DreamerOfImprobableDreams @ DreamerOfImprobableDreams @kbin.social

Posts

0

Comments

107

Joined

2 yr. ago

It's not surprising-- this community's hosted on an instance run by known tankies, no wonder all the comments sections here are so toxic.

This is the truth right there. Gas prices went up two measly dollars compared to normal in 2022, and everyone flipped the fuck out. People were prepared to elect Republicans-- fucking Republicans- to office, they were so furious about it.

And don't @ me about "100 corporations are responsible for like 90% of emissions". Who's buying those corporations' goods? Who's refusing to vote for politicians that'll meaningfully regulate these corporations? Who's spending all day fantasizing about Da Revolushun^TM that'll never fucking come (and would kill tens of millions of civilians and likely result in fascists winning and seizing control of your country, if not the whole thing splintering into a bunch of warring fiefdoms controlled by ruthless oligarchs) instead of getting to actual work trying to effect real change in the real world? And I don't mean "direct action" (read: looking edgy and getting photos for the 'gram), I mean actually fucking getting policy passed that'll have a real impact on people's real lives.

1. Unfortunately, yes 🤮
2. Not sure what this means?
3. Unmarked NSFW-- specifically, hardcore scat porn
4. Using web browser on desktop (also reporting from kbin if that makes a difference)

Putin did it because he's an abusive dickwad who thinks it's his god-given right to control Ukraine. That's it. That's the entire explanation.

People keep trying to rationalize his actions, come up with some more respectable reason, because there's no way this much death and suffering could be happening because one guy is an entitled, controlling piece of shit, right?

But in reality, that's how fascism always works. It's always been how it works. Why'd the Nazis invade Europe? Because they were entitled, controlling pieces of shit. Why'd the Soviet Union refuse to let the countries they liberated after WWII go? Because they were entitled, controlling pieces of shit. Why does China want to annex Taiwan? Because Xi's an entitled, controlling piece of shit.

My brother in Christ, I spend orders of magnitude more time and effort working IRL to keep Republicans out of office than I do arguing with you guys online. In fact, the only reason I'm still interacting with you is because I think you're a decent person who just has a difference of opinion than me. I don't argue with right wingers online because there's no point, it's block and report on sight. Save your energy for the real battles in the real world, ya know?

True, but there are definitely places where it's much better to be trans than others, and Russia's near the bottom of the pack.

The "something" he's not denouncing is genocide, my dude.

You realize the right wing spends billions on spreading that exact propaganda line among the left, because every left-leaning person they manage to blackpill means one less vote against their candidates in the next election, right?

Can you provide sources for this?

The source is that Russia murders its own oligarchs the second they fall out of Putin's favor, and anyone who holds up a blank sign in protest of the regime gets shipped off to the front lines. No way that man would survive a second if he ever went against the party line. Which means he hasn't done so.

It might make sense for him to self-censor to avoid angering one of the few places that are allowing him to stay but even that’s not a given: if he felt something needed to be said badly enough, he’s shown to be the type of person who would rather something be said and take the repercussions on the nose than to leave something unsaid.

And yet he's happily kept his mouth shut about Russia actively committing genocide.

If I were him, I'd get on the next plane to the US and happily spend the rest of my life in Leavenworth rather than allow myself to become a propaganda tool for a bunch of genocidal fascists. The fact that he hasn't done that speaks volumes about his character. None of it's good.

Exactly. It's an imperfect democracy with some anti-democratic institutions, for sure-- but to say it's not a democracy is simply not accurate.

Snowden doesn't make any public statements any more without express permission from the Russian government. You can't trust anything he's said in the past few years, especially not since the war began.

Best joke I heard is: if everyone's pissed at what you said, and your only defense is "technically, it wasn't illegal for me to have said that!", it was probably a pretty bad argument.

This. People this controlling and with this little regard for other people's rights and boundaries tend to react extremely poorly to having their control challenged. The most dangerous time in any abusive relationship is when the victim leaves-- and make no mistake, OP, that's what's happening to your friend. Escalation to physical violence in these circumstances would not be out of the ordinary.

Please be careful, and make sure your friend has a plan to make sure she's in a safe place where her soon-to-be-ex can't get to her before she breaks up with him. And I would strongly recommend you both get a restraining order if that's something you feel comfortable doing.

I know this may sound paranoid, but it's always best to err on the side of caution in potentially dangerous situations like these.

February 24, 2014. The residents of Crimea wake up to find soldiers all over their peninsula. They wear no insignia, refuse to answer any questions about who they are or what they want. But they speak with Russian accents. The Ukrainian military, leaderless, stripped to the bone by Yanukovych's corruption, can't do anything but watch.

Within a few weeks, "referendums" are held under the watchful eye of these mysterious men with machine guns. Crimea "votes" to join the Russian federation with 98%+ of the vote.

Four months after that, as Ukraine is gearing up to hold presidential elections to replace Yanukovych, pro-Russian "separatists" suddenly pop up in most Eastern and Southern Ukrainian oblasts, seizing control of government buildings and demanding their regions be annexed by Russia. And I'm sure the fact that these "Ukrainian separatists" all had Russian accents, and many just happened to look exactly like known FSB officers who'd "mysteriously" quit just a few days before was a total coincidence, too!

Fortunately, they're prevented from seizing power in most oblasts. Unfortunately, that's when Russian "volunteers" "on vacation" roll over the border in the Donbass with tanks they "bought at military surplus stores". (Seriously, the Russian government actually tried to claim that in its propaganda!) Again, the Ukrainian army is such a disorganized mess there's nothing it can do.

Fortunately, this time people know what's going on, so volunteer militias form to push back the invaders. (As you might expect, there was precisely zero oversight or vetting of these militias for the first few years, so some did have some pretty extremist beliefs-- this was the Azov Battalion's origin story, for example. Ukraine's since integrated most into the real army and forced them to at least make a show of abandoning their extremist beliefs; how effective this has been, someone with more knowledge of the situation than me will have to say.)

After months of fighting, the conflict settles into relatively frozen lines. At this point, the EU tries to mediate a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, called the Minsk Agreement. The deal is never actually fully implemented, mainly because Russia refused to hold up its side of the bargain. But it does cool the war down to a frozen conflict. Between 2015 and 2021, only a few dozen troops die per year, standing guard on unchanging frontlines.

Ukrainian society obviously doesn't forget or forgive any of this. But gradually, the war drops in importance in people's minds. People's minds turn towards more immediate concerns, like combating corruption, fighting poverty, and joining the EU (which is seen by most Ukrainians as necessary to accomplish the first two goals).

However, in the background, the country is rebuilding its gutted armed forces. In hopes of being good enough to join NATO, sure. But also, you know. Just in case.

And then in February 2022, "just in case" became reality.

This is the last straw for a ton of people, who are sick of the corruption, the chaos, the government that runs roughshod over their rights and lives while leaving them to rot in poverty. The protests swell in size. The riot police step up the violence against them, but that only makes people madder, and more determined to take to the streets.

(This is also at least partly because opposition also sees this as their big political chance and publicizes the hell out of the protests, encouraging more people to join in. The US Embassy also makes no secret about being on the protestor's side, too, with the then-US Ambassador even going out to the Maidan to give cookies to the protestors one day. This is where a lot of the conspiracy theories about "US backed coup!!!!11!111!11111!!!!!!" come from, but like, my brother in Christ, you cannot psy-op hundreds of thousands of people into massive street demonstrations for months on end unless they're willing and fucking eager to play along.)

Then, on February 20th, 2014, after two months of escalating protests, the riot police open fire with live ammunition. 100 people are killed. And the protestors still refuse to give in! In fact, they begin threatening civil war if Yanukovych doesn't resign, immediately.

February 23, 2014. Yanukovych vanishes, without a trace. (A few days later, he'll pop up in Russia, where he's been living ever since.) The protestors won! Sure, Ukraine is left leaderless-- there's no Constitutional provision handling what to do if the president just up and vanishes without resigning-- but it's not like anything's likely to go wrong in the next few days while they sort things out. Right?

I'll try to summarize, then. WARNING: Long post incoming, scroll to bottom for tl:dr!

In 2004, this pro-Russian politician called Viktor Yanukovych was accused of rigging that year's presidential elections. There were massive street demonstrations calling for new elections, which got named the "Orange Revolution" because the protestors wore orange, the color of the opposition. Eventually, Yanukovych relented and elections were re-run with international observers to make sure they were fair, and sure enough, the opposition won.

Jump forward five years. The opposition's had five years to blow through all their goodwill and make plenty of mistakes on their own. Yanukovych comes back onto the scene. But instead of rigging the election, this time he gets help from an American Republican operative called Paul Manafort, who helps him pull all the same culture-war ratfucking bullshit we're used to in the States on Ukraine. It depressingly works, Yanukovych wins the election fair and square.

Jump forward four more years (it's November 2013 now). During that time, Yanukovych has robbed Ukraine blind, systematically hacked away at what few democratic protections it had, and stoked culture war resentment to keep people at each other's throats and away from his. People are getting increasingly sick of his BS.

The final straw comes when Yanukovych is supposed to sign a major trade agreement with the EU, one which would let Ukrainians live and work freely there. Ukraine is desperately poor, the EU is rich and has good paying jobs, this is a deal which could dramatically change people's lives for the better. And then at the last second, Yanukovych refuses to sign the deal, and instead signs one with Russia.

Pro-Western Ukrainians took to the streets to protest. Initially, these protests were pretty small, and seemed likely to fizzle out by the end of the weekend. And then, Yanukovych makes the incredibly smart decision to sic his personal riot police on the protestors in Kyiv's Maidan square.

Friendly reminder a significant portion of the Republican party has been in Putin's pocket since at least 2016!

This video does a pretty good job summarizing things!

Coup attempt participant who stormed Capitol while on bail on an attempted murder charge gets 3 years

Fixed your headline, NBC!

Prigozhin accidentally touches the fractal version of himself, causing a space-time cascade that tears a hole in the fabric of reality at A0 which instantly swallows him whole.