Comments on: WATCH: Vladimir Putin’s March 1 address to Russian Federal Assembly (with transcript)

By: Arrby

Arrby — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 00:51:07 +0000

Trump, and probably any dolt who would write his speech, couldn’t handle the challenge of fashioning the words into intelligible and intelligent sentences, let alone eloquent and powerful ones. (I thought Putin’s statement about the US not listening, in which he suggested that it listen now, was simple, powerful, needed and completely justified.) We are talking Homer Simpson / Rain Man here. Two, I could see him saying fine, uplifting things (some of which I have issues with) like Putin did in the above address (which is called rhetoric and is standard for all leaders), if he was literate, but in Trump’s case they’d all be lies. In Putin’s case, I’m sure that all that he said was true. And for sure, I think Putin’s much more honest, and sane, than Trump (and all the leaders who jump, while asking “How high?,” when Trump, speaking for the powerful, gangster Corporatocracy, says “Jump!”)

By: Arrby

Arrby — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 00:05:05 +0000

Much of the audience looked like they were having orgasms listening to Putin list all the super weapons and watching the vids showing how they would work. It’s understandable, but disturbing at the same time.

By: Arrby

Arrby — Mon, 05 Mar 2018 23:37:08 +0000

Putin is no anti-capitalist, sadly. Increasing GDP (‘How?’ is the issue), keeping inflation at unnaturally low rates (which benefits investors at the expense of the wider public), inviting the private sector to partner with the government (P3s?), inviting Russian pharmaceuticals to step up and help solve problems (scary) don’t inspire me, especially when none of those comments were qualified (no mention of organics). He did say a little about air and water quality, which would relate to any discussion of health outcomes. He referred to an Anti Monopoly Service. Is it real? They have those here in Canada and the US as well, Don’t we? And what good are they?
Politicians here, who blather about getting rid of red tape, have only ever been friends of the 1%. It always turns out to mean that ‘regulation’ (of corporations, not people) is bad. It’s neoliberalism. No one wants needlessly bureaucracy, but when audiences hear politicians toss out that line, what they are hearing isn’t exactly what’s being said. Maybe Russia is different.

By: BigB

BigB — Sat, 03 Mar 2018 09:23:20 +0000

In reply to Chris.

"Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expected, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first." Engels.

“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.” MLK

Can't dispute about Rand (which I thought I suitably caveated): can't dispute that the collective consequences of our reality (the "revenge of nature") are inescapable and already upon us …with much worse to come. Any rational discussion toward a strategy of avoidance would be welcome, in my view. It's not going to come from the top: not even from the best of the political leadership …i.e. Vladimir Vladomirovich.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 03 Mar 2018 01:29:00 +0000

In reply to Big B. Quote from Ayn Rand, one of the most insane ideologs our planet has produced is a bit strange in the context of attempted rational analysis

By: sojourner

sojourner — Fri, 02 Mar 2018 19:11:26 +0000

Reblogged this on An Outsider's Sojourn II (The Journey Continues).

By: Mikalina

Mikalina — Fri, 02 Mar 2018 17:35:25 +0000

Facing what could be the unnecessary destruction of our planet, one of the most powerful people in the world says, listen, let’s talk. The Guardian’s response:
“It is easy to wonder, with a snigger, quite for what Putin is (over)compensating, and it is certainly true that this was an exercise in bluster and braggadocio.”
• Mark Galeotti is a senior researcher at the Institute of International Relations Prague and head of its Centre for European Security
The tabloid rag should crawl away into a corner somewhere and quietly die.

By: Big B

Big B — Fri, 02 Mar 2018 14:31:55 +0000

Brilliant speech, with an admirable clarity and presentation of vision. The level social inclusion would make any western politician or (non-Marxist) left-liberal ideologue blush. The problem, as I would foresee it, is that it is forty years (at least) out of date. Not that one could isolate Vladimir Vladomirovich as ill-informed: it is a self-perpetuating myth plaguing the majority of humanity that we can grow ourselves out of the GFC doldrums and secularly stagnant Long Depression – we can’t.
To be fair, the Russian Federation is one of the best placed to try, with its low Debt to GDP ratio, abundance of hydrocarbons, etc. The problem would be in trying to further diversify from Dutch Disease (singular economic reliance on hydrocarbon revenues); Russia intends to export its over-capacity for high tech production into global Bear (with regional variations) markets. [Personally, I would not believe the Trump Triumphalsism and G7 central bank financially engineered perpetual Bull(crap) market propaganda. Global GDP has been declining for a decade.] Globally, we do not have an under-capacity in high tech manufacture, we already have an over-capacity. We have too much stuff, but not enough debt-free consumption. Plus, of course, the concomitant over-consumption and misallocation of non-renewable resources.
With its large land mass and mineral wealth, Russia is also well placed resource wise, And China has the near monopoly on rare earth elements needed in large quantity for high tech manufacture. Neither is debt-fueled expansion of real productive capacity a problem (provided the relevant future market is created and sustainable). The problem with the paradigm is that if you add Russia’s projected expansion, with China’s, India’s, America’s, etc …what does the emergent global capitalist ‘superorganism’ grow into? The cytokinetic division into another planet? Then another?
Russia is also capable of internal spatial fix: creating new markets within its own borders. And could easily revert to self-sufficiency in agriculture and food production (plenty of gas for the Haber-Bosch manufacture of fertiliser; Russia is also a world leading producer of organic veg, and has long banned GMOs). In short, Russia is all but immune to the collapse of the superorganism of global consumption. But we are not.
That is not to allocate any blame. Vladimir Vladomirovich (who will certainly be the next President) has no choice but to participate in the global dialectic of compound exponential growth. Although this policy has its epicentre in Washington (the unholy relics of Breton Woods: the IMF, World Bank, WTO, etc); it is all but a pandemic parasitism. There is nowhere left to withdraw to: the cancerous superorganism is genetically condemned to grow.
Absent the breakout of sanity and cooperation (it’s not too late!): and the neocons sitting down with Vladimir Vladomirovich and Xi to create an Ecological Civilisation: this vision would rank among the best of them. I hate to end with an Ayn Rand quote: but “we can avoid reality: but we cannot avoid the consequences of reality.” Best not to see it coming?
[And when it does come, Russia will be the place to be. I fear I may be too old for a visa though.]

By: tutisicecream

tutisicecream — Fri, 02 Mar 2018 10:32:44 +0000

It seems that the Guardian and much of the WMSM have jumped on this as an escalation. Duh? They would have us believe that they inform us of things. Hmm…
They have such short memories, maybe no memory at all. This all started with Regan, and then continued with Clinton and Dubya Bush on and on to the current day. Putin is right when he says the US and NATO seem incapable of listening. Perhaps they’ll listen now. But judging by their last 30 years of intelligent decision making I find this difficult to see