Skiluros

When I lived in the US, I didn't find this sort of logic convincing.

If you want to address "Republican malfeasance", the US is going to have to address corruption and criminality and take on the oligarchs. What you describe is going to happen anyway, institutions can protect you, until the day they don't. This is something even centre-right Americans seem to find it difficult to understand (I still have friends from the US that I talk with).

And let's be real, that's very unlikely to happen in the next 20-30 years.

Crazy that rules for birth certificates are not national.

The whole "global south" framing is suspect. It includes a large list of countries differentiated by level of democracy, economic development levels and geography/culture.

Even two countries seemingly from the same region and with somewhat similar levels of development; India and Nepal have a very different foreign policy and global economic outlook.

In general, there is a tendency to put the global south on the pedestal so to speak. This is incorrect both from a functional perspective (dumping a group countries together by an arbitrary measure) and that the leadership of said countries have different priorities. It's not uncommon to see hypocritical approaches on things like imperialism and many of the said countries don't support the current Cuban regime (a corrupt authoritarian dominated by oligarchy consistent of state insiders).

Haha, that's funny. I didn't even recognize it was him in the photo. I didn't realize he was 62.

It's a chicken and egg problem.

There are alternatives:

https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-preorder

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairphone (supports Ubuntu Touch in addition to non-google Android distros).

I am going to keep my Samsung for banking and government apps (it has the latest Android ver, so it will work at least for a few more years), but I am planning to switch to Jolla once it is released. I also think Euro government will eventually realize that they need to move off Android/iOS.

Hahaha, I always chuckle when I see people online parrot PR copytext about how Apple cares [about digital privacy]. Just read their privacy policy...

It's supposed to get to -25 in a few days.

Not looking forward to it.

If the EU had any balls, they would help us develop a MAD type strategy against such strikes.

While this is true, European political systems are generally more competitive and flexible (i.e. not a two party state).

US is a two party state where both parties are very corrupt, but worst thing is that the base of the centre-right opposition is largely tolerant of corruption.

I've been constantly looking at long term weather daily forecasts for the past few weeks.

About two weeks ago, it was showing an increase in temperatures starting from earlier this week and extending into Feb.

The latest forecasts show temperatures going down to -25 (at night in the coming days). The russians will definitely strike around that time.

And fuck american "communist" online roleplayers. Let's hope one day they end up in russia (with their citizenship cancelled).

I live on a high floor and it's a fucking pain to deal with the cold and lack of water. Than being said, I can manage. I do feel for ladies like Janchuk. My grandma is 80+, but we can support her.

Individuals like Merkel with their arrogance and de facto support for russian genocidal imperialism are massive enablers of the russians (Schröder is a piece of shit too, but unlike Merkel I don't think he actually believes in anything, if the bribe is large enough he will pitch anything). I hope both of them get a severe case of Alzheimer's.

In a sense, we were really lucky that Yanukovich was a fool and a coward. Trump too is committed to ignorance and he is definitely a huge coward, but he knows how to "own" his corruption and criminality in a manner that appeals to a significant portion of the US public (perhaps not a majority or even a plurality, but whatever it is, it is large enough to matter). That wasn't true about Yanukovich.

The killing of protesters in Feb 2014 was the inflection point, a point of no return. That's when a significant portion of society came to the conclusion that the Yanukovich regime has to go. And the fact that the public pushed back, even with the use of violence by regime goons, is what doomed Yanukovich. The Yanukovich regime was not able to take back Maidan Nezalezhnosti; the "main square of the country", if a government can't control it, it de facto does not have legitimacy.

His senior allies started to get worried that they would have to go down with the ship and that they wouldn't be able to "lawyer their way out of it" and might have to face true justice from the public. I would argue the same was true of the security forces, when the public fought back, they started asking themselves uncomfortable questions about whether it was worth risking their lives for some thugs (who would be focused on saving their own butts).

There really was a sense of "history is being made in front of our eyes" or the apocryphal quote "there are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen." There was a whole parallel self-organized administration. Tens of thousands of people were flowing in from the regions to Kyiv to back anti-regime protests (not to mention every region had its own protest HQ, even Crimea had protesters opposing the regime). During the day the crowds would swell to hundreds of thousands. People were constantly bringing in supplies (food, medicine, protective gear, I personally delivered donations from foreigners who supported the protesters, but didn't want to enter Maidan/Khreshatik). In the night the security forces would try and siege the liberated part of the city, you could even see how the barricade line would move through the square over the days (security services gaining a bit, protesters pushing them back in other days).

Of course, America is not Ukraine, but perhaps this is a case in which America can learn something from Ukraine.
This is a pattern of authoritarian drift that Ukrainians are closely familiar with: rapid consolidation of executive power, aggressive use of state capacity against perceived enemies (including former allies who dared defy the president), and a growing insistence that legality is whatever the leader says it is.
In pushing against all that, Americans can take a page from Ukraine's civil society playbook.

I tend to agree. Life is a strange thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nNFrvGOb9o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwf9EjesvtM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eTuFAR169s

Sure US has its own specific challenges: much more competent and violent security forces, much less "motivated" society (a national liberation movement is a powerful thing), but US also doesn't have to deal with many challenges that are present in Ukraine. Specifically, an enemy neighbouring country x4-x5 times larger where the overwhelming majority of the population is committed to genocidal imperialism.

US is really turning into russia but with a stronger cultural preference for "freedom" polemics.

I've lived for multiple years in both US and russia (I speak English and russian), so I think I have something like a frame of reference.

Totally!

The individual who responded to me doesn't believe that Ukraine should not have self-determination and it should under russian domination.

I just made that up, right?

Ah, you're a tankie who supports russian genocidal imperialism.

No, wonder you're being so holier than thou.

Bye!

How do you think I got the $2800 B figure?

The whole framing is dumb.

I have no clue around the exact sum provided to the USSR (although I have read about the nature of the support and what it focused on). I am just pointing you can't compare dollars in a nominal manner.

Your whole framing is suspect, not to mention you're talking finances and you can't even figure out that $150 B (EDIT: as written in the post, when I posted this I didn't check that the nominal figure really was) in 1944 dollars is closer to $2,800 B in 2025 dollars.

$11.3 B in 1944 dollars is equal to $207 B in 2025 dollars.

There are obvious practical considerations for such an approach (security, trade), but I doubt it will possible. The US is not reliable and is ruled by criminal plutocrats.

I was also surprised about it when reading the headline about 5 years.

That's just one charge, there are others that are being prosecuted (with lengthier sentences).

Of course, not a disorderly one, a multi-staged, organization expulsion of US services.