Joe Bauer Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 Ukrainian conflict sends Dow down another 600. That's about a 2,500+ point drop since last Friday. Watching the Putin invasion unfold just makes you sick in the stomach with dreadful apprehension. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W. Niederhut Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, Joe Bauer said: Ukrainian conflict sends Dow down another 600. That's about a 2,500+ point drop since last Friday. Watching the Putin invasion unfold just makes you sick in the stomach with dreadful apprehension. Today, people in the West are finally seeing Putin for who he really is-- an old KGB apparatchik who was trained at the Yuri Andropov Red Banner Institute. Remember Andropov? I figured this out back in 2007, when Putin and the FSB seized the ROCOR and started sending ordained FSB Orthodox "priests" into confiscated churches in Western Europe, North America, and Australia. The U.S. M$M never picked up on the ROCOR/MP story. It was the same playbook that the NKVD used inside of Russia after 1917. I wrote an Amazon review of former KGB Col. Konstantin Preobrazhensky's 2009 book on this subject in 2010, using the pen name, Dr. Ambrosius Aurelius. (Just realized that my old paperback of Preobrazhensky's book is selling for $199!) https://www.amazon.com/KGB-FSBs-New-Trojan-Horse/dp/0615249086 Edited February 24, 2022 by W. Niederhut Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Speer Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 An analogy is in order to better illuminate the situation. A bully terrorizes the kids in his neighborhood. A number of them unite with a bully from another neighborhood for protection. The bully--thinking like a bully--sees this as a threat. Whereby he takes the skinny kid next door who's only been talking to these other kids into the back alley and breaks his arms. In his stupid bully mind, he thinks this will send a message to any of the other neighbor kids thinking of "teaming up on him". But in reality he's gonna make the other kids flee him whenever he walks down the street, and secretly pray for his comeuppance. It's coming. A knife in the back. Or a bullet in the head. It's coming. Or so we would like to think. It is unfortunate, however, that Stalin was able to murder millions, and not have to pay a price. Putin clearly thinks he can do the same. But I wouldn't bet on it. I suspect he's overplayed his hand. I suspect most Russians could give a hoot about the Soviet Union. I suspect they will not back his foreign excursions at the expense of their economy. If he loots Ukraine, after all, it seems certain his cronies will benefit, but not the Russian people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 To save you wasting time; watch 18mins onwards. What is the significance of Nord Stream 2? Did NATO break accords not to expand past the Elbe? https://www.corbettreport.com/qfc084-ukraine/ *Note, the host goes out of his way to point out that he is not pro-Putin or Russia. Links in the show notes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Doudna Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 (edited) What an absolute lliar Putin was, claiming all along he had no plans to invade Ukraine and would not be doing so. It turns out the continuing announcements of the Biden administration that an invasion was imminent were simply accurate, and Putin was just flat lying in denying that. Empires want buffer zones is the logic. The US moved in to Latin American countries at will and thought it perfectly acceptable to invade Cuba or Nicaragua because of threat in "our" backyard. Who can forget how president Trump wanted so badly to invade Venezuela because they had oil and he just wanted to take it? Wanted to do that. It didn't happen only because 100% of heads of state of neighboring countries he spoke with about it said do not do it, as did the military of the US, over which Trump could not get full control in only a single term. Trump was our Putin, but in our case--fortunately--the military acted as a block on Trump in Venezuela and elsewhere, and the voters threw him out in a case where Trump simply did not have the power and means to forcibly stay in power despite the outcome of the election, though he tried. He was our own Putin, having the raw heart of a murderous dictator who would make himself president-for-life in a heartbeat if he were able to do so. The fact that America has had its own Putin as recently as 2016-2020, has had its own history of invading sovereign peoples and states, does not make what is happening in Ukraine right. I grieve for the human cost to the people in Ukraine, the domestic opponents of Putin inside Russia who will surely experience even more severe repression, and the innocent people of the world under the shadow of nuclear-armed empires at odds with each other which with only a few mistakes or miscalculations could become the unimaginable horror of nuclear missile exchanges. I think of Reykjavik 1986, in which Gorbachev, the reformist ruler of the old Soviet Union, made a serious proposal to president Reagan for the major powers of the world to end nuclear weapons in a four-stage plan that was doable. Reagan had campaigned passionately for a negotiated end to nuclear weapons on earth and by all accounts believed his own rhetoric. Reagan, walking with Gorbachev, accepted Gorbachev saying "yes" to what Reagan had publicly proposed and called for on the part of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev and Reagan agreed to have their respective teams get to work on drawing up the paperwork and implementing what could have been one of the most significant and visionary changes in course of direction for the world in history. Reagan's staff, horrified, stopped it, walked back Reagan's agreement. The objection was not that the plan was not doable; it was. It turns out the Reagan administration never was serious about wanting the objective that Reagan called for so passionately in his campaigning and State of the Union addresses et al. It turns out, as was made explicit in explanation, that Reagan was out of step on that issue with the policies of the Reagan administration. But what can a poor president do when his staff will not carry out his wishes expressed in his campaign promises? The Pentagon weighed in with a budget or fiscal responsibility objection to Reagan accepting Gorbachev's "yes" to formal US proposals which were never intended to be accepted: the defense of Europe is a lot less financially costly, the Pentagon explained, done by nuclear deterrent than by means of standing armies which must be fed, housed, dependents cared for, medical and pension costs, etc. Alexander Haig explained openly following the collapse of the Gorbachev-Reagan Reykjavik agreement, that the US stated formal proposals which Gorbachev had now accepted, had never been meant to be taken seriously. It was not that Reagan flat out lied to the American people and the world when he had spoke with such believability and passion of his pledge to work for an end to nuclear weapons on earth, that I came close to believing him myself. But what is a poor president to do when his own staff insists on going the opposite direction? Well we know the answer: Reagan was a figurehead president, the great communicator, good at learning his lines, believing those lines, and selling them to the American people, and that was about it, while staff did the work of running the country. Reykjavik 1986 was a moment the world could have gone a different direction. Toward a world in which ultimately the nukes of the existing major and minor powers would be put in a single stockpile under international command never to be used, and a system set up by which conflicts between nations become arbitrated and settled in courts rather than by war. And now the world wonders, is this 1914, is this 1930. Twenty years ago I ate lunch in a restaurant in Saint Petersburg, Florida, and was served by a waitress who told me she had just come to the US recently from Saint Petersburg, Russia. I got to talking with her and asked what people in Russia felt about Gorbachev. To my complete surprise she answered very negatively, said nobody in Russia liked Gorbachev. I asked her to quantify that estimate: what percentage of Russians would she say liked Gorbachev. She answered (seriously) "maybe one percent". But the rest of the world loved Gorbachev. I asked: why? She answered: because Russia used to be great. Gorbachev ended that. She did not use the word "empire" but that is what she meant. What a world. Edited February 24, 2022 by Greg Doudna Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Thomas Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 Yet another Republican running for Congress vowing to do "whatever it takes." https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1496915193623826444?ref_src=twsrc^tfw Steve Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Allison Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 (edited) 5 hours ago, Pat Speer said: It's coming. A knife in the back. Or a bullet in the head. It's coming. Or so we would like to think. It is unfortunate, however, that Stalin was able to murder millions, and not have to pay a price. Putin clearly thinks he can do the same. Putin has recently been completely obsessed with his own mortality; perhaps he is overwhelmed with premonitions. He definitely is quite likely to go through some things in the near future. His descent into madness has accelerated so quickly however, that I'm not sure he cares. Edited February 24, 2022 by Matt Allison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Cole Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 6 hours ago, Pat Speer said: An analogy is in order to better illuminate the situation. A bully terrorizes the kids in his neighborhood. A number of them unite with a bully from another neighborhood for protection. The bully--thinking like a bully--sees this as a threat. Whereby he takes the skinny kid next door who's only been talking to these other kids into the back alley and breaks his arms. In his stupid bully mind, he thinks this will send a message to any of the other neighbor kids thinking of "teaming up on him". But in reality he's gonna make the other kids flee him whenever he walks down the street, and secretly pray for his comeuppance. It's coming. A knife in the back. Or a bullet in the head. It's coming. Or so we would like to think. It is unfortunate, however, that Stalin was able to murder millions, and not have to pay a price. Putin clearly thinks he can do the same. But I wouldn't bet on it. I suspect he's overplayed his hand. I suspect most Russians could give a hoot about the Soviet Union. I suspect they will not back his foreign excursions at the expense of their economy. If he loots Ukraine, after all, it seems certain his cronies will benefit, but not the Russian people. Pat S.-- The West financed Putin by buying fossil fuels. Which, btw, Biden has just explicitly stated the West will continue to buy. The West financed Xi by buying everything. And in 10 to 20 years Xi will have multiples of Putin's military resources. The globalists love free trade and they love appeasement (of anyone they do business with) The globalists run DC. Biden is explicitly stating that Russian oil-and-gas exports will not be sanctioned. "Oil prices steadied on Wednesday, holding below 2014 highs, as U.S. officials indicated escalation between Russia and Ukraine was unlikely to result in sanctions on energy supplies from Russia, one of the world's top oil producers." https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-pulls-back-view-western-sanctions-russia-wont-choke-supply-2022-02-23/ Russia's economy is a one-trick pony. They export fossil fuels. If you want to beat Putin stop buying Russian oil. So....so far, Biden said in advance the US would not militarily oppose Russia in Ukraine, and now Russia can continue selling its oil. Xi is watching. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Allison Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 I agree Ben. But that is the situation today, 2/24/22. I would proffer that we re-visit the oil landscape 3 months from today, and see what, if anything, has changed. The stakes will have increased quite a bit at that point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Cole Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 55 minutes ago, Matt Allison said: I agree Ben. But that is the situation today, 2/24/22. I would proffer that we re-visit the oil landscape 3 months from today, and see what, if anything, has changed. The stakes will have increased quite a bit at that point. Matt A.-- I cannot imagine Apple, Disney, GM, Tesla, WalMart, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs et al advocating a vigorous de-coupling from China due to Xi's rising repression, militarism and imperialism (in Tibet, India border, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the entire South China Sea). Will the West stop buying Russian oil? The lesson from Ukraine is: If the globalists have commercial interests that favor the despots, then the despots will rule. I advise the free nations of the Asian Pacific---South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Thailand, New Zealand, Philippines, Indonesia---build large fleets of small, quiet hunter-killer submarines, and some ballistic subs. To consider themselves an alliance that no one else will help, when push comes to shove. US globalists will not intervene in the Asian Pacific if commercial opportunities remain open in China. See what has happened in Hong Kong. I don't blame Biden. He has been deeply immersed, intellectually and monetarily, his entire life in the globalist mindset. Another US president would likely do the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Bulman Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 'We are shocked'- Russians react to invasion (msn.com) Anti-war protests across Russia – in pictures | Art and design | The Guardian Reporter's notebook: Watching Russians protest the Ukraine invasion (msn.com) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W. Niederhut Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 (edited) 44 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said: 'We are shocked'- Russians react to invasion (msn.com) Anti-war protests across Russia – in pictures | Art and design | The Guardian Reporter's notebook: Watching Russians protest the Ukraine invasion (msn.com) The Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. reported today that a Russian platoon had surrendered in Ukraine, and told their Ukrainian captors that they didn't realize that they were being sent into Ukraine to kill Ukrainians. It sounds unbelievable, but my hunch is that the vast majority of Russians don't really know what is going on. it reminds me of a time when I was in St. Petersburg, in about 2005, and our elderly Russian tour guide was describing what it was like for Russians when they realized, after the advent of Perestroika and Glasnost, that Western democracies were actually wealthy, free, and prosperous. Everyone was shocked, depressed, and disillusioned. Soviet Pravda had painted an illusory picture of Western "reality" for decades. And, in fact, someone at Slate has presented a compelling case that Putin wasn't primarily worried about NATO in Ukraine. He was worried about the advent of democracy-- which would undermine his totalitarian police state. Putin’s War Was Never Actually About NATO https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/02/putin-war-is-not-about-nato.html February 24, 2022 Edited February 25, 2022 by W. Niederhut Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Cole Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 25 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said: The Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. reported today that a Russian platoon had surrendered in Ukraine, and told their Ukrainian captors that they didn't realize that they were being sent into Ukraine to kill Ukrainians. It sounds unbelievable, but my hunch is that the vast majority of Russians don't really know what is going on. it reminds me of a time when I was in St. Petersburg, in about 2005, and our elderly Russian tour guide was describing what it was like for Russians when they realized, after the advent of Perestroika and Glasnost, that Western democracies were actually wealthy, free, and prosperous. Everyone was shocked, depressed, and disillusioned. Soviet Pravda had painted an illusory picture of Western "reality" for decades. And, in fact, someone at Slate has presented a compelling case that Putin wasn't primarily worried about NATO in Ukraine. He was worried about the advent of democracy-- which would undermine his totalitarian police state. Putin’s War Was Never Actually About NATO https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/02/putin-war-is-not-about-nato.html February 24, 2022 W. Can you explain why--- 1. Biden, pre-invasion, said out loud the US would not send troops into Ukraine. 2. The Biden Administration has already ruled out not buying Russian oil and gas (Putin's only real money source)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W. Niederhut Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 (edited) 38 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said: W. Can you explain why--- 1. Biden, pre-invasion, said out loud the US would not send troops into Ukraine. 2. The Biden Administration has already ruled out not buying Russian oil and gas (Putin's only real money source)? Ben, Are you repeating some anti-Biden talking points from Fox News, or what? 🤥 Let's recall that Fox News, Trump, Pompeo, and the Trumplicans have been singing Putin's praises as recently as this week. It's absolutely absurd. Russian T.V. is even broadcasting clips of Tucker Carlson and Mike Pompeo praising Putin. So, not surprisingly, Trumplicans and the Fox Propaganda channel are now anxiously blaming Biden for Putin's catastrophic decision to attack Ukraine-- after ridiculing Biden's warnings last week! You never read the references I post, but here are two accurate, reality-based references about; 1) Biden and Trump's policies toward Putin and NATO -- written by Russia expert, Dr. Fiona Hill, and 2) The truly bizarre Republican responses to Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Enjoy. Former top Trump Russia adviser details the sharp contrast between the former President and Bidenwww.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/former-top-trump-russia-adviser-details-the-sharp-contrast-between-the-former-president-and-biden/ar-AAU5Chu?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531 Ukrainian Crisis Reveals GOP’s Inability to Form Positions, Message, Or Even Unify www.politicususa.com/2022/02/23/ukrainian-crisis-reveals-gops-inability-to-form-positions-message-or-even-unify.html Edited February 25, 2022 by W. Niederhut Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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