What we have here are two opposed scenarios, two opposed comprehensive views, and I will show that the Russian view is an intentional falsehood portrayed for us toward the end of power, while what we say is actually occurring aims to oppose and prevent a world catastrophe similar to the second war, with causes that are similar- a tyrant seeking to expand his own power without limit. Now, some of our friends here on the right support Putin because they are sincerely duped, while others support him knowing he is an expanding tyrant, as these have given up on what is called democracy or free self government, due to what is seen as a degeneration of the left extreme of US popular opinion. This means that our argument 1) that they are duped becomes the argument 2) that tyranny is bad, or is an even worse degeneration than they are now thinking possible. The argument against the really “Big Lie” becomes the argument against the purpose of the big lie.
Would Caldwell oppose Stalin, or would he rather praise him as a strong ruler?” Would he sanitize tyranny with the replacement neutral word “autocrat?” Does Caldwell oppose tyranny, and if not, can this position be said to be “American?” Or has that- and the credo of the second sentence of the Declaration- not become irrelevant, because something else has become more important?
How much a part of Russia Ukraine was even under Stalin is shown by the famine in the Ukraine called Holomor, when 2 million Ukrainians starved while the Soviet tyranny reallocated food to the Russians. Caldwell would have us view Ukraine as divided between East and West, with the Eastern Ukrainians wanting to be a part of Russia. Even the Ukrainian Orthodox church, though, is separate from the Russian, and the Western Ukraines have been a separate people since the Mongol invasion of 1248. No more does Moscow have any historic claim to rule Kyiv than Kyiv has to rule Moscow, and surely less- Kiev was ruled from Volograd for a time, but never from Moscow, until the Soviet empire ate all neighboring nations into the belly of the most murderous tyranny the world had yet seen- and that is statistical and agreed upon- 40-70 million Russians were killed by their own communist tyranny over a 70 year period the world hoped might have come to an end. Now one who seeks to restore this justly termed evil empire seeks to expand, and Caldwell would have the US republicans do nothing to oppose this expansion.
Not giving Putin blood money is termed “economic warfare against Russia” (p. 6). We can simply refuse to play with the bully, in economic terms- no one has to do business with Russia. Those who have mistaken Russia for a normal business opportunity, such as Bill Browder, or Germany, have learned a lesson the hard way.
Assets are frozen, and the alternative is that the world community of nations allow Russia to expand with every drip of fuel, submerging literally millions more in the iron system of Russian rule by fear of heinous murder. Some might still play with such a fellow, but we don’t have to. Business assumes a mutual decency and a world of common sense where property is usually secured, as in, by “trust.” Would it be shocking to say of Putin that even those who work for him- or especially those he finds useful- would be fools to “trust” him?
Caldwell would perhaps rather have us conduct business as usual, and he knows the rhetorical power of the present economic weather with the US voter. Which one of these would contribute to the project of Putin in exchange for lower gas prices, let him stand up! Let him confess this to the Ukraines receiving repeated targeting of civilians- would you finance one more missile? I am afraid the answer of Caldwell is that he would, or that he does not care.
Tweets preserved:
Is Caldwell’s Putin the same as the man the Senate voted 98-2 to sanction for the torture and murder of Sergei Magnitsky? The right and all the executive agencies seem to have been deceived to think Putin our ally in the war on terror. It is indeed, how Bin Laden switched his enmity from defense against Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to fighting America as though it were some “great Satan.” Seeing now that the Russian plan for expansion has been in the works as an option for some time, one can only wonder at the opposition of Islam to the nation that allows liberty even to Islam.
Another response must be coming. His 9/22 essay has not changed a bit. 1.6 million Ukraines have been gulagged. Imprimis Critique: Meyer and Caldwell https://mmcdonald77.wordpress.com/2017/04/26/imprimis-critique-meyer-and-caldwell/… via
Putin has had it over on the US right, beginning with the “intellectuals.” Caldwell keeps the focus on that degenerate left extreme, those bad liberals, ignores the rising fascism, and would sell America to have the conservative platform.
A world of unimaginable ugliness is possible, especially if we do not believe it, but have to see it. Um, Putin did not invade Ukraine because of NATO. He is a tyrant seeking power, and will use whatever reason. These BELIEVE as policy in using fake reasons. He is not going to say: “that is mine,” “because I want it,” “and can take it, and hold this to be more important than many lives.” It is shocking that this need be spelled out to these students of politics and the constitution. Time and again, Putin does what he wants in seeking power, while selecting some reason that might justify such apparent violence, Ukrainian Nazism and such, “terrorism,” etc. A part of opinion, especially inside Russia and among its allies, receives these predictable and patterned rationalizations as though there were no difference between naked injustice and the genuine defense against tyranny and villainy. These reasons are oddly drawn from an inversion of the tyrants own looking glass- for just as Trump knows that his own mode of operation is election fraud, so Putin knows his own aim is a limitless and total power to which Nazism is more akin than any tyranny that has yet emerged in human history.
NATO is of course not an empire but a defensive alliance against the expansion of Russian tyranny. The obvious needs sometimes to be stated. Whether Russia seeks world rule and our destruction under the banner of fascism or communism is irrelevant to NATO. Putin of course insisted that NATO say they will NEVER allow Ukraine to enter the defensive alliance- This is the basis of Putin’s accusation- now obscured for all US “Republicans.” Putin insisted NATO do this when he had 100,000 troops on the border of Ukraine- since he had in truth already decided to invade, and nothing could be found to deter him. NATO did nothing but not jump when Putin called the tune- Putin insisted that Ukraine submit and Europe do nothing. Putin planned to invade Ukraine regardless, accepting only the same submission as Belarus, regardless of what NATO did or did not do. His plan was all along, it would seem, to move in the 5th year after Trump’s election, though he planned on Trump winning a second term-and he almost did.
If we are ever going to say “no” to Putin despite his nuclear blackmail, we may as well do it now- before he has destroyed Ukraine, etc, and taken all the people into the gulag as far as he can reach into Europe. Moldavia and Finland are next, and the whole ex-Soviet empire explicitly targeted. The issue is indeed more complex than any public account, any scenario that can guide public opinion. Caldwell cites Kennan and Burns on the obvious reason that officially admitting the Ukraine to NATO was not then next. That either would agree that we should do nothing is just as doubtful as that that either would agree that we should leap into the war ourselves- the circumstance is new and extremely difficult, and the Ukrainians are bearing the brunt of the fighting in order that the “West” might avoid expanding the war, in the nuclear age.
As for sending hardware into Ukraine, as Putin has of course also been doing: If we are ever going to say “No” to Putin despite his nuclear blackmail, we may as well do it now- before he has destroyed Ukraine, etc, and taken all the people into the gulag as far as he can reach into Europe’ Moldavia and Finland are next, the whole ex-Soviet empire. There are reasons of strategic and strictly national interest involved here. For the other part, one might as well face the question of whether we are willing to submit to Russian rule due to the fear of nuclear war. Our suggestion is that that is not how these things work, but rather one of the various instances of slavishness and the failure of integrity that have left us vulnerable to what is now occurring.
On page we get to the truer issue
Now, we have 7 guys who are charged, some with lying to the FBI, and were “Pardoned,” and the issue is Russian election fraud assistance: Flynn, Gates, Manafort, Stone. Popo, Cohen, Giuliani and Sessions should be questioned.
But one wonders if ANY action of trading US foreign policy for election fraud would not be just fine with Caldwell, and THAT may be the real issue. He is a Russian asset, in whatever sense, influencing the opinion of the voters- thanks.
Congress must question Trump under oath in detail about Russian interference. Kasperski was handling internet security for 400 million accounts FROM MOSCOW for the 2016 election. They interfered with the opinion of the voters by marketing, intimidation and mechanical means.
Remember? Reblog From Straight Arrow: No “Collusion?” Sater, Cohen and Trump Tower Moscow https://mmcdonald77.wordpress.com/2018/04/14/remember-reblog-from-straight-arrow-no-collusion-sater-cohen-and-trump-tower-moscow/… via
On page 6, Caldwell asserts that fighting back is what is costing lives in Ukraine, not the Russian attack and invasion. “Why are you resisting?” the East Pointe police officer said on tape while beating one arrested. “Stop resisting.” That is just fine too with tyrants.
“Budapest Memorandum” is another word the diplomatic Caldwell does not use. In the 1994 agreement, Russia agreed to the territorial integrity of Ukraine in exchange for nuclear hardware and a de-nuclearized Ukraine. In violating this agreement, the other parties are no longer bound to keep their bargain either. Ukraine is an independent nation sick to death of Putin’s explicitly expansionist tyranny. The whole of Europe has been threatened explicitly if NATO did not state Ukraine would NEVER join! That is to say, unless Russia may invade and NATO do nothing.
A response is required, as 6.2 million readers receive this pamphlet monthly. I do not want to note off the cuff, things such as “the same could be said of Hitler in ’38, and Calwell would not notice.” Perhaps he would not care. Fascism is another word he does not use.
No part of the Ukraine wants to be Russian. One would think from Caldwell the whole eastern Ukraine was, like, oppressed by Zelenski. And Austrians were forbid to speak German! “right up to their doorstep, “meddle with Russias vital interests” !!
The problem is of course that this expansionist tyrant begins armed with nuclear weapons, while World War II nearly ended with Hitler so armed.
mmcdonald77 