2157
"Both parties are the same!"
(lemmy.world)
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This is not a good assessment of the situation at all...
If American power was truly benign, it would be interested in maintaining Ukrainian neutrality as much as possible to prevent the disaster we have just seen, and simply allow the processes of technology and modernization to erode totalitarian institutions in Russia and, similarly, fought corruption in Ukraine... It would not weaponize the most backwards & corrupt country in Europe through re-energizing the Maidan, throwing a coup using literal Nazi militiamen, and put it on a crash course with Russia, causing it to lose a war abysmally that could have been settled by insisting on some sort of elections in Luhansk/Donetsk with international observers...
Polling shows that it could've likely resulted in just some autonomous region that would still be within Ukraine...
But look at we got: at least half a million dead Ukrainians and now it has been all but guaranteed that more than Luhansk & Donetsk will be ceded to Russia.
You sound like a progressive that would be arguing that the US needed to go into Vietnam to offset Russian & Chinese expansion in southeast Asia, and that the 2 million Vietnamese dead and tens of thousands of working class Americans dying are just these necessary side effects of us being the good guyz.
I disagree - Yanukovych was elected on he basis that he would be close to Russia. He won the popular election at one point. Of course a significant amount of Ukrainians were pissed that he pulled out of the deal, but it was predictable that a pro-Russian leader would take steps to try to at least maintain a balance between the West and Russia...
Maybe it is even the case that Yanukovych was heavy-handed in scuttling the EU deal, but the crazy violence that happened at the Odessa trade hall and the sweeping to power of these cartoon character super nationalists in the most corrupt country in Europe seems like a fair enough reason for places like Crimea and E. Ukraine to want to return to Russia...
Obviously, I would agree with the assessment that some amount of Russian intelligence operations and propagandists were invested in forcing the issue, but I've also heard interviews with pro-Kiev Ukrainians from the East conceding that their own home town in Luhansk/Donetsk is mostly pro-Russian.
I actually blame the West for all the deaths. Someone at some point convinced Zelenskyy that he would have enough support to turn back a Russian invasion - something he should have been far more skeptical about - and the results are absolutely catastrophic.
I am always anti-war, and thus I am against diplomatic maneuvers that fail to de-escalate hostile situations and create more friction.
Does it suck that the Ukraine is in such a difficult position? Of course. But the answer to this is not putting them in the boxing ring with the Russian bear. The results have been devastating and predictable.
BTW... No, i do not support Putin at all. The path forward for Russia is the same path forward for all nations: increasing wealth and insuring its equitable distribution so that the average persons enjoys a high standard of living and can together exert pressure for accountability & transparency of government...
But complaining that Russia, a country with so many issues after the collapse of the Soviet Union, is undemocratic all the while our own nations see civil rights never actualized or even eroded and control by capitalist oligarchs is... rich.
We also set up Russia to be that way - remember the Harvard Boys.
Let's even say that what you are saying is completely true - because it is, to some extent. Russia is not 100% well intentioned. I am not a Putinist by any stretch of the imagination...
What you are actually suggesting is that the Ukraine, the most corrupt & impoverished country in Europe at that moment, is being defended by the USA and NATO, because they are a bastion of liberty... and the USA, and NATO, who absolutely have not killed millions of people around the world exclusively to further their own geopolitical position and economic interests, who have absolutely never massacred actual progressives and leftists by the tens of thousands in places like Chile, Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, are totally backing the Ukraine because they have the noblest of intentions in defending.... :::: puts on Zelenskyy's gravitas and accent ::: democracy and human rights.
Even if Putin is 100% in the wrong (which he isn't), it does not mean that the US and the Kiev regime are forces of democracy and progress. In fact, if history teaches us anything, the fact that the Kiev regime is working closely with the CIA and the USA means it is going to be a corrupt, backwards state... Or, as Zelenskyy stated it himself...
Ukraine wants to be Big Israel.
OK, but let's imagine that the entire East Coast is ethnically majority English, and they speak only English, and traditionally vote for English candidates that advance closer relations with England... And let's also imagine that they were actually assigned to be part of America by England herself in the middle of last century for administrative purposes when England used to rule the US...
... And then, after the English speaking, English descent President, who was elected popularly, with the East Coast as his predictable heartland of su pport, many English on the East Coast were completely pissed off. New York completely voted itself to be a part of England right away -- of course, English officers and pollsters were there to facilitate this and the numbers were wonky, but a lot of people generally accepted it at the time because it was reasonably explicable...
... And, like, we've now been fighting a civil war without the English for 7 years... the rest of America has agreed to take in tons of military support and training from China, and is lining itself up to become a threat towards not just the East Coast, but of course, England, and the English alliance system more broadly...
And the East Coast would be joining a comparatively 2, 3x more wealthy and less corrupt state that has its best interests at heart by joining England, as opposed to feeling like the neglected, actualy despised part of America, which is a rapidly failing state ruled by a series of corrupt oligarchs... Not entirely unlike England, but [i]measurably worst in terms of standard of living, at least..![/i]
It's pretty complicated, isn't it?
I said prosperity and not globalization for a reason, though... Globalization is a front for global capital.
I also believe China & Saudi Arabia have become measurably more liberal places over the last few decades - I don't think you'd dispute that, either. The only issue is that China has incorporated its emerging bourgeoisie into a more jingoistic, confrontational foreign policy outlook, IMO.
They are still just ruled by oligarchs like the West.
Yeah man I'm a freshman but I think I am cut out for the team.