Curious what happened to the Russian invasion thread?

[JKane]

Did I officially overload it with memes?  

Did Russian hackers get to it?  

 

Sorry if I did something wrong there.  

[vinapu]

Strange indeed

[Latbear4blk]

17 hours ago, JKane said:

Did I officially overload it with memes?  

Did Russian hackers get to it? 

You may need to summon @TotallyOz in order to find our what happened.

[Guest]

Be careful what you wish for, as there are other forums with such threads.   After reading them, I don't think this forum would necessarily be enriched by having one.  

Some of the views aired are there are very controversial. 

[RockHardNYC]

I'm sorry I missed it.

5 hours ago, z909 said:

Some of the views aired are there are very controversial.

What controversy? Are there Putin lovers on this board? Seriously, I haven't noticed. Personally, I'm all for banning Trump and Putin lovers, but I don't run this board.

Putin is an evil, paranoid thug, and everyone knows it. His financial story is astounding. I won't even mention the people he's jailed or poisoned. The corruption in Russia is worse than Africa, and that's saying a lot. Makes America look like a game of Monopoly. I fail to see how a hated dictator can actually achieve greatness. Only in his own mind.

Putin is fucking the Ukrainians, all for the sake of POWER. Who is going to pay for the clean-up and devastation? Very few in the world are admiring this totally unnecessary war. Many are saying this is the end of Putin. Even Lindsey Graham is calling for his generals to take him out. 

As for hackers, it's a known fact that Russia has targeted porn viewers in America. They know we number in the millions, and many are addicted. It's helpful to stay on top of your passwords and change them with regularity.

[caeron]

 

Trump wanted to blow Putin because Putin was the Dictator that Trump wished he was. Much like Putin in Russia, a lot of Americans wished he was too.

Putin is an evil man. He dreams of being the new Tsar, and he doesn't care how much blood building his throne will cost. People surprised by this haven't been paying attention.

China may follow suit and we'll have a new world war on our hands, except the Axis powers will be Russia/China and their pet dog Belarus.

[TotallyOz]

Thread is now back after moderator discussion. We can't ban everyone who support Putin just like we can't ban everyone who likes Trump. We all know those people are nutty but it is still important to be kind to them.

[Latbear4blk]

7 hours ago, TotallyOz said:

Thread is now back after moderator discussion. We can't ban everyone who support Putin just like we can't ban everyone who likes Trump. We all know those people are nutty but it is still important to be kind to them.

Let them talk, indeed. They are entitled to their freedom of speech.

Now... kindness? 

[tassojunior]

10 hours ago, TotallyOz said:

Thread is now back after moderator discussion. We can't ban everyone who support Putin just like we can't ban everyone who likes Trump. We all know those people are nutty but it is still important to be kind to them.

I doubt there's anyone who "supports Putin" (and few who support Trump) but there's a politics forum for a reason and allowing another thread related to travel to be destroyed by page-long spam posts of political memes doesn't help the site.    

[Guest]

1 hour ago, tassojunior said:

I doubt there's anyone who "supports Putin" (and few who support Trump) but there's a politics forum for a reason and allowing another thread related to travel to be destroyed by page-long spam posts of political memes doesn't help the site.    

There's one who supports Putin and supports the invasion, as we can see from other material posted.

I agree that this doesn't help the site.    Posting political memes, fake news and propaganda isn't helpful for the forum.      People can go to Facebook for that.  

[JKane]

Sorry, I thought most were an amusing perspective but will try not to hijack existing threads in the future.  

[RockHardNYC]

14 minutes ago, JKane said:

Sorry, I thought most were an amusing perspective but will try not to hijack existing threads in the future.  

So kind and thoughtful of you to apologize. Frankly, I loved the memes, especially the one with the dog's head up the other dog's ass. SO PERFECT! Your curation often makes me LAUGH, and if we didn't laugh in the horrible world in which we live, more people would be killing themselves, as evidenced by the rise in suicide rates. The memes you post certainly prevent me from stabbing someone, so I view them as good thing. Thank you.

1 hour ago, z909 said:

There's one who supports Putin and supports the invasion, as we can see from other material posted.

I continue not to see that from anything posted, but I haven't read every word on this forum. It seems to me much has been edited from the thread in question. I'm glad Oz brought the thread back.

All kidding aside about "banning," I'm a fan of moderation, but not censorship. I enjoy knowing where posters stand. That way, I can judge them properly and fairly. I am not a fan of hiding the truth or sweeping it under the carpet. If someone is truly an asshole, I prefer everyone to see that. Denial is a waste of time and energy, IMO.

2 hours ago, tassojunior said:

but there's a politics forum for a reason and allowing another thread related to travel to be destroyed by page-long spam posts of political memes doesn't help the site. 

Excuse me, but please let the controlling, stick-up-your-ass behavior that Daddy and deej were famous for stay at the other site. I can't tolerate controlling queens. The Beer Bar states it's a place for Current Events and Politics, so I always assumed that if something "political" was part of today's headlines, it's accepted in the Beer Bar as "current." I have always liked this leniency and open-mindedness of this site. These stupid categories in the UI, that are famous for feeding the control-freak forum operators, have always annoyed me. It's like walking into a bar or a club and being told by the owner that conversation in each corner is limited to a specific subject. I wouldn't be interested in sitting in that place, at all. So why do we have to tolerate it here?

That said, hijacking can irritate people, and that's where a moderator can come in handy. I like the way Oz handled this situation.

[Guest]

if you’ve ever visited Russia, then you know EVERYTHING there is dysfunctional & corrupt.  Nothing actually works in Russia - they are incapable of launching a well-coordinated military invasion, thus they resort to indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets & terrorism. In other words, war-crimes.  
Given the existing Western sanctions, the Russian economy has about 2 weeks before total collapse.  They might be able to keep it going for a few months post-collapse - afterwards, they either become a Chinese supported client state and/or Putin will be deposed.

Nuclear attack by Russia extremely unlikely because their missiles are like their trucks stuck in the mud on the way to Kiev…not maintained, unreliable and probably don’t work either.  
This entire exercise is the last gasp for a Putin’s Russia - it’s over. 

 

[tassojunior]

2 hours ago, Slvkguy said:

if you’ve ever visited Russia, then you know EVERYTHING there is dysfunctional & corrupt.  Nothing actually works in Russia - they are incapable of launching a well-coordinated military invasion, thus they resort to indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets & terrorism. In other words, war-crimes.  
Given the existing Western sanctions, the Russian economy has about 2 weeks before total collapse.  They might be able to keep it going for a few months post-collapse - afterwards, they either become a Chinese supported client state and/or Putin will be deposed.

Nuclear attack by Russia extremely unlikely because their missiles are like their trucks stuck in the mud on the way to Kiev…not maintained, unreliable and probably don’t work either.  
This entire exercise is the last gasp for a Putin’s Russia - it’s over. 

 

Unfortunately Russia, like China, has undetectable hypersonic nuclear missiles and in spite of all the $ and research we've poured in we don't yet. You're right, Russia's best (maybe only) chance is to surprise the US with a wipeout nuclear attack. That's not a good position to put your enemy in. The chances we'll die soon in a nuclear war have skyrocketed and will get worse every day. It's much more frightening than the Cuban missile crisis. 

Putin won't be president long because he's getting old, if no other reason. We should have grabbed the Minsk treaties and waited him out. China's much more a problem today and for the future and pushing Russia into China's arms was dumb even if we don't have a nuclear attack soon.

Sun Tzu in The Art of War said that you should build golden bridges for your enemy to retreat over (and he never had to even deal with crazy Russians). 

But if we have a nuclear attack I won't come back and say I told you so. 

[Lucky]

I support @JKaneon this. He posts some great stuff on politics.

[Guest]

12 hours ago, tassojunior said:

Putin won't be president long because he's getting old, if no other reason. We should have grabbed the Minsk treaties and waited him out. China's much more a problem today and for the future and pushing Russia into China's arms was dumb even if we don't have a nuclear attack soon.

Putin is 69 and is about 9 months older than Xi.     Or  9 years younger than Biden.

Whilst it would be good if Putin keeled over, we shouldn't count on him dying of old age soon.  

The average life expectancy of a person who is 69 years old in the UK is for another 17 years. 

[JKane]

Putin doesn't have to worry about old age, he has to worry about the oligarchs turning on him and encouraging/supporting a new, younger model to take his place.  But it's not like they'd use polonium or Novichok... oh wait, yes they fucking would.  Hence his obvious paranoia which is hopefully well founded.  Even without a pre-mature and suspicious death, the second he's out of power he knows he'd lose all his hidden wealth as soon as his powerful and rich friends saw no benefit in maintaining association.  

They might also be about to fuck around and find out with democratic revolution, though I guess the citizens saw far more prosperity under Putin than their 5 minutes of democracy (am I remembering wrong that Yeltzin was elected...?  And maybe Putin the first time or two?).  The rampant kleptocracy is obvious to the west, but I also hear that many people believe that Putin isn't rich at all, since he keeps his mega yachts and villas out of his own name and publicly denies their existence on state media.  I guess the first step will be the citizens realizing that state media is nothing but lies, which the Ukraine situation is helping with.  

IF ONLY the fucking vestiges of Voice of America/Freedom hadn't just been shut down by Trump/Pomptato on Putin's request...  

[tassojunior]

4 hours ago, z909 said:

Putin is 69 and is about 9 months older than Xi.     Or  9 years younger than Biden.

Whilst it would be good if Putin keeled over, we shouldn't count on him dying of old age soon.  

The average life expectancy of a person who is 69 years old in the UK is for another 17 years. 

Even 17 years is not a long time to deal with a situation like the Minsk treaties. Instant gratification and short attention span is a big US problem now. My guess is if Ukraine advanced and became successful Dombas would reunite in time. If you think of some "recent" things, they've been longer. We expanded NATO to Russia's borders 18 years ago. We sent troops into Afghanistan 20 years ago. But my guess is Putin would leave before 80 and a decent chance Medvedev will take back over soon now as an "honorable" exit for Putin. 

The total ridiculousness of this whole thing is that the Ukraine government in negotiations is strongly pushing the Minsk treaties giving Dombas autonomy which they refused to comply with after signing for the past 8 years causing this war. Now it seems like a wonderful deal. "Friends" sometime in the past 8 years would have pushed them to take that deal and run. 

If you're ever in a room with a large bear go out the door asap and wait until the bear leaves. Backing it into a corner and poking it with sticks is a trendy but poor strategy.  

[vinapu]

20 minutes ago, tassojunior said:

 

If you're ever in a room with a large bear go out the door asap and wait until the bear leaves. Backing it into a corner and poking it with sticks is a trendy but poor strategy.  

what if he doesn't leave ?

[tassojunior]

24 minutes ago, vinapu said:

what if he doesn't leave ?

then still don't back it in a corner and poke it with sticks.

Ukraine is begging for reinstatement of the Minsk treaties now and every day we rapidly move closer to nuclear war. 

[reader]

If Putin succeeds in this venture, he'll be wildly emboldened. His next target will be Poland, encouraged because all he had to do was raise the specter of using his nuclear arsenal to get NATO to cower. He figures if it worked once, why not play that card again.

Day after day over the next weeks and months, from the safety of our living rooms, we'll have to bear witness to the human carnage. And we'll do so knowing that it could have been avoided. If NATO checkmated the bear by placing a formidable force inside Ukraine before the invasion even got under way, it would have put Putin in the position of having to risk killing not only Ukrainians but also British, American, German soldiers and a host of others. 

Stop and consider how effective Ukraine forces have been on their own. Imagine now how the tide would turn if 50,000 NATO troops--and their superior firepower--also confronted the Russian columns.

If NATO had the opportunity to go back in time a month or so, I think it would opt to poke the bear.

 

 

[tassojunior]

It's just a time when China and Russia have the capability to wipe out the US with undetectable supersonic missles but every US missle is detectable and easily shot down. Especially in China's case, one almost wonders why they don't but then China doesn't have nearly the number of warheads Russia and the US do. If war's inevitable they're wasting time. We'll know when the US gets those missiles because China and half it's population will be gone next day. 

Meanwhile people need to understand how Russians are "different" to avoid assuming they understand them and can predict their actions:

 

[reader]

7 hours ago, tassojunior said:

But my guess is Putin would leave before 80 and a decent chance Medvedev will take back over soon now as an "honorable" exit for Putin.

So you're advice is to wait 11 years so the Putin can have a well-deserved "honorable" exit?

7 hours ago, tassojunior said:

If you're ever in a room with a large bear go out the door asap and wait until the bear leaves.

And you think Putin plans to leave the Ukraine?

51 minutes ago, tassojunior said:

Meanwhile people need to understand how Russians are "different" to avoid assuming they understand them and can predict their actions:

There's one Russian we understand all too well. His intentions to invade the Ukraine were predicted with complete accuracy despite his denials.

[vinapu]

"Meanwhile people need to understand how Russians are "different" to avoid assuming they understand them and can predict their actions"

they are not, like everybody else they want to have their tea and go to bed quietly in order to have good sleep and wake up in the morning.

Skills which they  are lacking is ability to find  and support leaders who can lead them to prosperity they deserved like all other nations.

 

[vinapu]

6 hours ago, tassojunior said:

 

Ukraine is begging for reinstatement of the Minsk treaties now and every day we rapidly move closer to nuclear war. 

you sound like you are happy with that prospect or I'm reading you wrong?