The Nicest Boy on Mastodon
Paul KrugmanGood roundup of the anti-Zelensky right, but I think it misses one additional point: the importance of the musclebound, thuggish Russian soldier in right-wing iconography 1/ https://www.thebulwark.com/putins-useful-idiots-right-wingers-lose-it-over-zelensky-visit/
Before Putin's war, lots of people on the right, from Ted Cruz on down, idolized bicep-flexing Russians who were supposed to be much tougher than our supposedly pampered service members 2/
Even now you see people saying "a woke military is a weak military" — in the face of the definitely anti-woke Russian army's string of disasters . And how many times has Tucker Carlson declared that Russia is winning? 3/
You don't have to be a military expert to see that while courage and endurance are as important as ever, a modern military also needs smart people who can act on their own initiative 4/
And that recruiting people from as wide a pool as possible, and with the promise of decent treatment, is going to work better than brutalizing and hazing. But admitting that would undermine the whole RW world view 5/
So Ukraine must lose, and Russia win, to vindicate the worship of thuggishness 6/
PhoenixDogLover@pkrugman As the son and nephew of men who were in the US Navy during WWII, and as a younger friend of men who fought in Vietnam, I can't reconcile the RW promotion of thuggish warriors with the reality of who has gone to war, and who has returned home to resume regular life. The RW world view is awash in fantasies.
JoeStewart@phoenixdoglover @pkrugman
PhoenixDogLover is right: the Republican narrative of the US Military is fantasy. Even when I enlisted, I was a minority as a white boy. I was surrounded by color. I adapted and grew as consequence. Sure, most senior leaders are white males. But the proportion has changed. Good for us.
PhoenixDogLover is right: the Republican narrative of the US Military is fantasy. Even when I enlisted, I was a minority as a white boy. I was surrounded by color. I adapted and grew as consequence. Sure, most senior leaders are white males. But the proportion has changed. Good for us.
Pēteris Krišjānis@pkrugman very good take. Actually Zelensky threatens own russian legend about strong man, who maybe is a thug, but he takes care about things. Zelensky directly challenges this idea. Zelensky is everything Putin is not.
@pkrugman all kremlin mafia has based it's justification of existence on "everyone's shit, so let us rule, because at least there will be order". Turns out that is huge lie.
Robert@pkrugman the patriotic conservative movement is so strange. They are without shame. They do have plenty of hubris based on ignorance and deceit.
Doremus Jessup@pkrugman
The same right wingers who would crow the loudest about Reagan winning the Cold War would cheer Putin for putting the band back together
The same right wingers who would crow the loudest about Reagan winning the Cold War would cheer Putin for putting the band back together
Gerard MacDonell@pkrugman It seems they are extremely self absorbed, like toddlers.
Bill Janssen@pkrugman
Paul, it's fascinating seeing you doing threading here. They come in last-to-first, so I keep reading, trying to figure out what you're talking about! Burma-Shave in reverse!
The key is to only make the first piece of the thread public, and then make the rest of the pieces "unlinked". That way people will just see the head of the thread, and only if they click on it will the other parts show up.
Mark Hogue@billjanssen @pkrugman It works fine from my view. Maybe it’s different with the Metatext app I’m using or related to the domain?
@asp_zuc
Maybe! I’m using the Web view.
Maybe! I’m using the Web view.
John 0tter
Thomas Røst Stenerud@billjanssen @pkrugman the thread looks fine, impeccable to me🤘🏻
BJ Kennedy@pkrugman There are a lot of folks that have spent a decade or so with a worldview that was simply "everything the left thinks is good must be bad" and absolutely nothing else. Some of them will have a hard time turning that off.
@arcdrag
Americans, from liberals to the extreme right, have a pugnacious tendency toward #abductive reasoning. Rather than building on collective/inferred premises, the absence of ideology is itself the ideology.
*liberally sprays self with Žižek repellant*
@pkrugman
Capt Gordon@pkrugman on a modern battlefield, bring smart is more important than being “tough” and I’d argue that’s always been true
@captgordon @pkrugman Good point. A key part of being an effective warrior is being.
Graydon@captgordon @pkrugman It's much more that tough doesn't look like what people think it looks like.
"Army" has always been a co-operation contest. Modern armies are a co-operative innovation contest; how are we few going to get this job done, despite everything?
Egalitarian, mildly insubordinate, and extremely goal directed, that's what you want. You can't lie about the goals to long-service regulars with as many skills as can be arranged. It's a long-term expense to maintain.
Colin DanbyMoreover, you need to build a functioning organization out of the people you recruit -- one that is flexible and quick and able to integrate new information. A lot of what goes on under the flag of diversity is making organizations work properly. The war has been a clear management lesson that brutalizing and hazing and harassing makes dysfunctional organizations.
Richard Welty@pkrugman western militaries prize competent career NCOs, something that the Russians don't do. and the difference shows.
Roger Moore@pkrugman
Courage and endurance are not male-only traits, either. Men do have an innate strength advantage- testosterone is a hell of a drug- but that can be handled by testing for required strength as part of assigning a MOS.
Courage and endurance are not male-only traits, either. Men do have an innate strength advantage- testosterone is a hell of a drug- but that can be handled by testing for required strength as part of assigning a MOS.
War on the Castle, Peace in the Valley🛡️🍉🇵🇸 🏳️🌈 🇺🇦@pkrugman
All this clap trap about "de-wokifying" the military reminds me of the controversy about letting women into the miliitary. LMAO.
ALso reminds me of that video clip of the #Russian commander barking #homophobia rhetoric at the troops (#Ukraine = hotbed of Western degeneracy, etc etc)...and me thinking that a certain percentage of those troops are closeted #LGBTQ conscripts thinking how in the fuck do they deal with this nightmare that is the #RussianInvasion of Ukraine?
0588209.@pkrugman
This is horrifying to watch but important to keep in mind: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/video/russia-ukraine-bucha-massacre-takeaways.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
This is horrifying to watch but important to keep in mind: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/video/russia-ukraine-bucha-massacre-takeaways.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Jeff Fecke@pkrugman It's the people who simply cannot fathom that self-control and empathy are *strengths*, even in (indeed, *especially* in) the military.
Russ
Nitbuntu ✅@pkrugman Finally a proper connected thread on Mastodon! Hope not too much manual workarounds involved?
That link between the admiration of 'strongmen' leaders, anti-wokeness and constant sneering and downplaying of any Ukrainian successes does seems so obvious, now that I've been made to think about it.
Bethany@pkrugman Tucker is a Putin loving , anti American, white supremacist and fascist
toxtethogrady@pkrugman As it turns out, a gay Marine can stop an active shooter better than the entire Uvalde police force.
Drew Shannon@pkrugman these folks didn't watch any 80's action movies, and it shows!
Mike Smith@pkrugman It’s less that our soldiers are pampered and more that the army dared to feature a kickass ADA soldier with two moms in an ad.
Edge 
@pkrugman I didn't bother with summaries. I went straight to the horse's ass, er mouth, and looked at Twitter. Yep - horrible and laughable takes, including some from people who pled the Fifth to the J6...
Mike Ester
Marcus Marcius Marcellus@pkrugman It’s a pity that, under the constitution, it’s probably not possible to forcibly relocate every single one of these scumbags to a post-defeat Russia.
Michael Bethke@pkrugman They missed the opportunity to hammer on the wokeness of it all.
Here's why.
Martin NuttyI have to say I feel badly for Cathy Young who clearly spend a significant chunk of time compiling what passes as thoughts or more fairly described dreck of the #RightWing punditocracy. That sorry crew continue to advocate for the overthrow of Western European Democracy so smitten are they by their slavish #Putin fanboy instincts. The ghost of #RonaldReagan must be deeply disturbed
gmokeMargarita M Balmaceda, Seton Hall University in "Energy as a Weapon of War: Russia, Ukraine, and Europe in Challenging Times":
Putin has drawn soldiers from non-Russian ethnics to avoid stressing Moscow, St Petersburg.
Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1DrP8wqqPs
More of my notes at http://solarray.blogspot.com/2022/12/energy-as-weapon-of-war-russia-ukraine.html
Putin's war is an attempt at ethnic genocide, it seems, on a variety of different levels.
Starr Forum: Energy as a Weapon of War: Russia, Ukraine and Europe in Challenging Times
John Gordon@pkrugman ugh. Nauseating stuff. If we didn’t already despise them this would do it.
@pkrugman Wow, Donnie Junior saying that someone else wants too much stuff for free, as if it’s an entitlement. I guess you can’t expect much introspection from the Maralago Mafia.
Buddy@pkrugman
Putin's "Total" Oil monopoly,..And Big oil's stake in it..The reason Nothing makes sense.
Putin's "Total" Oil monopoly,..And Big oil's stake in it..The reason Nothing makes sense.