Another Geopolitical Triumph For Vladimir Putin!

Sun Jun 29 13:51:03 CDT 2014

Neither you nor Thomas live in the Ukraine, but you vehemently wish that
they would not assert their sovereignty from Russia. That is SO wise of
you, I'm sure.  Too bad they wish to make their own decisions...

Now who would rightly be called a "lord"in the case of your wishes for the
way the world work?

David Morris

On Sunday, June 29, 2014, 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
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','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
>>> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de');>
>>> <mailto:thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de
>>> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','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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