420blazeit69

Huey Newton was not what you would call a good speaker. In fact, he had a kind of high pitched monotonous voice and his rambling for three hours about the negation of the negation was sheer disaster. People walked out in droves. Instead of criticizing what was happening, most of the Party members defended it. When I said that Huey needed speaking lessons they jumped down my throat. When Huey changed his title from defense minister to the ridiculous "Supreme Commander" and then to the even more ridiculous "Supreme Servant," damn near nobody said a word. That was one of the big problem in the Party. Criticism and self-criticism were not encouraged, and the little that was given often was not taken seriously. Constructive criticism and self-criticism are extremely important for any revolutionary organization. Without them, people tend to drown in their mistakes, and not learn from them.

One thing I see fairly often on here is the idea that trying to refine the presentation of leftist ideas = ceding ground to liberals, or watering leftist ideas down. The importance of good presentation is somewhere between "extremely helpful" and "absolutely crucial."

The BPP seems to have left a lot of potential untapped because they didn't care enough about how people received their ideas. We should learn from that.

Pick one: Russia is running on fumes, or Russia should have won a year ago.

The coherent opinion here is that it's a slow, grinding war and the side that has lost more and more territory as it continued will continue to do so.

This has been the narrative since shortly after the war began. All that's happened since is Russia has slowly advanced.

Taking everything you say at face value, the options for Ukraine are:

1. Take a deal that maybe you can't trust, but it at least gives you time to breathe.
2. Keep fighting, and with the war going how it is eventually lose more than what you've already lost.
3. Attempt to draw other states into the conflict so that you have a shot at what might be considered a victory, likely years more down the road under the best of circumstances.

There is no justification for 2, and 3 is highly unlikely -- if other states haven't entered the war already, they're not going to do so now.

This isn't capitulation, this is cutting your losses while you have something left to hold onto.

Do you have anything of substance to add?

:smuglord: "you're from Hexbear" isn't an argument

Even assuming Russian shells are lower quality (and you have absolutely zero evidence of that), a shitload of weapons that are lower quality can still beat you.

Since taking office in 2021, Biden has yet to meet the Dalai Lama. As a candidate in 2020, Biden criticised Donald Trump for being the only US president in three decades who had neither met nor spoken to the Tibetan spiritual leader.

Roosevelt, believing Stalin was not serious, quipped that “maybe 49,000 would be enough.”

Gets me every time

Also worth noting that 50k represented a tiny fraction of the Nazi military -- there were well over a million people under arms right up until the end of the war. So Stalin and Roosevelt were already talking about officers and units that did the worst atrocities, not some mass retribution against the bulk of the military itself.

Stated policy means stated policy, not "a bunch of bureaucrats were assigned the same book once."

they are sourcing a Duma member on Russian state television

Fair enough. It's still a far cry from anyone in a position to actually use nukes saying anything like that, though. Here's the stated policy of Russia on the topic:

Putin reiterated Russia’s formal position on the use of nuclear weapons in a statement to the Russian HRC on December 7 with no noteworthy changes. Putin claimed that the threat of nuclear war is growing, but that Russia will not be the first to employ nuclear weapons. Putin added, however, that if Russia is not the first to initiate the first use of nuclear weapons, it will also not be the second to do so, because the “possibility of using [a nuclear weapon] in the event of a nuclear strike on [Russian] territory are very limited.” Putin reiterated that Russian nuclear doctrine is premised on self-defense and stated that any Russian nuclear use would be retaliatory... Putin’s statements support ISW’s previous assessment that while Russian officials may engage in forms of nuclear saber-rattling as part of an information operation meant to undermine Western support for Ukraine, Russian officials have no intention of actually using them on the battlefield.

Why does some random Duma member's offhand comments mean more than this?

Ukrainian separatists in Russian "little green men" uniforms

So your theory is that Russia intentionally shot down a civilian airliner, targeting the Netherlands specifically... why, exactly? Do you think they're mustache-twirling villains who do evil stuff because evil is fun?

Proportional retaliation for their aggressive actions.

Ok, what proportional retaliation does the U.S. deserve for Iraq?

Two days ago, a Duma member suggested nuking Rotterdam.

Show me a source. Earlier in this conversation you said something was the "stated policy of Russia," then when you went to find a source it turned out it was not.

Russian soldiers also actually shot down an airliner

Presumably you're referring to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. That was not shot down by Russia, but by Ukranian separatists using a Russian-supplied weapon. I'm not aware of any evidence that anyone intentionally targeted it, either, much less intentionally targeted it because it had Dutch citizens. Non-Russians mistaking an airliner for a military target is not the same as Russia targeting you.

I didn't say that I support US policy

OK, so what military retaliation against the U.S. do you endorse? Do you apply your policy of retaliation to everyone, or not? That's what I'm getting at -- you do not apply your policy of retaliation to everyone, only countries you've already decided are Bad Countries. This isn't deflecting, it's showing that you are not being honest when you say "aggressive countries should see military retaliation."

the peeps who said they will nuke Rotterdam

Who is saying this? Russia sure isn't. You keep making up threats.

And on changing the subject, why are we talking about the US again?

If you actually believe that aggressive, militaristic countries should face retaliation to get them to back down -- if you actually hold that as a principle -- you would apply it to all such countries, and the #1 example of that is the U.S.

You don't apply it to the U.S., which shows you don't actually believe it. You only apply it to countries you've already deemed enemies.

You keep saying Russia is your enemy because they're threatening you, but all you've mentioned are invented threats, not anything Russia has actually said or did towards your country.