What is Best for Germany Now?

[ronwagn + 6,290]

10 hours ago, ratatosk said:

 

The US under Trump has lost all confidence in its intentions in the world. In Germany it has been recognized with great regret that only economic self-interest rules and no alleged strategic considerations. Germany's dependence on Russian gas was much higher during the Cold War than it will be after the planned completion of Nordstream 2.! The more sources of supply there are, the smaller the dependencies become, even every stupid person can recognize if he wants to. The same goes for TIKTOK! . Data protection in the USA? how ridiculous is this statement! American companies should take over, that's the point at which the usa no longer shrink from breaking the law and pure state blackmail. In doing so, I would like to make it completely clear that the whole of the West must have grossly underestimated the threat posed by the Chinese authorities, including Germany. Unfortunately, an effective joint response by the West and Japan has become impossible precisely because of the Trumpet machinations, since it has also divided the West. Because of the grotesque conspiracy theories tearing apart the USA itself, they are no longer taken seriously worldwide. One can only regret serious and competent Americans in this situation, because they are caught in the role of laughing stock. Anyone who is still able and willing to think seriously should always keep in mind that the usa has pushed aside its longstanding friends and allies and not the other way around. Europe must certainly become far more independent, but will always help the USA in real need, the other way round one is no longer sure of that.
Finally, the US should also study the current account and not just the trade balance, there they could easily see the enormous economic gain from Europe that is at stake for them. The forced departure from the dollar in all areas will become one of the biggest problems of the usa in the medium term, because if the dollar is no longer the reserve currency, the usa will be at the end due to the indebtedness, then the majority of the problems can no longer be passed on to the creditors . Due to the repressive behavior of the USA, this process is now in full swing!

The US under Trump has lost all confidence in its intentions in the world. In Germany it has been recognized with great regret that only economic self-interest rules and no alleged strategic considerations. Germany's dependence on Russian gas was much higher during the Cold War than it will be after the planned completion of Nordstream 2.! The more sources of supply there are, the smaller the dependencies become, even every stupid person can recognize if he wants to. The same goes for TIKTOK! . Data protection in the USA? how ridiculous is this statement! American companies should take over, that's the point at which the usa no longer shrink from breaking the law and pure state blackmail. In doing so, I would like to make it completely clear that the whole of the West must have grossly underestimated the threat posed by the Chinese authorities, including Germany. Unfortunately, an effective joint response by the West and Japan has become impossible precisely because of the Trumpet machinations, since it has also divided the West. Because of the grotesque conspiracy theories tearing apart the USA itself, they are no longer taken seriously worldwide. One can only regret serious and competent Americans in this situation, because they are caught in the role of laughing stock. Anyone who is still able and willing to think seriously should always keep in mind that the usa has pushed aside its longstanding friends and allies and not the other way around. Europe must certainly become far more independent, but will always help the USA in real need, the other way round one is no longer sure of that. Finally, the US should also study the current account and not just the trade balance, there they could easily see the enormous economic gain from Europe that is at stake for them. The forced departure from the dollar in all areas will become one of the biggest problems of the usa in the medium term, because if the dollar is no longer the reserve currency, the usa will be at the end due to the indebtedness, then the majority of the problems can no longer be passed on to the creditors . Due to the repressive behavior of the USA, this process is now in full swing!

Germany, France, and some other countries have had very poor leadership in the last couple of decades at least. They have allowed Russia to manipulate them and take territory. Putin and his propagandists stopped them from realizing how they had their own natural gas and could develop it without major problems. Of course, the Obama administration did not wake them up. Future elections will change things for better or worse in Europe. I hope better. 

Russia continues to try to expand its geographical power. Right now it is Byelorussia. Nato says very little. Does nothing much. Russia has harmed itself greatly by its aggressive nature. Its economy would be much better than it is now, without aggression. The economy of Russia is dismal. The freedoms of the people are negligible. The people are very poor by Western standards. Of course, they say, they like Putin. To not say that is dangerous. 

The economy of Russia is smaller than Canada! which has a far smaller population. 38 million versus 147 million. Canada has slightly over one fourth the population of Russia!

Russia is far more dependent on oil and gas and it will continually go downhill unless it allies with the West and quits its aggression. It seems unable to diversify its economy anymore than it already has. It needs investment. China is its greatest threat not the West. If Russia did not have nuclear weapons China would gobble it up quickly. It is slowly working northward by populating inner and outer Mongolia with Han Chinese. The Chinese are true racists who subjugate all they can. Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong are large examples. The Chinese also subjugate all religious groups. Russia is also subjugating any Christian group that does not follow its demands. 

[Tomasz + 1,608]

Quote

 

There is a lot of rhetoric floating about in the usual Reddit/Blue Check crowd that these were the largest demonstrations in Russia of the Putin. This is not really even true – the Bolotnaya/Prospekt Sakharova “meetings” against electoral fraud in Moscow drew more people, though one may argue this is an unfair comparison since they were agreed upon with the Moscow Mayoralty. Long-forgotten protests against the monetization of benefits in 2005 also drew large numbers, though I don’t recall tallying numbers then being in trend.

But regardless, the fact cannot be stated enough – even the very highest (verging into absurdity) estimates of 40,000 turnout promoted by Reuters (Russia MFA: “Why not 4 million?” would only account for a grand total of 0.25% of the Moscow metropolitan area. The “White Counter” organization which counts crowds estimated peak turnout at 15,000 people. This, incidentally, happens to coincide exactly with my own prediction:

Probably the factors that increase turnout are somewhat stronger than those that decrease, so if I had to pick a number, I’d say 15,000 as opposed to 5,000 will turn up.

You cannot expect very high turnout in the context of Putin having an approval rating of 65%, and where only 15% of the population believes Navalny’s version of his poisoning. This is cardinally different from Belarus, which many people are now comparing Russia to. Although Belarus doesn’t allow opinion polls, there is convincing evidence that the elections were massively fraudulent, with Lukashenko getting no more than 35% of the vote. So of course this was a much greater impetus to large-scale protests.

Again, at least 100,000 turned up in Minsk, or 5% of its population. Half a million turned up in Kiev, or almost 20% of its population. Meanwhile, just 0.25% of Moscow turned up. These are not color revolution numbers!

The Russian police handled the protests very professionally, giving scant cause for outrage and an intensification of the protests. One woman in Saint-Petersburg was kicked in the stomach after approaching the OMON, but otherwise there was no unprovoked violence on their part. The Russian journalist Alexey Larkin, who was covering the event, wrote that “despite my ideological ACAB, I need to honestly note, that the police comported well… they were not aggressive during arrests, guided confused people to areas outside the protest area, some areas had officers who positively and politely communicated with people.” The protesters were also “largely peaceful” (to borrow a meme from the American partners), but there were a few exceptions:

• A Dagestani (who has since been doxed as an Islamist and recidivist) who entertained himself by pummeling armored OMON barehanded.
• Some aggressive person who clocked a traffic police officer out of the blue.
• They beat up a pro-Putin protester, showing how much they actually care about freedom of speech as a principle.
• An FSB car was trashed, with the driver inside apparently suffering an eye injury from the shards of glass.

All of these elements will presumably be quietly ID’ed and arrested in the coming days, and will spend the next few years in jail. However, the vast majority of people who behaved themselves were generally let go within 2 hours, which included Navalny’s wife.

This, again, is in marked contrast to what happened in both Belarus, as well as Yanukovych’s Ukraine. The brutal initial police responses stoked public anger and fueled the protests.

Consequently, having accurately predicted turnout in these protests, I will now make some further predictions.

(1) The protests will obviously continue. I expect turnout to remain steady for another 2 or 3 rounds, featuring much of the same people (oppositionist hardcore and Bioleninist contingent), and then to begin to steadily decline. This was the pattern in both Russia in 2011-12, and in Belarus last year.

(2) This reality may not be obvious to foreign observers, because the Western media will be going all out to make a mountain out of a molehill so far as they are concerned.

(3) In the background, I expect the “screws to be tightened”. I expect significant restrictions on Western social media within Russia by the end of this year. And Navalny will have to serve out at least the 3.5 years of his fraud sentence which was suspended and is now unsuspended.

(4) United Russia will win 40-45% of the vote in September. About 10% points of it due to fraud, as usual, but also as usual since 2012, the elections in Moscow will remain relatively clean because it is the most politically sensitive region.

However, the single biggest impact is that this shows that US-Russian relations are due to freeze over.

Not as if anybody was expecting miracles in that respect under President Biden. However, the sheer fact that you had renewed American convoys into Syria (how is that for foreign meddling) in the first two days of his Presidency, capping off with these protests on the third day. The US Embassy published the locations and time of the planned protests under the guise of protecting US citizens. US officials Tweeted their support for the protest and demanded Russia free Navalny, with a statement from the Biden administration that it will “stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies and partners in defense of human rights” in Russia.

Realistically, I am not sure that Navalny even appreciates such gestures, considering that the US seems set on doing the Kremlin’s work of painting him as a foreign agent for them.

Nonetheless, they can be read as a signal that the Biden administration will be working on “regime change” in Russia during the next four years. And since that has very little chances of succeeding for reasons already expounded upon, the priority will be to instead amplify, exaggerate, or entirely event abuses and human rights violations that can be ascribed to the “Putin regime” and can be used to load up on even more sanctions.

However, Russia is not Iran, and there are limits to how more sanctions the US can levy on Russia without beginning to crimp the world economy (the limits of that were already tested under the “Russophile” Trump administration, when the US Treasury removed sanctions on Rusal after turmoil in the global aluminium production chain). Kicking it out of SWIFT needs European consent. I suppose it can revive attempts to label Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Moreover, the Biden administration seems determined to continue ratcheting up the confrontation with China. This further limits what it can accomplish with Russia before things begin blowing up in its face.

 

From myself I just add that allegedly the movie about Navalny and Putin's palace was seen by 80 million people in just 4 days, 85% of whom gave him a like.

After which, even in Moscow, some 15-20 thousand people take part in protests in an agglomeration of 12 million people.

I wonder if it is more the work of some bots or just YouTube administrators can enter any number of likes, dislikes and views for each video.