Video by Robert Reich.
5 areas where Putin/Trump interests intersect.
Numbers 3 and 5 directly relate to climate change.
The attack on democracy and America’s election is a direct response to the emergence of a renewable revolution, and a carbon bubble that, together, threaten the power of the oligarchy that rules Russia, and the dominance of the fossil fuel industry globally.
Reich nails it here. Why is this so hard for people to understand? It’s like a kiddie puzzle with only 20 pieces and lots of shape and color clues.
PS I would instead say “PERHAPS THE BIGGEST PART of the attack on democracy and America’s election….”. Reich’s other points are not insubstantial.
if you take Reich’s parts 3 and 5 together, they make one very big piece
True, and I wasn’t disputing that. I was just trying to point out that countries have been playing “geo-political power games” for centuries while the global dominance of the fossil fuel industry and our concern about AGW only goes back a few decades.
I just keep thinking how much *fun* Putin has manipulating that insecure and narcissistic blowhard.
The cover of the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine shows the leaders of all our major allies responding to ‘the guy on the stage’. Only one of those allies is smiling: https://files.foreignaffairs.com/styles/issue-cover-md/s3/images/issues/2017/07/25/so17_cover_large.jpg
Don’t think Foreign Affairs meant for us to think of the “smiling one” as an “ally”—-rather more like the weasel in the chicken coop.
And they captured the weasel perfectly, fingers steepled, smarmy little smirk/smile, overall body language of rather extreme satisfaction and gloating. All as it should be for someone who is meeting with such success at destroying the USA and democracy.
Reality Check
1. Repudiate NATO and hold out on reaffirming §5 to stymy imaginary Russian imperial ambitions
Reality: —Continual maneuvers on Russia’s borders and build-up of permanent frontier strike capability;
—USA has 800 foreign bases, Russia has two (Syria/Kyrgistan)
2. Antagonize Europe
Reality: —Sanctions imposed to favour American LNG exports, infuriating loyal partners who are now confronted by misuse of fake geo-political tension for profits.
3. Repudiate Paris accord for the benefit of the second largest exporter of oil
Reality: —Not even Putin/Russia have repudiated the Paris accord;
—Withdrawal from Paris is obviously to benefit Saudi, the number one exporter, has been hailed, given weapons and unconditional support.
4. Loosen America’s economic grip on the rest of the world
Reality: —Naked imperialism and outright hegemonic dogma.
5. Hacking the DNC and spreading fake Hillary news story
Reality: —All evidence points to inside DNC leaks, and the Hillary mails were all DKIM authenticated.
The only “reality” that DweebyJ “checks” here is proving once again that he is a Russian troll and Whore for Putin. The usual disinformation, paranoia, and BS like “ALL evidence points to…”. (And I love “misuse of fake geo-political tension” and “hegemonic dogma”—-Dweeby DOES use a better thesaurus than his departed mentor Vera).
Maybe Trump is just a cunning grifter who saw a chance to get his ass into the Oval Office, and played the system to get what he wanted?
All he cares about deep down is his brand and his personal fortune.
His brand is macho posturing, humiliation of women and anyone who stands in this way, deference to those who can hurt him and crushing the vulnerable. His political ideals are those of the right during the Eisenhower era i.e. his father’s, plus some good up to date modern magical thinking.
That provides as good an explanation as any.
Nothing less than a coup by the fossil fuel industry that owns US and Russia.
As the once popular in the U.S. saying goes, “It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings”.
The sanctions against Russia and the escalating diplomatic war of diplomatic facility closures and expulsion of diplomats make it unclear as to where things are going. Putin needs to keep the fossil fuels revenues coming if he hopes to survive—-it will be interesting to see if a cornered weasel behaves like a cornered rat.
Some live to call others names. Why live like that? Trump is no more a vassal of Putin than you are.
Trump has had no business dealing in russia for a long time. Some russian billionaires have bought into Trump properties over the years but they are no different than any other rich people buying into Trumps properties.
Nobody in the FBI investigations, ongoing for more than a year, has found a shred of evidence that Trump or any of his people actually did anything for any russian government entity or anybody acting for a government entity. In contrast, Hillary did a lot of work for foreign government entities including russian while she was in office, you folks never said a word about that. How do we know that? Nobody gives around a billion and a half to somebody, in this case Bill and her so called charity scam, without wanting something. No foreign entity or government gets a tax write off so they got something.
I get it you do not like Trump. His public ideas represent a change from the status quo. You might consider that the status quo has put millions of americans out of work, made your gas and electric bill higher, did not make the world safer, made the rich ricker, did not fix medicare for anybody not on welfare, did not fix education for our kids and put our kids under a debt exceeding $100,000 dollars on the day they were born.