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On April 09 2014 23:53 Acertos wrote:http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/kerry-lavrov-agree-ukraine-needs-diplomatic-fix-1.1752548Plz before trying to give counter arguments use google. The funny thing is that Russian authorities wants Ukraine to be a loose federation because "Ukrainians want it" but look at the federation of Russia, it would have exploded long ago (with all the minorities and ethnicity that have been asking for Independence since the tsar days) if it had the same model they want with Ukraine.
I think you are refering to "Russia's foreign minister says Ukraine can't function as a "unified state" and should be a loose federation of regions that choose their own economic model, language and religion." in the article you linked.
This is just one sentence saying nothing. And I didn't find anything detailing the Russian demands on Google. So I will tell you why this sentence says nothing:
1. What does economic model mean? Actually if there are slight differences between states on taxation it should not be a problem. In Germany and I think in the U.S. states are allowed to introduce their own taxes on specific things.
2. About language, well this is about the official language. This should not be a problem at all. I made the Belgium example in my previous post. Canada is another example with Frensh and English parts.
3. Now religion: I doubt he really said that because it does not make sense. As far as I know Muslims are only a minority everywhere in Ukraine and the rest is christian be it catholic or orthodox.
As far as I know there is no detailed summary on Russian demands. That's why I asked.
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On April 10 2014 00:01 PaleMan wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2014 22:52 Acertos wrote:On April 09 2014 21:22 Dlash23 wrote:On April 09 2014 21:13 Gorsameth wrote:On April 09 2014 21:08 Dlash23 wrote:On April 09 2014 20:54 Gorsameth wrote:On April 09 2014 20:52 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:On April 09 2014 20:50 Simberto wrote:On April 09 2014 20:40 Dlash23 wrote:On April 09 2014 17:43 Fjodorov wrote:
[quote]
Putin is not done with Ukraine. If he cant get more parts of Ukraine he will make sure chaos rules. And I wish I could say it was unique for one country to annex a part of another country but sadly it isnt. What if I say you that Russia is the last country who benefit from this situation in Ukraine as it is now? Who needs an unstable neighbor? I hope you can think So are you saying that Russia will take additional chunks out of the Ukraine to change this situation with an unstable neighbor that they don't want, and that they themselves caused? And further that that is actually an ok thing to do? What we have here is Russia invading a neighboring country, destabilizing it, then continuing to destabilize the non-invaded parts of that country even further. If you say that they don't want an unstable neighbor, that only leaves the conclusion that they will want to take more out of that so that unstability is only a temporary thing leading to some goal. I think he's saying that Ukraine is unstable, so Russia would not want to conquer it. Is that why conquered unstable Crimea? Which they themselves btw made unstable. Is that why they are doing the same thing to eastern Ukraine now? Russia didn't conquered unstable Crimea I don't know what your news are saying but crimeans are happy that they had a chance to leave from Ukraine's occupation(sarcasm =) ask them And you think EuroMaidan is done by Russia who made Ukraine unstable? lol On April 09 2014 21:05 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:On April 09 2014 21:03 Simberto wrote:
Of course they are interested in Eastern Ukraine, it's land, and Putin needs Lebensraum for the russian people. Russian land: 6.602 million sq miles (17.1 million km²) I think they have enough bro. I think that (and following Nazi German ideologies) are the last things they're worrying about. I hope he is kidding  Try reading this thread before responding in it. Your points have been adressed a 100 times already. Funny how they need to be restated every time a new russian comes here to proclaim the glory of mother russia. peace man. I hate all this situation at all. I live in Russia but I'm ethnic from Belarus and have friends and relatives in Ukraine... I know what's going on from many angles. It's just funny to see some opinions like Russia is evil and so on. But yeah Putin is an evil being, when he dies he will be remembered as the mad fascist and nationalist he was. And it's not rly Russia bashing but Putin and his supporters bashing. If I had to guess, his supporters are mostly white Slav Russians or Russian born expatriates, the ones that benefit from his regime or others like Al Assad supporters, Serb nationalists, some US-haters etc... They like to be victimized too: "You don't like Russia!", "You don't like Syria", "You don't like Serbia"... But no, only the dictators and the supporters of their crimes are hated by most of the world because they tend to forget that we are all human beings. According to media it all went like this: "Mr.Yanukovoch was a Pitin's agent and did his best to ruin Ukraine, but he was dethroned by the agents of Putin from Right Sector that wanted to ruin Ukraine. After that the power was taken by the agents of Putin from local oligarch and corrupted politicians who planned to ruin Ukraine. This caused a riot of agents of Putin in the East of Ukraine - with a definite purpose of ruining Ukraine. Yet Mme Timoshenko, an old agent of Putin, interfered with their plans in order to ruin Ukraine..."
I'm disappointed PaleMan, you normally try harder then this.
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Russian Federation1953 Posts
breaking news
Russia prepares for war vs Sweden
Swedish security services have expressed serious concerns that Russia is heightening its spying efforts in Scandinavia and “preparing for war”, according to local media reports.
lol
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On April 09 2014 12:53 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2014 12:25 DeepElemBlues wrote:On April 09 2014 07:57 darkness wrote:
Hopefully this situation teaches the West not to be so naive towards (ex-)communists like Putin. Never trust them, including business deals.
Edit: And I'm so glad Bulgaria is part of NATO, assuming we'll really be protected if Russia tries to attack. The best case is always for this scenario not to happen at all. I just wonder what will happen if Russia tries to attack a NATO country just to see if they will be severely threatened as a response. Russia would not be severely threatened if it attacked a NATO country, it would be at war with all NATO countries if it did that. Not even the most caricature-y caricature of a pussy Democrat (which Barack Obama isn't, he's shown plenty of willingness to turn people into bloody chunks or put 100+ bullets in their body like we did with Osama... that's the real reason we haven't released any pictures of his body, apparently the SEALs took turns emptying their magazines into Osama's ratty old corpse) would allow a NATO member to be attacked without the US and the rest of NATO coming down hard on whoever did it. Never say never, but being in NATO is as close as you can get to a guarantee that if someone comes after you, your big tough friends will whip his ass - they will never fail to get your back. Despite what some people may think about the strength of the NATO alliance. USA reneging on the NATO treaty would be the USA telling the rest of the world "hey, we're going on full-on isolationist like so many of you say you want..." and being totally serious about it and that is not gonna happen any time soon. JudicatorHammurabi might want to take notice... darkness the USA didn't lean on you to be glad Bulgaria is in NATO, right? I've stated this in preceding posts as in the one just above: After WW2, the governments in Europe that weren't Communist and didn't want to become Communist and much called in the US. They needed US because we were the only nation in the world with any ability or competence to deal with Communism. Do you see any alternative? No? Okay then. Thanks for the call-out though. Not sure what relevance it has. You're agreeing with me, and then calling me out like you disagree.
So you both agree and disagree with the opinion you've voiced that the US dictates to countries and forces them to do what it wants. Or you've clarified it to the point where you have cast this opinion onto the ash heap for current convenience. Well, that's not surprising.
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On April 10 2014 00:17 Banaora wrote:I think you are refering to "Russia's foreign minister says Ukraine can't function as a "unified state" and should be a loose federation of regions that choose their own economic model, language and religion." in the article you linked. This is just one sentence saying nothing. And I didn't find anything detailing the Russian demands on Google. So I will tell you why this sentence says nothing: 1. What does economic model mean? Actually if there are slight differences between states on taxation it should not be a problem. In Germany and I think in the U.S. states are allowed to introduce their own taxes on specific things. 2. About language, well this is about the official language. This should not be a problem at all. I made the Belgium example in my previous post. Canada is another example with Frensh and English parts. 3. Now religion: I doubt he really said that because it does not make sense. As far as I know Muslims are only a minority everywhere in Ukraine and the rest is christian be it catholic or orthodox. As far as I know there is no detailed summary on Russian demands. That's why I asked.
Like you say he asks the regions to be almost independent states and that means something. It means that Russia want to able to annex other regions and doesn't to move from this position. From that we can conclude that force (real or economical) is the only way to stop Putin.
On April 10 2014 00:01 PaleMan wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2014 22:52 Acertos wrote:On April 09 2014 21:22 Dlash23 wrote:On April 09 2014 21:13 Gorsameth wrote:On April 09 2014 21:08 Dlash23 wrote:On April 09 2014 20:54 Gorsameth wrote:On April 09 2014 20:52 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:On April 09 2014 20:50 Simberto wrote:On April 09 2014 20:40 Dlash23 wrote:On April 09 2014 17:43 Fjodorov wrote:
[quote]
Putin is not done with Ukraine. If he cant get more parts of Ukraine he will make sure chaos rules. And I wish I could say it was unique for one country to annex a part of another country but sadly it isnt. What if I say you that Russia is the last country who benefit from this situation in Ukraine as it is now? Who needs an unstable neighbor? I hope you can think So are you saying that Russia will take additional chunks out of the Ukraine to change this situation with an unstable neighbor that they don't want, and that they themselves caused? And further that that is actually an ok thing to do? What we have here is Russia invading a neighboring country, destabilizing it, then continuing to destabilize the non-invaded parts of that country even further. If you say that they don't want an unstable neighbor, that only leaves the conclusion that they will want to take more out of that so that unstability is only a temporary thing leading to some goal. I think he's saying that Ukraine is unstable, so Russia would not want to conquer it. Is that why conquered unstable Crimea? Which they themselves btw made unstable. Is that why they are doing the same thing to eastern Ukraine now? Russia didn't conquered unstable Crimea I don't know what your news are saying but crimeans are happy that they had a chance to leave from Ukraine's occupation(sarcasm =) ask them And you think EuroMaidan is done by Russia who made Ukraine unstable? lol On April 09 2014 21:05 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:On April 09 2014 21:03 Simberto wrote:
Of course they are interested in Eastern Ukraine, it's land, and Putin needs Lebensraum for the russian people. Russian land: 6.602 million sq miles (17.1 million km²) I think they have enough bro. I think that (and following Nazi German ideologies) are the last things they're worrying about. I hope he is kidding Try reading this thread before responding in it. Your points have been adressed a 100 times already. Funny how they need to be restated every time a new russian comes here to proclaim the glory of mother russia. peace man. I hate all this situation at all. I live in Russia but I'm ethnic from Belarus and have friends and relatives in Ukraine... I know what's going on from many angles. It's just funny to see some opinions like Russia is evil and so on. But yeah Putin is an evil being, when he dies he will be remembered as the mad fascist and nationalist he was. And it's not rly Russia bashing but Putin and his supporters bashing. If I had to guess, his supporters are mostly white Slav Russians or Russian born expatriates, the ones that benefit from his regime or others like Al Assad supporters, Serb nationalists, some US-haters etc... They like to be victimized too: "You don't like Russia!", "You don't like Syria", "You don't like Serbia"... But no, only the dictators and the supporters of their crimes are hated by most of the world because they tend to forget that we are all human beings. According to media it all went like this: "Mr.Yanukovoch was a Pitin's agent and did his best to ruin Ukraine, but he was dethroned by the agents of Putin from Right Sector that wanted to ruin Ukraine. After that the power was taken by the agents of Putin from local oligarch and corrupted politicians who planned to ruin Ukraine. This caused a riot of agents of Putin in the East of Ukraine - with a definite purpose of ruining Ukraine. Yet Mme Timoshenko, an old agent of Putin, interfered with their plans in order to ruin Ukraine..."
You dream too much or perhaps you talk about medias like this http://rt.com/news/lavrov-interview-ukraine-russia-065/ "Russia isn't isolated!!!", yes Russia has many friends that are willing to help her.
I'm just saying when the time comes, after he dies he will tag along with Kim Jong Un as one of the most evil person to have lived in the 21th century, and one of the worst leaders of Russia who are sadly many. And for reasons already explained: no opposition, in power for more than 15 yrs and influencing votings, media control and propaganda, a corrupted state, an hyper centralised state, minorities without any representatives or power, cult of personality, annexing part of some countries, and other smaller problems like denying human rights and maintaining an oligarchy etc... The list is long and I hope he's prepared for the lowest level of hell he believes in.
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Russian Federation1953 Posts
On April 10 2014 01:09 Acertos wrote:
I'm just saying when the time comes, after he dies he will tag along with Kim Jong Un as one of the most evil person to have lived in the 21th century, and one of the worst leaders of Russia who are sadly many. And for reasons already explained: no opposition, in power for more than 15 yrs and influencing votings, media control and propaganda, a corrupted state, an hyper centralised state, minorities without any representatives or power, cult of personality, annexing part of some countries, and other smaller problems like denying human rights and maintaining an oligarchy etc... The list is long and I hope he's prepared for the lowest level of hell he believes in.
he will be considered a national hero, trust me
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On April 10 2014 01:13 PaleMan wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2014 01:09 Acertos wrote:
I'm just saying when the time comes, after he dies he will tag along with Kim Jong Un as one of the most evil person to have lived in the 21th century, and one of the worst leaders of Russia who are sadly many. And for reasons already explained: no opposition, in power for more than 15 yrs and influencing votings, media control and propaganda, a corrupted state, an hyper centralised state, minorities without any representatives or power, cult of personality, annexing part of some countries, and other smaller problems like denying human rights and maintaining an oligarchy etc... The list is long and I hope he's prepared for the lowest level of hell he believes in. he will be considered a national hero, trust me
Is Stalin considered a national hero in Russia too? Because if war would came to your doorstep Putin, unless he was desperate enough to fire nukes, would throw you all guys under enemy fire, just to keep his ass safe, just like comrade Joseph did back then. We all know how it ended, over 20 million of Russians dead, that is like a half of Ukraine, imagine that. This is what your leader thinks of you guys, a cannon fodder.
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On April 10 2014 01:13 PaleMan wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2014 01:09 Acertos wrote:
I'm just saying when the time comes, after he dies he will tag along with Kim Jong Un as one of the most evil person to have lived in the 21th century, and one of the worst leaders of Russia who are sadly many. And for reasons already explained: no opposition, in power for more than 15 yrs and influencing votings, media control and propaganda, a corrupted state, an hyper centralised state, minorities without any representatives or power, cult of personality, annexing part of some countries, and other smaller problems like denying human rights and maintaining an oligarchy etc... The list is long and I hope he's prepared for the lowest level of hell he believes in. he will be considered a national hero, trust me
The sad thing is you're probably right about this.
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As much of a villain as Stalin was, people do acknowledge he got shit done.
Nobody really mentions the Great Purge out loud in my experience, but I would compare Stalin's reputation to what Hitler would have been remembered as if the anti-Semitic policies never happened.
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On April 10 2014 01:36 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:
As much of a villain as Stalin was, people do acknowledge he got shit done.
Nobody really mentions the Great Purge out loud in my experience, but I would compare Stalin's reputation to what Hitler would have been remembered as if the anti-Semitic policies never happened.
Sure, he decapitated the army before WW2 and got taken completely by surprise by Hitler. Stalin's main 'talent' was his ruthlessness, otherwise he was below average.
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On April 10 2014 01:28 Roman666 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2014 01:13 PaleMan wrote:On April 10 2014 01:09 Acertos wrote:
I'm just saying when the time comes, after he dies he will tag along with Kim Jong Un as one of the most evil person to have lived in the 21th century, and one of the worst leaders of Russia who are sadly many. And for reasons already explained: no opposition, in power for more than 15 yrs and influencing votings, media control and propaganda, a corrupted state, an hyper centralised state, minorities without any representatives or power, cult of personality, annexing part of some countries, and other smaller problems like denying human rights and maintaining an oligarchy etc... The list is long and I hope he's prepared for the lowest level of hell he believes in. he will be considered a national hero, trust me Is Stalin considered a national hero in Russia too? Because if war would came to your doorstep Putin, unless he was desperate enough to fire nukes, would throw you all guys under enemy fire, just to keep his ass safe, just like comrade Joseph did back then. We all know how it ended, over 20 million of Russians dead, that is like a half of Ukraine, imagine that. This is what your leader thinks of you guys, a cannon fodder.
Of course he is, he was far enough away and the Russian education system has been completely politicized -- again -- that Stalin is a great leader who 'maybe' made 'some' mistakes but in the end conquered half of Europe. Its Stalin, Brezhnev, Putin that the Russina people love, thats the whole tragedy of it all.
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On April 09 2014 18:33 Geisterkarle wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2014 15:45 Sub40APM wrote:On April 09 2014 15:27 Geisterkarle wrote:I think if Russia or US is worse you can discuss all year! Personally I think, the main problem between those two is, that Russia was never seen a "normal" country. They were always the "evil" country. After the Soviet Union broke down, Russia was in terrible state. But all in all they were still a quite powerful country and when they got back up on their feet, they were not treated if they could do something to make up for all the Cold War time. The NATO expanded to the east, because Russia is still evil and dangerous. Just that you understand, what the NATO is: It's not a military alliance of countries that stand together if someone threatens them, it's a military alliance of countries that stand together if Russia threatens them! While I support the idea of getting together and share their powers to live free and in peace, if you exclude some countries, because they are automatically the enemy ... great work for peace, really ... As JudicatorHammurabi pointed out, there were many double standards with Russian actions in the world. I posted a CNN video paaaages back, and it still holds true: http://edition.cnn.com/video/standard.html?/video/bestoftv/2014/03/07/ac-stephen-cohen.cnnIf they "go" somewhere they expect "Yes? What do you want?" but they get "What? The evil Russians want something? Probably just something bad and only for their benefit and against us!" As I pointed out again and again in this thread, the most important part is that the Russians don't want the Ukraine in the NATO! And that's because of Crimea and their Black Sea fleet! But joining the NATO is basically the first thing, Ukraine wants to do! It's crazy: They fear Russia because Russia fears, that they will join the NATO, so they want to join the NATO! It's backwards crazy! No one is keeping Russia from applying to be a NATO member...except the Russian elites... Why should the Russians try to apply to the NATO? They are opposite sides! It's something like if a Manchester United fan would like to join a Manchester City ultra/hooligan group! You don't do that!
Why cant you do that?NATO is a defensive alliance.
Germany -- a country of war mongering mass murderers who warred against the next biggest countries in NATO between 2-3 times is in it. Poland -- despite having Germany literally trying to genocide them out of existance -- is also in it. Apparently its quite possible.
What is impossible is a state like Russia, with fantasy of being a 'different civilization' or a 'rival to America' with a one party leader who wants to rule forever join it.
. But that was because Ukraine wanted to be "block free" and join neither side! But that changed quite quickly after Euromaidan...
Uh no they didnt, Euromaidan was about the EU and being like Finland. Obviously being invaded by Russia who declares they have a race based foreign policy probably changed the minds of many. Also made many countries with Russian minorities who did join NATO feel pretty glad they did.
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On April 10 2014 00:17 Banaora wrote:I think you are refering to "Russia's foreign minister says Ukraine can't function as a "unified state" and should be a loose federation of regions that choose their own economic model, language and religion." in the article you linked. This is just one sentence saying nothing. And I didn't find anything detailing the Russian demands on Google. So I will tell you why this sentence says nothing: 1. What does economic model mean? Actually if there are slight differences between states on taxation it should not be a problem. In Germany and I think in the U.S. states are allowed to introduce their own taxes on specific things. 2. About language, well this is about the official language. This should not be a problem at all. I made the Belgium example in my previous post. Canada is another example with Frensh and English parts. 3. Now religion: I doubt he really said that because it does not make sense. As far as I know Muslims are only a minority everywhere in Ukraine and the rest is christian be it catholic or orthodox. As far as I know there is no detailed summary on Russian demands. That's why I asked.
Like you say he asks the regions to be almost independent states and that means something. It means that Russia wants to able to annex other regions and it also means that Russia doesn't to move from their retarded position of "we want to protect Russian speakers from fascists. For that reason Russians declaring independence in Ukraine have to be absolutely protected." From that we can conclude that force (real or economical) is the only way to stop Putin.
On April 10 2014 00:01 PaleMan wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2014 22:52 Acertos wrote:On April 09 2014 21:22 Dlash23 wrote:On April 09 2014 21:13 Gorsameth wrote:On April 09 2014 21:08 Dlash23 wrote:On April 09 2014 20:54 Gorsameth wrote:On April 09 2014 20:52 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:On April 09 2014 20:50 Simberto wrote:On April 09 2014 20:40 Dlash23 wrote:On April 09 2014 17:43 Fjodorov wrote:
[quote]
Putin is not done with Ukraine. If he cant get more parts of Ukraine he will make sure chaos rules. And I wish I could say it was unique for one country to annex a part of another country but sadly it isnt. What if I say you that Russia is the last country who benefit from this situation in Ukraine as it is now? Who needs an unstable neighbor? I hope you can think So are you saying that Russia will take additional chunks out of the Ukraine to change this situation with an unstable neighbor that they don't want, and that they themselves caused? And further that that is actually an ok thing to do? What we have here is Russia invading a neighboring country, destabilizing it, then continuing to destabilize the non-invaded parts of that country even further. If you say that they don't want an unstable neighbor, that only leaves the conclusion that they will want to take more out of that so that unstability is only a temporary thing leading to some goal. I think he's saying that Ukraine is unstable, so Russia would not want to conquer it. Is that why conquered unstable Crimea? Which they themselves btw made unstable. Is that why they are doing the same thing to eastern Ukraine now? Russia didn't conquered unstable Crimea I don't know what your news are saying but crimeans are happy that they had a chance to leave from Ukraine's occupation(sarcasm =) ask them And you think EuroMaidan is done by Russia who made Ukraine unstable? lol On April 09 2014 21:05 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:On April 09 2014 21:03 Simberto wrote:
Of course they are interested in Eastern Ukraine, it's land, and Putin needs Lebensraum for the russian people. Russian land: 6.602 million sq miles (17.1 million km²) I think they have enough bro. I think that (and following Nazi German ideologies) are the last things they're worrying about. I hope he is kidding Try reading this thread before responding in it. Your points have been adressed a 100 times already. Funny how they need to be restated every time a new russian comes here to proclaim the glory of mother russia. peace man. I hate all this situation at all. I live in Russia but I'm ethnic from Belarus and have friends and relatives in Ukraine... I know what's going on from many angles. It's just funny to see some opinions like Russia is evil and so on. But yeah Putin is an evil being, when he dies he will be remembered as the mad fascist and nationalist he was. And it's not rly Russia bashing but Putin and his supporters bashing. If I had to guess, his supporters are mostly white Slav Russians or Russian born expatriates, the ones that benefit from his regime or others like Al Assad supporters, Serb nationalists, some US-haters etc... They like to be victimized too: "You don't like Russia!", "You don't like Syria", "You don't like Serbia"... But no, only the dictators and the supporters of their crimes are hated by most of the world because they tend to forget that we are all human beings. According to media it all went like this: "Mr.Yanukovoch was a Pitin's agent and did his best to ruin Ukraine, but he was dethroned by the agents of Putin from Right Sector that wanted to ruin Ukraine. After that the power was taken by the agents of Putin from local oligarch and corrupted politicians who planned to ruin Ukraine. This caused a riot of agents of Putin in the East of Ukraine - with a definite purpose of ruining Ukraine. Yet Mme Timoshenko, an old agent of Putin, interfered with their plans in order to ruin Ukraine..."
You dream too much or perhaps you talk about medias like this http://rt.com/news/lavrov-interview-ukraine-russia-065/ "Russia isn't isolated!!!", yes Russia has many good friends that are willing to help her.
I'm just saying when the time comes, after he dies he will tag along with Kim Jong Un as one of the most evil person to have lived in the 21th century, and one of the worst leaders of Russia who are sadly many. And for reasons already explained: no opposition, in power for more than 15 yrs and influencing votings, media control and propaganda, a corrupted state, an hyper centralised state, minorities without any representatives or power, cult of personality, annexing part of some countries, and other smaller problems like denying human rights and maintaining an oligarchy etc... The list is long and I hope he's prepared for the lowest level of hell he believes in.
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There's a crucial difference between saying that USA took part in splitting Europe, and saying that USA were the heavyweight leader for a part of Europe. The first statement suggests that they forced the west to join their side, while the latter means that the west chose to join sides with them. The latter is true, and it makes a huge difference.
On April 09 2014 12:40 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:
I don't know what you mean by Sweden moving towards the US after the Soviet collapse. Are you implying Sweden was on great terms with USSR at some point? I don't know about that. But, the Soviet Union collapsed. What you're saying is very obvious. There was no Soviet Union to even have relations with at the end of the Cold War. All that remained were some countries that weren't even functional for most or the entirety of that decade. So there's no other direction to move to in a world where the options are US and USSR. But are you implying Sweden didn't have good relations with USA already? Seems pretty absurd.
Yes, I'm saying that Sweden didn't have good relations with USA, and many swedish political figures were friendly with the USSR, but mostly under the radar. Sweden was probably the most socialist and communist friendly country in the free world during the cold war. I don't know if this was because the swedish left received financing from the USSR or if it was just how it was. It doesn't really matter. Sweden was never officially close with the USSR, but a large portion of the swedish left, especially so the left voters, but also a lot of the left politicians looked up to the communist systems, and they were very critical to USA. Our government was openly against the Vietnam War and condemned USA for it, and that was not the norm back then.
When Gorbachev started to ventilate all their dirt, the swedish left realized that they had been wrong, and this resulted in an era of voters and politicians who generally were in support of USA and free market capitalism. The swedish socialist democrats, which was the largest party in Sweden during the cold war, and still is today, used to be staunch supporters of state ownership. They are not anymore, simply because our population lost faith in it in the 90's.
Have you ever heard of the Domino Theory and the US's containment policy? If there was at all any sort of threat of communist takeover in Sweden, because if they're was, the US would have taken some drastic action, like when they invaded various countries or heavily funded anti-communist groups in Turkey, Greece, etc.. Last I checked, Sweden was never communist. The Swedish Community Party never held any power worth mentioning (if any). There's no reason for you to bring it up as if to imply Sweden was some Communist state, because now you're just sounding silly. I'm almost compelled to say to you your opening sentence of your post, at this point...
The swedish communist party was involved in many coalition governments during the cold war, and they weren't really that different from the social democrats anyway, they were just a bit more radical.
Sweden was not communist, because we had most of the freedoms that all countries in the west had. I never claimed that we were.
The overall trend in non-ex-Communist Europe over the past some odd decades has been moving left, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to bring up. Bringing up Sweden is pretty irrelevant. Yet another flaw in your post.
Sweden is an exception to this. Since the late 80's early 90's, we have moved towards the right. Anyway, the west as a group moving towards the left (I agree with this analysis) doesn't mean that we've become more critical of USA. USA have moved more towards the left than any other country. And like I said, Sweden is more friendly towards USA today than it used to be during the cold war. The collapse of the USSR made Sweden more friendly towards USA. I don't know if it was like this in the rest of Europe, but my point was that if Sweden moved towards USA after the cold war, it has to mean that USA didn't have the power to dictate the swedish politics during the cold war, which contradicts your statement that USA took part in the division of Europe and made western europe into puppets to the US, just like Eastern Europe were puppets to the USSR. This is simply not true, and the modern political history of Sweden proves it. Sweden is irrelevant in the big scheme of things, but it's a great example that proves that western europe were independent.
1. West Slavs are not as similar to East Slavs as you make it out to be. I don't see how religion has any role to play in this either. You're implying a general ethnic group should all have the same religion, which is... absurd to say the least. And pre-unification some German kingdoms adopted Lutheranism while others kept with Catholicism. The German kingdoms were significantly closer culturally and linguistically (almost identical) than Czechs and Poles were to Russians way out in the east somewhere on the Volga. Culturally, and linguistically, there's significant differences.
I said that the polish and the czech were historically more connected to the west than they were to Russia. Religion has a huge role in it.
All of the countries who adopted Orthodox Christianity were in the sphere of influence of the Byzantines (Greek) and the Russians.
And likewise, all of the countries who adopted Catholic Christianity were in the sphere of influence of Rome, and later on the Frankish kingdoms (France and The Holy Roman Empire). Northern Italy was more or less the center of civilization from the roman age until the colonial age. They were the most advanced culturally and scientifically, and they had the best living standards. This meant that surrounding cultures gravitated towards them, and started emulating them. Tracking the spread of religion can tell you a lot about the spread of culture, because religion was a huge part of your culture throughout medieval history and beyond. When a culture adopted catholicism it meant that they looked up to this northern italian culture, which had created and was continually defining the concept of catholicism, and this happened either directly or indirectly. For us in Sweden it happened indirectly, as we were never really influenced directly by italian culture, but rather by northern german culture, which in turn was influenced by italian culture. This is also why we adopted protestantism (which originated in northern germany). The french and the italians didn't really find a reason to look up to the northern german culture, in fact they saw themselves as superior, and probably rightfully so, so they never really had a reason to abandon catholicism. Yeah, you might argue that a lot of ppl changed religion simply because they wanted to, but in the big scheme of things, that's not how it happens. Sweden didn't adopt Protestantism because over 50% of us had this feeling of enlightenment. We did it because the culture that we looked up to, the northern german culture, was protestantism friendly, and thus it became a natural thing to do for our population.
The western european culture is an extension of roman culture, and all countries who were catholic at some point share this heritage. You could make a decent case for Poland historically being less influenced by this culture than for instance Sweden, but the point still stands that Poland was for the most part throughout history influenced by the west. They always looked towards the west. You cannot say the same thing about Romania or Ukraine.
3. Romania is not Slavic at all! Their culture and language is overwhelmingly Romantic/Latin-based, and completely non-Slavic. And guess what? They're Orthodox! You know why? Orthodox missionaries and establishment and spread of Orthodoxy in Romania!! :D Despite the fact that every Romantic-language country pre-Protestant Reformation was Catholic. But not Romania lol. So as you can see, it has nothing to do with "cultural relations". Even more surprising, Albania is majority MUSLIM! Oh my, they aren't even Christian! They're neither Orthodox nor Catholic nor Protestant (which a decent chunk of Europe has been since the Protestant Reformation mind you)!
Romania may speak a latin language, but they are closer to Russia culturally than they are to Italy, just like Poland is closer to Italy culturally than they are to Russia. This was my whole point, that you can't divide cultures by language.
And Albania were Orthodox, back when Constantinople was Orthodox, but when the Ottoman Empire conquered Byzantium and most of the Balkans, Islam became the dominant religion in the region. All of Turkey used to be Orthodox, only it wasn't called Turkey back then. Albania first turning to Orthodox and later on to Islam just shows that the Constantinople/Istanbul region culture had significant influence in Albania.
HAHAHAHA!!! When? How? Since Kievan Rus' or earlier, I have yet to see a time or place where either of these two lands in their various forms in history were "greater or more advanced" than Russia's various iterations.
You say that these two societies have ALWAYS been greater and more advanced? That is a very strong qualifier, my friend! This is among the most ridiculous things I've ever read.
Having more manpower at your disposal doesn't make you greater.
If you don't know that the polish and czech societies have always been more culturally and scientifically advanced than the russian society, I suggest that you look up on polish and bohemian history. Many kings of Bohemia (modern czech republic) also became emperor for the Holy Roman Empire, which along with France was the center of civilization through the medieval times. Bohemia along with Austria were the two main pillars of the Holy Roman Empire. Prague was one of the cultural centers of Europe through most parts of medieval and classical Europe. It was up there with Vienna and Paris. And you're saying that Moscow or Novgorod, or Kiev, or some other russian city was their equal, or maybe even greater. That's a ridiculous statement. And let's not compare the two societies outside of the major cities. If you looked at the nations as a whole, then the czech and polish society was a lot more advanced and rich than the russian society. The czech society stagnated a bit during the colonial era, but it didn't stagnate enough for the russians to catch up with them. As for the polish, they became a part of the German Prussian Empire, which moved them ever further to the west. Both the polish and the czech belongs to the west, culturally, and it's always been like this since almost 2000 years ago. The only time that this was interrupted was during the 50 years when they forcefully were under russian influence, but directly after the collapse they went back to the west. What's special about today is that even countries in the russian sphere of influence wants to move towards the west. Countries like Romania and Ukraine, but that's what happens when information spreads as fast as it does today. Instead of gravitating towards the regional cultural leaders, we're now gravitating towards the global cultural leaders.
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On April 10 2014 02:13 Sub40APM wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2014 18:33 Geisterkarle wrote:On April 09 2014 15:45 Sub40APM wrote:On April 09 2014 15:27 Geisterkarle wrote:I think if Russia or US is worse you can discuss all year! Personally I think, the main problem between those two is, that Russia was never seen a "normal" country. They were always the "evil" country. After the Soviet Union broke down, Russia was in terrible state. But all in all they were still a quite powerful country and when they got back up on their feet, they were not treated if they could do something to make up for all the Cold War time. The NATO expanded to the east, because Russia is still evil and dangerous. Just that you understand, what the NATO is: It's not a military alliance of countries that stand together if someone threatens them, it's a military alliance of countries that stand together if Russia threatens them! While I support the idea of getting together and share their powers to live free and in peace, if you exclude some countries, because they are automatically the enemy ... great work for peace, really ... As JudicatorHammurabi pointed out, there were many double standards with Russian actions in the world. I posted a CNN video paaaages back, and it still holds true: http://edition.cnn.com/video/standard.html?/video/bestoftv/2014/03/07/ac-stephen-cohen.cnnIf they "go" somewhere they expect "Yes? What do you want?" but they get "What? The evil Russians want something? Probably just something bad and only for their benefit and against us!" As I pointed out again and again in this thread, the most important part is that the Russians don't want the Ukraine in the NATO! And that's because of Crimea and their Black Sea fleet! But joining the NATO is basically the first thing, Ukraine wants to do! It's crazy: They fear Russia because Russia fears, that they will join the NATO, so they want to join the NATO! It's backwards crazy! No one is keeping Russia from applying to be a NATO member...except the Russian elites... Why should the Russians try to apply to the NATO? They are opposite sides! It's something like if a Manchester United fan would like to join a Manchester City ultra/hooligan group! You don't do that! Why cant you do that?NATO is a defensive alliance.
He's making an important point and probably doesn't even notice it. For the better part of the last century Russia has been good at essentially three things. 1. Selling oil&gas, 2. selling weapons, 3. antagonizing the west. The last part has become such a major part of Russia's identity that from a Russian point of view, they have made it their mission to defend their glorious empire against the evil Western imperialists, when in fact, no such enemy really exists.
The hooligan comparison isn't really far off. Hooligans typically suck at most things but being hooligans, so instead of trying to build an identity through economic or intellectual success they start clubbing other peoples heads in. Russia is doing the exact same thing, especially since Putin is in power.
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The trend in Europe since the dissolution of the USSR has been to the left... in what country? It's not true for every country but in most of Europe from 1991-2014 the trend has been rightward. Scandinavian countries had significant reforms in the middle 1990s away from the at-all-costs welfare state, New Labour was supposed to be Thatcherism without the alleged meanness, austerity swept the continent after 2008, much of the German left has basically been co-opted and then neutered by Merkel, the French left thought things were looking up and then their politicians' own incompetence screwed that pooch, the Socialists and center-right have been trading power in Spain for a while now, right-wing populism is nearly as popular or more popular than left-wing populism in countries like Italy and Greece...
The trend in Europe has been rightward, if only in the sense that it went from being moderately center-left in general to lurching sharply rightward (for Europe) and ending up pretty much dead in the center (for Europe) as things stand now.
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its not really a holygrail....more like gas will now become cheaper Northern Asia, forcing LNG producers who have been shipping it up to China to re-direct it to Europe. Fungible goods like energy cant really be controlled in the way that zerohedge implies they will be controlled.
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Considering China isn't supporting Russia in there actions I would say this is an giant exaggeration.
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@DeepElemBlues:
Economically speaking, yes, you could say that. Culturally/socially I'm not sure I agree. It's true that some far right populist parties have gained some momentum, but at the same time a majority of conservative mainstream parties have shifted away from traditionalist views. It's not like the European countries in general have shifted towards the right, it's more like that the established parties have gone towards the center which has made some room for dubious right-wing extremists to appear on the political spectrum.
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EPT
