20 October 2022

Cooking on gas

[Edited "Credibility gap" section in hope of improving clarity, 27 Jan 2023] 

They wouldn’t spend all this time lying to us if our opinions didn’t matter. – Robert Barnes.

Never let a good crisis go to waste. – Winston Churchill

Introduction

Germany knows who sabotaged Nord Stream 1 and 2 but will not disclose this information, citing national-security interests. So reports Alexander Mercouris of The Duran in response to a question from his partner Alex Christoforou at The Duran earlier this week. 

I’ve failed to find a press report confirming this news, but trust both Christoforou and Mercouris enough to take it as true. By way of supporting evidence, it follows an announcement from the Swedish government that its own findings are too sensitive to be shared with the world, and further that no joint investigation into the event will take place. It looks like the entire geopolitically critical affair is going to be quietly dropped. 

Were Russia guilty, would that news be too sensitive to share?

The West has unobtrusively let it be believed Russia blew up its primary bargaining chip with the EU, albeit without giving any substance to that argument; Russia could have simply turned off the gas supply at source. In fact, the “Russia did it” narrative is a very difficult, perhaps impossible, sell. For example, Anthony Blinken has in a matter of days switched from asserting the attack was “in no one’s interest” to it being a “tremendous strategic opportunity for the years to come”. Opportunity for whom?

What does this nakedly suspicious handling of the sabotage event imply? What are the implications of the horrifyingly low-quality leadership on display across The West as its peoples are lulled towards a precipitous economic downward spiral, and perhaps ruin? 

Credibility gap

Cui-bono logic tells us clearly the US was responsible for the attack. The US has been implacably against any geopolitical/economic partnership between Germany and Russia for decades, and was particularly troubled by the advent of both Nord Stream 1 and 2. Biden stated publicly in February 2022, with Germany’s Chancellor Scholz standing quietly at his side, the US would end Nord Stream 2 should Russia invade Ukraine. As if to confirm this, Blinken reasons this “tremendous opportunity” as a plus precisely because it ends Germany’s dependence on Russian gas. 

Obviously, Germany’s dependence has yet to miraculously resolve itself; Germany has nothing like sufficient internal gas reserves under its own soil. On whom will Germany now depend? Well, a cursory analysis suggests the US will make up the shortfall, albeit at eye-watering prices; liquid natural gas (LNG) is far more expensive than pipeline gas. However, Turkey’s recent deal with Russia to become the EU’s gas hub could well turn Turkey into Europe’s lone gas middleman, seeing as Turkey would be able to compete on price against US LNG. That said, Germany’s industrial competitiveness globally is over without cheap Russian gas, whether it is replaced by US LNG or Turkey-distributed pipeline gas. This of course means the EU’s strength as a bloc is also on a downward spiral. And the last thing Germany should want is to be at Turkey’s beck and call.

And yet despite knowing that it has been economically emasculated by its ‘loyal friend and ally’, Germany is meekly accepting its fate as US lapdog. What Germany’s people would think of all this might well diverge from what its political overlords are prepared to swallow, but active divergence will depend on whether ordinary Germans are given clear information on the matter, actually proceed to act decisively on that information and oust said overlords.

So the EU’s doe-eyed loyalty to US diktat now looks certain to reduce it to an economic backwater. If this transpires, the globalists’ dreams of a one-world technotopia will have revealed themselves as hot air. (The UK is in equally perilous shape.)

Unless, of course, this is all part of the theorised globalist plan to use the BRICS’ imminent ascendancy over The West as a mechanism for installing the UN, with its Agenda 2030, as the cohering entity binding all nations on earth to the BRICS’ “fair world order”; the BRICS block repeatedly swears fealty to this UN agenda.

If this nefarious plan is real and afoot, The West’s demise must be exploited to secure The West’s willing embrace of what it has for decades been conditioned to hate: Russian and Chinese power. To succeed, the plan’s conspirators must be in sufficient control of an astounding number of variables, including: the powerful Western MSM that is currently engaged, with all its hundreds of thousands of employees, in virulent opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; the entire internet through ABC-Google and its censorship activities; current and future anti-globalist populist leaders, such as Bolsonaro, Gabbard, Trump; all The West’s current political parties; street-level political sentiment in the US as Ukraine’s chances of victory visibly diminish; etc. And all of these exceedingly complex domains of control must jointly steer The West into an engineered cultural denouement of apocalyptic proportions, one that would destroy its self image, and with it, potentially, respect for all institutional authority. 

Would the peoples of The West trust their respective globalist cohorts after impoverishment at their hands, when those cohorts proffer the UN and the BRICS as The West’s bright new saviour? Will there be any existing homegrown and trusted authority left standing to spotlight as having been right all along about the ‘pandemic’, the ‘vaccines’, the Russia-Ukraine-NATO war, digital IDs, digital currencies, The West’s financial future, etc.? I imagine an institutional wasteland, trust as dust blowing away over the horizon, impossible to retrieve, impossible to reconstruct.

Or – this assuming this plan is indeed afoot and proceeding as hoped – will the shock be so great that the then broken peoples of The West, lost between worlds with no viable alternative in sight, will only be able to weakly accept the “fair world order” presented to them?

In truth I do not know. Theorised plans of this enormity seem highly improbable to me, but things have become so bizarre I simply cannot rule it out. My own sense was of a push towards global totalitarianism on the back of a managed ‘pandemic’, which afforded a narrative simple and coherent enough to sustain, with measures economically destructive enough to initiate a manageable financial crash across a nominally ‘unified’ world. That seems to have failed, or to have been an erroneous assessment on my part.

A more complicated narrative has an even lower chance of success, in my view. Russia’s war against Ukraine muddies the narrative waters considerably, delivers too much hardship in defence of too tenuous a vision – ‘Ukraine, the underdog bastion of Freedom!’ – and risks hobbling the very financial infrastructure the globalists will need to erect their technotopia, even if their CBDC system is up and running in the next few months.

So, if Russia has indeed pitted itself against what Putin calls “neoliberal totalitarianism”, and in so doing set in motion a sequence of events that is critically demoting The West’s, and in particular the US’, standing in the eyes of the rest of the world, and if this sequence of events is organic (not planned), then we are looking at the fall of one civilisation to the benefit of two or more others. In this case, how The West responds to this is up to The West, and not a coterie of sinister plotters who have been in control all along.

Either way, we in The West are facing what I’m calling a credibility gap. If this whole affair is indeed about to burst, if indeed our leaders and all our institutions are about to be exposed as rank failures when Russia secures unconditional surrender in Ukraine in coming months, as the UK and EU sink into severe recession or even depression with no obvious way out, how will any existing power structure maintain control with their credibility in irredeemable tatters?

At stake

Putin’s recent answer in Astana to a journalist’s probing questions as to the future of the Ukrainian state was revealingly open ended. Russia had had no plans to end Ukraine as a state, but now, well, Ukraine did attack Crimea’s water supply and the Kerch bridge to the Russian mainland. Things have changed. His answer did not make any definitive statement or announce any change in policy, but it did not rule out Ukraine’s imminent demise as a state at Russia’s hands. 

The West’s ability to militarily support Ukraine is quickly drying up. Russian mobilisation is almost complete, its defensive lines are solidifying and holding well, repelling Ukrainian attacks at great cost in hardware and human life to Ukraine. Russia has spent the last eight days destroying about a third of Ukraine’s power infrastructure. Financial crisis looms in that sorry country. For all these reasons, both troop and civilian morale in Ukraine is apparently declining.

In the US, the ruling party looks sets to incur something of a wipeout in the upcoming mid-term elections. The UK just witnessed the sacking of its new Chancellor of the Exchequer, a mere six weeks in the post. Prime Minister Truss’ position looks lost to fate, and she has been in her post for the same short period of time. Macron has no parliamentary majority. Scholz’s party (SPD) is haemorrhaging support. Europe is facing economic meltdown, as is the UK, despite what temporary upward blips in currently volatile markets might suggest.

The West’s ability to support Ukraine is at the end of its rope. I have no doubt that Kiev and Moscow know this full well. We may well see one last desperate push into Kherson by Kiev as Zelenskyy’s time runs out.

At stake, as argued above, is the collapse of The West as global hegemon should Russia win. This likely outcome is set to transpire despite the belligerent and bellicose fervour with which The West demonised Russia and promised Ukraine certain victory. All of it to win far, far less than nothing.

Is this what the Davos/WEF crowd wanted? Is this the bloody royal road to the global technotopia of which they dreamed? It doesn’t look like it to me. It looks like a typical hubris-driven comeuppance, at great cost in blood and treasure to Ukraine.

Alexander Mercouris and Alex Christoforou of The Duran suggest that Germany’s and Sweden’s tightlipped handling of the Nord Stream sabotage means the US has given up on its ambitions to deconstruct Russia and China. If true, this leaves the US with the EU and UK as its prize, which it already had anyway, though now a broken EU and UK not really of all that much utility. And with Turkey in control of whatever gas makes it to the EU/UK, how effective would the US’ control be [edit: with reserve currency and petrodollar gone?]? Would some sort of impoverished technocratic-superstate vassal to the US be a fun or satisfying outcome for all future US leaders after all the fine work put into accomplishing so much more?

Mattias Desmet was recently in conversation with Tucker Carlson, a one-hour conversation I highly recommend. He points out – and this is of pivotal importance – that totalitarian elites are first and foremost ideologues. They are not cynical pursuers of total power, spoilt rich overlords with nothing better to do. They passionately believe in some ideology so unshakeably they are prepared to do and risk anything to see it installed. He shares with his host Carlson that Hannah Arendt predicted as far back as 1951 that the ultimate totalitarian system would be technocratic/bureaucratic. The ideology driving dreams of a technotopia (my word) is materialism, or rationalism, the atomist worldview that is modernity’s paradigm. The totalitarian state predicted by Arendt in 1951 is the logical outcome of that paradigm: a perfected global system of perfected humans in perfectly run cities and businesses. 

Only fervent belief in a vision of this kind can drive people to risk everything as ‘incompetently’ as we currently witness happening in The West. The question is, does the rest of the world, and do, in particular, the BRICS nations, share this cultural fervour for technotopia? This question has driven the probing articles I’ve published here since I started addressing the Russia-Ukraine war. I suspect the answer is a soft yes on the part of Russia and China; I’m not sure how deep that sympathy for utopian dreams goes, especially considering Russia’s deep Christian Orthodoxy and China’s Confucian reflexes. But I am simply not sufficiently informed to hazard a guess beyond my intuitive sense that life – which is not mechanical in essence – wins out in the end. Hence, to whatever degree the BRICS bloc and the Global South share in materialist reflexes, and however solemnly their leaders may advocate Agenda 2030, no pure rationalist/materialist impulse can produce a healthy society, just as this applies to The West.

Conclusion

Things are quickly coming to a head. My own read on what is taking place is firming, but events change so incessantly it is impossible to keep up. 

Nevertheless, love, not fear, is always the answer. If Desmet is right that speaking out inhibits the depth of any given mass-formation process, I will continue to speak out in support of love and free will, and in so doing play my small part, come what may.

While materialism dominates, love, as I express it at this blog and elsewhere, will continue to seem like a ninny teenage fantasy of minimal utility. But if we humans do in fact despair when lonely, and if in fact we do hunger for meaningful lives, if we love to love and earnestly want contribute to the health of all those around us, then love is the path we will have to turn to sooner or later. Of this I remain sure, and on this point I will continue to write for as long as my fingers allow!

Let's not let this crisis go to waste.

14 comments:

Игры рынка said...

Noone in this world, outside of Russia, wants Russia to win. Even in Russia not many people want it, ignoring the idiots. Where do you read those signals that putin is going to win? He has lost already. If US blew up the pipeline, then following your logic the US has started the war.

What the West has is the crisis of ideology. There has been no idea to sell to the population since at least the 70ies. Funnily, it now has a chance to come up with something. Thanks to putin. And regardless of who wins mid-terms. Yes, there is an issue of Trump and similar, but it is transitory. The war shock is very strong but it will take time to weed out the idiocy of BLM, Greta, transgender olympics athletes and so on. I am using these just as examples of random topics which occupy the news feed, not as an opinion.

Toby said...

Hi Игры рынка,

"Noone in this world, outside of Russia, want Russia to win." That's a bold assertion, and clearly wrong. How many people in Russia want Russia to win would, from what I understand, be a very large majority. If Putin has lost the war already, then that fact will present itself shortly, and will prove the arguments I find most persuasive wrong. I doubt very much, from your tone, that it matters to you what my sources are, though I list them here to a degree, and elsewhere in other posts on the Russia-Ukraine debacle. No doubt they will be wrong in your view. Time will tell whether the people I listen to are correct, or you. In the end, our opinions are of no consequence to the outcome of this affair.

"If US blew up the pipeline, then following your logic the US has started the war." The latter does not follow the former; that is your poor logic. The US blew up the pipeline because it is in their interest to do so, as Blinken has stated. And they have the means to do so. It was not in Russia's interest, as I argued. The US elites / permanent state wanted this war because they appear to have an obsessional idea that US hegemony must be protected at ALL costs. A weakened Russia forever separated from Germany secures that hegemony, or is one of the pivotal factors to that end. Biden and others have stated their strong antipathy to Nord Stream publicly. This is in my article. Russia's attack of Ukraine was something the US needed as a vehicle for removing Putin and taking control, via some proxy government or other, of Russia's resources. In my view.

I agree somewhat with the content of your second paragraph, but feel populism, or more accurately a deep mistrust of the permanent state, has nowhere near run its course.

Игры рынка said...

I find it funny to read that you have some insider information that Putin is winning. There are undisputable facts. Putin failed to capture Kiev in 3 days and Ukraine in 2 weeks. Russian troops are retreating from the occupied territories across the whole front line. But you deny all of this because you want a global reset one way or the other.

Yes, USA was always against the pipelines but it is great leap of argument to say that they literally blew it up. What they say, I do not really care. People are also free to interpret whatever incoming noise they get. We live in the times of the largest war since WWII and there is enough propaganda and info battles everywhere.

A weakened Russia you say. Russia today is a barbaric state with nuclear weapons. And like 2% of global GDP. So pretty close to nothing from the economic point of view of the combined West to *fight* with. Noone *fights* with someone who is 10 or 20 times smaller. You either crush or ignore. However USA and co. always wanted to pull Russia into it their circle but have been so gravely overoptimistic. And wrong. Russia and Russians do not belong to the western world. Where they belong to I do not know and do not really care. Please note that I am not talking about individuals here. I am talking about ingrained behavioral and cultural values, about the Russian DNA.

Yes, there is a global struggle which is only heating up. But this is a struggle between the West, China, India, the arabic world and some smaller forces here and there. No Russia here because Russia has proven that it is not a global superpower and since a while so. I fully acknowledge and support that the West hegemony must be protected though disagree with ALL costs. There are sufficient resources and levers to ensure the continuing dominance of our way of living or at least of our economic survival. A recent ban on chip production obviously will not stop China, but it will give the West a couple of years of extra time.

The world is on the brink of an AI revolution. Lots of very smart people believe that we will create artificial general intelligence within the next 20 years. Whoever builds it first we immediately reach a technological escape velocity. Practically speaking there are only 2 possible contenders here: USA and China. Why would USA even bother with Russia in reaching this goal strategically? Unfortunately tactically Russia became a problem which needs a solution. And the solution is clear - destroy Russia economically and push it into the hands of China.

So please tell me who in this world wants Russia to win? I looking forward to read your view on Russian allies and your argumentation.

Thanks

Toby said...

I have no special insider knowledge. Do you?

"But you deny all of this because you want a global reset one way or the other." I do not want a global reset at all (if you mean WEF), more a willing transformation. In terms of Russian troops deserting front lines, I guess we'll see Ukraine reclaiming all its lost territory any day now. If you are right on this, I'm happy to accept that.

"Yes, USA was always against the pipelines but it is great leap of argument to say that they literally blew it up." Why?

Your 3rd para smells strongly of racism. I find what I've heard and read of Putin's speeches to be those of a reasonable and intelligent human being. I find Lavrov to be equally impressive. But like I said in my earlier response, neither my your nor opinion is of any special consequence. If, on the other hand, you have the facts at your command on this issue, then I have been persuaded in error by people who don't know what they are talking about, even though they make most sense to me. I can live with that if it turns out to be true.

We'll see about the AI revolution. Smart is not wise, and, in my view and for a variety of reasons, I see materialism as a busted flush. Like nuclear fusion, AI always seems to be just a couple of decades away. Not that I don't think something like it will occur, it's just that I don't see it turning out the way folks seem to anticipate. But again, we will see.

My sense of 'support' for Russia around the world is, for example, the 39 countries that did not condemn Russia's annexation of parts of Ukraine, either by a No vote or abstention. Population wise, they apparently represent something like 60% of the global population. How that voting actually translates into sentiment among individuals in the various countries, I have no idea. However, I doubt strongly that the number is zero, as you asserted. Further to this, I read and hear of e.g. closing ties between Turkey and Russia, Saudi Arabia and Russia, China and Russia, certain African nations, etc. But! ... This word 'want' is too strong. We are talking about geopolitics. It's not that there is passionate desire for Russia to win as in a football match, it's more (I suspect) a guarded anticipation of the West's demise and the apparent looming ascendancy of the BRICS bloc plus Global South by extension. My point, therefore, was that it is too strong to assert that nobody outside Russia wants Russia to 'win'. The situation is more nuanced than that.

We haven't met, and yet already we already appear to be enemies. You write at me as if I were a clueless fool. Why so rude? My interest in Russia-Ukraine is because the conflict's development has made me wonder about, or be very self critical about, two things that are far more important to me: the potential global nature of the WEF's Great Reset and the potential of the WEF to carry this out. I had thought Russia on board with this. Their attack of Ukraine, the manner of it, Putin's speeches against "Western globalist elites" and "neoliberal totalitarianism", among other things, have caused me to deeply reassess all my thinking on what is going on.

There is mounting tension along so many fault lines, and neither side of any division can really talk to the other. This troubles me deeply. My exploratory articles here on what has been happening these last 2+ years are my way of thinking through what is going on, albeit out loud.

As I said above, I am not a materialist. My interest in all this is spiritual. For me, there is nothing but God, or, phrased differently, nothing but consciousness. This is a huge ontological topic that it is impossible to do justice to in a reply of this type, but just by way of disclosure and because the manner of our exchange is tetchy, I want you to know this. Whatever happens, I always hope to find ways of learning more than I knew yesterday, to grow a little wiser. For example from exchanges like this.

Игры рынка said...

There is nothing personal in my comments and it is a nature of anonymous internet :) I do not troll but I am also lazy to spend time on politeness and correctness and thus get straight to the point sometimes exaggerating the arguments. And I really have hard time understanding your position and you mixing up your disappointment with the structure of western societies and actions of its politicians with the evil of putin inflicting gravel damage on the civilian population in Ukraine. I am neither Russian, nor Ukrainian but I am failing to imagine what it takes regular people to pack and leave their homes together with their kids and bring them into a different environment without their free will. How much stress and pain does it take to leave everything behind from Monday to Tuesday and go to into some random new place? Please stop for a second here.

Putin is mad. Lavrov is mad. And lots of other people are mad. Take Nemtsov, former russian deputy of prime minister, killed in the middle of Moscow. He said that putin is fucked up. You can find it on youtube. Or take Novodvorskaya, a russian activist, killed as well, who has a lecture on youtube on russian history and mentality. She said that russian DNA has 5 strains. One of it is of western type of mentality and values. Unfortunately it is ca. 5% of the whole composition. The dominant strain is that of Mongolian orda and that means to come, rape, burn, destroy. If you read the reports about actions of russian troops on the occupied territories that is exactly what they do.

I am not racist towards russians. I do not want to kill them or to do anything with them. I want a wall along the border, like Trump did with Mexico and like Poland, Estonia, Finland and so on are building now on the russian border. The western liberals who say we cannot do it are too naive. So was the majority of the west but it has waken up now. The russian liberals who say we cannot do it do not understand a simple thing that no russian has any right to come anywhere without invitation. And if we say we do not want to see them here, that's it. There is no court which can overrule it.

You are upset at the political structure of societies in the west, I am as well, but you miss the geopolitical metagame. There are 3 clear major ideologies that exist today, namely Western hegemony as you call it, China and lets call it the muslim one. This is the struggle that we have today and which will define our common future. All of the authoritarian regimes want the West to surrender as they are struggling for their survival in the global power. It is fair and rational from every point of view. 60% of global population do not have a vote while the other 40% do. Russia is poison which spreads. There was Georgia, and Kazakhstan, and Armenia with Azerbajdzan. There is Belarus as well which is de facto already occupied by Russia.

I do not know what sources of information you have but if you listen to russian liberals, then ignore what they say. Even those russians which live in the West are poisoned by the propaganda and their DNA and believe that they have rights here guaranteed by some natural law. There is nothing like this. If we want our system of values to survive and thrive then Russia and Putin have to be pushed back in the most painful way so that the message of absolute private will and property will hunt them down for generations. Like it did with Germans after the WWII.

Игры рынка said...

An example from today on my points https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqPIMI6-Wvo

Toby said...

I like direct communication – I have been direct with you –, it was the derogatory parts I objected to. But I appreciate your warm words and your sincerity, thank you for them.

Even if you don't want to kill Russians, yours is to my mind a racist stance where Russians are concerned. The reasons Trump wanted to build a wall along the US border to Mexico aren't racist, as I understand it, but economical. By contrast, you cite cultural and biological DNA; Mongolian hordes raping and pillaging. Does DNA cause that? What of Christian Crusades? What of the wanton destruction done by the British Empire, the Dutch, French, Spanish, the US, etc? Humans can do terrible things to other humans via dehumanisation. The word "barbarian" stems from the Greek, and means those who do not speak our language. Dehumanisation is the consequence of a failure to communicate. I think all the problems of the world stem from a failure to communicate. Besides, as I understand it, genetic determinism is a busted flush. We are not autonomous DNA robots compelled without free will to do as our DNA instructs. Not in my view, anyway.

I do not believe the Russians are attacking Ukraine because they are rapers and pillagers; it looks like a desperate act of self defence to me, too risky to be carried out just for the raping fun of it. Putin and Lavrov do not strike me as mad. Indeed, I find your logic hard to follow. On the one hand, Putin has already lost, Russia is weak and insignificant. On the other, he and Russia are a grave threat. It does not add up, nor does it tally with events on the ground, as in the obvious panic in the US, in Ukraine, the panic and rapid economic deterioration in the EU, UK, the constant stream of propaganda, etc. But again, I'm happy to be wrong on all this. I don't mind at all if we differ on this. In the fog of war, who knows what is really going on?

As for values, I try to be against all ideologies. I'm naive and idealistic in many ways, but also, somewhat contradictorily, ruthless and pragmatic in my thinking. I have been studying and thinking about the human condition and where we are as a species for a long time now. My tentative conclusions are that something anarchic, based on abundance not scarcity, based on love not fear, based on open discussion and exchange rather than democracy, plus other elements, is needed. Recent events are shaking my confidence that my analysis is correct, but only in the sense that humans aren't ready for this yet. Recent events are the covid plandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict and how both reveal intransigent and viscerally hateful division on multiple fronts. My lonely struggle at this blog is to try and make sense of it all.

(Cont.)

Toby said...

An analogy re. communication problems: We have four cats and one big dog in our little home. Two of the cats are kittens born to our only female cat. The other adult cat is male and having a very hard time adjusting to these new threats to his territory. We are almost 11 weeks in and he is slowly making sense of these two additions, slowly coming to see that the two kittens are not in fact a threat. But cats speak the same language; they can fairly easily understand each other.

Not so between the big dog and the kittens. He (big dog) is ecstatically over-the-moon thrilled that the pack has grown by two new members. His manner of expressing his excited joy terrifies the kittens. Whenever the kittens venture down to the floor of the house both dog and cats are all allowed to enter, he rushes towards them with a clattering of claws, loud high-pitched squealing, and a wildly wagging tail. Depending on circumstances, the kittens either flee upstairs in terror or are trapped and fight. The dog cannot understand their threats, their body language, the kittens cannot understand the dog means no harm.

Now this is indeed a DNA problem of communication, but even it is surmountable. In time, with our human help and the house divided as it is, they will learn to understand each other. The kittens' mother learned to understand the dog when she first arrived, and vice versa. So even though there is a kind of wall between the two sides, albeit one of rules rather than a solid wall, they have the free will and opportunity to encounter each other and learn at their own pace, to grow in their wisdom.

For this sort of reason, analogically, I am against permanent solid walls. When it comes to humans, we are less constrained by our biologies than other animals. I'm not saying improving our wisdom is easy, but it is, in my view, why we are here on earth. We should honour that.

Don't give up, please, on your fellow humans. Tragedies and horrors happen, that's what all we humans are capable of with our high intelligence, upright stance and opposable thumbs, and with our low, slow-evolving wisdom.

Игры рынка said...

"I do not believe the Russians are attacking Ukraine because they are rapers and pillagers; it looks like a desperate act of self defence to me, too risky to be carried out just for the raping fun of it"

Why do you think Putin did attack? Desperate defense against who?

If Putin is not mad, then please have a look at his article published shortly before the war, where he said that Russians and Ukrainians are the same people, like one whole. In his own words, the word "Ukraine" is coming from "outskirts" in my lousy translation. And it is apparently obvious to him where the center is. The problem is that all east slavs come from south slavs and migration naturally happened in the direction of moscow and todays russia. Russia would not be possible without Ukraine, not the other way round. His appeals to history are just laughable. If we follow his logic, then Europe is doomed. By his logic, city borders signs in 3 languages are impossible. In his mind they are only possible in one language and we know which one. Have you seen picture of russian soldiers removing the city signs and replacing then with the russian names on the occupied territories?

Btw, sorry for my lousy formulation with the reference of DNA. Surely, I meant the cultural DNA. It is clear that genetically true russians are slavs but the actual result is always nature + nurture. And the nurture here is dominated by the old mongolian orda strain. Europe tried to nurture Russia into the european values but clearly failed.

Apparently, you had very little exposure to the russian world. Just one example of the multiple stories about them coming to other countries and refusing to accept the local language or local culture. They say that they are tourists and come to spend money and thus they need to be served as clients. So yes, they are barbarians because they cannot even learn 100 words in English which is the language spoken by the whole developed world and more.

My logic is consistent. Russia lost, is weak and getting weaker but it has nuclear warheads. That is why people have been scared but as this war goes one, the West gets more and more confident and frees itself from the shackles of past fears of a mighty superpower. It was all fake.

I also do not see any economic panic. Europe has finally woken up and does everything possible to get rid of russian fossils. Sure it comes with a shock but it is transitory. As well as inflation. The central banks are stupid and scared to lose their power and are adding to the damage of higher energy costs and broken supply chains. There is not much here we can do now even though it is clear that a reform here is way overdue.
Also governments try to support their populations to the extent they can to help the transition into the russia-free europe.

The West is absolutely decisive to draw a line, both economic as well as cultural. A full blown war in Europe and nuclear blackmailing is an absolute taboo and it will be punished. It is not a question of western hegemony but a question of our survival as species.

Игры рынка said...

Btw, I never realized it before but was pointed out by a Russian colleague that in Russian language the words Russia and Russians are different their usage in English, Germans and apparently a bunch of other European languages. There is nothing like this in anywhere else Europe as far as I know however exists in the USA. It is not possible to translate but one can get the point here by the way of a rough example of "Korean Americans", "Chinese American", etc.

So there is russians as peoples (i.e. genetic slavs) and there are russians as nation. Following the USA example, that would translate into "Russian Russians" and all those other types of "Russians" though they do not mention the genetical DNA-origins. It is just one basket of heterogenous Russians.

What is interesting is that who is conscripted and then sent to the front-lines are predominantly of non "Russian Russians" type. And the "Russian Russians" are using this linguistic trick to try to distance themselves away from the crimes which are happening in the Ukraine.

Toby said...

"Why do you think Putin did attack? Desperate defense against who?" NATO encroachment to Russia's borders since 1990s, hence defence against the West. Stubborn, multi-year failure by co-signatories (France and Germany) to enforce Minsk Agreement. As I said, the West (US) has been against Russian ties with Germany (what is termed Russmany) since WWII, I believe. This info is from multiple sources. Putin has been consistently vilified as mad and irrational in the West for more than 20 years.

Russians being brutes abroad is like Yanks and Brits and Germans being brutes abroad. This is not true of all of them, of course, and it is certainly not unique to Russians. And Russians are not the only war rapists and pillagers. If they are changing street signs, that will be greeted warmly by some, coldly by others.

My understanding is Ukraine translates to "borderlands". (Don't worry, I find your English very impressive!)

Your paragraph on Putin being mad does not to me describe a madman – assuming all you say is correct – but someone who sees things differently to you. At least, I can interpret it that way. Biden looks sociopathic to me, and senile. There are many others in Western leadership who strike me as mad or incompetent or both. Is Putin evil? Perhaps. I cannot tell from here, so have no view on that point. But my stance generally, as an anarchist, is not to trust people who are attracted to power. Madness is another matter.

As for Russia having lost already and being weak but with nuclear weapons: to repeat, if that is true, it will be revealed in due course. This is not the issue for me. I am happy to be wrong. But I stand by what I said earlier regarding what I see on the ground ("see" through various newspaper articles, reports, etc.).

The cultural DNA thing, rather than biological DNA, stills smells of racism to me. It just does. It sounds like some old antipathy between some number of peoples. I do not and cannot really know the details unless I become fluent – very fluent – in all the relevant languages, learn all the relevant histories and respective literatures, spend a huge amount of time (at least a decade) in each country, and become intimately familiar with all the political/intellectual/business leadership classes in each country. And my guess is that it would still be unclear. My point is that antipathies like this are always going to boil down to failures in communication.

I have become very knowledgeable in a few fields. What is clear to me is that experts disagree. You know more than me about the Russian language, about Russian culture, and no doubt plenty of other things. But I have made it a point to develop my own views and leave it at that, to be corrected as events unfold. I no longer trust experts because they disagree, deeply, just as I don't expect people to trust my expertise in whatever areas. I am not trying to convince you of anything, you are trying to convince me. But you cannot; I do not have the time to commit to learning all I would need to learn to find you persuasive. Do you see what I mean? We are, in my view, not having an argument; you are trying to convince me of a perspective I simply cannot subscribe to for structural reasons. As it stands, and from what I know generally, I am deeply skeptical of any argument in which Those People are bad, but We are the good guys. Life is more nuanced than that.

Игры рынка said...

You see, we disagree from the very first line. You present Russia and Putin as innocent victims of NATO deliberate expansion while I see it as the former Soviet block countries looking for stronger guarantees of safety against the visible and invisible Russian aggression by appealing to and joining NATO.

We can play hypothetically in this game but I find little supporting evidence for it besides emotional propaganda and fear mongering. In October 2022, every country in the Russian surrounding wants to escape the influence of and/or further distance itself from the "russian world". This even includes Finland and Sweden. Countries like Kazakhstan and others even started the process of switching to latin alphabet. I am sure if not for Lukashenko selling his country's independence long time ago, there would be literally noone left. It does not correlate with Russia being an innocent victim.

Expanding boarders of NATO does not automatically equal increasing military threat. If NATO really wanted to threaten Russia, then NATO troops would have been in Ukraine by now.

I guess further discussion makes no sense. I tried to show you multiple arguments why the threat of the western hegemony is misrepresented and even actively supported to justify Russian invasion into Ukraine as well as probably future invasion of China into Taiwan. This is a part of the geopolitical fight onto which a lot of authoritarian money is being poured over. As you well know, fear as propaganda is an excellent motivator and manipulator.

Toby said...

No one is innocent, I did not meant innocent.

I agree; further discussion makes no sense, though I find your point of view interesting as it is so different from mine. We are talking past each other. This was in fact my last article contemplating the What If Russia Wins vector – which looks, correctly or incorrectly, like the highly probable outcome to me. None of my four (or five?) articles on this topic are meant as support for one side or the other; my broader views are much too radical for that. The articles were attempts to make sense of what a Russian win means to my sense of what has been taking place geopolitically since early 2020. To describe me as confused by current events is something of an understatement. I will continue to follow what is going on, bearing your views in mind, but will return to my original themes from now on, as planned.

Игры рынка said...

Cannot stop thinking about it and an extra side comment. In a world when US has had a black president and UK has an Indian Prime Minister, this tells a lot about Russian tolerance and flexibility. This culture stopped in the year 500, sorry it did not even exist, so lets give it another 1000 years, so in the year 1500 and going backwards. The western world is racing towards robotics and AI ignoring nationalistic boundaries and definitions, while they are still stuck in homophobic orthodox paternalistic slavery. Russia banned slavery when the western world had revolutions in human rights and education. It was just 160 years ago, like 5-6 generations, and has never settled down in the DNA