Kiev Is Burning

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

[seahawk]

Russian media reaction to the tanks deliveries is amazing again

 

[Yama]

37 minutes ago, bojan said:

They said same about Jews, Slavs, and lot of other people, and also about lot of other ideologies. Plus Saddam, as much as he was a loathsome fuck was hardly an Islamist.

It was really impressive gymnastics when post-911 US administration tried to pin Saddam and AQ together. I remember watching the presentation of American evidence about Saddam's WMD program and terrorist contacts, and I think I actually found some of the WMD stuff somewhat convincing (we now know it was almost all conjecture). However, when they got into Saddam-AQ "links", I was thinking all the time "Wow...this is really embarrassing  THIS is the best they came up with?" Basically all of it was "Jack knows Jill, and Jill knows Ann, hence Jack knows Ann" playschoolyard logic.

[Yama]

On 1/25/2023 at 4:18 PM, Stuart Galbraith said:

They won this war back in March and May, if staving off complete defeat is your only benchmark. The only question left is where the cease-fire  line is going to be. Under the present circumstances, they were not going to liberate all the country. With 300 modernish tanks? Maybe.

300 modern tanks will not be quickly conjured up however, current commitment is like 60-70 confirmed? With maybe 30-40 more if they're lucky.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yeah, it's going to take months, maybe even another year.

I think they will get them. Just may take some time.

[seahawk]

2 hours ago, RETAC21 said:

OTOH, if you want to go overboard with the comparisons that are not pertinent, Prague was certainly better looking after the Russians entered in '68 than Baghdag after the 'murricans went in, in 2003, so let's go full Glenn and recognise that it's better to drop on your knees and not resist that to fight for your country...

"Better red than dead" - was not wrong. This however requires the invader to be a halfway decent power and interested in preserving a functioning society in the invaded country.

I must say at the beginning of the war, I was in favour of Russia, because from a perspective of national security and spheres of interest, it makes perfect sense for Russia to control the Ukraine, but the war has removed the mask of a decent and calculated Russia and has shown us a society clearly embracing fascism. And if we should have learned something from history, then it is that you better start believing the threats spouted by a fascist regime. 

[Roman Alymov]

19 hours ago, ZORK said:

Thank you for this post. I think I am understanding much more clearly what you have been conveying many times.

Definitely a world wide problem...but also brings feelings of betrayal and frustration for the extent it is obvious.

My question is what direction do you want your country to go, and what is the process and price for going that way.

What is valued?

I think i was allready asked this question not so long ago, and since not much have changes since then - i think my previous answer is still good

Seems like the article i have provided the link to in my reply, was too much long read for non-Russians (even with autotranslate), so i took my time to more or less correct autotranslation errors to make it easyer to understand. Note it was writtem by leading pro-Western iultra-liberal (in Russian meaning of this word) sociologist, and published by liberal newspaper, so nobody could label it "Putin's propaganda". And, as person who spent best years of my life as practicing sociologist myself, i feel some sort of professional satisfaction that my ideological opponent came to simmilar conclusions (with survey data on hands) as i did without survey data, just with my personal observations. Nothe the author is naming Russian ruling elite "Status Quo Party"  - i call it "Appeasement of the West", since personal status quo of this people is totally dependent on West (they even could do without Russsia at all - but not without West). 

26.10.2020 19:20:00

Can we do without the future? Sociologists do not find Russians interested in the coming times

Alexey Levinson

About the author: Alexey Georgievich Levinson – Head of the Department of Socio-cultural Studies of the Levada Center.
I work at the Levada Center. Our professional task is to ask society questions, and then tell it that it has answered these questions. The Levada team, to which I have the honor to belong, began this work back in the late 1980s. Over these more than 30 years, we have repeatedly conducted research in order to find out: what the people of our country think and say about the future.
So, throughout this time, the Russians have shown by their answers that they do not think about the future, in fact, they refuse to think. We must immediately make a reservation that this refusal concerned the future of the country, the state, and not them as individuals, members of their families. As individuals, they continued to have the usual ideas that children would grow up, go to school, then to college, that we would save up money and buy a washing machine, that we should paint the fence at the dacha so that it would stand longer, and so on. There were also concerns about the future: my son will be 18 – they will take him to the army, I will turn 60 – they will ask me to leave work…
But the mass consciousness of Russians refused to think about the future not as my personal one, but as our common one during this period. Time after time, we found that they did not think about the common future. They don't think because they don't want to, and they don't want to because they can't. And this meant that here, in the language of social psychology, there was trauma. Trauma in the mass consciousness is not what we feel as pain – tragedy is experienced with pain, but not trauma. Trauma is a place of muffled pain, a former tragedy, repressed from consciousness. Something that consciousness refuses to return to, so that the pain does not return. To understand why the future is associated with pain, it is important to know when this rejection first appeared.

Unanswered questions
According to our observations, this began to happen from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s. What happened then? Here's what: Russian society has twice experienced what is called the word "bummer" in the jargon. Bummer about the future.
The first loss was the idea of a communist future. I lived under the Soviet system for more than half of my life, I knew convinced communists and convinced anti-Soviets, and I knew that the people as a whole were not with either of them. The people lived and lived for themselves, but their ideas about time were dependent on what kind of construction of time was offered by the Soviet government, more precisely, its propaganda and ideological structures.
And those began to influence from kindergarten and the first grades of school, from faded slogans on the walls and from newspaper headlines in which fish were wrapped or hung on nails in a wooden toilet. Everywhere, one way or another, it was said about the future. It was called light, it was called communism.
I absolutely do not want to say that the entire Soviet people firmly believed in a bright communist tomorrow. Of course, there were very few who believed that it was about to come. There were much more numerous those who believed that it would not come soon, but probably someday. There were skeptics who believed that we would go to it, and it would remain an alluring dream, a utopia.
Most of them did not immerse themselves in these thoughts. For the absolute majority of people, there was no doubt that there was some kind of future - since the authorities were talking about it - at all. You can not believe her that it will be bright for us (and not just for them). But there is a future there. This was not questioned.
As in many languages there are three tenses – past, present and future, they also existed in the mass consciousness. But in the late 80s and early 90s, well-known events occurred that showed that the expected communist future would not come. The Soviet government, as a time manager, first surrendered the communist ideology, and then collapsed itself.
So the communist perspective was closed. It became clear that it really was a fairy tale, experiment, utopia, deception, etc. Someone, of course, remained at the thought that some kind of realization of the ideas of Marxism-Leninism could happen. But, unfortunately, they said, the conditions are no longer the same.
Let's not forget that the collapse of communism as an ideology and as a utopia took place all over the world. After all, even outside the socialist camp, where the communist ideology was state-imposed, tens of millions of people were convinced members of communist parties who believed in the idea of a communist future. But the power of the CPSU collapsed in the Country of the Soviets, and in a negligibly short time their number sharply decreased, they abandoned this faith. The Russians, however, did not care about this, they were experiencing their own problems: how is this so? The country had a future, and now it doesn't? How are we going to live on?
So there was a complete rejection of this prospect, and it then had a hard impact on the well-being of society. Of course, it's not just about ideology. After all, together with the Soviet government, many foundations of life collapsed. The usual, habitable forms of existence have collapsed: where and how to work, what is possible, what is impossible, who to listen to, who is not. Who were solid uncles and who were driven on the Volga, failed, who were hooligan boys, suddenly got up and got into the Mercedes and BMW. There came a time that seemed real to some, unreal to others, but it was there. And the future is gone. There was a hole in its place.
There is a way out!

The described crisis of mass consciousness was severe, but then a way out of it was found quite quickly.
It is useful to remember that the Soviet government was not overthrown by the rebellious indignant people. She was not overthrown by evil anti-communists and anti-Soviets. And even the damned West had nothing to do with it, he himself was stunned and could not believe his eyes. The Soviet, in this sense, communist power was destroyed by the communists themselves, but not by ordinary people, but from the top leadership of their party. They were, so to speak, the battering ram of history. They rejected the Soviet-communist future, but had nothing or almost nothing to replace it.
– And to manage?
– And also, like now!
– And who will manage it?
It seems that Gorbachev was sympathetic to the idea of humane socialism, socialism with a human face, the one that was trampled by Soviet tanks in Prague in 1968. But neither he nor his allies dared or did not have time to offer it instead of the Soviet government.
But Gorbachev did something else. And this was one of his main steps as a leader. He called out the cry, saying the magic word "perestroika". To this cry, to the signs he gave, like Sakharov's return from exile, people who had a different idea of the future for the country – the USSR or Russia - rose up all over the country and reached out to public activity.
These people were then called "democrats". They have been hatching ideas for more than a decade on the pages of samizdat, at semi-legal seminars, on endless night arguments over tea or a bottle in kitchens: how can their country become democratic, otherwise "normal".
There was another part of the thinking society. Mostly economists who saw that the Soviet so-called planned economy was about to eat itself up and collapse, but there is a salvation – a market economy. Democrats and marketeers touched, but did not merge with each other for the time being. When the whirlwind of political changes swept by, fortunately, bloodless (this is another merit of Gorbachev and his associates), it was necessary to establish a new system. A mix of reformers from former communists, democrats and marketeers took up the cause.
The new government has announced a new goal for the future. It was the idea of building a free society on democratic principles with market relations. The void in place of the vanished communist perspective was replaced by the perspective of a market-democratic society. Thus, one future was replaced by another, and this replacement was, in general, equivalent.

I, like my peers, remember that under Khrushchev it was said: "The current generation of Soviet people will live under communism." Specific deadlines were set – it seems, 15 years. As for democratic goals and promises, there were also images of the near future. Grigory Alekseevich Yavlinsky proposed a program called "500 days". Five hundred steps – and we are in the future, such as we dreamed of, or on the direct road to it.
The Democrats believed that the combination of political and economic freedom meant the automatic inclusion in Russia of those social forces that have been working successfully for a long time in societies with developed democracy. They said: let us not become the richest country, as we were promised in the USSR. But we can keep up with the countries that we like. And in the near future we can also become such a normal country, as they repeated then. They were believed. The people held Swedish socialism as a model. It had nothing to do with what happened to him in Sweden, but the idea was very attractive: to combine all the good from socialism (the state's concern for people) with all the good from capitalism (efficient production, economic prosperity). This prospect seemed then simple and real, unspeakable. Just a jerk – and we're there!
In general, there were many people who were ready to believe that we should succeed. I would like to note that it was during these years that, for the first time in many decades, there was a significant renewal of the personnel of those who led in high and low positions. Fresh blood has flowed into the state apparatus. I don't mean that good people have taken the place of bad people. No, others have come, having, in particular, a different vision of the country's future.
What we didn't notice then

But that's what many – and I among them – did not notice then: people who have occupied key positions in management and in the economy have begun to form their own vision of both the future and the present, which is different from society as a whole.

That part of them, which, in the muddy waves of revolutionary confusion, in one way or another, took possession of large assets, that is, various riches and their sources, began to look at the process of building democracy without enthusiasm.

They understood that if all the bodies of financial control, audit, independent court, free press and other institutions of a mature democratic society start working, they will not be able to keep this rapidly acquired wealth, they will not be able to continue to make fantastic profits in the "wild field" of a half-collapsed, half-emerging economy, without tax, environmental control, without trade unions and labor protection, etc.

And on the contrary, the present, which seemed to the people's enthusiasts to be still an unreal market, an incomplete democracy, the present, from which it is necessary to go to the future as soon as possible, these "soon-to-be-rich", in general, were satisfied. Because it was a market – but not quite – economic system convenient for them, and a democratic – also not quite – political system. They did not want to "go back to the USSR" at all, but they no longer wanted to rush forward to a mature democracy and a developed market economy.

And the people who formed the system of power (which has not yet merged with the property system) also found a reason to firmly grasp the present, putting aside thoughts about the future. The fact is that the "Democrats" challenged the power of the revenge party – the "reds", as they said then.

We will never know what would have happened if the "Reds" then seized power from the "Democrats". According to the ideas then circulating among people sympathizing with democracy, the "reds" who took revenge would have drowned the country in the blood of the "democrats", would have returned the Soviet totalitarian system in its worst forms, maybe would have started a world war.

Much later, there were thoughts that they, too, would have been reborn into some kind of soft socialists and would have gradually begun to carry out market reforms, etc. And then guesses were made that if they had come to power then, they would have built exactly the same system under which we live now.

But they were not allowed to come to power. They were not given by the "democrats", who in that situation decided that it was necessary to keep power in their hands at any cost. Including sacrificing the democratic procedure. At referendums and elections, the so-called administrative resource was used for the first time. Political opponents, the "reds", were put up with all sorts of obstacles, "their own", "Democrats" were given all possible advantages.
My historical responsibility
I am now ready to condemn them for this. But then, like many, I believed that we were facing a choice: either a bloody "red" dictatorship, or a democracy, albeit incomplete, but, in any case, refused to go the way of violence. Or who used violence only in response to an attempted coup.
There were people, for example, in Yabloko <party>, who believed that it was impossible to change the principles of democracy. And if the parliament went against the president, then it is impossible to respond to him with tank cannon fire. They thought it was ruining democracy. Now they say: see, we were right then. And I do not know what to answer them.
But then I was with those who believed that, once force was used, it was necessary to respond with force. We were not happy with the rapid change of the Constitution, which dramatically expanded the powers of the president, but we approved it in a referendum. We supported the idea of saving democracy in Russia through undemocratic methods.
I didn't notice an important substitution then. I thought that the preservation of democracy in Russia consists in preserving the power of the "democrats" (and not in protecting principles).
Now I understand that it was a mistake. But then many reminded: fair democratic elections are also not always a guarantee of democracy. Hitler came to power as a result of fair elections. (And the "reds" were then called "red-brown" by the democratic press.) In short, history then put Russian society before a difficult choice. I do not know what the "historical responsibility" really consists of, but I feel it on myself, and I place it on those who won then. The fact that they won, predetermined the further course of things.
Then, in the early 1990s, few people noticed (it definitely passed me by) how the slowdown in the construction of civil society institutions and a normal market economy began. Gradually, the "people's power" began to turn into an authoritarian regime, although the autocratic president Yeltsin still had very broad support among the people.
The economic system began to turn from a free-market system into one where power and power relations are no less important than the economic ones themselves. The notorious conversion of power into property has begun.
It cannot be said that the elite formed by that time did not think about the future. On the contrary, she was thinking hard about how the future would not take away from her what she had gained during these turbulent years. That is, she felt the need to extend her time for as long as possible. In other words, it meant canceling the future. At least one that the whole country was recently called upon to go to. The people of capital and the people of power formed, in fact, a single party, which I then called the "status quo party" for myself, but I had not yet foreseen all the consequences of this phenomenon.
How they were looking for a successor
This idea of extending his power took the form of a search for a successor. Boris Yeltsin, the first democratically elected president of Russia, conceived the transfer of power not through the procedure of democratic competitive elections, but through the transfer of power invented either by himself or by someone else to whom they decide there. The Russian "democratic public" – including myself – was not without pleasure watching Yeltsin appear in public with Boris Nemtsov, presenting him to the country as a successor. Well, we thought then, Nemtsov is a real democrat, besides young and strong.

I do not know the particular reasons why Yeltsin suddenly refused this candidacy. But the systemic ones are clear – precisely because Nemtsov was a real Democrat. And if he were to continue the course towards a democratic future, it would threaten the existing new capitals and interests, positions and statuses. And they needed stability – that is, a steep preservation of the present.

And Yeltsin suddenly stopped looking for a successor to his policy among the Democrats, changing the orientation of the search so abruptly that it is hard to believe today.

During all the years when the "democrats" existed in opposition to the Soviet government, it exerted repressive pressure on them with the help of the political police – the so-called state security agencies. So the "organs" and "democrats" became historical enemies.

Against this background, shouldn't the search for a successor for the main Democrat look like a paradox – where? – in the "organs", among personnel and former security officers. According to my recollections, this did not cause any special approval or very sharp criticism in the democratic public. However, when the choice was made on the head of this department, many people said that this was too much. But they were reassured: they say he is from Sobchak, who is a Democrat from the Democrats.

It should also be noted that there was no such acute hostility to the "organs" in the broad (and not narrowly democratic) public at that time. There was talk that they were the last ones who were not corrupt yet, that there were people of honor there, their ideal was Dzerzhinsky, etc. The figure of the successor was also accepted with a bang because Yeltsin and his comrades had managed to compromise "democracy" so much by that time that the public was rather pleased to leave it.

And the antithesis to Yeltsin personally, whose rating had fallen to a minimum by this point, was rather pleasing. And the successor was both an ideological antithesis – for those to whom it was important – and a human one: young, not old, athletic, not obese, sober, not drinking, etc. This pleased a lot of people. Therefore, from the first day in office, he had a rating of about 60%, that is, the approval of almost two-thirds of the adult population.

If Yeltsin, who had fallen out of favor with the Russians from a certain moment, was put in a row, then the society clearly kept Putin on a completely different account. He seemed to form and maintain the prestige of the country as a whole. To approve of Putin's activities meant for most Russians to express loyalty to their country. I emphasize: to my country, and not to Putin himself.

In the first Putin years, there was still talk about joining the Commonwealth of European countries and even about Russia's membership in NATO. The ideological attitude about building a democratic society continued to persist. But malignant changes have begun in the understanding of democracy. The "sovereign democracy" invented by Surkov appeared. (By the way, Surkov remained one of the few in power who still talked about the future. In his ideas, Russia will come to a real democracy in the future, but for now we cannot afford it.)

The idea of a "sovereign" democracy was that we would bend, narrow and violate democracy here at home as we wanted, but we would not pay attention to your comments on these cases. The idea of a "special way" of Russia, which is very popular to this day, pushed the mass consciousness in the same direction. We, they say, are not going your way, because no one can say that we are behind you.

Interestingly, all attempts to find out from citizens what "their way" is did not give any special results, except perhaps the thesis that on this path "the state takes care of people". But to the question "Does it really care now?" they always answered with a bitter laugh: of course not! But the most important thing is that the question "Where does this special path lead?" there was no answer at all. Russia is just walking (or standing like an armored train), and where – no one not only knows, but does not ask.

We are conservatives
The "Status Quo Party" has become the ruling one, has found its ideology. Putin or his theorists decided to announce to the world that we are de conservatives. The image idea was to declare: we are no less respectable than the lords in the British Parliament. And in terms of content, it was a statement of the attitude: we are not going anywhere, we preserve the present and we stay in it. We don't need a future.
The first attacks on the democratic gains of the 1990s, which alarmed many advocates of democracy, were replaced by complete dejection when these gains began to be abolished one by one - and this with the complete indifference of the general public. Her approval of Putin's activities either did not decrease or grew.
Levada (Russian liberal sociologist the Levada Center is named after – RA), who was watching this process, expressed himself in the sense that freedoms were given too easily, because they are so easily given away.
The people kept quiet, and some analysts began to come across an explanation for this: it's about stability. They say that Putin has signed a contract with the Russian society: I give you stability, and you sit quietly for it, you do not demand freedoms. The idea is popular, but, in my opinion, wrong.
Firstly, in no public opinion research have we seen even traces of such representations on the part of the public. Secondly, the nature of autocratic power in Russia in general is such that the ruler never enters into any contractual relations with the people and does not owe anything to the people. He (if he believes in it) is obliged only to God, but is really connected with his bureaucracy, they depend on each other. That's her loyalty he needs to buy, he enters into a contract or bargaining with her.
Therefore, the period of Putin's stability is a period when the bureaucracy, especially the one in uniform, was given more and more money and more will, more rights to arbitrariness – in return for its loyalty. Putin, followed by the bureaucracy, made it clear to the majority that nothing would change, we would establish stability. Therefore, there is no question of any future.
And as for the general public, signals were sent to it, which often concerned the past and never the future. The authorities and their propaganda have stopped using the phrase "New Russia". (The word "Novorossiya", when they started talking about it, was about another, distant past). There were more and more hints that the Gorbachev-Yeltsin era of renewal was a disaster, that the authorities understood the longing of the population for Soviet times.
To console the longing, not only increased the screenings of "our good, good Soviet cinema", but also directly returned to circulation the Soviet symbols of the state, first of all – the anthem.
Regime pillar
One of the most important and most significant features of Putin's domestic policy in its consequences was the orientation towards the social contingent that suffered – materially or morally – from the so-called collapse of the USSR, or rather, from the collapse of the Soviet system of life, the established system of roles, statuses, subordination, the disappearance of the usual forms of interaction between people, authorities, institutions. And also suffered from the collapse of the Soviet picture of the world, the loss of Soviet authorities and symbols.
The Soviet system was, as you know, a paternalistic regime. The government under the name "<Communist> party" took care of citizens, supervised them and taught that it was "native", that everything was done only with its permission, mediation and participation. The new post-Soviet government has freed itself from the material care of its wards, from the functions of the welfare state. (In this sense, we have an economy (not politics!) continues to be liberal – "every man for himself.") But they returned to the rhetoric of the paternally caring authorities.
Symbolism and rhetoric showed what type of citizen should be exemplary, modal. This type was definitely conservative. If we imagine the proposed civic ideal in social types, then, of course, it turned out to be a pensioner, or rather, a pensioner. The "grandmother's" discourse, the discourse of a person with a past, but without a future, not independent and independent, completely dependent on the state, was offered by propaganda as a value model to everyone else, including young people. It worked. Wearing a T–shirt with the inscription "USSR" is cool.
I don't want to go deep into this topic, but manipulations with the memory of the war and Victory had the same goal: to attract society to power, to complicate it. As for our topic of eliminating the future, obvious success has been achieved here too. The widely spread slogan-threat "We can repeat!" meant exactly this: if necessary, instead of the future, we will repeat the past, we will win again, as we won in 1945. They say generals are always preparing for the last war. Here they managed to set up ordinary young citizens in this way. Of course, not everyone, but those who pretend to be "everyone".
For a long period from the mid-1900s to the early 2000s, there was a slowdown in reforms, delays in the formation of institutions of a democratic society. Then, little by little, the dismantling of these institutions began. TV programs and TV channels that used to speak freely began to close, the composition of the highest judicial instances changed. It was not immediately and not all the advocates of democracy realized that the construction of a democratic society had stopped, some other was being built. There was a lot of talk about how to call this other. There was almost no talk about the fact that a democratic future could no longer be expected. They just stopped waiting.
The second bummer of the future has come. The blow fell on the same structures of mass consciousness that survived the first blow described above. As then, the consciousness of not only the advocates of democracy suffered. Everyone has lost perspective.
As in the previous case, it was not a matter of privacy. They continued to make plans and make investments in the future. But in what we will call public discourse, that is, in cases when a person thinks not only about his own, but about everyone and believes that he can speak on behalf of everyone, the future has disappeared from circulation again.
When we at VTSIOM, and since 2003 at the Levada Center, began to ask for what period, for what time people plan their future, the answers with a challenge turned out to be massive: "And for no reason!", "For two weeks", "For two months".
Sociologist Lev Gudkov introduced such a concept to denote this phenomenon in the public consciousness: "abortion of the future." The deliberate sharpness of this formula is intended to emphasize the unnatural nature of this condition. I have already used another word, also loaded with a negative meaning, "trauma". I wanted to emphasize that people do not notice the very absence of thoughts about the future. But this trauma affects other areas of consciousness.
It was her influence that helped to see the research that was conducted by the method of so-called group discussions or focus groups. These discussions take place in a chamber setting, eight people gather at a round table and discuss various topics at the suggestion of the moderator. This presenter was often me – this is my job. If I asked people the question "What future awaits Russia?", most often the answer was: "I do not know", "How could we know...".
Then it was possible to go around. The audience was invited to "Let's describe and draw the best future that our country can wish for. And the worst future, which we wish with all our heart that it never came."
Here it turned out that people depicted the bad future in detail, drew, described. It was very expressive. And the drawings and stories that represented two plots were very interesting. One is about the world War, the other is about the civil war.
The World War was not a very popular story. Then they thought only one thing about her – everything disappears in her. And therefore there is nothing more to talk about. (It is only recently that ideas have emerged that Russia is emerging from the global thermonuclear war victorious. However, how it will continue to exist, even the supporters of this version still have no idea. That is, there is no future anyway.)
More often, the civil war in Russia appeared among the catastrophic plots. There are no ideas about who will fight with whom. It is important that its result, which is regarded even worse than the end of the world, is the so–called collapse of the country. Russians are much more afraid of him. This is really a nightmare of Russians – both the authorities and the people. The word "collapse" means the disintegration of the country into separate "principalities". The mass consciousness flatly refuses to think about what will happen next. It's kind of blasphemous to think that something can happen if there is no united Russia anymore.
So, there were two options for a dark future, no more focus groups were shown. But there were no options for a bright future at all. There were only projections of our present there:

– How will Russia live?
– Like now.
– Who-who! Putin!
– And in 50 years?
Spontaneous answer: Putin! Then an embarrassed laugh.
– Well, such as Putin!
So the permanence of existing conditions turned out to be set in the mass consciousness.
I must say that approximately the same result was obtained if we talk about the future of Russia not only with the carriers of mass consciousness, but also with those who represent the intellectual elite of the country.
For them, I have prepared such a "three-floor" question: "How do you see the future of Russia in 10, 30 and 50 years?" So, the future, 10 years distant from us, was described by many respondents. The conversation took place after the reset, it was clear to them who would be in power at that time, and therefore they said with great confidence about this future the same as ordinary respondents: everything would be the same as now, well, or somewhat worse. And they refused to talk about the future at a distance of 30 and 50 years. That is, there is no future for them either.
So, time exists for everyone as long as there is (this) power. So, in addition to the trauma/hole in consciousness noted above, there is a concealing and compensating dependence on power. Addiction in life and in the mass consciousness.
Chaadaev is right, but…

This society structure was described by Pyotr Chaadaev at the time, and Merab Mamardashvili picked up this observation from him. Chaadaev said that there is always an imprint of power on all events and phenomena of Russian life, and there is never an imprint of public initiative.
In conclusion, I want to emphasize that all these phenomena in the mass consciousness are characteristic of its current state. I said about him: his power artificially "aged", made the weak and dependent conscious. This cloud has covered many people who are not old at all and just young. To be like that, to think and feel like that, and to speak out on socially significant topics has been turned into the norm.
But, fortunately, every norm has violators. And every norm is destined to collapse. Surveys show that some young people act as violators of this norm. They already think and speak differently today than the old ones.
From these young participants, it was possible to perceive the idea that a generational change was coming, in particular in power structures. There will come a generation about which it can be said not only that they have not seen anyone "at the top", except Putin.
They managed to read a lot, see a lot in the world through global networks, traveling and studying in countries where people live differently than here. They drew their own conclusions from these observations and, having come to govern the country, they will follow them, and not the norms of today.
 

 

Edited January 26, 2023 by Roman Alymov

[Der Zeitgeist]

1 hour ago, bd1 said:

Estonia is asking Germany permission to give Ukraine 155mm cluster munitions, of which we have ´thousands´ availible, according to national broadcasting corp

Haha, oh nice. That's gonna be a fun discussion over here.

[Roman Alymov]

Civil war in trenches  - "Best in hell" in real life

Pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian (left) during trench fight, from this video 

 

 

Edited January 26, 2023 by Roman Alymov

[Roman Alymov]

VDV vs. pro-Ukrainian light infantry infiltration in the forrests near Kremennaya

 

[Roman Alymov]

On 1/23/2023 at 12:08 PM, Roman Alymov said:

"Human wave" of three paratroopers (with support of artillery, AGS, BTR and tank, under general supervision of drone) vs. three pro-Ukr positions in forrest belts near Kremennaya. Note captured pro-Ukrainian showing the way (quite logical as landmines are everywhere)

Drone and camera video https://t.me/anna_news/45626

"soldiers of the reconnaissance battalion of the 76th airborne Division stormed three Ukrainian strongholds.

In the first case, the scouts under the cover of fire BTR-82 and AGS-17 bypassed the enemy from the rear and took a strong point. At the same time, 11 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 7 captured.

The second fortification was targeted with accurate artillery fire, after cover of which the soldiers of the reconnaissance battalion carried out its cleaning. Of the 15 Ukrainian soldiers, one survived, who surrendered.

The third support was shot by artillery fire, tanks and AGS. The Ukrainian military fled from their positions, leaving the corpses of their dead."

Now on YouTube 

 

[Roman Alymov]

Lancet vs M777

 

[Roman Alymov]

Lancet vs. Krab SPG (?)

 

[Roman Alymov]

 Two more Lancet vs. M777 videos

 

 

[Roman Alymov]

Frozen ground in Russia is often illusion (easyly becoming trap)

 

[Roman Alymov]

Graham Phillips and his Jaguar on the road to Soledar

 

[Colin]

5 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Got scrapped I think. At least one of them has been at Bovington for over 12 years.

scrapped, hard targets and monuments 

[Colin]

3 hours ago, Mistral said:

I would rather ask the nameless Iraqis or Libyans or the countless others you lot killed but I cant.

Libyans were busy killing themselves, the west just got into the fun for a bit.

The Iraqis, attacked Iran, Kuwait, Israel, killed their own by gun, gas and starving them out. 

I agree we should have stayed out of Libya, but a lot of people wanted payback on Gaddaifi. Iraq under Saddam was like a rabid dog, ready to bite anyone.   

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 hour ago, seahawk said:

"Better red than dead" - was not wrong. This however requires the invader to be a halfway decent power and interested in preserving a functioning society in the invaded country.

I must say at the beginning of the war, I was in favour of Russia, because from a perspective of national security and spheres of interest, it makes perfect sense for Russia to control the Ukraine, but the war has removed the mask of a decent and calculated Russia and has shown us a society clearly embracing fascism. And if we should have learned something from history, then it is that you better start believing the threats spouted by a fascist regime. 

At what point did you change, Bucha?

 

[Colin]

Canada is just announcing 4 Leopards now, with 14 more to come. That's about as many working tanks we can muster currently. Yes NATO really, really was a threat to Russia....... 

[Stefan Kotsch]

3 hours ago, bojan said:

They said same about Jews, Slavs, and lot of other people, and also about lot of other ideologies.

Jews, Slavs... these are humans, but not an ideology. Communists are ideologues. And old communists and KGB men themselves the cause of this thread.

[Stuart Galbraith]

2 minutes ago, Colin said:

Libyans were busy killing themselves, the west just got into the fun for a bit.

The Iraqis, attacked Iran, Kuwait, Israel, killed their own by gun, gas and starving them out. 

I agree we should have stayed out of Libya, but a lot of people wanted payback on Gaddaifi. Iraq under Saddam was like a rabid dog, ready to bite anyone.   

Well he had blood up to armpits, so I've zero problem with him dead. Thing was, if you don't believe you can leave behind improvement, there doesn't seem to be much point getting involved at all. I knew Cameron wouldn't commit a peacekeeping force, so I knew it would be a failure. I wasn't disappointed.

[seahawk]

2 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

At what point did you change, Bucha?

 

The Russian reaction to Bucha. If they would have admitted it and would have enforced policies to not make it happen again, they would have shown to be a rational actor. But they lied, the lies got more and more crazy and now they are even having their own private fascist army in competition of and free of the laws and standards of the conventional army. And one must also note the reduction of civil liberties in Russia and how they are accepted.

[Stuart Galbraith]

21 minutes ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

Jews, Slavs... these are humans, but not an ideology. Communists are ideologues. And old communists and KGB men themselves the cause of this thread.

That's true, but I think some of the influences are older than that. I think to some extent Russia looked to how it was in 1914, and conciously tried to revive its worldview, sans monarchy. They even reactivated at least one pre revolutionary  newspaper. So you have Homo Sovieticus of the KGB variety, mixed with turn of the century garden variety imperialism. Throw into the mix the FSBs take over of organised crime, so you have kleptocracy too. Add in a dollop of National Bolshevism, a strong hint of White Russian nationalism and age old antisemitism and homophobia.

I know ink doesn't like national comparisons with people, but if you had a person with that much going on in their head, they would end up sectioned...

 

Edited January 26, 2023 by Stuart Galbraith

[Markus Becker]

1 hour ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

Haha, oh nice. That's gonna be a fun discussion over here.

Asking the uber moral Germanz to send evil cluster ammo ... brilliant. Here's another one:

 

BREAKING:

At the start of the war, Poland sent a number of MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine under the guise of “spare parts” according to the newspaper DGP.

Government sources told the newspaper that they “also classified the fuselage or wings of the plane as spare parts.”

 

The educated guess is they are ex ... East German.