What do you think we've been doing? I've spent literally two decades of my life advocating policies to try to prevent this from happening... the left is blind to their decadence and the right has gone insane.

People complained that the Russians didn't protest more at the beginning of the war, and here you have the Americans, who won't be sent to Siberia or thrown out of a window, doing nothing.

American liberals are so full of lifelong indoctrination into thinking that laws, courts, and constitutions are what hold up democracy ... they're just going in circles for the last 10 years expecting the next election or court decision to save them.

They have no real concept of the mobilization of people power, street protest, disobedience because it's been stripped from the ideological palette of American liberalism.

Those on the left who do hold these concepts of opposition are deliberately marginalized by their two party system.

Just like with Russians and the war, the world cannot expect domestic dissent within these countries to save them. It's up to the people of Europe & Canada to form alliances and do the best we can.

American liberal propaganda is so powerful because liberals sincerely are incapable of seeing it because they take it as fact.

What's odd is that, despite considering themselves "left", no one them seem to have gotten through enough Marx to understand the concept of "ideology" which is the basis for their distorted worldview.

I always felt this 4chan Harry Potter copypasta perfectly captured contemporary American liberal ideology: https://preview.redd.it/qiqe74sl19141.jpg?auto=webp&s=07645c...

You're greying-out because you used the M word. I learned a long time ago to present the concepts, not the name, while on this forum.

I always find it interesting that Americans will rant on about how oppressive China is because you can't talk about a particular event (Tiananmen Square massacre), while not batting an eye that mention one of the most prominent thinkers in Western history will get everything else you say absolutely invalidated.

Again, a perfect examples... somebodies writings on ideology.

You might find this interesting https://pod.link/1544487624/episode/fca68c3a2a51c5cdeb29a546...

It's lost, at least till mid term.

Does anyone know what an average citizen can do that will have an impact? I’ve called my reps office in DC before but I don’t know if that does anything.

Organise a political revolution. Nothing less than that will have an actual impact

Unionize and go on strike. Like nationwide.

Learn from France.

And how did you stop it?

By giving Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany

Can you explain how this mirrors what happened in Germany?

Can you do some basic research?

I don't mean to be rude, but it is glaringly obvious.

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

—Martin Niemöller"

Except I want peace in Ukraine finally, and not billions of dollars wasted and more lives killed because Zelensky doesn’t love a potential peace deal. Don’t compare apples and oranges…loses credibility.

If you are fine making other people live under putins thumb... Are you willing to put yourself in that position?

It's a ceasefire, not a peace deal. With a party who has no history of honoring ceasefires.

Trump wants all of their mineral resources for a flimsy ceasefire. With no concessions from Russia.

It's a bad deal. Would you fold because people would die when your sovereignty is threatened?

It will always be a bad deal for Ukraine. This has never been about Ukraine, it as been about who will control their resources Russia, NATO Europe or the US. For that last two years Europe and the US have assumed they were on the same team and Trump is simply decided in might make more sense for us to side with Russia.

There was no future where the Ukraine was not exploited by fossil fuel companies and only propaganda separates which is the "good" side to control these and which is the "bad".

I'm genuinely surprised by the mass naivete surrounding this war.

As far as the US and allies are concerned, this is very simply a war for the protection of Ukraine's sovereignty. Now that the US changed into a wannabe imperialistic nation, the picture is not so clear.

> this is very simply a war for the protection of Ukraine's sovereignty

This is objectively not true. The US government absolutely participated in over throwing the existing pro-Russian government around 2014. The US does not fight wars for "moral principles" like sovereignty, they do it so they can maintain control over fossil fuel resources.

This war, like all wars, is a war of different wealthy individual and organization to control resources. All other views are propaganda generated to gather support for the loss of human life in the interest of oligarchs across the globe.

> Now that the US changed into a wannabe imperialistic nation,

I'm not sure I know anyone who has paid attention to global politics since WWII who would not describe the US as an "imperialistic nation". If you earnestly believe this is some new turn in US history you have a lot of catching up to do on our involvement in overthrowing governments around the globe to maintain US friendly leadership in counteries that control key strategic resources.

>The US government absolutely participated in over throwing the existing pro-Russian government around 2014.

This is explicitly Russian propaganda. There is no evidence of this. Euromaidan happened because Ukrainians wanted to get closer to Europe, which is why they voted for people who said they would get closer to Europe, and then aggressively erupted into protest when that leader went to Russia and came back with a 180 degree different plan.

Why was Hunter Biden added to the board of directors at Bursima in 2014? And why did Biden retroactively grant him a blanket pardon from 2014 to 2024?

It's the same as Iraq, except using that US "soft power" everyone started fetishizing as of last month.

Your comment deflects to reasons for the war. It does not address the core argument that it really wasn't a peace deal and that Russia commonly violates ceasefires. What good is a ceasefire when you know that Russia will violate it?

Doesn't sound like a deal (good or bad) at all. It's a paper prop for Trump to wave around and exchange for a gold star from Putin.

> Your comment deflects to reasons for the war.

This war started in the early 2010s as fossil fuel reserves were discovered all over Ukraine and Russian and US policy makers both rushed to gain control over them.

I'm surprised that people don't remember, but the US did support far right Ukrainian groups that did have Nazi sympathies in 2014. I remember because I had Ukrainian friends that where terrified at the types of people the US government was enabling.

There are no "good guys" in this conflict. It's two (well more than that) powerful groups of people with an interest in controlling fossil fuel resource in the regional. All other narrative around this are pure propaganda designed to get you to support the murder of Ukrainians in the interests of oligarchs around the world.

So how do you plan to get Russia to stop invading?

It is beyond insulting and condescending for the German people, who members of my family liberated from the yoke of tyranny, to compare our elected leader Donald Trump— who ran on a platform of free speech, non-intervention, and reciprocal trade relations with Europe among other things— to that bloodthirsty Austrian autocrat.

Consider instead that Donald Trump may be more like Neville Chamberlain, who wanted to appease Hitler ("peace in our time"). Your family may well have perished instead of been liberated had Chamberlain's doctrine remained in effect, and you may well have never been born.

It's not that Trump is a Nazi himself, but rather that Trump is enabling other tyrants like Vladimir Putin to pose grave threats like the ones to Ukraine today. If liberation is something you really care about, Ukraine is a great team to cheer for.

The first Trump administration lifted Obama's ban on lethal aid to Ukraine and supplied and trained Ukrainians on Javelin anti-tank missiles, night vision devices, counter-battery fire radar systems, and secure battlefield communications equipment among other things. The proposition that Trump is an appeaser does not bear scrutiny. Neither does the speculation that Russia might be capable of or interested in a wider war with Europe, let alone the USA.

> The proposition that Trump is an appeaser does not bear scrutiny. Neither does the speculation that Russia might be capable of or interested in a wider war with Europe, let alone the USA.

OK, then why shouldn't we call Russia's bluff and tell them to get out of Ukraine, or else? That would surely restore peace if you are correct.

You can tell Russia whatever you want, but you can't threaten the existence of the Russian state with American military might backed by the credible threat of nuclear weapons. That has a significant chance of provoking a nuclear Russian response.

I’m struggling to understand the logic of your thinking.

Suppose we left Ukraine empty-handed. What do you think will happen next? What do you think the best case and worst case scenarios are? What if the best-case scenario doesn’t come to pass? Would you regret it if Russia expanded its invasions further?

>Suppose we left Ukraine empty-handed. What do you think will happen next?

I don't really care.

>Would you regret it if Russia expanded its invasions further?

They're not invading NATO with refurbished T-62s. This is an insane boogeyman.

Why should they be invading any country with refurbished T-62s? And in your precious post you said you were concerned about them using nukes. Which is it?

Why does your care for others begin at NATO borders?

Geopolitics is about more than feelings wrapped around complex, poorly-understand conflicts halfway around the world.

This statement adds nothing to the conversation and doesn’t answer my questions. And in my experience, a person who can’t answer pointed questions usually understands the situation less than the ones who can.

I’m out.

I don't have a duty of care to every corrupt foreign country with complex, long-running border disputes and interests orthogonal to my own. Does that answer your pointed question?

Authoritarian governments don't collapse because of the "will of the people", that's a myth perpetuated by those in power to legitimize their positions. The major driver is the material conditions a society exists in.

We are beginnign to experience the contraction of the global economy, and as material conditions worsen, expect everything else to follow suit. Democracy doesn't bring prosperity, it a consequence of prosperity.

The comparisons of Trump to Hitler as also mind-numbingly facile. Other than a penchant for authoritarianism, they share little in common. But what they do share in common is they are both emergent phenomena of their contemporary environments.

And how well did protesting and writing letters work 90 years ago?