If you’re in the majority, you have the votes to be able to accomplish something with reform. It’s not like we live in a monarchy, reform is possible under our system.

In several countries we actually saw this happen: Sukarno in Indonesia, Allende in Chile, Lumumba in DRC, etc.

What happens is, under our system, the United States will come and fucking kill you for daring to attempt things like land reforms and then install a dictatorship to commit mass torture and murder and worse.

So maybe, after the hegemon collapses, it might actually be possible to reform our way to communism. Unfortunately under our system the empire exists and it is hungry.

Do you think you’re blameless? Do you think you’re innocent?

Trump is a paper tiger, he was defeated by Ansar Allah in Yemen and China just defeated his stupid trade war.

Now you’re moving the goal posts.

The fact is that she literally can’t be held responsible for this, she isn’t the queen of her district. That’s not how government works.

This is stupid. Blocked.

I’m that guy crawling on the ground that kinda looks like it’s dancing if you stand it up on its feet.

Removing Corbyn was a Zionist coup.

We don’t have a generation or two left.

People can choose to give up meat now or they’ll give up meat later when no one can afford it anymore. I won’t need to force them to become vegetarian, the economic conditions will do it for me. I’ll just be ready before everyone else.

Rationing. No store is allowed to sell more than X amount of meat to any individual.

It’d create black markets and such, but the overall consumption would still go down.

And who is forcing workers to be in close contact with animals? 🙄

You could add Egypt, Syria, etc.

You can’t, though, because that means splitting up families and communities and scattering them across several countries and continents. Plus, even if they were split up, those countries would still struggle to provide them with jobs and housing, they’d still be reliant on humanitarian assistance and be relegated to an underclass of permanent refugees.

This is still very clearly distinct from Russia, where no one would need to be separated because they’d all be in the same country. It really isn’t the same situation.

you keep ignoring the base issue here in favour of liberal “nonviolence” and pacifism which ends up actually feeding the nazis.

Please don’t put words into my mouth, I am not a liberal passivist.

What I think is that fewer people, overall, would have died or been injured or lost family or endured economic hardship by being resettled. I think avoiding war is good, not because violence is inherently bad, but because it has lead to more suffering for people who don’t deserve it. Russia could have absorbed everyone into its economy, they’d have had jobs and housing and all the necessities of modern life. I just think they’d have been better off by giving up the land to move farther East than staying to fight.

Make no mistake, I try to respect their decision to stay and fight for their land. I just can’t understand it. Land just seems unimportant to me when there are other options (which is distinct from the Palestinians, for the reasons I explained). I am a postmodern subject that has been so thoroughly alienated from land that I can’t even imagine caring about it.

But this doesn’t come from some obsession with nonviolence or passivism. I still critically support Russia in their struggle against US/NATO imperialism, after all.

It’s a moot point anyway, because it looks like the invasion is paying off. This is why I’m not in charge of anything.

The article lied. She can’t control police budgets. That’s completely outside of her power.

Again, Russia taken in literal millions of people running from economic and later military violence by UA government. Also it’s very similar argument as “why they couldn’t just resettle Palestinians to Jordan”.

The clear distinction here is that Russia could resettle literally everyone, whereas Jordan absolutely couldn’t. If the Palestinians were displaced into Jordan they’d be an impoverished refugee class, separated from friends and family, no employment prospects, and be totally reliant on humanitarian aid. I think Russia actually could handle the resettlement without the same material limitations.

It would come at the cost of being dispossessed from their land, but they’d be alive and healthy and their families would be whole.

Resettlement seems worth it, to me. But ultimately you raise the most important point with:

People of Donbass clearly decided their selfdetermination in 2014 (same as Crimea). Donbass also got a long history of not wanting to be in Ukraine, Lenin in one of his biggest L’s just told them to shut up and suck it up, Stalin did the same in 30’s (with more reason though), and same was in 1991 and 2014. They simply don’t want to be Ukrainian and have over a century of consistent history of it.

The people have decided they’d rather face death and dismemberment and loss of their families than be dispossessed of their land. I fundamentally don’t understand that, but I can try to respect it. Personally I don’t think it was worth it and I wish they had chosen differently because I think fewer people would have died, but this is what they chose and I have no choice but to support it.

Besides, it looks like Russia actually did make the best strategic choice. They might just win this thing.

If we compare it to the trade war with China, the US only kept it up for a few weeks and backed down. There are material realities that force the US to bend, it actually can’t just do whatever it wants. So, if there was an international flotilla sent to Cuba to deliver much needed supplies, the US would retaliate at first and then back down when it realized the entire world was against it.

This is no different from the faux-humanitarian proposals to “relocate” Palestinians from Gaza, i.e. aid “Israel” in their genocidal ethnic cleansing project.

There’s a pretty clear distinction here in that Palestinians have no where to actually go. None of the proposed countries could actually handle this level of mass migration. They’d just become a permanent impoverished refugee population and left homeless, jobless, separated from friends and family, and totally reliant on humanitarian aid.

I think Russia actually could absorb the relocated people into their economy. In fact, as you point out, they already have! But it could have been done without the war, even if it was done at the cost of people losing their land. The war certainly doesn’t make it easier to handle the population influx.

Therein lies the problem and why you can’t see that Russia had no choice. Most people are intrinsically tied to their land, it is their home, it is part of who they are.

Yeah I can’t imagine it and it’s an ideological block that makes me unable to really get it.

I think being alive and healthy and keeping families whole is much more important than land. I don’t get it and I don’t think I can, I’m so alienated from land that the idea of dying for it when there’s other options makes zero sense to me.

In the end it looks like Russia made the strategic choice and is going to win this war, but it came at a terrible cost.

“Basic quantity” doing a lot of work here.

In famine people need extra provisions to recover or they will remain in famine. So, if they’re just allowing the usual trickle, people will continue to die.

Which is probably the point.

Would it really take a navy?

If all these countries started sending joint floatillas to Cuba loaded with supplies, what would the US actually do? Blow them up? Seize them and arrest the crew?

I kinda doubt it. Maybe if Mexico did it by themselves or something they’d try, but all its allies at the same time? Would the US destroy itself just to enforce this embargo?

i.e. interrupt the most engaging moments and completely ruin the experience

It’s like they’re trying to get people to stop using their service.

Podcasts have changed everything for me - mindless chores are now an opportunity to keep my hands busy and listen to something.

Yeah, you have a point. Maybe Europeans would have supported Ukraine even if they attacked first, just because they wouldn’t have deployed Israeli-level depravity. Israel might just represent the limits of media’s ability to manufacture consent.

This has nothing to do with any “dislike” I might have for Russia. My understanding is that Russia has been heavily shaped by the Western-orchestrated collapse of the USSR and the ongoing isolation of Russia to keep it on the periphery; there’s very little I can hold against their government without taking that context into account.

Furthermore, this doesn’t effect the critical support I have for Russia in the war. Defeating the US/NATO bloc is a good thing, even if I disagree that starting a war was the best way to defend Russia or to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine.

I just wonder if there was an alternative: give humanitarian refugee status to ethnic Russians and rescue them peacefully for resettlement in Crimea (which is one piece of Ukrainian territory that I understand Russia needed to take in order to defend itself from the rest of Ukraine, and which it took bloodlessly), and then defensively prepare for any aggression.

But this probably comes from ideological priors - I don’t understand the connection people have with their land. It’s something I’ve never had. I’m probably trivializing the trauma of moving people around to keep them safe and improve their economic conditions, but I think fewer people would have died or been maimed by becoming Russian citizens proper and defensively preparing for Ukrainian aggression. Even if that came at the cost of dispossession.