Thread by @Dry_Observer

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave Fair enough, but you know what *really* doesn't care about our perspectives, or this or that national psyche or self-conception?

Reality.

People can use their own version of logic, their own version of facts, their own version of history.

But reality doesn't care.

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave In 2014, Russia went under sanctions, and more importantly, the price of oil peaked on 6/23/14 and went into a rapid slide which took it to a quarter of its value.

Russia's economy lost 40+% of its per-capita GDP in about a year and a half.

Great Depression+ levels.

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave China is finding out just what it means to try to sabotage a more powerful nation most inclined to help you on a massive scale when, say, a Corona virus outbreak hits...

While you're implicated in a massive Russo-Chinese attack on our democracy.

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave And while you're totally dependent on exporting to the West.

Meanwhile, everyone can talk about Americans not being able to handle *real* problems, but how many of them ran unconventional warfare through some of the most implausible vulnerable tools possible?

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave Bitcoin and botnets, malice and malware, drugs and derivatives, corruption and collusion.

Trillions of dollars in global offshored wealth, all of it not only susceptible to tracking, but literally forming a giant map to... itself.

And all of those tied to it.

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave Reality doesn't care.

And if you missed the fact that you're fantastically dependent on that nations you're effectively at war with - that you haven't even built a Potemkin Village of a plausible rump economy to carry on with once you've driven *yourself* in to exile...

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave Well. Reality still doesn't care.

For all the chest beating about national psychology or alternative ideologies...

Your people cannot eat lies.

If, after decades of resentful planning, you can't figure out even a fanciful path forward without the Americans & their key allies..

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave Reality will teach you a painful lesson.

Actually, many painful lessons.

And Reality still won't care.

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave But if we're going to talk about what Russia and China. Truly. Believe. In...

Fine. Let's talk about that.

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave What do Russia & China believe in with glassy-eyed conviction which makes the 8-year-old cheering "Cap! Cap! Cap!" continuously when Captain America picks up Thor's hammer to face Ultimate Evil because. America. Was. Always. Worthy...

Look like an cynic sneering at *everything?*

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave What do they believe in beyond fanatically, to the point they've bet their lives on it - not once, but several times?

America.

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave Again and again, despite being effectively at war with America and her closest allies, they keep plunging into mortal risks which they clearly have no plan for whatsoever...

Except a belief that America, like Santa Claus or Superman, will somehow pull them back from the abyss.

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave Sabotaging America?

*Any* drop in the global economy, of which America and the West are the driving force, will cut global oil demand by millions of barrels a day.

We're around 80-million+ barrels/day in production.

Cut the economy 5%, that's 4-million+.

10%, 8-million+.

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave Russia and OPEC in concert had trouble cutting production by just a few millions barrels during the last price squeeze, and America, a net exporter, can increase production automatically if they do.

Which means a slowdown - say, from the Corona virus - can crush prices forever.

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave We can finance a lot of renewable installation at *negative* cost, as I noted in 2008 and was proven by the US military during the Obama Administration.

What do our oil-producing enemies and allies and "allies" count on?

America.

Also America, America and...

*America.*

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave If China and Russia manage to so weaken America's response to a global pandemic - you'll note Bolton got rid of the team that plans for it - to such a dire extent America and her close allies can only protect America and her close allies...

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave What's the plan if they get hit with one?

America, America, America.

Eric's point about starvation in China under Mao is well taken.

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave What happened right before that?

They ended an alliance with a nation whose pilots gave up their officers' ranks and went to serve a foreign military in order to defend the world's oldest civilization, who fought their way across the Pacific...

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave And built and used two nuclear weapons rather than settle for anything less than an absolute victory, in part because of most of China's cities would have remained under the control of a hostile empire otherwise, and who literally dropped refrigerators from the sky...

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave They swapped out that alliance for the Kremlin, which stood by while Mao starved everyone into submission.

Now, they've swapped out America for the Kremlin again.

And what's the plan for the Corona virus and potential mass famine.

Really?

America, America, America.

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave Our avowed *enemies* don't just treat us like their trump card.

They don't even seem to bother planning for mortal threats they're self-evidently barreling into, full-tilt, apparently in the belief - conscious or otherwise - that in the end, somehow, some way...

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave America will save them.

It's not like they've got shrine with an American flag somewhere.

In some ways, it's worse.

They think about us like oxygen.

You don't question whether oxygen will always be there for you, or if one day it will no longer breathable at all.

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave To be this dependent on a global system you're trying to blow apart without building *any* significant alternatives?

I was heartened that Putin finally mentioned growing more vegetables.

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave But that's like getting a mask with 5 minutes of oxygen when you're releasing all the air in your spaceship into space.

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave Why is this not like jumping off of a tall building and shouting "Superman, *save* me!" when Superman does not, in point of face, *exist?*

The difference is you would only be committing suicide *once.*

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave It's bad enough when your only safety protocols are "If it gets bad enough, Superman will save us" when Superman doesn't exist.

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave It's a little appalling when your country functions only because of multiple factors which only exist at the sufferance of and with the active support of the nation you're trying to defeat or destroy.

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave America, America, America.

Chanted endlessly.

That's their plan for everything.

We don't *have* to be the "Indispensable Nation."

But our *allies* - even when taking us for granted - clearly think more deeply about what they would do without us.

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave Russia without gas or oil or imported food.

China without manufacturing exports or imported food.

Not to mention all the other oil-exporters who want to bring us down.

@ericgarland @fullofsquirrels @tilidarose @thespybrief @FelisDave If you want to fight a war, don't just figure out what happens if you fight.

What happens if you lose.

But what happens if you magically win?

So you've defeated oxygen. What's your plan for breathing methane, again?