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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

#271

Post by shashurup »

d23 wrote: post #209

How depressing it must be to have lived through the collapse of the soviet union, realize the magnitude of lies, see the hope of a new Russia, and then have to go through this.

To be honest, after the collapse I was to busy making ends meet. Later, surprisingly, the sad realization was the fact that the western propaganda was in no way better than the soviet - the soviet one was too straightforward and it was easy to spot what was omitted, what was exaggerated etc.

I considered myself old and cynical but the level of hypocrisy recently is astonishingly, absolutely mind blowing.

Re: Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

#272

Post by dcow »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #143
dcow wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well this explains the situation exactly. People are oppressed into being hopeless. How Russian that seems.

> People are oppressed into being hopeless. The way I look at it is, life is just way harder for most people than it is for people lucky enough to be born in the west, and it is difficult for westerners to comprehend. When you say oppressed, it implies an oppressor, in reality, to not have "oppression" takes centuries of bloodshed and tradition. The reason the country I'm moving from is a shithole is because we have…

I am not trying to downplay your personal struggle. There’s more to discuss here than a few posts allow. What I will say is that it’s hard to empathize with complaints or totally absolve people of responsibility for their state of oppression when as you say they don't want to pay the price to liberate themselves. If you can live happily in an oppressive regime then good for you, seriously. But when you start getting oppressed, don’t come crying. And when your country starts committing war crimes, don’t be surprised if people criticize your inaction and apathy.

Re: Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

#273

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

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?

It's quite simple, actually. His main aim now is to survive. He has everything at stake, including his son. So he will try to brutally stifle any kind of dissent.

On the other hand there is Putin whose army occupies his land, practically forever. They will make sure Belarus stays under Kremlin's influence. But for some strange reason he managed to refuse sending his own soldiers to Ukraine, so Putin's grip over him seems not that tight one would assume. Maybe Putin is afraid whoever comes after Lukashenko might be less easy to control so he agreed to keep him in power.

Re: Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

#274

Post by koonsolo »

anovikov wrote: post #90
martincmartin wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The barrier to outsiders invading and fixing it is nuclear weapons. If the west's troops invaded Russian, it's quite possible Russia would launch nukes. Even without that, the West doesn't want to put boots on the ground in Russia, fearing it will end up like Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc. The barrier to Russians forming a coup is state repression. The FSB is good at routing out any coup before it can get far. Unless the…

It only depends on political will. Airtight isolation will be enough to solve Russia, let's say. On the level that "whoever has any diplomatic or trade relationship with Russia or does not accept the same policy, can't trade with anyone in the West", this policy will take days to "infect" entire world. Not being able to trade they will quickly descend to starvation, rampant disease and death. Then we can take refugee…

That's the new North Korea scenario.

Re: Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

#275

Post by koonsolo »

codedokode wrote: post #215
jnsaff2 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Good luck standing up against million of well armed, well paid and well trained national guards.

"Well armed and well trained"

Sure, we've seen plenty of those in Ukraine. Also "well intoxicated"

Re: Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

#276

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

petertodd wrote: post #176
iso1631 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that support for Ukraine is one aspect that crosses demographics here in the UK, Left and Right, Young and Old, Leave and Remain, all fully oppose Russia and broadly support the efforts the UK and the west in general have done. It seems to be that a significant number of people in America seem to support the Russian narrative.

Ever seen the belligerents list in the first Gulf War? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War It was basically the entire world against Iraq. Even countries like Afghanistan and Sierra Leone contributed to the coalition forces against Iraq, because invading your neighbors to steal resources is frowned upon by essentially everyone. The only reason this hasn't happened again with Russia is because Russia has nukes to t…

We are talking about different things. The political/military support for the invasion in Irak from various governments was so limited, and also criticized domestically, that it became a meme ("You forgot Poland").

Now, as for the people themselves, there were huge protests against the war in Iraq in Europe and even greater against the war in Afghanistan, with literally millions marching in some European cities - it was clear to most people in the West how pointless it is.

Re: Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

#277

Post by varjag »

hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #273
tomjakubowski wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhere I could read more about Lukashenko's agenda?

It's quite simple, actually. His main aim now is to survive. He has everything at stake, including his son. So he will try to brutally stifle any kind of dissent. On the other hand there is Putin whose army occupies his land, practically forever. They will make sure Belarus stays under Kremlin's influence. But for some strange reason he managed to refuse sending his own soldiers to Ukraine, so Putin's grip over him s…

Sending his soldiers in was no doubt in the original plan. Some units were staged at the border along the Russian troops but he found sense to pull the plug on it once he've seen Russian forward units being decimated.

Re: Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

#279

Post by 331c8c71 »

5e92cb50239222b wrote: post #110
jevgeni wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First and foremost it was the russians who supported their government. russians were silent during Chechnya, during the Yukos case, after Putin's comments on Kursk widows, after killing of Politkovskaya, Nemtsov, and so on and so on. Look at any russian popular media in early 2000s and you will see a huge amount of really casual racism, with "Brat 2" being the pinnacle. Nobody spoke out against it. Just because they…

I am not going to engage with someone who is so bent on his hatred that he's is willing to subvert the rules of the English grammar to show it, but let it be noted that it has been impossible to protest in Russia since around 2004 or so. None of what you're describing stopped the West from pouring insane amounts of money into Putin's military and repression apparatus. Oh, the irony. My relatives over there had it rea…

Since 2011 I would say. The first couple Bolotnaya protests (2011) were big and safe for the participants (i was there personally). That changed in 2012.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%932013_Russian_pr...

Re: Russia is persecuting dissenters by taking away their children

#280

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

cafard wrote: post #174
iso1631 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that support for Ukraine is one aspect that crosses demographics here in the UK, Left and Right, Young and Old, Leave and Remain, all fully oppose Russia and broadly support the efforts the UK and the west in general have done. It seems to be that a significant number of people in America seem to support the Russian narrative.

You have the nostalgists on the left who remember Mother Russia as they imagined it. You have some on the right who favor Russia for some mix of liking the traditional values thing that Putin puts out, resenting implications that Trump was in his pocket, disliking the Ukraine for its connection with the first impeachment, and I don't know what all.

> some mix of liking the traditional values thing that Putin puts out,

But this is so false! Russia is the opposite of conservative values. With its rampant alcoholism, record number of orphans and kids raised by single parents, AIDS and so on - the only "conservative value"/s is the prosecution of gay people - but I believe conservative Americans left that ship decades ago. There is literally nothing in Putin's regime worth imitating.

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