Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

[Vol]

I read an article to the effect that NATO, as the funders of the defense, aren't happy with the counteroffensive thus far. Chipping away, as your maps show, seems like an attrition style of warfare, which doesn't seem tenable when arms still need to pass through all our collective systems to actually get sent over, and the manpower pools must be limited. Though I really have no idea, piercing through the fog of war and propaganda, what the manpower pools are like at this point. Bahkmut was supposedly the biggest battle since WW2, yet had a tiny fraction of the causalities of those battles. But is that a significant percentage of what's available? Who knows?

The Wagner thing got resolved, as I'm sure you saw. My first impression was that it was a stunt to force the tsar to dismiss some of his generals, probably for valid reasons, by staging a big, dramatic motion like quitting the field and "invading" Moscow. Appears I was pretty close. The head of Wagner is going into exile in Belarus, whose president brokered the stand down. Presumably Putin will rotate out the generals in question for his part, and he's folding in the Wagner who didn't join in the convoys into the proper army, I hear. Good reminder that mercenaries aren't generally known for absolute loyalty. Unless they're Varangians.

Though part of me is feeling a strong "Hundred Flowers campaign" vibe from all this. Was a trick Mao used a few times, feign invitations to criticize the regime, or host demonstrations about problems, then as soon as enough people fell into the trap, he purged them hard.

[Vol]

Affirmative Action was repealed just now. SCOTUS slapped it down, 6-3, on the basis that colorblindness is the correct approach to the law. Which while a considerable leap from the original liberalism we were founded under, is more true than racial preference systems. Just like Roe, never expected to see this one go either. Fascinating times, as the culture and physical America rapidly degrades, we have the most abstract arm of government desperately trying to keep our collective heads above the waterline.

Might be some riots tonight!

[Vol]

How're the French riots doing tonight? Seemed like they've been getting crazier, scope of the looting and weaponry appearing, one alleged video of a Frenchmen who had his hand cut off by the Replacement French for defending his car, etc. But hearing tonight the cops are cracking skulls, maybe. Hard to tell since everyone's freaking out about Elon Musk's throttling of Twitter for non-registered people.

[Vol]

NATO has denied Ukraine entrance, or a timeline, into the alliance. Presumably they will also continue to funnel weapons and aid into the country to send their men to die to bleed Russia a little more. So at the same time they're giving speeches about how Russia must be dismantled, a coup planned, in perhaps not so many words, they also refuse to bring Ukraine into the fold and make it a formal world war. There's a moral gradient here, where assisting a defending nation against the aggressor is counterbalanced by actively desiring death and destruction in perpetuity. Not sure where we're at yet.

[Vol]

Trump has announced he's about to be indicted, yet again, this time for charges related to the Jan 6th protests. Not clear what specifically they're going with, but this one of the real serious cases, along with the Georgia one that's due to announce an indictment soon too.

When I try to make the point that relentlessly prosecuting one's past, current, and future primary political opponent is an incredibly bad thing to do if you genuinely believed in the concept of representative government, even if he's totally guilty, I always get the feeling the point isn't sinking in. It's hard to break through the conditioned partisanship and rancor that violating taboos when it comes to power-sharing is unwise.

[Vol]

For the record, I'd like to state, all my political opinions are true and correct, and always have been, even if they contradict.