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Posts by Bobko  

Joined: 13 Mar 2017 / Male ♂
Last Post: 5 hrs ago
Threads: Total: 28 / Live: 24 / Archived: 4
Posts: Total: 2700 / Live: 2624 / Archived: 76
From: New York
Speaks Polish?: A
Interests: reading, camping

Displayed posts: 2648 / page 17 of 89
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Bobko   
30 May 2025
News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1303]

The interesting thing is that all those who get hot under the collar about Ukraine dont give a fcuk about international law when it comes to Palestine

This - while the Israeli conflict is many times more brutal.

I recently read in an academic paper that the Russo-Ukrainian War is an absolute anomaly when it comes to the ratio of military to civilian casualties. The ratio is close to 100:1.

I think this same ratio is 1:100 in Gaza.

Reasons:

1) Ukrainians have blonde hair and blue eyes, and are Christians

2) Gazans are brown and Muslim

3) Many Western voters (like BB) are tired of living under siege by Muslim immigrants that don't want to integrate. There is no safe place to vent this hatred, so they vent it by proxy. In the brutal tactics of Israel, they see the decisiveness that is absent in their own governments.
Bobko   
30 May 2025
News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

How come nobody mentioned that Nawrocki went on television, in disguise, with blurred out image and altered voice, to discuss his own book about the criminal underworld and to praise its author (himself)?

This is like the final brushstroke, to complete this man's list of similarities with Trump. Trump famously used the name "John Barron" to leak favorable news stories about himself to the press. He even called into TV shows, as John Barron.

Very impressive. Bobko is intrigued!

A poll from AxelSpringer does not look good at all, for friends of PO. They needed the elections to be held a week ago, but now every coming day leads to a bump for Nawrocki and a decline for Trzaskowski.

It seems the Tusk anchor is dragging the mayor down, and fast.

For this - one has to blame only Tusk, I imagine. Biden did something similar last year, when he told Kamala as she was preparing to run: "Not an inch of daylight, kiddo." That is, Biden provided his blessing on only one condition, that Kamala hew as close as possible to the policies his administration had pursued - and publicly "own" them. This pretty much doomed the poor lady, who already had very sh*t chances.

I think something similar is going on here. This mayor guy needs to desperately distance himself from Tusk - at least for the crucial week or two between elections. Instead, not realizing how unpopular he is, Tusk keeps popping out of every corner with some nasty sound bite about Kaczynski and some words about what a very nice boy Rafal is.

Lock Tusk up in a box, and don't show him to anyone for a few weeks. How hard is that? Let Trzaskowski have a bit of space and breathing room to show why he is not Tusk 2.0.


  • IMG_6833.jpeg
Bobko   
29 May 2025
News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1303]

but no modern nation state, no...you are right!*eye roll*

If the Kingdom of Judaea (which as I explained orchestrated the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel - read the Bible, it's your friend) - is a modern nation state... then we definitely don't have much to discuss.

With this logic, the Mongols can claim Baghdad, and Moroccans can take back Spain.
Bobko   
29 May 2025
News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1303]

There NEVER was a palestinian state before....even a foundation of one would be a new thing for them!

There never was a Jewish nation state either. In fact, the modern nation state only appeared after the Peace of Westphalia.

The Kingdom of Judaea collapsed in 70 BC, destroyed by the future emperor Titus. It was not a modern nation state, but rather a theocratic monarchy. It was defined by dynastic rule, religious rites, and tributary systems. Not by civic nationalism, borders, or mass participation in some collective identity.

All of its institutions, political coherence, and EVEN POPULATION was dismantled. No modern state would accept such a 2,000 year gap as constituting "continuity" for legal or diplomatic purposes.

The population part is especially important when discussing the Palestinians, and why I want to bring up biology. Logically - I'm sure you will agree BB - every living person is concrete proof of an unbroken chain of survival and reproduction stretching back to the emergence of Homo sapien, let's say roughly 300,000 years ago. If even one of your grandpas failed, you would simply not exist today. So... with this resolved, let us first establish that Jews and Palestinians are equally old biologically. That is, the Palestinians did not arrive from Mars in 1948.

Now let's return to the collapse of the Jewish population in Judaea. It literally collapsed, to a tiny fraction of what it had been before. Who continued living there instead? That's right, Palestinians. They are the product of millennia of adaptation, reproduction, and continuity... whether under Canaanite, Philistine, Israelite, Roman, Byzantine, Islamic, Ottoman, or British rule.

Since their little piece of real estate happened to be the most desirable real estate in the world, they did not have the good fortune of carving out their own little place, and instead spent their entire time living under massive empires.

Do you think the Jews would have better success than the "Palestinians" at ejecting the Roman or Ottoman Empires? Something tells me, no.

So this argument of no "Palestinian state" is completely ahistorical gibberish deployed by Israeli propaganda. The simple fact is there was no Israeli state either (in fact ancient Israel was destroyed by Assyria, on Judaea's request), and that Jews had not lived there for a much longer time than the amount of time the Soviet Union has not existed. Nonetheless, your Ukrainian allies view these 35 years as being as wide as the galaxy. I wonder what Ukrainians would say if we made claims that were 2,000 years old - hahahaha!
Bobko   
29 May 2025
News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

Isn't to some large degree the current state of the Russian public opinion cultivated by he state, ie. Putin?

It is - hugely - but it still has to play the notes which are acceptable to the Russian people's ear. Blunt propaganda won't give shoots, if you plant it in barren ground. It still is, in the end, a job of reading the Russian people's desires correctly. Putin is a master at this, at giving people exactly what they crave. He reads the emotions of the Russian people like some savant.

People that hate Putin, that spent their entire career fighting him, and have been locked up in jail for it - still admit that Putin has some Mephistopheles level of ability to understand the people.

So in the end - you can only mold opinion so much, in the end you still have to provide the items that are most in demand.
Bobko   
29 May 2025
News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

However, in Russia the public opinion is much less influential and important than in the US.

This is not true. Putin is a slave to Russian public opinion. In many scenarios, he acts not with the confidence of a leader with a bulletproof mandate, but like the "mediator in chief". A sort of Don Corleone role, where it's his job to sit everyone down and work out some kind of ugly compromise.

The people that oppose Putin are a genuine minority, confined to the large cities, and politically impotent. Ignoring them constitutes no serious effort on Putin's part. But when Putin's base is upset about something, then he reacts with lightning speed - down to flying out to some remote factory and negotiating on the spot.

He really is a "man of the people". A populist - and I don't mean it in a bad way. Orban, Trump, Le Pen, Modi, Xi are all copying this new model that Putin invented. Putin's long term ideologue, Surkov, calls it Sovereign Democracy.
Bobko   
29 May 2025
News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1303]

They don't want Israel to exist. How do you negotiate with that?

First - let's begin with the fact that Hamas is a child of Netanyahu. Grew up on his corrupt teat.

Here's a link to an article in the Times of Israel, with the nifty headline of "For Years Netanyahu Propped Up Hamas, Now It Has Blown Up In Our Faces":

timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/

Another illustration:

"'Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,' he told a meeting of his Likud party's Knesset members in March 2019. 'This is part of our strategy-to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.'"

A genius strategy. Prevent the formation of a Palestinian state, by fostering enmity between the secular Fatah in the West Bank and the Islamist Hamas in Gaza. Let's forget, that Hamas even first appeared, because of elections on which Netanyahu insisted.

Netanyahu understood full well, that Hamas is an "unsupportable" entity, and did everything in his power to strengthen them. This included negotiating with the Qataris for a infusion of billions of dollars into Gaza - a lot of which surely went into tunnel construction.

Netanyahu made his own bed, and now he has to sleep in it.
Bobko   
29 May 2025
News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

However them being Russian, they have a blind spot.

Of course!

The Kremlin has many blind spots. For example, I spent about 8 years telling people on Russian online forums to stop laughing at the Ukrainians, and instead pay closer attention to their preparations. Absolute xenophobia towards Ukrainians blinded practically everybody else to what was happening in their society. A typical Russian military-engaged "patriot" - had such a low estimation of Ukrainians, that he scarcely thought they could wipe their own ass without external help.

This is a long line through Russian history - "shapkazakidatelstvo" (literally 'hat throwing') - a sort of cavalier attitude towards the enemy and his abilities ("Whatever! If things go hard, there are so many of us - we can bury them with our hats alone!"). It bites Russia in the ass - every single time.

That is, you could have thousands of people whose sole profession is to study and understand Ukrainians, and still... as a whole... the Institution could not understand them. But I could, from thousands of kilometers away, being engaged in a completely unrelated field.

What blinds Russia is arrogance and hubris, just as with the United States.
Bobko   
29 May 2025
News / Abortion still under control in Poland - part 2 [177]

I think anyone who knows anything about Polish politics understands that they wouldn't be able to roll back those restrictions as long as there's a PiS president in Poland.

Anybody who knows anything about American politics, knows a Democrat president cannot do anything with a Republican controlled House. Nonetheless, Democratic Party voters became increasingly angry at Obama - and contenders further on the left capitalized on this... including Bernie Sanders and others. In this way, many people think enraged leftists delivered the presidency to Trump, in 2015.

If voters always understood why something can't be done, we'd be colonizing Mars and Pluto by now - but they don't.

So you are very smart, but many people don't have time or energy to familiarize themselves with the political landscape.
Bobko   
29 May 2025
News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

You should read about how the Russian intelligence services (FSB, GRU, SVR, etc) understand and evaluate the soundness and integrity of political regimes, and how they identify points of fragility.

Once you can see politics through the eyes of a Russian "silovik", all becomes simple. We may not have a rich political scene in Russia, but we understand how things work in other places.
Bobko   
29 May 2025
News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

voters tend to support candidates they perceive as trustworthy enough to implement policies that align with their beliefs.

Human beings are tribal creatures. Cultural alignment or perceived shared identity are prioritized over policy specifics. When a candidate feels like "ONE OF US", they generate loyalty - even if their positions are unpopular with the electorate.

In every place in the world, from Moscow to Mogadishu, average people value something they call "saying what he actually thinks". That is, voters prioritize PERCEIVED authenticity, even if they don't agree with what is said. A candidate that is seen as transparently flawed,, but at the same time consistent... may inspire more trust than one perceived as quite polished but ultimately insincere. This is another feature built into Homo Sapiens through hundreds of thousands of years of evolution.

Further yet - many people have a "results oriented" mindset - "I don't care that he's a criminal, as long as he gets the job done". This is especially strong among voters who feel culturally or economically "under siege". They see norm-breaking behavior as a good rather than evil, because traditional politicians have already failed them.

Some people have simply lost all faith in institutions. Widespread cynicism about mainstream media, elite universities, the government leads many voters to reject what can be called "elite consensus". In this twisted world - a criminal investigation can in fact be perceived as proof that a candidate threatens the "System" and that he needs your helps fighting all the dragons.

...and back to what I started with - myth and narrative. People love stories. God knows I love, love, love stories. Voters also love stories, and they are always in search of some symbolic vessel onto which they can project these myths. You have many myths to chose from: (1) the outsider hero, (2) the rebel against corrupt systems, (3) the builder or destroyer of old orders, (4) the Icarus.
Bobko   
28 May 2025
News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

Few woke infested, in the universities or other high learning institutions, should run the unwashed herd of cattle to the slaughter

Yep.

Right here - what Ptak wrote.

That's what people are voting about. Not because Putin gave them money to elect Trump or Nawrocki.
Bobko   
28 May 2025
News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1303]

afaik they hate Poles more than Germans

Yes and here in America they talk more often of the Pogroms their grandparents ran from, than the Holocaust.

Centuries of hatred from Poles and Russians is harder to forget than a brief episode of total slaughter from the Germans - I guess.
Bobko   
28 May 2025
News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1303]

my opinion though is that if Hamas thought they can win any such war they must have been stupid and I don't believe in stupidity to that degree

Of course Hamas never harbored hopes of winning such a war.

Instead, they were strongly aware that the attention of the world had moved on from their plight. The glitz and glamor of being a mediator between the Israelis and Palestinians had worn off, while their Arab neighbors became increasingly interested in normalizing ties with Israel.

They calculated that they could trigger a war with Israel, where Israel would lose all sense of proportion and act like a wild gorilla. This would make it impossible for the largest country in the region (Saudi Arabia) to continue on the path of normalizing relations with Israel. It would strengthen Nasrallah in Lebanon, and Khamenei in Iran. It would give Erdogan - reasons to rally his Islamist electorate. It would bring the United States back, as an eager mediator - instead of being distracted by Ukraine and places like Mali.

Their calculation worked perfectly. Israel took the bait, and followed its worst instincts.

The result? Netanyahu judged a war criminal by the ICC. His hopes of Trump saving him from Biden - dashed - he still got tariffed like everyone else. Trump didn't even stop in Israel on his tour of the Middle East, and even announced a plan to negotiate with Iran. Israel itself is becoming an international pariah - on par with Russia (country that started the worst war in Europe since WW2). The Israeli economy is in a recession, and there are daily protests against Netanyahu's government pressing him to do a deal where the hostages return home immediately.

Hamas already lived in a dump. Now they live in a dump full of construction rubble. But they won a much bigger moral victory - converting hundreds of millions of new believers to their cause, and isolating Israel.
Bobko   
28 May 2025
News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1303]

What makes the Palis so different, huh? Why no punishment for them, no land loss, no re-education?

To me - it's obvious what's going on.

Germany was a super powerful industrial state that steamrolled practically all of Europe. The British, Russians and Americans were genuinely afraid of it. When you are afraid of something - it is difficult to sympathize.

In the same way - Israel is a 1000X more powerful than Gaza. Homo Sapiens - evolutionarily - are predisposed to cheering for the underdog.

Even a child understands that what Israel is doing is utterly disproportional. As it would be, if an older brother thrashed his younger brother half to death, for breaking his toys.

Even a child understands basic mathematics - even though it is unpleasant to apply it to human lives. That is: 1000 dead Jews, and 40,000 dead Arabs.

Germany and Israel get no sympathy because they are strong and technologically advanced. Different behavior is expected from them.
Bobko   
28 May 2025
News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1303]

Yeah...they should start to rethink this tradition....it's not successful, they are always losing!

Yeah so unsuccessful - that it's the best f"*cking university in the world. The smartest kids in China and in India are ready to disembowel themselves for a chance to study there - and America does not see this as an all-powerful weapon.

Idiots.

This will do much more damage to America, over the long term, than any tariff will.

Targeting Harvard kids is not the same as deporting strawberry pickers from Texas.
Bobko   
28 May 2025
News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1303]

I wonder about these foreign students.....when became Harvard such a breeding place for anti-semitism?

As much as I hate that institution up North, have to stand up for them here...

They survived the King of England and the American Revolution. They are older than the country itself. The level of disrespect, to what is an American engine of excellence - is disturbing.

Today they are anti-semites. Yesterday they were Communists. They have this right - so long as they do not betray America.

Is supporting Palestine a betrayal of America?
Bobko   
28 May 2025
News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

x.com/albafella1/status/1927701547560980881

I would do the same to you, if you decided you'd prefer to sit in the trench while I go on an assault.

I'm likely gonna die - meanwhile you'll only have to wear a bucket on your head.
Bobko   
28 May 2025
News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

What I had in mind was proper meritocracy

Ah - the imperial Chinese model, with a distant emperor.

Yes, it worked for 2,000 years - and now China is the greatest country in the world.

Not a bad idea. Examinations for all public officials. Can't pass the exam - go home packing.

I told my wife today when she was worried about the elections--no matter who wins, for us personally it won't change much.

It really won't. People like to get excited about these things, as if it makes any difference at all - but in the end, the personal decisions they make will affect them 1,000X more than any decision by the government. Nothing Trump does will ever really affect you. What will affect you - is what Jay Powell does, who is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve (an unelected position). But for some reason, nobody except for professionals cares to tune in to hear the minutes of the Fed.

When your normal day to day life is concerned - the head of the Polish national bank should worry you much more than the president or prime minister. After that - who is your local police chief. Next, the director of your local public school.

Great idea!

People call us slaves and orcs - but maybe Russians just understood earlier than others, simply not to focus on certain things. They are irritating, lead to blood pressure rises, and provide no satisfaction.

Much more interesting to troll foreign populations, still engaged in the myth.

A cynic might say - we live democracy vicariously - through the Polish and American electorate :)
Bobko   
28 May 2025
News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

@Torq

I think you should get used to the idea that people that are disgusting to you personally will rule over you.

There are many other things to focus on in life.

You are not black. You are not Jewish. You are not gay. You'll probably live just as you live - regardless of who is in power.

Go sit in front of a waterfall. Read some good book.
Bobko   
28 May 2025
News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

Should we quietly get rid of democracy and lead the unwashed masses without allowing them to really influence anything?

This graphic below, published by the New York Times last week, should remove any doubts about who votes Trump.

They vote against their self interest - and even grit their teeth and suffer through tariffs - because he is THEIR MAN.

He could be a literal ape - as you say - and they would still vote for him. Well... maybe if the Democrats didn't try to run with a senile man that has cancer and then replaced him with a political nobody - they could have beat Trump - but history does not like "what ifs".

we should create a modified version of democracy

Historically - some of the most competent governments were oligarchies. Florence, Venice, Holland, etc.

That is - not just one rich guy, but many rich guys competing with each other.

For many reasons, however, the average people find it easier to accept a monarch or an elected leader, over an unelected group of super rich guys.


  • IMG_6809.jpeg
Bobko   
28 May 2025
News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

The above is also why I never buy the line that "Russia delivered the victory" for such and such a candidate.

It's impossible - what they claim.

It means to deny the agency of hundreds of millions of people - that go out and vote.

It's a crude oversimplification, of very complex and very real processes that are happening in almost every country.

Russia can't elect Trump, Le Pen, Alice Weidel, Silvio Berlusconi, Nawrocki - or anyone - if the American, French, German, Italian, and Polish people do not want them.
Bobko   
28 May 2025
News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

it is a pro-PiS candidate.

Based on the exchange here - I think Kaczynski still has excellent political instincts.

Mentzen is often called the Polish Trump by foreign media, but its Nawrocki that has secured Trump's endorsement, and who got Kristi Noem to stump for him.

The same ideological sub-currents must be operative here, as elsewhere.

The American lumpenproletariat (despite being ultra religious) does not care that:

1) Trump is a divorcee

2) A several times bankrupt failure of an entrepreneur

3) A potential crook

What they care about is that he makes the gay nerds from the big coastal cities squirm. They love that all snobs that look down on them as second class Americans are running terrified for the trees. They love that he promises to deal with all the dirty/smelly immigrants that they actually have to live with - and that no one in Manhattan or Beverly Hills every really deals with.

The more the left hates Trump - the more the right loves him. "If you're taking a lot of flak - it means you're directly above the target" - their favorite thing to say.

So... Kania - you are very naive if you think that hammering away at prostitutes and old men that lost their apartments will get you anywhere. This is a culture battle - and the lines are already drawn for all but the most academic types - such as yourself.

Trump once said at a rally in Iowa - "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK? It's, like, incredible."

He understood something, and Kaczynski understands something - that you still don't seem to grasp.

Nawrocki and Trzaskowski are not "people", to be judged and understood. They are avatars. Canvases. Canvases onto which the "people" project their wants and desires.
Bobko   
28 May 2025
News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

By no means every hotel. In fact most, worldwide, do not.

I think when a hotel provides prostitution services - it's called a brothel. So yes, obviously hotels do not normally provide prostitutes.

At the same time - every single hotel has certainly seen its fair share of prostitutes. I am sure prostitutes have been brought to the guest houses of the Vatican, and have stayed overnight at Blair House where guests of the White House stay.

I am also certain that the Swiss Guards or US Marines keeping watch in those instances, didn't say a word to anyone about what they saw.
Bobko   
28 May 2025
News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

that kind of thing stopped in about 2005 when the profession went online

What the Polish press writes, is that Nawrocki precisely sat in the middle - catching the arbitrage between odlaty.pl and what guests of the hotel were willing to pay.

From the point of view of hotel staff - it makes no difference if you now work through a website. It's still completely within their power to deny you entrance, or create a big scandal. If you want them to play ball, they'll still have to get their taste.

I suspect the existence of this revenue stream is a big part of the draw of the job - not the official salary. Further - I'm sure the hotel is aware that staff are earning this money, and doesn't give a damn. More than that - I think being a person with... shall we say "flexible" morals, is an important qualification for the job.

If you put some Puritan in that position, god knows what will happen.

Nawrocki did not finish a theological seminary, but a history PhD. That tells me he is a big drinker and has an appropriately wide perspective on the full range of the human condition.
Bobko   
28 May 2025
News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

whoever belive in those rumors that Nawrocki was a pimp is a cretin full time

I have already totally debunked this claim.

What Nawrocki was doing, is what has been done by every doorman, concierge, and security guard in the history of the world.

People away from family get frisky - and unfortunately everybody else around them has to deal with it. If you forbid a guest from bringing prostitutes to the hotel, you may very well lose him as a patron. So you accommodate people, and their petty vices - but not without a price!

The price you charge, is the price for inconvenience (after all - families stay at the hotel too), and the price for confidentiality. Not the price for a woman's body - because you don't get to keep that - that goes to the girl and her pimp.

I challenge anyone to find me a hotel security guard that has not been involved in helping guests procure prostitutes.

I'm sure if you dig deeper, then you'll discover Nawrocki turned a blind eye to the sale of marijuana on hotel property. Then, he'll be not just a pimp - but a drug dealer too.

---------

The lengths one has to go to, to defend the good name of pro-peace candidates.
Bobko   
27 May 2025
News / Abortion still under control in Poland - part 2 [177]

Foreign press tells me the mayor of Warsaw has trouble with his left-leaning/progressive electorate, because him and his Daddy Tusk did not manage to rollback PiS-era abortion restrictions. This may hurt him at the ballot box.

How important is this to Polish voters from the big cities? For you, Lenka/Paulina, does this count as a mark against Trzaskowski? The failure in the fight against abortion?

Are you upset that he has walked back a lot of the LGBT positions he adopted earlier?
Bobko   
26 May 2025
News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

How come most Russians I meet are so good at chess - do you learn it at schools as obligatory subject?

My father put me in our neighborhood club, at the earliest age they would accept me. Then at school, we had extracurricular chess also. This is how the Soviet chess combine was built.
Bobko   
26 May 2025
News / Presidential elections 2025 - the race has commenced!!! [665]

1800 and 2000

Very nice. I only touch 1800 on occasion, and this means - playing sober, well rested, and not getting tilted after a loss. Standard chess. Stopped playing blitz, because I watched a video with Nakamura where he said it teaches amateurs bad habits. I really did feel it on myself.