Russia / Ukraine Watch

[Currywurst and Chips]

You're wrong in every sentence

[Long slender neck]

What is there to talk about exactly?

[Max B Gold]

You're wrong in every sentence

So you don't want to stop the war then?

[Dunners]

You're wrong in every sentence

So you don't want to stop the war then?

If Russia stops fighting, then the war stops. If Ukraine stops fighting, then Ukraine stops. And then Russia will move onto its next target. And then the usual idiots will be telling Poland/Romania/Lithuania etc that they need to stop.

Russia is the problem.

[Max B Gold]

You're wrong in every sentence

So you don't want to stop the war then?

If Russia stops fighting, then the war stops. If Ukraine stops fighting, then Ukraine stops. And then Russia will move onto its next target. And then the usual idiots will be telling Poland/Romania/Lithuania etc that they need to stop.

Russia is the problem.

I didn't say they're not. So it's WW3 you want. Be brave say it.

[RedDwarf 1881]

Fears are increasing that Moldova are next .

[Currywurst and Chips]

Multiple straw men

Can't say I'm surprised by someone who shared Kremlin disinformation pre-war then Putin war crime deniers once the war started.

[tuffers#1]

You're wrong in every sentence

So you don't want to stop the war then?

If Russia stops fighting, then the war stops. If Ukraine stops fighting, then Ukraine stops. And then Russia will move onto its next target. And then the usual idiots will be telling Poland/Romania/Lithuania etc that they need to stop.

Russia is the problem.

They put a foot in Poland/Romania/Lithuania
Then War in Europe starts .
Dont think for a second that Nato will not step up .
160k extra troops on the boarders of Gateways into Natos Europe already .

Do we need to got there .
Putin needs to stop the war
Not Russia

[Long slender neck]

Russians need to rise up and get rid of Putin.

The Mail have shown footage of Putin having the shakes. Whats that about?

[Dunners]

So you don't want to stop the war then?

If Russia stops fighting, then the war stops. If Ukraine stops fighting, then Ukraine stops. And then Russia will move onto its next target. And then the usual idiots will be telling Poland/Romania/Lithuania etc that they need to stop.

Russia is the problem.

I didn't day they're not. So it's WW3 you want. Be brave say it.

If you honestly believe that WW3 is the only alternative then you appear to have stumbled upon a point you're unsure of. It's not. And I very much doubt Putin would be stupid enough to deploy strategic nukes (I accept tactical nukes are a risk within Ukraine).

Keeping Russia bogged down in an unwinnable conflict until it's destroyed economically, demographically and even politically is an option. I even suspect it may be the NATO unspoken stratgey. But it may risk sacrificing Ukraine in the process, so that the next target countries may be spared from Russia and an attack on NATO avoided.

That's a lot to ask of Ukraine, so it's for them and them alone to decide if they want to negotiate with their rapists. Certainly not for the likes of Angus Roxburgh, who even has repeated Kremlin propaganda in his opinion piece.

[Dunners]

Fears are increasing that Moldova are next .

Read back through this thread. That was on the cards from the start as Russia intends to control the Besarabian gap.

[tuffers#1]

Russians need to rise up and get rid of Putin.

The Mail have shown footage of Putin having the shakes. Whats that about?

Lots of Rumours about terminal illness

[Max B Gold]

If Russia stops fighting, then the war stops. If Ukraine stops fighting, then Ukraine stops. And then Russia will move onto its next target. And then the usual idiots will be telling Poland/Romania/Lithuania etc that they need to stop.

Russia is the problem.

I didn't day they're not. So it's WW3 you want. Be brave say it.

If you honestly believe that WW3 is the only alternative then you appear to have stumbled upon a point you're unsure of. It's not. And I very much doubt Putin would be stupid enough to deploy strategic nukes (I accept tactical nukes are a risk within Ukraine).

Keeping Russia bogged down in an unwinnable conflict until it's destroyed economically, demographically and even politically is an option. I even suspect it may be the NATO unspoken stratgey. But it may risk sacrificing Ukraine in the process, so that the next target countries may be spared from Russia and an attack on NATO avoided.

That's a lot to ask of Ukraine, so it's for them and them alone to decide if they want to negotiate with their rapists. Certainly not for the likes of Angus Roxburgh, who even has repeated Kremlin propaganda in his opinion piece.

So there we have it. Ukraine is to be sacrificed to protect the West but the Ukrainians are free to make their own choice about being annihilated. Righty oh.

Roxburgh may well be a Kremlin stooge but like it or not it will be necessary to sit in the same room and negotiate with even more dislikable people in due course.

[The Mindsweep]

Johnson again being a willy


https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ned-poland

[tuffers#1]

Johnson again being a willy


https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ned-poland

Bodge Blabbering Blustering Buffoon
Is what he is .

And he claims his Hero is Churchill .
I think Winston would impale him on
A Bayonet

[Max B Gold]

Russians need to rise up and get rid of Putin.

The Mail have shown footage of Putin having the shakes. Whats that about?

The power of the Russian state does not rest upon individuals like Putin. It is the organised power of the ruling class.

Removing one man won't solve the problem.

[Dunners]

Agree with Max on this one. Although, Putin eventually dying will cause problems for them as he does hold disproportionate power.

There are inevitable changes coming. The ruling class of Russia is very old, with Putin being one of the youngest. They also number a very small cabal, relative to the ruling elites of other nations, so the pool from which they can plan succession is tiny and diminishing.

All this means it's reasonable to predict disruption and power struggles a decade from now. Unfortunately, what follows is not guaranteed to be an improvement.

[Max B Gold]

Agree with Max on this one. Although, Putin eventually dying will cause problems for them as he does hold disproportionate power.

There are inevitable changes coming. The ruling class of Russia is very old, with Putin being one of the youngest. They also number a very small cabal, relative to the ruling elites of other nations, so the pool from which they can plan succession is tiny and diminishing.

All this means it's reasonable to predict disruption and power struggles a decade from now. Unfortunately, what follows is not guaranteed to be an improvement.

Thank you for agreeing with me. I know how difficult that must have been for you.

One request if I may. Please stop putting words in my mouth. At no point did I say WW3 was the only alternative. It isn't. If we are to discuss this important issue honestly there can be no place for falsifications.

On my part I will try to refrain from trolling Pammy who has a bit of a short fuse these days.

I'm reading a book at the moment that deals with the succession to Franco and the power struggles that involved behind the scenes in the years leading up to and after his death.

One of the crucial factors in the "transition to democracy" (spoiler; it wasnt) was the pressure from below from organised workers which drew in the petty bourgeoisie and middle classes and to some extent modified the outlook of the Catholic Church.

As the cost of living sky rockets in Russia because of the war and sanctions workers and anti Putin forces will organise and fight back against the oligarchs. Initially the struggle will be an economic one but will transition into a battle for democratic political rights and who knows may go further than that and become an anticapitalist revolution. One can but hope.

[Max Fowler]

Fears are increasing that Moldova are next .

Read back through this thread. That was on the cards from the start as Russia intends to control the Besarabian gap.

Can you please revert back to the multi-para C&P.

Because these one line succinct points make it look like you actually know what you're going on about.

[Max B Gold]

Fears are increasing that Moldova are next .

Read back through this thread. That was on the cards from the start as Russia intends to control the Besarabian gap.

Can you please revert back to the multi-para C&P.

Because these one line succinct points make it look like you actually know what you're going on about.

Good point but isn't this "Besarabian Gap" lifted from Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones or something?

[Dunners]

One request if I may. Please stop putting words in my mouth. At no point did I say WW3 was the only alternative.

Okay. But that was in response to this:

So you don't want to stop the war then?

If Russia stops fighting, then the war stops. If Ukraine stops fighting, then Ukraine stops. And then Russia will move onto its next target. And then the usual idiots will be telling Poland/Romania/Lithuania etc that they need to stop.

Russia is the problem.

So it's WW3 you want. Be brave say it.

Therefore, if you were not implying that WW3 was the only option, it means you were putting words in my mouth.

If we are to discuss this important issue honestly there can be no place for falsifications.

That's cool by me. However...

...Otherwise America and NATO fight on until the last Ukrainian.

...or is that just you trolling pammy?

[Dunners]

I thought the quoted comments by Ekaterina Schulmann in this article were interesting, and also allude to the importance of Russian demographics in this war:


Ekaterina Schulmann:

I think that these processes which we [political scientists] were observing, including the transformation of values, of worldviews, of public opinion [specifically in Russia], were real. I do not think that we were all in thrall of illusions when we noted that violence in society is decreasing; that crime rates are falling; that new generations have a new value system; that video games actually reduce violence, rather than increase it; that, in general, the younger the social stratum, the more pronounced the decline in violent crime and in consumption of hard liquor; that imperial nostalgia is fading into the past.

Now, turn this picture around, and imagine yourself on the other side. There you sit and watch as the sands of time slip through your fingers. You will inevitably be succeeded by -- let's use his language -- traitors. Your children are traitors. They do not share your view of life, they do not share your view of the world, they do not see that which you see with such clarity. You are the last defender of the fortress. They will surrender it to the enemy, because they do not even consider him an enemy, and no matter how much you try to convince them, they still won't consider.

A sizable, cultured and educated segment of the public sits around you at a safe distance, looks on and says: "Go on, we'll wait. When you die, it will be our turn. The sympathies of the future are on our side. The youth idolizes us, not you. But do go on, sit there for now, why not. We will not storm the Kremlin, we only need to wait."

A year passes, and another, then a third. Everything continues in the same vein. At the same time, your head is full of geopolitics, and the neighboring country is causing you unease. It had somehow made progress, which is very disturbing. And you realize that a little more, just a tiny bit longer, and that's it, your historical time will end. Your window will shut. They will tell you: "Well, that's enough, get down from there. The next ones are coming." And these next ones are unacceptable to you. From your point of view, they are worse than useless, they will doom everything, they will ruin everything.

"He'll smash to bits the sacred vessels, he'll feed the dirt with royal oil, he'll squander everything - and by what right?" [from The Covetous Knight, by Alexander Pushkin]. Read that again, and realize that this is not about money. You will be seized with horror, at this hatred for one's heirs, hatred for the living simply because they shall go on living. "It's time for me to rot, and you to blossom." A reasonable person can accept this, can caress a baby, understanding that "yes, I will turn to dust, but you will live on and prosper."

But if you happen to be constituted a little bit differently, and you also happen to hold a great deal of power in your hands, then you can do this trick: onto the heads of all these future generations, you will overturn a heavy concrete slab, which will crush them forever, or least in any foreseeable perspective. That future that they wanted, they won't get. Instead, they will get the future your way, even after you are no longer among the living, because you will do such a thing, oh my...

You are inside, you understand? Yes, inside this fortress that you're guarding, you will figuratively detonate an atomic bomb. True, there will be no life left in the fortress, but it will be radioactive and therefore unapproachable, and so it will forever remain "unconquered", so to speak.

Not to speak of the specific culprit, with all due respect for him and his functions, but of a whole social and demographic stratum. Have you seen our average age figures? But it's not just age per se. It's a certain social affiliation, a certain kind of experience, a certain world view that is formed by this experience. Anyone who can't accept the flow of time and come to terms with it, yet possesses power, could do this kind of thing.

This is my explanation. It's only a working hypothesis, but that's how it is. I do see confirmation from many sources, as well as in very public official pronouncements about how "we need to do this right now, tomorrow would be too late", just another moment and everything will turn to irrevocable regret and musings of "we should have..."

This sentiment of "time flowing away" is something that I have been hearing for a long time, I think. I speak about this whenever I discuss generational change. The feeling that somehow history is not headed "in our direction", this hatred and disgust for tomorrow, because "it is not what I need", is clearly audible [in Putin's speeches]. What was hard to grasp is that someone would go to such ends in an attempt to drown out these apparently unbearable feelings.

The trouble is, of course, that this terrible work of isolation is being done from both sides. The wall is being built from both outside and inside. We cannot blame the outside world for wanting to protect itself from, let's say it out loud, an aggressive regime that is attacking and killing people. Still, the labor of isolation is being worked by four hands. It's horrible. [To repair the damage] will take a lot of work over a very long time. Simply returning to a level that, until now, we took for granted, will require an unimaginable expenditure of effort and resources.

It's remarkable and tragic how humanity can squander its strength like this.

[Max B Gold]

One request if I may. Please stop putting words in my mouth. At no point did I say WW3 was the only alternative.

Okay. But that was in response to this:

If Russia stops fighting, then the war stops. If Ukraine stops fighting, then Ukraine stops. And then Russia will move onto its next target. And then the usual idiots will be telling Poland/Romania/Lithuania etc that they need to stop.

Russia is the problem.

So it's WW3 you want. Be brave say it.

Therefore, if you were not implying that WW3 was the only option, it means you were putting words in my mouth.

If we are to discuss this important issue honestly there can be no place for falsifications.

That's cool by me. However...

...Otherwise America and NATO fight on until the last Ukrainian.

...or is that just you trolling pammy?

Both of you to be honest. I can't believe how well its working.

Anyway, like I said I'm going to stop now and going forward I will be supplying thorouhgoing Marxist analysis in the Trotsky/Gramscian stylee but with the odd funny or obvious contradiction. If that's OK with you. It's the only way to refute the C&P Brigade.

One other small point. When I said "So it's WW3 you want" that is a question. I was not implying it was the only alternative. Your comprehension skillz have let you down.

[Dunners]

You can never defeat the C&P Brigade. We have endless resources.

[Max B Gold]

I thought the quoted comments by Ekaterina Schulmann in this article were interesting, and also allude to the importance of Russian demographics in this war:


Ekaterina Schulmann:

I think that these processes which we [political scientists] were observing, including the transformation of values, of worldviews, of public opinion [specifically in Russia], were real. I do not think that we were all in thrall of illusions when we noted that violence in society is decreasing; that crime rates are falling; that new generations have a new value system; that video games actually reduce violence, rather than increase it; that, in general, the younger the social stratum, the more pronounced the decline in violent crime and in consumption of hard liquor; that imperial nostalgia is fading into the past.

Now, turn this picture around, and imagine yourself on the other side. There you sit and watch as the sands of time slip through your fingers. You will inevitably be succeeded by -- let's use his language -- traitors. Your children are traitors. They do not share your view of life, they do not share your view of the world, they do not see that which you see with such clarity. You are the last defender of the fortress. They will surrender it to the enemy, because they do not even consider him an enemy, and no matter how much you try to convince them, they still won't consider.

A sizable, cultured and educated segment of the public sits around you at a safe distance, looks on and says: "Go on, we'll wait. When you die, it will be our turn. The sympathies of the future are on our side. The youth idolizes us, not you. But do go on, sit there for now, why not. We will not storm the Kremlin, we only need to wait."

A year passes, and another, then a third. Everything continues in the same vein. At the same time, your head is full of geopolitics, and the neighboring country is causing you unease. It had somehow made progress, which is very disturbing. And you realize that a little more, just a tiny bit longer, and that's it, your historical time will end. Your window will shut. They will tell you: "Well, that's enough, get down from there. The next ones are coming." And these next ones are unacceptable to you. From your point of view, they are worse than useless, they will doom everything, they will ruin everything.

"He'll smash to bits the sacred vessels, he'll feed the dirt with royal oil, he'll squander everything - and by what right?" [from The Covetous Knight, by Alexander Pushkin]. Read that again, and realize that this is not about money. You will be seized with horror, at this hatred for one's heirs, hatred for the living simply because they shall go on living. "It's time for me to rot, and you to blossom." A reasonable person can accept this, can caress a baby, understanding that "yes, I will turn to dust, but you will live on and prosper."

But if you happen to be constituted a little bit differently, and you also happen to hold a great deal of power in your hands, then you can do this trick: onto the heads of all these future generations, you will overturn a heavy concrete slab, which will crush them forever, or least in any foreseeable perspective. That future that they wanted, they won't get. Instead, they will get the future your way, even after you are no longer among the living, because you will do such a thing, oh my...

You are inside, you understand? Yes, inside this fortress that you're guarding, you will figuratively detonate an atomic bomb. True, there will be no life left in the fortress, but it will be radioactive and therefore unapproachable, and so it will forever remain "unconquered", so to speak.

Not to speak of the specific culprit, with all due respect for him and his functions, but of a whole social and demographic stratum. Have you seen our average age figures? But it's not just age per se. It's a certain social affiliation, a certain kind of experience, a certain world view that is formed by this experience. Anyone who can't accept the flow of time and come to terms with it, yet possesses power, could do this kind of thing.

This is my explanation. It's only a working hypothesis, but that's how it is. I do see confirmation from many sources, as well as in very public official pronouncements about how "we need to do this right now, tomorrow would be too late", just another moment and everything will turn to irrevocable regret and musings of "we should have..."

This sentiment of "time flowing away" is something that I have been hearing for a long time, I think. I speak about this whenever I discuss generational change. The feeling that somehow history is not headed "in our direction", this hatred and disgust for tomorrow, because "it is not what I need", is clearly audible [in Putin's speeches]. What was hard to grasp is that someone would go to such ends in an attempt to drown out these apparently unbearable feelings.

The trouble is, of course, that this terrible work of isolation is being done from both sides. The wall is being built from both outside and inside. We cannot blame the outside world for wanting to protect itself from, let's say it out loud, an aggressive regime that is attacking and killing people. Still, the labor of isolation is being worked by four hands. It's horrible. [To repair the damage] will take a lot of work over a very long time. Simply returning to a level that, until now, we took for granted, will require an unimaginable expenditure of effort and resources.

It's remarkable and tragic how humanity can squander its strength like this.

It's a bit simplistic. Not all of the olds are like that.

There may be an element of generational politics going on but its not the key to unlocking greater understanding of the situation in Russia.