I honestly wonder if Putin’s coterie could even conceive of ousting him. https://t.co/owJm9mq7Ty
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) February 27, 2022
A Boss like Putin, one does not simply oust. However, when in the course of mob-related events, a Boss should happen to become more of a liability than an asset… said Boss tends to have a shorter shelf life than the latest TikTok dance craze.
Slowly, and then all at once:
entirely a theory without proof but I have a suspicion russia’s propaganda network collapsing on itself almost overnight has a lot to do with everyone suddenly not getting paid
— kilgore trout, death to putiner (@KT_So_It_Goes) February 27, 2022
yeah the events themselves ABSOLUTELY have an awful lot to do with it but the entire operation just vanished almost instantaneously
anyway I want to be perfectly clear about this next part, I’m not an expert on this, and the experts have their facts correct. what I’m describing here is just guesses based off macro systems analysis and not number crunching. that said
I’ve read all the analyses that russia has enough independent side systems & cash reserves & alt-revenue to survive years with harsh sanctions. they all make sense. those analyses are *correct*. but I kinda think they miss a big piece of how systems actually work in meatspace
what would happen in meatspace with those cash reserves & side systems is: they will get heavily, heavily skimmed at each level by the entities moving the cash, because that’s how they operate now. they won’t just *stop* because they enter austerity
and level by level, when you start skimming heavily off a very fixed resource, the cash tumbling down to the next floor is reduced, probably at an even higher percentage due to panic skimming. the burn rate goes way up. so there’s less cash to begin with & it vanishes faster
when I read “they can last years” I keep thinking “yeah but can they?” because how long does it really take before cash stops moving to the most important low level: people who *actually do shit*? is it really years?
maybe it is! but rationally squinting at a kleptocracy entering austerity with a panic mentality…I don’t agree. i think it might only be weeks. no I can’t show my math, there is none. it’s just a hmmm are we sure they’re gonna be sure to pay the levels that keep society running?
Soonergrunt
Sooner or later the people who carry the guns and keep the others in line won’t get their paycheck. Then it gets ugly, fast. Especially if the regime leaders have nowhere to escape to.
Jinchi
Serious question. How long does it take a soldier in the field in hostile territory to realize he’s no longer getting paid?
RaflW
I guess I don’t know what Kilgore Trout is saying in the first tweet? What propaganda collapse did I miss?
Curtis
https://twitter.com/r_netsec/status/1497797398898176000
“Russia’s foreign minister Lavrov said negotiations can begin once Russia “restores democratic order” in Ukraine. As Russian troops neared Kyiv, Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko was asked to respond.”
Seems like a reasonable response to me.
trollhattan
@RaflW:
Read the Kremlin website and others were down for hours today. Maybe that?
Betsy
@RaflW:
From taking a look at the twitter feed and its responses, it seems there is less activity from the troll farms in Macedonia and elsewhere, perhaps.
Also, Tulsi Gabbard is now tweeting saying that “Russia has made its point” and should back down. I guess her paycheck bounced, the little traitorous shill.
eclare
@Curtis: Perfect. No mixed message there.
Sebastian
Tulsi Gabbard changed her tune 30 minutes after the SWIFT announcement.
Sebastian
@Betsy:
you beat me to the punch
Sebastian
@Jinchi:
They don’t get paid really. Also, in Russia or anywhere in Eastern Europe, people often went for years without pay. Crazy, right? You were accruing retirement years and you had healthcare etc. and people just got by.
That getting paid thing is more a Western thing. There is A LOT of bartering going on, mostly stuff that’s not nailed down. Like the diesel you are supposed to put in the tanks. You trade it for cash or booze and you and your buddies get wasted while sitting and waiting doing nothing for 60 days.
Yutsano
@Betsy: As I observed on Twitter, methinks the lady doth protest way too much.
trollhattan
@Betsy: I recall furrow queen Susan Collins opining Trump had “learned his lesson” after impeachment #1. Vlad “made his point” is something like that.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
eclare
Ukrainians in French Foreign Legion will be allowed to go to Ukraine, according to NEXTA twitter.
Calouste
@Jinchi: He most likely won’t realize he doesn’t get paid until he gets back home. But he realizes he doesn’t get fed well three times a day.
ColoradoGuy
Slowly, then all at once.
When the oligarchs abandon VVP, it’s all over.
mrmoshpotato
Stuff them all in the crust!
Oh, wrong Minions. And, well, nevermind.
Sebastian
Russians are ready to talk. Glorious invasion for glory of kleptocracy not going so well, Vlad?
opiejeanne
@Calouste: They’re already not getting fed very well, if at all. There are tales of Russian soldiers going door to door in search of food and fuel for their vehicles. There is advice to give them a jerry can to which you’ve added a bit of sugar.
eclare
@opiejeanne: Good advice.
opiejeanne
@Sebastian: Are the Russians going to offer a Ransom of Red Chief deal? Please stop hurting our soldiers and breaking our war toys? We’ll pay you if you let us go home now.
opiejeanne
@eclare: I’ve seen amazing threads of advice on Twitter today, including a fairly detailed one from a man who teaches at the War College, on how to slow them down in an urban setting, how to harass them while stressing not getting yourself killed. He emphasizes that you have to stay alive
Today I learned that a smaller bottle with a longish neck is best for throwing, if you’re making Molotov cocktails. Easier to throw with accuracy, but drop them from the third floor of a building if you can. .
mrmoshpotato
@Sebastian:
But she can still go fuck herself like that Russian warship. The traitorous shitstain.
Sebastian
@opiejeanne:
I am not sure they have a plan. Probably want to play for time while they figure something out. The squeeze is on hard.
Sebastian
@opiejeanne:
Yes, the citizen of Kyiv mastered that. Also, add styrofoam to the gasoline so it becomes a sticky mess like napalm.
They have “cocktail parties” where they fabricate them and then set up so called “refreshment center” at every street corner.
The main brewery in Lviv has switched to making molotov cocktails. They even have a brandnew label just for the occasion. “We’ll brew beer later”
eclare
@opiejeanne: I saw that thread too.
Sebastian
@mrmoshpotato:
Man, it’s like someone flipped the light switch on and all the cockroaches are scrambling for the exit.
NotMax
Tried to wag the bear and instead screwed the pooch.
//
Morzer
@NotMax: In Russia, pooch(in) screw you.
Mallard Filmore
Over at Democratic Underground there is a posting with the title “Russian troops dumping fuel…”
https://democraticunderground.com/100216408541
The contents of the post is only a link: https://twitter.com/fatimatlis/status/1497806778993631232
I do not know how to properly follow twitters, so scroll up one tweet to begin, and also follow the “Show this thread”.
Is it really unravelling this fast? Are we only kidding ourselves (with too much optimism)?
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@opiejeanne: (photo)
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@mrmoshpotato:
That’s not fair, she more likely a spy than a traitor
mrmoshpotato
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: There’s a difference here?
eclare
@Mallard Filmore: No idea…I think we’ll know a lot on Monday. I read that Kyiv is under a curfew til then.
Jimmm
@opiejeanne:
I’ve heard that sugar in the gas tank doesn’t actually do anything… but adding water to fuel can shut an engine down right quick.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
the tempo is intensifying, Ukraine is now employing Mazel Tov Cocktails
The Thin Black Duke
“The most dangerous thing a society can do,” James Baldwin said, “is to create an enemy who has nothing else left to lose.”
Warblewarble
Palestinian children throwing stones at Israeli tanks are still terrorists to be shot.
eclare
@Jimmm: Someone just forwarded an article to me, you’re right.
JPL
@The Thin Black Duke: When the oligarchs lose their yachts and villas, they might rid us Putin.
eclare
@JPL: That is my hope!
MomSense
@opiejeanne:
I’ve been following Ukrainian artist @tribal.cat on Instagram. She has posted photos of women gathering outside making Molotov cocktails. So organized. Honestly they look to me like the local fiber/knitting groups are activated just from the way those women rip the fabric. Putin is well and truly fucked if the quilters and the knitters are working together.
Matt McIrvin
@RaflW: The main thing to me is that Putin’s Western allies have almost all abandoned him in the past couple of days. Trump and Tulsi Gabbard and most of the Fox crowd just turned. Most of the nominal lefties going on about how opposition to Russia is the new McCarthyism have had to do a walk back on Ukraine. I think Greenwald is the biggest name still pushing Russia’s line.
Matt McIrvin
@Morzer: Yakov Smirnoff is Ukrainian.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: That reminds me of “You know it’s bad when the librarians are marching.”
ThresherK
I love Kilgore Trout, but he has missed a little detail I think. I would describe this “skimming at every level” as not a now thing but something occurring in Tzarist Russia, the USSR, and post Cold War alike. After the fall many Soviet apparitchiks hung out the “under old management ” sign.
(Not bragging about the USA by comparison, however.)
SFAW
@RaflW:
There is no propaganda collapse,
tovarishchcomradefriend. But do you have any sparerublesdollars you can send me, so that I can heat mydachacondo inСанкт-ПетербургSaint PetersburgNew York?СпасибоThank you.SFAW-who-is-totally-
nyetnot-a-Russkiy-trollSFAW
@Sebastian:
One can only wonder if they’ll meet the same fate as cockroaches that don’t move fast enough.
Another Scott
Thread:
(via dsquareddigest)
Cheers,
Scott.
jefft452
@Jimmm: So can bleach
Kathleen
@Sebastian: I have faith our vaunted media will allow them to scurry with impunity.
Gvg
@Jimmm: enough water. 30 years ago I got some bad gas. Less well maintained gas station underground storage tanks got some water in them and your car could stall out. I was told that was what happened probably. However, it was easily fixed by a bottle of gas treatment and being pickier of sources to buy from. Then Florida got stricter on gas station inspections and I haven’t had a problem in years.
i don’t think water in the tank is permanent enough for this situation.
I have no knowledge of the sugar effectiveness.
JanieM
@Gvg: Sand works, but it takes a while. At least it did when my car was vandalized years ago while parked at the trailhead of the coastal strip of Olympic National Park.
Brit in Chicago
@The Thin Black Duke
“The most dangerous thing a society can do,” James Baldwin said, “is to create an enemy who has nothing else left to lose.”
Yes, but I worry that this now applies to Putin as well as to the Ukrainian people. If he loses the war there is surely a danger that the regime will collapse, and I think in his own mind he cannot let that happen.
Kalakal
I await with interest to see how many politicians, organizations and wingnut groups across the world suddenly experience funding difficulties.
Shits like Gabbard remind me of a statement from an old FBI guy years ago regarding communists in the US. it was (roughly)
“McCartyism was pointless, didn’t need it.
You wanted to know who the true believers were? Just look at who switched from ‘Stop this capitalist war’ to ‘We must delare war on Germany now’ at the end of June 1941( the launch of Barbarossa)”
The cockroaches are being exposed to the light
Kalakal
@Kathleen: I share your faith
Miss Bianca
@MomSense:
LOL, amen, sister!
opiejeanne
@JanieM: Years ago a neighbor kid put a handful of dirt into our gas tank, and the engine would stall when the gas filter clogged, and we began carrying a couple of spare filters in that vehicle.