I only quoted the first line of your response so as to indicate what I’m responding to. I appreciate your thorough response and admission of potential bias. You have a much better understanding, and stronger bias, of Russians than I do. My relatives there are by marriage, and I’ve met less than two dozen (none of whom drink ). My limited time there was in the early 90’s and was only in St. Petersburg for the museum and ballet.
From that brief experience, I found Russians, having been brutally controlled under Communism, were very hesitant to express their opinions, and not having a lot of confidence in those opinions. They were incredibly curious about the U.S., and thought we lived at the end of the rainbow. I can understand them being cowed by , and being taken advantage of by other thugs.
Sorry for the rambling above. I’ll not delete it so as to give history to the following. I believe Russians, like any other peoples, will embrace and flourish under democracy. I can’t believe that any people, judged on race, creed, hetero or homosexuality, or citizenship are inferior and can’t make decisions on their own.
As an example to support the above paragraph, look at Japan. They were full-on believers that their Emperor was touched by God (or Ra if you’re of the ancient Egyptian, or current global warmer crowd). Going back further in their history, you’ll see NO signs of democracy. Instead, you’ll see brutality on a scale that would make most Czar’s blush … or at least toast. Granted, this brutality had a very high component of honor/respect, but it was still brutal. Yet within a generation they had embraced democracy like nobody’s business.
you mean like the Japanese wiped out Shanghai and Manila? or when the Germans bombed Poland and then Great Britain and then rampagedbthrough Russia? or the US Air Force firebombed Tokyo?
Any objective study finds that using nuclear weapons actually saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Both American and our allies and Japanese. I read a book that even after the nuclear bombing had convinced the Japanese emperor to surrender, hotheads in the palace were planning to assassinate him to prevent it. No demonstration, no matter how horrific, would have convinced them to surrender.
your cheap shot is a typical leftist rewriting of history.
Yeah, and all it took was a brutal annihilation of a couple metropolitan areas. And they still have their monarchy. Not a good example.
It certainly isn’t a good counter-example to claim that “they still have their monarchy” in an actual meaningful form.
We are talking about a country that had a role that they treated as an actual “god emperor”.
Not a classic medieval European king “chosen by god” – but a supposed god incarnate.
Whatever leftover “royal family” they have is so far removed from that as to not even being worth mentioning in the context of discussing their country undergoing democratic reforms.
Singapore is an example of a benevolent dictator. Can’t say the same for Putin. Apparently there are no millionaires in Russia. Just Billionaires and poor folks
For sure it will. Freezing Russia’s money in western central banks was basically a declaration of economic war. Shooting a few rockets around doesn’t matter much but seizing nearly a trillion dollars worth of their property?
Last time we did this to a foreign power, they bombed Pearl Harbor 6 months later.
We have oodles of natural gas here in North America. We could easily help our European friends out and screw Russia and Putin in the process.
But those same green fools are here, deep sixing essential pipeline and going nuts when we try to build critical liquefaction facilities and LNG export terminals. So at this point our available export volume for Europe falls short of their needs. And that is how things will remain. Biden is in power and he works for the greens.
I never wrote that we have no competition. But I believe Europe would be happy and relieved to be able to fulfill their natural gas needs from a reliable source, a friendly power. This especially after what they are currently experiencing.
While I respect your experience and consequent opinion, I believe you skipped a few letters. For President Joseph Biden, I believe this is, at least, as accurate …
Biden is in power and he works for the greenbacks.
Now if you could combine greenbacks for him (or his kick-backing family), and votes/power/favorable media, President Joseph Biden would be all for drilling, or China, or Ukrainian bio-weapon labs partially funded by his [pick a descripor} son. Heck, he might even finagle a tax cut for Chinese solar companies.
Of Russian exporters, Russia demanded 80% of euros and dollars be traded for rubles.
Russia threatens to stop exporting key commodities including aluminum, natural gas, fertilizer, rare earth minerals, etc., driving up prices and the need to stockpile.
Sanctions cannot take away Russia’s natural resources.
The Fed can print dollars, it cannot print commodities. Likewise, the ECB can print euros, it cannot print commodities
I’m sure Obama is totally in the clear for drone killing all those weddings where most of them were accidents or random civilians, but yeah, as long as we do it it’s fine.
). My limited time there was in the early 90’s and was only in St. Petersburg for the museum and ballet.
