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Alexei Navalny has died

reuters.com

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Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#971

Post by rufus_foreman »

jncfhnb wrote: post #955
rufus_foreman wrote: post #901

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Avdiivka is a tiny pointless place "Both sides regard Avdiivka as key to Russia's aim of securing full control of the two eastern "Donbas" provinces - Donetsk and Luhansk. These are among the four Ukrainian regions Russia says it has annexed but does not have full control of. Avdiivka is seen as a gateway to Donetsk city, whose residential areas Russian officials say have been shelled by Ukrainian forces, sometime…

Go read any actual war analysis. It is not a strategically important place. Donetsk City is not realistically a significant target in the foreseeable future. Russia cares immensely about optics because Putin has demanded a military victory in time for the march elections. This has been publicly reported on since at least October.

I'm pretty sure I know who is going to win the March election.

Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#972

Post by kranke155 »

arp242 wrote: post #518
kranke155 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A full general strike of some kind. But Putin is popular and so is the war. Russia is a top 10 world economy, rivalling Germany in GDP PPP. This article "The Majority Never Had It So Good", was enlightening for me about the situation in interior Russia: https://russiapost.info/regions/majority Effectively a lot of stuff we talk about (no more travel, hard to get money outside of Russia) is meaningless to many Russian…

Do you remember what happened with the large general strikes in Syria a decade ago? You don't "just" protest these kind of authoritarian regimes; there's tons of examples for this. In Nazi-occupied Netherlands there was a large general strike to oppose the Jewish deportations ("February strike"). This worked out about as well as one would imagine. It was stopped in about a day by force, with several casualties. Most…

You’re right

Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#973

Post by deanCommie »

PedroBatista wrote: post #171
ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #56

The brave denizens of the Internet love to ridicule Russians for their learned helplessness, calling them weak, docile, etc. Well, here's another example of the thing that most of those who grew up in that culture know or feel subliminally: the hero always crushes evil and triumphs at the end of the story. But in real life, for every success there are thousands that wither along the way.

> Russians for their learned helplessness, calling them weak, docile, etc. "learned helplessness" yes "calling them weak, docile, etc." - I'm not aware of this going on in any meaningful scale. About the "learned helplessness" and general apathy it's true and the product of many things, one of them a very targeted effort to make the people internalize this during a whole century. China is very similar in this regard…

> All those "decadent" western democracies went through periods of very violent internal wars, centuries of constant internal "cold wars" where the main objective was "democracy"

> Russia never had that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution

Look I know it's been 100 years and we understand now that the Soviet Union ended up being a force for authoritarian evil. And that all the communist republics having "Democratic" in their name sounds as ridiculous as North Korea doing it today.

But it didn't have to be that way. The ideals of communism and marxism are pretty inspiring and humanist - on paper. They'd never been tried. That they were corrupted by Lenin then Stalin - if they were even incorruptible in the first place - noone knew that at the time. The only objection the west had to any of it for the entirety of the 20th century was that it intervened with the flow of capital and economics. The proof of that is China which, is obviously the main global competitor to the west, and the risk of an actual war over something like Taiwan is non-zero, it is a far cry from the constant imminent threat of thermonuclear annihilation.

And just because the Soviet Union became the symbol of everything that stands against freedom for 50 years in the 20th century, doesn't mean that in the moment the Russian Empire was any better. Ordinary Russians at the start of the 20th century were some of the most repressed and unfree people in the entire world.

They fucked it up but they did try.

Then "real" democracy came in, and turned out to be in many ways worse for the median Russian. The median Russian quality of life was worse in the 90's than in the 80's. While the oligarchs got richer and crime took over the country. The people turned to a powerful leader like Putin and legitimately reinforced his power because he made the country safe.

In the end your conclusion is correct. "Russia" needs to die, needs to end as a concept. It needs reinvention from the ground up. And I don't know if the median Russian is capable of creating something better.

Anyone with an ounce of brain or integrity left a long time ago.

Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#974

Post by deanCommie »

silexia wrote: post #928
mihaaly wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel it worths noting that the meaning of the word 'legal' is different for ears of western than some eastern nations. It may be inaccurate to describe for western minds what actualy is happening there as legality and law is an instrument of the ruling party for the benefit of the ruling party not some independent supervising power for the goodwill of all. I feel using the English word 'legal' is completely inaccur…

Did you see the legal attacks on Trump? The USA is headed the same direction unfortunately.

Can you clarify what you mean?

Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#975

Post by mihaaly »

silexia wrote: post #928
mihaaly wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel it worths noting that the meaning of the word 'legal' is different for ears of western than some eastern nations. It may be inaccurate to describe for western minds what actualy is happening there as legality and law is an instrument of the ruling party for the benefit of the ruling party not some independent supervising power for the goodwill of all. I feel using the English word 'legal' is completely inaccur…

Did you see the legal attacks on Trump? The USA is headed the same direction unfortunately.

I believe you are confused and when you talk about where US is headed you wanted to cite the absolute presidential immunity that Trump pursuing for himself (adapting from his good friend, Putin) so he could continue doing and escaping the deserved consequences of huge tax evasions (plural!), fueling riot, stealing and exposing state and allied secrets, and in general other yet unspecified criminal activity as well as escalations and conflicts to destroy the order and peace in the whole population in order to pretend being a strong figure (in the attempt of cloacking weak personality), including asking Putin to attack the allies of US (being borderline to treason perhaps?).

What you call legal attack is actually called legal proceedings against a criminal.

Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#976

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

eastbound wrote: post #752
lordfrito wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure we can avoid conflict now, I think we're past the point where that was possible (last 10-15 years were critical). I think both Russia and China understand that, and are planning accordingly. I'm proposing we wake up and start doing the same, planning and drawing "do not cross" lines in the sand to hopefully limit the total/final scope of the conflict. Yes this will force an earlier confrontation -- but W…

No, Europe’s problem was that we were pacifists. France still prides itself for inventing the Congés Payés (paid leave) in 1936 while the Germans were building their military might. The price in lieu of our “acquis sociaux” was getting occupied, point blank. Europe still prides itself for having female ministers of defense in every major country (who remembers them? We give the job to women when we just need to maint…

> We’re vegans, we’re trans, we’re using non-violent communication, we’re in discord on our soil, we destroy every trait of masculinity during education: We’re incapable of war, and we’re incapable of being a threat to Russia.

Going by your post, French men are so masculine that their masculinity feels threatened by pretty much everything.

Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#977

Post by mbs159 »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #602
cyrillite wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Martyrdom. Navalny calculated that this process would be watched and documented through to the very end. He hoped that might be significant, perhaps even sufficient.

He will be forgotten in a week, at least by the West. Do you remember the guy who flew over Belarus and his plane was redirected to seize him? Any news? I do not even remember his name. Going back to Russia was a stupid move, he could have had much more visibility from the EU.

In the Baltics at least people are still talking about Protasevich. There are other countries in the West besides the US.

Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#978

Post by woodpanel »

obscurette wrote: post #644
aerique wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why he went back to Russia.

That's the reason why we have Russia we know today and I'm afraid that we'll see more countries taking this path in coming years. Almost million russians left country during last two years alone. But if everyone against regime leaves, who have to fight for better country? Or do you really think that it's more effective to shout in Twitter?

> Almost million russians left country during last two years alone

What is this even supposed to mean?

For reference, 516,000 Germans left their country during the last 2 years [1] and Germany’s population is roughly 60% the size of that of Russia’s

[1] https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Society-Environment/Popula...

Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#979

Post by dclowd9901 »

ako wrote: post #712
stcroixx wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe deciding to depend on Russia for their energy and not focusing on defense spending is the unbelievable part to me, but they've been doing this for quite some time now. They walked right into it. Russia is doing what they've always done and always will do.

Isnt the US depending on china for production just as much as Europe is depending on Russia for gas.

I suppose if we can’t survive without cheap plastic bullshit.

Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#980

Post by selfmodruntime »

lukan wrote: post #878
stcroixx wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe deciding to depend on Russia for their energy and not focusing on defense spending is the unbelievable part to me, but they've been doing this for quite some time now. They walked right into it. Russia is doing what they've always done and always will do.

"Russia is doing what they've always done and always will do." Do you think those stereotypes are really helpful in understanding geopolitics? Traditionally what russia has always done(after it conquered its east), was being invaded, loosing lots of land, let the invader bleed out in the winter and then push back and win new territories. Then russia as a monarchy was quite different to the sowjet union, the result of…

> Do you think those stereotypes are really helpful in understanding geopolitics?

In some kind of way, yes. Cultures differ, sometimes drastically so. It is important to evaluate stereotypes based on history and their merits.

You said it yourself. Historically, Russia has faced many cyclic periods of expansion and reduction. They are currently being reigned by a patriotic figure with a record of dwelling on Russia‘s great past. Given enough time or an effective military response, chances are high that their next leader will be more favorable of peace.

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