Good overview of many of yesterday’s event and reactions:
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Still - her cousin isn’t wrong about his friend Putin’s testicles.
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Threats that the west will help Ukrainian resistance in the event of occupation may ring hollow in Moscow, given Russia’s 100% success rate in suppressing resistance movements of this kind. Promising to extend Ukraine’s agony after it has been invaded is no substitute for real and tangible support to prevent it happening in the first place. And promises that Russia will face “another Chechnya” are particularly unhelpful if used unwisely. After all, in Chechnya, Russia won – and won so convincingly that the approach it eventually took was used as a template for operations in Syria.
P.S.
Thread on poor continuity in the Kremlin.
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It’s both-and regarding sanctions. The only difference between the oligarchs and the higher-ups in the military and political structure is the amount of money they’re trying to stash outside the country. Anyone with power operating under that regime is by definition corrupt.
Man, that’s some good old-fashioned Kremlinology updated to the modern age.
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watching conservatives (i guess) like candace owens, rod dreher, and tucker swanson mcnear carlson talking about the situation between russia and ukraine i find myself wondering what would have happened to a democrat in 2003 who said they wanted to stay out of iraq because saddam was such a manly man.
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“…Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, also spoke this morning to the general assembly about Russia’s aggression, urging other delegates that the crisis affects everyone.”
“What is happening right now in eastern Ukraine … must be a concern for everyone. For all of you,” said Kuleba.
“No one will be able to sit out this crisis.”
Did somebody just say World War?
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Russia needs better SFX guys. That was pathetic.
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Perhaps they should get in touch with the promoter of a Laurie Anderson concert from the 80s…
But what was really on my mind was that the week before, I had myself been testing explosives in a parking lot in Tel Aviv. Now, this happened because I had brought some small stage bombs to Israel as props for this performance, and the Israeli promoter was very interested in them. And it turned out that he was on weekend duty on one of the bomb squads, and bombs were also something of a hobby during the week
So I said, “Look, you know, these bombs are nothing special, just, just a little smoke.”
And he said, “Well, we can get much better things for you.”
And I said, “No really, these are fine…”
And he said, “No, but it should be big! Theatrical! It should make an impression. I mean, you really need just the right bomb.”
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This is what propaganda looks like when it’s not expected to convince anyone, but rather functions as a series of loyalty tests—the more transparently fake everything is, the easier it is to flush out whiners and defeatists
One question is whether everyone in the system understands this, or everyone except the top guy—the “Emperor’s New Clothes” story is relevant
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First stage, second stage, third stage propaganda:
- convincing people of something which is not true
- convincing people that they can’t trust what is true or not
- convincing people that it doesn’t matter if it’s true.
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I can only comment on whether particular videos look fake, or what a douchebag Putin is
If we want to debate whether it’s possible for an army to aggress against its own territory, there’s a big bucket of whataboutism waiting to spill
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I think it’s more a matter of quantity over quality, and the intended audience being domestic, where the state-run media presents the fakes uncritically. The intent is to create the impression that there is already a big war going on, where the bloodthirsty Ukrainians are trying to commit genocide against poor helpless Russians of Donbas, so Russia should rush to their defense at any cost. The military buildup is there, the political procedures are complete, so the only missing piece is widespread public support for what will be a long, bloody and expensive war.
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