Another Geopolitical Triumph For Vladimir Putin!
Doc Sportello
coolwithdoc at gmail.com
Sun Jun 29 10:24:36 CDT 2014
"...either because of age or being from not-America " is what I meant to
say.
I mean we all read Pynchon so I had assumed we were all paranoid and
suspicious about these things.
On Jun 29, 2014 8:17 AM, "Doc Sportello" <coolwithdoc at gmail.com> wrote:
> Good email. I'm a young guy, what some folks call a millennial, born in
> 86, and I assume most of you are older and have experience with US/Russian
> tensions as well as how it's portrayed by different media sources.
>
> This exchange got me thinking too; about media and propaganda and the
> narrative coming from both Russia and the US. Of course the US wants us to
> believe the Ukrainians want to be "free" like us and of course Russia would
> want to undermine that by exposing the new extremists taking power. It's
> all propaganda, doesn't mean it isn't true.
>
> I hesitate to write because I assume you are all much more familiar with
> these media battles, either because of or being from not-America where the
> wool isn't pulled quite as tight over your eyes. My general impression is
> that America likes to portray European politics as something less extreme
> than they really are. And it's easy for us to accept that seeing as how
> we're used to relatively tame American politics. Is this how it is? Am I
> being naive?
> On Jun 29, 2014 7:51 AM, "Ian Livingston" <igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> We in the US have developed a passionate myopia regarding other nations,
>> other people's ways of living. I listen to my friends and peers passing
>> judgment on world affairs as we hear about them. Now, the Guardian is one
>> of the few remaining news sources to which we have ready access that
>> actually offers up moderately dispassionate reporting we can read
>> critically and sometimes get an actual glimpse into what is going on
>> outside our homes and offices, but the critical aspect of that reading is
>> necessarily flawed by the prejudices ingrained in us from youth. We still,
>> for instance, think we are free, and that free trade will free others in
>> the world to be free like us. It's a nearly automatic association. We
>> believe in capitalism with absolutely blind faith, even though our free
>> trade agreements open up new labor markets for the capitalist class while
>> disenfranchising and marginalizing the remainder of our society and the
>> society with which the free trade agreement is struck to scrap for whatever
>> satisfaction they can find in the leavings of those shitty deals, while a
>> few capitalists and government officials wallow in their wealth.
>>
>> The Ukrainian people and the Russian people have a long history together,
>> stretching too far back for Americans to imagine successfully. For us, the
>> world began a couple hundred years ago and medieval and ancient history are
>> but a store of myths that help distract us from our tedium and make us
>> sound to ourselves like enlightened thinkers. But we are a nation of
>> narcissists, lacking in empathy for others--a lack we compensate for with
>> affected sympathy for the absence of freedom we imagine they experience. We
>> will take any criticism of this phenomenon personally, as if anyone who
>> looks in the mirror sees figures other than the figure of self denigrates
>> us individually no matter how untrue that may be. To admit that we are
>> culturally incapable of understanding the plight of others makes us less
>> than others from the perspective of our deeply experienced righteousness.
>> The depth of the subjective ironic tension is inscrutable, intolerable. It
>> is very difficult for us to imagine people who think and experience life
>> from the perspective of belonging to groups gathered around mutual
>> experience rather than ideologies.
>>
>> Our capitalist lords have strong desires to gain access to the labor
>> pools in Ukraine, Russia, the world, etc. They don't care how they get it.
>> Their method has always been to encourage dissent abroad and suppress it at
>> home. I don't know why we believe those old notions of individualism and
>> freedom we have been fed so long, but we do. I do. I have a hell of a time
>> remembering that Russians have always inclined to collectivism and that
>> their new mafia collectives are a response to the West's triumph in
>> suppressing nationalized collectivism in the USSR by working for decades to
>> keep the socialists reliant on trade with the capitalist cartels and at
>> odds with themselves and the world. From the capitalist perspective,
>> collectivism is evil; from the collectivist perspective individualism seems
>> strange, perhaps alluring at times.
>>
>> What about the skinheads, nazis and such? I've known a few of them here
>> in the US, and they seem individually motivated simply by unfocussed fear
>> assigned to all that they do not understand. There seemed to be quite a lot
>> of oversimplification, beyond what we all do in our communicative
>> pastiches, reducing all that is other to the status of threat. Racism is
>> very popular among American nazis, expressed in life quite differently than
>> in film. And there seemed to be present a terribly painful desire to belong
>> to some group.
>>
>> Maybe there is something missing in all of us that is craving
>> fulfillment. Maybe we look to others for satisfaction of that desire. Maybe
>> we look to others to see if they have better access to satisfaction.
>>
>> I don't know, that much is a given. I'm just rambling because your
>> exchange set me thinking.
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jun 28, 2014 at 11:18 PM, Thomas Eckhardt <
>> thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
>>
>>> I certainly don't believe ultra right-wingers (aka Nazis or, in this
>>> case, Banderists) are your heroes. The evidence I provided merely shows
>>> that the neo-Nazi paramilitary units who brought about regime change on the
>>> Maidan are now rapidly becoming part of the military/the national guard.
>>> Obviously, you don't have a problem with that. I certainly do.
>>>
>>> You seem to believe that these people will quietly disappear "once the
>>> country joins the West", or once parliamentary elections have taken place.
>>> I don't.
>>>
>>> In my opinion you are severely misjudging the power and ruthlessness of
>>> the Banderists and their troops. But what really enrages me is that these
>>> people receive political, financial and PR support from the West.
>>>
>>> At best, the West is supporting Nazis/Banderists (amongst other, less
>>> odious groups, of course) as a means to an end. From this perspective, the
>>> end of curtailing Russia's influence in the region justifies the means. To
>>> me it doesn't.
>>>
>>> All you say about Russia and Putin may well be true. I am not pro-Putin,
>>> I am anti-Nazi. And I try to first look at the beam in my own eye.
>>>
>>> We have been debating various matters, P-related or not, for 10 to 15
>>> years now, David. I may not always agree with you but I respect your point
>>> of view. There is no need to call me "someone from Germany."
>>>
>>> Thomas
>>>
>>>
>>> Am 29.06.2014 07:23, schrieb David Morris:
>>>
>>>> Every time I post something that demonstrates Putin's futile effort to
>>>> keep Ukraine in its court, someone from Germany posts evidence showing
>>>> how ultra right wingers are my heroes. Am I myopic, or are those
>>>> pro-Putiners? It seems to me that most of Ukraine wants to leave the
>>>> former Soviet empire. It seems to me that Russia today is a vast mafia
>>>> oligarchy. No matter how right or left the Ukrainians may be, they seem
>>>> to want a place where law is more stable than in Putin's realm. The
>>>> present actors in Ukraine are just a transition, a pendulum. They can't
>>>> remains in their present form once the country join the West. I know I
>>>> am far removed from your reality. Please explain why you are pro Putin
>>>> in this conflict.
>>>>
>>>> On Saturday, June 28, 2014, Thomas Eckhardt <
>>>> thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de
>>>> <mailto:thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> 150,000 internally and externally displaced persons, a government
>>>> that refuses to cooperate with the UN regarding an investigation of
>>>> the Odessa atrocity (UN report on human rights), a-and these guys
>>>> doing their very best to "improve rule of law and human rights" in
>>>> the Ukraine:
>>>>
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/__Azov_Battalion
>>>>
>>>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion>
>>>>
>>>> (I recommend the video clip showing the oath of enlistment. It is
>>>> there that you can see the 'Wolfsangel.')
>>>>
>>>> The Azov Battalion is subordinated to the Ministry of Internal
>>>> Affairs and organized by this highly interesting group:
>>>>
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/__Social-National_Assembly
>>>>
>>>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social-National_Assembly>
>>>>
>>>> Nice work. Let freedom ring!
>>>>
>>>> Thomas
>>>>
>>>> P.S. While you're at it, you may also look at the Wiki entry for
>>>> Andriy Parubiy, a member of the government and Ukraine's
>>>> representative in consultations with NATO.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Am 27.06.2014 14:43, schrieb David Morris:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.motherjones.com/__kevin-drum/2014/06/another-__
>>>> geopolitical-triumph-valdimir-__putin
>>>>
>>>> <http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/06/another-
>>>> geopolitical-triumph-valdimir-putin>
>>>>
>>>> From the /Guardian/:
>>>> <http://www.theguardian.com/__world/2014/jun/26/ukraine-__
>>>> european-union-trade-pact
>>>>
>>>> <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/26/ukraine-
>>>> european-union-trade-pact>>
>>>>
>>>> It was the document that started a revolution and ended up
>>>> bringing
>>>> Europe to the brink of war. Ukraine's association agreement
>>>> with the
>>>> European Union, a mainly economic document setting up a
>>>> free trade
>>>> area that nevertheless has political and strategic
>>>> ramifications,
>>>> will finally be signed on Friday.
>>>>
>>>> Along with Georgia and Moldova, two other post-Soviet
>>>> countries keen
>>>> to move out of Moscow's orbit, *Kiev will sign the deal
>>>> with
>>>> Brussels to establish a free-trade area and introduce a
>>>> raft of
>>>> measures designed to synchronise economies with EU
>>>> nations,* as well
>>>> as improve rule of law and human rights.
>>>>
>>>> Yep, that Putin is a geopolitical strategic mastermind, isn't
>>>> he? Every
>>>> country on Russia's border is now hellbent on better economic
>>>> and
>>>> military ties with the West. Nice work.
>>>>
>>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>>
>>
>>
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