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The Russian government influenced the right wing in the West for years, if not decades. Russia was presented as a beacon of civilisation against the gays, against anti-racists, against anything "soft", against feminism. Putin published a photo of him riding a horse half-naked and the right wingers of the West immediately sprung into action and photoshopped their hero from a horse onto a brown bear (multiple times).
This adoration went far and was much newer than the bit of far left sympathy for Russia that went back to the Cold War.
(Far) right wingers just love(d?) Putin et al, for they were bullying all the people that right wingers love to bully and talk shit about. Gays, minorities, women, effeminate men.
The grim-looking Russian minister of defence was immediately believed to be a much better choice than some Western female ministers of defence, as if whether there's something dangling on your chest or between the legs was an indicator for how well you can (and want to!) tame and steer the selfish beast that is the military bureaucracy.
Now how well did that work out?
I told you guys, that Russian minister of defence is no beacon of competence at all just because he can look grim, he's rather part of a corrupt clique.
Russia has a shitty and uncompetitive economy (1)(2) that's unable to invent, design, develop, bring to market many new manufactured products or services. All it does (kinda) well is exploit natural resources, living off substance. The widespread corruption allows oligarchs to crush innovative competition with help of corrupt bureaucracies and courts, and basically steal upcoming businesses by making "irresistible" offers. The entire economic system discourages what a modern prospering economy requires.
Now it's become obvious that Russia is an antagonist to the West and Western values. It doesn't just attack some brown people and commits war crimes against them (which would not have irritated far right wingers the slightest bit), it does so against blue-eyed, blonde Christian people who fight admirably for their freedom.
Putin wasn't the only authoritarian who easily captured the imagination and followership of Western (far) right wingers. The obvious lying moron, a fat lard who would rather order a golf cart than to walk 400 metres and who usually only talked gibberish, was able to pull of the very same thing. That fat lard was photoshopped to ride a lion, and a very popular photoshop added his head onto Rambo's 1980's bodybuilder body, in total defiance of the obvious obesity.
They followed him because he hated, insulted, denounced, bullied the very same people whom they hate; mostly brown foreigners, brown people at home, women who are not totally submissive to men. He also simplified the complicated world to the level of 10 to 12 year olds (which reflects his knowledge about economy, geography, foreign policy and how to hire competent people).
What about the far right wing's bashing of feminism, the bashing of effeminate men, the bashing of Western culture as too soft and worthless for the defence of the country in hard times?
It proved to be yet more bullshit, designed to make the right wingers feel better about themselves (superior to others, especially in their own society).That's a typical symptom of how people who don't feel successful or useful. Instead of putting in the effort to become so they choose to ensure that others are lower on the social ladder, and then they kick everyone who's below on the social ladder to keep them below.
An anecdote about this is how a father and little son watched a KKK march and the father told the son to ignore the white cowls and look at the shoes instead - and they were poor men's shoes. Those KKK marchers wanted to keep the negroes down because they were fearful that else they might end up being at the bottom of society.
Meanwhile, said (far) right wingers are whining about being expected to get two tiny needle jabs and to wear some surgical mask over mouth and nose when among foreigners to fight off a pandemic that killed 124k people in Germany despite mostly unheard-of countermeasures and would have killed hundreds of thousands more if left unchecked.
They're strong, manly protectors of their society ("wolves"/"sheep") in their minds, but in reality they're selfish, whining, bullying, unpatriotic, hateful and pitiful people. Not one actual solution to actual problems came from their corner of the German society. The whole German right wing (not just looking at the far right) didn't produce a single solution to any major problem during the last 27 years.
It's all whining and hating by the far right and the right wing as a whole only fighting against efforts to do something about problems such as the push for renewable energies. They're useless pussies.
They're failing to cope with a society that's not simplistic and static. A society that requires knowledge and intelligent thought to recognise actual problems and challenges and requires the same to find or recognise solutions.
S O
P.S.: To be fair, Ukraine has a very racist and anti-gay society. I very much doubt that this is a necessary or important ingredient for the readiness to fight an invader, though.
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Brilliant rant.
ReplyDeleteHave been investing and doing a lot in the field for renewables to slow climate change and to take some money away from those ***** dictators.
Guys like Putin need loyal&spineless men in their military to conserve their power. Competence comes not even third. In other sectors like the Russian Central Bank competence is much more valued as the economist won't storm the Kremlin with AKs.
Much of the defense spending was clearly a way to shift money into new pockets by pushing for many 'high-tech' programs with minuscule output. In the West the procurement has also been often shambolic but the overall level has not sunken as deep.
The Russian army has some spears with sharp heads but more dull ones and much of the wooden shafts is rotten. Pity that there are so many nukes.
There is no way that they can fight a long war against motivated and often well-equipped soldiers who often payed for their own stuff out of patriotic feelings. Of course the Ukrainians propagate the images of young and old volunteering but there is much steel and will behind it.
Firn
Wanted to add - supplied and supported by the West - to it. Some of our personal help, lots of medical supplies should be already distributed. An no, we don't just support Europeans.
ReplyDeleteHope they have been able to give some sensible training standard to the folk which needs it.
Firn
P.P.S: I have not read it in quite some time but Collapse of an Empire by Yegor Gaidar offered to me great insight not only into the Soviet economy but also into others like Venezuela and it's interplay with politics.
ReplyDeleteBasic resources truly easily make simple economies and terrible politics. Putin was only able to get and conserve power because he can exploit a steady stream of 'unearned' dollars from which he pays his underlings, his propaganda and his 'gifts' to parts of the population.
Firn
https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Empire-Lessons-Modern-Russia/dp/0815731140
I recommend this blog, which was a promotion for a book of the same title (but the book doesn't add terribly much):
Deletehttp://whynationsfail.com/blog/?currentPage=49
Better read the posts chronologically.
Read also that book quite a while ago. Lots of examples. Their follow-up tries to go a bit deeper. Overall it is hard to tell how grounded their grand model is, but it sounds plausible.
DeleteI'm biased because one central story arc reflects my thinking. Limited democratic elements from Germanic tradition were important in its fusion with imperial and clerical heritage to create a new Europe.
Firn
I hope that there are plenty of delusions on the Russian side, Because there are plenty of flashpoints where this war could go beyond Ukraine and include the whole border from Finland down to Romania.
ReplyDeleteIn a situation that can erupt into WWIII, I worry about opinion in India and China, both have strong sympathies for Russia and will possibly break sanctions and there's a nonzero chance that they even join.
I see no chance of a Russian invasion on Nato. Nada. His best troops are getting bogged down in Ukraine. Despite knowing about the deadliness of modern war the number of likely Russian KIA surprises me.
ReplyDeleteThe big little Belarussian dictator was clearly pressured to throw troops into the fray as a sign of his loyalty, wavered and decided for now against it. I guess he didn't want to risk more Western wrath but more importantly fears losing his palace guards. I don't know to which extent there are sabotage activities against the railways but history shows us that even a few can cause considerable trouble and delays, more so if the state is not prepared.
Firn
P.S: I actually think this comes as a wake-up call for China in some sense. Lots of work behind the scenes also on exotic topics.
Funny side note: Oleksii Potiomkin is an far right wing radical who hates feminism and is bashing the western culture as to soft and effiminate. Several times he spoke against homosexual ballet dancers and calls the eu usually gayropa.
ReplyDeleteSome part of the right wing did this, but it is the same with some part of the left wing and also with some parts of the so called middle.
ReplyDeleteSo politically and culturally degenerate behaviour like this is not a unique selling point of rights.
It is exactly the same with other political tendencies. In addition, in my opinion, you do not distinguish enough between real right-wing extremism and mere conservatism. You always mix that up too much, of cause of your political agenda and ideology.
The absurd approval of Putin in the AfD and its clientele also shows that this group is not really right-wing extremists. For such would regard Slavs as subhuman and could not muster any enthusiasm for Russia. At best, this shows how few real right-wing extremists there are in Germany and how much perception in Germany has shifted, or how far to the left the german society has shifted overall. What is now the right wing of the afd, was common and complete in the middle of the csu and cdu only 2 decades ago.
This is the 2020's, not the 1940's. The slavs thing is no requirement for being far right. It was never part of Italian or Spanish Fascism.
ReplyDeleteI do keep the right and far right separate where the facts justify the separation.
conservatives = not even trying to solve any problems, sabotaging previous problem mitigations, push for surveillance state (the latter is the same as with social democrats)
far right = basically fascists or very uncomfortably close to fascists (AfD is not fully fascist because it does not agree on the one leader principle)
The current right wing of the AfD is FAR from what CDU and CSU were around 2000. Republikaner + NPD (together 2.4% in '98 election) were the political home for such people back then. Conspiracy theorising bullshit only became commonplace around 2015-2017.
A much better example for an ballet dancer fighting for freedom could be Lesya Vorotnyk,which also joined the ukrainian forces. A female ballett dancer is now fighting at the front:
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/avalaina/status/1498708691436150787/photo/1