Comments by "dixon pinfold" (@dixonpinfold2582) on "FRONTLINE PBS | Official" channel.

  1. It's only one person's opinion. It's a qualified opinion, to be sure, but professionals steeped in the nuances of what they study frequently disagree and see things a great deal differently. Putin could be where she really shines, but I don't know. I do know that I've listened to her on other topics and at times was struck by just how much of an unquestioning/standard-issue 2000s collegiate mind she had. (This is a major hazard of attending a prestigious university—you trust everything you learn there, including the mistaken prejudices common among your fellow students, who are just leaving adolescence.) Not that I disagree with you, though. I do agree.
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  2. At 20:08 she says "...basic democratic tenants..." That's right, tenants instead of tenets . Quel sac à douche.
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  3.  @jaykay1053  I saw The Putin Files shortly after it aired and watched it with great interest. Then I watched it again a year or two ago.
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  4. Welcome to the Putin-bot comments pasture. Don't wear good shoes.
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  5.  @bikebudha01  "It's still giving a platform to a complete moron... You call it whatever you want, it's bad for society." People like you are the reason we have echo chambers.
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  6. I was really disappointed to find her calling Trump a "quasi-fascist". I felt the same in early 2017 for the same reasons many people did, mainly his theatrical way of trying to show he was in charge (resorted to probably because he had few supporters in Washington and the media). But I soon realized I was wrong. The intervening three years make him seem more of a bore. She warns on the Putin Files against overestimating the threat of Putin, asserting he landed a lucky punch on Hilary Clinton, is no evil super-genius, less powerful than he seems, etc. She's been very slow to see that the same things apply to Trump, probably owing to a diet too rich in progressivism. More variety would improve her eyesight.
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  7. The remark at the 14-minute mark concerning Canada is quite right and surprisingly candid. At the official level, Canada frequently makes out like a bandit in its arrangements with the US, and gets away with being tediously sanctimonious. That's its consolation. In the areas of cross-border flow of talent and of companies bashing it out cross-border, Canada does not make out so well. All in all, nobody much resents the other party for the things that go their way, and on the whole it is a situation much to be admired.
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  8.  @B_Bodziak  Why of course. You needn't have asked. Perhaps you've mistaken my point, which is that it's important to seek out multiple well-qualified opinions. Otherwise one may end up someone's disciple.
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  9.  @donikatod460  But as I see it she's not doing journalism here. She's a specialist being interviewed by a journalist. I agree that I wouldn't want to open my newspaper and read a news article by her that reads the way she talks here. I suppose you don't make the distinction and of course that's your perfect right. It's been nice discussing this with you.
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  10. Plus for Putin: generally, the more of his opponents who leave the country, the better. Minuses for Putin: their departure probably means a loss of productive talent and will intensify economic decline; some number of them will work to oppose him in ways that being abroad makes easier and more effective.
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  11.  @HenrykSzlangbaum  Your claims sound stretched to me. A great many Western journalists covering Russia don't have the greatest Russian. A great many journalists covering any given foreign country may not be very fluent in its language. At least she comes from a Muscovite family. I don't necessarily care, either, that others interviewed here or anywhere disagree with her. Maybe they're wrong, not her. And I never noticed them "mostly laughing" at what she said anyway. I carry no brief for her, but you sound like you have an axe to grind for whatever reason. It was nice talking to you.
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  12.  @christopherl1610  "He's setting her up to repeatedly bash Trump." Well, he's drawing her out, yes. And that's perhaps the central object in interviewing. You're aware that she has for good reason become quite well known for bashing Trump, surely? It's part of her message and I presume one of the things she showed up determined to get across. Were he interviewing a Democrat it likewise would have been the right tack. And when talking to Steve Bannon, he drew him out on why he supports Trump so strongly. So I wonder what you think he ought to have done instead. Cheers.
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  13. Hi, I'm a purebred Russian troll and I'm here to tell you that this whole Putin series is corrupt because everything in the world is corrupt. In Russia journalists are all bought and paid for and told what to write by powerful forces standing in the shadows, so it must be the same at PBS. Surely the CIA told PBS what they wanted, and PBS did what they were told. That's how it works in Russia; same thing in the US, I'm pretty sure. Just read more comments below; my many friends will back me up. It's like marital fidelity: My wife cheats on me every day, so I assume so does everyone else's. A faithful wife is just a myth.
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  14.  @el80ne  Nice job v. that enthusiast (or professional). Some people who live long enough next to a sewage plant eventually come to believe the whole world reeks. All the best.
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  15. ​ @twatts1523  I never said it was propaganda, Vassily. And the only misdeeds worth the mention are Putin's. He's a psycho and a monster.
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  16. ​ @JonAnthony3  Well obviously he's been not only determined and intelligent but also highly rational. Sole rulership of Russia must surely be like herding 140 million cats (except ten times harder) and mental weakness, if it were in him long ago, would have been exposed long ago. But minds and personalities deteriorate, alas, very often by a lot. Age does it, isolation does it, unhealthful seeds planted in the psyche several decades before do it, steroids do it, drugs do it, microbes do it, things we can't even imagine do it. Thanks for giving me occasion to point these things out.
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  17.  @VSP4591  First of all, there's no such thing as a de facto member of NATO. Ask Finland and Sweden. Second, every nation bordering Russia needs either a large stockpile of nuclear weapons, or protection from it by NATO. The alternative is Russian tanks on its soil. Get that through your head. If you simply think that it's Russia's right to pick up any country around it like a sack of carrots, then all I can say is that the present situation shows you that right is being challenged. It will never be recognized.
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  18.  @horstebreedow8608  Overall she makes paints Putin as a serious menace much more to his countrymen than to the US. I imagine on the whole Putin's followers would be ok with that. If she cast him as bloodthirsty, mad, or irredentist they wouldn't.
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  19. Democracy is little else but a popularity contest, a fact that should need no pointing out. The real estate business in Queens is hardly a model for arrangements elsewhere, another such fact. Cheers.
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  20. Yeah. When she dwells on his skin, facial features, and hairline, it's like they had a bad breakup.
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  21.  @donikatod460  A journalist or academic could well know far more than a soldier or diplomat, be far more up to date, and far better plugged into good sources. The phrase 'qualified opinion,' btw, is just my way of avoiding that grating word 'expert' which is thrown around all too often. (I should probably stop using it, as it has a specialized meaning in accounting that has nothing to do with expertise.)
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  22.  @donikatod460  Well what do you know, it turns out we're of exactly one mind after all. Thanks very much for that reply, which I found way more comforting than I should have. If I ever inherited a newspaper from my grandfather like you-know-who did, I'd headhunt and try to hire you at however fat a salary it took. Cheers
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  23.  @MFYouTube683  I lean that way somewhat too, or I wouldn't waste my time.
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  24. ​ Logically Irrational  Yet she goes out of her way to make fun of Stephen Miller's. My, but she goes to town on him, on how 'icky' he is. She seems to want us to know more than anything else that there's no way she is going to go out on a date with him. He's just so, like, conservative. Borrowing in advance the language of Justin Trudeau, she harps on the word "fringe" as a synonym for both 'non-left-wing' and 'cuckoo.' She would love have loved how Trudeau also to "fringe" added "often ra cist and misogynist" and "holding unacceptable views" in describing people who disagreed with his firing people from their jobs if they hadn't gotten vaccinated against Covid. (Bill Maher recently read many of these statements to his studio audience, following them by saying to Trudeau (who wasn't present) "Now you do sound like Hitler," and he wasn't joking or even quipping. Watch the clip.) She's one of these "progressives" who paints devil's horns on all conservatives, who along with others has destroyed the country's political center, and who, as a denizen of the Left Pole, finds anything to the right of it Far-Right. (This is by analogy to the North Pole, compared to which even the North Slope of Alaska seems downright subtropical.). People like her are why I'm politically homeless in the center.
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  25. I would never drop a tactless hint by saying "Has anybody talked to you about hospice care? Is that the plan?" (And it was right after saying "I understand you two are newlyweds" besides, something that leads the mind away from death.) I was stunned to hear it. Why not just ask "Have you been coffin shopping yet?" She needs more training, or is perhaps untrainable.
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  26. The worst rot, the worst stink, emanates from the Kremlin—and from Putin's disciples, wherever they may be. There, fixed it for you.
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  27. 1:45:06 Nine seconds, several exaflops come and go.
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  28. Right. So to provide the jury with good-quality testimony on whether Al Capone was guilty, the prosecution should have brought in a string of Al Capone's close associates. Sure, makes sense.
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  29. What pointless fantasizing.
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  30.  @andrewb8235  If only she were a 'regular' journalist, but we're not that well off. It sounds like you're saying where you are the smartest people would never go near a journalism career. (Yeah, why would they?). But over here we do expect at least some of the brilliant to end up as journalists. Physics isn't free of frustrations either, nor is Wall Street or SV tech, and some people don't care as much (nor have to) about salary. Cheers.
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  31.  @charlesmartin1121  "Go choke [...]" etc. People with healthy personalities don't go at each other the way those on this thread do, especially you. It's just a short step from this reply of yours to bloodletting. What do you think preceded 1933? I wish you all would marry each other. Then the air out in public would clear.
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  32.  @notsodelusional  haha. That's right. It's the staunch loyalists who get purged, not those who cower meekly. When they're dragged off they assume it's a mix-up and everything will be straightened out once they reach the offices of the security service. But then the car takes them somewhere else much more dilapidated-looking.
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  33.  @HenrykSzlangbaum  So? She left Russia as a little girl.
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  34. Nice try.
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  35. "Born to be ruled" is how they were described by an acquaintance of mine who left the Soviet Union in his 30s.
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  36. @Psycho Killer The logical fog, irrelevancy, and imaginative wandering of your reply tickle the brain. Carry on in your inimitable fashion.
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  37.  @donikatod460  I never equated them. I mentioned academics merely because you left them out. I could have also included people who simply have a good learning background in a particular subject and write books.
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  38. Coming soon: NYT reporter James Glanz takes on Big Shampoo for promoting unnecessary hair washing.
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  39. Nowadays Putin always looks like he's on something. I wonder how many parallels his life has with Michael Jackson's in his last months.
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  40. What would happen then?
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  41. Nice try.
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  42. The precise pace of that help is the key to its success, for unfortunately Russia must undergo considerable military weakening before any drive to eject its army from Ukraine has a good chance not only to succeed but to endure. A Russia driven out with most of its military strength intact would never accept the situation as final and would soon attack again. Some of NATO's apparent reluctance is real. The rest is strategic, even at times played to the hilt.
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  43. Ask a South African whether sanctions matter. Ask an Israeli if they've made a difference in Iran. Consider what Venezuela's government might be doing to spread its Marxist ideology across South and Central America if it were flush with cash. Sanctions are a bit like fines for highway speeding. They don't stop speeding and they don't reduce highway deaths to zero. But imagine if they didn't exist.
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  44.  @atalorm369  Thanks for your interesting reply. It led me to consider the nature of taboos, like not talking about adultery and divorce at a wedding reception, or eventual decrepit health and senility in a neonatal ward. One could say they amount to simple denial, but maybe they're just effective aids to carrying on in a state of reasonably good cheer. They're both, I suppose.
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  45.  @realSamAndrew  She said he drones on and on with an unmoving face, shiny forehead, extreme rhetoric.
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  46.  @davideasterling5262  He'll meet his end like Tsar Nicholas II and Mussolini did.
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  47. How about a realistic question instead of a flagrantly ridiculous one? Neither Mexico nor Canada would ever seek to ally themselves with China. The move by Eastern Europe to join NATO is explained very simply: They have been beside Russia for many centuries. They know Russia. They do not trust Russia. They were eager for protection from Russia.
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  48.  @VSP4591  Well, now you show what you are. Someone asks you to leave him alone and that's not enough for you. You impose on him, your force your will on him. Certainly no father wants someone like that anywhere near his daughter. You having such a character, one can easily see why you support Russia invading its harmless neighbour, abusing its women, murdering, torturing, bombing old people in their apartments and all the rest.
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  49.  @VSP4591  I told you not to bother me.
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  50. A very neat line in self-praise there. 🙄🤮
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