24 Comments
Mar 4, 2022Liked by John Birmingham

After reading that, I resubscribed, using the logic that even though I’m broke, it really ain’t gonna matter soon, so I’m just hoping my fifty bucks gets me at least one more serve of JB lulz before Putin ends us all.

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And if Putin doesn't succeed, it looks like climate change will - just a few decades later.

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No apology necessary, JB. Though I understand why you would make one. Your astute observations cut through all the bullshit & bluster we get from Morrison, and the sabre rattling in their scabbards, we get from the Yanks. There are no winners here.

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When it is all said and done, Vladimir Putin is a cheesy, dripping, syphilitic cock.

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I grew up in the 60's and 70's. Nuclear war and the extinction of most life on earth, if the threat of mutually assured destruction broke down, was inevitable. Until around 1989, then it started to become unthinkable.

Until Putin, with his egregious small man syndrome, came along.

This feels a bit like those days in the cold war, but you have to expect that Russia hasn't been maintaining its nukes and delivery systems particularly well for the last few decades. I mean, why spend money on something you just want to wave about occasionally? There's probably many that would still work - but I suspect there's a bucketload of damp squibs in Vlad's armory as well.

Regardless of all that though, economically, Russia is buggered. Win, lose or draw, their economy is pining for the fjords. That dude with a pistol for Vlad's head? He works for a Russian oligarch who has decided Putin has outlived his usefulness.

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Fingers crossed Bill, fingers crossed.

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Don't apologise John. A necessary darkness is what we need on this subject. Those of us who expected it to be over in three days (or, heaven forbid, read the likes of Alexander Downer and expected it would never happen) have been sorely disappointed. And I would believe what's coming out of our leaders' mouths about as far as I could projectile vomit said contents.

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I would have been happy to live out the rest of my days merely vicariously experiencing splodeys in your writings JB. Realistically, it's unlikely to have any physical impact here, but the dread is real nevertheless. I mean, it's not like there's actually been much peace about since the end of the previous WW. Lots of places have faced similar or worse than Ukraine is now experiencing, but you know, not white Christian people, so mostly the media just pay those conflicts a little lip service. A few minutes on SBS. This one does feel sort of end times. There's not a lot of leaders anywhere in the world who give me confidence they are going to deal with this well... but hey, climate change will get us anyway. It was fun while it lasted. I for one welcome our new cockroach overlords.

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I wish I could see another less apocolyptic outcome.

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Mar 4, 2022·edited Mar 4, 2022

I wish I thought you were wrong. Good words JB.

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Came for the lulz. Denied.

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Yep, definitely lulz free... I thought the 80s were over... Now we'll have Adele and Ed Sheeran cranking out sad little songs of existential dread... Great piece, JB - it feels all too much like reading your WW3.1 pieces, but with less Prince Harry.

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"Darkness ahead."

No shit.

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Brilliant piece - thankyou! I'm less confused and feeling better already.

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Yup, sadly I see it the same way. Putin has massively miscalculated the ease wtih which his troops could take Ukraine, and now he's backed into a corner and has to finish the job, no matter the cost. His megalomania will not allow otherwise. And for that disgusting ego-stroke tens of thousands will die and half a country will be reduced to rubble, at the very least. All so fucking horrifically pointless.

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Powerful stuff Birmo, powerful stuff. I feel so helpless watching this tragedy unfold.

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And yet we cannot ignore the USA here, who no doubt have had assets in place in the Ukraine to promote their interests through sponsoring insurgency amongst the other things they get up to. Perhaps the Russian endgame is to secure the east of the Dneiper.

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I have been suffering from a mental health crisis but have been following this tragedy hoping it might put something into perspective for me. It hasn't. I knew your words would break my fragile heart JB but I read them nonetheless. I had to. I have to read all your words JB no matter what.

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