I think it’s a done deal already. We’re just watching the optics play out.
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I think the most difficult thing to get throught are the security guarantees.
I doubt Russia will agree easily to guarantees, and if there’s not something (I think NATO is not the best option, but something), Russia will relaunch the attack in few years.
How much land Ukraine gives can be negotiated. I think both countries are so beat up/tired that compromises can be found.
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It seems like Russia should feel beat up and tired! Hundreds of thousands of soldiers killed, NATO expanded to new nations, European defense spending up, US mucking around in former Soviet satellites, etc. Except for territory in Ukraine, it’s like Putin is losing everywhere else.
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Yeah. I think Putin might want to get out from this war in a way he can mask it as a victory. It should have been easy win, but it has been a failure.
He seems reluctant to give up his goals though.
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I guess it makes sense that this is scripted, and they’re not flying around by the seats of their pants.
And if Putin wanted to look tough and skip a cease fire to jump right to a treaty, this had to be done.
What are the chances Pres Trump goes to Moscow?
I believe very good if Putin holds up his side of the agreement as it progresses. Zero chance if Putin violates any part of the agreement.
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That’s shouldn’t be a big deal. According to 130 Intel agents, Anthony Weiner, Hillary Clinton, and some dead guy who didn’t want to keep a secret- he was born there and raised as a kgb asset.
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OK. Maybe Presidential visits to Mosciw aren’t as rare as I first thought.
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I think Putin does that immediately he can do it/it’s worthy. But that probably takes years beyond Trump’s presidency.
He’s broken diplomatic promises several times in his lifetime. The problem for him is that he has very limited tools to fuck with US.
There has been rumours about already agreed territorial changes. But we’ll see if they hold water.
I believe it is far more complex. I do believe that the Trump administration has a good idea of territorial changes that is tolerable. But offers and counteroffers. are yet to play out.
Just keep in mind that Trump negotiates like a businessman and not like a politician who is testing focus groups to get the political feel that dictates a pantywaist decision.
I’m sure specific details need to be hammered out and all, but I would be shocked if this war doesn’t end really soon. Nobody has the upper hand on the battlefield.
This is something I actually think too.
Trump tested different solutions with Putin, now he’s going with Putin approved models to Zelenskyi and see what’s Ukraine’s counter. Wonder what’s the role of the Coalition of the Willing (uh, what a cheesy name) in this. Maybe back up Ukraine’s interests.
I would be completely shocked if anything has changed when January rolls around. Putin can’t back down.
Russia and Ukraine are good examples of how even after a country isn’t run by communists in name anymore, the corrupt state organism doesn’t magically go away after so many levers of power and influence have been around for so long. Socialism is a wealth extraction cult from start-to-finish, passed from one crook to the next over generations or longer. I’m no expert on Russia, but from a really broad view, it’s like same crooks who were running it before are running it now, minus whoever fell in the infighting process. Communists and socialists are ruthless. They have to be.
The new version the west paid to have done to itself is called Democratic Socialism and is fooling a lot of people with the rainbows, the feigned empathy, and a new conception of the same old race-based social justice idea the Nazis had. Name the bad guys, then convert the state into a gigantic apparatus for plundering the out-group.
I’m watching the corrupt organism construct itself in Maine, rigging elections, spreading dysfunction, sucking out more wealth, enticing more state dependents, adopting the state religion of transgenderism, funding more social revolutionary nonprofits, paying off the newspapers, and running KKK style terror campaigns from behind their new digital hoods, calling anyone who speaks out some combination of racist, fascist, National Socialist German Worker’s Party members, messing with businesses and spreading lies about regular people in town.
Free speech is a real problem for them, which is why they worked so hard to censor everyone during Biden’s Administration, even President Trump, who was banned from twitter.
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A typical comeback amongst them is that they didn’t have cellphones, fancy sneakers, have avocado toast, and go out to eat, and had modest homes. Plus, “no one is entitled to anything.”
“No one owes you a home.” “No one’s coming to save you.” “No one owes you anything.” Said by no successful demographic ever.
This is a meme spun from a line by a bad guy, but nevertheless funny.
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I was born in 1948. The above pretty much describes how I was raised in the 1950’s and much of the ‘60’s. My entire neighborhood were houses with 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a kitchen, dining room, living room, and a single car carport.
We had a black & white TV the entire time I lived with my parents and no AC. In my case, both parents worked. My mother was a school teacher.
I am not complaining. Those were the best years of my life. I would gladly take a redo.
IMO, the Vietnam war was a major pivotal event. It marked the end of “paradise.” (Granted this time period was highly segregated. So my paradise was a white man’s paradise)
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“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
Boomers took the shade from their fathers trees, then started charging their kids by the square foot to sit in it.
They’ll cut the trees down, sell the lumber, and salt the earth before they die.
Such a lovely demographic.
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Might the Silent Generation share some of this blame? They “raised” many of the Boomers and were instrumental molding many of the Boomer values.
Many break the Boomers into two groups:
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Typically born between 1946 and 1954, they came of age during the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement.
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Generation Jones (Late Boomers, Boomers II):
Born between 1955 and 1964, they came of age after the Vietnam War and Watergate, experiencing a different cultural and political climate.
Generation Jones (“keeping up with the Joneses”) is almost exclusively born to parents of the Silent Generation.