Posted on 05/23/2024 10:32:50 PM PDT by The Old Hoosier
We, in America, appreciate that Czar Alexander II freed the serfs. At about the same time, we were involved in a civil war to end slavery in this country. Abraham Lincoln said it doesn’t matter what you call it, it is the same tyranny, that some work and others live off their work. The real struggle isn’t who will be the master, but whether we will be free.
Russia made yet other attempts to liberalize during the 19th Century; but, these attempts proved insufficient. While Russia made some progress, this progress was by no means sufficient. The masses of people remained rural peasants or urban poor. And, after defeat at the borders of Germany and Austria in WWI, the allure of communism was compelling.
Under communism, new forms of subjugation were brought to Russia. As many as 10 million people were sent to the Gulag, basically to be worked to death or nearly so, in slave labor camps. Everybody else lived in fear.
To show the difference between Russian thinking and American thinking, Russians think if the Poles are their slaves, they must be our slaves. No. By reason of NATO and their own resolve, the Poles aren’t anybody’s slaves. Just like Poland saved Europe from the Ottomans at Vienna in 1683, they saved Europe from the Communists in 1921. Today, with mutual defense, many people can be free.
We, in America, have flaws. But anybody who says the U.S. is similar to Russia is a Putinbot, an anti-American leftist, or simply confused. Regarding Putinbots, I can respect that it’s a paying job. Ditto those who are paid by Soros.
"Don't drop that s___!"
Fact: We began pushing for NATO membership of Ukraine October 2021 in full force: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-president-zelenskiy-holding-talks-with-biden-adviser-says-2021-12-09/
Fact: It was after we pushed for Ukraine to become a NATO member that Russia began building up military forces along the border of Ukraine and conducting live fire training exercises (October 2021 - Feb 2022).
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/01/satellite-russia-ukraine-military-518337
Fact: It was after we pushed for Ukraine to become a NATO member that Russia sent Lavrov on a world tour trying to get anyone he can rally to convince us to back off this idea.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59503762
Fact: Russia attempted to engage us on several occasions regards this issue. They (Putin, Lavrov, etc) openly stated this is their “red-line.” We entirely stonewalled them. No compromises, no negotiations, nothing.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60145159
I’m sure it makes you feel better thinking that it’s a genetic cause, that Russians are just evil, while God anointed us to do his will.
I’m sure it sounds better to you that Putin is a “madman” or has some “mental illness” while our coherent and always on point Biden is sharp and fast as members of his staff claim.
Who knows what you’re thinking, but one thing is for sure, just claiming it’s “complete nonsense” that NATO East expansion caused this war makes no sense and is no argument.
FYI, an actual decent historical perspective about Russia’s claim that we betrayed them regards NATO East expansion: https://www.france24.com/en/russia/20220130-did-nato-betray-russia-by-expanding-to-the-east
| In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled A former PLA soldier hired by Russians gives a reality check on Russia-Ukraine war, Chad C. Mulligan wrote: |
| No doubt we’re expansionist and succeeding in tearing what once were Warsaw Pact nations, Soviet Republics, or nations in the Russian sphere of influence (historically allied or aligned with Russia but not part of the Soviet Union or Warsaw Pact) under our control. Name one nation whose territory American has annexed. Just one. Britain, France, Belgium, Netherlands et.al. have all relinquished their empires. The USA voluntarily gave the Philippines full independence after WW2. Only Moscow refuses to accept that the era of empires is OVER, and demands to re-construct theirs by force of arms, at the expense of the peoples who were finally freed in 1991. This of course means nothing to Putinskis. As far as Moscow is concerned, might makes right, period, end of story. Has been so since the Mongol period ended. Which is why western nations oppose Moscow, why NATO was formed, why NATO still exists, and why even more nations in your vicinity have asked to join NATO since 2022. ASKED to join. The NATO charter does not allow it to force itself on anyone. (Another lie Moscow keeps promoting....that NATO was expanding itself into Ukraine. Any and all contacts with NATO were/are at Ukraine's instigation. Had to be. The events of 2014 and 2022 confirmed their fears. And everybody else's.) |
Many FReepers seem unaware that our CIA helped overthrow Ukrainian leadership in preparation for the current war in the Ukraine.
2 days after the CIA's overthrow of the Ukraine began, Putin annexed part of the Crimea. You always act there's no provocation, no reason at all, which provoked Russia to respond.
In 2010, the Ukraine's "parliament passed a law banning Ukraine from joining any military bloc, effectively banning it from entering NATO though maintaining opportunities for cooperation. According to a poll conducted by Pew Research Center the fall before, just over half of Ukrainians disapproved of NATO and the idea Ukraine might try to join, while just 28% approved." source
ransomnote: Since the Ukraine moved to prevent NATO membership, the US CIA overthrew the Ukrainian government (start of that 'revolution' was February 18, 2014). With (CIA) help, NATO was now in control of the Ukraine, Russia responded by annexing part of Crimea Feb 20, 2014 – Mar 21, 2014 and in May, two more reagions of the Crimea voted for independence to escape the NATO controlled Ukraine, at which point Western Ukraine began shelling Eastern Ukraine in hopes of killing off ethnic Russians among its population and rebels who support Russia. Nobody likes to talk about Eastern Ukraine shelling western Ukraine.
Ukraine: Widespread Use of Cluster Munitions
Government Responsible for Cluster Attacks on Donetsk
(Berlin) – Ukrainian government forces used cluster munitions in populated areas in Donetsk city in early October 2014, Human Rights Watch said today. The use of cluster munitions in populated areas violates the laws of war due to the indiscriminate nature of the weapon and may amount to war crimes.
During a week-long investigation in eastern Ukraine, Human Rights Watch documented widespread use of cluster munitions in fighting between government forces and pro-Russian rebels in more than a dozen urban and rural locations. While it was not possible to conclusively determine responsibility for many of the attacks, the evidence points to Ukrainian government forces’ responsibility for several cluster munition attacks on Donetsk."
https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-cluster-munitions
"The NATO charter does not allow it to force itself on anyone."
HAHAHAHAHA! Right! They use carrot and stick techniques and CIA manipulation. You know, 'standard operating procedures'. NATO doesn't want nations it takes over to be 'rescued' and it doesn't want a bad reputation as it tries to lure other nations, so it has to look voluntary.
Deep State messaging helps to panic smaller nations into the fold by warning about RUssia while NATO tightens its grip and continues to hunt more nations.
News Flash - NATO is not trustworthy, and lies as much as Brandon does.
Zeepers usually conflate the USSR with Russia to justify it's hatred. You are the first to blame it on The Mongol Period!
Brandon was installed, in part, to handle the flow of money to NATO. The WEF, UN, WHO and NATO are not just 'accidentally' trying to take over the world.
The Japanese territory where we still have bases is under the jurisdiction of Japan, is it not? We didn't annex anything into U.S. jurisdiction that I am aware of.
Texas fought a war for independence from Mexico before becoming a state....voluntarily.
Does Guam want independence? Does California desire to be "re-united" with Mexico? I don't think so. (OK, there are the La Raza racists, but nobody takes them seriously.) Yet EVERY eastern European country that was ever under the Tsarist and subsequently the Soviet yoke is fiercely defending the freedom from Russian tyranny that they gained 1991.
Moscow seriously claims the Ukraine is "Russian" despite having a different language, a different Orthodox Church, etc. Moscow is enforcing Russian civil law and Russian citizenship on the Ukrainian territory occupied in 2014, announcing to all and sundry that the occupied territory is now Russia, and is deporting ethnic Ukrainians wholesale.
Now THAT is annexation.
Oh, yeah. The CIA used its’ magic mind-ray to put 800,000 people in the streets of Kiev in opposition to Yanukovich’s treachery. Pull the other one.
The Texas war for independence had little to do with the Mexican American war and seizing California—and all those elections—Russia had election too in Donbas and Crimea too—how honest were they? How honest was the 1959 election in Hawaii?
No, America is no saint—few big nations are. Ask the people of Northern Ireland about “Free Elections”.
The Russians are a Christian and Euro based culture. They are ethnic Slavs, which are Euro.
Eastern Orthodox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_Church
Slavs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavs
You go to great lengths to try to pretend you’re better than someone else.
The sad thing is that it’s not that Russia became so liberal (they moved a little bit in that direction) but that we moved in their direction towards a centralized government. It’s us today that are all about equality/equity, secular at best and outright atheist at worst, globalist (”workers of the world unite” was the commie slogan and we’re the ones pushing that crap today).
This could practically be a recruiting poster (all the different races etc) for any US government agency today, just add some women and replace the hammer and sickle with a US government agency emblem: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/342766221623847371/
The US today is a nation no different than Russia. We’re little better off economically. But, we have surrendered true freedom for security (none of the first ten amendments/Bill of Rights mean anything anymore), centralized power in our bureaucracy and capital, have elections about as real as those in Russia (even though we mock the Russians our elections are a joke too), a government share of the GDP that is about the same as Russia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_spending_as_percentage_of_GDP, we have side stepped the US Constitution in procedures, adopted policies and MO’s that are similar to Russia (we torture, kidnap assassinate), mass censor, mass propagandize our own public, use our intel services heavily inside our own country...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_test
But sure, we’re entirely different because it makes you feel better. (sarc)
You’re Brad Pitt. You’re a democracy, human rights and sovereignty warrior, in shining silver armor anointed by God! (sarc)
Here’s the truth and it won’t make you feel good. People are people and we Americans are able and willing to do EVERYTHING the worst Nazi’s did, the worst commies did, in fact what Saddam and Mao did.
People are inherently bad, full of sin, including you and I. What kept us straight in the past was that we had a society that had some semblance of morality (that’s gone today) and a government that was impotent (weak -confined by a US Constitution). Yes, our government did NOT have the power and ability to do these things and that’s why we were a little bit better historically. The Constitution is a document that basically confines government (no longer the case either), sets limits to it’s powers, etc. It’s not that we didn’t have the same ideas, the same type of people, willing to do the same things, it’s just when they wanted to practice Eugenics in the US we couldn’t do it quite as efficiently as the Germans did in the Holocaust: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States
Maybe because I've learned the history of Moscow from real books, written by real historians? For the lazy yewtewb generation, here's a thumbnail written by a Finnish intelligence officer who spent many years in Russia:
https://ricochet.com/1214468/finnish-intelligence-officer-explains-the-russian-mindset/
Moscow learned its' business model by cozying up to the Golden Horde, and it hasn't changed all that much.
Russians are EASTERN Slavs, who are not European. Their culture is central Asian, overlain with a sort of Christianity imposed by the Byzantines.
WESTERN Slavs, (Poles, Czechs) acknowledged the Pope. And as such have always been much better educated, and considered Europeans by other Europeans.
When they opened the archives of the Kremlin (which they have since re-closed), we found out that many orthodox priests were killed resisting the communists. I repented not having faith in my eastern brothers. Today the Russian orthodox church sells itself to Putin for a few lousy pieces of silver. Cathedrals with stained glass windows featuring Lenin, Stalin and Putin.
God will not be mocked.
You must be ignorant, or think I am, about Russia. Ethnic Russians share the vast Russian Federation with many other people. For a time, some federal subjects were allowed self-rule including in language. But, no more, Putin has taken away the rights of the Republics.
The Russians are Europeans but not western. They are eastern Europeans. (This is basic knowledge. You must know this.) Russia traces its cultural lineage to Kiev and prior to that to Constantinople. In the west, the cultural lineage goes something like this, from Rome to the Holy Roman Empire, to Protestantism, liberal government and capitalism. The Poles easily align with the west, even though subjugated by Imperial Russia and by the Soviet Union for many centuries. Other eastern Europeans, such as the Hungarians, Bulgarians, and Romanians, have their own national stories; and, being sovereign nations, they are able to reconcile their national histories with their present.
Over here, in America, we were “conceived in Liberty,” as Lincoln put it, and don’t have a shared national history.
There are effectively no opportunities for alternative leadership in Russia. Hence, there is no meaningful opposition party or opposition leaders. Your man is a dictator who has consolidated power even more completely than any Party Secretary during the Soviet era. Russia, therefore, will have to collapse because it cannot change. Of course, collapse is what Russian has been doing the past century. You collapsed during WWI and you collapsed after Afghanistan.
You will collapse because of your stupid war in Ukraine. Well, unless Putin blames his generals for misinforming him, and seeks some kind of a deal from the west.
As far as my family tree goes, you can only go back about 5 generations with DNA connections. Anything farther back is based on recommendations made by Ancestry.com from other people's family trees. I have quite a few connections to Germany according to those recommendations. I've tried to confirm them using other genealogy sites, but without actual documents, you have to take them with a grain of sand. I am supposed to have connections to Austria...mostly Bavaria, and many regions of Germany, and pardon me as far as the presentation of the names. These are what is given in the digital records I've accessed: Lower Saxony (Sachsen), Sachsen-Anhalt, Württemberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Thuringia, Hesse, Rhineland-Pfalz, Palatinate, etc. Some of these names may be from the Germanic Empire period. I have a lot of ancestors whose last names begin with Von, but again I have no idea if the records are accurate. And like you, I have had Jewish ancestry pop up farther back too. Most of the German ancestry is through my mother's line. Her family line is much longer than my father's. His ancestors were mostly farmers and laborers, so it peters out in the 1600's.
When I was in high school 1961-1965, the only languages available were Latin and French. I took French for one year, then dropped it. Even after all these years I still remember some of the phrases and words. I'm one of those people who can remember crap from 50 years ago, but don't ask me what I had for supper last night. I did eventually go to college, but went to night school full time, and worked during the day. I didn't use my degrees to get, or change jobs. I was already working for New York State, had several years in the job where I gained seniority, so it would have been stupid to leave to start all over again somewhere else. I basically went to school to see if I could do it. I had been a terrible student in high school, just got by. And because I was able to connect my Civil War history research with my curriculum, it gave me an even bigger incentive to continue with my schooling. I really enjoyed the classroom experience, and back when I was attending, the young kids attending classes during the day, weren't allowed to sign up for night courses, so we were all adults interested in learning.
A while back, several years now, one of my oldest son's Munich friends came to the U.S. with his then girlfriend to visit him. My son lives about 2 1/2 hours away. They drove in and we met at a Greek Restaurant here we like. On the way, Martin made my son stop and buy me flowers, something neither son has ever done. And when it came time to pay the bill, Martin picked up the bill. When I protested, he said it was his birthday, and in Germany, it was customary for the birthday person to treat everyone else. I'd never heard of that custom, and my son didn't really know if that was true or not. So tell me, is that the truth, or was Martin just being a really sweet guy?
The Spaniards in California were quite notorious for using the Indians as slaves, btw. Not that we Anglos treated them a whole lot better, but at least they weren't forced field labor.
Apparently you are. Peter the Great traveled in Europe and was so embarrassed by his own primitive empire that he embarked on a radical program of "Europeanisation", including the building of St. Petersburg on the Baltic. It failed. The boyars and the masses wouldn't accept it.
A quick search find this thumbnail history:
https://www.thinkchina.sg/history/why-peter-great-and-emperor-kangxi-failed-modernisation-test
"In the 21st century, Russia - like its neighbour who is the descendant of Emperor Kangxi - still has to threaten war to prove its greatness. After going around in bloodstained circles towards a utopian state with Karl Marx and Lenin, it is back where it started, with even less taste than the time of Peter."
"The West is wary of Russia because the Tsarist autocracy created by Peter the Great is only interested in expanding outward rather than improving its values."
right from Putin
We Americans believe that government comes from the consent of the governed; not as a legacy of some long dead monarch. When my fellow Americans figure how eff’ed up Russians are, they’ll figure out that the only thing Russians understand is power.
Next you'll use the word “annex” like some other guy to make up some polemic/rhetorical difference for how us attacking, invading and sponsoring coups isn't so bad either, since we didn't annex them. Laughable-
Add to this list of similarities that the Russians (Rusland in German, or land of the Rus) share. The Rus are Vikings originally from Sweden (ever wonder why so many Russians are blond and have blue eyes?): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rus%27_people
Anyway, it's funny you want to start playing the game of definitions and creating some litmus test in order to be European or Christian enough, coming from a society where we have 15,000 different Protestant flavors today (literally), some of which think dogs go to heaven, others worry a lot about climate change, still others have female priests and worry a lot about the feminist cause while supporting abortion, finally some are 100% on board with LGBTQIA and have homo priests and bishops, allow for homo weddings... What about churches that de facto adopt socialism as part of their doctrine like the Catholics are doing under Francis? Are you telling me there is no mixing of religion and politics in the US?
When in a glass house...
Are we 100% the same? No. But are we very similar? Yes.
It's really a struggle over control of the worlds energy reserves and we are the one that is offensive and expanding into their sphere of influence all while pretending like we're defensive. We keep using the same old faux arguments of “democracy (Venezuela), human rights (Libya), WMD (Syria/Iraq) and sovereignty (Ukraine)” as rationalizations. The US controls 2/3rds and Russia 1/3rd of the worlds energy resources and everyone either falls on our side like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar; or their side like Venezuela, Iran, Libya, Syria...
This isn't the Cold War anymore. It's not us being defensive, a free and decentralized society, with a true free press and some government transparency and accountability, facing off with a Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union that is in part on an ideological conquest. Today, the line (if there even is one) regards who is the good guy and bad guy is far more blurry.
People like you want to pretend that our bombs, missiles, covert operations, lies, cheating, propaganda, assignations, censorship, torture, kidnappings are somehow more moral compared to those “evil Russians.”
Wooops, sorry about that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri Image: https://cdn.prod.www.spiegel.de/images/921c0226-26a6-48ed-9a77-a30b21d7d9ce_w1024_r1.4349164467897977_fpx64.12_fpy50.webp But we did it for democracy, sovereignty and human rights, so it's OK. Like GITMO was OK too, right? Do you realize, while you use these cliche's to justify every war, we were kidnapping people in allied nations (extraordinary rendition), dragging them off to third party nations, where we tortured the $hit out of them (enhanced interrogations) and then lie and claim “we don't do that” like Bush W. said even though his signature is on the authorization for such. And no worries, no US bureaucrat has ever been held accountable! When you do it for democracy, human rights and sovereignty, you can do almost anything, like blow up gas pipelines allied nations depend on. When God tells you that you are right, when you have a genetic predisposition for being moral, like we have, you can violate treaties like Minsk and Montreux, lie about NATO East expansion, withdraw from the Ballistic Missile Treaty, stomp all over someone else’s back yard, and then in a total hypocritical fashion (since we would NEVER tolerate a foreign power on our border) expect Russia to swallow such a $hit pill.
The position we put Russia in regards Ukraine was so over the top ridiculous, that this is actually one of the reasons why IMHO, I believe it is probable that it was at least a major consideration and a known expectation that a war would happen. A war between Ukraine and Russia would benefit us Geo-politically in our struggle with Russia over control of their frontier nations by weakening an already weak near peer in conventional terms. Best of all, such a conflict would have the Ukrainians bleeding and the Euro's (NATO) partially financing it, while we are the ones standing to benefit on the world stage. In other words, we saw a weak opponent and opportunity to play someone against them, benefiting us in our ability to take away what is theirs elsewhere: Libya, Venezuela, Syria, Niger, etc. But I do not think things worked out the way we expected. Machiavelli is probably more appropriate than your stories of democracy, sovereignty, and human rights regards Ukraine.
It's not that Russia is the good guy, they are not. But neither are we. In typical fashion you try to dehumanize the “enemy” no differently than we did with the Germans, Japanese, Indians, Mexicans, Blacks in the past, and of course on their side there are people who do the same to us. Many people have been dehumanized: Jews, Gypsies, Russians, Chinese, etc. but it's usually wrong. People are pretty much people and when folks attempt to dehumanize a group, that should actually set off alarm bells regarding the one attempting to do such.
You must be talking about us?
There is a reason why we treat Russia differently than the PRC.
Let’s use your BS human rights, democracy, and sovereignty arguments we always use as justifications for war.
Who do you think is FAR-FAR worse, Russia or the PRC in any one of them?
Russia doesn’t have 1 million people in internment camps, they aren’t the worlds champion in executions, nor do they have forced abortions, had a one child policy, oppress religion, questionable organ harvesting policies, they aren’t governed by a single Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and make dissidents disappear all the time...
But we would NEVER dare mess with Taiwan the way we did with Ukraine, in fact we don’t even mention the human rights abuses in the PRC if possible and we have wiped Tibet completely off the radar.
The PRC is a major hub for US manufacturing, holds onto a lot of US securities, is one of the worlds largest markets for US made products, has a lot of influence in the US via lobbying efforts and campaign contributions by their US based subsidiaries. The PRC actually has a big military, in fact they try to downplay their size and modernization. It is the PRC which is a true near peer threat, not Russia: https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/China-Military-Budget-Graphic.png?x85095 Finally, the PRC has some influence on the US media and is permitted to blast their side of the story to the US audience via a laundry-list of CCP owned media (some US brand outlets they own) which is permitted free reign in the US.
So, we play very nice with the PRC, but hardball with Russia. What’s the difference?
The human loss figure for Russia just topped 1/2 million today.
Are you a teacher of CRT anywhere?
“Then there is Iraq. We lied about WMD and AQ being there, so we invaded under false pretenses.”
^
Our Bush-era intelligence was adopted from a Clinton-holdover named George Tenet, whose loyalties belonged to the DNC, and had no difficulties in willingly subverting the Bush Administration.
WMD was found in artillery shells. A few of our soldiers who uncovered them suffered poisoning.
Tons of raw Uranium yellow cake was airlifted to Canada for processing.
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