Mar 1, 2022·edited Mar 2, 2022Liked by Wayne Hsiung
We should not only say what we think but what we feel too. Most of the time anyway. I think that most animals are like this. But if we have a bad and unjust thought what do we do with it? I think we should do nothing with it, just let it pass through our minds, like the Buddhists let it do.
I think it's important to acknowledge bad thoughts. But one thing I've found was, when I forced myself to be open about my bad thoughts, and reckon with them, they started transforming. Something about realizing the harm caused by bad or mean thoughts rooted them out from my mind.
Speaking of bulls___ your introduction to this piece is. President Gorbachev agreed to the reunification of the two Germanys and the withdrawal of 130,000 Soviet troops in 1990. This was contingent a promise made to Gorbachev by Secretary of State James Baker and other government officials that NATO would not expand “one inch” east of Germany toward Russia. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and beginning with President Clinton in the late 90s, NATO has embraced fourteen other countries including Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia right on Russia’s western border. NATO, which is to say the United States, has stationed troops in these former Soviet republics with nuclear capable missile batteries.
Putin, even the Western puppet Yeltsin, have long been opposed to what they perceive as the security threat of NATO expansion. As far back as 2014 Putin has been adamant that NATO would not be allowed to incorporate Ukraine. The Minkst Accords create a road map to peace that the US has refused to honor because it wants to remain the hegemon and set the terms of the “rules based international order.” That is to say, whatever the US and the corporations that own it, want.
In 2014 the US sponsored a coup in Ukraine that deposed a democratically elected president, and brought to power another Western puppet. The coup government outlawed the Russian language and customs. At this the majority ethnic Russian-speaking people of the Donbas in east Ukraine seceded. There has been a civil war there since.
When there is international conflict what is usually the causitive factor? The origins of the current crisis should be traced to the 2014 US-sponsored coup.
The “current crisis”? Can’t you at least summon the honesty and moral clarity to admit that this was and is an unprovoked, one-sided war of aggression and expansion chosen at this time, by Putin, and only Putin, (to the apparent deep discomfort and surprise of even some of his top military and intelligence officials). Who is launching cruise missiles and cluster bombs at residential, urban targets - the 2014 coup? You are trying so hard to make your contrarian (actually tediously Putin-apologist) point, you’re alienating and repelling people who might otherwise be interested in having a nuanced discussion of the historical background and moves that have increased tensions and suspicions on both sides.
About 3 weeks before Russia invaded, Putin and Lavrov demanded very reasonable security guarantees of NATO derived from the Minkst Accords They have been the most viable path to peace since the US-sponsored Maidan coup in 2014. NATO, which is to say, the US, simply ignored the Russian proposals.. US and NATO imperial policy is shaped around weapons manufacturer's profits. The US and NATO are stationing nuclear capable missile batteries right on Russia's western border, after they unilaterally withdrew from the INF Treaty. Is Russia just supposed to stand by and watch as NATO encroaches closer and closer on its borders? What would be the US reaction if Mexico or Canada, in collaboration with an official US enemy like Russia or China, amassed such firepower on its borders? If observing facts makes me a Putin-apologist then by all means utilize the label.
We might have been able to have a balanced discussion of factors of various importance or unimportance, such as those you mention - a couple of weeks ago! But sorry, Putin himself has called your bluff and exposed your claims as unserious. He pretended he was interested in serious diplomacy with Macron and then used that misdirection to keep preparing for an even more maximalist invasion. He’s clearly determined to use whatever battlefield weapons he has at his disposal against civilians and cities - as he has so many other places, from Grozny to Syria. He clearly is fine with grabbing all of Ukraine. It wasn’t so long ago Lavrov himself pointedly insisted Ukraine was not a country at all and therefore had no right to popular sovereignty or borders - Russia could do and take whatever. And he even implied other neighboring countries might as well grab smaller pieces of it in irredentist fashion, too. It’s telling you seem to think imperialism is only a western phenomenon. That only western countries have arms industries and connected oligarchs who seek to push state policy for personal profit. Is the US behaving like Putin in Mexico: moving in almost 200,000 troops and razing the place because their extremely powerful and sadistically violent narco and human traffickers have essentially declared the US southern border null and void and are running mass quantities of fentanyl (drug overdoses are the leading cause of death of Americans 18-45) into the US along with huge numbers of invetted young men and are trafficking women and children?
Do you have any clue what Russia has been up to in building hypersonic nuclear weapons? Weapons they seem to feel, by threatening us with them, allow them to run amok brutalizing and grabbing for the entirety of a next door neighbor in an entirely one-sided, unprovoked attack using overwhelming force. Why hasn’t the US, et al, developed these weapons if “the West” is the one breaking out of treaties, is the side who is aggressively warmongering and controlled by arms industries?
Finally, why does Putin have to kill people in his own country to get his way? Why does he have to lie to the Russian public and try to gaslight them and the world by claiming he is only “de-Nazifying” Ukraine? Ukraine with its Jewish President, whom Putin is sending Wagner mercenaries to try and capture or kill. Why do his own intelligence and security chiefs look so terrified of him and so startled by his own personal choice to start the largest land war on Europe since Nazi Germany behaved similarly toward its neighbors. Your comment reads like it’s stuck in not only a “the West is uniquely imperialist and bad” delusion, but also a time- warp. It’s like you have no awareness of what’s transpired in the past week and the lie it reveals your assumptions to be. When Germany - always pretty sympathetic to Russia in recent decades - is sending arms for the first time and is being joined by countries like Finland and Sweden - countries breaking extremely long, consistent policies of neutrality, what does it tell you about who is the aggressor and who is the threat and who is behaving so dangerously and destructively they can no longer sit on the sidelines. I’m not even so opposed to the insights of realists like John Mearsheimer. I do care about history and geography from the Russian perspective. But I’m not a single-minded dupe for Putin because I have a one-dimensional view of the West as the bad guys. And I do pay attention to how actual behavior and policies inform these judgments. And Putin’s behavior over the past week especially has told me plenty. This is now all on him. Not the Russian people - Putin.
It was not three weeks ago. It was February 21 that Lavrov, Putin and Russia made very reasonable peace demands of NATO: observe an immediate cease fire in the Ukrainian civil war which had killed upwards of 15,000, mostly rebels. demilitarize Eastern Europe; renounce Ukrainian admission to NATO according to the Minkst Protocols. President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken said those terms were "non-starters." How easy it would have been to acquiesce to those very reasonable terms. Whatever else this crisis is, NATO, which is to say the United States is its cause.
Do you agree sending some $3 billion in "lethal weaponry" to Ukraine by NATO in such a volatile environment over the last 18 months is such a good and benign idea?
Great discussion and perspectives. Just encourage y'all to play nice! We're all about assuming good faith in one another, and changing the tone of the internet, on this blog!
I watched the documentary "Winter of Fire" on Netflix last night. One sided award winning doc indeed. So many layers to the current activity in Ukraine, but we are fed only the version that WEF/NWO/NATO wants us to hear and see.
Yes I watched it a few years ago. It was pretty overtly presented as a very emotional and one-sided perspective. I’m no more a fan of the Victoria Nulands of the world than you are, but am somehow capable of thinking about this conflict in terms that include legitimate concerns based on Russian history, geography, and actual interests, and harboring a healthy suspicion of institutions focused on opening countries to financialization and profiteering - without reducing the pro-westernization side to an alphabet soup of shadowy institutions and their propaganda.
I'm sympathetic to criticisms of the US role in all of this. John Mearsheimer was a teacher of mine in grad school, and he's shared similar thoughts, and is a very distinguished political scientist. My main thought in all of this, however, is that we all have to be a lot more candid, and a little more compassionate. Appreciate that you're doing that, on the former. (And hope that you can do that, with EWR and others, on the latter.)
Speaking of Mutually Assured Bulls..., how about "protein comes from meat," "calcium comes from milk," "omega-3 comes from fish," "carbs make you fat" and "animal agriculture is not the leading cause of climate change"? These are purveyed by governments around the world, including the government of the United States, and these MABs are causing us to destroy ourselves and destroy the planet. As long as we continue an economic system that is based on making money off death, disease and destruction - death for the animals, diseases for humans and destruction for the planet, aren't such MABs necessary to keep the ecological Ponzi scheme going?
Re: State of the Union Address. I believe the president should deliver a sober summary that will bring truth into the open. Truth is the commodity in greatest peril in our nation and the world. Putin continues to lie about everything. I believe the president should say the following whether he is cheered or not.
Biden should emphasize repeatedly that avoiding the truth has damaged our country immeasurably and increased distrust in elections and the legislature. The state of our union is NOT strong. We have very little union in our union partially owing to the actions of his predecessor and the silence of many (but not all) in the legislature. Biden needs to say this. It is not an attack on values because there are issues, such as abortion or gun rights, on which there can and should be legitimate debate. IT IS A CALL FOR COURAGE IN CALLING A LIE A LIE. This is a pretty low bar.
We here live in a despotic totalitarian autocracy barely able if it all to sort the US government let alone the socialist struggling exSoviet Union. People here in the US at all levels decline support of good housing for all, good food for all, meaningful schooling for us all, in the case of Cuba, being able to give their children milk.
The solid structures in nations attempting to institute socialist policies are fierce, backed by militaries and in particular by the US, where this person comes from.
Same in US oligarchy-lies, greed, death&destruction-unaudited obscene military budget totally out of control, graft&corruption in corporate control of everything. Wonder what he thinks about Russia, a nuclear power, accepting regime change?
Hi Wayne. Being Russian myself, I find this article slightly off. It accuses Russians of lying, making them responsible for the current situation. While it’s partially true, Russia is a totalitarian country where there is no freedom of speech, even remotely. Stephen Fish more Then likely has no personal experience to compare and fully understand how Russian people are repressed and oppressed.
We should not only say what we think but what we feel too. Most of the time anyway. I think that most animals are like this. But if we have a bad and unjust thought what do we do with it? I think we should do nothing with it, just let it pass through our minds, like the Buddhists let it do.
I think it's important to acknowledge bad thoughts. But one thing I've found was, when I forced myself to be open about my bad thoughts, and reckon with them, they started transforming. Something about realizing the harm caused by bad or mean thoughts rooted them out from my mind.
Speaking of bulls___ your introduction to this piece is. President Gorbachev agreed to the reunification of the two Germanys and the withdrawal of 130,000 Soviet troops in 1990. This was contingent a promise made to Gorbachev by Secretary of State James Baker and other government officials that NATO would not expand “one inch” east of Germany toward Russia. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and beginning with President Clinton in the late 90s, NATO has embraced fourteen other countries including Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia right on Russia’s western border. NATO, which is to say the United States, has stationed troops in these former Soviet republics with nuclear capable missile batteries.
Putin, even the Western puppet Yeltsin, have long been opposed to what they perceive as the security threat of NATO expansion. As far back as 2014 Putin has been adamant that NATO would not be allowed to incorporate Ukraine. The Minkst Accords create a road map to peace that the US has refused to honor because it wants to remain the hegemon and set the terms of the “rules based international order.” That is to say, whatever the US and the corporations that own it, want.
In 2014 the US sponsored a coup in Ukraine that deposed a democratically elected president, and brought to power another Western puppet. The coup government outlawed the Russian language and customs. At this the majority ethnic Russian-speaking people of the Donbas in east Ukraine seceded. There has been a civil war there since.
When there is international conflict what is usually the causitive factor? The origins of the current crisis should be traced to the 2014 US-sponsored coup.
The “current crisis”? Can’t you at least summon the honesty and moral clarity to admit that this was and is an unprovoked, one-sided war of aggression and expansion chosen at this time, by Putin, and only Putin, (to the apparent deep discomfort and surprise of even some of his top military and intelligence officials). Who is launching cruise missiles and cluster bombs at residential, urban targets - the 2014 coup? You are trying so hard to make your contrarian (actually tediously Putin-apologist) point, you’re alienating and repelling people who might otherwise be interested in having a nuanced discussion of the historical background and moves that have increased tensions and suspicions on both sides.
About 3 weeks before Russia invaded, Putin and Lavrov demanded very reasonable security guarantees of NATO derived from the Minkst Accords They have been the most viable path to peace since the US-sponsored Maidan coup in 2014. NATO, which is to say, the US, simply ignored the Russian proposals.. US and NATO imperial policy is shaped around weapons manufacturer's profits. The US and NATO are stationing nuclear capable missile batteries right on Russia's western border, after they unilaterally withdrew from the INF Treaty. Is Russia just supposed to stand by and watch as NATO encroaches closer and closer on its borders? What would be the US reaction if Mexico or Canada, in collaboration with an official US enemy like Russia or China, amassed such firepower on its borders? If observing facts makes me a Putin-apologist then by all means utilize the label.
We might have been able to have a balanced discussion of factors of various importance or unimportance, such as those you mention - a couple of weeks ago! But sorry, Putin himself has called your bluff and exposed your claims as unserious. He pretended he was interested in serious diplomacy with Macron and then used that misdirection to keep preparing for an even more maximalist invasion. He’s clearly determined to use whatever battlefield weapons he has at his disposal against civilians and cities - as he has so many other places, from Grozny to Syria. He clearly is fine with grabbing all of Ukraine. It wasn’t so long ago Lavrov himself pointedly insisted Ukraine was not a country at all and therefore had no right to popular sovereignty or borders - Russia could do and take whatever. And he even implied other neighboring countries might as well grab smaller pieces of it in irredentist fashion, too. It’s telling you seem to think imperialism is only a western phenomenon. That only western countries have arms industries and connected oligarchs who seek to push state policy for personal profit. Is the US behaving like Putin in Mexico: moving in almost 200,000 troops and razing the place because their extremely powerful and sadistically violent narco and human traffickers have essentially declared the US southern border null and void and are running mass quantities of fentanyl (drug overdoses are the leading cause of death of Americans 18-45) into the US along with huge numbers of invetted young men and are trafficking women and children?
Do you have any clue what Russia has been up to in building hypersonic nuclear weapons? Weapons they seem to feel, by threatening us with them, allow them to run amok brutalizing and grabbing for the entirety of a next door neighbor in an entirely one-sided, unprovoked attack using overwhelming force. Why hasn’t the US, et al, developed these weapons if “the West” is the one breaking out of treaties, is the side who is aggressively warmongering and controlled by arms industries?
Finally, why does Putin have to kill people in his own country to get his way? Why does he have to lie to the Russian public and try to gaslight them and the world by claiming he is only “de-Nazifying” Ukraine? Ukraine with its Jewish President, whom Putin is sending Wagner mercenaries to try and capture or kill. Why do his own intelligence and security chiefs look so terrified of him and so startled by his own personal choice to start the largest land war on Europe since Nazi Germany behaved similarly toward its neighbors. Your comment reads like it’s stuck in not only a “the West is uniquely imperialist and bad” delusion, but also a time- warp. It’s like you have no awareness of what’s transpired in the past week and the lie it reveals your assumptions to be. When Germany - always pretty sympathetic to Russia in recent decades - is sending arms for the first time and is being joined by countries like Finland and Sweden - countries breaking extremely long, consistent policies of neutrality, what does it tell you about who is the aggressor and who is the threat and who is behaving so dangerously and destructively they can no longer sit on the sidelines. I’m not even so opposed to the insights of realists like John Mearsheimer. I do care about history and geography from the Russian perspective. But I’m not a single-minded dupe for Putin because I have a one-dimensional view of the West as the bad guys. And I do pay attention to how actual behavior and policies inform these judgments. And Putin’s behavior over the past week especially has told me plenty. This is now all on him. Not the Russian people - Putin.
It was not three weeks ago. It was February 21 that Lavrov, Putin and Russia made very reasonable peace demands of NATO: observe an immediate cease fire in the Ukrainian civil war which had killed upwards of 15,000, mostly rebels. demilitarize Eastern Europe; renounce Ukrainian admission to NATO according to the Minkst Protocols. President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken said those terms were "non-starters." How easy it would have been to acquiesce to those very reasonable terms. Whatever else this crisis is, NATO, which is to say the United States is its cause.
Do you agree sending some $3 billion in "lethal weaponry" to Ukraine by NATO in such a volatile environment over the last 18 months is such a good and benign idea?
Great discussion and perspectives. Just encourage y'all to play nice! We're all about assuming good faith in one another, and changing the tone of the internet, on this blog!
I watched the documentary "Winter of Fire" on Netflix last night. One sided award winning doc indeed. So many layers to the current activity in Ukraine, but we are fed only the version that WEF/NWO/NATO wants us to hear and see.
Yes I watched it a few years ago. It was pretty overtly presented as a very emotional and one-sided perspective. I’m no more a fan of the Victoria Nulands of the world than you are, but am somehow capable of thinking about this conflict in terms that include legitimate concerns based on Russian history, geography, and actual interests, and harboring a healthy suspicion of institutions focused on opening countries to financialization and profiteering - without reducing the pro-westernization side to an alphabet soup of shadowy institutions and their propaganda.
I'm sympathetic to criticisms of the US role in all of this. John Mearsheimer was a teacher of mine in grad school, and he's shared similar thoughts, and is a very distinguished political scientist. My main thought in all of this, however, is that we all have to be a lot more candid, and a little more compassionate. Appreciate that you're doing that, on the former. (And hope that you can do that, with EWR and others, on the latter.)
Thanks Wayne and Steven for this insightful conversation. Everyone please listen and share.
Hi could you please link through to the podcast? Apologies if it’s here somewhere, but I can’t find it.
Here's the podcast link: thegreenpillpodcast.com/episodes/steven-fish
Thank you!
Speaking of Mutually Assured Bulls..., how about "protein comes from meat," "calcium comes from milk," "omega-3 comes from fish," "carbs make you fat" and "animal agriculture is not the leading cause of climate change"? These are purveyed by governments around the world, including the government of the United States, and these MABs are causing us to destroy ourselves and destroy the planet. As long as we continue an economic system that is based on making money off death, disease and destruction - death for the animals, diseases for humans and destruction for the planet, aren't such MABs necessary to keep the ecological Ponzi scheme going?
Re: State of the Union Address. I believe the president should deliver a sober summary that will bring truth into the open. Truth is the commodity in greatest peril in our nation and the world. Putin continues to lie about everything. I believe the president should say the following whether he is cheered or not.
Biden should emphasize repeatedly that avoiding the truth has damaged our country immeasurably and increased distrust in elections and the legislature. The state of our union is NOT strong. We have very little union in our union partially owing to the actions of his predecessor and the silence of many (but not all) in the legislature. Biden needs to say this. It is not an attack on values because there are issues, such as abortion or gun rights, on which there can and should be legitimate debate. IT IS A CALL FOR COURAGE IN CALLING A LIE A LIE. This is a pretty low bar.
We here live in a despotic totalitarian autocracy barely able if it all to sort the US government let alone the socialist struggling exSoviet Union. People here in the US at all levels decline support of good housing for all, good food for all, meaningful schooling for us all, in the case of Cuba, being able to give their children milk.
The solid structures in nations attempting to institute socialist policies are fierce, backed by militaries and in particular by the US, where this person comes from.
Same in US oligarchy-lies, greed, death&destruction-unaudited obscene military budget totally out of control, graft&corruption in corporate control of everything. Wonder what he thinks about Russia, a nuclear power, accepting regime change?
Hi Wayne. Being Russian myself, I find this article slightly off. It accuses Russians of lying, making them responsible for the current situation. While it’s partially true, Russia is a totalitarian country where there is no freedom of speech, even remotely. Stephen Fish more Then likely has no personal experience to compare and fully understand how Russian people are repressed and oppressed.