Russians didn't discover magic words that they use to hypnotise people and make them vote for pro-Russia candidate. In fact, everywhere in the world the incumbent politics are losing ground because the system is in crisis and people are looking for a change everywhere and Russia appears to be able to propel politicians who are closer to the their politics simply because the incumbent ones screwed up.
Is America different? Just a month ago in the American election – those who are anti-establishment and pro-Russian won.
US and Europe will go through a soul searching and hopefully will come out of this in a better shape. It has to go through this because the ideology collapsed, economy doesn't perform and the hypocrisy is unbearable anymore.
For example, can you tell me if EU is about saving the environment and stopping climate change? If so why they are blocking the Chinese electric cars? Can't stand others making the world better place better than they do?
Can you tell me if US is about freedom and respect of the international law, borders and trande? If so why they support Ukraine against Russian invasion and then support Israel who occupies Palestinian territories since many years?
Can you tell me why people should drink from paper straws when the rich fly private jets?
Can you tell me why the capital can go anywhere but people should be stopped at the borders?
Can you tell me how the economy is s great when so many people suffer?
The west is in crisis, the ideology doesn't hold and the economy doesn't provide and all the Russians have to do is to point it out. They don't use spell, they just tell what everyone sees. This needs to get fixed, let's hope that the damage wouldn't be too big.
> For example, can you tell me if EU is about saving the environment and stopping climate change? If so why they are blocking the Chinese electric cars? Can't stand others making the world better place better than they do?
Because the EU is a bunch of democracies, and a few of the biggest ones do not want to accelerate electrification bad enough to threaten parts of their industry/economy right now. This tracks with the electorate; support for green policies is rather low across the board, almost every nation has different primary issues.
> Can you tell me if US is about freedom and respect of the international law, borders and trande? If so why they support Ukraine against Russian invasion and then support Israel who occupies Palestinian territories since many years?
The Ukraine war is the most clear-cut aggressor/victim situation in a long time, even compared to setups like the Vietnam war: There is not even a puppet government with any legitimacy that the Russians could be claiming to act in support of, and there is no credible casus belli either. It's just blatant expansionism at the cost of a sovereign nation.
Israel/palestine is a complicated mess-- it is basically a civil war of sorts, and the Americans DO support people in Gaza/Westbank a ton (humanitarian aid).
> Can you tell me why people should drink from paper straws when the rich fly private jets?
Note: The non-private jets are a much bigger problem actually, but since there's not enough popular support to curtail air travel significantly, the easy pro-environmental actions happen first.
> Can you tell me why the capital can go anywhere but people should be stopped at the borders?
Because the people inside those borders don't want other people with no capital wandering in. The capital alone (or its owners) they don't really mind as much.
> Can you tell me how the economy is s great when so many people suffer?
Can you be more specific on this? I'd say the economy is not great, not terrible, and its about the same for the people (talking about central Europe here).
You cannot be serious. The EU has put up tariffs on EVs because the EU car industry who had 10 years to get ready decided that it was better to keep building diesel engines than invest in EVs.
Now, they are caught with their pants down and they lobbied for the tariffs because they know that as of today the quality and the range of the Chinese EVs are so good that should the Chinese be allowed to sell them unimpeded, the legacy EU carmakers would be bankrupt within the next 5 years.
Then, the politicians go on TV and urge you to take your bicycle to work and to turn off your router at night to save the planet.
> The Ukraine war is the most clear-cut aggressor/victim situation in a long time, even compared to setups like the Vietnam war: There is not even a puppet government with any legitimacy that the Russians could be claiming to act in support of, and there is no credible casus belli either. It's just blatant expansionism at the cost of a sovereign nation.
You forgot the Irak war and Afghanistan and the fake WMDs. It's funny how people are quick to point that Russia is the aggressor but when the US was invading countries, few people opposed them.
Not to mention the number of south American governments that have been toppled by the CIA.
Rules for thee not for me.
Stop lumping Iraq and Afghanistan together. I see this everywhere and it's tiresome. It's either outright lying or people who weren't old enough to make memories when these things happened.
Afghanistan harbored Osama. They refused to give him up. NATO invaded the country to get him. It was justifed.
The fake WMDs were in Iraq (or not, since they were fake). Only the US, UK, Australia, and Poland invaded Iraq. Literally all the other "Western" countries were very strongly opposed and refused to participate. It was an unjust war.
Muhammad Umar told Pakistan that he would be willing to turn bin Laden over to a third country, but the US refused, demanding a direct handover.
>On 21 September, Muhammad Umar rejected both Bush's demands and the advice of the council, again denying that bin Laden was responsible for 9/11.
Again, some lunatic from your country just attacks the world's strongest military power, killing ~ 3,000 people, and you refuse? The Taliban deserve exactly what they got.
The only mistake we made in Afghanistan was trying to build a 'nation' out of a geographic collection of hill tribes. We should have locked down the porous Afghan border and let SF and northern alliance troops declare open season. As it stands we didn't so much 'lose' the Afghan war as lose interest in imposing democracy on a people that had no desire for it.
Strange that the NATO did not invade Pakistan, then?
I really don't understand how this question can come up, honestly. This is 1 + 1 = 2 stuff.
Strange they didn't have to kill 40k+ civilians in Pakistan to capture him, like in Afghanistan. Which would have been totally justified, like GP claims. So, why not?
They were both illegal wars that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians for no reason other than getting 1 guy. There were many ways to get him if your government really wanted to.
On a side note, it's pretty bold of you to assume I wasn't around when these wars happened.
> Afghanistan harbored Osama. They refused to give him up. NATO invaded the country to get him. It was justified.
Oh I see, is that how you justify a war?
Let's flip the script here. Ukraine harbors Zelensky as he is deemed a criminal by the Kremlin. Ukraine refuse to give him up. The war in Ukraine is justified.
Do you see the problem with your argument here?
If it's good enough for the west to invade a foreign, sovereign country in order to get 1 man, then it should be good enough for anyone else. You can't have double standards.
> Literally all the other "Western" countries were very strongly opposed and refused to participate.
The opposition from the other countries was a show. Nobody kicked the US out of the SWIFT payment system, nor were any sanctions places on the US.
> It was an unjust war.
The fact that you can't bring yourself to say that it was an illegal war is very telling. Using an euphemism here is rather bold if you ask me.
Voters in Europe are not screaming for cheaper Chinese EVs-- they want economies improved, mostly, and anything weakening the local (automotive) industry (even electrification itself) is regarded very skeptically (especially in countries like Germany, France, Italy).
> You forgot the Irak war and Afghanistan and the fake WMDs.
I'm not saying that those were justified (especially not in hindsight), but the Americans had gotten hit very hard before and had a somewhat credible justification at the start.
Russia, on the other hand, never experienced a Spetember 11-- they only shot down those civilian airliners themselves (MH17).
Maybe not on that scale but they had a few major terror attacks of their own: Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis, the 1999 apartment bombings, the Moscow theater hostage crisis, the Beslan school siege, and most recently the Crocus City Hall attack.
And honestly, Russians have their current and past governments much more to blame for this, considering all the shit they did in Chechnya (starting with mass deportations in '44, followed by 2 wars and a bunch of warcrimes).
Not saying that the US was blameless with all the middle east messups, but IMO Russia collected a lot more karma debt in Chechnya over the last century by comparison...
France had almost 200 people killed in 2015 at the Bataclan. They did not invade another country because of this.
This is a very weak argument.
SH was a dictator for sure but these wars were illegal just the same and I did not see the EU kicking the US out of the swift payment system of impose sanctions on them.
The moral posturing of the west is a show. The west is happy to go to war when it pleases it but should anyone else do it, then that is a problem.
Here is some random example.
https://www.sinnerbikes.com/en/modellen/comfort/comfort-e/
1990
The electric versions are somewhat lagging behind the human powered velo
https://en.velomobiel.nl/snoek-l/
They are not cars but for transporting yourself from a to b they should do more than fine. Almost no power consumption very little danger als they are to light to do the infamous car crash. They use almost no space on the road and the road lasts much longer.
You also get physical activity which extends life span. Travel normally consumes life span. Under 30 minutes per day you get to the destination in 0 minutes.
This is not nearly as hypocritical as people want to think it is.
I suspect that the philosophical root of this position is cultural relativism. The idea that all countries, by and large, are both good and bad and that one country's politics and culture is not necessarily better or worse than another. That a country that throws journalists in prison and doesn't recognize freedom of expression or religion, for example, is on par morally with the United States of America.
Fuck that. That position is literally evil as far as I'm concerned, because it dispenses with the very concepts of liberty and morality, putting the worst of the worst dictatorships on a level footing as free, rights-protecting countries.
In my world view, government is a necessary good but it is necessary because human beings have the capacity for both reason and force. When people deal with one another through reason, we get peace, prosperity and life flourishes (reason is a human being's primary tool of survival). When people choose force we get gang warfare, anarchy, death, destruction and life struggles.
My working definition of "liberty" is an environment where all interpersonal relations are consensual. This is achieved by removing the element of force from civil existence, placed into hands of a monopoly (the government) that recognizes that an individual has rights and uses that monopoly to protect and defend those rights. Never to violate them.
Therefore, and I know this will be controversial (I'm certainly not trying to troll as I genuinely hold this position), a free, rights respecting country, even one that is imperfect, has every moral right to invade and liberate a dictatorship if and when it decides that it is in its best interest to do so.
A country that routinely infringes upon the rights of others is morally illegitimate. It is certainly unfortunate that every country in the world today does that to some extent (taxes are theft). Still, that doesn't mean that you can't evaluate a country based on how well it implements this raison d'etre.
So in any conflict between the USA (or any other rights-respecting country) and <pick one: Iran, China, Russia, Afghanistan, Iraq etc.>, I will side with the USA 10 out of 10 times and I see no hypocrisy. The USA, as a government, is imperfect but still better than China in every single possible way and I have no problem saying that, in my opinion, the Chinese population at large would be better off if the CPP were taken out by a free nation. And yeah, I know that the USA has ended up making things worse, practically, in many countries through interventionism. Iran is a great example. I'm not saying that they should invade any country and I'm not saying that they wouldn't screw it up if they tried. I'm just saying that morally and rationally I would be on their side every time.
I will happily criticize the USA when they lie to us about weapons of mass destruction or anything else. I think that any lie is immoral and they were wrong to do so. This is one of many things that makes the USA imperfect. But I also don't think that they should have NEEDED that lie to justify invading Iraq and ending Saddam Hussein's reign. There are valid arguments to be had about whether or not Iraq is better or worse for liberty today than it was pre-2003. But morally they had every right to go in and should have done it even harder.
Can't place the name of a German guy who espoused a similar kind of Supremacism ("my in-group better than yours").
Don't project.
> Scream Hitler all you want
You're a better judge of your own faults. I had someone else in mind.
You sure 200k+ dead civilians wasn't hard enough of a rampage?
> will happily criticize the USA when they lie
Seems you're more happy when the USA goes on a pillage.
> will side with the USA 10 out of 10 times and I see no hypocrisy
You may not; but others will.
> free, rights respecting country, even one that is imperfect, has every moral right to invade and liberate a dictatorship
You're in for a surprise at the number of dictators the US props up. Also, some critically view Presidential powers as totalitarian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory
Pretty facetious comparison. Iraq and Afghanistan were on the whole a mistake, but completely different from Ukraine. There was never any idea that the US would take the territory. It was just a huge waste of money for the US.
The very best case scenario for the US (which everyone realized was never going to happen within 2 years) was something like Japan and South Korea, setting up US-friendly democratic governments and corporations. There was absolutely no element of expansionism. Ask the Japanese and the South Koreans whether they are mad about being oppressed under the thumb of "US imperialism".
Contrast this with Russia's actions in Ukraine. They are taking over economically and militarily valuable lands, directly expanding their borders, expelling or re-educating Ukrainians who won't pretend to be Russian, and nakedly pursuing the revanchist fantasy of reclaiming lands that were ruled brutally by a totalitarian Muscovite empire for hundreds of years.
Conflating the two situations betrays an extremely shallow understanding of current events and a complete ignorance of history.
When I step in dog poo on my way to work, that's a mistake. When hundreds of thousands of people are killed by your actions, that is not a mistake as you put it. Especially when your legal standing to do so is shaky if not downright illegal.
My guess is that you agree with the saying: the death of 1 man is a tragedy but hundreds of thousands of them is a statistic.
> setting up US-friendly democratic governments and corporations.
Ok, lets flip the script here. When the US sets up government for their own interest, it's just helping democracy. When Russia does it, we call them puppet governments. Double standards much?
> There was absolutely no element of expansionism.
You are right, the US coalition simply installed military bases there for 20 years and propped up a government that was not capable of doing the job and was not popular either but all that mattered was that it was friendly to the US.
In Lithuania, when the Germans invaded in WW2, they consider that they were occupied by Germany for about 2 years.
The US stayed there for 20 years but according to you, this was not an occupation. You just ran it, tried to change it according what the west thought was acceptable, and interfered in every possible aspect.
I guess I got confused between the two, after all the difference is rather slim.
> Ask the Japanese and the South Koreans whether they are mad about being oppressed under the thumb of "US imperialism".
I am sure the Japanese are rejoicing knowing the US turned two of there cities into ruble in order to test a new weapon.
I think you meant to say "specious".
The commenter doesn't understand what they're saying sufficiently for it to qualify as facetious.
Humanitarian aid doesn’t help preventing bombs kindly donated by the US from falling. The large difference in casualties (what is it? 40 Palestinians for every Israeli?) tells me it’s not a civil war, but an extermination.
Israel settling occupied territories doesn’t earn them much sympathy either. If you want a buffer to feel safe, annex and protect the people who live there while fully demilitarising the land.
Difference in casualties is not a measure of who is right. What was the ratio of casualties in the war between the US and ISIS? or between Japan and the US in WW2? That's not how wars work. You kill one of mine I kill one of yours.
It is a certain indication one side uses disproportionate force and that it’s not a “war”.
> You kill one of mine I kill one of yours.
It’s more like “You kill one of ours, we kill 40 of yours. Or their neighbours. Or someone who looks like them”
Soldier: Captain they're firing on us, what should we do?
Capatain: Wait till they kill one of us, we can't fire back until then.
It is most certainly a war. It will stop being a war when one of the sides stops fighting. Since Hamas is still attacking the IDF and still attacking civilians in Israel with rockets and still holding hostages we still have a war.
In Lenbanon the ratio of casualties was also skewed. Again it is some magical fairy thinking that Israel would allow Hezbollah to keep firing rockets at its civilian population centers in order to meet some casualty ratio metric. Again it doesn't pass the simplest smell test. I think you need to look a bit deeper at why you're saying this and think a bit more critically. Once Hezbollah effectively surrendered, and we have an agreement, there is no more war. They could have not started that war, they could have surrendered earlier, the outcome is on them. Just like the outcome in Gaza is on Hamas.
The ratio of casualties means absolutely nothing. It pretty much means Hamas fighters are ok to keep fighting even if a lot of them get killed. No country will stop fighting when its enemy is still fighting just to meet some casualty count ratio.
In terms of "someone who looks like them" Hamas' choice of having its combatant pretend to be civilians and embed amongst civilians is the root cause of a higher number of uninvolved getting killed.
EDIT: Basically the statement that we can make value/moral judgements strictly based at looking at post-event casualty counts is just very obviously false. This is true on the micro when e.g. police kills some criminals and the ratio may be infinity. It's true in self defense situations where you kill any number of attackers trying to kill you. and it's true in the macro, there are many wars when one parts manages to have an overwhelming victory and certainly many examples of battles in history that are like that.
In modern times there is no such requirement on a military according to "international law". The only requirement is that a specific action serves a military purpose, the number of combatant killed is unlimited and collateral damage is also acceptable. There are protections for soldiers that surrender but in this specific situation because Hamas combatants do not wear uniforms they don't even get those protections.
Early in the war when Hamas was launching massive barrages of rockets into Israel and has killed many civilians Israel was totally justified to use deadly force to stop those launchers. If they're buried in shafts then using heavier bombs is also justified. Hamas is the responsible party since its actions are those that created the need to stop this. Israel's warning to civilians to evacuate was above and beyond what other western armies have typically done in these situations. Hamas' using force to make civilians stay is again on Hamas.
If you want to call this an asymmetric war then by all means. It still doesn't change anything.
And just a by the way, in the war US led against the Islamic State there were: 6 US serviceman killed, 16 US serviceman wounded. France who also fought the war had 2 serviceman killed. 83,000 ISIS militants killed (at least 13k civilians killed by coalition strikes). Take that for a casualty ratio.
Do you see the problem? Those in control screw up and they expect to get bailed out by forcing people to buy their inferior and expensive products.
> The Ukraine war is the most clear-cut aggressor/victim situation
It's actually not that clear cut and if you apply the same filters for both of the countries you will see it. Try testing for internationally recognized borders and the situation is same for the Israeli invasion and Russian invasion. Test for separatist movements and you will find very similar things, test for minorities getting attacked and you will see that its quite similar. Not the same but when you pick something like "Russia must respect the internationally recognized borders" and you don't apply the same for Israel then you are a hypocrite, you are not doing it from standpoint of a principle but due to your own interest and if you are doing it out of your own interest people start asking why I'm paying for it? Where's my cut if this thing pans out?
> The non-private jets are a much bigger problem actually
I don't know if that's true or not but you ask people to sacrifice their comfort for a common cause, then everyone should do it.
> Because the people inside those borders don't want other people with no capital wandering
But then people start noticing that it's not the poor immigrants who want to work who buys al the properties. Some people want the poor stopped at the border and the rich welcomed. Others want different things, a lot of people don't want oligarchs buying all that property and leave it empty.
> I'd say the economy is not great, not terrible
In the case of the US elections, there were many opinion polls showing that people are not satisfied with the economy. They are also not satisfied with many other things related to the economy. Just yesterday someone killed an insurance CEO at a filthy rich location and so many people were cheering for the killer.
I do not understand your point. Ukraine has borders that were recognized by Russia itself (Budapest Memorandum). They violated those borders when they annexed Crimea-- their excuse: those people want to be part of our empire-- ok.
8 years later they marched on Kyiv-- whats even the excuse for that? Do you think the people in Kyiv want to be liberated from their president, and governed by some Russian oligarch?
If Russia is in a similar situation than Israel, then were are the massive acts of terrorism against Russian citizens comparable to October 7th? Where are the missiles fired towards Moscow, before 2014?
Are you by any chance assuming that Israel is absolutely innocent, therefore I must be claiming that Russia must be also innocent? It's the other way around, they are both aggressor and invaders. Anyone claiming that countries shouldn't invade other countries and respect the internationally recognized borders then should support Ukraine and Palestine.
Russias invasion of Ukraine on the other hand, does not have an October 7th-- there were no waves of rockets fired towards Moscow, and the Ukraine also was not part of Russia, giving them no real excuse to send soldiers there in the first place...
I'm actually fan of Israel, It's a country I want to visit a lot and I actually admire the things they achieved in that barely livable land. Which makes me extra sad too see into what they have turned.
You don't get the three major religions with community at the core, in a place like Mars. It is Mediterranean coast with documented habitation spanning millenia. The incredibly dehumanising colonial propaganda, that is a land without people for a people without land, is just that; A dehumanising propaganda which reduces the native population to savages and not-human.
Zelensky massed the largest land army in Europe excluding Russia, and then in March 2021 officially declared imminent war on Russia. Only then did Russia start heavily militarizing its border and a year later, after many failed attempts at diplomacy, formally invaded.
Gaza can't even do many of the these things because they don't have statehood, much less a real army.
It is offensively disingenuous to argue that Israel's genocide and illegal occupation is justified by Oct 7, but Russian military operations can never be justified even by an official and credible declaration of war by military-peer Ukraine.
Do you also dispute that there were Russian troops on Ukrainian territory before 2021, fighting alongside Ukrainian separatists with Russian provided materiel? Because there is a long report on this, since they accidentally shot down a civilian airliner...
> "but what about 8 years before 2022 Russian invasion?"
I'm not going to engage further with this obviously bad faith trolling. No point. Have a good weekend!
Also note that accusing others of trolling or shilling is against the site guidelines.
> thinks Israel-Palestine conflict started on October 7.
I most certainly did not think or say that. But this was a discussion about the analogies between the Ukraine war and the Israel/Palestine massacres, and bringing up '67 or the first intifada would have been about as relevant to that discussion as Holodomor or the Ukrainian Peoples Republic short history (which is why I did not talk about any of those).
> "but what about 8 years before 2022 Russian invasion?"
My point is that you picked a highly arbitrary date to support your position-- pretending like Ukraine set up the conditions for war with Russia out of the blue, followed by honest diplomatic attempts and a formally declared war from Russia out of any other options.
This is simply not the case: Russia built up its invasion troops months before attempting the invasion, and its fishing for excuses, false-flag operations covered ceaselessly in state media (to manipulate public opinion) and efforts to misrepresent the Donbas situation are quite well documented. There also never was a formal declaration of war, and calling the march on a sovereign nations capital a "peacekeeping operation" seems a bit of a stretch to me.
I honestly believe that there could have been genuine reasons for Russia to involve itself in the Ukraine-- even to send soldiers into the Donbas. But insisting that Russia shifted troops into Belarus to help or protect the people in Donetsk and Luhansk is frankly insulting (given hindsight).
In direct response to an official declaration of military action by Zelensky against legal Russian territory [1]. Sevestapol is a Russian city according to Ukranian law.
Why do you consistently ignore these crucial facts, but for that they undermine the political narrative you are tirelessly pushing?
It was not "legal Russian territory". The very edict you cite refers to it as "temporarily occupied". (It's also not why Russia invaded, but that's a side matter).
Sevestapol is a Russian city according to Ukranian law.
Also plainly false.
Yes, this is what Russian state media insinuated.
If Russias utmost effort was to protect the minorities in Ukraines east, spearheading a peace-keeping effort would have made a lot of sense (even stationing army there, possibly).
But this is not what happened, Russia fanned the flames in that region instead, aiding the separatists with undercover soldiers and materiel `(this is very well documented because they shot down a civilian airliner by mistake, which pissed of the dutch victims and their government to no end, investigating the whole clusterfuck in excruciating detail).
> The fact that's it a puppet government is easy to confirm.
Insisting on Zelensky being a non-democratic puppet government is a bit rich after Putin had his last political opponent poisoned, but ok...
> Why ban elections if the Ukrainian people are still really behind them
Because they are at war.
> Also Ukraine is not getting helped for free. More like they've mortgage their land and resources to the likes of Blackrock and other banking interests. That will keep the future generations in indebted servitude, while they rob them of their resources.
So Russia trying to annex the Ukraine is actually a plot by western colonialists? Why is Russia helping those colonialists in your opinion? Who exactly are those colonialists? Germany? UK? France?
Alexei Navalny's popularity within Russia was always a western media fabrication, and at best a whole lot of wishful thinking. Navalny was a fringe candidate, with about the same amount of popularity as Chris Christi, and pushed and financed be the same neocons. To what degree Russia is democratic can be disputed, but the fact is that Putin still has the backing of a vast, vast majority of Russian people.
There are J6 political opponents still rotting in jail on decade long sentences over protesting a highly suspicious election. Some have been kept in solitarily confinement (torture) and some have also died in prison. So Jailing political opposition is done in the states at this point too. Trump survived two assassination attempts. Biden a less popular candidate (as proven by this election) had his justice department attempt to jail him for hundreds of years.
>So Russia trying to annex the Ukraine is actually a plot by western colonialists?
Russia voluntarily let Ukraine secede from the USSR under certain conditions, which they have not kept. If Ukrainians have a right to self determination. Clearly under the same principle that Russian majority that lives in eastern part of Ukraine does as well.
Russians were not a majority in eastern Ukraine. The split was roughly 55% Ukrainian, 40% Russian, 5% other in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, and much less in other oblasts Russia has officially annexed - Kherson was 82% Ukrainian and 14% Russian.
The right to self-determination applies to distinct "peoples". It's not very well defined, but generally understood as a globally distinct ethnicity living on their historic territories. Native American tribes could exercise this. They are a distinct people living on their historic land and without their own established state anywhere else in the world.
This right does not extend to ethnic minorities living in other countries. Russians have already exercised the right and have a country, they don't get to claim any piece of land on the planet that has Russians living there. Russians have about as strong claim to eastern Ukraine than Israel has to Brooklyn (22% Jewish). I think it would be pretty insane to argue that Brooklyn "should belong to Israel" purely on this, and start a major war that drives away millions as refugees, kills hundreds of thousands, and razes many East Coast towns to ground.
We have a similar situation in Canada where the Province of Quebec has a large percentage of francophone speakers (French Heritage). If one day, Canada were to try to join the US, a large percentage of the Quebec region would either decide to form their own country, or link up with France in some way. Even more so likely if the Anglophone Canadians would start ethnically cleansing Quebecers.
If you believe in the principals of democracy, then you should support the will of the local population to self determination under such circumstances.
All this talk of democracy, but Zelensky's party will not hold new elections, because they've lost the support of the majority of Ukrainians. So if not the interests of the majority, who's interest does this party represent going forward?
That's simply not true. Pre-war surveys showed 1% support for joining Russian Federation in Kherson and up to 13% in areas with the largest number of Russians. So it was a fringe idea even among ethnic Russians. Leaked surveys conducted by Russian military admin after the invasion showed similar low levels. They got 99% support in their fake referendums only through extreme intimidation:
Moscow-backed forces are going door-to-door armed with machine guns forcing Ukrainians to vote in "sham" referendums that will annex newly occupied areas to Russia, sources have told the Telegraph. Voting began on Friday morning and is expected to continue until Tuesday, with polling stations featuring see-through ballot boxes and armed guards set up across Russian-controlled parts of the Kherson, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions, as well as Russia itself.
Ukrainians living in territory that Moscow has taken since the start of the war have been told their families will be massacred if they refuse to take part, with soldiers sometimes even leaning over their shoulders and watching them as they vote. “We are forced to go under the pretext of being shot. If we didn’t go, they said that they would shoot or massacre the whole family,” said a resident in Severodonetsk, Luhansk Oblast, who wished to remain anonymous due to fears of reprisals. “We're scared. At the referendum, turnout is required or arrest or worse. Many are being forced with a threat to life.”
If you care about the free self-determination of local population, then this is the polar opposite - plain coercion by foreign invaders.
But the comparative proportions identifying as "Ukrainian" or "Russian" in the last pre-war census is not, and in fact, in this wonderful utopian future we now live in. And even starting from scratch, you can easily zero in on a reliable answer to this question within minutes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Ukrainian_census#National...
I invite you to look at the numbers for the 5 regions which Putin is currently intending to grab (and which the Trump administration apparently intend to just hand over to him, with an order of fries on the side), and tell us what you find there.
Even more so likely if the Anglophone Canadians would start ethnically cleansing Quebecers.
The thing is, under normal circumstances they most definitely would not. And if you were to go up there today, and tell them that 10 years from now they'd all be at each other's throats, with one side insisting it just had to ethnically cleanse the other and they no longer had any real choice about the matter -- they'd look at you like you were crazy.
And that was pretty much the situation in Ukraine, until very shortly before 2014. What changed that was (to some extent) various political events. But what pushed these changes of sentiment into violence was -- a tide relentless propaganda and disinformation.
Of exactly the type you are echoing, above.
Please identify the specific treaty/protocol you are referring to, and which clauses you believe Ukraine has violated.
Clearly under the same principle that Russian majority that lives in eastern part of Ukraine
There was no such majority before Russia's invasion of 2014 (as explained in the other comment). It seems you may be confused by the fact that there were higher numbers voting for pro-Russia parties, or who spoke Russian/Surgyk. But that's not the same as being, or identifying as "Russian" -- any more the fact that English is the dominant language in Ireland means everyone living there must be "English".
This is one of the most important things to understand about Ukraine.
Just read the wiki article for a quick summary, or e.g. the bellingcat reports for details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexei_Navalny
Navalny was a patriot that fought corruption and abuse of power in his nation-- would he have won elections in Russia? Probably not, but he was most certainly highly inconvenient for the corrupt oligarchs there (Putin among them).
Regarding J6: I don't doubt that some of those protestors had good intentions. Do you suggest letting perpetrators go unpunished if their attempt at a coup is incompetent enough, and fone with "pure" intentions? Because I feel that sets a very bad precedent for a democracy in general; I don't think you would find a majority for this, either.
> If Ukrainians have a right to self determination. Clearly under the same principle that Russian majority that lives in eastern part of Ukraine does as well.
First-- the Donbas is not a nation, which is what makes it more complicated to exercise any self determination in general. So that situation is different from Russia vs. Ukraine already.
Second-- Russia being primarily concerned about regional autonomy of eastern Ukraine is a pretty transparent sham, because they never actually stood up for the autonomy of those regions-- they annexed them instead, after sending soldiers there to further escalate the situation.
Pretty much clear. Unless you watch Russia Today everyday. If you throw away tons of Russian lies it is clear expansion invasion.
Russians did this many times. Annexation of Poland, Finland, Baltic states and more recent annexation of Ichkeria and occupation of Georgia.
You are misrepresenting my argument. I don't say that Russian are innocent, I say that Israel is just as guilty.
Just a reminder to that moment:
1.Russia sponsored separatist movement in Donbass with money, weapons and agents. 2. Russia directly occupied Crimea while lying they do not. 3. Russia signed a Budapest memorandum to respect Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders and restrain to use force against it. 4. Russia signed a series of Minsk peace treaties.
Why you think that they really offered a peace in a good faith? History of modern Russia, USSR and empire show any peace treaty or other international documents with nothing, just a waste of the paper.
Russians always lie. That's putty western world are blind because Russian bribes are too good to miss.
In return, Ukraine would have gotten some guarantor states safekeeping its newly drawn borders (but Russia would have been able to veto any action of those guarantor states in case someone, possibly Russia, attacked the Ukraine again).
This seems a bit of a complete joke to me? Can you explain, why, exactly, Ukraine should have taken that offer? This is basically "I give you everything we are currently fighting over, in return I get an absolutely worthless promise from a serial liar". No deal.
Ahem... You're suggesting that Ukraine killed over a thousand Russians and took them hostage, and thereby provoked a war? That would actually be the correct analogy. No, Russia simply invaded because it felt it could. The situation is very different to Israel and Gaza and you're deliberately leaving out the fine details that make the difference.
Maybe, just maybe you could have a look at what Gaza was like before the said event. It was blockaded by Sea, Air and Land. It was oppressed and occupied, not to mention the settler terrorism in West Bank. It is a myopic view to hold that it was peace before the Oct 7 incident.
Americans !== America.
This is a very strange criticism. Why is it wrong to try to make impact on the environment without fully destroying the domestic industry? Let's follow up on this a bit further. If the EU counties did in fact become hardliners on the environment to the point of fully destroying their own industries, then you would no longer attack the perceived "hypocrisy" but would instead attack their policy of deindustrialization. So you don't seem to have problems with hypocrisy, you instead seem to have a problem with environmental movement/policies as such or at least insofar as they are implemented by the EU block.
If the EU countries completely abandoned their environmental slogans, and went on an ultra-industrial path, would you still be a critic? Given your other comments (why can capital travel but people cannot?), something tells me that yes, you would. It is difficult for me to perceive your criticism as anything other than coming from a supporter of an _ipso facto_ enemy economic block. You are not interested at constructively helping EU countries anymore, you are looking for a hammer to destroy your chosen target with.
One thing about social media is that it allows anyone to have a voice. The problem of "anyone" is that it ignores the fact that we do not live in a post-human utopia, we live in a real world where the concept of an "enemy" is real. There are real people out there who seek our destruction. This is not a pleasant thing to speak about but it is something that seems to be unfortunately the case. Because English is such a popular language, chances are the enemy speaks English and is on social media. What content do you think he posts?
If we are bailing out an industry, this can't be on the shoulders of the public who doesn't have anything to do with the failure. If we are going to save it, make sure those responsible for the failure are paying too. You are asking for Europeans to pay almost half a year of their salaries to save these industries, then at least take away the properties of those involved in the failure. Maybe it wouldn't change much but are in this together or not?
Cheaper? You raise an easy target here if you ignore the massive subsidies, completely different financial systems and politics. China ignores international trade rules and Europe, USA etc. can’t ignore this if they want to save their industry and - at the end - democracy.
The EU subsides their car makers just the same. Part of Renault belonged to the French government for the longest time and all the governments are providing incentives to drive the sales of new cars.
See the cash for clunkers program that was running for years after the 2008 crisis.
Using tax payer money to artificially reduce the cost of a new car, If that is not a subsidy, then what is it?
> you ignore the massive subsidies, completely different financial systems and politics
Cool, China subsidizing EU's fight against climate change. Get the free money, save the climate and spend the money you saved on something that you want instead of forced.
> Cool, China subsidizing EU's fight against climate change. Get the free money, save the climate and spend the money you saved on something that you want instead of forced.
Your mental gymnastics needs some training if you think that importing cheap cars instead of selling and exporting your own cars and therefore protecting your own industry and jobs is a better deal or mechanic for EUs fight against climate change.
Maybe you are unaware of „The WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures disciplines the use of subsidies, and it regulates the actions countries can take to counter the effects of subsidies.“?
The same thing with the eu car companies... they even took the money from the states where they had factories (Germany, Belgium, France) which greatly subsidized them, increased their profits and margins then moved to the next EU state and beyond.
One of the key principles of a republic – both ancient and modern – is that personal power is bad for the society. Leaders are a necessary evil that must be tolerated (if only barely), but they also must be changed regularly.
Unless you are Russian or Chinese you shouldn’t have a president ‘chosen’ by them. So props to the Romanian authorities for taking action and not allowing a president beholden to Russian interests.
There's a big problem with that claim. Intelligence agencies have a long history of making this claim of Russian control over elections all over the world, and it's always been lies and nonsense. What even is a "mass influence" operation? Sounds like the same thing as a political campaign to me? If it's really on a mass scale it should be pretty easy to prove and work out how to stop it next time, shouldn't it?
Such claims are never proven because they aren't true. Back in 2016 when Trump and Brexit were still fresh, the sort of people who didn't like those things were trying to explain their loss. The Clinton campaign came up with the Steele dossier and the American press ran with it. This was the origin of the "Russian influence" claim and back then it was usually described as being done through social media bots. Academics flooded the literature with papers that claimed to prove the existence of such Russian bots. I used to work in bot detection so was interested to read some of these papers, and found they were all based on academic fraud:
https://blog.plan99.net/did-russian-bots-impact-brexit-ad66f...
https://blog.plan99.net/fake-science-part-ii-bots-that-are-n...
Given the long history of this type of claim, a rational person will have to assume that it's a plot by Romanian intelligence to overturn an election and treat it accordingly.
First, you started on a wrong foot. He is literally accused of breaking the law by not declaring his assets. This is trivially proven by the fact that… he didn’t declare his assets. In my reasonable person circle that’s called “not playing by the rules”. Very Russian.
Second, at best you can say only “claims can’t be proven true” but you still went one step further to make multiple strong claims you yourself cannot prove (e.g. “because they aren’t true” or “intelligence plot”). “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”, or “teapot calling the kettle black”, also good topics for your blog spam.
Third, you denounce people claiming conspiracies to get their way by claiming a conspiracy to get your way, like any “reasonable” person would. Romanian intelligence and constitutional court got together to overturn the people’s will to vote pro-Russia. Perhaps, to use your own words, your claims cannot be proven because they’re not true.
Lastly, going back to the Romanian elections and using very reasonable logic like the very reasonable people we are. Is it often the case that a pro-Russian extremist candidate nobody knows of, who polls close to 0, and basically campaigns only on TikTok, soars ahead in top position in any EU country that was historically and consistently pro-West for a long time? All without any outside interference?
> Is it often the case that a pro-Russian extremist candidate nobody knows of, who polls close to 0, and basically campaigns only on TikTok, soars ahead in top position in any EU country ... without any outside interference
Yes. This has been happening across the world, and in every case it results in the same kinds of attempts to void democracy by the incumbents. Other countries where this has happened: Germany (AfD), France (RN), the UK (Reform), the USA (Trump), and so on. All accused of being popular only due to shadowy, unspecified manipulation by Russia, all with zero evidence. In most cases the claims don't even make logical sense to begin with.
So there's nothing unique about Romania in this regard. Incumbents collaborate with journalists to force through unpopular policies without allowing any coordination against them, social media takes up the slack. It's just a really good way to spread messages outside the control of local governments. Of course politicians use it.
> He is literally accused of breaking the law by not declaring his assets
We're talking about the BBC story which covers annulment, and it says: "The court's decision comes after intelligence documents were declassified, suggesting Georgescu benefitted from a mass influence operation – conducted from abroad – to interfere with the result of the vote." Nothing here about tax or assets. Maybe he has broken the law, maybe he hasn't. Given the rate at which bogus show trials are deployed against political outsiders these days, I'd reserve judgement on that.
Case in point, you made such a hard case for everything being a conspiracy involving constitutional courts and intelligence agencies, all claims of foreign interference being lies because you haven’t seen proof, and everything you say is solid... until it turns out your only source of information was a single partially read article.
And you still maintain that you’re right despite still not reading anything else on the topic because it must be disinformation.
The candidate himself declared 0 campaign expenses despite obviously spending for a campaign. The court also noticed this obvious fact. Foreign interference doesn’t only mean someone hacking a TikTok algorithm but also external parties illegally funding a foreign agent’s election. With large amounts of undeclared funds you can sway an election which is illegal for obvious reasons. Being foreign funds just makes it worse because they sway the elections towards foreign interests. Do you expect a country to just ignore that, whether people on the sidelines who read one article proclaim it’s totally fine?
P.S. Someone is trying to set your house on fire. When you try to top him he says it's his right and wants to see evidence from a court showing that it isn't because he read an article that says otherwise. That's where yours and fellow "freedom fighter's" comments are right now. Except in this case the court actually already spoke and you're still sure you know better.
To make this clearer: if someone asserts something objective about the world and their proof is invalid or missing, we have to assume they are wrong. There have been many claims about politicians being successful only due to Russian influence campaigns, and each time those claims were investigated the proofs were invalid or missing. That is a factual claim.
What's a subjective opinion is that this generalizes: if the last 99 times were wrong, the 100th time is probably wrong too, even without a deep investigation. You can disagree with that, but why would you? Your priors should be strongly against these claims having any merit by now.
> The candidate himself declared 0 campaign expenses despite obviously spending for a campaign. The court also noticed this obvious fact.
And yet that's not the justification for annulling the vote that's being presented. The rest of your paragraph slides smoothly between assertions of fact and speculation - that he must have spent lots of money, that the money must have been coming from foreigners, that those foreigners must be Russian, and that such funds are the reason he won. Those are all very subjective. For instance, Trump was outspent massively in both elections that he won. Apparently you can't just "sway" an election with money: other things matter more.
In Romania not only we change them regularly but we also have PMs and ministers in jail for crimes they commuted, we are not like other countries where same president or prime Minister was in power for 30 years.
Personally, I think that the goal of a vibrant, thriving democracy is to allow and encourage participation from many groups of citizens. This will result in the government pursuing multiple objectives at the same time.
This necessarily means that you're going to have to make trade offs. Is it more important to have cheap EVs or is it more important to keep good jobs in country?
Maybe in this case we'll decide on good jobs in our country, and then look at other ways that climate change can be addressed. Maybe we won't.
Asking why an entire country doesn't do 100% of the things it could to address a single issue seems almost intentionally naive.
This is talked about in many treasury departments. China supports some businesses an order of magnitude beyond the competition because they are a state/corp hybrid model and this allows those businesses to sell below material costs. This eventually destroys competition for future price raises and is a good long term strategy that only authoritarian countries can afford.
Other Countries like in the EU are hesitant to let China destroy war machine production capability so they apply tariffs to right-size the actual cost.
Unfortunately, improving the world requires engaging deeply with issues and many people now prefer to speak in terms of grand historical narratives and emotional arguments that stitch sparse data points into a large story far vaster than the data can support.
Economy doesn't perform, but ideology has collapsed only in minds of ordinary people. Politicians, stakeholders and various media outlets are very much invested, and still push that the current course is the only correct way and the bright green future as designed is unstoppable. Reminds me of the arrogance of the ruling party slogans from before 90s.
Well, someone else discovered not the magic words but the magic timing of when to tell them and how to surround people with the right words: i.e. the social media algorithms.
Not always, as cherry picked information is, in essence, a lie: it misrepresents reality by showing a narrow sliver of it that supports an argument that's not supported by the full set of observations.
Ukraine was brutally attacked by Russia, Israel was brutally attacked by Hamas/Palestine.
Ukraine is like Israel.
(I know there's a way to view flagged comments, I never bother to use it).
I agree the west has lost its morality.
I disagree the average person is seeing reality with their own eyes. The average person is seeing whatever some interested party wants to frame as reality.
That's why Russians support Putin. In their reality they are fighting Nazis in Ukraine and protecting the rights of ethnic Russians. And there is some stream of social media you can be on where that is reality.
What you have right now is that state actors and money shapes reality. Do you want China to say what reality is or do you want democracies in the west to say what reality is and specifically the US.
With all the problems, I prefer to have the Americans be the source of truth if I have to pick between them, Russia and China.
I reject the framing around "elites" shaping reality. While we've always had issues around this the western democratic way is the best we know, with all its issues. Moving this power to China and Meta is making things worse.
It is a known fact that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians.
While Ukraine is tip toeing a very fine line defending itself and Europe against Russian aggression (e.g., barely allowed to neutralizing military targets in Russia).
Who is an honest, non-political, non-biased, arbiter of truth? TikTok?
The ICC and the ICJ didn't rule on this.
I don't think either the CPJ or the MSF have voiced a specific opinion on this question either. The CPJ specifically counts media people in the Islamic Jihad or Hamas as "journalists" which is extremely questionable. Many western countries would consider them to be "terrorists". They are hurting the cause they are meant to champion by pursuing a political agenda and they're being used.
All of that doesn't change the reality that a high casualty count in a war or that civilian population is suffering in said war does not constitute a genocide. It's a reality of war. A war that can end this second by Hamas surrendering and returning the hostages.
Israel's critics also always fail to provide some reasonable alternative course of actions that would lead to very different outcomes. I think it's fair to critique some specific decisions, like targeting, the use of heavy munitions etc. but some small changes there still all result in the same outcome, a prolonged war amidst civilians that is primarily the goal of Hamas. Hamas wants to hide amongst civilians and keep fighting until Israel is destroyed.
Speaking of, the rest of the post is opinions and unconvincing claims. They mirror the same rhetoric which has already been said by Israel, which the aforementioned organizations have already heard and carefully considered. Your opinions I respect, because I respect you as a person whose life is exactly equal in value to mine. Just like 1 Palestinian civilian life is exactly equal in value to 1 Israeli civilian life, and even more important to protect than 1 combatant life (from either side). After all, protecting civilians is the most important thing, even more important than achieving tactical or strategic objectives and goals.
Again, though, the opinions of the aforementioned organizations outweigh yours or mine or Israel's.
https://www.rfi.fr/en/international-news/20241205-amnesty-ac...
Amnesty International, except the Israely branch of Amnesty International. The "except" is very revealing in this case
The world will need to figure out ways to deal with the new reality. Social media have made it far more lucrative to make up whatever than to report on facts. Meanwhile it's harder than ever to run a sustainable business in journalism.
Meanwhile autocrats have noticed that it's cheaper than ever to run massive campaigns of propaganda and misinformation abroad, because they don't have to involve anywhere near the number of local accomplices.
LLMs are accelerating the trend.
You're right that the US democracy is in crisis as well.
Not really, they propel useful idiots. In the US that would have been Robert Kennedy Jr. In Germany it's whatever clows AfD has, in Austria it's the FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl. Basically anyone that would either auto sabotage that country, the EU, like Viktor Orbán or be pro-Russia, like the Georgian Dream.
In Romania it's a RFK Jr. like nutcake figure with new age, peace and love, vaccines bad, water has memory, nazis are patriots, etc beliefs and with a discourse that sounds all right at the surface but practicaly says absolutely nothing except that it's littered with trigger narratives, just as if it were the Heaven's Gate website. His campaign was pumped by Russia on Tiktok using dormant accounts two weeks or so before the election. Also on other US based social networks and on Telegram to a lesser extent. 2M people voted for him out of 9M, some because they hate the current establishment, others saw him as an outsider, when in fact he's actually part of an old boys network, others actually believe his mumbo jumbo. It turns out he's also linked and promoted by fascist groups, some of which are actual former French Foreign Legion soldiers, run a mercenary group in the DRC and survival training workshops in the mountains. These are also linked to a rather controversial Eastern Orthodox bishop who is known to be pro Russian, so this candidate also got promoted through church networks. His campaign was in part financed by a crypto entreprenour with dual Romanian and South African citizenship who currently resides in ZA. The candidate declared zero political advertising expenses.
Anyway, I hope Tiktok gets massively screwed by the EU after this. Because this is in the Comission's hands now. The candidate's fascist friends might be soon visited by a SWAT team and they'll probably find firearms. The candidate, I dunno, he's probably going to flee to another country if he ever gets indicted.
We should not forget about the orange elephant in the room.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Party_of_Austria
In Germany the AfD rose to around 10% after Merkel let in millions of refugees in 2015. It had nothing to do with Russia at all. It is currently polling around 18% because the economy is bad and people are tired of U.S. subservience and want Germany to make its own decisions.
The concept that right wing parties are somehow beneficial to Russia in the long run is absurd to the extreme.
In Ukraine, literally the Bandera supporters are the best fighters and the most anti-Russian. When in history has it ever been beneficial for a country to support nationalism in an enemy country. It does not make any sense.
This whole thing is just a narrative of the forces who want to keep down "EU-first" movements.
Sure. There is documented evidence of both FPö and AfD ties to Russia. Maybe it was different in the '90s but now Russia promotes a similar conservative agenda and it's in most cases financing the European far-right. There is no easier way to destabilize a country than to make it implode by polarizing its society, as seen in Syria, Georgia.
https://www.dw.com/en/austrias-far-right-fp%C3%B6-party-unde...
https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/afd-spionageaff...
Because China Gives Two Shits about the environment. Them and their "developing country" tag. They will burn the coal until there is no more, along with India.
Because China Gives No Shit about democracy, or human rights.
China isn't shy to show force. The "west" is already at war with China but hasn't realized it. Heck, they still don't accept war with Rusia started over a decade ago
1 there is well known that social media and itnernet companies can target content for each person
2 we known from Cambridge analitica and similar that if social media company wants he can make a user depressed, sad etc
3 we also observer that irelevant bullshit is pushed very hard in social media, as an example transgender stuff, it is pushed so hard that my family thinks that Romania is in danger because of EU and their transgender agenda, children will be manipulated to change their gender, You can see how fake stuff about thois topic is pushed on social media, my family never had contact with transgender people, maybe they know one gay person in their entire live but LGBTQ is such an important topic in election that they might decide whot o vote based on this Ruzzian bullshit
4 we also seen same shit with COVID , yes the virus exists even if the pro Ruzzian candidates do not belives it or thinks God send him the naturalistic cure, based on how hard this conpiracies were pushed in last years you have conspirationist vote conspirationists, so if you want their vote you either lower yourselves to that level or try to fight Ruzzia and china to bring a bit of intelligence back.
5 anti emigration is a big push on social media, and fascists in Europe really push on this, but tell my, will italians or Spanish people in the city that studied at the university go and work in the farms, in the hot summer instead of the poor immigrants? Did you also seen how crimes are immediately blamed on the immigrants by the internet trolls before the identity of the criminals is known, and sometimes the criminal is a native, but the trolls pushed so hard on the fake news that it was immigrants that sometimes the immigrants were attacked based on fake news started by Ruzzians and belived by right wing less inteligent people.
So in Romania the people that voted for the Kremlin guy , voted him because they want a strong man that is anti transexuals and LGBTQ, anti minorities, that belives in the same conpirations and hate same groups as they hate all because Ruzzia trained them to hate those groups of people and believe those conspiracies.
They did not vote because of economical policies the fascist guy proposed.
They are able to do it only because of the failure of the others to address the concerns of the electorate. Sure, they lie but they all lie. The Russian propaganda is very well crafted and does address the concerns that others don't want to touch. It's not a spell, it's not magic words, its not hypnosis.
Since you are so smart and see the reality I am to blind to see, show me with facts the damages the transexualss done to Romania sto make a large part of population to vote an anti LGBTQ person. There should be some examples you can find since this is a major thing this traditional voters are talking about and is important on who they vote.
So democracy (the ideology) doesn't hold? And the US economy is currently the envy of the world - yes there's a big housing problem that needs addressing, but if anything the losing party was the one that put up some kind of plan to deal with it, I don't see the winning party reducing housing/rental costs as they're from the landlord class.
> Can you tell me if US is about freedom and respect of the international law, borders and trande? If so why they support Ukraine against Russian invasion
Because Ukraine was invaded by Russia thus impacting Ukrainian freedom and borders? It seems pretty obvious.
If propaganda from the "enemy" really is that effective, then either it's rooted in truth and resonates with the electors, or we have to admit that the general public is so easily influenceable that allowing them to vote is a danger for democracy, which means democracy isn't really worth much in the first place.
Why would they need additional chances when they have already expressed what they want? Oh, they dared to vote for a candidate that doesn’t suit the powers that be, so they’ll vote again and again until they choose the preselected candidate.
You want democracy to work? Give people real choices, not the usual binary bad or more bad. Make them feel like their vote matters for once.
I’m not satisfied with the voting choices either, but I do have some understanding of why they are the way they are. It is a nontrivial systemic issue, and voting populist does not improve that situation.
You seem to see a dichotomy between the politicians that provide voting choices and the rest of the population that votes. I don’t see it that way. The politicians are part of the population, they represent the population. I won’t tell you to go into politics to try to change things, but if you did, then maybe you’ll realize why it’s hard, and that how things are is a function of human nature, of the particular country’s specific political system, and of the world being more complicated than many people recognize.
> the general public is so easily influenceable that allowing them to vote is a danger for democracy
I hate to admit it but he’s got a point. My counter would be that the recent US election was not won by the biggest spender.
Free speech is valuable and worth defending specifically because it has the potential to change minds, not just because people like the sounds of their own voices.
(For the recent US election, people also point to Musk buying Twitter and getting his president of choice and saying this demonstrates why Musk is smart and $44bn was worth it, so are you sure it wasn't won by the biggest spenders?)
> The collection of electoral contributions and the payment of electoral expenses may be made only through bank accounts notified in advance to the Permanent Electoral Authority.
The EU is not involved in directly financing candidates or political parties in Romania, they've already given us tens of billions of dollars to develop our country.
Wow, seems like they're spent tens of billions of dollars in long term election interference campaigns. Are we going to see the politicians elected going to jail over it?
Not quite the same as external party spending huge amounts of cash running political campaigns, while ignoring all the local rules about campaigning. After all Romania didn’t have to accept the EU cash, or spent it. The EU doesn’t force countries to join, just so they can give them billions of euros in the hopes of interfering in a political process years later. A political process that’s only important, because of the development funding. Much easier and cheaper to simpler not get involved, and allow those countries to struggle alone.
If Russia had called them in for not blocking or censoring pro-EU candidates would you not have called that election interference?
Secondly, for political messages it should be clear who the message is coming from! If this organization is coordinating messages that should be public (though from looking them up it sounds like they are already fairly public with it).
Open, fair, and honest elections are important. People always whine on about what the other side is doing but I want that fixed, too and I would gladly work with anyone that wants to fix both but sadly it's much more common to see continuous deflections to the other side (because they know their side is indefensible) rather than a desire for real change.
Okay, name two presidents who visited the NAFO summit.
Other than just being cheapskates, the west has a fear that {if Putin fears his regime may collapse, he may personally order the use of nukes}, and also that even if he doesn't and Russia does collapse then rogue actors may steal some of the nukes.
Russian propaganda machine is incredibly strong, because it was perfected on their own citizens for basically century now. They spend billions on pure propaganda.
While with military - they relied on propaganda as well. They projected power while not picking conflicts with anyone who can punch back.
Ukraine appeared too big to swallow this time and everyone can see, that king is naked. Russian military is a sham compared to US. Like, incomparable to be honest. But problem is that propaganda is much stronger than military. So west made a mistake dismissing russia because of their weak corrupt military while being invaded by propaganda.
West has nothing against russian propaganda machine and this is what thrtuthly terrifying to be honest.
If they dont, then you can claim "election interference" and misinformation and then call for a do over.
I want open borders so we can put a taco truck on every corner. Immigration is good.
No one is arguing that immigration isn't good.
You can have taco trucks with legal immigration.
I know what it means ;)
> No one is arguing that immigration isn't good.
You'd be surprised how many people argue exactly that. But I digress, I was just making a poorly-timed joke.
Say you live with your family in Juarez right now - what do you think statistically your chance of legal immigrating to the United States is (and lets up the ante, say you have legit proof that every mafia boss in Mexico is hunting you and every member of your family)...?
I'll give you a ballpark - your chance of legal immigrating is similar to me marrying Gisele... there is a chance, I am very good looking but you know...
Majority of people arguing "illegal" vs. "legal" immigration simply fail to look at statistic to see that "legal" immigration is vaporware - just a term to use to try to prove some point which cannot be proven with that argument...
I suppose that's one definition of it, a more extreme version. No country on Earth has this kind of immigration policy. It would be unsustainable.
> It doesn't mean the borders aren't secure enough for your paranoid xenophobic liking.
Ad-hominem attacks are not necessary. My wife is second generation immigrant. Her father is first generation, they do not support illegal immigration either. He came here legally and the people that come here illegally take away resources from those who want to come here legally the right way.
Do you actually believe this? Voter suppression and intimidation tactics don’t exist? Elections are always valid, no matter how they were facilitated?
What kept things in check so far has been that in the West, the elites have been benevolent. But now the masses, thx to social media and global comms, can be influenced by others.
Welcome to our post truth planet.
The thing is that when the 2 biggest parties in the country come to govern together, they have no opposition, they weakened out justice system, weakened the secret services to gain power and be able to do whatever they want, they allowed and ignored the rise of far-right parties thinking they would use them to scare people into still voting for them and now we're here.
There was so much evidence that both this guy and the other 2 extreme parties are doing a lot of crap and getting all kind of external support, but they just ignored them and hoped to use them, thinking they will never get above a certain level. You had vloggers and online people showing signs of all the fake accounts and crap that was being promoted and the authorities just pretended not to see anything. Then they banned one of the 3 heads of the far right side, and this just made things worse, because instead of letting the far right eat themselves up (because they are so insane, that they can't help but fight each other and fragment their share of the votes), they allowed this absolutely insane (in the worst way possible) charismatic guy gather even more votes.
Now all of the sudden, after ignoring and pretending not to see anything, thinking that these far right candidates will help them, the establishment realized they messed up and now decide to take extreme measures and basically say that 9 milion votes don't matter. This won't end well...
Citation very much needed. It seems you're desperately arguing towards a pre-determined conclusion. Especially if you're then equating this with a foreign government successfully installing a puppet regime.
If the success is limited to repeating the first round of voting, that's a lot of Ukrainians who will still be alive next year.
Chances are he’ll be jailed or otherwise prevented from running.
If the evidence was serious it also would not make sense to let the election continue.
Finally I don't know about Romania, but in a few other countries in Europe, no matter what happens to that sullied candidate, these votes are not too likely to shift to the incumbent party. See for example the circumstances that enabled Macron to be elected the first time in France.
First, there is no process or even mention in any Romanian law about annuling an election. The Constitutional Court of Romania has two specified roles in an election: it validates candidates (or rejects them, as it did with another far right candidate in this very election), and it validates the election results (or invalidates them if there is a significant suspicion of fraud in the vote counts, after a recount). They issued a recount order for this same election as well, and then decided based on the results that the first round was valid. If they had decided it wasn't valid, there are laws for when it would have been repeated. However, they later came back to this decision, and quoting a vague article in the Constitution that says that they assure the electoral procedures are followed, they invented this concept of annuling the entire electoral process, from the very beginning (so even the candidate registrations have to be re-done).
Secondly, they did this based on evidence that was public knowledge for two weeks, including the last few times they met and validated the counts.
Thirdly, the evidence in question is vague accusations of Russian interference with no specifics. There are no names, no identified groups, no sums of money except for one lump payment by a businessman. The only clear accusation is campaign finance violations (which the authorities had already blatantly ignored, as the candidate in question had registered his campaign costing 0 RON, which was known to the relevant authorities since last month and to the public for two weeks).
There is a very surprising, out-of-nowhere win by an independent, that declared he spent 0eur on his campaign, as a result of what looks to be a large scale (presumably expensive to run) campaign on TikTok, that nobody knows who financed, which will await trial, commissions and investigations to figure out.
What could the court have said when they were prompted? Ignore this? I'm not really a 'Constitutional Court' apologist :). I am genuinely curious... what would have been the alternative here?
Consider we don't have any decision by any court (before this one) that confirms that any illegal action of any kind has taken place. It's only isinuations and beliefs, but nothing proven to the extent required by law.
The elections should have been allowed to continue. If needed, some special prosecutor whose independence from the next president, even if CG won, could be guaranteed could be appointed to continue investigating the facts of this campaign. Then, CG could be tried based on the findings, could be suspended by Parliament while this was going on, and he could be deposed if he indeed was found guilty, and new elections held at that time (in Romania, if the president's mandate ends suddenly for any reason, there is a temporary presidency, but only until snap elections are called).
Let's not forget that he might not even have won - the race was tight, but not unwinnable. So in that case, he could easily be investigated as a private citizen.
They don't even have may proof that anything that happened in the first round campaign was illegal. The CCR is not even qualified to rule on the facts, on the legality of anything that happened.
So if nothing illegal is proven by any court to have happened, if there isn't even enough evidence to get a tmeporary arrest warrant in his name in a regular court of law, how can we annul the whole electoral process? The costs alone should require a much higher level of justification.
The court has not even ruled that he is not allowed to participate in the re-made elections.
I was mortified that he might win, don't get me wrong. My entire family was going to vote for Lasconi, even those that didn't really like her, just to make sure this idiot madman didn't win. But that doesn't make this decision be any closer to the rule of law.
I am not an expert on this, so I'm not saying you are wrong, but why would they not have the prerogative to do this? Do you have any sources for that?
I know at least that there is precedent in the EU - Austria cancelled a round of elections in 2016, also for some electoral law incongruities / technicalities (that at least superficially by my knowledge were less serious than this scandal), done also by their constitutional court.
What they found afterwards, on their own without any case brought before them, is that the campaign that preceded the first round of elections (which lasted for one month before the first round two weeks ago now) may have been influenced by outside forces, that a candidate may have flaunted campaign finance laws, and similar matters, and that because of this, the entire electoral process is invalid and annulled. The government has to restart this process from scratch, with anyone who wants to participate registering their candidacy again from scratch.
There is no procedure or standard in any law or in the Construction to specify such a process. The Court invented it from whole cloth, based only on a vague/broad power to oversee the election.
I am curious to read more about this in the coming days. I do remember previous scandals related to the CCR and their (often said too close) relationship to the parties in power. But I guess in this case I just don't see why their decision would be illegal, and when compared to the alternatives I don't see why it would be wrong.
To also clarify, despite thinking this might be the correct decision, I actually think politically there is a higher probability now of yielding a worse president, since Ciolacu & Simion will probably end up in the secondary, the latter having chances, instead of Lasconi. Not that I think she's the greatest candidate either, but again... compared to the alternatives...
It is precisely because of how that power works that what they did yesterday is illegal, in my opinion.
The Court is not basing its decision on whether to validate or invalidate an election result on the Constitution directly, in regular elections. The constitution is too broad and vague for this kind of power. Instead, based on the constition, specific laws that govern how elections are run and at what parts of the process the Court is involved in them were elaborated, and those laws were validated by the Court itself. Specifically, this law is 370/2004 [0].
If the Court can just convene itself by fiat, analyze any evidence it wants, and decide what effect that can have on the election, then why did we need a specific law with specific articles on how election results are validated in the first place?
[0] https://www.roaep.ro/legislatie/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/L...
The power cited to ensure election procedure doesn't seem vague. It appears to be quite broad:
> The Constitutional Court shall have the following powers: ... (f) to guard the observance of the procedure for the election of the President of Romania and to confirm the ballot returns;
They trampled over all of these with this new decision: they didn't observe any time limits (they gave this decision out of the blue, while the voting for the second round had already started; could they have decided this same annulment two months from now? Nothing in this decision or motivation says they couldn't). They met to decide on this matter with no request from everyone, they brought this matter before themselves by their own power, which no court has the power to. They had no legal framework to demand this from any other institution.
Worse of all, they have specified no limits to this broad power they have found they have, nor any legal standards for what type of allegations are grave enough to objectively determine this annulment. What if next time a candidate that won 1% of the vote had a suspicious campaign, will that lead to annulment? What is the standard of evidence to be evaluated for this decision? The documents they based this decision on wouldn't even have constituted admissible evidence in a court of law, they are hearsay by institutions which aren't even making them under pain of perjury.
And related to that article of the Constitution, there is no reason to interpret it as a broad, decisional power. It is clearly meant to guide law makers to create specific laws for determining the CCR's specific role in the electoral process. There are many similar articles in the constitution about other institutions that don't grant them any direct powers in this way. For example, article 80, title 2 says:
> (2) The President of Romania shall guard the observance of the Constitution and the proper functioning of the public authorities. To this effect, he shall act as a mediator between the Powers in the State, as well as between the State and society.
If the President took the same approach as the court, it stands to reason that he could go into any public authority in Romania and block their decisions based on finding that they are not properly observing the Constitution, right?
No. Article 80 you're quoting does not grant the President power. Instead it describes the role of President.
This is rather unlike Article 146 that explicitly grants the Constitutional Court power or the other articles that explicitly grant the President power.
Incidentally, their presidential candidates did not make it to the second round of elections.
So one can legitimately ask if this is because of the russian interference, or because they want another chance at the presidency?
This is false. Law 370 20/09/2004:
Article 52
(1) The Constitutional Court shall annul an election if the voting and the determination of the results have taken place by fraud of such a nature as to alter the allocation of the mandate or, as the case may be, the order of the candidates eligible to participate in the second round of voting. In such a case, the Court shall order that the second ballot be held on the second Sunday after the date on which the elections are annulled.
(2) An application to annul the elections may be filed by political parties, political alliances, electoral alliances, organizations of citizens belonging to national minorities represented in the Council of National Minorities and candidates who participated in the elections, within 3 days after the close of the voting at the latest; the application must be substantiated and accompanied by the evidence on which it is based.
(3) The Constitutional Court shall decide on the application by the date stipulated by law for the public announcement of the election results.
Article 53
(1) The Constitutional Court shall validate the result of each ballot, ensure the publication of the election result in the mass media and in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, for each ballot and validate the election result for the elected President.
(2) The Validation Act shall be drawn up in three copies, one of which shall remain with the Constitutional Court, one of which shall be submitted to Parliament for the taking of the oath provided for in Article 82 para. (2) of the Constitution of Romania, republished, and the third shall be submitted to the elected candidate.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
The court yesterday decided to annull the entire electoral process, and not because of voter fraud, but strictly because of campaign finance violations. There is no such provision in that law or any other. The court did not "order that the second ballot be held on the second Sunday after the date on which the elections are annulled." - they ordered that the Government shall choose a new date, that candidates shall register a new etc. The next election will be, at the earliest, held in late February.
Also, article 2 was not followed in any way *. The current decision from the court was not based on any application to annul by any party whatsoever, the court convened of its own volition, based only on the declassified documents that appeared in the public sphere.
None of the other articles you quote give any such power. In fact, you'll see that the word "campaign" is not present anywhere in those articles. And yet the Court's decision is entirely based on problems they find related to said campaign.
* there was an application by two candidates to annull the first round of elections, those were investigated on Thursday and then Monday last week, and they were rejected. This new decision by the court is unrelated to that.
The court is the single highest authority on constitutional matters and can pretty much decide what they want to on these matters, as well as how they interpret the law, but this is the case with every high court everywhere and it boils down to "who watches the watchers?".
While the CCR is indeed preeminent in its interpretation of the law, it's every citizen's right to evaluate the law on their own and decide with their own mind if the courts are fair in their interpretations of the law. If the CCR came tomorrow and said that X will be the next president for the next five years because they are the best suited to do Y, I wouldn't have to accept their view as a fair reading of the law/Constitution. It's not like I'm claiming I have some right to block the Court's decision, I'm just saying that by my own mind they are in blatant disregard of the legal framework.
And even if they have a good excuse, the optics are very bad and potentially fatal for whatever is left of the trust in Romanian institutions.
> And even if they have a good excuse, the optics are very bad and potentially fatal for whatever is left of the trust in Romanian institutions.
Completely agree.
Given political support (with the exception of Lasconi) for the annulment, I expect that nothing will happen in the near future.
There is an allegation of foreign influence which has not been proven in a court of law.
IMO the court has acted beyond its mandate and only made things worse.
By the way, where is the report from SRI? The internet is full of newspapers which quote it, but don’t link to the original document. From those articles, there is no smoking gun against the candidate themselves. Just some guy which paid people on Tiktok, with no statement on that guy’s connection to the candidate.
[0] https://s.iw.ro/gateway/g/ZmlsZVNvdXJjZT1odHRwJTNBJTJGJTJG/c...
[1] https://s.iw.ro/gateway/g/ZmlsZVNvdXJjZT1odHRwJTNBJTJGJTJG/c...
[2] https://m.digi24.ro/stiri/actualitate/politica/klaus-iohanni...
While there is no smoking gun against the candidate, the declassified documents show that intelligence agencies believe a foreign state actor to have been involved in the candidate's TikTok campaign.
True, it was really bad for us to be able build a decent industry and export all over the world. Much better to be addicted to expensive USA gas and let our industry and economies crumble.
You can't change geography, Europe doesn't have raw resources, Russia has tons of them. We're destined to have a close commercial relationship.
Dp you understand how energy-dense Uranium is? You can power a 1GW nuclear reactor for a week with a carry-on suitcase full of pellets. The proximity is utterly irrelevant.
It's also not even necessary! Uranium was discovered on the Czechia / Germany border and there are still many reserves there! Europe only stopped mining it in 2016!
The Drushba pipeline through Poland was open at the same time that Sikorski congratulated the U.S. for blowing up Nord Stream. It remained open long after that. Both France and the U.S. were buying uranium from Russia until 2024. No complaints from Sikorski about that.
Nordstream was owned by Russia, Germany, France, and The Netherlands. There was a pipeline from the German terminal to Britain.
There are many hypocrites of the first order in the oil/gas game. In the context of this submission, it is appropriate to note that so called "far right" or "far left" parties are the only ones who point out facts like the above in public.
Voters notice this and blaming Russian interference is a very weak game that endangers the democracies in the EU.
What else were they supposed to do? Block transit altogether and alienate their partners?
Some guy from Eastern Europe: "You don't know Russians. Let me tell you about my experience with them..."
Some guy from Western Europe: "LOL, I see you believe American propaganda completely uncritically."
The guy from EE: "What? No, I was telling you what happened to my family..."
The guy from WE: "Let's talk about how America sucks instead."
Seems to me that for many people Russia wasn't even a real country, just some boogeyman that American propaganda made up. Then they suddenly woke up, and now they are like "oh no, we must not escalate!". Guys, you don't even know that making concessions to Russia is the fastest way to escalate. (You didn't expect North Korean soldiers attacking a European country, did you? That's what you get for your non-escalation. There will be more.)
Totally unrelated but now I wanna jab my elbow at Ariane 6 (rocket)...
And war between the US and China will also happen as soon as China moves to reintegrate Taiwan, and the EU will again be expected to work as a tool of the US, to its own detriment.
Will you then say that the EU should have done away with cheap Chinese manufacturing and resources earlier? And claim it was some sort of a Trojan Horse? Or will at some point the EU consider putting EU interests first?
— Charles de Gaulle
Who's everyone?
What does this mean?
Hint: That's the current government of France to this day. To me, that is a liberal democracy.
I would recommend reading "When France Fell" for more context on de Gaulle. You are talking about a complicated figure. I also would point out that he faced attempts on his life for getting France out of the former colony of Algeria.
"See, even in NATO, which the Americans built with their own hands, which is their thing, have you seen that? The NATO parliamentarians declare that the Multilateral Force is nothing but a big joke. The truth is that the Americans will end up being hated by everyone. Even by their most unconditional allies. The Multilateral Force would be one more trick. All the tricks that the Americans imagine are denied by events. It is more and more true. Look at their so-called détente."
— Charles de Gaulle, November 6, 1963,
If the people vote differently, cancel the result because that's not democracy. For definition of democracy, see above.
Also: you forgot to disagree with my definition of democracy and basically said "yeah, but this hypocrisy works"? So if the only valid vote is for "the right people", why bother with voting at all? Just put them in charge and be done. That would still be democracy, right?
For the parliament election that happened last week, the winning parties of parliament were the establishment parties. They did lose some support compared to 4 years ago, so democracy is definitely working, but they still have reasonable backing by the people.
Obviously not, because a European court literally just overturned the results of a democratic election due to foreign influence on the voting population.
That's pretty fundamental. I've seen these efforts be real heavyhanded. It's almost more important to hide their tracks as it is to push 'vox populi' that appear to advocate for a political outcome. They really try very hard to not be publically associated in these things.
What with various things out of TASS, MTG etc recently, I think they're trying to have it both ways, and both ride on general public skepticism of their role while also publically threatening those who are privy to their works.
Because of normalcy bias[0] after the fall of the USSR. The West assumed that we'd all hold hands and walk together into the future but that was not the case.
Excerpts From Pentagon's Plan: 'Prevent the Re-Emergence of a New Rival' [0]
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/world/excerpts-from-penta...
Why is the far right rising on the old continent? Is it because:
A: everybody is stupid B: people realize that the mainstream media has been feeding them propaganda for the last 30 years and decided that they want change.
You can't keep ignoring a part of the population and then claim that they are not voting properly. At some point some kind of reckoning is inevitable.