"Containment" - from Kennan to Harding - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15261191
CONTAINMENT
the root of the meme

George Kennan, an Amerian foreign service officer, is credited for inventing the use of the word "containment" in describing the necessity of keeping Russia down:

Office of the Historian wrote:Image
...George F. Kennan. In 1946 ...he was Chargé d’Affaires in Moscow...His conclusion was that “the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.” Containment provided a conceptual framework for a series of successful initiatives undertaken from 1947 to 1950 to blunt Soviet expansion...
(abridged)

***

Some helpful synonyms of "containment" from Merriam Webster online

Restraint
Constraint
Limitation
Restriction


The idea is to "contrain" your chosen enemy so that they are "restricted" as to what they can accomplish. Caging an animal and then breaking it so that it can be tamed... might be another synonym (a human-animal version) for "containment."

***
HARDING CONTAINS KERRIGAN
Figure skating hegemons

Image
source of photo

A few months before the Winter Olympics of 1994, Nancy Kerrigan (a USA figure-skating champion), was attacked by gangsters who smashed her right leg with a baton. It turned out that it was a competing American figure skater Tonya Harding - whose husband had hired goons to do this in order to "contain" Kerrigan's chances of bettering his wife (Mrs. Harding) at the upcoming Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.

Harding's husband had Kerrigan's knees smashed... so that Kerrigan would not win, and so that Harding could be hegemon. Hegemon in this case means "gold-winner" or "best USA figure skater position" at the games.

Smashing kneecaps in order to win. This is another synonym of "containment."

wiki wrote:As a result of her involvement in the aftermath of the assault on Kerrigan, the United States Figure Skating Association banned her for life on June 30, 1994.

Imagine that. Banned for life for containment of other players.
For wanting to win... at any cost.

soundtrack
#15261203
Rancid wrote:I feel like qatz is always stuck in the 40s-50s.

For @QatzelOk, it's 1957 forever, baby! :smokin:

Which is okay. I think it's 1937 forever. :)
#15261205
QatzelOk wrote:
George Kennan, an Amerian foreign service officer, is credited for inventing the use of the word "containment" in describing the necessity of keeping Russia down:





Harding's husband had Kerrigan's knees smashed... so that Kerrigan would not win, and so that Harding could be hegemon. Hegemon in this case means "gold-winner" or "best USA figure skater position" at the games.

Smashing kneecaps in order to win. This is another synonym of "containment."


Imagine that. Banned for life for containment of other players.
For wanting to win... at any cost.



Glad to see you learned about Kennan.

Not surprised you got it backwards... Russia always wants to push it's borders back, but Stalin took that to the next level.

As I've said before, we had no idea how to handle Russian aggression. (When I say that, I don't mean just militarily).

What Kennan did was come up with a way to counter that aggression without starting another world war.

To use your adolescent metaphor, we didn't smash their kneecaps, that was the historic peak of Russian power. We slowed them down.
#15261254
late wrote:Glad to see you learned about Kennan.
Not surprised you got it backwards... Russia always wants to push it's borders back, but Stalin took that to the next level.

Russia is always bombing countries and taking over their financial systems? Isn't this 'mirroring" on your part?

As I've said before, we had no idea how to handle Russian aggression. (When I say that, I don't mean just militarily).

You also didn't know how to handle Cherokee aggression, Chipewa aggression, Sioux aggression, and virutally any aggression from any varmints that wouldn't "get the hail off my prop-uh-tee!"

What Kennan did was come up with a way to counter that aggression without starting another world war.

No. What Kennan did was to suggest branding the nonstop American atrocities against defenseless small nations as "containment" in order to bury the inhuman and immoral behavior with a euphemism.

Image

To use your adolescent metaphor, we didn't smash their kneecaps, that was the historic peak of Russian power. We slowed them down.

Harding's boys didn't destroy Kerrigan's knees completely. She ended up winning the olympics despite the intervention on the part of her husband's mercs.

As we would hope that anyone that was the victim of organized crime violence would.

The husband's goons were Anonymous Brutish Guys (ABG) using a blunt wooden object (BWO) in order to exact some sustained knee damage (SKD). This is the alphabet soup of the crime. All funded by drug dealing, grand theft, and casinos.

***

Rancid wrote:I feel like qatz is always stuck in the 40s-50s.


Without a broad knowledge of recent history, political discussions lack any perspective or insight.
#15261256
QatzelOk wrote:Without a broad knowledge of recent history, political discussions lack any perspective or insight.


You're knowledge of history seems to be stuck within the 1950s only.
#15261317
Rancid wrote:You're knowledge of history seems to be stuck within the 1950s only.


This is useless trolling on your part.

You type some words, and expect someone else to type some words.

Can't you just take a typing course online?
#15261318
QatzelOk wrote:This is useless trolling on your part.

You type some words, and expect someone else to type some words.

Can't you just take a typing course online?


Taste of your own medicine.
#15261320
noemon wrote:Taste of your own medicine.

You permit him to troll with useless one-line posts?

Shitpposting is like adding tons of iceberg lettuce to a Greek Salad.
#15261350
QatzelOk wrote:You permit him to troll with useless one-line posts?


What is there to say to your constant nonsense?

You constantly arbitrarily choose when history starts and/or ends so that you can make some contrived pseudo-intellectual point. You're like Putin and everyone other authoritarian asshat that has ever existed. You basically pick and choose the bits of history that you like, and ignore everything you don't. Unfortunately, many people fall for this kind of bullshit, which is how we end up with scams, wars, coups, etc.

Who the fuck make you the authority on when history starts or ends?
#15261360
As an artist, I pride myself on being able to make beautiful things with the garbage I find.

I raised the lid of the garbage can and notice that Rancid wrote:...some contrived pseudo-intellectual point..

Are you able to recognize intellectual points?

Are you interested in intellectual discussions?

Is the metaphor of the OP too difficult for you to discuss? Do you agree with its premise? Do you even understand its premise? (that committing violence against other nations is a way of hobbling their development)

Do you come to pofo to discuss, or to shut down discussions? Are you a Tonya Harding style poster?
#15261381
QatzelOk wrote:You permit him to troll with useless one-line posts?


Said the guy who trolls the entire forum quipping that the largest country on earth is a victim of 'containment'.

The one & only European colonial empire that did not decolonize.

In order to justify the largest country on earth invading it's smaller neighbor to grow even larger.

Irony.not.lost.

Ever.

QatzelOk wrote:Are you able to recognize intellectual points?


An intellectual point in this particular would be to recognize/understand/discuss imperial policy, not to frame your preferred enemy. This is just trolling fandom.

If I censor Rancid, I would then have to ban you.
#15261401
noemon wrote:The one & only European colonial empire that did not decolonize.

Uh... no.

Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Israel... never decolonized, and some of them are still colonizing.

Russia is a large nation state, just like Canada is.

But the USA contained all the First Nations... to death. And the word "containment" itself, as I mentionned earlier, is a euphemism for hobbling the development of other nations.

In much the same way, Rancid's attack on this thread was aimed at hobbling the thread, not inspiring people to think a different way about the subject.

Hobbling (or bullying) is what defines the West now. And we did it through euphemism and newsspeak.
#15261403
QatzelOk wrote:Uh... no.

Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Israel... never decolonized, and some of them are still colonizing.

Russia is a large nation state, just like Canada is.


Russia is still invading Ukraine to colonise it and occupy it indeed.

But the USA contained all the First Nations... to death. And the word "containment" itself, as I mentionned earlier, is a euphemism for hobbling the development of other nations.


The Russian empire still spanning from Europe to Japan contains a lot more first nations and under far worse conditions that the ones contained in the US.

In much the same way, Rancid's attack on this thread was aimed at hobbling the thread, not inspiring people to think a different way about the subject.

Hobbling (or bullying) is what defines the West now. And we did it through euphemism and newsspeak.


Get a mirror please. You are hobbling the entire forum with the same. And always talk over your interlocutor instead of with them.
#15261405
Rancid wrote:You're knowledge of history seems to be stuck within the 1950s only.

Yes, someone is stuck in the 1950s. But is it me?

Hating Russia in order to support the arms industry?

Containing countries as if you're the only game in town?

Ignoring your own nation's recent atrocities (like the coup in Ukraine and NATO expansion) in order to build a kind of McCarthyism against all things Russian?

Someone never left 1957 indeed.

(and I hate the word "indeed")
#15261407
QatzelOk wrote:Ignoring your own nation's recent atrocities (like the coup in Ukraine and NATO expansion)


Lies as repeatedly addressed. NATO officially rejected Ukraine's application to join in 2008 and several million of Ukranian people protesting the u-turn of the Russian puppet to sign a free-trade agreement with the EU lesser than the one Russia has signed with the EU was a Russian coup.

in order to build a kind of McCarthyism against all things Russian?


Ah yes, poor Russia biggest country on the planet, murders several foreign and Russian nationals on foreign soil, blackmails Europe for energy, blackmails Africa for wheat and grain, invaded Ukraine, Georgia, Chechnya, Kazakstan, Afghanistan just in the past couple of decades of her being a victim, threw Armenia to the wolves despite it being a member of the Russian "nato", excommunicated all the non-Russian Orthodox people in the planet, banned Russians from attending Greek churches and Greeks from attending Russian churches.

Constantly engages in false-flag operations in all of Eastern Europe and the Balkans but she is a poor victim of western McCarthyism.

Why would anyone not take pity on them and give them what they want for once, all they are asking is Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Czech Republic, Greece, Cyprus, Syria.

It's not a tall ask guys, let's give these poor Russians a helping hand instead of criticizing their invasions.
#15261409
noemon wrote:...all they are asking is Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Czech Republic, Greece, Cyprus, Syria.

It's not a tall ask guys, let's give these poor Russians a helping hand instead of criticizing their invasions.

Aren't all those countries American vassals? (Not Syria, but its oil is)

The USA would never let them go.

They're all part of the "free world."

**ducks and covers**
#15261416
Faced with an authoritarian who insisted on dominating others,
Six-year-old "contains" his elementary school teacher


Zero Hedge wrote:The shooting occurred in a first-grade classroom at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News. Police say the shooting took place during an altercation and was not an accident. They have not yet determined how the child gained access to a firearm. Details about the firearm have been withheld. 


Children imitate their own parents, often forgetting all the texts you are supposed to cite in order to justify the behavior - to justify the containment. Example: "Honey, you have to say Abba-wazzoo as you behead the animal, or else God punishes you!" Children who work at slaughter houses often forget to say Abba-wazzoo before beheading the animals they are in charge of.

In this case, the Container-in-Chief (the child with the gun) hasn't yet explained in which ways his teacher was an authoritarian monster. This type of **outing of authoritarianism** is often used as the Abba-wazzoo of ContainmentTM events.
#15261484
QatzelOk wrote:Aren't all those countries American vassals? (Not Syria, but its oil is)

The USA would never let them go.

They're all part of the "free world."

**ducks and covers**

If we are with the US, it doesn't mean that we are vassals. Somehow US manages to build a beneficial order for all which makes US led order attractive while Russia has to pummle nations to join theirs. And I am not even mentioning the inherent geopolitical need for the US for us to be free of Russian occupation here, just the societal, economic and well being of people benefits far outweighs the Russian "offer" if we compare.

Tldr for you Qatz. People don't like living in shitholes so they choose the better offer if given the chance. The US offer is far, far superior.
#15261516
JohnRawls wrote:If we are with the US, it doesn't mean that we are vassals. Somehow US manages to build a beneficial order for all which makes US led order attractive while Russia has to pummle nations to join theirs. And I am not even mentioning the inherent geopolitical need for the US for us to be free of Russian occupation here, just the societal, economic and well being of people benefits far outweighs the Russian "offer" if we compare.

Tldr for you Qatz. People don't like living in shitholes so they choose the better offer if given the chance. The US offer is far, far superior.


Somehow... is called "colonialism."

By ganging up on the rest of the world, NATO has managed to steal all the resources of the majority of the world's people so that a handful of mercs (Westerners) can drive large vehicles that consume five earth's worth of resources.

I guess when European nations started being defeated by anti-colonial forces in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, it was time to form a larger gang with "the cousins of my brothers..." Anything not to live in harmony with nature and the rest of the world's human population.

"WE ARE SPECIAL! Contain those for'n varmints!"

(By the way, even food that is in a container can spoil)
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