I don't get it...what did he call soil?
Because nobody should ever resist becoming a russian citizen by force, right?
Bonus: https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/ukraine-russia-war-donetsk-putin-b2200925.html here is the guy (Gubarev) who led the pro-Russian protesters who blockaded and occupied the Donetsk Regional State Administration building in 2014. "We come in peace, unless you don't want to become one of us."
I need more of these...for research ๐คซ
You're telling me, buddy :D and not just for the obvious reasons that bring us to this community, some stuff on hard disks is also better than the "cloud".
True, I agree, it's not a big deal, just another account, but I can live with it, yes.
PS: but there is still a case to be made for eclectic instances that host a variety of content. Otherwise, if you pile all piracy with porn, weed and whatever legal gray areas it will be easier to pick them off. Same with politics, debatable science, etc. If you concentrate them too much, federation is moot.
I think there is merit in separating two things which are only related if they serve your point.
Look, I also read Shock Doctrine and watched Adam Curtis' recent footage of the fall of the USSR, I understand what russia has been through and how the US gloated about "winning" the Cold War. From there up until 2014 you have a lot of actors, from the IMF to the homegrown oligarchs living the ancap dream to Yeltsin destroying russian democracy in 93 (should any country have intervened then?) and other forces that shaped a path that was only shaped by the US with neglect, greed and giving bad examples, but the US is not russia's caretaker, nor should it have been.
From 2014 onwards and the annexation of Crimea, the West just upped their neglect to the maximum, kept western media quiet about Girkin's failed campaign in the Donbas (and let russian media have a party presenting its own views unopposed) and pretended that nothing was happening because we were busy with other things and really didn't want to get into a fight with russia. And since it was just a hybrid war, we mostly told Ukraine to STFU, like we did Transnistria and Georgia. Meh, "it's the russian sphere of influence", "Crimea used to be part of russia", maybe if they have this and we deepen our economic connections, they'll stop and be brought to reason, let's keep Ukraine neutral, maybe that will work...
After Feb 2022 there was no margin of doubt that russia would only stop claiming more territory if it was forced to stop by force and the sooner the better. Anybody who hasn't changed their mind about russia's intentions after seeing russia attempt to storm Kiev is never going to change their POV on this. After that, russia's word lost all crediblity, so there was a mask-off moment and all of putin's speeches just sounded like "Bin Laden" with nukes to me, but maybe you like his batshit hypocritical critique of "satanist" american imperialism.
I have no idea what the basis for negotiation with russia is going to be now, because it can not end this war feeling that this brazen aggression was worth it, since they will come back to finish the job when they are better prepared (russia is great at glorifying the sacrifice of its people for bits of land in history books as an example for the future generations) nor can it accept that it already wasn't worth it, because they imagine that after what they did, defeat means more 90s hardship for them, so here we are ๐
Cool, I'm not american, so I too disagreed with the invasion at the time, as did most people and governments in Europe and most American allies at the time warned the US not to do it. The american justification for invading was bullshit, as is russia's. The difference is that nobody stood up to the US at the time and now there are a group of countries that at least have an interest in helping Ukraine uphold international law.
Between then and now, nothing changed in international law, I'm just applying it consistently. As you said, bullshit geopolitical reasons to invade a country can be brewed till the end of time, but starting a war with another country is objectively the greatest war crime, because it paves the way for the lawlessness that enables millions of other war crimes, like murder, rape, torture, forced deportation.
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/39092/how-did-sinister-the-latin-word-for-left-handed-get-its-current-meaning yea, stupid ideas are contagious and latch onto language and culture, apparently. In Italian, left is still "sinistra", so that creates other fun puns like learning to use the sinister hand.
I got used to it, you just need to look at the US as a union of states like Europe, in which case Arkansas is about equivalent to Lithuania in population (although if you correct for the more states and less pop of the US you get Bulgaria or Finland if you use a ranked method) . The same could be done for China, India and Brazil.
It hits different when you're the one being crashed into, but if it crashes less than monkeys behind the wheel and liabilities are all accounted for and punished accordingly, bring it!
A big lesson from Trump and others like him is that when someone's a piece of shit and brags about it in public, it looks innocuous and at best it may be revealing and may validate your views on power and the flaws of society, but on another level he's likely to give voice to, rally and convince other assholes to feel entitled and protected to act like assholes and then you have an actual problem. So yes, polite amorality is better.
I knew and use this, but I never thought to call it two clipboards :)
Plus I'd never heard of shift-ins, I just used ctrl-shift-c/v in graphic terminals :P