Fuck elon musk for not allowing Ukraine to dismantle those war machines providing cover for this type of diabolical behavior to continue.
Elon, like any other conservative sub-human, will always side with oppressors. Always.
I'm not a fan of referring to fellow humans who have fallen victim to the endless tirade of conservative propaganda sub-human. It's very blatantly dehumanizing and promotes division along party lines instead of proletariat unity. We should be focusing on the shitheads pushing that propaganda in the first place. I know that Elon is one of them, but calling all conservatives sub-human because of him is just wrong.
I would add that dehumanizing rhetoric of any kind can become a gateway drug to justifying atrocity. No matter what side you stand on. It can contribute to the radicalization of any group. Nobody is immune to becoming a monster.
Not everyone is willing to do what's necessary to cure the disease. I am willing. If that makes me a monster, then I am the monster they themselves created.
Conservatism is a plague of oppression and death. It always has been. History has proven time after time that pacifism cannot stop conservatives. We must be willing to do difficult things to survive this kind of deadly infection. Preaching peace is unfortunately not helpful. It placates those who are better served by understanding the danger we are all in and what needs to happen to stop that threat.
I am not arguing in favor of pacifism. I fully recognize the need to defend against harmful ideologies that infect people's minds with bad ideas. And if those who harbor bad ideas threaten violence then it may be necessary to react in kind. I accept that.
I'm simply saying that it matters what kind of language we use when we talk about it. Calling conservatives, or any opposing side perceived as a violent threat, subhuman creates the misconception that your own side could not ever be in the wrong. In so doing, it is possible that the we too could become infected with the bad idea that "All (insert opposing threat here) must die." I don't ever in my life time want to see anything like the Holocaust happen because people couldn't stop and think that at some point the killing needs to stop, because it's reached a point where we are no longer defending and only killing out of pure and base fear that the threat will rise up again. There is a point where self defense goes too far and gives rise to genocide. That possibility scares the hell out of me.
We should instead call all conservatives subhuman because the tenets of whatever the fuck passes for conservative these days are senselessly antagonistic and cruel to the vulnerable among us
You are not getting the point. Most conservatives are victims of indoctrination. Calling them sub-human is victim-blaming.
I don't disagree with you, but at some point, most of these folks are grown ass adults with full cognitive capacity and the same access to information as the rest of us.
It's a commitment and dedication to wilfull ignorance that is a conscious decision. They make the choice to ignore new information and ignore their own values and hypocrisy. They are 100% responsible for their own actions and treating them as victims invalidates their responsibilities and denies them personal accountability.
I don't know that I'd call them subhuman, but they are hurting, killing, and oppressing people in active worship to the God of ignorance. These are bad people, and they don't deserve your defense.
I understand what you're saying. They are bad people. The average conservative's behavior is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.
There was a time when you would have been right, but at this point, they are a part of the problem, not a symptom of it.
They are actively voting in and supporting people who are disrupting attempts to mitigate the actual issues. For example, every American should be against gerrymandering, as it is expressly anti-democratic, yet here we are voting in toxic people who are running interference on any effort to combat it.
This should be a bipartisan issue. I lived in Maryland for a long time and my district looked like an electrocuted spider, in favor of the Dems. Republicans should be against this, but here we are slamming our hand into the car door every time we try to make progress.
The people pulling the strings should be held accountable, no question. Pretending that these folks aren't the problem is nice for diplomacy, but it's no longer the case.
Trump became the president in 2016 despite losing the election. The system is rotten to its core. Conservatives are definitely not helping and their behavior should be shamed, but it's crucial not to lose sight of the fact that the ideology they follow was deliberately created and propagated by the 0.001%.
We can hold them responsible for their actions and still recognize that they are victims of indoctrination. However, this would require the same intellectual honesty you chastise them for not having.
Straight to the personal attacks? Not really a great argument, particularly when the rest of it amounts to "NUH UH!!".
I'm gonna need more than that. @aerolemming@lemm.ee and I were having a pretty civil discussion, and I appreciate his points, though I personally disagree with them.
Read the room, man.
I'm sorry my comment didn't meet your standards. I'm tired of reading the same intellectually vapid nonsense every day. "Why can't these evil/ignorant/despicable fools just see the world the way I see it!?" You treat them the same way they treat us and expect them to have some kind of coming-to-jesus moment as a result. IMO, thinking this way requires the same level of cognitive dissonance as being a Trumpster. You need to read the room and see that your method doesn't solve the problem you want it to solve. It exacerbates it. Instead of crying out to the world, wishing everyone else would do the hard work of expanding their understanding of political theory, history, and philosophy, maybe do that work yourself first.
Can you look beyond the harshness in the tone of my paragraph and take the constructive criticism I'm offering? This is what you're asking them to do.
It's weird. You're asking me to accept constructive criticism, but a) you're not offering any and b) you're continuing with the ad hominem, and failing to offer an actual position despite it being very constructive feedback to your argument. You're calling it "intellectually vapid nonsense" but you're only offering logical fallacies. You're just noise and hypocrisy.
My "understanding of political theory, history and philosophy" is backed by a career in the DC and NYC political sphere, including the White House, several campaigns, and extensive work with NPOs/NGOs. I've met and worked with 5 US Presidents, and more than 230 congresscritters on both sides of the aisle, and have personal commendations from the CEO, COO, and CTO of the USA so I feel pretty confident that I've got a well developed perspective. You've seen my work. So please enlighten me.
If you'll notice in the previous postings, I was able to disagree with others while accepting their positions and without belittling them. Every assertion you're making now is disproved before you even typed it, so I'm not sure why you're rattling your cage. If you want to be a part of the discussion, and wish to bring about new information, I'm amenable to change my position, but your post is really just finger wagging and more of "NUH UH!!".
I’m sorry my comment didn’t meet your standards. I’m tired of reading the same intellectually vapid nonsense every day.
Did you seriously type this passive aggressive nonsense and put it into the world? Do you hear yourself? Do better.
I'm not taking part in your argument with Timmy, I just want to know:
the CEO, COO, and CTO of the USA
What does this mean?
It's actually not something I really knew about before, the WH gig, but these are actual positions that help to advise the President on specific matters related to their specialties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Technology_Officer_of_the_United_States (I can't seem to find the others right now, but if I do, I'll post them). I did some work on the Open Data Initiative that took it from policy to practical, and received some official recognition for it.
As long as they keep indoctrinating newer generations, they are part of the oppressors.
I brought that up in my reply to the other reply that replied to the reply you replied to.
Are they still victims when they become violent? Or when they promote violence? At some point the threshold is crossed.
One can very easily be both a victim and a perpetrator. If someone is indoctrinated into a cult at a young age and goes on to recruit others, they are both a perpetrator of suffering inflicted on others and a victim of the circumstances imposed on them.
So the poor defenseless indoctrinated are ok with racism in their party and nazism? They have no autonomy at all to choose?
Those "victims" will gleefully watch you suffer and die. They will smile as your existence becomes illegal. Those "victims" will proudly facilitate your death and, in many cases, will physically participate in committing that murder.
Nearly every act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history has been committed by conservatives. Nearly every act of racism, bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia and antisemitism in our country is committed by conservafives. They are not the victims, they are the victimizers.
Conservatives have the entirety of the world's knowledge at their fingertips and access to the world's foremost experts. Yet, they choose to follow hateful ideologies. They choose to be opposed to education. They choose to condemn scientists and doctors as liars and traitors. Conservatives are not the victims. They are not victims of anything at all.
Have you interacted with conservatives in the real world? Most of them just don't pay that much attention to politics and don't realize what they're voting for. Some of them are fucking insane, sure, but the majority are just disinformed.
To be fair, my interactions with conservatives are mostly limited to people with only moderately conservative opinions.
I was born and raised in the south in a conservative household. I recently retired from a profession completely infested with conservatives. I know conservatism very well, unfortunately.
They know they are voting for bigots. They know they are voting for misogynists. They know they are voting for white nationalists. If they are able to consume media well enough to know what days to vote and where to vote, then they know what these candidates are.
The people you are describing often refer to themselves as "centrists" so they can pretend they aren't racist, bigoted misogynists like the people they vote for. That is deception. They are deceiving you so you don't disown them for being vile garbage.
I thought Lemmy was different than Reddit. I'm not mad, just disappointed.
It is the internet, why did you think it would be different?
Still the same people show up.
Has anyone ever told you that you look like Hony Tawk?
Because it's the internet, and different communities exist in different places. I watched Reddit deteriorate into a far-left cesspool like many others, and hoped this would be a place where talking to other people and having discussions is encouraged. More so, I thought this would be a place where delegating your political opposition as 'subhumans' would be countered the way it should be.
Reddit deteriorate into a far-left
I didn't know Trump was far-left
You're quoting my sentence, yet responding with something completely different than what I said. Why?
If you think Trump is popular on Reddit, spend about 5 minutes browsing the site on any day of the week. That's blatantly false.
Not sure what Elons reasoning is here, but i guess if it wasnt for Starlink, communication would have collapsed in the first week.
You're still relying on old information. He clarified this. Starlink was never active over crimea. He was asked to activate it and said no as that was part of the restrictions on the deployment and would have been breaking the terms that clarified it as an act of war from the west.
He didn't shut them off. Access was never active in that region.
"Raytheon never deactivated their missiles, they just don't work over the target."
That's deactivating them dummy. Where do you think Ukraine is going with their Starlinks? Disneyland?
Missiles and satellite arrays have no similarities in the way they technologically function. So this argument doesn't actually hold any water. Elon musk is the operator of the starlink. Ukraine does not operate starlink satellites. Ukraine operates the missiles we GIVE to them. Meaning the baton of ownership has been passed off from the united states to Ukraine. The Ukrainian operators then have the autonomy to do with that as they see fit. This is why we give Ukraine guns and bullets but we dont give them the human soldier to fire them. Because this implicates direct US involvement in an offensive strike against Russia. In June 2023 starlink won contract with the pentagon. Meaning elon musk and starlink are acting as agents of the united states government and as such as bound by very similar rules of engagement that the normal US military is. The difference between giving them missiles and starlink is that we can't just say "here are your very own satellites that you have the keys and drivers wheel to and they belong to you now"
Over Ukrainian territory. For defensive purposes. Where it was originally agreed for. Crimea hasn't been Ukraine for years (even though it should be). Offensives into Russia were not part of any operational original deals.
It's not deactivating if it was never live there.
The individual base station (or whatever) has its service deactivated when it goes to Crimea, which is internationally recognized as Ukrainian territory.
No one but Russian bootlickers think Crimea is part of Russia.
Right. The individual base stations always have had a service region. It's why I can't use starlink over international waters and the same thing happens from a fishing boat or anything. There's no purposeful deactivations. Just boundaries of service already established.
It's literally part of the service when you sign up.
You're right that technically he could provide coverage anywhere in the world. There's lots of reasons he doesn't. But that's always been part of the service.
18 UNcountries recognize it as Russian territory. Some of them large superpowers or economic hubs. Including one that's expected to launch starlink soon. (Though all generally shitty countries.)
But aside from that. The rules for supplying things to Ukraine were spelled out very clearly. It's why none of the Western supplies hsve been used in Russian territory attacks. Doing so Russia claimed it would retaliate.
The articles are claiming that he intentionally turned it off when it was originally on and that's not the case. It was never active there.
Look if you want to play semantics, fine. The most finite definition is that starlink satellites deactivate every time they pass over Crimea. He actively contributes to russias strike capabilities on a daily basis. It's far worse than the story, not better.
Won't matter when Ukraine creates their own capabilities, but fuck musk just the same.
Musk is beholden to various international laws when providing this coverage. Like it or not Russia considers crimea their territory and would not respond kindly to musk allowing it's use over their territory.
Like I love how everyone just expects this dude to just as a civilian piss off a nation who can shoot his satellites down or consider it an act of war on his own.
18 UNcountries recognize it as Russian territory
Russia, Belarus, China, North Korea, Cuba, Eritrea. What are rest of 12 countries?
India , and several African and middle eastern countries. (iirc Iran was on there etc). By no means a real winner list but just worth noting.
In particular India which starlink is set to go active in very soon.
Crimea is in Ukraine.
Yes. However Russia has claimed it years before this conflict and threatened retaliation if westerners interfere. It's why all of the supplies we give are only used in Ukraine. The attacks on Russian soil are not with Western supplies intentionally and this would be no different.
However Russia has claimed it years before this conflict
No, it claimed when conflict started. Just before February Putin didn't go any further.
? Russia has claimed crimea since they annexed it years ago.
This is correct. Statement that Crimea was annexed before conflict started is incorrect.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding please correct me. Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014 no? The current crisis started much later than that no? (Even though technically many consider them connected for obvious reasons.)
The current crisis started much later than that no?
No, crisis wasn't ended, it was paused.
You do know those starlinks move over the planets surface, right?
The only way to not have them active over a certain area (excluding the poles) is by deactivating them when they fly over.
Either Elmo doesn't know how his own planet wide network works, or he is lying.
You do realize starlink has always had regional and location based activation for multitudes of reasons. Including laws of said countries.
Yes. It's deactivated over crimea. It always was.
Similar to how it stopped functioning if you tried to use it in international waters.
If you get starlink location of use is included in the setup. Which is why you can't just slap it onto a boat or something. (though they do now sell a starlink with that functionality)
Can you cite this? If you're right, I'd be interested in knowing more
Oh boyyyy can't wait to hear from the Tankies going NUH UH THOSE ARE FAKE AND/OR RUN BY UKRAINIANS ON RUSSIAN-SPEAKING PEOPLE THIS IS EVIDENCE OF UKRAINIANS COMMITTING GENOCIDE OR ITS THE CIA COMRADE PUTIN WOULD NEVER DO THIS
SOURCE: TRUST ME BRO
e_e
I doubt there are stupid enough people who would deny Putin's crimes.
No one would post if there were Ukrainian torture chambers, let's be honest
I'm not a Russia or Putin Stan but this isn't evidence of anything. A Ukrainian blog stating the Ukrainian police found 80 places the Russians used to allegedly hold and torture civilians? The article offers nothing but a statement as evidence this happened. The only photo in the blog post is a room with what looks like a mattress and clothes.
I'm sure the Russians are doing fucked up shit. I'm pretty tired of the pro-ukraine take.
What's this lefties nonsense the only people saying this are tankies because communism is good in their mind despite the fact that there's demonstrably provably wrong.
The political left are not saying this.
Conservatives are playing word games to try to confuse non-conservatives. When conservatives cannot defend an absurd postition, they often resort to re-defining words or gaslighting.
As always, every thought uttered by a conservative is either deception or manipulation. Every time. Never, ever trust a conservative. They are not capable of honesty.
they often resort to re-defining words
The battle of the pot and the kettle
Communism in itself is a great ideology, it’s just that applying it correctly requires an unreal amount of effort and cooperation between millions of people.
And since that’s extremely hard, if not impossible, to do in a realistic setting, the only countries that identify as communist are actually fascist ones who try to fool people into believing they aren’t.
It's not an "ideology" either. It's a mode of production, which includes feudalism, slave society, and capitalism. The argument has been about how we move from a capitalist society to a class-less/state-less society.
I haven't seen a single country identify as Communist, not in the past and not in the present. They have identified as socialist, welfare capitalist, building socialism, or state-capitalist.
Uhh… what about China, ruled for the past 70+ years by the “Communist Party of China”…?
They're trying to redefine left like some idiotic psyops lol.
I agree with that sentiment and consider myself a leftist, also. It certainly applies more to ML/tankie types. I also believe that's what the poster in the image means too. There's still broadly some confusion and conflation of terms regarding the exact definition of solicaism/communism/leftism/ML-ism, and I believe the this is an example of that.
Tankies are not actually on the left, though. That's part of their gaslighting. Tankies are conservatives.
I view that as wishful thinking. They're leftists authoritarians. I know it's uncomfortable to think we may share a side of the political specrtum with such people, but to deny it is to ignore the problem in the same way right-wingers did with the fascists (right-wing authoritarians) who now dominate their ranks in at least the U.S and Italty. However, unlike the far right, they're usually socially progressive; at least western leftists are. Perhaps the similarities ML types have with fascists can be best explained by horseshoe theory.
However, I'm open to the idea that our common political parlance is insufficient in this matter. I'd much prefer a political spectrum defined by rationalism/humanism/critical theory vs the alternative embodied by lunatics of every stripe and philosophy, political, religious, or otherwise. Perhaps that's what you meant by disassociating from them.
Your definition of "left" is incorrect. Authoritarianism is never part of left-wing ideology. Once authoritatianism is introduced into whatever leftist construct is being discussed, the construct becomes right-wing. Full stop. When someone describes a "leftist" ideology that includes authoritarianism, you should consider that a red flag that a conservative is attempting to manipulate terminology.
Authoritarianism is definitional in determining political orientation. It's not a requirement, but when it exists as part of an ideology, that ideology becomes right-wing by definition.
When you share memes or opinions that classify any authoritatian ideas as part of a leftist ideology, you are either gaslighting or have yourself been a victim of gaslighting (and are now sharing misinformation). This is harmful to the left. If you are actually a leftist, as you claim, please stop.
Here is a Wikipedia entry further describing the characteristics of left-wing politics to help clarify how authoritarianism is definitionally counter to left-wing orientation.
I understand where you're coming from and agree in principle; however, I stated that the issue is with common parlance, which very much does include authoritarians among leftists. The Wikipedia article you linked even says so under the subsection: Types, where it includes Maoism. Perhaps I should stop referring to such as leftists so as not to normalize that perception, but it is already so and would make having a conversation with people far more difficult if I were speaking from a reference point that most people don't share.
Who is trying to establish communism here? Even socialism as a whole was already abandonded by both Russia and Ukraine in the 1960s, maybe even earlier. If two sides are verifiably fighting for capitalist interests, with a single country caught between choosing to pawn themselves off to one major capitalist power or another, and both sides have been confirmed to commit war crimes far beyond what could be passed off as incidental,
why do we have to support a side?
Hold on, communism is good in my mind, its just what they call communism fucking sucks and what I call communism is a pipe dream.
Facts, fam. It's ok to enjoy pipe dreams as long as we're mindful of the fact that they are pipe dreams. Everybody gets inspiration from unrealistic aspirations. It's fine. Like, unironically, it's ok to think "boy, it would be nice if the world were a little more like how I wish it were", as long as there isn't an effort made to abuse other people for not always agreeing or having the same dream.
Truth be told, it'd be cool if communism were to actually work, although I for one feel leery of the human error introduced by central planning. Parallel processing is humanity's greatest strength and leaving things up to a committee is a massive vulnerability. If instead of an insular committee of unilaterally appointed bureaucrats, it were some kind of democratic system where direct referendums could override the representatives whenever people get pissed off enough at their representatives not doing their (FUCKING) jobs, that'd be a damn sight better than any currently operating economic model. Because frankly, right now, capitalism itself also has insular committees of appointees (shareholders in boardrooms) and that sucks too.
I wouldn't want centrally planned, and I definitely don't want insular commitees of bureaucrats. Just asking for trouble. But I think what I'm asking for now would be called Market Socialism instead of Communism. If we sieze the means of production, why give up that power to someone who doesn't make the goods? And central planning sounds like it will always have the Local Knowledge problem, though today we do have tariffs at port authorities which sound to me equally insane.
"boy, it would be nice if the world were a little more like how I wish it were"
Gosh yeah :3
Hella fair!
Might that be closer to something like syndicalism?
Because, like, the people doing the work all belong to an association that represents their industry and decide collectively among their industry peers what is produced, how it's produced, and for whom.
Those industrial associations would be worker syndicates.
As far as communicating the wants of the population at large, that's what currency exists for; it's a signalling system. That's the "market" component - if a worker syndicate decides to produce things that they send to markets where nobody wants those things, nobody there buys the things and as a result they get less money for paying their own bills (including wages). Nobody likes not getting paid, after all.
Thank you. I oughta read some theory, after all :3
This is a better evidenced and written article. Like I said I'm not a Russia fan and approaching western reporting with skepticism is generally a better approach in my opinion.
I think varying degrees of torture probably occur with all wars, by all sides. War is distasteful and terrible. (International) crimes are surely committed.
I agree that the article in question is weak. I know there's already evidence that Russia has committed war crimes. Probably Ukraine, too. War sucks.
That's generally my take, I'm not interested in breathless horse race reporting from CNN. I find it very suspicious that in my googling about torture in Ukraine, I found only one article mentioning atrocities from the Ukrainian side. I probably believe the Russians are being more brutal especially given the limited reporting I've seen about penal battalions. But given all the Nazi patches I've seen on Ukrainians, I doubt the war has been clean. From my understanding having never lived in a war zone, wars are never clean.
I don't like this war reporting portraying Russians in a dehumanizing way. I think that's dangerous narrative building. I don't trust western reporting to not toe NATO's line. So when I say I'm skeptical of articles, I try to take what information presented without the narrative attached. In this example I found not much actual information presented but a strong narrative of an invasive oppressive army brutalizing the civilian population showing no empathy and a penchant for war crimes. That might be true but the evidence presented for such a strong narrative is a picture of an ill maintained room and a police report.
We're caught in the middle of a third world war, with many similarities to the first one: namely, inter-imperialist/inter-capitalist. Saying something bad about "your team" (the one you're supposed to praise as supreme and glorious with a clear display of patriotism) is seen as traitor behavior worthy of prison. The US and UK would dehumanize Germans back during WWI, and send labor activists to jail over claims of German interference. You're right to avoid the trap of dehumanizing "the other" for the sake of trying to pick the lesser of two evils. Never pick sides in an inter-imperialist conflict. At best you get an FDR to avert revolution, at worst you get a bunch of Mussolinis walking around.
That's fair, and Iappreciate your response. However, at this point most reasonable people understand how vicious Russian occupiers are. Most people still making arguments about the veracity of their crimes are not arguing in good faith.
To be completely fair, the meme applies to me completely lol. I have to examine and reflect on my bias as well.
And that is why I am against forcing Ukraine to accept lost territory. If you let russia keep territory it has currently occupied, they will get away with all the torture, killing and abduction of civilians.
I thought you were against it back when Putin ordered Navalny
Russians have a history of doing this. And russians also have a history of having useful stooges spreading "both-sides-ism" and similar nonsense. What are you?
I've read this about five times and I still don't understand what you're getting at.
Are you accusing OP of being a Russian shill because I don't see where your getting that from.
I thought I replied to nostradiel above who was stating "I would be extremely careful about these claims from Ukrainian officials. They showed before that they are capable of anything to have attention of mainstream press and western countries. It’s propaganda on both ends - Russian and Ukrainian."
For some reason my reply ended up under Quacksalber, which is not what I intended. I thought I was careful before, but maybe I did not pay enough attention to where I replied to. I am not willing to call this a kbin bug yet, maybe I did not pay attention.
I only see that you responded to Quacksalber, no one called nostradiel is in this thread from what I can see.
Edit: I can see nostradiel at the bottom now, but your response isn't to them.
One thing I've noticed (at least in the Jerboa app) is when a comment is removed or deleted it's replies get displayed on another comment. Seemingly consistently the same wrong comment even on refreshing the page, it's weird.
Edit: it used to at least, for a really long time
It's wrong even on the (my instances) website. So I think OP just clicked on the wrong comment.
It's so sad that russians have been so brainwashed to do this to their fellow man.
Literally all they need to do is divert their military to building instead of destroying and Russia would be in a much better place now.
Are they actually saying people were definitely tortured in all 80 places there? (Also kind of funny, Google Translate seems to do a better job than the link in OP but it's still not clear to me exactly what they meant.)
Putin chambers
One little question nobody here has asked himself:
How do YOU know that that's true? Can you verify this information for youself? Could the source have any incentive to lie? Have you read any response about this from the other side?
I think you have a point in that it's very possible government sources are exaggerating about this - I'm not too invested in what the invaders have to say about it though.
I would be extremely careful about these claims from Ukrainian officials. They showed before that they are capable of anything to have attention of mainstream press and western countries. It's propaganda on both ends - Russian and Ukrainian.
I would prefer if you kept your propaganda to yourself.
As a matter of fact I don't give a damn what you prefer. 🤣
Fuck elon musk for not allowing Ukraine to dismantle those war machines providing cover for this type of diabolical behavior to continue.
Elon, like any other conservative sub-human, will always side with oppressors. Always.
I'm not a fan of referring to fellow humans who have fallen victim to the endless tirade of conservative propaganda sub-human. It's very blatantly dehumanizing and promotes division along party lines instead of proletariat unity. We should be focusing on the shitheads pushing that propaganda in the first place. I know that Elon is one of them, but calling all conservatives sub-human because of him is just wrong.
I would add that dehumanizing rhetoric of any kind can become a gateway drug to justifying atrocity. No matter what side you stand on. It can contribute to the radicalization of any group. Nobody is immune to becoming a monster.
Not everyone is willing to do what's necessary to cure the disease. I am willing. If that makes me a monster, then I am the monster they themselves created.
Conservatism is a plague of oppression and death. It always has been. History has proven time after time that pacifism cannot stop conservatives. We must be willing to do difficult things to survive this kind of deadly infection. Preaching peace is unfortunately not helpful. It placates those who are better served by understanding the danger we are all in and what needs to happen to stop that threat.
I am not arguing in favor of pacifism. I fully recognize the need to defend against harmful ideologies that infect people's minds with bad ideas. And if those who harbor bad ideas threaten violence then it may be necessary to react in kind. I accept that.
I'm simply saying that it matters what kind of language we use when we talk about it. Calling conservatives, or any opposing side perceived as a violent threat, subhuman creates the misconception that your own side could not ever be in the wrong. In so doing, it is possible that the we too could become infected with the bad idea that "All (insert opposing threat here) must die." I don't ever in my life time want to see anything like the Holocaust happen because people couldn't stop and think that at some point the killing needs to stop, because it's reached a point where we are no longer defending and only killing out of pure and base fear that the threat will rise up again. There is a point where self defense goes too far and gives rise to genocide. That possibility scares the hell out of me.
We should instead call all conservatives subhuman because the tenets of whatever the fuck passes for conservative these days are senselessly antagonistic and cruel to the vulnerable among us
You are not getting the point. Most conservatives are victims of indoctrination. Calling them sub-human is victim-blaming.
I don't disagree with you, but at some point, most of these folks are grown ass adults with full cognitive capacity and the same access to information as the rest of us.
It's a commitment and dedication to wilfull ignorance that is a conscious decision. They make the choice to ignore new information and ignore their own values and hypocrisy. They are 100% responsible for their own actions and treating them as victims invalidates their responsibilities and denies them personal accountability.
I don't know that I'd call them subhuman, but they are hurting, killing, and oppressing people in active worship to the God of ignorance. These are bad people, and they don't deserve your defense.
I understand what you're saying. They are bad people. The average conservative's behavior is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.
There was a time when you would have been right, but at this point, they are a part of the problem, not a symptom of it.
They are actively voting in and supporting people who are disrupting attempts to mitigate the actual issues. For example, every American should be against gerrymandering, as it is expressly anti-democratic, yet here we are voting in toxic people who are running interference on any effort to combat it.
This should be a bipartisan issue. I lived in Maryland for a long time and my district looked like an electrocuted spider, in favor of the Dems. Republicans should be against this, but here we are slamming our hand into the car door every time we try to make progress.
The people pulling the strings should be held accountable, no question. Pretending that these folks aren't the problem is nice for diplomacy, but it's no longer the case.
Trump became the president in 2016 despite losing the election. The system is rotten to its core. Conservatives are definitely not helping and their behavior should be shamed, but it's crucial not to lose sight of the fact that the ideology they follow was deliberately created and propagated by the 0.001%.
We can hold them responsible for their actions and still recognize that they are victims of indoctrination. However, this would require the same intellectual honesty you chastise them for not having.
Straight to the personal attacks? Not really a great argument, particularly when the rest of it amounts to "NUH UH!!".
I'm gonna need more than that. @aerolemming@lemm.ee and I were having a pretty civil discussion, and I appreciate his points, though I personally disagree with them.
Read the room, man.
I'm sorry my comment didn't meet your standards. I'm tired of reading the same intellectually vapid nonsense every day. "Why can't these evil/ignorant/despicable fools just see the world the way I see it!?" You treat them the same way they treat us and expect them to have some kind of coming-to-jesus moment as a result. IMO, thinking this way requires the same level of cognitive dissonance as being a Trumpster. You need to read the room and see that your method doesn't solve the problem you want it to solve. It exacerbates it. Instead of crying out to the world, wishing everyone else would do the hard work of expanding their understanding of political theory, history, and philosophy, maybe do that work yourself first.
Can you look beyond the harshness in the tone of my paragraph and take the constructive criticism I'm offering? This is what you're asking them to do.
It's weird. You're asking me to accept constructive criticism, but a) you're not offering any and b) you're continuing with the ad hominem, and failing to offer an actual position despite it being very constructive feedback to your argument. You're calling it "intellectually vapid nonsense" but you're only offering logical fallacies. You're just noise and hypocrisy.
My "understanding of political theory, history and philosophy" is backed by a career in the DC and NYC political sphere, including the White House, several campaigns, and extensive work with NPOs/NGOs. I've met and worked with 5 US Presidents, and more than 230 congresscritters on both sides of the aisle, and have personal commendations from the CEO, COO, and CTO of the USA so I feel pretty confident that I've got a well developed perspective. You've seen my work. So please enlighten me.
If you'll notice in the previous postings, I was able to disagree with others while accepting their positions and without belittling them. Every assertion you're making now is disproved before you even typed it, so I'm not sure why you're rattling your cage. If you want to be a part of the discussion, and wish to bring about new information, I'm amenable to change my position, but your post is really just finger wagging and more of "NUH UH!!".
Did you seriously type this passive aggressive nonsense and put it into the world? Do you hear yourself? Do better.
I'm not taking part in your argument with Timmy, I just want to know:
What does this mean?
It's actually not something I really knew about before, the WH gig, but these are actual positions that help to advise the President on specific matters related to their specialties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Technology_Officer_of_the_United_States (I can't seem to find the others right now, but if I do, I'll post them). I did some work on the Open Data Initiative that took it from policy to practical, and received some official recognition for it.
As long as they keep indoctrinating newer generations, they are part of the oppressors.
I brought that up in my reply to the other reply that replied to the reply you replied to.
Are they still victims when they become violent? Or when they promote violence? At some point the threshold is crossed.
One can very easily be both a victim and a perpetrator. If someone is indoctrinated into a cult at a young age and goes on to recruit others, they are both a perpetrator of suffering inflicted on others and a victim of the circumstances imposed on them.
So the poor defenseless indoctrinated are ok with racism in their party and nazism? They have no autonomy at all to choose?
Those "victims" will gleefully watch you suffer and die. They will smile as your existence becomes illegal. Those "victims" will proudly facilitate your death and, in many cases, will physically participate in committing that murder.
Nearly every act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history has been committed by conservatives. Nearly every act of racism, bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia and antisemitism in our country is committed by conservafives. They are not the victims, they are the victimizers.
Conservatives have the entirety of the world's knowledge at their fingertips and access to the world's foremost experts. Yet, they choose to follow hateful ideologies. They choose to be opposed to education. They choose to condemn scientists and doctors as liars and traitors. Conservatives are not the victims. They are not victims of anything at all.
Have you interacted with conservatives in the real world? Most of them just don't pay that much attention to politics and don't realize what they're voting for. Some of them are fucking insane, sure, but the majority are just disinformed.
To be fair, my interactions with conservatives are mostly limited to people with only moderately conservative opinions.
I was born and raised in the south in a conservative household. I recently retired from a profession completely infested with conservatives. I know conservatism very well, unfortunately.
They know they are voting for bigots. They know they are voting for misogynists. They know they are voting for white nationalists. If they are able to consume media well enough to know what days to vote and where to vote, then they know what these candidates are.
The people you are describing often refer to themselves as "centrists" so they can pretend they aren't racist, bigoted misogynists like the people they vote for. That is deception. They are deceiving you so you don't disown them for being vile garbage.
Hey man. There's no need for that
Very redundant
I thought Lemmy was different than Reddit. I'm not mad, just disappointed.
It is the internet, why did you think it would be different?
Still the same people show up.
Has anyone ever told you that you look like Hony Tawk?
Because it's the internet, and different communities exist in different places. I watched Reddit deteriorate into a far-left cesspool like many others, and hoped this would be a place where talking to other people and having discussions is encouraged. More so, I thought this would be a place where delegating your political opposition as 'subhumans' would be countered the way it should be.
I didn't know Trump was far-left
You're quoting my sentence, yet responding with something completely different than what I said. Why?
If you think Trump is popular on Reddit, spend about 5 minutes browsing the site on any day of the week. That's blatantly false.
Now now. You don't want the Musk rats attacking you.
Not sure what Elons reasoning is here, but i guess if it wasnt for Starlink, communication would have collapsed in the first week.
You're still relying on old information. He clarified this. Starlink was never active over crimea. He was asked to activate it and said no as that was part of the restrictions on the deployment and would have been breaking the terms that clarified it as an act of war from the west.
He didn't shut them off. Access was never active in that region.
"Raytheon never deactivated their missiles, they just don't work over the target."
That's deactivating them dummy. Where do you think Ukraine is going with their Starlinks? Disneyland?
Missiles and satellite arrays have no similarities in the way they technologically function. So this argument doesn't actually hold any water. Elon musk is the operator of the starlink. Ukraine does not operate starlink satellites. Ukraine operates the missiles we GIVE to them. Meaning the baton of ownership has been passed off from the united states to Ukraine. The Ukrainian operators then have the autonomy to do with that as they see fit. This is why we give Ukraine guns and bullets but we dont give them the human soldier to fire them. Because this implicates direct US involvement in an offensive strike against Russia. In June 2023 starlink won contract with the pentagon. Meaning elon musk and starlink are acting as agents of the united states government and as such as bound by very similar rules of engagement that the normal US military is. The difference between giving them missiles and starlink is that we can't just say "here are your very own satellites that you have the keys and drivers wheel to and they belong to you now"
Over Ukrainian territory. For defensive purposes. Where it was originally agreed for. Crimea hasn't been Ukraine for years (even though it should be). Offensives into Russia were not part of any operational original deals.
It's not deactivating if it was never live there.
The individual base station (or whatever) has its service deactivated when it goes to Crimea, which is internationally recognized as Ukrainian territory.
No one but Russian bootlickers think Crimea is part of Russia.
Right. The individual base stations always have had a service region. It's why I can't use starlink over international waters and the same thing happens from a fishing boat or anything. There's no purposeful deactivations. Just boundaries of service already established.
It's literally part of the service when you sign up.
You're right that technically he could provide coverage anywhere in the world. There's lots of reasons he doesn't. But that's always been part of the service.
18 UNcountries recognize it as Russian territory. Some of them large superpowers or economic hubs. Including one that's expected to launch starlink soon. (Though all generally shitty countries.)
But aside from that. The rules for supplying things to Ukraine were spelled out very clearly. It's why none of the Western supplies hsve been used in Russian territory attacks. Doing so Russia claimed it would retaliate.
The articles are claiming that he intentionally turned it off when it was originally on and that's not the case. It was never active there.
Look if you want to play semantics, fine. The most finite definition is that starlink satellites deactivate every time they pass over Crimea. He actively contributes to russias strike capabilities on a daily basis. It's far worse than the story, not better.
Won't matter when Ukraine creates their own capabilities, but fuck musk just the same.
Musk is beholden to various international laws when providing this coverage. Like it or not Russia considers crimea their territory and would not respond kindly to musk allowing it's use over their territory.
Like I love how everyone just expects this dude to just as a civilian piss off a nation who can shoot his satellites down or consider it an act of war on his own.
Russia, Belarus, China, North Korea, Cuba, Eritrea. What are rest of 12 countries?
India , and several African and middle eastern countries. (iirc Iran was on there etc). By no means a real winner list but just worth noting.
In particular India which starlink is set to go active in very soon.
Crimea is in Ukraine.
Yes. However Russia has claimed it years before this conflict and threatened retaliation if westerners interfere. It's why all of the supplies we give are only used in Ukraine. The attacks on Russian soil are not with Western supplies intentionally and this would be no different.
No, it claimed when conflict started. Just before February Putin didn't go any further.
? Russia has claimed crimea since they annexed it years ago.
This is correct. Statement that Crimea was annexed before conflict started is incorrect.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding please correct me. Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014 no? The current crisis started much later than that no? (Even though technically many consider them connected for obvious reasons.)
No, crisis wasn't ended, it was paused.
You do know those starlinks move over the planets surface, right?
The only way to not have them active over a certain area (excluding the poles) is by deactivating them when they fly over.
Either Elmo doesn't know how his own planet wide network works, or he is lying.
You do realize starlink has always had regional and location based activation for multitudes of reasons. Including laws of said countries.
Yes. It's deactivated over crimea. It always was.
Similar to how it stopped functioning if you tried to use it in international waters.
If you get starlink location of use is included in the setup. Which is why you can't just slap it onto a boat or something. (though they do now sell a starlink with that functionality)
Can you cite this? If you're right, I'd be interested in knowing more
Oh boyyyy can't wait to hear from the Tankies going NUH UH THOSE ARE FAKE AND/OR RUN BY UKRAINIANS ON RUSSIAN-SPEAKING PEOPLE THIS IS EVIDENCE OF UKRAINIANS COMMITTING GENOCIDE OR ITS THE CIA COMRADE PUTIN WOULD NEVER DO THIS
SOURCE: TRUST ME BRO
e_e
I doubt there are stupid enough people who would deny Putin's crimes.
I'm not surprised given that even drafted are tortured in army, or sledgehammer thing when Ukraine exchanged POWs.
If militant gang pensioner did it Russia with chemical weapon or in Britan, he sure will do it again.
No one would post if there were Ukrainian torture chambers, let's be honest
I'm not a Russia or Putin Stan but this isn't evidence of anything. A Ukrainian blog stating the Ukrainian police found 80 places the Russians used to allegedly hold and torture civilians? The article offers nothing but a statement as evidence this happened. The only photo in the blog post is a room with what looks like a mattress and clothes.
I'm sure the Russians are doing fucked up shit. I'm pretty tired of the pro-ukraine take.
What's this lefties nonsense the only people saying this are tankies because communism is good in their mind despite the fact that there's demonstrably provably wrong.
The political left are not saying this.
Conservatives are playing word games to try to confuse non-conservatives. When conservatives cannot defend an absurd postition, they often resort to re-defining words or gaslighting.
As always, every thought uttered by a conservative is either deception or manipulation. Every time. Never, ever trust a conservative. They are not capable of honesty.
The battle of the pot and the kettle
Communism in itself is a great ideology, it’s just that applying it correctly requires an unreal amount of effort and cooperation between millions of people.
And since that’s extremely hard, if not impossible, to do in a realistic setting, the only countries that identify as communist are actually fascist ones who try to fool people into believing they aren’t.
It's not an "ideology" either. It's a mode of production, which includes feudalism, slave society, and capitalism. The argument has been about how we move from a capitalist society to a class-less/state-less society.
I haven't seen a single country identify as Communist, not in the past and not in the present. They have identified as socialist, welfare capitalist, building socialism, or state-capitalist.
Uhh… what about China, ruled for the past 70+ years by the “Communist Party of China”…?
They're trying to redefine left like some idiotic psyops lol.
I agree with that sentiment and consider myself a leftist, also. It certainly applies more to ML/tankie types. I also believe that's what the poster in the image means too. There's still broadly some confusion and conflation of terms regarding the exact definition of solicaism/communism/leftism/ML-ism, and I believe the this is an example of that.
Tankies are not actually on the left, though. That's part of their gaslighting. Tankies are conservatives.
I view that as wishful thinking. They're leftists authoritarians. I know it's uncomfortable to think we may share a side of the political specrtum with such people, but to deny it is to ignore the problem in the same way right-wingers did with the fascists (right-wing authoritarians) who now dominate their ranks in at least the U.S and Italty. However, unlike the far right, they're usually socially progressive; at least western leftists are. Perhaps the similarities ML types have with fascists can be best explained by horseshoe theory.
However, I'm open to the idea that our common political parlance is insufficient in this matter. I'd much prefer a political spectrum defined by rationalism/humanism/critical theory vs the alternative embodied by lunatics of every stripe and philosophy, political, religious, or otherwise. Perhaps that's what you meant by disassociating from them.
Your definition of "left" is incorrect. Authoritarianism is never part of left-wing ideology. Once authoritatianism is introduced into whatever leftist construct is being discussed, the construct becomes right-wing. Full stop. When someone describes a "leftist" ideology that includes authoritarianism, you should consider that a red flag that a conservative is attempting to manipulate terminology.
Authoritarianism is definitional in determining political orientation. It's not a requirement, but when it exists as part of an ideology, that ideology becomes right-wing by definition.
When you share memes or opinions that classify any authoritatian ideas as part of a leftist ideology, you are either gaslighting or have yourself been a victim of gaslighting (and are now sharing misinformation). This is harmful to the left. If you are actually a leftist, as you claim, please stop.
Here is a Wikipedia entry further describing the characteristics of left-wing politics to help clarify how authoritarianism is definitionally counter to left-wing orientation.
I understand where you're coming from and agree in principle; however, I stated that the issue is with common parlance, which very much does include authoritarians among leftists. The Wikipedia article you linked even says so under the subsection: Types, where it includes Maoism. Perhaps I should stop referring to such as leftists so as not to normalize that perception, but it is already so and would make having a conversation with people far more difficult if I were speaking from a reference point that most people don't share.
Who is trying to establish communism here? Even socialism as a whole was already abandonded by both Russia and Ukraine in the 1960s, maybe even earlier. If two sides are verifiably fighting for capitalist interests, with a single country caught between choosing to pawn themselves off to one major capitalist power or another, and both sides have been confirmed to commit war crimes far beyond what could be passed off as incidental,
why do we have to support a side?
Hold on, communism is good in my mind, its just what they call communism fucking sucks and what I call communism is a pipe dream.
Facts, fam. It's ok to enjoy pipe dreams as long as we're mindful of the fact that they are pipe dreams. Everybody gets inspiration from unrealistic aspirations. It's fine. Like, unironically, it's ok to think "boy, it would be nice if the world were a little more like how I wish it were", as long as there isn't an effort made to abuse other people for not always agreeing or having the same dream.
Truth be told, it'd be cool if communism were to actually work, although I for one feel leery of the human error introduced by central planning. Parallel processing is humanity's greatest strength and leaving things up to a committee is a massive vulnerability. If instead of an insular committee of unilaterally appointed bureaucrats, it were some kind of democratic system where direct referendums could override the representatives whenever people get pissed off enough at their representatives not doing their (FUCKING) jobs, that'd be a damn sight better than any currently operating economic model. Because frankly, right now, capitalism itself also has insular committees of appointees (shareholders in boardrooms) and that sucks too.
I wouldn't want centrally planned, and I definitely don't want insular commitees of bureaucrats. Just asking for trouble. But I think what I'm asking for now would be called Market Socialism instead of Communism. If we sieze the means of production, why give up that power to someone who doesn't make the goods? And central planning sounds like it will always have the Local Knowledge problem, though today we do have tariffs at port authorities which sound to me equally insane.
Gosh yeah :3
Hella fair!
Might that be closer to something like syndicalism?
Because, like, the people doing the work all belong to an association that represents their industry and decide collectively among their industry peers what is produced, how it's produced, and for whom.
Those industrial associations would be worker syndicates.
As far as communicating the wants of the population at large, that's what currency exists for; it's a signalling system. That's the "market" component - if a worker syndicate decides to produce things that they send to markets where nobody wants those things, nobody there buys the things and as a result they get less money for paying their own bills (including wages). Nobody likes not getting paid, after all.
Thank you. I oughta read some theory, after all :3
That sounds so wonderful
I didn't say any of that. I pointed out that this particular blog source isn't providing any tangible evidence and should be treated with skepticism.
I deliberately don't follow much Ukrainian war news, I find the coverage from a western perspective distasteful so I went and googled around a bit.
https://apnews.com/article/un-human-rights-torture-civilians-russia-ukraine-29e238cf0ec6a2e6a25bfd260bf5e93b
This is a better evidenced and written article. Like I said I'm not a Russia fan and approaching western reporting with skepticism is generally a better approach in my opinion.
I think varying degrees of torture probably occur with all wars, by all sides. War is distasteful and terrible. (International) crimes are surely committed.
I agree that the article in question is weak. I know there's already evidence that Russia has committed war crimes. Probably Ukraine, too. War sucks.
That's generally my take, I'm not interested in breathless horse race reporting from CNN. I find it very suspicious that in my googling about torture in Ukraine, I found only one article mentioning atrocities from the Ukrainian side. I probably believe the Russians are being more brutal especially given the limited reporting I've seen about penal battalions. But given all the Nazi patches I've seen on Ukrainians, I doubt the war has been clean. From my understanding having never lived in a war zone, wars are never clean.
I don't like this war reporting portraying Russians in a dehumanizing way. I think that's dangerous narrative building. I don't trust western reporting to not toe NATO's line. So when I say I'm skeptical of articles, I try to take what information presented without the narrative attached. In this example I found not much actual information presented but a strong narrative of an invasive oppressive army brutalizing the civilian population showing no empathy and a penchant for war crimes. That might be true but the evidence presented for such a strong narrative is a picture of an ill maintained room and a police report.
We're caught in the middle of a third world war, with many similarities to the first one: namely, inter-imperialist/inter-capitalist. Saying something bad about "your team" (the one you're supposed to praise as supreme and glorious with a clear display of patriotism) is seen as traitor behavior worthy of prison. The US and UK would dehumanize Germans back during WWI, and send labor activists to jail over claims of German interference. You're right to avoid the trap of dehumanizing "the other" for the sake of trying to pick the lesser of two evils. Never pick sides in an inter-imperialist conflict. At best you get an FDR to avert revolution, at worst you get a bunch of Mussolinis walking around.
That's fair, and Iappreciate your response. However, at this point most reasonable people understand how vicious Russian occupiers are. Most people still making arguments about the veracity of their crimes are not arguing in good faith.
To be completely fair, the meme applies to me completely lol. I have to examine and reflect on my bias as well.
And that is why I am against forcing Ukraine to accept lost territory. If you let russia keep territory it has currently occupied, they will get away with all the torture, killing and abduction of civilians.
I thought you were against it back when Putin ordered Navalny
Russians have a history of doing this. And russians also have a history of having useful stooges spreading "both-sides-ism" and similar nonsense. What are you?
I've read this about five times and I still don't understand what you're getting at.
Are you accusing OP of being a Russian shill because I don't see where your getting that from.
I thought I replied to nostradiel above who was stating "I would be extremely careful about these claims from Ukrainian officials. They showed before that they are capable of anything to have attention of mainstream press and western countries. It’s propaganda on both ends - Russian and Ukrainian."
For some reason my reply ended up under Quacksalber, which is not what I intended. I thought I was careful before, but maybe I did not pay enough attention to where I replied to. I am not willing to call this a kbin bug yet, maybe I did not pay attention.
I only see that you responded to Quacksalber, no one called nostradiel is in this thread from what I can see.
Edit: I can see nostradiel at the bottom now, but your response isn't to them.
One thing I've noticed (at least in the Jerboa app) is when a comment is removed or deleted it's replies get displayed on another comment. Seemingly consistently the same wrong comment even on refreshing the page, it's weird.
Edit: it used to at least, for a really long time
It's wrong even on the (my instances) website. So I think OP just clicked on the wrong comment.
It's so sad that russians have been so brainwashed to do this to their fellow man.
Literally all they need to do is divert their military to building instead of destroying and Russia would be in a much better place now.
This is a really misleading title if it's just grouping places where people were imprisoned with places people were actually tortured. There's obviously a massive difference. This seems like the original article in Ukrainian: https://mvs.gov.ua/news/pid-cas-zustrici-iz-specialnoiu-dopovidackoiu-oon-z-pitan-tortur-katerina-pavlicenko-povidomila-pro-viiavlennia-v-ukrayini-80-rosiiskix-kativen
Are they actually saying people were definitely tortured in all 80 places there? (Also kind of funny, Google Translate seems to do a better job than the link in OP but it's still not clear to me exactly what they meant.)
Putin chambers
One little question nobody here has asked himself:
How do YOU know that that's true? Can you verify this information for youself? Could the source have any incentive to lie? Have you read any response about this from the other side?
I think you have a point in that it's very possible government sources are exaggerating about this - I'm not too invested in what the invaders have to say about it though.
I would be extremely careful about these claims from Ukrainian officials. They showed before that they are capable of anything to have attention of mainstream press and western countries. It's propaganda on both ends - Russian and Ukrainian.
I would prefer if you kept your propaganda to yourself.
As a matter of fact I don't give a damn what you prefer. 🤣
Clearly.
Be extremely careful about bad translations