Sittin' in the kitchen, a house in Macon
Loretta's singing on the radio
Smell of coffee, eggs and bacon
Car wheels on a gravel road
(Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, Lucinda Williams)
So the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, as well as the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions are now a part of the thousand-year old Russian state, simply by putting a couple of signatures on a piece of paper.
You can find a link to the text of the speech given by Putin for the happy occasion here, but suffice to say that about 3/4th of the material is about how the West is responsible for genocide, shelling, blockades, criminal policy, hatred for Russia, hatred for everything Russian, attempts to break up Russia, dreaming about breaking up Russia, condemning the Russian people to poverty and destruction, condemning the rest of the world to poverty and destruction, plundering the world, total de-sovereignisation, destroying entire states, humanitarian disasters, devastation, ruins, millions of wrecked and mangled human lives, terrorist enclaves, social disaster zones, protectorates, colonies and semi-colonies, nonsens, utter deceit, double or triple standards, dirty deception, wants to turn us all into soulless slaves, denying national sovereignty, denying international law, has features of totalitarianism, despotism, apartheid, political nationalism, racism, started its colonial policy back in the Middle Ages, followed by the worldwide slave trade, genocide of the Indian tribes in America, the Wars of England and France against China, the plunder of India and Africa, got entire nations hooked on drugs and purposefully exterminated entire ethnic groups for the sake of grabbing land and resources, hunting people like animals. And they probably tripped your grandmother down the stairs too.
Perhaps a couple of pictures speak louder than all those words. Did you know Putin likes to tickle big people?
The festivities ofcourse couldn't pass without the casual mentioning of nuclear war, and were given extra stature by raping a critical poet with a dumbbell.
Just another day at the Kremlin.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2022, @02:44PM (28 children)
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that fusty will blame this on Democrats.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2022, @06:12PM (27 children)
Everything's about blaming Russia (even though they're way over their heads, just getting up in the morning) so with any luck, nobody will notice what China's getting away with throughout the world.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2022, @07:27PM (1 child)
or what the US/UK/Europe are doing to themselves, what with sabotaging their own infrastructure and economy and politics, etc... Both China and Russia seem to be the perfect distraction right now
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2022, @08:07PM
Are the Global Elites accepting junior memberships? I'm shure lots of us would like to get in on this power and control thing. Maybe they will let us control of some smaller things, like the world's catsup (ketchup, ket-tsiap, кетчуп) supply chain.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2022, @09:50PM (4 children)
Oh, yeah? Whatabout Arkansas? Nobody is even noticing what they are getting away with!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2022, @10:03PM (1 child)
say goodnight, ari!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2022, @10:45PM
No, it is "what about Arkansas", not Arikansas, though that is probably a historical spelling. And, where do you think all those weapons [arkansasonline.com] for Ukraine come from?
(Score: 3, Funny) by turgid on Monday October 03 2022, @06:52PM
They're getting away with the Chugabug [fandom.com].
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2022, @02:49PM
That's because they keep it in the family.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Sunday October 02 2022, @11:23PM (18 children)
News in the past 2 weeks, latest is interesting
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/09/joe-biden-taiwan-china-strategic-ambiguity/671512/ [theatlantic.com]
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/us-defense-secretary-sees-no-imminent-invasion-taiwan-by-china-2022-10-02/ [reuters.com]
https://www.foxnews.com/world/china-invade-taiwan-beijing-believes-owns-island-asian-trade-official-says [foxnews.com]
https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-and-taiwan-build-common-ties-defying-pressure-from-china/a-63281471 [dw.com]
https://www.dw.com/en/german-lawmakers-arrive-in-taiwan-amid-regional-tensions/a-63310721 [dw.com]
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-12/china-western-media-war-taiwan-new-confidence/101423200 [abc.net.au]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2022, @01:28AM (1 child)
Must be a tally somewhere about all the absolutely frightening stuff/land/people China's buying up.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday October 03 2022, @03:48AM
If the Chinese behave towards the state that sold the land, there's no problem.
If it doesn't, the sale contract is as good as the China's capacity to project its force to enforce the contract.
Besides, as an update to the long march [brookings.edu]
It may be (their strategy to COVID [bbc.com]), it may be a shift of focus in their foreign policy, it may be their real estate woes [reuters.com], it may be lots of other things...
And, then, who knows? "The king might die. The horse might die. I might die. And, who knows? Maybe
the horse will singChina will practice actual democracy." [umich.edu]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2022, @02:07AM (6 children)
Oh wow, there's a book about it: "The Long Game: China's Grand Strategy to Displace American Order." Never heard of it, but the title fits. Inch at a time, buy this farm, buy that company, slip sources into the other research group... then one day everybody realizes the infrastructure is gone. Another book, The Art Of War," says something like killing an enemy soldier does little, but if you injure the soldier (or citizen), you've taken a whole raft of enemy resources away from the battle. Maybe we should be reading the second book; then again, maybe the first one is based on it.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2022, @06:30AM
So, you have never actually read the 孫子兵法, have you? Ignorant maroon, Runaway class. The Art of War does not say this. Like, any where. Have you been cruzing the "quotes" cites on the infernets?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Monday October 03 2022, @11:23AM (4 children)
My take is that the priors of China's presence governance are holding it back. They have a Communist party with ridiculous power (for example, cracking down on some children's books authors and illustrators because those books allegedly incite separatism [chinadigitaltimes.net] or show subversive images [reason.com]). That needs to be at least demoted to a normal political party. They suffer from the usual clumsy and heavy-handedness of a massive, top-down bureaucracy and its clueless, brutal interference in all areas of China's activities in the world.
They are spending increasing amount of energy trying to control and hold back their citizens rather than running their long game games. That needs to end if they're serious about planning for the future.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2022, @02:40PM (1 child)
Sadly in the US the supposed independent free thinking Republicans are working towards a Christian fascism ignoring all the lessons from other dictatorships. Freedom is good, and only maintained by healthy government.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2022, @03:48PM
The Christian fascism you are seeking is an illusion. The Republican Party is run by mainstream neoliberals, and the MAGA populists are controlled opposition. It would be funny to vote in an authoritarian regime to crush your freedoms, but that already happened.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2022, @07:32PM (1 child)
Damn! That's funny! First you talk about the republicans and then the democrats
Ah, ok, now you make sense, they should do like we do and let American/British banks run their markets and sell them opium, like the old days
As far as there's a "long game" We are still under the Roman Empire, still their rules and rulers
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Monday October 03 2022, @11:52PM
Sounds like an improvement over the present Chinese government.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2022, @04:40AM (8 children)
There is only one China. Taiwan is not China. Being overrun by Chinese exiles at various times during its history does not make it China. The exiles can go back if they want to be in China. We should protect them from invasion from the mainland. I hope we have the competence to do it without spilling American blood
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2022, @05:00AM (7 children)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
I mean, how else to react to an emotion-appealing comment?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2022, @05:11AM (3 children)
How do you respond to rhetoric like that? Generally, I just move on. But sometimes, we just can't help ourselves...
Okay, you first.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2022, @08:33PM (2 children)
Gimme 100 billion, USD, a month
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2022, @11:06PM (1 child)
I know somebody who will, gladly, without a thought. But first, how does your hair smell?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2022, @03:02PM
Trump isn't the prez numbnutz!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2022, @05:20AM (2 children)
I am very pleased to see that the truth is so emotion[ally]-appealing. Spread the word
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03 2022, @09:16PM (1 child)
If only you'd put in a picture of a cute kitten strumming on a zither, you'd be risin' straight to the top.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 04 2022, @12:21AM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 07 2022, @02:03PM
I too am concerned about what the SQUIRRELS! are doing throughout the world.