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> I'm surprised that this article doesn't even mention the ongoing, continual attacks on the civilian Ukrainian electrical grid, in a concerted effort to take i

> I'm surprised that this article doesn't even mention the ongoing, continual attacks on the civilian Ukrainian electrical grid, in a concerted effort to take it out with thousands of cruise missiles and loitering drones. I would guess that it was an intentional decision to avoid. Grady goes to great lengths to prevent anything political in his videos, and the Ukrainian war happens to be politically charged in America currently.

epistasis 4y ago
The Russian war is actually one of the least political things in the US right now, there is great bi-partisan support, and it's hard to imagine anything else that garners such broad support from all but the most fringe of fringe (the left-right red-brown alliance against Ukraine is so tiny that it can barely be found). But it is a very timely issue. Maybe in a couple years, after it's no longer timely, he will dive into it a bit more, such as with the Oroville dam failure, when there's a lot more solid retrospective data to look at.
- EGreg 4y ago
  I find it interesting that the words "political" and "politicized" really means "partisan". It's quite political obviously.
- snoopy_telex 4y ago
  My experience differs. The right leaning members of my family strongly support Russia and the left leaning strongly support Ukraine. It’s caused a lot of strife in my family. And I don’t think the right folks feel like they’re on the fringe. They do watch a lot of Fox, but they’re not Q folks, afaik at least.
  - mikewarot 4y ago
    The narrative is that it was persistent NATO expansion after the end of the cold war that "forced" Russia into this. It's mostly a lie... but many Fox viewers believe it to be the whole truth.
    - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
      Are you sure about that? I've seen discussions from a specific professor going back years (long before the actual invasion) talking about the dangers of exactly that. After it happened this specific person (forget his name) then started talking about how it was a consequence of the things he had been talking about for years. You can disagree with the guy, but he's an academic who apparently has an expertise in that area, and I question whether or not you're dismissing it due to your own political bubble rather than because there may be some truth to it.
      - epistasis 4y ago
        Absolute nonsense, Russia will invade what they call "little Russias" because they believe they are superior and that the people in those land belong to them, and that the resources belong to them. NATO has nothing to do with Russia's urge to invade and oppress other cultures, but NATO is a way for such countries to defend themselves. So if a professor claims to have expertise and not understand these basic facts that all former USSR states understand, then the professor is just repeating Russian propaganda. For example, on national TV in Russia this week, they are laying the groundwork to invade Kazakhstan right now, claiming that they need the uranium for Rosatom and that the "same nazi process in Ukraine could happen in Kazakhstan," meaning that the President of Kazakhstan is refusing to be a puppet of Putin lately. These dynamics are extremely clear to anyone who spends even a small amount of time talking to someone from Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Chechnya, etc. But those voices are almost never heard, and instead Russian propaganda gets the air time.
        P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
        You mean such as the academic who spent his entire career studying the politics of the area?
        reducesuffering 4y ago
        You think there is one single academic studying Russian geopolitics? Ok, I've seen an MD saying covid vaccines will give you AIDS. Must be true? One person's opinion doesn't make the truth.
  - nec4b 4y ago
    Where I live the Russia supporters are usually the ones wearing T shirts with the sickle and hammer symbols or the Che Guevara images.
  - dicriseg 4y ago
    If they strongly support Russia, I’ll suggest to you that they aren’t just right-leaning.
  - baq 4y ago
    I honestly can’t comprehend how it is possible to support Russia in the US after the Cold War and Putin. I literally have a blank space in my mind when thinking about that.
    - vxNsr 4y ago
      I agree and my guess is this “support of russia” is really just opposition to sending billions to Ukraine. Some might argue that’s the same thing, but to many on the right it’s not.
      - pmontra 4y ago
        Isn't at least a part of those billions going back to the USA as purchases of American weapons? They are subsidies to American workers. Example from https://www.defensenews.com/congress/budget/2022/11/15/white-house-requests-38-billion-more-in-ukraine-aid/ https://www.defensenews.com/congress/budget/2022/11/15/white... > The $21.7 billion in Pentagon funding is “for equipment for Ukraine, replenishment of Department of Defense stocks and for continued military, intelligence and other defense support,” according to a summary table accompanying the supplemental request. And anyway, if the USA wants to keep benefitting from their empire they have to pay the costs to maintain and expand it. No more money, the empire shrinks and other countries take what's American now.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        thaumasiotes 4y ago
        > No more money, the empire shrinks and other countries take what's American now. What would that be?
        pmontra 4y ago
        Future is hard to forecast but let me try. The USA de facto surrenders to Russia in the Ukraine war and Europe starts to buy gas from Russia again (if the USA can't protect us we have to buy protection somewhere else). Russia use European money to start buying European politicians again. Eventually they'll politically control all of Europe. Maybe not the UK. China gets East Asia because a retreating USA must be seen with suspect there too. The USA maybe keeps the Americas, which however are not very happy with them even now (the countries that don't speak English.) Some countries will try to jump ship to Russia and China. More colonial wars to follow. Overall effect: reduced reach for American companies, products and services. A small side effect: we won't be here to discuss this on HN but on a site of another country/language. Eventually: switch to a different worldwide common language (France experienced that demotion around the 60s/70s - French was the previous lingua franca) and further reduction of reach. Eventually: a poorer USA. Seen from outside the USA this doesn't look MAGA to me. The opposite of it. Hard to assess the impact on inequality, healthcare, tuition, etc. Maybe the USA will go the way of the European Nordic countries or they'll implode. I won't get into that.
  - vxNsr 4y ago
    Odd, I know lots of right folks and none support russia, they just don’t support sending more money to Ukraine, either bec they believe the accurate reports of widespread corruption (which Biden himself attested to 6 years ago) or bec they’re isolationist and don’t really believe our interventions have helped “spread freedom” anywhere. And would rather we dedicate our resources to bettering our own clearly failing country.
    - KptMarchewa 4y ago
      The thing is you can easily check that the funds are spend property: https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html?m=1 https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-docum... Also, nation united against aggressive, genocidal war does great to improve cohesion and trust, and remove low level corruption.
      - vxNsr 4y ago
        A similar list could be compiled by Russia for destroyed/captured Ukrainian equipment. This doesn’t negate the fact that there is rampant corruption throughout the entire Russian military.
    - account42 4y ago
      "And would rather we dedicate our resources to bettering our own clearly failing country." So do that too. "But that's socialism."
      - PubliusMI 4y ago
      - vxNsr 4y ago
        Here’s an idea: tax the rich and pay off our debt. Don’t tax ppl and spend the money right away. Maybe stop trying to do the same things that have been clearly failing for decades. Throwing money at random problems in hopes it will solve them hasn’t worked and probably never will.
  - Markoff 4y ago
    > The right leaning members of my family strongly support Russia and the left leaning strongly support Ukraine. Yeah, I doubt anyone really supports Russia, it's more like you are projecting them NOT supporting Ukraine and wasting money in that blackhole of corruption as "supporting Russia". "You are with us or against us" - there is nothing in between for Democrats/NPCs.
  - concordDance 4y ago
    What in particular do they support? Russia invading Ukraine? Russia keeping Crimea? Russia conquering and annexing Ukraine?
    - mmcnl 4y ago
      All of the above? They feel Russia is a defender of conservative values and has been treated unfairly by NATO and was pressured into a proxy war with the West.
- mmcnl 4y ago
  The tide is shifting. Anti US/globalist sentiments and conservatives are quickly emerging as one group.

epistasis 4y ago

The Russian war is actually one of the least political things in the US right now, there is great bi-partisan support, and it's hard to imagine anything else that garners such broad support from all but the most fringe of fringe (the left-right red-brown alliance against Ukraine is so tiny that it can barely be found). But it is a very timely issue. Maybe in a couple years, after it's no longer timely, he will dive into it a bit more, such as with the Oroville dam failure, when there's a lot more solid retrospective data to look at.

EGreg 4y ago
I find it interesting that the words "political" and "politicized" really means "partisan". It's quite political obviously.
snoopy_telex 4y ago
My experience differs. The right leaning members of my family strongly support Russia and the left leaning strongly support Ukraine. It’s caused a lot of strife in my family. And I don’t think the right folks feel like they’re on the fringe. They do watch a lot of Fox, but they’re not Q folks, afaik at least.
- mikewarot 4y ago
  The narrative is that it was persistent NATO expansion after the end of the cold war that "forced" Russia into this. It's mostly a lie... but many Fox viewers believe it to be the whole truth.
  - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
    Are you sure about that? I've seen discussions from a specific professor going back years (long before the actual invasion) talking about the dangers of exactly that. After it happened this specific person (forget his name) then started talking about how it was a consequence of the things he had been talking about for years. You can disagree with the guy, but he's an academic who apparently has an expertise in that area, and I question whether or not you're dismissing it due to your own political bubble rather than because there may be some truth to it.
    - epistasis 4y ago
      Absolute nonsense, Russia will invade what they call "little Russias" because they believe they are superior and that the people in those land belong to them, and that the resources belong to them. NATO has nothing to do with Russia's urge to invade and oppress other cultures, but NATO is a way for such countries to defend themselves. So if a professor claims to have expertise and not understand these basic facts that all former USSR states understand, then the professor is just repeating Russian propaganda. For example, on national TV in Russia this week, they are laying the groundwork to invade Kazakhstan right now, claiming that they need the uranium for Rosatom and that the "same nazi process in Ukraine could happen in Kazakhstan," meaning that the President of Kazakhstan is refusing to be a puppet of Putin lately. These dynamics are extremely clear to anyone who spends even a small amount of time talking to someone from Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Chechnya, etc. But those voices are almost never heard, and instead Russian propaganda gets the air time.
      - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
        You mean such as the academic who spent his entire career studying the politics of the area?
        reducesuffering 4y ago
        You think there is one single academic studying Russian geopolitics? Ok, I've seen an MD saying covid vaccines will give you AIDS. Must be true? One person's opinion doesn't make the truth.
- nec4b 4y ago
  Where I live the Russia supporters are usually the ones wearing T shirts with the sickle and hammer symbols or the Che Guevara images.
- dicriseg 4y ago
  If they strongly support Russia, I’ll suggest to you that they aren’t just right-leaning.
- baq 4y ago
  I honestly can’t comprehend how it is possible to support Russia in the US after the Cold War and Putin. I literally have a blank space in my mind when thinking about that.
  - vxNsr 4y ago
    I agree and my guess is this “support of russia” is really just opposition to sending billions to Ukraine. Some might argue that’s the same thing, but to many on the right it’s not.
    - pmontra 4y ago
      Isn't at least a part of those billions going back to the USA as purchases of American weapons? They are subsidies to American workers. Example from https://www.defensenews.com/congress/budget/2022/11/15/white-house-requests-38-billion-more-in-ukraine-aid/ https://www.defensenews.com/congress/budget/2022/11/15/white... > The $21.7 billion in Pentagon funding is “for equipment for Ukraine, replenishment of Department of Defense stocks and for continued military, intelligence and other defense support,” according to a summary table accompanying the supplemental request. And anyway, if the USA wants to keep benefitting from their empire they have to pay the costs to maintain and expand it. No more money, the empire shrinks and other countries take what's American now.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - thaumasiotes 4y ago
        > No more money, the empire shrinks and other countries take what's American now. What would that be?
        pmontra 4y ago
        Future is hard to forecast but let me try. The USA de facto surrenders to Russia in the Ukraine war and Europe starts to buy gas from Russia again (if the USA can't protect us we have to buy protection somewhere else). Russia use European money to start buying European politicians again. Eventually they'll politically control all of Europe. Maybe not the UK. China gets East Asia because a retreating USA must be seen with suspect there too. The USA maybe keeps the Americas, which however are not very happy with them even now (the countries that don't speak English.) Some countries will try to jump ship to Russia and China. More colonial wars to follow. Overall effect: reduced reach for American companies, products and services. A small side effect: we won't be here to discuss this on HN but on a site of another country/language. Eventually: switch to a different worldwide common language (France experienced that demotion around the 60s/70s - French was the previous lingua franca) and further reduction of reach. Eventually: a poorer USA. Seen from outside the USA this doesn't look MAGA to me. The opposite of it. Hard to assess the impact on inequality, healthcare, tuition, etc. Maybe the USA will go the way of the European Nordic countries or they'll implode. I won't get into that.
- vxNsr 4y ago
  Odd, I know lots of right folks and none support russia, they just don’t support sending more money to Ukraine, either bec they believe the accurate reports of widespread corruption (which Biden himself attested to 6 years ago) or bec they’re isolationist and don’t really believe our interventions have helped “spread freedom” anywhere. And would rather we dedicate our resources to bettering our own clearly failing country.
  - KptMarchewa 4y ago
    The thing is you can easily check that the funds are spend property: https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html?m=1 https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-docum... Also, nation united against aggressive, genocidal war does great to improve cohesion and trust, and remove low level corruption.
    - vxNsr 4y ago
      A similar list could be compiled by Russia for destroyed/captured Ukrainian equipment. This doesn’t negate the fact that there is rampant corruption throughout the entire Russian military.
  - account42 4y ago
    "And would rather we dedicate our resources to bettering our own clearly failing country." So do that too. "But that's socialism."
    - PubliusMI 4y ago
    - vxNsr 4y ago
      Here’s an idea: tax the rich and pay off our debt. Don’t tax ppl and spend the money right away. Maybe stop trying to do the same things that have been clearly failing for decades. Throwing money at random problems in hopes it will solve them hasn’t worked and probably never will.
- Markoff 4y ago
  > The right leaning members of my family strongly support Russia and the left leaning strongly support Ukraine. Yeah, I doubt anyone really supports Russia, it's more like you are projecting them NOT supporting Ukraine and wasting money in that blackhole of corruption as "supporting Russia". "You are with us or against us" - there is nothing in between for Democrats/NPCs.
- concordDance 4y ago
  What in particular do they support? Russia invading Ukraine? Russia keeping Crimea? Russia conquering and annexing Ukraine?
  - mmcnl 4y ago
    All of the above? They feel Russia is a defender of conservative values and has been treated unfairly by NATO and was pressured into a proxy war with the West.
mmcnl 4y ago
The tide is shifting. Anti US/globalist sentiments and conservatives are quickly emerging as one group.