BEg2 ch 40 - brief summary - the fickle finger

Wed Dec 14 22:40:53 UTC 2022

Joseph wrote:

“To my mind the US is in no moral or political position to point the finger
at Russia”

As an individual American, I’m not at all loath to point the finger at US
policy either, in fact I admire the heck out of that bicyclist who gave the
finger to Trump.

US and Chinese imperialism sucks but it’s arguably a collateral damage of
economic expansionism, which has been successfully spun to me over the
years as less abhorrent than out-and-out authoritarian conquest, and (with
the exception of 41’s
Iraq & 43’s Iraq-Afghanistan insanity) at least it doesn’t usually involve
big land wars.

Putin’s vision of a big Russia sucks, it’s founded in militarism &
out-and-out authoritarian conquest, & it does seem, lately, to lead to big
land wars.

(Although…by my count, that’s 3 massive unjustified wars for us - 2 1/2 if
you give points off the aggression score for Saddam invading Kuwait -
But 3 1/2 if you go back & include Vietnam -

(Versus 1 for Russia, 2 if you go back & count Afghanistan…..hmmmmm. But
still - he kills journalists & the whole country is run by oligarchs &
wealth gap…totes different from here…sheesh - as Cheech & Chong said,
things are tough all over)

Also who sez Russia thrives under Putin?
Compared to Yeltsin? - that’s a low bar

Putin is more than a serviceable villain. He’s embraced the role.

But what do I know?
I want to like Igor, so I’m believing in his satori & conversion & placing
him on the side of hypothetical ethical non-Kadyrov separatists.

This makes him a good guy within my impressionistic & no doubt erroneous
worldview.

On Wed, Dec 14, 2022 at 10:16 AM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> The war on the Chechens in the 90s happened under Yeltsin. It was in 1999
> after a series of bombings by separitists inside Russia that Putin began
> his war campaign of several years with atrocities on both sides until
> Chechnya was reestablished as a republic of Russia overseen by the
> questionable authoritarian leadership  of the Kadyrovs.  While Chechnya was
> independent after the first war  there were lots of kidnappings and
> infighting so not exactly clear how ready they were for independence.  Not
> all Chechens were separatists and there was infighting and fighting with
> neighboring regions.
>   I don’t know what makes sense in Chechnya or their status in Russia, but
> I don’t think what happened was a simple matter of wanting independence and
> being crushed.  The republics were similar to states but with more
> independence so it was kind of like a state declaring independence followed
> by a civil war. But there have been quite a few years now of relative peace
> there and Russia, devastated under Yeltsin has recovered and thrived with
> Putin. I hate to see war resistors in Russia jailed but the US does the
> same thing with whistleblowers exposing Us war crimes and has a dark recent
> history of torture and coups and wars of aggression based on false claims.
> Russia, China, the anglo powers, the Islamic nations,Europe, South America-
> these are civilizations with complex inner dynamics and histories,
> hypocrisies and warring armies. To my mind the US is in no moral or
> political position to point the finger at Russia while we blockade  and
> make war on countries for choosing their own path. Unfortunately the great
> powers do not seem to be looking for peace on earth and good will is in
> short supply these days.
>
> > On Dec 14, 2022, at 1:06 AM, Michael Bailey <
> michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Having developed a distaste for the Deseret swimming pool, Maxine attends
> > her sister Brooke’s health club, and finds March Kelleher puffing away on
> > cigarettes in the snack bar, using the free wi-fi.
> >
> > March confides that she’s worried about her daughter Tallis, who’s been
> > dumped by son-in-law Gabriel Ice. She describes Tallis as “innocent” -
> > Maxine doesn’t address criminal culpability, but in solidarity of
> > motherhood, listens as March limns a picture of Taillis’s naïveté - and
> of
> > course, (“wo-mensch”?) offers to take a dekko.
> >
> >
> > Maxine finds Tallis in a tiny apartment in a hyper-modern building,
> > drinking Hpnotiq
> >
> > http://www.hpnotiq.com
> >
> >
> > SINCE STEPPING ONTO THE SCENE IN 2001, WE BROKE THE MOLD WITH OUR
> > EYE-CATCHING COLOR AND PREMIUM BLEND OF EXOTIC FRUIT JUICES, FRENCH
> VODKA &
> > A TOUCH OF COGNAC. NOW, IT’S TIME YOU DISCOVERED THE ORIGINAL FLAVOR AND
> > SIGNATURE COLOR THAT CHANGED GAME.
> >
> >
> > Tallis starts giving Maxine the scoop: says it started when she had
> noticed
> > escalating trouble accessing anything online including necessary work
> > sites; fast forward to Gabriel Ice screaming at her and throwing her
> > possessions about, telling her to get out.
> >
> > Then she starts reminiscing about their college days and a movie called
> > “The Geek Who Couldn’t Sleep” which the two of them used to pretend they
> > were in; eventually Tallis’s remembering hanging with Ice’s old roommate
> > Dieter at a post-9-11 funeral; Dieter’s bagpipes are experiencing high
> > demand.
> >
> > Maxine gets Tallis to admit to the previously-clocked-by-Maxine affair
> with
> > Chaz Larday, & makes her aware - if she isn’t already - that Chazz is
> > working for Ice.
> >
> > Maxine advises Tallis to call her mother, then notices a security cam
> > blinking in a corner. They bat the thing till it falls, but Maxine urges
> > that they get out immediately.
> >
> > In the lobby, Dragoslav the doorman advises Tallis of two guys leaving
> word
> > that they’d be seeing Tallis.
> >
> > Maxine figures Misha & Grisha. Presumably there to help, not harm? Or so
> > she spins it to Tallis, who’s beyond worried.
> >
> > & just around the corner, there the plucky padonki are, bustling the
> ladies
> > into Igor’s ZiL. Apparently they were planning on holding Tallis as a
> > hostage to ensure Ice’s behavior while they do - something?
> >
> > Tallis laughs while Maxine explains to the lads why Tallis isn’t a
> > realistic hostage candidate.
> >
> > So it turns out they’re headed for one of Ice’s server farms upstate
> which
> > Tallis has been to & offers to draw them a map of. She has trouble with
> the
> > name of the property, Tewattsirokwas - and Maxine is hit with nostalgia
> for
> > the Trotskyite summer camp she attended at that exact spot.
> >
> > Lake Heatsink nearby has the depth & coldness that make it a great spot
> for
> > a server farm.
> >
> > They’ve got a vircator they are going to run a little test with, not
> > full-scale, “maybe 10%.”
> >
> > Igor “doesn’t know about this,” and Maxine goes along but fishes for
> more.
> > Apparently Igor’s sympathies with the Chechens had caused his leaving the
> > Spetsnaz -
> >
> > < this stuff really conveys a lot more to me lately, Chechnya’s laudable
> > aspirations of independence having been ruthlessly crushed at the
> > insistence of glabrous-domed villain Putin back in the 90s, whilst the
> > “free world” was reveling in the “peace dividend” - revealing his
> scabrous
> > nature & genocidal imperialism all the way back then>
> >
> > <so Igor from at least some angles is a righteous dude, I knew I liked
> him
> > at least a little>
> >
> > And thus, Igor was supporting Chechens financially with some of the money
> > Lester Traipse was funneling away from the Wahhabist prick-bastards that
> > Ice (& possibly the CIA) was sending it to.
> >
> > <this has to be unknown to Putin, right? or otherwise, Igor would have to
> > be looking out for pointy umbrellas and so forth >
> >
> > So it isn’t just revenge for Traipse - though that’s the part which
> > emotionally moved Misha & Grisha - but also for an interruption of funds
> > that Igor’s friends count on.
> >
> >
> > Poughkeepsie’s where M&G meet their contact Yuri with his generator for
> the
> > vircator (Maxine upon seeing the size of it has some doubts about the
> > “maybe 10%”) - and it’s where Maxi & Tallis get out of the ZiL & board
> the
> > 10:59 back to Manhattan.
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>
>
>
>