“An authoritarian kleptocracy, which is an accurate description of the Russian government now, cannot long survive unless a large majority of the population is distracted from thinking about all the terrible things that same kleptocracy is actively doing to its standard of living. The easiest way to do that is to scare the shit out of people with some outside threat.”
And just what terrible things is the authoritarian Russian government doing to its own people's standard of living? Please provide some hard evidence. I've got plenty to provide about the American government. What do you think Putin is distracting the Russian people from? Please give some specifics, because I really don't know what they might be.
You say this is obvious. It is not obvious to me. Here is your chance to make it so.
The runaway extent of corruption in Russia is almost beyond bounds. Annual international indices of corruption have steadily taken the country’s rank downward since the end of the Cold War, and especially since 2000. Putin has profited both financially and economically from the disarray by selectively enforcing anticorruption laws against those who don’t give him or his cabal a sufficiently generous cut of the proceeds. Russian citizens are well aware of this, and resent it both for the double standard preached from the top and the fact that they themselves don’t benefit from the kleptocratic activity. As for authoritarianism, you’ve surely seen on the news recently the hundreds, maybe thousands, of people protesting against this putrid war who have been swept up by the police over the last week. Similar things, though on a smaller scale, accompanied Russia’s cynical maneuvers to destabilize and occupy the Donbas since 2014.
And, of course there’s been Putin’s repeated manipulation of the Duma and his pet judiciary to make it possible for him to essentially be president for life. (Just one of the behaviors that his US counterpart, Trump, openly admires).
I don’t dispute most of your conclusions about the US government, but I find it hard to believe that anyone needs convincing of the Russian government’s equivalent perfidy. And I personally know two people who fled the country after the USSR broke up because of their economic distress and their disgust for the cause of it.
Yes, there's a lot of corruption in Russia. There is even more corruption in Ukraine, if the international measurers of such things are to be believed. Yes, Russia is authoritarian; I never said it wasn't. Yes, Putin is an oligarch for sure.
But you evaded my question. I asked how the Russian government was making the standard of living of ordinary Russians decline. Has it lowered their wages, eliminated their health care, made education so unaffordable where college age kids can't even dream of going to university, or have homeless people sleeping under every bridge as they do in Los Angeles?
Somehow, I find it hard to believe that Putin would invade Ukraine to distract the Russian people's attention away from corruption that has been endemic for a very long time. It is much easier to believe that he considered Ukraine joining NATO to be an existential threat to Russia that needed to be eliminated.
As for your expat Russian friends, I've learned to be very skeptical of what expats say about their homelands. I've heard Canadians saying they had to wait months for medical treatment, and then found out they were just greedy capitalist bastards who were lying through their teeth. Besides, if your friends left Russia almost 20 years ago, they have no more firsthand knowledge about what life is like there now than either you or I.
In sum, I believe all of the attention being paid to a war that poses absolutely no threat to any vital American national interest isn't because our powers that be give a shit about the Ukrainian people; it is primarily an effort to distract us from what is happening to our own country as a direct result of the rapacious greed, rampant corruption, and gross incompetence of our own oligarchy.
And that includes all of the corporate American media. At least we can see who bribes them. All we have to do is to watch their advertising.
I live in the United States. I'm naturally more concerned about the situation here, and not so much about Russian corruption. Especially when it is no threat to any of us.
I didn’t evade your question. I thought my response implicitly addressed that (how the government there has kept living standards far below where they otherwise could be). The specific form of corruption in Russia weighs heavily on the overall health of its economy. Essentially it’s like “trickle down“ on steroids, and has been since the days of the Tsars. And, since those days, the Russian government has done all that it could to evoke the spectre of foreign hostility in the name of fostering an uncritical “patriotism.” In this, of course, it’s not unlike the machinations of other governments around the world, including this one.
Though I would like to believe that what happens between Russia and Ukraine is of no concern outside that region, I’m afraid that simply doesn’t wash as long as Putin is willing to threaten a wider war involving Europe and even the US. He, not anyone else, has invoked his country’s possession of strategic nuclear weapons and his defiant response to the West. He, not anyone else, has chosen this kind of brinkmanship.
Frankly, he disappoints me with all that. I have never thought he was stupid nor deranged, but making those kind of noises causes me to doubt my conclusion at least on the latter.
No Russian leader would ever allow Ukraine to join a hostile, and aggressive, military alliance, which is what NATO has become.
I really don't think Putin has any intention of attacking any NATO country, and I doubt his own military would allow it if he did. Russian forces seem to be giving the Polish border a wide berth. My wife has distant cousins in Lwow, and they say there's been no military activity of any kind around them.
I disagree that Putin is solely responsible. From a materialist, realpolitik point of view, which does happen to be mine, the fault lies entirely with the American government for backing the Russians into a corner where they felt they had no alternative but to use force to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO.
George Kennan warned against expanding NATO in 1998, his warning went unheeded, and now look at this mess.
Certainly there is Russian imperialism and nationalism. But, at least right now, a very reactive kind. They are counterpunchers. You know this.
Well said OB. This all on US/NATO. Anyone who says otherwise has their head up their ass. I read Putin’s last speech & I find it has the ring of truth far more than anything the west is saying. I’m tired of hearing even some Leftish pundits say Russia ‘seized’ or ‘took’ Crimea when my understanding is there was a referendum where 96% of the vote went to rejoin Russia. Some pundits have called it an illegal referendum. Not sure what to think of that. Noted that Saagar says invasion as dumb as US invading Iraq. Have to disagree. I’m thinking Putin will get his security guarantees in relatively short order & there’ll be ceasefire. At least I hope so.
To compare the American invasion of Iraq to the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a false moral equivalency. There are critical differences.
Iraq is not on America's border. Ukraine is on Russia's border.
Iraq could never be viewed rationally as an existential threat to the United States. Ukraine's membership in NATO and access to nuclear weapons, which would have been aimed at Russia, can easily be seen as an existential threat to Russia.
Iraq did not have a persecuted American population that was requesting American help. Ukraine did have a persecuted Russian population that was requesting Russia's help.
I could go on, but I think you see the gist of this argument.
My wife has Ukrainian cousins in Lwow who want to live in an independent Ukraine, and I understand and respect their wishes, so no, I am no Russian shill. I am no fan of oligarchy, be that oligarchy Russian, Ukrainian, or American.
You say fuck this war, but do you also condemn the Saudi genocide in Yemen, or the apartheid state of Israel? Somehow I doubt it, and your moral arrogance is probably very selectively applied.
If we don't understand the Russians, we cannot live with them, and they have nuclear weapons so we have to understand them, and they us, in order to survive. Absolutist moral judgments like yours could easily get us all killed, and Ukrainians are part of "us" as well.
May the gods protect us from sanctimonious fools like you.
You people are all insanely brain-washed and totally sick in the head. People are dying and here you all are with no hearts spreading hate and division; look no further than at YOURSELF to see what is wrong with the world today. This article is nothing but a bunch of hateful, evil, hog washed chit!
“An authoritarian kleptocracy, which is an accurate description of the Russian government now, cannot long survive unless a large majority of the population is distracted from thinking about all the terrible things that same kleptocracy is actively doing to its standard of living. The easiest way to do that is to scare the shit out of people with some outside threat.”
Just to add the also-obvious.
And just what terrible things is the authoritarian Russian government doing to its own people's standard of living? Please provide some hard evidence. I've got plenty to provide about the American government. What do you think Putin is distracting the Russian people from? Please give some specifics, because I really don't know what they might be.
You say this is obvious. It is not obvious to me. Here is your chance to make it so.
The runaway extent of corruption in Russia is almost beyond bounds. Annual international indices of corruption have steadily taken the country’s rank downward since the end of the Cold War, and especially since 2000. Putin has profited both financially and economically from the disarray by selectively enforcing anticorruption laws against those who don’t give him or his cabal a sufficiently generous cut of the proceeds. Russian citizens are well aware of this, and resent it both for the double standard preached from the top and the fact that they themselves don’t benefit from the kleptocratic activity. As for authoritarianism, you’ve surely seen on the news recently the hundreds, maybe thousands, of people protesting against this putrid war who have been swept up by the police over the last week. Similar things, though on a smaller scale, accompanied Russia’s cynical maneuvers to destabilize and occupy the Donbas since 2014.
And, of course there’s been Putin’s repeated manipulation of the Duma and his pet judiciary to make it possible for him to essentially be president for life. (Just one of the behaviors that his US counterpart, Trump, openly admires).
I don’t dispute most of your conclusions about the US government, but I find it hard to believe that anyone needs convincing of the Russian government’s equivalent perfidy. And I personally know two people who fled the country after the USSR broke up because of their economic distress and their disgust for the cause of it.
Yes, there's a lot of corruption in Russia. There is even more corruption in Ukraine, if the international measurers of such things are to be believed. Yes, Russia is authoritarian; I never said it wasn't. Yes, Putin is an oligarch for sure.
But you evaded my question. I asked how the Russian government was making the standard of living of ordinary Russians decline. Has it lowered their wages, eliminated their health care, made education so unaffordable where college age kids can't even dream of going to university, or have homeless people sleeping under every bridge as they do in Los Angeles?
Somehow, I find it hard to believe that Putin would invade Ukraine to distract the Russian people's attention away from corruption that has been endemic for a very long time. It is much easier to believe that he considered Ukraine joining NATO to be an existential threat to Russia that needed to be eliminated.
As for your expat Russian friends, I've learned to be very skeptical of what expats say about their homelands. I've heard Canadians saying they had to wait months for medical treatment, and then found out they were just greedy capitalist bastards who were lying through their teeth. Besides, if your friends left Russia almost 20 years ago, they have no more firsthand knowledge about what life is like there now than either you or I.
In sum, I believe all of the attention being paid to a war that poses absolutely no threat to any vital American national interest isn't because our powers that be give a shit about the Ukrainian people; it is primarily an effort to distract us from what is happening to our own country as a direct result of the rapacious greed, rampant corruption, and gross incompetence of our own oligarchy.
And that includes all of the corporate American media. At least we can see who bribes them. All we have to do is to watch their advertising.
I live in the United States. I'm naturally more concerned about the situation here, and not so much about Russian corruption. Especially when it is no threat to any of us.
I should add: Has Russia ever NOT been corrupt? I think Russians are very well aware of that. No blame-shifting is necessary, I wouldn't think.
I didn’t evade your question. I thought my response implicitly addressed that (how the government there has kept living standards far below where they otherwise could be). The specific form of corruption in Russia weighs heavily on the overall health of its economy. Essentially it’s like “trickle down“ on steroids, and has been since the days of the Tsars. And, since those days, the Russian government has done all that it could to evoke the spectre of foreign hostility in the name of fostering an uncritical “patriotism.” In this, of course, it’s not unlike the machinations of other governments around the world, including this one.
Though I would like to believe that what happens between Russia and Ukraine is of no concern outside that region, I’m afraid that simply doesn’t wash as long as Putin is willing to threaten a wider war involving Europe and even the US. He, not anyone else, has invoked his country’s possession of strategic nuclear weapons and his defiant response to the West. He, not anyone else, has chosen this kind of brinkmanship.
Frankly, he disappoints me with all that. I have never thought he was stupid nor deranged, but making those kind of noises causes me to doubt my conclusion at least on the latter.
No Russian leader would ever allow Ukraine to join a hostile, and aggressive, military alliance, which is what NATO has become.
I really don't think Putin has any intention of attacking any NATO country, and I doubt his own military would allow it if he did. Russian forces seem to be giving the Polish border a wide berth. My wife has distant cousins in Lwow, and they say there's been no military activity of any kind around them.
I disagree that Putin is solely responsible. From a materialist, realpolitik point of view, which does happen to be mine, the fault lies entirely with the American government for backing the Russians into a corner where they felt they had no alternative but to use force to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO.
George Kennan warned against expanding NATO in 1998, his warning went unheeded, and now look at this mess.
Certainly there is Russian imperialism and nationalism. But, at least right now, a very reactive kind. They are counterpunchers. You know this.
Well said OB. This all on US/NATO. Anyone who says otherwise has their head up their ass. I read Putin’s last speech & I find it has the ring of truth far more than anything the west is saying. I’m tired of hearing even some Leftish pundits say Russia ‘seized’ or ‘took’ Crimea when my understanding is there was a referendum where 96% of the vote went to rejoin Russia. Some pundits have called it an illegal referendum. Not sure what to think of that. Noted that Saagar says invasion as dumb as US invading Iraq. Have to disagree. I’m thinking Putin will get his security guarantees in relatively short order & there’ll be ceasefire. At least I hope so.
To compare the American invasion of Iraq to the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a false moral equivalency. There are critical differences.
Iraq is not on America's border. Ukraine is on Russia's border.
Iraq could never be viewed rationally as an existential threat to the United States. Ukraine's membership in NATO and access to nuclear weapons, which would have been aimed at Russia, can easily be seen as an existential threat to Russia.
Iraq did not have a persecuted American population that was requesting American help. Ukraine did have a persecuted Russian population that was requesting Russia's help.
I could go on, but I think you see the gist of this argument.
Man is this an unusually stupid take. Fuck Putin and the real war that is killing real people you dumb fuck. Are you a Russian shill?
My wife has Ukrainian cousins in Lwow who want to live in an independent Ukraine, and I understand and respect their wishes, so no, I am no Russian shill. I am no fan of oligarchy, be that oligarchy Russian, Ukrainian, or American.
You say fuck this war, but do you also condemn the Saudi genocide in Yemen, or the apartheid state of Israel? Somehow I doubt it, and your moral arrogance is probably very selectively applied.
If we don't understand the Russians, we cannot live with them, and they have nuclear weapons so we have to understand them, and they us, in order to survive. Absolutist moral judgments like yours could easily get us all killed, and Ukrainians are part of "us" as well.
May the gods protect us from sanctimonious fools like you.
Well said! Sharp, succinct - not a word wasted. Thank you. :)
You people are all insanely brain-washed and totally sick in the head. People are dying and here you all are with no hearts spreading hate and division; look no further than at YOURSELF to see what is wrong with the world today. This article is nothing but a bunch of hateful, evil, hog washed chit!