Russia's Invasion of Ukraine (Official Thread)
- Thread starter newarkhiphop
- Start date
I guess if you always believe violence is the solution then you really are blind to the impact.
india pakistan is nowhere near this scale
an armistice with someone outside of your territory is objectively better than one where they're legit walking over your sovereignty
saying the ussr disintegrated due to nonviolent resistance is *massively* reductionist to the point of blatant disrespect to anyone reading
i don't even...
bruh its okay to say this shyt is stupid, and acknowledge that - yes - a government has a right to activating every power it has to defend its land and people. i don't even wholesale agree with ukraine top to bottom at all on how they handled things either.
you can overexplain and extrapolate historically all you want but when you start pulling at churchill to line up points regarding this particular event then you're way too deep trying to double down on something
you don't peacefully protest a straight up invasion man
"i understand this makes people uncomfortable" the uncomfortable one is you lol
an armistice with someone outside of your territory is objectively better than one where they're legit walking over your sovereignty
saying the ussr disintegrated due to nonviolent resistance is *massively* reductionist to the point of blatant disrespect to anyone reading
i don't even...
bruh its okay to say this shyt is stupid, and acknowledge that - yes - a government has a right to activating every power it has to defend its land and people. i don't even wholesale agree with ukraine top to bottom at all on how they handled things either.
you can overexplain and extrapolate historically all you want but when you start pulling at churchill to line up points regarding this particular event then you're way too deep trying to double down on something
you don't peacefully protest a straight up invasion man
"i understand this makes people uncomfortable" the uncomfortable one is you lol
you don't peacefully protest a straight up invasion man
"i understand this makes people uncomfortable" the uncomfortable one is you lol
Ignorant questions like this let me know that you've literally never engaged with nonviolence on a serious level at all. MLK Jr., Gandhi, and the rest were far more willing to die and far more resolute in their fight than the leaders of their violent opposition were. I can absolutely guarantee that I've put my life on the line on a regular basis for my beliefs to a greater degree than most people in this thread have.
Gandhi's quotes on this matter are worth remembering:
"My non-violence does not admit of running away from danger and leaving dear ones unprotected. Between violence and cowardly flight, I can only prefer violence to cowardice....non-violence is the summit of bravery."
"Non-violence cannot be taught to a person who fears to die and has no power of resistance."
"For I cannot in any case tolerate cowardice. Let no one say when I am gone that I taught the people to be cowards...I would far rather that you died bravely dealing a blow and receiving a blow than died in abject terror...fleeing from battle is cowardice and unworthy of a warrior...cowardice is worse than violence because cowards can never be non-violent."
I think many causes are worth dying for. I think no cause is worth killing for. And I don't think I should ever get to be the one who tells other people they have to die for my cause.
nah you straight up dodging the fact that people are getting maimed, raped, and killed for simply being around
Ignorant questions like this let me know that you've literally never engaged with nonviolence on a serious level at all. MLK Jr., Gandhi, and the rest were far more willing to die and far more resolute in their fight than the leaders of their violent opposition were. I can absolutely guarantee that I've put my life on the line on a regular basis for my beliefs to a greater degree than most people in this thread have.
Gandhi's quotes on this matter are worth remembering:
"My non-violence does not admit of running away from danger and leaving dear ones unprotected. Between violence and cowardly flight, I can only prefer violence to cowardice....non-violence is the summit of bravery."
"Non-violence cannot be taught to a person who fears to die and has no power of resistance."
"For I cannot in any case tolerate cowardice. Let no one say when I am gone that I taught the people to be cowards...I would far rather that you died bravely dealing a blow and receiving a blow than died in abject terror...fleeing from battle is cowardice and unworthy of a warrior...cowardice is worse than violence because cowards can never be non-violent."
I think many causes are worth dying for. I think no cause is worth killing for. And I don't think I should ever get to be the one who tells other people they have to die for my cause.
you don't get to choose when a war comes to your door. and again, i do *not* think that ukraine played their hand perfectly by any means. there's a time for ghandi and this aint it.
and ffs.... the only way you even get to the table to negotiate is to force that to happen by changing the fight. or you can just give up everything or die patiently.
finger wagging people defending their home is wild
Yo @Rhakim, if everyone in this thread was on an island, I'd be throwing coconuts at you from the beach and telling everyone to start building you a bamboo prison. Your desire for peace is admirable and does not go unrecognized but your tactics and metrics are off and it would be dangerous for these ideas to gain traction. What you are willing to sacrifice for what you consider peace is beyond what most people are; their freedom. It's really easy to sit back in the comfort of your own home and say "Why don't they just stop fighting and give up their nation?" and that's your prerogative. But I can't imagine it's easy to do nothing as your countrymen are raped, tortured, kidnaped and murdered. That's why they fight. Because it would be immoral not to.
Legit exasperated at the silliness.. Had to take a break from the thread to recalibrate
You just discovering I'm not on MLK's level and I don't have Gandhi's swag?
Guilty as charged.
You just discovering I'm not on MLK's level and I don't have Gandhi's swag?
Guilty as charged.
I wish Zelensky was more like the Ghandi in the Civilization games and had nukes rn
there is zero chance ukraine gets kherson back through peaceful protest. like.... the fukk
how am i supposed to tell a guy fighting to prevent his family from getting deported to 'reeducation' camps on the other side of a russian offensive that he's wrong?
and if you want to argue the strategic picture, ukraine fighting is objectively better than all of NATO forming up like voltron to send shyt to 11 right from the jump too. humanitarian? sponsorships for refugee families ( no
i swear ), bring awareness to the food and energy crises that are in the air, etc.there's plenty on the table outside of the cheerleading if the actual, necessary and non-opt out fighting, stuff is not for you.
shyt, the vast majority of what i did in the military was disaster relief. fighting sucks - but when you aren't given a choice you might as well win and as quickly as possible.
I was asked for an example with three conditions on it and I provided one that fit all the conditions immediately as well as matching the Ukraine situation in several other unique ways, now you're going to move the goalposts so that a war between two major militaries and nuclear powers that involved thousands of casualties "doesn't count"? How many more conditions do you want to add?
The Indians sure as hell didn't think it was outside their territory. If you can't see a rough equivalence between the status of Kashmir and the status of Crimea then what's the point of even asking for an example?
I said it was a large factor. The Pan-European demonstration on August 1989 that demonstrated the collapse of the Iron Curtain between Austria and Hungary, the fall of the Berlin Wall which precipitated the fall of East Germany, the Velvet Revolution that freed Czechoslovakia from the Eastern Bloc, the demonstrations and protests that ended Communist Rule in Bulgaria, and the Solidarity Movement that freed Poland from the Eastern Bloc were all massive nonviolent movements that played a huge role in precipitating the end of the Soviet Union. Then when Yanayev and the rest staged a coup to preserve the USSR before Gorbachev could dissolve it, massive nonviolent resistance across the USSR brought down the coup and directly led to the final end of the Soviet state.
Revolutions of 1989 - Wikipedia
Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution (1989) | ICNC
Summary of the political history, nonviolent strategic actions, and ensuing events of Czechoslovakia's 1989 Velvet Revolution.
www.nonviolent-conflict.org
Poland’s Solidarity Movement (1980-1989) | ICNC
Summary of the political history, nonviolent strategic actions, and ensuing events of Poland's Solidarity Movement from 1980-89.
www.nonviolent-conflict.org
Who is arguing about "rights"? Where does a government get these "rights" from? What you call a right is nothing more than an international norm. Does "every power it has" include committing war crimes, attacks against civilians, the mistreatment of POWs, etc., or are there some limits to "every power it has"....again based on those international norms?
I try to argue for the best way forward. Claiming what a country has a "right" to do or not to do is a useless argument. I think Ukraine's argument for defending itself is a million times more valid than Russia's right to invade it, but if a peace option comes onto the table then the "right" of Ukraine's power holders to ignore it doesn't mean it's not the best path forward.
Lithuania literally publishes manuals for its citizens on how to use civil resistance to repel Russian invasion:
I'm interested for both of you - what is your entire lifetime engagement with nonviolent resistance that allows you to make such a confident declaration?
Have you ever been involved in any nonviolent resistance of serious scale, or do you closely know anyone who has? Do either of you have a degree in the field? Have you even taken a single course, or read a single book on the subject? Have you ever carefully studied the history of nonviolent movements to understand under what conditions they have and haven't succeeded?
This, again, perfectly demonstrates what I was talking about with the propaganda. Your previous responses have suggested that you know virtually nothing about this - it's not your field, it's not something you've ever studied, it's not something you've ever even taken a serious interest in. And yet, completely uninformed, you believe that you know exactly how and when and where it works, and don't actually need to get informed....because your entire ultra-militaristic society has told you for your entire life that violence is the only final solution worth considering.
@Rhakim, imagine someone breaks into your home, continuously claims it's his now, physically assaults your family and starts a fire. You are able to somehow force him back into your living room so now he's saying that just the living room is his and you should stop fighting him for it.
Do you even fight him when he first enters your house? Would you address the initial invasion with non-violence? Where exactly do you think that ends up?
Let us play it out.
Feb. 22, Russia invades and no military resistance is offered. Kyiv is taken, Zelenskyy would be in prison or dead and many more Buchas (those civies you keep bringing up). Do I got it about right? What part of this sounds appealing to you?
Do you even fight him when he first enters your house? Would you address the initial invasion with non-violence? Where exactly do you think that ends up?
Let us play it out.
Feb. 22, Russia invades and no military resistance is offered. Kyiv is taken, Zelenskyy would be in prison or dead and many more Buchas (those civies you keep bringing up). Do I got it about right? What part of this sounds appealing to you?