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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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 Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 9:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Titus wrote: |
They were designated security. Uniformed, armed men enforcing state laws. Whatever you want to call them.
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| I guess they deserve a slap by your metric, considering the face Russia lost. |
What face did Russia lose? Western progs are global outliers. Maybe Russia lost face to you, but certainly not to Russians. Though I guess this is the difference. P.Riot is for you. You are the one being propagandized. The Russian reaction is for Russian consumption. |
No, they were not, unless you can show the statute that calls for their actions. It's Putins major international moment, maybe you'd have a point otherwise, but not here. Weak rule of law is what keeps countries unstable. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 9:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Titus wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
| Titus wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| Titus wrote: |
P.Riot is a carefully created agent of nation wrecking. If someone is trying to wreck your nation you at the very least owe them a public slap.
Anyway the girls were not hurt. They got their photo op for Western audiences. |
If their purpose was to get a photo op, why do you approve of the Russians providing them such a perfect one? Beating up girls in the street is ridiculous by any metric. There is no social, political, or cultural problem whose solution is, "Beat up girls in the street." |
Nobody respects a wimp. |
But everyone respects thugs who hit girls? |
I thought progs were all about equality?
Those girls are agents of American degenerate imperialism. Nation wreckers. If you let that sort of thing get out of hand you end up with Ukraine. You have to target the agents and their handlers. Look what America has done to Ukraine. Post-Olympics/G8 I expect this to get a whole bunch more heated. The Russians are sounding more like me everyday. |
Because the Ukrainians or Russian dissidents have no agency? It was the move towards Russia that precipitated the riots. Maybe the people remember how great being under the Soviets was. If the last thing you said is true, too bad for the Russians, your vision doesn't have much successful practice to speak for it. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 9:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Titus wrote: |
Nobody respects a wimp.
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The Russian reaction is for Russian consumption. |
You know, when you cast Putin in terms of cracking down on oligarchs who are taking advantage of the common man, I can see and to at least some extent appreciate your case. When you cast him instead in this way, trying to avoid coming off as a wimp by producing a scene of annoying girls being beaten in public for consumption by the Russian people, it really has the opposite effect. So much of an opposite in fact that I can see why you expressed the concern that it might have been staged. There's nothing admirable there, and trying to shoe-horn it into admirability just in case your hero Putin really did approve it is unreasonable. Russia has its problems, and maybe Putin really is the best available man to address them, but even if so, that doesn't make every single thing he does laudable. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 9:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox, for some, what happened was part of the appeal. Again, this is part of the context I mentioned earlier. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 5:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Titus wrote: |
Those girls are agents of American degenerate imperialism. Nation wreckers. If you let that sort of thing get out of hand you end up with Ukraine. |
Yeah, that's how India succumbed to Britian's East India Company. The Spice Girls deep-throated beef sausages in front of the Taj Mahal. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 10:51 pm Post subject: |
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*beep* Riot is one of those people, like Ahmed Chalabi or Mohammed ElBaradei, that get a lot attention in the Western press and move in the right social circles, but have little traction with the people in their own country.
Russians have no reason to back *beep* Riot and no reason too. I can't imagine too many Russians who would back such a group that has no power and influence. Their tactics and shock value may play well in the Western media, but not in a country of chess players that has disdain for impulsive acts. |
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stilicho25
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
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| Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 10:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Anna Karennina told me Russians are impulsive. Is the lying? |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 10:55 pm Post subject: |
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| stilicho25 wrote: |
| Anna Karennina told me Russians are impulsive. Is the lying? |
At times hot blooded, but when it comes to politics, always calculating. When was the last time Russia did something impulsive? |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 5:47 am Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
*beep* Riot is one of those people, like Ahmed Chalabi or Mohammed ElBaradei, that get a lot attention in the Western press and move in the right social circles, but have little traction with the people in their own country.
Russians have no reason to back *beep* Riot and no reason too. I can't imagine too many Russians who would back such a group that has no power and influence. Their tactics and shock value may play well in the Western media, but not in a country of chess players that has disdain for impulsive acts. |
This isn't about the girls acts, it is about the response to the acts. They don't have to back them, but they should refrain from beating people on the street, which isn't limited to *beep* riot, the people committing the violence shouldn't get away without being arrested, etc. It's pretty basic. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 7:51 am Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
| stilicho25 wrote: |
| Anna Karennina told me Russians are impulsive. Is the lying? |
At times hot blooded, but when it comes to politics, always calculating. When was the last time Russia did something impulsive? |
Man, this is just Russian orientialism. Putin reacts to forces outside his control all the time. The chess-player image is built on a shallow stereotype.
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My main beef with O'Donnell is . . . that he did exactly the same shit Russians did to me when I was in Russia. They assumed that the U.S. and its government was one sleek, well-functioning monolith, that Obama was omnipotent, and that everyone in the world, including other important (and nuclear!) world leaders, act and must act as Russia demands it should, using Russian foreign policy calculus, and with only Russian interests in mind.
Sound ridiculous? Believe me, it sounds just as insane in reverse. |
Its very uncommon for leaders of large, powerful countries to pay more than an hour's attention to world affairs in a given day. In turmoil, yes, they must pay more attention. The affect of this large draw of domestic affairs on an Executive's attention: most foreign moves are reactions and not calculated, certainly not calculated three or four moves in advance. |
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stilicho25
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
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| Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 2:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Orientalism is BS. If you read Said, read the books he is critiquing. He cherry picks stuff out of context to make them look like dicks. The western authors he was criticizing were old middle eastern hands with genuine expertise about middle eastern history. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 3:01 pm Post subject: |
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| stilicho25 wrote: |
| Orientalism is BS. If you read Said, read the books he is critiquing. He cherry picks stuff out of context to make them look like dicks. The western authors he was criticizing were old middle eastern hands with genuine expertise about middle eastern history. |
This is a very tangential critique.
So are Russians international chess-players or not? Do you have something to say about Russian foreign policy? |
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stilicho25
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
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| Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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I think orientalism is a BS critique to make of steelrails posts. I have no idea if national character exists (but after years in Korea and then Japan, I am leaning towards rather than against) but Steelrails is kind of right.
First, Cossacks are closer to afghan tribesman then modern westerners. While I think Putin was right to use them to protect sochi (cheap and effective counterinsurgency paramilitaries), they should not have been policing. They are going to look like Basij in that context. They are crazy traditional, and crazy aggressive. However, Russia itself is pretty traditional greek orthodox at this point. *beep* riot, while in my opinion is supporting a noble cause (with suspect motive and backing as titus will point out) they have to deal with the culture they live in. China was far more aggressive in shutting people down, with far less criticism. The double standard makes my blood boil. Seriously, while cossacks crossed an important line by deciding to take judgement and punishment into their own hands, they are nowhere as near as bad as China was during its olympics, and frankly, after the way the west has acted recently, some paranoia about us fomenting trouble is perfectly valid. You want to help Russian gay people? Oppose U.S. and liberal agenda types promoting "human rights"/"arab spring" type intervention.
Last edited by stilicho25 on Sat Feb 22, 2014 3:41 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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stilicho25
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
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| Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 3:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Everything that comes out of the Washington post/NY times axis of liberal intervention should be looked at as one thing. It is only Pretext to strongarm people the US doesn't like to do what they want economically. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2014 1:34 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| stilicho25 wrote: |
| Orientalism is BS. If you read Said, read the books he is critiquing. He cherry picks stuff out of context to make them look like dicks. The western authors he was criticizing were old middle eastern hands with genuine expertise about middle eastern history. |
This is a very tangential critique.
So are Russians international chess-players or not? Do you have something to say about Russian foreign policy? |
This reminds me of back in the 80s, in the days of Blade Runner etc, when everyone was paranoid about supposedly impending Japanese hegemony, and you'd hear commentators say, ominously, "Japan doesn't have allies; it has interests.", as if that was some ironclad rule of international relations.
Years later, I heard some anti-American left-winger say it about the US, and wikipedia indicates that that country was the original subject of the formulation. But it's the kind of thing you can say about whatever country you don't like, imagining that their motivations are somehow uniquely selfish, in contrast to all other countries.
My personal favorite, however, was a Canadian newspaper(the paper of record, actually) which published a feature a few years back analyzing Chinese foreign policy in terms of some board game(maybe the one Koreans call 오목?) that is popular up there. Like, "Just as one player will try to block another player in the game, China is trying to block US inroads into East Asia". Apparently, only people who play this game get worried about rival powers setting up camp in their backyard. |
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