Let's even say that what you are saying is completely true - because it is, to some extent. Russia is not 100% well intentioned. I am not a Putinist by any stretch of the imagination...

What you are actually suggesting is that the Ukraine, the most corrupt & impoverished country in Europe at that moment, is being defended by the USA and NATO, because they are a bastion of liberty... and the USA, and NATO, who absolutely have not killed millions of people around the world exclusively to further their own geopolitical position and economic interests, who have absolutely never massacred actual progressives and leftists by the tens of thousands in places like Chile, Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, are totally backing the Ukraine because they have the noblest of intentions in defending.... :::: puts on Zelenskyy's gravitas and accent ::: democracy and human rights.

Even if Putin is 100% in the wrong (which he isn't), it does not mean that the US and the Kiev regime are forces of democracy and progress. In fact, if history teaches us anything, the fact that the Kiev regime is working closely with the CIA and the USA means it is going to be a corrupt, backwards state... Or, as Zelenskyy stated it himself...

Ukraine wants to be Big Israel.

Imagine if the US lost the entire East Coast and being told to just give up retaking it instead of shedding more blood.

OK, but let's imagine that the entire East Coast is ethnically majority English, and they speak only English, and traditionally vote for English candidates that advance closer relations with England... And let's also imagine that they were actually assigned to be part of America by England herself in the middle of last century for administrative purposes when England used to rule the US...

... And then, after the English speaking, English descent President, who was elected popularly, with the East Coast as his predictable heartland of su pport, many English on the East Coast were completely pissed off. New York completely voted itself to be a part of England right away -- of course, English officers and pollsters were there to facilitate this and the numbers were wonky, but a lot of people generally accepted it at the time because it was reasonably explicable...

... And, like, we've now been fighting a civil war without the English for 7 years... the rest of America has agreed to take in tons of military support and training from China, and is lining itself up to become a threat towards not just the East Coast, but of course, England, and the English alliance system more broadly...

And the East Coast would be joining a comparatively 2, 3x more wealthy and less corrupt state that has its best interests at heart by joining England, as opposed to feeling like the neglected, actualy despised part of America, which is a rapidly failing state ruled by a series of corrupt oligarchs... Not entirely unlike England, but [i]measurably worst in terms of standard of living, at least..![/i]

It's pretty complicated, isn't it?

And thinking that globalisation will democratise Russia is wishing that China and Saudi Arabia will also be the same. People have thought about that to those countries but it hasn’t happened. Autocratic countries know how to insulate themselves from outside influence, precisely because they do not allow dissenting voices, especially from outside. They are autocratic after all.

I said prosperity and not globalization for a reason, though... Globalization is a front for global capital.

I also believe China & Saudi Arabia have become measurably more liberal places over the last few decades - I don't think you'd dispute that, either. The only issue is that China has incorporated its emerging bourgeoisie into a more jingoistic, confrontational foreign policy outlook, IMO.

They are still just ruled by oligarchs like the West.

A two hour old account parroting pro-Trump with Russian propaganda. You make an interesting spin I have to say.

Yeah man I'm a freshman but I think I am cut out for the team.

Give me some time and I'll melt your heart.

This is one of those things where you want to point out how stupid! the shooter is, but... the guy probably had crazy amounts of adrenaline coursing through him, absolutely can't think straight, and this is just the cunning of fate.

I disagree - Yanukovych was elected on he basis that he would be close to Russia. He won the popular election at one point. Of course a significant amount of Ukrainians were pissed that he pulled out of the deal, but it was predictable that a pro-Russian leader would take steps to try to at least maintain a balance between the West and Russia...

Maybe it is even the case that Yanukovych was heavy-handed in scuttling the EU deal, but the crazy violence that happened at the Odessa trade hall and the sweeping to power of these cartoon character super nationalists in the most corrupt country in Europe seems like a fair enough reason for places like Crimea and E. Ukraine to want to return to Russia...

Obviously, I would agree with the assessment that some amount of Russian intelligence operations and propagandists were invested in forcing the issue, but I've also heard interviews with pro-Kiev Ukrainians from the East conceding that their own home town in Luhansk/Donetsk is mostly pro-Russian.

Pushing for isolationism and apathy is precisely what Putin wants as it would mean leaving Ukraine on its own and time for Moscow to recover. The narrative of squarely blaming Ukraine for all the deaths in spite of Russia was the one who invaded unprovoked is suspiciously becoming more common. Usually peace advocates implore both sides, not blaming only one side and the aggrieved one at that.

I actually blame the West for all the deaths. Someone at some point convinced Zelenskyy that he would have enough support to turn back a Russian invasion - something he should have been far more skeptical about - and the results are absolutely catastrophic.

I am always anti-war, and thus I am against diplomatic maneuvers that fail to de-escalate hostile situations and create more friction.

Does it suck that the Ukraine is in such a difficult position? Of course. But the answer to this is not putting them in the boxing ring with the Russian bear. The results have been devastating and predictable.

BTW... No, i do not support Putin at all. The path forward for Russia is the same path forward for all nations: increasing wealth and insuring its equitable distribution so that the average persons enjoys a high standard of living and can together exert pressure for accountability & transparency of government...

But complaining that Russia, a country with so many issues after the collapse of the Soviet Union, is undemocratic all the while our own nations see civil rights never actualized or even eroded and control by capitalist oligarchs is... rich.

We also set up Russia to be that way - remember the Harvard Boys.

Plus yeah, sure, Kushner & Trump will enrich themselves immensely through those offices... and you rightly criticize them for it... But this is par for the course of politics. I concede this.

I am saying Trump is the better candidate in terms of trying to derail devastatingly stupid & evil American foreign policy because, for reasons separate than mine & yours, is more inclined to isolationism.

He allows for something like a multipolar world through isolationism, which is a step in the right direction of decentralization.

I already conceded the Israel point - he would be identical or potentially worse than Biden.

I think Zelenskyy agreed to break the Minsk II protocols and was, along with his cabinet and the Ukrainian deep state, preparing a long time for the fight with Russia, which is why no meaningful effort was made to avoid the war.

Maybe that timeline is off, as I've heard others say that the key decision was made in Feb/March of 2022 when it was then decided to not sue for peace early under the belief that he'd receive adequate American support that would defeat the Russians but that, of course, has proven to be a total joke: over a 100 billion dollars in aid has not been able to shift the course of the battle at all, and it seems obvious that other than sending actual NATO units and fighting WWIII, which could absolutely go nuclear, Ukraine was doomed...

Biden was fabulously stupid or maybe even evil, or a little of each, in this insane decision...

It's amazing to me that you are talkign about this like one of the bad things Trump would have done is potentially not give Zelenskyy false hope that he could win the war and retake Crimea...

The greatst support the Ukrainians could have had would've been not getting encouraged to stand their ground so as to avoid what is now over half a million dead young men all to preserve the subordinance of two provinces that were absolutely loyal to the formerly ousted Yanukovych.

This is not a good assessment of the situation at all...

If American power was truly benign, it would be interested in maintaining Ukrainian neutrality as much as possible to prevent the disaster we have just seen, and simply allow the processes of technology and modernization to erode totalitarian institutions in Russia and, similarly, fought corruption in Ukraine... It would not weaponize the most backwards & corrupt country in Europe through re-energizing the Maidan, throwing a coup using literal Nazi militiamen, and put it on a crash course with Russia, causing it to lose a war abysmally that could have been settled by insisting on some sort of elections in Luhansk/Donetsk with international observers...

Polling shows that it could've likely resulted in just some autonomous region that would still be within Ukraine...

But look at we got: at least half a million dead Ukrainians and now it has been all but guaranteed that more than Luhansk & Donetsk will be ceded to Russia.

You sound like a progressive that would be arguing that the US needed to go into Vietnam to offset Russian & Chinese expansion in southeast Asia, and that the 2 million Vietnamese dead and tens of thousands of working class Americans dying are just these necessary side effects of us being the good guyz.

Anything which actively seeks to control others through coercion or social engineering is fascist, IMO, which makes Trump non-unique. One of the greatest manifestations of Democrat fascism is what we saw over the last half-decade with their attempts to create a false narrative around Trump, and to exercise all power available to obscure their own guilt of corruption & collusion by not investigating Hunter Biden and giving sweetheart deals... Moreover, what was the whole J6 debacle but the establishment reasserting dominance by throwing the book at middle aged peasants who dared smack cops on a police line and occupy a Federal space for a couple hours...? That's its own fascism.

Tell me how this "vote blue" thing is working out for Palestinians, and also for Ukrainians.

No, you shouldn't vote Democrat - both parties tend to have unimaginably negative foreign policy that perpetuates the American empire across the globe. This is the greatest source of evil in the world - not regressive immigration policy.

This is even why you should consider voting for Trump, regardless of what you think about him: he actually seems to endorse isolationism to some degree. I think they are probably the same concerning Israel, but it is not illogical to say that Trump would've done something else concerning the Ukraine, or that he would have be engaging with China very differently.

... To be completely completely fair, the Greeks with power treated a substantial amount of their population as machines, forcing them to perform labor and submit themselves sexually to them, and presided over a system that might have actually viewed the eventual goal of society to be elevating the people of my City to not lives of indolent leisure & carnal pleasure through subjugating countless others...

Some do it to potentially document accidents - I know some racial minorities in my country that say they are accused of child abuse and investigated at the drop of the hat if they bring their kid to the doctor and they have any kind of bruise. I heard of a Muslim woman who lost custody of her kid for 48 hours until she was able to produce CCTV footage of her child breaking his arm in a playground accident, and not due to some act of child abuse.

So,, having a cam that catches your kid experiencing an innocuous fall wherever it may be in the house is a good security measure, particularly if the justice system comes at you preloaded with bias.

I appreciate people posting content which disproves the idea that the GOP is monolithic.

... Then what's the point of this law if Congress is full of brown shirt "traitors" who will give congressional approval for withdrawal from NATO?

This is exactly right - of course, there may be some gerrymandering forced in, but often times a consensus is reached by sitting legislators locally to gerrymander local districts because it can ensure the political longevity of both the left/right candidates who do it.

Amazing to me that we would have "progressives" downvoting this comment - as if there's real faith that the Democrat party has their best interests at heart, lol.

My first thought was that this was very un-Libertarian of Milei, and then I got my answer:

José Luis Espert, a legislator in Bullrich’s Together for Change alliance, which is in coalition with Milei’s Liberty Advances party, replied with a three-word phrase: “Prison or bullet.”

Milei did not even say these lines.

It seems to be mostly about cracking down on disruptive protests that block traffic, etc.

Some of this just isn't that bad:

It also limits the participation of teenagers in social protests, ruling that parents of youngsters who should have been at school instead of protesting will be sanctioned.

Fair & good.