Russia-Ukraine Week 16A: Refuting Medium shitposter Barry Gander

Refuting the lies of Barry Gander

And lies they are.

Some people who read foreign policy stories here are familiar with the Russia-bashing, Cold War mentality, facts-light stories of Barry Gander. (That’s not all he writes about; he comes off as a mainstream Democrats only “librul” [sic, to show the sarcasm dripping] who can’t think beyond that, especially on foreign policy.) This is an edited and expanded version of a comment to him in a thread where he called me an “apologist for Russia.”

Ahh, first the stupidity of twosiderism.

In this case, assuming that because I criticize your wrongness and fact-lite-ness, that I show Ukraine has a worse demographic crisis than Russia, and, going past that, that I criticize the US’ broken promises on NATO expansion and more, that I somehow am an “apologist for Russia.”

It’s twosiderism, simple-mindedness, and …a lie.

On twosiderism, as I often do on my blog, let me quote the philosopher Idries Shah:

‘To ‘see both sides’ of a problem is the surest way to prevent its complete solution. Because there are always more than two sides.’ To ‘see both sides’ of a problem is the surest way to prevent its complete solution.’

So, you might start with some learning there.

That said, some actual facts?

I said the other day that Ukraine is mentioned repeatedly in the Pandora Papers. That’s a fact; a reasonable derivative from that is that Ukraine is as corrupt as Russia. A fact, not just a reasonable derivative, is that Zelensky is basically about as corrupt as Putin. That and more, and all in a short read (the first original link is long) is all here.

As for Pope Francis being more honest than Joe Biden about NATO “Barking” at Russia? Right here with the Goldilocks 3 Bears of Kissinger on the right, the NYT editorial board on the center and Chomsky on the left, all supporting peace talks. (So does the Pope, by the way.) But, Gardner, I guess you support NATO fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian? (Ditto for others of his ilk.)

Oh, those broken promises over NATO expansion? Despite the lies (no other word for it) of a few nat-secs to claim no such promises were made? They were. Instead of a blog post, I’ll present you a review of Stephen Walt’s latest book.

Ukraine breaking the Minsk Agreements? Oh, those “apologists for Russia” at the BBC and Reuters, among other places? How DARE they mention this?! But, they do, as linked within this blog post.

All ACTUAL FACTS, Barry.

What started this is his latest claim (repeated about every two weeks) that Russia’s in some massive demographic decline. I pointed out that, per Wiki, Ukraine is worse than Russia is on both birth rate and death rate, and between those and emigration, on population loss by percentage.

Then, he said Ukraine is some massive powerhouse economically compared to Russia. Taking the 2000–2020 period (which comes before the first post-Crimea Western sanctions on Russia and the first post-Maidan extra aid to Ukraine) Russia actually was performing as good or better than Ukraine. (I forgot to mention those caveats in that comment, or in my first response to Gander, when he went with a post-2015 period.

Contra another post of his, as shown by its exports, Russia is far more than "a gas station with trinkets." That post has the additional problem, as do some of his previous ones, of conflating the old USSR with post-breakup Russia and doing no economic adjustment. (Nor does Barry want to talk about the US, via the IMF and World Bank, and other things, giving more favorable treatment to China than to the old USSR or post-breakup Russia.)

Also refuting Barry? Warmonger Joe has actually stimulated Russia's economy. (Warmonger Trump before him helped.)

Gander is basically close to shitposter territory and I may just tell him that bluntly if he responds to my latest comment.