The West’s Green delusions empowered Putin. While we banned plastic straws, Russia drilled and doubled nuclear energy production.
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At the start of WWII, Britain and France imposed a blockade on Germany. They believed the blockade had contributed greatly to victory in WWI – and they liked the thought of doing it again far better than the thought of doing Verdun or the Somme again. Great confidence was expressed that blockade could break Germany, that Germans would abandon Hitler. The RAF dropped many leaflets pointing this out to the Germans. There was just one small problem. Stalin was Hitler’s ally. The Russians supplied Germany with huge volumes of goods the west fondly imagined they were blockading. Where Russia could not supply them herself, she acted as intermediary for Germany in the world market. She also transported supplies from Japan to Germany. Russia did not do it for nothing, of course – but her payment terms were so generous that the Germans complained their Japanese ally looked mean by comparison. Why did the communists do this? After Russia and Germany completed their joint operations in Poland, the Soviets urged the Nazis to end the ‘phoney war’ in the west:
(The Germans would grant Stalin’s wish – more than he bargained for, in the end.) That was then, this is now. The west’s ability to isolate Putin has a gaping hole: Xi. China won’t help Putin fight his Ukrainian battles, but as far as western sanctions are concerned, it can keep Putin afloat for a long time. That does not mean it will. But when gladdened by the sight of Putin in difficulties, or western cringing acquiescence changing to something less shamefully absurd, we should not forget that Xi can undercut a lot of the fairly little we have done so far, if he wishes. To Trudeau, Xi is an envied example. We know this because he said so.
Xi does not return the admiration – but China has spent a ton of money in the west so that “capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them”, and a ton more on “useful [and greedy] idiots”. Another thing Trudeau finds quite interesting is China’s social credit scheme, that can unperson dissenters from their bank accounts and their credit cards, even before arresting them – indeed, even before ruling their acts criminal. We know this because he did so. Putin threatens freedom in the Ukraine right now – and in neighbouring countries (that he clearly thinks of as next) soon, and in the west generally long-term. Trudeau threatens freedom in Canada right now – and in anglosphere countries (that his ideological allies clearly think of as next) soon, and in the west generally long-term. When assessing their strength versus our strength to resist, don’t forget: behind both stands Xi. March 1st, 2022 | 36 comments - (Comments are closed)
 What Trudeau and his kind have done to the west has much to do with Putin’s thinking it was safe for him to act. We will see whether the attack on the Ukraine’s freedom will have a similar effect of assisting Trudeau and allies to kill ours in the west or will be a welcome touchstone of reality. March 1st, 2022 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
If you want to know what power looks like, watch Democrat after Democrat safely, even smugly, say that Republicans intend to “put y’all back in chains”, to “go back to the days of enslavement and to the days of Jim Crow”, without ever worrying whether they will be asked which party backed slavery and Jim Crow back in the day. (Biden in 2012, Pelosi and others in 2022, lots in the decade between.) February 27th, 2022 | 37 comments - (Comments are closed)
I’ve seen this idea expressed a couple of times in the last day. Here’s Nigel Farage:
The Daily Sceptic, which is really branching out now that most Covid-related restrictions have ended – and in ways I tend to agree with – has a whole article speculating that Putin is paranoid about his health and further speculating that this has sent Putin a bit mad. I don’t think we have to assume a lunatic in the Kremlin to explain what is going on. Imagine for a minute, you are a Russian imperialist. You have no time for this democracy crap. You have no time for this self-determination crap, or this international law crap. You regard it as Russia’s manifest destiny to rule over Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States and a few other places. You look at your opposition, the West. These are people who are bankrupt. They argue about whether men should be allowed to use women’s toilets. They have elites who despise the populations they govern and the customs and traditions that made their countries strong. They have universities that have become communist re-education camps. They fritter away their prosperity on wind farms and useless railways and welfare. They spend little on defence and when they do it is mostly on making sure that their forces embrace diversity. Almost all of them are to a greater or lesser extent dependent on your natural resources. And the “leader” of this rabble is at best a stubborn, wishy-washy, incompetent. And you say to yourself “Why shouldn’t I go to war? Who is going to stop me?” P.S. Having drafted this I tuned into YouTube to find that David Starkey has made much the same point but much more eloquently than I ever could.
February 27th, 2022 | 123 comments - (Comments are closed)
February 27th, 2022 | 32 comments - (Comments are closed)
Christians in MP Steve Baker’s seat pray for him to quit role on climate thinktank
When it says “protesters gathered”, we are not talking about the First Crusade. The gathering process probably took less than three seconds.
I see something missing there.
Smite the idolaters?
All very civilised, and these doubtless well-meaning folk, all fifteen of them, have every right to make their protest, and I am glad that Mr Baker smote them not. But if we’re gonna be doing political prayers, here’s mine. Oh Lord, open their eyes: we need fracking and nuclear power for the sake of the poor and the peace of the world. As Andrew Neil writes in the Mail,
Added later: From Tipp Insights, “Anti-Fossil Madness Funds Putin’s Ukraine Aggression” February 26th, 2022 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
That’s Konstantin on Triggernometry’s YouTube on Ukraine. Lots of good, thoughtful stuff on Putin, Western weakness and everything in between. Well, not so much on that country in between, you know, Ukraine which is all the more remarkable when you consider that Konstantin has Russian-speaking family there. But, as he says, he doesn’t think people in the West are particularly interested in what is best for Konstantin’s family. Update Maybe that title (see comments) should be toned down. February 24th, 2022 | 106 comments - (Comments are closed)
… simultaneously we have achieved peak insanity in the west with this:
I fear some sort of criticality is imminent. Perhaps we need a “What the actual fuck?” category. February 24th, 2022 | 34 comments - (Comments are closed)
I am seeing a phenomenon being floridly expressed today, but it is something I have observed for many years: nothing happens in the world, at least nothing good, unless the malign USA is driving it. Yes, the United States is the richest, most powerful nation on earth and it has been since World War II. And yes, it has interfered under presidents of all stripes in pursuit of its perceived geopolitical interests. It has done this for good or ill in a great many places, sometimes benignly, other times with a breathtaking lack of judgement. But just as the leaders of that great nation often overestimated the USA’s ability to impose its will in far away lands, many people in many places also overestimate America’s influence in world affairs. They largely deny that locals have agency, oblivious to the fact people everywhere are capable of organising politically in ways not directed and driven from an agency in Langley, Virginia. As a friend of mine who was deeply involved in the 2014 Maidan revolt in Kyiv said to me once:
He was of course joking, but Maidan was a golden example of how something overwhelmingly driven and executed by Ukrainians, in Ukraine, in response to Ukrainian political and social pressures becoming intolerable, was nevertheless written off as CIA mischief-making. That idea was pushed hard by Russia when their pet oligarch was deposed, and it is entirely possible Putin even believes it himself. It is actually more supportive of his worldview than the notion it really happened because millions of Ukrainians loathed Putin, hated his Ukrainian puppet in Kyiv, and reject the malign influence of Russia generally. But so many people seek a simpler world, a bipolar one in which everything is down to the Big Actors (with America still the biggest at the moment). Understanding that and feeding into it grants profound insight into Russian (and to some extent Chinese) propaganda. Add to that the rightly shattered confidence in Western institutions the last two years has wrought, and it is not surprising otherwise discerning folk fall for it. Many seek to explain the world through the distorting prism of the Americocentric delusion, rather than face the complex frequently fracturing mosaic that explains the world more accurately. People do things locally for local reason; not everything is about some current iteration of the Great Game. If the USA (and UK) have a share of blame for what is happening in Ukraine right now, it is not because they ‘provoked’ Russia: Putin has made it clear the very existence of a politically and culturally independent Ukraine is intolerable to him. No, their mistake, their toxic involvement, was when they pressed Ukraine into surrendering the nuclear weapons Kyiv inherited from the defunct USSR in return for meaningless guarantees. Russia is not attacking Ukraine in response to actions of the USA since then, that’s an Americocentric delusion. This is not happening because Ukraine wanted to join NATO, it’s happening because they are outside NATO, which is not the same thing at all. Russia is not driven by fear of NATO strength, it is driven by perceptions of western weakness. Russia believes the cultural, military and geopolitical balance has tipped in their favour, expecting the west will respond to their invasion of Ukraine today with nothing more than official grimaces. I hope they are not correct about that but we will soon see. Putin is motivated by oft stated imperial ambitions to Make Russia Great Again, to ‘restore’ Russia to its imperial boundaries with Moscow as the New Rome (yes, they really say that); Ukrainian rejection of that notion and assertion of their own identity is therefore intolerable. But reject ‘the Russian world’ they did, because Ukrainians do not wish to be ruled from the Kremlin even indirectly. That is why they overthrew Russia’s favoured oligarch and sought to chart their own course in the world. That is what this war is about. February 24th, 2022 | 90 comments - (Comments are closed)
Anyone who cares about our liberty and security (the two are deeply entwined) needs to work tirelessly to ensure the future does not belong to tyrants, be they tyrants in Russia, China, or much closer to home. Even the smallest of daily acts of defiance can add to a countervailing pressure; every little decision you make, what you say, who you spend your money with, needs to be done thoughtfully and above all bravely. At a time when it would be nice to have at least a measure of trust in our own institutions, the last two years have made that completely impossible. Putin and his ilk are predators who sense weakness, and culturally we have been greatly weakened by enemies within our own institutions public and private.
February 24th, 2022 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
George Orwell, Animal Farm:
(Credit to, um, www.marxists.org actually, for providing the link.) The Times yesterday, “Donald Trump praises Vladimir Putin’s ‘genius’ move on Ukraine”. The headline worked; there are more than a thousand outraged comments about how Trump is “supporting Putin”. I knew before I read the first line that the point he was actually making would be something along the lines of this:
The BBC, this morning: February 24th, 2022 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
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