Why The Neutralist? The term Isolationist implies a narrow Fortress America outlook and is used as an epithet. The term Neutralist does not indicate someone hiding out from the world. No one calls the Swiss isolationists. The Wilsonian world view is old, tired and wrong. Our interventions have been less and less successful and now the failure can no longer be covered up.

Saturday, December 20, 2014

Vox Media’s Anti-Russia fanatic Max Fisher reductios to his personal absurdum

The most consistent aspect of Max Fisher’s coverage is that it is unhinged.  He is a serial Russia hater in article after article.  His Vox August 27th screed, Let’s be clear about this: Russia is invading Ukraine right now conjured up visions of the Wehrmacht breaking down the border gate with panzers rolling.
Of course, that did not happen but the lad is not deterred.  He must be running out of bile, as there is nothing but buffoonery in his recent This quote about Putin’s machismo from Angela Merkel is just devastating.  Max had to go all the way back to 2007 to dredge up something so little.  According to Max;
“The incident of Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel, and the dog is a famous one. It was 2007 and Merkel, Germany's Chancellor, was visiting Putin at his presidential residence in Sochi to discuss energy trade. Putin, surely aware of Merkel's well-known fear of dogs, waited until the press gathered in the room, then called for his black Labrador to be sent in. The Russian president watched in unconcealed glee as the dog sniffed at Merkel, who sat frozen in fear.”

Yeah, tough ol’ Angela is afraid of a labrador.  It must be a hell of a phobia.  Labs have got to be about the friendliest pups around.  We’ve owned a few and as to protection from robbers, they’d help the thieves to the silverware just to be neighborly.

Okay, I don’t know what drives fear of mutts, but according to the Fish, what Angie said next was the ne plus ultra of digs;

"I understand why he has to do this — to prove he's a man," Merkel said. "He's afraid of his own weakness. Russia has nothing, no successful politics or economy. All they have is this."

Max thinks it “one of the most pithily succinct insights into Putin and the psychology of his 14-year reign that I have read.”

For all I know he’s right, but devastate means “to lay waste; render desolate.”  Moi, I think your man is reaching a tad.  Maybe Angie was upset because Vlad is more macho than La Chancellor.

I suppose Putin did enjoy his little bit of fun.  We don’t know what may have been going on between the two and it may have been some smallness on his part.  The operative word here is small and Merkel’s words were nothing grand.

Why the drumbeat.  Max and Vox are not the only ones.  There is a lot of media out there that are screaming that Putin is the antichrist.  Well, at least another Hitler, but then again isn’t just about everyone eventually.  The hysteria sounds a lot like the propaganda leading up to the Iraq invasion.

That was stupid, and so is the Putin as devil narrative. The difference is Russia has nukes, the Iraqis didn’t.  Destroying Iraq led to many bad events, but there was none of Condi Rice’s mushroom cloud smoking gun.  No one doubts what the Russkies could do if pushed too far.

I have no answer as to why Fisher, with the probable blessing of his editors, keeps this up.

Vox Media appears to be a start up with angel investor funding.  It does not seem to make a profit yet and won’t soon if the level of advertising is any indication.  So far, it is little more than a present to its staff and writers.

The Putin/Russia as mad dog aggressor trope is pervasive across the mainstream media.  It is a lie, but why?  It can’t be just to provide a sinecure to Joe Biden’s drug addled kid.

Well, maybe it sort of is.  Hunter B.’s job isn’t crucial, but The Ukraine has, as the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports, Europe’s third-largest shale gas reserves at 42 trillion cubic feet.  According to Consortium News, this is “an inviting target especially since other European nations, such as Britain, Poland, France and Bulgaria, have resisted fracking technology because of environmental concerns. An economically supine Ukraine would presumably be less able to say no.”

That may be why we are bugging the former Soviets, but does not explain why so many so-called news outlets fall into line.  The pervasive toadying on the issue from the major outlets down to the fashionable lefty vanity sites like Vox is amazing to watch.

In the case of Fisher it could be he has some unfathomable hatred or he knows which side his bread is buttered on.  Either way, it is not a sterling testament to his character.


By the way, Vox seems to have no comment section.  Well this saves them the trouble of trolls, i.e. those who are so unsophisticated that they notice when someone is full of it and tell the little emperors how unwell dressed they are.

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