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quote:The climate of opinion was different in the fall of 1991, the Russians were discarding communism and hoped for a democratic future. The landmark 1991 Pulse of Europe survey, conducted by the Times Mirror Center (the predecessor of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press), revealed a Russia ready to join the wave of democratization that had swept across Eastern Europe over the previous two years. The shift in views of democracy between 1991 and 2006 can probably be chalked up to how much neoliberal capitalism & democracy sucked for Russians.
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Sep 5, 2014 10:26
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Peel posted:I'm taking this as emblematic of an understandable but utterly exhausting and crippling element of the debate in this thread. http://euobserver.com/foreign/125479 It appears as though the EU has decided to expand sanctions to dual use goods, among other things: quote:More names and companies are to be added to a blacklist, which has been expanded to "natural or legal persons, entities or bodies conducting transactions with the separatist groups in the Donbass region of Ukraine." Hambilderberglar fucked around with this message at 10:36 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 10:31
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FaceAttack posted:The shift in views of democracy between 1991 and 2006 can probably be chalked up to how much neoliberal capitalism & democracy sucked for Russians. It is sad that an overwhelming majority here believes that there exists a pawn shop fairly exchanging civil rights for money.
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Sep 5, 2014 10:36
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my dad posted:I'm incredibly glad that people with opinions such as this weren't in charge of the allied occupation of Germany. Imagine having Europe with a corrupt neonazi Germany today. How are the two situations in any way analogous.  Here's one major difference - the Allies had already used a little bit more force on the Germany and they kinda did not have the ability to fight any disagreements anymore. What you are basically saying that we should wait until Russia is reduced into TOTAL DUST or reduce it into that ourselves due to all the sins it has committed, then come there when the choice is literally starvation or total domination by us and build the entire state from the ground up according to our values and ideals. EDIT: Oh, and give one-third of it to the Chinese to make East Russia. I think that's worse then letting them just be part of our horrifically corrupted economic system. It's not like the rest of the world isn't suffering, the bad guys go beyond borders and nationalities. DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 10:40 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 10:36
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DarkCrawler posted:How are the two situations in any way analogous. I'm talking about post-war. And Russia was crushed. Not as badly as Germany was, of course, but the 90s were hell on Earth as far as most Russians were concerned, and the population had far, far more support for the
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Sep 5, 2014 10:45
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DarkCrawler posted:EDIT: Oh, and give one-third of it to the Chinese to make East Russia. You know, this isn't completely without historical precidence. I seem to recall at one time Russia chose to sell its sparsly-populated territory in order to pay off debts stemming from military expenditures. I'm sure someone would have been willing to purchase Siberia for a good price in 1991, which would've solved Russia's immediate financial crisis at that time.
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Sep 5, 2014 10:47
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rejecting IMF conditional loans has a long history - if small and weak countries like 1960 Ghana, 1980s Nigeria, and 1990s Malaysia can do it, it is difficult to see why 1990s Russia cannot, however weakened by the chaos of dissolution it is also very easy to slam conditionality when one erases a memory of the same IMF being accused of bribing unstable governments into self-serving kleptocratic (and, coincidentally, anti-Soviet) behaviour, which was the previously common populist accusation before rigid conditionality became the conventional wisdom (after all, even without conditions, you can still sign your country up for crippling loans whilst you build yourself a palace). And the contemporary IMF is intended to be a lender of last resort - that is, when your country is so dysfunctional that you cannot obtain private lending, because nobody believes that their loans will be paid back. This is not Bretton Woods and you can't argue that the West locks up all its capital under rigid capital controls and strangles the world with a shortage of US dollars - if you can convince nonstate institutional investors that you can pay them back, then you don't need the IMF. If you don't need to take loans at all, then you don't need the IMF. That is, if you were in a position to run the Glorious True Communist Worker's Paradise to begin with, you shouldn't be so insolvent that you have to run four digit inflation just to pay for it all, and there would be no need to run screaming for the IMF to step in at all. If your pet favourite answer to "what should have done instead" involves a lot of things that add to the budget - ruling out cuts to gas subsidies or closing down insolvent SOEs - then the country only becomes more insolvent, not less. Even socialism has to have numbers that add up.
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Sep 5, 2014 10:56
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My Imaginary GF posted:You know, this isn't completely without historical precidence. I seem to recall at one time Russia chose to sell its sparsly-populated territory in order to pay off debts stemming from military expenditures. I'm sure someone would have been willing to purchase Siberia for a good price in 1991, which would've solved Russia's immediate financial crisis at that time. What the gently caress? 40 million people live in Siberia, you can't just sell them off like spare cattle. Not to mention that this would have been a spectacularly bad move for a billion other reasons. Do you genuinely believe the things you're suggesting about the direction Russia should have taken? Because holy poo poo dude.
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Sep 5, 2014 10:57
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Some more lighthearted news: Pathologic is a great psychological horror game and now a remake by the original Russian creators is being kickstarted and already pretty successful. This part of an interview made me think of this thread:Rock, Paper, Shotgun blog posted:Tempting to consider the City as Pathologic’s star rather than its stage. Perhaps it’d be fair to do so – I refer to it as a character at one point and bite my point, but Alexandra shrugs. “That’s fine. It has character.” But where does it come from? Why was it born? I ask if it is inspired by elements of Russian urban landscapes and life.
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Sep 5, 2014 11:07
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I can't understand why "don't antagonize Russia" still keeps coming up as a reason for, and solution to the current crisis. We tried this in moderation and it didn't work, it's deluded to think considering their sensibilities more would have helped. We're dealing with an entity that interprets ANYTHING as pushing against them, in order to fuel nationalism that masks the dire straits most of the country is still in, and generally because politics is a zero sum game to them, so "West wins" means "Russia loses". It's hilarious how many people still think Majorian posted:Wrong. We can promise that Ukraine will not be allowed into NATO. You're seriously deluded if you think we can force them to do much more than guarantee Ukraine's neutrality. Equally laughable is that you think this will solve anything. Putin the Strongman doesn't care about promises. He cares about facts and if he can just invade and occupy his neighbours why should he negotiate a contract. Additionally, agreements with him are worth absolutely nothing. He will just turn around and selectively adhere to them and claim they say things they don't if he needs a fake justification for another war of aggression. Like he does with the whole "NATO promised never to expand past the former Iron Curtain" myth or like he did in Georgia: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/world/europe/14document.html?_r=0. Swan Oat posted:e: and I should have said Western-backed looting of Russia instead of Western looting in my initial post, that was bad and inaccurate wording on my part orcane fucked around with this message at 11:19 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 11:16
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there are solutions a functional government could have taken - the PRC, which had its own Soviet-style insolvent heavy industry to deal with, resolved the problem by continuing to subsidize these industries whilst it selectively let less volatile regions in the south, far away from Beijing, liberalize and deal with the attendant social disorder. The first Special Economic Zones were all fringe regions. this was economically possible, as policy. It was politically unlikely in Russia because Russia of the 1990s did not have the rigid centralization of the PRC. We know what happened to regions of the Soviet bloc that went through relatively more market liberalization than the heart of the USSR: namely, they chafed at transfers to the USSR and then up and left. That was exactly what the dissolution of the Soviet satellite system was. It's as if Shenzhen declared independence and reunified with Hong Kong. And there was plenty of impulse for further disintegration of the Russian federation, which was in no position to hold them back until well later.
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Sep 5, 2014 11:19
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fivegears4reverse posted:NATO looks incredibly appealing to Ukraine after Russia outright stole Crimea out from under their noses and has now been openly sending support to "rebels" in Eastern Ukraine. fivegears4reverse posted:If Russia didn't want NATO to expand further, maybe they shouldn't be giving the organization the most powerful example of why it needs to keep existing by giving their neighbors reasons to consider this in the first place. On 8 July 1997, three former communist countries, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland, were invited to join NATO, which each did in 1999. If you don't know... Poland is east of germany, as is hungary and both share a border with the ukraine. So you can see that it really doesn't matter what russia does, we don't give a poo poo.
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Sep 5, 2014 11:22
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Ochn0e posted:If russia really was invading the ukraine it would have ended two months ago. russia also has(had) a contract to use the sevastopol harbor until 2042, so they have clearly an interest in keeping their access point to the black sea. If a country splits in two halves and you have massive interests in part of it you're not saying: "oh no please don't switch to our side." Ukraine, not the Ukraine. The rest of your post is garbage and we've already discussed everything you've said, run along.
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Sep 5, 2014 11:26
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Dusty Baker 2 posted:Ukraine, not the Ukraine. The rest of your post is garbage and we've already discussed everything you've said, run along. Well everything in your post is garbage too, so run along hit the ball and stfu.
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Sep 5, 2014 11:28
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Malleum posted:Why does Russia have to answer for every sin of the Soviet Union? The Union collapsed. Russia is not communist. It is not the same government or people that it was 20 years ago. I can understand a country disentangling itself from the Soviet clusterfuck, but why does everyone want to be so brazenly antagonistic? Russians were victims of the Soviets too. Because Soviet Union and all the "proletariat of the world, unite" crap was merely lovely propaganda. Soviet Union was and always has been a pseudonym of Russian Empire. Maybe Lenin took the world revolution seriously, but not since then. Technically there have been by birth non-Russian premiers, but all of them have identified themselves as Russians and worked the Russian agenda. As Brezhnev put it, "anywhere the Russian soldier's boot has touched, is Russia". Swan Oat posted:So the West played no part in the disastrous privatization campaigns and shock therapy, and the only beneficiaries were Russians?
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Sep 5, 2014 11:31
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 : NATO is expanding to our borders! What should we do with it? : Support the armed insurrection in an ex-Soviet country with money, weapons and advisors so that the continuing existence of NATO would be even more justified!
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Sep 5, 2014 11:31
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Plastic_Gargoyle posted:Is there any substantive evidence to the claim that the current Ukranian government is in any way/partly made up of "Nazis" or "Fascists"? I've got a friend who continues to insist that this is the case. Not really. There will always be one or two in any crowd, but most 'fascist' or nationalist parties in Ukraine received their funding from the same oligarchs behind the Party of Regions or Batkyvshina. Before melding into the PoR or Svoboda, the few there were acted essentially as spoiler parties to remove votes from democratic centrist parties in the West of the country. It's oligarchs all the way down. Notable real exceptions to the Russian rhetoric exist, such as Kolomoyskiy, who funds two Volunteer battalions fighting with the Ukrainian army, and is Jewish. If the pro-Russian residents of Donbass realised their current political representatives were the same people funding the 'fascists' attitudes would likely be different, not that that has any bearing on anything. I recommend "Impediments to the Emergence of Political Parties in Ukraine", Taras Kuzio, University of Alberta (2014), or "Radical Nationalist Parties And Movements In Contemporary Ukraine Before And After Independence: The Right And Its Politics, 1989-1994", by same, Nationalities Papers (1997) if you want to do more reading. Flaky fucked around with this message at 11:36 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 11:32
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fatherboxx posted:
People might talk about how Putin got what he wanted and how Putin has won, but over the long term he has acted against the interests of Russia and the consequences will be felt by the Russian people.
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Sep 5, 2014 11:34
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Ochn0e posted:If russia really was invading the ukraine it would have ended two months ago. russia also has(had) a contract to use the sevastopol harbor until 2042, so they have clearly an interest in keeping their access point to the black sea. If a country splits in two halves and you have massive interests in part of it you're not saying: "oh no please don't switch to our side." Also no one promised never to expand NATO, that's a myth. Besides, who had the authority to make this decision? How can a German politician promise Russia that a defense treaty will never, ever take on new members if the country in question asks for entry?
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Sep 5, 2014 11:36
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Ochn0e posted:If russia really was invading the ukraine it would have ended two months ago. russia also has(had) a contract to use the sevastopol harbor until 2042, so they have clearly an interest in keeping their access point to the black sea. If a country splits in two halves and you have massive interests in part of it you're not saying: "oh no please don't switch to our side." Nothing you said in this post, not one thing, justifies anything that Russia has done in Ukraine. There was the possibility that they could have kept Sevastopol under a EU leaning Ukraine if they actually decided to engage the smaller state diplomatically. Rather than entertain such a possibility, they annexed Crimea, sent "aid convoys" into eastern Ukraine, bombarded Ukrainian citizens with artillery, and are indirectly responsible for shooting down a civilian airliner. It seriously does not matter one bit that Russia feels "betrayed" that former Soviet states accepted NATO's invitation. Having a national victimhood complex doesn't make this acceptable behavior. If more countries bordering Russia feel like NATO is a better sounding option by the day, the only country ultimately responsible for this is Russia.
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Sep 5, 2014 11:43
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Hey, rereading your post again, I think you might have misunderstood my point. I was against the "force is the only option" post, not supporting it. The analogy was there to show that giving a helping hand to a defeated enemy has positive consequences, or, at the very least, prevents the most negative ones.
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Sep 5, 2014 12:01
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Ochn0e posted:Well everything in your post is garbage too, so run along hit the ball and stfu. Ukraine is not garbage.
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Sep 5, 2014 12:13
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my dad posted:Hey, rereading your post again, I think you might have misunderstood my point. I was against the "force is the only option" post, not supporting it. The analogy was there to show that giving a helping hand to a defeated enemy has positive consequences, or, at the very least, prevents the most negative ones. But it is not analogy that works in this case because of the obvious differences. The West could not have done the same thing to Russia because it had no power over it. It had all power over (West) Germany. There are many better analogues to use. China, for example. DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 12:17 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 12:14
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DarkCrawler posted:But it is not analogy that works in this case because of the obvious differences. The West could not have done the same thing to Russia because it had no power over it. It had all power over (West) Germany. There are many better analogues to use. China, for example. China wasn't defeated.
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Sep 5, 2014 12:17
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my dad posted:China wasn't defeated. Soviet Union wasn't defeated as much as it just collapsed on itself, and it wasn't defeated in a war. China is a great example of how you can make a former enemy at least a tolerable neighbor while integrating them to your economic system. And I'm saying it as an example Russia could follow as well. If all Putin was doing was moving some ships in the Black Sea and saying that some loving island in the middle of nowhere where totally Russia's, I'd have less problems with him. But Soviet Union was defined by it's rhetoric and posturing, not its economic achievements.
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Sep 5, 2014 12:19
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Dusty Baker 2 posted:Ukraine is not garbage. If I need a grammar nazi... I will call you! Until then have a nice time. btw. nobody ITT posted about the contract "the" unkraine signed with russia about sevastopol harbor so next time you talk to me, plz don't lie if you don't like the content or arguments I'm presenting. Thank you very much 
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Sep 5, 2014 12:21
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fivegears4reverse posted:Nothing you said in this post, not one thing, justifies anything that Russia has done in Ukraine. We all get that Russia is doing some seriously horrible stuff right now, but there is no point in saying "We are good, they are simply evil Russkies!" Their actions in Ukraine seem to make some sense to the average Russian and it's worth trying to figure out why. I don't understand why people can't handle this, unless they have a black-and-white worldview.
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Sep 5, 2014 12:24
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orcane posted:Also no one promised never to expand NATO, that's a myth. Besides, who had the authority to make this decision? How can a German politician promise Russia that a defense treaty will never, ever take on new members if the country in question asks for entry? Oh the germans didn't promise that. The four powers did sign the treaty. That would be the soviet union, france, england and the usa. quote: "The Americans promised that NATO wouldn't move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War but now half of central and eastern Europe are members, so what happened to their promises? It shows they cannot be trusted." former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. fivegears4reverse posted:Nothing you said in this post, not one thing, justifies anything that Russia has done in Ukraine. What has russia done ? You rely on your propaganda media. Please, don't fool yourself and think that you get an unbiased view of this conflict from your (either) media. You just don't know and can't know what's really happening and if you think you are, then you're a moron. On page one or two is a youtube vid of a column tank/vehicles "allegedly" russian. How the gently caress do you know ? they have no signs or flags on it, this vid could be shot anywhere, anytime. The have the same equipment because they originate from the same military... oh yes it must be "them" because someone said so in the title. *rolleyes* That's the information you all are willing to digest without questioning. A great starting position for a discussion. Well, it's not really a discussion or is it? It's a circle jerk that forced me to present a contra argument just for the sake of it.
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Sep 5, 2014 12:35
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Ochn0e posted:What has russia done ? You rely on your propaganda media. Please, don't fool yourself and think that you get an unbiased view of this conflict from your (either) media. You just don't know and can't know what's really happening and if you think you are, then you're a moron. Go gently caress yourself.
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Sep 5, 2014 12:37
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DarkCrawler posted:Soviet Union wasn't defeated as much as it just collapsed on itself, and it wasn't defeated in a war. China is a great example of how you can make a former enemy at least a tolerable neighbor while integrating them to your economic system. And I'm saying it as an example Russia could follow as well. If all Putin was doing was moving some ships in the Black Sea and saying that some loving island in the middle of nowhere where totally Russia's, I'd have less problems with him. But Soviet Union was defined by it's rhetoric and posturing, not its economic achievements. Cold War was a thing. A big thing. First of all, Russian invasion of Ukraine is an atrocity, and I have absolutely no intention of defending it. Second, Russia did change its economy, into raw 'survival of the ruthless' capitalism. I was pointing out one of the reasons why Russia wasn't able to have a sane transition into something less brutal. The West could have helped Russia become a part of it. It didn't. Nobody is saying that it had the obligation to. But now we're seeing the consequences of that decision. Ochn0e posted:What has russia done ? You rely on your propaganda media. Please, don't fool yourself and think that you get an unbiased view of this conflict from your (either) media. You just don't know and can't know what's really happening and if you think you are, then you're a moron. No, there is pretty clear evidence that Russia is invading Ukraine. Dead Russian soldiers, for example.
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Sep 5, 2014 12:37
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FaceAttack posted:Their actions in Ukraine seem to make some sense to the average Russian and it's worth trying to figure out why. One thing to remember is that Russia's news media is practically entirely controlled by the state and exists mostly as propaganda against the western world and minorities to distract the public from things like the rampant corruption that's crippling the country, for example. Putin's actions make sense to the average Russian because the state, through media and censorship, is constantly telling them that the Ukrainians are actually western gay nazis attempting to genocide the Russians, while also doing their best to censor any news of Russia being involved with the war, going as far as to wiping the names of Russian soldiers who had died in Ukraine off their own tombstones and declaring their grieving parents as foreign agents. Russia's populace are as much victims of the totalitarian kleptocratic Russian government as everyone else.
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Sep 5, 2014 12:38
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Ochn0e posted:If I need a grammar nazi... I will call you! That's because The Ukraine doesn't exist.
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Sep 5, 2014 12:41
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Just in case anyone was still wondering where Orbán's real loyalty lies, Speaker of the Hungarian National Assembly and Fidesz boss László Kövér just recently called the Ukrainian conflict a 'circus' being staged by NATO/the US to isolate Europe from Russia (articles in Hungarian here and here). He also said the Western media was like Pravda and that the Ukrainian state doesn't exist. Of course he was still at pains to say how very important NATO is to Hungary and Fidesz is probably going to carry on playing its little double-dealing game until someone finally tells them to poo poo or get off the potty, if they ever do.
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Sep 5, 2014 12:41
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Ochn0e posted:btw. nobody ITT posted about the contract "the" unkraine signed with russia about sevastopol harbor so next time you talk to me, plz don't lie if you don't like the content or arguments I'm presenting. Thank you very much The contract was mentioned way back in older threads and it was already argued that Russia was doing a "smart" strategic move by just simply annexing Crimea, because the pro-EU Ukraine government would somehow push out russian troops from Sevastapol and wouldn't renew the contract. If you are wondering, in the older threads it also didn't make any sense why would that happen or how that somehow justified the Russian government actions. You would probably know that if you actually followed the thread since the conflict started. Also, good on you for saying people are only following the one side of biased media, while you are so obviously doing the same 
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Sep 5, 2014 12:47
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FaceAttack posted:We all get that Russia is doing some seriously horrible stuff right now, but there is no point in saying "We are good, they are simply evil Russkies!" I didn't say that "we" are "good" and that Russia is "evil", so I'd appreciate it if you knocked that poo poo off. I have said that the Russians have done some pretty lovely stuff, and that the result of that is that they are being perceived by other countries as being a legitimate threat. If Russia getting called out for being pretty lovely to Ukraine at the moment sounds like I'm calling all of Russia evil, know that this is not my intent. If Russia doesn't want nations running to NATO, then they should stop giving people excuses to consider that option with greater enthusiasm. That's not an "US VS THEM" declaration, that's an observation based on what has been going on. All the pretenses of "Well, if NATO didn't do this" and "But the West did this" are awful ways to try to shift the conversation away from the actual crisis at hand to play a petty forums blamegame and ignore the suffering of those caught in the middle of all this. It's one thing to try and understand why they are doing what they are doing, and it's something else entirely different to make excuses for them and deliberately misconstrue the facts. The latter is what posters like Ochn0e are doing.
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Sep 5, 2014 12:48
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Finlander posted:One thing to remember is that Russia's news media is practically entirely controlled by the state and exists mostly as propaganda against the western world and minorities to distract the public from things like the rampant corruption that's crippling the country, for example. Remember, most Russians know that Putin is basically a dictator and the media is his tool. But they still stick to the guy....makes you think. fivegears4reverse posted:I didn't say that "we" are "good" and that Russia is "evil", so I'd appreciate it if you knocked that poo poo off. Well I'd appreciate it if you knocked your rear end into reverse and made yourself dissapear, but you can't have everything can you? FaceAttack fucked around with this message at 12:58 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 12:54
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Ochn0e posted:quote: However, if someone did make him such a promise at the bar table at some summit banquet or something, and Gorbachev's dumb rear end believed it, then well done by whoever that was. His actions made the world a safer and better place.
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Sep 5, 2014 13:02
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Well, thanks to ronya and orcane for actually posting reasonable stuff instead of continuing the pointless name-calling. I appreciated the Levin article, and the one about Georgia was very apt. So thanks. Also, Cheatum, Zohar, Swan Oat, the usual suspects.
Flaky fucked around with this message at 13:14 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 13:08
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Are people here seriously arguing Russia didn't get hosed by the West in the 90s? We trusted your advisors after our whole world shattered, because it seemed like you have figured that capitalism thing out. I certainly remember feeling that way back then and looking up to the West, thinking that those painful reforms were necessary. And all that did was turn Russia into neoliberal shithole.
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Sep 5, 2014 13:42
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Forgall posted:Are people here seriously arguing Russia didn't get hosed by the West in the 90s? We trusted your advisors after our whole world shattered, because it seemed like you have figured that capitalism thing out. I certainly remember feeling that way back then and looking up to the West, thinking that those painful reforms were necessary. And all that did was turn Russia into neoliberal shithole. As someone who was in Ukraine at the time, I think there was a bit of split responsibility going on: it wasn't the Westerners that were doing the stealing, after all.
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Sep 5, 2014 13:51
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