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How to Harm Putin and Help the US (along with Ukraine)
Russia has an economy heavily dependent on petroleum exports. High gas prices put cash in Putin’s pocket, along with other unsavory characters.
The way around this is the law of supply and demand. Open up the petroleum and gas production permit system and get to drilling. We could start exporting oil and natural gas and drive the price down with minimal government intervention — just get out of the way! We broke the Soviets economically and we can do the same thing to Putin.
Of course, this will not be implemented. After all, Ukraine may be amazing to the Left, but Mother Gaia is a jealous goddess. Besides, as Glenn Reynolds always says, there are insufficient opportunities for graft.
Published in Foreign Policy
It’s the cold war in reverse. We’re breaking ourselves economically this time.
Biden and the environmentalists hate the USA and Americans more than they hate Putin and Xi, more than they love the environment.
It is rare to see an intelligent economic argument sneak its way into any political discussion.
Rare, and all the more gratifying for it.
This is as good a place as any to toss out the following.
Like some people, none of whose names come immediately to mind, I say that this Ukraine business is boring and stupid and I don’t care. And yet I am not utterly unaware of related affairs. Here is what I think I know, and if I am in need of correction, I thank whoever supplies it. What I think I know is this:
Sometime earlier in this century, maybe ten years ago, there was on American TV a drama set in the White House. A few episodes of this show had to do with Russia. In those episodes, which were fiction, that country was being markedly unpleasant to homosexuals. Persecuting an activist or something. And the fictional President, or his staff, or his wife, as well as many real viewers in this country, were outraged. And for the purposes of the Ukraine today, still are. That is, whatever Russia’s true iniquities, it is mainly on account of a TV show that quite a few Americans really wish the worst on the country.
Is this true?
I don’t know if there was an episode of the West Wing involving Russia, but it would not surprise me. Russia also took a much harder line on LGBT issues that the US, with some issues coming up around the olympics in Sochi.
I have never heard this references regarding the current war.
I think that I know which show you mean, despite never having watched it.
Putin has been doing the same thing since he invaded Georgia to “liberate” the Georgian separatists in 2008. It maintains his grasp on power. Ethnic Russians in the targeted neighbor report being “repressed” by the local authorities and Vladimir stomps the opposition. Plans were probably in the works to do the same thing to Finland once Ukraine laid down, except this time Ukraine didn’t lie down.
Putin implemented the template for the RESTRICT act currently under consideration in Congress, in case anyone is interested in how these things work.
No. As the other comments say, if this show is supposedly so influential, how come we don’t know what it is? If this was such a big deal, its name would be known to all, like George Floyd or Charlottesville or Ferguson. Besides, why would a show about gays in Europe have any effect, let alone big effects, in the US? Most people don’t care to hear about the issue from either side. The attitudes of Ukrainians towards homosexuality are about the same as (pro-Russian) Hungary and (anti-Russian) Poland. They’re against it.
Why don’t Americans like Russia? For about seventy years we opposed Communism. That might be a lingering factor, even though they gave it up decades ago. Russia’s actions in Georgia and Crimea didn’t win them any friends.
Television is stupid and boring. Western Europe is also stupid and boring, though not nearly as stupid and boring as television.
Russia and Eastern Europe, on the other hand, are interesting. Unfortunately, it’s now unlikely that I’ll ever get to go bicycling in rural Russia (or anywhere in Russia), so why do I keep looking at the Bike Friday folding bicycles that would be more suitable for some of the back roads than what I have now? I like a lot of things about Russia, but when people want to Make Russia Great Again by invading other countries and keeping them from being great, that needs to be stopped. I also am not in favor of making the world safe for nuclear blackmail.
It was really the Saudis who did that, back in 1985 (same year Gorbachev became USSR GenSec, incidentally), when they abandoned their role as OPEC’s “swing producer” and went to full producing capacity, as a result of which the price of crude plunged from about $30 to about $10 in about 6 months (and stayed under $20 for the next few years).
We don’t? I figured we all knew that he was talking about The West Wing — a show that presented Democrats as the heroes they imagine themselves to be, with plots perfectly contrived to make all their policy ideas the kind which will turn the nation into a happy place filled with butterflies and cake.
It was propaganda from the start.
Yes, it was. However, I love the show. I discovered it about eight years ago, and I watched it a couple of times all the way through. I couldn’t stop laughing. It has some incredibly funny moments. :) :) It is definitely a Democrat’s fantasy. In every way. But that’s part of the humor, I think.
I wish more conservatives had watched it because it does give an accurate portrayal of how the Democrats live and breathe politics all the time. Most conservatives are working and doing other things. We don’t get involved in politics unless there is a compelling reason to do so. It’s hard to combat a political party that never shuts off.
That wasn’t the issue. Yeah, I know what The West Wing is. John was making a request for confirmation or denial that a specific episode about Russian homophobia (is that an accurate description?) had such big effects that a disapproving America turned against Russia in general. “My goodness, we have to support Ukraine! After all, Moscow won’t air “Queer Eye”!
If that’s what John is asking, the answer is clearly “no”. If it were true, someone or another on the Member Feed would have proclaimed it. Support, or non-support of Ukraine has nothing to do with it.
I have no idea about any episode trying to show Russia as a homophobic country. I could barely stomach the few episodes I did watch. All the characters were insufferable.
Agreed. And I also agree that the mainstream press never lets us forget that Russia feels that way, and rarely points out that our allies in that part of Europe also feel that way.
But did this incident he’s asking about ever happen? No.
Putin has been pushing his support for traditional values (which apparently include murder, indiscriminate bombing, rape, torture, and child abduction as well). It doesn’t seem to be getting a lot of traction. Nazis under every bed didn’t work. Ukrainian biolabs full of weaponized viruses didn’t work. Putin can’t play the Ukrainian government corruption angle as fully as he’d like because the Ukes are pikers compared to the Russkies. That leaves him with rattling the ol’ nuclear saber, which works better on Millennials and Gen-Zers than it does on Boomers, because this is where we came in.