The Ukrainian thinker and politician Arestovych was always very pro-Western, very “America is the strongest, badassiest, most admirable powerhouse ever”, very “rah rah NATO”. I like him but I always found this wide-eyed stanning for America, and especially its capacity to lead, to be childish and superficial.
Well, now the dude has spent 4 months in the US, talking to politicians, visiting think tanks and speaking to a wide variety of audiences. And it changed him completely. Now he’s all in the “this is the fall of the Roman Empire all over again” mood. He says (and I agree) that Putin’s biggest regret is that he didn’t invade Lithuania instead of Ukraine. There Russia would have had its triumphant 3-day war and no NATO would interfere. Because there is no bloody NATO! And the US isn’t about to reveal its vision for the new global order because it has no vision.
My Ukrainian book isn’t really about Spanish literature at all. It’s about this. It’s about the deep philosophical problems we are experiencing in the West. I don’t think things are in the least hopeless but this is a difficult moment and it would be a mistake to deny that.
After Arestovych spends a few more months in the US, he’ll start noticing the positive stuff and acquire a more balanced view. For now, though, he’s in complete dismay of a person whose dearly held illusions were crushed.
In the meantime, Zelensky is meeting Latin American leaders in Argentina. This is absolutely fantastic. Since the Cold War, nobody but Russia paid any attention to Latin America, and the result has been terrible for the region. The idea that there is some pouty, anti-Western “Global South” was invented in Russia and spread for lack of anything better.
Latin America is not “Global South”. It’s part of the West and is proud of belonging to the Western Civilization. If the US won’t bring Latin America into the fold of civilized Western regions, it’s good that Ukraine is trying.
Clarissa's Blog 
“utin’s biggest regret is that he didn’t invade Lithuania instead of Ukraine”
generalsvr (which I read and don’t necessarily believe or disbelieve….) had something similar some time ago.
Had he been able to create a corridor in the Suwalki gap through to occupied Królewiec/Königsberg then not only would NATO likely have done nothing, not only would his popularity rise to post-Crimea levels… but US conservatives like Carlson would have j|zzed in their pants in admiration and invited him to take over Washington (I’m not really exaggerating… the US right is soooooo useless and disppointing words fail).
LikeLiked by 1 person
Absolutely. The point that NATO doesn’t exist and the US is lost in self-hatred would be made and we could just all move on.
That’s why I support Trump’s plan to withdraw the US from the NATO. Currently, NATO is a completely financial operation supporting large bureaucracies and doing nothing else. Withdrawing would simply be recognizing reality.
“Yes, but then Putin will get what he wants.”
He already did, even if he’s too stupid to realize it. Time to move on from this rotting, stinking corpse and start working on new, real military alliances and a new world security order that will reflect reality.
LikeLike
@cliff arroyo
Yeah, right, why has the US Right become so useless? They are so ineffectual and none too sharp! Where are their best minds?
LikeLiked by 1 person
“the US isn’t about to reveal its vision for the new global order because it has no vision”
Not to beat a dead horse (he said before picking up the whip) but the intellectual and spiritual…. rot that seems to be coming from the US is horrifying. Left, right and center seem to all be at dead ends unable to look ahead and unable to change.
How much of it is a part of neoliberalism which in its end stage form seems to just cannibalize itself and its practicioners become zombie like simulcrams repeating the same tired non-points over and over?
LikeLike
Sharing how my son-in-law and myself learn Talmud together. As opposed to other family members who learn by an entirely different sh’itta\methodology of learning. Persons not fluent in Hebrew can copy/paste Hebrew words to Google Translate.
The location of our בנין אב\precedent found in other Gemaras, to this point, no בנין אב — ever located at the conclusion of the sugia/sub-chapter as this Case located within בבא בתרא. Am interested to see how you “connect the dots” to form your sh’itta straight line interpretation whereby you employ it to make the critical משנה תורה/{common law} reinterpretation of the language of the Mishna. Remember your failure to observe the language of the Mishna in מנחות parallel vessels of the Mishkan contrasted by perpendicular position of the Ark of the covenant vis-a-vis to the other vessels of the Mishkan? Interpreting, based upon a sh’itta (A logical methodology. Logic based upon Order) of a Gemara sugya(sug-chapter) בנין אב(precedent), means making a משנה תורה{common law} interpretive learning of the Mishna common law legal system.
Statute law has no such learning discipline, which requires interpreting a halachic ruling learned in context by contrasting that halachic opinion to fit it within the language of a far greater Mishnaic authority. For this reason alone statute law halacha, as in, for example, the codification of the Shulchan Aruch — just flat out wrong. No exceptions to this rule. Rav Nemuraskii, my Rav, did not take, the above opinion, to this extreme. Statute law halacha – exceptionally easy to learn. Rav Nemuraskii instructed baali t’shuva students who had no Torah background whatsoever at all. But you and I, we both have learned the Sha’s Bavli, do not qualify as snotty nose assimilated kids, who never learned Talmud in their entire lives.
But Rav Nemuraskii did encourage me, when I first came to him as a University educated left wing Socialist, to study these statute law codes … with a stern warning! To learn these statute halachic codes within the context of its sugya of Gemara, and then use that knowledge of that Gemara sugya to relearn the language of the Mishna of that Gemarah. [[The Universal chief flaw of the Rambam statute halachic code, his failure to bring Gemara sources for all his halachic rulings. The Tur and Shulkan Aruch duplicated this Universal error. Statute halachic codes כאילו equate Gemara halacha as equal to and on par with Mishnaic sources. This logical error which attempts to “equivocate”(כאילו) the authority of the Gemara equal to that of the Mishna, alas a very common logical falacy.]]
This latter learning step, all the Reshonim commentaries ever written on the Talmud failed to learn the Gemara as a precedent to re-interpret the k’vanna of the language of its Mishna. But no commentary can replace the Primary source which the commentary explains. The Gemara has a commentary relationship to the Mishna. The scholarship of the Reshonim fundamentally erred in their failure to discern between Primary and Secondary sources of scholarship. The same error likewise ocurred in how the Reshonim (950CE to 1400CE) learned the T’NaCH, which tended to restrict scholarship to a טיפש פשט rather than learn the T’NaCH as mussar משנה תורה {Common mussar Law}.
The fundamental distinction which fundamentally separates Aggadita from Halacha in the Talmud: the former addresses mussar common law precedents whereas the latter compares Halachic precedents to similar {parallel} Halachic precedents.
Rav Nemuraskii opposed learning the Mishna based solely upon the טיפש פשט\Bird-brained, simple reading of the language of the Mishna. He drilled this contempt for טיפש פשט learning into my consciousness! The sh’itta Geh-Geh (a family member) learns, he became a Rav based upon the Shulchan Aruch. The way he perceives the Talmud, compares to the way that Xtians view the “Old Testament”!
Xtian replacement theology has subsumed the T’NaCH. Making the T’NaCH as a secondary source vis a vis their new testament forgery, a document on par with, in my estimation, to the Czarist secret police, late 19th Century forgery known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. My contention, that the Gospels exists as — a Roman forgery. The statute halachic codes: the Yad Chazaka, Tur, & Shulkan Aruch they have effectively replaced Talmudic common law scholarship, just as the noise new testament has replaced, in order of priority and importance, their Old Testament.
JeZeus did not know how to make the required הבדלה {distinction} that separates and distinguishes איסר מלאכה מן איסר עבודה {skilled labor from unskilled labor}. JeZeus never kept the זמן גרמא מצוה שבת. This type of Torah commandment stands upon the יסוד יראת שמים{foundation of mastery of a Good Name}.
JeZeus did not know that the Torah defines אמונה{faith} as צדק צדק תרדוף{the pursuit of justice}. [[That common law judicial sanhedrin courtrooms which serve to fairly make restitution of damages inflicted by a Jew upon another Jew defines the Torah concept of justice.]] Muhammad too/likewise did not know how the Hebrew T’NaCH defines faith. Both this and that avoda zarah therefore focused upon faith as a personal belief system in this or that God. The Torah defines the prioritization of a personal belief in Gods, as the Av tuma avoda zarah which shatters the Torah revelation, learned when Moshe shattered the two tablets at Sinai. Herein defines the k’vaana/{intent} of the revelation of the 2nd Sinai commandment.
LikeLike
US is a veritable heaven of free thought and intellectual achievement compared to Canada. If nothing changes, we’ll catch up with our zombified, compliant neighbors from the North, and it will be really sad.
LikeLike
@Clarissa
“The US is a veritable heaven of free thought and intellectual achievement compared to Canada.”
Which goes to show that even if you are “civilised”, that will get you nowhere fast unless you have a spine.
LikeLike
Agreed. This was seen decades ago, now we’re all really starting to experience how problematic the ideologies out of academia are.
To be fair, everything out of Russia and China is even worse.
Are there any other countries at least trying something interesting?
LikeLike
Clarissa, if what you say it’s true, then I’m tending to believe Mersheimer was right and Ukraine should have just given in to Russian demands when it had the upper hand. They should definitely not listen to any Western advise, it has just led them in a bad path.
LikeLike
” Mersheimer was right”
No…. if you take his words at face value, his bottom line is that russia is a rational actor with rational concerns and after those are met, russia will stop being a meanace to its neighbors.
At its core the invasion was about ideology (russian superiority, russian need for empire, the need to restore a version of the USSR) and not rational at all.
The fact that all the money earmarked for military upgrades was stolen high ranking officials in the military should tell you that NATO was not regarded as any kind of threat.
A rational approach would be to continue mutually profitable relations with western Europe selling resources and using the money to improve living standards in the country, which was not done at all.
Look at how many russians live ourtside the potemkin cities of moscow and petersburg or at time even in those cities…
Thes video are in russian with Polish narration and subtitles but you don’t need language to understand the squalor.
russians continue to live like this because they’re getting something from it…. what is it?
This is set in a ‘communal’ apartment building in St Petersburg… it was declared unfit for human habitation well over 10 years ago and there were plans to move people but then russian invaded Ukraine and the money dried up and they’re still there
Here’s Arkhangelsk where people still live in partially burned out buildings built for temporary use 100 years ago. Residents were supposed to be moved years ago but russian war efforts (and theft by officials) keep putting that off…. The residents pay an ‘administration’ for upkeep but the company goes bankrupt after about a year, then reopens with the same people and a different name and the people keep paying….
LikeLiked by 1 person
Selling resources to improve the living standard is enormously difficult as this economic model doesn’t create jobs and the money typically ends up in the pockets of the elite, as has happened in any number of African countries.
Starting a war forces the weapons manufacturers to actually make weapons and creates jobs for people otherwise unemployable.
https://russiapost.info/regions/majority
LikeLike
Russia wants to conquer Ukraine and genocide its population. There are no demands and the only Western advice from the start was to give in.
Mersheimer is a liar, please don’t believe him. I listened to the many reports of people who were at the negotiations with Russia throughout 2014-2022. Russia was asking for complete capitulation and complete control. It’s absolutely 100% untrue that Russia was asking for Ukraine not to join the NATO. They wanted a complete annexation of the entire country. In order, obviously, to take the war deeper into Europe.
LikeLike
The one damning piece I read was an interview of Isralie prime minister Naftali Bennet where he makes it clear the West blocked peace talks in Turkey at a good point for Ukraine.
Since then the West has done nothing but drag it’s feet and act like it’s them doing the fighting and shedding the blood. Just shameless stuff.
LikeLike
“he makes it clear the West blocked peace talks
Weird because I read an interview with the Bulgarian prime minister where he makes it clar that China blocked Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Mexico at a good place for Israel (the Palestinians were almost ready to let the Israelis have apart of Jerusalem!).
LikeLike