“Ukraine’s intelligence service says it thwarted a Russian plot to blackmail a local teenage girl into blowing up a police building by threatening to make public intimate pictures on her phone.”
“Ukraine’s intelligence service says it thwarted a Russian plot to blackmail a local teenage girl into blowing up a police building by threatening to make public intimate pictures on her phone.”
Typical of the Russian state tactics is maybe what they meant and what you are saying. It’s hard to separate the government and normal people sometimes in times of war.
I’m rewatching the handmaid’s tale right now, and that show goes into the psychological impact of living in an inhumane society. Basically (and to put it simply), it makes it difficult to be a good person, and difficult not to become a bad person, reflected in the acts people will do or not do, even if not due to evil intent but eg. simply to follow orders, to survive, or to escape their trauma.
So I’m interested in how Russians are able to keep their humanity, sense of decency etc, knowing what their country is doing to people. Then there’s the generational impact of their past, the soviet union etc. How many people can resist that pressure?
Similar in Israel/zionists where some people are barbaric, others allow evil to happen/make excuses and a relative few try to fight it.
I honestly don’t know the answer and I would like to, but Russia is a big place and easy to silo people and feed them propaganda. I wonder what some of them get and accept as true?
If you talk to some of the Russian trolls, even here, if you believe what they say, they’re very much brainwashed. Think how Putin banned the war from even being named truthfully - they have to call it a special military operation. The truth in Russia is whatever Putin decides, their media is totally under his control, so that people have to have access to Western news to have any idea of the truth. Maybe its also easier for them to believe Putin, since they’ve been so beaten down over time, the older ones especially are probably too confused and hopeless to be interested in the truth. I think this was done deliberately by a propaganda mastermind named surkov.
yeah, no, of course. I get it, I just think statements like that are completely unhelpful
To be fair, so are statements like yours. Any bleeding heart running around crying “what about the Good Germans?” during WW2 was probably either an idiot or a fucking traitor. The “Good Germans” did nothing but go along with what Germany was doing and shrug. There was no resistance. There was no widespread insurgency. There were exceptions like Oskar Schindler, and the exception is why we still talk about him today. But on the whole most people made no attempt to betray the Reich, to save people from being put in concentration camps, to free the concentration camps, to even improve conditions in the concentration camps. They might’ve claimed they didn’t know what was going on, maybe some didn’t, but they could’ve known if they had paid any attention at all, they didn’t want to know, they didn’t try to know. They were afraid, that’s valid, but why is their fear more acceptable than the fear of the soldiers who were called up to defend their country against German invasion, who are getting shot at and bombed? There comes a point where the “Good German” just becomes a “Cowardly German” and doesn’t deserve the sympathy you’re trying to create for them.
The vast majority of Russians have done nothing to stop Putin, and that’s true of the ones who’ve fled to the west, the ones who signed up for a military payday, the ones who are farming to feed the army, the ones who are building the missiles and the bombs, the ones working on the rails and the ships that transport all this war materiel, the ones operating the oil refineries that pay the bills, the ones building the software that runs and controls all of this.
When they can tell me what specifically they’ve done to try to stop Putin, to sabotage this war and this regime, then I’ll be the judge of whether they’re indeed an actual “Good Russian”, or a “Typical Russian”. Because the “Typical Russian” has done, and continues to do, absolutely fucking nothing while thousands are dying, or worse they celebrate it. They’ll probably tell you they did that out of fear too, that they feared consequences if they didn’t celebrate it, but those kind of loyalty displays are the reasons other people feel fear, they are helping the regime to maintain its control. They’re being part of the problem. They’re not doing good things, and they don’t get a pass for being cowardly while other innocent people are dying. They don’t get to trade other people’s lives for their own safety and get away with it.
yeah look, that’s all a reasonable point of view.
I’m not trying to call you out, but I’d be curious as to what you have done personally to stand up to injustices that were doled out by the government of your own country.
I’ll also still stand by my original statement that it’s not useful to go on the internet and write “typical out-group person”, full stop.
Canada has done some great steps towards indigenous truth and reconciliation, I’m not going to dox myself but I’ve been part of that on a local level and continue to be. It’s not hypocritical to admit that yes, my ancestors invaded another nation and genocided its people. The difference is, we’re all now on the same side saying “Don’t do that, we won’t let you do it”. We’ve done it. It’s wrong. We’re speaking from experience and trying to make a better world where this doesn’t happen anymore.
fair enough :)
Usually, the folks asking “what have you done?” have done nothing themselves other than pontificating online.
Well, this is a little unusual. I’ve marched in DC and attended more protests than I can count. Thanks for making assumptions though, its neat
Was anybody trying to help you specifically or do you go around assuming everything is meant to cater to how you feel about things?