Chicago Students Try to Cancel Professor Who Predicted Ukraine Crisis
Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago is the man who, way back in 2015, said the following:
The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked … What we’re doing is encouraging the Ukrainians to play tough with the Russians. We’re encouraging the Ukrainians to think that they ultimately will become part of the West … And of course the Ukrainians are playing along with this, and the Ukrainians are almost completely unwilling to compromise with the Russians and instead want to pursue a hardline policy. Well as I said to you before, if they do that their country is going to get wrecked.
Quite a prophetic remark, you might say. Indeed, predicting that Ukraine would “get wrecked” seven years in advance would seem to suggest that Mearsheimer has a good understanding – that he’s worth listening to. (Note: Mearsheimer did not think Russia would launch a full-scale invasion, so he wasn’t 100% right.)
With the Ukraine crisis still dominating the headlines, Mearsheimer must be the golden boy of his department, right? Actually, no. A group of students recently circulated a letter denouncing him for “propagating Putinism” and claiming his actions are “extremely detrimental for our country”.
The students take issue with several statements from Mearsheimer’s 2015 lecture (which is the source of the quotation above). For example, they characterise his use of the word “coup” to describe the toppling of Viktor Yanukovych as “ideological rather than academic”. (They prefer the more heroic-sounding “revolution”.)
The students end their missive by demanding “public disclosure” of all Russian funding received by Professor Mearsheimer, as well as a “statement from the university community at large that it does not condone anti-Ukraine ideology on campus”. They also claim that, if left unaddressed, the problem could “tarnish the reputation of our beloved University”.
I haven’t been able to find any articles suggesting that the university took action in response to the letter. So the students’ campaign appears to have failed. Good.
And it’s of course absurd to suggest that Mearsheimer holds an “anti-Ukraine ideology”. Indeed, much of his 2015 lecture (which the students probably just skimmed through while searching for ‘incriminating’ statements) is concerned with how to prevent Ukraine from “getting wrecked”.
As I noted in a previous post, Mearsheimer’s proposal comprised three elements: ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine; funding an economic rescue plan, together with Russia and the IMF; and insisting that Ukraine respect minority rights, especially minority language rights.
It seems plausible that if we’d followed this proposal, we wouldn’t be in the situation we are today, with Russian troops advancing on Kiev, and the West powerless to intervene for fear of sparking World War III. From what I see, Mearsheimer is a far better friend to Ukraine than the people who dismissed his warnings.
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As usual for the woke generation, the idiocy of thinking if they can shout down and silence those saying things they don’t like anyone to hear, it will help to make those unpleasant and/or inconvenient truths go away.
Taken to its logical conclusion, this approach to life – not liking how things are so just pretending they are how you would like them to be – will lead to utter misery. Literally physical harm, famine, pestilence and death. It’s way beyond just having a different view of politics from others, it’s simply moronic. Dumb animals at this point have more sense.
“Will lead to” we get closer every day!
Absolutely, and what’s terrifying, when you allow yourself to contemplate it, is just how all pervading this attitude seems to have become, in the anglosphere societies, at least.
Decline and fall
The film Idiocracy is meant to be a comedy – it’s looking increasingly prophetic and less and less amusing as a consequence!
This one is particularly moronic though. Are they blaming him for not warning Ukraine hard enough about the consequences of its choices? Or that he somehow created the situation by describing it? Is he a wizard?
There’s definitely magical thinking at the heart of their world view. (Talking here about the footsoldiers, not the exploiters, obviously)
In woke world, you are not allowed to blame any individual for choices they made themselves, you are only allowed to critisise the State for not
interferingdoing enough.Single mothers, people who cant afford to feed their kids despite their iPhones/Sky TV, those too lazy to go for work etc etc
It’s never their fault, only ours.
That now extends to any critisism of a nation state that finds itself in a bed patch. It’s not their choices, no, it’s because <designated person/regime/orange man/ white people> is bad.
Well observed. Also known as “All Rights, No Responsibilities (unless it concerns a highly suspect injection, then you do have a duty to take that, obvs”)
Wizard? Please do not defend a witch . . . only a witch would dare defend a witch . .
I’m not sure giving them publicity in this way is a good idea, less so when it turns out the university is not acting on it.
I would avoid giving publicity to these few intolerant people.
In this respect, Vladimir Putin is even more woke, permanently cancelling those who say things he doesn’t want to hear.
Conviniently fogetting the Ukriane got to this point by murdering journalists, taking 3 opposition TV stantions off air, murdering peacful demonstators, and exciling the democratically elected President.
And going from the sublime to the ridiculous, guess which other strategic genius pointed out the dangers of the policy of NATO expansion a quarter of a century ago?
Video of Joe Biden Warning of Russian Hostility if NATO Expands Resurfaces
Someone must have handed it to him to read out – he has never had an
original idea in his life.
It was Neil Kinnock.
Neil Kinnock in the Altlantic Council? ROTFL
‘It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.’
R.E.M.
Stick a fork in it. We’re done.
Lou Reed – Last Great American Whale
“It’s like what my painter friend Donald said to me, ‘Stick a fork in their arse and turn ‘em over – they’re done’”.
Alas, the use of critical independent skills has been eroded ( deliberately) over many many generations both in the US and also in the U.K. Hence why the Globalists found it relatively easy to brainwash so many people. For example, yesterday I was talking to a friend who said “ Putin has bitten off more than he can chew “ which is almost word for word what is being pushed by The Empire of Lies. I then asked him if he had to tried to verify this by independent research. Predictably, the answer was no .
The Empire of Lies.
Excellent.
Spot on comment- Blair’s ‘Dumbing Down’ education initiative was the start of the moronic brainwashing we now see all around us!
One example was the embarrassing comedy of a woman calling herself ‘Foreign Secretary’ telling the Russian Foreign Minister ( probably one of the most experienced career Diplomats in the World) that Rostov on Don was in the Ukraine!
Over twenty years now since real “Geography” with ‘maps’ was taught in schools – doesn’ t it show
In return for disclosing his Russian funding (I’m guessing zero), perhaps Professor Mearsheimer could ask for their rooms to be searched for any signs of “friendship windmills” or black sun emblems.
I mention this because it now seems virtually impossible to find a picture of a Ukrainian flag or combatant not sporting those plucky symbols of freedom and democracy.
Apparently we have always not been at war with Nazis.
It now looks like the Nazis have been hiding in plain sight for 70 years! Where did Schwab get his Funny Coat from?
Was it perhaps a Star Treck Series One wardrobe clear out sale?
I should clarify that I don’t want to see either of those things happening.
However, witch hunts for the goose, and all that.
What, precisely, is “anti-Ukrainian ideology”? I presume they mean “sentiment” rather than “ideology”, but they probably have no idea.
Here’s a quick ideology lesson: The students concerned sound just a teensy bit like certain young people in 1930s Germany calling for the removal from their beloved universities of anyone whose words, actions or ethnic origins they deemed “extremely detrimental for our country”.
They might like to try reading a history book or two.
These are people whose introduction to adult life following secondary school is freshers week which they spend bladdered. The rest of the year is invariably spent partying until they are brought down to earth with a bump having failed almost everything they were supposed to study.
Universities expect this and allow for it.
Thereafter their second and third+ years are spent worrying about nothing but next years results. If they’re not cloistered in their dorm/rented digs for those two years they are wasting everyone’s time.
I have long maintained certain members of society should be compelled to hold down a job for five years before going off to responsible positions or to shut themselves away for a period of time.
One of those is the police and another is university students.
They are too busy reading ‘Mein Kampf ‘ (especially the chapters on “Lebensraum” it the East.
( Having wrecked everyone else’s country the Americans and their Globalist allies and controllers need new territories for their own expansionism!)
The world is soooooo unfair……..
Point?
I believe it’s a reference to Harry Enfield’s “Kevin the Teenager” character.
Those really in charge are more geriatrics on life support than “moody teenagers” – it seem they want to see the world destroyed before they can leave it all behind by dying “happy, owning nothing”!
If you think that naming your movement the National Socialist German Workers Party doesn’t hint at a strong affinity with marxism (without “Jewishness admittedly) then you can believe anything.
Not sure it was worth giving this event publicity.
If you want to get an insight as to what’s really going on in Ukraine this is an interview with a former weapons inspector during the WMD scandal.
His final assertion is what I have said elsewhere on DS, that the war ends when Putin says it ends and there’s not a damn thing Europe or the US can do about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRFjlnoMCeE
These dull students ought to realise Nothing could be worse for ‘our country’ ( USA) than the increasingly deranged behaviour of those who live there and their demented Ruling Elites . The objective observer can see nothing but a crumbing Dark Empire, riddled with corruption, election fraud, gangsterism, industrial levels of drug taking, ,state sponsored lies and universalised hysterical and increasingly irrational behaviour, sliding ever deeper into the swamp they have created and dragging their unfortunate allies and stooge nations down with them Bio labs funded by Fauci under CIA control on Russia’s borders – “fake news” of course for all the US and EU media! Some are already breaking free and supporting Russia! US neo-cons like Nuland in Ukraine, have done more to create the’ bi-polar world’ they fear during the last ten years than could ever have been achieved by those countries themselves, who now begin to see the US as their joint enemy. Libya ,Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan paid the price for standing up to the dollar – but now Russia and China are both in play with their mountains of gold! A German politician observed that in 1914 the Kaiser’s Germany was “fettered to a corpse” (… Read more »
A brilliant summary. All people have to do is take a step back and briefly examine US foreign policy since it dropped 2 atomic bombs on Japan. It isn’t a pretty picture.
Then a cursory review of US society over the past 20 years (exemplified in many ways by 3 events: its reaction to Hurricane Katrina – years later, areas of New Orleans were still in ruins; the reaction of authorities to the ‘mostly peaceful’ BLM riots; the election ‘win’ by a man clearly in the early stages of dementia). This is a society in terminal decline – corruption, greed, double-standards and incompetence are on view everywhere.
Just as the UK needed to unshackle itself from the EU corpse, it needs to do likewise with the USA.
Indeed – in fact we are going the other way.
‘“British interest don’t seem to count with Johnson…’
Certainly not the annexation of Northern Ireland by the EU.
To be fair, trimming off the Celtic Fringe would be the best thing that Britons could do in their own self interest.
How does that work out when the Celtic fringe are “Britons” and those in NI , who want to remain so, call themselves “Loyalists” to make the point!
I refer to ethnicity here. For all the progressive talk about heredity being a social construct, in reality, we can often make correct assumptions about the most trivial of tribal differences just by looking. Distinguishing between us versus the other is an evolutionary imperative.
In Glasgow Toon, for example, Scotch Celts and Irish Celts have little trouble identifying each other when looking to start some trouble on a Friday night – it doesn’t even need team colours to start the glasses flying.
Exactly! The case in point! Bluster and froth over Putin while the EU annexes NI – what have we done putting this serial liar and Globalist goon in Downing Street?
The alternative was considerably worse. Simple reality.
Our problem is not a corrupt, useless political party, but a corrupt, useless political class.
Yep.
Interesting interview …
https://rumble.com/vvexre-must-watch-joe-rogan-talks-with-maajid-nawaz-episode-1780.html
It was 3 wks ago but a lot’s happened in that time.
Essential viewing.
The Great Reset Phase 2: War
https://winteroak.org.uk/2022/03/09/the-great-reset-phase-2-war/
I hope we see The Streisand effect come into play, Mearsheimers informed contribution to the debate needs a wider audience.
Why don’t the University of Chicago use traditional methods to discuss the issue, hold a debate.
We can use the word revolution instead of putch or coup if they like, however if we do that, we have to acknowledge there was a far right counter revolution too, that beat down and murdered those peaceful ‘revolutionaries’ who were protesting for a debate.
It must be the first era in history that students go to university in order to become more stupid, ignorant and judgmental. The exception to that has been those who went to Oxford and joined the Bullingdon Club.
… that is because they are being taught by people who are stupid, ignorant and judgemental.
Oh, I think students have always entered university convinced that they know everything, and can solve all the world’s problems by howling and stamping their feet.
The problem is that they’re now being indulged and encouraged in that belief.
Unbelievable. The death of reason.
Killed by Extremist Marxist Snow Flake Feminism and evil, weaponised (anti) Social Media.
The world once had an “Enlightenment” – which led to unimaginable gains in quality of life. Today, we are going through the opposite, whatever you call that – the Disenlightenment?
another angle to this is it does seem that students think of themselves as “consumers” rather than students who are paying substantial fees to attend universities. Therefore, when something is not to their liking they complain and demand what they want as if its a customer buying a product and has found something defective to it. This is one angle to the ever-increasing entitlement that students have with the attitude of “I pay your salary, I will learn what I want”.
Ukraine and the Global American Empire
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/ukraine-and-the-global-american-empire
“The same western globalists who hate Russia, also count us as their enemies, and my sincere advice is to take them seriously in this. They have a kind of myopia for internal political dissidents; we are the unaligned domestic element, Russia is the unaligned international element, and so when Donald Trump is elected to the presidency, this must be, for them, the result of Russian interference.”
Looks like we have seamlessly transitioned from one moral panic to another. As with COVID, the masses appear to have scooped out their brains and left them at the door, if they ever had any brains to begin with.
When are we going to talk about the WMD?
https://www.sott.net/article/465282-Victoria-Nuland-Admits-Ukraine-Has-Biological-Research-Facilities-Worried-Russia-May-Seize-Them
https://www.sott.net/article/465289-Malone-on-US-BIO-weapon-research-Are-we-the-good-guys-or-the-bad-guys-here
https://ua.usembassy.gov/embassy/kyiv/sections-offices/defense-threat-reduction-office/biological-threat-reduction-program/
The West is once again in the grip of mass hysteria, where anyone going against the mainstream narrative is to be silenced/crushed. If you dare to start a discussion and suggest there is nuance and historical context, you’re almost invariably met with swivel-eyed responses that you’re ‘uncaring’ or that you ‘support Putin’. Does this remind you of anything? It is errily analogous to the Cult of COVID, where if you dared offer an alternative view to the mainstream narrative you were uncaring and you supported letting the virus rip. Remember? Even the much vaunted GB News seemed utterly oblivious to the subtleties of the situation when Patrick Henningsen was invited on, though mercifully they did respond in a relatively mature way when Henningsen explained some of the nuance involved in the Russia-Ukraine situation. Watch as the (GBN) women look stunned at the direction in which Henningsen goes; it appears they had no idea about the subtleties of the situation. Before introducing Henningsen the reporter asks, So the question is, has our response been enough, and should we and other Western nations be doing more? The question doesn’t alllow for the possibility that we might have overreacted and done too much.… Read more »
It appears to me that people now can only think in absolutes – i.e. black/white, good/bad, right/wrong without a moments thought that it might be a bit more complex than that.
Tucker Carlson & Tulsi Gabbard (9 March 2022)
https://www.foxnews.com/shows/tucker-carlson-tonight
Actually, students have never changed, they’ve always gone on to further education with the belief that they know everything anyway, they were more or less ignored years ago then they grew up went out into the world and discovered that they didn’t know everything. These days they are allowed a large platform if they perform the global mantra.
I’ve been working my way through “Roses Have Thorns – Casualties of the Ukrainian Revolution” A comprehensive 17-part series covering the war in Ukraine from the start of the Euromaidan protests late 2013. Events are presented without commentary in chronological order, relying solely on raw footage, news reports, witness interviews and official statements. Highly recomended, someone spent an incredible amount of time putting this lot together, news items and political commentary on the news is perfectly juxtaposed with live footage from on the ground film crews, citizen journalists, and social media posts. It is by far the best coverage of events I’ve come across. The hypocracy from the MSM and political class is palpable. https://www.watchdogmediainstitute.com/p/blog-page.html This has been on my viewing list for a while, I’m going to watch it before it’s memory holed. Off-Guardian has just posted Ukraine on Fire Oliver Stone’s 2016 documentary charting the geo-political history of Ukraine from World War II to the coup of 2014 and the ensuing civil war. According to the Director/Producer it’s currently being purged from YouTube under the pretence of removing “violent content”, but they have uploaded it to Vimeo and are encouraging everyone to download a share the film while… Read more »
“and the Ukrainians are almost completely unwilling to compromise with the Russians and instead want to pursue a hardline policy.”
He was half-right, the West promised Ukraine a lot of things and delivered none of them but Putin can’t be compromised with and he shouldn’t have pretended otherwise.
“but Putin can’t be compromised with“
The difference is that Mearsheimer’s a realist, whereas it is evident from this comment that you are determined to impose your beliefs, however implausible and in direct contradiction to the available evidence, ahead of reality.
You haven’t said enough to allow a judgement as to what motivates you in this obsessive fantasising about Putin personally, but the why is less important than the what.
A prophet is not without honour except in his own town, amongst his own relatives and in his own home.
Mark 6.4
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/watch-john-mearsheimer-ex-cia-ray-mcgovern-ukraine
His latest.
With the former US ambassador to Russia and former head of Russia desk of the CIA and more also being of similar opinions.
Kissinger will probably be cancelled next….
https://mobile.twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1498491107902062592?s=20&t=rn5SAyIkbh9t4cW3hG8aXw
Cancelling and censorship are all part of The Wests war effort against Russia.
Even The Daily Telegraph wouldn’t accept my benign reply to one of their articles.
“Zelensky is a smutty comedian who is good at remembering his lines that his US handlers give him.
He’s mentioned in the Panama Papers as he drained money out of Ukraine into off shore accounts.
He was elected because he said he would end the civil war in The Donbass and to have closer ties with Russia.
He’s done the exact opposite and has cosied up to the neo-Nazi paramilitaries who are embedded in Ukraine society.
A swift Russian victory will end the conflict and rid Ukraine of it’s fascists and create a buffer to US/NATO expansionism.”
The only issue I have with Mearsheimer is, that he genuinely seems to think that the consequential war was not deliberate and not the real goal of the NATO warmongerers, that they were just stupid.
To the contrary, the MIC and the OGM complexes as well as the CFR cabal got exactly what they wanted and worked for and just used the deluded and naive and/or corrupt Ukrainians as cannon fodder for their adventure. Neither they nor Selenskij&co give a fig about the Ukrainian people, see also Denninger, Tom Woods etc..
Now, it’s also high time they are reined in, before they escalate this to WW3, as the latter definetely seem to be intent upon now (understandable from their perspective, if, as and when you have stupidly gone all-in and are about to lose it all…).
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/tracey-ukraine-trying-goad-us-world-war-iii
Makinder&Brzeszinski have won as well, and the stupid Germans even cheer for it.
https://unherd.com/2022/03/america-has-won-europes-war/
I think one of the most depressing takeaways from the last few years is just how extraordinarily simple minded and lacking in basic analytical skills so many young people are – even those supposedly more academic than others. Frighteningly stupid generation.
Well, I think the root cause is they are simply not interested, in most cases.
Indeed – but I think that’s because the school system hasn’t inspired them to care or taught them to think for themselves.
I’m sure it hasn’t, indeed. That and material wealth and your needs being taken care of which makes people (me among them) mightily complacent.
Well, yes … but the same now applies to most of the older generations.
I wonder how many people can notice huge gaps between the facts and western media’s narrative. let’s take for example this 50mile long Russian convoy near Kyiv which has been shown on TV all over the world for days on end. can’t ordinary people see that the narrative about victorius ukranian army which only needs a couple of weeks and several more hand held rockets to defeat the russians is at least very questionable? I mean, if ukrainian army is so victorious why they haven’t even tried attacking this convoy? If they do notice this huge gap in facts and narrative, will they spend a bit more time to research the situation realizing that there are so many things which scream about western misinformation and propaganda.
Classic Doublethink.
I heard pronouncements about the “miles long traffic jam” and how it proved Russian incompetence and failure because a “competent enemy” would bomb it into oblivion, followed shortly afterwards by the same source blithely reporting as credible Pentagon assessments that “80% of Ukraine’s air power is still in being”.
No evidence of any inclination to resolve the inherent contradiction.
The narrative is all. The facts nothing.
John Mearsheimer is the object of hatred from Zionists because he co-authored work with Stephen Walt about the power in the United States of what has come to be known as “the Lobby”.
And now there’s a letter-writing campaign calling him a “Putinist”. Why not go further and call him a “Khmelnitskyist” for good measure?
But hey, give Mearsheimer a break. At least he hasn’t funded the now state-sector Azov Regiment, as Ihor Kolomoisky, the Israeli passport-carrying billionaire who put Zelensky in office, has done. The Azov are known neo-Nazis who have been fighting in Donetsk and Luhansk for eight years.
The letter-writers’ letter is here. How astute they are, for a bunch of students. And how hard-nosed they are, to include in their final paragraph a thinly-veiled threat against the university.
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/02/23/diana-johnstone-us-foreign-policy-is-a-cruel-sport/
Young people continue to be fucking idiots shocker. Something about lack of brain development.