Everybody but Joe Biden seems to have forgotten the age-old rule that he who starts a fight has to live with the consequences. That’s what he was telling the world when he said of Putin, "For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power." He started it, Biden said, but we’re going to finish it.
The irony of the criticism of Biden’s statement (just words) that Putin must go must be compared to Putin’s war (slaughtering thousands) for regime change in Ukraine. The press is pathetic in the way they are handling this. Nice article, Lucian.
This is absolutely correct. Biden stated what many, many others, including members of Congress and heads of other nations, actually believe. Any notion that we can’t hurt Putin’s feelings forget that he is killing civilians, including children, pregnant women, and older adults with no chance to fight back. He is an evil man who needs to be removed from his position. If only!
The ridiculously quick walk back by the White House seems directed at Fox News and the rest of the right wing loonie media. They ride Biden like a rented mule and use any excuse to continue deriding him.
No. That was wise. That was standard issue American 'regime change' talk, or sounded like it. Putin doesn't want to end up like Gaddafi with a sword up his butt, slaughtered in the streets. Very unwise to panic the leader of a major nuclear nation who is already rightfully paranoid.
That visual may be driving a lot of this conflict. Julia Ioffe, is hardly pro Putin, but her take on Putin's fear of regime change is outlined here...very well.
You get it as I did! I knew he didn’t mean policy!! Why does the media have to fabricate an interpretation that puts our President Biden in a bad light! All the media is at fault here & just plain ignorant!
Biden was absolutely correct when he stated Putin has to go. He and his ilk have cheated the Russians out of their money. They are murdered if they utter a word against their dicktator. Putin and friends hide in bunkers in the mountains which are likely in an underground city undetectable by radar. They need to be driven like rats out of Russia, only supplied with a raft with holes in it. Let’s just be rid of them already! Enough with pussy-footing around the proverbial tulips! Thanks, Lucian.
The media circus over what President Biden said is disgusting, in large part because it refuses to deal with the substance of what he said -- which you have done very nicely. Thank you. However, I'm having a hard time visualizing Russia post-Putin. We've got a "L'état, c'est moi" ("I am the state," attributed to Louis XIV of France) situation here. Putin owes his precipitous rise partly to the haplessness of Boris Yeltsin but even more to the institutional vacuum that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Remember how the neoliberals crowed about how democracy (which in their view is synonymous with capitalism, ha ha ha ha) had triumphed? What we saw instead was what happens when capitalism is unrestrained by reasonably democratic institutions and a public that takes them at least semi-seriously. Whatever democracy might have been a-borning in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse was strangled before it got to toddlerhood. So was anything close to a free market -- ask Mikhail Khodorkovsky how that went.
Over the last couple of decades Putin and his cronies have filled that vacuum. What happens when they're removed? Mindful of the late Susan Sontag's warnings about using illness as metaphor, I'm not going to go there -- but I'm thinking it anyway. I'm also not trusting this "rah rah democracy" cheerleading coming from countries -- starting with the U.S. -- whose democracies are looking a little shaky these days. I'm thinking a lot about what happened in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was removed, and what happened in the old Yugoslavia (remember Yugoslavia?) after Marshal Tito died. It wasn't pretty.
Russians never understood the concept of Democracy as a way of life or capitalism in a society governed by Democratic law. The Russians allow themselves to be dragged right back into a dictatorship because they had more in a Russia where people were able to move freely and earn a living or own a business. That was such a big change that what went on around them, corruption both political and economic, became almost irrelevant. They had a sense of freedom for the first time. Unfortunately, they had no way to defend that freedom and perhaps didn't know enough to even care. Perhaps the next time they will do better.
I don't know why anyone thinks Putin gives a good rat's ass what Biden says. He knows he's crossed his Rubicon-I don't know why anyone cares if his feelings are hurt. He's killing thousands of people because he wants to take over a country, for Christ's sake! There was a war fought over this kind of shit 70 years ago, and we're now trying to assuage a dictator's feelings?
Biden just said what we all know to be true. We can't make it happen, but we sure can make his and his country's existence as miserable as possible. Sorry if the Russian people suffer, but I'm past caring about them. He is their leader, they have to deal with him.
The walk-back by the WH was pure 'oh, we can't say that out loud, he might get offended.." But believe me, Putin knows what we're thinking.
I wish we'd just stop being polite and tell the truth once in a while. Biden is doing it. Stop making nice with the bad guys. It doesn't help us one bit.
Mary, I agree with you completely. The Russian people are responsible for letting this criminal sewage run their country, now they’re paying the price for their sloppy conduct. I’ve lost sympathy for them as well. And I also agree that catering to this jerk’s feelings is ridiculous. On the contrary, everyone in the world who has a say in the matter should be mocking him, ridiculing him, satirizing him, and telling him that his goose is cooked, because it is. His worst fear is an Orange Revolution, Khaddafi’s fate, Hitler’s fate, Ceaușescu’s fate. The invasion of Ukraine is turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy. There is no way that he and his criminal government structure survives intact.
I hope you are right, and that his government is crippled or destroyed by this criminal attack on the people of Ukraine. To blame the Russian people, however, is to underestimate the power of totalitarian regimes. Total control of the media means that a majority of Russians have access only to what Putin tells them. Did you know that he has a private army of young Russian men, who are not part of the military, who he has recruited from the poorest areas and know only allegiance to him? They number some 350,000 and routinely terrorize anyone who dares take a subway in the general direction of a proposed protest. And regarding the mocking and satirizing, you bait a bear with nuclear weapons at your own risk and peril.
It’s not about Putin’s feelings. It’s about Putin’s ability to leverage Biden’s quote to “prove” to the Russians that the US wants regime change. It plays right into Putin’s hand, as he will use Biden’t words to “show” that the US is hypocritical and to justify his invasion of Ukraine as a self-protective measure against the Imperialist west.
AMEN! But who is going to pay to rebuild Ukraine? The Ukrainians should not have to do that. Russia must do that. Can it come from frozen Russian govt assets abroad?? (I don’t know enough to know the answer to that question, and i don’t see the question being asked.) James E. Butler, Jr. Georgia
The news media focused on those nine words instead of the nuanced and comprehensive message that made the bulk of his speech. Jon Stewart pointed this out in his show last week, focusing on the fact that the slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness" is empty because the so-called left-wing media is every bit as focused on profits as FOX. Value, truth, integrity, the twelve canons-- all meaningless in the face of America's sole spiritual principle that making a profit is the greatest thing one can do. It's the worst lessons of journalistic history wrote large (and, I fear, indelible).
Fox profits from cable company carrier fees. That's where the money is. The content is sheer nonsense that an alarming amount of people believe, and with the end of the fairness doctrine can be aired without challenge. But make no mistake: if you pay for cable, you're supporting Fox news whether you watch it or not.
Five corporations control the bulk of media messaging. The same stockholders who own more than 70% of all the wealth in the world. Every time you shop at Amazon or Target or Walmart, every time you eat at Chipotle or Wendy's or Firehouse Subs, every fill-up and pair of pants, eighty cents of every dollar goes to the same tiny group of people. They give almost nothing back and only consolidate their power. Everything for us and nothing for anyone else is the motto Is that what you mean?
That will never happen. The billionaires own both sides of the aisle. The only thing that would ever unseat these people would be violent revolution, and even then they would likely survive and prevail. The fundamental rot of embracing "buy low, sell high" as the foundational principle of ethics can't be corrected so easily. People are just too greedy. The system we have is functioning as it was designed; there are just far more people on the planet now, so it's that much worse.
Every war has a breaking point where the obvious become too much to ignore. In a few weeks if not already the Red Army generals will inform Mr. Putin the cost of continuing the war. Putin will resist as expected, but he has friends and possible family who will tell him to wrap it up. If he will not face reality his staff will fret and then finally make him stop. The hard part is what happens to Ukraine? Who will rebuild the place. It won't be Russia. After the war ends Putin will be avoided by just about everyone.
I read an interesting Twitter thread yesterday. The author is a Russia expert at a DC think tank.
His point is that the country is not autarkic, that is, not self sufficient, and is completely dependent on trade. Russia even lost the ability to make its own tank barrels!
Putin, like all dictators, serves at the pleasure of the military and the guys with the money.
If NATO and the EU, led by President Biden keep turning the screws on sanctions and a trade embargo, the powers behind the "throne" will act on Biden's suggestion and we'll all be speaking about former President Putin.
As always, the wild card is the spectre of blowing shit up with nukes.
Like it or not, Putin rules Russia. And he will still rule Russia after hostilities cease. We have to accept that is the most likely stable end state of this conflict. The difficult thing then is how to bring Putin down off the ledge he has climbed out on. We have to give him room to pretend that he accomplished something good for Russia even if it is a lie. Trump is pretty easy to understand. Putin understood Trump's pathologies and played him. Putin is not the simpleton that Trump is and Putin will be much harder to play. Cue the psychologists.
The irony of the criticism of Biden’s statement (just words) that Putin must go must be compared to Putin’s war (slaughtering thousands) for regime change in Ukraine. The press is pathetic in the way they are handling this. Nice article, Lucian.
This is absolutely correct. Biden stated what many, many others, including members of Congress and heads of other nations, actually believe. Any notion that we can’t hurt Putin’s feelings forget that he is killing civilians, including children, pregnant women, and older adults with no chance to fight back. He is an evil man who needs to be removed from his position. If only!
The only feelings that man has are his paranoia feelings.
The ridiculously quick walk back by the White House seems directed at Fox News and the rest of the right wing loonie media. They ride Biden like a rented mule and use any excuse to continue deriding him.
No. That was wise. That was standard issue American 'regime change' talk, or sounded like it. Putin doesn't want to end up like Gaddafi with a sword up his butt, slaughtered in the streets. Very unwise to panic the leader of a major nuclear nation who is already rightfully paranoid.
It’s a nice visual though.
That visual may be driving a lot of this conflict. Julia Ioffe, is hardly pro Putin, but her take on Putin's fear of regime change is outlined here...very well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1HWNcLDK88&t=4380s
So he fears regime change. All dictators do.
I thought Biden's speech was great -- and those nine words at the end indicated Biden's depth of empathy. Thanks again for this article.
You get it as I did! I knew he didn’t mean policy!! Why does the media have to fabricate an interpretation that puts our President Biden in a bad light! All the media is at fault here & just plain ignorant!
Really nails it. Wonderful to read what I feel.
Biden stated the obvious.
Biden was absolutely correct when he stated Putin has to go. He and his ilk have cheated the Russians out of their money. They are murdered if they utter a word against their dicktator. Putin and friends hide in bunkers in the mountains which are likely in an underground city undetectable by radar. They need to be driven like rats out of Russia, only supplied with a raft with holes in it. Let’s just be rid of them already! Enough with pussy-footing around the proverbial tulips! Thanks, Lucian.
Agree completely
I would agree…except for the casting of aspersions on rats!
The media circus over what President Biden said is disgusting, in large part because it refuses to deal with the substance of what he said -- which you have done very nicely. Thank you. However, I'm having a hard time visualizing Russia post-Putin. We've got a "L'état, c'est moi" ("I am the state," attributed to Louis XIV of France) situation here. Putin owes his precipitous rise partly to the haplessness of Boris Yeltsin but even more to the institutional vacuum that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Remember how the neoliberals crowed about how democracy (which in their view is synonymous with capitalism, ha ha ha ha) had triumphed? What we saw instead was what happens when capitalism is unrestrained by reasonably democratic institutions and a public that takes them at least semi-seriously. Whatever democracy might have been a-borning in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse was strangled before it got to toddlerhood. So was anything close to a free market -- ask Mikhail Khodorkovsky how that went.
Over the last couple of decades Putin and his cronies have filled that vacuum. What happens when they're removed? Mindful of the late Susan Sontag's warnings about using illness as metaphor, I'm not going to go there -- but I'm thinking it anyway. I'm also not trusting this "rah rah democracy" cheerleading coming from countries -- starting with the U.S. -- whose democracies are looking a little shaky these days. I'm thinking a lot about what happened in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was removed, and what happened in the old Yugoslavia (remember Yugoslavia?) after Marshal Tito died. It wasn't pretty.
Russians never understood the concept of Democracy as a way of life or capitalism in a society governed by Democratic law. The Russians allow themselves to be dragged right back into a dictatorship because they had more in a Russia where people were able to move freely and earn a living or own a business. That was such a big change that what went on around them, corruption both political and economic, became almost irrelevant. They had a sense of freedom for the first time. Unfortunately, they had no way to defend that freedom and perhaps didn't know enough to even care. Perhaps the next time they will do better.
In never understanding the concept of Democracy as a way of life, they would seem to have a lot in common with a significant number of USians.
I don't know why anyone thinks Putin gives a good rat's ass what Biden says. He knows he's crossed his Rubicon-I don't know why anyone cares if his feelings are hurt. He's killing thousands of people because he wants to take over a country, for Christ's sake! There was a war fought over this kind of shit 70 years ago, and we're now trying to assuage a dictator's feelings?
Biden just said what we all know to be true. We can't make it happen, but we sure can make his and his country's existence as miserable as possible. Sorry if the Russian people suffer, but I'm past caring about them. He is their leader, they have to deal with him.
The walk-back by the WH was pure 'oh, we can't say that out loud, he might get offended.." But believe me, Putin knows what we're thinking.
I wish we'd just stop being polite and tell the truth once in a while. Biden is doing it. Stop making nice with the bad guys. It doesn't help us one bit.
Mary, I agree with you completely. The Russian people are responsible for letting this criminal sewage run their country, now they’re paying the price for their sloppy conduct. I’ve lost sympathy for them as well. And I also agree that catering to this jerk’s feelings is ridiculous. On the contrary, everyone in the world who has a say in the matter should be mocking him, ridiculing him, satirizing him, and telling him that his goose is cooked, because it is. His worst fear is an Orange Revolution, Khaddafi’s fate, Hitler’s fate, Ceaușescu’s fate. The invasion of Ukraine is turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy. There is no way that he and his criminal government structure survives intact.
I hope you are right, and that his government is crippled or destroyed by this criminal attack on the people of Ukraine. To blame the Russian people, however, is to underestimate the power of totalitarian regimes. Total control of the media means that a majority of Russians have access only to what Putin tells them. Did you know that he has a private army of young Russian men, who are not part of the military, who he has recruited from the poorest areas and know only allegiance to him? They number some 350,000 and routinely terrorize anyone who dares take a subway in the general direction of a proposed protest. And regarding the mocking and satirizing, you bait a bear with nuclear weapons at your own risk and peril.
It’s not about Putin’s feelings. It’s about Putin’s ability to leverage Biden’s quote to “prove” to the Russians that the US wants regime change. It plays right into Putin’s hand, as he will use Biden’t words to “show” that the US is hypocritical and to justify his invasion of Ukraine as a self-protective measure against the Imperialist west.
AMEN! But who is going to pay to rebuild Ukraine? The Ukrainians should not have to do that. Russia must do that. Can it come from frozen Russian govt assets abroad?? (I don’t know enough to know the answer to that question, and i don’t see the question being asked.) James E. Butler, Jr. Georgia
A start might be that massive campaign fund tfg has stockpiled, plus the sale of Mar a Lago.
Your lips to…we all know the rest! Let’s hope she listens.
The news media focused on those nine words instead of the nuanced and comprehensive message that made the bulk of his speech. Jon Stewart pointed this out in his show last week, focusing on the fact that the slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness" is empty because the so-called left-wing media is every bit as focused on profits as FOX. Value, truth, integrity, the twelve canons-- all meaningless in the face of America's sole spiritual principle that making a profit is the greatest thing one can do. It's the worst lessons of journalistic history wrote large (and, I fear, indelible).
Fox profits from brain dead racist birther traitors, though.
Fox profits from cable company carrier fees. That's where the money is. The content is sheer nonsense that an alarming amount of people believe, and with the end of the fairness doctrine can be aired without challenge. But make no mistake: if you pay for cable, you're supporting Fox news whether you watch it or not.
Part of a package, I understand.
On a Cruise Ship right now, we have BBC, MSNBC, FOX and CNBC, Princess Lines.
You mean the "left-wing media" that's owned by an oligarch?
Five corporations control the bulk of media messaging. The same stockholders who own more than 70% of all the wealth in the world. Every time you shop at Amazon or Target or Walmart, every time you eat at Chipotle or Wendy's or Firehouse Subs, every fill-up and pair of pants, eighty cents of every dollar goes to the same tiny group of people. They give almost nothing back and only consolidate their power. Everything for us and nothing for anyone else is the motto Is that what you mean?
If billionaires tax rate can be raised to 20%, will that be enough?
That will never happen. The billionaires own both sides of the aisle. The only thing that would ever unseat these people would be violent revolution, and even then they would likely survive and prevail. The fundamental rot of embracing "buy low, sell high" as the foundational principle of ethics can't be corrected so easily. People are just too greedy. The system we have is functioning as it was designed; there are just far more people on the planet now, so it's that much worse.
Every war has a breaking point where the obvious become too much to ignore. In a few weeks if not already the Red Army generals will inform Mr. Putin the cost of continuing the war. Putin will resist as expected, but he has friends and possible family who will tell him to wrap it up. If he will not face reality his staff will fret and then finally make him stop. The hard part is what happens to Ukraine? Who will rebuild the place. It won't be Russia. After the war ends Putin will be avoided by just about everyone.
The Russian money seized should be used to rebuild Ukraine
yes.
the world should levy a fine for putin's criminal acts.
rightly, he should be tried for murder. but a fine ought to hurt him and be used to rebuild what he had criminally destroyed.
Yes!
Superb essay Lucian. Morality matters.
I read an interesting Twitter thread yesterday. The author is a Russia expert at a DC think tank.
His point is that the country is not autarkic, that is, not self sufficient, and is completely dependent on trade. Russia even lost the ability to make its own tank barrels!
Putin, like all dictators, serves at the pleasure of the military and the guys with the money.
If NATO and the EU, led by President Biden keep turning the screws on sanctions and a trade embargo, the powers behind the "throne" will act on Biden's suggestion and we'll all be speaking about former President Putin.
As always, the wild card is the spectre of blowing shit up with nukes.
Like it or not, Putin rules Russia. And he will still rule Russia after hostilities cease. We have to accept that is the most likely stable end state of this conflict. The difficult thing then is how to bring Putin down off the ledge he has climbed out on. We have to give him room to pretend that he accomplished something good for Russia even if it is a lie. Trump is pretty easy to understand. Putin understood Trump's pathologies and played him. Putin is not the simpleton that Trump is and Putin will be much harder to play. Cue the psychologists.