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Covid the Cow's avatar

Wait, are you suggesting there might be other possible opinions than the one held by the CIA and the Pentagon which we are being constantly clobbered with by the mass media?

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Jim Perdue's avatar

Glen Greenwald certainly believes the MSM is a spokesperson for US intelligence agencies. What should we expect?

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Covid the Cow's avatar

Call me old fashion, but I expect the media to do its job.

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Where is John Galt's avatar

They won't.

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John Stuckey's avatar

Yes, they will 'cause their job is to support US Empire.

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Buanca's avatar

Ibdo nit recall the last time when mainstream media actually did its job

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Mac's avatar

Only through thoughtful exchange can one ever hope for civility to exist.

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Jim Perdue's avatar

It helps if leaders value human life. If they don't, what can we expect to see?

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John J Blenkush's avatar

Thanks! Matt for bypassing all the propaganda and allowing the world to hear the censored Russian voices.

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Apr 14, 2022
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Matt Taibbi's avatar

I don’t know for sure but my guess is the feelings for the West are pretty universally frosty

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Jim Perdue's avatar

I don't blame anybody for not trusting the US government. Go back to the Indian wars in the 1800's. I know I got this from westerns I watched as a kid, but... "White man speak with forked tongue"

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Apr 14, 2022
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IgBris's avatar

NATO/US apologists are infinitely worse. NATO/US killed infinitely more many innocent people than Putin did.

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Apr 14, 2022
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jlalbrecht's avatar

I'm an American ex-pat living in central Europe since the early 90s (travelling here since the late 80s).

I've watched since the fall of the Soviet Union and the opening of East Europe how the west really used the 90s to trample on the rest of the world. For example: US interventions in the 90s was about equal to all the US interventions from the 40s until the 90s. That shit has blowback. Then we started with open invasions at the end of the 90s until now. That shit has blowback.

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Daily Growler's avatar

I think the Collective West and its media have made it pretty clear that they hate,and expect all decent Westerners to hate, all things Russian. That goes for Russian athletes, musicians, even cats. I've heard that about 20% of the Russian people are liberals who for decades have wanted to integrate with the West, but from what I've been reading, it appears that even they now realize that Europe and America hate them and want to destroy them. They may have reason to distrust Putin, but why would they ever trust the West again?

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Jim Perdue's avatar

I don't think Americans hate Russians. This is Putin's war. It's wrong that Russian athletes, singers, are being targeted. The first time I heard of this kind of thing was a Russian opera singer being removed from the group. To me, this is wrong. There are probably many Americans who feel as I do. I know for me, I see this as Putin's creation, not the Russian people.

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Daily Growler's avatar

I don't think most Americans hate Russians, because I think most Americans don't actually know anything about Russians. We've been propagandized by the western elites and their media to think of Russians as "other," somehow less worthy. IHMO if any other ethnicity or culture were treated that way, we'd be screaming "racist," but somehow, when Russians are slurred, it's OK. Note that Biden himself publicly admonished the Russian people just last week and told them they are personally culpable if they don't overthrow Putin (as the US directs). By Biden's reasoning, every American would be guilty of multiple war crimes based on the conduct of American foreign "policy" establishment.

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jlalbrecht's avatar

My father was born in 1936 to American parents who spoke German as a first language. I asked my grandmother why she didn't teach my dad German when he was little. She said that everthing German at that time was seen as very bad.

Our attitudes today towards Chinese and Russians is very similar to how they were toward Germans and Japanese 80 years ago.

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Daily Growler's avatar

I understand. My parents were immigrants from Germany several years before WWII. My oldest brother was born in 1937 in the US. Our parents taught him German in the home, so he was bilingual. They instructed him not to speak German outside the home. Sometimes when they were out, and he got excited, he would say something in German. People would glare at them. Our parents were mortified and would either act as though they didn't know him (hard to do convincingly if you're an adult riding the L in Chicago with a German-speaking 4-year old sitting on your lap) or ask in a stern voice, "where did you learn that?" When I came along years later, they taught me German too, and instructed me, too, not to speak German outside the house. I still recall my horror when, in the mid 1950s, I was doing "show and tell" in kindergarten and inadvertently used the German word, kariert, instead of the English word plaid. The teacher asked me what I had said, and proceeded to ask why I knew a German word. At recess, my classmates clamored to ask if my parents were nazis. I was mortified and so ashamed of my ancestry. And now, in the US, we have a power structure that seeks to make millions and millions feel bad about themselves because of their immutable characteristics.

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Jim Perdue's avatar

I wouldn't base what most Americans think by what comes out of Biden's mouth.

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Sevender's avatar

You don’t seem informed enough to see much.

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Jim Perdue's avatar

That's exactly why have posted some questions here. I've never lived in Ukraine. I don't know how many neo-Nazis there are in Ukraine or how much influence they have. Yes, the evidence suggests the US supported a regime change in 2014. What about Putin before that? You think he's innocent? You're right, I'm not as informed as others.

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Jim Perdue's avatar

This is a quote from the Sacramento Bee by someone whose father was born in Ukraine, and they have visited Ukraine. "The first thing to say about the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is that its active phase has been playing out since 2014 when Russian troops occupied the peninsula of Crimea, my father’s homeland. Then Russia had a so-called referendum in an attempt to legitimize its occupation of the peninsula. Then active hostilities started in the eastern part of Ukraine, the Donbas region, when Russian troops began to gradually bomb cities, blow up hospitals and destroy residential buildings as they advanced. However, Russian officials never admitted that Russian troops were waging war in Donbas." You see, I'm trying to learn more about the region.

Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article259860060.html#storylink=cpy

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Tarun's avatar

Have you been over to the Russian dissenters page? They are toxiclly anti Russian many of them. I'm not sure if they are russians tho.

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Sevender's avatar

You’re casting aspersions on brave Russian anti PUTiN authors like Victoriya Nulandova?

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jlalbrecht's avatar

Maximillian Bootivanovich is my favorite over there.

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jlalbrecht's avatar

LOL. That is really funny.

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Tarun's avatar

Someone was mentioning that a lot of the virulent anti Russian people in the foreign policy community have eastern European Jewish ancestry... And the Jews got roasted pretty good over there... also in Russia... so there is that.

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Eriol's avatar

yes, I was initially excited that Matt is giving an alternative to the cancelled RT Sputnik voices, but turns out he is still reluctant to call out the West for what it is. Love affairs are hard to get over, even after repeated betrayals.

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Jim Perdue's avatar

I think a pragmatic approach would be helpful for Russia. I'm referring to their economy. Why shouldn't Russia trade with the West and Asia?

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Daily Growler's avatar

Why would they trust the West again after Collective West stole their Central Bank's foreign reserves? How can any country trust western financial architecture after that?

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jlalbrecht's avatar

I think that is EXACTLY what China, India, and Pakistan (among others) are thinking now. They have learned that the precautions Russia took are not enough, and I'm guessing they are already implementing plans to secure finance routes and leverage to be in a better position when (not if) the US does the same to them.

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Apr 16, 2022
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Tarun's avatar

I dunno... Russia has mostly stayed in their zone.. America has spanned the globe with it's nation destroying force!

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Apr 14, 2022
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Thom Williams's avatar

@ e.pierce 👍❔

Thanks for this excellent reference;

"Among the Bourgeoisophobes

Why the Europeans and Arabs, each in their own way, hate America and Israel.

by David Brooks

04/15/2002, Volume 007, Issue 30"

This is the David Brooks I had forgotten to respect for his academic CONservative intellectual acuity. (By the way,🤔 could you help this hapless operative access "part 2" of the article❔)

As Usual,

EA😎

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Apr 16, 2022
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Thom Williams's avatar

@ e.pierce 👀

Do you perceive this discerned "partial truth" to be actual self-loathing, or possibly some sad attempt to distract from exposing unresolved self-pity⁉

As Usual,

EA☠

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Apr 15, 2022
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Thom Williams's avatar

@ e.pierce ✔

Just how antiquated is your version of the daunted WBM⁉

I did click on the "part 2" offering at the end of what seemed was being identified as part 1; but it just brought up the latest publication of the WS.💫

Is David Brooks still in good standing with the William "Bill" Kristol cabal of neocons☣

As Usual,

EA😎

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Daniel Kalder's avatar

Kagarlitsky's column was always one of the most interesting reads in The Moscow Times; definitely interested in checking this out. Thank you for organizing. And understanding this is key: "I suspect many Americans will find the attitudes in some of these pieces to be puzzling or even off-putting. For one thing, even Russians who are fiercely opposed to the war in Ukraine are often not positively disposed toward the West."

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TheLastBattleStation's avatar

“Alla Glinchikova’s article, “I Can’t Not Write,” she opines that the United States never even wanted its “accidental victory” in the Cold War:”

It’s telling that Russians know this but most Americans don’t. It explains why the U.S. is still obsessed with Russia.

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Dunboy2020's avatar

Pretty gutsy move, Matt. Bravo.

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Sherry's avatar

I don't have to support the Russian writers' points of view to support their right to publish them. Thanks for doing something substantive to foster freedom of speech. It's not just an American or Western right, it is a human right.

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Jim Perdue's avatar

How can you have a real, functioning democracy without a free press?

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publius_x's avatar

Shut up, Elon! How dare you!

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Skeptic's avatar

Putin is a thug, but that's not why the American elite hate him. They hate him because he only allows Russian oligarchs to rape the country; he sent the foreign ravishers home.

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Franklin Carroll's avatar

Well, better to get raped than sodomized. The countries we "rape" seem to do better than the ones he "saves" for himself.

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jlalbrecht's avatar

You mean like Iraq, Yemen, and Syria? We were happy having ISIS take over Syria until Russia came to the rescue.

Apropos sodomized. You mean like Libya, which was the wealthiest and best educated country on the continent of Africa until we overthrew Ghaddafi and he was sodomized with a bayonet? What do you think of the open slave trade now in Libya? Better, worse or just different than Chechnya? You think the people of Yemen would trade places with the people of Georgia?

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Jim Perdue's avatar

Do you mean Aleppo, Grozny? And now Ukraine?

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Ed Weinberg's avatar

Great idea!

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CSS's avatar

Good initiative, Matt.

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Rather Curmudgeonly's avatar

"A theme that pops up at times is an embittered belief that American policymakers may have concluded long ago that the Russian people were more useful to them as enemies than as friends."

I can understand why they might doubt the beneficence of the American government. I have plenty of reason to do so.

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Apr 14, 2022
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Marco Z.'s avatar

I liked this comment, though I'm not sure I agree with it. Following the Second World War the same "baked into the cake" attitudes were prevalent with regard to Japan and Germany — in short, they were widely believed to be incapable of liberal democracy. Such was the basis of the Morgenthau Plan, devised immediately after the fall of Berlin, to permanently deindustrialize Germany, including the seizure of all its heavy machinery and the razing of all its forestland. (Keith Lowe's excellent book "Savage Continent" details the forgotten history of postwar Germany in great detail, including what can only be described as a genocide perpetrated against ethnic Germans in parts of Czechoslovakia and Poland.)

All of which is to say: I don't think there is anything fundamental about the nature of Russian people that makes them any more or less capable of self-governance and open societies than, say, the Japanese. Honor cultures exist around the world, including in large swaths of the United States.

I do agree that America's long history of prosperity and cultural dominance prevents most Americans from being able to understand the rest of the world (and, to a certain extent, their own world). All the weirdly pro-Putin commenters on this blog have the luxury of cheerleading a despot from the comfort of their American homes — they wouldn't last a week in Putin's Russia. They are the mirror image of America's pro-Chavez left wing 20 years ago.

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Apr 16, 2022
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Marco Z.'s avatar

To be clear: I don't believe Western liberalism could ever be imposed on Russia from without. A post-WWII style reconstruction, should events ever make it possible (unlikely), would indeed prove a dismal failure.

That being said: Russia is not Saudi Arabia. It has (or had, until February) a fairly large professional and creative class. It also has a centuries-long tradition of cultural excellence in the arts, music, literature, and science that is neither trivial in its global reach nor insubstantial enough to suggest a nation hopelessly mired in tribalistic despotism. The obstacles to liberalization would be immense, and daunting — particularly, dismantling the klepto-state and extinguishing the vast corruption it imposes. But the ingredients are there in a way that they weren't in, say, Afghanistan, where no amount of Western money would ever have made a difference.

One final note: America has its own Dugins, and its own inbred tribalism. I've never been to Russia (sadly, I may not have a chance to go for many years). But I would imagine that the people one might meet in its vast rural expanses are not so different from those you'd find in parts of rural America: obstinately suspicious, conspiratorial, parochial, fundamentalist, and vapidly nationalistic. These are universal human traits, and they are distributed among peoples of every nation on earth. The difference between America and Russia is that we've (historically) done a better job of keeping our crazies on the margins — though that's certainly not the case anymore.

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Jim Perdue's avatar

I'm not sure, but based on what I've read and interviews I've listened to, Putin views Ukraine as Russia's "mini me". How is it that Ukraine seems to be moving in a direction of democracy and wanting to become a member of the EU? Maybe Ukraine isn't a mini me of Russia, but a country with it's own history and traditions.

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Sevender's avatar

Moving in the direction of democracy? …By having a U.S.-backed coup, a massive military buildup funded and trained by NATO and staffed by literal Nazis, killing 14,000 of your own citizens, shutting down opposition parties and press outlets (and that was before the war)…this is a democracy? Lol.

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Jim Perdue's avatar

If Putin takes control of Ukraine, what will it be? What about the people of Ukraine? They shouldn't have a say?

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Eriol's avatar

he might never have wanted to take control of Ukraine, his initial stated aims were ‘denazification and demilitarization’ of Ukraine, ie not to allow Nazi elements controlling Ukranian political and military institutions, and not to allow military buildup especially joining NATO which is an offensive military alliance aimed at containing Russia.

As for whether Ukrainian people should have a say, of course they should, but it should be a well-informed and well-educated say, not a say based on Western propaganda and western agendas. There is a geo-political reality for countries like Ukraine, and I would also draw attention at this point to the recent folly of Finland and Sweden, and that is that they are small countries between two great powers, and it is essential for their survival and for the general peace that they remain neutral, not aligning themselves to either side.

This geopolitical reality might not provide good PR for democracy but it is a reality of life, and life has a stubborn tendency to not concern itself over much with our puny ideologies, noble sounding or not.

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Sevender's avatar

There is nothing to say to you. You are not even wrong. You’d have to study for months or years just to get to wrong. You type words. They mean nothing.

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Jim Perdue's avatar

Why can't you answer simple questions? How do people learn if they can't ask questions, and get answers? Should the people of Ukraine have a say in their future?

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Jim Perdue's avatar

This quote is from another substack post by Yasha Levine: "Last year, in response to questions from Russians on what Russia could do to help ‘pro-Russian’ people in Ukraine, a Ukrainian ‘pro-Russian’ opposition journalist posted something like this: ‘Leave Ukraine alone and focus on building an affluent and attractive Russia.’

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Skip Scott's avatar

From an executive at Substack: "withstanding scrutiny makes truth stronger, not weaker." I would also suggest making a new substack for pro-Russian intervention writers who dissent from the western MSM narrative and have been equally censored. I am never in favor of violence, but the censorship in the west of the intentional goading by NATO to get Russia to invade, and the unmentioned, but obvious goal of using Ukrainians as pawns to "bleed Russia" instead of promoting real peace and democracy in Ukraine needs to be part of the debate. Also the relationship between western based multinational corporations (who long for a return to the looting of the Yeltsin years) and the imperial war machine needs further discussion.

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Bryan Vaughan's avatar

I think it's a great idea !

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Robert's avatar

Super! Now we only need an equivalent substack for all the dissident writers in the West who have been censored, silenced, and deplatformed. Hold a moment, I am now being informed that is in fact what substack is. Carry on.

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Mike's avatar

Thanks, Matt. Is this something readers would subscribe to? Or would there be an option to donate?

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I Am the Eggman's avatar

Subscribed! This is a great idea. Thanks for setting it up!

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The Upright Man.'s avatar

None of this has ANYTHING to do with TK.

Little bit of a typo there in the third para.

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Matt Taibbi's avatar

Jesus, I need to get more sleep. Obviously that was originally a different sentence. Thanks… sorry

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The Upright Man.'s avatar

No good deed goes unpunished. Great work you are doing with this piece in specific, and TK in general.

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