COVID bullshit has consequences. You could call that self-sanctioning.
Russia-Ukraine War Politics Thread Mk. 2
- Thread starter Emperor Tippy
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willdelve4beer
Well-known member
Aah, gotcha. So Cali write large, as it were.
willdelve4beer
Well-known member
California went deep into the Covid controls as well. The state government was, and remains, quite enthusiastic about the whole thing - for the plebes, of course, not the grandees attending fundraisers at gourmet french restaurants, but I digress. The result, of course, was a notable hit to the state economy and budget situation. If I understand Marduk's comment, then the Canadian government followed the same route of letting their inner OCD control-freak off the leash with a self-inflicted gut-wound to the national economy as an 'unfortunate, and unforeseeable' result.
From what I can find it looks like everyone followed the mandates for the most part. And actually punished those who broke it from normal citizens to politicians. The 50 billion in losses is pretty bad. But I'd rather an economic slump than the intelligence estimate of 40 million dead China is lying about.
willdelve4beer
Well-known member
From what I've been able to determine of the US covid situation - the vast majority of US casualties caused by Covid (as opposed to co-morbidities where Covid was present, but /not/ causative) - were among those in the >75 y/o range, Of those a very sizable portion were a result of the NY nursing home fiasco where elderly (by definition most at risk) were locked in with covid positive patients sent home from hospitals to improve hospital reported death rates.
As for 'everyone followed the mandates' - define everyone and define mandates? Sweden never locked down. FL opened up while CA was still in full-on gulag mode. Most of the rural areas of most states never took mandates seriously in the first place. Nor did most of the poorer countries (what we used to call the third world) Everything we've since learned about the virus has confirmed that it spread fastest in densely packed areas using common air filtration/circulation systems - like apartment buildings with central AC and most mass-transit systems. Even there, death rates were limited almost exclusively to those with compromised immune systems - the elderly, the extremely obese, etc. Hell, if containing the virus was sooo important, why did we not lock down travel to/from China when we first learned about the virus?
Let us be honest with ourselves, and at least learn something from this multi-year fiasco.
1. The lockdowns didn't prevent the virus from spreading, nor did they materially reduce death rates -c.f. Sweden's death rate vs Canada's or California's. Whether this was because they were implemented in a haphazard, after the fact fashion as security-theater for political reasons, or because we never had much chance of slowing down what is, at the end of the day, effectively a nastier variant of the common (hint is in the name) cold, is something for others to sort out.
2. What the lockdowns did accomplish was throwing lots of people out of work, crashing logistical chains, exploding government debt, spiking substance abuse and suicide rates, worsening education for a generation of children, and giving the already power hungry a taste of what greater control could feel like.
3. The lockdowns proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that high ranking politicians, bureaucrats, doctors, academics, and corporate executives can and will happily lie, and cover for each others lies, at the cost of everyone else's lives and livelihoods, all to escape the eminently foreseeable, and actually foreseen, consequences of their own earlier lies and ongoing fuckups.
4. The lockdowns also proved that rules are only applied to the ruled, not the rulers. That whatever we might be told growing up, whatever we might tell ourselves, whatever 'our' laws and constitutions may purport to claim, we are subjects, not citizens. There is no rule of law. We have no rights, only privileges that our rulers find convenient to extend and will gleefully retract at their own convenience and discretion.
4.a The treatment, in particular of so-called critical industries and workers vs everyone else, was a hint. The treatment of the BLM riots and protests vs people going to church, attending funerals, or protesting lockdowns was simply a slap in the face intended to keep the plebes in line.
So yes, the rulers of both California and Canada fucked over their economies, and their people. They did so for neglible non-political benefit. They initially did so in an ignorant panic (which in itself, is no glowing recommendation), and continued to do so after the stupidity of the action was clear for reasons of pride and privilege. They did so longer and harder than other places. The people who enacted and supported these policies have paid, and will pay, no price for them, nor will they bear even rhetorical responsibility for the harms they chose to inflict on the rest of us. If Marduk chooses to classify that as 'self-sanctioning' then I can't discern any grounds to dispute that characterization.
49ersfootball
Well-known member
Following this very closely. Keep up the good work of giving us the scoop!
The Turks have been a player in the game for a long ass time, not surprised their playing again as long as they dont get too ambitious they will be fine, if they do get too greedy they suffer from the same problem the bzyantines before them suffered from being in the center of the map means you can be attacked from any direction.
Look, I'm not sure Jesus and Muhammed themselves interceding could get the Turks and Greeks to find a way to live with each other peacefully in the long term, particularly with oil in the Aegen being a thing now.
Maybe if Turkey returned everything on the west side of the Bosphorus to Greece, but not sure anything short of that would work.
Turkey is probably on course to be empire building via trade/arms sales/limited intervention (Syria) for at least the next century, which is more than you can say about a lot of 'western' nations.
If not for the earthquake/lack of earthquake code/earthquake code exemption selling, Turkey would be set to be a real powerhouse.
However, geological forces care not for politics, and earthquake codes are not something to skimp on.
Looks like Prigozhin's plane was shot down. Some of the forensic team leaked photos and video that they were ordered to delete showing damage and shrapnel consistent with an Air Defence missile.
In the Frontline a Russian propaganda reporter imbeded in a squad during a failed assault got lost and ran towards the wrong trenches. The Ukrainians shot him down. The patrol he was with were mocking him minutes later on Telegram. Paraphrased to "That idiot should have dropped his camera and pack he looked like another mobnik with a suicide pack."
Is it wrong to revel in the suffering of the enemy?
In the Frontline a Russian propaganda reporter imbeded in a squad during a failed assault got lost and ran towards the wrong trenches. The Ukrainians shot him down. The patrol he was with were mocking him minutes later on Telegram. Paraphrased to "That idiot should have dropped his camera and pack he looked like another mobnik with a suicide pack."
Is it wrong to revel in the suffering of the enemy?
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The Ukrainians just took a page out of the Finnish Winter War playbook. 14 Russian soldiers were just found in their billeted quarters in a Crimean Beach resort dead and their corpses made to look like they were passed out at their dinner tables, beds, poker tables. Whoever did it, did so silently in the wee hours of the night. What a beautiful work of art.
Apparently everyone thought they were just drunk as they usually were. They didn't find out they were dead until their sergeant came to round them up for duty.
Apparently everyone thought they were just drunk as they usually were. They didn't find out they were dead until their sergeant came to round them up for duty.
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DarthOne
☦️
And when Russia starts retaliating for this, you will not doubt wail and gnash your teeth about ‘Russian barbarianism’.
The russians have been doing far worse for awhile now this is retaliation for them acting as such, which is not surprising sending half trained conscripts into a warzone with not enough supplies is a recipie for war crimes.
The Russians have not needed any prompting to commit war crimes.
The Russians started their barbarism right at the onset of the war, as they have in every war since their founding. I am surprised the locals took this long to retaliate. If the Chinese invaded the Philippines and carried out their usual barbarity you'd see our tribal legacy emerge. The mountain and forest tribal confederations coming to raid for heads and more weapons. Juramentados and other Deathsworrn carrying out suicide assassinations and bombings, IEDs and guerilla warfare.
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Sad thing is I cant tell about which war your talking about because the Russian military has been infamous for such a long time on that front.
King Arts
Well-known member
So like yeah Russians are shit they are an imperialist power and Eastern Europeans are rightly wary of their ambitions. I remember you saying that you live in Romania but you are fillipino, I can understand your hate towards China, Japan, even America and Spain. But why do you hate the Russians? Like I’ve met Romanians that don’t hate the Russians like you do. Hell you seem to dislike Russia more than polish people like Marduk and ATP they definitely want Russia to lose. I do to, but you are acting like it’s personal. So what did Russia do to you or the Philippines?
During the cold war the Russians backed a lot of very nasty people In the Philippines