Or maybe fascists are just transphobic bigots who want to torture and kill trans people because, well, they're fascists, it's what they do?
You need to understand the far right doesn't give a damn about economic issues. Not one crap. (Because most far-right supporters are middle-class or higher, for the record!) They want power for one reason, and one reason only: to lord it over the minorities they consider their inferiors, if not outright killing them.
This isn't a "distraction", it's the fucking goal.
Why not both? Far right movements, at least as far back as the transition of the Tories into the conservative party in the early 1800s, have been lead by the interests of the ultra rich. Far right “philosophy” has always been to their service, whether its regressive “economics” of Malthus or the complete fiction of scientific racism. Almost definitionally, there isn’t a far right movement without a ruling class that it supports and is supported by; that’s what they are trying to “conserve”.
Part of this is having a permanent underclass. Or more than one. Just as the “middle class” is under the ruling class, the under class must be beneath them. This is part of the conservative mindset, which again is created and nurtured by the ruling class for this purpose. The difference between garden variety conservatives and fascists, in this regard, is simply that fascists want the elimination of the permanent underclass.
Fair enough. I just get pissed when people like OP suggest bigotry only exists because Economically Anxious^TM people are being manipulated by The Elites^TM. Anyone who's interacted with well-off people for longer than a few minutes knows being economically secure doesn't magically make you not a bigot anymore.
And I hate the implication bigotry is somehow "less important" an issue than economic inequality. Especially since the two are so intimately intertwined, especially in the US, it's impossible to make progress tackling one without tackling the other.
I’m not LGBT or anything so I do have a bias, this is mostly something I observed from my time with the upper-middle class. Up until maybe 2014, while these people were far from saints, they seemed to be far more passive about social issues beyond the economics. Then the misinformation age hit and their opinions went from ‘I don’t want to pay the medical expenses of the poor’ to ‘I don’t want to pay for someone’s gender reassignment surgery’. The bigotry seemed to be at the forefront once the billionaire controlled media told them it should be. While yes I’m sure there’s a lot of pure bigotry, I’d expect there to be less if billionaires weren’t around to sway.
This is just a chicken and egg situation on the cause so sorry if I was underplaying the bigotry aspect.
I guarantee these people were absolutely as shitty about LGBTQ+ issues before 2015, they just talked about them less frequenly around you since they didn't have to think about gay people too often. But I guarantee they were just as horrible towards gay people back then-- if not moreso, since they thought they could get away with the toxicity since no one cared-- as they are today.
Source: was woman with a ton of LGBTQ+ friends before 2014. Bigotry hasn't gotten any worse since then, just louder. (And the good news is the reason the bigots have gotten louder is because more normies are becoming tolerant or accepting of LGBTQ+ people, causing the remaining bigots to realize they're losing control of society and flip the hell out!)
Yeah but the US only nuked itself for understandable reasons, like to find out things about their new bomb designs or to study the effects of the explosion/radiation. When it came to just demonstrate power and wave their nuclear dick, they only wanted to bomb the moon.
Not a problem, they are needed on the front instead. Why educate and train a researcher when infantry only requires 3 days of training and a shared rifle in the army.
It was always hard and expensive to leave Russia for a first world country, and right now most of those countries are making it even harder and even more expensive than before.
For example Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, (most of which share a border with Russia) banned Russians from entering the countries outright, regardless of purpose, greatly limiting options for leaving Russia via land.
Other countries introduces other restrictions, like directing anyone wishing to get a visa to their embassies in Moscow exclusively. Which is a bit of a problem, considering the size of the country.
Oh, an of course there are inherent restrictions due to the visa facilitation agreement being suspended.
The article above makes it pretty clear Russia is interested in preventing international cooperation. So I wouldn't expect things like joined research endeavors or exchange programs to be common, if allowed to happen at all.
So, how does any of that facilitate brain drain, exactly?
You do realize that crossing a border is illegal, even if there's no wall, right?
First: leaving Russia without a permit is illegal and punishable by fines and/or prison.
Second: Entering any country without a permit is illegal and will get you deported and banned from entering it ever again.
Merely being Russian does not grant anyone asylum rights. Poland and the Baltic states, for example, won't consider any asylum requests, even from persons who are being conscripted. At most, the process can be slowed down with appeals to last a year or more, but it will, almost certainly, end up in deportation back to Russia, followed by Russia prosecuting the deflectors.
Even North Koreans get deported back to NK, despite the fact that the country is considered to be hellhole by pretty much everyone, everywhere.
Maybe instead it’d be better to make the process legal and easier from the outer side so more russians leave and 1) dont get drafted and 2) dont pay taxes to russia?
It's not hard to get from Russia to any other country, assuming you have enough money. The current sanctions aren't, exactly, stopping Russian oligarchs from having vacations in Europe, for example. Or sending their kids off to colleges there. So, if Russia wanted to send "spies or terrorists". it absolutely would.
And how do you think spying works, exactly? Real life isn't Team Fortress 2, you don't just "get behind the enemy lines", put on a uniform and march into the middle of a military base to pick up some magical briefcase of intel.
Nobody, anywhere, would hire an immigrant to do any sensitive government work. It's easier to find sympathizers among the native citizens of any given country that are already in positions that grant them access to intel. Which is exactly how it's usually done. Same goes for terrorists.
Either become a criminal by deflecting and crossing the border illegally, only to face constant fear of being caught, deported and prosecuted for deflection, illegal border crossing, and treason... Which is basically, a life sentence.
Or become a criminal in the eyes of the civilized world by participating in an attack on a sovereign country. Which, honestly, will most likely result in death.
So, basically: being a Russian, who can't afford to leave the country via the convoluted and expensive ways that are still available, is a crime. Got it! Nice!
Yeah. Yet, meanwhile, a lot of people are talking about some mystical "brain drain". That's not "brain drain", that's a world-sponsored Iron Curtain 2.0. Literally the opposite of that.
No, it really is a brain drain. More so than the “usual” brain drain from poor to rich countries due to the additional stuff in Russia. Unless they close down like north Korea there is no way to stop that.
LGBT laws and talks are pulled out by the right/far-right when there are shitstorms incoming. It’s literally a giant “Press in case of emergency” button, alongside immigration, etc
The Hungarian anti-LGBT law was made in response of financial troubles, labor safety issues, dismantling of the public education and healthcare system, record corruption, the Kaleta case (in which a Hungarian diplomat only received a pitiful fine for CSEM possession, while being in Peru), and the real threats children face from the low age of consent of 14.
This is completely false, going after trans people was literally one of the first thing the Nazis did.
LGBTQ+ people aren't a "distraction" from "more important issues", they are real human beings with real lives who fascists love to fuck with for no other reason than they're bullies.
Dude, LGBT isn’t just “trans people”. nobody is arguing that LGBT ppl aren’t human beings with feelings, but they are easy scapegoats (alongside immigrants etc) to distract people from real problems… unless you consider LGBT people or immigrants or whatever to be problems at all, which are not hence the “distraction”; I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin personally didn’t give a fuck about lgbt people
Nazi germany is a very poor example for your point since Jews, LGBT etc were easy scapegoats for the terrible situations they were in after WW1. You don’t even have to go that far either, look at US, Italy etc that have gone (far-)right and the discussion is always about immigration, LGBT people and other stuff that makes no sense and is either a very small problem or not a problem at all
tldr: governments use easy answer to redirect people’s anger towards made-up problems, so that they don’t really think how fucked they are
Agreed completely. How is it possible people still don't realize that with fascists, the cruelty is the point? Torturing minorities isn't a distraction, it's the goal.
I'm saying it's among the biggest issues! A fascist regime going after one of the most vulnerable classes of citizens, how is that anything other than a colossal issue?
Not only that, but we teach them to children from infancy ("he's only mean to you because he likes you!").
It's quite disturbing how pervasive, and harmful, these ideas are, throughout all patriarchal societies.
I read through the mentioned study that is quoted in the article as the source for that number with a translator, but I cannot find anything relating to the number. On the contrary, the mentioned rates of abuse seem to be way lower.
In general, 24% of respondents are aware of the use of physical force (beatings, blows) in families among their environment, including their own. Every fourteenth resident of Russia (7%) witnessed domestic assault in the parental family, and every twentieth (5%) practices or is the object of violence in their own. Given the sensitivity of the topic of violence for the interview format, we can assume that this share in both cases may be higher.
At the end it talks about which acts are generally considered domestic violence by married people, but it does not even talk about the rate of abused married woman in particular.
Maybe someone who can read russian can find something here that I cannot? But as of now I see no source for the claim.
Edit: Just to be clear: I am not supporting Russia’s War. I am merely pointing out that the source for the claim does not actually support the claim.
I read the study in Russian (but I did not read the article referenced in the post).
The only number I found there is that to the question “sometimes conflicts in a family cause physical violence” 4% of women answered that this happened in their family and 21% of women said that this happened in their environment.
The study also analyses what people consider as a domestic violence as such, for example many consider “requirement to show SMS/social chat” as a violence - so this term could be wider than one thinks.
I once tried eyeballing -- no serious statistical analysis -- national total fertility rates for a number of countries and then looking up when abortion became legal. I didn't see an obvious drop anywhere around legalization.
Legalized oral contraception did have a visible difference, though.
I'm not sure that re-banning abortion is actually gonna have much impact on fertility rates, though I'd be interested to see whether someone running an actual statistical analysis turns up anything.
A complicating factor might be enforcement level -- like, some countries might have had abortion be illegal at some point in time but also not enforced laws on it much. I did not attempt to account for that. Also might be a spillover effect from nearby countries with legalized abortion; people might just have traveled and gotten an abortion outside of their home region.
Cis people: doing whatever they want including things that could be considered inmoral
Government: that's completely normal
Trans people: exist
Government: wait that's illegal
To live and die in misery, because some assholes on top have an alcoholic, inferiority-complex grudge against a myriad demons in their own narrow miserable minds, which they project out at everyone and everything, including their own.
The only thing russians seem to hate more than their own lives, are the lives of others.
"[…] a huge step backward for Russia, where victims of domestic violence already face enormous obstacles to getting help or justice,” said Yulia Gorbunova, Russia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The domestic violence bill would reduce penalties for abusers and put victims’ lives at even greater risk.”
In Russia, police fail to respond to domestic violence complaints or refuse to act on them with frightening regularity. Russian media often report on deaths from domestic violence that could have been prevented.
The weak police response is part of Russian authorities’ systemic failure to properly address domestic violence.
Even people facing severe physical abuse do not get adequate protection and assistance. Cases can be prosecuted under various legal provisions but Russia has no specific law on domestic violence. Russian legislation does not contain a stand-alone offense, or even a definition, for domestic violence, nor does it allow for protection orders to ensure immediate and life-saving help.
Police in the Russian city of St. Petersburg have detained and reportedly sent back a woman who had fled her native North Caucasus region of Chechnya because of fears for her safety, the SK SOS human rights group said on August 24, adding that Seda Suleimanova may face an “honor killing” upon her return.
You’re right, Donetsk and Luhansk doing what it took to protect their citizens from genocidal Galician fascists by inviting Russia into the civil war was exactly the correct course of action.
It’s such an interesting way of phrasing it, right? As though Russia is incapable of defending itself, only attacking others. As though the security needs of a large state with massive porous borders are the same as a small state. As though the only things that can be considered aggression are the one day in 2022 and the entire 8 years before it cannot be considered aggression, nor can the entire 30 years before that be considered aggression.
It amazes me that you can use the word nuance in one sentence and then immediately formulate a sentence that amounts to “History started at 2022 when Russia launched an unprovoked hot conflict for reasons other than national defense where previously exactly zero aggression was happening.”
Chauvinist and ultranationalist indoctrination of children is good actually, as long our guys do it!
Hitlerjugend? Nah mate, only Russia would do that! The free western world is only preparing to defend it’s culture from asiatic hordes seeking to destroy it and imposing authoritarian rule over us!
Not to mention, even if Russia was fully trustworthy, they did help Armenia before, what Armenia needs from it is military power and power projection. And with pathethic how Russia's military looks right now this is not a given. They are too distracted and don't seem to have ressources to fight their own war, let alone help Armenia. So, there is really no value in them for Armenia's purposes.
Because the idea that people in Russia will not be dying for their country but instead be dying for the fantasy of the president is either completely universal for all countries, and therefore not notable, or it’s an attempt to demonstrate how this situation is notably different than in other contexts.
That’s a false dichotomy, but honestly even if you granted it I don’t think it affects the validity of the original statement. People dying for one thing when they think they’re dying for another is sad, even if it happens everywhere all the time. I also don’t really get the contention, that saying “a particular aspect of Russian nationalism is bad” is not notable, when this is literally a post about a particular aspect of Russian nationalism?
You don’t see the problem with an article picking a universal experience, accentuating it by writing an article about it, omitting any mention of other examples of it in any other country, and doing it in the context of war mongering, war profiteering, proxy warfare, distribution of weapons to neo-Nazi groups that were supported as part of a multi-decade pro-Nazi leave-behind system (Operation Gladio), as part of th expansion of the world’s only transnational nuclear military that is unaccountable to any citizens of any country that has launched multiple wars of aggression and occupation?
You don’t see how an article like that contributes to a narrative of othering and dehumanization by it’s silent ommission and lack of acknowledgement? You don’t see how that narrative of othering and dehumanization leads to mass murder, ecocide, and escalation towards nuclear conflict?
You think everything is just a spherical frictionless ball in a world without air resistance that has no interactions with anything else and isn’t informed by nor informs other major trends?
I mean I straight-up didn’t say any of that, nor is it reasonable to infer that I take those positions from what I did say. I’m not even talking about the article; I’m talking about your initial critique of OPs comment. Now if you think that their comment is wrong or misleading then ok, sure, but that’s not what you said (or at least it didn’t seem to be).
This seems like it would be better suited as a top-level response to the post rather than as a response to something that I never said. There are enough libs on the internet that excuse or ignore fascism/imperialism such that you don’t need to invent new ones to argue with.
I'm not from the US, and have no real interest in defending their history on military matters, but your talking about their entertainment industry not their education system. The article is about how Russia is going to use its education system to get their kids to be good soldiers in the future, not about how they're going to make more action films
Fair point. I’ll counter with that there’s very little useful difference because the DoD produces those movies and has full script control over scores of movies every year, while simultaneously the head of education in the USA was very recently the sister of Erik Prince, the founder of the Blackwater mercenary army. Education has been manipulated for propagandizing children in the West since forever, and in the USA we have groups like the Daughters of the Confederacy writing curriculum.
Further, the USA has been glorifying soldiers in schools for decades with high school recruitment, ROTC, letter writing, fund raising, special events featuring soldiers and veterans.
It’s just not that hard to see that whatever the West accuses other countries of doing it’s something that the West has been doing and doing far worse.
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