this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Tell that to the supporters of the Democrat and Republican parties. A lot of people in the US absolutely do believe that their side is the "good guys" and the other side are the "bad guys". This is not something we came up with.
The OP's question was about how to break through this notion that any of these corporate parties are the "good guys". Your "enlightened centrism" or attempt at putting yourself "above" politics (ignoring politics), or whatever it is you think you are doing with your comment is not addressing the real issue. The reality is that there is a widespread false consciousness in the US which is propped up by the false dichotomy of political partisanship. You won't solve the problem by pretending like it doesn't exist.
I don't care how many people believe bullshit, it's still bullshit. I think we're on the same page there
But you should care. It's no use simply feeling good about yourself for recognizing the bullshit if most people are still trapped in that narrative. If you want things to change you need to find a way to help others to also stop believing that bullshit. Because real change is made by the masses, not singular enlightened individuals.
I agree, and I'd add that there is a material aspect to the equation as well. As the standard of living continues to decline due to neoliberal policies, people in the mainstream start having a crisis of faith and they become more open to alternative interpretations of reality. It's important to pick your battles and focus on educating people who have already started developing doubts on their own. People who are still living in liberal wonderland will not be swayed by any argument, and you'd almost certainly will just be wasting your time.
You're right. I do and should care. Thinking it over, I didn't quite have a right understanding of my own opinion. Trying again:
I do care about the consequences of many people believing bullshit. And we can see this happening with American and Russian influence of disinformation around the world right now. And a lot of people are hurt because of it.
As for the validity of the bullshit, that's where I don't care how many people believe it.
Please, these lies about Russian “disinformation” are tired and overdone. At least come up with a new ridiculous narrative that is at least novel if you want to spread lies.
Lies? I just follow the news. But feel free to debunk a few for me. I wouldn't really know where to start. A recent issue claimed to be Russian disinformation was that Ukraine started the war. Is that true?
Keep your mouth closed about things you admit you know nothing about
Dang, someone feels attacked by a different perspective. Just don't listen, and let me learn about these ideas. With how much of a mess news sources are nowadays I appreciate learning about how others view things ever more. I want to know what's going on
If you are trying to “learn” about these ideas you shouldn’t be offering a different perspective but in fact learning. The two are in opposition to one another. Hmm wonder why a communist isn’t entertaining propaganda on a communist website? Hmmmm wonder why?
I can't really hide my perspective to have it challenged. Someone linked an article from a place that's new to me though. It does present a different bit of the picture of recent events
First let me say that i'm sorry that some of the answers you received have been a little snippy and lacking in patience. If you really are trying to learn, that is commendable. I don't think it's right getting angry at someone for not knowing better if they are really making an honest effort to inform themselves.
That being said, before you opine further on this topic i think you should take some time to thoroughly try and understand the facts that your mainstream media hides from you. This post is a good place to start. Read the answers which some of us have provided there which explain, with verifiable sources, the root causes of the conflict.
Then take a look at this other post which goes further into one of the main causes of this conflict which is almost entirely ignored by the mainstream media. Read through the articles which are linked in the comments in response to the poster's question. Keep in mind that the mainstream media has been and continues to blatantly lie about all of this.
Ehh, it's the internet, it's been rather mild. I'll be reading that post on the train to work, thank you! I suppose I'll have to be back for the second
That first post shows a bit of an odd conflict of Russia not being quite happy about nearby countries having defenses too. Which is fair to be worried about, armies can be dangerous.
But it is not a normal response to start an invasion over that.
Alright, next train, next post!
Well, it's a messy situation. And a rather different perspective. It would appear though that the "nazi's" they're denazifying from aren't quite the usual ones either. It is a bit odd how Russia is being presented as a victim and unbeatable powerhouse here. It makes me wonder why they didn't just offer those living in Ukraine a better life in Russia?
it's a normal response to use your military to defend people who were historically part your country, speak your language, and who requested your military assistance to defend themselves and their right to self-determination under international law after 8 years of attempted ethnic cleansing by white supremacist paramilitary gangs that enthusiastically participated in the Holocaust. it's particularly normal to do that when said Nazi collaborators begin rapidly massing troops on your border and declaring their intent to acquire nuclear weapons and join a military bloc created specifically to colonize your country.
"starting an invasion" isn't something Russia just did out of nowhere for no reason. it's something they did as a last resort to protect their own continued existence as an independent country after they tried for 8 years to deescalate the situation diplomatically. the Ukrainian comprador regime's imperial investors repeatedly said in private that they had no intention of allowing peaceful coexistence, that they were deliberately taking advantage of Russia's attempts at diplomacy to buy time to build up foreign investment to attack Russia directly, and that they engineered the overthrow of Ukraine's democratically elected government to use it as a staging ground for this purpose.
when someone openly promises for a century that they're going to murder you and steal your house, then they murder your neighbor, take your neighbor's house, rent it to a swastika tattooed Hitler enthusiast, and fill it with piles of weapons on the condition that the Nazi squatter uses them to murder you, it's not crazy, aggressive, or disproportionate to cross your neighbor's property line to disarm and evict the Nazi before they can murder you. Russia's historical willingness to do this is the primary reason there are any Jewish people left alive in Europe today.
Also, wasn't Zelensky Jewish? Hence why I figured those must be different nazi's or something.
Using the military can be a good thing, but I have to disagree that murder is a good solution. Offering people a way out right next door would've been better than shooting at their homes. There may be assholes out there, but they're still just people living their lives doing their own thing. Most probably don't want to deal with the political mess out there.
The US is a white supremacist settler colony founded on genocide and slavery, but it also had a black president once. The latter doesn’t negate the former. Zelensky is a comprador figurehead. His role is to go on TV and say what the US tells him to say. He doesn’t need to personally like Hitler in order to work alongside people who do toward a shared goal. He doesn’t actually have decision-making power in Ukraine, as evidenced by the time he tried to accept Russia’s peace terms a few weeks into the military operation only to be overruled by Boris Johnson. If you’re asking why Banderites in the Ukrainian military would tolerate a Jewish person as a nominal figurehead: they don’t particularly like it, but they’re playing along because he’s a means to an end. He’s helped legitimize their acts of terror, formally integrated them into the government, and enabled them to access unlimited foreign funding and weaponry to pursue their goal of ethnically “purifying” Ukraine. It’s also fairly clear that Zelensky’s at considerable risk of being assassinated by Banderites if/when he ever stops being useful to them. They openly assassinated the Ukrainian negotiator that was involved in peace talks with Russia after the UK intervened, then declared it illegal to negotiate any peace with Russia. Regrettably for Zelensky, keeping the war going indefinitely is also likely his only way of prolonging his own life at this point. The guns pointed at his back are a much greater threat to him personally than the guns pointed at his front.
I hate to be the one to have to tell you what the purpose of a military is… War is always a tragedy, which is why Russia has done everything in their power to avoid it for the better part of a decade while NATO made it increasingly clear that they were preparing for an attack. It’s why Russia’s objectives for this operation have always been to secure the Russian people of the Donbas from targeted ethnic violence, to ensure Ukraine’s neutrality and independence, and to disarm and remove the NATO-sponsored Banderite regime that overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian government, outlawed political opposition, and ended democratic elections. Russia’s goal is peaceful coexistence with a democratic and independent Ukraine, which is why they’ve consistently offered peace terms that would enable that. Russia resorted to military action to secure that goal only after exhausting every other possible option to secure it diplomatically.
Russia is trying to offer the people of the Donbas a way out by physically securing them from state violence. They did this after years of taking in refugees fleeing Banderite violence. Russia is trying to offer the people of Ukraine a way out by negotiating a peace contingent on the removal of the foreign weapons triggering the conflict, disempowering the Nazis most directly responsible for the inciting violence, and restoring independence and democratic elections to Ukraine.
I was expecting you to be up to date with recent events at least.
Did you seriously just come here to play dumb, make a bunch of people explain recent history to you, then drop a bunch of cryptic bullshit like “lol, haven’t you even watched CNN, bro?” after refusing to read or engage with any of it?
No, I was hoping to learn. I did learn quite a bit, just not what I expected. Several people in this thread had quite a lot to say though. Which was great, and a bit tedious at times.
The way I like to follow the news is by finding sources. Because with a lot of modern journalists you never know if they're talking out of their ass or not.
I recommend this 2016 documentary called Donbass by Anne-Laure Bonnel for some background on the issue
(Alt link if that one doesn't work)
I do like myself documentaries! It might have to wait for the weekend though, thank you!
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
a place to start: https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/2022_Russo-Ukrainian_conflict
I'll have a look! Thank you!
It presents about the same story as what I've heard up until now. But with a bunch more details, I like it. And now I've got some fact checking to do.
Thank you for giving me a starting point!
How do you define the start of the war?
How much do you know about the Minsk Agreements, for instance?
I know there were disagreements. But as I understand it, Russia first brought guns to the situation
There's an awful lot behind those disagreements, but significant violence only started in the spring of 2014:
Russia twice agrees to try and resolve the violence on its border (and the larger NATO expansion question) with diplomacy, in the Minsk Agreements:
Note how the West later admitted these agreements were a sham, and the intent was always to create a hostile state on Russia's border.
Most recently,
Ahh, this is framed differently. But in the end there was a diplomatic contract and Russia broke it. I get that they could've been worried about a country near them having military forces, but going to war is not an appropriate response to that.
I know this is a long response but please read this thoroughly and go through the links provided, as i have the impression that you didn't do so with the other posts that i directed you to and as a result your understanding is still very superficial:
Yes, there was indeed a diplomatic contract, one endorsed by the entire UN security council. It was called the Minsk agreements. These agreements were between the post-Maidan Kiev regime and the governments of the separatist republics Donetsk and Lugansk. These were the only signatory parties to that agreement. Russia was not a signatory, it was not a party to those agreements, it merely mediated the talks alongside the Europeans, therefore it was not their responsibility to abide by them and neither could they break them. Russia only had mediator status in the Minsk agreements, same as France and Germany.
Read this to see exactly what the Minsk agreements were and what they entailed. The obligations of the two parties are spelled out quite explicitly. And here is further analysis of the Minsk agreements, who was obligated to do what and who broke them.
The ones who broke the Minsk agreements were the Ukrainians. According to Minsk they were supposed to halt hostilities and withdraw heavy weaponry from the line of contact, which they never did. Instead they repeatedly violated the ceasefire and continued bombing and killing civilians, as confirmed by OSCE observers, from 2015 all the way to 2022.
They were also supposed to enshrine into law the autonomous status of the Donbass republics (formed when the people of those regions rose up and formed their own government after the illegal Maidan coup) via a constitutional reform to decentralize and federalize Ukraine, which they also never did. Ukraine's previous president Poroshenko openly and proudly admitted that they were never going to do this.
They were supposed to negotiate further on the details of the implementation of the agreement with the leaders of the Donbass republics, which they completely refused to do and constantly bragged and boasted in their own media about how they staunchly refuse to negotiate with the Donbass republics despite having signed an agreement to do so.
The Europeans, France and Germany, were supposed to ensure that Kiev abided by the agreement, but all they did was turn a blind eye to Ukraine refusing to fulfill any of its obligations under the agreement they themselves signed. Now we know , as admitted by the at the time leaders of France and Germany, F. Hollande and A. Merkel, that they viewed the Minsk agreements as a ploy, a trick pulled on Russia to buy Ukraine time to rearm and prepare to go to war against the Donbass and Russia. The current Kiev regime also admitted to deliberately sabotaging the agreements, just like they reneged on the peace deal that they had agreed to in Istanbul 2022.
The proximate cause for the conflict was this breakdown of the Minsk agreements and the imminent threat to the people of the Donbass who were facing an all out attack by a massively rearmed (with the help of NATO) ultra-nationalist regime that celebrates Nazi collaborators. A regime which already had a years long history of brutal repression of political opponents and of committing atrocities and war crimes against ethnic Russians in Ukraine, which had already passed laws suppressing Russian language and culture (which was the majority spoken language in Ukraine pre-2014), and whose supporters frequently and openly admitted their intent to ethnically cleanse the Donbass of millions of people who don't fit into their conception of an ethnically pure Ukraine.
Zelensky himself told people who identify as Russian to leave what he considers Ukraine even if they and their families have lived there for generations. The parallels of the Ukrainian nationalist project to the genocidal ethnic cleansing in Palestine are so obvious that Zelensky even admitted he wants Ukraine to be "a big Israel". Was Russia just supposed to allow this to happen?
And the larger geopolitical context of NATO threatening Russia is also not something that you should be dismissing so flippantly. NATO has a history of aggression such as against Yugoslavia/Serbia and Libya. It is not a defensive alliance, and its stationing of intermediate range missiles in Ukraine (which NATO explicitly refused to rule out) which could be used for a decapitation or nuclear first strike is an existential threat that no Russian government could ignore. Especially when it has been made clear that NATO's intent is to destroy, balkanize and subjugate Russia, which is something that western think tanks and leaders of NATO member states such as the Baltic states openly state as their goal and hold conferences discussing how to achieve.
And speaking of breaches of contracts, Ukraine's declaration of state sovereignty which Russia agreed to respect explicitly stated that Ukraine would be a neutral state. The fact that the pro-western governments which came to power in Ukraine as a result of western orchestrated color revolutions proceeded to align with and attempt to join NATO directly violates the conditions under which their independence was agreed to.
Taking military action was Russia's last resort after all diplomatic avenues had failed and the security situation had become critical. There were many opportunities to avoid triggering this conflict but at every turn the West and its Ukrainian proxies insisted instead on antagonizing Russia, disregarding its clearly stated vital interests and red lines, and taking actions that harm Russia and Russian people.
If the West had never orchestrated the Maidan coup in 2014 none of this would be happening. If the Ukrainians had abided by and implemented the Minsk agreements any time between 2014 and 2022. If the US had accepted the proposed Draft Security Treaty offered by Russia in late 2021 (itself a version of an earlier proposal for a Russia-NATO security treaty from 2009). Even in 2022, at first Russia only sought to bring Ukraine to the negotiating table and offered them a very favorable way out with the 2022 Istanbul peace deal (proposed by the Ukrainians, by the way), which yet again was reneged on by Ukraine at the behest of its Western sponsors.
Every time Russia made an effort to come to a mutually beneficial agreement they were rebuffed and the West instead chose conflict and war. How is Russia supposed to deal with such people? What is the "appropriate response" in your view?
You've put down a lot of content, and I see you have a clear picture of the situation for yourself. But I'm sorry to say that I don't believe I can learn much from what I've just read.
I'll hope to bump into someone else.
Thank you for the effort though!