Tucker Carlson: useful idiot abroad
The title of this post is a play on the Mark Twain book called The Innocents Abroad:
The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrim’s Progress is a travel book by American author Mark Twain. Published in 1869, it humorously chronicles what Twain called his “Great Pleasure Excursion” on board the chartered steamship Quaker City (formerly USS Quaker City) through Europe and the Holy Land with a group of American travelers in 1867. The five-month voyage included numerous side trips on land.
The book, which sometimes appears with the subtitle “The New Pilgrim’s Progress”, became the best-selling of Twain’s works during his lifetime, as well as one of the best-selling travel books of all time.
Well, Carlson is Carlson, and Twain is Twain, and never the twain shall meet (couldn’t resist). I also just discovered via a search for “Idiots Abroad” that there’s a British guy named Karl Pilkington who currently has a humorous TV show and book entitled An Idiot Abroad, with Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.
But I digress.
I’ve written about Tucker Carlson many times. I never watched him much, because (a) I watch little TV news, finding most of it at best shallow and simplistic and at worst simply wrong and/or duplicitous; and (b) Carlson in particular has long annoyed me because I disagree with him on quite a few things but predominantly on foreign policy.
I wrote about his Putin interview in this recent post. Now I see that, as part of Tucker’s visit to Russia, he was ooing and ahing over the prices in a Russian supermarket, taking his place in a long line of useful idiots abroad. Most of them have traditionally been on the left, but these days the attitude is expressed by Carlson, who is on the isolationist wing of the right:
At the World Government Summit, Tucker Carlson told a gathering of world leaders that Moscow was “so much nicer than any city” in the United States. “It’s radicalizing for an American to go to Moscow,” Carlson went on. “I didn’t know that. I’ve learned it this week, to Singapore, to Tokyo, to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, because these cities, no matter how we’re told they’re run and on what principles they’re run, are wonderful places to live that don’t have rampant inflation.”
If you’re wealthy, I imagine, Moscow is pretty great. This is true of most European cities. When you’re an American tourist, you tend to stay in clean and beautiful city centers, eat at the best spots and wander around the most attractive areas of town. In Europe, you get to see onion domes that were built by serfs dotting the skyline. I’m sure it’s neat.
It is also true that if you’re an average person, Moscow is awful. The average Muscovite is most likely to live in some grim outlying apartment complex, many of which were built during the Soviet era. That’s if they’re lucky. Many Russians live in Novosibirsk, Ekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Omsk and Ufa. Russia’s per capita yearly GDP is around $13,000. In the United States, it is around $83,000. It’s around $46,000 in Mississippi, our poorest state. Most Russians are living in what most Americans would consider poverty.
There probably isn’t a single quantifiable economic measure in which Russia bests the United States. None of this is even to mention that Russia is an extraordinarily corrupt place, the price of which is embedded into virtually every business transaction. I’m not sure Americans appreciate how little graft they deal with in their everyday lives. Then again, Russia ranks in the vicinity of Uganda and Togo on the corruption indexes.
The only thing more pervasive than bribery is alcoholism and suicide.
Much much more at the link.
Here’s another article about Tucker’s visit:
After checking out, Carlson is floored by grocery prices in Russia. He said in the video that a cart of groceries that he thought would cost $400 actually cost $104.
Americans will frequently be impressed by how far their money goes in foreign countries. It’s expensive to travel abroad, but once you actually get there, a lot of stuff seems really cheap. That’s because American tourists benefit from a strong dollar, and they have high incomes by global standards. It doesn’t really tell you much about the quality of life for people who live in the foreign country.
That’s especially true the past few years. In 2022, the dollar was trading at 20-year highs relative to other currencies. It’s down slightly from that today, but it is still very strong.
Tucker Carlson isn’t dumb. At least, I’ve never thought he was. Perhaps he’s blinded by his own need to get viewers and stir up controversy, and his anger at what he sees as too much aid to Ukraine and too much support of the Ukrainians in their battle against Russia. At any rate, this is not his finest hour.
well it’s not merely that, the kangaroo tribunals, being mounted by neomarxists like willis and chutkin, the war on our energy supply, only the life blood of our economy, the devastation of our cities and the impunity of those who let it happen, the failure of accountability, with regards to the lockdowns the vaccines the campaign of censorship about any and all of this, the lawfare that has rained down on mark steyn and anyone else who would challenge the new climate narrative, thats just a few things that come readily to mind, the disastrous ending of our Afghan expedition any and all involved should have committed seppuku but yet they are promoted until they stumble into the next war
the only real news I saw coming out of that story, besides putins endorsement of biden because hes predictable was the request to have gerskovich exchanged, but you know both whelan and gerskovich click entirely wrong boxes,
“Innocents Abroad” is one of my favorite Twain novels.
So Trump has been fined $354.9 million dollars and barred from doing business in NY for 3 yrs. We knew it would happen. Time for others to get out of Dodge.
What a travesty, fined and barred for doing nothing wrong. What a great country, what.
Here, here Miguel. As a sitting duck here in So Cal, “no border, no country”. Everything else is theater..expensive theater, for the hard-working, law-abiding taxpayer and the next couple generations.
I wish I could remember the exact line from “Innocents Abroad” that had me falling out of my chair from laughter. It was at the Sea of Galilee, where Twain was outraged at the price of the ferry and quipped something like “no wonder Jesus walked across.”
Twain was quite a character, perhaps a touch too cynical, but it he were to look at 2024, he’d say I wasn’t cynical enough ‘your life and property are in danger, when the legislature is in session, that might also apply to the Court system, there are other nostrums he used,
in this new gilded age where moguls with even less integrity then fisk and company hold court the Zuckerbergs the Dimons the Phizer CEO who pulled off the Harry Lime strategy to lengths not envisioned by Graham Greene, he worked for the firm around the time of Kim Philby, the analog for John Brennan,
The media big names in the 1930s were sure either that fascism (trains on time) or Communism (I’ve seen the future and it works!) was superior to their own societies.
They were absolutely wrong about the fundamental nature of the foreign political systems they were fawning over, or the genocide they were ignoring (Duranty and the Holodomor).
That Tucker doesn’t comprehend the long long history of Potemkin villages in Russia or the actual state of Russia 10K outside the center of Moscow is not surprising. Useful idiots are always with us.
https://instapundit.com/632614/#disqus_thread
I would take Tucker’s comment more as a comment on the increasing destruction of our civil liberty here in the US.
thats what they did to khodokorsky, altough probably yukos was a dodgy affair, they tried to do that to Berezovsky, they caught up with him in Surrey in 2013,
after dodgy doings with his banker Curtis, and other business partner,
Per capita product is most illustratively stated according to purchasing power parity, not in nominal terms.
==
If you excise the revenue from fuel and mineral exports, Russia’s per capita product in 2018 was about 37% of that of the United States. (The two countries have a similar distribution of income). Per capita product in real terms in the United States was in 1964 about 37% of the level of 2018. ‘Ere the recent unpleasantness, Russia could be described as a high middle income country, rather like those of the Southern Cone of South America.
@om
To be fair regarding “Potemkin villages” I dislike the name of them because it is probably an unwarranted slur. Grigori Potemkin was a brutal, corrupt, reactionary servitor of the Tsarist Autocracy and more than capable of great deceit (as the Poles learned), but I have seen less than no evidence that his titular “villages” were fake and quite a lot to the contrary. And in some ways the truth may be even more relevant.
Basically he was tasked with overseeing the liquidation of the final autonomous Cossack communities in the region and a campaign of military colonization and fortification along the border with Crimea to try and stop the truly devastating raids, murders, and slavery by the Ottomans and Crimean Khanate Tatars. He apparently did this with great skill and in line with longstanding Muscovite practice, and many of those settlements went on to great success as the nucleus for future cities, and as forward staging grounds for future attacks. He did order them specially decorated for the Imperial tour of Yekaterina and the foreign dignitaries, but that was du rigeur.
It is ironic how the Soviets and others went on to be truer to the myth than most could have imagined.
He’s not naive. He is deliberately rubbing American progressive faces in the fact that they are spiraling this country – which used to be a national community but is no more – into a lawless shithole. This, while nations which once could not put butter on the shelf, have somehow avoided feces covered streets and legalized theft
There may be plenty that is worth defending yet in the American countryside, but sorting the human wheat from the malevolent chaff is a problem for the defender.
A fair percentage of the American populace is as much an enemy of the rule of law, property, economic and political freedom as our actual “foreign” adversaries such as Xi Jinping.
There comes a time when so many free riders and subverters have climbed aboard that you might just as well drop the whole load.
But of course, the evil left wing grandmas, the crazy Karens, the John Brennans and the like won’t let you shrug the load. Their antennae are always out for such vibes. Since they have nothing else to do and keeing their rice bowls topped off depends on it, they are ahead of the curve. No. They will precipitate, initiate, social violence before that happens, and try to sucker or intimidate the stupid fellows whose conceit is that they are “the sheepdogs” to throw themselves into the breach in the name of an illusion, once more.
Imagine defending Hillary, Lois Lerner, the viper John Brennan, rubber faced crybaby Adam Kinzinger, Gavin Newsom and a dozen Congressional enemies of liberty, from a torch bearing antifa mob that slipped from their control and turned on them.
Well, in point of fact I cannot; no matter how little effort it would take. Why not just bust out your own teeh with a ball peen hammer instead, if that experience is what you are after?
But plenty of sensitive conservatives still can imagine it and would in fact jump at the chance to demonstrate their willingness join up, let bygones be bygones, self sacrifice themselves and have “Good Cuck” engraved across their headstones.
Carlson overstates, of course. But it’s just as true that Harsanyi is incapable of facing the decline of our country, which is the main point Tucker is making. We moved from Richmond on 2020, after riots hit a few blocks away. In the 20th C, that would have been unthinkable.
DNW:
It is very possible to talk about the decline of the US without saying stupid and nonsensical things. Tucker has said stupid and nonsensical things, which discredits his message rather than giving it weight.
well as I discovered the port of sevastopol, as well as sochi where they held the winter olympics in 2014, were among those villages, a number of other locations like sukhumi which was a war zone in one of the first but not the last georgian skirmishes, which was notable because thats where basayev, the chechen warlord fought against Russian forces in that conflict, before moving back to Chechnya, this was also where Surikov, a mysterious character who was a whistleblower of sorts, until his death in 2008, purported handler,
@DNW
This is equivalent to saying he is stupid and dishonest rather than naive.
Also
“This, while nations which once could not put butter on the shelf, have somehow avoided feces covered streets and legalized theft.”
Yeah no this is bullshit that would collapse utterly if you actually move out of the Moscow-St. Petersburg Duopoloy. For centuries Russian leadership claimed to be the Third Rome, and in at least one sense they succeeded in the focus on an overweening capital hegemony’s exploitative relationship with its hinterland (only if anything moreso since the Romans could often create or nurture fairly thriving small cities and towns).
While Moscow and Petersburg are the home of the imperial elite and the favored sons of Russia, with the usual relatively scrupulous attention to appearance and outward legality, it is pretty much everywhere else that gets screwed with predatory criminal activity (including by the local governments like the Diet Daesh in control of Chechnya under the Kadyrov Dynasty) and massive theft that is either explicitly condoned (like the unilateral nationalizations of property) or tacitly winked at. Even in the “resort cities” like Sochi you have a similar dynamic to Disneyworld or Miami where seasonal migrations inflate the cost of living well beyond what is comfortable for the locals.
Some channels like Bald and Broke traveling across country give you a much better vision of what Russia largely is, and the proper frame of reference for comparison is the likes of Detroit or Atlanta. And it tends to fall down even in comparison to those.
There are way better comparisons to use to criticize American decadence and corruption. Argentina under Millei, Japan, South Korea, Denmark, Slovenia…. Singapore if we absolutely HAD to use a dictatorship for this.
Tucker should have known this. Tucker should have known that Putin is a veteran that rose through the ranks of the “Organs.” Tucker should have known how stage managed so much in authoritarian Russian life is for dignitaries, and the exalted, rarified state of life in Moscow compared to the rest of Russia. He also should have known that the left is trying to demonize us as puppets of Putin even as they try to get him to act as a middleman for a new Iran steal, and that Tucker is a focal point of this. Tucker dropped the ball big time in this.
The rest of your points are largely valid and I think being up good points, which is one reason I am looking inward for threats more. But I agree with Neo about how this was largely a failure on his part.
Tucker cares not about another foreign skirmish that will end in pain and anguish, as Afghanistan did, as they seem intent to making Gaza as painful as possible for Israel, but Biden is evil in ways big and small to the destruction of this republic, now some people that I respect like James Lileks went all over this, considering where he lives I found it a little ironic, the apparat or Sysgy pick one doesn’t know what it’s doing or worse yet is perfectly aware, the real threats have seen this dustup in Kansas City or the Delta House follies and have been taking notes, would you trust munsch man, Sullivan, or Blinken or General Brown, with any project you wanted to succeed, no you would not, yet we pretend otherwise,
DNW @ 5:57pm,
“Imagine defending Hillary, Lois Lerner, the viper John Brennan, rubber faced crybaby Adam Kinzinger, Gavin Newsom and a dozen Congressional enemies of liberty, from a torch bearing antifa mob…”
Based on the caliber of the security force our nation employs to literally defend the U.S. Constitution that we observed this past Wednesday the “Ferguson Effect” has spread way beyond Missouri.
The DNW of old returns, not that it had anything to do with Tucker Carlson being a useful idiot when it comes to foreign affairs.
well if it were a pride standard, they would be resolute, or a so called blm manner,
so the likes of lois lerners posse larry noble, painted a laser on America’s mayor,
back in 2019, this is how they knew to set up this table top exercise, at Aspen, where they covered up a billion dollar fraud that Burisma’s founder was a party to,
Adam Kinzinger was in the ‘im with stupid’ hall of fame, back in 2012 thereabout he was in a gathering with the Kataib Shamsen, the Storm Battalion, which in a short while would ransom a prisoner to Islamic State that was back when they were strickly JV before they took Palmyra and later Raqqua, most recently he was with the fan club, for Igor Girkin and Yevgeny Prigozhin, forgetting for a bit the whole War criminal thing, in Girkin’s case going back to Bosnia,
“ That’s because American tourists benefit from a strong dollar, and they have high incomes by global standards.”
I would describe that as an inevitable result of inflation. Not just prices but wages. Economists for decades have pointed out that the USA is pricing itself out of many import/export markets. What’s the excuse for the border invasion? Isn’t it because we need cheap labor? Maybe I should point out that our government has had a heavy thumb on the scale for unions which has driven wages far beyond what they should be.
h/t Instapundit
https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/02/tucker-carlson-discovers-american-tourists-are-rich/
What else will Tucker discover abroad? 🙂
Of course he was taken in, like generations of “political pilgrims” before him were, but it’s possible to read his remarks not as a statement about how wonderful things are in Russia, but as an indication that foreigners have been treating their city centers better than we do. Yes, Moscow is an atypical showplace in a country that is much poorer and run-down than we are. The retort, though, would be that for a very rich country, our cities don’t reflect our general affluence.
I did watch Tucker when I had cable. I didn’t always agree with him, and sometimes he was embarassing. But I feel the same way about National Review, and other media sources are even worse.
neo writes,
“Perhaps he’s blinded by his own need to get viewers and stir up controversy, and his anger at what he sees as too much aid to Ukraine and too much support of the Ukrainians in their battle against Russia.”
I think it’s precisely the first two she lists*. There’s no question Carlson wants to profit from getting people to watch him speak. That has been his entire career, and even after Fox fired him and he is still in a dispute over whether his Fox contract prohibits him from making money speaking, he continues to speak and find ways to profit from it.
So, the question is; does he have a strong set of principles and only say what he believes, or will he flirt with people and beliefs he does not support if they are likely to draw more attention to his broadcasts (likely resulting in him getting more money)? From my observations; he has some strong principles but he is also very willing to muddy truth and facts to stir controversy.
*I hope, aside from U.S. policy and funding, he is not actually rooting for Russia to overtake Ukraine.
Miguel: Capitalization rules in standard written English exist for a reason: text is harder to read when they are not followed. Lengthy run-on sentences don’t make for easy reading either.
On the subject of U.S. cities and Moscow:
We all know the plights of our major cities; New York, Chicago, L.A., D.C., Baltimore, San Francisco…
Much of our country is truly in rough shape. Most (all?) of our states have small and mid-sized cities that have nearly completely collapsed. Industries and businesses that left are not coming back. Vermont(!) has a terrible opioid problem.
Putin is a megalomaniac and awful man, but our country gives way too much fodder to national leaders like him, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Kim Jong Un and Maduro. Carlson is extremely misguided to pretend Moscow or Russia are preferable to the U.S., but a lot of the U.S. plays very poorly overseas.
How many countries have mass shootings at the parade honoring that year’s victors in the nation’s premier sporting event?
I don’t think much of Larry Noble nor his protege Lois Lerner, except they seem to run a lawfare operation in and out of office, the latter found a way to fortify the elections against the tea party which was one of the strongest sources of resistance against Obama’s control of the apparat, It does seem to me that the evil people in this world like William Ayers, and Derrick Bell, seem to continue to do harm even after their bones have been interred,
Obama was a slightly more animated tool, then the current offering, but sadly for all of us, he succeeded more than he failed, there is a long track record of fools like Simon to cite one example, who covered up Obamas dereliction back in 2013, Minimized the decapitation of the Polish cabinet at Smolensk in 2009,
back then it was decided not to provide lethal weapons to Ukraine, that as Fiona Hills determination.Now was that Hillary or Biden’s imput or whichever sherpa he was listening to Peter Galbraith, who was plotting against Hamid Karzai, while ostensibly trying to enlist him in a program of reform, necessary for a successful counterinsurgency program. How successful that might of turned out, we’ll never know.
same with the carving out of the Kurdish homelands in return for certain concessions
@Abraxad
Agreed on the whole and that is largely my stance. I am a conservative andninterventionalist but we all owe Tucker a fair hit for things like helping to broadcast the abuses of the Jan 6th defendants.
I find it astonishing that anybody would interview Putin. Of course Putin would provide justification for everything he is doing; does anyone really believe he wouldn’t ??
Carlson may as well have interviewed the leaders of Hamas and allow them to justify the atrocities they committed against Israeli civilians including children and babies.
Carlson must be losing it.
It’s bad enough that Russia is allowed to have representation in the UN, where Russia’s diplomats are treated as, well, diplomats, whereas they should be treated like snake excrement and kicked out of the UN. Their presence there is truly a farce.
Here’s a guy who gets it: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-13074841/DANIEL-HANNAN-Russia-broken-thousand-years-tyrannical-land-purge-gulag-Ivan-Terrible-Conquest-wired-psyche.html
Given the last 20 years of US foreign intervention, I’d say we should give isolationism a chance.
My take is Tucker is speaking his mind. He was critical of our Ukraine support while he was at Fox, so I don’t think that’s changed. With his settlement, he’s starting The Tucker Carlson Network– and yes, interviewing even pariahs gets him noticed– so there is that.
Here’s a speech from Feb. 7 by Josep Borrell, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, speaking before the Rada.
I was going to highlight his talk about Ukraine’s need to transform it’s society to fit in with European “standards”– corruption, censorship, anti-pluralistic tendencies (which he acknowledges is tough during a war), but instead this statement about the EU’s role:
“Russia is – if I may say – “cannibalising” its own future. Putin has mobilised its entire economy, society and political system for the war effort. Talents – when they can – leave the country and the demographic decline is deepening.
But, however, we have to recognise that they have adjusted to the war and their economy is more resilient than expected.
Yes, sanctions are taking a heavy toll on Russia’s economy and on its war effort. We cut 60% of our pre-war trade with Russia. We finished our energy dependency with Russia. Now, we are prioritising the fight against circumvention, which is a very difficult process, but we see that it works slowly but surely. The focus is on monitoring trade flows and blocking the reexport of goods that can be used on the battlefield. It is an everyday work.
But most of all, we need an urgent renaissance for the European defence industry. I know that you have expected from us more military support; more ammunition; more of everything.”
This may be the point Tucker was trying to make when he showcased the full shelves– certainly something that was never associated with the Soviet Union. The sanctions are not having the effect Borrell claims– at least at this point.
The EU bureaucrats are in it from “as long as it takes” to “whatever it takes”, according to Borrell.
I think it’s worth reading the speech.
https://www.eurointegration.com.ua/eng/articles/2024/02/8/7179162/
we should not deal with china, since they killed ten, twelve million people with the virus that was released from their labs, they sterilize the Turkic Uighurs near railway platforms, where the NBA has their training camp Urumqi, they have crushed Tibet, yet Mark Steyn has an arch expression about that, but they pay the danegeld in many significant respects, they also fund Putin’s war, as they slurp every drop of Iranian crude they can find,
earlier in the Mao regime they supported Mugabe, over other Soviet backed militia,
for similar reasons they backed Jonas Savimbi in part and even chipped in the funding of the Mujahadeen, of course they were the enablers of the Khmer Rouge and they year Zero that became three,
I think that my “Step back and let the libs burn in the hell they are creating” jeremiad following the first paragraph, and which was the only one that addressed Carlson’s motivations directly, must have disoriented some people to the point that they imagined they were seeing what they were not in fact seeing.
Again, Carlson is simply contrasting the arc of Russian civil life however pallid with the downward spiral of our own; as well as putting paid to the media reports that basic foodstuffs are unavailable in Russia.
Yeah, sure Russia is corrupt. Yeah sure it has an economy and a population various fractions of ours.
As I said initially, he is rubbing the faces of the American media/deep state propaganda machine in their own misrepresentations while making specific contrasts between what appear to be some modest yet significant aspirational successes in Russia, with the effects of American postmodern nihilism and wokeness on our own fatalistically descending quality of national and civic life.
He had a point to make. He made it. I doubt that he is trying to convince Americans to move to Russia for cheap groceries.
That said, he, unlike me, still believes that the people driving this polity into the shitter are mostly redeemable and should be saved from the flames which they have themselves ignited.
I say no. The line is drawn, and it stays. They are enemies, to the core. Fortunately no reactive violence has broken out though they have done their best to foment it through the use of CIs, and agent provocateurs. Look what the CIA and FBI and IRS have been up to in this country. Look how the Justice Department has declared virtual war on half the population. They are effen panting for violence.
By the way, the YouTuber is “Bald and Bankrupt”.
I’ve probably watched 80% of his videos. Russia, Ukraine, Cuba, India. I’m familiar with his content on the countryside population lifestyle and provincial capital videos and rusting space shuttle tech.
And in parallel, at least somewhat well versed on Russian problems in developing 5th gen fighters.
On the other hand our passenger airliners …
Did a couple of years of SerpentZA too. Gee. Corrupt power companies and people stripping copper wire and transformers out of streetlights in SA. Where have I seen that before.
The project american power faction has trouble comprehending how many American Conservatives, including the people who actually lost friends in these conflicts are tired. Especially, since the US tends to lose these conflicts after spilling blood and treasure.
The military has been wasted. Dems step in a lose the wars, and yet we must always rally behind the people who lose without cost or consequence.
Kick those people out of power. Maybe conservatives rally behind a conflict they deem worthy.
@DNW
I quoted you directly, and I did address (if briefly) the rest of your post, and that I largely agree with it. Though I do think a more detailed analysis would lead to issues with the “step back and let the libs burn in the Hell they are creating” approach. For starters, we’ve been doing that, or trying to do that. It is having an uneven level of support, especially due to corruption coming from people fleeing the cess pits without learning why.
For second, it will also be a pita because of mutual dependence in the infrastructure, economy, and so on. A balkanized, uneven country meant to function together to some degree is going to suffer problems breaking apart at the seams. EVEN IF that is the least evil.
But that is besides the point. My commentary on your first paragraph was pointing out how Tucker was at least superficially buying into the glints of imperial grandeur (further polished for the foreign guest) Putin put out and how this does not add up.
That would be a valid approach… IF that were what he was doing. But he wasn’t. He was contrasting the “arc of Russian civil life” as beheld in a stage managed visit to freaking Moscow, doubtless surrounded by minders from “the Organs” to what he sees with the downward spiral of our own. That means that this was always going to be a botched and less than adequate approach even if things aren’t quite as bad as they once were in the USSR with the entire store market being a purview of the elite or stocked specifically for it.
Meanwhile, Russia is dotted with cities that are even less functional because of our rust belt, most of the country being maldeveloped because of a mixture of the Tsarist prison economy and Soviet central planning, abortion and life expectancies that make even our Dem dominated urban cess pits look like Rural Texas, and Kadyrov forming a mini-Imamate that isn’t that much different from the Dudayev regime that the Russian government recognized as an integral threat to Russia itself, and and which is increasingly leveraging itself on Russia proper (as shown by Putin purging many FSB officers that were deemed overly critical of Kadyrov ruling…well.. what is essentially an Islamic state).
And as Neo pointed out, failing to account for even a fraction of this undermines his credibility. Badly. And I’m one of those who isn’t even that irritated at Tucker for taking the interview in and of itself (because I do think that actual journalism sometimes involves letting bad guys rant about what they supposedly believe to the world).
Except they didn’t “put paid to the media reports that basic foodstuffs are unavailable in Russia.” It put paid to the media reports that basic foodstuffs are unavailable *in Moscow.*
Which is a pretty relevant distinction for the reasons I mentioned. And also while I do not trust the MSM further than I can throw it*, this is something a lot of my contacts in Russia (many of whom are Russians and no friends of the globalist left) report. This isn’t a Duranty and the Holodomor style deprivation for a host of reasons (and probably won’t turn into that) but it is very similar to the bullshit “Soviets eat more calories than Americans” stats the USSR reported to the UN.
* As I’ve pointed out, they have bungled a host of things, even when it isn’t even in their interests to do so, like how I pointed out with a supposedly anonymous “senior defense minister of Estonia” whose claims about artillery production for “the West” run in the face of the openly published work of the Estonian MOD.
Honestly all of those aren’t as much of the issue. The bigger issue is its demographic decay, creeping Islamism, corruption and tyranny that are somehow comparable to ours, and the spectacularly bad long term planning of its leadership, which is in many ways comparable to ours in spite of rejecting many of the hallmarks of it such as muh Zero Carbon and Global Warming.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t stuff we Can’t learn from Russia or that they haven’t dealt with better. But it does mean we shouldn’t accept what we are shown at face value. And while I’m willing to consider that Tucker faced limitations in how much he could confront his minders and Putin on this issue due to being the guest in an authoritarian society, we the observers from the outside have no such excuse.
And as Neo and I said, if that was his intention it was probably going to fall fallow and even blow up in his face as people like myself point out “Hey, you’re uncritically accepting the words and presentations of your Russian minders in a stage managed visit through Moscow, in spite of how unrepresentative that is and how the country is literally ruled by a freaking KGB veteran. And in the process making yourself look staggeringly naive and a tool of the same dude that made the growing Islamicization of his country a propaganda point and has a proven track record of lying through his teeth in really incompetent ways).
Even if I granted Tucker enough credit as you do that this was his intent, there are way way better ways to do it. And this was daft.
If you make it in a counterproductive and readily refutable fashion, it will probably be unconvincing and self-defeating.
Neither do I, in the same way I don’t think he is a puppet of Putin’s. But I am going to point out that this is not as effective.
To be fair, Tucker also is a public figure who has to be careful with what he says, and frankly that is probably a good idea across the board but especially for him.
Largely agreed.
Touche, and that.
Which is a fair point. But so are we.
Our passenger airliners are old fossils and things are made worse by creeping wokeness in both maintenance and in design. However, we still outperform most of what they have (and did even before the sanctions made it much harder to manage). We’re still quite a way off from reaching Tu-104 levels of infamy, though that is moderate comfort at best.
Agreed, and it is one reason why as bad as Apartheid was, the aftermath has caused new problems. Most egregiously in Rhodesia, but also with the ANC and now the “EFF”. I hope India has started to shake out of it with Modi’s defeat of the INC, but we’ll have to see. I deeply fear for South Africa, and the possible repercussions, especially as someone who worked a fair bit in it and especially Namibia.
@Frank B
Agreed, and that is basically one of my opinions. The US has had a dismal track record for the past half century (NOT as dismal as people act given a host of brush wars and the like, but still). Iraq was a bittersweet victory but at least it was one. In sharp contrast to Afghanistan. It is one reason why I grudgingly accepted we would have to turn inwards and lick our wounds (and accept that we’re going to want relatively strong allies holding the metaphorical Limes while we try and sort things out, especially without giving our domestic enemies the chance to impose wartime or emergency powers further than they already have).
We owe it to our soldiers and ourselves to win VICTORY. Which we continuously fail to do. Which is one reason why I dread what is emerging from Dar al Islam far more than I do the PRC and Russia, even with all the nukes and WMD and the conventional military power those have.
“Our passenger airliners are old fossils”
What is meant by this? That they are kept in service too long or what?
On the day Navanly dies in a Mother Roosia prison someone speaks of
Is self awareness is a thing?
Brain E:
Don’t get the vapors:
https://redstate.com/streiff/2024/02/16/house-foreign-affairs-chairman-speaker-johnson-will-have-to-move-ukraine-aid-bill-n2170244
I learned a few things from my travels in over fifty countries.
Except in Europe, a five-, ten-, or twenty-dollar bill is like magic. People want those and will provide goods and services quite cheaply by our standards.
Most common people in Third World countries think we Americans are all rich – like in “Dallas” or some of the other shows about American dynasties. In truth, most middle-class Americans are pretty well off by world standards. Just not rich by our standards.
Most countries that have enormous resources and the potential to be well off (Russia, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Venezuela to name a few) are well below their potentials because of corrupt/leftist/kleptocrat/autocrat etc. governments.
Even in Europe, people look at us as being different. We’re too open, too trusting, and too confident by their standards. We live in a high trust society by worldwide standards. Unfortunately, that’s changing, and Tucker sees that.
When you see orderly, clean cities overseas; you are generally either in a Germanic part of the world or in a police state.
I wonder if Tucker has done much traveling. To see the real Russia, he needs to go east of Moscow for a thousand miles. Quite the eye opener there.
One other thing I learned. No matter where you go, you will find good, kind, and welcoming people. You’ll also find a few hostile, unwelcoming, and unkind people. Just like here.
My wife used to listen to Tucker Carlson often, when he was still on Fox. I’ve never been a fan of this type of broadcasting, even with Carlson’s ‘happy preppy’ kind of lightness. I didn’t like Bill O’Reilly before him, either, because I found when they covered something I know about, they’re usually wrong on the facts, badly, but spot-on target with the most likely way to generate outrage from their listeners. That was their job! Not news.
Another thing that I’ve noticed is that Carlson is now suffering from the loss of the overheads he was accustomed to at Fox. You can see it in the quality of production and direction, in the background. On Fox, it was clear that he had top-notch research and information services at his fingertips, fleshing out his message and adding both depth and context. And the editing of his show was quite good, a measured pace, good savvy production values. He doesn’t have those big-budget support mechanisms now, and it shows up in the quality of his broadcast, and the choice of subject matter. It’s a ‘professional oversight’ thing. I don’t think his Moscow shopping trip would have been quite the same, on Fox. It was a bone-headed move. I think he should have preserved his journalistic distance, concluded his interview with Putin with a little skepticism, and left it at that.
Still, although I’m not a fan, I do appreciate the courage that it takes to be a contrary voice to the status quo. Carlson has defended the Jan 6th persecuted people, and he has tried to draw attention to their plight, and to expose the powerful DC machinery behind the farce. He is due credit for this; It cost him his gig at Fox, among other things. And although he is self-financing his Twitter channel gig now, he is still sticking to his advocacy against the Ukrainian conflict – but doing the piece on the ineffectiveness of western sanctions on Russia was ill-advised.
What was that you said, again? I was preoccupied thinking of the Biden Crime family; the 51 lying Intelligence and national security experts; the “fortification” of the last election; the “suicide of Jeffrey Epstein” the malfunctioning cameras the “sleeping guards”; the corrupt prosecution of an ex president applauded by half the country; the 56 percent of progressive young sub thirty white females admitting to clinically diagnosed mental disorders; mostly peaceful protests burning in various cities; an open border; cities run by morons who cannot provide safe municipal drinking water because they are incapable of maintaining the systems bequeathed to them; males dressed up in harlequin costumes grooming toddlers during storybook sessions with the approval of the kids’ mothers … So, who died in “Roosia”?
This appealed to me because of its riff on at least two news stories of the past.
https://babylonbee.com/news/what-is-this-dark-magic-cries-tucker-upon-encountering-automatic-sliding-doors-at-grocery-store
@ Rufus > “Based on the caliber of the security force our nation employs to literally defend the U.S. Constitution that we observed this past Wednesday the “Ferguson Effect” has spread way beyond Missouri.”
It could be a fear of being fired for doing their job, but some of the early reports I remember, from when throwing paint and soup on art pieces first got trendy, noted that the lack of intervention, as it was clearly possible to stop the vandalism, indicated some degree of complicity from museum leadership, possibly even instructing the security guards to allow the acts, since the glass coverings meant the art itself was no in danger.
Virtue Signaling as an Art Project.
AesopFan,
I find the footage of this week’s defacement of the U.S. Constitution almost perfect in what it says about our society in 2024. It’s delightful, it’s delicious, it’s de-lovely!
I agree with you that the guards are not primarily motivated, or demotivated, from acting due to a fear of being caught on film wrestling with the antagonists. The guards I saw in the footage were dark skinned and the narcissistic morons spreading the powder are pasty white. The guards had nothing to fear from charges of racism in any footage captured, even if something went wrong while restraining them.
I also agree it is likely National Archive policy for security staff to do nothing. Ergo, “security” staff.
It’s Kabuki all the way down.
The guards are not guarding. The protesters are not agitating. Everyone in the scene is dispassionate, disengaged, almost bored. And, most significant, not a single soul in that room protects the U.S. Constitution.
The United States of America is unique in world history. A nation not founded on a deity or deities, patrilineal inheritance or martial law. A nation founded on a document that all its citizens swear allegiance to and every public servant takes an oath to defend.
Mark the date. February 14, 2024. St. Valentine’s Day. Ash Wednesday.
The day pasty skinned, low T barbarians stormed the National Archives and slowly strolled up to our holy of holies, half-heartedly anointing the ark that holds the Constitution with red powder, dispassionately mumbling poorly rehearsed incantations to their Earth god or goddess as a room full of our flaccid countrymen and women reached for their phones to film the destruction before exiting through the gift shop.
Brain E:
More cause for the vapors:
https://redstate.com/streiff/2024/02/17/putins-war-week-103-n2170148
Roosian (for the philosopher) losses so far in the Special Military Operation top 400k. Ukraine retreats from Avdivkha. Roosia issues arrest warrants for Estonian leaders who allowed Soviet monuments (for heroes of the Great Patriotic War) to be taken down. Just like statues in the US? But Tucker is not an idiot abroad, philosophically speaking (or in a tome).
om,
What Putin is doing to the Ukrainians and his own people is a tragedy beyond words.
Yet, on the topic of Carlson and the appeal of his message and the rise of leaders like; Georgia Meloni, Nayib Bukele, Javier Milei, Viktor Orban, Andrzej Duda even Zelenskyy…
They are defending their nations and their nations’ cultures and histories. They are protecting their nations’ citizens and promoting flourishing among their countrymen and women.
We can mock Putin (and he should be mocked, defamed and distained), but when your head hits the pillow do you feel that your representatives have your best interests at heart? Is your Commander in Chief defending your nation’s borders against invaders? Will your nation’s justice system treat you impartially and fairly? Do you have confidence that the next generation of U.S. citizens are provided excellent educational opportunities and are being taught the essential lessons of morality and personal responsibility to thrive?
Rufus T Firefly:
The Brandon Junta is excreable, Hildabeast and Billy also, BHO is detestable fundamentally, yet even a corrupt blind pig may get one thing right. Just because the Brandon Junta is feebly helping Ukraine (ordnance and funds) doesn’t mean you should side with Vlad or become a 19th century isolationist.
Walking and chewing gum is a skill not hard to keep.
Rufus T Firefly:
Those problems and threats are best fought in the US and come with progressive politics expressed from the local to federal level. They aren’t fought with ordnance, best used in Ukraine. The Texas National Guard isn’t facing a shortage of arty, MRLS, or concertina wire.
om,
Agree 100%. I’m not defending Putin or Carlson for defending Putin.
Yet, as I joked with my Walter Sobchak quote, people need to believe in something. If we are going to bother to have leaders (and I am very open to trying to get along without leaders), people will expect them to lead according to consistent, reliable principles.
When I was a young boy I asked my grandparents; “You are nice people. Moral. Ethical. Yet you were adults when Capone and the Mob ran this town. Why didn’t the people rise up?”
The answer? Sure Capone and the gangsters were grifting and murderous, but they held to a system and it was a system that worked. The trash was picked up. The streets were plowed. Potholes were filled. Vagrants weren’t living in the streets. Kids could play outside (the Mob really hates pedophiles). You could go to a celebration of the Cubs winning the World Series without worrying about being shot. (O.K., the Cubs didn’t ever go to the Series then, let alone win it, but you get the analogy.)
What good is it to have the best system of government (the Constitution) if it is not followed? And, when there is chaos people revert to first principles and tribalism. Poland, Hungary, Italy, Argentina, El Salvador…
As someone wiser than me recently wrote (possibly here): WWII didn’t happen because of Hitler. There are always Hitlers lurking in the shadows. WWII happened because Weimar Germany and the vacuum it left allowing a Hitler to rise up.
I see how you came to that impression of the sense of what I presented.
But I actually had a different meaning in mind as much as we might be expected to gape in wonder at the collapse of infrastructure and every other kind of structure moral or otherwise overseas or across the border.
What I was doing was paralleling my first point with another evolutionary – or devolutionary – comparison. Russian command economy era foodstuff shortages across the board as part of the Soviet Union versus obvious improvements now. While at the same time our civil culture – and not only in what were called “subcultures” two generations ago – has plummeted into moral and even physical chaos and violence and ruination.
Thus I was not bemoaning the fate of the power grid of the SA, but alluding to a phenomenon that took place in Detroit. That is, the pillaging of the public lighting infrastructure by organized looting.
Older news
https://www.michiganpublic.org/transportation/2013-02-15/theft-deterioration-rob-metro-detroit-freeways-of-light
https://www.dbusiness.com/business-commentary/power-bandits/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5223485/Thieves-electrocuted-die-lighting-facility.html
Apparently with Federal intervention the Public Lighting Authority has managed to go from half the street lights working to virtually all.
Alas, “Organized crews smash glass, use jammers to break into high-end Metro Detroit homes Thieves coming from South America, officials ”
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2023/12/07/videos-organized-crews-smash-glass-use-jammers-to-break-into-high-end-metro-detroit-homes/
I won’t go into the water systems issues in Flint, Michigan or Jackson, Mississippi.
But that damn Putin served by his unpatriotic flack Carlson, who’s always moaning about the once liveable cities of US, the declining rule of law and the planned destruction of our freedoms and way of life. What a tool. Stop complaining, and get in line, take the shot, know your place, eat the bugs. It’s the patriotic, or maybe Matriotic-transgender-affirming thing to do. Then we can get Trump in prison on one pretext or another and life will be beautiful, kind, and free. Well kind of free. In certain all important respects at least. Sex for example with anyone or anything of any age anywhere for any reason, just as long as it involves lots of cellophane, vasoline, and mascara, and is not potentially reproductive. Otherwise maybe not so much. Just better do and think as you are told. That way you will know you are not being fooled.
Most of the top leadership cadre of the ANC were trained in the East Bloc either
East Germany or sometimes the Soviet Union, Mbeki, Zuma, I’m not sure about the current man, Maraphosa, a possible successor, a wannabe Mugabe, is Malema, who is evil but smart in his own way, the situation has degenerated so much that even Golem my pet name for Fetterman, has noticed, when they took power in 94, they knew they could not really institute the Azanian utopia so they looted it, Indian businessman seem to have more influence than Native South Africa, the
truancy which was a tool in the last years of the regime, seems to have had some impact even though it was 30-35 years ago,
one recalls in Lethal Weapon 2, when the Botha regime was in the cross hairs of the left, how they made a big deal about South African diplomats, dealing in drugs, I’m sure they handled all sorts of contraband but from Misha Glenny we discover Nigerian mobs are the key to the drug distribution in that country, since the ANC doesn’t actually enforce the laws or maintain effective power distribution, other groups have filled the vaccuum, outfits like PAGAD, which is an Islamist gang, of sorts that predominates in Cape Town mostly,
If Buthelezi had been given a chance, would he have made a difference, as Bishop Muzorewa might have done in Zimbabwe who can know
The rant is saved for last ….
and doesn’t change anything about Vlad or Tucker being an idiot abroad. Because, reasons. Whatever.
we over in Oceania, or is it Panem of the world of Divergence, are too close to the matter, now East Palestine isn’t exactly like Sverdlovsk where there was a biological outbreak in 1979 or Chernobyl but it was treated much like that in the ruling circles although the Soviets never had anyone as ridiculous as Pete Buttigeg
Alexei Navalny is likely the most courageous person of the 21st century.
Or one of them.
Amidst the torture, the threats, the attacks that could have killed him but didn’t, he remained uncowed.
Putin understand that Navalny would not relent.
Putin ultimately had him killed.
But “Biden” also has “his” exquisitely-framed January 6th “defendants”, the great majority of whom have suffered extraordinarily illegal political persecution, with some of them having been pushed to suicide.
…So when Decent Joe criticizes Putin for his more monstrous acts, “Biden” knows whereof “he” speaks…insofar as anything Decent Joe says makes any sense at all…
And then there’s DJT—arch-villain and arch-political target #1 of the current Democratic Party regime.
Indeed, “Biden” knows whereof “he” speaks…
No he neveg knows what he speaks
https://twitter.com/Heminator/status/1758908845898801374
Interested in fact based espionage and ungentlemanly officers and spies? Try reading Beyond Enkription. It is an enthralling unadulterated fact based autobiographical spy thriller and a super read as long as you don’t expect John le Carré’s delicate diction, sophisticated syntax and placid plots.
What is interesting is that this book is apparently mandatory reading in some countries’ intelligence agencies’ induction programs. Why? Maybe because the book has been heralded by those who should know as “being up there with My Silent War by Kim Philby and No Other Choice by George Blake”. Maybe because Bill Fairclough (the author) deviously dissects unusual topics, for example, by using real situations relating to how much agents are kept in the dark by their spy-masters and (surprisingly) vice versa.
The action is set in 1974 about a real British accountant who worked in Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) in London, Nassau, Miami and Port au Prince. Simultaneously he unwittingly worked for MI6. In later books (when employed by Citicorp and Barclays) he knowingly worked for not only British Intelligence but also the CIA.
It’s a must read for espionage cognoscenti but do read some of the latest news articles in TheBurlingtonFiles website before plunging into Beyond Enkription. You’ll soon be immersed in a whole new world which you won’t want to exit.
See https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2023_06.07.php and https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2022.10.31.php.
Tucker is voicing a real opposition to the current power structure. I feel it is an inconvenient reality that is being ignored on this blog.
I supported Iraq, it was rough time that even after Petraeus lead the US to a place where we could have sustained something we could call a “victory” was thrown away under Obama.
Afghanistan suffered from a lack of vision and policy makers not taking steps to ensure the troops blood and the nations treasure were building toward a goal Americans could feel the effort had been paid back with wisdom. Then Biden threw it away, left US weapons for the taliban. 20 years of blood and treasure wasted.
These 2 conflicts needed to have serious people with wisdom at the helm. We do not see any evidence the people making foreign policy decisions care about the American people or about the sacrifice of the troops who fight and die.
If… if the people who watched Americans fight, die or comeback broken felt the leadership of the country understood the sacrifice or even thought to make policy that would improve or ameliorate the ravages of the welfare state with mass migration, then people would be more open to interventions.
What about the high costs born on the few volunteers to fight for a country intent on replacing its own people.
What is the actual path to “victory” in Ukraine? I do not see a will to go to war with Russia, nor do I see any indication that the people in charge learned anything from the Afghanistan disaster. So, how can anyone reassure me that this foreign adventure will end differently than the embarrassment of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Can’t even provide ordnance for Ukraine to fight Russia? “Wouldn’t be prudent” to stand up to Vlad?
Enough said. Someone can’t see much.
‘I need reassurances that Ukraine and Europe isn’t the same as Iraq or Afghanistan?’
Can’t help you with that. Some things can’t be fixed.
I don’t have the answers. For over 20 yrs Vlad has been wreaking havoc in his region. 4 Presidents have have wrestled with this mess. But I do know the people who fought and died or came home damaged and wounded have paid dearly for the US to waste their sacrifice.
That needs an answer before we can expect to put american might at play. Its a real cost and it is often overlooked.
Ordnance is not soldiers, sailors, airmen, or marines. Isolationists can’t even put that at risk.
Vlad’s mischief got real in 2008, in Georgia IIRC. Or are you casting back to Moldova/Transnistria in the early 1990s?
Brain E is fixated on the ouster of Yanukovych in Ukraine, but that was 2014, and served as Vlad’s pretext to start a civil war in eastern Ukraine (Donbas and Luhansk).
Vlad has been a busy beaver indeed. Turtler is the resident authority.
Tucker Carlson and Mike Benz evaluate the modern American censorship complex. Quite an interesting story.
https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1758529993280205039?s=46&t=l7AwAEtkT-tXUq39kUwnyA
Carlson and Matt Taibbi seem to be converging on their investigations into the government’s increasing control of the information world over the recent past, and its acceleration during the Trump years.
Pingback:Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup - Pirate's Cove » Pirate's Cove
Related (courtesy of Matt Taibbi):
“State Department Threatens Congress Over Censorship Programs;
“A year after its censorship programs were exposed, the Global Engagement Center still insists the public has no right to know how it’s spending taxpayer money”
https://www.racket.news/p/state-department-threatens-congress
H/T Powerline blog.
Blinken. Again.
Honest A. is bursting out all over with so much honesty that it looks like he’s about to explode….
And so, “All the King’s horses and all the King’s men…”?
Curious grafs:
‘…Your taxes helped fund the Global Disinformation Index, or GDI, which proudly touts among its services an Orwellian horror called the Dynamic Exclusion List, a digital time-out corner where at least 2,000 websites were put on blast as unsuitable for advertising, “thus disrupting the ad-funded disinformation business model.”
‘The culprit was the Global Engagement Center, a little-known State Department entity created in Barack Obama’s last year in office and a surprise focus of Twitter Files reporting. The GEC grew out of a counter-terrorism agency called the CSCC and has a mission to “counter” any messaging, foreign or domestic as it turns out, that they see as “undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States.”
‘The GEC-funded GDI rated ten conservative sites as most “risky” and put the Examiner on its “exclusion” list, while its ten sites rated at the “lowest level of disinformation” included Buzzfeed, which famously published the Steele Dossier knowing it contained errors and is now out of business.….
[All emphasis mine; Barry M.]
Talking of great spy writers it’s time to wish Len Deighton a happy ninety fifth birthday … and to think for 95 years I thought The Ipcress File was a cook book by Harry Palmer until I read the fact based spy thriller, Beyond Enkription in #TheBurlingtonFiles series. Philby would have ranked it as a must read for espionage cognoscenti … https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2022.10.31.php.
I’m sorry, but I insist you’re underestimating things.
Here you are approaching.
And the truth is that Tucker is super useful, I would say galactically useful, no less than the Apostles of all the previous great transition periods in human history.
I’d say, no offense, but I don’t think you understood the great meaning of the interview. And not because of anything else, but because of a lack of complete information and context that is not provided to you by those who should be providing it to you.
The entire interview was to officially announce – and to the Russian, but especially to the Western audience – that Putin and Russia are not against brain chips and genetic modifications “but we need formalization and regulation” (see the part with Tucker’s question about “AI empire”) + at the same time to consolidate “the reality of the real war in which Russia is right”, thus confirming that Russia is against the plan for the world of Western elites. What happened just a week after the interview?
Russia, shortly after Tucker’s interview, has officially announced that she is joining the “race” for brain chips and gene mods of humans, but none of the Western mainstream and alternative media reported this. (How did it happen?)
pre-story background with curious connections and synchronicities (for Trump, Mike Adams, Alex Jones, Musk, Tucker and the brain chips..)
(*only the comments of this user, without his answers to other users)
If you have a brave heart and an unshakable temper,
follow
this
path.
Get here …and see the rest of this user’s comments down (there is a slight break from some conversation of another user with the author of the article, scroll down)
Only valid links to sources.
While in every Russian media there are at least 50-100 articles/reports about it, in the Western – almost nothing. How do you like that? About a WEF, DARPA, Musk and the other transhumanists has (as it should be) billions of articles and videos. About Russia – NOTHING. (Including absolutely nothing by Riley Waggaman.) Why?
Little quote (TASS ru, 14 January):
Who woulda thunk it
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbr4YlDadME
Let me add a brief summary of the links so that someone who doesn’t care about this immutable global future doesn’t waste their time:
All this is absolutely nothing important and has not been announced as news not only by the Western mainstream, but also by the Western alternative media, which have a total of tens of billions of articles and videos about Western “transhumanistists”, “satanists”, etc.
Isn’t that interesting?
I read it, and I liked it. I largely agree with you. And there you say:
I agree: the typical, already tired for all Russians, speech in the style of the old times, 5 minutes stretched into two hours – this is what every honest person without bias noted, I read and heard an awful lot of such opinions on the Internet. But I disagree with the end of the paragraph.
In fact, you may not be interested in it, or you’ve been hearing so much about it lately that you take it as something annoying, hot topic, a routine part of any conversation with a superior. But, still, remember what an interesting question Tucker asked:
“When do you think the AI empire will begin? I mean AI, which will surpass human abilities, change people genetically and implant brain chips, brain-computer neural interfaces.”
Which prompted Putin’s exact response. Right? That’s how I remember; But let’s remember:
Well, it wasn’t just like that. How Putin, to a general and vague question about “AI empire”, came up with an answer for (given that AI still means intelligent algorithm) to arrange consistent sentences about “many threats” from genetic modifications and brain implants, which is hypothetical in the realm of futurists, and those who talk about these things as the near future, are the same ones the president often calls even Satanists (there are quite a few such speeches), including because of their push for transgenderism, which Putin regularly criticizes?
That on the 9th; on the 10th (from the same link):
“February 12, 2024“February 12, 2024, Musk made bombshell claims on the Russia-Ukraine War and President Putin. The tech mogul shut down possibilities of Russia losing the war with Ukraine. He also asserted that Putin ‘Would be assassinated, if he backs off’….”
In the same link
Vladimir Putin sent greetings to the participants, organisers and guests of the 2nd Future Technologies Forum. February 13, 2024:
Tucker, 13 Feb 2024, World Government Summit
Tucker’s first discussion since the Vladimir Putin interview.
Just like in the interview: the whole interview is about war”, US-Russia relations. Russia, after all, is relatively right in the conflict, and Tucker is actually delighted with the situation in Moscow, he liked it, it’s clean, tidy, he hasn’t seen so much good in the US. In general, in contrast to the crazy Western narratives of crumbling satrapy. Etc..)
And, in the end, two sentences about:
Putin, February 14, 2024, Plenary session of the Future Technologies Forum “Modern Medical Technologies. The Challenge of Tomorrow: Getting the Jump on Time”:
Just to say; I don’t know if it’s new or interesting, just to say.
As a child, I ate a lot of waffles and chocolates (and I have bad teeth in general) and I hated dentists a lot. And when I went to the dentist so he could do his job, drill the tooth, clean, put the filling, my mother and father had to distract me by telling me fascinating stories about Avdiivka, Navalny and the conflict between American hegemony and rising multipolarity.
And when that didn’t help, my parents took another tactic: “Open your mouth, because Putin-Bad will come! Do you want Putin-Bad to come?”
No one wants to, so they filled my tooth successfully.
Carlson’s point: People refuse to see what they don’t want to see.
And they hate anyone else for pointing it out.
Now Carlson has had more experience with the liberal set than I do. At least he has lived among them and heard them on a day to day basis as they spoke in an unguarded fashion.
In contrast, the ardent liberals of my acquaintance never really expressed personal rage and antagonism to me as a person until the last several years.
Before that I never extrapolated from their general or category oriented pronouncements to any individual, much less to myself.
Thus it was something of a surprise when some years ago a female psychoanalyst who became friendly with me in a social context revealed to me that her progressive friends not only preoccupied themselves with the topic of libertarian and conservative persons, but expressed an existential hostility toward them.
This was a bit before doxxing and swatting became common, before the infamous softball game, and when it was still shocking to see a progressive male physically assault a conservative female in public.
Now, 15 or more years later as we have seen progs in action swarm attacking singled out individuals, is there any reason to doubt it when Carlson points out that many of them wish to see you dead, and are working to prepare the ground for a comply or die setting.
He might mention that only in passing but …
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yOs3DGD_D1o
So the law and our governing principles are in a state of near collapse on the national level: and we are supposed to be worked up about Carlson’s moral treason in committing comparison shopping?
But …. “Vlad and the Roosians!”
What about free speech and the heritage of rights we once took for granted here in the United States?
You still got them?
For example Anyman USA, are you going to be able to keep your paycheck if you were exposed as conversationally voicing the sentiments expressed here, in your workplace? As a general rule, how many not self-employed or working for a small business, could?
The paths of nations driven by political impulses resemble those of drunk drivers. Tucker sometimes overcorrects, but compared to the DOJ’s and MSM’s J6 fanaticism, he’s a paragon of wisdom.
And then there’s Senator “First Use Nuclear” Wicker.
It’s a relative universe.
the point tucker was trying to make was that supposedly sanctioned products were available in moscow supermarkets, compare that with metropoles like San Francisco and Gotham, where if products have not been heisted, well they are inaccessible to citizens,
but here in Panem we can chuckle for a spell, like Lileks did and the Babylon Bee did, at not capturing the whole picture,
“Ordnance is not soldiers, sailors, airmen, or marines. Isolationists can’t even put that at risk.
….
Brain E is fixated on the ouster of Yanukovych in Ukraine, but that was 2014, and served as Vlad’s pretext to start a civil war in eastern Ukraine (Donbas and Luhansk).”– om
Still trying to re-write history om?
Actions have consequences. When Right Sector overthrew Yanukovych that were the first shots of the civil war. So it was a big deal.
Not funding Ukraine’s economy has nothing to do with isolationism.
The $60 billion the Biden administration is trying to add to our debt spending, which by the way, we will be paying interest on forever, isn’t just for ordinance as you suggest, but to partially fund the Ukraine government.
According to reports here is what the money will be used for:
$20 billion is for replenishment of the U.S. military with weapons and equipment provided to Ukraine from Defense Department inventory.
$14 billion is for Ukraine to purchase weapons and equipment from U.S. firms.
$15 billion is for U.S. support including military training, intelligence sharing, increased presence in Eastern Europe, and other activities.
$8 billion is for Direct budget support for Ukraine.
$3.2 billion is for $1.6 billion for economic development, $1.6 billion to bolster air and maritime defenses in and around Ukraine.
So of the $60 billion, $14 billion is for ordinance.
I’ll state why I am not for the aid package in its current form as clearly as I can.
If Ukraine’s position is that the only outcome of the war is the return of pre-2014 borders, the war won’t be won and we’re only prolonging the destruction of Ukraine as a functioning country. In addition it’s clear Ukraine hasn’t overcome its endemic corruption and Ukraine is best viewed as a kleptocracy.
I’m not sure Zelensky is actually running the country as President, but is likely being forced to make bad decisions for the country to allow the continued enrichment of oligarchs.
In a REFI article from 2022:
“In 2019, Zelenskiy won the presidency by a landslide over Poroshenko after campaigning on pledges to end the conflict with Russia and to tackle the corruption and bureaucracy that has hamstrung the economy and hurt living standards.
Results have been mixed at best, and there is growing suspicion that Zelenskiy administration officials may be undermining those efforts themselves.
Transparency International said in its latest report released last month that there had been “no progress” and the country’s rating had even slipped slightly: “too many urgent anti-corruption tasks are delayed, frozen, or postponed indefinitely.””
The EU is still concerned with the level of corruption and other non-democratic problems in the country as Ukraine seeks admittance to the EU.
Those hardline positions has resulted in another significant loss of territory and manpower by Ukraine.
“On 9 February, Col. General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who replaced Valerii Zaluzhny as Ukraine’s commander-in-chief on 8 February, was reportedly transferring reserves to Avdiivka. On 10 February, Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, the commander of the Tavria operational-strategic group, observed that the Russians were attempting to “establish control of our supply routes on the northern flank” but insisted that supply lines held and Ukrainian defenders were strengthening “blocking lines, putting up additional fire positions, and pulling up fresh and effective forces.”
This left Ukrainian defenders trapped, when it was already evident they couldn’t hold their positions, resulting in the loss of hundreds of soldiers.
It’s laudable that the EU countries are stepping up to support Ukraine, if they believe that Russian threats are real. The European countries have the financial capability to support Ukraine, without our help.
Let them take the lead.
@ Aggie on February 17, 2024 at 11:25 pm:
I just watched the hour-long interview. Fascinating information.
The CIA tricks used to influence foreign elections during the Cold War have been transferred over to use in our elections. During the Obama years, the FBI, CIA, and DHS all became anti-Republican and especially anti-Populist. They now use social media, the internet, and censorship to try to influence our elections.
The whole amazing story is in this interview:
https://youtu.be/CRYSKaS-XtQ?si=xOP3NjcfcLVDhj2z
[Part of]The explanatory context without which my above posts can be perceived to be mortar free bricks (they are not).
Brain E:
Turtler can fisk your spin again.
You have been telling us Ukraine should bend over and accept their fate under “Mother” Russia for years now.
Ordnance, arty, rounds both conventional and cluster are what they need, but they won’t get them from the likes of you. Vlad has now sacrificed 400,000 Russians for his ego, you maroon!
Russians can’t use armour effectively but without sufficient ordnance (artillery you dumb F) assaults by infantry supported by Russian arty will eventually take Ukrainian positions.
So the isolationist idiots, that’s you Brain E, will happily throw Ukraine over, much like the Dems threw over the South Vietnameese in 1973.
And yes, you still peddle the Yanukovych fable.
None of this had to happen. Yanukovych had agreed to a deal with leaders of some of the protesters, but it was rejected and the demand was Yanukovych leave or the protesters would storm the Rada.
From Wikipedia:
“On 21 February, Yanukovych and the parliamentary opposition signed an agreement to bring about an interim unity government, constitutional reforms and early elections. Police abandoned central Kyiv that afternoon and the protesters took control. Yanukovych fled the city that evening. The next day, 22 February, the Ukrainian parliament voted to remove Yanukovych from office by 328 to 0 (about 73% of the parliament’s 450 members). Yanukovych claimed this vote was illegal and asked Russia for help.”
Yanukovych fled because his life was in danger. Turtler is wrong about the time frame of the vote to remove Yanukovych. The vote was held the next day. By the way, the vote would have failed the requirement to have impeached Yanukovych had they pursued that method.
True, none of this had to happen.
Vlad didn’t have to invade a sovereign nation.
But some are to thick to admit that reality.
Turtler has a much deeper and stronger understanding of history. Some are too thick to admit that either.
Some don’t know the first rule of holes.
@Brian E
Mate, it’s ironic you are going after om for rewriting history, but this is rewriting it far more than om did in his posts.
Firstly: There’s no grounds to argue “Right Sector overthrew Yanukovych.” Even though you like to emphasize the role of the radicals on the street and their rejection of the transition agreement, they were A: A minority even among the street radicals, and B: not what did Yanukovych in. And a close reading of the parties associated with Right Sector and the voting tally shows this.
Right Sector didn’t overthrow Yanukovych. Yanukovych got overthrown because his own people in the Rada turned on him because of his decision to respond to lawful summons before them by fleeing, leaving them holding the bag.
Secondly: By logic this would mean that the shots fired throughout Euromaidan by both sides (but particularly by Berkut and elements associated with it) were the first shots of the Civil War, not the removal of Yanukovych (and indeed, the downright unethical and probably unconstitutional leeway and orders he issued to Riot Police and attempts to issue similar to the military were a major reason why he got ousted).
Thirdly: I’d have more respect for your position if you were consistent. You’ve liked to argue that the Donbas and Crimea separatist outbreaks were grassroots and that only later they summoned help from the Russian Federation (an interpretation with some kernels of truth but which I on the whole reject, citing in particular the chronology and when we can track the deployment of Russian Federation military personnel and equipment to Crimea and the Donbas leading to the outbreak of full scale military conflict, very much UNLIKE in the American Revolution comparison you preferred where the fighting was going on for well North of a year and arguably two before the US Patriots obtained their first foreign ally). You also like emphasizing Yanukovych as sort of a leader of Russophone and Blue interests in the Donbas and Crimea (and to be fair to a large degree he was, though he fell from grace with even them very sharply, hence why even the Separatists are not particularly interested in having him back) and the violence in Euromaidan (and there was so). So doing all this but then arguing that the removal of Yanukovych from power (or really the recognition he had removed himself from the duties and powers of President by fleeing lawful summons) as the “first shots” of the civil war rather than the riots, sniper attacks, and whatnot in the months beforehand stand out to me.
I’ve been quite open about being willing to give credit to you or om when I believe you raise good points, and I will continue to do so, but this does strike me as simply rewriting history and rubbing out the parts that do not fit for your narrative.
Eh, close enough. Opposition to it is certainly part and parcel of what isolationists argue for, but that doesn’t mean it is worth condemning unto itself.
That is true, and also why people have every right to fear for corruption and mission creep. Though to be honest it is small potatoes compared to the much more massive graft, corruption, and political indoctrination at home.
This strikes me as a kafkatrap.
Firstly: What then would be an acceptable outcome to the war? And why on God’s Green Earth should ANYBODY trust Vladimir Vladimirovich or whoever comes after him to keep to the deal? Because this is the big sticking point. It was what killed the Minsk Agreements that Obama and the EU largely tried to impose on both parties, and what failed here.
Secondly: Au contraire Brian E, abandoning at least official policies to reclaim the internationally recognized territory is no guarantee of becoming a functioning country (at least by the standards of post-Soviet space). Indeed, it has caused instability and political turmoil in Moldova (though fortunately not a return to most violence), and has outright caused ethnic cleansing and several cycles of wars in Georgia.
Frankly, I’m inclined to believe that the only real way to make Ukraine a “functioning country” – or at least avoid its destruction – is by working to push the Russian occupation and their quislings out. The previous example of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzogovinia and the current example of Azerbaijan I do think help underline this.
(as a side note I actually am rather pro-Armenian and have little love for the Azeri regimes, so I actually lamented when the Armenians and the “Russian Peacekeepers” got bloodied in that conflict. However that doesn’t change the fact that it’s probably a far surer road to stability than hoping Putin or his successors don’t Alter the Deal, Darth Vader style, like they have provably done umpteen times before.)
Thirdly: Bleeding Russian military forces out and imposing economic costs will probably help push the regime to leave. It’s already increasingly hard to sustain the Black Sea fleet and the bridges to Crimea, and whatever legitimacy the occupation regimes in the Donbas had to begin with have collapsed, as Poroshenko predicted (and I do NOT normally rate Poroshenko highly, least of all for political foresight).
Even if that’s true that doesn’t change the fact that it is strategically beneficial to support kleptocracies against our sworn great power enemies, and that it’s better if they are bogged down in quagmires
By absolutely any metric whatsoever, Jiang/Chiang’s KMT in China were a far bigger kleptocracy with far more endemic corruption as well as despotism and a fair bit of philo-Fascism than Ukraine today is. That didn’t mean it was in America’s interests to avert its gaze and watch as the Japanese and to a lesser degree the Soviets tried to dismember and/or puppet it.
Likewise with the odious trio of Izetbegovic, Tudjman, and the rotating KLA Junta.
I mean, probably a bit of both. After all, Zelenskyy isn’t supposed to be an absolute dictator (which is one of the main issues I have with the “Maidan Overthrew the Ukrainian Government” thing while ignoring the legislature).
Regarding the REFI Article, yeah that raises a bunch of points. Though I’d note that in terms of “ending the conflict with Russia” Zelenskyy was unspeakably Dovish by the standards of Ukrainian politics at the time, by offering to demilitarize the Donbas and have an internationally recognized plebiscite so that those parts of the Donbas that wanted to be Russian would go with Russia and those that didn’t would remain with Ukraine, while also pledging to regain Crimea only through diplomatic measures. As I’ve pointed out, the Kremlin gave this the pocket veto at best, and as far as I can tell never deigned to respond.
Which of course rendered pretty much any resolution to the conflict unthinkable since a Zelenskyy cabinet that had just gotten humiliated for that was not going to become any less charming.
This strikes me like bullshit victim blaming. What led to “another significant loss of territory and manpower by Ukraine” was having the misfortune to be next to an aggressive, treaty breaking Kremlin and not rolling over dead.
Moreover, it’s worth noting that the territory and manpower Ukraine lost is much less than it’d have expected to lose according to the Kremlin’s stated positions. The dream of “Novorossiya” essentially holding the entire East and South of the country started being turned around in 2014-2016, and it largely got shelved after it became clear that not only was support in the Donbass a lot less than anticipated but also that the Ukrainians would continue fighting (even I note through the sluggish response by Obama and Biden during the latter parts of their term, and the clamp down on lethal aid).
Frankly, what prompted Putin’s intervention was probably a mixture of realization that his puppet troops and false flagged Land Forces troops were being slowly but steadily turfed out of the Donbas (and that the dam would continue to strangle economic life in Crimea), and recognition of Biden and much of the West’s deep weaknesses and hope they would respond to him by appeasing him.
I’ll also note that “non-hardline” policies by the like of Moldova and Georgia are no guarantee of stability, function, normalcy, or in Georgia’s case even peace.
Agreed, but it did.
A demand that was rejected by both major coalitions in the Rada and which had the confirmation from the Army that they would leave barracks to guard the Rada and other major government facilities if need be in a defensive measure.
But the agreement was contingent on both sides adhering to it, and that included Yanukovych carrying out the duties of Presidency, including answering summons. And some of the either more moderate or least cleverer in the anti-Yanukovych camps in the legislature manipulated things to deliver a series of summons to appear to Yanukovych and his cabinet to answer for their “questionably legal” conduct over the previous months.
Even if that were true, it doesn’t explain his refusal to explain that to the Rada or too reopen communications.
There’s a reason why Wikipedia isn’t treated as a source, but since you insist….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych#Removal_from_presidency
This is important for a few things. Firstly: The Rada spent the balance of a day wondering where the hell Yanukovych was and what had happened several other cabinet VIPs. The first signs he had gone on the lam were the last night, but it took the morning hours before that was confirmed (and various reports of theft at presidential properties were reported)
Secondly: The decision to take legislative measures against Yanukovych happened later in the day, and particularly after the two-faced broadcast where he declared himself still legal head of state (which he debatably was) without bothering to address either the transfer agreement OR the summons, and in doing so essentially disrespecting not only the radical opposition or the moderate opposition, but ALSO those who had stuck by him in the legislature.
(Which is one reason why the response was so sharp and quick).
This is true and I will hold it was one of the great injustices of Euromaidan, and they should have waited to get the votes, vacancy and vacuum be damned. Especially since they likely would have gotten the votes after a couple more days (and even if they did not it was worth a try).
However, it is worth noting the vote would have failed as-is had Yanukovych’s own coalition not overwhelmingly abandoned him, and while some outright fled the capital whether in fear of the mobs or their own legislative peers, more abstained and others voted in favor.
I’m not going to claim that Euromaidan was a spotless “Revolution of Dignity” with no ugly parts, sins on “my side”, or legal butcher jobs. That isn’t what happened historically and for whatever my biases and failures I do try to keep to history. However, the comment that “None of this had to happen” can be lobbed at the gangster kleptocrat who turned shock units on his own people and abdicated his oath to the constitution long before he outright fled the country, the egotistical veteran of the “organs” who decided the answer to this was illegal violence and annexation in one of the least defensible ways possible (from an ethical as well as legal standpoint), or for that matter the “secessionists” or “autonomists” (be they actually so or imported thugs) who escalated the already bad situation by outright attacking Ukrainian Troops in their barracks who had painstakingly maintained their neutrality through the previous political crises for the last couple decades, and in doing so showed themselves to lack the restraint or desire for peace that the Founding Fathers you compared the Donbas Separatists to possessed.
Om is right here. Putin didn’t HAVE to invade a sovereign nation. We know this because he denied doing so for years afterwards.
Moreover, even if he DID have to do so on the grounds of “Ukrainian Nazis in Crimea” or the like, he could have openly deployed Spetznaz to the peninsula, safeguarded whatever Russian nationals or assets there were, shot any “Nazis”, and then LEFT. Which the USMC, Royal Marines, and indeed the Russian Military has done multiple times.
He did not. In doing so he not only showed himself to be completely untrustworthy, but also made this shift from Yet Another Intra-Ukrainian Political Slap Fight into an existential crisis for Ukraine as a nation. That’s on Him.
Also I’ll note that something similar happened in Kyrgyzstan, when an uneasy alliance of political dissidents and pro-Russian elements helped topple Dictatorial “President” Bakiyev in a revolution that lacked even the legislative fixtures of Euromaidan, and at the time seemed to endanger the US “Transit Base”/Air Force Base at Manas (which indeed was a major reason for Russian government support). So what did the US do?
It issued platitudes about wishing for a peaceful transfer of power and freedoms and stuff before sending out the diplomats and lobbyists. And this worked, with the new government confirming the lease on the Transit Base for years to come.
Politics is a multiplayer game, and I think any accounting for that will inevitably cast a very sharp, harsh light on the actions of Yanukovych and Putin.
Turtler,
I didn’t mean to imply that it was solely Right Sector– as there were many opposition groups involved in the riots leading up to Feb. 21, but Right Sector was central to the events.
Again Wikipediae. While Wiki can sometimes be slanted, I think this is accurate.
“Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh rejected the agreement, saying, “We have to state the obvious fact that the criminal regime had not yet realised either the gravity of its evil doing.” He noted that the agreement did not include provisions for the arrest of Interior Minister Zakharchenko; the punishing of Berkut commanders alleged to have been involved in the murder of civilians; the removal of the general prosecutor and defence minister; a ban on the Party of Regions and Communist Party; and guarantees of safety for those involved in the opposition. He called for the “people’s revolution” to continue until power had been completely removed from the governing authorities.[186] Euromaidan leader Andriy Parubiy insisted that elections be held as soon as possible and reiterated that one of the main demands of protesters had been the resignation of President Yanukovych.[204] AutoMaidan also announced that it would not accept anything short of Yanukovych’s resignation.[205]
Vitali Klitschko apologised to the crowd on Independence Square after shaking hands with Yanukovych.[206] Protesters there responded to the deal by booing opposition leaders. Activist Volodymyr Parasiuk warned from the stage that if Yanukovych did not resign by 10:00 the next day, an armed insurrection would be staged.[207] Outside of Kyiv, it was later discovered that the summer home of pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk had been set on fire.[208]
By late afternoon, hundreds of riot police officers guarding the presidential compound and nearby government buildings had vanished.[75] Rados?aw Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, described the withdrawal of forces as “astonishing”, noting that it was not part of the agreement….”
Turtler – I agree in full with what you have written, but there’s a couple of other reasons:
1. Ukraine is a sovereign, independent, and autonomous nation, separate from Russia and from 1922 onwards, recognized by Russian governments as such:
A. The Russian Empire and its land claims ended with the execution of the last Emperor, Nicholas II, and his family, in 1918, by the Bolsheviks
B. In 1918, Ukraine formed an independent state under governments formed by Nestor Makhno, a Ukrainian anarchist.
C. In 1922, that government was overthrown by Bolsheviks, who created the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Bolsheviks did the same thing in Belorussia, creating the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, and in Russia and its colonized territories, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
D. In 1945, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, operating in their independent, autonomous, and sovereign capacities, were amongst the founding members of the United Nations, see https://research.un.org/en/unmembers/founders
E. In 1991, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the successor states to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, namely Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, respectively, acting in their independent, autonomous, and sovereign capacities, became the successors in right, title, and interest to their respective prior states which they replaced, and were recognized by the other members of the United Nations as such – including Russia, on the Security Council, see https://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/?pdf=CDL(1994)054-e
F. In 1991, Russia and Ukraine, amongst others, acting in their independent, sovereign, and autonomous capacities, became signatories to the Belovezha Accords and the Alma Ata Protocols, in which certain mutual guarantees and recognitions were made:
And here are the relevant Articles of the abovementioned Accords, wherein Belarus, the Russian Federation, and Belarus mutually guarantee their sovereignty and independence:
“AGREEMENT ESTABLISHING THE COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES
We, the Republic of Belarus, the Russian Federation (RSFSR), and Ukraine,
as founder States of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and signatories of the Union Treaty of 1922, hereinafter referred to as the High Contracting Parties, hereby declare that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality no longer exists.
On the basis of the historical commonality of our peoples and the ties that have developed between them, and bearing in mind the bilateral agreements concluded between High Contracting Parties,
Desirous of setting up lawfully constituted democratic States,
Intending to develop our relations on the basis of mutual recognition of and respect for State sovereignty, the inalienable right to self-determination, the principles of equality and non-intervention in internal affairs, of abstention from the use of force and from economic or other means of applying pressure and of settling controversial issues through agreement, and other universally recognized principles and norms of international law,
Considering that the further development and strengthening of relations of friendship, good-neighbourliness and mutually advantageous cooperation between our States are in accord with the vital national interests of their peoples and serve the cause of peace and security,
Confirming our adherence to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, the Helsinki Final Act and the other documents of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe,
Undertaking to abide by the universally recognized international norms relating to human and peoples’ rights.
We have agreed as follows:
Article 1
The High Contracting Parties hereby establish the Commonwealth of Independent States.
…
Article 5
The High Contracting Parties acknowledge and respect each other’s territorial integrity and the inviolability of existing borders within the Commonwealth.
They guarantee openness of borders, freedom of movement of citizens, and freedom of transmission of information within the Commonwealth.
…
Article 14
The official location of the coordinating organs of the Commonwealth shall be the city of Minsk. The activities of organs of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the territories of the States members of the Commonwealth are hereby terminated.
Done at Minsk on 8 December 1991 in three copies, each in the Byelorussian, Russian and Ukrainian languages, the three texts being equally authentic.
For the Republic of Belarus S. SHUSHKEVICH B. KEBICH
For the RSFSR B. YELTSIN G. BURBULIS
For Ukraine L. KRAVCHUK V. FOKIN”
These Articles and the relevant parts of the Preamble show that Vladimir Putin’s land claims to Ukraine are easily demonstrated to be utterly without basis in history or law. And if Putin doesn’t have actual knowledge of any of this, he has constructive knowledge, as his is the successor government to that which made these most recent treaties in 1991.
In the Carlson interview, Putin asserts that “Ukraine is an artificial state that was created at Stalin’s will”, amongst other similar statements, and by doing this, he’s betting that the Western governments have no memory, institutional or otherwise, of the agreements to which his government was a freely contracting and sovereign party. So far as I know, there’s been no action by the Duma of the Russian Federation to repeal the above agreements and to disestablish the Confederation of Independent States (on whose website, https://e-cis.info/, Ukraine and the Russian Federation are still shown as members), so Putin unilaterally and illegally, according to the laws of his own country, whose high officials were kept in the dark up to the point of the invasion, ordered the invasion in clear violation of Article 5, above.
Negotiating with Mr Putin is thus a foolish and irresponsible waste of time and resources, it ratifies his illegal actions and gives them the cloak of respectability, and that should never, ever occur, under any circumstances. No treaty formed with such an outlaw, who violates laws and treaties at will, will be honored so long as it is convenient for him to do so – which will be at about the time that he thinks he can gain more land and resources by further illegal acts, and where he thinks that other sovereign countries can be fooled or bullied into supporting his criminal assaults and robberies.
So when Tucker buys Putin’s lie, that “Ukraine is an artificial state that was created at Stalin’s will”, and takes it as face value as true, he shows that he hasn’t done very much research – and after Putin sees him swallowing that, hook, line, and sinker – then the rest of Putin’s BS follows because Putin knows he can get away with it.
2. Putin’s land claim to all of Ukraine is remarkably similar to what Aleksandr Dugin had asserted 26 years ago in his work, Foundations of Geopolitics, on which Putin is basing his policy, namely:
“On the key question of Ukraine, Dugin underlines: “Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning. It has no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness” (377). “Ukraine as an independent state with certain territorial ambitions,” he warns, “represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics” (348). And he adds that, “[T]he independent existence of Ukraine (especially within its present borders) can make sense only as a ‘sanitary cordon'” (379). However, as we have seen, for Dugin all such “sanitary cordons” are inadmissible.” https://tec.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/aleksandr-dugins-foundations-geopolitics
And Putin follows this perfectly, his geopolitics are very nearly the same as Dugin’s, as for the European areas, especially the Black Sea coastline. Putin opposes Ukrainian nationalism – calling it “de-nazification”, because for him, as well as for Dugin, the independent existence of Ukraine as a sovereign, independent, and autonomous state is a real problem – an “enormous danger”. And if Putin can fool the West into supporting his position, he solves this problem, and removes an obstacle to achieving his aims – which are the same as Dugin’s aims.
And, as it is with Dugin, Putin is preparing the ground for the defeat of his overarching enemy – the United States:
“Employing the “strategy of the Anaconda” (a term borrowed by Dugin from inter-war German geopoliticians used in reference to Britain), the United States and its close allies are seen as exerting unrelenting pressure on all Eurasian coastal zones (103, 110). Following precepts enunciated by Francis Fukuyama among others, the United States seeks to implant its own political and economic model throughout the globe (127). Moreover, following the prescriptions of Paul Wolfowitz, the United States attempts to reduce Russia’s role to that of a lowly “regional power” (199). In cynical fashion, the United States wants to “transform Russia into an ‘ethnic reservation’ so that it can receive full control over the world” (169).
How is a revived Eurasian–Russian empire to bring about “the geopolitical defeat of the U.S.” (260)? An appropriate response to the looming Atlanticist threat, Dugin contends, is for the renascent Eurasian-Russian empire to direct all of its powers (short of igniting a hot war), as well as those of the remainder of humanity, against the Atlanticist Anaconda.
“At the basis of the geopolitical construction of this [Eurasian] Empire,” Dugin writes, “there must be placed one fundamental principle–the principle of ‘a common enemy.’ A negation of Atlanticism, a repudiation of the strategic control of the United States, and the rejection of the supremacy of economic, liberal market values–this represents the common civilizational basis, the common impulse which will prepare the way for a strong political and strategic union” (216). The anti-Americanism of the Japanese, “who remember well the nuclear genocide and the disgrace of political occupation,” must be unleashed, as well as the fervent anti- Americanism of fundamentalist Muslim Iranians (234, 241). On a global scale, Dugin declares, “the main ‘scapegoat’ will be precisely the U.S.” (248).
One way in which Russia will be able to turn other states against Atlanticism will be an astute use of the country’s raw material riches. “In the beginning stage [of the struggle against Atlanticism],” Dugin writes, “Russia can offer its potential partners in the East and West its resources as compensation for exacerbating their relations with the U.S.” (276). To induce the Anaconda to release its grip on the coastline of Eurasia, it must be attacked relentlessly on its home territory, within its own hemisphere, and throughout Eurasia. “All levels of geopolitical pressure,” Dugin insists, “must be activated simultaneously” (367).
Within the United States itself, there is a need for the Russian special services and their allies “to provoke all forms of instability and separatism within the borders of the United States (it is possible to make use of the political forces of Afro-American racists)” (248). “It is especially important,” Dugin adds, “to introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements– extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics” (367).
Dugin’s Eurasian project also mandates attacking the United States through Central and South America. “The Eurasian project,” Dugin writes, “proposes Eurasian expansion into South and Central America with the goal of freeing them from the control of the North” (248). 48 As a result of such unrelenting destabilization efforts, the United States and its close ally Britain eventually will be forced to leave the shores of Eurasia (and Africa). “The entire gigantic edifice of Atlanticism,” Dugin prophesies, “will collapse” (259). He believes that this could happen unexpectedly, as occurred with the sudden collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR. Expelled from the shores of Eurasia, the United States would then be required to “limit its influence to the Americas” (367).” https://tec.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/aleksandr-dugins-foundations-geopolitics
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