• Durotar@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    His plane has crashed and he’s on the passenger list, but it’s not proven yet that he was on the plane. He’s the person, who faked his death in the past.

    • jungle@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Aren’t airplane “accidents” more of a traditional CIA method? Not saying it was them, but from Putin I would expect poison or window.

      Or maybe this is how Prigozhin decided to disappear. He may be on a beach in the Caribbean drinking a piña colada for all we know.

      It’s funny how nobody actually believes this was an accident.

  • HornyOnMain [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Hexbear and default lemmy libs coming together to laugh at prigozhin getting merced is so goddamn funny lmao.

    Literally the no more brother wars meme

    • aport@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      Default lemmy libs are happy the leader of a war-crimes-for-hire org is dead.

      Hexbear smoothbrains are happy that daddy Putin murdered a political rival.

      We are not the same.

          • HornyOnMain [she/her]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            All hexbear users are communists or anarchists of some kind and like we don’t like the west particularly much and users from the instance have been getting into a lot of arguments about politics with default lemmy users - but we also really dislike neoliberal anti-communist gangsters like Putin, and we fucking despise Nazis PMCs like Prigozhin so in this moment it’s a common enemy dying so both groups are happy

      • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Hexbear smoothbrains are happy that daddy Putin murdered a political rival.

        This nonsense is like screaming that Charles Dickens writes books about scifi robots in space. It just demonstrates that you’ve completely failed to do even the most basic level of effort to understand what the actual beliefs of anyone on Hexbear are. You just completely make up your own reality based on some cartoon you have in your head.

        Like seriously, go and talk to people first before stating such wrong things so matter of factly.

        • aport@programming.dev
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          Ok, thank you for the correction. My mistake was believing what others had said about hexbear rather than reading posts in the community myself.

          • spectre [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            Stop by the news megathread sometime and see/ask for yourself. You probably won’t agree with a lot of stuff (and even that’s partly cause there’s layers of irony caked onto the walls), but it’s not quite as bad as you think.

    • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      It’s as if leftists do not actually like Putin or any of the other ghouls on the Russian side, but are instead critical of NATO and willing to consider NATO opponents as rational actors instead of cartoon villains.

      • Colour_me_triggered@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Russia is a country run by cartoon villains. Can you not picture Shoigu sneaking up behind someone with a large round bomb that says ACME on it, only to discover that the fuse has been accidentally lit by a soldiers cigarette?

      • arc@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I think most people of the left or right can see the situation for what it is. However Russia is obviously crafting messages to appeal to those on the extremes. When you see people on the hard left screeching about Ukrainian Nazis or advancing absurd peace deals then they’ve been gotten at. When you see people from the hard right screeching about Ukrainian immigrants or the cost of the war vs America / Europe first then you know they’ve been gotten at.

        As for Prigozhin, I think most people, even Russians are glad that he is dead but for different reasons. Seems clear that Putin murdered him for his disloyalty but nobody in Ukraine is going to mourn his loss for the spent force that is Wagner.

        • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          most people of the left or right can see the situation for what it is

          I couldn’t disagree more. In this thread I have someone telling me Ukraine is currently pushing Russia back despite the front not moving appreciably for nearly a year now. It’s also common to hear Putin described as a mustache-twirling villain who just woke up one day and said “I will conquer the whole of Ukraine in three days,” a take similarly detached from reality.

        • Kieselguhr [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          advancing absurd peace deals then they’ve been gotten at.

          You do realize that in order to minimize (working class) casualties some kind of peace deal needs to be signed? And in order to sign a peace deal first there needs to be a ceasefire? The sooner the ceasefire starts, the better.

          Are you saying that western politicians torpedoing any kind of truce and/or peace deal is “Russian misinfo”?

          spoiler

          Russia and Ukraine may have agreed on a tentative deal to end the war in April [2022], according to a recent piece in Foreign Affairs.

          “Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement,” wrote Fiona Hill and Angela Stent. “Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.”

          The news highlights the impact of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s efforts to stop negotiations, as journalist Branko Marcetic noted on Twitter. The decision to scuttle the deal coincided with Johnson’s April visit to Kyiv, during which he reportedly urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to break off talks with Russia for two key reasons: Putin cannot be negotiated with, and the West isn’t ready for the war to end.

          The apparent revelation raises some key questions: Why did Western leaders want to stop Kyiv from signing a seemingly good deal with Moscow? Do they consider the conflict a proxy war with Russia? And, most importantly, what would it take to get back to a deal?

          JACQUES BAUD: * In fact, in my book I mention only Ukrainian sources, and Ukrainian sources said explicitly that Boris Johnson and the West basically prevented a peace agreement. So that’s not an invention from some Putin partisan here the West; that’s also what the Ukrainians felt. And you had a third occasion when that happened, that was in August, when you had this meeting between [Turkish president] Erdoğan and Zelenskyy in Lviv. And here again, Erdoğan offered his services to mediate some negotiation with the Russians, and just a few days after that Boris Johnson came unexpectedly in Kiev, and again, in a very famous press conference he said explicitly, ‘No negotiations with the Russians. We have to fight. There is no room for negotiation with the Russians.’

          the cost of the war

          Should we ignore the significant human and economic costs of the ongoing war and the support for the military-industrial complex? Why? Is this some kind of noble war against Sauron or what?

          • Project_Straylight@lemmy.villa-straylight.social
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            1 year ago

            Yeah no-one is against a peace deal at this point. Just against the one where you let they totalitarian agressor win. Anyone who knows anything about history knows you have to stop those kind of regimes at the earliest possible moment.

            • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              Russia has won, though. They have taken the separatist parts of Ukraine and cannot be removed. So the choices are:

              1. Keep grinding poor Ukranians into hamburger and go to the bargaining table later, with a weaker position; or
              2. Go to the bargaining table now and get the best deal you can.
              • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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                1 year ago

                Here’s the kicker: Assuming Russia is willing to negotiate a deal, would it honor that deal? It did, after all, guarantee security in exchange for Ukraine relinquishing its nuclear weapons, and it broke that commitment.

                Ukraine has very good reason to believe that Russia would only use a deal to stop the war as an opportunity to build its strength for another invasion, later. There’s strong evidence that it’s not the capture of separatist territories that is Putin’s goal, but the denial of Ukrainian as a distinct cultural identity, and to prevent it from aligning culturally with the West (even leaving aside the issue of NATO).

                If you think the enemy won’t honor a deal, and won’t stop its aggression long-term—and Ukranian leadership has said that that’s exactly what they believe loudly and often—what’s the incentive to negotiate for a ceasefire?

                • immuredanchorite [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  On your first point: Russia’s argument for why they have gone back on the security exchange for Ukraine’s nuclear disarmament is one of the very same arguments NATO uses when claiming that they never promised russia that they wouldn’t expand NATO east of Germany… The US either lies, and denies making the promise (they did) or they say that they promised the soviet union, which is not the same thing as Russia. Ukraine had a discontinuity in government in 2014: this is something they and the EU acknowledged officially during Ukraine’s application to join the EU… So idk if the government of Ukraine today is a distinct entity from the political formation in the immediate aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union, but that is what Ukraine and the EU have said as much.

                  Your first point in your second paragraph is something that could be said of Ukraine/NATO just as well. If anything, Ukraine has completely expended its reserve of weapons and now relies on a dwindling supply of old weapons from NATO… it may have just gone through a 3rd army in this last offensive… if anything a peace agreement would give NATO more time to arm Ukraine for another time when they decide to break the peace agreement… This isn’t based on speculation or a belief that Ukrainians are dishonest (unlike most speculation about Russia) because this is exactly what Angela Merkle said Minsk I & II were for: to use a peace deal to give NATO time to arm Ukraine for war… In order for peace to be achieved, both sides are going to have to accept some sort of good faith. If that can’t be done then more people will continue to have their lives thrown away.

              • They could not be removed from Afganistan either. Until they were.

                Ukraine can grind up Russian conscripts and free their country inch by inch if they have to.

                Meanwhile the rest of the world can help continuing to destroy the Russian economy as best as we can

                • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  The Soviets weren’t removed from Afghanistan any more than we were – they left because they lacked popular support and kept taking losses (because we were arming terrorists who would go on to do 9/11, but I’m sure that type of blowback won’t come from arming Ukranian neo-Nazis!). The parts of Ukraine Russia is occupying largely wanted to leave Ukraine before the war even started. It’s not the same scenario.

                  Even your best case scenario is “fight a bloody stalemate until one side runs out of troops,” which is incredibly destructive to Ukraine even if they win, and of course they won’t, because the smaller country that can’t just sit back behind extensive defenses isn’t going to win a bloody stalemate.

            • Kieselguhr [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              Yeah no-one is against a peace deal at this point

              Great, call a ceasefire now.

              Just against the one where you let they totalitarian agressor win. Anyone who knows anything about history knows you have to stop those kind of regimes at the earliest possible moment.

              So you are against a peace deal? You do know that the fabled ukrainian counteroffensive has failed completely? How many more regular ukrainians should die in hopeless counteroffensives?

              Btw it seems like you don’t know what totalitarian means. Actual academic historians tend to avoid this term since the seventies.

              • The Ukrainians are the ones who can decide if and when they want to surrender. They are gaining ground every day and have all the time they want to kill as many invaders as they want. Let’s see how many men, women and money Putin is prepared to waste before he eventually retreats, Afhganistan style

                • Kieselguhr [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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                  I’m sorry, are you the same person I’ve been talking to? Because it seems like you haven’t actually read anything I’ve written.

                  The Ukrainians are the ones who can decide if and when they want to surrender.

                  Western politicians actively sabotaged peace talks. Read previous comments for sources.

                  They are gaining ground every day

                  This has no basis in reality. Even overly optimistic western sources have admitted the failure of the spring counteroffensive.

                  have all the time they want

                  How can you be this wrong? They have limited manpower and more and more soldiers die every day. Every week spent warring is a huge burden on their economy.

                  I’m not gonna answer you again since you are completely out of touch with reality. Even prowar western journalists are more careful with their wording.

          • arc@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            You do realise that a peace deal / ceasefire which involves Ukraine giving up land, sovereignty or anything else is horseshit being pushed around by useful idiots? And who is feeding the far left with this crap? Russia because of course they are. And you only have to look at prior deals by Russia to see how believable any peace would be do. Or ask Yevgeny Prigozhin how deals work.

            • Kieselguhr [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              You do realise that a peace deal / ceasefire which involves Ukraine giving up land, sovereignty or anything else is horseshit being pushed around by useful idiots?

              The counteroffensive failed spectacularly, even western sources admit this.

              How many more people you want to send in the meat grinder?

              Here’s an idea: call a ceasefire and let the diplomats negotiate, and let’s see what happens. Let’s see what actual ukrainians want after a few months of negotiation. Maybe Boris Johnson should fuck off. At least people are not dying until then. Outlandish, I know.

              And who is feeding the far left with this crap?

              Now this is qanon level conspiracy theory. I am against war between capitalist nations in general. On one side you have an extremely corrupt oligarchic capitalist country, and on the other side you have an extremely corrupt oligarchic capitalist country.

              Since I live in a NATO country I criticise NATO more, since they are the ruling class above me and there’s enough criticism of Putin around here anyway.

              As far as deals go, US/Ukraine isn’t trustworthy either. The Minsk agreement was bullshit. What happened to nord stream btw?

      • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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        Ghouls can be rational actors without not being ghouls.

        If a ghoul’s fundamental values involve control, domination and power, doing everything they can in a bid to control a strip of land recently found to have plenty of energy natural resources would be a rational action from their point of view, even if it involves provoking immense suffering upon millions of people. You don’t get to say that US presidents’ actions can only be explained by the hubris of people and systems that want endless growth and control, but Putin’s actions cannot.

        If NATO has historically sucked, but countries surrounding the country led by that ghoul rationally feel the need to protect themselves, it’s logical they’ll want to join NATO.

        The question here is why you’re far more willing to accept the rationality of Putin than the rationality of his victims when they legitimately ask for NATO’s support to defend themselves, and instead attribute them the category of sheep easily manipulated by NATO rather than accepting their autonomy and sovereignity to make their own decisions.

      • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
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        It seems they also have a tendency to consider NATO as cartoons villains. Also, tankies are not the average lefties, they are at the extreme of the left.

        • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          “Cartoon villain” here means “a villain who is just intrinsically evil and does evil things as a result.” Contrast this with real people, who generally have material or ideological motivational for the actions they take.

          The left views NATO as evil not because it’s full of cartoon villains, but because it is an organization that consciously, due to material and ideological motivations, chooses to immiserate the global south for the benefit of its constituent countries’ ruling classes.

            • JamesConeZone [they/them]@hexbear.net
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              The last paragraph quotes fucking Ross Douthat, come on now

              Lots of terms need defining. “Illiberal” just means not capitalistic, which yeah that’s all leftists. What is authoritarian? Usually a definition that gets thrown around applies more to capitalist countries vs those listed.

              So it’s just a western communist that supports non Western communist projects? 🤔

            • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              It’s essentially cope for them not just supporting “nominally” socialist countries because their stance is one of anti-imperialism. Iran should have nukes.

              • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
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                Isn’t Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the Russo-Georgian war imperialism? I still don’t get them, except being blinded by their hate of USA’s war crimes, which I can understand, but it still seems like an irrational conclusion to become a tankie. They end up supporting or refusing to criticize regimes that generate similar war crimes.

                • Kieselguhr [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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                  the Russo-Georgian war imperialism

                  Wait, are you saying Saakashvili has done an imperialism? Because even western/EU reports have confirmed that Georgia started that war, not Russia.

                  They end up supporting or refusing to criticize regimes that generate similar war crimes.

                  “From 24 February 2022, which marked the start of the large-scale armed attack by the Russian Federation, to 30 July 2023, OHCHR recorded 26,015 civilian casualties in the country: 9,369 killed and 16,646 injured”

                  Almost 10 thousand civilians killed is horrible. But compare this to Iraq: it’s less than the first month of the war in Iraq, and no US politicians was tried for war crimes. Maybe you should ponder this factoid.

                  If you live in a NATO country maybe you should demand Blair and Bush to be tried for their war crimes. If you live in the west you should spend more energy of criticizing the ruling class above you.

                  “supporting or refusing to criticize” This is a made up leftist. Per definition there is no leftist that uncritically supports a right wing capitalist country.

                • captcha [any]@hexbear.net
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                  There’s a concept called “critical support”, which most “tankies” are practicing. You have criticism of a side but its the lesser evil so you support it despite your criticism. You won’t hear much of that criticism publicly though because that’s counterproductive.

                  Like if I want the US to recognize the DPRK as a sovereign state so we can at least begin discussing Korean reunification, why would I bother mentioning my criticism of Juche?

                • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  You’re in a thread with half a dozen comments like “wow libs and tankies are celebrating this?”, followed by a bunch of “tankies” explaining (again) that they do not actually like modern Russia.

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                  The general “tankie” position is that the people of Donbas, who mostly do not want to remain part of Ukraine, will not stop suffering attacks without Russia fighting Ukraine off. Russia does not seem interested in siphoning resources from or subjugating the people of Donbas, as they did not the people of Crimea, who merely became Russian citizens. This is very different from US carpetbombing for oil.

        • boredtortoise@lemm.ee
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          Nobody even knows what people who say that mean. By context it seems to imply moderate right wingers or some “enlightened centrists” which ironically will also join the choir of calling people that. Just trumpist lingo “woke/lib/commie/feminist bad”

      • demlet@lemmy.world
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        I dunno, this seems good for Putin to me. But I’m not an expert in geopolitics and war…

        • orclev@lemmy.world
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          Eh, it’s debatable. He had already shipped Wagner off to Belarus and folded the Wagner troops into the Belarus military, so Wagner was pretty effectively de-fanged at that point. The only thing Putin gained by this was sending a message to anyone else that decided to stand up to him, although if anyone still didn’t understand that Putin tends to assassinate people who displease him they haven’t been paying attention since like 1980 when Putin was still actually KGB. This is very on brand for Putin, although it is a bit novel to apparently go with airplane “crash” rather than his usual standbys of poisoning, “falling” out of windows, or tripping down flights of stairs/elevator shafts and landing on bullets.

          On the other hand, it does make Putin look scared and weak that he felt the need to assassinate someone who he had already effectively defeated, without needing to fire a shot at that. I still wonder how he pulled that off. He must have either had some seriously damning dirt on Prigozhin, or else made him one hell of a deal to get him to about face and march right out of Russia. Maybe Putin just straight up threatened to nuke him if he got any closer to Moscow and he decided not to try to call Putin’s bluff.

  • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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    Wait, am I reading this right that the plane was shot down by russian air defence? If this is backed up at all by anything like a russian source, then this will just further enforce option that russia can not be trusted to do anything it says and that putin is weak and threatened (both are true but I thought the kremlin would at least try to say/show otherwise).

    How does russia keep messing up this bad? I am constantly shocked and awed.

      • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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        Yeah, a pointless one that makes them look like predictable idiots. Most will not be unhappy at his death and those that would be are on russia’s side of this conflict. This (if it is what it looks like now) is like making a martyr just for assholes.

          • Elroy_Berdahl@feddit.uk
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            Putin is killing people and the purpose of the window assassinations is meant to be clearly not an accident. The whole point is to send a message, not to try and fool people.

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      I don’t understand the logic here. When the putsch occured and then ignomously fizzled out, I saw Putin as weak for letting Pringles walk out with a (relative) slap on the wrist. Taking Prigo out of the picture was overdue. Obviously, anyone would feel threatened by an semi-autonomous mercenary army, so removing its leadership and breaking it up is just a rational course of action that probably should have been done sooner from that POV

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        Putin absolutely couldn’t let Prigozhin walk, nobody could have. It’s not just about the semi-autonomous mercenary army, if a government lets someone get away with an attempted coup d’état they’d effectively encourage others to give it their best shot as well because there was no effective punishment. Assassination is, well, a very Russian approach to the issue, but every government on this planet would have taken some form of action.

        • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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          You are absolutely right. The US would have an armed coup leader strung up so fast. Maybe not assassination style, but there would most definitely be a quick trial and execution. If the US government couldn’t catch the person, I imagine that assassination would be on the table.

        • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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          It is the method used that has me baffled, if this happened as reported then they did not even try for any sort of plausible deniability.

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            I’m not really surprised. They got more and more open about their assassination attempts for years. They’re not meant to covertly get rid of enemies, they’re very public warnings to other dissidents. It’s rule by fear.

            • Yondoza@sh.itjust.works
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              Russian assassination are pretty clear. Anyone with half a brain can put the pieces together, but there is just enough plausible deniability that there cannot be direct retaliation legally or politically. It is a clear threat but just barely veiled enough to avoid legitimate retaliatory action via legal or international responses.

              • Do you think if Putin goes on the record during his next q&a saying “little Ehrmantrotsky here just got what he deserved lol” that there’s any chance the RU ‘legal’ system is coming after him?? Shit I don’t know how to post pics here yet but really

      • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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        If they took him out before the deal was made sure, this soon after just shows weakness and a lack of credibility. They did the equivalent to getting into a bar fight, talking it out instead and then in front of every one sucker punching the other guy.

        • Zrc [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          you know you don’t have to forcibly try to interpret every event as a sign of Russian weakness

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            They were losing a war to a bunch of tractors and their flagship was sunk by a country without a navy.

            It’s not Russian weakness, it’s Russian stupidity.

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              were? so you admit that Russia is winning?

              besides, this is not what this thread is about, go cope to someone who cares

              • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
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                No, they were losing to tractors, and Moskva was sunk without a navy.

                Now they’re getting real gear and training to play.

                The only thing Russia ever wins are Darwin awards. Fucking being proud of almost hurting a country a fraction of your size right next door, like the US being proud of conquering Ottawa.

                Say hi to those F-16s for me.

                • captcha [any]@hexbear.net
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                  Say hi to those F-16s for me

                  We’re literally dumping decades old hardware on them just so we can keep justify buying more F-35s.

                • Zrc [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                  Say hi to those F-16s for me

                  I’m sure they’ll be just as effective as the Leopards, the ghost of kieyiev will destroy the entire Russian army

                • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  Fucking being proud of almost hurting a country a fraction of your size right next door, like the US being proud of conquering Ottawa.

                  Look up the US attack on Grenada

          • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
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            Losing multiple cities to a tiny domestic invading force of mercenaries after completely losing control of said force due to lack of command discipline, and finally only being able to force them to disband by threatening the families of the mercenaries involved isn’t exactly a sign of strength, though, is it? It’s not exactly what we’d expect of a professional modern military.

            It would be like if Erik Prince took his Blackwater army and started marching on Washington, capturing towns along the way, and the US army was helpless to stop them until the American government threatened to hunt down and kill the family members of Blackwater mercenaries.

            That would be considered unusual, and not really a sign of political or military strength.

            • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              If Erik Prince marched Blackwater through some American cities and – instead of sending the U.S. military to start a hot war on its own soil – American leadership pressured Prince and Blackwater to go home, would you be calling the president weak for not turning Virginia into a battlefield?

              • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
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                I would think American leadership completely dysfunctional if they allowed that situation to occur. If they did not have enough command authority to trust that the US military wouldn’t confront Prince with immediate and overwhelming force when ordered, the US would be a laughingstock. The scenario is borderline unimaginable in a developed country with anything resembling a modern political infrastructure.

                Don’t get me wrong. I love Russia. I was originally trained as a Sovietologist, when that was still a thing you could be an -ologist of. I could talk for hours about strategic weapons systems and Russian prep for NBC warfare and what the politics in the Kremlin were like under the troika approach and why the fascistic tendencies of Putin in rejecting Russian political history in favor of personal enrichment and plundering the nation have irrevocably broken Russian politics.

                But that’s for another day. Putin responded the way dictators in developing nations do, not like someone who actually has command and control over their modern military forces. I mean, it’s a Russian tradition to threaten the families of people who publicly disagree with leadership. In the US, the forces brought to bear against Blackwater’s attempted putsch would have been so overwhelming that his own men would have arrested him. But as much as I hate Blackwater and think Prince should probably be in prison for war crimes, their cadre was recruited from a different class of people than Wagner.

                • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  the US military wouldn’t confront Prince with immediate and overwhelming force

                  You realize that’s the worst-case scenario of the incident we’re talking about, right? A sane leader would want to avoid starting a pitched battle in their backyard at all costs, and that’s entirely independent of speculation about control over the military.

                  The scenario is borderline unimaginable in a developed country with anything resembling a modern political infrastructure.

                  We had a half-assed putsch of our own not even three years ago.

    • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      then this will just further enforce option that russia can not be trusted to do anything it says and that putin is weak and threatened

      If they let him live, they’re weak. If they kill him, they’re weak.

      During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.

      parenti-hands

      • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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        The USSR is not the russian federation and the later is an oligarchy. Why do you think such cold war arguments (that over simplify) have some sort of play in this conflict?

        I also noticed you skated right on by the “can not be trusted” part of my quoted text.

        • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          Do you think I’m talking about the USSR, or about how American propaganda cultivates the mentality of “they are wrong no matter what they do”?

          • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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            Your entire argument was about the soviet union and its cold war relationship with the US. I have had it up to my nipples here on how fixated you all are on the US, I am not from the US, I don’t like the US, I am sick of somehow having to explain to people who apparently think the US is evil but simultaneously think the world revolves around it.

            WE GET IT YOU ARE AMERICAN AND YOU ARE DIFFERENT BUT LIKE MOST AMERICANS CAN NOT STAND WHEN SOMETHING IS NOT ABOUT YOU.

    • Hyperreality@kbin.social
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      If this is backed up at all by anything like a russian source

      The Guardian is reporting this:

      The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but Prigozhin’s longstanding feud with the military and the armed uprising he led in June would give ample motive to the Russian state for revenge. Media channels linked to Wagner quickly suggested that a Russian air defence missile had shot down the plane.

      https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/aug/23/russia-ukraine-war-live-updates-drones-downed-moscow#top-of-blog

      • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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        Yes, I am hoping we get more info from anyone else then Wagner group soon.

    • duderium [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      The capitol riot was a threat to our precious democracy! / prigozhin’s coup attempt shows how weak putler is!