Ukraine-Russia War Take 2
Here is what the preliminary take on the Ukraine thread disappearing is:
The site was hit with a massive spam attack where hundreds of spam threads were created. In the case where, for example, I see a single spam thread and delete it, that is called a soft delete, and mods can still see them but forum members cannot. Those deletion can be undone.
When a massive attack hits with hundreds of threads, an admin uses a different procedure where the hundreds of spam threads are merged and then hard deleted, where the threads are gone, and no note is left behind. As I have mentioned with my own experience of just soft deleting a large number of posts, sometimes a post or thread gets checked or merged accidentally and is deleted by mistake. Dealing with hundreds of spam threads takes a sledgehammer, not a scalpel.
It appears that our Ukraine thread may have gotten caught up in that recent net of spam threads. If so, it is likely gone for good. I cant say this for sure, and am awaiting comments from admins on this issue. Yes, this sucks. And hopefully there was some other software glitch that caused the disappearance, and we may recover it in the future.
But in the meantime, I have created this new Ukraine-Russia War thread to enable the conversation to continue. Obviously continuity with earlier discussions will be lost. There is no way around that. So as best as possible, let's pick up the conversation with recent events and go from there.
If you have any questions about this, please post them in the mod thread, not here. Let's keep this thread going with posts about the war, not the disappearance of the old thread.
Thanks.
thank you for being an honest liberal. I have been saying for years that this is what liberals think and faced many bans for it.
There no more liberals and conservatives. It's the progressive movement ( far left) and Maga ( the far right.)
And sure, still a whole bunch of in between. But the political landscape has drastically changed in America. We don't ride horse buggies anymore. Time's change and political ideologies change.
Republicans of today are not the Republicans of a hundred years ago.
But ohh, I forgot. How would you know that, from Australia.
I disagree. For as many bans as there have been for outright bigotry and racism, Victor has been on the receiving end of bans simply for having the audacity to say “I think everyone else is wrong”- the greatest affront to the group thinkers.
I disagree. For as many bans as there have been for outright bigotry and racism, Victor has been on the receiving end of bans simply for having the audacity to say “I think everyone else is wrong”- the greatest affront to the group thinkers.
Victor spews more bigotry on this forum than pretty much every other poster combined, although the deuces guy is giving him run for his money. You just permit his bigotry is all.
I just skimmed his posts from the last day and came across this banger:
you just asked for a few people so I gave you some notable ones. it doesnt really matter bc, as that Knesset member said, and as much of the media says, Israelis should be allowed to sodomize Palestinians.
This post is tremendously bigoted, tremendously false and defamatory, and you have banned posters for much less. I could easily find hundreds of posts like this. Just compete bigoted, untrue and hateful.
People like Victor are what is wrong with this world, on every side. So much bigotry, dehumanization and hate. He gives Israelis no humanity at all. Not one inch. People like him are why things never get better. He actually mocks and belittles real peace activists that actually tried to make a difference and bridge the gap. What a horrible, horrible little man he is.
Just because you give Victor free reign to be bigoted isn't evidence he follows the rules and others dont. He just has a different set of rules.
I don't agree with much of your post, though I agree its fairly obvious Victor despises Israel
So yes, I do believe that men who neglect to report for duty are cowards and, according to Ukrainian martial law. Criminals.
How do you figure? I mean, they are willing to face the enforcement or of people shaming them. Maybe the real cowards are the ones who do what they are told all the time, giving in to threats, even when every corpuscle in their body is saying don't kill yourself in this meaningless stupidity. I certainly wouldn't volunteer to die in some horrific way because some U.S. state department bug who never had so much as a schoolyard scuffle thinks they are some geopolitical master of mankind and needs my body to play their little game of Risk.
People who go off to fight in wars so rich people can get richer...I'm not going to call them cowards but they are, without question, the weak. I would never call someone a coward for standing up to different people, the enemy within, and acting in their own self interest instead of being sacrificed to drain a few shells off Russia.
Christ you can't even get a count of how many Ukrainian soldiers have been killed. I'm gonna go die and you are going to pretend nothing happened because it messes up your propaganda? Not a chance. I'd never be taken alive. But if they somehow got me, the moment they gave me a weapon the commanding officers would regret it.
I don't agree with much of your post, though I agree its fairly obvious Victor despises Israel
He consistently makes blanket dehumanizing negative generalizations, most of which aren't even true. I dont know what your internal conception of bigotry is; but it seems like whatever it is this should fit within.
I
Unlike Russia, where deserters are often executed or imprisoned, Ukraine still has legal processes and recognizes individual rights.
Russia has passed a lot of laws to this effect as well, and they are not under martial law due to an invading force threatening their existence, they are the invading force and yet they impose even harsher sentences on people who try to avoid their illegal invasion.
obviously conscription for a war of aggression is even worse than for a defensive war, but the huge violation of human rights I was referring to on the Ukrainian side is the law that doesn't allow you to leave the country if male 18-50.
I dont disagree with your predictions. Trump is obviously trying to make Zelensky a scapegoat, while Putin has made no reasonable concessions to end the war AFAIK.
My argument is you are giving Trump and Vance way too much credit IMO. There is no way they go 45 minutes into a meeting they were planning to sabotage anyways. I dont think anyone would do that.
Even when initially greeting Zelensky Trump passed some smart arsed comment re his uniform them started banging on about how Zelensky hates Putin as if it were incomprehensible in a vacuum. Even before the meeting Trump accused Zelensky of being a dictator and lied about his standing in approval polls
Then by sheer coincidence had some right wing weirdos posing as journalists like that nutty Marjorie Taylor Green's boyfriend making yet more ceap jibes about suits. It was clearly set up to attack the visiting President of an allied sovereign nation and if it wasn't- which I don't believe for a minute- then at best, Trump and Vance came across as arrogant bullying a- holes.
Utterly disgraceful behaviour from a Potus and Vp.
How do you figure? I mean, they are willing to face the enforcement or of people shaming them. Maybe the real cowards are the ones who do what they are told all the time, giving in to threats, even when every corpuscle in their body is saying don't kill yourself in this meaningless stupidity. I certainly wouldn't volunteer to die in some horrific way because some U.S. state department bug who never had so much as a schoolyard scuffle thinks they are some geopolitical master of mankind and needs
I agree with you about not wanting to go fight. I feel lucky, and I think we all should, that I'm not living in a war torn country like Ukraine, and Russia, and faced with possibly having to go.
But that's not what I'm really talking about. Military conscription means every male of age has to report for military duty. This is not only the fact in Ukraine, bit in many countries. Take Israel for example. So it's not a choice, but a duty and obligation.
Edit: I don't know the specifics concerning Ukraine, but in most countries , once you served your military duty, the country keeps the option, if that's the correct way of putting it, to call you back into Service in cases of war.
I agree with you about not wanting to go fight. I feel lucky, and I think we all should, that I'm not living in a war torn country like Ukraine, and Russia, and faced with possibly having to go.
But that's not what I'm really talking about. Military conscription means every male of age has to report for military duty. This is not only the fact in Ukraine, bit in many countries. Take Israel for example. So it's not a choice, but a duty and obligation.
Edit: I don't know the specifics concerning Ukr
Take Israel for example: afaik, you can leave the country without it being a crime, even currently with an ongoing war. You cannot legally leave ukraine if you are a man aged 18 to 50 (or was it 60?)
Take Israel for example: afaik, you can leave the country without it being a crime, even currently with an ongoing war. You cannot legally leave ukraine if you are a man aged 18 to 50 (or was it 60?)
Italy, UK, and even USA had similar laws during WW1 and 2.
USA had it during the Vietnam war. Russia doesn't have it outright but in practice does right now.
This isn't the outlandish thing you are making it out to be. As far as your example: Israel is not the one risking existential threat in their war.
I disagree. For as many bans as there have been for outright bigotry and racism, Victor has been on the receiving end of bans simply for having the audacity to say “I think everyone else is wrong”- the greatest affront to the group thinkers.
Here is the original conversation for reference:
All draft dodgers are criminals and cowards. Their neighbors are in the front fighting and they're home walking their fogs.
Cowards should be executed. And their dogs left to die.
thank you for being an honest liberal. I have been saying for years that this is what liberals think and faced many bans for it.
I strongly disagree with your framing of the situation. Dismissing repeated, bad faith generalizations and inflammatory rhetoric as nothing more than "the audacity to say 'I think everyone else is wrong'" is a gross mischaracterization.
People are individuals, and constantly judging them in the worst possible way based on what one person says (often taken in bad faith) is not some heroic affront to groupthink; it is the very definition of groupthink. This is particularly true when the group in question is as absurdly broad as "anyone who thinks Zelenskyy or Obama is more moral than Putin" (which, to be clear, is the actual definition Victor uses with no exaggeration).
If someone were to claim that one member of a particular sex believed something horrible, therefore all members of that sex share that belief and are guilty by association, would you celebrate their "audacity to affront groupthink"? No, they would be banned for sexism and disruption (as I’ve seen happen before). If someone made the same argument about race, they would be banned for racism and disruption (again, as I’ve seen happen).
Yet when Victor and others engage in this exact type of rhetoric, declaring that "libs" (once again, literally anyone who thinks Obama or Zelenskyy is more moral than Putin, a group I suspect you fall into) believe the worst possible things based on a bad faith interpretation of one person's comments such as they hate brown people, love nazis, are nazis, like murdering babies, agree with genocide etc etc etc... it seems like you're choosing your language to make it sound like a brave stand against group think? The reality is that this kind of rhetoric is about dehumanizing broad groups of people, attributing to them the worst beliefs possible, and using those misrepresentations as justification to attack them.
Your policies do not protect free speech or challenge groupthink, they enable an environment where meaningful discussion is drowned out by constant disruption and bad faith attacks. Just look at the last few pages of this thread to see the results: so many valuable posters have left due to the constant barrage of this behavior that the space is rapidly devoling into far right Twitter.
Imagine if this site had been built on these same principles. What if every discussion about poker strategy was flooded with religious zealots shouting that poker is evil or claiming that online poker is rigged? Would the site have ever succeeded? The people who were banned or contained for pushing such disruption weren't heroes bravely challenging groupthink, they were actively working to shut down meaningful discussion.
As for my original response: I do now recall Victor taking heat for repeatedly accusing people of enjoying murdering babies. However, I don’t recall if he was actually banned for it, and I certainly don’t recall him being banned repeatedly for similar behavior, in fact I remember it repeatedly being excused.
But regarding the specific claim made in your post: that Victor was banned for simply saying "I think everyone else is wrong", I am 100% confident that this never happened. I don’t know which moderator is being accused of this, but I have no doubt that if you asked them directly, they would confirm it never did.
Italy, UK, and even USA had similar laws during WW1 and 2.
USA had it during the Vietnam war. Russia doesn't have it outright but in practice does right now.
This isn't the outlandish thing you are making it out to be. As far as your example: Israel is not the one risking existential threat in their war.
Are you serious? the USA during the vietnam war had a law forbidding all men 18 to 50 to leave the country?
If you were a 26y old in UK in 1940 you were FORBIDDEN TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY even if not drafted yet? wtf you talking about
USA had similar laws. No they were not outright banned, but there were laws in place to discourage people from leaving and they were very strict. Vietnam was not an existential threat for USA.
I disagree. For as many bans as there have been for outright bigotry and racism, Victor has been on the receiving end of bans simply for having the audacity to say “I think everyone else is wrong”- the greatest affront to the group thinkers.
Sorry but this is untrue. He gleefully and constantly compared Jews to Nazis, a known anti Semitic trope, and continued even after this was pointed out to him, until the mods made him stop. I think you're kinda biased in his favour due to having similar politics.
But engaging in known anti Semitic tropes is absolutely a form of bigotry.
And it's not just a case of disagreeing politically. He clearly supports Hamas and constantly stans for Putin and then bizarrely denies this, so his politics are pretty odious, which will naturally garner sharp responses.
Sorry but this is untrue. He gleefully and constantly compared Jews to Nazis, a known anti Semitic trope, and continued even after this was pointed out to him, until the mods made him stop. I think you're kinda biased in his favour due to having similar politics.
But engaging in known anti Semitic tropes is absolutely a form of bigotry.
And it's not just a case of disagreeing politically. He clearly supports Hamas and constantly stans for Putin and then bizarrely denies this, so his politics a
I don't think he stans for Putin, but his set of preferences "play well for Putin" which is a tad different.
He certainly hates the west more than he hates evil dictators in non-western countries though, and he actually believes putin is less evil than Biden/Harris
The ideology is extremely susceptible to Russian propaganda since all Russian propaganda boils down to USA is evil and the cause of everything wrong in the world. The preferred methods of attacking democracies, by abusing their liberties, is also shared between these two. It's why tankies end up being the same as authoritarians so often.
I don't think he stans for Putin, but his set of preferences "play well for Putin" which is a tad different.
He certainly hates the west more than he hates evil dictators in non-western countries though, and he actually believes putin is less evil than Biden/Harris
Putin's Russia aggressively invaded its neighbours, not just Ukraine. I never once saw Vic condemn Putin for this. I saw him condemn Ukraine plenty though. He also regurgitated Russian propaganda bot points such as Ukraine being a Nazi state, Zelensky being a cokehead etc
That's absolutely stanning for Putin to go with his Hamas stanning, via his red triangle former avatar and comparing a death cult to Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, yet another Nazi comparison.
Spewing Russian propaganda points is stanning for Putin.
Most Americans are only interested in international politics because to them it's like watching the Olympics on TV, which is why the "analysis" itf is so risibly poor.
Saying that millions of people across the world should die ("fight to the last man" indeed) so you can claim victory from your armchairs against your mortal enemy is itself Putinesque.
**** America (and Israel).
It's all most amusing
well put jal
H
I disagree. For as many bans as there have been for outright bigotry and racism, Victor has been on the receiving end of bans simply for having the audacity to say “I think everyone else is wrong”- the greatest affront to the group thinkers.
Victor is your pet and the preferential treatment you give him is obvious to all.
That is not why most Americans want to help Ukraine fight against Russia's unprovoked invasion. I've posted many of the reasons why already: forced deportations, kidnapping, brainwashing, sexual violence, mass executions, extrajudicial killings... you know the drill or if you don't then you've kept your eyes shut.
Calling anyone Putinesque while repeating two Russian narratives to dehumanize Ukrainians and downplay their plight is... just wow.
That guy proudly displays that he gets 100% of his information from Twitter, and from **** sources even for those standards (comedians and musicians). He keeps his eyes wide open, watching his carefully curated Twitter feed.
Most Americans are only interested in international politics because to them it's like watching the Olympics on TV, which is why the "analysis" itf is so risibly poor.
Saying that millions of people across the world should die ("fight to the last man" indeed) so you can claim victory from your armchairs against your mortal enemy is itself Putinesque.
**** America (and Israel).
This is pretty much your position with regard to the Palestinians. You constantly state the resistance is completely justified and Palestinians should fight to the last man and never make peace.
