Loading ...MAGICAL THINKING
from JC
The Wall Street Journal ran an ‘essay’ yesterday piling on poor Ukraine and topped by a photo of a smirking Vladimir Putin, headlined “It’s Time to End Magical Thinking About Russia’s Defeat.” More like, it’s time to get real about Ukraine’s defeat.
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The sub-headline revealed the shifting goalposts’ new position: “Putin has withstood the West’s best efforts to reverse his invasion of Ukraine, and his hold on power is firm. The U.S. and its allies need a new strategy: containment.”
Another new strategy!
For two years, the Journal has resolutely promised that Russia would crumble under Ukrainians’ fierce courage, dissolve under international sanctions, implode due to a lengthy list of allegedly-fatal Putin health problems (six different types of cancer, and counting), wither under a penetrating and glorious Ukrainian Spring Counteroffensive, and be wrestled to the bargaining table, where the former communist empire would be forced to cough up all its annexed territories and the Crimean peninsula to boot.
But um, nope. None of that happened. Not even close. It’s more like the reverse opposite.
Joining Time and NBC, the Wall Street Journal expressed plain pessimism over Ukraine’s plunging prospects:
Putin does not feel any pressure to end the war or worry about his ability to sustain it more or less indefinitely. As winter approaches, the Russian army has mounted a limited ground offensive of its own and surely will expand missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, power plants, industrial sites and other critical infrastructure.
At the front line, there are no indications that Russia is losing what has become a war of attrition. The Russian economy has been buffeted, but it is not in tatters. Putin’s hold on power was, paradoxically, strengthened following Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed rebellion in June. Popular support for the war remains solid, and elite backing for Putin has not fractured.
What Western leaders conspicuously haven’t done is level with their publics … They have indulged all too often in magical thinking—betting on sanctions, a successful Ukrainian counter-offensive or the transfer of new types of weapons to force the Kremlin to come to the negotiating table. Or they have hoped to see Putin overthrown in a palace coup.
Yikes. Like the Ukraine war itself, the Journal’s essay ultimately descended into an incomprehensible morass, a laundry list of lame suggestions about how, if Russia can’t be tamed in the short term, the U.S. should triple-down and punish Russia over the long term, invoking direct comparisons to the fifty-year Cold War (even while assuring readers they didn’t mean another Cold War, no, no, never), and waiting for Putin to eventually be replaced, assuming that whoever replaces him will see the wisdom of partnering with the West.
Um. The essay described magical thinking all right. Without naming names, it literally described the magical thinking of the U.S. State Department, the magical thinking of all the liberal war hawks, and by extension the magical thinking of the Corporate Media — which has obediently lapped up the official war propaganda like good little doggies. The article suggested a new narrative that, because Putin, we should expand the way we think about the war, to think far beyond victory in Ukraine. Let’s let the Russian dictator have his little victory — but then take a broad, long-term view of the situation and make Putin pay over time for every inch.
Oh. One more question. Since it’s now suddenly “magical thinking” to believe Ukraine can beat Russia, can we get our hundreds of billions of dollars back? Some of us knew it was magical thinking to start with and would like a refund
The original analysis of the NATO(Ukraine)-Russia conflict would lead any independent thinking observer to see this action in favour of Russia.
One could argue that in Europe, the EU and NATO, are the enforcers of the WEF. Thus, any enemy of our enemy (the WEF) is our friend. As this SMO wraps up and comes to a logical conclusion we may see Russia in a different light. Russia initially went along with many of the Covid protocols (Mandates) and are likely to forge ahead with a programmable CBDC.
Russia is basically run by the oligarchs who raped the Soviet Union as it fell. Huge disparity in wealth. Most Russians who live out side the sphere of Moscow live a subsistence life. Just the basics. GoldBalloon can likely attest to this.
Are they competing with the WEF and have the same philosophy but will apply it to their own people? Luckily, I doesn’t appear as if the Russians will use Climate Change to control their people as Western Countries are presently doing. They already have an impoverished country that could easily be controlled via a UBI as they are only a generation removed from Communism.
All attention should be on the WHO and the UN as they attempt to control sovereign nations through One Health and The Pandemic Treaty. It could be that many African Nations have woken up to the power grab and have suffered enough. That could be the fly in the ointment for the Globalists.
I would say the Russian People are way above subsistance already
Judging from Goldballons adventures the country is incredibly clean and the people look well taken care of…and most of all appear happy
They support the present Government …they are literally better off than the lower 50% here in the west IMO .
I have Russian friends who still have relatives in Russia outside the Moscow bubble.
Yes, they are relatively happy, their standard of living is above survival but not middle class by our comparison. Luckily many grow their own food and have animals in the small villages and countryside. Not consumers like the West.
The European section of Russia has been developed more. More educated. That’s also where most live. It’s all relative. They are happy as the world and foreign products have been opened up to them.
If you or I moved there we would live very well.