What's With Russia?

Discussion in 'World Events' started by joepistole, Nov 11, 2014.

  1. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    For years after the collapse of the Soviet Union the Western world rushed assist Russia and integrate it into the world economy based on the assumption Russia would become a valued, trusted and respected member of the world community. The West provided Russia financial support, technical support and political support offering Russia G8 membership and the Security Council seat formerly held by the Soviet Union.
    With repeated and continuing acts of aggression and internal repression, it has become very apparent that trust was misplaced. So what will be the future of Western relations with Russia? Russia is believed to have conducted cyber-attacks on Estonia as retaliation for moving a Soviet war memorial. Russia is believed to have conducted a number of cyber-attacks in Georgia and in the US but without success. Russian troops did invade it Georgia and Ukraine and annexed the land of neighboring states with the force of arms. And are now trying to annex more Ukrainian land. Putin is increasingly looking like Hitler and less like the democratic leader the West had hoped he would be.

    Russia is also cracking down on internal dissidents and the press. This is indeed grave news for the world. It appears Russia is slipping back into the dark ways of the Soviet era. Putin has nationalized several companies and will likely nationalize more. New laws make it impossible for the international press to operate within Russia. Russians now only have access to state approved information.

    “At the NATO summit in Wales last week, General Philip Breedlove, the military alliance’s top commander, made a bold declaration. Russia, he said, is waging “the most amazing information warfare blitzkrieg we have ever seen in the history of information warfare.”

    It was something of an underestimation. The new Russia doesn’t just deal in the petty disinformation, forgeries, lies, leaks, and cyber-sabotage usually associated with information warfare. It reinvents reality, creating mass hallucinations that then translate into political action. Take Novorossiya, the name Vladimir Putin has given to the huge wedge of southeastern Ukraine he might, or might not, consider annexing. The term is plucked from tsarist history, when it represented a different geographical space. Nobody who lives in that part of the world today ever thought of themselves as living in Novorossiya and bearing allegiance to it—at least until several months ago. Now, Novorossiya is being imagined into being: Russian media are showing maps of its ‘geography,’ while Kremlin-backed politicians are writing its ‘history’ into school textbooks. There’s a flag and even a news agency (in English and Russian). There are several Twitter feeds. It’s like something out of a Borges story—except for the very real casualties of the war conducted in its name.
    The invention of Novorossiya is a sign of Russia’s domestic system of information manipulation going global. Today’s Russia has been shaped by political technologists—the viziers of the system who, like so many post-modern Prosperos, conjure up puppet political parties and the simulacra of civic movements to keep the nation distracted as Putin’s clique consolidates power. In the philosophy of these political technologists, information precedes essence. “I remember creating the idea of the ‘Putin majority’ and hey, presto, it appeared in real life,” Gleb Pavlovsky, a political technologist who worked on Putin's election campaigns but has since left the Kremlin, told me recently. “Or the idea that ‘there is no alternative to Putin.’ We invented that. And suddenly there really was no alternative.” http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/russia-putin-revolutionizing-information-warfare/379880/

    It looks like we are in for a new cold war.
     
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  3. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    A Russian spy plane almost hit a civilian airliner.

    LONDON -- A London-based think tank said Monday Russian forces have been involved in dozens of close encounters with Western militaries since Moscow annexed Crimea - and that both sides risk losing control over events.
    A study by the European Leadership Network offered details on 40 incidents and said that they add up to a disturbing pattern over a wide geographic area.
    It singled out three incidents in the last eight months as being particularly high risk: a near-collision between a SAS civilian airliner and a Russian surveillance plane; the abduction of an Estonian intelligence officer and a Swedish submarine hunt.
    In the first incident, the collision was apparently avoided "thanks only to good visibility and the alertness of the passenger plane pilots," the report said, noting that the SAS jetliner had 132 passengers on board at the time.


    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/report-russia-spy-plane-nearly-collided-with-passenger-jet/
     
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  5. youreyes amorphous ocean Valued Senior Member

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    What's with Russia?

    To answer this question one must go ahead and see what would have happened to Russia had Putin not came to Power. Russia would have become the next Libya, Iraq, and etc.

    Where USA goes, comes "democracy" and their companies infiltrate the resources and the wealth of that country. The oligarchs are the tools through which this power is controlled by USA. The usual route USA takes is through bribing high officials and having USAID supporting the populace but in reality pushing their political and companies agendas into that country.

    When the bribed piece of garbage Gorbachev sold out his country to Americans and destroyed Soviet Union with a smile and a Nobel Prize, USA got exactly what it wanted. Technology transfer of nuclear and aerospace and arms into the hands of its intelligence services back in Pentagon. That is why USA was all happy and big slogans of "Freedom at last" and "Fall of Berlin Wall" became the slogans of the democracy and its success. However after Eltsin stepped down, just before he stepped down, he made a decision for the country future, one decision that would change the fate of an entire nation for the free and powerful future as it sees today. That decision was to appoint the ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin for presidency. Never in the history of Russia has a more greater and more God sending move ever been made. Putin has halted the war in Chechnya/Ingushetia and etc. by first suppressing the US and Saudi Arabia sponsored terrorists and than pouring billions into infrastructure of Chechnya, making the region anew with jobs, new buildings, new infrastructure.

    Putin has reversed the decline in population and has caused the increase of steady population inflow into the country. He has retained the United Russia slogan, to keep Russia United and Strong. Through his diplomacy the country GDP has increased many times fold. And what is most important Putin has taken the power of shareholders from American and European hands and put it back into Russian government hands. Yukos is a prime example of that, an oligarch without rules if he would not have been jailed he would be selling out Russia to companies like Shell and ExxonMobile. But the *****er was jailed and so were other US backed oligarchs. No longer could Russia be collapsed into chaos like Ukraine is now. Russia became free again and has regained its powers. However US that invested so much into the collapse of Soviet Union saw that as a big problem for itself, and thus came the new cold war.

    USA is trying hard with CNN showing around its Western propaganda garbage, with Coca Cola bringing shi**y water, and McDonalds making the nation fat...no thanks. Take it back to USA, stuff it up yours.

    Coca Cola stocks down
    McDonalds stocks down
    CNN GT** from our country
    and for love of God keep Ford and the likes out as well.

    The West is good with numerous provocations and its definitely adepts in its massive media campaign against Russian politics. In that aspect Russia has always been loosing the media war to USA. Hollywood was born in California for a reason, nicely painted lies of luxury and comfort...right in the same state of the highest homelessness and crime.

    Sell them lies of "freedom and liberty for all" and bring "democracy with bullets". That is what USA stands for. Russia does not stand for that. Russia chose its own future, free and independent.

    Somewhere in the "freedom and liberty for all" Los Angeles:

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    Somewhere in Vladivostok in the Nation United and Strong and Truly Free

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  7. Bells Staff Member

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    Well we would probably not be on the brink of a new Cold War, parts of the Ukraine would not have been illegally annexed, Russian war planes would not be threatening European allies and endangering passengers on civilian airliners, the Malaysian Airlines jet would probably not have been shot down by Russian backed and armed rebels, less journalists would have been killed for criticising the Government, LGBT would probably have more freedoms, Assad would probably not have been so well armed to murder his own citizens in large numbers.. I could go on and on really.

    Whereas Russia and Putin have people poisoned, kidnapped, murdered in their homes or in the street.. And then arms despotic regimes to allow them to conduct mass killings of innocent civilians and the use of chemical weapons.

    Wait, are you saying Putin's rise to power and then refusing to relinquish power is sanctioned by God?

    Bahahahahaaa..

    I don't think illegally annexing another country counts..

    Actually no, the new Cold War came about when Putin illegally annexed part of another country, threatened European countries and flew armed war planes and bombers and doing bombing simulations against those European countries, arming despots like Assad and allowing him to murder thousands of Syrian citizens and waging a war in the Ukraine and shooting down a passenger jet, killing hundreds of innocent men, women and children.

    I absolutely agree. You should just keep to buying Russian made cars..

    Just so long as you maintain the line that everything is good in Mother Russia, you won't be arrested or killed in Russia. No, no lying there..



    Youreyes, we have a rule on this site about not showing or telling people where you live.

    I appreciate you are keen to show your home in California, but understand that doing so on an open internet forum is not advised.


    I see the Russian car companies are selling well in Russia.... Well, at least the roads make for great open walking spaces..
     
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  8. youreyes amorphous ocean Valued Senior Member

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    Ah Bells you are very mistaken, it is your house I am showing amongs the homeless bums, but since the rules of the site prohibit this. Well than your advise will be taken into consideration.
     
  9. youreyes amorphous ocean Valued Senior Member

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    Actually do you realize how many wars USA has started directly and indirectly killing millions in the name of democracy? Libya...Iraq...Kosovo....Bosnia.....Somalia.....Persian Gulf....Panama Invasion....Grenada Invasion....Cuba Bay of Pigs

    millions killed with US intervention or help.
     
    Last edited: Nov 11, 2014
  10. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    Yep. My cardboard box in Queensland (not California - you are aware there are other countries aside from Russia and the USA?) even has a window cut out.

    You should try it youreyes. It might remove some of the toxic vapours that surround you and pervade your very personality.

    What's with all the big red writing?

    And I'm sorry, but are you now re-writing history? This must be a Russian thing..

    A call by President Vladimir Putin for a new textbook that reconciles differences over Russia's past has left him facing accusations of copying Soviet leaders by rewriting history for political ends.


    The former Soviet spy asked historians in February to come up with guidelines for new school history books that would provide a unified version of the many difficult events in Russian and Soviet history.

    It was always going to be a tough task in a country where Communist leaders such as Josef Stalin airbrushed enemies out of photographs and saw history as a political weapon. But it is not the interpretation of events such as the mass repressions and show trials of the Soviet era that is causing a stir.

    The guidelines, drawn up by historians of Putin's choice, contain no criticism of the president, no reference to protests against him in 2011 and 2012 and no mention of the jailed former tycoon and Kremlin foe Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

    ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

    GUIDELINES

    Putin rose to power in 2000 and has been president or prime minister ever since. He began a six-year third term as president in May last year after winning an election despite protests against him.

    Putin, now 61, called last February for school pupils to be given a history textbook "written in proper Russian, free of internal contradictions and double interpretation."

    In response to his request, Russia's Historical Society - led by a political ally - has presented him with an 80-page document offering guidelines for the textbook and a list of 20 "difficult questions", including one about Putin's rule.

    But that has not stopped the historians coming up with some glowing references to Putin's rule, which began after years of political and economic chaos under Boris Yeltsin following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

    "During his first and second presidential terms, Vladimir Putin managed to stabilize the situation in the country and strengthen the 'vertical of power'," say the guidelines, suggesting he has imposed a firm, efficient chain of command.

    "Favorable market conditions contributed to economic growth, which continued in Russia until the start of the global economic crisis of 2008," they add, without directly naming a surge in global energy prices that filled the state's coffers.

    They also reinforce the image that Putin likes to portray of himself as the guarantor of stability after Yeltsin, restoring the country of more than 140 million people to economic health following the rouble's crash in 1998.

    The guidelines refer positively to Putin's return to the Kremlin in 2012 as providing "continuity of rule" after his four years as prime minister.

    They also underline the "restoration of Russia's position in international affairs", reinforcing the view widely held in Russia that Putin helped revive Moscow's global influence after a decline under Yeltsin. Critics in the West say Putin has made Russian foreign policy more aggressive.

    OPPOSITION OMITTED

    No mention is made in the guidelines of the big rallies in Moscow and other cities in 2011 and 2012, at times drawing tens of thousands of people to protest against Putin.

    There is also no reference to Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, who was arrested in 2003 and convicted of multi-million dollar tax evasion and fraud at trials he denounced as a political vendetta for challenging Putin
    .

    You must be a product of Russia's new education system which sees fit to lie to children about history and keep them dumb, because you are like the poster child for Russia's new education system. It probably explains the brain drain from Russia, with the mass exodus of those who have an education leaving Russia because they cannot put up with Tsar Putin's regime and demands that people be kept stupid and force fed history and reality as per what Tsar Putin demands they be taught .. If you keep the population uneducated and only taught one thing, then you end up with no opposition and any who oppose are killed or imprisoned (which is what Putin has done). Putin is trying to create a North Korea type rule, where Putin is god and the populace are not able to learn or know any better.

    Enjoy that cardboard box youreyes. And remember that even that provides you more freedom of thought than if you did live in Russia.
     
  11. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    5,902
    The 'West' offered Russia its Security Council seat? Are seats in the UN the West's property that it can distribute as it wishes?

    I share the writer's disappointment. In the 1990's, I hoped that the West and Russia would ally with with one another, creating something like a 'Northern Alliance', encircling the entire northern end of the planet.

    The biggest danger then was Russia's weakness. I thought that the chances were good that Russia would implode and break up, creating instability and probably war all across Eurasia. Putin's to be applauded for preventing that.

    Putin's foreign military adventures during those years have been far less cinematic than those of the United States.

    But yes, Putin certainly did bully Russia's neighbors and should be condemned for doing it. NATO should probably be doing a lot more right now to strengthen its own defensive posture, particularly in Poland and the vulnerable Baltics.

    And when I say NATO, I don't mean the United States. I mean Europe. The European Union has a larger GDP than the US and half again the US population. Its total military spending is massive. Europe needs to finally take the lead in its own defense. (With the US still committed to come to their aid if they can't handle it.)

    The US has a bigger long-term problem to face with the with the rise of China in east Asia. The US needs to keep its eye on that ball, hence America's strategic 'pivot', which I support. What's more, Europe acting more independently would be less threatening to Russia since they would be less apt to be perceived as American surrogates and proxies.

    It's important to remember that a lot of Russia's bad behavior is the result of their feelings of weakness, vis a vis their old Cold War rivals in the West. They fear that as the Soviet Union contracted, their old enemies are stepping into the void and picking up the pieces. The Russians see Ukraine particularly as part of their vital interest and something that they are willing to go to war over. (It's historically much closer to them than Canada is to us. The Russian nation arguably began in Ukraine as Kievan Rus.) Russia can tolerate an independent Ukraine as long as it remains their ally, but a Ukraine allied with the United States is intolerable. So if the West wants to defuse this latest difficulty with diplomacy rather than bloodshed, some finesse and understanding of Russian motivations is going to be necessary. We need to find a way of giving the Ukrainians most of what they want without threatening the Russians too much doing it.

    I agree that it's bad news for the world. (Needless to say, for Russians too.) But it's a mistake to say that Russia is returning to the Soviet model. Russia has a much more up-to-date model to emulate, namely China. China is economically successful, a rising superpower and it's an autocrat's dream. That's the model that Russia seems to be evolving towards. Given their Czarist (and Soviet) history, and given their inexperience with democracy, it might be culturally more familiar to them.
     
  12. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    If you consult an historical atlas, you will find that there's never been a country of Ukraine in that geographical space until 1991. (With the exception of a year or two during the Russian revolution.)

    Historically, the Russian nation arguably got its start in Ukraine in the 10th century as Kievan Rus. (Begun, believe it or not, by Swedish Vikings, who intermarried and quickly assimilated into the Slavic population they ruled.) This diffuse state adopted Orthodox Christianity and much of its style from the Byzantine empire, and it exerted loose hegemony over a huge area west of the Urals.

    It quickly lost its political unity and became a whole collection of culturally similar principalities in what today are European Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. In the 13th century the Mongols conquered the area and reduced the Russian principalities to vassals.

    In the 14th century, as Mongol hegemony weakened, we see Poland expanding into a major power and incorporating the westernmost Russian principalities into its state. And in the 15th century one of the more easterly Russian principalities, Moscovy, began incorporating its neighbors and rising into a major power in its own right.

    That's the origin of Ukraine's distinctiveness. It's basically the Russian principalities that were ruled by Poland for several hundred years. In western Ukraine, where Polish influence was strong and Moscow's weak, the Ukrainians evolved a distinct culture all their own. In eastern Ukraine, where Polish cultural influence was weak and Moscow's strong, in areas that sometimes changed hands back and forth, the locals remains more similar to Russians culturally.

    This little excursion into history isn't intended as an argument for Russian hegemony over Ukraine. The Ukrainians should have the right of self-determination and should have independence if they want it (and most obviously do). It's just intended to point out that Ukraine itself is probably just as much a modern historical invention as Novorossiya.
     
  13. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Actually, if you added all the casualties from all of those events together, you would get no more than a few thousand casualties. That is far from the millions you assert. Further, with the exception of Panama and possibly the Bay of Pigs, Bush II's Iraq War, those conflicts were begun by others. Libya, Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, was a civil war in which NATO countries requested the US intervene to prevent the massacre of civilians by the government. Grenada was to thwart a Soviet led coup. In the case of Somalia, US troops along with UN troops were present to ensure the safe delivery and distribution of food to a starving population. A particular war lord was stealing UN food and not giving it to those for which the aid was intended. In the case of Kosovo and Bosnia the US intervened with other NATO countries to prevent the massacre of innocent civilians, to stop the genocide. In the case of Panama, the US intervened to arrest the corrupt murderous drug running president. That former president was tried and convicted in an American court. He is now sitting in a Panamanian jail cell. The French have convicted him for crimes as well.
     
  14. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Nothing that can't be explained by a closet homosexual↱ former KGB agent turned "president" trying to reconcile the gaping void in his soul by dehumanizing himself as an icon of national power. He gets to be a phabulous symbol for other people instead of reconciling with himself.

    As you noted, a new cold war? At the very least. He hides his self-loathing in all manner of bigotry, including nationalist supremacism.

    There is actually little going on here that is surprising.

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    Come out, come out, Puti-Toots. You'll feel a lot better after you put this all behind yourself.
     
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  15. youreyes amorphous ocean Valued Senior Member

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    Tiassa your the liberal, but using homosexual image as a tool of war to get even with people you don't like. Where is equality in that?

    Anyways Ukraine got formed out of the cultural and ethnic background of the people living there, the term Ukraine referes to "Okraina" or the "Edge" of the Russian Empire. The same thing is with Kazakhstan, the country did not exist prior to Russia giving it independence. The problem with Ukraine is the constant war between Polish and Russian control, with the USA and NATO alliances getting the most out of this.

    What do I wish Ukraine was? I wish Ukraine was independent, because its got beautiful culture and beautiful people. Problem with them is corruption and oligarchs. Ukraine is what Russia would had been if Putin did not come to power. But thanksfully all the oligarchs like Khodorkovsky garbage got sniped out.
     
    Last edited: Nov 11, 2014
  16. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    5,902
    Isn't attempting to discredit somebody by suggesting he's gay an example of the homophobic bigotry that you lefties are supposed to oppose? (You've gotta read the manual, Tiassa.)
     
  17. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    It's your presumption that such a diagnosis discredits Putin. Some see a hero; some see evil. I see a sad old man trying to create a surrogate by which he can be comfortable with himself. If being human is discrediting, I plead guilty.

    Meanwhile, it really is impolite for him to visit his own internal conflicts on the rest of humanity like this.

    Quite honestly, if he came out, gays would throw a party and, over the long run, likely forgive him the errors of his ways. It can be really dark and lonely in there. But there's nothing we or anyone else can do to help him as long as he keeps the closet door barricaded.
     
  18. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Being a little facetious? Western countries may not own Soviet Union’s seat on the Security Council, Russia could not have kept the seat without the consent and approval of the standing members of the Security Council (i.e. Western countries). Each of the former Soviet states had a claim to the Soviet seat on the Security Council.
    I think most people hoped for the same. And initially Putin acted like the leader the West had hoped he would be, but unfortunately that leader quickly morphed into the paranoid Putin we see today. I had always had reservations about Putin and unfortunately those reservations are now being made manifest.
    Well suppressing people inside a state you control is a little less exciting than being the global policeman which is the roll the US has historically played and continues to play.
    I agree.
    Collectively EU nations do have a slightly larger GDP (about 3% larger) than the US. But EU nations act more like a loose confederation of nations than a single unified nation. And their condemnation of Russia should have been faster and more aggressive. So while I conceptually agree with you, Europe is not in a position to act unilaterally and without US political, economic and military support. I sincerely wish it were not the case. For too long Europe has depended too much on the US for its security.
    I don’t know that China is a bigger problem, but China is certainly a problem and needs to be carefully attended to. Russia and China are problematic for the US and the world in that they both represent significant challenges to peaceful and stable governance. Chinese and Russian governments are inherently unstable and that presents serious economic and political risks for the world.
    How much and how long does one coddle a mad man? The West and in particular the US has never been Russia’s enemy. At some point reality has to account for something. As for Russia’s willingness to go to war over Ukraine, I’m not sure I agree. If that were so, why hasn’t Putin been even more aggressive in the region? Instead, Putin has used his time to create a fiction for domestic and foreign audiences, a fiction that he is the vanquishing hero defending abused Russians in Ukraine. It appears to me, Putin needs to sell his domestic audiences a reason for his aggression in neighboring states, hence all the deception.
    As for Ukraine being closer to Russia, I’d say that is something Ukrainians need to decide. It’s kind of like the drunk who makes unwanted advances towards the pretty lady at the bar. Must a woman submit to a rapist for fear she might hurt his feelings? I think the West clearly understands Putin’s motivation, that isn’t the problem. At some point the West has to say enough is enough and that is what they have done with sanctions. What disturbs me most about Putin’s actions, and as other European leaders have noted, Putin’s actions in Ukraine and Georgia are reminiscent of another time in European history when a man named Hitler did the same things and used the same excuses Hitler used to justify his aggression towards neighboring states. Chamberlain tried appeasement. It didn’t work then and I see no reason why it would work now. I am 59 years old. I have seen more than my fair share of bullies and there really is only one way to deal with bullies and that is to stand up to them. That is the only thing they respect. And Putin is nothing more than a bully.
    http://nypost.com/2014/09/03/dont-make-mistake-with-putin-we-made-with-hitler-british-pm/
    I think it is more of a mixed bag. Russia is returning to the days of Soviet style paranoia brought about by demented leaders and autocratic rule (e.g. Stalin) and it is repeating many of the same mistakes made by the former Soviet Union (e.g. nationalizing private enterprises). Putin is more reminiscent of Hitler and National Socialism than anything we have yet to see in China. I don’t think Putin is looking to emulate China. China isn’t nationalizing private enterprises. China isn’t invading its neighbors. China is however strongly nationalistic and autocratic like Russia. That is something they do share in common and that is something that must be addressed. Russia’s economy is primarily on a one horse economy, not so much with China. Putin, like despots around the world (e.g Kim Jong-un), has created a leadership cult. China seems to value its economic development, Russia not so much. But both nations could threaten world peace. So I don’t think Putin is modeling his rule on the China model. Unfortunately, I think he is modeling it after a man named Hitler and the Nazi model.
     
  19. youreyes amorphous ocean Valued Senior Member

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    Unfortunately that is Obama's modeling and Bush prior to him and Clinton prior. World Police is the sort of elitist thing Nazi 3rd Reich wanted to establish. What is more amazing is that USA still pays money for relocation of Nazis and had its Apollo program done by a Nazi too. Great job USA. At least there is equality of races right? Ferguson though isn't too convinced about that lie too...

    So what model is USA following? the Nazi one of course.
     
  20. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    LOL, no, and what Nazis would the US be relocating? Nazis had a rocket program, not an Apollo program. The US only guarantees equality of rights, which is far more than Mother Russia. I think Ferguson was a local police department failure to enact good community policing practices. It certainly isn't representative of the nation. Ferguson is one small city in a country of 316 million people.

    And none of that changes what Putin has done and continues to do.
     
  21. youreyes amorphous ocean Valued Senior Member

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  22. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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  23. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    It's no excuse for Putin, but that is an extraordinarily naive view of the corruption and exploitation visited upon Russia by the capitalists of the West, after the Wall fell.

    And the US had a need for a rocket program, which became an Apollo program. We also had a need for a strong intelligence connection in the Soviet Union, which the Nazis had. So the US intelligence services relocated a bunch of Nazis - Werner von Braun the most famous - complete with cleaned up histories and whatever other false papers were needed.

    Meanwhile, while we were protecting useful Nazis and powerful German capitalists in general, we were betraying the resistance fighters in the Nazi-subjugated countries of Europe because so many were communists.

    It is far more representative of far more of the US than one would like to admit.

    After the collapse of the USSR the West faced a Cold War version of the situation facing the negotiators of the Treaty of Versailles, or the temporary governors of Iraq, and made a similar set of decisions. Russia and the Russian people have been abused, by the Western powers. The country was turned over to organized crime, capitalists in the sense of Columbian drug lords or Argentinian generals or Mexican industrial tycoons or Venezuelan colonialists. The rise of a national Hero in such circumstances is not much of a shock - more of a norm.

    But Russia is a powerful country.
     

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