InappropriateEmote

Just because you aren't used to hearing about the vast reality beyond the propaganda bubble you've (knowingly or unknowingly) confined yourself to, that doesn't mean that something you encounter outside of that bubble that contradicts it isn't factually the truth. If anything, as a rule of thumb, it's more likely to be closer to the truth if it contradicts whatever narrative nonsense you've been swallowing from any given large western media news outlet.

Bro, learn to read paragraphs. My comment above is literally made up of two of them of very normal and standard size. Have you ever read a book? Paragraphs written in places other than twitter or reddit tend not to be broken up arbitrarily every 2 sentences like it seems you wanted me to do.

Nah, there was never any point where Russia was going to lose this unless countries other than Ukraine joined in with more than just grift money and weapon donations but with actual troops on a large scale (beyond just small scale mercs that are easy to deny). And fortunately that wasn't too likely to happen because even the most belligerent NATO warhawks knew it would be seriously risking global nuclear war. So many internet armchair generals, mostly NAFO dipshits but plenty of Russia-aligned SMO-watchers too, were (and are) way too focused on the lines on the map, the fine details of kettles and who held what small towns, etc, all without recognizing the bigger picture: long term attrition. In that sense, Russia has always had the upper hand by a large margin. That's not going to change either. Russia is, as you say, "slowly getting the upper hand," in the more obvious ways but this was always what was in the cards and it's just going to continue in that same inevitable direction. The only way Russia will lose this war is if there is some major change in how things are set up on the global stage.

Also it's not really true to say that Russia is asking for more than they hold because even if some areas are still contested, Ukraine has no chance of hanging on to them. As others have noted, this is a very generous offer and I expect it's only being made because Russia is plainly aware that Ukraine will not accept it (in fact Ukraine cannot accept it because those who fund them, those who are using Ukraine as their proxy and who are ultimately responsible for all this, wouldn't allow them to). That's the only way in which this offer is "dishonest," if you consider it dishonest for Russia to propose a plan they know full well that there isn't a snowball's chance in hell of Ukraine accepting.

Yeah, something of that proportion could not be kept secret even if all NATO member states were all in total agreement and unity and even with the avowed silence of high officials. It also would at least partially defeat the purpose of NATO if a state joining it were to be kept secret.

That's right! We have to make sure the very last Ukrainian dies in a meat grinder before we even think about agreeing to these completely reasonable, even generous peace terms. Wait, what's that? Russia will have even better leverage and grounds to demand even more concessions the longer this conflict goes on and the further Ukraine gets beaten back? Damn, oh well who cares? As long as western arms manufacturers can keep their grift going a little longer and a few more Eastern Asiastics get taken out, it will be well worth it, right guys?

Lol. I wouldn't have been surprised by this kind of blatant cope a year or two ago. Those cringe lies about Russians not knowing how to fight or having inferior tech were all the rage among the NAFO losers at the time. Of course it was all projection even then, but now that Russia is so obviously and thoroughly spanking Ukraine, it's much harder to phrase the "Russian orcs are dumbdumbs who fight with shovels!" line without doing a massive self-own.

And speaking of self-owns, it's pretty funny that you insist on bringing up a completely unrelated topic where you were totally not owned by people who schooled you in an attempt to disabuse you of your willful ignorance regarding Tienanmen Square. But it looks like you won't even believe your vaunted western liberal sources when it comes to making sure you don't have to take your head out of the sand.

edit: Looks like I was a little late to reply to this one. Does anyone know if a user still sees responses to their comment if the reply was made after the parent comment was removed?

Yeah, any non native government is a fraud. Everything the US does, China and any other "super power" has committed as well.

Lifting over 800-million people out of abject poverty and all but eliminating homelessness is fraud?

I'm not anywhere near an expert on history,

That is very apparent.

but when one regime is held up higher than another regime,

Yes, all governments, no matter whether they're fuedal monarchies, capitalist "democracies" that funnel all wealth directly to the bourgeosie while millions starve, or socialist revolutionaries employing the mass line consistently proving they are made up of and represent the working class with 95% approval of the population... all of those are "regimes" and everyone knows that "regimes" are equally bad.

we forget that they got there through blood and murder.

If a people rises up and kills the landlords brutally holding them in de facto slavery, then the blood and "murder" of those landlords is good actually, and so is the resulting government formed by those people. (And just so we're clear, that is not sarcasm. My previous sentence about "regimes" was.)

Yes, I know the article was on infrastructure, but there is a whole intricate world where everything is connected in one way or another.

It's almost as if you have to have an understanding of the material circumstances of a given country to have a fucking clue what you're talking about regarding them!

Uyghurs are just one population that have existed on this planet.

You don't say!

And yes, I'm sure there are some ethnic Uyghurs who are doing just fine.

Not just "some." The Uigher population as a whole is thriving in China.

You can easily find a video where a north Korean defector is claiming how much better north Korea is compared to the US.

And they would be right. North Korea is substantially better than the US in almost every way.

I mean, the earlier attempts google/youtube made to block adblockers by putting up a notice to turn it off, etc., were openly stated as being tested only on some users. As expected, only some users experienced that. You're just part of the more fortunate majority that isn't an unwilling guinea pig for google's attempts to force everyone to watch ads or pay premium.

one party is clearly more zealous about ending democracy than the other.

You don't get it. Bourgeois democracy is a sham. It has never served working people the way they tell you it has. "One party is clearly" blah blah blah. No. Both parties are playing one of the two roles of the "good cop/bad cop" routine. That's all this is! It can be true that one side can cause more damage while in power than the other side, but at this point, it's just batty (and wrong) to think that the side with the blue donkey logo is going to do less harm. Even if we forget that it's the latter side currently funding and helping orchestrate a fucking genocide, it only ramped up and made worse all the terrible policies implemented when the red elephant had ostensible control. Don't fall for it. Both "sides" (aka both cops) only want to fuck you over and they're doing it as a collaborative effort. Voting for either of them only sends the message that you have indeed fallen for the act and that you'll keep supporting them as long as they keep up that act, which of course they will. If you feel that voting serves a purpose, or that it can be still be used for good, then vote for someone who actually shares your ideals, which neither fascist cop does.

It's not a slur any more than calling someone a Nazi is a slur. In both cases, the fascists chose the term for themselves and use it to self-identify. Leftists likewise use the terms with all the derision they deserve. Simple as. If I call a Nazi a Nazi, it's not a slur just because I think Nazis are evil and disgusting and are in need of redacting. So too with Zionists.

If someone is using the term to describe themselves, but they (correctly) think that settler-colonialism is wrong and that the state of Israel is a genocidal ethnostate, then they are misusing the term, according to both the vast majority of Zionists as well as the people who oppose Zionism. As always, what is antisemitic is the equating of Zionism with Judaism, it is not antisemitic or saying a "slur" to accurately use the term Zionist as an epithet. It's disgusting but unsurprising how the Zionists keep harping on this to try to make themselves out to be the ones being persecuted.

lol, reread what you're responding to, comrade. Friendly fire.

You can play the blame game all you want, but what's going to help anyone today?

Well isn't that fucking rich, since Israel right now today is committing a genocide, a real, actual ethnicity-wiping-out, mass-child-murder genocide. I think we can go ahead and "play the blame game" there and blame Zionists for doing a bit worse than an oopsie. What makes you saying that even more tone deaf is that the Zionists are trying to victim-blame it on Palestinians! Maybe once everyone understands who really is to fucking blame here, it will make helping people today a lot more possible.

I am not personally responsible for what people did decades before I was born.

You are personally responsible for any ways in which you benefit from the continued oppression of a people whose stolen land many of them were murdered for that you continue to live on.

Why -- and where -- should I evacuate?

Why? You're asking why should you give back something your parents stole from people that are still asking for it back (the ones who survived anyway)? As for where you should "evacuate," you could probably just stay there in the post-occupation Palestine, it just wouldn't be an apartheid ethnostate, rather a state that doesn't deny the human rights of people by their ethnicity and religion and actually affords justice with equity, part of which includes returning land to those individual people and families it was stolen from. In fact if you're not in a house that literally belonged to a violently-evicted Palestinian family, or in a house that was built over the bulldozed ruins of homes of Palestinians, then you may be fine living exactly where you are right now. I know you have the settler-colonial mindset of being afraid of violent reprisal for the crimes your parents previously committed and your government currently is committing, but no, actually most people even after horrendous oppression don't feel the need or even desire to go on a killing spree of their oppressors. White settler South Africans were afraid of that too, but no, turns out oppressed people tend not to behave like violent settler colonists themselves did. If you were still afraid of that anyway, you could as you said, evacuate since from my understanding many western states would sponsor you to move there.

Two states living peacefully side by side is the only future that isn't a genocide.

This is complete nonsense. I hope you read the rest of the thread, because this fact has been made clear. There is precedent for this.