Ukraine, Russia, and Israel
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky declared Tuesday that, when the war is finally over, Ukraine would emerge from the rubble a “big Israel.”
He meant that the war would never really be over, that Ukraine would be on a permanent war footing, just as the Jewish state is. He meant that it would view its neighbors the way Israel has long viewed its own: As enemies waiting to pounce. Most importantly, he meant that Ukraine would never again rely on anyone else for its security: not the West, not the international community, not the so-called liberal order. It would be, like Israel, a nation apart, answering to no one but its people, in control of its own destiny.
The article then goes into the fact that Israel, despite being temperamentally and emotionally aligned with Ukraine in this fight, has diplomatically taken a less-aligned stance. The author adds:
How did Israel end up walking this tightrope? In part, it’s because Israel exists to be a safe haven for Jews everywhere, and there are still nearly half a million in Ukraine and Russia…
But the bigger reason is waning American hegemony. America’s post-Iraq war exhaustion with the Middle East led Israel to begin to see what Ukraine has just discovered: That it cannot rely on the assurances of an America that has turned inward—and away from the rest of the world. As the United States backed away from its “red line” in Syria and pursued a nuclear deal widely viewed in Israel as an existential threat, former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu shifted Israel away from relying on the vaunted special relationship, forging new ones with China, India, and Russia, among others. Israel’s position in the Ukraine war has brought the Jewish state’s new geopolitical reality into stark relief.
I would amend that and say that all of the listed actions – backing away from the red line, and pursuing the Iran deal – do not represent the US as a whole pulling away. They represent the position of the US left, which is in power right now even though the majority of the US population is against such policies. I’d add that even the majority of Congress is probably against such policies, if truth be told. It is the executive branch, and very specifically Obama and then Biden (or the people who dictate the positions Biden takes) who are implementing those policies. They have been able to do it because of the power of the president in the US to set foreign policy.
But in a certain way the author is correct, because quite a few people on the right have also turned away from foreign “entanglements.” Those people, however, do not favor the Iran deal at all – which is a sort of foreign entanglement all its own. Nor do they agree that once President Obama drew a red line he should have abandoned it. President Trump probably exemplified the present foreign policy aims of the majority on the right: economic pressure, consistency, know who our enemies are, and carry a big stick as a deterrent.
In addition, there used to be a bipartisan consensus on certain elements of US foreign policy, with only slight variations. For example, both parties held similar attitudes towards Israel, and also towards Iran, and therefore there was a certain basic reliability to US foreign policy that countries could rely on. That ended with Obama. I realized at the time that even if a successor were to reverse his policies, the world was on notice that the US was now unreliable, in the same way the South Vietnamese learned it in the 1970s.
This was part of Obama’s plan, I believe: to weaken the US on the world stage. As for Biden, whether he’s in control of his own presidency or not, remember that Biden was Obama’s VP prior to his more recent cognitive decline and he was fully onboard back then with what Obama did.
NOTE: Ukraine, by the way, along with Poland, was once the country in Europe with the highest percentage Jewish population. It lost the majority of its Jews during World War II.
Half of all the Jews murdered during WWII were from Poland:
Approximately 98 percent of Jewish population of Nazi-occupied Poland during the Holocaust were killed. About 350,000 Polish Jews survived the war; most survivors never lived in Nazi-occupied Poland, but lived in the Soviet-occupied zone of Poland during 1939 and 1940, and fled or were evacuated by the Soviets further east to avoid the German advance in 1941.
Of over 3,000,000 Polish Jews deported to Nazi concentration camps, only about 50,000 survived.
It was indeed The Final Solution for the Jews of Poland:
Prior to World War II, there were 3,500,000 Jews in Poland, living mainly in cities: about 10% of the general population.
This was the pre-WWII situation in Ukraine:
On the eve of the invasion in 1941, the territory of Ukraine in its current internationally recognized borders was home to one of the largest Jewish populations in Europe. The fate of those Jews depended on many factors, including the local occupying authority and whether they were among the very few evacuated to the interior of the Soviet Union ahead of the invading forces. While scholars are still researching the scale of the Holocaust in Ukraine, they estimate at least one and a half million Jews were killed there…
Most Jews in Ukraine were shot to death close to where they lived, not deported to distant camps. Their executioners were German but also Ukrainian, Russian, and other local collaborators.
The history of the Jews in Ukraine dates back over a thousand years; Jewish communities have existed in the territory of Ukraine from the time of the Kievan Rus’ (late 9th to mid-13th century). Some of the most important Jewish religious and cultural movements, from Hasidism to Zionism, rose either fully or to an extensive degree in the territory of modern Ukraine. According to the World Jewish Congress, the Jewish community in Ukraine constitutes the third-largest in Europe and the fifth-largest in the world.
That last figure refers to recently. I had not known there were still that many Jews in Ukraine, although the percentage remains far far smaller than it once was:
Whilst at times it flourished, at other times the Jewish community faced periods of persecution and antisemitic discrimination…
During the conflicts of the Russian Revolution and the ensuing Russian Civil War, an estimated 31,071 Jews were killed between 1918 and 1920. During the establishment of the Ukrainian People’s Republic (1917–21), pogroms continued to be perpetrated on Ukrainian territory. In Ukraine, the number of civilian Jews killed during the period was estimated at between 35,000 and 50,000…
In 1959 Ukraine had 840,000 Jews, a decrease of almost 70% from 1941 totals (within Ukraine’s current borders). Ukraine’s Jewish population continued to decline significantly during the Cold War. In 1989, Ukraine’s Jewish population was only slightly more than half of what it was thirty years earlier (in 1959). During and after the collapse of Communism in the 1990s, the majority of the Jews who remained in Ukraine in 1989 left the country and moved abroad (mostly to Israel).
Israel is getting ready to absorb a lot more of them.
Here’s an article on the Jewish population of Ukraine in recent, post-Soviet years.
Today Ace called Trump’s foreign policy ‘muscular non-interventionism’ which I think is a good description and one I agree with for the most part.
Griffin:
For the most part I agreed with Trump’s foreign policy. It was a great relief. Now that relief is certainly over, to say the least.
Anyone with even the slightest interest in the history of what is now “Ukraine” is encouraged to read the magnificent novel by Olga Tokarczuk which has just appeared in English translation. Despite its great length (nearly one thousand pages), The Books of Jacob is consistently fascinating and splendidly-imagined as it recreates, in polyphonic fashion, the exceedingly strange story of Jacob Frank, the antinomian and heretical contra-Talmudist of the eighteenth-century, along with the sad tale of his daughter Eva. The book ranges geographically across much of Central and Eastern Europe (as well as the Balkans) at a time of great turmoil, and it deserves to be widely read in its remarkable rendering from the Polish original.
Here is a map from the last Imperial Census:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Subdivisions_of_the_Russian_Empire_by_largest_ethnolinguistic_group_%281897%29.svg
I’m doubtful that the domestic and international dynamics involved will allow the Ukraine to become a “big Israel”.
“I would amend that and say that all of the listed actions – backing away from the red line, and pursuing the Iran deal – do not represent the US as a whole pulling away. They represent the position of the US left, which is in power right now even though the majority of the US population is against such policies.” neo
That’s true but given that other nations know full well that they cannot count on any consistency in US foreign policy when control of the Presidency and/or Congress changes… as a practical concern, it doesn’t matter that the unreliability of US foreign policy is mostly due to the American Left.
@neo:This was part of Obama’s plan, I believe: to weaken the US on the world stage.
Probably too big for the comments here, but I’m curious about this. Do you think Obama and the people aligned with him deliberately seek to weaken the US? And if so, for what purpose: is it that they think the US is evil, or because they think Americans would be better off, or what is the motivation? And is this something they knowingly do, and talk about it amongst themselves? And how large is the inner circle that knows what the aim is and is on board?
griffin, neo: When Trump first ran for President foreign policy was one of my biggest doubts about him. Now I feel it may have been his greatest strength.
Fundamental Transformation, Chickens Come Home To Roost, Guilty As Hell Free As A Bird, Fundamentally Racist, US Is No More Exceptional Than Any Other Country, Lead From Behind, BHO Apology Tour, those would be clues.
A fish rots from the head.
And if so, for what purpose: is it that they think the US is evil, or because they think Americans would be better off, or what is the motivation?
Obama is post-American. He doesn’t give a rip about ordinary people. He cares about the transnational cosmopolitan professional-managerial stratum (and celebrities). Vigorous national states are a bulwark against that stratum. Note his peculiar hostility to Bibi Netanyahu. Israel is unapologetic in its pursuit of national interests and Bibi’s impressive qualities remind Obama of his own inadequacies.
http://caldwellscorner.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ObamaNetanyahu-300×258.jpg
BTW, there’s a reason the Los Angeles Times suppressed the Rashid Khalidi tapes.
BTW, I think if you put them under sodium pentathol, you’d discover that Obama’s bad attitude is quite normal among professional-managerial types in this country.
https://akns-images.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/201881/rs_1024x759-180901192315-1024.michelle-obama-george-w-bush.ct.090118.jpg?fit=inside%7C900:auto&output-quality=90
Again, this creepy business.
And you all did catch that Liz Cheney has received handsome campaign contributions from W and from Mitch McConnell.
@Frederick
Part of Obama’s view, I believe, is the left’s expectation of US decline. It was said that Obama viewed his role as managing the decline of the US. Many have been predicting a multipolar world where China is the major player. Before that in the 80s and early 90s pretty much the same people expected Japan to surpass the US.
Fundamentally Obama’s world view of “an arc of history” and his ideas about world opinion are wrong. The current Ukraine war is a good example, many talk about world opinion, but the countries that sanctioned Russia are basically: the EU, the Anglosphere countries, and several Asian countries with wide eyes due to Chinese designs (Japan, South Korea and Taiwan).
A good illustration of this was Obama’s “red line” on Syria. He didn’t act when they crossed it, and when asked in an interview he stated that “it wasn’t his red line it was the world’s”.
I think the foundation of this type of thinking is a belief that the world is a nicer place then it really is. The left has tried to make it seem that the US causes all kinds of trouble, and we are hated because of what we do. If we left others alone, there could be peace.
In reality, the modern world is a much better place because, since at least 1805, the world’s oceans have been dominated by English speaking navies, with the exception of the first half of 1942 in the Pacific. England and the US are the key cause of the modern peace, prosperity and technical advancement.
It was sad to see PM Netanyahu rush to the front of the line to congratulate Biden* immediately after the 2020 election. Even the Pres of Mexico took his time but the Israeli PM seemed eager to show loyalty to the Dems.
To what degree do people think the US turning away from the world is
1) just an American thing that we do every so often,
2) the American people seeing mountains of treasure and rivers of American blood being expended by our leaders without much sign of wise stewardship,
3) (this esp applies to the EU and Japan, not to Israel or S Korea) seeing how little effort is made by our “allies” to do their part
Obama is post-American. He doesn’t give a rip about ordinary people. He cares about the transnational cosmopolitan professional-managerial stratum (and celebrities).
Yes. This stratum you speak of includes media and the wealthy as well as celebrities. As long as they have the correct views.
They view the people as fungible. Hence why they are fine with illegals replacing citizens.
I think Obama has decided (maybe aided by his mysterious supporters) that the US is irredeemable and must be destroyed to save it, like the village in Vietnam. This is sort of a religion on the left who have no idea how things are built or where electricity comes from. They indulge in magical thinking as is illustrated by the Green Nude Eel. They want an all electric world before they know how to make electricity. Nuclear power is an obvious solution to much of their concerns, as expressed, but they oppose it. Arthur Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” but you need to be sure the technology works. Otherwise, it’s all magic.
It was sad to see PM Netanyahu rush to the front of the line to congratulate Biden
It would make sense for him to do that, he would have wanted to convince Biden to not go with the Iran Deal.
I’m drawing completely from memory here. Spent some time googling and found nothing, but I remember in my formative years reading an article in some high-brow magazine (Foreign Affairs, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, something) where Jimmy Carter was referred to as the first anti-American president. What struck me is that this was not some pejorative from a right-winger, but a center left foreign policy analyst type, and he meant it as a good thing. He meant the first democrat uninterested in waging the Cold War. Carter warned us of “an inordinate fear of communism”, and was clearly interested in some form of detente with the Soviet Union. I think the left was at the time, and to a large extent still is, simply embarrassed by America’s success and power and believes we should voluntarily exercise less of it. From many debates with these folks at the time it was clear they thought the US was on the wrong side of history, if you will. In retrospect, I think a better term than anti-American, would be post-American, as Art Deco put it, and I think it is still a powerfully impulse on the left. So my “feel” here, and that’s all it is, is that this is why they deliberately seek to weaken the U.S.
Yes, Obama is a believer that the U.S. has thwarted Marxism by fighting it in Korea, Vietnam, and opposing it in our hemisphere – Cuba, Venezuela, Granada, Nicaragua, etc.
He attended Columbia U., which has long been a haven for Marxist thought. The primary obstacle to Marxist expansion has been the U.S. since 1948. Their goal has been to cut its power and influence, and even to fundamentally transform it. The sad truth is that he succeeded more than we knew.
People like Obama (and there are many, many like him in our political world) have no grasp of what it is that keeps nations’ economies afloat. They live in a theoretical world. They’ve seldom ever held a real job or known an electrician, plumber, carpenter, truck driver, or farmer. In their world the performance of work and production happens as if by magic. They have a picture of an ideal world where everyone is equally compensated, everyone’s needs are met, there are no wars, no crime, no addiction, and everyone is happy. They ignore the examples of East and West Berlin/Germany, North and South Korea, Taiwan/Hong Kong and Communist China. In their minds it just wasn’t done “right.” Or interference by the U.S. and “wrong think” caused those failures.
They admire the China of today even though it is no longer Marxist but Fascist. They ignore reality and dream of what they believe will be a utopia. In their minds the major obstacle is the United States of America.
This, IMO, is the only explanation for the actions of Obama, and his fellow travelers.
People like Obama (and there are many, many like him in our political world) have no grasp of what it is that keeps nations’ economies afloat. They live in a theoretical world. They’ve seldom ever held a real job or known an electrician, plumber, carpenter, truck driver, or farmer. In their world the performance of work and production happens as if by magic.
Yes, this is typical with what Art called the “transnational cosmopolitan professional-managerial stratum”.
They seem to be fools, but smart in their fashion. Focused on narrative, manipulation of language, legalism. But lacking practical skills.
People like Obama (and there are many, many like him in our political world) have no grasp of what it is that keeps nations’ economies afloat. They live in a theoretical world. They’ve seldom ever held a real job
By not ‘real’, do you mean a job which is financed by tax revenue or donation and endowment income? Or a job which does not provide services of manifest utility to an ordinary person? Or a job that’s a function of conventions of padding? Or a job in an industry or enterprise which prospers by rent-seeking? Or a job lacking operational measures of competence?
Spent some time googling and found nothing, but I remember in my formative years reading an article in some high-brow magazine (Foreign Affairs, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, something) where Jimmy Carter was referred to as the first anti-American president.
IMO, Carter is quite different from Michael Dukakis or from Obama. Carter is quite routed in time, place, and culture. However, he’s a pharisaical man by nature and rather vain. Dukakis is a hybrid, as befits his time and place. The thing is, liberal politics is a fashion statement and very few liberals are inner-directed enough to have a distinct perspective which can exist in counterpoint to other perspectives in and among soi-disant liberals. You notice some who do – Tulsi Gabbard, Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Kristen Sinema, Michael Kinsley on alternate Tuesdays, the late Mark Kleiman, the late Barbara Jordan, and the late Dennis O’Brien on alternate Tuesdays – and that gives you some sense of how unusual it is. Jimmy Carter ain’t one of them, and you can see that in his refusal to side with conventional protestant conceptions of the dyad which men and women form as against soi-disant feminism.
The South Vietnamese were betrayed by the Democrats, with Joe Biden helping to lead the charge to that betrayal.
He has always been an evil, corrupt man, whose stupidity us only matched by his arrogance and conceit.
Here is a pretty good essay on the left’s problem with reality.
Mass financialization seriously drives the Blue economy. This seems to be based on a few factors, all of which are inherently unstable. The first is a reliance on monetary policy, which is mostly chicanery—zero interest rates for more than a decade now?—and which depends on the dollar’s status as a reserve currency, on the willingness of foreigners to lend us money, and on our ability not necessarily to pay them back (we almost certainly can’t, and even more certainly won’t) but to meet the interest payments.
All of these are interconnected and will go on until they don’t, or can’t. But they seem to have much less staying power than the massive economic expansion from roughly the middle of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th, which was driven by concrete innovation and delivered real gains in standards of living for all classes.
The financialization is key. Nobody makes things. The zero interest rates since 2008 have restored the fortunes of the money barons but the middle class keeps losing ground.
what geoffrey britain said @ 5:40 and scott the badger said @ 9:00
Mike K,
Good editorial and explanation of what some people refer to as ‘inside’ vs.’outside’ money.
Short version; Wealth comes from out of the ground.
Everything else is secondary churn.
Art Deco: “By not ‘real’, do you mean a job which is financed by tax revenue or donation and endowment income?”
I mean a job in the private sector that they need in order to pay for the necessities of life. An activity that requires them to show up on time, be productive while on the job, answerable to their supervisor/boss, and losing it would be bad for them financially. Obama, as far as I know, never held such a job. And there are many more like him in academia and politics. I went to school with people like him. Born to privilege and enough money that they never NEEDED to work while in school and moved into cushy, white-collar jobs after graduation. Never were exposed to any extent to the type of workers who keep our lights on, roofs over our heads, and food on our tables. Obama floated around in NGO jobs and academia before he got into politics. Never really worked as a lawyer and yet was able to live in a tony area of Chicago at quite a young age. He depended on connections and “grease,” not hard work, as do so many who have no idea about the blue-collar workers and their importance in our society.
Molly Brown: “Wealth comes from out of the ground.”
While I understand the sentiment behind this phrase, I would suggest instead that wealth comes from out of the mind (of mankind). Before the arrow head maker can make an arrow head, he has to have the end point image or intent set in his mind. Same for the poet, Mozart, the Bee Gees, the coder, the blogger, et al.
And “wealth” is subjective, as what is valued is subjective, depending on situations and circumstances.
Many of us are quite happy to live in a world of abstractions, and do or would pay good money to enjoy and engage in that realm even more than we do, as long as the core lower level Maslow needs have been met. Enjoying abstractions still requires their storage in, or creation by, physical objects [aka “ground stuff”], but the information and knowledge for making those objects and abstractions comes from both the Blue or the Red community, as circumstances dictate and humans ideate.
@ Molly Brown: “Wealth comes from out of the ground.”
Ultimately, yes – but, so far in 2022, of the ten richest people on the planet (all men, by the way), only half derived their wealth from producing actual things that come out of the ground, or managing conglomerates of companies that produce things.
Musk, Arnault (Louis Vitton etc), Gates (computer hardware elements), Buffett, Ambani (Indian conglomerate)
The others gained their filthy lucre by manipulating abstractions.
Bezos (Amazon just moves things around, and most of their money is from the Cloud services), Page, Brin, Ellison (Oracle), Ballmer (Microsoft).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_Billionaires#2022
Do the latter five have real jobs, by J J’s definition?
Well, yes.
Do they know where milk and steel and electricity really come from?
Problematical.
Or they think it doesn’t matter.
“It was sad to see PM Netanyahu rush to the front of the line to congratulate Biden* immediately after the 2020 election. Even the Pres of Mexico took his time but the Israeli PM seemed eager to show loyalty to the Dems.”
You mentioned that canard about a month ago and it’s as accurate now as it was then…though I guess it depends on how one defines “rush to the front of the line” and “immediately”…doesn’t it?….
Compare and contrast:
“After hours of silence, Netanyahu congratulates Biden, but doesn’t say what for
Israeli top leaders among last to comment on outcome of 2020 vote; PM notes ‘long & warm personal relationship for nearly 40 years,’ while also tweeting thanks to Trump”—
https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-hours-of-silence-netanyahu-and-rivlin-congratulate-biden-on-election-win/
Key grafs:
‘After a conspicuously long hiatus, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin issued statements early Sunday morning congratulating Joe Biden after his US election win…
‘…Analysts pointed out that in his tweets and subsequent remarks to the cabinet, Netanyahu did not address Biden as “president-elect” and did not explicitly state that the former vice president and Delaware senator had won the elections….’
To be sure…
“Trump slams Israel’s Netanyahu for congratulating Biden”—
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/trump-slams-israels-netanyahu-congratulating-biden-rcna8333
Key grafs:
‘…Netanyahu congratulated Biden more than 12 hours after the election had been called and after most other world leaders. Netanyahu did not refer to him as president-elect in the tweet, and followed it up with a post praising Trump.
‘Trump appeared to be particularly incensed by a video released by Netanyahu on Jan. 20, the day Biden was inaugurated, in which Netanyahu said he and Biden had a “warm personal friendship going back many decades.”
‘I haven’t spoken to him since. F—- him,” Trump was quoted as saying….’
I guess the question is: What does a leader of a tiny country do when that country’s traditionally strongest ally and supporter is taken over in a successful coup by an illegitimate administration that, while feigning friendship and support, is at best hostile and at worst wants to see you cut down to size—a size that so negatively affects your security to the extent that it ensures that you will have to fight yet another existential war with those who are being encouraged—by precisely this removal of support—to destroy you (not that they need all that much encouragement…).
There’s also this (which may be more to your taste)—but it’s from “Haaretz” the Leftist Israeli elitist rag that in its proud perversity consistently tries to outdo the NYT, WAPO along with anything Europe has to offer…
Needless to say, “Haaretz” despises Bibi and his party and anyone who might deign to supports them…
Hence the following headline, which when compared to the above demonstrates the “dedication” that “Haaretz” (like the NYT, like the WAPO) holds for truth…whatever that might be, I guess….
The headline writer doesn’t mince any words on this “delicious” opportunity…”
“Trump: Netanyahu Was the First to Congratulate Biden. ‘Fuck Him'”
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/trump-netanyahu-was-the-first-to-congratulate-biden-fuck-him-1.10455428
“The first!” (Oh, but they’re “just” quoting Trump, I guess…)
Key grafs:
‘Former U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized Benjamin Netanyahu over the Israeli leader’s congratulations to President Joe Biden after his election, according to an interview published Friday by the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth.
‘”The first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi Netanyahu,” Trump said….’
FWIW, file under: Walking a gossamer line
…AND it’s the old Transmitter-in-the-Mug trick!
“Chinese embassy suspected of trying to spy on Israeli ministries
Security establishment investigating suspicion that Chinese embassy gave Israeli government officials thermal mugs with hidden spy devices.”—
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/325695
Life imitates Mel Brooks! (Was there any doubt?)
Guess it’s only a matter of time before the Chinese start speaking Yiddish…or punching horses—actually, they’re already embarked on a policy of executing dogs and cats (and no doubt other “suspicious” pets)….
(Insert your favorite “mugging” joke, here..)
Phew, false alarm…
“Security officials: No Chinese spy devices in gifts to ministries;
“Shin Bet investigation finds that suspected listening device in thermal mugs given to Israeli ministries – actually not spy devices.”
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/325710
Close call… (Serious international incident averted—precisely what one does not need in these roiling times…)
(Now if we can just get someone in Ministry of Miscommunications to backdate that story to April 1…)
Zelenskyy is a clown. How big of one? He gets the nation of Slovakia to remove their flag from public display because it RESEMBLED THE RUSSIAN FLAG. Tying the Holocaust to Ukraine was in poor taste, but that’s his modus operandi. Every country his visits, he tries blatantly manipulating the national traumas. In America here he invokes 9/11, Pearl Harbor, Abraham Lincoln, the kitchen sink…smh. This is the man who’s Azov nazis committed the Bucha massacre than blames it on Russia. Only the morons of the West believe it lol
I see a dim future for the Arabs in Israel.
Well, do we have a new maroon? Da.
Clever? Nyet.
Obama is stupid, he doesn’t understand human nature. His dimness led to Donald Trump and to the waning of the democRATS.
“He gets the nation of Slovakia to remove their flag from public display because it RESEMBLED THE RUSSIAN FLAG.”
Slovenia in this case, actually….
But it turns out, rather confusingly, that the flags of both Slovenia and Slovakia are quite similar to one another and they both differ from the Russian flag in one detail only: all three are the same white-blue-red horizontally-striped tricolor but the flags of Slovenia and Slovakia also include the respective country’s coat of arms—
Slovakian flag:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Slovakia
Slovenian flag:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Slovenia
Russian flag:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Russia
(O/T: It also turns out, rather confusingly—unless I’m confused—that “Slovensko” and “Slovenska” can refer to both Slovakia AND Slovenia.)
But back to the “clown”: might one wonder whether such a demand was made not so much in spite but to prevent violence and potential injuries? I.e., to prevent any possible violence done to the Slovenian embassy and/or its staff and property as a result of someone mistaking that flag for the Russian flag…
…since Kyiv, not to mention Ukraine, has been under attack and these are not the calmest of times, one might say….
Related?
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3452668-zelensky-thanks-slovakia-for-weapons-aid-for-ukraine.html
Related?
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3452668-zelensky-thanks-slovakia-for-weapons-aid-for-ukraine.html
Zelenskyy is a clown.
Yeah, well he’s a clown whose forces are embarrassing yours. Suck it up.
Robert,
I am, um, sympathetic—really, I am—but Obama is anything but stupid.
He is definitely an arrogant and extreme ideologue—as well as a cold-blooded operator—trying to conceal just how extreme and cold-blooded he is; but while these might lead him to make certain foolish decisions or say certain foolish things, he is most certainly not stupid.
(Unfortunately.)
Let’s call him an extreme, clever, cold-blooded, “karma-chameleon” pragmatist….
I mean a job in the private sector that they need in order to pay for the necessities of life. An activity that requires them to show up on time, be productive while on the job, answerable to their supervisor/boss, and losing it would be bad for them financially. Obama, as far as I know, never held such a job.
I think from 1977 to about 2005, for Obama to lose his job would have been bad for him financially. He did practice law from 1993 to 1996, so would have had to meet the daily deadlines lawyers confront as well as produce a baseline of billable hours for the firm. He taught for 12 years. It’s true post-secondary teachers have to be at a particular time and a particular place for only a few hours a week. The ones who are doing their jobs will spend seven hours on preparations for every hour in front of their students and will spend many off-hours on evaluating student submissions and undertaking their own research. (Obama taught expendable courses and never published squat). No clue what the supervisory situation was when he worked for that Alinskyite outfit from 1985 to 1988. From 1983 to 1985, he worked as a copy editor for a commercial company which produced corporate newsletters under contract.
Your complaint would be better suited in re Mooch, who for three was employed in positions with vague titles and for 14 years was employed in the diversity racket (which is all window dressing conventional padding and defenses against predators in the legal profession). Even Mooch practiced law for three years. And it would have been bad for them financially had she lost her job; she was the primary earner for the first 16 years they were married.
“Clown” (continued)…
From the “Gotta Blame Someone” files:
“Putin blames FSB for Ukraine war fiasco, purges 150 agents”—
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/325717
Obama (continued)…
Fabulous confabulist?
Chairman of the American Society for Freedom of Disinformation?
Saboteur-in-chief…?
“Barack Obama Made the World a More Dangerous Place”—
https://www.commentary.org/noah-rothman/barack-obama-made-the-world-a-more-dangerous-place/
It was ever thus…
One thing to realize is that antisemitism in Eastern Europe — particularly including the Ukraine — has historically been fairly high.
One reason Hitler and Stalin were so effective at “reducing” their Jewish populations was the pretty complete lack of “Anne Frank”s
}}} Do you think Obama and the people aligned with him deliberately seek to weaken the US? And if so, for what purpose: is it that they think the US is evil,
Frederick:
Yes. And Yes.
There is zero doubt that the whole of PostModern Liberals (as opposed to “Classical Liberals”, which are now less than 5%) despise America and see it as the greatest evil in the world.
That they are insanely stupid idiots is beside the point. They have the full power of that which they are — 1/3ish of the population who either agree with them fully or at least are not willing to speak up and be excommunicated from their cult.
I’ve made this point before here and elsewhere, but, I assert that this is not new, it is actually a result of World War I (it is not merely the American left which is PML, but much of former liberals).
I suggest reading this:
What We Lost In The Great War
https://www.americanheritage.com/what-we-lost-great-war
(my own observations after reading that)
The Classical Liberal, in 1910, so arrogant, so proud of what Western Civilization had accomplished looked upon the War and what was done with what Western Civ had given them, turned like a woman scorned on the West and became filled with loathing for it.
It combined with Marxism and PostModernism to develop an internalized (I think few realize how evil they have become) view of Western Civ that ignores the flaws of other social systems, and aims to destroy Western Civ.
Western Civ has two main underpinnings — the Greek Heritage of Thought and Ideal, combined with the Judeo-Christian Ethos. These two things have synergized to create what is by far the most wealthy, well-off, and decent society in all of Human History. Any rational examination shows this. Is it perfect? Hell no. But it’s a lot better than each and every alternative so far even suggested, much less attempted.
PostModernism, along with Marxist ideologies (translated from Class to Race, in the last 4 decades, particularly after the fall of the USSR), have come to the forefront, with PMLs attaining the majority of Liberals decades back, and to the point where my own estimate of actual Classical Liberals is that they are less than 5% of them.
PostModernism, upon examination, is designed totally and utterly to destroy Western Civ. Every one of its concepts, Deconstruction, Structuralism, Moral Relativism, etc., all attack those two foundational elements of Green and Judeo-Christian thought.
And it’s well on its way to accomplishing that — I assert to you that PostModern Liberalism is an unquestionable social cancer. Literal, not figurative.
People are starting to rouse, but it may be too late — the rot is deep, and not enough people are roused even now.
}}} And is this something they knowingly do, and talk about it amongst themselves? And how large is the inner circle that knows what the aim is and is on board?
I think for most it’s a deep-rooted conviction — As when Mooshell said “it was the first time she’d ever been proud to be an American”.
Really? How about all the times America went in and provided help for natural disasters?
As to the second, I would say it’s probably a few hundred very wealthy very powerful people. Soros would be the obvious one.
}}} Fundamentally Obama’s world view of “an arc of history” and his ideas about world opinion are wrong.
I don’t think they are fundamentally wrong. But Obama, because of his world view that the USA is an evil no better than any other, wishes to accelerate that decline, to contribute to it.
An examination of history DOES show a tendency towards polar results — Greece-Persia, Rome-Carthage, Byzantium-Persia (then Byzantium-Islam). England-France, England-Germany, USA/England/Russia-Germany/Japan, USA-USSR.
Now we’re in a monopolar time (akin to Rome post-Carthage). China is rising to fill that polarity vacuum. We could act to stop that, but it’s not in our nature as a culture, unlike Rome, which did act repeatedly to that end.
And yes, the USA is arguably in decline, the quality of people is lower, their “fiber” is less than that of their parents and grandparents. I see a nucleus of such good people still in play, but they cannot act in the face of democratic opposition to them, they don’t number enough.
I’m reminded of Heinlein:
The financialization is key. Nobody makes things. The zero interest rates since 2008 have restored the fortunes of the money barons but the middle class keeps losing ground.
Last I checked, the share of value-added in the economy attributable to the insurance sector hasn’t changed during the post-war period. That attributable to the real estate sector hit a plateau around 1985, and the share attributable to the financial sector hit a plateau around 1998. I don’t think your source could explain what he means by ‘monetary policy is chicanery’.
}}} In retrospect, I think a better term than anti-American, would be post-American
No. Post-American is their conceptualization of it. They think it makes them better (a liberal thinking they are “better”…. nawwww).
Call it what it is: Anti-American. They are out to weaken American power and influence, to increase that of our opposition and enemies, and to embolden both to act as they wish, and not be concerned of the consequences that American might enact. It is shameful and, yes, traitorous.
They act against their own nation, and worse: not even to the betterment of the world, as they so foolishly believe.
}}} They admire the China of today even though it is no longer Marxist but Fascist.
Actually, I’d assert it’s still both: It’s basically National Socialism.
Think about that: How — economically, socially, is it different? It’s just “those yellow guys, who cares what they do to their Uighurs and other yellow people?”
And it is also the way NatSocs ran their economy, too… slaves (as well as employees) in factories nominally owned by the people but always utterly and completely beholden to the State for their capacity to do so.
Why does the media (and other nations) always try to drag Israel into every controversial or important issue? Israel is a tiny nation which faces its own existential threats to deal with, but if you follow the media one would think the country is as large and populous as France. Nothing that happens in the Jewish State is considered too trivial to report on (I have seen blurbs regarding a one day Sanitation Workers strike in Haifa). Leave Israel alone!
re the Dislike of America and Americans which seems to be shared by so many prominent people, I have some posts relevant to this topic:
The Phobia(s) That May Destroy America
https://ricochet.com/548927/archives/the-phobias-that-may-destroy-america-2/
Living in the Hate of the Common People
https://ricochet.com/848711/living-in-the-hate-of-the-common-people/
Living in the Hate of the Common People, continued
https://ricochet.com/868187/living-in-the-hate-of-the-common-people-continued/
re Making Things, Financialization, etc…always worthwhile to look at actual data…here is the 2021 BLS data on employment by sub-industry:
https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat18.htm
Post-American is their conceptualization of it.
I think the first time I saw the term used it was by Maclin Horton, who posts here now and again. It may have been original with him, if not only to him.
Hong:
Funny thing, most of the world doesn’t agree with you that Zelensky is a clown. Not at all.
However, he certainly was a comedian for much of his life. Just as Reagan was a long-time actor.
Neo:
Most of the world believes Epstein killed himself or that Biden ‘won’ more votes than Obama. Go look up Kolomoisky and Zelenskyy’s shady history together. This was a TV actor (like Martin Sheen) who adopted the character to real life events going so far as to adopt the ‘Servant of the people’ title to his political coalition. Weird and creepy.
Hong:
Quit telling me what to do when you don’t even have a clue what I’ve already done or already read and rejected.
Your opinions can be judged by others, and I doubt they will find a receptive audience here. You are wasting your time. I’d rather you didn’t waste anyone else’s.
“…I don’t think they are fundamentally wrong…”
I think a general rule of thumb is, or should be, “Beware of ideologues (of any stripe) mouthing sweeping abstract formulations”…with “abstract” being the key red flag here.
For example, never forget Obama’s not-so-cryptic remark about being a “palimpsest” upon which everyone can draw their own conclusions.
He’s the Wizard of Oz…(or more correctly, the “stranger” in Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land”—a political charmer and manipulator, but without the conscience) moreover, Obama knows the power of his charisma and, like most such characters, milks it for what it’s worth….)
(sure wish he were as harmless, though…)
OBH – good set of comments today.
@ Barry (in reply to Hong) > “But back to the “clown”: might one wonder whether such a demand was made not so much in spite but to prevent violence and potential injuries? I.e., to prevent any possible violence done to the Slovenian embassy and/or its staff and property as a result of someone mistaking that flag for the Russian flag…
…since Kyiv, not to mention Ukraine, has been under attack and these are not the calmest of times, one might say”
This is not an unprecedented problem.
https://nypost.com/2020/07/29/norwegian-flag-removed-from-inn-after-its-mistaken-for-confederate-flag/
Yep, check out the picture. They have the same colors, and some wide “stripes” that don’t even go in the same direction.
People are stupid.
}}} He’s the Wizard of Oz…(or more correctly, the “stranger” in Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land”—a political charmer and manipulator, but without the conscience) moreover, Obama knows the power of his charisma and, like most such characters, milks it for what it’s worth….)
Uhhh, Barry, not sure where you get this interpretation of anything whatsoever of RAH’s SiaSL.
I agree that is what Teh One is, on every possible level, but he’s still a snake oil salesman, just an upper class one. He sells used Cadillacs, Jaguars, and Benzes, not jalopies and recycled taxis…
Neo says,
“Quit telling me what to do when you don’t even have a clue what I’ve already done or already read and rejected.
Your opinions can be judged by others, and I doubt they will find a receptive audience here. You are wasting your time. I’d rather you didn’t waste anyone else’s.”
–Your outburst reminds me of the anti-German hysteria during WWI and the anti-Japanese paranoia of WWII. And btw, the rest of the world thinks the West has gone insane. NOBODY is supporting sanctions except the woketards of the West. Not India. Not China. Not the Middle East. Not Africa. Not Latin America. Everyone else who’ve heard the Russian side of the issue realize this is way more nuanced and sympathetic towards Putin’s point of view.
Does Hong get paid in roubles (for rubble) or crypto?
Reminds me of those who sang the praises of the USSR and the Third Reich or the CCP.
Om says, “Does Hong get paid in roubles (for rubble) or crypto?”
–Rubles are actually back to their pre-war levels despite all the hate Russia hysteria and I’d LOVE to trade in them if I didn’t think the US would steal my investment as they did Russia’s FOREX reserves and Russian oligarch football teams.
Om says, “Reminds me of those who sang the praises of the USSR and the Third Reich or the CCP.””
–And you remind me of the McCarthyites accusing everyone of being UnAmerican or those ‘Freedom fries’ characters after the Iraq Invasion. I think my labels sticks a lot better too and I didn’t need to break Godwin’s law to do it.
@AD
Obama taught expendable courses and never published squat
I don’t know of any way of checking, but it’s possible that O’s practice of law was as rigorous as his stint in academia, like Michelle’s career in health care.
Hong sings the praises of Vlad and harks back to the 1950s; pining for the good old days, comrade? 🙂
The Moskva seems to have feinted to the bottom of the Black Sea. Or just rolled over and thought of Roosia?
Vlad doesn’t pay you enough.
Invoking Godwin’s Law after trotting out the Azov Battalions is a bit clueless Hong.