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fatherboxx)
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Any time someone compares the Iraq War and the Ukraine war just remind them that we (the US) were the Russians in that war. We invaded a sovereign nation under false pretenses and the locals fought back. We had no right to be there, and we were most definitely not welcome there. We didn't go full genocide on them, but there were atrocities galore. Hence why we are doing the right thing helping Ukraine because we are helping the oppressed. Not acting as the oppressor like we did in Iraq.
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Aug 16, 2023 23:37
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daslog posted:The Ukrainians wouldy last long if the US cut them off from supplies. It would hurt, but I doubt it would impact the will to fight. Helping people defend themselves from aggressors (assuming that they want the help) is a moral imperative. I’m happy to see the US doing some good for once in this millennium, even if it is based in self interest and perpetuation of the MIC.
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Aug 16, 2023 23:40
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capitalcomma posted:They didn't unquestioningly absorb the propaganda, apologetics, and narrative of the invader; that means they hate I suspect a lot of them are the same people now bringing the same stupidity and the same hatred of “liberals” to the opposite end of the horseshoe.
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Aug 16, 2023 23:47
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Not So Fast posted:Not to get into a game of whataboutism, but is this actually true? Civilian casualties look like they're about the same (12,000 in the first year of Iraq, 9,000 so far in Ukraine according to the UN), but I guess the issue of taking Ukrainian children into Russia is something the USA didn't do. The US was more effective at shattering the Iraqi state and “accidentally” generating horrific numbers of excess deaths through degradation of health services and infrastructure. Russia seems to have been more intentionally horrible but less capable. Both invasions are crimes against humanity, as even GWB’s conscience eventually forced him to admit publicly.
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Aug 16, 2023 23:51
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A big flaming stink posted:IF russia restricts its expansionism to the 4 eastern oblasts with primarily russophones as a populace, and if putin subsidizes the reconstruction of the region, the chance of an insurgency in those regions is relatively low. people aren't going to do engage in an insurgency unless they have no choice but to do so. I'm not sure it's that simple, there have been a lot of insurgencies of various types that have existed for a long time in similar circumstances. Northern Irish Catholics could move to the republic if they wanted, but the IRA kept running for a very long time. PLO could hang out in Jordan and forget about Palestine, but spent decades fighting. ETA could just accept that they live in a capitalist country and stop speaking Basque, but they kept going for decades. There's FARC, there's the shining path, there's Maoist rebels in lots of places, partisans during WW2 (Yugoslavia, French resistance, Polish resistance, Soviet partisans etc), Baltic anti-soviet resistance after WW2, PKK, Chechens, Anarchists 100 years ago and so on. It would at best be a powder keg that Russia would have to pour a lot of resources into, constantly balancing their use of carrots and sticks. Meanwhile, potentially several nation states could be supporting any insurgent movements that show up, organically or created by intelligence agencies. If Russia shows weakness at any point (e.g. Putin dying without a proper heir), things could quickly escalate.
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Aug 16, 2023 23:57
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I had a conversation with a former eastern Ukrainian today, he doesn’t like the Russian state at all because of civil rights issues, but he still loves russian culture. That said he talked about ukraine harassed/arrested his mom for speaking Russian among other things. That was the only language she knew how to speak. And that speaking russian was banned. In that way he thought ukraine should have been more diplomatic in 2014 when putin was “warning everybody” he was going to strike if that continued. He said something about the anti Russian killings being 100% true. A perspective I’ve never heard from a first hand source. I tried to say it’s very hard to understand to what is misinformation about that particular topic. He’s so adiment that it was a real thing. He wasn’t saying anything like Russia should be allowed to win, but yeah, it was a weird conversation for me. I’m pretty pro ukraine. But who am I to say poo poo to a real Ukrainian
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Aug 17, 2023 00:55
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ethanol posted:And that speaking russian was banned.
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Aug 17, 2023 01:04
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OddObserver posted:As a former South Ukrainian, that is simply not true. I didn’t think it was. I don’t know why he said that. How does this happen? Was it looked down upon at all?
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Aug 17, 2023 01:07
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ethanol posted:I had a conversation with a former eastern Ukrainian today, he doesn’t like the Russian state at all because of civil rights issues, but he still loves russian culture. That said he talked about ukraine harassed/arrested his mom for speaking Russian among other things. That was the only language she knew how to speak. And that speaking russian was banned. In that way he thought ukraine should have been more diplomatic in 2014 when putin was “warning everybody” he was going to strike if that continued. He said something about the anti Russian killings being 100% true. A perspective I’ve never heard from a first hand source. I tried to say it’s very hard to understand to what is misinformation about that particular topic. He’s so adiment that it was a real thing. Yeah, it's not an argument you want to have in the moment, but important to remember every country has crazies. I've met quite a few Canadians who will swear up and down that Justin Trudeau has personally ordered executions and state harassment of people with "evidence about the vaccines" and how being anti-vax in canada is worse than being jewish in nazi germany. Eastern Ukraine is full of people who swear up and down that their "fwfwfwfwfwfwfw: grandma kicked out of grocery store and ARRESTED for saying hello in Russian" absolutely happened and happens all the time, because the region has been absolutely peppered with russian propaganda saying such things happen regularly. I'm sure people speaking russian can still sometimes gain some dirty looks or even vigilantism in very rare cases, but there's never been some sort of state sponsored mass harassment or murder operation. My own Russian speaking and russian patriot family in Ukraine also bought into all this. They lived in Kyiv, never had ANYTHING remotely bad happen to them for speaking Russian primarily, but would just constantly endlessly go on about how Russian speakers are being mass murdered and oppressed and any moment now the nazi junta was going to come for them too. You can't argue with them though because they always pull the "Yeah, I LIVE here! I know what's going on!" card
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Aug 17, 2023 01:11
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ethanol posted:I didn’t think it was. I don’t know why he said that. How does this happen? Was it looked down upon at all? There are a few weirdos like that, and laws of the sort of like quota for percentage of programming must be in Ukrainian, people who have public jobs must know Ukrainian (a lot of them poorly written and heavy-handed), but as for looked down... Yeah, Russians looked down at Ukrainian-speakers as dumb peasants.
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Aug 17, 2023 01:14
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Baronjutter posted:Yeah, it's not an argument you want to have in the moment, but important to remember every country has crazies. I've met quite a few Canadians who will swear up and down that Justin Trudeau has personally ordered executions and state harassment of people with "evidence about the vaccines" and how being anti-vax in canada is worse than being jewish in nazi germany. Thank you, I’m a little relieved to hear this, in the sense of my own morality
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Aug 17, 2023 01:15
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ethanol posted:I had a conversation with a former eastern Ukrainian today, he doesn’t like the Russian state at all because of civil rights issues, but he still loves russian culture. That said he talked about ukraine harassed/arrested his mom for speaking Russian among other things. That was the only language she knew how to speak. And that speaking russian was banned. In that way he thought ukraine should have been more diplomatic in 2014 when putin was “warning everybody” he was going to strike if that continued. He said something about the anti Russian killings being 100% true. A perspective I’ve never heard from a first hand source. I tried to say it’s very hard to understand to what is misinformation about that particular topic. He’s so adiment that it was a real thing. Unfortunately when Russia invaded Crimea, and then the Donbas in 2014, they kinda made diplomacy impossible, they basically unilaterally decided Ukraine would be their enemy when they did that.
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Aug 17, 2023 01:25
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daslog posted:The Ukrainians wouldy last long if the US cut them off from supplies. Was the United States in WW2 letting the war continue by giving the USSR and the other Allies lend-lease supplies?
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Aug 17, 2023 01:42
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daslog posted:The Ukrainians wouldy last long if the US cut them off from supplies. When Russia first invaded Ukraine, I was in the camp that believed that Kyiv would fall in a matter of weeks if not days. Yet, in those early days, they managed to halt the advance of Russia's invasion force before the U.S. had much of a chance to ship over much of any military aid. At this same time last year, the Russian army was still besieging Kharkiv. A certain artillery expert was explaining to me how Ukraine was doomed. And yet, here we are a year later. I think we look at what the U.S. did in Iraq (both times) and Afghanistan and then when Ukraine or Russia don't follow suit, we start talking about how one side or the other is doomed. Ukraine is not the U.S. Russia is not the U.S. This war will continue until one side breaks, or both sides have lost enough to begin some kind of negotiated peace. I find all this prognosticating about how country X is doomed, simply because things aren't moving fast enough to keep up with our hot takes silly. edit: mixed up Kherson and Kharkiv BigRoman fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Aug 17, 2023 |
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Aug 17, 2023 01:48
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Raenir Salazar posted:Was the United States in WW2 letting the war continue by giving the USSR and the other Allies lend-lease supplies? Maybe - after the occupation of France there was a belief that Britain would quickly fall as well, but overt US aid to the allies began in 1940. If the US had instead made it clear that no help would be forthcoming it's possible Britain would have surrendered or negotiated neutrality before Barbarossa, and that might have led to a quicker resolution of the war.
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Aug 17, 2023 02:07
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ethanol posted:I didn’t think it was. I don’t know why he said that. How does this happen? Was it looked down upon at all? There are a bunch of laws regulating languages in Ukraine. I don't remember the details, but TV must be broadcast in Ukrainian to some extent (you can't have a 100% Russian TV channel, but there are ways around it, supposedly), print media has to be available in Ukrainian (e.g. if you have a Russian version you must also have a Ukrainian version). Government services must be available in Ukrainian, and are often primarily in Ukrainian. There are similar laws in places like Quebec etc, where you must have a French-language option available in certain scenarios. It varies a lot from region to region, and since 2014 it has changed a fair bit. When the war started, I did volunteer work to help refugees get work and integrate etc. They were all Russian speakers (I don't speak any Ukrainian, only basic Russian, and the areas with heavy fighting are all mainly Russian speaking) and they had spent most of their lives speaking only Russian, but likely pro-Ukrainian/Western since they didn't flee to Belarus or Russia or something. They spoke Russian at home and at work, watched Russian-language TV, listened to Russian-language music, and so on. They weren't getting arrested on a daily basis, and it wasn't even a concern for them. If they were to e.g. move to Lviv' and start teaching third grade literature in exclusively Russian, they might be breaking language laws, since different regions regulate which languages are acceptable for education. If they start radio stations that never play any Ukrainian music, they might get fined or something, depending on a variety of factors. The laws on a national level, from my understanding, mostly state that Ukrainian must be present, not that Russian must not be present. The Russian language certainly has never been banned, and Russian seems to be the dominant language in the UAF from the videos I've seen. In 2014 and afterwards, people got killed for all kinds of reasons (revolutions are extremely messy affairs), and I'm sure someone has been killed for speaking Russian at some point, but it's not like you'll be walking around Kyiv speaking Russian only to have the SBU gun you down or arrest you. Crazy Ukrainian nationalists might dislike it, same as crazy American nationalists having opinions about people speaking Spanish in the US. Most don't seem to care all that much about language normally, but are proud of Ukrainian now due to it being a symbol of Ukraine during a war. Most of the people I was in contact with use Ukrainian a lot more now, like their Instagram and Facebook feeds are almost exclusively Ukrainian now (often apologising for speaking bad Ukrainian, since many of them only started using it seriously recently). That has more to do with being an act of defiance against Russia than Russian being banned, same as using rashka instead of Russia etc. Day to day they're still primarily speaking Russian, it's hard to start speaking Ukrainian to your children if your Ukrainian isn't great. Some aunt will comment on their Facebook posts in Russian, and they'll respond in Russian. It's not a huge deal. One thing that needs to be remembered is that Ukrainians are people like any others, in a complicated political situation and with heavy disinformation and propaganda campaigns aimed at them. Some consume a lot of (pro-Russian or pro-Ukrainian) propaganda channels or weird conspiracy telegrams and get weird ideas about things. It's no different from some American from Florida being adamant that LGBT people in Seattle are force sterilising children or that Trump is a good christian trying to save America from the deep state or whatever nonsense Americans think these days. Some people believe things for ideological reasons, some are misinformed, some are consuming disinformation, etc. poor waif fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Aug 17, 2023 |
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Aug 17, 2023 02:08
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Moon Slayer posted:So either you believe that Ukraine doesn't have agency, or you believe that they shouldn't have agency. See it's posts like this that are really unhelpful. The argument that without US (Or other Western) aid Ukraine would find its ability to fight faltering and then evaporating might be right or wrong, but simply making that argument is not a moral condemnation of any side. It's ridiculous to assert that the US is somehow the real architect of Ukraine's defense here, and there are people who act like "America is willing to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian" is some kind of serious statement; these people should be scorned. But observing that Ukraine would have a harder time if their materiel suppliers stopped supplying them is the same observation as saying Russia would have a harder time if a major ammunition factory blew up - you can very much debate the strategic consequences, but it doesn't have an inherent moral dimension as a claim.
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Aug 17, 2023 02:11
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:i happen to be watching an old bbc docuseries on ww1, and one major component of trench warfare seems to be missing in the modern analogy to ukraine's southern front, namely the effective use of immediate counter attacks to reclaim any ground seized. the heavily fortified approach to the trenches and devastating artillery fire i think live on most in the common imagination, but what's really striking to me is the way that any temporary gains by either the allies or central powers on the western front are consistently reversed by an immediate heavy local counter attack before adequate reserves have the opportunity to come up. maybe it's skewed by my news sources, but this doesn't really seem to be a feature in many of the battles in this war, probably because lines of communication and supply are so much more robust then they were a century ago Density of forces in this war is a tiny fraction of what it was on the Western front. A kilometer in Ukraine on average might be held by something like a 100-200 guys (including support and artillery) spread out over multiple lines, whereas the western front was something like 5,000-10,000 men for that distance. That factor of >50x difference in force density means that the tactics are quite different. Lots of these assaults are like a couple dozen guys or fewer, and whole segments of trenches might be held by just a handful of men. Counterattacks do happen, but they're proportionally small, and depending on how well setup the attackers are or how prepared the artillery, they might never get within range to do anything. Compared to WW1 one of the really striking things is just how empty most of the trenches are. They can dig them relatively fast using bulldozers (as opposed to spades), but most are thinly manned or practically empty. GhostofJohnMuir posted:i have no idea what the ratio of casualties is, or the depths of either sides reserves, so it's impossible to say how sustainable the fight is, but if they actually manage to hold the ground they do take it's at least a slight step up from the grind of ww1 For what its worth, you had a dynamic more like this on the eastern front in WW1. daslog posted:The Ukrainians wouldy last long if the US cut them off from supplies. US support is necessary to keep Ukraine on the offensive with a realistic chance of winning in the next year or so, but even without it Russia is in no position to overcome Ukrainian minefields and trenches, and considerable support would still be flowing in from Europe. If you're thinking that it is the US keeping Ukraine in the war, no that is nonsense. The curtailing support would just extend the war.
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Aug 17, 2023 02:14
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Rugz posted:Complete speculation. The US couldn't knock the fight out of the Taliban, what makes you think Russia can knock the fight out of Ukraine? The US eviscerated the Taliban but when you occupy a county for 20 years their pissed off kids were bound to try and get us back for it.
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Aug 17, 2023 02:15
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Baronjutter posted:Yeah, it's not an argument you want to have in the moment, but important to remember every country has crazies. I've met quite a few Canadians who will swear up and down that Justin Trudeau has personally ordered executions and state harassment of people with "evidence about the vaccines" and how being anti-vax in canada is worse than being jewish in nazi germany. Some people I know in Belarus are convinced that the Russian culture is under threat there, even though the only place they ever hear or see anything in Belarusian is on public transport and an occasional TV ad. I've posted a lot in previous threads about how, in my opinion, Poroshenko's approach to Ukrainisation was awful, but when I visited Kharkiv in 2019, literally everyone still spoke Russian to me, even when I tried to practice my Ukrainian, even at stores, although it in theory that was against the law. You definitely could get in trouble for Soviet paraphernalia, or get threats on social media from nationalists if your restaurant didn't have a menu in Ukrainian, but barring an encounter with a clinically insane policeman, getting in arrested for just speaking Russian, especially in Kyiv, is pure nonsense. Even know, if you watch vox pops on Ukrainian TV, there are plenty of people who reply in Russian anywhere East of Lviv.
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Aug 17, 2023 02:33
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:i happen to be watching an old bbc docuseries on ww1, and one major component of trench warfare seems to be missing in the modern analogy to ukraine's southern front, namely the effective use of immediate counter attacks to reclaim any ground seized. the heavily fortified approach to the trenches and devastating artillery fire i think live on most in the common imagination, but what's really striking to me is the way that any temporary gains by either the allies or central powers on the western front are consistently reversed by an immediate heavy local counter attack before adequate reserves have the opportunity to come up. maybe it's skewed by my news sources, but this doesn't really seem to be a feature in many of the battles in this war, probably because lines of communication and supply are so much more robust then they were a century ago Saratoga covered one part of the answer (force density), so I’ll cover the other : transportation and communication logistics, and the lack there of. In WWI all your logistics have to come in via train. And once you cross over No Man’s Land, you’re by your enemies big logistics hub (it’s their trench network), meanwhile all your bullets and bombs and bandages and bully beef are on the other side of No Man’s Land. The Mordor covered in razorwire and shellholes and the ghosts of your friends, a thing designed to be really hard to get across. So the enemy has supplies coming out of the nose to counter-attack with, while you have whatever spares you have after taking the trench. Remember how this is after you crossed the Land of Death and fought a lot of dudes already? This is exacerbated because there isn’t a good way to talk to your superiors back in your trench. Radios exist, but they’re still crude enough that you’re just blasting out your secret military commands and hoping nobody else is listening. The Russians tried that at the beginning and got absolutely wrecked because it’s very dumb. Your other options are : 1) a telephone, which involves some poor bastard carrying a spool of telephone cable and carefully running it behind him and them both surviving aforementioned Razor-Mordor-Hell ; or 2) dudes running with notes, again through an incredibly deadly and much, much bigger than you think field. Meanwhile the enemy is right next to all the other enemy for that counter attack. So you don’t know if help is coming, and your bosses don’t know if you’re alive or dead. The Bite and Hold tactic of the later, more successful part of WWI was all about trying to counteract these problems and get better at resisting counter attacks. Instant communication, tanks, trucks. (Plus other stuff, I’m not trying to be exhaustive.)
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Aug 17, 2023 03:47
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Rust Martialis posted:Maybe they thought they were posting in some genocide denial-tolerant forum? So to circle back, the lack of response and the resultant fact that we are now entertaining several additional users doing the same means that they are correct, and this is the genocide denial-tolerant forum. A really great look for our moderation team.
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Aug 17, 2023 04:19
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Ms Adequate posted:See it's posts like this that are really unhelpful. The argument that without US (Or other Western) aid Ukraine would find its ability to fight faltering and then evaporating might be right or wrong, but simply making that argument is not a moral condemnation of any side. It's ridiculous to assert that the US is somehow the real architect of Ukraine's defense here, and there are people who act like "America is willing to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian" is some kind of serious statement; these people should be scorned. But observing that Ukraine would have a harder time if their materiel suppliers stopped supplying them is the same observation as saying Russia would have a harder time if a major ammunition factory blew up - you can very much debate the strategic consequences, but it doesn't have an inherent moral dimension as a claim. Come on, you and I both know that specific poster wasn't "just making a factual statement."
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Aug 17, 2023 04:30
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Discendo Vox posted:So to circle back, the lack of response and the resultant fact that we are now entertaining several additional users doing the same means that they are correct, and this is the genocide denial-tolerant forum. A really great look for our moderation team. It's going to take years to de-Tankify this forum after we had a Holodomor denialist as an admin. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Aug 17, 2023 04:41
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The people rationalizing genocide are at least unintentionally comical when it is pointed out how absurd it is. “It’s only genocide if it crafted in the ovens of Dachau” jokes make me lol
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Aug 17, 2023 05:35
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Please don’t feed the trolls. Or quote them. TIA (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Aug 17, 2023 07:20
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Discendo Vox posted:So to circle back, the lack of response and the resultant fact that we are now entertaining several additional users doing the same means that they are correct, and this is the genocide denial-tolerant forum. Last few pages have been mostly people agreeing with each other while dunking on a terrible (but i don't believe probatable) sparkling massacre take so I don't see the issue here, unless you want me to shut down cheerleading as well. I'd advise against doing whatabout posting regarding Iraq or Afghanistan warcrime scoreboard though.
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Aug 17, 2023 08:05
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fatherboxx posted:Last few pages have been mostly people agreeing with each other while dunking on a terrible (but i don't believe probatable) sparkling massacre take so I don't see the issue here, unless you want me to shut down cheerleading as well. So, to reiterate, what you're saying is this is the genocide denial-tolerant forum. All the same talking points, the same lies, that we've been seeing since the pretext for the invasion began, you know they're disingenuous, and you're choosing not to act on them. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Aug 17, 2023 08:11
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Discendo Vox posted:So, to reiterate, what you're saying is this is the genocide denial-tolerant forum. All the same talking points, the same lies, that we've been seeing since the pretext for the invasion began, you know they're disingenuous, and you're choosing not to act on them. No it is not, go take a walk
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Aug 17, 2023 08:14
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Nenonen posted:It's going to be interesting to see where this goes and what we will learn of the Russian defense later on. Russian defense of the first line seemed really aggressive, as if the command thought that the offensive could be stopped dead on its tracks instead of defense in depth. Now this appears to have changed, the reason for which remains to be seen. Were Russian frontline troops losing too many men holding the lines? Or were their artillery losing too many guns or not receiving enough ammunition to stop the Ukrainian spearheads? Or is this all according to plan of Shoigu and Gerasimov and Ukrainians will be delivered a fatal blow at the main line? Gotta stay tuned! It could mean that Russia does not have the manpower/properly trained units to employ a effective defense in depth or elastic defense strategy. There have been reports (unverified by the Russian MoD) that their frontline troops are not being rotated in and out, which if done at anything above company level I bet the Ukrainians could see. Also seeing a lot of current videos on reddit of Russian troop concentrations far behind enemy lines being targeted (one yesterday of them at a shooting range getting a taste of tungsten), also quite a few SPG, EW, and AA platforms getting blasted, all of which the Russians have in short supply.
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Aug 17, 2023 08:15
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This isn't a nazi bar, it's just that my boss doesn't let me kick nazis out (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Aug 17, 2023 08:16
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Moon Slayer posted:Come on, you and I both know that specific poster wasn't "just making a factual statement." Sorry, you're probably correct about that, I was in a pissy mood earlier after arguing with a couple of different people on the topic elsewhere and didn't really flick my brain into taking a better look at what you were actually replying to.
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Aug 17, 2023 08:46
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Vlad Vexler made nice new video about soft-on-Putin leftists where he breaks down their arguments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=017WGzJ5fHA
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Aug 17, 2023 08:52
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Since we apparently have some people mentioning how they don't believe genocide is on the table in Ukraine, and it's merely some western-backed propaganda. I think it's important to highlight some things. 1) The political leader of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has on camera said (paraphrasing) "Ukraine doesn't deserve the right to exist". Is this supposed to be treated as mere bluster? 2) The ICC has charged him with war crimes and directing his nation in the overt act of kidnapping children. This is explicitly textbook genocide. 3) Vladimir Putin's government has admitted to and downplayed the severity of these actions. Indeed, Putin created a decree that has made it easier to "adopt" children from Ukraine. This is textbook genocide. 4) The military he commands has committed murders of civilians, and filled mass graves.... 5) ...In response to this, the Russian government blames the Ukrainian government for performing these acts on their own people as a false flag in an attempt to discredit Russia. Who would honestly believe this without overwhelming hard evidence? This is all objectively true information that you can simply do a quick google search for. So yeah. I think enough situational evidence exists to suggest that there is a genuine threat or stomach for genocide campaigns led by Russia into Ukraine. This is not a wild or crazy notion.
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Aug 17, 2023 09:29
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fatherboxx posted:No it is not, go take a walk Is it hard to walk with a spine made of jello? Do you feel a deep kinship with Stretch Armstrong? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Aug 17, 2023 09:34
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Zat posted:Vlad Vexler made nice new video about soft-on-Putin leftists where he breaks down their arguments: Yeah I was toying with posting this here - I generally like his content, as it challenges me. But I'm not a fan of his edited videos like this, as they dumb things down a lot in order to give a 'punchy' Youtube format. His strong analytical mindset and philosophical approach comes out much more strongly in his informal 'chit chat' videos. That said, he does makes some good points in this, especially toward the end about American exceptionalism which will resonate well here. But I don't think he makes the case at the start for why 'Its not really about NATO, but Putin's imperial mindset' very well - its just a bunch of statements. Also he has a very blinkered liberal vision, even by D&D standards. Having watched quite a few of his things, he really has a blindspot when it comes to addressing issues of class, power, etc. Its all very well lecturing your audience to remember that everyone, including Trumpists, Nazis, etc, are part of the political spectrum and we should engage with them not exclude them, in order to save Democracy. But its meaningless deckchair rearranging without challenging the power structures, inequalities, imbalances, etc, which are the underlying cause. And he very conspicuously ignores this.
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Aug 17, 2023 10:01
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Tigey posted:Yeah I was toying with posting this here - I generally like his content, as it challenges me. But I'm not a fan of his edited videos like this, as they dumb things down a lot in order to give a 'punchy' Youtube format. His strong analytical mindset and philosophical approach comes out much more strongly in his informal 'chit chat' videos.
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Aug 17, 2023 10:15
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The Artificial Kid posted:Putin’s naked power games have nothing to do with class struggle, and they’re not anybody else’s fault. Um, yes? I agree. And I never claimed otherwise anywhere. I was talking about Vexler's wider arguments, around the political divide/democratic decline in the West.
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Aug 17, 2023 11:02
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The Artificial Kid posted:Putin’s naked power games have nothing to do with class struggle, and they’re not anybody else’s fault. I would say they do have a lot to do with class struggle, just the classes in play are not the standard western ones. Nomenklatura (wealthy state officials) and oligarchs (capitalists with goons) are opposed groups, and Putin is very much the champion of the former.
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Aug 17, 2023 12:39
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| # ? Jun 8, 2024 00:28 |
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Tigey posted:Um, yes? I agree. And I never claimed otherwise anywhere.
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Aug 17, 2023 12:42
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