Those are two aspects that come to mind. Are there others? — praxis

Those are relevant. There's also the dismissal of the white working class, the demonisation of dissent...

None of this has to be true. The point isn't what's true. It's how it's perceived. People aren't going to change because a load of latte-sipping HR consultants think their grievances are stupid.

Zero analysis, just grievances against wokism clumsily pasted onto progressivism. Won't work on a philosophy forum. — Baden

I'm not seeing any analysis or evidence supporting the movement either. Yours is not the default position. It's not "accept 'woke' politics unless you have a 'nuanced' and solidly evidenced argument to the contrary".

This is a discussion (in the wider community) about the direction our society is headed. If you can flag-waive for one approach with nothing but a few eye-rolls and wry insinuations, then so can others. If you want to discuss how we move forward you need to advocate for your version no less than you ask others to advocate for theirs.

Obviously, establishing he is racist comes before talking about why he is, right? We're only just getting there. — Baden

The comment I initially responded to was...

He made racist statements. Period. — Baden

Does "period" mean something different where you come from?

The discussion was (at that point) about the effect of 'woke' culture. Pretty much everything said since then has been directed exclusively at avoiding any discussion of even the possibility that it might have negative consequences exacerbating negative responses.

Get a grip. He did nothing of the sort. You're embarrassing yourself. — Baden

My mistake then. So we can assume things have massively improved since then, society is, in fact, no longer as overtly racist as it was in those times, thanks, largely to the Herculean efforts of the civil rights campaign.

So we can assume that Adams's exposure in childhood was not to segregation, abusive language, no role-models and a poor public image...

So why's he a racist? Nothing whatsoever to do with anything we could do anything about? Completely wash our hands of it? Perhaps he had a bump on the head eh? Nothing for us to worry about.

Back to business as usual.

Actions matters, not what people really think, but what they do. — ssu

Indeed.

And...

his speeches show clearly the way how the Kremlin now sees the war. — ssu

...immediately contradicted within the same paragraph.

If "actions are what matters", and it's trivially true that Putin lies, then Kremlin speeches tell us one thing and one thing only... Whatever it is the Kremlin wants people to hear.

Now, do you have a shred of evidence that these speeches are honest? Or is it just more apologetics?

If only that were true. — RogueAI

It's not as accepted in polite society, but there are still plenty of kids being raised in racist households. The culture itself is still very racist. — RogueAI

Yeah, that's right. Some self reported feelings of fear are just like not even being allowed in the same fucking building. Things are basically the same, I don't know why MLK even bothered.

Of all the grossly offensive things reported on this thread I think Adams's stupid comments pail into insignificance behind you attempting to belittle the horrors of Jim Crow era to score a fucking brownie point with your chattering class gang.

it's important to understand what Putin is really saying: — ssu

Yeah, no one's falling for that bullshit.

Here's Putin on NATO...

...[[b]NATO[/b]] moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border.

...these past days NATO leadership has been blunt in its statements that they need to accelerate and step up efforts to bring the alliance’s infrastructure closer to Russia’s borders.

Any further expansion of the North Atlantic alliance’s infrastructure or the ongoing efforts to gain a military foothold of the Ukrainian territory are unacceptable for us.

Focused on their own goals, the leading NATO countries are supporting the far-right nationalists and neo-Nazis in Ukraine

First a bloody military operation was waged against Belgrade, without the UN Security Council’s sanction but with combat aircraft and missiles used in the heart of Europe. The bombing of peaceful cities and vital infrastructure went on for several weeks. I have to recall these facts, because some Western colleagues prefer to forget them, and when we mentioned the event, they prefer to avoid speaking about international law, instead emphasising the circumstances which they interpret as they think necessary.

Then came the turn of Iraq, Libya and Syria.

They [The Western powers] will undoubtedly try to bring war to Crimea just as they have done in Donbass — Putin's speech marking the initiation of the invasion

Only now it's suddenly becomes possible for Putin to lie. To say stuff that is merely politically expedient, not a real reflection of his motives.

Your transparent cherry-picking is not fooling anyone. Putin lies. That means we don't know what he really thinks from his speeches. Get over it.

I was responding directly to your comment.

But if you want to constrain the conversation, feel free.

No, at face value describing black people as a "hate group" that whites should "get the hell away from" is racist. He made racist statements. Period. — Baden

So what are we left with? Do you think some people are just born racist? Are we theorising Adams grew up in a little known community of Klan remnants? Because absent either of those, it strikes me as dangerously indifferent to just ignore the causes of such attitudes.

It's not like the 50s, people are not growing up in racist households and a racist culture anymore. They're growing up in a culture where racism is largely abhorred with virtually every mainstream source of culture studiously avoiding even the hint of it. If people are repeating racist tropes these days, its something worth working out the cause of... Assuming there's any genuine interest in remedying the problem.

I don't think you can mix the issues of systemic racism and overt racism in the way you have here.

Obviously, overt racism isn't going to go away by ignoring it, but overt racism is marginalised these days, we no longer live in the world which produced MLK or Rosa Parks. Its patently absurd to suggest we do, when many of the most famous rock stars, actors, sportsmen, politicians and presidents are black. What overt racism there is is much more of a mixed picture and as likely to involve the interaction of multiple groups (not just white>black).

Systemic racism, which is still very much an issue, has nowhere near so clear a solution, and I don't think you can simply claim that a continuation of MLK's approach to overt racism is the best, or even a good, way to tackle it. It's much more economic at root and solutions are more reparatory than awareness-raising.

Regardless of the nature of the initial complaint, anyone who can't see that a homeless white, ex-con has a legitimate grievance against the rich black lawyer railing against 'white privilege' has lost all sense of human empathy.

The actual difference is just who are the belligerents. — ssu

The difference between " a) sending weapons to a country and b) defending it with your own troops", is who are the belligerents? That doesn't even make sense.

No one was the 'belligerent' when the US were arming, training, and sharing intelligence with Ukraine prior to 2022. Or were all the Donbas and Crimean separatists and pro-Russians not 'real' Ukrainians?

That must be it. That'll be why the fact that Ukraine shelled the crap out of them in the months before the invasion doesn't figure in your little Disneyland version of events. They're already officially 'belligerents' because they disagree with their government.

Yet you should understand the difference of between a) sending weapons to a country and b) defending it with your own troops. — ssu

The difference is that one involves weapons and the other involves people.

How'd I do?

Now. The significance of that difference is what we're arguing about and merely pointing it out doesn't even begin to address that contention.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. — ssu

Evidently. Don't worry your little head about it.

In a post-truth environment where people are ignorant about the facts — ssu

Well then it looks like all that's needed is for people to learn 'The Facts ™', then problem solved...

So. Where are these 'facts' kept so we can all look them up?

The 'fact' about how significant multilateral agreements with weaker partners are relative to bilateral agreements with stronger ones, for example. Where's that 'fact' such that we can resolve this latest disagreement we have? No point in us arguing about it here when we can simply go and look up the fact-of-the-matter.

There are two things you seem to mix here. — ssu

There are two things. No "mixing".

I'm not in any doubt about your ability to rationalise post hoc, it's not hard. I'm just pointing out for anyone following along the evident hypocrisy in claiming that the military support of a few key nation satisfies you that you're defended, but when @Tzeentch made that exact same argument about Ukraine's de facto reliance on the military support of the US you started bleating on about how important the support of all the other nations was.

If you have the world's largest military, supported by the world's most influential government, on your side, that's all that matters.

That's what you said about Finland and It's what motivates Russia's security concerns regarding Ukraine.

In both cases, the opinion of the smaller countries is largely irrelevant. The ability to coordinate is pretty low down the list. If I saw my neighbour in a bilateral military deal with the US, the potential lack of coordination with Lichtenstein is not going to take the edge off my concerns by much.

Oh but it does. — ssu

You literally just said it doesn't. I quoted you.

Here...

When you have already bilateral security guarantees from the US and UK (and other NATO member states), I wouldn't be worried about it. — ssu

Agreements between (and with) the most powerful parties are what matter... No need to worry about the rest.

When you have already bilateral security guarantees from the US and UK (and other NATO member states), I wouldn't be worried about it. — ssu

Yeah, funny that. It's almost as if it doesn't really matter what the other countries think.

I've heard that argument before somewhere... can't quite remember where...

suspect that the Pentagon's stated aim, "to severely weaken Russia.", is the bigger culprit. — Manuel

Possibly, though, as you say, hard to disentangle the two. To what end would the Pentagon want to weaken Russia other than to cement further economic monopoly for wealthy influencers? I have little faith anyone has much genuine ideology anymore, not even cold-hearted patriotism. Idealists are inconvenient and have mostly been sidelined.

The list of countries the US has 'weakened', or 'liberated' is remarkably similar to the distribution of oil, gas, semi-conductors, fertiliser, and cheap labour.

expected but disgusting nonetheless. — Manuel

Brains are fragile things, they go wrong often and it's unsurprising that one or two people end up losing their humanity. I think it's most important to have a culture which isolates (or fixes) these derailments, since we cannot expect to live without them.

We seem, at the moment, to have one which promotes them to high office.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/01/ukraine-lobbyists-washington-defense-industry

Stupid, black-hearted, fucking monsters.

I hope you're all delighted with yourselves.

I think we all know the US is sending funds to Ukraine that could be used to fix our elderly infrastructure. No need to remind us. — frank

Well then it's not "just" waiting is it? It's actively encouraging and pursuing continued war.

It's not just waiting for Russia to exhaust itself. It's the architect of the idea and its main protagonist. Whilst most now think Ukraine cannot ever win back Donbas and Crimea, the US (and their war hawk press) are still delighted to profit from their attempt to do so.

But by all means, just underplay the whole thing. We might as well get it over with, we'll soon be in "pretend it never happened" phase.

The US is just waiting for Russia to exhaust itself. — frank

So not sending billions of dollars of weaponry, increasing intelligence aid, setting up lucrative reconstruction deals, running propaganda campaigns and censoring dissent then...? Just waiting?

To classify is to discriminate by definition. — NOS4A2

My poor LPs!

The shared rule. — neomac

If we shared a rule we would have agreed on the first proposition. If there were some rule (which we agree on) that can be used to demonstrate the truth of a rational argument, such that it compels me to believe "you committed fallacy X", then it could have been used in the first place to compel me to believe your original proposition. I don't see why it suddenly becomes more compelling when used to argue for a fallacy.

If we can't converge on such basic level, we remain unintelligible to each other. — neomac

Nonsense. I can vaguely understand people even talking to me in a foreign language. Most of our words are just fluff. We needn't agree on much. I determine most of my opinion about what you mean from my experience of people and assumptions about what kind of person you are and what you might likely be trying to say. You become a character in my story, playing a role I determine. You'll fit that role all the while it's not overwhelmed by evidence to the contrary because it's easier for me to predict your behaviour that way. It's just basic cognition. We're not powered by words and their meanings, we're powered by predictions, stories, expectations.

Lol. I think you are mixing up colonies of Belgium and the Dutch (as the Dutch Cape colony existed until 1806) and the largest colony was the East Indies (modern Indonesia). — ssu

No, just not naive enough to think that Western nation which had less to do with colonialism miraculously derived their wealth independently of those who were more involved. Did the Netherlands have some kind of early boycott of all colonial-derived wealth?

And nice dodge of all the key questions, by the way. Like the specific matter of which actual capitalist country we're talking about is the point.

As I explained, I don't think we gain much by examining what we do in all circumstances. It's helpful to think of culture as an indicator of what we've made of ourselves, and therefore what behaviors we'll gravitate towards. — frank

It's not about circumstances. I'm asking you to justify the claim that the behaviour is "natural".

Stable borders are the pre-requisite of a democracy and they therefore cannot be established democratically. — unenlightened

Well said.

If your Chez is actually attacked, and you choose to fight the attackers, that could reasonably be called self-defense. As a concept, that is not co-extensive with the question of boundaries, but neither are the ideas mutually exclusive of each. — Paine

This doesn't even approach the key question. No one is doubting that what the Ukrainians are doing is 'self-defence'. The question is over the moral weight we (outsiders) ought give to their decision (democratic or otherwise) to do so. The suggestion has been raised that we ought be encouraging Ukraine to accept a settlement which may involve losing Crimea or Donbas. The counter argument is that they have democratically decided to keep fighting for those regions (in, as you say, self-defence). But that democratic decision has no moral weight unless you can answer why that particular group are the ones who morally (not pragmatically) get to decide the future of that region.

You've yet to answer that question.

So if I claim he failed or my opponent rejects the charge, it must be shown through the shared argumentative rule who is right. — neomac

And what prevents anyone from rejecting that 'showing', why are they suddenly compelled by your second judgement when they weren't by your first?

No — frank

Then how is a "tendency to create hierarchial social structures" natural absent of any evidence that that's what we do in all circumstances?

Capitalism is fervently discounted all the time and likely will be continued to be opposed in the future too. Yet Netherlands is a quite nice place to live in. — ssu

The point (which you conveniently ignored) was at what cost is the Netherlands now quite a nice place to live?

At what cost to Africa (from which a large part of it's wealth was stolen)?

At what cost to the future (climate change, pollution, health decline)?

At what cost to values (is it just to buy a nice place to live for most at the expense of a few)?

Anything which focuses on only one part of a mixed system can exculpate itself by bracketing out any parts not amenable to the theory.

What was natural for hunter gatherers, whatever that may have been, was a reflection of what worked for us at the time. — frank

...

Our ambitions are being thwarted by a natural tendency to create hierarchial social structures. — frank

So, are you suggesting that our natural environment has changed in the last few thousand years? Because absent that its hard to see what you could mean by saying a tendency to create hierarchial social structures is 'natural'. What environmental stimulus are you imaging we're responding to today that was absent when we were hunter-gatherers?

I should have had you pegged for a 'fallacy-o-phile.

A couple of questions...

Do you think those with whom you're arguing would agree that their propositions succumb to these fallacies?

If not, to what do you then appeal when arguing that they, in fact, do? More fallacies? Fallacy fallacies?

And then, when we disagree about the fallacy fallacies? Fallacy fallacy fallacies, perhaps?

argumentative rules that make one’s views rationally compelling to opponents’ views. — neomac

Intriguing.

What are these rules? Can you enumerate a few?

I only see the logic of the word LatinX when it is used by someone who doesn't consider himself a man or a woman. It is okay if they use it privately or for basic purposes. But changing every grammar rule for a brief percentage of the population would be reckless and crazy. — javi2541997

Yes. I agree. I was only making the point that they weren't actually changing grammar rules forcibly by using "LatinX", it was just silly. There was no need to ban it legally, just call it out for what it is, a daft bit of virtue signalling.

I agree with you about the ludicrousness of "LatinX", but the issue here is of actively preventing the use of a word, not mandating it. I think a word being silly isn't sufficient ground to prevent its use.

As lame as your attempts at calling opposing views "cheerleading the war", "bollokcs" and "bullshit". Serving you your own "sarcastic" soup. — neomac

The difference is, I'm not the one claiming this is all about rational debate like some rules-based chess game. This is politics. It's your hypocrisy I'm pointing out. I'm perfectly comfortable with the notion that politics is at least partly rhetorical and so comes along with "cheerleader", "warmonger" and other pejorative terms. I believe in what I think is right and believe in it quite strongly. I've made no bones about that.

I'm simply pointing out to you that your claim of dispassionate, rational, chess-grandmaster "weighing of the evidence" is preformatively contradicted by your use of pejorative rhetoric. I have no such contradiction because I've never claimed my analysis to be dispassionate in the first place.

if people provide arguments and question each other's arguments with arguments, it should be welcomed. — neomac

Where was the argument in...

A horrible and bloody internet "pariah-ship and contempt" is what the majority of anonymous users of this thread have to suffer from the minority of other anonymous users for advocating B. But they are doing it for a good cause, the Ukrainians' well being, which they know much better than the Ukrainians themselves. And that's no virtue signaling by no means. From Russia, with love. — neomac

...?

Because it sounds like a weak attempt at sarcasm, followed by a lame cliché about anyone not cheerleading the war being pro-Russia.

Isaac has repeatedly argued that Ukrainians are not enough of a self-identified group to say they are making a decision to act in self-defense together toward a common enemy. So anything you might refer to as "moral" on those grounds witl have to be excluded in order to be considered. — Paine

Firstly, have the decency to address me if you've got something to say about me, this is an adult debating platform, not the school playground.

Secondly - to your point. unless you've got more than just puffing your cheeks to add, I don't see how this furthers the discussion you backed out of last time it was raised. On what grounds are 'The Ukrainians' {everyone with a Ukrainian passport, voting rights etc} the proper moral group to consult on the matter of the future of Donbas/Crimea? Why not {everyone who lives in Donbas/Crimea}? Why not {everyone within 100 miles of Donbas/Crimea}? Why not {everyone who'll face severe hardships from the decision either way - everyone with 'skin in the game'}?

No one has yet given a single reason why 'The Ukrainians' ought be the unit of moral decision-making about the future of Donbas and Crimea.

They are, of course, the default pragmatic unit of decision-making (that being how democracy works), but democratically made decisions are not automatically morally right, and we're under no obligation to agree with or support them outside of that democratic unit. France needn't support England's brexit choice. It might have to lump it, but it doesn't have to like it, or help us with it. The mere fact that it was democratically decided by an appropriate unit of decision-making doesn't render it a moral obligation for others.

Even if a majority of Ukrainians want to continue to fight for the regions currently held by Russia (and that's a big 'if' without any proper democratic facilities in place), it does not follow that we're morally obliged to help them pursue that goal. They can be wrong.

So it is not a great moral victory in any particular situation, to think the war option is not worth the cost. Opinions can legitimately differ, and nothing more than suggestive reasons can be given either way. — unenlightened

I agree. Is there something I've written which makes you think I might not? I've mainly been arguing here against the opposite view - namely that "anyone thinking war is not worth the cost must be pro-Putin and/or simply 'not understand' the facts"

I believe that continued war is not worth the price. I don't believe it because I'm pro-Putin, I don't believe it because I'm unaware of some fact. I believe it because it's one of the reasonable, rational theories presented to me by experts in their field and I choose to believe it primarily because those advocating it seem to have the least to gain from doing so, and it holds the most powerful nations to account.

You're presented with two theories, which you otherwise can't tell between; A and B. Those advocating for A stand to gain several hundred billion dollars from the pursuit of policies according to A, those advocating B stand to gain nothing but pariah-ship and contempt for advocating it, yet do so anyway.

Honestly. Which theory are you going to think is most likely to be right on its face?

Recently the European Council on Foreign Affairs published this paper:

United West, Divided From the Rest: Global Public Opinion One Year Into Russia's War on Ukraine


The global shift towards multilaterality is well underway, and the Ukraine war really shows how estranged NATO has become from the rest of the world, with basically every major international player outside of NATO refusing to pick sides in the conflict. — Tzeentch

Yes. The University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Future of Democracy reaches much the same worrying conclusion

On the one hand, western democracies stand more firmly than ever behind the United States. ...
However, across a vast span of countries stretching from continental Eurasia to the north and west of Africa, we find the opposite – societies that have moved closer to China and Russia over the course of the last decade. As a result, China and Russia are now narrowly ahead of the United States in their popularity among developing countries

... The real terrain of Russia’s international influence lies outside of the West.
75% of respondents in South Asia, 68% in Francophone Africa, 62% in Southeast Asia continue to view the country positively in spite of the events of this year. — Foa, R.S., Mollat, M., Isha, H., Romero-Vidal, X., Evans, D., & Klassen, A.J. 2022. “A World Divided: Russia, China and the West.” Cambridge, United Kingdom: Centre for the Future of Democracy.

It's quite futile to argue with a person that totally declines to see the objectives of Russia in this war. — ssu

It's quite futile to argue with someone who's ego is so inflated that they think their own personal opinion constitutes a fact that others merely 'decline' to see. Far smarter people than you disagree with your analysis of Russia's objectives. Experts in Russian affairs with decades of experience disagree with you. Does that fact seriously not even dent your messianic sense of righteousness?

We're not having an argument. It's more like a clinical assessment.

It seems that there are fates worse than death - Orwell's "a boot stamping on a human face forever". What price are you willing (for others, obviously) to pay for peace? And on what hinge do you hang it. — unenlightened

As I've brought up before (with no attempt at refutation beyond the usual huffing), the notion that Ukraine sans Russia will be some kind of peaceful, democratic paradise as opposed to the Orwellian nightmare of Russian puppetry is completely without merit.

Ukraine was a right-wing-infused, arms-dealing, rights-abusing, poverty-stricken, dump before the Russian invasion. Russia's 'management' of Crimea has produced a string of human rights abuses no greater, nor worse than the exact same string of abuses the Ukrainian side inflicted on Donbas.

One of the most remarkable feats of propaganda in this war so far (of which there have been many) is the re-branding of a Ukraine from the world's foremost right-wing thug training venue to the saintly beacon of democracy. Read literally any article written about Ukraine before the invasion for a flavour of just how bad things were there.

Expelling Russia will make a barely noticeable difference to the population's human rights. Possibly one of the reasons why the people of Donbas and Crimea were so pro-Russian before the invasion.

A timely article in the Jacobin tells us little has changed. https://jacobin.com/2023/02/ukraine-censorship-authoritarianism-illiberalism-crackdown-police-zelensky

In July 2022, officers with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the country’s chief law enforcement and domestic spy agency, entered Chemerys’s home, broke one of his ribs, and seized his electronics. (Chemerys provided Jacobin with medical documents from July 2022 documenting a fractured tenth rib). His crimes, according to the “official warning” he received after the visit, included “his openly pro-Russian position,” “criticism of the activities of the Ukrainian authorities”

On March 10, 2022, poet, satirist, and television host Jan Taksyur disappeared after armed men claiming to be from the SBU searched his apartment, turning it upside down and seizing his savings, according to accounts provided to local news outlets and to Jacobin by his family. It took two days for his wife and children to find out where he was: in a pretrial detention center, where he was kept for more than five months on charges of treason, and unable to get medical help despite a cancer diagnosis — not an uncommon situation, according to the doctor who eventually treated him.

The pacifist Ruslan Kotsaba, proclaimed a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International in 2015, went through a similar ordeal. Kotsaba’s prosecution for “high treason” predated the Russian invasion, after a 2015 video post labeling the war over the Donbas a “fratricidal civil war” and urging resistance to military conscription got him labeled a traitor, prosecuted, and imprisoned for sixteen months.

But Kotsaba says things took another turn immediately after Moscow invaded last February, when the judges presiding over his case took on a “more aggressive and uncompromising attitude.” Sensing the court would now more likely take their side, he says, prosecutors recalled the dozens of witnesses whose absence had previously gummed up the trial’s progress and proceeded without them.

the SBU announced it had “neutralized” the Workers’ Front of Ukraine in Odessa, a Marxist organization founded in late 2019, charging the group was “coordinated and funded by the occupiers.” Though providing no evidence for that charge, the SBU cited as among the group’s subversive activities the printing of “anti-Ukrainian materials,” trying “to spread the forbidden communist symbolism with calls for the resuscitation of the Soviet Union,” and planning “mass rallies.”

The outlets reprinting the SBU’s charges added that the group had also written “anti-capitalist posts.”

Drawing particular international attention has been the arrest and prosecution of communists Mikhail Kononovich, leader of the KPU’s youth wing, and his twin brother Aleksander. Ethnic Belarussians with Ukrainian citizenship, the brothers were accused by the SBU of working for both Russian and Belarussian intelligence and of holding “pro-Russian and pro-Belarusian views.” The Kononoviches say that the accusations are fabricated and politically motivated and, in a recent statement, charged that they had been beaten and tortured while detained for seven months, stating that “now in Ukraine, ‘communist’ means death.” Before the war, they had campaigned against Zelensky’s push to allow private sell-offs of Ukrainian farmland and sparked controversy for a variety of views, including advocacy for the rights of Russian speakers and against fascist movements in the country.

left-wing activist Oleksandr Matyushenko. In the past, Matyushenko has charged that “after Euromaidan, the right[-wing] consensus fully dominates Ukraine,” and that government and right-wing opposition “compete with each other in anti-communism and xenophobia.” He has also criticized far-right militias like the Azov Regiment and the oligarch bankrolling them. One of the photos of his arrest shows a man’s hand hovering over a bloodied Matyushenko, holding the Nazi-inspired Azov emblem.

Matyushenko’s wife later told the German left-wing newspaper Junge Welt that SBU members had entered and searched their apartment, confiscating computers and other property, while another man in military uniform — the one brandishing Azov’s emblem — spit in her face, cut her hair with a knife, and beat her husband for hours. The two were later taken to SBU headquarters, she said, where officers interrogated them, threatening to slice off their ears.

Chesno (“Honestly”), a prominent NGO originally focused on fair elections and good government that had played a leading role in the Euromaidan revolution. On March 17, it announced it was launching a “Register of Perpetrators of Treason” focusing on politicians, judges, media figures, and law enforcement officers.

At the time of writing, it listed 1,118 names, many of them sporting rap sheets as dubious as some of those targeted by the SBU. Chemerys (a “propagandist of leftist views”)...

... in 2021, Chesno (the liberal NGO now running its own blacklist of alleged traitors) received 42 percent of its funding from the US government-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), which contributed the lion’s share of that money. The NDI is one of the private NGOs aligned with one of the United States’ two parties, and is itself funded by the NED, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the US State Department, among others.

Any idea how many lives your lovely plans would cost? — Tzeentch

The idea is just unhinged...

• 8 million externally displaced
• 6 million internally displaced
• several million in need of humanitarian assistance
• at least 100,000 to 150,000 killed
• USD 600 billion infrastructure destroyed
• 9.3 million food insecure in Venezuela
• 7 million at crisis level in Somalia
• 7.2 million at crisis levels of food supply in South Sudan
• 22.8 million at crisis level of food insecurity in Afghanistan
• 5 million on the brink of famine and 16 million insecure in Yemen
• escalating fuel crisis

...
Oh and the risk of nuclear war

... and we haven't even got into the fact that most military experts think outright defeat is impossible anyway.

So what price @ssu? What level of human cost do you want to pay for this brilliant goal of creating a post-Afghanistan Russia?

And let's not forget (before you spin out the usual bullshit about it being up to the Ukrainians)

A lot of the human suffering caused [by] the war has been outside of Ukraine,... Humanitarian needs globally are much higher this year because of the Ukraine war than they would have been without it, and a lot of that relates to the dislocation of the world’s food markets and the contribution of that to increasing starvation and potential famine. — Mark Lowcock, the former United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs