Cool cool. Hey, if the increase from 27 to 60 for Asia (which more than half of was USSR and China) from 1910-1975 was because of communism, does that mean that the increase from 35 to 60 for America from 1875-1950 was because of capitalism? Because clearly we established that it wasn’t because of any kind of scientific advances in medicine or agriculture or anything, it’s purely a result of their economic system.

Oh, also, what’s that dip in “Asia” and “World”?

I’m not going to defend the source to the death, my point is that there are numerous sources on both sides of the conflict that have reported on Ukraine shelling civilians in Donetsk and Luhansk.

That’s actually not really true. A lot of people were getting shelled in those places, some of them combatants and some of them civilians. It’s not all that clear who was doing how much of the shelling. Although, the idea that ethnic Russians were getting genocided at scale was a common Russian excuse for why they needed to start to commit murder on a much wider scale than anything they’d even bothered to claim was happening.

You said you wanted to disengage, so I won’t bother to defend that point. But regardless, the deeper point is this:

This is going nowhere, and you’re only here to try to provoke responses, so this isn’t productive for either of us.

Incorrect. This is productive.

We started talking about horrifying attacks on civilians. Rape, attacks on power plants in winter, attacks on apartment blocks, hospitals. Schools. Torture. Abduction of children. And somehow, when we started talking about that, you wanted to start to make excuses for it. Why, I sincerely don’t know. But, I realized looking at it that that really shouldn’t be normal on a humanistic social network. It should get called out, every time. Someone should start asking questions, and highlight how disgusting it is. That’s productive. It has a good effect on the network as a whole. For as long as that’s what you like to advocate, you should feel unwelcome and like people will pop up to disagree with you. That’s how conversation and social relations work, in a healthy environment that can protect itself against violence and excuses for same.

I’m not sending you offensive images or assigning you some kind of insulting nickname. I’m not dogpiling senseless abuse at you, like your friends at you-know-where would have done. I’m just highlighting what you’re saying. You can’t bring yourself to say it’s sabotage of a peace deal to agree to a peace deal and then immediately break it in overt fashion and at a large scale. Because admitting that wouldn’t fit your narrative.

Why is that your narrative? I genuinely don’t know. I did carry some kind of hope that you would be able to realize what you’re actually saying, that these questions really should have straight answers from someone who claims to care about human rights and geopolitics and the safety of people from imperialism and violence.

I haven’t been cursing at you, insulting you, refusing to engage with things you’re saying or pretending you’re saying something else. Nothing like that. But yes, I’m not-very-politely highlighting the bullshit of what you’re saying. You’re making excuses for genocide and murder, and then putting on a self-righteous cloak of “wanting peace” or being “practical,” but the inability to answer or address certain questions really highlights what’s actually going on.

Hey, look at it this way: At least I didn’t blow up your apartment building and then blame you for not wanting peace! That would have been really rude of me, much more so than my typing.

You sent me a source which is laughable propaganda. I don’t know if you know that or not, so I’m asking some probing questions about it. What is this source? Do you know what they were saying in Feb 2022? If I know the answers to those questions, I can test my belief (pretty certain tbh) that this source is a bunch of garbage, maybe even help to lead you to the same conclusion by walking us together through the process of looking into it.

I’m taking from this that you are okay with us just shouting dueling points of view at each other but repeatedly just asking you questions, you really don’t seem to like.

Sounds good. Taking the hypothetical out of it, would you say that Russia did sabotage the peace deal when they attacked Ukraine’s energy infrastructure the day they agreed not to attack each other’s energy infrastructure?

If you feel I am taking your stuff in bad faith, I can take a little bit of time and only ask direct questions relevant to our conversation, so that you can explain your point of view fully without my misconstruing. I do have a follow-up question about the quest for peace in Ukraine, but I just want to make sure of this point first.

Sounds good. What is this source you sent me? What were they saying about the news from Ukraine in Feb 2022?

Oh, also: Is it sabotage of a peace deal to blow up a bunch of energy infrastructure the same day that you agreed you wouldn’t attack each other’s energy infrastructure? I’m really not trying to “squeeze out” some kind of statement of approval from you by asking that. I am, in fact, asking for you to show disapproval, since anyone with a functioning brain can see that that is sabotage of the peace deal. I’m honestly not sure why you seem to be having trouble saying that, although I have a theory.

You might have missed it, but it doesn’t look like the BBC story you showed indicated which side had shelled the school. Simply that, as part of some Moscow-backed fighting in an urban area, one side or another dropped shells on a school near where the separatists were besieging the airport.

Also, that source is hilarious lol.

MOSCOW, March 31 - RIA Novosti. After the sentencing of Marine Le Pen, the leader of the right-wing National Unification party faction in the French parliament, Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, suggested that the French think about establishing a “Sixth Republic” or recall the time when tsarist Russia “brought democracy to France on bayonets.”

Commenting on Le Pen’s verdict, the deputy head of the Russian Security Council noted on his page on the VKontakte social network that “by adopting the path of simple, odious politicking, the Fifth French Republic has completely discredited itself.”

“The people of this country, apparently, should think about establishing a Sixth Republic,” Medvedev wrote, ironically noting that he was “not hinting at anything.”

What is this source? I’m not real sold by their repost of what they found on Telegram. What were they saying around the time of Feburary 2022? I tried to look in the Wayback machine but I couldn’t find anything, and their archives aren’t exactly easy to navigate. They appear to post one new story every minute, so it’s kind of hard to trace back all that far just by simple means.

Cool cool.

Hey, quick question:

What’s that dip in “World” and “Asia” there?

Follow-up question. This one’s a fill in the blank. The British Empire at its peak was 35 million square km. If you don’t count pre-20th-century historical empires, what’s the second one, and how big was its total land area?

It’s not the Spanish or the second French… we could include the Mongol empire (24 million sq km) and the pre-revolutionary Russian empire (22.8 sq km) if you wanted. If you included those, what’s the fourth largest?

Oh, actually, you said “hospitals” plural. Which hospitals did Ukraine blow up?

Russia has consistently stated that NATO on its doorstep is a no-go. Russia will not leave unless this is accomplished, and since they aren’t “good guys,” they will continie until this goal is met.

Or until consenting or not they lose the war. That happens sometimes. Actually quite often, to large dysfunctional empires trying to attack someone else’s homeland and facing stiff resistance. It seems like it’s been happening so far to Russia. Personally, I think shooting the invaders until they leave sounds great. I would much rather they leave sooner than later, obviously, but that’s really only up to them how long they want to stay around getting shot.

That’s leaving aside the whole question of “you joining an alliance so you’ll be able to defend yourself if I attack you is a red line for me.” Ukraine was not in NATO, that wasn’t really on the table in any serious sense, and invading them and killing thousands of people is if anything going to make them much more in favor of being in NATO, to keep themselves safe. Plenty of other little republics that were nowhere near joining NATO have been attacked and absorbed to Russia over the last little while.

This whole thing “well they said they’d be violent if they didn’t get their way, so let’s sure for peace so they don’t have to be violent.” is abuser-enabler-logic. Fuck 'em up. That’s the answer. For a domestic abuser, for Israel, for Russia, for whoever else. If you want to speak force-language, sure, we can speak force-language.

Which hospital did they blow up?

You sent me a story from half a generation ago, about one shell from one side or another that fell and killed some civilians during an active close conflict.

When did the Ukrainians blow up a hospital? Or did they not do that?

Yeah, okay. So kill them to the last soldier. Then they’ll stop. Sounds pretty straightforward. They can always change their mind about what they “will not stop” until they accomplish.

Like I said, your mask of Marxism is slipping and showing the Russian cheerleader beneath. I think you should go back to some pretense of “practicality” about the conflict, and how unfortunate it is that this whole situation spiraled out of control, and of course you don’t want killing or justification for same.

So if Ukrainians do not want to continue, and Russians are making gains, then you want them to continue to fight a war they aren’t in support of so you can gain? If I’m supposedly a Russian cheerleader, are you just getting off on Ukrainians dying in a war they don’t want to fight?

Actually, this part I should give some kind of genuine response to. Maybe. I don’t think you deserve it, but whatever, at least to clarify my own position on it:

Obviously I want peace, as do the Ukrainians, as should any Russia conscripts who are sometimes equally victimized by the whole situation. The reason I’m reacting with derision to this idea of blaming the US or anyone other than the Russians for Russia invading Ukraine and killing all those people is that at the end of the day, they’re ones who invaded Ukraine and killed all those people.

They could go home tomorrow. Since they’re not doing that, but instead hanging around on Ukrainian land and blowing up Ukrainians, is the only reason I say the path to real security is to keep blowing them up instead. Again, if someone comes into your house and is killing family members, it ceases to be relevant why they feel they had a good reason for it, or how they were provoked, or whether or not you apparently squandered your chance to make peace with them before they decided they had to do that, or anything else. What matters is to defend yourself. I don’t think Ukraine squandered any chance for peace in that fashion, I think Russia is lying about how much they want peace. Why do I think that? Because they’re on Ukrainian land, killing Ukrainians.

Them violating the terms of their own cease-fire more or less immediately is a pretty strong demonstration of that. To me. The fact that Ukrainians obviously “don’t want to fight,” which is accurate, they’d rather not be in the war, doesn’t mean they’re not on board for defending themselves against a hostile power which is blowing up their country. They seem far more on board for that than the rest of the West as a whole seems on board for supporting them in it.

Which hospital did Ukraine blow up?

The other part, let me phrase as a question: Would you describe attacking energy infrastructure the same day you agreed to a cease-fire on each other’s energy infrastructure as “sabotage” of the peace deal? Why or why not?

Which modern socialist state should be the model, if the USSR is

The Soviets already solved famine and Imperialism, they fought against Imperialism and ended famine.

Dude. Fucking never mind lol. I’m posting this to meanwhileongrad and moving on with my day. You can answer my direct questions above, or not, up to you.

The biggest factor is that most Ukrainians do not want to continue the war

Absolutely correct

the US is beginning to pull out what little support there was

Absolutely correct

as Russia steadily makes territory gains

Any day now lol. Since 2014, they’ve progressed 200 km inside the border. At that rate, they’ll be in Kyiv by the year 2069, and they’ll manage to reach the western border around the year 2100. Those territory gains sure add up, boy howdy.

Progress in this kind of thing isn’t linear, obviously a manpower collapse on the Ukrainian side or an explicit team-switch by the US would be catastrophic. But trumpeting “territory gains” as the measure of Russia’s progress just highlights how you’re trying to cheerlead for them while pretending to be “objective” and “leftist.”

Like I said, this whole conversation is stupid. You are not a leftist. You are a Russian cheerleader wrapping up your propaganda in a thin veneer of wise practicality and “dialectic” mumbo-jumbo.

If blowing up hospitals is wrong, then you’re also anti-Ukraine, I guess. The however wasn’t a justification, but pointing that both Ukraine and Russia have targeted civilian infrastructure, so you should be against both, and in favor of a peace deal, like I have been saying from the start.

Which hospital did Ukraine blow up? You know what, I don’t care. Ukraine wasn’t even allowed to strike inside Russia until five minutes ago relatively speaking.

If you don’t want to know what Marxists think, why start this convo in the first place?

Lol you’re not a Marxist. You’re making excuses for gangster capitalism and playing “both sides have been fighting you know” when the whole goddamned war is happening inside Ukraine’s house. I don’t actually believe they blew up any hospitals, but even entertaining that conversation is silly.

Okay, actually, let’s do this: Tell me why it doesn’t count that Russia blew up a bunch of stuff they specifically peace-agreed that they wouldn’t blow up, like just now within the last few days. Tell me which hospitals Ukraine blew up. Let’s start just with those two things.

Why is the USSR the model to emulate, when the USSR couldn’t keep itself together and collapsed into gangster capitalism. Why is that the model to emulate? What should future USSR-aspirer states do differently to avoid suffering the same fate, while they are solving famine and imperialism?

it’s clear the war is wrapping up

What? Why is that clear? Russia bombed a whole fresh wave of power stations right after the “cease fire,” and they’ve expressed interest in conscripting 140,000 more troops.

I think the likeliest outcome of the war is a partition roughly along the 2014 lines, which are basically the same as the current front lines. I see no particular reason to think that outcome is definitely close at hand though. It might be, or it might not be.

The difference with Palestine is that Palestinians are being genocided by an Imperialist entity.

…

Russia is interested in a demillitarized Ukraine

Well, they sure fucked that up. The chance of Ukraine or anyone else on Russia’s border being comfortable with demilitarization has now entered negative territory, and any of them that can get their hands on nuclear weapons will be acquiring them.

the US and UK seem to want that to happen when they sabotage peace talks

If someone comes to your house, shoots your dog, and then says they’d like to open peace talks, while punching your daughter in the face repeatedly, not stopping while talking about peace talks, it’s okay to hit them with a bat. Even if they say that’s a “red line” for them. They don’t get to claim they were provoked into doing it by some third party. You don’t get to blame someone else for “sabotaging peace talks.” These are not complex issues, any more than Palestine is a complex issue. There’s some history there, sure. You could talk about where the conflict came from, and various instances of attacks on civilians by Palestinians, if you wanted to. But only some kind of disgusting quisling or deeply mistaken person would want to. Right is right. Wrong is wrong.

Besides, your talking points are a little out of date. Russia just recently sabotaged peace talks by continuing to attack Ukraine in ways they agreed they wouldn’t, after coming to an agreement in peace talks. That’s what sabotaging peace talks looks like. Are you not aware that that’s happening?

Bombing hospitals isn’t okay, period. However

I just lost any desire to be in this conversation. I don’t care what comes after “however.” If you need to follow that up with “however,” you’re wrong.

Blowing up people is wrong. Invading other nations and lying about it is wrong. Sabotaging peace talks by continuing to attack is wrong. These are not complicated issues.

I thought originally that you were sincere, just confused, but it’s hard for me to believe that anyone actually believes the things you’re saying. I don’t know why you are professing this viewpoint and I do not care.

I do feel like I was smug and insulting out of the gate for more or less no reason. But also, I feel like demanding that I have to come in super respectful and kind, so they can respond in their famous chosen fashion, is laughable. I’m just speaking to them in the language that they clearly are approving of, just from the other side. That’s fair, to me.

Basically, thinking someone is wrong, and telling them so and telling them why, is not “bad faith.” Not in any world. Again this is the Hexbear no-true-scotsman thing, where they’re super open and everyone is welcome except obvious awful horrible liberals who need to be attacked at every turn because they deserve it, and anyone who disagrees with them in any way is obviously that. This is why I tend to talk badly about Hexbear: Because they feel comfortable talking badly about everyone else, and hurling abuse and trolling at anyone and everyone, so fuck 'em. If they don’t want to be treated like that, they can open a conversation about the value of the social contract, and we can talk, but otherwise, oh well.

Edit: The person edited their response, abandoning the debate I guess being unhappy with the nature of it. Seems reasonable, they’re not obligated to talk if they don’t want to. Maybe if I’d sent them a picture of a pig ballsack, they would have been receptive and felt comfortable with how appropriate the whole conversation was.

for Ukraine, there is no path beyond suing for peace

Incorrect. Winning the war, bloodying Russia’s nose and teaching it to stay the fuck inside its borders whenever it starts to feel that its interests demand that it needs to blow up some apartment buildings and power stations, is the path. That sounds like a good solution to me. This kind of thing, and the solution, needs to happen from time to time. Afghanistan, Vietnam, Palestine. It’s not a morally ambiguous situation. Get them to go the fuck home, by force since they are coming with force, and if they’re uncomfortable in the future with the state of the world and they feel threatened, they can cope with it in some manner that isn’t a war crime and doesn’t involve any unrelated civilians. Also, snatch Putin and put him in the Hague next to Netanyahu. Or maybe just put them on the streets of Kyiv and Jenin respectively and let the people more directly involved have dealings with him. That sounds like a great start for making the world a better place. It’s a lot less ambiguous in its impacts than would be simply doing away with the US’s power on the world stage.

The process of exacting that path is not exactly going great, of course because despite your protestations about how happy the US government is have this conflict, they barely seem to care about supporting Ukraine except every so often when it appears to be on the point of total collapse. But also, Russia isn’t exactly winning either.

Again, I simply don’t understand why you are morally clear on the moral clarity of the Palestine situation, but then all of a sudden say that it is not “practical” to discuss the clear morality of the situation in Ukraine.

In the grand scheme of things, Russia is absolutely moving against the US Empire, and the US Empire is a bigger obstacle for Socialism and the Global South. This means some actions Russia takes are good for the Global South, though only for its own interests.

Not really lol. Well… actually, Russia’s sum total impact on the US empire has been significant, but not because they’re killing Ukrainians. Their conduct in the war has been abysmal. They’re succeeding beyond Bill Donovan’s wildest dreams at fucking up our elections and reducing our abilities on the world stage. Personally I think it’s incredibly unlikely that anything that comes out of that will produce a benefit for the Global South. We are not the only hegemon, and hegemony will not go away because of the collapse of the US. The question is whether what comes after will be better or worse.

You appear to be more of a stalker than anything else, to be honest.

I was curious about some of the things you were saying, and whether you change your arguments depending on who you’re talking to, so I looked up “palestine” and “russia” in a search limited to you as creator. I didn’t really find what I was looking for, but I did find that you spin your arguments extremely hard in one direction, talking about “practicality” and the need to be realistic when talking about Ukraine beating Russia. But, for some reason, when we’re talking about Palestine surviving against Israel (or, for that matter, who’s going to win the US election and what the impact will be) it’s suddenly not necessary to be practical or “objective” or anything, and we can just talk about clear morality and what the justice outcome is. I think that as someone who clearly supports the right of ordinary people to be free from oppression, because you’re obviously a leftist and would obviously support that, it’s a curious reluctance to weigh in on the justice of a situation where a gangster-capitalist state is blowing up ordinary men, women, and children by the truckload for no other reason than that they want to keep their options open and feel comfortable geopolitically. That was often why the US did the same thing during most of the late 20th century, and it was wrong then, and it’s wrong now.

Easy question: Is it moral for Russia to blow up a hospital? Is it moral for Israel to? Presumably you have simple straight answers to both. That’s just the kind of thing I was curious about. I’m not trying to “debate pervert” you in Hexbear’s self-serving terminology, but I have become sick of people making dissembling excuses for mass murder on my federated social network and decided today to be vocal in talking to one of them and calling him out for it. Hope that’s okay.

You made excuses for Russia’s interests to “maintain a buffer,” i.e. slaughter the citizens of another sovereign nation until Putin and the Russian people can feel comfortable again: https://lemmy.ml/comment/16907792

When it’s Russia, you say:

I don’t see what discussing the morality of the invasion will practically solve

https://lemmy.ml/comment/16903455

When it’s Palestine, you say:

Again, your moral equivalence results in standing back and watching Palestine be erased from the map. Equal condemnation for unequal evils minimizes the worse and raises the lesser evil.

https://lemmy.ml/comment/15521966

May the people of Palestine, Lebanon, and the surrounding areas stay safe from the genocidal US Empire and its vassal Israel. Death to the American Empire, may the world be free from the US State, and may Israel’s project of settler-colonial genocide come to an end.

https://lemmy.ml/comment/13867216

You also said that support for Russia was a necessary part of support for progressing humanity by undoing the US:

critical support for Russia is due to it currently working against US dominance, which is the primary obstacle for Humanity to progress economically into a more equitable global system.

https://lemmy.ml/comment/17512137

You also credited the USSR with “ending famines” lol.

You are not internally consistent. You are not a leftist, although you sometimes retreat into some kind of dialectical complication which is left-adjacent when challenged. You seem to be in love with genocidal capitalist states as long as they’re on your team… but they’re not going to save a place for you at the table. Your hopeful support for them will gain you nothing. You seem like you’re sincere, to some extent, and I like your support for the Palestinians. Maybe someday you will start to be willing to apply the same yearning for freedom to people who are being oppressed by your friends, also, not just by your enemies.

Lol if you’re not a leftist just say so.

“Russia is clearly a hypercapitalist state at this point, and exporting misery to the helpless people all around them”

“Well you’re not wrong but it’s complicated”

No it isn’t. The first thing is a complete argument and a good reason to oppose them, however you feel about NATO or the US State Department. Sending weapons to a resistance movement against their organized state oppression is clearly a wonderful thing, and I wish Ukraine everything they need in order to defend themselves against anyone who is trying to kill their citizens. It’s not more complex than that.

If you feel like making excuses for Russia, or saying it “needs to be analyzed” or they’re a useful bulwark against even worse forces and so we don’t need to look too closely at their crimes (and where have I heard that logic before), then fine. Just don’t put on a mantle of socialism while you are doing so.