russia_defends_against_the_ukraine


	russia_defends_against_the_ukraine_threat
brandon	what isn't the media telling people?	221019
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.	that ukrainian nazis have been killing ethnic russians in eastern ukraine for eight years they also have a kill list of journalists (eva bartlett from canada who does absolutely stellar war reporting in places like syria and ukraine is on their list)	221019
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Joe	I know Steven_Seagal has interesting observations on this	221020
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epitome of incomprehensibility	I don't know if anyone else finds this frustrating, but it seems there's a lot black-and-white thinking on blather_blue recently. Is "X bad, therefore Y good" really the way to "question_everything"? Just because one side isn't perfect, and just because much of the current reporting on a conflict glosses over moral complexity, that doesn't mean the opposite side is automatically good. It would be like saying, "Okay, the Cold War Soviet Union was bad, therefore the U.S. at that time was morally righteous." Or vice-versa. While both nations used dubious means (to say the least) to expand their sphere of influence. From my take on the situation, the February invasion on Putin's part was unfair and the justifications historically specious: both the medieval comparison and the World War 2 comparison. First, the medieval comparison: If someone says, "A thousand years ago, Russia and Ukraine were the same country," what relevance does that have for the current nations? Kievan Rus doesn't equal modern Russia nor modern Ukraine. Yes, Russian and Ukrainian came from the same linguistic roots (part of the East Slavic branch along with Belarussian) but you might as well use that to justify Russian being a dialect of Ukrainian as vice-versa. Then, the World War 2 comparison: This one I think is unfair both ways. Putin is power-hungry, but he doesn't appear to have an explicitly genocidal ideology or ambitions to take over the rest of Europe. On the other side, there's a clear reason for Putin and his supporters to compare the Ukrainian government to the Nazis: WW2 was the last major war where "the West" (ignoring the generalizations inherent in that term) was on Russia's side. The idea seems to be "If we call our enemies Nazis, then we'll look like the good guys." Now, that isn't to say that there aren't Neo-Nazis in Ukraine! Before the war, I'd heard of the Azov battalion having neo-fascist elements. A descriptor which conveniently got dropped in mainstream North American reporting once the war started, I'll give you that. The rationale again was "our side must be the good one." Are fascist militias in Ukraine plausible? Sadly, yes. There's a strong anti-immigrant, often anti-Muslim streak, in a number of places ranging from Francois Legault's Quebec to Orban's Hungary. Of course, that doesn't mean every inhabitant feels that way. (Quebecois(e) here, and I despise Legault's Bill 21, though I'm meh about the whole French vs. English issue.) Anyway, I'm sure Putin's supporters could have seized the whole fascist-aligned militia news and amplified or distorted it. But it's not farfetched. Wouldn't be in Russia either, where the government currrently has a stronger authoritarian bent (and this isn't just U.S. spin; take the anti-gay laws, for instance). The war is a tragedy no matter how you look at it, but I'd just suggest not to take anyone's propaganda at face value.	221021
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e_o_i	Addendum: a personal example. Back around 2014/15 I talked to someone with both Ukrainian and Russian background whose family lived in Crimea. She was unhappy with the simplified reporting that got filtered over here, and I get that. I'm sure Russia's incursion into Crimea would be seen as different depending who you sympathized with. She didn't consider it an invasion and mentioned how some Crimeans supported it because they felt closer ties to Russia, as did the Russian side of her family, but she was conflicted because it was causing both external and internal strife. And acknowledging my own biases, I can fall too much on the side of wanting compromises. A compromise could be good or bad, depending on context. But I do think there's something to be said for nuance.	221021
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our- hearts remain	our heart remains	221021
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ego_hum	so does their gree	221021
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ego hum	d	221021
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.	stating facts is a problem now? the reason there are ethnic russians in eastern ukraine is because communists murdered millions of ukrainians by starving them to death or deporting them to siberia and then importing 'russians' from the far east to the crimean region which has always been valued for it's military strategic position in the early 1930s. so of course when the nazis came along there were plenty of ukrainians willing to join them. ukrainians became cannibals during the holdomor. of course they didn't forget. of course some of them became reactionary right wingers. that does not excuse the fact that ukrainian nazis have been killing ethnic russians ever since joe biden stuck his nose in that country the first time he was in the Whitehouse back in 2014. or that all the people that 'stand with ukraine' now were appalled when an arabic muslim government in the middle east had a kill list of journalists or when Putin himself threatens them but when ukraine does it...crickets. media isn't about nuance. look at the original post. blue blather has been dead for awhile. not sure why you expect nuance here. not sure if this was ever the place for nuance actually	221022
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joe	open_discussion is important	221024
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.	https://rokfin.com/post/104569/Video-Ukraine-Soldiers-Sing-Praises-Of-WW-II-Era-Nzi	221025
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e_o_i	"media isn't about nuance" Absolutely. That's the problem, isn't it? My point was where you (generic "you") go from there. Latching onto something just because it's the opposite of the current mainstream can be just as iffy as latching unquestioningly onto the mainstream. I guess it's not fair to say everyone's doing that, though. One person presented concrete things to consider, even if a certain non-fearless Canadian might think the emphasis on US politics is skewing some of the present-day analysis (and not just here, probably on multiple sides). But I'm sorry for starting out in a huff.	221025
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yea	tfyqa thats why you..	221025
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.	mainstream media has not reported accurately on war for decades weapons of mass destruction were a lie mainstream media lies; this is not a contrary position. this is provable fact. facts don't have nuance either btw.	221026
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.	https://rokfin.com/post/108359/How-Ukraine--Not-Russia--Floods-Social-Media-With-War-Propaganda	221120
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.	https://www.rokfin.com/post/109796/Ukraine-Nzis-Arrested-In-Italy-Planning-Attack but the nazis in ukraine are just russian propaganda kids. nothing to see there	221122
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e_o_i	"mainstream media lies; this is not a contrary position. this is provable fact." Yes. "facts don't have nuance either btw." Depends what that means. If someone asks, "Are some cats brown?" you can say yes, definitely. There isn't any "nuance" in that sense. But if someone uses this answer to suggest that cats can't be any other colours, that's a lack of nuance. That's what I mean. But I'm not against you. I'm just advising general caution. Possibly to myself. I think NATO was a mistake from the start. I think our current arrangement of nation-states is mostly a mistake, or at least a fluke. Tweak a couple of historical occurrences, and "Ukraine" and "Russia" cease to exist. Same with "USA" and "Canada." One of the problems with the world today, IMO, is that people think countries matter way more than the actual land, people, animals, plants, etc. Is that radical or contrarian enough? Not enough? Too much? I don't know. Anyway. For me, the challenge is to exist in a way that's fair to people - the world, the universe, whatever - and I'm trying to express, however clumsily, how the urge to "pick sides" can get in the way of that. But here I am blathering about so-called "critical thinking" and a good life needs more than that. It's also about compassion and the recognition of other people as complicated beings instead of ideological allies or foes. (Aaaaand, lazy self, maybe in getting off this damn website to finish the work you're supposed to be doing.) btw! if you are who I suspect you are, I should have emailed you like forever ago and I'm sorry.	221210
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.	i don't pick sides in matters of national sovereignty i also never support nazis or genocide facts by definition are either right or wrong. nuance is literally the land of opinions. nuance has no place in determining the factual basis of anything but it may have a place when we are talking about the intersection of many facts that could cause conflict.	221211
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.	inference and insertion of opinion is the problem here i think. it feels like you think i support the russian invasion based on the fact that i don't support ukrainian nazis. that inference is incorrect. i was just simply stating facts conveniently ignored by western media. i try to leave my opinion out of it but i have been following the current conflict in ukraine almost since it started back in 2014 and have delved into slavic history because of my own health problems that may in part stem from intergenerational trauma that caused my polish and ukrainian families to emigrate. my ukrainian family in particular is plagued with serious mental health issues which become heritable because traumas actually physically change our chromosomes. the holdomor or terror famine in english instigated by stalin was a genocide. ukrainians were forced to abandon their language and culture along with their land and the food they grew on it. it was an atrocity that was buried by the soviet government so deep that it was only acknowledged after the dissolution of the USSR. as hannah arendt showed us, fascists and communists both were capable of genocides among other atrocities because extremism on BOTH SIDES leads to authoritarianism which leads to things like genocide. ukrainians became literal cannibals during the terror famine, eating children no less. my anxiety disorder could itself be a genetic remnant of one of my ancestors fleeing that exact horror. so some deep part of me understands the deep hatred nationalist ukrainians have for russians. people alive today in that part of the world grew up with the stories of their recent ancestors being genocided by russians. right next to people who grew up with stories of their neighbors and family being genocided by germans. many of the slavic people that ended up in north america were right wing nationalists fleeing soviet power. their opinions about the current conflict are definitely colored by their own family experience. i.e. the curious case of the canadian stepan bandera the third. his grandfather stepan bandera was literally the leader of the ukrainian nazi collaborators during world war ii. objective fact bears out his grandfather's direct connection to nazis but he spends his time whitewashing those connections just like many current ukrainian nationalists do when they talk about their national hero stepan bandera and refer to themselves as banderites. banderite sounds way better than neonazi no? all that to say, the people of ukraine have been caught between the bloody jaws of history for centuries. i have no way of knowing which side i would have chose if my ancestors had stayed there. I reserve judgement on the regular people caught in the middle. i am staunchly anti-war and anti-genocide. i lay aside the ancient teaching of eye for an eye that underpins the judeo-christian mindset that to this day provokes death and war. but i also believe in the right to self-determination and self defense. so ideologically i lean more towards the russians in the current conflict while also thinking putin needs to put his dick away and quit bombing innocent people. is this nuanced enough for you?	221213
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.	looks like demented joe biden is hellbent on world_war_three siiiiiigh	230126
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.	https://rokfin.com/post/128940/Putins-SHAM-Indictment-For-War-Crimes	230325