i think this is worth watching for a more subtle analysis from some wiser people. it always makes me laugh when i see some 30-something associate prof think he can use his greater understanding of the modern world to overturn decades of experience. it's the wide-eyed naivete that the older folks have grown beyond; you can call them cynical, but realize it's largely synonymous with being wise when the topic is geopolitics. matlock's statement that (maaaaaaatlooooooock. ok. sorry.) he's talking about reality, not human rights, was really refreshing. so, just shut up and listen...

al jazeera has it's own biases, but i'm finding the analysis (if not the actual coverage) to be coming from enough of a spectator position to only be mildly pro-western. it's more ideological than hierarchical. that objectivity is not universal on the channel, but it's nice in this conflict. while it lasts, anyways.

but even the greater wisdom in understanding here isn't really getting to the mindfuck that we're entering the end stages of this conflict, notwithstanding the russians unveiling some secret weapon or coming clean on their alliance with the intergalactic space empire (i still claim they would have contacted the communists and not the capitalists) or something. the section on russia joining europe is sort of getting it, but only accidentally.

if anything has changed, it's that the go-for-the-jugular strategy of the current administration is just too outlandishly aggressive for them to really get their heads around. they get the context better, but they're having trouble moving from this idea of balancing alliances that was dominant from bismarck to kissinger (the space of their entire professional lives) and getting into the new neo-con reality that clinton bombed into existence...

they don't just want nato bases in kiev. they want nato bases in moscow, too.