Putin doesn't care

Post #440,976 by crazy 2/24/22 4:44:45 AM 2/24/22 4:44:45 AM Reply	Putin doesn't care And he didn't bother with a small region. He's going to roll over the entire country.
Post #440,977 by Another Scott 2/24/22 7:49:02 AM 2/24/22 7:49:02 AM Reply	It's not 2014. He and Russia will pay a heavy price. 40,000,000 Ukrainians don't want him there and will fight. Cheers, Scott.
Post #440,979 by boxley 2/24/22 11:55:41 AM 2/24/22 11:55:41 AM Reply	he will install a pro russian government and slowly withdraw after pacification is the plan dunno how well it is going to work "Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman
Post #440,981 by a6l6e6x 2/24/22 10:44:01 PM 2/24/22 10:44:01 PM Reply	Well, even Russians are not going along with the invasion. Newsweek: More than 1,700 people were arrested across Russia on Thursday as protesters took to the streets in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. As Scott says it's not 2014. Alex "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -- Isaac Asimov
Post #440,984 by crazy 2/25/22 11:15:49 AM 2/25/22 11:15:49 AM Reply	It's worse than 2014 Internet dependency combined with facial recognition? They can track down everybody in the population they don't like and take them away. This is not a democracy. Who gives a s* what the people on the streets are doing. Great, let's figure out everybody in that crowd via facial recognition and track them down individually and take them away. As far as Putin is concerned he runs the place and those people don't mean s*.
Post #440,986 by crazy 2/25/22 11:25:54 AM 2/25/22 11:25:54 AM Reply	Remember the Russian apartment bombings? https://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-1999-russian-apartment-bombings-led-to-putins-rise-to-power-2018-3 He knows exactly what he's doing and he does not care how many people he kills in the process. And he does not give a s*** about Russia's financial issues with the world as compared to his rock solid certainty that Ukraine is his.
Post #440,982 by CRConrad 2/25/22 2:36:08 AM 2/25/22 2:36:08 AM Reply	No, exactly. After four years of Trump presidency, and Bog knows how many more years of Russian troll factory influence on American (anti-)social media, one of the big differences vs 2014 is that now a much higher proportion of uncritical Putin mouthpieces online seem to be Americans. -- Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Apparently Still Knows Fucking Everything Mail: Same username as at the top left of this post, at iki.fi
Post #440,985 by crazy 2/25/22 11:19:00 AM 2/25/22 11:19:00 AM Reply	No, maybe 100,000 spread across that population will. The rest will either be refugees or doing exactly what they are told. When you say no to the Russians they simply kill your family along with you. Then they toss out the bags of heads as a warning to others. There will always be pockets of resistance and Putin doesn't give a s***.
Post #440,988 by Another Scott 2/25/22 1:17:00 PM 2/25/22 1:21:56 PM Reply	Ukraine has a very long history of fighting outsiders. Nobody knows the future, but VVP has a tiger by the tail. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Insurgent_Army [eta] https://mobile.twitter.com/olgatokariuk/status/1497142166434598912 (via VladDavidzon) Cheers, Scott. Edited by Another Scott Feb. 25, 2022, 01:21:56 PM EST Expand All History
Post #440,990 by boxley 2/25/22 1:37:47 PM 2/25/22 1:37:47 PM Reply	"with many cases of collaboration with the German forces" don't hold yer breath on tht group "Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman
Post #440,991 by Another Scott 2/25/22 1:49:26 PM 2/25/22 1:49:26 PM Reply	I was reluctant to cite that, but didn't have time to find something better. Yeah, too many paint Ukraine as being a hotbed of Nazi-ism. It's not. History is complicated. Thanks. Cheers, Scott.
Post #440,996 by CRConrad 2/25/22 9:26:13 PM 2/25/22 9:26:13 PM Reply	You couldn't have found a better way of sounding exactly like... ...a Putin apologist. It's getting harder and harder to accept the constant stream of pro-Trump, pro-Putin, pro-anything that's evil in this world posts from you as "just contrarianism" or "sheer coincidence". One is reminded of the classic Mitchell and Webb sketch... Except, nobody in real life can of course actually be quite that naïve. Occam's Razor suggests it's genuine intent. -- Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Apparently Still Knows Fucking Everything Mail: Same username as at the top left of this post, at iki.fi
Post #440,997 by boxley 2/25/22 9:37:54 PM 2/25/22 9:37:54 PM Reply	nope, putin is entirely wrong and I hope the russian people pull him off his throne pro trump? read me in my posts "Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman
Post #441,004 by CRConrad 2/26/22 7:25:21 AM 2/26/22 7:25:21 AM Reply	Then why the fuck do you sound exactly like his trolls all the time? Are you actually totally fucking stupid, or just stupidly thoughtless? If the later, just fucking simply stop that and start thinking in stead. Your brain is a free resource; the best way to ensure it's engaged before you post is keeping it switched on all the time. Pro Trump? Yeah, that's what far too many of your posts sound exactly like, cher Michel. -- Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Apparently Still Knows Fucking Everything Mail: Same username as at the top left of this post, at iki.fi
Post #441,033 by scoenye 2/28/22 7:47:55 AM 2/28/22 7:47:55 AM Reply	Only ~9 years before Operation Barbarossa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor Stalin tried to subjugate Ukraine by deliberately starving the population. Millions died. That goes a long way toward explaining why the Ukranians were happy to see the Germans arrive in 1941. (But the Nazis did not bother to hide their true intent so in general, that feeling was very brief.)
Post #441,043 by a6l6e6x 2/28/22 10:31:07 PM 2/28/22 10:31:07 PM Reply	You got it! And a lot of people sufferred from communism in other ways too. The Germans screwed up their welcome in a number of ways. Alex "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -- Isaac Asimov
Post #441,109 by a6l6e6x 3/8/22 11:07:15 PM 3/8/22 11:07:15 PM Reply	Here's some related information in Smithsonian magazine. Smithsonian magazine: The 20th-Century History Behind Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Alex "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -- Isaac Asimov
Post #441,110 by Another Scott 3/9/22 12:05:19 PM 3/9/22 12:05:19 PM Reply	A kinda related thread, on Russia's economy. https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1501360272442896388 Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani Let's discuss Russian economy. Many underestimate its dependency upon technological import. Russia's so deeply integrated into Western technological chains that severing these ties will lead to its collapse. Sanctions are already effective and can be made even more efficient🧵 Basically, the mobsters control the "easy" stuff (oil, gas, mining), while the engineers and nerds run the complex stuff (manufacturing) but have no power and are undercut by the mobsters above them. So they're highly vulnerable to boycotts from the outside. It's pretty long (be sure to expand the "more comments"), but very thought provoking. Cheers, Scott.
Post #441,113 by a6l6e6x 3/9/22 10:36:59 PM 3/9/22 10:36:59 PM Reply	Interesting! Makes sanctions more powerful to bring Russia down. Alex "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -- Isaac Asimov
Post #441,112 by scoenye 3/9/22 10:31:56 PM 3/9/22 10:31:56 PM Reply	Good read. Thank you. Europe will be dealing with the shadow of that conflict for a long time to come. West-Germany dealt with the past, but the rest never did. I do see parallels with what happened internally in Belgium, another one of those places that had always been part of one glorious empire or another, and the antics of part of Flanders'* populace leading up to and during WW II. The basics came down to the economic elites speaking French and the peasants Flemish. Queue some choice fake news about Flemish boys dying in the WW I trenches because their French speaking officers were unable to give them proper orders, and by the time the Germans came around again, there were several legions who saw them as saviors from oppression, and who were more than eager to do their bidding. * For completeness, there was collaboration on the French speaking side as well, but the connection between das Deutsche volk and le people Wallonne was nowhere near as strong as the one to het Vlaamse volk.
Post #440,994 by crazy 2/25/22 4:04:11 PM 2/25/22 4:04:11 PM Reply	You are citing a group of people from 70 years ago They grew up in a much different world. Most of current the Ukrainians grew up under Russian domination. Sure they revolted a bit but the tanks didn't roll in yet. And that other group of bastards was exterminating the Poles at that point. History may be complex but right now it's obvious who's going to simply take what he wants. Remember they were partying in the nightclubs for the last couple of weeks because they have this fatalistic attitude of what will be will be. Well it will be now.
Post #440,995 by Another Scott 2/25/22 5:36:21 PM 2/25/22 5:36:21 PM Reply	They threw off an attempted dictator in 2014. A million in the streets. Thread. https://mobile.twitter.com/StevenBeynon/status/1497223166522970112 They will fight for their country. Cheers, Scott.
Post #441,076 by mmoffitt 3/4/22 9:28:28 AM 3/4/22 9:30:19 AM Reply	Alex, I'm sorry, but ^ he's right. It sickens me to see what is happening in Ukraine. A lot of the US video I've seen has the hotel my family and I lived in during our stay in Kiev in the background (my fourth grade school was behind that hotel). I said at the outset that we were going to let Putin have all of Ukraine to avoid risking nuclear confrontation with Russia. If anyone thinks Putin isn't batshit crazy enough to launch as a final middle finger to the West then they haven't been paying attention and/or don't understand Soviet thinking. And make no mistake, that's what we're dealing with in the Russian government now - aging Soviets who grew up in a country that no longer exists and whose experiences and education are anchor-less in a world in which there is no CCCP. Things will not get better in Russia until this generation dies and a new generation, born after the end of the Soviet Union takes power. Of course, it could be too late by then. This is not to suggest that we are entirely blameless here. Declassified documents demonstrate that Gorbachev's claim he was lied to about NATO expansion turns out to be true. That the unindicted war criminal Victoria Nuland was involved with members of the Svoboda Neo-Nazis, I think, is beyond dispute. That Svoboda candidates got less than 2% of the vote in the last election is a fact buried under a tsunami of ~~Soviet~~ Russian "Anti-Nazi" propaganda. (Aside: this is classic Soviet propaganda: distort a fact and use it as the basis for your outlandish, false claims). Putin's actions in Ukraine are unspeakably barbaric and cannot be dismissed. There is no context in which Putin's actions are understandable, let alone excusable. None of that really matters. What matters is Ukrainians can look neither West nor East for protection. Not East for obvious reasons. Not West over a not completely unjustified fear of nuclear war. Not to be glib, but in a Star Trek film Captain Picard said it best when speaking about the Borg, "They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here. This far. No further." This is the attitude we must have with Russian aggression - even at the risk of nuclear war. For if we can allow the savagery being committed by Russians against Ukrainians for the sake of a little temporary peace, what is the point of "saving" any of us? I hope your family and friends are safe and survive this horror, Alex. But I fear Macron was right when he said this week, "The worst is yet to come." bcnu, Mikem It's mourning in America again. Edited by mmoffitt March 4, 2022, 09:30:19 AM EST Expand All History
Post #441,091 by crazy 3/5/22 12:16:38 AM 3/5/22 12:16:38 AM Reply	MM is totally right. How often do I agree with MM?
Post #441,108 by mmoffitt 3/7/22 11:21:04 AM 3/7/22 11:21:04 AM Reply	Are you trying to weaken my conviction? </jk> bcnu, Mikem It's mourning in America again.
Post #441,101 by a6l6e6x 3/6/22 10:42:51 PM 3/6/22 10:42:51 PM Reply	I'm glad to see your post and see that you're getting real news. It is depressing to see what the Russians have done so far. But, I am proud of what the Ukrainians have done. They have fought back smartly and effectively given their much smaller resources. The 3 day takeover of Ukraine that was predicted did not happen. Kyiv while Putin's primary target is still Ukrainian. That's where Putin expects to to have a bogus government set up. Kharkiv, only 20 miles away from the border with Russia and where almost everyone speaks Russian has made it obvious that they are Ukrainian and do not want to lose freedom. When Russian's begin to kill civilians and wipe out buildings, it tells us the Russian military know they are not welcome and will be paying a heavy price. 200K soldiers are not enough to control 40M Ukrainians. It would not surprise me if they never make it to control West Ukraine (e.g. city of Lviv). The total dismemberment of all non-government TV and and Radio in Russia and silencing of international news reporters works for a while, but truth will eventually make it to the Russian public. Using the words "war" or "invasion" in talking about the Russian military activity in Ukraine puts you in prison for 15 years! Several thousand protestors have been arrested. It may be a very slow process, but the truth of what is happening in Ukraine and Russia may lead to Putin's end. The sanctions will make everyone want to know why they are suffering. I have no contacts in Ukraine. My father had a sister that never married and his uncles died in Siberia back in the 1930's. My mother had sisters who had children, but when she died, so did any communication with them. Unfortunately, they are located just North of Crimea and now under Russian control. Alex "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -- Isaac Asimov
Post #441,107 by mmoffitt 3/7/22 11:20:03 AM 3/7/22 11:20:03 AM Reply	You are quite right to be proud of Ukrainians. The whole world should be proud of them. On this being the end for Putin, I was speaking to a friend of mine about the invasion on the first or second day of Russia's invasion and after discussing the likely prospect that no one would come to Ukraine's aid (militarily), I said, "The only positive thing one can hope, and it is nowhere near sufficient to accept anything Russia has done, is that this will be Putin's Afghanistan. Afghanistan cost Gorbachev everything, hopefully Ukraine will cost Putin everything." (Aside: I know the flaw in this analogy. Unlike Putin, Gorbachev considered Afghanistan a mistake and began planning an exit as soon as he became General Secretary. However, that Afghanistan accelerated the fall of the Soviet Union cannot be argued against imo.) That's not enough, of course. But if we aren't prepared to risk a nuclear exchange over what is being done to Ukrainians then there is nothing worthy of the risk. bcnu, Mikem It's mourning in America again.

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