20501

I think you have it right. It is significant in that it underscores the dangerous actions of Russia, and as long as people don’t use it to enhance the peace at any price narrative, it only deepens the animosity towards Moscow. Though I am sure some in the West will indeed use this to push for so-called negotiations, which in English we call “surrender” in this case.

20502

Well,

Ukraine just attacked a NATO country.

If they want to meet about that.

20503

At least NATO isn’t calling for the NATO invasion of Ukraine in response to bloodshed by a non-NATO belligerent. Instead the violent death of two Poles is reclassified as a “whoopsy-doodle”.

20504

SecDef Austin confirms the AP report from last night:

20505

Russia been pretty evil for a long time already. But then I guess we been doing the same to them as well.

20506

Luckily, their spy stuff is shit, and always has been, in fact education in Russia is awful right now, so bad they probably can’t educate people to even maintain their more advanced equipment for the future.

So, they assume that people are tools like most Russians(not all) and will swallow the party line because of fear/ignorance/cheese…
However, look at how badly informed Putin was on this war he’s started…FSB or whatever they were called was absolutely shit. They do know how to torture and beat people to say whatever they want them to say though.

20507

I don’t think one is a result of anything unique about Russia, just the ultimate result of having an authoritarian in power for too long. The FSB could very well have known enough to advise against invasion but just hid that fact if they felt like doing so would mean Putin would target them for not telling him what he wanted to hear. The “yes men” problem seems to be an inevitable thing for anyone who becomes too powerful in any organization. And the paranoia of that power being potentially unstable only makes it worse. Putin being a strategic mastermind might have been true at one point, but it doesn’t matter how smart you are if you’re in a total information bubble you’re not going to be able to make good decisions.

20508

Perun did a great one on the Russian variant of institutional untruthfulness. It rang pretty true to me, the same thing happened in other totalitarian systems such as China, Nazi Germany, heck even victorian England. Telling the higher ups what they want to hear because the truth will make them stomp you in the mud.

What hit home about the vid I linked is that they already in '84 were trying to do what they did so succesfully with their social media strategy around the MAGA movement, alt right and all that shit. I am convinced Moscow give that a hearty push where and when they could. What are we doing to arm ourselves against that shit? Because the Q/antivax/maga bullshit isn’t nearly as marginal as I’d like it to be.

Speaking of youtube as a source, here’s a former tomcat RIO talking with his air warfare expert buddy from a prestigious British defence think tank about the Ukraine situation:

20509

Eh the guy in the 1984 vid was talking more about the classic “marxists infiltrate the universities and poison the minds of a whole generation” thing which uhhhh pretty sure that only happened in the minds of conservative fabulists. Maybe the Communists THOUGHT they were doing that but it clearly didn’t happen.

20510

That was my initial reaction as well. However the methods described do seem to match up to what Russia is attempting these days with social media and bots. It makes me think that video describes the older methods that have evolved into the current (likely more effectual) methods.

20511

Yeah, the current social media efforts are far and away more successful than anything they tried way back when. When I was in college, late 70s-early 80s, there were plenty of Marxists and socialists but they were largely philosophical, or trying to be what we’d now call edgy, or trying to impress someone. Even the pretty hard-core had amazing turn-arounds come graduation for the most part. But today’s social media campaigns seem to be sticking.

20512

Once Reagan was a RINO the Republicans were an easy mark.

20513

They go after a decidedly different demographic

20514

Head of Ukrainian Railways talks about bring the Railway back to Mykolaiv and Kherson, and work done with Medecin Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) and World Central Kitchen to bring medicine and food in. A very good read in my opinion. Will drop in a few of the posts, but definitely worth a look at the full thread for those interested in this sort of thing:

20515

I’ve been donating to Doctors without borders for many years, and World Central Kitchen fairly recently.
It is sure great to see that they are truly doing good work.
Thanks for sharing the thread.

20516

To an extent, yes, though my students are more likely to be affected by these campaigns than students would have been by local Marxists back in the day I think. That’s because then information gathering was active; you sought it out. Now it’s passive; it finds you.

20517

Maybe being pals with Iran just to do some war crimes wasn’t the best idea.

20518

Who woulda thunk?

20519

War crimes are their own reward.

20520

Not a surprise, but a Dutch court has reached a verdict on MH17.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/17/mh17-verdict-conviction-flight/

This was not in any way believable then but it is absolutely preposterous in light of 2022.