The fellas i mentioned in my post…mafia, ex kgb, oligarchs etc. It wasn’t a good place to be harry.
This is an interesting read on it
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They’re all still there and making plenty of profits whilst paying Putin to stay off their backs.
A lot of your points are well made and coherent and quite moving. I will leave it at saying I simply do not get why RTÉ occasion far more ire with some people than Putin’s media. I get perplexed at the disproportion. And I look for answers as to why such disproportion could exist.
Excuses. Russia fucked it. On the one hand we are told by you (who listened to a podcast) that we just didn’t understand Russia but on the other that they needed handholding not to turn into a corrupt cesspool. So we need to respect Russian’s agency and on the other hand treat them like children?
Russia is a gangster state by choice and by vote. Putin may have restored national pride after the fuck up of the 1990s but did so by turning into a Mafia Don. Instead of spending money on the people, it’s on the military. And the people supported it, apparently.
Why is the US and West “blamed” for not hand holding enough but then not “understanding” Russia? In the last century Japan and Germany came into the Western fold by embracing the market and democracy and ditching imperialism. In other instances where the West became friendly with a country and they came into the trading order with less than democratic places (like South Korea), they were generally smaller with few natural designs on empire. The problem with Russia is that it is closer to Germany or Japan than a South Korea.
By us just accepting that Russian’s wont adapt to democracy, we have to accept the styles that dictators do in Russia. And that means dominance over Eastern Europe and over 100m+ plus people gagging for freedom on our doorstep.
All of these podcasts, articles and YouTube lectures are generally from people who were influential during the Cold War (or learned from those who taught it) and the balance of order between East and West. It’s not practical or realistic in a world where people were given their freedoms in the East, nor is it right.
Blaming the West is just such an easy crutch in these sorts of things.
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I’m actually taken aback that fellas are arguing over things i didn’t say, or things i did and they agree with. Basically most people want their position defined in a simple binary junior infants style paragraph. Anything else is met with outrage and gnashing of teeth. Its fascinating to watch etc.
If one of you cretins want to address something i actually said please feel free @Julio_Geordio did so earlier and i accepted my error in the cordial and gentlemanly fashion you’ve all come to expect.
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Just quoting your words on this matter.
You listened to a podcast where I’m sure a bunch of Russian focused academics picked over every grievance the country has had. Was John Mearsheimer on it? The Weimar Republic comparison is asinine. Germany lost scores of its natural territory, it’s military independence and just like the rest of the World, endured an economic depression. The world has gone through ups and downs since 1990 but there has been periods of the greatest expansion of international trade and living conditions ever. Russia had ample natural resources to build from and fucked it, relying on commodities prices and spending the fruits as they came on their military. They had the freedom to do what they wanted and messed it up.
Arguments on “respecting” Russia’s sphere of influence is based on the idea of respecting Russian greatness, but then the next second you say we didn’t handhold them enough in getting themselves sorted for the market economy. So on the one hand we need to treat them like children in telling them to be a democracy but then on the other we need to bow down to their view of maps and influence. The positions are contradictory.
But then we come to this, which blows the entire argument apart on this being the fault of the West.
Russia as an autocratic nation leads naturally to this. So why are we blaming the West when if it wasn’t Putin, it would be some other autocrat with designs on shoring up Russia’s sphere of interest?
As I said above, the problem with all of these analysts is that they look at the world still with the idea of Washington and Moscow, and now with Beijing. It isn’t realistic. Russian’s not giving a shit about democracy leads to Russian imperialism, and it will lead to bloodshed because the people in Eastern Europe don’t want them back in charge of them. That’s where those who preach “realism” lose the room, they don’t actually engage in it themselves.
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hon Boris
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You’re being disingenuous. It was US policy to run down russia and strengthen its neighbours. Poland alone received twice the imf funding russia did, despite assurances etc. Didn’t Poland have natural resources to make this interventiin unnecessary? No doubt Poles are aware of the help they received…less said about @balbec the better
Russia fell apart, it had a different set of problems from the other countries and these problems were exploited from within and without. Saying comparisons with post war germany are asinine is rubbish and arbitrary. To compare 1920s germany with its neighbours and america is equally idiotic. They were free to rebuild and regroup. Germany meanwhile was being penalised or blockaded from sides, unable to feed themselves whilst being expected to feed their neighbours. There’s absolutely no question about this, as you are probably aware. Don’t feel bad, i made the same mistake during a first yrar politics tutorial- the lecturer scoffed, and rightly so. I hadn’t a clue either…thinking germany was sailing along just fine until a bad man arrived
The subtle distinction between a people and an autocratic government is lost on you, and @carryharry obviously. The point i was making in relation to russians not caring about democracy is that it didn’t offer them an alternative post cold war…where like 1920s germany crime, prostitution and despair were commonplace.
Your stuff about one podcast, russia focused academics etc is all in your own head and somethingy ou can deal with, like @Malarkey talking about claire byrne and religion. Im no expert so I’ve stuck to what i see as obvious truths that i see and hear repeated from different sources.
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Sake…
No offence harry but you would make less of a cod of yourself if you weren’t trying to appear clever
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Yeltsin’s signature makes no sense
Nobodies opinion bar yours counts buddy, we’re used to it now.
Free education, we’re so lucky.
Thank you so much
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These are the cunts a particular poster here is telling us were hard done by. We should apparently feel sorry for them and understand how this is necessary.
I rarely listen or watch the news but caught today about the potential to use chemical weapons because the Russians has a history of allowing their alloy in Syria to use them. Although not a laughing matter I chucklled sarcasticly to myself. The world is fucked
Seethe away pal.
Please God let this be true.
I have no personal beef with you whatsoever. Quite the opposite. The same could not be said of others. You are perfectly entitled to your opinions and a lot of them are certainly far from top of the head stuff. I guess I am just thrown by my own perplexity about some of them.
I think I am not being unfair or inaccurate in stating you have a rather pointed animus towards Claire Byrne in particular and RTÉ in general. But the animus is your own to have. As it happens, I share your dislike for most media stuff – certain current affairs programmes excepted. Most media people are like refugees from some awful Christmas party.
You will notice I am not pretending to have any solutions to this frightening crisis. I am as stumped as anyone.
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They are usually compounds , alloys are more weapons from 500+ years ago.
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