420blazeit69 [he/him] @ 420blazeit69 @hexbear.net

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505

Joined

4 yr. ago

"Why do people want to talk about stuff that affects their daily lives so damn much???"

Nah, that's crank shit.

Maybe play the piano

Headline says "ditch," article says "body of water." And where is this information coming from? Who found him?

The American public isn't unhappy with them, though. Republicans are at worst annoyed and the large segment of non-voting/non-political people aren't invested either way. It's Democrats who are unhappy with them, but they already knew that.

then, and only then, will it sink in: it wasn't worth it, and they wasted whatever platform they thought they built

If this comes to pass it still has nothing to do with "scaring the rest of MAGA straight." At best you'll have these assholes crying into their pillow in prison, forgotten by any significant movement outside.

Then there's the possibility that they never get pardoned but become martyrs/celebrities on the right (already happening), or the possibility that Trump wins in 2024 and they do get pardoned. Again, nothing here to dissuade the broader MAGA movement.

It is absolutely hilarious that he is waging war against one of the most valuable parts of Twitter -- the brand

After being sentenced, Biggs called into a vigil held by pro-insurrectionists outside the jail and declared that his 17-year sentence was "insanity," even though it was half what prosecutors had asked for. "They can kiss my ass. We're still fighting all the way to the end," he told the crowd, imploring them to "never give up." He also called into "Infowars" to insist, "We didn't do anything wrong."

No one has been scared straight here. The ones who got got are martyrs to the cause and the ones who flip are traitors or plants.

They'll either be more careful next time or they'll be just as sloppy but convince themselves it'll work out, because this time is different.

Ahh. Here's a good start:

The country’s ultranationalist groups came to the fore in 2014, when they kickstarted massive street protests that led to the ousting of the Russia-friendly president Viktor Yanukovych...

Torch-bearing ultra-right activists regularly march to the beat of drums across the Ukrainian capital’s downtown, chanting, “Death to traitors of Ukraine!” During one scuffle at the memorial to a Red Army general killed in the second world war, an elderly woman approached a group of radical nationalists shouting, “Hang the Russians!” and defied them, saying: “I’m Russian, hang me!”...

In a series of violent actions that underline their strength, rightwing radicals in recent years have assaulted gatherings by LGBT and women’s rights activists, attacked Roma encampments around the country, derailed a lecture on the history of the Holocaust and brawled with pro-Russia veterans...

Yermolayev said in the past the government turned a blind eye to the rise of nationalist groups, using them as a scare tactic, but now the ultra-right has turned on the authorities. “The well-organised and aggressive nationalism in Ukraine is a child of the government. It has lost control over radical nationalists. [Petro] Poroshenko has lost that game.”...

International human rights groups have strongly criticised the Ukrainian government for failing to track down and punish those responsible for the acts of violence and intimidation. The government has promised to rein in the ultranationalists, but has taken no action...

That's a pretty good overview of the character of Ukraine's neo-Nazis, as well as some on the scale of the problem. It mentions they sent "volunteer battalions" to the separatist regions, but does not have tons of detail on what they were doing there. This one has more detail on that:

"I have nothing against Russian nationalists, or a great Russia," said Dmitry, as we sped through the dark Mariupol night in a pickup truck, a machine gunner positioned in the back. "But Putin's not even a Russian. Putin's a Jew."

Dmitry – which he said is not his real name – is a native of east Ukraine and a member of the Azov battalion, a volunteer grouping that has been doing much of the frontline fighting in Ukraine's war with pro-Russia separatists. The Azov, one of many volunteer brigades to fight alongside the Ukrainian army in the east of the country, has developed a reputation for fearlessness in battle...

In this next section, note how the neo-Nazis are declaring they'll do whatever they want, and see themselves as held back by the actual military:

For the commanders and the generals in Kiev, who many in Azov and other volunteer battalions see as responsible for the awful losses the Ukrainian army has suffered in recent weeks, especially in the ill-fated retreat from Ilovaysk, there was only contempt. "Generals like those in charge of Ilovaysk should be imprisoned for treason," said Skillt. "Heads are going to roll for sure, I think there will be a battle for power."

The Ukrainian armed forces are "an army of lions led by a sheep", said Dmitry, and there is only so long that dynamic can continue. With so many armed, battle-hardened and angry young men coming back from the front, there is a danger that the rolling of heads could be more than a metaphor.

And of course:

This week, Amnesty International called on the Ukrainian government to investigate rights abuses and possible executions by the Aidar, another battalion.

"The failure to stop abuses and possible war crimes by volunteer battalions risks significantly aggravating tensions in the east of the country and undermining the proclaimed intentions of the new Ukrainian authorities to strengthen and uphold the rule of law more broadly," said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International secretary general, in Kiev.

On what, in particular?

nothing in the treaty forbade it.

"I'm not legally prohibited from doing this" is rarely a good argument

They are, but while wicked problems (what Bostonians call "math") are very difficult to resolve to the satisfaction of everyone, some approaches are far worse than others.

Ukraine's approach -- failing to control the neo-Nazi paramilitaries in their midst, then allowing those paramilitaries to violate the Minsk agreements while running away from your largest neighbor and in to the arms of the U.S. empire, then skipping offramps in the lead up to the war and in its first months -- was a particularly bad one.

I understand you didn't say that. What I meant was, had Japan been trying to liberate Hawaii and the U.S. reacted by trying to maintain control, I would see that as U.S. imperialism. But that wasn't the case -- it was more like Napoleonic France launching an attack on British India and Britain invading France as a response. Both are imperial powers, sure, but one metropole attacking another in response to its colony being attacked is really stretching the definition of imperialism. And it helps to have somewhat restricted uses of terms like imperialism so they don't just become meaningless (see libs calling everything done by any Bad Country "genocide").

Never believe that [fascists] are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The [fascists] have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

Japan certainly wasn't trying to liberate Hawaii. This is not a good take.

The USSR achieved virtually every space race first except landing a man on the moon. And that was after ~30 years that included two world wars, a civil war + invasion by the premier world powers of the day, and a starting point of a largely pre-industrial backwater.

A government is responsible for itself and it's people. It is not responsible for the well being of the world at large.

You're missing all the treaties the U.S. has ratified that do impose obligations to the rest of the world on it. But even if you ignore all of that, a state that has no qualms about mass murder outside of its borders is a dangerous, violent state that should be destroyed.

This is also a silly response to "what would you have done?". It's not about what states historically have done, it's about what the U.S. could have done that would have made it worth supporting. In the immediate aftermath of WWII the U.S. had military, political, economic, and social influence unparalleled before or since. It could have actually remade the world order, or at least tried, but it instead chose to continue imperialism with itself in the driver's seat. It was in no way forced to do this, and its decision is worth criticism.

US citizens generally approved of their government's actions after the war

U.S. citizens generally approved of the genocide of indigenous Americans, too. Just like democracy does not extend to voting to kill someone, it does not extend to committing genocide (which the U.S. supported and directly aided throughout the Cold War) and other war crimes, no matter how popular they are.

Just ask Japan - the US could have annexed the entire country and enslaved everyone.

"I could have killed my wife, but I just broke her arm! She should be thankful."

I was building on your point about whataboutism and directing most of my comment at the person you replied to -- I could have made that clearer. You're not a debate pervert!

So nice to see civil, substantive discussion instead of the trolling and insults you get from Hexbear users!

your “whataboutism” on Cuba

"So libs do like whataboutism, but only whataboutism that advances their interests."

What internet debate perverts call "whataboutism" is in fact a cornerstone of what passes as international law:

Customary international law “... consists of rules of law derived from the consistent conduct of States acting out of the belief that the law required them to act that way.” (Shabtai Rosenne, Practice and Methods of International Law 55 (1984)). The elements of customary international law include:

• the widespread repetition by States of similar international acts over time (State practice);
• the requirement that the acts must occur out of a sense of obligation (opinio juris); and
• that the acts are taken by a significant number of States and not rejected by a significant number of States.

Put simply, what other states do impacts the legality of that action. This concept appears even in the interpretation of treaties, because even when you have a written law to work with you still have to see how it has been applied in other situations in order to apply it consistently.