This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Zelensky to run for re-election? What elections are we talking about, 90% of the parties have been banned
Martial law in Ukraine was declared on 24 February 2022. On 15 March 2022 the Parliament deprived Opposition MP Illia Kyva of his mandate.[9]
On 20 March 2022, several political parties were suspended by the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine for the period of martial law:[10][11]
Opposition Platform — For Life
Derzhava
Left Opposition
Nashi
Opposition Bloc
Party of Shariy
Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine
Socialist Party of Ukraine
Socialists
Union of Left Forces
Volodymyr Saldo Bloc
The property of the party and all its branches were transferred to the state.[13] The decision was open to appeal at the Supreme Court of Ukraine within 20 days.[13] At the time Opposition Platform – For Life was one of two of the 20 March 2022 suspended parties that was subject to an attempt of getting banned in court, Opposition Platform – For Life was the only party to defend and participate in the case.[13] (The other party was the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine.[67]) On 15 September 2022 the final appeal against the party's ban was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Ukraine, meaning that the party was fully banned in Ukraine.[14]
Ukraine judiciary system is utterly broken and has become among other things, an active puppet of the U.S, see for example this fascinating video from Joe Biden, you'd believe it's too big and blatant to be true but no the man even brag about it, so potent!
https://youtube.com/watch?v=azLKK0xTOFI
Let's not forget "fuck EU" or the fact Biden personally said the night of the sponsored coup, to Yanukovich on the phone that it was over and he would get killed if he didn't flee to Russia.
Zelensky actively promoted the maintenance of the corruption by recently appointing a corrupt person at the top of the top anti-corruption organism of Ukraine.
IMHO It's hard to know what is the moral compass of Zelensky but he is at best utterly powerless.
Zelensky was elected for promising peace in the donbas but he quickly learnt the hardway that he was not the man in commands, it is the military that ruled and still rules Ukraine https://www.kyivpost.com/post/6652
https://youtube.com/watch?v=SIaTAnhgMT4
What kind of delusion is that? Even with the west support it will slow down but not at all reverse the attrition losses.
This will not favor Ukraine, whatever that means, Ukraine because of the extreme non-linearity of the effect of attrition losses on defense capabilities, should and will stay in a defensive position with a goal of 1) reducing hardware losses and 2) slowing down russia territorial expansion, in that order of priority.
Most of their tank/IFV/aircrafts/and anti-air (S300s) budget has been spent and we have no signal they have factories running making new hardware, IIRC the T80 factories are located in Kharkiv, too close to the front.
While russia also suffer from attrition, their existing reserves being considerably larger, they will obviously win this attritive war, unless the U.S sends tanks in the thousands at a minimum.
That's for the quantitative argument, as for the qualitative one, I have extensively debunked this ego-boosting myth in many of my past comments.
"The Opposition Bloc - For Life (OPZZh) was lead by Yuriy Boyko and had 25 members in the Verkhovna Rada. In order to comply with sanctions against Russia after the invasion, OPZZh had to dissolve itself and immediately reform as a new party with a different funding structure. The party is now called Platform for Life and Peace (PLP) and has the same members in the Verkhovna Rada as before, including Yuriy Boyko. The opposition politicians all still have their seats, nobody was banned."
https://old.reddit.com/r/NAFO/comments/101c3rw/how_to_respond_to_claims_that_zelensky_banned/
Yes that's a source with a clear anti-Russian bias, but you ban parties with funding from Russia but allow the same people in a formally different organization to have the same ideas, same structure, same leadership, same people in office, ext, and don't block then from running for office, you still can have free and fair elections, and the ideas and groups that were "banned" still get to participate in that election.
More options
Context Copy link
Only if you believe that 90% of the political parties in Ukraine were accused of being pro-Russian. Alas, this was not so, and other parties remain in place to fill their place and are interested in furthering their place in the 2024 election.
Ukrainian political parties are not static or slowly-changing alliances like in the United States or more established Western countries. Over the last decade they have functioned far more like east asian parliamentary parties, being alliances of various factions spear-headed by key influence leaders, aka oligarchs. The current 'Servant of the People' ruling party, which has 239 of the 450 seats, is not an institution like the Democratic Party, and it's not Zelensky's personal fiefdom either. It was a political alliance, the people of the alliance will, and continue to, politic for their advantage, and a way that they will engage in politics is through the maneuverings of elections, which will be used to break, shift, or reaffirm political alliances. Were it not for the war, I wouldn't have been surprised if it fractured into a dozen different parties- or gone through an incessant number of rebrandings, as most Ukraine parties have over the electoral cycles.
As stated, I believe the purges will affect pro-Russian parties (which many of your listed were associated with, accused or in fact), and that opposition will take the framework of an anti-Russian format that resists that labeling. For parties who made their pre-war reputation as being pro-Russian parties looking to improve or normalize relations with Russia, like the Opposition Platform - For Life, this was obviously a doomed sell when key members such as Rada representative Illia Kyva responded to the Russian invasion by... supporting the invasion. This was a political death sentence when the Russians were not, in fact, greeted as liberators.
But I am sure you are aware of it, just as you are aware you were citing the first month of Ukrainian politics after the invasion, and not the following ten.
Similarly, there's a reason why you're raising a scandal from before 2020. Which, yes, I would believe, because it was kind of a thing in the previous American presidential administration. Key word being, previous.
If you wanted to discuss more recent legal corruption dynamics in Ukraine, after all, you'd be hard pressed to raise one as more timely or relevant for the discussion as Zelensky shutting down the Kyiv District Court in December 2022 not even two months ago... a court that was notoriously corrupt, but whose closure could also, of course, be claimed to be an act of corruption.
That's an interesting claim, especially considering Yanukovich fled before he could be stripped of power by the legislature for supporting the live-firing on protestors, which is as antithetical to a coup as the meaningful definition of a coup can take it.
When your own personally appointed, Russian-educated, former communist functionary refuses to have the police shoot the protestors and sides with the elected parliament, you're facing many things but a coup is not one of them.
And...?
I make no claim that anti-corruption will be motivated by the goodness of the heart or by people of pure and innocent motive. I have a pretty established record of being suspicious of the sincerity of anti-corruption campaigns. It doesn't change that I expect counter-corruption campaigns to find corrupt people, while also purging the political system of pro-Russian interests and undermine anti-Zelensky coalitions.
The claim isn't really supported by either source, but okay.
Edit: And seems you edited in some elements since I loaded paged, or I just didn't see them.
I disagree, as the nature of attrition issues are different. Russian attrition has been diminishing it's most capable assets, to which resupply from stockpiles is bringing in less capable systems, while Ukrainian attrition has been diminishing it's least capable assets, to which resupply from western sources is bringing in more capable systems. Earlier in the war Russia had a qualitative and quantitative overmatch that was squandered in the initial offensive, but across last year the qualitiative edge has consistently dulled and quantitative advantages have decreased as well, even as the accessible Ukrainian equipment sets has expanded.
The dynamic I predict is that as the qualitative balance shifts against the Russians, their quantitative edge will give way to penetration capability by Ukrainian forces to commit specific breakthroughs, and then move in infantry with anti-armor systems more than capable of resisting counter-attacks by less capable Russian stocks.
And yet, last year's campaign season ended with two Ukrainian offenses, and progressive Russian withdrawals. 'And will' is disproven, while 'should' is the quibbling point.
The Russian lines have indeed stabilized since the mobilization, but the dynamic of shortages is changing. Last year, Russia had the kit, but not the manpower. This year, Russia has the manpower, but has already lost the operational precision munition capabilities and has been steadily losing the quality kit. How much quality kit will remain next year is a question, and the answer is what determines the ability of the Ukrainians to attack, and the political payoff for doing so.
And who's arguing on the strength of Ukrainian production?
This is why last year's increases in anti-air capability shipments, the new year's gift of tanks and IFVs, and the now-emerging discussions on aircraft is relevant. Ukraine's defensive capabilities don't derive from the Ukrainian budget- they derive from the NATO Cold War surplus, which has started opening up entirely new categories that were previously closed to them most of last year.
Thousands will be unnecessary, particularly since there's no need for Kursk 2.0. Russia can't supply all it's potential re-activated armor across the front, and Ukraine doesn't need to fight it.
What Ukrainian armor needs is the ability to penetrate Russian lines enough to compromise the artillery and allow exploitation forces to take strongpoints that infantry and precision munitions can use to defend against armor or mechanized counter-attack. Once breakthroughs are operationally possible, maneuver becomes the operational counter to artillery, and as Russian artillery precision degrades due to attrition or replacement by older and older systems, other forces become increasingly vulnerable in turn. There's a reason that the Russian advances since last april have been limited to the areas with overwhelming artillery concentration.
I'm sure you think so.
What happened in Ukraine is as if the January 6 protestors were much more numerous, armed, and violent; if the Capitol police decided to side with them instead of shooting Ashley Babbit; and if they successfully terrorized Congress into installing Trump while Biden fled.
When the democratically elected president is chased out of office by a violent mob of his political enemies, that is the central example of a coup.
Bar the being much more armed, much more violet, terrorizing Congress, or installing Trump-analog.
Only if you redefine a coup away from a "sudden, violent, and unlawful seizure of power from a government, often by the military" to a different space to cover "imminent legislature legal action against sudden, violent, and unlawful use of government power to kill citizens at foreign behest, which the military refused to participate in."
At the end of the day, it was the Ukrainian interior ministry that was deploying snipers even before they issued a decree to start shooting protestors in mass, and it wasn't the Rada that was supporting that escalation, but Russia. As far as own-goals, a pretty bad one by Putin in a series of own-goals, but that's what happens when you very publicly sanction the a country and play with aid-bribes to drive crackdown escalation.
We are citizens protesting. You are insurrectionists. They are rioting.
It's not up for debate whether the Maidan protesters were more armed and violent than the Capitol protesters. No one at the Capitol was throwing Molotov cocktails at police or throwing firebombs into the Capitol building.
For one, the 'more armed, more violent' is vis-a-vis the Ukrainian forces, not the Jan 6 protestors. For another, you seem to still be skipping over the context that the Maidan protestors were being shot at with live ammo.
The January 6 metaphor is bad in a number of ways.
The violence documented in the links I provided precedes the shooting and provides important context for why the "protesters" would be suppressed with live ammo.
And yet misses the most relevant factor of 'because Putin applied public and other forms of pressure, including monetary incentives, for Yanukovych to reverse policy and start shooting constituents of his new unity government.' The government formation of which was itself a framing context of your AP article.
Governments facing molotov cocktail protests do not, in fact, need to issue decrees without legislature support for the police to start shooting people they've been successfully holding off for months. And no, a Guardian article conflating support across 3 magnitudes (50,000 facebook members! Wow!), does not really drive that. The Ukrainian government of Yanukovych did not resort to lethal force decrees out of existential necessity, but as a policy choice, and government policies are always going to be prone to government review and sanction by other parts of the government in any system with meaningful separation of powers.
Yanukovych made a failed gamble that he could divide and conquer the opposition and drive them into infighting by inviting some into the government. When that failed- and this is the regular reminder that the leaded US embassy phone call from Euromaidan was a discussion of who and how to approach for inclusion to a stable government after Yanukovych's offer- Yanukovych then assented to Russian pressure (or, if you prefer, the pressure of his pro-Russian internal security minister, concurrent to Russian pressure including sanctions) to start shooting protestors.
At which point it became very quickly clear that 'shoot the protestors' was the minority position of the Ukrainian elite oligarchs. And one of the reasons oligarchies are oligarchies and not just emergent dictatorships, is precisely because oligarchic minorities don't get to unilaterally escalate state violence against others without consequence.
And the Jan 6 comparison remains bad, and even worse, for lacking these meaningful contexts.
This is even worse than your eliding over the violence that forced Yanukovich to flee. It's obvious to anyone who reads the transcript that the U.S. was telling their Ukrainian puppets who to install after the coup.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link