[Rich]

"Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah!" said the Liberals, "You're a bunch of losers you cant mobilise.", but then Russia did mobilise and far from collapsing as the Liberals promised, took Bakhmut.

"Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, you're a bunch of cave men!" said the Liberals, "We going to get some super weapons and drive into Crimea.", but then the great offensive turned out to be a bit of a damp squid.

"Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah!" said the Liberals, "You can't escalate.", The funny thing is that Russia does seem to have escalated to hitting Ukrainian power production and even the Liberal media seems to be now admitting that this is having a serious effect.

[late]

Expressions like "parroting Russian propaganda" don't negate what actually happened.

If you knew what "actually" happened, you'd be singing a different tune.

[Tainari88]

There is so much wrong with that, I could fill a book replying.

We wanted Russia to become a Modern country. That includes Rule of Law, a good market economy, and some sort of representative democracy.

One of the many problems that came up was that Russians would not accept contracts. To them, a contract was just another opportunity to extract a bribe, or in some way take advantage of the situation. Like the way Putin stole that oil company, sold it for $17, and gets kickbacks to this day.

Sad to say, most of that never happened, and some of what progress that had been made is coming undone. It's hard to say how bad it is, because the quality of information coming out of Russia is quite poor.

When is the US government going to stop being two faced?

They spout all that liberal crap you spout Late. Latin America has modeled all of its nascent and fragile democracies on a US model. What has the US done to protect them and help them grow and become strong? Nothing and actually colluded to destroy them completely over greed.

So who is going to trust your fucking model when all you do in these emerging republics with actual popular votes happening? When are you going to put your money where your mouth is and be consistent? Never so far.

You then hold yourself up as a paragon of liberal democracy virtue to the rest of the world dealing with totally different histories. Has the US been invaded by Nazis in WWII for months and killed 25 million American civilians and starving people out and traumatizing their asses for a long time? Like the Russians had to endure in WWII? Under Stalin? No. Yet you want them to be into the liberal democracy hypocrisy scene. It is awful that two faced lying shit.

Be consistent. Be respectful. You can't force the fucking model on people who do not want it. If the people of a nation choose an American style liberal democracy of their own free will in the ballot box...then it is fine. But Latin America did that and where did it get us? No where. Not in Puerto Rico, not in Cuba, not in Haiti, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, the list is fucking endless. All these small democracies who want to do the popular vote, liberal democracy model with mixed economies and be successful in that....and BAM the USA crushed it all with greed and violence.

Backing nasty people who want puppet yes men. It is disgusting!!

Do you think the Russians are some dumb fucks who never observe what is going on in the Americas. Or the Chinese are naive people who just fell off of the turnip truck?

Putin called the US government and their plutocrats out and said the Vampire Ball is coming to an end. What did he mean by that? That he knows that the USA sucks the blood out of many of us in the Americas. It creates a crisis at the border with people desperate for a life.

Yet, the USA government does not want to solve that problem. It wants to continue with hypocrisy.

Start being consistent. You can't keep wanting to make other nations into mini liberal democracies US styled. That is not what is going on. Do I agree with the fucking Taliban and how they treat women and ethnic minorities and how they want to mix Muslim religion and political authority? HELL NO.

But that is not the US liberal democracy faker liars extraordinaire call to make. You can't control the entire world and shape it into what you want.

It is impossible to do that. Too complicated. What is intelligent to do is be consistent and work with common interests and be humane in political and economic policy. Without wanting to be on top in every deal. COMPROMISE. Be respectful and do what is a reasonable policy to fit the circumstances.

Overbearing warmongering and outright hairbrained schemes to dominate the fucking world and expect a bunch of Muslim religious fanatics to become some lying Southern Baptist Evangelicals is stupid in the extreme.

Stop trying to control too much and spend too much on selling arms and promoting war.

It is deadly and dangerous.

Hillary told the truth. The Muhajadeen was created in Afghanistan to fight and undermine the Russians and Soviets. The US financed total extremist Muslims to win over Russia. Undermine Russia. In the process they created extremist cells like Isis and others. Who wound up attacking the Twin Towers in the USA.

Why? Wanting to use dirt filled low life no moral tactics to take down the competition.

Learn from the mistakes. Stop the double talk and patronizing bullshit and realize that over the long haul, bad inhumane selfish foreign policy has serious drawbacks over time.

No wonder Rich is so upset with mealy mouthed liberal bullshit. If you care about the world clean up your own hypocritical nasty messes FIRST.

[late]

When is the US government going to stop being two faced?

That's a good question, and I don't have a good answer

[Tainari88]

That's a good question, and I don't have a good answer

Late, again, it goes back to a change of value system.

Go back to the identified ways many nations hammered out what promoting world peace is all about.

It is about human rights.

Universal human rights.

That is something fairly new on the political scene. But it is going to be increasingly important.

It is easy to hate people who are against your values. If you are not a religious fanatic having to make nice with religious fanatics is hard.

That is why the charrettes are there.

What is a charrette?

What is the purpose of a charrette?
A Charrette is a collaborative planning process that harnesses the talents and energies of all interested parties to create and support a master plan that represents transformative community change.

What is the charette process?
The Charette Procedure - Brainstorming Multiple Ideas With ...
One such approach has a name: The Charette Procedure (sometimes spelled 'Charrette'). It involves organizing people into several small groups, each of which brainstorms ideas one-after-the-other until everyone involved has had a chance to contribute fully.

It is hard. So hard that going to war and killing sounds good after a while.

How can you get a bunch of KKK people and some Black activists in the South to hammer out a plan that both could live with? They hated each other deeply.

But if you see their faces day after day and talk after talk, and this or that, and there is a willingness to deal with the other party? There will be a point of commonality. It is inevitable. You make a truce deal. You compromise. It might not even function beyond a few years, and it is back to the drawing board. But it beats dead people and hatred and killing and starving, and beating and genocidal behavior.

Got to start somewhere.

All nation states have interests. They also have pressure to keep chaos at bay and create order and consistent needs being met. It could be authoritarian and exploitative, or consensus based and so on. There are a lot of models you can use. But the bottom line is that most people just want the government to provide stability and predictability. Meed some needs. When it fails to do so. People refuse to believe in the myth they are told to believe. You get revolution. Revolution is not a permanent state. It is too chaotic and traumatizing. So someone emerges the victor and establishes the rules. Then creates a framework for cohesion. Then if there is too much corruption, lying and failure it collapses and a new vacuum emerges and that power vacuum is filled again. It is a long process and back and forth. And every nation state has its internal dynamics. Trying to force others to adhere to a dynamic that is not innate to its internal history is being disrespectful as well as ignorant.

You can say what works best is a balanced approach.

And it means seeing that nation whether tiny or large, with a lot of population or not much....as humans. Equals and also possible cooperative groups and in the end....you get what you give in this world. You give very little and want to take more from others than what you are willing to give?

You will lose both respect and trust.

People rejoice when some despot that made their lives miserable are finally dumped and they feel liberated and full of freedom from that asshole or despot.

And people never trust those who talk the double talk and the two-faced shit. No one is that dumb Late in international political discourse.

[late]

Late, again, it goes back to a change of value system.

Americans are reactionaries, most of the so called Left is reactionary.

I agree with a lot of what you say, but for most Americans, the center of the Universe is their checkbook.

[Tainari88]

Americans are reactionaries, most of the so called Left is reactionary.

I agree with a lot of what you say, but for most Americans, the center of the Universe is their checkbook.

And the end of their universe is also going to be their checkbook.

Many other nations have had to live on super shoestring consumption budgets and super low wages. Starvation wages. You can't have your cake and eat it too late.

Eventually how long can you squeeze more out of a rock?

The US voting public in my opinion are extremely misled. Misinformed and targeting the wrong group for blame.

But all nations gotta learn their lessons the hard way Late.

Including the USA.

Do you know what I have always loved about the United States of America?

They do not like frilly crap and long drawn out indirect ways of coping with problems. They are direct and get to the point.

And all they worry about sometimes is....does the thing work? Fix the issue or not?

They are not artistic really in a deep way, particularly spectacularly creative either, or great at symbolism and so on.

What the USA does is cull from the many diverse groups in the USA, make something simple. And then massify it and it has to be functional.

But the greed shit and worshiping the Golden Calf stuff from the Old Testament is a serious problem with the USA.

They need to start realizing English only is shooting themselves in the foot too. Should be the average American should be speaking, reading and writing four languages a piece and have vast knowledge in both science, mathematics and history.

They do not. Too enamored of advertising, marketing, superficial knowledge, conformity and amnesia trying to fit in with some ideal that is anti-historical.

Addicted to propaganda.

Such a beautiful land and so many people who want something better.

Got to get rid of the lying politicians Late. They are making things much much worse than it has to be.

[QatzelOk]

Americans are reactionaries...

Yes, they react to whatever they see on their screens, even though they know it's false.

They got this way by interacting too frequently with fictional media products.

The current "false consciousness" of the American public has been manufactured by the masters.

The USA has never abolished slavery, it just modified it so that it would be easier to market in the Modern period.

Elite: "We give orders, you dummies react to them. Even when the orders are to bankrupt yourself weakening other working class peoples in other nations, you follow them because of all your feelings that we provoked with our media lies."

And the end of their universe is also going to be their checkbook...

The First Nations always claimed to have received the Bible, and then lost all their land and cultures.

Americans have received mass media entertainment, and then lost their communities, their natural resources, and their savings will be next. In 5... 4... 3...

[litwin]

Yes, they react to whatever they see on their screens, even though they know it's false.

They got this way by interacting too frequently with fictional media products.

The current "false consciousness" of the American public has been manufactured by the masters.

The USA has never abolished slavery, it just modified it so that it would be easier to market in the Modern period.

Elite: "We give orders, you dummies react to them. Even when the orders are to bankrupt yourself weakening other working class peoples in other nations, you follow them because of all your feelings that we provoked with our media lies."


The First Nations always claimed to have received the Bible, and then lost all their land and cultures.

Americans have received mass media entertainment, and then lost their communities, their natural resources, and their savings will be next. In 5... 4... 3...

Armour Shortage, Moscow Uses Ural Trucks as APCs in Robotyne -- Goes Wrong.

But, what type of unit were they in use by? This might be some far east, SIBERIAN AND OTHER ethnic units that MOSCOW isn't willing to share MORE upToDate equipment with.

[JohnRawls]

With the political election year paralysis in the US and Republican/Trump like uncertainty, it seems European Union is talking control on the central political stage. Never in my wildest dreams did I invision that we will be taking the sole Superpower position unchallenged and without a fight for free basically. If this drags on for a prolonged period of time then I suppose East Asian alliances will also be overwritten along with trade agreements to be a bit more European Union centric. But that would require restarting the military industry and not stopping which seems to be a clear prospect in the Medium and Long term. I guess a thank you to the US is in order.

The only gripe I have with this is that when Europe re-militarizes then we swing to the right and sometimes right through Belgium, but I am sure we are wise enough not to do this again?

[paeng]

The people of Ukraine don't want to be ruled by the corrupt Mafia regime in Moscow, neither do Belarusians (Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya won that election).



If Russia and China don't want to be "encircled", maybe they should be less threatening to their neighbors. All the countries in Eastern Europe WANTED to join NATO. The countries NATO rejected at the time, namely Ukraine and Georgia, were invaded. Taiwan wouldn't mind a closer relationship with the mainland for sure if Xi wasn't intent on destroying their way of life. Etc.

I also think they don't want the corrupt Ukrainian mafia backed by Wall Street and the military industrial complex.

Russia and China were never threatening, but the U.S. was taking advantage of them early on. The "threat" narrative is an invention of Reagan and others, and started with the Cold War. I think books like _Rogue State_ even revealed declassified UK documents showing that the Soviets were never a threat and that NATO was artificially contrived.

In any case, as Kennan correctly points out, the goal in the past was containment. After the fall of the Soviet Union, it became encirclement. That's what those 700+ military installations worldwide are for.

The catch is that, as Kennan also argued, that would lead to red lines crossed. Which is exactly what happened.

[paeng]

"Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah!" said the Liberals, "You're a bunch of losers you cant mobilise.", but then Russia did mobilise and far from collapsing as the Liberals promised, took Bakhmut.

"Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, you're a bunch of cave men!" said the Liberals, "We going to get some super weapons and drive into Crimea.", but then the great offensive turned out to be a bit of a damp squid.

"Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah!" said the Liberals, "You can't escalate.", The funny thing is that Russia does seem to have escalated to hitting Ukrainian power production and even the Liberal media seems to be now admitting that this is having a serious effect.

Early on, I thought that Russia was only interested in controlling those parts of Ukraine that are dominated by Russians, and then wait for Ukraine to negotiate. Then the U.S., which via Nuland, had been warpigging since 2014, decided to arm Ukraine heavily, with Zelensky, who wanted to turn Ukraine into a "big Israel", demanding more.

Finally, this reminds me of one interview early on, where I think one former American military official declared that if that were the U.S. the war would have ended on Day One because it would have bombed Ukraine back into the Stone Age.

Which is similar to what it did elsewhere:

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/

except that it also led to blowback, as Chalmers Johnson would put it.

[litwin]

There is a difference between fighting for honour and fighting for few dollars, FREE Siberian republics , has a nice ring to it. For long time Moscovites exploited Siberia and other peripheral and ethnic colonies of Muscovy and it only got worse during this war that Moscow started because it's these fringe regions that have the most conscripts per capita since Putler wants to spare the main urban centers like Moscow or St. Petersburg eventual unrest resulting from over-conscription. with other words , Moscow Using Siberia's fighting age people for "cannon fodder" reduces the number of people to fight for independence and THE Siberians know it !

​

​LONG LIVE THE FREE Siberian republics!

​

'Only option KHAN Putin gave us': Siberian Battalion in Ukraine joins the fight against Moscow IMPERIALISM

[litwin]

With the political election year paralysis in the US and Republican/Trump like uncertainty, it seems European Union is talking control on the central political stage. Never in my wildest dreams did I invision that we will be taking the sole Superpower position unchallenged and without a fight for free basically. If this drags on for a prolonged period of time then I suppose East Asian alliances will also be overwritten along with trade agreements to be a bit more European Union centric. But that would require restarting the military industry and not stopping which seems to be a clear prospect in the Medium and Long term. I guess a thank you to the US is in order.

The only gripe I have with this is that whenEurope re-militarizes then we swing to the right and sometimes right through Belgium, but I am sure we are wise enough not to do this again?

Europe re-militarizes is the only one way to go, why´d Germany need to expend into France ? we can give them Eastern Prussia , not sure that they will take it, they do just fine without it.

ps

[JohnRawls]

Europe re-militarizes is the only one way to go, why´d Germany need to expend into France ? we can give them Eastern Prussia , not sure that they will take it, they do just fine without it.

ps

Its a metaphor. If somebody possesses an unimaginably strong military on stand by then there is always a "solution" by using it for any conflict which is wrong. Something along the lines of if you have it then why not use it?

This is a common theme through out history by the way. Europe and US has become better at limiting itself from excessive use over the years but it is still there and Iraq/Afghanistan is the most recent examples through out history that probably shouldn't have happened or at least not in the way that they did.

[RealPolitic]

@late

Shortly after the collapse of the USSR, a conservative writer for the NYT wrote that Russian history and culture would result in the return of strongman rule.

He was right.

Russians do not know what democracy is. Almost all of their history is that of autocratic and authoritarian rule. I am beginning to wonder if some Americans have forgotten what democracy is or if they simply take it for granted to where they fail to appreciate it and will lose it.

@Negotiator

imperialism is when you exploit other countries.

Well, yeah! That's the whole reason why Putin invaded Ukraine is to exploit Ukrainian land to get more resources. Of course, if they succeed in completely occupying Ukraine, you can be sure they will commit genocide against the Ukrainian culture. That way there is no local opposition left in Russia's taking Ukrainian land by force and exploiting their resources. You gotta have more land and resources to build more power and reconstitute your empire.

First of all, to Russia, Ukraine is NOT "another country".

So, you are essentially denying the existence of an separate and different culture, which is Ukrainian culture. Ukrainians are being pushed out of their own country and being forced to either fight for their land or flee abroad. Russia itself, along with the rest of the world recognized Ukraine as a separate and sovereign country. To deny Ukrainian sovereignty is to deny the factual existence of Ukrainian culture and the fact it has a separate language from Russian.

Its literally the core homeland, where the Rus once originated. Until 1991, for over 300 years, it was part of Russia.

Its not the Russian homeland. Now Russia has occupied Ukraine on numerous occasions, one such occupation being the Soviet occupation of Ukraine. Much like what was done to the Baltic Republics. Catherine had the Ukrainian Cossacks persecuted for example long before the Soviet Union, when she ruled the Russian Empire.

No less than 30% of the citizen of Ukraine speak russian as their mother tongue; in east Ukraine, they are the majority, and many of them, including Zelensky, even outright identify as russians, not ukrainians.

I am sure that is true. Its the sort of thing that happens when you take land from others by force, settle and colonize it with your own people, and force those people to speak Russian. Also committing genocide against the local population. For example, the Holodomor.

Russia and Ukraine are closer than for example Germany and Austia.

They don't seem very close to me given the "welcome" Ukrainians gave Russian troops when they first invaded.

So no, I dont see this as imperialism. Russias motive is simply to protect their people - ethnic russians - from being targeted by ukrainian nazis. Permanently. Since Ukriane apparently cant be trusted with that.

Well, that's because you are just wrong. I gotta ask, would you even subscribe to the debate point that the West made Putin? Or are you advocating for some kind of made up position that doesn't correspond with reality at all?

[litwin]

The declaration declares this “Russian (Muscovite ) world” teaching to be a heresy.

Mark Roosien, Orthodox deacon and lecturer in liturgical studies at Yale Divinity School.
Over 1,300 Orthodox theologians condemn “Russian (Muscovite ) World” heresy

https://praytellblog.com/index.php/2022 ... ian-world/

[Skynet]

There is only one solution: negotiations

A report by Democracy now, the common soldier knows better then politicians.

Offer Putin a lifting of all sanctions and he can keep 20 % of Ukraine and the onslaught is over...

[paeng]

"NATO Doesn’t Have Enough Troops"

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/10/na ... raine-war/

[Rich]

I've heard it claimed that the Russians conquered 0.01% of Ukrainian territory in March. And this followed on from the even more disastrous month of February for Ukraine where they lost 0.02%. At this rate I'm wondering, will there even be a Ukraine for my great, great, great, great, great, great, great grand children to see and support.