I at first thought this must be a mistranslation. But after watching video, I can confirm Putin really said it (I am native speaker of Russian): “the Poles overplayed their hand and forced Hitler to start World War II with them.” https://t.co/K0XSWPMwA8
— Ilya Somin (@IlyaSomin) February 9, 2024
February 9, 2024
Putin: "the Poles overplayed their hand and forced Hitler to start World War II with them."
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He sounds just like a Democrat. "The Republicans force us to open the border, require the COVID jabs, spend like crazy, etc."
How would pushing back be journalism? That sounds like activism. Journalism is to ask the question and put out the response as it was provided for others to judge.
There is not love loss between the Poles and the Russians. The Poles think the Russians are nuts, and every time the Russian were invaded from the West (Napoleon and Hitler), Poland was the corridor.
I didn't take Putin's answer to mean "the Poles had it coming". Putin's answer were just factual answers about the constant hand changing of land and borders in Europe.
We need to remember the Soviets lost 24 Million people in WWII. The US 400K. And the Soviets had to hold off Hitler while the Allies first went to North Africa, then Sicily to get to D-Day.
To not think the difference between 24 million and 440K is going to create different perspectives is ignorant.
I noticed Mr. Somin doesn't mention Putin's focus on the "de-Nazification" of Ukraine, or a German SS Soldier being honored and applauded by Zelensky and Canada's entire parliament.
Selective, hypocritical criticism.
Seriously. Of all the old men Zelensky and Trudeau could find that fought the Russians...they pick and SS guy?
"Journalists" don't have to 'push back'. They can just leave the statement out there.
This is why I often call Democrats - little Putins.
What I care about are the lies that our own government tells us to trick us into supporting the wars that make our own billionaires rich. Nobody can take Putin's word on anything, anymore than you can take Joe Biden's word on anything. The Ukrainians have just as many bizarre and ahistorical versions of history. Why not stay out of it and let them fight it out?
The Ukrainians are claiming that the Soviets started WWII. This is because the Russians had been pointing out that they had never invaded Europe, and that Europe had invaded Russia twice, Napoleon, and Hitler.
Ukrainians are now claiming Russian artists, who probably never once in their lifetime thought of themselves as "Ukrainian" because they lived in what was Russian territory at the time, that Lenin later included in Ukraine when he drew the map. Our own museums are updating the bios on these important artists to reflect Ukrainian propaganda.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/19/metropolitan-museum-art-reclassifies-russian-art-ukrainian
This whole argument is beyond comprehension to non Slavs. Ukrainians even claim that Russians are not actually Slavs, but rather "Orcs" and the Ukrainians paint themselves as some kind of master race.
People who think that they can take any leader's word for anything are simply daft.
Pick ANY interview with a Democrat politician. Is there EVER any pushback?
It seems obvious that Tucker wanted to let Putin speak. He was saving his push back for the end of the interview when he asked for the jailed journalist.
One of the best parts of listening to podcasts is that the interviewer let's the subject talk without looking for a sound byte. I would hope we're smart enough to recognize Putin's duplicity and leave it at that.
I'll take the crazy woke jerk offs over this filthy Tucker Quisling. The Putin wing of the Retrumpian Party will reelect Biden.
"This is why I often call Democrats - little Putins."
It's funny how you have absorbed Democrat talking points into your own thinking so deeply. Ukraine interfered in our 2016 election far more than Russia did. This was a propaganda problem which Hillary solved by blaming the Russians for what the Ukrainians actually did. Ukrainian oligarchs were the biggest contributors to the Clinton Foundation. Ukrainians were deeply involved in the impeachment of Trump. The US interferes with Russian elections all of the time, not just Russia's, elections everywhere.
"Of all the old men Zelensky and Trudeau could find that fought the Russians...they pick and SS guy?"
We were fighting the Nazis, and the Russians were on our side, so how are they going to find a guy who fought the Russians who wasn't fighting alongside the Nazis? And if the story is that they were against fighting both sides, why were Ukrainians sent to Slovakia to brutally put down a revolt by the Slovaks against the Nazis?
It's not always a journalist's job to challenge every statement. It can be that, in the moment, a journalist will pull more out of his subject by NOT challenging things, and letting the subject of the interview reveal himself in ways he might otherwise do. I think this is actually a great interview style.
Why do people assume that a lack of challenge equals agreement or endorsement? Maddening and immature.
Basically Chuck Schumer went on TV and threatened to send American Troops to fight in Europe if Ukraine doesn't get another $60 billion. What was the follow up or push back to that extorsion threat? Give me $60 Billion or the war gets bigger.
Who want's American's fighting in Europe? Anybody liberal with a virtue signaling Ukraine Flag in their profile want it?
Boris Johnson and the pro-EU British are such brave people, willing to sacrifice Ukrainians to fight Russians. This could have been over long ago.
"Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore" - John Prine
It is actually interesting to learn the Soviet/Russian perspective that has never been stressed in our history, which seems to agree with the German perspective. Which is that Hitler was gathering traditional German lands, Poles refused to return some, thinking that English and French will save them ... Hitler ended up with a gigantic border with Soviet Union, and after defeating French so easily, ended up with a brilliant idea that he has to conquer Soviet Union as well. Before that there was a balance between Poles, German and Russians. And apparently, Western powers rejected any approaches by Soviets... Interesting, although not what we are taught in history about crazy German ruler wanting to conquer world just because ... he was actually crazy.
Push back? When a "real journalist"(tm) has to push back, she's already lost.
"Real journalists"(tm) simply de-platform everyone they might possibly disagree with.
I am only partway through the interview as I can take it only in small doses, but I find the public focus on whether Putin is lying about this or that much less interesting than trying to understand exactly what it is that Putin believes since his experience of the Cold War and its aftermath was very different than the American public's. And since anyone with any awareness now understands that American leaders lie routinely to the public, why should we not expect that they have lied repeatedly to Putin.
I grew up with an understanding that the Monroe doctrine was a legitimate approach to foreign affairs. That understanding was reinforced by the Cuban missile crisis. Why should Russia not have similar concerns?
As I grow older and have been redpilled, I am no longer concerned overmuch with truth, which in politics and history I consider virtually unknowable. Rather my focus is on perceptions which have a greater effect on future events.
And they also forced Stalin to invade Poland.
Don't forget the Non-aggression Pact called for the joint invasion of Poland by both Germany and Russia.
Notice, "Dispropaganda" didn't offer a factual "push back" to Putin, either.
The purpose of the post was to smear the interviewer Carlson, which is the definition of propaganda.
the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person
: ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause
Carlson's stated goal was to give viewers an opportunity to hear Putin's views, not his own. Devotees of the leftmedia expect journalists to attack subjects with views differing from their own. That isn't journalism. It is advocacy.
Putin's views on WW2 reflect Russian history, not ours. He wasn't alive during WW2 and Stalin was an ally of Hitler at its beginning. The interesting part of the interview was what lefties abhor: Putin's perspective differs dramatically from theirs/ours.
Also clear was that one side or the other, or both, has been lying for years. Given what we've seen recently from our intelligence community, it is a tossup as to what to believe.
Ilya Somin is an area expert and is correct to point out Putin's delusions and attempts to manipulate the conversation, but that doesn't mean Carlson wasn't doing the job of a journalist to interview Putin and let him damn himself with his own words.
If you boil it down to essentials:
Russia covers one sixth of the land surface of the planet. They have no need to go conquering territory to gain resources. They had no need to colonize Africa, and they freely sold us Alaska.
Europe is a resource poor rump of the Eurasian continent, they have every reason to drool over Russian resources, and every motivation to try to dismember the Russian Federation and get cheap access to Russian resources. Putin stands in their way.
It's been Europe's dream for centuries to divide up Russia the same way that Europe divided up Africa for the two reasons listed above, which is the first Sweden, then Napoleon, then Hitler have invaded Russia.
It was the strategy of the British Empire, a strategy which we inherited, to keep Russia and Europe from joining forces and creating a colossus that would rival, and eventually dwarf the Anglo world economically. This war has worked out quite well to split Europe from Russia.
Of course we have driven Russia into China's arms, and forced the rest of the word to do the hard, but not impossible, work of getting off of the dollar. We have created a military alliance between China and Russia, the resources of 1/6 of the planet's land joined with a massive manufacturing economy.
The details don't matter and are just used to confuse us and keep our eyes from looking at the reals stakes of the game.
Are all the liberal college kids on America's campuses and the young admins and adjunct professors willing to leave campus and join the US Military and fight in Europe, or are they going to want deferments like college students received during the Viet Nam era?
Maybe they can just borrow some more money and pay for a poor kid to fight in their place like was available to rich northerners during the Civil War.
We all know NOT ONE UKRAINE FLAG WAIVING LIBERAL wants to risk their own life to "protect democracy" in Ukraine.
Scratch an antisemite…and you get a tool interviewing Putin.
I have had maybe three or four extended conversations with Ukrainians on X. There is a Nazi stink about them, and an assumption that they are the "master race" I will call it, but they are not stupid enough to use that term, they just call the Russians weak, unmotivated Orcs who don't know how to keep a pipeline from blowing up, and who keep destroying their own strategic assets because they are just so stupid.
The whole disastrous counteroffensive the Ukrainians undertook last summer was predicated on this idea that the Russians would flee before the Ukrainian uber menschen.
This "disinformation" site reads like propaganda.
Imagine FDR, instead of saying "A day that will live in infamy" if he had said the truth "At last, The Empire of Japan has taken the bait and fallen into our trap!"
Trolling by an anonymous X account.
It's been 40+ years since I read it but James Michner wrote a pretty good book about Poland from the 000s to the 1970s called "Poland" I think.
John Henry
Seriously. Of all the old men Zelensky and Trudeau could find that fought the Russians...they pick and SS guy?
There aren't a whole lot of old men left from WW, and fewer who fought the Russians. Pretty much anyone from that group is going to have a large chance of having been SS, simply because of the way the Nazis organized their forces later in the war.
Tucker should have followed up with a question about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. After all, the Nazis and the Soviets BOTH invaded Poland in September of 1939 pursuant to their "Treaty of Nonaggression." Exactly how does Putin believe Poland caused itself to be invaded from both directions and its territory divided between the invaders? It would have been interesting to see how Putin explained the Secret Protocol that was revealed in the Nuremberg Trials. Just how does Putin rewrite these documented historical facts in his own mind? Missed opportunity, Tucker!
Barbara Walters was considered the premiere television journalist in America when she lolled around with Quaddafi and later declared that he was sexy.
The democrats praise Osama Bin Laden and Republicans love Putin.
America 2024 where the mass murdering enemy of my political enemy ain't such a bad guy.
Extraordinary. Traditional Republicans must be aghast that the GOP is now openly an ally of Putin’s Russia.
It is ironic that Russia used to use the left as their useful idiots. Now they use Tucker Carlson a self styled journalist from the right, although Putin seems to struggle when it comes to complaining to the right why Nazis in Kyiv is such a bad thing.
What came over most, is how Putin has completely lost control of the situation. He knows he can't win, and so he knows it is not he who determines how it ends. Putin realises that the decision lies in Washington, not Moscow, and the interview was a desperate plea for a future US President to get him off the hook.
Gusty,
The 24mm soviets killed were mostly civilians. About 75%
The Americans killed were almost all military men. Mostly draftees, many unwilling, but military men.
I am agreeing with and reinforcing your point.
John Henry
What is a "real" journalist? I find Tucker a typical journalist, inflated ego, pretentious pronouncements, annoying voice. Which of those isn't journalism?
y'all DO know which side Russia was on in the Germany/Poland thing.. DON'T YOU?
Any comment on the well known fact, which has been admitted to by many parties in a position to know, we don't have to just take Putin's word for it, that the UK killed a peace deal that could have ended the whole war after a couple of weeks, hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed ago, and which would have left Ukraine intact?
Someone odious said something odious — in other news, water is wet.
And I bet the Trumpies and the GOP don't give one solitary shit about Paul Whelan this week. Ain't that something.
We need to remember the Soviets lost 24 Million people in WWII.
Maybe they should have been more wary of colluding with Germany to start it. The Brutish gave some thought too declaring war on Russia as well as Germany after the invasion of Poland.
Gusty Winds forgets that Moscow invaded Poland with Nazi Germany.
Justifying Hitler also justifies Stalin. And Putin.
It was interesting to get Putin's World History. A bit bizarre takes at times. I was doing a lot of What? What did he just say. during the interview, but it held my interest. But also interesting because some of it, I'm sure represents the view of history as seen by Russians. I repeat: some of it.
I love Carlson's interviews, with everyone, because he lets them speak. He does not insert his views onto the other person or into the interview itself. He asks good questions and lets it rip. It's up to us to take in the information and make of it what we will.
Given that most young people in this country have little to no history education, this could be dangerous sounding to some Democrats and Republicans. But, considering what is dished up to them in the way of 'revised' history in their own schools here at home, I think it's good to let them wander about with the idea that Poland brought WWII upon itself. Let them travel to Europe this summer and share their new knowledge with Europeans and see what kind of response they get. I'm sure Europeans will be so impressed with our educated yoots.
I thank God that the fate of the world is in the hands of men like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. I pray they can manage the insane people in charge of the U.S. as they lash out in the dying throes of the empire, and bring us through to the multipolar world that is being born.
I thank God that the fate of the world is in the hands of men like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. I pray they can manage the insane people in charge of the U.S. as they lash out in the dying throes of the empire, and bring us through to the multipolar world that is being born.
Putin is a Soviet-apologist, so he's kind of stuck blaming Poland, seeing as the Nazis and the Communists cooperated in carving up Poland in 1939. The alternative is conceding that the USSR was one of the original aggressors in WW2 (which it was). I'm sure he blames Finland for the USSR invading them in 1939 too. And perhaps he might praise Roumania for rolling over in the face of an ultimatum from the USSR and ceding Bessarabia without a fight back in 1940.
"Tucker isn't a journalist, and this wasn't an interview"
Unlike all the real interviews by real journalists in the U.S.
Sure, TC could have asked tougher questions. But in its own way, the interview was revealing.
I'd love an Althouse fisking.
[Shrug] So Putin lied. Was this lie worse than the lies Biden routinely tells us? Not really. Do any “journalists” besides Doocy push back on Biden’s lies? Not really.
I asked this before and I’ll ask again. Why was it okay for Mike Wallace to interview the Ayatollah Khomeini on “60 Minutes” back in 1979 but not okay for Tucker to interview Vlad Putin?
Gusty.
And of those 25% left how many were killed, like Ukraine today by gross battlefield mismanagement. Had stalin not purged his officer corp the war would have proceeded very differently.
D.D. Driver said...
"The democrats praise Osama Bin Laden and Republicans love Putin."
You're all on the same page. Who told you idiots that this is now the narrative?
In fairness, Putin is not the only one with his own interpretations of history.
Blogger Howard said...
I'll take the crazy woke jerk offs over this filthy Tucker Quisling. The Putin wing of the Retrumpian Party will reelect Biden.
Well, Howard you are trying to re-elect Biden so that your party can go on destroying the America we grew up in. Another $60 billion borrowed to give to the Ukrainian despots who helped impeach Trump. Remember when Obama and Hillary tried to reorient the relationship with Russia ? Except they were too dumb to get the Russian word for "Reset" right.
Interesting. That's a very strange take from Vlad. Tucker's interview style is to ask questions and let the subject talk. I don't know who runs the X account faulting Carlson for not "pushing back" but I'm of the belief that too much modern "journalism" is too much pushing and not enough letting the subject talk. It was a long interview and Carlson probed him on all sorts of issues.
"Traditional Republicans must be aghast that the GOP is now openly an ally of Putin’s Russia."
What business is Ukraine of ours? Ukraine could have found a way to get along with Russia if they wanted to without us getting involved. They could have remained neutral and non aligned, and left a nice big buffer, In Russian I think the word is a "Ukraine" between NATO and Russia.
It's not treason to oppose the neocons. It wasn't treason to oppose the Iraq war, or the destruction of Libya, or the regime change war we are currently fighting against Syria, either, anymore than it was treason to oppose the Viet Nam War.
Blogger 0_0 said...
Gusty Winds forgets that Moscow invaded Poland with Nazi Germany.
Justifying Hitler also justifies Stalin. And Putin.
No, I didn't forget, and nobody is justifying Hitler or Stalin. What's your point?? I don't see one.
Whatever the peace compact was between Germany and the Soviets in 1939, it was delicate, and turned out to be a sham. But, after Napoleon marched through Poland, you think the Soviets weren't going to want a buffer zone to their west? It's the same as them not wanting eastern expansion of NATO today. They want a buffer zone. So what???
Sending Kamala Harris to Europe to invite Ukraine to join NATO was plain fucking stupid. And epic historical blunder only dingbat Harris would carry out as assigned.
24 Million Soviets/Russians dead in WWII. The French people folded like a napkin and then half the country (Vichy France) became Nazi's. It's not about the leaders. It's about the people.
No matter the dynamics of WWII, the Russian people fought the Nazis. Half the French fucking joined them.
Why do the Russian people have to be our enemy FOREVER??
The idea that any ABCNBCCBSCNNNPRNYTWAPO person would have done better than Tucker is hilarious. Those folks lick boots for a living, and they are very well-practiced.
Tucker let Putin speak for himself. We can all evaluate Putin's thinking.
"How would pushing back be journalism? That sounds like activism. Journalism is to ask the question and put out the response as it was provided for others to judge."
Journalism does not involve only the passive recording and reporting of actions and comments of others; it also involves explanation of parties and events in such a way as to provide, insofar as is possible, context and knowledge necessary to foster understanding for those not directly involved and who may lack familiarity with the events at hand. Moreover, reporting should dispel and correct distorted or previous erroneous reporting. Without clarification of the parties involved--the issues and conflicts between them; the relations of the various parties to each other and actions that have occurred between them historically (if any) and in the present; their respective goals, perspectives and desired outcomes; the possible outcomes and ramifications of the various possible actions the parties might pursue, etc.--the mere rote description of events may make no sense, or may lead to misunderstanding, confusion, or misreadings of the present events and possible future consequences that may ensue.
I enjoy reading posts from suckups praising Tuckers ass kissing passivity as real journalism.
the UK killed a peace deal that could have ended the whole war after a couple of weeks, hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed ago, and which would have left Ukraine intact?
Putin could end the whole war at any time, if he stopped invading. He's not the helpless pawn you keep trying to portray. He's a fully independent actor who made a fully avoidable decision to launch a war and start killing lots of people. Every word you write is intended to obscure this moral responsibility. This sanctimonious shtick where you pretend to be the only one who cares about all the Ukrainian deaths is not fooling anyone; you've been an apologist for Putin's killing machine since day one.
Putin: After WWII, Ukraine did not only received land that has been part of Russia but also from Poland, Romania and Hungary, all this is part of Ukraine today. We have every reason to believe that Ukraine is an artificial state that was shaped at Stalin's word.
The drawers of Ukraine's borders were Stalin, Hitler, Lenin, and Krushchev. Ukrainians today will assure you that Lenin was a gifted master of ethno-linguistics that got Ukraine's borders exactly right, and not a politician who wanted to balance the already troublesome Ukrainian population with a large admixture of ethnic Russians.
Article II. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state, the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San.
The question of whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish States and how such a state should be bounded can only be definitely determined in the course of further political developments.
In any event both Governments will resolve this question by means of a friendly agreement.
World War II: The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (August 23, 1939)
DDD bleared: "And I bet the Trumpies and the GOP don't give one solitary shit about Paul Whelan this week."
Are Trumpies and the GOP responsible for the safety of Americans abroad? No. That would be the QuidProJoe administration. You know. Like Brittney Griner.
Hitler was attempting to negotiate with the Poles. His aims mostly involved regaining areas with German-speaking populations, such as Danzig, that had been taken from Germany as part of the double-cross at Versailles. But Roosevelt encouraged the Poles to be intransigent, and the British and French promised the Poles military assistance. Whether this "forced" Hitler to invade is certainly open to question, although it left him no other way to reunite his country. But the reason the invasion started World War II was because the British and French had promised it would do so. Even though they were in no position to offer any useful military aid to the Poles.
You can learn more about this here. Or you can continue to believe all the propaganda put out by the Allies to justify the war they had stumbled into. Just as Putin continues to believe much of Stalin's propaganda. Truth is the first casualty.
Biden called the President of Mexico a sissy!
We are living through the very end of the post-WWII American economic dominance. After WWII Europe and Asia were leveled, and the US was untouched. We were the only country post WWII that could produce a damn thing, so we have thrived for 80 years. The Baby Boomers rocked it, and enjoyed it. Those days are coming to and end and the world is changing.
That part of the Putin interview was absolutely true.
But our leaders still hold on to and want to expand a Cold War era alliance (NATO). And the US taxpayer still picks up a tab we can no longer afford. And we want to fund wars we can't afford or fight.
I haven't been able to fact check all the stats Putin have on the US Dollar...but our strength as the world's currency is weakening too.
Putin and Russia are a reality. All these "Putin apologist" accusations toward Americans that no longer trust the US war machine isn't going to solve anything, or stop people from dying in stupid wars.
It certainly isn't going to help our children or grandchildren thrive.
yes the German army was trained on Russian soil, to avoid the Allied Control Commission, maybe a payoff for the General Staff to send Lenin to the Finland station, of course Mein Kampf should have made clear what Hitlers intentions are to the East, but remember Stalins goal was ultimately a Communist victory,
Also, remember the famous debate where Tucker shamed Jon Stewart for his softball interview of Bill Clinton? If softball interviews are bad journalism, isn't this a bit worse? Or do we let our own guys have it both ways?
It's nice to know how people think, particularly if what they believe to be true isn't true at all.
"Hitler ended up with a gigantic border with Soviet Union, and after defeating French so easily, ended up with a brilliant idea that he has to conquer Soviet Union as well."
Well, that's one theory, although not one that makes a great deal of sense. Another possibility is that Hitler discovered that his ally Stalin was preparing to invade Germany, and decided in desperation that his only hope of defeating his gigantic and powerful adversary was to strike first.
You know, it is not altogether inconceivable that everyone the US government ever got into a war with was a dirty, rotten rat bastard. The British, various tribes of Indians, the South, the Spanish, the Filipinos, the Germans (twice, while allied with the hated and despised British rat bastards), the Japanese, who attacked our good friends the Chinese, before they were the rat bastard Chikes. The Finns, let's not forget how those rat bastards treacherously defended their country against our ally Stalin, in alliance with that rat bastard Hitler. I guess the French must be OK, since they always seem to end up on our side. In fact, didn't Napoleon steal most of North America from Spain, and then sell it to Jefferson? Yeah, the frogs are alright. That's one theory.
Or you could hypothesize that nations get into wars either because they can't avoid them, or because war serves their interest, meaning the economic interest of their wealthiest citizens. And they are all rat bastards, including us.
Well, that's annoying. The clip cuts off at the end of Putin's statement, so I don't know what Carlson's response was. For all I know, Putin carried on for a while after that, and Carlson followed up on something else Putin said. Now I need to go find the clip in context before I determine if and how much I should be outraged.
the Nazis and the Communists cooperated in carving up Poland in 1939.
=======
if Poland already had 'ghetto in Warsaw' and other cities? how are Poles the good guys?
Why, exactly, did the US government feel it was necessary to try to get Ukraine into NATO? NATO was formed after WW II, because we had begun to realize that our wonderful ally Joe Stalin was a rat bastard, and the Commies wanted to take over the world. This did not stop Edward Kennedy from meeting with the Soviets to try to get heir help against Reagan. But you would think that, now that the Cold War is over and the Russians are just another pack of rat bastard capitalists like ourselves, we would be on fairly good terms with the Russians. In fact, I could easily see the possibility of an economic alliance with the Russians to develop the immense natural resources of Siberia. Everyone involved would get filthy rich, if they didn't freeze to death. Why exactly do we hate the Russians?
Because they are white Christians. That's why. The people running our country are not fond of white Christians, for some reason.
the Russians had been pointing out that they had never invaded Europe
This is simply false. The Russians conquered most of Lithuania and Poland, which at the time were unified as the largest country in Europe. The Lithuanian Commonwealth included the territories now constituting Belarus and Ukraine -- yes, Russia acquired those areas through war.
Russia occupied Finland several times when that country was part of Sweden. One of those wars nearly wiped out a generation of Finnish men. Russia ultimately conquered it for good and held it until the Revolution.
Russia isn't some unique historical victim. It's a great power like any other, invading or being invaded as circumstances dictate.
Imagine FDR, instead of saying "A day that will live in infamy" if he had said the truth "At last, The Empire of Japan has taken the bait and fallen into our trap!"
Except that it was the American people who had fallen into his trap. If only for political reasons, he took seriously his promise that their sons would not be sent to "die in foreign wars". But hey, if the Japanese attack our navy, in the indefensible harbor I've stationed them in, that's not a foreign war!
Extraordinary. Traditional Democrats must be aghast that the DNC is now openly in favor of shooting it out with Putin’s Russia.
It is ironic that Russia still uses the left as their useful idiots. Now they let Ukraine use them too.
What came over most, is how Biden has completely lost control of the situation. He knows he can't win, and so he knows it is not he who determines how it ends. Biden realizes that he can't make a decision or recall the time and events of his son's death. And his press conference was a desperate plea for voters to overlook his dementia.
[these ad lib comments are easy to write]
"Scratch an antisemite…and you get a tool interviewing Putin."
It does seem that only an antisemite would be interested in the opinions of a white Christian. He should have interviewed Victoria Nuland.
Does she give interviews? Or is she too busy starting wars?
I think Putin was saying that Poland's refusal to give back the Danzig corridor caused Hitler to begin the war by invading Poland rather than through some other action, not that there would not have been a war begun by Hitler otherwise.
He wasn't defending Hitler, as Somin would have you believe, he was explaining why the war started where and when it did.
And no, I'm not a Putin apologist, just looking to see past Somin's biases to understand what Putin meant by an otherwise unsupportable statement.
I could be wrong.
D.D. Driver said...
<And I bet the Trumpies and the GOP don't give one solitary shit about Paul Whelan this week. Ain't that something.
Well, Whelan is no non-binary WNBA player of color, is he?
Certainly not worth putting an international arms dealer back in circulation.
Ask Joe Biden.
And Kolyma was nice getaway.
Given that most young people in this country have little to no history education, this could be dangerous sounding to some Democrats and Republicans.
Considering that many of the commenters (including you, if I remember correctly) on this site promulgate the lie that Nazi Germany was a socialist state, you should STFU about history education.
Unfortunately the NYT, the paper of record reported the same thing in 1938. They never corrected it.
Paper of record.
Howard: "I'll take the crazy woke jerk offs over this filthy Tucker Quisling. The Putin wing of the Retrumpian Party will reelect Biden."
Putin thanks you and the rest of the New Soviet Democraticals for the Crimea, Eastern Ukraine, control of US Uranium via the Uranium One deal, using a Russian national to create your Hoax Dossier of Lies, blowing up the Nordstream pipeline putting the German economy under extraordinary additional stress and making russki gas and landbased pipelines (mostly running thru Ukraine) even more valuable!
Heckuva job Howard!
And let me add, the now public collapse of your faux opposition to the wokies (no one believed you anyway) is a welcome addition to Team Transparency efforts.
Congrats. Now you can re-embrace the groomers as well...along with the rest of the New Soviet Democraticals.
A big day all around.
0_0: "Gusty Winds forgets that Moscow invaded Poland with Nazi Germany.
Justifying Hitler also justifies Stalin. And Putin."
It is indeed true that due to the Ribbentrop-Molotov (Hitler-Stalin) pact, when the Nazi's invaded Poland from the West, the Red Army rolled into Poland from the East as the Nazi's and Soviets carved up Poland...right up until Operation Barbarossa.
The Soviets/russkis have always wanted to bury this truth, even so far as to blaming the Nazi's for Soviet atrocities in Poland such as the Katyn Forest massacre...with, I will add, the full support of Howard-like leftists that spent decades denying the truth.
The same way our Howard-like lefties and New Soviet Democraticals STILL deny the guilt of the Rosenbergs in feeding US nuclear secrets to the Old Soviets.
The same way our Howard-like lefties and New Soviet Democraticals spent decades denying the truth the Old Soviet gulag system so meticulously outlined in Solzhenitsen's Gulag Archipelago 3 book set.
Anybody else seeing a pattern here?
Does it shock anyone that our Howard-like leftists and New Soviet Democraticals are so proud of the corrupted Old-Soviet-Emulating New Soviet Democratical gulag system?
chuck said...
What is a "real" journalist? I find Tucker a typical journalist, inflated ego, pretentious pronouncements, annoying voice. Which of those isn't journalism?
************
For the thousandth time, chuck reveals his implicit belief that the Sun shines from his fundament.
Those millions of Soviet dead were more likely to be Balts, Ukrainians, and other minorities than Great Russians. Poland, the Baltics, and above all Ukraine were the most fought-over and devastated areas of the USSR. Russia proper was barely singed, while they were scorched.
But confusing people by the nomenclature is just SOP-- use Soviets or Russians as best serves the needs of the moment.
And don't forget to include that Russia is the only country that ever gets invaded.
Putin can say what he wants, but the best comment on the period 8/1939 to 6/1941 is the whine let out--I think it was Molotov--to the German ambassador, "What did we do to deserve this?"
A question many others might have asked while the Stukas and panzers ran on Soviet gas and the German people ate bread made from Soviet grain.
The purpose of Putin's statement is to get all of the useful idiots (looking at you Tim in Vermont) to start thinking of Poland as a bad actor. Why? Because if Putin manages to outlast the west and takes Ukraine, Poland is next. It is a matter of simply geography. From Moscow to the west until you hit the Carpathian mounts, the land is one giant flat indefensible plain. It has been Russian strategic defense strategy to move west since the days of the Tsars because of this. Russia wants, Ukraine, Moldova and parts of Romania in order to reach the Carpathians, which gives them a natural defensive border on its S.W. It wants to push deep into Poland because that is where the plain narrows and it's more defensible. It also gives it much more of the coastline of the Baltic so it can defend the port of St. Petersburg.
I wish Carlson had pushed back about the Molotof-Ribbentrop Pact and the Putin's claim that Stalin offered to help Czechoslovakia if only the Soviet troops could have gone through Poland when the USSR could have just gone through it's border with Czechoslovakia. I also wish he would have mentioned that maybe the reason so many Ukrainians sided with Hitler was because they had a recent memory of famine caused by those stinking communists. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that. That said, I'm mostly glad Carlson let Putin talk, which doesn't necessarily mean he agrees with Putin.
Extraordinary. Traditional Republicans must be aghast that the GOP is now openly an ally of Putin’s Russia.
What a preposterous slander. I defy you to name a Republican of national standing who supports Putin in this war.
The aspect of Putin's statement about Poland that makes me wonder is this: IF Hitler "had to" invade Poland, and therefore IF STALIN joined with Hitler in invading Poland, then STALIN WAS RIGHT. The last thirty years of the USSR's leaders' backing away from Stalin and his crimes must, in Putin view, be discounted, forgotten, buried.
Now we see that Stalin as well as Hitler was quite right to invade as much of Europe as "necessary."
Tucker should have interrupted Putin and said, "I think the Poles would disagree with your characterization."
This was a propaganda problem which Hillary solved by blaming the Russians for what the Ukrainians actually did. Ukrainian oligarchs were the biggest contributors to the Clinton Foundation. Ukrainians were deeply involved in the impeachment of Trump.
Sheesh, can you provide any links to back up these ridiculous assertion (and no, the fact that LTC Vindman was an immigrant from Ukraine doesn't count)?
Tim in Vermont: I know a lot of Ukranians, and they run a pretty vast gamut. I had a work crew of them at one point, and knew a few well enough to invite to my wedding. Few spoke English well -- the one who did started singing Nazi songs when he got in the cups and raged to me about the SVR(?) being run by Jews. I tried a few times with him but gave up, yet I pitied his circumstances -- brought here by the "Polish Mafia" and locked in houses, 40 men to a house with armed guards and forced to work for four dollars a day. OTOH there were the Holodomor orphans -- adults then -- who made up much of my childhood neighborhood. And on the Right there are brilliant defenders of America and Israel to be found at The People's Cube.
I don't know how I feel about this "interview" with Putin. I mostly think it was dumb if Tucker wasn't going to be more engaged. There are elements of Russian disinformation/anti-Semitic writers trying to court the Right at Unz Review.
But there are also a whole lot of working class Americans who have taken it in the teeth to serve in our foreign adventure for decades now. They aren't anti-Semitic but lean hard isolationist: they're sick of simultaneously being everyone's kicking boys and cannon fodder. And among Americans, they have suffered the most and been marginalized and persecuted the most for decades now.
I know a guy who was in Somalia (twice), Afghanistan, and Iraq, and almost lost a leg. He just wants to be left the hell alone.
We're not in the world of John Galt anymore. We're in the world of Peter Quinn.
Any comment on the well known fact, which has been admitted to by many parties in a position to know, we don't have to just take Putin's word for it, that the UK killed a peace deal that could have ended the whole war after a couple of weeks, hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed ago, and which would have left Ukraine intact?
Even if the UK did indeed kill a peace deal that "could have ended the whole war after a couple of weeks" (and I assume by crediting this argument, you are a big fan of "peace in our time" Neville Chamberlain, after all he resolved the entire Czechoslovakia situation with the Munich accords), it would have given the Nazis a year or two to rearm and actually win the inevitable war against the Soviet Union. After that they would have resumed the war against France and England, in a much stronger position than they were in 1940.
Ilya Somin is an Open Borders Fanatic Libertarian.
It’s not any interviewer’s job to push back. Putin revealed himself in the answer.
Somin would make a terrible lawyer, which is why he is a law professor. Putin sink himself with his answer. No need to argue with him. It’s not a debate.
"... the lie that Nazi Germany was a socialist state ..."
Freder, I'm going to climb way out on a very shaky limb and assume that you do, in fact, know what the "Z" in "NAZI" stands for. So, are you saying that, although the NAZIs called themselves socialists, they weren't actually socialists? Kind of like the Democrats?
Blogger Rusty said...
Gusty.
And of those 25% left how many were killed, like Ukraine today by gross battlefield mismanagement. Had stalin not purged his officer corp the war would have proceeded very differently.
I'm sure Stalin made errors. And he was a monster that killed tens of millions of his own people.
But the Soviets had to hold off the Nazis from June 1941 to June 1944 until the Allies were finally able to land at Normandy and open up that front. The allied strategy worked, but it was the Russians/Soviet people that had to hold for three years while the US and Britain landed in North Africa in 1942 and Sicily in 1943. 1.5 million Russians died in the Leningrad siege during that time Sept 1941 to Jan 1944.
Let's go with the premise that Stalin's mismanagement of officer core caused...let's say 50% of Russian/Soviet deaths. That still leaves 12 million dead.
Which part of Chinese mismanagement was responsible for their 19 million deaths?
Lenin... and not a politician who wanted to balance the already troublesome Ukrainian population with a large admixture of ethnic Russians.
Will no one rid me of these deplorable bitter clingers.
China in Tibet. Palestinians in Israel. Xhosa in Zulu land in South Africa. The world in America. Immigration reform. Deja vu.
Somehow the United States can move past blaming Germans for being Nazis 80 years ago, killing 6 million Jews, and starting the largest war the world has ever seen. We can forgive the Italians for supporting them as part of the Axis powers. Italian cuisine kicks ass so maybe that's it.
And we can forgive Vichy France for licking Hitler's ass and putting Jews on trains. We can even look past Ukraine's lingering Nazi heritage.
But dammit. It is in the American people's best interest to be enemies with the Russian people FOREVER! LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE!!!!
I think Tucker Carlson's interview with Putin was a waste of time. That's not because it is propaganda, but because Tucker was not going to be in any position to try to get him to answer questions that he didn't want to answer and/or make Putin look bad when he refused to answer. At least he got the question in about the jailed journalist, which was appreciated. The problem is if he pushed his luck too far, Tucker may have been joining that journalist.
Thanks for trying, Tucker. Not sure it was useful, but I appreciate the effort.
"One of the best parts of listening to podcasts is that the interviewer let's the subject talk without looking for a sound byte. I would hope we're smart enough to recognize Putin's duplicity and leave it at that."
How can we recognize anyone's duplicity if journalists do not provide the available facts, perspectives and opinions of others, and the past and current events that will provide the necessary knowledge and context for us to recognize duplicity (by anyone) when it is being offered? Many or most people do not have the information at hand to know if an interview subject is fudging the truth, or outright lying. The interviewer may challenge the interview subject on responses that spin, conceal, or violate the truth. Even if the interviewee does not concede, at least the viewers are thus alerted to answers that may be questionable.
"There are elements of Russian disinformation/anti-Semitic writers trying to court the Right at Unz Review."
There are certainly anti-Semitic writers at Unz Review, loads of them. As to Russian disinformation, well, how would one tell? If the Hillary Clinton campaign hires a British spy to misquote Russian liars, is that Russian disinformation?
There is a great deal of interesting speculation at Unz Review, especially his American Pravda series. Like me, Unz grew up as a red-blooded American nerd. He swallowed the soup at the end of that long, newspaper spoon. 'Til one day it occurred to him, that if some of it is lies, then maybe a lot of it is lies. And some of it is definitely lies.
His energy and curiousity are astonishing. I certainly don't agree with every claim he makes, and it is clear that he allows people to publish things on his site that he does not agree with. Imagine that. I highly recommend it as a source of alternative viewpoints on all kinds of things you never heard of.
What a surprise. I get five or six comments in and you all are already starting in on being apologists for the fucking Soviet Union. A bunch of lackeys for the Communists, all while insisting you are these strong conservatives.
Every time Soviet Russia comes up you disgust me.
Is there no correlation between the FAKE Russian Collusion accusation leveled against Trump by the US establishment and media, and the need for the FOREVER Russian boogeyman? Is the forever Russian boogeyman in the best interest of the American people, or...the people wanting to control the American people?
Russia interfered with our election! Russia is going to invade Poland next! Russia let Trump piss on Obama's hotel room bed! We need missiles and biolabs right on Russia's border! We need to stop the flow of Russian fossil fuels to save ourselves from Russia! We need to send $95 billion we can't afford to stop them! America is NOTHING without Crimea being where we want it to be! Putin has cancer! How are we supposed to get Hunter Biden another job in Ukraine if we don't stop Russia?! Let's fund NATO with American Tax dollars, while Western Europeans get three months paid vacation!
Dammit. What this country needs is a good ol' fashioned global war. It's been too long.
Fire up the draft. Draft the daughters this time.
Break out the bingo cage and the ping pong balls. Let's start pickin' birthdays!
Did you really expect a Russian leader would accept Russia's responsibility and role in destroying and abusing Poland? Morons. Get over it and move on ... there are more interesting questions to be asked about their current stance.
"Why do people assume that a lack of challenge equals agreement or endorsement? Maddening and immature."
It isn't necessarily either, but neither is a lack of challenge particularly valuable to the viewers, who may not be aware where the interviewee is dissembling or otherwise providing faulty information. Journalists who do not challenge dubious answers make it that much easier for interview subjects to distort or tell outright lies without any concern they will be held to account to the truth. If interview subjects come to expect as a norm they will not be so challenged, interviews will devolve into useless theater, where puffball questions elicit puffball answers, and the pubic interest is not served.
I'm not suggesting all journalists should be aggressively combating with their subjects in hopes of somehow forcing the subject into disclosing something they are intent on concealing. Some journalists are quick and subtle enough to still draw out some degree of truth, perhaps unintended and unexpectedly on the part of the interviewee. In other instances, the journalist can present the interview to his or public and point out the moments where the interviewee is lying or is otherwise being untruthful, countering the recorded answers with fact-checked information that invalidates the interviewee's answer(s).
In regard to Poland forcing Germany into war, I suppose you could make that argument from a certain point of view, but it would have to be a very biased point of view. Poland was controlling territory that was majority German. However, Poland, when it was a major power, had a large German population in its western part, and the Germans that lived there were generally fine with that arrangement. Of course, these territories would get absorbed by Prussia and later Germany through the partitions. The Poles managed to get some of it back when they regained their independence, most notably the Polish Corridor that gave them a path to the sea through Danzig, which had been the main port of Poland before it got carved up.
Of course, part of the reason that the Poles had Danzig in the first place is they took it from the Teutonic Order. Interestingly, part of the territory that Poland did not annex became Prussia, which would be a thorn in the side of Poland forever after.
The Soviets were also not pleased with some of the territories Poland managed to wrench from them in the chaos after WWI. Stalin was especially sore about this as his military bungling allowed it to happen and he never forgave the Poles for it.
I suppose if your thought process is the Germans are always right and those dastardly Poles were holding territory that did not belong to him, making the Germans the rightful victims, then, sure, the Poles not rolling over brought this upon themselves. You would either have to be a Nazi apologist, a nationalist fanatic, or an idiot to get to that conclusion, but it is a conclusion. There's some logic there, as demented as the assumptions are.
Thank you, Mccullough. Sheeh. Frigging George Mason University. It's all bloody Open Borders Koch money, and thus Open Borders Soros money. CATO institute BS. Exactly what I was talking about above.
Years ago, Betsey Fox-Genovese (bless her) sent me to an economics summer program there.
What a bunch of idiots. These people wouldn't know realpolitik from reality if it shat in their sherbet.
Intellectuals. Can't identify a lightbulb, let alone change one. Pol Pot was right about one thing.
Good points, Robert C. Who comes to mind as a better choice? With no rancor, I say Mark Steyn. But he's a little too busy being persecuted these days.
Maybe we get the journalism we deserve if we don't imprison them in the process.
i have to agree with those who say it was not Carlson's place to question this or any other comment by Putin. Ask the question, listen to the answer, go home and think about it. Regardless of what reporters may think of themselves it is not their job to confront those they are interviewing. It is up to each individual who listens/watch and to draw their own conclusions. Most reporters today seem to be ignorant of any history beyond 5 years ago. To encourage them to get into a debate about the origins and assigning of guilt regarding WW11 is farcical.
Can't resist adding that since Watergate reporters have had an undeserved heroic view of themselves. To me they are a bit like teachers - "those who can't do are reporters".
"Why, exactly, did the US government feel it was necessary to try to get Ukraine into NATO? NATO was formed after WW II, because we had begun to realize that our wonderful ally Joe Stalin was a rat bastard, and the Commies wanted to take over the world."
Uh, well, that's what the US wanted us all to believe. Perhaps some in the highest levels in Washington at the time even convinced themselves it was true. But Stalin had no feasible means to even begin to try to "take over the world." He was concerned with maintaining power and improving the conditions in his country, (devastated by the war), however brutal the methods he used. That was a substantive enough task for him to wrestle with.
The Cold War was created and primarily driven by the USA. As the preeminent, least-harmed, and most wealthy post-war world power, we decided we were going make ourselves the (profiteering) "caretaker" of the world. As are all who find themselves at the top, we were jealous of our high station, and greedy for more, (more power and more control of global resources) and fearful to the point of paranoia that others (primarily, Russia) were scheming to take our place, notwithstanding how ludicrous it was to think Russia was in a state to be able to do so. NATO has always been intended as a tool by which the US hoped to keep the Soviet Union (now defunct) fenced in. Here we are, nearly 80 years post-WWII, and we still behave as we think Russia is intent on (or capable of) challenging our status. Actually, I think the rational minds in power pretty much know this is nonsense; however, it remains the best coverall rationale for our maintenance of our paranoid and violent foreign policy. As we try to plunder the world, we can keep blaming it on the Satanic intents of RUSSIA!!
And don't fool yourself, the US has always been as much a rat bastard as Stalin.
The interviewer's role isn't to push back, it's to give the subject enough rope to hang themselves.
"Freder, I'm going to climb way out on a very shaky limb and assume that you do, in fact, know what the "Z" in "NAZI" stands for. So, are you saying that, although the NAZIs called themselves socialists, they weren't actually socialists? Kind of like the Democrats?"
This old canard. Either the right are ignorant or are just cynically playing on the fears of the ignorant, (not these these are mutually exclusive of each other). The Nazis began as a very small party, with socialist ideas. Once Hitler took it over and began growing the party and solidifying his control , he eventually purged the Socialists from the party. Once he became the head of the German state, he commenced arresting socialists and communists (and homosexuals and gypsys and all manner of undesirables--along with the Jews)--banishing them to the concentration camps.
Blogger Howard said...
"I'll take the crazy woke jerk offs over this filthy Tucker Quisling. The Putin wing of the Retrumpian Party will reelect Biden."
Howard is brazenly trying to mask the fact that he voted for the guy who gave Russia permission to invade Ukraine. Putin wasn't a problem until Biden got in office. Nice try, Howard. Try to deflect the results of your poor decisions. You owe everyone here an apology.
In 1938, when Stalin was offering to aid the Czechs if they stood up to Hitler, there was no border joining Czechoslovakia and the USSR. Poland was in the way, and naturally the Poles didn't want Soviet troops passing through.
Similarly, the Soviet Union did not border on Norway until after 1945, when they took the Arctic Sea frontage of the Finns.
Whatever your stance on the history, get the geographic facts right.
I am struck that the first wave of outrage over Tucker Carlson's trip is that his interview of Putin was at best ill-advised and maybe unpatriotic, and at worst, the most egregious violation and seditious act ever seen aside from January 6th. Now that it's happened, the outrage volume is dialed up even higher, but now it's all about purity-testing the quality of Carlson's journalistic credentials and talents, and bickering over, off all things, WWII campaigns.
I guess that means the interview was pretty even-handed and Putin is an *sshole after all.
"and I assume by crediting this argument, you are a big fan of "peace in our time" Neville Chamberlain"
So Freder is a neocon, cheering on the maiming and deaths of hundreds of thousands, LO FUCKIN L. Every once in a while you sock puppets go off brand and reveal yourselves.
But no, you can think of me more as the guy in that famous picture who refused to do the Nazi salute even though everybody around him went along, if you are looking for WWII analogies.
Hitler steamrolled large countries in weeks, he had a completely militarized economy and an army of millions, all of them fully equipped with the most modern weapons. Hitler needed the natural resources of countries outside of Germany, so did Japan. Russia doesn't need anybody's resources.
Ukrainians still revere people who fought alongside the Nazis and participated in the ethnic cleansing, not just of hundreds of thousands of Jews, but of Poles too. After the Hitler Stalin pact, Ukrainians went into the land acquired from Hitler and began killing Poles by the tens of thousands, and just last month, Ukraine was caterwauling about the Russian targeting of a museum dedicated to one of the commanders of one of these units who personally supervised the slaughter of large numbers of Poles.
The idea that supporting Ukraine is somehow being sensitive to the WWII suffering of the Poles is rich.
If anything good comes out of this interview, it will be that Tucker was exposed as a crappy human and journalist. He got too arrogant, over-estimated himself and ended up serving as a dictator's footstool.
so, as Al Smith would say.. Let's take a look, at the record.
Free City of Danzig and World War II
..since Germans formed a majority in the city, with Poles being a minority (in the 1923 census 7,896 people out of 335,921 gave Polish as their native language) – the city was not placed under Polish sovereignty. Instead, in accordance with the terms of the Versailles Treaty, it became the Free City of Danzig,
.. The German government officially demanded the return of Danzig to Germany along with an extraterritorial (meaning under German jurisdiction) highway through the area of the Polish Corridor for land-based access from the rest of Germany.
After the German proposals to solve the three main issues peacefully were refused,
German-Polish relations rapidly deteriorated. Germany attacked Poland on 1 September after having signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union.
Serious Question.. Through 1939.. What territory had Germany repatriated, that had NOT been German (or Austrian) territory previously?
Would Germany have stopped at Danzig? Who Knows? Both France and Britain declared war on Germany first. This was after demanding that the new Polish government DEMAND WAR
"Tucker should have interrupted Putin and said, "I think the Poles would disagree with your characterization."
He should have, because that would have opened up a whole new subject that maybe Americans are not familiar with regarding Ukraine and the Poles. The Waffen SS, to which that guy they feted in the Canadian Parliament, could probably tell you some stories about how they treated the Poles. The Ukrainians consider themselves some kind of regional "master race."
Freder, I'm going to climb way out on a very shaky limb and assume that you do, in fact, know what the "Z" in "NAZI" stands for. So, are you saying that, although the NAZIs called themselves socialists, they weren't actually socialists? Kind of like the Democrats?
I don't know why I keep telling you all this, because you just refuse to accept facts. I am well aware that the official name of the party was the National Socialist German Workers' Party. And that early in its history it did have some chapters that spouted socialist rhetoric, especially Strasser's branch in Northern Germany. However, once Hitler gained control of the entire party in the mid-20's, the Socialist rhetoric continued (and Goebells abandoned Strasser and threw his lot in with Hitler), but the actual policies of the Nazi Party were right wing authoritarian down the line. Their plans for Eastern Europe were basically feudal (using eastern Europeans as slaves with Germans as their feudal lords). What industries did the Nazis nationalize? Jewish properties and businesses were sold or given to private businesses (albeit to members of the party or industrialists who were sympathetic to the Nazis).
Heck, the British and Americans were arguably more "socialist" than the Nazis during the war. The Nazis let private industry develop competing weapons which led to silly competition between Krupp, Seimans, Messerschmidt, Mercedes, et. al., which resulted in German armaments production being an inefficient mess and prevented them from reaching the production levels achieved by both the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. Germany produced 47,000 tanks, while the Soviets produced 102,000, the U.S. 88,500 and Britain 20,000. Do you want me to go into aircraft production?
What I found most compelling about Putin interview was his ability to speak near nonstop for two hours, without notes, without losing his train of thought, demonstrating both intellect and reasoning - even if his positions are contrary to American political positions.
Ahem. Contrast this 2 hr Putin interview-performance with Biden's own 12 minute press conference performance today. Night and day difference, both in delivery and content. We may not agree with Putin, but he has gravitas. Biden seems altogether unaware that he's overwhelmed by and ill-equipped to serve his circumstances. We should be truly frightened, really, to realize our political leader, our president, is mentally-incompetent to be supposed "leader of the western world.
"if Putin manages to outlast the west and takes Ukraine, Poland is next."
Where the fuck are they going to get the soldiers? This is the same "domino theory" that they used to lead us by the nose into Viet Nam, and how has that turned out? The Soviet Union ended up where they did after WWII based on a handshake deal between Stalin, FDR, and Churchill. They have had a bellyful of empire, it bled them and led to the collapse of the USSR. They don't need to conquer resource poor Europe, they have natural resources that dwarf those of Europe, this is why the invasions have always gone the other way, to get those resources. Russia is done with the West, that much is clear. Their future is economic alliances with China, Iran, India, Africa, and the Middle East.
Von Clausewitz didn't get it exactly right, he should have said that "War is economic competition by other means."
"I enjoy reading posts from suckups praising Tuckers ass kissing passivity as real journalism."
Real journalism would have been to prevent Putin from explaining his side of the conflict. Real journalism is to withhold information from the American electorate.
Big Mike: "[Shrug] So Putin lied. Was this lie worse than the lies Biden routinely tells us? Not really. Do any “journalists” besides Doocy push back on Biden’s lies? Not really.
I asked this before and I’ll ask again. Why was it okay for Mike Wallace to interview the Ayatollah Khomeini on “60 Minutes” back in 1979 but not okay for Tucker to interview Vlad Putin?"
I believe you'll be waiting quite a long time for an answer from our Officially Outraged set...as there is no answer they could possibly provide that would not expose their idiocy, inconsistency and/or ill intent.
Mind your own business: "Did you really expect a Russian leader would accept Russia's responsibility and role in destroying and abusing Poland? Morons. Get over it and move on ... there are more interesting questions to be asked about their current stance."
Exactly.
To quote the light bringer Saint Obama, "the 80's called, they want their foreign policy back."
Are youse who are criticizing Carlson for not arguing with Putin instead of interviewing him, are you the shitheads who loved it when democrat party journOlisters like Dim Acosta would argue and snipe at president Trump when he answered the presses questions?
Virginia Lawyer Mark: "What a surprise. I get five or six comments in and you all are already starting in on being apologists for the fucking Soviet Union. A bunch of lackeys for the Communists, all while insisting you are these strong conservatives.
Every time Soviet Russia comes up you disgust me."
Thank you for your service. Remind me again what branch that was?
Not the wild idea that everyone thinks it is. There is some serious work about the origins of the war that makes the point that the Poles were not without fault …
https://www.unz.com/runz/why-everything-you-know-about-world-war-ii-is-wrong/
Blogger Howard said...
I enjoy reading posts from suckups praising Tuckers ass kissing passivity as real journalism.
I enjoy reading your blowjobs of Joe Biden.
I'd rather have Biden again than any fool enamoured with Putin.
Remind me again about how mainstream media outlets routinely compromised and asked softball questions to maintain "access" to dictators like Saddam Hussein, etc.
Once again, a double standard applies.
"If Tucker Carlson were a real journalist, he would have made Putin renounce that statement, withdraw from Ukraine, guarantee civil rights in Russia, sign on to the Paris Accords, drink a Bud Light and then resign. Treason I tell ya!"
“How can we recognize anyone's duplicity if journalists do not provide the available facts, perspectives and opinions of others, and the past and current events that will provide the necessary knowledge and context for us to recognize duplicity (by anyone) when it is being offered?”
Oh! That’s how someone becomes a Leftist!
You couldn’t have written that with a straight face, Bob.
Millennials are ignorant because they never bothered to learn to think critically and, to be fair, that was the intent of their teachers. But Boomers are ignorant because, though they were taught to think critically, they just fucking threw it all away.
Putin is a KGB brat - and a totalitarian dictator.. who refuses to let go of power.
Hillary profited off him and his regime.
never forget that.
Biden profited mightily off the corrupt regime in Ukraine.
Republicans love Putin.
Where in the hell do you get this idea? Seriously?
Robert Cook said...
"How can we recognize anyone's duplicity if journalists do not provide the available facts, perspectives and opinions of others, and the past and current events that will provide the necessary knowledge and context for us to recognize duplicity (by anyone) when it is being offered? Many or most people do not have the information at hand to know if an interview subject is fudging the truth, or outright lying."
That just moves the problem one space; it does not solve it. How can we recognize the journalists' duplicity in their choice of facts, perspectives and opinions that they choose to present? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Poor Mister Hitler. All he wanted was to get all the Germans together like Providence and History intended. Is it his fault that the Czechs and Poles and Danes and Norwegians and British and French and Yugoslavs and Greeks were so mean and kept getting in his way?
The value of any discussion of historical events here on Althouse is that they remind me whose opinions can be ignored and dismissed.
For a well-sourced and highly readable indictment of Stalin's role in the events of the 1930s and 1940s, read McMeekin's recent book Stalin's War.
Rabel said...
I think Putin was saying that Poland's refusal to give back the Danzig corridor caused Hitler to begin the war by invading Poland rather than through some other action, not that there would not have been a war begun by Hitler otherwise.
He wasn't defending Hitler, as Somin would have you believe, he was explaining why the war started where and when it did.
——————————————-
I agree with Rabel, that is pretty much my conclusion from that short clip.
Balfegor: Putin is a Soviet-apologist, so he's kind of stuck blaming Poland, seeing as the Nazis and the Communists cooperated in carving up Poland in 1939.
Or maybe there's some substance to Putin's argument.
A decade ago I would have thought his statement was crazy. Today I don't think he's obviously wrong.
Worth your time if you'd like to understand why he thinks "Poland overplayed its hand":
Why Germany Invaded Poland
- John Wear (2019)
You Republicans are doing a bang up job running PR for Vlad and Adolf. Thanks, Tucker!!!
It's not Putin's lies that bother me, they don't affect me, it's the lies of our own leaders. A lot of time the most potent propaganda is the simple truths that your opponents leaders don't want their people to know. That's why they called Hunter's laptop "disinformation" even though it was all true.
Michael K said...
Blogger Howard said...
I enjoy reading posts from suckups praising Tuckers ass kissing passivity as real journalism.
I enjoy reading your blowjobs of Joe Biden.
=======
does Biden know he is being blowed?
The neocons are extremely dishonest but they are smart. They know how to play guillile 'muricans like a drum. I finished listening to the Putin interview and he talks quite sensibly and intelligently about Russian and Ukrainian history and why Russia is taking the stands that it does. The most important part is about the Ukraine war and how it can end.
But the most suprising thing is the amount of time Putin spends attacking Nazis and claiming the Ukrainians tolerate them and brings up the history of Ukrainian nationists allying themselves with Hitler.
So, a Neo-con takes a small bit out of context, and before you know all the knuckle-dragging boomers are out calling Putin a nazi for his comments about 1939 Poland and thumping their chests about how "Boy, I sure hate those Goddamn nazis, i wish I had a timemachine and could go back to 1933 and punch that Hitler in the nose!"
Nothing makes a boomer more proud and jazzed up then talking about a idealogy that died almost 80 years ago. And no amount mockery or reasoning can make them stop. Its hilarious, but also pathetic.
Plato's Allegory of the Cave:
A story told by Plato in Book VII of The Republic to illustrate the superiority of information derived from reason to that derived from the senses. The allegory takes the form of a dialogue between the philosopher Socrates and Plato's older brother Glaucon. Socrates likens people who rely on their senses to a group of prisoners who have spent their entire lives chained inside a cave facing the blank back wall and unable to turn around. All they see before them are the shadows projected onto the wall by things passing in front of the cave entrance. These shadows of things are their only reality. In contrast, experiencing reason is likened to a prisoner escaping the cave into the full sensory richness of the world outside.
Every country's got it's own version of history - which may or may not agree with everyone else's. And I'm not aware of any country (aside from the US at present) that's willing and eager to see themselves as the villain on the world stage.
joe (12:58pm):
"if Putin manages to outlast the west and takes Ukraine, Poland is next."
tim in vermont (4:23pm):
"Where the fuck are they going to get the soldiers?"
If 'tim in vermont' had ever taken my repeated advice and bothered to read @JuliaDavisNews and others on Twitter who translate Russian sources, he would know that Russian state television talks all the time about how they are not just going to conquer all of Ukraine, but destroy Ukraine "as a nation and as a culture", turn all Ukrainians into Russians, kill anyone who refuses to assimilate (two million, at least, they estimate), and draft the men to help conquer Poland, the Baltics, Finland, and more. They are already destroying all Ukrainian-language books in the occupied territories, beating children who speak Ukrainian in school, kidnapping children and shipping them to Russia to be adopted by Russian families, refusing to fill prescriptions for all those who refuse to turn in their Ukrainian ID cards for Russian ones, and otherwise proving they mean what they say. What they are doing is genocide.
They also openly say that they only want a cease-fire to rearm and reequip, at which point they will get back to killing Ukrainians. They did just that in Chechnya: the Chechens won the first war in 1995, Russia was just about bankrupt and signed a solemn peace agreement granting Chechnya independence. Two years later, after rearming, they broke it, invaded Chechnya, and killed hundreds of thousands of Chechens, mostly civilians. Ukrainians know this very well, and know very well that the 2022 "peace deal that could have ended the whole war after a couple of weeks" was complete bullshit. They like to show pictures of the 1995 peace conference and point out that every one of the Chechens at the conference is dead. It's easy enough to find on-line lists of all the agreements Putin has signed and see that (a) it's a long list, and (b) he's broken every one of them.
It would be nice if Bill Clinton would go to Congress and insist that they arm Ukraine, since they are in fact obligated to do so by the Budapest Memorandum that he negotiated. Ukraine not only gave up their nuclear weapons, they also gave up their long-range 4-engine bombers, while Russia kept theirs and are using them to bomb Ukrainian civilians every night of the week.
Howard: "You Republicans are doing a bang up job running PR for Vlad and Adolf. Thanks, Tucker!!!"
Just how much of Ukraine, US uranium and increased natural gas sales at higher prices are you Putin cucks going to give Putin Howard?
You've already sanction-proofed the russkis moving forward! Heckuva job tiger!
Gee, that $3.5 million given to the Biden crime family directly by the wife of the Mayor of Moscow, a staunch Putin ally, has really paid off for the Kremlin, hasnt it Howard?
And how much did Putin and his allies dump into the Clinton foundation? $150 million?
Thats alot of Rubles baby!
And who can forget those sweet, sweet $500,000 "speeches" Bill Clinton delivered to the russkis in between trips to Epstein Island?!
Good times, eh Howard?
"does Biden know he is being blowed?"
Howard can't say. His mouth is full.
“Putin could end the whole war at any time, if he stopped invading.”
Tucker asked him if he was ready to stop now. Putin dodged the question. Tucker asked him why he didn’t just call up Biden et al and say, let’s negotiate an end to this. Putin said that this plan wouldn’t work for sketchy reasons. Contrary to what some seem to be saying, Tucker didn’t sit there with his thumb up his butt while Putin pontificated.
The novel Madame Bovary was tried for indecency because Flaubert’s style was to tell the story and let readers draw their own conclusions rather than saying, look at this woman! She’s baaaad! Good to know that people are as stupid now as they were in 1856 France.
Freder,
The reason you have to keep telling us over and over again is because you are either so stupid, or more likely ignorant that you think if you say it often enough, it will somehow magically become true. You might want to try reading some Marx. And then read about the National Socialist ideology both in theory and in practice.
The classical definition of socialism is "Ownership of the means of production by the people." Can we agree at least on this as a thumbnail definition?
But if you read Marx, what he really meant was control of the economy by the state (or government, or administration, or secretariat or whatever name you want to give it.)
You and Cook and other here and elsewhere try to defend the National Socialists against socialism by claiming that they didn't "own", or as you put it "Nationalize" the economy. Quite true.
One can have control over a resource without owning it. One can "own" something without controlling it. Ownership is really just a legal fiction issued by a state saying that a person has control of something.
Here's what German National Socialism has to say about ownership in 1939:
German socialism had to overcome this "private," that is, unrestrained and irresponsible view of property. All property is common property. The owner is bound by the people and the Reich to the responsible management of his goods. His legal position is only justified when he satisfies this responsibility to the community. [90]
The German government had total (that's why it is called totalitarian") control over all aspects of the economy under National Socialism. The German capitalist is allowed to live and to run their factories, stores etc only if they do what what the state tells them to do. When they stop "Satisfying their responsibility to the community", their property will be taken with no compensation. It is much less messy this way.
Do you really suppose that the owners of Mercedes, Krupp, Bayer, Messerschmitt or even Joe's Bakery had any say whatever in how they ran their businesses? What hours they worked, how much they paid, how many people they employed, how much they charges, what products they made and a million other decisions normally made by "owners".
I could go on and on for pages explaining to you how the German National Socialists meet every parameter of socialism.
Can you come up with any reason other than legal title, ownership, to show how the National socialists were not socialist in any definition of the term?
They did differ from many socialists in thinking that it would be possible to have national socialism instead of international socialism. They thought that one could have a socialist island in a sea of non-socialism. It never works. When there is another, non-socialist, country to escape to, people will do ANYTHING to escape. Risk getting shot crossing the wall in Berlin or the border in Russia, risk drowning to escape Cuba and so on.
Marx realized that for socialism to exist you need to do 2 things: 1) cut off any means of escaping 2) Create the New Soviet Man, as Lenin called it, by killing off anyone who didn't want to be the New Soviet Man. Or at least pretend to be.
And even then we have 100 years of showing that that doesn't work.
So stop your bleating and go get some knowledge of what socialism is and isn't.
John Henry
Someone mentioned the 6mm Jews murdered in the National Socialist camps.
The older I get, the more that number pisses me off.
It was 12mm people, murdered in the National Socialist camps. Including the 6mm Jews, of course.
Of the 12mm, 6mm were Poles. About half of those Jewish.
I've had some argue that the Jewish deaths were special because they were sent to extermination camps and the others died in work camps. That is true but dead is dead.
If we want to talk about the inhumanity of one type camp vs the other both are pretty near the lowest pits of Hell. But it seems like being gassed quickly is slightly less inhumane than being killed over 6-12 months by overwork, starvation, cold, disease and beatings.
John Henry
i've wondered where Dr We Evil and his paranoid delusions had gone.. Hadn't seen them for a while.
Joe Biden Is Corrupt said...
Putin is a KGB brat - and a totalitarian dictator.. who refuses to let go of power.
Hillary profited off him and his regime.
never forget that.
Biden profited mightily off the corrupt regime in Ukraine
No JBIS: Trump is corrupt and there is no way Hillary and Biden had the opportunity and/or means to profit from transactions with Russia and Ukraine. Stupid made-up BS that you actually believe!
But you do provide the fact of the day: Putin is a . . . "totalitarian" dictator (there is no other kind) . . . who refuses to let go of power (because only he is in charge).
Drago asks...
Just how much of Ukraine, US uranium and increased natural gas sales at higher prices are you Putin cucks going to give Putin?
Approximately 14 bn cf per day of LNG gas is being exported from the US, with 8.5 bn going daily to Europe to replace Russian gas and coal. Three new export terminals are opening in 2024 which will add 5 bn more cf of LNG daily. So Gazprom will have to find other customers, but most will end up in China.
Well, I have studied the period in question and have book shelves on the topic. My Director of Studies at Cambridge was Norman Stone, who did know what he was talking about. I don't think that Hitler expected war with Poland - he didn't mind having one, because he was a monster - but that like Lithuania with Memelland, Poland would seek a deal to avoid war. In due course I think that Hitler expected a war with the Soviet Union and would have hoped that Poland would ally with Germany over that - much as non-Aryan Romania and Hungary were to do. Being Austrian, Hitler wasn't anti Pole in the way the Prussian generals and Junker class were.
Doesn't make Putin a good guy - hint, he's not. Why, he jails political opponents on trumped up charges, and disqualifies political opponents from running against him? Who could support a President who does that?
Do you really suppose that the owners of Mercedes, Krupp, Bayer, Messerschmitt or even Joe's Bakery had any say whatever in how they ran their businesses? What hours they worked, how much they paid, how many people they employed, how much they charges, what products they made and a million other decisions normally made by "owners".
Certainly more than Ford, Willy's, Boeing, Grumman, or Joe's Bakery had in the U.S.
Read Volker Ullrich's first volume of his Hitler biography, "Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939", and get back to me when you have finished.
Yep! Yesiree! Those evil Poles, minding their own damn business, smoking their keilbasa, and draining their perogies all hours of the night.
Germany had no other choice!
Freder.
Read the history of fascism. Hint. Musolini started it.
We can talk about Lend Lease and how Hitler got the United States out of the depression.
"You and Cook and other here and elsewhere try to defend the National Socialists against socialism by claiming that they didn't 'own,' or as you put it 'Nationalize' the economy."
Frederson may have made that point, but I did not. (This does not mean I disagree with the point.) I said that Hitler at a certain point purged the remaining socialists from the Nazi party and later implemented mass arrests of socialists, communists, homosexuals, gypsys--along with the Jews--and banished them to concentration camps. Hitler saw them all as undesirables to be enslaved or erased. Hitler was the Nazi party, and he was not a socialist.
Gadfly: "Approximately 14 bn cf per day of LNG gas is being exported from the US, with 8.5 bn going daily to Europe to replace Russian gas and coal. Three new export terminals are opening in 2024 which will add 5 bn more cf of LNG daily."
Try and keep up....
"Biden Freezes Licenses to Export Gas, Imperiling Projects"
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-26/biden-freezes-approvals-to-export-gas-imperiling-major-projects?embedded-checkout=true
So many people posting here would have done a better job than Carlson. It's shameful that their interviewing skills have gone to waste.
I mentioned Ilya Somin's biases, I'll throw in that he has been arguing that the Colorado SC was constitutionally correct to exclude Trump from the primary ballot and went so far as to file an amicus brief to that effect.
He used to make some sense despite his Libertarian leanings, but at some point during the Trump years he fell off his rocker.
Wow! G.I.L.B.A.R. managed to post a comment (9:40pm) without a single inappropriate capitalization! Too bad he's still incapable of arguing like (or as) a grownup, addressing his opponents by name and stating his objections to their arguments.
"So many people posting here would have done a better job than Carlson."
Not to mention any and all dead national leaders, and most of the live ones.
@Freder sez: "Certainly more than Ford, Willy's, Boeing, Grumman, or Joe's Bakery had in the U.S."
Of course the capper might be, companies like Mercedes, Krupp, Bayer, Messerschmitt and many others had their productivity super-charged from the provision of slave labor, helpfully provided by the populations of conquered countries and regions like the Sudetenland, where, depending on your genetics, you were either worked to death or simply worked until you were too sick to continue, and then sent home. Let's see.... who was it that delivered the slave labor?
Yeah, totally not controlled by the NAZI government. Is the argument that the Socialists purged by Hitler weren't doing it right?
Cheap energy and minerals and food from the Russian Federation to China, instead of Europe. Europe gets de-industrialized as a new wall is built by the West; look at the GDP figures coming out of there. China/Russia/India trade no longer conducted in dollars. Russia has a huge common border with China, so sanctions compliance is on the "honor system." This war is going to work out great.
Ampersand said...
"So many people posting here would have done a better job than Carlson. It's shameful that their interviewing skills have gone to waste."
OK, wiseass what would you have asked him? Keeping in mind that he is surrounded by people that have no problem with throwing people out of windows or putting foreigners in jail.
tim in vermont (4:23pm):
"Where the fuck are they going to get the soldiers?"
Exactly. Despite what Weevil want's us to believe the war in Ukraine isn't popular in the Russian hinterland. Recruiters are having to further and further afield offer larger incentives to get poorer quality recruits. Historically Russia has squandered its human capital and then blamed the poor results on outside influences. As it was under the tsars, the soviets and now under Putin.
Rusty: "OK, wiseass what would you have asked him? Keeping in mind that he is surrounded by people that have no problem with throwing people out of windows or putting foreigners in jail"
I believe Ampersand was being sarcastic.
Rusty (8:07am):
Don't misrepresent what I said: I don't 'want you to believe' anything of the sort. I know very well the war isn't popular in Russia, though they seem to have no problem with the killing and the raping, it's only the dying that bothers them. And I know very well that they won't be able to conquer Europe with brainwashed Ukrainians, though they could do vast amounts of damage.
The fact that they think they can do that* makes them (a) unwilling to give up on conquering all of Ukraine, (b) even more brutal in kidnapping, torturing, and brainwashing Ukrainians in the captured territories, and (c) quite likely stupid enough to attack other countries (most likely the Baltics) before defeating Ukraine, thinking they can fill in their losses with Ukrainian manpower later.
One sign of Russia's recruiting problems. They're hiring mercenaries in Third World countries: Nepalis, Somalis, Syrians, and most recently a Sierra Leonean have been captured. (And before 'tim in vermont' tells us Ukraine is recruiting mercenaries, too, I will point out that the westerners fighting in the International Legion in Ukraine are paid $500 a month, which means they're obviously not doing it for the money. And no one is allowed to join if he doesn't have previous military experience.)
- - - - - - - - - -
*Here's Julia Davis on Twitter with an example: "Apti Alaudinov, Commander of the 2nd Army Corps, explained to Vladimir Solovyov [top RT propagandist] that after the conclusion of this war, Russia expects the surviving Ukrainians to fight alongside Russians against American and European 'Hydra' until about 2030." You can watch the subtitled YouTube video here.
"I believe Ampersand was being sarcastic."
Sorry Amp.
Which means it was good sarcasm. Kudos.
Dr. Weevil
My point being, that if Ukrain is willing to just keep fighting it will soon become not worth while for Russia to continue. This Putins war not Russias. He is running low on materiel and the credit to buy it. Some of his vendors are selling him their worse stocks. There is no way to modernize a T62 to make invulnerable against a Bradley.
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