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Mikhail Gorbachev has died

reuters.com

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Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#961

Post by vladich »

antifa wrote: post #816
golergka wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has also won the cold war, as it was, too, liberated from cumminst tyranny and quaity of life and freedom have raised significantly as a consequence. Sadly, this consequence took time to take place, which made the causal relationship not obvious for many Russians, and a lot of what Russia has won over this liberation has been gradually lost since Putin came into power.

> Russia [after 1991] quaity of life and freedom have raised significantly This isn't even close to true.

It is, just not immediately after 1991 (there was a long period of turmoil and decline). It happened mostly in 2000s, yes, right after Putin came to power.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#962

Post by vladich »

ItsTooMuch wrote: post #921
wildmanx wrote: post #911

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The stationed troops and machines were not nearly enough to handle the situation, see my sibling comments. You can't suppress protests of several millions with 300k not-so-willing troops and 5000 not-so-good tanks I don't know how old you are or where you were at the time. I was there. In the GDR, in East Berlin. On the streets. And I can tell you, a few tanks and troops getting their guns out would have made major…

Well, OK - I accept your opinion about GDR. But there are still the other states, and Gorbachev somehow forgot to save these too. I don't understand what makes him so good in light of the events in these other places. Isn't it interesting that only Germans are protective of him? You never hear such opinion in former Czechoslovakia. I never heard someone from Poland or Hungary talk about Gorbachev positively - neutral…

But Poland, Hungary, etc - they were not divided at least. It was a much bigger deal for Germany than for them. Also, the echo of WWII plays some role here I guess. Germany and other East European countries are in different positions here.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#963

Post by CRConrad »

lapcat wrote: post #953
CRConrad wrote: post #948

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please don't make assumptions about what other people have or haven't studied. They weren't. Please don't put words in others' mouths. And quit whining about the guidelines when you're violating them at least as much as anyone else.

> They weren't. Please don't put words in others' mouths. They were. To make it even more obvious: "I think someone needs to read a little more history" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32665292 > And quit whining about the guidelines No. And your comment is blatantly violating the guidelines. > you're violating them at least as much as anyone else Nothing nearly as bad as your comment. Also, even if you believe…

> > They weren't. Please don't put words in others' mouths.

> They were.

Nope. "If you study geopolitics and history, you might come to the conclusion that Russia was never going to be a democratic ally of the West regardless of how much economic aid they were given" is only a prediction of one likely result of an action.

It's only a commentary on one's person if one is the kind of person who thinks everything is about them.

> To make it even more obvious: "I think someone needs to read a little more history" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32665292

A later comment in reply to your accusation. And you're surprised you got it reflected back at you? Ah, maybe you didn't realise how well-deserved that was.

> > And quit whining about the guidelines

> No. And your comment is blatantly violating the guidelines.

Oh, not only violating, but blatantly violating, eh? Sez you.

> > you're violating them at least as much as anyone else

> Nothing nearly as bad as your comment.

You would think so.

I don't.

> Also, even if you believe that someone else is violating the guidelines, that doesn't justify your own violations, unless you have complete disregard for them.

Exactly. Ponder on that for a while.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#964

Post by CRConrad »

CRConrad wrote: post #872
danbruc wrote: post #853

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was not completely opposing it, he just demanded to follow the law - you make your case in front of the UN and get it sanctioned. And in this case you should get credit for opposing it as it was all made up bullshit. Making Russia great again is also perfectly fine if it means to rebuild the economy, improve living standards, and similar things. Making it greater again, i.e. extending the territory with force is o…

> He was not completely opposing it, he just demanded to follow the law - you make your case in front of the UN and get it sanctioned. Which, given how he didn't do that before invading Ukraine, was just him spewing bullshit. Why are you repeating his bullshit as if it somehow excuses his actions? > Making Russia great again is also perfectly fine if it means to rebuild the economy, improve living standards, and simi…

Duh -- MRGA, not MARA.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#965

Post by ztrww »

CRConrad wrote: post #927
ztrww wrote: post #776

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Britain allowed Scotland to have a vote, Czechoslovakia is another example, even back in 1905 Sweden allowed Norway to declare independence without a violent response. There are many other examples. So you’re wrong...

> even back in 1905 Sweden allowed Norway to declare independence without a violent response. Norway was always independent of Sweden; it was never subordinate, only part of a "personal union", i.e. had the same king. Apart from that, it was an independent nation. > So you’re wrong... Not as wrong as you.

Sweden invaded Norway in 1814 defeated it and force it to accept the king of Sweden as their king. While Norway had considerable independence compared to most other occupied countries it was nevertheless a junior partner in the union (initially it’s foreign policy was fully controlled by Sweden)

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#966

Post by elchin »

lostmsu wrote: post #413
elchin wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_January

Reading the description of the events, it sounds like they intervened militarily after this event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku_pogrom , which sort of makes sense.

It "sort of makes sense" as much as the invasion of Ukraine does.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#967

Post by the-smug-one »

CRConrad wrote: post #951
_-david-_ wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US did the opposite with China. Instead of trying to bankrupt China, the US opened up trade in hopes of creating a liberal democracy in China.

Yeah, and it seems to be working for China -- not on. The US opened up trade with China, and since then China has managed to have the West dismantle its industrial base. It's working great for China! (Except hopefully the rest of the world is finally waking up to what's going on).

It's not like China forced the west to dismantle its industrial base. The west was happy to do it! And now we're living in a globalized world, where the worker has won less than their masters.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#968

Post by kemiller »

lapcat wrote: post #851
hetman wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK was already aligned with US ideology.

So was Russia, actually. Yeltsin went all-in on "shock therapy" and rapid privatization of the economy. If anything, Yeltsin was too aligned with US capitalist ideology.

I think the point is that the UK only needed rebuilding, not fundamentally restructuring.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#969

Post by romwell »

d0mine wrote: post #546
romwell wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way that comment wasn't sarcasm, right?

It is not a sarcasm: thanks to a well intentioned but too trusting politician, NATO moved to East and Russia has to fight for survival against vastly superior opponent. If you are interested, we could look at the map, compare some numbers (weapons, population, media control, the number of countries bombs, etc)

If you are interested, as a Russian native speaker who lived in Ukraine until 2003 (and has been there as recently as July of this year), I can tell you how the "fight for survival" you speak of is a load of propaganda bollocks, going from primary sources in Russian.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#970

Post by 9999px »

mminer237 wrote: post #21
romwell wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way that comment wasn't sarcasm, right?

Looking at his comment history, no, he looks to 100% believe poor, innocent Russia is fighting a defensive war in which it has been easily rolling over Ukraine.

Why has Ukraine rarely lost power, water or internet? Why isn't Russia destroying civilian infrastructure en masse? Because it's not a war in the same way the US went to war with Iraq, for example (one of the first things the US did was target civilian infrastructure).

You're just a clueless American without the basic background knowledge to see this situation for what it is: a preemptive defensive strike against an ever-expanding, finance-capital-backed NATO.

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