Those same social networks are de-ranking and blocking dissenters against the escalation of war against Russia in Ukraine. This is categorically different and a major escalation in censorship that most people are not realizing. It's very scary.
Yea Russia shouldn't have escalated the war.
What a bizarre idea.
Even if you're okay with all of that, the US is not trying to help Ukraine win, it's trying to make the war as long and as expensive as possible for Russia. The US is sacrificing Ukrainian lives to harm Russia.
Though, Poroshenko (the guy who was elected in 2014 post-revolution and is some kind of chocolate factory oligarch) fled the country over a prosecution but has since come back to fight in the national guard, so it seems like even he's in favor of it.
It's never that Ukrainians took to the streets in 2014 because their government was corrupt and undemocratic (literally imprisoning the leader of the opposition party), it's that they took to the streets because the US artificially manufactured dissent.
It's never that Ukraine had an independent desire to increase defense spending after it suffered military humiliation and loss of territory in 2014, it's that the West armed Ukraine to agitate against Russia.
Anything that could be interpreted either as an independent action by Ukraine or a Western intervention is automatically labeled as the latter without any explanation as to why.
The irony, of course, is that the only three things in this story that are unambiguously interventionist are Russia's 2014 invasion, the 'proxy' war between 2014 and 2022, and the 2022 invasion. There is simply no other way to slice it - Ukraine didn't invite foreign troops in to come and start shelling things. That is the elephant in the room that is never brought up in these narratives.
Now, what should happen to Obama for committing the coup in Ukraine? He bragged about negotiating the coup before the previous leaders had to flee and the Assistant Secretary of State and Ukrainian ambassador were caught on tape talking about "midwifing this thing in" and making sure their hand-selected candidate became the leader.
I find there's nothing bad enough I can say about Putin that allows anyone to even consider any nuance.
But I think Russian plants should be allowed to post. They're obvious, and I think they do more harm to Russia than benefit.
We're the West. We thrive on freedom that would make Russian tyrants squirm. We can handle some dissent, even as we (figuratively) tear them apart.
It's common russian rhetoric those days: they flat out deny that Ukraine is an independent state. It comes in a few variants
- After 2014 Ukraine doesn't have legitimate government therefor they are not a state
- Ukraine was never a state, it's just mistake
- Ukraine is just a project of communist party after 1917 revolution and it failed
- Ukraine is managed by USA/Anglo-Saxons/Collective West, hence it's not a real state
- Mix of above
It's also rather common instead of writing Ukraine to write 404
The Ukrainians got fed up with Viktor Yanukovych and his corrupt government so they voted him out.
That annoyed Putin so he hit back with the invasion of Crimea and then he really pushed his luck with a full scale invasion of Ukraine.
It makes more sense now that several USA politicians have had "unscripted" moments in which they admitted that we are at war with Russia. [0][1] It will make even more sense when someone admits we have had "special forces" killing civilians in Donbas for years. As in, if we're at war, even if we don't dare declare it and even if most Americans would vote against it despite constant corporate media gaslighting, it is in some sense "disloyal" for pacifists to complain about war.
The censorship made no sense in February when we all pretended that the whole thing was totally unprovoked Russian aggression and we were just sad witnesses. At that time, the censorship just proved that something stunk about the war-media story.
[0] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/04/26/ukra-a26.html
[1] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/04/ukraine-nato-rus...
~ Noam Chomsky
If you didn't know, consider what that means about your news sources. Even if it doesn't change your positions on Ukraine, the US overthrew a country and it wasn't big enough news that they made sure you knew it. It's just a random interview buried on CNN or whatever.
Here's a transcript of the US Assistant Secretary of State and the US Ambassador to Ukraine planning the coup. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
Here's Obama saying he brokered the deal for the transfer of power, resulting in the democratically elected leader fleeing. https://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2015/02/01/pres-obama-on-...
Let's say for the sake of argument that Euromaidan was 100% manufactured by Obama. (I strongly disagree, but I'll give you that one for now.) A couple of hundred people died in the protests and riots. So far, by the Kremlin's own account, 100x to 200x that number have died in the 2022 invasion. Millions have been displaced. Entire towns and villages have been reduced to rubble. People are dying in Sri Lanka from famines because of the lack of Ukranian grain. How are you going to look anyone straight in the face and them that these evils are comparable?
This is what I mean when I say that every anti-Western narrative I've seen on this war uses different yardsticks for Russia and the West. Putin murdered 100 people? Well Obama killed 1 so it's really not that different is it? It's like asking a judge to give a thief who pocketed a candybar and a thief who robbed into a bank at gunpoint equal sentences because "both of them are thieves." I'd prefer not to have a thief as a roommate, but if my choices were a candybar thief or a bank robber, I know who I'd choose. You don't need a PhD in philosophy to understand this concept.
I'm am not sure if you are to arguing in bad faith or if you are sincere, but the drawing of false equivalencies is a favorite tool of those who argue in bad faith.
Which country, in the last 30 years, has invaded more countries and killed more innocent people in wars of aggression? US or Russia?
Rank these world leaders in order of causing most innocent civilian deaths: Bush Jr, Obama, Trump, Biden, Putin.
Which country is providing the weapons for, providing intelligence, and coordinating strikes for Saudi Arabia's genocide in Yemen? US or Russia? How does the death count in Yemen compare to Ukraine?