Ukraine Conflict - conflict continues

[HoonDing]

We are gonna be seeing some Leopard wrecks on the Red Square soon.

[BruceVC]

10 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

^We need to be prepared for potential nazi invasion. Theyre literally everywhere.

Interesting (to me), we only lost a total of 20 Bradleys (17 to friendly fire!) in the entire Gulf war (Bradley Fighting Vehicle - Wikipedia), and here theve lost 16 in a couple of days. Guess it shows the difference in tactics and training.

The Ruskies have been building a defense line for months and its expected in this type of offensive there will definitely be loss of military resources. Ukrainians also  dont have air supremacy so yes  its a very different war and offensive to the Gulf Wars 

[xzar_monty]

11 hours ago, Keyrock said:

Our infrastructure is crumbling, our education system is woefully underfunded, the opioid crisis ain't getting any better, inflation is out of control, the mental health crisis is at an all-time alarming high, often manifesting itself in mass shootings (but let's just say "guns bad", blaming a symptom rather than addressing the root cause). Maybe we should spend more of the budget to address some (preferably all) of those issues at home? No. Slash the budget on all of that and funnel more money into the pockets of Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, etc. The Imperial States of America already spends more money on its military than the next 10 countries COMBINED. Apparently that's not enough. MORE MORE MORE!

Yeah, it's crazy, I fully agree, but it wouldn't be any better if there was no war in Ukraine. I'm quite certain that absolutely none of those legitimate issues would be addressed even with peace in Ukraine.

The Imperial States of America does all sorts of strange things, like jails a larger proportion of its citizens than any other country in the world -- China, Iraq and all those included. But then, it gets some pretty handy slavery work out of the prison system, so I suppose that's a bonus. There are also all sorts of positive things in the world that the vast majority of countries (or, in some cases, just a vast majority of so-called Western countries) are a part of or have, but the US does not. Go figure. A great country with a pretty substantial "but" right after the epithet "great", I'd say.

Edited June 14, 2023 by xzar_monty

[Gorth]

7 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

There are also all sorts of positive things in the world that the vast majority of countries (or, in some cases, just a vast majority of so-called Western countries) are a part of or have, but the US does not. Go figure.

Like the Metric System

 

J/K... just an opinion of mine, the US is what you get when you take individual freedom to extremes, leaving individuals to fend for themselves. Less social cohesiveness. Russia is what you get on the opposite end of the scale, complete lack of individual freedom and don't you dare do anything on your own initiative. Many countries fall in between the two extremes and a few gets close to aforementioned outliers (like China being similar to Russia in some ways etc.)

 

[pmp10]

So the position of the west is almost settled.

No NATO membership plan will be offered to Ukraine at Vilnius.

That means the best Zelensky can count on is the Israeli model.

After Budapest memorandum he should understand the implications.

[xzar_monty]

26 minutes ago, Gorth said:

J/K... just an opinion of mine, the US is what you get when you take individual freedom to extremes, leaving individuals to fend for themselves. Less social cohesiveness. Russia is what you get on the opposite end of the scale, complete lack of individual freedom and don't you dare do anything on your own initiative. Many countries fall in between the two extremes and a few gets close to aforementioned outliers (like China being similar to Russia in some ways etc.)

Certainly a big factor that, yes. The US is also an outlier in the sense that it doesn't have long traditions worth mentioning (except indigenous traditions that have been pretty much destroyed), so it has been "built up from scratch" to a much larger extent than almost any other country in the world (well, Australia obviously comes close, with equally awful results for the indigenous traditions and populations).

This is a fascinating subject and could go on for ages, but let's not get there. One thing I'll say, though: the question of the individual vs. collective manifests itself interestingly and on many levels. For example, the Western existential angst of the individual is not a common phenomenon in "the East", mainly because people view themselves in such a different way: the focus is not on the self, it is on the social group they are part of. As for social cohesion, trust etc., these things are also dictated by many factors, one of which is, surprisingly enough, climate: Finland, for example, has a very strong tradition of social trust and helping out, which has (perhaps) only very recently started to erode. Well, if you lived in Finland in the 1700s, say, and you were in a bit of a bother and it was winter, without help you were going to be dead very quickly, and everyone knew this about everyone, and this influenced the culture quite a bit. Contrast this with a climate where you can pick fruit from trees most of the time -- it produces a different outlook. And also, while it cannot be proven, a pretty strong case can be made that the deep Japanese ideas of impermanence stem from the fact that there is so much seismic activity in the area, so you better build your home from bamboo and paper and not be too attached[*] to anything in life.

All in all, fascinating stuff, sorry for rambling. (And btw, while there is much about the US to admire, I would never ever want to live there. Even all my visits have been quite sad in many ways, much more so than my visits almost anywhere else in the world. There is so much that is so obviously so amiss, and I cannot even see any attempt to try to fix any of it.)

 

[*] How does the Zen master send email? Without attachments.

[BruceVC]

18 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Certainly a big factor that, yes. The US is also an outlier in the sense that it doesn't have long traditions worth mentioning (except indigenous traditions that have been pretty much destroyed), so it has been "built up from scratch" to a much larger extent than almost any other country in the world (well, Australia obviously comes close, with equally awful results for the indigenous traditions and populations).

This is a fascinating subject and could go on for ages, but let's not get there. One thing I'll say, though: the question of the individual vs. collective manifests itself interestingly and on many levels. For example, the Western existential angst of the individual is not a common phenomenon in "the East", mainly because people view themselves in such a different way: the focus is not on the self, it is on the social group they are part of. As for social cohesion, trust etc., these things are also dictated by many factors, one of which is, surprisingly enough, climate: Finland, for example, has a very strong tradition of social trust and helping out, which has (perhaps) only very recently started to erode. Well, if you lived in Finland in the 1700s, say, and you were in a bit of a bother and it was winter, without help you were going to be dead very quickly, and everyone knew this about everyone, and this influenced the culture quite a bit. Contrast this with a climate where you can pick fruit from trees most of the time -- it produces a different outlook. And also, while it cannot be proven, a pretty strong case can be made that the deep Japanese ideas of impermanence stem from the fact that there is so much seismic activity in the area, so you better build your home from bamboo and paper and not be too attached[*] to anything in life.

All in all, fascinating stuff, sorry for rambling. (And btw, while there is much about the US to admire, I would never ever want to live there. Even all my visits have been quite sad in many ways, much more so than my visits almost anywhere else in the world. There is so much that is so obviously so amiss, and I cannot even see any attempt to try to fix any of it.)

 

[*] How does the Zen master send email? Without attachments.

As long as you and @Gorthdont forget one of the worlds most irrefutable axioms " better dead than  Red"

Remember we lived through the Cold War and those lessons of the historical failures of both Communism and authoritarian systems often get forgotten or ignored by the younger generation

I guarantee you if you ask the younger members on this forum like @sarex, @Bartimaeus or KP what was the Cold War they will say " thats the war on climate change ..right " 

[xzar_monty]

17 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

As long as you and @Gorthdont forget one of the worlds most irrefutable axioms " better dead than  Red"

It is instantly refutable, in practice, by almost everyone in the world. Put them at gunpoint and say they will either die or convert. Nearly everyone will convert.

[Keyrock]

2 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Yeah, it's crazy, I fully agree, but it wouldn't be any better if there was no war in Ukraine. I'm quite certain that absolutely none of those legitimate issues would be addressed even with peace in Ukraine.

You are right about that. The neocons in Washington are already gearing up to go to war with China. Whatever it takes to keep us in a state of perpetual war so that they can keep syphoning those dollars.

Edited June 14, 2023 by Keyrock

[xzar_monty]

10 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

You are right about that. The neocons in Washington are already gearing up to go to war with China. Whatever it takes to keep us in a state of perpetual war so that they can keep syphoning those dollars.

No, I don't think it's that, either. Even with no China, the concerns you mentioned wouldn't be addressed. I cannot prove it, of course, but looking at the history of the country, it does seem most likely. (Addressing those concerns would first mean that they are recognized and admitted to, and I'm not even sure whether that has happened to a necessary extent.)

By the way, your comment displays an interesting similarity between the US and Russia: the sense of powerlessness and perhaps helplessness that the ordinary citizen has. "Politics" happens elsewhere, and the citizen has no say in any of it. I think it's awful, though I must say I've never experienced it myself over here.

Edited June 14, 2023 by xzar_monty

[Mamoulian War]

There is currently a lot of drama going on in Russia, atm. Looks like the same commander who was in charge of Vuhledar front, is currently in charge of Kreminna front. And it looks like with similar results.

I hope he’ll get promoted to general soon. One position has become vacant lately.

 

[Mamoulian War]

During a week when Russia was posting hundreds of pictures of one destroyed Leopard from different angles, Ukraine has managed to liberate 7 settlements on two fronts. The attacks were performed with the old units during the reconnaissance at arms operations. No one still knows, where is the main UA force still hiding, and where the counter-offensive will happen. In the Russian information space, a lot of military bloggers are doomsaying about Kharkiv region again.

[Gfted1]

SEE! Thats why the US needs; UHC, UBI, UFE, UFH and UFD. Its so obvious that I dont know why we dont just set them all up and finance it by taxing the fatcats. smh.

But the metric system can go diaf.

[Keyrock]

3 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

No, I don't think it's that, either. Even with no China, the concerns you mentioned wouldn't be addressed. I cannot prove it, of course, but looking at the history of the country, it does seem most likely. (Addressing those concerns would first mean that they are recognized and admitted to, and I'm not even sure whether that has happened to a necessary extent.)

By the way, your comment displays an interesting similarity between the US and Russia: the sense of powerlessness and perhaps helplessness that the ordinary citizen has. "Politics" happens elsewhere, and the citizen has no say in any of it. I think it's awful, though I must say I've never experienced it myself over here.

It doesn't have to be a physical war, though that helps since it means pumping more money into the military industrial complex which in turn means palms are greased and re-election funds are contributed to. The important thing is that Imperial America always be at war with someone or something, whether that's a proxy war with Russia, a war on terror, a war on drugs, etc. It's important that there's always some sort of enemy out there, a spectre looming for the general population to fear. Fear is a powerful emotion to be exploited by sociopaths. What's the end goal? Full totalitarian control.

The sociopaths in power have been eroding our civil liberties for quite some time. I'm sure it's not going nearly as quickly as they would have liked, but it's happening nonetheless. You could go back to the 90s and the Clinton administration with the clipper chip. Interestingly, attempts to install a backdoor for the government into end to end encryption predate the Oklahoma City bombing, but said bombing provided perfect fear mongering ammunition for the establishment to try to ensure that private communication on the internet was impossible. We saw this again in 2001 with the Patriot Act under the Bush Administration (to be bipartisan here). Remember, this was sold as a temporary measure to keep the country safe and stop those nasty terrorists abroad and at home. 22 years later, how temporary does it feel? We're seeing it again now with the Restrict Act. It's not just Imperial America either, other governments are introducing similar measures, all in the name of "safety".

This $#!+ is so Orwellian that it's comical. The aim is to be able to monitor anyone anywhere at any time. This makes it easy to dig up or manufacture dirt on any potential dissident. They can use their propaganda arm, the mainstream media, to smear, discredit, and rile up outrage. Any attempts to rebuke their claims can be labeled "malinformation" which is a fancy way of saying inconvenient truth. The unfortunate (fortunate for us) hurdle is that the mainstream media is damaged possibly beyond repair. Confidence in the mainstream media is shockingly low and many independent media sources now dwarf the mainstream media in reach. 

That doesn't mean the sociopaths in DC will stop trying. They will use whatever events, whether real or manufactured (e.g. WMDs), to fear monger because a scared population is more likely to trade away liberty for security. To bring this back to the Ukraine War, I can't really call it serendipitous, because this certainly wasn't an unprovoked attack, NATO has been provoking Russia for decades, and it could have been and was predicted, but this war is being exploited by Imperial America to pump money into the military industrial complex, to weaken Russia, and to pass draconian laws further eroding the liberties we were granted by the Constitution under the guise of stopping malinformation and preventing tampering with our democratic process, when they themselves are the ones tampering.

[xzar_monty]

52 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

a spectre looming for the general population to fear. Fear is a powerful emotion to be exploited by sociopaths.

Well, that sure sounded like a rant from a full-blown conspiracy theorist.

I quoted just this one little bit because it contains two nice little terms that can be quite revealing, in the sense of how they position you, in your own mind.

From your wording, I take it that you don't regard yourself as either part of the "general population" or one of the "sociopaths <in DC, as you elsewhere put it>". So, where are you? I'm inclined to guess that there's a twofold distinction in place: intelligence and knowledge-wise, you are above the general population, and morally you are above the sociopaths in DC. Which I'm sure feels good and cozy, but it sort of makes me wonder why you would spend time, like any time at all, talking about stuff like this on an internet forum, as it seems like such a godawful waste for someone who's up for some great things in life.

Now, here's a question, a serious question, that I think is good to pose to anyone who makes far-reaching claims about their government, leaders and so on: what would it take for you to admit that you're wrong about something that you're claiming? What kind of evidence would you accept? Or, perhaps, do you think that you are somehow axiomatically right in your assertions? The reason this is a serious question is that to the extent anyone regards themselves as outside the realm where serious claims require rational proof, they are also outisde the realm where discussion is possible in the first place.

As for the "sociopaths in DC", this is an interesting one. How do you see the situation? Is everyone in DC a sociopath, by definition? Do people become sociopaths after they start working in DC, because the culture there somehow corrupts them? If someone intends to make a mark in the American democratic system by pursuing a political career, is that person already a sociopath? I don't know how you see all this, but it seems to me that you may well be describing a hopeless situation and a hopeless culture, of which you, of course, are not a part.

[Gfted1]

4 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Now, here's a question, a serious question, that I think is good to pose to anyone who makes far-reaching claims about their government, leaders and so on: what would it take for you to admit that you're wrong about something that you're claiming?

We cant be a tier 1 country until we forcibly redistribute the fatcats wealth into social programs for everyone. What if Im wrong? Im not. We already have irrefutable proof that those systems work and create a nirvana-like lifestyle for everyone else in the world.

Additionally, once we create UFD, our prisons will empty out. So that should drop our prison population below that of China and Iran. Maybe they should just let me run the country? Give me a decade and Ill whip this joint into shape.

[HoonDing]

Taiwan will be the next sacrificial pawn after Ukraine. After that, Kashmir followed by Nigeria.

[xzar_monty]

53 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Additionally, once we create UFD, our prisons will empty out.

Didn't recognize the TLA, made a search, found out it has an awful lot of meanings, came back to ask you: what's UFD in this context?

[Keyrock]

1 hour ago, xzar_monty said:

Well, that sure sounded like a rant from a full-blown conspiracy theorist

You probably meant that as a derogatory term but I'm going to take it as a compliment. Thank you.

[Gfted1]

15 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Didn't recognize the TLA, made a search, found out it has an awful lot of meanings, came back to ask you: what's UFD in this context?

UFD = Universal Free Drugs. Our prisons are bursting at the seams trying to punish drug offenses. As we know, any mental flaw is not the fault of the victim, it was probably foisted on them by a combination of genetics and the hard scrabble of the US societal structure making it too difficult for them to exist in an unaltered state. Imo, drugs (or any addiction) are a disease of the mind and should be legalized and provided to users at no charge. Just like we should be doing with all medicines and procedures. BOOM! Huge decrease in the prison population. Hahahaha, suck it China and Iran.

[xzar_monty]

26 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

UFD = Universal Free Drugs. Our prisons are bursting at the seams trying to punish drug offenses. As we know, any mental flaw is not the fault of the victim, it was probably foisted on them by a combination of genetics and the hard scrabble of the US societal structure making it too difficult for them to exist in an unaltered state. Imo, drugs (or any addiction) are a disease of the mind and should be legalized and provided to users at no charge.

I'm not sure an "Imo" is in any way relevant when it comes to questions of science -- I'd much rather just rely on what we have been able to learn through observation, studies, experiments etc. and leave everything else open, free of opinion.

The roads to addiction are manifold, but I'd say the vast majority of addicts were already in a terrible position before they got hooked, and the painful irony is that drugs as a general anaesthetic really did provide a relief[*] -- it's just that the relief tends to come with a terrible cost, eventually. The Canadian psychologist Gabor Maté has a really good book on the subject, called In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts -- Close Encounters With Addiction. Heartily recommended!

It's interesting, by the way, that while we have been able to make serious headway in the amelioration of various problems, there are some that appear particularly stubborn and difficult, and very little progress has been made in the past hundred years or so. OCD, addictions and certain forms of psychological trauma certainly come to mind.

(Heck, I'm not into the celebrity culture at all, but if one Canadian psychologist had to become an international celebrity, Maté would have been a much better option than Jordan Peterson.)

 

[*] Every doctor in the world and every nervous performer will be able to tell you that a stiff drink really does help an awful lot if you get the jitters before something that's stressing you. But start relying on that stiff drink and you're in for some extremely serious problems later on. (Interestingly, it seems that a lot of people really don't possess the self-awareness required to recognize that in taking that stiff drink they are essentially teaching themselves that they are unable to handle the situation without it. And that, for sure, is not a good lesson.)

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, HoonDing said:

Taiwan will be the next sacrificial pawn after Ukraine. After that, Kashmir followed by Nigeria.

Kashmir ? Nigeria?  The West only cares about the "relatively civilized" places.

[Gfted1]

11 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

I'm not sure an "Imo" is in any way relevant when it comes to questions of science -- I'd much rather just rely on what we have been able to learn through observation, studies, experiments etc. and leave everything else open, free of opinion.

Cool story but the "Imo" part of the sentence was the part about UFD. I bet the Canadian prison population is super low thought! Those Canadians are so thoughtful.

[xzar_monty]

I have no idea about the Canadian prison population...

[Malcador]

1 minute ago, Gfted1 said:

Cool story but the "Imo" part of the sentence was the part about UFD. I bet the Canadian prison population is super low thought! Those Canadians are so thoughtful.

30-40k I believe.  Although the system has issues, as always