Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

A less Western view of Putin

#1
confused2 Offline
I've been visitin' (I occasionally leave the house).
This is a view from outside western propaganda.
Putin asked about joining NATO. [opinion] Rejected - for obvious(?) reasons.
Putin asked about joining the EU. [Opinion] Rejected because if the EU included Russia it would be a greater economic power than the US and the US could not allow that.

Then came something about turning a potential friend into an enemy.

A story about him going to a nightclub. The owners of the nightclub were making a lot of money. He was spending a lot of money in the nightclub. The owners were laughing at him behind his back - they could afford to - they were making lots of money. So one day he offered to buy the nightclub (for a reasonable price). They laughed and said the nightclub was worth much more than he was offering. So he spent the same amount setting up his own nightclub and within six months the original nightclub had closed. He made a particular point of making sure his staff treated everyone equally (and well) regardless of whether they were rich or poor.
Reply
#2
Syne Offline
So...the US has the power to dictate EU decisions? Wouldn't the EU like to be the dominant economic power? Especially considering Russia is the EU's largest oil supplier?
Reply
#3
confused2 Offline
(May 9, 2022 01:50 AM)Syne Wrote: So...the US has the power to dictate EU decisions? Wouldn't the EU like to be the dominant economic power? Especially considering Russia is the EU's largest oil supplier?

The thread title "A less western view [of Putin]" and "This is a view from outside western propaganda." was intended to indicate that what followed was a view from outside 'the west' as 'we' understand it - I'm sorry that wasn't made clear enough for you.
Reply
#4
Syne Offline
So "outside the west" means people who have no clue about the geopolitical realities? Or does it just mean non-Western propaganda?
Reply
#5
Secular Sanity Offline
(May 9, 2022 01:36 AM)confused2 Wrote: I've been visitin' (I occasionally leave the house).
This is a view from outside western propaganda.
Putin asked about joining NATO. [opinion] Rejected - for obvious(?) reasons.
Putin asked about joining the EU. [Opinion] Rejected because if the EU included Russia it would be a greater economic power than the US and the US could not allow that.

Then came something about turning a potential friend into an enemy.

A story about him going to a nightclub. The owners of the nightclub were making a lot of money. He was spending a lot of money in the nightclub. The owners were laughing at him behind his back - they could afford to - they were making lots of money. So one day he offered to buy the nightclub (for a reasonable price). They laughed and said the nightclub was worth much more than he was offering. So he spent the same amount setting up his own nightclub and within six months the original nightclub had closed. He made a particular point of making sure his staff treated everyone equally (and well) regardless of whether they were rich or poor.

Was the nightclub a pipeline?
Reply
#6
confused2 Offline
@Syne..
Do people "inside the west" understand geopolitical realities or are they just victims of Western propaganda?

SS Wrote:Was the nightclub a pipeline?
The nightclub was just a nightclub - nothing more and nothing less.
Reply
#7
Secular Sanity Offline
(May 10, 2022 01:27 AM)confused2 Wrote: The nightclub was just a nightclub - nothing more and nothing less.

One never knows with you, C2. Sometimes you’re cryptic, sometimes metaphorical, and sometimes just a wee bit off. I don’t know anything about a nightclub, but there was the Putin Place scandal and something or other about a strip club inside.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putin%27s_Palace_(film)
Reply
#8
Syne Offline
Certainly more than your telling of "outside the west" would suggest.
Reply
#9
confused2 Offline
@SS
I totally missed the significance of the pipeline (age!). That pipeline. Germany is the biggest fish in Europe and with Germany hooked on the end of the line maybe he expected things to go differently - he was very nearly right. The nightclub story is a variation on the (misquoted) "If you can't be kind be careful" theme. 'We' didn't want Putin as a friend and now we've got him as an enemy which I think is the point you were making in your recent 'un-American' posts.
Reply
#10
C C Offline
(May 10, 2022 11:52 AM)confused2 Wrote: [...] 'We' didn't want Putin as a friend and now we've got him as an enemy [...]


"Didn't want" was before Putin, though. After Soviet collapse, NATO and Russia still had inherent conflicts of interest that arose, regardless of NATO expansion issues.

During the '90s, Russia was an economically and politically unstable country. Given that future of volatile uncertainty with regard to who or what would be running _X_ eventually, responsible heads thereby do not allow such a [newbie] grazer of "democracy" on the back forty, or accept a hopeful applicant into the club without a super-cautious "wait and see".[1] (Of course, there can always be reckless, Pollyanna welfare officers on starship Europe who carelessly allow dependencies to prematurely develop with the Klingons.)

Boris Yeltsin was a weak reformer whose period of presidency allowed the "oligarch" situation; his popularity was crashing at home in conjunction with the economy; and bitter grudges from the old guard were nipping at his heels.

Again, you don't give a recently rehabilitated fox (ex-authoritarian state) free rein to enter the hen house when the former is clearly still having substance abuse issues. (There are relapses after being released from the treatment center.)

The emergence of ex-KGB Vladimir Putin as the "strong guy" was simply the icing on the cake -- signaling that Russia was indeed a fragile two-step forward, one-step back overhaul job -- a recidivist in the making.

Yes, NATO should not have gotten so carried away with expansion (salt in the wound). But it's akin to the affliction of bureaus -- once one is created, it wants to stay alive and potentially grow or replicate like an organism, if allowed. Even when its original purpose is arguably no longer applicable, or it has demonstrated itself to be a failure or vastly imperfect. That's why an additional department or agency should never be casually instituted, without great consideration of the consequences (though alliances like NATO are a different context -- straying too far into the flimsy bureau analogy here).

- - - footnote - - -

[1] The failure of the "Arab Spring", for instance, was a testament to how some cultural orientations can't handle the Western government mode: Things can become worse. Russia's own 1917 revolution simply replaced the long tyranny of aristocracy with a Marxist version.
Reply




Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)