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Original Post:

Can we talk politics again?

Specifically, can we talk about whats going on with Russia and this whole Russia-Georgia thing? I think a discussion here could be very illuminating.

More specific.

1) The story that is being presented in the MSM regarding the Russia-Georgia conflict is entirely incorrect.

Whats being told is that Russia attacked a peaceful democratic Georgia for basically no reason.

The truth is that Georgia attacked the Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia and murdered civilians there.

South Ossetia is something like %70 Russian. There had been both Russian and Georgian peacekeepers there and the Georgians turned their guns on Russians. This is pretty much never mentioned in the MSM- who have done everything they can to vilify Russia over this situation.

Both Presidential candidates (and now Sarah Palin as well) have expressed their outrage over Russian actions. Here is a quote from Palin's ABC interview

One would expect the Obama campaign to be nailing Palin for this. Especially when we learn that one of McCain's top aides, Randy Scheunemann, is a former lobbyist for Georgia.

But I can guarantee that you won't here any sort of criticism from the Obama camp re McCain/Palin's Georgian stance.

This is because Obama's top foreign affairs advisor is Zbigniew Brzezinski who is incredibly hawkish towards Russia.

So why is the entire American political establishment and MSM lying and distorting the facts about Russia?

Dustin, as far as I know, everything that you assert is correct. The interrogative part is more problematic. My own view is that it is to the advantage of both potential administrations to maintain this fiction given the structure of American Imperialism. First we send over humanitarian aid in military vessels, then we station troops to ensure that this is distributed properly, then we have permanent military bases, then we conduct whatever military operations we like in the area.

Then we'll have troops stationed in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afganistan, Pakistan (just last week the White House said they would conduct ground operations in Pakistan with or without the permission of their government). These installations will then connect with our presence in Southeast Asia, Japan and Europe.

There is one thing wrong with your post. You shouldn't expect Obama to be anti-war or to have a foreign policy of peace and friendship. He is only against one war, like an atheist who only doesn't believe in Jehovah. He supports all of our other military actions around the globe, supports invading Iran, and his stance on this is more of the same. If he didn't support the Crypto-Fascist Globalization Regime he wouldn't even be whiffing the Presidency.

It does surprise me a little that with the domestic hammer of the War on Drugs so completely successful at turning all of our large cities into police states and with the global scare tactic of the War on Terror rationalizing our unwelcome presence inside sovereign nations worldwide, they still feel the need to propagandize the demonization of Russia as if this were a second rate Tom Clancy novel.

owwwww

I'm going to go get into the hot tub but when I get back I might address this a little because I think this is a very important point.

But basically, I don't think they are trying to demonize Russia- I think they are trying to provoke a war with Russia which basically means they are insane.

But we of course know that they aren't insane (or do we?). So its all very interesting and very scary imo

I think you have enough of a sense of my positions to know that I don't expect that from Obama

His Iraq stance is obviously a political position. It would be hard to imagine ANY democratic candidate who would come out in favor of the Iraq war.

Imagine all those disillusioned liberals.

Regarding the Why question from earlier:
The simple answer is of course just control of Central Asian oil/gas pipelines and reserves.

Bresinski even wrote a book on it outlining exactly what the U.S. needed to do- http://www.amazon.com/Grand-Chessboa.../dp/0465027261

My more conspiratorial side (lol) though imagines even darker motives. I've heard a lot of talk lately about how the neo-cons were furious with Reagan for ending the cold war diplomatically rather than militarily, which I haven't looked into but if that were true then it would certainly fit in with whats happening now as well.

here is a very good (although now slightly dated) article on the conflict
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...xt=va&aid=9816

Truth, huh?

Eurasia then back to Persia and Asia imo..1984 such a priceless piece of literature.

Napoloeonistic politics are standard in the US though. I'm waiting for the good people of America to revolt. I'm surprised it didn't outright happen after New Orleans and the epic failure...how can you justify any foreign operations when you can't get your **** handled at home.
But I guess Americans somehow mutated from freedom loving people to brainless zombies. I mean over here we've always just followed authority and stuff but your whole nation started out by sticking it to the man..and now what.

if people want to set up a boring old men of pog thread, thats good, but i do quite like these discussions, and i've given up reading edf; i don't think i've ever been into politics, and i have only briefly ever read SPM.

anyway...

i'm surprised you don't like chomsky, dustin, since this question seems to match his pov.

I'm pretty happy with the view that international relations is an exercise in naked self interest. The major countries that have the ability to set the debate (i.e. america now, america/uk/france between the wars) use that power to define what is right/wrong and thinkable/unthinkable, essentially making the moral argument another tool in the exercise of hegemonic power. Chomsky's point, as i understand it, is that this goes even a step further, and the US routinely does things as a part of its foreign policy that it would not accept from other nations. You don't have to look very hard to find pretty good examples of that.

Essentially though, the US and allies set out a framework for international relations that gives them control (permanent seats, nuclear weapons, moral right) and anyone that dissents or challenges that worldview is therefore a problem. So when the russians start to exercise their own self interest in a way that is counter to the existing status quo, people get very unhappy. This georgia malarky (of which i know very little) is just one of a series of events, any of which could have been the speck of dirt around which the geopolitical pearl of crisis formed.

[I'm not a total moral relativist, or even much of one at all. I definitely would prefer to live in the uk/us than russia, and think that, on the whole, our governments are less catastrophic than theirs. However, I do think that we use the force of moral right in a very duplicitous way, that is probably counter productive in the long run.]

What happens when commodities become much more expensive, and china wants them, we want them, and lots of people who don't like us much (russia, iran) have them is a bit scary to think about.

I think Russia's actions are much more provocative towards America than America's reaction is to Russia. It's basically a big FU you to the western world and it's influence. Clearly Georgia wasn't a peaceful state but I don't think that warrants another country invading it. That's just a line that should not have been crossed, but was only done so to prove a point to the rest of the world.

well that's kinda my point.

say the us moves into nicaragua to tidy up something. Provocative to the russians? Not so much. Then why is the russians doing essentially the same thing provocative to us? Because we say it is.

The relationships between Russia/Nicaragua and America/Georgia aren't quite the same...

so is it more like the us going into cuba during the cold war? 'cos they'd never consider doing that, right?

That is neither here nor there and doesn't dispel the idea that Russia invading Georgia is a big FU to America and the Western World, giving America ample reason to be worried.

Facts are fungible.

What point are you trying to make? cuz afaik, the US did not go into cuba during the cold war

posting from my phone so ill give some better replies later

but im sure you're familiar with the bay of pigs invasion

kennedy did not want to attack cuba but the cia (and the people behind the cia obviously) certainly did

bay of pigs was intended to lead to a much larger conflict with cuba

and the us setting up a puppet state on russia's doorstep and installing missle shields in poland are friendly gestures towards russia?

and you have to remember that georgia was shelling civilian targets in s. ossetia which is mostly russian

russia had every right to respond the way they did

kokiri,

re chomsky:
i'd much rather talk about why I don't like amy goodman than why I don't like chomsky, since its a somewhat easier question

but i'll have to tackle that later

but before we do you agree that the msm is entirely controlled? if not there isn't any sense in discussing the left-media

I was thinking of the cuban missile crisis

bay of pigs rings a bell but it's been a few too many years since I took a history class. and my last american history class got behind pace and we didn't get to cover much of the last 50 years. so yeah...

sometimes, afaik isn't that far

well I'm sure it must have only been a small invasion

in every way

If there was a separate thread for political and theoretical discussion I'd post in it.

I like this idea, political discussion will likely ramp up in the coming weeks anyways.

I tried to post in politics and found it more aggravating than anything... would like to post here where I think it will be less emotional and more rational.

Chim started this thread, but the posts stay in chronological order.

If you can call it that. Most of what passes for political discussion these days is merely partisan bickering. The other day I was trying to determine the optimal amount of time that I would spend deciding who to vote for as president. I came up with 10 minutes. What I am interested in is discussion of ideas.

The reason this interests me is because I don't know everything and a lot of the time I am trying to figure out how to think about stuff. I have found it to be helpful to begin with first principles and try to always be guided by that. For instance, I used to wonder whether it was a just action for the government to use taxpayer money for things like going to Mars. If you believe that the money belongs to the government, maybe it would be. My fundamental belief is that this money belongs to the person who earned it and the state has stolen it from them at gunpoint. Then this becomes an easy moral decision.

I also understand that there is political theory and then there is praxis. From a relative standpoint I'm sure that it matters slightly whether Obama or McCain is elected president, and the horse race provides entertainment. So if I say something negative about one of them or their party, it's not because I'm pushing an agenda on behalf of the other one. The reason people dislike political discussion is that most of it is entirely partisan, along with being condescending and mean spirited.