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skeletors_condom posted:Bingo! OK, now it all makes sense. Invading and killing people is OK cuz "reasons." My bad for attempting a good faith discussion. the problem with your argument is that it's insanely racist. you're pathologizing the actions of the russian state unto the russian people while simultaneously stripping those actions from the context they were taken in. all of the foreign interventions you've mentioned took place in the context of complicated international situations that you've completely failed to mention because either A) you're intentionally obfuscating the actions of other nations in order to make russia look more active, and thus more aggressive, or B) you actually don't know anything about these situations because you're a blithering idiot. let's look at the 50k killed in Chechnya, a war where the russian army acted pretty much without restraint. that war was started by the yeltsen administration, and yeltsin never won a fair election and never held the approval of the russian people. he was propped up by the USA in order to liberalize russian society and create an oligarch class. how does any of that reflect or show the 'chauvinistic' nature of the russian character? also, 50k is literally less than half of the people killed by the Torys in the UK through austerity, and they were actually put into power through a nominally democratic society! now i could use that fact to argue that the british are naturally perfidious and cruel to those less-fortunate than them... but i won't because although that'd be fun, it's a moronic argument. the actual problem is the plutocratic elite that wield massive influence over the british political system who have no problem culling lower-class people. that's a problem that can be solved with a few well executed guillotine chops, not race war.
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Oct 2, 2019 21:19
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skeletors_condom posted:Bingo! OK, now it all makes sense. Invading and killing people is OK cuz "reasons." My bad for attempting a good faith discussion. History and geopolitics is better explanation then Russians on an individual level being uniquely bad or more chauvinistic. Btw the US has easily eclipsed the Russian Federation during the same era. (How many Americans would save the US “should preserve itself as a great power”?) Ardennes has issued a correction as of 22:08 on Oct 2, 2019 |
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Oct 2, 2019 22:06
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actually russia is leftist and putin is doing 4d chess in order to remake the soviet union, which first involves them getting back ukraine, which is NOT a real state and was created by the west in order to punish russia
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Oct 2, 2019 22:11
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Scrree posted:the problem with your argument is that it's insanely racist. you're pathologizing the actions of the russian state unto the russian people while simultaneously stripping those actions from the context they were taken in. all of the foreign interventions you've mentioned took place in the context of complicated international situations that you've completely failed to mention because either A) you're intentionally obfuscating the actions of other nations in order to make russia look more active, and thus more aggressive, or B) you actually don't know anything about these situations because you're a blithering idiot. What am I obfuscating regarding Russian invasions in Georgia/Russia/Moldova? What did any of those countries do to Russia? Let's take Ukraine as an example. How has Russian intervention in Lugansk/Donetsk helped the local Russian-speaking population (the casus belli for the invasion in eastern Ukraine)? Has it improved economic opportunity? Has it reduced corruption? Has it improved the quality of infrastructure? What context am I missing here? Scrree posted:let's look at the 50k killed in Chechnya, a war where the russian army acted pretty much without restraint. that war was started by the yeltsen administration, and yeltsin never won a fair election and never held the approval of the russian people. he was propped up by the USA in order to liberalize russian society and create an oligarch class. how does any of that reflect or show the 'chauvinistic' nature of the russian character? Propped up by the US? Who exactly? In what context? Which of Yeltsin's oligarch backers in say 1996 election were aligned with the US? Let's talk specifics not vague thoughts. Name the people, organizations and so on. Scrree posted:also, 50k is literally less than half of the people killed by the Torys in the UK through austerity, and they were actually put into power through a nominally democratic society! I wasn't discussing the British or the Americans. I don't know why you brought up race war. What makes you think I support a race war? There were two parts to my original comment. 1. The majority of the Russian population is inherently chauvinistic. - You can see that in completely batshit insane polling results pertaining issues that define chauvinism. Including explicit support for invasions and murder. You can also see it in their foreign policy in the past 30 years. 2. Dealing with Russia without military force is impossible. - The fact that the almost 30 year of conflict in Transnistria is still not resolved is evidence enough that dealing with Russia on diplomatic terms is simply not viable. Why is this a controversial opinion? If am just being a racist, surely someone can provide an example of a country that benefited from cooperating with Russia, right? I also don't see what "racism" has to do with this. You can call me anti-Russian or a russophobe, but that's not the same thing as being against ethnic Russians or any of the ethnic groups of the Russian federation.
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Oct 2, 2019 22:16
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wait are you saying America did not back Yeltsin in the post USSR government. man you must hate these Russians
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Oct 2, 2019 22:18
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skeletors_condom posted:
lmao 
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Oct 2, 2019 22:22
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look man, I'm NOT RACIST, but Russians ARE inherently evil they choose to be evil willingly the only way to deal with them is to kill them I prove this with FACTS
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Oct 2, 2019 22:23
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What a surprise, Russia is occupying Ukraine's thread now too.
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Oct 2, 2019 22:33
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mobby_6kl posted:What a surprise, Russia is occupying Ukraine's thread now too. but the guy who won’t let Russia go is Ukrainian I think? this is symbolic I think
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Oct 2, 2019 22:34
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If you want an example of how ludicrous the 96 election was, Yeltsin had already been waging war in Chechnya for a couple years yet somehow got 65% of the votes there in the first round, and 73% in the second round.
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Oct 2, 2019 22:41
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We should probably talk more about the cold war in this thread and the after effects since we are basically seeing their continuation in ukraine now.
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Oct 2, 2019 22:53
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The Youkraine
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Oct 2, 2019 23:07
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Don't you understand. Russia posted in this thread first, it needs a warm water post
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Oct 2, 2019 23:10
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:If you want an example of how ludicrous the 96 election was, Yeltsin had already been waging war in Chechnya for a couple years yet somehow got 65% of the votes there in the first round, and 73% in the second round. I wasn't saying 1996 election was or was not fair. I was asking for specifics around US "neoliberal" conspiracy with Yeltsin. Preferably with convincing references to the motives and actions of the publicly known power brokers at the time. Something specific. If one is so convinced about a given historical development, there should be more info about it than a time magazine cover, no? mobby_6kl posted:What a surprise, Russia is occupying Ukraine's thread now too. Agreed. There is a certain irony to this. In my defense, I was simply saying that it's unrealistic for Zelensky to fantasize about diplomatic deals with Russia unless he has the force to back it up (which unfortunately he doesn't). It's in Russia's interests to make sure Donbass and Crimea limit both economic and political development in Ukraine. Same with the occupied areas in Georgia and Moldova. And the vast majority of Russians genuinely support these actions.
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Oct 2, 2019 23:17
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I assume the times cover is alluding to an article by saying the story of how they helped him. I don’t think it was just randomly put there
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Oct 2, 2019 23:20
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/05/americans-spot-election-meddling-doing-years-vladimir-putin-donald-trumpquote:In the run-up to the election, Russia was granted a huge US-backed IMF loan that – as the New York Times noted at the time – was “expected to be helpful to President Boris N Yeltsin in the presidential election”. quote:The International Monetary Fund said today that it had approved a $10.2 billion loan for Russia. The move is expected to be helpful to President Boris N. Yeltsin in the presidential election in June. subtext here being: the US pushed the IMF to bail out Yeltsin's government in the leadup to the election, with the condition that he do more neoliberal reforms
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Oct 2, 2019 23:28
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Speaking of the IMF https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2019/09/26/pr19356-ukraine-imf-staff-concludes-mission This is all part of a larger plan from western banking institutions to get ukraine into a level of economic prosperity to not have to rely on russia or have to make deals with them. Also these institutions tend to gently caress over said countries, but hey, capitalism.
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Oct 2, 2019 23:34
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Also if you some how love numbers and data http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/677701558601578072/Ukraine-Economic-Update-Spring-2019-en.pdf 
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Oct 2, 2019 23:38
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that’s exactly the same kind of “you’re not doing the reforms right/fast enough” logic that neoliberals blamed Russia for the failure of shock doctrine. surely all Ukraine needs is to do reforms and the good number will magically meet our targets.
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Oct 2, 2019 23:44
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/05/americans-spot-election-meddling-doing-years-vladimir-putin-donald-trump No one would argue against the existence of publicly documented IMF loans and that they had string attached. This is standard operational procedure for the IMF. I was referring to the conspiracy theory that IMF was directly responsible for the rise of oligarchs in Russians. The Russians were responsible for the rise of oligarchs. Same with Ukrainians. So which Russian oligarch group from the 90s coordinated with the IMF to buy state properties pennies on the dollar? Where is the IMF recommendation to sell entity X at price Y to person Z? Specifics. Third World Reagan posted:Also if you some how love numbers and data Thanks for the link. Seems like a pretty a decent analysis on the current economic situation. I am skeptical about some of their recommendations (land reform and to a lesser extent fiscal reforms/recommendations), but they get more stuff right than wrong. Tackling corruption (in regulatory and judiciary) is mandatory. So is selling of non-strategic SOEs and cleaning up the banking sector. SOE are generally badly managed and the financial sectors definitely needs a cleanup.
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Oct 3, 2019 00:44
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The main problem with the reforms, and also the cause, is the massive oligarch problem they have. And there is a slim chance they will get rid of them, much like the US or Russia can not get rid of theirs.
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Oct 3, 2019 01:00
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skeletors_condom posted:No one would argue against the existence of publicly documented IMF loans and that they had string attached. This is standard operational procedure for the IMF. You're getting post-Soviet history very confused. The oligarchs arose as a class because of the privatization voucher program from 1992-96. If you want proof of American involvement in Russian shock doctrine, Gaidar and Chubais were inspired by the privatization voucher program in Czechoslovakia and the shock doctrine undertaken by Poland. In Poland one member of the committee that produced the Balcerowicz Plan was none other than Columbia professor Jeffrey Sachs. East European privatization, and particularly Russian privatization, all accorded to the neoliberal theories of Western economists and academics. The relationship of the IMF to the Russian elections was, the IMF gave Yeltsin enough money to rig the 96 elections because if the communists won then they could've significantly reversed the privatization experiment that was being advised by the Americans.
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Oct 3, 2019 01:37
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:You're getting post-Soviet history very confused. The oligarchs arose as a class because of the privatization voucher program from 1992-96. If you want proof of American involvement in Russian shock doctrine, Gaidar and Chubais were inspired by the privatization voucher program in Czechoslovakia and the shock doctrine undertaken by Poland. In Poland one member of the committee that produced the Balcerowicz Plan was none other than Columbia professor Jeffrey Sachs. East European privatization, and particularly Russian privatization, all accorded to the neoliberal theories of Western economists and academics. I am not getting anything confused. I am very well aware of who Gaidar and Chubais are. I also know when privatization started. And AFAIK, early (somewhat informal) moves towards privatization started before 1992. What I am saying is that the rise of oligarchy is not directly related to IMF. The winners were picked by Russian leaders. The IMF loans is a separate issue. Western neoliberal reforms didn't work too well in Russia or Ukraine, but they worked very well in Baltics and Poland. They have made enormous strides in both economic growth and HDI. The whole "neoliberal world conspired to make Russia poor in the 90s" is cheap Russian propaganda. 90s were poo poo because the country was corrupt and oil prices were low. The country was just as corrupt in the 2000s and the 2010s, but oil prices were a lot higher. Ukraine does not have oil, so it remained both poor and corrupt. And the communists winning in 1996 wouldn't have changed anything. Russia would still be corrupt and belligerent towards its neighbours. Just look at the voting patterns of the Russian Communist party over the past 20 years. They have almost 1:1 parity with United Russia, the state party.
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Oct 3, 2019 01:52
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The United States and the burgeoining EU also had a vested interest in making sure the Baltic and Polish reforms succeeded by propping up their economies financially. And they only "succeeded" if you define success exclusively according to GDP growth rates, and completely ignore the newly immiserated underclass of unemployed. Privatization didn't succeed in Central Europe and Estonia because they were somehow less "corrupt" than the rest of Eastern Europe. That's pure neoliberal revisionism.quote:What I am saying is that the rise of oligarchy is not directly related to IMF. What you're doing here is moving the goalposts around so you can try to pretend that the failure of marketization in Russia and Ukraine was an exclusively Russian/Ukrainian problem that had no influence or pressure placed upon it by Western interests - and that it happened because Russians are just racially predisposed to despotism and corruption. The unexamined question in your line of reasoning that Communist victory in 96 wouldn't have changed anything is, why did the United States bother to help Yeltsin rig the election then? Pener Kropoopkin has issued a correction as of 02:10 on Oct 3, 2019 |
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Oct 3, 2019 02:01
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:If you want an example of how ludicrous the 96 election was, Yeltsin had already been waging war in Chechnya for a couple years yet somehow got 65% of the votes there in the first round, and 73% in the second round. it's was even more blatant than this, medvedev openly stated to other presidential candidates in 2012 that yeltsin did not win in 1996 quote:After sitting down with the opposition activists, [then president of russia] Medvedev was bombarded with complaints about a parliamentary election held in December. That vote, they told him, had been blatantly rigged by the United Russia party, which is led by Medvedev and Putin. The results must be scrapped, the oppositionists insisted, and a new election must take place to save the legitimacy of the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament. Based on ample evidence of vote rigging, Russia's opposition leaders have been making this demand for months now, and tens of thousands of Russians have rallied in the streets of Moscow to support them in calling for a parliamentary revote.
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Oct 3, 2019 02:15
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https://twitter.com/kooleksiy/status/1179532553813921792?s=20 https://twitter.com/kooleksiy/status/1179532577767645185?s=20 lmao
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Oct 3, 2019 02:26
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:The United States and the burgeoining EU also had a vested interest in making sure the Baltic and Polish reforms succeeded by propping up their economies financially. And they only "succeeded" if you define success exclusively according to GDP growth rates, and completely ignore the newly immiserated underclass of unemployed. Privatization didn't succeed in Central Europe and Estonia because they were somehow less "corrupt" than the rest of Eastern Europe. That's pure neoliberal revisionism. I specifically mentioned HDI because I am not a fan of relying solely on GDP. If you visit provincial Poland (let alone Estonia), it's world's away from provincial Ukraine or Russia. Look at other measures like press freedom index, doing business index and so on. I have relatives who moved to Poland (from Donbass which they had to leave because of your innocent, peace-loving Russians) and I visited them both in Donbass (before the Russian invasion) and Poland. There is world of difference even if you do the same (working class) job. It sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about. I am not a fan of neoliberalism and IMO we need make global oligarchs (and their enablers) take responsibility for their actions, but I am not going just outright deny reality. IMO you're being paternalistic towards Poland and Baltics. They got into EU/NATO because they understood that they needed to guarantee security from the Russians. It wasn't just the EU. If I felt like using the lazy argumentation found in this thread, I was say you are racist. However, that is incorrect. This has nothing to do with race. Pener Kropoopkin posted:What you're doing here is moving the goalposts around so you can try to pretend that the failure of marketization in Russia and Ukraine was an exclusively Russian/Ukrainian problem that had no influence or pressure placed upon it by Western interests - and that it happened because Russians are just racially predisposed to despotism and corruption. What goal posts am I moving? Russians are definitely predisposed to despotism and corrupt. They've never had a democratic government in their history. And this has nothing to do with race. Historically Russia (Tsarist empire, USSR, modern Russia) has always been a multi-ethnic empire. I would even argue it was one of the big (rare) accomplishments of the USSR that they were able to build a multi-cultural society. One that in many ways had genuine elements of harmony unlike some of the more modern examples. Unfortunately (and it pains me to say this) Ukrainians are also extremely predisposed to corruption, perhaps even more than Russians. But thankfully Ukrainians are not as chauvinistic and violent as Russians. The Baltics, Poland were smart enough to make major economic reforms and join NATO ASAP. Ukraine unfortunately hosed up and got mired in corruption and "middle of the road" foreign policy. That's why 15K Ukrainians were killed by the Russians and 3 regions are currently under occupation. Same deal with electing Yanukovich, a traitor and Russian spy.
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Oct 3, 2019 02:35
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Lmao
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Oct 3, 2019 02:36
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the doing business index lol
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Oct 3, 2019 02:42
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skeletors_condom posted:This has nothing to do with race. ... Russians are definitely predisposed to despotism and corrupt. Unfortunately (and it pains me to say this) Ukrainians are also extremely predisposed to corruption, perhaps even more than Russians. so if this has nothing to do with race, are all minorities in russia also predisposed to despotism and corruption? are mordvins, chechens, and other racial minorities also predisposed to this corruption? or is it just ethnic russians? also, how exactly does poland have less of a history of despotism and corruption pre 1990. they were a democracy from 1922-1926, and kicked that off by assassinating their first president two days into his term for being jewish. was this blip of democracy a century ago enough to save the souls of their country (and if so, why doesn't the 6 months of democratic rule of the provisional government count for russia?) GoluboiOgon has issued a correction as of 02:59 on Oct 3, 2019 |
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Oct 3, 2019 02:56
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read that as DC incel reps 
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Oct 3, 2019 03:55
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:the doing business index lol In a country with lots of petty corruption (vs. mostly high level corruption like in the US), these metrics actually make difference. Not everything about neoliberalism is BS. Maybe 80% or 70%, IDK. That's not the focus of my argument. Not having to pay off an army of bureaucrats to make a "clean" business (that pays taxes) is actually a good thing (even if you are a leftist). An artisan instagram store can get legal, same with a retailer working in an open air market. GoluboiOgon posted:so if this has nothing to do with race, are all minorities in russia also predisposed to despotism and corruption? are mordvins, chechens, and other racial minorities also predisposed to this corruption? or is it just ethnic russians? I was referring to "citizen of Russian federation" (Россиянин) not ethnic Russian (Русский). They all live in a corrupt, chauvinist, one-party oligarchic state. Of course they are going to be influenced by prevailing cultural mores. The Kadyrov battalion that fought in Donbass are definitely not ethnically Russian. However, I think the ethnic minorities have a higher chance of developing democratic governance than ethnic Russians (Русский). You can see this in recent protests in Ulan-Ude due to the corrupt election of the Moscow-appointed mayor. Poland was able to radically transform in the past 30 years. In 1990, Poland and Ukraine were on a same level of economic development. They are far beyond Ukraine as of 2019. Ukrainians are seen as low income migrant workers in Poland (гастарбайтеры). Approximately 1 million Ukrainian workers live in Poland, mostly doing low level jobs that Poles don't want to do. They've also had fair elections for almost 30 years. Solidarity was one of the first effective national independence movements in the Warsaw pact countries. To me that's good enough evidence that Poland is a legit democracy. It's still corrupt, but less so than Ukraine or Russia. Snarky side note: Are you sure the provisional government was democratically elected? When exactly was the election held to elect the members/leaders of the provisional government?
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Oct 3, 2019 03:59
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Poland acts as a middle man between Eastern and Western Europe in terms of trade and labor flows. That's why Ukrainians migrate to Poland while Poles migrate to Western Europe. Poland has to look for laborers abroad to shore up their own labor shortages despite historically low unemployment because Poles have migrated throughout the EU seeking higher wages. Average wages in Poland are a third of what they are in Germany, and all they have to do is walk right across the border. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage If you look at this map there's an obvious flow to the distribution of incomes. Countries like Poland were raised up to these levels because they're periphery states at the edge of European neocolonialism. Ukraine wasn't left in the lurch because they're so corrupt, it's because the EU wasn't interested in overstretching its expansion.
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Oct 3, 2019 04:11
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skeletors_condom posted:
so, all russian citizens internalize the totalitarianism of the russian federation, but ethnically russian people are more totalitarian than the rest? how is this not a racial theory?
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Oct 3, 2019 04:30
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:Poland acts as a middle man between Eastern and Western Europe in terms of trade and labor flows. That's why Ukrainians migrate to Poland while Poles migrate to Western Europe. Poland has to look for laborers abroad to shore up their own labor shortages despite historically low unemployment because Poles have migrated throughout the EU seeking higher wages. Average wages in Poland are a third of what they are in Germany, and all they have to do is walk right across the border. This is a very paternalistic approach towards Poland. It's almost as if you're implying that their success is only due to the EU. Like they have no independence or ability for self determination. There is nothing wrong with Poles moving to Western Europe in search of a better life. That's a normal part of life. It happens all the time. They beat Ukraine on practically every metric, not only economic ones mind you. Ukraine is hyper corrupt. Ukraine had ~20 years before the Russians had enough resources to start doing new invasions and Ukraine hosed it all up. Poland and Baltics were smart enough to get into NATO before Russians started invading. I would say visit Poland/Estonia/Russia/Ukraine (preferably not the capitals, a provincial location would be best), you will realize how unconvincing your own arguments are. Not everything is a "neoliberal conspiracy." And I say this as someone who has zero respect for US oligarchs. I would even say we need to make them take real personal responsibility for their actions. And I am talking about real personal responsibility, not a $0.12 fine and a short lecture by a corrupt judge. GoluboiOgon posted:so, all russian citizens internalize the totalitarianism of the russian federation, but ethnically russian people are more totalitarian than the rest? how is this not a racial theory? My focus is not on a given ethnic group in the Russian federation. Do you not understand the concept of "self determination" and how it tends to be linked to ethnicity? Why were the Baltics one of the first formal members of the USSR to declare official independence? Was it because "Estonians are more uppity" or was it because they wanted self determination and did not want to be ruled by Russians? Do you not understand why Buryatia might be more predisposed to democracy than regions dominated by ethnic Russians? Is this really a racial theory? Come on! skeletors_condom has issued a correction as of 04:44 on Oct 3, 2019 |
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Oct 3, 2019 04:31
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my new thing is to pronounce it "ook-rain"
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Oct 3, 2019 04:32
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skeletors_condom posted:This is a very paternalistic approach towards Poland. It's almost as if you're implying that their success is only due to the EU. Like they have no independence or ability for self determination. There is nothing wrong with Poles moving to Western Europe in search of a better life. That's a normal part of life. It happens all the time. Visiting countries right now and comparing their material conditions in the present will inform jack poo poo about their historical development. If you don't think geopolitics and EU membership have anything to do with why states like Poland and Estonia had successful privatizations while Russia & Ukraine failed then you're a chump.
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Oct 3, 2019 04:43
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:Visiting countries right now and comparing their material conditions in the present will inform jack poo poo about their historical development. If you don't think geopolitics and EU membership have anything to do with why states like Poland and Estonia had successful privatizations while Russia & Ukraine failed then you're a chump. Never said anything about the role of EU not being important. Did Baltics + Poland, due to their own culture, contribute to their success in the past 30 years? Was it all EU or not (i.e. EU + achievements of citizens). Yes/No? Simple loving question. If you don't believe me about their current level of development, speak to someone who lived in those countries in 1990.
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Oct 3, 2019 04:50
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So every Eastern European country that isn't in the EU and whose incomes are so low got that way because their cultures just failed to meet the challenge?
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Oct 3, 2019 04:54
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skeletors_condom posted:Never said anything about the role of EU not being important. do you think that estonia and poland have the same culture? and it's not like all of the baltics were economic miracles. latvia's economy crashed almost as hard as russia's in the 1990s, and the few gains they made in terms of increased GDP over russia in the 2000s were all part of the financial bubble and disappeared in 2008.
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Oct 3, 2019 04:55
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