Two things convince me things are moving in the right direction:
R_P keeps chanting for the end of sanctions and
Putin starts screaming "I'm going to go NUKLEAR!"
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, a major debate broke out over the contribution that the campaign of economic sanctions had made toward the fall of the Soviet empire. Many former officials in the Reagan administration credited sanctions with a significant role in the disintegration of the Soviet economy and therefore of the Soviet Union itself. On the other hand, the leading work on the effectiveness of economic sanctionsâHufbauer, Schott, and Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered (vol. 1, p. 137)âconcludes that although the United States did succeed in denying some arms and key technologies to the Soviets, the collapse stemmed from internal inefficiencies rather than U.S. economic sanctions.
It took decades of cold war sanctions to lead to the fall of the Soviet Union. Putin reignited the cold war; the west needs to recognise it and settle in for the long haul. Too bad the US republican party and right-wingers in Canada, Australia, etc. have gone from seeing commies under every bed (bad) to falling in line with Russia's disinformation (worse).
It took decades of cold war sanctions to lead to the fall of the Soviet Union. Putin reignited the cold war; the west needs to recognise it and settle in for the long haul. Too bad the US republican party and right-wingers in Canada, Australia, etc. have gone from seeing commies under every bed (bad) to falling in line with Russia's disinformation (worse).
"..In the interview, and in other speeches during the war, Putin depends on a false distinction between natural nations and artificial nations. Natural nations have a right to exist, artificial ones do not.
But there are no natural nations. All nations are made. The Russia of tomorrow is made by the actions of Russians today. If Russians fight a lawless war of destruction in Ukraine, that makes them a different people than they might have been. This is more important than anything that happened centuries ago. When a nation is called "artificial," this is justification for genocide. Genocidal language does not refer to the past; it changes the future.
Everyone who does not fit Putin's neat story (Russia is eternal, so Russians can do whatever they want) has to be removed, first from the narrative of the past, and then from those counted as human in present. On Putin's logic, it does not matter what people believe or how people understand their own past. It is he who decides which souls are bound to which other souls. Other views have no place in nature, because they arose from events which (in his story) should never have happened. His view must govern the past, which requires violence in the present: genocide..."
A more detailed fact-check. Reason, BTW, defended Carlson for interviewing Putin but has...a few corrections to his piece.
"..In the interview, and in other speeches during the war, Putin depends on a false distinction between natural nations and artificial nations. Natural nations have a right to exist, artificial ones do not.
But there are no natural nations. All nations are made. The Russia of tomorrow is made by the actions of Russians today. If Russians fight a lawless war of destruction in Ukraine, that makes them a different people than they might have been. This is more important than anything that happened centuries ago. When a nation is called "artificial," this is justification for genocide. Genocidal language does not refer to the past; it changes the future.
Everyone who does not fit Putin's neat story (Russia is eternal, so Russians can do whatever they want) has to be removed, first from the narrative of the past, and then from those counted as human in present. On Putin's logic, it does not matter what people believe or how people understand their own past. It is he who decides which souls are bound to which other souls. Other views have no place in nature, because they arose from events which (in his story) should never have happened. His view must govern the past, which requires violence in the present: genocide..."
