Soon after calling for ISIS to murder Russian aviators and their families, the Paris Attacks sent them into a confused tizzy, and now the Maidanists are going from proposing an alliance with ISIS to condemning them as pawns of Khuylo, Тhe Darkest One, and The God of Svidomy Ukrainians… who is otherwise known to normal people as Vladimir Putin.
Essentially, Putin cockblocked the ISIS-Maidan alliance!
https://twitter.com/Yuriy_Sergeyev/status/665669635186946048
Yury Sergeyev (“Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations. All tweets reflect my personal vision”): In the Paris tragedy, you should “cherchez la femme” – and her name is – Russia. We await Russia’s invitation to join the struggle against terrorism.
Though for some reason he doesn’t seem to like his “personal vision” getting RTed:
HAHAHAHAHAHA THAT WAS QUICK pic.twitter.com/uingi2RPE9
— Anatoly Karlin (@powerfultakes) November 15, 2015
So far as conspiracy theories go, the idea that the Russian intelligence services organized the Paris Attacks down to the snackbaring suicide bombers is one of the most incredible ones out there. But if you were to think this is a fringe theory limited to a rogue diplomat or two you would be wrong.
Here are some other Ukrainian politicians, journalists, academics, and major bloggers who have advanced this “theory”:
- Radio Svoboda/RFERL – Ukrainian arm of the US foreign media organ, screenshot right (if you recall, also the department responsible for getting Russian anti-Putin journalist Andrey Babitsky fired from RFERL for being unwilling to cover up Ukrainian far right militia war crimes). Article has since been removed, probably when the more intelligent and less ideologically crazy American bosses saw what their Galician underlings were up to.
- Andrey Teteruk – Former far right militia commander and now Rada Deputy, recently made famous for hitting a female parliamentatian on the head with a glass bottle and causing her a brain concussion: “In my opinion, behind these terrorist acts stand the cold calculations of the Kremlin creatures, who wanted to take revenge on France for the Mistral on Friday the 13th, a symbolic date for Americans.”
- Anton Geraschenko – Ministry of the Interior advisor, who compiled a literal hit list (available online) of anti-regime figures such as the murdered journalist Oles Buzina, and who has also started adding the names of Russian aviators for the express purpose of helping ISIS take care of them “by the canons of sharia” (sic): “Not long ago I obtained reliable evidence from good sources that it is RF President Vladimir Putin who is responsible to the flood of migrants to Europe… I recommend the French intelligence services carefully track the entire chain from the perpetrators to the sponsors of these evil acts. Who knows, maybe the Russian intelligence services stand behind it all?”
Yury Sergeyev – See above.- Mychailo Wynnyckyj – Canadian-Ukrainian “academic” writing for Euromaidan Press, this author is also a well known budding (if inadvertent) scifi writer famous for having predicted a few dozen of the past zero Russian invasions of Ukraine and nuclear wars with NATO.
- Vitaly Gaidukevich – Prominent Ukrainian TV journalist
- Liza Bogutskaya – Prominent Ukrainian journalist.
These are far from the only examples. To the contary, the idea that Putin is behind the Paris Attacks is close to conventional wisdom on Maidanist echo chambers across the Internet – even as Russia steps up attacks on the Islamic state to an unprecedented degree.
Recall that these are the same people who were calling for an alliance with ISIS against Ukraine just a few days beforehand.
What explains such pathological schizophrenia?
Ultimately it is to do with the fact that the Maidanist ideology reduced to its roots consists of nothing but cargo cult like adoration and mechanical imitation of the Western master, coupled with a primitive village hatred of Russia, which is forever oppressin’ and keeping it down. Based as it is on faith in the final peremoga (victory) as opposed to any genuinely attractive cultural or intellectual narrative, the Maidanist project inevitably keeps on failing, time and time again. But since Maidanism is revealed religious truth, this could never happen on account of its own internal failings; some external actor MUST be responsible, and that is where the inevitable zrada (betrayal) comes in.
In this latest iteration, the zrada in question is that of the Islamic State, which, far from coming to their rescue, has turned out to be nothing but another pawn of the Dark Lord Voldemort Putler, who as God of Svidomy Ukrainians stands behind every single act of terrorism, anywhere. And through his mastery of the Dark Arts, it increasingly seems that Putler will be able to hoodwink the Western world – barring a few unusually clearsighted but (it n0w seems) tragically ignored neocons – into ignoring the manifold strands of evidence for a Raqqa-Moscow Axis.
The irony in this theory of a world conspiracy to destroy Ukraine, as promoted by the Maidanists themselves, the Ukraine itself is not an independent agent but a passive and powerless object of zrada after zrada, and the dark designs of Russia. But the paradox largely resolves itself when you start thinking of Ukraine less as a country and more as an ideological project.
Today on my blog I write about the oddness of changing ones Facebook profile for France but not Russia.
I find it ironic that some of the same people who believe the conspiracy that Kiev shot down the Malaysian airliner (because Kiev benefits from Russian seps shooting the plane down), or that Mossad, CIA, and/or neocons were behind 9-11, condemn these other conspiracy theories (because Putin benefits from the refugee crisis and the latest terrorist attack). Or that people (not necessarily AK) who blame neocons, Zionists, etc. for everything mock Ukrainians for blaming Putin for everything. Are Ukrainians blaming Putin for all Ukraine’s problems much different from Russians blaming the West for all of Russia’s problems?
“Maidanists proposing an alliance with ISIS” is a statement based on the ravings of a marginalized, extreme figure (Korchynsky) with few followers who for years has been accused of being a Kremlin puppet or provocateur. In the 000s he supported Yanukovich and the neo-Stalinist Progressive Socialist Party. During this time he was invited to Moscow by Nashi to teach them how to prevent public disturbances. He has been linked to Medvedchuk (Yanukovich’s link to the Kremlin) and his small force of 300 fighters in Donbas is allegedly supplied by Russia.
So, to play your conspiracy game, Russia’s government uses its tool Korchynsky to try to discredit “Maidan” by having “Maidanist” Korchynsky propose a Ukraine-ISIS alliance. Conveniently, soon before the Paris attacks.
You then list several Ukrainians whom you allege claimed that Russia was behind the terror attacks, such as minister of the Interior adviser Anton Geraschenko, Mychajlo Wynnyckyj (Ukrainian-Canadian academic) and others. After listing these people you wrote:
Here you descend into cheap propaganda, sorry. Did Geraschenko and Wynnyckyj propose a Ukraine-ISIS alliance? Were they really “the same people?” Nope. So this statement was either deliberately dishonest or sloppily written.
Your bias is clear and that’s okay, but generally you have been quite honest and well-informed, in contrast to some of the other pro-Putin internet activists.
Well, that’s one way of describing wanting to follow Poland’s path towards the EU and being angry at the country that seized parts of their country’s territory and that supplies weapons and volunteers to keep a civil war going.
You’re not wrong, Anatoly. I’m friended with a Ukrainian girl on Facebook, and almost immediately after the Paris attacks, she was posting stuff about how the ‘cui bono pointed to Moscow’. I just laughed to myself and scrolled on past.
Did you similarly laugh off ‘cui bono pointed to Kiev’ with respect to Kiev shooting down the Malaysian airliner theories common in Russia?
Here’s a favorite Russian-held conspiracy theory (some Russian friends were seriously arguing this at a dinner party last year):
http://sputniknews.com/russia/20130306/179849093/Chavez-Death-Could-Be-US-Plot–Russian-Communist-Leader.html
Cancer in Chavez and other Latin American leaders is a CIA operation.
Really, Russians laughing at Ukrainian conspiracy theories is itself funny. Russian-held persecutory delusions are totally reasonable but Ukrainian ones are not.
Does anybody outside of ukraine give a shit about ukraine?
because Putin benefits from the refugee crisis and the latest terrorist attack
I don’t see how Putin benefits from the European refugee crisis or from the Paris attacks. I do see how the junta’s US owners benefited from the Malaysian Boeing incident. Pictures of Putin crushing the plane were all over the Western press last year. That plane was made into a much bigger international story than the entire Donbass War.
and being angry at the country that seized parts of their country’s territory
A government is supposed to serve the people, not the other way around. When a people fires a government, honest observers use words like referendum, freedom and liberation. When a government fires a(t) people, honest observers use words like war crimes, tyranny and oppression. This is especially relevant here because the Ukraine justified its own independence with a referendum in 1991, but then turned around and denied the people of the Crimea, Donbass, Kharkov and Odessa the right to hold their independence referendums.
The war isn’t really going at the moment, because the svidomites received a painful lesson. If they insist on starting it again, they may not get off so easily this time. As for the whore’s dream of guaranteed access to Euro-riches without effort, it has never been further from realisation.
Russians do. They write about it almost as much as Ukrainians write about Putin.
And as for the Chechnya comparison, Russia did try to let Chechnya go. That didn’t work. Chechen fighters attacked Russian territory in Dagestan and blew up apartment buildings in Moscow. The live-and-let-live approach failed and self -defense had to kick in.
In contrast, in the Ukrainian war the junta and its overseas owners escalated at every turn. They seized the first government buildings, were the first to use snipers, conducted the first air raid, shelled the first apartment block, etc. They have consistently rejected live-and-let-live solutions like referendums and federalization.
Wynnyckyj’s statement about how Putin benefits from the terror attacks is as good as any:
“In the wake of an IS attack on Paris, anti-Islamic sentiment in France (and Euroscepticism in other EU member states) inevitably will rise, likely to the political benefit of the radical right Front National (and equivalent parties in other European countries). Who finances Marie Le-Pen?”
“In the span of the past 2 weeks IS has attacked both the French and the Russians (downing the MetroJet flight over Egypt). Apparently their terrorist threat is universal, and an alliance between Paris and Moscow in the war in Syria will be a logical consequence (BTW: allies don’t impose economic sanctions on one another)”
He adds furthermore: “Russian MP and political analysts Sergey Markov (believed to have Putin’s ear) posted several messages on his FB page today calling upon France to now lead a “global anti-terrorist coalition, with the participation of the US and Russia, to crush the IS terrorist threat in Syria, Iraq and Lybia.” As an aside Markov urges the West to urgently end its conflict with Russia over Ukraine, to “replace the (Kyiv) junta with a technocratic government, rewrite (Ukraine’s) Constitution… The Kyiv junta is one of the main obstacles to joint action by the US, EU and Russia against terrorism.”
I agree that the idea of the attacks being a plot by Putin is ridiculous, but clearly Putin benefits from them.
Nothing that goes on in the Middle East will reconcile Putin and the neocons. The Muslim world is unimportant for HBD reasons. In other words, the conflict between Russia and the West that started when Putin took political power away from the oligarchs is more important than anything that could ever happen in Syria or Iraq. Only Gorby-like capitulation can lead to a reconciliation, and fortunately Putin has rejected that.
Any talk of an alliance with France is empty and meaningless. Sanctions and other attributes of Cold War II will continue for at least as long as Putin is in power.
Unfortunately I can’t imagine Marine ever winning the presidency. The system won’t let her.
I still find it hard to believe that Ukraine, a nation full of many cultured, decent, and intelligent people, descended into this farce.
But then again, if Rome could do it, and France could do it, and the Russian Empire could do it, and Germany could do it, and many other could do it – why not Ukraine? Human nature seems to have a great capacity for lunacy.
Em… The CIA did conduct a successful coup against Chavez. And the Russians did notoriously (though not officially) murder the defector Litvinenko.
So if the Russians could murder a guy they didn’t like by poisoning him with radiation, then so could the Americans. Did the CIA really kill Chavez? Who knows. What is certain is that they had both motive and means.
“In other words, the conflict between Russia and the West that started when Putin took political power away from the oligarchs is more important than anything that could ever happen in Syria or Iraq. ”
The first russian foreign intervention outside of the country’s borders since the collapse of the USSR is unimportant? The greatest proxy war since vietnam is unimportant? The rivalry between Israel and Iran is unimportant?
If all else is untrue, then at least the balls deep love affair between global media and the middle east will continue. Seriously that place hogs something like 30% of all airtime news reporting.
I believe that Ukraine downed that plane, and I would add that I also believe this was at the behest of Americans. US needed to persuade Europeans to enact sanctions against Russia, and they needed a loud event. Ukraine allowed a passenger plane to fly into a war zone, and then shot it down.
Russians only care about Ukraine when there is something happening in Ukraine. Russian interest peaked and remained high around the Maidan and subsequent Russian spring. Now the interest has subsided. Honestly, there is a general Ukraine fatigue now…
It’s fine that you believe that. But silly that people with your beliefs are critical of Ukrainians with their own weird beliefs, such as that Putin is somehow behind the Paris attacks (although some of the Ukrainians cited here as holding that belief are actually rather tentative – Gerschenko for example states “Who knows, maybe the Russian intelligence services stand behind it all?”).
Russians complaining about Ukrainians believing in conspiracy theories or that they blame others for their own self-created problems seem pretty blind to their own conspiracy theories and their own history of blaming all of Russia’s problems on neocons, Western bankers, Jews, etc.
That was awesome video of Russian air power dropping some serious ordnance. It’s almost as beautiful as the video of Kate Upton dancing to the Cat Daddy in her string bikini. To kamran’s question, I only started giving a shit about Ukraine since it became an advanced pawn on the neocon chessboard. What I don’t get– not being Slavic– is the enmity other Slavs have against the Russians. It seems as if Poles, Ukrainians, et al., have an almost pathological hatred of Russians. I don’t get it because based on my personal experience and everything I read, I’d rank Russians up there with the Japanese and Irish in terms of likability and character.
“It’s fine that you believe that. But silly that people with your beliefs are critical of Ukrainians with their own weird beliefs, such as that Putin is somehow behind the Paris attacks…”
The things is, the idea that Putin is behind the attacks in Paris, is positively INSANE. The idea that Kiev is behind the shooting down of the Malaysian jetliner, makes perfect sense, from a purely cui bono perspective, plus there are some evidentiary strains which support that conclusion as well. But we’re supposed to PRETEND that its an insane thing to believe, because the Anglo-American Establishment press will insult us, if we don’t.
So does the idea of Putin being behind Paris.
“Human nature seems to have a great capacity for lunacy.”
Understandable if you think of psychopathy as a trait defined by a bell curve. That’s probably why the thin veneer of civilization is so thin – most people aren’t human yet.
Move it far enough right on the x-axis and everyone can be a full blown psychopath.
You’re embarrassing your parents by pretending to be a complete moron.
The moron is the one who insists that Putin doesn’t benefit from the Paris terrorism. He clearly does. Of course, this does not mean that he did it. When you grow up one day you’ll come to understand that just because someone benefited from something doesn’t mean that he necessarily caused it.
Not so clear to me. How exactly does Russia benefit by ‘sharing’ Syria with NATO? Are you assuming that NATO would go to war in Syria to help Russia rather than itself? A likelier explanation is that they want to grab as much of eastern Syria as possible before the Syrians themselves are able to retake it.
I posted it earlier but basically:
A Russian-Europe alliance would make it much more likely that sanctions would be dropped.
From one of the links AK provided:
“Russian MP and political analyst Sergey Markov (believed to have Putin’s ear) posted several messages on his FB page today calling upon France to now lead a “global anti-terrorist coalition, with the participation of the US and Russia, to crush the IS terrorist threat in Syria, Iraq and Lybia.” As an aside Markov urges the West to urgently end its conflict with Russia over Ukraine, to “replace the (Kyiv) junta with a technocratic government, rewrite (Ukraine’s) Constitution… The Kyiv junta is one of the main obstacles to joint action by the US, EU and Russia against terrorism.”
Most people are dumb. And gullible. Look at the percentage of Americans who believe in UFOs. Or the percentage of Americans in 2004 who believed Saddam was behind 9/11.
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.” — H.L. Mecken
I’m sure Russian invasions of Poland over the centuries were a lot of fun for the Poles. Also isn’t hostility toward the Japanese on the part of Chinese hard to understand? What’s a little thing like the rape of Nanking? Perhaps if you went on the internet and looked at the pictures of heaps of severed heads of Chinese people at Nanking you might lose some of your naivety.
I’ve never met a Russian I didn’t like. For me, a Pole, it’s really easy to befriend a Russian, to find a common language.
However….
There are three irritating characteristics in Russians
(1) We did nothing wrong. Russia was never agressors. We sacrifised ourselves for POles and you other ungrateful arseholes.
(2) You are Slavs like us, therefore you should join us.
(3) States are either great powers, or pawns. I mean, it may be truth, but Russians have a bad habit to openly state that Poland, Montenegro, San Marino are all in the same league for them.
Actually to think about that, Russians quite often have the same character as us, but exxagerated and it’s really irritating to see your own vices in other nation. Russians are like mirror reflecting all our vices.
…
Perfectly said.
“Does anybody outside of ukraine give a shit about ukraine?”
Obviously, Victoria Nuland does, or else she wouldn’t have spent $5 billion on Ukraine—oh, that’s right, it wasn’t her money. Other than her and her friends, I can’t think of one.
“Russians only care about Ukraine when there is something happening in Ukraine. ”
Not necessarily something happening in Ukraine, but someone occupying Ukraine. Much like the U.S. feels about Cuba. Generally speaking, Cuba does not affect U.S. national interests. But, as George Friedman of Stratfor, pointed out in a piece about a year ago, Cuba only matters to the U.S. when it is occupied by a powerful foreign power who could threaten sea borne commerce from New Orleans. http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2014/12/23/the_geopolitics_of_us-cuba_relations_110875-3.html An independent Cuba with its puny navy represents no threat at all to the U.S. I believe Putin feels the same way about Ukraine based on his comments. It was the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO and providing bases to the U.S. that made Ukraine a matter of concern to Russia and Putin. It would have been a gross dereliction of duty for Putin to allow one of the historical avenues of invasion to Russia be taken over by Russia’s enemy, the good old U.S.A.
“Most people are dumb. And gullible. Look at the percentage of Americans who believe in UFOs. Or the percentage of Americans in 2004 who believed Saddam was behind 9/11. ”
Or the percentage of Americans who believed that shit in 2008, even after GWB had stated that Saddam had no connection to 9/11.
at tbraton
” “Does anybody outside of ukraine give a shit about ukraine?”
Obviously, Victoria Nuland does, or else she wouldn’t have spent $5 billion on Ukraine—oh, that’s right, it wasn’t her money. “
V Nuland is nobody. And in the age of QE 5 bln USD is nothing.
I thing that is why the Russians are so angry and upset.
Literally nobody (who has ever heard of V Nuland before?) with nothing (what is 5 bln USD in age of QE) demolished V Putin.
V Putin invested all his power, money etc, to gain only some Ukrainian leftovers of Donb-Ass and Crimea that cause more trouble and are totally unprofitable.
And single-handedly Ms. Nobody V Nuland K.O. Russia.
Russia is toast if she lost with Ms Nobody V Nuland.
Demolished in what sense, moron?
at 5371
de·mol·ish (dĭ-mŏl′ĭsh)
tr.v. de·mol·ished, de·mol·ish·ing, de·mol·ish·es
3. To damage (someone’s reputation, for example) severely.
Total annihilation of Russian power, prestige and whatever was left from former glory.
Russia is relegated to status of Cambodia, Panama, Haiti that are dealt by American underunderunder-secretaries.
V Putin that rides on the bears and his tough FSB guys lost with Ms. Nobody V Nuland and a bunch of drunken Maidanists. What a humiliation!
Clearly, you are delusional. Or the news site stuff you are reading is delusional. Or maybe you are from another reality, where Germany is not groveling to Russia, Russia is operating in Syria, and US president is not personally talking with Putin every few months or even weeks…
Lol, our illiterate friend Aixa does inadvertently raise a curious point.
The Maidanites managed to accomplish the impossible – return Crimea back to Russia served on a golden platter. The Maidan has been a catastrophic strategic defeat for the Neocons (though not for America), and a Götterdämmerung for Ukraine.
The Neocons are not merely venal and truculent thugs. They are also incompetent meddlers.
Well let’s count who won and who lost.
Before
Germany was grovelling to Russia
France was grovelling to Russiar
Ukraine was Russian puppet state. 100% Russian.
After
Germany is grovelling to Russia. No difference. 0 points
France is grovelling to Russia. No difference. 0 points
Ukraine is anti-Russian American puppet state. 90% American.
Donb-Ass and Crimea are Russian. 10% Russia.
So we can count that Russian influence in Ukraine fell to 10% and American increased to 90%.
Clear victory for USA.
Regarding B Obama talking to V Putin. It means nothing if we do not
Disaster for Russia and total disaster for Ukraine. But who cares about Ukraine?
Regarding Russian involvement in Syria.
Russian involvement in Syria is only making new enemies of Russia (As if Russia had not enough of them). And just for nothing in return. What did Russia gain?
Russia starts to replace USA as the Great Satan among many Muslim nation of North Africa Middle East, South East Asia.
Officially Americans are outraged at Russia, but behind closed doors laugh at them as stupid Russian stooges.
I was honored that you responded to me with your sixth (6th) post on unz.com, until I read poster 5371 label you a “moron.” Now I don’t know what to think since I have had little experience dealing with with brain-impaired people.
I think you compute like the moron 5371 says you are. Let’s just focus on Ukraine. You credit America with 90 and Putin with 10. But stop and think–assuming you are capable of thinking. Before Putin’s move to secure Crimea, it appeared that Ukraine was likely to join NATO and give the U.S. a launching pad on Russia’s border and an important naval base in the Black Sea (which seems rather far from the North Atlantic). By making his move on Crimea and the Donbass, Putin made it impossible for Ukraine to join NATO since it was an internally divided country. Putin could give a shit about Ukraine other than as a buffer state, which Ukraine is today. So the U.S. and the EU got saddled with the expense of supporting an economic basket case, rump Ukraine, while Putin was freed of that burden. So the West is forced to pick up Ukraine’s bill for gas from Russia, or else Ukraine freezes its ass off. And you only give Putin a 10? I think 5371 called it right. You are a moron.
Nonsense. NATO was polling at 30% or below prior to the latest events. It’s above 50% now. Ukraine may have been headed for eventual EU membership and would have joined Greece and Serbia (if it joins) as relatively Russia-friendly powers within the EU. Now it’s another Poland, with respect to attitude towards Russia, and will be for at least a couple decades.
If Ukraine gets close enough to actual NATO membership that claims n Crimea would block membership, it would probably renounce claims on Crimea as a price worth paying for getting in.
Basically, Russia gained Crimea but lost Ukraine and a lot money through sanctions and lower oil prices.
Crimea is of enough importance that I don’t think a 90/10 “win” split is accurate, but it certainly isn’t a clear Putin win in Ukraine, either.
My favorites are those who pine for a deceased bloodthirsty rulers to run their lives.
For the benefit of those who, unlike you, don’t know that what you wrote is false – on the day after the Kiev coup, the junta was 100% likely to apply for NATO membership. And if Russia had just swallowed the coup, like hell NATO would have listened to any Russian protests and not admitted it to NATO.
Ruthenian (read Ukrainian) men were happy to sell their women to the Tatars and Ottomans of old for a few dinars and so I’m not surprised to see a Ukrainian-ISIS collabo. I always chuckle whenever I see manure-for-brains Kyiv Post readers parroting some nonsense about child eater Putin lurking under every Parisian bed while completely ignoring Ukrainian officials declaring their veneration of ISIS in a war against Moscalii. After all, did Banderite Ukrainians not find alliances with taqfiri Chechens handy in the 90s?
Ukraine is old news, Syria is getting all the attention now. It probably saddens the Maidan crowd and their ilk, but, deep inside, they know they’ll need to start shelling Donetsk again to reach the headlines. Then again, the Bandera crowd have always been known to go after minorities and the defenseless; whether they are Jews or Poles. Why else would they bomb Donbass babushkas instead of launching a fight against a real Russian army in Rostov, or dare I say, “occupied” Crimea? Even the most fanatic of the Azov toyboys would know they’ll get the current Raqqa treatment should they decide to play that game.
Ukraine’s chances of entering NATO are zilch, with or without Crimea. At least there’s some freedom of movement treaty out there which will allow Amsterdam brothels to be over saturated by some babes from the borderlands. Who needs to go to Kiev when you can Kiev on your street corner? 😉
The problem with your post is that the prostitution center of Ukraine (and probably Europe) was in the Donbas, which is no longer part of Ukraine. This isn’t my field of expertise, but from an expert:
http://exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=7573&IBLOCK_ID=35
There was no prostitution in the USSR for most of its existance. You’ve called yourself anti-Soviet. To those who remember the Soviet Union “anti-Soviet” means pro-corruption, pro-crime, pro-poverty, pro-drugs and pro-prostitution among other things. I prefer to judge political movements by their deeds and accomplishments.
I mean, if you ask ISIS what they’re about, they’ll start talking about God’s law, justice, etc. The image of medieval cruelty and savagery was formed by victims and outside observers, in other words by people judging ISIS on its accomplishments as opposed to its rhetoric.
The spread of prostitution was one of the accomplishments of the anti-Soviet crowd. Their talk of democracy is like ISIS’s talk of Allah’s mercy or the khalifate’s righteousness – empty PR.
Interesting how the most Soviet part of Ukraine became the most prostitution-heavy part of Ukraine after the Soviet collapse. The correlation between support for the Communist party and the HIV rate by oblast is rather high in Ukraine. Likewise for crime rate, drug use, etc. And it isn’t a rural thing either. Anti-communist Lviv is more urban than Luhansk, yet is has much less crime and HIV than does pro-commie Luhansk.
I’m sure there’s more prostitution among Swedes in Sweden than among Saudis in Saudi Arabia too. In the modern world first-worldish IQ levels are associated with secularism which is associated with the collpase of traditional values.
But there was this system, not even very long ago, in which high IQ levels and first-worldishness nicely coexisted with wholesomeness. And congratulations, you’re against it. The one societal setup in recent history that combined civilization, progress (reaching for the stars, literally) and tradition. That’s what you chose to be against for petty tribal reasons. Which is pretty normal. It’s unusual to care about civilization in general – that’s one of the reasons why it’s in such a decline now, one of the reasons why it will probably die in a few generations.
My own mention of Saudi Arabia just now reminded me of the preposterousness of your comparisons of the Donbass to it. OPEC is a cartel. Saudi Arabia sells oil at many times the production price. It’s almsot like DeBeers and diamonds, an industry with a highly unusual degree of monopolism and price fixing. There’s no cartel in the coal business. The prices in it are determined by the market. So Donbass’s money was earned. With smarts and hard work.
Should I remind you of Poland’s IQ level? Galicia is more like Poland than like Saudi Arabia.
And clearly Lviv people have a higher IQ than Luhansk people. Compare % of university-educated people, ranking of universities, academic publications, chess-champions, etc. High IQ peopel tend to live in well-organized pleasant places.
I know you believe the USSR was a traditional society. Because apparently militant atheism, class-based affirmative action, destruction of the countryside/peasantry/rural culture are “traditional” in your world. North Korea must also be very “traditional” and “conservative” according to you.
Donbas’ money was made by coal being valuable. Hard work, sure, but smarts? You think a coal miner is smarter than a farmer? What if the price of coal collapsed. You think Donbas would then be wealthier than other regions? Or that clever Donbas people set the world’s coal price? Donbas cities were poorly organized, unpleasant places before the war. Smart people don’t live like Detroiters.
Western Ukraine isn’t an intellectual powerhouse.
http://kashin.guru/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Nauka_Ukrainy-2.jpg
I know you believe the USSR was a traditional society. Because apparently militant atheism, class-based affirmative action, destruction of the countryside/peasantry/rural culture are “traditional” in your world. North Korea must also be very “traditional” and “conservative” according to you.
The atheism ceased being militant (i.e violent) sometime in the 1930s, even before the 1943 “concordate”. Class-based affirmative action disappeared in the 1930s too. The collectivization campaign started in 1928 and went on for a few years.
You’re deliberately conflating pre-war USSR and post-war USSR. It’s dishonest. They were opposites. What you’re doing is a cheap trick. Western propagandists deliberately conflate 1990s oligarchy with Putinism, calling his regime oligarchic – same kind of dishonesty. He decreased the power of the oligarchs while Western media fawns over Khodorkovsky. The junta you support is more like the violent pre-war USSR. Putin’s Russia is more like the post-WWII USSR. At least it’s moving on that direction.
In other words you support the same kind of forces that produced all the horrors that you listed in the above quote. The privatisation of the 1990s was exactly like collectivization. Why do crooks rob banks? ‘Cause that’s where the money is. By the 1990s most of the Soviet economy was industrial, so that’s what the oligarchic scum destroyed instead.
Supporters of a violent oligarchic junta which represents the same exact forces that ruled the early USSR have no business decrying the early USSR’s crimes. Your “revolution” is exactly like Lenin’s and Trotsky’s “revolution”, the SBU’s blue-and-yellow terror is like the Cheka’s red terror, the junta’s civil war is like the Reds’ civil war, etc. The past and future pre-lootisations are exactly like the Boosheviks’ collectivization, with a comparable number of victims.
I don’t know if anyone’s ever compared the 1980s and 1990s death rates, of anyone’s ever done any statistical work on this. The number of extra deaths must have been in the millions. And the junta will surely redouble its efforts on that front.
Should I remind you of Poland’s IQ level? Galicia is more like Poland than like Saudi Arabia
Galicians aren’t like Poles. They had a serf-master relationship with them and then they slaughtered them the way that all third-worldish peasants always dream of slaughtering their masters. It reminds one of decolonization. Algerians and the French – that sort of dynamic. And their subsequent hatred of the Russians was likely of the same sort. Envy. It’s just that the Donbass War did not present many opportunities for massacres. It was full of battles instead. One had to risk one’s life, work in teams. Third-worldish peasants don’t do that.
There’s no magic out there. Individuals and groups become serfs, servants and masters for factual reasons. Reality isn’t nice.
There are so many things pointing in the same direction. If Ukrainian-speaking Ukraininas were smarter than the Russian-speaking sort, no government coercion would have been required to spread Ukrainian. It would have won through prestige alone, even if the coercion went the other way. In reality there is pro-Ukrainian coercion and no spread. And being a native Russian speaker I know what Ukrainian sounds like to everyone in the region – it’s the sound of rural uncouthness. Which is a cruel, uncivil thing to say, but true. And there’s a reason for this stereotype too.
North Korea must also be very “traditional” and “conservative” according to you.
It is.
The two Galician oblasts, Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk, are shaded the same as Donbas and Dnipropetrovsk. I wonder how legitimate the publications are in Donbas? Yanukovich was a “proffessor,” after all.
Lviv oblast is only behind Kharkiv oblast and Kiev City in terms of % of population with higher education. It has two of the top ten ranked universities in the country (and the only city other than Kiev to have more than one):
http://www.4icu.org/ua/
It’s also Ukraine’s per capita IT leader. Programming and tech startups probably require more IQ than mining coal? One’s biases must be strong indeed to lead one to believe that Donbas is more intelligent than Lviv.
You don’t think it was easier for a prole kid to get ahead post-1930’s?
You don’t think the countryside was collectivised after the war? Kolkhosps didn’t exist then?
Of course once everything was collectivized, collectivization ceased (though it went on through the late 40s and early 50s in western Ukriane and Belarus).
The latter was the result of the former. Once everyone who needed to be killed to achieve the latter was killed, mass killings ceased. Once society was fundamentally transformed, further transformations were unnecessary. Judgement of whether society was more traditional depends on how close to was to pre-Revolutionary Russia. 1920’s Russia was thus more traditional than 1980s Russia.
I don’t recall millions of people starving to death, literally, in the 1990s.
The parallels to the USSR do make some sense. Everything was stolen and divided in the 90s, the thefts were consolidated, and the system was stabilized under Putin. But it’s not like the old Soviet elite returned (it was not some sort of counterrevolution).
“Oligarchic junta” came to power in a revolution supported by the masses, particularly in the most traditional parts of the country. Bolsheviks came to power with the opposite base. “Oligarchic junta” overthrew an oligarch who was even worse than they were. Bolsheviks overthrew the legitimate tsar. Are you seriously comparing Yanukovich’s “Family” to the Romanovs?
Probably 85% of Poles were also serfs and slaughtered their masters when given the opportunity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galician_slaughter
About 5% of Galicians were nobles, compared to about 10% of Poles. Not enough differences to be reflected average IQ results for the entire population much.
Despite its history of serfdom, Poland’s average IQ is the same as Germany’s and Sweden’s.
Finns and Swedes is a closer analogy. Both groups have identical average IQs. Western Ukrainians don’t have a reputation in Poland of being dummies.
Now you are engaging in a cheap trick. You are conflating urban Ukrainian-speakers from Lviv with rural ones from villages outside Kiev or other areas.
If the region is one where the town is Russian-speaking but villages are Ukrainian-speaking, sure. So? What does it have to do with Galicia?
“Government coersion” is generally required to get people to switch languages. It was required to Russify people in the early 20th century.
This assertion reflects your misunderstanding of what conservatism is. You seem to equate it with being things such as “strict,” “harsh,” or “moralistic.” Instead, it is simply traditional, with changes over time having a slow evolutionary nature rather than a revolutionary one. For this reason you erroneously consider the Puritans who overthrew and killed their King and who tried to change society (by limiting theater, etc.) to have been “conservative” when in reality the Cavaliers rather than Cromwell were the conservative ones in that conflict. You probably believe that banning alcohol was a conservative thing to do. The relatively tolerant Hapsburg monarchy was conservative; the repressive Nazi and fascist regimes were not. Conservative Russia had room for artistic experimentation; Stalinist Russia did not. NEP was a relatively conservative policy, as it left some old traditions intact. Collectivization was not. A collectivized society is not a conservative one; neither is radical Puritan one. I suspect there was more prostitution in Tsarist Russia than in the USSR. Does that mean Tsarist Russia was less conservative?
There are different ways of veering from tradition. Secular liberalism is one way. Bolshevism is another way. Each is untraditional differently. Post-war Bolshevism preserved respect for intact families and eschewed open promiscuity in a way that the West (at least, after the mid-sixties) did not, particularly beyond the lower classes. It also preserved a sort of rigid respect for high cultural forms. OTOH, its atheism, lack of private property, dominance of a Party created in the 19th century to destroy the old order, rigid adherence to communist-materialist ideology, widespread abortion, glorification and elevation of working classes combined with ridicule of traditional authority such as the Church, change of holidays such as New Year’s at the expense of Christmas, etc. were deeply untraditional so that, on balance, Soviet society was hardly conservative.
I’m not an expert of Asian history, but I suspect that South Korea has retained many more traditions and thus is much more conservative than North Korea, just as Taiwan is more conservative than Red China.
Peter Frost, a blogger who appears in the Unz Review, has documented the race replacement that’s going on in South Korea. They’re importing large numbers of foreigners as cheap labor and mail-order brides. Frost cited poll numbers that showed how South Koreans’ understanding of Koreanness has changed over time. The lefty Western view that ethnicity doesn’t matter and that anyone can become anything has gained a lot of ground there.
North Korea describes this as a tragedy and an outrage. They have a racialist ideology. If you want details, just search Frost’s blog/column for “Korea”.
I’m pretty rootless myself, but even I don’t want to see a homogenized world. I’d consider it a tragedy if Koreans were assimilated away, disappeared forever.
As for the cult of personality, I don’t even worship any Gods, so the worship of men looks silly to me. But that’s East Asian culture. Mao and Chang Kai Shek were worshiped, Chinese emperors were worshiped, as were Japanese emperors before WWII. Filial piety, the veneration of teachers by students and apprentices are parts of the same phenomenon. This sort of thing comes naturally to East Asians, recurs by itself whenever they’re left alone. As long as they don’t impose it on the rest of the world, I’m fine with it.
“on balance, Soviet society was hardly conservative.”
I think you’re wrong about that.