Please read the March 6 addendum at the end and the subsequent post.  It changes the whole tone of this post.

It started with an email from a friend which I will detail below.  He sent me a link to the Washington Post article All of these people have compared Vladimir Putin to Hitler.  This article in turn pointed to Hillary Clinton says Putin’s actions are like ‘what Hitler did back in the ’30s’, which is the more substantive of the two article.

Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday compared Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine to actions taken by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler outside Germany in the run-up to World War II.
.
.
.
Clinton, a potential 2016 presidential candidate,  said Putin “believes his mission is to restore Russian greatness,” including reasserting control of former Soviet Union countries, the Press-Telegram reported. “When he looks at Ukraine, he sees a place that he believes is by its very nature part of Mother Russia,” Clinton said, according to the Press-Telegram.

After reading this article, I wanted to find documentation for a comment that I had read about the connection between the USSR, Russia, and Clinton.  That is all detailed in my previous post Russia’s Revenge.

When Soviet Union collapsed, Russia agreed to dissolve the Warsaw Pact and let its allies go of the bind on assurance from US President George HW Bush that the NATO would not outreach to its borders. But President Bill Clinton broke this promise and pushed to expand the NATO alliance to the very borders of Russia. Though a weak Russia under Boris Yetsin was not in a position to oppose the NATO’s expansionary moves, including the ‘humanitarian’ bombing on Yugoslavia in 1998, this had left deep wounds in the Russo-American cooperation touted by Gorbachev and Bush in early 1990s.

Given this record of the Clinton family and the thought processes that may have been formative in Hillary’s view of foreign affairs, I don’t think she should be pontificating on what Vladimir Putin believes. It is always dangerous to speculate on other people’s motives, but when you have had such a bad record dealing with people in the past, you should be especially careful about telling us what they think.  Remember that I only said such speculation was dangerous.  There are many times when you are forced to speculate in order to form policy, but you need to have a healthy respect for how fallible your speculation might be.  Beating the drums of war is not showing that healthy skepticism about your own assessment.

When it comes to making comparisons of Putin and Hitler, I don’t think you can dismiss the help that Putin gave us in dealing with Syria and Iran.  That does not dismiss the reality of some of the things Putin has done which I consider to be very bad policy.

Now for the comments from my friend, LeonidG, with whom I worked and with whom I socialized in Oregon. He originally came from the USSR/Russia.  I’ll edit his email slightly so that  it makes more sense in this context.

Hi Steve,

If the elections were today, I would have voted for Hillary.

That is until I read this:

All of these people have compared Vladimir Putin to Hitler.

Now, I probably would vote for her opponent, whoever he/she might be.

Keep in mind that I do not like Putin, not even a little bit. In my ranking of the world leaders he probably would end up the 3d from the bottom, right above the Iranian ayatollahs and Kim Jong Un.

Nevertheless, comparing Putin to Hitler exposes her as a dumb-head looking for cheap scandalous statements.

Considering the situation in the Ukraine, if you ask me who is better, Putin or the new Ukrainian leadership, I could relate to the citation of comrade Stalin, in broken Russian: “Both are worse!”.

You can post my  opinion on your blog, if you would like.

Regards,
-L.

Of course, if you have been reading my blog, you will know that I have never been the fan of Hillary that Leon was.  She is just receding deeper and deeper down the list of people that I would want as my President.  She is just too prone to buy into, and be a proponent of, the conventional wisdom of the right-wing from foreign policy to economic policy.

March 6, 2014

I have since read the Media Matters article What CNN Left Out Of Their Report On Hillary Clinton’s Putin-Hitler Comments.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer distorted comments by Hillary Clinton to criticize her for “compar[ing]” Russian President Vladimir Putin with Adolf Hitler, even though Putin is not engaged in genocide. But Blitzer ignored Clinton’s reported statement that while similarities to Hitler’s actions are “what’s gotten everybody so nervous” about Putin’s recent actions, she believes Putin isn’t “as irrational” as Hitler and that a diplomatic response is appropriate.

The article goes on to quote a reported Clinton comment:

“So everybody is hoping that there will be a negotiation but a negotiation that respects Ukraine and doesn’t ratify a reoccupation by Russia of Crimea,” she said. “So it’s a real nail-biter, right now, but nobody wants to up the rhetoric. Everybody wants to cool it in order to find a diplomatic solution and that’s what we should be trying to do.”

It is great to hear that Clinton is not trying to foment trouble, but is really trying to inject some reason into the discussion.

To emphasize the correction, I have made a subsequent post Hillary Clinton Compares – Examining the Similarities and the Differences.

Via a very circuitous route that I may have a chance to explain in a subsequent post, I ran across The Hindustan Business Line article Russia’s revenge.

To be sure, what Russia did in Crimea has violated the sovereignty of Ukraine. But powerful nations violating the sovereignty of smaller countries is not something new in international politics. What’s new is the growing confidence and determination of Russia to deter the eastward expansion of the Atlantic powers to its border nations.

When Soviet Union collapsed, Russia agreed to dissolve the Warsaw Pact and let its allies go of the bind on assurance from US President George HW Bush that the NATO would not outreach to its borders. But President Bill Clinton broke this promise and pushed to expand the NATO alliance to the very borders of Russia. Though a weak Russia under Boris Yetsin was not in a position to oppose the NATO’s expansionary moves, including the ‘humanitarian’ bombing on Yugoslavia in 1998, this had left deep wounds in the Russo-American cooperation touted by Gorbachev and Bush in early 1990s.

.
.
.

Skip the trap, Kiev

It’s a dangerous geopolitical game. The balance of power in Ukraine had tilted in favour of the West when Yanukovych fell from power last month. By taking control of Crimea, Russia has stormed back. Its vital interests in Ukraine — including the Black Sea Fleet — are now safe. On Tuesday, Putin said a war with Ukraine was the “last option” – a euphemism for his willingness to talk. Kiev should pick the cues, instead of walking into the trap set by the West. A further provocation would only prompt Russia to expand its reach to more areas in Eastern Ukraine. What needs to be done is taking the Russians into confidence and assure them of security — both for the Russian speaking people in Ukraine and its strategic interests in the region. Unless that happens, Russia is unlikely to step back. And the crisis will be far from over.

Remember that India has had a long historical record of dealing with the USSR as an ally during the Cold War, so it makes sense to me that they may have an understanding of Russian thinking that may be better than ours, or at least different from ours. It’s also possible that India doesn’t seem to have a dog in this fight over the Ukraine, so there is a chance that it may be a more realistic discussion.

I stumbled across this article because I was looking for documentation of how Bill Clinton broke our promise that George HW Bush had made to Gorbachev “that the NATO would not outreach to its borders.”  I couldn’t find the article where I first read this, but I found this one instead.  Why it is important to bring up Clinton will become evident in my subsequent post.

Think Progress has the article Paul Ryan’s Audit Of Federal Anti-Poverty Programs Finds Many Are Actually Very Effective.

Ryan argues that federal programs have contributed to the nation’s high poverty rate and “created what’s known as the poverty trap.” The report argues, “Federal programs are not only failing to address the problem. They are also in some significant respects making it worse.”

This is exactly why I produced my previous post Did The War On Poverty Fail?.  It was meant to be pulled out and plopped down in front of people like Paul Ryan every time they make their ridiculous claims.

The Think Progress article goes on to say:

But a closer look at the analysis undermines the old Ronald Reagan adage, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” As Ryan’s own analysis points out, numerous progressive-minded spending programs have helped millions of Americans and significantly reduced the nation’s poverty rate. Below are 16 examples from Ryan’s own report of how the government can help lower-income Americans make ends meet:

I’ll let you click the link to the article at the very beginning of this post to see the 16 examples.  I only wish their article had referred to the charts in my previous post.

Reuters has the brief item Exxon says pursuit of Ukraine Skifska block on hold.

Exxon Mobil Corp said its pursuit of the Ukraine Skifska block in the Black Sea has been stalled due to the unrest in that country.

I can’t imagine that an argument about a country that has many pipelines to carry Russian energy to Europe could also include an argument over oil exploration?  When was the last time you can remember that Exxon was driving our foreign policy?  Might that have been yesterday, and the day before that, and …?

Am I jumping to a hasty conclusion here?  The Republicans are wrong that Putin is playing chess while Obama is playing marbles.  They are both playing the game of oil.

The Real News Network has two interviews that are worth considering together.

The first is Did the U.S. Carry Out a Ukrainian Coup?

PARRY: Well, the United States has been trying to pry Ukraine away from a close relationship with Russia. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said in December to a group of business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion, she said, in helping Ukraine achieve its European aspirations, that is, moving it away from Russia into the E.U. So, obviously, the United States has played a role in trying to achieve this antidemocratic transition. As much as they may call it democratic, overthrowing an elected leader is on its face not democratic.

There’s also the issue of the National Endowment for Democracy and another U.S.-funded political operations. NED, according to its report, has 65 projects underway in Ukraine, including training activists, supporting journalists, organizing business groups, essentially creating a sort of a shadow political structure that could be put in play to destabilize the country. And that’s what we’ve seen here. We saw a destabilization of a country–which had problems, no question, and had leadership that was very flawed. But still, instead of going through a constitutional electoral process, another approach was taken.

And Yanukovych did agree–after the protests turned violent, he agreed to a deal negotiated by the E.U. to advance the elections and to have the police stand down.

The second interview is Is Russian-Ukraine Intervention Illegal?

QUIGLEY: Yeah, I think what Jeffrey said is really key here, namely, that you have a population that is not cohesive, as a result of the fact that the country was cobbled together over a period of time. And that makes it very hard to talk about the sentiment of the people, very substantial sentiment for participation in the European Union, on the theory that, you know, that will make life better. You know, whether it will or not is something that can only be speculated.

Whether or not a country is cohesive or fractured, and whether or not we prefer one side or the other, shouldn’t our first principle be to let them figure out how to come to a working agreement among the factions? Do we want some outside country coming in and trying to settle our differences because we can’t seem to overcome our own paralysis? These kinds of divisions are hard for any group to settle. Experience has shown that an outside force doesn’t have a better chance of finding an acceptable solution than do the people directly involved. That is why international law tries to prevent outside forces from intervening in the internal affairs of another country. When will we learn to respect these principles?

With regard to the first interview, does it seem strange to you that an administration that promised a more humble foreign policy than the Bush administration would allow a diplomatic holdover from that administration to involve us in such  arrogant policy? Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland is the person to whom I am referring.

I have been trying my darndest not to say anything about this, but it is eating at me.

You may or may not be able to see this Facebook post depending on with whom on Facebook you are friends.  The poster was congratulated by Martha Coakley for work in the Sturbridge Democratic caucus for gaining delegates that support Coakley.

My cryptic response was about a caucus in Charlton:

Sturbridge meddled in the internal politics of Charlton and they didn’t like it. Quelle surprise.

Yes, I admit I was part of the meddlers, and I was surprised.

Our very presence there was an irritant of major proportions. Too bad I have only figured that out now.

I wonder if the delegates that Coakley got in Sturbridge were wiped out by the ones we lost for her in Charlton.

Since at the moment, I am a Grossman supporter, you’d think I might be proud of what we did in Charlton. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am very much saddened by what happened.

As my wise mentor BillM has said, “When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging.”  I wish I had the will power to follow his advice.

By the way, the only value in posting this is to think about changing my remarks to be about the USA (instead of Sturbridge) and Ukraine and Russia (instead of Charlton).  It would go something like the following:

The USA meddled in the internal politics of the Ukraine and the Ukraine citizens of Russian heritage didn’t like it. Quelle surprise!

Or as Tip O’Neill once said,”All politics is local.”

Crooks and Liars has the article Rachel Maddow Obliterates War-Pig GOP Who Want To Attack Russia! (Video).  The video below is the one they use in this article.

I think the better headline is that “Rachel Maddow goes over to the other side.”

Russia does not like US meddling in Ukraine (US does not like Russia meddling in Cuba). Russia has a naval base in Ukraine (US has naval base in Cuba). A government in the Ukraine that is favorable to Russia is overthrown by one favorable to the west (A government in Cuba that is favorable to the US is overthrown by one more favorable to the USSR). Russia invades Crimea in the Ukraine hoping for support from the local population (The US invades the Bay of Pigs in Cuba hoping for support from the local population.)

The only difference I see is that Russia does have support from a large fraction of the local population. This is something that never happened for us in the Bay of Pigs.

While I have been concentrating on my volunteer commitments, I have not been spending time thinking about the Ukraine.  Thanks to MardyS for his posting on his Facebook page. The Consortium News article is Ukraine: One ‘Regime Change’ Too Many?

There is one huge difference between Prague in 1968 and Kiev 2014. The “Prague Spring” revolution led by Dubcek enjoyed such widespread spontaneous popular support that it was difficult for Russian leaders Leonid Brezhnev and Aleksey Kosygin to argue plausibly that it was spurred by subversion from the West.

Not so 45-plus years later. In early February, as violent protests raged in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev and the White House professed neutrality, U.S. State Department officials were, in the words of NYU professor emeritus of Russian studies Stephen Cohen, “plotting a coup d’état against the elected president of Ukraine.”

We all know that Putin has no cause to intervene in Ukraine.

Putin described this move as necessary to protect ethnic Russians and military personnel stationed in Crimea in southern Ukraine, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet and other key military installations are located.

With much less provocation, Ronald Reagan intervened in Grenada to protect US students, but of course there is no parallel here.  If you read the article, you can see that it is even plausible that Russia believes our actions in the Ukraine are an existential threat to Russia.  I don’t believe Reagan had the same fear about Grenada.

Of course we accepted with complete equanimity the fact that Russia allied itself with Cuba even though we had a naval base there.  If you don’t know your history or didn’t live through that time, you might want to check reliable sources to see whether or not I am being sarcastic here (cough Bay Of Pigs).  Although, since I raise the issue of sarcasm, what do you think you will find?

I found this on JaneS’ Facebook page.

Always remember to support your local billionaire, and always do it with a smile. You wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings.

There is much discussion on YouTube about the The Real News Network’s  YouTube video I showed in my previous post Deficit Is Falling Because Of Government Austerity, Not Economic Recovery.

There was one particular comment that I thought exemplified where we are failing to communicate.

Byron Anderson said:

+Fafner888
You remind me so much of Alan Greenspan who didn’t understand the problem with repealing Glass-Steagall, thereby releasing the Wolves of Wall Street who have ravaged honest financial markets; or The Bernanke who testified to Congress that he saw no problem in the speculative housing bubble just prior to it bursting, and causing the 2007-09 collapse. Your ideology has blinded you to the simple fact that debt cannot grow exponentially forever on a finite planet, and money-printing does not magically create wealth and prosperity.  Obama has piled-on more debt in his term than all prior Presidents combined.  The reckoning WILL come and interest rates WILL rise.  When that happens, the game is up.  Good luck to you.

I tried to get to the heart of some of the misunderstanding.

Nobody is saying debt can grow exponentially.  Nobody is saying that money-printing magically creates wealth and prosperity.  If that is what you think we are saying, then we have a real failure to communicate here.  I can try to do a better job at communicating, if you can tamp down your assumption that what I am saying is so ridiculous that I must believe in some of what you  rightly think is ridiculous.

Some people don’t seem to want to believe the part of Keynesian theory that says the economy sometimes needs stimulation.  They ignore or dismiss the part where he says, and sometimes it needs the opposite of stimulation.

How loudly do we have to shout SOMETIMES? I don’t know if putting it in all caps makes it any clearer.

At the current time, public debt (meaning the federal government’s debt) is not growing exponentially.  And you have to realize that public debt and private debt are two different and frequently complementary things.

Creating money does not magically create wealth and prosperity as you say.  If it did, then the Fed’s QE would have fixed the recession.  That is exactly the point that Keynes made.  When printing money doesn’t work, the government actually has to take on the role of buying real stuff.  By real stuff, I mean the real stuff that keeps people employed. The government can always afford to buy real stuff, because it creates the money with which to buy it.  Yes, the FED is part of the government.  So all the FED QE polcy shows is that the FED could create the money needed to buy real stuff. That is why we bring up QE all the time. The QE policy is not that policy of financing the government’s role of buying real stuff.  The FED is buying financial stuff only. The ability to create money could be used for the right policy, but at the moment it is not being used for the right policy.

Sometimes we argue strongly for the point we are trying to make without realizing that we aren’t clearly stating what is the point itself.  We bring up lots of examples which we think proves our point, and fail to realize that the listeners don’t understand exactly what point we are trying to prove with our examples.  In the heat of the argument it pays to stand back and try to figure out where we are failing to communicate.

So let me be clear as to what I said.

The FED’s QE policy is anti-Keynesian.

Please do not blame Keynes when the Fed uses policies that are diametrically opposed to what he prescribed.

Notice my very important word “WHEN”.  Note that the FED does not have the tools that Keynes says should be used.  Only the Congress and Executive branch have those tools.  If and when they use the tools prescribed by Keynes, and if they do not work, then and only then can you place any blame on Keynes’ theory.