Random Rant Thread

[K1power]

I'm always in awe of people who speak many languages fluently.

I happen to speak three, but the very simple explanation is that I grew up bilingual (German/Dutch) and learned English mostly through TV and the internet. School had very little to do with it. It helps that here in the Netherlands we generally don't dub a lot of stuff and while subtitles are mostly used to save money, it's easily the superior solution as far as I'm concerned. As a general rule, dubs are always inferior to the original to anyway, but that's another conversation I guess.

I took French in middle school, but it was a mandatory subject and now I'm kicking myself for dropping it as soon as I could and not paying better attention during classes when I had the chance.

Today, I'd settle for mastering some degree of Japanese.

[K1power]

As for the Russia/Ukraine war, while I can't say I'm entirely surprised, it sure is depressing.

[miscmisc]

Navalny is 100% right there. Putin was in the full right-wing-uncle-at-the-Thanksgiving-dinner-table mode, a MAGA uncle screaming at you about how white Americans are the true victims.

But what's truly significant here is that Navalny wrote this Twitter thread in English. These little things make you realize that we are basically in an uncharted territory now.

[miscmisc]

Feb 24, 2022 10:05:32 GMT 1 K1power said:

I'm always in awe of people who speak many languages fluently.

I happen to speak three, 

You'd be punched in the face by most Japanese and Americans right there, lol.

Joking aside, the Japanese and Americans are completely different cases of monolingualism. America is an empire and can force others to use their language, whereas the Japanese case is a bit more culturally and linguistically complicated.

Anyway, I'm old enough to remember the times when most Europeans outside a few countries like the Netherlands couldn't speak English very well. When I visited Spain for the first time, I often struggled to communicate with local Spaniards as they spoke no English at all. It's really a different Europe now.

And I've been amazed lately by the young non-Japanese people living in Japan who speak the language very well too.

[miscmisc]

Indeed. Tragic. And it wasn't inevitable.

[bol]

I've no idea, but wonder if the Covid-disaster in Russia, and a related maybe decreased popularity for the governing party, played an indirect role in this attack.

I think of Putin and the people around him as right-wing-conservative opportunists (not the comic villains our media usually displays, more like similar crooks in the West). And a focus on a foreign conflict distracts from an inner crisis, under such politicians the danger of a war somewhere increases in such situations.

That's obviously not the only reason, but Russia escalated with these attacks further than one might expect.

[miscmisc]

Yeah, I wouldn't rule that out, Covid playing *some* role. Russia has been absolutely Covid-fucked, and it did affect the Russian government in all kinds of ways. But I'd say only a very small role.

The Kremlin is certainly irrational, but that's the key point; It's now 100% about historical, geopolitical grievances. Mr. Rationality only has a tiny role in that theater. That's what I kept warning about back in the days of Maidan.

When it comes to foreign policy, international relations, I'm more Realist than left-wing. Basically I simply agree with George Kennan on Russia, and Kennan was no left-winger obviously. I'm certainly a lot less racist and a lot less socially conservative than him, and East Asian, and generally have very little in common with him outside FP, so there are some major differences. But just try to imagine what late George Kennan would say about an international issue, whatever it is, and chances are that would be mine too. Or at least you would be in the ballpark. 

Kennan in 1997:

Expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era.

Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.

Simple as that. And it is doubly important given the way the West and Russian oligarchs - the kind who own an obscene amount of property in London now - basically plundered the entire country after the dissolution of the USSR, and that most Russians still remember that.

Ukraine was always the Maginot Line, both geographically and historically. As soon as they flirted with the idea of Ukraine joining NATO, there wasn't going to be a happy ending no matter what. Most of them didn't even want Ukraine. But they kept talking about it.

They kept talking about the fucking thing as if it were nothing major, as if it were just a game. And they weren't even going to fucking let Ukraine in anyway! As if it were just a game to humiliate Russia even more.

As if they gave a shit about Ukraine. As if. Goddamn it.

[miscmisc]

It's telling that the Ukrainians that I know personally are calmer than my Russian friends. Most Russians are tragically apolitical now, generally a lot less political than Ukrainians, and this seems to have struck them like a thunderbolt yielded by Thor. They *had to* wake up now from all the cynicism and indifference.

[miscmisc]

Because, you know, Ukrainians have had a lot of time to think about the possibility that they might be screwed no matter what. They may be more ready for whatever to come than their Russian counterparts, who are now quickly realizing that they might also be royally screwed.

[miscmisc]

People talk about the "pathology" of the Russian "business leaders" around Putin, but what I find truly pathological about them is their obsession with London.

I mean, London is a great city, but the Russians have been paying huge extra to own properties (and financial assets) there, effectively shutting out other super-wealthy people, who seem to think the Russians are just idiots for paying that much for crap anyway.

"I like London, it is nice, it is a nice save haven in many ways, but not THAT nice, never THAT nice, the Russkies are crazy, and everything is overpriced there because of that crazy" is what a very wealthy Greek man told me a while ago. Yes, he did say "Russkies" in his half-broken English.

I don't really know what it is about London, or England for that matter, that attracts them like that. No wonder Russia is pretty much the only country that still mentions the UK as a major country in their geopolitical discourse. No one else does nowadays. The country effectively doesn't even exist in most Chinese geopolitical discourses for example, even after Brexit.

The ties between Russia and England/UK are very interesting, and extremely unhealthy.

[miscmisc]

OK, they like Amsterdam too, but I see clear reasons for that. Not really for London.

[miscmisc]

It seems as if every time I had to shake hands with some random Important European Person at a hotel in Brussels, Geneva, Frankfurt, Paris, etc., there was some Very Important Russian Person too staying at the same hotel. "Hey, look at that guy, he's a big shot at Sberbank" etc. Those Russians were treated like royalty everywhere, and the Sberbank guy for instance was nothing more than some kind of a middle manager.

It's not like that surprised me or anything, but did affect the way I view the whole EU-Russia issue, you know.

[miscmisc]

These "most severe sanctions" will do nothing, needless to say. The Russians are laughing.

It's probably not the Russian oligarchs but the UK that "can't hide anymore" behind the wall of the City.

[miscmisc]

Well, Zelensky has to do this anyway. He perfectly understands why no one is doing anything, why the UK is calling a pile of crap "most severe sanctions", but still has to do it.

[miscmisc]

You know, I'll stop beating around the bush and tell you that I think those Russians love London because they are just Anglo-Brit fanboys. I mean, some of them own properties even in Liverpool, overpaying for shit as usual. For what? For the Beatles. Liverpool FC. Shit like that. Typically confused Anglophiles, for whom England is... an enemy country.

Much of it is just as simple as that, I think. I mean, the Sberbank middle manager was carrying a Vivienne Westwood bag for fuck's sake.