>> To be honest, until recently I assumed that Sweden and Finland were not NATO
>> members for cultural reasons. Perhaps a certain Nordic sense of
>> independence. I now realize that this was mostly an appeasement strategy
>> toward Russia. In this case I am still in favor of them joining, because I
>> do not believe anymore that Putin can be appeased.
>
> I wonder if the Finns would like to take back the territory Russia took from
> them in the 1940 Winter War?
>
I don't know, but I have the impression that Finns tend to be pragmatic about
such matters.
>
>>
>> To be honest, I am much more worried about Ukraine joining the EU hastily.
>> It is a huge country and I suspect it is still quite far away from economic
>> and even cultural alignment with the EU. I mean, let's be honest, they have
>> a neonazi gang as an official government force (the Azov battalion).
>
> How is that consistent with electing a Jew president? I realize the Jews in
> Ukraine were persecuted under Stalin and many emigrated to Israel when the
> USSR collapsed. But is this neo-nazism real or is Putin's propaganda?
>
It is obviously the case that there is no neonazi majority in Ukraine, or even
close to that. As you say, the election of a Jew president makes it pretty
obvious that Ukraine is not a nazi state. That much is Putin's propaganda. But
it is also true that neonazis do exist, and that a neonazi military
organization became an official state force in 2014. You can read all the
details here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion
I believe that the above Wikipedia article is well source and includes
references to assessments by American intelligence on this matter.
I'm sure that Zalensky is not happy with the Azov Batallion and vice-versa, but
for now they both have more pressing matters to worry about. If you want an
even more absurd factoid: some weeks ago a Portuguese court agreed to allow a
convicted Portuguese neonazi to travel to Ukraine to join the resistance (and
it was clear he was in contact with neonazis in Ukraine, who are probably
linked through international networks):
https://www.sabado.pt/portugal/detalhe/tribunal-autoriza-viagem-de-mario-machado-a-ucrania-por-situacao-humanitaria
I think there is some context here, that perhaps Americans do not fully
appreciate (and apologies if you do): firstly, that the URSS created a
narrative where nazis were all from the west, and that the peoples that were
subsequently assimilated by the soviet space were completely innocent. Germans
who were brought up in the RDA were indoctrinated to believe that west Germans
were solely responsible for nazi crimes. On one hand, this remains to this day
a divisive issue in German society (even though mostly present in the East). On
the other hand, it seems to be paradoxically correlated with the appearance of
neonazi movements in post-soviet spaces.
Another important subtly here is that what Putin and his regime means by "nazi"
(and again, I believe this is inherited from the soviet perspective) is not
exactly the same that the west means by "nazi". For Putin, the defining
characteristic of a nazi is being anti-Russia, and when we accuses someone of
"nationalism", what he refers to is to the desire of having a nation
independent from Russia, which in his view is the only legitimate power in the
region.
Telmo
>
> Brent
>
>
>> I believe that granting them membership to early could put the EU project
>> under immense stress (of the sort already posed by Hungary, but to a much
>> larger degree) -- this possibly combined with the perfect storm of the
>> German economy collapsing in the face of the unavoidable step of suspending
>> all gas imports from Russia and the possible election of Le Pen in France
>> (which could mean that the EU would then have one of its most powerful
>> member states working against its interests from the inside).
>>
>> At the same time, perhaps this is just one of those moments were History
>> will not wait and the only option is to rise to the occasion. It is also
>> true that the EU seems to grow from each crisis it survives.
>>
>> More generally, I think that all of us (the west), with all of our flaws,
>> represent a way of life that is opposed by the powerful dictatorships of
>> Russia and China. If we value and wish to protect this way of life, we must
>> stick together and be smart.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Caveat: I will probably respond to your thoughts on all this, though I will
>>> try to do so respectfully, which will be a first for me. My reason is I
>>> feel I need a different perspective from people living closer to the
>>> fighting.
>>
>> Of course.
>>
>> I don't feel like I am "close to the fighting" in any way. There's still
>> Poland between me and the war. I am living my perfectly normal life. Perhaps
>> I just feel a bit more grateful than usual for this normalcy.
>>
>> The only way in which I feel close to the events is by the presence of
>> refugees in my neighborhood. Many cars with Ukrainian license plates around.
>> A hotel around the corner from my house has been turned into a temporary
>> refugee center. A lot of people donate food, clothes, etc. Some of them like
>> to play table tennis with the locals in the park nearby.
>>
>>> Otherwise, please continue with quantum modal realism and if Alice & Bob
>>> teleport between London and Moscow, will they be arrested by the FSB?
>>
>> Yes and no. :)
>>
>> Be well spud (and everyone else!)
>> T.
>>
>>> Thanks!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com>
>>> To: spudboy...@aol.com
>>> Cc: everything-list@googlegroups.com <everything-list@googlegroups.com>;
>>> meekerbr...@gmail.com <meekerbr...@gmail.com>
>>> Sent: Sun, Apr 17, 2022 6:28 am
>>> Subject: Re: NYTimes.com: Don’t Just Freeze Russia’s Money. Seize It.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Apr 16, 2022 at 7:59 PM <spudboy...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> *> Rather than deny my assertions you have reinforced them JC. Stalin
>>>> cannot hurt you if one is Stalin.*
>>>
>>> Stalin cannot hurt you if Stalin is dead, and there can be no doubt that
>>> Stalin has reached thermal equilibrium with his environment. This dictator
>>> is no more. He has ceased to be. He's expired and gone to meet his maker.
>>> He's a stiff. Bereft of life, he rests in peace. He's pushing up the
>>> daisies. His metabolic processes are now history. He's kicked the bucket.
>>> He shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the
>>> bleedin choir invisible! THIS IS AN EX-DICTATOR!!
>>>
>>>
>>>> *> I would go so far as to say that sans, Barrack, Donald would never have
>>>> taken off.*
>>>
>>> That's probably true, backlash put Donald in power because there were two
>>> things about Obama that most Republicans could never forgive, his skin was
>>> black, and there was a "D" next to his name not an "R".
>>>
>>> John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis
>>> <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>
>>> obf
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>>> "Everything List" group.
>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
>>> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
>>> To view this discussion on the web visit
>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv17%2BgF69A8QFz1aOmG8J1H4DdU3_u9zxGUg7KeOvWztLg%40mail.gmail.com
>>>
>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv17%2BgF69A8QFz1aOmG8J1H4DdU3_u9zxGUg7KeOvWztLg%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
>>>
>>> .
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>>> "Everything List" group.
>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
>>> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
>>> To view this discussion on the web visit
>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/2083654585.320331.1650205051000%40mail.yahoo.com
>>>
>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/2083654585.320331.1650205051000%40mail.yahoo.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>> "Everything List" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
>> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
>> To view this discussion on the web visit
>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/868ee864-9ec7-4443-987b-6396c0f13849%40www.fastmail.com
>>
>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/868ee864-9ec7-4443-987b-6396c0f13849%40www.fastmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
>
>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/544d57c1-a54c-5486-28a2-ca9218f55191%40gmail.com
>
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/544d57c1-a54c-5486-28a2-ca9218f55191%40gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/7b54b6a6-c9e1-44b0-af7a-92465c778878%40www.fastmail.com.
