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Itsveryquiet's avatar

This is terrific, and I just wanted to say these (timely!) historical posts are my favorite part of the newsletter, going back to the Third Republic series.

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dysphemistic treadmill's avatar

This is brilliant stuff. I feel like I am being fed tasty tidbits from a timeline I am otherwise ignorant of. But clearly Medvedev and Putin have been shaped by these issues. Understanding them requires understanding it.

Two small edits:

"But it’s worth nothing, like so much of the propaganda...."

I think you want "noting," not "nothing."

"Proudhon wrote that the did not believe...."

I assume you want "he" for "the".

I'm not trying to be a jerk by offering edits, just trying to repay you for your writing by helping you with some free proofreading. (I usually charge a lot!)

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John Ganz's avatar

very helpful!

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Jesse Dickerman's avatar

Good stuff as usual. Thanks for continuing to put out strong, original, pieces like this one.

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elm's avatar

I love this stuff! (I guess it's supposed to be boring?)

"In Medvedev’s telling, Poland has no real reason to fear Russia’s fond embraces and ought to remember everything has done for it."

Russia just wants to hug Poland and squeeze it and call it George.

It appears that the Russians, unable to call on the historical grounding of the Soviet Union, have opted to wholesale embrace reactionary Tsarism. They've duct-taped bits of the Soviet past on the outside of the ideological core (if it even has a true core). Interesting that they've lined up with the faction of the Republican party that is seeking the most reactionary bits of the American past. There's no coherent sense to any of it, which kind of highlights that it's merely an opportunistic trolling of history for the bits most likely to buttress arguments for whatever stupid thing they wish to do.

It's kind of an authoritarian tic at this point - I suppose it always has been.

elm

smells like steve bannon

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Dave's avatar

Very nice. When you can/are interested these sorts of posts on the left view of various aspects of history are very interesting.

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Tomas M-B's avatar

Hi. It's a wonderful article, and I would like to translate it for Lithuanian cultural and left-wing press, namely Šiaurės Atėnai (http://www.satenai.lt/) and GPB (https://gpb.lt/). But it's hard to find your e-mail or any other contact, so I'm writing here to ask for permission and any other details :) My e-mail, for reference, is t.marcinkevicius@gmail.com

Cheers from Lithuania

Tomas M.

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John Ganz's avatar

sure! go ahead

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