[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by verme (prevaricator)

...

(cont.)

re: the ukraine war. to me ukraine * really fucked up strategically when they gave up their nukes in exchange for western promises of protection. sachs's unstrategic peacemongering conveniently forgets to mention that.

sachs also patronizingly glosses over the right of ukraine's aspirations to join european prosperity freely, instead of submitting to be a province of the authoritarian disgrace next door. i mean-- if he's gonna tug at heartstrings, play the whole harp not just some choice notes

mearsheimer on the other hand speaks from a clear point of view, he's for strategic american interests, period. agree with him or not he's very clear about what he means and says, it makes perfect logical sense. he's infinitely more persuasive to me than sachs's "grandchildren"

anyway strategically putin's attacks were also a massive blunder. he didn't want nato next door, but it drove sweden and finland into the arms of the delian league. i mean nato lol. right there on the baltic, gave them no choice. breaking finland's neutrality was no easy feat but he did it. what a champ

and: western pressure or not, it was putin's choice to invade an independent country and start killing people instead of negotiating. "oh look at what they made me do". sure whatever

if you're sentimentally placing the death toll as the sole responsibility of *your own alliance* well idk what to tell you. you're going to switch sides and fight for russia? join a brigade? christian army vs. the secular liberal democracy devils maybe? i think those tentacles have already been extended both ways (eg tucker carlson). please just speak plainly instead of hinting

i'd rather see russia as part of europe than outside of it, but it looks like that ship has sailed now. score is 2-2, all of them own-goals i guess

we'll see what happens next. trump claims he'll fix it. i'll try to have neither fear nor hope

-

* deleted "and georgia", which was a mistake

[!@#$%!]

in other interesting news, trump's choice of bessent for treasury secretary boosted market confidence today

(best buddy's pick was not chosen. awaiting reaction...)

bessent used to work for soros! is a member of the council on foreign relations! (yes that very website i linked before is theirs: https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/wha...y-want-ukraine )

oh, what will the paranoids say about this? hahahhahaa!

-

*morgellons for all*

*and a jewish laser to you*

(heard on an underground strip club on k street)

[Skuj]

If you could pick one thing about Trump that tops all the other things about him, what would it be? (I know - this is hard.)

For me, it is his uncanny ability to escape accountability for his myriad fuckups, time after time, again and again, going back decades, but especially now that all the legal cases must be dropped. (God I'm pissed at Garland, but that is for some upcoming book.)

Many of Trump's minions think of him as some Christ figure. I'm beginning to lean towards this point of view, given this Houdini-like ability.

For the next 4 years on this forum, he shall be referred to by me as Teflon Don.

[verme (prevaricator)]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

for me it's not that this is a war about morality or that "it doesn't really matter how many people get killed in the process"

it's that i have no control over it

Biden did.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

now, MEARSHEIMER--FUCK YES! that there is the light of reason. he makes perfect sense to me

I'm repeating myself, but if you prefer to hear it from Mearsheimer's mouth, here I'll get you the transcript:

I don’t want to absolve previous administrations, going back to the George W. Bush administration. I mean, George W. Bush was in charge when this all started in April 2008, and all his successors have contributed to this fiasco, but Biden bears principal responsibility for the present war, and he was aided and abetted in very important ways by individuals like Lindsey Graham. I believe they bear responsibility for the destruction of Ukraine. It’s just absolutely horrible what’s happened here.

These people, of course, didn’t want to settle the war when negotiations were taking place in March and April of 2022. These negotiations started right after the war began. They were perfectly happy to see us walk away—or to have Zelensky walk away—from those negotiations and continue the war. And what’s the end result? It’s the destruction of Ukraine.

If we had not pushed to bring Ukraine into NATO in April 2008 and continued to pursue that foolish policy, I believe Ukraine would be intact today. There’s no reason to think otherwise. I believe Crimea would still be a part of Ukraine. NATO expansion is the key element in the destruction of Ukraine.

Now, of course, people in the West don’t want to believe that, because it means we bear principal responsibility for this bloodbath. My view is that we do bear responsibility. But people in the West want to blame Putin—it can’t be us; it has to be Putin. We, of course, are always the good guys, and the Russians are always the bad guys. So, we created this story that Putin is an imperialist, that he’s bent on conquering all of Ukraine and making it part of Greater Russia, and that he’s going to reestablish the Russian Empire.

Thus, people argue that expanding NATO was a good idea. Some even say it’s too bad we didn’t expand NATO earlier, because we were dealing with this highly aggressive "second coming of Adolf Hitler." That’s the story people tell. But, as I said before, there’s no evidence to support this. In fact, what was going on here was that we thought we could shove NATO expansion down Putin’s throat. Every time he protested, we doubled down. The president who really doubled down on this was Joe Biden.

If you look at the decision-making process in the West in the run-up to the war—this is the period from November and December 2021 through January and February 2022—it’s hard to believe, but we made virtually no effort to avoid a war. There was all sorts of evidence a war was going to happen. In fact, the Americans were saying a war was going to happen, and they were having a tough time convincing Zelensky that it would. So, it wasn’t like we didn’t see the war coming.

I ask you: What did we do to prevent that war? Virtually nothing. And then, when the war started, as I said before, we actively undermined the peace negotiations. During the Israeli and Turkish tracks to settle the conflict, we—the Americans and the British, principally—went to great lengths to tell the Ukrainians, Zelensky in particular, to walk away from the negotiations when it looked like they might bear fruit.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by verme (prevaricator)

Biden did.



I'm repeating myself, but if you prefer to hear it from Mearsheimer's mouth, here I'll get you the transcript:

ah, see, yes, i much prefer to hear it from his mouth, thats a very good fucking argument! much more understandable than all the dance hahahaha

what he says there makes a lot of sense. i can't tell if it's all true because i just read it and cannot check his facts about negotiations etc, but it makes a lot of fucking sense, in a formal way. and yes that is the "2nd hitler" story i "know" about putin, etc. and mearsheimer makes a coherent and sane argument against that, so now i'm interested

thanks for putting it in plain form. if all this is true then biden was stupider than we thought--or maybe it was just the institutional logic of the professional bureaucracies he delegated the work to, as mearsheimer and sachs claim in the other video

i mean: if mearsheimer is 100% right, then biden had no control, so the usa having responsibility can still apply, but your statement that "biden had control" is something else. according to mearsheimer it doesn't matter who is president. the piece you quoted says " george bush ADMINISTRATION" but then says "biden". in the logic of his discourse however it's just shorthand for "biden administration" (buster keaton [jake sullivan lookalike] blinken and the others including victoria nuland whom sachs mentions)

this makes sense to me because i was impressed with biden delegating to the professionals instead of having a circus. but mearsheimer says no, actually it's the professionals who are the problem. THAT THERE IS THE CRUX

i'm curious about the role of the british too (sir humphrey appleby likely was involved if the above is true), and in the other video he mentions i think the french...

very interesting stuff

i'll look at this other one later, thanks

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by verme (prevaricator)

If you care to listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOCBkN-UDd0

okay, you wanted youtubes i have youtubes hhahahahaha

maerscheimer preaching alone or preaching to the choir is one thing

now if you watch him being refuted by a european you get a different perspective

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aNMOEQ0248

[verme (prevaricator)]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

okay, you wanted youtubes i have youtubes hhahahahaha

maerscheimer preaching alone or preaching to the choir is one thing

now if you watch him being refuted by a european you get a different perspective

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aNMOEQ0248

I do prefer audio yeah. Something I can play in the background while working. Does that make sense to you?

And I would listen, but Carl Bildt? A warmonger and possibly a war criminal, I think I don't have to guess too hard what I'll hear from him.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by verme (prevaricator)

I do prefer audio yeah. Something I can play in the background while working. Does that make sense to you?

And I would listen, but Carl Bildt? A warmonger and possibly a war criminal, I think I don't have to guess too hard what I'll hear from him.

yeah yeah i do listen to stuff when im free to relax, i like some guy that does military history videos with cheap animations, i forget his name right now. also stuff like this, i was familiar with maerscheimer from his video lectures on israel actually, which is a subject i know more about, and i agree more with him there

anyway i HAVE TO say this before going on: it's funny that you claim to be a conservative free speech absolutist (lol no you didnt, im just joshing, but you know), and this is like the 3rd time you say that something is beyond discussion or beyond listening or beyond the overton window or beyond whatever. beyond meat! (i prefer a real burger).

(my objection to tulsi is just that she's fucking boring! oy...)

anyway this was a good debate and i can see both of their perspectives, and as much as i continue to agree a lot with maerscheimer it's also refreshing to hear him be told you're dreaming i was there and you're the only one who thinks like that, hahaha. because sure, maerscheimer is an academic, he trades in ideas and does not operate in the practical sphere, and his ideas are good for sure but all ideas need checking

one thing that emerges from their discussion for me is that maerscheimer does not consider the other side evil or ill intentioned, but rather disagrees with them in philosophical or strategic terms. he even says they have good intentions etc but their good intentions don't work. which is not what the paranoids claim

another thing that gets my attention is he keeps talking about how russia only got aggressive in 2014 but where is the whole georgia and south ossetia mess of 2008?

also: it was refreshing to hear a reminder of all the thuggery and mafia export of russia before this, the assassinations and repression, the corruption, and how eastern europe flocked willingly towards europe and the west. bildt is correct that nobody "forced them" or "made them" like you hear maerscheimer and sachs claim in their duetto, that the orange revolution was all some american ploy, lol. maerschimer is not immune to the american delusion that everything revolves around them

anyway i can see the disagreements here in schools of thought and approaches, but i think it's wrong to misuse maerscheimer to score "anti biden" points when his administration acted with integrity within their strategic parameters. which okay maybe they were mistaken strategic parameters, but they have been longstanding nato, european, and american foreign policy parameters, not the random caprices of an improviser and a huckster

but anyway we got the huckster now, we'll see what happens

[verme (prevaricator)]

Nothing is beyond discussion. It's just that it doesn't make much sense to expect clarity from someone so invested in this war as Carl Bildt.
Maybe he is not that well known in the US. Lookup his role on things like the Iraq war, it might change your perspective on his opinion.
Now if you excuse me, I'm gonna go back to my wet dreams with Sean Hannity.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by verme (prevaricator)

Nothing is beyond discussion. It's just that it doesn't make much sense to expect clarity from someone so invested in this war as Carl Bildt.
Maybe he is not that well known in the US. Lookup his role on things like the Iraq war, it might change your perspective on his opinion.

no, i'm not looking for sermons in this one. it's about the dialectic. i wanted to see maersheimer confronted rather than just applauded

realists and neocons have been fighting it out in policy since at least the 70s. both believe earnestly in their philosophies. so i enjoyed the confrontation. the further clarity comes from there, testing one ideology with the other

bildt is the conservative here, mearsheimer is actually a berniebro lol

but bildt is man of the world whereas mearsheimer is a man of ideas. and bildt did add some interesting facts that do not fit mearsheimer's theories. this isn't math, after all. there is no absolute proof

oh, and the opening yourself to nuclear blackmail... mearsheimer didnt have a good response to that. find a "modus videndi", sure. which one? describe it.

[verme (prevaricator)]

I'm halfway through it and it's about what I would expect. I live in the EU, heard it before.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

oh, and the opening yourself to nuclear blackmail... mearsheimer didnt have a good response to that.

Well, I think he made a good argument of why getting Putin in a position where he has nothing left to lose might not be the best answer to it.


Anyway I have to say I was surprised to read this from you:

It's wrong to criticize Biden, he's been such a good puppet.

Either I got the wrong impression of where you stand on politics, or maybe it's not me who's been getting misaligned ideologically.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by verme (prevaricator)

Either I got the wrong impression of where you stand on politics, or maybe it's not me who's been getting misaligned ideologically.

 

my mind is open. i'm not "aligned" in the usual sense. i'm not "ideological", i think. a true believer? in a platform? too fucking old for that. nah, it's not an age thing. i became a little apostate at age 11, just a year after my first communion. always the doubting thomas lmfao. if i could not believe in god how am i going to believe in... people and party platforms?

i don't know where you stand really, but if you are fixed on "pwning the libs" (at least in this thread it seems you might be) that is a very narrow perceptual bias

Originally Posted by verme (prevaricator)

Anyway I have to say I was surprised to read this from you:
[some lies you made up]

i never said he was a puppet. this is the classic paranoid discourse about "them". it's very naive in that it ignores the fact that institutions have their own internal logic

mearsheimer at least has it clearly in his title: "the tragedy" of great power politics. not "the conspiracy" or "the reptilian alien cabal" of great power politics. a tragedy proceeds inevitably with its own internal logic. the tragic hero can't help himself, just like institutions have their own inertia

biden made his bones during the cold war. he's a staunch believer in nato. he had experienced professionals in his administration and he let them do their job instead of micromanaging or flying to kiss kim jong #something (i can't keep track of the kims). he did not rule capriciously or threaten our allies with random mixed messages

of course our allies is you, so there is that, it takes 2 to tango. it takes 2 to tango with putin too, so in spite of pwning the libs arguments this is not "biden's doing". it's us policy and european policy and nato policy and russian policy, clashing in the tragedy of great power politics

mearsheimer's argument when you analyze it really is that this logical consistency is the tragedy in itself. his argument is not that "trump alone can fix it". his argument at least in the youtubes is that the scenario proceeds by itself, and it doesn't matter who is president, and that nobody in the government is listening to him is telling

not being ideological, im willing to concede that trump just might achieve some deal with pootie--for a price, of course. and the price might just be you, hahaha, so be careful of what you wish for. i've got what i wished for before, and it was not pretty. so go ahead and wish. your wishes are your own

Originally Posted by verme (prevaricator)

Well, I think he made a good argument of why getting Putin in a position where he has nothing left to lose might not be the best answer to it.

well i think in a way everyone agrees with that. this is why western support has been so timid in some sense. sanction but not completely, lend weapons by the teaspoon, etc. the difference is in the strategic estimation of where that point is reached. there are different ways to calculate things when you're not dealing in an exact science

please note this well: i prefer mearsheimer's method of strategic calculus

and yes, neocons have a bad strategic record

but in the social/political calculus (not the same as military strategy), mearsheimer had no answer to how you prevent nuclear blackmail *in the first place.* not escalation, but blackmail of the "he has nukes therefore he can do anything he wants" kind

mearsheimer "believes" that if putin been left alone he would have been harmless. this belief (or wish) is very hard to prove

but yes, we had neocons in office in april 2008 when sparta refused to join the delian league

[verme (prevaricator)]

No, I'll leave the "pwning" game to you and skuj and whoever. You can have it all.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

biden made his bones during the cold war. he's a staunch believer in nato. he had experienced professionals in his administration and he let them do their job

And what an amazing job the experienced professionals have been doing. Not just in Ukraine, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Haiti... the list goes on.

You know for a doubting thomas you really seem to go out of your way to exempt Biden from any responsibility, when he happens to be the fucking president.
Conveniently disregarding not only the commanding power he has over your own institutions but also the power he has over NATO and the EU.

But I guess it's my fault for expecting better from you.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by verme (prevaricator)

No, I'll leave the "pwning" game to you and skuj and whoever. You can have it all.

im not in the same side as skuj. but i'm not against him, much less personally, you were the one trying to trigger him and mock him about the fetal position etc

i understand skuj even if i might not agree with him. he's canadian air force, has his doctrines. me i couldn't fit in any army though. they'd kick me out for insubordination after a long jail sentence

Originally Posted by verme (prevaricator)

And what an amazing job the experienced professionals have been doing. Not just in Ukraine, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Haiti... the list goes on.

yeah, for example jeff sachs economic policies really backfired in haiti and destroyed their economy. but listen: i don't blame him, see. there is a lot of shit that is wrong where humans are not the cause but the instrument of the cause. this is why tragedy is such a longstanding literary genre. people have undestood for a long time that often life just fucks with you and your luck sucks in spite of all the best intentions

(and you forgot to mention gaza)

i don't know that anyone can fix the world. do you think anyone can? i'm not being a nihilist here, i just think our capabilities to do good are very limited and our capabilities to fuck up are extraordinary. and we fuck up even with the best intentions, and often *because* of them

maybe i'm becoming more "conservative" with old age (hence i greeted you as "new old man" when you apparently realized that the new left could be as repressive as the old right). i am wary of grand schemes and revolutionsry promises as i further lose confidence in humans, and therefore in their good intentions and ideals. but i'm not bitter though, at this loss of faith. i can't explain my mental state in this post

Originally Posted by verme (prevaricator)

You know for a doubting thomas you really seem to go out of your way to exempt Biden from any responsibility, when he happens to be the fucking president.
Conveniently disregarding not only the commanding power he has over your own institutions but also the power he has over NATO and the EU.

hahahhaaaa no no, im not "exempting" him nor calling him a great strategist, im just denying you the chance to score cheap partisan points by riding the maersheimer horse against him

that is what i object to here, the appropriation of great ideas for petty ends. mostly because they distort the great ideas by subordinating them to a worthless cause

and further, i am trying to stick to the big ideas presented, which is the interesting stuff

if you listen to mearsheimer and sachs together, you will see that they don't hold "commanding power" in much regard. the commanders are shaped by the institutions, they say this multiple times. even maersheimer said so clearly when discussing the chances of the young! it's right there! by the time they get through the ranks of the institutions they will have changed themselves

if you enjoy the video form, i cannot recommend enough 2 tv landmarks that show how the world really works

1. yes minister, a farce
2. the wire, a tragedy

these are great shows because, although they feature some great characters, they really go to show you that the characters maybe don't make much difference in the end, and that there are other forces shaping events

persons, personalities, personas... a cosmic joke

so like i said previously, i'm willing to concede that maybe the buffoon scores a victory, but i do not profess any sort of "belief" in him or his acolytes. so maybe he scores a victory for america but does it at the expense of europe. just be warned so you don't get your hopes dashed if it happens

Originally Posted by verme (prevaricator)

But I guess it's my fault for expecting better from you.

don't get emotional. i'm sorry if you don't like my views, but i won't adjust my honest views in order to either please or trigger people

and please understand that i'm giving you the respect of refusing to play a scoring game. i am following the ideas you introduced and refusing to reduce them into blame games for partisan ends. in the end i did care to listen to what you offered. maybe i listened too well. it's the way i'm wired

i mean i can play games too, but this isn't the youtube comments and i take you for an intelligent person ultimately more interested in understanding things than in "winning" some contest

[verme (prevaricator)]

Well I don't see any good reason not to mock him or anyone else taking pride in fighting the "trumpbots" on syg. Who is he even talking about? tesla? anyone that doesn't think the same as him? I haven't been following the thread or the board.

I'm not telling him to leave tho. The whole idea of internet brigades is pretty ridiculous, but please go on on your crusade.

I wasn't getting emotional. Just conscious of the time I've put into this conversation.
Let me remind you that this is what I started with:

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

but biden stirred what? xD

But I'm happy that apparently you've conceded that the biden administration bears some responsibility in this conflict.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by verme (prevaricator)

Just conscious of the time I've put into this conversation.
Let me remind you that this is what I started with:



But I'm happy that apparently you've conceded that the biden administration bears some responsibility in this conflict.

well yeah of course they are responsible for their jobs. of that there is no question. there is no need to be happy about me seeing that. i just would not frame such responsibility the way you did. i dont think the choices they faced were so simple on the ground, there are many tradeoffs to every choice, and i think they have been doing okay in spite of some bad results and incoherences with congress etc. i would not mock their failures

could they have done better? sure. how? i dont know. i am not a subject matter expert. i like mearsheimer's reasoning and i know my own local propaganda lines, but i really don't know-know

and i know we fear experts but here is an "expert analysis" of various possible trump scenarios anyway: https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/27...ia-war-europe/
mierda, i paywalled myself. i was able to open that in private browser ... anyway see if you can read it. just to see some of the angles in play

(im not asking that you BELIEVE that article or its analysis or trust its proposals, only that you see some of those possibilities as pure possibilities, along with others you might see)

anyway i AM happy you sent me to mearsheimer though, a very interesting thinker which i had already heard *but not on the subject of russia*

so it's been well worth the time spent for me

but have you heard him talk about gaza?

here you go, torture your conscience: https://youtu.be/kAfIYtpcBxo

that is another no exit scenario. for anyone

[verme (prevaricator)]

Here
https://archive.is/yNsQ6

Thanks but give me some time to put thought into it. It's not like 10 years ago, now I have people and pets that need to be taken care of :/

[choc e-Claire]

Originally Posted by choc e-Claire

Cheers!

It's been a year since this happened and, not only is it still worth celebrating on its own, but it started a chain of causality that got me laid. So it truly was a highlight of 2023 for me.

[verme (prevaricator)]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

and i know we fear experts but here is an "expert analysis" of various possible trump scenarios anyway: https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/27...ia-war-europe/

Finally took the time to read it.

I think the real pitfall would be to keep following the same path. I can't tell you about the future, but right now I'm experiencing first-hand the consequences this conflict has had in Europe on a humanitarian and economic level. Every European has felt it.

This is a proxy-war [from the mouth of Boris himself]. Just another round of the power games that have been at play in the region, going all the way back to "The Great Game" in the 19th century.

Ukraine can't win this war. And the Americans, and the Europeans, are not coming to save them. It ends with a deal, and the biggest reason why that hasn't happened yet are the "experienced professionals" of the Biden administration. They saw an opportunity to weaken an adversary and bankroll US Defence contractors, to the tune of, so far, 175bn of your US dollars.
[former Zelenskyy adviser and member of the delegation at the peace talks]
[former Israeli PM]

So I'm sorry, but no, I don't really believe Biden is "suffering with the Ukrainian people".

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by choc e-Claire

It's been a year since this happened and, not only is it still worth celebrating on its own, but it started a chain of causality that got me laid. So it truly was a highlight of 2023 for me.

hahahaha! congrats on getting laid

kissinger himself fucked around quite a bit, so maybe he'd be happy to learn this lolol

Originally Posted by verme (prevaricator)

Finally took the time to read it.

I think the real pitfall would be to keep following the same path. I can't tell you about the future, but right now I'm experiencing first-hand the consequences this conflict has had in Europe on a humanitarian and economic level. Every European has felt it.

This is a proxy-war [from the mouth of Boris himself]. Just another round of the power games that have been at play in the region, going all the way back to "The Great Game" in the 19th century.

Ukraine can't win this war. And the Americans, and the Europeans, are not coming to save them. It ends with a deal, and the biggest reason why that hasn't happened yet are the "experienced professionals" of the Biden administration. They saw an opportunity to weaken an adversary and bankroll US Defence contractors, to the tune of, so far, 175bn of your US dollars.
[former Zelenskyy adviser and member of the delegation at the peace talks]
[former Israeli PM]

So I'm sorry, but no, I don't really believe Biden is "suffering with the Ukrainian people".

hahahaha of course he's not suffering lol

but anyway. at this point it's evident this has to end in a "deal". this can't keep dragging on

the more important boris bit for me there is he says we allowed our proxy to fight with one hand tied, and it's been cruel. putin is still in power (remember carl bildt's prediction from the maersheim debate?) and russia has not collapsed. yes they are hurting, but they are also now more resilient and aligned with china. or under china

if the west had managed to vaporize putin in the first 6 months we'd all be singing a different tune now. but the gradual strangulation, so widely telegraphed in advance, did not work

the usa will usa, britain is britain, they have their habits. the bigger problem for me here is europe, a big talker under the american umbrella but no real unity or werewithal to lend. it's hard enough to defend the euro, a war is something else

and unfortunately experienced professionals will be experienced professionals. this is the curse. i'm sure it happens in your industry as well, as it happens everywhere. it's the unstoppable internal logic of institutions. the wire + yes minister + carlo cipolla describe the world