ignatius

yeah.. i know there's more than one. russia's invasion will likely strengthen fascist in russia and in ukraine. but we'll see. time will tell. hard to imagine ukrainians will be in the mood to tolerate fascists if they get through this and can rebuild.

that says that azov is about 2500 members. ukrainian army is about 250,000 give or take.. and bigger now that something like 100,000 ukrainians from abroad returned to ukraine to fight. there's a lot of videos and pics on r/ukraine of soldiers w/o patches or nazi symbols. btw russia is using mercenaries in ukraine.. their version of blackwater i guess. https://pmc-wagner.net https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group apparently they've made beheading videos.. as have azov. PMC has also killed journalists and as expected all kinds of shitty stuff.. as 'contractors' do. this provides putin with 'plausible deniability'

lols. what a dope. you'd think he'd get some translation going before he jumped in for a photo op. of course canada has nazis and fascists etc.. every place has some. anyway.. we can just agree to disagree about ukraine.

well said. agreed about virality of things. i was admittedly fishing for examples of that effecting other places and the coverage the west gets. there's too many 24 hour news cycles stacked up for me to recall relevant comparisons.

so these are canadian nazis fighting in ukraine then? https://nationalpost.com/news/world/exclusive-so-many-canadian-fighters-in-ukraine-they-have-their-own-battalion-source-says

so sadam didn't gas his own people? his sons didn't have 'rape rooms'? ukraine had several elections to choose their presidents.. that's a burgeoning democracy isn't it? i know you see a nazi under every rock there but it simply isn't true. you can characterize them as you like. i don't know how saying sadam hussein was a dictator makes me a racist about iraq. btw sadam wasn't a communist so you don't have to defend him. and yes i know USA and the coalition wrecked iraq and gave birth to extremists but still.. so maybe it would've been more accurate to say the governments of iraq and ukraine aren't comparable? is that better for you?

yeah. it's bullshit that the african students are stuck in limbo like that. so fucked.

that's kinda what i said a little? i mean.. everything gets more attention now though doesn't it? remember kony 2012, what about K-pop fans blocking up websites in the USA to fuck with republicans and support BLM and all kinds of stuff.. the world is unquestionably different in some ways. social media can bring attention to and also cause massacres and genocides. but yeah.. totally agree.. that geographical location etc makes things different and always has.. that's part of it being 'easier to package' and digest over here. also, sometimes other things get suppressed. for a good while yemen was getting coverage here but mostly people shrugged and moved on because the middle east is "supposed to be that way" or something. also, usa sold arms to saudi who were bombing everything to death over there in the midst of the biggest humanitarian crisis etc etc.. proxy war between iran and saudi or whatever. also people are burned out on middle politics and all that and i think a lot of people have shrugged it off and glazed over thinking it's just 'too complicated' and no one can solve it and yada yada yada. idk.. mostly when i see all the atrocities happening in ukraine perpetrated by russia i think about iraq and afghanistan and it's a really complicated feeling. we (americans) knew we were lied to (many of us did anyways) and knew it was a bullshit war to invade iraq. it was immediately obvious. and anyone who looks even a little bit knows we littered the desert w/uranium depleted rounds causing a generation of birth defects and killed countless civilians... afghanistan obviously doesn't even need explaining as to how any progress there was temporary and how fucked up it is now.. ... so, i see russia doing what it's doing and it makes me think "Fuck.. they're doing an america on ukraine" but didn't even have the nerve to go make a case at the UN and lie about white powder and mushroom clouds. it sucks. we're at the mercy of psychopaths. edit: and obviously iraw and ukraine aren't coparable countries. ukraine is a burgeoning democracy and sadam was a fuckin gbrutal murderous dictator

it might seem that way because social media. and there may be some amount of truth to that but if social media was around in the 90s i think africa might've gotten more attention. rwanda genocide etc. but it did get press. russia's invasion is easier to package by the media because people can easily understand what's happening in general. far off complicated struggles are a tougher sell at least here in america. but also, russia is a nuclear state and europe feels on the brink for a lot of people so the stakes are high, potentially. someone smarter than me can do an analysis of the who what why etc but the world is a different place. we have 24 hour news in our hands every day. and people can take some small active measure to show solidarity and contribute so people are engaged. idk. i'm tired.

i have yet to see an ad when using in safari. i have ad blocker on though.

some poor people do. others still languishing like it's a hundred years ago. see mississippi, kentucky.. many rural places in USA. many things only happen due power struggles in government being won out by people who want to make some kind of change. also, gentrification in cities or investments made possible due to tax breaks etc. often poor people get moved out of neighborhoods by gentrification. it's complex and different in different places and it expands and contracts. currently 62% of americans live paycheck to paycheck. but ya know.. USA is run like a ponzi scheme or pump and dump scheme... currently republicans are working on a tax bill for when/if they take over the house and senate. this bill raises taxes on the poorest people in the country so "they have some skin in the game" whatever the fuck that means at the scale of the tax payer. jfc it's terrible and cruel.

same here in portland in some ways. cops have been sitting on their hands for a long time. the entire time i've lived in portland (about 18 years) the police have been understaffed to some degree but at least had 'anti gang unit' and a unit focused on gun violence that seemed effective. they're pretty overwhelmed and often don't answer calls of some kinds. but then like 20 of them will show on the scene of whatever happens on shift that is deemed important. they were all worn down with the year+ nightly protests too. but, fuckem... the police union sucks here and they leaked info about a local commissioner they don't like and she sued and won and some cops were fired and disciplined. it's a shit show. i'm all for reallocating some police funding to mutual aid organizations which has happened here some with promising results. a street outreach organization got funded to come out for non-violent mental health crisis 911 calls. mostly i think all the cops need to be retrained and standards need to be raised for employment.. 2 years community college with a focus on local history, police law etc.. a smart curriculum that gives them more tools for understanding wtf is going on their city etc.. there's a lot of things that need to change. mutual aid in general is a good idea. not sure how that looks when it comes to policing but anything that tightens up communities to rely on themselves and get organized is a good thing.

my dad lived in a place in sunny isles beach for a while and down the road is that porsche building w/the elevator that take you in your car up to your apartment. some guy bought the top floor for $40 million. i think a russian billionaire. so insane. that kind of momey on something that will be wrecked by climate change in the near future. but just goes to show how much money even 1 billion dollars is. 40 million is fucking peanuts. anyway.. he'd talk about the russian restaurants how there's russian nightlife scene over there. it's changed quite a lot in the last 10-15 years.

florida is home to many russian millionaires. they buy a lot of apartments in north miami beach.. on the beach. theirs a russian newspaper there nad russian tv and everything.

someone must have explained tot he bezos data machine how the bad press would effect the bottom line eventually. putin directing military to attack everything is what many predicted as the invasion stalls. it's his way of 'doubling down' and is obviously based on his previous behavior in syria and chechnya

listened to the 2 part podcast about crytpo on behind the bastards. it's hilarious how big of a scam it all is. it's a 'scene' ripe with scammers and incompetent people trying to make a buck. also explains the limitations of the blockchain and how it happened kind of by accident since the guy who created it was just doing some experiments to see if the proof of concept worked. he didn't expect it to be the end of it or finished product.

yeah.. it's batshit.. it's only passed one chamber in their state house.. still has to make it through the other half and get signed into law... hopefully it implodes before then. i suspect it'll get challenged in court if it passes since it's just fucking crazy

maybe north america again sometime. stoked shows are happening anywhere though.

cum on Arrakis haven't listened to that in a while. i usually played it slower. should dig it out and relive it.

WhAt's PoLAnd ThInkInG ARe tHey ouT Of TheIr mInds THeY pRObAbLy don't knoW ThaT pUTIn iS a lIbERator!! WARSAW, March 8 (Reuters) - Poland is ready to deploy all its MIG-29 jets to Ramstein Air Base in Germany and put them at the disposal of the United States, and urges other NATO members that own planes of that type to do the same, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/poland-ready-place-all-its-mig-29-jets-disposal-us-2022-03-08/

there's far right groups in the separatist regions but also probably a lot of people who think they're russian.. but wouldn't have gone that way w/o putin's help of unmarked uniformed troops etc. personally, i don't feel like every part of the world needs meddling from everyone else and people should generally be left th efuck alone unless they're aggressive, doing a genocide or whatever.. then sanctions and whatever else comes etc.. yeah.. i mean.. nazis are bad obviously but it's a world wide problem. fascism is on the rise.. thinking that putin is helping w/the problem is misplaced at the least. i think putin wants to kill the ukraine gov't and put in cronies loyal to russia which would be a dictator who loots the treasury etc. which is what the people of ukraine overthrew only just recently.. which is why putin got pissed and supported separatists in the first place.. heaven forbid ukraine actually try to determine it's own future. that didn't sit well w/putin.

gosh.. i hope putin will send russians to de-nazify america next!

listen, Vlad, you shouldn't be hanging out on an IDM forum. You have important shit to do. stop goofing off.