Pretending

[Joseph Tracy]

"Five months ago, on February 24th, Russia began what she called a “special military operation” (SMO). In very simple terms, this is what Russia has achieved so far: Ukraine has lost about 20% of its territory, about 3 thousand towns and villages, half of the gross national product, and a third of coal production. It completely lost access to the Sea of Azov, and traffic through the Black Sea ports froze due to fighting and mining of waterways. The number of refugees has reached 7 million.” The Saker

Pretense is not needed.       

As Ukraine refuses realistic negotiations the Russians steadily seize areas where ethnic Russians predominate or American weapons present a threat.     In Ukraine the facade of democracy is gone as opposition parties and leaders are outlawed or arrested; corruption is rampant and worker rights are disappearing.  Europe,at first gung-ho to sanction Russia has changed its tune to get Russian gas. Regime change is more likely to be visited on democrats in the US than Putin.   

> On Jul 24, 2022, at 1:19 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> on
> https://twitter.com/timothydsnyder/status/1550884649303408640?s=21&t=gAdxPhb-ashul_Hoez0hCg
> 
> The old communist joke went "we pretend to work and you pretend to pay us.
> In Russia today the reality is something more like "you pretend to win a
> war and we pretend to show enthusiasm."
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>