"The 1980's are calling to ask for their foreign policy back."

Imagine thinking that Ukraine having Nazis makes it a defense of Putin.

So many of you are so bent on finding a form of lesser evilism, that you just choose your preferred flavor of evil and call it good enough. I didn't vote for Biden because he is a racist, credibly accused of rape. So many of you had a problem with that. I won't support Ukraine because significant portions of its culture, and its military, support Nazis and white supremacists. That's why @Ancalagon tags me, why so many people here keep responding, because it's unfathomable to you how someone might see two deadly evils rather than one I'd be willing to compromise upon. I tried working that out for a long time, but I noticed that things were still getting worse. You may believe that some day voting a lesser and lesser evil might end up with things being good, but I don't accept that premise. I'd rather good be good, and people committing acts of unspeakable evil be exactly what they are, on the opposing end of where I stand.

You guys put so much effort into being upset because I don't agree with you, and it's kind of bewildering, because I've already said I'm not liberal, I'm not conservative, and I have no loyalty to imperialism, and you still try to frame things as if I accept your point of view as the proper perspective. I don't, just as I don't see Democrats and Republicans as two distinct entities at the core of what they are: yeah, their aesthetic is different, but at the root they both serve the same causes. You don't agree. That's fine. It doesn't make me "holier-than-thou" as @Demiurge put it not to concede what I consider core principles to things I believe to be destructive to humanity. If YOU think that's an area where you can compromise, so be it, but I'm not you. I'm not him. I'm not @Ancalagon. I do not know what you're expecting outside of that.

Sorry kid, we don't buy the "I'm not taking a side, I'm just endlessly shitting on one side while only throwing out token criticisms of the other when pressed" bullshit when the righties do it, so we're not going to buy it from you either.

That liberal lens will get you every time, friend.

Gee, I sure hope no-one ever invades Britain unprovoked and brutally murders innocent people. We've got the BNP and the EDL, so I know I can count on Amaris to be calling it evil to support us as my knees are being drilled through.

When they said perfection is the enemy of the good, apparently they meant this.

Even you're not immune from its effects, clearly. It shows in how you see Ukraine being attacked by Russia as unprovoked, which totally negates what the US did in 2014, and the actions taken by the Ukraine military in the Donbas region against its population of Russian separatists. The lens of liberalism lets you see Ukrainian Nazis as part of "the lesser evil" which is just wild when seen from the outside. The US has been involved in this for years. Joe Biden talked about using Ukraine to get to Russia as far back as 1994. Nothing, and I mean nothing occurs in a vacuum, and none of you, none of us, is immune to propaganda. Right now, it's Nazi propaganda. In the 1980s, we backed "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan. The US meddles, we meddle in everything, and this notion that Ukraine was just peacefully minding its own business when evil Putin suddenly attacked is just balls deep in enough western propaganda to make Jenna Jameson blush.

You say "perfection is the enemy of good," but neither of these options are good. That you can see such a "lesser evil" as tantamount to good speaks volumes. That's what has happened here, and you have aptly demonstrated my point. That you use Britain as your example, a nation which at one point had invaded 90% of the world, and still possesses many of the artifacts from those nations, the colonial mindsets that still exist in African and South American countries, in India, it shows this massive blind spot that so many people who live in the white western world seem to possess. So, like when the US was attacked on 9/11, is it that honestly outlandish that Britain's own chickens might come home to roost?

I would not want to see Britain attacked, invaded, but if I pretended that it was completely unjustified, unprovoked, especially in light of the sanctions that Britain still places on so many developing countries, I would be a fool to possess that mindset.

"Perfection is the enemy of good" only works if there is a good being achieved. Otherwise, it's just turnabout being fair play.

Ah yes, those all Ukranian women and children the Russians raped to death were asking for it, because Iraq, and because of something Biden said in 1994, and because of Afghanistan in the 80s.

If only you'd been there to tell them that while they were getting murdered, I'm sure they'd have appreciated your enlightened perspective.

Let the whole world burn then. No-one is innocent by this logic. Everyone has some bad blood, or a black mark. Fuck 'em all. They'll all be "lesser evils" because there's none pure enough by those standards.

Have you stopped your own charitable acts because Bob DownOnHisLuck at the soup kitchen once bullied a kid at school? Or because Jeannie StrugglingSingleMom has a racist brother she still cooks for occasionally?

Why help anyone, if all are guilty of something?

If you are still helping Bob and Jeannie, why apply to nations what you won't to individuals?

Individuals are dying in Ukraine, much as you might want to apply a catch-all.

Nope, never said that. Both you and @14thDoctor miss the entire point.

Before I address anything else, I want you to realize you're speaking of the things Britain and the US has done as if it's in the past, and not something they are still doing to this day. That would be wrong. The US, and Britain, along with other western nations, still engage in the starvation of other countries that don't bend to the western idea of law and order. The worst part of it, though, is that you compared the acts of an entire nation's government, and the resources it brings to bear on less developed nations, as being the equivalent of what an individual may do to someone else. I certainly would not help Bob DownOnHisLuck at a soup kitchen if he were still stabbing people, taking their wallets, and blaming it on other homeless people in the soup kitchen. I certainly won't support a country that does the same.

Now, on to the rest.

All you're doing is exchanging one evil for another because you think it's somehow less evil, and will somehow work out for the good. Your whole worldview is based around this. Liberal politics bears witness to evil, but instead of actually taking steps to eliminate it, liberalism, as a general rule, compromises with evil to hopefully make it less effective. Sophistic deviations from 14thDoctor about my not caring about Ukrainians aside, this is what we're seeing. You're not doing good.

The US and Britain sanctioning Russia is not doing good, because the motives behind them are not good. The US and Britain doesn't give a single fuck about Ukraine, or Ukrainians, except to use them as leverage against a longtime enemy. If you think all of that money being poured into Ukraine is going to rank and file Ukrainians in desperate need of help, I have a bridge to sell you. That it's easy to get Americans and other westerners on board by appealing to their national pride and empathy goes without saying, I mean, we all remember Kony 2012, right? Once Ukraine loses its strategic appeal, Zelenskyy, hero of the day for so many liberals, will be tossed aside. He has plenty of money and homes, including in the US, he can move to, and just like every other brave leader the US and the west lauds when it's fighting the dreaded Big Bad, the people caught in the middle will be left behind to fuck off for themselves.

@14thDoctor may care about Ukrainians being raped by Russians, because he's all about that when it's not Canadian or US soldiers doing it, but the US and other western nations truly do not give a fuck. They wouldn't care if Ukraine was wall to wall Nazis, as long as they can be used to get what those western nations want, which is a stronger hegemony, more global political power, and of course, resources. Human lives don't play into it. So, again, you are not working for good. You are not acting upon good. You, personally, may believe this is good, but the nations overseeing this latest battle for the hearts and souls of corporations everywhere do not care in the slightest about good or bad. They care about gains, and $53+ billion will certainly help ease their pain.

Again, Amaris, what is your alternative?

We had this from you with the Biden vs Trump/Dems vs GOP argument. Sure, neither side is good, pick the lesser of two evils yadda yadda yadda.

WHAT. IS. THE. ALTERNATIVE?

LET the GOP win? LET innocents die? LET everything go to Hell because you feel taking ANY side is bad?

Have you slid THAT far into nihilism?

I'm not naive enough to believe in "good guys".

I'm also not naive enough to think building a moral high horse so high you run out of breathable atmosphere helps ANYONE.

I agree the system stinks. But I don't agree that tearing it down - at least in its entirety - is feasible or wouldn't lead to more horrors. But that's what you seem to advocate. Anarchy in the case of the US government. Everyone for themselves until we're purged of sin and no longer acting out of self-interest in the case of the world.

To belabor a point, if you see nihilism out of what I've said, then you're so thoroughly ensconced in liberalism that you cannot see any options other than "evil vs. lesser evil or else certain death" and I cannot translate my perspective over to you, at least not very well. What I can do is tell you that what I just talked about? I framed it in the same way that we discuss reparations in the US. I did it on purpose, because that framework of restoration is just one part of how we get out from under this "evil vs. lesser evil" binary choice so many people have been convinced is the only way to see things.

I've bolded the word restoration so that if you get nothing else out of what I'm trying to tell you, you at least get the concept of where I'm coming from. There are so many more choices than "it's either choose the lesser evil or we all die," but they're never presented to you as anything other than fantasy. The Overton Windows has been moved so far to the right that things we believed we could do even 50 years ago are seen as unicorns and ponies nowadays. You already know I'm a communist, so you should at least know that I ascribe to something I believe is the better alternative. I also know I don't have enough words or posts on Wordforge to convince anyone that it's a viable solution, because you will probably have to come to it the way I did: from a position of not knowing enough, of being ignorant, and being willing to, from your own empathy and self-awareness, to dig in and search for better answers than what we have under this capitalist system that says a lesser evil is a good option between evils.

What I talk about isn't utopian. I don't believe in utopia as anything other than an unattainable dream, something that does not translate into human experience, that doesn't cross the material boundary into human well-being. Suffice to say, however, growing an empire like a cancer cell certainly is not and should not be the path we see as practical or pragmatic. Any country dedicated to the idea that we can ever sate a system that believes in continual, non-stop growth at all costs is destined for failure. Any country, or culture, that believes we can appeal to the worst aspects of ourselves as being a viable path away from destruction, based on the supposed "good" acts of greedy, selfish individuals and individualism is also destined to failure.

Turning the idea on its head is a good start. Working to restore human material needs, rather than extract them from those who are most vulnerable, that's a start. It is so much more powerful than the way the US and many western nations see it now, though the US is certainly at the top of that ladder in terms of adhering to a system of destruction, moreso than any other western nation. That's why I talk about the US and its effects on other nations, on other people, on the world at large, as much as I do.

What you talk about being a moral high horse is just having principles you're willing to act on. In communism, we call it "revolutionary optimism." It doesn't exist to remove cynical thoughts (we all have them), but it does seek to defang fatalism. Cynicism is a tool of capitalism, because if you believe that nothing good can ever come out of humanity, that's all you'll get is a "lesser evil," and it will keep descending further and further into fascism, which the US seems to be embracing with all of its military and cultural might.

Once again Amaris is asked "what should good people actually do about this current situation today, because lives are literally at stake" and once again Amaris responds with nothing but vague grandstanding and empty platitudes.

Pathetic.

She's just the anti-Dayton Kitchens. There's no more thought to it than that. She has her dogma, and she refuses to think, even when asked direct questions.

I don't say that nothing good can ever come of humanity. I just don't agree that "never pick a lesser evil" is a path to that, because we're ALL flawed. You fight the evils you can't reason with, and yes that occasionally means siding with a lesser one so that you can talk THEM around later. Should the Federation (since we're in magical utopia land) have never worked with the Klingons? Even in the TNG era there was enough shady shit going on there. Hell, the Federation still had snakes in their garden, but it was closer to Eden than anything since and without the Big Guy telling us knowledge was evil.

Nazis in Ukraine is not good. But I have seen no evidence that Nazi ideology will be deified if Ukraine survives. You picked on the examples of Operation Paperclip in the case of the US letting Nazis in after WWII. That was undeniably wrong and Ukraine should not be tempted to repeat it.

The thing is, Ukraine already deifies Nazis. I mentioned Stepan Bandera earlier because Kyiv hosts a Stepan Bandera day, and Zelenskyy participated gladly in it:
https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-nazi-collaborator-birthday-holiday-anti-semitic-1272911
https://www.unian.info/politics/105...ans-should-also-praise-modern-day-heroes.html


Here's 15,000 Ukrainians marching for Stepan Bandera:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/01/01/ukraine-bandera/4279897/

An article about Stepan Bandera being called a hero of Ukraine:
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/...a-s-legacy-becomes-a-political-football-again

What happened in 2014 to oust Viktor Yanukovych?
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.go...act-sheet-us-assistance-ukraine-february-2014

We've helped foment this crisis from the start.

A C-SPAN clip from 1997 where, while discussing corruption, Joe Biden says this:


The intent has been, at least for Joe Biden, to push NATO further towards Russia, to incite Russia to act. That does not excuse Putin, but it should shed some light on just what is going on.


EDITED TO ADD:

That's just about all I can really do to explain where I'm coming from. I'm tired now, busy day, but I hope it helps? Anyway, that's about all I have to say on the subject for now. I'm sure there are people who want to beat their arguments into the ground, but I'm not interested in that.

I hope you all have a good day today, regardless.

The Baltic States are Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. They've been members of NATO for 20 years. Ukraine is not a Baltic state. Your Biden video is laughable.

Bandera is popular among a small group in the west near Kyiv. He's one of the most disliked figures in Ukrainian history among the rest of the nation. The 2009 poll indicated that 14% of Ukrainians have a positive outlook on him, and 45% a negative outlook on him, with 41% being unsure or neutral. Remember Ukraine suffered the Holodomor under the Soviet Union in the prelude to WWII, and quite a few saw the Nazis as liberators - initially. Bandera himself spent the majority of the war in a concentration camp because he thought Hitler would support Ukraine as a buffer state against the Soviets. He was wrong. The KGB assassinated him in 1959, as he still sought an independent Ukraine.

Putin's statement that he is there only to denazify Ukraine is a lie so obvious only the most gullible or brainwashed would consider it factual. They are there for the oil, gas, and to secure the warm water port in Crimea.

But then, to you the US and Western liberal democracies are always the liars, and you turn over your brain to actual genocidal dictators.

And your Zelensky quote literally has him stating that too many things are named after Bandera and that more should be named after artists and novelists.

From your link:

"There are indisputable heroes. Stepan Bandera is a hero for a certain part of Ukrainians, and this is a normal and cool thing. He was one of those who defended the freedom of Ukraine. But I think that when we name so many streets, bridges by the same name, this is not quite right," he said in an interview with RBC-Ukraine.

"By the way, this is not about Stepan Bandera. I would say the same about Taras Shevchenko. I respect his tremendous work a lot. But we should remember modern day heroes, the heroes of art, the heroes of literature, all heroes of Ukraine. Why aren't we naming [streets] by their names – the heroes who unite Ukraine today? There is such a tension in society that we must do everything possible to unite Ukraine. I was once asked why wasn't any street named after Andriy Shevchenko [Ukrainian football star]? He is a hero for me, I really think so," Zelensky said.

Zelensky, what a Nazi monster.

@Amaris, do you watch or listen to Beau of the Fifth Column at all?
You're saying some of same things he has in terms of the foreign policy but appear to be missing the key takeaway: It's a card game and everyone is cheating. It's not about right or wrong, good or wrong, morale or immoral; it's about power, and attempting to assign those to foreign policy is missing the point.
If the outcome of foreign policy aligns with what is good, all the better, but it's not the objective: What does it benefit a nation and what power does it project?

I have watched Beau. We agree on some things, and disagree on others.

I think @Amaris should get back to praising every episode of Picard and Discovery and spending less time commenting on real life, of which he appears to know very little about.

Wordforge: Real Life, apparently.

I'm all in favour of trying to look at things objectively, and from that perspective Russia does have some valid concerns, however this is so obviously Putin trying to build up a new Russian empire.

Yes there are some right dickheads in Ukraine, however that doesn't undo Russia being the absolutely aggressor here.

I have mentioned that before. Putin longs for the days of the Tsars and the Russian empire. He is a staunch anti-communist, I have no favorable opinions of him in that regard, contrary to what some might think. At the same time, too many people downplaying a government sanctioned battalion of Nazis, in a country that celebrates Nazis as heroes, that has a Nationalistic fervor for those Nazis and Ukraine as a racially homogenous power (how they treated black people trying to escape the early days of the bombing, for example), that has so many Nazis among the citizenry that they had to start finding people who didn't have Nazi tattoos, and where Azov battalion had to start "rebranding" so they could cover their blatant Nazism while people claim it's just a Putin talking point, indicates that there is a much deeper problem, and it should show the hands of the people using this war to build their fortunes.

Yes, Putin retaliated against Ukraine, some of it had a basis in past history, especially with the US pushing NATO as close to the Russian border (NATO is an anti-Russian organization, that's its whole founding), some of it is clearly his idea of regaining Ukraine as part of the old Russian empire, but I just find it so fascinating to watch people say "Slava Ukraini!", have Ukraine flags in their avatars and personal bios, get caught up in the theater of decrying all things Russian, because Russia bombed the shit out of civilians, meanwhile the US bombs Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, and somehow people are still very proud to be an American, where at least they know they're free. The idea that perhaps maybe we are involved in pushing this conflagration escapes too many peoples' awareness.

They look away when the allies of the US, like Saudi Arabia, engage in gross violations of human rights. There's a powerful vein of ethnocentrism that runs deep in all of this, and it's worth pointing out because it's the kind of mindset that causes whole societies to sink into fascism, finding new reasons to justify pouring more and more money into a military overburdened with weapons and resources, while people here, in the US, go hungry. People who talk about whataboutism and thinking if I'm against something I must be for the other guy work inside of a binary view that allows for no holistic understanding or comprehensive examination of the problem. I don't expect such a thing to really unfold here in a message board thread, but watching people get angry because I won't join them in chanting for their favorite team is very curious. Hell, @Ancalagon can't go a single one of my posts without some kind of sarcastic rep. It doesn't affect me because it's not real, but it's just weirdly childish and petty for someone I believe to be a full grown adult.

Most people here likely don't even know half of what they think they know about what's going on, like how one moment Russia's too powerful for Ukraine to do it alone, and the next the Ukraine military is pushing Russia back because they have the power of good on their side. It's a classic fascist tactic that the enemy is both all powerful, and too weak to succeed, and average folks who get their news from a media that sensationalizes everything, who gets much of its coverage from weapons manufacturers masquerading as experts and consultants, it leaves a very bitter taste in one's mouth when they know that only part of a narrative is being told, and people are being intentionally left in the dark, like when Azov battalion started killing civilians in Mariupol who tried to evacuate when the Russians showed up. Of course, in the US, you mention that and people will shake their heads and say "Russian misinformation," because we can't possibly imagine that we're backing Nazis. Hell, there are liberals who I've discussed this with who insist that the swastikas on the arms, foreheads, chests, and backs of the Azov battalion are Buddhist symbols, and they will spend every drop of energy insisting as such.

See, this isn't just a war, this is an investment. People have invested their identities in this, digging deep into their anti-communist upbringing to use against a Russia that reminds them of the good old days of the Cold War, when the US was united against the Reds. That Sinophobia runs deep here in the US, just like our Islamophobia did back in 2001. It is very easy to rile up the American base, to get them champing at the bit, to divert their attention from the fact that the US is facing dire prospects in the near future: racially, economically, civically, but a war will always bring many of us together. The US has never gone more than 20 years without being involved in some war or another, and I doubt that will cease until we collapse, if we collapse. All of this plays into what we see on our televisions, and our phones, this need to focus on the evils of someone else far away rather than the evils at home, and like good followers, western nations back up the US narrative because the US is the big dog on the block, and the general goals of those western nations are generally the same as that of the US, in foreign terms if not domestic.

Posts I make here on a message board aren't akin to real life, sorry @Faceman, and I don't attempt to change anyone's mind, because the fervor to see this as it is being portrayed is far, far too strong for one person to make a difference, but I can say that I did try, that I spoke my piece about it, and that's all I really have to say about it. Again.

This is Wordforge, so I know for some the argument is never over. I've seen people argue with posters about posts from 2008 before, I will never be able to compete with that level of anal retentive nerdery. My end of the discussion though, at least for this particular instance, is done, though.

Again, have a good night or day, depending upon where you are, be sure to drink some water, and take a minute to appreciate what you can.

I think Ukrainians facing daily starvation, missile attacks, war crimes, and having their children rounded up and shipped off to Russia never to be seen again would probably say that what they were facing is real life.

You are woefully uninformed, trapped in a silo that is clearly pro-Putin, and lack the mental capability to break free of it. So yes, we've heard your opinion. It has no merit. The Ukrainian people aren't worried about philosophy, they are worried about survival.

One of my wife's gymnastics coaches she employs is from Ukraine and actually heading back there to live permanently 2 weeks from now, which I find to be just crazy but she's totally on board with it - just misses her family I guess

We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. - Elie Wiesel

Amaris is recycling the "the victim was no angel" excuse to make her apathy and neutrality seem enlightened and informed instead of selfish and cynical. It's sickening.

It is funny to see @Amaris basically getting the lefties to complain about talking about CRT. We should teach children the truth about racism in america. Ok, that sounds great. Then we get to where we should teach the kids the truth about how america and back to europe used their military to take over the world in a cruel and racist fashion and all of a sudden the Biden Bros are going all trumpista again.

I wonder why that happens?

Then they all are mad that amaris isn't wallowing in the bullshit of ignorance with them. WTF are you doing staying out of the bullshit orgy Amaris? Why aren't you conforming to the dems? You did not chose the republicans so that must mean you are a democrat because there can only be two sides. It cannot be that both sides are so disgusting at this point that people would rather go hungry than participate. You have to die on one of their hills of lies and sick. If you acknowledge some form of other choice exists you are a terrible person for showing there might be another alternative than the shit they have been spoonfed and lap up like a dog.

Oh, and sorry for the delay on coming into this discussion. I did not realize it was gang up on @Amaris time in this hole because the brokedick jeep is rocking all over every other thread.

Maybe I should just come in here because it seems to be the one thread @Jenee and @Uncle Albert do not do their fucking foreplay in.

Fucking get a room you two.

More major players in Putin's security infrastructure ending up dead.