Month: August 2020

Facebook & Google Can Read Our Minds



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I write about this every once in a while because it kind of bothers me. I don’t think Facebook and Google can read our minds in the sense that they can read our interior monologue. I think what they can discern if a particular word is at the forefront of our minds. They have no context.

This is not exactly me pulling something out of my butt — I know for a fact that Facebook has gotten (or wants to get) a patent on mind reading technology. So, it’s out there. The question is, is it being used now and if so, how?

One spooky instance that happened to me some time ago was I started to get some pretty bizarre recommendations from YouTube about safety deposit boxes, World War II and the end of the world. It really made no sense at all. It was quite puzzling.

Then it occurred to me that recent to this, I had been driving around with my elderly dad a lot. My phone was between us and maybe even, in real terms, closer to him than me. So, it would make a lot of sense that if my dad was thinking about such topics at the forefront of his mind REALLY HARD, that my phone was picking up his thoughts and then YouTube was using that information to give me video recomendations.

If that’s not spooky, I don’t know what is.

There are a lot of very dystopian applications to such technology in the real world. I mean, if Facebook and Google can read our minds, what if they record evidence of criminal wrong doing? Don’t they have a responsibility to tell the authorities? And if Facebook and Google have such technology, then obviously governments probably have it, too.

This leads to some extremely Dark Mirror situations whereby authoritarian governments attain absolute control over their citizens because, lulz, they can read their minds via electronics. It’s possible that this very real technology is what our dipshit, moronic asshole fucktard piece of shit “president” was babbling about when he mentioned Obama spying on him via his microwave. I don’t think that happened, but it’s possible that the technology to do so does, in fact, exist — and it’s Trump, not Obama — who is the most likely to use it.

If you really wanted to get dark about such things, whenever the Machines take over the globe, it could be they are extremely sly in the manner in which they do it. Or, if there was some sort of Final Battle between Man and Machine, they would simply use mindreading technology to squash us before we even got around to fighting back.

Anyway. I find it kind of surreal that this technology is obviously being used on us RIGHT NOW and no one seems to notice.

Burn Marks — Nikki Glaser Is Hot



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s amazing how few people read this blog. And even more surreal is when people do read it, it’s not for my biting political commentary but for dumb pop culture observations.

Anyway, I find myself digging comedian Nikki Glaser these days. She reminds me of this one young lady I ran into who was the master of the sick burn. You would be standing there, having a normal conversation with her and then she would say something that left a third-degree burn. It was really hot.

I say this knowing, of course, that what is hot while you’re dating someone could grow extremely tiresome if you were in a relationship with them. That’s just human nature.

One thing about Ms. Glaser is she’s far more accessible than Amy Schumer. Ms. Schumer has, of course, redefined the world of comedy for women and, yet, she’s still rather off-putting. She’s just not, at least to me, very funny. There’s a harshness to her comedy that is a turn off.

Ms. Glaser, meanwhile, is really funny to me. She’s the perfect mix of beauty and wit. It’s interesting than as far as I know she’s not been in any major movies. I’m too lazy to check IMDB.

I wish Ms. Glaser well. I look forward to seeing her on the silver screen.

Trump Is Such An Incompetent Autocrat



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If the Republican Party was honest — which it’s not — it would begin to accept the L of losing the 2020 election and then begin to plot it’s return to finish the job of destroying American democracy. Trump has broken the seal on American fascism. He’s given the Republicans a massive unnecessary tax cut and 1/3 of the Federal judiciary full of young hack MAGA judges that will help them get revenge for losing the culture wars.

The problem for Republicans is several fold. One is, they’re politically greedy. They smell blood. They want to wrap up this whole 240 years of democracy thing as quickly as possible so they can rob the country blind and attain absolute power. What’s more, their political standard bearer, who would otherwise be in a position to consolidate power and allow them to rule the country as an autocratic managed democracy if he was nearly as brilliant as The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman suggests he is, is in fact, criminally incompetent at even being an autocrat.

Now, before I go any further, let me be clear — the macro trends are with MAGA and House Trump, no matter what. Because of the fucking Baby Boomers and a general fear of brown people by MAGA, we have a solid 2o to 40 years of tyranny ahead of us. No one is going to save us. No scandal. No killer meme on social media. Nothing. We’re fucked.

And, really, I’m prepared to simply accept that America is a fascist state and try to figure out how not to get pushed out a window.

The only thing is, no one can predict the future and Trump is so, so bad at his job that there is a teeny-tiny chance that through sheer incompetence he’s either going to allow an Interregnum occur for no more than four years, or there’s going to be a civil war that forces the U.S. Military to step in and tell everyone to cool it.

But that really is pushing it at this point. In real terms, there is no hope and the bad guys have won for the next few decades. And, really, the only thing that might “save” American democracy for a few years is our self-perception. If Trump wasn’t such a fucking incompetent moron, this wouldn’t even be an issue.

And, yet, Trump is a massive political self-own artist who is so amazingly bad at his job that he’s allowing the conditions to arise whereby what should be a gimme — him stealing the 2020 Election — might not be so much of one. The surreal thing about all of this is Trump has a shit ton of enablers both in and out of the government anxious to end American democracy for House Trump and there’s a chance he still can’t pull it off because a fish rots from its head.

I told myself after impeachment that I was not going to get my hopes up about ending House Trump’s reign. There not going anywhere and a lot of the “evidence” to the contrary is spin by the media in an effort to keep people interested in the election. They want to keep us on the edge of our seat, as if there is an actual possibility that House Trump won’t win.

No. The fix is in. House Trump is here to stay for probably about 40 years, if not longer. There’s no escaping it. We didn’t play dirty when we had the chance and now all hope is lost.

It will, however, be interesting to see how badly Trump manages to screw things up for House Trump before Bill Barr manages to push him across the finish line.

The New Normal Of Fascist America



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We have to accept that America is now a fascist state. And, really, this was the only logical endgame for any of this. The moment Trump came down the escalator and started ranting about Mexicans and didn’t get laughed off the stage was the moment America’s fate was sealed.

So this is it.

America is a fascist state.

No going back.

What is so annoying to me is Twitter liberals are extremely delusional. They refuse to acknowledge that the time for scoring points on social media is over. Now is the time for everyone who remembers when America really was “great” (which was 2016, by the way) to figure out how to survive the new normal of a fascist America.

Trump is — in broad daylight — stealing the 2020 Election in several different ways, cheered on by his fucking fascists MAGA supporters. They want what I see as a nightmare. So, really, the only issue at this point is how far past Election Night is it that Trump successfully steals the election. The longer it takes him to wrap it up, the more likely his ham-handed attempts to win will radicalize people on both sides of the political equation.

In the end, both sides will absolutely believe their guy won the presidency and that was spark a wave of violence that will likely be marketed in the press as a “Second American Civil War.”

The fucking fascists will win, of course. They’re simply too bloodthirsty at this point for anything else to happen. And, really, the only thing that will change once Trump steals the election will be American self-perception.

There’s just too much momentum at this point for what is already a reality — America is a fascist state — not to be fully implemented within, say, 18 months from the 2020 Election wrapping up. As I’ve said before, Trump — or his allies — will purge or buy any media they see as hostile. Any discussion of politics will be of the FOX News or OANN variety. The new wave of comics across late night will be women or minorities but they strangely won’t talk about politics at all.

Then the United States leaves NATO and signs an alliance with Russia.

The only way we’re going to know people are being snatched off the street or pushed out windows will be from foreign news sources. American media won’t say a word.

And even social media will begin to regulate what can be said about House Trump soon enough.

A Constitutional Convention will be called and American Enabling Acts will be passed.

I honestly don’t have any advice at this point as to what to do about any of this. We weren’t willing to play dirty against House Trump when the House flipped and so here we are. While there might be some violence as the final consolidation of power by House Trump takes place, in the end, it simply will be too little too late.

The Second American Civil War: Slow Your Roll



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is comical that fucking shithead MAGA people are coming to this site when they search for “Second American Civil War.” They come from some pretty bright Red States, so obviously a second civil war is something a lot of fucking shithead cocksucker MAGA people are thinking about right now.

The ultimately irony is it doesn’t have to be this way. Cocksucker MAGA could get everything it wanted if they would just sit tight and let macro trends take their course. I mean, Jesus H. Christ, people. Whenever I talk about the possibility of a Second American Civil War, I talk about in the context of it happening because, well, Trump is a political moron.

Trump is such a fucking God King to the rubes of MAGA that he could take the L of losing the 2020 Election and STILL come up on top. The macro trends are pretty clear on this — America is going to be Trumplandia very, very soon. House Trump is now established and if a Trump isn’t either president or vice president, it will be seen as an illegitimate Interregnum on the part of the fascist Republican Party.

But Trump is a moron with a thin skin who can’t handle losing for any reason.

As such, through sheer incompetence, he may take the United States down a political path it’s never gone down before — the U.S. Military is going to have to decide who POTUS is.

Now, I guess why the fucking shithead cocksucker MAGA people are so excited about the prospect of a Second American Civil War is because, what, they think they get to kill liberals or something? It’s surreal that they are so fucking stupid that they can’t comprehend that they have won. They’ve gotten their massive tax cut and 1/3 of the Federal bench is made up of young hack MAGA judges. What’s more, Trump has already discredited the very idea of democracy for so many people that it would be very, very easy for MAGA to simply bide its time until the 2022 mid-terms.

But no.

They are so fucking wrapped up in their fucking Qanon bullshit that they really, really want to get to killing liberals en mass before the press has been purged. They want to do it NOW before the Constitutional Convention has been convened that will pass the Enabling Acts that will codify MAGA in to law.

As such, any civil war that happens is going to throw everything up in the air. A lot of people will die for no damn reason. There are no assurances that the U.S. Military won’t side with the evil Godless liberal-progressives and work actively to stop MAGA from murdering any liberal they can find on sight.

But I guess it’s possible the fucking cocksucker MAGA people might win. They’ll finally make America great. We’ll be a fucking white Christian ethno-state at last. I will note that before MAGA cocksuckers get too giddy at the idea of final, total victory over their evil liberal opponents, that living in an authoritarian managed democracy sucks.

You just never know who in your family might get snatched off the street and thrown into an ICE camp indefinitely. So, yeah, I guess when OANN buys CNN you can finally whack off to the 8 hour investigation of the Deep State there, but the whole thing might come back to haunt you on a personal level.

Belarus, Russia & The Law Of Unintended Consequences



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Any student of history will tell you that history is fickle. It does not move in a straight line. In fact, the relative peace the world has seen since the end of WW2 is something of an anomaly in the grand scheme of things. Time and again, the law of untended consequences has turned around and bitten people in the ass in some pretty astonishing ways.

So, here we are with Belarus and Russia.

There’s a reason why Putin has –as of yet — not swooped in and gobbled the country up. From his point of view, a political union is his best bet, if it ever came to that. His economy is, relative to countries like China and the United States extremely small. About the size of Portugal’s, I think.

And, yet, there are some pretty important reasons why Putin might say screw it and invade Belarus anyway. One is he probably doesn’t want a free country the size of Belarus on his border. Add to that the current protests there are something of a gimme and it would make a lot of sense for him to invade, or “be invited into” Belarus pretty soon — maybe even before the end of August.

But that would open up a huge can of worms. In the modern age, if he simply swooped into Belarus overnight, social media in the West would be awash with footage of it and that would likely cause a lot of neighboring countries in Europe to give any rebels that might exist the arms necessary to put up a pretty good fight, which would drain the already weak Russian economy.

If Russia’s economy began to falter because of Putin felt he had to throw more and more troops into Belarus to maintain control, then a whole series of unexpected and unintended things might cascade from it. From what I can tell, Putin is a pretty sly, pretty cautious guy, so for him to actually be aggressive enough invade Belarus, there would have to be some metrics that I don’t know about for him to risk it.

August isn’t over yet, so it could still happen. But I’d have to start hearing about major Russian “training exercises” on its border with Belarus before I would grow to concerned.

The Coming Second American Civil War



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Editor’s Note: If you found this because you HOPE there’s a Second American Civil War, you’re a piece of shit. Fuck you.

Let me be clear — I don’t think there’s really going to be a “civil war” in the sense that states leave the Union. But I do think the conditions are there for there not to be a peaceful transfer of power. Trump cares so little about America other than how much money he can rob from it, that he’s going to burn the whole thing to the ground to stay in power.

I can’t predict the future, but there is something of a spectrum for us to mull. One one end of the spectrum, Trump is able to use ratfucking the postal service and the bullshit Durham investigation to influence votes enough that he “wins” pretty early in the process.

On the other end of the spectrum, well, all hell breaks loose.

Here’s why I think this. Trump is a complete moron. He’s also very incompetent. So if he “wins” reasonably early in the election process, then our general drift towards an authoritarian “managed democracy” will continue in fits and starts leading up to a Constitutional Convention.

But if Trump has to press the issue, if he has to force the U.S. Military to make a decision, then he’s far more likely to do some pretty radical things out of desperation. This would cause a lot of Americans who otherwise “don’t have time for politics” to sit up and take notice. Once you start fucking with the average American’s self-perception of what it means to be American, some pretty astonishing things may happen.

So, it is easy to imagine a situation where Trump is given by Barr a very thin cover for being president and he simply refuses to leave office. Once you have one half of the country thinking Trump “won” and one half thinking he didn’t, then there’s likely to be unprecedented violence and the U.S. Military is going to be force to do something about it.

I could maybe see some sort of “Unity Government” being established to punt the problem down the road for two years until the mid-terms. But even that might be pushing it.

The issue for me is the American center-Left is so completely ineffectual that by the time people start to figure out what Trump’s done, it will be too late. He will have finally purged the media and the Little Green Men seen in Portland will be taken nation-wide. We won’t know how many people are “vanished” by the government because there won’t be an independent press anymore.

And, really, macro trends in the United States indicate that the Republican Party is all-in on fascism so if somehow we managed to physically remove Trump from office it will just be a pause. Soon enough, a President Tom Cotton or President Mike Pomepo will finish the job that Mad King Trump started.

As I keep saying, I have no idea what to do about any of this. But we have to accept the new normal and realize that some basic freedoms that Americans have come to accept will no longer be there when we need them.

More on this Subject.

We have to get some things out of the way before we talk about this — Republicans have no shame and MAGA longs for a Russian-style autocracy. And in the eyes of MAGA — by definition the only legitimate election victory is one where Trump supporters win.

Another thing we have to appricate is — something about Obama’s second term drove Republicans insane. They completely left reality. This happened probably because it sank in that America is changing and they would rather destroy democracy than allow those changes to effect changes in our power structure. Add to this the growing economic power of women and the associated sexual agency and, well, lulz, they want an autocracy.

So, let’s talk about a second American civil war.

The first issue is Trump blew it when he didn’t strike before the election was called by the media. And, so, that’s the real crux of the issue — if Trump was the autocrat I thought he was, then the civil war we all think is going to happen would have already have happened. Trump would have driven Blue States out of the Union, used the Insurrection Act and then re-organized them under some sort of MAGA Reconstruction.

But because Trump isn’t an autocrat but an idiot ding-dong, we are now careening towards an extremely surreal situation where what shouldn’t be happening — Trump leaving office — is actually going to happen. So many Republicans have invested their entire life, career and identity into The Thousand Year Trump the fact that Trump is leaving office is going to causing them significant existential angst.

Let’s get to the point — how could a civil war break out NOW? All I got is Trump goes completely fucking insane and, as such, goes transactional on Twitter. For an actual civil war to happen, Trump would have to demand Red States to attempt to leave the Union. That’s all I got. Then we see if MAGA Republicans really are willing to jump off the cliff at the direction of the Dear Leader.

I have no idea if this is actually possible. But it is a real possibility. As such, that would be the civil war. That would be the opportunity for Good Old Boys in the Patriot Party to murder liberals in cold blood. Yet, because it would be Red States not Blue States leaving the Union, the issue of race would come to the fore. Blacks simply are not going to do nothing if there is an effort to leave the Union by whites in the South.

So, instead of any sort of Trumplandia being established, you’ll just get a fucking race war.

All in all, it’s tragic and sad that so many people would actually WANT a fucking civil war. What is wrong with you fucking cocksuckers?

More on This Subject.

Ok, I get it, on an abstract level, Good Old Boys want to join the Patriot Party and murder “libtards” in cold blood because they fear their lives will be ruined when they are “canceled” simply for being conservative.

But let’s break this down.

The thing we have to see is what’s really going on is MAGA people want an autocracy. They want to live in an Americanized version of Putin’s Russia. That’s their dream. Their goal. The irony is that Trump is an avatar for the extensive rot in the American political system and that’s why he’s so fucking lazy. He doesn’t have to do anything other than just be himself.

So, what’s going on right now is there is a crucial element of our fate that isn’t happening — Trump isn’t the autocrat that MAGA wants, he’s just a ding-dong. As such, all my predictions that Trump “wouldn’t lose” were right but for one thing: Trump isn’t an autocrat. He’s an idiot.

All the conditions were there for Trump to destroy American democracy in one fell swoop in any number of ways — and he didn’t do it. The conditions for autocracy continue to exist — the longing for autocracy by MAGA continue to exist — so we are careening towards a surreal situation where what should be happening, isn’t happening.

We should be an autocracy now, but we’re not because the person who otherwise with the means, motive and opportunity to do so — Trump — simply doesn’t have the wherewithal to pull it off.

If Trump was the autocrat I thought he was, he would have struck in some sort of autocratic fashion right before or right after the election in such a way that would have driven the Blue States out of the Union. But he didn’t, so now even if he struck at some point between now and Jan 20th, it would likely happen only because Trump went fucking bonkers.

As such, what’s likely to happen is we’re going to punt this particular problem down the road. It could be something in the 2023-2025 timeframe. This would give the Proud Boys and the Patriot Party time to organize and a “Man on a Horse” to bubble up to the service who would do what Trump wasn’t able to — turn the United States into an autocracy.

I must note that the funniest part of all of this is the Good Old Boys who come to this site obviously thinking there’s going to be a MAGA “revolution.” I find this hilarious because the logic of a “MAGA revolution” is both dubious and tenuously connected to reality. And that feeling of a need for a “MAGA revolution” is also an example of the yearning for a Tom Cotton or Mike Pompeo to at some point take “total control” in a way that Trump simply wasn’t capable of doing.

A civil war may come, but I struggle to imagine it happening anytime soon because Trump is a ding-dong, not an autocrat.

Mulling Dreams of Hollywood



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My entire creative life has become consumed by the novel I’m developing and writing. And, yet, as my storytelling abilities have improved, I find myself mulling the idea of doing something with a screenplay.

The only reason why I do so is now that have the self-confidence necessary to actually maybe pull off writing a novel, I think about how fun it would be to have a second creative “track” involving a screenplay. Now that I know in general how to pull off a plot, I find myself thinking about telling a very simple, straightforward story in the guise of a screenplay.

I have at least a dozen decent movie concepts floating around in my head. To date, I haven’t done anything with them because I felt I needed a collaborator of some sort. But now after having developed a novel for two years, I’m beginning to believe I can write a screenplay without any help. One thing I really want to do is tell a very simple story.

It seems to me that just like The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson was my “textbook” for the novel I’m working on that the screenplay to Star Wars should be the textbook for any screenplay I write as a first effort. I’m not much for spending a decade working on anything. I simply don’t feel I have the time at this point in my life. Whatever I do, I’m going to need to develop and write quickly.

It seems to me that I should stay primarily focused on the novel because of my age. Not a lot of middle-aged dudes come out of nowhere to sell a script in Hollywood. What’s more, I don’t even live anywhere near Hollywood. So, I’d have to finish a script then fly cross country to Los Angeles and hit the pavement in hopes of running into someone who might be able to help me. Now, I am notorious for finding myself chatting up “famous” people, so I’m willing to deluded myself enough to try to pull that off.

It would be fun to have the occasional adventure in LA, with a finished script in my hand, looking for someone to pitch it to. I’m an extreme extrovert and I love to shmoose and go to parties and have interesting conversations. That’s a pretty big portion of work in Hollywood, it seems to me. But, like I said, I’m kinda old.

I think, for the time being, what I might do is simply every once in awhile give myself a few hours each week to do some serious development on this one screenplay concept I have. I like to think of it is as a “scifi Network,” in the sense that it would deal with a lot of macro political and sociological concepts but in a gauzy, entertaining fashion that would be set in the “future.” The point of the screenplay would be, much like the novel I’m working on, to give me an outlet for my white hot rage against the Trump Administration.

But I am no where near even beginning to develop any screenplay. I’m going to stay focused on the novel for the time being. Maybe once I finish the first draft of the novel I will turn around and by FinalDraft so I can start seriously thinking about writing something.

‘Do Something’ — Thinking The Unthinkable With House Trump



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am extremely reluctant to suggest an actual civil war may happen in the United States over the 2020 election. I’ve long thought it would be more of a situation of rolling political violence than an actual civil war. But, sadly, I’m coming to believe that the results of the 2020 election will be so contested, so up for different interpretations that there will, in fact, be a civil war.

Before we get to that point, let’s look at how a civil war would be the absolute worst case scenario for House Trump. The reason is, House Trump has a lot — AT LOT — of other options at their disposal. They come in phases.

Phase One
This phase involves brazen ratfucking of the democratic process that, on the face of it, will work exceptionally well. It will happen in the lead up to the November election. Trump is already slowing down the mail. And it’s generally assumed that the bullshit Durham investigation is going to indict if not Biden himself, a whole slew of people from the Obama Administration who are so close to Biden as to greatly reduce this chances of winning. As such, it’s very easy to imagine Trump does “win” the election with minimal effort. He loses California by 5 million votes and wins Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida by about the same margin as he did in 2016. Also in this phase would be the Russians hacking directly into our election systems in such a way as to pad Trump’s victory in swing states by just enough to give him the legitimacy he craves.

Phase Two
It is far less likely that Trump will even have to get to this phase, but it’s possible. Phase Two would only happen if he obviously loses the Electoral College. In this phase, he sues any and everyone in his path. He demands that the legislatures of swing states not validate the vote. Anything that is an hindrance to his victory he sues into oblivion. In this phase, his goal is to simply cause enough doubt in the eyes of the public that should he lose, he can always claim he really won. This opens up a lot of options as things progress. He knows that SCOTUS probably has his back and, as such, he can make sure that his Electors are certified when the time comes and he “wins.” Remember, the country is both extremely divided, the center-Left is extremely ineffectual and generally everyone is too apathetic to do anything. And, like any autocrat, all Trump cares about is power, so fuck you. He just doesn’t care about anything but power and greed. That’s it. As long he has power, you can complain on social media all you want, it just doesn’t matter.

Phase Three
I really, really don’t expect it to go this far. House Trump simply has too many tricks up its sleeves. And, yet, if somehow Trump STILL faces losing the election, Trump is simply going to throw down the gauntlet. He’s going to break the final taboo — the peaceful transition of power. There are too many variables for me to be able to predict anything specific, but something like Trump directly calls for a popular revolt by MAGA that then prompts the U.S. Military to step in is at least within the realm of possibility. Or it could be the other way — Trump is so extremely ham-handed in his theft of the 2020 Election that it’s the 60% of the electorate that hates his guts that rises up and then the military really faces a conundrum — if Trump is “legally” president, but only through a lack of a free and fair election, what do they do? And that would be how we would have an actual civil war. That’s how the country simply implodes and a lot of people lose their lives unnecessarily. How long this civil war would last would be another issue. I struggle to imagine states leaving the Union like after the election of 1860, but it is possible martial law might be declared and Trump would simply rule by decree.

The issue is, House Trump has the full support of the fascist Republican Party and, as such, it makes a lot of sense that in the end they would be willing to follow Trump into a direct fascist dictatorship. Once they consolidated power, there really wouldn’t be any restraints on House Trump. There might be a lot of happytalk about how there would be elections “later on,” but before that could happen House Trump would call up a Constitutional Convention that would, at last, codify their control over the country.

Then Trump’s dystopian nightmare vision of America would become a reality. Mass arrests. People being pushed out of windows. Trump have Putin-levels of control over the government and society. This, of course, on a macro level is going to happen one way or another very, very soon. But people keep thinking it will be Tom Cotton or Mike Pompeo who does it 10 years from now. It could very well be Trump himself, with significant assistance from Interior Minister Bill Barr.

And, as such, unless a lot of people are willing to back up their smack talk on social media in the real world that will involve real world risks, House Trump will be around for decades to come. I’m thinking at least 20, maybe 40 or more. I guess the United States had to end sometime. I just never thought it would end in my lifetime.

Russia’s Possible Coming Invasion of Belarus



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I’ve said before, I’m no expert on any of this, but I can make some general, educated observations about what’s going on in Belarus.

For a number of years now, Putin has had his eyes on Belarus. The difference between Belarus and Ukraine is the former is significantly smaller and doesn’t really have the centuries-long animosity towards Russia that the latter has. So, it wouldn’t be existential for Putin to swoop in and gobble Belarus up.

The recent protests in Belarus give Putin exactly the cover he would need to invade the small country. He would say he was “invited in” because of the instability and, well, that would be that. He would never leave.

There might be significant opposition to such a land grab by the people of Belarus, but nothing a big as what Putin would face if he tried to do something similar with Ukraine.

Since it is August, the shittiest month of the year, it would make a lot of sense for Putin to swoop in and eat Belarus. And, really, the issue for me is there haven’t been any reports of any major troop movements by the Russian military (at least as far as I know.) Putin continues to move tanks around the area, but nothing — not even a “drill” — that might indicate any large-scale invasion of Belarus is afoot.

That could change very quickly, however if things continue to deteriorate in Belarus and it appear as if democratic forces might actually win.

So, it would seem we have something of a waiting game ahead of us. It continues to be curious that Putin hasn’t done anything major with Ukraine give the complete and total pass the Trump Administration would give him if he did so.