Plus, the information warfare for this thing is bad, really bad. the grainy CGI, the burnt down tanks from the 50's, the Africans and Pakistanis at the "Kiev train station", shit like that. It is like they are using the C team for this.
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Everyone at my work (after initially ignoring the early news from China, of course) who swallowed the Covid BS and then gradually became more intolerant towards those who didn't echo the official covid narrative, is already fully on-board with the Western portrayal of Putin as the "bad man" and Zelenskiy's Ukraine as a cartoonish rebel stronghold of good guys and democracy. They don't know anything about the region since the media's headlines of 2014, and they're not remotey interested in learning about it. They are only interested in the disgusting, putrid information fed to them through the establishment pipe.
I remember feeling a kind of visceral pang of panic/horror/disgust back when I first realised people were not paying attention to reality with Covid and and the vaccinations. This uneasy feeling just hit me again this morning when discussing these recent events. After just 5 days of this war, they have already aligned themselves and have taken on the narrative at an unquestioning and emotional level. They aren't just ambivalent about Putin (like they are about what's occurring in Yemen for example) - they hate him. I tend to think they will be encouraged to similarly hate anyone who contradicts the West's official stance.
Are these people the idiots, or am I actually the idiot for constantly failing to notice that these people would happily go along with anything asked of them, and would enforce progressive values at gunpoint?
You get these groups every thirty to fifty years, the Fabian Society, the Communist International, the Club of Rome, the WEF. They pretend to be influencing the major powers to re-neg on their national interest and set a sinister global agenda. The truth is that there are no national interests, a sinister global agenda was completed at least 5000 years ago, it is just that the people running the world do not want you and me thinking about it, so they come up with these over the top fascists like Malthus or Marx or Schwab. They are not real people, they are literally characters in a story. Why do you think Schwab talks exactly like a cartoon Nazi?
No. You should have engaged the entirety of the post.
I do not care about Russia OR Ukraine, but the framing and questions of my post were rhetorical to give you a platform to make a reasonable argument. You've squandered it, completely.
Three long sentences to say "I will not."
I have never used "owned the libtards" seriously in a sentence because I'm not given to wanton, emotional outbursts of populism. Yeesh.
Textbook example of false dichotomy. Like so: There are kids being sexually trafficked and raped RIGHT NOW. You aren't on here exhausting your fingers to type furious admonishments of child rape. I can only assume you're a kiddie diddler because you haven't. You PERVERT. You FIEND.
The truly scary thing is I don't actually believe that, but you likely do believe in your false dichotomies. Because you want to. Because that's how you feel, and such feelings are useful to help you justify your actions and lack of critical analysis.
Commander fun, I appreciate your reply, but you still sound all schoolhouse-rocky, bright-eyed, and innocent. Just elect the right people to send a bill to the House [that stops border invasions], then the Senate passes it, then POTUS signs it, then the parchment bounces down the steps of the White House as a law! Our system isn't broke, it's just the way that it's being run? How is it possible for the motor to operate in a way that it isn't intended to? Get new operators! But in our situation, that'll be a pretty ostracizing event for us, and bloody for them.
Probably ending states' election of senators is where everything starting getting fucked up. Or, allowing the non-land-owners (non-tax-payers) in our society to vote, but the latter is NEVER going away, while the former was elimated (by Putin) a few years back. The biggest changes we need are probably a few steps away from democracy back to representational republicanism, but we ain't getting that through our current system.
Which is why I wrote what I did, that history is showing "communism lite" to be better than crony capitalism, so long as you have a strong, multi-generational leader heading up a nation that is culturally and ethnically mostly homogeneous.
Or, again, I ask, what other factors am I missing that lead to the failure of Western nation-states, but success of Easter ones like Hungary, Poland Russia, and, hell, I'll throw in Belarus and Japan, too?
(Jovan thanks, you reworded what I had said about a strong head of state being needed.)
It ain't
"our system is correct but it's just being implemented the wrong way,"
because those FACTIONS that were feared certainly haven't been thinking that the system is broken, getting everything they've wanted since the 90's, if not 50's.
You think I'm a pinko commie!? I hate communism as much as the next; I want a government that mostly leaves me the hell alone, and, over a course of a decade (with breaks in between), somehow fucking RUSSIA with its socialism lite has been less intrusive and spiteful towards me and my kids, than my own damn birth country! It might be fun and useful to understand WHY.
But for a LONG time America has been giving us token freedoms, while other places allow for freedoms in the places that count, e.g. are the huge underground economies of places like Greece and Russia something to scoff at or admire, given what we know now (post-2020)? Was Japan repulsive or admirable, showing off to Tucker during its Olympics how clean the train stations were, with such restrictive immigration policies? Everyone knows this list of comparatively better immigration, economic, and social norms is much longer than this.
We only get one shot at life, and one VERY small window of time to raise our kids, so I see no point in needlessly suffering because your nation has the "better" system of government but it's just being abused and manipulated for gain. At some point you don't allow yourself and your family to continue suffering as you "fix" the school system from the inside; you move to a new school district! "Rich" people for centuries have moved abroad to avoid taxes, so what would be so wrong about moving abroad to avoid cultural and economic genocide? If THOSE BILLIONAIRES can't stay within the tax system to fix it from within, how much hope do us lower middle-class saps have at destroying the beast from within its belly, using its own rules?
Can we start taking wagers yet on end dates? We have to be specific, that we mean REQUIRED muzzling, and clarify that we mean everywhere (not just in certain states, or perhaps even countries?), or specify that we mean in specific locations, like stores or schools or on planes. For example, I'd be willing to bet that the mask mandates on planes (and maybe even in schools, but God, I hope not) NEVER go away, not without some bloody wars being fought and won, at least.
Media that should be executed
MSNBC (@MSNBC): "Sarah Kendzior: "Trump was installed as the president of the United States in order to weaken the alliances that were preventing Putin from achieving his goals. Alliances like NATO, our relationship with our European partners...with Ukraine." https:'/''/'on.msnbc.com'/'3tdyQcB" | nitter
versus
His own words
Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald): "Trump spent years trying to sabotage Nord Stream 2, and screaming at Germany'/'EU for buying so much Russian oil and gas. He also flooded Ukraine with lethal arms. That should have immediately destroyed the conspiracy theory that he was controlled by Putin. Listen for yourself:" | nitter
One of the definitions of the word polite is: of, relating to, or having the characteristics of advanced culture.
Turns out, that if you are polite where it is not warranted, the repercussions lead to the opposite of that definition.
Masks make people especially children stupid.
Telepractice Speech Therapy Just a Click Away | RemoteSpeech
Highly recommended vid to explain the recent historical background of Ukraine playing footsie with us in Russia's backyard over the past decade or so. It's long but only the first 20min are the professor's speech; the rest is 2Q&A that I haven't even gotten to yet:
PROFESSOR JOHN MEARSHEIMER: THE SITUATION IN RUSSIA AND UKRAINE | KING'S POLITICS:
PROFESSOR JOHN MEARSHEIMER: THE SITUATION IN RUSSIA AND UKRAINE | KING'S POLITICS - YouTube
A quick summary of the timeline for those unable to listen:
--> from '91 (the collapse; when it gsined its autonomy) to '18, Ukraine is a mostly neutral country
-->'08, NATO announces it intends to let Georgia and Ukraine join, Germany and France were adamantly against this (understanding Russia's likely reaction if we creep that close to them with bases and military equipment and men), but we strongarmed our intentions into the final statement out of Bucharest
--> also '08, Russia conducts a military engagement against Georgia, for the same reasons but with less intensity than the kinetic activity going on now.
--> '14, TPTB get Russian-friendly Lukashenko voted out, MAYBE in a fair & free election, but it smelled just like our more recent POTUS election, and a color revolution conveniently spontaneously broke out before the "elections.". This obviously pokes the Russian bear,
But the Rooskies are mostly calm from '14 - '22, as the West squanders the opportunities these 7 years presented to work out a solution to Ukraine and the separatist republics.
Anyways, listen to the first 20min:
PROFESSOR JOHN MEARSHEIMER: THE SITUATION IN RUSSIA AND UKRAINE | KING'S POLITICS - YouTube
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If you hear someone bleating about civilian deaths right now, or pRoTeCtInG dEmoCraCy, ESPECIALLY "Conservative" friends who were all gung-ho about muh Russia being an overblown meme for the past decade+, you need to use some artillery to shame them:
*cIvIlIaN deaths? So, Russia's main goal is to kill civilians, but they ONLY managed to kill "198" in the first five days, then "352" as of today (and who knows how many of those were military or civilians using free AK's to shoot at military?
I'm sorry, but Russia could kill MANY MANY more if that were its goal! The fact that only a couple hundred are dead means they're trying to limit civilian casualties at an unacceptably low level, much like we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, which leads me to...
*All the Western media outlets were puppeting yesterday that Ukranian forces are giving unexpectedly strong resistance and slowing the Russians. I'm sorry, but who actually believes that that's possible? With just the slightest self-analysis you can conclude that, if this is even true, it's due to masochistic self-restraint, to limit civilian casualties, much like what we have done in all OUR wars since Vietnam. Do you REALLY think the Ukrainian military is a match for Russia's?
*So, if the Russians don't want civilians dead, what do they want?
<-- ask this of your braindead friends, who, like most Americans, it seems, turn off common sense and revert to "get err done!" and "stop the bad guys and protect ALL civilians" whenever these overseas conflicts break out.
You've just logically shown they don't want to kill innocent Ukranians, so, what, does your kneejerk-reaction friend love the puppet president that much? Does he think that dude was elected freely and fairly, and must now be sent arm$ from us so he can maintain his death grip on power? Does your Ukraine-loving friend not care about the separatist Ukrainians who have been bombed and killed over these past 7 years, and who have been forced to speak Ukrainian instead of Russian?
As a last-ditch effort you can propose how the logical fallacy could possibly be fair, that America can support or eliminate dictators (Saudis, Ghaddafi, Sadam) and bomb civilians while supporting separatist regimes (Kosovo, Chechoslovakia) without getting sanctioned and ostracized, but Russia can't. I don't think your logic needs to go this far, but for the particularly obtuse it may need to be your nuclear option.
I am just amazed at how many more than just the Hannity and Mark Levin boomer cons can totally flip their opinions on Russia, over some videos of bombed out apartments and dead civilians (were they shooting their free AKs at the Russians before being dealt with; were they just collateral, unexpected damage?). Do you idiots think innocent blood won't be shed if we ever break free of our shackles from TBTB over here?? So, so dense!