Are we all fucked?

[Caomhaoin]

I started out saying there is no comparison. But there is also no comparison between the USSR and its Red Army during WWII and Russia and its army today. No comparison whatsoever. Putin, for all his flaws, would never get away today with the scale of what Stalin got away with, for good and for bad, back then.

Stalin was far cannier than Putin was in some ways. Apart from Patton, he had them all hoodwinked in the last few months of the war. He got away with many of his excesses because the end of the world seemed to be on the horizon and he was the figurehead of the final victory.

If you haven't seen it, you should watch 'The Death of Stalin'. It's gas but it also captures the piss your pants terror the man was capable of.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I guess you are alluding to the 'mass exodus' that is being 'reported' but not 'verified', and the protests etc. If only journalism wasn't the most morally bankrupt profession worldwide, maybe we'd get an accurate vision of what the f is going on.

No, I was just alluding to the fact that I don't think today's Russians view the West in the same way as Soviets of yore viewed the Third Reich, not least of all because, for all the censorship that does go on in Russia (not only in Russia, of course, yadda-yadda), they still have way better access to a general idea of what's actually going on than Soviet era Russians ever did. So, there's just no way Putin would get public support for attempting anything even nearly on the scale of WWII with respect to NATO, for those two reasons combined: not viewed by the public as the same level of evil empire "thanks" to capitalism, and not possible to hoodwink to quite the same extent with respect to potentially hundreds of thousands of sons of Mother Russia dying for that cause they don't really believe in all that much. You say "NATO should keep in mind" what Stalin accomplished in WWII. I really don't think they need to keep that in mind at all.

The Death of Stalin was so good, been meaning to watch it a second time since the cinema though and I guess this is as good a time as ever!

[Caomhaoin]

Buscemi as Khrushchev, the villain from Harry Potter as Zhukov...ah here, amazing casting alone.

The USSR was clearly the aggrieved party in WW2 (although most, but not all, historians agree they would have attacked Germany themselves if left unmolested). Putin feels aggrieved now, but the world views it otherwise, for a number of reasons.

I believe NATO should keep it mind, because if they launch their own 'preemptive' strike (the charte forbids this unless they are attacked first but tell that to Serbia and Montenegro), uppity Corsicans and Austrians underestimated, fatally, what that would entail.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I think it serves Putin better if NATO include it in their strategizing.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Leaked Kremlin memo from 3rd March informing Russian state television networks to relay Tucker Carlson segments as frequently as possible. Ample evidence this was being done anyway. If you watch his recent segments, note just how neatly isolated into an easily edited 10-15 second parcel his perfunctory "Putin bad" sound bites are, almost like it's pre-meditated for ease of cutting, were one to think so cynically...

[ochoill]

Seemingly a fair chunk of how Russia is behaving in general is outlined in Aleksander Dugin's "Foundations of Geopolitics".  Heard about this book a few years back but never followed up on it, must see if I can get a copy out of curiosity.  Anyway a little overview of it is here:

https://youtu.be/Q9MSV9Bp35Y

Whole situation is demented.  My day job involves selling various tech to Moscow (long story short).  Been some sport sifting through the sanctions to see what is and isn't blocked - obviously won't be selling lasers to them again any time soon lol, but they were a common item before.  The main equipment we move isn't blocked luckily but it is impossible to organise small freight at the minute, flights just aren't moving.

Talking to some Russian speaking people I know it was mentioned the propaganda on TV there is dialled up completely, I mentioned some of the odd bits you'd see translated and uses for examples online and was told that's not even the half of it.

There's a narrative being pushed online that's visible on twitter that the war isn't happening at all.  It is bizarre.  A lot of No True Scotsman style stuff laying the groundwork for it - "no free thinker would just accept there is a war there", in various forms but with equally provocative phrasing, drummed up by a heap of suspect accounts, roping people into questioning the reality or importance of it at all.  There is definitely a variety of elements to the whole thing that we don't know about, but denying anything is happening or entertaining that as an idea is fried.

[Kurt Cocaine]

Another Irish newspaper showing who their real masters are.

Unbelievably, we have a story here about a notorious child abuser and the systemic cover up of his crimes by prestigious Derry boy's school St Columb's College.
Everyone knew this was going on. The college, the students, the whole shebang.
Everyone even knew that the abuser in question was not punished by the Nobel Laureate producing school.
No..he was in fact promoted To Vice President !!!


Now the leader of the Catholic church in Ireland, former President (and former pupil) of St Columbs College Archbishop Eamon Martin is in the spotlight over the case.

But guess what the journalist in question focused on?

Not on the child abuse.
Not on the fact that despite knowing about the predator's behaviour and abuse of the children in his care, the college actually promoted him, making Gallagher Vice President.
Not on the cover up.


No. Of course not. It's the Far Right.
The media will never focus on the peedohs. Unbelievable!

https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2022/02/24/news/alleged-st-columb-s-college-sex-abuser-taught-pupils-a-nazi-marching-anthem-2597042/

[Kurt Cocaine]

Sorry, did I say peedohs? I meant MAPs (Minor Attracted Persons)...

[Kurt Cocaine]

A good take on where we are and where we're going...

https://youtu.be/ZvS8AakNOGg

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

"No war
Stop the war
Don't believe propaganda
Here they lie to you
Russians against war"

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1503446891014537222

Ovaries of steel this one has.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

A good take on where we are and where we're going...

https://youtu.be/ZvS8AakNOGg

I like the suggestion that people need to go Amish and totally disconnect from technology. I propose you and the guy who made that video do so post haste. G'bye now!

[Snare]

  👏🏻

Yeah the people protesting in Russia define what it is to be brave, knowing what the repercussions are for making such a stand for others. Unreal.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Yeah the people protesting in Russia define what it is to be brave, knowing what the repercussions are for making such a stand for others. Unreal.

Indeed. One would hope that even the most blinkered of people would be able to see the difference between, in Russia, having to break onto a set with a hand-written placard in order to express a sentiment of dissent at the risk of 5-15 years in prison, and, in the USA, having a prime time show on which you can criticize state policy any which you way you like at zero personal risk whatsoever.

[Kurt Cocaine]

Yeah the people protesting in Russia define what it is to be brave, knowing what the repercussions are for making such a stand for others. Unreal.

Indeed. One would hope that even the most blinkered of people would be able to see the difference between, in Russia, having to break onto a set with a hand-written placard in order to and, in the USA, having a prime time show on which you can criticize state policy any which you way you like at zero personal risk whatsoever.

Communism 101

[astfgyl]

There is definitely a variety of elements to the whole thing that we don't know about, but denying anything is happening or entertaining that as an idea is fried.

Are even the Russians saying they're not there though? I know they might be spinning it differently back home but it's still established that they are there.

I saw a video purporting to be a Ukrainian attack on a suburb of Donetsk, which didn't look any more real or fake than the others I've seen claiming to be Russian attacks on places. What I did notice however was that all the Ukrainian flag in bio crowd were saying this one was fake, whereas all the paranoia accounts were calling the Russian attacks fake.
Most were seemingly oblivious to the idea that they might be getting played from both sides, which to me seems obvious but it was interesting to see both sides claiming the same of each other, like the bioweapon story coming from both sides of the war.

It's all very Cambridge Analytica once more, as was so much of covid on both sides and it feels coordinated and it feels like whoever is doing it is getting better at it all the time. Everything on social media since the trump campaign in 2015/6  is used to divide as many as possible along the strongest lines and this war is no different. It's why I won't get into this one much aside from a few generalised points here and there. And the best part of all is that I still wouldn't rule out all this carry on being designed with nothing in mind only to sell you things and profit from you over all else but then I'd be one of those paranoia accounts I was on about for the most part.