The Invasion is ongoing...Part 8

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Following on...

@dreamingbohemian

Anne Applebaum has some very good historical books (Red Famine, Gulag) but she is rather alarmist generally. I just mention because I know some people on these threads are feeling very anxious.

I'd agree with that. Excellent writer but she does emphasise long games and I can see how this is alarmist depending on the timescale.

Applebaum is responding, however, to comments in the past from the Foreign Minister as to whether German reunification was legal. I should think that some of that rhetoric is underpinning Germany's remarkable responses in recent days.

Churchill anticipated the 'Race to Berlin' and we know what happened in Europe as a consequence. There still is a drive from Putin and some people to re-establish the former Soviet influence over all of Central Europe and half of Germany.

@Andouillette- I am not sure if schools can teach everything. Most of the historical and scientific knowledge my kids have come from discussions at home, reading newspapers, listening to the radio together and travel/museum trips. Just like most of their proper literature reading is done in their spare time/holidays not in English lessons at school.

@Feelingthepinch22

Absolutely, we have lovely Russian neighbours, they bought their house as a young married couple & have always stated how amazing it is to actually own their house. They grew up under communist rule where everything included their parents home was state owned. We havnt seen them since the start of the invasion but have been checking in on WhatsApp, they are beyond horrified about what Putin's doing...

@Feelingthepinch22. Please let them know that we/I have great sympathy for what us being done in their nabe & certainly don't hold it against 'the average Russian person'. I think many Russians must be really struggling currently (there, here & elsewhere) x

@Newrunner29

As someone else has posted - it goes across the entire political spectrum. The goal is division. When reddit did an investigation into this, they discovered that while all associated accounts posted similar political content in the same style, there was often no clear or obvious aggregate agenda to the content posted. It went in all political directions - pro and anti US, anti-US, pro and anti-EU etc.

Rolling Stone also did an article a few years ago with the example of a bot account which gained lots of followers posting innocuous memes, then one day:

"Did you know that X percentage of American conservatives said that they'd disown their child if they were a homo sapien"

Explaining that this is particularly effective when for the goal of polarisation. On the one hand, the left read it, and are satisfied to be reminded that conservatives are idiots and bigots. One the other hand, conservatives read it and resent being stereotyped as imbeciles.

It's also in line with Aleksandr Dugin's goal that:

"Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics".

If Russian communications on the ground are as poor as seems to be indicated, I wonder if news of the ceasefire hasn't got through?

Poorly trained troops who have sustained losses might not be able to hold to military discipline. I suspect soldiers who are experiencing combat and losses for the first time react differently to already-experienced men. Part of military training should be (and hopefully is, in the west?) how to handle losses without taking it out on civilians. But I imagine some of the young Russian men who never expected to be in this situation feel in desperate danger and angry and ... shoot.

100% this

But the Russian officials get to say they did agree one before levelling the city and can blame the Ukrainians (because they can't tell their domestic audience that their communications on the ground are bobbins and their soliders completely untrained).

This day and age” doesn’t change biology and vulnerability. Women are in general smaller and physically weaker than men. Children are the only hope for the future and women are best designed to care for them. (These women may not be their birth mothers.)
However, recent conflicts (as well as historical conflicts for millennia) have seen many women take up arms if they chose to.

Just catching up, I mentioned this in a previous thread. I agree with you Febrier. Sometimes you wonder how the human race has survived at all if half of its members are so utterly useless and a liability for the other. Women are the back line because of the children and are good as medic support personnel. We represent, and are in fact, the future of a people. In a case of total war for survival however the rules change, and there have indeed been recent historical conflicts where women have fought. It wouldn’t do men any harm to remember all of that.

[quote workisnotawolf]@Andouillette- I am not sure if schools can teach everything. Most of the historical and scientific knowledge my kids have come from discussions at home, reading newspapers, listening to the radio together and travel/museum trips. Just like most of their proper literature reading is done in their spare time/holidays not in English lessons at school.[/quote]
If you somehow miss 'Hitler' and 'Auschwitz' as part if your education theres something very wrong. This isn't fringe stuff, I'm pretty sure its core curriculum stuff.

Otherwise I do agree with the lived experience as education point. (Its also why leaving the EU is an own goal too).

@ClaudineClare

It's clear that the same sort of accounts could operate on Mumsnet - years of innocuous posts about breastfeeding or the annoying STBXH and then having established a backstory the misinformation campaigns can start...

Totally. This happened with threads about the vaccines too, I am certain.

In many cases it isn't even that subtle, a poster posted in faux naive support of Russia at 01:25, looking at their history they joined MN the back end of last year, started posting on various innocuous threads in earnest on 22/02 before joining in on war threads since the invasion. I'm glad to see the post has been deleted and no one engaged with it. Perhaps the best thing to do is report and ignore.

@Andouillette

Re critical thinking. Just a snippet from one of my DD returning from work last night. I won't say what her job is as it's not relevant but she works with a lot of younger people. She and an older colleague were discussing the current situation and some of the history behind it. The younger colleagues had never heard of Stalin, Himmler, Goering. One of them was baffled by mention of Hitler and didn't seem to know who he was. One mentioned that yes, he had heard the word Auschwitz but didn't know what it was. These are people who have finished school, have university places awaiting them etc. How can we expect critical thinking when education (in Scotland in this case) is so woefully lacking? Why are they not being taught such recent history? That saying about people who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it seems all too apt right now.

I'm shocked by this! I can get maybe not knowing about Goering and Goebbels and other high ranking Nazi officers, but how an earth do you not know who Hitler is and Stalin

Showing my age but I did GCSE History some 15 years ago and half of our modules were about WW2, the others were civil rights movement in the US and then because it was in a Welsh speaking secondary school the other modules were about the Rebecca Riots.

What do they cover now in History?

www.msf.org/civilians-must-be-allowed-safe-passage-out-dire-conditions-mariupol-ukraine

Project Update5 March 2022
RELATED
WAR IN UKRAINE WAR AND CONFLICT UKRAINE
The city of Mariupol is among the areas now heavily affected by the war in Ukraine. Multiple staff members of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) are sheltering in the city with their families. One staff member gave the following account today:

“The situation is the same as in recent days. Last night the shelling was harder and closer. We collected snow and rain water yesterday to have some water. We tried to get free water today but the queue was huge. We also wanted to get bread [from social organisations] but it is not clear what is the schedule and where are the places of distribution.”

“According to people, multiple grocery stores were destroyed by missiles and the remaining things were taken by people in desperate need. There is still no power, water, heating or mobile connection. No one has heard about any evacuation yet. Pharmacies are out of medicine,” our staff member concludes.

Civilians must not be trapped in a war zone. People seeking safety must be able to do so, without fear of violence.
CHRISTINE JAMET, MSF DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS
SHARE
Christine Jamet, MSF director of operations, today called for safe routes to allow civilians to flee from Mariupol, including MSF staff and their families. People are now effectively trapped in Mariupol, where the war arrived so suddenly that many could not even flee.

“Civilians must not be trapped in a war zone,” said Jamet. “People seeking safety must be able to do so, without fear of violence.”

[quote workisnotawolf]@Andouillette- I am not sure if schools can teach everything. Most of the historical and scientific knowledge my kids have come from discussions at home, reading newspapers, listening to the radio together and travel/museum trips. Just like most of their proper literature reading is done in their spare time/holidays not in English lessons at school.[/quote]
True, they cannot teach everything but this seems like a particularly odd thing to leave out completely. Your point about learning at home is a valid one too, my DD learnt quite a lot about WW2 in particular at home, as did I as my father thought it was very important. But for the young to be so utterly baffled by any of it seems unfortunate, to put it mildy, specially as not all homes/parents are equipped to supply this knowledge, unfortunately.

What do they cover now in History?

DS is doing GCSE History and one of the topics is Weimar Germany (has been for a few years because elder DS also did the module in History).

It's a narrow sliver of the rise of Hitler and WW2 but I'm surprised at teens not knowing something about Hitler. Stalin I could perhaps understand because it's less widely covered despite being related.

Even my 7 year old knows who Hitler is because we watched Indiana Jones and I had to explain who the Nazis were, who Hitler was for him to understand most of the film 😳

Same when we watched Wonder Woman.

There is ample coverage in modern films to help open up the historical conversation surrounding Nazi Germany.

So whilst schools may not "teach" it now, surely it's saturation in to modern media is enough to grasp it.

The issue with education is that too much is left to the schools and they are taking too much on themselves.

We have a national Remembrance Day and service for this reason, to remember the wars. How many people recently have said it’s time to get rid of it as it’s ‘not relevant any more’? How much has attendance dropped?

It will always be relevant. The accusations of western degeneration have a lot of validity, and while it is every parent’s duty to raise their young the bloody government and culture for the last 40 years have worked against them .

@TheSillyMastiff I am shocked too. I have asked her to try and find out what they were taught, if possible. If they were all from one school I would assume that was the problem but they are all from different schools and the older colleague (who was as appalled as DD) is from Zimbabwe!

Cake and wine re : Putin putting parents in jail for endangering their Dc.
It's hard for us to understand the detail in the level of control of such populations living in fear like this. The wrong word , phrase Heard by the wrong people could lead to absolute catastrophe for a family.

Apparently this is Kherson, one of the cities that the Russians have ‘taken’. Hundreds out on the streets and I have seen two separate pieces of footage

twitter.com/anteportas7/status/1500040024607363075?s=21

Evidence says not @TheSillyMastiff

Relying on cultural saturation to convey history is going to be patchwork at best and certainly isn't going to teach any sort of understanding of cause, effect and consequence, anyway.

twitter.com/RALee85/status/1500026068782178304
Thread by a warstudies student who seems to be collecting online footage of going on.

This thread reportedly shows footage of sizeable peaceful protests going in both Meltipol and Kherson which are occupied by the Russians.

In the first of the three videos soliders are being followed by a crowd waving ukrainian flags.

Note this is unverified.

@Ijsbear

Evidence says not *@TheSillyMastiff*

Relying on cultural saturation to convey history is going to be patchwork at best and certainly isn't going to teach any sort of understanding of cause, effect and consequence, anyway.

I agree and understand it won't teach the wider breadth of knowledge, but it would at least let you know of their existence.

Now no, DS does not know anything about the political and economic rises to Hitler's power, and the rise of the Nazi party. But he at least knows of Hitler's existence. What a PP is suggesting is that there are some younger people who don't even know who he is?! Which I find shocking.

I understand that many will not possess any knowledge on how and why war broke out in Europe, but surely the "main man" and his name and existence should be known 😳 surely....

@TellMeMoreHellebore

I'm worried about Berlin now. One of my children lives there and is living with a German partner.

I think even Putin would stop at the previous USSR borders (or Russian empire borders, so including Finland). Not sure about Alaska - even he might not be mad enough to take on the US directly!

If the reunification of Germany wasn't legal, then neither was its dismemberment, WW2 or not, and it should return to the 1938 borders. 1914 borders even...

I'm worried about Berlin now. One of my children lives there and is living with a German partner.

What are you worried about?

(Thank you @ParsleySageRosemary)

Interesting discussion on WW2 knowledge and school vs home. I too thought it was enough to talk about it at home and in culture, but actually now see both need to happen side by side. This is such a helpful thread. Those teens not knowing really is shocking.

@TheSillyMastiff upthread in the bit on women staying behind to fight, you said

“because of the historic issues with the Russian army and attacking and raping women to death.”

Is there more info on this? As in, does such abuse of women happen in all wars? Like when Germans invaded countries? Vietnam? Or is there some sort of known thing that Russians do this more in war? I feel like I don’t understand enough. All suggestions of stuff to read most welcome.

Am I the only one who believes he will stop at Ukraine as his finances are running out due to the sanctions and so on? Isn’t that the point of them?

If older teens and 20 somethings don't know who Hitler was I wonder what they did in history up to the age of 14 because it is usually quite a mixed bag.

I did GCSE history and covered the Weimar republic and the Cold War (I did Tudor history for A level). It could also be that they covered things and have forgotten them - I did immediate post WW2 history of Germany at degree level but I am not sure I could tell you the ins and outs of Adenauers' period as chancellor of Germany now. Although I don't think you'd forget who Hitler was and what happened at Auschwitz.