I’d imagine Putin has had a good deal of responsibility in impoverishing his population whilst feathering his own nest. Not to mention the patriotic work of the Russian Oligarchs……
It’s very true that the Americans are model war mongers & manipulators for as long as they’ve been able to do so….
But for those who like to use the above as a sensible reason for the current invasion, well that is just bizarre imo.
TBF, most Russians who left Russia have done so because the shit show they found it and themselves in.
Apart from the Oligarchs obviously
Yes, but you haven’t a clue. A few days ago oou only just discovered that thered been a referemdum in ukraine and that putin supposedly rejected the outcome. Within seconds you were confident enough in your understanding of the situation to make pronouncements about his motives. Still, its better than the mother superior approach of denouncing everyone
Like flies around shit
Lads making the most of a bright sunny Spring morning I see.
That sounds completely made up.
Some Ukrianian war propaganda exists, therefore the Ukrainians are as bad as the Russians in terms of lying, which means we should support the Russians, something like that.
Or we could exercise some basic critical thinking.
And farmers hooking their tractors up to abandoned Russian Tanks and taking off with them would have seemed unbelievable 3 weeks ago too….but there you go I suppose.
The Russians tried to roll their tanks down Peremohy Avenue a couple of weeks back. You can sort of see how that probably isn’t a good idea.
Here is, I think, a reasonably intelligent question. I regard a lot of what I read roundabouts with a sort of horrified fascination. As in: ‘Now we have what people are really thinking as they walk down the street but would not admit.’ But the place runs better, same time, than the fuckin’ radio.
Question: would you like to live under a dictatorship? Serious question. If you would, I find it extraordinary that for the last two years or so you found masking/restrictions/vaccine passports a drastic and unacceptable imposition on your liberty.
Could you square this circle for me? I am genuinely curious. Do you actually value liberty or not? If you do value liberty, how could you possibly admire Putin, as a matter of principle? And he is also, into the bargain, one of the most corrupt people on the planet. To hold otherwise is risible.
Now, do not get me wrong. I despise most American politics – and your points about the USA and Russia relationship post Soviet Union are well made – and I think the existence of Israel, as currently constructed, remains highly questionable. I just keep schtum about these views, because they are irrelevant. Yes, the world is full of horrible corrupt people, without a doubt. Not today or yesterday did I learn that lesson.
But you are ongoingly incensed by Claire Byrne and RTÉ and yet admire Putin and his state media operation? Really? Curious one. Would you see any contradictions there at all?
How would you like, for instance, to be a gay or a queer person living in Russia? The fact that the same point is true of many Muslim majority countries lies beside that point. Seems to me that you are either for personal liberty or you are not. Else, the so called concern for liberty is just a form of ‘sheep and goats’-ism. We want liberty – but not for them. The fool that got the boot wanted every sort of liberty for his own childish brain dead existence but not for a woman who needed a pregnancy termination.
Is it that you hate liberal democracy, that you think such politics makes people soft? Is the whole perspective a sort of Videodrome rerun, Cronenberg for the 21st century?
North America is getting soft, patrón, and the rest of the world is getting tough. Very, very tough. We’re entering savage new times and we’re going to have to be pure and direct… and strong… if we’re going to survive them. Now, you and this… cesspool you call a television station… and your people who wallow around in it and your viewers… who watch you do it… you’re rotting us away from the inside. We intend to stop that rot.
Or is it that you think Big Pharma represents a de facto Western dictatorship and therefore an actual dictatorship, under Putin, would mean no substantial difference? Is this sentiment why you hate Claire Byrne and admire Vladimir Putin? I seem to remember you wishing a few weeks ago on here that there would be a war, because young people have become too used to getting free money. I suppose they said the same one time about toilet roll.
I just wonder, because pretty much every generation since the late 18th century had a significant minority in it that held the world was becoming decadent and needed to be saved from itself by cleansing violence. Mostly those ideological acorns rotted, although not all of them did, as well we know.
Without going full carryharry, this is an excellent post.
You got all of this from one podcast eh.
Russia is just a dump. They had 30 years of ample natural resources to build their economy from and fucked it. They’ve used them for their delusions of Russian Imperialism. I love how the likes of the Czech Republic and Poland could sort themselves out with the goal to join the EU but Russia get to continue the narrative that it’s Neoliberals fault that they created Oligarchs.
I appreciate your response but your curiosity regardiing these two questions is null and void. I may as well address your curiosity about why the world is flat. I just cant help you.
But basically you’re asking me if i want to live under a dictatorship as opposed to living in a cushy western democracy. I was referring to the experiences of your average russian post cold war. Putin was an alternative to what they had, a better alternative for the most part… within those relatively narrow confines…
If you fell ive expressed admiration for putin then I’ll reluctantly put that down to poor wording on my part or poor comprehension on yours.
Would you not try and answer the man?
They just want to perpetuate the mediocrity with which they’ve ran their affairs for centuries. God forbid the neighbours improving their lot.
In my opinion Ukraine joining EU is a far greater threat to Russia than Ukraine joining NATO. Ukraine has the resources and population to be a huge economic success within EU. Having that on Russia’s doorstep and in a country they see as largely like their own holds up a mirror to Russia and would be beginning of a threat that could see a Westernisation of Russia. That’s anathema to a person like Putin. His speech harking back to Russian Empire sort of shows his thinking on this.
This war seems completely misguided and hard to understand. Unless it’s to preserve a non Westernised Russia in which case it makes perfect sense.
Do you seriously think that the Czechs and the Poles sorted it out by themselves? They had any amount of help and funding, and rightly so. The russians did have natural resources, but they also had the remnants of kgb, the soviet government and military and a vast disparate country to hold together. The natural resources and industries you mention were being sold off and picked apart by the anyone with the muscle to do so. So where did that leave the ordinary russian? Hankering for an election where the bad boys could be voted out of the positions theyd seized? Russian imperialism is very easy to sell under such circumstances … when your pensions are worthless and girls from your village are being bought by whoever. Perfect ground for nationalism or imperialism or whatever you want to call it.
But dont mention any of this, the simpletons will roll their eyes in horror and call you an apologist etc.
But lads are just circling the wagons round the firm assurance that putin is a bad man. No one has any issue with this view but tbh im more interested in listening to the people who were predicting this and advising an alternative path twenty years ago. Those who dont understand history are doomed to repeat it. Have at it lads.
I respect your opinion – or am interested, at least, to know why you think what you do, because you do not seem, as previously broached, a personality alibi merchant.
I suspect at one time you were highly religious. So the world disappoints you. I was never an idealist of any stripe and so the world does not disappoint me, even though much of what goes on is repugnant. But what can I do about the world staying the way, technology aside, the world always was? The Incas fattened children for months for sacrifice to the weather gods. God knows how many children died building St Paul’s Cathedral. How could 21st century greed and corruption by politicians and Big Pharma surprise me?
I like living a quiet life on a small island in a cushy Western democracy because this berth represents, same as with a some way managed capitalism, the least worst option. I think I would be extremely foolish if I thought any different.
What is coming shortly down the line is a significantly large underclass that will have no job in the traditional sense, due to automation and so forth. The Western ruling classes, if they exist in some sort of aggregate sense, fear the economic turbulence this inexorable process could easily cause. The ‘war on woke’ stuff is merely a clever con trick to keep quiet that underclass, keep them thinking they are winning in some sense. Your classic distraction tactic. The working classes once had religion, famously, as their opium, an intake succeeded by the tedium of entertainment and Videodrome world. Now the working classes, which includes an awful lot of white middleaged men, can have odium as their opium, can have their phone ins to Niall Boylan as distraction. Fixation with Claire Byrne is of the same order, the glove pulled inside out. I think it is utterly ludicrous that I could wake up tomorrow morning and declare myself a woman, without taking any hormones or undergoing any surgery. But so the law stands.
The left have been enticed down the same rabbit hole from the opposite side. But am I going to be a dupe for liquorice gobshites such as Laurence Fox and Toby Young? Am I fuck. I will just stay quiet and have a nice life on a small island where capitalist democracy reigns – and war is happening not so far away.
