doesn’t want to reverse it. So in a hypothetical universe were he took Putin’s place, the western ruling class would soon be looking for someone more slavish to replace him with.
Regarding the protests in Moscow and St Petersburg, I notice that the western media fully support these despite the covid pandemic, just as they did in Belarus and with BLM/Antifa. Magically, it appears covid only spreads at protests that the democrat party, EU and CIA don’t support!
No…but the “colour” revolution in Ukraine surely was.
Pure propaganda. I know many people deeply & personally involved in the Maidan rebellion (used to visit Kyiv quite regularly) & they’d put their fist in your face… but for the fact they’d be laughing too hard at the notion the CIA created the resistance to the growing layers of oppressive shit that actually caused Maidan to happen. There is a whole Ukrainian/Russian language meme culture poking fun at people like you.
How did anyone expect Putin to respond? Just roll over?
When Putin’s pet oligarchs in Ukraine became even more rapacious than their Russian counterparts, how the hell did Putin expect the Ukrainians to respond?
It takes an awful long time to organise a spontaneous revolution…🤔
In one sense, it took a very long time for the events of 1989-1991 to happen in Eastern Europe, and there were brave (and often unfortunate) people who did not just knuckle under to the communists all through the prior years. In another sense, it was a preference cascade. The fear that kept the regimes in power grew less until abruptly huge masses stopped pretending. In that sense, it took little time to organise that revolution. Sometimes, rulers are overthrown the way a man goes bankrupt – at first slowly and then suddenly.
There was also Pope John Paul II giving a voice to the Polish people.
And there was Reagan, agreeing to sell wheat to the Soviet Union on credit, but on condition that human rights be respected. Failing that, no food imports, and there is no way the Russians would not have revolted at that point.
So, in a sense, Western interference was responsible for the fall of the Soviet Empire. But surely that interference was for the better!
Difference between 1989 and now is that back then it was the USSR trying to impose a universalist and brutal ideology on the world, ie Communism. Today, whatever Putin believes in, it’s not a universalist creed up for ideologically motivated export. Yes he’s fundamentally corrupt and willing to use various levers of state oppression to achieve his goals and interests. But he’s essentially a Russian patriot. He may have took Crimea and other areas of Ukraine and Georgia where Russians are in the majority. But I’ve seen no evidence he wants to march his military to the Atlantic coast and impose Communist regimes across the globe.
Nowadays, it’s the USA, UK and EU that are the ones pushing universalistic bullshit on the rest of the world, the mad woke leftist ideology. I don’t doubt that people like Navalny and his Russian supporters are genuine in their views. I also know that their western supporters wish to use them to destroy Russian society and culture. Look at the recent article by Obama’s ex ambassador to Russia – it advocates using US government money to train Russian journalists to undermine Putin. Given the ‘quality’ of American journalism I can only imagine what kind of lunatics they would produce! The aim would be to produce leftist cultural radicals to undermine Russian society and impose woke ideology on it.
I don’t doubt that people like Navalny and his Russian supporters are genuine in their views. I also know that their western supporters wish to use them to destroy Russian society and culture
Yeah Putin annexed Crimea & occupied Donbass to protect Russians from single gender toilets & protect vatniki culture from western Baizuo hegemony 😀
Interesting I have observed the most radical Ukrainian nationalists tend to be the Russian speaking rather than the Ukrainian speaking ones. Strange but true.
Putin annexed the Crimea to preserve a strategic asset, which the CIA backed Colour Revolution obviously put at risk.
In short, he did precisely what the USA would have done, and frequently has…except it isn’t called annexation when the USA does it.
It’s called realpolitik…Putin is quite good at it. The USA seems to have lost its touch.
Mickc has swallowed the propaganda hook line and sinker, deluded into thinking the CIA rather than actual facts on the ground in Ukraine pushed locals into pushing back were behind Putin’s puppet being deposed in Kyiv. It is a weird kind of America-centric chauvinism that denies the reality of local people & local forces, in favour of ‘dark forces’ conspiracies.
Perry,
Well one of us has swallowed propaganda…my bet is it’s not me…
The Ukraine revolution followed the Wolfowitz Doctrine too closely to be mere coincidence.
If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…
“The Ukraine revolution followed the Wolfowitz Doctrine too closely to be mere coincidence.”
Just curious – The WD basically said it would be bad if Russia re-subsumed Ukraine. Pretty general, IIRC. Do you know of any hard evidence that the US had any involvement in what happened?
If the US released a doc that said Boku Harem is bad and ought to be gone, and tomorrow the Cameroonions wiped out BH, I don’t think we’d be putting the blame/credit on the US. Seems like a stretch.
Curious, Mickc ever been to Kyiv? Know anyone who was actually involved with those events & helped organise them? Where does your inside information come from? Russia Today perhaps? 🤣
No of course it doesn’t come from Russia Today. And no, I’ve never been to Kiev.
And no I don’t know anyone who “organised” the event…and neither do you. You just know people who think they actually did.
Well, the Wolfowitz Doctrine was about preserving US hegemony by undermining potential rivals. It certainly wasn’t about promoting peace, prosperity and democracy.
And it sure is one hell of a coincidence that the Ukraine revolution depriving Russia of Crimea would have fit just right into Wolfowitz’s ideas.
Of course, coincidences do happen…just not of such huge consequence.
And before Perry alleges it, again, no I’m not a Russian troll. But I am very sceptical of any benevolence attributed to “government” and “the State”, and indeed “popular revolutions”…
And no I don’t know anyone who “organised” the event…and neither do you. You just know people who think they actually did.
Riiiiight. Still curious where you got this special knowledge of how things happened in Ukraine & how you know the people laying on the minivans to bringing food & supplies (& rocks) that made the Maidan Revolt possible were actually all organised by the CIA. If you are right, please tell your sources the Boys in Langley stiffed all the people eagerly waiting for the promised helicopters (black of course) full of dollars, weapons & gas masks.
Yeah no shit Sherlock. But please, where does your information come from? All the people in Ukraine who just think they were involved in organising a revolt but actually weren’t according to you, I’m just want to know how the dastardly CIA was actually pulling their strings unbeknownst to them & how you know this.
The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Powered by WordPress & Atahualpa
“his team” are those his German handlers?
Meaning what Freddo?
Interestingly the hunter biden story was easily suppressed in democratic America.
I read that this video had racked up forty million views, and I thought, “that’s impressive”. 40 million is quite impressive for a two minute clip that goes viral.
Then I realised that it was two hours long, not two minutes. Wow.
I watched the first 3 minutes (does that count as a ‘view’?) and was amused by the following:
People who do not believe, as i do, that the modern Western diet made us all mad (albeit not “completely mad”) will understand Navalny’s words very differently from how i understand them.
That is what amuses me.
Maybe the figure for number of views was supplied by Dominion?
(Not that I’m doubting the objectivity of YouTube).
It does indeed take nearly two hours to watch though. If the English subtitles were edited into a text article, with a few pictures taken from the video, that would be a useful link, and some people would read it who will not watch the video.
Some things are very unlike the west. There are several references to ‘apartments’ and their square metre size, both in the study of Putin’s earlier life and in the details of recent payoffs to minor players (the big players get billions). If you know Russia, you know how horrendous was socialist architecture under communism, how relatively little has been done to fix this since it fell, and so how much status and convenience can reside in the right apartment.
Some things are, I hope, unlike the west – Putin’s assassins, for example. Epstein didn’t hang himself, but in Putin’s Russia he would have much company.
Some things are ‘the same but different’. Putin got rid of inconvenient prosecutor Yury Skuratov via a phoney sex tape and fake charges. Biden got rid of an inconvenient Ukrainian prosecutor by threatening to withhold US aid.
Some things sound very like the west. Calling Putin “Mikhail Ivanovich” in shell company discussions sounded like a deeper-cover version of calling Joe Biden “the big man” in some Hunter laptop emails.
Some quotes sounded like they could apply to more deep states than just the Russian one, as when they said a core Putin principle was that
or described how
Almost all of it simply examines Putin’s empire of state-organised corruption. After a bridging Tolstoy quote, the final 4 minutes moves from example to theory, explaining why “they will never have stolen enough” and thence to proposed action
I wish them the very best of luck – and fear that in Russia they will need as much as fighters of fraud in the west, and then some.
Personally, I’d rather be ruled by Putin than by any POTUS of the last 100+ years (except Trump, Coolidge, and Reagan).
Great video.
Great video. Correct.
And – you get a psychological portrait of Putin as Navalny promised.
Putin is a primitive – simple – person. A muzhik. He likes to accumulate material riches, the more – the better – infinitely. And to show off. Putin denies the palace is his – but he knows that everybody knows it and is content with it. A unsophisticated person.
He is also a murderer, but as dictators go – he has murdered few people, only what was strictly necessary to keep power — maybe a dozen or so…
Xi in China is much worse. Dictators which are content with a palace are benign as dictators go.
I also think that Putin will rather like this video, and the fact it was published – though he will make a show of punishing Navalny for it.
Great video.
And of course it rings deafening Trump administration bells. Every time Trump needs to appoint someone who is not a Swamp Creature, up pops Mr Cleany McCleanarse, recommended by impeccably clean Republicans. Trump appoints Cleany and hey it turns out that Cleany is an old friend of Swampy McSwampface, or is married to Swampy’s daughter, or Cleany’s son is on the board of GrandSuck Inc with Swampy’s Uncle.
How do you go about draining the swamp, when the swamp creatures control the sluice gates ?
Don’t be ridiculous, Shlomo Maistre (January 21, 2021 at 3:45 pm). Your Trump, Coolidge, and Reagan list omits even such candidates as Truman (“Show me a politician who got rich in public office and I’ll show you a crook” – quoted from memory) and Teddy Roosevelt (if the + in your 100+ years just lets him in), as well as Eisenhower and a long list of presidents that were obviously safer and less-freedom-threatening to be ruled by than Putin. Besides his personal flaws, Putin is also more dangerous in his context: the US has customs of freedom, armed citizenry and separation of powers that Russia never had nearly as strongly (and 70 years of communism weakened what their history had given them). I’d much rather be under Putin than under Stalin if that were the only choice, but my comment above clearly notes the areas in which I do, and the areas in which I do not even, compare Biden to him. The valid analogies are powerful; they can only be harmed by such wild overstatement.
Near the start, the video has a discussion of Putin’s early life working with the Stasi. Which US president had that vile a training?
If you want to reply, feel free, but I’ve made my point and will not engage further in this.
On a friendlier note, thanks for the link to the article on the problems of building your own twitter. I am more optimistic, but grant the issues. I wonder if hosting in Poland or Hungary may become profitable.
Niall:
This is an important point … in Shlomo’s favor. To some extent.
In the context of the US Constitution (what is left of it) Putin or even Mussolini would very likely do less damage than W.Wilson. Arguably, less damage than Obama. We’ll see how much damage Biden’s puppet masters manage to do, but unaccountable committees do tend to do more damage than individuals.
But i would agree that no other POTUS in the last 100 years has been worse than Putin, not even in context.
If i were Trump, i’d invest in a server farm in Poland, and another in Hungary.
One more reply to Niall.
I don’t actually know Russia, but i am living in a Soviet flat right now. (Out by the end of the month.)
I can’t say that i like it, but i can say that i like it better than i liked English housing or Danish housing. English and Danish central planners have, or used to have, little regard for single people.
There are scenes in The Death of Stalin which take place in Khrushchev’s flat. (Or maybe the flat of some other top apparatchik, i don’t remember.) You might want to check it out.
You might also want to check out Jason Matthews’ Red Sparrow trilogy for insights into Putin’s Russia. Best spy novels i ever read, and i have read Fleming, Le Carrè, and Ken Follett. (Though very little of their output.)
Russian politics is a matter for…the Russians.
As I understand it, Putin is popular with the Russian people, which is unsurprising as he has put the country back on its feet and given its people some pride. Living standards have risen, and he has effectively blocked Globalist attempts to continue plundering the country, as happened under Yeltsin.
He has also successfully countered the US/Saudi sponsored IS barbarism in the Middle East.
I doubt the Russians care that he has a palace but the “West” does…whilst ignoring the corruption of it’s own politicians.
No wonder Hillary et al are so utterly fixated on him.
So considerably less murderous than Hillary then?
Unfortunately not true if you share a border with the fuckers (or live in Salisbury).
I wholeheartedly concur with Schlomo. Putin is far from perfect. but he is an unashamed patriot, and has stopped the disease of cultural Marxism from infecting Russia.
No wonder the self loathing woke western elites hate him.
Niall,
A good line does not a good ruler make.
Why would you rather be ruled by Teddy than Putin?
So are you under the impression that if by some magic Putin were transplanted from 2020 Russia to 1950s America he would have ruled 1950s America like he is ruling Russia today? Do you think there may be reasons why Eisenhower was “less-freedom threatening” than Putin that have nothing to do with either person?
For instance, the United States is not Russia, so this may have something to do with it? Also, the eras in which they ruled are different – perhaps this is something to consider? Mostly, though, Russia is not the USA. 1950s America would NEVER have permitted Obama to pass Obamacare; heck, 1950s America never would have permitted the Department of Education to nationalize education of our children. Eisenhower was dealing with a VERY pro-freedom groups of folks. So maybe it’s not that difficult to not be a threat to liberty when the people, the culture, and the courts all value liberty far more than modern Russia does?
Well, this is very much my point. They are different countries. I’d rather be ruled by Putin than by Eisenhower – that is NOT the same as preferring to live in Russia in 2020 than in 1950s America. I’d rather live in 1950s America – but that’s not at all because of Eisenhower. In fact, one could argue that the freedoms of 1950s America and the virtues of Eisenhower were both largely in spite of Eisenhower and not because of him.
You are comparing apples and oranges. Different peoples, different eras, different universities, different media, different religions, different external threats, different internal threats. Completely different situations in every way.
If Eisenhower ruled Russia for much of the last 20 years it would have probably become far less safe, secure, and free than it is today (which, I admit, is not saying much, but Russians will be Russians – every group of people on earth have different average predilections, cultures, values, etc).
We agree!
Biden is literally an empty suit. I’m sure you think that if Biden ruled Russia for the past 20 years than Putin then Russia would be better off today. But this is because, no offense, I’m not sure you appreciate how difficult it is to rule Russia. Russia doesn’t have the rule of law that America has. Russia does not have the world’s most powerful central bank like America has. Russia does not have a culture that values freedom like America has. Russia does not have a Bill of Rights like America has. Russia does not have a second amendment culture like America has. I could go on.
It’s more difficult to rule Russia than America and if Biden ruled Russia for the past 20 years instead of Putin, then Russia would be much less free, secure, and safe than it is today under Putin.
I don’t care about “training” or “words”. I care about actions. Putin’s actions have been generally quite good for The People of Russia, despite obviously some major personal flaws and some immoral actions like assassinations to maintain power (America starved 500,000 Iraqis to death in the 1990s and Madelaine Albright said it was worth it….) Russia was not going to do great no matter what in the decades after the collapse of the USSR for many different reasons. Putin has managed a bad situation quite well, though far from perfectly and he has managed it much better than most POTUSs would, considering the weak people POTUSs tend to be. Strength and security are the parents of real, actual freedom experienced by the people. As we see today, when the government feels less secure there is less freedom. All history teaches us this.
Well, if you change your mind I’m all ears. I’d certainly like to read your thoughts.
Np, Niall. Glad you read it. It’s such an important article I think so thank you for helping to spread word of it.
Yes Poland and Hungary are awfully interesting these days…
Shlomo, if you have information that disputes the enclosed links, let me know.
http://radio-weblogs.com/0106101/stories/2005/02/04/didTheUsReallyKill500000IraqiChildren.html
Your link states:
Why did she apologize in 2001 for comments she made in 1996? Why did she claim in 2001 that her 1996 “comments were taken out of context”?
Could one reason be that most people interpreted what she said to support exactly what I said in my comment? Probably.
But lets say you are right and the 500,000 number is substantially higher than the true number. Is the number of Iraqis killed by American policies in the 1990s higher than the number of people Putin has ever killed or ordered to be killed?
That question is rhetorical, which is why my original point stands.
Your original point?
C’mon, man. Unworthy.
Obviously my underlying original point was and is that Putin is not that bad compared to America when it comes to killing people, mass murder, etc. Didn’t think I’d have to spell that out, since it’s pretty obvious if you read my full comment instead of, for instance, literally copying and pasting out of context. 😉
The mention of Putins early life working with the Stasi puts me in mind of the German Hausfrau who, when asked to be an informer, bravely refused and became the de facto leader of the free world revered by bien pensants everywhere.
The Salisbury affair was either a botched operation with a possibility of success reminiscent of one of Baldrics cunning plans or a misinformation exercise, a forerunner of useful tales of Russian intervention in elections.
“Russia was not going to do great no matter what in the decades after the collapse of the USSR for many different reasons. Putin has managed a bad situation quite well, though far from perfectly and he has managed it much better than most POTUSs would, considering the weak people POTUSs tend to be. Strength and security are the parents of real, actual freedom experienced by the people. As we see today, when the government feels less secure there is less freedom. All history teaches us this.”
Agreed. Putin is a cunning and able muzhik. He is a muzhik in the sense that he is not a learned, sophisticated intellectual. But that is probably for the better.
Trump wasn’t an intellectual either. I doubt he ever read any book in his whole life (unlike Reagan). So Trump was a muzhik too. (Not that I admire Trump as a leader… a muzhik only goes that far).
Alexander Solzhenitsyn – whom I greatly admire, also thought Putin was good for Russia. Let’s agree that for all of Putin’s flaws (like being a murderer) he did well for Russia. Most (if not all) of Russia’s leaders or rulers before were probably worse or much worse.
We surely can enumerate the bad things Putin did, too, which are many, but on balance – it could have been much worse.
The Death of Stalin is a wonderful piece of dark satire.
What I read was, you defending Putin by stating that the US caused the deaths by starvation of over 500,000 Iraqis, and Putin killed fewer.
If I incorrectly decoded your context, I apologize. I’m hoping I did, because the “unworthy” part indicated that I felt the remark was out of your on-line-here character.
A challenge I have to those defending Putin, or at least going down the “but he’s not as bad as Genghis Khan, Stalin, Mao, insert name of utter bastard” line is why don’t you go and live in Russia for a couple of years, and report back with your experiences?
bobby b,
I said:
Quite possibly the 500,000 number is incorrect and the true number is significantly lower – even if this is the case my point still stands. I went on to clarify:
So what I’m saying was and is: A. virtually every government kills people B. Putin is no exception and C. Putin has not killed as many people as America has over the same time frame (and it’s actually not remotely close)
What is so controversial about these facts? I recognized and I said that Putin does immoral actions like assassinations.
Well, I apologize if I was/am misinterpreting why it is that you said my comment was “unworthy”. Could you please explain/clarify specifically and why you said it’s out of my on-line character?
You tend (in my opinion) to be fact-oriented and mostly realistic.
You have quoted a particularly scurrilous libel put out by the Lancet that we caused the starvation deaths of 500,000 Iraqis through sanctions put in place to cripple Saddam H. (Actually, their number was 567,000 children.)
It was crap.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq#cite_note-:0-12
And that was from left-wing Wiki.
Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes culture.
That’s all I meant.
Yes Mr Putin is a thief and a murderer.
But there are worse things in this world – and no I am NOT being sarcastic.
Mr Putin will go in a few years, but Russia will still exist.
Russia will still exist because, in spite of being a thief and a murderer, Mr Putin is NOT trying to destroy Russia – not trying to destroy Russian culture and the Russian people.
Can that honestly be said about most Western establishments – in relation to the culture and peoples of Western lands?
Frankfurt School Marxism dominates most of the West – it does not dominate Russia.
I repeat – Putin will be gone in a few years, and Russia will still exist.
Will the United Kingdom and the United States still exist in a few years?
Joseph Biden has just ordered (signed the Executive Order – even if he no longer has the mental capacity to understand what he has just ordered), Frankfurt School training for Federal Employees – including the military.
Anti racism, anti sexism, anti homophobia – how evil, patriarchal “whiteness” (not a skin tone – what is meant is Western culture and beliefs) must be hunted down and exterminated.
This is normal in the modern West – including in Britain.
Can anyone imagine Mr Putin doing this?
bobby b,
Well, thank you.
Okay, fair enough. I cited a number that is incorrect – obviously didn’t realize it at the time.
Thanks Teresa and thank you bobby for correcting the error. I should have researched it before mentioning it.
Johnathan Pearce,
Well, I have considered this and if the culture of America and legal status of liberty in America continue to deteriorate rapidly I might relocate. Were it not for the existence of Israel, my destination, in such a scenario, might conceivably be Russia. Unless, of course, whoever comes after Putin (when he eventually passes away) mucks up the solid work he has done.
But more broadly:
1. Anecdotal evidence is not particularly persuasive one way or the other, to me at least.
2. Personal experience is just a series of pieces of anecdotal evidence all drawn from the same person – thus massive selection bias that would torpedo any study based on it. My experience of Russia (were I to live there) would not necessarily be at all indicative of most people’s experiences there.
3. I did not compare Putin favorably to “Genghis Khan, Stalin, Mao, insert name of utter bastard”. I compared Putin favorably with the United States in the sense that Putin has killed (or ordered killed) far fewer humans than the US government has over the same period of time. Obama’s drone strikes is just a drop in America’s big bucket.
Also I strongly concur with pretty much everything Paul Marks has said in this thread.
Putin is bad but he’s certainly not as bad as those named.
I lived in Russia from April 19 2015 until April 1 2018. I’ve also visited for two weeks in December 2014 and 11 days in January 2020. I was a foreigner working in a Russian-owned company, on a Russian salary, the same as department managers had, though I was purely technical (a couple of senior purely technical Russian engineers also had this salary). Other than dealing with visa matters and registration the company didn’t do anything for me different than they would do with any employee. I had to find my own apartment, do my own shopping, get around the same as any Russian would — no chauffeur or maid or whatever as it seems many people sent to Russia by a foreign company have. I didn’t even have a car for those three years.
If you want to get involved in politics, go to demonstrations, or make a company that becomes too successful too quickly then Russia is a very bad place to be.
If you just want to live a quiet life, raise a family, buy an apartment or house (or build one) and you have a good enough salary to afford private health insurance and private schools then Moscow and St Petersburg (and some others .. Kazan, Ufa …) are quite pleasant places to be.
The banking system is good, fast, and modern, whether you use the government Sberbank or Citi, VTB, Raiffeisen, Alfa. It’s on a par with New Zealand and in my personal experience far far better (having lived there also) than banking in the USA.
Home internet and mobile phone service is fast, reliable, and very cheap. My mobile phone service cost $6 a month and my 100/100 unlimited internet $10.
Uber and Yandex taxis (now combined) are reliable and cheap. Restaurants and cafes have good food and excellent service — they don’t survive long if they don’t.
I didn’t see any petty corruption. The city and suburban streets are safe, even at night. Walking home from the metro at 1 or 2 AM I’d always see well-dressed women walking alone, unafraid. I didn’t come across any dishonest businesses. Tradespeople were competent (I would say overqualified, in general) and efficient.
There is no question that conditions for most people in Russia are vastly better today than they were in 2000 when Putin came to power. I would not say that Putin did a lot to cause that other than I think he was largely responsible for vastly decreasing the amount of corruption ordinary people come across in their daily lives.
There is high level corruption. The government is run as a mafia. All or most of the people who own large businesses, especially formerly state-owned businesses, came by them by corrupt means. Elections are a farce — not I think in the actual vote counting, but in controlling who is able to get on the ballot paper in the first place.
All the people at the top are there to get personally obscenely wealthy. The thing you can say about it is they seem to believe it’s better to milk the cow than to shoot it, and the milk is more plentiful if the cow is healthy.
I’m happy to visit Russia any time. I sure as hell don’t want to live there permanently or be a citizen.
Thanks to Bruce for the informative post.
I surely don’t think Putin is the ideal leader for Russia (or any other country). What I especially hated is Putin’s claim that the fall of the USSR was the biggest catastrophe that befell Russia.
I would definitely prefer Navalny over Putin…
But the ideal leaders or situations we can imagine are not the ones possible in real life. Russia usually. normally, maybe always, had leaders much worse than Putin.
Neither was Trump the ideal leader for the US, not by far… he was just better (much better) that the alternative (Hillary or Biden). A low bar to pass.
Johnathan:
“why don’t you go and live in Russia for a couple of years, and report back with your experiences?”
That was demagoguery. You should have at least some knowledge of the subject before you engage in such rhetoric.
Just by chance you got a very good answer from Bruce Hoult.
I repeat – Mr Putin is a thief and a murderer.
But he is NOT trying to destroy Russia – he is not trying to destroy Russian culture and the Russian people.
The Frankfurt School Marxist establishment of the West is trying to destroy Western nations – destroy the culture and people of Western nations.
In politics one must always the basic question “what is the alternative”?
If the alternative to the disguised dictatorship in Russia is FranKfurt School stuff (“Critical Race Theory”, “Third Wave Feminism”, “Trans rights” and all the rest of it) – then NO.
Just NO.
These is another alternative…..
An alternative that is neither the dictatorship of Mr Putin or the Frankfurt School Suicide of the West.
An alternative that is represented, for example, by the democratic government of POLAND.
That is also imperfect – but I prefer the government of Poland to either the Putin dictatorship, or the Frankfurt School madness of Britain, the United States and so on.
To the extent that Western liberals support Russian dissidents like Navalny, it’s (1) to try to undermine Putin, who the liberal clerisy state as gospel is the number one enemy to America and the West, and (2) because they think Navalny and his Russian supporters will do the bidding of western liberals. The Western liberal cares about the kind of Russian that joins Pussy Riot. They don’t care one bit for the average Russian person. If Navalny or anyone similar took power in Russia and disappointed these western liberals, you can bet pretty strongly the western liberal media will start calling him a Stalinist, fascist, pick your insult of choice, etc.
Nah, he just won’t try and destabilise Russia’s neighbours & will likely get Russian troops out of Ukraine.
No one cares one bit for the average foreigner anywhere when push comes to shove.
Just wanted to say that i tend to agree with everything that Paul Marks wrote here. I cannot say that i definitely agree, but that is because of my ignorance. I have never been to Poland, for instance, and i cannot read any Slavic language: how can i say whether Poland is the best hope today?
In Europe, i see no better hope than Poland and Hungary. But that might be because i am short-sighted.
Perry,
The destabilising of Russia’s neighbours, eg the Ukraine, can safely be left to the CIA.
As the USA has recently itself demonstrated, it only likes democracy if the right result is produced.
Yeah sure, no doubt annexing Crimea & those Russians on holiday in Donbass was cunningly done by the CIA. Sheesh.
From what I’ve read Navalny has said he wouldn’t give Crimea back to Ukraine. He says he deplores how it happened but effectively doesn’t want to reverse it. So in a hypothetical universe were he took Putin’s place, the western ruling class would soon be looking for someone more slavish to replace him with.
Regarding the protests in Moscow and St Petersburg, I notice that the western media fully support these despite the covid pandemic, just as they did in Belarus and with BLM/Antifa. Magically, it appears covid only spreads at protests that the democrat party, EU and CIA don’t support!
No…but the “colour” revolution in Ukraine surely was.
How did anyone expect Putin to respond? Just roll over?
In your words…sheesh!
Pure propaganda. I know many people deeply & personally involved in the Maidan rebellion (used to visit Kyiv quite regularly) & they’d put their fist in your face… but for the fact they’d be laughing too hard at the notion the CIA created the resistance to the growing layers of oppressive shit that actually caused Maidan to happen. There is a whole Ukrainian/Russian language meme culture poking fun at people like you.
When Putin’s pet oligarchs in Ukraine became even more rapacious than their Russian counterparts, how the hell did Putin expect the Ukrainians to respond?
Perry
Pure propaganda? Yeh, sure…lol
It takes an awful long time to organise a spontaneous revolution…🤔
In one sense, it took a very long time for the events of 1989-1991 to happen in Eastern Europe, and there were brave (and often unfortunate) people who did not just knuckle under to the communists all through the prior years. In another sense, it was a preference cascade. The fear that kept the regimes in power grew less until abruptly huge masses stopped pretending. In that sense, it took little time to organise that revolution. Sometimes, rulers are overthrown the way a man goes bankrupt – at first slowly and then suddenly.
There was also Pope John Paul II giving a voice to the Polish people.
And there was Reagan, agreeing to sell wheat to the Soviet Union on credit, but on condition that human rights be respected. Failing that, no food imports, and there is no way the Russians would not have revolted at that point.
So, in a sense, Western interference was responsible for the fall of the Soviet Empire. But surely that interference was for the better!
Difference between 1989 and now is that back then it was the USSR trying to impose a universalist and brutal ideology on the world, ie Communism. Today, whatever Putin believes in, it’s not a universalist creed up for ideologically motivated export. Yes he’s fundamentally corrupt and willing to use various levers of state oppression to achieve his goals and interests. But he’s essentially a Russian patriot. He may have took Crimea and other areas of Ukraine and Georgia where Russians are in the majority. But I’ve seen no evidence he wants to march his military to the Atlantic coast and impose Communist regimes across the globe.
Nowadays, it’s the USA, UK and EU that are the ones pushing universalistic bullshit on the rest of the world, the mad woke leftist ideology. I don’t doubt that people like Navalny and his Russian supporters are genuine in their views. I also know that their western supporters wish to use them to destroy Russian society and culture. Look at the recent article by Obama’s ex ambassador to Russia – it advocates using US government money to train Russian journalists to undermine Putin. Given the ‘quality’ of American journalism I can only imagine what kind of lunatics they would produce! The aim would be to produce leftist cultural radicals to undermine Russian society and impose woke ideology on it.
Yeah Putin annexed Crimea & occupied Donbass to protect Russians from single gender toilets & protect vatniki culture from western Baizuo hegemony 😀
Interesting I have observed the most radical Ukrainian nationalists tend to be the Russian speaking rather than the Ukrainian speaking ones. Strange but true.
Putin annexed the Crimea to preserve a strategic asset, which the CIA backed Colour Revolution obviously put at risk.
In short, he did precisely what the USA would have done, and frequently has…except it isn’t called annexation when the USA does it.
It’s called realpolitik…Putin is quite good at it. The USA seems to have lost its touch.
When the ones who know the most have the most fear, the fear probably ought not be dismissed casually.
I like to think that the Three Seas Initiative is the best hope, especially if it can be enlarged to Ukraine & Belarus.
But i admit that, for now, it is a rather tenuous hope.
Mickc has swallowed the propaganda hook line and sinker, deluded into thinking the CIA rather than actual facts on the ground in Ukraine pushed locals into pushing back were behind Putin’s puppet being deposed in Kyiv. It is a weird kind of America-centric chauvinism that denies the reality of local people & local forces, in favour of ‘dark forces’ conspiracies.
Perry,
Well one of us has swallowed propaganda…my bet is it’s not me…
The Ukraine revolution followed the Wolfowitz Doctrine too closely to be mere coincidence.
If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…
Just curious – The WD basically said it would be bad if Russia re-subsumed Ukraine. Pretty general, IIRC. Do you know of any hard evidence that the US had any involvement in what happened?
If the US released a doc that said Boku Harem is bad and ought to be gone, and tomorrow the Cameroonions wiped out BH, I don’t think we’d be putting the blame/credit on the US. Seems like a stretch.
Curious, Mickc ever been to Kyiv? Know anyone who was actually involved with those events & helped organise them? Where does your inside information come from? Russia Today perhaps? 🤣
No of course it doesn’t come from Russia Today. And no, I’ve never been to Kiev.
And no I don’t know anyone who “organised” the event…and neither do you. You just know people who think they actually did.
Well, the Wolfowitz Doctrine was about preserving US hegemony by undermining potential rivals. It certainly wasn’t about promoting peace, prosperity and democracy.
And it sure is one hell of a coincidence that the Ukraine revolution depriving Russia of Crimea would have fit just right into Wolfowitz’s ideas.
Of course, coincidences do happen…just not of such huge consequence.
And before Perry alleges it, again, no I’m not a Russian troll. But I am very sceptical of any benevolence attributed to “government” and “the State”, and indeed “popular revolutions”…
Riiiiight. Still curious where you got this special knowledge of how things happened in Ukraine & how you know the people laying on the minivans to bringing food & supplies (& rocks) that made the Maidan Revolt possible were actually all organised by the CIA. If you are right, please tell your sources the Boys in Langley stiffed all the people eagerly waiting for the promised helicopters (black of course) full of dollars, weapons & gas masks.
Haha! Yeh…of course “popular” revolutions have helicopters full of dollars etc🙄…but only in the movies…politics tends to be more complex…
Yeah no shit Sherlock. But please, where does your information come from? All the people in Ukraine who just think they were involved in organising a revolt but actually weren’t according to you, I’m just want to know how the dastardly CIA was actually pulling their strings unbeknownst to them & how you know this.
ok, so apperently I was wrong when I referred to Navaly’s German handlers: https://www.rt.com/russia/514291-navalny-aide-funding-alleged-british-spy/
Says Russia Today 😀