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Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

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Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#171

Post by Aloha »

dimitar wrote: post #65

The collapse of the USSR wasn't caused by economics or arms races - see how regimes like Cuba, North Korea still survive. Low oil prices helped, but it could have happened during a boom, too. The 80s were not the worst economic or humanitarian crisis the USSR has faced, not even close. The Soviet Union collapsed because the Party lost control of the country and the tensions and outright conflicts that previously prev…

The only way they could have kept control of the country was to descend closer to 'hermit kingdom' like North Korea, had the economy produced even at 2/3rds of what the US did on a per capita basis, the Union would still exist as is.

We (the US) were able to trigger an arms race at a time when the Union was least able to afford it, and overwhelm what central planning could deal with.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#172

Post by mannerheim »

zmgsabst wrote: post #109
actinium226 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My grandfather was born in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad) and lived there as a child through the Nazi siege. In the 40's and 50's in the USSR he and his friends saw through the propaganda and knew that things in the US were much better. But you know what's strange? He lives in NJ now, he's been there for the last 25 years. He watches Russian state TV and also CNN and thinks he gets both perspectives. When Russia inv…

What has you convinced you’re not falling for propaganda on Ukraine — that it’s him who is wrong?

The crimes in Bucha were corroborated by not only the testimony of the residents there, but also the security cameras left in homes and businesses and even satellite photography. The Russians left corpses laying out in the streets for weeks as they occupied the town.

https://youtu.be/8ek5jt8Ru3o

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#173

Post by plorkyeran »

nerdbert wrote: post #117
thefounder wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, one year long invadion should give you a hint. Detaining people for calling it war instead of "special operation" is another one. Calling other neighbours "fake/artificial" countries is another bad sign that Russia's intentions are not good.

People were not detained in the USA for using the wrong nomenclature to describe the Iraq invasion, and yet that was also an unspeakably cruel, venal war of cynical aggression knowingly perpetrated on laughably false pretenses. To this day roughly half of Americans think it was the right move - https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/19/iraq-war-co... So I don't think factors like that are so good at separating…

I don't understand how this is supposed to be a gotcha. Are you assuming that everyone opposed to Russia's invasion of Ukraine think the USA invasion of Iraq was good? I think in both cases it's very easy to identify which side is in the wrong, and it's the one invading another country.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#174

Post by AnimalMuppet »

aeternum wrote: post #159
nerdbert wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People were not detained in the USA for using the wrong nomenclature to describe the Iraq invasion, and yet that was also an unspeakably cruel, venal war of cynical aggression knowingly perpetrated on laughably false pretenses. To this day roughly half of Americans think it was the right move - https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/19/iraq-war-co... So I don't think factors like that are so good at separating…

People were detained for using the wrong nomenclature around communism though. Or are we brushing the whole McCarthyism era under the rug?

Yes, and?

When McCarthy did it, it didn't show how strong McCarthy was; it showed how weak he was. When Putin does it, it doesn't show how strong Putin is, either.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#175

Post by cpursley »

asveikau wrote: post #149
ubermonkey wrote: post #9

I dunno about Yeltsin and the Houston store, but I do know this: I went on a student tour of the USSR as a college student in 1991, arranged through my University (U of Alabama). I was getting a minor in Russian language, and it seemed like a fun trip. It actually got MORE fun because in the run-up to the trip (in spring, 91) there was some dissent in the USSR and many parents wouldn't let their kids go. In order to…

Russia's poor are still not very well taken care of under capitalism. Witness all the Russian soldiers in Ukraine being impressed with washing machines and stealing them.

Please don’t take everything you read on the internet at face value. Every decently sized city there has at least one DNS, Eldorado and MVideo electronics chain:

https://youtu.be/XzNDGN6r1bw

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#176

Post by mindslight »

pydry wrote: post #53
mindslight wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It probably doesn't make sense to attribute it to communism, because Russia is doing the same damn throw human life into a meat grinder approach in the modern day despite no longer being nominally communist. But that poor outcome is definitely attributable to something in the neighborhood of communism, namely the more general totalitarianism, which communism was most certainly a gateway to. Having said that, I'm not…

>It probably doesn't make sense to attribute it to communism, because Russia is doing the same damn throw human life into a meat grinder approach in the modern day despite no longer being nominally communist. Yeah, this is 100% about Russian borders, which are long, exposed, expensive to defend and present an existential threat on a (historically) fairly regular basis. America's geography is pretty much the polar opp…

I would think that since the borders are expensive to defend, that would lead to trying to be more efficient with human life and other limited resources, rather than less.

Furthermore, talking about the defense of Russian borders is kind of ridiculous in the context of the current attack on Ukraine, where Russia is trying to expand its borders which would otherwise remain stationary. It only makes sense if you interpret "borders" as referring to some larger area outside the actual country but which they nevertheless feel entitled to.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#177

Post by asveikau »

cpursley wrote: post #175
asveikau wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia's poor are still not very well taken care of under capitalism. Witness all the Russian soldiers in Ukraine being impressed with washing machines and stealing them.

Please don’t take everything you read on the internet at face value. Every decently sized city there has at least one DNS, Eldorado and MVideo electronics chain: https://youtu.be/XzNDGN6r1bw

I've heard that the "not decent" cities, or rural areas, are the worst. Any video of Moscow or St Petersburg is not a rebuttal to my statement.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#178

Post by tpmoney »

wavefunction wrote: post #170
tpmoney wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lifting out of poverty is also defined in terms of "not starving to death because the winter was too long or cold", "not losing a half a years labor and food because a tornado hit your field", "not having to do manual labor 12 hours a day" and yes "access to material wealth" like indoor plumbing, labor saving devices like washing machines, and the ability to send your children to be educated instead of needing them a…

I would point out that under capitalism there have been famines even when there has been plenty of surplus food. A lack of famine either acute nor chronic is surely not a defining characteristic of capitalism.

You don't need a famine to starve to death when you're a subsistence farmer, you just need your local area to suffer an unexpected weather event. Too much winter, too much heat, too much rain, too many storms, too many insects. Take your pick of natural disaster. When you and your entire country are subsistence farmers, there's not exactly a lot of surplus or distribution networks to get you replacement food when your local area suffers.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#179

Post by pydry »

mindslight wrote: post #176
pydry wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It probably doesn't make sense to attribute it to communism, because Russia is doing the same damn throw human life into a meat grinder approach in the modern day despite no longer being nominally communist. Yeah, this is 100% about Russian borders, which are long, exposed, expensive to defend and present an existential threat on a (historically) fairly regular basis. America's geography is pretty much the polar opp…

I would think that since the borders are expensive to defend, that would lead to trying to be more efficient with human life and other limited resources, rather than less. Furthermore, talking about the defense of Russian borders is kind of ridiculous in the context of the current attack on Ukraine, where Russia is trying to expand its borders which would otherwise remain stationary. It only makes sense if you interp…

>Furthermore, talking about the defense of Russian borders is kind of ridiculous in the context of the current attack on Ukraine, where Russia is trying to expand its borders which would otherwise just remain stationary.

It's expanding at the points where the Nazi advance almost succeeded in breaking the USSR, where Russia has its only warm water ports and where, long term, NATO, the alliance that destroyed Libya on a whim, was planning to set up military bases with offensive capabilities.

It's still about the vulnerability of its borders.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#180

Post by cpursley »

asveikau wrote: post #177
cpursley wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don’t take everything you read on the internet at face value. Every decently sized city there has at least one DNS, Eldorado and MVideo electronics chain: https://youtu.be/XzNDGN6r1bw

I've heard that the "not decent" cities, or rural areas, are the worst. Any video of Moscow or St Petersburg is not a rebuttal to my statement.

DNS got its start in Siberia and has twice as many locations than Best Buy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_(retail_company)

Magnit (grocery chain) in Krasnodar: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnit

Cities all over the country as small as 50k have these stores and their competitors where you can buy fresh Mexican avocados and sparkling new Korean appliances.

Or, if you don’t want to go in store you can buy any item under the sun on Wildberries, Ozon and have it delivered to your front door.

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