1. Well, Russia already did mass mobilisation in Donbass. It is the Ukrainian citizens that are the main Russian cannon fodder. I have no idea why this is not discussed more often
2. Mass mobilisation in Russia would be a stupid decision
That's the context for the @amnesty argument about civilians being put on the harm's way by the Ukrainian defence. Once a Donbass city fells to Russia, males 18-60 will be press-ganged to the army and then recycled in the frontal attacks on the Ukrainian positions. That's reality
Scenario under which civilians won't suffer just does not exist. From the Russian perspective population of the conquered territory is just the cheap cannon fodder which they send to frontal attacks with WWII weapon. Entire male population of Donbass is being recycled by Russia
Recruiters would literally hunt for males on Donetsk and Luhansk streets. Many were living on their work to avoid coming out to the street for months. Anyone who stepped outside would be caught, press-ganged and sent to die
The news from April. A famous Donetsk pianist was KIA when fighting for Mariupol (on Russian side). How did he get into the army though?
Social media give some context:
"Philharmonie was cheated! they were told to come to record a video... but instead they were all taken in the unknown direction!!"
"We were told the same, they cheated us too. Opera, circus. Donbass"
"He was not a volunteer! Like all musicians!"
You can watch an early video of this war with the Donbass civilians forcibly mobilised for the Russian colonial troops. They are called "1st and 2nd Donbass Army Corps" but are fully controlled by Russia. Cannon fodder are Ukrainian, but 100% of generals and seniors are Russian
Here you see the forcibly mobilised Donbass civilians who were forced to fight for Mariupol and now declare they don't want to fight any further. A few declarations like this came out this summer
Another declaration of forcibly mobilised Donbass civilians who do not want to fight anymore. That's literally the press-ganged cannon fodder, the colonial troops
Strelkov on how Russia recruited its cannon fodder in Donbass. It launched a total mobilisation in Donetsk and Luhansk. Students, professors, STEM and humanities. [What he doesn’t mention is workers, but that's very common, too] Everyone can be pressganged including those over 50
Forced total mobilisation of the Donbass males who are then sent to fight for Russia as the most expendable cannon fodder Putin has is *the* major war crime of this Russia's invasion. Russia is forcing Ukrainian civilians to fight for it
Total mobilisation of the Donbass people into the Russian colonial troops is *the* major war crimes of the last months. The fact that it is not in the centre of the public discussion makes me to question integrity of the entire media & NGO bureaucracy that chooses to ignore it
Every time the Ukrainian army retreats, civilians are being put on the harm's way. Russian proxies from the DPR and LPR will hunt for the males on streets, catch everyone they can find, pressgang them and recycle in the frontal attacks. They're 100% disposable
Almost complete silence of media and NGO on the total mobilisation in Donbass is shoking. It must be in the centre of discussion, not some fringe issue few heard about. Obscurity of this crime makes me question both competence & integrity of those who choose to ignore it. The end
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For decades, any resistance to the Reaganomics has been suppressed using the false dichotomy: it is either “capitalism” (= which meant Reaganomics) or socialism, and socialism doesn’t work
Now, as there is the growing feeling that Reaganomics don’t work, the full rehabilitation of socialism looks pretty much inevitable
I find it oddly similar to how it worked in the USSR. For decades, the whole propaganda apparatus had been advancing the false dichotomy: it is either socialism, or capitalism (= meaning robber barons)
Now, as there is a growing feeling that the current model does not work, we must try out capitalism instead. And, as capitalism means robber barons, we must create robber barons
We have to distribute all the large enterprises between the organized crime members. This is the way
Truth is: the words like Rus/Russian had many and many ambiguous and often mutually exclusive meanings, and not only throughout history, but, like, simultaneously.
For example, in the middle ages, the word "Rus" could mean:
1. All the lands that use Church Slavonic in liturgy. That is pretty much everything from what is now Central Russia, to what is now Romania. Wallachians, being the speakers of a Romance language were Orthodox, and used Slavonic in church -> they're a part of Rus, too
2. Some ambiguous, undefined region that encompasses what is now northwest Russia & Ukraine, but does not include lands further east. So, Kiev & Novgorod are a part of Rus, but Vladimir (-> region of Moscow) isn't
These two mutually exclusive notions exist simultaneously
The greatest Western delusion about China is, and always has been, greatly exaggerating the importance of plan. Like, in this case, for example. It sounds as if there is some kind of continuous industrial policy, for decades
1. Mao Zedong dies. His successors be like, wow, he is dead. Now we can build a normal, sane economy. That means, like in the Soviet Union
2. Fuck, we run out of oil. And the entire development plan was based upon an assumption that we have huge deposits of it
3. All the prior plans of development, and all the prior industrial policies go into the trashbin. Because again, they were based upon an assumption that we will be soon exporting more oil than Saudi Arabia, and without that revenue we cannot fund our mega-projects
Yes. Behind all the breaking news about the capture of small villages, we are missing the bigger pattern which is:
The Soviet American war was supposed to be fought to somewhere to the west of Rhine. What you got instead is a Soviet Civil War happening to the east of Dnieper
If you said that the battles of the great European war will not be fought in Dunkirk and La Rochelle, but somewhere in Kupyansk (that is here) and Rabotino, you would have been once put into a psych ward, or, at least, not taken as a serious person
The behemoth military machine had been built, once, for a thunderbolt strike towards the English Channel. Whatever remained from it, is now decimating itself in the useless battles over the useless coal towns of the Donetsk Oblast
Yes, and that is super duper quadruper important to understand
Koreans are poor (don't have an empire) and, therefore, must do productive work to earn their living. So, if the Americans want to learn how to do anything productive they must learn it from Koreans etc
There is this stupid idea that the ultra high level of life and consumption in the United States has something to do with their productivity. That is of course a complete sham. An average American doesn't do anything useful or important to justify (or earn!) his kingly lifestyle
The kingly lifestyle of an average American is not based on his "productivity" (what a BS, lol) but on the global empire Americans are holding currently. Part of the imperial dynamics being, all the actually useful work, all the material production is getting outsourced abroad
Reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Set in southwest England, somewhere in the late 1800s. And the first thing you need to know is that Tess is bilingual. He speaks a local dialect she learnt at home, and the standard English she picked at school from a London-trained teacher
So, basically, "normal" language doesn't come out of nowhere. Under the normal conditions, people on the ground speak all the incomprehensible patois, wildly different from each other
"Regular", "correct" English is the creation of state
So, basically, the state chooses a standard (usually, based on one of the dialects), cleanses it a bit, and then shoves down everyone's throats via the standardized education
Purely artificial construct, of a super mega state that really appeared only by the late 1800s