seventhcircle
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Posts posted by seventhcircle
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nono, i don't say i buy the russian story on ukrainian nazis. i'm saying i buy that the kreml thought there is enough real there to sell it to the russian public at least with the media hegemony you're talking about. at least in germany there is the talking point of: there is nothing there, nothing at all. which i also dislike. like you said everybody has that. germany had a literal nazi terror squad (from 99 to 11), that was by all indications protected by at least by a part of the domestic secret service and killed hundreds. this shit happens everywhere, also and especially in russia itself. it is no basis for an invasion.
to be fair, the reason that most aggressors pull officially for invasions are incredibly dumb, obviously constructed and transparent lies. it just has to be sold well enough for enough of your public to buy it. (the reason no examples are included is: i don't want to sidetrack).
there was a quote by putin after the us didn't find wmds in iraq, you know exactly how he said it, "I would've found wmds". and voila now they try to pull the "corona is secretly from ukraine" story. i, i don't even know man.
i do fully agree with you that the story is potentially very complex and i wrote and deleted several paragraphs the last couple of posts cause just tried to paint an alternative to the "russia is pulling the hitler and we need to act now, NOW" story and that i am not just following news from russia since end of february. i was quite frankly a bit shocked to hear that from you and (maybe i interpreted to much here) avaunt, cause i didn't take you guys for hawks. the readiness at which a lot of people seem ready to throw down scares me more than the possibility of putin attacking nato on his terms. i am afraid that if we don't keep our cultural sphere in the west in check, that we will let the lbjs and nixons and reagans (and kissingers lol) and thatchers for that matter, take the rains again.
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to steal an insult from colbert: lukaschenko is putins cockholster, no other way to put it. i don't think of belarus as a seperate entity.
my understanding was that the bigger issue in russia then the media is that opposition organisations exist that are created by the state and state actors are moles in opposition parties and so on. basically the whole system is set up so that even if you want to rebel, there is no way to know who you are talking to. it's the same logic that links russia to nazi parties in germany, to brexit, to the nra and so on. or helping the nuclear program in iran to focus the us on it (i don't know if they still do, but it was a big thing back in 2010). discord, dissent and paranoia is the modus operandi. the whole communication in russia is also super 1984. and my understanding is that surkow played a big role in setting that up. it may very well be that that is also fake news.
i'm less pessimistic about the actual chance of it playing out the way that you say. i think that trust of the members in natos §5 is to big of a pillar of power for the u.s. for them to abandon that, even on the threat of nuclear war.
in regards to finland: yeah, thats a risk. a big and realistic one, if dugin actually has as much influence on kremls politics as propagated. i honestly buy the story much more, that russia felt existentially threatened by the gas found in ukraine back in 2014 and that was the whole reason for the invasion back then and not some weird panslavic wet dream of this unfucked weirdo. i think that the answer now is much more trivial: russia wants the sanctions lifted, so they invaded ukraine in the bad miscalculation that they can easily roll them over and force them to accept krim (and the bits in donbas) as part of russia and secure the flowing water and therefore living conditions for people on krim. the nazi story is not as far fetched as it is portraied in media (consider the anti-russian language laws that ukraine wanted to introduce and the asov regiment) in the sense that it sounds plausible enough sell the invasion domestically.
it sounds plausible that the kleptocracy and yes-minister culture weighed the kreml in a false sense of superiority. now they HAVE to win at all costs just to save face so the war slowly escalates into how russia handles those kind of things. i buy that narrative, although part of it is that it makes putin a rational actor and that is far less scary.i think dugins role is much better interpreted in that russia has a strong interest in exploiting nationalism to keep part of their slav neighbours populace friendly and build another pillar of support domestically.
but maybe putin has sniffed waaaay to much of his own glue, is literally a russian hitler and copies from his playbook verbatim. the fuck do i know. i sure as hell am happy i don't have to make that call.
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hm. i mean isn't that exactly the question that has been asked for a while, especially in the anti-war left? i distinctly remember to flirt with those views myself
you could make the point that all members are under protect of nuclear attack by nuclear sharing and being under the umbrella of us-nukes, as long as all world players adhere to MAD. even in the cold war, the sowjets and states never directly engaged in a war, since the same scenario MAD scenario was always something most people in highest positions where afraid of that scenario?
i mean the big problem about russia is that you can not trust anything you hear, from our news, or gouverments, from theirs, from their domestic opposition or the same in exile. all of it could be lies, all of it could be true, it can even be both at the same time. at least that has been my pov more and more since i heard first about surkow (or more correctly how he orchestrated paranoia in the russian opposition), so propably 10 years ago or so. and this makes it also really hard imho to assess perfectly what the stance of our spooks is on how russia works and where the weakpoints are. but there is a world (and there are arguments to be made that that is our world) where the western course in ukraine right now, is the most efficient way to make the russian state implode. i would assume that if russian officials are even half as corrupt as propagated, that the western secret services have a pretty good idea of what the fuck is going on in that country. my overly long point: it could be necessity that nato stays as passive with conventional troops, but that does not say that it wouldn't be the right course of action if it wasn't. now imagine a world in which the west can collapse a state like russia by (conservative estimates of some economic models) only sacrificing 2% gdp in the west and no boots on the ground. that would be at least the fat man/little boy of the 21st century.
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On 3/18/2022 at 3:13 AM, Avaunt said:
If you don't oppose ( eye for an eye in your phrase ) ideologies that do wrong ( putin in this case ) they ride over top of you.
In this case my biggest problem in this concrete conflict is this applied to propaganda. case in point:
On 3/18/2022 at 3:13 AM, Avaunt said:...but we are the good guys...
(sorry for pulling this out of context) thinking in terms of good and bad in the context of geopolicy/strategy is intellectually disingenuous. the players think in terms of power projected. in the case of ukraine international treaties, as well as international law has been breached. the imho correct framing for any kind of intervention would be the enforcement of those laws (which are all also signed by russia btw). it is still about projection of power, but completely in line with the interest of all state actors, since "the law" and the abiding to it is literally the justification for all forms of government we have right now in the world. it takes away the "us vs. them" and the block thinking long thought overcome after '91. i am highlighting that because this kind of thinking is endemic in humans, counter productive in terms of international advancement, relative to point of view and therefore prone to abuse by any bad faith actor and is unworthy of a culture that prides itself in being objective and multi-faceted. case in point: russian propaganda pulls the same story with reversed actors.
however in your overall point i agree, i don't defend russia's action here, that was part of my point. i just wish for more of an active, reflected and respectful discussion amongst the public in the west, that reaches further points than just our immediate rapid response to the invasion.
On 3/18/2022 at 3:13 AM, Avaunt said:We don't have 15 years inside because we criticise the government.
that is true and "we" pride ourselves in that. i just have not actually seen any follow up on criticism. e.g.: there has been no political fallout for any of the actors that greenlit afghanistan, or iraq. there is no fallout for arm deliveries to the saudis. there is no fallout for abandoning the kurds in syria (or arming them in the first place, if you are in the other side of that "issue"). our goverments are filled by bad faith actors and the bandade fix in the liberal west has always been: we can criticise and denounce them, but the justice system does not touch them with a ten feet pole. and moving away from a u.s. centric point: what about frontex? why do we spend half a billion to keep refugees from africa away, but when it's ukrainians we open our doors without prejudice. i applaud the latter, but it makes the former even more painful to see, because we can manage and do actually care, when certain conditions apply.
On 3/18/2022 at 3:13 AM, Avaunt said:And G.B. wasn't even in the top five of "worst Empires", of course, that was just you lashing out. Bit silly to indulge in, if you ask me.
i mean i realize that that whas part of my rhetorical figure and was maybe not poignant enough, or unecassery, cause nazis=the worst is an accepted fact, but i was basically using the empire as a hyperbole comparison (is that the correct phrasing?) to highlight the ridiculousness of the 3rd reich, since the british empire lasted for so long and was so vast and did it's fair share of crimes against humanity. i tend to do that when angry. that said, i really don't want to get into counting deaths and weighing suffering, cause thats pointless and is what would be needed to either make or refute your point and i don't think my skin can handle the amount of showering required afterwards. also i'm not sure how to read that with the lashing out, i mean maybe, probably? personally i see the empire as over, i am roughly aware not everyone in britain sees it the same, but imho the united kingdom is not the british (colonial) empire anymore and i do make a distinction between the two. so it was neither meant as an attack on the country as a whole, nor on people in this forum in particular.
On 3/18/2022 at 1:23 PM, dogpoet said:And that's without even contemplating the long term effects of NATO backing down to nuclear threats.
i believe that the assessment is that nato is not strong enough to pull a conventional conflict with russia off, while at the same time projecting enough power in the pacific to guarantee protection of interests there. there is a litany of arguments to be made for the course the west has had so far in this conflict, but i think the limits of military power is what actually keeps the hawks in check.
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I'm really worried (and quite frankly a bit pissed), about the hate on russians and russia. - not here of cause, but in general.
I am also bothered by the enthusiasm and acclaim, both domestically and internationally, that accompanied the arms buildup (or the political decision for that) for the german army. not saying it might not be the correct decision, i am bothered by the complete lack of discourse and reflection on the topic. it's a bad day when the fucking germans are armed and NO-BODY should applaud this. the country that needed just 12 years to somehow outpace the british empire for the race as the greatest shit-stain in human history.
i am bothered by discussions on the internet, where people try to remotely analyze the health (physical and mental) of a career spook. who the fuck do you think you are? this is even more ridiculous than greenspan-watching.i am pissed of about the whataboutism discussions, regarding the conflict. first of all putin sets up all his geostrategic moves rhetorically as a pastiche of exactly the things that western imperialism has said and done in the past. this is not random and i have a strong feeling is at the core of this whole thing, whatever that might mean specifically. here is the thing: yes this happened, not long ago, with ridiculous and transparent lies, with costs measured in human lives, public money and regional destibalization of the middle east as well as waves and waves of international terrorism culminating in the islamic state (that ironically paved the way for putin to get his foot into syria) and the buildup of a cryptofascist security apparatus especially (but not exclusively) in the US. we as the western world need to have a discussion about this. about the whys, whats and hows, about the instrumentalization of fear, about what freedom is and isn't and what the sacrifice to defend those freedoms actually should be. what the ukraine-conflict brings to the west in the mid-term is a shutdown of those, that voice these concerns, a further tribalization into us vs. them, especially among the western left, but even more visible on an international stage. i see a disturbing parallel to the war on terror here and i don't like it. it's not the attack that really hurt us in the west, neither 9-11 did, nor will ukraine. it's our compulsive fear of fear and the apparent impulse to, when afraid, give power to idiots who actually long term damage what little resemblance of a civilization we have in the west. so when i say i am pissed about this whataboutism trope, i don't mean i am pissed that the parallels are drawn, they are fucking there (the racial implications of the behaviour towards refugees are another point). people behave like if there aren't good times to talk about racism, to talk about imperialism, to talk about fucking abu-ghuraib. saying: look at this shit that putin is doing, it's the same shit that "we" are doing! is not giving putin an a-okay pass. it's not historic relativism, it's pointing out to those that have not yet heard, how motherfucking despicable this shit is and we shouldn't be doing this pe-riod. look how concerned, how disgusted, how terrified it makes you, when you are on the other side. if you zoom out to a more abstract level, the same could be used for our fear of the chinese economic imperialst moves and the comparison to our own. it's fucking despicable shit isn't it? so why are we doing this?
as long as we operate from a point of supremacy, we will not advance. (and i weep for those people that think that our system is the end-all be-all vision for how humans should live. regardless of the nuances between the different models in europe, or america.)
is putin doing this right now? maybe, i don't know. but our answer as a society can not and should not be the ideological equivalent of eye for an eye. the answer to everything can not be written on a fourthousand year old stone tablet.
rant end.
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cause a large part of us-conspiracy nuts get their talking points from moscow and that funding has dried up.
funnily enough in Germany we have in the far right some loonies who think that the ukraine crisis is a smokescreen to exit covid and cover inflation... the weirdest one was that putin is a "globalist", which makes neither sense as an antisemitic dog-whistle, considering it's the fucking Russians, or in the literal sense, considering the sanctions currently basically reverse globalism for Russia. but whatever i guess, nazis never need to make sense.
Don't underestimate the power of the Swiss people, i do think the recent protests put quiet some pressure on. in comparison to republics, like the us or Germany, parliament and therefore the Swiss government is rather weak. I think that the calculus of power looks quite a bit different there.
honestly, can somebody explain to me putins' endgame here? you could always see from a certain perspective how the Russian actions make sense. Even the hardcore nationalistic ideology that they pursue. This however seems just bullshit. I I think had he played his cards differently he might have been able to swallow a big chunk of ukraine, without the international outcry and isolation of russia, at least at that level.
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thats sad
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they stole furniture. ahahahaha
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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is there a word that describes the warm feeling that you get from the righteous ranting of others?
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dune was the shit. you rarely have it, that a movie looks exactly like i imagined it when i read the book. prefer it a LOT to the lynch version.
anyone cought invincible on bezos-tv?
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lol. i felt so set up here.
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oh i need to open the image in a new tab then it works
the inking is superb
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the link doesn't show anything jason.
on a sidenote: i am perpetually amused by wixsite, considering that "wix" is phonetically identical to "wicks", which means "to wank" in the most beautiful german language
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On 1/24/2022 at 3:10 PM, Lou K said:
Looks like SAGA is back this week.
Honestly I forgot where it left off. Looks like I have some re-reading to do
how was it? i loved saga
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But then it turns out he just mistakes his neighbour for the re-animated ghost of the woman, whom he had nicknamed Gradiva
at least it's clear where the phantasiestück in the name comes from -
since i am very much prepubescent i can appreciate a fani pusey gooch, like a lot. to be fair being books from before ww1, it's easy to forgive those problematic stances.
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there always was the problem that those games look so damn fun. like the scifi battlefield, or some mmos (hello eve online). that is until you actually try to get toe to toe there and find out that not only would you need to do this as a full time job, you will also need to find unreasonable amounts of money in your wallet.
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i spent the most lovely holiday this last week. met with a group of people who i know since my age is in double digits, as well as their partners and kids. hiking in the snowy mountains, doing boardgames, cooking, doing ice-skating. really happy right now
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yep. stay healthy and have a happy new year
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@Lou K i got the first black hammer collection. i am not sure what i am looking at? a decleration of love to the golden age of comics? there is certainly some weirdness going on? what direction should i expect for this to go into?
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thats awfully cute
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jesus... what a shitbag.
hope your new landlord/lady made a better impression so far?
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bummer. your couple name could be "jade", which would be pretty rad.
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"I wish you a murder free christmans" is really hard to pull off singing.
No matter who we vote for, Governments always fuck it up.
in Bring the Noise
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i want to believe the last paragraph, but four years ago i watched trump being elected and i distinctly even remeber some people who were missing bush jr. the republicans are... whenever you think they have hit rock bottom, they go lower.
regarding the bullish stance. look the truth is, that propably russia wouldn't even pull this crap if they didn't have the nukes. and to hand that ball back to you: it's easy to tell an army to march into war, when you are not part of that army. but in this hypothetical scenario it would propably be comparable to post srebrenica kosovo and the intervention and i think that was the right thing back then overall. it would be the right thing now too propably, but chances are also it wouldn't be better for the ukranians, the shitshow would just be more massive. imho that ship had sailed once putin crossed the rubicon.
the attrition strategy more adresses your initial thoughts: what message it sends when a nuclear power can with impunity attack any other non-nato-country. the message is: we will nuke your economy to the stone age. and don't get me started on how we propably will not succeed in that, cause we didn't spend enough energy to go clean from gas and oil. thinking to much about that will give me an aneurism.
ok. at no point did i give the west the fault for what is happening. i could construct that narrative i think as an intellectual exercise in wanking myself off, but there is no way in hell i am doing that. at no point did i draw russia as some kind of victim that is defending itself or any shit like that. yes it's my "opinion", obviously - we are on a discussion forum about politics on the internet. it's what we do, we share opinions.
there is a huge difference between the cornerstones of: what is russia, who is the aggressor and so on and trying to understand the intrinsicaties of russian domestic policy vis-a-vis their intentions for ukraine, propably other states and what the west can do short of a military intervention to disrupt or even topple the current kreml regime. or like christian suggested most likely go to war of attrition with them. and saying i don't trust anything coming from there, does not mean i believe that putin isn't a dictator, it means i don't believe when putin says he is afraid of nato in ukraine and i don't believe when ukraine is saying that belarus military doesn't want to fight and i don't believe that putin is so sick he will die. i honestly don't even buy the mad-man bullshit russia is pulling. i doubt any and all success or failure stories from the war right now, unless all sides tell the same story (aka the war is over and then we can do a post mortem). or what oligarchs are supporting putin and which one are close to flipping, or if thats even happening. just to name examples. we have been for years in a massive concerted propaganda war in regards to russia.
maybe my wording was not exact enough, or to mangled together to bring about the different things i was trying to discuss in my posts. if so than please feel free to correct me. you know, i am not a native speaker, or a journalist, i just try to write with, what i consider, my buddies on a comic forum. i have no political agenda towards you, beyond "war is bad, k?", i don't hate america, or great britain, or the european union, or any nation really. i have no qualms with you, or from my perspective anybody else here. opinion pieces are in magazines is my understanding.
and while we are at: what really rustles my jimmies. it's when ANYBODY brings out the good guys talk, especially from over the atlantic. i'll give you an example why: in 2020 chelsea manning was released, who was in prison for so long, that she fully transitioned in the meantime, for, may i remind you, leaking a video that the united states gouverment tried to bury, about how some american soldiers made jokes while teaching the values of superior firepower to reuters journalists. (ok she presumably also leaked other documents about warcrimes that the united states commited.) in, we should not forget, an illegal invasive war that was started, due to a reason the american government fabricated and LIED about to the world. A war that destabilized the whole region into a civil war that is still going on, something that, may i remind you, people who actually KNEW what they were talking about, warned of. and in that context and us holding our officials to the fire: who of that administration got punished for constructing a fake reason to invade a sovereign nation? countries and governments aren't good guys.
and to bring that point home i have started in the first post: if the u.s. people feel the rage and fear and helplesness right now, you get an idea of how the rest of the world has been watching the 3000pounds roidraging gorilla, that could like you say probably lay waste to the other two great powers in the world both in conventional and nuclear terms, and the rest of the world have been feeling since like 1945. i hope, i wish and pray, that in the face of this experience there is the development of some modicum of humility towards war in the united states foreign policy. i don't hate or blame you guys, i just want you to be better. and the only thing this has to do with ukraine, is that the emotions it triggers in all of us, can be used for something constructive. war is bad, k?