From the Guardian, no less (and it doesn’t mince its words):
Russia’s supreme court has ordered the closure of Memorial International, the country’s oldest human rights group, in a watershed moment in Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on independent thought.
The court ruled Memorial must be closed under Russia’s controversial “foreign agent” legislation, which has targeted dozens of NGOs and media outlets seen as critical of the government.
Memorial was founded in the late 1980s to document political repressions carried out under the Soviet Union, building a database of victims of the Great Terror and gulag camps. The Memorial Human Rights Centre, a sister organisation that campaigns for the rights of political prisoners and other causes, is also facing liquidation for “justifying terrorism and extremism”.
OK, readers may ask, what’s with the energy independence headline? Well, as sometimes noted, countries such as Germany (and now Belgium) have cut back on their use of nuclear energy. Germany is a big consumer of Russian natural gas, and that reliance is going to increase via the Nordstream 2 pipeline, assuming Berlin presses ahead in the teeth of rising criticism. This gives more power to the Russian state, and to Mr Putin. In the UK, recently Shell, the energy group, decided not to go ahead with widening its North Sea oil extraction efforts, and the business of fracking in the UK is stymied. There appears zero support by the Boris Johnson administration for the UK to aggressively develop any home gas/oil sectors further. For brave little Britain, apparently, we can shrug off the winter chills and Russian nastiness with windmills, solar panels, and noble sentiments.
Forgive my sarcasm, but you get the point. Western countries appear, at least on the face of it, to favour energy policies that appear guaranteed to embolden and strengthen regimes such as that of Putin’s Russia. It’s as if it was intended.
Russia’s supreme court has ordered the closure of Memorial International
In related news, another Russian journalist and blogger succumbed to sudden fall from a window.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10348293/Founder-Russian-nationalist-blog-falls-death-Moscow-window.html
Mr. Prosvirnin was known for his blog “Sputnik and Pogrom” (exactly what you imagine, only more so) and sharp criticism of Putin (for not decisively dealing with Ukrainian problem once and for all).
https://argumentua.com/i/russian_nazi_14.jpg
Just an ordinary day in Russia.
I can see many many reasons to dislike Putin, but his ridicule of the global warming movement isn’t one of them. Russia is going to do well economically because of that one factor. Did he secretly fund Extinction Rebellion and Greta? If he did, those were smart investments.
“Human rights group” that “documents political repressions” – sounds like a good group that I strongly support. If someone told me there are groups in America called “Antifascists” or “Antifa” and “Black Lives Matter” I would likewise say that they sound like good groups that I support. Finding out what these groups actually do would then change my mind. BLM is at best a mixed bag and Antifa is overwhelmingly bad.
What are ALL of the actions of Memorial International and what are the impacts Memorial International’s actions has had on Russia? I’m not interested in what they say they themselves do or what the Guardian says they do. What is it that Memorial actually does? All of it.
My guess is that it’s a mix of good and bad and if I knew the whole story then I’d support Putin’s actions. But maybe I’m wrong.
On the other hand, things that the Guardian cries about are hardly ever bad.
Johnathon, you wrote: “For brave little Britain, apparently, we can shrug off the winter chills and Russian nastiness with windmills, solar panels, and noble sentiments.”
How many members of the Cabinet, or Members of Parliament, have received a scientific training, or have a background in engineering? Few to none, is my guess. They probably really do believe Britain can get by on solar panels and windmills, and that it doesn’t need to exploit its own oil and gas reserves, and won’t need to depend on gas from that nasty Mr. Putin.
The fact that the group started out documenting the vast crimes under Stalin suggests that it is coming from a place of sound sense, Shlomo.
Both in Russia and China, the ruling thugs are tightening the screws. If Guardian reports it, well, good for that newspaper. Other outlets are also reporting on what’s going on.
High probability, they are a CIA front for a Russian ‘colour revolution’.
Back in the day, when we had some human rights in the West, more spicifically the UK, we could afford to worry about how China or Russia treated their minorities. Frankly, I’ve more pressing issues on my plate just now.
But memories among Human Rights advocates are short, they’ve already forgotten to write about the Uyghurs, and they never bother to call the Tibetens these days, either.
No one seems to notice that global warming is changing more and more of Russia from frozen waste to exploitable land.
Like Canada, Russia will do fine.
The article in the OP says nothing about what the group have done wrong or even are alleged to have done wrong in terms of specifics, which makes me suspicious. AIUI, this group did accept money from overseas in breach of Russian law. By accepting foreign money, (the source of which is unclear) at the very least, they play into Putin’s hands by letting him portray them as a tool of the West. But I note the following:
Pride in Katyn, the Winter War, the GULAG, Chernobyl?
But of this group, is it another ‘NGO’ taking money from foreign activists? We are not told, but the quote in the OP from the defence lawyer looks like an attempt to distract from a technical violation of the law:
That not saying ‘we woz framed‘, is it?
But look at the prosecutor:
Does the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact mean nothing to you?
I would have been happier if he had said: ‘Taking money from foreign governments/NGOs regardless of their proven track records of promoting the sort of degenerate Marxism that corrupts the West is unlawful, and they have taken $x from ‘source y, z, etc’ in clear breach of the law’.
Since in the UK, fracking operations had to be suspended from a seismic shock equivalent to a ladder falling over under UK government regulations (so I heard the other day), so the problem is not Mr Putin and his gang, but Mr Johnson and his 80-seat majority.
The Guardian and its ilk have all got deep drunk on conspiracy theories about Russia, that Putin got Trump elected, made Brexit happen etc etc. Ironically though the Guardian and its ilk advocate we support supposed antidotes to Trump-Putin like Olaf Scholz, Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, Keir Starmer and Pedro Sanchez despite the fact all these politicians support energy policies that effectively increase dependence on Russian and Middle Eastern oil gas though. The supposed Putinists on the other hand like Le Pen and Trump support energy independence. Another reason not to take anything the Guardian says remotely seriously.
Anyway this is a newspaper so laughable that it took down its person of the year poll because JK Rowling was winning the poll and it probably offended the increasingly American left-liberal lunatics it employs as staff (apparently its American staff are a lot more mental than the British staff).
Reasons for attempting energy independence ( period ).
Because it is a sensible thing for an independent country to do.
How?
Build loads of nuclear powerstations. Frankly I don’t know why we can’t do that ourselves. We were among the first in the ’50s to do so. So energy independence in this sense might mean developing a new nuclear capacity using Thorium as the fuel. China’s apparently doing it, the West has had the technology since the ’50s, such reactors primary drawback is that it can’t easily be used to produce Plutonium. [sarcasm] But since we are a peace loving nation, we wouldn’t need to produce too much of that. [/sarcasm]. However, such reactors can be used to burn nuclear waste from our aging conventional reactors.
Instead, we’ll probably wait ten years, and buy this technology off China.
Johnathan Pearce,
Sure.
The problem, of course, is that organizations change – often, VERY dramatically.
The actions and general approach of the ACLU have changed dramatically over the past few decades.
The NAACP has also changed very dramatically over the years.
The examples are endless.
I remember when CNN was slightly biased to the left and generally a decent, respectable source for news. Now, it’s most certainly fucking not and, in fact, CNN has not been a solid or respectable source for news for at least the last 5 years, even though 20 years ago it was a solid, respectable source for news.
So again, what exactly does this Memorial International do? I am not asking about what it did decades ago. I’m not asking what it says it does and I’m sure as hell not asking what the Guardian says it does. What does Memorial International really, actually do currently? What are all of its actions?
APL,
Impossible!! First of all, we know that only countries run by thugs like Russia and China would even ever dare to do such a bad thing, not good, noble countries like the UK or USA that are so clearly run by non-thugs!
Second of all, if this were even remotely possible then obviously the Guardian would inform us. And they haven’t said this is even a possibility so that’s how we know that it’s not even possibly true!
LOL
So again, what exactly does this Memorial International do?
Good question. What were they doing lately?
1/Researching and documenting not only names of victims of Stalin’s crimes, but also the names of perpetrators.
2/Documenting political prisoners in today’s Russia.
https://memohrc.org/en/publicationstypes/bulletin/list-individuals-recognised-political-prisoners-memorial-human-rights-3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_(society)
In April 2021, Memorial researchers Sergei Krivenko and Sergei Prudovsky published a study of the “national” operations conducted by the NKVD during the Great Terror, 1937-1938. Examining the available documents, they noted that the FSB, proud successor to the NKVD and KGB, had still not fulfilled the terms of a June 1992 edict issued by President Boris Yeltsin.[92] This demanded that all legislative acts and other documentation that “served as the basis for mass repressive measures and violations of human rights” should be declassified and made publicly available within three months.[93] The Great Terror, among other Soviet campaigns of repression, were clearly such “crimes against humanity” and therefore were subject to no statute of limitation. In 1968, the USSR had acceded to the UN Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity yet decades later, and thirty years after the 1992 presidential edict, the researchers were filing cases in the courts to pressure regional branches of the FSB to release documents about the Great Terror over 80 years earlier.[94] Krivenko was an academic and a founding member of Memorial;[14] Prudovsky began by researching the fate of his grandfather and has spent the last ten years on a wide-ranging study of political repression in the 1930s.
An ever-growing list of prisoners of conscience and political prisoners in today’s Russia (the Memorial Human Rights Centre issued its latest list of 377 names on 9 November 2021)[95] is seen as a clear link drawn by Memorial from the outset between past atrocities and today’s human rights violations: this refers, on the one hand, to hotspots around the Soviet Union and Russia, the two wars in Chechnya, or recent conflict with neighbouring countries (Georgia, Ukraine) and, on the other, to the increasingly repressive current domestic regime.
20 years ago I seem to remember CNN being solidly in the throes of BDR (Bush Derangement Syndrome).
30 years ago they were probably pretty good though, so your point stands in general.
APL – Memorial was founded 30 years ago. Its function is to educate people about the nightmare that was the Soviet Union – the nightmare that Mr Putin (and others) pretend was a good thing. Mr Putin plays a double game – to some people he presents himself as the only alternative to Marxism in Russia (carefully pushing the very Communist party he pretends to oppose – Bismarck did the same as far back as the mid 19th century, before trying TOO LATE to undone what he had done), but on the other hand Putin’s education system and media (he controls both) celebrate the Soviet past.
The Bismarck game – posing as the saviour against the threat that he himself had helped create, as Bismarck subsidised socialists in Prussia-Germany (turning a group of lunatics into a MASS MOVEMENT) and then presented himself (to terrified “capitalists”) as the only thing standing between then and robbery and murder – persecuting the very movement he had pushed (although, I repeat, by the end Bismarck realised things had got out of control).
Shlomo Maistre – Western governments, including those of the United States and the United Kingdom, are playing into the hands of Mr Putin by undermining their own energy industries. In the case of Germany and some other Western nations actually shutting down nuclear power stations (so much for their supposed concern for C02 emissions).
That is the point of the post – the foes of Mr Putin are playing into his hands.
Mr Putin also knows that the monetary and financial system of the West is going to bust – he does not need Max Keiser to tell him that, he has SEEN IT.
What happened in Russia under Boris Yeltsin (currency becoming worthless, banks shown to be Credit Bubbles – or part of one vast Credit Bubble) is going to happen in the West.
Mr Putin remembers this all too well – it is what brought him to power.
Ferox,
I watched CNN almost on a daily basis 20 years ago. Yes, it is true that they hated Bush and they were biased. But still, CNN was a decent, respectable source for news 20 years ago.
Today CNN is neither a decent source of news nor a respectable source for news.
Paul Marks,
I mean, yes. I know this and I agree with this.
This does not falsify or contradict any of my original points.
My original points were germane to the original post.
another lurker,
What is the difference between a prisoner and a political prisoner? And, if you think that there is a difference, then do you think that such a difference is very clearly cut, simple to delineate one from the other, without ambiguity? And if there is a degree of ambiguity can you think of how such ambiguity might be exploited by a “pure, innocent” NGO for political purposes?
Is it not true that this “human rights organization” has recently taken money from sources outside of Russia?
I’m sure a lot of Memorial’s actions were great, wonderful, maple syrup, unicorns, democracy, freedom, liberty, individual rights, limited government, human rights, sunshine, and rainbows.
On the other hand, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what Memorial International was very likely doing in addition to all the good things.
But it does require a little curiosity and skepticism – something many Westerners don’t possess when reading about the bad, mean, horrible, no good, filthy actions of horrible tyrants like Putin. Sad!
Doesn’t the USA also have laws against foreign funding of various organisations?
The UK, of course, just extradites truth tellers like Assange and participates in extraordinary rendition to please the USA.
These are of rather more consequence to us than what is happening in Russia, or the Ukraine in which Britain has no national interests whatsoever.
mickc,
How dare you minimize the horribleness of Vladimir Putin!! And how dare you imply that there could possibly be something happening in the world that is not directly the business of both the USA and the UK!!!
Repeat after me: Putin is a mean, nasty, horrible, no good, filthy tyrant and fighting Putin’s horribleness is central to American interests and British interests and also your interests. How dare you wrongthink your way out of The Approved Narrative.
Now, have you signed up for booster injection #26 yet, mickc??
We should retain our remaining coal fired power stations and keep a few coal mines open.
How do you explain Navalny and other Putin opponents supporting communist candidates in the elections in the legislative elections this year in Russia?
I don’t think the Putin government is wholly enamoured of the Communist era. Although they definitely whitewash elements without a shadow of a doubt, on the other hand Solzhenitsyn is compulsory reading in schools. Given the lunacy in the west Solzhenitsyn is probably more likely to get banned here than in Russia. And the Putin government is supportive and close to the Orthodox church, a huge difference from the Communists.
There are some in the UK at the moment?
I presume there are no political prisoners in the UK?
What else is it doing, Paul? You can’t possibly be so naive as to think the CIA or MI6 doesn’t infiltrate legitimate organisations in foreign countries?
But that aside, you don’t like Putin, that’s fine, but I’m guessing you weren’t too hot for Gaddafi, either? But just how did the destruction of one of the most affluent states in the Maghreb improve the lot of downtrodden Libyans?
It also opened the floodgates for the tidal wave of African migration, many of whom die crossing the Sahara, and more die crossing the Mediteranian, and yet more seem to die crossing the English channel.
Or the destruction of Iraq, leading to the slaughter of the Yazidi and the murder of their old women and the sexual enslavement of their young women. Or the attempted destruction of Syria, and the proposed destruction of Iran. When will your appetite for murder and death be sated, Paul?
Obviously, not until you’ve had another death binge in Russia.
APL, Shlomo Maistre etc…
I understand what you want to say.
US and UK are bad, therefore Russia had to be good.
Just like in the 1930’s, during the misery of Great Depression and rising fascism in the West, Russia just had to be glorious worker country of democracy, freedom and prosperity for all.
It just had to be.
It just had to be.
It just had to be, because otherwise there would be no hope at all.
Demonstrating, that you have no idea what I want to say. You are too busy building a strawman, which you are anticipating gleefully knocking down.
By the way, are there no Political prisoners in the UK, ‘another lurker’ ?
By the way, are there no Political prisoners in the UK, ‘another lurker’ ?
Yes, many, ‘APL’.
By the way, how is it relevant to this discussion that is about Russia?
another lurker,
You have literally no idea what I was trying to say. Lets try this again, shall we?
What is the difference between a prisoner and a political prisoner? And, if you think that there is a difference, then do you think that such a difference is very clearly cut, simple to delineate one from the other, without ambiguity? And if there is a degree of ambiguity can you think of how such ambiguity might be exploited by a “pure, innocent” NGO for political purposes?
Is it not true that this “human rights organization” has recently taken money from sources outside of Russia?
I’m sure a lot of Memorial’s actions were great, wonderful, maple syrup, unicorns, democracy, freedom, liberty, individual rights, limited government, human rights, sunshine, and rainbows.
On the other hand, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what Memorial International was very likely doing in addition to all the good things.
But it does require a little curiosity and skepticism – something many Westerners don’t possess when reading about the bad, mean, horrible, no good, filthy actions of horrible tyrants like Putin.
another lurker is probably a Putin plant trying to make propagandized, western NPCs who hate Putin appear even more retarded than they usually are. His retorts are laughably facile and strikingly naive. To play the part, another lurker, you should at least display a pretense of complex thought.
What is the difference between a prisoner and a political prisoner?
Simple. Political prisoner is someone who is in prison for his political beliefs/activity (unlike common criminal motivated by personal gain).
If 1/6 people are political prisoners, then people who protested and rioted against arrest of Navalny are too.
On the other hand, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what Memorial International was very likely doing in addition to all the good things.
So tell us. What exactly were they doing?
Stop hinting at some dark hidden secrets, and tell us – what was Memorial doing so horrible, how were they undermining Russia? (except what Russian court told us – by slandering Stalin as mass murderer and USSR as terrorist country)
another lurker,
You did not answer the questions I asked multiple times already. Lets try a third time!!!
And, if you think that there is a difference, then do you think that such a difference is very clearly cut, simple to delineate one from the other, without ambiguity? And if there is a degree of ambiguity can you think of how such ambiguity might be exploited by a “pure, innocent” NGO for political purposes?
If you answer these questions in good faith, then you might be able to figure out reality as opposed to what the Guardian would have you think. Unfortunately, reality is not always as easy to understand as a good versus evil movie, like Star Wars. Put on that thinking cap of yours and answer the questions:
And, if you think that there is a difference, then do you think that such a difference is very clearly cut, simple to delineate one from the other, without ambiguity? And if there is a degree of ambiguity can you think of how such ambiguity might be exploited by a “pure, innocent” NGO for political purposes?
>might be exploited by a “pure, innocent” NGO for political purposes?
“might be” “could be”, this is all what you have against Memorial. What is there to answer?
There is no evidence you are Japanese or Polish spy, but you might be.
Being Russian Putinist is understandable – if you remember the “wild nineties”, you would put up with everything to prevent this time from coming back.
Being Western Putinist, believing everything that Putin says, worshipping him as great holy and annointed Christian Czar and waiting for the day when he arrives on his mighty bear to liberate you, is just cringe.
https://s.auto.drom.ru/i24215/com/386/385593.jpg
When the CIA or State Dept sets up a front organization in a foreign country to undermine the foreign government’s legitimacy they do so with organizations whose public mission is “to undermine the legitimacy of the current government”.
When the CIA or State Dept sets up a front organization in a foreign country to undermine the foreign government’s legitimacy they would NEVER DO SO with an organization whose public mission is “documenting human rights abuses and political prisoners”. Never!
And the Guardian I’m sure has sought to find out about all the not-so-flattering details and nefarious activities of the Memorial International group, instead of just focusing exclusively upon the carefully curated “sunshine, rainbows, unicorns, and maple syrup” work they have done. Because the Guardian, like all Western media, are known to be very balanced, fair, and unbiased regarding all matters related to Vladimir Putin and Russia. And because the intelligence services of the West have no influence with any Western media outlets whatsoever. None, whatsoever. No, seriously. None! Really!!
Paul Marks
Mr Putin plays a double game – to some people he presents himself as the only alternative to Marxism in Russia
Marxism is dead, in Russia as in everywhere else. KPRF is party of pensioners whose main purpose now is to raise old age pensions, not expropriate the bourgeoisie and seize the means of production.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cv_NUTGwEo
(typical example is this, if you understand Russian, you will laugh at the combination of bloodthirsty revolutionary song and the elderly protestors wanting higher pensions and lower retirement age)
Alternative to Putin, alternative he promotes and fights simultaneously, are Russian nationalists, who want “Russia for Russians”, people like late Mr. Prosvirnin.
Stalin is rehabilitated and celebrated not as leader of proletariat, but as great Russian hero who made Russia great again and restored lost Russian lands.
https://i.imgur.com/xVEef3A.jpg
translation: “How Russia for Russians looks like”
“Returned lands – Baltics, Belarussia, Ukraine, Moldova, North Kazahkstan”
“Buffer states of Russia – Finland, Poland, Romania, Kazakhstan”
I’m laughing, thank you for this great mental picture! Sadly, though, this seems to be the way everyone views their own politician of choice these days.
Mr Ed (December 29, 2021 at 7:05 pm) quotes some revealing prosecutorial remarks, accusing Memorial of being used
by
Stalin is within living memory. I therefore see no necessity to confabulate CIA or other issues against Memorial without evidence. It is of course theoretically possible – and I would certainly not trust the Guardian to tell me the whole story about anything – but those quotes provide reason to suspect that any coincidence between the prosecution and actual impropriety on the part of Memorial would be just that: coincidence. Until/unless those quotes can be brought into question, I don’t see an argument for questioning much else in this.
Mr Ed writes that Memorial was used “to deprive modern Russians of taking pride in the achievements of the Soviet Union by
mendaciously portraying the USSR as a terrorist state”.
Given the 70-plus-year-long history of the USSR, the politically-created famines of the Ukraine, the Gulag system of prison camps that endured for decades, the censorship, building of the Berlin Wall, torture of political suspects and dissidents, etc, it is pretty hard to know what the “achievements” of that regime were, beyond its record in pushing back the German invaders of 1941, and some of its space flight tech. Even with the war heroics post-Barbarossa, it is well to remember Stalin’s cynical carve-up of Poland from 1939-41, and his immediate attempt to impose this thuggish rule across Eastern Europe.
Putin’s conduct is fully consistent with the behaviour of a rogue state. The insolent way the regime goes about killing dissident journalists, for one, fits with this.
And no, whataboutery about the misconduct of Western countries on certain specific cases (think Ed Snowden, think FDR’s internment of Japanese Americans during WW2), doesn’t get Vlad off the hook.
Niall: “Until/unless those quotes can be brought into question, I don’t see an argument for questioning much else in this.”
Exactly.
Changing the subject back to energy policy, a wise approach doesn’t need to involve a country not importing stuff from abroad. Even though the UK does have oil, gas and coal, supplies are not infinite. We don’t as far as I know have uranium, so nuclear power means we have to import the stuff. The key is diversification, particularly to ensure baseload electricity production for when more intermittent energy sources (solar, wind) don’t deliver the goods. People in public life are fond of talking about diversity, but that’s the kind that can get us through a winter and hot summer, and save lives.
Getting back to the O/T “attempting energy independence”…
Ask most people where the UK gets most of its own offshore oil from, most people will say “North Sea”. Not a lot of people know that we have started production west of the Shetlands.
Offshore map
https://ogauthority.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=adbe5a796f5c41c68fc762ea137a682e
Onshore map
https://ogauthority.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=adbe5a796f5c41c68fc762ea137a682e
It’s surprising how many onshore oilwells there are (despite the anti-fracking news)
Asked & answered. From WIKI, for what it’s worth.
“The thorium fuel cycle has several potential advantages over a uranium fuel cycle, including thorium’s greater abundance, superior physical and nuclear properties, reduced plutonium and actinide production, and better resistance to nuclear weapons proliferation when used in a traditional light water reactor though not in a molten salt reactor”
Apparently there is significant amounts of Thorium in coal ash, although I don’t know the feasability of extracting useable amounts from that source. In the earths crust there is about ten time the concentration found in coal ash ( Given that we’ve been burning the stuff for a hundred years, there may be enough lying around to exploit in the UK ). Again, WIKI tells us Thorium is mined in Australia, Canada, the USA, Russia and India.
So that should satisfy even you Johnathan, we have three sources for Thorium each of them relitevly friendly ( although the USA seems to be pushing India back toward Russia, with it’s hamfisted ‘diplomacy’ ), without buying the stuff from Russia.
Rudolph Hucker (great name, by the way): “It’s surprising how many onshore oilwells there are (despite the anti-fracking news)”
APL: “Apparently there is significant amounts of Thorium in coal ash, although I don’t know the feasability of extracting useable amounts from that source. In the earths crust there is about ten time the concentration found in coal ash ( Given that we’ve been burning the stuff for a hundred years, there may be enough lying around to exploit in the UK ). Again, WIKI tells us Thorium is mined in Australia, Canada, the USA, Russia and India.”
Well, let’s see how it pans out (excuse the pun). If we could extract valuable material from slag heaps, that would be rather neat.
So that should satisfy even you Johnathan, we have three sources for Thorium each of them relitevly friendly ( although the USA seems to be pushing India back toward Russia, with it’s hamfisted ‘diplomacy’ ), without buying the stuff from Russia.
Up to a point. They key is variety of sources of energy, food and so on.
By developing fracking, the US, under different administrations – but not under Sleepy Joe – reduced its reliance on Middle East oil, significantly improving the ability of the US to not have to prop up dodgy oil states. That’s a win. And I want a situation where Vlad P. or successors cannot rely on the easy route of exporting energy at high prices and causing trouble along the way. Remember the “curse” of natural resources theory.
An aside is that if those unfairly maligned actors, known as energy and commodity speculators, are allowed to operate in a free market, they’d be free to store energy/materials during times of plenty and when these things are cheap, and draw down when they are scarce and expensive. Even the US had the wisdom to have strategic oil reserves. Part of the criminal neglect of recent governments can be seen in the closing of the Rough gas storage facility in the North Sea. Green policies have actively discouraged sensible storage that would exist in a laissez faire scenario. There appear plans to restore such storage, but it appears to have taken a looming energy crisis to make people see sense.
Back to “independence”, remember this is not another riff on protectionism. The key is allowing consumers and businesses to operate by mutual consent. There’s plenty of incentive to “hoard” supplies and not be reliant on bad actors to keep the lights on. In almost all cases, it turns out that when these shortages occur and countries import from dodgy regimes, that it was government policy that caused the trouble in the first place.
The next few months could be interesting.
Which option seems to have been shut down by the SNP for fear of upsetting the eco loons.
It’s odd, because I could have sworn that just a few years ago, North Sea oil revenue was to form the basis of an ‘independent’ Scotlands tax revenue. These days, not so much.
It’s odd, because I could have sworn that just a few years ago, North Sea oil revenue was to form the basis of an ‘independent’ Scotlands tax revenue. These days, not so much.
The SNP has been, and remains, full of hot steaming smelly stuff. And now it relies on the Green party in a coalition, so it has changed from praising “Scottish oil” to treating it as something embarrassing, like a cousin who did time for kiddy fiddling.
Maybe Thorium and other useful things can be extracted from coal; I have no idea. The key is diversification of supply for a small island nation with limited natural resources of its own. We should also learn from how the US fracking sector meant Uncle Sam did not have to play policeman so much in the Middle East, a great improvement.
The pro Putin (or “I am not pro Putin – but…..”) stuff in the thread is depressing – but only to be expected.
Western institutions are intellectually corrupt – including the CIA (which has been pushing collectivist “Social Reform” in Latin America, and around the world, since at least the start of the 1960s, indeed even going back into the 1950s).
People are desperate – and I can understand that, as I am desperate myself.
But Putin is no help – watching people clutch at him is like watching a drowning man clutching at a poisonous snake.
Western culture, Western society, has been in decline all my life – I can not condemn people who turn away from the West (especially Western GOVERNMENTS) with disgust.
I am disgusted with it all myself – so I am no mood to argue with you.
I would just repeat my warnings about Mr Putin.
I remember listening to a few libertarians (and other dissenters from the general “Agenda”) who now live in Japan.
They were asked if Japan would resist the various terrible (political and cultural – for politics is now aimed at undermining the culture) trends that are destroying the Western World.
“No” came the answer – “but the process of societal decline will be slower here – and they will be more polite about it”.
Jonathan Pearce
The “sole” achievement of Stalin’s USSR in defeating Nazi Germany was extremely significant for Britain. It tore the guts out of the German army.
At that particular time, nothing else mattered to Britain.
At this particular time, Britain has no national interests at stake in the Ukraine. Nothing else matters.
I would like both Russia and the Ukraine to be benign democracies. They won’t be in my lifetime.
And I’m in great doubt about Britain remaining (becoming?) so.
Russia poses no threat whatsoever to Britain, provided we stay out of its business, unlike the now defunct USSR.
I suggest we stay well clear of this particular clusterf**k, despite what the USA wants.
It will not be Russia that will cut your energy. It will be your own government because you have a non-progressive social credit.
Putin is not a threat to me, my family, my friends, or my country.
The same cannot be said for Brandon.
Johnathan Pearce,
I don’t think Russia is asking for your permission to celebrate the extraordinary achievements of the USSR, including, as you point out, one of the greatest military campaigns ever and arguably the most important military achievement in modern history and some of the greatest and most important scientific achievements in modern history.
Your approach of focusing almost exclusively on the negative aspects of the USSR is not surprising but it is disappointing. Russians have a great deal to be proud of when it comes to the USSR.
Shlomo
I rather think you’ve now put a couple too many eggs in the USSR pudding.
From Britains point of view, the only one that concerns me, its major achievement was defeating the German army.
I really cannot see much else positive about it, though I grant that its leaders were generally cautious men who did not start another general war.
Putin too is a cautious man. Regrettably the West sees caution as a failing, a huge mistake.
mickc (December 30, 2021 at 10:46 pm), the achievement of the USSR was to assist Hitler to conquer northern Europe, then western Europe, then south-eastern Europe – after which Stalin found himself alone on the continent of Europe with Hitler. He hoped Adolf would go on to conquer Britain as well – so spent the first half of 1941 supplying Germany lavishly with goods the Germans had promised to pay for in the second half of 1941.
At immense cost, the ordinary people ruled by the USSR then had to retrieve the situation. Defectors like Kravchenko (‘I chose freedom’) complain about the west giving the credit to Stalin and communism.
Putin is simply reusing this propaganda to justify his own strongman style of rule. Suggesting that Russia won despite, not because of, party/strongman-style rule might raise doubts about Putin’s own value to the Russian people.
You are of course correct that the great losses suffered by both sides on the Eastern front were of immense value to the west. Those losses (and the soviets being behind in nuclear technology) should be recalled when considering whether communism was cautious.
@APL
It’s odd, because I could have sworn that just a few years ago, North Sea oil revenue was to form the basis of an ‘independent’ Scotlands tax revenue. These days, not so much.
Yes, only a few years ago, Bella Caledonia and SNP-supporters were promoting “The real state of Scotland’s Oil & Gas Reserves
https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2014/06/11/the-real-state-of-scotlands-oil-and-gas-reserves/
Much mention of the area (west of Shetland) as potentially one of the biggest oil fields in the world.
Here’s a small part:
Because “environment”?
Niall Kilmartin,
It was Jonathan Pearce who suggested that defeating the German army was one of the USSR’s few achievements. You are, of course, right that Stalin aided Germany in its of conquest Europe…but why should he care? The conquered nations were hardly friendly to the USSR, and no doubt the hope was that Germany would get bogged down in the West. After all, that was the “game plan” of Britain and France, but Germany got lucky.
Of course the leaders of the USSR were cautious. They never, ever risked a general war, unlike JFK. And indeed NATO’s advance Eastwards does just that. From being a justified defensive alliance, it has become an aggressive instrument of attempted US hegemony. It will fail in that, but the cost could be high.
Yes, it is curious how some folk have forgotten that NATO was supposedly a defensive alliance. That of course went down the tubes when it was used to destroy Serbia, and again a relatively prosperous Libya. It’s not as if they didn’t have the precautionary lession of Iraq, as what not to do. [shrug].
NATO should have been disbanded when the Warsaw pact collapsed.
It is puzzling to me that one of the most attractive aspects of Libertarianism, the non aggression principle, seems to be the least attractive aspect of Libertarian doctrine to Libertaians.
There nothing to be proud of USSR. Nothing. A genocidal civilization and a cultural desert.
It is quite bizarre to see people that need to praise USSR to argue that Putin is not a threat.
Do you draw a distinction between the USSR and Russia?
I have a very negative opinion of the Soviet period but I understand why Russians pretty much across the political spectrum are proud of their victory in the ‘Great Patriotic war’, even if the Stalin regime carried out numerous blunders and criminal acts throughout it. Despite that millions undoubtedly fought very bravely and suffered terrible hardships and they did a significant amount to break the back of the Nazi German military. Most Russians have similar views about 1812 and defeating Napoleon’s invasion.
Generally I would say culturally quite Russophilic, at least by English standards. Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn are two of the greatest authors of all time. Although I’m religiously agnostic, I have a much more favourable attitude towards Russian/Greek orthodoxy (and Catholicism) than I do Protestantism (or secular humanism/new atheism etc).
I don’t think I’m under illusions about Putin (I am more partial to Viktor Orban in Hungary to be honest, and would have preferred if Russia had restored its monarchy in 1991 lol). But post-Communism and under Putin, Russia is a better country than it was under Communism in 1991. Meanwhile I don’t think there are any western countries who were not Communist but are under the current liberal hegemony that are better places than they were in 1991. Wealthier in grosser terms maybe. But culturally perverted and increasingly weird. While Russia may be a threat to some of its immediate neighbours, it isn’t exporting some universalist ideology that tries to wreck societies inside out anymore. The US and EU do that now. Instead of militant marxism it is militant liberalism. BLM, transgender ideology, etc would get short shrift in Russia, and rightly so.
Scratch someone who thinks Putin rigged the 2016 election in the US and I’m sure you’ll find someone who supports practically every woke craze in the book.
One last reply to this overly long thread.
What exactly got Memorial into trouble?
(no, they were not promoting homosexuality and transgenderism, they were not supporting terrorism, they were not found to be CIA agents – if Russian goverment had only the slightest sliver of proof, they would scream it from the rooftops to the whole world)
What exactly Russian court meant by “Russian people” who want to feel pride for achievement of Soviet Union, and what exactly Memorial did to “defame” them?
What got Memorial into trouble was that in addition of documenting and publishing lists of victims, they also began to publish list of perpetrators.
No one could kill millions single handedly, even great genius like Stalin. To finish what he wanted to do, he needed tens of thousands of guards, torturers and executioners.
Their names and carreers are all in archives, well documented.
And Memorial started digging into these archives and publishing the lists, and people noticed that while perpetrators of Stalin’s crimes are long dead, their descendants form modern Russian elite – government, army, police, business etc.
You can imagine this made the elite somewhat uneasy. These people, not Ivan and Sergey from some small town, are the “Russian people” the court talks about, the “Russian people” who the court wants to protect from defamation of their ancestors.
This is what it is all about.
Happy new year 2022 to everyone!
Of course. You just see the cultural almost zero output out of USSR and compare it with Russia.
Shlomo, Your approach of focusing almost exclusively on the negative aspects of the USSR is not surprising but it is disappointing. Russians have a great deal to be proud of when it comes to the USSR.
Apart from the 1941-45 pushback of the Nazi hordes – as much about Russian desire to survive as about some sort of great thing about the Soviet Union – I cannot think of any positives. Please, outside of its military prowess, explain what there is to be “proud” of. Its education, healthcare, economy, family life, other? The fact that when the decrepit communist regime collapsed, Russia has tipped over into gangsterism, shows how far the structures of civil society had rotted. Not a great advert for the Soviet Union, I would say.
Mickc: Russia poses no threat whatsoever to Britain, provided we stay out of its business, unlike the now defunct USSR.
And yet old Vladimir does things that are a threat to the UK and its wellbeing, such as use his operatives to poison people on the streets of London, Salisbury, etc, and use nerve agents, etc. I’d call that pretty out of order. And by “its business”, Russia often has a very expansive notion of what that it is.
We should undoubtedly not provoke the “bear”, but nor should we help to enrich and feed it beyond what might be strictly unavoidable. And nor should people who take liberty seriously (unlike, it appears, some on this comment thread) keep quiet and roll their eyes as yet another act of oppression takes place. The same applies to the West keeping quiet and doing nothing when Beijing slams down on Hong Kong, as it continues to do.
It may be out of order but it’s a relatively low threat to ‘Britain’ (as opposed to the handful of individuals targeted). The fact is that in the wider scope of things many of Britain’s supposed NATO allies like the US and EU are now a lot more harmful to Britain in their cultural imperialism and economic warfare. It’s not Russians that are pushing Critical Race theory and the Alphabet transgender religion on us, and the EU especially still impinges on British sovereignty considerably more than the FSB do. Some gangsterish assassinations won’t destroy British society; the kind of poisonous ideologies being imported from America are doing so.
Killing thousands of people that way really does keep us from establishing a relationship with one of the three most important nations on earth, I know!
Wait – okay, hundreds of people? No? Tens? Tens of people? No?
Two?
Our basis for keeping a large part of the Earth on warlike tenterhooks is that he killed . . . two?
Fuck, my president kills ten times that many people on a typical Friday. Innocent people and their kids. No, not by poisoning them – we have a techie affinity, so he uses drones – but they’re just as dead.
There are sound bases to despise Putin. He’s a dishonorable murderous thug. But Russia – the Russian people – aren’t Putin. To shut them all down in our minds as you seem to have done, until they have the nerve to stop objecting when we want to park missiles and NATO 300 miles from Moscow, seems like a guarantee of perpetual conflict. Too many historical enmities continue on forever for just this kind of reasoning.
I’m still drinking my morning coffee here. That made sense to me right up until the “edit” option timed out.
In the context of the ‘Skripal affair’, according to Wiki you should make that none.
“Both Sergei and Yulia Skripal spent several weeks in hospital in critical condition, before being discharged. A police officer, Nick Bailey, was also taken into intensive care after attending the incident, and was later discharged“.
This issue was discussed at length in the archives of Samizdata, so there’s little point in going over the topic again, although, at the time, I didn’t know that the first person to find the Skripal’s in a near unconsious state in the park in Sailsbury, just happened to be the Chief nursing officer of the British army.
Sailsbury hosts a substantial British army base but, what are the odds of that?
My understanding of the OP is that it advocates not restricting our own energy production, because that empowers Putin (and is done for silly greenie reasons, like unthinking hostility to nuclear energy or belief in global warming).
I think it is Putin, not the advocates of sane western energy policies, who is keeping the Ukraine on warlike tenterhooks? FWIW, the Ukraine is sizeable, but not that large a part of the Earth in itself. (Xi and the Iranian mullahs are also causing problems, but western energy policy is not so directly relevant to their antics.)
Oh, good! I feared that the latest round of controversy involved The Ukraine, Russia, the US, all of NATO . . . 😉
bobby b,
This is clearly the fault of Putin, what with him stationing ICBMs at bases in Mexico and encouraging countries in the Caribbean to stop buying product from the USA, and supplying “non-lethal aid” and sometimes “lethal aid” to governments that border the USA, and a long history of supporting “colored revolutions” throughout countries in our immediate sphere of influence.
Oh, wait…. is the shoe on the other foot? No, couldn’t be! Russia bad! It’s bad I tell you!!
Bobbyb, you are projecting like an IMAX screen: Our basis for keeping a large part of the Earth on warlike tenterhooks is that he killed . . . two?
There is a rather big difference between wishing to minimize our reliance on energy produced by a gangster state, and of being vigilant about its actions but that is not the same of being “on warlike tenterhooks”.
Niall: My understanding of the OP is that it advocates not restricting our own energy production, because that empowers Putin (and is done for silly greenie reasons, like unthinking hostility to nuclear energy or belief in global warming). That is exactly the point I made. I have even read comments around the internet that Putin is probably encouraging Green activists as his useful idiots. It also highlights how such “liberal” politicians such as Joe Biden, Angela Merkel and the like have played into Putin’s hands, whereas Trump, accused of being a Russian stooge, was anything but because of how he supported fracking.
Back to Bobbyb: Only two people were murdered using nerve poisons in the UK, and that is as much down to dumb luck as anything else. I don’t want these fuckers running around the UK bumping off people like this and with such disregard to the welfare of anyone in the vicinity. Playing all this down and making out that Putin is just an honest-to-goodness patriot, albeit with a few violent habits, is absurd.
I am still rubbing my eyes waiting for Shlomo to come up with a list of Soviet achievements. The anticipation is killing me.
Is that exclusively Russian ‘fuckers’, Johnathan ? Or any ‘fuckers‘ that might take advantage of the lax, to non existant border control ( the torrent of ‘migrants’ travelling to the UK across the English Channel, for example ). It’s entirely possible that more than one or two of those might, I don’t know, stab an MP to death in his weekly ‘meet my constituents’, ‘surgery’.
Because if it were the latter Johnathan, we may have encountered a rare convergence of opinion.
By the way, Eight people were killed in the London Bridge attack, nobody was killed in the Skripal affair, in fact the Skripals are livin’ it large in New Zealand. Seems like a reward, to me.
In the context of the Skripal affair, this assertion is of course, incorrect. The assertion has been made once, and corrected, but the correction ignored.
To my knowledge, Alexander Litvinenko was the last individual who was assinated in London, allegedly by agents of Russia. If Johnathan knows of two others apart from the Skripals, I would be pleased to be corrected.
But the information I have to hand is that both Sergei and Yulia Skripal are alive and living in New Zealand. Which if you ask me is an upgrade to Sailsbury.
I see that my prior comment has been zapped, I presume because I quoted Johnathan’s use of a particular expletive.
Your post, to me, had two main theses:
1. We need energy independence; and
2. Russia sucks!!!
No argument from me on the first. We’re watching national energy suicides take place throughout the West – actually, maybe homicides, as the people passing the new laws aren’t going to be the people freezing to death.
If your Point #2 had been merely “Putin sucks!!”, I could live with that.
We need, and I believe we can achieve, a rapprochement with Russia itself. Your post comes inside of the context of the Ukraine mess, and cannot be dealt with seriously while ignoring that context.
In that context – in this one specific context – Putin has acted with less dishonor than have many of our governments. “Ha! Ya shoulda got it in writing!” Europe has less reason to fear energy dependence on Russia than Russia has to fear for its borders in the face of such gangsterism.
(P.S. Screens don’t project. 😉 )
APL, I thought the murder count in the UK due to Russians’ use of poisons in recent times was two. Here is a story on one of the cases.
You state that Litvinenko’s murder was “alleged” by agents of Russia. Here are several accounts of rulings on the matter. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-58637572 https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-litvinenko-investigation-poisoning/31471215.html
Is that exclusively Russian ‘fuckers’, Johnathan ? Or any ‘fuckers‘ that might take advantage of the lax, to non existant border control ( the torrent of ‘migrants’ travelling to the UK across the English Channel, for example ). It’s entirely possible that more than one or two of those might, I don’t know, stab an MP to death in his weekly ‘meet my constituents’, ‘surgery
I object to any murders, and certainly if operatives and sundry criminals get into the UK to wage crimes, that’s appalling. Or indeed if they are domestic criminals whose ancestors have been in the country for centuries, for that matter. It’s not an either-or issue.
Right, over to Bobby:
Your post, to me, had two main theses:
1. We need energy independence; and
2. Russia sucks!!!
I said we need to be independent to the extent possible, by a mix of domestic energy production and intelligent diversification of imports.
On point 2, Russia does indeed suck, and has been a malign force – with some brief intervals – for far too long. Russia is not Putin, of course, and I hope his regime eventually falls apart, although my worry is that what replaces him and his gang won’t be much of an improvement. All the more reason why my OP is relevant – we cannot afford to rely more than is strictly unavoidable on its energy supplies and various natural resources.
We need, and I believe we can achieve, a rapprochement with Russia itself.
Some sort of diplomatic accord makes sense; what doesn’t make sense is giving Putin/others the notion that it can roll over the Baltic states, turn other nearby states into puppets, etc.
Your post comes inside of the context of the Ukraine mess, and cannot be dealt with seriously while ignoring that context. It is a mess, and the EU (from which I am glad the UK left) played its part, but a good deal of that mess originates in Moscow. It is classic Moscow tactics to cause a problem and when called out on it, play the victim card. I am bemused so many fall for it.
In that context – in this one specific context – Putin has acted with less dishonor than have many of our governments.
That is setting the bar very low.
If the choice is between Mr Putin and the “Rules Based International Order” of Mr Biden and co. I think my response is…
NONE OF THE ABOVE.
I stand with NEITHER – I do not think any of us stand with either the “Davos” World Economic Forum (“Stakeholder Capitalism” – Corporate State) crowd (including the Wall Street Credit Bubble types and their puppet in D.C.) or the, vile, Mr Putin.
If that is the choice – I reject the choice.
“Reopen Nominations”.
Is this the binary choice though? For sure, the ‘international rules based order’ have universalist aims so do seek global hegemony. Putin I think has more modest aims related to perceived Russian national interests and probably his own and his clique’s greed. Perhaps not praiseworthy motives but relatively modest on a global scale Unlike in Soviet times, I don’t think Moscow seeks to export Russian governing and cultural ideology to every corner of the globe. Unlike China it doesn’t have the capacity to dominate the global economy even if it desired to. There’s a chance though that Putin’s undermining of the supposed ‘rules based order’ may (or may not) help give some other states the opportunity to diverge from liberal hegemony.
I do think Brexiteer style Tory MPs who are very keen to show how attached they are to the ‘rules based order’ by wanting confrontation with Russia or wanted never ending occupation of Afghanistan are kidding themselves. The leading lights of the ‘rules based order’ despise them for Brexit, will not forgive them, and would sooner humiliate Britain than they would do anything significant about Russia/China etc
Skripal incident March 2017
Sturgis and Rowley incident June 2018. More than a year later, yet in a whole year of Novachek lying around. Nobody else is affected by this deadly nerve agent, left just, lyin’ around for a year.
Either, fifteen months later the British authorities hadn’t done a decent decontamination job.
Given that the British police had traced every move of the two suspects, leaving fatal doses of Novichok lying around Wiltshire, was just negligent.
–Neil Basu, assistant commissioner for counterterrorism
Then:-
“But it’s probably a safe bet: The Skripal attack took place just eight miles from where Sturgess and Rowley live”
That’s it, that’s the link for this incident to the Russians!! It’s ‘an eight mile probably’ link.
Or of course, never mentioned in any of the news reports of these incidents, is that the British Governments chemical and biological warfare research establishment is just a bus ride away from Sailsbury.
NO Martin – pro independence (which is what you mean by “Brexit”) Conservative Members of Parliament are not, mostly, supportive of world “governance” (which is what the “rules based international order” is about) – indeed it would be absurd to get out of European Union “governance” to support world “governance”.
I support the independence of the Ukraine, and of other nations such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – that in no way makes me “anti Russian” let alone pro world “governance” (which I detest).
“But is it not a binary choice?”
No it is not – indeed that is very old trap.
For example, Nietzsche offered the choice between the illusions of “Apollo” and the squalid evil of “Dionysus” – with the discussion weighted towards Dionysus.
There is a lot of squalid evil in me – a great deal of evil, but I still understand that this is a FAKE choice.
So is the choice between the lies of Mr Putin and the lies of world “governance” – it is tyranny or tyranny (not a real choice.
The answer to Nietzsche choice between Apollo and Dionysus is ATHENA (i.e. neither). This is an answer that Nietzsche himself once came close to, and which Aristotle came to thousands of years before. Spiritual perfection (Apollo) is indeed an illusion (a lie) – but that does not mean one should roll in the gutter either.
If given the choice between Mr Putin and world “governance” the correct response is an “Anglo Saxon” one.
The sort of language that Mr Ecks is expert in – and sometimes such language is correct.
“But Paul – what banner should we follow?”
Sometimes no banner in a conflict is worth following – then it is time to stand aside till when (and if) there is a banner worth following.
Ah APL, you got me: it was a fiendish plot by Theresa May.
How much is the FSB paying? I could use the cash. I want to redo my apartment.
As you know, not nearly as much as the CIA. 🙂
Poor girl, outside the scope of her abilities.
Now Margaret, that was a leader, tovarich.
APL, you are on the CIA payroll, you admit it!
I agree with you on the difference between Maggie and Theresa May.
I still think the idea that the poisonings of people in the UK were some bizarre UK plot to discredit Putin strike me as far-fetched.
Go and read this by Bill Browder: https://www.amazon.com/Red-Notice-Finance-Murder-Justice/dp/1476755744