America's Russia Derangement Syndrome

It looks to me that Col. Pat Laing has finally lost his patience with the US media. His following article (below) is scathing in its attack on American hypocrisy, double standards and uselessness at history. He opens his piece:

"I am stunned by the ignorance, insanity and stupidity that grips the vast multitude of talking heads and so called reporters as they opine on the upcoming summit".

I used to feel that way too. These days, I tend to find it a little more amusing: ignorance, insanity and stupidity have become the common coin of the American political and media, which is fast losing its value anywhere else in the world.

As Laing concludes: "History is not a strong suit for Americans. Embarrassing ignorance is our currency." He adds (albeit slightly muddled) "... and we flush that with cash."

Can't argue with that.

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_...-derangement-syndrome-by-publius-tacitus.html

 

Well he sure ain't gonna be very popular in the corridors of Washington DC for telling it like it is? But the UK has its own form of Russia Derangement Syndrome. It seems to be a case of (to paraphrase) When America catches a cold, the stupid Brits catch it too.

 

I usually dont reply to topics started by foreigners like Stripped Horse

But I will this time

Liberals are embarrassed that hillary could not deliver the third term for obama

And in the pecking order of political correctness women rank higher than russian dictators

So they choose to ignore what a bad candidate is was and blame it all on putin instead

Now they are trying to goad trump into a war with tussia

 

Other invasions we didn't get too worked up about:

NATO ally Turkey invading Cyprus in 1974, followed by ethnic cleansing of the Greek population.

India's invasion and annexation of Goa in 1961.

Her invasion of East Pakistan in 1971.

Iraq's invasion of Iran in 1980. (We joined with the Soviets in supporting Iraq, in fact.)

Let's all grow up here.

 

The most amazing thing of all is that apparently these politically allied Leftists and RINOs genuinely think that THEY will be perfectly fine if the U.S. and Russia go to war. I spent a little slice of the Cold War era at hundred feet plus under the cold, cold waters of the North Atlantic on a nuclear missiles armed submarine preparing to go to nuclear war with the Russians/Soviets. Cannot ANY of these suddenly warmongering Leftist/RINO hysterics THINK any more?

 

Hopefully, the days when Blighty follows the US like the poodle it is, might be coming to an end (he says in desperation).

 

It's never stopped you before.

Oh dear.

 

The left simply need someone to blame for Hillary's loss. Anyone but her of course so they pick Russia.

Even though there isn't a shred of evidence that Russia had any effect they don't care.

They have no idea how ridiculous they sound and I don't think that even bothers them.

They are whipping themselves up into a hysteria, to the point that they would probably endorse going to war with Russia and wasting tens of thousands of lives simply to justify their made up lie.

 

Truly truly humiliating isn't it, SH. How I weep for my country, and curse the fools and traitors who are destroying it.

 

US was once your colony, so the risk of infection is always a bit bigger ... think of the jerk Blair and how fast he was talking the same BS as Bush Jr. once had, just to give another example.

 

Dulce bellum inexpertis.

 

Indeed 'War is sweet to those who have not tried it'. It is fascinating to watch the same people who no doubt passionately cheered on anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan during the G.W. Bush era now do a 180 reversal and begin cheering for war. I don't know precisely what most of them are smoking nowadays; but they should demand a refund. It's some baaaaaaaaaaaaaaad stuff.

 

It is fascinating. I have no explanation, just a couple of possible psychological insights.

(1) Most of these people spent many years being the 'weak' side: the peaceniks, the sissies, the ones who were ashamed of America, etc. The Right taunted them mercilessly about this (and unfairly -- plenty of veterans were against the Iraq business, for example.) This sort of taunt will hurt any normal male. As Dr Johnson observed, "Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier." Anyway, now the tables are turned. They can wave the flag, crow about their patriotism, demand a tough line against despots, and generally be as obnoxious as the Right was to them fifteen years ago.

(2) Back in the prehistoric era of the Cold War, the Russians were, sort of, 'on the left'. Even Leftists who didn't admire the Soviet Union, knew that in the world it usually sided with the ex-colonial underdogs. So they couldn't really join Ronald Reagan, in full-hearted Russia-bashing. But now ... Putin is a pillar of the Russian Orthodox Church, he persecutes homosexuals, he's done bad things in Ukraine and Syria. (Although, in my experience, most leftist posters know little about either Ukraine or Syria. [Not so the serious Marxists, who are actually quite knowledgeable about these places, and are deeply divided about both.] )

(3) There has always been a soft left argument: 'We are the true patriots -- America will be stronger when there are transgenders in every Marine rifle company!" but no one, not even them, took that seriously. But now they can ... sort of ... mean it.

 

They are not thinking rationally

Putin is a bad guy who supports Iran and that could lead to war someday

Just as china supprting north korea could

But these crazies are willing to wage war over FaceBook

Incredible

 

And the other thing to remember, another factor in the psychology of it, is that Americans have been thoroughly brainwashed through several generations. Their perceptions and thoughts are conditioned by expert propagandists, especially including the idiots in the mainstream media. It truly is Groupthink that manifests.

 

I think your description of America and Americans may have been pretty close to reality in the 1950s, but the civil rights movement and Vietnam cracked all that.

From the mid-60s on, a whole generation of young Americans, at least the college-bound, grew up with a profound skepticism about the society they lived in. Some of them 'dropped out' and went to live in (mainly rural) communes. Most of these folded after a few years. But the great majority, perhaps after a few years of self-indulgence, re-joined the mainstream of American society: they became journalists, teachers, college professors, and occupied other traditional middle-class roles. But they retained their skepticism about their own society, and the ones who went into education where able to flesh it out and reinforce it by reading books by Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn and the like. Forty years later, and you have the American college campus of today.

So there are plenty of people who are skeptical about American foreign policy. It's just that their skepticism was firmly based on a foundation of extreme naivity. So instead of understanding that the US is not the utterly benign, kindly Big Brother to all other nations, they saw and see it as somehow uniquely evil.

The current adoption by some of them of faux patriotism is just a passing phase, driven solely by TDS. Their real love is not Hilary, by the way, but Bernie. And Bernie, whatever we may think of his domestic policies, seems to me someone with whom sensible conservatives can find common ground when it comes to foreign policy.

 

Can you provide an example of it? Just one will do, provided it has a reliable source. And what 'bad things' he did in Syria? And if you have the time and the inclination, why he clamped down on Ukraine? Thanks.

 

Excellent observation. Neuro-linguistic programming works like a charm on simple folk; intelligent folk can spot it a mile off, and will either challenge or treat it with the contempt it deserves. This is where the mainstream media and national broadcasters come in - the dumbing down bit? It works like this - make the populace docile and it will believe everything you tell them without question - as is happening right now, especially in the US and UK. I'm disappointed in Trump that he has kowtowed to the agenda-driven Washington establishment siren voices and talking heads when in fact he was absolutely right: Putin knows that he could say a million times that Russia didn't hack into the presidential election, but since he still wouldn't be believed he thinks '**** it, the brainwashed idiots won't believe me anyway so why TF should I bother to deny it.' But here's the thing . . . all developed western countries hack into the elections of all other countries including the US?? Was there not an issue recently, where the FBI was caught out monitoring Merkel? I mean the breath-taking hypocrisy of it??

 

Perhaps the US and UK have shared interests with neither being the 'poodle'. (That's as cliched as 'the 51st State')

If the UK wants other close allies than they'll still likely be welcome in the EU. They shouldn't be allies with anyone they mistrust or disrespect.

 

I don't think anyone on the so called "left" is clamoring for war against Russia or anyone else. That is a classic bullshit ridiculous straw man deluxe and you know it Gatewood. However that does not mean that we as Americans should take a thieving scumbag like Putin at his word. There is ample evidence that Putin and his regime are kleptocrats and murderers who are out causing mischief here in America and in other places around the globe.

To suggest that our FBI counterespionage division and career prosecutors like Mueller, a decorated US Marine veteran, Rod Rosenstein another well respected career prosecutor who was hand picked by Trump's transition team and Comey, a straight laced career prosecutor have suddenly joined some traitorous, nefarious "Deep State" conspiracy in order to undermine the true patriot Trump is laughable on its face.

More likely, as is being revealed daily is that Russian Intel and military operatives have been attempting with great success to infiltrate our government for their own personal and national gain and some of the people who oozed their way into Trumps campaign have been coopted by them either knowingly or unwittingly. Familiarize yourself with Bill Browder and the Magnitsky Act which was passed almost unanimously by the US Senate in 2012. Your suggestion that those who are investigating these Russian spies are liberal, leftist war mongers is a steaming pile of crap which is about to be exposed very soon.

 

Yes, it seems they have the 'shared interest' of ignoring international law by, inter alia, joining forces with a third country to deploy overwhelming force to attack a non-threatening sovereign state like Syria. And 'poodle' is as good a cliche as any . . .

poodle

a person or organization who is overly willing to obey another.

. . . the UK's 'special relationship' with the US in spades - to bully into submission any country they bi-laterally and arrogantly decide to bring into line, or bring about regime change.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?

 

It's easy. To the Lefties with TDS, if Trump wants peace with Russia they want war. And if Trump wants war they want peace. No matter what Trump does, they are outraged he isn't doing the opposite.

 

In those words I was summarizing the general American liberal/conservative view of Putin, not my own view. Perhaps that wasn't clear.

If you're interested, a quick summary of my own view is that Putin is to a large extent the product of American failure to deal properly with post-Soviet Russia, and that this failure was caused by American arrogance, in particular lack of understanding of the role of national pride.

We should have followed Jeffrey Sachs' recommendations for massive economic aid to Russia in the early 90s. Instead, the Russians were practically treated like a defeated people, and the American banks helped the Communist-turned-oligarch criminals loot the Russian economy.

I know a bit about Ukraine, having lived briefly in Kharkov in the mid 1980s, plus being schooled in the disputes among Russian Marxists on the National Question long ago, in which the issue of self-determination was argued about and Ukraine was a major subject. I still agree with Lenin here.

Putin's moves there were retaliation for the overthrow of a legal government that was moving to associate itself with Russia instead of the EU and NATO. Crimea has always been Russian, and Eastern Ukraine is divided among Ukrainian Ukrainians and Russian Ukrainians. The price Putin has paid is to ensure there will never again be a government in Ukraine sympathetic to Russia. I was worried at the time that his moves would help revive the latent fascist tendencies in that country, but that doesn't seem to have happened to the extent I feared.

The latest generation of Ukrainians -- the people you saw in the Maidan protests -- want to live in a modern, European country. It's a huge shame that they got caught in the NATO/Russia conflict. In an ideal world the democratic opposition there would have been able to guarantee Putin that their victory would not mean NATO tanks on Russia's borders -- Finland is an example of how the Russians can live with a liberal democracy next door, so long as it's not holding a NATO gun pointed at them. (But in both Ukraine and Russia, the democrats are, unfortunately, amateurish to a fault.)

On Syria, he's supporting a nasty dictator and this necessarily means doing nasty things. Unfortunately, the opposition to this nasty dictator includes some even nastier elements, so I suspect if the opposition had won, we'd now have another Libya there at best. The one positive feature of the current dictator is that he has to try to rule in a non-sectarian way: his secret police run equal-opportunity torture chambers.

On homosexuals in Russia. I think their situation can be compared to that of homosexuals in the US sixty years ago ... perhaps more specifically, to the conditions homosexuals faced in the American South at that time. Anyone interested in this problem needs to start with Masha Gessen's writings. A review of her latest book is here.

The Russian elite desperately want to be included, as equals, in the emerging global elite. This will guarantee, in the long run, that Russia will approximate to something like liberal norms on issues like homosexuality, although it's going to be a long time before we see something like "У Людмилы две мамы" in Russian primary schools.

 

It wasn't clear, but it is now, and you obviously have a far better insight than do I.

Whilst I don't know the history nor understand the nuances, I agree with the gist.

Thank you, that's interesting.

I was horrified by the NATO build-up on Russia's doorstep, which I saw as highly provocative, and undeservedly so. I also saw the diplomatic moves to draw Ukraine into the EU as highly provocative (mischievous?).

I won't defend Assad as being a nice guy(!), but am firmly of the belief that dictators have a valuable role in the region, as witness what has happened every time one of them is deposed; chaos and sectarianism inevitably follow? For that reason (my firm belief?), provided there is law and order for the greater good , and notwithstanding the sectarian issues, then I don't care how it's achieved.

So intolerance rather than coercion and punitive sanctions? That's okay with me.

Personally I'm not interested in this aspect.

The lapse into Russian language threw me, but I don't have any problem with it other than to say I believe that Russia should have an elitist role on the world stage, not least because I love the culture, and have confidence enough in Putin's nous and intelligence that he knows what's best for his country. He's obviously a strong leader, but from what I understand, it seems to be acceptable so far as his countrymen are concerned (I actually wish our (UK) leaders were as strong and intelligent instead of dumb!)

Thank you for being so expansive, and my compliments on your in-depth knowledge.

 

I gave you a 'like' simply because that was a thoroughly thought out and well written reply. Very nice! But the fact remains that more and more leftist posters are ACTING as if they want the U.S. to declare war on Russia as the Left's leadership gins up bogus issues against Trump over Russia. Leftist propagandists need to tone down the rhetoric for their sheeple, since by definition leftist followers generally do . . . not . . . think.