OT perspective/ Ukraine/Russia

[ramAnag]

A Ukrainian woman confronts an armed Russian soldier and asks if he'll put these sunflower seeds in his pocket so at least a sunflower can grow where he lies dead, got to me that did I don't mind telling you

Powerful stuff Stenson. She was also telling them exactly what she thought too. Properly brave lady and some surprisingly confused young Russian soldiers.

Having visited eastern Germany many times, there’s a statue in Treptower Park in the old East Berlin of a Russian ‘liberator’ at the end of WW2. It’s a huge thing - possibly the biggest memorial I’ve seen - of a Russian warrior soldier carrying an infant in his arms. Very striking and an indicator of how things have changed.

[ramAnag]

The strong will always pick on the weak. It's in the genetics

Think you’re confusing ‘strong’ with bullies, Tricky. Nothing to do with ‘genetics’...the genuinely ‘strong’ defend the weak...against the bullies.

[Trickytreesreds]

Think you’re confusing ‘strong’ with bullies, Tricky. Nothing to do with ‘genetics’...the genuinely ‘strong’ defend the weak...against the bullies.

I don't think you understand nature RA.
The strong always pick on the weak. The better word is probably "prey".

Unfortunately, the world doesn't have your outlook and morals and you expect too much from human nature,
I'd have thought the school play ground would have shown you that.

[Geoff Parkstone]

I was about to say similarly TTR, there is a touching naivety about "the genuinely strong defend the week". Sadly, I'd say there have been very few genuinely strong people in the history of personkind on this basis, and millions of just strong people who prefer to prey on the weak.

[ramAnag]

I don't think you understand nature RA.
The strong always pick on the weak. The better word is probably "prey".

Unfortunately, the world doesn't have your outlook and morals and you expect too much from human nature,
I'd have thought the school play ground would have shown you that.

School play ground taught me two things Tricky...as a pupil...to stand up for myself. As a teacher...to look out for those who were being preyed upon by the bullies.
I don’t think my morals and outlook are too uncommon. Maybe you need to look at the video of the Ukrainian lady that Stenson refers to.

The same was true of Covid...at it’s best (which wasn’t always the case imo) the weak - i.e. those who were most vulnerable to either severe illness or loss of earnings - were most protected. Hopefully the same will be true of Ukraine...the ‘trick’ is to manage things without escalation into WW3 which, given the current collection of so called world ‘leaders’ I am genuinely fearful of.

[Geoff Parkstone]

It's good, if perhaps unexpected, to note that you consider Boris Johnson genuinely strong in the way he protected the weak during covid. To see him ranked alongside the Gandhi's and Mandela's in your assessment on world leaders is a genuine surprise.

[ramAnag]

It's good, if perhaps unexpected, to note that you consider Boris Johnson genuinely strong in the way he protected the weak during covid. To see him ranked alongside the Gandhi's and Mandela's in your assessment on world leaders is a genuine surprise.

Ha, ha. You clearly missed my last half sentence, written with him - and his Foreign Secretary - uppermost in mind.
But, during the worst of the pandemic, the strong did look after the weak didn’t they? We didn’t abandon the sick and the old and we did protect those endangered by loss of employment didn’t we?

I fear Tricky has a somewhat jaundiced view of the world and you regularly subscribe to your mantra of ‘survival of the fittest’.
Ultimately does that not mean that you’d now just allow Russia to use it’s greater fitness (military might) to overcome Ukraine and continue on until it reaches the Polish (NATO) border when all hell will, literally, be let loose.

Anyway...let’s not argue and destroy the unity that Putin has brought about even on here.

[Trickytreesreds]

Ha, ha. You clearly missed my last half sentence, written with him - and his Foreign Secretary - uppermost in mind.
But, during the worst of the pandemic, the strong did look after the weak didn’t they? We didn’t abandon the sick and the old and we did protect those endangered by loss of employment didn’t we?

I fear Tricky has a somewhat jaundiced view of the world and you regularly subscribe to your mantra of ‘survival of the fittest’.
Ultimately does that not mean that you’d now just allow Russia to use it’s greater fitness (military might) to overcome Ukraine and continue on until it reaches the Polish (NATO) border when all hell will, literally, be let loose.

Anyway...let’s not argue and destroy the unity that Putin has brought about even on here.

Sorry RA, where is it jaundiced?
When has there ever been a bully free period in history?

I'm firmly in the ever prepared/ strong camp. I don't trust many regimes around the world.
We've had our fair share of situations in which we put our trust in good human nature and got singed.
The naivity of some folks, is at times laughable. However much we want/expect people to be decent and honest. It always gets thrown back in your face.
From Chamberlain and the nazi's to a sheltered "refugee", turning himself into a bomb
It happens and to not expect it, is irrespnsible.

The last line, you are correct with.

[Ramshank72]

In terms of perspective, it should highlight that we should all be nice to each other, we don't know what each other is going through in personal life, and it seems, comparatively to the Ukraine travesty, silly that we get so divided about such minor political differences of opinion.

[Geoff Parkstone]

Ha, ha. You clearly missed my last half sentence, written with him - and his Foreign Secretary - uppermost in mind.
But, during the worst of the pandemic, the strong did look after the weak didn’t they? We didn’t abandon the sick and the old and we did protect those endangered by loss of employment didn’t we?

I fear Tricky has a somewhat jaundiced view of the world and you regularly subscribe to your mantra of ‘survival of the fittest’.
Ultimately does that not mean that you’d now just allow Russia to use it’s greater fitness (military might) to overcome Ukraine and continue on until it reaches the Polish (NATO) border when all hell will, literally, be let loose.

Anyway...let’s not argue and destroy the unity that Putin has brought about even on here.

It doesn't really matter what we do, it seems, the bear will be on the borders of NATO whatever. It's just a question of what level of destruction precedes it. We can only pray that Ukraine's stock of dirty nukes buried from the old USSR days were indeed all sold off or better yet decommissioned since desperate times call for desperate measures, even MAD ones