According to Arab News:
Russia Embraces Muslim World- - - - - - - - -
JEDDAH: Russia renewed its commitment to stronger ties with the Muslim world, vowing respect for religious values and a stronger voice for Islamic nations on the global stage at a forum with Muslim leaders here yesterday.
President of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiyev took a friendly dig at all those who have a habit of blaming Muslims for everything that goes wrong in the world.
“Thank God, Islam is not being blamed for the global financial crisis,” Shaimiyev said, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the fourth meeting of the Russia-Islamic World Strategic Vision Group at the Jeddah Conference Palace.
He said Russia has become a natural partner of the Muslim world. “One can say that Russia has clearly defined its strategic path in the Muslim East. It has become a natural partner of the Muslim world,” he said.
Shaimiyev, one of the group’s Russian co-chairmen, noted the meeting is primarily about “restoring the required level of trust and predictability in our relations, as well as making clear that the aspiration to develop long-term cooperation with the Islamic world is not just a politically expedient issue for Russia.”
Tatarstan is one of the republics of the Russian Federation. Shaimiyev said there is mutual interest in developing cooperation between Russia and Muslim countries.
“One should bear in mind the fact that a strategic partnership with Russia, which seeks a multi-polar world order and does not encroach on values, traditions, authenticity or sovereignty of countries of the Muslim East, is very important for Muslim countries as well,” he said.
[…]
The forum is being organized by the Saudi Foreign Ministry and is specifically discussing Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah’s initiative for interfaith and intercultural dialogue.
In an address from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev read by Shaimiyev at the event, Medvedev wholeheartedly supported King Abdullah’s initiative.
“Russia, a country with observer status in the Organization of the Islamic Conference, intends to abide firmly to its course to expand active interaction with the Islamic world. In this connection, I think a broad discussion of the initiative to further develop interregional dialogue proposed by King Abdullah is of crucial importance,” he said.
“I am also convinced that the implementation of the Russia-proposed idea of forming a consultative council of religions under the UN aegis will help strengthen the moral principles of world politics, facilitate deeper interconfessional communication and, in a broader context, promote the dialogue of civilizations,” the Russian president wrote.
“The illusion of the unipolar world is becoming a thing of the past in front of our eyes. This strategic forum can contribute significantly to the search for ways to make the situation in the world healthier and to attain a new level of global partnership,” Medvedev wrote. “I am convinced that Russia’s active interaction with the Islamic world will help build a fairer system of international relations, where the factor of force will finally stop playing the role of a universal instrument to settle all emerging problems,” he said.
Hat tip: TB.
120 comments:
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Russia and the Muslim world are unnatural allies, and if Russia doesn't watch out, the Muslim world will turn on them. What is the Russian government thinking? They have jihad occurring in their country (Chechnya, anyone?), yet they continue to appease and reach out to the Islamic world. It's, in my opinion, because of the Russians' anti-American sentiment, but this is extremely shortsighted on their part. Russians may love Islam, but Islam does not love the Russians. And if the Russians ever become dhimmis, they won't love it anymore.
Serious Warning!
On this forum Russia is regarded as the SAVIOR, THE Future of Europe, any innuendo, disparaging word will elicit the hateful rage of the admirers of Putin.
Please use deferential words and express humility towards Ivan the Drunk.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend?
raygood --
that 'bout sums it up. Russia is into serious nose-twisting these days...
Bela --
I'll admit I don't have time to keep up with all the comments, and I've got a bad case of ADD, but since when did we become Russophiles on GoV??
Is this a coded message...or will trouble ensue if you answer me? (if that is the case, then silence would be in order, thanks).
Natalie: funny how stupidity operates on both the personal and the state level. It is amazing how self-defeating any of us can be in the pursuit of revenge.
“Thank God, Islam is not being blamed for the global financial crisis,”
Pure RUBBISH.
The 9-11 atrocity cost America some ONE TRILLION dollars and created an economic downturn whose ripples are still being felt today. It is no great leap to state that some of the foreclosures were precipitated by unstable economic conditions sown as far back as 2001-2002.
What's more, the 9-11 atrocity triggered a GLOBAL recession that amounts to between 10 and 100 TRILLION dollars. Further, Islam continues to drain countless BILLIONS of dollars by demanding that the world fight their home grown terrorists instead of voluntarily purging its own ranks. It is estimated that for every terrorist there are some 50-500 security officers that have been hired. Combine this with:
Reduced air travel due to hijacking concerns
Increased fuel costs self-inflated by hostile Muslim regimes
The expense of fielding Multi-National Military forces to fight Islam
Reduced Global tourism resulting from reluctance to visit regions in turmoil
This drain upon the Western world’s coffers inflicts a NEW 9-11 ATROCITY upon the world EACH DAY.
Every single day, another 3,000 people die needlessly. Children starve to death. Adults die for want of inoculation against disease or from natural disasters that all could be responded to better if so much treasure wasn’t being diverted into the fight against Islam. Disease could be fought, illiteracy stopped, starvation abated and countless other global ills attended to were it not for Islam's parasitic influence. Compound this with the enormous burden that Muslims intentionally create upon Western social services and the tremendous expenses related to lawfare, criminal activities and other favored Muslim pursuits and the numbers become astronomical.
All of this simply reinforces the one predominant fact of how;
ISLAM HAS NO REDEEMING FEATURES
D,
Bela doesn't mean us. He means certain commenters here.
Russia's game is "Last Man Standing." It has always been it's aim to encourage Muslim fanatics to go nuke the US and/or Israel, so it can pick up the pieces.
It's like a bad episode of "24" where this actual plotline was part of the script. Except ... it's real.
Well, there's quite some diplomatic hot air here. But unlike Zapatero, George Bush, Gordon Brown etc., the Russians are not licking Muslim a$$, crawling in the dust, while actively betraying their own people.
And unlike e.g. America, Russia has Muslims as an integral part of their national history (by having expanded their empire into Muslim land).
Speak softly and carry a big stick -- Russia does not have a problem with doing that. The criticism of Russia now consists of:
1) The way they used the big stick in Chechnya.
2) The way they speak softly above, as a way to promote good trade relations. In may view, as long as one is not in outright war with another country, one might as well nurture good trade relations with them.
So speaking softly and using a big stick is wrong according to these critics. They seem to not appreciate Theodore Roosevelt's motto in practice.
Actions speak louder than words. While there is reason the be desperately concerned about the spineless and clueless actions of the West vis-a-vis Islam, Russia on the other hand seems to know what they are doing.
I think also that Baron B's title is not balanced and fair. There has been many more and stronger lover declarations to the Muslim world from America and Western Europe. And, nota bene, Russia, unlike e.g. the US and the UK, never made any love declarations to Islam as a religion.
Take myself as an example.
There's no doubt in my mind that Islam must be crushed (Mecca nuked etc.) But at the moment I'm not involved in such a war, and (obviously) cannot start one myself.
So presently I nurture good diplomatic relations with the Muslims in my neighbourhood. I treat them respectfully and learn polite phrases in their respective language (there are quite a few of them around here by now). They meet me with a smile offer me free soft drinks and tell my "You are not like the other Swedes!", "Are you really Swedish?"
Some of them confide in me and tell the most amazing stories that I wouldn't have heard otherwise (and can learn e.g. about genital mutilation in Kurdistan).
This is called diplomacy. People of today seem to have forgotten what it means.
dymphna:
May be you did not notice how rudely I used to be attacked by some posters on this forum because I expressed my hostility toward Russia for the horrible and genocidal occupation of Eastern Europe.
Those posters regard Russia as the Savior, the Future of Europe and I am regularly called by names whenever I evoke the Gulag, the misery, the minefields with bloodhounds, and my years of imprisonment by Russian tanks imposed Communists.
Some posters express almost insane level of adulation for this backward, brutal despotic country which cannot manufacture a pair of decent shoes since her existence apart from AK 47 and Laika the space dog.
I hope I have straightened up my sarcastic statement at the beginning of this thread.
C'mon, CS. My title was based on the tone of the article, which was written by Arabs. That's how they see it. Doesn't mean it's the truth.
I doubt most ethnic Russians love Islam. They haven't forgotten the Tatars, not even after 500 years.
Conservative Swede: ... the Russians are not licking Muslim a$$, crawling in the dust, while actively betraying their own people.
Total horsepuckey! Why don't you tell our studio audience and all the folks at home exactly what you would call Russia's enabling of terrorist Iran's nuclear programme even as Putin sucked up the Beslan atrocity without a peep.
Baron B,
C'mon, CS. My title was based on the tone of the article, which was written by Arabs. That's how they see it. Doesn't mean it's the truth.
Well if you say that there was not much substance behind your rubricing, that's all fine. I just pointed out that it wasn't fair and balanced. As we all know it is George Bush and Condi Rice who makes the deep love declarations to the religion of Islam as such, followed by Zapatero, Sarkozy etc.
The West speaks deranged suicidal lies, Russia speaks diplomacy.
Zenster,
Total horsepuckey!
Well believe what you want. The Western betrayal of their own people and urge for civilizational suicide is unique by any comparison.
what you would call Russia's enabling of terrorist Iran's nuclear programme
USA enable Saudi Arabia's nuclear programme. And how many countries have been involved really in Iran's nuclear programme by now? So what's your point?
even as Putin sucked up the Beslan atrocity without a peep.
Huh? I don't know what you are talking about.
Bela,
May be you did not notice how rudely I used to be attacked by some posters on this forum because I expressed my hostility toward Russia for the horrible and genocidal occupation of Eastern Europe.
It was your ostensible delight over the death of Western Europe that caused reactions. How you declared that you would enjoy watching it while eating popcorn when Western Europe fell apart. You are very quick and scarily categorical in your way of appointing large chunks of people as your object of hate: Western Europeans, Russians, Jews, etc.
And you cannot take much criticism or dissent. Even with just a few skeptics, here in the forum, of the prevailing Russophobic attitudes, and the whole world falls apart for you. You refer to the whole forum as Russophilic and keep complaining about how it is forbidden to criticize Russia at GoV, etc. Not very balanced, and not at all connected to reality.
Those posters regard Russia as the Savior, the Future of Europe and I am regularly called by names whenever I evoke the Gulag, the misery, the minefields with bloodhounds, and my years of imprisonment by Russian tanks imposed Communists.
None of this happened. You are hallucinating.
It's not about "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", but about "destroy the enemy with his own weapons". If you can enchant the Muslim world with your own type of Taqyya, why not?
The difference is that when Western leaders praise the Islamic world, they do it sincerely or because they are spineless; while the Russians don't believe a word of what they say.
How can you tell the difference? Very simple: look how Russia is treating the Muslims after a war waged against them (Chechnya) and what the West does in the same circumstances (Afghanistan, Iraq). While the Westerners and their soldiers are afraid to breath during Ramadan in the streets of Kabul, fearing not to offend the Mahommedans and to violate their human rights, the Russians are treating the Chechens as a defeated enemy (recently, the pro-Russian puppet president of Chechnya called a street in central Grozny "Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin".) The Westerners honestly want "free elections" in the Muslim countries, while Putin and Medvedev know that something like this is impossible: that's why they installed a puppet regime in Chechnya.
I wouldn't give a damn if the Western leaders praise their strong ties with the Islamic world (making the Muslims to take seriously something like that) while acting like real winners in Iraq and Afghanistan, perhaps making fun of the defeated ones and forcing them to name their streets "George W. Bush" (or "Thomas Jefferson").
Saying this, I don't consider the Russians some kind of "saviors". They are simply realistic, as their facts show when confronting the Muslims in war.
zenster;
you are about to be censored for your offensive remarks about Russia.
Wait till afonso enters the fray then you and I will be called as the two Devil.
Do not reveal the Soviet-Russian role in arming the Arabs against the US and Israel also this Palestine Abbas studied at the Lenin University in Moscow where he studied how to hate the Great Satan.
Russia will save Europe, ha ha ha!
C.S.
"whenever I evoke the Gulag, the misery, the minefields with bloodhounds, and my years of imprisonment by Russian tanks imposed Communists.
None of this happened. You are hallucinating.
No Gulag, no Berlin Wall, no Iron Curtain, no Russian invasion of Hungary 56, '68 Prague, no political trials, no tattoo EA 2140 on my arms...
All hallucination...
It's getting better and better....
And Zenster,
What about Donald Rumsfeld participating in the North Korean Nuke Deal while sitting in the board of ABB? Russia haven't done anything like that.
Bela: Wait till afonso enters the fray then you and I will be called as the two Devil.
Meh. I've been called worse.
Incidentally, Abbas (AKA Abu Mudhen) actually obtained his Ph.D from Moscow's Patrice Lamumba University for a thesis partially based upon Holocaust denial. Quite the fine fellow to have negotiating any sort of peace with Israel, eh?
Conservative Swede: What about Donald Rumsfeld participating in the North Korean Nuke Deal while sitting in the board of ABB?
Where have I ever expressed any admiration or approval for Rumsfeld?
Russia haven't done anything like that.
Bwahahahahaha!
How on effing earth do you know that? Nobody, including lil' ole sagacious you, knows DIDDLY SQUAT about what Russia has or has not done. Puhleese, don't try to piss in my ear and tell me it's raining.
Well Bela,
Stuck in the hallucination of yours, as I described, your interpretation of what I was referring to is of course completely logical.
But what I referred to above as your hallucination, and what never happened, is how no one ever called you names etc. for evoking Gulag etc.
But you are so sucked up in your fear and antagonism that you are quick to believe that a mainstream GoV commenter is denying the Gulag.
Your description of the whole situation, how the whole of GoV has turned Russophile, your description of the people who differ from your ferocious hate of Russia is such a caricature, but you fully believe in your own caricature, and this your last answer shows it to be a bottomless pit, there is not limit to what you can make yourself believe about those "evil" people who do not hate Russia (and Western Europe I suppose) as you.
Zenster,
We know who gave the nukes to North Korea. So Zenster, which country has nukes today thanks to Russia?
Your hot air is really steamy, but as long as you cannot come up with an answer to my question above, it's just that: hot air.
I know it's hard for you to absorb and internalize how exceptional the Western betrayal of their own people is, but it truly is. It's completely unmatched.
C.S.
You are very sentimental and emotional: you could not survive along the Kolyma river, E. Siberia where the condemned wasted their life that turned worthless.
Life was and still is harsh at back East, not for dreamers and philosophers, those shall perish first.
I was trained over there and I learned my lessons.
I feel sorry for all the people here who feel that, in spite of the historical and planetarily unmatched derangement of the West of today, that Russia must in some way be worse than us. And then try to shoehorn this image in somehow. It's truly tragic, and in spite of knowing the facts people still cannot internalize how deeply deranged and suicidal the West has ended up being. For lack of anything better to cling to, people still cling to their "team", and emotionally they want to cheer for it. But there is nothing to cheer for. I guess it's easier, then, just to hate someone else.
Russia is far from perfect. But at least they are not eager to commit suicide.
Bela,
You got nothing right so far, and decided to change the subject. I guess it's just too embarrassing for you to stick to the topic.
Bela, may I suggest you cap your ranting? Your quota is obviously exceeded.
Where I see a striking parallel is in the lust for power. Islam delivers that, Putin and his chronies has that, and there seems to be a, well, common interest in the subject.
The antidote is the usual one against authoritarian rule: Education, civil liberties, public participation in affairs.
Is creating a natural gas cartel akin to OPEC with islamic states mere diplomacy?
An OPEC-like natural gas cartel is yet another reason to promote alternative energy sources. I don't want to barter energy with a nation holding a thousands warheads. Much better to produce our own - and even get to keep the money.
My favorite project is Polywell Fusion. I've done some lobbying for it today as well. If the EU Commission can lend carmakers € 40 billion just to lower gas consumption, finding € 200 million to fix the problem for good is a bargain.
Con Swede: I know it's hard for you to absorb and internalize how exceptional the Western betrayal of their own people is, but it truly is. It's completely unmatched.
Do us both a favor and stop trying to peg me as some sort of blind cheerleader for the West. I'm well aware of America's shortcomings. I just happen to also know that it is not a predatory entity that goes out and sponsors Islamic terrorism like the USSR did and Russia currently does.
Communist Russia is largely responsible for the Islamic threat our world faces today. Yes, Koranic doctrine drives it very nicely but it was the USSR that educated and networked Muslim terrorists in ways they might not otherwise ever have achieved. If you need some links (which I have posted before), I've got them.
Trying to cast Russia in some sort of rosy glow is completely delusional. Even today, they triangulate against Western civilization in a ruthless and vicious manner. Their enablement of Iran's nuclear weapons program alone earns them this world's harshest scorn.
Here you go: (I urge anyone who is unfamiliar with these subject to please read both articles. Islamic terrorism might not have ever become anything like it currently is without Soviet Russia's eager and copious help. The same Soviet Russia that Putin served in the KGB.)
The [Russian] Roots of Islamic Terrorism
The communist roots of Palestinian terror
The self-dhimmification process is much older than islam. Some comments here look like pro-Russia dissident dhimmi movement.
And of course the big stick in your hand is the term "victimization" in case of Bela or me who had to read the Russian power textbooks for decades. We might be biased of course, but your lack of reading capacity re Russia is pure illiteracy.
Just like in case of islam they need only to wait to let you make self-destructive mistakes and push you from time to time in the direction desired.
Just the view of islam/Russia is highly corruptive. You should go through some special immunization program first. You are not qualified until you start recurring patterns. That is why my or Belas comments remain simply annoying.
In the case of islam all commentators here belong to the elite. Why not to cross the same distance before commenting on Russia? You spent months/years with islam, the same amount of work you owe Russia.
Errata: until you start reading recurrent patterns
ConSwede
"1) The way they used the big stick in Chechnya".
The big stick hit all of Russia on purpose via Chechnya.
Chechnya parallels to Bosnia might tell you more. Wahabis wanted the conflict to grow and reap the fruits. Now the big stick produced the biggest mosque in Russia in Grozny. A sort of magic stick.
The attacks were orchestrated so that the civil population gets involved in the same style in Gudermes or Sarayevo. This wahabi element is just one of the layers:
The two wars in Chechnya were very different in character.
Now we tend to view everything through the prism of the second war forgetting the impact on Russia as a whole.
I guess it's a misunderstanding over here. Nobody glorifies Russia or their politics. But, comparing today's Russia and the West, there are two criteria to be taken into account:
1. The way the Russian/Western governements treat their own citizens, the majority of the citizens, the people - and accordingly their cultural distinctiveness and traditions.
2. How they deal with the Muslims when a Muslim community becomes a danger for them (war, immigration).
In both respects Russia scores 2 and the West 0. Which means that in this respect, it should be inspirational for the Westerners. Otherwise, of course there are important cultural differences between Russia and the West; yet, nowadays, regarding the survival instinct, the Russians are better equipped.
Czechmade, and others with good knowledge of Russia:
Please share.
Zenster just did so, and I'll read his articles.
What the US and Europe need is their own Putin or Putins, not some phony Messiah like Obama or loony neocon like McCain or lying scoundrel like Sarkozy or half twit like Brown or demented new engineers of human mind like the ruling eurocrats... I could go on. Russia has the will power (and will-to-power), the leadership and the instinct to survive. So does China. So does Israel - no reason for Americans or Europeans to support it, because the Israelis always take care of themselves anyway. Not so with the sick, moribund, suicidal West. It is the delusional elites in the EU and the US that are the problem, not really Islam or Muslims. They respect force. The West isn't showing any. No signs of life, except a few puny demonstrations by pro-Israeli "anti-jihadists" now and then or America's futile neocon wars, which will cease (?) anyway now as the faux-Saviour Obama becomes the Big Man to the delight of all the usual useful idiots.
Raskolnikov hits the nail on the head in this comment. Putin and the other ruthless leaders act quite obviously, and forcefully, for the interests of their own countries.
Our leaders, their wit dulled by too many compromises and too much money wasted on senseless projects, simply don't match up.
The current crisis is being used as another power grab for our inept politicians. Unless they show some spine rather than mere greed for power, there's no need to give them any. They're not worth it.
History is fiercely ironic sometimes. If somebody had told me 10 years ago that a day would come when I would appreciate a Russian leader or a Russian government I would have died laughing. But here we go. As one of my prophetic fellow-countrymen told some decades ago: "The West as we know it will fall; and the Russians will be the last ones to stand for Europe". He also said "Wait for 40 years and the Notre Dame Cathedral will be a mosque". It was in the beginning of the 80s. People laughed at him by that time too; he was considered a deranged philosopher.
Excellent post, Raskolnikov!
Zenster,
A year ago we had the whole brouhaha with LGF about the Brussels conference and Vlaams Belang and the Sweden Democrats. Many of the people on the LGF side were carnivorous witch-hunters or just down right stupid. But there were also rather sensible people, but who's reasoning went like this:
The murky past of VB and SD was such a huge red cape to them, that there was absolutely no way to get over it. No matter how much VB and SD had changed, it simply didn't count. Both parties could have turned themselves inside out, and these people would still just go on robotically repeating "I do not see a clean break with the past from VB and SD. Unless they change their fascism... (something about how it leads to genocide)...etc."
It became abundantly clear that NO MATTER WHAT VB and SD did to change, it would not convince these people. It became clear since the change had already taken place, and still they repeated the same mantra. "I'm not convinced" as Dave from Sweden said repeatedly for every evidence that was presented to him. Or "it's just anecdotal" as Epa always said to all evidence.
Anyway, it's clear that you will never get over Russia's Communist past. You see Russia and USSR as one and the same. So when I ask about Russia and Putin you answer about USSR: because USSR did this or that in the past, Russia of today is bad/evil/etc. And it does NOT MATTER AT ALL how much Russia changes, Zenster will always see it as one and the same as USSR.
The articles you provided are about USSR!
This is the whole thrust of the loud criticism of Russia and Putin. From people who simply do not make a difference between Russia and USSR. There nothing else to all their drums and trumpets.
I think this sort of attitude stinks when it comes to VB and SD, and of course the same applies when it comes to Russia. Like McCain with his "when I look into the eyes of Putin all that I see is K-G-B". This is nothing but simplistic hate- and fearmongering, quite as with the "euro-fascism" hate- and fearmongering we see from a similar, and somewhat overlapping, camp.
Zenster,
Do us both a favor and stop trying to peg me as some sort of blind cheerleader for the West. I'm well aware of America's shortcomings.
Please consider this story told by Ann Coulter:
In the '80s, a friend of mine knew a Russian dissident who was always heatedly denouncing the Soviet Union and assuring everyone that he had been completely immune to Soviet propaganda. Then one day, after returning from the Wright Brothers museum in North Carolina, he smugly informed my friend that Americans have their own propaganda: "You think the Wright brothers invented flight - ha ha - everyone knows that was the Mozhaisky brothers!"
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/coulter072204.asp
Are you really aware of to what extent that you have been told lies, Zenster? How deep all this propaganda, that you have been bombarded with since long, really cuts? You almost won't be able to believe it, Zenster. And you probably only cut half way through so far.
To point out this this guy the the Mozhaisky brothers didn't invent flight does not equal describing him as a cheerleader for the USSR - obviously!
Condoning Putins policy means standing for EU totally unified with some guys in charge of it claiming to protect their newly acquired sheep. The iron fist would be used in all directions, the justice system wrecked and bent at pleasure.
Each time we would try to reclaim some rights or our lost voices, there would be a huge conspiracy uncovered or let to hit some corner of the Empire.
Each folk like Basks or Scots would be given their dwarfish independence and big billboards would state that legally undeniable fact on every corner.
US journalists would spend their time studying the lists of regions
newly closed to them for lack of "safety" granted to them by the "government".
The kids of the local communists would be utterly surprized that their already senile parents or grandparents had such a deep knowledge how to manage their life.
I am however surprized that the rapidly changing West does not see the Europe between Russia and ex-cold war West totally untouched by anything islamic and not willing to give up to the pressure from the West or East combined or divided.
If this is not a recognized strategic asset then there is simply no will to find some viable method of protecting our freedoms.
I do not like to claim any knowledge of "Russia", I am expert-wise only totally bored by every move this dissident of civilization has in mind or demonstrate on daily basis.
henrik raeder:
I beg your permission - you are the self appointed Disciplinary Squad Leader, a.k.a. Word Warden - to express my thoughts on this forum.
May I?
Raskolnikov is correct in this sense:
After the Bolshevik takeover of Russia the totalitarian Communism started spread very fast and was about to engulf Europe: Russia fell first, followed Hungary, the Weimar Republic and Spain...
The cold, objective fact is that Hitler and his Fascist allies put an and to the Red Plague. Without him Europe would have been a Stalinist nightmare.
My argument stops here because from this point on it is a forbidden territory - even to mention it is poisonous.
What Raskolnikov RIGHTLY suggest is that only a draconian dictatorship could finish off the Marxist-Islamist encroachment.
There is no such leader on the horizon - quite the opposite - thus the West shall fall on her Own volition
C.S. I have no sympathy, nor compassion for SUICIDAL people; - I reserve it for valiant fighters: here comes the POPCORN allusion.
May be I have to order now double amount for the American Suicide.
Henrik raeder:
Thank you for your forgiveness, I appreciate your grandiosity.
Did you burn books "back then" too?
"The cold, objective fact is that Hitler and his Fascist allies put an and to the Red Plague. Without him Europe would have been a Stalinist nightmare."
Bela,
I agree that the nationalistic movements which were formed and took the power in many Europeans countries in the '30s were (in an important degree) counter-reactions to the danger of the potential pro-Soviet regimes and the Communist propaganda, also favored by the Great Depression.
Yet I doubt that Hitler had any effective role in countering the Bolsheviks; on the contrary, starting useless wars on different fronts without evaluating the consequences, he finally invited the Bolsheviks in Europe and, as we know, half of the continent was really transformed into a Stalinist nightmare.
Acting like he did, foolishly and prematurely aggressive, he compromised the idea of nationalism in Europe for a long time. He was counter-productive to the very cause he wanted to defend.
The cold, objective fact is that Hitler and his Fascist allies put an and to the Red Plague.
I call crap. Hitler and his scum were, regardless of the sum total killed, more evil than Stalin and his scum.
Further, a Stalinist takeover of Europe would not have worked, for the Europeans, not seeing the point in autocratic rule, would be like herding cats. The Russian mentality fits much better.
Bela, when I note that you're over your quota for ranting, I don't need any particular to do so, for it's clear for all to see. Remarks like Did you burn books "back then" too? are just rude. You can be rude for all I care, but don't expect to be taken seriously or make many friends.
BTW, I seem to have two logins, Henrik R Clausen and Henrik Raeder. Gotta fix that...
I meant "any particular authority".
It's free for all to point out the obvious.
armance;
you said:I agree that the nationalistic movements which were formed and took the power in many Europeans countries in the '30s were (in an important degree) counter-reactions to the danger of the potential pro-Soviet regimes and the Communist propaganda, also favored by the Great Depression.
This was my point and the best is to leave it at it for any string of further speculation is not germane to the thread.
The gist of Raskolnikov argument is that only a BENEVOLENT! Autocracy can change the decline.
And he is correct in the strict sense of the word. - But!
Buyer Beware! The Strong Autocrat can turn out to be a new Stalin, OBAMA, Farrakhan, Rev. Wright (Stalin started as priest) Franco, etc. to make things even worse.
We are now on shaky ground on Russia: Ivan the terrible was bad, Peter the Great was good, Stalin was bad, Putin is good; it's being called The End of Rational Thinking.
The posts on this blog involving Russia always seem to generate a huge number of comments, for some reason.
Bela, you said: "The cold, objective fact is that Hitler and his Fascist allies put an and to the Red Plague. Without him Europe would have been a Stalinist nightmare." I don't agree with that--Nazism and Fascism, though they are often portrayed as right-wing, were actually inherently left-wing movements. Mussolini identified himself as a socialist all his life, and Hitler portrayed himself as an anti-Communist only because that was a way for him to gain power. I highly recommend the book Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg (who I recently met at my university!).
There seem to be two differing views of Russia present, represented by Zenster and Conservative Swede, respectively. This is just a guess, but I wonder if this difference is a result of age difference. Zenster, did you grow up in America during the Cold War by any chance? And Conservative Swede, did you grow up a bit later than that, perhaps towards the end of the Cold War and not in America?
I hope that doesn't sound too prying, and you don't have to answer, of course. But I just think it's interesting: my mom grew up in Cold War America, but I never experienced the Cold War. We have very different views of Russia because of this, in my opinion.
henrik r clausen;
As long as we discuss controversial issues I have nothing against it, be they rude or not. This forum is for adults.
I am a rough person no one can offend me, I just shrug it off.
Please note, I duly resent any attempt by other posters to silence, issue quotas, deny the right to legally supported free speech by arbitrarily assuming the power that belongs to the owner of this blog.
Raskolnikov,
What the US and Europe need is their own Putin or Putins, not some phony Messiah like Obama or loony neocon like McCain or..
Well, a Theodore Roosevelt would do just fine. And this is of course rather what Putin and Medvedev represents. The type of leadership from before the start of the Crazy Age, i.e. before WWI.
As we saw earlier in this thread the concept of speaking softly while carrying a big stick is so alien to the Westerners of today that they do not even see it when it's right in front of them. And they can only think in hyper-ideologized extremes: either a hyper-soft suicidal "democracy" or a hyper-brutal oppressive dictatorship, and nothing in between! This is how the contemporary Western mind is trained to think. No wonder our civilization is in free fall.
natalie;
Yes, I agree that Fascism is a leftist movement and we can consider sarcastically as civil war the struggle between Stalin and Hitler.
But this is off topic now so let's not delve into.
What you have to accept is that Eastern Europeans, Baltic peoples, Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Romanians - even Slavic Ukraine - who lived under the very bloody and brutal Soviet-Russian occupation have a dismal view of Russia - except for the minority Commie Party Apparatchiks who are longing for the lost privileges.
Facing this group are some Westerners who, may be, visited Russia as tourist with a wade of $$$$ and became enamored for unspecified reason.
Those who never visited Russia, they conjured up some romantic idea about her which is more or less rooted in their veiled hatred toward their own country.
Lenin's "useful idiots".
FYI: I am Hungarian, ex-Gulag political prisoner #EA2140.
Bela, that 'quota' commment was a metaphor...
I could also have said something like "Your ranting makes you look silly. A reduction of volume would be good for everyone".
Anyway, here's a different view of what Hitler and his scum were doing. Their 'national socialism' ('socialism' is too good a word for that, not to mention 'nationalism') was a fierce reaction to Capitalism, which they saw as quintessentially evil. And Jewish, too.
Unfortunately, they were not able to come up with a better system, improvised to make it look like they did, and then hurried to blame the Bolscheviks to divert attention from their failure at home.
Even Italian fascism was a more coherent ideology than the crap Hitler came up with. But his uniforms were better. That can disguise a lot, in particular when television has just been invented.
(Some may wonder if I ever get tired of bashing Nazism. Short answer: 'No' Long answer: 'No')
Natalie,
I think I and Zenster are roughly the same age. I have lived longer under Cold War than without it.
The point here is how the other side makes an identity between Russia and USSR. The are seeing ghosts. (Is Merkel Hitler? Well, people of similar mental caliber see Bush as Hitler). And subsequently strawman arguments appear of how those who point out that there is no identity between Russia and USSR (quite as there is none between Merkel and Hitler), that these people are unaware of or denying the true character of USSR.
And this is the only thing they have to cling to, these illusions: first seeing ghosts, and since these ghosts do not exist, their position can only be defended using fake arguments, creating strawmen people, who do not exist, to argue against. Apparently very stupid people who are utterly unaware of the times of he USSR, the Gulag etc.
You got the same treatment yourself not so long ago. From Henrik, who deemed something you said about Russia not sufficiently critical, so he found it proper to patronize the "silly little girl" and tell her to read the Black book of Commuinism (apparently as a way to learn about Medvedev's Russia), while he considered himself old and wise enough not having to read the book himself. And then Henrik is a marvel of reason and balance compared to some of the others. So you can see how this pattern goes very deep.
Henrik said: "Even Italian fascism was a more coherent ideology than the crap Hitler came up with. But his uniforms were better. That can disguise a lot, in particular when television has just been invented."
Mussolini actually did come up with his own political ideology. Obviously I don't agree with it, but he did actually put thought into it. Hitler's ideology, on the other hand, was mostly copied/stolen from others. And his writing was horrendous--Mein Kampf is an extremely boring book. Hitler just rambles on and on and on. I couldn't even finish it it was so bad.
But the Nazis actually had pretty awesome uniforms. I'm not trying to glorify the Nazis in any way--I hate them. But their uniforms were pretty cool.
Bela, I suppose we are in agreement about Fascism/Nazism then. I just took exception to your original thought because you made it sound like Nazism and Fascism kept Communism from spreading in Western Europe and I don't think that's correct. And I didn't realise that you were a political prisoner. I suspected you were Hungarian because of your name, but I didn't know that you were in a Gulag.
CS, no need to keep bringing up that 'Black book' incident. I took the lesson to heart and decided never again to recommend books only on what I've heard from others.
natalie:
Some people never heard of the de-Nazification project that followed the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Allies tried to eliminate Nazi collaborators from the civil sphere therefore there is no continuation or any rapport between present and past Germany.
In Russia - and elsewhere in the Soviet block - not a single butcher or Commie criminal ever held to account, the entire Russian State of today is run by the old KGB agents like Putin.
Therefore it's is well founded assumption that Russia is the straightforward continuation of the URSS, including the symbols, anthem, etc.
They only adjusted their economies to modern times but they have not changed their imperialist, anti-Western design: ask Iran, Chavez, Syria, Cuba....
Then let me ask you and please answer without spin:
How the Communist Weimar Rep. ended in Germany?
How the 100 days of Hungarian Communism ended in 1919?
How the Spanish civil war ended?
How and WHO did it?
Henrik,
Sorry to be a pain in the neck. The example was too good in the context not to be used. I won't bring it up again. That's wouldn't be fair.
Biblical prophesy has Russia aligning itself with Muslim nations, so Russia's embracing of the Muslim world should be no surprise - we just need to embrace this truth ourselves for our own strategic advantage.
"In Russia - and elsewhere in the Soviet block - not a single butcher or Commie criminal ever held to account, the entire Russian State of today is run by the old KGB agents like Putin."
It's true, but it's not exclusively the fault of the Russians. The Eastern Europeans - invaded by the Soviets - haven't condemned their Communist criminals also. Too many complicities and compromises... We should have had a great and overall "trial of Communism", of the butchers and the ideology as such, like it happened after Nurenberg. Things became so complicated in 70 years - or 45 years, in the Eastern block. For example, Ceausescu was seen in the West for many years as a hero opposing the Soviet Union, because he refused to participate in the invasion of Czechoslovakia, after Prague 68. Few paid attention to the fact that he was an anti-Soviet who was tyrannizing his own people - he was praised and invited as a special guest in all the capitals of the free world, until the beginning of the 80s.
Besides, speaking about the ironies of history, this is one of the greatest: among the people who installed and organized the Bolshevik regime, at least in the first phases, the Russians were (ethnically) a minority... There were more ethnically Russians among the anti-Bolsheviks, the Whites.
The Bolshevik takeover was sponsored by Imperial Germany. There was no public revolution underneath it, just a change from one dictatorship to another.
One more country that didn't clean up properly after WWII is Austria, BTW.
Natalie: Zenster, did you grow up in America during the Cold War by any chance?
Yes, I was on the tail end of the "duck and cover" boomer generation. I would also like to think that—by working on microcircuitry for laser gyroscopes and special coatings used in FEL (Free Electron Laser) optics for the SDI (Star Wars Project) and surfaces on the Stealth Bomber—I “fought” in the Cold War as well. After enduring several of Silicon Valley's boom-bust economic cycles imposed by defense spending fluctuations, it certainly feels as though I’ve been through some battles.
While I cannot claim to be any sort of Russian expert, I must concur with Bela that modern Russia is, root and branch, merely an extension of the Soviet Union. Maybe the uniforms have changed, but that’s about it.
As to the West being so “suicidal” when compared to Russia, nothing could be farther from the truth. America—and to a lesser extent Europe—is based upon a highly functional model of social freedoms and rule of law that simply does not exist in Russia. What’s more, for all of its blundering and shortcomings, America does not engage in the intensely cynical and predatory sort of statecraft that Russia, Communist China and Islam are all so fond of.
A splendid example is Iraq. Was America severely mistaken in liberating a Muslim majority country so that it could become even more Islamically polarized? You betcha! Did America do it with that explicit purpose in mind. Not a chance. Ham fisted? Yes. Intentionally malignant? Never. That is the difference between American and Russia. Putin and his thugocracy are still pursuing the exact same destabilizing sort of triangulation against Western interests that were such a hobby for the USSR.
In this manner, it is Russia that is truly “suicidal”. It has both a dysfunctional economy and political goal set. It makes no real friends but creates scores of enemies in its blundering wake. Iran is the pluperfect example. Russia’s contribution of nuclear technology infects yet one more festering diplomatic and strategic sore as it attempts to bleed the USA white over America’s efforts to stabilize the Middle East. This, despite how assistance to Iran only encourages even more global terrorism which then spills across Russia's "bloody borders" with Islam.
They did this exact same sort of crap in training up Islamic terrorists in its USSR incarnation (see the links I provided above), as it does now by selling advanced weapons systems to Syria and Iran today. All of this only serves to continue tipping the world towards global war instead of any possibility of peace. Russia does this knowingly and even in the face of having these same Islamic terrorists they support killing droves of their schoolchildren in Beslan or blowing passenger airliners out of their skies.
While one might be tempted to make the same observation about the CIA’s support for Taliban fighters against the USSR in Afghanistan, the comparison doesn’t hold water due to how critical it was to roll back the tide of Soviet Communism. Most ironic of all is how it was SOVIET marshalling of Islamic terrorist resources that enabled Islam to become such a threat to the West and not America’s small-scale funding of Afghani rebels.
Russia continues to make a dog’s breakfast out of the world wherever it goes. Be it blackmailing Europe over natural gas supplies or disrupting the Internet in Baltic states. They will continue to do so right up until one of their ungrateful little brats like Iran lobs a nuclear device into Moscow’s hive of Godless neo-communist scum. It will be a well-deserved payback for all the needless suffering and constant crises that they have manufactured around the globe.
The Bolshevik takeover was sponsored by Imperial Germany.
See, Bela? It was not the Russians, but the Germans. Thus Putin, KGB and Ceka are indirectly creations of the Kaiser. Now, what do you say about that? We should begin the trial of Communism with Imperial Germany? Truly confusing.
Just to throw my two cents in. I understand Con Swedes point about Russia not being the USSR anymore. But as we know most people are a product of their generation, surroundings etc. We cant escape the fact that Putin along with (I suspect) many other of Russias ruling elite come from that era, were influenced by it and were actually a part of the system.
We are only a scant 18 years out of the fall of the USSR. You cant tell me that some of the worst aspects of that era has not sunk into their thinking. Yes I agree Putin is looking out for his own people. But he is also looking out for a massively corrupt system along with its criminal syndicates. It is kick-back central over there where most citizens have to deal with cops on the take. No I dont have any links to provide. This is what I hear from my Russian friends who go back and forth to Russia quite often.
But I dont want to get to tied up with the whole "Russia gives nuke tech to Iran". "Oh yeah, well the US gives nuke tech to the Saudis." It is an endless circle of excusing one parties bad behavior for the other. I think we can all agree that there are some positive aspects about Putins Russia as well as some disturbing. But I dont doubt for a second that Russia (as most countries) is trying to position itself to be dominant. This whole Multi-polar world wish is a bunch of crap.
armance:
Please read zenster's very cogent, factual and irrefutable analysis of Soviet-Russia.
One cannot add anything to his hard hitting words: not even the resident apologist shills can deny it.
Estern Europeans: mixed bag. Czechs, Poles made small steps towards purging the trash, Hungarians are the worst scumbag: a guy, nicknamed "fingernail-puller" occupied high, well paid position...
As for Kaiser Wilhelm come on:it was WWI and the defeat of Czar Nicholas was his natural goal.
Conflating Putin or Brezhnev with Kaiser is a wild stretch of imagination.
Germany supported the Russian Revolution because they wanted Russia to be out of the war, simple as that. The Germans weren't doing so well and they wanted to make things easier for themselves. Of course, they still lost anyway.
Bela, I have heard of the de-Nazification of Germany. There's actually a great film called Taking Sides that deals with it. I don't completely agree with the German de-Nazification because a lot of people who shouldn't have taken the blame for Nazism were forced to, simply because the Allies wanted scapegoats. The film I previously mentioned is about the conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic during the Nazi era who had to undergo extensive questioning even though he had helped Jews in the orchestra. The Nuremberg Trials did help bring about the death of Nazism, though, which is a good thing.
It's very true that no one had to answer for what they did after the fall of Communism, which some people (Fjordman, for example) have speculated causes problems to this very day--I refer to the blatant Marxism displayed by the left.
Zenster, I do think the West is being very suicidal. Europe, and to a lesser extent America, continually appease Islam. Our president says we're fighting a "war on terror," not a war with Islam, which is truly what it is. And don't even get me started on Europe. America is about to elect a new president in a close race. One of the candidates who is leading in the polls (I don't know how accurate they are, but still) has ties to anti-American criminals and Islamic terrorists. In fact, Islamic terror groups in the Middle East have voiced their support for this candidate. Of course, we have to wait for the results of the election, but the very fact that Barack Hussein Obama has come this far in his political career in this short period of time indicates to me that there is something fundamentally wrong with a lot of people's thinking in this country.
Natalie
I highly recommend the book Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg (who I recently met at my university!)
Goldberg's analysis is problematic. Fascism/Nazism were not exclusively left-wing movements although its true they borrowed some aspects from socialism. This review by Paul Gottfried is worth reading:
Heil Hillary
Hm. I messed up the html tags. Try this:
http://www.takimag.com/site/article/heil_hillary
I couldnt help but comment on this thread. I have not read through all of the comments but noticed some comments by Bela and CS.
First of all I have never heard a single Russian who have made a positive statement about Islam or Muslims. Ofcourse one doesnt go around saying bad things about islam when one is surounded by chechens or tatars but around the kitchen table, anything goes...
That man in the article is a Tatar, but make no mistake, alot of Tatars are now Russians after becoming Orthodox, I for one is partly Tatar, one of my best mates name is so muslim you cant come up with more muslim name, but, he proudly wears his cross, and never mentions that he is a Tatar unless you press him.
The Russian culture is strong, and often the Tatars or Jews trully become Russians.
On the other hand with Chechens, there is only animosity. To be honest no one likes chechens, even other muslims. My wife is a Kazakh, I went to kazakhstan last year, and discovered how Russian and non Muslim they are, I know that given enough time, and pleanty of saudi money, they will sucomb to real islam, but for now I as a Russian Christian can mary a Kazakh, and they dont have a problem with that, even if she becomes christian in the process.
Russians dont have a love afair with Muslims, they might respect them for their warior like qualities. But the grievences and hate for islam is in most red blooded russian.
Russians who travell to western europe lose their respect for western culture, and this is a problem, the more they see how 'evolved' westerners are, the less they identify with the west. And yes they are mostly untiamerican. I my self not antiamerican, but I do find it hard to be an advocate for various american policies to my russian compatriots.
Well Russkiy, you certainly present a different and better view of things. I hope you're right and that article isn't.
Do you speak Russian? I'm assuming you do, based on your comment and your username. I am learning to speak Russian.
I've been away, I only read five comments and I want to thank Conservative Swede for being the big bad Russophile while I was not here.
"Take myself as an example."
Yes, people did forget that. But you also have to recognise that for you to do that you need a very good notion of where your loyalties are, right?
You can't excpect modern Europeans to do that...
The way Russians feel about islam is to a great degree based on the experience of the War in afghanistan,and chechnia. So much blood was spilled that in reality, Russians and Chechens couldnt possibly be friends. And the whole muslim thing is locked permanently in association with Chechens.
The other thing is how Russian women view Muslim men and people from south of the border ingeneral. Their macho and vulgar atitude pisses women off ofcourse men too.
Example, a girl walking along the street. A car with this men from caucusus driving by, they slow down and call out:
Ohh girl, you so pritty, where did you buy such long pritty legs. Let us give you a ride in our car...
You can imagine the type of men this are. Big dark features, unshaved face, thick accent, and very vulgar. This behavior is not just hated by russians but by Kazakhs as well. So women dont like men from caucusus or from Turkey or from Mid East. This behaviour is strongly associated with Islam by Russians.
"Wait till afonso enters the fray then you and I will be called as the two Devil."
Please Bela, don't behave like a little girl.
I would very much liked to have fought Communism on your side, I would very much have liked to be one of yours "brothers of arms" to such an extent that I am one of the less than 1% of the people here who still look up to the PIDE (our fascist secret police, a very weak STASI) because their mission was to haunt Communists and beat the hell out of them. It was necessary in that times.
Now imagine you were not a Hungarian. Imagine you were born an ethnic Russian. Would you be to be blamed by Communism? Didn't "the Jews did it?"
Honestly, I have great respect for the victims of Gulag, like the Jews who were holocausted; I am very much "proud" that the Berlin wall felt one month after I had been born (I think, September?); The Iron curtain? I'm the one always saying the European Civilisation is one and that Western and Eastern are only fictional Civilisations... But why do you think Hungarian is Western and Russia not?
Hungary 56 made the cover of Time and Prague 68 is the only thing we can remember from that troubled year but all that has passed!
Russians are not Communists, Russians were as much victims of Communism as any other Eastern European people! And I have the greatest respect fot that tatoo of yours, I guess that it is a success among the ladies...
Long live Russia! Long live fricking Europe!
"Russia will save Europe, ha ha ha!"
No. We can count on Obama, I guess...
Привет, Afonso. Just out of curiosity, when's your birthday? I'm pretty sure we're about the same age and I think we have have been born very, very close to each other.
Joanne, I don't believe you claimed that.
But, if you want to play prophecies, let me tell you that the Mother of Christ, Holly Mary apeared here in the woods in 1917 to three little shepards who then became monks. Lady Mary apeared several times and make many miracles in front of the eyes of the entire populace (some of them, even scientists) one of the miracles was to make the sun suddently apear and "falling towards the soil where the people were at, creating an intense wave of heat". Hundreds of people saw that with their own eyes. I repeat, 1917. It really turned big and it made it to the Pope. The Pope recognised the aparition as truthly. Lady Mary revealed three secrets to the shepards who could only reveal them to the Pope (and the Vatican files).
One of the secrets was that Russia would CONVERT to the one and true CHRISTIAN religion and that from there, it would strenghten all Europe with "the true religion of Christ". That is Russia will lead. I don't care what those old books of yours say, I have the very own Mother of Christ stating that Russia "is on the good side". And I can also call you an heretic protestant ( :)kiddding:) ) so that you understand that "prophecies" are in favour for Russia.
Are you gonna contradict the Mother of Christ? 8O
Natalie: Zenster, I do think the West is being very suicidal. Europe, and to a lesser extent America, continually appease Islam. Our president says we're fighting a "war on terror," not a war with Islam, which is truly what it is. And don't even get me started on Europe.
Natalie, my point is that whatever self-destructive tendencies the West exhibits are curable in the relatively short term. I don't deny their existence, just their permanence or inexorable nature.
By comparison, the degree of dysfunctionality in Soviet socio-economics and by extension, (as spackle noted), within post-communist Russia is pathological. It is reflected in their birth replacement factor, alcoholism rate, military incompetence, imitative and kleptomaniac industrial base, endemic corruption plus a host of other less significant but equally telling ways.
One simple fact: According to Transparency International's 2006 Corruption Indicies, out of some 163 nations profiled, Russia ranks as #122 and is bracketed by the Philippines and Rwanda. It occupies the bottom third percentile (2.3 - 2.7 out of 10.0) and is listed below Georgia and Ukraine. Even Cuba, Iran, Syria and Lybia all rank as less corrupt than Russia.
America, by comparison, is #22 on the list and occupies the top third percentile (6.6 - 7.8 out of 10.0), meaning that on the average, Russia is some THREE TIMES as corrupt as the USA.
Couple that factor with how Russia's 2006 GDP (Gross Domestic Product) was some $1.75 Trillion, as compared to America's $13.13 Trillion and the near-order-of-magnitude difference means that Russian corruption is some TWENTY TO THIRTY TIMES worse than it is in America. In fact, given that: "The bigger the pool, the more fish that want to swim in it", Russian corruption can safely be estimated to be nearly FIFTY time worse than what is encountered in America.
This one fact alone points towards why Russia is the model for suicide and not the West. That Russia's corruption ranks as WORSE than some of the hyper-corrupt Islamic countries points towards a similar economic wasteland of massively lopsided distribution of wealth.
Whatever America's ills may be, the needed antidotes and remedies remain well well within its reach. Russia continues to be mired in the exact same elitist oligarchy that rotted the Soviet empire from within and I expect nothing less from Putin and his gang of kleptomaniac thugs.
Islamophobe,
than you very much for that link. I have seen the John Stewart debunkal of that book. But what I liked the most was to read that article "Hail Hillary!". However I lost the linkl.
I have never read that book and as so I don't talk much about it but I truly believes it is very stupid.
What saved European Civilisation from falling apart in a sea of Communism (as Bela said) a sea which strenghened by nulticulturalism is now threathening the whole of America (bolivarianism) was the National sentiments.
The National sentiments had their great expressions in Nazi/Fascisms. Some say Salazarism/Franquism are a different type of it, it may be.
Of course now those "proposals" are out dated but they served well for their time. I even dare to say that Nazism served too well and because of that millions went to what we already know. Any one who has seen an aparently learned old white man in South Africa or South America saying "the best times we had were under Hitler and you know it" just shows that.
The topic is very touching but as I see it, well, as it is... Nazism/Fascism/Hispano-Fascism were only reformulations of Nationalism. We must do the same. We have to reformulate the Nationalist (Nazi/Fascist whatever) theories and turn them acceptable in this current times.
Portugal and Spain as Bela said passed through an horrible XIX century full of civil wars when they stopped to be great powers of the world to became marginal powers in Europe. Then, they got ridd of their Kings. Hispanic Nobility had been the "best" of Europe... They destroyed the church that was what made them PEOPLE after the fall of Rome and what made that little clique to start the Reconquista. The French oriented Massonary rose... it became Communist and then the glorious fascist leaders apered and saved the world. THAT WAS HOW FASCISM TOOK POWER ALL OVER EUROPE!
They wanted to reformulate Civilisation, the Commies wanted to destroy it and for it, the fascists are better than the commie. You can kill me because you don't like me (fascist) what you can't do is to destroy everything I hold dear (Commie).
I just felt I should have said this. Baron, if you are thinking about it, don't. Erase it at will 'cause I can't even remember what I wrote already.
Natalie thank you, I think you're older. I'll tell you in your blog... but probabily tomorrow 'cause it's late night here (two oclock) and tommorow is Friday ;) ...
Afonso,
No problem.
Zenster,
Do you have a link to that corruption index? I'd between interested in reading the whole thing.
Afonso, you're actually older, by less than a month. I was born on September 7.
PS: Thank you, Bela, for your generous appraisal of my comments. I have talked with more than a few Soviet era emigrés and done my best to listen very closely as they described the hell hole of communist life.
If you think that I have elucidated on some core issues and done so correctly, that is more than a little gratifying.
islam o' phobe: Do you have a link to that corruption index?
My pleasure and thank you for asking. I've posted it here a few times before and abstained from linking to it one more time.
Transparency International
2006 Corruption Index
2006 Corruption Map
Think about it: Our planet produces more than enough food to feed every man, woman and child and feed them well. It is only political and commercial corruption that prevents this from happening. If that isn't the definition of suicide, I don't know what is. And by that definition, Russia is increasingly suicidal as the following figures will demonstrate:
In case anyone is unswayed by my previous numbers, here are the 2008 TI figures.
Corruption Index:
USA #18 (6.7 - 7.7 out of 10.0)
Russia #147 (1.6 - 2.4 out of 10.0)
As usual, Denmark is at the very top. In this case, #1 for 2008. It is always in the top handful of countries. Mind you, it's not that hard being clean when your entire country has a population smaller than that of New York city.
That's why I pointed out how, "the bigger the pool, the more fish that want to swim in it".
America's economy is the world's biggest. Theoretically, it should have the largest population of corrupt players seeking to game its open and easily thwarted system. Yet, in the last two years America has risen some 10% in its standings, while Russia—a much smaller and tightly controlled game—has dropped some 16% in the same time.
All during Putin's watch. Go figure.
afonso h - sorry to burst your bubble, but Mary, the woman who gave birth to Jesus, is long dead, knowing nothing and asleep. Mary will rise at the first resurrection to eternal life like many others. It would be best to read your Bible to see for yourself that this is true.
Mary was not the Mother of Christ in the sense that you are using - Mary was the good woman who was given a purpose and she accomplished just that. Mary is not the mother of Christ, other than the vessel for his birth, nor is Mary the husband of God - that is just blasphemy.
As for Russia, I personally do not have anything against the Russian people, and I know that God knows his own, so I need not worry about them - God has it all under control.
Cheers Zenster,
I honestly didn't think Iraq would be at #160 though I am against nation-building projects in general.
I'm also surprised that Italy is a relatively low #45. Too much mafia control I guess.
Afonso, I believe one cannot 'reformulate' nazi/fascist ideas and get anything useful from them. Let me elaborate:
Nazism was evil, but it wasn't really an ideology. There was no coherent idea about it, except killing Jews and bolsheviks. 'National' was an exploitation of patriotism for that purpose, and their word 'Socialism' made a mockery of the term as well. You'll find nothing usable to build on.
Fascism, then, was not evil per se. It was bad, because totalitarian/fascist systems destroy individual responsibility and leads to a perpertual series of crises, ultimately war. Or, as in the Soviet Union where the crises were not large enough, the system collapses. Fascism is a variation of socialism (Mussolini and Lenin got their ideas from the same places), a collectivist ideology that lets the System control everything.
The reason Mussolini switched from international to national socialism was that he noticed, in WWI, that the soldiers would identify with their nation, not with some abstract ideal, and he took this experience to heart. For which the traditional socialists kicked him out.
A good, national identity is meaningful. But in contrast with Mussolini and the fascists, not with a totalitarian ideology. We need respect for private property, the Rule of Law, and secure borders.
BTW, I read up on Franco and the Spanish Civil War. He held back a real Communist takeover on basis of Spanish tradition. He stayed out of WWII, didn't make the mistake of Mussolini to join up with that small, Austrian painter. And eventually Spain became a democracy without bloodshed. I'm holding him to be more of a nationalist than a fascist, no matter what the left-wing extremists try to portray him as.
Joanne,
I like very much Theological "disscussions(?)" but I hope you not to be offended by what I say.
According to Wikipedia, "Mary's assumption into heaven is seen as an instance of the resurrection of the body." So, it's hard to make the point that She is only asleep...
"By contrast, certain documents of the Second Vatican Council, such as chapter VIII of the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium [2] describe Mary as higher than all other created beings, even angels: "she far surpasses all creatures, both in heaven and on earth"; but still in the final analysis, a created being, solely human - not divine - in her nature. On this showing, Catholic traditionalists would argue that there is no conflation [3] of the human and divine levels in their veneration of Mary."
It's here. Read the whole article.
" not only would one side affirm that Jesus was indeed God, but would assert the conclusion that Mary was "Mother of God""
"Both Catholics and Orthodox, and especially Anglicans, make a clear distinction between such veneration (which is also due to the other saints) and adoration which is due to God alone."
"Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory. Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt."
Also, see this
And now let's come to the real thing. If what you say is true, I am sure you can explain this, especially the miracle of the Sun.
And of course the many Marian Aparitions.
" has been claimed that apparitions were experienced by a number of popes, including Pope Leo XIII in 1884, Pope Pius XII at various stages during his papacy, and Pope John Paul II in 1981"
Or maybe everybody is insane, everybody but one sect of Christianity that apeared from nowhere and has little to no Tradition but that derived from, well...
Don't trust in "dogmas". Aboard the questions with an opened mind. I have to tell you, something really happens beyond us in this... the next time you're in a bad situation try pray to Mary. And, if things are real bad, promise to Her that you'll visit her sanctuary here in Portugal on May the 13th. Millions of people come here every year to pay their debts to Mary, because She rarely fails...
About the miracle of the Sun:
"Estimates of the number of witnesses range from 30,000-40,000 by Avelino de Almeida, writing for the Portuguese newspaper O Século, to 100,000, estimated by Dr. Joseph Garrett, professor of natural sciences at the University of Coimbra, both of whom were present that day"
This professor was very "enlightened" you know, very progressive to that time... And the "O Século" newspaper, (The Century) was pure Mainstream Media, the "best" newspaper in Portugal from the XIX century untill middle of the XX I believe. Purely Mainstream Media, like today's Fox or CNN... think about it!
Ah and of course the shepards were beaten by their parents because they refused to tell them all that happened (as Lady Mary told them. You see, 10 years old and younger children being beaten by their own parents and not saying anything?) and because no one should "play" with such serious things.
Cordially.
I can't resist the Wikipedia's description of O Século newspaper:
"Portugal's most widely-circulated[18] and influential newspaper, which was pro-government and anti-clerical at the time[17] Almeida's previous articles had been to satirize the previously reported events at Fátima"
What happened Joanne?
To clarify: I mean, of course, that Franco was being true to Spanish tradition when resisting the communists.
Trying to paint him as a fascist, with their mob mentality and the urgency for Change, is probably wrong.
Henrik,
"Afonso, I believe one cannot 'reformulate' nazi/fascist ideas and get anything useful from them."
I agree.
And I agree because Nazi/Fascism was an adaptation (bad or good) of Nationalism to their times. And you know what? It was successfull, they came to power, prevented worst things to happen (in my view, the compelete destruction of Europeand Civilisation at the hands of Communists and left wing extremists) and for what I've seen, Hitler's Nazism was the most successfull of all, exciting the crowds and making people following him blindly. It ended as we know.
Of course that only happened in that time with all the contextualisation one has to make to understand. Germany was indeed at its very low.
So, what I em urging is not a glorification of Nazi/Fascism (well, it may be under some light once I'm stating it had a somewhat positive effect...) but I am urging a reformulation of Nationalism into a movement that is to be as actractive as Nazi/Fascism were in the first half of the XX century.
Of course, such Nationalist movement MUST be adapted to modern times and must never be a reinforced Nazism/Fascism. It has to be something different... but with the same Nationalist and Conservative base. And by the way, we need a little revolution as well (go see the Latin meaning of the word). Fascism/Nazism had all of that. It was its spine.
"We need respect for private property, the Rule of Law, and secure borders."
You know that Franco and Salazar were a bit different from mainstream Fascists. I called them Hispano-Fascists.
You see, here, we had all that in Salazar's time and Spain had it as well under Franco.
Privatr property and secure borders are more threathened now that in Hispano-Fascist times.
And the rule of law... the law here is not there for the law abaiding citizen but against him. I can show you many cases where telefonic conversations were made public but nothing happened because its members belonged to the "Socialist Club".
Henrik Franco was a right wing authoritarian dictator and to some extent totalitarian as well.
That made him a fascist. He also supported Hitler and Mussolini during the war.
He also said that "the Hispanic Race" was "superior" or the greatest what makes him a racist.
We also had the "Race Day" in Portugal. It is how the National Day.
And that "race" did not meant the white race or the multiculturalism idealisation of it.
I think that if Salazar and Franco knew as much as other Europeans about the origins of their people, they would do the same as Hitler...
Of course, that racism is not the bad kind of Racism. It's just a way to say: We're good and we're especial.
...how the National day was denominated.
And when I say they would do the same as Hitler, I don't mean killing minorities, I mean, in the same light Hitler was a Nordicist, they would be "Hispanicists"...
About that race and possible expansions to unite it and cultivate the "vital espace", Franco's military PHD thesis was about "how to invade and definetly conquer Portugal in for weeks".
And I agree because Nazi/Fascism was an adaptation (bad or good) of Nationalism to their times.
No, I can't accept that. It was an ursurpation of nationalistic/patriotic feelings to their sick dreams. Some evil, some just sick. Socialism (and it's crazy variant Marxism) is an evil ideology designed to make it possible for the elite to exploit the working class.
I didn't know Franco had said that the Hispanic Race was superior. That's the sort of funny statements that don't deserve to be taken seriously :)
Respect for private property is one of the most profound ways to express respect for your fellow man and his achievements.
We need respect for private property, the Rule of Law, and secure borders.
This is what makes Franco much less of a fascist than, say, Mussolini.
Henrik I am going now. I'll comeback to comment on you in about two or three hours.
Right now, I just wanted to say that private prperty was never at risk here in the Peninsula...
A quick summary:
Russky:
When we talk about Russia and Islam we imply the official government attitude, not the average Russian's opinion.
However the average Russian was deprived from truthful information about the word and the Communist propaganda irrevocably brainwashed most.
We shall remember Saharov, Solzhenitsyn, Pasternak and many more decent nameless individual.
afonso h:
Hungary is not "Western". She is the only country on Earth where Communists assumed power 4 times: in 1919, 1945, 1956 (after revolution) and 1990 after the "collapse" of communism. Hungary is Leftist, Russia-oriented, cantankerous country. Currently the sons and daughters of the old apparatchiks rule.
Raskolnikov:
In response to his suggestion that only a strongman can stop the Western decline, I brought up the observation that "technically" Fascism did put an end to the Marxist takeover attempt in Europe.
This is an observation not a support or approval of Fascism.
Food for thought:
While Russia excels in Arts, Music, Literature, Dance, Painting etc., rich in resources yet unable to manufacture anything of civilian value except vodka.
There is nothing on the world market which bears the imprint "made in Russia" and people hankering for it to possess.
Why is that?
But SAM 300 battery is ready for the Islamic Republic of Iran and Chavez.
"No, I can't accept that. It was an ursurpation of nationalistic/patriotic feelings to their sick dreams. Some evil, some just sick."
Ok but that's not the question. The question is that under Fascism/Nazism Nationalistic feelings the people refused the desconstructionist tentation and opted for Civilisation.
I am starting for the point that the USSR was worst than all the rest...
But I don't understand why you are always mentioning private property. Didn't the average German and Italian had the right to his property? (Non Jews at least).
I believe you have understood my point.
So what happened to all those Russian people that wanted a constitutional government, and now have a cleptocracy?
Did they drink themselves to death?
Russia doesn't seem able to save themselves, much less anyone else.
Also, the Russian government, with it's oddly desired strong man, is a threat to the West, not a friend. That is one thing the old USSR and the current Russia have in common.
/ruck fussia
From the Radio Netherland, today:
Russian media report that Colonel Kadhafi plans to allow Russia to open a naval base in the port of Benghazi. This month a Russian navy ship stopped off in Libya on its way to Venezuela.
Russia fight Islam, ha ha ha!
The same old URSS pattern: arming, supporting Islamists, anti - Western regimes anyplace, anytime but some blindly worship this wretched place called Russia.
http://www.radionetherlands.nl/news/international/
But I don't understand why you are always mentioning private property. Didn't the average German and Italian had the right to his property? (Non Jews at least).
I repeat it because I have a point to drive home. You can't have despotism without resources, and you'd need to infringe on someone elses' property to get that. The Jews are a great case in point (for Germany. Italy left their Jews in peace).
Even a government like in Nazi Germany needs to pay for its army (I hope you've watched "Schindlers' List"). Now, where did the German state get that kind of money from (wars ain't exactly cheap)? Right, the Jews... They had other motivations than simple hate to get rid of the Jews, for the German state took over the property when the Jews 'disappeared'.
Also in general, though, when you have a state commanding people to work for free or, like in Soviet Russia, you suspend private property altogether, there is extensive violation of that principle going on. Another way to mess things up is to hold big business, like the Krupp industries, really close to the despotic government. Then the government finds it much easier to get access to extraordinary resources when deemed necessary.
In ancient times, the despots were in principle owners of everything in their countries. It's only been some 800 years since the Catholic Church decreed that private property was a firm and undeniable fact. Which in turn led to development of Capitalism and much progress, for finally the various kings and emperors had little excuse for grabbing their stuff.
Islam does, in principle, not recognize private property. In that ideology, all things, including human lives, ultimately belong to this here 'Allah', and is thus at the disposal of the (self-appointed) representatives of the black stone, or whatever Allah really is.
There are some philosophical aspects to this.
Bela, Bela, Bela...
That is the blog of the Portuguese guy who spent the last half of the Cold War in Russia. He is still there in Moscow. He reports to all Portuguese Televisions. I'll translate my comment:
"Excelent played by the Russian part. About the Lybians, I'd like to know what they are conspiring to do...
It's urgent that Russia has a force in the Oriental Mediterranean. Well, it's not. What's urgent is that Russia gets back the controle of the Black Sea becaus, as we saw in the war with Georgia, NATO took the Black Sea in a blink of an eye.
The Greeks are the ones who may don't think this is too funy... and concerning the Turks, I care as much as I didn't.
Thank you for sharing this information."
So, Henrik, you're problem is "the Jewish question".
Let's not go there. Jews were a tiny minority... we all know what happened. I thought you knew something I didn't. I pretty much agree with you though I think that the State has a right to guarantee some "security" over their big business.
America did the same and is constantly doing so. Here it is called "the golden share".
I am refering to this sentence of yours: " Another way to mess things up is to hold big business, like the Krupp industries".
Where we may differ is that I think that "Nation" should be superior to "businesses". Capitalism is good but, when Capitalism becomes too powerfull to be regulated (wild extreme Capitalism) it becomes a burden.
Think like this: Imagine Bill Gates five years ago had an army.
In a way, that is what happens in States like Albania where wild Capitalism (smuggling, traffic) becames more powerfull than the rule of law and such things (Nation, or its legal side).
And in one thing we can agree: Fascism/Nazism was not against private property (but sometimes in the case of Jews) while leftism in the end really is.
Bela: While Russia excels in Arts, Music, Literature, Dance, Painting etc., rich in resources yet unable to manufacture anything of civilian value except vodka.
There is nothing on the world market which bears the imprint "made in Russia" and people hankering for it to possess.
Why is that?
But SAM 300 battery is ready for the Islamic Republic of Iran and Chavez.
It's difficult to imagine a more slickly packaged condemnation of Russia than the foregoing. It summarizes rather perfectly what I have been saying about Russian corruption and Putin's wholly unjustified aspirations with respect to Superpower status. Russia neither deserves nor has it earned anything of the sort.
Rather than protect its people, Russia is betraying them in ways that are far deeper and fatal than the West can ever imagine.
Spackle,
I understand Con Swedes point about Russia not being the USSR anymore. But as we know most people are a product of their generation, surroundings etc.
So how come then the conclusion is that the Russians learned nothing from it, while the Eastern Europeans learned everything from it. The mythology is that Eastern Europeans are vaccinated against communism (and more) while the Russians are like those dolls with a little Stalin on the inside (a Georgian by the way!).
If your statement about how "people are a product of their generation, surroundings etc." is supposed to be a universal statement based on generalized knowledge about human societies, than it would apply equally to Eastern Europeans too, right? So when you speak of how "some of the worst aspects of that era" has sunk into their thinking, this would apply completely to e.g. Bela too, right?
Or do you just apply this principle selectively and dishonestly, with different standards for Russians and for Eastern Europeans? Then it would have little value as part of any serious reasoning, wouldn't it?
Well, at least compared to Zenster and Bela, you do not set a complete identity between the USSR and Russia.
Zenster,
While I cannot claim to be any sort of Russian expert, I must concur with Bela that modern Russia is, root and branch, merely an extension of the Soviet Union. Maybe the uniforms have changed, but that’s about it.
This is plainly associative thinking. I doesn't matter how much Russia changes, Zenster and McCain etc. will always see it as the USSR. It's the very same things as how nothing that Vlaams Belang and the Sweden Democrats do, Charles Johnson and the Lizards will always see them as neo-Nazis on the inside. In both cases it says more about CJ and Zenster, respectively, than the thing they are talking about.
I fail to see how anyone with the attitude of Zenster's could at all complain with the attitude of Charles Johnson. Russia was once the center of the Communist empire, so we should always see them as communist at the inside. Germany and large parts of Europe were once Nazis and Nazi collaborators, so we should always see them as Nazis at the inside. What's the difference? It's exactly the same attitude.
Zenster,
This one fact alone points towards why Russia is the model for suicide and not the West. That Russia's corruption ranks as WORSE than...
You will need to read your history books again. Corruption does not kill nations. You make this connection between corruption and suicide entirely on an ad hoc basis, for the purpose of this discussion. Since you simply cannot emotionally accept that Russia is better off than the West in some respect. But you know better than this of course. Deeply corrupted societies, with a clan and/or bully mentality and with a weak civic mentality, have survived for centuries and millenia.
It's true that Russia have for more problems with corruption than America. This is something Medvedev and Putin are open and self-critical about (in a way you never see a Western politician being self-critical). It is also true that there is less corruption in Sweden than in America. Sweden is truly the ideal country in this respect.
What does a corruption index tell us about a country? It tells us how well-oiled the machinery of the society is. Sweden and America are much more well-oiled then Russia.
A completely different aspect is what this "machine" is set to doing. In the West the machine is set to commit national suicide as effectively as possible. The highly effective and loyal Swedes are excelling in this, executing the national suicide faster then anyone else. But America is about to change to a higher gear now with the election of Obama.
The Russian machine is much less effective, yes. But it's set on genociding its own people. Instead Putin and Medvedev are waging a very traditional national politics. This of course scares universalist ideologues, such as McCain, even more than communism.
I would say that Russia is under-civilized. While Sweden and America are over-civilized. But it's the over-civilized world that is about to perish.
To repeat my analogy from above, and make it painfully clear, by using a gross exaggeration. Two guys with guns. One has a faulty gun which ams badly and clicks every second time. The other guy has the top notch gun with perfect aim and which never clicks. Now this guy is aiming his perfect gun to his head... Who's suicidal?
typo above:
But it's not set on genociding its own people.
Zenster,
As to the West being so "suicidal" when compared to Russia, nothing could be farther from the truth. America-and to a lesser extent Europe-is based upon a highly functional model of social freedoms and rule of law that simply does not exist in Russia.
Maybe the model is perfect but how does it turn out in practice? In the election you get to choose between McCain and Obama, and the choices in the last election and in that before was not much better. And in Europe there is Brown vs. Cameron, Sakrozy vs. Royale, Reinfeldt vs. Sahlin, etc.
In Russia Gorbachev just announced that he's starting a new political party. So the next Russian election there will be a competition between two great leaders: Gorbachev vs. Putin/Medvedev. I don't care much for what a system is called or whether the pharisees consider it a perfect "model". A country that in practice produces two great leaders that are competing peacefully and civilized in a free election, is a country to envy.
Furthermore, social freedoms within balance and proportion is a great asset for any society. But in the case of the contemporary West with its unfettered freedom and individualism, this is exactly the mindset behind our civilizational suicide.
A splendid example is Iraq. Was America severely mistaken in liberating a Muslim majority country so that it could become even more Islamically polarized? You betcha! Did America do it with that explicit purpose in mind. Not a chance. Ham fisted? Yes. Intentionally malignant? Never.
Your description is correct. But it's hardly to the advantage of America. America acts, in its foreign policy, out of idealism, well "deranged altruism". And this is why they will always fail. Even ending up being hated and despised by the ones they went out to "save".
Socialism is deranged altruism applied to the economy. But we all know that the economy works better if it's driven be self-interest. You won't be surprised to learn that the same applies to foreign policy. American foreign policy is nothing but the communist principle applied to the highest level of politics. I refer to neoconservatism as macro-communism. While Communism promised equality within each country (a promise which made every one end up equally poor), neoconservatism, and the other "spread democracy and freedom" proponents, promise that all countries of the world will end up democratized and "free". But with their "Invade the world, invite the world" the actual result of their deeds will be a world where all countries are third-worldized (compare with the promise and the result of Communism).
While Russia is run like a pre-WWI power, it is the Western powers we refer to as EUSSR and USSA. And for good reasons. Taking in account e.g. the treatment of Bart Debie, the election of Obama, etc.
In this manner, it is Russia that is truly "suicidal". It has both a dysfunctional economy and political goal set. It makes no real friends but creates scores of enemies in its blundering wake.
I beg to disagree. The Russians were celebrated as liberators in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Something the Americans could only dream of. The Americans truly dreamed about this as a result of their invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it didn't materialize. The complete lack of realism in Americas foreign policy accounts for this. The Russians always have a healthy component of self-interest in everything they do. And as we learned from economy and Capitalism, only actions with at least a foot in self-interest can be moral. The West, today led by America, has inverted this morality and consider "deranged altruism" as the only way to be moral. These people get moral panic when someone acts from self-interest on the international stage, and want to push their inverted (and therefore dysfunctional and destructive) values upon everyone.
Russia’s contribution of nuclear technology infects yet one more festering diplomatic and strategic sore as it attempts to bleed the USA white over America’s efforts to stabilize the Middle East.
This sentence would have made so much more sense if the USA hadn't been selling nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia. America's attempt to stabilize the Middle East is a big joke, don't you agree?
The general picture I see here are all the bigger countries -- America, Russia, Britain, France -- selling nuclear technology and weapons to a number of oil rich Muslim states. They have picked different states as their main trade partner. America is tied up with Saudi Arabia, while the others are focusing on Iran (and before on Iraq). I do not see here how one tries to stabilize the Middle East, while the other tries to destabilize it. They all act according to the same pattern.
France didn't protest against the war on Iraq because they wanted to destabilize the Middle East. They protested since they had so many good oil deals with Iraq. America would have been whining in the very same way if another country were about to invade Saudi Arabia and destroy the many fine trade relations and special deals America has with the Saudis.
Furthermore, I do not give much for Bela's Cindy Sheehan style credentials. Having your son shot in war, or spending time in prison, is not a ticket for speaking loads of malevolent crap. It does not provide a "moral authority" to say outright evil things.
People who are impressed by Cindy Sheehan and her ilk are irrational sentimentalists.
"The Russians were celebrated as liberators in South Ossetia and Abkhazia."
Now, that's funny right there, I don't care who you are!
The Russian infiltrators into those regions, doesn't count.
No2liberals,
You have no idea what you are talking about. I'm sorry to say but this discussion is no different from discussing Islam with leftists. The know-it-alls who already know everything without checking a single fact.
The very population of South Ossetia and Abkhazia celebrate Russia as their liberator. This is a fact that simply cannot be digested by most Americans (especially since this never happens to America any longer). E.g. Fox News censored the Ossetian girl and her mother who expressed their gratitude towards Russia. Too much free speech for Fox. No different from MSM are they? Better not confuse the audience with facts and a diversity of opinions. Westerners need to keep their fantasies up of Russians as cartoonish villains.
Anyway, for anyone that is interested in impartial facts and analysis -- as opposed to indulging in jingoistic mythology and hate of the Other (a permitted Other, mind you, which means whites but as different from us as possible, which means Orthodox' with Cyrillic alphabet, i.e. Russians or Serbs) -- I always recommend: Stratfor
I think this applies more to Americans, but also the new generation of forever-adolescent disconnected Europeans have this urge for seeing the whole world thorough an ideological prism, through which everything gets simplified into a single uniform truth. Such as e.g. how the West is always loved, and Russia always hated.
But the history of Eurasia is long and complicated, and there's a virtual mishmash of relations. Every nation has another nation they hate the most, and it will be different ones. Today both Germany and Russia are common hate object. But e.g. the Portuguese hate Spain the most. And France and England are high on the list. Finnish people have a lot of grudge against Sweden, while other places that used to be part of the once Swedish empire had a very positive view.
Since all the former Western European powers (England, France and Germany) are completely emasculated, today the choice essentially boils down to The West (i.e. America) vs. Russia. So on the European side most countries fear and hate Russia, and want to get away from them, e.g. the Baltic states, Poland etc. (Russia is here being associated with USSR). Except for the ones that are culturally close: Belarus, and Ukraine (which is torn between the two, quote as Georgia is).
However in Caucasus and other Asian parts, we find not only among Ossetians and Abkhazians, but among Armenians, Kazakhs, Tartars, etc., a support for Russia and the will to stay under Russia's protective wings. The association here is e.g in Caucasus how Russia protected them from the Turks. And as described by Russkiy above, Russia (in complete opposite to the West) has been able to civilize and pacify Muslim populations.
As Russkiy says "Russian culture is strong". But Western culture is weak, just because we do not believe in it anymore, we only believe in flimsy abstract universalist internationalism -- left as well as right, and including most of the supposedly awakened anti-establishment people (i.e. many people here).
Anyway, the day Germany resurges as an independent power again, there are some Eastern European countries who would prefer the protective wings of Germany before both America and Russia. And a number of countries both north and south of Germany too.
Apart from Russia, Germany is the country that can truly challange the prevailing America-led Anglo-French world order. But at this point Germany is a lion that is subdued in something looking like a Houdini trick, with many layers of chains and cages.
But this is of course also false by definition, through the ideological prism. Everybody hates Germany and loves America. It's a universal rule, right?
Well, as long as the PC MC's are still in power and the media filters everything for you, you will be able to live one or a couple of decades more under your beloved delusions. Enjoy your hatefest!
"I understand Con Swedes point about Russia not being the USSR anymore. But as we know most people are a product of their generation, surroundings etc.
So how come then the conclusion is that the Russians learned nothing from it, while the Eastern Europeans learned everything from it."
Quoting Nelson the bully from The Simpsons:
Ah-ah!
Afonso-
Actually its "ha-ha". But I forgive you.
Spackle, thanks.
But let me tell you one thing, I always right that interjection as "Ah ah" because the verb haver in Portuguese in the present of the indicative is conjugated in the following way
Eu hei
Tu hás
Ele há
Nós havemos
Vós haveis
Eles hão.
This is the fricking worst verb in the Portuguese language and can mean three things according to how it's used: 1)To be (permanently, the essence); 2)To be (now, in the moment, in transformation); 3)To have.
However, it cannot be substitued by any of the orther verbs who have a similar meaning (ser, estar, or ter) and it's used a lot.
Há is used all the times.
Why the hell am I justifying this?
And the worst is that I am pissed off because I realised I did not know French, Spanish, Italian enough to tell it to you in a way that you can understand or that I don't know Latin pratically at all or worst, that that very verb in Portuguese is a hell of a chalenge to me all the time.
You see, in the end "Ah ah" is just fear of that big beautifull but dangerous verb "Haver".
And the worst is that the if you are in Portugal and want to proof that you are a moron, the best you can do is to put a "placard" at the window of your cafe saying:
Á CARACÓIS instead of HÁ CARACÓIS
... meaning that you have snails to be eaten... hmm... snails... (now I'm quoting Homer Simpson).
P.S.- Now you're probabily sick with this conversation but snails are indeed good.
Now I understand why people say I am "windy", right Dymphna?
Damn it!
Cordially.
Afonso,
You see, in the end "Ah ah" is just fear of that big beautifull but dangerous verb "Haver".
Oh, I thought is was because you said everything backwards, EU as UE, NATO as OTAN etc.
I wrote:
I think this applies more to Americans, but also the new generation of forever-adolescent disconnected Europeans have this urge for seeing the whole world thorough an ideological prism, through which everything gets simplified into a single uniform truth.
What I'm getting at here is how any one will know all the complexity of the ins and outs of his own neighbourhood, but wish to oversimplify what's happening far away. So the typical European will be aware of all the complexities far back in history between his country and its neighbours. But will be ignorant about something far away such as Caucasus, and want to have a simplified ideological prism to see it through.
An American will know all the ins and outs of the relation between the different US states, civil war and before. But for an American all of Europe is far away. The urge for oversimplification becomes strong.
It's like the almost ridiculous complexity of some natural languages. Makes you think "Who makes up this sh*t?" It should be simplified... I guess the EU is a great thing for Americans from this respect. And hey, let's throw in Turkey too. Europeans of today are of course of the very same mindset. History is not valued any more.
Well noted Conservative Swede. But the OTAN is a Brazilian thing. We call it NATO though when translating it, it is the Organização do Tratado do Atlântico Norte. But even the Brazilians are more and more learning to say NATO.
If only they learned to say SIDA instead of AIDS as well...
"History is not valued any more." Unfortunately...
Conservative Swede: It doesn't matter how much Russia changes, Zenster and McCain etc. will always see it as the USSR.
That's one heckuva swell straw man you've built there, Con Swede. Here's hoping you didn't break too much of a sweat knocking him down because by taking this +100 comment thread into the gutter, this is all you're getting out of me.
Well Zenster,
Whenever I ask about Russia, you answer about USSR. My questions about Russia today are answered by you about USSR yesterday. You seem to think that the more you talk about USSR in the past, the more it "proves" that Russia today is identical. But unfortunately it only tells us something about you, as I already pointed out.
Lee Hazelwood sang about the Paris girls: The girls in Paris they are special and unique... and love is all they know and love is all they speak.
Well Zenster, you are a nice a special guy too. But when it comes to Russia USSR is all you know and USSR is all you speak.
You wrote:
Here's hoping you didn't break too much of a sweat knocking him down because by taking this +100 comment thread into the gutter, this is all you're getting out of me.
Why don't you just come up with at least one single concrete accusation against Russia of today, instead of sweeping statements and long stories of USSR in the past. Anything CONCRETE about how Russia would act in a way more destabilizing for the Middle East than America. Anything CONCRETE about Russia acting as a rouge state, or Putin as a tyrnat, whatever.
Pick one example, your best shot, and back it up with references. With concrete I mean something taking place in time and space, not just sweeping statements. And with references I do not mean longwinding stories about USSR in the past.
Could you do this? You see, your approach in this discussion has not been very helpful. You started off with "Bwahahahahaha!" and "Puhleese, don't try to piss in my ear and tell me it's raining." etc., and then you have been going on in the same style. But you have had nothing concrete to bring up.
You see, I have found in 9 out of 10 cases when checking facts, that the accusations against Russia of today do not add up to more than urban legends and propaganda lies. You know, it's the same ruling elite that lies to us regularly about everything else (immigration etc.). What did you expect?
Well since I brought up that song by Lee Hazelwood...
Some people here seems to be stuck Back in the USSR. And that's another great song. And the lyrics seems so relevant today:
Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the West behind
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout
That Georgia's always on my my my my my my my mind.
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