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More like 4 and trapped at one of the most bizarre and irritating live music sets of my life.
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Certainly, many people are tired of hearing about Ukraine and the war there. The daily reporting on it has declined because there's not much that changes at the front day to day. What I'm seeing more of is opinion pieces on the state of Russia, on Putin, on the recent events associated with the Wagner crisis and in Ukraine, where the predominant story is, "we don't have what we need from the west to keep making gains (judged by seizing Russian occupied territory) contributing to the success of our counter-offensive." More later on what "success" should be defined as.
Looking inside the Kremlin, there is significant debate on the impact and explanations for what happened last week. Some of the best and most relevant analysis came from the transcript of an Ezra Kline show (he is a regular on NPR Radio aired on local PBS stations) where Kline interviews Russian scholar, Steven Kotlin. Kotlin makes a couple of important points::
Putin's decline, his loss of stature, the loss of the perception among the Russian people that he's a strong man, sees everything, knows everything and makes good choices for Russia started way before the Wagner crisis. Kotlin's theory is that he's been in trouble since 2014 when he instigated anti-Ukrainian government uprisings in the Donbas region of Ukraine and then sent ununiformed Russian troops into the cities of Luhansk and Donetsk - the capitals of the Oblasts with the same names - seizing control of the respective administrative apparatuses, allowing the inclusion of those two Oblasts as states independent from Ukraine and controlled by the Kremlin.
Many educated Russians, both politicians and military officers, in private, don't support these foreign wars that Putin has undertaken to expand Russian empire. Of course, they can't speak out publicly..and then we have these polls, "do you support the war in Ukraine or would you rather go to prison for a decade or have your family terrorized, be forcibly conscripted into the army to go fight and die in Ukraine, etc." These polls are coercive, useless and tell us nothing about the mood of the Russian people. That there is tension described as powerful people constantly looking over their shoulder for predators is a result of several factors: a naturally occurring condition of authoritarian, ill-liberal regimes and one that authoritarians and dictators purposefully encourage.
How the Wagner crisis played out over 48h is reflective of how authoritarian regimes become paralyzed in a crisis. The dictator, in this case Putin, in the early stages of uprising isn't sure of who is with him and who is against him. Commanders on down the chain of command wait to see which way the wind is blowing, who will side with whom, before acting - and that is exactly what we saw last weekend. Wagner PMC moved unopposed across the Russian boarder, seized control of the military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don and marched to within 125 miles of Moscow with the alleged goal of kidnapping the minister of defense and his chief of staff. Hesitancy, mistrust and the regime destabilization that precipitates from it continues. That various predators, various targets of them within the Russian system of government are looking over their shoulders reveals systemic dysfunction and, more importantly, that Putin himself doesn't have complete control of his power base - Russians currently in powerful positions see that Putin is vulnerable. That is also destabilizing. Putin's promotional show is trying to reverse that but Kotlin argues, once the genie is out of the bottle, you can't out it back in.
Kotlin also offers the conundrum Putin faced in dealing with Prigozhen - to kill him making him a martyr that others in power might rally around, give him some kind of organization to run inside Russia and continue to have him manage Wagner forces in Africa, neutralize his business operations - a source of funding - putting him in exile. He chose the later and used Lukashenko as his implementor. Lukashenko took advantage of the opening, agreed to it at Putin's behest and turns out to have gained enormous leverage over a weakened Putin. Putin has directed that all government contracts with Wagner be cancelled. Prigozhen is effectively done.
Kotlin adds that as Putin's power declines, he will act irrationally. That can already be seen with his strategy in Ukraine. "If I can't have it, no one will." He's directed the destruction of civilian infrastructure by missile and drone attacks; he's directed the blowing up of the Karkhova dam, not just making military operations for Ukraine harder, but also, causing an unprecedented environmental and economic catastrophe. He's threatening the irradiation of 100s of square kilometers of Ukrainian farm land making it useless for decades. He has undertaken the theft of Ukrainian cultural artifacts, the destruction of Ukrainian text books - replacing these with Russian text books. He is essentially eradicating Ukrainian culture in the areas that his military and police forces occupy. He can win the war by destroying most of Ukraine without putting more boots on the ground, allowing more Russian soldiers to die and the west has to take that capability out of his hands or Ukraine will be lost.
The road forward and to "success" has to include some level of military victory for Ukraine - not complete, but rather, substantial. The west has to facilitate through weapons transfer the retaking of enough territory, seizing control over key infrastructure like the ZNPP, mitigating Russian missile attacks on cities where the goal of these is the destruction of as many civilian targets as possible. All of which combined prevents Putin from destroying Ukraine so he can't have it and neither can anyone else. At the same time, Ukraine's accession to the EU and NATO has to be green-lighted as soon as possible and fast tracked. No more dithering. In combination, Kotlin believes, Putin will stand down. He has scrupulously avoided NATO intervention. He does not want to have his forces face those of NATO. He knows he'd lose that war. The west should facilitate that eventual choice for Putin. War with NATO or stand down in Ukraine.Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.Comment
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DSL amping up the sass is like going from a pillow fight to a throw pillow fight...Shut the fuck up Donny!Comment
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DSL loves to say this, as if every healthy civilization in human history wasn't governed by Conservative beliefs, including the USA less than 30 years ago. President Obama himself campaigned on the platform that marriage should be between one man and one woman. That was only fifteen years ago.Originally posted by Dr. Strangelove View Post
Did you know, DSL, that the country used to not practice systemic discrimination against White people? It's true! Did you know that police departments used to crack down on rioting instead of taking a knee for the rioters? Did you know that LGBTQ was classified as a mental illness until very recently? Apparenty you didn't
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Don't confuse the young man. He's still in mourning over the firing of Max Kellerman and Jalen Rose...Shut the fuck up Donny!Comment
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Thrash grass? Thrash metal played on bluegrass instruments? I really hope that was it.Originally posted by Dr. Strangelove View PostDan Patrick: What was your reaction to [Urban Meyer being hired]?
Brady Hoke: You know.....not....good.Comment
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Well, he LIED, in order to swing a few weak-kneed 'conservatives' to vote for him. And its not the only thing he lied about.President Obama himself campaigned on the platform that marriage should be between one man and one woman. That was only fifteen years ago."in order to lead America you must love America"Comment
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That does indeed sound awful but in this particular instance it was a German oompah group playing classic rock. I no longer need imagine what “Stairway to Heaven” would sound like as a polka. I have experienced it.Originally posted by iam416 View PostComment
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This is how I feel when my kids put on Imagine Dragons. WTF is that shit?Originally posted by Dr. Strangelove View PostComment
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Welcome to the new age, Mike...to the new age...Comment
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Holy shit is Papa Elon trying hard to destroy Twitter. Non-paying users "temporarily" limited to viewing just 600 posts a day. lol, Most social media makes money by keeping you doomscrolling through ads. Not Musk's style!Comment
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Hmmm. He didn’t want to pay Google’s fee so now his hellsite is barely functioning.
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I think I know what you did here and I don’t appreciate it.Originally posted by Dr. Strangelove View Post
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Amazing how DSL hates Musk now that Musk is supporting free speech.Comment
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