So...the Western Allies are psychotic...

[Ike Bana]

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday accused Western allies of having a “schizophrenic” approach to the conflict in Ukraine, preferring to extend the fighting than bring about peace. - CNBC 6/30/23

The psychotics are the Russian people who continue to allow war criminals like Lavrov and Putin to be in charge. There is something way wrong with Russians.

Two generations of Russians have grown into adulthood free of the ideological poison of the Soviet Union. And they just sit there with their thumbs up their asses, drunk on vodka, surfing the internet on their fucking smartphones, and let this shit continue to flourish. A 2018 poll showed that 66% of Russians regretted the fall of the Soviet Union, setting a 15-year record for this fucked up opinion.

I do belive, when it comes down to it, that every country gets the government it deserves. It's just too bad for the rest of the world that when Russia is getting the government it deserves, it creates such chaos and in the case of Ukraine, outright bloody murder, for other countries around them.

At least while this country is going down the ideoligical shitter, as I believe it is, we have managed to avoid invading Mexico even though so many Americans live in Chapala, Ajijic and Jocotepec.

[RickeyM]

I remember reading somewhere of Putin saying something about NATO nations encroaching on and wanting to take over Russia, or something along those lines. Who TF would want to inherit that mess? If Russia would simply stop attacking/harassing/invading their neighboring countries they could keep on being Russia until kingdom come.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by RickeyM

I remember reading somewhere of Putin saying something about NATO nations encroaching on and wanting to take over Russia, or something along those lines. Who TF would want to inherit that mess? If Russia would simply stop attacking/harassing/invading their neighboring countries they could keep on being Russia until kingdom come.

I'm with those who say the NATO issue is just window dressing for the real reason for the Ukraine invasion. EU membership is the actual reason.

The Russian economy has nothing going for it outside of natural resources. Farm exports suck, industrial production sucks, the entire Gross Domestic Product shifted from heavy industrial and agriculture to natural gas, oil, and mining after the fall of the Soviet bloc. Russian GDP is $12,000 per capita, the US GDP is $70,000 per capita.

And there is no future for any improvement in Russia. The country with an economic future is Ukraine, and EU membership ends any control Putin might once have had, or could have over the economy of Ukraine in the future.

He needs it, and it's gone unless he gains full control over the government of Ukraine, like he had prior to the 2014 Ukraine Revolution for Dignity.

[Ike Bana]

Here's an interesting article on what is going on with the Russian people in general and specifically with young Russians 17-25 years old. "The Putin Generation" those who were born after the ascendance of Putin to Russian President.

Is There Really A Putin Generation

When I read this, I went immediately back to the Vietnam war years. And the fact that there would never have been a growing and active anti-Vietnam war movement had it not been for 17 to 25 year old kids in this country in the late 1960's. My cohort, out in the streets being a pain in the fucking ass, refusing to shut the fuck up, refusing to love it or leave...occasionally throwing a flaming lunch bag full of dog shit at the cops at the 1968 DNC. Occasionally getting our heads cracked open in a police riot. Sure, the rest of the country finally caught on four years into the Nixon administration, but if not for the kids, it would never have happened. In 1970, four dead kids at Kent State and two dead kids at Jackson State 17-25 years old, made it happen.

And here we have that same aged generation of Russian kids, hanging out at the mall on their smartphones while their country continues to be the scourge of the world. It's their country, the time to finally get interested in doing something about it is long past. If there was ever a time when masses of people out in the streets might make a difference, it's after the events of last week.

Do it now or forever be fucked. I don't think so. It's the vodka.

[Dondilion]

Absent from the article is great damage of the nineties on child, parent and grandparents. The nineties era is fresh, more impressionable.

The writer is anxious to go to Kolyma era.

[Dondilion]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

I'm with those who say the NATO issue is just window dressing for the real reason for the Ukraine invasion. EU membership is the actual reason.

The Russian economy has nothing going for it outside of natural resources. Farm exports suck, industrial production sucks, the entire Gross Domestic Product shifted from heavy industrial and agriculture to natural gas, oil, and mining after the fall of the Soviet bloc. Russian GDP is $12,000 per capita, the US GDP is $70,000 per capita.

And there is no future for any improvement in Russia. The country with an economic future is Ukraine, and EU membership ends any control Putin might once have had, or could have over the economy of Ukraine in the future.

He needs it, and it's gone unless he gains full control over the government of Ukraine, like he had prior to the 2014 Ukraine Revolution for Dignity.

Your first paragraph has some truths. However the denial of Crimea to NATO has some weight.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by Dondilion

Absent from the article is great damage of the nineties on child, parent and grandparents. The nineties era is fresh, more impressionable.

The writer is anxious to go to Kolyma era.

The Russian people were fucked up long before the 1990's. They replaced the vile brutality of the monarchy with the vile brutality of totalitarian rule (let's not blame it on soci@lism/communism), followed by the murderous autocracy of Putin in partnership with the oligarchs. Seems to me Russians are more than happy to have somebody in charge who will tell them what to do and how to think. Putin's success is his ability to use the built in political apathy of the Russian people to hold his control. When the people believe that they have nothing to say about those in control...they end up with nothing to say about those in control.

It's what the MAGA/GOP wants, people who believe every fetid chunk that comes spewing out of the festering pieholes of alt-right politicians, and who will do what they want.

[donquixote99]

It's long-learned helplessness. Cynical apathy has been baked after generations and generations in which anyone pushing for change has been exiled or liquidated.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

It's long-learned helplessness. Cynical apathy has been baked after generations and generations in which anyone pushing for change has been exiled or liquidated.

Yep...served one of those polonium-210 smoothies. It appears that the safest route one can take as a Russian citizen is apathetic indifference. Too bad about those apathetic Russians for the dead Ukrainian children.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by Dondilion

Your first paragraph has some truths. However the denial of Crimea to NATO has some weight.

Bullshit. The Russians were signatories to the 1991 Ukraine Independence Referendum. The Russians agreed that Ukraine, all of Ukraine including eastern Ukraine...is a sovereign nation. Its none of the Russians fucking business if Ukraine becomes a NATO member or a Euopean Union member. The denial of Crimea as part of Ukraine is bullshit....the Russians formally acknowledged Crimea as part of a fully independent and autonomous Ukraine a long time ago.

The Russians are fucking war criminals. And that includes the fucking apathetic Russian people who are no better than Germans lining the streets of Nuremburg in the 1930's throwing up the nazi salute as the Hitler motorcade drove by.