Comments on: You can believe all of those things and still find the current state of the discourse to be disordered and unhealthy

By: Harry Jones

Harry Jones — Tue, 03 May 2022 13:52:33 +0000

We live in an era when most of the major world leaders are manifestly unfit. We need to ask ourselves: how did this come to be?

Part of it is that power goes to those who seek it at all costs – irrespective of their other qualities.

The other side of the equation is what the rest of us are willing to put up with. The evil are enabled by the stupid, and the stupid are enabled by the weak.

By: Soban Robespierre

Soban Robespierre — Tue, 03 May 2022 01:29:29 +0000

Putin suffers degenerative changes neurologically. Once he has made a catastrophic mistake, his inflexible mind can never go back. He must double down again and again. Until nothing but rubble remains.

That has always worked for him in the past. But this is the biggest mistake he has ever made. Blustering through this one to the end will force large portions of the Russian security apparatus to go far beyond comfort levels. Corruption and risk aversion go together.

Putin provides the boldness that Russia feels it needs. But if it is based on madness, there are no checks or balances. There is no adroitness. Only inevitable disaster.

By: Mike-SMO

Mike-SMO — Sun, 01 May 2022 15:45:29 +0000

Putin has two armies. One has invaded the Ukraine to steal the gas, coal, and industry. The other is the wives and mothers of those soldiers. The medium of exchange is blood. Both the US and Russia left Afghanistan and the US left Viet Nam when the price got too high. The Ukraine was the source of a lot of Russian/Soviet military hardware ( missiles, aircraft, ships) so they have a few cards to play. It isn’t clear who has been causing all the explosions and fires in Russian installations. Corruption is a problem in both the West and in Russia. Putin is surrounded by “yes men” who have degraded the Russian military and the country in general. The Moskva is just one example of the problem. The Ukrainian missiles never should have made it and never should have produced the lethal damage. Maintenance, training, leadership? It will be an interesting game..

By: Altitude Zero

Altitude Zero — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 16:06:03 +0000

I will never forgive the neocons for forcing me to agree with Noam Chomsky. I feel like I need a shower.

By: Bob Sykes

Bob Sykes — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 23:06:33 +0000

With the bombings of Russian assets in Transnistria, the war has spread to three countries (3!!!): Ukraine, Russia, and Moldova.

Moreover, the Foreign Minister of Luxembourg has called for the assassination of Putin. Biden said the same thing, more or less, in an ad lib a while ago.

Putin is making WW III threats, as did Lavrov. This war is spinning out of control. We are in the most dangerous situation since the summer of 1914.

By: Goober

Goober — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 19:08:50 +0000

Gavin – I agree. In short order, I think we’re going to find out that this thing is going to become far less “glamorous”, and far more brutal. The culture of both Ukrainian and Russian societies isn’t the same as ours. Their values are different. Human life doesn’t hold the same value to them, and I suspect that the list of what we westerners would consider to be atrocities will grow longer and longer, from both sides of the conflict, to the point to where it will become difficult for westerners to support the Ukrainian cause so fervently, if at all. Especially given the fact that I can pretty clearly anticipate that this is fixing to become a far more static, far more attritional type of war very soon. And the more Ukrainians see their countrymen being slaughtered, the more I’m anticipating that any qualms that they now have about humane treatment of prisoners of war and so forth are going to fall by the wayside. Both sides can dig mass graves, and I more or less guarantee that we’ll be seeing more from both before this ends, especially as Russia’s mechanized, fast-movement capabilities continue to be eroded and the conflict devolves into WWI style trench warfare.

By: Goober

Goober — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 19:03:14 +0000

I find it very curious how any discourse that isn’t fully and 100% in support of everything “Ukraine” is being branded “treason”.

US Senators have said as much (Mitt Romney) and I was shocked to discover that at some point, the meaning of “treason” started to simply mean “anything that doesn’t support the policies of a Democrat Administration”.

I was surprised to discover that, apparently, while I wasn’t looking, I began to owe some loyalty to Ukraine, and that as a US citizen, not unquestionably supporting them was treasonous.

If one cannot see how dangerous that is, then may history eventually forget that that person was ever my countryman.

God forbid that I don’t want to start WWIII with a nuclear armed peer adversary over a territorial dispute between two criminally corrupt regimes. That’s not to say that I don’t feel for the Ukrainian people, because I do. That’s not to say that I support Russia; I don’t. What they’re doing is awful and I hope that some way Putin can be held responsible for what he has done.

But is it terrible of me; treasonous, even, to suggest that some European problems can simply be European problems? If the EU wants to deal with it, let them. If a NATO country gets attacked, then gloves off. But until then, why can’t I have the opinion that this isn’t our damn problem without being branded treasonous?

By: Gavin Longmuir

Gavin Longmuir — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 14:10:10 +0000

The most pertinent part of DeBoer’s view is his realistic assessment of Westerners short attention span as we move on to the Next Big Thing — on the hopeful assumption that US/NATO aggression does not lead to global thermonuclear war:

“But I suspect that, instead, in a year or two those who are celebrating the Ukraine-Russia conflict as a good war will not have such rosy feelings anymore. … The fickle American imagination will turn to other things. … I don’t think this will stay a feel-good story for long.”

By: Harry Jones

Harry Jones — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 12:23:00 +0000

Someone has just stumbled upon the existence of superorganisms.