The ugly truth for bullies is that they usually don’t know how to handle someone who fights back.
Russian Ministry of Defense: Guess what, Rest-Of-The-World! We’ve been losing on purpose. We have not been trying to capture Kyiv nor Kharkiv. 15,00 of our troops have been on a pre-planned suicide mission.
In what may be the most ridiculous propaganda session ever aired before the public, Russian commanders now claim that everything is going exactly to plan. They meant to lose 15,000 troops and at least 1,800 armored vehicles. Because all of that was just a feint, mean to draw Ukraine’s attention away from the real action. Which was … gaining a small amount of land next to the areas Russia already controlled in eastern Ukraine.
Confirming that this was indeed the news from upside-down land, Russia also claimed that they had avoided damage to civilian infrastructure and avoided civilian casualties. Which would be new to Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Iprin, Bucha, dozens of other towns, and most particularly, to Mariupol. As a side note, Reuters is now reporting that 15,000 people have been shipped out of Mariupol to unknown locations in Russia. That didn’t merit a slide in the Russian presentation.
But the biggest news in the Russian conference, and certainly the largest surprise to Ukraine, is the word that Russia has now destroyed the Ukrainian military. In fact, the details of the slides show that Russia has (not kidding) destroyed “180 out of 148 S-300 and Buk M1 air defense systems” and “300 out of 117 radars.” They’ve not just destroyed the forces that Ukraine has, they’ve destroyed forces that never existed.
What this international display of “I meant to do that” actually means appears to be that Russia is no longer even pretending that it can contend with Ukrainian forces in the middle of the country, and is likely to withdraw its troops to the Donbas in the hopes of holding onto territory there in advance of negotiating an end to the invasion — which is something Russia will definitely want to do before their troops are reduced to hurling rocks at the enemy.
For those Russian soldiers still parked in Bucha, where Ukrainian forces are moving in from the north, east, and west. Or Russian troops trying to hold onto Ukraine, where air defenses have already retreated and Ukrainian forces are moving into the NW suburbs, those briefing can also be read as “Good luck, it was nice knowing you.”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/25/2088126/-Ukraine-update-Russia-now-claims-they-meant-to-lose-in-Kyiv-and-Kharkiv
Didn’t you eat it up when John Wayne asked a bully, “How about the boy? Ya gonna hang him too or just beat him up some more?”
Truth is, bullying – not just the school or social media type – is rampant in the United States. So much that the Fox News audience are easy pickings for Bully-Promoters. Gullibles are everywhere, the majority of whom are semi-educated and ollowers of those politicians of both parties who arouse their anger, unjustified indignation and misplaced hatred.
If one is honest, the western icon of good-versus-bad made a career out of confronting bullies of all ilk. He didn’t do it by walking in general stores armed to the teeth and posturing like a drugstore cowboy. Most folks forget that, preferring to see the bad guys as mostly “other”: dirty and unkempt outlaws, outcasts, Mexican villains and Indian savages. More importantly and in truth, many of John Wayne’s main villains were greedy rich white men who gave marching orders to the dirty, unkempt, non-white minions their were exploiting.
It seems to me that excessive emphasis on not hurting the sensitive feelings of political whiners, name-callers and apparent civic absentees is like being nice to a rabid animal totally intent on biting you regardless of how nice and respectful you are. It’s a one-sided relationship. The whiners for the most part are not far above a purely narcissistic notion that I’m-right-you’re-wrong-and-yew-better-not-hurt-my feelings else I might tantrum.
If you throw out your two cents with a terrified concern that someone might disagree with you, your performance is all about you and has nothing to do with your subject or your intended audience.
Your body language, your tone of voice and, truly speaking, the tone and manner of what you cut and past (is if it was your own original thought) might just be the only tells necessary for anyone to penetrate your poker-playing face as well as an I’m-in-a-partisan-mob-and-we-are-correctly-against-you mentality.
Watch the following video and look for the “tells.”
It was put together by my friend, Dave Neiwert, Author of ‘Alt-America‘ and Pacific Northwest correspondent for the Southern Poverty Law Center.
I admit that his focus has been on the political right. What is more important from a standpoint of civic citizenship are the models seen as the film progresses. In that regard, having been prompted as to what to look for before watching, one can see the limited rhetorical and speaking skills of many in the film who are unconsciously self-portrayed as cut-and-paste speakers prompted by someone else’s speeches, broadcasts and writing.
Cut-and-paste speakers are not limited to one side or the other, one point of view or the other. In fact it is the either you are with me/ or you are or against me that self-limits the audience size and attention span.
“How about the boy? Ya gonna hang him too or just beat him up some more?”
Curmudgeon at Work 