Tag: Vladimir Putin

Cold Thoughts

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The weather has turned cold.  There was some sun today but temperatures were in the fifties.  We got out for a walk and there was enough to do around the house but for some reason I couldn’t get a handle on anything interesting in the news.  I guess things will have to percolate for a while.

I watched an old John Barrymore movie called Counsellor at Law.  It was really pretty good.  I hadn’t seen it for a few years and I even forgot the ending.  It had all the stock characters for a movie taking place in 1930s Manhattan.  And it occurred to me that the despised European immigrants that were the downtrodden denizens of the criminal courts in this movie have moved three generations later to the position of despised oppressors of the new downtrodden.

But the funny part is they did this without ever being rich or powerful in between.  Our parents and grandparents struggled to become good Americans in the hope that their descendants would get to live in the working and middle classes by following the rules and believing in the civic nationalism that said that a man was judged by his deeds and not his pedigree.

And now we are told that all that was a mistake.  Everything they did and we believed in was wrong.  All that talk about freedoms and inalienable rights was just a dodge.  It turns out that the Communists and the Fascists were right.  Power comes from the barrel of a gun.  We have no more right to freedom and happiness here than we did back in the old country where some patron or mafioso decided who got to work and who got to starve.  In fact, at least back in the old country there was some sense of loyalty even toward the peasants by those in charge.

So, we’re all expendable now.  Just a bunch of spare parts that are no longer needed in the new American economy.  A giant game of musical chairs where they turn off the music and there’s no place left for you.  It seems to me this explains why the Latinos are starting to gravitate toward the Republican party.  They’re basically the new version of the southern Europeans of a hundred years ago.  They came here expecting to work their way up and now they’re seeing the same dead end.  And they’re figuring out that the Democrats aren’t the party that helps families.  They’re the party of trans-gender indoctrination for their kids and of working women with no time for raising families.

I was reading Putin’s speech about the absorption of the Donbass regions into Russia.  It was very long and had a lot about Russian history and the fall of the Soviet Union.  But there was also a lot about the West.

I’ve copied some sections that I found interesting:

“In fact, they spit on the natural right of billions of people, most of humanity, to freedom and justice, to determine their own future on their own. Now they have completely moved to a radical denial of moral norms, religion, and family.

Let’s answer some very simple questions for ourselves. I now want to return to what I said, I want to address all the citizens of the country – not only to those colleagues who are in the hall – to all the citizens of Russia: do we want to have, here, in our country, in Russia, instead of mom and dad there was “parent number one”, “number two”, “number three” – are they completely crazy already there? Do we really want perversions that lead to degradation and extinction to be imposed on children in our schools from the primary grades? To be drummed into them that there are supposedly other genders besides women and men, and to be offered a sex change operation? Do we want all this for our country and our children? For us, all this is unacceptable, we have a different, our own future.

I repeat, the dictatorship of the Western elites is directed against all societies, including the peoples of the Western countries themselves. This is a challenge for everyone. Such a complete denial of man, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, the suppression of freedom acquires the features of a “reverse religion” – outright Satanism. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ, denouncing the false prophets, says: By their fruits you will know them. And these poisonous fruits are already obvious to people – not only in our country, in all countries, including for many people and in the West itself.

The world has entered a period of revolutionary transformations, they are of a fundamental nature. New development centers are being formed, they represent the majority – the majority! – of the world community and are ready not only to declare their interests, but also to protect them, and see multipolarity as an opportunity to strengthen their sovereignty, which means to gain true freedom, a historical perspective, their right to independent, creative, original development, to a harmonious process.

All over the world, including in Europe and the United States, as I said, we have many like-minded people, and we feel, we see their support. A liberation, anti-colonial movement against unipolar hegemony is already developing within the most diverse countries and societies. His subjectivity will only grow. It is this force that will determine the future geopolitical reality.”

Now I have no illusions about Vladimir Putin.  He is a cold-blooded killer.  He will use whatever means he needs to achieve his goals.  He was the architect of the Second Chechen War, a brutal conflict.  He is a Russian partisan.  He has no love for America.  And yet most of what I copied above from his speech is demonstrably true.  Our government is erasing normalcy from our society and substituting a sick twisted anti-human creed.  The family is denigrated and mocked.  Freedom is being erased as a hate crime.  Prosperity for most people is being outlawed.  Even Vlad the Impaler can point to us and name our sins.  They’re that mortally clear.

It’s a cold, kind of bleak day, but I found illumination in an old black and white movie and the words of a modern-day autocrat.  The United States has abandoned the principles that made it great.  It has broken faith with the people who fought for it and believed in it.  It remains to be seen if it can be prodded back on the high road again.  But at least I found a little clarity.

Unexpected Consequences of Irresponsible Actions

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Returning to the subject of yesterday’s post, I was considering what kind of effects might be caused by a country sabotaging the valuable infrastructure of a country with which it was not in a state of war.  What immediately came to mind was reciprocation.  Currently a new pipeline is going into operation from Norway to Poland.  Would it surprise anyone if that pipeline were sabotaged?  Now maybe this isn’t something the Russians would want to do.  Maybe they have other fish to fry with the Poles.  But it seems to me that the US has moved into entirely new territory with the bombing of the pipelines and they should expect the Russians to respond in kind.

Now, maybe this is all according to plan.  Maybe the people running our foreign policy (and domestic policy) are looking for a response.  As I said yesterday, this may be a tail wagging the dog operation they’re running and they need a Russian reaction to provide a distraction from the economy during the mid-term elections.  If that’s the case they may be hoping for something soon and drastic.  If nothing happens then probably the CIA will be disappointed.  I’m sure they want acknowledgement for their wanton destruction.  Maybe a commendation.

But here’s the thing.  This is a different level of provocation than even the military aid we’ve given the Ukraine.  Even with the targeting information and advanced artillery we’ve provided to the Ukrainians the actual attacks have been through proxies.  The sabotaging of the pipelines was done by United States directly.  It was a non-military target and it was completely unrelated to the Ukraine conflict.  It will be answered.

Really the only question is when.  Supposedly the Russians are pretty savvy about injecting their actions into the politics of their adversaries.  After all, hacked by Putin is a byword of Democrat party fear.  What they might do is wait for the mid-term elections to conclude and then once the Democrats have been trounced and can’t benefit from the distraction, I imagine some kind of revenge might occur.  What it might be is hard to know.  I have no knowledge of the relative vulnerabilities of different sections of US infrastructure.

The most likely thing would be an underwater pipeline.  That is what’s known as poetic justice.  But it could be anything.  It might not be sabotage.  It could be a data dump based on some kind of espionage that would be especially embarrassing to the Biden government.  It could be a terror attack coordinated with a Mexican drug cartel.  After all the southern border is essentially wide open.  It could be almost anything.

But the point is the Biden administration has gone out of its way to slap Russia in the face.  Chances are there will be a response and chances are it will be an escalation.  My only hope is that innocent Americans aren’t hurt or killed in the process.  But this is what happens when the foreign policy of a superpower is put in the hands of Yale and Harvard goofballs.  Maybe in 2024 we can rejoin the community of responsible nations again.  Until then just pray it all doesn’t go nuclear.

 

Update

Nostradumbass has suggested a couple of theme songs for the current situation

 

 

ZMan Has a Very Interesting Essay on the Past and Future of Russia

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Over at Taki’s Magazine the ZMan opines on the past, present and future of Russia as a society on the fringes of Europe.  He looks at the historical pattern whereby Russia attempted to adopt western culture and ways to advance into the modern world.  But he shows that this has always been at odds with Russians’ own nature.

Now he brings us to Russia’s recent conference in St. Petersburg where Vladimir Putin announced that Russia is going its own way and no longer needs the West as its tutor or leader.

If you’re interested in the changing world around us this might be a good read.

Joe Biden Calls for Regime Change in Russia

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Vladimir Putin is a ruthless war-mongering autocrat.  He is feared and loathed by millions.  But somehow Joe Biden manages to expose one of Putin’s positive traits.  Unlike Joe Biden he is not a pathologically lying weasel.  He means what he says.  And after listening for the last year to nothing but pathetic lies from Dementia Joe and his lackeys about every aspect of the train wreck that is Joe Biden’s America it’s almost refreshing to hear a dictator openly say that he is going to do something awful and frightening without pretending it’s something else.

Tonight, Biden gave a speech in Warsaw, Poland.  At the end he did one of his little play-acting riffs where he pretends to get angry and emotional and said, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”  Well, beside the fact that it seems very unlikely that Joe Biden has any concern for God, I don’t see how Biden gassing off about Putin falling from power does the least good for the Ukrainians, the Poles or anyone else.

Then there are the hypocrisies.  Earlier in the speech he says, “A dictator bent on rebuilding an empire will never erase a people’s love for liberty.   Brutality will never grind down their will to be free.”  So, if this is true why are the Uighurs being ground down by their Chinese rulers and why is Joe Biden unwilling to help them or even call the Chinese out for this much greater brutality?  The answer of course is that Joe Biden makes a lot of money working with the Chinese government and the last thing he wants to do is anger his benefactors.  Alternatively, Joe Biden also makes a lot of money working with the Ukraine government and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens that arrangement.  Therefore, he can separate good brutality from bad brutality.  The difference is good for Joe Biden and bad for Joe Biden.

So, let’s look at his fiery statement, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”  That sounds a lot like a statement I made a few weeks ago when I said, “How are we going to survive with this man as president for three more years?   The words are slightly different but the underlying thought is that some intolerable outrage cannot continue.

And since we are Americans and the welfare of America is the proper subject for the people and the government of America to occupy itself with, I consider my statement more important to Americans than Biden’s concern for the fate of a corrupt kleptocracy in the Russian sphere of influence.

Russia doesn’t want the CIA concocting color revolutions in its back yard.  It would be like Russia fomenting a revolution to install an anti-American regime in Mexico and then placing ICBMs there.  We wouldn’t stand for it.  We’d bring the full force of the US military to bear against this regime and topple it.

Russia has seen the same thing happen along its border in the former Warsaw Pact countries of Poland and Romania and then the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.  Apparently, the Ukraine was the last straw.

The historical importance of the Ukraine in the Russian sense of nationality is great.  It’s even worse than my analogy with Mexico.  It would be more like if New England had been pried away from America and now the Chinese were making a deal to place missiles in Massachusetts.

But Biden is dishonest even in his lies.  He doesn’t intend to attack Russia head on.  He is wagging the dog to distract the American people from $5/gallon gasoline and $5/lb. hamburger meat.  He needs something to help Americans forget that he tried to bury us under vaccine mandates and that he has fanned inflation until it threatens to bankrupt our nation.

So, Joe Biden is calling for regime change in Russia.  What we really need is regime change in America.  The question is can we survive until it is complete in 2025.

A Clear Headed Analysis of Zelensky’s Mistake

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Ukrain’e President Zelensky is adored by the West.  Reporters and politicians practically sing his praises and vow to do whatever is needed to win his war for him.  But the realities of how he got into the truly awful predicament he’s in is not a story of statesmanship but one of terrible naivete.  Being a tv comedian may not be the background needed to navigate the space between nuclear superpowers.

I recommend this article to get a better understanding how Mr. Zelensky blundered his way into a disastrous war.

It comes down to a puppet for the American color revolution forces doing what he was told.  He may live to regret it if he is lucky.

Reality is Starting to Seep into the Ukraine Coverage

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For the last three weeks we’ve been hearing that the Ukrainians were winning their fight with Russia.  We heard about thousands of dead Russians and how the Ukraine wouldn’t give into the Russian demands on NATO and neutrality.  Well, that’s over.  Zelensky admits that Ukraine will not be joining NATO.  And according to this  Fox reporter returning from Ukraine, the Russian victory isn’t an if but a when.

And it’s a good thing for the Ukrainian people.  The sooner they come to terms with the Russians the sooner the death and destruction ends.  This is reminiscent of the United States and Mexico in the 19th century.   Smaller countries should keep on the good side of larger neighbors if they can.  I’m not saying it’s just.  It’s just reality.

 

 

Moral Superiority

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From my youngest political memories, I was always made acutely aware of the differences between the way of life in the United States versus the rest of the world.  And not just comparing it to the Soviet Union or China or the banana republics in Latin America or the tribal societies of Africa and the Middle East or even the democracies in Europe.  Even Western Europe, even England lacked our freedom of speech, our right to bear arms.  We were the freest people on Earth.  We could say whatever the hell we wanted and the if the President himself didn’t like what we said, well he could go pound sand.

And the system we had held our leaders accountable.  Truman’s phrase, “The buck stops here,” signified that the President was held responsible for the actions of his administration and he was answerable to the American people.  Our leaders knew that the American people were proud of being the freest people on the face of the Earth and any leader who trampled on that freedom would be handed his walking papers at the next election.

And it went without saying that the Russian leaders; Brezhnev, Khrushchev and of course Stalin were lying, murderous thugs that Americans wouldn’t tolerate living under for a minute.  The idea that there could be a moral equivalence between these criminals and even your least favorite American president was absurd.  Our leaders were public servants and honorable men, even the ones from the opposing party.  They obeyed the law and respected the Constitution.

But what about today?  What if I compared Joe Biden with Vladimir Putin?  Would it still be night and day?  Let’s see.

Vladimir Putin is a former KGB colonel and a ruthless despot who would destroy anyone who tried to cross him.  I also think he is a Russian patriot who loves his country and people.  He also seems to be culturally, a traditionalist.  I would be afraid to live in his modern-day Russia.  The country lacks a fair justice system and governmental corruption is systemic.  But one thing that Russia lacks is a woke revolution.  No rainbow flags festoon the fronts of government buildings or schools.  No one talks about their pronouns.  You won’t find any men wearing dresses.  No doctors are sexually mutilating children.  So, in that one dimension, Putin’s Russia is morally superior to Biden’s America.

Now let’s look at Joe Biden.  He is a pathological liar.  He doesn’t just lie when he needs to.  He lies in the same way as everyone else breathes, that is, continuously.  He’s a chronic influence peddler whose “take” has grown to the point where it has reached the billion-dollar range.  And as far as honoring the rights of Americans, Biden’s Justice Department currently has scores of Americans illegally rotting in prison cells for the misdemeanor of trespassing in the Capitol Building on January 6th 2021.  Personally, he’s been accused of sexual assault on the streets of Washington D.C. during daylight hours.  He has a creepy habit of sidling up behind women and girls and holding them by the shoulders while sniffing their hair.  His family is made up of broken people with crack cocaine smoking bagman Hunter as the poster child for parental failure.  And as the COVID crisis proved Biden is more than willing to use an excuse to assume dictatorial control over the lives of Americans.

And even ignoring the men in charge, let’s look at the governments in Russia and the United States.  Russia is a corrupt oligarchic kleptocracy where those in charge use their positions to enrich themselves at the expense of the general population.  It’s obviously true.  And at this point how does that differ from the American oligarchs who run the banks and the financial mega-corporations that dictate the policies of the Federal Reserve so that they always make money even while we’re bankrupted by the swings of the economy?  And finally, unlike Russia, our elite has conjured up the woke revolution that brainwashes our children into hating their ancestors, their families and even their own bodies.  These monsters are reinforcing a cult that has as its endgame the end of normal human life on the planet in favor of sexually depraved, sterile zombies that want no progeny and no future beyond playing videogames and tweeting into empty space.

Putin is no saint.  He’s a megalomaniacal despot.  But as it turns out he is an improvement over what has happened to our country.  Anyone who claims that somehow the West has moral superiority over Russia or China or Iran will have a hard time convincing me.  And we have a long road to get back to where we were when we did.

An Interesting Article on Putin’s Strategy in the Ukraine

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The author’s thesis is that Putin losing the Ukraine war is probably the least likely alternative.  I thought it was a pretty good analysis of the likelihood of the various outcomes in the Ukraine War.

I think those in the West misunderstand the dynamic at work.  NATO has an agenda.  When that agenda threatens Russia too much it acts to push it back.  and now they’ve gone beyond a red line and may have permanently antagonized Vladimir Putin.  And that is a bad outcome for the West.  It is no longer a monopole world.  Russia, China, India and other states are starting to realize there is life outside of the West.  That is a very big deal.

The Outcome of the Ukraine War

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Predicting the future in a war is a fool’s errand.  So many things can happen to change the situation on the ground that even a few days of almost random occurrences can undermine the basis for a prediction.  But general principles can be used to guess what is likely to happen if the difference in strength between the two sides is lopsided enough.  So let me be foolish.

My first assumption is that Biden won’t risk military intervention.  He won’t declare a no-fly zone and he won’t shelter an openly operating insurgent force in a NATO country.  I think Biden is truly afraid of Putin.  Even the embargo against Russian oil and gas is probably more risk than he’s comfortable with.  Bottom line, I don’t think he’ll step into the war because he believes that Putin would as a last resort use nuclear weapons if the West interferes on the Ukraine battlefield.

The Russians have fought several wars in the last thirty years.  Some larger, some smaller.  The most difficult one was the Chechen insurgency.   Initially when the Russians attempted to occupy Chechnya the Chechens fought a brutal guerilla war that the Russians basically lost.  But in the second phase of the war the Russians figured out how to deal with guerilla fighters.  They surrounded them and then reduced the cities to rubble without engaging.  This limited the Russian casualties but increased Chechen civilian casualties.  I think that’s what they intend to do with the Ukrainian militias.  They’ll empty the cities of anyone who wants to get out and then starve the fighters out or blast them out.  This will tear the Ukraine to pieces and make it more likely that the Ukraine government will surrender.  But it’s not just the government that counts. Even if the Ukraine government surrenders guerilla fighters could extend the war indefinitely.

I guess the biggest unknown is just how committed the militia fighters are.  The Chechens were fearless and full of hate.  We’re about to find out what these Ukrainian militiamen are all about.  If they’re like the Chechens this thing won’t be over for years.  And that may exhaust the Russians ability to sustain the war while the West maintains sanctions and provides material aid.  If that happens Putin may decide to do something drastic and that could be disastrous for everyone including us.

But if the militias aren’t prepared to fight for every square inch of ground, then this thing will be over in a matter of months.  The Russians will be methodical and brutal.  They’ll reduce the cities to rubble and reclaim the country piece by piece until the militias have to surrender.  Putin has decided what he wants done and he will go about it in a determined fashion.  When the Ukrainian government surrenders, Putin will tie them up in a peace treaty to keep the West at arm’s length.

So that’s my read.  The only variable that matters at all is the fire in the rebels.  If they’re willing to fight to the death, they can hold up the war long enough to exhaust the Russians’ patience and resources.  If not, then the Russians will win.  It’s as simple as that.

Biden Blames Putin for Gas Prices, Stagflation, COVID Crisis, Afghan Debacle, Crime Wave in Cities and Incontinence

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Washington D.C. – American President Joseph Biden gave a hard hitting if somewhat confusing speech today in front of the Trade Union Delegation from Inner Outer Stanstanistan.  To the somewhat bemused pastoral herdsmen in their colorful native garb the animated but sometimes incoherent stateman was highly entertaining.  Of course, since the translator was speaking in Outer Inner Stanstanistanian they couldn’t understand anything he said.  But their spokesman was quoted as saying “we could tell he really meant whatever it was he was saying.”

After blaming every domestic and foreign policy debacle in his administration on the Russian strongman, Biden finished up the speech with an appeal for lower priced insulin that ended with him repeatedly striking the podium with his shoe.  This got a standing ovation from the herdsmen who remembered old video clips of Khrushchev at the UN that they had watched during lunch break in grammar school.  The emotional yak herders left the meeting chanting, “We will bury you, we will bury you” in fairly good Russian.

MSNBC reported that the speech is widely believed to be the talking points for the Democrat mid-term elections campaign platform.  Rachel Maddow explained, “We will blame everything on Putin.  Inflation, Putin.  Crime, Putin.  Biden’s flatulence, Putin.  There is even talk of finding footage of Putin standing on George Floyd’s neck whenever Chauvin needed to be spelled.  We drew the line at implicating him in the Kennedy assassination because Putin was eleven at the time and known to be a fairly poor shot with a rifle.”

Caught flat-footed by this new scheme Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell was quoted as saying, “Huh?”

After the speech a news team was sent out to a local gas station to do a man on the street interview with a consumer filling his gas tank.  After watching a clip from the speech, the motorist reached into his car and proceeded to brain the reporter with a baseball bat.  Police were called to the scene and after watching the video, they emptied the clips of their sidearms into the now motionless reporter and left.  The rest of the news crew beat a tactical retreat back to MSNBC where they suggested that the DNC might want to do a little more focus group workshopping of the idea.  But they stressed that heavy blunt objects and pointed and sharp-edged utensils be removed from the premises beforehand.

Later that night a medical emergency was declared at the White House.  During dinner when asked by Doctor Jill what he had done that day President Biden began to repeat the word Putin over and over in a continuous string; putinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputiputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputinputin!!!!!

When the doctors arrived, the president was diagnosed with a rare form of political Tourette’s syndrome.  It is now believed that for the rest of his life he will only be able to utter combinations of the two syllables pu and tin.  When questioned about this development White House Spokesperson Jen Psaki declared that this situation was Putin’s fault but that it would pose no real problem to President Biden continuing his present activities.  In fact, Psaki hinted that the new situation might actually make her job easier.

However, after hearing that the condition was permanent First Lady Doctor Jill packed her bag and left the White House with her secret service detail in tow.  She was quoted as saying, “That’s enough.  I’m out.”