Comments by "LancesArmorStriking" (@LancesArmorStriking) on "NFKRZ"
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This is my issue with your thinking: we already tried a Russia without 'Putler' in the form of Yeltsin, and it failed spectacularly.
It's this liberal idea (which I feel Gorbachev had in his mind) that if the people have freedom, everything will magically work itself out!
It didn't, and with Putin gone, it won't. Democracy and economic neoliberalism is not the creator of prosperity, but rather a symptom of it.
Like it or not, there need to be strong national policies to build domestic industry and genuinely raise quality of life. You could open yourself up to the West completely with a few IMF loans, but all that does is kill your own companies and allow the foreign ones to dominate your market and- attempt to, recently- dictate your politics
(even though the Ukraine conflict is not justified, the fact remains that Western companies are an extension of Western political power, and that is rarely good for developing nations).
England developed the first industrial capacity in the world- textiles- by banning all imports from India.
Now they advocate for the exact opposite, achieve the growth that they got.
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@MiStuSia16
Seems like nobody can answer my point. The person I originally commented on has fallen silent...
Again: Was Stalin supposed to just let the Germans steamroll Poland and get right up to his border?
Or was it smarter for him to give the USSR as big of an advantage as possible? Please answer my question.
My point, by the way, wasn't about the brutality of Russian soldiers, but of the need to "ally" with the Germans, knowing they would destroy Poland either way.
And it is rich that you're trying to make the Germans out to be better than the Soviets. They were nice to Russian civilians, too--- there is even a photo of a soldier sharing his last ration with a civilian woman.
What you Poles consistently fail to comprehend that the Soviets were, in fact, better for the Poles than the Germans.
Would you prefer an alternate history where they kept Poland?
Sure, they would genocide the Poles out of existence forever.... but at least they had "class" and could run a country, unlike those Soviets! At least they kept their streets clean, all the easier to transport you to the chambers!
Who cares if they turn Poland into Germany, at least they were polite!
Your country's view of history is coloured so heavily by emotion that you honestly believe a regime set on wiping you from the face of the Earth for Lebensraum is somehow better than living under Russian rule.
The only reason you're alive to bitch and moan about it too, is because the Russians weren't as brutal as the Germans.
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@DailyMusic
It being "madness" doesn't discredit the Crimean people's genuine wishes at the time.
Independence from Ukraine being impractical doesn't therefore mean it's okay to send a post-Soviet branch of the KGB in to silence people.
To that extent, though, remember that the "cutting off" (I assume you mean the Dnipro Canal) applies to Ukraine just as much as it does to Crimea. The Dnipro starts in Russia, passes through Belarus, then Ukraine, and flows into the Black Sea.
Would you make the same argument for Ukraine being "mad" to oppose Russia because Russia could divert or dam the river and permanently ecologically destroy Ukraine?
That's the language of appeasement and I'm frankly shocked that you're willing to use it after all that's happened since 2022. I guess it doesn't matter when it's your guys...
Anyways, the autonomy thing was never considered by Ukraine to dispel Crimean fears of Ukrainianization.
And frankly, the Ukrainian Parliament disregarding the 1991 election vote where most voted to leave Ukraine and sending soldiers in to take Crimea by force (never mind the later referendum in 1994) dampens the idea that they defended their borders for the sake of democracy.
The Crimeans weren't allowed the right to self-determination. The Rada (a few days before the annexation, on the 23rd) repealed the 2012 law that gave Russian legal status as a regional language within Crimea.
Were it not for Turchynov's veto, Crimeans would be forced to learn only Ukrainian in schools, and all legal documents and bureaucratic matters would have to handled in a lanuage they didn't even speak. And the law was repealed in October of that year anyway, but the Rada showed its intentions even without the annexation as a justification.
I'm not saying that the annexation was correct, but surely Ukraine could have done anything to even pretend that they didn't want to turn Crimea into ethnically Ukrainian land, despite supposedly being a democracy that respects multiculturalism.
About the UN— it isn't very good at its job. Somaliland should be separate, Basque shouldn't be part of Spain, yet the UN didn't do anything to endorse or propose a referendum.
In either case, Somalia and Spain quickly shut it down. Leaving elections up to a legal body that isn't capable of organizing them isn't a good solution.
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@mikicerise6250
I find that distinction laughable- the economic engines of the EU (France, UK, indirectly Germany)
and the most anti-Soviet countries (Poland, Baltics) all took part in the crusades you are trying to distance them from.
They only reconciled after the damage had been done. An empty gesture.
In fact, it was precisely because Russia, at the time of Putin, seemed to be moving to democracy, that Germany in particular (if you'll remember the speech in Munich in 2008) was so willing to invest in Russia.
Not sure what you mean about glorious empires, even Putin acquiesced to the idea of Ukraine being independent, in his recent nationalist writings.
He simply views the two as so intertwined that it only makes sense for their politics to be closely aligned. As America and Canada, he put it.
If Ukraine had followed Minsk II, a good deal of this could have been avoided. I don't think Putin's stated reasons were why he invaded, but I do think the real reasons could have been averted.
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@cgt3704
You described Romania to me. I now have to ask: what has it achieved? It sounds like you have all the same issues, just with a different political alliance.
You said it yourself- you have massive brain drain (especially to UK), corruption, bad infrastructure,, etc. So was aligning with the West, and opening up your market right away, even worth it?
What do you have to show for it, Pizza Hut?
I am not saying you should "give up", but I think your strategy is bad, Greece is still worse now than it was before joining the EU. Will you tell them to "never give up!"?
You seem to put a lot of faith in this idea, that being with the West will eventually make things better, with basically no evidence to show for it.
Poland and Baltics are really all that come to mind, but this comes from their smoother transition to capitalism and technology transfer.
There was a political motivation to get them away from Russia, so the countries with money and colonial legacies made sure they succeeded.
Not sure what to tell you about Putin, literally anyone was better than Yeltsin, you have no position to lecture others about ideals and values when we were starving to death.
He is not perfect, but he is much better (even now) than the results we got under the Western-supported leader.
And none of what happened in 2000s, stabilizing the country and economy, was "easy". We are sacrificing the political process, yes, but if we put all our efforts into one goal and fail, there will be nothing left. Better to stabilize the economy first, then transition to more democratic.
We tried what you are suggesting (Glastnost first, than Perestroika). It failed
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@ravencadd
Like it or not, diplomacy will be the final stage in this war.
Even if (in a Western wet dream) Putin is ousted, it is unlikely that any version of Russia will accept (potentially indefinite) American military presence so close to its borders.
So even in the unlikely case where Putin is ousted, the war will probably stall, then continue.
Ultimately, something will need to be proposed.
And, since your ideal version is off the table (Russia incapacitates itself by withdrawing, gives back all territories, allows Ukraine into NATO, etc), a compromise must be reached.
I think that leaving Ukraine out of NATO, but able to ally with individual Western countries- like Finland currently- is the best way out of the conflict.
Do you have any alternative ideas that don't risk re-escalating an eventual ceasefire??
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Have to disagree, the idea that the Soviets started the war is bullshit.
Hitler, if given the chance (which, I mean... he tried about 4 years later) would have taken over all of Europe. Partitioning was the only logical choice in the face of Germany's ambitions. It's not like the Soviets approached them and asked to do that. Hitler himself said, "When Germany's life is at stake, even a temporary alliance with Moscow must be contemplated".
So if you're going by that metric, no, the Soviets did not start it. Ribbentrop pursued negotiations with Moscow, not the other way around. And, in case it wasn't obvious enough, Hitler invaded first!!
What you said reminds me of neo-Conederates who think the Union started the American CIvil War because they responded to the Confederates... shooting first.
As for liberation... yes. Putin had 15 years to diversify the Russian economy and yet he didn't. With the enormous natural wealth he could have created a wealth fund that would dwarf Norway's (their plan is similar, but more beneficial to the common people). Instead, it went to geopolitical strategy and military.
I don't think he'll be leaving anytime soon, but hopefully he'll pick someone who understands that soft power (economy) = power. Before it's too late, and we're all in China's pocket.
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@mikicerise6250
1) I was thinking of Afghanistan.
2) You said "crusades, until Iraq came back to bite them".
Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq are all fair game, you should have specified.
Germany was one of the main European contributors in terms of troops in Afghanistan, France also. Both were part of the ISAF. It took Germany until 2021 to completely withdraw.
As far as Iraq goes, Spain, Italy, UK, Poland, Ukraine, Georgia, Latvia, Romania (are you sensing a pattern with the last few?), Denmark, Bulgaria, to name just a few, is no small contingent.
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@Rib_bs
No, it's real. Best example:
Mikhail Fridman (born in Western Ukraine, hated the Kremlin so much that he was exiled) has had his assets seized in London and kicked out of the company he co-founded, all because he is a "Russian" oligarch.
Same with Stoli's CEO- hates Putin, moved factories to Latvia, but r*tarded Americans throw out Stolichnaya just because it sounds Russian.
Or the Milan university that asked a professor to stop teaching about Dostoyevsky, or also teach about Ukraine's great writers in the same course.
Or Russian Blue cats being banned from European pet shows! Did they support Putin too?!
Sorry, but Russophobia is real.
And as much as I hate this war, and the Russian state media propaganda, it is actually correct this one time.
If you don't want them to keep brainwashing Russians, then don't give them such good material.
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@fjbz3737
First of all: use indentations. No one wants to read your text block.
Second: "Leftism" is too broad a term to even try and classify or put strong boundaries around. the fact that you are trying to sell me a universally shared characteristic shows me how little of it you understand.
A "belief in improving the well-being of people around the world" is meaningless, since it could apply to numerous right-wing ideologies as well---
(whether or not you think they work doesn't change the fact that you and a right-wing populist and/or a libertarian, under your "leftism" definition, share the same goal).
"which is most practically conducive to that end"--- that, again, is your idea of well-being. I don't support the continuation of this war, at all, but I simply don't agree with the proposed solutions or actions. "Finlandization", for example, worked great for Finland and Russia, for decades. A neutral, non-NATO Ukraine would be a feasible solution for both sides. Zelensky himself is moving towards this conclusion as well.
"And in this case, I would much rather America to occupy the status of global hegemonic superpower than Russia in its current state, in some hypothetical universe where it is"
Why, exactly? Russia, for all its faults, doesn't have nearly the same penchant for destabilizing faraway governments as the US does. It is not ideologically driven to lecture other nations on how to live, which values to have.
If the last 20 years are anything to go by, following Russia's advice for Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan would have yielded a more stable Middle East region than what we currently have.
If "Russia in its current state" is problematic to you, you should oppose the US' position as hegemon just as much, if not more- Yemen is far more severe than Ukraine, yet nobody cares. Afghan civilians are currently starving, Holodomor-style, due to American sanctions... yet Americans will never see Biden like they do Stalin, because he's on "your team."
This is my original point.
You fail to see that your values, applied to this war and into the future, are not creating a better world. They are just propping up one, equally brutal, imperial power, over another.
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@vandarkholme8548
Well, if we are specifically looking at the consequences of imperialism, rather than the countries that do it, then yes Russian imperialism is far better.
Their treatment of native people whom they encountered (possibly taken from the Mongols, or the fact that they have always lived with other tribes) is not rooted in a drive to 'spare the Indian, save the man'.
Their philosophy is much more simple: we need this land as a buffer to protect ourselves from the East, and you're on it. Ally with us, and we will leave you alone. Don't, and we fight.
Of course, many didn't ally, and many cultures were lost, but there was not a blind belief in the superiority of Russian culture and a need to 'civilize' the tribes.
But even those that lost against the Kremlin got to keep their native language and culture for the most part.
Case in point: there is no russian version of 'reservations,' and there are native republics that have mandatory schooling for all students (white included) in the native language).
What can the us point to for its colonial legacy?
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@DailyMusic
"Ukraine has other sources of water, electricity"
My point is that Ukraine could be affected by another country, I don't think the degree of risk is what matters here, it's the principle of self-determination. Something being "mad" shouldn't be an argument against leaving, for either Ukraine or Crimea.
If we go by your logic, then what level of risk is acceptable for Crimea to permanently leave Ukraine?
And why are you seeing this through the lens of force? Isn't that what Russia is doing, and Ukraine is supposed to be against? Was all the rhetoric about national sovereignty meaningless?
Your framing of Ukraine being unable to guarantee safety is disingenuous when they didn't respect the wishes of the Crimeans on issues unrelated to independence.
As I said, they repealed the status of Russian as a minority language. So they don't care about them at all, and pretending like keeping Crimea is for the well-being of the people living there is just plain lying.
Ukraine might be a victim to Russia, but it never had good intentions for Crimea. When Ukraine becomes the "Russia" in a political relationship, they don't act any differently to Russia.
Same goes for the Hungarians, Romanians, Poles, and Rusyns on their territory. Ukraine treats them like Russia treated Ukraine. And that's the most despicable part, knowing how it feels to be oppressed and choosing to oppress others anyway. It's sick.
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@05KAR
I don't think so. Certainly, the Soviets acknowledged that, among the Polish, there was a higher number of people who opposed the Soviet system and sought to destroy it. That being said, the Soviets didn't target people because they were Polish. They targeted whomever posed a threat, and if more Poles posed a threat, then... you see my point.
You're looking at the results and working backwards.
And even the most brutal famines like Holodomor affected not only Ukrainians but also millions of Kazakhs and southern Russians. It had nothing to do with ethnicity, sorry. Ironically, the Soviets were non-discriminatory, in spite of all their other flaws.
And even at the end, you highlighted my point. That someone would consider themselves Polish was more important than their actual ethnicity (or genetics, if you see it that way.) All Soviets were to consider themselves Soviet first, so the emphasis on identity was what became problematic for the Party.
Hitler explicitly wrote about the biological and mental characteristics of certain ethnic groups by blood, not allegiance. Stalin was a monster, but he was not Hitler. Not even close.
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Ironically, I think you're betraying your own opinions here, by agreeing with Vexler.
He (and you, by extension) seem to think that Putin, under this framework, is acting from a knowingly evil perspective. That's fundamentally incorrect, and reductionist. Everyone is the good guy of his own story.
And I find it funny to think that the same people calling Lex naive apparently genuinely believe that Putin thinks to himself, "I want to spread suffering in the world because I, Vladimir Vladimirovich, am a hateful person and therefore will express that through violence!" Rationalizing and sugar-coating your own decisions is human. Putin is no different, so he wouldn't have the motivations of a cartoon villain.
I don't agree with Lex that Putin's motivation is a love of country, but his actions are too well thought-out, long-term (2014-2022, and counting) to be impulsive; and too reserved (why not use nukes? Prigozhin wanted to) to be purely fuelled by "want for destruction".
Vexler also misunderstands Lex's worldview.
Lex, being a compsci grad, and later alum to MIT, sees the world in a mechanical way. A series of stimuli and reactions. {If, then} lines of code.
It's not correct to say that he sees only the emotionally good motivations in people, he has trouble seeing the emotional motivations, period.
He's not a robot of course, but look back through his interviews and the way he frames questions about motivations. Vexler is simply wrong.
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Playing Devil's Advocate here:
Russia should have "banned" (put tariffs on) products that it could quickly replicate a long time ago. If it invests in domestic industry its economy will become more robust and resistant to change. Think of China, they used to make cheap crap and other countries' goods, but they now have their own market and Chinese-made brands that are actually good.
If everyone in China took Roman's approach ("just buy whatever's good now throw money at the easiest option") we'd never have brands like Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, DJI, Lenovo, etc.
So I don't support banning or (especially!) destroying the food you already bought from Europe, but it's always good to support your local industry, because it leads to a general better quality of life in the country you're living in. Yes it takes time to develop, but at a certain point your country starts attracting foreign buyers and now you have the upper hand.
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How, realistically, do you see any "small companies" setting up their own internet infrastructure? I hope you realize fiber optic cables cost literally millions of dollars per mile to install. I'm not even talking about a city, where dense sewage and water systems have to be taken into account and often make new installations impossible.
The U.S. government knows this, and gave grants to the few major ISPs in the '90s and early '00s
https://www.ntia.doc.gov/legacy/broadbandgrants/comments/61BF.pdf
(that is an entire book, primary sources are at the very bottom)
to update their cables from copper to fiber optic. It was much cheaper than expecting multi-million dollar companies to appear out of nowhere and install their own, especially because the technology was more expensive at the time. Did they go ahead and upgrade? Of course not! (The U.S. still uses copper). The icing on the cake is, no new companies are legally allowed to directly compete in an area where these massive companies exist, courtesy of ISP lobbying.
So, when net neutrality is repealed, what do you think will happen? Nothing! Comcast, Cox, and Frontier have already raised their prices across the board, and no one will be there to engage in the "free market." And even if small companies were able to intervene, what difference would that make?
Out of genuine curiosity, I'd like to know specifically how you see Net Neutrality as a hindrance to competition. I'm not even trying to be a bitch, I really want to know what you think, because I can't understand it. If you could, please explain it to me step by step, how repealing NN would increase diversity of options for a consumer.
Thanks.
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I can see why you'd think that, but I don't think that it's fair at all to charge companies extra for more bandwidth. The monetary relationship between the three entities- ISP, Media Company, and Consumer is already established:
--You, the consumer, pay the ISPs (Comcast, Verizon, AT&T) a monthly fee, so their cables can be maintained, their company staffed; etc.
I will remind you again that the U.S. government gave the ISPs BILLIONS of dollars to update their cables- with fiber optic, there is room for millions of people to have a minimum of 1 Gbps download speeds, MORE than enough for Netflix and any other streaming and online services to compete.
--You, the consumer, also pay the company (Netflix) for access to their service.
--The companies should not have to pay ISPs extra, because that is literally extortion, which is illegal:
In 2014, Verizon demanded Netflix pay extra for something that you already paid the ISP for (monthly subscription to Verizon and access to websites). Thankfully, Netflix didn't pass the price to the consumer- you- but it can't be that generous forever. Until Netflix paid up, their video quality was throttled.
https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-comcast-to-end-slowdown/
Also, I don't know how old you are, but you must be either very old or very young, because it is extremely naive to think that cable companies (you know, for-profit organizations?) wouldn't jump at a chance to increase their earnings. In fact, it's so naive and dumb, that it's already not true:
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2017/12/19/comcast-cox-frontier-net-neutrality/
So yes, repealing NN *does ^^^ cost people money for no good reason, and it has literally created a cable package system for people living in most of the U.S. I only hope you live somewhere with AT&T, because they are biding their time.
Also, I didn't ask you to read the whole article. I said primary sources were at the bottom. Something tells me you didn't even bother to look at the first page, because then you'd know that it wasn't about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. You really need to think more about what you believe, because from where I'm standing, it's not fleshed out, and
it's all bullshit.
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@Merugaf
You will need to direct me to a source.
I must admit a slight mistake, 37% had a "very posititve" view, another 26% had only a "mostly positive view".
This data is from both 2009 polling and 2021 Radio Svoboda, international and Ukrainian source. (Links= deleted comment)
Still not good when a majority of Galicians are willing to overlook the fact that Bandera was trained by the Abwehr.
They seem not to realize that if Stepan succeeded, there would be no Ukraine.
There would be German-populated Reichskommisariat Ukraine, though.
A hero indeed.
You seem to misunderstand. Finland and the USSR, later Russia, had decades of no issues provided Finland did not join NATO. All Ukraine had to do was not invite American troops into its country, and it couldn't even achieve that.
Russia simply, just like Ukraine, doesn't want a hostile foreign power at its border.
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