Maybe the shit is getting serious now?
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Well, why don’t you undertake a reply to your own question? Maybe you should take a serious look at the “shit”, examine it and actually work at determining what is shit and what is fake shit, who is shitting whom. War is serious shit. Putin is a serious shit. Minsk agreements were shit. But predictions of nuclear war scenario are bullshit.
Tucker’s spreading his manure raises a stink, but grows no policy. His shit is not getting more serious, only stinkier. Stop sniffing it. It’s not healthy.
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So is what Joe Biden’s pushing healthy? Or what any of the other fascists in charge of our country now push? Is this war healthy for the thousands of Ukrainian civilians who are dying (just collateral damage) for the sake of our all-important plan to force regime change in Russia?
And I guess that would mean that what Trump says about it is unhealthy bullshit, because he would negotiate to bring an end to it, rather than drag us into another long, drawn out waste of blood and treasure.
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Quote:
While the Soviet Union collapsed geographically in 1991, the Marxist-Leninist ideology that drove it and the KGB that enforced and spread it internationally never did. Today’s ruler in the Kremlin is Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer whose greatest regret in life was the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. His lifelong mission has been to restore that empire—or the Russian empire itself—to its former extent and glory. We know this because he has given speech after public speech, declaring his intent to overturn the U.S.-led post-Cold War world order, or even that of the 1848 Treaty of Westphalia, which established the sovereign nation state with secure borders as the global ideal.Putin sees himself as a modern-day czar, the ruler of a sprawling Slavic empire that forcibly again erases borders, conquers, and subjugates at will any and all peoples once or ever part of a Russian empire of old.
Putin has pointed out more than once that the very name “Ukraine” literally means “the farthest outpost” or “the farthest border”—of the Russian empire. Indeed, Kyiv was the cradle of the Russian empire, not Moscow or St. Petersburg. But in the centuries since, despite repeated invasions and conquests, Ukraine and the Ukrainian people have forged their own national identity, westward-looking, separate and distinct from that of Russia.
The post-Cold War world order of sovereign nation states led by the United States is not to the liking of [neo-imperialist] regimes in China, Iran, or Russia. The global balance of power is not in Moscow’s favor and it is less so every day. Russia feels itself losing by every measure. Its birth rate is in a demographic death spiral, its centralized command economy is flailing, its military has nukes but not much else, and its political power and influence on the world stage are slipping away. Too many of its people live impoverished lives, crushed by a totalitarian regime.
So, Putin is making a last effort to stop it all from slipping away. His target is not the Muslim lands of Central Asia, but the Slavic people of Eastern Europe, whom he sees as rightfully Russia’s to dominate—and perhaps as replenishment for his own declining Slavic population. Perceptions of weakness in Washington, D.C., inevitably embolden aggressors. In 2008, Putin snatched Abkhazia from Georgia to mostly yawns from the West. In 2014, with an Obama Administration widely seen as willing to appease, Putin grabbed Crimea and invaded the Donbas. He didn’t dare make a move during Donald Trump’s tenure, but with the Biden Administration’s flight from Afghanistan in August 2021, Putin saw his chance once again.
Despite Democratic Party hysteria during the Trump years about Kremlin operations, now that it’s the Democrats who champion Ukraine’s defense, Russian disinformation campaigns have convinced too many otherwise level-headed conservative figures that Ukraine doesn’t deserve our help.
Memes and narratives spreading fear of World War III and nuclear Armageddon have had the desired effect of demoralizing and dividing the West.
America will need a change of administrations, a change at the top levels of our government, and a new leader in the White House … if we [are] to remain free and secure in a world full of neo-emperors and warlords.
It’s interesting that Lopez cites George Kennan, who “helped shape a realistic policy for…NATO and the West”, but fails to mention Kennan’s own warning about NATO expansion as - “a strategic blunder of potentially epic proportions…I think Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No-one was threatening anyone else.”
Many other strategic thinkers also cautioned that war was likely if the West continued support for Ukraine to one day join NATO.
She points out Putin’s aggressions, but fails to mention the broken agreements and other provocations of the U.S. that instigated them, such as the broken promise of Bush in '90 not to expand NATO eastward. Then there was the CIA backed Maidan coup, and the supplying of arms to Ukraine by the U.S.
Yes, Russia invaded Ukraine, but to say that it was “unprovoked”, or that it couldn’t have been prevented by a more level-headed, reasoned U.S. strategy that was aimed at keeping peace rather than provoking conflict, is simply not true.
(My quotes are from an article at “Euphoric Recall”: “The Russia Ukraine War Was Not Inevitable”)
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Obviously, Claire, we think of this entire event differently.
Fantastic use of the word “shit,” however.
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Thanks for telling us about that article.
Who are the analysts the author quotes? Chomsky, William Burns, Thomas Friedman, Mearsheimer. All generals of the demon army we struggle against.
No mention of the earlier invasions of Ukraine by Russia - Putin’s grabs of the Crimea and the Donbas.
It is not a bad thing if Russia fears the West, fears NATO, fears invasion. Seems it doesn’t fear them enough.
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Maybe those “generals of the demon army” had a point. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
And the author of the article you shared held up Kennon as a badly needed voice of reason with “a brilliant understanding of the Soviet Union’s core ideology, motivation and intent”, who “helped shape a realistic policy for the U.S., NATO, and the West…”
I don’t think he was a Soviet sympathizer, but rather one with “a brilliant understanding” who understood how to shape “realistic policy”, and who’s warning about NATO expansion should have been heeded.
And yes, Russia should fear the West, as a deterrent to war. That was the whole point of shaping a “realistic policy” of deterrence - “peace through strength” - not through provocations.
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We do have a difference of opinion over Russia, Liz. But that’s just fine. Expressing different opinions is what this forum is for.
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I have no idea what the “event” is you are referring to. I did not watch the Tucker video you linked to. I watch him regularly anyway. I assumed you were referring to the Ukraine War, as this is a big part of Tucker’s schtick, which I enjoy as schtick. I don’t take it seriously.
Is your “shit” and my “schtick” the same thing?
Apparently not. It is okay with me if it is okay with you.
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