Putin's War With Ukraine (and democracy, freedom, self-determination, etc.)

Regardless of your opinion of Jordan Peterson, his latest podcast with Frederick Kagan is very interesting. It really touches on the history and motivation behind Putin’s actions. How does Russia’s hybrid war work and why they switched to a more conventional style of war in Ukraine.

 

lol China…

 

Only have had time to check out the first 1/3 or so. Kagan is a true believer in the west's "hegemonic' self image (a kind of anti-thesis to what he critique's in Putin's/Russia self image), but as usual Peterson is able (sometimes) to get underneath it to something useful...

 

Couldn't finish the Kagan interview, the guy is a talking head and was deeply involved in the American military industrial complex's rape of the middle east for natural resources. that's all these guys who work at these 'think tanks' like AEI and RAND do, create threats out of foreign states, lobby to neocons (and neoliberals) to justify military action to raise defense spending and secure overseas industrial contracts. gross!

 

Your evaluation might seem extreme, but it's really not. Obama called this establishment "the blob" and admitted his failure to fundamentally question their assumptions/influence was his #1 policy failure. Trump's typing them as part of "the swamp" was the same thing.

The fact that this establishment has the inner circle of BOTH parties in their back pocket means they rule the narrative, and are able to hoodwink the "average" american into their vision of what America/"the west" is all about, and what should be done about it.

 

Ah well jokes on me for taking it at face value lol

 

Smart lady. She shares a brief assessment on whether Putin's inner circle, and the Oligarchs, are a threat. Also highlights the lack of room for compromise, and the necessity of increasing pressure on Putin.

 

Thanks for sharing. In part, hybrid warfare seems to be like the psyops soviets were trying to do during the Cold War aimed at the West.

 

The more I think about this:

https://www.classical-music.com/new...s-chief-conductor-of-the-munich-philharmonic/

This is racism. Identity politics leads to this - Gergiev as a platonic initiation of "Putinism", who he is/what he is (i.e. a "bad Russian") define if he is employable. He is not allowed to be human, a patriot (however mistaken), loyal to family/friends/country - he must be an true believer of whatever cause the illiberal left is behind today (will be different in the morning) and speak the right words or he is to be shunned. Not that long ago we were careful to distinguish that Islam is ok, it's the bad Islamic "terrorists" that were the problem. The day before yesterday we chastised those who said "China virus" because that's racist. I know it's the heat of the moment but perhaps some of you can understand why many Eastern Europeans are weary of the illiberal west.

 

I think propagandist want you to be labled and super sensitive about racism , then they can call you and everyone around racist.

Some hyper conservative groups hint at you for being racist almost by the way you walk.. so can the liberals who dont like people who stand out. So the racism bs is just bs. Some people do not like you and want to weed you out and call you racist.

I am one of these people who watched Django Unchained and felt the pain people went under Real racism. Although people can toxify the air with words too... Nazi bs has always been disgusting for me. Soviets were not better in regards to limiting human rights and killing people. The belief system were born of the time, where people talked about eugenics even in the west I read.

A rethorical question. If you just turn on everyone outside, whos fault is it?

 

99% of the time it's your own. When I managed a team, I would tell them not to bitch about things. Being higher up in the hierarchy, I had knowledge they didn't (that at times was not appropriate to share) so they just had to trust me. However, I also told them they get two "mutinies" per year. This was because if there's something everyone else is seeing that I am not, I need to know about it.

 

Defining one self as someone super special or different makes life quite difficult in the modern world. Some kind of growth and meaningful connections is the way forward.

Got to appreciate good leaders!

 

To be fair, if they had a secret underwater base, you wouldn't hear about it, and they'd need a (super) yacht to get to it.

 

Someone sent me a reddit link by a purported Russian finance professor at the University of Chicago. TL;DR the Russian economy is fucked and about to shutdown so hard covid will look like a picnic.

Incoming shortages of literally everything including food, no money to buy imported goods (frozen assets), can't export anything, can't build anything because need imported components you can't get, so big unemployment, can't pay state employees, can't fix aircraft because can't get imported spare parts so ground entire country. People will try to leave so they'll shutdown the internet and lockdown the country to prevent people from leaving, but then nobody will work. Enjoy USSR level austere fun except Putin is in charge.

 

I've heard a lot to this effect. Things are going to get very messy.

What's also "interesting" is that some of the war effort is highlighting how bad the Russian economy was even beforehand. Either through lack of resources or corruption. I've seen very credible reports that the slow progress of the 40 mile long convoy is attributable to poor tire maintenance.

 

I'm heartened to see how everyone in free world seems to be of the same mind about this. There is nothing too small for Russia to have been banned from. Being cut off from online gaming does not matter much. Being cut off from app stores and related services does not matter much. Being cut off from movie releases, Eurovision competitions, soccer, hockey, Formula 1 and the Paralympics does not matter much. But a thousand little cuts taken together sends a consistent message and it is good to see.