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Never thought conservatives would be in putins pocket, but here we are.
If you ever have time, compare the things the american right is proposing with the things that get passed into the russian law. The overlap is actually surprising, just instead of "traditional western values" it's "traditional slavic values".
...Really? Republican and Russian kleptocrat values align perfectly, so why wouldn't they be allies?
If you lived long enough, and heard the "Kill the Commies!" comments coming from them, you'd understand why.
Except Russia hasn't been communist for three decades, and is in fact exactly the opposite.
It really infuriates me when Americans try to claim Russia is communist. The Soviet Union fell in 1989. What do you think that means exactly, you fucking idiots?
Yup. US is the Russia of the Americas.
Never thought liberals would be pro-war, but here we are.
Never thought conservatives would be against a small country fighting for their freedom and join hands with our cold-war enemy. How patriotic of them.
I couldn't care less which corrupt Eastern European government is the legitimate sovereign over eastern Ukraine. What difference does it make? Is it worth the hundreds of thousands of dead young men? Or the food insecurity crisis in the global south? The worldwide inflation?
People have been tricked into thinking enriching the pockets of Lockheed Martin & Co is somehow helping freedom and democracy.
Don't get it twisted, that's why we're in Ukraine. It's primary purpose is a mainline IV injection of cash straight into the military industrial complex. Hundreds of billions. Meanwhile we struggle for years to give a handout to the American people.
It's a joke, I feel like we live in a parody movie sometimes.
See, I'd try to create an argument against you, but it's utterly pointless. If I link to a news story highlighting genocidal actions by Russia, you'd say it was propaganda. I show you a first person photo or video of the situation, you'd say it's staged and fake. I link a Russia Today article where a high ranking administrator at RT says Russia should drown Ukrainian children, you either don't respond or you call it fake and offer no supporting argument for it.
The Ukrainian War has become a litmus test of sorts. It shows you who's actually capable of critical thought and evaluating dynamic situations, and who's just as blinded by propaganda as the people they condemn.
You may think you're the former, but consider how people aren't bothering to genuinely argue and discuss with you because you seem like you'd just reject any evidence which contradicted your worldview.
So what exactly is your endgame here then? If you believe that the Russians are simply genocidal and want to ethnically cleanse everyone in Ukraine (who is ironically exactly the same ethnicity as they are), then how do you see the war ending? The complete and total destruction of the Russian state? If that's not what you believe then this use of "genocide" is soft holocaust denial and extremely dangerous.
Everyone needs to sit around a table and negotiate to end this. And that's likely going to need to involve Ukraine giving up something and Russia giving up something, in order for both sides to walk away from this with some way to look like they won. I don't understand why you think that's impossible, it was literally happening before Boris Johnson stopped it.
A few things -- for one, nothing is stopping Ukraine from negotiations with Russia. It's their choice, and I support whatever they decide. No other country should be interceding on their behalf. It would be incredibly patronizing, imperialistic, and confirm Putin's flawed casus belli that Ukraine has no true sovereignty. Now, if Ukraine were to directly ask the US or other countries to negotiate for them, that's a different story.
Genocide is the appropriate term to use here. The atrocities in Mariupol speak for themselves. Additionally, Putin's speech before the invasion insisted that Ukraine was historically Russian territory and that Ukraine had no strong independent cultural identity. Finally, Russia has kidnapped Ukrainian children -- and freely admitted to it. Administrators in RT have suggested drowning the children. All of these fall under genocide: indiscriminate civilian violence and mass graves in Mariupol, insisting Ukraine has no true culture nor national identity or sovereignty, and kidnapping Ukrainian children.
As for the endgame, how the war ends, and what should happen to Russia -- I don't know. I truly don't. I strongly value the notion of sovereignty and that countries deserve to have self determination. Any resolution must respect that, and since Russia is denying that Ukraine should have that, I don't see an easy end to the war. The Russian invasion force being repelled back into Russia is the most likely situation I think, which ends up causing the end of Putin's regime, one way or another. And personally, I don't think Donbas or Crimea or etc should be bargaining chips in a negotiation either. After the war, all Ukrainian and Russia soldiers need to retreat from the areas, while UN peacekeepers observe the vote for independence from Ukraine. I would support whatever was decided.
Not to mention, if Russia walks away with a benefit from the war, it rewards them for their invasion. That cannot be the case.
Genocide is the appropriate term to use here. The atrocities in Mariupol speak for themselves.
No it's fucking not. The word genocide was created in the 50s as a response to the holocaust. It was invented to create a specific method of opposition to ethnic cleansing. The misuse of it by liberals who clearly have no idea what it means or how important it is to victims of the shoah helps holocaust deniers by diluting its meaning, hence why you are a soft holocaust denier in your misuse of it. I STRONGLY urge you to look up Raphael Lemkin who coined it, and its origins.
Atrocities are atrocities. Horrible things that happen. But genocide is VERY specific and refers to the aim to annihilate an ethnicity and we MUST keep that meaning to be sure that legislation we have won in the past preventing genocides does not become diluted to the point that this legislation gets removed for its antiquation.
Finally, Russia has kidnapped Ukrainian children – and freely admitted to it.
This is one of those things that's a mess. Moving children out of the fighting zone was objectively necessary. Would you prefer they not have been? What this has done however is create a narrative that can be used to maintain the "genocide" bullshit because it's a pivotal pillar of the mindset liberals need to be kept in to maintain their support for the war.
Put it this way. If you did not believe genocide was occurring, then you would immediately have to reckon with the fact that the sooner this war stops the sooner people stop dying. It's the cornerstone on which liberals maintain their hawkish support for more bloodshed, by convincing themselves they're opposing a genocide by doing it they can maintain the belief that these hundreds of thousands of people would be killed by the Russians anyway if they did not fight.
This is nonsense of course. The war started in 2014, and Russia didn't want anything to do with Donbas then. Ukraine had no army in 2014, when Russia took Crimea and could happily of taken Donbas without opposition. Ukraine having literally zero army back then is the reason the volunteer nazi battallions of Azov and Right Sector were the frontline against the Donbas rebellions at that time. Had Russia wanted this land, or to do genocide (for what purpose?) then would have been the time to do it. Instead what they engaged in was attempts to keep it Ukrainian while giving some political independence to the region (something like a devolved government, similar to Scotland as being part of the UK but also governing itself). They spent 8 years pursuing that before the war. You've read the Minsk agreements right?
The word genocide was created in the 50s as a response to the holocaust. It was invented to create a specific method of opposition to ethnic cleansing.
Not really.
The Polish jurist Raphaël Lemkin invented the term "genocide" in a book published in 1944 - not to describe what was later called the Holocaust, but to present the grievances and claims of exiled national groups [6]. Although some of these groups called themselves "governments in exile", their status in 1940-45 was dependent on the Allies. In particular, the US and the USSR had the military power to re-allocate territory in Europe, and did, in 1945. Some nations disappeared in 1945: others might have. Lemkin's evident political concern was to establish the permanent existence rights of nations, and to redirect the horror at Nazi atrocities into support for nationalism in Europe. That is propaganda: nationalist propaganda, substituting pro-nationalism for anti-fascism.
(Source.)
The term populicide would be better and less ambiguous when referring to a series of massacres against the same people. Unfortunately, it’s a much less common term.
Are we really quibbling over 6 years here? Being off by a handful of years on the date doesn't materially change the point.
My point is that ‘genocide’ was not coined to refer to massacres. It’s become an ambiguous term.
Ok so... Are you just reinforcing the point I was making then? I can't read context because the site is doing nothing whenever I click the context button. I literally can't read up and see what this is about and since it's like 2 weeks old now I'm just confused.
I… never mind.
?
I'm like mega confused here. My position has always been that the misuse of the word genocide by libs is dangerous to its intended goal of protecting marginalised peoples and preventing another holocaust. I don't know how exactly we disagree here.
I don't think thats fair. I think the idea is that a dictatorship invading a democracy in eastern europe is something the free world can't allow to happen, same way they couldn't if Iran invaded The Netherlands, and this is why all of europe and the US are helping them defend themselves.
Not sure how you could get "pro-war" from that.
Russia is much less a dictatorship than USA... The 'free world' caused unimaginably more suffering, death, and injustice in the world than Russia ever has. Sending weapons in support of Kiev regime (yes, it's a regime by definition) only prolongs the suffering of people, both Ukrainian and Russian.
Russia cannot lose this war. If faced with an actual prospect of being defeated (which is not realistic in any capacity) it would employ nuclear weapons, which would be disastrous for us all! So west is really only gambling on prolonging the conflict to destabilize EU, hurt Russia's resources, and in the process destroy entire generations of Ukrainians.
Russians have existed since before 1000ac and the 'free world' is here for about 200 years really. Well not counting usa, which did crazy shit to natives, but was inactive outside its own borders mostly. Who you consider the 'free world countries' actually?
And in those 200 years the West used two nuclear bombs to kill or maim hundreds of thousands of mainly women and children, for example. Nothing that Russia ever did even remotely compares to that.
I guess we are talking only russian foreign affairs and not what /russians/ did to other nationalities inside russia? In that case yes, probably not as many civilian casulties from Russians compared to that 250k in japan in hiroshima and nagasaki from americans. If we do take into account domestic affairs, Stalin's 20mil always wins :)
Stalin's '20 million' are a joke, no real historian ever believes those phantasmal numbers. It's like you believe that Germans with their KZ industry were mere amateurs. 🤦🏼♂️
I'm pro "defend yourself from an invasion." Why aren't you?
"yourself"
Gaetz said they should focus on domestic issues instead, like republicans care about domestic issues
Ribbit
He also said Russia should join NATO. He's a smart one!
Yes tax cuts for the wealthy
Oh and don’t forget about oppressing women. That’s a huge domestic priority for them!
Who are the ones fighting for biological men to be allowed to win all the women’s sports, scholarships, awards, and use women’s safe spaces again?
Aren't they usually pro war? Isn't that aid helping the military industrial complex?
They are, that's why the majority of them are in favor of it. However the individual official might get more Russian money than corporate sponsorship and flip their vote to go against the larger group. Also, kompromat can be even more impactful than bribery.
redacted
My entire life republicans have done nothing but evil, and they will never stop getting votes. I will go to my grave not understanding.
because their voters vote for the red republican person because they have been brainwashed that the left are evil and are destroying their great country and the republicans are the only way to fix it
Unfortunately there aren't more.