But posting will resume soon. I have a number of topics I wish to write on. In the meantime, feel free to use this as an open thread.
But posting will resume soon. I have a number of topics I wish to write on. In the meantime, feel free to use this as an open thread.
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StewartM
Get well soon Ian!
Notorious P.A.T.
I wish you good health.
nihil obstet
Here’s to a fast and thorough recovery.
Peter
Is anyone interested in discussing the stagecraft produced by GI Mueller yesterday. How was he able to present the Manafort inditements as part of his mandate when they have nothing to do with his Trump/Putin collusion mandate? There is nothing in the inditements about Trump, his team, the election or Russsia and the alleged crimes were from before his employment and firing by Trump.
Sneaky Mueller kept the Papadoc guilty plea hidden like a cherry in his pocket to place it on top of this nutritionless inditement cake to make the whole mess appear relevant. Even the fake news media is being careful to report the fact that Papadoc’s only crime was to lie to the FBI. Talking to Russians and looking for mud to slng at political opponents are not crimes. When Papadoc did, on his own initiative, talk with these people and then recommended higher level meetings, that could have been viewed as collusion, he was shot down by Manafort and Gates.
EmilianoZ
I would like to take this opportunity to talk about the 1917 Russian Revolution. As you know this year marks the centenary of that remarkable event that irremediably changed the face of the earth. The centenary would seem like a good time to make a new cool-headed appraisal of that revolution or, as the French say, “faire le bilan”. Alas, since the mainstream media have chosen to ignore that fateful anniversary, it befalls us, simple readers of the blogosphere, to undertake, in our of course modest capacity, that thankless task.
Let us say it right away. The negatives are huge, immense, mind-numbing. But I will not talk about the negatives here, since, living in western countries, we have heard about the negatives pretty much since we were born. If you want the negatives, just open any history book printed in the west or read the NYT: Stalin, blah blah. No, my friends, what I would like to do here, is to modestly outline the positives, of which we hear so little in the West. In the following, I will argue that the positives, and they were huge too, mostly benefitted people outside the Soviet Union. Without any pretension to exhaustivity I will classify the positives into 3 main categories.
1) Fast modernization of Russia. Before the 1917 Revolution, Russia was a retarded mostly unindustrialized backwater at the edge of Europe. Fast forward a few decades and the Soviet Union is an industrial powerhouse, one that even out-produces Germany in terms of tanks and other armaments. It is thanks to that extraordinary productive capacity and the ultimate sacrifice of 30 million people that the Soviet Union crushed Germany during WW2. The Wehrmacht suffered 80 to 90% of its casualties on the eastern front.
2) Postwar social advances in the West. After the war, the working and middle classes saw unprecedented gains in their living conditions. That was the time when universal health systems were built all over western Europe. I submit that it would not have happened without the threat of communism in the east. The prestige of the Soviet Union was at its highest just after the war. The communists won the first election held in France after the war. And, sure enough, as soon as communism fell, the welfare was state was dismantled in the west and triumphant neoliberalism imposed TINA upon us.
3) Last but not least, I would submit that the greatest of all Soviet achievements was the decolonization of the 3rd world. Wherever where was a fight for independence, the Soviets were there to help. Ask yourself where the Algerian national liberation front got its guns from in its fight against France. Communist revolutions were also often national anti-colonial revolutions like in Vietnam, Cuba or even China. Therefore, the Soviet Union helped liberate billions of people in the 3rd world from western colonialism.
Therefore, for all those reasons, I conclude that for the real friends of humanity, the friends of the oppressed, the 1917 Russian Revolution can only have a very special place in their hearts.
cheburator
Emiliano,
I agree with your points about the Russian revolution and its impact on the world. But not only that. There is much more. What about women’s rights? Women were emancipated and on equal footing with men in education, industry, and even management. This had a particularly profound impact in Central Asian regions of the USSR and even Afghanistan, but even in more culturally westernized places like the DDR the participation of women in the economy and social and political life were supported to a degree that even today’s Germany is not even close to. This was possible by amazing social policies that sound unbelievable today to the Western middle class – like quality free child care and free healthcare, 3-year maternity leave, interest free loans collateralized with a guaranteed job, massive scale housing that makes up even today probably 50% of city housing in Russia and Eastern Europe. Full employment. Extremely low crime, the likes of which would be impossible to imagine anywhere today. No drugs. The Soviet camp countries were sending thousands of doctors, engineers and architects to the developing countries and educated for FREE thousands of them, sending them back to serve their countries.
The Soviet bloc countries, particularly in Europe, were very equal. It was rare for anyone to have 2 or 3 apartments – up to the very top of the hierarchy. If I remember right, when Honecker of the DDR was prosecuted after 1990, his assets were an modest apartment and a state pension. Same for others similarly positioned that were prosecuted in the 1990ies in other former Soviet bloc countries.
I grew up behind the Iron Curtain and remember well. The last two decades of the Soviet bloc that I remember were far less oppressive and the beginnings of a reasonably affluent civic society, yearning for democracy, were evident. This all came to a crashing collapse in the 90-ies… For a glimpse of how that came about, see for example this from Michael Hudson:
http://michael-hudson.com/2012/11/how-neoliberal-tax-and-financial-policy-impoverishes-russia-needlessly/
That is the legacy that has been thrown in the trash.
Bruce
Me, too…. 😉
marku52
Notice how the gloves came off for capitalism once communism had been vanquished as an alternative. Pretty much every thing went to sh&t for the average person at that point.
Willy
What ever happened to competent moderation, which targets corrupt concentrations of power?
V. Arnold
EmilianoZ
October 31, 2017
Nice; a fair summary; and there is so much more.
Below is a link to the Russian Revolution of 1917; imaginatively presented by RT.
https://1917.rt.com/#!/en
Willy
Long after Manafort had proven himself a shady character who lobbies for shady characters, Trump hired him anyways to manage his presidential campaign. And Papadopeoulus too. Maybe did so because that’s what outsider street cred looks like to Trump. I’d throw the Mooch in there too but he’s long gone. Mueller was hired by the Trump-slamming Dubya, and may have watched one too many videos of Ray Rice punching that girl in the elevator. Hmm. Somewhere in all that is a sinister Red Queen connection. Where’s RC?
Ché Pasa
Re: 1917
Da. Even Tovarich Vladimir Devil-With-Horns has fostered “balanced” discussion of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet Union by the citizens of the Russian Federation. He knows, like most of those in the west don’t, that many Russians, and many of those who live in the former Republics of the Soviet Union and the extended Soviet Empire yearn for the days of pre-1990. It may not have been the best of times, but what followed the collapse of the Soviet Union was close to the worst for too many, and not just in the Soviet sphere.
The Russian Revolution and subsequent Soviet Union showed something Our Rulers cannot abide and were terrified of Back Then — as they still are today. The People are actually capable of overthrowing them and fighting for the right to establish and operate their own viable alternative to the exploitation and misery imposed by the capitalist overclass.
That they did it and sustained it for as long as they did despite constant threats of subversion and annihilation from the West and the savage destruction of WWII is a testament to the the strength, resilience, and determination of the People.
That it collapsed so suddenly showed the underlying fragility of the Soviet system — and we can discuss the reasons why till doomsday. I have my theories; I’m sure everyone has their own.
The counterpoint is that the West and its so-called capitalist neoliberal systems are at least as fragile. It’s not at all clear what will be the feather to cause its collapse. But the time is growing nigh.
V. Arnold
Ché Pasa
November 1, 2017
Indeed.
highrpm
the people. an invention of the mind. reality is the ladder of personality types. alphas at the top and omegas at the bottom. independent of the whatever collective is the ruler du jour. i’ll accept biological nature has evolved another step when HUD is building public housing high-rises in the hollywood hills.
F.S
How does one overcome guilt and seek to make amends?
Bill H
Interesting discussion. The Russian Revolution is presented here along the line of, “no man is ever a total loss; he can, at worst, usefully be used as a bad example.” Manafort et al were bad people, so why did Trump hire them? Probably for the same reason that Obama hired all those people from Wall Street.
The only thing that made much sense to me is the question about the Mueller investigation uncovering crap that predates his mandate by a dozen years or so. That person, however, apparently wasn’t around during the time of a special investigator looking into why Bill Clinton was chasing neighborhood cats when he was ten years old.
Willy
My random comment was a sad attempt at humor pointed at Peter’s sad attempt at discussion. My apologies. They always eventually involve red queens and snowflakes and the fake media… apparently these are some of his favorite things (cue Julie).
Integrity, wise morality, social intelligence, unification, cohesion of informed opinion, greatest generation stuff… I’m trying to get at the exact word or phrase so early in the morning… is what corrupt power players hate when the masses have it. It’s like kryptonite. Or water on witches…
They love chaos, confusion, division, desperation, the stress induced cognitive closure folly stuff that Arie Kruglanski talks about… It’s where we’re at now. They say “Yes you’re job is going away. But hooo!, look over there! A terrorist attack!”
I just want the problems the people cannot solve for themselves, to be solved in a timely manner.
Peter
@Bill
I think the special counsel law/rules was rewritten by congress to try to avoid the witch-hunt wandering you remember from Slick Willie’s time. Because Mueller has nothing about Trump/Putin collusion to feed to those people with TDS he needed to at least appear to be doing something to drag this farce on into the next election cycle. His snowflake, media and deep state friends are rewriting, stretching and spinning the facts about the Papadoc plea to fit their inquisition narrative. Effective stagecraft and guilt by association are enough to keep the snowflakes tending the witch-burning fires you see reflected in their eyes.
nihil obstet
So, the Russian Revolution and the Russia-gate indictments in the same thread. Yes, because they’re related. When capitalism’s mask slips, a good red scare is the first prescription for a rejuvenated beauty treatment.
Otherwise, I find these investigations bizarre. We routinely honor ex-presidents who conspired with foreign entities for electoral advantage, from undermining the peace process with the North Vietnamese through secret overtures to the Iranians to continue holding the hostages and then Iran-contra. And those are actual treason, not just running some ads or “fake news” campaigns. We make it law that you can’t limit campaign contributions, refuse any requirements on communications firms that would allow cheap campaigning, and set up legal means for massive amounts of dark money to flow into campaigns. And we celebrate our aid to other countries’ elections so that they make the right choice by electing pro-American governments. Then our experts are surprised when we receive similar aid from other countries in our elections? And call it criminal?
I think it will take some really strange interpretations to get Trump on election law, but it should be really easy to get him on financial fraud. It’s looking like some powerful interests have decided he has to go or be tamed, so we may get an actual indictment for fraud, as they decide to remove the legal immunity that they have granted themselves for the past twenty to twenty-five years.
Meanwhile, OMG the Commies are back to destroy our country!!!!
BlizzardOfOz
Peter, it should be clear by now that the special investigation has nothing to do with “Russian meddling” or even with investigating any lawbreaking. It’s purely a power struggle. Muller just needs to find any pretext so that the left media and the leftist votaries can play make believe, and the anti-Trump faction will have cover for a coup (they think).
The problem we have is that the left seems to be in some kind of crypto-religious fervor. It might be just sound and fury, but it reminds me a bit of what I’ve read about the English civil war or the early days of Christianity in the Roman Empire. When a political faction is animated by a holy war, then any outrage becomes justified.
BlizzardOfOz
@Bill H, Trump hired Manafort because he was the only person who could / would help with a contested convention. You may remember that the GOP were plotting some convention shenanigans where they would deny Trump the nomination even if he had the required number of delegates.
Willy
I thought Mueller was still a Republican. My, the left is so crafty these days. But if he’s somehow on the neoliberal establishment dole, that’s another story.
Ten Bears
Smokin’ the good stuff ’round here, aeh. What is that, Siberian Thunderfuck? Heyzeus Herbert Hoover Keyricest on peanut butter toast, the thoroughy documented problem we have is that the right, the reich, are crypto-religious jihadists whose only connection to the early days of Christianity in the Roman Empire is their media induced simple minded self-perception of martyrdom.
Anyone else notice how dramatically Peter’s writing skills have improved ore the past couple of weeks?
BlizzardOfOz
Willy, he’s a swamp creature. I wouldn’t say he’s either left or right. But the swamp and the left are in an alliance to take down Trump: neither could hope to achieve it without the other’s support.
Bill H
The response when I poke a little fun here is so much more delightful than at Democratic Underground. They have no sense of humor whatever over there, but here we seem not to take ourselves anywhere near so seriously.
When I said, however, that this is an interesting discussion, I was entirely serious. It is always interesting here. Has to do, I think with open minds.
@Peter
I’m astounded that there are actually rules for the special investigator. The anti-trump forces seem to be unaware of any such thing. Actually, it seems that Mueller is unaware if it as well.
Peter
@Blizz
It’s been entertaining and refreshing to watch as the power elite try desperately to stop Trump from further reducing or even eliminating their hold on power. The globalists, CAGW worshippers and the open borders extremists have been effectively countered and they are furious.
There was a telling op-ed from AP yesterday that tried to sell the fantasy that the Mueller show was enough to shut Trump up and force him to submit to the snowflake definintions and authority from their altered reality. Apparently they are feeling bruised and victimized by Trump’s freedom to tell Americans the truth.
The centenary of the Bolsheviki revolution along with Halloween has brought out the commie zombies and commie zombie sympathizers hunting for fresh, if empty. minds to devour and join the collective.
NR
\”the open borders extremists have been effectively countered and they are furious.\”
Say, how\’s that wall coming along?
Willy
Trump does tell the truth, but he lies an awful lot too. So much so that it cancels out the other. He might want to work on that. I’m interested in the investigations because the boss and his goombahs usually have muscle that throw themselves under the bus. They don’t usually themselves do the dirtywork.
Bill H
Given that the Democratic claim that Russians corrupted the election to a degree that Trump’s position in office is invalid, and the long-held liberal position the Citizens United has corrupted our elections beyond redemption, how do Democrats win an election next year and claim that their victory is valid?
wendy davis
to F.S. ‘How does one overcome guilt and seek to make amends?’
oh, my, what a weighty question. i assume you’re talking about your own guilt? if so, sociologists indicate that birth order in a family can explain some reasons for too strong a guilty conscience, as one child is appointed to carry a family’s collective emotional life. (even one’s grandparents can contribute, and rather mightily in my case, given that we seem to be hard-wired to expect unconditional love from grandparents). that child is usually guilt-tripped for acting out the hidden dramas, as was so in my own case.
i took some time recently to try to make amends with people in my past that i’d wronged to ease some of my ‘blue-meanies 3:00 a.am. guilt/angst (h/t: the beatles), and took extra care to not bring up how they’d wronged me. it worked to a certain extent, but sometimes is use a free and simpler sort of EMDR that also uses tapping acupuncture points along with the eye movements and cross-hemispheric brain communication. i learned it decades ago, and used it with my clients, and my guess is that the protocols may have changed a lot since those days.
ha! i just discovered that there’s a wiki entry for EFT, and ooof, do they hit it hard as ‘rubbish’. well, no matter, it doesn’t cost a thing on line, and you can give it a try and see if you find it helpful. best to you in your search, amigo.
https://www.emofree.com/
wendy davis
i haven’t kept up with the mueller investigations on the whole, although i did try to retain a bloomberg cheat sheet that assange (or wikileaks) had tweeted. but i’ve seen these facebook, twitter ads hysterically talked about on librul (read: clintonista) websites and was freaking amazed. i’d also rather lazily clicked into a “LIVE” broadcast of the hearings, and had seen freakin’ frankin pounding the desk (though noot with his shoe, thankfully) demanding to know from the facebook freak attorney why the fuck they couldn’t discern that they were rooosians offering to pay in Rubles!’
but here’s where it’s seriously going beyond tax fraud and whatnot:
‘US congressional hearings on “extremist content” prepare assault on free speech’, wsws.org, 31 October 2017
“Over the past three months, the top Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence committees, Mark Warner and Adam Schiff, in conjunction with the US intelligence agencies and the media, have concocted an absurd narrative that some $100,000 in Russian social media advertisements, mostly placed after November, helped swing the election in favor of Donald Trump.
Having forced the technology companies to compile lists of “Russia-linked” accounts, the lawmakers will now turn their focus on their real target: What they call “organic content,” or, to put it more plainly, political speech on the Internet.” [snip]
“In prepared testimony obtained by news outlets Monday evening, Facebook expanded its list of “Russia-linked” online activity to include such “organic content,” declaring that tens of thousands of “inflammatory” posts by “fake” accounts connected to Russia reached 126 million US Facebook users.”
“In another extraordinary development, on Friday, Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Twitter’s CEO demanding that the company hand over personally identifying information related to “organic content” posted by Twitter users. The letter specifically requests all “organic content posted by Russia-connected users and targeted to any part of the United States, regardless of whether the individual or entity violated any Twitter policy.” Its definition of “Russia-connected users” is extremely broad, including any “person or entity that may be connected in some way to Russia.”
The letter demands that for all “organic content described above, Twitter provide all subscriber information,” and “IP address information.” This means that the company is being asked to hand over full names, phone numbers, email addresses and IP addresses, which can be used to determine physical location.
Equally troubling is the fact that the letter requests “All content of each [private] Direct Message” between an undisclosed list of attached Twitter accounts and accounts belonging to WikiLeaks, Julian Assange and the civil rights attorney Margaret Ratner Kunstler. Kunstler, according to her official biography, has represented “WikiLeaks and Bradley [Chelsea] Manning supporters in connection with grand jury subpoenas, encounters with the FBI…and governmental suppression.”
IOW, DiFi’s HUAC. me, i feel the worst for assange; emptywheel and her commentariat are (ahem)…not fans. i.am.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/10/31/pers-o31.html
Peter
@NR
The wall prototypes are being built already but the effects of the new rhetoric and policy are already measurable. The number of people trying to cross illegally is down dramatically along with some illegals returning home voluntarily. The cost for being smuggled across the border has risen so these policies are producing good results.
The wall is a symbolic statement that our southern frontier is closed and will be regulated. The wall funding is being blocked by republican swamp creatures who Bannon et al are planning to send to the shoe factories after the next election.
Hugh
The Russian Revolution undercut the central premise of Marx that proletarian revolutions would begin in industrial countries, that is a development of capital and capitalism which only they could give was necessary to produce the requisite conditions for revolutions.
When the USSR was coming apart, the US had the rare opportunity to ease the transition of the successor states, principally Russia, from command economies to mixed ones and to bring Russia into Europe and the Western fold. Instead US leaders, I think GWH Bush was President at the time, embarked on a strategy to so weaken Russia that it would never again be capable of challenging the US or its allies or of being a significant player on the world stage. The result was Putinism. How did that work out for all you Cold Warriors and neocons?
What never gets mentioned is that the country which most interferes in US national elections is Israel. This is not to say that Putin didn’t meddle too. And there is also clearly a really strange dynamic going on between Trump and anything Russian.
Papadopoulus was both an foreign policy advisor in the Trump campaign and had connections to the Russians. He pled guilty to lying to the FBI about those connections. Manafort is a sleaze and a crook. He had lots of Russian/Kremlin connections from his time in anything-goes Ukraine. His multiple passports and foreign bank accounts are major red flags. And of course he did not report those accounts as required under US tax laws. Among these, the ones running through Cyprus are really big tells because Russian oligarchs use Cyprus which uses English banking law for transactions they can’t trust the Russian banking system with. The Trump sons have said that most of their and their father’s money came from Russia. So it is hardly surprising that Trump had people with their own Russia connections around him, like Manafort and Flynn. Nor that people in the Trump campaign continued to work their Russian connections during the eleciton. Nor that people in the Trump businesses sought to draft off the Trump campaign to further Trump’s Russian business ventures –the Moscow Trump Tower effort. The entire top tiers of Trump’s campaign were shot through with dubious Russian dealings from the Veselnitskaya meeting and the multiple revised versions of it from Don Junior to Sessions multiple revisions of his list of meetings with Russians to Kushner’s multiple, multiple revisions of his list of meetings with Russians and other foreigners. There is a very large and troubling picture here and Mueller’s recent indictments are just the first salvos in what promises to be a very long series.
There are a lot of crimes circling out there to be investigated: conspiracy, obstruction of justice, money laundering, failure to register as a foreign agent, receiving and/or seeking aid from a foreign government in a US election, lying to the FBI, perjury, and tax evasion. And lots of targets, from almost everyone in the Trump family to almost everyone in the campaign. My advice is to go long popcorn futures and short Trump re-election posters.
Willy
I wouldn’t advise the Dems try the Russians again, as fewer people would be fooled. I’d say Chinese, but Indians are a lot better at English. Of course my man Alex Jones, has said it won’t even get that far. Mueller will depose Trump and end the republic to become our first emperor.
NR
“The wall funding is being blocked by republican swamp creatures”
Wait, I thought Mexico was supposed to pay for the wall?
Peter
@NR
I thought that was just a rhetorical challenge by Trump to put the Mexicans on notice that they couldn’t freely use the US as a dumping grounds for their excess population.
Trump didn’t say how the Mexicans would pay that bill but the recent NAFTA renogiations have the US demanding changes that will cost Mexico some dinero and they haven’t made much noise about the changes unlike how they reacted to Trump’s public demand.
NR
“I thought that was just a rhetorical challenge by Trump to put the Mexicans on notice that they couldn’t freely use the US as a dumping grounds for their excess population.”
Oh, okay, it was just a rhetorical challenge. Right. It’s not like he said specifically, over and over, during the campaign that Mexico was going to pay for the wall or anything.
Hey, are there any other promises Trump made that we should disregard because they were just “rhetorical challenges?” It wouldn’t happen to be “all of them,” would it?
realitychecker
Hillary supporters, this is a day to be looking to your own skirts lololol.
Peter
@NR
I know it’s painful for snowflakes to watch as Trump keeps his campaign promises or doesn’t discard them if they are difficult to acomplish. It must also be painful watching his illegal alien policy producing results even with the social justice warriors and their criminal alien protecting sanctuary cities joining the resistance. He’s even willing to bargan with the Clintonites and offer legal status for the Dreamers if they support paying for the wall.
The reconquest of the US by Mexicans isn’t going to happen now and the Clintonites won’t be able to expand their party numbers with illegal voting immigrants so the snowflakes have bigger issues to worry about than when or how the wall is built.
NR
“I know it’s painful for snowflakes to watch as Trump keeps his campaign promises or doesn’t discard them if they are difficult to acomplish.”
Oh, I know. Just look at that big, beautiful wall on our southern border that Mexico paid for. Trump is so amazing at keeping his promises!
different clue
Ian Welsh,
A couple years ago, I was discovered to be running a vitamin D deficiency while being checked for something else. So I was prescribed to take some vitamin D each day. Starting a few months after beginning that, I have noticed that I fewer colds than before and they last less long, usually.
different clue
I know we have at least one Jonestown Clintist reading these threads. So here is a link to an article about very recent events from over at Sic Semper Tyrannis.
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/11/trump-was-right-the-election-was-rigged.html#comment-6a00d8341c72e153ef01b8d2bac604970c
Maybe the Good Ship Clinton is going down. Maybe all the Jonestown Clintists will go down with it. Maybe even the Obozos will go down with it too.
different clue
Oooh! Oooh!
Here’s another tasty morsel for any Jonestown Clintists we have among the readers here. It is from Naked Capitalism. It is an interview with Tulsi Gabbard about recent book-preview revelations from Donna Brazile about what Clinton did to Sanders and the Democratic Party.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/11/rep-tulsi-gabbard-donna-braziles-dnc-bombshell.html
And here is a telling little bit from the comments thread.
“David
November 3, 2017 at 6:52 am
She says that of $82 million that was raised in state fundraisers, less than half of 1%, half of 1% got to go to the state parties, and said the rest went back to Brooklyn for the Clinton campaign.
Note that among the state parties that signed up to the Hillary Victory Fund,
Florida – Trump +1%
Michigan – Trump +0.3%
Pennsylvania – Trump +0.7%
Wisconsin – Trump +0.7%
and Puerto Rico
Reply ↓
Emorej a Hong Kong
November 3, 2017 at 7:39 am
Great dot-connecting. Incredible irony that HRC’s diversion of funds from swing states to her high-spending campaign was one of the proximate causes of her losing the electoral college.
Reply ↓
fresno dan
November 3, 2017 at 8:04 am
David
November 3, 2017 at 6:52 am
excellent insight!
Reply ↓”
Oh the irony . . . . . .
realitychecker
At times like this, one cannot have too much popcorn. 🙂
Peter
‘Crooked Hillary’ told us everything we needed to know about the Red Queen and these displays of back-stabbing just show how liberals roll. These operatives remain Clintonites even as they try to put distance between themselves and their former leader.
Even though the Clintonite royal barge has run aground these opportunists will turn to political cannabalism to take control of the snowflakes in the galley.
different clue
@Hugh,
I am not up on the recent history, but I had thought that Reagan and then GHWB had given and repeated a gentleman’s agreement type of promise to Gorbachev not to expand NATO east of its then current borders and not to recruit any former Warsaw Pact countries into NATO. The promise had no force of law or treaty, of course; but I thought that Reagan and Bush meant it emotionally at the time.
I thought it was Clinton who pushed the expansion of NATO and who sent in the “Harvard Gang” bunchload of economists and other advisers to help privatise and lootify every valuable thing in Russia under the easy-to-control Yeltsin. Am I wrong about that?
Peter
@DC
If what you say is true about Clinton pushing the expansion of NATO then Reagan and Bush kept their personal guarantees about not expanding NATO. They had no power to project their promises onto a future president and the Russians surely knew this.
I think the Harvard Gang went to Russia to help with the transition to a market economy with basic rule of law and other acceptable performance standards. The Russians did the corrupt privatizing and looting on their own and many western investors were burned by these kleptos. The Harvard gang may have earned fees for their expertise but their guidance was ignored and Russian oligarchs still dominate the Russian economy.
different clue
@Peter,
Yes, Reagan and Elder Bush kept and honored the promise they made. It was entirely the Klinton Administration which betrayed that promise and drove NATO east.
Yes, the Russian’s own kleptos began their privatization looting spree on their own. These looters were all “A Team” Communists. Or “former” Communists, I suppose. Khodorkhovsky, for example , was head of the Komsomol which I understand as being the USSR’s sort of political boy scout young pioneer organization.
This privatization played a part in spreading so much poverty so hard and so fast that the Communist Party under its “B Team” legacy communist Gennady Zhyuganov showed every sign of winning that election. The Klinton Administration and its pet mascot “reformers” in Russia such as Yegor Gaidar worked some kind of mass-issuance-of-shares plan in order to sell off all shares of remaining public assets for pennies on the benjamin to make it impossible for the Zhyuganov Communists to preserve any assets at all even if they got elected. I believe the Klintonites also gave the Yeltsin campaign all kinds of campaign assistance.
If I remember correctly, I consider it entirely correct to consider Klinton and the Harvard Gang to be in support of the corrupt kleptos, given the extent they went to to preserve the kleptos’ retention of their klepted assets and klepting of the rest of the assets.
Someone who knows about “the mood of Russia” can tell us whether the name of Klinton is as universally and totally hated throughout the whole breadth of Russia as I think it is.