Hi guys I feel very strongly that we need to discuss Russia. Behind all of this mess we are in (and many other countries are in) are the slimy tentacles of the Russian Mafia State apparatus.
Recently yet another opposition figure has been poisoned with nerve agent. In the list of crimes committed by that regime over the past 20 years is the glaring realization that they have never been held to account for any of this. Like an energizer bunny they just keep going and going and going....... and with time their belligerence only increases. The current poisoning was so obviously done by them that the thought occurs to me that it was deliberately obvious - as in they want the world to know that they did this and will do whatever they want without repercussions.
Unless this regime is held to account (and in a serious way not just words and sanctions) the world will never be safe. My question is why have the western powers allowed all this to continue for as long as it has and when if ever will they effectively fight back?
Because sanctions and words are all we have unless it comes to military action. No one wants to take on Russia militarily because it has a huge chance of ending in WW3 and a nuclear holocaust.
@natalie, I also think that the EU is uncomfortable to take action due to the US being unreliable. It is big news in the EU, the thing that happened to Mr. Nalvalny, and almost every leader + the EU government has decried the poisoning as such. He is in Germany and under our protection.
The problem is that it is delicate. The Russian were behind the shooting down of a passenger flight during the Crimea war in 2014. It carried a lot of Dutch passengers, but it is nearly impossible to bring the culprits to justice even with proof on our side. There will be a time that the world must act, but that window is closing because Trump's actions have made China cosying up to Russia. We cannot fight both of them at the same time and certainly not in a real war which nobody wants.
Just in the news here. Germany is doing it, putting the pressure on Russia and threatening to pull a billion dollar gas deal with Russia if it doesn't explain the poisoning.
Link is in Dutch.
https://www.ad.nl/buitenland/duitsland-voert-druk-op-rusland-op-in-zaak-navalny~add2b324/
@moonbeam I like it! Just like Joe Biden said,”Enough is enough!” I have followed Alexei Navalny for a long time. He is the right leader for their Nation. I tweeted to Putin to unleash the true power of his Nation...... the creativity of his people! We the peopleof Russia will have to do it. I think he will not see it coming.
I don't feel that the Kremlin is the elephant in the room because I am well aware that it is in the room. It sticks out like a giant mobster, I mean, monster. I have thought about it and worried about it for four years because I know Donald Trump wants to rule this country the way Putin rules Russia. He wants to hand this country to Putin on a silver platter. The two leaders are mobsters. On my website, this website, I have to deal with Russians, mostly men, who try to hack this site, every single hour of every single day. No it's not the elephant in the room. I know it is here.
But we first need to get rid of Donald Trump and Moscow Mitch and their entourage and other Kremlin sycophants. Hillary Clinton was very wary of the Kremlin, which is why Putin made sure to stomp on her. Putin was grooming our presidential puppet for many years.
It would help if the people of Russia would wake up too. I read Russian journalist Masha Gessen and feel for her. I imagine she bleeds for Russia and is horrified to see it happening here too.
Russian people support of Putin is something I don't understand. They seem clueless to me, like our Trump supporters or perhaps just afraid of repercussions if they speak. I have friends who have immigrated from Russia. They left Russia seeking a safer more law abiding country where they live well practicing medicine. They have a big house and go to the shore on weekends. They are good and hardworking people. They are also Trump supporters. I tell them that Trump would turn this country into the country they fled. The wife who is a friend told me Russians are wary of the Left in America - too close to communism. But I feel that at either political extreme, it is just authoritarianism. They think I'm naive. I don't understand them.
While I am sure there are Russians who feel as this couple feels, I also believe that there are many in Russia don't dare say anything (yet) against Putin for they very lives depend upon remaining silent. Putin will not rule forever. Things will be more tricky for Russia with a Biden presidency too. Don't be surprised if the Russian people begin to rise after Trump leaves.
They are watching the people protesting in the streets regarding Black Lives Matter. They will likely be inspired by what is going on in Belarus too. 100,000 protesting in the streets.
In Belarus- there were few indications that the regime’s heavy-handed tactics are working. Protests have gone on for nearly a month and show no sign of fizzling out, following the presidential election on 9 August that was widely seen as rigged.
The people in Russia are watching the entire world. So many protests are happening. Hong Kong alone could be inspiring. They are learning. They will be inspired.
As recently as this summer in Russia's Far East, there were many days of protests against Putin. That in itself is amazing.
It will happen.
This post was lost in a site break we had:
RE: The Red Elephant in the Room by Natalie. 11:38 AM
I thought a lot about how to answer this and about what I wanted to get out of this thread. I started it because I wanted hope, now I realize I have to reexamine that wish.
We all know people who in many ways are good people but who have political views that we find abhorrent. In my case it's my maternal family who are Putin supporters and some of my in laws who are right wing hate machines. People come to their understanding of the world in many ways, sometimes it is through pain and hardship. Jeanne your neighbors are a good example - if I can guess a little about them. They became doctors not because they had a genuine wish to help people but because medicine is a prestigious career. We all know doctors who can intuitively understand how best to help their patients, they listen and have great empathy. Equally we all know doctors who talk down to us, who don't listen and insist they have all of the answers and we none. In my experience I've met plenty of both, the second category are people who just like money and prestige but not actual medicine. Your neighbors left Russia for the United States, my guess is because there is considerably more money to be made here in their profession and considerably less corruption.
The world they grew up in was so corrupt that they most likely wanted to leave just to escape that. But they can't tie together disparate threads, why is Russia so corrupt, why is America less corrupt, what makes it grow and what makes it shrink? For people who left communist or ex communist countries for America because they wanted to build wealth and prosperity for themselves anything left wing is terrifying. You see this in American Cuban communities (who as my dad says are nuts). They don't tie together the reason that their countries had violent revolutions was because the income inequality became so extreme that people revolted, to them those people are traitors and giving anything to them is wrong. They see themselves as hard working and therefore deserving and others as not, therefore not worthy of charity or government help. They do not realize that they feed the beast they fear, the longer they continue to support politicians that harm others the more likely a revolution that sweeps them or their grandchildren away becomes. To them it's an ego thing, their sense of identity is tied to an authoritarian understanding of reality, beneath that is fear of losing everything, but fear feeds itself and makes that which you fear more likely to occur.
History offers great wisdom if you study it deeply and I see these patterns again and again as I read through various books. Long term Putin will fall, this is why. He will harm one too many people, someone close to him will see a loved one hurt and the west will slowly tighten it's pincers on the Russian economy, the oligarchs will lose money, the Russian people will lose money. Slowly it will dawn on people that the common denominator in all this financial loss is the serpent at the top, remove him and the problems begins to resolve itself. As a paranoid person he will narrow his inner circle as time goes on, but even his intimates have children, and it is from these children that his downfall will come.
and this is the reason we don't talk about this. I'm just exhausted - why am I still living on this earth, what's the friggin point when it's such a dark place.
Because you are needed to help lighten the darkness, dear Natalie.
Take heart! I know these are dark times, but the light will come again -- thanks, in part, to people like you and everyone in this community.
(I can say this as I'm having a "good" day myself; tomorrow or the next day, that might not be the case, so you might have to remind me ;-) )
@natalie, oh dear Natalie, there are good places in the world and great people too. I know everything feels dark right now, but it will light up. History is filled with tyrants and bad situations (just look up the Plantagenets in England), but there are always enlightened rulers in between.
That said, looking at the world since WWII, we have gotten better, we just need to overcome the slide back downhill and I think we can. We have been on track to get to the top and become an enlightened society. We were on track until the 70s when it comes to social reform, but this collapsed under Reagan and that slump fanned out across western society. In the 90s it got out of the stagnant nothing burger again and we're slowly crawling up hill.
As long as we can start to focus on global warming and 'fix' that we will get there and that includes the people of Russia. Their culture is different, they are a tough people, but they have basic needs and love too. I have faith in the next generation. The internet is out there, they can no longer be controlled by just 1 state channel. People travel, get into contact with other cultures... it will be better.
Until it does, focus on the good people you know and try to bring light into the world by helping others and find joy in the things you do. The fight is being fought and it will be won.
I feel this way all the time too. I try to remember all the amazing people who keep fighting. This article about activists and artists (also exhausted, also persevering) is pretty inspiring: https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2020/08/black-lives-matter-activists-photos
Beautiful, moonbeam. We fight because life is beautiful, even in the very darkest of times, and good people will always fight the darkness.