What does Putin want (and whatabout it)

After we watch the movie about how Russia is right, let's watch some Leni Riefenstahl.


a comment about the SOTU.

I thought it would have been very useful and powerful if Biden had reached out to the Russian people, telling them our fight is not with them and that we regret the pain that the sanctions place on the general public. That we know the Russian public does not support the invasion.

Opportunity missed, I think.


nohero said:

After we watch the movie about how Russia is right, let's watch some Leni Riefenstahl.


terp said:

Now do the Houthis in Yemen.

Do you think they'll annex Djibouti?


drummerboy said:

a comment about the SOTU.

I thought it would have been very useful and powerful if Biden had reached out to the Russian people, telling them our fight is not with them and that we regret the pain that the sanctions place on the general public. That we know the Russian public does not support the invasion.

Opportunity missed, I think.

The Russians won't see that. RT plays Tucker Carlson clips, they won't play the SOTU.


ridski said:

drummerboy said:

a comment about the SOTU.

I thought it would have been very useful and powerful if Biden had reached out to the Russian people, telling them our fight is not with them and that we regret the pain that the sanctions place on the general public. That we know the Russian public does not support the invasion.

Opportunity missed, I think.

The Russians won't see that. RT plays Tucker Carlson clips, they won't play the SOTU.

well, there' still the internet, isn't there? or have they locked down international access?


drummerboy said:

well, there' still the internet, isn't there? or have they locked down international access?

Possibly? It's definitely trying to.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/26/technology/russia-censorship-tech.html


ridski said:

Possibly? It's definitely trying to.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/26/technology/russia-censorship-tech.html

Probably for the best. As I understand it, western media is just corporate neo-liberal propaganda designed to manufacture consent. I saw a bunch of headlines in a tweet that proves this.


nan said:

For more information about Ukrainian history and US involvement, I recommend this movie.  It's now free on YouTube. 

Ukraine on Fire (Oliver Stone)

We've since this mentioned by you at least 30 times before:

https://maplewood.worldwebs.com/forums/search/advanced?keyword=Ukraine+on+Fire&search-in=all-comments&filters=search-all-query-words&sort=newest-first

To save us some time - specify a few minutes of it - point someone out - and what his current role is in what's happening today.  I love all the Mark Twain quotes throughout.  The anxious soundtrack throughout is incredibly effective also.

It was a ridiculous doc then and it still is!  Incredibly one sided - but effective propaganda for convincing some people out there.

I don't have time to go down this rabbit hole - here's one pretty good response:

https://khpg.org/en/1480891067


tjohn said:

Comrade Nan,

Perhaps you can summarize the key points in the Youtube clip thus sparing us an hour and a half of torture.

And then, explain to me why Ukrainians are fighting so valiantly to remain free since they are apparently suffering under a Nazi U.S. imposed government.

It's an Oliver Stone movie and it's free. That's not torture.   I will not summarize because you need to watch for yourself. You need to see the people involved doing the things they do.  It's an opportunity to understand a somewhat different view instead of just launching baseless personal attacks. 


nohero said:

After we watch the movie about how Russia is right, let's watch some Leni Riefenstahl.

You clearly have not watched the movie and yet you are yelling a form of "Hitler!" to shut down the conversation.  

Please watch all the way through and then respond to what you actually watched:


jamie said:

We've since this mentioned by you at least 30 times before:

https://maplewood.worldwebs.com/forums/search/advanced?keyword=Ukraine+on+Fire&search-in=all-comments&filters=search-all-query-words&sort=newest-first

To save us some time - specify a few minutes of it - point someone out - and what his current role is in what's happening today.  I love all the Mark Twain quotes throughout.  The anxious soundtrack throughout is incredibly effective also.

It was a ridiculous doc then and it still is!  Incredibly one sided - but effective propaganda for convincing some people out there.

I don't have time to go down this rabbit hole - here's one pretty good response:

https://khpg.org/en/1480891067

What part of the movie is propaganda?  


nan said:

jamie said:

I don't have time to go down this rabbit hole - here's one pretty good response:

https://khpg.org/en/1480891067

What part of the movie is propaganda?

Please read Jamie's Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group link all the way through and then respond to what you actually read.


Where is Putin's mind at?  Look no further than his main philosophical influencer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Ilyin

"For Ilyin any talk about a Ukraine separate from Russia made one a mortal enemy of Russia. He disputed that an individual could choose their nationality any more than cells can decide whether they are part of a body."


DaveSchmidt said:

Please read Jamie's Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group link all the way through and then respond to what you actually read.

The article he posted is not really a review of the movie--it's more a political attack on Putin/Russia written by a Soviet dissident who has asylum in Ukraine.  He disagrees with some of the facts in the film related to Ukraine history and perceptions, but can't argue substantively with the main point which is that the coup was a CIA backed plot based on a well-used playbook using right-wing thugs. He just mentions it as though it's an irrelevant, yet scintillating plot device.  Likewise, he says some of the Nazis mentioned were actually nice, non-Nazis, although he admits they do have Nazis in Ukraine--but of course he says they are from Russia.  There is zero mention of NATO, also a big part of the film. 

You can pick through his claims, some out of the scope of the film, but even if they are true they are not going to matter in terms of what this movie is about. He did not want to talk about the film.  He wanted to talk about Putin and picky details about Crimea, but not what any of it means in a larger sense.  He hates Putin.  He really, really, really, really hates Putin.  That's probably why Jamie picked the review. 

He does not think Ukraine has a Nazi problem, so he ignores the topic of how they are funded.  Wonder what he would say about this article from 2018:

Blowback: How US-funded fascists in Ukraine mentor American white supremacists

https://thegrayzone.com/2018/11/15/blowback-how-us-funded-fascists-in-ukraine-mentor-us-white-supremacists/


nan said:

What part of the movie is propaganda?  

One of his "experts" on Ukraine is Vladimir Putin - (The guy who is bombing the hell out of it at the moment).


nan said:

The article he posted is not really a review of the movie--it's more a political attack on Putin/Russia written by a Soviet dissident who has asylum in Ukraine.

You asked, “What part the movie is propaganda?” The article, which uses the word seven times, addresses your specific question under four subheadings. Apparently you found its “picky” answers unsatisfactory.


jamie said:

nan said:

What part of the movie is propaganda?  

One of his "experts" on Ukraine is Vladimir Putin - (The guy who is bombing the hell out of it at the moment).

So, you don't want to hear what Putin says, you just want to decide what he's like based on how he lives in your mind?  Having Putin as one of the people who speaks about Ukraine makes it a worthwhile movie even if you despise him. 


DaveSchmidt said:

You asked, “What part the movie is propaganda?” The article, which uses the word seven times, addresses your specific question under four subheadings. Apparently you found its “picky” answers unsatisfactory.

I did think it was strange that he used the word "propaganda" in the title and throughout the piece, but it reminded me more of a New York Post headline than a deep dive.  To be fair, he's not a movie critic; he's  a pissed off Putin hater. 


nan said:

So, you don't want to hear what Putin says, you just want to decide what he's like based on how he lives in your mind?  Having Putin as one of the people who speaks about Ukraine makes it a worthwhile movie even if you despise him. 

Did you also like the Interviews with Oliver Stone as well? What is his fascination with this guy:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-putin-interviews-oliver-stones-wildly-irresponsible-love-letter-to-vladimir-putin

I'm glad you think listening to Putin is worthwhile - I've personally sat through a lot of his garbage.    I've heard enough, again very one sided.  


nan said:

So, you don't want to hear what Putin says, you just want to decide what he's like based on how he lives in your mind?  Having Putin as one of the people who speaks about Ukraine makes it a worthwhile movie even if you despise him. 

You may want to pay attention to what Putin said last week. 

In his speech to the Russian nation on Monday, President Vladimir V. Putin buoyed his case for codifying the cleavage of two rebel territories from Ukraine by arguing that the very idea of Ukrainian statehood was a fiction.

With a conviction of an authoritarian unburdened by historical nuance, Mr. Putin declared Ukraine an invention of the Bolshevik revolutionary leader, Vladimir Lenin, who he said had mistakenly endowed Ukraine with a sense of statehood by allowing it autonomy within the newly created Soviet state.

“Modern Ukraine was entirely and fully created by Russia, more specifically the Bolshevik, communist Russia,” Mr. Putin said. “This process began practically immediately after the 1917 revolution, and moreover Lenin and his associates did it in the sloppiest way in relation to Russia — by dividing, tearing from her pieces of her own historical territory.”

As a misreading of history, it was extreme even by the standards of Mr. Putin, a former K.G.B. officer who has declared the Soviet Union’s collapse the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.

Putin Calls Ukrainian Statehood a Fiction. History Suggests Otherwise.


nan said:

nohero said:

After we watch the movie about how Russia is right, let's watch some Leni Riefenstahl.

You clearly have not watched the movie and yet you are yelling a form of "Hitler!" to shut down the conversation.  

Please watch all the way through and then respond to what you actually watched:

I'm not "yelling 'Hitler'", I'm pointing out that you want us to watch film propaganda that serves the interests of an autocrat who is invading a neighboring country and trying to subjugate its people.

As you well know (since this is the same film brought up here on MOL when excuses were being made for Trump), most of the people on this thread are very familiar with the arguments, and familiar with all of the refutations.


I had a lot more sympathy for the NATO-overreach argument before Putin's actions made it abundantly clear that his intent from the beginning has been to rebuild the Russian Empire.  He had been verbally expressing his intentions all along, of course.

Absent NATO membership, what does one imagine the fate of the Baltic States would have been?

Moreover, potentially hostile powers sharing a border can learn to get along.  Look at China and Russia.

What Putin fears are Euro-centric democracies on his border.


nan said:

I did think it was strange that he used the word "propaganda" in the title and throughout the piece, but it reminded me more of a New York Post headline than a deep dive.  To be fair, he's not a movie critic; he's  a pissed off Putin hater. 

"Piised off Putin hater" writes movie review 8 years after Putin was constitutionally supposed to be a civilian.


In the other thread, Paul made this analogy:

Here's another scenario. Suppose Mexico (which by the way is not participating in sanctions against Russia) asked Russia for a mutual defense pact that gave Putin the right to install offensive weapons near the US border in Texas and Arizona. And that the pact would include an Article 5 clause that would obligate Russia to go to war with us if we attacked Mexico. And then Russia said that it would sign such an agreement, but didn't say when..But Mexico repeatedly demanded that Russia sign the agreement and each time, Russia upheld Mexico's right to do so.

Would the US have a legitimate security concern?

It's a strange analogy to make, because the US has a long history of aggressively, often violently, inserting itself into the affairs of Mexico and other Latin American countries. And my understanding of Paul's position is that he is opposed to all the coups, funding of insurgencies, assassinations, and other such acts the US has done in the region. But, per this analogy, this is now all just an example of the US acting to protect its legitimate security interests? Has Paul changed positions, or is there something specific about Russian "security concerns" that somehow make them more legitimate than American ones in Latin America?

I mean, let's take this analogy seriously -- if the US was constantly threatening to go to war with Mexico, an objective observer would say that Mexico entering into a defense pact with a stronger country would be completely understandable. Heck, I'm sure Mexico in the 1840s wished there were some major power it could ally with to counter the threat from its eastern border.


ridski said:

nan said:

I did think it was strange that he used the word "propaganda" in the title and throughout the piece, but it reminded me more of a New York Post headline than a deep dive.  To be fair, he's not a movie critic; he's  a pissed off Putin hater. 

"Piised off Putin hater" writes movie review 8 years after Putin was constitutionally supposed to be a civilian.

Isn't "pissed off Putin hater" sort of a normal state of being? What's the opposite? Is he supposed to ask Putin to be Godfather to his child? (apparently Stone made that request at some point)




PVW said:

In the other thread, Paul made this analogy:

Here's another scenario. Suppose Mexico (which by the way is not participating in sanctions against Russia) asked Russia for a mutual defense pact that gave Putin the right to install offensive weapons near the US border in Texas and Arizona. And that the pact would include an Article 5 clause that would obligate Russia to go to war with us if we attacked Mexico. And then Russia said that it would sign such an agreement, but didn't say when..But Mexico repeatedly demanded that Russia sign the agreement and each time, Russia upheld Mexico's right to do so.

Would the US have a legitimate security concern?

It's a strange analogy to make, because the US has a long history of aggressively, often violently, inserting itself into the affairs of Mexico and other Latin American countries. And my understanding of Paul's position is that he is opposed to all the coups, funding of insurgencies, assassinations, and other such acts the US has done in the region. But, per this analogy, this is now all just an example of the US acting to protect its legitimate security interests? Has Paul changed positions, or is there something specific about Russian "security concerns" that somehow make them more legitimate than American ones in Latin America?

I mean, let's take this analogy seriously -- if the US was constantly threatening to go to war with Mexico, an objective observer would say that Mexico entering into a defense pact with a stronger country would be completely understandable. Heck, I'm sure Mexico in the 1840s wished there were some major power it could ally with to counter the threat from its eastern border.

We don't have to speculate.  When the U.S. undertook a similar encroachment into Mexico, based on justifications similar to those put forward by Putin, a member of Congress took those "justifications" apart.

Document #38 Abraham Lincoln on the Mexican-American War (1846-48)


drummerboy said:

Isn't "pissed off Putin hater" sort of a normal state of being? What's the opposite? Is he supposed to ask Putin to be Godfather to his child? (apparently Stone made that request at some point)

Using "pissed off Putin hater" to dismiss someone's opinion is like using "That MLK Jr. just doesn't like segregation" or "Elie Wiesel sure can hold a grudge, can't he?"


nohero said:

PVW said:

In the other thread, Paul made this analogy:

Here's another scenario. Suppose Mexico (which by the way is not participating in sanctions against Russia) asked Russia for a mutual defense pact that gave Putin the right to install offensive weapons near the US border in Texas and Arizona. And that the pact would include an Article 5 clause that would obligate Russia to go to war with us if we attacked Mexico. And then Russia said that it would sign such an agreement, but didn't say when..But Mexico repeatedly demanded that Russia sign the agreement and each time, Russia upheld Mexico's right to do so.

Would the US have a legitimate security concern?

It's a strange analogy to make, because the US has a long history of aggressively, often violently, inserting itself into the affairs of Mexico and other Latin American countries. And my understanding of Paul's position is that he is opposed to all the coups, funding of insurgencies, assassinations, and other such acts the US has done in the region. But, per this analogy, this is now all just an example of the US acting to protect its legitimate security interests? Has Paul changed positions, or is there something specific about Russian "security concerns" that somehow make them more legitimate than American ones in Latin America?

I mean, let's take this analogy seriously -- if the US was constantly threatening to go to war with Mexico, an objective observer would say that Mexico entering into a defense pact with a stronger country would be completely understandable. Heck, I'm sure Mexico in the 1840s wished there were some major power it could ally with to counter the threat from its eastern border.

We don't have to speculate.  When the U.S. undertook a similar encroachment into Mexico, based on justifications similar to those put forward by Putin, a member of Congress took those "justifications" apart.

Document #38 Abraham Lincoln on the Mexican-American War (1846-48)

Can you even imagine 1840s MOL? Or worse, 1860s? Sure, the seizure of western territories and expansion of slavery into them is bad, but the real crime against humanity is the debasement of gold with silver and Lincoln's unconstitutional income tax...


nohero said:

Using "pissed off Putin hater" to dismiss someone's opinion is like using "That MLK Jr. just doesn't like segregation" or "Elie Wiesel sure can hold a grudge, can't he?"

Or “not a movie critic.”


In order to add a comment – you must Join this community – Click here to do so.