chaogomu

It would have made shit so much worse, but is a sign of weakness in Putin's rule.

That's why Putin is so murder happy right now. He's having to reconsolidate his rule.

Ukraine was a massive fuck up for Putin. He believes in the bullshit known as color revolution.

So he thought he'd pull one in Ukraine. A few years of some soldiers fucking around in the East, then he'd walk in and be welcomed.

Which is fucking stupid.

But Putin has long since killed anyone who would tell him that an idea is stupid, or that people don't work the way a paranoid, backstabbing KGB trained psychopath thinks they do.

No, Putin fucked up hard due to the dictator trap.

Now he's scrambling. He's been killing off rivals and opponents at a breakneck pace the last few years, all because his position has never been weaker.

And he barely managed to diffuse a coup attempt.

He had to use treachery to do it, so the next time, the coup leader will not back down.

No, Putin is desperate to pull out some sort of win in Ukraine, because anything else is the end of his rule, and likely his life.

Being dominated in a consensual way, takes a sort of self awareness and acceptance of your own weaknesses.

Trump lacks any self awareness, and has likely never been part of consensual domination.

This is the answer. I stopped using WinRAR the moment I learned about 7zip.

Now I'm thinking about a pair of elves is the worst sort of codependent relationship, but one light year apart.

They use sign language to constantly argue and make up with each other, but because of the one light year delay, they're maybe never quite at the same place in the argument/reconciliation cycle, both of them arguing with their counterpart one year prior.

For this year at least, it's too late to replace Trump on the ticket. Unless they replace Trump with Vance. That would comply with the rules. Sort of. Trump's name would still be on the ticket. But Vance would take lead, and would pick a running mate.

There are two major factors that would keep this from becoming a reality. First is Trump will never step aside in favor of someone else.

Second is that Vance has negative charisma.

That's some blatant Russian propaganda there. Blame NATO twice for Russian imperialism.

The "Russia had to invade a sovereign nation because they were talking about joining NATO to prevent Russia from invading them" logic has some holes to it.

The fact that Russia has invaded their neighbors 14 times since the end of the cold war tells you why one of their neighbors would want to join NATO.

Also, remember that time that Russia shot down a commercial airliner? The Ukrainians sure as hell do. That was the true beginning of the invasion, which is why Ukraine was in talks to join NATO.

And yes, people have the right to defend themselves. But the Israeli government has locked down the anti-terror propaganda, because Hamas is pretty vile as far as organizations go. It's why Israel let Hamas grow and become powerful, and why the Israelis paid to keep Hamas in power for the last decade or so.

As long as Israel can point at Hamas, they have just enough of an excuse to claim their ethnic cleansing is actually just an anti-terror campaign.

Hamas is a full on terrorist organization, not that all terrorist organizations are bad. Or rather, there are some causes where a terrorist organization is the appropriate response. John Brown tried it. So did Nelson Mandela. But Hamas is a religious extremist terrorist organization. One that has distasteful views, and was sort of put in place by Israel for those views.

You see what I'm getting at here? Hamas is fucking evil, and Israel has mostly succeeded in making Hamas the face of Palestinian resistance against Israel.

I doubt many of the original leaders of Hamas are still alive, but that doesn't matter either when Israel can just lie and say that whoever they kill is Hamas. It's a bit maddening, and I doubt there's an answer to it all except for the other Palestinian resistance groups to step up their social media game.

There was no economic or rational factors. The only thing that makes a lick of sense is the irrational.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/putin-dictator-trap-russia-ukraine/627064/

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/3/24/22982864/vladimir-putin-russia-ukraine-war-brian-klaas

Those are a warm-up, but then you have the purges since the invasion began.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-purges-in-putins-shrinking-inner-circle

Putin has sort of been the butt of jokes for years for killing anyone who looks at him funny. He's a KGB stooge, who made his career out of backstabbing and paranoia. His entire inner circle were afraid to tell him the truth, because he would kill them if they did.

He's never been "savvy", he's just been willing to kill as many people as necessary to secure his own power.

The classic authoritarian dictator who throws people out of windows for saying no. And whose vaulted military had body armor made of cardboard, because the corruption was so ingrained that every single level was accepting bribes and stealing shit.

I'm surprised that they're still going, but Russia has shown the world that they're a third rate military, at best.

As to Palestine. It doesn't matter what the resistance movements call themselves now. Israel will just say they're Hamas, and no one likes Hamas. There are good reasons not to like Hamas, they're religious extremists who want to kill all Jews.

And for decades, Israel has funded Hamas behind the scenes, while coming down extra heavy on any other resistance movement. And now it's all paid off for them because they can just claim that anyone they kill was actually Hamas.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/07/30/how-israel-helped-create-hamas/

This tactic of creating the perfectly detestable opposition has been used in quite a few places. For example, Greenpeace gets a lot of money from oil company heirs. Specifically the Rockefeller family.

I doubt anyone from Hamas, or Greenpeace, ever took orders from the people giving them money. They were given the money with no strings attached, because they were already jackasses. The money just extended their reach.

Everyone knows Putin invaded Ukraine because he's a dumbass dictator who started to believe his own propaganda. It's the dictator trap. Putin surrounded himself with backstabbing yes men by literally killing anyone who wasn't.

As to Palestinian resistance. I don't think Hamas is a good resistance movement. For a whole host of reasons. Which is why the Israeli government has been propping them up since the 80s.

An unsympathetic resistance movement can do more to damage a cause than not having a movement at all.

From now until the ethnic cleansing is complete, Israel will call any resistance movement Hamas, regardless of their actual name or beliefs. I'm not sure how to fight that... I don't think anyone really knows beyond screaming the truth everywhere we can.

It didn't work in the 1920s in Europe. But maybe with the Internet... Likely not though.

If it's an old patent, chances are it's expired and free to use now.

Yeah, while there are dozens or possibly hundreds of flavors of "wicca". The first tenent is almost always some variation on "do no harm". Normally phrased something like "as it harms none, do as thou will"... Which is odd phrasing for something written in the last century.

The main exception is those who follow Crowley. His whole deal was "do what thou will shall be the whole of the law".

Crowley was mostly in it for the shock value.

And again, Crowley's "ancient wisdom" is newer than the invention of photography. We even have recordings of him speaking.

X-Men has always been the anti-status quo option...

But now that they're part of Disney, you can expect the next appearance to be more pro-status quo.