It's definitely not a Dutch name, I can assure you; it's more likely German or maybe of Jewish descent. But to me he always seems like Sméagol who turned into a creature that lived in a cave under the Misty Mountains and was constantly repeating itself with his signature sound "gollum, gollum"... Everytime someone mentions Ukraine or Zelensky, he immediately comes crawling out of his cave stating that HCR spouts "baseless propaganda" and Biden is supporting "the right wing thug regime" in Kyiv... His postings echo standard pro-Putin talking points and are more than tiresome...
The origin of my name is in the Toggenburg, a mountain valley in St. Gallen canton, Switzerland. This subject actually came up on a different thread today:
I don’t think he’s particularly bright. He goes to a topic most people don’t know much about and spouts nonsense like credit card debt is a sure sign of…whatever. Kind of a clever idiot. But not smart.
Perhaps I didn't phrase my earlier comment clearly. Right now we have the highest level of credit card debt in history. This is a sure sign of distress among people with little to spare.
I suspect that John is a very orthodox leftist. So only Bernie is sufficiently within the acceptable window, as it were. Remember - "the perfect is the enemy of the good" Which means while we may object, we have to be grateful that we are not having to deal with Repub "wind back the clock"
Actually, I'm an old-school FDR/JFK Democrat. The Apollo Program acted as a "science driver" for the economy, returning far beyond what we invested in it.
(Among other things, it spurred the development of the personal computer, leading to the internet economy.)
FDR -- my grandmother's fourth cousin -- was passionately anti-colonialist. He forced the British to give up their empire, in exchange for help against the Nazis.
I stand corrected. If your desire is to win an argument, you don’t get there by word terrorizing as you have done. Reading some of your missives, there are elements to legitimize but using “far right thugs” doesn’t win the day. When I have argued against popular issues, I have been fully castigated so I get it. Opinions are like Aholes. Everyone has one.
"Five years ago, Ukraine’s Maidan uprising ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, to the cheers and support of the West. Politicians and analysts in the United States and Europe not only celebrated the uprising as a triumph of democracy, but denied reports of Maidan’s ultranationalism, smearing those who warned about the dark side of the uprising as Moscow puppets and useful idiots. Freedom was on the march in Ukraine.
"Today, increasing reports of far-right violence, ultranationalism, and erosion of basic freedoms are giving the lie to the West’s initial euphoria. There are neo-Nazi pogroms against the Roma, rampant attacks on feminists and LGBT groups, book bans, and state-sponsored glorification of Nazi collaborators.
"These stories of Ukraine’s dark nationalism aren’t coming out of Moscow; they’re being filed by Western media, including US-funded Radio Free Europe (RFE); Jewish organizations such as the World Jewish Congress and the Simon Wiesenthal Center; and watchdogs like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Freedom House, which issued a joint report warning that Kiev is losing the monopoly on the use of force in the country as far-right gangs operate with impunity...."
I have presented the above quote around here repeatedly, and have met with a deafening silence, as if HCR's readers have been intimidated and/or morally corrupted.
Putin, in Ukraine, is reclaiming "Novorossiya," the multi-ethnic, Russian-speaking half of Ukraine that was stapled together with little Ukraine by the new Soviet regime in 1921.
As a result of the Biden administration's approach to the Russia/Ukraine mess, the global trend toward de-dollarization -- threatening financial chaos in the USA -- has been accelerating:
It was Reagan, and every Republican elected after that, who began the slow process of wrecking the dollar (which Biden has begun to rebuild).
Reagan took Jimmy Carter's balanced budget; in fact, Carter continued to paydown WWII and Vietnam debt (like all Presidents since WW II) while sponsoring a healthy economy. Debt was reduced under every post WWII president until Reagan.
Reagan, upon his election based on a vacuous, puffy red face and fake smiles, immediately cut taxes on the wealthy and massively ramped up government spending on his big military contractor donors.
At the end of Reagan's disastrous Presidency (in terms of the budget and the economy) the US had added no less than 6 Trillion dollars in debt (today's dollars), suffered through TWO recessions in 8 years, and had lost the respect of most of the world except for Great Britain where another nut, Margaret Thatcher was also running amok trying to destroy Britain's influence in the world (she successfully did, nobody pays any attention to anything that happens in Britain unless the Queen treats some black woman poorly, which, she did).
The seeds were planted for the dollar's reversal as the world's reserve currency during Reagan's failed Presidency, and, with every Republican after that, debt has SOARED.
After the mess that Trump made of (everything) including adding more massive debt, the world looked at the US as if it was a banana republic with some seriously dumb white guys in charge. It frightened the world. I mean, Trump in charge of the nukes?
Fortunately, Biden won the election and beat long time loser Trump.
Biden is turning the American ship, but, it is hard to to turn a ship that Republicans have tried to sink for 40 years.
Surprisingly, Biden is doing it. Kudo's for Biden.
You Putin employees/trolls getting paid peanuts to hand out BS Russian propaganda?
You guys are sad. But, you are funny with that fake stuff you guys post. I guess some Americans believe that stuff.
But, John, not on this reflector. Here? You are just a joke.
And btw John, you have a way of deflecting. Mike spoke of Carter paying down the debt as all presidents did until Reagan. Then you went off about stagflation and the oil crises which by the way, had nothing to do with Carter. The Iraq Iranian war and the Iranian revolution caused the crises in 1979. But those of you who conveniently search for boogie men like you do. You would do well to be honest and unemotional in your arguments.
Had we, the USA in cahoots with the British, NOT overthrown the duly democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 and instead built partnerships with the middle east based on the "rules based order" that Biden speaks of, there would have been no "oil crisis" in the early 70's PRIOR to Carter's election.
Of course, there WAS a crisis in 1979 when the brutal dictator the Shah of Iran fled to the United States and the USA pissed off millions of Iranians who wanted to hang the Shah because he murdered thousands of their relatives while "in power". If I had been Iranian I would have been PO'd too.
Was that Carter's fault? Perhaps. But, honestly, it was really some low life Republicans in the Eisenhower government that planned coup without Eisenhower even knowing about it.
Carter and the "oil crisis" did not overlap in time as your lie would indicate.
As for Obama, I completely agree, Obama went wild with debt after eight years of deregulation by Bush II resulted in a complete catastrophe in banking and collapse of the economy in the USA; on the level of a Calvin Coolidge (also a Republican) disaster.
Me? I would have left the Republican's collapsed economy completely ALONE to take 20 years to rebuild so people would REMEMBER what Republicans do when they are in power. Like, for example, stupid deregulation of derivatives which became mortgage back securities (legalized) under Bush II in 2001.
Yes, there was also an earlier oil crisis under Nixon.
My point was that the economy was NOT healthy under Carter.
Regarding Mossadegh, etc., Carter's Attorney General Ramsey Clark wrote that U.S. policy toward Iran and Iraq was to support the opposition, overthrow the government, support the new opposition, overthrow the new government, etc. See Chapter 1 of "The Fire This Time":
Eastern Europe has always been a mix of languages and cultures and over time the borders shifted. But speaking russian or german or polish or whatever does not make a country. Russia aspired to a great empire but really could not hold it. Putin's attack was unjust. Frankly had his army succeeded then we would not have been able to do anything, but the "russian speaking" part of Ukraine hates Russia as much as the ukrainian part.
Sorry but all this is history. I grew up as the grandson of immigrants from the Russian Empire. The question is about now. Had Russia been better led then the war would have ended - but they were not better led. The Ukrainians themselves hate the Russians who invaded.
History is fun. But what do we do now? Well we defended Ukraine. After the collapse of the USSR, I thought it was a mistake to encircle Russia by Nato. But do you really think the Poles or Lithuanians did not want the protection of NATO? Russia was not threatened by NATO in any case. What Russia needs to economic reform They graduate lots of engineers but build little that the world wants. They graduate lots of doctors but they are not the world leader that one has a right to expect.
In any case Russia guessed that they would win quickly and the west would sit on the sideline. Instead Russia in now isolated and the Nato that was a tepid alliance is now serious.
Re "the same people" - my Jasaitis family cousins look as Russian as Yuri Gagarin. the notion of one people is just a romantic myth.
I have some disagreements with your assessments, but no need to argue.
Speaking of now, here is my assessment:
Ukraine has a realistic chance for a peace settlement if Ukraine agrees to give up the entirity of the four districts that Russia annexed on paper. Otherwise, there are three plausible alternatives to choose from:
1. An extended stalemate as NATO continues endless support of Ukrainian forces that are dug into defensive positions.
2. NATO escalates, bringing the forces of NATO countries (perhaps initially Polish army units) into direct conflict with Russia in Ukraine. (Poland is already thinking of absorbing chunks of a disappearing Ukraine, especially eastern Galicia.)
3. Russia breaks through the current line of control as weary and depleted western countries cut back on their arms giveaways to Ukraine.
No to your negotiation. The only negotiation will be over Crimea since it belonged to Russia in 1953. But that’s it. If Russia wants to bleed to death, that’s their problem. I happen to believe that the West forced Russia into a paranoid response. NATO expended east. On the other hand, Russia made half hearted attempts at democracy and failed. They are a mess.
It is my view that the West forced Russia into a survivalist response. Russia had already experienced the western-inflicted "shock therapy" genocide that killed off all the old people:
There are two separate issues here: How modern Ukraine came to be, and why Putin invaded.
Novorossiya ("New Russia") was conquered from the Tatar slave raiders in the 18th century. The area had been depopulated because of the threat of slave raiders, and Empress Catharine the Great invited people of all ethnic groups to settle in the new Russian territory, and of course the official language was Russian.
After Ukraine's Maidan Revolution in 2014, the Russia-friendly members of Ukraine’s parliament were terrorized into staying home, and the first law that the rump parliament passed was to ban the Russian language in government communication.
This was part of what led Crimea to embrace Russia, as well as helping bring on the civil war in the Donbass, which got "frozen" with the Minsk Agreements of 2014 and 2015, which were never implemented. (Zelensky initially moved toward doing that, but then he didn't. Long story there.)
Perhaps you will agree that it's worth knowing Putin's formal rationale for invading Ukraine, if only to refute it:
Putin said to the world that he was fulfilling a mutual defense treaty with the Donbass republics (because Ukraine was attacking).
Unlike Russia's democratic invasion of Ukaine, I suppose.
John Sméagol is a pro-Putin trollski posting the same stuff over and over again. We’d best ignore him.
Dutch Mike, couldn't agree more. Best to ignore these trolls.
I blocked him, but I can still see his comments.
Thx u
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-18-2023/comment/36764902
It's definitely not a Dutch name, I can assure you; it's more likely German or maybe of Jewish descent. But to me he always seems like Sméagol who turned into a creature that lived in a cave under the Misty Mountains and was constantly repeating itself with his signature sound "gollum, gollum"... Everytime someone mentions Ukraine or Zelensky, he immediately comes crawling out of his cave stating that HCR spouts "baseless propaganda" and Biden is supporting "the right wing thug regime" in Kyiv... His postings echo standard pro-Putin talking points and are more than tiresome...
The origin of my name is in the Toggenburg, a mountain valley in St. Gallen canton, Switzerland. This subject actually came up on a different thread today:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-18-2023/comment/36767491
"Dutch Mike," AKA "Mike S.," is a bully who "grooms" others to be abusive.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-18-2023/comment/36772435
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-18-2023/comment/36774137
Thanks :) But I am curious about another thing: you said you are a teacher. Where do you teach, if I may ask?
I don’t think he’s particularly bright. He goes to a topic most people don’t know much about and spouts nonsense like credit card debt is a sure sign of…whatever. Kind of a clever idiot. But not smart.
I agree with you Jen, but the Troll has "successfully" disrupted the thread today. Now he has a Co-Troll.
Bryan Sean McKown seems to be acting like a McCarthyist social monitor.
Jen Andrews,
Perhaps I didn't phrase my earlier comment clearly. Right now we have the highest level of credit card debt in history. This is a sure sign of distress among people with little to spare.
I suspect that John is a very orthodox leftist. So only Bernie is sufficiently within the acceptable window, as it were. Remember - "the perfect is the enemy of the good" Which means while we may object, we have to be grateful that we are not having to deal with Repub "wind back the clock"
But remember - "Nature bats last".
Actually, I'm an old-school FDR/JFK Democrat. The Apollo Program acted as a "science driver" for the economy, returning far beyond what we invested in it.
(Among other things, it spurred the development of the personal computer, leading to the internet economy.)
FDR -- my grandmother's fourth cousin -- was passionately anti-colonialist. He forced the British to give up their empire, in exchange for help against the Nazis.
That’s nonsense. FDR did little or nothing to end British colonialism.
Perhaps Jon Margolis has never heard of the Atlantic Charter:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Charter
🤡
How come you don’t display your real name?
Bill, his name is known to Substack Inc because of his multiple attacks on other Substack Inc Platforms.
Why should he? I don't.
Bill Katz,
I will ask you to own that question.
I am here (peer-reviewed):
https://startingpointsjournal.com/the-may-resolution-and-the-declaration-of-independence/
Also here:
https://www.academia.edu/29164747/The_Declaration_of_Independence_without_Locke_A_Rebuttal_of_Michael_Zuckerts_Natural_Rights_Republic_
I have the same name as my great-grandfather, whose Wikitree profile I created here:
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Schm%C3%BCckle-39
I stand corrected. If your desire is to win an argument, you don’t get there by word terrorizing as you have done. Reading some of your missives, there are elements to legitimize but using “far right thugs” doesn’t win the day. When I have argued against popular issues, I have been fully castigated so I get it. Opinions are like Aholes. Everyone has one.
Bill Katz,
Your criticism of my phrase "far-right thugs" makes no sense UNLESS you assume that it is inaccurate.
You didn't ask me for a source, but here goes:
"Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine"
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/
"Five years ago, Ukraine’s Maidan uprising ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, to the cheers and support of the West. Politicians and analysts in the United States and Europe not only celebrated the uprising as a triumph of democracy, but denied reports of Maidan’s ultranationalism, smearing those who warned about the dark side of the uprising as Moscow puppets and useful idiots. Freedom was on the march in Ukraine.
"Today, increasing reports of far-right violence, ultranationalism, and erosion of basic freedoms are giving the lie to the West’s initial euphoria. There are neo-Nazi pogroms against the Roma, rampant attacks on feminists and LGBT groups, book bans, and state-sponsored glorification of Nazi collaborators.
"These stories of Ukraine’s dark nationalism aren’t coming out of Moscow; they’re being filed by Western media, including US-funded Radio Free Europe (RFE); Jewish organizations such as the World Jewish Congress and the Simon Wiesenthal Center; and watchdogs like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Freedom House, which issued a joint report warning that Kiev is losing the monopoly on the use of force in the country as far-right gangs operate with impunity...."
I have presented the above quote around here repeatedly, and have met with a deafening silence, as if HCR's readers have been intimidated and/or morally corrupted.
What do you say?
🤡
🤡
Putin, in Ukraine, is reclaiming "Novorossiya," the multi-ethnic, Russian-speaking half of Ukraine that was stapled together with little Ukraine by the new Soviet regime in 1921.
As a result of the Biden administration's approach to the Russia/Ukraine mess, the global trend toward de-dollarization -- threatening financial chaos in the USA -- has been accelerating:
https://money.usnews.com/investing/articles/de-dollarization-what-happens-if-the-dollar-loses-reserve-status
Keep up the good work, Joe; we're all going to pay for it.
Actually,
It was Reagan, and every Republican elected after that, who began the slow process of wrecking the dollar (which Biden has begun to rebuild).
Reagan took Jimmy Carter's balanced budget; in fact, Carter continued to paydown WWII and Vietnam debt (like all Presidents since WW II) while sponsoring a healthy economy. Debt was reduced under every post WWII president until Reagan.
Reagan, upon his election based on a vacuous, puffy red face and fake smiles, immediately cut taxes on the wealthy and massively ramped up government spending on his big military contractor donors.
At the end of Reagan's disastrous Presidency (in terms of the budget and the economy) the US had added no less than 6 Trillion dollars in debt (today's dollars), suffered through TWO recessions in 8 years, and had lost the respect of most of the world except for Great Britain where another nut, Margaret Thatcher was also running amok trying to destroy Britain's influence in the world (she successfully did, nobody pays any attention to anything that happens in Britain unless the Queen treats some black woman poorly, which, she did).
The seeds were planted for the dollar's reversal as the world's reserve currency during Reagan's failed Presidency, and, with every Republican after that, debt has SOARED.
After the mess that Trump made of (everything) including adding more massive debt, the world looked at the US as if it was a banana republic with some seriously dumb white guys in charge. It frightened the world. I mean, Trump in charge of the nukes?
Fortunately, Biden won the election and beat long time loser Trump.
Biden is turning the American ship, but, it is hard to to turn a ship that Republicans have tried to sink for 40 years.
Surprisingly, Biden is doing it. Kudo's for Biden.
You Putin employees/trolls getting paid peanuts to hand out BS Russian propaganda?
You guys are sad. But, you are funny with that fake stuff you guys post. I guess some Americans believe that stuff.
But, John, not on this reflector. Here? You are just a joke.
His claiming to be an old time Dem is the biggest joke yet
Thank you for this detailed retort.
You fantasize that the economy under Carter was "healthy," with oil-price shocks and stagflation.
The process of "wrecking the dollar" -- going back to Reagan, as you say -- can be measured by yearly increases in the national debt.
Obama was almost as bad as Trump and Biden (with Trump's final year distorted by the covid crisis):
https://www.statista.com/statistics/187867/public-debt-of-the-united-states-since-1990/
Your statement that Biden "has begun to rebuild" the dollar is a barefaced lie.
And btw John, you have a way of deflecting. Mike spoke of Carter paying down the debt as all presidents did until Reagan. Then you went off about stagflation and the oil crises which by the way, had nothing to do with Carter. The Iraq Iranian war and the Iranian revolution caused the crises in 1979. But those of you who conveniently search for boogie men like you do. You would do well to be honest and unemotional in your arguments.
Bill, can I ask you respectfully not to engage the Troll despite your cogent facts?
Yes, see his name and scroll away.
The massive tax reductions of 2017 try that on for size.
John,
Had we, the USA in cahoots with the British, NOT overthrown the duly democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 and instead built partnerships with the middle east based on the "rules based order" that Biden speaks of, there would have been no "oil crisis" in the early 70's PRIOR to Carter's election.
Of course, there WAS a crisis in 1979 when the brutal dictator the Shah of Iran fled to the United States and the USA pissed off millions of Iranians who wanted to hang the Shah because he murdered thousands of their relatives while "in power". If I had been Iranian I would have been PO'd too.
Was that Carter's fault? Perhaps. But, honestly, it was really some low life Republicans in the Eisenhower government that planned coup without Eisenhower even knowing about it.
Carter and the "oil crisis" did not overlap in time as your lie would indicate.
As for Obama, I completely agree, Obama went wild with debt after eight years of deregulation by Bush II resulted in a complete catastrophe in banking and collapse of the economy in the USA; on the level of a Calvin Coolidge (also a Republican) disaster.
Me? I would have left the Republican's collapsed economy completely ALONE to take 20 years to rebuild so people would REMEMBER what Republicans do when they are in power. Like, for example, stupid deregulation of derivatives which became mortgage back securities (legalized) under Bush II in 2001.
Yes, there was also an earlier oil crisis under Nixon.
My point was that the economy was NOT healthy under Carter.
Regarding Mossadegh, etc., Carter's Attorney General Ramsey Clark wrote that U.S. policy toward Iran and Iraq was to support the opposition, overthrow the government, support the new opposition, overthrow the new government, etc. See Chapter 1 of "The Fire This Time":
https://archive.org/details/firethistimeuswa00clar
🤡
Eastern Europe has always been a mix of languages and cultures and over time the borders shifted. But speaking russian or german or polish or whatever does not make a country. Russia aspired to a great empire but really could not hold it. Putin's attack was unjust. Frankly had his army succeeded then we would not have been able to do anything, but the "russian speaking" part of Ukraine hates Russia as much as the ukrainian part.
Terry, you have been successfully trolled, been taken off Topic.
p.s. Perhaps you already know that Moscow was the daughter of Kyiv: Russians and Ukrainians were the same people.
Sorry but all this is history. I grew up as the grandson of immigrants from the Russian Empire. The question is about now. Had Russia been better led then the war would have ended - but they were not better led. The Ukrainians themselves hate the Russians who invaded.
History is fun. But what do we do now? Well we defended Ukraine. After the collapse of the USSR, I thought it was a mistake to encircle Russia by Nato. But do you really think the Poles or Lithuanians did not want the protection of NATO? Russia was not threatened by NATO in any case. What Russia needs to economic reform They graduate lots of engineers but build little that the world wants. They graduate lots of doctors but they are not the world leader that one has a right to expect.
In any case Russia guessed that they would win quickly and the west would sit on the sideline. Instead Russia in now isolated and the Nato that was a tepid alliance is now serious.
Re "the same people" - my Jasaitis family cousins look as Russian as Yuri Gagarin. the notion of one people is just a romantic myth.
I have some disagreements with your assessments, but no need to argue.
Speaking of now, here is my assessment:
Ukraine has a realistic chance for a peace settlement if Ukraine agrees to give up the entirity of the four districts that Russia annexed on paper. Otherwise, there are three plausible alternatives to choose from:
1. An extended stalemate as NATO continues endless support of Ukrainian forces that are dug into defensive positions.
2. NATO escalates, bringing the forces of NATO countries (perhaps initially Polish army units) into direct conflict with Russia in Ukraine. (Poland is already thinking of absorbing chunks of a disappearing Ukraine, especially eastern Galicia.)
3. Russia breaks through the current line of control as weary and depleted western countries cut back on their arms giveaways to Ukraine.
No to your negotiation. The only negotiation will be over Crimea since it belonged to Russia in 1953. But that’s it. If Russia wants to bleed to death, that’s their problem. I happen to believe that the West forced Russia into a paranoid response. NATO expended east. On the other hand, Russia made half hearted attempts at democracy and failed. They are a mess.
It is my view that the West forced Russia into a survivalist response. Russia had already experienced the western-inflicted "shock therapy" genocide that killed off all the old people:
https://archive.org/details/AGenocideRussiaAndTheNewWorldOrder1999
Terry Mc Kenna,
There are two separate issues here: How modern Ukraine came to be, and why Putin invaded.
Novorossiya ("New Russia") was conquered from the Tatar slave raiders in the 18th century. The area had been depopulated because of the threat of slave raiders, and Empress Catharine the Great invited people of all ethnic groups to settle in the new Russian territory, and of course the official language was Russian.
After Ukraine's Maidan Revolution in 2014, the Russia-friendly members of Ukraine’s parliament were terrorized into staying home, and the first law that the rump parliament passed was to ban the Russian language in government communication.
This was part of what led Crimea to embrace Russia, as well as helping bring on the civil war in the Donbass, which got "frozen" with the Minsk Agreements of 2014 and 2015, which were never implemented. (Zelensky initially moved toward doing that, but then he didn't. Long story there.)
Perhaps you will agree that it's worth knowing Putin's formal rationale for invading Ukraine, if only to refute it:
Putin said to the world that he was fulfilling a mutual defense treaty with the Donbass republics (because Ukraine was attacking).
🤡