• footfaults [none/use name]
    ·
    7 months ago

    Ah, now that the war has gone sour and attention is switching to Israel, now dissenting opinions about Ukraine are allowed to be published.

    Death to America

    • PKMKII [none/use name]
      ·
      7 months ago

      Does speak to how bad it’s going for Ukraine that this is being published in Newsweek

      • berrytopylus [she/her,they/them]
        ·
        7 months ago

        It's an opinion article, those always have takes that are much different then the mainstream. For better (like the one here) or for worse (pretty much all of NYTs).

      • footfaults [none/use name]
        ·
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        In some ways yes, but.... (Gestures towards Iraq war coverage) they'll cover something going badly for years

        • PKMKII [none/use name]
          ·
          7 months ago

          Yeah it’ll be seven years down the line, Russian control of Donbas will have been well established for years, we’ll have monthly stories about how basically all the arms being “aided” to Ukraine are being sold on the black market, and the government will still be throwing billions into that hole insisting that the next counterinsurgence wil be “the one.”

  • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
    ·
    7 months ago

    To be fair, governments do frequently limit civil liberties in times of crisis. Our own Patriot Act probably went too far in that direction. President Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus for Southern sympathizers during the American Civil War, but he never canceled elections. Neither did Winston Churchill, to whom Zelensky is sometimes compared. Churchill actually lost the 1945 British election and had to watch Clement Attlee take the final victory lap for World War II.

    soviet-hmm

    I do love the "Lincoln suspended habeas corpus" line as a kind-of end run around "violating civil liberties is always bad" arguments. I occasionally see folks go the extra mile and point to the Sand Creek massacre as necessary and good. But the take away from this shit never seems to be "There is something wholly anti-democratic and nefarious about Western politics."

    Ukraine is an aberration. Just like Ethiopia and India and Italy and El Salvador and the Philippines and Israel are aberrations. There's nothing wrong with the system, these foreigners (and occasionally those damned MAGA Americans) are just doing democracy wrong. The wittling away of political parties, the canceling of elections, and the reversion to military rule isn't a feature, we assure you. It is always a bug that we just need to work out. Or not, because this is an op-ed in an online tabloid rather than any kind of public policy.

    • Collatz_problem [comrade/them]
      ·
      7 months ago

      TBH, my main gripe with banning parties is that only parties to the left from government were banned.

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]
        ·
        7 months ago

        If they banned rightist parties, it could still ultimately be part of a larger project of rightist consolidation. Ultimately the issue is not a deontological one with banning parties or just banning leftwards, but with who is left to wield power.

    • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
      ·
      7 months ago

      Neither did Winston Churchill, to whom Zelensky is sometimes compared.

      So I wasn't the only one calling Zelensky a racist incompetent. Neat.

  • GarbageShoot [he/him]
    ·
    7 months ago

    I disagree with some of the article, since it's ultimately arguing from a very "classical liberal" viewpoint, but it's at least good to see these problems actually be acknowledged rather than denied, ignored, or glossed over.

  • Awoo [she/her]
    ·
    7 months ago

    Omfg this whole article is just exactly what we've been saying for 2 years except now it's not "tankie" because liberals are the ones saying it.

  • RyanGosling [none/use name]
    ·
    7 months ago

    Zelensky enters heaven after being assassinated and is greeted by various American puppets who couldn't do the US' bidding: congratulations

  • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
    ·
    7 months ago

    This is further evidence that when libs say "democracy" they simply means "good country that we like".

    Nothing has materially changed about Ukraine or its method of government between the last round of "Slava UK*ani"s and now, except it's become politically and militarily inconvenient to support.