@Andrewgen_Receptors:
I’ve been protected in a similar manner before. I work 12-hour shifts. Five one week, and two the next. That comes out to 84 hours, or 42 per week. One of the best parts of working where I work is that we could build up “Floating Rest Days” with that(four hours every two weeks). Eventually, someone left to go somewhere else. That didn’t work out, so he eventually came back looking for compensation for Floating Rest Days he’d willingly left on the table. My employer’s legal team looked into the situation and realized that FRD was illegal under federal law(at least, hour-for-hour FRD), despite its being loved by everyone employed there. Now, it’s gone—replaced by one eight-hour shift every two weeks, which sucks in comparison. And it’s the only real complaint I have in 13 years there.
Make sure he’s wearing a fresh daipy and has an address card in his pocket when he goes outside.
I feel like most heads of state and governments have grown more timid and risk averse. Putin, Xi, Biden, Johnson, the EU etc. I think it’s because of the ever growing complexity and interconnectedness of the world, and we are more aware that even seemingly small decisions can have wide ranging disastrous effects. The EU with their glacier like procedures and bureaucracy try to keep stability that way, Xi and Putin are of course running repressive police states. There’s this desperate need to keep a lid on things. Of course, they can’t. I don’t care how repressive they get or who’s in the various offices. I think totalitarianism is an unavoidable consequence of the technological systems we build, and that officials don’t matter any more. Maybe an election can alter things slightly for a few years, but overall the direction the world is heading is clear. Unless billions of us start revolting and shutting shit down, the ideas of liberalism, freedom, individual autonomy, and human rights will all be consigned to history. No matter who we elect, it’s inevitable due to the technological complexity. People seem to love police states though, so I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for the revolution. lol
The most infuriating part is that all of this could have been avoided in the last eight years… But hey, we wouldn’t want to “provoke” Russia, otherwise they might… I dunno… start a major war?
How do you know that pouring weapons into Ukraine 8 years ago would have prevented this war? You don’t, no one does. Below is the Soviet propaganda for a whole bunch of conflicts ( again I’m relying on Dima Vorobiev). What makes you think Russia would have backed off for any reason whatsoever? Clearly the only “sin” Putin has committed in the eyes of the Russians is to embarrass the nation by showing how weak the military is. What would they have done if the Obama administration sent weapons to Ukraine? Do nothing and look weak? Seems to me like looking weak is the one thing the Russians can’t abide.
“The Soviet Union didn’t “invade” other nations. We have totally different words for that, each of them encapsulating the justification.
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When we went into the territories along the ethnic rim of the Russian civilization that declared their independence in 1917–1920, like Ukraine and Transcaucasia, we “came with an assistance to”, or “helped” the local pro-Soviet forces.
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During the ill-fated march on Warsaw in 1920, we “repealed the aggression of the White Poles”. The first clashes with them happened on the Belorussian and Ukrainian territories. These both were formerly imperial lands, which gave us the reason to consider us protectors of our East Slav brothers, while the bourgeois Poles were the invaders.
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Likewise, in 1939, we “took under protection” the Ukrainian and Belorussian parts of the “failed Polish state”.
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The Baltic occupation of 1940 happened “subject to agreements with the Baltic governments” and “in accordance with the will of the working people of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania”.
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Bessarabia was “transferred” to us by Romania, after an “insistence” of the Soviet government who “sought a peaceful solution” to all issues that could “cause disagreements” between the USSR and Romania.
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The Winter war of 1939–40 was an “answer to unending provocations from the Finnish military” after Finland turned down “peace-loving suggestions of the Soviet government” about ceding territories of strategic importance in proximity to Leningrad (St Peterburg) and our Baltic navy base.
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Our actions in Eastern and Central Europe in WW2 no one called “invasion”. We call it either “liberation”, or in the case of Germany and Hungary, vzyátiye, a purely military term meaning “capturing”. (Austria was “liberated”, too. We didn’t consider the popular will of the 99.73% of the local population to be Germans in 1938 as enough reason for considering them part of Germany. I’m thrilled how this logic is going to pan out about Crimea ’14 after Putin.)
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Hungary ‘56 and Czechoslovakia ’68 were “brotherly help” and “defending the achievements of Socialism”.
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Afghanistan ’79 was an “insertion of a limited military contingent” and an “internationalist assistance”.”
Do you think russia would have invaded if ukraine kept their nukes?
What good is suspending rights? Emergency measures, as we have all learned recently are a great excuse to crush your political rivals and limit the rights of your citizens. What good does martial law do anyway? How does it help the war effort in any way?
Second, I would recommend you dive in to the recent history of this region, Russia’s involvement and the US’s involvement. Zelinsky is hardly a good guy, though you cannot say that now, because people are all emotional, not rational about the situation.
I am a little annoyed at the anti-Putin frenzy now after all this time, since he’s been an antagonist since 2000.
The Russians are the aggressors in this case, hence they tip the balance on wrong in their favor. But make no mistake, we are dealing with bad and worse, not good and bad. Hell, go read all the NYT articles about Ukrainian corruption.
350 years of Russian foreign policy - the Berlin blockade, Pristina airport incident, you name it…Whether it’s Stalin, Alexander I or Putin, a desire to deescalate or cut a deal is seen as a “weakness” that needs to be exploited.
It’s an incorrect framing. Those weren’t “their nukes”, they were Soviet nukes on the territory of newly independent Ukraine.
Now, Erdogan is a piece of shit, but he’s not a dumb piece of shit. He’s using this to score cheap rhetorical points but he’s right. The fact is that Turks supplied the Ukrainians with armed Bayraktar drones while Macron and Biden was constantly preoccupied not to “offend” Putin.
Wouldn’t Erdogan take Crimea for himself if given half a chance?
He suspended all 11 political parties, not just pro-russia ones. And how shocking that their are pro-russian factions in Ukraine of all places. They were Russia for most of their existence. They were the capital of Russia at one point.
Russia and Ukraine have more in common than they do not.
And sure as previously stated it’s very fashionable to be anti-Putin, anti-Russian, the only good Russian is a dead Russian, now. It’s also very emotionally driven and foolish. You know when this massive anti-Putin sentiment would have been helpful? When we were dealing with Syria and the imaginary red-line. When we were working closely with the Kremlin on the Iran nuclear deal. When then Sec. Clinton struck a uranium ponzi scheme with Russia, when she brought that idiotic “Reset” button to the Kremlin. And on and on and on… Yeah, that anti-Putin sentiment, would have been handy then. We wouldn’t have made idiotic deals they benefited them massively and did nothing for us.
It’s too little, too late.
Thanks for noticing now, but the damage has long since been done and Russia was able to rebuild and equip it’s military apparatus with our loving assistance. And Europe, the stupidity of European leaders is special. I digress…
There is a lot that led up to this moment and yet suddenly everybody’s hands are clean, except Russia? Does that really make sense?
It’s hard to know who the good guys are here. It’s easy to say Russia’s bad, but Ukraine, the Chinese and the US all have their hands very dirty here.
Because half the country is Russian. That’s why. It would be like the US invading Canada and the Canadians declaring pro-American parties enemy combatants. Ukraine and Russia are seriously intertwined. It was longer part of Russia than it ever was sovereign. Also, you don’t want to piss off half the country you need on your side. A great way to drive the pro-Russia half Ukraine to Russia’s side is to make them an enemy of Ukraine.
This is what you get from the MSM news. Lies and stupidity. I have heard so much conflicting info, the only thing I can judge to be true is Russia and Ukraine are fighting. “Ukraine is winning”, “Russia continues to take territory”, “Ukraine is winning”, “Russia is slow rolling it’s invasion.” ← How the fuck are you supposed to determine what is happening based on that.
Of course not. Why would you want to pay more for your own defense? Oh I know, you had US military on speed dial to deal with problems for you.
The pragmatic thing to do, would be to ramp up our military readiness and then exhaust every diplomatic angle you have. That’s what most presidents would have done through out the cold war until now. We don’t know if Russia can be reasoned with, because we haven’t tried. Maybe they tell us to fuck off and nothing we can say will stop them. At least we tried, we’re not even trying because these fucks want this war. And it seems more and more likely we’re going to get it. We are standing up our military readiness. You know who else has troops on Ukraine’s border? We do. There is a massive military stand up happening in Poland, probably NATO, with mostly US troops, but it’s a big secret we’re not supposed to know about. The military told the media to fuck off when asked questions about it.
Biden doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing. As predicted he is fucking this up everyway possible. I think it’s pretty obvious he’s not really in control, he cannot even complete a sentence. His main concern is bringing about a “new world order” (you cannot make this shit up). He’s marching us to war and talking about and faux utopia that exists in the minds of a few.
They do. But if it’s not BLM the media doesn’t cover it. The American trucker convoy happened, it was blacked out in the media.
Unions are a different story. Good intentions gone horribly wrong.
You think? “What border? there’s no problem at the border.” “Inflation is Putin’s fault!” real leaders take responsibility, not look for scape goats.
I read somewhere that they never really had the capability to launch those nukes. Leftovers from Soviet times and Ukraine didn’t have the launch codes.
This might be true, but the part of nukes that actually matters is the enriched uranium. Many countries have the ability to create large missiles that can carry a warhead (explosive). Turning this missile into a “nuke” means simply being able to stuff nuclear munitions into it’s payload.
No, because this isn’t 1783. Not enough Tatars in Crimea (thanks to Tsarist/Communist policies).
Biden/USA sent hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military hardware and weaponry to Ukraine in the weeks and months leading up to the invasion.
Russia was always going to invade. Regardless of how we responded to his actions/words. Trying to deescalate eliminated the propoganda that Russia was forced into the war and thus undercut any international support Russia may have garnered. And let’s not forget the large majority of Americans do not want another direct conflict and wanted to stay out of this.
I couldn’t agree with this more.
And let us not mention how many senators have stock and stakes in the companies providing said hardware and weaponry…
Stoltenberg is talking now about how they are beefing up NATO’s eastern flank, and continuing to support the Ukrainian defense. Still he’s saying that we have a responsibility to see that the conflict doesn’t spread outside Ukraine, because of the further death and destruction it will cause. So that’s our responsibility is it, not Russias?
He also says the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine would “fundamentally change the nature of the conflict, and have long lasting repercussions.”
Could just as well come out and say: “kill every last Ukrainian if you want, just please don’t use chemical weapons to do it, it would make us look even worse.”
I might have missed it, but what do you think the play should be for NATO and the west going forward? What do you think are the risks and benefits of the strategy?
Not all of it sent before the invasion, as not to “provoke” Russia.
No, the decision was made in 2014 after a lukewarm response to Crimea and confirmed in 2015 after successful encroachment in Syria.
WTF is wrong with Biden? Why oh why does every statement he makes proudly flaunts his weakness?
$650 mil in the year leading up to the invasion. 90 tons of military aid from the U.S. arrives in Ukraine as Russia tensions rise : NPR
Would it be better to stay silent on the intelligence reports regarding Russia likely to use chemical weapons? Or are you suggesting the US give an ultimatum?
The problem, IMO, is that Russia will call our hand every single time because the chips Putin is willing to lose, far outnumbers the chips the USA is willing to lose. So playing tough and strong doesn’t matter to someone who has already made up their mind and has nothing to lose.
A stop light doesn’t matter to a car with no brakes and a stuck accelerator. We are just hoping it runs out of gas getting through Ukraine.