Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Well, of course Russia is very much an existential threat to us (which is why the people who want a no-fly zone over Ukraine are being stupid).
I asked a question about the real world -- the relationship between Trump and Russia -- and you instead started talking about your criticism of the media. That's clarifying. Instead of talking about what actually did happen involving Trump and Russia, e.g., see the Solnit article I linked to, you'd rather rebut some narrower set of claims about Trump's "control" over "collusion." You're not pro-Russia, and you're not really anti-anti-Trump, you're anti-media.
I find it hard to have this conversation with you, because it's hard for me to tell what you're talking about or reacting to. It's less that you see "the media" saying things with which you disagree, and more that you have snorted some lines of Taibbi or Greenwald complaining about the media and you excitedly agree.
At the risk of changing the subject to talk about the real world, I am extraordinarily disheartened by the war, even if it's clear that the Russian military initially underperformed. See this interview with Russia expert Fiona Hill in which she explains what Putin is trying to do. She also explains why she thinks Putin might use nuclear weapons, just to bring things back to the existential-threat issue. |
I had an interesting discussion with a relative who lives in a place where every other house is flag officer. She said, basically, that the universal feeling was "why the fuck didn't we do this in 2014", that this level of sanctions and unity back then would have stopped this now. The general feeling there is that if we don't push now, after Ukraine will come Moldova, the Baltics, Kazaksthan, etc., eventually back to Afghanistan and warm water ports in the Mediterranean and Indian oceans.
So it's only existential if you think it's a bad idea to recreate the Great Game of the 19th Century.
