Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Foreign Policy & News The long and winding road to Dumbass

This you?


The realists were warning about the need to work with Russia and take into account their security interest for decades. Don’t see a whiff of realism in your position.

I tooled up my shop over a long stretch of time but before 2016. Frankly, I’d have a hard time, given the state of the geopolitics today, to recommend to anyone what to tool up with. Could you?

The realist warned our belligerent antagonism risked integrating Russia, China and the whole Eurasian land mass into cooperative economic and military integration. This seems to be accelerating now. BRICS, ASEAN, SCO, BRI, etc.. The Mearsheimer video everyone here dismissed described this scenario but hey, don’t let objetive reality interfere with a subjective one.

My view is always on the realist side. No one ever "wins" wars. Ukraine will lose, Russia will lose, the rest of the world will lose less but will also lose.

I'm not exactly a cheerleader for either side, but on this one, I say Putin is the assh*le.

But commerce must continue. Turkey is doing what they have to do.

Meh… no one cared about the 14k civilians killed by the a$$holes and fascist we armed and trained in western Ukraine. A million displaced eastern Ukranians since the civil war broke out precipitated by the US coup. A$$holes that bombed civilians for eight years and got surprisingly little attention.

Realist, as I understand them, try to avoid conflicts by recognizing the interests of peer competitors and negotiation around differences. Oddly, arming fascists to overthrow a government on the border of Russia seems to be just hunky dory in some camps. Russia’s eventual provoked reaction not so much.

And yet if the shoe were on the other foot and it was happening on our border….

Lawrence is a dying bread of clear eyed reporters that knew how to leave their politics in a drawer when writing from the field. Sadly, going back to perhaps the invasion of Grenada, the fourth estate has been turned more and more into a propaganda bullhorn for the security state with respect to reporting on state violence.

Not that there wasn’t always a history of distorting news to fit the owners political bent but I think Lawrence is getting at the reporting in the field aspects themselves and less on the word smithing and massaging that happens after reports are turned in.

“ I cannot but relate the dire circumstance Crooke and the Telegraph contributor depict to the accelerating spiral we see in our media and our public space since the Ukraine crisis erupted into open conflict. My head spins, indeed, at the spectacle of media coverage this poor and the extent to which it has stupefied the reading and viewing public.”

So Far As I Can Make Out

I’m always curious why anyone would be an active participant in this process. If not cold hard cash, what do they get out of simping for the establishment? I remember the Liberals criticisms of the invasion and conduct of the war in Iraq. Now Liberals are in the vanguard of cheerleading this current bloody mess. Maybe it’s not about what’s being done but rather who gets to be in charge? Dunno, but this is a PMC led war effort. From behind naturally, with all the plausible deniability that’s such a hallmark of this credentialed class.

“INVESTING

Commodities

Company News
News Wire
Aug 19, 2022
Germany Risks a Factory Exodus as Energy Prices Bite Hard
Todd Gillespie, Stefan Nicola and Monica Raymunt, Bloomberg News

The Evonik Industries AG chemical park in Marl, Germany, on Dec. 3, 2019.
The Evonik Industries AG chemical park in Marl, Germany, on Dec. 3, 2019. , Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) -- Europe’s industrial heartland faces a potential exodus as manufacturers of German car parts, chemicals and steel struggle to absorb power prices that rocket to new highs almost every day.
Power and gas prices in Germany more than doubled in just two months, with year-ahead electricity -- a benchmark for the continent -- soaring to 570 euros ($573) per megawatt hour. Two years ago, it was 40 euros“

Germany Risks a Factory Exodus as Energy Prices Bite Hard

Well.. the purpose of NATO used to be keeping the Americans in the Russians out and Germany down so mission accomplished, I guess.

The cynic in me asks ‘who benefits’ beyond the neocons playing their war games with maps of the world (and always losing, btw). It’s not like the US is going to be able to step in and replace these manufacturers in all cases. We’ve lost that institutional ability to a large extent thanks to neoliberalisms offshoring. Something Germany had been largely successful in resisting, up till now.

Good thing we have China acting as backstop for any future loss of manufacturing capacity that’s currently supplied by the EU. Don’t worry everybody, Neocons got this.

Trust me...I won't.

Neocons, neolibs, neosocs, none of them worry me. Which one is Putin? I suppose he should worry me but he doesn't.

If the West has pushed him too far and he deems nuclear holocaust the only way he can save face then we all know whose fault the holocaust is...

Neocons...? Right? In the instant that I am vaporized, I want to know who to point my (skeletal)finger at.

Germany needs to take an industrial holiday. China has problems of its own...

No, it's hard to get me to worry much about this sh*t. Not the Dems and the Reeps, not Nato and not Putin.

My experience is that these things always work themselves out over time. Sometimes millions die in the process. Sometimes The Dark Ages ensue, and sometimes we become extinct.

All we can do is marvel that we live such luxurious lives in such an age of conflict!

And hope our luck continues to hold.

So you're basically saying that politics doesn't really mean doo-doo to you, right?

I wouldn't be here if that was true now would I?

I don't worry about politics. No matter how I vote or what my opinion is, if Vlad Putin chooses nuclear holocaust, I'm toast.

If Republicans declare the Constitution null and void and suspend elections then what am I gonna do?

Roll my wheelchair into the middle of the street and start shooting? I don't even have a gun.

I don't have a gun because I'm not worried that I'm going to need one. I don't lock my house at night because I'm not worried. When I had a car I left the keys in it.

Life is too short to be angry and worried about things I have no control over.

Yeah, I’m with you on the Waddya gunna do? They’re gunna do what they want wether the we like it or not.

I’m more fascinated with how these geopolitical shifts are playing out in real time and how it plays out in the media, economy, domestic politics, etc..

There will be consequences though due to the economic realignments happening and, unless you’ve got it made in the shade, your gunna get hit by em. There’s that.

Neocons… yeah, there a thing and you can choose to dismiss em but I find em about as moronic and bloody minded as any of the other groupings of identities that get discussed around here ad Nauseam.

It’s not like they haven’t been culpable for the killing of millions of people around the world. What’s the current butchers bill in Ukraine? 150-200k killed? 500k injured. Seems important.

Seems worthy of discussing the ideology that provoked this disaster?


Mebbe there needs to be a ‘what’s Neoconservatism’ thread?

That would be interesting.

I have a pretty good grasp of partisan politics and the ins and outs of US elections.

Almost nothing in the way of global politics though. I don't really have opinions because I don't have enough information. And it's a rabbit hole I'm not liable to go down.

I just sit here on this riverbank and watch the bodies float by, sometimes there's more, sometimes less, I don't know where they come from.