Ukraine has already lost the war

[jakelafortParticipant]

500, 800, 1000 a day…

Fodder, meat grinder, fungible goods. How will we prevent additional meat for the grinder? Status quo. Full speed ahead. Population control.

Royal family fetish. Lionize. Ruminate. Speculate. Peak in the windows to satisfy the voyueristic impulse. Royal family! Lets look at its history in brief. Primogeniture-sexism, nepotism, anti-meritocracy. Divine right? Twas only a few centuries ago that the illusion of a direct line to the almighty was the justification for wielding power. A system of law that judged of the status of the victim and the perpetrator. Scales of justice were guaged through status. A feudal system in which Royal degenerates with prognathous features sat atop the class structure and made regal defecation on the lower rungs. In turn the aristocracy similarly plopped on its lower echelons. Hierarchy. Not merit. Entitlement. Not hard work.

Instead of being a curiosity, an anachronism, an anti-paradigm we see the masses fawning and shitting themselves to get a whiff. I know it is a product of our biology. Recently a pro football player collapsed on the field. And there was so much concern. CNN, FOX, MSNBC were covering it ad nauseum. Meanwhile regular Joes and Janes the world over collapse and not a peep. We elevate without justification royalty, athletes, celebrities. Why? Cuz we are like Apes on steroids celebrating and in awe of our silverbacks.

Other thoughts will be in abeyance cuz the first at Oaklawn Park goes off shortly…

[UnseenParticipant]

Dore is well to the left of AOC and the rest of “the squad” and is highly critical of them for being too soft, so he may seem to be coming from the right. But no, he’s more extremely leftist and is more of a third party proponent than a Democrat.

To wit:

• This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by  Unseen.

[UnseenParticipant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Unseen, Scott Ritter has a weird notion of causality when he somehow blames the U.S. and the West for all the death and destruction in Ukraine and says Putin did everything possible to avoid war when Putin was the trigger man.

Well, it’s not just Scott Ritter. One of the greatest scholars of that part of the world blames the U.S. and NATO. You can find tons of 1 or 2 hour addresses by Prof. John Mearsheimer on Youtube. This one is fairly short at only about 20 minutes. If you want to know how the argument that we caused the conflict goes presented by as rational and well-informed expert, here you go:

He explains that Putin was provoked into his invasion by a number of policies and overt provocations and that Putin understands a policy of annexing the old USSR territories is a terrible idea.

[UnseenParticipant]

Western Leaders Privately Admit Ukraine Can’t Win The War

The private communications are at odds with public statements from Western leaders who routinely say they will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes until it achieves victory on the battlefield. 

The Wall Street Journal, which reported on the private remarks to Zelenksy, said:

“The public rhetoric masks deepening private doubts among politicians in the U.K., France and Germany that Ukraine will be able to expel the Russians from eastern Ukraine and Crimea, which Russia has controlled since 2014, and a belief that the West can only help sustain the war effort for so long, especially if the conflict settles into a stalemate, officials from the three countries say.

‘We keep repeating that Russia mustn’t win, but what does that mean? If the war goes on for long enough with this intensity, Ukraine’s losses will become unbearable,’ a senior French official said.

‘And no one believes they will be able to retrieve Crimea.’
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Zelensky at an Élysée Palace dinner earlier this month that he must consider peace talks with Moscow, the Journal reported.

According to its source, the newspaper quoted Macron as telling Zelensky that “even mortal enemies like France and Germany had to make peace after World War II.”

Macron told Zelensky “he had been a great war leader, but that he would eventually have to shift into political statesmanship and make difficult decisions,” the newspaper reported. 

[UnseenParticipant]

Most Front-Line Ukrainian Soldiers Killed Within ‘4 Hours’

What will we run out of first in our little proxy war? Howitzer shells? Bullets? or Ukrainians?

One thing is for sure, in a meatgrinder war, Ukraine will run out of soldiers before Russia does. And as for the ammunition problem, it seems China may come to Russia’s rescue.

Speaking of China, we need to hold onto our ammunition for the upcoming conflict with China that our military-industrial complex’s lobbyists are furiously working to make happen.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by  Unseen.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

The Babushka Doll still hasn’t sang yet. We might hear something when higher-ups in Putin’s regime see that you can’t make an economy net prosperous by breaking windows.

The Parable of The Broken Window–Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

[UnseenParticipant]

The plain fact is that neither Russia nor Ukraine can win this war, though both sides can unnecessarily waste lives and drag the world economy down by prolonging it.

 

[UnseenParticipant]

We are making a negotiated settlement less and less possible all the time, inching us closer to WW3. We’re telling the Russians there’s nothing we will negotiate and Putin is not one to back down or negotiate from a position of obvious weakness.

[_Robert_Participant]

Dictators depend on cowards. Of course, the MAGA crowd are cowards, afraid of everything. Masks, vaccines, immigrants, strong women, blacks, atheists, LGBTQ, vaccines, and education. That’s a dictator’s entire deal, fear. Dictators like Hitler, Putin, Pol Pot and Saddam are the biggest cowards of all. They know they have to keep terrorizing and murdering and conquering, or they themselves are dead. Once they start, they can’t stop.

Russia is wrecked. This war is causing NATO to become stronger with Sweden and Finland wanting in and countries like Poland are heavily arming up. A drop in the bucket (<5%) of US military budget, EU/UK support and the courage of Ukrainians (who know Russians massacred civilians in all the occupied territories) has wiped out half of Putin’s hapless army of morons, rapists and criminals in a year. Even if Russia takes more territory, the car-bomb phase will begin. Good luck occupying and holding 100 million pissied-off Ukrainians, LOL. How soon they forgot about the US in Viet-Nam/Iraq/Afghanistan experiences or the Soviet experience in Afghanistan. Russia can’t even control their own Chechnya region to this day.

China is peaking (no pun intended) and has a huge logistics problem, just like Russia and Japan. Hugely inverted population pyramid with age (US doesn’t have this problem.) They also need global commerce to continue, something Russia is hindering right now. If Ukraine can hang on, China will start to put pressure on them to end it. With a few exceptions, Russians themselves are so terrified of their leader. When about half a million dead soldiers pile up, Putin will be looking for a face-saving way out and the asshole will probably invade Moldovia or Belarus just to claim victory for his ‘special short-bus operation’.

[UnseenParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

Russia is wrecked. This war is causing NATO to become stronger with Sweden and Finland wanting in and countries like Poland are heavily arming up. A drop in the bucket (<5%) of US military budget, EU/UK support and the courage of Ukrainians (who know Russians massacred civilians in all the occupied territories) has wiped out half of Putin’s hapless army of morons, rapists and criminals in a year. Even if Russia takes more territory, the car-bomb phase will begin. Good luck occupying and holding 100 million pissied-off Ukrainians, LOL. How soon they forgot about the US in Viet-Nam/Iraq/Afghanistan experiences or the Soviet experience in Afghanistan. Russia can’t even control their own Chechnya region to this day.

Great news! NATO clearly doesn’t need the United States anymore (UK and France are even nuclear powers) and we can start spending all that money we can apparently afford to throw into the NATO hole on actually improving America!

China is peaking (no pun intended) and has a huge logistics problem, just like Russia and Japan. Hugely inverted population pyramid with age (US doesn’t have this problem.) They also need global commerce to continue, something Russia is hindering right now. If Ukraine can hang on, China will start to put pressure on them to end it. With a few exceptions, Russians themselves are so terrified of their leader. When about half a million dead soldiers pile up, Putin will be looking for a face-saving way out and the asshole will probably invade Moldovia or Belarus just to claim victory for his ‘special short-bus operation’.

We’ve been underestimating China ever since Mao. Their growth rate has been phenomenal and they’ve lifted a huge proportion of their people to the middle-class level.

Our options to sanction them are severely limited by the fact that they can countersanction, ending shipments of chemicals our industries rely on and, oh yeah, the prescription drugs that keep many Americans alive.

I agree Putin will seek a way out (did you forget he proposed negotiations 2 months ago?) but not at a time when he’s actively being humiliated. Putin has no reverse gear. The trouble is both Ukraine and the U.S. are making negotiations difficult if not impossible. Go up and re/read my Feb 27 post where the Euopean NATO members have gone to Zelenskyy(yyy?) to tell him the truth: he can’t win against Russia, so negotiate.

Of course, the real problem for Zele baby is that if he stops fighting, the powerful Ukrainian Nazis will kill him and install someone else.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by  Unseen.

[jakelafortParticipant]

From Robert: Dictators depend on cowards. Of course, the MAGA crowd are cowards, afraid of everything. Masks, vaccines, immigrants, strong women, blacks, atheists, LGBTQ, vaccines, and education. That’s a dictator’s entire deal, fear. Dictators like Hitler, Putin, Pol Pot and Saddam are the biggest cowards of all. They know they have to keep terrorizing and murdering and conquering, or they themselves are dead. Once they start, they can’t stop.

Now that is the kind of stuff we should discuss. Whence derices the power of dictatorship? In other words how do we interrupt the march of folly both for purposes of existential risk and the betterment of civilization. It is intolerable and inexcusable that there is nothing in the path of dictatorship. We got some awful motherfuckerz in power who jeopardize us all and make the lives of their subjects much worse.

I think it is too glib and facile to lay the blame at the hands of the cowardly lion. Well fuck it i gotta get back to work at this moment. More on that later…maybe

[_Robert_Participant]

jakelafort wrote:

From Robert: Dictators depend on cowards. Of course, the MAGA crowd are cowards, afraid of everything. Masks, vaccines, immigrants, strong women, blacks, atheists, LGBTQ, vaccines, and education. That’s a dictator’s entire deal, fear. Dictators like Hitler, Putin, Pol Pot and Saddam are the biggest cowards of all. They know they have to keep terrorizing and murdering and conquering, or they themselves are dead. Once they start, they can’t stop. Now that is the kind of stuff we should discuss. Whence derices the power of dictatorship? In other words how do we interrupt the march of folly both for purposes of existential risk and the betterment of civilization. It is intolerable and inexcusable that there is nothing in the path of dictatorship. We got some awful motherfuckerz in power who jeopardize us all and make the lives of their subjects much worse. I think it is too glib and facile to lay the blame at the hands of the cowardly lion. Well fuck it i gotta get back to work at this moment. More on that later…maybe

Oh, it’s fear. That’s how bullies operate. The Night of Long Knives. The Saddam cigar congress. Baby Doc with skulls on his desk. It’s illegal to call Russia’s war a war in Russia. They will lock you up or throw you out a window. People who don’t have the courage to eject their authoritarian assholes deserve what they get.

 

[jakelafortParticipant]

Robert, i think it is virtually inarguable that totalitarianism survives through fear of punishment. Was not questioning that part of the equation. My query is how dictatorship sustains itself. Are the subjects of dictatorship to blame because they are cowards? Is that always the case?

I think mythology is central to dictatorship. Japanese emperors utilized it. Medieval European aristocracy utilized it. Putin does. The Korean asshole does. Pol Pot. Hitler obviously did. Not sure there is an exception to the general rule. And theocracies obviously are all based on mythology.

I assume a goodly slice of hard core Trump supporters would cream to end the democracy to worship Trump. And i think you rightly adduce their attributes and characteristics. I think you can point to demographics that lend themselves to fostering citizens who are attracted to authoritarian figures.

Hypothetically Trumpistan emerges. Then it is fair to point the finger at those hard core supporters without whom Trump would be a buffoon and without power. And in Nazi Germany i think Hitler reflected the will of the people. Not all but the majority. So instances like the two mentioned the supporters who bring a figure to power are to blame.

Additionally there is validity to how you portray the low-life supporters of dictators. Yeah they’re in a sense cowards afraid of (fill in the blank) which includes xenophobia and intense nationalism. They love having scapegoats.

But how do you see North Koreans? How do they differ in any real sense from South Koreans? I think they have some form of democracy, right? Everything i have read and heard about North K. suggests to me that the citizens are living in a governmental cult. Utterly fucked up lives as a result of that dictatorship and a threat to the outside world. Isn’t it just an accident of history that the north ended up one way and the south another? The north is comprised of cowards who cede power willingly to a dictator but the south is comprised of freedom loving citizens? Doesn’t make much sense to me. I doubt Russians are much more guilty of not opposing and overthrowing Putin. And then the way people are manipulated to believe lies. And this happens everywhere on the planet. So that is where for me it is not all black and white.

I think the blame for dictatorship is with ALL OF US. And i don’t see the intelligentsia, the governments of so called civilized nations doing anything to alter the patterns and end what should be an anachronism.

[_Robert_Participant]

If you have a society already preconditioned via indoctrination to believe a celestial authoritarian is required, it is easier to subjugate them with a human figure. Note how modern democracy arose when people started rejecting that notion. Kings and queens lost their heads.

A godless communist dictator merely replaces the god with themself. Stalin, Xi, Lil Kim, Pol Pot, and Hirohito are fine examples of that. In religious non-democracies, dictators work with the church to reinforce their right to rule. Note how Putin aligned with the church to help his authority, as did Hitler and the Ayatollahs.

Immediate self-preservation is probably the strongest control force you can use to subjugate. Religious conditioning for cowardice leads to a society that is averse to risking immediate survival for long term wellness. Russians basically went from King and God to Stalin is God and now Putin is God and God. They have never even known a democracy. Muscovites walk around with their heads in a cloud, trusting that Father Putin will “protect” them from Satanic west and Nazi Ukrainians. Effectively they are zombie morons afraid to learn and afraid to speak. Russians get drafted and are shocked of the realities of war.

Ukraine is such a huge threat to Putin because they were starting to get their democratic shit together, become wealthy and were educating their Russian friends and relatives. Putin saw what happened to Khadafi and Saddam live on TV.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Robert,

“If you have a society already preconditioned via indoctrination to believe a celestial authoritarian is required, it is easier to subjugate them with a human figure. Note how modern democracy arose when people started rejecting that notion. Kings and queens lost their heads.”

Agreed mostly. Kings and queens were losing heads long before democracy (not withstanding Greeks of antiquity) got a sniff.

“A godless communist dictator merely replaces the god with themself. Stalin, Xi, Lil Kim, Pol Pot, and Hirohito are fine examples of that. In religious non-democracies, dictators work with the church to reinforce their right to rule. Note how Putin aligned with the church to help his authority, as did Hitler and the Ayatollahs.”

Agree mostly. Yes there is a secular surrogacy. Christianity has sucked face with authoritarianism so very frequently. My memory is sketchy on Hitler’s dance between Catholics and Lutherans. There was the Concordat with the pope. But there was some accomodation or official Nazi embrace of Lutheranism. It is foggy in my mind. (too foggy to learn how to do the fancy text most of you do) Seneca’s famous quote-Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.

“Immediate self-preservation is probably the strongest control force you can use to subjugate. Religious conditioning for cowardice leads to a society that is averse to risking immediate survival for long term wellness. Russians basically went from King and God to Stalin is God and now Putin is God and God. They have never even known a democracy. Muscovites walk around with their heads in a cloud, trusting that Father Putin will “protect” them from Satanic west and Nazi Ukrainians. Effectively they are zombie morons afraid to learn and afraid to speak. Russians get drafted and are shocked of the realities of war.”

Lots of disagreement here. Religious conditioning for cowardice? I think it is the opposite. Religious conditioning makes theists braver and more apt to risk life and limb-more amenable to die in wars that have nothing to do with them or their interests. Throughout history there are many examples of the devotion and bravery of theists albeit in unjust sacrifice. Think crusades and religious wars and duty imposed through feudalism to fight for the lord and conquistadors and on and on and modern day suicide bombers.

Russia also had the step where practicing religion was illegal. Didn’t work. Give em religion. Give em vodka! Yay mother Russia. I gotta go back and read Gorky’s Mother. NOT. But ya know it is not fair to paint a vast and diverse country with a broad brush. Google just told me there are 190 ethnic groups. Lots of different religions practiced. And who knows what people really think? Quite dangerous to be outspoken in Russia about the good leader, Putin. Just like USA I am sure opinions also diverge in different regions and within those regions. Are Muscoites really idiots that buy into the party line? I doubt it. Afraid to learn? Not fair characterization. In some instances entrenched in their ideology? Sure same as in other places. Warlike nations always exploit the young high testosterone ignorant youth. It ain’t just Russia.

I notice you did not distinguish citizens of N. and South Korea.

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