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Posts by Bobko  

Joined: 13 Mar 2017 / Male ♂
Last Post: 3 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 8 of 89
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Bobko   
27 Jun 2025
Off-Topic / PF members MEETUPS.....everyone welcome! [122]

@Torq

Think about how unusual it is, that we found ourselves on this obscure forum - with a vanishingly small membership - and we still split almost perfectly down the middle in our views. In everything.

This is something for scientists to study.

People want to argue. They want to talk.
Bobko   
27 Jun 2025
Off-Topic / PF members MEETUPS.....everyone welcome! [122]

You forgot BB, PAK, and Poloniusz...There are more but these three stand out...

It always makes me laugh, how many competing alliances we have within this tiny microcosm.

Homo Sapiens are incurable.
Bobko   
27 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

Apart from AntV, right? He's a great guy

He's a REAL AMERICAN.

Not these plastic Poles and plastic Russians that are angry at God knows what.

AntV is a fully formed individual. Muscle, bone, and breath.

He stands on his own feet, and makes his own pronouncements.

A man amongst men.
Bobko   
27 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

Wasn't I kind to you?

You have always been kind to me - brother. Thank you, and I hope I never said anything to you that was over the line.

In general - all the Poles of this forum have been kind to me - left or right, liberal or conservative. Kania, Iron, Pawian, Gumi, Grunnie, Paulina, Lena, and even Alien.

Alien confuses me most times, and I don't understand what he wants to say - but he has never been rude.

Only Americans and British have been rude, arrogant, hateful, etc.
Bobko   
27 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

Also, no one, including russians here, can actually articulate how invading Ukraine was supposed to improve life for anyone, anywhere...

How can I articulate it, when Putin himself cannot articulate it?

But even if I were able to, I suspect that would not comfort you.
Bobko   
27 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

The last part of that passage from Martynov:

"I don't know who could civilize whom; perhaps the Chinese could civilize the English with their politeness, meekness, and their ability to trade as well."

I wish I would have written that myself.

These paragons of nobility and civility - have been calling me every dirty word in the book these past years. Making me understand exactly why I am their inferior, and why I don't deserve any good things.

Did I ever reply to them in kind?

Or did I always show my Eastern Polish, that you Westerners sorely lack?
Bobko   
27 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

What enables you to sustain such an intense level of profound hostility?

It's superhuman - it really is. Quite impressive. I think Maf, at the end of this war, can become a professor and go teach Russian political economy.

I am not a historian but even I know that this isn't true.

I'm a historian, and I also know this is not true.

There's plenty of literature about the different flavors of colonialism. British colonialism can be quite nice - in that it imparts those oh so special British institutions - which can serve as a huge multiplier.

But Russian colonialism always gets a good rap for its humanity. This is grounded in the basic humanity of Russians, who simply could not understand how Brits or French could treat their subjects as brutally or as coldly as they did.

Brits and French are brilliant - but they are not good Christians.

In one book, "Amur-San: A Journey to the Land of the Chinese" (original title: "Amurskiye Zapiski") by Yevgeny Fyodorovich Martynov - you can see how Russians in the international quarter in Shanghai looked at the behavior of the British. This same insufferable arrogance and snobbery is on display today - in this forum.

Here's the excerpt, took me minute to find it for you:


  • IMG_7207.jpeg
Bobko   
27 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

Pawian, but he's no longer with us

I do hope he's alright. He was my introduction to PF, and the first person that was kind to me.

All things considered, for a Polish board, the number of genuine Russia haters/lovers is rather unimpressive, isn't it?

Yes - this is the MOST IMPORTANT thing to learn.

I wish I could broadcast PF directly into the heads of my 150 million Russians. So they could see what other people think about us, and how our actions come across.

I think what most Russians don't understand, is that our country is making other people fearful, and much of the rest is a consequence of this.

In Russia, people instead WANT other people to fear us - and they think that BECAUSE they don't fear us now... is why we have the problems we have now. This is obviously upside down. People fear us and our wild unpredictability - and this is why we have issues finding understanding.

For me, spending years here on this forum, has completely changed how I view certain things. And I think I am pretty well travelled, and pretty educated, and yet - I still needed these conversations with Neufs, Mafs, and Milos to understand certain things.

I really don't think anything bad about these three people, and others that have said bad things about Russia. I'm grateful to them. They're good people, decent, hardworking, etc.

To you I am obviously grateful. If they make me understand why people can hate us, then you are the opposite example which shows that there is always a way to connect.
Bobko   
27 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

It is hatred all right

It's love, clearly.

It's impossible to hate something so intensely, unless you are intimate with it.

In the end, I couldn't care less about Israel. I can episodically work myself up into some kind of frenzy on the topic of Israel, but ultimately - I feel drained.

With Ukraine, my hatred grows in direct proportion to the amount I think about it.

Like some bipolar grandmother that made your childhood miserable, but at whose grave you wept longer than her own son.
Bobko   
27 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

It's moral hatred of the corrupt, immoral russian socio-political system.

Well - that's just strange. Why do you hate it so much?

This is why I said in the past, and still believe, that you have some kind of deep fascination/obsession with Russia.

People that are such professional Russia haters are nearly all Russians. Solzhenitsyn, Sakharov, Akhmatova, Tolstoy etc.

To really hate Russia - you have to know and love Russia.

The average, run-of-the-mill, Cold War-flavored hate of commies and snitches - does not rise up to the level of hate you have exhibited.

No... you hate only as someone who loves very much could hate.
Bobko   
27 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

Yes, the prevailing narrative within which he operates would seem to systematically exclude recognition or acknowledgement of any Russian success.

To some extent, I admire him. He must be a thoroughly decent person, to expend so much emotional energy in supporting the party line on Ukraine.

With Milo it's hard to escape the feeling that he simply hates Russians. Growing up in England as son of Polish emigrants, is likely to have such an effect on the development of a man's brain.

Maf - I have a hard time understanding, but oftentimes it does seem to border on some kind of racial hatred of Russians.

With CMS Neuf - I feel like he is just thoroughly disappointed and disgusted. That's different. That I can digest, and respect.
Bobko   
27 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

Hmm... but these are no longer Ukrainian but American deposits

No, they are still Ukrainian. Americans get merely priority access - before anyone else - and can earn 50% of the profits from every new mine, even if it wasn't them that developed them.

---

I thought this would be a good piece of news to share with CMS Neuf. He seems to be a bit challenged when it comes to Ukrainian geography. Constantly bringing up Pokrovsk, and how we are "still" 6 kilometers outside of it.

If he opened a map, he would see that Russia has advanced far west of Pokrovsk, and has in fact breached the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast border. This lithium deposit, and the town it is located next to, are to the West of Pokrovsk.

Incidentally, Ukraine's largest coking coal mine was located west of Pokrovsk. This too was captured, but earlier. Again, not discussed by CMS Neuf.
Bobko   
27 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

Ukraine will get it back.

Great!

When are you leaving for the front?

Did you put all your affairs in order?

The wife and children surely support your commitment to Ukraine's mineral resources.
Bobko   
27 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

Mineral deal may be in trouble...

Russia captures largest lithium deposit in Eastern Europe, west of Pokrovsk.

A quote that's a few months old from the Ukrainian minister that inked the deal with the US:

"Ms. Svyrydenko said that site, known as the Dobra lithium field, could become the first project started under the deal. Several investors have already shown interest, including Critical Metals Corp, which, despite the loss of the Shevchenko deposit, remains eager to take part in the U.S.-Ukraine minerals partnership, Mr. Zhernov, the company's director, said."

Well, that's just too bad. These American investors can still work there - they'll just have to pay taxes to Russia. They are free to give half their profits to Ukraine if they so wish.


  • IMG_7204.jpeg
Bobko   
26 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

It is not competition, there are no medals, and no first, second, or third places.

This is only your opinion.

It is funny, like you and the Germans strive to take the first place, no matter what it is.

I apologize. What exactly is funny?

As if trying to prove something, there must be a hidden inferiority complex

My psychiatrist gave me a note certifying I am 100% mentally stable.
Bobko   
26 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

I would say that you don't stand alone in this regard.

Yes, we have our German and our American brothers. True.

But they are mere amateurs compared to us.

Germans stuffed OTHER people into ovens (okay, some Germans).

America bombed, incarcerated, and tortured OTHER people.

In Russia - just to show everybody that we truly mean business - we torture, imprison, and put into camps our OWN people.

Understand the difference? The nuance?

Next time you want to compete with Russia in the Cruelty Olympics - do your homework first.
Bobko   
26 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

If the main and only goal is survival, congratulations

What does it matter, if the others die?

They are not there any longer to criticize you.

Seriously, if you study Russian history - you will understand that the princes of Muscovy were some of the hardest bastards in history.

They make Mongols and Apaches blush.
Bobko   
26 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

a different Russia exists, one that originated in Novgorod, not Moscow

Yeah well, in that episode we did kill the bright and creative ones.

But that's what allowed Moscow to rise above the other cities, and eventually the other duchies. It was always led by ruthlessly pragmatic people, that were willing to go so far as to sell their soul to the Tatars, just to gain further leverage over other princes.

This is how Moscow came to control everything, and every other romantic and Prince Charming ended up eating the dust.

Even under Mongol occupation, Moscow planned its eventual rise to the top of the ranking of vassals, and then eventual domination over its master. You gotta take your hat off to these guys.

These warlords married their son to the daughter of the last Byzantine emperor - and the rest is history.
Bobko   
26 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

... and because the Emperor preserves and protects - it is suicidal to fight him.

He is the father, and the teacher, and the disciplinarian.

In this sense we are an infantile race. Never grew up to take care of ourselves.

We always look to the leader, to tell us: how long we must suffer before he leads us to the next oasis or ungrazed pasture.

It doesn't matter if you have a Bobko or a Kania as part of the crew - the geologically deep Russian way will dictate the further evolution of events.
Bobko   
26 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

Here's where we differ.

Russia is not Poland.

It's 150 million people - instead of 38 million.

It's as diverse as America or China.

There's no such sense of unity, as a country the size of Poland can muster if necessary, and within a short period of time.

All Poles, largely, love other Poles (huge oversimplification, I know).

Not so in Russia. Not even close.

The contradictions within Russia, if given the oxygen and the time - will lead to a full blown implosion.

Russia is only held together by strength, and it's been that way since before the Mongols.

If you don't have an emperor, the thing falls apart.
Bobko   
26 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

@Torq

This poem, is the stuff of the Pugachev Rebellion, the Streltsy Riot, the Decembrists, and the January revolutionaries.

All these people, however well intentioned, caused us so, so much pain.

Russia does not do well with such things. We don't know the limits, or where the the boundaries lie.

It's either full slavery, or complete anarchy - when we begin to listen to these bright, Paris, London, New York educated people.

This is why I know I have no place to even raise my voice.

It will come from inside, or it won't come at all. I'm a passenger. They won't listen to me, and my arguments will not make sense to them.
Bobko   
26 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

.
You talk about them with way too much reverence, kiddo.

They have the uniform. The badge. The gun. They have the mandate.

They are able to strike quite the pose - when they need to. Believe me.

--//--

One day I'll share my personal view on this dynamic. Regarding who supports whom, and who owes who.

--///--

I've been witness to a thousand boastful conversations by these assh*les. But you should see how they crawl around on their knees, when they need to borrow $10K to send their family to Egypt or Turkey (a trip they can't join them on).
Bobko   
26 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

Who wants to talk to them?

In Russia you have to talk to them.

Like the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, they've turned into some version of the Janissaries.

They think only they preserve Russia, internally and externally. They think we all owe them fealty - for the sacrifices they make.

Like the IRGC, they've grown far outside their official jurisdiction. Into business. Into media. Even into sport.

--//--

They walk around like knights or monks.

We are all vulgar next to them. Spiritually bankrupt. Grotesque in our lifestyle decisions.

They look at us (my cousin, for example), as some kind of family donkey that has tuberculosis.
Bobko   
26 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

hear me out - even we, petits bourgeois, have souls.

Not to him.

To some extent, not to Putin. What a lot of my compatriots don't understand.

If you had not ever been close to these siloviki - it's hard to understand how they view us as less than insects.

Life undeserving of the description.

--///--
I respect them deeply, and their work, but I cannot agree with this description of the state of things - of course.

I think others have something to contribute too.

But they see in us only potential traitors and - fundamentally - weaklings.

It's hard to talk to them.
Bobko   
26 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

The problem is: what will stop the guy with such power from becoming an even worse thief and crook himself?

Haha!

This is such a silly thing to say...

To kill like Stalin did, you cannot be mortal man. None of our categories apply to him. Nothing that makes sense to you - small, bourgeois man.

It's not some Hitler, who acted like a coward hiding behind a huge faceless bureaucracy - maintaining deniability.

Stalin sat late into the night - responding to letters containing pleas from distraught mothers and fathers at the edge of suicide. He signed hundreds and thousands of execution orders. This takes a level of steel that I cannot even fathom.

Stalin had no understanding of money. At the end of his life, they opening his cabinet, and a hundred sealed envelopes with his salaries came pouring out.

He did not understand luxury. He lived like a Spartan officer. Desk, chair, cabinet.

He definitely was not pained by conscience.

He only thought about the power of the state.

Such people show up once in a thousand, or two thousand years.

He was certainly not a man, but something more. A demon, some Soviet demiurge.
Bobko   
26 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

I would love to believe you

Oh shut up....

A Pole is gonna teach me about lying.

You lie as hard and as frequently as we do.

This lying and scheming - it sits deep in our Slavic genes.

Some kind of natural allergy against a day's honest work.
Bobko   
26 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

I know Western people are loathe to consider such options, but when you deal with a problem such as lying and corruption - shooting people is not a bad option.

We eked out 40-50 years of moderate competence, on the memory of the Stalin purges.

Modern Russia is to a large extent the country Stalin has created. The man is larger than life itself. His shadow still hangs over the Russian government. Grown people - adults - still say his name in hushed terms. The fear - 75 years later - still has some residual hold.

But it was his approach that worked. Fear of Stalin, worked wonders on the average Russian fraudster. His omnipresence and omniscience, gave even the most cynical piece of sh*t fear of God.

Famous poet. Famous artist. Famous ballerina. Famous engineer, and so on and so forth. Stalin didn't care if you were about to invent teleportation - he would kill you if you were seen as not being a team player.

We need someone like this - today - to remind the people that get fat and rich while others die in the trenches, that there is still God for them. That there is punishment.
Bobko   
26 Jun 2025
News / Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 23 [681]

What evidence do you have that they're suffering for that reason?

The books I suggested him to read.

We've been suffering from thieves, idiots, and bad roads for the best part of a thousand years.

This does not mean anyone externally is able to save us from this.

Historically, Russians begin fixing things in their country only after losing a war disastrously.

Peter modernized Russia and turned it into a European country - in response to humiliating losses to the Swedes.

Alexander abolished serfdom (1861), modernized the military, reformed the judiciary, expanded railroads, and experimented with local self-governance (zemstvos) - in response to the Crimean War. In that war, Russia lost to a Western alliance; exposing its backward logistics, serf-based economy, and outdated army.

Lenin, and then Stalin, led a violent reconstitution of the national economy - following the loss in WW1 and the Polish-Soviet War. They nationalized industry, collectivized agriculture, and built a command economy. The Red Army was rebuilt virtually from scratch after near-total collapse - around a groundbreaking new vision of mass mechanized warfare.

Putin started modernizing the army after the embarrassing performance in Georgia, where it took nearly two weeks to disable a military that had a fraction of the firepower of a single Russian military district. In Georgia, we were saved only by our overwhelming mass vs the Georgians.

In the same way now - no Torq can save Russia from itself. If it's to reconstitute itself in a new and more powerful form, it must fully internalize the lessons from its recent embarrassments.

The answer is certainly not in a lack of democracy... per se. The answer lies in breaking free of a culture of total lies. Lies are the center of Russian problems. Everybody lies. The private lies to the sergeant. The sergeant lies to the lieutenant. The lieutenant lies to the captain. The captain lies to the major. The major lies to the colonel. The colonel lies to the general. The general lies to the general staff. The general staff lies to Putin. In result - the system is f*cked.

If Russia can defeat the total culture of lying at every step, for no logical reason whatsoever, it will be the greatest country in the world.