zn wrote:

I did explain that stance though. As I see it, no one in their right mind believes that NATO is an aggressive force capable of using military might to acquire territory. NATO is not going to invade anyone. And that’s regardless what you think of NATO. Putin, on the other hand, sees NATO as threatening his own aggressive interests in re-acquiring the lost portions of the old USSR’s eastern European empire. Not that different from Serbia trying to grab what it could from the collapse of Yugoslavia. Russia is not threatened by NATO. Russian imperial expansion is threatened by NATO. I honestly believe that all stands to reason and in fact, to me, it seems like it is completely obvious. Anyway. What Putin “sees as a threat” is of no interest to me, except that it explains his pathologies as a right-wing dictator. To me, it’s like a domestic abuser who believes people calling him on his violence means they are aggressively threatening to harm an innocent person.

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I hear ya.  I just disagree.

I think you are ignoring all the ways NATO/US ‘attacks’ nations,

other than all-out-war.    Remember Kissinger’s statement about Chile: “We will make them scream” etc.

I doubt (but who knows) Putin was ever afraid of all out Nato ‘invasion’.

But I do think its not only ‘rational’ to fear a NATO attack but I think its terribly naive to think NATO is ‘not’ attacking Russia, in all the usual economic/dirty-trick ways that NATO is an expert at.   Its got a long long history of that stuff.    To me thats just as bloody murderous as an ‘invasion’.

So, yes, I blame the US Oligarchs as well as Putin and his oligarchs.

I blame Capitalism.   The gangster-capitalist-states.

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zn wrote:

From what I am piecing together (in between actually trying to get work done for my real-world job)? Putin believes in re-acquring the former Soviet empire. The longer he waits on the Ukraine, the deeper its ties to NATO. Now he can act like he believes NATO is a threat to him, but that’s obviously nonsense–NATO was never going to launch an aggressive war against Russia. But NATO solidarity and membership can limit Russian imperial ambitions in the region. This is not an exact analogy but a proximate one–Ukraine in a lot of ways is to Putin what the Sandinistas were to Reagon. His whole thing about Ukraine not really being a nation gives it away. He’s saying, you stole from us, we’re just taking it back. (Once again my ethnic history is that I am Ukrainian…my grandparents could barely speak English…and this idea that Ukraine has no authentic national history is ludicrous.) Anyway. It is beyond crazy that we have a situation in Europe where a massive global power actually launches a WW2 style invasion of a neighboring state. It happened with Serbia in relation to its neigboring states but that was of course on a smaller scale so isn’t the “wtf” level news that this is. It’s a similar dynamic, though–the break up of Yugoslavia led to aggressive military conflicts. This is the same thing, the break up of the USSR, but just on a bigger scale.

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Yeah, I’m just trying to figure out what all our differences/positions are on all this.   The way you just laid your view out, NATO/US has zero culpability in the Russian Invasion, and you think its “nonsense” for Putin to think of NATO as a threat.

I think I disagree, because i think its perfectly rational for him to see NATO as a threat and I agree with Noam that no Russian leader would allow NATO to do what its been doing with regard to Ukraine.

Having said that, I’m not gonna spend the time to really get all ‘granular’ about Ukraine or Yemen or the fifty gazillion other chess pieces on the board now.

I dont have the time or emotional bandwidth anymore for that.  (Plus, I no longer think its possible to know shit anymore, but thats another thread for another day) I did back in the Iraq War days, but I dont anymore, and I’m more interested in the big-picture now, blah blah.

One wonders what effect this will have on the US Pentagon/NSA/CIA/Weapons Manufacturing budget.

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Billy_T wrote:

Thanks, Zooey. Maps help. Though I think the angle of that one distorts the situation a bit. It makes the surrounding countries look bigger than they really are, relative to Russia. It’s actually, as you know, massive. No nation comes close to it in size. I’m just not buying the legitimacy of their feeling threatened enough to start a war. It’s sheer paranoia, IMO, though it at least has the benefit of actual geographical proximity. US invasions of Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. . . . can’t claim even that much. (Listening to Country Joe McDonald, among other 1960/70s classics, as I write this . . .) Again, my hobby horse: We can’t let “we do it too” stop us from condemning the indefensible.

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BT, I dont see ‘anyone’ on ‘this’ board ‘defending’ the invasion.   Some of us are ‘explaining’ why he invaded.  Thats not the same as saying “its ok” or “defending” it.   Its the same as ‘explaining’ why the US invaded Iraq.  We can talk about Oil, and Power and Privatization, and Geo-Capitalist-Politics — but that doesnt mean we are ‘defending’ the invasion of Iraq.

The ‘explanations’ I’ve seen about why Putin invaded seem accurate to me.

(and they have nothing to do with ‘nazis’ — thats just an obvious cover story, with grains of truth to this or that degree)

Why do YOU think he invaded?

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I rarely ‘study’ the ‘particular’ episodes of capitalist-mass-murder anymore.

And I dont intend to spend a lot of time researching Ukraine or any of the other capitalist-murderspots.    For me, they are all just examples of capitalist-gangsterism at work.   Russian Oligarchs vs American Oligarch/Corporations.

Russian capitalism is the medium-sized mass-murderer and the US is the mega-super-sized-capitalist-murderer, and they are ‘competing’.

Yemen, Ukraine, Bolivia, Venezuela, Syria…etc, etc, etc.   For ‘me’ the differences are insignificant.   Lots of particulars, lots of differences, but for ‘me’ its the same story —

Big Capitalist-US-murder-machine,

vs smaller-capitalist-murder-spheres

vs Some ‘hybrid’ spheres (like China) vs

some smaller part-socialist-experiments in some places.

Fwiw, I liked this article.  Fwiw.  Though as usual its more about US ‘coverage’ or propaganda, than about the complex, nuanced, multi-layered ‘details’ of the particular facts on the ground in Ukraine.

FAIR:https://fair.org/home/what-you-should-really-know-about-ukraine/

“…As FAIR (1/15/22) has reported, between December 6, 2021, and January 6, 2022, the New York Times ran 228 articles that refer to Ukraine, but none of them reference the pro-Nazi elements in Ukraine’s politics or government. The same can be said of the Washington Post’s 201 articles on the topic…”

Pass/Catch at 13:30 mark.   Look familiar?

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Wouldnt that be funny if Aaron Rogers and Russell Wilson

left the NFC.

What a shame that would be.

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If the going rate for elite QBs is about 45 million a year (Rogers apparently wants 50 mill), then one wonders what Stafford will want after next year.

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I dunno.   I dunno about Morris.

I mean, how could any coach NOT be successful with AD, Floyd, Von, Ramsay, Gaines, A’Shawn…   I dunno.

Plus, when I watch him talkin, somethin about him just rings false to me.

Too much pop psychology or somethin.   Somethin doesnt ring ‘authentic’ to me.   But what do i know.

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I’d be curious as to how many minority coaches McVay has hired over the years and how many he has on staff now.   I’d be curious how his numbers look compared to the NFL in general, etc.

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Well, you ‘can’ win in the NFL with a ‘decent’ QB, as the Titans and 49ers showed, and lots of teams have shown in the past.

But, man, is it a relief when your team has ‘the guy’ at QB.   The Chiefs, Bills, Chargers, Rams, Bengals (and as of today Packers and Seahawks) have ‘that guy’.

I dunno about Dak.   I have never quite figured out what he is, exactly.

It will be strange not to have Brady lurking anywhere in the NFL.

The official narrative is that there is no elite QB in the college class this year.

I bet that turns out to be wrong.

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Wonder what the success rate is for players who had two surgeries

on the same knee.

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dunno if this has been posted: “deep nerdy knowledge of football”

The penalty was a penalty, according to Simms:

Whitworth.   The thoughtful, reflective leader, I would say.   They gonna miss him.

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