[Rich]

I don't now how accurate the 87% is but this is an amazing victory for Putin, a victory that a little under two years ago, his supporters can not have dared to dream possible. Putin had six months to throw himself at the feet of western liberal leaders and beg for forgiveness, six months to see sense or the oligarchs or the people or his generals would overthrow him. Putin had six months. After six months he would not have a Russian economy. The Russian economy would be destroyed. His troops would have no weapons to fire, no ammunition to load the weapons, no fuel to drive their tanks or their trucks, assuming he had any troops left to fight with.

Putin was insane, absolutely insane to take on the west, to try to defy Joe Biden's express commands. His economy was dwarfed by the West even before his economy collapsed. The whole world was united against him. Yet here we are. This election is a miracle, there's no other word for it. Its not a miracle that he won another term. Its a miracle that he survived to be able stand at all.

Maybe, maybe at the start of SMO, but once his troops turned tail and fled from the outskirts of Kiev, from the outskirts of Cherniv, from the outskirt of Sumy, who could have predicted this? Who could have predicted that he would still be in Crimea, still be in Donetsk city still even be in Mariupol? I guess Igor would have predicted it, but he seems to have been gifted with some sort of supernatural vision, even if he wasn't always able to accurately date the time of his visions. Igor not only foresaw that Putin would survive he even foresaw the fall of Mariupol.

[Tainari88]

To respond to a post from some time back. I think by @late, apologies if I've got that wrong.

The Vietnam war was fought very much with the memory of Korea in mind. The American leaders did not wish to seek victory by conquering North Vietnam and risk provoking another Chinese intervention. This was sensible caution. However the Americans should have moved the border north. Every time the North Vietnamese regime committed an act of war against South Vietnam, they should have lost some territory. It didn't have to be a large amount, just that every provocation should have led to the occupation and annexation of some land. I suggest that the Israelis apply the same policy with Hezbollah and Lebanon. The Americans should also have sent ground troops into Cambodia to cut the Ho Chi Ming trail.

The Chinese Communists did not find American bases on their Korean / Vietnamese borders acceptable. Hence when threatened with this in Korea China escalated. For the Soviets and Americans, complete loss in Vietnam was not sufficiently serious enough to justify major escalation. The Soviet government's friendly regime in Afghanistan was not overthrown until 1989 and that did not lead to American bases in Afghanistan. By that time they had bigger fish to fry.

Off the top of my head the best analogy I can think of to Russia losing Crimea is if the United States lost Mississippi and the Chinese were going to set up a naval base on the Missisippi mouth. I can quite believe in such a scenario that the Americans would be prepared to use nuclear weapons to prevent that happening. I don't believe the nculear threats at the beginning of the SMO were meant to intimidate, western politicians, I suspect they were intended to give western politicians cover for not providing serious support for Ukraine quickly.

What I most dislike about your writings Rich is that you just normalize imperialism. You just assume the Americans or the British Empire, etc have a natural born right to invade and kill other nationalities. It is ridiculous. You don't have the right to kill, destroy and do all that crap this ex soldier talks about.

https://youtube.com/shorts/GffSA8y9tMs? ... l6cuZqVm98

This idea that the powers that be have the right to interfere all the damn time? Fuck those people!! A bunch of murderers.

[Potemkin]

What I most dislike about your writings Rich is that you just normalize imperialism. You just assume the Americans or the British Empire, etc have a natural born right to invade and kill other nationalities. It is ridiculous. You don't have the right to kill, destroy and do all that crap this ex soldier talks about.

https://youtube.com/shorts/GffSA8y9tMs? ... l6cuZqVm98

This idea that the powers that be have the right to interfere all the damn time? Fuck those people!! A bunch of murderers.

Almost all political leaders throughout human history have been nothing but a bunch of murderers, @Tainari88. If you do it on a small scale as a private citizen, they call you a ‘criminal’ and execute you. But if you do it on a large scale as a political leader, to the sound of trumpets and drums, then they call you a ‘genius’ and write books about how great you are. People - ordinary, working people - need to wake up and see things as they truly are. And then none of this could continue to happen, because nobody would allow it to happen.

[Tainari88]

Almost all political leaders throughout human history have been nothing but a bunch of murderers, @Tainari88. If you do it on a small scale as a private citizen, they call you a ‘criminal’ and execute you. But if you do it on a large scale as a political leader, to the sound of trumpets and drums, then they call you a ‘genius’ and write books about how great you are. People - ordinary, working people - need to wake up and see things as they truly are. And then none of this could continue to happen, because nobody would allow it to happen.

Listen to that guy I posted in the short? He has internalized his horrible actions. That is why all those ex Vietnam veterans in the USA are crazy as bat shit. It is because they were asked to do inhuman horrible violent immoral acts and told they were doing a good job!

Vietnam was fighting a nationalist war. Their ability to be free from French control, American control and any foreign control. That the US government kept insisting on mass bombings with Agent Orange and creating death and destruction is never discussed.

Most of those Vietnamese peasants did not open a single book on Karl Marx in their entire lives. They were in a rice field trying to get their crops in. All that mass destruction was to defeat them in their need to be their own country.

Vietnam has 95 million people. A fair amount of people. Imagine how many were killed like animals in the field because the USA has to stop what?

Those people were villagers. Not some professors in the big cities studying Lenin and Marx. A bunch of ASSHOLES are the politicians who send people to die. They murdered people to terrorize them. Why? It is inexcusable.

They emerged now into a normal life. That they forgive is remarkable.

How many people does Vietnam have in its borders currently?

The current population of Vietnam in2024 is 99,497,680, a 0.65% increase from 2023. The population of Vietnam in 2023 was 98,858,950, a 0.68% increase from 2022. The population of Vietnam in 2022 was 98,186,856, a 0.74% increase from 2021. The population of Vietnam in 2021 was 97,468,029, a 0.85% increase from 2020.

[paeng]

You are missing the important bit, that the former Soviet states were begging to join. They knew Russia was still Russia...

The "important bit" is that the U.S. wanted Russia to join.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/n ... join-nato/

while NATO was trying a similar stunt in Asia:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... fice-tokyo

[paeng]

About Vietnam, we're talking about Ike, JFK, LBJ, and Nixon. Korea was on their mind, but not their hearts. We were all in, where Korea is concerned. We're still there.

But we didn't want a repeat of Korea, so we were never all in.

Moving the border would not have changed that..

You can overthink Putin. The USSR would have been able to take Kyiv. It was what he was expecting.

Lastly, the USSR is dead, gone. We had hoped Russia would become another capitalist country, but that didn't happen. We sent Russia hundreds of billions, an army of experts; trying to give it Rule of Law, a thriving market system, and fair elections.

But, as was predicted shortly after the collapse of the USSR, Russia was still Russia. This was always going to happen. Russia would get another tyrant, he would do what other Russian leaders had done, by conquering the other countries. And those other countries would want to hide behind our skirts.

As many have observed, no one had any intention of invading Russia. Europe's military was underfunded, and built for defensive operations. We had just enough to signal our commitment, and that commitment was not about sending more troops. It was about nukes.

"Capitalist country." Good grief. When Putin took over, Russian per capita GDP grew four times faster than that of Ukraine, which still tried to copy the U.S. neoliberal model.

The punch line is that Russia was following a variation of the East Asian model which was started by Japan. You know, the "democracy" which has been ruled almost continuously by the Liberal Democratic Party for almost six decades, and which isn't exactly liberal or democratic?

It gets even better when one realizes that what the West did to Ukraine it's now attempting with the Philippines:

https://orinocotribune.com/us-shapes-ph ... s-ukraine/

The level of delusion among neocon-neolibs still caught up in a Reaganite "evil empire" binary's astounding. They can't let go of the frightening reality that it's becoming a multipolar world.

[paeng]

Sigh.

Let's make that simpler, there are no races. None, nada, zip, zilch. Just us humans.

Russia is conquering countries, and if they get Ukraine, what comes after that is NATO. He's been talking about Poland, and that's one of the countries Russia always wants.

That could be a problem, how do you feel about glowing in the dark?

That "they're coming after NATO" storyline is over two decades old. It was made up to justify encirclement:

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/18 ... r-ukraine/

Who are you kidding?

[paeng]

Russia does not really claim be a democratic nation. Even if it was a democratic nation, The West would still blame Putin for being a dictator. The West's dictatorship accusations toward has no basis. You just call people dictator because you don't like them.

The West even blames Erdoğan for being a dictator despite the fact that Turkey has been holding free and fair election for 74 years.

Meanwhile, the same West continues to buy fossil fuels from Russia, munitions needed for ammo from China, continues to trade with China, and even with Saudi Arabia.

"Democracies".

[paeng]

AGE of the empires has gone.


Chinese academic Deng Xize : "No more Mongol-Muscovy style empire:Thoughts on the war in Ukraine, ...such empires will no longer be tolerated."


Chinese academic Deng Xize : "No more Mongol-Muscovy style empire: Thoughts on the war in Ukraine, The global reaction to the war in Ukraine in fact shows that such empires will no longer be tolerated."​
The Mongol-Muscovy style empire could be defined as a dominating, rapacious empire upheld by violence, especially unruly violence, and exhibiting three prominent characteristics.


First, it uses unruly violence as a regular means of resolving international disputes. While violence is common and sometimes necessary in political or social governance, rules have been set for its use under a modern lawful democratic system. Unlike in ancient times, the use of violence now comes under heavy restrictions and is “predictable”. Such an evolution also applies to international relations.

https://www.thinkchina.sg/no-more-mongo ... ar-ukraine

The "Russian empire" story line is invented, just like the "China empire" storyline. What's more likely is that these countries follow nationalist economics, and variations of the East Asian model started by Japan.

The problem is that they threaten the dollar used as a reserve currency, and the only thing that allows the U.S. to borrow and spend heavily. That's why the real empire in place today is that of the U.S., which has to use over 700 military installations worldwide and a very expensive military coupled with the IMF-WB to control weaker countries. The catch is that the latter have become economically stronger and answering back.

[Tainari88]

The "Russian empire" story line is invented, just like the "China empire" storyline. What's more likely is that these countries follow nationalist economics, and variations of the East Asian model started by Japan.

The problem is that they threaten the dollar used as a reserve currency, and the only thing that allows the U.S. to borrow and spend heavily. That's why the real empire in place today is that of the U.S., which has to use over 700 military installations worldwide and a very expensive military coupled with the IMF-WB to control weaker countries. The catch is that the latter have become economically stronger and answering back.

But the US government are the nice guys in these scenarios Paeng. All that logic of wanting to invest in over 700 military stations is because America is making sure the world is safe from the competition. The pathetic excuses used by the people who think having all those military investments is about not interfering and intimidating are fools of the first order. America cares about justice. They care about CONTROLLING THE WORLD. Not justice.

[JohnRawls]

Are people on this thread actually trying to argue this 87% is real?

Just a reminder that the most landslide election in American history of all elections was like 42-58% by the way or something along those lines or 44 - 56

Actually it is considered societally/mathematically impossible for one party in a true democracy to get over 75%. Surveys show that even the most supported parties and even vast majority of all policies will have 25% opposition at all times. That is just how humans are. Decent ammount of research in behavioural studies was conducted on this topic.

Realistically getting even over 60% is almost impossible in a true democratic society for a party.

[ingliz]

Are people on this thread actually trying to argue this 87% is real?

Why would you Americans care? For years you got a government elected with a 100% share of the vote as Dems and Reps were as good as two wings of the same party and completely interchangeable save for the rhetoric. For years you could have randomly assigned your elected representative a party, and nobody but the politics geeks among you would have noticed.

It's all a sham.

If you Americans are so into democracy, why in this election cycle, when there is a choice, and who votes what will make a difference, are you shitting yourselves?

[JohnRawls]

Why would you Americans care? For years you got a government elected with a 100% share of the vote as Dems and Reps were as good as two wings of the same party and completely interchangeable save for the rhetoric. For years you could have randomly assigned your elected representative a party, and nobody but the politics geeks among you would have noticed.

It's all a sham.

If you Americans are so into democracy, why in this election cycle, when there is a choice, and who votes what will make a difference, are you shitting yourselves?

For the first time in Russian modern state history at least HALF of the total vote was falsified but probably a lot more to the tune of 55-60%. It got to the point that it is really hard to understand the baseline now.

Putin seems to be more in the shitter support wise than I anticipated. His real support is around 20-25% and total turnout for this scham of an election was 30-35% by the looks of it.

[ingliz]

@JohnRawls

Why do you think that?

If you were Russian, would you have voted for the nonentities standing against him?

Couldn't it just have been a case of better the devil you know?

[JohnRawls]

@JohnRawls

Why do you think that?

If you were Russian, would you have voted for the nonentities standing against him?

Couldn't it just have been a case of better the devil you know?

I don't think that. There are professional mathematicians that do this analysis. People who are far smarter than me when it comes to statistical analysis, geometrical patterns and so on. They have analyzed all elections since the first Russian election and many many others in other states. There are certain rules that the distributions follow for all election in democratic states so it is not that hard to detect fraud. It is also possible to more or less calculate what would be the vote without falsifications if they are reasonable and not over 50-60%. Right now, what Russia is doing by falsifying 50-60% it already becomes harder with larger margin of errors.

I am "Russian" by the way in your shill understanding but I have always considered myself Estonian. You are forgetting that part of my family is Russian and I speak perfectly fluent Russian, Estonian and English.

If I was a Russian citizen then I would be blowing up fucking Russian officials and killing FSB officers because this has long past the point of non-violence.

How to put it honestly to you without you getting offended or misunderstanding. I have plenty of friends in Russia that mostly would fall in the middle class category of larger cities meaning they are like the 5%-1% of Russia. Theoretically they should be Navalny supporters but in reality lets say only 1-10 of them are clear Navalny supporters. The other 9 basically understand that Putin is bad and understand everything that is going on but they consider themselves apolitical. They don't vote. The main reason and explanation for them is that they can't change anything since Putin will just put them to jail and previously the explanation was more or less the same without Putin putting them to jail. What I am trying to say here is that Russian propaganda has succeeded in making the people apolitical and convincing them that they do not have agency so why vote. So it is their damn fault for what is going on in the country. They didn't vote, they didn't resist and when shit hit the fan it was sort of preverbial too late. This is also the reason why Putin can falsify every election more and more and nothing happens. Now its over 50%.

You laught at Litwin propaganda but his propaganda has a lot of truth to it for those who actually, you know, talk to people and understand something. He often takes it over the top and dehumanises Russia population but that is not exactly incorrect. May be amoral or over the top but not incorrect.

[ingliz]

@JohnRawls

General Election Summary 2022

Date 26/03/2022

Registered Voters 355,075
Votes Cast 85.6% 304,050
Valid Votes 97.1% 295,248
Invalid Votes 2.9% 8,802

Vote share PL 55.11%

District 1 (My District)

Registered Voters 25,863
Votes Cast 85.9% 22,229
Valid Votes 97.5% 21,684
Invalid Votes 2.5% 545

Vote share PL 60.07%

Are you saying Maltese elections are a bit iffy?

part of my family is Russian

As is mine.

for those who actually, you know, talk to people and understand something.

Most Russians I talk to say differently. They may think Putin is not what he was but they think the opposition is worse.

I think 'it', your understanding, depends on who you are talking to.

[Rancid]

Why would you Americans care?

People (not just Americans) should care, because it's important to understand reality.

Your framing of "you Americans" and the rest of that meaningless post is also absolutely fucking stupid. The fuck is that babble?

[Tainari88]

I don't think that. There are professional mathematicians that do this analysis. People who are far smarter than me when it comes to statistical analysis, geometrical patterns and so on. They have analyzed all elections since the first Russian election and many many others in other states. There are certain rules that the distributions follow for all election in democratic states so it is not that hard to detect fraud. It is also possible to more or less calculate what would be the vote without falsifications if they are reasonable and not over 50-60%. Right now, what Russia is doing by falsifying 50-60% it already becomes harder with larger margin of errors.

I am "Russian" by the way in your shill understanding but I have always considered myself Estonian. You are forgetting that part of my family is Russian and I speak perfectly fluent Russian, Estonian and English.

If I was a Russian citizen then I would be blowing up fucking Russian officials and killing FSB officers because this has long past the point of non-violence.

How to put it honestly to you without you getting offended or misunderstanding. I have plenty of friends in Russia that mostly would fall in the middle class category of larger cities meaning they are like the 5%-1% of Russia. Theoretically they should be Navalny supporters but in reality lets say only 1-10 of them are clear Navalny supporters. The other 9 basically understand that Putin is bad and understand everything that is going on but they consider themselves apolitical. They don't vote. The main reason and explanation for them is that they can't change anything since Putin will just put them to jail and previously the explanation was more or less the same without Putin putting them to jail. What I am trying to say here is that Russian propaganda has succeeded in making the people apolitical and convincing them that they do not have agency so why vote. So it is their damn fault for what is going on in the country. They didn't vote, they didn't resist and when shit hit the fan it was sort of preverbial too late. This is also the reason why Putin can falsify every election more and more and nothing happens. Now its over 50%.

You laught at Litwin propaganda but his propaganda has a lot of truth to it for those who actually, you know, talk to people and understand something. He often takes it over the top and dehumanises Russia population but that is not exactly incorrect. May be amoral or over the top but not incorrect.

This is why I have said and I will repeat it here. The big problem with democracies around the world in my view is INDIFFERENCE. People who could vote and get involved and do not get involved and do not vote.

The US has a lot of people who sit it out too. Apolitical people are everywhere John Rawls. This is why also a minority of voters that back Trump might stay in power for a very long time too. Once the authoritarians and dictators are in charge? Combined with the ones who are apolitical sitting on their asses without doing anything? The democratic tradition dies a quick death.

People think that democracy is strong and can withstand a lot. It will never do that if people remain on the sidelines.

Most people are not going to be running for office in their countries John Rawls. They just want decent results in their communities.

So many times people in my own nation have told me, just give it up, the US is in charge, we are powerless and why fight for more? It is never going to change.

Fucking people create their destinies by giving up on their political structures. You need to be active. Once you have a dictator in there trying to get rid of those people is violence galore only. But, it seems like no one ever learns.

[JohnRawls]

@JohnRawls

General Election Summary 2022

Date 26/03/2022

Registered Voters 355,075
Votes Cast 85.6% 304,050
Valid Votes 97.1% 295,248
Invalid Votes 2.9% 8,802

Vote share PL 55.11%

District 1 (My District)

Registered Voters 25,863
Votes Cast 85.9% 22,229
Valid Votes 97.5% 21,684
Invalid Votes 2.5% 545

Vote share PL 60.07%

Are you saying Maltese elections are a bit iffy?


As is mine.


Most Russians I talk to say differently. They may think Putin is not what he was but they think the opposition is worse.

I think 'it', your understanding, depends on who you are talking to.

What do you want me to do with that data? You need every voting station turnout and result at a minimum. If you have that data then go write to Shpilkin or construct two graphs, the distribution for the data you have and then construct how a Gaussian distribution would look like with that data. If your distribution for the data is more or less a Gaussian distribution then the results are very likely to be democratic. It might be a tilted to the right or left but if it is a Gaussian distribution then it is okay.

[late]

The "important bit" is that the U.S. wanted Russia to join.

Indeed.