Can the Russian invasion put an end to ideology?

[rusnak]

This is an uncomfortable thought, but worth exploring. I would have really dug into this as an undergraduate. But the question is: Can love of country be a common grounds upon which we cast aside ideological divisions? Can we pursuade out and out Socialists and hard line Conservatives to put the country first? Can a common love of our freedoms make us stop eroding the concept of a free citizenry?

Take a look at this guy's point of view to get more of an idea how this ties in. Because we are at a very fragile time right now, in many ways, from the perspective of who gets what - one thing is becoming clear, and that is change is coming to the West via the East.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

I hate to say this but from what I've seen over the last 15 years, there's too much money to be made by dividing people.

Will watch the video tomorrow.

[gregpark]

I'm watching Winter On Fire right now. A 2015 film currently on Netflix. Those poor people have been battling it out for a long time now. Their previous president really screwed them over. Check it out, really affirms your appreciation of the freedoms we have here

[cockerpunk]

only can happen if one side doesn't try to define the otherside out of patriotism.

[Steve Carlton]

I thought it was great- thanks for posting it. Two takeaways I got was about how this could end the cultural divide (overly optimistic, but a good point) including how there’s more in common than different between the left and right, and also about how countries rich in oil (and gas) lend themselves to autocracy.

He discounts Russia’s concerns over security, which I think could be correct, although ill-founded IMO. Perhaps a solution is to make peace with a promise of Ukraine not joining NATO.


Note- I'm hoping we can 1) keep this out of PARF, and 2) keep from sending it to PARF prematurely. It'll be lost to 90% of the Pelicans if it goes there.

[rusnak]

Originally Posted by Shaun @ Tru6

I hate to say this but from what I've seen over the last 15 years, there's too much money to be made by dividing people.

Will watch the video tomorrow.

You may be right. I still think it is worth asking the question.

In a crisis, which this may well become, will we pull together as Americans?

[rusnak]

Originally Posted by Steve Carlton

I thought it was great- thanks for posting it. Two takeaways I got was about how this could end the cultural divide (overly optimistic, but a good point) including how there’s more in common than different between the left and right, and also about how countries rich in oil (and gas) lend themselves to autocracy.

He discounts Russia’s concerns over security, which I think could be correct, although ill-founded IMO. Perhaps a solution is to make peace with a promise of Ukraine not joining NATO.


Note- I'm hoping we can 1) keep this out of PARF, and 2) keep from sending it to PARF prematurely. It'll be lost to 90% of the Pelicans if it goes there.

Yes Sir! We have more in common with each other now because we are all sort of in this sinking ship together.

[Steve Carlton]

I went poking around looking for something I heard while listening to this on my commute home and running an errand. There are so many great thoughts in there. How nuclear weapons probably kept us from WWIII in the 50s or 60s (really until now). How the seeds of hatred come back in this crisis, and how this crisis will plant more. How sanctions have more power these days than in the days of the U.S.S.R.. How China can be the adult in the room here. It goes on and on.

This crisis is a lightning rod for the world. One deranged man with the military of a superpower at his fingertips can make such a bad judgment with such serious consequences. How to deal with it. Do we risk war with Russia now, or appease them, or let Ukraine burn to the ground? We need to find out what it will take for Putin to stop and take an off ramp. I wonder if he had this to do over again, would he?

[tabs]

It is an absolute horror to be separated from God. Dr Kagan voice seemed to be quivering and his analysis was tentative. The voice of a man who just found out that he is lost out in the woods. Sanctions do not hurt Billionaires nor a people who have had nothing but pride in the Motherland since time began. Putin is reassessing his options and is likely to let the war slog on in stalemate in the hope that the sanctions backfire on the West's economy. The IMF said the sanctions will hurt the Global economy of scale and in another article on CNBC that the SWIFT sanctions might cause a crisis of liquidity for the banks on the scale of the Lehman failure. Where the FED will have to once again add to their balance sheet which is already approaching the margin of safety which is at at apx 9.5T to 10T. This is a multifaceted situation that is being played out.

[tabs]

Originally Posted by Steve Carlton

I went poking around looking for something I heard while listening to this on my commute home and running an errand. There are so many great thoughts in there. How nuclear weapons probably kept us from WWIII in the 50s or 60s (really until now). How the seeds of hatred come back in this crisis, and how this crisis will plant more. How sanctions have more power these days than in the days of the U.S.S.R.. How China can be the adult in the room here. It goes on and on.

This crisis is a lightning rod for the world. One deranged man with the military of a superpower at his fingertips can make such a bad judgment with such serious consequences. How to deal with it. Do we risk war with Russia now, or appease them, or let Ukraine burn to the ground? We need to find out what it will take for Putin to stop and take an off ramp. I wonder if he had this to do over again, would he?

Was that highlighted phrase above something that you actually heard...or is it you paraphrasing? And I just know I have heard that phrase used before in conjunction with the FED...not let me think of where I heard that hmmmmmmm????

[svandamme]

the gen pop is way to dull to not get caught up with hype and misinformation put out by politicians.
And politicians will always spew "ideology" to win votes.

[Steve Carlton]

Originally Posted by tabs

Was that highlighted phrase above something that you actually heard...or is it you paraphrasing? And I just know I have heard that phrase used before in conjunction with the FED...not let me think of where I heard that hmmmmmmm????

How about you watch the video? Hmmmmm?

[tabs]

Posted March 2,2022..

When the USSR invaded Afghanistan the Soviet troops would steal (TV sets in particular were a favorite) from the Afghans because their standard of living was higher than that of the Russians. To say that dogs were treated better than Soviet troops would not be an overstatement. Hence it would not be a stretch of the imagination that the inept Russian organization and operations in the Ukraine are systemic in nature. That the varied select units deployed were selected because of their operational capabilities which makes the quality and reliability of the bulk of the Russian army suspect?

President Putin's maternal Grandfather was Lenin's and then Stalin's personal cooks. Here young Putin had a first hand narrative of the goings on at the highest level of the Soviet. Putin during his tenure with the KGB was at first monitoring westerners traveling in the Leningrad area and then in the foreign intelligence service stationed in Dresden in GDR where he used travelers to the west to conduct spy operations. He also was connected to computer and communications operations. Later after the fall of the USSR he monitored and sought western investment into the St Petersburg area . Here one might speculate that considering Putin's educational background in international law and market economies that his activities in the GDR were not exactly transparent and that he had developed knowledge about potential investors in Russia. Which he then used to make his friends rich.

Previsously written:

Putin's calculation is that the cost of opposing him is to collapse the Global Economy of Scale. The world is laboring under such massive debt loads that one good shove can collapse the entire house of cards.

To think Putin is only moving on the Ukraine is to ignore his long game. Which is, was to create divisiveness in the EU/NATO, diminish US power by exposing that the emperor has no cloths and increasing Russia's influence in the EU as the go to power broker instead of the US. Putin smelled the blood of weakness in western and US resolve and as such made a calculated move. It may or may not work out for him?

In the former occupied nations of Eastern Europe one can not under estimate the hatred for Russians based upon their former bad behavior. Remember when the Germans marched into the Ukraine in 41 the people at first cheered their liberation from the heavy hand of the Soviet before they found out about what Hitler had in mind for them. Old animosities are long remembered and die hard

[rusnak]

Originally Posted by cockerpunk

only can happen if one side doesn't try to define the otherside out of patriotism.

Yes, that and whatever ideology that separates has to become so irrelevant, that the only thing that matters, or the only thing left, is what both sides find of value.

I assume that we all love freedom. We all want what is best for future generations.

We are talking about a real possibility that events unfolding now will result in all of today's petty ideological divide soon becoming inconsequential to our day to day lives.

[rusnak]

Originally Posted by svandamme

the gen pop is way to dull to not get caught up with hype and misinformation put out by politicians.
And politicians will always spew "ideology" to win votes.

I don't think I agree. That's pre-2022 thinking. You can say that Putin was a catalyst, not the cause, of a total change in our world that will cause all of our perceptions to change as well.

If you listen to guys like Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet, Michael Burry and on and on, there is a very precarious combination of weak economy, high inflation, a definite stock market and real estate housing bubble that is about to burst, and now you see Germany wanting to re-arm itself due to America's inability to protect Europe, the Fed printing trillions of dollars a year while having to raise interest rates, and all of this happening simultaneously is looking very bleak for the USA indeed. It won't matter who is right and who is wrong, not when our very way of life is seemingly ripped away from us poor formerly clueless common folk.

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by rusnak

I don't think I agree. That's pre-2022 thinking. You can say that Putin was a catalyst, not the cause, of a total change in our world that will cause all of our perceptions to change as well.

If you listen to guys like Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet, Michael Burry and on and on, there is a very precarious combination of weak economy, high inflation, a definite stock market and real estate housing bubble that is about to burst, and now you see Germany wanting to re-arm itself due to America's inability to protect Europe, the Fed printing trillions of dollars a year while having to raise interest rates, and all of this happening simultaneously is looking very bleak for the USA indeed. It won't matter who is right and who is wrong, not when our very way of life is seemingly ripped away from us poor formerly clueless common folk.

Do you think Isil and taliban.. ideology driven to he tits. Will somehow become irrelevant over this?
You think right wing and left wing politicians suddenly become center thinking?
Green parties no longer will push their agendas,

Assad dprk china ...
Please

[LEAKYSEALS951]

I miss the masks threads.

If something heinous enough occurs to unite the partisan US, it will only be our own delay in recognizing we are already committed to a trajectory ensuring something very bad. In this case, WW3.

TABpocalypsian economics is a best case scenario, as it only factors economy.

Too many big wheels rolling folks. (if you say it in big letters it means more)

We're domed.

[rusnak]

Originally Posted by svandamme

Do you think Isil and taliban.. ideology driven to he tits. Will somehow become irrelevant over this?
You think right wing and left wing politicians suddenly become center thinking?
Green parties no longer will push their agendas,

Assad dprk china ...
Please

No, not at all. But they will pale in comparison to what we have to deal with, such as eating. For example, ask the average person about the Taliban when they can't afford to fill their own gas tank when it's $6.00 + USD per gallon.

[Superman]

Nothing unites as effectively as a common enemy. Cops hate domestic disturbance calls because they are so dangerous. By the time they get there, the couple has been fighting longer than they wish, and they often unite against the new police threat.

Alas, Shaun may be correct. In order to actually get what it wants, America would need to be so thoroughly united that conscious, well-funded forces with very effective divisiveness infrastructures would be powerless to divide. It looks like those forces may have already won. And their war chests are still growing rapidly.

Those forces placed a bet, some years ago, on the ignorance and gullibility of the American voter. And they appear to have correctly assessed their strategy and opportunity.

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by rusnak

No, not at all. But they will pale in comparison to what we have to deal with, such as eating. For example, ask the average person about the Taliban when they can't afford to fill their own gas tank when it's $6.00 + USD per gallon.

Ok, well, I know one thing, if people get pressed on their livelyhood, and comfort, you'll see the opposite of uniting.. you'll see angry people looking to follow an ideology that says it will fix it.
It was like that in Post WW1 Germany
It was like that in the liberated Iraq


Hardship does not unite people on its own, somebody will have to give a spin to it. And that's how politicians come up with ideologies, and then you'll have opposing politicians coming up with alternatives to that.

I really don't understand why anybody thinks this russian invasion will put an end to ideology.. Covid was a common problem, none of it brought a unified approach that surpassed party politics did it? If anything, it was on the contrary.. it polarized even more.

The general population isn't as smart as it thinks it is.. And they are eager to follow something told to them, that sounds right.. to them. Since they aren't as smart, they will follow ideologies spun for them.. smarter people know that and do the spinning.

res ipsa loquitur.