axont [any,they/them]

Liberals believe any sane person will reach the conclusions of liberal ideology if given the correct information. They view all of their political opponents as either confused idiots or cynical liars seeking only power. They cannot rationalize someone opposed to liberalism for valid reasons, even if those people have been colonized, forced into poverty, or denied basic rights because of the consequences of a liberal market economy.

good thoughtful post

Big Andorra

Allowing them to keep their holdings is the same as appeasement a bad idea in front of a conscript army

Yeah it is appeasement. Is open warfare better than appeasement? Should they fight until the last Ukrainian? No, that’s awful. War between capitalist states is not the realm of the working class or poor people. The victims of this war are people caught in the crossfire, Ukrainian, Russian, or otherwise, and ending the war even through territorial concession would be better than what’s happening now.

I think Russia made a dash to Kyiv to flank the Ukranian army from mobilizing in the east so that Russian bases and supply routes could be established, but I have not followed troop movements much since last year. Russia made the correct assumption that Ukraine would focus most of its attention on defending the capital if it were threatened. I think that strategy worked because Russia captured not just Donbas and Lunansk, but Zaporizhzhia and Kherson as well. You’ve made the mistake of thinking I’m defending Russia because I explained how I see the context. Russia shouldn’t have invaded, NATO shouldn’t exist, the 2014 Ukranian coup shouldn’t have happened, people in Donbas and Luhansk should be allowed to exercise self-determination. None of the conflict should have happened and the primary cause of the situation is, like always, neoliberal imperialism. Maybe there were non-violent ways out of this conflict, but they’re all imaginary now. We live in reality.

I don’t know what people want from me here. Sorry, I don’t see this conflict as pure territorial expansion ordered by Putin on this basis of his moral failures or greed or whatever. Because that’s not what it is, and me saying that somehow means I’ve got Putin whispering in my ear like a witch in Salem hearing the voice of Satan. This conflict is one resolution in a long line of unresolved conflicts going all the way back to 1991, it’s more than Putin, more than even just Ukraine and Russia.

Being a principled ML in the USA also gets you on a watchlist and raided by cops if you’re amassing enough power to do something. I don’t think anarchist orgs have had the same level of state scrutiny, but I don’t mean to say anarchists have had it easy. I work with a mostly anarchist org (Food not Bombs) and we get citations from cops nearly every week.

Oh you reminded me I have some Coco Ichibanya curry mix in the cupboard somewhere. I know what I’m eating tonight

You’d have to look at the situation from before the war started, like all the way back to the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and the 2004 Ukranian color revolution. NATO instigated the 2014 coup in Ukraine, which made relations between Ukraine and Russia much more tense. That’s when Ukraine began more earnestly shelling the Donbas region as well, which is a region of people who’ve always been more sympathetic towards Russia. The residents there even speak Russian. The situation became more tense to the point Ukraine was floating NATO membership, which would have resulted in Russia being more surrounded than they ever have.

Russian troops could leave, and that would result in the same situation as before and would inevitably erupt into conflict again. NATO encirclement, ethnically Russian people getting shelled, Nazi Ukrainian troops in the region, Ukraine denying self-determination for people within its own borders. It would still be a geopolitical mess with potential for another war.

Russia has in fact called for ceasefires and peace talks multiple times already. Early on in the war Ukraine seemed willing to have talks, but NATO pressured them out of it. The situation now is that despite Russia calling for ceasefires, the position of the US and other NATO allies is that no ceasefire will be accepted unless Russia completely leaves the region. That’s pigheaded and wrong. Any stop to the fighting should be accepted. That means NATO is calling for an extension to the war, not Russia.

The best possible way for this conflict to end is Ukraine cuts its losses, Russia annexes Donbas and Luhansk, and the fighting stops. Normal, average working class people are harmed as long as this conflict keeps going and as leftists we should be in favor of war ending, not persisting. Ukraine losing territory and the fight ending is a massively better situation than the fight becoming another decades long quagmire like Afghanistan or Syria.

I support an end to war and NATO instigated this war and keeps it going.

There’s a particular Midwestern thing of putting a working TV directly in front of the broken TV

I actually kind of embrace the players doing whatever they want, so long as it’s not some way to harass other players or the DM. If they’re doing something to deliberately ruin the game, that’s not acceptable. If they’re doing something the DM didn’t expect or account for, that’s just the game baybee. It be how it is

This was always going to happen because Anglo countries define whiteness by one-drop blood quantum rules. The population of white people will always shrink if you define white in such strict terms and everything else in such loose terms.

Having just a single non-white grandparent is often enough to disqualify a person from whiteness.

It also doesn’t help that the boundaries of whiteness have shifted compared to 30 years ago. Muslims usually aren’t considered white for instance no matter where they’re from. I distinctly remember my Syrian neighbors were considered white when I was a kid, then 9/11 happened and suddenly they weren’t.

yeah it’s an issue with the Hexbear embed images I’ve seen in a lot of federated instances. I’m hoping one day it’s resolved.

Shinzo Abe was a clown and Japan’s abortion laws are draconian.

Thanks, that’s depressing

Single party that produces good results that have alleviated poverty regardless of ideological definition

versus dictatorship of capital that can only become worse over time

Yeah hard choice. Let me stand on my high horse and say these are the same. Let me even joke that America is democratic in the slightest

I haven’t done any research on this, but my gut says it’s because black people are more likely to live in urban areas with at least the basics of public education. Whereas white people comprise more rural areas. Not saying living in a rural area makes you illiterate, like I grew up in a small town in the woods, but it does mean there’s just less of everything, including education. More homeschooling too among white people.

Could also be that white people take education less seriously because they don’t feel threatened by a hostile job market. Did your readings say why there’s a disparity between demographics?

It’s probably a measure of functional literacy, like the ability to read through a page of information and understand it fluently. Someone who is able to sound words out one by one wouldn’t be considered functionally literate, for instance. They’d lack the ability to reasonably get through a text using reading as a tool. Instead reading would be an obstacle.

They might know a few words they need to know, like writing their own name, or reading some road signs, but they’d be unable to get through a novel or textbook. They might even know how to recite the alphabet or do math.

I used to teach adult literacy in the US and I’ve met hundreds of illiterate adults. Most of our studies showed 87% literacy but I could believe 79% too depending on the methodology and definition of literate.