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Badmovies.org Forum  |  Other Topics  |  Off Topic Discussion  |  The Crazy SOB Actually Did it! « previous next »
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Author Topic: The Crazy SOB Actually Did it!  (Read 73683 times)
Allhallowsday
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« Reply #570 on: November 17, 2022, 01:07:50 PM »

You guys are keeping this discussion admirably civil, despite disagreements, so nicely done there.

Ralphy was not civil to me.  That is understandable since he has so many "important points" to communicate.    Smile Thumbup
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ralfy
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« Reply #571 on: November 17, 2022, 07:38:13 PM »


That does not however change that Putin asked to join. Seems odd for someone worried about its eastward expansion. I have to be honest, in common with several other people I am not going to bother watching your videos. Your sources don't seem to be very good. I mean we were discussing battlefield situations and your reply was to link quotes from foreign policy experts. Don't see many of them in an ops room or on the ground commanding a battalion. I have no doubt that the people you are linking are intelligent and so forth, but I'll put my trust in the people I know on the ground who actually do these jobs currently and have plenty of real-world experience.

I am sorry, but you are seeing a small part of the picture and assuming you are seeing the whole. It's why you got so much wrong about the use of WMDs earlier (I am still trying to write a reply post explaining why it wouldn't go the way you think, but I really don't have enough time right now to write the essay sized document it would take to explain everything). There are a whole lot more factors to take into account than you are aware of.


I think you're ignoring the big picture. The question isn't whether or not he wanted to join NATO but why. Did Putin think that some other country was threatening Russia, which is why he wanted to join the Western alliance?

NATO was set up to counter anyone who wanted to attack them, and the only threat that time was the Soviet Union.

But there has been no Soviet Union for decades, so what is threatening them?

They have been in operations the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, and elsewhere, and these places in no way threaten them. Similarly, the U.S. has been in operations in many parts of the world, and none of them threaten the U.S. directly. Why are they doing this?

Error 404 (Not Found)!!1 Small | Large


Error 404 (Not Found)!!1 Small | Large


Error 404 (Not Found)!!1 Small | Large


Here's my answer: it's likely that NATO doesn't work with the U.S. as a member but that the U.S. leads NATO, as many of its members still rely on the country with the most expensive military in the world.

Why is that military so expensive? According to its government, they need to defend the "freedoms" of the "American people" against those who oppose "freedoms." Who are they? Russia is not Communist. One of the major trading partners of the U.S. is China. Many of the countries that the U.S. coerces, manipulates, etc., are not immediate threats to them.

In short, the U.S. and NATO have been expanding not to counter security threats against them but economic threats. Russia is part of BRICS and forty emerging markets, and they are growing stronger.

If Russia were to apply to join NATO (just like Turkey), and so did many other countries that aren't even connected to the North Atlantic, then it would become like a UN Security Council, but this time with weaker nations having a say.

And that won't happen because that very much works against the very nature of the organization, which is a U.S.-led alliance and that acts not only as a shield to protect the U.S. but to bring aggression closer to Russian borders.

Finally, I don't understand how my sources aren't good. The definition of WMDs clearly involves explosives. It is accepted by historians and experts worldwide that the U.S. used those and the absurd claim that Saddam supported terrorists to attack Iraq. Also, why are you looking for ground commanders as experts? That makes no sense at all, as these are geopolitical events.




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ralfy
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« Reply #572 on: November 17, 2022, 07:39:41 PM »

You guys are keeping this discussion admirably civil, despite disagreements, so nicely done there.

Only one isn't, and I can't find an ignore function in this board. But it looks like he's behaving now.

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ralfy
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« Reply #573 on: November 17, 2022, 07:46:41 PM »

The original post you were responding to read

"I could be wrong, but I interpreted Allhallowsday's tap-dancing post as a reference to the American idiom "tap dance around the subject," i.e. refusing to answer a direct question or accusation by bringing up other subjects. So if I understood correctly he's not accusing lester of pro-Russia cheerleading, but of evasiveness."

Your response was to repeat your geopolitical theory again in full detail, with 7 or 8 links.

When I suggested you were off-topic, your response to my suggestion that you were off-topic was to restate your theory again. It has been repeated and rephrased maybe ten times in this thread?

It seems to me that you want to talk about what you want to talk about rather than following the flow of the conversation. Perhaps you should start your own off-topic thread, lay out your theory, and see if people are interested in discussing it. Or, as I suggested, find another forum to discuss this topic. badmovies.org, with it's dozens of regulars who are mostly interested in bad movies, seems like an odd choice of venue to carry out a deep discussion of political philosophy.

I get the gist of your argument. It has valid elements but sorry, I don't buy it as a catch-all to explain every geopolitical crisis. And I personally don't have the free time to discuss your theories in anything approaching the detail you present them.



You wrote that you can't go through hour-long lectures or read multiple sources, so I explained the point to you briefly. That should have made you realize that I wasn't tap-dancing, and that my point is directly related to this thread. To recap, the "crazy SOB" attacked Ukraine and held on to areas dominated by Russians because of what happened before he attacked. I trust that I don't have to explain what happened again.

Now, you are shifting your argument and stating that I'm on-topic, but that some of the elements in my theory are not valid. Which ones are you talking about?



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ralfy
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« Reply #574 on: November 17, 2022, 07:48:39 PM »

Ralphy was not civil to me.  That is understandable since he has so many "important points" to communicate.    Smile Thumbup

You post memes, laugh, and then post them again. How is that part of being civil or even rational?
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ralfy
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« Reply #575 on: November 17, 2022, 07:50:41 PM »

"The war in Ukraine has a great deal to do with the American intention to push NATO into Ukraine, and across the Black Sea, into Georgia. This is a narrative that the US doesn't want the people to know, but it's reality." — Professor Jeffrey Sachs

https://twitter.com/sahouraxo/status/1586768335739428864

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ralfy
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« Reply #576 on: November 17, 2022, 07:53:35 PM »

The background of that "crazy SOB's" actions:

"When the truth slips into the Western-NATO media...
This article is 8 years old..."

https://twitter.com/sahouraxo/status/1586801539364044800

"It's not Russia that's pushed Ukraine to the brink of war"

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/russia-ukraine-war-kiev-conflict

Quote
When the Ukrainian president was replaced by a US-selected administration, in an entirely unconstitutional takeover, politicians such as William Hague brazenly misled parliament about the legality of what had taken place: the imposition of a pro-western government on Russia's most neuralgic and politically divided neighbour.

Putin bit back, taking a leaf out of the US street-protest playbook – even though, as in Kiev, the protests that spread from Crimea to eastern Ukraine evidently have mass support. But what had been a glorious cry for freedom in Kiev became infiltration and insatiable aggression in Sevastopol and Luhansk.
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ralfy
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« Reply #577 on: November 17, 2022, 08:02:17 PM »

From Mint Press, retweeted by Sarah:

https://twitter.com/sahouraxo/status/1587524826729631744

"'Stop provoking nuclear war with Russia!'

'You overthrew the legitimate [government in] Ukraine in 2014!'

Obama's speech is interrupted by anti-war protestors in Detroit."

From John Pilger:

https://twitter.com/johnpilger/status/1585568751273082880

"The US takes yet another provocative step towards war with Russia, in which Ukraine is an expendable pawn. Remember Iraq, Libya and its many expendables."

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/10/27/ukra-o27.html



From Pilger, referring to his 2014 article:

https://twitter.com/johnpilger/status/1573592480573956096

"In Ukraine, the US is dragging us towards war with Russia"

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/13/ukraine-us-war-russia-john-pilger

Quote
Every year the American historian William Blum publishes his "updated summary of the record of US foreign policy" which shows that, since 1945, the US has tried to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democratically elected; grossly interfered in elections in 30 countries; bombed the civilian populations of 30 countries; used chemical and biological weapons; and attempted to assassinate foreign leaders.

...

Like the ruins of Iraq and Afghanistan, Ukraine has been turned into a CIA theme park – run personally by CIA director John Brennan in Kiev, with dozens of "special units" from the CIA and FBI setting up a "security structure" that oversees savage attacks on those who opposed the February coup. Watch the videos, read the eye-witness reports from the massacre in Odessa this month. Bussed fascist thugs burned the trade union headquarters, killing 41 people trapped inside. Watch the police standing by.


Finally, in reference to Scott Ritter's article:

https://twitter.com/johnpilger/status/1573258612318814213

"How NATO has brought the world to the brink of WW3. Read this and understand the difference between perception and facts:"

"SCOTT RITTER: Reaping the Whirlwind"

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/09/22/scott-ritter-reaping-the-whirlwind/

Quote
"A permanent member of the United Nations Security Council invaded its neighbor, attempted to erase a sovereign state from the map,” Biden said. “Russia has shamelessly violated the core tenets of the United Nations Charter.”

History, however, is a harsh mistress, where facts become inconvenient to perception. When viewed through the prism of historical fact, the narrative being promulgated by Biden becomes flipped. The reality is that since the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, the U.S. and its European allies have been conspiring to subjugate Russia in an effort to ensure that the Russian people are never again able to mount a geopolitical challenge to an American hegemony defined by a “rules based international order” that had been foisted on the world in the aftermath of the Second World War.
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Allhallowsday
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Either he's dead or my watch has stopped!


« Reply #578 on: November 17, 2022, 10:25:11 PM »

Ralphy was not civil to me.  That is understandable since he has so many "important points" to communicate.    Smile Thumbup

You post memes, laugh, and then post them again. How is that part of being civil or even rational?


Perhaps not rational, but civil.   
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« Reply #579 on: November 17, 2022, 11:44:38 PM »

Even if it was a ukranian anti-missile that hit Poland this would not have happened if Russia was not firing missiles at Ukrainian targets.

Russia is the aggressor, Ukraine the defender, barring gross negligence on Ukraine's part, abd I don't see a lot of incompetence on Ukraine's part in this war, the responsibility for this still lies at pooty's doorstep.
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lester1/2jr
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« Reply #580 on: November 18, 2022, 12:41:37 AM »

^ that would have been a better response that Zelensky's
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Alex
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« Reply #581 on: November 18, 2022, 03:25:51 AM »


That does not however change that Putin asked to join. Seems odd for someone worried about its eastward expansion. I have to be honest, in common with several other people I am not going to bother watching your videos. Your sources don't seem to be very good. I mean we were discussing battlefield situations and your reply was to link quotes from foreign policy experts. Don't see many of them in an ops room or on the ground commanding a battalion. I have no doubt that the people you are linking are intelligent and so forth, but I'll put my trust in the people I know on the ground who actually do these jobs currently and have plenty of real-world experience.

I am sorry, but you are seeing a small part of the picture and assuming you are seeing the whole. It's why you got so much wrong about the use of WMDs earlier (I am still trying to write a reply post explaining why it wouldn't go the way you think, but I really don't have enough time right now to write the essay sized document it would take to explain everything). There are a whole lot more factors to take into account than you are aware of.


I think you're ignoring the big picture. The question isn't whether or not he wanted to join NATO but why. Did Putin think that some other country was threatening Russia, which is why he wanted to join the Western alliance?

NATO was set up to counter anyone who wanted to attack them, and the only threat that time was the Soviet Union.

But there has been no Soviet Union for decades, so what is threatening them?

They have been in operations the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, and elsewhere, and these places in no way threaten them. Similarly, the U.S. has been in operations in many parts of the world, and none of them threaten the U.S. directly. Why are they doing this?

Error 404 (Not Found)!!1

Error 404 (Not Found)!!1

Error 404 (Not Found)!!1

Here's my answer: it's likely that NATO doesn't work with the U.S. as a member but that the U.S. leads NATO, as many of its members still rely on the country with the most expensive military in the world.

Why is that military so expensive? According to its government, they need to defend the "freedoms" of the "American people" against those who oppose "freedoms." Who are they? Russia is not Communist. One of the major trading partners of the U.S. is China. Many of the countries that the U.S. coerces, manipulates, etc., are not immediate threats to them.

In short, the U.S. and NATO have been expanding not to counter security threats against them but economic threats. Russia is part of BRICS and forty emerging markets, and they are growing stronger.

If Russia were to apply to join NATO (just like Turkey), and so did many other countries that aren't even connected to the North Atlantic, then it would become like a UN Security Council, but this time with weaker nations having a say.

And that won't happen because that very much works against the very nature of the organization, which is a U.S.-led alliance and that acts not only as a shield to protect the U.S. but to bring aggression closer to Russian borders.

Finally, I don't understand how my sources aren't good. The definition of WMDs clearly involves explosives. It is accepted by historians and experts worldwide that the U.S. used those and the absurd claim that Saddam supported terrorists to attack Iraq. Also, why are you looking for ground commanders as experts? That makes no sense at all, as these are geopolitical events.







TL:DR. Looked at the first lines then just jumped to the last paragraph. I can see why you'd think I am not seeing the big picture, but the irony is that you are concentrating so hard on just one part of it that you really aren't seeing the full thing yourself.

The definition of WMDs doesn't clearly include explosives. There is no definition of WMDs so you are incorrect here. In military circles, they are used though to refer to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons as I pointed out before. I was not just going on about technicalities and semantics though. What I am meaning here however is how you'd believe they would be used, their effectiveness and so on. If they had been used in Ukraine the way you suggested earlier in a theoretical American invasion, you'd have violated LOAC, specifically the section on Proportionality and much of your military force would be guilty of war crimes. Bit hard to fight a war when your commanders and pilots are all behind bars. I suspect the general you quoted was very well aware of this and was more speaking to the home crowd (for example if anyone asks me what I think is the best-trained military in the world, I always tell them theirs is. I don't really mean that though, I am just being nice). Gulf War One, by the way, took weeks of psychological warfare and special forces operations to allow it to go down the way it did (oh, I did nearly wet myself laughing when you said I should study how that went). The use of explosives helped, but I think you'll find if you study it yourself, you'll find the outflanking attack was what made it so successful with the other parts being contributory factors. The Iraqi command system simply couldn't react fast enough because of their poor communications (an example of this is that Saddam did not let most of his forces have radio communications in case they used it to plot against him. The Iraqi forces found themselves cut off, and attacked from unexpected directions. Even then, the fight was not over in a day.

I look for ground commanders as experts in the previous situation because we were talking about a battlefield situation. We were not discussing a geopolitical event. Your reply to comments about the battlefield were to bring in quotes from people who study foreign affairs. If you don't understand why that is important, then yeah I can see why you'd post up entirely the wrong class of experts and that is why I am not reading all your posts or watching your videos. I consider my time too precious to waste on that. Maybe if you focused your points a bit more and made things more concise it might help. Then again, several people have commented on that, and you've denied it (American exceptionalism in action I guess?). I use experts relevant to the situation. If I want to know about a ground fight, then I'll speak to the army, if I want to know about naval operations, I'll chat with the navy. If I want to know about air operations, well that is my speciality. If I want to do research, then I know that takes more than simply watching a few youtube videos.

As to why Putin wanted to join NATO, I would guess that he was looking to establish Russia's place in the world order. Ultimately though this is the problem I see with much of what you post. You seem to think that everything that happens in the world is a reaction to America and what it has done, rather than seeing it as a much more complex and intertwined thing. Expand your sources a bit. Use ones that are actually relevant to that part of the discussion. While the US is very important to the world order, the world itself does not revolve around it. Is the west entirely innocent in this situation? Hell no. Have they done things to provoke the east? Absolutely. If you think Putin is just reacting to what happening around him though, rather than instigating events and using things to his own advantage though, you are very, very, very much mistaken.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2022, 07:47:48 AM by Alex » Logged

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ER
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« Reply #582 on: November 18, 2022, 03:58:16 AM »

^ And THAT is why civilians should not argue this topic with a soldier!  BounceGiggle

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« Reply #583 on: November 18, 2022, 09:10:53 AM »

Ultimately though this is the problem I see with much of what you post. You seem to think that everything that happens in the world is a reaction to America and what it has done, rather than seeing it as a much more complex and intertwined thing... While the US is very important to the world order, the world itself does not revolve around it. Is the west entirely innocent in this situation? Hell no. Have they done things to provoke the east? Absolutely. If you think Putin is just reacting to what happening around him though, rather than instigating events and using things to his own advantage though, you are very, very, very much mistaken.

This is where I stand, too.
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ER
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The sleep of reasoner breeds monsters. (sic)


« Reply #584 on: November 18, 2022, 10:11:14 AM »

One sign for optimism I have discovered is that young people in Russia are connected online to the world and know what their leadership is, know how out of step their society is with the rights people in the west have, and have shown bravery in taking a stand to change things. I wish the protests against Putin were better known, because they definitely are happening inside Russia. I know it's said Russia will never be free, and mostly a change in leadership has traditionally brought more of the same oppression, but just maybe there might finally be a tipping point in sight and a reason to hope that things will get better there so that Russians will someday enjoy those freedoms we take for granted.
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