Up until very recently, Russia was viewed more favorably by the Liberals/Left than conservatives in the US.
Many of the conservatives were people who had grown up at the height of the Cold War, saw the letters KGB in Putin’s eyes like McCain, and tended to suffer from a bad case of your brain on Judeo-Christian values.
All things considered, the Liberals/Left were a bit… less unhinged.
But in the past year, the situation has cardinally reversed itself.
Now, a more recent NBC News poll confirms this trend:
There are several possible reasons for this:
(1) There is the direct influence of Trump himself, who is exceptionally pro-Russian – in the American political context, one is almost tempted to say irrationally (as he himself recognizes: “I know politically it’s probably not good for me“).
(2) I suspect that the blatant Trump Derangement Syndrome of the mainstream media has perhaps made some more introspective conservatives ask just how fair their media has been to Russia all these years. It helps, of course, that Putin Derangement Syndrome is closely associated with TDS, if not approaching outright convergence with it, as Patrick Armstrong suggests:
Since Trump was inaugurated on 20 January, I have noticed that Putin Derangement Syndrome is being pushed aside in the punditry by a crescendo of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Just as Putin has been diagnosed at a distance, so has he: “Is Donald Trump Mentally Ill? 3 Professors Of Psychiatry Ask President Obama To Conduct ‘A Full Medical And Neuropsychiatric Evaluation’” and his signature gives cause for concern. “As Trump prepares his kissy face for Putin, a glimpse into the dictator’s soul“. PDS is replete with such remote sensing of Putin’s inner self. The student of PDS will recognise the magazine covers about Trump of which the standout is Der Spiegel’s (no small purveyor of PDS itself) showing Trump decapitating Lady Liberty à la Daesh. Since under-estimating Trump was so successful, why not continue to? Some writer thinks he’s just a puppet of Steve Bannon. But maybe they’re converging: “Manchurian Presidency: Why Angry White America Fell for Putin“. But the most beautiful example of convergence, one that brings everything together is: “The Russian ‘philosopher’ who links Putin, Bannon, Turkey: Alexander Dugin“!
(3) Russia itself has become markedly more conservative since 2012, if more in official rhetoric than reality. Then again, it’s not like young Trumpists are particularly hardcore social conservatives either. Which brings us to the last point:
(4) Most interestingly, and this is a new finding, the NBC poll reveals that there is a YUGE gap in attitudes towards Russia between young and old Republicans – that is, between the New Right/”Alt Right” (e.g. at /r/The_Donald) and the crusty Cold Warriors.
An amazing 73% of 18-29 year old Republicans view Russia as friendly or an ally, whereas almost the exact same number – 69% – view it as unfriendly or an enemy amongst 65+ year old Republicans.
But the crusty Cold Warriors are steadily dying off, and as this happens, we are returning to the more stable and traditional pattern of Western attitudes towards Russia after the abberation of the Soviet period.
For if you take the long historical view it is the Liberals/Left who have historically been far less enamored ofRussia.
Who talked of the “gendarme of Europe” and “prison of peoples” in 19th century political discourse? Socialists, not conservatives. Marx had very little good to say about Russia and Eastern Europe in general, the idea being that the advanced Western nations were the only ones of interest from a Communist revolutionary perspective. (Though he did modify this view somewhat towards the end of his life).
Early Russian Eurasianist philosopher Nikolay Trubetzkoy makes the same point.
In stark contrast to the situation even just a few years ago, the Russophobia/Russophilia spectrum now runs from the “militant cosmopolitanism” of European socialism (which today is homosexualist neocon SJWism of the Kirchick sort), to the outright Russophilia of a large part of the Alt Right and neoreaction.
Hell, anyone who stands up to the liberal POZ is a hero.
I’m a Cold Warrior who was overjoyed that Russians decided to rid themselves of the communist system. I wasn’t overjoyed at Wall Street carpetbaggers in collusion with oligarchs or the economic destruction of ordinary Russians that followed.
Because of a century of propaganda, people tend to think of Barbarossa as an expression of that bogeyman the militaristic Prussian Junker. One should instead think of it as an expression of the liberal democratic German tradition.
There is absolutely no reason for Russia and the US to be in conflict, and Putin is an enemy of the globalist billionaires and their handmaidens in the Deep State. What’s not to like?
Anatoly,
I wish Russia and its citizenry all the best. In this I believe that I am joined by all of my fellow American Paleoconservatives.
The MSM is in lock step with American liberals in its visceral antipathy towards Russia.
There seems to be at least one exception to this liberal antipathy in the form of Steve Cohen, Russian History Emeritus Professor at Princeton and NYU, in conjunction with the Nation magazine which is published by his wife.
Could anyone clue me in why the Nation and Cohen are so out of lock step with prevailing liberal sensibilities since I regard them both as quintessential liberals? Is that because they are the last vestiges of Bolshevism?
the split amongst Republicans is understandable in terms here presented. The split in Dems is because of their propaganda, most recently with regard to the election and the attempt to smear Trump and Russia. It’s the jews all over again.
Fred
Everyone loves Barbarossa. It’s his horrible grandson we can’t stand and associate with the worst traditions of Germany — despite the fact he probably picked them up in Sicily.
There is another very dividing line: between the smart and informed people who value understanding reality as it is, and the people who either don’t get it, or in the case of Russia or Trump, simply don’t care about the truth and reality because emotionally they just want to be against them. Steven Cohen falls into the first group, he seems to care about knowing and understanding more than about his liberal instincts.
Emotions and intellectual laziness, combined with some self-interest among the journalists and paid for intellectuals, have created a court milieu in the American public life – so we have a long way down. The anomaly is the new unexpected royal, Trump, who technically presides over this court, but is almost completely surrounded and overwhelmed by it. Usually, in those cases in history the king was ‘removed’, or he had to turn to some extreme measures to assert his power and influence. Both scenarios are ugly. With the added element of a potential nuclear escalation as a side effect to these court political games, we are n for some turbulence. Cohen sees it so he warns us. But it is a voice in the wilderness.
Every time I see these huge shifts in public opinion on foreign countries, perfectly in line with what the opinion shift led by their political/media elites, I think: dang, normies are conformist.
I suppose it is better that way!
Well, there is no Left to speak of in the US, and those few who do deserve being called ‘Left’ probably don’t have any any particular aversion to Russia.
As for the liberals, they appear to be totally off the reservation these days; yeah: the Trump derangement syndrome. But how long can it go on for, even with the massive incitement campaign by the media? It’ll calm down, I hope, and hopefully before it turns into a shooting war.
I did write it, you know, not him.
I have never read a definitive treatise regarding how much the western democracies, including the US, invasion of Russia during the 1917-18 revolution influenced history; Russian and the world. Without addressing that issue the West will relive the dismal Russophobia/philia dance forever.
http://robertmagill.wordpress.com
I don’t know about that, Fredric II seems to have a lot of admirers (stupor mundi and all that, and there’s that famous book by Ernst Kantorowicz about him which was quite influential). Personally, I’d agree though that he was an unpleasant despot (e.g. he brutally crushed the Sicilian cities’ desire for autonomy). But despots are attractive to many people inclined to hero-worship.
You’ve confused the libs’/left’s love for the good old godless Soviet Union for an affinity with an increasingly conservative, values-valuing CHRISTIAN Russia.
I’m an old Cold Warrior, and I can tell that Putin’s Russia is decidedly not my or my father’s old Soviet Union.
Those numbers for 18-29 are truly shocking. I don’t buy that this is merely normalization after an abiding Soviet era. For consider that the main organs of the right have been more hostile to Russia and continues to be then the left. This tells me that Alt-Right is right in saying that they are influencing the younger Republicans/conservatives. How else we do explain, not merely lack of antipathy, but outright sympathy with Russia?
Even more encouraging is that the support for Russia precedes Trump/Alt Right ascendancy since it began rising from January 2015 well before Trump came on the scene. This suggests something more organic is going on then merely jumping on the Trump bandwagon. The question is what is driving russophillia among the young?
The best explanation is that Putin has successfully marketed Russia as a reaction to the current left-right liberal multicultural hegemony. I suspect it is mostly Russia as a symbolic bulwark that matters. Have to say I didn’t think this Putin ploy would work outside of the older paleo-cons and the then obscure Alt Right but it certainly seems that way. Would love to see the same generational poll from a year or two ago to see if it is indeed the young that have been driving this pro-Russian support.
Still waiting for the ravens to stop flying.
Thank the insane communist left Democrats, the MSM and RINO’s in congress (McCain, Graham, other) on their 3 letter agency payrolls for creating the absurd smoke and mirrors Russian phobia.
These Anti-American groups are out of business without total control and without wars and they know it.
Hang tough they are on life support. Pro-America must pull the plug on these dying institutions.
I think the main reason that Russia is such an easy enemy for the liberals is that is a mostly white country. By liberals I include the likes of McCain and other cuckservatives as well, not just the typical leftist person that would instinctively support BLM and #OscarsSoWhite. Imagine for a moment if China was being demonized as much as Russia (there are some that try, but it does not gain big support) and some Chinese Americans held protests saying things like “No more racist wars”, McCain and his gang would fold in nanoseconds against such slogans, obviously such protests can not be done by Russians.
This race issue is also why tv shows like “The Americans” (about Russian spies pretending to be American) can be made, but a tv show about Chinese living in America being loyal to China and not America could never ever be made, the outcry would be huge.
Alas, that destruction continues. Putin was put in place because the oligarchs thought him controllable. Putin fooled them all, but he’s as much on the take as the rest of them.
Russia is certainly not Christian. Putin is using the Russian orthodox Church as Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and Stalin did.
The Cold War was a scam..lie…The Soviet Union posed no threat to millions of Ordinary Working Class Native Born White Americans. JFK was a mortal…fatal…existential threat to the continued existence of The Historic Native Born White American Working Class Majority….JFKs legacy the demographic extermination of The Historic Native Born White American Nation.
Nov 29, 2016 The Map That Shows Why Russia Fears War With USA
https://youtu.be/L6hIlfHWaGU
I also think this, the East/West conflict was not the significant event during that time, it was the North/South contest. By “South” I mean the third world and how it will end up taking over the West. The last US president, the loss of Paris, London, etc. all indicate how it was the global South that triumphed while most of the whites wanted to pretend this was not a problem and instead play James Bond.
There were very few during that time that noted what the main issue was, the most notable that comes to mind is Raspail and his Camp of the Saints, but it seems that most were truly concerned with the Cold War scam and seemed to be completely unaware who was truly changing their nation.
Most all the comments are correct, but to simplify it in Orwellian terms, here’s the left’s rule of thumb:
Communist Russia = good
Non-communist Russia = bad
Those of us on the real right see it as the opposite, of course.
JFK AND BOBBY inflicted integration and busing on The Native Born White American Working Class at the end of a m-15 barrel…..yet the Girly Boy JFK worshippers keep their JFK posters glued to the wall….whatever do the JFK worshippers use to glue their JFK poster boy posters onto the wall with…YIKES!!!!
Those of us on the real right see the Cold War as a military industrial complex scam-can0n-fodder racket..
And we don’t worship Fairy Tale Princes and Princes such as The Ramanovs and Kennedy Clan…
Blame the corrupt and incompetent Czar for Military defeat at the hands of the Jap Bastards…
The Democrats hate Putin and fear Russia because Hillary told them too. They also hate Trump and white Americans. They hate Christians and heterosexuals. They hate democracy and freedom of speech. They hate American history and American borders. They love Muslim immigrants but also love to murder Muslims in Muslim countries. Fear and loathing is who they are.
Putin checkmated the neocons in Syria and then Crimea.
These people are not pleased.
It also has become the strategy of the color revolution in America to try and delegitimize the election on the fabricated Russia boogeyman.
All this graph shows is that many Republicans are intellectually defenseless against well funded propaganda.
Interesting the dem/rep disparity tho. Worth investigating.
Neocon ideologies have sway I guess.
What’s with ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in this context? What do you care if Russia is communist or not? Isn’t it actually good to have a competing socioeconomic model? To keep one’s own model sharp you know…
Short and sweet. Putin more or less put a stop to the oligarchs and the carpet bagging. That’s why he is popular.
It is hard to be neutral to JFK. Anyone who has read US history of that time, is knowing he had feet of clay, made many problems politically, big-time philanderer privately.
At least, he really was a war hero for your side, I don’t recall the medical term in English, but his time in the ocean (not on) as a patrol-boat commander was very bad for his back, already not too good.
I am very cynical about his poltical legend, but very sure that he was very brave at that time, and no matter his poor morality, did not deserve death the way he (did not because brain dead by then) experienced it. He would have had some conscious moments of shock and dismay, between the first and later bullets.
Of course, we are all supposed to believe the single gun theory, but even if Oswald fired the first, there is no way he would be able to reload for the next in time, given the weapon he was using, and the direction is impossible.
Over ten years ago, there was a free PC simulation ‘JFK Reloaded’, Caroline Kennedy had it taken down in many (all?) places. The idea was to give a prize to anybody who made the single-gun, single-bullet realistic.
Noone ever did.
Caroline Kennedy’s appeal had it taken out.
Since they used a PD 3D engine, it was easy to hack, many wiid parodies were posted (mechanimation).
JFK was a cockroach…I quite enjoy the Zabruder Film with popcorn and a sixpack
JFK instigated the CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS and escalated the Vietnam War(gave the green light to create the DEATH SQUADRON known as the Green Berets)
JFK had no redeeming qualities…0..
Take down those JFK pinups!!!…sanitize your wall…with Lysol!!!
I also am a military veteran and former Cold warrior who exulted in the end of the Cold War that had begun in earnest 2 years after I was born. Today there is no way around the conclusion that the United States Government, whether from inertia, habit, invincible hubris, ignorance, stupidity or greed, has us teetering at the very edge of having completely blown the peace. The neo-con right are a bunch of clowns; the ridiculous left are political opportunists who will revert to form in a New York minute if, God forbid, Russia so much as sneezes in our direction. Big talkers all just so long as the military risk is being borne by the .01% drawn mostly from the ‘undesirables.’
How embarrassing is it that the DC political hacks leading the way towards the abyss are geriatric losers that resemble no one so much as Leonid Brezhnev or Konstantin Chernenko. I would not believe it possible except that we are living it. Appalling.
JFK wasn’t any less of a Cold Warrior after the Cuban Missile Crisis…that’s for sure…
JFK TRUTHER MOVEMENT=”pure innocent tanned JFK…”
JFK was fully aligned with the WASP Bush Family on risking nuclear WW3 with the Soviets…..
and killing…burning…maiming the Vietnamese Civilian Population…
“But the crusty Cold Warriors are steadily dying off…”
I was 37 when the Wall came down and it made me very happy. Unfortunately, many of those who spent their academic years and US foreign policy careers preparing for conflict with the USSR (which they now believe is Russia), were not so happy and are continually trying to stick pins in Putin and provoke Russia into an aggressive move so as to bring back the Cold War – or start a new hot war. But I don’t want these ‘crusty’ ones to die; I just want them to fade away.
Trump is not pro Putin. Trump is a nationalist. Trump is also a sane person, He realizes that none of the CIA attempts to diminish Russia, resulted in opposite. And the opposite means growing in Russia’s strength and influence. The cases of Georgia Ukraine and Syria attest to it.
I do have a suspicion that CIA is under influence of Mosad, because all attempts of Trump gaining control over CIA have failed miserably.
Yes, like I said before with my anecdotal example, one Sonny Hostin, a shitlib host on The View, screams that Russia IS the enemy. She has, among many things, Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Sorry! “Invasion” Was during civil war Whites against Reds. US was bringing weapons to Whites at Siberian ports. Eventually on request of Whites Americans Brought in four ships with soldiers.
That was at the time when Reds finished Trans Siberian Railway.
Reds quickly reinforced by railway Siberian regiments. Not many soldiers survived.
Back in the Cold War days it used to annoy me to hear people referring to the USSR as “Russia.” Now at least, “Russia” has been decoupled from the other states/provinces which comprised the old USSR, most of which, Byelorussia (now known as “Belarus” and the Ukraine excepted, weren’t even ethnically Slavic. Like it or not, Russia remains a major force in the world (just as Tocqueville predicted 170 years ago) and their military capacity remains formidable–a fact which the anti-Putin crowd seems to have conveniently forgotten.
May I suggest this:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/graves/1931/siberian-adventure/
American conservatism during the cold war was anti-Bolshevik, but not anti-Russian.
That is why a Russian national conservative such as Solzhenitsyn received such a warm welcome from American conservatives.
The problem is, the old Republicans have been reading neocon propaganda rags like National Review and The Wall Street Journal for 25 years, and watching Fox News. They forget that Reagan was never anti-Russian.
There is no political, historical, and even social continuity between American Liberalism and European Socialism. Barack Obama is basically a slightly more right wing version of David Cameron. The Hillary Clinton of 2006 wouldn’t be out of place in Germanys Christian Social Union.
US being a two-party regime, instead of multi-party, led to odd coalitions. Wilsonian crackdown of American socialists after WWI left the latter dependent on Soviet subordination (or adversarial satellite status) because of its funds and prestige and Soviet subordination led to tie-in with the Democrats via the Popular Front ideology, which staying after pro-Soviet forces were smashed by those very same Democrats after WWII. But in no time were the Democrats anything but the preferred party of rule of Americas oligarchy. That lefties hang out on the edges of Democratic plutocrats NGOs doesnt make the partys majority Socialist anymore than Republicans are Nazis.
Nothing to do with the Socialism of a Marx or Bakunin, or even the Fabian Society (as origionally intended). Notice when loons like Bernie Sanders say “socialism” they mean Scandanavia. An irony since calling those countries “socialist” used to be confined to the Scandanavian far-right and not the regions socialists and soc-dems. And a farce since countries like Sweeden are at the fore-front of economic/social liberalization (anti-socialist policies), as well as other things Dems dont like such as harsh drug policies/etc.
As for Eurocrats left-wing past – its guilt by past association. Plenty of euro conservatives and fascist used to be left-wing too. Nobody in Brussels gives a shit about socialism including members of Socialist parties (they say so themselves).
Well, yeah, because they are (or used to be anyway, till the last elections) the smart right-wing party; the other, the Republican party, being the stupid right-wing party in this sorry duopoly.
This seems about right and why not? Putin’s emerging image is that of someone looking out for the interests of the Russians and who works on their behalf. Then people start thinking about on whose behalf our own western leadership seem to be working and the contrast starts looking sharper. The Russians are no longer seen as trying to promote an ideology that might cause instability elsewhere but are more focused on themselves and their surrounding areas in a defensive manner. Their diplomacy sounds reasonable to most people. The Dems/libs are just going along with the official propaganda line which has been hammered at relentlessly to the point of absurdity. Much of this is probably pretty fragile. If the propaganda tsunami doesn’t gain enough traction then there’s a real possibility they’ll take it to the next step which would be to engineer a public opinion shift through underhanded means by way of manufacturing an ‘incident’ or staging a false flag event. Gulf of Tonkin ‘incident’ was a way of getting a lot of people on board without having to engage in a long public relations campaign so there’s always that danger lurking in the background.
Russia stops the US doing whatever it likes, and America doesn’t like that. Also vice versa. It is correct perception rather than ideological blinkers that lies behind the hostility. President Trump will become increasingly annoyed with Putin, it is inevitable.
Bullshit…the Reagan Administration stole a 12 year old Russian boy from his Russian Family.
How do you define hate?…If you define by how many times the Reagan Administration nearly started nuclear war over its anti- Commie crusade…the hate was mighty deep.
The Reagan Administration was a freak show coalition of end-time-rapture-Evangelicals-Jew Neocons-homosexual pedophiles in the inner core of the Whitehouse.
LOL. Talk about being delusional. As per Solzhenitsyn “argument”, for crying out loud, leave this self-proclaimed “consciousness of Russia” alone, let him fade into obscurity where he truly belongs. It will not be the worst fate for his name.
The Cold War Anti-Commie-Anti-Ruskie Crusade!!!!=USMC Native Born White American Working Class Teenage Male Canon Fodder using extreme violence to homo-pedophile norm socially-culturally conservative Vietnam for Bush appointed homosexual-pedophile Log Cabin Judicial Activist Judges in bow ties….so they can go on Gay tourism trips to homo-pedophile normed Vietnam with their SF gay hairdresser husbands…
Dugin is the heir to Solzhenitsyn. If Solzhenitsyn were in his prime today, spouting his semi-mystical hard Russian nationalism, he would be held up as an example of why the West must be the enemy of Russia. He was the West’s darling only for the sake of convenience.
Yep, both are (were) incompetent. Dugin as a “thinker” is a joke. Having said that: the so called “West” has no clue about Russia. Most of West’s political “elites” are imbeciles.
IMO what we saw under the Obama Administration was Democratic “liberals” getting sold on the messianic version of neoconservativism, that sees the rest of the world as too stupid to know what is good for themselves and needs us to meddle for their own good. Those who follow that view gravitated towards Hillary and those who are skeptical of it were repulsed by her. One thing anybody with any observational powers and awareness can see is that Putin’s role in cleaning up the mess that the Obama/Hillary team made in Iraq and Syria has been vital. Trump takes the commonsense role of accepting Russia as a partner in that region; Democrats are still sold on the idea that unicorns with allegiance to American liberal ideals will appear from…….. somewhere…… Saudia Arabia? Turkey?
He stopped being the West’s darling once he came over here and people started actually listening to what he had to say.
It may be easy and fashionable to denounce those with opinions one dislikes as “incompetent”, but the act does not itself give any impression of “competence”.
Dear Mr. Karlin,
The USA has failed itself and the world with its forays into empire , belligerent war… and global domination.
This is a supreme tragedy for a nation that once enjoyed nearly universal admiration (as well as a very prodigious balance sheet) .
As our country’s ”stock” has fallen precipitously , so too has Russia’s risen. Russia is now seen by the bulk of the world as the flagship super power possessing a rare intelligence, a respect for international law and an authentic moral compass.
We are seen, now, by the world,(especially after the Iraq, Libya,and Syria fiasco’s) as not much better than a duplicitous fraud and a big bully.
Our grotesque failures in the middle east have not only betrayed the fundamental decency of all Americans, they have betrayed our status as the most envied nation on the planet.
Despite our media’s enormous power to insulate us from the horrendous crimes we have committed (crimes for which they have been wholly complicit in coercing us to commit) ….the truth of the matter does, with time, get through.
The United States of America is now held in contempt by most of the countries of the world.
Who can blame them ?
How could we have fallen so far, so fast, Mr. Karlin ?
How could a nation with the greatest economy ever created, the most extraordinary constitution ever envisioned , and the finest military on the planet, destroy itself in a mere sixteen years ?
It is shocking to us all, isn’t it ?
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/320927-arms-control-groups-slam-trumps-alternative-facts-on-nukes
What is this I don’t even.
The “Missile Gap” repeats itself, first as a bad farce, then as utter farce, possibly with a laugh track.
I wonder how the cleanup in Hanford is progressing?
In one of my alternative lives (more than one alternative? Yes, I suppose B,C and D can each be an alternative to A. [Pedant’s note]) I shall endow essay prizes for people with the time to contribute to UR threads. Your comment suggests a title:
“The Dangers of Misweighted Incommensurables Passionately Believed In – How to tell that incommensurables are being dangerously weighted”.
“Well it seemed like a good idea at the time” – amiably called the “streaker’s defence” when the Labor Attorney-General, later Foreign Minister, used it as his explanation for a misjudged Air Force surveillance flight to see what the Tasmainan state government was doing in a World Heritage wilderness area where there was a damable river…..
You’ve left off a letter. Did you mean a “dammable river”, or a “damnable river”?
Even during the Cold War, I never had an unfavorable view of Russia. I felt at the time that Soviet communism, which Russians endured rather than embraced, was understood by them not as an economic or social system, but as an ad hoc bulwark against Western decadence. The ravages of communism were accepted within a hermeneutic of “shared sacrifice” on behalf of the people and the mother country. I greatly admired the Russians for this, as I felt keenly the lack of any similar spirit here in America.
I feel the same way today about North Korea.
Oligarchs have been doing great with Putin as president or PM. He essentially serves the oligarchic system.
Putin’s relationship to the oligarchs is analogous to, say, the relationship between the NFL commissioner and NFL team owners. He manages the system for their benefit, occasionally penalizes those who step out of line or threaten the entire system, but ultimately works for the owners for the purpose of making the system work best for them. Doing so effectively has positive benefits for the Russian people (just as, a successful NFL commissioner in effectively serving the owners also provides a good product for fans/consumers) – the people share in some of the prosperity, resulting in their being satisfied, and the state is stable and well-managed. The nihilistic free-for-all of the 90s could have ended in revolution or descended into bloody struggles over power, resources and wealth. This would have been bad for the oligarchs, and for the Russian people. Instead, with a loyal and skillful manager in charge, everything runs more or less smoothly and most people are pleased.
The image of Putin as someone who crushed the oligarchs is basically just PR.
As for Russia being conservative – there is probably a difference between “conservative” and “old-fashioned.” Although this is improving, Russia still has the the top (or at best, is in second place) abortion rate in the world, it has the highest HIV and homicide rates among white countries, it has one of the world’s highest divorce rates, and the religious revival has merely brought church-going rates up to the level of western European countries like Sweden or Germany. These are not behaviors one would associate with conservatism.
But Russia has no sympathy for gays, values traditional gender expressions (feminine women and masculine men), has retained respect for classical arts, has no time for some anti-Christian or anti-Western “moral” crusading and self-hatred, and still engages in vices that have declined elsewhere, such as smoking (Russia is one of the world’s top per capita consumers of cigarettes). So it is old-fashioned.
As I wrote before, Russia can in some ways be compared to a gangster of the 50s – he is violent, cavorts with prostitutes, makes his girlfriend get an abortion, doesn’t go to church (but expresses respect for it), engages in bribery, can appreciate an opera. I’m not sure if this exactly ought to be a role model for American conservatives. There is a European country that is both conservative and old-fashioned – Poland.
He neither crushed the oligarchs nor does he serve oligarchs. What he’s done is removing oligarchs from politics, foreign and domestic. A big part of which was preventing them from owning major media outlets (which of course is the case – and a huge problem – in the US and the west in general).
This way while oligarchs do exist and may even prosper, the political system stops being oligarchical, and national interests can be pursued. Or, at least, this is the basic idea; obviously in the end everything is a balancing act.
To understand a country better, ask the neighbors.
To see Russia more objectively, ask Finland, the
Baltic countries, Poland, and Ukraine. You won’t get
a condemnation but you won’t get too many complimentary
opinions either. I’d have a higher opinion of Russia if it had
a tradition of democracy (even illiberal one), rule of law,
respect for private property, and a low murder rate. But
it doesn’t. I’m sure that the harshness of the climate,
the sorry legacy of the Mongol rule, and the enormous
distance from the European centers of civilization all
have a depressing effect on Russia.
Marx (and I’m not a fan of Marxism) had a violent antipathy
toward Russia. On the eastern periphery of the European
civilization he placed three nations whom he favored because
their peoples – the Polanders, the Hungarians, and the Serbs –
were, in his opinion, creative and freedom-loving. Marx,
specifically, was a great admirer of Poland because of its
revolutionary spirit. Nietzsche, another 19th century thinker,
had so much admiration for Poland, he believed he was descended
from Polish nobility, and thought that the main reason Germany
reached a degree of success was because during their 1200 years
of interaction the Germans and the Polanders intermarried
with increasing frequency.
One of the most insightful things I read about Russia was a chapter
in the book “Native Realm” written by the Polish Nobel laureate
Czeslaw Milosz. He grew up in Vilnius between the wars so he was
enough of an Easterner to have sympathy for the harshness of
nature that you experience in Russia, compared, say, to France.In the
17th century when Russia was still basically Muscovy, the visitors
would remark on the Russians’ “incomprehensible humility in the
face of despotism.” It seems like not much has changed
Well, sure. But this is the state of affairs in most places.
Business interests (which you can call “oligarchs”) are more influential than the people in the US.
In fact, I would argue that “oligarchs” now have much less influence in Russian than US politics, since in Russia the relative influence of the siloviks and of the President himself is higher. (Not that this is necessarily good, or bad).
In most respects New England say has more “conservative” behaviors than West Virginia – fewer divorces, fewer abortions, fewer opiads, etc.
You can view liberalism as a luxury drug that only the generally more functional, higher IQ sort of places can handle well.
American conservatives have been worshipping Poland for ages (recall the “New Europe” rhetoric under Bush?).
Dugin has extremely little in common with Solzhenitsyn.
You know, Wizard,
Why is this kind of behavior acceptable ?
There has been absolutely ZERO accountability for those who chose to lie us into war.
There has been absolutely ZERO accountability for those who defrauded our country out of trillions of dollars to commit the supreme international crime…war of aggression.
Why is that okay , Wizard ?
How can anyone argue they “meant well” by defrauding the American people into believing Sweden bombed Pearl harbor in 1941, when Sweden didn’t do it ?
What kind of world, what kind of country are we living in, when people are able to get away with this kind of heinous criminal fraud ?
Please tell me why it is acceptable ?
Wizard,
How can we claim to be a great nation or a nation with integrity , when this level of heinous criminal fraud is not addressed ?
Is there no greater crime against all Americans than this ?
If there is, what is it ?
Anatoly
The old time Polish community in Utica NY is being demographically displaced by Bill Clinton’s Bosnian Muslim Legal Immigrants.
More evidence that the Cold War Crusade against the Ruskies!!! will always end up in local demographic displacement within the borders of the US…the two policies are inseparable.
And with the US Military occupying Poland…expect mutant looking Polish-Negro school age children.
At least Solzhenitsyn did return to Russia and endorse a pro-Russian government. Let bygones be bygones. Even Shafarevich was a “dissident” once and signed all the open letters. I don’t think less of him for it.
It seems to me that President Reagan’s biggest mistake was having Bush on the ticket in 1984. He should have had Jean Kirkpatrick instead. Trump’s biggest problem is having Pence as Vice-President since he is sympathetic to Neocon foreign policy. If Trump is campaigning for 2020 already as the media is suggesting then perhaps he should put Lt. General Flynn on the ticket for 2020. Either that or find a Democrat who is sympathetic to Putin/Russia and put them on the ticket for 2020.
Any ideas?
The only way that war with Christian Russia can be avoided=White Guy Trump Bros developing a high degree of racial solidarity with Christian Russia…instead of showing racial solidarity during the NFL season with their Negro NFL teams who they yell “WHAT A STUD!!!” at during NFL NEGRO BALL SEASON……sitting fat…pimply assed….stupid….cucked…..in front of their plasma screen TVs
“prison of the peoples” (Völkerkerker – Kerker is cognate with -carcer- in in-carcer-ation) originally used to refer to Austro-Hungary.
Putin, rather than oligarchs, running the political system is not the same thing as Putin not serving the oligarchs. If Russia’s oligarchs collectively decided that Putin had to go (something basically unthinkable, because he’s done such a great job for them), how long do you think he would last as president?
I generally agree with your comment, but will add:
American business interests have historically been rather organic and their wealth more or less fairly accrued (think the old and still influential industrial giants such as Ford, to the Walton family empire, Bill Gates, even Zuckerberg, etc.). Russian oligarchs in contrast are basically criminals who repossessed the Soviet-era assets of the the collapsed USSR, generally in violent ways. Moreover, they are largely not even ethnic Russians. Of the 10 richest Russians, 5 are non-Russian (#11 and #12 are also Jewish). So there is certainly a different flavor with America being run by politicians on behalf of its business owners, and Russia being run by Putin for its oligarchs. Though, as I mentioned, he runs it well and that requires taking the regular people into account, keeping them satisfied enough that they don’t rebel.
I’m not sure what you mean by that, what you’re try to say.
Like I said (you chose not to quote that part): it’s never the binary choice, it’s a balancing act. But it seems fairly obvious that Russian Federation (as well as China) much less deserve to be called ‘oligarchies’ than most of the western countries.
Well, I don’t think Berezovsky, Gusinsky, Khodorkovsky, and many, many others would necessarily agree with your assessment.
The commonly accepted view is that those who agree to stay away from politics are doing fine, and those who attempt to interfere are prosecuted — and there’s always plenty of good reasons to prosecute an oligarch; you don’t become filthy rich by obeying the law…
The oligarchs need a competent someone to manage the day-to-day political operation of the country whose assets they stole/own. Putin plays that role for them. He is their guy – like the NFL “boss” who manages the league on behalf of the team owners.
For example, in Russia if an entrepreneur comes up with a new business and becomes a millionaire, and an established oligarch clan likes what it sees, the political and judicial system that works for the oligarchs will simply take that business from the entrepreneur (or rather, force a sale at a little bit below market value). In this way, the oligarchs who had stolen the country’s assets in the 90s remain comfortably at the top. I don’t think this is how it works in western countries.
Those are examples of people who threatened the system’s stability, thus running afoul of the others.
I’m not sure to what extent this is true (sounds more like Azerbaijan than Russia), but this has little to do with politics – politics concerning real people, rather than millionaires and billionaires.
Russian Federation is a very young capitalist country. The initial period of accumulation/privatization (what marxists call “primitive accumulation“) is still ongoing. And, especially after the super-chaotic 1990s, one should certainly expect a bit of turmoil remaining.
And what I find ironic about your line, is that Putin actually gets credit (and quite deservingly, imo), for ending the 1990s disaster and restoring law and order, while you’re blaming him for thing not being perfect. Well how could they be?
LMAO that would be the end of Russia’s oligarchs right there!
You are confusing Russia with Ukraine, billionares have no actual power in the system Putin created. His rule does not depend on support from the oligarchs, but the “oligarchs” survival depends on Putin’s goodwill.
AP is a Ukrainian nationalist trying to rationalise his PDS and Russophobia. That’s all there is to it.
You can google about raiders in Russia. This happened to someone I know. They were forced into a comfortable retirement (those who don’t fight back can do this) after their business was forcibly bought from them. It wasn’t recent, but still well into the Putin era, in the 2000s.
This sort of thing exists in other spheres such as property. If you own a flat in a nice building in central Moscow or St. Petersburg but an oligarch (or one his higher, connected henchmen) wants to combine your flat with that of your upstairs neighbor in order to build a penthouse, the courts will have your place and your neighbors forcibly taken from you, and you’ll get compensated with some property of “equal” value somewhere far outside the city center. If you want to buy real estate in Moscow, don’t buy in a building that’s so small that some oligarch can grab the entire thing.
I’m not blaming Putin for anything. I’m just describing the nature of the system in which he is the political manager – a competent one. This nature is very different from the “Putin crushed the oligarchs” narrative that some of his naive Western fans believe (I am not including you in that group).
Three lies in a single sentence. Good job.
Hungary seems to have all the same virtues as Poland, but without the irrational Russophobia.
American conservatives love Poland and the Poles. Also, since American conservatism is far more Catholic than it is Orthodox, there is a distinct sympathy. We don’t look to them instead of Russia because, frankly, Poland is insignificant as a player on the international stage, and is regarded, rightly or wrongly, as a U.S. lackey.
Russia has problems, yes, but they at least seem to be working on improving, whereas the rest of the West seems to be working in the opposite direction. Poland may be an exception to the general trend, and, as I said, it certainly has our sympathy, but it isn’t exactly a rallying point.
Very interesting take, and I agree about the reversion of Russia to the role of reactionary gendarme that it played in the 19th century. I might quibble about your insinuation that this is the “normal” Western view of Russia (bogeyman to the left, savior to the right), since before the 19th century I don’t see much evidence that Western Europe cared much at all about Russia one way or the other. Russia found its place at the table of the Great Powers during the Napoleonic period, not before (Peter the Great, of course, set this development in motion, but until Napoleon Russia was not a major political player outside of the European north and east). So Russia’s importance on the world stage only goes back a couple of centuries, and of these two centuries we have seen one full century of Russia as paragon of Reaction and one century as paragon of Revolution. It may still be too soon to determine what the “normal” relationship between Russia and the West should be.
Of course these things happen, but it could happen anywhere, and often in a much less civilized way. This is, for example, how Whitey Bulger operated, for several decades, in the Boston area: http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/04/04/exclusive-man-details-how-bulger-stole-his-liquor-store/
The question is: how common is it? And in the case of RF, looking at things in context, even more pertinent question is: what are the dynamics, the trends? I mean, we know that by the end of 1990s the place was completely lawless, controlled entirely by criminal organizations. So, if we could find some relevant statistics, the chart would tell the story.
Not sure the series “the americans” is part of current globo-mainstream russophobia.
In that series, the soviets are clearly shown supporting cosmopolitan subversion and 3rd worldism. The 1st season of “The americans” was in 2013. Russia haters like ((( kirchick ))) were already around, but they and the pussy riot freaks were still fringe part of the globo-mainstream, wouldn’t you say ?
People like Joy Ann Reid didn’t care about Russia back then and for sure dummies like Maxine Waters didn’t even know the country existed 🙂
Good points. I suspect this sort of thing is much more common in Russia than in the USA, and that in the case of Americans shaken down by mafias there is some murky business (the article you linked to was about a guy who got together 100k in cash to buy a liquor store in the Irish ghetto in Boston – it wasn’t some regular business in some regular part of America), but raw numbers would be great. Perhaps AK has some…
Hungary isn’t all that conservative. It has a much higher divorce rate than Poland (67% of Hungarian marriages end in divorce, vs. 27% of Polish marriages), its abortion rate (338/1,000 pregnancies – about twice the American rate) is much higher than Poland’s (2.59 – that is not a typo) and church-going rates are pretty low, on par with those of secular western European countries. Hungary does have low HIV rate, though, as in Poland.
Hungary, like Poland, is strongly opposed to Muslim settlement but that’s the big similarity.
Hungary is further from Russia and has less of a negative mutual history than do Russia and Poland. But Poles and Hungarians get along well.
LOL. Richard Pipes’ “Russian history” method didn’t fail to produce followers.
$100m a year seems to be the revenue point at which it is worth bending the law to put pressure on a new growing business, at least pressure from provincial officials. Federal officials seem to count in $100m’s and need 5 fingers to count enough opportunity and not all of them. The Federal Antimonopoly Service and the Central Bank have sharp teeth these days. Not a good time to be a minigarch, either be honest or very, very rich.
One recent anti-corruption measure is to transform cadastral certificates from bearer bonds (steal the certificates, steal the property) into listings on a database, confirmed by certificates. The days of dropping off bullets in reception by way of intimidation are over. (Actually, have been over for at least 10 years anyway).
To verify ownership, I now have to pay for inspection of the listing rather than see the certificate, which might be out of date. Less convenient but better protection for the owner. Another example of Russia taking pole position in developing an e-economy.
It was unfortunate that the rise of popular newspapers coincided with the reign of Nicholas I.
U.S. military has occupied Germany for over 70 years –
currently it has over 300 bases and military installations
there, with the largest, Ramstein in southwestern Germany,
being effectively a small city. This has pumped billions of
dollars into the local German economy over the years but
the cases of miscegenation have been exceedingly rare
Thank God!!!….But I here rumors about the mass gang rape of the Women of Deutchland by a Mohmmadan Gang Rape Army in US Military occupied Deutchland….got an idea for a musical:Springtime for Mohammad!!!!
THE CLASH…THE POGUES…CLANCY BROTHERS….SAW DOCTORS……AND RAMSTIEN…MY FAVORITE BANDS!!
Apparently……Ramstien is very popular among the Christian Russians…
The Russian writer Merezhkovsky when he
lived in Warsaw in 1920 famously said to one
of his Polish interlocutors, “Russia is a woman,
but she never had a husband. She was merely raped
by Tatars, Czars, and Bolsheviks. The only husband
for Russia was Poland. But Poland was too weak.”
Poland is more virtuous as a country than Russia, virtuous
in the Aristotelian sense (cf. Nicomachean Ethics) in that
it has extremely low levels of social dysfunction (even
compared to Massachusetts!), and compared to Germany
or France, it has no history of colonialism, genocide, or
slave trade. This may have something to do with the fact
that in Catholicism living a life of holiness is the highest
ideal (highest GDP per capita be damned!).
A Russian scholar at a conference said to me that 70 years of
Communism in the Soviet Union resulted in 70 million dead.
This indicates a failure to thrive on such an unprecedented scale
that it almost seems like Russia would be better off being ruled by
Poland, not that this is going to happen
Comparing the landlocked West Virginia to New England
is disingenuous. It is well known that coastal areas benefit
from the cross pollination of ideas. It’s not accidental that
the Beatles got their start in Liverpool or that science originated
in Miletus in Asia Minor (e.g., Leucippus, Thales, Anaximander)
Total nonsense.
Russia + Poland = cargo cult svidomism. You get the worst of both worlds.
If you take a close look at who hates Russia and why you can see it gets rather easy to like them and embrace the policies of Vladimir Putin. Yes – the globalists, the international banksters, the 1% hate Russia because their economy (which Obama’s sanctions were designed to kill but failed) is independent of the global economy. Further, the Rothschild’s hate him and called Putin a ‘traitor to the New World Order’ proving which is the NWO and which is the anti-NWO as Putin has also stated in many speeches. As a result Russis today has NO central banking controlled by international banksters and swindlers manipulating Russia into wars to further enrich themselves with.
Also, Russia is back to being a Christian nation with a Putin himself rebuilding the cathedrals long ago bombed by the Bolsheviks as well as lending nationwide pageantry to Christmas and Easter services unlike any other EVEN (perhaps, especially) ROME!
So, yes, the Christ hating, globalist loving, Lucifer loving West, especially America have been given their marching orders as far as the successfully revived NEW Cold War we are in the middle of and ALL of Lucifer’s powers (and soon to be all of the West’s witches as well) will be brought to bear on Donald Trump (who was never even supposed to make it this far) to stay with the New Cold War agenda and ABANDON any plans for a restart to US/Russia relations via ending the sanctions, ending the saber rattling and childish demands concerning Ukraine AND Crimea and begin a healthy new era of REAL trade and information sharing.
How so?
I’m not very familiar with Pipes, but I was not claiming that Russia actually was a “reactionary gendarme” but rather than Russia in the 19th century was often seen as a threat to liberty (by the left) or the greatest defender of order (by the right). These complementary views were very much in evidence during e.g. the revolutions of 1848.
“how long do you think he would last as president?”
You would better ask the question how long they would last as oligarchs. LOL.
Towards the end, Kennedy was more often considered overly friendly towards the Communists. He was in personal contact with Khruschev in the months preceding his murder, and both leaders wanted closer and friendlier relations between their nations, especially in regards to the space program. This was kept quiet because the “cold war” was on. Some say smoking joints and trying LSD with his friend Mary Meyer, (murdered in 1964) loosened him up with regards to carrying a big stick in world affairs. Khruschev’s son, in America since 1994, has spoken about this, but we shall never know how that would have played out.
As for the “demographic death” , JFK had no control over, or desire for, such a thing. Mostly, the civil rights movement was legally correct, whatever its consequences, and he was more often derided for dragging his feet in promoting it. LBJ used to brag that he did far more for blacks (not the term he used) than JFK ever did; and as far as initiating pro-black laws, and funding projects for them, he was right. Whatever you want to blame JFK for, callously presiding over the demographic demise of white America is ridiculous. Even his brother Ted, who actually sponsored the Immigration Act in 1965, did not do it out of spite for white. Had more to do with letting more Irish in. Most of their au pair girls were from Ireland.
Things changed fast in the 70s and 80s.
Russia is certainly not Christian…
Just the other day, Putin banned popular porn sites as detrimental to men and society.
Threw the book at Pussy Riot.
And has made it known that satanic homo victory parades will not be tolerated.
That’s more than can be said for your sodomite/feminist, degenerate gov/military.
Actually, I believe it was Engels, and not towards Russia but Slavs in general (“Slav barbarians”). To the extent that he appears to celebrate their (hypothetical) genocide, in this surprisingly racist 1849 piece:
https://marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/1849/01/13.htm
Tsk. How boorish of ya, dear Friedrich…
Alas, poor Polack, with your russophobia as inherited profession de foi. Inhabitants of Poland envy Russians and write such drivels since Ivan “the Terrible”. Imperial advancement bonus pushed Russia decades, if not centuries, forward developmentally relative to Polands, Chechoslovakias and other Slavic nations.
Minor nations and rural/small-town societies like polish one annot comprehend the society of higher degree, or a system like major state. Beer and football are their primary concern, and politicizing/ideology is confined to talks about ”gangsters and prostitutes” that are so brilliantly pictured in Polish movies like ‘Va banque’ and ‘Deja vu’. The sad thing is since Poland is part of the West, it cannot create even a parody on Western movies.
It is not Russia ‘not conservative enough’, it is Poland lagging behind. And it is the West (EU and US) walking on footsteps of USSR and following its course with almost the same major mistakes.
If we take Jewish ghettos in Poland of XV-XVIII centuries, that resulted in concentration camps in XX century, we find how they treated the problem of disfunction. In new millenium, all ‘social discfunction’ is pushed out from Poland, to clean toilets in UK, or to get sunburns on German asparagus fields, or to serve in Italian brothels.
This is wrong. Poland committed slave trade, since Polish nobility in XVII-XVIII centuries was keen on selling Jews and non-catholic serfs. The levels of feudal exploitation in Rzech Pospolita Polska were highest in Europe. The religious intolerance and ethnic-religious cleansing commited by Polish catholic nobility and jesuits resulted in wars and eventually in partitions of Poland. Poland hosted concentration camps under Nazis, as other Nazi-conquered or collaborating nations refused to host such facilities. It was Poland and not another country that supplied the death camps with firewood and coal. So the history of genocide is inseparable from the history of Poland.
The absence of colonies simply translates as ‘Poland cannot into space’, and not as a virtue. Poland had Copernicus, but was often lacking seaports. In that aspect Poland has not only colonies, but no famous ships and seafarers. Hanseatic trade was not Polish, but German. Poland tried to colonize lands in Ukraine (the name may be translated as frontier) and installed there almost colonial administration, but failed in XVII century.
And the garden gnomes of ‘His Holiness’ decorate the places of almost any Polish town. This country still hosts jesuit facilities.
I just go by the facts. JFK by ordering terrorist attacks on the Cuban Civilian Population ignited the Cuban Missile Crisis. 60 seconds….just 60 seconds…and the nukes would have been launched…it were not for the decision of a lone Soviet Commie Naval Commander. According to the late Gore Vidal who knew Jackie O and JFK very well…Jackie O at the height of the Cuban Missile…screamed at JFK:”YOU FICKING BASTARDS YOU’RE GONNA DO IT…AREN’T YOU!!!”…after which she took Caroline and John jr. outside by the pond waiting for the nuclear glow.
So JFK got real scared….and made a phone call to Kruschev to diffuse the extreme tension….only after a lone Soviet Naval Commander decided no to fire a nuclear torpedo at a US NAVY ship that was blockading the Soviet Navy Ships.
After the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis…two weeks later…JFK ordered another terrorist attack on the Cuban Civilian Population which resulted in the death of 275 Cuban Factory workers. Then JFK ordered the creation of the Cold War Era Death Squad known as the Green Berets to used as a Death Squad in Vietnam. And at the same time, JFK gave the order to launch the Death Squad Program known as the Alliance for Progress…
JFK was a fanatical Cold Warrior up until the moment Oswald splattered his brains out in Dallas. And this puts to lie the claim that JFK wanted to de-escalate the US involvement in Vietnam. JFK’s approach to Vietnam would have been very similar to Nixon’s…pull the US Military out of Vietnam after it was napalmed and poisoned to death …a veritable basket case….WAR IS PEACE!!
If you are going to call JFK an anti-war peace nick…you might as well call Nixon an anti-war peacenick….and Barack Obama an anti-war peacenick…and might as well call JFK’s Green Beret’s Social Workers…
Legally correct for whom?…The Working Class Irish Catholic Teenage Girls who were bused into urban Boston Negro High Schools for sexual assault? Where did the Supreme Court Justices….who imposed The 1964 Civil Rights Act on The Native Born White American Working Class……and the KENNEDY Cockroach Clan send their kids to school?
The 1964 Civil Rights Act for blacks gave us the passage of the 1965 Immigration Reform Act…52 years later, the US is one-match-in-the-basement away from a full-blown-race-war and the decomposition of the US into several race based nations armed with nukes with interference by Israel and China….leading to nuclear ww3…
You want to give Irish Cockroach JFK a free pass…I won’t.
JFK was a force of Death and Destruction in World Affairs and within the borders of the US.
Which is why I enjoy watching the Zabruder Film with popcorn and a six pack!!!
It is my Native Born White American Racial Patriotic Duty to desecrate the memory of the Irish Cockroach JFK and the whole filthy…vile…repellant…Irish Catholic Kennedy Cockroach Clan that was spawned in a malodorous outhouse in the back of sleazy…..grimmy Boston Irish drinking hole…
Samantha Powers is the evil Cold War spawn of the Irish Cockroach JFK..
Actually, in my view that’s not quite the case, but I’m glad you brought it up.
If you want to assign blame, or responsibility, for Russia’s defeat in 1905, you should consider the role played by Jewish financier Jacob Schiff in arranging a $200 million loan ($32.2 billion in 2015) by Kuhn, Loeb & Co. to the Japanese:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Schiff
Reddit picks up the narrative:
https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/242yje/the_bolshevik_revolution_actually_was_financed_by/
http://modernhistoryproject.org/mhp?Article=FinalWarning&C=7.3
As they say: Those with the gold make the rules. They also fund the lunatics, crackpots, mystics, revolutionaries, assassins, and anyone else TPTB need to achieve their goals.
Lee Harvey Oswald could not have shot President John Fitzgerald Kennedy from the 6th floor window of the Texas School Book Depository because Oswald was standing in the doorway of that building when JFK was gunned down in a crossfire.
A person can’t be in two places at the same time. Oswald was no exception.
AP photographer James Altgens took a series of photographs in Dealy Plaza at the time of Kennedy’s assassination. One of these (Altgens6) shows Oswald in the doorway wearing the same unique shirt he had on when arrested.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/05/01/jfk-special-oswald-was-in-the-doorway-after-all/
Case closed. Oswald didn’t do it.
You obviously value truth so much you use it sparingly
After spending some time on this forum,
it has become clear that Poland and Russia,
two supposedly Slavic nations, have virtually
nothing in common. Russia without Ukraine,
Belarus, and the Baltic states, has been basically
reduced to an alien Asian power. Moreover,
the gulf between Eastern Christendom and Western
Christendom is as unbridgeable as ever.
I complain sometimes about Germany because they are
a neighbor, and neighbors always have issues, but Poland’s
1100-year history (or longer since Krakow goes back to the
Roman days) is inexorably intertwined with the history of
Germany, France, Britain, and Italy. We’re all part of the
Western Christendom, and had kings, queens, saints, etc
in common. Polish Franciscans, Dominicans, Benedictines,
etc are part of the European monastic community that goes back
1500 years. Russia has never been part of that, so no wonder
that the Russians on this forum come across as aliens, probably
without realizing it
I think framing this issue as liberal versus conservative is misleading, not least because the Overton window for these supposed ideologies varies greatly from country to country. From my subjective experience of living in Russia for a few years and meeting a variety of people (from radical urban intellectuals to babushkas in the village church), I would hazard to describe the average Russian’s political philosophy as socially conservative democratic socialism. For example, tt seems to me that most people care much more about making public discourse safe for children and babushkas than for LGBTQwhatevers (there are after all a whole lot more children and babushkas), but on the other hand do want the state involved in health care, education, transportation, and to have some degree of state ownership of resources and essential industries.
And they certainly would like to be able to vote for some honest politicians who would represent their interests, even though it might very well take a presidency with strong constitutional authority to keep the state from going off the rails. Again, I’m talking about what it seems people want.
Another observation on “conservative”: not so many people are actually observant Orthodox Christians, but enough people consider themselves at least culturally Orthodox that it is quite gauche to express antipathy to Christianity (or other “traditional religions”) and just as gauche to be harrassing people to be more observant. Again, compare and contrast with the situation in the US, where there are loud minorities pushing opposing agendas. I rather prefer the Russian attitude of live-and-let-live.
They have much common in the past. But, in a couple of centuries, Russia evolved to empire and superpower, with self-determination as Third Rome, the heir to Roman Empire. It is not essential, what portion of landmass it covers – since previous Roman Empires varied in this aspect – stretching from the city radius to several continents. Detached from Russia, any Poland, Ukraine, Finland, Estonia etc. is a mere ruritania, rather primitive society with narrow-mindedness and minor culture. They can only envy Russians in many ways, speaking of Asia (why not, Russia once covered North America and discovered Antarctic continent).
There is no Western Christendom any more. Strarting from papesses and antipopes, selling indulgencies, going through inquisition pyres and jesuits and finishing with gay and women priests, there exist a bunch of sectarians, a bureaucratic parody on Church, and a post-Christian populace that turns altars to wine lounges.
You had tried to imitate all their vanity and sins with barbarian kings and dukes, erecting castles to terrorize the peasants, ghettos, usury, jesuit, pagan orders etc. Parrot copying his master does not become a human being yet. The West always betrayed poor Poland, from french kings to liberal democracies and never had shown any respect. Germans considered Poles to be untermenschen, and denied Poles marriages with German women.
There is no human matter alien to us Russians, the right-honored Keepers of humanity. We always descend even to the most miserable nations to save them from extinction. If they don’t learn, we teach them. If they don’t want to behave, we make them.
Key difference is Russia has sovereignty. Poland is puppet of the US.
Would you care to elaborate on the differences between Eastern and Western Christendom, and the ways in which Russians are alien Asians? Personally I don’t see much a difference and I get along equally well with both Poles and Russians. However, I don’t have a horse in this race and am interested in the perspectives of those that do.
It’s interesting to actually come across a Russian
supremacist (which obviously conceals a deep-seated
inferiority complex). By your logic and your worship
of bigness, Russia should genuflect before countries
like Nigeria, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, and Bangladesh,
since all of them have populations larger than Russia
(you might as well add Mexico to the bunch since Mexico
will in a few years outstrip Russia’s population as well).
And I wouldn’t be so sure about Russia’s supremacy:
Russians are increasingly coming to Poland to do construction
work. The numbers are not as large as those of Ukrainians
and Belarusians but are slowly increasing.
As I mentioned before, life, esp. virtuous life is about
optimization, following Aristotle’s principle of the golden
mean, not maximization. Poland, being part of Western
Christendom, has absorbed the Greco-Roman culture well.
Polish is the most latinized Slavic language. Latin and Latin
phrases are used constantly in Poland. Buddhism also follows
the principle of moderation. I would also claim that there is
an optimum IQ level, and it’s not that high, perhaps 115-120.
People should focus on emotional and spiritual growth instead.
Life is primarily about wisdom, not knowledge.
Following the principle of optimization, what is the optimal
size for a country? Here I recommend the book The Breakdown
of Nations (1957) by the Austrian economist Leopold Kohr,
known for the phrase “Size is the root of all evil.” According to
him, “The maximum size to which a society can expand without
having its basic functions degrade is about 12 to 15 million people.”
(His views are discussed in the article “Kohr Principles” by Frank
Jacobs in the New York Times). Using this reasoning, even Poland
is too large. Switzerland has about the perfect size for a country.
Russia is clearly showing suboptimal behavior, as demonstrated by
extremely high rates of social dysfunction. And even the United
States, due to its population explosion, is becoming increasingly
ungovernable. People at Harvard or Stanford should explore the
question: to optimize the Earth’s environment (to save the species, etc),
how should the countries’ areas and populations be distributed?
Globalization clearly doesn’t work, so what would work? I would
start by suggesting that, following the principle of optimization
applied to Earth as a whole, large countries like China, India, Russia,
and the U.S. should be broken up into smaller ones. I think Europe
in its 3,000 year history has come up with the best solution that
the rest of the globe would be wise to imitate: many medium-sized
countries loosely bound into a union
I discussed it with a Russian colleague at a conference.
He is Russian Orthodox so I have no reason to doubt him.
He basically bemoaned the fact that Orthodox Christianity,
unlike Catholicism, never developed a social teaching.
Catholicism has a well-developed social doctrine (distributism,
Principle of Subsidiarity, etc. Wikipedia has a good article)
that goes back to the Bible, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas,
and others. This accords with my own impression that Orthodoxy
is too other-worldly to provide sensible guidance for us mortals,
and perhaps provides part of the explanation why Russia collapsed
so quickly in 1917-18 under the onslaught of Marxism-Leninism
while Poland basically shrugged off the imposition of Marxism in 1947,
and, with some exceptions, never took it seriously.
Should Poland have accepted the writings of Marx, a second-rate
German hack who borrowed the conceptual apparatus from Hegel,
another German whose writings are of dubious value? No, it never did.
In Catholicism it already had a social doctrine developed over thousands
of years. Not that it follows the doctrine slavishly.
A Protestant friend of mine once said that being a dissident Catholic is
the best way to go through life. Most Catholics don’t follow the pope
slavishly anyway. But with Catholicism you get the full enchilada.None
of that watered-down swill you get with Anglicanism (or Episcopalianism).
Liberal Protestantism quickly degenerates into agnosticism. With conservative
Protestants you get Bible thumpers. Either choice is unimpressive. But with Catholicism
you get the Real Presence in the Eucharist, as well as the Social Teaching. If
anything, it gives you a lot to rebel against as you go through life, as I did, but
it’s a good way to get you started in childhood
Every honest and reasonable person becomes a Russian supremacist, if he looks on the Earth political map or learns the history of Russia. Grow up from your inferiority complex, or present any significant contributions of Poland to humanity. Poland cannot into space, cannot write ‘War and Peace’, cannot invent Periodic table, cannot stop the Nazis etc. etc. Poor Polacks have, of course, their ‘list of greatness’ and the mythos like ‘Voisko Polsko captured Berlin, and the Soviet army just helped a little’. Yet the Polish list is pretty short, and the Russian almost infinite.
A lebensraum talk detected. You certainly have an exclusion from the ‘rule’. Other countries’ should be dissected, yet the mighty Poland should be ‘Intermarium’ from Baltic to Black Sea, the Third Reich should cover Antarctic, and other populations should be distributed to somewhere else. Don’t parrot the Nazis. Poland is a political pigmy, a liliput on errands of the West, it cannot decide how good is the small vs the big.
Catholicsm invented nothing social besides ‘papal supremacy’ , ‘pope cannot do mistakes’ and selling indulgencies. Catholicism basically agreed (e.g. Thomas) and promoted usury and the banksters. Catholicism and no other sect burned the dissidents.
Modern Catholics in Poland are basically, the pagan folk. It is ridiculous to see the schoolchildren praying for the excellent marks before school exams. Any Catholic procession with statues is nothing more than pagan archaic rite – instead of Artemis and Hermes the catholics carry their saints etc., and even attach paper money to statues (sacrifice offerings!) like in Godfather 2. Celebrating ‘confirmation’ is truly pagan initiation, here the shaman celebrates growing up to a society of hunters and gatherers. Grow up from your complexes too.
Poland, to quote one of its prominent statesmen of recent vintage, gives the US a blowjob, and gets nothing back. Since its peak in the early 1600’s when Poles controlled Moscow, it has degenerated into the stomping ground of empires, earned the bloodthirsty hatred of those it would rule, and been debauched by usurious Jews. There is a reason why polish is a thing soldiers smear on their boots.
To quote the same statesman – how about them apples?
Thank you for the response. I have thought about these issues myself, but see them somewhat differently. I agree that the Orthodox Church in some ways seems “otherworldly” compared to the Roman Catholic Church (though I don’t see that as a disadvantage). However, I think that it does indeed provide practical guidance for observant people. But being observant is very demanding by Roman Catholic standards: long fasts from meat, dairy, and even oil, frequent confession, and so on. Only a small fraction of people today are so observant. The focus is on humility, making peace with those around you, and charity. It is true that there is nothing like a “social doctrine”, but beyond the Ecumenical Councils, there is no “doctrine” in the Roman Catholic sense, since there is no central authority to formulate it. This one should always bear in mind. It also means that the Russian Orthodox Church does not represent the Orthodox Church as a whole, even if it is the largest in terms of nominal members. If you would find interesting a synthesis of the otherworldly and the practical, which I think is what most Orthodox Christians would see as the ideal, I would recommend the book “The Ascetic of Love”, a biography of a modern Greek saint Gavrilia Papayannis. (For a brief biography see https://orthodoxwiki.org/Gabrielia_(Papayannis).)
As for the causes of the Russian Revolution, they are many and complex, and I don’t think anyone has been able to give a very convincing explanation. But I would hazard to say that two major reasons are 1) the tsar was indecisive in favouring the peasants over the gentry, and 2) the seizure of power by ambitious but incompetent liberals, which opened up an opportunity for the incredibly ruthless Lenin. I don’t think the Revolution can be put down to a simple lack of care for the poor. The tsar’s government had actually been making major progress on the material well-being of the peasants. There is an interesting discussion of these questions in Dominic Lieven’s book on Nicholas II, if you are interested. At the very least, a fair description of the situation is that there were grave problems of which everyone was aware and for which no one had convincing solutions.
About the optimal size of a country. In some ways I agree. However, the problem is that once one or two countries grow far beyond the optimal size, the smaller ones become vulnerable to the abuses of the larger ones. If Poland, for example, were to break up into a three smaller countries, closely aligned with each other, do you expect they could put up a unified front in representing their common interests against Germany? My admittedly minimal understanding of Polish history is that the gentry were so busy squabbling with each other that they weren’t able to stand up to Poland in the face of Austro-Hungary, Germany, and Russia. Note that in the present-day calculus, even Russia counts as one of the small countries vulnerable to being abused. It might have 150 million people, but economically and militarily is completely dwarfed by the United States (and China).
You can see how the Russians start foaming at the
mouth when I mention Poland right here on this forum.
And then people wonder why Poland (and the
Baltic countries, etc) are happy to belong to two
wealthy and powerful clubs: NATO and the EU.
Of course, I realize that this forum attracts many
Russian nationalists, and is not representative of
Russia as a whole.
Russians are constantly bragging about their space
program, and are apparently not aware that Poland
as an EU country participates in the European space
program, the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva,
has a Google campus in Warsaw, has contracts with
U.S. arms manufacturers, etc. Russia has four times the
population of Poland, and 15 times the population
of Switzerland. And yet, given the choice between Russia
and Switzerland, most people would rather live in Switzer-
land even though, the horror of horrors, Switzerland doesn’t
have a space program. About 10,000 Russians live in Poland,
obviously by choice. The young Russian-born woman I know
in Warsaw, seems very happy there. She mostly grew up in
Poland, speaks Polish with no detectable Russian accent, and
has a Polish boyfriend. She visits Russia but doesn’t want to
live there. She loves the fact that as an EU citizen she can just
hop on the plane and travel to Rome or Paris visa-free any
time she wants to
So your argument, essentially, is that Switzerland > Russia, and that Poland has an easier transport connection to it.
Few Russians would disagree.
“Though, as I mentioned, he runs it well and that requires taking the regular people into account, keeping them satisfied enough that they don’t rebel”
That is an enormous improvement on the situation in the West, where oligarchs feel the best solution to possible rebellion is to replace the founding populations asap.
“I ain’t got nothing against those Russians. No Russian ever called me deplorable”
No sons of US servicemen in the German men’s soccer team, but 4 of the squad of 20 have at least one non-European parent (3 African parents, one Turkish) and there’s also an Albanian and Mario Gomez (father Spanish).
Another device that Russians use is to mention Tolstoy,
the Periodic Table, Tchaikovsky, etc, and say “Look how
wonderful we are,” forgetting that during that period,
specifically from 1795 to 1918, thanks to our wonderful
Russian friends in the east, warmest German friends in
the west, and absolutely perfect Austrian friends in the
south, Poland did not actually exist. It’s hard to achieve
anything when you cease to exist. Nevertheless, Chopin
escaped to Paris where he continued to compose. Joseph
Conrad (Korzeniowski) escaped to England, roamed the
seas aboard British merchant marine vessels, and then
wrote masterpieces in English (not Polish, since Poland
didn’t exist) that today are part of the English literary canon.
Similarly, Mickiewicz left Poland and wrote masterpieces
in Polish ( and some in French). His drama Dziady (Forefathers
Eve) is regarded as one of the great masterpieces
of European romantic literature, comparable to Faust. Another writer,
Count Potocki also left Poland, and wrote a masterpiece in French,
called A Manuscript Found in Saragossa that today is regarded
as postmodern because of its complex labyrinthine structure.
By the way, Jerry Garcia was a big fan of the Polish film based
on the book.
I personally don’t know of anyone in Poland who denies the
Russian sacrifice in liberating Poland from the German occupation.
We can argue about details but the fact that
1000 years of German Ostsiedlung in Poland was undone in 1945
in a matter of months is a lasting achievement that has made
Europe much less likely to go to war. 72 years without war in
Europe is unprecedented, and I hope things stay that way
The Poles, once independent nation, are now themselves foaming the toilets in EU and host foreign military bases, like in the times of Deluge (Swedes) or General Governorate (Germans). Are they happy to have a debt to EU and US more than 50% of their GDP?
You forgot to mention McDonalds and Starbucks.
Ask the Polish plumber in France, or Polish housemaid in Italy, or gardener in UK, whether he or she wants to live in Poland. Russians like traveling – again, just look on the Earth Map. All these people settling in Siberia centuries ago were also visa-free. As you have a place for us Russians, we have enough space and hospitality for Poles.
It could be a good point, yet the Poles had preserved their national identity and were free to create. They were favored by czars, had their Congress Poland and a freedom of self-governance before 1830 uprising and freedom of national education until 1863 uprising. Years before, Poland had its time for Enlighenement and Renaissance, but mostly missed the opportunity – while being wealthy and with good connections to Europe (intermarriages, travel etc.). Mickiewicz was not a Pole, but a Lithuanian. In Soviet times, Polish culture was fostered, and Mickiewicz was printed in great numbers in USSR as a Pole. Polish nobility and artists integrated well to Imperial culture of Russia on its initial stages (before 1820).
National power and culture come together. With less servitude to the West, less opression of non-Catholics, less feudal exploitation Poland could preserve its sovereignty and achieve much more for the national culture.
Dismantling 500 monuments to Russian liberators of Poland is worse then denying.
My argument is based, among others, on the
writings of Leopold Kohr, which I find persuasive.
The essence of my argument is that the summum
bonum of the world would increase if the world were divided
into, say, 1000 smaller countries instead of the current ca. 200.
But, considering the present stage of human evolution,
we’re clearly not ready for it yet
J.G. Ballard’s (RIP) The Assassination of John F. Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race is good if you like good allusive literary fiction from the time.
Still, my favourite account is in former Playboy editor Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus! trilogy, parts of that truly make me LOL.
If you haven’t seen some of the hacks from JFK Reloaded, I would also recommend them, several are very funny.
The persistently Medieval outlook of Poles such as yourself looks as alien as anything coming out of Russia. Russia at least deserves credit for overcoming theirs, whatever mis-steps they’ve made along the way.
Poland was the darling of the nascent European Left from the French First Republic on, largely because it symbolized resistance to the Old Order embodied in Russia. But the track records of the pre-partition Polish state and the interwar Polish state weren’t so hot either. Polish nationalism was bigoted, ethnocentric, and nasty, as Jewish, German, Belorussian, and Ukrainian subjects of the new Polish state found out.
The persistent anti-medieval attitude of Russians sounds like they just came out of the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Which makes sense, because medieval Russia was ruled by Tatars and got its impression (post-medieval) of Europe from Protestant Germans and “enlightened” Frenchmen.
That seems to echo in the attitude of the Bolsheviks towards different nationalities during the Russian Civil War. They made concessions to non-Russian nationalities but went about imposing something like the Cultural Revolution on Russian Orthodox peasants, whose faith they saw as counterrevolutionary. Not the physical extermination of “reactionary peoples,” just cultural extermination.
I am almost exactly between those demographics, but I’ll hazard a guess on this anyway.
I think the American (conservative) kids like Putin because he speaks, governs, and acts like a grown-up. Compare this with the governments they grew up with.
On the other hand, many of the 65-and-up crowd understandably find it difficult to trust the nation that kept them in a state of terror for most of their lives. Also — even more importantly — they still trust the American national media, and it tells them that Putin is eeevil — even more eeevil than the Rockefellers.
The conservative kids assume, basically correctly, that the national media are incapable of telling the truth, so that only makes them support the Russians more. The fact that American adults don’t like Putin just adds to his punk cred, bizarre as that may sound.
The American liberal kids trust the American media and institutions, and therefore they agree with their parents that Russia is eeevil.
In case it isn’t obvious, I incline to agree with the conservative yoof of America on this one (and a long-long-ago brief, minor, and wholly innocent involvement with a Russian lass has absolutely nothing to do with it).
You are forgetting that Polish parliamentarians are
active in the European Union parliament representing
508 million people, i.e., over 3 times the population of Russia.
Hence the Polish need to understand on a deep level what
is going on over a vast territory stretching from Portugal
to Estonia or from Brest in Poland to Brest in France.
Also, as you may know, Donald Tusk, the former prime
minister of Poland, is president of the European Council.
Of course, Russia, as always in the last 300 years, is meddling
in European affairs, and is desperately trying to break up the EU.
Your mistake is that you think of Poland as a lonely isolated
state. But the truth is that Poland has returned to its rightful
position as a European nation where it was for 800 years, from
the 10th century to the 18th century. Shall I compare the GDP
of the EU to that of Russia? That would be unfair to your
country
The Polish apple-growers need not to care about Portuguese wine-makers or be advised by Austrian swineherds. Poland is a national state no more, as you witness.
Do you have a map? Has it changed in 800 years, or Poland was outside Europe sometimes? The European nationhood of Poland does not depend on First Empire, Third Reich, EU or NATO membership. It is a sad thing that Poles cannot decide for themselves.
You may compare, yet without our resources you are nothing together with EU, and with our nukes you are nothing again. And if you put all GDP fiat money in one stack, you still cannot into space.
Bronstein was also a porn ‘actor’ in his time in NY. Who would want to watch that remains a mystery. His fellow tribe members?
Mercator and the ice pick didn’t arrive too late, earlier would have been better, but it was a fitting conclusion.
Whatever happened to,
Leon Trotsky,
He got an ice-pick baby,
Right in his plottsky.
It wasn’t even his real name.
At my university in the United States we occasionally
get Russian students. A few years ago a couple of Russian
female students came to clean my university office
(They also asked me if I was married). Should I disparage
them because they were performing dirty menial labor?
Of course not. When I was an undergraduate in America,
I worked part time as a gardener. Should I be ashamed
of that? I don’t think so. My students sometimes work
at McDonalds or Taco Bell. This is considered perfectly
normal in the U.S. Of course, when I was working for my
doctorate, I became an assistant. You move up in the world.
College professors in the U.S. always complain that they make
less money than many plumbers. In the Protestant culture
there is no ignominy in doing manual labor (although that is
changing – working class whites are now often considered badwhites).
Plumbers, car mechanics, or truck drivers make excellent
money, certainly more than most office workers. Your denigration
of manual labor sounds very strange to my ears. Perhaps it
has something to do with Russian Orthodoxy. In my view the kind of
work you do or your level of education are irrelevant to God
Nah. During the civil war they didn’t do anything to the peasants; more like to the aristocracy, clergy, rich landowners, and such. Well, apart from suppressing some peasant rebellions. Later, during the collectivization campaign of the 1930s, they did indeed exiled a lot of ‘kulaks’, well-to-do farmers who resisted collectivization (and yes, they were considered a ‘counterrevolutionary class’). But I don’t think this qualifies as cultural extermination of the peasants.
Yes, that’s true, as far as I can tell. Poland was always trying to become an empire, but the arrogance of their elites made it impossible.
In contrast, Russian elites were (and still are, I suppose) tolerant and open to other cultures, and, consequently, to the peoples incorporated into their empire. Elites of defeated nations were usually allowed to keep the status, praised for their courage, and accepted as equal. Very pragmatic approach; generally they didn’t care much about ethnicity/religion. See this, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abram_Petrovich_Gannibal
There’s no denigration of manual labor. Poles have no jobs at home due to their EU membership and worshipping the West, that needs no Polish independent industry alive. You yourself had to move to US and ‘study’ there to get their fake humanitarian degree, to serve enemies of Poles and other Slavic nations. How can such profoundly naive and politically illiterate person be a teacher? Do you offer a woodwork course? Or there’s no place for you in Jagellonian university etc. at home? You simply sold your honor and national identity, to be the like of Z. Brzesinsky and spread anti-Russian mythos.
“Russian elites were (and still are, I suppose) tolerant and open to other cultures” – who are the Russian elites now? Former Bolsheviks, nomenclatura members, KGB operatives? The descendants of those who wiped out the original elite.
How was the tolerance in Soviet Union with respect to Poles living there? Polish Operation of the NKVD (1937–38): “a conservative estimate of 85,000 confirmed Poles executed simultaneously across the country.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD_(1937–38)
Shall I compare that the GDP per capita of Russia went from being 1/3rd of Polands to being 30% bigger in the space of a few years…before sanctions. If the cretinous poles had the same sanctions applied to them as Russia has done……then unlike Russia, their country would implode (again)
err….no you dumb attention-whore prick. Putin didnt create them ( as Ukraine are finding out now you fuckwit, in light of the country becoming 10 times more Oligarchic then it was in 2014), Putin doesnt have any say in their ending because the resource based industries that many oligarchs control relies partially on western investment and western technologies – which they wont allow into Russia if a suitable Oligarch they can control isnt in charge.
You know nothing about oligarchs you moron.
Putin has done a magnificent job in destroying the Oligarch stucture ( unlike loser Ukraine) as best as possible and eliminating their role in Politics ( i.e reducing American involvement)
errr…there are no reliable statistics for church attendance in Europe you fuckup…..Europe are converting their Churches into Restaurants and brothels…Russia are building Churches as places of worship and a pride of the City or town or village
errr…Poles have some of the lowest birthrate statistics in Europe and tend to marry a lot younger than other countries. That just means they are more skillful at using contraception you prick….not at “lower abortions”. Married Polish couples arent just having sex once or twice you in 50 years you fucking idiot. Contraception….in case you hadn’t guessed isn’t strictly Conservative, and certainly not a Catholic idea- but Poles have a lot of hypocrisy
err….hahahahaha!! Poles have 9 times more nationals in prison in the UK, than Indians and Pakistanis. Now consider how much longer and how many more times Indians and Pakistanis there are in the UK than Poles. This is for violent robbery and rape you scumbag……the opposite of “conservative”….real Gangster actions
errr…..the Poles are the least Conservative people around you dipshit. They started God knows how many wars ( and lost) every time they werent under Russian steadying influence, were openly fascistic and anti-semitic in the buildup to WW2, and have tried more than any other country to sow discord in Ukraine.
If they had even 1/20th of the different ethnicities as Russia has …they would implode…..because Poles arent proper Christians….i.e charitable
In all your posts you ridicule people who do manual labor.
You wrote:
“Poles have no jobs at home”
Actually, Poland’s unemployment rate is 5.4%, one of the lowest
in the European Union. The labor shortage is so severe,
Poland is now starting to attract construction workers
from Russia.
“Fake humanitarian degree”
Actually my doctorate is in mathematics. Foreigners in the U.S.
typically focus in STEM disciplines, i.e., math, science, and engineering.
I feel like I’m dealing with an alcoholic, and this exchange is
pointless, but decided to give it one more try
I don’t really consider the Soviet Union a form of Russian empire, but we are to take this view, then I think the tolerance of the Soviet/Russian elites (and the population) is clearly demonstrated by the fact that many of their top-level leaders were not ethnic Russians: Stalin, Brezhnev, Chernenko, and many others.
As for Poles (and other foreign groups) in the 1930s, that was, of course, a grotesque and misguided campaign to rid the country of foreign spies. Poland, at the time, wasn’t part of the Soviet empire; it was an unfriendly foreign country. Different story.
You’d have a better point with war-time exile of Chechens, Crimean Tatars, and other ethnic groups. But that was in the middle of the most brutal war in history; they should get some slack for that…
I have nothing against Russia (in fact I speak Russian),
as long as the Russians stay on their side of the border.
I (grudgingly acknowledge that in the absence of a large
Slavic state like Russia, the Germans would be even more
arrogant than they are
For some reason a major part of my comment
got lost. So here it is again:
A major Russian weakness is the worship of all things
German, like Marxism. I realize, of course, that Marx was
Jewish but his philosophy with its enormous debt to Hegel
could not have originated anywhere else except Germany.
Also, the excessive attitude of trust toward Germany almost
ended in a disaster for Russia.
I think one reason for the temperamental difference between
Poland and Russia is genetic. Genetically speaking Poland is
about 45% Slavic, 20% Germanic, 10% Celtic, 10% Jewish, 10%
Baltic, and 5% Other (Tatar, etc). Poland is extremely close
genetically to other Western Slavs like the Czechs and Polabian
Slavs, except that they, being farther west, are a bit more Celtic
and Germanic. Poland had its origin in the interaction with the
German Saxons (along the Elbe-Saale rivers – known as Limes
Saxoniae) and the Vikings in the north. In fact, the early Polish
kings and dukes had Vikings in their employ. Hence Poland
emerged as a WESTERN country whose primary neighbors 1000
years ago were the German Saxons, Denmark, and Sweden.
Nietzsche alluded to this cultural and genetic mix when
he talked about his own Polish-German ancestry.
The Polish may speak a Slavonic language, but they
are a western people, and of course, are part of
Western Christendom
Remember you ungrateful little cretin…….Russia gave Poland about 1/6th of its current territory. Stalin did. Russia rebuilt Poland and liberated it after 1945.
Remember that Poland is the one stirring up trouble in Ukraine
That is simply a lie. Poland’s unemployment rate is closer to double digits than the number you give ( which is more like Russia’s employment rate). Very few Russians live and work. in Poland …or want to work in Poland…and that includes, by proportion, those in Kalliningrad…..but Poland has millions in western Europe that want nothing to do with their former land
Mindnumbing pseudo-intellectual drivel. Russia has produced far more “western” writers,scientists,engineers, buildings,mathematicians,artists than Poland has over the years. They have a mixed genetic code as that.Russia is a western country…….even the Czechs have produced far more than Poland. Supposed to be western …but Poland can only produce one known classical music composer….and he escaped and eloped in France as soon as he could…..and basically copied an Irishman at the time with many of his works ( and Chopin had, unlike the great Russian and German composers, a minimal amount of orchestral compositions….just very simple Piano works)
The official figure is that about 10,000 Russians
live in Poland. However, if you include people
of Russian ancestry, that figure would probably rise to
closer to 50,000. People with surnames ending
in -ow, -ew, and -in are not uncommon in Poland.
E.g., one of my favorite Polish writers was Gołubiew.
Another example is Sasha Strunin, a young pop singer
whose Russian father worked at an opera in Poznań.
The number of people of Ukrainian ancestry in Poland
is even larger
The definition of the Western civilization is
pretty standard: tradition of democracy, liberty,
order, rule of law, respect for private property, Western
Christendom, Latin alphabet. By that definition
Russia was never part of the West. In contrast,
the Polish-Lithuanian Res Publica (Republic
or Commonwealth), which for 200 years was the
largest country in Europe, was a republic (representative
democracy) expressly patterned after the Roman Republic,
with 10-12% of the people eligible to vote by the 16th
century. By 15th century, in fact, Poland already had
the equivalent of the British habeas corpus, and by 1791
Poland had Europe’s first written constitution, which,
of course, neither Russia nor Prussia, being despotic
powers, could tolerate.
By 1550 80% of the world’s Jews already lived in Poland.
Google it if you don’t believe me. That implies that
probably 90% of the European Jews lived there. Why?
Because the Jews were expelled from England, France,
Italy, and of course Germany, often repeatedly, and
found refuge in Poland as the land of liberty where they
lived wherever they wanted, and not in ghettoes like in
Western Europe. Russia simply banned Jews from its
territory until 1772 when it got Polish Jews as a result
of annexing Polish-Lithuanian territories in the east.
As part of the West, Poland has extremely low murder rates,
HIV rates, drug use rates, and relatively low levels of corruption.
When Russia reduces its murder and corruption rates to manageable
levels, then we’ll talk.
Why do you think Poland is attracting over a million Ukrainians,
and now increasingly Belarusians and Russians to work in
construction, etc.? Because it has a low unemployment rate and
a severe labor shortage. Because of Poland’s dynamic economy
that has grown since 1990 at South Korean levels, Poland has
become one big construction site that needs a huge labor force
Since you mentioned writers, just a few
recent names in Poland:
Witcher video games are based on his novels
Wisława Szymborska and Czesław Miłosz, were living
in Krakow
Polish Film directors:
Enough vitriol for today! Now I’m gonna hit the highway,
listen to the Polish-American bluegrass singer from Texas,
Sarah Jarosz (“Crazy” etc), and then pull into a Jack-in-the-Box
for a snack. I love America!
Poles were viewed with suspicion but were not openly discriminated against. Many of them had roots in Ukraine and were officially “Ukrainians” on their passports.
You left out the starvation of millions of peasants in the 1930s.
Says someone who knows nothing about anything.
That must be why they maintain their position at the top of Russian society and why he never crosses them collectively, merely punishing disruptive renegades on the others’ behalf.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_attendance#Attendance_by_country
Weekly church attendance:
Poland, 48%. Second highest in Europe.
Germany, Ukraine 13%
Russia 8%, lowest in the world.
Percentage who never go to church:
Poland under 10%.
Ukraine 10% to 20%
Russia 30% to 40%, same category as Sweden and Germany
In Moscow a brothel opened next to a Catholic Church. The prostitutes dress like nuns. Such trolling is a good demonstration of conservatism. This was allowed, in the city that built Europe’s largest mosque.
Abortion is viewed as being much worse than contraception. If you were a Christian you would know that.
Abortion rate Poland, 2014: 2.59
Abortion rate Russia, 2014: 477.6.
Russians have abortions at a rate that is 184 times higher than Poles do.
And while were are here –
HIV rate Poland: .07
HIV rate Russia: .68
Russians are nearly 10 times more likely to have HIV than Poles are.
Percentage of marriages ending in divorce:
Poland: 27%
Russia: 51%
Russians are almost twice as likely to divorce as Poles are.
Maybe. On the other hand:
Homicide rate Poland, 2014: .7
Homicide rate Russia, 2013: 9.5
Russians are about 13 times more likely to commit homicide than Poles are.
As I wrote before – There is a European country that is both conservative and old-fashioned – Poland
It isn’t Russia, which is merely old-fashioned without being conservative, at least in terms of actual behavior.
You seriously are too stupid and poorly informed to be a Russian, gerad. I’m guessing you are from somewhere deep in the Balkans?
I must agree that Polish accomplishment in music and literature seem to be lightweight in comparison with Russian accomplishments. Still the fact that Poland did not exists for over one century, i.e., the whole 19 century, when other nations could develop and flourish their cultures is an important factor. But when we compare Poland with countries that were independent and more prosperous then Poland in 19 century like Portugal, or even Spain and Scandinavian countries Poland compares favorably.
Spain is not particularly weak on music: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_composers , and is much stronger on literature. Poland is also much larger than Portugal!
Russian achievement in literature dates from the same nineteenth century, and despite being very well-known is not really that impressive compared to France or England, the real literary powerhouses.
To sum up the Polish incursion to this thread, we may see, when people discuss Russia,
A. few Polacks (deprived Polish emigres in US or EU) break in and say ‘forget Russia, Poland is great’
B. people reply: why and in what exactly Poland is great, it is a failed state
C. Polacks declare Poland having no significant identity or achievement, but part of the West
D. people ask Polacks, if their allegiance to the West has ever brought any benefits to Poles
F. Polacks fail to provide any benefits, but display their obligation to spew lies and hatred towards Russia as they understand their function, or price for branding themselves as part of the West.
The bad news for Poles, that they may imagine themselves part of the West, or even Alpha Centauri. In Western divison of labor, Poles are offered gradient from cannon fodder to plumbing, but never owning any significant asset. The dead rodent may become a part of a larger carnivorous animal too, in some sense.
Lol. More like the tradition of self-aggrandizing bullshit, it sounds like…
After the Soviet collapse Poland had become the western darling (alas, not anymore), and was supposed to be the showcase of the eastern/central European post-communist development.
And so, it was flooded with EU cash, to the extend of multiples of the (inflation-adjusted) post-war American Marshall Plan for the restoration/rebuilding of the whole of western Europe.
With these incredible subsidies, obviously Poland isn’t exactly starving, but still some its regions are very poor, young people emigrate en masse, Solidarity, the once powerful and widely glamorized union, has pretty much disappeared off the face of the earth.
EU neoliberalism takes no prisoners.
Here, this is from 2014: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-29/polish-300-billion-aid-package-hides-eu-expansion-flaws
$317 billion EU aid package for Poland, compared to $150 billion (in current money) for the post-war Marshall Plan.
And still “with 17 percent of families of four living on less than $400 a month”. “Five of the EU’s 20 poorest regions are in Poland”. “Unemployment is 13.5 percent” (2014). “Emigration has become sort of no-brainer for young Poles.”
I don’t know about that. Have you seen the stuff the Russians post?
the stuff the Russians post?
There are 146 million Russians. Do they all post the same ‘stuff’? Where can I see it?
Sophistry, my dear friend, is a currency available to all.
(The answer to your question being: right here.)
I’m not going to accuse you of being an idiot, because I know you’re not, but maybe think before you write. For all you know, for example, I’m a Slavic-speaker still struggling with the concept of definite articles.
Russia has four times the population
of Poland and about a million times the
area of Poland. That’s why Russia for the
last 250 years has been an oppressor to
its neighbors, including Poland. And yet
it claims to be a Christian country
To finish my thought – only mathematically
challenged people would compare the accomplishments
of two countries as disparate in population and size
as Poland and Russia. Poland has only 38 million people.
And yet, judging by the amount of vitriol and invective in this thread,
some Russians appear very threatened by Poland
Moreover, thanks to our wonderful
neighbors (incl. Russia), Poland effectively
ceased to exist for 200 years – from 1772
(First Partition) to 1989 (Overthrow of
Communism), except for a brief 20-year
period of independence between the wars
Bravo! While playing hard with abacus to obtain your ‘mathematics degree’ in US, you have eventually evolved to guess that mathematics helps to solve some issues.
Yet you understand it wrong. It is not the land size, but the population density that impacts the societal advance. In Russian Empire, most population density was in Kiev region, and in Polish lands. There is no much creativity in tundra or desert, but in cities – so developed by Poles and other inhabitants of Poland. We still admire Krakow and Gdansk, and praise the Polish brethren. Yes Polish brethren had Copernicus and Chopin and Mariе Curie, whatever ethnicity these really had. Yet Polish brethren had no Lomonosov, Mendeleev, Suvorov and thousands of the Russian great people of Copernicus or Chopin scale, and failed into space.
Polish cities were very developed, and kept their Polish identity under Russian empire – with books, newspapers, clubs, societies etc. In 1800, there were 9.5 mln Poles vs. some 15 mln in European Part of Russia incl non-Russian tribes. Before partions, Poland was even more populous than European Russia. But where is Polish Voltaire? Kant? Lomonosov? Where was Polish fleet? Academie de Science? How Poles used their ‘being part of the West’ bonus? Just for libertum veto, drunken schlyachta, and everyday pogroms.
Yeah, nice country, but something’s gone terribly wrong with the ruling class there. Was true 150 years ago (see here: https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Zwei_Ritter ), and still true today. What a fucking disaster. So sad, as the US president would say.
You’re apparently not aware of it, but
for the wider audience your posts are
reinforcing the standard image of Russians
as drunken and nasty barbarians, people
best kept out of the civilized world. In fact,
the latest survey showed that in the United
States the attitudes toward Russia have become
so negative that you’d have to go back to 1983
to see the same levels of animosity.