I find it really hard to believe one can just read through during months and not feel eager to join the on-going debates.
I'm not sure I want to "expose myself" in public anymore ;-)
As I said, I usually agreen with Jerome. In this case of the Russia - Ukraine gas situation, however, I think he is too far away to be able to analyse Russia's motives. I don't even know if he speaks Russian. If not, he is getting a very media-biased version -- even worse than his pet case of French bias in British media!
One reason I have been writing with such bluntness on the Russian-Ukrainian spat is that I was on the ground when this crisis was resolved for the first time, in 1994. I spent 6 months in the Kiev office of GDF (Gaz de France) that year. This was the way I had found to be on the ground as I wrote my PhD dissertation on "the independence of Ukraine", and it turned out to be amazingly useful as the gas negotiations were at the core of what made that independence possible. So I spent a lot of time tracking press reports in the Ukrainian, Russian and international press to try to make sense of all the announcements that were made
Now, I would really be curious to know, for instance, what your perspective as a Russian is of, say, Putin's direct role (or lack thereof) in this crisis or where the political relationships among Russia, Belarus and Ukraine are going. Maybe if you write a couple of diaries you'll reveal your area of expertise and people won't think you're just "some Russian".
Then again, contributions shouldn't be measured on their authors' credentials, but on their own merit. tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
I do speak Russian, I did spend 6 months in Kiev in 1994 working specifically on Russian-Ukrainian relations, and several years (1997-2001) when Gazprom was my main client and I managed the relationship of my bank with them at various levels, including board level.
I am happy to be proven wrong, in that today's situation is really different from that in the past few years when the stakes were exactly the same, but I a mskeptical and you'll have to provide tangible arguments.
I am sorry if I was a bit aggressive in my responses to you, but your accusation that I was anti-Russian missed my point, which is not a criticism of Russia, but an attempt to analyse the motivations of individuals in position of power in Russia and Ukraine and how they use their access to levers of power for what are not necessarily the interests of their country.
I am glad that you posted and questioned me, and I hope that you will continue to do so despite the rough welcome I gave you! In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
And what's wrong with lurking??? S'pose loads of Russians may well read these pages without any desire to join in. D'ya know why? If the core community (Jerome, that Polish lass, Migeru and a couple of others) aren't bitching about Russians, they're bitching about USA. That is European Unoin all about, innit? Sad, actually...
So... why not be a little more consistent in your hatred (fuelled by your greed and your jealousy and some unlucky events from the past)?
Why not choose another language which everybody in Europe may use, say German (ha!), Polish (ha-bloody-ha!) or even French (burst of laughter)? Why not stop using our natural resources like, say, Americans managed to ignore the Olimpic Games in 1980 in Moscow?
My questions are rhetorical but if the bulk of Europeans have the same views as Jerome at al... hmm... i don't think the European Union has a very bright future, you can't build anything which will work reliably on the unstable full-of-hatred full-of-enemies ground. The Soviet Union's past has already proved this.
(are you that man who always calls that froggy Jerome "our leader"?)
How about you show a little respect, or else, f**k off yourself? The world's northernmost desert wind.
I am beginning to lose all respect for Jerome based on this comment on DailyKos:
"As to who can tolerate this situation longer than the other, i would not bet on Russia myself. They are much weaker than they like to pretend. it's only bluster and our own cowardice that lets them get away with so much. If the game becomes hardball/war, they will stop very quickly: because Europe can do the old African routine: deny access to Paris and London to the girlfriends of all the Russian big bosses, and you'll see how long they last..."
Jerome made this ridiculous post in this diary.
I would like you to know, Jerome, that now when we go to Paris and London, we are suprised that they are not up to the level of Moscow. I am not joking. You have not been there since 2001, no? You should go and see what I mean.
I am beginning to lose all respect for Jerome based on this comment on DailyKos
I think that's because you may be reading it from a Nationalistic point of view, when it should be read from a Political/Realpolitik(al) point of view, no? Jérôme isn't targetting Russia, he's targetting one action by the Russian government concerning one industry sector.
It's like the difference between saying France is shit and Chirac is shit, or Americans suck and America sucks.
If you say France is shit, I might get offended if I think you're talking about the inhabitants (but I doubt it, I have some experience in that field which I mention elsewhere in this thread). If you say Chirac is shit, I'll agree!! Now if you talk about France in some geo-political context, I know you won't be talking about the people ... and so I will then either agree or disagree, depending on the context.
It does seem pretty clear that when Jérôme says Russia, he means the government, and he means it only in this particular context. His comment on the old African routine and girlfriends, I read to be about cultural isolation, not about the types of goods found in luxury shops nor about how clean the sidewalks are. i.e. this is regardless of how slick and modern Moscow sidewalks are, and how much dog shit there is on Paris sidewalks.
Now let me reach for my guitar and sing one of my favourite songs ...
Plachyet maladyena jeeeeeeena, plachyet vsyo, kak adin chelyavek ... plink plonk tsoinggg
If it's all about bashing America -- or so you think -- then perhaps I might point out that I'm an American, as are (I believe) DowneastDem, slaboymni, Robert (rdf), and Chris. Migeru earned his PhD from the University of California, if I'm not mistaken. Jerome is a big name at Daily Kos (the largest American political blog on the web). Where is the anti-Americanism? I'd like to think that, as an American who loves what his country is supposed to stand for, I can decide for myself what anti-Americanism looks like, thank you.
And who is "that Polish lass"?
And am I the only one who thought Jerome's comment, about London and Paris being off-limits to the girlfriends of Russian big bosses, was incredibly funny? So this is what Rifkin meant by "waging peace" in The European Dream.
I'm not going to jump into a fight over London, Paris and Moscow, except to say that, if you want to get into a debate on which cities are on a higher level than others, you may want to avoid bringing up Moscow, where the murder rate is three times that of London. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
