#tucker carlson in moscow

[tomorrowusa]

The "interview" was more like a Ted Cruz filibuster – but even less factual.

Putin ranted quite a bit about his self-serving, imperialistic view of Ukrainian history. Russian ethno-nationalists want their Western dupes to think that Ukraine is some sort of offshoot of Russia. The truth is closer to the opposite of that.

What is now Ukraine had a thriving culture for centuries when Moscow was still just a shit hole on the banks of a tributary of a tributary of the Volga River.

Russia even stole its name from Ukraine.

Stealing History: How Moscovia (Muscovy) is stealing Ukrainian history

Putin used Tucker Carlson to push propaganda as if Tucker were an employee of Russian state TV.

Putin would never grant an interview to a legit Western journalist. That tells us something about Tucker Carlson.

BONUS TRACK...

Tucker Carlson interview: Fact-checking Putin's 'nonsense' history

[afranse]

Ведут на убой безмолвной скотиной

Русских, бурят, татар, осетинов,

Шагают где строем, а где и гурьбой,

Мобилизованные на убой.

Тувинцы, башкиры, чеченцы, грузины

Спешат на убой безмолвной скотиной.

Одни от снарядов, другие картечью

Закроют все счёты с судьбою навечно.

А если б они повернули на кремль,

Поняв, что не время им гибнуть, не время,

Что власть к ним относится словно к лохам,

И гонит на смерть их кремлёвский пахан.

То этот мордатый пахан и убийца,

Фашист, словоблуд, душегуб, кровопийца,

Не смог бы их больше вести на убой,

И скрылся в застенках тюремной тропой.

########################

Getting led to slaughter like a silent cattle

Russians, Buryats, Tatars, Ossetians,

They walk in formation, and die in formation,

They are mobilized for the death and cremation.

Tuvans, Bashkirs, Chechens as cattle

Led to the slaughter where gunshots are rattle.

Some folks from the shells, while others from buckshot

Will get separated from life and from God.

But if they would have turned their guns towards the kremlin,

Realized that their life is precious for their families.

And authorities treat them much worse than the cattle,

While kremlin mobster drives them into battle.

Then kremlin godfather, a fan of mass murder,

Verbiage talker, bloodsucker and loyal absurder.

Could no longer lead them to bloody bath,

And disappeared on prison path.

[lasseling]

Tucker Carlson’s 5 Key Takeaways from the Putin Interview:

#1 - Putin is “very wounded” by the rejection of the West. • “That’s the whole point of NATO, I guess, is to contain Russia. And Putin is wounded by this.”

#2 - “Russia is not an expansionist power.” • “You have to be an idiot to think that. Russia is too big already. It’s the biggest landmass in the world. They only have 150,000,000 people.” • They’ve Got more than enough natural resources. They’re swimming in natural resources. They don’t have enough people, in their view. So, the idea that they want to take over Poland, why would you want to do that? They just want secure borders.”

#3 - Putin likely wants peace in Ukraine • “He was willing to admit that he wants a peace deal in Ukraine and sort of give it away and just say that out loud. He said it a couple of different times. Again, maybe he’s lying in ways I didn’t perceive, but he kept saying it, and I don’t know why he would say it if he didn’t mean it.” • “As a matter of fact, there is evidence, overwhelming, that there was a peace deal, or part of a peace deal with the beginning of peace talks, a settlement of some sort on the table a year and a half ago that the former prime minister of Great Britain, Boris Johnson, scuttled on behalf of the Biden administration and convinced Zelensky and the Ukrainian government not to enter into these talks. I mean, that’s kind of an established fact. The Israelis were there. They revealed this. That happened.”

#4 - Demands for Russia to relinquish Crimea are insane. • “U.S. officials have said on the record and have said to me and are telling a bunch of people that part of the terms have to be Russia giving up Crimea!” • “Putin would go to war, nuclear war, if it came down to Crimea.” • “If you really think that a condition of peace is that Putin is going to give up Crimea, then you’re like a lunatic!”

#5 - The U.S. has a poor track record with regime change. • “We are run by nutcases. The President and that poisonous moron Victoria Nuland. ‘Oh, we’re going to depose Putin.’ Well, then what happens?” • “What happened in Libya when we deposed and allowed, you know, Qaddafi to be murdered? What happened in Iraq when we brought Saddam to justice? Those countries fell apart, and they never been rebuilt again.”

• “In Afghanistan, we took out the central government, and they came back. It’s still run by the Taliban. So, our track record of knocking out the leader, which is very easy to do, is spotty at best. Things don’t always get better. And to do that to Russia, the largest landmass in the world with the largest nuclear arsenal, you’re on drugs if you think that’s a good idea.”

@TuckerCarlson

[mockva]

“What a beautiful Moscow metro,” admired Tucker Carlson

[k-anon2023]

My name? Comrade Carlson. Comrade ‘Aid and Succor’ Tucker Carlson.

[ervinux-blog]

Tucker and Putin

[liberalsarecool]

Connect the dots. Brexit, Trump, Ukraine.

Putin is controlling the global right wing for decades. The goal: drag democracy down.

BTW, Tucker Carlson is in Moscow.

[tabileaks]

As Exhaust Carlson prepares to meet with Vladimir Putin, the world anticipates the outcome of this encounter and its potential implications for international relations. While it remains to be seen how the meeting will unfold, one thing is certain: the dialogue between these two influential figures has the potential to shape perceptions, influence policy debates, and contribute to the evolving dynamics of global politics.

[unhonestlymirror]

Putin told his version of the history of the GDL and said that Zelensky's father fought against fascism, although he was born after the war

In an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, russian president Vladimir Putin said that he considers the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to be a russian state, as "russians made up a significant part of this state." According to him, after the unification of the Grand Duchy and the Kingdom of Poland, the Poles began to annex the lands of modern Ukraine.

.

Laughing my ass off. Grand Duchy of Lithuania consisted mostly of Lithuanians. Lithuanians back then were: Lietuviai, Lićviny, Samogitians, and Ruthenians (people of Kyivan Rus'). Well, and a bit of Tatars. Lietuviai are modern Lithuanians, Lićviny are modern Belaruthians, Ruthenians (rusy) are modern Ukrainians. And Ruthenians made about 1/3 of GDL, not "most of them". There were no russians in Grand Duchy of Lithuania because russians were called muscovites back then, who eventually occupied Belaruthian Smalensk. Vytautas tried to make a friend out of moscow Duchy, but since russia has always been sick in the head, he didn't succeed, sadly.

And GDL wasn't also called "Lithuanian-russian". It was called "Lithuanian-Ruthenian-Samogitian" because Ukrainians are pretty independent.

[afranse]

Два Карлсона, два маргинала,

В два голоса нам песню пели.

Один - в гостях у криминала,

Другой - с опорой на пропеллер.

Они фальшивили реально,

Но пели долго и упорно.

Один - в кремле был с дикарями,

Другой - кружил над крышей дома.

Один чужой, другой был местный,

Один - в гостях был у убийцы,

Другой вернулся к нам из детства,

И презирал пропагандистов.

Один не знал ещё ни слова

Про виртуальную реальность,

Другой считал - всему основа

Теорий конспираций анус.

Один подсушенный, как вобла,

Другой пушистенький, как веник,

Один старался ради мёда,

Другой старался ради денег.

Один порхал, как вольный ветер.

Другой за бабки лез из кожи.

И не было существ на свете

Ещё сильнее непохожих.

######################

Two Carlsons, two individuals,

Best kid’s friend and conspirator’s theories seller.

One of them visits a mass murder war criminal,

The other one holds hopes high on his impressive propeller.

They both had different values in life.

One was quite, another one had a big mouse.

One was visiting kremlin to support imperialistic savages,

The other one circled over the roof of the house.

One was a stranger, the other was local,

One was visiting the kremlin beast.

Another one returned to us from the childhood,

And deeply despised the propagandists.

One hasn’t learned anything yet

About collusions and virtual reality,

Another one knew that he makes a fortune

Promoting conspiracy theories rally.

One was dried up like a cocroach,

The other one was fluffy, like a wide broom,

One tried hard for the sake of honey,

Another worked for dough in the kremlin gun room.

One felt in life like a free wind.

The other one ended up as kremlin’s brainwashing opera participant.

And there are no other two creatures in the universe

Even more dissimilar, even more different.

[dostoyevsky-official]

here's the deal, by the way: the real reason tucker carlson went to moscow is because he was sent by trump and/or the GOP to lay out a draft peace plan for russia for when trump gets elected. the interview is secondary, a smokescreen

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

Because he’s a god damned traitor who is payed by Putin to spread Russian propaganda while simultaneously dividing Americans.

😡🤬

[mariacallous]

Tucker Carlson went to Moscow last week and had an absolute blast. He rode the subway and marveled at its clean cars, the fancy tilework in Kievskaya Station, and the lack of booze-drenched hobos. He went to a grocery store and was astonished by what ordinary people could apparently buy. He even managed to meet a local history buff and sit down for tea and conversation. Carlson, who had never previously visited Moscow, declared himself “radicalized” against America’s leaders by the experience. He didn’t want to live in Moscow, but he did want to know why we in America have to put up with street crime and crappy food when the supposedly bankrupt Russia provided such a nice life for its people, or at least those people not named Alexei Navalny.

My former Atlantic colleague Ralph Waldo Emerson called travel a “fool’s paradise,” but not all forms of foolishness are equal. Many commentators have guffawed at Carlson’s Russophilia and pointed out that Russia’s murder rate is roughly that of the United States, and that its citizens are dirt poor, about a fifth as wealthy per capita as the citizens of the United States overall. “I don’t care what some flagship supermarket in an imperial city looks like,” The Dispatch’s Jonah Goldberg tweeted. “Russia is far, far poorer than our poorest state, Mississippi.” Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal suggested that Carlson instead visit the grocery stores of the “10th or 50th” richest Russian cities, and see how they compare with America’s.

In 2019, I visited several large and small Russian cities, and I went grocery shopping at least once in each. Would you believe that Tucker Carlson is on to something? In Moscow (the largest) and St. Petersburg (No. 2), the flagship supermarkets are indeed spectacular. The Azbuka Vkusa branch next to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow is more luxurious than any grocery store within 100 miles of Washington, D.C. Other branches in Moscow vary in quality, and they are usually smaller than American supermarkets. But to some extent that’s just a matter of culture: The U.S. has fewer supermarkets, but each one is big enough to feed the 82nd Airborne Division for a month; in Europe, supermarkets are more numerous but tiny.

Makhachkala (22), the capital of Dagestan, followed a similar pattern to Moscow. One supermarket downtown was amazing, the equal of an upscale supermarket in Washington or Dallas. On the outskirts the quality varied, but not drastically. Local residents were not eating soups made from grass clippings. In Murmansk (71), the cramped bodega near my rented flat had a good wine selection and enough fresh staple foods to prepare a different meal your mom would approve of every day of the week. Only in Derbent (134) did I start to wonder whether the bad old days of the Soviet Union were still in effect. But even that would be an exaggeration. In Derbent, for $15, you could get champagne and caviar with blini and velvety sour cream. If you want to flash back to Cold War communism, go to Havana. There the grocery stores stock only dust and mildew.

With apologies to Emerson, travel can disabuse you of foolish notions just as often as it plants them in your head. An idea ripe for dispelling among Americans at this particular moment is that life in Russia must suck because the frigid depression of the Cold War never ended. In those days ordinary citizens were spied upon and tortured and killed, and the shops were empty, save for substandard goods at prices few could afford. Now Russia is different. The state repression is much more limited, though no less brutal toward those who attract its attention. Until the Ukraine war added a huge category of forbidden topics, the main ones that you could get locked up for discussing were war in the Caucasus and the personal life and finances of President Vladimir Putin and his inner circle. Most other topics were broachable, and you could whine all you liked about them.

Equally in need of updating are American expectations about Russian economic misery. Those whose visits to Russia stopped 20 years ago tend to have outdated views of the best the country has to offer. My visits started 24 years ago. Back then, I spent days at a time on the Trans-Siberian, crammed into railway cabins with little to do but talk with Russians and see how they lived. Life was not beautiful. The men busied themselves with crosswords and sullenly browsed pornography. When not in motion, I stayed with Russian friends in single-room flats that looked straight out of a New York tenement building 100 years ago. No one I met was starving, but women sometimes approached me in train stations hoping to rent out their homes or bodies, or to sell me family heirlooms. That type of desperation seems to have subsided, although I would be shocked if any of those people are able to buy the jamón ibérico at the Smolenskaya branch of Azbuka Vkusa yet. On the roads between the big cities, there are still villages so ramshackle that they look like sets from The Little Rascals. Evidence suggests that the Russian military’s frontline troops tend to come from these depressed and benighted lands, the places that really are stuck in the 20th century.

Certain aspects of life remain dismal even in the cities. My flat in Murmansk had surly drunks tottering outside its entrance, and its stairwell smelled like every cat, dog, and human resident had marked its territory there regularly since the Brezhnev era. But the playgrounds were decent, and you could get a delicious smoked-reindeer pizza at a cozy restaurant for $7. Remember, this is in a small, depressed Russian city—not somewhere stocked with goodies just in case an American wanders out of the lobby of the Radisson and needs to be impressed. The “useful idiots” of yesteryear were treated to fake Moscows, which evanesced as soon as the next Aeroflot flights took off. The luxuries of Moscow that Carlson sees, and that I saw, are not evanescent, and they are not (as they are in North Korea, say) a curated experience available only to those on controlled visits.

The stubborn belief that all good things in Russia must be illusory can in turn warp one’s analysis of the country, and in particular of Putin’s durability in power. After all, why would anyone remain loyal to an autocrat who delivered only hunger, penury, and the reek of cat piss? Putin rules by fear but not only by fear. Most Russians will tell you that Russia today is better than it was before Putin. They compare it not with the Soviet era but with the anarchy and decline of the 1990s. Life expectancy has risen, public parks are better maintained, and certain fruits of capitalism can be tasted by Russians of all classes. Who would risk these gains? Like every autocrat, Putin has ensured that his downfall just might destroy every good thing Russia has experienced in the past two decades. This risk is, from the perspective of regime continuity, a positive feature, because it keeps all but the most principled and brave opposition quiet, and content to shut up and enjoy their cheap caviar. Those like Navalny who object do not object for long.

Carlson’s videos never quite say what precisely he thinks Russia gets right. Moscow is in many ways superior to New York. But Paris has a good subway system too. Japan and Thailand have fine grocery stores, and I wonder, when I enter them, why entering my neighborhood Stop & Shop in America is such a depressing experience by comparison. Carlson’s stated preference for Putin’s leadership over Joe Biden’s suggests that the affection is not for fine food or working public transit but for firm autocratic rule—which, as French, Thais, and Japanese will attest, is not a precondition for high-quality goods and services. And in an authoritarian state, those goods and services can serve to prolong the regime.

I confess I still enjoy watching Carlson post videos of Moscow, wide-eyed and credulous as he slowly learns to love a country that I love too. I hope he posts more of them. One goes through stages of love for Russia, often starting with the literature and music, then moving to its dark humor and the personalities of its people, which are always cycling between thaw and frost. Inevitably one reflects on the irony that this civilization, whose achievement is almost without equal in some respects, is utterly cursed in others—consigned to literally centuries of misgovernment, incompetence, and tyranny. The final stage is realizing that the greatness of Russia is part of the curse, a heightening of the irony, as if no matter how much goes right, something is deeply wrong. Maybe when things go right, the more deeply wrong it is. Carlson seems to still be in one of the early stages of this journey.