Does that address the question? It’s a fair question but I feel like you’re assuming similarity that isn’t there, between my POV and the State Department’s POV.
That's fair, I could stand to be a little more charitable on that front.
I don’t have a clear position on Kosovo or Chechnya just because I don’t know that much about them, but the massive contradiction between how Russia reacted in Chechnya versus Donbas is one example of why I don’t take their narrative on anything seriously at all.
For me it helps to put some of these things in a sequence of events. First the US/EU actually supported the Russian response in Chechnya, I think it was Bill Clinton made an analogy to the US civil war, especially after all the terrorist attacks it wasn't totally out of place. The warcrimes, high civilian death toll and brutal crackdowns after didn't really cause that sympathy to last long after. I don't recall that there were even any sanctions.
Kosovo came roughly after that, and the US supporting the separatist movement is what I was referencing as that was the break from what was 'normal' for separatist regions. That's not to say that people in separatist regions shouldn't be able to express themselves, but that it wasn't the standard for how world leaders treated breakaway regions until then. Now that new standard (set by the US) has been followed by Russian in Ukraine.
I don’t think Moscow intervening in Donbas had anything at all to do with free people’s self-determination. Like I said, I get it if someone from there feels like they’re badly represented in Kyiv, but having automatic weapons flow in from outside so that they won’t have to honor the government that won their country’s election
I'm sure on some level it's more a pretext than a principled stance on separatism by Russia, but also it reflects an earnest sentiment from people in eastern Ukraine.
by their own complicity in the massacre
Absolutely wrong. This is where I think you didn’t read the report carefully enough.
I did quote the official report for them in that response, in fact I only referenced so as not to include the editorializing.
and a bunch of people on all sides died including because of failures by local authorities (which caused understandable upset which was then compounded by failures of the Ukraine government during the investigation).
This is what I meant by complicity- failing to be transparent and diligent in investigating something serious, like murders, can look like you're favoring one side. This reminds me of people in the US being mad at cops when they kill people, not because people think all cops are conspiring to kill black people (or whoever), but there's a sentiment that they will turn a blind eye and protect cops who misbehave.
Also as not a total aside as a trans russian, but to give you an analogy for the understanding that state powers will instrumentalize any struggle, national or otherwise, for geopolitical ends. Take same sex marriage-only 14% of Ukrainians support legalizing it. In Russia, it's 9%. Both places are queerphobic as fuck, to a much greater extend than even the worst red states in the US, Russia is mostly just more mask-off about it than Ukraine.
Despite that you would see Azov routinely attacked gay bars, there have been amnesty international reports about this since 2014 when the west started integrating the more fascist UA elements to their ends. That pride parades can only happen in Kiev when it is walled off from the frothing, fascist mob is in part NATO's fault. That assaults on queer people by azov are practically never persecuted, that is at least partially due to their patronage from the west. Once the war started it was full steam painting Ukraine as pro-lgbt while they were pressing trans women fleeing the fighting into service because they were "men."
That is not to excuse the ridiculous amount of anti-queer sentiment in Russia. The hunting down of queer people under Ramzan Kadyrov in the Russian province of Chechnya was probably the worst act of homophobic violence since many decades, we're talking about thousands of people getting murdered by government death squads who spied on them on dating sites. After the murders, Kadyrov joked in front of the international press why they were asking about a persecution of gay people, "there are no gay people in Chechnya."
Like that shit was appalling and largely absent from western discourse before the war.
hey they made an aid pier that got used to distribute a tiny amount of supplies before it got used to launch an Israeli massacre and then broke apart under its own weight
you wish your eyebrows/eyeliner looked half as good
agreed, plus as it stands they're actually somewhat on track for the "Russian disinformation" leaked 100 day peace plan
no worries, sleep deprivation can be quite taxing
Sounds like you have no reason to be defensive. Here's some posts of yours if you wanted to edit the binary pronouns used for cis people to be they/them to be more consistent though.
https://lemmy.world/comment/16503438 https://lemmy.world/comment/16496354 https://lemmy.world/comment/16494651 https://lemmy.world/comment/16493799 https://lemmy.world/comment/16493764 https://lemmy.world/comment/16450566 https://lemmy.world/comment/16450226 https://lemmy.world/comment/16332934
And figuring out their preferred pronouns isn’t always easy.
usually the pronouns are listed somewhere or you ask
This isn’t as simple as a lot of people want it to be. Going neutral isn’t a slight. It’s not misgendering. It’s a way to avoid accidentally making an error even with the best of intentions.
There's a reason many trans spaces in Lemmy require listed pronouns, it removes the guesswork and you can reference inline.
If you're using gendered pronouns for most cis people but then specifically degendering trans people it's going to eventually rub people the wrong way. People aren't going to care if you make an error while being well intentioned, especially if you ask for more information and correct yourself going forward.
Point is that avoiding gendering text has been and will continue to be the safer option for general purpose writing.
I do the same, but if someone's gender is known it's really not hard to use one of their preferred pronouns.
I don't think that's being the 'thought police' and it's certainly not something to focus on instead of hate speech, we can do both.
I don’t think anyone on Hexbear has any right to request that someone not be “overly antagonistic” when they speak to them. For obvious reasons. The whole framing reeks of privilege and dishonesty, of creating rules for other people without any pretense that you’re planning to follow them yourself.
My suggestion was more from the direction of if you hope to be getting something from the conversation other than generating adrenaline, (I know I'm not always the best example of this) maybe you shouldn't be so antagonistic. The path you took resulting in a few back and forths, then you obliquely accused someone of being Russian and got banned. I don't think that trying to tie that in to a broader echo chamber narrative tracks from that either. The internet is full of places where people seek out others with similar politics, it seems like a simpler explanation for their ideological uniformity.
From what I could tell it was only two top level comments in 4 hours from hexbear, Sasuke's comment was entirely innocuous when it comes to the Ukraine war and you replied to it by soapboxing about hexbear broadly. I don't think that type of reaction really serves your own goals, it just makes you look like you're overreacting out of nowhere.
I have no idea if that person actually thinks that Putin will honor a cease-fire, whether randomly unilaterally announced or not. It is clear to me that he will not. Actually, you seemed to acknowledge that they know he won’t (saying that all of these cease-fires tend to fall apart and not be honored). There are plenty of cease-fires that get honored, definitely plenty that aren’t broken on a huge scale right away on purpose.
I don't think any of us can really know what's in Putins head, there's tons of other factors besides that which also will contribute to if a ceasefire holds. ie, how much control do both armies have over the individuals, are there miscommunications, do people continue to restrain themselves in spite of the violations, etc, them I don't think it's all down to one person if the ceasefire succeeds or fails.
And, someone on Lemmy saying the answer to that all is to stop arming Ukraine so they can’t fight back anymore. I think it’s disgusting, and I don’t think I’m required to be nice when explaining why.
I've also known many people from Ukraine over the years, you will forgive me if I don't give too many personal details, I don't think me supplying my own anecdotes would help anyways. You seem to feel very strongly about your position and don't seem very curious about why people might disagree.
There are two narratives about shelling in Donbas:
That Ukraine’s Nazi government was randomly shelling civilians in Donbas and Russia tried their best through good means to put a stop to it, and eventually, they had no choice but to invade.
That Moscow funded separatists to start a mini-civil-war in Donbas and then blamed the resulting death on an imaginary Nazi government in Kyiv.
I'm inclined to say somewhere in between, take for example the Donbass self defense forces, some of those were definitely Russian military and some of those were absolutely locals. Either way, they could not have survived without Russian military aid. However to say people are 'moscow funded' the equivalent is also true- the Ukraine government is US funded. Ukraines media is US funded.
Uncritically saying that Moscow’s narrative is definitely true is jingoistic. And actually, dealing with people who disagree by simply shouting them down in a pack is more or less a key component of jingoism to me.
I would say that if someone who's Russian was behaving in support of Russia the way I've seen a lot of pro-Ukraine lemmy users behave I would probably be more inclined to call it as jingoistic. Not to be edgy or anything, but I've been in my share of Russian telegram groups, I've been to family gatherings, I have run into my share of Russian jingoism. As near as I can tell the person you were responding to (Nakoiochi) is a US anarchist. They weren't calling them Khokols or Ukrops, pigs or gloating, they just mocked Trumps promises to fix this in 24hr because there is a standing offer that he could accept- unless he just has no control over the situation. (likely)
Either way a core component of jingoism is nationalism, and it feels weird to be accusing people of being nationalist for a different country, when they're an anarchist, just because you don't like their understanding of world events. I don't think people who are saying something that happens to be in agreement with the position of a particular nation are then necessarily nationalist as a result, especially if they're not even from there and in fact live in the geopolitical enemy.
If someone is ethnically Russian in eastern Ukraine, and they’re unhappy with the Kyiv government, there are means to deal with that other than starting a civil war.
In my previous response I asked twice about your position on self-determination, that wasn't me being flippant, but more trying to get at a core contradiction in the way separatist regions looking for self-determination have been treated. When it was Kosovo it was acceptable to allow for separatists to break away, do you think that it would have made the situation better for Russia to start dumping weapons on Serbia in that situation to help them counter the 'invasion' from Albania? It's a hypothetical and not really logistically feasible, but my point is more that this situation went from bad to worse because fuel has only been continually added to this fire rather than de-escalation.
Re: Odessa Trade union
The article I linked did include large sections from the reporting along with the broader context. There's details which are actively disputed; the point is not the grisly details which are always ripe for propaganda embellishment, but rather the points as laid out in the report. The picture painted is of a government which actively made the situation worse, and enabled those very Russian propaganda campaigns by their own complicity in the massacre and the subsequent investigation.
Quoting the report: (directly)
The issue is it's hard to dismiss calling the Ukrainian government 'Nazi' when there's been this level of collaboration between right wing (in some cases openly nazi) gangs doing political terrorism to people. Those gangs are now a part of the military, as long as their military tolerates people running around with a black sun or whatever nazi paraphernalia it's just going to get photographed and circulated on Russian social media, feeding into that same propaganda campaign you yourself expressed an interest in combating.
Yeah all those “gEnOciDe” trolls have mystically vanished since then …
A charitable read is that it's only dunking on people for the electoral choices, but the racist comment history and shitty previous interactions I've had with this particular user is why I don't have any charity today.
They had me in the first half not gonna lie
that user is always occupying the ever-common Lemmy superposition of dunking relentlessly on people for being pro Palestine, but then if pressed will desperately act like they're also pro Palestine and claim that it's your responsibility to prove why they're not.
This one you're replying to in particular is also just a chauvinist who loves calling Russians orcs
I started here so as to get an understanding, going to remark on a few things I saw:
I don't think this is them trolling you, (...) ::: spoiler spoiler it reads like an earnest response and your reply looks like an overreaction. It just looks like you might have replied to the wrong person or misinterpreted the meaning of the comment? The comment reads to me as speculating on the reason for Trump flip-flopping, not making a value judgement besides calling the trade war with china 'dumbfuck'
:::
I'm actually primarily a .ml user, (...) ::: spoiler spoiler I started using .ml because I like to get a variety of views and everyones propaganda for a given situation so that I can make my own critical assessment.
I do hang out in their comms and even help moderate one but I've pretty much only ever lurked there to get an idea for the vibes and it feels weird to be lumped in together as me representing them. Maybe if you frame it as they have an instance where they allow comments (like mine) made by reckless individuals (like me) to be made without moderation it would be more accurate.
:::
Really not a fan of SA analogies being used frivolously tbh, but you do you- (...) ::: spoiler spoiler
The "answering questions" sticks out, because that's what they're referring to as JAQing off elsewhere- it's not a hexbear specific term, nor is sealioning, that's just internet slang. I didn't see this thread posted anywhere else on hexbear to drive engagement, they just have relatively high traffic and users will be showing up in federated threads if they're not browsing local.
I could just ignore it but I feel like that’s not the way. I don’t really feel like ceding the narrative space to them even if 99% of the people reading understand that they’re full of shit about it. I think most people have just moved on from wanting to engage with it.
I feel like this kind of tips your hand a bit for the engagement. I get the impulse to assume bad faith, I do it often and it's something I'm working on tbh. Anyway, might be a moot point since you're banned, I'll get to this in the conclusion, but I think you were being overly confrontational, also going in treating this as a narrative space to be fought over going is probably why you're going to get a response reflecting that.
:::
Regarding viciously imperialistic jingo in favor of Russia: shelling donbass ::: spoiler spoiler
It is verifiable fact that the cities in the separatist region were getting routinely shelled basically since 2014, I for one recall constantly hearing about that in that time period unless your conclusion is that they deserved it or that it was just crisis actors or some influence campaign something. Either way it's not jingoism to express that knowledge.
:::Regarding viciously imperialistic jingo in favor of Russia: opposition to NATO
Regarding viciously imperialistic jingo in favor of Russia: Self determination
conclusion:
I might as well address the ban here too:
I hope you enjoy my lengthy responses, I tried to summarize it from my reading and for what it's worth I tried to approach it as impartially as I could given the circumstances.
Христос воскрес!
I'll take a look.
non-paywall link https://archive.is/2VmLa
Admins could, now mods can for the comms they moderate
Not all of the countries problems can simply be attributed to 'the enemy' on the other side of the planet. The dysfunction I'm pointing out is home grown and enabled on both sides. The republicans are obviously worse, the democrats prevent anything better.
Russia is affecting those things in the us though.
People being unhoused, going hungry and without healthcare is bipartisan consensus in the US and Russia has nothing to do with that.
MS-13 or Russia
neither of those are real concerns tbh. Americans should be concerned about housing, feeding and providing medical care to everyone before worrying about external threats.
Banned from 196 for thinking 'the tankie triad' is a silly name
CDC orders mass retraction and revision of submitted research across all science and medicine journals. Banned terms must be scrubbed. (Including gender, transgender, pregnant person, LGBT, and more)
Banned from .world comm shortly after banning .world mod
