The leader of the opposition was already in house arrest.
Damn, Lemmy.ml upvoting Paul Joseph Watson? Horseshoe theory must be real. I used to watch that guy when I was pro-Trump and rightwing
Paul Joseph Watson
Something doesn’t become wrong or disproven when it is said by someone I don’t like.
I never knew the name for it, but I always thought that if you go far enough in either direction you end up at the same place
Uhg… No.
deleted by creator
I know as far as the ideals or political thought far left and far right are different. I guess I am thinking more in line that people on either extreme can become radicalized and land on “the ends justify the means.” So while the far left may say oppression is bad, if they become radicalized they may end up doing oppressive things to those that are not of the same political thought. If someone on the far right is radicalized and already believed in oppression then they just go full force on it. Just a thought.
deleted by creator
Something Something “Russia is an evil authoritarian regime and is destroying poor democratic Ukraine!”
Russia is literally attacking Ukraine.
the ability to live peacefully, without being invaded shouldn’t be contingent on presence or absence of democracy either way 🤷♀️
When did I say they don’t deserve the ability to live peacefully? I’m simply calling out the liberal narrative that one is definitely authoritarian and the other is definitely a democracy, and that this is a case of an authoritarian government specifically trying to destroy a democracy. Ukraine is hardly a democracy, contrary to popular belief.
ah, i see what you mean
my reply comment wasn’t meant to run counter to your comment, rather, i meant to express that the the entire narrative of “attack on X is worse bc they’re democratic” or “attack on Y is more justified bc they’re less democratic” is absurd and cruel
That’s precisely the situation Ukraine was in before the west decided they needed a color revolution and a government full of nazis.
edit: it’s amazing how you can state plain facts and get downvoted. Before the war propaganda campaign started, western media has been openly reporting this. Here are just a few sources:
- https://web.archive.org/web/20220329174945/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtOx6dW_0vU
- https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/
- https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/19/ukraine-russia-nato-crisis-liberal-illusions/
- https://jacobinmag.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia-nato-crimea
- https://www.internationalmagz.com/articles/conversation-with-dmitri-kovalevich
Did lemmy get full of fucking libs or what?
Western propaganda on Ukraine has been intense, and a lot of people are still parroting it.
Not to say that Russian propaganda is very much alive and repeated as well all the time.
Imagine thinking that Russian propaganda even remotely comparable impact to domestic propaganda on opinions held by westerners. Just really wild stuff here.
didn’t the far right parties get virtually no seats at the recent parliamentary elections in 2019 and overall are a small minority that doesn’t hold any power over the country?
also, even if this weren’t the case, i fail to see how an invasion and destruction of livelihoods of millions would do anything about it, besides probably stirring up more nationalistic movements 🤷♀️
The far right oligarchs who are working directly with US have been in control of the government. Meanwhile, you should take a look at the territories that are controlled by LPR and DPR right now, people aren’t exactly upset about it. You can see some interviews here. Ukraine has been in a civil war since the coup in 2014, the extremists US put in power have done things like banning the use of Russian language. This hasn’t played well with a huge Russian speaking population in the east.
People in the west don’t seem to actually understand much about Ukraine and treat it as some homogeneous blob as opposed to a large and culturally diverse country that it actually is.
Ukraine has been in a civil war since the coup in 2014, the extremists US put in power have done things like banning the use of Russian language. This hasn’t played well with a huge Russian speaking population in the east.
Isn’t it the other way around in the donbass region, since ~2014?
People of Donbas decided to separate from Ukraine after 2014 coup, and that’s why there’s been an ongoing conflict this whole time.
“full of nazis” is not a fact you can just state as the truth. You always conveniently forget the nuance’s when talking about “facts” which do fit your view.
I love how whitewashing nazis has become the favorite pass time for westerners now.
I am not whitewashing nazis and I’m very much aware that nazis and other nationalists took part of the color revolution, which is a sad reality.
I just really don’t like your absolute claims which in subtext say that the color revolution was led by, and the resulting government is full of nazis and additionally say that this is a fact! AFAIK this is just not true.
I didn’t make any absolute claims. I said that the government the west installed after the coup was full of nazis which is a fact. These nazis then went on to do these kinds of things to the people in eastern Ukraine which is what started the whole civil war. Seems like the real problem here is with you not actually knowing much about the subject you’re debating.
I didn’t make any absolute claims. I said that the government the west installed after the coup was full of nazis which is a fact.
…
Ukraine is the West, and it decided for itself. You really think Ukrainians are so stupid to prefer Russia over its own welfare?
Ukraine’s welfare was far better before the 2014 coup. You also seem to be homogenizing the whole nation, which shows an incredibly superficial understanding. Why do you think there was a civil war for the past 8 years exactly?
Ukraine’s welfare was far better before the 2014 coup.
could you provide some statistics to support that? (legitimately curious, i made a very brief search, but was unable to find anything)
Gee I wonder why. What could possibly have been hurting Ukraine’s welfare after 2014? Hmm, oh I wonder. Hmm let me think. Hmmmmm
Yeah you do that.
There are around 40 million people in Ukraine and I doubt they are all of one opinion.
Oh you’re right I bet at least half of them really want a foreign country controlling their government and a corrupt state that is not responsible to the people it governs. Really I bet the loved Russian troops bombing and shooting them. Like who knows what they even think, right?
Ukrainians in the separatist regions were already being shot at for years. By their own government!
Really who started those battles I wonder? Hmm, idk…
So you in favor of Russia making Ukraine and NATO to fuck off
depends on what you mean by “fuck off”, it’s pretty vague 🤷♀️
Oh, yeah, so vague that you need to wilfully ignore context lmao
i just find it more helpful to communicate in concrete terms because it leaves fewer room for ambiguity and misunderstanding
in this context “fuck off” could mean a million different things: a direct conflict, an information campaign seeking to inform people about the negative aspects of [something] or discredit, or economic sanctions, or closer cooperation with the aim of trying to contain military action via diplomacy et cetera
Basically, willfully ignoring context.
i feel like you’d be able to type out what you meant by that several times already in the time it took us to type out this back-and-forth, i’m legitimately unsure what you meant by that
the only good reason i can imagine why one wouldn’t want to do that is because nato opposition in certain circles exists as a vague and nebulous pent-up hostility without any sort of concrete and detailed plan to combat it, which would provide a concrete framework upon which one would be able to act, and in the absence of which anything ones says can’t be criticised because it’s so vague and inconcrete…
i may be wrong though 🤷♀️
deleted by creator
Merkel was also German chancellor for 16 years. Long terms do not mean less democracy and Putin is undoubtly very popular in Russia.
Eh, I’m not so much for long reins in such roles as the president, chancellor, or PM. It’s too easy for someone to build up power around themselves, creating a quasi dictatorship. It can also leave a power vacuum whenever they go. Like with Putin, there are serious questions on what happens once he’s out of power. With a democracy that has regular turnover of the executive, everything just keeps humming along more or less the same because those mechanisms are regularly exercised. Of course there are some exceptions (fuck you Trump), but for the most part things go much smoother.
Like all set-ups, there’s obvious pros and cons. Like you said, short terms normalize change so it’s more difficult to consolidate power against an opposition (not that they don’t try! See long-term examples in USA like gerrymandering and voter suppression). It also theoretically allows the peoples of a democracy to re-establish their choice of leadership more often in response to major changes, like a war or global pandemic. If you realize a mistake was made, like voting in a naive TV celebrity, then you have a reasonable guarantee that the state population can vote to remove them in a few years without needing a violent revolution. Obviously that’s great, and something many people living under malevolent dictatorships would literally die for.
A big downside is that it creates instability and disincentivizes long-term planning. Many necessary changes take longer than 3-5 years to make, and many nations have a two-party dominant system (usually characterized as a dichotomy of conservative/progressive) where one party is in power for 4-8 years before the other takes power and undoes many of those changes and cancels their projects. Rinse and repeat. As an extreme example, you can see many people pointing to non-democratic nations as being efficient at making infrastructural and social change, China being a popular example for a long time. They can comfortably make 5 year plans because they’re still likely to be there in 10 or 20. Shanghai venture capitalist Eric Li hints at this: “I make the joke: in America you can change political parties, but you can’t change the policies. In China you cannot change the party, but you can change policies.” If you don’t like the main party’s basic world-view, you have no choice! That’s horrifying in itself. But if you do, there’s more capacity for major change than in the tug-of-war in a short-term western democracy.
It used to be a lot worse in the US, with much of the government changing every few years. The introduction of the civil service brought a measure of stability, where political appointees ultimately are responsible for carrying out the vision of the president but the actual work is carried out by career employees that are often with agencies for decades. The establishment of similar institutions is a goal in less established governments to dial down the stakes on elections. It’s not uncommon to have governments where employment is tied to party, tribe, or ethnicity. Not only is merit a secondary concern so the government is run by ill suited employees, but each election is a high stakes battle for the employment status of a good chunk of the population. A healthy civil service sidesteps all of this.
That’s not how democracy is defined in any theory I’m aware of. Especially since one of the regime changes occurred due to a coup in 2014.
I don’t disagree that Ukraine, up until this recent development, had a system that is democratic in a similar way to western nations we label as democracies, but the logic you used is nonsense. Bullshit is bullshit
The populatiion of Ukraine is constantly and significally (comparing to other countries in the region) declining over the last 20y. Ppl are running out of the region, and don’t see future here.
when you totally understand what democracy is
Does anyone have a link to the original Facebook post the article leads with? I have been looking, but also don’t know Ukrainian so I wouldn’t know if I missed it on non-English posts.
Ah yes, the supposed final bastion of western liberal democratic values and civilization, making all political opposition illegal. At least they’re up front about it, other countries do it more quietly in the background.
I would have to know why they did it, but if the party they banned is supporting Russian control of Ukraine while Russia is invading Ukraine and a war is actively going on, then yes obviously you have to fight not only the invaders but also anyone who helps them. Whether or not this is the real reason for the ban I don’t know, because I don’t know the details.
Those on here complaining about democracy, NATO, etc., should remember that Ukraine comes first above all else. When Ukraine itself is at stake, democracy or no democracy doesn’t matter anymore.
Highly biased source, but it explains why: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-bans-medvedchuk-party/31906479.html
LMAO imagine linking to a CIA propaganda outlet completely unironically 😂
I would really like to see NATO clarify that they don’t want to be supporting Zelenskyy if he’s just going to turn Ukraine into a dictatorship. I get wanting to present a united front, but there’s a difference between a united front and suppressing all disagreement. Ukraine will hopefully in the future reunite including the Donbass and Crimea, but that will need a strongly pluralistic government. This is not encouraging.
Dictatorships are precisely what NATO builds around the world because they’re much more pliable than democracies.
Nah, Donbass and Crimea are good out of Ukraine.
