Comments on: Mark Galeotti’s response to Putin’s plea for reason: lies & penis jokes

By: delicieuxz

delicieuxz — Sat, 05 May 2018 21:19:54 +0000

The Guardian is retarded propaganda taped together by sold-out hacks. Does anybody take it seriously anymore? The Guardian even said for itself that it was adopting a more sensationalist format because it was bleeding money and had to do something to improve its financial situation. So, The Guardian has made it clear that it is not in the business of journalism, but of sensationalism.

By: Joginder Singh Foley (@JSinghF)

Joginder Singh Foley (@JSinghF) — Thu, 29 Mar 2018 20:58:20 +0000

In reply to Jim Scott. Myself when thinking of Al-Guardian and its so-called journalism, I would go for Queensryche "I usted to trust the media to tell me the truth, tell us the truth" from Operation Mindcrime and "The rich control the government, the law, the media" from the same album.

By: Robbobbobin

Robbobbobin — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 02:39:34 +0000

Mark Surname-Forgotten-Already was merely perceptively writing for the New Guardian’s audience.
The Manchester Guardian was always happy in it’s rightward superiority over its leftward-leaning readership, as C.P. Scott explicitly noted, but now the New Guardian – having established itself over the course of the current millennium as the MSM’s progressive left’s largest organ, thanks to the decay of widespread progressive thought in Britain, its near-total atrophy in the USA, and its neverinexistence in Australasia – it has seized its chance at survival in a post-Gutenberg, domesticated-Internet world. If you could hang electrons on newsstand racks at supermarket checkouts, the New Guardian would be in like Flynn. Just as the original Guardians were proudly to the right of their readerships, so their latter-day facsimile is proudly on the other side of the Beltway from its (especially around McLean).
So Mark Thingamy is just keeping to the neohouse neostyle. Prossibly even one of its neostyle guide’s covert advisory panel.
I’d suggest a counter-covert link campaign. See a still-open New Guardian comment opportunity that can be referenced on-topic to an OffGuardian clarification, piece or comment? Comment, link and post. Lazy moderators wising up? bitly.com & Co could be your friends.

By: Mikalina

Mikalina — Wed, 07 Mar 2018 22:31:40 +0000

In reply to bevin.

Insightful, succinct and informative, as usual.
I watched Michael Parenti today* talking about the condition of the USSR before it was destabilised and invaded by the ‘West’. Inspiring stuff.
https://ohtarzie.wordpress.com/2017/08/27/michael-parenti-reflection-on-the-overthrow-of-communism/
(*Site given by Milosevic on another thread.)

By: Arrby

Arrby — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 23:13:57 +0000

In reply to summitflyer.

I don’t think that Putin was bluffing. But I came across a Consortium News article that had me wondering about the impression Putin made and whether he was okay with misleading us just a bit, not by doing it himself, but by omission and by allowing us to have ideas that don’t exactly conform to reality:
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/03/03/why-putins-latest-weapons-claims-should-scare-us/

By: Arrby

Arrby — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 22:55:15 +0000

In reply to Empire Of Stupid. For those pondering whether to read the offending article, it's not unbearably long. It's just awful.

By: Arrby

Arrby — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 04:35:05 +0000

“The tame audience dutifully applauded” – Mark Galeotti
That small phrase told me a lot. He’s complaining about an audience! They sat and listened politely like any other audience and applauded repeatedly. When Putin got into the section of his address dealing with advanced military weapons, You could see the change in audience members’ demeanor. They couldn’t contain themselves, relatively speaking. They were ecstatic. I personally found that alarming, but understandable.
People all over the the world saw it that address. So for Galeotti to try to make something out of nothing here, makes him look pathetic to a lot of rational, informed people. Additionally, It appears that Mark was personally greatly annoyed by the particularly warm reception Putin’s remarks about the weaponry got from his audience. One wouldn’t call the audience, during that part of the address, one that “dutifully” applauded.
The world, especially outside the US, knows why the Russian audience appreciated the fact that Russia under Putin did not do ‘nothing’ about Mr Galeotti’s hero, uncle Sam, the bully. They were relieved to learn that after the provocations they had all endured, some of which they just heard Putin list, his public answer wasn’t just “ouch.” Russia – whose soldiers won WWII for everyone, despite the fact that the Nazi bug that was squashed and splattered ended up coming to life wherever its goo landed – has been so disrespected and threatened by almost the entire developed world, that it was only natural that that audience for a brief moment felt some pride in Putin’s bold talk. But racist, irrational haters of Russia don’t want to see any of that. As well, that audience no doubt rationally felt that here was some hope, in the reality that Putin here publically revealed, that the racist warmongers in centers of power throughout the West might just back off. Would Galeotti have the light to see that?
But Galeotti has a job to do, which, it appears, he is perfectly suited to doing, and that job is channel state propaganda in accordance with the old American NSC 68 and the doctrinal system that that document represents. The entire American-led Corporatocracy is held captive to the outlook and doctrinal system stemming from that irrational anti-communist, Cold War document. As Chomsky said, the mafia don decides what the policies will be.

By: bevin

bevin — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 01:52:56 +0000

The real significance of Putin’s speech has been missed. As John Helmer suggests there are signs that Putin has now moved decisively in favour of the forces which have produced the weaponry of which he spoke and against those who side with the oligarchs and favour accommodation, on almost any terms, with the USA.
Something that has mystified unthinking westerners is the possibility that, while spending relatively small amounts an industrial sector which is notoriously run down has managed to come up with an arsenal which matches and may very well exceed that of the US with its massive defense budgets. In a society obsessed with the silly notion that privatisation and free enterprise produce innovation and cut costs the performance of Russia’s, largely state owned, arms industry seems counter intuitive. When added to the conventional wisdom that the Soviet Union failed because it was bureaucratised and inefficient Russia’s advantage is inexplicable .
In reality none of this should be surprising. The US Defense procurement system is designed basically to funnel money from the taxpayers to the MIC. And the Military Industrial Complex, as its name suggests, has many often conflicting aims in developing and producing weapons. Of the various interest groups in the MIC only the tiny, though loud, ideological wing of neo-conservatives has any interest in war with Russia. As to the rest, the politicians, the corporations, the military war is the least of their desires: the politicians want jobs for constituents and deep wells of graft in which those trillions can be re-cycled into campaign funds, think tanks, pensions, bribes and favours. The corporations want orders with guaranteed and fat profits. They also want monopolies and help in garnering the super profits that come from foreign orders. Places like Israel and Saudi are the icing on an already rich and fruity cake. The military want other things, of which wars against their peers in Russia and China are not a part.
Add together the realities of the Defense procurement system and the inefficiencies of monopoly capitalism and the wonder is not that the Russian state produces better results but that the US forces have any ‘materiel’ at all. And often enough they do not: the F35 is but one example of the many projects into which untold riches have been sunk without any perceptible advantage. The US fleets are full of ships that serve no real purpose except to consume fuel and bang into one another. The army is so bad that most of the work is actually carried out by Special Forces (now 70,000 strong) while the logistical load is borne by contractors and mercenary bands.
But the reality of Russia’s position, as anyone who has followed modern history will know, is that bureaucratic and sclerotic as the Soviet system was it was still vastly more efficient than the chaotic and suicidal capitalist system. From Sputnik down, even despite the co-ordinated wrecking of the Soviet economy, until today the Russian system of developing, producing and employing arms has proved to be superior to the US system.
For this there are many reasons but the single most important is that, in the USA Defense procurement is a scam whereas in Russia, as Putin made plain, it is a matter of national survival. And so it has been since 1918- a century of making sure that a world full of enemies could be fought off.
Those western commentators who sneered that Putin was boasting and exaggerating when he warned potential aggressors to think twice, have gone through the lessons of that century without learning a thing.
What has happened in Russia, since the 1990s, is that the sirens of westernisation, which Russians have been listening to since Tsar Paul’s time, have been discredited again. The future in Russia lies not with the Fifth Column of westerners, with their Wall St/City of London banking practices and their longing for acceptance by high finance but with those looking east where the sun rises, east and south where three out of every four members of humanity live.

By: tarqu1no

tarqu1no — Mon, 05 Mar 2018 22:50:24 +0000

In reply to Ian M. Ditto Russel Howard and much of the Mock The Week commentary.