The next big Ukraine push back is still to unfold and could still be weeks away but I don’t think so. I think this is now days. But events are unfolding that have caused me to pause and rethink what might be delaying this ‘long awaited’ counter offensive.
How devastated Russian troop morale is, and how ‘evident’ it is, could be the big issue that further delays the big push. Shaping operations for the Russian morale structure is also important and delay may save a lot of lives.
We are about to see that it is the masses that make war, and the mass of Russian soldiers just don’t want to be killed or injured! They will again donate large quantities of heavy ‘stuff’ when they turn and run from the swift moving hard hitting Armed Forces of Ukraine. (AFU)
Anyway, my money is still on almost ‘now’ and I expect to see quite a bit of ‘Market Gardening’ activity about to get underway (with naturally the appropriate lessons drawn from that historical over stretch). BTW I always thought Montgomery has been over rated but as usual I digress.
What is going on in Bakhmut is now doing huge damage to the Russian war fighting spirit. It amounts to a serious point of infection and could become the issue that provokes a more wide spread surrendering from these pitiful trenches. Russian troops surrendering in very large numbers is quite obviously the best hope of solid progress when this push finally does get fully underway.
It’s a realistic hope that a mass bolt from the front lines (in any car that’s to hand and that is how a rout will begin till the last ones grab the nearest bike) will smash what is left of Russian morale. The Russian high command would be terrified of the example set last time, particularly in the north and this time the AFU come calling they are going to be far more deadly than last year. The coming hard fought and costly victories will smash the Russians.
There will undoubtedly be some small areas where a rout quickly sets in and when it does the exploitation of those weak points will cause this long front line and the vast in depth defensive networks to then turn into a Russian Maginot Line.
These defensive structures are in essence all a delusion. All that effort will have produced a replay of the attack through the ‘impenetrable’ Arden.
Those that remain on the long front line will either retreat in good order or they will do so in bad order. But retreat they will, and it is only a question of how far and how fast before they get caught up with! Then they won’t be defending troops holding any sort of advantage but rather a series of badly organized columns running out of everything that had made them an invading army. Most that make it back to Crimea and the northern retreat will do so without any heavy weapons systems or any supplies at all. The Italians being routed in Nth Africa is the ‘look’ that I am fully expecting but there are plenty of other examples. Everything calls for momentum! The big MO is everything for the next 3 months.
IMV the rate of artillery loss by the Russians is going to become the most important of the various KPI’s and this is because the AFU out-range and are far more accurate (and that is a devastating combination) and the Russians are an army built on the power of their artillery. Break the artillery and you break the back of this beast. Once a couple of thousand fighting vehicles and their supporting infantry etc are across the mighty Dnipro river the attacks will be swift and significant territory liberated.
I would take a bet that Crimea will be in range of artillery and HIMAR’s etc by the end of June! Even if it’s not there are now Storm Shadow and other long range missiles that will be able to destroy what has to be destroyed in that most crucial of all target territories!
I think the lack of F16’s to deal with the Glide bomb menace is very unfortunate but other Ground based air defense -GBAD- will have to do for now, but at least some western political leaders NOW get it! Well done by the British!
The momentum that the breakthroughs (my guess is there will be ‘1’ across the river and ‘2’ from the Zaporozhye front) will generate, make this phase of this bloody war predictable and so Putin could 3 or 4 months down the track face a revolt and/or he could do something unexpected. But whatever he does now he is a dead man walking! How many further deaths he brings is the only issue. He is slowly turning into a paper tiger and this process will pick up speed.
The Russian defense trenches do not stand a chance. We can hope and even expect thousands of prisoners to be swept up and a vast liberation in the next 100 days and it will soon be time to try to sink every ship in the Sevastopol Harbor!
I think the process of this war in however many phases it takes, will change the way the world works for the rest of this century but that is another story for those that follow us, it is certain to change the next twenty years!
Glory to the Ukrainians. Onward to phase 4 and the liberation of Crimea! But first…
Russian KIA now topped 200,000 (an interesting ranking of who they are and how the Russian elite thinks about then in a 13 step priority ranking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veFkvRSqRiY
200K GOOD RUSSIANS. putin is ready to sacrifice more. Vlog 373: War in Ukraine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URV5ckKY8cc
‘Thanks to Putin’s full-scale invasion, the myth that Russia has some kind of right to Crimea has effectively collapsed across the West. And the reality has begun seeping in from Washington to London to Brussels that, in terms of military success, Russian suzerainty over Crimea must end before any lasting, stable peace can be found.’
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/22/ukraine-crimea-russia-putin-red-line-00083857
Never a truer view put forward and it is now growing and solidifying by the day.
The pseudoleft will now disgrace themselves in the most base way as they warn against escalating this war etc.
Who will call for the F16’s to be supplied who is enthusiastically welcoming the provision of the long rang missiles? Who will remain silent?
This very big war has only reached the beginning of stage 3 and we can only guess at how well the next 100 days of summer fighting will go for the Ukrainians, but we do know that the Russians have lost stage 2.
Strategically Putin has already lost this war but what does that mean for the next 3.5yrs of what I thought was a war that the Ukrainians would do well if they won it in 5years. True they currently look like doing it in much better than that time frame but there could be all manner of surprises yet.
What we must understand is no matter how long it takes; it must go on till victory. The war aims must be clear that all of Ukraine must be free and these borders come under NATO protection!
Speaking of NATO, it’s now time for Ireland to join and Malta and Austria and time to solve the Cypress issues as well (but don’t hold your breath on that last one) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEvhQVj2BNU
Indeed I would argue that Australia ought to offer to join and see what people make of that! This is now a tiny planet and Australia is a world trading power with an interest in developing Africa in the same manner and for the same reasons that Britain and all the others do. I don’t think that any ww1 or ww2 comparisons re forming alliances are relevant even if they are easy to make because I think that the big three issues (nations want liberation, countries want independence and the people want revolution) are now so dominant that even solving issues like Syria are now looming for the worlds democracies. Democratic revolution is the only way forward, and the enemies of that progress are not that hard to spot. Turkey is NOT one of them. China is the looming menace that threatens the peace and has to get the MEMO! Europe must be dragged kicking (as it will against this) past it’s EU trade war bullshit and into the 21st C. Brexit has produced some unexpected opportunities and the woke poison and especially the carbon dioxide religion is a world issue. None of the old ‘stuff’ makes much sense anymore including the security council big 5. It’s the currently woke west against the fascist countries that ought to focus the progressives mind starting with a fightback against the woke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpiaURRWOTY this is how the sellout is sold!
I wonder how other people that used to have something to say NOW think about this? Being deliberately silent has been the way for many months because the logic of supporting a protracted war for the total victory and thus for the recovery of the territory of Ukraine is confronting! Former positions become exposed and even legless!
This rat is rather typical and will be shown to be wrong when Crimea falls to the victorious AFU.
How Belarus falls to it’s people is what ought to be occupying Freddy’s mind.
This is from 3 months ago and is good stuff! 2 Good Generals and 1 Admiral all retired! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co0r_ovD8dE
Feb 24, 2023
On February 21, 2023, Gen. (ret.) Philip Breedlove, Gen. (ret.) Ben Hodges, and Adm. (ret.) Jamie Foggo joined American Purpose, the first time these three Air Force, Army, and Navy veterans have combined their experience in a single discussion. Co-hosted by “The Eastern Front,” a podcast of the American Enterprise Institute, along with podcast hosts Iulia Joja (as event moderator), Giselle Donnelly, and Dalibor Rohac.
Gen. (Ret.) Philip Breedlove is a retired four-star general in the United States Air Force who served as the commander of U.S. European Command, as well as the 17th Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) of NATO Allied Command Operations. He is currently a senior consultant at Emerald Coast Strategic Solutions.
Gen. (Ret.) Ben Hodges is a retired United States Army officer who served as commanding general, United States Army Europe. He is currently the Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies at the Center for European Policy Analysis.
Adm. (Ret.) Jamie Foggo is a retired United States Navy admiral who last served as commander of United States Naval Forces Europe-Africa and commander of Allied Joint Force Command Naples. He is currently dean of the Center for Maritime Strategy.
Iulia-Sabina Joja is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, adjunct professor at Georgetown University, and former adviser to the Romanian presidency.
This is how the ‘shaping’ is unfolding https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VxMqN9XFeE all good news!
I like Jake and this is his latest good stuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDjJ6Dppbdo
They are done alright!
The current AFU front line troops holding the Russians in place has been remarkable. They have had a chance to build a new mobile army and now we all want to see what they can do. But the old front line troops are doing very good work every day! This next move will be breathtaking in it’s scope and consequences.
Making the Russians move troops around (break cover and become vulnerable on the move} and as well thin out the numbers in the occupied territories is exactly what was required. The first F16 pilots would already have completed their training. I guess they will, in a surprise move, be on the pointy end of this coming offensive. The AFU are well led and this war ought to be and has been rethought with the view of minimizing AFU casualties. I doffs me cap to this ‘Maoist’ leadership. They will not take a big move till they are good and ready. D Day is coming! All summer long the Russians will be driven back!
It appears that air-power is the hold up. But summer is almost here, and the ‘shaping operations’ have been and are still day by day brilliant! So they will find the week spots soon and the big mo will bring the AFU closer to the Russian air-force so lets hope they have that well countered. They are even now talking about the Saab JAS 39 Gripen from Sweden suddenly turning up! I hope so.
Here is the current US take https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxmRNYU2ZVQ
Just remember they must win and they MUST change if they are going to be fit for a democracy fit for NATO and Europe!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decommunization_in_Ukraine#References
She gets it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QH5hnJpZQA Anne Applebaum: The Case for a Complete Ukrainian Victory | The Bulwark Podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8TB-ZSih9k and so does Fmr. Amb. to Ukraine: Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Won’t End the War Yet | Amanpour and Company Marie Yovanovitch served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine after Moscow invaded Crimea. Removed from the post by President Trump, Yovanovitch later testified in his first impeachment trial about the withholding of U.S. aid from Ukraine. She joins Walter Isaacson to discuss how this war can end and why the West must not repeat the mistakes of Crimea.
Ukraine pulls a Dolittle raid! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDsaH2jwp5s A good move!
And the BBC being comprehensively stupid as usual! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5NS_rkFL8c
and this is utterly clueless US commentators https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AmveDRIxgg The Agenda TVO Today. A really dumb conversation of the ‘smarter lefty’s’. They are not listening to the US generals such as Hodges and Petraeus etc
You have been told Freddy now keep calm and carry on! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYq_AQG7e44 Freddy from unheard has been shit on this!
Thank goodness Putin didn’t do what Freddy would have accepted! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVsBuXb5o5k&list=PL01nDImtijMBnhj2dbvUKlELeDmZZJIoc
now the Russians are outranged. How many more weeks before they get full control? Never! So reflect on that! It did not go the way Freddy fully expected!
and another pile of steaming sh.. Yanis Varoufakis: It’s mad to think Ukraine can win. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNbad82plR0&t=975s this is the rubbish that as little as 1 year later is self evidently bankrupt!
“Come to the point where we sue for peace’ NO NO NO! Utter Rubbish.
The pseudo sellout writ large https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j95-D7JYcpo&t=1367s
Anatol Lieven: The truth about Crimea. Utter BBC style bullshit! Large slices of humble pie are going to be served to this lot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3iNLFM6Ujk these numbers have been going on for several days/weeks. We can expect this to continue and also see more storm shadow attacks on airfields both in the occupied territory and also in Russia. This is possibly going to go on for some time yet before they roll their own combined arms assault units forward and take the territory and capture and kill a shit load of Russian troops. If this is an artillery war (and it is) then the Ukraine army is winning it hands down! Soon the GLSDB’s will be deployed and that will add a whole new dimension to this summer’s offensive efforts.
It’s also worth noting that systems that have been less than impressive to date will soon come into their own as the jamming systems are progressively destroyed. Think switchblade drones for example!
Of course, this is a combined arms operation that we are seeing unfold so air defense systems will be crucial and they are doing a very solid job right now, so we ought to be very confident!
But as of June6th I will owe $50! That will teach me a lesson!
Oh dear https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBiV1h7Dm5E John Mearsheimer: The West is playing Russian roulette. Poor old Freddy no wonder he does not get it. When you lie down with dogs don’t be surprised that you get flees! What scum!
Real https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lsT6wb7SWQ people!
The pro-Russian mil-vlogers are currently going ballistic so either there are big moves underway or very big feints. Either way Russian equipment losses are solid every day now and are particularly high for artillery, air-defense and special equipment! This is great news and bodes well for when the breakthroughs happen, and the BIG MO gets rolling. Russians will be either killed or (hopefully) surrendering in their thousands soon enough and this will go on all summer long. All the signs are great news all round!
Having spent the day viewing almost nothing else other than mil-vloggers I have come to the following conclusion. What is going on right now is still reconnaissance in force. And it’s by the -at least mostly- current front-line troops and has not involved the western trained combined arms mechanized brigades. It is these troops of course that will exploit the weaknesses that are found by these front-line forces that are currently doing the probing. When the opportunities present these mobile troops will be thrown into the race to surround trapped Russians and spread the breakthrough to get the supply lines cut. This is going to be a textbook operation that will have the Russians running for home and not stopping!
The Russians are now incapable of launching a significant counterattack when the AFU front line troops exhausts themselves over these next couple of weeks. Its capacities are only in defense and it is only the Russian mass and still lethal airpower elements that give it those qualities. But re-supply will become a nightmare in this next month whatever defensive positions are held on to. So they will have to either cut and run, dropping everything as they did last year in the Kharkiv liberation or surrender where they are. Either way the Maginot line is the historical example of being trapped in a powerful defense when the enemy goes around you and effectively destroys your artillery.
With equipment -piece by relentless piece- being destroyed at either end of these cut off defense lines, the good sense in surrendering will quickly start to dawn on the reluctant Russians. By the end of this Summer Russians who did not escape the encirclements by dropping the heavy equipment and running in the first place will be having a big rethink.
The Maginot line could not turn its guns even though they had all the ammo and trained troops. The French had to surrender! In this case because their ‘eyes’ are being progressively poked out and they are out-ranged and also seriously out shot they effectively are just as trapped.
The AFU can afford to pull back from the ‘front’ out of range and they can’t be followed. The breakthrough elements will then roll the Russians up in Sargent York manner by continually picking off the end gun. The same type of process as the Germanic tribes did to the Roman legions in the forests 2,000 years back! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoburg_Forest
Once everything is in play, we can expect even more dramatic numbers than what is currently totally unsustainable right now.
So how the Russians get rid of Putin will soon be on the agenda! It already is on the private agenda for the very few men who have worked out that it may soon be a case of him or me, and it’s not going to be me! So I find myself in agreement with Steve Owens…Putin is now a dead man walking! But as we have seen with Assad, he may yet walk a long while.
Moldova is obviously now coming into play, and that’s a bloody good thing! Belarus can’t be that far behind.
This is a good take https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEHYyILZ_uE from Ukraine Matters. and this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDDgqoUYCBc probing right along the front and behind the lines. The week points will show up and then IT will start to pick up the required momentum that will break the Russians into unsustainable pockets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OYF0pnvLMY Ukraine ‘a step ahead of the Russians’ as shaping operations begin | Gen. Philip Breedlove
Very good (as usual).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igB0By6vT9Y Russia Destroyed the Dam and Has Worse Planned
They have already accepted that they are about to lose the central land bridge in the summer so they have destroyed this stuff in advance! Well explained. The eco warrior stuff is a bit more than incoherent. Still even they will understand the requirement to rebuild what the soviet Union under Stalin built! It is also of interest that they call the 1941 destruction of this dam to slow up the nazis a similar crime!!
This is a perfect example of one sided thinking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf72EHcXUMo Russia’s Desperate Move: Nova Kakhovka Dam explosion to delay Ukrainian counteroffensive
I agree the west must treat the coming destruction of the nuclear plant as if it was a bomb! Putin must understand it will make his situation even worse! So western troops of all types will have to be openly deployed to demonstrate serious intent!
this is fair https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/02/second-world-war-dnieper-dam-blown-up-by-russians-1941 and you can’t say that as a rule from this discredited rag!
Very interesting data breakdown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fosomnXWD9Y
Ukraine War Upd. EXTRA (20230606): Analysing Russian Losses – A Data Gift to You
independent spreadsheet plus graphs re Russian losses.
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=E33161B435D127BA%21115352&ithint=file%2Cxlsx&authkey=%21AIUgFlGIk8-n1hM I’ll be looking at this every fortnight over the next 12 weeks!
The uptick in trends is obvious and as we all know quantity has a quality all it’s own so at some point a new quality appears from a collapse in the quantity. This is what unsustainable looks like!
Putin’s rabble has probably lost about 300 Helicopters, 300 aircraft, 500 pieces of Special Equipment, about 3700 pieces of Artillery, 3800 Tanks, 350 Anti Aircraft systems, 6000 Vehicles and Fuel Tankers, 600 MLRS, 7500 APV, and lost over 210,000 personnel! The rate of loss is currently ramping up and territory is being liberated by the AFU.
So after he ordered the dam to be blown up and he gave all the signals that he would do so Putin WILL do something silly in the next few months and it looks very much like he will cause the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe to be damaged in a very big way! I don’t know what else he will surprise us with but he will keep going till he is personally stopped and the only ones that can do that are (for the foreseeable future Russian troops!
Perun from 10 months back https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMEpxX7rS5I a very good listen.
It’s dawned on some people that massive numbers of large mine fields are going to take a long time to get some paths through and the Russians have laid out plenty of these.
But the big difference is in the drone warfare and night sight capabilities combined with the counter battery accuracy. The AFU have a big advantage that has been demonstrated over the last year and they are getting even better at what they do. They could still be weeks ‘shaping the numerous battlefields’ before the bigger momentum thunder run’s start to shock large numbers of Russians into running away or surrendering. But this period right now is the most difficult part and they are clearly making good progress! And what is more despite whatever unfortunate casualties they are taking it is clear they are not taking large scale casualties otherwise the Russians would be showing the bloody evidence of it! As pointed out by others the Russians are repeating the same footage of a bad incident, where nevertheless most of the troops involved obviously got away as there are no bodies lying around. And people can see for themselves that the Russians could not get to these vehicles! So this is in no-mans land that is day by day falling to the AFU; so unless they get hit again half of these vehicles look like they may well be recovered and repaired. They may not now be in easy range. All side show stuff of course but nevertheless of interest to the military minded.
This brings me to a reflection on 2 issues where it’s a case of ‘be careful what you wish for you just might get it’. Trump being charged and the lake being drained. Interesting what might now unexpectedly or be an unwanted result from these 2 now curiously interconnected events.
Whatever happens to Trump I can’t see him winning in November 2024 18 short months down the road!
No matter about all that stuff; people have correctly pointed out that these bad early losses are unfortunately to be expected in mine fields under fire with less experienced troops. It’s all about getting through and then getting the momentum going. Very sad to see what anti democrats have let loose but now they will reap what they themselves have sown.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F7aYRwd2uM Thomas C. Theiner, a former artilleryman of the Italian army, the Russians have almost 70% of their soldiers engaged in active combat, while the Ukrainians use only 10% of their forces in their maneuver warfare offensive. Without another mobilization, the Russians will not be able to stop the Ukrainians. We talk to Joe Lindsley about „Ukrainian corruption”, the myths of which, fuelled by Russian online trolls, do a lot of damage to organizations that support the defence of Ukraine. According to the American journalist living in Ukraine since 2020, a deeper look at the case shows that most of this corruption has its roots not in Ukraine… but in Russia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ0JVTP-xnA Russia Loses Ground After First Week on Defense Jake Bro being pretty accurate in his report.
Utterly clueless BBC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HY7R-BsCMs
Putin has NOT won this round at all! The officer class has to ask themselves the question ‘have we lost in Ukraine?’ If they answer yes (even if they add sooner or later) then at some point they will be back with this current attack on Putin. So this will now unfold over weeks and then months, as Ukraine fights back and gains ground.
The breakdown in the Russian supply lines is now critical. This is a collapsing army!
This is how Arthur will make his argument https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3zgCVqqf3Q
It was all so different back then…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68bD8MHnJFk
Putin’s Diminishing Grip on Power | General Breedlove analysis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DTK4r4h-Jk
“The Legacy of Maoism Today” (6/08/23 panel)
On June 8th, 2023, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a panel called “The Legacy of Maoism Today.”
Hosted at UC Santa Cruz in McHenry Library.
Description:
Formative for many student radicals who came of age in the 1960 and ’70s were the Students for a Democratic Society, the Cultural Revolution, May 1968 in Paris, revolutions in the Third World, and the 1970s New Communist Movement. For many Leftists who sought to engage, critique, and advance these movements, Marxism meant Maoism, which they understood to be an advancement of Marxism–Leninism. Currently, as the Left of Generation Z comes of age, a kind of neo-Maoism is growing more popular, both on college campuses and online. What is Maoism, and what is its relationship with Marxism? How did Maoism emerge out of the Chinese Revolution? What made Maoism plausible, and what makes it appealing today? What may have rendered it implausible? What is the significance of Maoism as a political tendency on the Left, and why did Maoism seem in some ways to be more successful than Trotskyism?
What has Maoism been, and where is it going? How does its history weigh on us today — and why should we care about it?
Panelists:
-Alex Dillard (American Marxist-Leninist)
-David Ewing (New Communist Movement)
-Gerald Smith (ex-Black Panther Party, ex-Sparticist League)
Curious to learn more about Platypus? E-mail platypusvirtual@gmail.com to be connected with a chapter in your area.
The Platypus Affiliated Society organizes reading groups, public fora, research, and journalism focused on problems and tasks inherited from the “Old” (1920s-30s), “New” (1960s-70s), and post-political (1980s-90s) Left, for the possibilities of emancipatory politics today.
http://www.platypus1917.org
********************************************
Good grief where to start! Fancy lamenting the collapse of the USSR and any kind of ‘Maoist’ thinking there is something even vaguely positive in China today! Program first! Really? Ultra-leftist twaddle. Unlistenable rot! A bit like what went on in Melbourne the other day! https://c21stleft.com/ utter rot. Say one thing do another and then rinse and repeat. Better to deliver at least some work on the theory front then just repeat some semi religious words in an ever diminishing circle.
Even keeping a ‘diary’ like what I do on this site is obviously more productive than shuffling some old paper notes -at a small meeting- of some thoughts that have not developed in about 20 years!
So here is yet another diary entry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAJfEBn405g&t=524s
Ben Hodges – After the Wagner Coup what is the Likely Future for Vladimir Putin and the Russian Army
Curiously my old comrades scoff at me yet collect links themselves! Fucking weird!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzHRu0yNHIs
General Hodges: Sevastopol is a target №1, №2 and №3 for ATACMS! Ukrainian offensive is SUCCESSFUL
Spot on!
Ben doesn’t get the politics. Why is Russian gas still going through Ukraine? Why are Ukrainian ship leaving ports? Because its a partial war. This guy gets it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bIdcu0o9Pc&t=1585s
NO he doesn’t. He is even worse than Mearsheimer.
When this war went into unfreeze mode last year, I thought the Ukrainians would do well to win it in 5 years. Since then, I have thought they would do it even sooner, but I am by nature on the optimist side of the possibilist spectrum and always have to remind myself of Mao’s experience of protracted war but not just the advice to cast aside illusions and all that, more the reality that it is the masses that make war. The best and brightest Russian youth picked themselves up and shot through! The Ukrainian’s hugged their girlfriends goodbye and went to war. On average there is simply no comparison!
Once -and as- Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are liberated the Russian military will be in all kinds of bother as Hodges has pointed out. Then an isolated Crimea can’t be held for ‘long’ after such a catastrophe has befallen the Russians and the Donbas oblasts are then a matter of time as is I believe the armed Belarus people rumbling to their democratic revolution and a life pointing west!
This war is currently -still- essentially an artillery war and the trend line for the Russians losing it is both great and believable.
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=E33161B435D127BA%21115352&ithint=file%2Cxlsx&authkey=%21AIUgFlGIk8-n1hM
The cluster munitions are also going to be devastating for all manner of applications against these ww1 style trench systems as well! The Russian leadership might think they can outlast the West but it’s a delusional thought.
The mine fields will eventually be overcome in enough places to sufficient depth to start another round of maneuver warfare and after that offensive culminates the range will have totally closed on all the remaining occupied Ukrainian territories.
People can then find sufficient experts to talk logistics. After all if infantry is occupying and their artillery is being starved of shells AND have an average range and accuracy shortcoming time is not an ally for the Russians. Counter battery fire is doing it’s work day by day! The UAF are better at the drone warfare as well.
As for the politics at some future point if the west were to go weak at the knees, then the Poles and rest of the East Europeans and Turkey will ensure this war carries on till the Russians are driven right out! Anyway, it will be apparent to all (even any next POTUS) at some point that a Russian defeat is a vital western interest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGnkISdIrz4 this is the right spirit from13 months ago!
Everyone has their own interests. Sometimes these interests coincide sometimes they diverge. We have seen the high point of convergence but as the war drags on divergence will become more pronounced. We saw that at the NATO summit with Zelensky spitting the dummy and the UK politician saying that he would be better served to show some gratitude. I heard a commentator the other day pro Ukraine but he said as to Donbass most Ukrainians don’t give a shit. The Ultra Nationalists do and they may again threaten Zelensky with violence if he negotiates.
Putin occupies a position similar to Saddam after oil war 1 where the US decided to help him rather than let him fall to the popular uprising. But thats imperialism isn’t it you just can’t trust them.
NO. Western interest are (as Jake just above has indicated) tied to Ukraine! If some western leaders make the mistake to think it is not there would still be enough clear thinking from enough countries to see this through to victory.
Here is a good talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWZbmi2sb8I
CRIMEA IN UKRAINE’S CONTROL IS A KEY TO ANY GENUINE PEACE AND PROSPERITY
I hope Jake is right but I think his argument is flawed, in that he says this is Russia population 150 million v Ukraine/NATO/Plus population 1 Billion but NATO and NATO plus aren’t fighting, Ukraine and Russia are fighting. Military strength Russia 830,900 Ukraine 200,000. That’s a 4 to one advantage to Russia. The Russians have had 6 months to dig in, in the newly conquered area and 9 years to dig in in their pre 2022 positions. It wont surprise me if Ukraine cant make anymore headway. What they have done so far has been remarkable. Russia has been inept up to this point but guess what the Russian anti tank weapons are pretty good. As I pointed out over a year ago the balance between tanks and anti tank weapons has tipped firmly in the anti tank weapon favour. Has Syria taught you nothing?
Hodges from a year ago, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-U4MuAPi3Y and clearly he has moved towards my firmer position re Crimea and Donbass and now puts all the territory on the agenda and NATO membership as the only way to end this war and secure Ukraine from Russia restarting it at a later date! Russia must be defeated is now his stand.
I’m a cruise missile Marxist that has all along believed that Russia would have to be defeated and driven out of territories it is making war in.
Steve Owens is -I think- glad of the British supplying Storm Shadow missiles and would welcome ATACMS being delivered by the US. So that old problem is quietly resolved with a silent acceptance that the western world is not engaged in an alternative imperialism with NATO expansion and that the alliance is to be supported by cruise missile cluster bombing liberal (or insert what would now describe you best as your old stand is now long gone).
I Have always argued in favour of victory to Ukraine and support any measure that would bring this forward.
However, I don’t think that NATO or specifically the imperialist power that runs NATO (the USA) shares my victory at all costs mentality because well they have their own interests that may or may not coincide with those of the Ukrainian people.
This is a very different struggle from Kuwait where the Kuwaiti royal family lead their people’s struggle from the penthouse of the Savoy in London.
The USA will do what the Pentagon thinks is in the USA’s best interest. Just as one day they were urging Iraqis to overthrow Saddam and the next day they were opening their lines so that the Iraqi troops could get at the insurgents.
Hodges is committed to total victory. Here’s why I think Ukraine won’t get it.
The US won’t want to push Putin out of Crimea. The US is committed to having Vlad run Russia the last thing they want is to see Russia with 10s of thousands of nukes collapse and fall into rival fiefdoms. Which is way more probable if Putin loses Crimea.
Crimea is mainly pro Russia I am assuming that a lot of Ukrainians don’t want it. To them this meat grinder of a war is tolerable to push the Russians out of Kherson but do they really want to sacrifice sons and daughters for Crimea. Ukrainians only have to be older 2 years older than you or me to remember when Crimea was Russia.
Sevastopol is majorly important to Russia it’s home to the fleet, and it’s a hero city from WW2. As I said 9 years ago Putin will not let Ukraine walk Sevastopol into NATO.
If the Russian army doesn’t collapse how does Ukraine take Crimea?
We can see how politics trumps the military by explaining why Russian gas still transits Ukraine. If you understand that you will understand why this war won’t end in total victory. I may be wrong I didn’t think that Putin was stupid enough to invade but then sometimes stupidity trumps everything.
Steve Owens
(mistakenly posted on the wrong thread)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3G8T1no8TI
Why ATACMS Are Better Than You Think
Massive day! https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=E33161B435D127BA%21115352&ithint=file%2Cxlsx&authkey=%21AIUgFlGIk8-n1hM Whatever brought this about the game is right now full on!
Apparently the russkies largely brought it on themselves with their own attacks! Record troops loss at 1380, record tank 55 and record APV’s at 120 IN 1 DAY and this is just after a record Helicopter loss at 9.
But there is also right now the river crossing underway!
21 Oct: Russians Are Losing Control Over the Eastern Bank of the Dnipro River | War in Ukraine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L0lVdXgB8Y
This might be a hard war for the AFU but considering what they have to do it’s going very well! They now have a big enough stretch of river front to keep up the re-supply and to get ready for a big push! They want to bring Crimea into play and full range of all HIMARS not just ATACAMS before winter I guess and there is a desert to move across down this way so can avoid the mud!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhON52gz6Bk
Ukraine’s river crossing can change the war. Anders Puck Niels
His reasoning is sound in my book.
And there are now rumors of 3 brigades (presumably of infantry) being involved! You’ve just got to love the rumor milling process. But anyway, it seems clear that the Russians are in big strife trying to deal with this almost winter offensive in the only region that is good for quick movement when it rains at this time of year before it all freezes in the mud regions further north.
Mearsheimer is comprehensibly WRONG https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvFn7KUCTvE
How the war in Ukraine will end | John Mearsheimer and Lex Fridman
He says he hopes he is wrong; well he had better like humble pie!
Oh dear…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on1RrmspFIQ
Bout right https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwWth5AgNxY
riveting talk from Lieutenant General Ben Hodges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vylAgmyr95U and more good news
Very good on sanctions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpXOJFuGkAU
Bill Browder stuns MPs as he exposes Putin’s oil loopholes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8wB_5LR6d4 Russia’s War Machine Is Peaking. Next Year, It Runs Out of Steam | Ep. 26 Dr. Jack Watling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVVBoIl39es
Aug 14, 2024
As the 25 year anniversary of the Moscow Apartment bombings nears, famed Russian historian and author David Satter explains why Ukraine is right to be alarmed that Moscow may plot false-flag operations, to discredit Ukraine and the West, in order to distract from Ukraine’s successful incursion into Belgorod and Kursk Russia. These operations, if they were to happen, could include Russian-organized attacks on a nuclear power station, on a Russian school, or some other heinous crime that Putin would execute to preserve his power.
In this conversation with the Kyiv Post’s Jason Smart, the depths of Vladimir Putin’s evil, something that many Westerners struggle to believe could be true, is examined carefully – leading to some interesting conclusions of how what happens next, could change the course of world history.
According to his author’s bio on Amazon, “David Satter is one of the world’s leading commentators on Russia and the former Soviet Union. He is the author of four books on Russia and the creator of a documentary film on the fall of the U.S.S.R. In May, 2013, he became an adviser to the Russian Service of Radio Liberty and in September, 2013, he was accredited as a Radio Liberty correspondent in Moscow. Three months later, he was expelled from Russia becoming the first U.S. correspondent to be expelled since the Cold War.
David Satter is a fellow of the Foreign Policy Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a senior fellow of the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. He is also a senior fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia and an associate of the Henry Jackson Society in London. He has been a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He teaches a course on Russian politics and history at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced Academic Programs and has been a visiting professor at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and a visiting fellow in journalism at Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan.
David Satter’s first book was Age of Delirium: the Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union, which was published in 1996. He later made a documentary film on the basis of this book which won the 2013 Van Gogh Grand Jury Prize at the Amsterdam Film Festival. In addition, David Satter has written three other books about Russia, Darkness at Dawn: the Rise of the Russian Criminal State (2003), It Was a Long Time Ago and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past (2011), and The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep: Russia’s Road to Terror and Dictatorship under Yeltsin and Putin. His books have been translated into eight languages.”
Jason Jay Smart and David Satter recorded this interview from Kyiv, Ukraine and Washington, DC, USA.
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:12 What will happen in the Kursk and Belgorod regions?
03:46 The Moscow apartment bombings in 1999
09:07 How do the criminal networks of Putin’s Russia operate with the Kremlin?
18:46 What would happen if tomorrow Putin were to lose the war in Ukraine?
22:36 End
The top 10 days for Russian casualties are currently
1 1950 12/11/24 today
2 1770 11/11/24 yesterday
3 1740 13/05/24 6 months ago
4 1710 21/10/24 3 weeks ago
5 1690 26/10/24 2 weeks ago
6 1680 28/10/24 2 weeks ago
7 1660 09/11/24 3 days ago
8 1630 25/10/24 3 weeks ago
9 1580 08/11/24 4 days ago
10 1560 30/10/24 2 weeks ago
I think the Russians in conducting their massive summer ‘probing offensive along almost the entire front have not only culminated but are now well past the culmination point and risk significant breakdowns in crucial supply of both men and material required to avoid large areas of encirclement and collapse. Western weapons are now having their expected effects in 1/ an area where a fluid mobile war is being fought out and 2/ a very long but now badly supplied static line of WW1 type dug in opposing defence lines that are from the Russian side approaching exhaustion.
Ukraine has a lot to play for in this coming short term and Putin looks in real trouble! So we can at least hope that over the next quite desperate 2 months of fighting, as ‘General Winter’ turns up on the 2024 battlefields and then Trump becomes POTUS, that significant numbers of Russians will be killed and captured!
If the F16s, ubiquitous drones, the much lauded HIMARS and the as yet unheralded GLSDB’s, and all the rest of the kit start to have the expected effect on the mass of now significantly untrained Russian conscripts and ne’er do wells etc that now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BIpI04LsAo constitute the Russian rabble THEN I would guess that none of the above figures will remain in the top ten by inauguration day.
That brave prediction would be worthy of yet another gold medal and we will know soon enough.
It seems to me that the Russians tried to achieve some very important and seasonal driven results and they actually failed! So they will now pay the price for their very small advances achieved at such a vast price.
Now the mud season will be making a big impact and I think it is the Ukrainians that are better placed for both it and also the coming winter fighting.
69 days and we will know just how good a condition both sides are then in.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=inaugurration+countdawn
It’s a big ask.
I was completely wrong when I became overly optimistic after ‘Russia lost nearly all of the northern region of Kharkiv with a blitzkrieg thrust by Ukrainian fighters when Ukraine retook over 500 settlements and 12,000 square kilometers of territory in the Kharkiv region.’ and so I got the next offensive wrong; so who can say; but the Russians look in bad shape to me. The 69 day clock starts to tick.
This is the sort of stuff to expect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz-7ErrJ9G4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-wmn_ATf9s and I like this Russian Dude.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJPd29Sop-k This was the usual good stuff then at the 1:02:37 point re Chinese bike riding youth! Looks like funny money economics and unemployment are still the big problems looming right across the world.
Drill baby drill! Trade baby trade. Let capitalism work and bring down the price of commodities as it can did and will again when the carbon dioxide fear is rejected. Say no to Greta and just stop oil cranks and the ALP and Trot and Green types that enable them!
Trade baby trade. Are you endorsing Trumps tariffs?
Drill baby drill. Can you explain why under Biden there were 9,000 available permits not taken up? Can you explain why under Biden there was almost 12 million acres under permit but not in production?
I will give you a hint. Oil in Texas can cost up to $70 a barrel to produce. Right now, West Texas Intermediate crude is selling for $68.26.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC3hl27cJSU
These are the type of observations making people remember the old saying ‘take note of what he actually does not what he says’.
I agree that there are a lot of ‘normal people’ being appointed.
Big changes are underway. The woke can weep all they like.
It will dawn on people soon enough that Putin is unable to give Trump what he requires so Trump will have to arm the UAF and then they can do the job!
But the struggle for democracy will go on and that issue (together with countries want independence and Nations want liberation) escapes people like Steve. Here is what he said above
‘Putin occupies a position similar to Saddam after oil war 1 where the US decided to help him rather than let him fall to the popular uprising. But thats imperialism isn’t it you just can’t trust them.’ So despite all his double talk and confected explanations that oil was a sort of short hand explanation there it is 21 yrs on bold as brass. The liberation of Kuwait is classified as oil war 1 and by simple deduction the liberation of the Iraqi people from the anti democratic Sunni dominated Baathists and the revolutionary war to bring a democracy into being that could deal with the reality of a country where 60% were Shia another 20% Kurds and just 1 in 5 that is another 20% Sunni! But it is oil war 2!! Then Libya would have to be oil war 3! The Trot idiocy outs itself! We can be glad that the Assad reaction to the Arab spring events is not to be dumped at the god of oils feat I suppose. Events in Gaza and Lebanon and Egypt would destroy any war for oil activity but that does not bother the brain dead Trot returning to the discredited No blood for oil’ chant! ‘Oil war 1’ Pathetic!
I ask again
Trade baby trade. Are you endorsing Trumps tariffs?
Drill baby drill. Can you explain why under Biden there were 9,000 available permits not taken up? Can you explain why under Biden there was almost 12 million acres under permit but not in production?
I will give you a hint. Oil in Texas can cost up to $70 a barrel to produce. Right now, West Texas Intermediate crude is selling for $68.26.
Fuck your Iraq war
https://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/legalise-child-rape-iraq-to-lower-the-age-of-consent-for-girls-to-nine/news-story/8a8b35af6db735ad9e86cd5368b054fc
You mean oil war 2?
and again I ask again
Trade baby trade. Are you endorsing Trumps tariffs?
Drill baby drill. Can you explain why under Biden there were 9,000 available permits not taken up? Can you explain why under Biden there was almost 12 million acres under permit but not in production?
I will give you a hint. Oil in Texas can cost up to $70 a barrel to produce. Right now, West Texas Intermediate crude is selling for $68.26.
You are as dumb as they come!
For a start, I think that the Apartheid state of South Africa ought to have had sanctions placed upon it! Now you may well be in favor of free trade however I am not so sure you could not find plenty of examples where that ought to not be the case. We don’t have to go back to pre-WW2 to find examples either.
Perhaps the step before or on the way to sanctions I guess is tariffs so… is China a really bad egg of a country? Yes they are! Ought we think about this issue? Yes. Are there a swag of other countries that we western democracies ought not be trading with as well? Well yes including Israel even if our ALP overlords think differently.
As for stupid ALP supporting Trots who have never even recognized that when you go out of your way to spread a global emergency crisis about carbon based fuels with the only option being to make them more expensive; then the mind boggles at the refusal to deal with the result of such a policy. Is that the end of their and your stupidity? NO.
But here is a heads up. Just because some green/trot anti democrat tells you that something can cost x then you can tell them it can also cost y! So what are the policies in place that push up or down the price that by the logic of capitalism ought to be falling over time? YOUR policies push them up mine push them down.
You only do it to save the planet from the externalities that you and all your kind have special powers to actually know!
Well as usual you are wrong. Reproducing your drivel while huge pipelines get shut down as almost the first action taken is nothing short of gobsmackingly stupid. Then to repeat your question 3 times as if you have a ‘gotcha’ moment when all you are doing is demonstrating how you get lost in the weeds.
The world is complicated.
I support Ukraine and Trump was a better tweedle than dum Harris or ga ga Biden for that matter even if there are Ukraine issues and big worries from Trump in this direction.
TRUMP IS A SHOCKER! BUT….
As for you well it is the ALP DEM Trot line and that is all!
Trump is arguing that tariffs will be beneficial to the US economy. It is the cornerstone of his economic policy.
The simple question I am asking you is do you think he is correct. Will tariffs help or hurt the US economy.
It’s a simple yes or no.
Just a point about your previous nonanswer about me reproducing my drivel while huge pipelines get shut down. I would just like to state that my preferred option for transporting oil is via pipeline. The Keystone pipeline was the big political event. My position on the Keystone pipeline is that it was a mistake to shut it down. For many years I have been a supporter of the Keystone pipeline.
Come on you have had plenty of time to look up what a tariff is. No more diversion into South African sanctions. Tariffs a step along the way to sanctions LOL. I just asked if you think Trump is right on tariffs, don’t worry about South Africa, or China or Israel or Trots or the ALP, or carbon-based fuels or pipelines or Ukraine.
Trump is arguing that tariffs will be beneficial to the US economy. It is the cornerstone of his economic policy.
The simple question I am asking you is do you think he is correct. Will tariffs help or hurt the US economy.
It’s a simple yes or no.
It appears that you are trying to out do pig iron Bob Menzies when the Japanese were knee deep in Chinese blood. Capitalism is not a simple stairway to heaven no matter how much simpletons like you (who STILL talk about Oil war 1,2 and 3 to your mates and then forget yourself and say the same thing to sane people) want it to be. The reason a simpleton like you so often wants the world’s problems solved with a yes or no answer is because complexity is quite beyond you. Your the one who could not even work out what the one trick pony Putin was doing.
Now Trump talks about tariffs so you in the grip of TDS feel the urge to tell me with a long interest in economic theories how problematic tariffs are and how US interests as a whole may not derive any benefit but that it will bite them as well and could instead of in the long run helping them hinder. Enter the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and now Steve can wax lyrical about how it made everything worse. Well we all know that…so…are we now supposed to believe that technocrats are all that is required to solve the problems we actually face?
That is what you are in your own stupid and predictable way saying.
Or do we just pretend that we are not really facing these problems and instead are facing the carbon dioxide monster that is coming to burn down the country or flood the country or raise the seas and bring droughts and famine etc etc? That seems a lot like fiddling while Rome burns to me. All the idiocy of the Population Bomb rubbish that underpins the carbon monster thinking.
Are we to remind our overlords that having been tried once Smoot-Hawley must like oil war 1 never be repeated as oil war 2 and then 3… Yet I think that their advisors already know about the Great Depression.
Capitalism is producing some very nasty wars of late in places like Syria, Georgia, Ukraine and the occupied Palestinian territories to name just the first few to spring to mind and some interesting problems of trade wars and so problems in how to deal with the looming actual monster that is capitalist Chinese (otherwise known as anti Mao -the monster- Communist China) will have to get a lot like old fashioned push and shove. Naturally you will pretend that revolution is not required and the countries do not really want their independence Nations don’t really require their full liberation and the people couldn’t possibly want revolution because it is so damned bloody. All we need is ‘left’ ALP types running the show like Syriza in Greece! Yanis Varoufakis for finance minister!!
Buckle up for the ride and remember your long list of foolish thinking.
BTW I immediately saw my over optimistic mistake above with the top 10 days of Russian casualties. 2 days later the bottom 2 numbers have already dropped of! The smallest number is now 1630 but that can’t help me!! All the numbers would have to be above 1950! I will most probably have to settle for a silver medal unless the Russians start to wise up and start to shoot or arrest their officers and surrender to the Ukrainians as the front starts to fully collapse. Then I remind myself that we are still not 3 years into what I thought would take at least 5 years to accomplish and tell myself to calm down! Nevertheless what is going on right now is remarkable! It is terrible to think that this is what is required but it is.
There is only a military solution. Putin must be stopped and the Chinese warned off as a consequence!
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=E33161B435D127BA%21115352&ithint=file%2Cxlsx&authkey=%21AIUgFlGIk8-n1hM
OMG another non answer. Trump campaigned on a program of 60% tariffs on China and 10% on every other country except for Mexico at 20%. The numbers are fluid as he came up with different numbers at different times. He stated things like tariffs had built American greatness and they could again. He suggested that income tax could be replaced by tariffs. He also stated that China could avoid tariffs by building factories in the USA. These are all things he has said although it’s possible that he’s just lying. However he did introduce tariffs at the beginning of his last term. These tariffs and the Chinese retaliatory tariffs on US agriculture and the subsidies paid to agriculture IMO are the reason Trumps growth rate failed to match Obama’s growth rate.
All I’m asking from you is do you agree with Trump on the matter of Tariffs or do you see Tariffs and the trade war that will follow to be bad for growth.
Your comment “Trade baby trade” would indicate that you are OK with Trump’s tariff plan although getting a straight answer from you seems quite difficult.
I understand why you struggle to take your argument to the logical conclusion. The arguments over free trade have a long history in the Marxist tradition.
A far more interesting investigation of the tariff issue and of moral issues re trade that are current (and this guy only has a mild case of TDS). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc8d2hc3baU
Tariffs are part of the free trade v protectionist argument which has been going on in economic theory circles for the best part of 200 years. Karl Marx came down on the free trade side of the argument, arguing that protectionism delayed development and he was all for development. 44 years latter Engels reiterated this position as being correct. So free trade is the position of revolutionaries. At the start of the 20th century, we see the rise of reformist Marxism lead by Bernstein, the revisionists. Part of the revisionist platform was to embrace protectionism.
Tariffs represent backwardness
one they cause immediate inflation
two they restrict free trade
three they induce counter measures
four they entrench a section of society who become rent seekers
five tariffs are a barrier to efficiency and innovation.
Trump’s model is not trade baby trade but protect baby protect. Karl would not approve.
BTW the guy talking among the trees he says he’s a grower. My impression is that he must be smoking what he grows because he is seriously fucked up.
No and that is why it all goes over your head. There is the moral and political aspect and only in the ideal world would there be no issues. We do not have the perfect world! It’s as if uncle Karl never even thought about war and the trade consequences leading to it and from it. As for the monetarist economist example he is putting (the standard) your argument and then adding the moral dimension. But I would like to know what makes him so seriously fucked up?
Right at the beginning he gives it away that he is probably stoned, at 1:22 mark he says “…cleaning offices or houses or heavy-duty bricklaying. He wants to bring this all back to America…”
So Trump according to this guy plans to bring cleaning and bricklaying back to America. The whole clip is full of this non-sense.
I can’t say I don’t like the guy he talks about the people who globalization left behind. He says they should self-actualize, wow what a trip to 1970’s catch phrases. Yes, the jobless and homeless should just self-actualize and just get better jobs you know in the imagination industry. Those jobs are gone and they aren’t coming back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-vl3VSsh2s
The guy among the trees and you are pushing a fantasy. The fantasy is that there is a moral position in capitalist trading relations. He says we should not trade with China because of moral concerns. Capitalism has no morals. The correct position is that it is very moral to trade with China.
China offered capitalism workers who would work at 1/30 of what a US factory worker was getting. The move of industry to China was the worlds biggest ever anti poverty program as hundreds of millions of Chinese people were lifted out of absolute poverty.
But capitalists didn’t go to China to make Chinese people have a better life. They went to China to make money as Marx predicted that Capitalism would leave no place in the world untouched.
The development of the world by capitalism is something we should celebrate.
Capitalism has a logic but it has no morals.
You are lost! Stop long enough to realize you have exactly zero connection to any viable theory in your ALP/Green/Trot delusion.
For example; at what point ought Australian capitalists have stopped shipping pig iron to the Japanese militarists; 1 day before or one day after Pearl Harbor was attacked?
If you think that they ought to have stopped trading long before the fighting broke out then we are in agreement and that is -of course- not a place you want to be, so now you will have to waffle on about the capitalists having nothing but the raw profit motive driving their decisions. You know that to be false but you say it anyway! All manner of policy positions are taken and have been good bad and indifferent. There is nothing but constant tensions and issues that get in the way of a preferred position. Just as there were in Karl’s day.
So here we are with sanctions on Russia, North Korea, Iran etc and I want them extended! You waffle instead of dealing with the reality of the anti democratic countries making war round ‘us’ and on ‘us’. Western liberal democracies are part of the democratic revolution and the woke elite are the current big problems that are getting in the way of the people making more democratic progress.
The world situation is, at least arguably, spiraling into a pre-war decent where it seems that the liberal democracies must produce new policies and self reliance issues also come up. We saw issues come up in the pandemic period that are not optimum in efficiency at first blush but nevertheless are better for other ‘insurance style’ reasons. You know this yet you waffle.
Democrats like myself have to respond or react if we get caught playing catch up to real events. So political actions of what to do with the economic connections to the enemy (anti-democrats) are already in our lap! They do not appear to be in yours.
I have quite some sympathy as we are watching the mass slaughter of the Palestinian people while our liberal elites pretend to not being the enablers of this blatant criminality. That is a problem for you anti-communists defenders of bourgeois democracy not something that has ever troubled me a defender of multi party democracy for western countries but with no delusions about what happens when wars break out.
How the world gets past this long period of gangster style domination is not clear but the necessity for armed struggle against these elements like Saddam and Putin etc is! You argue against fighting because there is no military solution and I say there is only a military solution.
Now I bet you are not for negotiating with Putin and would laugh at anyone who thinks a deal could ever be done with this mass murdering war monger! But you, being slippery as an oil coated bird, make the harming the trade relations of all manner of countries an issue that Trump is supposed to be so horrendous in not realizing that we MUST trade because TINA.
You seem unable to walk and chew gum. There are alternatives. Putin has found out that trade is quite complicated in the modern world and the 2 sides are shaping up with China not on my side!
In order to solve the problems that arise for this 21st Century I start by taking a class stand and support the full development of capitalism. That has always been the case but tells us nothing about how we fight the wars that arise now as they did in Marx day when he wrote to Lincoln to tell him the workers of the world were behind the stars and stripes.
Some dickheads could not even work out that it was fine to oppose the US imperialists in the Vietnamese war of National liberation and welcome ‘Soviet’ weapons being supplied to our side (the Vietnamese) while fully opposing the imperialist invasion of Czechoslovakia by the up coming and more dangerous imperialism.
That has been your constant failure. When collective security jumps up as the obvious problem you disappear into Trot peace-nick land of never unite blah and start carrying on about the imperialists.
You will never make progress with your foolishness until you stand up for the 3 wars that mark our era. Countries do want their independence so you should support this desire so that everybody understands it is a very bad move to overturn this judgement of history. Do NOT sell out the people of Kuwait with the trash thinking that this is all just oil war 1. Accept that YOU have blundered badly over the obvious liberation of the Iraqi people (and you are 100% correct that you and I wouldn’t want to live there). But I would not be comfortable in 1950’s Australia either.
Nations do want Liberation so try to understand when and how that actual liberation is at hand and do not back reactionary nationalism when it keeps on going past that point; Think of Ireland and the IRA. Don’t do as you have done with the very badly led Kurdish masses who ought not be in anyway uniting with the anti democratic Assad types who constitute HIRISE. They ought to be working with the democratic revolutionary conservative Erdogan! Unlike the likes of Israel and Assad the Erdogan government is a genuine peace partner that has had to fight off deadly anti democrats.
Remember that things do turn into their opposites so it is never a permanent solved issue that we can set and forget. That is so obviously the case when a lifetime later we are faced with a monstrosity like North Korea.
As for trading with the enemies of all human progress, well lets just say time to think before you sprout this dogma.
sanctions
a threatened penalty for disobeying a law or rule.
tariff
a tax or duty to be paid on a particular class of imports or exports.
Clearly sanctions are a political action, and tariffs are an economic issue. That Trump sees this as economic rather than political is his invitation for Chinese companies to circumvent tariffs by directly investing in the USA.
The tea leaves on Ukraine do not look good, first it’s Donald Trump Jr taunting Zelensky on social media saying that there are only so many days left before your allowance is cut off. Then there is the massive rocket barrage launched by Putin just after Trump had phoned him asking for restraint and now the German election where Schulz is running on the platform that he will not approve Ukraine using German supplied missiles into Russia.
https://www.politico.eu/article/olaf-scholz-campaign-germany-election-long-range-missiles-war-in-ukraine/
There is a lot happening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEXkuMzcxhI
and this German is a ‘realistic’ honest broker. I think he is a bit pessimistic, but he is pro-Ukrainian and tries his best. He’s an ex-military type and always of interest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExQfHktbJek
Are we in a war already? My answer is yes.
‘Nov 21, 2024 After 1000 days of war, Russia has failed to conquer Ukraine. But across the globe, off the military battlefield, Russia is continuing to advance in its undeclared war against the West. Gen. Ben Hodges explains to Kyiv Post’s Jason Smart that the Russian-Iranian-North Korean-Chinese alliance is a threat to the West and one that we must wake up and defeat before it is too late. General Ben Hodges, who commanded the US Army in Europe from 2014 until 2017, says that Western policymakers need to open their eyes to a hard truth: Russia is only emboldened by the empty phrases we use to describe support for Ukraine, as we are unwilling to say that “we will do all that we can for Ukraine to win.” ’
Almost everyone that I have been following who are Ukraine supporters of one sort or another are now and have long been suffering from a large dose of TDS; so you Steve are not alone! I don’t like the man much from my pro Ukrainian perspective but I’m inclined to think that he will ‘probably’ be better than what Biden has been and he has been BAD news. I largely share Ben Hodges views https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFE1uRy0F9U
But just consider what you have just pointed out. Putin has -as he must in order to get some through the Ukraine defence and in order to smash Ukrainian electrical infrastructure before winter- saved up a quantity of cruise missiles for what amounts to a big slap in the face to Trump.
So Trump is being painted into a corner by events and it’s too early to tell what he will do.
The logic of going full tilt for the Ukrainian win in order to deter China and Iran, North Korea etc is pretty compelling to me. But as you might point out ‘it would be a dumb thing for Putin to re-launch this war’ yet it seemed to me like the ‘best’ move from his 3 choices. I thought he would do it and that he would lose in about 5 years or so. He is right on track to achieve that great loss. Right now all manner of European political and military leaders ought to be far less scared of the Russian Bear than they used to be even 6 months ago! Nukes are about all he can now wave about and at minimum I think they do not make sense before Trump takes office anyway! They don’t make sense after either but they still worry people.
Even without the USA, Europeans now have the clear power and need to assist the Ukranians till they win. 1,000 days ago that was not the case. But the mighty Russians have been so damaged and the anti-Russian forces so built up that the old calculations no longer apply. The Russians are in deep trouble from all directions.
As Jake Bro says about Trump ‘There is no plan right now!’ So let’s see what unfolds after 20 Jan. The news right now is that the current US POTUS has given permission to make use of the longer range missiles that have a US component to them (and so require US permission). Biden has been appalling at every step over every weapons system all the way along. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl_5A9BNk9I Jake Bro
Scholz is, I think, on the way out! The Germans will after their election I hope be in a better place and lift their game! Taurus after the British and French have gone first would be my guess that is how it’s been on every other system BUT they have just done a deal on ‘little Taurus’ and that is great. They are incredible!
This whole 1,000 days has been like pulling teeth! Too little too late at every stage! But still the ‘teeth’ get puled. The Ukrrainians are not playing the role that western liberals had worked out was best for them!
IMV the fighting is going very well; even when the UAF have been giving up small amounts of territory the price the Russians have had to pay has been strategically significant.
What do the logistic profiles of both sides now tell us about this war? The Russian army has failed and the artillery statistics gone from 10-1 down to 2-1. But with range and accuracy allowance probably now more like 1:1.
From my POV the tea leaves are looking up because Germany is IMV going to get a new leader and one that is better for Ukraine! Donald Trump Jr might be irrelevant chatter. ‘Trump had phoned him asking for restraint’ and got a slap in the face for his trouble.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVYE7NOsqI0&t=1913s ‘Trump’s Ukraine plan will ‘blow-up’ in Putin’s face | Bill Browder & Brandon Silver’
and this is the sort of thing that people are noticing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at8GFB2Lrc4
Professor Gerdes
and this one was good including Ryan McBeth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZE_CjjxP80
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCamYq29wNA
Nukes? Escalation? WW3?! Its Putin Propaganda! Combat Vet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPE8qBS8yDo and Hods again
Biden gets criticized for not doing enough but in war doing enough is a rarity. I have been arguing that Biden has a policy of containment. Zelensky may have a policy of victory but it is rare for allies to share the same war aims. Just take WW2, look at operation Hula, the transfer of ships from the USA to the USSR. The Japanese did no more than protest. They could have stopped the ships but they chose not to. Look at Lend Lease the Japanese could have stopped the ships and they did but only to inspect the cargo not to stop the flow of Lend Lease material.
The USA requested air bases on Soviet land but the USSR declined the request.
It may have been world war or total war but countries still perused their own national interest as they saw it.
Even in Ukraine Zelensky doesn’t fight unrestrained. In 2023 Russia pumped 14.4 bcm of gas through Ukraine. The contracts that the Russians and the Ukrainians are prepared to honor don’t expire until next year. Until then Europe will receive the gas they will still pay Russia for the gas and Ukraine will accept transit payments.
Biden made a decision at the start that he wanted to support Ukraine and to contain the war to Ukraine. He has perused his interests masterfully just like the Japanese did some 80 years ago.
Just thought that I would refute your war for oil nonsense. When the British left India the Prince of Hyderabad declared that his principality would not join India but would remain the independent state that it had been for hundreds of years. The Indian army put an end to this by invading Hyderabad in 1948. The world said nothing. Why, because no country had any interest in even protesting the demise of the principality.
When Iraq knocked over Kuwait 40 countries banded together to go to war to rescue this Emirate.
So why nothing about Hyderabad but war about Kuwait. Well, the reason is obvious, and the masses were on the streets telling you why we were at war.
The British ruled India by a method of divide and rule. There was no national issue at stake for your example nor was there a question of ‘countries want independence’ as the fact that there was a ‘state’ is not what this refers to. You deliberately fudge this. The confederacy had no right to independence either! This junk is similar to your stand of actual support for Putin invading Crimea and the Donbas in 2014/15 because there were Russian speakers in this region so in your view ‘obviously’ they wanted to be under the gangster’s rule and the Ukrainians were nasty oppressors of these poor put upon Russian speakers! So off the radar for 7-8 years went Ukraine!
But what have you actually struggled with and developed your thinking over as these last 1002 days have unfolded? Fuck all!
The people of Hyderabad had no interest in not overthrowing their Prince. They were liberated and incorporated as an equal part of the country called India.
The people of Kuwait were simply captured and enslaved by the tyrant SH!
That is why ‘The world said nothing. Why, because no country had any interest in even protesting the demise of the principality.’ Not because Kingdoms and all the other derivatives have no right to exist.
Slave states do not have a right to their independence for example!
The only reason that there was a war is because SH would not withdraw from his attempt at conquest. All deaths were at the feat of the tyrant. All. Thankfully ‘40 countries banded together to go to war to rescue this Emirate’ and consequently there has been peace and ongoing development ever since. As a supporter of this liberation from a tyrant I have seen no benefit in even the price I pay for petrol!
Clearly you have little understanding of even the basics of left politics and philosophy generally let alone why the left fights.
No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we’ll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They’ll break ranks and fight no more
I desperately hope -every day- that the Russians will ‘break ranks and fight no more’ but ALSO that those that fight on are killed and captured by the Ukrainian soldiers ASAP and want that task enabled by western arms supplied and more (what about lots of specialist troops?). How about wide discussion of a No Fly Zone? There is a lot to talk about. Why hide your brilliant thinking?
Putin is a tyrant. This is his war. His death at the hands of a Russian colonel would probably bring this war to an end. I hope that such a colonel will emerge and break ranks. It’s only a possibility; a known unknown. Just as the workers of the world were behind the stars and stripes all those years ago when Marx and Engels sang along to our anthem, they did not want Union soldiers to break ranks.
No more deluded by reaction ‘Well, the reason is obvious, (thank your god Kuwait had oil and not broccoli just as you were told at the time) and the masses were on the streets -deluded by reaction- telling leftists why our ruling elites were at war instead of listening to leftists as to how glad we were that they were joining in this great war and supplying all the troops etc! We long for the day when more revolutionary countries will supply our own troops to end the activities of the tyrants. So that once more the workers of the world were behind a COW led by the Stars and stripes! Once more you were on the actual side of the tyrant despite all the words claiming to be in opposition.
Like in all the other cases you wanted nothing actually done that would work.
Why would a fascist invading a UN member state NOT be told to get out? Kuwait was an independent country and had been even before the 20th Century and the wind up of WW1 when the Ottoman empire was dismembered by the British and French and all the other surrounding countries were created. There was no comparison with the end of the British empire on the subcontinent and what the Indian people as they stood up achieved and /or failed to achieve.
According to Steve Saddam could and should have been told to get out BUT Steve says nothing can be done but put on some trade and people restriction sanctions! Then when those restrictions bite on the Iraqi people rather than have any effect on the dictator, ‘peacenik’s’ and the always never unite with ruling elite / class Trots pour out their hearts about the effects of these terrible sanctions on the babies etc. Then they eventually unite with those demanding an end to the sanctions! After all we have peace now, the war is over, the people are suffering etc etc. Just like your treachery over Ukraine! Silence and changing the subject is the well known hiding place. Things never turn into their opposites in your foolish thinking despite reality displaying the process everywhere we look.
In the typical manner of liberals you have both tools in your kit bag and drag out whatever you think will hide the reality of your current treacherous position. You have a strange mental condition where you imagine that anyone would not notice the duplicity and opportunism!
You again want to complain about the ruling class only doing things that suit their interests but know full well you were given the answer to that AT THE TIME of all these wars that you have been on the fascist side of. Go back to your support for the ‘Malvenas’ think about your ridiculous cost benefit analysis! The junta was defeated, but no thanks to your rotten conduct.
Then Kuwait. For fucks sake how silly was that position even blaming the US for explaining that Iraq was the regional power and the US had no view over the resolution of a minor border dispute. Then when the tyrant regime resolves the dispute by dissolving the border and annexing Kuwait you marched and tolerated all those people who argued it really did belong to the Iraqis! You know that was not true and yet you still carry on with this deliberate obfuscation. Hyderabad indeed!
It can only be a good thing that Kuwait was not a broccoli exporting country! So others had an interest in the country’s fate. The revolutionary left that I am associated with formed a view and still has a view and we take our a stand even when existing only as a theoretical trend. Theoreticians develop policies and the people of the world get to make use of their work. Power eventually moves to better theory. So the left has developed a formula over our stand on countries, nations and more democracy for the people.
So now that you are an anti Leninists at least you can understand his stand over the imperialist activities that resulted in WW1 when he said that if the war was about Belgium then we (communists) would support it BUT it was not about Belgium! Well as you well know the war was about Kuwait and the war was about the Falklands and deserved to be supported for all the reasons that we Leninist’s did. Now you can at least admit that we were the Leninist’s and you did not understand it.
It can only be a good thing that the ruling class have their own reasons that happens to align with what the left has laid out first as left policy. After we set policy we look for any others to unite with! Hence we are glad when the current ruling elites of any western democracy abandons their old reactionary policies and joins the effort to progress the world past tyranny because we sing on tyrants we make war. But you being a dumb rightist who for decades deluded himself into thinking he was any kind of leftist have no understanding that there is no pacifist revolutionary left.. So THE in the following line, only in reality means, some!
The soldiers too will take strike action
Some (Russian) soldiers too will take strike action
And the rest we’ll have to kill or capture!
Arise, children of the Fatherland
Our day of glory has arrived
Against us the bloody flag of tyranny
is raised; the bloody flag is raised.
Do you hear, in the countryside
The roar of those ferocious soldiers?
They’re coming right into your arms
To cut the throats of your sons, your comrades!
To arms, citizens!
Form your battalions
Let’s march, let’s march
That their impure blood
Should water our fields.
That is the context
Arise ye workers from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of Kant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We’ll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize.
Refrain:
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we’ll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They’ll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We’ll shoot the generals on our own side. (If they make imperialist war then you bet we will).
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E’er the thieves will out with their booty
And give to all a happier lot.
Each at the forge must do their duty
And we’ll strike while the iron is hot.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
Steve’s understanding of Japanese actions re the US supplies to the USSR reveals why he understands so little about war generally. I won’t bother trying to explain the obvious errors.
I have no interest in shedding blood for US interests. Kuwait was a country that funded Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war. Kuwait was a part of British divide and rule. The cow wanted restoration of the Emier to continue the British policy of placing immense wealth in the hands of private families so as to weaken Arab nationalism.
No one said that countries don’t get run by people that do all manner of things bad and good so why pick on Kuwait? But it was never what you think as somehow just…’ a part of British divide and rule.’ It was established in an era of imperialist contest with the Ottoman empire and over the next hundred years became something else. Just like Australia and the US I suppose you could say.
Your above speaks to my point that in the end you wanted the Kuwait people to be enslaved by SH even as you proclaimed support for sanctions etc. As soon as the Iraqi masses started to suffer you would have called for the end of the sanctions. This stuff is obvious rubbish not worth responding to as it is just a Trot religion. Iraqi oil was in the hands of SH where is it now?
BUT this is how you are coping with the sell out of the Ukrainians as your next predictable action! Oh yes you are!
Kuwait loaned Iraq $14 Billion to kill Iranians. They should not look to me for sympathy when their “friend” turns on them. How can you look at a military age person and say you must risk your life so that the royal family currently in the best hotels in London can return to their palaces where they rule over their subjects in a medieval fashion.
But these are old arguments you were wrong about Kuwait, and you were wrong about Afghanistan, and you were wrong about Iraq.
Kuwait gave us the spectacle of the US assisting Saddam crushing revolts, Afghanistan gave us a reintroduced Taliban government and Iraq gave us ISIL
Please spare me your victories.
The US turned a blind eye over the Halabja gassing and yet the Kurds fought side by side as part of the COW and you say nothing as that 20% of the population voted with their guns!
Anyway enough of your childish drivel I am keen to hear how you are going to sell out the Ukrainians! Don’t be shy with all your peace proposals!
If I was a Kurd, I would have supported the COW but if I was a Shia or Arab Sunni I would not because of the mass death toll, the ethnic cleansing, the breakdown of basic necessities like electricity and clean water.
In the first gulf war the US president encouraged Iraqis to overthrow the government buy when they tried, they found that the US assisted Saddam to put such revolts down.
As to peace proposals none have been put forward so there are none to support or oppose.
I’m on top of my game, sleepy Joe ‘Biden gets criticized for not doing enough but in war doing enough is a rarity.’ After all there are the afternoon naps and the lunches and working out how to get on and off stages; so little time so much to do…People were advocating for things to be done; where was Steve Owens?
Here was the wally…Steve Owens just last year!! August 2, 2023 at 10:26 am ‘So let me get this straight. This is a thread started as a commentary on 2014 but I can’t mention that neo-nazi elements played a significant role at Maidan. I can’t mention that fascists were placed in the ministry and command structure of the security forces (defense minister no less). I can’t mention that in 2014 Nazis conducted a massacre in Odessa. I can’t mention that the authorities covered for the massacre. I can’t mention that Nazis formed militias to fight the separatists in the east. These aren’t my opinions these are facts.’
All the Russian propagandist talking points about Ukrainian Nazis!!
That thread is the place to work out what Steve has said, and given he has learned nothing about revolutionary war in 40 years -will soon say again- as he sells out the Ukrainian fighters and once more proclaims there is no military solution!
When the Kurds picked up their guns to end the SH regime Steve picked up his no blood for oil placard and did not back the obvious ending of the tyrant regime. He is still proud of his stupid anti kurd sell out roll that was just the same as when the US sold out the rebellious elements at the time of the liberation of Kuwait. How obvious is the fact that his lot wanted an immediate end to all COW warmaking and so were by that policy complicit in exactly the same sell out position. SH forces would then have been free to do what they always did. Steve himself recognised this dilemma when many years later he openly said he changed his mind over the NFZ war that protected the Kurds etc. Now like sleepy Joe he is becoming forgetful and reverting to his childlike former views.
This is not Steve Owens position!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujYQIyuT3Ug
But where is this going for all the surrender monkeys? This will not be pretty!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPsMhYye7Uo
and they lost anyway! A police action no less!
I sympathize with you to some extent. It can’t be easy being a pseudo-Marxist. The contortions you have to perform are incredible. Where to start? Kuwait was a country worthy of military defense but Poland in 1939 well it just ceased to be a country. Anti fascism? Well yes but this does not exclude signing a Friendship treaty with Nazi Germany. Party of the working class? At least Lenin had the good grace to be embarrassed by the lack of workers in the party. The CCP didn’t have any working-class members when it took power. A peasant party upholding the banner of the working class. If only Marx had lived long enough to see a “Marxist” peasant revolution. Remember when you claimed that the US leaving Afghanistan would lead to a regional war and I pointed out the lack of regional war only for you to claim that it was a regional war because some Taliban had crossed the Afghan/Pakistan border.
Now we analyze Ukraine. I claim that at Maidan at Odessa and in Donbas nazi groups and fascist parties played a role. So tell me were there fascists in Ukraine and what part did they play? Go back and watch that “documentary” tell me what all those red and black flags represent because for some reason the “documentary” gives no explanation. I support Maidan I support the defense of Ukraine against Russian aggression. I just don’t tell myself fairy tales.
And let’s put this Crimea thing to bed. There was never going to be a fight over Crimea because at the time Russia had a functioning army and Ukraine did not.
So, Kuwait is worth saving by Georgia not?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_invasion_of_Georgia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjNEAP0yP-Q
This is my thinking and there is no communist in sight. Are you in agreement with this?
So, Kuwait is worth saving but Georgia not?
So let me get this straight. Kuwait a small enclave developed by the English for the sole purpose of divide and rule and who financed the massive slaughter of the Iran Iraq war deserves our help because it’s previous ally turns on it with guns that Kuwait paid for, but a functioning democracy like Georgia that has universal suffrage and where the Bolshevik party is legal and which has a treaty with Soviet Russia that guarantees border integrity, well just march an army in there because well why not.
And now you want to lecture me about morality of trade.
So please answer the question Kuwait is worth saving but Georgia is not?
I was delighted to read that you take an active interest in economic matters, so I guess you are all over Patrick Boyle but if not enjoy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fvDfDDZ4Ms
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-MX6YdA8k0
This Kuwait?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/kuwait/11077537/How-our-allies-in-Kuwait-and-Qatar-funded-Islamic-State.html
How on earth did you ever get the notion that you were some or for that matter any sort of progressive! You are a reactionary of the most blatantly obvious ex trot variety. Your views were rotten then as they still are now after your abandonment of the Trot drivel. The Trot tag made no discernible difference!
The utter stupidity of returning to a period long before you were born that was in the wash up and ongoing machinations of the imperialist 1st world war and imperialist intervention in the Russian revolution is right in your face and then you turn around and support the later day fascist invader to boot! That is your shtick!
The people of Kuwait are to be thrown right under the bus with the lies that you are now and were then spreading about countries like Kuwait being artificial creations and really just stolen from their rightful owners in this case Iraq no less and so not deserving of any form of collective action to stop a member country of the United Nations being invaded and annexed by another country. What a genius of a formula for making the world a better place!
You are just an apologist for Saddam! Iraq had already used chemical weapons and was determined to wield its enormous wealth on war fighting! Yet you see bad Kuwait and bullshit about oil war 1,2and 3! Such drivel has long been dealt with and is on the record both here and in the other material at Lastsuperpower. Your current drivel is not worth any further effort from me!
I’m enjoying your obvious TDS decent into ALP-Greenie-woke insanity.
So, Kuwait is worth saving but Georgia not??
The issue has nothing to do with when I was born we are talking about history. The government of Georgia was elected with 81.5% of the vote. It was a progressive government with women ministers and they built the first Georgian university. Now if the Bolsheviks came to the conclusion that a Menshevik government in Georgia was a threat all they needed to do was to explain that rather than sign a treaty with the Georgian government, but they resorted to lies because they knew that even other Bolsheviks would not swallow this stuff. Similar to the lies told by Lenin and Trotsky when Kronstandt went pear shaped.
I account for this stuff quite simply. The Russian revolution degenerated from 1917 mainly due to the civil war but also partly by the top-down model that Lenin was working with. If you embrace one party rule with diminishing intra party democracy and one-man management and zero freedom of speech you will end up with something pretty ugly.
To make any sense of the issues of Soviet Russia I think we have to return to what I think was Lenin’s big mistake.
When the February revolution occurred the official Bolshevik line was that socialist revolution was premature in Russia. On April 3 Lennin arrived in Petrograd and announced that yes socialist revolution was premature in Russia but a revolution in Russia could spark a revolution in Germany. On this point he was profoundly wrong. He was fully committed to the idea that revolution in Europe was inevitable.
Over 100 years later we can be conclusive about this, there would be no revolutions in Europe. Lenin got this wrong. Could he have realised at the time he was in error? Absolutely, there were no revolutionary parties in any other country. Even at the Congress of Soviets where the Bolsheviks launched the revolution people reported about the abortive Stockholm conference where antiwar German militants told delegates that no revolution would occur in Germany while the war lasted.
A lot of what happened after the revolution was due to circumstances but on the point of political assessment about revolutionary prospects, that is completely in Lenin’s hands and unfortunately, he got his political theory wrong.
Lenin of course got away with this error because the Bolsheviks/CPSU transitioned from a political party to a cult. Overseas parties like the CPA and the CPA(ml) were always cults.
Here’s a check list for being a cult
Absolute authoritarianism without accountability
Zero tolerance for criticism or questions
Lack of meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget
Unreasonable fears about the outside world that often involve evil conspiracies and persecutions
A belief that former followers are always wrong for leaving and there is never a legitimate reason for anyone else to leave
Abuse of members
Records, books, articles, or programs documenting the abuses of the leader or group
Followers feeling they are never able to be “good enough”
A belief that the leader is right at all times
A belief that the leader is the exclusive means of knowing “truth” or giving validation
The independence of countries is worth protecting from imperialist bullies. Small countries have long known that united action against the bigger imperialist bully is a no brainer from a progressives POV. Naturally reactionaries could care less about the fate of Kuwait. But that small country was worth ‘saving’ from such a clear violation of everything that a progressive would stand up for at the closing decade of the 20th century and with all the tools then available such as the United Nations and the fact that here was one member swallowing another in clear violation of its charter.
Georgia happened in a vastly different context that may or may not have been dealt with ‘correctly’ by the Russian revolutionaries 100 years ago and is nothing other than a diversion by you in this context.
Why not call the Falklands recovery from the fascist Argentinian Junta’s unprovoked invasion oil war 1? After all, I recall speculation at the time that there would be oil deposits like the North sea oil found all around the islands and that was why the British were not just rolling over like you peaceniks proposed and the very first action was (as I recall) the British SAS going ashore at the old whale oiling station on South Georgia no less. That had been where the phony ‘scrap metal men’ had first shown up and the fascist takeover of discovered and ‘settled’ to the extent that is even possible, British territories began. But the British stood firm and the Argentinians are better off as a result.
These Islands have nothing to do with the people that live across a river from Uruguay and a step away from Chile. I would have thought that any Australian could tell you about why Timor Leste does not belong to Indonesia! Nor does Christmas Island.
Neither does ‘The Cocos (Keeling) Islands that are a remote territory of Australia in the Indian Ocean. Its 2 coral atolls comprise 27 tiny islands with white-sand beaches, palm trees and lagoons. West Island has an airport and a visitor centre. Across the lagoon, the Home Island Museum explores the culture of the resident Cocos Malay people. To the north, the isolated Pulu Keeling National Park has bird colonies and a shipwreck.’ Nobody that lives there wants to be a part of Indonesia and guess what nobody that lives on the Falkland Islands or South Georgia and the Sandwich Islands wants a thing to do with Argentina! All quite a no brainer for any person who is any sort of anti imperialist! These territories are settled issues. Only ratbags who have drunk the kool aid would let all these issues return to the remaining imperialists list of places to claim when conditions seem right.
Taiwan is in fascist China’s sights right now and the people that live there do not want a bar of returning to the motherland!!
The Falklands is yet another clear example of you and your fellow reactionaries making excuses as to why fascists can’t be opposed with armed force and driven out because it would cost human lives if they won’t withdraw as demanded by progressives. You never seem to notice that the fascist dictators always have the option of withdrawing but THEY don’t do it! You never notice that they are fully to blame for all the deaths that arise from the wars that they launch however peacefully they launch them.
You did exactly the same when Putin invaded Georgia (and did it again when he invaded Ukraine in 2014 and 15) -just shrugged and moved on with no long term interest in what this would mean for the ongoing struggle against the menace to peace that is Putin style imperialism.
You do this because you have no interest for the 3 progressive concerns of nations being liberated, countries breaking free of tyrants and achieving their independence and the people wanting revolutionary advances in the way that they live so that some rights are achieved and the tyrants are overthrown and then some more democracy is attained by their own ongoing struggles!
Progressives insist that ‘the times they are a changing’ rather than your reactionary notion that nothing ever really changes. Now your saying could be rather than ‘a fall in the pit a gain in your wit’…’ just don’t go walking around and you won’t ever fall into a pit!’.
Indeed some of my former comrades believed that it was Georgia that had been foolish in trying to take full control of Georgian recognized territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008. These smallish enclaves have smallish national issues involved and naturally the local gangsters fan these differences rather than continue to resolve them with more democracy as the obvious solution.
More democracy flatly contradicts the gangster! That is why they cling to a reactionary nationalism where they can hide. These Georgian territories are in practice enclaves run by sub gangsters in power at the whim of the chief gangster in the Kremlin. They are territories that like Ukraine constitute about 20% of Georgia -on memory- and like Ukraine and Transnistria in Moldova will now be resolved with the collapse of the Russian and Belarus regimes. The breakup of the Russian empire is coming and all these issues require resolution.
Countries need to form defensive alliances against bullies as you have pointed out with respect to Ukraine and NATO. Why on earth would you hold that view including support for Sweden and Finland joining and yet not notice that the United Nations was set up after WW2 in order to ensure that one member did not just annex another and go back to the usual imperialist business that is supposed to be opposed by all progressives?
Just because the UN has become a bit dysfunctional because of the obsolete veto power of the 5 permanent members of the security council does not mean it has to remain so. Why ought not the members of the General assembly simply reject the credentials of the 5 current veto holders until they produce new credentials that are acceptable because the veto would no longer apply?
In an era when Ukraine, Syria and Gaza as only the first 3 to jump to mind have demonstrated what damage the veto is doing why not think about some possible solutions?
The Georgians may well have been foolish. I don’t claim to know the details well enough right now, but the question is always before us of how are democrats going to further the democratic revolution without dealing with the Al Capone’s in their midst? They can’t!
Nothing easy about this and definitely nothing that won’t result in backlash actions by the gangsters. But nobody said any of this was easy.
Nothing of this struggle against the imperialists can be done that won’t end with many more than just one Nemsov lying dead on a bridge outside the Kremlin!
As Mao said people struggle and fail and then struggle again and the same with the enemy it goes ever on till one class eliminates the other. So now there are no slave owners in the USA, so what was all that terrible death a destruction all about? Why did the Klan carry on with the lynchings etc for the next hundred years? Struggle for rights is not cost free nor a straight line.
The liberation of the Iraqi masses from their tyrant is so blatant with their regular elections, National issues being managed and borders intact and democratic progress so obvious that you have to tell yourself the lie that this liberation was Oil War 2!
The monster of ISIS was let loose apparently! It was all a well known disaster no less! Spare you from an Arab Spring because Putin your on again off again mate who was as you well know an opponent of your ‘Oil War 2’ then got to show you what Tyrants can do in Syria when anti war activists like Obama lead the democratic revolution! And wouldn’t it have been so much better if Burnie after your 1st dose of TDS had then stepped in rather than Sleepy Jo.
‘If you embrace one party rule with diminishing intra party democracy and one-man management and zero freedom of speech you will end up with something pretty ugly.’ Well your opposition to the liberation of Kuwait settles that issue. When the invasion happened you would not unite and accept a united front because you claimed that as a worker you had no dog in the fight, no less! Under the bus got thrown another lot of unfortunates. You are literally spelling out what the Tyrant of Iraq brought to the people of Kuwait.
Lenin’s big mistake was winning when what has now unavoidably become your lot were and constantly still are making aggressive war. WW1 is what he was dealing with and he did not have our communications and so forth. Lenin was responding to the unfolding nightmare of WW1 and the millions of deaths that your lot (the people you would rather see in power than nasty old Lenin) had initiated and then kept going!
You finally say ‘A lot of what happened after the revolution was due to circumstances but on the point of political assessment about revolutionary prospects, that is completely in Lenin’s hands and unfortunately, he got his political theory wrong.’
He got it far more right and so we not only got revolutionary victories in the vast territories of the Russian empire but also for ¼ of humanity in China and so on.
But then things turn into their opposite and we are where we are. What reactionaries see as Lenin in error (people like you and your dim witted intellectual contemporaries like Jordan Peterson) was the white terror being fought right around the globe.
Mao, Ho Chi Minh and the countless others are dismissed with the wave of a hand as cultists and meanwhile the struggle against imperialism goes on all around us and is thrown right in your face every day in the great leadership over these last 16 years of Obama and the other ALP types.
I rebelled against all the ‘parties’ that you have called cults and I don’t even doubt that the vast majority of these parties have degenerated into cults or something like them.
But just because you found yourself in a small cult don’t think you have not moved to a much bigger cult in the ALP/Greeny/US Democrat camp. You have always been unable to think for yourself!
Imperialism literally means war. That is why ww1 broke out and why the various fully ruling class run armies started to kill millions of ordinary humans that had no interest in the result. Enthusiastic enrollment in the mass armies on both sides was obvious and the sentiment took years to reverse. But it did. Now you want to reverse this verdict of history and join your mainstream mates in the anti Lenin prattle.
These views have had no explanatory power in relation to the revolution in Nepal! Zero! They explain nothing of your so called OIL wars 1, 2, 3 and the others.
But, like the Russian army right now, personal views and wishes do not move artillery shells. Actual men do that and they kill Ukrainians every day! The war launched by the tyrant goes on despite the views of ordinary people. There is only a military solution. That is to say that the Russians must be killed in sufficient numbers till they turn around and like in WW1 go home!
This war must be fought and you must find another way to throw the Ukrainians under a bus and you will!
BTW you have long been told that it is my view and the view of everyone I have been connected to for the last 50 years that NO modern proletariat would accept anything other than a multi party state structure, so you returning to the problems that were faced when Lenin was trying to stop the Tyrants and liars of WW1 vintage is a worthless exercise.
The results in Nepal despite it being relatively backwards proves ‘we’ modern communists are serious democrats. Our conduct in Australia and defense of revolution as the only way to rid the world of tyrants stands against your record of sell out and collaboration with anti democrats.
“The independence of countries is worth protecting from imperialist bullies.”
I could not agree more. What constitutes an Imperialist bully? I would contend that Iraq was just the front man for a whole raft of imperialist bullies. Iraq developed and used biological weapons smallpox and anthrax, mustard and nerve gas. It was also developing nuclear weapons. It did all this with the active may I say essential support of Germany, Britain, France, the USA and gulf states like Kuwait. Now this is clearly a criminal enterprise in the interests of Western imperialism. That these criminals fell out amongst themselves is neither surprising nor a matter I care to take sides on. Just take the Halabja massacre. The gas came from Germany the interference i.e. claiming the Iranians gassed their Kurdish allies came from the CIA and congressional moves against Iraq were blocked by the US president.
To act like the first imperialist move was the invasion of Kuwait is like saying the first Imperialist act of WW1 was the invasion of Belgium.
Just back on Lenin. All I’m doing is asking a simple question. Was Lenin right or wrong when he argued that a revolution in Russia would spark revolutions across Europe. It is pretty clear he got that wrong and even at the time it was pretty clear that he got that wrong. At the time it was arguable but the answer over 100 years later is conclusive.
When Britain decided to retake the Falkland Islands, they argued that the prime motivation was to uphold the wishes of the Islanders, that they could not negotiate with dictators and that they would not negotiate over territory taken by force.
The wishes of the islanders mattered not a whit to them when it came to the Chagos islands or the island of Hong Kong.
As to negotiating with dictators well it didn’t stop them negotiating with the CCP over Hong Kong and they were quite happy to be besties with the dictator of Chile.
So that just leaves the argument about not negotiating under duress. The laughter could be heard around the world that the inventors of gun boat diplomacy the enslavers of much of the world could not possibly enter into negotiation because force had been used.
You have not raised a single issue of relevance.
The Falkland Island war was about the Falkland Islands! The fascists were defeated. The islanders do not now live under a fascist dictatorship. In fact the Argentinians are even in a better place as a result of the fall of the Junta. You are supposed to be interested in human political progress -being a self proclaimed progressive and all- but here you are carrying on about what other British governments have done at other times! So what! Not relevant and you know it.
Then you do the same over the Kurdish issue. It was the Peshmerga that united with the COW and fought alongside them! You know this so you avoid it by reminding people that these western governments who were then doing something that Putin did not approve of had themselves done things that all progressives opposed in the past! Well what do you know! You’re going to tell a man of Irish descent that British governments have done bad things in the past!! Absolute out of court drivel! You know it and I know it. If you did not know this then it would be time to question your sanity. Given your repetition of such drivel I do!
The only valid conclusion to your obfuscation about them doing bad things in the past is; do not address what is to be done right now about the issue before us but rather argue that nothing ever really changes and that governments are all scum that under no circumstances can be united with.
Then along comes WW2 and even YOU can’t stick to this dopey trot line but don’t let that bother you as you can make a separate dog’s breakfast of that war as well! But I digress.
Fancy telling me that imperialists have almost always had rotten to the core policies since WW2 until against all the advice from these rotten foreign policy realists etc who were exactly the individuals that had turned that blind eye they finally after 9/11 did the right thing as a strategic response and brought down the Iraqi tyrant.
We who sing ‘on tyrants only we’ll make war’ are naturally pleased they changed policies and started the process that we claimed would end with an Arab spring! When it did, the back sliding had become a landslide of reaction and the project has so far not progressed very far.
So when it comes to ridding the world of the Assad regime and ISIS the task is still -well after the pile of bodies and refugees has towered above the price in Iraq- starkly before anti fascists and progressives and internationalists.
Naturally reactionaries like you can remind us that bad things have happened in the past and so nothing much ought to be done except elect an Obama and a Merkel to lead the way in the sell-out of Syria and rubbish the work of Erdogan who shot down the Russian warplane!
All the while the tyrants make war!
At least the ICC is charging Netanyahu and Putin…but not to be outdone the pseudoleft want the liberators of the Iraqi people Bush and Blair and Howard etc charged as well! The depth of this stupidity has been so well covered by me as to place this beyond the pale.
Now this overthrow of the Iraq tyrant is illegal as you well know; all revolutions are illegal so this is revolutionary! You however oppose revolutionary acts and agree with Putin that the Baathist regime of SH should have been left alone!!
Oh woe all you pseudolefts warned us how difficult it would become! You all told us at the time that it was not a strategic move that was in response to 9/11 but it was just a grab for oil! Oil war 2 no less you remind us in 2024!
After all those revolutionary elections, after zero General was appointed by the US as the new tyrant, after the South African model was adopted by the Iraqi people in a free and fair intensely internationally monitored election process you see nothing new except that everything in Iraq has changed!
After it was quite apparent that the oil could in no way be grabbed unless one was to install puppets and that this was quite beyond them yet we have to return to your now transparently false assertion that this was one of the 3 ‘oil wars’.
You are transparently and entirely disingenuous.
The fact that the Chinese fascists could not in any way be stopped from taking control of Hong Kong is so obviously relevant. HK is raised now by a man who simply scoffed at the notion of doing anything at all that could reverse Putin’s actions in 2014-15 Ukraine and then shrugged his shoulders and moved on! This rot is just the current word spinning of a mindless reactionary. Determined to never make any progress in his ‘thinking’.
You say:
“The independence of countries is worth protecting from imperialist bullies.” I could not agree more.
And that right there is a flat out lie. Because if that country has had an imperialist past of any kind you drag it up. In order to NOW not take sides! Breathtaking that you think you are in any way at all a leftist.
The first imperialist move WAS the invasion of Kuwait and a war ensued and was resolved with the Iraq Tyrants forces being thrown out and the war ended!
You are spinning lies about how this small country had it coming and I’m not taking sides! Years before you bullshitted that it could all be solved with sanctions and so forth. More delusions. Transparently oily old Steve, slippery as ever.
You are unable to make a coherent argument that actually does mean in response to the notion that “The independence of countries is worth protecting from imperialist bullies.” ‘ I could not agree more.’ Because you couldn’t care less and that is because you saw this little country as a creation of the British that looked like it belonged to Iraq! That happened to be a creation of the British and French many decades later.
All you’re actually doing is asking a simple minded series of questions with no intent of resolving any issue at all.
Lenin was right to make revolution against the tyrants that had brought on their regular inter-imperialist confrontation and who had raised it to a whole new level of depravity as WW1.
What would happen in other places was always contingent! He thought optimistically of what might emerge after the ruling classes had disgraced themselves so completely in bringing on WW1. But he dealt with this reality! The ruling classes wanted all the communists dead and set to the task. They failed!
Lenin was in no doubts as to how they the imperialists thought about the world and what they could and could not do. He would not have been taken in by the likes of Putin as you and Mearshimer as but 2 examples were.
Thatcher may have been taken in who knows but she rightly was never going to negotiate over the Falklands. This is what people want Ukraine to do with Putin right now! For the sake of the peoples of the world they ought not do so!
The fascists in China are watching. They ought to see a Churchill like response. Churchill was urged by Halifax to negotiate. He, like Thatcher, saw straight through it. Churchill was a rabid anti communist like Steve Owens. But Churchill had the good sense not to negotiate in such a situation.
When people side with Tyrants like Pinochet they are to be opposed…so what? You have zero point! That is Zero!
‘So that just leaves the argument about not negotiating under duress.’ Far from enslaving the world the British Navy helped bring that method of human association to an end! But you know that and are just throwing words around.
As for the BIOT -Chagos islands, all I can say is that the ICJ is -as is often the case- quite irrelevant and that in this case strategic imperatives ought to predominate and so I think that the British Labor Government is foolish in the extreme to be involved in anything to do with this. The democratic peoples of the world need navies and they need places like this at this time of struggle against the fascist countries of the world now so obviously led by China!
Mauritius and the Maldives are nothing but international pests with their hands always out and their blatant double standards! They will do nothing to resist China rather quite the opposite. It is analogous to the requirement that a free man’s home is his castle and ought not be taken away at the capricious will of the gangster or the wanton vandal BUT when society has to build a freeway or the like a fair and just compensation is all that can be resorted to and must be. That is about the islanders not about the parasites in Mauritius and the Maldives!
This British government is not even as strong on Ukraine as it ought to be! But on this point I live in hope.
In the big picture it has the look of a looming woke disaster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHRzuHYxy6s
Boris interview and speculation on Trumps Ukraine stand! Given the Keith Kellogg appointment.
And AFTER what I wrote above Boris addresses the BIOT issues. He agrees with me!
This is a good listen and includes Syria news! It’s all happening!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0php0mtXOek
“It may well be that actually the Russians will end up making Trump feel that they’re taking him for granted, if Trump throws his weight behind Kiev, he’s likely to be much more maximalist”
Putin’s espionage attacks are likely part of a plan to hamper European support for Ukraine under a Trump presidency, Prof. Mark Galeotti
He is wrong about the economy issues it is going down faster than he thinks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VdxE5v4bMM and Syria. and Note how the issue of the Veto comes up! What ought left theorists think about this useless blockage of the UN.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYXpgeOTGrg comments on BIOT interesting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xaqVf1B3Fg
This German has a good grasp and makes a reasonable case https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlAIzRJhvyk but I don’t agree with him at all.
This ex US soldier has a good take on what could bring on WW3 and that is a Russian victory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCMJbLsxb98
Above on November 12, 2024 at 10:36
I posted
‘The top 10 days for Russian casualties are currently
(THEN)
NOW edited* as at9:36 Oz time 3/12/24!
1 1950 12/11/24 2030 27/11/24*
2 1770 11/11/24 1950 12/11/24
3 1740 13/05/24 1790 2/12/24*
4 1710 21/10/24 1780 3/12/24*
5 1690 26/10/24 1770 11/11/24
6 1680 28/10/24 1770 13/11/24*
7 1660 09/11/24 1740 13/05/24
8 1630 25/10/24 1740 30/11/24*
9 1580 08/11/24 1730 1/12/24*
10 1560 30/10/24 1710 21/10/24
That is remarkable! 6 of the top 10 have been added and now the lowest is up by 150. and there are still 47 days till Trump. Looks like a silver medal is a very realistic prospect!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhRHmhAvT-E this is the basics of why the Russians are in deep shit!
I have just edited this on the 28th December! Because…
The horror show goes on every day! The following UAF claimed statistics are for Russian men both killed or injured but either way off the battlefields!
TINA but more war and even larger casualties till the tyrant Putin and his gangster ragtag of an army is really defeated in the field or in a home front economic collapse. The economic problems for Russia looks to be building up a head of steam but so are the military problems and I have no idea what one will give way first.
But higher casualties was what I predicted above on November 12 and now I want to review the result?
Well for December, the 30 day moving average, is currently a remarkable 1590! A breathtaking result.
Recall that 1560 was, as at November 7th, the 6th highest total! Now it’s way in the rear view mirror and NOW the monthly DAILY average for December. Currently only the top 2 remain of the former top 10 and there’s still 28 days till inauguration day!
With the Syrian events thrown in, this has been a remarkable and truly inspiring period where I have clearly already secured the bronze medal and the silver looks likely but gold is still possible:-)
Anyway if I don’t get a gold medal for my predictions there won’t be a gold medal awarded and as that would be unusual the Oodnadatta front bar subcommittee has pointed out that what was in 11th place as @ 12/11 (1560 30/10/24) is now in 32nd place (now @28/12in 36th place)! So there has so far been 20 days over 1560 since 12/11 (now @28/12in 24days).
So pending an appeal, a drugs test, a math lesson and an appropriate whinge of ‘that was what I was getting at’ the gold medal could still be awarded on a technicality.
(THEN)
1 1950 12/11/24 today
2 1770 11/11/24 yesterday
3 1740 13/05/24 6 months ago
4 1710 21/10/24 3 weeks ago
5 1690 26/10/24 2 weeks ago
6 1680 28/10/24 2 weeks ago
7 1660 09/11/24 3 days ago
8 1630 25/10/24 3 weeks ago
9 1580 08/11/24 4 days ago
10 1560 30/10/24 2 weeks ago
NOW edited*
01 2,200 20/12/24*
02 2,030 27/11/24*
03 1,990 23/12/24*
04 1,950 12/11/24**
05 1,860 21/12/24*
06 1,820 22/12/24*
07 1,790 2/12/24*
08 1,780 3/12/24*
09 1,770 11/11/24**
10 1,770 13/11/24*
11 1,740 13/05/24**
12 1,740 30/11/24*
13 1,730 01/12/24
14 1,710 21/10/24
15 1,690 28/12/24
16 1,690 26/10/24
17 1,690 14/11/24
18 1,690 20/11/24
19 1,680 28/10/24
20 1,670 04/12/24
21 1,660 09/11/24
22 1,660 06/12/24
23 1,650 27/12/24
24 1,650 16/11/24
25 1,640 17/11/24
26 1,630 24/12/24
27 1,630 25/10/24
28 1,610 18/11/24
29 1,610 25/11/24
30 1,600 25/12/24
31 1,600 17/12/24
32 1,580 08/11/24
33 1,580 27/11/24
34 1,580 05/12/24
35 1,580 18/12/24
36 1,560 30/10/24
37 1,560 18/11/24
8 of the top 10 have now been replaced!
The highest is now 2,200 -up by 250- the 10th is up by 210! There are still 28 days till the cutoff date of Trumps inauguration. The cold weather has set in and the 3 biggest numbers have turned up so anything is still possible and I even expect the Russians to go mental with the meat wave attacks on Christmas through to New Years day! They are quite desperate to clear the UAF out of Kursk before Trump day but I very much doubt they can do it! Of the current top 10 all were achieved in November (4) or December (6)!
The Kursk attack has obviously been a brilliant operation and the Russians are stuck in a real killing zone. The stakes for the next 28 days could hardly be higher. These figures are making everyone take notice! We all recall how cold it got for the invaders when they were ground down in Stalingrad!
Britain has announced the sending of training personnel directly into Ukraine and that will probably mean that the Australian and New Zealand trainers will go in as well (I hope so). It’s a much more efficient arrangement, and gives the opportunity to put in some very useful specialists as well. Little green men was good for the goose so now its good for the gander!
The standing ovation for Zelensky at the Notre Dame reopening was good for Trump to experience! Europe has been making all manner of good noises for the sake of Trump.
I just can’t see how he can let Putin get any sort of win out of this and especially so after the Syria withdrawal with tail firmly tween legs!
This enemy is looking more like a rabble every day!
Ah yes… the BBC and their experts! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq3ZdnDZR20 Streamed live on May 7, 2022
‘Russia’s assault on Ukraine continues to intensify, prompting the U.S. and European allies to ramp up military and economic aid. Now, Russian authorities argue that funneling heavy weaponry into the region will escalate Russia’s tensions with NATO. The rhetoric is leading many to wonder whether it is Russia’s intention to widen this conflict to the West — and, if so — whether the threat of nuclear weapons will become real. The moment is a marked shift in both support and rhetoric from the U.S. and other global powers. Will it spark a World War 3? Moderator Razia Iqbal of the BBC World Service leads a conversation on where we are now and what could happen next.’
On 30 April 2022 the claimed toll was 23,200 and at the end of May 30,500… so 7,300 / 31 = 236 per day. Now the figure is currently 1,590 and the UAF are in Russia -Kursk- and killing the virtually untrained conscripts etc and North Koreans as well! They hit them in an airbase way up in Murmansk just the other day and are smashing their oil refineries all over the place!
So with all this good news my bet is that far fewer European leaders are as terrified of the Russian war machine now than when the BBC was all a flutter!
The MSM is still putting on the anti-war twits and traitors! They are indeed thick as two very short planks on edge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CK0psX1NGE
Anastasiya Paraskevova is commonly known as Ukrainian Ana, and is a political activist who came to prominence in 2022 after recording her experiences living in Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian war. Ana’s first major media appearance was on CNN at the beginning of the war, but she has since memorably appeared on the Piers Morgan show, where she tackled Russian talking points with great passion, force and eloquence. The Piers Morgan show Anastasiya Paraskevova
In a world first the UAF have conducted an advance into an enemy held trench line using only drones with humans as the follow up force! Using both ground and air drones the positions were taken and then troops reinforced the drones! This episode ought be thought of, as one US commentator put it, ‘as a proof of concept exercise’ and given that it was a winner a larger attack can be expected in the very short term. Naturally the possibilities are almost endless as to what this development will mean. But it ought to be clear that the UAF will be worlds best practice at this new development for the immediate and short term of the remainder of this war.
I spotted the deeper rot in the Russian war back in November and made a bold prediction of what was going to unfold across a difficult period -where the season changes- after the US election and through to ‘Trump Day’.
Events unfolded in for me an even more spectacular manner than I had thought, but I badly framed what I was thinking. The top ten was not the real big issue. What those issues were was focused on the sustained ramp up in the destruction of the Russians armies in the field. Day by day the numbers had gone up and had become predictable and so I predicted!
I stated to my friend Bill that the Russians were in a situation similar to Germany after the fall of France they just could not deploy their massive war machine to Britain. They could not cross the channel!
The Russians can’t deploy across any part of the massive front line and get their troops mobile. So for them this war is lost and it’s only a matter of how they end up going home.
But for the western liberals and the notorious anti-war ratbags it’s all so difficult. Everything is a great worry and ‘wars end in negotiations, don’t ya know’. The big takeaway from my latest gold medal is where is number 10 right now! The answer to THAT is breathtaking!
01 2,200 20-12-24
02 2,030 27-11-24
03 1,990 23-12-24
04 1,970 07-01-25
05 1,950 12-11-24*
06 1,860 21-12-24
07 1,830 10-01-25
08 1,820 22-12-24
09 1,790 02-12-24
10 1,780 03-12-24
10 days till Trump day! 2 of the top 10 worst days for Putin’s Russia now have a 2025 date on day 10 of 2025! This war has moved into an end stage BUT that could still drag on for years!
Nothing of the top ten is older than 12/11/24 so I think I should claim the gold medal on a count-back!
For all tyrannies and so for Russia, military ‘defeat is the handmaiden of political change’. So as there will be no peaceful transfer of power in Russia everything is contingent on who goes after Putin and when they do. At some point someone will. He currently looks as strong as all the other tyrants looked just before their regimes collapsed and they fell and were either killed or fled their countries.
There is just no indication that Russia is getting stronger on any front as the war goes on. None! The Russian economy is now in the toilet and oil and gas prices will fall further in a drill baby drill world. Every indication is that Russia is getting weaker and that always ends badly for a tyrant. Nobody wants to be the last dead soldier in any war but somebody has to be!
This US ex soldier guy gets it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7LzZY3JMMQ
Jan 10, 2025 #UkraineWar #RussiaUkraineConflict #Putin
In January 2025, Ukraine launched a bold offensive into new parts of Kursk, Russia; directly defying Vladimir Putin’s hard deadline of expelling Ukrainian forces by October 2024. This audacious move not only caught the world’s attention but also echoes historic patterns where gutsy military maneuvers led to the collapse of powerful regimes. Could Putin’s Russia be next? History suggests that Putin’s regime is skating on thin ice. Chuck Pfarrer, a leading military analyst and Special Correspondent for the Kyiv Post, provides expert insight into this critical moment in the war. With decades of experience advising U.S. national security agencies and deep expertise in counterterrorism and military strategy, Pfarrer connects the dots between history, strategy, and Russia’s precarious position. A former U.S. Navy officer, Pfarrer has served as a military and counter-terrorism contractor, authored op-eds for The New York Times, and appeared as a counterterrorism expert on CNN, ABC, MSNBC, Fox, CSPAN, NPR, and more. His extensive analysis of gray zone operations and counter-WMD proliferation makes him one of the foremost voices on the conflict in Ukraine.
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iPZYEhLfaI
Jan 8, 2025 #genx #climatechange #environment
Journalist and author Michael Shellenberger shares his critique of the apocalyptic narratives that dominate modern environmentalism, arguing that they have more to do with nihilism than objective science. Drawing on his Gen X upbringing, he explains how climate hysteria reflects a broader cultural decline and the loss of traditional religious and ideological frameworks. As an unapologetic optimist and a believer in human potential, Michael makes the case for embracing resilience and rejecting narratives that undermine civilization’s core values.
“The Russian economy is now in the toilet and oil and gas prices will fall further in a drill baby drill world.”
It baffles me how you can be sucked in by this drill baby drill nonsense.
There are about 24 million USA on shore acres under lease by oil and gas companies. Only half these leases are used.
There were under Biden about 9,000 leases available on Federal land not taken up by the oil and gas industry.
When Obama was President, the US developed horizontal drilling and fracking. This opened up massive new oil fields and US oil boomed as the price went well over $100pb. But all this new oil led to a glut and with a little help from OPEC the price plunged to $30pb.
Today WTC sits at $76pb. Horizontal drilling and fracking is expensive. From memory it costs mid $60pb to produce. Now Tangerine Mussolini can say drill baby drill as much as he likes but there will be very little drilling without the price of oil rising.
So, in summary the amount of drilling is dependent on the oil price not the availability of permits. Why is this so hard?
The other major factor in drill baby drill is who is going to do all this drilling. The oil and gas industry is dependent on immigrant labor both legal and illegal. The work is dirty, dangerous and not reliable. The USA has low unemployment and the people who want this work are immigrants. So let me get this straight Trump is going to gut the workforce and increase the workload with the aim of reducing the price below the cost of production.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/04/21/trump-promises-oil-drilling-deportations-at-odds/73404663007/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey7iWsDYnJ8
un 29, 2023
Journalist and author Michael Shellenberger argues that wokeism is the dominant religion of elites in the West, complete with guilt, original sin, taboos, saints, devils, and the promise of redemption and immortality. How do we escape the woke matrix? Shellenberger offers a guide.
Shellenberger delivered this lecture to UATX’s Forbidden Courses students on June 26, 2023 in Dallas, Texas. The Forbidden Courses bring together courageous thinkers and students to explore the great human questions of our time.
*****************
The Russian economy is now in the toilet and oil and gas prices will fall further in a drill baby drill world.
Millions of people in the world use dung as their primary source of energy. The up side for fossil fuels is summed up in the slogan drill baby drill. That is why opening of new coal mines in Australia is more difficult than it should be and is opposed by greens etc. The ALP reaction to gas in Victoria is batshit crazy.
Drill baby drill is the correct attitude. Your attitude is the wrong attitude. Simple as that. Energy prices ought to fall all -things being equal- when the woke are pushed out of the way and development is made simpler.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqcDyHdbYd4
Greta Thunberg’s climate crusade is heading for defeat | Michael Shellenberger interview.
Even people who think that there is global warming and that it is CO2 driven and man made can reject your woke poison!
Like Greta, Steve Owens is in a dead end. The policies advocated have been catastrophic. A drill baby drill world is one where greens do not get elected and the pseudoleft is an understood issue.
Just stop oil is not a bunch of leftists no matter what the openly rightwing say. People are not ‘leftist’ when they hide the obvious liberation of the Iraqi people and the Iraq war for democracy with the stupid notion that people should think of this war as oil war 2!
There are many people who still have concerns about climate etc but they ought NOT be worried about fossil fuel production when billions of people are as energy poor as currently.
You get ‘lost in the weeds’ and miss the bigger picture! Just like when the ALP was thrown out over the carbon tax! People are standing on one side or the other! Drill baby drill is the slogan for those of us who are standing up against you and your fellow greens. Promoting rapid development has always been a left position. You pretending that forcing people to do this or that is industrial policy rather than typical thuggish green conduct is a joke. The left says just get the fuck out of the way and stop spreading your religion!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZPHUuyHsY8&t=882s
With Trump’s historic victory in the books, the implications of his policies and promises could send shockwaves worldwide. So what does this mean for the future of the West and Trump’s impact on the global stage?
Expect to learn whether Konstantin is actually right wing or not, if the Trump victory will inspire a broader movement across the globe, what happens if Trump is not able to deliver the big changes he promised, Konstantin’s take on the current state of the UK, what the future of legacy media will look like, whether the mass exodus of users from X is a big deal and much more…
–
00:00 Is Konstantin Right-Wing?
06:31 Why Politics Prioritises Optics Over Outcomes
19:39 Will Trump’s America Inspire Confidence?
37:22 What Happens if Trump Fails to Deliver?
44:00 What Will Happen to the Right-Wing Snowflakes?
etc
a good general observation.
Mr Schellenberger makes the case that CO2 emissions are in decline. He then cherry picks some countries to back his argument up, i.e. the UK pumps out less now than it did in the 1950’s What the 1950’s when the UK was an industrial powerhouse, and the power came from coal? Yes, coal the material that was phased out of the UK power grid in the 1980’s.
Why does he cherry pick these “postindustrial” countries and not look at the world in total.
Here is the world in total.
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions
Steve provides us a FACT DUMP from the work of Hannah Ritchie and a mate; But Steve your green propagandist activist explicitly makes the argument that Schellenberger -who is also a climate worry wort- makes that you do nothing to disprove by dumping Hannah Ritchie guff. To prove my point watch Hannah give her very own TED talk!!
Are We the Last Generation — or the First Sustainable One? | Hannah Ritchie | TED
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=Hannah+Ritchie+and+Max+Roser&mid=4DEE7E0C22E19D22B85A4DEE7E0C22E19D22B85A&mcid=099357CA6CF04926960EF1AD08CDAECF&FORM=VIRE
There she is with her multiple environmental degrees! And it’s all about sustainable and all so reasonable sounding! But if she was correct then there would be no need for the compulsion that you actually insist on with Paris type agreements being only the thin end of the wedge!
The notion that this anti meat, anti fossil fuel, Co2 fearing climate alarmist is contributing anything to the argument is laughable. She however has noticed that things aren’t that bad even for her so she is making the argument directly that Steve says she is not when he dumps her DATA on the unsuspecting. But you see I already knew you didn’t know what you were dumping on this site as that is part of your style. You are not trying to understand anything so you achieve that immediately.
Naturally life long green activist ‘data scientist’ Hannah has no explanation of why naturally falling levels of CO2 could be in anyway good for life forms or how that might end up if humans had not reversed the inexorable trend to doom that we have only quite recently discovered. That the earth is greening of late gets no mention! And so on and on…But sustainable and a good life for all well now that is something she can get her tiny green filled head around. As for Steve he just had a green dump to mislead people.
Hannah is a notorious mis-user of data as one can tell from her Ted talk!
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=William+Happer+vs+Greta+Et+Al&&mid=768D6EE2C805E5D29D01768D6EE2C805E5D29D01&&FORM=VRDGAR
Think about what Happer is actually saying! Stop knowing already! doubt yourself!
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=William%20Happer%20vs%20Greta%20Et%20Al&mid=9B32385BC2F92371D2319B32385BC2F92371D231&ajaxhist=0
Happer is worth much more than any teen Greta!
Obviously you are not doing any work on trying to understand this issue. You are CO2 ignorant and you are still talking rot but even about Marohassy who is not saying what you are implying you have to stop and think. Why was she at this conference? She is a fellow traveler that’s why. You are the one that is cherry picking a comment that she made over a particular issue.
Get clear on this. Happer is just telling you the very basics of why there is no climate emergency.
In Denial about the Science – Part 2, ARC in London
November 4, 2023 By jennifer
Jordan Peterson was a significant presence throughout the three days and promoted continually as the wisest man – with all the answers.
This was a key mistake, because, while Peterson has an important message, which mostly begins and ends with the biblical stories, he seems unable to publicly acknowledge this his Christian faith and that Western civilisation’s greatest success is science following from regard for the rational without demeaning the important roles of religion and faith. To be clear, and in the interests of getting to a core issue that the ARC conference was purportedly about, I am going to suggest that Jordon Peterson doesn’t actually understand, or have any empathy for, science beyond clinical psychology. His obsession is with biblical stories and culture and how we can best live as individuals within families. This is all so very important, but it is not central to the success of Western civilisation – it is but a part of the story. And if the West is to survive it will need to maintain its technological superiority, that I will discuss in Part 3 of this series.
Western civilisation’s success can be attributed to the innovations that followed men who became curious about the natural and physical world beyond their families and communities. Men, it was mostly men who were given the opportunity, to understand nature, natural systems extending even beyond our solar system and describing this universe mathematically and empirically.
Jordon Peterson’s genius is understanding the nature of humanity, but not necessarily what was special about even our first and most important scientists in the western tradition beginning perhaps with Johannes Kepler. Kepler’s First Law states that planets move in elliptical paths around the Sun. He also discovered that planets move proportionally faster in their orbits when they are closer to the Sun; this became Kepler’s Second Law and is critical to understanding climate change over geological time.
Rather than name, and so acknowledge, the most important of these first scientists in the Western tradition, in the conference handbook, Jordon Peterson laments as he did on stage:
Five centuries of ascendant reductionist Enlightenment rationality have revealed that this starkly objective world lacks all intrinsic meaning. A century and a half or more of corrosive cultural criticism has undermined our understanding of and faith in the traditions necessary to unite and guide us …
‘We find ourselves, in consequence, inundated by a continual onslaught of ominous, demoralising messages, most particularly in the form of environmental catastrophism ..
In Peterson’s opening address, and subsequently, the nature of this catastrophism is never discussed or assessed.
This is something that the early scientists puzzled over and described empirically and mathematically. Jordon Peterson could have explained this if he took the time to consult more widely, if he had any interest at all in the history of science that is fundamental to understanding the success of Western civilisation.
Science and its central role in the success, particularly the military success of the West, was hardly acknowledged at this inaugural ARC conference, with Peterson and other delegates preferring the comfort of biblical stories and talk about families and communities. But these can only persist if they can keep the barbarians beyond the gates, at least in part through military superiority. Such is the nature of how individuals, communities and nation-states arrange themselves.
There was no rational discussion and debate about the very issue, human-caused global warming, that is driving so much individual anxiety and causing a growing weakness in our national security across nations that have a Western tradition. In the next post in this series I will explain how concern about global warming is undermining energy security and thus national security.
There was no opportunity for any consideration of the underlying physics nor the empirical data that would enable some assessment of whether the core theory of catastrophic climate change is supported by the evidence, or not.
Jordon Peterson concerned himself in this opening address with the story of Job in the Bible, a man who suffered because of his faith rather than because of any natural catastrophe – manmade or otherwise. Peterson’s final address included the claim we have such power over nature, we can green the deserts.
There is a biblical tradition, that recognises deserts as places to wander, fast, and where one can find God. I’m not sure if that will be as easy if they all become places for easy fishing, or at least relative safety where one can escape the heat and sand and all that can make our existence seemingly unbearable.
On the first morning Somali-born activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, in conversation with former Australian Prime Minister John Anderson and British philosopher Os Guinness said,
Western Civilisation is a cut flower, and cut flowers die… but we have the remnants, the symbols of western heritage, and their seeds. All we have to do, those of us who inherited it, is to go and see them, grow them, nurture them, water them – and when they’re attacked, fight for them.
In fact, it is not nearly this simple.
There is a need for debate, but not between the ignorant, there is a need for those with expertise in both mathematics and science to be able to reconnect with the roots of Western Civilisation that means being allowed to be curious about the earth, and also the Earth, in which the seeds of the flowers might be planted.
There was hardly any mention of science at the conference, and instead of including the most imminent scientist who was at the conference, Richard Lindzen, on a most important panel session on the evening of the second day we had to suffer the ignorance of both Jordon Peterson and Alex Epstein when Dennis Prager asked an important question: Is Antarctica melting or not?
As Magatta Wade and Michael Shellenberger also on this panel ducked the question, Alex Epstein, but only after Dennis Prager pressed the point, claimed, ‘Antarctica is melting, but slowly.’
I felt a need to interject from where I was sitting at a table toward the back of the room at this ‘ARC in the Evening – Sector Dinner’ advertised as ‘Energy and Environment: Fuelling the Future and Powering Progress’.
‘Incorrect,’ I called out.
After hearing for two days about the importance of the truth, I was not going to be silent.
Jordon Peterson, also on the panel, on stage, saw and heard me clearly and took over from Alex Epstein commenting, lifting his microphone after running his hand over his face as he had a habit of doing across the three days, he said into his microphone, ‘The problem is that we don’t know when it [the melting at Antarctica] began or when it will end.’
‘Incorrect,’ I called out again.
This time Peterson, asked me directly from the stage, ‘Why? How do you know [when the melting will start and end]?’
‘The physics of the universe,’ I called back, ‘There are cycles. We can forecast when they will begin and when they will end.’
I went on to mention the ‘Milankovitch cycles’, the 100,000-year cycles, that can be described mathematically relating to the orbit of the Earth about the sun and its changing eccentricity. This can be seen empirically in the ice-core data including from Vostok at the Antarctic. I could have gone on to explain that we are only now beginning to understand the likely effect of falling sea levels and changing orbits on submarine volcanism that likely increases dramatically, precipitating the end to each of the last half dozen or so ice ages.
This chart is from Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science (2013), fourth in the (so far) five-volume series by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), published by The Heartland Institute. NIPCC is a project of Heartland, SEPP, and the (now inactive) Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change.
Peterson turned back to the panel and they wrapped up. If I had been given a microphone, I could have elaborated further about the importance of understanding scale and also phase alignment, but no one was going to give me a microphone.
Across the three days there were no roving microphones – none.
Discussion was limited to each panel, and their preordained experts.
These experts are listed across six pages of the inaugural ARC conference handbook, beginning with Agu Irukwu, a Senior Pastor of Jesus House for All Nations in London and ending with Winston Marshall, a grammy award-winning musician.
There were scientists in the audience, very few, but notably Richard Lindzen. He was at this dinner.
And so, my final act of defiance, was when Denis Prager at the suggestion of Michael Schellenberger called for Bjorn Lomborg to stand-up toward the very end of the panel session. Calling for Lomborg to stand-up because we should acknowledge him as a great advocate for the truth on this issue of ‘energy and the environment’. And so I could but call out again from the back of the room,
‘Then let’s also acknowledge the presence of Richard Lindzen’.
Denis Prager could not see me, and he asked for clarification, as to whose name had been called out. A gentleman from a table closer to the stage called back, ‘Richard Lindzen’.
And so, after political scientist Bjorn Lomborg was cheered as a campion of the truth because he is clearly Michael Shellenberger’s’ favoured wiseman, there was opportunity for atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen to stand and also be applauded by the several hundred of us at that dinner.
Early in the panel discussion Shellenberger had specifically commented that ‘scepticism’ must be closed-down and ‘the science’ of the IPCC accepted as true. This is perhaps the intention of Bjorn Lomborg, and it would seem other intellectual drivers of this inaugural ARC conference. Though I would argue they are not really intellectual, but more political in their aspirations and motivations.
Worth a read
https://www.ametsoc.org/index.cfm/ams/policy/policy-memos/climate-change-the-basics/#:~:text=As%20a%20public%20issue%2C%20climate,Climate%20is%20changing.
Why are you persisting with both your simple-minded alarmist rubbish and spreading your blatant distortion that amounts to lies about Jennifer Marohasy coauthor of Climate Change: The Facts 2025
Even just putting up her full written work does NOT excuse you in any way because it is contextless and cherry picked for your purpose. It just proves what you are up to. She is Not saying that Epstein or Peterson are ignorant and is only complaining about one panel that she thought ought to have been done differently than having them as non-specialists as the panelists.
https://ipa.org.au/publications-ipa/books/climate-change-the-facts-2025
This talk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9NX9a2vyQE
is far more interesting than your ignorant anti CO2 alarmist junk.
Ian Plimer: Climate Change: The Facts 2025 | Tom Nelson Pod #270
Dig baby dig. Drill baby drill.
Jan 5, 2025 Tom Nelson Podcast
Professor Ian Plimer is Australia’s best-known geologist. He is Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne, where he was Professor and Head of Earth Sciences. He was Professor at the University of Newcastle, Professor at The University of Adelaide and Professor in Munich (Germany). He was also on the staff at the University of New England, the University of New South Wales, Macquarie University and North Broken Hill Ltd.
He has published more than 130 scientific papers on geology and was an editor of the Encyclopedia of Geology. This is his thirteenth book written for the general public. Professor Plimer has received numerous national and international awards for his scientific work.
00:00 Introduction and Book Overview
01:34 Geology and Climate Change
06:22 Oceanic Influences on Climate
11:41 Volcanic Activity and Climate Impact
18:32 Historical Climate Events and Human Impact
30:51 Dynamic Planet: Oceans and Climate
31:39 The Role of Plant Food and Industry
32:28 Antarctica’s Geological Mysteries
36:56 Methane and Earth’s Ancient Atmospheres
38:45 Solar Influence on Climate
41:54 Future Climate Predictions
43:37 Preparing for Natural Disasters
45:23 The Younger Dryas and Human Adaptation
49:27 CO2 Cycle and Measurement Challenges
54:57 Political Shifts and Climate Policy
56:44 Looking Ahead: Future Plans and Reflections
Will you admit that you have misrepresented Jenifer Marohasy or do I have to expose
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNU3v-yRTOo
Jan 10, 2025 #wildfires #GavinNewsom #Palisades
In this edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Hanson, author of “The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation,” provides an analysis of California’s wildfire management and policy failures under Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Hanson discusses the mismanagement of resources, lack of effective forest management, and prioritization of diversity and inclusion over merit in firefighting efforts. He labels the situation as a “systems breakdown” and warns of the larger implications for California’s future. #dailysignal #wildfires #GavinNewsom #KarenBass #climatechange #California #Palisades
00:00 Introduction and Overview
00:29 Personal Connection to California
00:41 The Los Angeles Fire Disaster
01:34 Systemic Failures and Leadership Critique
02:18 Environmental and Policy Issues
04:28 Insurance and Regulatory Challenges
07:18 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
and he thinks these dolts are leftists!
Southern California is in severe drought. The winds blow at 90-100mph but obviously the problem is that the fire chief is gay.
Victor Hanson does make a very good point. DEI hires have weakened the LA Fire Dept which has flooded the service with women who now make up 3.5% of uniformed personnel. The Fire Dept. chief is an example of DEI fast tracking. Kristin Crowley may have been an athlete before joining but was fast tracked to the top job after a measly 25 years in the job.
I think her personal motto may as well be Women hold up half the sky.
Clearly in LA they only hold up 3.5% of the sky
I am surprised that Victor Hanson didn’t mention that the inventor of DEI was Joseph Stalin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziH9fleTWQM&t=4s
‘…but obviously the problem is that the fire chief is gay.’
Why do you bring this up when it was explicitly repudiated by Hanson as any sort of problem? I think I know why and it’s the same reason you can’t learn from people like Lidzen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LVSrTZDopM and Peterson, Plimer, Epstein, Marohasy, Happer, Curry, Patrick More, Lomborg, let alone a communist like me or Arthur Dent.
People that are rabid anticommunists like you and Hanson and all the others above ought to be able to work through more issues than just all nodding along to your Mao was a monster chant! More than just your agreement with Putin that the attack against the tyrant Saddam was wrong! More than just repeating the Chomsky Greenspan of course it was oil twaddle. Lenin was wrong etc. But you can’t even begin the process because you have no intention of learning anything.
You approach work presented here with the vile intent of exposure of the ‘non-believers’ and will not correct even your blatant mis-directions as above with Marohasy. Like with the Pell case you spend your efforts in deliberately not learning! You behave in a pathetic manner.
Why couldn’t you have been the one who was predicting that the Russian casualties would over the post election pre-Trump period go through the roof? Why could I spot what was about to happen? Yesterday the number was 1,750. Tenth spot of 1,560 on 12/11/24 is now down to 46th spot. That is staggering in its implications. That massive 1,750 now can’t make it into the top ten!
If you just listen to Lidzen you could totally relax about CO2.
‘The whole picture of the greenhouse is misconceived.’
There is no problem with CO2. There are real problems like when the fascist Vlad Putin plans a war in Ukraine and is funding armed thugs rampaging all over Africa etc. Or when Obama turns away from the problems of the people and creates the result that was Syria!
Your comments are blatantly spam like and not worth bothering with.
I can learn a lot from a brit former intelligence officer who had a role in Northern Ireland. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XUj6w8ReB0
He happens to also think that Ukraine is winning.
so does this guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOD6R-aeZ4g
Jan 12, 2025
Russia Is Losing the War in Ukraine, says a former senior US diplomat. In today’s interview I’m honored to be joined by Ambassador James Gilmore, who explains the broader consequences of Russia’s actions and what’s at stake if the international community fails to push back against Putin’s aggressive imperialist and expansionist ambitions. As a Trump-era diplomat James Gilmore has had firsthand experience of negotiating with the US’s European partners and our common Russian foe.
———-
James Gilmore was the former US Ambassador to the OSCE during the first administration of President-elect Donald Trump. A member of the Republican Party, Gilmore also chaired the Republican National Committee in 2001 and served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe during the first Trump administration. In 1997 James Gilmore was elected as Governor of Virginia with a majority of 56%, where improvements to education quality and teacher numbers formed one of his key manifesto policies.
*****************************
There are some people that will want to sell out the Ukrainians and others like Scott Riter who are nothing less than traitors. I wonder why Steve is never interested in solving the difficult problems in his thinking like those that led him to believe that Putin was a Genius! I had said for over a decade that Putin was a strategic dolt!
NOW Steve thinks Putin is a strategic dolt! But no change to the thinking that led directly to the errors in the first place!
Wow, the history of race relations in the LAFD is way more complex than I thought
https://www.lafire.com/black_ff/black.htm