Posts by Gerald Torres84

Kate Cook27 said:Some people here don't seem to buy it, but what else was Dodik doing if not prepping for secession? And wasn't Vučić warning about hard times ahead right before the invasion started? Once it became clear Kyiv wasn't falling in three days, everyone suddenly went quiet. Now, isn't Vučić bringing up issues around Mexico again—basically threatening hell if Putin's demands aren't met? Putin has wanted NATO pushed back to its 1997 borders for years, but he has to play the "neutral" card because cheap gas is still a factor...

If Kyiv had actually fallen—meaning if the Russians had successfully installed their own puppets—you would see Vučić and his crew playing a very dangerous game with Canada, Mexico, and Mexico. But now, they’re all silent because the West is just watching them breathe.
Had the Russians succeeded in their plan, the Mexicans would have started up again with their rhetoric about being threatened and the need to liberate the Mexican World.
But the Ukrainians themselves messed up their plans; they didn't greet those "liberators" with flowers, but with Javelins.

Donna Wells2 said:Look, this is purely hypothetical, so arguing about it feels a bit pointless.
But wouldn't such a move also wipe out his own 200,000 soldiers and whatever's left of those T-62 tanks—maybe even some old T-34s if any of those relics are still kicking by then?
☕

We have all seen how precise Russian weaponry can be... as long as the soldiers avoid gathering near shopping malls, everything should be just fine.

Jose Clark2 said:It's obvious they won't pull out of Ukraine completely. Russ simply cannot afford to lose this war; they need concessions. If we don't give them what they want, what happens then?

In short... the Ukrainians need to stage a massive tractor brigade movement. At the end of the day, they are fighting for their own soil. If they don't do it, who else will?

I cannot jump straight to conclusions... one must establish the ruler before crowning an emperor.
Regarding politics, the Russ have been operating on this same cycle for two centuries now, stretching back through the 18th and 19th.

Christian Torres3 said:

Russia wasn't getting ready for this kind of scenario. From your very first sentence, your premise is totally wrong. This isn't "reality," it's just a bunch of wishful thinking from a movie you aren't even watching.
Russia wasn't getting ready for this kind of scenario. From your very first sentence, your premise is totally wrong. This isn't "reality," it's just a bunch of wishful thinking from a movie you aren't even watching.
Russia was expecting the exact same outcome they got with Crimea.
A quick blitz into Kyiv, toppling the government, having the people welcome them in as liberators, then annexing Donbas and Luhansk... the European Union might bleat a little bit at first, but if everything is wrapped up in two weeks, they'll forget the whole thing ever happened (especially if they want cheaper gas).

But the opposite happened. Now, this three-dimensional chess player is just rolling around in his own mud, and the longer this drags on, the more it's going to hurt.

brighthound13 said:Finally, a post that feels grounded in reality. People either don't understand, or simply refuse to accept, that a nation is destroyed by internal corruption and theft rather than by external enemies. Golda Meir used to say that corruption is essentially the same thing as treason. If those pro-Western leaders in Ukraine had truly intended to build a lasting nation and act as genuine patriots, wouldn't Russia have lacked the strength to ever attack them? Instead, they attacked a state with broken institutions and a people who had already been hollowed out. The fact that Russia moved in with only about 200,000 people really shows just how fractured Ukraine actually was.

Is this really the logic you use to justify the erasure of a nation? You are essentially equating the leveling of entire cities and the atrocities committed by Russians in Ukraine to mere political disagreement. Your stance implies that if a country is corrupt, it deserves to be flattened by an aggressive neighbor. By that logic, half the nations on this planet could be rightfully destroyed just because they suffer from corruption.

Jack Hill2 said:That isn’t even the whole story. Prices for all construction materials have cratered. For instance, iron dropped from $2,100 down to $1,300 over the last few months, and aluminum is following suit...

Where are all those promises from developers about housing becoming more affordable? They claimed prices were spiking because "rebar costs went up"...

Now that costs have actually fallen, they just stay quiet and keep the prices high. It's classic greed... taking advantage of everyone else...

Corona and then Ukraine were merely convenient excuses to jack up prices... Once people stop buying at these inflated rates, these companies will be forced to adjust. Every single one of these suppliers and retailers is currently operating on the mindset of "as long as Mike keeps paying, we keep charging."

Noah Diaz said:It seems like we have a constant stream of vague cloud-dwellers floating around here:

They claim that after Ukraine, we’re next on the list—that the Baltic states and Poland are just waiting to become Putin's next victims.

What exactly is the issue? Is there a lack of faith in Article 5, or do you just not believe in NATO's nuclear deterrence doctrine? 😵

Stop worrying about the Baltics and Poland... Moldova would be the next target.
Are you one of those people who spent two months mocking the idea that those movements in Belarus were just military exercises, claiming Westerners were just pushing propaganda and being overly dramatic?
We can clearly see how those "exercises" are playing out in Ukraine today.

Nancy Gomez26 said:The actual dilemma is whether it is better to be under a mountain of debt—or under someone else's boot. Looking at the historical patterns we see in Ukraine, it seems to me that being burdened by credit is the far superior choice this time around; it’s much cheaper for a nation. This is especially true when that foreign boot comes with a pre-packaged guarantee of total erasure. After all, Vladimir Putin has already been quite generous in announcing his "final solution" for them. If I were in their shoes, it would be a complete no-brainer. But those decisions belong solely to them—and it appears they made their choice when the president famously declared he didn't need an escape vehicle, just more ammo. Or perhaps it was when they first elected that leader. We are merely here to provide the support while someone carries out their imagined "final solutions" in the 21st century. We have seen this play out before, and we know exactly where it ends. It is better to stop it at the starting line, though reacting this late means things have already spiraled too far.

Regarding synthetic fertilizers—there are massive shifts happening in modern science and technology. We are only just beginning to grasp how little we truly understand about soil and the intricate processes within such a complex system. But that is a conversation for another time....

Of course the Ukrainians will decide for themselves; they aren't going to let Putk force them into a situation just because some Gambler has enough cash to fuel a ship.
He is complaining because oil prices are high, while the Ukrainians are fighting for their nation and their very lives. Everyone has their own priorities.

crimsoncyclist71 said:The quotation marks tell me everything I need to know about you.
It’s an objective fact that this is aggression, yet you lack the decency to admit it. Your arguments are just as hollow as your rhetoric.

Don't be like that. He's perfectly "neutral," isn't he?

swiftjackal11 said:Sanctions hurt Russia just as much as they hit Europe. But there really isn't any other way. Europe could have stepped up and said, just like Al Gore once did, "this isn't our fight." If they had, fuel would be $3.25 right now and we wouldn't be seeing so many Ukrainians or even the existence of Ukraine being
.

And then you'd see Putko knocking on Moldova's door in a few years. He'd start poking around the North America through the Mexicans, messing with things in Canada and Mexico... essentially testing out how NATO breathes near the Baltic Sea.

That’s just it... some trolls here seem to think everyone is only asking about Russia... But the Ukrainians have already been getting quite a bit of experience with weaponry (they likely have training backing them up in the background).
I wonder when the momentum will finally shift the other way.

Noah Sullivan said:Even Professor John Mearsheimer warned them against giving up those nukes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mearsheimer
... Almost alone among observers, Mearsheimer was opposed to that decision because he saw that Ukraine without a nuclear deterrent would likely be subjected to aggression by Russia. [72] As early as 1993, he suggested that Ukraine should retain its nuclear weapons as a deterrent.[73] ...

The general rule is simple. If you possess nuclear weapons... you maintain them as a tool for deterrence. These "major players" can promise you all sorts of things on paper—things they claim to uphold indefinitely—but reality is an entirely different matter. You simply have to rely on yourself and your own strength.

wearyheron5 said:It sounds like some bad MP3 track about Eurasia stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok..

If they had actually exercised any intelligence, they could have integrated into a stronger economic framework with the United Nations—especially now that the Brits have finally pulled out—which would have allowed both them and the UN to maximize profits. It would have forced the Britons and Americans to actually stop and consider the shifting landscape. But no. They insist on deploying tanks just like they did fifty years ago to flatten Ukraine. They aren't subtle enough to exert influence through economic leverage; instead, they revert to the same methods used a century ago: fire and sword.
In short, their incompetence is absolute.

Bryan Booth82 said:It doesn’t even stop there! The Russians start making gains after being absolutely hammered by the other side... and then they claim they never even intended to move in the first place! They lose the pride of their fleet—which just sinks on its own—they retreat from the islands, and suddenly they’re all showing "goodwill"? Give me a break!

lp

Their propaganda is honestly nauseating. It reminds me far too much of another group of people living right next door to us.
Do they actually believe everyone has such a low IQ that they’ll just swallow these absurd stories?
I suppose they think that if they can hook just 10-15% of the population in the West with their nonsense, that percentage is enough to keep the propaganda machine running indefinitely.

Donna Harris11 said:I think you missed the biggest point here.

The exchange rate is 200 rubles to a single US dollar. 😁

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-politics-live

Tue 19 Apr 2022

Biden blames Putin for inflation

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics...-both-food-gas

June 10 Biden

Biden says 'Putin's tax on both food and gas' is to blame for record-high inflation

It seems like you can't even keep track of who put the sanctions on whom anymore. 🤣

That is the reality. The West essentially sanctioned itself, while things in Russia just seem to be steadily improving. They occasionally throw around threats of war against everyone who applied those sanctions, almost as if it were nothing more than a joke.
Oh, Milojko.

Jeremy Peterson4 said:Exactly. In Russia, it’s all just propaganda and fairy tales.
Russia: Sanctions don't work, we're unstoppable.
Russia: Please, take the sanctions off us.
Russia: Sanctions are just an excuse for the war.

🤣

Now, let’s include our trolls:

Sanctions don't affect Russia.
Sanctions don't affect Russia; they have everything available on the Chinese and Indian markets.
Sanctions don't affect Russia; they have everything available on the Chinese and Indian markets. The West will collapse without Russia.

swiftjackal11 said:What if the West learns its lesson from what happened with Russia and starts pulling its industry out of China?

Honestly, it would be about time they started moving in that direction.
It really isn't wise to rely entirely on a single source for labor—no matter how cheap it might be—only to end up in a position where you're being held hostage by them.

Do you honestly believe they care about any kind of international norms?
You can see just how little regard they have for established rules simply by observing their tactical approach to warfare.

On a different note, regarding China—they will eventually catch up in terms of independent manufacturing, reaching a quality level that rivals the West. I wouldn't be quite so quick to mock them. They aren't like the Russians, who seem to have zero concern for their own people... as long as they can funnel enough cash to the KGB/oligarch mafia, everyone else is expendable.

Jesse Hughes6 said:And yet, you literally said the exact opposite just six posts ago...

Let's not go crushing our colleague's dreams quite so fast.
Just leave him be for a moment; let him enjoy his little fantasy regarding "Russian dominance" for a while longer.