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Most of the population is "too ignorant about the history" of most anything. Especially the former Warsaw Pact. Policy-makers count on that fact.

I'm an ABD in Soviet History, so it's my own pet peeve.

In that capacity, and as a Fourth Internationalist, I'm used to hearing a lot of loose talk about Soviet "imperialism."

Do you know where Moscow elites would go to find good consumer goods? To the outposts of their horribly exploited "empire," where for a number of reasons the standards of living were higher than in the Soviet Union.

Soviet "imperialism" aided the Third World to end colonialism, provided critical political pressure on the Free World that ended Jim Crow here (having Selma while complaining about the "Iron Curtain" was unseemly), and provided an alternative model of economic growth.

I'm no fan of the current Grand Duke of Muscovy. But since we spent the bulk of the post-Cold War years violating the assurances we gave to end it, he and his boyars definitely have a legit beef.

Maidan was a Color Revolution too far. The log that broke the bear's back, finally.

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I didn't say anything about Soviet imperialism, but ok.

Fuck Putin and whatever beefs he thinks has with a world that stands in his way of maximizing the revenues he can get from the Russian fossil fuel industry he stole before the world goes green.

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How do propose to comprehend the present without understanding the past?

Oh wait, I forget. This is Murica. Our favorite way of dismissing an event is to say "That's ancient history." Even if -- hell, especially if -- it was just yesterday.

Hey, isn't us and our Saudi friends that maximizing our fossil fuel revenues? Asking for a comrade....

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I didn't mention Soviet imperialism because I was more concerned with the history of the Russian Empire and its strategies to absorb Ukraine going back to the early 18th century, as I mentioned.

Odd that one could comprehend the history of Soviet Russia without understanding that past. ABD in Murica, I guess.

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Many pundits will make reference to the Soviet regime, it is said by some that Putin is recreating it. Soviet "imperialism" is often invoked by the local nationalist regimes in the former Union Republics. Foreign policy discussions reference this in discussing current policies.

You are aware that the notion of a nation-state of the Ukrainians is a recent invention, in part prompted by German interest in the area? They gingered up the locals to give Moscow problems.

Hey, the Russian were dabbling in Pan-Slavism in the Austro-Hungarian empire, So it was payback.

The area now known as the Ukraine taken over by an array of foreign powers (Poland and Lithuania) after the fall of Kiev to the Mongols. The northern area rebelled against Poles and solicited Russian aid and accepted the Tsar's sovereignty in 1654.

The Black Sea littoral, including the Crimea, was re-taken from the Ottomans under Catherine the Great. These lands were appended to the more traditional boundaries of the Ukraine in the Soviet period, to outweigh the conservative nationalism of the western Ukraine.

The conquest concludes a period in Russian history known as "the gathering in of the Russian Lands." This re-unification of the former territories, connected with the removal of "the Tatar yoke" (their typical phrase for Mongol rule) looms large in the Russian psyche. The fall of Kazan in 1552 is often cited as the effective end of direct Mongol authority.

In the aftermath, the Crimean Khanate, a group of Turkicised Mongols, took shelter under the auspices of the Ottomans.

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"It would, rabbit. That it would. "

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Well, there’s one happy thought for the night.

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Best words and a good brain, too. He says.

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A 'nightmare' is this, this is a nightmare.Being conspiracy theorist #1 is not against the law and that may be the problem.We have little recourse for these over-imaginative fucks. It is apparent that left to his own devices, Roodles de Toodles could pin the Kennedy assassination on Ted Cruz' father ffs.Its not that reality or truth become blurred, its that fantasyland becomes less fantasy. They treat steaming bullshit like pate foie gras ffs.

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"Well, she's going to go through some things" indeed.

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Moscow is an Open Carry Oblast, you know. It's why they gave to the NRA.

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And if this story doesn't work, is Rudy going to head back to the Ukraine and find another one ?

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Is that the same actress? I see some similarity, but I don't think it's the same person.

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HIS BRILLIANT CAREER

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Why not Moscow? Straight to the source!

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You might as well put "Venezuela" or "Greenland" in the poll.

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