this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2023
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I'm perfectly calm-- and I'm certainly not the one who feels the need to post massive tirades defending the actions of dictators and despots while making personal attacks while trotting out a litany of logical fallacies to obfuscate the facts: Russia started this war by illegally invading the sovereign nation of Ukraine. Their refusal to leave is what continues it. This isn't a "narrative" an "opinion" nor a "viewpoint", nor can you hand-wave these facts away by blaming politics, politicians, or political ideologies you don't like nor by inventing victimization or any other rhetorical stance you find convenient to your position because none of that changes the facts of the matter.
You can decry "the West" and insult "liberals" all you like, but neither invaded Ukraine-- Russia did, and that's what started the war. Ukraine's right to defend itself, and determination to continue, while Russia refuses to leave, is why it continues.
And the point of answering why it happened is because it is a necessary component of finding the solution.
Let's try this instead, so that we're not focused on me and we're in an area that's a bit more constructive: Why do you think the war happened? What caused it?
I don't think I've insulted liberals that much here but for the sake of stirring the pot this is the general sentiment toward them in my city: It might help some culture differences going on here.
i'm not particularly interested in unpacking the psychology of Putin, and, frankly, given the tenor of this interaction thus far, I don't have great faith that you'd be willing to suddenly shift to a good-faith discussion and drop the name-calling, the insults, or the throwing-around of logical fallacies. and if "stirring the pot" remains your intention rather than calm, rational discourse, I suggest you try antagonizing someone else.
We've swapped from discussing the actual concept of power, factions and influential forces that lead to a country going in one direction or another to "putin".
Do you think that this war would not have happened if a different leader existed? Which politician in United Russia would not have started this war? Which politician in the communist party? Anyone?
Get past the idea that this war was caused by one man. There are material causes and forces at work that go beyond that. Once you get past that then you can start to understand how and why things happen, something that is extremely useful in avoiding its outcome next time - something I absolutely want to see happen but also something I am not sure americans are capable of given that you've supported every single forever war america has ever engaged in.
Hmmm I do have a somewhat constructive motivation, I'm trying to change the context a little. One thing I've found with my interactions on reddit is that americans don't tend to have an understanding of the left at all, given that the democrats are to the right of our right-wing. A lot of them say things like they want a nice welfare state but have no understanding of how radical the left has to be in order to achieve one, or to defend its existence. Jeremy Corbyn defends the USSR publicly and loudly. Diane Abbot has defended Mao on national TV. John McDonald publicly states "it is my job to overthrow capitalism". Frankie Boyle says we shouldn't be violent, we shouldn't do anything illegal, instead we should make it legal to kill all the capitalists, on national TV with the BBC funded by the taxpayer. My point in stirring a bit is to draw a little more attention to the culture differences we have. Because Americans often seem to mistakenly think they have a left when they don't, and I've found that drawing attention to these significant baseline differences sometimes inspires a bit more curiosity in american liberals to understand it.
looks like i was right in that you have no interest in dropping the name-calling, the insults, or the throwing-around of logical fallacies in exchange for calm, rational discourse.
Ah man. I'm not sure where I did that this time. Tell me what's grated you and I'll take it back. I thought I gave you a pretty explanatory response.
Is it because I keep calling american liberals right wing? I thought the last portion of my comment explained quite well what a real left looks like, that's our left, those are our luke-warm mainstream folks with their socdem policies of welfare capitalism saying all the things that would get you called a tankie on reddit. That's the soft-left of the UK, not even the hard-left.
You get called a tankie because of your die-hard support for authoritarian dictatorships crushing opposition using their military and police, such as by constantly advocating for anyone in western democracies to cease support for those oppositions, is the one and only reason you get called a tankie.
I have not said you should not support the ukrainian people. The problem is that you do not, you are nationalists that support the ukrainian state, not the lives of human beings. They are two quite separate things.
Gibberish. A division that seems to support the conspiracy theory that the revolution of dignity was a foreign coup. I have Ukrainian friends in Kharkiv and Donetsk. Didn't even mention Ukraine in my comment.
You assert that human life must always come above self-determination. Does that also mean the independence wars, (successful or not) of Haiti, Ireland, Zululand etc were just rash nationalism? They should have just learned to live inside the empire?
For context, bonking tankies became my hobby since living in Taipei, which your side (i am generalising here, correct me if this is a mistake in your case) keeps insisting belongs to Xi in Beijing. It's disgusting that self-proclaimed lefties support the foreign imperialist over the native democrat.
how predictable.
What was?