Europe at War

[Madiel]

Because the world doesn't revolve around you.

Correct. Apparently it revolves around Washington DC.

[LKB]

Ukraine is completely dependent on the US for its existence at this point.  That is why Time's corrupt Puppet of the Year made his first overseas trip during the war to Washington, DC, not Brussels.  That's why he popped up on the Golden Globes last night.  He knows who butters his bread.

I wonder if Zelensky might be able to lasso a second Puppet of the Year award from the very prestigious Time magazine this year.  Maybe Zelensky's supporters on GMG can get something going on change.org.

The enjoyment you take in lobbing insults at Zelenskyy merely highlights the absence of any lobbed at the murderous little f**k in the Kremlin.

Of course, it's no more than a good little Putin apologist should be doing.

[Fëanor]

NATO expansion is provocative, always has been, and Russians have been clear about that.  Multiple voices in the west have warned about it, as well.  That the US continued to push for NATO expansion in the face of protests indicates the aggressiveness of US policy, the hubris of US leaders, the cravenness of European leaders, and the gullibility of members of the public who now openly embrace neocon dogma.

Chamberlain and Hitler believed in appeasement too.

(Thank you, Mike Godwin, for enabling deflection of so many relevant comparisons.)

[Florestan]

Chamberlain and Hitler believed in appeasement too.

A more accurate statement would be that the latter cleverly used the gullibility of the former to great advantage.

[Todd]

The enjoyment you take in lobbing insults at Zelenskyy merely highlights the absence of any lobbed at the murderous little f**k in the Kremlin.

Of course, it's no more than a good little Putin apologist should be doing.

Chamberlain and Hitler believed in appeasement too.

(Thank you, Mike Godwin, for enabling deflection of so many relevant comparisons.)

A more accurate statement would be that the latter cleverly used the gullibility of the former to great advantage.

Doubling down is a good thing.

[BasilValentine]

I don't care how you interact with Todd. I doubt he cares either.

Madiel is correct. You've demonstrated that you do care in numerous posts. Of course Todd doesn't.

[Fëanor]

A more accurate statement would be that the latter cleverly used the gullibility of the former to great advantage.

Well sure, it's a matter of the appeaser versus the appeasee. 

[Florestan]

Well sure, it's a matter of the appeaser versus the appeasee. 

Actually, forget Hitler. Take Napoleon. His only implacable foes were the British. All others, Austrians, Prussians, Russians, tried an appeasement with him at one point or another. None worked. You can't appease a pathologically power-hungry person. You can only delay their next move.

[Todd]

False analogies abound on GMG.

[Florestan]

It's a coincidence. I think there's an explanation, but you won't find it easy to grok. Certain Westerners hate any activity that makes government big. Among those are war, but they also include scientific and technological projects on a large scale. Since the Bronze Age these have been government projects, and always will be.

    Another large scale activity is a genuine rule of law state. It's true that ruler states can be big, while democratic states always are. Democratic capitalism is labor intensive. You need regulation and lots of it to maintain competitive markets, the kind people think of when they say "free".

    This ideology is scarce outside the US, or maybe N. America. It's kind of an inverse chauvinism.

This might well explain the "hatred" of the US. It doesn't explain the "Putinism". Russian government is at least as big as the American one and certainly more tyrannical.

[Todd]

May I inquire who, if anyone, on GMG is a Putinist and who on GMG hates America?

[JBS]

Actually, forget Hitler. Take Napoleon. His only implacable foes were the British. All others, Austrians, Prussians, Russians, tried an appeasement with him at one point or another. None worked. You can't appease a pathologically power-hungry person. You can only delay their next move.

I'm not sure it's proper to say Prussia and Austria tried to appease Napoleon. Usually appeasement is tried before the hostile power invades you, defeats your military, and occupies your capital city.

[Fëanor]

Actually, forget Hitler. Take Napoleon. His only implacable foes were the British. All others, Austrians, Prussians, Russians, tried an appeasement with him at one point or another. None worked. You can't appease a pathologically power-hungry person. You can only delay their next move.

... Exactly.

[drogulus]

This might well explain the "hatred" of the US. It doesn't explain the "Putinism". Russian government is at least as big as the American one and certainly more tyrannical.

    There's no concern for the size of Big Man states. They can be any size. The point is to prevent anything from happening that requires large scale government action in a state where such choices can be made by citizen action through elected representatives.

    The reason the US is targeted by this unhistorical hatefest is that very few people outside the country have any ideas like this and on exposure would consider it mental to the max. They would ask in perfect innocence "How do you get anything done?" to which the answer from mentalloids would be something like "If government does it, it's wrong to do!". No case could be made for such a presupposition, which explains why no case is offered.

   

[Todd]

[milk]

Madiel is correct. You've demonstrated that you do care in numerous posts. Of course Todd doesn't.

I suggested something which I thought was worthwhile: take Todd's obviously substantive arguments seriously. Madiel is dishonest so I don't care about his particular content all that much, especially because I'm busy with life as well. I know he complains a lot if he doesn't get attention. Do you feel that way about yourself? Is there a point you'd like me to consider? What is it? I don't think that highly of myself but I'm always willing to try and think about something. I don't have strong opinions on the topic here either. ETA: I'm willing to change my mind about anything if you have good arguments. I'm interested in some of the broader implications of geopolitics and would like to see a thread where these issues are discussed.

[Todd]

From The New Statesman:

The Zelensky myth

Why we should resist hero-worshipping Ukraine's president.

[Madiel]

I'll bite. What exactly am I supposed to have been dishonest about?

Expressing the view that the history of Ukrainian nationalism, and Russian reactions to it, is more relevant to the war than the American military which is not fighting the war is not "dishonest".

And reacting adversely to your complete dismissal of the history of Ukrainian nationalism was a thoroughly HONEST reaction. I mean, it's not as if I know a lot of the history myself. But to me a total disinterest in the subject as part of how we got here is another symptom of wanting to treat a war in Ukraine as not actually being about Ukraine, but about America.

[milk]

Actually, forget Hitler. Take Napoleon. His only implacable foes were the British. All others, Austrians, Prussians, Russians, tried an appeasement with him at one point or another. None worked. You can't appease a pathologically power-hungry person. You can only delay their next move.

I guess the question is: what now? What is it going to take to bring this war to some sort of endpoint? Putin seems like he's wiped out any rivals or successors. I wonder what the options are for ending this war if you take destroying him off the table. Is there a solution all parties can live with? If that's on the table, what does that lead to? Or maybe I'm making unfounded assumptions. Here's a question: can the end of this conflict be broken down into broad possibilities or likelihoods or is it impossible to see? I wonder also what each involved party sees as its options and preferable outcomes.

[Madiel]

I'd like to give you some honest answers, but I'll have to spend the time coming up with some dishonest ones.