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The War in Ukraine

I do wish our PM would shut up about such things. Its not like hes backed up his talk with action
Frankly its embarrassing by this point. You've got both China and India at the conference quietly laughing behind his back thinking, dude, we 'own' X number of your countries MP/MPP's, we run clandestine Police forces in some of your biggest cities, we send Assassins to take out our opponents at leisure, we are quietly flooding both your coinage and paper currency with counterfeits, we are making you our 'Bitch' more and more with each passing year.
 
Agree for the most part, except for the Poles, they may take 'The Host', but they fight/act like the Prussians/Hansa. A case of live surrounded by Protestant/Orthodox Heretics and you must adapt to fight/act like them.

The Poles add a strong element of the Steppes as well, wouldn't you say?

 
Culture matters

The French Connection

France, Bavaria, Austria, Poland, Rome and Catholic. Add Spain and central Italy. A lot of Bourbon legacy there.

The Hansa

The Baltic and North Sea nations. Free traders and National Catholics (Lutherans and other Episcopalians).
I agree re the culture, less so about the Catholic religion. Poland is a case in point like @Czech_pivo points out.

It's quite clear when you deal with a NATO organization that there is a divide as between the northerners and the southerners. I tend to put the emphasis on the fact that the south was dominated by the Romans 2 millennia ago and developed elements of Roman law and culture and - dare I say it - a Pax Romana that still persists in attitude today.

Getting back to the prior comments re Germany, I can say that there is a clear division in attitude as between the northern industrial societies (including the former East Germany) and the more rural and agricultural south. That's changing, but the roots are still there. A lot of my generation from Berlin considered the Bavarians as hillbillies and frequently referred to them as "Römer Sklaven" - literally "Roman slaves" as the south, like France, had been conquered while the north never was.

I think that, and geography and climate, laid the foundation of the division between north and south Europeans which the subsequent 1,500 to 2,000 years built on.

🍻
 
I agree re the culture, less so about the Catholic religion. Poland is a case in point like @Czech_pivo points out.

It's quite clear when you deal with a NATO organization that there is a divide as between the northerners and the southerners. I tend to put the emphasis on the fact that the south was dominated by the Romans 2 millennia ago and developed elements of Roman law and culture and - dare I say it - a Pax Romana that still persists in attitude today.

Getting back to the prior comments re Germany, I can say that there is a clear division in attitude as between the northern industrial societies (including the former East Germany) and the more rural and agricultural south. That's changing, but the roots are still there. A lot of my generation from Berlin considered the Bavarians as hillbillies and frequently referred to them as "Römer Sklaven" - literally "Roman slaves" as the south, like France, had been conquered while the north never was.

I think that, and geography and climate, laid the foundation of the division between north and south Europeans which the subsequent 1,500 to 2,000 years built on.

🍻

I know we differ on religion but I continue to see religion as an element of culture. Which direction do you look for answers?
 
Things to make you think. The effects of culture. The basis of those cultures. This interview is (for nerds like me) fascinating in the different way to look at and interpret current actions vs individual and national subconscious proclivities (or tendencies to be more PC)
 
I know we differ on religion but I continue to see religion as an element of culture.
Oh it is alright. But not the culture you were describing. While Catholicism predominates in southern European culture, it is also big in Poland as well as Austria, Hungary and the former Czechoslovakia's, none of which have a "southern European" culture or attitude. But, those countries, like northern Germany, have been quite northerly in their culture for over a thousand years. The common factor is they were all on the borders, or beyond, the Roman Empire and violently resisted assimilation.

Which direction do you look for answers?
Everywhere but cults of all ilks. This is the one thing that Karl Marx was right about.

🍻
 
Czechoslovakia introduced the world to the practice popularized by the Russians.

Czech out The Defenestration of Prague.

Bohemians!
 
The curse of being brought up by the Soviet military. Unwillingness to educate/mentor, trust and delegate.


An extract: "The Kursk operation played its positive role. Kursk territories are worth keeping, they can be a trump card in negotiations. If the troops are withdrawn from there, it will not solve the problem in Donbas. And most importantly, the group that the Russians created there to liberate the Kursk region is so powerful that if the Defense Forces withdraw, they will enter the Sumy region to the same depth as we entered Kursk, or even more, and then hostilities will take place on our territory, not on the territory of the enemy."
 
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