131–140 of 378 posts
here is what it looked like
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0c/56/2d/0c562d975c99e89786ec...
not much different from food stores in the US during the 40s. Maybe blandness is a worthwhile trade off it is means less obesity and other ill of modern diets.
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It can be both. You can know intellectually that the Americans have a higher standard of living than Russians, and still be surprised by what that really means, at a practical level, for ordinary people.
Right, and also why would he care so much about grocery stores in America when he's in Russia and reviewing military and diplomatic intel about the US? "They have grocery stores that have more items than our stores" - boring. "A US diplomat was arrested and released in Latin America for something he did while drunk" - interesting.
If your foe can demand bananas any day of the year for pennies while you can't, you lost that war before it even started.
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>”He didn't have intelligence on what a US supermarket was like?” Take this all with a grain of salt because this is just what I remember from reading stories online of people who used to live in the USSR, but the average person realized the West had more material prosperity but they were under the impression the upper class folks were the only ones with real access to it. They believed the common worker still had to…
In 1989, I was a child growing up on the streets of a small town in Siberia. During those years, I believed everyone in America was prosperous - the 'common worker' didn't exist, and it was wealth all the way down. My family was not connected, and we were firmly middle class (in the "all animals are equal" way). The Soviet propaganda machine was compelling before my time, but by the 90s, common folks in the USSR were…
No fan of the USSR but that photo is not entirely arcuate here is what it looked like https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0c/56/2d/0c562d975c99e89786ec... not much different from food stores in the US during the 40s. Maybe blandness is a worthwhile trade off it is means less obesity and other ill of modern diets.
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I’m always a bit surprised that Soviet era Capitalist propaganda remains so effective to this day. Of course Capitalism looks fantastic from the exploiters’ perspective. Today more than ever it should be clear that the opulence of America in the 90s is completely unsustainable on a global scale. That way of live has always been reserved for a global minority, one many of us may find ourselves excluded from in our lif…
Capitalism has been responsible for lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty. Communism, or any other system, can’t make that same claim. Unless you have an alternative, your claims of exploration will fall on deaf ears.
A family living on a farm and providing most of their own needs, living sustainably for generations, is by most definitions “living in poverty” because they consume very little.
Now if you strip that family of their land and force them to work in factories their consumption goes way up since they no longer are able to support themselves.
That family has now been “lifted out of poverty”.
But yes, you are correct, no system has made people more depended on exploitation then Capitialism.
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> but the average person realized the West had more material prosperity but they were under the impression the upper class folks were the only ones with real access to it This propaganda technique is called reverse cargo cult. They don't try to directly refute the facts on the ground. They just claim that clever people realize it's all an illusion. It's devastatingly effective. No one wants to be on the wrong side of…
Aka "everybody does it". People paid to go to pro-Putin demonstrations don't believe that people who go (maybe... used to go) to contra-Putin demonstrations were not paid. That's where I first heard about it.
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What has you convinced you’re not falling for propaganda on Ukraine — that it’s him who is wrong?
Well, one year long invadion should give you a hint. Detaining people for calling it war instead of "special operation" is another one. Calling other neighbours "fake/artificial" countries is another bad sign that Russia's intentions are not good.
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Capitalism has been responsible for lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty. Communism, or any other system, can’t make that same claim. Unless you have an alternative, your claims of exploration will fall on deaf ears.
“lifting out of poverty” is defined in terms of consumption. A family living on a farm and providing most of their own needs, living sustainably for generations, is by most definitions “living in poverty” because they consume very little. Now if you strip that family of their land and force them to work in factories their consumption goes way up since they no longer are able to support themselves. That family has now…
You’re idealizing the crushing poverty of sustenance farming.
Have you ever been to a developing country? Talked to the families who choose to abandon their farming and work in a factory so their kids can get proper healthcare, better schooling and living in a house without a toilet that feeds into the river?
Plenty of them could continue to work as farmers and choose not too. Who are you to claim their choice is wrong?
I’m guessing you’ve lived a comfy life and take all of these things for granted and then sneer at those who want the same.
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What has you convinced you’re not falling for propaganda on Ukraine — that it’s him who is wrong?
Not sure if this is a troll or a bot but I'll take the question seriously and answer it seriously. After all, this did occur to me at the time. What convinced me that I'm not falling for Western propaganda? What it came down to was the following argument, and it has to be an argument and not a soundbite because in order to get beneath the propaganda we have to go deep. - Many of Russia's claims against Ukraine are ei…
Ukraine has intentionally shelled urban centers for a decade — and you think Russia is wrong to protect ethnic Russians from that?
> Russia did not take steps to de-escalate the conflict. There were so many things Russia could have done if it was genuinely interested in peace and friendly relations with a sovereign Ukraine.
Do you mean like asking France and Germany to negotiate a peace that protects the people of Donbas while remaining part of Ukraine?
Russia did that in 2014 — and it was cynically exploited to arm Ukraine for this conflict by NATO, who refused to protect the people in Donbas from Ukrainian shelling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjwSNiCSpnw
What should Russia have done to protect the ethnic Russians in Donbas — having tried to negotiate a peace only for Ukraine to shell their cities for another decade?
> I could go on, but the main argument is that when you look past the emotionally charged arguments
You’re the one making emotional strawmen about Banderites rather than focusing on the stated Russian objective of protecting Donbas after a decade of diplomacy failed.
Is that because you learned about the Russian “position” from NATO propaganda rather than directly from RT?
This is the Russian position, according to RT:
> Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”
