Doubledee [comrade/them]

People who don’t want Russia to acquire resources and think they should be stopped from getting them by force are not pro-Russia. Graham ALSO wants them to fight, you are in complete agreement with him. Are you also a Ruzzian stooge?

I think one thing that’s getting lost in the discussion here is you keep talking about governments as if they are people. Ostensibly liberal states exist to protect human beings and their rights. At the point where “you” have to let “your” values slide in order to deal with “your” existential crisis we are talking about the governent as if it has feelings and its own aspirations that deserve to be treated with the same seriousness we theoretically want to apply to human welfare.

I feel very bad for Ukrainians, to be clear, I think they’ve been mistreated by the US who used them to try and get one over on an adversary in the knowledge that other people will be the ones dying if it goes poorly. That’s certainly very bad.

However you feel about the justice of the invasion, though, we’ve reached the point where even people who support the war and want Ukraine to win are defining winning as a negotiated settlement where they give up territory. If NATO is not willing to fight Russia directly (clearly they aren’t) and continuing the aid to the conflict is not even providing a reasonable way for Ukraine to retain its territory and even cheerleaders who are on the side of Ukraine’s government believe they will have to negotiate a settlement then WHY ARE WE NOT PUSHING THAT? More Ukrainians are being expected to die, against their will as you freely acknowledge, for no long term strategic purpose.

The death and destruction from this war is a human tragedy. It will be more tragic if it is prolonged for years only to end in the same way it could have within months.

Just in time for Blinken to go ask the Chinese to be nice and cooperative with us!

The only leaving he should be doing is LEAVING UKRAINE amirite?

Are you still of the opinion that Russia is slowly losing its position and is incapable of moving forward?

I like to think about the historical perspective. It’s not much consolation but systems like these can’t maintain themselves forever, cracks are showing and the US really is more vulnerable than people would like to admit.

Once things start changing there will likely be a lot of problems, things will probably get worse in some ways, but I think even if I don’t survive to see what people come up with in the aftermath of the US I can get satisfaction from seeing it burn.

When you read history you learn humans are very resilient, humans will not end when the empire does. Maybe the failure of this place will be good for the world.

I think there was a culture shock when federation first hit. We had a ton of ‘engagement’ from people who were using ableist, racist, and transphobic slurs, which brought out strong reactions from our community because we believe its important to shut that stuff down on solidarity with our comrades. And as things got heated I think our willingness to believe people wanted good faith debate eroded.

We do love a good dunking though, and I think overall the community has a lower threshold for going full pig poop balls on people than I would prefer.

"In their defense westerners love to share a meme about an Asian man being yellow. Maybe it’s not racist. "

Then why do it? You’re the only one in this whole thread with any issue, unless you can point to someone else who has had it. The most desperate form of deflection was using upvotes/downvotes as a point like populists always do.

But they aren’t the only person here with an issue. My comment wasn’t as confrontational but I also clearly raised a red flag at the question being asked and the reasons people start asking these kinds of questions. I also see what you’re doing. I just don’t want to spend the next week doing this thing you’re calling a debate.

Right, people miss this but its literally one of the basic ideas of capitalist production. Mom and Pop might be nice people but the market WILL destroy them if they don’t participate in the most cutthroat practices to stay competitive. Forces are at play that supercede the morality of any actor.

Because the two things aren’t actually the same and because of what it means in context to oppose a culture vs. a cult. You might oppose scientology in a variety of ways, they have a leader, buildings, staff, bank accounts, a documented history of infiltrating the government and harassing people, a curated list of members etc.

A cult may or may not have all of those but they’re a different kind of thing than a culture. Cultures are social categories that encompass a much wider range of human behaviors for one, they include things like sport and art and language. Festivals and practices and food and manners. They’re things a human can’t really help having even if you can choose to adopt parts and change others. Religion, which is a thing you seem to be conflating with culture, is just a part of culture. Egyptian Copts have Christianity like many Americans. They are also very different culturally.

But the bigger reason people should be very careful when people start criticizing culture is because we know what that means. What does one do about “cultural Bolshevism?”

What do conservatives actually want done about “Black culture?” What did bringing “culture” to the “savages” mean? How does someone stop being from a culture?

We know how those questions get answered. And that tells us something about why those questions might be asked in the first place.

I think that’s a slight exaggeration, although I get what you’re saying. But I think it’s important to demonstrate to libs that I’m being consistent so I’ll explain what I mean.

I don’t think the communal decision making bodies that spun up in the wake of the Japanese evacuation were necessarily completely aligned with Kim or the communists in exile, it was virtually impossible to maintain a functioning domestic apparatus and what I’ve read makes it seem like these were mostly improvisational.

That said, I think in the long run you’re right, I see it as similar to Vietnam later: because US foreign policy was aligned with elements that were naturally unpopular to the population of the country (in Korea’s case, the Japanese and domestic collaborators) a democratic resolution of the question of what sort of government a united Korea would chose for itself was not going to be an acceptable outcome to the US.

But we don’t know what they would organically choose for themselves because that decision was foreclosed by US occupation. I suspect a popular referendum was the best possible outcome but I think it would probably look very different from the current DPRK, for understandable reasons.

Yeah I don’t think they shouldn’t be allowed, but I also believe it would be a bad idea.

Yankees really lived through Afghanistan and Iraq and learned about Vietnam and still think they are being given accurate narratives of state enemies now. I had hoped by now we might see even the most rudimentary skepticism of US media but alas.

They were not though, neither the communists nor the Japanese collaborators believed the line was a legitimate or permanent division of the country. The plan was always reunification and no Korean party accepted the terms you’re talking about.

Ironically there was an independent government emerging in the wake of the collapse of Japan but the US occupation outlawed it when they came in.

I mean if you’re not positive that workers will reap the benefits of it it makes sense to resist. The poster is more specific: it says to fight the fallout of automation, less pay and more work for a smaller group of people. The Luddites are a joke to a lot of people these days but they correctly identified that automation was making their jobs worse and making everyone who did them more miserable.

Given how automation has impacted other communities in this country (take a trip through coal country some time) I think it’s wise to be skeptical. I’d love to live in a world where we don’t have to work because it’s all automated and I can go paint landscapes or whatever, but I don’t think that’s likely to happen.

What the fuck even is this question? Is it a joke I don’t understand?

Hell yeah!

Forreal your instance might be the one I’m most confused by, you’ve got like a 50/50 split of chill people who are okay with conversation and people who drop slurs and reply to any attempt at engagement in memes and gotcha one-liners.