Kismet wrote: ↑Thu Mar 17, 2022 10:40 am
When Russia invaded Ukraine, crude oil was $99 a barrel. Today, it's fallen back down to $99 barrel.
The day Russia invaded, we were all paying $3.61 at the pump on average. Today, we are paying an average of $4.30.
Knowing that there is a lag between commodity price and pump price, this does not seem right if it's still the case.
rocket and feather...prices will fall slower than they went up.
The lower crude prices need to stick, and expectations need to be that they will do so going forward, within a range.
But it shouldn't take as long as it typically does. That's what Biden was jawboning about a day ago.
dislaxxic wrote: ↑Thu Mar 17, 2022 10:04 am
I'm hearing in media that Zelenskyy is, in fact, holding out a pledge of neutrality to offer the off-ramp Putin needs to stop this. Anyone else hearing that?
What else, besides such a pledge, will it take?
..
I'm hearing the same thing...again, at every step, Zelenskyy has signaled a preference to negotiate, a preference for peace. He needs to do that, so as to earn the Ukrainian people's trust...while urging them to go through hell to protect their families, their home, their freedom.
He said something very intriguing yesterday, I think an oblique way of saying that the UN is toothless in such a situation (or a pandemic) and that a new international org is necessary...meaning that he may not need NATO...instead let's form a broader coalition of security protection. 24 hour readiness response. Sidesteps any pledge to not join NATO.
But IMO, Putin won't stop until his military forces are spent or thoroughly defeated.
There needs to be a global diplomatic, economic, and military alliance between only nations that are democracies and which protect human rights. No such organization has ever existed. If Biden wants an enduring foreign policy legacy, that should be it.
Notably, there would be no room in such an organization for Russia, China, or Saudi Arabia, nor for even U.S. allies such as Jordan or Turkey.
An alliance of the world’s democracies would include much of Europe, parts of Central America and South America, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and other nations (maybe India).
It would be anchored by the United States, of course, unless the Trump Cult succeeds in turning us into the most powerful fascist state the world has ever seen.
DocBarrister
Doc,
The last sentence is utterly reprehensible, for all the whining about trolling on this site you throw around the term "Facist" fast and loose. It's sad because you are talking about the country that YOU live in. You don't like it anymore then go live in South Korea. In these past four months you have done nothing but become even MORE DIVISIVE in your rhetoric. It's a joke at this point, you cannot be taken seriously at this point. Take a step back.
Joe
I don’t just live in America, I’m an AMERICAN, so why not take your racist garbage elsewhere.
And I am hardly the only person who has called the Trump cult a contemporary fascist movement.
dislaxxic wrote: ↑Thu Mar 17, 2022 10:04 am
I'm hearing in media that Zelenskyy is, in fact, holding out a pledge of neutrality to offer the off-ramp Putin needs to stop this. Anyone else hearing that?
What else, besides such a pledge, will it take?
..
I'm hearing the same thing...again, at every step, Zelenskyy has signaled a preference to negotiate, a preference for peace. He needs to do that, so as to earn the Ukrainian people's trust...while urging them to go through hell to protect their families, their home, their freedom.
He said something very intriguing yesterday, I think an oblique way of saying that the UN is toothless in such a situation (or a pandemic) and that a new international org is necessary...meaning that he may not need NATO...instead let's form a broader coalition of security protection. 24 hour readiness response. Sidesteps any pledge to not join NATO.
But IMO, Putin won't stop until his military forces are spent or thoroughly defeated.
There needs to be a global diplomatic, economic, and military alliance between only nations that are democracies and which protect human rights. No such organization has ever existed. If Biden wants an enduring foreign policy legacy, that should be it.
Notably, there would be no room in such an organization for Russia, China, or Saudi Arabia, nor for even U.S. allies such as Jordan or Turkey.
An alliance of the world’s democracies would include much of Europe, parts of Central America and South America, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and other nations (maybe India).
It would be anchored by the United States, of course, unless the Trump Cult succeeds in turning us into the most powerful fascist state the world has ever seen.
DocBarrister
Doc,
The last sentence is utterly reprehensible, for all the whining about trolling on this site you throw around the term "Facist" fast and loose. It's sad because you are talking about the country that YOU live in. You don't like it anymore then go live in South Korea. In these past four months you have done nothing but become even MORE DIVISIVE in your rhetoric. It's a joke at this point, you cannot be taken seriously at this point. Take a step back.
Joe
Joe, Doc did throw in a barb, but this is indeed the challenge we face in creating a standard of "democracy", claiming our own high ground and leadership, when we have the possibility of losing that to an autocratic ruler. Yes, "fascist". That's a very real danger and, perhaps Trump and his movement's willingness to ignore election results "gift" has been the reminder of that possibility. So, it's actually relevant. It's ok to not have the same assessment of that risk as does Doc (or me) but let's acknowledge that this sort of risk could come from either party's extreme wing, given a populist, amoral, or ideological leader who galvanizes such support sufficient to then engineer autocratic rule. Let's be sure to not have that happen...something perhaps we can all agree on!
dislaxxic wrote: ↑Thu Mar 17, 2022 10:04 am
I'm hearing in media that Zelenskyy is, in fact, holding out a pledge of neutrality to offer the off-ramp Putin needs to stop this. Anyone else hearing that?
What else, besides such a pledge, will it take?
..
I'm hearing the same thing...again, at every step, Zelenskyy has signaled a preference to negotiate, a preference for peace. He needs to do that, so as to earn the Ukrainian people's trust...while urging them to go through hell to protect their families, their home, their freedom.
He said something very intriguing yesterday, I think an oblique way of saying that the UN is toothless in such a situation (or a pandemic) and that a new international org is necessary...meaning that he may not need NATO...instead let's form a broader coalition of security protection. 24 hour readiness response. Sidesteps any pledge to not join NATO.
But IMO, Putin won't stop until his military forces are spent or thoroughly defeated.
There needs to be a global diplomatic, economic, and military alliance between only nations that are democracies and which protect human rights. No such organization has ever existed. If Biden wants an enduring foreign policy legacy, that should be it.
Notably, there would be no room in such an organization for Russia, China, or Saudi Arabia, nor for even U.S. allies such as Jordan or Turkey.
An alliance of the world’s democracies would include much of Europe, parts of Central America and South America, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and other nations (maybe India).
It would be anchored by the United States, of course, unless the Trump Cult succeeds in turning us into the most powerful fascist state the world has ever seen.
DocBarrister
Doc,
The last sentence is utterly reprehensible, for all the whining about trolling on this site you throw around the term "Facist" fast and loose. It's sad because you are talking about the country that YOU live in. You don't like it anymore then go live in South Korea. In these past four months you have done nothing but become even MORE DIVISIVE in your rhetoric. It's a joke at this point, you cannot be taken seriously at this point. Take a step back.
Joe
I’m an AMERICAN, so why not take your racist garbage elsewhere.
And I am hardly the only person who has called the Trump cult a contemporary fascist movement.
Doc, I don't think Joe meant anything racist by his comment, your interpretation is very likely to have been due to his not understanding your own ethnic background. Very likely he does not.
I don't detect that particular proclivity in Joe.
Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine
Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2022 11:49 am
by Brooklyn
Funny how certain people in this forum are so uncomfortable with the term fascist when it is applied to the tRump regime but are perfectly comfortable when the term is directed at Democrats like Obama and Biden. No surprise given their usual double standards.
dislaxxic wrote: ↑Thu Mar 17, 2022 10:04 am
I'm hearing in media that Zelenskyy is, in fact, holding out a pledge of neutrality to offer the off-ramp Putin needs to stop this. Anyone else hearing that?
What else, besides such a pledge, will it take?
..
I'm hearing the same thing...again, at every step, Zelenskyy has signaled a preference to negotiate, a preference for peace. He needs to do that, so as to earn the Ukrainian people's trust...while urging them to go through hell to protect their families, their home, their freedom.
He said something very intriguing yesterday, I think an oblique way of saying that the UN is toothless in such a situation (or a pandemic) and that a new international org is necessary...meaning that he may not need NATO...instead let's form a broader coalition of security protection. 24 hour readiness response. Sidesteps any pledge to not join NATO.
But IMO, Putin won't stop until his military forces are spent or thoroughly defeated.
There needs to be a global diplomatic, economic, and military alliance between only nations that are democracies and which protect human rights. No such organization has ever existed. If Biden wants an enduring foreign policy legacy, that should be it.
Notably, there would be no room in such an organization for Russia, China, or Saudi Arabia, nor for even U.S. allies such as Jordan or Turkey.
An alliance of the world’s democracies would include much of Europe, parts of Central America and South America, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and other nations (maybe India).
It would be anchored by the United States, of course, unless the Trump Cult succeeds in turning us into the most powerful fascist state the world has ever seen.
DocBarrister
Doc,
The last sentence is utterly reprehensible, for all the whining about trolling on this site you throw around the term "Facist" fast and loose. It's sad because you are talking about the country that YOU live in. You don't like it anymore then go live in South Korea. In these past four months you have done nothing but become even MORE DIVISIVE in your rhetoric. It's a joke at this point, you cannot be taken seriously at this point. Take a step back.
Joe
I don’t just live in America, I’m an AMERICAN, so why not take your racist garbage elsewhere.
And I am hardly the only person who has called the Trump cult a contemporary fascist movement.
dislaxxic wrote: ↑Thu Mar 17, 2022 10:04 am
I'm hearing in media that Zelenskyy is, in fact, holding out a pledge of neutrality to offer the off-ramp Putin needs to stop this. Anyone else hearing that?
What else, besides such a pledge, will it take?
..
I'm hearing the same thing...again, at every step, Zelenskyy has signaled a preference to negotiate, a preference for peace. He needs to do that, so as to earn the Ukrainian people's trust...while urging them to go through hell to protect their families, their home, their freedom.
He said something very intriguing yesterday, I think an oblique way of saying that the UN is toothless in such a situation (or a pandemic) and that a new international org is necessary...meaning that he may not need NATO...instead let's form a broader coalition of security protection. 24 hour readiness response. Sidesteps any pledge to not join NATO.
But IMO, Putin won't stop until his military forces are spent or thoroughly defeated.
There needs to be a global diplomatic, economic, and military alliance between only nations that are democracies and which protect human rights. No such organization has ever existed. If Biden wants an enduring foreign policy legacy, that should be it.
Notably, there would be no room in such an organization for Russia, China, or Saudi Arabia, nor for even U.S. allies such as Jordan or Turkey.
An alliance of the world’s democracies would include much of Europe, parts of Central America and South America, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and other nations (maybe India).
It would be anchored by the United States, of course, unless the Trump Cult succeeds in turning us into the most powerful fascist state the world has ever seen.
DocBarrister
Doc,
The last sentence is utterly reprehensible, for all the whining about trolling on this site you throw around the term "Facist" fast and loose. It's sad because you are talking about the country that YOU live in. You don't like it anymore then go live in South Korea. In these past four months you have done nothing but become even MORE DIVISIVE in your rhetoric. It's a joke at this point, you cannot be taken seriously at this point. Take a step back.
Joe
I’m an AMERICAN, so why not take your racist garbage elsewhere.
And I am hardly the only person who has called the Trump cult a contemporary fascist movement.
Doc, I don't think Joe meant anything racist by his comment, your interpretation is very likely to have been due to his not understanding your own ethnic background. Very likely he does not.
I don't detect that particular proclivity in Joe.
Sorry, I don’t buy that at all.
After all, it’s been a hallmark of racism in America to “suggest” that non-white Americans go back to the nation of their ethnic heritage.
I’ve traveled to France more often than South Korea, but I have never had anyone suggest I move to Paris.
dislaxxic wrote: ↑Thu Mar 17, 2022 10:04 am
I'm hearing in media that Zelenskyy is, in fact, holding out a pledge of neutrality to offer the off-ramp Putin needs to stop this. Anyone else hearing that?
What else, besides such a pledge, will it take?
..
I'm hearing the same thing...again, at every step, Zelenskyy has signaled a preference to negotiate, a preference for peace. He needs to do that, so as to earn the Ukrainian people's trust...while urging them to go through hell to protect their families, their home, their freedom.
He said something very intriguing yesterday, I think an oblique way of saying that the UN is toothless in such a situation (or a pandemic) and that a new international org is necessary...meaning that he may not need NATO...instead let's form a broader coalition of security protection. 24 hour readiness response. Sidesteps any pledge to not join NATO.
But IMO, Putin won't stop until his military forces are spent or thoroughly defeated.
There needs to be a global diplomatic, economic, and military alliance between only nations that are democracies and which protect human rights. No such organization has ever existed. If Biden wants an enduring foreign policy legacy, that should be it.
Notably, there would be no room in such an organization for Russia, China, or Saudi Arabia, nor for even U.S. allies such as Jordan or Turkey.
An alliance of the world’s democracies would include much of Europe, parts of Central America and South America, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and other nations (maybe India).
It would be anchored by the United States, of course, unless the Trump Cult succeeds in turning us into the most powerful fascist state the world has ever seen.
DocBarrister
Doc,
The last sentence is utterly reprehensible, for all the whining about trolling on this site you throw around the term "Facist" fast and loose. It's sad because you are talking about the country that YOU live in. You don't like it anymore then go live in South Korea. In these past four months you have done nothing but become even MORE DIVISIVE in your rhetoric. It's a joke at this point, you cannot be taken seriously at this point. Take a step back.
Joe
I don’t just live in America, I’m an AMERICAN, so why not take your racist garbage elsewhere.
And I am hardly the only person who has called the Trump cult a contemporary fascist movement.
dislaxxic wrote: ↑Thu Mar 17, 2022 10:04 am
I'm hearing in media that Zelenskyy is, in fact, holding out a pledge of neutrality to offer the off-ramp Putin needs to stop this. Anyone else hearing that?
What else, besides such a pledge, will it take?
..
I'm hearing the same thing...again, at every step, Zelenskyy has signaled a preference to negotiate, a preference for peace. He needs to do that, so as to earn the Ukrainian people's trust...while urging them to go through hell to protect their families, their home, their freedom.
He said something very intriguing yesterday, I think an oblique way of saying that the UN is toothless in such a situation (or a pandemic) and that a new international org is necessary...meaning that he may not need NATO...instead let's form a broader coalition of security protection. 24 hour readiness response. Sidesteps any pledge to not join NATO.
But IMO, Putin won't stop until his military forces are spent or thoroughly defeated.
There needs to be a global diplomatic, economic, and military alliance between only nations that are democracies and which protect human rights. No such organization has ever existed. If Biden wants an enduring foreign policy legacy, that should be it.
Notably, there would be no room in such an organization for Russia, China, or Saudi Arabia, nor for even U.S. allies such as Jordan or Turkey.
An alliance of the world’s democracies would include much of Europe, parts of Central America and South America, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and other nations (maybe India).
It would be anchored by the United States, of course, unless the Trump Cult succeeds in turning us into the most powerful fascist state the world has ever seen.
DocBarrister
Doc,
The last sentence is utterly reprehensible, for all the whining about trolling on this site you throw around the term "Facist" fast and loose. It's sad because you are talking about the country that YOU live in. You don't like it anymore then go live in South Korea. In these past four months you have done nothing but become even MORE DIVISIVE in your rhetoric. It's a joke at this point, you cannot be taken seriously at this point. Take a step back.
Joe
I’m an AMERICAN, so why not take your racist garbage elsewhere.
And I am hardly the only person who has called the Trump cult a contemporary fascist movement.
Doc, I don't think Joe meant anything racist by his comment, your interpretation is very likely to have been due to his not understanding your own ethnic background. Very likely he does not.
I don't detect that particular proclivity in Joe.
Sorry, I don’t buy that at all.
After all, it’s been a hallmark of racism in America to “suggest” that non-white Americans go back to the nation of their ethnic heritage.
I’ve traveled to France more often than South Korea, but I have never had anyone suggest I move to Paris.
DocBarrister
yeah, but one would have to be paying close attention to know that you are "non-white" much less what your specific ethnic heritage is (I didn't know that Korean would apply, though I'd picked up on asian.)
I haven't seen that proclivity in the past from Joe, so let's cut him a moment of slack.
Obviously I agree about the particular slur of "go back" being quite offensive. I just don't think that's likely what he meant. Indeed, he didn't say "back".
dislaxxic wrote: ↑Thu Mar 17, 2022 10:04 am
I'm hearing in media that Zelenskyy is, in fact, holding out a pledge of neutrality to offer the off-ramp Putin needs to stop this. Anyone else hearing that?
What else, besides such a pledge, will it take?
..
I'm hearing the same thing...again, at every step, Zelenskyy has signaled a preference to negotiate, a preference for peace. He needs to do that, so as to earn the Ukrainian people's trust...while urging them to go through hell to protect their families, their home, their freedom.
He said something very intriguing yesterday, I think an oblique way of saying that the UN is toothless in such a situation (or a pandemic) and that a new international org is necessary...meaning that he may not need NATO...instead let's form a broader coalition of security protection. 24 hour readiness response. Sidesteps any pledge to not join NATO.
But IMO, Putin won't stop until his military forces are spent or thoroughly defeated.
There needs to be a global diplomatic, economic, and military alliance between only nations that are democracies and which protect human rights. No such organization has ever existed. If Biden wants an enduring foreign policy legacy, that should be it.
Notably, there would be no room in such an organization for Russia, China, or Saudi Arabia, nor for even U.S. allies such as Jordan or Turkey.
An alliance of the world’s democracies would include much of Europe, parts of Central America and South America, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and other nations (maybe India).
It would be anchored by the United States, of course, unless the Trump Cult succeeds in turning us into the most powerful fascist state the world has ever seen.
DocBarrister
Doc,
The last sentence is utterly reprehensible, for all the whining about trolling on this site you throw around the term "Facist" fast and loose. It's sad because you are talking about the country that YOU live in. You don't like it anymore then go live in South Korea. In these past four months you have done nothing but become even MORE DIVISIVE in your rhetoric. It's a joke at this point, you cannot be taken seriously at this point. Take a step back.
Joe
I don’t just live in America, I’m an AMERICAN, so why not take your racist garbage elsewhere.
And I am hardly the only person who has called the Trump cult a contemporary fascist movement.
Obviously those citations are from people that are upset that Hillary lost and have TDS.
Yep. Reminds of a famous quote by the late great astrophysicist Carl Sagan who once said that "any instance of magical thinking makes one vulnerable to more magical thinking."
Oh and BTW, Russia threatened Bosnia and Herzegovina today on their plan to possibly join NATO, too.
Arnold Schwarzenegger weighs in directly to the Russian populace wherein he invokes his Nazi father in emotional message to Russia. "I don't want you to be broken like my father,"
dislaxxic wrote: ↑Thu Mar 17, 2022 10:04 am
I'm hearing in media that Zelenskyy is, in fact, holding out a pledge of neutrality to offer the off-ramp Putin needs to stop this. Anyone else hearing that?
What else, besides such a pledge, will it take?
..
I'm hearing the same thing...again, at every step, Zelenskyy has signaled a preference to negotiate, a preference for peace. He needs to do that, so as to earn the Ukrainian people's trust...while urging them to go through hell to protect their families, their home, their freedom.
He said something very intriguing yesterday, I think an oblique way of saying that the UN is toothless in such a situation (or a pandemic) and that a new international org is necessary...meaning that he may not need NATO...instead let's form a broader coalition of security protection. 24 hour readiness response. Sidesteps any pledge to not join NATO.
But IMO, Putin won't stop until his military forces are spent or thoroughly defeated.
There needs to be a global diplomatic, economic, and military alliance between only nations that are democracies and which protect human rights. No such organization has ever existed. If Biden wants an enduring foreign policy legacy, that should be it.
Notably, there would be no room in such an organization for Russia, China, or Saudi Arabia, nor for even U.S. allies such as Jordan or Turkey.
An alliance of the world’s democracies would include much of Europe, parts of Central America and South America, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and other nations (maybe India).
It would be anchored by the United States, of course, unless the Trump Cult succeeds in turning us into the most powerful fascist state the world has ever seen.
DocBarrister
Doc,
The last sentence is utterly reprehensible, for all the whining about trolling on this site you throw around the term "Facist" fast and loose. It's sad because you are talking about the country that YOU live in. You don't like it anymore then go live in South Korea. In these past four months you have done nothing but become even MORE DIVISIVE in your rhetoric. It's a joke at this point, you cannot be taken seriously at this point. Take a step back.
Joe
I’m an AMERICAN, so why not take your racist garbage elsewhere.
And I am hardly the only person who has called the Trump cult a contemporary fascist movement.
Doc, I don't think Joe meant anything racist by his comment, your interpretation is very likely to have been due to his not understanding your own ethnic background. Very likely he does not.
I don't detect that particular proclivity in Joe.
+1
I don't judge anybody by the color of their skin. DocB talks about SK so much it makes one wonder where he would rather live? I am well aware of his ethnicity, and you are right. Notice I didn't say "go back". Wasn't my intention. Thanks!
Trump Will Be Fuming As Zelensky Chief Of Staff Says No President Has Done More For Ukraine Than Biden
President Zelensky’s Chief of Staff said that no president has done more for Ukraine than Biden, which is a direct counter to Trump.
And of course it will be - we are very appreciate it. And it was very good news that immediately after the speech of the president we received this information for the additional aid. And we hope we get it as soon as possible because it’s really important. Ukraine today defend not just Ukraine, defend all democracy, all free world. And if we are to win, and I’m sure that we will win, we win all the world. It’s normal. It’s logical. And we have always said that America is our — one of the biggest strategic partners.
We really have this aid. And I think sometimes ago for the interview of some American journalists I said really President Biden is the President Of The United States who is better know our country and who has done more than all presidents of United States. And we hope, and the president Zelenskyy yesterday in congress said what they believe that president Biden will be really the leader of the peace of Ukraine. And his leadership help my people, to my country really stop this war and Ukraine to win.
The Chief of Staff’s comments were a direct rebuttal to Trump’s false claims that he strengthened NATO and provided military aid to Ukraine, “It was me that got Ukraine the very effective anti-tank busters (Javelins) when the previous Administration was sending blankets.”
Trump got impeached the first time for withholding military aid to Ukraine as part of a plot to blackmail them into creating false dirt about Joe Biden.
No president has done more for Ukraine than Biden, and if the Ukrainians win this war, it will be because the current president stepped up and led the world in supporting Ukraine.
Trump is trying to rewrite history by the Ukrainian government is making sure that the world knows the truth.
Fascists Often Consolidate Power Over Time: Mussolini, Putin, and Trump
Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2022 3:05 pm
by DocBarrister
A review of history reveals that fascist leaders, such as Hitler, Mussolini, Putin, and Trump, often require years to consolidate their power and establish their authoritarian regimes. Hitler and Mussolini initially won elections. Putin once served as Prime Minister when he was term limited out of the Russian presidency. The marginal demotion, which was largely meaningless, didn’t last long. Trump won a legitimate election under our idiotic electoral college system in 2016. However, Trump refused to concede his loss in 2020 and asserts to this day his blatant lie that he won the election. Trump’s acolytes have restricted voting rights in dozens of states in preparation for the 2024 election.
Historians have taken note:
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Thursday asked historian Michael Beschloss if he could provide another example of a US president suggesting an election "ought to be disregarded."
"You want to go into history to look for something like this? Go into Italian history and look at Mussolini. This is the way dictators come to power," Beschloss said in response, comparing Trump to the fascist Italian leader Benito Mussolini.
"[Trump is] telling you what he intends to do. And we've got to make very sure that in the next five and half weeks and after, that we do not get into a situation where...Donald Trump announces that he's won and puts us in a situation where our democracy is being stolen minute by minute. This is not a drill," Beschloss added.
… Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a New York University historian who's written extensively on Mussolini, agrees with Beschloss that Trump's behavior mirrors that of the Italian fascist dictator. She noted that Mussolini was not immediately a dictator, but gradually consolidated power.
"The clearest parallel is that Mussolini was prime minister of a democratic coalition government from 1922-1925. During that time, he slowly chipped away at democratic institutions, insulting the press, using violence against the left, joking that he would be in office for 20 years, establishing a militia and a legislative body (the Grand Council) loyal to him," Ben-Ghiat told Insider.
… David I. Kertzer, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Pope and Mussolini," told Insider that comparing Trump and Mussolini does "a disservice" to the Italian leader given he "read newspapers every day in four languages, followed policy issues closely, played the violin and loved classical music, and was not particularly interested in lining his own pocket (although there was no lack of corruption in his regime)."
"What the present moment in American politics does make me appreciate more is how Italy, a parliamentary democracy, could so quickly become a dictatorship," Kertzer added.
Kertzer noted that Mussolini said "people were like sheep" and "craved being followers," adding, "Like Trump, he had very little in the way of strong ideological beliefs himself, and knew the power of emotional rather than rational appeals, and of the power of repeating simple, emotionally powerful yet substantively empty phrases (Make America Great Again)."
"So much of what we imagine to be new is old; so many of the seemingly novel illnesses that afflict modern society are really just resurgent cancers, diagnosed and described long ago. Autocrats have risen before; they have used mass violence before; they have broken the laws of war before. In 1950, in the preface she wrote to the first edition of The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt, knowing that what had just passed could repeat itself, described the scant half decade that had elapsed since the end of the Second World War as an era of great unease: “Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries.”
The toxic nationalism and open racism of Nazi Germany, only recently defeated; the Soviet Union’s ongoing, cynical attacks on liberal values and what it called “bourgeois democracy”; the division of the world into warring camps; the large influx of refugees; the rise of new forms of broadcast media capable of pumping out disinformation and propaganda on a mass scale; the emergence of an uninterested, apathetic majority, easily placated with simple bromides and outright lies; and above all the phenomenon of totalitarianism, which she described as an “entirely new form of government”—all of these things led Arendt to believe that a darker era was about to begin.
She was wrong, or partly so. Although much of the world would remain, for the rest of the 20th century, in thrall to violent and aggressive dictatorships, in 1950 North America and Western Europe were in fact just at the beginning of an era of growth and prosperity that would carry them to new heights of wealth and power. The French would remember this era as Les Trente Glorieuses; the Italians would speak of the boom economico, the Germans of the Wirtschaftswunder. In this same era, liberal democracy, a political system that had failed spectacularly in 1930s Europe, finally flourished. So did international integration. The Council of Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the eventual European Union—all of these institutions not only supported the liberal democracies but knit them together more tightly than ever before. The result was certainly not a utopia—by the 1970s, growth had slowed; unemployment and inflation soared—but it nevertheless seemed, at least to those who lived inside the secure Western bubble, that the forces of what Arendt had called “sheer insanity” had been kept at bay.
Now we live in a different era, one in which growth at those 1950s levels is impossible to imagine. Inequality has grown exponentially, creating huge divides between a tiny billionaire class and everyone else. International integration is failing; declining birth rates, combined with a wave of immigration from the Middle East and North Africa, have created an angry rise of nostalgia and xenophobia. Worse, some of the elements that made the postwar Western world so prosperous—some of the elements that Arendt’s pessimistic analysis missed—are fading away. The American security guarantee that underlies the stability of Europe and North America is more uncertain than it has ever been. America’s own democracy, which served as a role model for so many others, is challenged as it has not been in decades, including by those who no longer accept the results of American elections. At the same time, the world’s autocracies have now accumulated enough wealth and influence to challenge the liberal democracies, ideologically as well as economically. The leaders of China, Russia, Iran, Belarus, and Cuba often work together, supporting one another, drawing on kleptocratic resources—money, property, business influence—at a level Hitler or Stalin could never have imagined. Russia has defied the entire postwar European order by invading Ukraine.
Once again, we are living in a world that Arendt would recognize, a world in which it seems “as though mankind had divided itself between those who believe in human omnipotence (who think that everything is possible if one knows how to organize masses for it) and those for whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their lives”—a description that could almost perfectly describe Vladimir Putin on the one hand and Putin’s Russia on the other. The Origins of Totalitarianism forces us to ask not only why Arendt was too pessimistic, in 1950, but also whether some of her pessimism might be more warranted now. More to the point, it offers us a kind of dual methodology, two different ways of thinking about the phenomenon of autocracy."
The current conflict is really about whether the existing world order and frameworks for maintaining peace, sovereignty, and national boundaries and destinies, will continue or end. The West, in my view anyway, cannot afford to compromise on this, any more than it should have compromised on the occupation of the Ruhr, or the taking of the Sudetenland, or...etc., etc. The buildup to a war doesn't take two weeks; the storm today has been gathering for years. And blame games will only paralyze the West.
Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine
Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2022 3:38 pm
by old salt
seacoaster wrote: ↑Thu Mar 17, 2022 3:13 pm
It's as old as the hills and never quite goes away:
"So much of what we imagine to be new is old; so many of the seemingly novel illnesses that afflict modern society are really just resurgent cancers, diagnosed and described long ago.
The current conflict is really about whether the existing world order and frameworks for maintaining peace, sovereignty, and national boundaries and destinies, will continue or end. The West, in my view anyway, cannot afford to compromise on this, any more than it should have compromised on the occupation of the Ruhr, or the taking of the Sudetenland, or...etc., etc. The buildup to a war doesn't take two weeks; the storm today has been gathering for years. And blame games will only paralyze the West.
The immediate response of the West, so far, should give you hope.
Searching for a distraction, I decided to watch HBO's Catherine the Great, which has been stored in my dvr cache since it originally aired.
Entertainingly ironic. ...the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine
Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2022 3:54 pm
by dislaxxic
a fan wrote: ↑Wed Mar 16, 2022 8:33 pm imho, that something is pledged neutrality of Ukraine, and a denial of NATO. That's enough, I think.
It'd be nice, but i think hanging your hat on these two statements alone is a VERY long shot. An inveterate liar like Putin knows that there is ultimately very little stock in WORDS, especially from an adversary that he considers the illegal "head" of a region that he doesn't recognize as sovereign. That, and i think they have already BEEN saying words to this effect for some time, no?
In addition, Putin has wrought such heinous destruction and death on Ukraine so far...how does all THAT end with a simple statement of neutrality? Will Ukraine, the rest of the West, not demand some sort of reparations? ...some sort of accountability for all that???
"So much of what we imagine to be new is old; so many of the seemingly novel illnesses that afflict modern society are really just resurgent cancers, diagnosed and described long ago.
The current conflict is really about whether the existing world order and frameworks for maintaining peace, sovereignty, and national boundaries and destinies, will continue or end. The West, in my view anyway, cannot afford to compromise on this, any more than it should have compromised on the occupation of the Ruhr, or the taking of the Sudetenland, or...etc., etc. The buildup to a war doesn't take two weeks; the storm today has been gathering for years. And blame games will only paralyze the West.
The immediate response of the West, so far, should give you hope.
Searching for a distraction, I decided to watch HBO's Catherine the Great, which has been stored in my dvr cache since it originally aired.
Entertainingly ironic. ...the more things change, the more they remain the same.
It does. But I'd guess you'd agree with me if I expressed at least a little skepticism about the West's staying power, and about the US's ability to maintain some type of unity in our response to this injury to the world's rules-based order.
Thanks for the distraction; I'll check it out.
Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine
Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2022 4:02 pm
by DocBarrister
seacoaster wrote: ↑Thu Mar 17, 2022 3:13 pm
It's as old as the hills and never quite goes away:
"So much of what we imagine to be new is old; so many of the seemingly novel illnesses that afflict modern society are really just resurgent cancers, diagnosed and described long ago. Autocrats have risen before; they have used mass violence before; they have broken the laws of war before. In 1950, in the preface she wrote to the first edition of The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt, knowing that what had just passed could repeat itself, described the scant half decade that had elapsed since the end of the Second World War as an era of great unease: “Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries.”
The toxic nationalism and open racism of Nazi Germany, only recently defeated; the Soviet Union’s ongoing, cynical attacks on liberal values and what it called “bourgeois democracy”; the division of the world into warring camps; the large influx of refugees; the rise of new forms of broadcast media capable of pumping out disinformation and propaganda on a mass scale; the emergence of an uninterested, apathetic majority, easily placated with simple bromides and outright lies; and above all the phenomenon of totalitarianism, which she described as an “entirely new form of government”—all of these things led Arendt to believe that a darker era was about to begin.
She was wrong, or partly so. Although much of the world would remain, for the rest of the 20th century, in thrall to violent and aggressive dictatorships, in 1950 North America and Western Europe were in fact just at the beginning of an era of growth and prosperity that would carry them to new heights of wealth and power. The French would remember this era as Les Trente Glorieuses; the Italians would speak of the boom economico, the Germans of the Wirtschaftswunder. In this same era, liberal democracy, a political system that had failed spectacularly in 1930s Europe, finally flourished. So did international integration. The Council of Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the eventual European Union—all of these institutions not only supported the liberal democracies but knit them together more tightly than ever before. The result was certainly not a utopia—by the 1970s, growth had slowed; unemployment and inflation soared—but it nevertheless seemed, at least to those who lived inside the secure Western bubble, that the forces of what Arendt had called “sheer insanity” had been kept at bay.
Now we live in a different era, one in which growth at those 1950s levels is impossible to imagine. Inequality has grown exponentially, creating huge divides between a tiny billionaire class and everyone else. International integration is failing; declining birth rates, combined with a wave of immigration from the Middle East and North Africa, have created an angry rise of nostalgia and xenophobia. Worse, some of the elements that made the postwar Western world so prosperous—some of the elements that Arendt’s pessimistic analysis missed—are fading away. The American security guarantee that underlies the stability of Europe and North America is more uncertain than it has ever been. America’s own democracy, which served as a role model for so many others, is challenged as it has not been in decades, including by those who no longer accept the results of American elections. At the same time, the world’s autocracies have now accumulated enough wealth and influence to challenge the liberal democracies, ideologically as well as economically. The leaders of China, Russia, Iran, Belarus, and Cuba often work together, supporting one another, drawing on kleptocratic resources—money, property, business influence—at a level Hitler or Stalin could never have imagined. Russia has defied the entire postwar European order by invading Ukraine.
Once again, we are living in a world that Arendt would recognize, a world in which it seems “as though mankind had divided itself between those who believe in human omnipotence (who think that everything is possible if one knows how to organize masses for it) and those for whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their lives”—a description that could almost perfectly describe Vladimir Putin on the one hand and Putin’s Russia on the other. The Origins of Totalitarianism forces us to ask not only why Arendt was too pessimistic, in 1950, but also whether some of her pessimism might be more warranted now. More to the point, it offers us a kind of dual methodology, two different ways of thinking about the phenomenon of autocracy."
The current conflict is really about whether the existing world order and frameworks for maintaining peace, sovereignty, and national boundaries and destinies, will continue or end. The West, in my view anyway, cannot afford to compromise on this, any more than it should have compromised on the occupation of the Ruhr, or the taking of the Sudetenland, or...etc., etc. The buildup to a war doesn't take two weeks; the storm today has been gathering for years. And blame games will only paralyze the West.
Agree, and the war against Ukraine MUST, and I emphasize MUST, conclude in the humiliation and weakening of both Putin and Russia. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine MUST ultimately become a cautionary exemplar that will dissuade other authoritarian and fascist despots from pursuing the same reckless course.
There MUST never be an off-ramp that allows Putin and Russia to legitimately claim victory.
DocBarrister
Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine
Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2022 4:05 pm
by old salt
Watching recording of presser of SecDef Austin with Slovak Def Minister. Based on the non-answers provided, it looks like the Slovaks will give up their S-300 as soon as they're promised a Patriot replacement by a date certain. It could be US provided, but SecDef Austin said it was a NATO issue, implying that a Patriot Battery from another NATO user, like the Dutch, Spanish or Germans could deploy to Slovakia to fill the gap in NATO's E flank until the Slovaks acquire the Patriot & get it operable with their own crews.
a fan wrote: ↑Wed Mar 16, 2022 8:33 pm imho, that something is pledged neutrality of Ukraine, and a denial of NATO. That's enough, I think.
It'd be nice, but i think hanging your hat on these two statements alone is a VERY long shot. An inveterate liar like Putin knows that there is ultimately very little stock in WORDS, especially from an adversary that he considers the illegal "head" of a region that he doesn't recognize as sovereign. That, and i think they have already BEEN saying words to this effect for some time, no?
No. Ukraine has NOT pledged neutrality, or to NOT join NATO at any point. This would be new ground. Seems to me this would also be a massive win for Zelensky and his country...they are fiercely independent and don't NEED NATO.
dislaxxic wrote: ↑Thu Mar 17, 2022 3:54 pm
In addition, Putin has wrought such heinous destruction and death on Ukraine so far...how does all THAT end with a simple statement of neutrality? Will Ukraine, the rest of the West, not demand some sort of reparations? ...some sort of accountability for all that???
I'm telling you what I would do, if I were Zelensky. There is nothing....zippo...keeping Putin from slowly reducing Ukraine's major cities to rubble...so long as Putin draws breath.
As for accountability, Russia is royally F'ed economically so long as Putin is in charge. Who the f wants to do business with this guy anymore?
