Kansas Crimson

ousdahl wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 12:25 pm

twocoach wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 11:51 am

ousdahl wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 11:04 am Cato institute lulz

https://www.cato.org/commentary/whitewa ... corruption

https://www.cato.org/commentary/news-me ... rows-worse

I haven't really seen anyone specifically trying to craft Ukraine as some sort of model of democracy and freedom. Maybe I don't pay enough attention but it seems that they are just being portrayed as a country who wants to retain their independence and whose people don't want to be bombed, shot, attacked, raped and pillaged by Russians.

yea. Since you said it first, maybe you don't pay enough attention.

Cuuuuz...know how I know you didn't even read the link?

President Biden, in his March 26 remarks on the war, said the conflict was “a battle between democracy and autocracy, between liberty and repression, between a rules‐​based order and one governed by brute force.”

CNN’s John Blake literally compared Ukraine’s cause to America’s in its Revolutionary War. He claimed Ukrainians “are building their own monuments to democracy, with their blood.” The world, he said, “has been transfixed by their battle to repel the mighty Russian army and preserve the birth of democracy in their homeland.” He added that “the war in Ukraine isn’t just a geopolitical struggle—it’s a call to remember. The courage of the Ukrainian people is a reminder of what the U.S. used to be—a ‘beacon of liberty,’ where virtually every schoolchild memorized the ‘Concord Hymn’ poem inscribed at the base of the Minute Man statue.”

In a March 26 USA Today op‐​ed, John M. Bridgeland, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under President George W. Bush, similarly expressed fawning admiration for Zelensky and Ukraine’s alleged commitment to democracy. “The world is seeing the bravery of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian people, who are willing to die to defend their democracy and freedom,” he wrote. Indeed, Bridgeland said, “No cost is too high [for Ukrainians] to defend their democracy and beloved Ukraine.”

Fox News contributor and former CIA station chief Dan Hoffman contended that “What scares Vladimir Putin at the heart of this conflict is democracy. It’s not that NATO represents a threat.” He added that “Putin couldn’t stomach a democracy on his border with a Russian‐​speaking population and commercial links to Europe. That’s why he launched this brutal attack which has caused so many Ukrainian civilians, innocent civilians, to die.”

Cascadia wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 12:46 pm This thread definitely had a “USA is defending freedom and democracy“ vibe for quite a while.

ousdahl wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 4:06 pm how much of that "unique dislike" of Russia is at least in some part a product of decades of Cold War propaganda?

the Qusdahl pages can be all tin foil hatty about how much the west freaks out about communism...after WW2, we ride a less a wave of nazi scare, and more a wave of red scare, and McCarthyism, and all sorts of anti-Russia everything, even though Russia was just previously our pals who helped to defeat the nazis? But as for the nazis, well, we just kinda forgave them then gave them jobs at NATO.

and how the sentiment still seems to permeate today, with the whole nazi presence in Ukraine, and the way it's downplayed in favor of all these oversimplified good vs. evil anti-Russia narratives

but that's not to say Russia wasn't and isn't a bunch of shitheads either way. Especially Putin!

jhawks99 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 4:27 pm Oussie, really, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
Putin has expressed a desire to expand Russia to it's former boarders.
Ukraine isn't full of choirboys.
One is way worse than the other and the former needs to be stopped before they start steamrolling over Eastern Europe.

And the Cold War was way more than propaganda.

DrPepper wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 12:34 pm Yesterday I had coffee with a colleague I hadn't seen in over a year. I knew her parents were in Russia and I had met them when they came to visit (before Covid). It was hard to hold back tears as she told me that her father is Ukrainian. I didn't know that.
She gave me a painting for my new office. Painting is what she does to try to console herself.
I hate war.

twocoach wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 12:26 pm

ousdahl wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 4:06 pm how much of that "unique dislike" of Russia is at least in some part a product of decades of Cold War propaganda?

the Qusdahl pages can be all tin foil hatty about how much the west freaks out about communism...after WW2, we ride a less a wave of nazi scare, and more a wave of red scare, and McCarthyism, and all sorts of anti-Russia everything, even though Russia was just previously our pals who helped to defeat the nazis? But as for the nazis, well, we just kinda forgave them then gave them jobs at NATO.

and how the sentiment still seems to permeate today, with the whole nazi presence in Ukraine, and the way it's downplayed in favor of all these oversimplified good vs. evil anti-Russia narratives

but that's not to say Russia wasn't and isn't a bunch of shitheads either way. Especially Putin!

None of it. I have had a number of personal interactions with Russian athletes and their sporting federation through my time in amateur sports and I have very little to say about them that is good. They were by nature cheats who looked down on anyone who followed the rules as "idiots" so it is no wonder that Trump has such admiration for them.

And I have no interest in continuing this silly discussion about the "downplaying of nazi presence in Ukraine" because it is irrelevant to my feelings about whether or not we should be sending support in the form of money and munitions to Ukraine to help them fend off Russian invaders. If you think that this invasion has anything to do with nazis then you're doing the propaganda work of the Russians. There is some sort of anti-Semitic "nazi" presence in virtually every nation in the world, including ours. It is irrelevant to the problem.

DrPepper wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 12:34 pm
I hate war.

ousdahl wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 12:37 pm

twocoach wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 12:26 pm

ousdahl wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 4:06 pm how much of that "unique dislike" of Russia is at least in some part a product of decades of Cold War propaganda?

the Qusdahl pages can be all tin foil hatty about how much the west freaks out about communism...after WW2, we ride a less a wave of nazi scare, and more a wave of red scare, and McCarthyism, and all sorts of anti-Russia everything, even though Russia was just previously our pals who helped to defeat the nazis? But as for the nazis, well, we just kinda forgave them then gave them jobs at NATO.

and how the sentiment still seems to permeate today, with the whole nazi presence in Ukraine, and the way it's downplayed in favor of all these oversimplified good vs. evil anti-Russia narratives

but that's not to say Russia wasn't and isn't a bunch of shitheads either way. Especially Putin!

None of it. I have had a number of personal interactions with Russian athletes and their sporting federation through my time in amateur sports and I have very little to say about them that is good. They were by nature cheats who looked down on anyone who followed the rules as "idiots" so it is no wonder that Trump has such admiration for them.

And I have no interest in continuing this silly discussion about the "downplaying of nazi presence in Ukraine" because it is irrelevant to my feelings about whether or not we should be sending support in the form of money and munitions to Ukraine to help them fend off Russian invaders. If you think that this invasion has anything to do with nazis then you're doing the propaganda work of the Russians. There is some sort of anti-Semitic "nazi" presence in virtually every nation in the world, including ours. It is irrelevant to the problem.

ousdahl wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 12:44 pm and, HOW ARE YOU NOT ALARMED BY NAZIS

ousdahl wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 1:01 pm yeah, unfortunately, they do. But that doesn't mean we should normalize them, right?

(And?)

And it certainly doesn't mean we should arm them!

that's the thing - do "people with those thoughts and feelings who exist in every corner of the earth" also get blindly thrown weapons paid for by you and me? Or is that unique to Ukraine?

Where have you been? Is this all new to you?