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Btw I was just in Warsaw and outside the historical center, it really didn’t seem unfamiliar. If anything people seemed overworked and pretty miserable. Also, ironically enough, Poles have a grudge against Ukrainians these days due to immigration. Poland is doing better than Ukraine but it is hardly a paradise. As far as oligarchs go, Ukraine has had two revolutions and oligarchs are more entrenched than ever and the newest president is yet again still cozy with one. If anything the West has clearly shown it hasn’t cared and is happy to loot the country alongside local robber barons. The “reforms” proposed by the IMF have led to ridiculous cuts of public services that were already barely funded. Yeah maybe the Russian government isn’t better but it is a much bigger issue than some moronic ethnic gripe.
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Oct 3, 2019 12:22
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Third World Reagan posted:The main problem with the reforms, and also the cause, is the massive oligarch problem they have.
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Oct 3, 2019 14:10
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Well there are some good news, the average Ukrainian now has to work 40 fewer days to buy an iPhone than last year.
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Oct 3, 2019 14:13
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:So every Eastern European country that isn't in the EU and whose incomes are so low got that way because their cultures just failed to meet the challenge? Yes, the people of Moldova and Ukraine failed to develop following the fall of communism. So in essence, yes the national cultures fail to meet the challenge. This is not an essentialist view; perhaps over the next 20-30 years something could change. I hope it will, but who knows. GoluboiOgon posted:do you think that estonia and poland have the same culture? I wouldn't say Estonia and Poland have the same culture. I don't remember the exact figures of the top of my head, but I would be willing to bet that Latvian GDP/capita is significantly above Russia, let alone Ukraine. Same with HDI. And unlike Russia, they are a democracy. Ardennes posted:Btw I was just in Warsaw and outside the historical center, it really didn’t seem unfamiliar. If anything people seemed overworked and pretty miserable. So are we going to complete ignore factual reality because you felt people in Warsaw were "overworked and pretty miserable." This is borderline absurd. Ukrainians move to Poland to work entry level jobs such fast food, agriculture in vast numbers because there are more opportunities there. This is a fact. No amount polemics about "neoliberal world order" is going to change that. If you're a country like Ukraine you have to pick sides. On a relative basis, the West offers less corruption and democracy. This seems like a pretty straightforward choice. The world isn't black and white, sometimes you have to pick the least worst option. Ardennes posted:
What exact issues do you have with IMF recommendation? Another poster linked a quite informative fact sheet from the IMF. IMO it's unhelpful to rant about "IMF bad!" Ukrainian public services are in a massive need of reform. Consider the healthcare sector. Formally everyone is supposed to have access to healthcare. However, in reality you constantly have to bribe doctors to get service; this hurts the poorer segments of the population. I don't think IMF specifically discuss healthcare in that factsheet, but a lot of their recommendation make sense. A realist understanding of Russian culture is critical to dealing with them effectively. They are not capable of good faith interactions and there are no historical precedents for this.
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Oct 3, 2019 14:23
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Ardennes posted:As far as oligarchs go, Ukraine has had two revolutions and oligarchs are more entrenched than ever and the newest president is yet again still cozy with one. If anything the West has clearly shown it hasn’t cared and is happy to loot the country alongside local robber barons. The “reforms” proposed by the IMF have led to ridiculous cuts of public services that were already barely funded. I do not think anyone can get into power without the assistance of an oligarch there so at best you have a lesser of two evils. From what I've seen of zelensky, he is doing some things to better the people, but I honestly don't know too much about how he could be loving the people at the same time.
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Oct 3, 2019 14:23
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Third World Reagan posted:I do not think anyone can get into power without the assistance of an oligarch there so at best you have a lesser of two evils. It all honestly the chance for a peace deal is remote and the whole Privat Bank issue seems like just more of the same. Also, the IMF as I said recommended extreme budget cuts in order to develop a budget surplus, that is only going to cause medical personnel to demand more bribes because they are not getting paid. Also, Ukrainians being forced to work menial jobs in the EU to survive because their country is being looted isn’t a positive development unless you are completely insane.
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Oct 3, 2019 14:30
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skeletors_condom posted:So in essence, yes the national cultures fail to meet the challenge.
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Oct 3, 2019 14:42
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i've been skipping over skeletors_condom's posts because they're long and the verbal equivalent of calipers
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Oct 3, 2019 14:43
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skeletors_condom posted:Yes, the people of Moldova and Ukraine failed to develop following the fall of communism. So in essence, yes the national cultures fail to meet the challenge. This is not an essentialist view; perhaps over the next 20-30 years something could change. I hope it will, but who knows. You're literally blaming their culture for failing privatization. How is that not essentialist? Do you even understand what you're saying? Look at a chart of Polish GDP over time. Notice how it skyrockets after joining the EU in 2004? The increase for the Czech Republic was even more dramatic when it joined at the same time. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, all the same. In all the cases of former communist countries who have developed positively since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the decisive factor is always EU development loans and access to the common market. Being able to access that kind of financial assistance is the ultimate difference between 1,000 Euro wages a month and 500.
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Oct 3, 2019 14:46
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Dude said in essence but this is not essentialist
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Oct 3, 2019 14:50
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skeletors_condom posted:What am I obfuscating regarding Russian invasions in Georgia/Russia/Moldova? What did any of those countries do to Russia? The context is everything Russia has done in Ukraine and Georgia stems from a promise Angela Merkel made to those countries that they would, at some unspecified point in time, join NATO, in keeping with the decades-long pattern of NATO encroachment on Russia. In order to join NATO, a nation must be "whole," in control of its territory. No civil wars. No separatist enclaves. So, if you are Russia, and you don't like NATO encroachment, how do you prevent that from happening in light of a major European power's well known intentions? You keep them out by propping up separatists, making it legally impossible for NATO to add those two nations to its roster. Look at any interview Putin has given. He harps on this constantly, the broken promise from the United States that there would be no further eastward NATO expansion. This is also in keeping with Russia's pattern of behavior all the way back to post-WW2 Stalin: Russia is overwhelmingly concerned with securing its territory against western aggression - not at all surprising considering recent history. There's your context.
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Oct 3, 2019 14:52
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Russian culture demands it
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Oct 3, 2019 14:55
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ill give him credit, he at least does his weird race science to everyone and not just the filthy Russians
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Oct 3, 2019 15:26
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Ardennes posted:Btw, Putin's approval rating is hovering around 30%, so maybe things are a little more complicated than they seem. I assume that much like other big nations there are some pretty stark regional differences (between city and rural dwellers, for example) that get papered over in an outside observer's attempt to get a sense of what the average Russian thinks.
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Oct 3, 2019 15:59
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CharlestheHammer posted:ill give him credit, he at least does his weird race science to everyone and not just the filthy Russians it is always really weird and sad when you see someone whose race science has concluded his race is inferior, and that if only he could tear the melanin from his skin and the slavic ridges from his brow he would be just as good as whitey
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Oct 3, 2019 16:10
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Fat-Lip-Sum-41.mp3 posted:The context is everything Russia has done in Ukraine and Georgia stems from a promise Angela Merkel made to those countries that they would, at some unspecified point in time, join NATO, in keeping with the decades-long pattern of NATO encroachment on Russia. Russia should not be deciding for other countries whether they should join NATO or not. If anything the Baltics and Poland proved that joining NATO was the correct choice because Russia cannot be trusted and they are violent and belligerent. The key issue was that Ukraine was not able to reform fast enough and join NATO before Russian started a new set of invasions in 2008. This was a failure of Ukrainian society that resulted in ~15K deaths, millions IDPs, massive economic problems and 3 occupied regions. Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:it is always really weird and sad when you see someone whose race science has concluded his race is inferior, and that if only he could tear the melanin from his skin and the slavic ridges from his brow he would be just as good as whitey This has nothing to do with race. IMO it's a pretty low effort argument because you can't come up with anything better. Some other news that might be of interest: Oleksandr Danylyuk, a widely respected politician, recently resigned as chairman of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. One of the reasons cited by Danylyuk was the conflict of interest between Zelenskiy and Ihor Kolomoyskyi. In particular, he criticized the role of Andriy Bohdan who currently works as an adviser for Zelenskiy. Previously Bohdan worked as a lawyer for Ihor Kolomoyskyi; an oligarch who formerly owned PrivatBank, a leading Ukrainian bank with a roughly ~50% share in core banking services. In 2016, PrivatBank was nationalized after NBU found a ~$5.5 B USD hole in its balance sheet and various conflicts of interests. Shortly after the nationalization of PrivatBank, Kolomoyskyi ran away to Israel.  Kolomoyskyi also owns 1+1 media group which controls several national channel including the one that aired Zelenskiy's Servant of the People.  IMHO, if Zelenskiy reverses the nationalization of PrivatBank (or even "compensates" Kolomoyskyi), it means he is not capable of breaking free from the old oligarch model. We'll see what happens.
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Oct 3, 2019 17:12
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Dreylad posted:I assume that much like other big nations there are some pretty stark regional differences (between city and rural dwellers, for example) that get papered over in an outside observer's attempt to get a sense of what the average Russian thinks. Btw Putin has also lost a bunch of support in the provinces as well.
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Oct 3, 2019 17:37
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Ardennes posted:Btw Putin has also lost a bunch of support in the provinces as well. But how do you know that? What qualifies as "a bunch?" I thought you said you don't trust the polls? Or did you mean you don't trust polls if they don't give the results you want?
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Oct 3, 2019 18:10
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skeletors_condom posted:Russia should not be deciding for other countries whether they should join NATO or not. daaah you can't do anything about your military encirclement it's against the rules 
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Oct 3, 2019 18:39
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will this thread's culture rise up to meet the challenge? only time will tell
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Oct 3, 2019 19:35
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got ukrainian friends and i feel pretty bad for the country. ukrainian nationalism got rooted in the far right as a legacy of ww2, so they turned to the US as allies against the russians and as thanks they're going to get brutalized by IMF austerity
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Oct 3, 2019 22:02
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skeletors_condom posted:But how do you know that? What qualifies as "a bunch?" Protests have spread beyond Moscow, if anything Moscow by being privileged has been isolated from the struggle going on the provinces.
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Oct 3, 2019 23:03
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Skeletors_condom Im afraid you cant argue with the Americans, as they are pig-headed and self-centered, and shant listen to reason on account of their fatty brains
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Oct 4, 2019 03:03
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Country wide protests "No to capitulation!" against Zelenskiy's recent overtures with the Russians: https://www.rferl.org/a/kyiv-thousands-protest-zelenskiy-plan-local-elections-eastern-ukraine/30201851.html The article refers to Kyiv specifically, but protest were held in other major cities too: https://censor.net.ua/video_news/3152400/po_ukraine_proshli_aktsii_net_kapitulyatsii_videofotoreportaj
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Oct 6, 2019 23:20
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Zelenskyy held a 10 hour press conference with leading Ukrainian (and international?) media orgs: https://en.hromadske.ua/posts/what-ukraines-zelenskyy-said-during-record-long-press-conference IMO, he didn't provide any surprises or any new info. He did mention that he was not planning to give back PrivatBank to Kolomoyskyi, which is a good thing if he sticks to it. But he also defended Bohdan, one his advisers who used to work for Kolomoyskyi (see my earlier post on this). They had a pretty cringey moment when a government employee joined the briefing to report that Zelenskyy set a record for the longest press briefing:   IMO, this sort stuff is very Soviet-style. I don't mind the non-traditional format, but there was no need to highlight an "official record." skeletors_condom has issued a correction as of 20:24 on Oct 10, 2019 |
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Oct 10, 2019 20:20
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skeletors_condom posted:IMO, this sort stuff is very Soviet-style. I don't mind the non-traditional format, but there was no need to highlight an "official record." this is what "rule of law" looks like
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Oct 10, 2019 22:04
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is this thread in itself an apt simulation of current ukranian politics? the op starts off like, "i don't know much about the current neoliberal president, but i have vague positive feelings. oh yeah there are some neonazis and i should really get around to talking about them at some point (before they become a problem)" the ensuing pages are then swiftly occupied by a neonazi talking race science about which peoples deserve the lash
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Oct 13, 2019 04:03
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Rodatose posted:is this thread in itself an apt simulation of current ukranian politics? With Ukraine it means you have neo-nazis except all the racist songs use slav hard bass style.
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Oct 13, 2019 04:06
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Rodatose posted:is this thread in itself an apt simulation of current ukranian politics? yah pretty much imagine being in a weird space where you like stalin and russia, hate germany and nazis, and yet are a neo nazi where each side claims the other are nazis and there are neo nazis all over
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Oct 13, 2019 09:42
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You guys really need to stop shouting "everyone is a neo-nazi!1!!" Get some perceptive.
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Oct 13, 2019 16:49
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or you might become a Nazi is generally how that thought ends
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Oct 13, 2019 16:50
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skeletors_condom posted:You guys really need to stop shouting "everyone is a neo-nazi!1!!" not everyone is, but you certainly sound like one. i'm not sure why your race science bullshit somehow passed the mods here
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Oct 13, 2019 17:26
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are there any stats on emigration out of ukraine? my friends who fled the country this decade said it felt like the country was being slowly hollowed out
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Oct 13, 2019 17:34
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mila kunis posted:not everyone is, but you certainly sound like one. i'm not sure why your race science bullshit somehow passed the mods here Where exactly do you see race science? I pointed out multiple polls that confirm my view that Russians are generally extremely chauvinist (not just support for Putin, but numbers around support for statements such as "Russia for [ethnic] Russians only!". All I heard was that the polls are wrong because reasons... Note that the polling data I provided often go back decades. These aren't singular polls. I also pointed out that Russia is currently occupying six regions of its neighbours and that they murdered around 5% (at minimum) of the civilian population in Chechnya in the first Chechen war. As I understand, this was seen as OK by many of my detractors. You should also read on the difference between русский and россиянин. mila kunis posted:are there any stats on emigration out of ukraine? my friends who fled the country this decade said it felt like the country was being slowly hollowed out They will be doing a census in 2020. I believe around a million people emigrated to Poland alone since the Russian invasion. I know many friends who moved there. skeletors_condom has issued a correction as of 18:37 on Oct 13, 2019 |
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Oct 13, 2019 18:31
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skeletors_condom posted:Where exactly do you see race science? Ok I'll bite. Assuming everything you say in this post (including the parts I cut out for space) is correct, why do you think Russians tend towards ethnic chauvinism?
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Oct 13, 2019 18:42
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cool dance moves posted:Ok I'll bite. Assuming everything you say in this post (including the parts I cut out for space) is correct, why do you think Russians tend towards ethnic chauvinism? Why "assuming" though? Is Levada Centre populated by Ukrainian Neonazis who have nothing better to do than post fake polling data over the past 30 years? Is Russia not occupying regions in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova? The Russians did not murder (at least) ~50K Chechen civilians in the First Chechen War? This is pretty important IMO. They are chauvinistic because of their historical legacy (specifically Tsarist imperialism and their former status as a "world power") and because it's easier to support murdering people (in neighbouring countries, but also in places like Syria too [*]) than to admit they are ruled by a bunch of criminal plutocrats. Why do you think Putin's approval rating spiked following the invasion of Ukraine? You think Putin (or Russians in general) care about people in Donbass? Come on. Even a fool can see that their actions hurt the people in Donbass. The region is destroyed and it will takes decades to rebuild it. * https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/russia-syria-bomb-hospitals-war-kurds-putin-assad-idlib-a9153786.html vs. Russian propganda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V0jPM2ebLA
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Oct 13, 2019 19:02
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quote:They are chauvinistic because of their historical legacy (specifically Tsarist imperialism and their former status as a "world power") and because it's easier to support murdering people (in neighbouring countries, but also in places like Syria too [*]) than to admit they are ruled by a bunch of criminal plutocrats. how is this different than any other western nation? delete 'tsarist' and this is word for word just as true about the us, france, and the uk. what makes ethnic russians different from citizens in those countries?
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Oct 13, 2019 19:12
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Look, black people are inherently criminals because of a culture of rap music and absentee fathers. I'm definitely not racist.
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Oct 13, 2019 19:29
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GoluboiOgon posted:how is this different than any other western nation? delete 'tsarist' and this is word for word just as true about the us, france, and the uk. what makes ethnic russians different from citizens in those countries? Well consider the US invasion of Iraq. Many Americans opposed it. AFAIK, most politicians backed it, but there was a significant opposition among the general population (including IRL protests). This isn't a "Western" thing either. When India and Pakistan were in conflict during the Bangladesh liberation war, India didn't just invade and annex Bangladesh under the purview of creating a "Greater India." Bangladesh became independent. Can you point to a single example of significant opposition to foreign invasions among the Russians (preferably in the last 30 years)? EDIT: Or if we go by the delusions of some people posting in this thread and assume that all Russians hate Putin and it is Soros who is funding anti-Russian polling data (the Soros conspiracy was mentioned in this thread), surely some of the opposition figures would express at least mild condemnation of modern Russian imperialism? Navalniy? Dmitriy Ivanov (aka Kamikadzedead)? And yet they don't! Because they understand that opposition to foreign invasion is a no-go as far as the Russian population is concerned. Hell, they are even justifying the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact by saying it was to "help save lives": https://twitter.com/mfa_russia/status/1175784215423721474?s=20 AFAIK, most historians agree that the Soviet invasion of Eastern Europe following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact actually weakened the USSR's ability to fight Hitler in the first 18 months of the war. skeletors_condom has issued a correction as of 19:47 on Oct 13, 2019 |
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Oct 13, 2019 19:35
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skeletors_condom posted:Well consider the US invasion of Iraq. Many Americans opposed it. AFAIK, most politicians backed it, but there was a significant opposition among the general population (including IRL protests). bush got the same bump in approval ratings for invading iraq as putin did for invading crimea, and a much greater bump for the invasion of afganistan post 9/11. americans can be just as bloodthirsty as russians.   yes, the anti-war movement was much smaller in russia in 2014, but the consequences for publically supporting it in russia were much more severe than in the us in the early 2000s. the buildup to iraq also took months, while the invasion of ukraine took around a week, not really giving time for a mass movement to form. additionally, in the us in the 2000s, many people believed that the government would listen to their protests. russians haven't believed such things for decades (although that seems to be changing slightly). and Navalny has called for a withdrawl from the donbass and a second referendum in crimea, there are definitely russian opposition politicans who oppose the war right now.
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Oct 13, 2019 20:38
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