Many years ago, during the Soviet era, I said, "well, at at least the Soviets have the good taste to never put on something that looks like the Superbowl Halftime Show". Now that Putin et al are going full-on anti-West, full-on "Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality" - i.e. full-on anti-enlightenment rejection of the modern world, we see something that looks a lot like the Superbowl Halftime Show or "Wrestlemania". As if to say "stick with us and you still be part of exiting, sexy, prosperous modern world" - Not.
my gawd I hope this is true. I hope Russia is losing. But I'm having 2016 flashbacks, where it constantly looked like Trump's campaign was weak and in chaos, and so he was going to lose. And then he won. Guess I'm still a little shell-shocked.
"KYIV, Ukraine — Tetyana Vlasenko was bleeding from 12 bullet wounds to her legs when she begged a Russian military officer nearby for help. His soldiers had opened fire on her family’s car, yet the officer was apologetic as the soldiers gave them first aid.
While she lay there seriously hurt, she recalls him saying, “I’m sorry for doing this but we have an order to shoot everything that is moving, and you cannot imagine how many cars like this we have full of Nazis who are trying to bomb us,” Tetyana, 42, told NBC News on Wednesday from her bed in Kyiv City Hospital 17."
"Tetyana, a former shop worker, said the Russian soldiers she encountered “truly believe that everyone around is a Nazi.” She added that the soldiers “were all terrified,” and she had spoken calmly with them prior to the shooting."
What on earth do you suppose the Russians imagine Nazis to be? I submit the word "Nazi" here is "socialist" in America. And in America the mindfucked have been taught that the "socialists" are trying to kill them too. Socialists, demons, witches, commies...
I too would be terrified if I were a Russian soldier who finds himself in a place where the people really really do want him gone and many are willing to kill him. For good reason, even though it wasn't his intent, but necessitated by forces beyond his control. American conscripts in Vietnam = Russian conscript in Ukraine.
Despots rule by mindfucking. Sorry for the anglo-saxon verb portmanteau word but no other locution comes close. And what do we have in America? Any difference? A national mindfuck. Multiple mindfucks, multiple fearfuckeries. Treat your people like dogs, and turn them into fear-biters. Take their need to serve and be loved and use it to torture their hearts into servile anger and fear. The police are your enemy, because they've been kicked and brutalized so they really are. The liberals are your enemy, because they've been shown all the reasons to despise ignorant brutal racist assholes. The hoity-toity educated are your enemy, becasue they've spit on you, and you are their enemy because they have spit back.
My son and my daughter and their spouses both took on rescue dogs. It is very, very, very hard to bring a mindfucked rescue animal back from the hell that formed it. Like the Romanian orphans, the human and dog brain wiring digs in early. Humans are like dogs in many ways, and mostly in this: in their hearts they want to be loved. And they want to serve. And they want to obey. And they want, in return, to give love back.
The key to rule is twist that love, twist it with fear, and make it a biter.
As long as people and dogs are who they are, we will be cold meat to those who know how to make us fear, and make us hate.
Putin is only a couple days away from announcing 'Evidence that Biden stole the election is in Ukraine' and having 50million saps in their Barcaloungers sit up and go, 'What???'
I get the feeling from all Putin is doing and saying, he is actually emulating Trump. I realize that disinformation was always part of his arsenal but it has a much more Trumpian tone to it this time around: repeating ridiculous themes ad nauseum, holding fake rallies, never explaining anything unless it is to double-down.
It would be interesting to see Putin's response to an offer of substantial funds and safe passage for himself and a reasonable entourage to a residential location of his choice (stipulating that they would accept him) as a quid pro quo forceasefire and immediateremoval of all Russian personnel and equipment from all Ukrainian territory as it stood prior to the turn of this century. He'd also be barred from any participation in business or politics for the rest of his life
I keep hearing of the possibility of moles within Putin's government, since the West's intel on his plans is so accurate. Putin is making arrests of some associates close to his inner circle. I don't quite understand why people would be willing to risk so much to undermine Putin by blabbing to the West, but they're not willing to try to do the one thing that would end this Hell, and potentially WWIII, and take him out.
Can someone explain to me how/why Putin's demands for a ceasefire telegraph weakness? I've seen the argument here and elsewhere, but I don't feel like I understand it.
Re: Putin's special stage On the day Putin was going to award trophies to the winners of the World Cup, in a pouring down rain, he was the only one dry with an umbrella over his head. Everyone else, in suits as well as soccer kit, including the guy holding the umbrella, was soaked to the skin. It was surreal.
The Latin letter Z dropped into a Cyrillic phrase is just... weird. Do his PR people think this is just like a company going through a rebranding? Did they have to scramble and ret-con a meaning for the symbol after the invasion bogged down?
I have not seen or heard a comment about this but it is the most astonishing report so far about this invasion.
Apparently at checkpoints out of Mariupol refugees are actually being interrogated and asked if they are Nazis. The command structure of the Russian invaders is apparently actually devoting time and energy to finding Nazis.
This is literal insanity. The Russian soldiers are searching for Nazis. In Ukraine! Just as MAGA heads are searching for pedophiles in pizza parlors and bamboo in ballots here. And it will wind up the same way everywhere. Here, it will be red-capped patriots in F-150's standing up for America at intersections near you.
Literally it is true humans are the same everywhere. That's why we want to kill each other-- they are exactly like us, and we are them
Poisonous evil is the music of the world and sung in arias of malice by every average man and woman. The tune is the devil's laughter. How risible the world is to him. What an opera of malice and stupidity!
"If Russia pulls out the nukes I'll die. Everyone on this panel will die" JVL thought he was the top dog of podcast pessimism, but in comes Noah Smith with the booyah! Take a seat Jonathan. Remember March 17, 2022 as the day JVL dropped the belt to Noah!
“We want you to love your children more than you fear your government.” That’s an all-timer.
The U.S. should change its constitution so that we can make Zelensky our president after the war the way that big college sports teams steal coaches from smaller ones.
Many years ago, during the Soviet era, I said, "well, at at least the Soviets have the good taste to never put on something that looks like the Superbowl Halftime Show". Now that Putin et al are going full-on anti-West, full-on "Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality" - i.e. full-on anti-enlightenment rejection of the modern world, we see something that looks a lot like the Superbowl Halftime Show or "Wrestlemania". As if to say "stick with us and you still be part of exiting, sexy, prosperous modern world" - Not.
my gawd I hope this is true. I hope Russia is losing. But I'm having 2016 flashbacks, where it constantly looked like Trump's campaign was weak and in chaos, and so he was going to lose. And then he won. Guess I'm still a little shell-shocked.
Take a look at this. This is how despotism survives -- by mindfuck.
https://www.yahoo.com/now/don-t-know-survived-family-093014932.html
"KYIV, Ukraine — Tetyana Vlasenko was bleeding from 12 bullet wounds to her legs when she begged a Russian military officer nearby for help. His soldiers had opened fire on her family’s car, yet the officer was apologetic as the soldiers gave them first aid.
While she lay there seriously hurt, she recalls him saying, “I’m sorry for doing this but we have an order to shoot everything that is moving, and you cannot imagine how many cars like this we have full of Nazis who are trying to bomb us,” Tetyana, 42, told NBC News on Wednesday from her bed in Kyiv City Hospital 17."
"Tetyana, a former shop worker, said the Russian soldiers she encountered “truly believe that everyone around is a Nazi.” She added that the soldiers “were all terrified,” and she had spoken calmly with them prior to the shooting."
What on earth do you suppose the Russians imagine Nazis to be? I submit the word "Nazi" here is "socialist" in America. And in America the mindfucked have been taught that the "socialists" are trying to kill them too. Socialists, demons, witches, commies...
I too would be terrified if I were a Russian soldier who finds himself in a place where the people really really do want him gone and many are willing to kill him. For good reason, even though it wasn't his intent, but necessitated by forces beyond his control. American conscripts in Vietnam = Russian conscript in Ukraine.
Despots rule by mindfucking. Sorry for the anglo-saxon verb portmanteau word but no other locution comes close. And what do we have in America? Any difference? A national mindfuck. Multiple mindfucks, multiple fearfuckeries. Treat your people like dogs, and turn them into fear-biters. Take their need to serve and be loved and use it to torture their hearts into servile anger and fear. The police are your enemy, because they've been kicked and brutalized so they really are. The liberals are your enemy, because they've been shown all the reasons to despise ignorant brutal racist assholes. The hoity-toity educated are your enemy, becasue they've spit on you, and you are their enemy because they have spit back.
My son and my daughter and their spouses both took on rescue dogs. It is very, very, very hard to bring a mindfucked rescue animal back from the hell that formed it. Like the Romanian orphans, the human and dog brain wiring digs in early. Humans are like dogs in many ways, and mostly in this: in their hearts they want to be loved. And they want to serve. And they want to obey. And they want, in return, to give love back.
The key to rule is twist that love, twist it with fear, and make it a biter.
As long as people and dogs are who they are, we will be cold meat to those who know how to make us fear, and make us hate.
Putin is only a couple days away from announcing 'Evidence that Biden stole the election is in Ukraine' and having 50million saps in their Barcaloungers sit up and go, 'What???'
I get the feeling from all Putin is doing and saying, he is actually emulating Trump. I realize that disinformation was always part of his arsenal but it has a much more Trumpian tone to it this time around: repeating ridiculous themes ad nauseum, holding fake rallies, never explaining anything unless it is to double-down.
It would be interesting to see Putin's response to an offer of substantial funds and safe passage for himself and a reasonable entourage to a residential location of his choice (stipulating that they would accept him) as a quid pro quo forceasefire and immediateremoval of all Russian personnel and equipment from all Ukrainian territory as it stood prior to the turn of this century. He'd also be barred from any participation in business or politics for the rest of his life
I keep hearing of the possibility of moles within Putin's government, since the West's intel on his plans is so accurate. Putin is making arrests of some associates close to his inner circle. I don't quite understand why people would be willing to risk so much to undermine Putin by blabbing to the West, but they're not willing to try to do the one thing that would end this Hell, and potentially WWIII, and take him out.
Zelinsky has definitely shown world leadership!!
Can someone explain to me how/why Putin's demands for a ceasefire telegraph weakness? I've seen the argument here and elsewhere, but I don't feel like I understand it.
Re: Putin's special stage On the day Putin was going to award trophies to the winners of the World Cup, in a pouring down rain, he was the only one dry with an umbrella over his head. Everyone else, in suits as well as soccer kit, including the guy holding the umbrella, was soaked to the skin. It was surreal.
The Latin letter Z dropped into a Cyrillic phrase is just... weird. Do his PR people think this is just like a company going through a rebranding? Did they have to scramble and ret-con a meaning for the symbol after the invasion bogged down?
I have not seen or heard a comment about this but it is the most astonishing report so far about this invasion.
Apparently at checkpoints out of Mariupol refugees are actually being interrogated and asked if they are Nazis. The command structure of the Russian invaders is apparently actually devoting time and energy to finding Nazis.
This is literal insanity. The Russian soldiers are searching for Nazis. In Ukraine! Just as MAGA heads are searching for pedophiles in pizza parlors and bamboo in ballots here. And it will wind up the same way everywhere. Here, it will be red-capped patriots in F-150's standing up for America at intersections near you.
Literally it is true humans are the same everywhere. That's why we want to kill each other-- they are exactly like us, and we are them
Poisonous evil is the music of the world and sung in arias of malice by every average man and woman. The tune is the devil's laughter. How risible the world is to him. What an opera of malice and stupidity!
We want you to love your children more than you fear your government.
This is the most brilliant encapsulation I have ever seen of the exact thing a despotism must prevent.
"If Russia pulls out the nukes I'll die. Everyone on this panel will die" JVL thought he was the top dog of podcast pessimism, but in comes Noah Smith with the booyah! Take a seat Jonathan. Remember March 17, 2022 as the day JVL dropped the belt to Noah!
“We want you to love your children more than you fear your government.” That’s an all-timer.
The U.S. should change its constitution so that we can make Zelensky our president after the war the way that big college sports teams steal coaches from smaller ones.