Problem is usually wars are justified by money or lies or politics, not by things like “defending democracy” or “stopping a genocide”

Those justifications are usually made up at the time it becomes convenient or politically necessary to enter a war.

First heard that in The Boondocks. Lol

Obviously this article is meant to cast the Pope in a bad light, but honestly I’m not going to fault the dude for invoking historical figures who proved to be beneficial to his own order.

I mean, how many times do people invoke the image of Teddy Roosevelt in the US? Dude was hot for war, all the time. Or Abe Lincoln, who, prior to freeing the slaves, would claim that whites were still superior to blacks (depending on his political audience), and would advocate for the relocation of blacks to another country, similar to the US government’s efforts made against Native Americans.

Invoking historical figures is so often a bad move, but how can you fault a person for not knowing these things? Roosevelt and Lincoln are gods in the US. Andrew Jackson was the king of the free man, a paragon of libertarianism, rose straight up from the ground to the presidency. But I’m sure the Native Americans felt otherwise.

As for the Pope thinking the attack was provoked by NATO and not wanting to condemn Russia, well that’s kinda horseshit. Because Russia deserves condemnation for preemptive war in the same way that NATO deserves blame for outfitting more bases along the Russian border, and the US deserves blame for their interference in Ukrainian politics in 2014.

Hell yeah. I just read Guards, Guards! by Pratchett and I’m working through LotR again. Dune is amazing, but I haven’t continued past the original so maybe I’ll read those next.

If you’re into history, I’ve been listening to The People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn, it focuses on each major historical event from the perspective of the regular individual person rather than focusing on the people who happened to be in power during them, and it’s pretty good so far. I also read Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky, and that was life changing. Those are two pretty political ones, though.

In terms of fiction Id recommend Cormac McCarthy – either The Road or Blood Meridian – The Road is a post apocalyptic story about a father traversing through the ashen environment with his son, while Blood Meridian is a brutal Western set in the 1800s. With both of these, it’s not as much about plot as it is about the poetry of the writing.

I haven’t read a scifi book in a minute, but I haven’t seen a lot of people recommend A Canticle for Leibowitz. It’s three separate-but-connected short post-apocalyptic stories that follow the gradual resurgence of humans after a nuclear event. It’s really subtle in that it doesn’t slam you with like a whole universe and systems like Dune, but it’s expertly written and hits some pretty thought provoking topics. Def underrated.

Me too:) do you have any recommendations off the top of your head? No genre preference, just your favorite book or video essay?

I started preferring long form media recently. Audiobooks especially. Social media allows anyone to say a single thing that may or may not be legit, but since it’s bite sized information units they don’t need to back it up. Long form media requires a person to back up what they say, and having that barrier of entry filters out those who probably aren’t worth listening to.

Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

• E.V. Debs

I live in a small city about an hour away from a major city. I’m also an hour away from what I would call the boonies – rural, remote areas where owning guns and open carrying is normal. In fact, I’ve seen open carry around here, in the city, quite a bit. It’s pretty normal around here.

I heard a shooting happen in the suburbs near my house when I was a kid. It’s what’s considered the “nice” part of town. An old woman walking her dog was killed. I heard the shot through my bedroom window. Only til I moved into the inner part of the city did I witness guns being shot in the city more often. Most of the times you hear pops, it’s fireworks. A couple times, it’s been guns. Those couple times are pretty freaky.

Every once in awhile I’ll walk past a crime scene downtown, usually something happened like a stabbing the night before. One day I scrolled through reddit and saw a video – a point-blank execution had occured outside the club down the road. That one was disturbing. I think the kid is going to jail for a long time.

The inner part of this particular city is not as safe as the suburbs, but for the most part you should be okay, as long as you’re not looking to start trouble. When I’m walking around town, especially the immediate area I live, my eyes are open. At night, they’re wide open.

Its just a lack of consistency, I don’t know what to tell you. You can’t tell me the US sends military aid to Ukraine in order to “defend democracy,” when in numerous other cases of sovereign countries being occupied, we do nothing, or we even support the occupiers, in Palestine’s case.

This lack of consistency lends itself to the idea that there are further interests besides “defending democracy” for which we send Ukraine weapons. I’m not sure how else to put it. If it were about the moral imperative of defending occupied people’s, you can pick out numerous similar examples where we have not acted, and you just have to conclude that there are other factors behind the US sending aid to Ukraine. One is the perceived threat the country feels from Russia, which I think is probably exacerbated by the press. One is the perpetuation of the constant war economy we have, and one is the increased political unity that war brings.

But I’m curious about your position, you’re dismissing my arguments as “whataboutism,” but what exactly would you assert instead? Do you think that Ukraine deserves our aid more than Palestine does? Is it that Russia is a grave threat to the United States? I’m genuinely curious

I don’t think they should be condemned to genocide, but I don’t think we should be sending them weapons. I think Biden should be talking to Putin in some capacity, which he is not. Radio silence. I think that exacerbates the war.

I don’t think this weird moral imperative is real, like we’re America so we ought to do something. I don’t think that it’s real because, just like in Russia, where you’ve got an active conflict and you’ve got some Russian propaganda calling for the denazification (what you’ve correctly referred to as genocidal) you also have, in Israel, active conflict of genocidal nature between Israel against Palestinians, but we do nothing.

So you’re saying, we, America should condemn Palestine to genocide? Or how about the Uhygur peoples? Should we engage in a proxy war with China? Certainly, according to your claims that otherwise we are dooming them to genocide by their occupying country.

That moral imperative you’re talking about is fabricated, because if the US government actually cared about these people – Ukrainians, Palestinians, or Uhygur – we’d be sending military aid to all of them, or else we’d be “condemning them to genocide,” as you say.

This aid is not going to Ukraine to help them endure genocidal forces. It’s going there to perpetuate our constant war economy that is reliant on conflict. It’s going there to unite the political party against an outside evil and to further the US geopolitical and global free-market goals.

I never claimed the revolt itself was a result of their actions, I claimed that we were actively involved in installing their new government, which we were.

Well, I actually didn’t say any of that, but thanks for stripping any nuance from what I said, creating a strawman, and then attacking that, instead.

Thank you for the insults, I guess the point of my effort dump is moreso that I dont think it’s really as black and white as people make it, I think it deserves some nuance. Which is a little ironic because you summed the whole thing up in six words! Haha

But no, I don’t think it’s very unreasonable to be against a war. You do? I do not support Russia. But I don’t think the US should be sending military aid to Ukraine.

Edit: or, I mean against this war

Dude we were denying their agency in 2014 when we were helping install their new pro-EU government

The fact that you’re assuming this person is a Fox “News” consumer is emblematic of the overall media’s coverage of the war in Ukraine. A person can be anti-war and still part of the left. But not according to you, or others who immediately jump to things like, “go back to licking Putins boot, watching Fox News, etc.” You are shutting down any sort of constructive conversation.

The media has made the war in Ukraine a moral imperative by making it democratic Ukraine vs authoritarian Russia. War makes everything black and white. So it becomes impossible to say something like, “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is wrong” while also saying “The US should not support Ukraine with weapons.”

I am anti-war. I do not think the US should support Ukraine with weapons. To me, I am extremely skeptical of the simplistic idea that we are aiding democracy and staunching authoritarianism. I think that kind of of rhetoric pervaded the conflicts in the Middle East, and I think in those cases, it was more accepted by the public that the US was acting in a more imperialistic manner. I think that fits closer to the mark here, too.

For one thing, the US was directly involved in Ukraine’s revolution in 2014, trying to position people in power who had a more EU friendly demeanor. And they helped expand NATO bases closer to Russian borders. These two things, while they certainly do not justify Russia’s invasion, I’m sure made them feel threatened. Now, I don’t have much historical knowledge of Ukraine or Russia, but certainly they’ve had more than just a geographic relationship over the past century or so. If Russia was involved in a Mexican revolution, trying to make them friendlier to Russia rather than the US, I’m sure the US would have a problem with that. Still, the US would not be justified in invading Mexico, as Russia is not justified in invading the Ukraine. This is just to point out the same type of meddling that the US does all across the globe in the name of “democracy” or “free market capitalism”, we were doing here, too.

I think it’s doubtful that this is all purely in the name of democracy. After all, look at what is happening to Palestine. They are a country occupied by the authoritarian state of Israel, and we do nothing. So, to me, there are other factors at play in Ukraine. One, I think, is that war is profitable. “Defense” companies like Raytheon and BAE actually have an interest in perpetuating war, as it brings in profits. So big firms are going to support giant aid packages, as it means they’re going to get business.

Another, I think, is that war is politically profitable. When you can get your party to demonize an individual or country and unite around the noble war effort, it’s just another issue you’ve manufactured to get their vote.

Anyways. I just don’t buy that this war is about democracy or any higher moral value. I think it’s about money, to be honest, and politics. Mostly money. It’s a proxy war between the US and Russia and I think the media has pushed the narrative that it is a morally imperative war between Ukraine and Russia because it is financially interested in perpetuating the conflict. I don’t think the US has an interest in actually ending the war.

And overall, I just think war is one of the greatest evils, and I will almost never support it. Real people are dying for fucking what? If that makes me a Fox News watcher, or conservative, or Putin lover, or whatever name you want to sling my way, I guess so be it. It’s dumb, but so be it.

Edit: if you’re downvoting me without a rebuttal, you’re part of the problem that I’m referring to – a complete dismissal of dissenting opinion on the war. If you disagree with what I’ve said, please comment why because I’d like to hear your viewpoint so that I can adjust mine appropriately. I’m not interested in name-calling, but an actual conversation about this topic would be cool.

*Except if that country is Palestine. They can get ploughed

This dude is totally content with 300,000 years of subjugation of women by men, but has problems when a single feminist movie comes out. Comedy can only make fun of the other, apparently. Soon as you (men) get made fun of, they’re all up in arms.

Get with the program or get out of the fucking way.

It’s really not pants on head. The Western propaganda machine immediately crucifies anyone saying anything bad about Ukraine. War crimes in Donbas? “You’re trying to undermine the Ukraine cause!” The US helped engineer a regime change in Ukraine in 2014 that resulted in civil war? “But they’re democratic now!” (By the way, see the parallels to Iraq there?) NATO, which was once thought defunct after the fall of the Soviet Union, building bases on Russian border? “Well, they’re authoritarian and need to be contained!”

Well, Russia felt threatened and took the bait and invaded Ukraine (not justified, by the way. Still wrong.) And now, how many billions of dollars are going to the Ukraine war effort from the US? And you cant say a bad thing about Ukraine without being vilified as a Putinist.

I mean, someone the other day told me “the only anti-war stance is to send more weapons to Ukraine so they can end this war faster.” What? That’s like saying “the only way to end the conflict in Vietnam is to send the southern Vietnamese more troops so they can destroy the northern communists faster.” Nah, an anti-war position is leaving Ukraine to defend themselves.

For the US, this is not aiding a democratic country against an authoritarian regime. If this were really about democracy vs authoritarianism, we’d be sending weapons to Palestine against the authoritarian state of Israel. But since Israel is a useful tool under our thumb, that’s not going to happen. This is a proxy war that we wanted so that the people can have an easy person to hate (just like in the middle east), justified in the name of “democracy” (pro-western government US helped install, also like Middle East), and furthered by billions and billions of dollars worth of weapons and aid packages, paid to defense firms like BAE and Raytheon.

I don’t think ukraine can win this war and take back all their territory, including Crimea. And that’s good for the US, because war is profitable and having an adversarial country like Russia (for Republicans, it’s China) is politically advantageous.

Edit: BTW, this is not all to say that the OP is true. I’ve not been able to verify the veracity of the disappearance of this journalist, the most reputable source being https://twitter.com/MarkSleboda1/status/1686619514211868672?s=20 who reports from a Russia PoV. I think it’s important to maintain that Russian PoV =/= Russian propaganda, but still important to be skeptical.

I’ve been using Ubuntu for the past 6 years, haven’t tried another distro because I’m so comfortable here. Could you tell me why you think others are so much better?

Maybe I should switch, but I think my experience in Ubuntu might outweigh the negatives that it has ie I might just know how to deal with it’s peculiarities and I don’t even realize

Mainstream media is generally propaganda, too, even lots of “left leaning” media.

For example, we don’t hear about the war crimes committed by Ukraine, only ones by Russia.

We don’t hear about how the US was actively working with right-wing groups in Ukraine to overthrow the government in 2014, efforts that helped further fracture relationship between Ukraine and Russia.

Or the military posturing by NATO in a geographically adjacent country to Russia.

War makes us forget nuance and accept simple absolute truths like Russia attacked Ukraine and therefore Ukraine must defend itself.

And for the record: fuck Russia for this ongoing conflict. They are the perpetrators, for sure. But all historical context to this conflict is completely thrown out in the eyes of the mainstream media.

Where are the anti-war democrats? Where are the people looking to end the war, rather than further fuel it with weapons? Nowhere to be found.

You know why? Because war makes too much money. Americans are paying to subsidize the cost of weapons to keep the war going. We the people are funding this.

We say “what are we supposed to do? Just let Russia invade Ukraine?” And then turn a blind eye to Palestinians occupied by Israel.