That's an art from a pro-Russian, pro-Z telegram channel. Double crossed sign says "люди" (humans), implying Z-soldiers are not. That's how Russian propaganda portrays its own soldiers. Late Putinism has very morbid, necrophilic vibes
Some didn't believe it's actually pro-Russian Z art. That's understandable. Everything unusual is dismissed as false. People judge reliability of info they get according to their common sense which is nothing more than a set of (wrong) assumptions of how this world works
Here is a link to a Z-channel where you can find a lot of examples of late Putinist aesthetics t.me/russia_sof
A lot of necrophilic art for T-shirts, etc
Z-propaganda often refers to the deeds of the Wagner mercenary company Putin used in Syria, Africa and now uses in Ukraine
One of typical images of Russian Z-propaganda is a hammer. Consider this
Or this. What are they referring to?
As you see, the image of a guy with hammer is very common in Russian military propaganda
Well, they are referring to this. In Syria one of Assad's Syrian soldiers tried to desert. So Russian Wagner mercenaries tortured him to death. They beat him with hammer, cut off his hands and head with a saw. They liked it so much that it became a favourite Russian military myth
Here you see how Wagner mercenaries are torturing and mutiliating Assad's soldier who attempted desertion. Warning - it's really graphic content
What is now happening in Ukraine is not an accident, it's not some misunderstanding that can be solved through "talk" or "communications". Russian militarism evolved to the purest sadistic unconstrained evil. It must be broken
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Many are trying to explain his success with some accidental factors such as his “personal charisma”, Cuomo's weakness etc
Still, I think there may be some fundamental factors here. A longue durée shift, and a very profound one
1. Public outrage does not work anymore
If you look at Zohran, he is calm, constructive, and rarely raises his voice. I think one thing that Mamdani - but almost no one else in the American political space is getting - is that the public is getting tired of the outrage
Outrage, anger, righteous indignation have all been the primary drivers of American politics for quite a while
For a while, this tactics worked
Indeed, when everyone around is polite, and soft (and insincere), freaking out was a smart thing to do. It could help you get noticed
People don’t really understand causal links. We pretend we do (“X results in Y”). But we actually don’t. Most explanations (= descriptions of causal structures) are fake.
There may be no connection between X and Y at all. The cause is just misattributed.
Or, perhaps, X does indeed result in Y. but only under a certain (and unknown!) set of conditions that remains totally and utterly opaque to us. So, X->Y is only a part of the equation
And so on
I like to think of a hypothetical Stone Age farmer who started farming, and it worked amazingly, and his entire community adopted his lifestyle, and many generations followed it and prospered and multiplied, until all suddenly wiped out in a new ice age
1. Normative Islamophobia that used to define the public discourse being the most acceptable form of racial & ethnic bigotry in the West, is receding. It is not so much dying as rather - failing to replicate. It is not that the old people change their views as that the young do not absorb their prejudice any longer.
In fact, I incline to think it has been failing to replicate for a while, it is just that we have not been paying attention
Again, the change of vibe does not happen at once. The Muslim scare may still find (some) audience among the more rigid elderly, who are not going to change their views. But for the youth, it is starting to sound as archaic as the Catholic scare of know nothings
Out of date
2. What is particularly interesting regarding Mamdani's victory, is his support base. It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that its core is comprised of the young (and predominantly white) middle classes, with a nearly equal representation of men and women
What does Musk vs Trump affair teach us about the general patterns of human history? Well, first of all it shows that the ancient historians were right. They grasped something about nature of politics that our contemporaries simply can’t.
Let me give you an example. The Arab conquest of Spain
According to a popular medieval/early modern interpretation, its primary cause was the lust of Visigoth king Roderic. Aroused by the beautiful daughter of his vassal and ally, count Julian, he took advantage of her
Disgruntled, humiliated Julian allied himself with the Arabs and opens them the gates of Spain.
Entire kingdom lost, all because the head of state caused a personal injury to someone important.
One thing you need to understand about wars is that very few engage into the long, protracted warfare on purpose. Almost every war of attrition was planned and designed as a short victorious blitzkrieg
And then everything went wrong
Consider the Russian war in Ukraine. It was not planned as a war. It was not thought of as a war. It was planned as a (swift!) regime change allowing to score a few points in the Russian domestic politics. And then everything went wrong
It would not be an exaggeration to say that planning a short victorious war optimised for the purposes of domestic politics is how you *usually* end up in a deadlock. That is the most common scenario of how it happens, practically speaking
Global politics are usually framed in terms of kindergarten discourse (“good guys” vs “bad guys”) with an implication that you must provide “good guys” with boundless and unconditional support
BUT
Unconditional support is extremely corrupting, and turns the best of the best into the really nasty guys, and relatively fast
Part of the reason is that neither “bad” nor “good” guys are in fact homogenous, and present a spectrum of opinions and personalities. Which means that all of your designated “good guys” include a fair share of really, really nasty guys, almost by definition.
Purely good movements do not really exist
That is a major reason why limitless, unconditional, unquestioning support causes such a profound corrupting effect upon the very best movement. First, because that movement is not all
that purely good as you imagine (neither movement is),