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Fighting the good fight
Picture of RogueJSK
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quote:
Originally posted by nhracecraft:
“People in my generation get all our information from TikTok", he said. Well, there it is...We're doomed as a civilization! Frown


The thing is, it's true. That's how the younger generation works these days.


But then again, how many times over the years have various forum members here said something along the lines of: "I don't read the news... Anything I need to know about I'll hear about on Sigforum anyway" or "Sigforum is the best source of news I've found."

Now take those sentiments and replace "SigForum" with "TikTok". Wink
 
Posts: 33309 | Location: Northwest Arkansas | Registered: January 06, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Ammoholic
Picture of Skins2881
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quote:
Originally posted by RogueJSK:
quote:
Originally posted by nhracecraft:
“People in my generation get all our information from TikTok", he said. Well, there it is...We're doomed as a civilization! Frown


The thing is, it's true. That's how the younger generation works these days.


But then again, how many times over the years have various forum members here said something along the lines of: "I don't read the news... Anything I need to know about I'll hear about on Sigforum anyway" or "Sigforum is the best source of news I've found."

Now take those sentiments and replace "SigForum" with "TikTok". Wink


Next you're going to tell me SF is owned by a Chinese company with direct ties to the CCP.



Jesse

Sic Semper Tyrannis
 
Posts: 21277 | Location: Loudoun County, Virginia | Registered: December 27, 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Fighting the good fight
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Not at all. My point was, the concept of people using social media (in general) as a primary source of news isn't exactly a brand new concept, or even one that's relegated solely to "kids these days"...
 
Posts: 33309 | Location: Northwest Arkansas | Registered: January 06, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Ammoholic
Picture of Skins2881
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quote:
Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Not at all. My point was, the concept of people using social media (in general) as a primary source of news isn't exactly a brand new concept, or even one that's relegated solely to "kids these days"...


I'm just being a smart ass.

There is a difference in standards though. Here you want to make an assertion or post news, it needs links. Never seen a tictoc video with source links.



Jesse

Sic Semper Tyrannis
 
Posts: 21277 | Location: Loudoun County, Virginia | Registered: December 27, 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
A Grateful American
Picture of sigmonkey
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quote:
Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Not at all. My point was, the concept of people using social media (in general) as a primary source of news isn't exactly a brand new concept, or even one that's relegated solely to "kids these days"...


Wait. You mean drums, smoke, drawing on cave walls, are no longer the means of mass communicatin'?




"the meaning of life, is to give life meaning" Ani Yehudi אני יהודי Le'olam lo shuv לעולם לא שוב!
 
Posts: 44595 | Location: ...... I am thrice divorced, and I live in a van DOWN BY THE RIVER!!! (in Arkansas) | Registered: December 20, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Funny Man
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I was reading about Ukraine’s air assets today. According to the author they are still flying about a dozen missions per day including in a handful of Mig 29’s they still have flying.

Perhaps it makes no tactical sense or would not serve any direct military purpose but it got me thinking that Moscow is within easy flight range of Kiev, which means many potential targets are even closer. Is there a case for Ukraine making a couple of highly visible targets in Putin’s front yard go boom?


______________________________
“I'd like to know why well-educated idiots keep apologizing for lazy and complaining people who think the world owes them a living.”
― John Wayne
 
Posts: 7093 | Location: Austin, TX | Registered: June 29, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Wait, what?
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^^^^
I assume that ground to air defenses would become more numerous outside of Ukraine and especially around big Russian cities/assets. It might also be what Putin hopes will happen and hypocritically cry “war crimes” and release total annihilation in civilian areas.




“Remember to get vaccinated or a vaccinated person might get sick from a virus they got vaccinated against because you’re not vaccinated.” - author unknown
 
Posts: 15937 | Location: Martinsburg WV | Registered: April 02, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Nullus Anxietas
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quote:
Originally posted by TXJIM:
Is there a case for Ukraine making a couple of highly visible targets in Putin’s front yard go boom?
Not IMO.

If you're going to send resources on suicide missions, better to go for targets that might actually make a difference--like those trains, headed from the east, with a bunch of hardware and troops.



"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher
 
Posts: 26009 | Location: S.E. Michigan | Registered: January 06, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Fighting the good fight
Picture of RogueJSK
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quote:
Originally posted by sigmonkey:
Wait. You mean drums, smoke, drawing on cave walls, are no longer the means of mass communicatin'?


Nope. And you don't even have to go all the way down to the watering hole or the corner diner to hear the latest gossip and world news these days.


I do think it's funny how some folks will be posting in one thread about how "It's just ridiculous how kids these days only get their news from social media!" while in another thread they're like "Don't ever listen to anything the news media says, it's all controlled by the government, big business, and the leftists!" Big Grin
 
Posts: 33309 | Location: Northwest Arkansas | Registered: January 06, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
I Deal In Lead
Picture of Flash-LB
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quote:
Originally posted by sigmonkey:
Wait. You mean drums, smoke, drawing on cave walls, are no longer the means of mass communicatin'?


Move up to the 19th century. We went to soup cans on a string long ago.
 
Posts: 10626 | Location: Gilbert Arizona | Registered: March 21, 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Not at all. My point was, the concept of people using social media (in general) as a primary source of news isn't exactly a brand new concept, or even one that's relegated solely to "kids these days"...


agree

the channels of information have changed fundamentally from the boomer days of watching 'ol Cronkite broadcast the 6 o'clock evening news.

but i will say -- i tell everybody i know that my 'most trusted' source is the Wall Street Journal. IMO actual objective reporting to 'old school' high journalist standards.


-----------------------------------


Proverbs 27:17 - As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
 
Posts: 8940 | Location: Florida | Registered: September 20, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
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quote:
Originally posted by TXJIM:
I was reading about Ukraine’s air assets today. According to the author they are still flying about a dozen missions per day including in a handful of Mig 29’s they still have flying.

Perhaps it makes no tactical sense or would not serve any direct military purpose but it got me thinking that Moscow is within easy flight range of Kiev, which means many potential targets are even closer. Is there a case for Ukraine making a couple of highly visible targets in Putin’s front yard go boom?

The Ukrainian version of a Doolittle Raid isn't going to happen, there's no reason to waste such assets on a mission that has little value, not to mention Ukraine is in the process of getting overrun, the US had no such problem. While citizens were still in shock due to Pearl Harbor, military leaders knew that there was an industrial base that simply needed time to ramp-up. There's no magic 'kill this guy and it all ends' type of scenario here.
 
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A Grateful American
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"the meaning of life, is to give life meaning" Ani Yehudi אני יהודי Le'olam lo shuv לעולם לא שוב!
 
Posts: 44595 | Location: ...... I am thrice divorced, and I live in a van DOWN BY THE RIVER!!! (in Arkansas) | Registered: December 20, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Do No Harm,
Do Know Harm
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After watching that Oliver Stone thing…holy shit what a convoluted mess. I’ve got no idea who to root for.

I do know that usually the democrats and media are on the opposite side of what my values are.

But the misinformation and disinformation is amazing.




Knowing what one is talking about is widely admired but not strictly required here.

Although sometimes distracting, there is often a certain entertainment value to this easy standard.
-JALLEN

"All I need is a WAR ON DRUGS reference and I got myself a police thread BINGO." -jljones
 
Posts: 11465 | Location: NC | Registered: August 16, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
A Grateful American
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Given what we know, I am rooting for the people of Ukraine.

No matter what level of corruption the government, no matter if there are some elements that are harshing the buzz of other folk in the country (i.e. the "Nazis in Eastern Ukraine picking on the Russian homies), possibility of NATO and/or EU membership, none of that merits the scale of invasion and brutality we are seeing upon a sovereign nation.

Ukraine made no overture of threat to Russia.
Ukraine posed no imminent threat to Russia.

So, the asymmetrical response to any real problems causes me to root for the people.

There were several venues where Russia could have brought forth evidence and argument and sued for UN, or even NATO or America involvement of review and investigation of allegations.

After Crimea was annexed 8 years ago, this invasion of Ukraine is a second step, and may well lead to greater conflict.

In both cases, Russia (Putin) has grabbed his nuclear crotch and taunted the West with threats of whipping it out.

I believe that the best way for this to resolve is for Ukraine to somehow, prevail and cause Russian to go home and reconsider life choices from attrition of loss, than for any West hot confrontation to push him back.


But, I just do not see any justification for Russia's side in this, even if all the claims of "Bio Weapons Labs" "Nazis", or any other issues were 100% true.

And, yes, what can anyone believe is the "real truth" based on anything reported?




"the meaning of life, is to give life meaning" Ani Yehudi אני יהודי Le'olam lo shuv לעולם לא שוב!
 
Posts: 44595 | Location: ...... I am thrice divorced, and I live in a van DOWN BY THE RIVER!!! (in Arkansas) | Registered: December 20, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Ammoholic
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Everything the primate said. I don't really care if there are Nazis in the country, as I noted on here before they killed my family. I don't care if they are doing biological research, the vast vast majority of that type of research is not nefarious and I have yet to see one drop of evidence that they are doing something illegal or making weapons.

I am going to stick with the fact that a former superpower with a shit ton of left over nuclear weapons and conventional weapons is attacking their neighbor unprovoked. Regardless of whatever Putin thinks justifies his attack they have not made a move attacking them yet. Until the first mortar flies you always have to try diplomacy first.

Finally I always cheer for the underdog, Ukraine should have fallen within days to weeks, this is like seeing the #64 seed beating Duke in the second half of the final four.

If we later find out that Ukraine is filled with nothing but Nazis and bio-weapon labs fine, deal with it with diplomacy.



Jesse

Sic Semper Tyrannis
 
Posts: 21277 | Location: Loudoun County, Virginia | Registered: December 27, 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Freethinker
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quote:
Originally posted by sigmonkey:
No matter what level of corruption the government, no matter if there are some elements that are harshing the buzz of other folk in the country (i.e. the "Nazis in Eastern Ukraine picking on the Russian homies), possibility of NATO and/or EU membership, none of that merits the scale of invasion and brutality we are seeing upon a sovereign nation.

Exactly.

Someone I know listens to Nutjobs, Pinkos and Reds “public” radio and I couldn’t avoid hearing someone ask, “Are the Russians committing war crimes in Ukraine?” When I heard that my immediate reaction was, “Of course they are. The fact that they are waging the war is a war crime.”

One of the charges against some of the German defendants at Nürnberg was that they had “waged an aggressive war.” Upon their conviction that was at least part of the reason they were hanged. An aggressive war is one that’s launched with no justification, and it is no different than if I broke into someone’s house, killed the occupants, and stole their possessions. If I did that to a friend or relative of yours, would you think that I had committed a crime? Would it be okay if I took their stuff and went home or maybe just decided to move into their house myself? Would it matter if one of the many occupants I killed was a criminal or Communist himself? Would all that be okay if some of the items I stole had been originally stolen from someone else? How about if I and a bunch of like-minded individuals decided to go to another town and do that to a bunch of people there? “Well, that’s war”—hmmmm … really?

Just as our individual quality of life is degraded if we must live in a community in which crime is rampant and we cannot trust anyone else to the extent of not fortifying our homes and hiring security forces to protect us at all times, our quality of life is degraded when that’s necessary on a national level. And part of the reason why it’s necessary on our national level is because things like the aggressive criminal war against Ukraine are possible—and because they still occur, even in the 21st century.




6.4/93.6
___________
“We are Americans …. Together we have resisted the trap of appeasement, cynicism, and isolation that gives temptation to tyrants.”
— George H. W. Bush
 
Posts: 47860 | Location: 10,150 Feet Above Sea Level in Colorado | Registered: April 04, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Gracie Allen is my
personal savior!
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quote:
Originally posted by wcb6092:
Ukraine Worked With Democrats Against Trump in 2016 to Stop Putin. The Bet Backfired Badly.

https://www.realclearinvestiga...er_biden_820873.html

Good information, too much to paste.

Yeah, but oddly enough, a year after a Ukrainian court found Leschenko and Sytnyk illegally interfered with a US election, Porochenko and his party were swept out of power in the 2019 Ukrainian election that brought in Zelenskyy and his fellow Independents...

http://www.cnsnews.com/blog/cr...are-great-teacher-us

Trump couldn't ask for better allies to be in power in Ukraine than the people in power in Ukraine now - and, given Putin's partiality for autocrats, Putin knows it.
 
Posts: 27309 | Location: Deep in the heart of the brush country, and closing on that #&*%!?! roadrunner. Really. | Registered: February 05, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
SIGforum's Berlin
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The Weakness of the Despot

An expert on Stalin discusses Putin, Russia, and the West.

By David Remnick

March 11, 2022

Stephen Kotkin is one of our most profound and prodigious scholars of Russian history. His masterwork is a biography of Josef Stalin. So far he has published two volumes––“Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928,” which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and “Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941.” A third volume will take the story through the Second World War; Stalin’s death, in 1953; and the totalitarian legacy that shaped the remainder of the Soviet experience. Taking advantage of long-forbidden archives in Moscow and beyond, Kotkin has written a biography of Stalin that surpasses those by Isaac Deutscher, Robert Conquest, Robert C. Tucker, and countless others.

Kotkin has a distinguished reputation in academic circles. He is a professor of history at Princeton University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, at Stanford University. He has myriad sources in various realms of contemporary Russia: government, business, culture. Both principled and pragmatic, he is also more plugged in than any reporter or analyst I know. Ever since we met in Moscow, many years ago––Kotkin was doing research on the Stalinist industrial city of Magnitogorsk––I’ve found his guidance on everything from the structure of the Putin regime to its roots in Russian history to be invaluable.

Earlier this week, I spoke with Kotkin about Putin, the invasion of Ukraine, the American and European response, and what comes next, including the possibility of a palace coup in Moscow. Our conversation, which appears in the video above, has been edited for length and clarity.

We’ve been hearing voices both past and present saying that the reason for what has happened is, as George Kennan put it, the strategic blunder of the eastward expansion of NATO. The great-power realist-school historian John Mearsheimer insists that a great deal of the blame for what we’re witnessing must go to the United States. I thought we’d begin with your analysis of that argument.

I have only the greatest respect for George Kennan. John Mearsheimer is a giant of a scholar. But I respectfully disagree. The problem with their argument is that it assumes that, had NATO not expanded, Russia wouldn’t be the same or very likely close to what it is today. What we have today in Russia is not some kind of surprise. It’s not some kind of deviation from a historical pattern. Way before NATO existed—in the nineteenth century—Russia looked like this: it had an autocrat. It had repression. It had militarism. It had suspicion of foreigners and the West. This is a Russia that we know, and it’s not a Russia that arrived yesterday or in the nineteen-nineties. It’s not a response to the actions of the West. There are internal processes in Russia that account for where we are today.

I would even go further. I would say that NATO expansion has put us in a better place to deal with this historical pattern in Russia that we’re seeing again today. Where would we be now if Poland or the Baltic states were not in NATO? They would be in the same limbo, in the same world that Ukraine is in. In fact, Poland’s membership in NATO stiffened NATO’s spine. Unlike some of the other NATO countries, Poland has contested Russia many times over. In fact, you can argue that Russia broke its teeth twice on Poland: first in the nineteenth century, leading up to the twentieth century, and again at the end of the Soviet Union, with Solidarity. So George Kennan was an unbelievably important scholar and practitioner—the greatest Russia expert who ever lived—but I just don’t think blaming the West is the right analysis for where we are.

[...]

Russia is a remarkable civilization: in the arts, music, literature, dance, film. In every sphere, it’s a profound, remarkable place––a whole civilization, more than just a country. At the same time, Russia feels that it has a “special place” in the world, a special mission. It’s Eastern Orthodox, not Western. And it wants to stand out as a great power. Its problem has always been not this sense of self or identity but the fact that its capabilities have never matched its aspirations. It’s always in a struggle to live up to these aspirations, but it can’t, because the West has always been more powerful.

Russia is a great power, but not the great power, except for those few moments in history that you just enumerated. In trying to match the West or at least manage the differential between Russia and the West, they resort to coercion. They use a very heavy state-centric approach to try to beat the country forward and upwards in order, militarily and economically, to either match or compete with the West. And that works for a time, but very superficially. Russia has a spurt of economic growth, and it builds up its military, and then, of course, it hits a wall. It then has a long period of stagnation where the problem gets worse. The very attempt to solve the problem worsens the problem, and the gulf with the West widens. The West has the technology, the economic growth, and the stronger military.

The worst part of this dynamic in Russian history is the conflation of the Russian state with a personal ruler. Instead of getting the strong state that they want, to manage the gulf with the West and push and force Russia up to the highest level, they instead get a personalist regime. They get a dictatorship, which usually becomes a despotism. They’ve been in this bind for a while because they cannot relinquish that sense of exceptionalism, that aspiration to be the greatest power, but they cannot match that in reality. Eurasia is just much weaker than the Anglo-American model of power. Iran, Russia, and China, with very similar models, are all trying to catch the West, trying to manage the West and this differential in power.

What is Putinism? It’s not the same as Stalinism. It’s certainly not the same as Xi Jinping’s China or the regime in Iran. What are its special characteristics, and why would those special characteristics lead it to want to invade Ukraine, which seems a singularly stupid, let alone brutal, act?

Yes, well, war usually is a miscalculation. It’s based upon assumptions that don’t pan out, things that you believe to be true or want to be true. Of course, this isn’t the same regime as Stalin’s or the tsar’s, either. There’s been tremendous change: urbanization, higher levels of education. The world outside has been transformed. And that’s the shock. The shock is that so much has changed, and yet we’re still seeing this pattern that they can’t escape from.

You have an autocrat in power—or even now a despot—making decisions completely by himself. Does he get input from others? Perhaps. We don’t know what the inside looks like. Does he pay attention? We don’t know. Do they bring him information that he doesn’t want to hear? That seems unlikely. Does he think he knows better than everybody else? That seems highly likely. Does he believe his own propaganda or his own conspiratorial view of the world? That also seems likely. These are surmises. Very few people talk to Putin, either Russians on the inside or foreigners.

And so we think, but we don’t know, that he is not getting the full gamut of information. He’s getting what he wants to hear. In any case, he believes that he’s superior and smarter. This is the problem of despotism. It’s why despotism, or even just authoritarianism, is all-powerful and brittle at the same time. Despotism creates the circumstances of its own undermining. The information gets worse. The sycophants get greater in number. The corrective mechanisms become fewer. And the mistakes become much more consequential.

Putin believed, it seems, that Ukraine is not a real country, and that the Ukrainian people are not a real people, that they are one people with the Russians. He believed that the Ukrainian government was a pushover. He believed what he was told or wanted to believe about his own military, that it had been modernized to the point where it could organize not a military invasion but a lightning coup, to take Kyiv in a few days and either install a puppet government or force the current government and President to sign some paperwork.

[...]

With Ukraine, we have the assumption that it could be a successful version of Afghanistan, and it wasn’t. It turned out that the Ukrainian people are brave; they are willing to resist and die for their country. Evidently, Putin didn’t believe that. But it turned out that “the television President,” Zelensky, who had a twenty-five-per-cent approval rating before the war—which was fully deserved, because he couldn’t govern—now it turns out that he has a ninety-one-per-cent approval rating. It turned out that he’s got cojones. He’s unbelievably brave. Moreover, having a TV-production company run a country is not a good idea in peacetime, but in wartime, when information war is one of your goals, it’s a fabulous thing to have in place.

The biggest surprise for Putin, of course, was the West. All the nonsense about how the West is decadent, the West is over, the West is in decline, how it’s a multipolar world and the rise of China, et cetera: all of that turned out to be bunk. The courage of the Ukrainian people and the bravery and smarts of the Ukrainian government, and its President, Zelensky, galvanized the West to remember who it was. And that shocked Putin! That’s the miscalculation.

How do you define “the West”?

The West is a series of institutions and values. The West is not a geographical place. Russia is European, but not Western. Japan is Western, but not European. “Western” means rule of law, democracy, private property, open markets, respect for the individual, diversity, pluralism of opinion, and all the other freedoms that we enjoy, which we sometimes take for granted. We sometimes forget where they came from. But that’s what the West is. And that West, which we expanded in the nineties, in my view properly, through the expansion of the European Union and NATO, is revived now, and it has stood up to Vladimir Putin in a way that neither he nor Xi Jinping expected.

If you assumed that the West was just going to fold, because it was in decline and ran from Afghanistan; if you assumed that the Ukrainian people were not for real, were not a nation; if you assumed that Zelensky was just a TV actor, a comedian, a Russian-speaking Jew from Eastern Ukraine—if you assumed all of that, then maybe you thought you could take Kyiv in two days or four days. But those assumptions were wrong.

[...]


https://www.newyorker.com/news...ussia-ukraine-stalin
 
Posts: 2464 | Location: Berlin, Germany | Registered: April 12, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
A Grateful American
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Iran hit (U.S. Forces) airbase and near consulate Erbil Iraq. 1/2 dozen missiles.




"the meaning of life, is to give life meaning" Ani Yehudi אני יהודי Le'olam lo shuv לעולם לא שוב!
 
Posts: 44595 | Location: ...... I am thrice divorced, and I live in a van DOWN BY THE RIVER!!! (in Arkansas) | Registered: December 20, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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