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The Insane Rationalizations, Bigotry And Out Right Hypocrisy Of The Left


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Posted
10 hours ago, urbanoid said:

The other 'they' that stopped it have been mostly 'Russian Russians', from 'Russia proper'. This matter has to be resolved one way or the other and it looks like unless Russia decides to genocide the 'undeserving' population mostly still not under Russian control, the West will gain the upper hand in the end. Even post-2014 most of the Ukrainian population didn't give much of a fuck about Donbabwe and Luganda, now they hate and despise Russians as properly as most of the other nations of Central Europe - even the Russian speakers fight against Russian invasion and the doubts about their national identity have been removed, they're just Russian-speaking Ukrainians now. Hell, even if Russia wins militarily and conquers at least most of Ukraine (unlikely), there will always be nations supporting Ukrainian organizations in exile*, including armed ones, supporting the Ukrainian resistance inside the country etc. A century won't be enough to bridge the gap Russia has created with this invasion. 

*There are already civilian and military Belarusian organizations like this, with people believing they're something more than the inferior clones of Muscovites, meant to bow before the 'dear leader'. To suggest that it would be different with the Ukrainian ones would be naive.

Sorry, urbanoid, but it is dangerous to mistake wishes for facts.

Fact is that Ukraine is forcibly impressing people in the street to fight. I think that would not be needed if the Ukrainian people were as patriotic as you say.

Fact is that more or less wealthy military-age Ukrainian men are fleeing, or already flew, the country.

Donetsk and Luhansk people were withstanding a more or less continuous shelling of their homes, and schools since 2014. Some could have go to more peaceful areas, but there has not surfaced media of local authorities kidnapping people to sent them to the trenches.

I think those facts are independent of my thoughts on the matter.

Also, there is the current Amnesty International position on the Bucha thing. No Katyn, for sure.

 

 

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Posted
1 hour ago, sunday said:

Sorry, urbanoid, but it is dangerous to mistake wishes for facts.

Fact is that Ukraine is forcibly impressing people in the street to fight. I think that would not be needed if the Ukrainian people were as patriotic as you say.

Fact is that more or less wealthy military-age Ukrainian men are fleeing, or already flew, the country.

Donetsk and Luhansk people were withstanding a more or less continuous shelling of their homes, and schools since 2014. Some could have go to more peaceful areas, but there has not surfaced media of local authorities kidnapping people to sent them to the trenches.

I think those facts are independent of my thoughts on the matter.

Also, there is the current Amnesty International position on the Bucha thing. No Katyn, for sure.

 

 

Fact is Ukraine is forcibly impressing people to fight just like Russia does, just like... any country with conscription would do. In both Russia and Ukraine mobilisation is somewhat selective, even if for different reasons*. If Poland was attacked and in the long term war of survival there's a chance I would have been conscripted too, as legally the draft wasn't abolished, just suspended since 2009. And yes, if I protested it would have been done forcibly. If West Germany was attacked during the Cold War nobody would be asking the male citizens whether they want to fight either. Why blame Ukraine for the same thing?

Prigozhyn has already admitted what the Ukrainians have been saying for a long time - that both sides were shelling each other in the East for years. Judging by how relatively well Donetsk looks after '9 years of shelling', it was and is a rather small scale activity. Bakhmut and Mariupol looked far, far worse after incomparably shorter time.

Sure, Bucha was no Katyń, just a... senseless cruelty against civilians, without any purpose whatsoever.

You don't need a 'vast majority' of citizens to make a difference, sometimes even a well-motivated minority will do. Yes, there are people in Ukraine who don't give a fuck and would rather flee if possible - and as we have seen for many it is. The same thing happened in Russia after the partial mobilization was announced. Still... the reunification of Italy wasn't done by the majority, reinstatement of independent Poland wasn't done by the majority and those that had such plans were often ridiculed. Piłsudski once said that 'The Poles want independence, but would like that independence to cost two pennies (grosze) and two drops of blood. But the independence is something that is not just precious, but also very costly'. It's the common problem almost everywhere even today:

Mapa%203.png

In the past the attempts to create an independent Ukrainian state also weren't made by the majority (majority was passive) and in the end they were overwhelmed by a giant from the East. Ukrainian national identity has been strengthened since 2014, even further since 2022. While the victory isn't certain the odds of success are better for Ukraine now than they ever were in the past, both due to stronger sense of national identity than ever and the international support that they have now. Is a large share of the population still passive? Yes, both inside and outside Ukraine, but they won't be those that decide things, they'll just... conform to the reality created by those who are not, because that's a normal modus operandi for the passive ones.

*Ukrainian numerical superiority is often mentioned, but there was a moment during the war when they cancelled one round of draft - might be shortage of weapons, training facilities or maybe both. In case of Russia... it was supposed to be a short victorious war and a lot of soldiers who would have normally been instructors went into Ukraine on Feb 24. Or maybe there's also a grain of truth in what Roman is saying, that the government doesn't want to arm too many people, as the general population is far less 'liberal' than Putin&Co?

 

 

Posted (edited)

Sorry again, but if a decided minority is enough to decide the future of a country, where does that leave what the majority of the population wants? Well, probably, to be left alone, and proceed with their lives with the minor disturbance possible, but it is know one could not care about war, but war definitively cares about you.

For me, the best, utopian outcome of this kerfuffle is to have Poland, heading the Visegrad group, declare war on Russia, win the war, then do a 180º and go west to readjust Brussels attitudes. That seems extremely unlikely, however.

Edited by sunday
Posted

The majority is usually passive. There are Ukrainians thinking they deserve independence and yet unwilling to do shit. There are Russians thinking Ukraine should be Russian and yet unwilling to do shit.  If Poland was attacked, as much as I would love to state otherwise, there would be millions fleeing to the West and many of them would be the military aged males. Many of those not fleeing also wouldn't do their share, just like some Ukrainians don't. And yes, some of them would have parties. IMHO it doesn't mean that Poland would not deserve help.

The social reality in Central Europe is far different than in the Western one and at least some part of the population tries to keep it that way. Brussels doesn't have a very wide range of tools if the country is determined to do its thing anyway.

Posted
1 minute ago, urbanoid said:

Brussels doesn't have a very wide range of tools if the country is determined to do its thing anyway.

Perhaps you could consider Brussels as a, at the moment minor, menace to Poland's independence - we will see how Eurocrats react to a result of that next referendum that is against EU wishes.

Quite agree with the rest of your post.

Posted
14 hours ago, urbanoid said:

The other 'they' that stopped it have been mostly 'Russian Russians', from 'Russia proper'. 

Oh, "proper" word. 

Do you know what Ukraine proper was until USSR?

Clearly not.  Or posting falsehoods. Which is it? 

Posted
1 minute ago, Strannik said:

Oh, "proper" word. 

Do you know what Ukraine proper was until USSR?

Clearly not.  Or posting falsehoods. Which is it? 

A part of the Russian Empire which was, among other things, suppressing the national identity of the Ukrainians. Voltaire was writing in the 1700s how 'Ukraine wanted to be free'. There IS such thing a stateless nation, it doesn't mean that said nation doesn't exist, it means that the geopolitical reality prevented them from establishing a state.

Hell, part of Poland belonged to the Russian Empire, I don't really consider it 'Russia proper' either. Same for a lot of lands that either managed to break off from the 'prison of nations' or not. There was an unsuccessful Ukrainian attempt to establish an independent state after WW1, but it was crushed by the Red Army going 'to the walls of Paris and Berlin, over the corpse of the White Poland'.

Posted
56 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

A part of the Russian Empire

But was what that "proper" part?  Anyway useless as a weasel will weasel.

Posted (edited)
9 minutes ago, Strannik said:

But was what that "proper" part?  Anyway useless as a weasel will weasel.

Precisely? Can't tell, as it depends on the timeframe, but the national aspirations of the Ukrainians were a fact hundreds of years ago already. Over time the number of such people grew and the geographical range also did. The Belarusians are getting there also, albeit more slowly.

You can argue as much as you want with the people's feelings, that won't stop them from feeling as they do though. Or you can go to the war of conquest, seeking to restore the 'greatness' of the past, suppress the 'undesirable' national identities and do other 19th century larping in the name of 'The Great Cause' - because that's precisely what Russia's trying to do now. 

Edited by urbanoid
Posted
3 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

the national aspirations of the Ukrainians were a fact hundreds of years ago already

How many Ukrainians had those aspirations?

We had some crazy eccentrics that, about 150 years ago, felt there was a Catalan nation, but nobody cared much about them.

Still, after 40 years of more or less Nationalist regional government, with overpowering mass media, less than 50% of Catalans want independence.

So I am wary of that kind of "Nescafe instant nations".

Posted (edited)
36 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Or you can go to the war of conquest, seeking to restore the 'greatness' of the past, suppress the 'undesirable' national identities and do other 19th century larping in the name of 'The Great Cause' - because that's precisely what Russia's trying to do now. 

Propaganda points again.  

Putin never wanted THIS war - not going to rehash zillions of points (the "smart money" agrees to this, propagandists are pushing "restore the USSR/Empire" narrative)

But security situation was becoming untenable and Western "partners" were outright lying  and there was not a chance for a decent negotiated solution (for RU/"proper Russian parts" of UA) so this war happened.

And due to US determination to destroy RU (as an independent state) the war has been transformed in a catalyst of global order change (and the appropriate, however partial remedies of past mistakes). No longer against Ukraine, but the "collective West".

Dici abei.

Edited by Strannik
Posted
Just now, sunday said:

How many Ukrainians had those aspirations?

We had some crazy eccentrics that, about 150 years ago, felt there was a Catalan nation, but nobody cared much about them.

Still, after 40 years of more or less Nationalist regional government, with overpowering mass media, less than 50% of Catalans want independence.

So I am wary of that kind of "Nescafe instant nations".

Enough to have writers, poets and a separate language suppressed by the Russian Empire, obviously for 'The Great Cause'. 

Enough to have Voltaire claiming in the 1730s that 'Ukraine always wanted to be free'. Sure, free from the Poles as well at certain points, though this is no longer considered a problem for... well, obvious reasons. 

Enough to create several civilian (including the secret ones within the Russian Empire) and military organizations and at some point even states, the short-lived ones though. Example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_People's_Republic - with a military of ~100 thousand fighting for an independent Ukraine

The West Ukrainian Republic has been defeated by the reestablished Poland which took control of the disputed Western Ukraine, after that the UPR had allied itself with Poland against the Soviet Russia with the well known result. Had the result been different then, there would be an independent Ukraine speaking mostly Ukrainian and an independent Belarus speaking mostly Belarusian (also with the disputed Western part within Polish borders, as it happened. In Piłsudski's vision those states would have been in some confederation together with Poland, sort of a Commonwealth 2.0 but not quite - a confederation of independent nation-states that could hold Russia at bay, white or red one. Ukrainian national identity had been far stronger than the Belarusian one (still is), which made possible for Belarus to become the most 'sovietised' republic during USSR times. After independence Lukashenka initiated several 'russification' measures and agreed to the Union State, hoping he could become a president after Yeltsin, but then obviously Putin happened and Lukashenka is doing what he can to conserve at least his fiefdom.

To some extent the bolsheviks supported the separate (different, but still separate) Ukrainian identity in USSR for their own reasons. Russia somehow also was recognizing the Ukrainian identity, state and nation since the dissolution of the USSR until the current madness, when they decided they're rejecting the 'liberal order' and try go back to the 19th century, to 'Make Russia Great Again'.

To me it sounds nothing like Catalonia to be frank, but then again I know far less about history of Spain than the local one.

Posted (edited)
27 minutes ago, Strannik said:

Propaganda points again.  

Putin never wanted THIS war - not going to rehash zillions of points (the "smart money" agrees to this, propagandists are pushing "restore the USSR/Empire" narrative)

But security situation was becoming untenable and Western "partners" were outright lying  and there was not a chance for a decent negotiated solution (for RU/"proper Russian parts" of UA) so this war happened.

And due to US determination to destroy RU (as an independent state) the war has been transformed in a catalyst of global order change (and the appropriate, however partial remedies of past mistakes). No longer against Ukraine, but the "collective West".

Dici abei.

Russia itself in the internationally recognized borders was going to be safe, due to world's first or second nuclear arsenal, if other reasons don't persuade you. Sure, in the event of Ukraine going West, possibly followed by Belarus, Russia would mean jack shit politically in Europe other as a resource supplier and an outlet for Euro products - what a downfall of the 'great empire' considering itself to be 'equal to the US', eh? The great irony here is that even such Russia, without 'god-given' 'historical' spheres of influence, could still not only be safe, but also well-off due to selling the resources to the West and East alone, if it only curbed corruption. Your very own Russian 'garden'. :)

Russia isn't fighting against NATO threat, it's fighting against irrelevance. Living standards were always more or less shit, but at least the population could be told what a great empire they live in, the one that everyone 'respects' (fears actually, but to a Russian it's one and the same). And additionally different 'great causes', red or white, had to be invented for a 'nation with a mission'.

PS.  @MODERATOR please move part of the thread to an appropriate one

Edited by urbanoid
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, sunday said:

For me, the best, utopian outcome of this kerfuffle is to have Poland, heading the Visegrad group, declare war on Russia, win the war, then do a 180º and go west to readjust Brussels attitudes. That seems extremely unlikely, however.

Huh...that'd be an interesting conundrum. 

Edited by rmgill
Posted
1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

Russia itself in the internationally recognized borders was going to be safe

Perhaps, but as Poland can be "paranoid" about the possible expansionist foreign policy of Russia, and not without reason, then Russia also can be paranoid about the neocon-inspired foreign agenda, and ways, of the US State Department - you know, color revolutions, Victoria Nuland doing Nuland things, etc.

Russians could also be considering the Wilsonian menace of another round of demolition  of the Russian Empire as happened with the German and Austro-Hungarian empires. After all, the USSR territory was mostly the old Russian Empire without Finland, parts of Poland, etc., so the fall of the USSR was already a dismemberment of Russia.

Now, trying to convince them they have nothing to be afraid of the "West" could be as hard as trying to convince Poland they have nothing to be afraid of a Russia that just annexed Ukraine.

We have here, among other things, a problem of perceptions.

Posted
1 minute ago, sunday said:

Perhaps, but as Poland can be "paranoid" about the possible expansionist foreign policy of Russia, and not without reason, then Russia also can be paranoid about the neocon-inspired foreign agenda, and ways, of the US State Department - you know, color revolutions, Victoria Nuland doing Nuland things, etc.

Russians could also be considering the Wilsonian menace of another round of demolition  of the Russian Empire as happened with the German and Austro-Hungarian empires. After all, the USSR territory was mostly the old Russian Empire without Finland, parts of Poland, etc., so the fall of the USSR was already a dismemberment of Russia.

Now, trying to convince them they have nothing to be afraid of the "West" could be as hard as trying to convince Poland they have nothing to be afraid of a Russia that just annexed Ukraine.

We have here, among other things, a problem of perceptions.

Poland isn't a major nuclear power, that's one thing. And German and Austro-Hungarian empires ended where they should have, in the dustbin of history, replaced by the nation states. Russian Empire, 'the prison of nations', did in 1917, reemerged as USSR (imprisoning quite a lot of nations once again), then dissolved again, now there's an issue of recreating it to at least some extent. They didn't accept the 'new rules' in the 1990s because they were such sweethearts, they did it because they were too weak to challenge them and besides they were busy with grabbing as much of the national economy for themselves as they could. Now even the Central Asians are becoming wary, with Russian reminders to the Kazakhs that their state exists due to Russian 'goodwill' or sth. like that, it's not just the matter of Ukraine.  They apparently didn't get the memo this isn't how the things are done anymore. Or rather they got it, accepted it on the surface for some time and later changed their mind. 

Russia hidden behind its nukes doesn't have to expand territorially, it's a security argument of the past. If the color revolution was to happen, it can happen in either a bigger Russia or a smaller (current) Russia. Bigger Russia, with larger share of non/anti-Russian population, is actually more vulnerable to such threats, not less. In 1991 they got ~80% ethnic Russian state for the first time in ages, with a substantial variety of minorities, none of which were too numerous on their own - the largest being Ukrainians and Tatars, both in the range of ~5 million, otherwise no minority bigger than 2 million. Sounds like a good place to start learning NOT to be a 19th century style empire. They could actually make this ratio even better by creating a state with very good standards of living, lots of ethnic Russians from abroad would jump at the opportunity to move, no wars required. That would require to at least steal less though, a difficult task for the Russian elite.

They do it simply because they can, because they feel strong enough to do so now, unlike in the 1990s and early 2000s. They do not want not to be an empire, that's all they know. From here the signs were visible to many people even in the early 2000s, unfortunately those people were ridiculed.

Kukliński about Putin in 2004, three weeks before his death:

'I'm observing him, he already has some imperial inclinations. He's still weak, but with the Western help he will stand on his two legs and then he'll show them. Such is this West, it was feeding Stalin, it was feeding Hitler, now it's feeding Putin'.

Kaczyński in Georgia, 2008:

'Today Georgia, tomorrow Ukraine, the Baltic states the day after tomorrow, then maybe my country, Poland' - took just six years for the second part of the 'prophecy', 9 years for the another act of the same.

Even here people with experience in Russian affairs, often living there for many years, have been ridiculed when they warned about Putin in the 2000s, by the liberal media and those believing in 'the end of history'. For Western Europe there was too much money to be made in Russia to care too much about some 'paranoids' and 'russophobes' etc.

 

Posted
4 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Poland (...)

Opinions are opinions, facts are facts, and no man on Earth could know the intentions of his fellow humans.

Apart from that, seems we kind of agree, your admiration for Wilson excepted, but you told me you are grateful to him for making an independent Poland one of his famous points. We have an expression in Spanish, es de bien nacidos ser agradecidos, that could be translated as "persons brought up in a good family are appreciative", so you are no wrong in appreciate that Wilson contribution to Poland.

Posted

Yeah, no love for the ancien regime here, that's for sure. I consider the nation state to be a pinnacle of the political organization, international alliances (political, military, economic, whatever) are simply the cherry on top and not to be treated as nations (khem, khem, federalization projects of the EU, the existence of which I otherwise support, particularly due to free trade). 

Posted

The whole "Southern States as a Dominating Voting Block" was tried once.  The result was . . . messy.

Posted

I would be cautious at conflating average and mean on a Twixxer post, given the number of math-ers, stat-ers, etc on the web. But that's just me. 

 

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