Political Roundtable Part XXX

[montestewart]

this is just another instance of TGW having a legitimate point but losing the plot by turning the vitriol to 11.

edit: and that's coming from someone who was almost banned for calling nate dumb. so, ya know. glass houses.

Afterwards at the bar, the story always sounds a lot more menacing

[Wizardspride]

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[Zonkerbl]

Holy crap this thread:

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[Zonkerbl]

is it just me or is twitter quieter and less antagonistic lately? have all the Russian bots quit?

[Zonkerbl]

Ok I'll stop after this one, but I wonder how Trump feels knowing he's never getting a Trump tower in Moscow now and Vlad probably never really intended to give him one

[doclinkin]

Ok I'll stop after this one, but I wonder how Trump feels knowing he's never getting a Trump tower in Moscow now and Vlad probably never really intended to give him one

I think he'd be more concerned about how they are going to pay the rent on all the empty properties of his they lease to launder dirty money.

[queridiculo]

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Yeah, the US has been running campaigns to fuel pro-west and anti Russian sentiment in the former Soviet Union countries for decades.

What's good for the goose..

[Wizardspride]

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[Zonkerbl]

A lot of new jobs are created by small firms. Commercial scale "arms length," data driven banking doesn't work for small firms. The model that works is "community banking," which is based on relationships - I lend you a little bit of money, and if you pay it back, I lend you more, and so on. This model is vulnerable to racism and it shows. Without being "intentionally racist," a little bit of making the black business person try a little harder than the white one, over several decades, adds up to millions and millions of lost opportunities for job creation in minority communities.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/black-panther-director-ryan-coogler-arrested-after-bank-of-america-teller-thought-he-was-a-bank-robber-11646847645?reflink=mw_share_facebook&fbclid=IwAR08nKLCB0p2Cq1eKCWDBr01Rk-da5jh5YZ1_xl0Nm_Nvbt2lvxzBhwBUwY

[verbal8]

Ok I'll stop after this one, but I wonder how Trump feels knowing he's never getting a Trump tower in Moscow now and Vlad probably never really intended to give him one

I don't care, do U?

[Zonkerbl]

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Yeah, the US has been running campaigns to fuel pro-west and anti Russian sentiment in the former Soviet Union countries for decades.

What's good for the goose..

I don't understand this logic. We do this to countries we hate, that we want to do harm to. Why would we be ok with one of the countries we hate doing the same to us?

If I spit in a bully's milk, why would that make it ok for the bully to spit in my milk?

[queridiculo]

I don't understand this logic. We do this to countries we hate, that we want to do harm to. Why would we be ok with one of the countries we hate doing the same to us?

If I spit in a bully's milk, why would that make it ok for the bully to spit in my milk?

Perfect example of the cognitive dissonance that exists with the US view on foreign policy.

I'd argue that the US has been the biggest bully the world has seen since the end of the cold war.

[TGW]

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[Zonkerbl]

If I'm the bully, even more reason not to let someone spit in my milk. What am I, stupid?

[TGW]

LOL the inmates run the asylum. The US government is the most corrupt govt in the world (next to Israel).

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;ab_channel=SecularTalk

[closg00]

Ok I'll stop after this one, but I wonder how Trump feels knowing he's never getting a Trump tower in Moscow now and Vlad probably never really intended to give him one

They have shifted their focus on standing up the new propaganda narrative, which is this bio weapons lab garbage in Ukraine, it’s already been picked-up by gullible Fox News viewers who have picked it up from the loathsome tUCKER.

[pancakes3]

TGW saying that the US government is the most corrupt in the world when there's a straight up invasion going on predicated on making cronyist oligarchs more gas money.

[Wizardspride]

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[Zonkerbl]

LOL the inmates run the asylum. The US government is the most corrupt govt in the world (next to Israel).

Watch on YouTube

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I don't think you're getting my point. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding you. Are you saying we shouldn't stop Russia from interfering in our elections? Because that's absurd, if we are a good actor or not.

If you are saying we should pass a law forbidding us from interfering in other countries, ok fine that's your opinion I guess? But whether we are the good guys or not has zero relevance to us stopping other countries from meddling in our internal affairs.

There is no scenario where I would not punch someone in the face for spitting in my milk. Either I'm being bullied, and I'm therefore justified in doing it, or I'm the bully, in which case I absolutely cannot let jive a$$ mfers punk me like that. Should we not spit in bullies' milk? I think it's fine, although the definition of "bully" is arbitrary, so I think that's best left up to voters... if our elected officials define someone as a bully that most of us disagree with, we can always vote them out. If you're in the minority of thinking who the bullies are I think you are sol. Maybe try to convince people to accept your point of view.

This is probably one of those super nuanced issues that needs a face to face conversation.

[Zonkerbl]

So here we are 20 days after Putin's apparently very ill-advised invasion of Ukraine. I suspect the Russians were assuming they would face the same amount of resistance they did during the first invasion of Crimea in 2014, so expected to just storm in with a bunch of old soviet era tanks with just enough fuel to reach Kyiv. In retrospect it seems obvious that Ukraine would harden themselves to another tank invasion and prepare by buying a bunch of anti-tank weapons from the US and other friendly EU nations and gaming out how they would slow down/stop another tank attack. Which they've done.

What's next? I imagine Putin sent all his best tanks, so I doubt he has anything in reserve that is not rickety and easily destroyed by anti-tank missiles. He can mount a marine invasion from the Black Sea, which is risky if Ukraine can purchase anti-ship systems from the EU in time. He can indiscriminately bomb Kyiv and other urban areas he's trying to take over, although we know from WWII that indiscriminately bombing cities without having a specific military target in mind accomplishes exactly nothing, except making the people who live there extremely angry at you. Putin could use chemical weapons but that would probably result in the US and NATO jumping in, which is a fight he knows he can't win (especially now that he realizes his military is no match for Western weapons). Or he could use nukes, with the same effect of drawing US/NATO in and also obliterating the cities he eventually wants to own.

Also apparently Germany is willing to boycott Russian natural gas purchases? If that's true that's pretty huge. I'll believe it when I see it of course, they are just extraordinarily dependent on Russian natural gas.

Anyway, I'm calling it - I think Putin's already lost. In addition, all the successful propaganda campaigns he pursued in the US and the EU to get right wingers to buy into his BS went up in a puff of smoke 20 days ago. He spent all his political capital on this one moment and it was an enormous bust. Sucks to be him.