so, i'm distributing some of my archives, here, from 2015-2016.
i have limited archives going back to 2008, but i started at 2015 because i'm running through the master document anyways, and i wanted to get my thoughts about the long election season of 2015-2017 in. this space will eventually house documents going back as far as i can find them.
this archive currently begins right after the last american election. so, i'll be filling in my comments around that election, around the primaries that preceded it and around the canadian election, starting in about august, 2015.
i've currently worked up to march, 2015 on the composer's blog (which goes back to july, 2013) and on the political ranting space (which now starts in january, 2015). i will need to put everything in sync from march, 2015 to whenever i get finished, which is going to shift to backing up files on the blogs to the master document, once i get to mid-2016 for the music blog and late 2016 for the politics blog...
while there will be some reviews on the composer's blog, there will be a third blog for music reviews, put up at some undetermined point in the distant future. so, i'm skipping over this. i'm also skipping over long youtube conversations that i've had for right now, but will eventually integrate these conversations into the rant blog. i just want a skeleton up for now, and largely to focus on the election stuff.
it's going to be a while before i get the whole thing up, but the first two months of 2015 are available to scroll through over on the side of the page.
jagmeet singh must cut his beard
Tuesday, February 6, 2018
well, of course the kurds want you to blame it on turkey.
but, if this group is al qaeda linked, the most likely means of the americans distributing these weapons, and especially considering the geopolitical realities at the moment, is via the saudis. the russians really took out the saudi positions in syria pretty badly; my guess is that there's probably quite a bit of hardware floating around, after that - all of it american made, and purchased with oil money.
this will not be the only saudi retaliation against russia; unfortunately, the russians should expect some bombings to take place. they should also expect the saudis to continue funding forces in the region, regardless of outcome or consequence, more or less for so long as the regime exists.
with the turks aligning with both russia and iran, expect the saudi-turk conflict to become the dominant proxy war in the region, and note that the dimensions have changed: this is no longer a struggle over who gets to take control of syria under american hegemony - who gets to be the regional power - but now a struggle between whether the area is remade in american or russian interests. this proxy war has merged with the cold war between the saudis and iran and is in the process of consuming it - if there is movement from iran against the saudis, it will be co-ordinated with the turks.
and, maybe the russians.
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/02/russia-jet-downed-syria-idlib.html
jagmeet singh must cut his beard.
but, if this group is al qaeda linked, the most likely means of the americans distributing these weapons, and especially considering the geopolitical realities at the moment, is via the saudis. the russians really took out the saudi positions in syria pretty badly; my guess is that there's probably quite a bit of hardware floating around, after that - all of it american made, and purchased with oil money.
this will not be the only saudi retaliation against russia; unfortunately, the russians should expect some bombings to take place. they should also expect the saudis to continue funding forces in the region, regardless of outcome or consequence, more or less for so long as the regime exists.
with the turks aligning with both russia and iran, expect the saudi-turk conflict to become the dominant proxy war in the region, and note that the dimensions have changed: this is no longer a struggle over who gets to take control of syria under american hegemony - who gets to be the regional power - but now a struggle between whether the area is remade in american or russian interests. this proxy war has merged with the cold war between the saudis and iran and is in the process of consuming it - if there is movement from iran against the saudis, it will be co-ordinated with the turks.
and, maybe the russians.
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/02/russia-jet-downed-syria-idlib.html
jagmeet singh must cut his beard.
at
19:03
"against turkey and iran."
strange words to hear, regardless of their veracity, from a nominal ally.
listen: so, is it the case that turkey has decided in favour of the persian empire over the byzantine empire, despite the inevitability of absorption? and could the kurds exist in a broader turko-persian alliance, perhaps without an explicit identity or sovereign borders? it would be strange to see a synthesis that didn't seek out a peace settlement, although the kurds must recognize that that peace settlement would have to reflect the changed reality of an integrated empire coming up around them. they would no longer be a wedge, but instead must be converted into a bridge.
"and, maybe the russians."
in the end, yeah. eventually.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-turkey-usa/erdogan-says-u-s-has-calculations-against-turkey-iran-russia-in-syria-idUSKBN1FQ1C5
jagmeet singh must cut his beard.
strange words to hear, regardless of their veracity, from a nominal ally.
listen: so, is it the case that turkey has decided in favour of the persian empire over the byzantine empire, despite the inevitability of absorption? and could the kurds exist in a broader turko-persian alliance, perhaps without an explicit identity or sovereign borders? it would be strange to see a synthesis that didn't seek out a peace settlement, although the kurds must recognize that that peace settlement would have to reflect the changed reality of an integrated empire coming up around them. they would no longer be a wedge, but instead must be converted into a bridge.
"and, maybe the russians."
in the end, yeah. eventually.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-turkey-usa/erdogan-says-u-s-has-calculations-against-turkey-iran-russia-in-syria-idUSKBN1FQ1C5
jagmeet singh must cut his beard.
at
18:40
up until a few days ago, i would have rejected the premise of the question. alas...
the reason is just simply that the nazis didn't have time to wipe the slavs out in numbers comparable to the jews. it's less that the nazis saw the jews and poles differently (although they did see them differently, it didn't make a difference in their prescription: there was a final solution for poles, they wanted both of them exterminated.) and more that there were just way, way more slavs to exterminate over a much larger space, so it required a longer term strategy to do so.
again: the estimates are that upwards of 25% of the population was killed. it's not 90%. but it's a start.
i apologize for the grim statements, but this is the actual historical truth: they got a quarter of the way into it and ultimately lost. in the end, they got outnumbered, even - and that is actually the truth of it, in the end, the russians just simply had more soldiers, and were consequently left standing after the slaughter.
it's not due to a difference in intent. it's not due to a difference in design. it's just a question of how far they got into their plans before they were ultimately stopped, by one of their prime targets for extermination.
if the nazis could manage to wipe out a quarter of the slavic population in what amounted to about three years, it stands to reason that if the war had gone on another 6 years or so, we'd be up to around 75% of the population. and, with the absolute destruction of the jews, the nazis would have focused squarely on the slavs, so it would have picked up in pace, as well. it could very well have reached close to 90%.
do not doubt the intentions. and do not forget the dead. call it an accident of history. but, understand what happened, please.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3efw1g/why_arent_slavs_normally_counted_as_victims_of/
jagmeet singh must cut his beard
the reason is just simply that the nazis didn't have time to wipe the slavs out in numbers comparable to the jews. it's less that the nazis saw the jews and poles differently (although they did see them differently, it didn't make a difference in their prescription: there was a final solution for poles, they wanted both of them exterminated.) and more that there were just way, way more slavs to exterminate over a much larger space, so it required a longer term strategy to do so.
again: the estimates are that upwards of 25% of the population was killed. it's not 90%. but it's a start.
i apologize for the grim statements, but this is the actual historical truth: they got a quarter of the way into it and ultimately lost. in the end, they got outnumbered, even - and that is actually the truth of it, in the end, the russians just simply had more soldiers, and were consequently left standing after the slaughter.
it's not due to a difference in intent. it's not due to a difference in design. it's just a question of how far they got into their plans before they were ultimately stopped, by one of their prime targets for extermination.
if the nazis could manage to wipe out a quarter of the slavic population in what amounted to about three years, it stands to reason that if the war had gone on another 6 years or so, we'd be up to around 75% of the population. and, with the absolute destruction of the jews, the nazis would have focused squarely on the slavs, so it would have picked up in pace, as well. it could very well have reached close to 90%.
do not doubt the intentions. and do not forget the dead. call it an accident of history. but, understand what happened, please.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3efw1g/why_arent_slavs_normally_counted_as_victims_of/
jagmeet singh must cut his beard
at
15:57
no, like, really, this is kind of serious.
the only part of the holocaust that i can see that is being denied right now is the systematic slaughter of three million ethnic poles, for the crime of speaking the wrong language, and perhaps of having distant ancestors in central asia.
three million dead ethnic poles was not the same percentage of dead poles as jews, but the genocide was no less actual, it was just a little bit slower. the jews were merely the first on the list. and, the poles were most definitely second on the list.
what the narrative is doing is denying the slavic extermination policy, and replacing it with an american concept of critical race theory, which suggests that the slavs had a choice to collaborate or not. but, this is the denial of actual history.
the nazis are thought to have killed between 20-25% of the population of eastern europe, and i think this is widely understood, but it's maybe less understood that these people were not casualties, not collateral damage, but intentionally targeted.
why did hitler invade russia?
c'mon. don't look it up. do you know the answer to this question: why did hitler invade russia? you should.
the answer was to exterminate the slavs, so the region could be repopulated with germans. so, the germans didn't invade carefully with the intent of building on the existing civilization. they destroyed everything: farmlands, cities, infrastructure. when the germans got to ukraine, the first thing they did was burn the crops, so that the ukrainians would starve to death, and the germans could build their pseudo-historical gothic settlements in the crimea (which were in truth never more than pirate bases, to raid the greek settlements from). and, they did starve to death. in large numbers. the german occupation of ukraine was one of the most brutal occupations of the war, with a full on genocide of the ukrainians set in motion...
it's mind-boggling, to me, that this could be a narrative, that we could seriously bring up the question of polish collaboration with the nazis. but, like i say, this is rooted in the problem i've been pointing out for years: crt is not a universal truth, and this is what happens when you try to generalize - you turn victims into oppressors, because they are white, and you don't understand.
...which is racist, yes.
this is the exact point that people are wrong about: they think in their mind that the poles had a choice to collaborate or not. this is obvious to them because the poles are white, and therefore in some way the same as the germans. once you establish that the poles had a choice, they can then be criticized for making the wrong choice.
but, the poles had no choice. the nazis had declared them inferior from the start; the extermination of the slavs was at the very crux of what nazism was. like jews, poles had their backgrounds checked for racial impurities and were rounded up by the secret police and put in work camps, mostly due to the help of ethnic germans, who were given positions of power over the inferior poles when they signed up to be a part of the volk. they were worked to exhaustion, and then cremated in the death camps.
if you want to talk about polish death camps, you should use the term in the same way that you use jewish death camps.
can we make sure we don't forget that the poles were the second largest victim of the holocaust, and might have been the largest (in fact, were the largest if you consider all the jews that died to also be poles) if the war had carried on a little longer?
yeeesh.
jagmeet singh must cut his beard.
the only part of the holocaust that i can see that is being denied right now is the systematic slaughter of three million ethnic poles, for the crime of speaking the wrong language, and perhaps of having distant ancestors in central asia.
three million dead ethnic poles was not the same percentage of dead poles as jews, but the genocide was no less actual, it was just a little bit slower. the jews were merely the first on the list. and, the poles were most definitely second on the list.
what the narrative is doing is denying the slavic extermination policy, and replacing it with an american concept of critical race theory, which suggests that the slavs had a choice to collaborate or not. but, this is the denial of actual history.
the nazis are thought to have killed between 20-25% of the population of eastern europe, and i think this is widely understood, but it's maybe less understood that these people were not casualties, not collateral damage, but intentionally targeted.
why did hitler invade russia?
c'mon. don't look it up. do you know the answer to this question: why did hitler invade russia? you should.
the answer was to exterminate the slavs, so the region could be repopulated with germans. so, the germans didn't invade carefully with the intent of building on the existing civilization. they destroyed everything: farmlands, cities, infrastructure. when the germans got to ukraine, the first thing they did was burn the crops, so that the ukrainians would starve to death, and the germans could build their pseudo-historical gothic settlements in the crimea (which were in truth never more than pirate bases, to raid the greek settlements from). and, they did starve to death. in large numbers. the german occupation of ukraine was one of the most brutal occupations of the war, with a full on genocide of the ukrainians set in motion...
it's mind-boggling, to me, that this could be a narrative, that we could seriously bring up the question of polish collaboration with the nazis. but, like i say, this is rooted in the problem i've been pointing out for years: crt is not a universal truth, and this is what happens when you try to generalize - you turn victims into oppressors, because they are white, and you don't understand.
...which is racist, yes.
this is the exact point that people are wrong about: they think in their mind that the poles had a choice to collaborate or not. this is obvious to them because the poles are white, and therefore in some way the same as the germans. once you establish that the poles had a choice, they can then be criticized for making the wrong choice.
but, the poles had no choice. the nazis had declared them inferior from the start; the extermination of the slavs was at the very crux of what nazism was. like jews, poles had their backgrounds checked for racial impurities and were rounded up by the secret police and put in work camps, mostly due to the help of ethnic germans, who were given positions of power over the inferior poles when they signed up to be a part of the volk. they were worked to exhaustion, and then cremated in the death camps.
if you want to talk about polish death camps, you should use the term in the same way that you use jewish death camps.
can we make sure we don't forget that the poles were the second largest victim of the holocaust, and might have been the largest (in fact, were the largest if you consider all the jews that died to also be poles) if the war had carried on a little longer?
yeeesh.
jagmeet singh must cut his beard.
at
15:14
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