“Volodymyr! I see you’re enjoying the book you read an average of 13 minutes before you go to sleep each night! Up to chapter 47 already, which is an improvement on your average reading speed since the last book you read! You’ll like chapter 53, because the author actually saw it happen to a member of the politbureau in 1983!”
Man where’s a fucking window when you need one…
Just so we’re all on the same page, that’s the company whose official position is some cultures aren’t as good as others, countries should embrace a single national identity, Germany and Japan should remilitarize and crime should be solved by mass surveillance
PS: I understand they need to cozy up to the US, but is putting Ronald McDonald on their emblems the way to do it?
And Legalizing War Crimes Would Be Good for Business.
birds of a feather and all that
Some fun new results from the Democracy Perception Index:
Ukraine ranks among the lowest in freedom of speech
Ukraine ranks among the lowest in democracy
For comparison, higher ranked countries
Never thought I’d see the day China escaped the bottom half of an eagle burger institute goodness index report.
an eagle burger institute goodness index report.
rotflmao
Yep, but as Edie said, it isn’t measuring via western norms but instead people’s perceptions. This doesn’t allow the usual shenanigans by western institutes to come into play, such as redefining democracy to a narrow view.
Yeah that makes more sense
What makes it so is because they ask people how they feel, rather than “”“objectively”“” scoring them
It’s surprisingly honest and the methodology is actually democratic. Unlike other reports on democracy the scoring isn’t done by the report’s authors (like the report by Freedom House or The Economist’s “Democracy Index”). It simply asks people what they think and, when it comes to democracy, that’s kind of the point
https://xcancel.com/RnaudBertrand/status/2053319444647358607
That makes a lot more sense I was probably thinking of the economist “democracy” index or equivalent.
I don’t think prolonged war against an authoritarian former superpower would be good for any democracy.
How can you keep your society open and your speech free, while also giving the leadership room to manoeuvre freely in the best strategic interest of the country and keeping foreign powers from poisoning your media?
Other countries seem to navigate wars without canceling elections and outlawing opposition parties just fine
Hmm, got any examples?
The United States. Denmark
The US is notable, but in a unique position since its size and position make it very unlikely that it would have to fight an existential war.
Can’t find much on Denmark though. I suppose that during WW2 they didn’t get much of a say. But in previous wars Denmark was still a monarchy. The only other major war in which they didn’t immediately capitulate were the Schleswig wars, but then the Danish parliament was still very young (1849, wars happened in 1848 and 1864).
Suspending elections for the time being is a bit more common, especially if voting would be too dangerous for the people.
The US has never suspended elections however. During the civil war, during the war of 1812 when the white house was burned down, during every war on the mainland of the US, during the draft of Vietnam — the US has never stopped doing elections.
Most countries that suspended elections also did it last in a time before long distance communication was popular, much less instantaneous lossless communication being cheap and widely available. There’s no reason to use the excuse of ‘safety’ in the age of the internet.
The only real reasons to suspend elections in this century is incompetence or corruption. That’s it. Which do you believe is leading Ukraine or Russia?
I just think it’s going to be kinda funny when the big NATO fans inevitably realize that continuing the war is unpopular in Ukraine, and that it isn’t actually the bastion of democracy and freedom the west makes it out to be. When the Banderites took power in 2014, that sparked an internal crisis and civil war. The Russian Federation ranks higher than Ukraine on this list.
I don’t think it’s so much about democracy and freedom as it is about the self-determination of Ukraine and the further security of Europe against an imperialist Russia. But for sure, criticising Ukraine is not easy these days due to exactly those concerns.
What about the self-determination of Donetsk and Luhansk? Their secession from Ukraine following the Banderite coup in 2014 is what sparked the war. Further, Russia isn’t imperialist, it has no colonies nor neocolonies, and is blocked out of the international monopoly of finance capital. Annexation of territory isn’t the same as imperialism. Finally, Russia poses little to no threat to Europe, Europe is pushing this narrative to justify increasing militarization as imperialism as a system is weakening, giving Europe less super-profits extracted from the periphery.
What about the self-determination of Donetsk and Luhansk?
Would you say those secessions happened freely and without armed pressure from Russia?
Russia isn’t imperialist, it has no colonies nor neocolonies, and is blocked out of the international monopoly of finance capital. Annexation of territory isn’t the same as imperialism.
I don’t know about that. As I understand it, imperialism is the pursuit of a state encompassing many nations. Is Russia a nation state?
Finally, Russia poses little to no threat to Europe
I live in a group of European nation states currently experiencing hybrid warfare from Russia, according to what we see with our own eyes and what is reported by both trustworthy state sources and independent media, corporate or not. Russia is clearly not just a threat, but a currently hostile nation.
Nobody in my region wants this war to continue. Ideally everyone would lay down arms and demilitarize (including Europe and the US). For border and independence issues we could look to long term solutions similar to those found in Denmark, where the border disputes with Germany were solved with free and fair referendums, while the independence of Iceland was a collaborative effort between two good faith nations.
The secession of Donetsk and Luhansk maps neatly with how Donetsk and Luhansk voted prior to 2014:
It’s fairly clear that the Donbass region did not appreciate the Banderites couping the president supported by the Donbass.
As for imperialism, it isn’t the pursuit of a single state over many nations, in the modern era it is a stage in capitalist development characterized by the dominance of finance capital (the merger of bank capital and industrial capital) and the proliferation of global monopolies. This forces a system of international extraction in the form of capital export, through systems like the IMF, and backed militarily by systems like NATO. Europe, the US, etc. are imperialist, Russia is not.
As for what you claim to experience, it’s largely government propaganda from capitalist dictatorships. Fascism is rising in Europe because of the decay in imperialism, and fascism needs an enemy. Russia is not interested in attacking Europe and has no reason to do so, unless imperialist organizations like NATO continue to encircle and entrap it.
Funny enough, war with Europe is even less likely now, as Russia has increased economic ties with prospering countries like China, and the US/Ukraine blew up the Nordstream pipeline. Europe has a real potential to gain from Russian LNG, as Europe still needs it, but Russia is doing just fine economically thanks to working with more stable business partners. Russia has nothing to gain from war with Europe.
How do you distinguish the truth from European / capitalist propaganda and Russian propaganda?
I’m happy to re-examine my views of the situation here, but the claims you make do not correspond to any media or state reporting in my region, which includes publicly owned sources, corporate sources and independent sources. Some of that is capitalist propaganda for sure, but a lot of it is clearly aligned against capitalist interests. Yet they report similar hostilities from the Russians, and similar reports on imperialist (in the definition I gave above) agenda from the Russians.
If none of those can be trusted, what can? Only sources outside the EU?
What kind of source on Russian hostilities would change your mind on the matter?
And the same people who use that excuse are crying about free speech when Russia shuts down a western funded regime change outlet to protect them from exactly what they did in ex-ukraine.
Exactly, and for good reason, the loss of free speech is a disaster in any country.
Still, there’s a lot more going on in ex-ukraine where all opposition is forbidden, and even put in jail.
But as I understand it, Ukraine is a corrupt state lost to the fate of imperialist proxy, while Russia is one of the last bastions against western imperialism.
Shouldn’t we actually be holding Russia to a higher standard than Ukraine?
That is really not a high bar is it?
And while Russia certainly has problems your first sentence is absolutely correct and they get my critical support for that reason.
There is no greater force for evil than the imperialist/fascist USSA and its proxies.
Once that implodes (finally it’s in sight) we can take care of other problems.But how can we know that Russia itself won’t fall to corruption and imperialism before the fall of the US if we don’t hold Russia to a high standard of freedom? Isn’t that the mistake many people made with the US, accepting it as the leader of the free world while ignoring its obvious hypocrisy?
The USSR has fallen, and modern is under no guarantees to have inherited any of its moral strength.
Well this isn’t good.
It’s also extremely expected.
