Posted on 03/18/2014 9:10:05 PM PDT by varmintman
I'm not the world's foremost expert on Russia... But I believe I know enough to at least try to clear up a few of the misconceptions I see on forums and have been listening to on talk radio for the past few weeks.
A bit of Russian history for starters... Slavic farmers invited Vikings (Verangians) into what you'd now call Russia and set up the Kievan state which adopted Christianity around 988 AD so that the territory controlled by the city of Kiev was the dominant power in Russia prior to the Mongol invasion in 1236. In other words, they'd fought Polovyetski/Cumins and other nomad tribes to a sort of a standstill which appeared to be a workable state of affairs and then they got run over by a military avalanch and an empire whose military technology was 300 years ahead of the rest of the world.
Russia spent the next 140 years or so under the "Mongol Yoke" before the princes of Moscow managed to win a huge battle over the Golden Horde at Kulikovo in 1380, only to have the white and golden hordes unite a couple of years later and plow Russia under foot again where she would have remained for another century or two, nonetheless shortly thereafter Tamerlane came through and annihilated the Golden Horde. Unlike the situation with Genghis Khan who had utterly competent heirs, Tamerlane's empire began to crumble shortly after his death in the first few years of the 1400s, leaving much of Russia a sort of a shambles and Southern Russia what was called "wild fields". Jews living in what had been the remains of the Khazar kingdom prior to that time finally had enough and started moving to Poland and Germany and for a period of a century or so until Russia started to get organized again, Poland and Lithuania began to look like serious countries on maps. In those days, the Ukraine was part of Poland and one of the biggest if not THE biggest celebrations there ever was in the Ukraine was when Russia took it over in the 1700s.
The Ukrainian language is basically the language of the principality of Kiev while modern Russian is basically the language of the principality of Suzdal and the city of Moscow. At some point, the languages of the various places which comprised Russia must have fused, which is presumably why you have more than one system for verb formations and declension endings. The difference between Russian and Ukrainian is similar to the difference between our English and Chaucer's and anybody in the Ukraine who isn't retarded can speak Russian.
The city of Moscow featured the most paranoid design for a city in the history of the world, basically a system of concentric rings, each more difficult to break into than the last. That is because up to a very late date, Crimean Tatars, remnants of the Golden Horde, used to ride into the city as far as they could get, capture children and stuff them into baskets on their horses and ride off to sell them so that the word "Slav" morphed into "slave". The fact that any Crimean Tatars remain alive at all strongly indicates that Russians are an unusually tolerant people, less given to holding grudges than most.
The official title of the tsars was "Tsar of all the Russias", meaning primarily 'Great Russia' (Russia), 'White Russia' (Belorus), and 'Little Russia' (Ukraine). That is the heart of the Slavic Orthodox world and Ukraine is the breadbasket of that world. The Ukraine could feed everybody from the Volga to the Atlantic and that in fact was Hitler's plan; the idea was to build a super-gauge train to haul foodstuffs from Ukraine to Europe and, as I read it at least, to get Western Europe pretty much out of the food business altogether.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitspurbahn
"Early plans for routes considered India and Vladivostok as the ultimate goals of the railways, but [b][i][size=150]by 1943 the planning was focused exclusively on European cities.[1] Ukraine and the Volga Basin were seen as especially important targets, as these areas were viewed as the future granaries of the Nazi empire[/size][/i][/b],[1] potentially through the "settlement strings". orSiedlungsperlen of the proposed Wehrbauer settlements within the conquered Lebensraum territories, which would also be linked by the planned easternmost reaches of theReichsautobahn freeway network.[5]...."
But you get the idea. The idea that anybody should have expected Vladimir Putin to just sit there and watch George Soros, Monsanto, and the US state department to just walk off with the Ukraine is idiotic. For that matter, the Crimea had been part and parcel of Russia for at least a couple of centuries before Khrushchev gifted it to Ukraine in 1954; it didn't seem to make much difference when everybody was a citizen of the CCCP one way or other, but expecting Russia to just let go of he Crimea under present circumstances is doubly stupid.
Moreover, there is a very big problem with language convergence. Television and the Internet are radically shrinking the world. TV has in fact killed the Southern accent in Texas so that I hear it only amongst people over 60; I expect TV and the internet to kill most of the world's languages in the next 30 years. My guess would be that languages which will still be in use by 2050 will include:
Basically, Ukrainian is a dead language walking and the idiots who just took over Kiev know that, which accounts for at least some of their irrational behavior. Ukraine has a border with Russia, their culture is tied up with that of Russia, and Russian is the main language of those which will survive, with which they are most familiar. My money says that in 20 years, Ukrainian will be spoken only amongst people over 60. The future of the Ukrainian people clearly lies with Russia.
That brings up an obvius question: what are the people in the US state department smoking? What did they expect to see happen?? Another question is, what reasons could there be for wanting to start a major war over any of this stuff?
A century or two ago the reasons for starting wars were simple: Gold, land, women, treaties... That stuff was heinous enough but it was at least comprehensible. In today's world, unfortunatley, you have to at least consider the most paranoid possibility i.e. that the LaRouche group may be right and that the idiots may actually have in mind to start a nuclear war to reduce the human population of the planet to less than one billion as per their stated ideology, for the glory of Gaea.
It turns out the sniper killings around Kiev a month ago were the work of the hoodlums WE are supporting, and not that of Yanukovich or Russians:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-05/behind-kiev-snipers-it-was-somebody-new-coaltion-stunning-new-leak-reveals-truth
We have now seen two of these false-flag ops in the past six months (Syria and Kiev). At some point, the world has seen this **** one too many times and gets wise to it, and starts to look on Americans as a bunch of lunatics. It's hard not to get the idea that somebody in the US State Department is trying to start a major war.
Aside from that, the world can clearly see that Vladimir Putin is the best Ruler Russia has ever had since Tsar Peter, and that Bork Obunga is just as clearly the worst ruler any advanced state has ever had since Nero and may in fact be WORSE than Nero since I don't view Bork as being bright enough to play a fiddle. More likely we'll get to listen to rap while America burns.
Vladimir Putin is the main force responsible for bringing the global warming lunatics into global disrepute and disrepect. Putin apparently got a number of Russia's best hackers in a room and said something like "Guys, I'm not gonna wreck Russia's economy over a bunch of bullshit, I want you to blast your way into that East Anglia Email Database and spread to the four winds whatever you might find there", and they did that:
http://www.climategate.com
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?221759-Is-Putin-behind-the-leaked-Climategate-e-mails
In other words, aside from needing to learn how to pronounce the guy's name properly, commentators like Limbaugh and Hannity need to understand that Putin is primarily responsible for their not needing to rub sticks together to make fire.
I mean, how many times does that make that Russia has bailed our hiney's out of some really awful kind of ****? Picture living in a world in which Sweden was a major power, i.e. picture yourself cruising in a 57 Volvo:
Guy a half mile up the road had one of those when I was a teenager. The thing was so ugly that just having it parked at the curb reduced housing values within a three-block radius. Tsar Peter saved us from that ****:
I EXPECT libtards and demoKKKrats to be clueless; it's painful to listen to stupid **** coming from right of center commentaters like Limbaugh and Hannity. Again they should start by at least learning to pronounce the guy's name properly:
"vla-DEE-mir POO-Tin" The accent is on the second syllable in Vladimir and nobody swallows a T or pronounces it like a D in Russia.
There is a question of communism in the picture and the thing you have to grasp is that the Soviet state had an absolute monopoly on weapons under the CCCP so that there was no possibility of the people ever rising up and overthrowing that system. That system fell because the people running it finally realized it couldn't work and gave it up. There is zero possibility of Russia going back to socialism or communism.
They ARE however going back to their original Christian roots and aside from building some 200 Christian churches in and around Moscow, they have actually rebuilt that gigantic cathedral which the commies tore down and made into a swimming complex:
Aside from all of that, Putin and the people around him have clearly taken a hard look at the ongoing suicide of the West and determind that Russia is not going to participate in any of that happy horse-****. Not allowing gays to recruit or prosylitize in schools or allowing girl bands to desecrate a church are signs of a recovered righteousness.
I mean, if I've missed anything or left anything important out here or gotten anything wrong, somebody let me know, but this is the picture I'm seeing. I don't see anything not to like with Putin or the vision of the current Russian government.
Of course not....I was merely countering what some, like Pat Buchanan have said suggesting that the Nazis weren’t interested in Western Europe, but he was only forced into it because of their belligerence.
He wanted France, period.
Sometimes it is a distinction without a difference. This was always the Communist line--we love the people, not the government. Now if the people would just rise up and get rid of that bad government, we can have peace and harmony. In fact, we (the Communists) will help you get rid of that government.
Did nothing but declare war against Germany and then suffer many casualties at the hands of the Germans during the so-called "Phoney War." England was ill-prepared to launch a war and France was as well. They were furiously trying to rearm. And the massive losses suffered during WWI were still a reminder about the costs of launching another war against Germany. Neville Chamberlain was not alone in his desire to avoid a war. There were many concessions to the Germans to the lead up of the invasion of Poland. The fact that both countries declared war against Germany immediately is a testimony to their commitment to Poland. If they truly wanted to abandon Poland, they would have done nothing.
Again, as I mentioned, the real abandonment of Poland and Eastern Europe by the Allies was at Yalta. We essentially allowed the Russians control over the region. We were war weary at that point as well despite having overwhelming military superiority over the Soviets.
They could have prevented the Battle of France and Battle of Britain
Hindsight is 20/20. General Giap said something similar about the US snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in Vietnam after the war was over.
I doubt Hitler would have backed down. His military may have been the most professional and efficient force ever fielded up to that time. They just bit off more than they could chew. Hitler may have never started the second front with Russia and turned his attention to the Western Front had France and England tried to invade. He had the central position per Mackinder's Heartland theory. I am skeptical that the French and British could have pulled off the logistics to invade Germany.
I think it could be a dead heat.
This has been my experience too. And then some Germans told me that the Russians are all peasants and not worth giving much thought too. I have seen overdone nationalism from Greeks and Russians many times.
Could be just they all have their issues. I am proud to live here with our mixed up ethnicities.
Was pretty cool.
I always thought that was the reason for the dislike.
Looking like childishness is in season...
Once we had adults.
Sad. Have you ever been to Russia? I have.
What is going on right now is purely domestic...He's just arranging the game board..establishing his political creds which seems to be working well even on FR...
Beyond that, there have been hints....here and there.
The flybys and incursions into US radar zones with planes and ships were a pretty good poker tell.
Damn...... there is a Freeper that really knows and understands and tells his brethren as it is.
Rave on brother...........
Still a lot of Russian ‘ 5th columnists’ inside these countries, esp. Estonia.
Putin is just reinstating a modified version of the “Brehznev Doctine”.
Look it up and you will have your eyes opens very wide.
The Baltics, yues -- Latvia for instance has 40% Russians I think
A new example -- we know a priest from Lublin who helps a sister parish in Ukraine. The Ukrainian parish also has a soup kitchen and normally has quite a few "clients" -- but for the last few months there were hardly any.
Why? They found out that the ex-govt was sponsoring sending homeless to various parts of ukraine as anti-maidan protesters.
For the homeless it was a chance to get a warm bed, food, bath etc. just for shouting a few slogans.
Also, the tactics of using agent provocateurs -- I laughed at that during the Dzień niepodległości, but now I believe it -- it seems a standard Soviet tactic
I also argued that Putin would have to be crazy to kill 180 people to kill Kaczynski, like using a bazooka to kill a bee
But now I see that the Soveit method is hardly subtle. Also all the lies around the Smolensk tragedy and the diversions by the Russians have made me rethink my position -- perhaps the polacy have a point..
Lech Kaczyński seems like he was a good man -- Jarosław, not so much.
But that was unthinkable, so in short Poland was heading for hell in 1939, there was nothing that could be done to stop it
In fact right from the partitions, the fate was irreversible for Poland and for Russia and Germany -- removing the buffer state of the Rzeczpospolita was, in hind-sight, idiotic.
This is a big difference. Most Poles see Russians as victims of their own government and see the Soviet atrocities as conducted to the main by people abused by their own government (except of course the KGB and UB).
They outnumbered the Germans in 1939 on the western front. They could have smashed the 23 divisions and been right in the Ruhr and Bavarian heartlands by October before the Germans could turn around.
But they didn't
Correct. But after the Sudentenland, KrystalNacht and the Anschluss war was inevitable
I've read the Mein K and whatever else hitlerr was, he was no liar -- he said in the MK what he'd do and he DID it
If they truly wanted to abandon Poland, they would have done nothing. -- they couldn't as they had a treaty. But they cynically declared war and did nothing. nothing.
Yes, Yalta was an abandonment, but I argue that it was the second.
Why do you say that the French and British could not have invaded Germany logistically?
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