Ts4EVER

Well Die Linke is dead, which is a shame, because for a while they were the only alternative to neoliberal bs.

That's because the Greens aren't much of a leftist party anymore, they are a party for wealthy urban people who probably wouldn't end up in the firing line....

The German government largely exists to cater to the interests of the German industry, especially the car industry and other manufacturers. Note that the only time Angela Merkel actually rolled back Corona measures and even publically apologized for them was when she announced a plan to introduce a temporary bank holiday to keep people out of each other's faces at work for one day longer. Since this infringed on powerful people's profit margins, she had to roll it back. Note that this was after tons of measures that completely screwed over smaller businesses like restaurants and hairdressers... Pretty sure Scholz got some phone calls from influential capitalists telling him that the Russian gas needs to keep coming to keep production up. And (luckily, I would say, at least to a degree) it seems like the influence of the arms industry is dwarved in comparison.

According to German media, defenders of Mariupol requested evacuation to a neutral nation, any more known here?

Yes, but Germany at least had initial successes, to the point were they managed to fluke themselves into controlling the biggests economies of western Europe. Even then they knew that they basically had to keep attacking to even uphold the illusion of competing with the US. What has Russia conquered? One and a half cities and some forests, from the looks of it.

Probably initial gains that will have everyone freaking out and running around like headless chicken and then a slow fizzle out. Like the Ardennes, the 1918 offensives etc...

Same reason Hitler declared war in 39, even though the Wehrmacht was only supposed to be armed in 42. He knew that due to lack of foreign currency, armament programs in the western countries and the industrial might of the US, he would lose any arms race in the long term. But at the end of 39 he had the pact with the Soviet Union and arguably the best army on the continent (for now), so he figured "Now or never".

The flight sim pictures look 1:1 like the average Graviteam map.

I watched a lecture by that guy and his main problem is that he basically agrees with Russia ideologically: Only "superpowers" matter, what smaller countries want is irrelevant and in the name of peace one should not meddle in other people's "spheres of influence", no matter what bull**** they get up to there.

Obviously the Greek government is corrupt and inefficient, but the whole did not cost the Germans any money at all, considering the devaluing of the Euro is massively beneficial to the German economy. And none of their measures improved things, really. They could easily have said: Look, we will give you the bailout money on the condition that you overhaul your tax code, find out what the oligarchs own and tax / nationalize it, root out corruption etc. That is not what happened though: Instead they fought "evil" government spending by cutting programs like healthcare, education, unemployment benefits and left the whole system untouched, because that is more in line with their capitalist ideology, as well as their preconceived notions about "lazy southerners".

The main problem was that German government were and are still drinking that liberal cool-aid, which is that government spending and debt are automatically bad things and a balanced budget is the be-all, end-all of economics.

Just look at how past German governments treated Greece and other countries hit by the 2008 crisis.

Germany wants to send 50 Leopard Is now, wonder if that is a good idea...

I don't like this "decadence" narrative, partly because it reminds me of all the pre-WW1 talk of "the cleansing bath of steel" and stuff like that, considering how that turned out. We shouldn't dismiss advances of western civilisation as making us "weaker". If anything, actually embodying these ideals would be a great advantage when it comes to checking the influence of autocracies in the developing world. I mean, how can we expect them to see the light of democracy and freedom if our actions are so often obviously guided by economic self-interest? Also, it is easy to talk the big talk if you are not the one who will be sent into the meatgrinder if push comes to shove. Sometimes I wish the boomers would find the same sudden steely resolve in response to inequality and injustice within their own societies, but sadly it seems reserved for external enemies...

Imagine a group of scientists discussing some of the finer points of cladistic analysis of dinosaurs when suddenly the most inbred, subhuman redneck you can imagine bursts in and says "God made the earth in 7 days though!". That is basically what you just did.

Advancing towards Kherson, the one city they were able to take.

Well If I was a Russian bigshot I'd start drinking too.

Don't let the American police see that, or they'll order rocket launchers for routine traffic controls.

Dunno about that, but I think at this point you can actually kind of compare Russia to Nazi Germany. Every society has its ideology, but I would say that there usually is a difference between its "creed", the kind of official, coherent ideology and its day to day ideology. As an example: In the western world we have a certain set of ideas that are based on various philosophies and precedents, but most people basically only know, understand and believe the essential basics of this. What is important to them is the parts of the ideology that make the society function, in the west mostly stuff like "work hard to be able to fulfill your consumption wishes." The same was the case in Nazi Germany. I trully don't think that the majority of the German population was too concerned with the finer points of the Nazi crackpot racial theories that underpinned their ideology. However, I do believe that in this era there was a real sense in the German population of: "The world is a cruel place, the strongest get what they want, we have been screwed over in the past, but now we need to be strong, no matter the cost." One of the biggest hits shortly before the Nazi takeover in Germany was the "Threepenny Opera", a leftwing musical that aims to show the inherent hypocrisy at the heart of capitalist society, basically portraying the "respectable" middle class as self-interested criminals dominated by purely economic interests. Hanna Arendt pointed out that maybe this musical was so successful not because the German people were waking up to leftism, but because it already mirrored the way they saw the world - basically: Let's drop all pretenses of civilisation and take what we want, this is how the world works. I think this might be the Russian day to day ideology at this point as well, in part explaining the cruelty of even the basic soldiers. edit: Oh and also of course the Threepenny Opera's success was due to the songs, I mean just listen to this banger:

The figure of the "leader" is also quite different in both, a fact often lost on us "liberal minded" people who just see despotism in both cases. To give you an example, an old joke / metaphor, originally told (I think) by Slavoj Zizek: In Nazi Germany, let's picture Hitler holding some kind of horrible speech against the Jews and with all his standard stuff. At the end, some party member stands up and says: "Mein Führer, that was a nice speech, but some of the stuff you said was simply wrong." Then another guy stands up and says: "How dare you criticise the Führer? Don't you know that he leads Germany by provenance? We don't challenge those who lead us into a greater future in the fight against the Jews etc. etc. etc." After the session the first guy would be sidelined and the second guy would have some shiny new medals and titles. Same scenario with Stalin: The first guy will be put on the next train to the Gulags, but guess who will be already waiting there? Guy number 2. Why? Because Stalin is not REALLY the leader, of COURSE you can criticise comrade Stalin, we are among equals here... BUT MOST SMART PEOPLE DON'T DO IT. The act of pointing out the reality of the situation (Stalin is a strongman) is in itself treasonous. The "God" of fascism is a two-part one: The leader and the "People", whoever that is. The "God" of communism is history, or more exactly the inevitable march of it towards communism. If you believe that (and this is my personal big beef with Marx, I think this is where he falters in his analysis), then all responsibility is taken from those in power, because they can rationalise any evil they do by claiming that it is in service of "historical necessity". Basically "who cares if I have caused a few million people to starve, this was a historical necessicity and I just acted as its agent."

I'm a teacher in Germany and already have a few Ukrainian refugees in my classrooms. Sadly I mostly teach English and they don't learn that there, so basically they are at the utterly wrong level for my classes. So I mostly give them German as foreign language material or Ukrainian textbooks on an Ipad for self learning, but all of this is not really a satisfactory solution.

Thing with average income is that in a society characterised by big inequality it can be quite misleading. My guess is that these crimes are caused by a mixture of envy, frustration with the situation and an attempt to regain control through terror.

One kinda confusing thing: The Volkssturmgewehr Gustloff (the semi auto one) is called MP508 ingame, but according to this book that name belongs to some kind of experimental MP44 variant?

I dont think it will be back to the status quo after. China will not want to have the possibility of those sanctions, so they will start to create alternative institutions to the IWF, world bank etc. (already have their own SWIFT like system in place). If Ukraine wins this war, which seems more and more likely, it will still in hindsight be seen as a zenith of western power and the end of western led globalization.

If they end up using chemical weapons they will probably gas their own troops because they wouldn't manage to inform everyone in time.