Daniel Balan

From this day forth, I will no longer care about politics! I've come to the conclusion that for an average Joe as myself, caring about politics is detrimental to my personal development, peace of mind and my mental health. The political epistemic ecosystem is rotten to the core and the zone has been flooded with so much shit by all political, parties, from the all sides of politics, that it is simply impossible to arrive at a clear picture about how things really stand. I shall focus more on my personal development, I have only so much free time in a day, I can't use all my free time contemplating politics. I will still engage in my civic right of voting, but I will no longer spend countless hours ruminating about politics. When I will go to vote I will vote for the highest integrity, highest honesty, highest construct aware, highest spiral dynamics and ego development stage among all political parties and among all individual candidates. I must focus on myself, 2025 politics is the equivalent of a septic tank. I will no longer engage in such low consciousness mental activities.

Unparalleled quote! Thanks for it. I really needed to see this quote.

I've realised that the US is as big of a pig as Russia! Why on earth the US is now trying to steal the oil of the powerless Venezuela? This makes me wanna throw up. Doesn't the US have endless money? Can't they buy the damn oil fairy? I've never would have thought that I would start to buy into Russian narratives. This means that the filthy westerners have also done that in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and eastern Europe after the collapse of the communist regime. I've never would have thought that I would buy into Russian narratives, but what the US is doing now in Venezuela makes me sick.

@SchizophoniaI can't believe you take the soviet numbers as accurate, they lied from top to bottom about their economy, you can't trust anything number related from the USSR, the truth is that in the 90's people lived worse than in the 70's but without transition to a market economy the 90's would have been double or triple worse if they kept doubling down on communism. And the reason Ukraine, Belarus and Russia have a very low GDP per capita is because of corruption, no rule of law, no independent courts, no nothing, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are some of the most corrupt countries in the world, You westerners have no idea what corruption even is until you step foot in the ex-Soviet space, literally you guys in the west are living in a corrupt free paradise, Ex-Soviet countries have unimaginable levels of corruption.

The projection is off the charts here and laughable. This is exactly why China wants to invade Taiwan and why both China and North Korea hate South Korea and Japan. I can't believe how laughable these "Anti-Western, BRICS " naratives are, they are basically projecting their own devilry and wicked intentions on to the west.

@zazen When China will invade Taiwan, what will you say, Eastern Imperialism? Or the word imperialist is solely attributed to the corrupt decadent west? If Trump invades Venezuela is because he is a devil and a monster, not because of "WESTERN IMPERIALISM", the world is not a Soviet conspiracy theory.

@SchizophoniaBro, Russia and eastern Europe had no choice but to transition to a market economy, even if they wanted to remain communist they couldn't, the whole structure of the planned economy was falling down on itself, without the painful transition to the market economy, USSR and its Eastern Europe satellites would have had the same fate as The Weimar Republic in the late 1920's and early 1930's. The whole economy was in such dire straits that it could no longer bear its own weight. Some countries like Poland and Czechia had much more well thought transition phases, others like Russia, Ukraine, Romania had much more brutal outcomes. Why? Because Poland applied shock therapy, rapid well thought privatization, the population was educated on state television about free market, stock market and capitalism, whereas in Russia, Romania and Ukraine either the new private owners stole everything from the system or the state refused to privatize all together, for example in Romania it wasn't until 1996 until the state began privatization, here there was still this backward mentality of "Not selling the country to imperialist capitalists", this ended up destroying even the quasi profitable factories, the lack of proper serious privatization and the fact that the state continued to waste money on unprivatized, unmodernized factories, made the situation even worse, sky high inflation and a total destruction of even the factories that could have been saved with proper privatization by serious investors and modernisation. The fact that you don't see that communism was the very reason why people struggled massively in the 1990's is staggering. In the 1990's Russia and eastern Europe had to suffer precisely because of the effects of the disastrous communist management not because of the transition to a free market. The transition to a market was the medicine. Blaming the transition to the market economy It is like you are blaming your doctor for giving you treatment for a deadly disease.

@Schizophonia Ok, I'm openminded, but I still believe USSR was a textbook example of empire. They collonized the people of eastern Europe ideologically, they collonized the people who had capital and property and redistributed the land and the resources of the bourgeoisie to the lazy and unproductive. They collonized eastern Europe with north Korea style secret police, ineffective central planning and a total backward dictatorship. Furthermore, the industrialization was planned catastrophically, thus freezing eastern Europe for 50 years, after the collapse of the ussr, eastern Europe was after collonialism, the industry was bankrupt, people were starving, queueing for bread and clothes etc. Only after a colonialist empire there are such economic outcomes, easter Europe was in the same state as was a conquered city state after the retreat of the Roman empire back in ancient times, while Western Europe advanced industrially, economically, politically during the second half of the 20th century, after 1990, eastern Europe had to go back to square one to rebuild and create efficient industry, agriculture, manufacturing etc and the process is still a lot behind compared to western Europe. All of that because communism created only inefficient and without any economical fundation industrialization. When the communism collapsed, the local population had no capital whatsoever to start rebuilding, thanks to the communist "non imperialism" political framework. If freezing in place half a continent for almost 50 years is not the highest form of collonialism, I think I will give up.

@Schizophonia I'm hinting at the fact that you don't get any more imperialistic than USSR. Furthermore, until Stalin died, USSR treated the occupied eastern Europe the same way the british treated their African colonies. The soviets robbed eastern Europe of its resources until Stalin died.

Everyone works hard, but in the little time off Europeans have, Europe is extremely beautiful! Europe is much more chill and safe than the US! I would shit myself in the US knowing how many guns and assault rifles every average Joe has in his car or in his jacket. I love Europe so much, pristine art, pristine historical buildings and also as of the last 2 decades, a very pleasant wind of stage green.

@SchizophoniaI will spell the name for you. From Vladivostok to Warsaw, from the arctic circle to the middle east, the name in 1916 was Tzarist Russia, or better known, The Russian Empire. Lenin inherited the largest empire of the world.

@SchizophoniaBefore Lenin named the Russian state the Soviet Union, what was the name of the Russian state in 1916?

@SchizophoniaBrother, What was the former name of the state that Lenin took over? Tell me that, but slowly.

Who wrote that, Nikita Khrushchev?

@Elliott

Actually it makes a lot of sense for Russia, because if Ukraine liberalizes, the liberalization will inevitably spill into Russia. If Ukraine is another Belarus, No liberalization can leak to Russia because Ukraine would become a literal ideological buffer barrier. That's what this war is all about. Turning Ukraine into an ideological buffer.

To see happen what? I don't understand what you were trying to emphasize. Can you be more explicit?

It is of horrific coincidence that the US wants to protect democracy and human rights only in countries rich in natural resources.... Yet the US doesn't give a fuck about human rights in countries with 0 natural resources..... I am seriously going to vomit now🤢

You don't get my point, I don't talk about military invasion, the west would have loved to instate in the Kremlin a puppet that would allow western corporations like Exonmobil to steal all of Russia's resources.

Yes but I then connected some further dots in my mind and I came to the conclusion that the fate of Venezuela would be the fate of Russia if it weren't for Putin because Russia has also huge natural reserves of oil and gas.

I still am pro-Ukraine and Anti-Putin, I just don't understand the double standard. I totally agree that if Ukraine wants to westernize, Russia has no business in bullying Ukraine. But if Venezuela wants to give its oil sector to China, or that Venezuela wants to align with Russia and China, why is the US threatening Venezuela with full scale war?

Good, I understand that, but then why the US is meddling in Russia's backyard when the US is so annoyed and vindictive when China is meddling in its back yard? I thought that every country has the right to choose its own alliances. If Ukraine wants to join the west then Venezuela is allowed to give its oil to China. Or is it the case that Trump's mother had vomited that oil in Venezuela's ground and now the US is entitled to invade Venezuela and take it back? This is utter hypocrisy! It makes me sick to my core.

You know what? Maybe Putin saw that the west want to capture Ukraine and then steal all of its resources and thats why he invaded because after all Russia has invested for over 300 years into Ukraine to build its infrastructure, and for Putin this was a red line. And besides after Ukraine would be colonized by the west Russia itself was up for grabs too. I can't believe that 6 hours ago I couldn't now have believed what kind of perspective I have now on this war. This morning I was profoundly anti Putin but today at work, ruminating about the Venezuela issue, I have connected in my head these dots that have led me to arrive at this conclusion.

Isn't the US trying to do coup d'etas for over 2 decades in Venezuela? In order to successfully steal its resources? Do you think Putin is dumb? If Putin wouldn't have turned Russia into a total dictatorship the US would have tried doing coups in Russia too. And you can't sell the same bullshit narative that you can sell about Venezuela, that Venezuela's state enterprises can't properly extract the oil, because the Russian oligarchs that own the enterprises that produce Russia's oil are very efficient at extracting and refining oil, Western companies aren't necessary in Russia because Russia can handle the oil extraction business flawlessly already.

And you know what? If I were Putin and I would know that the west will do the same with Russia as they do now with Venezuela, I would have done exactly the same as he does.