You sound like someone who has an innate fear of war and of being controlled by the powers that be. Your responses imply no principles of your own. And if that is true, I think these are the type of people that Putin has easiest time controlling by spreading fear, dividing stereotype driven "news" and conspiracy theories. People who have no inner principles to guide them by and who therefore tend to not have opinions of their own and just a reactionary fear based opinions - these don't weight priorities and therefore are easy to manipulate. I for one want my country to respond to an aggressor trying to take away my most inherent right (to vote my consciousness) in clear and forceful manner OR PROVE to me that these accusations are false (instead of shouting FAKE NEWS in unison with russian propaganda machine). News is a fundamental tennet of our democracy and it is a sacrilege and treason to systematically undermine it. The best way to deal with dictators is from position of power and so far we have been extremely weak in terms of both internal political unity and external signals to friends and foe. And our commander in chief is an extremely volatile, cowardly and adores strongmen, which makes him easily manipulated entity. He will isolate America, which will weaken it long term, which will spur other nations into conflicts. Also, isolated America doesn't mean "no war" - we had to get involved in two world wars despite said isolation.
I'm not making light of Vladimir Putin -- I'm making light of the way he is uniquely covered in the US and UK press. Even during the World Cup, if you watched the coverage on CH4 or BBC you could hear how disappointed they were that nothing bad happened to spectators and everyone had a good time. I know it seems crazy to you, but outside the bubble, others speculate that maybe if the US stopped treating foreign powers as client states, and stopped intervening in their elections and building military bases near their borders when they don't like their leaders, or invading them when they can get away with it, they might find themselves worrying less about it happening to them, and also maybe have money for things like infrastructure and healthcare like normal countries. I'm only guilty of the crime of not being obsessed with one despot that's been the focus of a concerted effort by the establishment as the new boogeyman. I don't live in Russia and I'm not about to support a war with Russia because of what Russians do to Russians. No one peddling this narrative gives a **** about people in Russia anymore than they do about women in Iran. It is about building consensus for regime change, and that you aren't just buying, you are accusing anyone that doesn't support it with you (which would include the majority of the world) as a heretic for not supporting the status quo of the hegemony of a declining empire, even if that cost is a nuclear war.
I don't know what drives someone like Deji McGever to make the posts he has made here, but the part of your post that I bolded was very well said. Kudos.
I'm not afraid of war. I've experienced three. I've never met a government I liked, but there is only one I know of for certain that collects my phone metadata and monitors my internet activity -- and that's the one I live in and vote in. You are going to have to do a better job of distracting me from that before I am going to believe regime change on the other side of the world is a more important concern for my personal liberty. Your responses imply that you are uneducated and that's really not my problem. What you are describing, is in fact, a conspiracy theory. No one has control over the US news media other than the oligarchy that owns it. For those that are used to living in countries with a more open news media, it's very strange and alienating and chock full of commercials. If you are so concerned about the sanctity of your vote I recommend that you volunteer to work in the next national election. It will become very clear how difficult it would be to fix one. Like my sig implies, I have no more obligation to prove to you that your conspiracy theory is false any more than I have to prove to the JW knocking on my door that there isn't a hell. I am not the one making a claim. You and Rachel Maddow and Dick Cheney are.[/QUOTE] The best way to deal with dictators is not to overthrow democratically elected countries and put them in power and give them sweetheart arms deals. That is what our country does and why the rest of the world doesn't like us. I know it, you know it, and Rachel Maddow knows it, but we aren't paid $30K a day to change the subject like she is. So? What are you worried about? That he won't expand America's extralegal wars? I think you can rest easy, my friend. America is already in a long decline and he's hastening it, without a doubt, and his trade wars seem like a plan out of the 1970s, but the US has been the most conspicuous agent of armed conflict for the last 100 years. If he's interested in making peace with what you believe is the biggest geopolitical threat to the US, how is that threatening exactly? As Yitzhak Rabin famously said, "You don't make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies." If you truly believe Vladimir Putin is the devil incarnate, then that it would seem to be something you would reasonably want to support.
Hey, do you currently live in America? I'm not describing a conspiracy theory. Facebook "news" posts advertisements financed by Russians have caused Zuckenberg to go to congress and change policies. Putin does this sort of thing within Russia itself. His troll factory is a widely accepted fact. I suggest you buy an island if no government is good enough for ya...
I swear, every right winger in here would suck Putin's **** happily if it meant keeping Trump in power. They really don't care about democracy or freedom, what they really want is to get rid of brown people
The U.S. chose a side in the battle for Ukraine. I think they chose the correct side. It isn't just murder when the ruling authoritarian party is murdering those with opposing thoughts and ideas because they have opposing thoughts and ideas. The U.S. has done a whole list of horrible things. They don't generally interfere with people's votes. What Russia has done is different. I think our concessions and Russia halting its attacks on Western democracies can be simultaneous. The Russian attacks on our democracy came after we showed we were willing to make concessions. I don't think it's the same thing as the cold war because this isn't about vying for communism vs. capitalism in other nations all over the globe. It is about taking a stand against a brutal authoritarian govt. that has taken hostile actions against the United States.
Let's get this straight: Conservatives are now Putin lovers and believe Russian is being unfairly attacked by Democrats/Liberals. We are in the twilight zone. Just goes to show how tribal the right is.
So... trump considers the European Union a foe... and putin's russia a foe some of the time... I wonder how many past presidents would have ever said that. Heck, how many Americans? Of course, excluding trump/putin defenders, that is...
... lowering the bar, but he could have been more accurate calling it a "performance review meeting"...
Watching the World Cup Ceremony. Putin is a midget. Altuve's height......ok, MAYBE a half inch taller.
