[Rei Murasame]

It doesn't really matter, since British society is already a wasteland, a garden which will have to be re-flowered from scratch when the time comes anyway. The 'good' liberal choice is whatever choice is best for the defence sector and produces the correct foreign policy.

Basically just get the most aggressive liberal-imperialists and let them do what they need to do in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, and in a decade we can check back and see what it looks like. British culture is already a complete disaster, and my participation in that culture is pretty much optional anyway, I can just ignore what I don't like. Foreign policy is the most important issue now.

The British left - who have been the most vocal critics of the present system - have completely failed to get any changes at all, and so I don't see why I should keep waiting on them for anything. Especially since they don't agree with me on foreign policy in a region of the world that I regard as important. That's a deal-breaker before the dealing even starts.

[OllytheBrit]

I think Rei overestimates Russia's power, sure it has some military supremacy, but it's not that, that would allow it to dominate a Europe free from US protection, but political decision making would, if European nations decided not to kow tow to Russia, there would be little it could do but commit nuclear suicide.

Seems to me that all the sabre-rattling is coming from this neck o' the woods! The latest is that Putin is being demonised (hey, at least it gives Assad a break? ) for this . . .

"Russia 'violated 1987 nuclear missile treaty', says US"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-28538387

It's no big deal is it - testing a guided missile? This is all getting too weird for yours truly!

[RhetoricThug]

You know, Rei, I think your writing prowess can be tended and nurtured. Like a garden, except more lucid and less resourceful. I see how you rip in, taking the opponents post and pinning it to the wall as if you are playing a game of darts, and each time you hit a bull's eye your dart pierces the heart of your opponent's stake. All is fair in love and war. BUT! What do I claim?

I want you to start writing fiction. Enough, no more will you be quoting war crimes and agitprop. I declare one thing- may you rise above, Rei, may you sieze this moment. Start writing for the unconscious enlightenment and stop finding agitation, agitation aimed at Earth's populace. I believe you in you, Rei.

Now, when it comes to Nato, allow myself to clarify. I am one to say that Nato is a Western European super bank alliance, whereas to say- the freaks in control work for the Pentagon. Let's face it, if we will be continuing this argument of third party pseudo politics, then I can say- based on the fact America is allied with the majority of Nato countries, the pentagon enforces the mass of Nato's military decisions. Ergo, I reside waiting, I think we all know Nato is one arm of the Pentagon's octopus like system of arms manufacturing and arming.

This is not bout those darn paternal liberals, Rei.

[Rei Murasame]

My question to you, is that if these people are being aggressive toward Russia, then why should you be interested in stopping them? Let the Pentagon do what they want. It's not harming you, is it?

[OllytheBrit]

My question to you, is that if these people are being aggressive toward Russia, then why should you be interested in stopping them? Let the Pentagon do what they want.

I only have two words to say to that - 'Edward Snowden'?? And you want to give the Pentagon free rein? Jesus!

[Rei Murasame]

I only have two words to say to that - 'Edward Snowden'??

Edward Snowden is a traitor to his country, who revealed important information on how signals intelligence is collected, and who has done great harm to the Five Eyes apparatus in the process. I don't really care about this issue, it is not a reason enough to allow Russia to win at things, considering that Russia has the equivalent of the exact same programmes.

You wanted to know what this is all about. This is what it's about:

Not only was the crisis in Russia's internal condition and the loss of international status distressingly unsettling, especially for the Russian political elite, but Russia's geopolitical situation was also adversely affected. In the West, as a consequence of the Soviet Union's disintegration, Russia's frontiers had been altered most painfully, and its sphere of geopolitical influence had dramatically shrunk (see map on page 94). The Baltic states had been Russian-controlled since the 1700s, and the loss of the ports of Riga and Tallinn made Russia's access to the Baltic Sea more limited and subject to winter freezes. Although Moscow managed to retain a politically dominant position in the formally newly independent but highly Kussifiod Belarus, it was far from certain that the nationalist contagion would not eventually also gain the upper hand there as well. And beyond the frontiers of the former Soviet Union, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact meant that the former satellite states of Central Europe, foremost among them Poland, were rapidly gravitating toward NATO and the European Union.

Most troubling of all was the loss of Ukraine. The appearance of an independent Ukrainian state not only challenged all Russians to rethink the nature of their own political and ethnic identity, but it represented a vital geopolitical setback for the Russian state. The repudiation of more than three hundred years of Russian imperial history meant the loss of a potentially rich industrial and agricultural economy and of 52 million people ethnically and religiously sufficiently close to the Russians to make Russia into a truly large and confident imperial state. Ukraine's independence also deprived Russia of its dominant position on the Black Sea, where Odessa had served as Russia's vital gateway to trade with the Mediterranean and the world beyond.

The loss of Ukraine was geopolitically pivotal, for it drastically limited Russia's geostrategic options. Even without the Baltic states and Poland, a Russia that retained control over Ukraine could still seek to be the leader of an assertive Eurasian empire, in which Moscow could dominate the non-Slavs in the South and Southeast of the former Soviet Union. But without Ukraine and its 52 million fellow Slavs, any attempt by Moscow to rebuild the Eurasian empire was likely to leave Russia entangled alone in protracted conflicts with the nationally and religiously aroused non-Slavs, the war with Chechnya perhaps simply being the first example. Moreover, given Russia's declining birthrate and the explosive birthrate among the Central Asians, any new Eurasian entity based purely on Russian power, without Ukraine, would inevitably become less European and more Asiatic with each passing year.

The loss of Ukraine was not only geopolitically pivotal but also geopolitically catalytic. It was Ukrainian actions—the Ukrainian declaration of independence in December 1991, its insistence in the critical negotiations in Bela Vezha that the Soviet Union should be replaced by a looser Commonwealth of Independent States, and especially the sudden coup-like imposition of Ukrainian command over the Soviet army units stationed on Ukrainian soil—that prevented the CIS from becoming merely a new name for a more con-federal USSR.Ukraine's political self-determination stunned Moscow and set an example that the other Soviet republics,though initially more timidly, then followed.

Russia's loss of its dominant position on the Baltic Sea was replicated on the Black Sea not only because of Ukraine's independence but also because the newly independent Caucasian states— Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan—enhanced the opportunities for Turkey to reestablish its once-lost influence in the region. Prior to 1991, the Black Sea was the point of departure for the projection of Russian naval power into the Mediterranean. By the mid-1990s, Russia was left with a small coastal strip on the Black Sea and with an unresolved debate with Ukraine over basing rights in Crimea for the remnants of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, while observing, with evident irritation, joint NATO-Ukrainian naval and shore-landing maneuvers and a growing Turkish role in the Black Sea region. Russia also suspected Turkey of having provided effective aid to the Chechen resistance.

Farther to the southeast, the geopolitical upheaval produced a similarly significant change in the status of the Caspian Sea basin and of Central Asia more generally. Before the Soviet Union's collapse, the Caspian Sea was in effect a Russian lake, with a small southern sector falling within Iran's perimeter. With the emergence of the independent and strongly nationalist Azerbaijan—reinforced by the influx of eager Western oil investors—and
the similarly independent Kazakstan and Turkmenistan, Russia became only one of five claimants to the riches of the Caspian Sea basin. It could no longer confidently assume that it could dispose of these resources on its own.

The emergence of the independent Central Asian states meant that in some places Russia's southeastern frontier had been pushed back northward more than one thousand miles. The new states now controlled vast mineral and energy deposits that were bound to attract foreign interests. It was almost inevitable that not only the elites but, before too long, also the peoples of these states would become more nationalistic and perhaps increasingly Islamic in outlook. In Kazakstan, a vast country endowed with enormous natural resources but with its nearly 20 million people split almost evenly between Kazaks and Slavs, linguistic and national frictions are likely to intensify. Uzbekistan—with its much more ethnically homogeneous population of approximately 25 million and its leaders emphasizing the country's historic glories—has become increasingly assertive in affirming the region's new postcolonial status. Turkmenistan, geographically shielded by Kazakstan from any direct contact with Russia, has actively developed new links with Iran in order to diminish its prior dependence on the Russian communications system for access to the global markets.

Supported from the outside by Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, the Central Asian states have not been inclined to trade their new political sovereignty even for the sake of beneficial economic integration with Russia, as many Russians continued to hope they would. At the very least, some tension and hostility in their relationship with Russia is unavoidable, while the painful precedents of Chechnya and Tajikistan suggest that something worse cannot be altogether excluded. For the Russians, the specter of a potential conflict with the Islamic states along Russia's entire southern flank (which, adding in Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan, account for more than 300 million people) has to be a source of serious concern.

Finally, at the time its empire dissolved, Russia was also facing an ominous new geopolitical situation in the Far East, even though no territorial or political changes had taken place. For several centuries, China had been weaker and more backward than Russia, at least in the political-military domains. No Russian concerned with the country's future and perplexed by the dramatic changes of this decade can ignore the fact that China is on its way to being a more advanced, more dynamic, and more successful state than Russia. China's economic power,wedded to the dynamic energy of its 1.2 billion people, is fundamentally reversing the historical equation between the two countries, with the empty spaces of Siberia almost beckoning for Chinese colonization.

This staggering new reality was bound to affect the Russian sense of security in its Far Eastern region as well as Russian interests in Central Asia. Before long, this development might even overshadow the geopolitical importance of Russia's loss of Ukraine. Its strategic implications were well expressed by Vladimir Lukin, Russia's first post-Communist ambassador to the United States and later the chairman of the Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee:

"In the past, Russia saw itself as being ahead of Asia, though lagging behind Europe. But since then, Asia has developed much faster. ... we find ourselves to be not so much between "modern Europe" and "backward Asia" but rather occupying some strange middle space between two "Europes.""

And:

The political weakness of the new democratic elite was compounded by the very scale of the Russianeconomic crisis. The need for massive reforms—for the withdrawal of the Russian state from the economy generated excessive expectations of Western, especially American, aid. Although that aid, especially from Germany and America, gradually did assume large proportions, even under the best of circumstances it still could not prompt a quick economic recovery. The resulting social dissatisfaction provided additional underpinning for a mounting chorus of disappointed critics who alleged that the partnership with the United States was a sham, beneficial to America but damaging to Russia.

In brief, neither the objective nor the subjective preconditions for an effective global partnership existed in the immediate years following the Soviet Union's collapse. The democratic "westerniz-ers" simply wanted too much and could deliver too little. They desired an equal partnership—or, rather, a condominium with America, a relatively free hand within the CIS, and a geopolitical no-man's-land in Central Europe. Yet their ambivalence about Soviet history, their lack of realism regarding global power, the depth of the economic crisis, and the absence of widespread social support meant that they could not deliver the stable and truly democratic Russia that the concept of equal partnership implied. Russia first had to go through a prolonged process of political reform, an equally long process of democratic stabilization, and an even longer process of socioeconomic modernization and then manage a deeper shift from an imperial to a national mindset regarding the new geopolitical realities not only in Central Europe but especially within the former Russian Empire before a real partnership with America could become a viable geopolitical option.

Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the "near abroad" priority became both the major critique of the pro-West option as well as an early foreign policy alternative. It was based on the argument that the "partnership" concept slighted what ought to be most important to Russia: namely, its relations with the former Soviet republics. The "near abroad" came to be the shorthand formulation for advocacy of a policy that would place primary emphasis on the need to reconstruct some sort of a viable framework, with Moscow as the decision-making center, in the geopolitical space once occupied by the Soviet Union. On this premise, there was widespread agreement that a policy of concentration on the West, especially on America, was yielding little and costing too much. It simply made it easier for the West to exploit the opportunities created by the Soviet Union's collapse.

However, the "near abroad" school of thought was a broad umbrella under which several varying geopolitical conceptions could cluster. It embraced not only the economic functionalists and de-terminists (including some "westernizers") who believed that the CIS could evolve into a Moscow-led version of the EU but also others who saw in economic integration merely one of several tools of imperial restoration that could operate either under the CIS umbrella or through special arrangements (formulated in 1996) between Russia and Belarus or among Russia, Belarus, Kazakstan, and Kyrgyzstan; it also included Slavophile romantics who advocated a Slavic Union of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, and, finally, proponents of the somewhat mystical notion ofEurasianism as the substantive definition of Russia's enduring historical mission.

In its narrowest form, the "near abroad" priority involved the perfectly reasonable proposition that Russia must first concentrate on relations with the newly independent states, especially as all of them remained tied to Russia by the realities of the deliberately fostered Soviet policy of promoting economic interdependence among them. That made both economic and geopolitical sense. The "common economic space," of which the new Russian leaders spoke often, was a reality that could not be ignored by the leaders of the newly independent states. Cooperation, and even some integration, was an economic necessity. Thus, it was not only normal but desirable to promote joint CIS institutions in order to reverse the economic disruptions and fragmentation produced by the political breakup of the Soviet Union.

For some Russians, the promotion of economic integration was thus a functionally effective and politically responsible reaction to what had transpired. The analogy with the EU was often cited as pertinent to the post-Soviet situation. A restoration of the empire was explicitly rejected by the more moderate advocates of economic integration. For example, an influential report entitled "A Strategy for Russia," which was issued as early as August 1992 by the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, a group of prominent personalities and government officials, very pointedly advocated "post-imperial enlightened integration" as the proper program for the post-Soviet "common economic space."

However, emphasis on the "near abroad" was not merely a politically benign doctrine of regional economic cooperation. Its geopolitical content had imperial overtones. Even the relatively moderate 1992 report spoke of a recovered Russia that would eventually establish a strategic partnership with the West, in which Russia would have the role of "regulating the situation in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Far East." Other advocates of this priority were more unabashed, speaking explicitly of Russia's "exclusive role" in the post-Soviet space and accusing the West of engaging in an anti-Russian policy by providing aid to Ukraine and the other newly independent states.

A typical but by no means extreme example was the argument made by Y. Ambartsumov, the chairman in 1993 of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee and a former advocate of the "partnership" priority, who openly asserted that the former Soviet space was an exclusive Russian sphere of geopolitical influence. In January 1994, he was echoed by the heretofore energetic advocate of the pro-Western priority, Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, who stated that Russia "must preserve its military presence in regions that have been in its sphere of interest for centuries." In fact, Izvestiia reported on April 8, 1994, that Russia had succeeded in retaining no fewer than twenty-eight military bases on the soil of the newly independent states—and a line drawn on a map linking the Russian military deployments in Kaliningrad, Moldova, Crimea, Armenia, Tajikistan, and the Kuril Islands would roughly approximate the outer limits of the former Soviet Union, as in the map on page 108.

In September 1995, President Yeltsin issued an official document on Russian policy toward the CIS that codified Russian goals as follows:

"The main objective of Russia's policy toward the CIS is to create an economically and politically integrated association of states capable of claiming its proper place in the world community ... to consolidate Russia as the leading force in the formation of a new system of interstate political and economic relations on the territory of the post-Union space."

One should note the emphasis placed on the political dimension of the effort, on the reference to a single entity claiming "its" place in the world system, and on Russia's dominant role within that new entity. In keeping with this emphasis, Moscow insisted that political and military ties between Russia and the newly constituted CIS also be reinforced: that a common military command be created; that the armed forces of the CIS states be linked by a formal treaty; that the "external" borders of the CIS be subject to centralized (meaning Moscow's) control; that Russian forces play the decisive role in any peacekeeping actions within the CIS; and that a common foreign policy be shaped within the CIS, whose main institutions have come to be located in Moscow (and not in Minsk, as originally agreed in 1991), with the Russian president presiding at the CIS summit meetings.

[...]

The point of departure for this orientation—defined in rather cultural and even mystical terminology—was the premise that geopolitically and culturally, Russia is neither quite European nor quite Asian and that, therefore, it has a distinctive Eurasian identity of its own. That identity is the legacy of Russia's unique spatial control over the enormous landmass between Central Europe and the shores of the Pacific Ocean, the legacy of the imperial statehood thai Moscow forged through four centuries of eastward expansion. That expansion assimilated into Russia a large non-Russian and non-European population, creating thereby also a singular Eurasian political and cultural personality.

[...]

Eurasianism was given an academic gloss in the much-quoted writings of Lev Gumilev, a historian, geographer, and ethnographer, whose books Medieval Russia and the Great Steppe, The Rhythms of Eurasia, and The Geography of Ethnos in Historical Time make a powerful case for the proposition that Eurasia is the natural geographic setting for the Russian people's distinctive "ethnos," the consequence of a historic symbiosis between them and the non-Russian inhabitants of the open steppes, creating thereby a unique Eurasian cultural and spiritual identity. Gumilev warned that adaptation to the West would mean nothing less for the Russian people than the loss of their own "ethnos and soul."

These views were echoed, though more primitively, by a variety of Russian nationalist politicians. Yeltsin's former vice president, Aleksandr Rutskoi, for example, asserted that "it is apparent from looking at our country's geopolitical situation that Russia represents the only bridge between Asia and Europe. Whoever becomes the master of this space will become the master of the world." Yeltsin's 1996 Communist challenger, Gennadii Zyuganov, despite his Marxist-Leninist vocation, embraced Eurasianism's mystical emphasis on the special spiritual and missionary role of the Russian people in the vast spaces of Eurasia, arguing that Russia was thereby endowed both with a unique cultural vocation and with a specially advantageous geographic basis for the exercise of global leadership.

So you have two choices, and only two.

Either you support [A]Euroatlantic (with Asian free riding) interests in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, or you support [B]Russian interests in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Choose one.

[RhetoricThug]

My question to you, is that if these people are being aggressive toward Russia, then why should you be interested in stopping them? Let the Pentagon do what they want. It's not harming you, is it?

The psychology behind this post is, to say the least, interesting. What is your agenda here, in this thread to be precise? You know very well how the west benefits from any physical conflict, right? Don't play dumb. The rhetoric game fails the west, because culture stands in the way. Wherever capitalism hasn't invaded to the point of being centralized(I should use S instead of Z but I suppose it would still be Western language) within and by government institutions, can hold one grudge which shall never be repressed. In order, chronologically even, the nations of the East are and will continue to be notoriously anti-west, supported by one main divide supplied by cultural division.

Hell, the Beatles helped bring the wall down, not Reagan.

Throughout the Soviet era, America developed the economic military supply and demand equilibrium. Which actually relies on an anti-equilibrium theory. You see, ever since industrialization, man has invented desire, desire props up consumerism- all being a Western cultural phenomenon. Fighting for survival disguised by the game of raising one's standard of living, the West backed the culture of consumption. The Soviet Union ideologically is opposed to the notion of exaggerated consumerism. But, the Soviets found themselves militarily and economically obligated to fight the West. After WWII, especially, etc. My pint is, The American's primary drive is to raise a standard of living by delusion and build the largest military the earth has ever seen. So yes, the West would love to see Russia struggle with language relations, to the point where arms are justified. China and Russia seem to be a couple of thorns in global capitalism's side.

C'mon, Rei, it is like you rely on others to supply your demand.

[OllytheBrit]

Edward Snowden is a traitor to his country, who revealed important information on how signals intelligence is collected, and who has done great harm to the Five Eyes apparatus in the process. I don't really care about this issue, it is not a reason enough to allow Russia to win at things, considering that Russia has the equivalent of the exact same programmes.

Snowden exposed stuff the Pentagon didn't want exposed - it's as simple as that; shame someone doesn't expose what the MoD doesn't want exposed too! 'traitor'? You obviously believe the Pentagon line?

You wanted to know what this is all about. This is what it's about:

I'm not as thirsty for er, 'knowledge' as to spend the rest of the day reading all that.
Bloody hell, I've got a life y'know!

[Rei Murasame]

Snowden exposed stuff the Pentagon didn't want exposed - it's as simple as that;

Yes, and they were quite right to not want it exposed.

shame someone doesn't expose what the MoD doesn't want exposed too!

That has happened already. If you were paying any attention, you'd have known that GCHQ had its information revealed as well.

'traitor'?

Yes, as in 'betrayed the country that he was aligned to, and fled to Russia'.

You obviously believe the Pentagon line?

Yes, I do, and additionally I have contempt for the general public on top of it. The costs of Snowden releasing this information actually outweighs the benefits. Why? Because you all have done nothing worthwhile with the information, no calls for significant change have been made. All it has become is a rallying point for counter-cultural people who support Russia, to rally around.

Even if Snowden had noble geopolitical intentions, he's wasted his time.

Even on a personal level he's wasted his time. How many of you on PoFo responded to the knowledge that they are tapping phones everywhere to 'watch all of the signals all the of the time', by having your family install Open Whisper Systems Redphone as soon as possible, to get around it? I know one person on PoFo who did that. Me.

The rest of you are just making pro-Russian political hay out of the Snowden leaks and are not interested in avoiding the tapping at all. You are all being tapped by British GCHQ and the American NSA 24/7/365, and instead of taking steps to protect yourself you are shilling for Russia instead, so that the Russian FSB can tap you 24/7/365. Ridiculous.

I'm not as thirsty for er, 'knowledge' as to spend the rest of the day reading all that.

Well, then you see the problem with democracy. On one hand you complain that the media won't tell you the real story behind why all this is happening, but then when I come and show you why it's happening, you complain that the full explanation is too long. Well, that's why the media doesn't tell you the real story, it's because they know you won't sit still to listen to it!

________

The psychology behind this post is, to say the least, interesting. What is your agenda here, in this thread to be precise?

I should think it's pretty obvious.

Hell, the Beatles helped bring the wall down, not Reagan.

George H. W. Bush is the one who is most responsible for getting the Berlin Wall down, it's just the he is not usually credited for his work.

You see, ever since industrialization, man has invented desire, desire props up consumerism- all being a Western cultural phenomenon.

I am 500% bored with this 'consumerism' narrative. I don't believe that consumerism exists. People like buying stuff, this is not a western phenomenon, it's a human phenomenon.

[RhetoricThug]

Taking two at once, eh?

I am 500% bored with this 'consumerism' narrative. I don't believe that consumerism exists. People like buying stuff, this is not a western phenomenon, it's a human phenomenon.

Unfortunately you do not see the connection between intrinsic human values and the propaganda of culture, how it assimilates wo/man. Imagine what human can mean, if not for the manipulative nature of human's imagination. Desire as tradition did not exist before industrialization and the propagation of imaginative artificial desire which created one state of constant ego and despair for the Western individual is prospering today.

Yeah, G.W Bush, C'mon, what are you really going to make us belive the entire American Empire relies on one man's shoulders and president to president shifts blame? You are one hoot, Rei.

Too bad insects or artificial computers will inherent the Earth. During those time, people will not be able to argue their fate away... Think about it, you flesh of blood, bacteria, meat, water, and imagination.

Truth is, I'm 1000% bored.

[Rei Murasame]

Unfortunately you do not see the connection between intrinsic human values and the propaganda of culture, how it assimilates man.

I don't believe that there are any intrinsic human values. I just believe that every human society that is not controlled by ISIL or the Amish, will have ostentatious displays of fashion and wealth as a form of status symbol.

Desire as tradition did not exist before industrialization

Wrong. Here's an example, the Ashikaga Shogunate existed before industrialisation, and in that society desiring really awesome clothes, and 'binge shopping' actually was a thing. Also, having 'well tended gardens' was a thing. This was all long before American or British industrialisation patterns had reached those shores.

C'mon, what are you really going to make us belive the entire American Empire relies on one man's shoulders

No, but George H. W. Bush was pretty exceptional person, and the circumstances that led to the falling of the Berlin Wall were partly attributable to decisions that he took upon himself to carry out. I'm not 'blaming' him for that, I'm praising him for it. I've said before, that George H. W. Bush might be the best US President that you guys ever had. It's a shame that you didn't give him two terms, he was serving the cause that he was supposed to serve perhaps better than even he himself knew.

[OllytheBrit]

Yes, and they were quite right to not want it exposed.

I guess I can sympathise with that; if I were incompetent I wouldn't want it exposed either. No wonder they tried to move heaven and earth to get him.

That has happened already. If you were paying any attention, you'd have known that GCHQ had its information revealed as well.

And there's a lot more where that came from. I worked there - I know!

Yes, as in 'betrayed the country that he was aligned to, and fled to Russia'.

Ah, now I know why you've got it in for Russia/Putin.

Yes, I do, and additionally I have contempt for the general public on top of it. The costs of Snowden releasing this information actually outweighs the benefits. Why? Because you all have done nothing worthwhile with the information, no calls for significant change have been made. All it has become is a rallying point for counter-cultural people who support Russia, to rally around.

Doubtful! He's probably done your security services a big favour by motivating them to get their act together?

Even if Snowden had noble geopolitical intentions, he's wasted his time.

I wouldn't know that. I don't know how you'd know it either?

Well, then you see the problem with democracy. On one hand you complain that the media won't tell you the real story behind why all this is happening, but then when I come and show you why it's happening, you complain that the full explanation is too long. Well, that's why the media doesn't tell you the real story, it's because they know you won't sit still to listen to it!

As with the government and its departments here, I don't believe a word they utter. My default position is that it's all lies and obfuscation unless I discern otherwise: I'm a cynic and don't care who knows it.

[Rei Murasame]

And there's a lot more where that came from. I worked there - I know!

Then why don't you start leaking information if you really feel like you hate the British government? You don't want to risk arrest though, do you? If you love Russia so much and you somehow have kept information that you were not supposed to have kept after you stopped working there, then just defect to Russia now, I'm sure they'll pay you handsomely if you manage to make it there without being extraordinarily rendered into a jail cell in the British Indian Ocean Territory.

Doubtful! He's probably done your security services a big favour by motivating them to get their act together?

I'm Anglo-Japanese and living and working in Britain. "Your" security services is "my" security services, Olly.

[RhetoricThug]

Here's an example, the Ashikaga Shogunate existed before industrialization, and in that society desiring really awesome clothes, and 'binge shopping' actually was a thing.

Yes, I do entertain this example- for I find this particular culture explicit, at least explaining modern consumerism. I belive consumerism is one cultural trait. If the culture can reproduce, especially through today's channels or mediums, I'd say it(as an idea) fairs a chance considering its publicity efforts- to reproduce. So this does not show causation implicitly, if we are to discuss human nature exclusively. Rei, why do you hold on to this notion? The disorientation of man will end eventually.

If man continues to follow the GDP of his or her country, we will surely end up bankrupt resourcefully. War may not continue to boost profits, for a finite amount of information is held on this planet's surface, just like a finite of information is stored within a human. Some things escape the grandiose, scheme, or story.

George H. W. Bush might be the best US President

Oh and


Fuck that shit

[Rei Murasame]

Yes, I do entertain this example- for I find this particular culture explicit, at least explaining modern consumerism. I belive consumerism is one cultural trait. If the culture can reproduce, especially through today's channels or mediums, I'd say it(as an idea) fairs a chance considering its publicity efforts- to reproduce. So this does not show causation implicitly, if we are to discuss human nature exclusively. Rei, why do you hold on to this notion? The disorientation of man will end eventually.

Why do you even think that it's a 'disorientation'?

Fuck that shit

Would you like to nominate someone else for the title?

[OllytheBrit]

Then why don't you start leaking information if you really feel like you hate the British government? You don't want to risk arrest though, do you?

Whilst I hate the government, I love my country: I hate the government for what they (successive ones) have done to it.

I'm Anglo-Japanese and living and working in Britain. "Your" security services is "my" security services, Olly.

Then they should be deserving of our trust and respect. Speaking for myself? They have neither, and I'm contemptuous of them too.

[RhetoricThug]

Humour, I'm glad we've found it.

I think we may process different sects, this you surely recognize.

I am inclined to say JFK is the best president America had worshiped.

Why do you even think that it's a 'disorientation'?

Because ecology cannot exist without diversity.

Your comment can not exist without my comment.

So, the west props the east, vice versa, but at one molecular level the same law applies to everything, Rei.

One day you will love my chime in, my deregulation of your poster genocide. Love ya' girl.

[KlassWar]

And if they don't intend to support the kind of suggestions that have been wisely put forward by Dr Lee, then they might as well come out for this protest carrying Russian flags, because that's what they'd essentially be supporting as the logical extension of their protest.

France and Britain have a nuclear deterrent, so presumably Russia isn't going to invade western Europe.

[KlassWar]

Either you support [A]Euroatlantic (with Asian free riding) interests in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, or you support [B]Russian interests in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Choose one.

Easy choice: Russian interests.

NATO has been the army of world counterrevolution since the Fifties, its collapse benefits all the working peoples of the world. The European working class needs the Western security-military-intelligence system to collapse so that socialist revolutions can take place.

Euro-American bourgeois hegenomy is the guarantee of counterrevolution in Europe, its complete collapse is needed in order for the bourgeois states in Europe to be overthrown and destroyed. If securing that collapse benefits Russia and thoroughly fucks over the Asian bourgeoisie, what's the problem?

I'm Anglo-Japanese and living and working in Britain. "Your" security services is "my" security services, Olly.

Wrong. They're the security services of the British bourgeoisie, the class enemy of the British peoples.

Would you like to nominate someone else for the title?

Best US president? FDR, hands down. Unlike almost every other US president, he wasn't a complete disaster.

[Drlee]

Snowden exposed stuff the Pentagon didn't want exposed - it's as simple as that; shame someone doesn't expose what the MoD doesn't want exposed too! 'traitor'?
You obviously believe the Pentagon line?

I am getting weary of feigned outrage about Snowden. You don't have a problem with the Pentagon. You have a problem with your own government which knew about these programs and more importantly which abjectly refuses to do anything about them to this day.

Not one single nation took any significant action in the face of the public outrage following Snowden's revelations. Not one nation imposed sanctions, banned US goods and services, or did anything more than make a speech and send a letter.

And what will history think of all of this? History as we know it is over as a study. History in all of its richness is nothing more than a hard drive in the NSA vaults waiting for someone in power to need it to make a point.

You know Europe, there is an old saying..."you got to dance with them that brung 'ya". The US brought you to this party. Russia tried before and is trying again to crash it. Get on one side or the other because there is no your side. There could be. But for now there is not.