Did Putin ban all his opposition parties like Zelensky did recently?
Seriously? After what happened to Alexei Navalny? Putin exclusively lets irrelevant parties which pose no threat to his regime stay to give a false sense of democracy to his people and the western world. Any party which poses a significant threat is immediately and aggressively silenced.
What Ukraine has done is bad, yes, and I can’t condone it, but it is somewhat mitigated due to the fact that it only happened now, during martial law, when weeding out traitors who might sell the nation out to Russia and offer classified information to the enemy is crucial to the war effort. I believe the same has happened in past wars. In fact, even today, communist symbols are banned to a similar extent as fascist ones in Germany, despite that country being in peace. If you want to complain about parties being silenced without a motive, you could start there.
Who is currently torturing and castrating POWs?
I can’t speak for what is happening during the war, after all, I am not there and information during wars is always unreliable, so I won’t comment further on that. There are allegations of war crimes from both sides and both are probably, at least partially, true. I still believe Ukraine has somewhat more of a “right” due to the fact that they are on their sovereign territory while Russia has invaded, but that is a whole other can of worms and irrespective of that, war crimes are still war crimes, if they are indeed happening.
Want to know how much % of SS Waffen was in Nazi Germany army?
Correct, except for one key detail: all of Nazi Germany’s army was fascist in nature, even the Wehrmacht, because Nazi Germany was, unsurprisingly, a fascist country. The SS were merely comprised of the most elite racial purists and had strict entrance requirements that not even so called “aryans” could easily meet. So most soldiers ended up in the Wehrmacht. Regardless, all of them were fascist in nature and fought for fascist ideals (even if individual soldiers might not have agreed with those sentiments, what they were fighting for was unequivocally fascist in nature).
By contrast, Ukraine as a country has a rather low percentage of fascism supporters when compared to the rest of Europe, as I mentioned, with some forces supporting those ideals (Azov Batallion), while the rest merely seek to liberate their country from a foreign aggressor. Aggression breeds nationalism and nationalism breeds fascists, so it is to be expected, even if extremely unfortunate, that these kinds of forces would get involved in the war.
Any party which poses a significant threat is immediately and aggressively silenced.
Do you think that party in power changing every few years and the whole democracy theater is a necessity for progress, just because a country must look good in media at all costs? What a lot of you have fallen for is called democracy theater, a concept quite foreign to people who think democracy with lack of safeguards and lots of lobbying is a great system and actually allows citizens to change anything.
I should add that I am from the world’s largest democracy, India. And it has gotten fairly corrupted, like literally every democracy on earth, to the point many “non democratic” countries look saner. Democracy label on paper and in media is not enough.
Go watch Century of The Self by Adam Curtis. 4 hours long, and it will teach you a lot of lessons for life.
Who is currently torturing and castrating POWs?
I can’t speak for what is happening during the war
If I told you that on record, Ukraine’s Head of military medical services said it on Ukraine 24, national TV channel? Is it unverifiable information, from the horse’s mouth?
Actual shooting happening, verified and deanonymised footage.
I think I already addressed the % of Nazis point. To add a little more, see what Patrick Lancaster showed in this video. It has gotten around quite a bit on the internet, WARNING GORE NSFWhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LQSYmda0Sc (Age restricted, need a YouTube account to watch it.)
Do you think that party in power changing every few years and the whole democracy theater is a necessity for progress, just because a country must look good in media at all costs? What a lot of you have fallen for is called democracy theater, a concept quite foreign to people who think democracy with lack of safeguards and lots of lobbying is a great system and actually allows citizens to change anything.
In my opinion, a flawed democracy is still a better system for its people than no democracy at all. If you can’t even share a contrarian opinion without being silenced, how can you hope to change anything? In Russia I wouldn’t even be allowed to be having this debate with you right now.
I care about “the self” and well-being more than lofty ideals for the most part, but even if you take lofty ideals into account, as soon as your ideals differ from those of the ruling party in a dictatorship, bad things happen to you. In a democracy, the worst that can happen is that your opinion is not heard or taken into account when making decisions for the country. And you’re always free to leave (granted, russians’ rights to leave their country are also limited thanks to foreign sanctions, so it’s not entirely the regime’s fault in that case, but you could argue that foreign sanctions are imposed due to the regime).
I should add that I am from the world’s largest democracy, India. And it has gotten fairly corrupted, like literally every democracy on earth, to the point many “non democratic” countries look saner. Democracy label on paper and in media is not enough.
I’m not entirely familiar on the Indian democracy, but it has come to my attention recently that it has been veering away from democracy in the latest years (to be fair, like nearly every country, we’re facing an authoritarianism epidemic due to democratic backsliding, the first of this century). That is not a symptom of democracy in and of itself but of a “disease” afflicting democratic countries all around the globe.
In my opinion, a flawed democracy is still a better system for its people than no democracy at all. If you can’t even share a contrarian opinion without being silenced, how can you hope to change anything? In Russia I wouldn’t even be allowed to be having this debate with you right now.
You just made an open, clear admission you do not understand what democracy or dissent or Russia is.
Democracy is a process, not a governance system. From what I have seen, it does not exist in right wing style systems, and exists best in a socialist system. Why can I say this? Because India has had a 130 year old liberal left party Congress, which has now become entirely irrelevant due to Hindutva fascist party BJP’s rise since 2014. A party that old, irrelevant with 7-8 years of doings. Liberalism lacks safeguards to protect democracy.
The fact that Russia’s ruble did not become a meme and has become stable within just 1 month of chaos, tells you that something in their system works. Maybe they are using nationalism with actual moral integrity and not how fascists use nationalism, I guess? China is XYZ buzzword in Western media, but the fact that their government works for their people and listens to their people more than anything that happens in India or USA, colossal “democracies”, tells the democracy is clearly a process that is supposed to be followed, and not a label or a system.
In short, democracy can be adopted and used both in socialist and liberal/centrist governance systems, since it is a feedback loop process involving citizens.
I care about “the self” and well-being more than lofty ideals for the most part,
Yeah, that is how not a democracy or collective wellbeing works.
I’m not entirely familiar on the Indian democracy, but it has come to my attention recently that it has been veering away from democracy in the latest years (to be fair, like nearly every country, we’re facing an authoritarianism epidemic due to democratic backsliding, the first of this century). That is not a symptom of democracy in and of itself but of a “disease” afflicting democratic countries all around the globe.
Overton window shifting to the right, you mean? It is a political science 101 concept, and what is happening would be very dishonest if explained by merely Overton window shift. It disregards the centuries of Western imperialist dictatorship and makes one think the world has been a neutral, happy place for centuries, which cannot be any further from the truth. It also disregards the morality of involved entities, and simplifies everything into “liberal good far rightie bad” utter brainrot.
Maybe they are using nationalism with actual moral integrity and not how fascists use nationalism
To me, nationalism is a strictly rightist (perhaps even borderline fascist concept). There’s no real proper way to use nationalism for the good of the people.
In short, democracy can be adopted and used both in socialist and liberal/centrist governance systems, since it is a feedback loop process involving citizens.
Which citizens, exactly, are involved in the process of the Russian government?
Yeah, that is how not a democracy or collective wellbeing works.
I just said what I personally believe in, not what would be strictly best for a nation. I then try and choose a regime that suits my personal beliefs best, which I can do in the west but I wouldn’t have been able to do had I been born in Russia or China or some other dictatorship (yes, also fascist ones such as the ones in Central America which were installed through US interference in the Cold War).
It disregards the centuries of Western imperialist dictatorship and makes one think the world has been a neutral, happy place for centuries, which cannot be any further from the truth.
I agree, but the west of today is not the west of a century ago. Not even a century ago, since we had the exact same overton window shift to the right in the 20s and 30s of the 20th century, with the rise of fascism/nazism. And then again with the Cold War, to a lesser extent in Europe but certainly present in other continents.
But you are right that history is ultimately cyclic and we seem to be doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. I just don’t think the right answer is to install a slightly different kind of dictatorship, just to oppose the status quo, per se.
I didn’t idolize him, I merely mentioned that him being banned from participating in russian politics and jailed is a contrapoint to you mentioning that Russia didn’t ban political parties like Ukraine did recently. Russia has been doing it for far longer and utilizing much more brutal methods to achieve its goals, such as assassinations and imprisonment.
EDIT: it wasn’t you who made that original argument but a different user, sorry for the direct call out, I misread the username.
A bunch of countries in Europe ban communist parties. Clearly banning parties is something is something that happens in “civilized” western democracies all the time.
Seriously? After what happened to Alexei Navalny? Putin exclusively lets irrelevant parties which pose no threat to his regime stay to give a false sense of democracy to his people and the western world. Any party which poses a significant threat is immediately and aggressively silenced.
What Ukraine has done is bad, yes, and I can’t condone it, but it is somewhat mitigated due to the fact that it only happened now, during martial law, when weeding out traitors who might sell the nation out to Russia and offer classified information to the enemy is crucial to the war effort. I believe the same has happened in past wars. In fact, even today, communist symbols are banned to a similar extent as fascist ones in Germany, despite that country being in peace. If you want to complain about parties being silenced without a motive, you could start there.
I can’t speak for what is happening during the war, after all, I am not there and information during wars is always unreliable, so I won’t comment further on that. There are allegations of war crimes from both sides and both are probably, at least partially, true. I still believe Ukraine has somewhat more of a “right” due to the fact that they are on their sovereign territory while Russia has invaded, but that is a whole other can of worms and irrespective of that, war crimes are still war crimes, if they are indeed happening.
Correct, except for one key detail: all of Nazi Germany’s army was fascist in nature, even the Wehrmacht, because Nazi Germany was, unsurprisingly, a fascist country. The SS were merely comprised of the most elite racial purists and had strict entrance requirements that not even so called “aryans” could easily meet. So most soldiers ended up in the Wehrmacht. Regardless, all of them were fascist in nature and fought for fascist ideals (even if individual soldiers might not have agreed with those sentiments, what they were fighting for was unequivocally fascist in nature).
By contrast, Ukraine as a country has a rather low percentage of fascism supporters when compared to the rest of Europe, as I mentioned, with some forces supporting those ideals (Azov Batallion), while the rest merely seek to liberate their country from a foreign aggressor. Aggression breeds nationalism and nationalism breeds fascists, so it is to be expected, even if extremely unfortunate, that these kinds of forces would get involved in the war.
Do you think that party in power changing every few years and the whole democracy theater is a necessity for progress, just because a country must look good in media at all costs? What a lot of you have fallen for is called democracy theater, a concept quite foreign to people who think democracy with lack of safeguards and lots of lobbying is a great system and actually allows citizens to change anything.
I should add that I am from the world’s largest democracy, India. And it has gotten fairly corrupted, like literally every democracy on earth, to the point many “non democratic” countries look saner. Democracy label on paper and in media is not enough.
Go watch Century of The Self by Adam Curtis. 4 hours long, and it will teach you a lot of lessons for life.
If I told you that on record, Ukraine’s Head of military medical services said it on Ukraine 24, national TV channel? Is it unverifiable information, from the horse’s mouth?
Actual shooting happening, verified and deanonymised footage.
WARNING GORE NSFW https://t.me/rustroyka1945/595 and https://t.me/rustroyka1945/597
I think I already addressed the % of Nazis point. To add a little more, see what Patrick Lancaster showed in this video. It has gotten around quite a bit on the internet, WARNING GORE NSFW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LQSYmda0Sc (Age restricted, need a YouTube account to watch it.)
In my opinion, a flawed democracy is still a better system for its people than no democracy at all. If you can’t even share a contrarian opinion without being silenced, how can you hope to change anything? In Russia I wouldn’t even be allowed to be having this debate with you right now.
I care about “the self” and well-being more than lofty ideals for the most part, but even if you take lofty ideals into account, as soon as your ideals differ from those of the ruling party in a dictatorship, bad things happen to you. In a democracy, the worst that can happen is that your opinion is not heard or taken into account when making decisions for the country. And you’re always free to leave (granted, russians’ rights to leave their country are also limited thanks to foreign sanctions, so it’s not entirely the regime’s fault in that case, but you could argue that foreign sanctions are imposed due to the regime).
I’m not entirely familiar on the Indian democracy, but it has come to my attention recently that it has been veering away from democracy in the latest years (to be fair, like nearly every country, we’re facing an authoritarianism epidemic due to democratic backsliding, the first of this century). That is not a symptom of democracy in and of itself but of a “disease” afflicting democratic countries all around the globe.
You just made an open, clear admission you do not understand what democracy or dissent or Russia is.
Democracy is a process, not a governance system. From what I have seen, it does not exist in right wing style systems, and exists best in a socialist system. Why can I say this? Because India has had a 130 year old liberal left party Congress, which has now become entirely irrelevant due to Hindutva fascist party BJP’s rise since 2014. A party that old, irrelevant with 7-8 years of doings. Liberalism lacks safeguards to protect democracy.
The fact that Russia’s ruble did not become a meme and has become stable within just 1 month of chaos, tells you that something in their system works. Maybe they are using nationalism with actual moral integrity and not how fascists use nationalism, I guess? China is XYZ buzzword in Western media, but the fact that their government works for their people and listens to their people more than anything that happens in India or USA, colossal “democracies”, tells the democracy is clearly a process that is supposed to be followed, and not a label or a system.
In short, democracy can be adopted and used both in socialist and liberal/centrist governance systems, since it is a feedback loop process involving citizens.
Yeah, that is how not a democracy or collective wellbeing works.
Overton window shifting to the right, you mean? It is a political science 101 concept, and what is happening would be very dishonest if explained by merely Overton window shift. It disregards the centuries of Western imperialist dictatorship and makes one think the world has been a neutral, happy place for centuries, which cannot be any further from the truth. It also disregards the morality of involved entities, and simplifies everything into “liberal good far rightie bad” utter brainrot.
To me, nationalism is a strictly rightist (perhaps even borderline fascist concept). There’s no real proper way to use nationalism for the good of the people.
Which citizens, exactly, are involved in the process of the Russian government?
I just said what I personally believe in, not what would be strictly best for a nation. I then try and choose a regime that suits my personal beliefs best, which I can do in the west but I wouldn’t have been able to do had I been born in Russia or China or some other dictatorship (yes, also fascist ones such as the ones in Central America which were installed through US interference in the Cold War).
I agree, but the west of today is not the west of a century ago. Not even a century ago, since we had the exact same overton window shift to the right in the 20s and 30s of the 20th century, with the rise of fascism/nazism. And then again with the Cold War, to a lesser extent in Europe but certainly present in other continents.
But you are right that history is ultimately cyclic and we seem to be doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. I just don’t think the right answer is to install a slightly different kind of dictatorship, just to oppose the status quo, per se.
Really telling that westerners idolize Navalny, I guess it’s the shared values https://archive.org/details/VideoAlexeiNavalnyComparesMuslimsToCockroaches
I didn’t idolize him, I merely mentioned that him being banned from participating in russian politics and jailed is a contrapoint to you mentioning that Russia didn’t ban political parties like Ukraine did recently. Russia has been doing it for far longer and utilizing much more brutal methods to achieve its goals, such as assassinations and imprisonment.
EDIT: it wasn’t you who made that original argument but a different user, sorry for the direct call out, I misread the username.
A bunch of countries in Europe ban communist parties. Clearly banning parties is something is something that happens in “civilized” western democracies all the time.
I did mention Germany’s case as a more aberrant violation of the freedom of political association for that exact reason.
Can add Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and a bunch of other countries there as well.
south korea too