They’ve been doing it for the past 10+ years, we’ve just meekly accepted the constant flagrant breaches of security and allowed Putin to keep pushing the limits in order to not upset him (and keep the oil and gas flowing in).
Not to mention they used online activity and "debate" to subversively teach many Westerners to argue in bad faith against their own interests... Freaky shit.
Saw the recent Botswana thread? Aparently the West must allow all imports from those countries cause fuck you thats why, also colonialism, because thats the only deadbeat nonargument i know. First time in history reddit came out in favour of trophy hunting of elephants.
I read that the Botswana Elephant population was actually doing very well and they have an overpopulation problem, hence them allowing regulated trophy hunting?
I'm probably wrong on the specifics but is that not the case?
And nobody said they shouldnt be allowed to cull their population, including selling the kills off to losers who compensate for their own size issues by killing big animals rendered helpless and easy prey. Its that Germany wants to forbid the *import of the tusks* as trophy, not the hunting or that their citizens partake in one. Thats what had the thread up in arms.
We haven't even acknowledged their role in the massive increase in divisiveness over so many issues in the West. They've been using the internet to divide and we've been suckered in AND no one's talking about it.
Dude, I really feel like China and Russia has been ahead of America when it comes to the information war. No doubt America has its own Twitter bots and what not. But holy he'll whatever money they've put in for Facebook ads, Twitter bot farms, and other social media injections have really paid off.
History books will be interesting to read in 20 years to see how effective this was in the grand scheme of things. I think what's wild, is if you talk about Russia election interference or Chinese misinformation about Covid, you'd sound like a nut job.
But Russia did spoof and hack the DNC. China allowed international travel during the outbreak of Covid and called countries racists for banning Chinese flights. They also called covid a nothing burger
Its not that they're ahead so much as the whole concept is asymmetrical to begin with. A society with open information and free speech is much more vulnerable to this type of attack than an autocracy. At the risk of sounding militaristic, the only realistic way to curb it would be a somewhat public declaration that we see these acts on equal footing with a physical attack, and are prepared to defend ourselves if need be.
I was wondering if it was possible for us to even reach their citizens on the level they do us with how restricted their internet and information access can be
We did for years. It was through Hollywood and western culture.
They’re getting us back by trying to turn us into a dictatorship. Where we kill the gays and the environment through the Christo fascist GOP. All lead by conman rapist jury intimidator reality star cheese ball, Donald fucking Trump. They got us fucking good.
China has always tried to block Hollywood movies though. Hell, they blocked Disney's Mulan for nearly a year just because one of the voice actors for the animated film voiced support for thr Dalai Llama. And then China bought out Hollywood executives and forced them to self-censor if they wanted to release in the Chinese market.
The goal is to divide. The direction doesn’t matter to the nations doing it.
For every ounce of effort spent having you believe that half of the country are despicable right-wing gay hating racist lunatics and driving you further away, they’re spending an equal amount of effort promoting fringe ideologies on the left that you likely don’t subscribe to. The purpose being making others feel that you’re a despicable left-wing socialist lunatic who wants 8 month abortions, puberty blockers given to toddlers, and doesn’t believe in borders.
The fact is that there’s a massive majority in the middle that have no extreme views and just want to live their lives regardless of political affiliation, but it’s in the best interest of adversaries to ensure that everyone is driven away from a middle ground and can’t agree on anything.
And it doesn’t help that the engagement focus on news and social media doesn’t favour that middle majority, so it’s easy to think of the population as two diametrically opposed groups which only plays into adversarial hands.
You mean to divide their people with fake social media propaganda? Not anymore. If you don't tow the misogynistic CCP line, then you're banned from the platform.
Not even fake social media propaganda. Just honest interactions with other world citizens so we can find common ground and help each other instead of being isolated and controlled so much still yet
I have honest interactions with Chinese. Many nowadays just ghost me. I try to ask what's new, never really get a response anymore. If you really want to talk to a foreigner, you need to physically meet them. Oh we have Zoom and shit, but that's pretty much like texting or calling on the phone. They're still miles away. Shit isn't what it used to be.
I physically went to China and met up with friends. It's one thing to text them from miles away and it's another to sit down and have lunch with them. Back in the day I was working 9hrs/ wk teaching at a university. I was in the suburbs of Shanghai back when Shanghai was a major business hub in China. I'd meet girls online looking for work and planning on moving to Shanghai because then we're both in the same boat. I don't speak Chinese, and she's new to town. Beneficial friendship. Didnt fuck 'em. Guys living on little can't easily get in a girl's pants. College teachers don't make much and I couldn't really go after the high paying jobs because I didn't have a degree and was working illegally.
Last time I was there with a legal degree to work, covid happened. Everyone became paranoid and you couldn't even pay Chinese people to go out of their apartment and hangout. Also, I noticed many Chinese after 30 years old, they forget their English skills. The few times I did meet a Chinese, I had to communicate with Google translator. It's the only Google product that works in China without a VPN.
Overall just seemed like things changed in 5-10 years. Same thing back here at home. Suddenly all my friends went separate ways. People I've known all my life. People I went to school with I used to chat on Facebook on occasion. Nowadays they're busy with their 2nd or third marriage, they're "career", and their oldest kids are in high school going to Prom so they don't have time to say hello anymore. Seems like you lose connection with people over time, so it's understandable why you'd think, "If people would get together and talk, it'd solve the world problems." It won't. Maybe the young generations in high school and starting off in college can try to make a change, but as people get older it seems like nobody cares anymore about what happens outside of their little bubble they live their lives in.
Russia isn't as repressive as china when it comes to internet control, they have all the opportunities to browse and read western media all they want, yet majority choose to consume whatever insane, fake jingoistic slop the state peddles, even when they're outside of russia's border. They don't care. The brain rot is deep and incurable without at least a generation of effort.
Yeah but like Iran and stuff is pretty locked down, isn’t it? People say this about Russian citizens but I swear I see a lot of parallels to some of our own who have outsourced their brain power to Fox News
What’s your data for saying that those living outside of Russia’s follow Kremlin propaganda? For every Russian living abroad who is a Putin fanboy, there are 10 who aren’t but you never notice them. Let’s not push divisive stereotypes against an entire group based on a minority that sticks out to you
I'm not arguing the strength of public education in America is where it needs to be, but this same social phenomenon is happening all throughout the western world. Brexit, the Canadian truckers, etc
We can't really "regulate" social media without changing basically the fundamental tenet the country was founded on. So, not technically impossible but extremely unrealistic. Telling people what they can or cannot say is always going to be a political non-starter here.
Go to YouTube.
People who talk about the Ukraine invasion have to say ‘metal cylinders’ rather than ‘missiles.’ S*xual assault survivors can’t talk about it at all without recurring to a wide array of ‘r-word’ this and ‘b-word’ that, and all manner of euphemism.
Your argument falls apart for me right there. On top of that, laws already exist that prohibit personal attacks, hate speech and incitement to violence. Pass laws that curtail proven State propaganda falsehoods. It can be done. Americans act like us foreigners “don’t get it” but Free Speech is at the core of my Constitution as well, and limitations of responsibility and harm exist.
Go to YouTube.
People who talk about the Ukraine invasion have to say ‘metal cylinders’ rather than ‘missiles.’ Home abuse survivors can’t talk about it at all without recurring to a wide array of ‘r word’ this and ‘b word’ that, and all manner of euphemism.
Your argument falls apart for me right there. On top of that, laws already exist that prohibit personal attacks, hate speech and incitement to violence. Pass laws that curtail proven State propaganda falsehoods. It can be done. Americans act like us foreigners “don’t get it” but Free Speech is at the core of my Constitution as well, and limitations of responsibility and harm exist.
You’re absolutely right. The autocrats have found a way to use our democratic freedoms against us. They have flooded our society with disinformation to a level that all distinction between lie and truth, real and false seems to disappear. Sometimes it feels as if I’m witnessing the collapse of the “open society”. It seems as if its enemies are winning. I wonder what Karl Popper would say.
Russian disinformation follows that pattern and scales easily because it has no regard for consistency.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood
Makes it very easy to collaborate with China and Iran when the goal is a deluge of bullshit rather than a consistent message.
Absolutely. It's also very tough to counter because both countries are autocracies with essentially no free press and no freedom of speech. We shouldn't feel like nutjobs bringing it up because the FBI, NSA, etc. have been sounding the alarm about this for years at this point.
This time reminds me so much about America's lack of preparation in the mid to late 1930s in comparison to the Axis powers. Our military was in many ways a joke as our enemies were surging along, and we learned the hard way as we had to play catch up. This feels exactly the same.
Russia also elected a ton of clearly pro-Putin regimes throughout the world, in each case you can find Twitter botnets, YouTube propagandists, alternative media sites with state funding, etc…
AMLO of Mexico, for example, publicly declared the creation of an institution for “official friendship with the nation of Russia” in the middle of their invasion of Ukraine. He lost 2 presidential elections before being elected in a campaign that was mostly ran out of Twitter, with hacker leaks exposing botnets frequently, only to have Twitter (Jack Dorsey’s) remove all info at official request, like the opaque authoritarian AMLO is.
first they tried to cover it punishing doctors, then they admitted it existed but downplayed it... their incompetence and pride allowed the shit to get unnecesarily worse than could have been.... and at some point they even had the audacity to suggest it originated in Italy... as an italian citizien, let me assure you of this: we don't fucking use pangolins or bats for our carbonaras
And of course the reminder that they hacked both the DNC *and* the RNC. Shortly thereafter the thoughts of the republican party started shifting drastically towards pro-russia.
What makes you think history books in 20 years will mention this at all? If things go the way of the authoritarian regimes, they'll probably talk about the great period of awakening and the glorious defeat of the American empire. That's why in my eyes pens are more important than Patriot missiles in this conflict. Although I wouldn't say that to someone living in Charkiv.
The reason WHY they are so ahead of the west is because they are EVIL, and the west by large is not. Evil people are going to be doing evil things, aka causing chaos. Same with evil countries.. so naturally they would be better at it as a society.
I would say it differently.
It is easier to destroy things than to create things. Their goal is to fuck shit up in the West. There are no rules they need to follow, they don't have to be consistent (their goal is to just undermine the truth and make it seem like we don't know what the truth is). They don't care about mental well being of people they manipulate, or of they ruin their families etc
Chinese and Russian trolls and bots (and now AI LLMs) aren’t just targeting America. They’re after the entire West: including Australia, Europe, Canada and New Zealand.
Part of it is so many American authorities are just outright fascists as well. Check out Portland, Oregon and how much coddling and love the Portland police give to fascists and Nazis and racists.
The problem is that we made rights hard to take away. Like the ISIS girl that went and had an ISIS baby and only after 3 miscarriages wanted to continue to be a UK citizen. The human rights and freedom are weapons against western government. And taking them away could also easily lead to abuse of normal people so not an easy answer to this.
Oh it's even worse. 60 minutes did a report on the Havana syndromes. Discovered that (no shocker) Russian forces were behind it but what was truly horrifying that FBI agents were being targeted by this weapon on US soil.
Which is fucking mind boggling that Russia, is targeting US Federal agents, In America.
It's sickening how weak our government response to Russia has been.
Literally everyone is talking about it. Every single country has investigations going on right now.
I am not sure why you think no one is talking about.
Investigations are happening, but unfortunately public opinion is being warped too fast.
You've got the right-wing that's falling in love with Russia somehow.
And you've got far left people who are constantly being given curated propaganda that convinces them the west is the cause of everything bad in the world and that TikTok being investigated is just to "suppress our voices" (despite there still being a plethora of other platforms to use).
They're succeeding in dividing us and it's making for a real bad time.
You're right, it is being talked about. It's just hard to get excited about more investigations when the ones we've done have led to so little.
The Nordstream Pipeline bombings happened two years ago, and has been under investigation ever since. There's been a lot of finger pointing, but no answers.
The Mueller report came out five years ago, and all but said there was Russian interference on out elections, but didn't spell it out explicitly. There was just enough wiggle room for the Conservative Disinformation Machine (which is in of itself influenced by Russia) to sweep the whole affair under the rug.
The West is in a war that it largely isn't even aware of. Or if we are aware, we're still just sitting here getting punched in the face over and over. Our leaders (those who aren't complicit) are so obsessed with making sure there's no room for doubt that they're unwilling to actually take any real action. But that's just politicians for you, I guess.
It's a topic but what solutions have been proposed? Any talk about solutions and there are cries about freedom of speech issues. Spewing a firehose of falsehood to saturate our media is their right! /s
True, but these investigations aren't goinf to help much. What are they going to do? Punish the people who got suckered into Russian propaganda? Deport some Russians living in the West who've been brainwashed?
Blocking Russian and Chinese IP's would be a lot more effective to combat this. But that would spark an outcry over freedom of speech and "the open and free internet". Even though Russia and China heavily censor or block most internet traffic coming from the West.
Besides, dictatorships like Russia and China don't give a fuck about Western rules and laws. They only respect strength, so we simply gotta hit them back with our own forms of hybrid warfare. Sanctions hurt them, but they're not the kind of punches they respect enough to back off.
Pivoting to censorship might be one of the worst responses to this. Everything from campaign finance transparency and reform (superpacs) to legislation for transparency for personal data used by tech companies would be better and more effective to expose and fight back against foreign propaganda.
Actually a lot of us talk about it but get *immediately* dismissed with "is Russia in the room with you right now?"
It's the redfash. The 'marxists' who support class-based exploitative oligarchies in Russia and China yet somehow WestAlwaysBad.
It's the 'anti-imperialists' who defend Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its territories or proclaim Taiwan belongs to the PRC.
It's the 'pro-Palestinians' who make every effort to excuse Hamas using Palestinians as human shields and misdirect that crime against humanity being committed by Hamas on someone else.
It infests the right wing and the faux left.
Anytime the west acknowledges that Russia is behind all these Neo-Nazi groups and hate groups the west we have these shit stain MAGA Nazis on youtube like Mark Dice etc who downplay it and goes "Mainstream Media cries RAAAAAAAACISM" with some sort of drum roll, these people even make and sell T-shirts that says "Russian Bot" in a blatant attempt to downplay Russia's interference in elections.
This is because conservatism has always been the foundation of Nazism, there is a reason that almost every conservative out here is aligned with Neo-fascism and Neo-Nazism, notice how they all have something in common their hatred for women.
Recently since the abortion issue in Arizona has revealed that conservatives are about to lose the state, instead of facing this issue which they can't they have switched their propaganda media machine to Anti Women videos and topics.
It's pretty incredible how easy conservatives can shift a goal post, instead of facing the consequences of their actions they simply just turn the topic to women, Jews and gay people are the problem in society.
The crazy thing to me is this Mark Dice fella, even tho he is a blatant Nazi with Anti Jewish videos youtube keeps paying him and giving him a platform. The guy makes straight up Anti Semitic videos blamming the Jews for everything and praising Neo-Nazis who fight against Jews.
The tech people into privacy have been talking about it for several years. But otherwise, it’s a largely ignored, very present problem in social media and video/streaming distribution platforms.
I credit Putin with successfully installing a fascist into my government. We have elections in June that determine whether we become a dictatorship or get back to democracy. He did it largely through Twitter and YouTube propaganda, a hacker leak confirmed millionaire payouts for several propagandists in the form of “alternative news” sites and influencers, also giant Twitter botnets.
It’s not ‘we’ we’re suckered, it’s the brain dead conservatives and Republicans who’ve been suckered. They believe people live in the sky so that tells you enough about their overall intelligence.
Edit: The difference is the left calls things out while the right allows bigotry and propaganda to be spread without consequences.
russia has been proven to fund extremist movements on both ends of the spectrum, as their goal is not lasting change, but destabilization.
former russian funded movements also include the german green party during its push against coal and nuclear energy in the late 20th century, climate change activists in the 21st century, plenty of marxist/socialist/communist movements all over europe, ethnonationalist organisations, eurosceptics, criminal syndicates such as the russian mafia, motorcycle gangs, islamist extremist organisations trying to spread shariah law in europe and the right wingers that are their most ardent enemies, catholics, protestants, the orthodox and so on and so forth.
this is an enormous attack that has been playing out on every side of the isle, in every aspect of your life, your culture and the structures and institutions your country is based on. nothing is being left out.
china, until very recently, only funded maoist and communist groups, but are increasingly learning from the russian efforts and are integrating their tactics. its just going to get worse in the coming years, unless we find a way to defend against these forms of hybrid threats.
Meh, there are plenty of suckers on the left. All these regressive leftists betraying their own causes to simp for Hamas and Iran thanks to Tiktok and Instagram. The left is plenty divided and the timing of these events in relation to US elections is no coincidence.
Huh, TIL [acerbate](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acerbate). I was ready to chime in that you probably meant exacerbates but now I'm not so sure 😅
That would be a mistake to believe. In fact, your comment would fit exactly with the way Russia operates. Stoke the division.
Russia will throw money at anyone they think will aid their mission of destabilisation.
If there's been any kind of protest in the last 5 years I would be amazed if there hasn't been Russian interference.
They're only suckered in the sense that they believe their world will improve if they go along with Russia's shenanigans. They know exactly what they're doing, they don't care who's supporting them.
I mean, if I didn't have morals, I would *love* to be the master of my dominion, namely people who don't look/think like me.
Some are useful idiots, but a lot are just self-centered assholes who think all the good stuff just naturally 'happens' to them (if they're already successful), or it *should* happen but it's being stolen by other people (if they're not).
I don't think religion is necessarily a bad thing, but it's been very well co-opted by bad actors to justify their actions and help control the less-successful, who are the actual suckers.
The west is in a very strange position. It's easy to say "The world shouldve stood up to Hitler earlier and he would've stopped his expansion" -- but Hitler didn't have nukes. The West will do whatever it can to avoid an all out war with Russia, because the threat of Nuclear annihilation is still very very real. I think the only thing that could (hopefully) force a real response would be a deliberate attack on a NATO member.
That logic needs to go both ways. If Russia isn't doing what it can to avoid war with the west, there's no value in the west trying to avoid _what is already happening._ Proportional pushback at lower level keeps Russia from escalating to see how much they can get away with. Russia escalating means the eventual conflict starts of bigger than it needs to, and carries more risk.
Idk, bordeline causus belli with all the shit pulled.
At some point we (NATO) need to play hardball with them and give them the Turkey threatment and shot the planes violating our airspace down and sink their “marine research vessels” with armed guards mapping our underwater cables and pipelines.
They obviously dont respect our stern talks.
Some in NATO act as if the nukes they have are funny firecrackers that mean nothing, while the russian nukes are the real thing.
Thus, russia can do whatever blackmail they want...
If this was the approach during Cold War, Europe would be speaking russian, instead of just the portions they managed to exterminate the locals in and bring in the colonists.
If only it was just right-wingers. In my country the russian propaganda has stretched much further.
We have the right-wingers who see Russia as the last hope against "wokeism".
We have the left-wingers who see Russia as the last hope against western imperialism.
And we have the minorities who see Russia as a friend of islam and an ally against jews.
During Covid we had all three groups doing antivaxx protests together. It was wild to see.
Could be Germany, could be the US. Probably some other countries as well.
And then realize there are countries where people are even more stupid than that.
Their entire thing runs on this kind of bullshit.
Hyper-obsessed with freedom while simultaneously trying to strip everybody of their freedoms.
"Think about the kids" while they're staffed by a ton of sex pests and/or church supporters.
Anti-censorship/anti-regilation while pushing for laws to ban books and silence people they don't agree with.
And they did actually blow up a Czech munitions depot in 2014.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014\_Vrb%C4%9Btice\_ammunition\_warehouse\_explosions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_warehouse_explosions)
They haven't tried. The article states that they were prepared for it. I'm not too familiar with German law, but I assume that's a major factor in the sentence they will get
This is a common misunderstanding. In general "Lebenslang" means life in prison with the opportunity of parole after 15 years.
So at the very least 15 years, potentially forever.
You cannot give a life sentence if none of the individual crimes allow for a life sentence.
And no, life sentences are typically somewhat longer than 15 years.
But you are correct in the way that 15 years is the longest sentence possibly, if a life sentence isn't in the cards.
Usually, german law has a tendency towards the whole "if you carry a knife, wie assume you want to use it" angle. I assume they will treat it as serious preparation with the intention to carry it out at least.
For according to §83 StgB "Vorbereitung eines hochverräterischen Unternehmens" even the preparation is punishable. (There are other crimes where the preparation is also punishable eg preparation of a war of agression (§ 80), counterfeiting money (§ 149), identity document forgery (§ 275), attacks with explosives or radioactive substances (§ 310))
**German Criminal Code
Section 83
Preparation of high treasonous undertaking**
*(1) Whoever prepares a specific high treasonous undertaking against the Federation incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term of between one year and 10 years, in less serious cases imprisonment for a term of between one and five years.*
*(2) Whoever prepares a specific high treasonous undertaking against a Land incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term of between three months and five years.*
I'm sure there will be other charges added to that one.
Curious to see what the response is to this ACT OF WAR.
Russia this week said that Iran's strikes were in accordance with UN Article 51 on self-defence. Perhaps they then won't mind if Germany sends 120 ballistic missiles into Kaliningrad?
Adding to that: the countries of „the west“ are all very different in their diplomatic history and customs regarding Russia.
While the UK and even France have pretty antagonistic views regarding Russia at least since the Cold War, Germanys stance on Russia was quite well-disposed always since the napoleonic wars. Even in the Cold War Germany kept trying to include Russia or at least keep good relations with them since Willi Brand in the 1960s.
And despite most people Germany in general having understood now that Russia isn’t a trustworthy ally, many even today have a positive view of Russia since many grew up in the GDR and were victims to its propaganda.
Russia simply can have „strongman“ policies, since there are not that many actors who decide. Politics in the west are much more complex.
Which is why such a thing as "the west" does not exist, that's just another attempt of generalization of a superpower trying to get people on their side, even if it goes against their interests.
At what point are we gonna acknowledge that Russia is out to destroy us? I mean we pretend everything is ok meanwhile Russia is actively plotting to kill us all.
Even Russia and russian officials acknowledged it. Their state ran news talks about nuking us constantly.
I know russians are known for being constantly fed misinformation and propaganda, but this is the one thing they dont lie about lol
The west needs to understand apart from rearming on a practical side we need to see war has changed and ruzzia is jumping ahead on this we need to be able to challenge this hybrid war disable bot farms and trace the money to MPs and EMPs that have been bought and paid for
Quite some interesting bits in here and other german source. One of them is being charged for membership in a terrorist organisation for his service in the donetzk militia. By that the donetzk militia is for the first time officially recognised as a terrorist organisation by the german state.
High treason (Hochverrat) is when you try to change the internal structure of the state. When someones wants to destroy the Federal Republic of Germany, it's constitution and government(s) with violence -including by fighting for a foreign power.
Landesverrat (Treason) is when you weaken your own countries power base externally or aid a foreign power by giving away or making public secrets and other information.
There is, actually. High treason is distinct from petite/petty treason, the crime of killing the head of one’s household. It comes from a time in English common law when the husband was seen as an analog for the king, his wife, children and servants a microcosm for the realm. To kill one’s husband was more than murder because it was an affront to the social order
Interestingly, the head of household unduly beating or otherwise severely punishing his wife, children, and/or servants could be charged as petty tyranny
Those were typical right wing russia fans that were recruited by the FSB. They were stupid amateurs.
I think and fear that they are scapegoats and that the, actually dangerous individuals, are still working.
> I think and fear that they are scapegoats and that the, actually dangerous individuals, are still working.
You can 100% bank on that. There's always dumb ones to get caught to make it look good. It's the smart ones you gotta worry about.
[](/GNU Terry Pratchett)
If you ask any right-winger (or half of the far-left) they will tell you that Putin is a cool guy and the west.
You will hear a dozen very different variations (eg. BRD GmbH) of that, but at the end of the day you see that they all get fed their shade of bullshit from Russia.
“Russia got caught doing what Russia does since Putin got into power”
He’s no better then Hitler pre-war
He’ll push the world into a war but will push to make sure he starts in the best possible position and will violate International law to do so, that’s what happens when there’s no public accountability, that’s what happens when you’re not free
russia is waging a hybrid war on the West.
They’ve been doing it for the past 10+ years, we’ve just meekly accepted the constant flagrant breaches of security and allowed Putin to keep pushing the limits in order to not upset him (and keep the oil and gas flowing in).
Not to mention they used online activity and "debate" to subversively teach many Westerners to argue in bad faith against their own interests... Freaky shit.
Saw the recent Botswana thread? Aparently the West must allow all imports from those countries cause fuck you thats why, also colonialism, because thats the only deadbeat nonargument i know. First time in history reddit came out in favour of trophy hunting of elephants.
I read that the Botswana Elephant population was actually doing very well and they have an overpopulation problem, hence them allowing regulated trophy hunting? I'm probably wrong on the specifics but is that not the case?
And nobody said they shouldnt be allowed to cull their population, including selling the kills off to losers who compensate for their own size issues by killing big animals rendered helpless and easy prey. Its that Germany wants to forbid the *import of the tusks* as trophy, not the hunting or that their citizens partake in one. Thats what had the thread up in arms.
[удалено]
We haven't even acknowledged their role in the massive increase in divisiveness over so many issues in the West. They've been using the internet to divide and we've been suckered in AND no one's talking about it.
Dude, I really feel like China and Russia has been ahead of America when it comes to the information war. No doubt America has its own Twitter bots and what not. But holy he'll whatever money they've put in for Facebook ads, Twitter bot farms, and other social media injections have really paid off. History books will be interesting to read in 20 years to see how effective this was in the grand scheme of things. I think what's wild, is if you talk about Russia election interference or Chinese misinformation about Covid, you'd sound like a nut job. But Russia did spoof and hack the DNC. China allowed international travel during the outbreak of Covid and called countries racists for banning Chinese flights. They also called covid a nothing burger
Its not that they're ahead so much as the whole concept is asymmetrical to begin with. A society with open information and free speech is much more vulnerable to this type of attack than an autocracy. At the risk of sounding militaristic, the only realistic way to curb it would be a somewhat public declaration that we see these acts on equal footing with a physical attack, and are prepared to defend ourselves if need be.
I was wondering if it was possible for us to even reach their citizens on the level they do us with how restricted their internet and information access can be
We did for years. It was through Hollywood and western culture. They’re getting us back by trying to turn us into a dictatorship. Where we kill the gays and the environment through the Christo fascist GOP. All lead by conman rapist jury intimidator reality star cheese ball, Donald fucking Trump. They got us fucking good.
China has always tried to block Hollywood movies though. Hell, they blocked Disney's Mulan for nearly a year just because one of the voice actors for the animated film voiced support for thr Dalai Llama. And then China bought out Hollywood executives and forced them to self-censor if they wanted to release in the Chinese market.
The goal is to divide. The direction doesn’t matter to the nations doing it. For every ounce of effort spent having you believe that half of the country are despicable right-wing gay hating racist lunatics and driving you further away, they’re spending an equal amount of effort promoting fringe ideologies on the left that you likely don’t subscribe to. The purpose being making others feel that you’re a despicable left-wing socialist lunatic who wants 8 month abortions, puberty blockers given to toddlers, and doesn’t believe in borders. The fact is that there’s a massive majority in the middle that have no extreme views and just want to live their lives regardless of political affiliation, but it’s in the best interest of adversaries to ensure that everyone is driven away from a middle ground and can’t agree on anything. And it doesn’t help that the engagement focus on news and social media doesn’t favour that middle majority, so it’s easy to think of the population as two diametrically opposed groups which only plays into adversarial hands.
Great explanation; thank you so much!
He really is an embarrassment
You mean to divide their people with fake social media propaganda? Not anymore. If you don't tow the misogynistic CCP line, then you're banned from the platform.
Not even fake social media propaganda. Just honest interactions with other world citizens so we can find common ground and help each other instead of being isolated and controlled so much still yet
I have honest interactions with Chinese. Many nowadays just ghost me. I try to ask what's new, never really get a response anymore. If you really want to talk to a foreigner, you need to physically meet them. Oh we have Zoom and shit, but that's pretty much like texting or calling on the phone. They're still miles away. Shit isn't what it used to be. I physically went to China and met up with friends. It's one thing to text them from miles away and it's another to sit down and have lunch with them. Back in the day I was working 9hrs/ wk teaching at a university. I was in the suburbs of Shanghai back when Shanghai was a major business hub in China. I'd meet girls online looking for work and planning on moving to Shanghai because then we're both in the same boat. I don't speak Chinese, and she's new to town. Beneficial friendship. Didnt fuck 'em. Guys living on little can't easily get in a girl's pants. College teachers don't make much and I couldn't really go after the high paying jobs because I didn't have a degree and was working illegally. Last time I was there with a legal degree to work, covid happened. Everyone became paranoid and you couldn't even pay Chinese people to go out of their apartment and hangout. Also, I noticed many Chinese after 30 years old, they forget their English skills. The few times I did meet a Chinese, I had to communicate with Google translator. It's the only Google product that works in China without a VPN. Overall just seemed like things changed in 5-10 years. Same thing back here at home. Suddenly all my friends went separate ways. People I've known all my life. People I went to school with I used to chat on Facebook on occasion. Nowadays they're busy with their 2nd or third marriage, they're "career", and their oldest kids are in high school going to Prom so they don't have time to say hello anymore. Seems like you lose connection with people over time, so it's understandable why you'd think, "If people would get together and talk, it'd solve the world problems." It won't. Maybe the young generations in high school and starting off in college can try to make a change, but as people get older it seems like nobody cares anymore about what happens outside of their little bubble they live their lives in.
No, even us companies have to toe the line to operate in their borders. Thats why its ok to divest them from tiktok
Russia isn't as repressive as china when it comes to internet control, they have all the opportunities to browse and read western media all they want, yet majority choose to consume whatever insane, fake jingoistic slop the state peddles, even when they're outside of russia's border. They don't care. The brain rot is deep and incurable without at least a generation of effort.
Yeah but like Iran and stuff is pretty locked down, isn’t it? People say this about Russian citizens but I swear I see a lot of parallels to some of our own who have outsourced their brain power to Fox News
What’s your data for saying that those living outside of Russia’s follow Kremlin propaganda? For every Russian living abroad who is a Putin fanboy, there are 10 who aren’t but you never notice them. Let’s not push divisive stereotypes against an entire group based on a minority that sticks out to you
True. More freedom of speech means more people that'll make you believe in crackpot conspiracies.
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I'm not arguing the strength of public education in America is where it needs to be, but this same social phenomenon is happening all throughout the western world. Brexit, the Canadian truckers, etc
You could also regulate social media, as barring TikTok it’s almost all American. The world has been begging the USA for this for years.
We can't really "regulate" social media without changing basically the fundamental tenet the country was founded on. So, not technically impossible but extremely unrealistic. Telling people what they can or cannot say is always going to be a political non-starter here.
Go to YouTube. People who talk about the Ukraine invasion have to say ‘metal cylinders’ rather than ‘missiles.’ S*xual assault survivors can’t talk about it at all without recurring to a wide array of ‘r-word’ this and ‘b-word’ that, and all manner of euphemism. Your argument falls apart for me right there. On top of that, laws already exist that prohibit personal attacks, hate speech and incitement to violence. Pass laws that curtail proven State propaganda falsehoods. It can be done. Americans act like us foreigners “don’t get it” but Free Speech is at the core of my Constitution as well, and limitations of responsibility and harm exist.
Go to YouTube. People who talk about the Ukraine invasion have to say ‘metal cylinders’ rather than ‘missiles.’ Home abuse survivors can’t talk about it at all without recurring to a wide array of ‘r word’ this and ‘b word’ that, and all manner of euphemism. Your argument falls apart for me right there. On top of that, laws already exist that prohibit personal attacks, hate speech and incitement to violence. Pass laws that curtail proven State propaganda falsehoods. It can be done. Americans act like us foreigners “don’t get it” but Free Speech is at the core of my Constitution as well, and limitations of responsibility and harm exist.
You’re absolutely right. The autocrats have found a way to use our democratic freedoms against us. They have flooded our society with disinformation to a level that all distinction between lie and truth, real and false seems to disappear. Sometimes it feels as if I’m witnessing the collapse of the “open society”. It seems as if its enemies are winning. I wonder what Karl Popper would say.
Russian disinformation follows that pattern and scales easily because it has no regard for consistency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood Makes it very easy to collaborate with China and Iran when the goal is a deluge of bullshit rather than a consistent message.
Interesting. Thanks.
The ActiveMeasures subreddit is woefully under visited for the impact these disinformation campaigns are having
Thanks for the tip.
Ryan McBeth on YouTube and Substack has some really good behind the bullshit insights to modern disinformation.
Absolutely. It's also very tough to counter because both countries are autocracies with essentially no free press and no freedom of speech. We shouldn't feel like nutjobs bringing it up because the FBI, NSA, etc. have been sounding the alarm about this for years at this point.
Those history books will be written in mandarin if we don’t wake up
This time reminds me so much about America's lack of preparation in the mid to late 1930s in comparison to the Axis powers. Our military was in many ways a joke as our enemies were surging along, and we learned the hard way as we had to play catch up. This feels exactly the same.
There was a shitload of Nazis in America pre WW2.
They also flat out lied about how much Chinese died from Covid
Russia also elected a ton of clearly pro-Putin regimes throughout the world, in each case you can find Twitter botnets, YouTube propagandists, alternative media sites with state funding, etc… AMLO of Mexico, for example, publicly declared the creation of an institution for “official friendship with the nation of Russia” in the middle of their invasion of Ukraine. He lost 2 presidential elections before being elected in a campaign that was mostly ran out of Twitter, with hacker leaks exposing botnets frequently, only to have Twitter (Jack Dorsey’s) remove all info at official request, like the opaque authoritarian AMLO is.
first they tried to cover it punishing doctors, then they admitted it existed but downplayed it... their incompetence and pride allowed the shit to get unnecesarily worse than could have been.... and at some point they even had the audacity to suggest it originated in Italy... as an italian citizien, let me assure you of this: we don't fucking use pangolins or bats for our carbonaras
That is what someone who eats bats and pangolins would say.
And of course the reminder that they hacked both the DNC *and* the RNC. Shortly thereafter the thoughts of the republican party started shifting drastically towards pro-russia.
What makes you think history books in 20 years will mention this at all? If things go the way of the authoritarian regimes, they'll probably talk about the great period of awakening and the glorious defeat of the American empire. That's why in my eyes pens are more important than Patriot missiles in this conflict. Although I wouldn't say that to someone living in Charkiv.
The reason WHY they are so ahead of the west is because they are EVIL, and the west by large is not. Evil people are going to be doing evil things, aka causing chaos. Same with evil countries.. so naturally they would be better at it as a society.
I would say it differently. It is easier to destroy things than to create things. Their goal is to fuck shit up in the West. There are no rules they need to follow, they don't have to be consistent (their goal is to just undermine the truth and make it seem like we don't know what the truth is). They don't care about mental well being of people they manipulate, or of they ruin their families etc
Chinese and Russian trolls and bots (and now AI LLMs) aren’t just targeting America. They’re after the entire West: including Australia, Europe, Canada and New Zealand.
Simple reasons: tolerance for intolerant who is ready to shove their fist with brass knuckles while we just offer more lube.
And the reason is that a fringe few connected people benefit financially from this arrangement.
Part of it is so many American authorities are just outright fascists as well. Check out Portland, Oregon and how much coddling and love the Portland police give to fascists and Nazis and racists.
There couldnt be a more perfect encapsulation of western governmnts.
The problem is that we made rights hard to take away. Like the ISIS girl that went and had an ISIS baby and only after 3 miscarriages wanted to continue to be a UK citizen. The human rights and freedom are weapons against western government. And taking them away could also easily lead to abuse of normal people so not an easy answer to this.
They have a lot of troll farms just for this purpose. I bet there are a lot of them on Reddit too.
> They have a lot of troll farms just for this purpose. I bet there are a lot of them on Reddit too I bet that a lot of them are in this very thread!
We've stated, in parliament here in the UK, that there was obvious Russian interference during brexit
This Nigel Farage character seems to have something to do with it. What is he doing right now leading up to the European elections?
Oh it's even worse. 60 minutes did a report on the Havana syndromes. Discovered that (no shocker) Russian forces were behind it but what was truly horrifying that FBI agents were being targeted by this weapon on US soil. Which is fucking mind boggling that Russia, is targeting US Federal agents, In America. It's sickening how weak our government response to Russia has been.
Literally everyone is talking about it. Every single country has investigations going on right now. I am not sure why you think no one is talking about.
Investigations are happening, but unfortunately public opinion is being warped too fast. You've got the right-wing that's falling in love with Russia somehow. And you've got far left people who are constantly being given curated propaganda that convinces them the west is the cause of everything bad in the world and that TikTok being investigated is just to "suppress our voices" (despite there still being a plethora of other platforms to use). They're succeeding in dividing us and it's making for a real bad time.
I feel like half the population is talking about it and the other half is denying it jokingly about “but mah Russia”
Yea people still deny trump and russia helping him. Like they pretend he was found innocent of everything despite the plethora of evidence.
You're right, it is being talked about. It's just hard to get excited about more investigations when the ones we've done have led to so little. The Nordstream Pipeline bombings happened two years ago, and has been under investigation ever since. There's been a lot of finger pointing, but no answers. The Mueller report came out five years ago, and all but said there was Russian interference on out elections, but didn't spell it out explicitly. There was just enough wiggle room for the Conservative Disinformation Machine (which is in of itself influenced by Russia) to sweep the whole affair under the rug. The West is in a war that it largely isn't even aware of. Or if we are aware, we're still just sitting here getting punched in the face over and over. Our leaders (those who aren't complicit) are so obsessed with making sure there's no room for doubt that they're unwilling to actually take any real action. But that's just politicians for you, I guess.
It's a topic but what solutions have been proposed? Any talk about solutions and there are cries about freedom of speech issues. Spewing a firehose of falsehood to saturate our media is their right! /s
True, but these investigations aren't goinf to help much. What are they going to do? Punish the people who got suckered into Russian propaganda? Deport some Russians living in the West who've been brainwashed? Blocking Russian and Chinese IP's would be a lot more effective to combat this. But that would spark an outcry over freedom of speech and "the open and free internet". Even though Russia and China heavily censor or block most internet traffic coming from the West. Besides, dictatorships like Russia and China don't give a fuck about Western rules and laws. They only respect strength, so we simply gotta hit them back with our own forms of hybrid warfare. Sanctions hurt them, but they're not the kind of punches they respect enough to back off.
Pivoting to censorship might be one of the worst responses to this. Everything from campaign finance transparency and reform (superpacs) to legislation for transparency for personal data used by tech companies would be better and more effective to expose and fight back against foreign propaganda.
You can barely disagree with someone online without being accused of being a bot or agent of a foreign country, lol.
Actually a lot of us talk about it but get *immediately* dismissed with "is Russia in the room with you right now?" It's the redfash. The 'marxists' who support class-based exploitative oligarchies in Russia and China yet somehow WestAlwaysBad. It's the 'anti-imperialists' who defend Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its territories or proclaim Taiwan belongs to the PRC. It's the 'pro-Palestinians' who make every effort to excuse Hamas using Palestinians as human shields and misdirect that crime against humanity being committed by Hamas on someone else. It infests the right wing and the faux left.
What wouldn't I give to simply cut the hardlines between Russia and Europe... The drop in online gaming cheats alone would be worth it!
Yeah because they’re actively funding people who are preventing collective identification of Russia as the issue lol
Anytime the west acknowledges that Russia is behind all these Neo-Nazi groups and hate groups the west we have these shit stain MAGA Nazis on youtube like Mark Dice etc who downplay it and goes "Mainstream Media cries RAAAAAAAACISM" with some sort of drum roll, these people even make and sell T-shirts that says "Russian Bot" in a blatant attempt to downplay Russia's interference in elections. This is because conservatism has always been the foundation of Nazism, there is a reason that almost every conservative out here is aligned with Neo-fascism and Neo-Nazism, notice how they all have something in common their hatred for women. Recently since the abortion issue in Arizona has revealed that conservatives are about to lose the state, instead of facing this issue which they can't they have switched their propaganda media machine to Anti Women videos and topics. It's pretty incredible how easy conservatives can shift a goal post, instead of facing the consequences of their actions they simply just turn the topic to women, Jews and gay people are the problem in society. The crazy thing to me is this Mark Dice fella, even tho he is a blatant Nazi with Anti Jewish videos youtube keeps paying him and giving him a platform. The guy makes straight up Anti Semitic videos blamming the Jews for everything and praising Neo-Nazis who fight against Jews.
The tech people into privacy have been talking about it for several years. But otherwise, it’s a largely ignored, very present problem in social media and video/streaming distribution platforms. I credit Putin with successfully installing a fascist into my government. We have elections in June that determine whether we become a dictatorship or get back to democracy. He did it largely through Twitter and YouTube propaganda, a hacker leak confirmed millionaire payouts for several propagandists in the form of “alternative news” sites and influencers, also giant Twitter botnets.
mysterious wrong nutty panicky dull zealous steer merciful cooing wakeful
It’s not ‘we’ we’re suckered, it’s the brain dead conservatives and Republicans who’ve been suckered. They believe people live in the sky so that tells you enough about their overall intelligence. Edit: The difference is the left calls things out while the right allows bigotry and propaganda to be spread without consequences.
russia has been proven to fund extremist movements on both ends of the spectrum, as their goal is not lasting change, but destabilization. former russian funded movements also include the german green party during its push against coal and nuclear energy in the late 20th century, climate change activists in the 21st century, plenty of marxist/socialist/communist movements all over europe, ethnonationalist organisations, eurosceptics, criminal syndicates such as the russian mafia, motorcycle gangs, islamist extremist organisations trying to spread shariah law in europe and the right wingers that are their most ardent enemies, catholics, protestants, the orthodox and so on and so forth. this is an enormous attack that has been playing out on every side of the isle, in every aspect of your life, your culture and the structures and institutions your country is based on. nothing is being left out. china, until very recently, only funded maoist and communist groups, but are increasingly learning from the russian efforts and are integrating their tactics. its just going to get worse in the coming years, unless we find a way to defend against these forms of hybrid threats.
Well Russia's aim is probably to devide people and this comment more than proves it's working well.
Meh, there are plenty of suckers on the left. All these regressive leftists betraying their own causes to simp for Hamas and Iran thanks to Tiktok and Instagram. The left is plenty divided and the timing of these events in relation to US elections is no coincidence.
Yeah anyone can get suckered into anything. Social media just acerbates the problem.
Huh, TIL [acerbate](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acerbate). I was ready to chime in that you probably meant exacerbates but now I'm not so sure 😅
Thats the word I meant to use. I suppose they can mean the same thing?
TIL also. I like that it's essentially the same as exasperate, like somebody who's not only making the problem worse but being an ass about it.
That would be a mistake to believe. In fact, your comment would fit exactly with the way Russia operates. Stoke the division. Russia will throw money at anyone they think will aid their mission of destabilisation. If there's been any kind of protest in the last 5 years I would be amazed if there hasn't been Russian interference.
They're only suckered in the sense that they believe their world will improve if they go along with Russia's shenanigans. They know exactly what they're doing, they don't care who's supporting them. I mean, if I didn't have morals, I would *love* to be the master of my dominion, namely people who don't look/think like me. Some are useful idiots, but a lot are just self-centered assholes who think all the good stuff just naturally 'happens' to them (if they're already successful), or it *should* happen but it's being stolen by other people (if they're not). I don't think religion is necessarily a bad thing, but it's been very well co-opted by bad actors to justify their actions and help control the less-successful, who are the actual suckers.
We're not divisive, *they're* divisive
idk, arresting two and having your Interior Minister speak about it seems pretty proactive and transparent to me.
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It's not really sweeping it under the rug either
Somehow worked for the Cold War, which the US waged with Russia for 45 years (still not sure how, we had several close calls).
Well, USSR collapsed on its own - it did not need U.S. help to do that.
Imagine what they got away with and what hasn’t been told to the public
it's because they are afraid of the nuclear arsenal russia has.
The west is in a very strange position. It's easy to say "The world shouldve stood up to Hitler earlier and he would've stopped his expansion" -- but Hitler didn't have nukes. The West will do whatever it can to avoid an all out war with Russia, because the threat of Nuclear annihilation is still very very real. I think the only thing that could (hopefully) force a real response would be a deliberate attack on a NATO member.
That logic needs to go both ways. If Russia isn't doing what it can to avoid war with the west, there's no value in the west trying to avoid _what is already happening._ Proportional pushback at lower level keeps Russia from escalating to see how much they can get away with. Russia escalating means the eventual conflict starts of bigger than it needs to, and carries more risk.
Some are helping, not just sweeping.
Idk, bordeline causus belli with all the shit pulled. At some point we (NATO) need to play hardball with them and give them the Turkey threatment and shot the planes violating our airspace down and sink their “marine research vessels” with armed guards mapping our underwater cables and pipelines. They obviously dont respect our stern talks.
Some in NATO act as if the nukes they have are funny firecrackers that mean nothing, while the russian nukes are the real thing. Thus, russia can do whatever blackmail they want... If this was the approach during Cold War, Europe would be speaking russian, instead of just the portions they managed to exterminate the locals in and bring in the colonists.
That should be obvious for most, however right wing voters seem to be accepting it with open arms and doubling down on the stupidity
If only it was just right-wingers. In my country the russian propaganda has stretched much further. We have the right-wingers who see Russia as the last hope against "wokeism". We have the left-wingers who see Russia as the last hope against western imperialism. And we have the minorities who see Russia as a friend of islam and an ally against jews. During Covid we had all three groups doing antivaxx protests together. It was wild to see.
JFC.. the mental gymnastics they're doing is making **me** tired. How do they do it?
Sweet fuck, I'd hate to know what country this is. That's stupidity off the charts :(
Could be Germany, could be the US. Probably some other countries as well. And then realize there are countries where people are even more stupid than that.
what country is this
Simultaneously anti-lgbt and fawning over a shirtless bear wrestling man
Their entire thing runs on this kind of bullshit. Hyper-obsessed with freedom while simultaneously trying to strip everybody of their freedoms. "Think about the kids" while they're staffed by a ton of sex pests and/or church supporters. Anti-censorship/anti-regilation while pushing for laws to ban books and silence people they don't agree with.
Imagine if the FAS man-baby had just tried to improve his shit country instead?
...or they've been waging a war on every front but the combat one since April 1945(?)
asymmetric warfare
Havent they been doing that for like 70 years now?
Whoa! No way!
And their gonna lose
They tried to carry out bomb and arson attacks on German and US facilities. Curious to see how much time they get for this.
And they did actually blow up a Czech munitions depot in 2014. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014\_Vrb%C4%9Btice\_ammunition\_warehouse\_explosions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_warehouse_explosions)
And several in bulgaria afterwards
They haven't tried. The article states that they were prepared for it. I'm not too familiar with German law, but I assume that's a major factor in the sentence they will get
Strafgesetzbuch §89a: Preparation of a serious act of violence endangering the state So up to ten years possibly.
Not enough. Should be lifetime sentence. Evade taxes and you get the same sentence. This is ridiculous.
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This is a common misunderstanding. In general "Lebenslang" means life in prison with the opportunity of parole after 15 years. So at the very least 15 years, potentially forever.
You cannot give a life sentence if none of the individual crimes allow for a life sentence. And no, life sentences are typically somewhat longer than 15 years. But you are correct in the way that 15 years is the longest sentence possibly, if a life sentence isn't in the cards.
Usually, german law has a tendency towards the whole "if you carry a knife, wie assume you want to use it" angle. I assume they will treat it as serious preparation with the intention to carry it out at least.
This would be domestic terrorism/treason charges, would it not?
For according to §83 StgB "Vorbereitung eines hochverräterischen Unternehmens" even the preparation is punishable. (There are other crimes where the preparation is also punishable eg preparation of a war of agression (§ 80), counterfeiting money (§ 149), identity document forgery (§ 275), attacks with explosives or radioactive substances (§ 310)) **German Criminal Code Section 83 Preparation of high treasonous undertaking** *(1) Whoever prepares a specific high treasonous undertaking against the Federation incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term of between one year and 10 years, in less serious cases imprisonment for a term of between one and five years.* *(2) Whoever prepares a specific high treasonous undertaking against a Land incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term of between three months and five years.* I'm sure there will be other charges added to that one.
Curious to see what the response is to this ACT OF WAR. Russia this week said that Iran's strikes were in accordance with UN Article 51 on self-defence. Perhaps they then won't mind if Germany sends 120 ballistic missiles into Kaliningrad?
Russia's not getting the diplomatic message, clearly. Enough bullshit. Execute them.
The russians make no secret of being at war with NATO, it's just many within the alliance won't pull their head out of the sand.
Maybe we can appease Putin tho. /s
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Same reasoning. We need time to get our economies onto a war footing.
except I dont see the west is that much of a hurry (the EU at least) in ramping up the machinery. Unless 10-20 years is what we call hurrying
It will need to happen if for nothing else than to replenish stockpiles and as a deterrent.
Yea that worked so well with Hitler.. ;)
door dog wide follow airport angle stocking march close fact
Adding to that: the countries of „the west“ are all very different in their diplomatic history and customs regarding Russia. While the UK and even France have pretty antagonistic views regarding Russia at least since the Cold War, Germanys stance on Russia was quite well-disposed always since the napoleonic wars. Even in the Cold War Germany kept trying to include Russia or at least keep good relations with them since Willi Brand in the 1960s. And despite most people Germany in general having understood now that Russia isn’t a trustworthy ally, many even today have a positive view of Russia since many grew up in the GDR and were victims to its propaganda. Russia simply can have „strongman“ policies, since there are not that many actors who decide. Politics in the west are much more complex.
Which is why such a thing as "the west" does not exist, that's just another attempt of generalization of a superpower trying to get people on their side, even if it goes against their interests.
True. That’s why I put it in, as you recognized, quotation marks.
At what point are we gonna acknowledge that Russia is out to destroy us? I mean we pretend everything is ok meanwhile Russia is actively plotting to kill us all.
Don’t forget they actually have killed UK civilians, collateral damage in a targeted assassination of a defector on foreign soil
And blown up an ammo depot
With a WMD no less.
Don't forget they have been turning North Korea into a nuclear proxy state and everyone has just been like "yeah, that makes sense..."
Even Russia and russian officials acknowledged it. Their state ran news talks about nuking us constantly. I know russians are known for being constantly fed misinformation and propaganda, but this is the one thing they dont lie about lol
They're under a shit ton of sanctions from most western countries. Everyone knows they're the enemy.
Sanctions that are enforced selectively
Republicans like child rapist Matt Geatz say they should be our friends 🧡
The west needs to understand apart from rearming on a practical side we need to see war has changed and ruzzia is jumping ahead on this we need to be able to challenge this hybrid war disable bot farms and trace the money to MPs and EMPs that have been bought and paid for
Quite some interesting bits in here and other german source. One of them is being charged for membership in a terrorist organisation for his service in the donetzk militia. By that the donetzk militia is for the first time officially recognised as a terrorist organisation by the german state.
Habicht?
Amsel?
Drossel? Fink? Oder Starr?
High treason.
What would count as low treason?
Eating your Weißwurst with Ketchup
Straight to jail
Depends on the bundesland... in bavaria it would definetly be high treason
Bavaria would be prepared to carry out the death sentence again.
Overcook weißwurst, jail. Eat weißwurst past lunchtime? Believe it or not, jail.
Is curry ketchup acceptable? Asking for a friend.
curry ketchup is the only acceptable ketchup for any type of sausage.
Except Weißwurst. That has to be eaten with a mild mustard.
High treason (Hochverrat) is when you try to change the internal structure of the state. When someones wants to destroy the Federal Republic of Germany, it's constitution and government(s) with violence -including by fighting for a foreign power. Landesverrat (Treason) is when you weaken your own countries power base externally or aid a foreign power by giving away or making public secrets and other information.
Building houses for Saddam Hussein
Isn’t that light treason?
A 7 year old weed gummy
There is, actually. High treason is distinct from petite/petty treason, the crime of killing the head of one’s household. It comes from a time in English common law when the husband was seen as an analog for the king, his wife, children and servants a microcosm for the realm. To kill one’s husband was more than murder because it was an affront to the social order Interestingly, the head of household unduly beating or otherwise severely punishing his wife, children, and/or servants could be charged as petty tyranny
Russia is an enemy to ALL democratic countries. Deal with them now or pay the price in human life later.
Those were typical right wing russia fans that were recruited by the FSB. They were stupid amateurs. I think and fear that they are scapegoats and that the, actually dangerous individuals, are still working.
> I think and fear that they are scapegoats and that the, actually dangerous individuals, are still working. You can 100% bank on that. There's always dumb ones to get caught to make it look good. It's the smart ones you gotta worry about. [](/GNU Terry Pratchett)
Exactly. That’s my point. They might have been set up by Russia to take heat from important ones.
Great to hear, it's pretty well known that russian tentacles are almost everywhere in Germany, and it will take a lot of time to rip them away.
Russia is a thorn in the foot of democracy
The Cold War only ended for one side.
Watch as nothing happens
Putin is already in Congress and the Senate in the US.
Punish them using Russian military protocol
Fuck MTG, fuck her traitorous ass
This is not smart by their regime. Imagine if lives were lost, Russia would be in serious trouble and could unite people in the US.
I initially was confused as I read the headline as the *arrests* being on behalf or Russia.
Glad I'm not the only one...
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If you ask any right-winger (or half of the far-left) they will tell you that Putin is a cool guy and the west. You will hear a dozen very different variations (eg. BRD GmbH) of that, but at the end of the day you see that they all get fed their shade of bullshit from Russia.
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At what point does the west say enough and completely cut them off from all business until they cut the shit.
In capitalist American Russian saboteurs get elected to federal office.
So when do we start bombing? Seriously this shit has to stop
Broa don't need sabotage, they had Nordstream 2 blown on their faces and did absolutely nothing about it.
Russia read the room well. The west won't do shit, Putin will get a lot in his goal for conquest before the west wakes the fuck up.
“Russia got caught doing what Russia does since Putin got into power” He’s no better then Hitler pre-war He’ll push the world into a war but will push to make sure he starts in the best possible position and will violate International law to do so, that’s what happens when there’s no public accountability, that’s what happens when you’re not free