Well then, you are a Francoite, a Falangist. Yes, I understand now. The street were safe and boy was it cheap. I was there when Franco died and even many people who sided with the Nationalists in the Civil War were sick of 40 years of Francoism. They could look across to France and see how Spain had remained poor and neglected. I ca…
Well then, you are a Francoite, a Falangist. Yes, I understand now. The street were safe and boy was it cheap. I was there when Franco died and even many people who sided with the Nationalists in the Civil War were sick of 40 years of Francoism. They could look across to France and see how Spain had remained poor and neglected. I can understand from your perspective of Spain why Putin must seem as an attractive figure. He is also a law and order an, a man of devout faith. Zalinsky (sic) on the other hand is perhaps the most popular leader in the world today. He is in a bunker in Kyiv. Courage is not scripted. He knows what he is fighting for. The people of the Ukraine know what are fighting for. This war was not brought on by EU and US hubris. It is a colonial war to subjugate the people of one country by another. Some things are worth fighting and dying for.
yes, of course, and the Russian and Greek people in the Donbas and Mariupol wanted the years of fighting over -- and the Donbas as well as Crimea wanted out of the imposed restrictions on Russian language and schools. Unfortunately, for the elitists in Kiev, they poked the Bear too often. It is their war to fight. The U.S. has hurt that poor nation enough -- and yes, there were certain things (safety and access to schools, and (though censored and restricted often) that Franco's Spain offered. It's very dangerous on Las Ramblas now -- and rents are out of control. And with these insane EU sanctions, strikes will only get worse.
First Alex, Most of eastern Ukraine is Russian speaking. The so called suppression of the Russian language that the Russians described in 2014 it never came to pass. Russian -speaking Ukrainians are fighting against Russians today. Since 2014, Ukraine has sloughed off much of the lethargy of the old post Soviet oligarchies. The break away Republics in Donbass and the annexation of Crimea were a part of Putin's attempt to carve up Ukraine in chaos following the 20124 Maidan Uprising. He was stopped, then, mainly by volunteers. Had he succeeded he would have taken Odessa and Kharkiv. I know that there are sources information here that appear unbiased with respect to Ukraine. They that paint NATO as the aggressor against Russias. They cast the Maidan revolution in 2014 as a CIA coup and they paint the Ukrainian government as a nest of narrow radical nationalists, Neo-nazis even. This is a minority view. It is closely aligned with Kremlin thinking. Compared to Russia and Belarus, Ukraine became a model of openness and freedom since 2014. Pro Russian parties existed, there was a pro-Russian press. Millions of Europeans travelled widely there and they travelled freely and found the people for the most part welcoming. What Putin has brought is war and devastation. No matter how it ends, it will end badly for Russia. The US did not cause economic pain to Russia. Russian state assets have been looted for decades and the people left ignorant and impoverished. Russian elites have raised their thieving to a level unimaginable before to this. The Ukrainians did not provoke a bear. A bear sat on Ukraine 400 years ago. It was forced off several times since then. But the bear has old habits, it keeps on wanted to sit where it is no longer welcome. Now the bear is tasting the pain of its bad habits.
The U.S. and the E.U. have destroyed our economies with their ill-begotten sanctions, but if Ukraine would simply remain neutral and NATO would respect the Minsk Accords, progress and peace could happen. The Ukraine economy was very poor, despite exports and natural resources, and will need to weed out the corruption. The Donbas is going home. It will never agree to Ukraine rule. Over time, though, peace and hopefully some economic reform, could allow "glasnost" to return. Ukrainians are great people -- have been visiting Toronto's Little Ukraine for years -- and Chicago has a large Ukrainian ethnic heritage. But poor leadership took its toll. We'll see what comes to pass -- at least all agree that the people certainly deserve peace and are an ancient and wonderful culture
In the early 1990s, the Ukraine was the 4th largest nuclear power in the World. In exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons arsenal, the British, the US, Ukraine and Russia signed the Budapest Accord guaranteeing Ukraine's security and sovereignty. That Accord was trampled on by Russia's seizure of Crimea and the creation of the Donbas People's Republics. The US and Britain did not intervene to insure there condition of the Accord. The failure to have done so then is probably why Putin felt emboldened to invade Ukraine in February. When the Ukraine gained independence in 1991, the old-Soviet-style leadership remained. State (public) assets were privatized, meaning the wealth of the nation was sold off for pennies to newly-minted, well-collected oligarchs. The daughter of the first president of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, bought a palace London during the 1990s that was the most expensive real estate purchases ever in English history. Oligarchs ruled but their powers where considerably circumscribed in the years that followed. After the 2014 Maidan revolution, Ukrainians government were forced to introduced transparency in government affairs n order to join the EU. Since 2014, there Ukraine has made great progress. In there last 20 years Ukraine has 5 presidents. Belarus has had one. Russia has had two.
Here, we believe that Victoria Nuland was behind much of the Maidan instability -- and inquiries have started regarding VP Biden's visits every three months during his vice presidency. He is not an intelligent man, with no interest in culture, music or art -- but he loves a nice fistful of money -- his cocaine-addicted child snagged a position with Burisma - an oligarch-owned Ukraine gas consortium, and was paid extreme amounts despite his spotty resume and lifestyle. Unfortunately, these inquiries make Ukraine appear to be a money laundering center for influential Westerners. Worse yet, I doubt the Ukraine public were aware that labs harboring hantavirus, Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever, brucellosis and more were squirreled away by the US Dept of Defense. Why there? Why so many? If Ukraine has made great progress, why were they rejected for NATO membership? It's not the citizens that are the target of Mr. Putin's aggression -- it's the Ukrainian Army, their secret police and the Azov battalions...but war hurts everyone, and this is the crime. Have you seen the Obama's home? He was not wealthy before his presidency, and is remaining very quiet here in the States. Politics is lucrative, it seems -- and America has her share of oligarchs. I have always respected Mr. Putin, though this invasion was a surprise. But, Russians don't want another Communist and the alternative candidates are all hawkish...He will listen to reason, if honestly presented (I hope!)
That is a big we, alex. Not everyone believes in this narrative, in fact, it is an extreme minority view in the US and the West. In fact, it is a bit hard for regular folks to swallow at all. It is a position that is put forward by a small group of people in the US like Max Blumenthal, A. Matte, Ritter, Oliver Stone, etc. There are also rightists who share this view at the magazine National Interest. There are also neo-Communists like the Center for Political Innovation. who buy in. The proponents of these views cite each others work, they never contradict each other, and they amplify each other. They do this to make their positions seem authoritative. It is a trick used by the new and old left. And when they cite credible sources, they often misrepresent the actual source material. For some people, see the same narrative repeated several times from seemingly independent sources, convinces them into believing it is true. They are wrong. All sources are biased, all sources have agendas. By the way, this narrative is almost completely in alignment with the Kremlin’s take on the issue. This hardly suggested objectivity. In fact it suggests more caution from the reader. Internationally, these same views of Ukraine are shared by Serbian nationalist groups, various stripes of communist-stalinists, third worlders who view the West as the font of all evil in the world, Hezbollah adherents, Pan Arabists, etc. In other words, mugs, pugs and thugs. You seem thoughtful and sincere enough,alex. I suggest you begin to assess this issue by reading from a wider range of sources. Your presentation of events really sounds cultish to my ear. In a single paragraph, you riff from Nuland to Biden to Hunter to Burisma to money laundering, killer viuses, NATO, secret police battalions, Azov, Obama, Obama’s corruption, oligarchs, your respect for Mr Putin and Communists. It is simply too pat, too one dimensional. These are facts, strung together like paper dolls on a line, stripped of context are presented like some type of coded message that only the initiated can decipher. The Maidan was one of the most documented events to have occurred in the last 10 years. It is clear that you have learned about events there by sipping from a very narrow straw.
A variety of opinions make for healthy discourse. I do read a variety of sources, and as they are agricultural and export centers, they are nations very aligned with the current Russian policies. In regard to the biolabs, I've seen some of the shipping manifests, and indeed, they were moving biological samples that require special packaging. It will be addressed . Thanks for at least caring about Ukraine's issues outside of the corporate grift.
I must disagree with your analysis. I don't believe any kind of consensus exists anywhere. The debate began before we developed language skills. The daily discoveries in archaeology and anthropology are revolutionary and we can see the universe in a grain of sand. We are talking BIG numbers and tomorrow the numbers will get BIGGER. I have trouble counting passed three.
I never could learn conventionally. My universe is one of interconnection kind of a universe wide web. Things happen because they happen to apply reason to what Darwin called natural selection is folly. There is no reason in science; shit happens.
On one level, nature does not care if you are a Serb or a Bosnian, a Russian or a Ukrainian, a German or Jew. That does not mean we should remain aloof from horror and depravity. The men and boys who were massacred at Srebrenica where different from the people who died in an earthquake or a tsunami. The deaths in Srebrenica, Treblinka, Babi Yar, Rwanda were the products of human agency. We all have a responsibility to stand against war, brutality and aggression. The Twain essay you provided earlier made this very point.
I grew up in Quebec that was still under Church law from the 18th century. Today in Quebec religion, gender, and race are no longer identities. It is the world my parents had envisioned 74 years ago.
I am not wise enough to know what is fair but fair sounds very boring. I do however think that unfair is far easier to discern.
Our political language makes no logical sense. Democracy and sovereignty are not the same word.
I live in a sovereign country called Quebec. We are a secular humanist liberal democracy. We are humanists. Race, religion, and gender are not humanist constructs they are superstition not science. We make our gods, our gods don't make us.
Do we have free will? Only if you don't believe we know right from from wrong do we have free will. Do we know right from wrong?
I've been on earth awhile...and yes, I lived and travelled pretty much all over...still have to see New Zealand and Brazil...the Congo...but extensive reading is a great adventure!
Kopek is correct: this is a Russian fascist colonial war to subjugate a neighboring people. “Nazis” indeed—Democratic Ukraine has both a Jewish President and a Jewish Foreign Minister! There are lots of Moscow-boys around today.
The former colonies of tbe USSR in Eastern Europe ran for protection to NATO in fear of Russia doing to THEM what Russia is doing to the Ukraine: invasion, destruction, attempt to impose a puppet government by force. Only an idiot would miss this.
The Baltics petitioned to join NATO in 2004– that is, after seeing PUTIN at his viscous work for five years. Get the picture?
Btw, that last accession to NATO on the borders of Russia was EIGHTEEN YEARS ago. Long ago—not recent.
The case is clear, Moscow-Boy. That's the LAST time any state bordering Russia fled to join NATO. Children born that year are now in college. Figure it out.
You don't know what you're talking about. The U.S. gave no lethal weapons to Ukraine until after Putin's aggression in 2014. The genocide Russia been carrying out in Ukraine in 2022 shows exactly what Putin has always had in mind. You obviously support him--so this is my last message to you, Moscow-Boy. This aggression in 2014--as well as the massive invasion of 2022--was in direct violation of an international agreement: the Budapest Accords of 1994. These guaranteed Ukraine's territorial territorial integrity in exchange for Ukraine handing over its nuclear weapons. RUSSIA SIGNED THOSE ACCORDS. So give up the bs of NATO as the aggressor! You just make yourself look like an idiot. No point in talking to an idiot like you, Moscow-Boy.
Look, fuck boy, I don’t give a shit about Putin’s sins. I care about the sins of my own nation, the United States, of which are plentiful and multiplying daily.
In this case, Russia pulled the trigger but holy shit did we say a lot of IM NOT TOUCHING YOUUUUUU.
Our hypocrisy (see Irag and Afghanistan for the latest examples) means we’ve got no moral ground to stand on.
Fuck Russia, fuck the United States, and fuck you.
Well then, you are a Francoite, a Falangist. Yes, I understand now. The street were safe and boy was it cheap. I was there when Franco died and even many people who sided with the Nationalists in the Civil War were sick of 40 years of Francoism. They could look across to France and see how Spain had remained poor and neglected. I can understand from your perspective of Spain why Putin must seem as an attractive figure. He is also a law and order an, a man of devout faith. Zalinsky (sic) on the other hand is perhaps the most popular leader in the world today. He is in a bunker in Kyiv. Courage is not scripted. He knows what he is fighting for. The people of the Ukraine know what are fighting for. This war was not brought on by EU and US hubris. It is a colonial war to subjugate the people of one country by another. Some things are worth fighting and dying for.
yes, of course, and the Russian and Greek people in the Donbas and Mariupol wanted the years of fighting over -- and the Donbas as well as Crimea wanted out of the imposed restrictions on Russian language and schools. Unfortunately, for the elitists in Kiev, they poked the Bear too often. It is their war to fight. The U.S. has hurt that poor nation enough -- and yes, there were certain things (safety and access to schools, and (though censored and restricted often) that Franco's Spain offered. It's very dangerous on Las Ramblas now -- and rents are out of control. And with these insane EU sanctions, strikes will only get worse.
First Alex, Most of eastern Ukraine is Russian speaking. The so called suppression of the Russian language that the Russians described in 2014 it never came to pass. Russian -speaking Ukrainians are fighting against Russians today. Since 2014, Ukraine has sloughed off much of the lethargy of the old post Soviet oligarchies. The break away Republics in Donbass and the annexation of Crimea were a part of Putin's attempt to carve up Ukraine in chaos following the 20124 Maidan Uprising. He was stopped, then, mainly by volunteers. Had he succeeded he would have taken Odessa and Kharkiv. I know that there are sources information here that appear unbiased with respect to Ukraine. They that paint NATO as the aggressor against Russias. They cast the Maidan revolution in 2014 as a CIA coup and they paint the Ukrainian government as a nest of narrow radical nationalists, Neo-nazis even. This is a minority view. It is closely aligned with Kremlin thinking. Compared to Russia and Belarus, Ukraine became a model of openness and freedom since 2014. Pro Russian parties existed, there was a pro-Russian press. Millions of Europeans travelled widely there and they travelled freely and found the people for the most part welcoming. What Putin has brought is war and devastation. No matter how it ends, it will end badly for Russia. The US did not cause economic pain to Russia. Russian state assets have been looted for decades and the people left ignorant and impoverished. Russian elites have raised their thieving to a level unimaginable before to this. The Ukrainians did not provoke a bear. A bear sat on Ukraine 400 years ago. It was forced off several times since then. But the bear has old habits, it keeps on wanted to sit where it is no longer welcome. Now the bear is tasting the pain of its bad habits.
The U.S. and the E.U. have destroyed our economies with their ill-begotten sanctions, but if Ukraine would simply remain neutral and NATO would respect the Minsk Accords, progress and peace could happen. The Ukraine economy was very poor, despite exports and natural resources, and will need to weed out the corruption. The Donbas is going home. It will never agree to Ukraine rule. Over time, though, peace and hopefully some economic reform, could allow "glasnost" to return. Ukrainians are great people -- have been visiting Toronto's Little Ukraine for years -- and Chicago has a large Ukrainian ethnic heritage. But poor leadership took its toll. We'll see what comes to pass -- at least all agree that the people certainly deserve peace and are an ancient and wonderful culture
In the early 1990s, the Ukraine was the 4th largest nuclear power in the World. In exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons arsenal, the British, the US, Ukraine and Russia signed the Budapest Accord guaranteeing Ukraine's security and sovereignty. That Accord was trampled on by Russia's seizure of Crimea and the creation of the Donbas People's Republics. The US and Britain did not intervene to insure there condition of the Accord. The failure to have done so then is probably why Putin felt emboldened to invade Ukraine in February. When the Ukraine gained independence in 1991, the old-Soviet-style leadership remained. State (public) assets were privatized, meaning the wealth of the nation was sold off for pennies to newly-minted, well-collected oligarchs. The daughter of the first president of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, bought a palace London during the 1990s that was the most expensive real estate purchases ever in English history. Oligarchs ruled but their powers where considerably circumscribed in the years that followed. After the 2014 Maidan revolution, Ukrainians government were forced to introduced transparency in government affairs n order to join the EU. Since 2014, there Ukraine has made great progress. In there last 20 years Ukraine has 5 presidents. Belarus has had one. Russia has had two.
Here, we believe that Victoria Nuland was behind much of the Maidan instability -- and inquiries have started regarding VP Biden's visits every three months during his vice presidency. He is not an intelligent man, with no interest in culture, music or art -- but he loves a nice fistful of money -- his cocaine-addicted child snagged a position with Burisma - an oligarch-owned Ukraine gas consortium, and was paid extreme amounts despite his spotty resume and lifestyle. Unfortunately, these inquiries make Ukraine appear to be a money laundering center for influential Westerners. Worse yet, I doubt the Ukraine public were aware that labs harboring hantavirus, Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever, brucellosis and more were squirreled away by the US Dept of Defense. Why there? Why so many? If Ukraine has made great progress, why were they rejected for NATO membership? It's not the citizens that are the target of Mr. Putin's aggression -- it's the Ukrainian Army, their secret police and the Azov battalions...but war hurts everyone, and this is the crime. Have you seen the Obama's home? He was not wealthy before his presidency, and is remaining very quiet here in the States. Politics is lucrative, it seems -- and America has her share of oligarchs. I have always respected Mr. Putin, though this invasion was a surprise. But, Russians don't want another Communist and the alternative candidates are all hawkish...He will listen to reason, if honestly presented (I hope!)
That is a big we, alex. Not everyone believes in this narrative, in fact, it is an extreme minority view in the US and the West. In fact, it is a bit hard for regular folks to swallow at all. It is a position that is put forward by a small group of people in the US like Max Blumenthal, A. Matte, Ritter, Oliver Stone, etc. There are also rightists who share this view at the magazine National Interest. There are also neo-Communists like the Center for Political Innovation. who buy in. The proponents of these views cite each others work, they never contradict each other, and they amplify each other. They do this to make their positions seem authoritative. It is a trick used by the new and old left. And when they cite credible sources, they often misrepresent the actual source material. For some people, see the same narrative repeated several times from seemingly independent sources, convinces them into believing it is true. They are wrong. All sources are biased, all sources have agendas. By the way, this narrative is almost completely in alignment with the Kremlin’s take on the issue. This hardly suggested objectivity. In fact it suggests more caution from the reader. Internationally, these same views of Ukraine are shared by Serbian nationalist groups, various stripes of communist-stalinists, third worlders who view the West as the font of all evil in the world, Hezbollah adherents, Pan Arabists, etc. In other words, mugs, pugs and thugs. You seem thoughtful and sincere enough,alex. I suggest you begin to assess this issue by reading from a wider range of sources. Your presentation of events really sounds cultish to my ear. In a single paragraph, you riff from Nuland to Biden to Hunter to Burisma to money laundering, killer viuses, NATO, secret police battalions, Azov, Obama, Obama’s corruption, oligarchs, your respect for Mr Putin and Communists. It is simply too pat, too one dimensional. These are facts, strung together like paper dolls on a line, stripped of context are presented like some type of coded message that only the initiated can decipher. The Maidan was one of the most documented events to have occurred in the last 10 years. It is clear that you have learned about events there by sipping from a very narrow straw.
A variety of opinions make for healthy discourse. I do read a variety of sources, and as they are agricultural and export centers, they are nations very aligned with the current Russian policies. In regard to the biolabs, I've seen some of the shipping manifests, and indeed, they were moving biological samples that require special packaging. It will be addressed . Thanks for at least caring about Ukraine's issues outside of the corporate grift.
I must disagree with your analysis. I don't believe any kind of consensus exists anywhere. The debate began before we developed language skills. The daily discoveries in archaeology and anthropology are revolutionary and we can see the universe in a grain of sand. We are talking BIG numbers and tomorrow the numbers will get BIGGER. I have trouble counting passed three.
I never could learn conventionally. My universe is one of interconnection kind of a universe wide web. Things happen because they happen to apply reason to what Darwin called natural selection is folly. There is no reason in science; shit happens.
On one level, nature does not care if you are a Serb or a Bosnian, a Russian or a Ukrainian, a German or Jew. That does not mean we should remain aloof from horror and depravity. The men and boys who were massacred at Srebrenica where different from the people who died in an earthquake or a tsunami. The deaths in Srebrenica, Treblinka, Babi Yar, Rwanda were the products of human agency. We all have a responsibility to stand against war, brutality and aggression. The Twain essay you provided earlier made this very point.
To a degree you are right, but to imagine that humans have no agency is nihilism. You do not strike me as a nihilist, Moe.
I grew up in Quebec that was still under Church law from the 18th century. Today in Quebec religion, gender, and race are no longer identities. It is the world my parents had envisioned 74 years ago.
I am not wise enough to know what is fair but fair sounds very boring. I do however think that unfair is far easier to discern.
Our political language makes no logical sense. Democracy and sovereignty are not the same word.
I live in a sovereign country called Quebec. We are a secular humanist liberal democracy. We are humanists. Race, religion, and gender are not humanist constructs they are superstition not science. We make our gods, our gods don't make us.
Do we have free will? Only if you don't believe we know right from from wrong do we have free will. Do we know right from wrong?
You are getting to the great philosophical question of our time. We are talking 1984 vs Brave New World.
What does free will look like?
What is the balancing point between freedom and reason?
I hold in my hands the 1993 Penguin edition of John Ralston Saul's Voltaire's Bastards (The Dictatorship of Reason in the West)
We will choose our future in our global village. We have the technology that gives us choice. What do we want the world to look like?
You were everywhere and you know everything.
Okay, sure.
I've been on earth awhile...and yes, I lived and travelled pretty much all over...still have to see New Zealand and Brazil...the Congo...but extensive reading is a great adventure!
Agreed.
I read. You?
Kopek is correct: this is a Russian fascist colonial war to subjugate a neighboring people. “Nazis” indeed—Democratic Ukraine has both a Jewish President and a Jewish Foreign Minister! There are lots of Moscow-boys around today.
I guess NATO expanding east was just some kind of clerical error.
The former colonies of tbe USSR in Eastern Europe ran for protection to NATO in fear of Russia doing to THEM what Russia is doing to the Ukraine: invasion, destruction, attempt to impose a puppet government by force. Only an idiot would miss this.
The Baltics petitioned to join NATO in 2004– that is, after seeing PUTIN at his viscous work for five years. Get the picture?
Btw, that last accession to NATO on the borders of Russia was EIGHTEEN YEARS ago. Long ago—not recent.
Lol - You think 18 years is “long ago” on a continent with a history of wars spanning thousands of years.
Tell me more, sweetie.
The case is clear, Moscow-Boy. That's the LAST time any state bordering Russia fled to join NATO. Children born that year are now in college. Figure it out.
You must be one of them, with a memory that fucking short.
18 years since the last NATO move! Give it up, Moscow-Boy.
So, the weapons we sold Ukraine over those 18 years are... what exactly...?
You don't know what you're talking about. The U.S. gave no lethal weapons to Ukraine until after Putin's aggression in 2014. The genocide Russia been carrying out in Ukraine in 2022 shows exactly what Putin has always had in mind. You obviously support him--so this is my last message to you, Moscow-Boy. This aggression in 2014--as well as the massive invasion of 2022--was in direct violation of an international agreement: the Budapest Accords of 1994. These guaranteed Ukraine's territorial territorial integrity in exchange for Ukraine handing over its nuclear weapons. RUSSIA SIGNED THOSE ACCORDS. So give up the bs of NATO as the aggressor! You just make yourself look like an idiot. No point in talking to an idiot like you, Moscow-Boy.
.
“The genocide”.
All I need to know, really.
Look, fuck boy, I don’t give a shit about Putin’s sins. I care about the sins of my own nation, the United States, of which are plentiful and multiplying daily.
In this case, Russia pulled the trigger but holy shit did we say a lot of IM NOT TOUCHING YOUUUUUU.
Our hypocrisy (see Irag and Afghanistan for the latest examples) means we’ve got no moral ground to stand on.
Fuck Russia, fuck the United States, and fuck you.
There always are, Art. There aren't many, though. I suspect they all live in the same group home.
Between you and Art, who’s the bottom?
"Gargle that statist cock harder, baby!" Phisto Sobanii, 2022 - classic
I appreciate living in your head, rent free.