Sometimes it's tough being a czar. The Russians do what Putin tells them to - in return for heating and electricity. But now Ukraine is attacking Russia’s energy infrastructure - and some blame Putin.
It seems that we are as polarized in our minds as we are in our politics. We can say things on social media about what’s going on, but in person, it’s the weather and something or other related to ordinary life. As far as I can tell, people in the US don’t need vodka (or at least liters of vodka) in order to ignore the facts. What’s happening globally as a result of the idiocy from the US is just not a concern for most, it seems. But I do know that some people that I run into casually do care immensely, but just need a reprieve from the gravity of the situation. They’re upset. They’re online and at protests, but this morning, taking a break and letting the warmth of the spring sun nourish them. I don’t think military parents are encouraging abusive immoral behavior by their enlisted sons and daughters. Except for the minority faction who aren’t behaving much better themselves. We’re in a real mess. According to some recent polls, most people know it and are upset about it. I don’t remember which tsunami it was, but sometime in the not distant past, when the wave was so big, it was so unrecognizable that people in Japan, who do know about tsunamis, literally didn’t see it coming. Thank you, Michael, for writing.
…two party system is only one step to autocracy, i’ve wrote this a few months ago:
…this is an essence of this country’s political impediment: this feed is full of obama, harris and biden pictures with nostalgic messages, after TEN FUCKING YEARS this country can not produce a viable young candidate with progressive exiting policies to ignite progressives… why?
…THEY DO NOT WANT PROGRESSIVE they want all this crap that brought us here BACK
…this country can possibly succeed without new revolutionary ideas, but they don’t want PROGRESS, they just WANT “THEIR COUNTRY BACK” whatever the fuck that means…
…enjoy your dictatorship it’s not going ANYWHERE with or without this orange psychopath
Another great article. One of your best. I think it was generally known that Russians have a problem with alcohol and in particular vodka. But, your article is a revelation about; “Mineralniy Sekretar”, "bottles without a resealable cap” and a great anecdote about the boring teacher at Moscow University.
The stereotype of the drunken Russian must be false given their ability to design and make supersonic weapons, space travel and even oil refining, which is quite complicated and much else.
As everywhere, I'm sure there are lot of bums in Russia, but there are obviously a lot of intelligent and advanced people also.
Their leader is a piece of crap and much of their population is nihilistic, but, right now, we can say about the same in the US.
Watching you and your fellow ideologues scramble as your simplistic fairy tale collides with the brick wall of reality is a special kind of comedy. Your entire understanding of this conflict was a hollow performance, a cheap costume of moral clarity that's now unraveling at the seams. It would be pathetic if it weren't so tragically predictable—the bleating of sheep who were convinced they were shepherds, now left with nothing but the dawning horror of their own irrelevance.
Do hurry up and find your next simplistic cause to misunderstand and ruin. The global community of the terminally self-righteous is counting on you to pick a new nation to pity, a new conflict to reduce to a bumper sticker, so you can continue to feel important without the burden of a single coherent thought. The rest of us will be here, managing the real world you so childishly ignore.
Russia does not want Europe’s ruins. It does not covet bankrupt states addicted to debt, stripped of industry, unable to heat their homes or feed their populations without subsidies and slogans. It has no interest in societies hollowed out by demographic collapse, cultural fragmentation, mass surveillance, and bureaucratic paralysis. No empire needs to conquer a corpse. Europe is not being attacked — it is being dismantled by its own hands, piece by piece, policy by policy.
The rot has an address. It sits in Brussels, Berlin, and Paris, insulated from consequence and drunk on its own rhetoric. It wears expensive suits, recites hollow “values,” and governs through managed decline. These leaders loot public wealth, shovel it into foreign wars and weapons manufacturers, and then lecture their citizens about sacrifice. They sell Europe’s future for Washington’s approval, confuse obedience with virtue, and mistake submission for strength — while the continent decays beneath their feet.
Honest question; other than media declaring it, how has USA been “humiliated “ in Iran? The IRGC is infighting, their grasp on the population is weakened. Their production of nuclear weapons and long range missiles is paused.
Perhaps consider the Iranian people to be like Hostages to a brutal, alien, evil regime. For 47 years they have suffered and finally something is happening to help.
“At the start, Trump outlined a clear goal: regime change. In a February 28 video announcing strikes, Trump urged Iran’s people to “take over your government” after strikes end, adding that “America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force.” Immediately, top U.S. officials began walking this back. On April 1, Trump gave his first primetime Oval Office address since the conflict began. He said, “Regime change was not our goal. We never said regime change, but regime change has occurred because of all of their original leaders’ death.”
“But regime change hasn’t happened. The son of Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was named as his father’s successor after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the first day of the war. In an April 1 social media post, Trump said that Iran had a “new regime president” who was “much less radical and much more reasonable.” However, Iran has had the same president, Masoud Pezeshkian, since before the war. Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, is considered a hardliner and seems to be in no mood for compromise given that his father, mother, wife, and son were all killed by the Israeli airstrike.”
“Things remain uncertain now, and the White House is saying that this is not an “escort” mission and US vessels will not go into the Strait to protect the shipping. Instead, according to the Wall Street Journal, what Trump is saying is that the US will include locating “mines and passing along that information to ships transiting the waterway so they can avoid danger, according to senior U.S. officials, as well as identifying generally the safest routes to navigate.”
“This is a long way from actually protecting ships and if this is all there is, the US will not be opening the Strait any time soon (without Iranian support).”
America … like children, drunkards, or crooks
….well, I am already planning next chapter to be about the Trumpistas….
It seems that we are as polarized in our minds as we are in our politics. We can say things on social media about what’s going on, but in person, it’s the weather and something or other related to ordinary life. As far as I can tell, people in the US don’t need vodka (or at least liters of vodka) in order to ignore the facts. What’s happening globally as a result of the idiocy from the US is just not a concern for most, it seems. But I do know that some people that I run into casually do care immensely, but just need a reprieve from the gravity of the situation. They’re upset. They’re online and at protests, but this morning, taking a break and letting the warmth of the spring sun nourish them. I don’t think military parents are encouraging abusive immoral behavior by their enlisted sons and daughters. Except for the minority faction who aren’t behaving much better themselves. We’re in a real mess. According to some recent polls, most people know it and are upset about it. I don’t remember which tsunami it was, but sometime in the not distant past, when the wave was so big, it was so unrecognizable that people in Japan, who do know about tsunamis, literally didn’t see it coming. Thank you, Michael, for writing.
Already looking forward to it.
You can use this article as a rough draft for the Trump/MAGA article.
…only “trumpsters”?
…two party system is only one step to autocracy, i’ve wrote this a few months ago:
…this is an essence of this country’s political impediment: this feed is full of obama, harris and biden pictures with nostalgic messages, after TEN FUCKING YEARS this country can not produce a viable young candidate with progressive exiting policies to ignite progressives… why?
…THEY DO NOT WANT PROGRESSIVE they want all this crap that brought us here BACK
…this country can possibly succeed without new revolutionary ideas, but they don’t want PROGRESS, they just WANT “THEIR COUNTRY BACK” whatever the fuck that means…
…enjoy your dictatorship it’s not going ANYWHERE with or without this orange psychopath
…are you always yelling at someone’s funeral “i have a dead relative too”?
What a beautifully written and accurate summary.
In the news background, Ukraine strikes a missile carrier at the oil terminal. Perfect punctuation.
Russians as a people would do well to challenge *many* elements of their culture for their own good, let alone that of their neighbours.
Another great article. One of your best. I think it was generally known that Russians have a problem with alcohol and in particular vodka. But, your article is a revelation about; “Mineralniy Sekretar”, "bottles without a resealable cap” and a great anecdote about the boring teacher at Moscow University.
Thank you, really appreciate your words.
The stereotype of the drunken Russian must be false given their ability to design and make supersonic weapons, space travel and even oil refining, which is quite complicated and much else.
As everywhere, I'm sure there are lot of bums in Russia, but there are obviously a lot of intelligent and advanced people also.
Their leader is a piece of crap and much of their population is nihilistic, but, right now, we can say about the same in the US.
Watching you and your fellow ideologues scramble as your simplistic fairy tale collides with the brick wall of reality is a special kind of comedy. Your entire understanding of this conflict was a hollow performance, a cheap costume of moral clarity that's now unraveling at the seams. It would be pathetic if it weren't so tragically predictable—the bleating of sheep who were convinced they were shepherds, now left with nothing but the dawning horror of their own irrelevance.
Do hurry up and find your next simplistic cause to misunderstand and ruin. The global community of the terminally self-righteous is counting on you to pick a new nation to pity, a new conflict to reduce to a bumper sticker, so you can continue to feel important without the burden of a single coherent thought. The rest of us will be here, managing the real world you so childishly ignore.
Russia does not want Europe’s ruins. It does not covet bankrupt states addicted to debt, stripped of industry, unable to heat their homes or feed their populations without subsidies and slogans. It has no interest in societies hollowed out by demographic collapse, cultural fragmentation, mass surveillance, and bureaucratic paralysis. No empire needs to conquer a corpse. Europe is not being attacked — it is being dismantled by its own hands, piece by piece, policy by policy.
The rot has an address. It sits in Brussels, Berlin, and Paris, insulated from consequence and drunk on its own rhetoric. It wears expensive suits, recites hollow “values,” and governs through managed decline. These leaders loot public wealth, shovel it into foreign wars and weapons manufacturers, and then lecture their citizens about sacrifice. They sell Europe’s future for Washington’s approval, confuse obedience with virtue, and mistake submission for strength — while the continent decays beneath their feet.
Honest question; other than media declaring it, how has USA been “humiliated “ in Iran? The IRGC is infighting, their grasp on the population is weakened. Their production of nuclear weapons and long range missiles is paused.
Perhaps consider the Iranian people to be like Hostages to a brutal, alien, evil regime. For 47 years they have suffered and finally something is happening to help.
Because Trump has failed in his original goal:
“At the start, Trump outlined a clear goal: regime change. In a February 28 video announcing strikes, Trump urged Iran’s people to “take over your government” after strikes end, adding that “America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force.” Immediately, top U.S. officials began walking this back. On April 1, Trump gave his first primetime Oval Office address since the conflict began. He said, “Regime change was not our goal. We never said regime change, but regime change has occurred because of all of their original leaders’ death.”
“But regime change hasn’t happened. The son of Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was named as his father’s successor after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the first day of the war. In an April 1 social media post, Trump said that Iran had a “new regime president” who was “much less radical and much more reasonable.” However, Iran has had the same president, Masoud Pezeshkian, since before the war. Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, is considered a hardliner and seems to be in no mood for compromise given that his father, mother, wife, and son were all killed by the Israeli airstrike.”
https://publicsphere.news/p/iran-americas-first-post-reality
“Things remain uncertain now, and the White House is saying that this is not an “escort” mission and US vessels will not go into the Strait to protect the shipping. Instead, according to the Wall Street Journal, what Trump is saying is that the US will include locating “mines and passing along that information to ships transiting the waterway so they can avoid danger, according to senior U.S. officials, as well as identifying generally the safest routes to navigate.”
“This is a long way from actually protecting ships and if this is all there is, the US will not be opening the Strait any time soon (without Iranian support).”
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/taking-the-initiative-in-war-might