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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   33008 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023

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apparently remained too much of a gentlemen to have them arrested and prosecuted

Convenient. "Dany just kinda forgot about the Iron Fleet..."

Corruption was actually a big faux pas among British gentlemen back in those days, and it would have been politically useful for Chamberlain (not averse to undermining his enemies) to expose it by Churchill et al.

Unz’s account cogent enough that academics should seriously engage with it and it be taught in schools as Unz wants it to be?

Academics HAVE engaged with revisionist arguments. The problem is that, while (Nazi-sympathising) revisionists can often do a good job in trouncing amateurs due to knowing more of the basic facts ("You didn't know that the Sudetenland was German speaking? Let me tell you what else they kept from you...") they don't actually have arguments that stand up under academic scrutiny.

There are sensible forms of WWII revisionism, e.g. the representation of pre-1939 Allied foreign policy has become mythologised by Churchill worshippers and perma-hawks. It was a failure of appeasement and deterrence, but the inefficacy of the latter in containing self-destructive dictators was perhaps too frightening to contemplate during the Cold War.

World War II is extremely overstudied at this point, its lessons are overinterpreted, and in many countries it is taught far too much in schools, at the expense of events that are either more relevant to understanding the modern world (e.g. Russian, Chinese, and internal American history) or more integral to specific nations' current conditions and identities (the Reformation, the Crusades, the Industrial Revolution etc.). Obviously WWII helped form the modern world, but the Cold War did so more recently. And, at this point, I think we've finally got past the horror of progressives at the mere thought of teaching children about the evils of International Communism, lest it create McCarthyism, war frenzy, and the destruction of all life on Earth.

a large bout of “military Keynesianism” and a major war would cure the country’s seemingly insurmountable economic problems

Keynes played no small role in the start of World War 2, but contrary to how this anonymous FDR advisor is supposedly invoking him here, it was due to his outsized concern with the economic destructiveness of the post-war order as being too harsh on Germany. The Economic Consequences of the Peace significantly shaped the perception of Versailles in the US as being incredibly unfair, though this was largely a myth. A young French economist, Étienne Mantoux demonstrated that Keynes' dire predictions had fallen apart almost immediately:

In opposition to Keynes he held that justice demanded that Germany should have paid for the whole damage caused by World War I, and he set out to prove that many of Keynes' forecasts were not verified by subsequent events. For example, Keynes believed European output in iron would decrease but by 1929 iron output in Europe was up 10% from the 1913 figure. Keynes predicted that German iron and steel output would decrease but by 1927 steel output increased by 30% and iron output increased by 38% from 1913 (within the pre-war borders). Keynes also argued that German coal mining efficiency would decrease but labour efficiency by 1929 had increased on the 1913 figure by 30%. ...

Keynes also believed that Germany would be unable to pay the 2 billion marks-plus in reparations for the next 30 years, but Mantoux contends that German rearmament spending was seven times as much as that figure in each year between 1933 and 1939.

Despite this, Keynes' book became a significant influence on the subsequent post-war policy of the United States, to strip back many of the reparations owed by Germany. This both enabled Germany's rearmament while lending credence to false, conspiratorial narratives of economic persecution. Summed up in a review of Förster's The Treaty of Versailles: a reassessment after 75 years, excerpted:

To begin with economics: it is even more clear now than it was at the time that, in terms of its resources, Germany could have paid the sums demanded of it. Indeed, as Schuker has argued in his 1988 book, American 'Reparations' to Germany, 1919-1933, if one takes into account the reductions in the reparations burden initiated by the Dawes and Young Plans (in 1924 and 1929 respectively), American credits to Germany for fulfilling its liability, the default on these obligations, and the de facto cancellation of outstanding reparations payments in 1932, it is reasonable to conclude that Germany paid no net reparations at all.

Keynes' narrative on the war has been particularly sticky in the US education system, to the point where his takes are reproduced uncritically even to this day. Mantoux fought for the Free French Forces and died in Bavaria, 1945, eight days before the German surrender.

How much utility is there in studying WWII revisionism

None whatsoever.

WWII is circumstantially unique- the vast majority of totalitarian land empires are not as bad as either Nazi germany or the Stalinist USSR. For that matter imperial Japan was a lot worse than a typical ethnonationalist imperial power, too. In the modern consciousness, including the consciousness of elite decision makers, everything about WWII is overshadowed by that fact(well, set of facts). And we are simply not very likely to have a war with three regimes that evil as active participants again on a timescale where people still remember WWII as a thing to draw lessons from and not as something Akin to the great Byzantine-Persian war or the war of Jenkin’s ear or King Phillip’s war. Sure, they’re historically relevant, but no one thinks about them to draw lessons.

‘Never again’ with regards to WWII refers to the litany of unprecedented and unrepeated human rights crises in the war, not to the existence of a war. And it was not obvious ahead of time that the Nazis or Soviets or imperial Japanese would murder so many people(although perhaps the nature of the regime should have been a clue that they would murder some number). Most continent-wide conventional wars between major powers do not involve the intentional killing of 10’s of millions of civilians. WWI featured a single genocide- the ottomans butchering Christian subject races- and a few smaller human rights abuses, the mass targeting of civilians was limited mostly to a single theater. The second Congo war and Vietnam both featured civilian deaths on a large scale, but no mass exterminations. The Iran-Iraq war was a war between some pretty detestable regimes- one of which carried out multiple active genocides during the war and the other of which conscripted children to use as human mine clearers- but doesn’t feature the gigantic relative civilian body counts that WWII did.

The closest parallels, morally, are the Yugoslav breakup and some conflicts in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the size doesn’t compare. And that’s the relevant reason WWII sticks in anyone’s mind. You can avoid another set of world spanning genocides by not putting genocidal madmen in charge of three major continental powers all at once, and that’s probably not going to happen anytime soon.

the vast majority of totalitarian land empires are not as bad as either Nazi germany or the Stalinist USSR.

How many other totalitarian land empires are you counting as having existed (roughly)?

If there have been 50 other empires then sure these 2 are an outlier, but if China, the Central Powers (do they count as totalitarian?) and Tsarist Russia are the only other examples then it's at most a slim and in no way a vast majority.

Modern China and Saudi Arabia, Tsarist Russia, kruschevite Russia, fascist Romania, ceasescu’s Romania, Yugoslavia, Saddam’s Iraq, arguably Vietnam and North Korea, possibly modern Russia(I’m seeing a track record here), potentially apartheid SA and maybe Iran and hafez’s Syria. I’d also count Egypt at certain points in the late 20th century and mobutu’s Congo.

You can avoid another set of world spanning genocides by not putting genocidal madmen in charge of three major continental powers all at once, and that’s probably not going to happen anytime soon.

I hope that's the case, but I'm not convinced that Tooze's Wages of Destruction is wrong.

It describes a lot of the worst atrocities by Nazi Germany in economic and logistic terms, and while that doesn't make the people who did it any less genocidally mad or evil -- the actions are just as vile whether done because of bad moral philosophy or to simplify food logistics -- it does give an alternative reason why three (or, uh, many more than that) genocidal madmen popped up and received widespread support all at once, despite their often wildly conflicting positions and backgrounds. And one can at least imagine the same frameworks applying to those other genocidal madmen, and to other less-successful ones who still nonetheless punched far above their grade.

Which still leaves revisionism as pretty unexciting, but does leave past genocides and especially the bigger and more deadly past genocides as worth studying.

‘Never again’ with regards to WWII refers to the litany of unprecedented and unrepeated human rights crises in the war, not to the existence of a war.

As a comment about the cocktail-party talk of Anglo-Jewish in elites early 21st century America, this is probably true, but as a statement about the global political response to World War II, it is profoundly false. The people who live through WW2 and the institutions they set up were all about "Never again" with regard to total war between the great powers.

The first test is how the Western allies handle Stalin's post-war demands, and given a choice between "Never again" as in don't commit/assist/cover up epic human rights abuses and "Never again" as in don't risk a war with Stalin over petty shit like human rights, the West chooses peace. The Cold War begins with conflicts over spheres of influence, not Soviet crimes. The rhetoric of the Truman doctrine is about defending democracy against totalitarianism, but the actual policy it was first used to justify was supporting what were effectively right-wing military governments in Greece and Turkey against probably-popular Communist-backed revolutions.

The Preamble to the UN Charter begins "We the Peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war..." and sets up a whole bunch of conflict-resolution institutions, some of which were intended to have teeth (although the Cold War meant that the Security Council never functioned as intended). It specifically declined to set up human-rights enforcement institutions - Article 2, Principle 7 is "Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state "

The Schuman Declaration setting up what would eventually become the European Coal and Steel Community specifically states that the aim is to make another war between France and (West) Germany impossible, but does not mention human rights. The EEC/EU doesn't even acquire a formal commitment to human rights until 2000.

This isn't surprising - World War II was an order of magnitude more deadly and destructive than the Holocaust. Comparing these Jewish Holocaust death tolls to these total WW2 death tolls, the only country where Holocausted Jews were a majority of the dead was Czechoslovakia (which was spared the worst of WW2 in a paradoxical but genuine success for Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy).

In Russia and China, "Never again" obviously refers to the invasion and ruination of their countries by Germany and Japan respectively - it is a call to make sure that you are at the table and not on the menu next time. So not "Never again a war", but "Never again a war without a quick victory". For obvious reasons, not about the Holocaust.

It is easy for Americans to think silly things about WW2 because the United States was spared most of the negative consequences. Continental Europe was basically trashed from Saint-Lo to Stalingrad, as was China. The UK was bombed, blockaded, and bankrupted. Japan was nuked. As the people who actually lived through all this die off, Americanised western Europeans are starting to think the same silly things. This is bad.

I don’t think the Russo-Chinese elites are reading WWII revisionism, and the 40’s and fifties elites definitely aren’t because they’re dead.

The decision makers in western countries don’t care how the war started, don’t think about the vast human cost that was inevitable from major conventional war between continental empires, and focus on 1) the unnecessary abuse of civilians and 2) why that was, which boils down to the ideological peculiarities of several of the regimes involved. That’s the lesson our elites are applying, and the actual reasons WWII broke out are irrelevant for it.

Yes, there’s arguments that an antisemitic regime starting to lose a total war will start exterminating the Jewish population, but Germany turning towards antisemitism was not inevitable prior to the Nazi party deciding to make antisemitism a major part of their platform. The Soviet regime was probably going to leave a gigantic body count no matter what happened, but, you know, the Russian empire could have been non communist.

I mean while I’m sure that we did accidentally stop human rights abuses, the story of never again is really only propaganda. Nobody has or will go to war over human rights. It’s just that it’s something the West has generally found the idea useful as it sounds a bit better to say “human rights” and “fighting to end war” than “we’re strong and we are stronger economically so toe the line or else.” The real reasons were pragmatic and aimed at our own ends.

Nobody has or will go to war over human rights.

intervention in Serbia/Kosovo seems like a case of that, with side of "stop your stupid tensions in that region, last time it ignited WW II"

there were also some other interventions which seem to be genuinely attempt at that

the story of never again is really only propaganda

"Never again a Holocaust" is propaganda. "Never again a land war in Europe" is something that Europeans and Americans of the wartime generation took extremely seriously, and which Europeans and Blue Tribe Americans are still taking seriously in Ukraine as we speak.

Much as the globohomo elites liked to kvetch about the lack of Pride parades in Moscow, nobody seriously suggested actually doing anything about it, even something petty like boycotting the Sochi Winter Olympics. What brought the banhammer down - both the little banhammer in 2014 and the big banhammer in 2022 - was Russian troops crossing the internationally recognised borders of Ukraine with murderous intent.

it sounds a bit better to say “human rights” and “fighting to end war” than “we’re strong and we are stronger economically so toe the line or else.”

That's a false dichotomy.

Serbia seems like it was a war from the west and mostly about human rights.

In Russia and China, "Never again" obviously refers to the invasion and ruination of their countries by Germany and Japan respectively - it is a call to make sure that you are at the table and not on the menu next time

Russia has been very much at the table in WW2, chomping on pieces of Poland, Hungary, Romania, Finland, Baltic states, etc. Is it when their former friends the Nazis turned out to be less than friendly, the trouble began. Russia and Germany were probably the two European parties that were ok with the war started - the rest remembered WWI and so were going out of their way to not provoke another one - which, paradoxically, ensured it would happen.

Agreed on the actual historical facts, but my impression is that the historical mythology of WW2 is extremely important to the versions of national identity being promoted by both the Soviet and the Putinist regimes. And the key points of the myth are:

  • The innocence of the Soviet Union and the utter wickedness of Hitler's unprovoked aggression (the Molotov-Ribentropp pact is ignored, obv), occasionally backed up with ahistorical claims that the Soviet Union was abandoned or betrayed by the western democracies in the pre-war period.

  • The Soviet Union's underdog status at the start of the war (probably true)

  • The extraordinary deadliness and destructiveness of the eastern front in WW2 (which is true) which is blamed on Nazi wickedness (ignoring the contribution of Soviet incompetence)

  • The extraordinary effort and sacrifice of the Soviet people to defeat the Nazis (definitely true)

  • The idea that defeating the Nazis was a mostly-Soviet achievement while the western Allies effectively sat the war out and watched Nazis and Communists shoot each other, Spanish Civil War style, and that the rest of the world being insufficiently grateful to the Soviet Union for singlehandedly saving the world from Nazism at enormous human cost is a sign of western wickedness. (Ahistorical)

In other words, the myth clearly centres aggression and not genocide as Hitler's supreme crime, and the intended lesson of the myth is that Russia is always at risk of a surprise attack from the west, needs to be stronk so that the attack can be repelled well before the "Nazis" get to Stalingrad, and suffered massively from being insufficiently stronk in 1941.

although the Cold War meant that the Security Council never functioned as intended

Didn't it? I think the purpose of it was (as you explained...) to avoid a war between the great powers? It seems to me it succeeded quite well.

My understanding is that the purpose of the Security Council was to proactively deal with "threats to international peace and security" (like minor royals being shot in Sarajevo or less-than-perfectly controlled great power client states invading each other) before they escalated to possible great power conflict. I don't think it did this - in particular the list of US-Soviet proxy wars in banana republics is long, and the UN system did basically nothing - escalation was prevented by some combination of MAD and the post-Cuban Missile Crisis steps taken to ensure bilateral communication between the superpowers.

As far as I can see, nobody else has made this point so far, so I'll argue that if any (future) Allied government deserves real blame for not averting another world war, it is the French, for not opposing the German remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936, which would have been easily justifiable legally and carried no risk.

the French, for not opposing the German remilitarization of the Rhineland of 1936, which would have been easily justifiable legally and carried no risk.

Disallowing the militarization of your own territory is the definition of not having sovereignty... Maintaining this arrangement in perpetuity was neither possible nor reasonable. Even if they scared the Germans away, they could just do it again and again whenever the French let up pressure. "We are going to go to war with you if you put military in your own country" was never going to be a stable arrangement, it was always going to lead to a showdown.

Agree. Hindsight is 20/20, the allies didn‘t know it was the first in a long line of increasingly demented demands, but this one was still reasonable. And when the french (and belgians) previously tried to play hardball with the ruhr occupation, the anglos weren‘t supporting them, they had to withdraw and scratch some reparations. So it would have been just france versus germany, with the rest of the world increasingly favouring the defenders, and condemning france.

Afterwards it came to light that the deployed Wehrmacht units had orders to retreat without a fight if armed resistance was offered by the French. There would have been no defenders.

And then what? They level german cities to the ground, demanding unconditional surrender? They'd just go home after a while under diplomatic pressure like in 1925.

It'd have been a great embarrassment for Hitler and obviously would've eroded his willingness to take similar political gambles in the future. It'd have also demonstrated that the French government will respond militarily to violations of the Versailles Treaty. I'm not arguing that it'd have prevented another Franco-German war forever and ever, but it'd have averted another world war, eventually.

Alternative history scenario: three years later, a sympathetic germany beats down france first, to the indifference of the anglos, sick of the high-handed bellicosity of the gallic rooster. When the germans get to poland and tschekoslovakia, the brits realize too late that Hitler is a bad actor. Deprived of a large allied power on the continent, they no longer have the leverage to threaten war. So later it's just germany versus soviet union, longer, bloodier, and Hitler gets baku‘s oil.

Yes that was really the main treaty violation that should have triggered a response because it was the only real strategic threat to France and Britain. Germany taking Czechoslovakia or Austria or Danzig doesn't really do anything to change the balance of power. Sure, the Skoda Works are nice to have but they aren't going to affect the outcome of a war if Germany can't defend the Rhineland. So the one actually critical treaty provision is the one that gets ignored but then France and the UK decide to kamikaze into Germany over annexations that primarily threaten the Soviet Union. It makes absolutely no sense and I don't think they could have handled things in a less competent way.

It makes absolutely no sense

It makes sense if you think of it as them developing an evolving model of Hitler's behaviour, rather than looking at each annexation in isolation.

is Unz’s account cogent enough that academics should seriously engage with it and it be taught in schools as Unz wants it to be?

(1) should academics engage with it? Yes, because there is some truth mixed in

(2) should it be taught in schools? No, because most of it is erroneous or misleading

God knows I hold no brief for any of the Churchills, but this much is wrong:

A particularly notable instance occurred in early 1938 when Churchill suddenly lost all his accumulated wealth in a foolish gamble on the American stock-market, and was soon forced to put his beloved country estate up for sale to avoid personal bankruptcy, only to quickly be bailed out by a foreign Jewish millionaire intent upon promoting a war against Germany.

(1) Did Churchill, along with others, lose his shirt in 1929 (not 1938)? Yes, and he went on a lecture/speaking tour of North America to raise money. He had a friend, Bernard Baruch, a Jewish financier who did lend him money or otherwise mitigated his losses. I suppose "American" does count as foreign, but Winnie was half-American himself by his mother.

(2) Did he lose a fortune again in 1938? I can't find any account of this. Mainly, he had been out of office during the 'wilderness years' and lived extravagantly even though he was also having to write for a living (as well as he liked writing historical books). The Churchills as a family had always been bad with money and it fell to one of them in the 19th to restore the family fortunes by marrying an American heiress. Churchill's father was a younger son, so not the heir to the dukedom, and as the son of a younger son, Winnie had little money of his own (by his standards, at least). Thanks to Adolf, Churchill's prognostications were proven right and the government had to appoint him First Lord of the Admiralty in 1939 which saved his financial skin.

(3) Did he have to sell "his beloved country estate"? This is probably Chartwell and the answer there would be "no" since he bought it in 1922 and lived there until 1965. When in office, he would have had official residences. List of places Churchill lived here.

Winnie would also not have needed to be bribed to be militant about Germany, though he probably would have happily trousered any cash coming his way.

I am just your average idiot and if I can pick holes in the accuracy with ten minutes online, I imagine real historians could do a lot better.

EDIT:

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who was horrified to discover the corrupt motives of his fierce political opponents, but apparently remained too much of a gentlemen to have them arrested and prosecuted. I’m no expert in the British laws of that era, but for elected officials to do the bidding of foreigners on matters of war and peace in exchange for huge secret payments seems almost a textbook example of treason to me

Pardon me while I smile wryly. May I recommend interested parties to read The Man Who Knew Too Much published in 1922 by G.K. Chesterton? It's very cynical for Chesterton, almost defeatist, and I think it's down to a combination of finding out how the sausage was made, politically, and that the Liberals and the Tories were much of a muchness (after his early and short-lived political efforts) and the personal fallout for him and his brother due to the Marconi Affair. That Chamberlain would have been horrified to find out Tweedledee and Tweedledum were both to be found with their snouts in the trough and their fingers in the till, I take leave to doubt, and that there were no prosecutions was more down to "but we'll have to prosecute half of our lot as well if we do this" than gentlemanly tact.

“I know you are magnanimous,” said March after a silence, “and yet you tolerate and perpetuate everything that is mean.” Then after another silence he added: “Do you remember when we first met, when you were fishing in that brook in the affair of the target? And do you remember you said that, after all, it might do no harm if I could blow the whole tangle of this society to hell with dynamite.”

“Yes, and what of that?” asked Fisher.

“Only that I’m going to blow it to hell with dynamite,” said Harold March, “and I think it right to give you fair warning. For a long time I didn’t believe things were as bad as you said they were. But I never felt as if I could have bottled up what you knew, supposing you really knew it. Well, the long and the short of it is that I’ve got a conscience; and now, at last, I’ve also got a chance. I’ve been put in charge of a big independent paper, with a free hand, and we’re going to open a cannonade on corruption.”

“That will be — Attwood, I suppose,” said Fisher, reflectively. “Timber merchant. Knows a lot about China.”

“He knows a lot about England,” said March, doggedly, “and now I know it, too, we’re not going to hush it up any longer. The people of this country have a right to know how they’re ruled—or, rather, ruined. The Chancellor is in the pocket of the money lenders and has to do as he is told; otherwise he’s bankrupt, and a bad sort of bankruptcy, too, with nothing but cards and actresses behind it. The Prime Minister was in the petrol-contract business; and deep in it, too. The Foreign Minister is a wreck of drink and drugs. When you say that plainly about a man who may send thousands of Englishmen to die for nothing, you’re called personal. If a poor engine driver gets drunk and sends thirty or forty people to death, nobody complains of the exposure being personal. The engine driver is not a person.”

“I quite agree with you,” said Fisher, calmly. “You are perfectly right.”

“If you agree with us, why the devil don’t you act with us?” demanded his friend. “If you think it’s right, why don’t you do what’s right? It’s awful to think of a man of your abilities simply blocking the road to reform.”

“We have often talked about that,” replied Fisher, with the same composure. “The Prime Minister is my father’s friend. The Foreign Minister married my sister. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is my first cousin. I mention the genealogy in some detail just now for a particular reason. The truth is I have a curious kind of cheerfulness at the moment. It isn’t altogether the sun and the sea, sir. I am enjoying an emotion that is entirely new to me; a happy sensation I never remember having had before.”

“What the devil do you mean?”

“I am feeling proud of my family,” said Horne Fisher.

Harold March stared at him with round blue eyes, and seemed too much mystified even to ask a question. Fisher leaned back in his chair in his lazy fashion, and smiled as he continued.

“Look here, my dear fellow. Let me ask a question in turn. You imply that I have always known these things about my unfortunate kinsmen. So I have. Do you suppose that Attwood hasn’t always known them? Do you suppose he hasn’t always known you as an honest man who would say these things when he got a chance? Why does Attwood unmuzzle you like a dog at this moment, after all these years? I know why he does; I know a good many things, far too many things. And therefore, as I have the honor to remark, I am proud of my family at last.”

“But why?” repeated March, rather feebly.

“I am proud of the Chancellor because he gambled and the Foreign Minister because he drank and the Prime Minister because he took a commission on a contract,” said Fisher, firmly. “I am proud of them because they did these things, and can be denounced for them, and know they can be denounced for them, and are standing firm for all that. I take off my hat to them because they are defying blackmail, and refusing to smash their country to save themselves. I salute them as if they were going to die on the battlefield.”

There is always this stupid idea that if only we were a bit kinder with those leaders (be it Hitler, Putin or others), if we had made just one or two small concessions, there would have been no war. But this is a complete misunderstanding of the nature of their regime. Whatever you give them, they see as a sign of weakness, a proof that they can push harder. You negociated with me about Syria, so that I can do anything there? I will also take Ukraine. You give me Danzig? I will also take Alsace. It's a game where they can only win: either you give them what they want, and they are stronger and can push for more, or you don't, and they get a casus belli.

EDIT:

In the wake of the 9/11 Attacks, the Jewish Neocons stampeded America towards the disastrous Iraq War and the resulting destruction of the Middle East, with the talking heads on our television sets endlessly claiming that “Saddam Hussein is another Hitler.”

By the way, I remember quite precisely what happened, and the jews were not responsible of it. All of America wanted this war. The people who opposed it took a ton of shit. You probably wanted this war yourself. But I guess it is easier to blame the stupid choices you made on the jews.

You negociated with me about Syria, so that I can do anything there? I will also take Ukraine.

I'm sorry but I think your take is just pure garbage. It flattens the complexity of geopolitical motivations and concerns into a childish cartoon with designated evil people and designated good people, rather than looking at the incredibly complex historical dynamics which play into real world conflicts. Not only that, you've gotten the situation on the ground entirely wrong - it was the US trying to manufacture a casus belli, with the Russians not actually needing one (given that they were there in response to a request from the government of the area). Similarly, if you think that Putin simply decided to invade the Ukraine on a whim as a result of the US failing to stop him in Syria, you're just flat out wrong - the conflict in the Ukraine started before that.

But worse, this kind of belief and idea actively makes peace more difficult to achieve. When you just say that some category of people are arbitrarily bad and negotiating with them isn't possible, you close off dialogue and prevent the acquisition of the kind of perspective that can actually find a non-violent resolution. When you spend time and effort understanding why other people act the way they do and the factors motivating them, you can understand what they consider to be an existential threat. When you recognise other people as rational actors in their own set of circumstances and strive to understand that context you can find ways to compromise and allow both sides to get a portion of what they want. But your view? When you treat other people as simple villains that cannot be negotiated with, only held down with brute force, then it is impossible to understand what motivates them and why they do the things they do. There's no possibility for compromise with the two-dimensional villain that you've conjured up in your head, just war and pure physical force - which makes me glad that we do not live in the world you are imagining.

Yet another victim of the compromise ideology. Surely it makes sense to make peace with Putin, none of those that tried are there to complain.

This is an incredibly old comment, but for the record there are actually people who made peace with Putin and can talk about it. You can just go ask Xi Jinping how he found Putin as a negotiating partner, and he's pretty positive about the relationship. The rest of the BRICS nations seem fairly happy to go along with him too for that matter. Hell, you could even ask Hillary Clinton or Robert Mueller about their dealings with him, and they're still around too!

They did not make peace, as there was never any war...

This is such an absurd strawman I question how seriously you believe this. Yes, of course Putin (and Hitler, and Stalin, and al-Assad, and every other dictator) is not a cartoon villain who acts only in a simple reactive manner. But he does act according to cause and effect. He wanted Ukraine for a long time, for a lot of reasons. No one said "He simply decided to invade Ukraine on a whim." It's perfectly reasonable to think that the lack of response in one place emboldened him to push forward his Ukraine goals.

I am curious what compromise you think is possible that doesn't amount to "Give him everything he wants"?

I simply took the OP at their word and did not try to sanewash their comments. To wit:

Whatever you give them, they see as a sign of weakness, a proof that they can push harder. You negociated with me about Syria, so that I can do anything there? I will also take Ukraine. You give me Danzig? I will also take Alsace. It's a game where they can only win: either you give them what they want, and they are stronger and can push for more, or you don't, and they get a casus belli.

Framing the idea of dealing with or negotiating with people as being a sign of weakness that simply results in them taking advantage of you means that brute force "diplomacy" is the only option that's left. What other conclusion can be drawn from the claim that giving them anything at all represents an unacceptable loss? Maybe I should have just sanewashed his comment and assumed he meant something else, but I don't see what other conclusions to draw from a paragraph that essentially says that any form of negotiation is a mug's game that leads to them winning every time.

But you actually raised real objections in your post so I'll answer them.

First of all, the US didn't just "negotiate" with Putin in Syria. They attempted an invasion of the country in an effort to instigate a regime-change and replace Assad, and then failed. Russian naval forces have been in the country since the cold war, and the two nations have been allied for a long time. Russia correctly saw that the deposing of Assad would change the situation in the Middle East in a way that was very much not in their favour, and so they did their best to make sure Assad remained in power. The US is in this case an aggressive, invading military power that still has troops in Syria, and they are there without the permission of the region's government. How can you possibly interpret this as the US "negotiating" with Putin? The US military tried to achieve their goals and failed, then accepted the situation because there wasn't anything else they could do about it. This is akin to trying to assault somebody, losing the resulting fight, and then claiming that because you "negotiated" with them and let them keep their wallet, they are now emboldened to be even more aggressive towards you in the future.

He wanted Ukraine for a long time, for a lot of reasons.

I don't really think this is true - I think that Russia's preferred outcome would have been for Ukraine to remain a neutral borderzone between them and NATO forces. Russia made it abundantly clear that they saw the placing of missile interdiction systems on their front door to be an existential threat, and I don't even think they're wrong to do so. But I don't even need to get into the weeds of psychoanalysis where I work out the motivations behind a major power like Russia in order to resolve this argument - I can, even without authoritative sources, definitively state that what happened in 2015 Syria did not play any role in motivating Russia's 2014 seizure of Crimea from Ukraine (which is itself not even the first outbreak of conflict in the current dispute).

I am curious what compromise you think is possible that doesn't amount to "Give him everything he wants"?

Firm security guarantee that Ukraine does not join NATO nor host NATO forces/missile systems, and an end to the attacks on the breakaway republics and Crimea. Beyond that, a rescindment of the sanctions placed upon Russia and a return of their seized assets. I think that's a fair compromise and would satisfy the Russians, even if the US wouldn't be happy about it. Ukraine would even be free to join the EU in this case too.

Leaving aside your questionable version of history, your argument now is essentially that Putin is justified in what he did. This isn't an argument about whether he's a cartoon villain acting irrationally with whom it's impossible to negotiate (which is what you accused the OP of believing). It's an argument about whether or not he's in the wrong. My objection was that you cast the OP's argument as a strawman. I disagree with your (Russian) version of events in Syria and Ukraine, but that's an entirely different point of contention.

I don't appreciate the casting of my understanding of the situation as "Russian". I am not Russian nor do I live there, nor am I especially invested in their victory - though not for lack of trying, given how frequently I offer to bet that Crimea will not be retaken by Ukraine. I think that they're almost certainly going to end up the victors in the current conflict, but that's just my best understanding of the situation rather than what I want to happen (which is, for the record, peace).

As for justification, I don't think that's precisely the right word, but it does fit. I absolutely think that if you look at the situation in Ukraine in a broader historical context, going back to the Maidan and the troubles that led up to it, you can gain a much better understanding of the situation and why Putin is doing what he is doing - and having done that is why I object so strongly to sophomoric takes like the outcome of the Syrian conflict travelling backwards through time and informing Russian strategy in the past.

I don't appreciate the casting of my understanding of the situation as "Russian".

Well, it seems to follow "we must surrender to Russia" which is good for Russia and bad for everyone else.

Especially

I think that Russia's preferred outcome would have been for Ukraine to remain a neutral borderzone between them and NATO forces

was weird. It is quite clear that preferred outcome for Putin and other similar russians would be recreation of USSR or larger.

Firm security guarantee that Ukraine does not join NATO nor host NATO forces/missile systems, and an end to the attacks on the breakaway republics and Crimea. Beyond that, a rescindment of the sanctions placed upon Russia and a return of their seized assets.

Then next step would be to send totally-not-russian-army into Kherson. Or maybe meddle in Estonia.

I think that's a fair compromise and would satisfy the Russians

Russians would be happy. But I see no reason to expect that they would hold to it better than to Budapest Memorandum.

Well, it seems to follow "we must surrender to Russia" which is good for Russia and bad for everyone else.

No, this is a more general principle. If Russia was messing around in Mexico or Canada I'd come down on the side of the US - but right now it is the US empire getting involved in a nation that is immediately adjacent to Russia.

was weird. It is quite clear that preferred outcome for Putin and other similar russians would be recreation of USSR or larger.

Again, I disagree. Russian strategy right now recognises that they cannot overcome the current hegemon by themselves, which is why they're focused on strengthening their ties with China and laying the groundwork for a multipolar world. They're not interested in recreating the USSR, but the current conflict was motivated by real and serious security concerns (if you disagree, ask yourself how the US government would react if what happened in Ukraine happened in Mexico or Canada).

Then next step would be to send totally-not-russian-army into Kherson. Or maybe meddle in Estonia.

For what purpose? Russia had a very clear and definite set of reasons to go into Ukraine, and I don't see those reasons existing for Estonia. And isn't Kherson in Ukraine anyway?

Russians would be happy. But I see no reason to expect that they would hold to it better than to Budapest Memorandum.

Why would they break an agreement which you already said would make them happy?

More comments

When you just say that some category of people are arbitrarily bad and negotiating with them isn't possible

That's a strawman of what they said.

You didn't refute his point, you just said it was "garbage", and that people's motivations are complex. Sure.

Situation 1: An incel writes a manifesto, where he declares women evil, demands them to be redistributed among all men, cries about Asian men not being popular. Then he drives through a crowd, killing several people.

Crying wojak: "No, we must understand his motivations, men are expendable, sexlesness is as high as ever!!!"

Chad: "This guy is a monster"

Situation 2: A dude writes a book in prison about Jews being a scourge, and that his country needs to conquer a lot of land. Then he becomes a dictator of said country, declares a war on his neighbors, kills millions in the process.

Crying wojak: "No, we must understand his motivations, Versailles was too harsh, American Jewish plutocracy and that guy in a wheelchair provoked him to attack Poland!!! What about autobahns?"

Chad: "This guy is a monster"

Situation 3: An autocrat writes a manifesto about his country having a rightful claim on the territory of a neighboring country because history, makes speeches about how he was betrayed by the West, that the West is degenerate, how a nation that is above his own country in terms of human rights and media freedoms is Nazi. Then he declares war on this neighbor (sorry, declares a Special Military Operation), kills more than 100k people in the process.

Crying wojak: "No, we must understand his motivations, Ukraine is historically Russia's territory, did you read Mearsheimer, he is a genius, it's all West fault!"

Chad: "This guy is a monster"

“Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine so, basically, that’s wrong" - Chad, apparently.

There are historical examples of diplomatic deals made by democratic governments which include concessions to a dictatorship and yet do not result in war, and end up more or less being respected. I can mention the Camp David Accords which included the military dictatorship in Egypt, or the One China policy, the various treaties to limit nuclear armament etc. So let's not think in absolutes.

"Concessions don't always lead to war" is not equivalent to "Concessions reliably lead to peace."

the One China policy

How can you list that with a straight face when nearly everyone thinks China is making moves to invade Taiwan within the next decade or two. Peace in our time maybe, but it only made war more likely long term by strengthening China. Treaties on nuclear armament aren't looking so hot now either with Iran using these toothless treaties as a smoke screen to continue their nuclear weapons program.

This is still just speculation at this point regarding Taiwan.

Treaties on nuclear armament aren't looking so hot now either with Iran using these toothless treaties as a smoke screen to continue their nuclear weapons program.

That's a very strange way to describe the Trump administration leaving the treaty and the Iranians leaving it as a reaction.

It's not a democracy/dictatorship question. It's about imperialistic leaders that only respect strength. They see any concession as a sign of weakness. There are leaders like that in democracies too, even though it's rarer and they are less dangerous because their powers are limited.

I don't believe that any of those examples involve granting territorial concessions to invaders, so they don't seem relevant.

Well, ok. Not territorial concessions to invaders, strictly speaking, but such concessions nevertheless.

  1. How do you figure?

  2. Regardless, OP's entire point was about concessions to expansionist efforts, so they are not relevant.

There is always this stupid idea that if only we were a bit kinder with those leaders (be it Hitler, Putin or others), if we had made just one or two small concessions, there would have been no war.

Even if we grant that, Hitler only rose to power due to Germany being horribly abused after WWI and Putin due to how terrible transition from communism was in Russia compared to other post soviet countries.

By the way, I remember quite precisely what happened, and the jews were not responsible of it. All of America wanted this war.

Americans were wildly misled about the situation, for example, lots of them thought that Saddam was connected with 9/11. Taking down Iraq was strategic goal of Israel. Look up "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm", lead authored by Richard Perle, "architect of Iraq war".

Even if we grant that, Hitler only rose to power due to Germany being horribly abused after WWI

Horribly humiliated and somewhat, but not horribly abused. By about 1924, the Allies were seeking ways to strengthen Germany again. Germany experienced a net inflow of capital in the Weimar Period: hardly a nation being sucked dry with reparations.

Additionally, if Germany had finished WWI with honour, no loss of territory, and not economic dependence, would there have been a WWII akin to WWI? Would Hitler have been able to ride a wave of traditional German imperialism? The underlying strength of Germany and the rivalry with Russia/France would still be there. It might not have been as bad as WWII in reality, but to deny its possibility is to be cavalier with historical causation and counterfactuals.

Putin due to how terrible transition from communism was in Russia compared to other post soviet countries.

The West was very kind to Russia in that period: feeding them, not attempting to roll them back further in Chechenya or Crimea, letting Russia take over the USSR's Security Council seat, stopped it sliding into civil war in 1996 etc.

Putin and his regime still ended up blaming the West for Russia's woes in the transition period. That's not to say that those acts of kindness were bad: they saved many lives in Russia, kept it from collapsing into even more bloodshed, and possibly bought a decade or more of Russian passitivity towards its neighbours - maybe the longest period of peace from Russian aggression in Eastern European history.

The point is that kindness towards your enemies is not enough. Reagan had the right idea of assertive strength and openness to mutual concessions. That won't always work - the results would be very different with Hitler than Gorbachev - but it's a relatively robust strategy. Ironically, it's not so different from what Chamberlain and Baldwin actually pursued in the 1930s, in that they undertook Reagan-style rearmanent. However, the concessions were not matched with concessions from Germany.

Putin due to how terrible transition from communism was in Russia compared to other post soviet countries.

The criminal mafia Putin ended up heading is the one of the major reasons why the transition ended up being so terrible, and his comrades took a significant part in making this transition so terrible, and that's how they all became multi-billionaires.

Americans were wildly misled about the situation, for example, lots of them thought that Saddam was connected with 9/11. Taking down Iraq was strategic goal of Israel.

It seems to me that people that are so easily mislead should take part in no decision at all. As I said somewhere else, being dumb is no excuse.

So abolish democracy? Based.

Germany was not horribly abused after WWI. In fact, I would go far as to say they got off easier than the Russians, the Austrians, and the Ottomans, and they well got off easier than the French in 1871. Indeed, the same figures that engineered WWI - the militarists of Germany - faced no punishments, and indeed became fellow travelers of the Nazis.

Indeed, the same figures that engineered WWI - the militarists of Germany - faced no punishments, and indeed became fellow travelers of the Nazis.

I am not opposed to punishment of people personally responsible, but what happened to civilian population, like continuing starvation blockade between armistice and signing the treaty, reparations causing hyper inflation, etc.

Is there any evidence that large number of Germans starved to death after WW1? It's a longstanding (as in, back to the 1920s) revisionist claim, but I think the evidence is lacking.

Germany being horribly abused

No, they weren't. They really, really weren't. The Germans sure thought they were, because they deluded themselves into thinking they weren't one people among many in Europe, but clearly superior to all else. After imposing the treaty of Frankfurt on the French, and the treaty of Brest-Litovsk on the Russians, to then bitch and moan about Versailles can only have one name: crocodile tears.

All of America wanted this war.

I remember, too. I remember the mood over here being largely sympathy for the tragedy and understanding why they would want revenge, but also that this was a terrible idea and was driven by emotion, not any reasonable evaluation of what was going on. I suppose some of the foreign policy hawks also saw it as a chance to get back into the nation-building game, but it was the completely understandable lashing-out of a people who had been hurt.

That didn't make it right, but there was no need of sinister Semitic string pullers to urge it on.

Right, the Iraq War had a huge number of non-Jewish backers and it's ironically quite philosemitic to ascribe agency only to Jews and not to any gentiles and to claim the former persuaded the entire west (with polling routinely showing supermajority public approval) to invade.

Often overlooked is that Bush Sr considered not finishing off Saddam to have been a grave mistake and possibly to have cost him re-election, and imparted this unto his son. So W had a personal vendetta against Saddam and had stacked his team full of his father's advisors (who also had the same personal vendetta). Many of these were gentile and their reasons for wanting to invade Iraq had little or nothing to do with Israel.

The Israelis themselves were ambivalent; Ariel Sharon discouraged the war - certainly the entire Israeli establishment would rather have invaded Iran than Iran. Mossad was more in favor, but it certainly wasn't the case that all the Israeli elite favored the war, and Jewish Americans were one of the most opposed of all American demographics.

You can't invade Iran without controlling Iraq or some other land neighbour. Anyway, Israeli influence is all over the war, notwithstanding the many non-jews who also favoured it.

Israel provided faulty intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destructions. For the last 30 years they've been publicly claiming that Iran is a few months away from a nuclear bomb.

Netanyahu wrote an op-ed calling for regime change in Iran, Iraq and Syria (amongst others) in the Chicago Sun-Times, as did Ehud Barak in the Times. Sharon was in favour of the war, as Ha'aretz reported: 'Sharon believes that Iraq poses more of a threat to regional stability than Iran, due to the errant, irresponsible behavior of Saddam Hussein's regime.' Whatever skepticism there was in Israel was about the US stopping short and only invading Iraq as opposed to Iran as well.

And then there are the myriad high-ranking US officials who admit that Saddam was no threat to the US, only a threat against Israel. Zelikow, member of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board admitted it. General Wesley Clark admitted that the supporters were truly worried about Saddam's nuclear threat to Israel not the US.

it's ironically quite philosemitic to ascribe agency only to Jews

There's a joke about Rabinovich who was subscribed to every anti-Semitic newspaper there is (probably going back to pre-revolution times in Russia). When asked why he's doing that, he answers - well, you see, if I read Jewish papers - the Jews are attacked, the Jews are oppressed, the Jews are murdered... It only depresses me. But when I read these papers - the Jews run Russia, the Jews run America, the Jews run Europe, the Jews buy everything, the Jews always win... It makes me feel a bit better!

There was (allegedly) a similar joke about a Berliner Jew in 1930 who always read the Nazi papers "Volkische Beobachter," "Der Angriff," and "Die Sturmer" instead of the comparatively-mainstream "Berliner Tageblatt."

My understanding is that Israelis also didn't like the war in Afghanistan, since happenings in Afghanistan did not serve Israeli interests in any conceivable way?

Except the general sentiment of "kicking the asses of Islamist fanatics can't be bad" I don't think anybody in Israel cared much about what's happening in Afghanistan. They have enough problems with Iran and bordering Muslim states to care about something so far away. It's small enough to not pose any threat, there were almost no Jews there (I think for a while there was two - and of course they didn't get along - but now there's none) - why bother?

Yeah, I didn't mean like man-in-the-street way but moreso in the higher echelons way, who thought that America invading Afghanistan was a distraction from what it should be really doing, ie. invading Iraq and Iran.

Can you flesh out your argument for why it was the smart thing to promote Ukraine entering NATO, rather than negotiating Ukraine as a neutral region? Given that this was their red line since the early 2000s, I have no idea how someone could consider it “appeasement”. It seems to me that the worst case scenario has transpired: our continual pressure and influence in Ukraine has destroyed the country, probably forever (given fertility rates), has cost enormous sums of money, has wasted American influence in Ukraine, has pressured Russia into developing better drone technology, has finalized the alienation of Russia from the West, has influenced Arab nations into cozying with Russia, and all we get in return is some dead Russians, and maybe we will increase German weariness to America given we destroyed their pipeline. This was a bad decision, unless we only care about dead Russians. What will we gain in five years from it all?

why it was the smart thing to promote Ukraine entering NATO, rather than negotiating Ukraine as a neutral region?

Because Russia would still try to take over Ukraine, by war if necessary and it would put Ukraine in worse position?

It seems to me that the worst case scenario has transpired

The worst case would be Russia taking over Ukraine, murdering whoever opposed their regime, run russification full scale and be emboldened enough to invade Estonia or Latvia (and cause direct NATO-Russia war or collapse of NATO).

has wasted American influence in Ukraine

Do you REALLY think that American influence in Ukraine dropped as result of that?

given we destroyed their pipeline

It is hardly confirmed that USA did this, there are also other credible candidates.

Given that this was their red line since the early 2000s

They probably lied about this.

Ukraine entering NATO, rather than negotiating Ukraine as a neutral region?

Ukraine as a neutral region would require Russia giving up its naval base in Crimea, which is very important to Russian strategic interests. In detail, how would you obtain that concession from them?

why it was the smart thing to promote Ukraine entering NATO, rather than negotiating Ukraine as a neutral region

Because there can be no Ukraine "as neutral region". Russia sees Ukraine as part of the Russian Empire, detached from it by deceit and fraud. It wants it back. It will not respect any agreements or papers that would prevent that. They may say whatever it is prudent at the moment, but they will never respect it.

The only thing that can deter Russia is the perspective of the armed conflict with NATO. They are not deluded enough to think they can manage that. Thus, Ukraine in NATO means peace (with Russian seething but unable to do anything about it), and Ukraine being "neutral" means Russians are going to attack it sooner or later. And they did.

I have no idea how someone could consider it “appeasement”.

Factually. They wanted to take over Ukraine since Putin decided he's going to be Peter the Great 2.0. Once the decision was made, the question only was when they'd decide to try. They tested it out in 2014 and figured out weak and ineffectual sanctions is all the West can field. Adding commitment not to protect Ukraine would only reinforce this assessment. In 2022, they decided the opportunity is ripe - America's president is weak and senile, Europe's elites are weak and corrupt and lust after Russian oil profits, European militaries are largely a joke, US society is divided and half of the country thinks the other half is Russian agents - it's a good time to act. Appeasing them might only mean they decide the good time to act was earlier (maybe not under Trump - he's too crazy, may do something unexpected, better wait until he's out).

It seems to me that the worst case scenario has transpired: our continual pressure and influence in Ukraine has destroyed the country

Bullshit, there was no "influence" there that had anything with any of Ukraine's problems. It is true that corrupt US people meddled there (yes, Burisma), but it was only an opportunistic grift. Corruption in Ukraine has been endemic without any US involvement and much of it was instigated and facilitated by Russia. Mere presence of Russia next door - where corruption is ingrained in the state structure and which is economically towering upon Ukraine, so that anybody who joins the corrupt Russians may immediately wield immense comparative power in Ukraine - is a huge corrupting factor, but much of it remained from the Soviet and early post-Soviet times too. Only the war forced Ukrainians to clean up the house a little - and much of it still remains. It's not a good time to talk much about it, but nobody who knows what's happening there can not ignore it.

As for the choice of whether to go back to the bear hug of Mother Russia or become an independent nation, they made this choice in 1991, confirmed it in 2014, and it has been made irrevocable in 2022. Nothing about it had much to do with the West - in fact, the West has been kinda lukewarm in treating Ukraine in any but opportunistic manner, mainly because pissing off Russia too much - before 2022 - wasn't in anybody's plans. Too much money to be made on oil and gas. Germany is a shining example of it, of course. Having a hot war in Europe changed it quite a bit. But let's not project that changed attitude back to when it didn't exist. Europeans openly laughed at Trump's suggestion that the conflict with Russia is imminent - remember?

has finalized the alienation of Russia from the West,

That has been a done deal by mid-2010s. And the West couldn't do much about it, really.

has influenced Arab nations into cozying with Russia

Arab nations aren't idiots. When they see US is running away from Middle East, and Russia is ready to invest $$$, they know which way the wind is blowing.

What will we gain in five years from it all?

That depends on whether US will dare to help Ukrainians to actually win the war. If they do - weakened Russia that would temporarily sit within their own borders and not mess with anybody else. If they don't - bloodbath in Ukraine and ultimately Russian takeover of Moldova, and possibly attacking the Baltic states. Also kiss Taiwan goodbye, if Russian can do shit like that, China certainly would want too.

our continual pressure and influence in Ukraine has destroyed the country, probably forever (given fertility rates),

Very possible this will happen, but history will not see America as the one holding the knife, but rather the country that attacked a democracy unprovoked and during the war literally kidnapped tens of thousands of Ukrainian children.

has cost enormous sums of money,

Literally the best bang-for-buck the US Military has ever had. Less than 10% of the annual US DOD budget to thoroughly emasculate the old enemy, weaken China, zero lives lost, massive increase in US soft power for finally being on the right side of a war. Plus the true cost is probably less than half of the sticker price.

has wasted American influence in Ukraine,

What?

has pressured Russia into developing better drone technology,

Oh no we can never stand up to bullies like Russia they might -checks notes- develop better drone technology!! Who cares. Besides at this point I wouldn't trust the Russians to develop a microwave. And, more to the point, neither would the half of the planet that (used to) use Russia as their weapons dealer.

has finalized the alienation of Russia from the West,

It has been obvious to anyone paying attention for the last 20-ish years that Russia was never on any kind of course to peaceful integration with the West. The Russian kleptocracy was just fundamentally incompatible.

has influenced Arab nations into cozying with Russia,

Okay so 1) Arab nations don't give a hoot about Russia their relationship is purely mercenary, and 2) this sentence implies that we don't want Arab nations cozying with Russia which implies that their influence is a negative for the US. So then surely -from a purely realpolitik POV- it is good for the US to diminish them? you can't simultaneously hold that Russia is an irrelevant backwater and also that it is a malign influence on American interests.

What will we gain in five years from it all?

A hundred things. but if you want to put blinkers on and care about literally nothing else than the American rival du jour then invasion of Taiwan looks substantially less likely now than it did at the start of the war.

Because NATO wasn’t why the Ukraine war happened. Prighizin himself said the reasons for the war were a lie.

Joining the EU economically was the proximate cause for the war and Ukraine leaving Russian sphere of influence. Economically and culturally there was never possible to be “neutral”. Zelensky himself made a comedy routine years ago saying basically Ukraine found a new sugar daddy that was rich and it was Europe. Ukranians look over the border and see Poland on pace to be richer than the UK. Russia can’t compete with the west financially.

The choice for Ukraine was never neutrality. It was get rich forming economic and cultural unions with the rest or stay poor in a union with Russia.

The whole “NATO” thing and neutrality always was just propaganda. Peace was never possible. Russia was never going to agree to military neutrality but a rich and prosperous economically allied with the west Ukraine.

We didn’t have to imply that we were interested either. Had we said no Ukraine would have been better off because they wouldn’t have been invaded. The war buck stops with us because we kept this going.

The war buck stops with us because we kept this going.

I agree that it is Russia fault, but how this changes anything? It is not much that can be done with that except supplying Ukraine more.

By us I assume you mean the US. First US isn’t even a member of the European Union nor a European economy that would have been Ukraines economic linkages. America literally had zero say on these issues which is why Russia invaded.

Also this removes any agency from Ukraine. They wanted something different because their neighbor Poland got rich and their economic relationships with Russia kept them poor.

They live in a Cripps neighborhood, joining the Bloods was never a viable option.

They live in a Cripps neighborhood, joining the Bloods was never a viable option.

war so far seems to indicate that Russia overestimated their power

maybe they will finally get that Russian empire is done?

Gentrification happens. And the cripps launching an attack seems to have been a miscalculation that might end up costing them their entire empire.

Except for the four countries in the Cripps' immediate neighbourhood that joined the Bloods without any violence? And the many more countries a little further down the road in the Cripps neighbourhood who did so as well?

Maybe if the God descended from Heavens on Dec 1 2013 before protesters and opposition politicians in Kyiv and said to them: "Go home, victory of your protest will lead to great human suffering and hundreds of thousand deaths", nothing of that would have happened. Ukraine would be just a shittier version of Belarus for perpetuity, all smart people would have left either way, even if there was no war.

But it doesn't work like that. Ukrainians wanted into the EU. EU members supported those aspirations — some more enthusiastically (like Lithuania, or Poland), some less (like France, or Germany). On the other hand Putin and his close circle have more agency than amorphous blobs like pro-Western Ukrainian population, or European bureaucracy. The onus should be on them.

Appeasing dictators is the kind of thing that sounds good in the short-term, but can wind up being very bad later. It's also very easy to say "oh just let Hitler have Czechoslovakia" when you are British and not Czech. The strategic problem in WW2, of course, was that Hitler was never going to stop there, and letting him do what he wanted mostly just made Germany stronger. Making it easy for dictators to achieve big wins easily, just by threatening war, even encourages other dictators to threaten war and try to invade other countries. A short-term victory, but long-term loss. The humanitarian problem was that Hitler was now in charge of more people, which is obviously bad; this badness might have been more insulated from British politicians than a war involving Britain would have been, but it was still there.

What makes the Czechoslovakia situation even worse in hindsight is that there was a good chance the Heer was going to launch a coup against Hitler if the western allies hadn't backed down. Not that anyone knew this at the time.

Source on this? I'm a big WW2 fan and haven't heard of this before.

Wikipedia page

Thanks

In practice, neutrality would have meant that Ukraine will always remain weaker than Russia and can be invaded at any time. Russia would just have to wait for a time where NATO is occupied somewhere else. Russia violated the Budapest memorandum and the Minsk agreement. How could Ukraine trust them to not invade them?

Moreover, the fact that Ukraine is or is not in NATO is not very relevant for the security of Russia. They are American nukes in the baltic countries, so the threat would not be any bigger. On the other side, Russia would still have nukes, so the invasion risks aren't any higher. So if Ukraine joining NATO does not change anything for Russia security, you have to find another reason why it matters to them. The only thing Russia can do if Ukraine is "neutral" but not if it is in NATO is invading them.

has destroyed the country

No, the invasion has.

has cost enormous sums of money

The invasion has. The US are not responsible for it.

has wasted American influence in Ukraine

Are you kidding? American influence is stronger than ever in Ukraine.

has pressured Russia into developing better drone technology

No, their invasion has pressured them to do so.

has finalized the alienation of Russia from the West

Once again, it's their choice to invade Ukraine that has alienated them. Even after 2014 the west was totally OK negotiating with Russia. Have you heard about Nord Stream 2?

has influenced Arab nations into cozying with Russia

They always did... They are not democratic countries, they have an interest in helping authoritarian regimes. It has not much to do with Ukraine.

and all we get in return is some dead Russians

And the reassurance that you won't abandon your allies, which was in doubt after the Afghanistan retreat.

has pressured Russia into developing better drone technology

No, their invasion has pressured them to do so.

What drone technology? The technology of buying them in Iran, repainting them and pretending it's Russian? I think they had this technology before.

The idea that one is not threatened by a neighboring state because there are other neighboring states unaligned with Russia doesn’t make sense. I am not threatened by five enemies because I have four? But it makes especially little sense given: the important of flat eastern Ukraine for invasion, and the importance of the Black Sea for Russia. America may very well have been threatened by the Saudis funding radical Islam, but that doesn’t mean they can just blow up Saudi Arabia. Instead we settled on lesser Arab countries.

neutrality would have meant that Ukraine will always remain weaker

Ukraine is small, it will always be weaker, but now it will be destroyed. This argument doesn’t hold up to either the predictions made years before (they will be annihilated), or the present data (look at the birth rates). “I will either attempt to be more significant than I am or be destroyed” is a recipe for narcissistic ego death.

Russia violated the

NATO violated the promise not to expand east as part of the negotiations involving German reunification.

No, the invasion has.

Yes, the invasion that was promised for years because of the sequence of actions that NATO + NATO-influenced Ukraine took. This is like when the Mongels invaded Iraq and destroyed Baghdad after Baghdad slew their emissaries. Sorry Baghdad, you don’t get to “be sovereign” against the Mongols, just like Cuba and Iraq don’t get to “be sovereign” against America. This isn’t how reality works, and indeed it has never worked like this in the whole history of nations. Cause and effect is a much clearer way to understand what is best for America and/or Ukraine.

Ukraine is small, it will always be weaker, but now it will be destroyed

"Destroyed" is a relative term.

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are much smaller and weaker than Ukraine, but Putin has to play nice with them, because they're in NATO. If you were Ukrainian, and you didn't know that you would be invaded, wouldn't that be attractive to you?

The idea that one is not threatened by a neighboring state because there are other neighboring states unaligned with Russia doesn’t make sense. I am not threatened by five enemies because I have four?

Let me rephrase it: Ukraine joining NATO does not improve significantly NATO capabilities regarding Russia. I'm sorry, but the idea of a land invasion through Ukraine is ridiculous. It would mean a nuclear war. We are avoiding to send troops to Ukraine to avoid a nuclear conflict, but somehow we would invade Russia? And even if we wanted to take the risk, it would make more sense to attack from the baltic states as they are a lot closer from Moscow and Saint Petersburg than from Ukraine.

Ukraine is small, it will always be weaker

No, it won't be weaker if it has stronger allies. Russia would never have dared to invade Ukraine if it was a NATO country. And the birth rates mean nothing, as they can change fast. Russia also has declining birthrates, so the population ratio might very well be constant.

NATO violated the promise not to expand east as part of the negotiations involving German reunification.

The Russian propaganda says so, but until "they told us" becomes an international treaty, it's meaningless. If those promises even existed, they were never part of a formally approved treaty. No country has ever felt bound to respect oral promises of former leaders. It is just insane to claim they should. But even assuming that those promises were formally made and broken, I don't see your point. My argument was that Ukraine could not trust Russia security guarantees because Russia violated its security guarantees toward Ukraine twice. Are you claiming that Ukraine should actually believe Russia because NATO also broke some of its promises? It makes no sense at all.

Russia also has declining birthrates, so the population ratio might very well be constant.

No it wasn't constant. In 1991, it was 3:1 but it soon became 4:1, as Ukraine both had less TFR and negative net migration. Russia's ethnic minorities (esp. Muslims) have greater TFR.

The future is not always like the past.

Again the bunch of tired claims about NATO threat refuted so many times

https://youtube.com/watch?v=wjU-ve4Pn4k&t=1081

https://youtube.com/watch?v=FVmmASrAL-Q

It is beside the general point of the discussion in which I mostly agree with you but it is interesting how these videos while emphasizing agency of countries in Eastern Europe don't extend it to Abkhazia, South Ossetia or Transnistria mirroring the pro-russian talking point that foreign support equals foreign rulership.

I wish I knew more about leadership of those state-like formations. LDNR was lead by people directly affiliated with Kremlin, or unruly warlords who were eventually killed. More than half population there saw their future in Ukraine. But South Ossetia, and especially Abkhazia look much more autonomous. Of course, it doesn't cancel the fact, that a lot of ethnic Georgians were murdered or driven out, just like in LDNR — thus changing the general attitude of people there, and the ethnic composition. And Transnistria is probably somewhere in between LDNR and Abkhazia in terms of agency.

You can refute it as many times as you like. The promises of NATO to Russia are, by this point, worth nothing, even if the West wasn't openly discussing partitioning Russia.

Do you want to provide your ideas instead of linking to YouTube videos?

I have no desire of typing 5000 words, if everything can be found in the linked videos, or on Wikipedia, or wherever. Just put in on 2x. Arguments you present are not new, and the refutations of them are ubiquitous.

Damn, that's unfortunate, because I actually read multiple refutations of your position on TruthSocial. Your arguments are not new and have been defeated comprehensively elsewhere - but I have no desire of typing 5000 words (sic), so you'll just have to take my word for it.

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Right, I’m obviously not going to watch a random YouTube video, but here’s the archival research of a top institution in foreign policy studies

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early

U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University

Not once, but three times, Baker tried out the “not one inch eastward” formula with Gorbachev in the February 9, 1990, meeting. He agreed with Gorbachev’s statement in response to the assurances that “NATO expansion is unacceptable.” Baker assured Gorbachev that “neither the President nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place,” and that the Americans understood that “not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.” (See Document 6)

Afterwards, Baker wrote to Helmut Kohl who would meet with the Soviet leader on the next day, with much of the very same language. Baker reported: “And then I put the following question to him [Gorbachev]. Would you prefer to see a united Germany outside of NATO, independent and with no U.S. forces or would you prefer a unified Germany to be tied to NATO, with assurances that NATO’s jurisdiction would not shift one inch eastward from its present position? He answered that the Soviet leadership was giving real thought to all such options [….] He then added, ‘Certainly any extension of the zone of NATO would be unacceptable.’” Baker added in parentheses, for Kohl’s benefit, “By implication, NATO in its current zone might be acceptable.” (See Document 8)

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An angry Bob in middle America has no power to formulate plans for middle East invasions and then put them into action.

Many Americans wanted revenge for 9/11. The direction those emotions were guided in and the actions those emotions were used to justify were completely the work of neocons and zionists. To pretend those two movements are not extremely jewish goes beyond any reason.

The people in power most associated with the Iraq war were George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, and Condoleeza Rice, and John Bolton, not a Jew among them. No Jews on the entire National Security Council, either. The idea that none of these people actually wanted the war but were talked into it by the likes of Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz is ridiculous. I could just as easily make an argument that the war was completely the work of blacks.

My guess is that if the Israeli government & certain key Jews in the USA had not wanted the USA to go to war with Iraq, then the Iraq war would not only have not happened, it wouldn't have even been seriously considered as an option. And if Israel had actively opposed the war, there is a ~0% chance that it would have occurred.

Roughly half of the key people with the Project for a New American Century were Jews, and they were advocating for regime change in Iraq at least as early as 1998- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

Far more important, the Israeli government wanted the USA to go to war with Iraq- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/aug/17/iraq.israel1

(They were nearly the only government which wanted the USA to go to war in Iraq.)

The Israeli government represented the interests of way more powerful Jews than a handful of neocon Jews in Washington DC.

Also, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy". by John Mearsheimer & Stephen Walt, covers many aspects of how Zionists sometimes twisted America's foreign policy against our own interests, as happened in Iraq. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Foreign_Policy

(And, the authors argue, those Zionists often hurt Israel's interests as well).

Bush/Cheney and their other staffers also played their own absolutely crucial role. (I always thought that their main motivation for war in Iraq was to make money, and that's even more corrupt than any Jewish neocon's motivation).

And I think that most of the USA bears responsibility for buying into the lies & twisted associations used to sell the Iraq war to the American public (and many of those peddlers of lies were not Jews). The eagerness for vengeance among so many Americans, and their gullibility, made them pay a huge price, in blood and treasure.

Exploitative people generally need gullible people to go along with their schemes, and sadly most Americans are gullible and don't do their due diligence. And it seems like gullible people normally pay a larger price than exploitative people pay for their schemes.

A hallmark of jewish controlled movements is non-jewish frontmen, as is noted in detail by Kevin MacDonald. But that's rather besides the point of what neo-conservatism and zionism are and where those things come from.

It's easy to make things sound far fetched and insane. As if a hooked nosed caricature from an A Wyatt Mann comic was whispering jewish lies into the ears of hapless Americans. But that's not how things necessarily work. And I don't know if I should insult your intelligence by explaining to you how belief in an ideology can influence peoples decision making, or if I can just ask you to stop pretending you don't understand that the Bush Jr administration was neo-conservative and zionist adjacent, that those movements are jewish, and that adherence to those ideologies exists as an expression of jewish influence insofar as they push it forward and adhere to it.

  • -10

A hallmark of jewish controlled movements is non-jewish frontmen

In absence of detail, this statement disproves your argument by making the hypothesis unfalsifiable. It is also a statement with the implication that every single political movement ever was controlled by the jews. That's not a reasonable argument, a high-effort argument, or even a functional argument.

Rov_Scam named a bunch of individuals who are broadly regarded as having pushed the US into the second Iraq War by making public (fallacious) claims about the existence of weapons of mass destruction and the involvement of Iraq in 9/11. I think a reasonable refutation would require naming a bunch of jewish individuals who are behind the alleged "non-jewish frontmen", and describing how they pushed the US into war. If you can't do that, then either you need to rethink the assumptions that led you into thinking the war was orchestrated by a jewish conspiracy, or you need to stop trolling.

It's not unfalsifiable, as Kevin MacDonald has given multiple examples of these movements, including neoconservatism. But even then there is no absence of detail for those who bother doing a cursory glance over even just the Wikipedia article on neoconservatism.

Many adherents of neoconservatism became politically influential during the Republican presidential administrations of the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, peaking in influence during the administration of George W. Bush, when they played a major role in promoting and planning the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Prominent neoconservatives in the George W. Bush administration included Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle and Paul Bremer. While not identifying as neoconservatives, senior officials Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld listened closely to neoconservative advisers regarding foreign policy, especially the defense of Israel and the promotion of American influence in the Middle East.

Rov_Scam names a bunch of senior officials who make decisions based on information given to them by advisors. When those advisors are neocons then I find the case rather cut and dry.

It's also rather annoying that the default of things is that they are just happening for no reason at all and US foreign policy revolving around the middle East and Israel goes unquestioned and any attempt at demonstrating why things happen at all is met with accusations of conspiracy, as if any government body wasn't a group of people scheming together to have things happen in the way they wanted. It makes me wonder what the affirmative positions contradicting my alleged 'conspiracies' are.

No really, where do these people get their ideas from? Was it not neoconservatism winning out over pragmatism in the Bush Jr White House?

I'm not going to read your link. It's 50 to 60 printed pages long. I skimmed the first 2500 words, and the gist of it seems to be that the neoconservative movement was an academic movement supported by majority-Jewish media, and took a pro-Israel foreign policy stance. That's fair, and I will concedie that the most prominent neoconservatives on that list were intellectuals of Jewish ancestry. However, looking on Wikiepedia it seems that most of the prominent American neoliberals on Wikipedia are also Jewish. Can we name an American political movement from the past 20 years which was not dominated by Jewish intellectuals? Do Jewish intellectuals just originate all (American) political movements?

Also, you still need to make the very important causal link from this academic movement to the actual war in Iraq. From the unfinished Gulf War, it is likely that Rumsfeld and Bush had a vendetta against Sadam from 1991, and from the Bush/Cheney oil business it is likely that the war was motivated by the capture of oil fields. Did these neocons originate the invasion, or were they merely providing a convenient rationalization for it? (And why was the supermajority of the American public in support of the Iraq war, when the American public is not Jewish?) You (and Kevin McDonald) admit that the "frontmen" were not Jewish, so you don't get to strip them of agency and culpability for what happened without a very well-articulated causal model.

Do Jewish intellectuals just originate all (American) political movements?

I don't think so. But even if that were the case, our incredulity toward that fact, if true, would not make it any less true.

Also, you still need to make the very important causal link from this academic movement to the actual war in Iraq.

Neoconservatives pushing for war predates the Gulf War. And as I stated in a prior comment, according to prominent neocon White House insider William Kristol, neoconservatism was the driving force behind the war:

“I think you could make a case that on September 10th, 2001, that it’s not clear that George W. Bush was in any fundamental way going in our direction on foreign policy.”

He had similar remarks towards Cheney

“Cheney is a complicated figure and, obviously, a very cautious and reticent figure, so hard to know what he thinks in his heart of hearts. I think he had feet in both camps, so to speak.”

Both camps referring to the tug of war between neocons and 'pragmatists' within the White House at the time. A tug of war that the neocons ultimately won. It's not a claim of mine and mine alone that there is a causal link. But beyond neoconservatives taking credit for it at the peak of their influence and confidence, it is an accepted belief on both sides of the 'fringe' political spectrum:

https://mondoweiss.net/2012/01/neoconservative-responsibility-for-the-iraq-war/

http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2016/august/23/the-neoconservatives-the-war-on-iraq-and-the-national-interest-of-israel/

Beyond that I don't know how to further argue the point. Neoconservatism had been gunning for war in the middle East for a long time. They move to positions of influence and power and at a flashpoint the US goes to war with Iraq. Arguing the more specific agitating factors surrounding that is the subject of multiple books like The Road to Iraq: The Making of a Neoconservative War. And though I'm not imploring you to read a book as an argument, I would present the existence of the book, along with the existence of a host of other similar material as evidence for the plausibility of the causal link.

It's also rather annoying that the default of things is that they are just happening for no reason at all and US foreign policy revolving around the middle East and Israel goes unquestioned and any attempt at demonstrating why things happen at all is met with accusations of conspiracy, as if any government body wasn't a group of people scheming together to have things happen in the way they wanted.

I suppose if you think that the only alternative to your account is that events "are just happening for no reason at all", then your position will seem painfully reasonable to you. That doesn't mean that your position is reasonable.

As for the examples you give, that's far from showing that they pushed the US into war, as opposed to being part of a movement that led the US into war. That doesn't evince that neoconservativism was a Jewish-controlled movement or that the gentile neocons were "frontmen".

I think that's the only alternative to a slough of deconstruction that proposes no alternative.

As for the examples you give, that's far from showing that they pushed the US into war,

If "they" are neocons and zionists then it shows exactly that.

That doesn't evince that neoconservativism was a Jewish-controlled movement or that the gentile neocons were "frontmen".

The link provided to Kevin MacDonalds analysis shows in detail how neoconservatism is a jewish movement. Did you even click it?

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Those Jews are incredibly impressive people. Even when all the people in charge, the relevant decisionmakers, the people making their plans, drafting them, and ordering to have them carried out are gentile, it's all the Jewish influence that made it happen. So much so that the world's mightiest nation ended up more united than it had been in decades before or since, with nobody but rando internet posters any the wiser.

Is it possible to learn this power? Can I get in on this? The effort required is so superhumanly and extremely impressive that I'd love to find these guys and go along with them; they are clearly more competent and fit to rule than any group I've ever heard of, at all.

This is low effort and banal. Believe it or not jewish people can have influence. And the levers and mechanisms by which factions in politics can have influence over elected officials is not some incredible feat that warrants disbelief.

The effort required is so superhumanly and extremely impressive that I'd love to find these guys and go along with them; they are clearly more competent and fit to rule than any group I've ever heard of, at all.

If that's your takeaway from the effects of neocon foreign policy it says more about your argument than anything I could. Being silly for the sake of argument is not a good look for your argument.

The labor theory of value is wrong, and it is wrong for commenting as it is in economics. I have expended exactly as much effort as required.

If you aren't going to put in any effort, just don't bother. When I looked at this comment chain I saw you making provably false claims (i.e. none of the people involved in the planning of the Iraq war/PNAC were jewish) that don't even rise to the level of refuting the point you're trying to argue against (jewish influence played a part in the invasion of Iraq). Then, when questioned, you say that the debate isn't worth your time.

If I was an antisemitic troll trying to convince reasonable people to adopt my prejudices, I could not have crafted a better comment than yours if I was trying. Look, I can understand not wanting to get into endless interminable arguments about jews with internet losers who have nothing better to do - but you're better off just not engaging with the topic at all than trying to score cheap shots then fucking off and claiming the debate is beneath you when it turns out you didn't bring enough intellectual firepower to actually make a point. It makes your position look worse and their position look better, and I'm going to hazard a guess that you aren't actually an antisemite, nor do you want to lend their arguments additional credibility.

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An angry Bob in middle America has no power to formulate plans for middle East invasions and then put them into action.

Democracy means that everyone is responsible for what happens. Especially everyone which was in favor of the choice that was made. Sure, a guy in middle America wouldn't have been able to change anything himself, but it would have made a huge difference if a lot of angry Bob in middle America had opposed the war, instead of being in favor of it. The jews weren't a majority of the Bush electorate, and it's pretty clear that the Bush electorate supported the war.

Many Americans wanted revenge for 9/11. The direction those emotions were guided in and the actions those emotions were used to justify were completely the work of neocons and zionists. To pretend those two movements are not extremely jewish goes beyond any reason.

People were angry. They wanted a war. So they are not completely innocent. Moreover, the problem of the war in Irak was more the war than the fact that it happened in Irak. All the other possible targets of the "revenge" were even worse: Pakistan has nukes, Saudi Arabia has oil. Other countries had no responsibilities in 9/11. They could have argued for peace, but you know very well that it wouldn't have worked. Some people have tried (some of them jewish), but they have never been heard. So the neocons provided you with what you wanted: the best (or the least bad) target they could find. That was not the main problem. The problem was that an angry mob was asking for blood. Being dumb and emotional is no excuse.

How much power does some random person actually have? It’s really unlikely that anyone in America could have stopped a war the elites wanted to have, or really any other decisions those elites wanted to make. Democracy isn’t about giving the unwashed masses a real say, especially in imperial matters. You might ge5 a say in whether a lane gets added to a local highway, or a Walmart being built nearby, but in matters the elite care about, our oligarchy is not really that different than any other historical empire. No average Joe ever gets the kind of say that would make him morally responsible for wars.

A random person has not much power. But if the media were all agreeing about war, it's not because they are jewish, but because there was no market fir opposing war. The media could have opposed the war as much as they could, people would have looked at other media. They had as much appetite for anti war media as a AOC supporter for looking Tucker Carlson show. So after that blaming the media and the establishment is ridiculous. Just like it would be ridiculous for Bush to blame it on the people.

The American media is explicitly pro-regime as unless they sufficiently report the news as the regime wants it reported, they don’t get access to the leadership of the regime. And so, essentially, the appearance of consent is often manufactured. I would consider most of the statements of “support” for regime positions as selective polling used to create support, not as dispassionately reported unbiased facts.

Then you have to explain why it fails sometimes, eg Vietnam and pentagon papers

Being dumb and emotional is no excuse.

Correct, and there is no excuse for catering to "dumb and emotional". What, were the Democrats going to run a pro-invasion candidate in '04? I suppose it's possible given that Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act in the first place but it strikes me as rather unlikely.

US foreign policy is somewhere between loosely controlled by elections (Democrats and Republicans differed in the 2010s over our our approach to Iran, for example.) and not at all. The Bush administration didn't invade Iraq because Americans were mad (Afghanistan, yes. Ron Paul of all people voted for that AUMF. Even today I don't think there are many who criticize the initial invasion, more that it mission-crept into a failed attempt at nation building.), but because they'd been wanting to invade Iraq for years. Neocons exploited anger over an unrelated event and stoked fears over nonexistent WMDs to get what they'd wanted all along.

US foreign policy is somewhere between loosely controlled by elections (Democrats and Republicans differed in the 2010s over our our approach to Iran, for example.) and not at all.

Sure, because Americans do not care. If it did matter to them, it would be controlled by elections. But in this particular case it somewhat mattered to them, yet they agreed with the government.

Democracy means that everyone is responsible for what happens.

If you want to say that, that's nice. I don't think it necessarily does mean that in some ideological abstract, but hey, maybe it does. But much less would I consider modern 'democracies' in general or America in particular in any way related to ideological abstracts of what 'democracy' "means".

Especially everyone which was in favor of the choice that was made.

The public can only be as informed as the institutions that inform it. To that end the Pentagon had launched a massive media campaign to propagandize people into wanting war with Iraq. As detailed by David Barstow. That's on top of every other media element, many of whom jewish, who pushed relentlessly for war.

The jews weren't a majority of the Bush electorate, and it's pretty clear that the Bush electorate supported the war.

The electorate were angry because of 9/11. They were then fed a mass media cycle that fueled that anger. This anger was then directed towards a war with Iraq. This was done intentionally. I just made this argument in the my prior post. Please don't ignore it and restate the argument it just responded to. It's tedious.

As for the rest of your post, you are trying to weave a narrative that the war was a consequence of the wants and will of Bob and I can't take it seriously. Bob is angry all the time and no one in power cares. Bob asks for things all the time and no one in power even listens. Everyone knows Bob has no power. In this case Bob was angry and the powers that be saw they could use that anger to their advantage to get what they wanted. Invading Iraq was insane. The pretense for the invasion a lie, and its supporters either useful idiots or neo-con zionists thinking only of Israel. The neocons didn't give anyone what they wanted except themselves. They crafted a media narrative based entirely on lies and deceit that was designed around taking advantage of Bob and his emotions so he would send his children to die for Israel.

The problem with your theory is that the american jews have not really been in favor of the war:

https://news.gallup.com/poll/26677/among-religious-groups-jewish-americans-most-strongly-oppose-war.aspx

https://forward.com/news/1797/poll-70-of-jews-oppose-iraq-war/

https://www.jewishaz.com/issues/story.mv?051223+poll

How is that a problem with 'my theory'? Why would it need a majority of jews in favor of the war?

When you say that "the jews" are responsible for something, it's a requirement that at least a majority of them were wanting for it to happen.

That's not what was said, so I repeat my question.

I already quoted in the thread George Soros, one the vilest Jews in the consciousness of American right:

An open society is always in danger. It must constantly reaffirm its principles in order to survive. We are being sorely tested, first by 9/11 and then by President Bush's response. To pass the test we must face reality instead of finding solace in false certainties... Our future as an open society depends on resisting the Siren's song.

or

We face a vicious circle of escalating violence. President Bush ran on the platform of a "humble" foreign policy in 2000. If we re-elect him now, we endorse the Bush doctrine of preemptive action and the invasion of Iraq, and we will have to live with the consequences.

While Zionists are predominately Jewish, blaming Jews for Iraq is like blaming Italians for Mafia, because Five Families are predominately Italian (and then there are plenty of non-corrupt people of Italian descent serving in police force).

What exists in the consciousness of the American right holds no relevance to who is responsible for the actions taken post 9/11. The existence of jews who were or are against those actions changes nothing about who is responsible for those actions. Those actions were taken by neo-cons and zionists. Two of the most jewish movements in American politics.

If the anti-war, peace loving, only good, never bad, constantly doing what's best for the goyim jews I keep hearing about from jew-apologists were in charge I would have nothing to talk about. But they are obviously not. And even assuming they exist in any relevant number, their powerlessness and uselessness when it comes to fighting back against all the jew made crap in the modern world is not an argument in favor of jews in general or an excuse for those jews in particular who keep doing things that are bad for Europeans.

  • -12

Jewish Americans opposed the Iraq War more than any other group in America, by a more than 3-1 margin. As the previous poster said, even Jews the right claims are behind all acts of villainy like George Soros opposed the war. The Prime Minister of Israel opposed the war, and warned Bush against it. These are not 'marginal' Jews.

And again, as Rov_Scam writes above, the decisionmakers on the Iraq War were:

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, and Condoleeza Rice, and John Bolton, not a Jew among them

So again, most Jews were opposed, many elite Jews were opposed (we can't say 'most' only because polling doesn't exist, but I think it likely), and the major decisionmakers were gentiles, including the President who had a familial vendetta against Saddam Hussein dating back 15 years.

Which is all completely irrelevant to the fact that the neoconservative and zionist movements were jewish. Most Italians had no hand in the Italian mafia. Was the Italian mafia not Italian?

So again, most Jews were opposed, many elite Jews were opposed (we can't say 'most' only because polling doesn't exist, but I think it likely), and the major decisionmakers were gentiles, including the President who had a familial vendetta against Saddam Hussein dating back 15 years.

Which would not explain why, according to William Kristol, Bush Jr was not on board with the idea until after 9/11.

“I think you could make a case that on September 10th, 2001, that it’s not clear that George W. Bush was in any fundamental way going in our direction on foreign policy.”

"OUR" of course, referencing the neocon side, as opposed to the pragmatist side within the White House at the time. He had similar things to say about Cheyney

“Cheney is a complicated figure and, obviously, a very cautious and reticent figure, so hard to know what he thinks in his heart of hearts. I think he had feet in both camps, so to speak.”

The neocon faction, led by Paul Wolfowitz had been agitating for war for a long time and they finally found the right conditions to push it forward. That's on the back of all the events that inspired the 9/11 attacks in the first place.

Was the Italian mafia not Italian?

The Cosa Nostra are overwhelmingly Sicilian. Are neocons overwhelmingly Jewish?

Neoconservatism as a movement is jewish. Just like the Italian Mafia is Italian despite the barman being Spanish or the guy driving the concrete truck being from Algeria.

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Most Italians had no hand in the Italian mafia. Was the Italian mafia not Italian?

If the Italian Mafia has a long-standing vendetta with the local Russian mob, and then the local Chinese decide to drive them out of town, shaking your fist at the damn Italians is just stupid.

You've lost me.

If the anti-war, peace loving, only good, never bad, constantly doing what's best for the goyim jews I keep hearing about from jew-apologists were in charge I would have nothing to talk about. But they are obviously not. And even assuming they exist in any relevant number, their powerlessness and uselessness when it comes to fighting back against all the jew made crap in the modern world is not an argument in favor of jews in general or an excuse for those jews in particular who keep doing things that are bad for Europeans.

You are allowed to rail about Da Joos, but you still have to dial down the antagonism and not engage in strawmanning like this. Even if you really believe "Jews" are a single unit, the fact is that there are Jews here (probably on both sides of any given argument) and you need to address them (yes, you are addressing posters here on the Motte when you talk about Jews) as individuals. If you want to speak about what The Jews are doing, either make sure you can defend the claim that it applies to any given Jew, or stop using such broad generalizations. (And no, "Of course I don't mean literally every single Jew, just 99% of them" is not sufficient.)

I mean, I'm not really allowed to "rail about Da Joos". Nigh every single time I make a critical point about expressions of jews you are here wearing your mod hat being antagonistic and sneering at me. Going so far as to strawmanning my argument just after you accused me of doing so.

You are allowed to rail about Da Joos

This is antagonistic sneering. I am not "railing" against anyone. That's not a fair summation of what I wrote. And always referring to a critical statement with regards to jews as being about 'Da Joos' is disrespectful and childish. I mean, can I refer to any pro communist argument as 'gommunism'? Oh, I didn't know you were one of those who liked 'crapitalism'. Oh, is that a 'shitlib' argument? No really, what are you doing?

Even if you really believe "Jews" are a single unit

This is a strawman. I don't. How you could gleam that from me arguing about distinctions between jews is beyond me.

the fact is that there are Jews here (probably on both sides of any given argument) and you need to address them (yes, you are addressing posters here on the Motte when you talk about Jews) as individuals.

I am at a loss at what you are referring to. No jew came forward with their own beliefs, nor is the belief of any individual in question, nor did I insinuate that any jew had to have a specific belief if they were not neoconservative or zionist. Like, can you quote where I went wrong?

If you want to speak about what The Jews are doing, either make sure you can defend the claim that it applies to any given Jew, or stop using such broad generalizations.

I made specific claims regarding specific institutions and movements. I am sure I can defend the claim that neo-conservatism and zionism are jewish. And so far no one has bothered pretending they are not since everyone knows they are. Perhaps it's my error in assuming people would know the difference between recognizing that just because the Italian Mafia is Italian doesn't mean that referring to it as such means every Italian is a mafioso. Maybe it's a jewish thing.

I mean, I'm not really allowed to "rail about Da Joos". Nigh every single time I make a critical point about expressions of jews you are here wearing your mod hat being antagonistic and sneering at me

Transparently false. You post about Jews all the time, and only occasionally do you get carried away and have to be modded.

That's not a fair summation of what I wrote.

I'm sure you don't think you're railing. You are free to disagree with my subjective opinion about the quality of your arguments. You are not free to make pejorative generalizations about your outgroup.

By the same token I would have thought that your personal subjective opinion did not warrant you being antagonistic and sneering towards others. Considering I did not make pejorative generalizations about my outgroup, but you did antagonize and sneer, I am not sure what you are doing here.

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Firstly, welcome back to your usually scheduled programming.

  1. As the other user said, Hitler’s territorial plans had a long history that predated his rise to power. Lebensraum/the ‘Drang nach Osten’ was - far more so than antisemitism or rearmament or domestic economic or political reform - the central ideological message of the National Socialists from the mid-1920s onward. Books and articles about the idea of a ‘Volk ohne Raum’ / people without (enough) land became bestsellers, irredentism and expansionism went beyond nazism to become a pillar of the entire German hard right. Almost all of Germany’s problems were, at one point or another, blamed on it - and as you suggest, this was the means by which the Nazis blamed the Treaty of Versailles and Jews for many of Germany’s problems.

  2. Unz makes Hitler seem like an extreme retard in this piece. If his own intelligence was informing him that America and Britain were looking for an excuse to declare war, why would he give them an excuse by taking Poland? Hitler’s own war plans largely prove Unz wrong. If he merely (as is often suggested by the far right) wanted to fight communists, the invasion of Poland and Czecheslovakia, and the deal with Stalin, make little sense. The strategy in the east confirms imperial ambitions, already plainly discussed, that in the medium term would have resulted in the ethnic cleansing of the West Slavs almost universally. As for the Jews, one of the main reasons they were concerned wasn’t their property in Germany (largely already sold by 1938, and the majority of German Jews had already fled) but the vast Jewish populations of Poland and elsewhere in CEE which they feared Hitler would expropriate, persecute or kill, which of course he eventually did.

Unz’ argument is essentially that even though predictions of what Hitler would do to occupied Eastern Europe largely came true and fully retroactively justified efforts to try to stop him, he originally - despite his consistent arguing for German manifest destiny eastward for almost two decades before he embarked upon it - didn’t actually want it. Seems pretty ridiculous to me.

Memoirs and other historical documents obtained by later researchers seem to generally support Flynn’s accusations by indicating that Roosevelt ordered his diplomats to exert enormous pressure upon both the British and Polish governments to avoid any negotiated settlement with Germany, thereby leading to the outbreak of World War II in 1939.

Wow, Germany was provoked into invading Poland; because, they were not just handed Polish land on a silver platter. What an argument. Just like Russia was provoked into invading Ukraine; because, they were not just handed eastern Ukraine on a silver platter.

Poland had been debatable land for centuries. When it wasn't being carved up by the Russians and whatever German and other states were on the borders, it was expanding into an empire of its own carving up other territories.

Trying to figure out if Danzig should be German or Polish or Danish or what the hell is one of those "who would win, Superman or Batman?" kind of questions to chew over. Like another famous tangle:

The British statesman Lord Palmerston is reported to have said: "Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business – the Prince Consort, who is dead – a German professor, who has gone mad – and I, who have forgotten all about it."

Depending on the degree of precision you want to achieve, you can of course argue about every single tree line in Pomerania or Silesia, but the arrangement post-WWI followed ethno-linguistic lines pretty well at the eastern border of Germany. This wasn't some completely intractable question, it was solved fairly well at Versailles. The remaining minorities on both sides of the border were geographically distributed in a way that precluded easy solutions but also not that significant in terms of numbers. On top of that several mixed areas got their own referendums to clear remaining doubts.

Wow, Germany was provoked into invading Poland; because, they were not just handed Polish land on a silver platter. What an argument.

That's pretty far away from the argument, and quite irrelevant to the passage you are quoting.

Poland, by refusing to hand over Danzig and working through Germany to get what they wanted, were aligning themselves with Britain and the US to get what they wanted. What's being highlighted is that Poland made the decision to stand against Germany on the basis that they had the backing of the US and Britain. A basis that, according to Flynn, was being heavily pushed on the Poles by the US.

Considering the US and Britain didn't have any ability to stand by their word, going against Germany was maybe the worst decision ever made by Polish statesmen. Getting some of the worst of the war and post-war occupation.

going against Germany was maybe the worst decision ever made by Polish statesmen

Given that Germans planned to murder or enslave Poles, what was the alternative? (RP II leaders made numerous stupid decisions, not surrendering to country that wants to exterminate you was hardly one of them - it was at least worth trying to defend and winning was plausible even if very unlikely)

You've replied to multiple comments of mine saying the same thing. I don't care for your hysterics, but it would be much more manageable to steer the conversation somewhere productive if you could keep them to a single comment, thanks.

It is far away from the argument, but it's also far more correct. Note that your framing is selectively allocating agency to the Poles and the Brits/Germans to choose in response to the German demands, just as Flynn's framing attributes agency to the American influence driving others decisions, but neither address that the Germans themselves had the agency in not only making unreasonable demands, but also the agency to not make those demands. The dictator is not an immovable fact of nature, for which there is no reasoning and agency only exists with the responder. The dictator is an agent, and has used their agency to posit the demand in the first place.

Avoiding this point- that people are resisting unreasonable German demands- is required to credibly claim that the Poles were unreasonable in not compromising to them, because there is no failure in reason or competence to resist the unreasonable. But the German Nazis were being unreasonable, and the other actors were being reasonable in resisting the unreasonable, and so re-establing the actual originating context- that the Germans were the originating actors and making unreasonable demands- is the more correct point for conveying not the argument, but the actual context the argument is trying to ignore.

Your contention relies on the Germans requests being unreasonable when you could just as easily say that they weren't. Not the least considering Poland could have been much better for it, along with all of Europe, if they had aligned themselves with Germany against communism and what National Socialists recognized as capitalism in the hands of the international jew.

My argument isn't selective about anything. I think you should step back and recognize just what narrative is being revised. Hitler could have done things differently, but the obvious case here is that so could everyone else. In the context of general WW2 narratives that shovel all blame on Hitler in particular, and to a lesser extent the Treaty of Versailles, there exists an obvious angle of blame that is never talked about lest it draw attention away from the great myths we have created out of Hitler and the holocaust.

Not the least considering Poland could have been much better for it, along with all of Europe, if they had aligned themselves with Germany against communism

No, it would not go better for Poland given that Germans genuinely consider Poles as subhumans.

what National Socialists recognized as capitalism in the hands of the international jew.

that particular stupidity solved nothing, was mistaken and resulted in several millions of innocent people being murdered

You pro-slavery, pro-mass-murder and pro-Hitler (ok, that is redundant a bit) apologia is spectacularly stupid and evil.

You pro-slavery, pro-mass-murder and pro-Hitler (ok, that is redundant a bit) apologia is spectacularly stupid and evil.

Less antagonism, please.

No, it would not go better for Poland given that Germans genuinely consider Poles as subhumans.

Please stop telling lies. The Germans considered West-Poles to be aryans. Hitler said of slavs that they were docile so long they had food and drink.

that particular stupidity solved nothing, was mistaken and resulted in several millions of innocent people being murdered

Please engage with statements in context. This is a waste of time.

You pro-slavery, pro-mass-murder and pro-Hitler (ok, that is redundant a bit) apologia is spectacularly stupid and evil.

This isn't an argument and makes no sense since I have made no pro-slavery or pro-mass-murder statements.

The Germans considered West-Poles to be aryans. Hitler said of slavs that they were docile so long they had food and drink.

Are you now in full scale denial? Germans proceeded to murder people who were not docile.

Germans considered West-Poles to be aryans

Only some of them, and that was only subgroup anyway. And you were eligible if you cooperated with mass-murdering nazis.

They killed British and American soldiers too. You know, because there was a war.

Only some of them, and that was only subgroup anyway.

West-Poles, according to Nazi racial law, were aryans.

And you were eligible if you cooperated with mass-murdering nazis.

Seems like we have gone very far away from Germans considering all Poles subhumans very fast.

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Your contention relies on the Germans requests being unreasonable when you could just as easily say that they weren't.

It would be very easy to say many false things, but they would remain false, hence why not even you claim that the German grivance narrative driving the demands was justified.

Not the least considering Poland could have been much better for it, along with all of Europe, if they had aligned themselves with Germany against communism and what National Socialists recognized as capitalism in the hands of the international jew.

Their reward would have been to be colonized, treated as subhuman, and progressively enslaved and exterminated, as per the policy statements and intentions of the German rieche.

My argument isn't selective about anything.

It is very selective about many things.

I think you should step back and recognize just what narrative is being revised. Hitler could have done things differently, but the obvious case here is that so could everyone else.

This is irrelevant to the reasonableness of other people, as Hitler did NOT do things differently, and people were making decisions based on what he DID do, which was unreasonable by standards both contemporary to now and contemporary to then.

In the context of general WW2 narratives that shovel all blame on Hitler in particular, and to a lesser extent the Treaty of Versailles,

These narratives are false, not least because Stalin had his fair share in allying with Hitler, and the Treaty of Versailles was a red herring that was not a justified grievance for German actions.

there exists an obvious angle of blame that is never talked about lest it draw attention away from the great myths we have created out of Hitler and the holocaust.

There are no great myths of Hitler or the holocaust. There is banality of incompetence and evil, and those who wish to dismiss it away in their mediocrity.

It would be very easy to say many false things, but they would remain false, hence why not even you claim that the German grivance narrative driving the demands was justified.

I don't pretend to know either way which geopolitical claims are more justified since I assume all actors are demanding what bests suits them at the time. And the world that would have been if things had gone differently is not known to anyone. Considering how easy you find it to say and believe false things I can only question your confidence.

Their reward would have been to be colonized, treated as subhuman, and progressively enslaved and exterminated, as per the policy statements and intentions of the German rieche.

As per war propaganda driven by those who were at war with Germany. The Germans said the same thing about the allies.

It is very selective about many things.

?

This is irrelevant to the reasonableness of other people, as Hitler did NOT do things differently, and people were making decisions based on what he DID do, which was unreasonable by standards both contemporary to now and contemporary to then.

"Reasonableness" in this context is nonsense. There was nothing 'reasonable' about Germany playing second fiddle to Britain and France whilst the Soviet Union amassed power. Though it's much easier to simply retroactively assign reason to the victors.

There are no great myths of Hitler or the holocaust. There is banality of incompetence and evil, and those who wish to dismiss it away in their mediocrity.

You rely on these myths to maintain your viewpoints. The Germans weren't evil and relying on verbal constructs to sneak such words into the conversation is all you have. Since your viewpoint relies on condemnation of the evil vs good rather than objectivity and analysis.

I don't pretend to know either way which geopolitical claims are more justified

And I know that German claims of being superior to Slavs and Jews and being entitled to murder and enslave them were wrong and not justified. In the end even Hitler renounced claim of German superiority.

The Germans weren't evil

Germans deliberately murdered and enslaved millions of innocent people, planned to do more on that on gigantic scale with large scale genocide.

Feel free to call it differently, for me "were evil" is a fitting description for people doing it, but I would be happy with more descriptive version.

And I know that German claims of being superior to Slavs and Jews and being entitled to murder and enslave them were wrong and not justified. In the end even Hitler renounced claim of German superiority.

What are you even saying? How does this relate to any of what I wrote? 'I know this and that!'

Germans deliberately murdered and enslaved millions of innocent people, planned to do more on that on gigantic scale with large scale genocide.

Then why did the person I was replying to use the concept 'banality of evil'? There's no need for you in this conversation, given your differing views to the person I was replying to, especially since you are making no sense in relation to what was being discussed by us.

Feel free to call it differently, for me "were evil" is a fitting description for people doing it, but I would be happy with more descriptive version.

I am doing so and I don't care one bit for what you prefer given your comically simplistic view on history.

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I am also quite reminded of the perennial tankie claim that Soviet Union just had to invade Finland in 1939 when we didn't give them the small bits of territory they requested.

Poland ended up handed over to Stalin wholesale. Great work there.

Terrible, but not as terrible as what Hitler had planned for Poland.

No worse for them, not at all, than the treatment the Germans gave them.

Yeah, I think this is the weakest link of the revisionist claims. I actually do think Hitler wasn't hellbent on "conquering Europe from the getgo" as many Western historians will claim. Plus Poland had its own antisemitic government. Putin got into hot water for pointing out that Josef Beck, Poland's foreign minister, was closely co-operating with Nazi Germany in order to jointly deport a great number of Jews. Hitler attended a special funeral in honor of Poland's strongman leader Pilsudski's when he died.

There's an interesting article focusing on Poland from the point of view of an Palestinian-American, which details a lot of these things that many are unaware of.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/how-polands-anti-semites-helped-colonise-palestine

Obviously the author has his grievances, but he does stick to the facts. Poland was very enthusiastic in supporting Zionism as a way of getting rid of its Jewish population. It played a key role in training Zionist militias, in particular later Prime Minister Menachem Begin himself. So clearly the Poles weren't the angels we were taught and Nazi Germany was far more pragmatic than we are told in the lead-up to the war. This probably has some parallells to the current UA-RU war, as past UA extremism and intolerance is whitewashed by the Western press.

That said, Hitler's invasion is justified by revisionists on the same flimsy grounds that Russia's is now by its apologists. I am willing to believe that the Poles were mistreating Germans in the "Danzig corridoor", but this was the 1930s. Kristallnacht had just happened. Was Nazi Germany really the "dindu nuffin" that Unz and other revisionists would have us believe? The entire period in question is a stark reminder of how toxic nationalism taken to its fullest extent often is.

So clearly the Poles weren't the angels we were taught

Those facts you list are pretty well known (to historians). Along with Poland being an asshat towards Lithuania:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Polish_ultimatum_to_Lithuania

or that they used Germans annexing parts of Czechia to expand their own territory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Olza#Part_of_Poland_(1938%E2%80%931939)

or that Poland repressed their other minorities, not just Jews:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonization#Ukrainians

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacification_of_Ukrainians_in_Eastern_Galicia

So there is no some grand conspiracy to whitewash Interwar Poland, just as there is no conspiracy to hide the existence of Ukrainian radical nationalists. It's about emphasis and rhetoric: when all you talk about is how the 2nd Republic was oppressive, or how some Ukrainian soldiers openly sport Nazi insignias — most likely you are a biased hack, like Unz. Unfortunately, a lot of nuance is lost along the way, because Ukraine should drop radical nationalists as their values are antithetical to EU which Ukraine wants to join.

Welcome back Foreverlurker!

sigh I'll go reset the "Days Since The Jews Did It" sign.

No need, I already threw out every number except 0. They'd just been sitting in a box for centuries.

I know it's beating a dead horse at this point, but this whole Prigozhin situation made one fact crystal clear: American dissident right (and "anti-nato left" by extension) is extremely solipsistic, much more than other factions in American culture war. Just take a look at some of those takes which are prevalent among this crowd

/images/16875993326015117.webp

/images/16875993329050043.webp

/images/16875993330050533.webp

Essentially, their model of the world looks like: here we are, honest god-abiding Americans, and then there are "elites" — Biden, Hillary, DNC, Podesta, Bill Gates, World Economic Forum. How then do you view something that lies outside your usual experience and ideology? If you are dumb, you deny it altogether:

"Ukraine War is fake, all of it is CGI, Zelensky and Hunter Biden siphon gajillions dollars from American taxpayers to buy mansions in Bahamas"

For those people Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, Finns, Prigozhin, Zaluzhny, Macron, Scholz, ... do not exist.

If you are smarter, you align yourself with perceived enemies of the elites: Putin, Xi, Orban, .... You say things like:

even as someone that is entirely anti-nato to the point I would turncoat in a second if i had a chance to damage the alliance

totally oblivious of cases like this

https://zona.media/online/2023/06/22/sko

being a regular occurrence in Russia, when a girl is sent to prison for putting anti-war slogans on price tags in a shopping mall. Of course they'll have prepared a long list of grievances with "elites" that are intended to persuade you that whatever happens in the US is much worse than repressions in Russia or China. And, sure enough, all of it "glownigger propaganda" anyway.

You might say: "Well, I don't care about anti-Putin Russians, unfortunate pro-Putin Russians who became victims of the regime, neutral Russians, Ukrainians, Uighurs, Tibetans, Taiwanese, ... all I care is that my children don't get castrated and turned into trannies". Fair enough. But then please don't take a high moral ground. You are just as evil as "elites".

Whatever patience I had with American "anti-establishment" right-wingers, it ended. I guess Hanania is the only one I keep reading/listening at this point.

This is a pretty aggressive post toward what appears to be your outgroup, which I would probably let slide if it brought some light, but... it doesn't seem to do that. I'm actually confused as to what your policy positions even are on these matters, much less why you hold the positions you do. It's okay to criticize or complain but only in the context of substantial ideas. Just targeting a group to lambast them is insufficient here.

this whole Prigozhin situation made one fact crystal clear: American dissident right (and "anti-nato left" by extension) is extremely solipsistic

I noticed exactly the same thing in this context about the Hungarian leftist opposition, and I'm sure in this they aren't one bit different from any leftist political community in the West which considers itself the underdog, for whatever reason (and I guess this describes most of them for sure). By coincidence I was offline the whole day yesterday, and by the time I decided to check online reports on this today, the whole rebellion was already in a fizzled-out state for hours. Out of curiosity I checked out a bunch of online platforms where this sort hangs out, and I saw an enormous number of braindead takes, divorced from all political reality, unvarnished glee at the supposed prospect of a civil war in a country with thousands of nuclear warheads, expressions of the firm belief that Putler will be toppled, overtly optimistic conjecture about the expected consequences in Europe, lousy memes expressing various combinations of this, pretty much zero understanding of the likely motivations of Wagner members etc. And when the whole leftist mirage collapsed in a matter of hours, there's pretty much nothing left on their part but example upon example of pathetic copium.

pathetic copium

I don't understand this attitude of many pro-Ru people. Here is my 2-minute paint meme to illustrate my attitude toward this (add it to the list of "lousy memes"):

/images/16877176476755807.webp

But I can understand "pro-nato" people, in their naïveté they thought it might bring the end to this senseless war a bit closer.

Don't do this. This is not rdrama and this is not an argument.

I can't speak for everyone, but I at least would prefer you expressed yourself in words instead of (contemptuous) memes.

The 'dissident right' does not refer to catturd2, who is a relatively normal conservative twitter person. Dissident right refers to like, moldbug or bap. Although the broad statement about the DR is still mostly true.

"These tweets are dumb" isn't a good toplevel post (unless you start there and go somewhere else interesting), almost all tweets are dumb.

It might be if these tweets are dumb in a way that reflects a typical dumb thinking pattern. Which, unfortunately, it kinda does. I mean, I can get the catturd2's thing - ok, you don't care about anything that happens outside the border, fine (though what "proof" do you expect? All the proofs are known, and all the fixes are in, that's what you're getting, no refunds). But the rest is just dumb reflective "all this is lies" automated contrarianism. Very popular among certain circles, because it's low effort but makes you look stunning and brave. At least the opposite side has to dress up (and some even cut off their dicks for it) - these ones are as low effort as one can be.

I'll answer to "it's not representative; it's just some dumb tweets" in this post, as it was point of @anti-dan, @Gaashk and some others' replies.

Are people like Tucker Carlson, Max Blumenthal, Trump Junior, 'America First' caucus, Jordan 'Do you even know about Holomodor' Peterson et al — are they all nobodies? They use the same talking points when talking about events abroad, displaying the same solipsism demonstrated in those screenshots I took when checking replies to some tweets and top level 4chan pol posts. They ARE representative.

catturd2, who is a relatively normal conservative twitter person

Well... shit. I had better opinion of "normal conservatives". I still prefer to think of him as a fringe pushed by Elon's algorithm and frequent endorsements.

I don't follow Tucker Carlson, Max Blumenthal, Trump Junior, or "'America First' caucus" very closely, so am not sure what they said about it, and don't see any specific thing they said here, so it's hard to judge. It would be a better post if it had started with "Tucker Carlson said [wrong thing], at [link]this is why it was wrong, this is how it is destructive."

I do follow Jordan Peterson on and off -- more off since he's started mostly interviewing campaigning politicians and alternative currency salesmen. The last time I heard him discuss Ukraine, this past spring, he was talking to some American representative (glancing at the descriptions, maybe it was Senator Mike Lee), who was basically just explaining why he saw it as in America's interests to get involved and the situation from the perspective of the American establishment, which Peterson did not really question or push back against.

There is a good breakdown of his arguments

https://old.reddit.com/r/enoughpetersonspam/comments/12fvhhs/axis_jordan_and_senator_vatnik_on_ukraine/

Tucker Carlson and Jordan Peterson and Max Blumenthal are not on the 'dissident right' either. If you want to criticize the populist side of conservatism (which blumenthal isn't), then say that! Also, if Tucker and Peterson (mainstream conservatives) are saying this, then lead with their statements, not catturd2, a 21 like post, and a random 4chan post.

The actual DR's (twitter) opinions are somehow dumber, though, and confirm your thesis of solipsism. From eg BAP's twitter account:

If an army group rebelled and occupied London, arresting all Cabinet members, MPs, and Fleet Street journalists, would a significant number of people oppose it? Would they fight to keep the regime believing they are in control as a "democracy"?

This is just the populist / democratic "the real people are behind our niche ideas!" thing, which is dumb when a leftist does it, but especially dumb when someone who claims to be anti-democracy does it.

I'm not sure where to find long-form written 'dissident right' takes on ukraine, tbh (other than moldbug, who has different but more coherent ideas).

Also seen on twitter, this, on how J6 vs Prigozhin shows Russia handled coups better than the US and Russia is stable. What?

The Wagner saga was so confusing to westerners because life of greatness is no longer imaginable to most. We presume that men must be objects of political forces and historical script; never subjects acting freely in time and space, open to consequences. Such vitality is alien.. Lmao? Military coups in less-developed countries are ... not unfamiliar for westerners, and are well considered as 'political forces'.

All of it more than confirms the 'only thinking about the US' thesis

This is just the populist / democratic "the real people are behind our niche ideas!" thing, which is dumb when a leftist does it, but especially dumb when someone who claims to be anti-democracy does it.

I read this as claiming that the people aren't invested enough in democracy to defend it, that is to say, concerned about the practicality of overthrowing a democratic government. Not about the people actually supporting the ideas, but anti-democratics not caring about the people supporting ideas seems reasonably consistent.

Military coups in less-developed countries are ... not unfamiliar for westerners, and are well considered as 'political forces'.

While political coups are quite understood, that a single private actor can become a sufficiently powerful political force is a bit jarring to some.

claiming that the people aren't invested enough in democracy to defend it

Yeah, but they are invested enough to defend against an actual "nazi coup". Look at how upset people were about J6, which was more circus than coup? This includes the military (who these people call woke).

that a single private actor can become a sufficiently powerful political force is a bit jarring to some.

I don't think it is? A warlord in an african country isn't a new idea.

Yeah, but they are invested enough to defend against an actual "nazi coup". Look at how upset people were about J6, which was more circus than coup?

Are they? Getting upset is very different than standing up and defending. What are you seeing that makes you think the average person would get involved if an actual nazi coup showed up on the horizon?

A warlord in an african country isn't a new idea.

Sure, but people in the west like to feel like they're fundamentally superior to africa, that's not... the same thing. At least emotionally.

The literal average person won't defend democracy unless they're drafted, for the same reason the average Ukrainian didn't until they were drafted. But the average American does believe in democracy, and vaguely idolizes defending it against nazis. And there is a substantial minority of people who will both provide either technical assistance or military assistance the defense of democracy against Nazis (again consider the entire US military). The idea that the US is so low-energy they'll just ironically laugh and go back to work if there's a reactionary coup today isn't true whatsoever.

Sure, but people in the west like to feel like they're fundamentally superior to africa, that's not... the same thing. At least emotionally.

I don't think the idea of dictators who exercise personal power in eastern europe is really unfamiliar either. Like, honestly, how is he different from Putin from the perspective of the US public? Maybe I'm wrong, can you link some tweets/posts of people who that tweet describes?

Whatever patience I had with American "anti-establishment" right-wingers, it ended. I guess Hanania is the only one I keep reading/listening at this point.

Your evidence for making this wide sweeping conclusion is frog avatar anons? At least when someone on the right weakmans they cite a Harvard professor or some MSNBC host. Putin can be bad, but not caring about that much at all is perfectly fine. And dunking on Biden and co for having a Putin fetish is appropriate comedy.

Why do you care about those people on internet?

Any reasonable person understands that it is morally wrong for one country to attack another that has never threatened you.

Then one can say – forget about morals, the power decides the outcome. Turns out Russia is not as powerful as we thought and they got stuck in Ukraine and are losing positions every day, thanks for western support.

A lot of people just suffer from denialism. The fog of war doesn't allow us to see clearly what is going on in every detail but in a nutshell the reality is clear. Russians might or might not manage to keep Donbas and/or the Crimea but the rest of Ukraine has remained an independent country and that is not going to change.

People in the western countries have free access to all the information and most of us see it clearly.

For a lot of Russians it is harder to see in this way because they suffer from collective delusions that Ukraine is a bad country (nazis or not) that does not deserve to remain independent and Russia is going to take over Ukraine and make it a glorious part of Russia.

  1. On balance Russia is wrong. But the cartoon cut out of “Russia bad” is over the top.

  2. There was on-going anti Russian people attacks in the Donbas. If there were a community of Americans living in Mexico that came under attack I imagine Uncle Sam might have something to say.

  3. The 2014 coup and Ukraine buddying up to Nato suggests Ukraine was in some sense threatening Russia’s interests (the same way the US flipped out re Cuba and the USSR and the same way the US will flip out over PRC and Cuba).

  4. Now I do think these issues, while influencing Russia, were not the principal reasons behind the Russian war (ie imperialism). So on balance I think Russia is the bad actor. But it isn’t the carton some people pretend.

If there were a community of Americans living in Mexico that came under attack I imagine Uncle Sam might have something to say.

American citizens regularly get kidnapped by cartels in Mexico.

There was on-going anti Russian people attacks in the Donbas. If there were a community of Americans living in Mexico that came under attack I imagine Uncle Sam might have something to say.

There were indeed, e.g.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2015_Mariupol_rocket_attack

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volnovakha_bus_attack

(please read the articles)

The 2014 coup

It wasn't a coup. If you make an inflammatory statement — provide the evidence.

The legitimately elected leader of the country was chased away by men with guns. How is it not a coup?

You can argue that it was a good and necessary coup, but I can't see how you escape framing the undemocratic and disorderly ouster of Yanukovych as anything other than a coup.

The legitimately elected leader of the country was chased away by men with guns. How is it not a coup?

Do you have a video of him being chased away by men with guns? He was voted out by Rada.

"Coup" is a charged word, and is used to paint the protest, and post-Maidan government by extension, as illegitimate. So why not "Revolution"? Because it is reserved for events like American revolution, and pro-Ru Americans, despite them siding with Russians and Chinese, still venerate the Founding Myth?

The American revolution wasn't a coup, since it didn't topple the previous government but separated from it. George didn't have to flee to another country.

The US constitution, there's a coup.

Is it based on any academically accepted definition? Because then French Revolution isn't a revolution either.

My french constitutional lexicon says that a coup d'état is the overthrow of a power through illegal, usually violent, means by someone invested with authority.

Louis was overthrown, Georges wasn't. The ARW was secession, not a coup.

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Wikipedia is far from a trusted source especially on politically relevant topics. So nope won’t read it. I’ve read enough to understand the Donbas is complex and yes there were anti Russian actions occurring. Again doesn’t make Russia correct but it complies the narrative.

As for the 2014 coup, I think most people are aware. Just because you like the freedom fighters doesn’t mean it isn’t a coup. Moreover, a cursory understanding of how the cia historically operated means any degree of uprising that “supports” globalhomo is in part astroturfed.

Wikipedia is far from a trusted source especially on politically relevant topics.

That's a nice way to deflect. The cases when Russians bombed Russian population in Ukraine controlled cities and locations are well documented. Those two are the best documented though. I also recommend to read materials from the International Court (Russia has its representatives there defending themselves, so it's not in abscence)

https://www.icj-cij.org/case/166/oral-proceedings

If you read quality source, you'd understand there is nothing deeply complex about it.

As for the 2014 coup, I think most people are aware.

"Everyone understand" is a fallacy (building consensus), and it's a bad way to introduce garbage arguments about CIA and "globalhomo". Please build a good argument for why it was a coup, but taking into account events like disappearance of Janukovich, Supreme Council of Ukraine (Rada) vote for removing him, shooting at the protestors, introduction of anti-Constitutional laws on the 16th of Jan and so on?

Please build a good argument for why it was a coup, but taking into account events like disappearance of Janukovich, Supreme Council of Ukraine (Rada) vote for removing him, shooting at the protestors, introduction of anti-Constitutional laws on the 16th of Jan and so on?

Even in the west it's called "the Maidan Revolution", no?

All of the things you list might be good reasons to have a coup, but there's no reason not to call a spade a spade.

Coup d'etat

The sudden overthrow of a government, differing from a revolution by being carried out by a small group of people who replace only the leading figures.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=FijiV_ISw2A

If you consider up to a million people in Kyiv alone a "small group", then it's a coup, sure.

I think the difference is important. Pro-Ru like to point that it was "undemocratic", and that it was instigated by CIA. While the first claim can still be supported (Janukovich wasn't deposed in an election), it is weakened by the demonstration of popular support of ousting of Janukovich. Even in Donetsk:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=d76wFtOzfds

If we are judging how popular or democratic things are by demonstration of public support Trump creamed Biden.

We generally think voting is the appropriate method.

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  1. Russia is bad for attacking Ukraine unprovoked.

  2. Even the war criminal Prigozhin who recently gained a lot of popularity in Russia said that it was a lie. Ukrainians were fighting clandestine Russian forces in Donbas.

  3. Threatening “Russia's interests” or threatening Russia? Very different things.

  4. Russian attack on Ukraine was a mistake even from the point of view of Russian supremacy because it was destined to fail. It has weakened Russia considerably and they are only themselves to blame for it. Now the question is why so many seemingly smart people don't see this? Even the baddies like Prigozhin have realized this. I can kind of understand why so many people in Russia have this delusion. The human nature of conformity forces them to adapt to follow even misguided leaders. But why many people in the west believe this nonsense that somehow Russia is going to win in Ukraine?

Russians might or might not manage to keep Donbas and/or the Crimea but the rest of Ukraine has remained an independent country and that is not going to change.

When Putin said all he wanted was Crimea and the Donbas, people called him a liar, an imperialist, and a murdering conqueror. If the bear stands down and leaves Ukraine alone once it’s finished biting off those two chunks, as he stated, I won’t be surprised.

If Belarus is next for a weird contested election, I expect to see a repeat of wars and rumors of wars.

He already said he won't relinquish control of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions of Ukraine. He literally compared himself with Peter the Great. I think calling him an imperialist and a conqueror is fair, as he essentially said it about himself in his own words.

He just wanted Crimea and the Donbass so badly he sent a quick strike and later riot police towards Kiev?

Maybe. Most of Ukraine's soldiers were around the Donbass region at the time, and well dug in - it could be reasoned that it would be quicker and less bloody to try and cut them off, or even decapitate the government, and then negotiate for Donbass/Crimea from a position of strength. That seems pretty doubtful, though. Given Russia's actions and rhetoric at the time, it looked more like they planned on totally overrunning the country.

We can only really speculate, at this point, on what Putin would have done if he had won.

If a stranger forces entry with a shotgun and a bowie knife, and you succesfully shoot him, the default assumption isn't that he only wanted to raid your fridge. So too with Putin and Ukraine, I'd say.

Yes, Putin is a liar, an imperialist and a murdering conqueror. People have characterized him fairly.

Putin is a war criminal.

I don't see how the latter follows in any way from the former.

Or are those all separate claims?

I didn't understand your comparisons either. So, I just emphasized the basic truth.

What comparisons?

I demand you explain your reasoning. You can't just go and state things. This isn't /pol/.

I mean, this is going into circles. Your write something very unclear based on some references or comparisons that I am not familiar with, I don't understand them. You then say – what comparisons?

Maybe you should reflect on what DuplexFields wrote and try to rewrite it so that it makes sense. I cannot provide reasonings of things that I cannot understand.

I haven't written anything but simple questions about your own utterances. If you don't understand your own claims and refuse to explain them, why post here?

All I'm asking is that when you call world leaders epithets, you actually give a detailed reasoning why. I don't think that's incomprehensible.

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But then please don't take a high moral ground. You are just as evil as "elites".

What is so wrong about caring about one's own interests, as opposed to the interests of others? The 'elites' are the ones going out and randomly, incompetently wrecking various countries or behaving incredibly recklessly. Standing aside while others fight is sound policy. We should not get involved in other people's problems. Firstly, it's expensive and makes enemies. Secondly, we don't necessarily understand what's going on and can't necessarily fix it. Thirdly, it benefits special interests and socializes losses. Everyone is poorer due to energy shortages or debt incurred by these wars - the benefits go to military contractors, bureaucracies, favoured NGOs and PMCs.

Just consider the last 20 years of military adventurism. What did we get? A pro-Iranian (wrecked) Iraq, wrecked Libya, wrecked Syria, wrecked Afghanistan. All this came with a huge price tag and a long list of new enemies. The military establishment is not very smart, nor are they good at winning. They are very good at wrecking and lying.

This is what happens when we listen to the 'moral high ground, think of the civil society' camp. We get wrecked countries and 12-figure bills. Why should Ukraine be any different? Long, expensive conflict which doesn't improve our position at all. The realist school has warned and warned that getting involved in Ukraine was a bad idea, that it would make the Russians very angry, that they'd rather wreck the country than let it fall into our hands. They've been totally vindicated. Russia is wrecking Ukraine, missile by missile and refugee by refugee.

How hard would it be to... do nothing? If we had done nothing for the last 20 years we'd be richer, safer and stronger.

People will go on and on about how we have to stand up and support the 'international rules based order' - the biggest crock of shit. What are the rules (is there any clear law anywhere)? Who wrote them? Who agreed to them? Apparently it's OK when we invade or bomb countries, yet it's illegal for Russia to invade its neighbours? This is arbitrary nonsense.

Let's support our interests, which are not present in Ukraine. There's nothing we need in Ukraine, there's no need to get hysterical about it. Ukraine is a core Russian interest and a peripheral interest for the West as a whole. Foreign policy should distinguish between core and peripheral interests.

They've been totally vindicated. Russia is wrecking Ukraine, missile by missile and refugee by refugee.

No, it hasn't been. A lot of people demolished arguments of Mearsheimer. An example of critique:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=XXmwyyKcBLk

https://youtube.com/watch?v=wjU-ve4Pn4k

I won't be repeating them, as it's just exhausting.

That doesn't demolish anyone, they just repeat tired old myths like the 'security guarantees' that Ukraine was given in exchange for transferring nukes they didn't control (what is a permissive action link?) to Russia. People don't even bother looking at what the agreement says, they don't bother reading the wikipedia page, they just lie! Ukraine was not given any security guarantee:

Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to the signatory if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".

Seeking security council action is meaningless if it's against a veto-power.

You get your arguments from youtubers like 'Spaghetti Kozak Media & Heavy Industries LLC', I get mine from published authors (who predicted this whole affair years in advance). These people don't understand Mearsheimer, I doubt they've read any of his work. They grossly mischaracterize what he's saying: 'Europe is a poker chip'. At no point did he say this, it doesn't even have any meaning! Is Kraut talking about France, Germany, the EU? Who knows! At no point do they even repeat Mearsheimer's thesis from directly relevant books like 'The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities'.

It's also deeply ironic for these people to cast themselves in the moral high ground over the cold realists when the idiotic, reflexive interventionism they support has gotten an enormous number of people killed.

You get your arguments from youtubers like 'Spaghetti Kozak Media & Heavy Industries LLC', I get mine from published authors

Argument from Authority. I thought academics can be trusted, see where they lead us with lockdowns!

But Spaghetti Kozak Media demonstrated much closer knowledge of Ukrainian affairs than Mearsheimer did — as someone who comes from this part of the world I can attest to this. I watched Mearsheimer's debate with Sykorsky — the dude is just ignorant. He did not predict anything — in fact, he said Putin won't attack, because he would be too stupid otherwise.

Ukraine was not given any security guarantee

I don't remember when the US intervened into the war directly? They follow the spirit and the letter of the Memorandum by "providing assistance to Ukraine", and Russia broke the memorandum.

In Russian and Ukrainian versions of the documents, it is not "assurances", but "guarantees":

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/United_Nations_Treaty_Collection._Volume_3007._I-52241.pdf

page 7: Меморандум о гарантиях. Signed by American and British representatives as well. So please, study the matter a bit more, before opining. And do not trust some academics, they spew garbage, be it Fauci or Mearsheimer.

But Spaghetti Kozak Media demonstrated much closer knowledge of Ukrainian affairs than Mearsheimer did — as someone who comes from this part of the world I can attest to this. I watched Mearsheimer's debate with Sykorsky — the dude is just ignorant. He did not predict anything — in fact, he said Putin won't attack, because he would be too stupid otherwise.

There's a reason people publish books (with footnotes and references) and don't just hold debates. Books and articles let people develop nuanced ideas over text, thinking things through carefully. Mearsheimer's record on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria is impressive. Furthermore, he says that it would be hard for Russia to conquer Ukraine:

Besides, even if it wanted to, Russia lacks the capability to easily conquer and annex eastern Ukraine, much less the entire country. Roughly 15 million people—one-third of Ukraine’s population—live between the Dnieper River, which bisects the country, and the Russian border. An overwhelming majority of those people want to remain part of Ukraine and would surely resist a Russian occupation. Furthermore, Russia’s mediocre army, which shows few signs of turning into a modern Wehrmacht, would have little chance of pacifying all of Ukraine. Moscow is also poorly positioned to pay for a costly occupation; its weak economy would suffer even more in the face of the resulting sanctions.

They can continue their current policy, which will exacerbate hostilities with Russia and devastate Ukraine in the process—a scenario in which everyone would come out a loser

https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-the-Ukraine-Crisis-Is.pdf

Mearsheimer predicted exactly what happened, he said that Russia lacked the power to conquer Ukraine. He said that, if the current Western policy continued, Ukraine would be devastated, Russia-West relations would be more hostile (which clearly implies some kind of invasion or use of force). 100% correct and he was writing in 2014. And you say he's ignorant?

please, study the matter a bit more, before opining.

You first. Ukraine was not given a security guarantee. There's no debate about this, it's black and white. Read the very link you posted. Read it carefully, unlike the youtuber you cited who thought there was a security guarantee.

'Reaffirm their commitment to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine'.

There was no security guarantee. And it has equal validity in all languages, linguistics are irrelevant.

There's no debate about this, it's black and white. Read the very link you posted.

Yep, page 7: Меморандум о гарантиях

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/гарантия

Now, in the articles it is not said that the US will intervene on behalf of Ukraine if it is attacked. It’s says about assistance. Which the US provided so far.

While Mearsheimer talks about NATO being a threat to Russia, I can't take him seriously. Here, read this, maybe you are unfamiliar with this concept:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction

He correctly predicted that Russia is a threat to Ukraine, but he incorrectly identified the reason for why it is, and thus his arguments do not hold. They are a threat because Putin, and a large part of Russian political class, views Russians and Ukrainians one people that should be reunited, Anschluss-style. NATO has no place in this picture, aside from being a potential deterrent.

Mearsheimer predicted exactly what happened

No, he said "Putin is too smart to try that".

Now, in the articles it is not said that the US will intervene on behalf of Ukraine if it is attacked. It’s says about assistance. Which the US provided so far.

There's a distinction between a security guarantee and security assistance. You are saying assistance, assistance, assistance... I am saying that there was no guarantee, contra your youtuber. These are critical distinctions! These are the reasons we have books, papers, written by people who know a thing or two about what they're talking about as opposed to just regurgitating talking points. Mearsheimer knows things that youtubers do not - hence why he was right about Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and Ukraine.

No, he said "Putin is too smart to try that".

When and in what context? It's quite clear from the text that Mearsheimer writes that Putin might try to invade. Mearsheimer said that Putin lacks the power to conquer all of Ukraine, not that he wouldn't invade.

Again and again Mearsheimer states that Ukraine is a core strategic interest for Russia, that they'll withstand considerable suffering to ensure NATO does not have a presence there. It logically follows that Mearsheimer thinks that Russia would invade Ukraine, as I said above. For example, here's a quote:

"The Ukraine crisis points up the other reason sanctions regularly fail in the face of political or strategic calculations. For Russia, Ukraine is a core strategic interest, and the West’s efforts to peel Ukraine away from Moscow’s orbit and incorporate it into Western institutions is categorically unacceptable. From Putin’s perspective, the policy of the United States and its European allies is a threat to Russia’s survival. This viewpoint motivates Russia to go to enormous lengths to prevent Ukraine from joining the West."

If Mearsheimer said something like 'Putin would not invade with a goal to conquer and permanently annex all Ukraine' then that fits with the rest of what he's written and published. If he says 'Putin would not invade Ukraine in any circumstances' then that fits with what you're arguing about Mearsheimer being ignorant.

NATO has no place in this picture, aside from being a potential deterrent.

If this was the case, then Putin would've done something about it earlier and people would've written about it pre-2014. Where are the scholars talking about Putin's desire to conquer Ukraine pre-2008? You don't find it suspicious that the Russo-Georgian war happens immediately after the US says Ukraine and Georgia will join the alliance eventually? How convenient that Putin becomes a Russian pan-nationalist precisely when NATO enlargement gets closest to Russia.

Mearsheimer knows things that youtubers do not

Mearsheimer has demonstrated that he doesn't have expertise on Eastern Europe many times in his speeches and debates, there is no need to read all the corpus of a crank, it is enough just to listen to his speeches.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4

Like here he is denying that "Putin is bent on creating a greater Russia" (29 minute slide). Demonstrably false.

33 minute slide: he claims that the west's response "so far" is "doubling down". Now, it was 7 years ago. The US started to provide significant assistance to Ukraine, and sanctioned some Russians only after Malaysia airliner was being shot down by Russians (as confirmed by the International Court). How the West should have reacted? Especially, when Russia denied any involvement?

39 minute slide: he claims that Ukraine should guarantee language rights for minorities. Well, if Mearsheimer knew anything about Ukraine, he would have known about

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/the-truth-behind-ukraine-s-language-policy/

Kivalov-Kolesnichenko language law. Just a bunch of nonsense from an old crank.

If this was the case, then Putin would've done something about it earlier and people would've written about it pre-2014.

No, why do you think that? He tried to pull Belarus and Ukraine into "Union State". It's a well-known fact, maybe not to you, or Mearsheimer.

How convenient that Putin becomes a Russian pan-nationalist precisely when NATO enlargement gets closest to Russia.

As suspicious as when a robber tries to rob a bank the day before a new security measures are introduced. The bank security must have provoked him! Russia didn't wait 2008 to try to encroach on Crimea when Ukraine was under pro-Ru president:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Tuzla_Island_conflict

And he did say in his lecture:

If you really want to wreck Russia, what you should do is to encourage it to try to conquer Ukraine. Putin is much too smart to try that

So, I guess, a win for the US? As that's exactly what happened, that is true.

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Kraut in his 40 minute video makes a critique of realism but of 20th century variety not school of offensive realism to which Mearsheimer belongs to.

And it is 90 minutes btw

The general points are the same: ignoring agency of independent minor power (Poland, Ukraine, Baltic States etc.); hypoagency of Russia and hyperagency of the US; ignoring ideologies, political developments and personal attitudes of politicians and populations.

And it is easy demonstrable — Mearsheimer made laughable claims about Putin not being imperialist and not being driven by ideology (despite the latter comparing himself to Peter the Great, claiming that Ukraine is historically Russian, citing Ilyin — a Russian fascist philosopher, writing articles about Ukraine historically being part of Russia). But people still cite him, even after this year and a half. It's baffling.

EU, US and Russia can all end this war, Ukraine can't and it can't fight alone. That's the problem with being a minor power, you are not independent. And of course politicians aren't homo geopoliticus so rational models will not always work in real life.

Putin isn't an imperialist, he isn't based right winger or actually communist shill, he is cleptocrat who wants to stay in power, that's all. His Russian nationalist rhetoric coexist with his speeches about multinational Russian nation and how he is Dagestani, Chechen, Tatar. He talks about evil Lenin who created Ukraine and then praises Soviet Union, he calls maidan a coup but then recognizes supposedly illegitimate government. Putin's words contradict themselves every other week. Look at his actions, his revealed preferences and you will see that he cares about being Peter the Great only when he heeds popularity boost.

Real Russian nationalist fascist like Strelkov wouldn't stop at Crimea in 2014, wouldn't arrest all Russian nationalist organizations, wouldn't walk out of Kazakhstan, wouldn't propose the peace deal that was proposed in April. You can read Anatoly Karlin Twitter for more proofs in more details, like the size of military budget, non-committal atlitude to the supposed fight against evil nazi Ukraine and Satanist NATO. In Russia Russian nationalists that support the regime are generally laughed at for all the aforementioned reasons.

it can't fight alone

They can — just instead of sparsely populated Azov steppe battles will happen in Poltava (pop. 280k), or Zaporizhzhia proper (pop. around 700k). They repelled Russians from Kyiv back when American assistance was meager.

Putin isn't an imperialist, he isn't based right winger or actually communist shill, he is cleptocrat who wants to stay in power, that's all.

He is a kleptocrat, alright, but calling him non-ideological is just demonstrably false at this point. You could have had doubts back in 2012, not now. Karlin is just as delusional as ever, just instead of "Kiev will fall in 2 days" he swung in the opposite direction.

In Russia Russian nationalists that support the regime are generally laughed at for all the aforementioned reasons.

I lived in Russia for quite some time, I know Russian, so I think I have some understanding of what Russian nationalists really think. Are you Russian?

non-committal atlitude to the supposed fight against evil nazi Ukraine and Satanist NATO

And Nazi Germany didn't go full war time economy until 1942.

People can be ideologically-driven psychopaths, and ineffective at the same time. And I assure you — if Strelkov came to power, economic efficiency would just drop. Because he would fire Nabiulina, actually competent banker, and would put someone like Glazyev in her stead, who is even less competent than Erdogan when it comes to monetary policy. But hey, at least he hates hohols.

They can — just instead of sparsely populated Azov steppe battles will happen in Poltava (pop. 280k), or Zaporizhzhia proper (pop. around 700k). They repelled Russians from Kyiv back when American assistance was meager.

Kremlins shifted their course to freezing the conflict at the approximately current borders after their failed push to Kiev that was meant to facilitate regime change. And without western assistance they would be successful as they were 9 years ago. And American assistance was not meager if you look at it in all years from 2014.

He is a kleptocrat, alright, but calling him non-ideological is just demonstrably false at this point. You could have had doubts back in 2012, not now. Karlin is just as delusional as ever, just instead of "Kiev will fall in 2 days" he swung in the opposite direction.

But policies of his government that consists from his cronies aren't ideological nor specifically Russian nationalist. We can look at many aspects: immigration, internal federal policy, cultural and just politics where nationalist parties and organizations were outright banned. Even if he is in some way sincerely ideological it doesn't matter, because it doesn't affect his mishmash rhetoric and policy.

I lived in Russia for quite some time, I know Russian, so I think I have some understanding of what Russian nationalists really think. Are you Russian?

Yes, I am Russian and live in Russia currently. While Russian nationalist that are pro-Putin exist they are unknown to the mostly apolitical wide public and treated with disdain by politically active youth.

And Nazi Germany didn't go full war time economy until 1942.

People can be ideologically-driven psychopaths, and ineffective at the same time. And I assure you — if Strelkov came to power, economic efficiency would just drop. Because he would fire Nabiulina, actually competent banker, and would put someone like Glazyev in her stead, who is even less competent than Erdogan when it comes to monetary policy. But hey, at least he hates hohols.

There is wide gulf between full war-time economy proposed by Strelkov and current Vietnam level spending. Girkin wants to "liberate" whole Ukraine, with smaller goals kremlins need less commitment but still higher than current one. I am talking about not inefficiency but policies that are going against Russian nationalist or imperialist belief supposedly held by Putin.

And American assistance was not meager if you look at it in all years from 2014.

Just find an article from Khodaryonok saying back before the invasion that it was absolutely meager. A large-scale war isn't fought with a hundred Javelins or Stingers. Operation Unifier or several hundreds of millions dollars sent to Ukraine over the years weren't the decisive factor either.

And without western assistance they would be successful as they were 9 years ago.

They weren't that successful 9 years ago either — not taking Mariupol in 2015 even after Russian MOD sending their units into Ukraine.

I didn't say Putin is a nationalist, I said he was ideologically driven. Thinking that he is a new Ekaterina the Great. Ekaterina wasn't a nationalist, she accepted Muslims and European colonists in her realm. Patrushev, Kiriyenko — those are ideologues too. The rest are lèche-culs. But Göring too was more interested in his personal enrichment and aggrandizement. In regimes like that not everyone is Hitler or Himmler.

There is wide gulf between full war-time economy proposed by Strelkov and current Vietnam level spending.

Just find articles on Meduza, Verstka or Mediazona on how military factories work right now — in 3 shifts, without possibility of taking vacations. How expenses, especially the closed part of the budget grew. If you don't see something, or if you still can enjoy your morning latte somewhere in café in Moscow — doesn't mean the system doesn't make efforts. People dance in night clubs in Kyiv too, you know.

Ukraine is different. It is a European country that is being fast-tracked into the EU. Those who try to attack my friends, will get harshly punished.

The rules are clear. Just because someone somewhere broke them and didn't get punished is not an excuse.

Ukraine is different. It is a European country that is being fast-tracked into the EU.

In other words they are getting fast tracked into diversity, ESG ratings and rule by wall street. Ukraine has remained Ukraine after centuries of Russian rule. Berlin is turning into a third world city 30 years after "freedom". The EU elites hate everything that is actually European. They want to turn it into a souless consumerist platform for Amazon and Netflix.

Are you from the EU?

Unfortunately.

The wall street does not rule the world or countries. They certainly do lobbying but it is not a dictatorship and many smart people constantly suggest ways how to improve the global financial system.

Noah Smith have made very good comparisons about the economy of the post-soviet countries – the countries which have joined the EU have developed faster than those which didn't. If you look from the point of view of freedoms, you will see the same results.

Ukraine has lost a lot of potential by failing to join the EU sooner. Better late than never.

You have the causation exactly backwards (just like Noah Smith). The countries that joined the EU were the countries that had already transitioned better.

That's not really true. At some point Russia's GDP was even higher than Latvia's. Belarus is also relatively stable and more prosperous than Ukraine.

The EU membership boosted the growth of their members quite considerably.

Of course, you could say that readiness to join the EU was also a big impetus for necessary reforms. Turkey was going that way too. But since they clearly decided not to join the EU, their growth stalled.

It isn’t about size of gdp or gdp per capita. It was a question of how they privatized. Ukraine and Russia privatization scheme was corrupt beyond belief. Other areas (eg Poland) implemented schemes that would lead to long term growth.

There was not much of a pie to divide at the start. All countries started being very poor but some countries received new investments and others not.

Specifically in Ukraine oligarhs resisted establishing links with the EU exactly because they feared that new investments will make their wealth to become proportionally much smaller (hence, losing power). If Ukraine had joined the EU despite inefficient privatization, it would have been much more developed today.

On the other hand, the countries that remained economically related to Russia, the risk of western investments was too high and they remained poor.

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What rules are clear? Can you name them or provide a link to them? None of this is in the UN Charter by the way - the Security Council decides these things.

The rule that you are not allowed to occupy other countries without a good reason.

The rule is enforced by most powerful countries on this planet, namely, NATO countries who supply Ukraine sufficient weapons so that they can fight against Russian occupying forces.

When did that rule come about, and where is it written?

The rule is enforced by most powerful countries on this planet, namely, NATO countries who supply Ukraine sufficient weapons so that they can fight against Russian occupying forces.

Will this rule be enforced the next time a NATO country feels like occupying another country (probably Russia)? Or is this a rule that only exists for weak, non-NATO countries? If NATO is supplanted by another power, like China, will this rule no longer apply and will countries be allowed to occupy each other again?

You can never predict the future...

And you all are probably better historians than me anyway.

So the 'rules based order' has nothing to do with coherent, consistent law, it's just an excuse to do whatever NATO wants. You must agree that the choice of judge for 'good reasons' is all-important here. Otherwise we'd all be cheering on the SMO like the Economist did in 1999. They wouldn't print the following: 'Bringing the Ukrainians to heel! A massive bombing attack opens the door to peace'.

Onto my second point, what is the point of NATO influencing Ukraine? Since there's no moral/legal reason, there must be a strategic reason. Ukraine has some agricultural land, some gas, the old T-80 production line - yet that's not really a game-changer for anyone. The bulk of the strategic value is in the Black Sea ports, Crimea, gas pipelines, bases relevant to weakening Russia. Ukraine matters more to Russia than it does to the West, in the same way that Mexico or Cuba matters more to the US than to China. Proximity is important. The obvious reason to seek Ukrainian and Georgian membership in NATO is to pressure and surround Russia. It's similarly obvious that Russia is angered by this - they made it abundantly clear that they were very angry about this for years and years.

We should not go around antagonizing major powers with enough nuclear weapons to sweep us all into the dustbin of history, not unless core strategic interests are threatened. We should not have undermined coherent, non-arbitrary ideas like 'don't engage in wars without Security Council consensus' - others can play that game too.

Maybe Russia should have offered Ukraine a more appealing prospect than the EU.

Getting mad because other countries have the right to self determination is an interesting take.

We should not have undermined coherent, non-arbitrary ideas like 'don't engage in wars without Security Council consensus' - others can play that game too.

The country invading a sovereign nation is the one engaging in war.

So the 'rules based order' has nothing to do with coherent, consistent law, it's just an excuse to do whatever NATO wants.

I mean sorta? Might makes right never went away, but the most powerful country generally wants a rules based system most of the time, and so one exists. With just enough exceptions and post hoc rationalization to prevent two nuclear armed powers from coming to direct conflict.

'Do what I say or I'll shoot you' is a rule, but it's not generally what we mean by a rules-based international order, and if America has no justification for it's hegemony other than force, you shouldn't be surprised when others seek to use force to challenge that hegemony.

you shouldn't be surprised when others seek to use force to challenge that hegemony

I'm not, it's exactly what I expect. Then again, I would expect it even if the US had an additional justification, such is the nature of power. Additionally I expect the rules based system to only last as long as US hegemony does.

But I also expect what comes next to be considered much worse, regardless of how much people talk now about America being evil. Despite getting to set the rules (and, admittedly, getting quite a few carve outs in its favor), Pax Americana has been good for basically everyone, save possibly the Russian elite.

I would say that about 30-35 million people that can be added to the global community that is engaged in improving human society is a big deal. It is not only about advancement of technologies because this can be done also in dictatorships like China but about the fabric of the society that is beneficial for all of us. The society is constantly facing different problems (social networks, lockdowns, lack of democracy etc.) that we need more people to deal with these problems in a positively progressive way instead of heavy-handed manner.

The biggest problem with dictatorship is that it is less effective. Putin started a senseless war that hurt Russia a lot. In Western democracies people can also make wrong choices but it is self correcting and it is better in long term development.

China is planning to build their base on Cuba, and Russia increasing their presence there. I guess, a special military operation Bay of Pigs style is totally justified, as it is posited by the so called "realists". And you will support it, right? Ukraine is in the sphere of Russia, Cuba is in the sphere of the US?

https://www.reuters.com/world/china-post-spy-facility-cuba-off-southeastern-us-wsj-2023-06-08/

Yes, its permissible to go in on Cuba. It wouldn't be the first or even the tenth time the US interfered in the sovereignty of Latin American nations.

By meddling in the sphere of influence of another country, you are risking instability and conflict - whether that's Cuba or Ukraine. This is particularly true when it comes to a imperialist nation prone to belligerency, like the United States. China should not unnecessarily antagonize the US like this, and if this leads to war, I think they could be partly responsible.

Of course that isn’t what the poster said. He didn’t say he supported the Russian war. He said NATO antagonized Russia. That doesn’t imply war is the correct response.

The rule that you are not allowed to occupy other countries without a good reason.

The rule is enforced by most powerful countries on this planet, namely, NATO countries who supply Ukraine sufficient weapons so that they can fight against Russian occupying forces.

Are you truly not blind to the absurdity of your statement? ?

"without a good reason" is doing heavy weightlifting here :)

Obviously Russians are sure they also have a good reason, like every invader ever.

I'm becoming partial to the 'non-aggression principle' whose primitive, naive form is espoused by libertarians. (see included image)

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What is absurd in the statement that Ukraine successfully pushed away Russian attack to most of their country?

As I said Ukraine might or might not recover Donbas and/or the Crimea but they successfully defended their capital from falling into Russia's hands. Now with the western help their army has only gotten stronger and I expect that they will liberate at least some of the territories currently occupied by Russians.

As George Soros said back in 2004:

If we re-elect Bush, we are endorsing the Bush doctrine. And then we are off to a vicious circle of escalating violence in the world. And I think, you know, terrorism, counter-terrorism, it's a very scary spectacle to me. If we reject him, then we are effectively rejecting the Bush doctrine. Because he was elected on a platform of a more humble foreign policy. Then we can go back to a more humble foreign policy. And treat this episode as an aberration. We have to pay a heavy price. You know, 100 billion dollars a year in Iraq. We can't get out of that. We mustn't get out of it. But still, we can then regain the confidence of the world, and our rightful place as leaders of the world, working to make the world a better place.

I think it deserves a top-level post in itself: one of the reasons American right started to hate Soros was that he opposed interventionist policies of Bush. Now Tucker and co, who supported invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, declare people like him to be warmongers.

Yeah, sure.

Soros, whose institutes have been at the forefront of funding revolutions since.. well, probably longer than most of posters here have been alive, is for a "more humble foreign policy".

Right.

Even a stopped clock may be right once in a while.

But OK, I'll push back on a more object-level, without sneering. On forefront of which revolutions was he? Velvet revolution? Singing Revolution in Baltic countries? Orange Revolution? Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan? Euromaidan? Rose Revolution in Georgia? Because it's a nice narrative concocted by Russian propaganda, Orban and pro-Ru types, about CIA or Soros, but it just doesn't hold and betrays both ignorance and conspiratorial thinking.

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Soros, whose institutes have been at the forefront of funding revolutions since..

Good for him for developing democracy in those countries by funding libraries, scientists and free media. Unfortunately, despite all efforts Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria slide back into corruption and their elites keep pocketing EU money, of course Soros is a good scapegoat for their failures. Gullible people there love this Soros shit, makes them feel smart.

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I know it's beating a dead horse at this point, but this whole Prigozhin situation made one fact crystal clear: American dissident right (and "anti-nato left" by extension) is extremely solipsistic, much more than other factions in American culture war. Just take a look at some of those takes which are prevalent among this crowd

This war-as-a-distraction meme dates back to the 90s, such as wag the dog, and is not just the fringe-right. Conspiratorial thinking is a major tradition/aspect of American politics. Americans in general have a low opinions of its leaders. But our leaders haven't done much to burnish this reputation, so it's understandable why so many feel this way. Even if elites are not directly coordinating, they share a similar worldview nonetheless. The us vs. them framing is not entirely wrong, but i think both sides overestimate how well the opposing side is able to coordinate.

Despite spending more time here than is healthy, none of this context looks familiar. What are you referencing? An insular Twitter fight?

Dissident right isn’t a monolith but I do get annoyed at the Sacks part of it which is anti war. I prime example of “dissident right” is this sub itself which many would probably consider “dissident right” is on net I believe pro-war.

Well, there are two different things going on there.

These:

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are people who are just not smart enough / knowledgeable enough to understand that actual 10D chess moves are rare in politics. A look at history would tell you that, but most people do not read history. They do not understand that Occam's Razor, the idea that the simpler explanation is generally more likely to be correct, applies here. Some of them might also have various kinds of paranoia-inducing mental issues that cloud their understanding. Such people are everywhere on /pol/.

This:

even as someone that is entirely anti-nato to the point I would turncoat in a second if i had a chance to damage the alliance

is a person who might also belong to the first group above, but might not. It is possible for someone to be smart enough to understand what I described above and yet be fervently anti-NATO for one reason or another. Personally I care about liberalism, but obviously not everyone does. And even a liberal might hate NATO for nationalist reasons, or whatever.

The dissident right is made up of a small upper echelon of smart people and a huge mass of stupid people who are basically just cannon fodder that belongs to whoever can persuade them. That mass of stupid people are the Qanoners and so on. The left has its own variation of this, although it is not perfectly symmeterical.

are people who are just not smart enough / knowledgeable enough to understand that actual 10D chess moves are rare in politics.

Twenty years ago the top ivies had an incredible reputation in the general public. Ivy League professors were magical wizards who you could only listen to if you got accepted to special schools for the brilliant.

A lot of it the reputation still remains.

Picture a red state factory worker. He knows Harvard grads are super brilliant. DC is full of them. Yet he sees them making obviously stupid decisions.

Some grand 10D chess move is an obvious answer.

People who have more contact with Harvard grads, even just reading their writing regularly, are much more aware of their human limits.

Watching the academic elite discuss politics on Twitter has also opened a lot of eyes.

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I think that’s a bit uncharitable. I’ve always seen “it’s a show” statements as more of a mythical statement than any attempt at literal truth. What’s being gotten here is true — the elites are using other news as a “show” to distract from real, but embarrassing issues. A lot of conspiracy theories tend to work that way — they’re myths, but myths used to teach true things. They’re turning the frogs gay is kinda true. Pollution can change the sex of frogs. They’re shorthand narratives.

I have nothing to add on the object level, but I have to say I think it's pretty cowardly to directly quote another motter's post from earlier in this week's thread without tagging them or even naming them. It would be fine if you did it in the same chain, but when you made a new thread you abstracted it away from the op, and it can't have been mere laziness - you quoted them and it would have been trivial to copy their name too, so the only justification for not tagging them I can see is cowardice.

Although to be honest I would still have had a problem with this post if you had tagged them, because you made a top level comment to air your grievances with another user and I think that is petty attention seeking behaviour. But I wouldn't have thought you were being a coward.

Unfortunately, yes, some of the right-wingers have the right instincts but are profoundly ignorant about the actual facts and events, especially about places like Russian and Ukraine. So they choose on the basis of "if Biden says Putin is bad, then Putin must be awesome based dude, let's worship him". And "if Biden says there's war in Ukraine, it's all fake and there's no war at all". It is a very sad reality. I hope these stupid guys are a minority, because otherwise the US politics would be completely depressing sight for a foreseeable future.

i have noticed this a lot during Covid. "schools are indoctrination factories" "school closures due to Covid are bad". I wouldn't really call it stupidity. It's more like people seek heuristics to have both popular opinions and to be informed without having to put much work or effort, so following whatever is trendy on twitter accomplishes this even if it's contradictory or incoherent.

"schools are indoctrination factories" "school closures due to Covid are bad"

These aren't necessarily contradictory. The ultimate goal is a good school which teaches useful skills while matching the politics of the surrounding population. For the red tribers, that's obviously not what is happening. Some solve it by homeschooling, some - by private schooling, some can't do it for one reason or another - so they have to use the public school system, while recognizing its faults and the indoctrination going on in there. Closing the schools completely is obviously worse for them - if they could do without the schools, they'd already be doing it. Their problem is that they can't, and they can't also neither control how the schools are managed (despite paying for them) nor choose a school which matches their politics (mostly because there wouldn't be any).

It's oppositional defiant disorder spreading to older whites. While ODD is something that is, from time to time, provided as a cause for black youth underperformance in schools, it's not something you've seen attributed to older whites. The perception of mistreatment by authority creates a permanent attitude of anger and defiance.

This can sometimes feel like just part and parcel of the way modern society seems to outright encourage mental illness in the general population. Attitudes and outlooks that, given time to fester, can develop into something almost clinical are celebrated and spread far and wide, coping mechanisms and other attempts to deal with mental health issues like this are denigrated and people are exhorted to reject them.

I don't really know what should be done about it. It has kind of metastasized into a pan-social malady that can't be addressed entirely because it's distributed and deeply entrenched.

This can sometimes feel like just part and parcel of the way modern society seems to outright encourage mental illness in the general population

Well, let me count the options. 24/7 "sky is falling" doom cycle on the news. Constant gaslighting about almost every significant topic, where you are supposed to "trust the experts" and abandon your own judgement. Massive propaganda effort to paint groups of people - especially older white males - as toxic irredeemable bearers of evil, and responsible for all evils starting with Hammurabi times. Obvious contradiction between assumed social contract and the actual reality on the ground. Demonstrative distain by the kakistocracy to every law and moral foundation. Growing atomization of the society. Almost complete destruction of the culture of public debate and civil disagreement. Stigmatization and largely unavailability of low-level low cost mental healthcare (beyond "take this pill and stop wasting my time"). And probably a dozen or so other factors. It's no wonder some people spring a leak upstairs.

Interesting. Oppositional defiant disorder sounds like the opposite of "mass formation psychosis." Pathological consensus versus pathological anti-consensus.

An adult who switches from ambivalence to extreme hostility to authority as a result of an external event doesn't have a mental illness. That's the normal affect for perceived wrongs from authority.

I guess the problem with this is that it treats "authority" as a singular entity, and not as a blob with a million arms that don't talk to each other.

For example, let's say I am the victim of "authority" when a university racially discriminates against me in admissions. A common story. But that doesn't mean my boss, landlord, or local hospital are also out to get me. They are different forms of authority, not closely related to the other.

I don't think it's a mental illness necessarily. It's just that people who are low IQ or agency might have trouble with these distinctions and adopt a suboptimal "everyone's out to get me" mentality that doesn't square with reality.

But that doesn't mean my boss, landlord, or local hospital are also out to get me. They are different forms of authority, not closely related to the other.

Then why do they all start repeating the same mantras at the same time?

If everything is a mental health disorder; then, nothing is. I find these claims absurd; but, I wouldn't call these people mentally ill. The very idea that personality disorders are real mental illnesses is nonsense to me.

Someone being a dick or a bitch doesn't make them mentally ill. They are just a dick or a bitch. Don't medicalise ordinary human personality variation. If you hate them so much just argue against them and their positions without weaponizing the bureaucracy.

this gets into the scott vs caplan debate about what is a mental illness versus a personality trait.

No, because, I readily agree that schizophrenia or bipolar disorder are clearly mental illnesses. Caplan doesn't. It's just personality disorders that I have an issue with. Especially, because, there are no drugs that treat them and therapy is iffy at best. Depression and Anxiety disorders are a middle ground I have no comment on.

Oppositional defiant disorder is a completely BS disorder that is just medicalizing opposition to authority. It's "sluggish schizophrenia" for the modern West

Mental health in general is almost entirely about whether something substantially prevents someone from functioning normally.

So you agree that opposing the Soviet state was ipso facto insane?

Yes, it's how psychiatry works.

And Soviet state was dismantled from inside by CPSU members not activists spreading leaflets.

Amusing aside but I remember reading about pre-revolution Russia and the anti-Czar fever pitch leading up to his deposing.

At one point it was so extreme that during a medical conference, the presiding doctors came to the conclusion that the Czar was directly responsible for the outbreak of syphillis and that the panel’s primary recommendation for responding to the public health crisis is getting rid of the Czar.

Look how well that turned out for them.

Kind of reminds me of BLM in 2020. Rly makes u think.

You might say: "Well, I don't care about anti-Putin Russians, unfortunate pro-Putin Russians who became victims of the regime, neutral Russians, Ukrainians, Uighurs, Tibetans, Taiwanese, ... all I care is that my children don't get castrated and turned into trannies". Fair enough. But then please don't take a high moral ground. You are just as evil as "elites".

I’d say letting your children get castrated so that someone somewhere might be saved from some kind of oppression (real or perceived), is a pretty cucked choice.

How are these the only two choices?

They're not, I'm merely questioning the implied correct choice in the dilemma suggested by the OP.

I was paraphrasing a poster from several weeks back, when they defended British pilots defecting to Chinese. They essentially said that they would rather defect to China than be a subject of trans-friendly anti-white policies of the West. Though they dismissed human rights violations by Chinese as propaganda, and also claimed that the situation with human rights is better in China than in UK. Another example of solipsism.

Though they dismissed human rights violations by Chinese as propaganda, and also claimed that the situation with human rights is better in China than in UK.

Who the hell knows. Have you ever been to China?

Defecting to China is not a good idea for them anyway, though.

Have you ever been to China?

Would having been to China change anything? You don't expect a short visit would instantly expose to you all the complications and intricacies of politics in the billion-sized country, do you? If they have concentration camps, do you expect them to give you a tour on demand? If they torture and murder people for political reasons, do you expect them to show it to you, because they do it for every foreigner who comes in and asks? If they suppress dissent, do you expect them to just admit it to you, once you land in Beijing airport? If you don't see any of that in a 14-day guided tour, would you be ready to say all the people who lived there their whole lives and complain about such things are dirty liars, because you've been there and haven't seen any of that?

You don't expect a short visit would instantly expose to you all the complications and intricacies of politics in the billion-sized country, do you?

That's right. Now, would you expect to gain insights on the complications and intricacies of their politics by reading western media?

would you be ready to say all the people who lived there their whole lives and complain about such things are dirty liars

Well would you be ready to say that all the Chinese people who deny these things or find them implausible are dirty liars?

Thinking one can answer these questions without any sort of reliable insider information source is delusional. I don't have them; do you?

Now, would you expect to gain insights on the complications and intricacies of their politics by reading western media?

By reading only Western media, you can't. By reading all kinds of media - including, but not only, Western - you can make some progress towards it.

Well would you be ready to say that all the Chinese people who deny these things or find them implausible are dirty liars?

If they are in China at the moment, or their relatives or family are - no, they are probably just afraid. Justifiably, I may notice, as we have examples of people persecuted for saying things the regime does not like. I wouldn't call a dirty liar a person that says something he knows to be not true, but also knows if he says the truth he'd risk his life and maybe the lives of others. I'll rather call him a victim. If they are outside China's control - I'd have to look into them further to determine whether or not they are liars, so it'd go on case by case basis. If they say there are no human rights violations in China - they are liars for sure, as there are documented examples of them. If they say the specific violation did not happen - it may be true, or they may be mistaken, or they may be lying, again - case by case.

Thinking one can answer these questions without any sort of reliable insider information source is delusional

Answer definitely? No. Get to a high degree of certainty? Yes. Just as it is done with all other things we can not observe or perceive directly - by carefully collecting, evaluating and filtering available pieces of circumstantial evidence, until a general picture starts to become clear. And then updating this picture once new pieces of evidence come in. Current picture suggests China is under a totalitarian fascist regime which has a complete disdain for anything called "human rights" in the West (I'm not sure there's such concept in China at all?), routinely prosecutes dissidents and anybody who dares to contradict the party line, operates concentration camps and performs multiple atrocities.

Yep. Solipsism. "Do I even know whether anything aside from me exist? Planets? Viruses? Tiananmen Square protests? The Great Firewall of China? Forcible sterilizations under One Child Policy? Probably all lies of MSM, we will never know"

Forcible sterilizations under One Child Policy?

We probably supported that (not literally AFAIK, but I doubt that we were opposed) given that our NGOs were prodding India to do the same.

Anti-natalist policies were all the rage at the time, with South Korea's arguably looking like the biggest retrospective "whoops". Amusingly, even an Islamic theocracy couldn't stop their bureaucrats from being influenced by Ehrlich.

In case of India there is a share of direct responsibility — but the West couldn't significantly influence China's policies, not during Mao's rule, not after that. Aside from infecting Chinese leadership with harmful memes, of course, which then were turned to 11 due to totalitarian nature of China. But we don't blame Germany for being a place of origin of Marx, whose ideas caused death of millions.

Due to me largely being a single-issue anti-lockdown guy at this point, I guess in the US I'd fall in with the "dissident right" even if I disagree with them on the majority of social issues. To give an example, I back LGBT rights in about the way you'd expect from a progressive but I can't back progressives in their current form because the end result of lockdownism is everyone, including LGBT people, equally having no rights. You can't claim to support LGBT rights and simultaneously criminalize sex).

So Russia... Fuck Russia. They too are a lockdownist regime, and I equally want Putin's head displayed on the end of a pike as I do the average prog. The place I differ is that I also want most western leaders heads lined up alongside his. Hence my stance on the war is that I hope both sides lose. Both sides losing probably requires that Russia lose first, because I don't see a route where a Russian victory leads to uprisings against Putin but a Ukrainian victory probably has Zelensky get turfed out in a few years if recent Ukrainian history is anything to go by.

There is a hypothetical world in which Russia are indeed liberating Ukraine from it's vile regime. The problem, of course, is that this isn't the actual circumstance. Belarus would have a slightly better case to make, as one of the few countries that avoided lockdowns, I'd at least give Lukashenko the time of day if he invaded Ukraine in 2020 to liberate Ukrainians from their regime - it would at least be a coherent cause. Even if Russia invaded the UK, I might defect to them just for the opportunity to get justice for the crimes that the British regime has committed against me, but it would be no more than pure opportunism on my part. But what exactly can Putin claim to liberate Ukraine from? From one corrupt lockdownist oligarchy to another? How utterly pointless.

Of course they'll have prepared a long list of grievances with "elites" that are intended to persuade you that whatever happens in the US is much worse than repressions in Russia or China.

The most notable form of repressions over the last few years were lockdowns, affecting billions. When it comes to how brutal these are, there isn't some vast difference between Russia and the West. Even China has typically behaved more courteously towards those protesting lockdowns than Western regimes have done. And if democracy is meant to be the difference, I wonder what exactly is supposed to be the difference between Putin's machinations and media control to win his elections, and western "mainstream" parties winning via similar censorship and violent attacks on dissidents? We no longer need to speculate. The paper trail of censorship of opponents of lockdowns has been traced back to governments.

But why do some on the dissident right actively support Putin rather than take my burn it all down including Russia approach? I don't think it's quite enemy of my enemy is my friend. It's more appeal to an outside power. Like cosmic intervention. Desperately hoping they'd swoop in to save the day. Just like far-left dissidents wanted the USSR to do during the cold war, or e.g. anti-Putin protesters in Russia sometimes want NATO to do. It's a cry for help because they do not see any way to depose their regime without external assistance. Which I reject, because I don't think Putin would replace their regime with what they want. Sweden, though? They can nuke me whenever they feel like it. Drone me harder Tegnell.

Fair enough. But then please don't take a high moral ground. You are just as evil as "elites".

The social contract to not act in maximally selfish ways is broken, and the dissident right have a good claim that they aren't responsible for breaking it.

One thing I will say is how disappointing the lack of accountability there seems to be for the lockdown group. They created massive damage and it seems like everyone’s response is “who could’ve known”

Is it right to be this level of angry over lockdowns? At least at the beginning, it wasn't obviously wrong. At some level of lethality of the virus, it would be the best thing to do, I think, since the hit to the economy and everyone else is worth keeping large swathes of the populace alive—just COVID was well below that, and hence the lockdowns were pretty harmful, especially in the places that they were more intense, and way too long lasting after it became apparent it was not going to accomplish its aims, and was a cure far worse than the (literal) disease.

The thing about lockdowns, at least in the U.S., is that their continued existence after COVID was found to be non-lethal wasn’t merely a costly mistake, but a form of political imprisonment. This may sound dramatic; let me explain.

In May 2020, police were kicking kids out of playgrounds in my blue town while marches and protests in memory of George Floyd were not only allowed, but encouraged. Remember, The Science declared that “racism is a bigger public health issue than COVID”. This unmasked (heh) the true nature of the lockdowns: citizens were imprisoned unless they were to participate in Party-approved political functions. Note that I do not suggest that the lockdowns were concocted from the beginning in order to achieve this aim; no cabal of doctors got together and crafted this plan back in March. But the effect of the lockdowns was equivalent to political imprisonment.

That’s why I have more anger towards the lockdown and its proponents than I would harbor if they were merely another entry in the list of costly mistakes committed by our technocrat rulers. It is precisely because they were wielded as a political weapon that they ought be scorned as one.

It's use as a political weapon became even more overt with vaccine mandates, which were used to punish if not outright purge political dissidents.

The lockdowns and other measures - American and Euro alike - were unjustified by the threat, were ineffective, and violated various principles that should have been considered too important to throw overboard in a panic. They were obviously wrong in multiple ways, many of which were indeed obvious as soon as the lockdowns began, and some of which were obvious even beforehand.

Not obvious: Covid was largely harmless.

Obvious as soon as the measures started: Their implementation has more holes than substance and you may as well not bother.

Obvious from the get-go: Liberal societies shouldn't suspend civil liberties based on nebulous suspicions.

That these measures were kept up for years, kept coming back even when it was evident they weren't accomplishing anything other than damage, and that people were vilified for not going along is more than enough food for a very high level of anger.

At some level of lethality, explicit lockdowns won't be necessary because everyone will be voluntarily staying home for fear of infection. At levels below that, lockdowns won't work because people won't follow them due to the risk of death being low. It's only when the lethality is unknown but plausibly high that lockdowns can be justified, but once the lethality is known you'll end up in one of the first two situations.

And even then, lockdowns would not be justified unless quarantining was impossible.

Putting Belarus above Ukraine in 2020 in terms of human rights just due to Ukraine being influenced by Western COVID-policies, and implementing lockdowns, while Belarus' leader doing absolutely nothing and advising his people to drink vodka in order to protect themselves from COVID leads to some interesting paradoxes. You'll get African dictatorships above Denmark.

The social contract to not act in maximally selfish ways is broken, and the dissident right have a good claim that they aren't responsible for breaking it.

God created all people in his image, and your belief in God and your obligation before other human beings is not dependent on whatever left-wingers or establishment in your country do or say. I'm not religious, but I'm a moral universalist, and death of Russians, Ukrainians, and Americans is equally tragic. American right-wingers, who often emphasize their religiosity, do not consider suffering of people in Haiti, Russia, Ukraine, China, or wherever — explicitly. While I can understand the ignorance (often willful) of human suffering across the world, or in-group preference (after all, even the most altruistic people don't give their homes to refuges and homeless), or healthy egoism, that's different from saying "NOT. OUR. PROBLEM". Catturd2 is a piece of shit, but I still will have moral obligation to save him if I'll see him drowning. Radical in-group ethics is evil, but I understand that some people might disagree.

And yes, I donate much of my salary to charity, so I put my money where my mouth is.

It was noted by someone else downthread that the American right is not a monolith — and indeed, you have a lot of right-wing charities supporting people around the world. Even proselytizing in third-world countries, like Mormons do, is pro-social and universalist. I am speaking specifically about dissident-right America-first chronically online twitterati (some of them even recognize that. I remember how in early reporting on the Ukraine War Tucker, when he was still on Fox News, constantly said at the end of his segments about Ukraine something like: "Poor, poor Ukrainians! Those poor people!". Saying "Fuck Ukraine" can fly on Twitter, but not on television, I guess)

Putting Belarus above Ukraine in 2020 in terms of human rights just due to Ukraine being influenced by Western COVID-policies, and implementing lockdowns, while Belarus' leader doing absolutely nothing and advising his people to drink vodka in order to protect themselves from COVID leads to some interesting paradoxes. You'll get African dictatorships above Denmark.

Interesting? Yes. Paradox? No. Tanzania did rank above Denmark for human rights in 2020. It's pretty hard to be worse for human rights than imprisoning everyone. I guess Pol Pot's omnicide attempts are clearly worse, to give at least one example?

God created all people in his image, and your belief in God and your obligation before other human beings is not dependent on whatever left-wingers or establishment in your country do or say. I'm not religious, but I'm a moral universalist, and death of Russians, Ukrainians, and Americans is equally tragic. American right-wingers, who often emphasize their religiosity, do not consider suffering of people in Haiti, Russia, Ukraine, China, or wherever — explicitly.

I think my comments preferring places as far-flung as Sweden and Tanzania to my own country (and countrymen) should make it clear that I do take a universal approach.

Catturd2 is a piece of shit, but I still will have moral obligation to save him if I'll see him drowning. Radical in-group ethics is evil, but I understand that some people might disagree.

The difference here is that I was metaphorically drowning and, worse than merely not being helped, the majority of people around me hoped I'd drown harder. There is a point at which charity becomes doormattery, and caring for people who overwhelmingly wanted to harm me is the latter.

And yes, I donate much of my salary to charity, so I put my money where my mouth is.

I would donate more to charity if I felt there were charities that were reasonably working towards their goals. I was much more likely to donate to charities pre-2020, before most of them revealed themselves to be nigh-fraudulent by refusing to challe nge lockdowns. To provide an anecdote from when this place (or was it /r/slatestarcodex, don't quite remember) was back on reddit, we once had someone approach the subreddit soliciting donations for a charity that operates on a native american reservation to help with malnutrition. We quickly found out, after some questioning, that the cause of their economic plight was not just generic poverty, but that the government of the reservation had imposed lockdowns on it. The charity refused to challenge the actual cause of the malnutrition. Me and some other people basically said we'd donate to an org willing to help with the actual problem if such an org exists but the proposed charity ain't it.

Uh... Why are you a single issue anti lockdown person? Was it really so horrible to be forced to be told what to do and stay at home more than usual?

The lockdowns were actually pretty great for me, personally - I could relocate to a much cheaper place while getting paid the same, without any pushback from the corporate overlords, because WFH became the norm. But I think the fact that this thing happened in America without any serious pushback is a horrible thing, and everybody complicit in it has my full personal disgust and hate.

Most of the hate for lockdowns just smacks of "I don't care if additional millions of old and vulnerable people had died, the virus wasn't dangerous to me personally and forcing me to conform and sacrifice is a great crime". There was reason for lockdowns and they saved lives, yet people on this site tend to deny that. Although, yes, the details of their implementations were often idiotic.

That's some vile bullshit. NY governor - and others - directly caused deaths of thousands by their policies of forced admittance of sick individuals in the nursing homes with healthy ones. But if I want to go to a beach - alone - and swim in the sea, I am killing the elderly. Elites dined in large luxurious companies, maskless - but if I go to a store, I can not buy anything beyond pre-approved list, because I am killing the elderly. Politicians called to go to the Chinatown and hug random people there because this would show I'm not racist, politicians condone mass riots smack in the middle of pandemic because "fighting racism is more important for public health" - but if I meet two friends for a glass of beer, I am killing the elderly. Screw that. I would consider accepting the baloney about "sacrifice" if the people who demand sacrifices from me behaved like they think it is serious. When they proudly stood maskless in front on masked servants, this is not "sacrifice" - this is showing that they are the patricians and we are the plebeians. When they closed down businesses, but had them private open for them on the down low - this is not "sacrifice", this is oppression. When they destroyed thousands of small businesses while "disappearing" tens of billions of dollars of "covid fund" - this is not "sacrifice", this is fraud.

There was reason for lockdowns and they saved lives

No they did not. You can worship this idol however you want, you can believe that dances with tambоurinеs, sacrifice of chickens and wearing special religious garments and performing elaborate rituals is the only thing that keeps the world from collapse. That's you religion, and I won't say anything about it, it's between you and whatever gods or other entities you worship. But when you try to force me into your religion, when you deny all empiric evidence and logic in service of your religious dogma, and when you lay all the atrocities that fellows of your religion committed - at my feet, I have nothing to say but "screw that". Your attempt at emotional blackmail failed.

people on this site tend to deny that

People on this site deny that too: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)00461-0/fulltext

Mandate propensity (a summary measure that captures a state's use of physical distancing and mask mandates) was associated with a statistically significant and meaningfully large reduction in the cumulative infection rate (figure 3B), but not the cumulative death rate

In other words, mandates help lowering infection rate among low-risk populations, but did nothing for high risk populations. In more mundane words, all this destruction and fascism was so we could have the cough a couple of months later than otherwise, with no change in outcome.

Although, yes, the details of their implementations were often idiotic.

Oh, sorry, I forgot - true socialism has been never tried. Maybe next time.

millions of old and vulnerable people did die and comparisons between places with lockdowns and not lockdowns (and varying levels of lockdowns) do not buttress the claim they reduced mortality even in that target group

someone sure is in denial of something, and it's the person who has to rely on an unsupported counterfactual of "sure millions of old and vulnerable people did die anyway, alone, cloistered off from their family, and not being taken care of by terrified medical staff as they drowned in their own fluid, and at an absurd cost in wealth and human rights violations, but more totally would have died without it"

once you account for those who died anyway and the enormous cost in wealth, lives, and rights violations, the lockdowns comes into focus as the stupidest public policy decision of the last 100 years and I hope each of you who supported such lunacy is constantly reminded of it like an albatross around their neck

and it wasn't only stupid in hindsight (it's preposterously stupid in hindsight), it was stupid at the time with relevant data and evidence at the time which was entirely ignored for reasons we're all left to speculate; Should we 1) use flu pandemic guidelines carefully crafted over 100 years in response to real world diseases or 2) throw those away and launch into a vastly costly global experiment with next to zero scientific support while refusing to engage in any sort of cost-benefit analysis whatsoever?

characterizing lockdowns as mere "conforming" and "forced to stay at home more than usual" is asininely dishonest

and stinks of someone whose cost for lockdowns was either near zero or positive

That's the one great legacy of covid. It took that big exogenous shock to move the needle toward remote work. The viability of such work was mostly speculative before then.

A giant blow against an Office Space-style quality of life pain point.

Yes. I am seeing companies who didn't touch WFH with a ten-foot pole now opening remote positions. Once this happens, there's no stopping it - even if you ban WFH, people would just leave for a company that doesn't. Unless you pay fabulously well - which only a small percentage of companies does, and even for them it may be not fabulous enough to justify living in a place like San Francisco - you'd just get your market reduced, that's all. Only a total memetic blockade of WFH on the management level has been sustaining the "local only" model, but this has been broken and I don't think it's coming back. It can come back in certain companies, but not industry-wide.

I had two small children with special education needs entering the education system right as the lockdowns started, and I’m more or less working class without the resources for private education and therapy, so naturally as the lockdowns went on I was filled with white hot nuclear rage at those responsible for them.

You ever seen a toddler do speech therapy with a mask on with masked adults?

Trust me when I say it’s one of the most frustrating, pointless exercises you could witness. Especially when it’s your kid.

That and the fact that my industry was completely devastated by the lockdowns as it was all in person work.

And I live in a heavily blue state.

So me and mine were absolutely the type of people sacrificed at the altar so that overweight, CNN addicted middle age office workers could have the perception of safety.

I can't believe how many lockdown supporters are still around.

The lockdowns...

  1. Didn't work.

  2. Had massive negative side effects.

  3. Were an illegal imposition against personal rights.

This leaves just one weak pillar of support: "I personally benefited".

We recognize it's evil when a Halliburton exec benefits from a cruel and unnecessary war. It's also evil for people to support lockdowns because they personally came out ahead.

The "pandemic" was a period in which many societies and governments dropped the mask on pluralism, burned the hitherto observed social contract, and stopped just short of putting guns to people's heads to tell them "do as we say or else", purely to force people into obedience for no good reason and many bad ones. And they stopped not because they came to their senses, but because the war in the Ukraine distracted them.

Seeing what petty tyranny lurks behind the thinning facade of supposedly liberal society can have a sobering effect.

It really was a mask off moment. We could see which people in power had principles (very few) vs. who was just playing team baseball (almost everyone).

Even the author of fucking "Manufacturing Consent" revealed himself to be more than willing to be a fascist if it was for the right team.

In my own personal life, I've learned to give people more charity and grace for having the wrong opinions. How could I do otherwise, when almost everyone fell under the spell? As for my friends who held firm against the tidal wave of bullshit I now have a much stronger connection and respect. It's like a secret club of people who you can really trust.

I object to being falsely imprisoned.

Do you really even have to ask? Seriously, I don't understand how this can be so mysterious? What next, will you ask why Uyghurs don't like reeducation camps?

You were not imprisoned.

So there was no criminal penalties being threatened for me leaving a location? Strange. I seem to quite clearly remember the law saying exactly that.

It is mysterious becuase it looks like you're grouping "reeducation camps" and "lockdowns" together on the basis on how legally similar they are - not on how horrible the experience is.

Lockdowns are not as bad as being on the business end of a genocide.

That being said, they were really, really bad. I would be prepared to forgive and forget if they were taught as a ‘never again’ moment and written into history books as the worst human rights violations in the modern west, Fauci and whitmer as unambiguous villains, and anti-lockdown activists as brave freedom fighters who admittedly believed some crazy things, but let’s not focus on that.

This is not how the establishments in western countries want to record things- lockdowns were some combination of a false memory, tragically necessary, and a mistake but not that bad. So yes, I’m still very angry about them, and it’s a perfectly justifiable degree of hyperbole above.

It makes sense to speak against lockdowns because they were actually harmful in ways you can describe, like the guy above with his children who couldn't do speech therapy with masks on, or because they were dumb and unproductive/counterproductive towards their stated goal. Or it makes sense to speak against the government for moving the goalposts and Fauci-ing it up.

Tophattingson on the other hand, the whole idea I get from his posts, is all about how they're bad because they're somewhat like imprisonment according to its dictionary definition, and imprisonment is against human rights as written by libertarians, and therefore they must be the Worst Evil Ever. I cannot help but associate this kind of legalesthetic thinking and tunnel vision with sovereign citizens.

I would be prepared to forgive and forget if they were taught as a ‘never again’ moment and written into history books as the worst human rights violations in the modern west

Do you honestly believe they were the worst human rights violation, or is it just a condition for forgiving and forgetting?

I hate them for all the other reasons too. I simply add one more reason. I do not think it would be productive for me to drop hundreds of examples of specific lockdown harms though if you do want specific examples I can provide them.

We had norms against what happened in 2020 for a reason (if you think they were not norms, find me pre-2020 lockdown advocates). Arbitrary home imprisonment of the entire population is not a power that the public typically granted the state. It is not a power that a state can safely have access to. Even if they used it correctly in 2020 it would be dangerous, but the actual course of events demonstrates it's danger: A state powerful enough to imprison everyone is powerful enough to fabricate the reason why it's doing so. Evidence: They did it for covid. Because of this, there is no safe way to grant a state this power even if there's a hypothetical virus/pandemic/whatever that would warrant doing so.

That's the additional argument I present. Simply tallying up the costs of lockdowns vs the costs of covid creates the impression that there could be a good lockdown in the right circumstance. I disagree because I think the risks of a state that can do a lockdown are far greater than any benefit they could create, as demonstrated by what happened in 2020. The best schelling point to protect against this, and the one we used pre-2020, is to prohibit arbitrary imprisonment. I am distraught that we have since abandoned this protection.

sovereign citizens

Sovereign citizens believe they are following the law albeit it's a law that does not actually exist. They think there's magic legal cheat codes that let them ignore certain laws. I'm saying fuck the law if it's like this. Those are very different positions.

Do you honestly believe they were the worst human rights violation, or is it just a condition for forgiving and forgetting?

Individually, no. Socially, hell yes, they were violation on a hitherto unprecedented scale. Not sure about human rights, but something was violated there.

how they're bad because they're somewhat like imprisonment according to its dictionary definition, and imprisonment is against human rights as written by libertarians

I mean they are exactly like imprisonment as currently practiced for minor-ish criminals -- enforced house arrest with allowances to leave under limited circumstances. If you think that being against arbitrary imprisonment is on the libertarian end of the spectrum that's fine I guess -- but I wonder where it puts you on the political compass?

I am against arbitrary imprisonment, it's just that we're using different definitions of "arbitrary". The word invokes "literally no correlation with any external reasons other than 'we said so'" to me, and to anti-lockdowners, I guess, "when they didn't ask our opinion"? "When it wasn't in response to anything I personally did"? Maybe you can clarify.

I find this whole rhetoric around it reminiscent of "taxation is theft", to which I respond "well then, I support organized theft that doesn't ruin the targets with redistribution towards societal needs and don't support targeted theft that sometimes ruins targets and only enriches the thief".

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Lockdowns were like imprisonment for me. Like a prolonged home arrest for no reason. Somehow it was very clear that they will be useless and the policies didn't even make sense.

Yes, they were the worst human rights violations in the western world since the war ended or something like that.

Only when you widen your comparison to places where wars and genocide still happens (Ukraine, other wars, Uigurs etc.), we can find examples with even worse violations.

Do you honestly believe they were the worst human rights violation, or is it just a condition for forgiving and forgetting?

For a given definition of ‘modern’ and ‘west’, yes.

I don’t consider Serbia in the 90s western and don’t call the Holocaust modern in the sense I’m talking about.

If you are smarter, you align yourself with perceived enemies of the elites: Putin, Xi, Orban, .... You say things like:

«What does this have to do with Lenin?»

Nowadays, John Locke is considered to be the founder of English liberalism. But Locke became widely popular only in the 19th century; in the 17th-18th he was scarcely read or quoted. Algernon Sidney was the ruler of minds at that time – it was his ideas, for example, from which the founding fathers of the United States drew. Sidney was an active participant in the English Revolution and a staunch Republican, so after the establishment of Cromwell's dictatorship he resigned from all posts. After the Stuart restoration he went to the continent, first to the Netherlands, then to France, unsuccessfully trying to organize a mutiny against the king. After an amnesty he returned to England, where he was arrested for treason. Two witnesses were required for a conviction for treason, but the authorities found only one. Then Lord Jeffreys did a feint and brought in Sidney's own book, Discourses on the government, as a second witness. The fact that the book had not even been printed and was kept in Sidney's desk failed to deter the judges and they sentenced him to execution. So Sidney became the chief martyr of the Whig movement and an icon of English liberalism and republicanism.

Much later, documents were published proving that the tyrannicidal Sidney lived on the money of the main tyrant of Europe and the enemy of England, Louis XIV, and sought money from him to organize a rebellion. The only thing they did not agree on was the price – Sidney wanted one hundred thousand ecus, but the king agreed to give only five times less.

This publication caused a furor. One of Sidney's friends said he could not have been more ashamed if he had seen his son fleeing the battlefield with his own eyes. The liberal historian Macaulay wrote that few things hurt him as much as seeing Sidney's name on Louis XIV's list of pensioners.

However, let's look at the situation from the other side. Suppose you are a revolutionary and want to overthrow the regime. How exactly are you going to do it? By crushing it with authority? You basically have no choice but to turn to other regimes that are enemies of yours. Simply because loners don't solve anything in this world, only corporations do. Meanwhile, in the second half of the 17th century it was the states that became the strongest corporations on Earth, and in the second half of the 18th century they subjugated or destroyed all their rivals. So it turns out that opposing one state you are forced to turn to others for support, with no options.

So the moronic lamentations about Lenin and the money of the German General Staff just don't make any sense. Of course Lenin would have taken money from the devil, the alternative would have been to sit in Switzerland and smear snot on his face for the rest of his life.

Kamil Galeev, May 18, 2018

This, like a great deal of Galeev's old writing, says more about his own life strategy than about history. Nevertheless, his facts seem correct. And Lenin, after all, succeeded.

Fair enough. But then please don't take a high moral ground. You are just as evil as "elites".

You appeal to principle, but that's a principle of peacetime, not of genocide time. Would you have given the same counsel to, ah, Ukrainian soldiers siding with unironic Nazis? Or anti-Chinese Uighurs receiving support from hardcore Muslim movements? No, «the arrow doesn't turn», «this is different»? (Of course I won't say «siding with the US» because that's axiomatically righteous).

Let's not pretend that this is about anything other than objective incompetence and subjective lack of merit of the ideology. Right-wingers (more to the point, nationalists of any stripe sans the most shallowly «civic») are thoroughly routed in the West, same as in Russia incidentally. Russian rump looks to Ukrainian Nazis for guidance, Western one seeks salvation in Baste Putin. It's desperation tactics. Both right-wing camps understand their situation as genocide, slow or rapid, open or concealed. The same way Galeev understood the condition of Tatars before going to Washington DC.

Many camps assert to be driven by fear of genocide. It's the absence of attempts to unscrupulously find external sponsors that gives the lie to all the hand-wringing.

Jefferson, at least, read Locke.

Soliciting external sponsors with domestic elite support is revolutionary, but attempting to find external sponsors with no elite support is being a traitor. It's concern-trolling to say that if right-wingers actually believed in the gravity of demographic change then they would become traitors for no strategically beneficial reason, and that nonsense should be denounced as it is among many in the DR.

Fostering radical politics within the inertia of European political and cultural integration is the right course of action for Right-wingers. You aren't a traitor if you work to foster pan-European ethnic consciousness because it aligns with the basic nature of the EU and NATO. Does petty nationalism and local populism, much less civic nationalism, have any credibility at this point? 2016 and the failure of Trump and Brexit show that's a dead end.

The liberals are taking on the headwinds of political and financial integration of Europe, the institutions capable for the task are being built for us. The Right wing should not turn traitor for no reason, they should say "Evropa!"

It's concern-trolling to say that if right-wingers actually believed in the gravity of demographic change then they would become traitors for no strategically beneficial reason

Well that depends on the object level. For the longest time, Putin's structures actually provided some morsels of support to the European far right. So I'd say it did seem like they had a strategic reason to stan him.

The Right wing should not turn traitor for no reason, they should say "Evropa!"

They sure can try to own this trend.

Just like every Greek and Levantine state had reason to support the Roman Republic, before they all came under the rule of the Roman Empire.

You are missing the point of Galeev's parable, I'm afraid. Far right dissidents are not representatives of their states, nor do they recognize the legitimacy of incumbent representatives. Of course the specific project of European identitarianism (or local populism) was still doomed, but the idea of shaping conditions for sovereignty via alliances of convenience with repulsive outsiders is well-supported by historical track record in the Old World. Indeed it's not even reputationally costly – you can fight for communist tyranny and then become heroes to some of the most anti-communist people on the continent, to have wistful songs composed in your honor. (Or you could fight for Nazis, so long as you have some cute songs to the effect that Fuhrer sucks). How does that work? A Russian pig dog slave won't understand, this is very subtle stuff. Freedom is best, and hard choices, after all. Unironically.

If anything, DRs are unusual in their tendency to justify their allies and sponsors ideologically as well, and to sincerely buy and propagate those excuses; it took the war to snap them out of it – incompletely, at that.

It’s because DR vision isn’t just about mercenary funding; if it was that then they might as well seek it from China and yet, with the occasional Spandrell exception, they hate China. The vision is that they are obsessed by the insecurity that there is not one huwhite country in the world that is led according to their general ideological impulse. This is not in itself an insurmountable problem, in 1917 communism had existed for 70 years but had only ever been tested for a very short period in the Paris commune (and then only partially). But it is irksome. Orban is about as conservative as someone on the right wing of the British Conservative Party, much as Dreher wants to pretend otherwise, and is in general primarily devoted to enriching his friends from his home village. And Hungary is also very small, it’s like progressives pointing to Luxembourg or libertarians to Monaco or something.

The Russia obsession was more about trying to imagine baste Putinist Russia as white rightist country (even though, as you made clear, it never was) to prove ‘it’s possible’. Any material support was secondary to the psychological support.

Ah, yes, I missed that.

It's more than irksome. Communism inherently sells itself as the vision of the future, only ever an experiment at attaining perfection (even though I agree with Shafarevich that it's a millenia-old failure mode, a sort of naturally occurring cancer, equipped with the evergreen pretense at having noticed the skulls); reactionaries are, well, drawn to tradition. Russia the third Rome, Russia the eternal based no-nonsense Czardom, Russia the bulwark against degeneracy, the shard of the right-thinking world that had been, a living link. Was silly in Nietzsche's time, vastly sillier now.

for readers not familiar with Russian memes: «the arrow [of the oppression] doesn't turn» is about who oppressing whom, and once it was established, the oppressed cannot become the oppressor no matter what.

Russia (like the rest of Europe) is slowly dying. That's fine, everything eventually comes to an end. However it made an inadvisable move to lash out one last time before the inevitable, one final death throe before the end, but this too has backfired on it and made things even worse for the country as a whole. You can't blame them for trying something, but you can blame them for picking a particularly bad thing to try. In the modern world we have reached an equilibrium where military power means less and less compared to economic and cultural staying power and many of these events are just (painful) lessons to those who weren't able or willing to follow the winds of change. Experience is the best (and most painful) teacher as they say.

Sure, it sucks for current Russians (and Europeans) but this is just the wheel of fortune, nothing more and nothing less. There are times when you're climbing up, and times when you're being kicked down. It's just what it is. Given that it's very hard to compete with the current hegemonic American culture if Russia really wanted to be successful in spreading its ideas in the modern world it would defund its military and spend the money on boosting Russian fertility to create lots of people who believe in Russian ideology instead.

The military will always be relevant. The only reason it’s not at present is that there’s a pretty strong military hegemony in NATO and America. When there’s a military power that can bomb most countries to rubble in a matter of a day or two, the idea that a country can invade another and not be stopped is silly.

Those days are coming to an end. Americans are having fewer kids, and they’re less interested in joining the military. Politically, I think a lot of people are less interested in policing the world as well. If you lose the American military, wars come back and having a strong military becomes important again.

pretty strong military hegemony in NATO and America.

That's a smug illusion, which is being dispelled by the inability of the entirety of NATO to give Ukraine enough weapons to defeat a militarily inept country with the nominal GDP of Italy.

Russians are being barely competent and are not even trying that hard when it comes to war-economy measures.

I see you‘ve now embraced the pro-ukrainian side‘s italian gdp comparison argument your friends so derisively dismissed in the beginning, preferring a more flattering and delusional comparison to the US. I hope you guys adjust your claims regarding russia‘s rightful place in the world accordingly. How much shit are we supposed to take from a poorer italy?

I didn't 'embrace' anything - but even if you do PPP adjustment, Russia just has the GDP of Germany, which means American Empire has .. how much.. 5x more ? 6x more ?

And somehow..

Right, despite possessing 10x (PPP) to 25x(nominal) the economic power of russia, the West (US, EU + UK), have barely given enough aid to equal the russian military budget. If someone's not trying, it's us. Somehow... it was still enough to inflict territorial losses on the russians.

Territorial losses ?

Russia still has Crimea and the separatist republics.

The 'equipment' given so far seems to have been used up assaulting tiny patches of land and has been now sitting out in the open in no man's land for weeks.

This video here probably shows 10% of tanks, IFVs given to Ukraine sitting abandonded in a few square kilometers of fields.

EDIT: added the video link.

This video here probably shows 10% of tanks, IFVs given to Ukraine sitting abandonded in a few square kilometers of fields.

You seem to count some subset of tanks. Poland alone gave Ukraine around 330 tanks and 240 IFV (per https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/08/a-european-powerhouse-polish-military.html ).

This field has far less than 10% of that.

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kherson and kharkov offensives. Obviously I'm not counting the gains russia made while we were still debating amongst ourselves what to do about it (zaporizhia), or even earlier, where we debating if we would do anything at all (crimea and donbas). Even taking your "probably" at face value, 10% of a few dozen tanks is nothing compared to the 2000 tanks and 2500 IFVs documented russian losses(oryx on the conflict. As you know, so far, the vast majority of our aid has not been in tanks, but it was clearly effective nonetheless.

Here we go again. The Russians aren't even trying!

You'd think after more than a year of the world laughing at them, they'd start trying already.

I'm not saying they're not trying.

I'm saying they're so bad at this, they've mobilized so few people, they've messed up with munitions productions - yet they still haven't been beaten.

I see we've come all the way from 'resistance is futile, Russian strength is overwhelming and their victory inevitable' to 'it's abject proof of weakness you haven't defeated the Russians already.'

Biological reproduction rates pale in comparison to memetic ones. Ignoring the unfortunate reality that effectively no one has found a policy capable of flipping fertility declines, what use is a Russia of 400 million if 300 million read the New York Times, or at least watch Marvel movies?

what use is a Russia of 400 million if 300 million read the New York Times, or at least watch Marvel movies?

That's kind of solipsistic as well. Russia doesn't have anything even closely resembling New York Times (I guess, Meduza which is an independent media opposed to the current regime; or Vedomosti, Wall Street Journal-like magazine, whose journalist was arrested, and which was bought by an oligarch close to Putin). The worst American rag is better than whatever Russia has. So why exactly Russian memes should propagate aside from them being anti-American?

But that's exactly my point - they shouldn't and won't. From the perspective of a hypothetical emperor of Russia, if you were to focus on one thing, population numbers are simply not the primary driver of success. You have to convince people that your cause is right. That's not just a post-modern perspective, that's the task of every leader in human history. (In some systems those you have to convince are an aristocracy, in some the wealthy, in others almost everyone, but it always works the same way.)

The Internet and automatic translation simply makes it impossible to be a big fish in a small pond, as your "subjects" will be inculcated in the most effective (read:virulent) ideas that they are exposed to on the web. You either win on that battlefield, or on the physical one. Putin was at least wise enough to recognize that he and his nation weren't up to the memetic battlefield; his mistake was overestimating Russia's ability on the physical plane.

I’m gonna give you a really unpopular take on that, but I think it’s sort of a half truth. Not that the civil war is fake, it seems fairly real as far as I can tell, but that it’s actually quite common for the news media to focus on other stories besides the ones that matter simply because they don’t want to undermine their patrons. Or they might quite often simply ignore part of a story or exaggerate something to make it seem like it’s bigger or smaller.

Furthermore, they aren’t exactly wrong about the elites. They aren’t in the same world as you and I are. They certainly consider themselves Americans in the sense that this is their home, but quite often, because of their donors and the fact that most of them spend large amounts of time overseas, don’t see the fact of them being Americans as a reason to choose to do things to help the average American over other global concerns. They also, just on the values, attitudes, and beliefs don’t hold the same culture that regular Americans do. Traditional American culture is Western European (basically British, Celtic, and German), more religious and very specifically evangelical Christian, strongly believe in the work ethic — and especially practical work (building and inventing useful things, farming and so on), and strongly oriented to their family. The elites would see that culture as backwards, racist, poorly educated and cultured, and in need of enlightenment.

Traditional American culture is Western European (basically British, Celtic, and German),

Funny thing is the "German" part could even get you in jail about 100 years ago or so... You know, given the war with Germany and yelling fire in a crowded theater and all that. As for the Celtic, if we go another 50 years back, "no Irish need apply" would be a familiar phrase. So I wonder, what is that "traditional American culture" we love so much?

I mean yeah, cultures change. That doesn’t mean that there’s no current culture or clash between American folk culture and the type of culture the elites want us to adopt.

Unfortunately the "dissident right" is so broad, it's not accurate to attribute a single position on this issue to that sphere. FWIW none of those screenshots from "prominent" DR figures are accounts I have heard of before. There is a variety of opinion among the DR, ranging from immediately and vocally pro-Ukraine (Richard Spencer comes to mind) to "no more brother wars"/general neutrality, to, yes, support for Russia and Putin on an absurd "enemy of my enemy" angle, with Nick Fuentes as the worst offender on that front. I can't say I've seen the DR at all obsessed with the Hunter Biden stuff as you say, that seems to me Boomercon-coded and outside of 4chan threads nobody in the DR cares or talks about Hunter Biden.

The big rift between the DR is currently between petty-nationalism and pan-Europeanism. The former oppose EU and NATO as institutions of globalization and want those institutions to be undermined by a credible adversary. The latter see globalization and Imperivm as inevitable and desirable and do not oppose EU or NATO even though they obviously seek to realign them with a European race consciousness. The former, in my opinion, are greatly discredited by this affair and the latter, who have supported Ukraine, are vindicated.

I can't say I've seen the DR at all obsessed with the Hunter Biden stuff as you say, that seems to me Boomercon-coded and outside of 4chan threads nobody in the DR cares or talks about Hunter Biden.

Agree. What I see is basically, "no shit, of course he's wildly corrupt and these people are embezzling tons of money while doing nothing useful, that's literally not even news". Dwelling on the matter or expecting that it's going to change something is heavily boomer-coded.

Interesting that being concerned about corruption is for old, out of touch people.

I think what’s missing in your worldview is propaganda. Their point is really that Americans should focus on the Hunter texts; by accusing this as a psy-op they are drawing a connection between the Wagner events and the Hunter texts. They are claiming it is a distraction but what they mean is that we should be focusing on the evidence that our President is woefully corrupt.

Whatever patience I had with American "anti-establishment" right-wingers

Probably very little to begin with if you’re conflating millions of people with a discursive propaganda technique of a few Twitter accounts

Probably very little to begin with if you’re conflating millions of people with a discursive propaganda technique of a few Twitter accounts

Come on. You have people like Tucker Carlson, saying things like Ukraine blew up their own dam in just a day after the thing happened without waiting for any evidence. Admittedly, he got only a million likes, not "millions". And, I guess, most liked his statements about aliens, not about Zelensky having rat-like features.

Their point is really that Americans should focus on the Hunter texts

I usually focus on what people say, and not try to guess what they were trying to say or what they were implying. And a lot of them said that all of it is psy-ops. Another object-level statement. If they mislead or lie about object-level stuff — they are much worse than MSM. Not that it's a secret to anyone.

It seems bizarre to me that the paleocon sorts, after having been cast aside by their masters, so quickly fall back into nationalism. They endlessly complain about how identity politics are wrong because they treat groups as monolothic blocs when in fact those groups are made up of individuals that may or may not benefit from the policies being pushed, or are often just being used by grifters for cynical gains. Then they seem to completely lack the ability to take that same perspective and apply it to international relationships. It's almost like they aren't truly protesting identity politics, they are just sad that the masters hand is on a different dog.

There is no foreign poilcy that benefits Americans. There is no policy that benefits Americans because America is broken divided place full of different factions that have competing and contrary interests. The enemy of my enemy is my friend might be an exaggeration, but in these situations the enemy of my enemy is useful seems like a fair statement.

The average anti-nato person isn't rooting for Russia to take over the world and create a universal empire. They are simply rooting for their local elites to lose a bit of face and power. Yes that means the foreign pawns of those elites might also lose power, no that doesn't mean that every Ukranian is going to be tortured to death, because anti-nato sorts are capable of nuance and recognize that Ukraine, much like the US, isn't a monolith with a lockstep populace.

It's just embarrassing to see people rooting for an empire that hates them. All so they can continue with some empty moralizing, the illusion that the country has some kind of benevolent ideology and there is more to politics than power.

The average anti-nato person isn't rooting for Russia to take over the world and create a universal empire. They are simply rooting for their local elites to lose a bit of face and power.

Well, what do they think will happen after that? The local elites just go "oh, my bad, we were wrong all along, we now see the light and agree with you, Mr. Fringe Online Ideology Person"?

Other competing elites and their viewpoints gain power. Specifically in this instance the US maximalists and war profiteers that want / think they can keep the US as the sole superpower despite it's obvious decline and decay give way to the "America first" group. More isolationist and at least grudgingly accepting of a more multipolar world elites and the ideas / policy that come with them.

Instead of a Biden starting wars you get a Trump ending them. Though preferably someone that is more stable than Trump and doesn't need to dick measure for ego with rival nations as often.

Instead of a Biden starting wars you get a Trump ending them.

A fairly odd statement, considering that Trump ended no wars and Biden, rather famously ended the War in Afghanistan (while not starting new ones, in the sense of American troops fighting and dying).

When it came to foreign policy, the practical differences between Trump and Biden were minor and they both hewed to a longrunning general line of American foreign policy. Clearly in this sense they both belong of the category of "local elites".

Only really true in a technical sense. Trump negotiated the 2021 Withdrawal and oversaw the reduction of troops. Biden delayed it from May to August. It was clear the establishment, whom Biden represents, wanted the war to continue as they had been dragging their feet and not actually preparing things. Establishment politicians in congress also regularly tried to stop other troop reductions during Trump's term.

like so

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/03/politics/ndaa-trump-germany-troop-cuts/index.html

bipartisan from what I remember, but the isolationist elite / warmonger elite distinction isn't as straightforward as Republican / Democrat despite Trump and Biden being republican and democrat and being the most notable representatives of the respective factions.

A low effort comment follows:

This kind of blatant QAnon retardation bothers me a lot less than the supposedly smart groyper dissident right types who spend all day posting obscure remixes of old memes behind a dozen layers of irony who believe that they’re fomenting some kind of actual uprising. The former are just kind of dumb, Alex Jones listeners. The latter sometimes have actual intellectual potential, but they waste it on feeling superior.

Say what you will about Russia (and I agree with the general consensus that this entire war and the last decade of Putin’s presidency has been disastrous), stuff is happening there. American dissident rightists don’t believe in making anything happen, even on a localized level they’ll shirk responsibility to, say, get married young and have a big family. These people are, as Karlin (ironically) accurately suggests, detestable. It’s the entire BAP mindset of laughing at your enemies while (with great effort) curating an air of impossibly grand smugness. Blah blah Ancient Greece blah blah masculinity blah blah semi-un-ironic gayposting blah blah all our enemies are evil and satanic blah blah mocking other people with almost the same ideology for not being radical or cruel enough blah blah [thread]posting about how everything is so much worse than you had imagined blah blah imagine engaging with mainstream politics lmao what a loser etc etc etc… If I was Robin DiAngelo herself I could not have imagined a better vehicle to destroy any hope for the Anglophone right than the void of promise that is dissident right twitter.

The big lesson for Western rightists should be simple: get off twitter at all costs. As a platform it encourages insincerity, vindictiveness, needless pile-ons (most importantly within movements) and wanton posturing over genuine promise.

What keeps going through my mind, apart from worrying how this will end and what the geopolitical implications are, of course, is how embarrassing it would be a Russia Stronk shill type right now. No matter how this ends, this sort of shit does not actually happen in nations that are actually stronk.

I repeat myself from previous threads, but a continuous talking point for Z patriots and their scarce American/Western hype men has been that Ukraine is embarrassing, cringe, Reddit etc. "fake nation", unlike Russia with its 1000 years of history and a populace willing to give their lives for the Motherland. It certainly, once again, seems that Ukraine is dozens of times more "real" than Russia, in the sense that Ukrainians have (after 2022, at least) been relatively able to keep an united patriotic front instead of tearing each other apart in a madcap struggle for power.

Yup, Russian nationalists love to refer to Ukraine as the "country 404", the failed state that doesn't exist.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/страна_404

or "a temporary geographical misunderstanding".

in the sense that Ukrainians have (after 2022, at least) been relatively able to keep an united patriotic front instead of tearing each other apart in a madcap struggle for power.

..has there been any 'madcap struggle for power' in Russia except for the one psychopathic caterer making a very abortive attempt at a coup ?

And as to Ukrainian 'united patriotic front', they've been extremely statist and punitive, and have long ago ran out of volunteers for the meat grinder, and resorted to ever more desperate searches for bodies to stop shrapnel with.

they've been extremely statist and punitive

Any proof? I consider that an exaggeration on par with the rightist claim that the US is super oppressive because they imprisoned several participants of Jan 6. Just like the right claims that Ukraine is THE most (literally, the most, or one of the most) corrupt counties in the world. I mean, they are on the level of Peru or Indonesia. Rightist also don't talk a lot about descent of Hungary into corruption, which is curious (just 9 points above Ukraine in Corruption Perception Index).

tl;dr Boo Outgroup

This comment is low effort and contributes nothing, and you have a pattern of posting low effort sneers. Knock it off or you won't be posting.

Does the parent comment contribute anything other than “boo outgroup $[nonsense gpt quality restatings of my outgroup is boo]”?

Ok, I will post high effort sneers like the rest of the posters from now on.

If you post sneers, you will be banned.

If you think someone else is posting sneers, report the post.

I did, OP is directly quoting me in that "completely oblivious" section in an obvious low-effort (effort doesn't equate to word count, despite what mods here believe) boo outgroup post. I reported and called him out on it and as is more and more common in the west these days the authorities ignore the crime and go after the person calling it out.

It's a running problem. Someone posts a 5000 word (((Parentheses))) screed on here and you have no idea what to do about it, maybe they get a warning several thread derailments later. Someone calls the poster a schizo moron (which they are) and they're banned.

You and @firmamenti:

People are allowed to disagree with you and say they think your perspective is wrong. It's not a "low effort sneer" to write a long post about why they think you are wrong, even if being quoted and told you're wrong makes you feel bad. It is a low effort sneer to write a one-liner like you did.

A thing that repeatedly happens here is that a rightist will post a tirade about how leftists are wrong and bad, or a leftist will post a tirade about how rightists are wrong and bad. Predictably, leftists will report the former and rightists will report the latter.

These are people who report posts based on vibes and feelings. They'd be fine with the post if the polarities were reversed.

You not liking a post because it criticizes you or your beliefs does not make it a "boo outgroup" post.

(effort doesn't equate to word count, despite what mods here believe)

This is not what the mods here believe.

and as is more and more common in the west these days the authorities ignore the crime and go after the person calling it out.

Yes, yes, we mod the way we do because we're just part of modern Western degeneration. But no, what's happening here is you decided something is a "crime" that wasn't, and you decided therefore the rules don't apply to you.

It's a running problem. Someone posts a 5000 word (((Parentheses))) screed on here and you have no idea what to do about it,

We have lots of ideas what to do about it. We might not act as you would wish us to act.

Someone calls the poster a schizo moron (which they are) and they're banned.

Correct. Don't call people schizo morons.

The outgroup that OP is booing is not my ingroup. It's just annoying to me that these sorts of blatant low-effort LLM-tier posts somehow are allowed when they are very obvious rule violations.

You are right, that outgroup would usually say something about "glownigger psy-ops" or "pro-nafo trannies" instead of LLM ;-)

  • -13

LLM-tier posts

Do you mean Large Language Model or LandLord Messiah here? Although I don't suppose I really matters...

Nothing worse than what gets posted on the regular here. Except it might be targeted toward the right vs left


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