Though I understand you compare the history of the US with this situation, I don't believe they are comparable at all. Regarding US/Western World, for sure not everything is hunky-dory to state the least. In the case of Ukraine, I believe the US/western (and part of the eastern) world do what they must do. Ukraine asks for help, and they get the help that can be given. I would even think, when Ukraine wouldn't have asked for support, they would not have gotten any, ie the weapons I mean, as well as the sanctions. Interestingly, the Ukrainian government thinks the 'western' world is like a bunch of pussies, not giving him all the support he is asking for.
Putin and the danger. We disagree on this one. If Putin is allowed to do whatever in Ukraine, ie Ukraine giving in to the demands of Putin and subsequently will execute whatever his mid/longer-term plan is for Ukraine, he will pick his next target knowing he can continue to extend his borders/influence with force without repercussions. It also seems Ukraine peeps don't want to capitulate and added to that something like 100k individuals from outside Ukraine arrived in Ukraine to pick the battle, I suppose as volunteers. No US or western government is involved in this.
Though I only know one person in Ukraine and I know his opinion, I believe most of the Ukrainian people share his opinion: They don't want the Russian army in their country. I believe most of them want to live in peace and harmony in their own free country whilst they don't care about the roots being Ukrainian or Russian. And that is what they are fighting for.
Haven.t been on Hive for a while (your post says a month) thus being late to reply.
My point is not to convince anyone but to try motivate them to take a look at more info so it would be clearer what is really happening and how we came to this point.
When you say they do what they have to, same can be said for Russia: someone was terrorizing R people in Donbas area for 8 years, neoNazis ruled there and they did what they had to. Also, same with Puting doing whatever he wants - isn.t that exactly what US has been doing since WWII? Why then having different criteria for others? I can understand that someone might fear or prefer US way of life but that is not an argument. So, if you say you are pro US and want them to rule the world bcs you like them, I will accept that as a part of your personality, but if you have different criteria for same behavior, will think of you as ignorant of hypocrite or whatever not good. That is the point. Personal characteristics cannot be argument for people who are about to discuss on the level of critical thinking. Point is to distinguish between personal feelings and facts which many people cannot do and that is why are so easy to manipulate. And who wants facts about this war should dig much deeper, in the time before Maidan and what US gov was doing and saying then. Also, there are so many videos from different sources but European "democracy" banned everything from Internet; and why is that? so no one can see the other side of the story. At this point, whole Europe is behaving exactly like one who they are fighting with...not to mention that, while Russian cats are banned from competitions, gas is still flowing...
From my point of view it's not preferring a US way of living, but living in freedom. In Europe, US, and many other parts of the world, a lot of lives have been sacrificed in the many battles for freedom over the last 1000s of years. I wish for all societies to be able to live in as much freedom as possible. We all can see the real intentions of Putin. That has nothing to do with the cruelties that happened in Donbas area, its just an excuse he is using to control Ukraine. If it was for Donbas only, then he should've gone into that area alone. But he didn't. He targets the whole coast of Ukraine for the simple reason to have total control over Ukraine by controlling all harbours. The result of this is, freedom taken away from Ukraine society. Recently we've seen the brutality of Russian army. Maybe similar brutality as the groups that you call neo-nazis used against the Russian peeps in Donbas, I don't deny that, nor underwrite it since I simply don't know. Bottom line, Putin real intentions are to control about 40M peeps in Ukraine, which essentially means taking away some to more freedom from Ukraine peeps while Ukraine peeps show the world they dont want to be taken away their freedom. Because the Ukrains dont want the Russian army in their conuntry, want to fight them, want their freedom from Russia, I agree with the support the western world is giving Ukraine, which is essentially weapons to defend themselves. Gas and all still flowing: if it was up to me, we would've stopped buying gas from Russia a long time ago. I have no idea how long this all will take, but I predict an end of Putin as a ruler of Russia. He started his own end. If what happens after him will be better or not, only time will tell.
Regarding censoring content in Europe: I'm not sure what you mean. Can you point out what exactly is censored and how this is done? For instance in my country, no content is blocked by the ISPs (internet service providers). We have no law that says to block certain types of content other than maybe a pirate bay (while I still can access that service). And yes, I do not believe our Dutch government have (certain) control over our ISPs outside our public view forcing them to block specific services (which is not me being naive). And yes, EU banned two media stations, something that is not my choice, to be honest. That said, many other Russian news agencies and stations are still available, including TASS and Infradax.
For example, my friends cannot see Tg channels coming from RU, public ones. Also, we have refugees from RU that came here bcs working for western companies online and cannot have connection elsewhere. You hardly can see news from different perspective and yes, providers can block content coming from certain places; whether that is allowed by law or not, now is not the question bcs canceling whole country, including civilians, is against every common sense.
Talking about brutality, yes, there are people on the both sides that are doing crimes, it is like that not just in war. Problem starts when you, without some proof, accuse someone and trying to convince everyone else that you are right. Like any crime, those ones should also be investigated, not just taken for granted that this or that side made it.
Propaganda is so strong and I don.t think that western countries really help with wanting UA citizens to fight util last man standing. Longer war means longer suffering, more deaths, bigger catastrophe. They should force negotiations and send humanitarian aid instead of weapons. Bcs at the end, politicians will be the ones unharmed and citizens, not only in UA but around the world will suffer for a long time bcs of economical issues.
You said that you agree with weaponizing UA; would you yourself prefer more guns and more days of war and more chance to die or water, food and shelter?
My country was in war so I know how ppl feel about "help" from those whose civilians are not under fire...
All in all, this is just a political game and who ever wins, common people will continue losing.
War is always devastating.
I doubt the Ukraine/Russia situation is politics only. When so, Ukraine fighters would not give such high resistance.
In my book: Freedom is the most important. Sometimes one has to fight for it. If Ukraine would stop fighting, Russia will take over the entire country. We all know what freedom means in Russia. By law, one can (and likely will) go to prison for decades when voicing something that is not backed by Russian state-controlled news agencies. I donno what you are accustomed to in your country, but freedom of speech is something that is highly important for a prosperous society. Interestingly, I've seen a few different interviews with peeps in the Krim. Those living there and voted for Russia back in 2014, now saying: I wish I never done that. Since it's just a few handfuls of peeps in these docu's, I can't tell if this is a general sentiment, or careful moderated hence I don't make conclusions. However, knowing the work by these peeps creating these docu's, I give the content a high-quality mark.
This is not happening in your view? In my view, this is happening big time. It's for a reason why so many politicians are having almost daily calls with the leaders of both countries.
Euhm, do you have access to these? Are those that don't have access to these Telegram channels in Ukraine or also in your country? Interestingly, the founders/owners of Telegram had to leave Russia since otherwise, they would've ended up in jail. They didn't want to play ball with the state/KGB, sharing all information with them. It's for a reason why the servers of Telegram are not in Russia, but in Europe. Anyways, just an interesting observation.
The EU and EU member states started to ban unwanted Internet sites on a DNS level some years ago. At the start of the Ukraine war the EU imposed bans of Russian media not only on the DNS level, but also extended the bans on social media, messengers, search engines, cable tv providers etc.
The EU is also preparing legislation to break into encrypted messaging and was secretly working on a ban of Bitcoin.
New EU legislation targets unwanted content on social media (Digital Services Act) and if implemented would require Internet service providers to immediately and proactively filter and delete "illegal content, hate speech and disinformation", while allowing hate speech against Russians at the same time.
All these pushes to regulate and censor content on the Internet are highly problematic, inherently susceptible to power abuse and can be perceived as an attempt to take away freedom of speech and intimidate normal citizens.
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-03-09/card/eu-orders-removal-of-russian-state-owned-media-from-search-results-social-media-reshares-Nxb4WXbCaQnCUMmL9Mvk
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-facebook-instagram-temporarily-allow-calls-violence-against-russians-2022-03-10/
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/23/europe-looks-to-crack-open-data-encryption-on-messaging-services.html
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/eu-nearing-agreement-on-new-rules-forcing-big-tech-to-curb-illegal-content-hate-speech-and-disinformation/ar-AAWusCl?ocid=uxbndlbing
https://news.coinxhigh.com/2022/04/22/eu-officials-considered-bitcoin-trading-ban-to-enforce-proposed-mining-ban/
Thanks for these links. I'm aware of most of them.
Freedom is something that I value a whole lot! Freedom of Speech as well. Though I also value Respect a whole lot. These days, quite a few individuals seem to not value Respect at all, resulting in whatever we see around us. But not only that, the internet fuels the rise of sub-groups that endanger societies and democracy. Because of that, governments want to control. But not only for this reason, also they have the idea that many individuals in societies need to be protected to not fall victim: eg financial scams; misinformation or blunt out verifiable lies. The latter seems to have become the norm since mister Trump showed the world how often one can wave things away as a lie whilst showing proof of the opposite. And what do we see? Too many people keep on believing and following such individuals.
These are problems in our societies today. Somehow these need to be addressed. Personally, I don't believe in censorship providing the solution. Though I understand why a certain form of censorship is now being implemented. I don't condone it though, but I understand. Having said that, in my country, all views and opinions have a platform, even on national TV and radio, regardless of the censorship that happens on the internet. Even on the internet, in my country hardly anything is not accessible.
Agree, war is always devastating.
When I say politics, I mean game for politicians bcs they will go out unharmed physically, though, their egos will be somewhat broken. Ofc that it is also economy, actually, economy is at the first place...
Don.t think that R wants to take whole UA, just Donbas so it can have corridor to Crimea. Also, it would be tampon zone towards NATO countries.
Yes, we all know what is happening with freedom in R, but it was like that since...forever. But what is happening with freedom in Europe? Canceling entire country,its civilians, its artists, its history important persons, even its cats?!? Think you can agree that freedom of speech means that every side has a right to be heard and seen; Is there something in Europe that says different that western narrative? Are there Russian TV stations that are on cable so one can here both sides and decide what to believe? Is there freedom for R civilians to be able to buy things and walk free in western countries? Denying someone its own financial resources just because is "wrong" nationality is faaar form freedom.
Regarding the Crimea, just like UA, there are people who don.t want and who want to join with R. Only referendum can give answer to that Q.
Regarding negotiations, in psychology we have term double-bind communication. It means that with your words you give one msg and at the same time on nonverbal level you are giving opposite msg. So, which one you believe more? Words or behavior? Should I believe that US and EU really want negotiations while sending enormous amount of weapons? At some point, think yes, but after fulfilling their own agenda first. Let.s not be naive, US is gaining a lot of money from this war, unlike EU, which is actually in attempt of suicide.
Don.t remember details, was long time ago, but @vikisecrets for example can tell about censorship bcs in Serbia, so far, I can reach any IP.
We differ from 'opinion' regarding what the leader of R wants. In fact, the reality shows this guy wants more than Donbas. His generals say so themselves. His missiles show as well.
Cancelling R? Freedom? I think you put things in the wrong perspective. The western world didn't cancel R just because it wants to. As a matter of fact, the western world did a lot of business with R for a long long time. Allowed, many peeps from R to come and live in Europe (the rich and the poor). Enjoyed the R culture and whatnot. However, in times of 'war' things happens, including cutting off R for business. I predict, when peace is made in one or the other way, the western world will pick up with R more or less from where it left it before mister P decided to start a war (trying to cancel Ukraine, to use your own words). Basically what I'm saying is, please don't confuse wartime with normal times.