Some out there agree with Trump that we can have good relations with Russia and not compromise the many ideals we profess to have as a nation. I suggest this is as foolish as the FBI’s belief you could partner up with high level organized crime figures such as members of the Mafia or vicious criminals as Whitey Bulger and Stevie “Benji Ditchman” Flemmi. We know what happened to the FBI when it started its partnership with the latter two as part of its Top Echelon Informant program. It came out smelling like a benjo ditch.
For those who wonder what that is I provide the following definition: ““benjo ditch,” it is a shallow, gently-sloping ditch that funnels water and human waste from the cities in Japan out to the fields for use as fertilizer. These ditches line the roads in town, and if you’re lucky, you’ll find most of them covered with small concrete slabs.” Having had the experience of spending over a year in Japan and driving my early 1950s Mercury through the countryside around Tokyo I was quite familiar with the stink emanating from these open sewer systems. I had forgotten about it until I got involved in the Whitey Bulger case.
That case being over I again am reminded of it when I think of Putin and Russia. The same odor emanates from them. Putin’s Russia is plain and simple a gangster state. It is run by and for gangsters. The simple proof of this is the way it has cheated in the Olympic games. It is not the athletes who are cheating but the nation.
What good is winning if you are cheating. I know some guys liked to win at all costs even in pickup games of one on one. I’ve never understood what satisfaction they got from that knowing they lost but deluding themselves into thinking they won.
What thoroughly boggles my mind is a nation cheating to win in a sports event. I think a British athlete Jo Pavey put it best: “As a clean athlete you want to go out there and feel like you are competing on a level playing field and the thought that a nation itself would be systematically doping its athletes is absolutely shocking.”
Pavey hoped the other athletes were not cheating but she could not imagine a nation would cheat. What kind of nation cheats other than a gangster nation?
Pavey participated in the 2012 Olympics in London and lost out in a bronze medal to a Russian who was doped up. She deserved to stand on the podium proud of her accomplishment but the Putin state cheated her out of it.
Paula Radcliffe another British athlete said: “Always suspected it but finally confirmation that the Russian Athletics Federation have denied me of my finest moments of my career.” You want to deal with people who did this?
The Russian gangster scam which one paper said “senior Russian officials carried out one of the biggest conspiracies in sports history” worked so well in 2012 it decided to double down at the Sochi Winter Olympics also known as the Putin Olympics. There the gangsters having the games in their own bailiwick could not resist the chance to run wild and deprive clean athletes of their day in the sun.
What kind of people are these that cheat on a nation-wide basis from the top officials down to the athletes in the arena. In 2016 “more than 110 of the 387-strong Russian team have been banned from the Games” which were held in Brazil.
Next year in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the Russians have been banned as a nation. Its clean athletes can compete but not under the Russian flag. The Olympic Committee noted: “Despite repeated Russian denials, the Schmid report has found evidence of “the systemic manipulation of the anti-doping rules and system” which back up previous allegations of government involvement in cheating in the run-up to and during the Winter Olympics almost four years ago. . . . This was an unprecedented attack on the integrity of the Olympic Games and sport.” (my emphasis)
You will notice one constant throughout many of these investigations is the Russian denials despite overwhelming evidence against it. The bottom line is a nation that will cheat athletes from other nations of the honors associated with years of hard work could only be run by people without any conscious or conception of right or wrong. Those are gangsters. If the United States tries to deal with the Russians it too will put out the same odor to the world as the Russians.
Watched this youtube program last night
Best explanation I have seen for Gorbachev and Glasnost
never understood
now I do
the way way way backstory
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h9CAftwO1x8
Dan, I didn’t know either that there were other nation’s teams banned from the Olympics, but I found this on the Internet (Wikipedia):
“1964 Summer Olympics
Indonesia and North Korea withdrew after the IOC decision to ban teams that took part in the 1963 Games of the New Emerging Forces.
South Africa was suspended from the Olympics due to its apartheid policies. The suspension would be lifted in 1992.”
I also found Kuwait was banned, five countries were banned for participating in WWI (the losers) and 2 for participating in WWII . . . better to be banned for cheating than waging war.
Even it a State waged war, that doesn’t mean its people were warlike or should be banned. It autocratic states everything can be blamed on the government. In the US, we divide up the labor between private actors and public actors. But when the US Olympic Committee screws up, we wouldn’t say the Nation, America, screwed up, would we?
I think Putin is dreadful, and I was astonished to learn that Russian intelligence agents were apparently used to switch urine samples at the Olympics! How humiliating to have your entire nation kicked out of the games.
But as long as Russia has a large, modern nuclear strike force, we’ve got to try to make nice with them. And they with us. (I’m sure they have some trust issues with a man whose skin, hair and teeth are fake.)
Thank you for expanding my vocabulary. Never will the Clintons be brought to my attention without the term “benji ditch” bubbling up to put them in meaningful context.
The Olympics are mired in deep scandal before any athletes become involved. The bribery involved in picking host sites would make the most nefarious operative under Beacon Hill’s Golden Dome envious.
But the Olympics are a meaningless entertainment compared to the greater issue of mankind’s future. No war with Russia is an important policy objective. it is not shared by neoliberals or neocons, neither of which seem to have any regard for America or the well being of our military personnel. They only give a damn about Israel and vague memories of past anti-czar propaganda campaigns. Neither causes are beneficial to the interests of 99.8 % + of the American people.
Putin can sit in his office deflating soccer balls and basketballs before every match up in the Olympics. I do not care. He still has to be dealt on more important matters such as avoiding a nuclear exchange. There is no reason to consider Putin persona non grata in international affairs. He is a “player” whether Russia shoots up a few athletes or not.
If one feels an obligation to mount a high horse to parade one’s ethical purity one could more usefully stick to America’s domestic scene. Steer that mighty steed, Self-Righteous, towards the Benji Ditch Duo, Hillary & Bill. They inhabit a swamp that can be drained without a nuclear war.
Tadzio, well said!
Russia is a gangster nation in the manner in which Putin enriches himself. The Panama Papers revealed a lot of this. Essentially, he uses the Russian oligarchs money as his own personal slush fund.
How about in the way Hillary and Bill enriched themselves . . . “public servants” their whole life through . . . worth $150 million . . . and their quasi-political charity raking in over $1 billion where almost 80% of employees are former government/political employees under Bill and Hill. Ever hear of the Clinton Crime Family.
At least Trump earned his in the private sector.
God bless Russia, Iran, Assad and Hezbollah for defeating ISIS and Al Nusra in Syria. Consequently U S soldiers didn’t have to die in that war. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Israel and Turkey were absent from that fight against the Takfiris. America needs Russia to help in the struggle against terrorism. Without Russian assistance the fight against piracy off Somalia, the issues in the Artic Ocean, the problems with North Korea and a just resolution in Ukraine would be considerably more difficult to attain. Don’t be afraid to negotiate. Reagan had dialogue with Gorbachev which ended pretty well.
NC:
I guess Iraq and Kurdish forces had nothing to do with ISIS elimination ISIS with the backing of American advisors and air power.What was that “fake news.” Mosul didn’t exist. ISIS wasn’t there.
My recollection is the the Russians etc. were fighting the forces who were not ISIS but were against Assad. Yes, God bless the guy that gasses his people and the Russians that block the investigation into it.
Not sure your love affair with Putin is letting you see clearly. Never heard Russia played a major role in defeating Somalia piracy – perhaps you can enlighten me as to where I could find it. don’t see it playing much in the Arctic unless it is to be credited with not starting a war, hardly is is helping with North Korea when it is still trading with Kim and accusing the US of causing Kim to be upset, and it is waging war in Ukraine. God bless the Russians for all that? It seems it is getting more difficult to find good things they do. You should know you can’t negotiate with gangsters.
Ah, Matt. Good points, but I don’t fully follow the logic.
My view of Russia and the Russian people is more akin National Geographic’s portrait in the December 2016 and other more recent analysis. A nation with an autocratic system breaking on through to the other side; embracing modernity, traditions, exorcising the past (Read the article I cited about the non-celebration of the 100 year anniversary of the Russian Revolution) and looking forward to the future.
As for cheating: East Germany cheated for decades, but so did US teams.
At Sochi (2016) I recall about 30 athletes tested positive out of 230 competing. And yes the dopers where higher ups in Russian Sports.
Remember the Chicago Black Sox. Some teams cheat; some officials cheat; some U.S. colleges get punished for recruiting violations, academic violations . . .Remember, Jimmy O’Brien . . . some colleges like Penn State cover predators . . . Feds are currently investigating college pay-offs: Administrators, coaches, etc, at such prestigious institutions at Auburn, Louisville, Arizona, etc.
Syracuse, North Carolina and Miami all were punished for drug, recruiting, etc. Some colleges graduated illiterate athletes; some Insitutions flunked out 60% of their athletes before graduation, but after the sports season.
You see my point!
I wouldn’t call America a “gangster” nation because of widespread Institutional cheating in Sports over the decades.
I agree Putin is an autocrat, and there are about 50 autocrats in the World, like in China, who we better learn to forge better relationships with.
Russians are human beings like Americans. The Russian people are good, wonderful, artistic, athletic, scientific, musical, literate, creative, hard-working, perserving and Orthodox Christianity is returning to Russia.
As Tillerson noted, we have to work with Russia; Russia can help in North Korea, the Middle East, Central Asia, and elsewhere.
Trust by verify!
P.S. I believe a better road ahead for Ukraine is peaceful negotiations with the West and Russia.
Some of my favorite people are Ukrainians, like the great boxing brothers with PhDs, the world champion Klitschko brothers (sp?); like the American actor Jack Palance, writers Gogol, Babel, composers Prokofiev (Peter and the Wolf), pianist Valentina Lisista (who wonderfully performs Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2) ; Solzhenitsyn’s mother was Ukrainian, gymnasts Lysenko, Tymoshenko, the Freedom Fighters, the resisters, the poets, the peace makers, et al.
Bill:
A US team cheating is not a nation cheating. You should check your facts. There has been massive cheating by the Russian state and it was state policy. That’s why Russia is banned. It is not some higher ups.
I don’t see your point. You seem to confuse individual and team cheating with a nation cheating. You mention one other nation East Germany and you do know that was a Russian puppet country. The United States never had a government program to cheat like Russia did.
As for Ukraine, why is it supposed to negotiate with a country that attacked it and continues to attack it. How does a country get into peaceful negotiations with another country that wants to grab its territory? Ukraine has peace with the West what is it to negotiate there.
Matt: A team cheating is not a nation cheating; an Olympic team cheating does not mean the nation cheated. The Black Sox Team cheating did not mean Chicago cheated. When football teams wore tear-away jerseys, they cheated, many teams in the USA . . . it did not mean the Nation cheated. You’re citing one team in Russia, the Olympic Team, and impugning an entire nation.
As for Ukraine not negotiating with its invader/enemy: America invaded Vietnam, Korea, and those conflicts were settled by negotiation. Israel invaded Lebanon, and that was ended by negotiations. Want continued war? Don’t negotiate. Want to drag the rest of the world into war, like Austria and Serbia did pre-WWI, don’t negotiate.
Ukraine’s GDP per capita is about $9,500. If it continues its intransigence and bellicose ways, it’s economy will continue to plummet. It’s only hope is negotiation.
Matt: A team cheating is not a nation cheating; an Olympic team cheating does not mean the nation cheated. The Black Sox Team cheating did not mean Chicago cheated. When football teams wore tear-away jerseys, they cheated, many teams in the USA . . . it did not mean the Nation cheated. You’re citing one team in Russia, the Olympic Team, and impugning an entire nation.
As for Ukraine not negotiating with its invader/enemy: America invaded Vietnam, Korea, and those conflicts were settled by negotiation. Israel invaded Lebanon, and that was ended by negotiations. Want continued war? Don’t negotiate. Want to drag the rest of the world into war, like Austria and Serbia did pre-WWI, don’t negotiate.
Ukraine’s GDP per capita is about $9,500. If it continues its intransigence and bellicose ways, it’s economy will continue to plummet. It’s only hope is negotiation.
If the National Football League players and coaches all knelt down during the Anthem, would we say the Nation disrespected the anthem? Of course not!
If Fanny Mae or the IRS cheated the people, we wouldn’t say America is a cheating nation or the American people are a bunch of cheaters. We’d say that agency or that committee or that Olympic Committee, even if it were government run, cheated . . . not the entire Nation.