It’s time for your new favorite game! It’s called “Paid Russian Shill or Prominent Western Idiot?”
Ever thought that some extremist’s bad take sounded indistinguishable from actual Russian propaganda? You might be right!
|
|||||
|
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] Authors
Arts, Tech & CultureCivil LibertiesCommentary
EconomicsSamizdatistas |
Samizdata quote of the dayMarch 19th, 2022 |
 57 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
Who Are We?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. CategoriesArchivesFeed This PageLink Icons   |
|||
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. |
|||||
People are desperate – Western Civilisation is in terrible decline and has been for a long time.
It is a terrible tragedy that, in their terrible distress, people put their faith in a worthless man – Mr Putin. He is not who these desperate people think he is – he really is not. Mr Putin is utterly vile – but, in their desperation (their AGONY) some people just can not see that.
As for “Neo Liberalism” – this term has never been clearly defined to me. I am sometimes that it means “like the Economist magazine” – well I DETEST the Economist magazine, so if that is New Liberalism I am certainly not a NeoLiberal.
One of the questions for which we’re asked to choose “Paid Russian Shill” or “Prominent Western Idiot” as the likely author is:
Given the current state and trajectory of the US economy, this is valid political argument, and not too far off from where many people are right now.
This is just more wokester drivel. “It’s black-and-white, and if you hesitate you’re a Putin-lover, either paid or stoopid! He caused the gas and food prices to rise!”
It weird, we’ve had Paul Marks on here for what seems like decades writing screeds of vitriol decrying how Western elites are destroying what was Western civilisation, and how anything good about the West is either gone or not long for this world, and yet now we’re told to believe everything those Western elites say and clap along like good little seals to their Ukrainian Neo Nazi supporting politician good, Russian man bad routine.
I no more care for the Western elites than I have for Putin. A plague on both their houses I say, its a shame they can’t have the MAD fantasy they they keep orgasming over between themselves and leave us normies out of it. If Putin had a ‘woke seeking’ neutron bomb I’d be quite happy if he unleashed it on the West right away.
While Western Europe is in malaise, that doesn’t mean Western values are.
The Hong Kongers, Taiwanese, Koreans, etc value democracy, free markets and personal liberty, even if we don’t. Without losing their traditional culture either.
Eastern Europe is trying to go that way too. Poland and Hungary are not much interested in woke.
So which is Jim I wonder?
“So which is Jim I wonder?”
More to the point, what are you? Paid Elite Shill or Faux anti-Establishment idiot?
You’ve done nothing but decry western elites for the last umpteen years on here, I’ve been reading for a long time. But now you’ve suddenly jumped on their latest bandwagon and like all good fellow travellers have started calling those who disagree with you not only mad but actively bad as well. You’re pulling the oldest leftist trick in the book – he is not for me is against me. My opponents are despicable and evil, while I alone know the true moral path.
You are demonstrating a lack of critical thinking, Jim. If the elites are saying things that are false because their interests are served by saying them (most of the covid narrative, for example), then I oppose it. But I oppose it because I have reason to believe it is false, not because George Soros, Neil Ferguson or Klaus Schwab said it.
But if they are saying something palpably true, because their interests are served by saying it, then “bravely standing against the narrative” is idiocy, not bravery. Ukraine, for example. If that fountain of lies Antony Fauci says it is noon when it really is noon, I am not going to argue the point.
Many natural sceptics, rightly distrustful of mainstream narratives for very good reasons, have allowed themselves to become so open minded to alternative narratives that their brains fell out, failing to grasp that just because Russia Today was good at pointing out the idiocy of wokery and things like BLM, maybe their description of events in Donbas or the risks of fracking might not be true at all. Oh, and the canard of “The CIA caused Maidan”. Sheesh.
Trouble is, the last two years have driven people insane. And everyone has became an expert on Ukraine when a few weeks ago most could not find it on a map.
“…I’ve been reading for a long time. But now you’ve suddenly jumped on their latest bandwagon and like all good fellow travellers have started calling those who disagree with you not only mad but actively bad as well.”
I guess you came in after the conquest of Iraq, which he was completely in favor of and was behaving exactly the same way about.
But we ARE between themselves. Let’s stick to them dueling.
This is a rubbish game! It’s just “Homeless or Hipster” but with words and ideas, instead of rags and body odor!
Neoliberals playing vicarious nationalism (after years of claiming any form of British/English, French, American nationalism were completely illegitimate) and doing Joe McCarthy impressions….well the latter was cringe once they started the Russiagate nonsense, and the former is just as cringe.
Earlier in the week, Ed West tweeted:
https://twitter.com/edwest/status/1503663628708421633
‘Interesting sounding-book. If Americans are going to start accusing each other of being Russian assets, there are far more people in the US with financial links to the Chinese regime’
The reply from ‘ReStation’:
https://twitter.com/St1Station/status/1503736642082795523
‘[whispers] Cod-Freudian as it sounds, this is exactly why so many people nowadays accuse one another of being “Russian agents”—because at some level they’re guilty about their ties to another, far more formidable rival.’
And boy,if we wanted to run up a wrap sheet against ‘neoliberals’ for being Red China patsies, we could fill a dossier that would reach the moon.
No doubt, but beware whataboutism.
No. I’m not going to stand with those who would happily see me dead (they spent the last 2 years locking me in my house, attempting to inject me with a dangerous medical substance, and only just stopped short of forcing it on me (and others of course) at the price of keeping my livelihood) just because they may have a point this time. Would you stand with Hitler because he was right about Communism? The Western elites are evil, they have set out to destroy their own populations and cultural history. I’m not going to stand with them on anything. I want them destroyed as much as I want Putin destroyed.
When you look at the actual behaviour of liberal political, economic and media elites, as opposed to their posturing rhetoric, their accusations against others as being Putin stooges appear as ‘whataboutism’ to deflect attention from their own poor decisions regarding Russia.
Note in France the attention given to a loan Marine Le Pen got from a Russian bank. Admittedly embarrassing. But then note that the French, German and Italian governments kept selling military equipment to Russia long after 2014. Let’s not even touch how many states became more dependent on Russian fossil fuels after 2014. Let’s note who in France was in charge at the time of the arms sales. Now ask yourself who did more to empower the Russian state and military? Le Pen or the European Union?
Well, we did ‘stand with Stalin’ because he was fighting Nazism and Hitler was the more immediate threat.
And I am standing with Ukraine, the fact people I dislike for other reasons are also doing so, for reasons of their own, is just one of those things. A bit like sending aid to Stalin to get rid of Hitler. I also backed Brexit, as did a certain strain of British nationalists with whom I have very little in common ideologically. So what?
Poor little Ukraine!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wC_iSONfWs&t=2s
And your point is?
His point is Russia should be allowed to destroy Ukraine without our pesky interference giving them weapons because… frankly who cares what his stated reasons are.
Its odd, we fought Nazis for 6 years at the cost of millions dead, and when it was all over we welcomed Germany (western division) back into the fold of Western nations within a decade. We then fought Communism for 45 years at the cost of a few tens of thousands dead, and when that was over we’ve treated Russia like a pariah state ever since. Is it any surprise when they then act like one? One country wages war on everyone around it, don’t worry, not the fault of its people, here have some assistance getting back on your feet. Another gives up its empire voluntarily without a fight and its people have the sins of their former leaders heaped upon them for eternity. Its almost as if the West needed a bogey man to blame for anything and everything, and Russia fitted the bill perfectly. And of course for the last 20 years we have actually really had a country trying to infiltrate our institutions and influence Western nations, but no-one will mention it because they aren’t white and therefore any criticism of them is racist.
And yet none of where we have arrived at is our fault at all, the West always has squeaky clean snow white hands. Come to think of it the West is the ultimate narcissist. Nothing is ever their fault and everyone else is always to blame for the trail of sh*t that follows them around.
Like bobby b, I notice that the ‘quality’ of the statements dismissed as ‘Russian shill’ or ‘western idiot’ varies. When I read
then its being said by a paid Russian shill was secondary to me. Sadly more important was the fact that the woke weakness of the west lets paid Russian shills advance their cause by making true statements. Wokeness does not only weaken us in such overt ways as e.g. fleeing Afghanistan.
Likewise
and
and even
are a sad comedown from the days when the west could contrast communist information blackouts with its own confidence in free speech.
Glenn Greenwald from the left and Candace Owens from the right are both dubbed ‘prominent western idiots’. They (like any of us) are quite capable of being wrong, especially in areas with which they are unfamiliar, but I’m not impressed by a site that dismisses them so crudely.
To echo what Perry said above, if your enemy says the sky is blue, it is not your enemy you harm by replying, “No, it’s not and you’re a vile human being for saying so”. When the speaker is a paid Russian shill, the phrase “you’re a vile human being” is deserved – but the before and after need a little more thought.
Germany underwent de-nazification and was in no position to threaten anyone. Russia on the other hand remained an empire, one that neither de-colonialised nor repudiated its past. So yes, it remained a threat and has been treated accordingly.
With respect, what was the events of 1989 and 1991 if not ‘decolonisation’? At the risk of being accused of being a Putinite, it should be noted that the ‘Russians’ back then gave up huge amounts of their empire with much less violence than the Germans did in WW2.
As for Germany, many have claimed that the EU is German imperialism by alternative means (‘banks not tanks’), and there is much to support such an interpretation. I thought that was one reason we Brits got out of it.
A lot of Chechens would not agree with you. Do you understand the sheer number of ethnic minorities still within what is now Russia?
Yeh I’m aware Russia is about 23pc minorities. What’s your point?
As for Chechnya, the wars were horrible but they were initiated by Yeltsin, at a time effectively everyone in the west supported Yeltsin. In the middle of the first war there was considerable American assistance to help Yeltsin get reelected when it looked like he’d get beat by the Communists in 1996. When Chechnya was nominally independent it was recognised by just one foreign state as a legitimate government. Which state was this? The USA? Great Britain? France? Germany? Sweden? Nope, it was the Taliban government of Afghanistan!
Anyway,aren’t you deploying whatabouttery here? What happened in Chechnya doesn’t just cancel out the end of the Warsaw Pact and that the USSR became fifteen independent states. Generally speaking, and as I said especially compared to how Germany fought to the bitter end for its imperialism, this was relatively peaceful.
“Jim” – in none of my “screeds of vitriol” have I ever said that Mr Putin was a good man – because he is not. Mr Putin is a violent criminal, he always has been – but I thought he had the intelligence (or at least the cunning) not to do what he has done. He has always been an evil man – but now he has become stupid as well. He surprised me with the scale of what he has done – and just how stupid it is, how much harm he has just done to his own regime (to himself).
You keep talking about “Russia” – this is nothing to do with “Russia”, this is about Mr Putin (who has murdered many Russians – he has been murdering Russians for many years). You also pretend that Mr Putin (who you call “Russia”) is doing bad things because bad things have been done to him – in reality Mr Putin has been committing terrible crimes for a very long time, it has absolutely nothing to do with how the West has done X, Y, Z to him.
As for the Western establishment – I do not retract one word I have said about them (not “screeds of vitriol” – but truth which I relate in great sadness, indeed despair), but this is no way relevant to what is going on in Ukraine, or the other things that Mr Putin has done.
I do not need the Western establishment to tell me what is going on the Ukraine or in Russia – I know Ukrainians and I know Russians.
“But how can the lying Western establishment be telling the truth about this?” – because liars do not lie all-the-time.
In this case it happens to be in their interests to tell-the-truth – so they do. And they love it when their opponents (SOME of their opponents) deny it is the truth. They love it because that DISCREDITS their opponents – discredits in relation to other things (things their opponents are actually correct about).
I remember Tucker Carlson mocking the American establishment for saying that Mr Putin was about to launch an invasion of the Ukraine – I wish I could have spoken to him, but I do not know him.
The establishment would not have made such a confident prediction had they not KNOWN that Mr Putin was about to attack – thus, by mocking their prediction, Tucker Carlson was falling into a trap.
So have a lot of people. And some (some) of them do not understand the line “when you are in a hole – stop digging”.
People need to stop making excuses for Mr Putin, and need to do their little-bit to oppose him.
“Does that mean that you are a friend of the Western “New Liberals” now?”
Hell no – I despise them. But that is not relevant.
What do you think my opinion of Woodrow Wilson, or David Lloyd George, or Franklin Roosevelt, or Clement Atlee is?
My opinion of them is negative (to put the matter mildly) – but that would not have stopped me SUPPORTING these vile creatures in both World Wars.
My point is Russia is still a Russian Empire. And unlike Scotland, minorities voting to secede will not be on offer anytime soon. Personally, I think Spain is likewise unreasonable not allowing Basques to vote on the subject (albeit, like Scotland, I think they would be crazy to actually vote for independence, but that is hardly the point).
Sure, it collapsed economically and politically and lost several colonies. But if you look at a map, it is still very much an Empire.
Not at all, I am just pointing out that Russia is still an Empire, and as the Chechens discovered, leaving said empire is a non-trivial problem. And as the Ukrainians were well aware, it is an Empire that intends to recolonise its former territories. Unsurprisingly, rather a lot of people well aware of this have treated post-Communist Russia very differently to post-Nazi Germany.
It was ‘relatively peaceful’ because Russia was not crushed militarily, it collapsed internally economically and politically, only retaining parts of the Empire not cohesive enough to break away. And since then, they have salami sliced parts of their former colonies off and made them once again de facto parts of their Empire.
Well it is, because I referred to the events of 1989 and 1991 and you brought up something that happened in 1994 and 1999. I brought up the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the end of the USSR and your response was effectively ‘whataboutChechnya’
Let’s see what sort of inevitable deal will be done to end this, and who ends up getting shafted. I’m guessing it won’t be Putin, the (literal) comedian running the Ukraine, the legions of the moral good and great in the west or the kleptocrats in any of them.
Nope. Why I mentioned Chechnya is to demonstrate that Russia is a revanchist Empire willing to use force to prevent further secessions, so the fact the Warsaw Pact ended & they lost parts of their Empire (such as the Baltics & certain ‘Stans) is actually irrelevant to “did they de-colonialise?’… no, they did not as they still have many colonies, and some, like Chechnya, were palpably unwilling to be colonies. No one cares about the Falklands or Martinique because they could (but won’t) vote themselves independence. Russia is an altogether different kind of beast.
Thus, it is hardly surprising post-Communist Russia was treated differently to post-Nazi Germany.
“You keep talking about “Russia” – this is nothing to do with “Russia”, this is about Mr Putin (who has murdered many Russians – he has been murdering Russians for many years). You also pretend that Mr Putin (who you call “Russia”) is doing bad things because bad things have been done to him – in reality Mr Putin has been committing terrible crimes for a very long time, it has absolutely nothing to do with how the West has done X, Y, Z to him.”
So why are our wonderful moral and enlightened powers that be punishing ordinary Russians over here then? Sorry Igor, your son can’t go to school in the UK. Ooh, Roman, nice football club you’ve got there, we’ll have that thanks! Oh, and take down that statue of the first person in space, can’t be celebrating any of those damn Reds can we! Stop playing those decadent Russian composers on the radio, I don’t care if they’re 100 years dead! Don’t you know there’s virtue to signal here????
Western elites are indulging in the sort of behaviour we used to (rightly) condemn the likes of Putin for. Far from the West being a beacon of freedom and democracy they are showing its true colours – a despotic quasi-dictatorship whereby if you fall out with the Establishment, they end you. They have as much blood on their hands as Putin has on his. He just doesn’t pretend he’s as pure as the driven.
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
It depends what happens on the battlefield. If there are more Javelins & Bayraktars remaining in Ukraine than Russian tanks, the deal will favour Ukraine. If there are more Russian tanks than Ukrainian Javelins & Bayraktars, the deal will favour Russia, assuming there is a Ukraine left to make a deal with.
Sure, that is idiotic, no argument there.
Agreed. And so what?
Yaron Brook, of the Ayn Rand Institute (Rand was originally from Russia), has this powerful takedown of the American “influencer” Candace Owens, who appears to have gone full idiot over Putin.
Jim writes: So why are our wonderful moral and enlightened powers that be punishing ordinary Russians over here then? Sorry Igor, your son can’t go to school in the UK. Ooh, Roman, nice football club you’ve got there, we’ll have that thanks! Oh, and take down that statue of the first person in space, can’t be celebrating any of those damn Reds can we! Stop playing those decadent Russian composers on the radio, I don’t care if they’re 100 years dead! Don’t you know there’s virtue to signal here????
A lot of silliness is mixed up with the need to turn off the economic taps for Russia. Alas, that means that a lot of ordinary Russians will suffer; it is, unfortunately, necessary to make Russians aware of the scale of the monstrosity of their regime to try and change it, hopefully by deposing him.
By the way, Jim, do you defend Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? Do you think it wise? It would be good to clarify, you know, just to avoid any unpleasant misunderstandings.
I doubt this will happen:
1) Most of central and Eastern Europe can’t stop buying Russian oil and gas anytime soon unless they want to have blackouts and as the German energy minister said ‘mass unemployment, poverty, people who can’t heat their homes, people who run out of petrol’. Most other major oil/gas producers don’t seem interested right now increasing supplies, and have their own problems with the west and interests in high energy prices. Western politicians are too wrapped up in contradicting agendas and ideologies and are heavily indebted, so I think that few of them will be producing a lot more of their own energy in a hurry.
2) Most non-western nations will only play ball with sanctions to the extent they have to. Outside that, they will ignore them as much as they can. If the sanctions continue to contribute to high energy and food prices, while the western media may blame Russia, I’d be doubtful that non-western media will do the same. They are just as likely, if not more likely, to blame the US and Europe.
3) Outside of apartheid South Africa, I can’t think of any examples where sanctions caused internal regime change….Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Syria, Belarus, Cuba, Burma….right now all the regimes in each of these look pretty secure from toppling despite western sanctions.
I wonder how much power the population of Russia has in the selection of its supreme leader. If they have such power, then sanctions against the country – the people – make sense. If they’re basically powerless, then not so much.
And I get very conflicting views on this question.
Extreme sanctions against states such as North Korea probably do as much to keep the people so impoverished as to foreclose any ability to rise up against Kim Jong-un as they do to punish him.
“It depends what happens on the battlefield”
Not entirely.
Whatever “moral” support our kleptocrats (“the west”) are providing, I would assume that any deal would require some sort of longer term financial commitment. Whatever Vlad gets from oil and gas revenues, wasn’t Ukraine getting billions from the transhipment of Russian gas, which nordstream was going to cut off?
I’m not sure how much it will cost to rebuild what has already been destroyed, but whatever that cost may be, it won’t be coming from Russia. I can feel somebody walking over my wallet!
Martin: 1) Most of central and Eastern Europe can’t stop buying Russian oil and gas anytime soon unless they want to have blackouts and as the German energy minister said ‘mass unemployment, poverty, people who can’t heat their homes, people who run out of petrol’. Most other major oil/gas producers don’t seem interested right now increasing supplies, and have their own problems with the west and interests in high energy prices. Western politicians are too wrapped up in contradicting agendas and ideologies and are heavily indebted, so I think that few of them will be producing a lot more of their own energy in a hurry.
The hits from the sanctions are still massive. Look at the fall in the rouble.
Most non-western nations will only play ball with sanctions to the extent they have to. I am sure, but that does not mean we sit and do nothing.
Outside of apartheid South Africa, I can’t think of any examples where sanctions caused internal regime change….Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Syria, Belarus, Cuba, Burma….right now all the regimes in each of these look pretty secure from toppling despite western sanctions. The alternative of hoping that these places would get so rich that the countries would become benign, middle class and liberal has also turned out to be a mirage, at least in the case of China.
Sanctions aren’t great, they are not perfect, but short of finding out how to shoot Putin in the head, the West have few other options short of war. It is not as if we can shrug our shoulders, hope the plucky Ukrainians prevail, and sneak some missiles to them (although those missiles have been v. handy)
“By the way, Jim, do you defend Putin’s invasion of Ukraine?”
Of course not. Putin deserves to hang for what he’s done. But then so do a lot of Western ‘leaders’ as well, but there’s no chance of that, they’re all as pure as the driven snow. No chance of Blair or Bush getting a noose around their necks for what they did, which has killed far more than Putin has (so far).
“A lot of silliness is mixed up with the need to turn off the economic taps for Russia. Alas, that means that a lot of ordinary Russians will suffer; it is, unfortunately, necessary to make Russians aware of the scale of the monstrosity of their regime to try and change it, hopefully by deposing him.”
When do we do the same to the Saudis and Chinese then?
Jim, Iraq under Saddam used chemical weapons on the Kurds ans much else besides, including it being a menace to the wider region. Removing Saddam was necessary, although I accept people an disagree. There’s little parallel with Ukraine and zero parallel with Putin’s mad justification for invading that nation.
Even if the Coalition effort to remove Saddam and his regime was foolish, it certainly doesn’t mean the moral condemnation of Putin isn’t justified now. That’s another form of whataboutism.
As I like to note, don’t overlook the power of that little word, “and”.
This was always a case of many westerners getting high off their own ideological supply a bit much.
Foolish? Well it was that for sure. It was also downright evil in its consequences.
I did not think much of the Iraq operation – but it achieved its objectives, the Dictator Saddam Hussain (who had slaughtered the Iraqi people, and others, for many years) was removed – and a democratically elected Shia government (the Shia are the majority in Iraq) is in place – with autonomy for the Kurds. As for the large numbers of civilians killed by ISIS (Islamic State) – this Sunni organisation was created by supported of the former dictator (Saddam had evolved from his youthful socialism – by his last years he was doing such things as donating his own blood to be used to help make a special copy of the Koran).
Blaming the United States for civilians killed by the enemies of the United States is utterly bizarre. Saddam slaughtered Iraqi civilians – and his supporters (remained Islamic State) continued to do so after his dead. The Sunni Islamic State has been defeated and there is a Shia government in Iraq (the Shia are the majority of the population) with autonomy for the Kurds.
Was this operation worth the American lives (and money) spent upon it? I suspect NOT – but the propaganda attacks upon it are utterly twisted.
It was also downright evil in its consequences.
Indeed, but the primary responsibility has to be with the terror groups – mostly backed by Iran – that sought to exploit the post-Saddam situation. The fact remains that Saddam’s regime was a vile one, and one with a repeated history of threats to neighbours (Kuwait, Saudi, Iran, the Kurds, Israel). Those threats were real, and justified trying to do something about the bastard (no-fly zones, cutting off technology, other). This is why when people engage in whataboutery over Ukraine “um, er, but we invaded places and people muh, died” is so risible.
It was not just Tucker Carlson who walked into a trap (I could see him do it – but I do not know him, so I could not warn him), it was many others.
When Mr Putin invaded it was a shock to a lot of people (Tucker Carlson, Nigel Farage and many other good people – yes GOOD people, I do not care who reads me say that) who confidently predicted he would NOT.
When you are in a hole you must STOP DIGGING.
You need now to condemn the Dictator Mr Putin – and you need to do what you can to oppose him.
I say again to the libertarians and conservatives who find themselves in a hole on this matter (including some on this thread), STOP DIGGING.
You are in a hole on the Ukraine – please STOP DIGGING.
One interesting thing about Iraq is that not all the Shia proved to be pro Iranian regime – some were, but far from all (indeed the Iranian regime ended up indirectly backing its sworn enemies – Sunni extremists, and backing people fighting those same groups).
I rather suspected that all the Shia would prove to be pro Iranian regime.
I was WRONG – and I ADMIT that I was wrong.
A democratically elected Shia government (the Shia are the majority in Iraq) that is NOT a puppet of the Iranian regime, and autonomy for the Kurds – this was the objective. And it is an objective that may (may) come to pass.
Was the operation worth the lives and the money (yes the money – I care about money, because without it people starve) spent on the operation? My view has long been that it was NOT – but other people have respectable arguments against my position on this.
But as for bringing up Iraq in some sort of desperate effort to say that nothing should be done against Mr Putin – that is just daft.
I say again to conservatives and libertarians still pushing the pro Putin stuff – you are in a hole, please STOP DIGGING.
To people who say “Russia is still an Empire” – Russia is a multi ethnic state, are we not all supposed to support such things? Someone who said “blacks and Asians out of Britain!” would not go down well these days. And if Russia broke up – the power that would benefit would be the People’s Republic of China, which would absorb Siberia and so on.
Mr Putin (being a fool – as well as a vicious criminal) may not have grasped this. His “friend” the People’s Republic of China is not really his friend at all.
The problem is NOT “Russia”, or “Russian Culture” – the problem is Mr Putin.
Indeed the only way the West has any chance at all of surviving against the People’s Republic of China (which has had greater industrial output than the United States since 2014 – and now dwarfs American industry, “GDP” is a measurement that only impresses those ignorant of the fact that it means spending-consumption), is by an alliance with Russia – Russia NOT Putin.
An alliance with Russia (not Putin) is vital if the West is to have any chance at all of surviving against the People’s Republic of China in the long term.
So continually attacking “Russia” rather than MR PUTIN, is not sensible.
True SUPPORT for Russia (that vast multi ethnic state that stretches from the Baltic to the Pacific) means OPPOSITION to Mr Putin.
We must make clear that we are FRIENDS of Russia – which makes us ENEMIES of Mr Putin, who has done such harm to Russia, to the Russian people.
Whether it is St Petersburg on the Baltic or Vladivostok on the Pacific, or those little Russian villages on the Chinese border, or Moscow itself – Russia is part of Western Civilisation, just as much as Britain or the United States is. Remember both Britain and the United States are multi ethnic states – they are not ethnically homogenous as (for example) Japan (basically) is. Indeed it is very problematic in Britain today to suggest that it was better when it was ethnically homogenous – so we must be rather careful about suggesting that Russia is bad because Russia is multi ethnic (has Tartars and so on).
The People’s Republic of China Communist Party Dictatorship (our true enemy) wants Russia and the rest of the West to be enemies – that is why they have backed Mr Putin for TWENTY YEARS.
Mr Putin is our enemy – NOT “Russia”. To hold otherwise plays into the hands of the People’s Republic of China Communist Party Dictatorship (our true enemy).
I repeat – Vladivostok and St Petersburg are just as much part of Western Civilisation as Manchester or Cleveland are.
Those who deny that, make the People’s Republic of China Communist Party Dictatorship (our true enemy) very happy.
I know a lot of people who fundamentally disagree with you. I actually had this argument with a Ukrainian a few years ago (with me kinda sorta taking your position) & he took the contrary view. His views were (to paraphrase a long and nuanced chat grossly) that Ukrainians were turning their back on Russia precisely because they want to be part of western civilisation rather than Russian civilisation, which really is its own thing, more Asiatic in outlook in spite of its pretensions. He was exasperated how few westerners, at least ones without extensive firsthand exposure to the world east of the Oder–Neisse line, totally did not ‘get’ Russia.
“We must make clear that we are FRIENDS of Russia – which makes us ENEMIES of Mr Putin, who has done such harm to Russia, to the Russian people.”
Shame we spent the last 30 years since the fall of Communism treating Russia (and individual Russians) like pariahs then. Look at the difference between the treatment Russia got and that China has got, despite China still being a Communist dictatorship that kills its own people, and is actively involved in trying to undermine the West in any way it can?
From Adam Tooze in the New Statesman, taking on the supposed “realist” views of US academic of international relations, John Mearsheimer:
Jim writes: Shame we spent the last 30 years since the fall of Communism treating Russia (and individual Russians) like pariahs then.
We “spent the last 20 years since the fall of communism treating Putin and his gang like pariahs then”. Fixed that for you.
In fact, we spent the past 20 years taking a lot of Russian money; we spent the past two decades and more importing its natural resources, but slowly but surely, those with eyes to see and minds to bear realised the nature of what Putin was about. The murders of journalists, businessmen, annoying investors, the shooting down of a Malaysian airliner; Crimea, Georgia, Moldova, cyberattacks on the Baltics. On and on. After a while, the noise level comes too loud to shut out of one’s mind.
“After a while, the noise level comes too loud to shut out of one’s mind”
And how much noise has the ‘liberal elite’ managed to shut out of its mind regarding China then?
Perry de Havilland (London, March 21, 2022 at 11:13 am), I might agree with your Ukrainian friend as regards Russia not being as much part of Western civilisation as we in the west tend to think.
Peter the Great was a very unlikely Tsar of Russia. He used his almost manic energy, his childhood-assumed un-Russian, unorthodox enthusiasms, and his luck (to survive and succeed) to drag Russia culturally westwards – by using the asiatic autocratic powers given him through its being a very unwestern state. The effect has parallels with Bismark’s creating a unified Germany by the military might and parliament-defying tax power of the Prussian state. In both cases, but even more in the case of Russia, the means could be seen at the time as the only immediately viable means, yet had an innate tendency to pervert the full achievement of the ends.
I speak as a westerner who has never been in Russia.
I sometimes watch Al Jazeera (that might come as a bit of a shock to my dear-sweet-friends at Central Office, assuming they even know what Al Jazeera is – and it certainly is not a pro American television station, and it is not too fond of Red Sea pedestrians either), and today I watched the Kurds of Iraq celebrating the Persian New Year – which is also the first day of spring.
The traditional Kurdish rituals that would have got them torture and death under Saddam Hussain, are now freely followed and the Kurds have their autonomy. But according to the death-to-America crowd on the internet, this does not matter.
Perry and Niall offer some cautious, non-committal pushback to this notion. I have already offered some equally cautious and non-committal pushback in another thread, where i observed that there have long been at least 2 conflicting tendencies in Russian culture, which we might call pro-Western and nationalist.
When it comes to identifying distinct “civilizations”, i start with 3 books:
Carroll Quigley: The Evolution of Civilizations;
Samuel Huntington: The Clash of Civilizations;
Charles Murray: Human Accomplishment.
Both Quigley and Huntington distinguish between Western and Orthodox civilizations, and therefore think differently from Paul Marks. OTOH Charles Murray’s lists for accomplishments in literature, music, and art, place Russia (and Ukraine) firmly within Western civilization. So the issue is not clear-cut.
I might add that all of us living on the European Plain ought to find a modus vivendi.
PS: Western civilization itself could be said to be divided between at least 2 conflicting tendencies: the absolutist/totalitarian tendency and the constitutionalist/Lockean tendency.
This would have more weight if outside the Kurds,any of these countries had contributed any troops to invade Iraq. In the case of Saudi Arabia and Israel, these are both in the top 15 of defence spenders in the world, so it wasn’t that they were incapable. I think it was more down to the fact that they didn’t think the invasion was a good idea.
As for Iran, the US army’s own official study concluded that the Islamic Republic was ‘the only victor’ of the Iraq war:
Those who supported the Iraq war, regardless of their motives, ended up being Iran’s ‘useful idiots’.
US Treasury data suggests under the Bush II government US treasury bills in Chinese hands went from $62 billion to $740 billion. Now I realise they were spending on other things than just war, however given that the Iraq war cost for the US is estimated as over $2 trillion, I suspect at least a chunk of the Iraq war was paid for by borrowing from China. All I’ll say is that if you think that was wise, I have a used car to sell….