It's not Russia, it's Putin

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Bush even looked into Putin’s soul!

“I know you have separate plants for chickens for America and chickens for Russia,” Putin told Bush.

Bush was astonished. “Vladimir, you’re wrong.”

“My people have told me this is true,” Putin insisted.

[Unseen]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Why would the West want a war with Russia?  That’s Putin’s propaganda.  Since when did we threaten them, and why would we?

Wars mean defense spending. It’s big business in the U.S., a country whose very existence has virtually become synonymous with being forever at war. As a result, our government will print money willy-nilly for warfare rather than for repairing our infrastructure or providing adequate healthcare for its citizens or for attacking the root problems of homelessness.

There’s just more money to be made on producing the goods needed to make war and then overcharging for them.

 

[TheEncogitationer]

Reg,

I’m still looking in the “As Seen On TV” sections of all the stores for the “Soul-O-Meter” that The Little Bush Boy used to find Putin’s “soul.”. Maybe it’s one of those products from The Sharper Image, though it doesn’t sound too sharp to me.
🤖 😁

[TheEncogitationer]

Unseen,

Governments shouldn’t be printing money for any purpose. The latest batch of Monopoly Paper is what got us our present inflationary and supply chain mess, only made worse globally by Putin’s war blocking grain shipments.

By the way, I was rummaging though paperwork I missed organizing during my hospital stay and found something I meant to send your way earlier. I’ll post it in the Sunday school to keep this on-topic.

[jakelafort]

Why would the west want a war with Russia?

Why would one power seek to eviscerate another power? Continuation of power struggles is nothing new. It is same old same. So is unprovoked invasion of neighbors. Getting others to spill the blood so your own citizens don’t have to? Priceless. And then benefiting by selling weapons… Particularly true if you buy the rhetoric and fear Russian aggression against its other neighbors. Or there may be other economic/political considerations.

Bottom line for me is that when our realpolitik is business as usual we are doing nothing to foster international cooperation and create a new paradigm and instead doing everything we can to continue the march of folly towards our extinction.

[Simon Paynton]

Unseen wrote:

Wars mean defense spending. It’s big business in the U.S.

Seriously?  That’s a pretty frightening and cynical world view.  Putin is at war because it makes him and his country feel great.  Apart from that, the war is threatening the world economy and food supply.  Yay!

[Simon Paynton]

Also, when did the war start, and who started it?  Mr P.

[_Robert_]

It’s mighty rich of the “strong defense” Republican Party to all of sudden be worried about the military costs and offending Ruzzia, LOL. Oh. that’s right, their lord and savior, Donald J Trump has his lips superglued to Putin’s butt cheeks. So much for integrity. Honestly, how do these MAGA congresspersons look in a mirror without vomiting?

[Unseen]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Seriously?  That’s a pretty frightening and cynical world view.  Putin is at war because it makes him and his country feel great.  Apart from that, the war is threatening the world economy and food supply.  Yay!

So, you don’t think anyone is actively corrupting our government, and that none of them are doing so so as to divert tax money their way or to induce the government to print even more money to benefit their owners? You believe the MIC functions purely with the safety and security of the American people in mind? You know, like the civilian arms industries the NRA represents so well.

Defense industry profits do not simply disappear into the pockets of executives and shareholders. They are deployed strategically to build support for a highly militarized form of US foreign policy.

Defense firms finance think tanks and research agendas to provide policy papers for legislators and their staffers who are arguing for military intervention; they place their executives and allies on the National Security Council and other agencies via formal industry exchange programs; and they use their privileged regulatory position to steer the priorities of finance capital in the direction of investing more money in weapons technologies. The frequency of US wars and the fortunes of the weapons industry move in tandem; as the industry has become unassailable and immune to demands for belt-tightening or rationalization, so the United States finds itself in a state of forever war. (source)

[jakelafort]

Seriously? That’s a pretty frightening and cynical world view. Putin is at war because it makes him and his country feel great.

Never would have guessed those words were written by Simon. I didn’t think you did the us/them, good v. evil game. As Robert points out the Republicans have gone from portraying Russia as the evil empire to licking at Putin’s teat. My point is people can be manipulated to believe absolutely any fucking thing no matter how improbable, racist, juvenile, fabricated, antediluvian, mindless, mythical, insipid, illogical or impossible. (Yet they’re freethinkers!)

That kind of response us and them thinking insures the continuity of historical patterns. We can’t afford to stay on that path if we care about the future.

[Unseen]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Also, when did the war start, and who started it?  Mr P.

It’s widely accepted that all Putin wanted was for Ukraine not to become a member of NATO and to declare itself a neutral nation. This may still be the position that will bring an end to the war. IF the U.S. really wants the war to end that is. Unfortunately, there’s no reason for the military-industrial complex to want the war to end. Can you honestly think of one? I can’t.

Russia has a point about the eastern Russian-speaking provinces because oppression of Russian speakers there has been semi-official and in the form of vigilantes who also share a lot of Nazi sympathies and are often described as neo-Nazis. Beyond that, a lot of Native speakers don’t think of Russian speakers as “real” Ukrainians.

The incorporation of Russian speaking areas within the borders of Ukraine isn’t rational. They are there because Ukraine was kept as is after the collapse of the USSR and a majority of those within the territory defined by the USSR voted to form an independent country. Had separate votes been held, one for the Ukrainian west and one for the Russian speaking east, it’s likely that the eastern portion would have voted to stay with Russia. This implies that Putin’s “referendum” on seceding from Ukraine may have simply reflected a reality on the ground.

Here’s a map of Ukraine’s main language areas. It’s not nearly as granular as a professional linguist would want (there are dialects of both languages and Yiddish is also a recognized language group in Ukraine). However, for our purposes, it gives a revealing thumbnail overview.

[PopeBeanie]

Unseen wrote:

Simon Paynton wrote: Also, when did the war start, and who started it?  Mr P.

It’s widely accepted that all Putin wanted was for Ukraine not to become a member of NATO and to declare itself a neutral nation.

Oh, well, so it’s obvious that Ukraine started the war. Dissing Putin like that sealed the fate they deserved.

Unseen wrote:

Had separate votes been held, one for the Ukrainian west and one for the Russian speaking east, it’s likely that the eastern portion would have voted to stay with Russia.

Aside from glossing over the reasoning that all that matters here are the language commonalities when drawing each country’s borderlines, Putin’s made the “who’d vote for what” point moot, as the biggest bully on the block.

Lying to and throwing his own people in as fodder to make his point to a sovereign country and his people at home… Yeah, let him win and maybe he’ll just turn into a sweet, harmless pussycat, and/or retire with his stolen billions.

[Unseen]

PopeBeanie wrote:

Oh, well, so it’s obvious that Ukraine started the war. Dissing Putin like that sealed the fate they deserved.

The war effectively started when external political forces decided that Ukraine, with borders as defined by the USSR, should be a country. It isn’t a natural country.

Aside from glossing over the reasoning that all that matters here are the language commonalities when drawing each country’s borderlines, Putin’s made the “who’d vote for what” point moot, as the biggest bully on the block.

Along with languages come cultures. Ethnic Russians and Ethnic Ukrainians worship in different Orthodox Christian churches, for example.

Lying to and throwing his own people in as fodder to make his point to a sovereign country and his people at home… Yeah, let him win and maybe he’ll just turn into a sweet, harmless pussycat, and/or retire with his stolen billions.

WTH, PB, are you totally unaware of how many American lives have been lost since WW2 in unnecessary wars? Wars backed by the public mainly or only via lies or assumptions promoted by the MIC and its myriad lobbyists? When we left Vietnam in defeat leaving at least 1.5 million people dead (combined, both sides, military and civilian), the dominoes should have started falling according to the theory, right? Did they? The war over WMD’s in Iraq was based on a lie.

The war in Ukraine probably could have been averted long ago except that there’s a segment of our business community that benefits from providing weapons and supplies for our forever wars. Why would they want to stop earning those profits? The bottomless goodness of their hearts? I don’t think that’s what has them sending their army of lobbyists out to offer to help the politicians win their next election.

 

 

[PopeBeanie]

Unseen wrote:

WTH, PB, are you totally unaware […]

I’m very aware. And I’ve said many times that money in politics is corruptive.

Your “whatabouts” wrt our system are largely valid, but they don’t absolve Putin.

[Davis]

Putin went to war because he believed (and has so far been proven right) that it would help keep him in (if not strengthen his hold on) power and/or please those who help keep him in power. The idea that any country starts a war out of pride/glory/insults/historical-grievances is ridiculous. Simply too many players are involved who have interests which are far more important than glory or former insults.

The West is not defending Ukraine entirely out of the goodness of their heart either. They have their own interests. Fortunately, those interests align with the right thing to do (repel a pointless full out brutal war full of war crimes).

The average citizen looks at war from a humanitarian perspective with something of a filter via their own world view. Governments look at war in what aligns with their own party and personal interests, keeping in mind how it will appear to the general populations humanitarian world view, and stringing along a narrative to influence it.

Most of us here would agree, that a nation that did nothing wrong apart from simply existing and maintaining the sovereignty of their own borders, should not be invaded by a neighbour. Russia invading Ukraine is utterly morally wrong, even if they have a Russian minority (keep in mind Russia also has Ukrainian minorities and shit ton of minorities who are brutally oppressed).

The war doesn’t make Putin feel good. It helps maintain his interests.

[Author]

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