Russia Vs. America; Here we go again kids!

PINT of Stella. mate! said:
You've got an Australian Public Service Broadcaster essentially owned by the Australian Taxpayer, A British broadsheet turned internet news source that's always been famously left wing and is owned by an independent private trust and a liberal American broadsheet also owned by an independent private source completely unrelated to either of the former entities.

I'd say that's a fairly broad range of sources there but I'm sure your mate Davo on Facebook is much better placed to inform us what's really happening, eh? :rolleyes:
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Waiting for the TRUTH when it's covered by OnlyFans OAN
 
PINT of Stella. mate! said:
You've got an Australian Public Service Broadcaster essentially owned by the Australian Taxpayer, A British broadsheet turned internet news source that's always been famously left wing and is owned by an independent private trust and a liberal American broadsheet also owned by an independent private source completely unrelated to either of the former entities.

I'd say that's a fairly broad range of sources there but I'm sure your mate Davo on Facebook is much better placed to inform us what's really happening, eh? :rolleyes:
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Can't argue with the first paragraph. They're still players in the mainstream media doing what they have always done. manufacturing consent. Looks like they have you hooked.

As for Davo? I guess I need to be on Farce book to know him. Friend of yours?
 
birddog69 said:
Can't argue with the first paragraph. They're still players in the mainstream media doing what they have always done. manufacturing consent. Looks like they have you hooked.

As for Davo? I guess I need to be on Farce book to know him. Friend of yours?
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So what’s your take on the situation in Ukraine today?
 
birddog69 said:
Can't argue with the first paragraph. They're still players in the mainstream media doing what they have always done. manufacturing consent. Looks like they have you hooked.

As for Davo? I guess I need to be on Farce book to know him. Friend of yours?
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“Manufacturing Consent” sounds like the sort of daft bollocks that 16 year old me would graffiti on the back of my high school textbooks in between sketches of the logos for Bad Religion and Rage Against The Machine.

Still, it’s nice to see that some old cliches never die…

385179
 
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:

Rotorburn has advised all its Ukraine based staff to leave the country and will be halting all operations from its office in Kiev for the foreseeable future.

Rotorburn regrets that it must take such actions but feel that it is left with little choice given the conditions which are self evident.

Day to day operations will continue as normal at our offices and compounds in Prague, Berlin, Bucharest and Helsinki. We apologize for any inconvenience caused and look forward to the day when all European operations can resume without disruption.

Rotorburn Staff.
 
Litenbror said:
This is an interesting perspective laying out why the US's favourite weapon may not be as effective this time.

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Doesn't Putin have more important things to worry about? Like the demographic cliff and the debasing of their single biggest export within a generation?

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Oddjob said:
Doesn't Putin have more important things to worry about? Like the demographic cliff and the debasing of their single biggest export within a generation?

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Why do you think he is on the move, increase its resources base? Ukraine provides 12% of the global wheat and other agriculture products and war is always good for birth rates eventually.
 
Litenbror said:
Why do you think he is on the move, increase its resources base? Ukraine provides 12% of the global wheat and other agriculture products and war is always good for birth rates eventually.
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Putin's first and foremost a gangster. Always has been. Unfortunately when you structure your government on exactly the same lines as a Mafia family or Mexican drug cartel there's always the risk of someone kicking the chair out from under you. He usually handles those threats by cutting off big slices of the pie to his associates in the form of lucrative government contracts, political influence and occasionally just cold, hard cash.

The Russian people however are a lot harder to placate and can be just as much of a risk to his throne so he goes for big distractions. He's aligned his government with the orthodox church and deliberately ensured that state media is of a paranoid right-wing bent while deliberately marginalising more widely or better informed groups such as students and the LGBTQI communities. With the nationalistic groundwork in place, it makes it much easier for him to cement his position as a strong-man by sending the Russian army over the border into weaker, neighbour states for an easy victory both militarily and in the public eye. A limited incursion into Ukraine will be a popular move amongst the nationalists, it'll provide a big spending splurge for his cronies who hold military contracts and the fact that he can do this credible little opposition internationally means that if he does decide to settle things diplomatically, he'll be in a much better position for bargaining and can maybe even use it to leverage more lucrative gains and/or the dialling back of existing sanctions, etc.

On a personal note about 10 years back I travelled across Russia on the Trans-Siberian railway. During the journey I remember chatting with a lad in his 20's who like most Russian men had undergone national service in the army (i.e conscription). He was involved in the invasion of Georgia but to hear the way he'd described it, Russia were entirely the innocent party and it was all just a response to Georgian aggression. It was weird as the lad otherwise seemed like a fairly well informed, normal bloke. His English was quite good - far better than most Russians - so he wasn't your typical nationalist with zero experience with other countries or international media. In fact I got the impression that he was well aware of how the whole invasion was portrayed in the international press and he just wanted to assure me that Russia weren't the bad guys. I guess that goes to show how well Putin has been at playing the victim card.

Incidentally, if anyone's after some good reading on the subject that's a bit easier to digest than your average university textbook, I recommend former chess world champion Garry Kasparov's 'Winter Is Coming'. It might have been published 7 years ago but it still holds true to this day - if anything it does a good job of predicting what has happened with Russia in the years since...
 
The distraction of a war would seem heaven sent for Biden, Borris and Scotty. Its exactly what you need as a politician with flagging approval ratings. Probably good for Putin as well.

Good thing all of these guys only act in what's best for the public.
 
Don't think it will do much for Morrison, given that there is little direct impact on Australia. Also not sure that much will save Boris now.
 
johnny said:
Don't think it will do much for Morrison, given that there is little direct impact on Australia. Also not sure that much will save Boris now.
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I was explaining to a mate the 10 good things Scotty has done for Oz as pm. Unfortunately I got stuck getting to 1.
 
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PINT of Stella. mate! said:
He's aligned his government with the orthodox church and deliberately ensured that state media is of a paranoid right-wing bent while deliberately marginalising more widely or better informed groups such as students and the LGBTQI communities. With the nationalistic groundwork in place, it makes it much easier for him to cement his position as a strong-man

On a personal note about 10 years back I travelled across Russia on the Trans-Siberian railway. During the journey I remember chatting with a lad in his 20's who like most Russian men had undergone national service in the army (i.e conscription). He was involved in the invasion of Georgia but to hear the way he'd described it, Russia were entirely the innocent party and it was all just a response to Georgian aggression. It was weird as the lad otherwise seemed like a fairly well informed, normal bloke. His English was quite good - far better than most Russians - so he wasn't your typical nationalist with zero experience with other countries or international media. In fact I got the impression that he was well aware of how the whole invasion was portrayed in the international press and he just wanted to assure me that Russia weren't the bad guys. I guess that goes to show how well Putin has been at playing the victim card.
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Sounds very similar to most Western democracies at the moment. Having lived in the US for years and seen first hand how right wing nationalist they are and seeing the sharp turn to the right we have had here since Howard. I know that they are in a different league but just pointing out that our apparent model democracies are succumbing to nationalist crony states faster than we would like to admit.

Also reminds me of many conversations I had with well educated Americans about world events and how differently they were viewed internally. Watching the news there and following the story on international sites gave wildly different pictures eg. Iraq, Afghanistan etc.

An interesting thing I noticed when in the US was all the maps didn't show other countries. If you watched the weather it was a map of the US cut out on a background, no Mexico or Canada just blank. It really demonstrated the long running isolation of the US people from the world.
 
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