181–190 of 291 posts
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How much have they changed their minds in the last few days? Enough that there are protests in most major Russian cities against the invasion of Ukraine. Just yesterday, Moscow police arrested over 1,000 protesters. They can only keep up that pace for so long.
This can't be true, because this thread started off with > In repressive regimes there is no freedom to protest. You cannot have hypocrisy in how you deal with political protests if you do not have political protests!
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> Because we are not able to stand against gov? But you can. > Well, we are not able No, you won't. That's fine but don't make it seem like there is no choice, there is plenty of evidence of people in Russia protesting and they have made a different choice than you. And "current operation" is distancing language. It's an invasion or a war, not an operation.
There are very severe consequences for protesting. I don't blame him if he puts his and his family's lives first.
Totally understood that not everybody is in a position to make that choice, now or maybe ever. But there is safety in numbers.
https://www.inyourpocket.com/gdansk/the-story-of-solidarity-...
FWIW I was in Poland at the time, the people there were absolutely phenomenal, and the amount of personal hardship and risk endured blew me away. Unstoppable, they would have happily run their country into the ground first. Big difference: they had relatively little left to lose, Poland had been bled dry by the Soviets over decades. By contrast Russians today have far more to lose, or so they may believe, when in fact they probably have more to lose from Putin's continued presence.
A dictator is one thing, an unhinged dictator quite another.
Invasion is not a good decision. But Ukraine had some problems with radicals, with crimes and with respect to other languages in their country...
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> Because we are not able to stand against gov? But you can. > Well, we are not able No, you won't. That's fine but don't make it seem like there is no choice, there is plenty of evidence of people in Russia protesting and they have made a different choice than you. And "current operation" is distancing language. It's an invasion or a war, not an operation.
Just vote harder guys, and make pithy signs. Protests don't even work in the west, how can they work in Russia?
To be clear, against all war and what is happening in Russia is also equally unacceptable.
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Just vote harder guys, and make pithy signs. Protests don't even work in the west, how can they work in Russia?
Protests work: if they are large enough.
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And I forgot to ask a question. Why do you think that we all should feel pain of sanctions? Because we are not able to stand against gov? Well, we are not able. And I think noone would be able if there is such a law and permissions of authorities. And for sure we, who know English(ok, not as good like any EU-person knows) and not working in gov-structures are the most small part of russians who have different opinion
The victims are the people in Ukraine, not you. People are dying there and the country has been dragged into chaos. Russia is 100% the aggressor in this case. If you don't want to feel the pain of sanctions, you better do something to change your government. This might not appear fair to you and certainly isn't easy, but don't forget that life is currently even less fair to the Ukrainians who die defending their coun…
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Protests work: if they are large enough.
That's sort of a no true scottsman. Occupy wall street resulted in nothing, BLM protests were huge to no lasting effect, massive anti war protests in the early 2000's resulted in a couple decades of war. What ones recently were big enough? Million man march? That was just LBJ buying votes if you ask him about it privately.
Without Russia propping him up Lukashenko would be out by now.
Think Solidarity, not BLM and get the whole country to grind to a halt. That will make a difference. By the time the police and the army have to decide if they want to open fire on their family it can be won. But for that to happen something major will have to change in Russia first.
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Many of your points aren't true at all. You appear to be trying to make a false balance (a term I learned today) by casting doubt on the censorship and brutal repression of protests we know China performs. We have a bounty of evidence that WeChat is heavily monitored and censored. You can in fact test it today. We know that the recent anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre was heavily censored and dissidents de…
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Nope. On WhatsApp, no message I've ever sent has been censored. I haven't heard of anyone being censored on whatsapp. (the example being wechat which i believe is equivalent).
> Like that chinese tennis player right. Or jack ma? Disappeared and then reappeared. Like magic.
You aren't making the point you think you are. You are confirming that they were disappeared for a LONG time by the gov't.
A good tactic would be to point out to Russians that their government is censoring political things for them. They like to think they are free and above the hypocrisy of the west. But the key thing is the West allows it's citizens to criticise itself. The Russians do not have that freedom. It's basically becoming like China in the way of censorship and lack of freedom, to protect it's citizens and the fatherland. To…
> They like to think they are free and above the hypocrisy of the west. This statement shows you have no idea what Russians like to think. Better stop embarrassing yourself further with such opinions. Source: I'm actually Russian.
Of course not everyone in Russia is like that, far from it. But a very significant number of actual average Russians are like that. While US coverage of any events is far from perfect with tons of conflicting info, there is no straight up "you aren't allowed to publish or see this, or else suffer the consequences" thing going here, unlike in Russia. You could criticize the government all you want, in public too.
Just the fact that you aren't allowed to, it would create an echochamber stronger than any self-induced FB echochamber in the US can suck one into. The main problem is that instead of many different echochambers, you primarily get one - the one controlled by the russian government. And your only options are being in it or not. The issue is that there are only 2 options, and you are heavily disincentivized from opting out. And the larger an echochamber grows, the stronger and more influential it gets. The chilling effect alone is crazy and suppresses people from saying anything. I was called a "traitor" by my classmates back when I was leaving the country. What a betrayal, wanting to actually get good education and live a good life outside of that place. And that was a bit over a decade ago, before russia-west relations got heated up to the current point, and years before Crimean invasion has even started.
Edit: half the replies down this exact thread in sibling comments seem to be a great illustration of what happens when the type of echochamber I described actually ends up working.