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Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

economist.com

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Re: Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

#251

Post by alienicecream »

woodruffw wrote: post #239
mistermann wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a category error: you're comparing US propaganda (a think the US government did and still does) with an article from a UK-based magazine that's mostly known for economics analysis. When you say "comparing", are you saying that an assertion of equality has been made? No such assertion exists in the text you are responding to. And if one is simply comparing and contrasting similar things but making no claim o…

Equality or not; the comment is about something the US government does when the article is written by a non-government in not-the-US.

It's an elite western publication. That is a distinction without a significant difference these days.

Re: Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

#252

Post by pdabbadabba »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #216
pdabbadabba wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> more than a few got adopted and abused, and something like 19 were killed by their adopted parents. Completely useless propaganda in the absence of [1] a credible source and [2] a comparison to those adopted by Russians, or who remain in Russian orphanages. FWIW, if I were a Russian orphan, I'd take my chances being adopted by parents in the U.S. any day of the week over remaining in an orphanage. Not to say that R…

You're probably right on this. But the political will to send orphan children into a country that might mutilate their sex organs is probably zero in Russia at this point.

Perhaps that's the perception in Russia as a result of their domestic political propaganda (or, to be fair, misinformation spread by certain political interests in the U.S. itself which, I'm sure, is amplified in Russia). But there is no epidemic of child sex-organ mutilation in the United States. Assuming you're talking about treatment of trans youth, this is generally limited to puberty blockers in children, and that is not done until adolescence. (Potentially proceeding to cross-sex hormone therapy.)

Edit: This is obvious, but still worth mentioning: to say that the U.S. will "mutilate their sex organs" is obviously a tendentious framing, to say the least, on multiple levels. Ignoring the issues with the word "mutilate," it's also false the the U.S., as a country would be the one doing it. Rather, the U.S. would allow someone to receive gender affirming treatment if they wanted it. (Which, again, is also very unlikely to involve surgery in the case of a minor.)

Re: Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

#253

Post by finfrastrcuture »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #163
varjag wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fluid. In the way late period fascist Italy could be called puppet state of Nazi Germany perhaps. But Belarusian dictator has his own distinct agenda and pursues it despite very limited choices which "puppet state" kinda glosses over.

Somewhere I could read more about Lukashenko's agenda?

Less of his full agenda, but here's an article I felt was helpful on the current state of Belarus: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/magazine/belarus-mural.ht...

Re: Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

#254

Post by VincentEvans »

potatototoo99 wrote: post #55

Is a family in the US that publicly supports Al Qaeda or ISIS not being threatened with the same?

I doubt this argument is made in good faith. Do you think it’s reasonable to equate Ukraine with ISIS or Al Qaeda and a child drawing a painting depicting a mother and a child with the text “stop war” as supporting ISIS or Al Qaeda?

Re: Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

#255

Post by alienicecream »

phatfish wrote: post #170
livinginfear wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that I start blindly taking the mainstream media's reporting about war at good faith? Aren't there enough historic examples of how the American media establishment have been used to further American foreign policy objectives? I've always thought of myself as left-wing. I came of age in the 'War on Terror', and recall the collective skepticism of the American establishment. I remember the attitude o…

> I don't see this kind of skepticism anymore. Everyone able to make a rational decision can see Russia are are the sole cause of this war. If Russia decided to leave Ukrainian territory tomorrow, the war would end tomorrow, and Ukrainians could get on with their lives in peace, and the stolen children hopefully get to go home. This is the same as rational people being able to see that the United States was wrong to…

IMO Mearsheimer's take has more explanatory power than "Everyone able to make a rational decision can see Russia are are the sole cause of this war.".

Re: Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

#256

Post by SXX »

seer wrote: post #246
SXX wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really sad what people like you have to overcome. Fortunately this is not the case for majority immigrants from Russia even though it's multinational country. Very few people in west would ever be able to tell if a person in front of them is from Russia, Ukraine or Belarus. In some countries locals can't even tell we're foreigners. Problems of people who immigrating from Russia are mostly financial.

Hah yeah, until you open your mouth - then its usually _painfully_ obvious you’re from Russia. The accent is very distinctive and inescapable. I have the luck to have learned english when I was a kid, alongside another foreign language, so people place me as “broadly eastern european” rather than precisely Russian but almost all expats I encounter I can immediately tell they are from there.

While it's true this is simply incomparable with having different skin color and face. Also a lot of people who fled from Ukraine only speak Russian and have about the same accent in English. Of course they also sometimes get some hate even though they actually from Ukraine.

Talking of me personally I just happy to have somewhat different accent due to how many years I spend in SEA. My wife is half kurdish half russian so for her it's even harder to tell where is she from.

Re: Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

#257

Post by FpUser »

scottLobster wrote: post #228
codedokode wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who actually develop tanks usually have restriction for going abroad for 5 or more years even after they leave they job because they know classified information. So I don't think that they left the country.

Perhaps for those who start the job. But if you're a Moscow State University engineering graduate, why would you even start when there are better available living situations? Sure maybe some stick around for familial/patriotic reasons, but most are going to leave for greener pastures.

>"Sure maybe some stick around for familial/patriotic reasons, but most are going to leave for greener pastures."

Problem is that "greener pastures" allow very limited level of immigration.

Re: Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

#258

Post by foverzar »

jnsaff2 wrote: post #152
medo-bear wrote: post #130

this is absolutely terrible. this is a sure way for russia to create a modern version of the stolen generation [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations

Sure is terrible, just weird that russians themselves just take it and don't stand up.

Honestly, not too much people take it here as seriously as you guys somewhere over there.

Most just get skeptical of such stories the older they get, and this is unfortunately a consequence of personal empirical evidence. You expect the truth but instead get a story. As you grow older the story starts to feel rough, doesn't add up to experience and at some point turns into a complete Orwellian bullshit.

Stories get treated as tabloid bs used as propaganda, and quite often this is hardly too far from the truth.

Re: Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

#259

Post by foverzar »

jnsaff2 wrote: post #249
codedokode wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they win?

They kept their dignity and earned mad respect from others. They may also win at some point.

> mad respect

I really hope that you are being ironic and this is a joke.

Re: Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

#260

Post by ghostwriter »

phatfish wrote: post #170
livinginfear wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that I start blindly taking the mainstream media's reporting about war at good faith? Aren't there enough historic examples of how the American media establishment have been used to further American foreign policy objectives? I've always thought of myself as left-wing. I came of age in the 'War on Terror', and recall the collective skepticism of the American establishment. I remember the attitude o…

> I don't see this kind of skepticism anymore. Everyone able to make a rational decision can see Russia are are the sole cause of this war. If Russia decided to leave Ukrainian territory tomorrow, the war would end tomorrow, and Ukrainians could get on with their lives in peace, and the stolen children hopefully get to go home. This is the same as rational people being able to see that the United States was wrong to…

> Just because the US (and the UK) was making bad decisions in Iraq 20 years ago doesn't mean they are making bad decisions in support of Ukraine now.

Why wouldn't it mean bad decisions now? What did happen to those who made bad decisions at all levels of the government 20 years ago?

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