Ser Scot A Ellison Posted July 10, 2023 Author Share Posted July 10, 2023 @butterweedstrover Russia victim of itself. What does DNA have to do with Culture? Am I cultural both German and Irish because of my DNA? Corvinus85 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karaddin Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 (edited) It's really quite an act to try and tell me that the "freedom" I'm claiming the west gives me is just a lie when the country you're praising would either kill me or put me in prison simply for existing. And you're doing this while also saying the west allowing me to live is proof of the West's weakness and decadence and driving "Russian liberals" away, so you even recognise that freedom actually exists. Good argument. I'm not American, I'm not particularly a fan either and there's a fuckload to criticise about the west and it's imperialism, but the shit you're pointing to isn't even it. ETA: bumped post early, quote in the next one Edited July 10, 2023 by karaddin Ser Scot A Ellison, A wilding, Arakasi and 6 others 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karaddin Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 3 hours ago, butterweedstrover said: That is just you guys losing Russian Liberals. Actually, I don't think that stuff will last anyways so its not important. In case anyone is missing what this is saying, this means people like me are abused and killed to ensure future generations are too afraid to be themselves. That's the only way you put the genie back in the bottle after people have been able to live freely. And it's exactly the approach Russia already takes. A wilding, Which Tyler, Ser Reptitious and 3 others 5 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
butterweedstrover Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 1 hour ago, karaddin said: In case anyone is missing what this is saying, this means people like me are abused and killed to ensure future generations are too afraid to be themselves. That's the only way you put the genie back in the bottle after people have been able to live freely. And it's exactly the approach Russia already takes. You’ve gotta give some context here otherwise I have no clue what you’re talking about. PS: geopolitically being Canadian is the same thing as being American. And I love the US, just not the collective west. Canada I openly dislike for harboring Banderites. Kalbear and maarsen 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
butterweedstrover Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 @Werthead we’re not done yet. I didn’t have time in the last post, but: You get the DPR and the LPR wanted the Minsk agreement to go through since that gives Russia leverage in Kiev. Meanwhile your Nazi friends (it wasn’t just Azov) talked about wanting to kill Russians. So don’t handwave about who broke the ceasefire, one side openly wanted it broken while the other wanted it integrated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted July 10, 2023 Author Share Posted July 10, 2023 @butterweedstrover What does DNA have to do with cultural distinctions? Are Icelanders really Norwegian because they share similar genomes? Should Norway have the right to invade and incorporate Iceland? (Am I really a German-Irish person and not an American… because of my DNA?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Horse Named Stranger Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 Since people are still engaging with this nonsense, I want to have another pick 2 hours ago, butterweedstrover said: The west has no interests in Ukraine other than to destroy Russia. For Russia Ukraine is their closest ally and an important economic and cultural partner. How is aiding Ukraine forging another path destroying Russia? Not sure how to put it any simpler Ukraine is not (a part of) Russia. Ukrainians had that choice, when the USSR collapsed and they decided to be independent. 2 hours ago, butterweedstrover said: A sovereign country wholly dependent on others for economic, military, and diplomatic cover is in no way independent. I am sorta confused, aren't you describing Putin's/Russia's idea for the future of Ukraine. Basically a Belarus 2.0 functions as a Russian proxy? Which pretty much sums up Russian interests in Ukraine. hauberk, Ser Scot A Ellison and Matrim Fox Cauthon 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 War and Punishment: The Story of Russian Oppression and Ukrainian Resistance by Mikhail Zygar – review Observer book of the week History books "His Ukrainian friend, Nadia, now refuses to talk to him; despite his condemnation of the war... she thinks he is an “imperialist” " https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/09/war-and-punishment-the-story-of-russian-oppression-and-ukrainian-resistance-by-mikhail-zygar-review Quote .... Like many of his progressive peers, the Russian political journalist Mikhail Zygar was forced last year to escape Moscow. He relocated to Berlin. Zygar is the founding editor-in-chief of the liberal TV news channel Dozhd, and the author of a bestselling book on Putin’s vertical system, All the Kremlin’s Men, based on interviews with well-informed insiders. He has been covering Ukraine for two decades. He has spoken to its presidents and oligarchs, and once spent weeks writing at a friend’s house in Bucha, the pleasant Kyiv garden suburb where in spring 2022 Russian troops executed hundreds of civilians. His Ukrainian friend, Nadia, now refuses to talk to him; despite his condemnation of the war, and feelings of shame, she thinks he is an “imperialist”, he tells us. His latest work, War and Punishment, is a pained attempt to prove Nadia wrong. It begins and ends with a confession. “I am guilty,” Zygar admits. He apologises for not reading the signs earlier, for failing to see how deep-rooted cultural and historical prejudices fuelled what he calls Russian fascism. “It’s time to get off the needle,” he writes. The drug is the “myth of greatness” and Russocentric exceptionalism. Zygar’s book is lively, brisk and written in the present tense. It explores Russian attitudes to Ukraine over the past 350 years – a sorry tale of big brother chauvinism and oppression. He seeks to demolish, myth by myth, the “imperial mindset” that led to the current conflict, Europe’s biggest since 1945. These colonial ideas continue to shape how most Russians think about Kyiv, with Moscow cast not as aggressor but victim. Putin’s own, addict-like misreading of history explains his decision to attack Ukraine, Zygar argues. In summer 2021 Russia’s president published an essay setting out a manifesto for war: that Ukraine was never a state, people, or community. Instead, he claimed that Russia, Belarus and Ukraine were part of an ancient spiritual and cultural space, with their joint origins in the ninth-century princedom of Kyivan Rus. According to Zygar’s sources, Russia’s ex-culture minister Vladimir Medinsky wrote the text. It closely reflected Putin’s own obsessions. Two figures played a role in shaping the president’s views. Both were the sons of historians – the oligarch Yuri Kovalchuk, Putin’s friend and de facto number two, and Andrey Fursenko, a former education minister. Their fathers were members of Leningrad’s Soviet history institute. As Zygar tells it, Putin and Kovalchuk cooked up the invasion during the Covid pandemic. They quarantined together at the president’s residence in Valdai, and discussed how to retrieve Russia’s lost empire. “Their habits and philosophical outlook are in perfect harmony, consisting of a bizarre mix of Orthodox mysticism, anti-American conspiracy theories and hedonism: palaces, haute cuisine and rare wines,” Zygar notes. There were compelling reasons why Putin thought his martial plan would succeed. He believed the west to be weak. The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan had humbled the Biden administration. Putin had a low opinion of Boris Johnson (a “fatuous airhead”) and Emmanuel Macron (a “bumbling amateur”). He respected Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, but knew her to be a “lame duck”, in Zygar’s brutal summary. .... From the review it seems War and Punishment covers much if not all the same ground as the previously mentioned here by Scott and I, The Gates to Europe: A History of Ukraine (2015) by Serhii Plokhy, does; like Plokhy's work, War and Punishment too, explains how and why so much of what is now the nation of Ukraine has tended westward, unlike the east leaning Duchy of Muscovy -- particularly during the European Reformation period of he 16th Century and the wars of religion of the 1600's, including the founding of universities on the European model: Quote .... Zygar rips apart the claim that Russia and Ukraine were co-founded. This, it turns out, was an invention by a 17th-century propagandist and Prussian monk, Innokenty Gizel, who was more politician than scholar. He wrote a “tendentious” book to boost Muscovy’s support for the Orthodox religion in Kyiv, and to diminish the influence of Catholic Poland. It became the standard text for Russian thinkers for the next 300 years. It was a similar story with Crimea. Once home to Greeks and Scythians, the peninsula was a part of Genghis Khan’s all-powerful empire, to which Moscow tsars paid tribute. It became a Russian possession after Catherine the Great defeated the Ottoman Turks and repressed the local Cossacks and Crimean Tatars. She abolished the Zaporozhian Host – a democratic forerunner of the Ukrainian state – and gave its land to her favourite courtiers. It wasn’t until 1898 that the historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky, head of Ukraine’s first government, pointed out that Russia’s version of the past was bunk, and that Kyivan Rus led to Ukraine, with its democratic traditions. The Moscow princes submitted to the Mongols. Their Ukrainian counterparts in western Galicia – long a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – did not. ........ Corvinus85 and Ser Scot A Ellison 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conflicting Thought Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 5 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said: is comparatively to the west. I realy dont agree with butter on everything but this is so debatable, the west are various countries with allot of them doing very bad stuff for decades or centuries. russia is one country doing very bad stuff, but if you compare the two, russia has a long way to go still. Like its ok to say russia is doing horrible shit, but dont kid yourselfs about the moral superiority of the west. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 12 hours ago, karaddin said: The one that's really thrown me though is openly ridiculing Christ's own morality in favour of the brutal imperialism of expansionist Rome, but claiming the name Christianity. This is why one might suspect, that the poster -- if not a chatbot -- is Iranian, not Russian at all. The sense of Christianity and its history, whether Roman or Greek, appears that of someone who doesn't known any more of this than the average magarat does of the history and divisions of Islam, and what the Quran says. Ser Scot A Ellison 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conflicting Thought Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 5 hours ago, Toth said: Yes, the US has been doing dodgy things in order to keep their hegemony Dodgy is doing some very heavy lifting there, the CIA are still doing there thing, see honduras, peru and venezuela and thats just south america and it happend just a few years ago Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 If anyone can prove direct descendancy from Scythians, please raise your hand. I believe you have the best claim to ruling Ukraine. Ser Scot A Ellison and JGP 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted July 10, 2023 Author Share Posted July 10, 2023 6 minutes ago, Conflicting Thought said: I realy dont agree with butter on everything but this is so debatable, the west are various countries with allot of them doing very bad stuff for decades or centuries. russia is one country doing very bad stuff, but if you compare the two, russia has a long way to go still. Like its ok to say russia is doing horrible shit, but dont kid yourselfs about the moral superiority of the west. How does a lack of moral superiority in the west… in any way… justify the Russians brutal attempt to subjugate and conquer Ukraine? Do tell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mormont Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 20 minutes ago, Conflicting Thought said: Like its ok to say russia is doing horrible shit, but dont kid yourselfs about the moral superiority of the west. The problem in this discussion is the opposite: blarney about the West's failings deployed as a smokescreen over invasion, war crimes, and the clear full culpability of Russia for this war. Which Tyler, hauberk, Ser Scot A Ellison and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mormont Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 (edited) So any thoughts on this revelation? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66154909 Quote But on Monday, Mr Peskov said the Wagner chief was among the commanders who were invited to the Kremlin five days after the mutiny collapsed. "The president gave an assessment of the company's actions on the front," Mr Peskov is quoted as saying by Interfax news agency. "He also gave assessment to the 24 June events. Putin listened to the commanders' explanations and suggested variants of their future employment and their future use in combat." According to the spokesman, Prigozhin told Mr Putin that Wagner unconditionally supported him. The Wagner chief's current whereabouts are unclear. Edited July 10, 2023 by mormont Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conflicting Thought Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 30 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: How does a lack of moral superiority in the west… in any way… justify the Russians brutal attempt to subjugate and conquer Ukraine? Do tell. it doesnt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted July 10, 2023 Author Share Posted July 10, 2023 Just now, Conflicting Thought said: it doesnt As such… why then raise it here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 3 hours ago, butterweedstrover said: f you know anything about Ukraine, it’s that Russian people and Russian soldiers have always been there for centuries If you knew anything about Ukraine you would know that many, many, many peoples and languages have been there for thousands of years, and particularly in the last 600 or so, from scandinavians, to turks, mongols, ottomans, Poles, Cossacks, Jews, Greeks, Italians, and many other western Europeans. In fact the 'muscovy' slavs are rather latecomers to that mix. Also lots of religions, including and not limited to Islam, Judaism, Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox and all sorts of in-between, and this goes equally for languages. It has been an international intersection of trade from Asia, Central Asia, the Nordic lands, and Europe for at least a thousand years, particularly thanks to its proximity to the Black Sea. During very much of the time this cross roads region was independent and / or a ruling hegemonic state itself, as well as at other times, partitioned and made a subordinate to another group, such as, say, the Poles. The very idea that Ukraine is somehow derived from Moscow displays an utter ignorance at best, or utter disregard at worst, of history, as how and when it happened. Ser Scot A Ellison, Matrim Fox Cauthon and Which Tyler 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conflicting Thought Posted July 10, 2023 Share Posted July 10, 2023 16 minutes ago, mormont said: The problem in this discussion is the opposite: blarney about the West's failings deployed as a smokescreen over invasion, war crimes, and the clear full culpability of Russia for this war. mm sure i get that, i just saw that the way people are talking about western domination as if it where different in some way to what russia is doing, both are horrible things. and i know this is the thread about the russia and ucraine war, but in the interest of defending ukraine in this thread some times people say things that, to me, dont make sense or are wrong. i mean that you can critique russia and condemn their horrible shit that they are doing with out saying the west is superior morally and things like that kiko 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted July 10, 2023 Author Share Posted July 10, 2023 Just now, Zorral said: If you knew anything about Ukraine you would know that many, many, many peoples and languages have been there for thousands of years, and particularly in the last 600 or so, from scandinavians, to turks, mongols, ottomans, Poles, Cossacks, Jews, Greeks, Italians, and many other western Europeans. In fact the 'muscovy' slavs are rather latecomers to that mix. Also lots of religions, including and not limited to Islam, Judaism, Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox and all sorts of in-between, and this goes equally for languages. It has been an international intersection of trade from Asia, Central Asia, the Nordic lands, and Europe for at least a thousand years, particularly thanks to its proximity to the Black Sea. During very much of the time this cross roads region was independent and / or a ruling hegemonic state itself, as well as at other times, partitioned and made a subordinate to another group, such as, say, the Poles. The very idea that Ukraine is somehow derived from Moscow displays an utter ignorance at best, or utter disregard at worst, of history, as how and when it happened. I share your dismay at Russian aggression destroying incredible opportunities to investigate and research the heartland of the Proto-Indo-European language and culture. (BTW have you read The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow? It’s less of a new history than an exploration of existing history and knowledge where the authors ask hard questions about assumptions applied to that history. I really enjoyed it. A nice dense read if you know what I mean. ) Which Tyler 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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