To people who are wondering why I needed to travel to North Carolina to sit alone in a room all day, I can only say that this is how I know they are not mothers of small children.
All due respect to North Carolina, but there’s a swimming pool and a gym at the hotel, and wild horses won’t drag me out of here.
Clarissa's Blog 
Tucker has completely lost it:
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Remember you liked Tucker?
I have also watched him for a while to learn about American society.
The damage he is currently inflicting may be greater than all the good he did by combating silly American cultural trends.
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I know! I had such great hopes for him as a spokesperson for the New Right. And he just had to go and destroy his credibility completely with this extraordinary nonsense.
But there’s more. The entire New Right is self-immolating on the funereal pyre of their love for Russia and hatred for Ukraine. There is a couple of exceptions, like Sebastian Gorka and Antonio García Martínez. But aside from them, the entire New Right is self-destructing before our own eyes because they confused reality with fiction.
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Tucker is rich and well-connected, and always has been. Whatever temporary alliances he forms, that’ll always be his core. Rich people’s interests are not the same as ours, and we forget it at our peril.
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That’s a very good point. I have a black friend who has no high school diploma but believes that the confirmation of Ketanji Jackson to SCOTUS will immediately improve her life because Jackson is black. That Jackson has always been ultra-privileged doesn’t enter into the equation.
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It really is a weird thing. I think it’s just… if you’ve managed to reach adulthood without ever having to go without something because you couldn’t afford it, it does freakish things to your outlook. I feel like it’s almost as bad as missing out on a key developmental stage in childhood. I find such people almost impossible to communicate with in any meaningful capacity. There’s a lot they cannot ever understand about how the world works for the vast majority of people.
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Слушай, барак,
Новый великий указ:
Здесь не бардак,
Здесь спец-порядок у нас.
Пусть над золой
Ворон встаёт на крыло –
Это не зло.
Это у нас спец-добро.
Хныкать не сметь!
Что б ни случилось – держись!
Это не смерть.
Это, товарищ, спец-жизнь.
(С)Плотов
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What do you think about this interpretation of the political scientist Vladimir Pastukhov? (Link to the original post in Russian below.)
Is Putin really as concerned about foreign policy as is assumed? Let’s try to look at the situation from a different angle and imagine that all this external roar of guns is not so much a goal as a means, more precisely, a way to obtain certain domestic political results? Then, in a certain sense, the goals of the war for the Kremlin can be considered achieved. In less than a month of war, more has been done for the totalitarian reformatting of Russian society than in the previous few years. What under other circumstances would have taken years and years, under the cover of the war, managed to crank out in a matter of days. Russia is ready for eternal political suspended animation. Now you can calmly reflect on the hereditary transfer of power. And what can prevent this? So why do they need World War III then? They will be well fed there too. Well, it’s finally clear why the moldy palace in Gelendzhik Switzerland was needed – so that there was somewhere to transport things from Switzerland. So the Third World War can most likely happen as an excess of the performer, but it is unlikely that it is a plan.
https://t.me/v_pastukhov/57
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I think this is giving too much credit to Putin and assuming some complex strategic thinking on his part.
I suggest we forget about Putin altogether because he’s completely accidental to this story. Russian people needed a bloody sacrifice and they are getting it.
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“we forget about Putin altogether”
I’m reminded of an old essay by Ralph Peters (link below)
Russia has three or four (maybe 5) of the failure factors he mentions (depending on definitions)
This ties in with my idea that different forms of social organization can only lead to particular levels of prosperity and when a country goes over the level its system of government can deal with then something dramatic will happen to pull it back down.
Russia overreached its ability to deal with prosperity about15 years ago at which point it began getting involved in foreign conflicts which have pulled its economy back to levels that the Russian leadership (and everyday Russians) can deal with which will only continue for the foreseeable future.
https://press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1867&context=parameters
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This is fascinating. I haven’t thought about it this way but it’s a promising line of thinking. There’s something a lot bigger going on here than the standard narrative about a crazed dictator.
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Personally, I think Putin is hell-bent on rebuilding the Russian Empire. Given how Russia was devastated in WWII by the Germans, I think Putin has that fundamental distrust of the West and of democratic government that many Cold War Russians had, who see it that the West could become Nazi again and attack Russia. So he wants to re-create the old Soviet buffer zone that was from the Eastern European Soviet and Warsaw Pact states. Communism itself also advocates constant territorial expansion and then there is as Clarissa has mentioned, the idea that national greatness to a Russian is based on territorial size.
Clarissa and others here have also pointed out that the West makes the mistake of applying a Western way of thinking to Putin and Russians and that this is a mistake, because Russians think very differently. Unfortunately, Russians also make the same mistake and apply their way of thinking to the West and especially the United States, so they see the United States as bent on constant expansion and conquest as well, which thus all the more fuels their own desire for expansion and conquest and distrust of the West.
Finally, I would say Ukraine, from a Russian nationalist standpoint, is a major keystone for Russian national security. It’s an ideal place to go through to invade Russia, it allows access to the warm water port at Sevastopol, it has the world’s most fertile agricultural soil, it has long been known as the “Bread Basket of Europe,” it was responsible I believe for about 70% of Soviet agricultural production, it was where 70% or so of the Soviet nuclear arsenal was placed, control of it allows establishment of a base to then push further west and take control over the Baltic states, Poland, etc…so it is a major prize to Russia and one that absolutely cannot be allowed to fall under Western control.
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“Russians also make the same mistake and apply their way of thinking to the West”
Galeev has a video about how many/most Russians think that anything that a person says in public is a lie (and project that onto the rest of the world).
So when people from other countries say the same thing in public and private they think they’re being disrespected (why won’t he tell me what he really thinks?) and seethe in fury.
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// Galeev has a video about how many/most Russians think that anything that a person says in public is a lie
I don’t have a Twitter, so read via thread reader.
Does Galeev have a YouTube channel?
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“Galeev have a YouTube channel?”
just two videos… this is the one about Russia… I was surpised at how… young he looks (even two years ago). So sad that Russia has so little use for brilliant people… unless they’re crooked….
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“Putin is hell-bent on rebuilding the Russian Empire”
Russian Empire = USSR (the same basic structure with different job titles and some change of personnel).
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