Nilats

1 hour ago, Andaman Al said:

Well you need to look a bit deeper then.

 

Two powerful nations who do not really want to work together, both of whom want to control critical global resources - including money. It is only the standoff that has been in place for the last 50 years - The Cold War that has stopped the two school ground bullies fighting each other. Yes they both continue to bully those weaker than themselves but it has only needed the 'other' to say stop, and it generally happens. Both bullies know that if they start on each other then it will be a fight to the death for both, so they avoid it.

 

Bringing them both into close proximity in what you consider would be co-operation is madness and it WILL lead to conflict. I have no doubt that when they 'work' together it will be like UFC. Shaking hands at the start and only one (if any) walking out of the ring. It makes no sense. The only reason for Trump to do this (and Tillerson) is the greenback - not for the US but for themselves or their corporation. I wonder what shareholding Tillerson has in Exxon after 10 years as CEO and what bonus he will be on if he can release the billions of dollars waiting for Exxon if the sanctions on Russia are lifted.

 

Now some will scream 'the sky is falling the sky is falling'. ALL the warning signs are there. Remember put a frog in a pan of boiling water and it will leap out, put it in a pan of cold water and bring it to the boil and it will stay in there until it dies. The writing is on the wall.

It would have been UFC only with the Hillary team for sure. Trump team is the exact opposite. I don't see any serious potential points of friction in any sphere. USA under Trump and Russia will cooperate in the Economic, Strategic, Defense and Ideological sphere and it will change both countries. They share the same world vision and by bringing the economic cooperation - it actually helps to avoid any friction about money. It's kind of hard to tell just how far this will go, but so far I see all the dots connecting in that direction. There could be serious potential pitfalls to these plans, but they are not going to come from either the Trump or Putin team themselves. There are a lot of groups in the world and also within the US who could do a lot to hinder this progress and they will certainly do them.

Well as expected. First Trump said numerous times he's gonna be friends with Russia, he likes Putin and admires his talents as a leader of a powerful nation who is respected worldwide.

Then Steve Bannon was announced as Trump's chief strategist. Bannon is a known Duginist - so his strategy would be to align US foreign policy with that of Russia's foreign policy, perhaps even forge an alliance, who knows...

Now Tillerson is going to be the Secretary of State. Tillerson has old ties with Russia, and has close personal ties with Vladimir Putin.

Putin gave him this award not so long ago: 

Awards	Russian Order of Friendship (2013)

One thing not clear to me is why Mad Dog James Mattis was chosen as the Head of Pentagon, that's kind of the odd one out at the moment. But everything else is going exactly as planned.

I don't understand what the problem is - two powerful nations finally working together - that's great news.

9 minutes ago, craigt3365 said:

Guaranteed.  Sorry you can't see that.

I guess you haven't been so good at actually demonstrating it. Anybody who says otherwise gets immediately censored. You claim it can be easily demonstrated yet are afraid to engage in any sort of open dialogue about it. It makes it very hard to understand the position of anybody who defends the MSM.

9 minutes ago, Morch said:

 

I assume you must present Russia in a positive light...and that must be boring. Russia is nowhere near the US, or any other Western country when it comes to freedom of information. There are also more restrictions overt and otherwise on what may or may not be said. That's freedom. There's no requirement that these things be similar in all countries, but claiming that Russia is a totally open is nonsense at best, propaganda more like.

I'm not saying it's totally open, but I think it's better than most western countries. If you want to discuss freedom of information - you should start with yourselves. Russia doesn't yet have a total snooping operation on all internet and mobile users around the world like US and UK have - as was revealed by the wanted fugitive and former NSA operative Edward Snowden - that's why he's wanted because he officially revealed it. And all the "official" media in the west is corporate owned and runs on corporate or government agenda. And now they are also censoring political websites with a legitimate and genuine opposition as "fake news" for some reason... In the light of this Russia is still better... they are not labeling any sites of internet as "fake news" yet, but rather their censorship  is limited to the sites with links to the UN listed and known terrorist organizations. Maybe you should clean up your own house first before you criticize others? :)

15 minutes ago, Morch said:

 

There's no information blockade in Russia at all

 

Putin brings China's Great Firewall to Russia in cybersecurity pact

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/29/putin-china-internet-great-firewall-russia-cybersecurity-pact

 

 

 

 

If they were serious about creating an information blockade - they would start with websites like facebook, twitter, youtube, etc... I assume you must be bored and having nothing else to talk about? :) Linkdein failed to comply with the Russian Law regulations about their data storage. If they transfer all the data to local servers located in Russia, linkedin should be unblocked... Linkdein did this in China, it stores all data on Chinese servers. So it could be a deliberate act of non-compliance with the Russian law on behalf of Linkedin, since regulations such as these are not something they are not familiar with, and they follow these regulations in other countries.

43 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Perhaps, but it's also about Hillary Clinton and seeing how helping get trump elected helps Putin's anti-democratic agenda.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/16/world/europe/russia-hacks-putin-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0

 

 Well the leak itself revealed how Un-Democratic the "Democratic" party actually was... In either case it doesn't aid the anti-democratic agenda because there was nothing Democratic about the US Democrats to begin with. The DNC was run as a dictatorship where the select few decided who the candidate would be.

1 hour ago, craigt3365 said:

Have you been to the smaller cities outside Moscow?  It's like going back 30 years.  TV antennas on top of houses, small gardens out front, old cars, old people walking down the roads.  I actually quite like it, but it's definitely not modern.

I was born in one of those smaller cities. Haven't been to Russia for 20 years. I just go by actually observing the Russian Social Media itself. The reach is much wider than you think. Internet usage is pretty wide and common in all major cities, fast speed and mobile. I hear it's also very cheap and fast compared to western countries.

Just as an example - there's a youtuber Kamikadzedead or whatever - he lives in Moscow just a few blocks away from the Kremlin and broadcasts in Russian language on youtube. His videos are full of vulgar criticisms and profanities against the government and all the corruption in the country. It's painful to watch sometimes - it's too vulgar for me, he really does his most to embarrass the current Russian leadership and the ruling party - and the guy is well known in Russia. I've seen him attend a few of the talk shows on the government channels as well where he was given the microphone. And he has about a million subscribers on Youtube - I'm sure the Russian government know who he is and they are not taking him down. To say that Putin keeps a tight grip on the media in Russia is not entirely accurate. They make little effort to police the internet for example.

1 hour ago, craigt3365 said:

Agreed!  But how many sit and just watch the TV news?  Or read the local newspaper?  I know in the US, lots do, even though they have the internet. 

 

As far as freedom of the press, Russia ranks 148 out of 180.  Not so good.

https://rsf.org/en/ranking

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_Russia
 

 

 

Really people still buy newspapers and watch television? I think main media in Russia is the social media at the moment - it really is huge. I don't know anybody who doesn't know how to google information, use youtube, periscope, vk, facebook and so on. There's no information blockade in Russia at all as some Western Sources continuously try to imply. If people choose to read local newspapers or watch only domestic news channels - that's their choice, nobody is forcing them.

4 minutes ago, craigt3365 said:

Agreed, but one problem in Russia, all news outlets are controlled by the government.  They are spoon fed propaganda every day.  Opposition to the government is not allowed.  And the truth is rarely reported.  Luckily, that's not the case in the US.  Thank goodness.

This statement doesn't make sense. Internet is widely available in Russia - WIFI, 3g and everything else. Facebook, Youtube and then also VK(russian facebook) are not censored by the government so when it comes to getting to know what's going on in the world for an average citizen( or a visitor) - the sky is the limit. All western news media outlets are also available in Russia. People are free to choose what sources they get their information from.

27 minutes ago, RuamRudy said:

 

I have discussed them with Russian friends in the past, specifically about returning them to Japan in the expectation that Japanese investment would raise the, undoubtedly, low living standards there. My friends were all outraged at such a suggestion - the very idea was anathema to the locals. I doubt even Putin couldn't sell that one to the electorate.

That's cool. It's probably true if it was 10 years ago. Today public opinion in Russia exists and is shaped by the social media. Since 3 years ago I noticed many bloggers from Russia going to Japan and reporting back that it's a cool place bringing Japanese friends back to Russia, marrying Japanese women and such. And today particularly inspired by the Western sanctions the Russian social media is looking East more and more - there was some kind of a pro-Eastern explosion due to the West showing a cold shoulder to Russia - many people in Russia no longer see themselves as European or Euro-centric. Everyone can speak for themselves, but generally the bulk of the Russian population today would have nothing against the Japanese coming with investment and trade relations - I think they would be welcome in Russia.

Just curious did you actually visit the Kuril Islands?

Russia keeps these islands to secure access to the Pacific for its Pacific fleet. The islands themselves are not worth much - it's just a way of securing the perimeter for an unhindered access to the Pacific, so nobody could blackmail them and try to block that access.

I don't know Japan's motivation for wanting them back - because they are very small. I think we can guess from this Abe/Putin meeting how the dialogue went between Abe and Trump just a month ago. Perhaps this meeting between Japan and Russia was inspired by the private conversation between Abe and Trump. It looks like Trump is sticking to his guns to improve relations with Russia.

I knew that Japan and Russia would move in this direction - by building economic relations on these islands is a way to make sure that neither side feels at a loss and both avoid loss of face. And it's probably true that both sides wanted to mend ties for a while now.