Comments by "Stephen Jenkins" (@stephenjenkins7971) on "TLDR News EU" channel.

  1. Germany bounced back in WW1 due to US loans and eventually collapsed due to the Great Depression only to rise again via pure military industry. After WW2 it was purely the US that elevated the country via the Marshall Plan and US/UK protection. For all intents and purposes, those two instances were due to external factors or due to a very negative growth based on conquest. Germany was unable to do it on its own.
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  2. ​ @juanpisente7464  This is not just an Asian phenomenon. Across Africa and LatAm too there is a right wing pushback to "American leftism" which equates the US itself to ideas like LGBT or women's rights. Usually cloaked with the ideas of national sovereignty and the belief that US culture is battering at their cultural identities. It's why Russia has such a following despite being an imperialist itself and doing nothing for many of its supporters. It prides itself on being reactionary to such beliefs so many identify with it.
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  3.  @ajaxamsterdam9095  Good luck finding it, because no such promise actually exists. Gorbachev extracted a promise from the West to not place military resources in East Germany because he never imagined that Eastern Europe would want to join the West under NATO. There was no such promise about keeping Eastern Europe away from NATO. It's Putin propaganda that Russians just accept.
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  4.  @locybapsi174  Uh-huh, and that necessitates attempts at ethnic cleansing, does it? Kosovo declared its independence after the craptastic ending of the Yugoslav Wars and the Serbs had to take its attempt to stop them to the next level. I'd be more inclined to understanding if it were not for that bit of the story you left out. Kosovars having terrorists helping them out doesn't suddenly mean the Serbs can get away with anything.
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  5.  @WohnzimmerIQ  Idk why that changes anything. Germany collapsed into financial ruin not because of the Great Depression, but because the generous loans the US gave to Germany dried out. And the Great Depression was only so bad for the world because the US economy was so dominant. Every country goes through such crashes, the US' just happen to be global. So again, my point stands; Germany needed external help to get back up again.
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  6.  @addiction4062  Funny because unlike the Western Allies, the Soviets literally did ally with the nazis against the West to begin with and would also work together with "ex"-nazis against the West. Convenient you forgot to mention that.
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  7.  @thraxusbellicus2706  Bellingcat already kinda proved it was the Russian army that did it
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  8. Sounds like being friends with France. Or Germany. Or Russia. Or China. Oh wait, that sounds like being "friends" with any big power is bound to come with an application of power via geopolitics.
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  9.  @slavzahariev3901  US has always been firm in not throwing literal allies with contractual obligations under the bus. Western Europe in general is far more likely to do that than the US is. That being said, I do agree that taking defense seriously is a must. No sense in banking on one thing alone.
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  10. This is popular Kremlin propaganda. Russia never actually made an attempt to join NATO, Putin talked about it once, but was offended at the concept of having to apply like everyone else. As he put it; he didn't want to wait in line like the "insignificant" nations.
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  11.  @ЙованДобройевичь  "Germany's claims made sense, they wanted all Germans in Germany" That wasn't their right to force them to join. Besides, ethnic borders are notoriously mixed; and shift. Maybe one day most of the world is ethnically German; that wouldn't give Germany the right to take it all under a united Germany. Also, it has been debunked a million times; NATO never made a promise to not spread eastward. Only for East Germany to not be militarized; which it never was. Gorbachev literally never even considered the rest of Eastern/Central Europe, and NATO didn't exactly push them to join either.
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  12.  @tilli1514  There is pretty much no serious scholars that unironically claim what you just claimed. The only one downplaying anything is you, my guy. Eastern Europe took decades longer to recover compared to those in the West with the West being smoldering ruins; you think that it did it by itself? Especially Germany? The sheer nationalistic hubris of that idea is insanity.
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  13.  @ЙованДобройевичь  NATO can't and doesn't threaten nations to join it. At all. Idk where you're getting this insane theory from.
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  14.  @SoryRN  Sorry, but no international human rights group considers Russia's electoral system to be anything but a joke when his opposition all mysteriously "disappear" lol
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  15.  @houssedecouette4056  1) US troops and missiles were nowhere near Russia's borders prior to 2014, at least not in any mentionable numbers. 9,000 troops in Poland only became a thing AFTER Russia took Crimea. All while Russia kept missiles aimed at Europe's heart in Kaliningrad for generations. Russian geopolitics isn't about securing Russian interests, its about creating a boogeyman for Russian people to ignore domestic issues. 2) US has never stolen any oil in the 21st century, so your ignorance makes your argument less compelling.
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  16.  @philippebrehier7386  This is a bizarre ask. Military and police are part of the government; of course they get "socialized" budgets like all public employees. It's not like anyone gets "socialized" budgets of water, food, or education. And cops/military are among the least paid jobs in a country, so idk what insanity goes on in that head of yours.
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  17.  @philippebrehier7386  Making sure the government is permanently insolvent because the people can't support their own retirees also does nothing but hurt the vulnerable and benefit the wealthiest.
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  18.  @porcus123  Russia stole some $1.9 billion in gold according to a whistleblower from Sudan's bank. Not through trade. And that was the minimum. It could be as high as $13 billion stolen. US didn't even steal Iraq gold, what are you talking about?
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  19.  @Lindormber  We have. And we find it to be laughably braindead. The idea that NATO is a threat is a sick joke when it can't forcibly organize countries to attack another, it can only do so under a defensive clause. It also ignores how Russian imperialism created this circumstance to begin with. May as well ask us to check the Nazi perspective.
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  20.  @seanonraet8327  Not at all, but if its done for no reason then people are gonna rightfully look down on you. People treat it like robbery.
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  21.  @someguy3766  Tbf, Switzerland has quite a few countries that the likes of Russia has to obliterate before it ever threatens Switzerland. So there's logic to it, it's just very short-sighted and very selfish logic.
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  22.  @lazyupload  Except that these aren't singular neighbors; these are nations. And mobilizing 100,000 troops at someone else's border with all of the necessary equipment for an invasion would make any nation VERY wary. Hell, if the West did that Russia would be screeching about Western aggression and threaten a nuclear response. Russia already screeches about a mere 9,000 US troops in neighboring NATO nations and they aren't even deployed near Russia's borders.
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  23.  @thx1138sixnine  In what world does China have a fair competitive market when they're literally corporations heavily involved in China's government and receiving financial support specifically to drive out Western businesses. Hell, do we need to bring up the massive tariffs China levies and how it screeched when the US dared to try and raise tariffs in return?
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  24. Right? Only the Euro has actually cut into the USD's share, everyone else are thousands of kilometers away from that.
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  25.  @oaviggiano  To be fair, Trump was actually harsher on Russia than most of Europe was while he was in office. So it's kinda ridiculous to be making this comment to begin with.
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  26. ​@Besthinktwice That doesn't contradict his point. The institution is entirely the same because the institution allows for Amendments to begin with. There is no "Second Republic" of the US. It has been the same government from beginning to end.
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  27.  @juanpisente7464  I don't call myself a Dem, but I have become more left-wing since Trump generally. And from my own perspective, its a pretty unknown phenomenon among the US let alone among progressives and leftists. Generally they don't pay much attention to these regions of the world since its uncomfortable to many to criticize places which faced the horrors of colonization. Most attention is inward with the occasional blips outside the country.
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  28.  @ПапаМожет-ъ6ф  Yugoslavia was trying to enact genocide. Unless you want to argue that putting down the Nazis was a bad thing, your argument is abhorrent. Afghanistan was a defensive war in response to 9/11 as the Taliban aided Al Qaeda in the effort and was hiding OBL initially. Afghanistan effectively already declared war. 2003 Iraq War was counted in the 3 wars I stated. 2011 Libya was also counted, though that's also iffy as the UN gave permission for the no fly zone. 2014 Syria was not the West starting a war, Syrian Civil War occurred and factions within like the SDF petitioned for aid against Assad. It should be noted that Russia and Assad killed far more civilians than any other group in that conflict. This list is not extensive.
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  29. China, India, and Brazil. Better question would be which one is not unstable? Because that would be most of them.
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  30.  @ildarShafigullin66  And yet everyone else does it more often. Funny that lmao
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  31.  @porcus123  They still do, genius. In 2022 it had as high as 130 tons of gold.
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  32. @darzsh You'd be surprised. There are a lot of "progressive" channels on YouTube with 100's of thousands of views (Breadtube) with many usually backing Russia in these arguments and spreading it as well. Anything as long as its Anti-US.
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  33.  @fiatlux4058  I wouldn't care unless they have a massive force there; it's not the US' problem. And if Mexico feels threatened, that would be a decent way to calm it down. I literally don't give a crap how long X nation held random territory; it's not theirs anymore and the people there want nothing to do with Russia. If Russia gave a crap about people holding their ancestral lands, then Russia needs to return everything they stole past the Ural Mountains before they demand Ukraine. You're a literal example of doublethink.
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  34. If you commit genocide to hold the lands you own, then you deserve to lose them; especially if the people there want independence. Your logic justifies Ottoman control over Serbia, btw. Congrats.
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  35.  @tilli1514  Dude. No. I ain't going that far, and neither should you. This platform makes sending links and sources near impossible anyway.
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  36.  @jeckjeck3119  Idk about wanting it to happen, but I do acknowledge that the US didn't bother to try and stop it.
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  37. Which pales to the extreme compared to the amount of missiles pointed at NATO countries from Russia...but that is a little inconvenient for you to mention, huh?
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  38.  @seanonraet8327  Yeah, their passion has literally destroyed their country 5 separate times while countries like the US and Germany only get trashed once. That's not something to envy them for; especially when the French people are protesting for something ignorant in this case -maintaining impossible retirement ages at a time of low birth rates and longer lives.
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  39.  @houssedecouette4056  Being popular after preventing any real opposition parties and making reporters/other politicians "disappear" or "throw themselves out of buildings" makes it de-facto a dictatorship. Literally every study on Russian "democracy" notes the many layers that has been placed to make actual democratic decisions impossible. It's like making rules upon rules on abortions to the point its impossible to have one and then still acting like abortion wasn't made illegal.
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  40.  @ПапаМожет-ъ6ф  West has only started like 3 wars themselves in the past 40 years or so lol
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  41.  @AB-zl4nh  The EU is not a sovereign state that, so is not treated like the US or Brazil or any other literal nation-state. This isn't hard 😂
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  42.  @goranstojanov1160  You screech about propaganda while echoing propaganda. Merkel tried to call out the idea that the US wanted to force Germany to give up Russia's fuel for US LNG by promising to invest millions in return of stopping sanctions on Nordstream. The Americans declined, and reiterated what they really wanted; for Germany to not support Russia while the rest of the EU was against it. And yes, this was as much the EU vs Germany as much as it was the US vs Germany. But your propaganda conveniently forgot to mention that, huh?
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  43.  @Perririri  Then Russia should be the undisputed leader alongside China.
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  44. Except to many, even in Europe, this is hardly a call for independence but a call for French dominance. Nobody wants to replace US dominance in Europe with French dominance; especially when the French are far less reliable. This constant attempt to undercut the Americans will tear the EU apart if the French aren't careful.
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  45. Amazing how yesterday these trolls were crying that they were oppressed because the West was instigated conflict because Russia would NEVER invade Ukraine... And now they're celebrating. Disgusting creatures, really.
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  46.  @gamermapper  Serbia committed genocide and the Bosnians literally had a legal referendum to leave. Ditto with the Kosovars. Who are you to deny them their right to leave? Are you God? Ditto with the Taiwanese and other peoples that want to leave China. Why do you get to force people to stay? Do they not have self-determination? Btw, this goes for the Catalan people too. But that doesn't fit your Anti-Western narrative, does it?
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  47.  @gamermapper  It doesn't apply to Crimea because armed troops started the referendum and only Kremlin-backed observers were allowed to observe to see it was fair and legal. UN and OSCE wasn't allowed to observe the proceedings, and Putin literally PLANNED to take Crimea prior to the so-called "referendum" to begin with. He literally ADMITTED it already. So you're arguing a point to which only could come from Kremlin propaganda that was already admitted to be propaganda by Putin himself. Imagine being that much of a sheep then, that you still believe them.
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  48.  @SoryRN  Those international human rights groups expect the world of the US and shit on it every time it doesn't bend over to help refugees. In what world does that mean that Washington is controlling it? Hell, we have open sources of where they're getting their money from, and they're NOT from national governments. But you don't care, because anything against Russia = bad to you.
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  49. @Hannah G  I won't deny that the prior prosperity and economic system helped a bunch. But none of that matters without capital in a destroyed country. The influx of capital is what Kickstart those gears far faster and harder than they should; especially since those markets could've been dominated by US industry while suppressing Western European industry.
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  50. @Tilli  Nobody substantial, no. Your language is no different from flat-earthers who use the weasel words of "plenty of scholars". I never discounted other factors, I just plainly noted the absolute biggest when talking about "bouncing back". Germany may have emerged again as a big economy, but it would've taken generations without the capital provided by the Marshall Plan. And nowhere near as wealthy today if they weren't subsidized by the US taxpayer to compete against US industries.
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