Dept. of Learning Stuff

[kaffy_r]

Political Language

One of the few positively interesting things I've learned as I've watched the Russian invasion of Ukraine (for varying powers of "positively interesting") is the existence of a couple of phrases smarter folks than I have used to describe what Putin's doing, even as his invasion stalls. 

He is gambling for resurrection. 

According to a political science specialist interviewed on MSNBC, this is the practice that one takes when one's policy/mission does the opposite of what you've expected to do, but you double down - nay, triple and quadruple down - on that policy, in hopes that those viewing you and seeing how illogically wedded you are to that policy, and how much you're willing to personally risk on behalf of that policy, will back off (probably hoping to avoid pieces of you as you explode), and you'll be able to pull off your original mission because they've finally stopped attacking you. 

That really does appear to describe Putin. 

Of course, the other phrase I learned apparently was coined by Dat Ol' Facist Otto Von Bismark, who supposedly described a particularly foolish military maneuver, of the type I tried to describe above, as "committing suicide for fear of death."

Comments

[kaffy_r]

He really doesn't understand that when his own people are cut off from, say, outside news sources or social platforms, they will know that he doesn't want them to hear anything but his declarations. And for a people used to reading between the lines (as is so necessary in completely authoritarian societies), they'll understand that Putin's losing his "military operation."

I am not necessarily a violent person, and I understand that civilized people shouldn't think this way, but I am waiting in hopes that he will either be removed to one of his personal dachas in a quiet top level coup, or that (here's the violent part) that someone in his close circle of "advisors" puts a bullet in his brain. I'm not particularly proud of myself for thinking that way, but I'm very afraid that unless he's removed in some fashion, Ukraine will be destroyed, and he will continue on his march to become Czar of All the Russias.

[lokifan]

I am not necessarily a violent person, and I understand that civilized people shouldn't think this way, but I am waiting in hopes that he will either be removed to one of his personal dachas in a quiet top level coup, or that (here's the violent part) that someone in his close circle of "advisors" puts a bullet in his brain.

Same. I really do think there's an element of virtue ethics to wishing violent death on people, and that it does us no good.

But I've wanted him to die for years - even relatively dispassionately, but the level of damage being done by him personally is so enormous. (Pre-Ukraine, I was thinking of Chechnya, Brexit, Trump, the German elections, and how much energy was being spent on his bullshit when it could go on the climate crisis.) At this point, I am very uncivilised - supposedly he's obsessed with the video of how Gaddafi died, and terrified of going that way, and I hope he does.

[kaffy_r]

I think that it's a good thing we're horrified by our own desire to solve things via violence. It doesn't necessarily stop us from thinking that way, but it does force us to recognize that it's the wrong way to look for solutions.

I've had to remind myself periodically not to wish lethal violence on people like Mitch McConnell and his ilk. I try to settle for "I wish he'd have a debilitating stroke that forces him to retire from the Senate" type maledictions.