cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/1338851
Archived version: https://archive.ph/yDjTx
Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20230811193345/https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-fire-all-regional-military-recruitment-chiefs-zelenskiy-2023-08-11/
This is the best summary I could come up with:
KYIV, Aug 11 (Reuters) - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy broadened his battle against graft on Friday, firing all the heads of Ukraine’s regional army recruitment centres as the war with Russia enters a critical stage.
Zelenskiy said a state investigation into centres across Ukraine had exposed abuses by officials ranging from illegal enrichment to transporting draft-eligible men across the border despite a wartime ban on them leaving the country.
Ukraine has made cracking down on graft a priority as it fends off Russia’s full-scale invasion and seeks membership of the European Union and has fired or prosecuted a string of high-ranking officials implicated in sleaze.
Zelenskiy said that any sacked army recruitment officers who are not being investigated should head to the front to fight for Ukraine “if they want to keep their epaulettes and prove their dignity”.
Videos purporting to depict army recruiters aggressively pursuing or becoming violent with would-be draftees have gone viral on social media in the country, which has been under martial law since the invasion.
Zelenskiy said top general Valery Zaluzhny would be responsible for implementing Friday’s decision and that new candidates for the posts would first be vetted by Ukraine’s domestic security service, the SBU.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Misses important bit;
“This system should be run by people who know exactly what war is and why cynicism and bribery during war is treason,” he said, adding that those fired would be replaced by recent veterans and soldiers wounded at the front.
those fired would be replaced by recent veterans and soldiers wounded at the front
Somehow I’m not sure that they would be the most effective recruiters.
They’re not trying to sell a bright future like military recruiters in the US. People are forced to do their military service by law and the recruiters are responsible to match the drafted people with the role that fits best.
Trust me bro, you’ll love the battlefield and definitely not end up injured like me
“Mobile Infantry made me the man I am today.”
Hey it worked for Starship Troopers.
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I beg to differ. The applicants talking to recent vets or wounded soldiers know that these people could be their future. It is important to know all the possible outcomes, including possible PSTD, death, or dismemberment. Having recruiters that are too disconnected from the human war cost is a disservice, in my opinion.
I think I missed my point in there. They would be more effective when those new soldiers are on the frontline fighting, instead of selling a false image of how easy joining would be. That false sell would result in wasted resources training soldiers that wouldn’t be as effective. Sometimes it’s better to have less people in your unit, when the extra bodies (that were lied to) would cause more wasted time and energy. Time and energy that should be focused on war.
I doesn’t matter if the guy serving draft notices was wounded.
I guess some of the lucky conscripts will try to run away and then it might matter.
I knew from reading the headline that Hexbear’s horde of mouthbreathers would show up to brigade and spread their propaganda. Sure enough, here we are
Edit: You guys really are just proving my point lmao
Learn how federation works
I think they know quite well how it works, and hexbear. Hence the comment.
If they understood it then either they are a conspiracy theorist or they wouldn’t call it a “brigade”
Yet they say,
horde of mouthbreathers
Learn how defederation works
This is just a silly “no u”. We’re federated, not defederated, so one is relevant and not the other at the moment.
Do you think you’ll stay federated?
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do you even know who runs your instance and makes those decisions?
If they’re going to be that stupid I’m not staying on the instance
You are welcome to defederate yourself
Your leader likes defenestrating people
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go to lemmy.world loser
epic le comeback redditorino
Lemmy dot world is always there if you want an instance that defederates from leftists and federates with your “scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds” types.
Hexbear has been using Lemmy for years, technical issues around our active user count and having to rely on volunteer labour means we were only able to federate recently.
You’re not leftists, you defend genocide and roleplay leftism
Defend genocide? Please elaborate. We definitely do not support the NATO led genocides of the third world
Behold he politics understander and one true leftist
Yep, and choosing who to federate with is part of it. GTFO.
Then go make your own private instance where you can federate with whoever you want and keep the mean old tankies out
mean old tankies out
Mask off already? Damn, that’s kind of against the rules
What mask? I’m an ML and have never claimed otherwise on this account or its alts on any instance.
And being an ML isn’t against the rules, so don’t bog down our dear admins with superfluous reports.
“Tankies are bad.”
Do you believe that that because you genuinely believe that capitalist nations like the United States and Russia are doing good things for the world, while “tankie” countries like Cuba and China are doing bad things for the world? Or do you believe that because you have been tricked by 100 years of racist propaganda that says socialists like Fidel Castro, Albert Einstein, and Martin Luther King were subhuman scum?
Known capitalist evil practices do not absolve tankies of wanting to impose communism by force.
You use the term “racist propaganda” interchangeably as anti-socialist propaganda…as if the only victims of capitalism were the victims of racism.
Who calls MLK and Einstein scum? Maybe Fidel was called that by right-wingers during the Cold War. Why did you mix and match those 3? Why not Emma Goldman or Gorbachev, if you’re just naming random socialists (I’m not even sure MLK ever explicitly considered himself a socialist).
I’m not even sure MLK ever explicitly considered himself a socialist.
Well then.
“I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic.” - Martin Luther King Jr.
“Today, capitalism has out-lived its usefulness.” - Martin Luther King Jr.
“Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country.” - Martin Luther King Jr.
“We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together.” - Martin Luther King Jr.
“The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism.” - Martin Luther King Jr.
“If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and make it possible for all of God’s children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to hell.” - Martin Luther King Jr.
(from https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/01/21/11-most-anti-capitalist-quotes-martin-luther-king-jr)
It says a lot about the education system wherever you come from that you never learned MLK was a socialist. He HATED capitalism! Hated it! Also, the scientist Albert Einstein was a prominent socialist who wrote a famous article, “Why socialism?” explaining in detail why he was a socialist. Einstein and MLK believed in the same anti-capitalist struggle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Socialism%3F
lmao How many times has that worked on anyone, honestly? Like I’m just gonna wake up one day and say, “yeah, you know what, my entire worldview has been shattered by @KurtVonnegut@hexbear.net whispering sweet commie propaganda in my ear”
Idk why you are all on stuck on the tankie shit like it matters that much to me. Like I said previously, I don’t have a problem with the Christians for being Christian, but just like you tankies, the fandom is weird, intense and circlejerky af
IDK man. You’re basically saying “Why are you stuck on that environmentalist shit? It doesn’t matter to me. Go worry about climate change somewhere else, stop bothering me.”
My brother in christ. Climate change will affect you whether you want it to or not. Capitalism will affect you whether you want it to or not. You can’t just be “out” of it. You can’t not take a side in whether the earth gets destroyed or not (environmentalism) or whether 90% of the world’s population is plunged into neo-feudal slavery. You’re either with the slave-owners or against them. You gotta pick a side!
Lemme go get my white grocery bags
ok he walked off and the tanks kept going? what are you saying? have you even seen the whole video
please show us this rule
I present you the side bar ->
- Please only post links to actual news sources, no tabloid sites, etc
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, propaganda, etc
is the “no tankie” rule in the room with us right now?
we’re communists, jan
You don’t say! I would’ve been clueless like walking into a room full of vegans
Jokes on you lib,
tooof course
we’re all vegan and we’re coming to burn down your farms
This site is significantly vegan to the point where there is cw on pics of food from animals.
We were invited here by the Lemmy.ml mods on behalf of their community. If the majority of users on Lemmy.ml wanted us gone then the Mods wouldn’t have federated with us in the first place. Maybe you misread the community you joined 2 months ago? The mods of Lemmy.ml sure as heck didn’t misread hexbear before federating with us.
I guess I should switch servers then
If you make your own instance, you can curate your own whitelist
on behalf of their community
Oh sure 😂
The mods of Lemmy.ml sure as heck didn’t misread hexbear before federating with us
They sure as hell aren’t gonna misread the comment sections now
What’s hilarious is that you think your mods are on your side in this fight. Why did you think they invited us here?
You’ve been here for two months. You don’t know what the history of the website is. You don’t know the character of its administrators. I’ve got a secret for you: they’re leftists like us. In fact the whole lemmyverse was created by Marxist-Lenninists. This must be the very first time you’ve ventured out of your information bubble. Welcome. We’re going to bully the shit out of you until you can behave amicably. Did you think you could just show up to someone else’s community and start acting like you owned the place? There will be no eternal september here.
I don’t mind leftists, but I do mind genocide defenders like you.
Then fucking check yourself, liberal. When you abuse the word ‘genocide’ you diminish it. You are doing the work of the nazis in making what they did (and this is what the westerner thinks of when they use the word genocide) seem no worse than the things you apply the label to in your cynicism or ignorance. And this was their literal strategy. Google “the double holocaust myth”. When they were still in uniform they applied this strategy to the USSR (which could be one of the examples you’re vagueposting at me over). You will find, if you dig into that search, documentation by Jewish hate watch groups to that effect.
I fucking mind genocide denial as much as you pretend to. So knock it the fuck off.
And go fuck yourself for calling me that.
You don’t know what leftism or genocide is
Most people on lemmy came here because they didn’t like the way reddit was moderated. If you don’t like how Lemmy.ml s moderated you can go somewhere else like back to reddit or make your own instance. “Be the change you want to see in the world.” This is 100% a “you” problem and it is funny (in a sad sort of way) that you think otherwise.
Most people on lemmy came here because they didn’t like the way reddit was moderated
Duh, and somehow irrelevant, but nice try
I’m not gonna let some scumbag tell me to leave. Federating with you all has made this site worse and we’ll see how well this goes. This is not a “me” problem, but a “you bunch of scumbags” problem.
I’m not telling you to leave. I kinda like you. All I have to do is exist and you suffer. I don’t really care if you to suffer but it does validate my self worth that I can effect you so easily. Your stubbornness makes me like you more because you refuse to disengage from validating my ego.
My previous comment was just trying to be fair and explain why leaving Lemmy.ml was the only likely way to end your pain at having to hear opinions you don’t agree with but I guess I made it too complex. Enjoying your suffering is only fair if you are doing it of your own free will.
You also aren’t using the “you problem vs me problem” meme correctly. The idea is that a “you problem” is something that only inconveniences you and and thus you are the one who has to fix it. We “bunch of scumbags” are actually quite happy with how things are going and as such wont be trying to change anything. And I as I was trying to explain I doubt anyone else (AKA moderators) is going to come fix things for you.
I hope you continue to spend lots of time on Lemmy.ml (you know the M L stands for Marx and Lenin right?) We hexagonal ursines will enjoy our time visiting here.
“Scumbag”= “Anyone who is opposed to me, the main character of reality”
but nice try
Wandering into a communist website and refusing to leave lmao have fun baby
When everyone you meet is a scumbag, maybe it’s not us, maybe it’s you?
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You got me there! I admit that I absolutely did not read that stupid AMA
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" 😂" does not fool anyone in the year 2023, everyone knows “😂” means
I actually dont can you tell me lol
Imagine emojis having different meanings outside your circlejerk. It’s hard to imagine the world outside, huh
Yeah to be fair it can also mean
Huh??? Did you make that choice?
Someone who can will in a minute, if y’all keep this up. I’m not worried.
My man here thinks he’s still on reddit.
Umm, I don’t think you realize how the fediverse has panned out in the last year, but go off with your lame attempts at an insult
Umm, I don’t think you realize
Holy shit I didn’t believe people like you were realLemmygrad was the federated instance in the last year lmao
we’ve been on lemmy for 3 years. when did you join again?
Damn, the threshold for responding with your teenage dreams as an emote keeps getting lower and lower. You wish I was that upset lol
🌽
Whatever that means, you first
🌽 🌽
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what happened to
?Brigading is whenever a Hexbear user uses the site like literally everybody else that got here.
Brigading is when a post shows up in your all tab and you comment on it
Brigading is when you federate and use the federation
federation isn’t brigading. a post shows up in our feeds, we click on it and comment because helping people dodge the draft is cool and good. We’re one of the largest instances, and the consensus we have on issues like “conscription is bad” should not be taken as coordination on the part of hexbear users. If we did deliberately coordinate we’d all link you clowns to the thread where we did it because it would be funny.
No but it’s weird that I never see any comments supporting Ukraine from hexbear users. Like the country was invaded, there is evidence of massive human rights atrocities. It is beyond the pale that so many people would just coincidentally celebrate every piece of bad news for the people being invaded and spin everything negatively against them. One would expect some diversity of opinions from any reasonably large instance but hexbear users all act like pro-russian trolls.
it’s weird that I never see any comments supporting Ukraine from hexbear users
Over on Hexbear and Lemmygrad we don’t take kindly to neo-nazis
sorry but that’s just how it isWhat does that have to do with Ukraine defending itself against an unprovoked invasion?
What about the 8 years they spent provoking it?
Time is linear, except that part. 2014-2022? What’s that?
Propaganda is when you say the same thing Reuters, CNN, WSJ, etc are all saying about draft corruption in Ukraine lol
Actually mediabiasfactcheck.org says that Reuters is highly objective!
Zero pinnochios! That sounds very trust worthy!
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Never heard of hexbear but why does an instance that claims to be leftist use Trump memes and back Russia?
Trump is funny. Obviously. Terrible but hilarious. We don’t back Russia we just understand NATO to generally be far more destructive and deadly. That’s just old Tom Bombadilaros thoughts.
That’s so dumb… To consider a defensive alliance more destructive and deadly that a corrupt state waging a war of expansion
A defence of what? The people who invented global warming? Nah, hard pass.
Sure it’s defensive, I just wish the people it’s defending were attacked more
Hell yeah brother we defended the shit out of Libya
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A Defensive alliance made up of all the great colonial powers.
Defensive alliance that bombs every third world country that dares to go against the interests of the imperial core? Who are they "defending again?
Also how much has NATO expanded since the end of the cold war with its mafia protection racket style tactics in Europe?
Serbia, Libya, and Afghanistan were all defensive operations.
“That’s so dumb, to consider a defensive alliance with the Serbian Black Hand more destructive and deadly than the Central Power’s Imperialism waging a war of expansion” -Average Allied Nations Second International Member, 1914
defensive alliance
NATO is defensive? lol, lmao
a corrupt state
That’s Ukraine, it used to be considered the most corrupt place in Europe by the Western media right until February 2022
waging a war of expansion
That’s also Ukraine since they’re trying to take territory from the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics after they declared independence following the coup against Viktor Yanukovych in 2014
this is why we support Russia (Donbass to be Precise ) , this is also why Propagnda does not only happens to “other people” Mr. @Revanee@lemmy.one
A military alliance of several superpower nations VS one angry revanchist state. Who’s more dangerous?
Russia - starts wars and threatens nuclear holocaust - you sleep
NATO - literally just exists - you wake
Russia’s #1 export is troll farms and that’s why Russia is the most hated country in the world. Y’all just give people more reason to hate Russia.
NATO - literally just exists - you wake
How many millions of civilians were murdered/killed/starved/driven from their homes/displaced by American and NATO led imperialist wars such as the bombing of Yugoslavia, the invasion of Afghanistan, the bombing of Libya, or Isr*el’s genocidal occupation of Palestine, which is proudly supported by the US and NATO?
Fewer than Russia but you LOVE when Russia does it.
You honestly think less civilians were killed in all those things COMBINED than by Russia? Really? That’s actually one of the most wild liberal claims I’ve ever seen, and thats saying something. You’ve lost attachment to reality.
Show me the numbers, liberal. Post your source for that wild claim.
You ignorant gnome. We hate Russsia more than you. Russia is the liberal democratic nation built by the US from the corpse of our comunist forebears. I’d ask if you ever read a history book but your Midwest tag proves the only ones you got were written by Haliburton so it isn’t your fault you are the way you are. If I wver visit your region I must try to trap you I in a circle of salt and force you to actually read some theory.
Literally just existing, chilling, sprinkling unexploded cluster bombs throughout the country side for Ukrainian children to step on for generations to come, vibing.
dog how can you be this clueless about NATO and still have such a strong opinion lmao
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1052756
the idea of NATO “just existing” is a straight up rejection of history
NATO - literally just exists
HOLLLLLYYYY FUCCCKKKIIIINNNNGGG SHIIIIIIIITTTTTT
we all love biden and our liberal queen hillary clinton, light itself 
We also use Hillary Clinton and Biden memes, doesn’t mean we support them lmao.
Ever heard of this thing called “irony”? Might be worth checking out
Because Russia is the same as America in pretty much every way. So it is fascist infighting. Trump is also the same as pretty much the same as every other president. Liberals just hate him for idiosyncratic reasons. So it is funny
Russia is America’s every bad quality dialed up to 12 on steroids. Russia actually manages to make America look good, that’s just what a steaming pile of garbage Russia is. The bar is so low even America can get over it.
NATO - starts wars and keeps the meat grinder rolling all in the furtherance of capitalist dogma - you sleep
Russia - literally just exists - you wake
NATO’s #1 export is war and that’s why NATO is hated around the world. Y’all just give people more reason to hate NATO.
Russia starting a war with 350,000 casualties and threatening to nuke the West is not literally just existing. If Russia wanted to literally just exist, they never would have literally invaded another country while lying about “training exercises”.
You’re pro-Russian terrorism, it’s not a good look.
NATO encircled a world power and for the last couple decades have worked to instigate a war that has led to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people on the gamble that Russia would fall and allow the west to loot the country, exactly as they plan to loot a war torn Ukraine. For capitalism.
You’re pro-NATO terrorism, it’s not a good look.
I’m just here to laugh at bazinga dorks crying for mods
Idk if “commenting on a post from another instance that showed up in my feed because the instance I use is federated with that instance” is brigading.
No you dont understand, if I dont want you here then youre a PEST whose ATTACKING ME so you need to leave, mkay?
Very cool that the moment someone says “brigading” I can look at their profile and see, yup they joined in June. Wonder why that is 🤔
The wild canuck rages, for it has no values or culture to share
we’ve been doing lemmy shit for 3 years, youre brigading
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Oh man, that brings me back to the days when r/cth used to brigade other subs. Those were the times.
Never thought I’d live long enough to see it again…
The best part was that it was always just the fact we were all terminally online and saw the same frontpage threads as everyone else. It was (almost) never an actual brigade, just the result of having a bunch of very active posters with better politics than the average redditor. That’s all it took to make the worst people on reddit
over being unable to consistently silence people with better opinions than their own.
-
Who’s Hexbear?
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I just looked, and I think it’d be more accurate to call it a Neo-Bolshevik cesspit.
I know. They like to spread dangerous misinformation that helps Russia and Trump take over the world. It sucks. I wish we had an instance just for us anti-authoritarians.
Sounds like Tommy Needy Drinky.
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And it’s better than yours
It’s not a who, it’s an instance: hexbear.net. It’s also full of pro-Russia tankies.
Uh… Is there a reason why I’ve never heard of this?
They were not federated before. They did around 9 days ago.
They only were recently federated, and got defederated from some large instances like lemmy.world for their explicit intent to brigade other instances and communities to spread their “anti-liberal” nonsense.
Russian troll farms have hit lemmy = lemmy has made it to the social media big leagues now!
When you’ve hit the lemmyverse
checks notes
Three years ago… Huh.
Crying about “tankies” is just calling everything “woke” with extra steps. Not everyone there automatically supports NATO/Ukraine but it’s far from what you describe.
There are still significant numbers of people denying the genocide currently happening and actively rooting for the invaders, which is why I pointed it out. There’s a reason they have been defederated by so many large instances. This has nothing to do at all with anything “woke” and I don’t see why you’d even bring it up.
Edit: I just had a look at their frontpage and the first post there is about how the “western MSM” lied about the counteroffensive and how “Stalin shouldn’t have stopped at Berlin”. Yeah, alright. lmao
Republican: “Everything to the left of me is woke.”
Republican pretending to be liberal online: “Everything to the left of me is tankie.”
At the end of the day it’s a word that can mean anything you want, and is only useful as a tactic to divide resistance against right wingers.
If you feel more comfortable in your bubble go back to it
If you’re so eager to defend a military conscription/draft, why don’t you go and fight on the frontline yourself? This whole article is about Zelenskyy cracking down on Ukrainian citizens avoiding the conscription because they don’t want to be sent into the meat grinder that is the heavily fortified front lines.
It’s always those that face the least consequences from war that are the most eager for it to continue.
Uh yeah… I’m thinvking it’s hexbear time
Hexbear users rushing to bombard this comment with image reactions to say they’re not brigading
Are hexbear users in this room right now?
no
cap
You act like whining about other people being on the same website as you isn’t incredibly toxic behavior that deserves to be bullied.
Hexbear has been on Lemmy longer than 99% of instances. Unfortunately we were only able to enable federation recently due to technical issues.
So how are hexbear users the brigaders? Using your logic, you are the brigaders lol.
You’re exactly correct! Lmao
I play “count the fallacies” with the comments. So far I’ve seen: ad homonim; what-about-ism; strawman ; appeal to popularity ; appeal to authority ; hasty generalization / ecological fallacy
I get bored well before I stop counting
Lol I don’t even bother with reading anything they say at all. I just block anyone who’s on Hexbear, I must have half the instance blocked. And my experience browsing Lemmy has been so much better for it!
God y’all really can’t help yourself with the debatelord shit huh?
this is a pee pee poo poo fallacy actually
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I’ve been interacting with them recently to see what they are all about and lmao I don’t think I’ve ever had a dumber discussion in my life. Truly they are uniquely stupid.
My cats have learned the wirr motor sound of the feeder means food. So they’ll run from whereever in the house at an motor sound. Suddenly like “it’s food time right? Right? But the noise means food…” Regardless of any further context.
Same same but different with hexbear.
imagine being a grown ass adult and taking the time to write this comment
That’s not a good sign for Ukraine in what is an attrition war. Even their own military is making plans to smuggle their men out if the country because they don’t want to send them to the death trap that is the heavily reinforced WW1 like frontlines. And Zelensky’s response is just to fire and try replace the people doing that, instead of looking as to why that is happening. If the counter offensive tactics are so dire that your own military is doing corruption to avoid sending men to the front, maybe that needs reassessment.
Zelenskiy said a state investigation into centres across Ukraine had exposed abuses by officials ranging from illegal enrichment to transporting draft-eligible men across the border despite a wartime ban on them leaving the country.
I don’t think you’re necessarily wrong, and I’m certainly no expert. However, I do know that Ukraine has long struggled with corruption, and has been making slow progress over the past couple of decades. And they will always have (there are always, in any conflict) a certain level of partisanship in their own ranks.
I’ve been mildly concerned about what could happen after the invasion; assuming Ukraine is successful, Zelenskyy’s popularity could make it easy for him to transition into a dictatorship. However, so far I’ve seen little to indicate that he’s anything other than a sincere, effective, and passionate leader – I like the guy, and I’m inclined to trust his judgement. He’s done unexpectedly well so far, and Ukraine under his leadership has been acting up to the highest ethical ideals of the EU.
Maybe Ukraine leadership is making a mistake, but maybe they know something us armchair Generals don’t.
Ukraine under his leadership has been acting up to the highest ethical ideals of the EU.
I agree with this sentence but I think we have very different ideas of what the “ethical ideals of the EU” are.
Do you think they’re different than the ones codified in Article 2?
Article 2 - Right to life
- Everyone has the right to life
Except those Russian orcs
- No one shall be condemned to the death penalty, or executed.
Sending conscripts to into the front lines instead of seeking a diplomatic solution is quite literally a death penalty
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They didn’t just ban them they also seized all their assets.
if you ukraine were to win the war (and they won’t) whatever remains of their economy is going to be crippled by its accumulating debts. a lot of the ‘aid’ they’ve received—from the ‘highly ethical’ EU among others—consists of loans that are to be paid back in full and with interest.
and we already know what the cost of these foreign ‘‘aid’’ packages are; privatization (already well under way—ukraine even has their own website); austerity; lower wages; poorer working condition; a crackdown on labor rights and organizing (like banning left-wing parties in your country, which zelensky has already done), etc.
their economy is going to be crippled by its accumulating debts.
But Zelenskyy told me that Ukraine was going to reach a 1 trillion GDP in 10 years by deregulating, selling off public assets, and reforming social programmes. Are you really suggesting he would lie like that?
GDP is just a measurement of money exchanging hands, so I don’t doubt that Zelensky, a man in the Pandora papers for money laundering could figure out a way to get their GDP to a trillion.
has been making slow progress over the past couple of decades
Zelensky was literally in the Pandora Papers lmao
By that measure, Xi is also implicated
No?
China’s only politician to be named in a sprawling investigation of millions of confidential financial documents known as the Pandora Papers is a female entrepreneur who the report says set up an offshore firm to trade U.S. stocks.
It’s overly amplified by liberal propagandists, but there’s at least enough of a connection to make a note of
“Relatives” is a very purposely vague term to use
I have so many relatives that I’ve never met or only met less than 3 times
If the connections were close relatives even to first degree cousins, they would’ve said so
For a parallel the libs can understand: all other allegations aside, it’s extremely clear that Hunter Biden wouldn’t have been on the board of a Ukrainian gas company in the first place if his last name wasn’t Biden.
You don’t see his pandering to the EU as stumbling backwards into this whole situation in the first place?
I understand that it comes across as provocative, but from what I understand about his (attempted) maneuvering over the past couple years, he’s kind of a spineless and weak leader who trusted the wrong side and got his country embroiled in a massive conflict.
NATO and the US are not trustworthy allies, and they let him talk up "Ukraine joining NATO ", a very dangerous thing to do, but I don’t believe they had any intention of letting them in at any point. Zelensky should have understood this.
got his country embroiled in a massive conflict.
Russia already invaded ukraine and took control of crimea 5 years before Zelensky became president.
To view this invasion as totally separate and then blame Zelensky for getting invaded is kinda insane to me.
I’ve seen little to indicate that he’s anything other than a sincere, effective, and passionate leader
Zelenski is a trained actor.
Did you see any signs Jack Gleeson wasn’t a petty psychotic little shit in Game of thrones? He’s actually a pretty cool guy in real life.
Are you comparing a fictional character in a fictional story to a person performing IRL? You’re judging his performance in this crisis by hia previous career? Which careers pass your “ok to be voted into presidency” test?
No. I am comparing an actor playing a part to an actor playing a part.
Which careers pass your “ok to be voted into presidency” test?
Career doesn’t matter. Its who holds their purse strings that matters. Same man who paid Zelensky the actor, paid for Zelensky the president’s campaign. (and also funded neo-nazi paramilitary groups) Same boss. Just a bigger billing. Same job different character.
Ukraine is fucked. As others have pointed out, western vultures are already carving it up via mass privatization (though they may be disappointed with what’s left when the war is over). The “counteroffensive” went nowhere and whether Russia marches all the way to Odessa is really just a question of if they want to at this point. The war was lost before it started and Ukraine will be lucky if it doesn’t get annexed to pieces by Poland et al in the coming months. Best case it keeps some manner of territorial integrity and limps along as a failed state. Not sure Zelensky deserves all the blame for this disaster, as the wheels were in motion at least as early as 2014, but they definitely bet on the wrong horse here.
A question, do you truly think the Netherlands or Denmark would honestly let Ukraine join the EU? When they are already moaning about Romania and Bulgaria? Its a pipedream to sell Ukrainians on copium.
The people moaning about people from Romania and Bulgaria are neither the ones profiting from their cheap labour here nor are they who calls the shots on the matter
I don’t know. The EU has been having a bit of a crisis, with candidates from several member states floating the idea of their own Brexits, financial struggles, and bad faith actors. I would hope that if Ukraine met the conditions for membership, then yes. It had been doing pretty well, financially and rule-of-law -wise; maybe not perfect, but steadily improving.
I was surprised by Trump, by Brexit, by the political successes of far-right politicians (Rachele Mussolonis) across Europe. I have no idea which way any of these countries will break.
Zelenskyy’s popularity could make it easy for him to transition into a dictatorship
Yes and no. His poll numbers surged from about 30% to 88% after the invasion but Ukrainians want a EU path and Dictator Zelenzkyy would be in the way of that. He could certainly win another term in a landslide and do a de Gaulle but I kinda doubt he’s even interested in that, he certainly wasn’t terribly ecstatic about it before the war and with how things are looking martial law is going to continue past the election date, that is, there’s going to be no elections. Meaning that at the end of it all there’s going to be a Zelenskyy who’s first going to take a vacation, and then do another season of servant of the people. Opening scene: Goloborodko wins the elections against the incumbent, a comedian who saved the nation from calamity due to sheer stupid luck (something about an asteroid if I remember my season 1 right). Finally, someone with proper qualifications in office again, a history teacher!
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A draft is slavery.
Because they don’t need any more recruits, right?
Because they don’t need any more recruits, right?
Got laid off because I didn’t beat up and kidnap enough young men off the streets and send them to boot camp
“Boot camp” meaning some dumbass NATO instructor showing you how to kick open doors and do counter-insurgency for 2 weeks before being sent off to run into a minefield
Probably had more time to train than Reddit brigades that got blown up
True, they were barely in Ukraine for a week before their own lack of opsec invited a rain of cruise missiles down on them
Truly the most reddit ever did it.
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If only spez himself had gone.
Username checks out
I mean there are literally videos of Ukrainian men being kidnapped so they can be conscripted into the military. The user you are replying to is clearly making a dark joke about that.
I think the lemmee user was making a joke about how such a kidnapper could be called “fuckass” or some other derisive name.
Two countries at war. One is the aggressor and other is the victim of aggression. But of course hexbear.net comrades would want the victim country to act all up to standard, and ignore how the aggressor country is doing its own military recruitment.
You’re right, Donbas is the victim of aggression.
The confederacy also considered themselves to be the victims of a war of aggression, in fact some schools in the south still teach the civil war as the “war of northern aggression” even though they started that shit
Nazis are never the victims, if anyone attacks them first it’s just self defense
I’m just a smol bean Ukwaine UwU pwease don’t agress on me 🥺. Don’t look at what I’m doing to the Donetsk, Luhansk, or Roma they’re just subhumans.
the aggressor country is doing its own military recruitment.
Conscripting prisoners and shit is also abhorrent. We shouldn’t have to say it anytime we criticize what Ukraine is doing though. Especially since what Ukraine is doing is the subject of the fucking thread.
I hope to God they get sent to the very fucking front. Every last one of them. It made me sick watching videos of these cowards kidnapping men on the streets, beating the shit out of them, then forcing them into the army while taking bribes from rich people to leave them alone. Then to watch videos of those brand new recruits getting obliterated in bradleys and MRAPS by artillery.
I seriously hope each of these fucking murderers steps on a land mine or gets their air and life ripped out of their lungs by a thermobaric rocket.
Zelensky is looking very Italian in that photo.
No you don’t understand this actually means they’re winning even harder putler St Petersburg slava unazi
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Making education so expensive that the only way for some to pursue education is to die for their country is a crime. If majority of your citizen view being part of army is only for poor people, your country does not deserve to be protected because obviously not enough people willing to fight for it. Turning your citizens into slaves and sending them into the meat grinder makes you a monster.
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kind of the same issue really
The problem is that it isn’t a separate issue, it’s the same body (Congress, with WH support) that imposes these problems and then offers “solutions” to the impacted population in exchange for acting as a jackbooted thug overseas.
I have the opposite view. A country at war should have the draft, and there should be no exceptions, so that the politicians who send other people’s children off to fight also have to send their own.
Most soldiers in a “professional” army are there because their families are poor and they have few other options to make a living.
There will always be exceptions, for example for disabilities or medical conditions. Most of those exceptions will be more accessible to wealthy or influential families that can afford to pay off doctors than poorer families.
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Politicians didn’t send their own children when there was a draft in the US. Trump AND Biden are evidence of this
Trump and Biden both avoided the draft with “1-Y” (medical) exemption. Keep in mind that more than half the 27 million eligible males were exempted or disqualified for some reason, so it’s not as if this was something only politicians did.
I would wager there was a higher percentage of the wealthy that somehow got an exemption
Make declaration of war a mandatory vote for every citizen. Anyone who votes “yes” (or illegally abstains) gets registered for the draft. Anyone who votes “no” is unregistered.
I know it’s not really feasible because governments need to be able to react swiftly in times of war. But these days with computers and cell phones, there’s very little reason that the government couldn’t push a “go download our secure voting app/visit this link to cast your vote” notification via the emergency alert broadcasting system.
Ukraine didn’t decide to go to war.
They were invaded.
After the US set the stage and created the environment to start a war.
How do you reckon it would work when it comes to age? Is the vote limited just to people of military age? Does this mean that whether or not to declare war effectively falls in the hands of ~18 - 30 year olds?
Or is it open to everyone and even some old warhawk could be drafted? Are handicapped people not allowed to vote? Women that don’t meet combat standards?
There is always the option to draft them into some sort of non-combat role. But if you knew you were only going for a non-combat role, it could be a lot easier to vote “yes”.
I’m not sure there are no situations in which draft’s are permissible. If we were in a socialist society and a fascist government invades and I were Commissar of War you bet your ass the ex-bourgeois are getting drafted.
I see your point, but that’s a topic that should be up for discussion among your hypothetical Party/legislature. I don’t think it has a clear answer.
100% agree. Me presenting it as a choice by a single Commissar for War is more tongue-in-cheek. The answer whether or we should do it is contextual but my point is that there are clear cases which I can imagine in which drafting would be clearly justified, even if of only certain groups.
But responding to a question of whether or not we should do something by saying it would be decided democratically is evading the actual question of what you would put forward or support as appropriate policy in such a scenario. If everyone one responded that way then nothing would be decided.
In this hypothetical wouldn’t the boogies and Kulacks would be in Gulags already? A bunch would be willing to sign on if it meant they might get an early release after the war. No draft necessary.
I’m really not convinced that they would normally prefer to fight fascists on the front lines than to stay in a gulag, uncomfortable as the latter might be.
draft is precisly because of that necessary , its put a general price on “Imperial adventure” while proffessional army will recruit itself from the lower classes and can be spend easly (they choose soo ) , its a bad as its forces the underprivledge to die for an empire whos fruits the privledge eat , while avoiding the blood…
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Volunteer service means wars are waged outside of public consciousness now. The Afghanistan war went on for 20 years and was essentially invisible to most people in the US. The Fed openly trying to increase unemployment is at least partially motivated by the military recruitment issues going on right now. Volunteer wars are fueled by the lives of desperate poor people.
Lack of a draft is almost directly and solely responsible for the current quagmire of the US military - when we had a draft, normal people were pulled and had to serve with other normal people. They had real lives to go back to. They had family and friends who would listen to them and write their representatives to complain if the use of those human resources was inappropriate. Seeing body bags flying home and a televised razing of a foreign jungle turned a lot of people off from war. And they made their voices heard.
Now, the only people being asked to pay attention are career military professionals. They often do not have a job or life outside of the military to tie them to normal life. They’ve also gotten smarter about where they fly corpses in, so the news can’t provide a solid day-by-day count of the wasted lives. These folks aren’t pushing back against the worst excesses of the military, because their college benefit or their pension require them to shut up and just do what they’re told.
There’s a great documentary called Sir! No, Sir! about the vibrant protest movement from within the military, driven mostly by draftees during Vietnam.
I don’t disagree with your initial reasoning, but there’s a different take that says that what we have allowed is for the worst of us to control the policy for all of us, with nearly no external oversight.
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This is a difficult problem to solve for a society though. The army is needed, because it’s what allows your country to exist. In time of peace, draft is really not optimal, because people are taken a year of their life for absolutely nothing. But the army need to keep its structure alive and functioning, or there’ll be nothing when it’s needed.
The army of professionals is a good solution, and they do a hard job to keep an important piece of the state alive when no one cares about it.
Ultimately I think it’s better if poor people make the core of the army because it means ultimately the safety of the nation is in their hands. Still, culture of the military men should be better taken care of, and elitism of the command structure should be fought.
Being in a country with a very high population means you have the privilege of enough volunteers to protect your borders.
I would be more likely to go the other way starship troopers style only those with the character to defend their country should have the right to vote in that country. Those leeching off the system and letting others doing the difficult things shouldn’t be rewarded
A bit fascist to assume that the only way to contribute to society is military service.
I didn’t say that.
You did though
First thing was that no draft is stupid and even something like starship troopers needing to serve the country in some way to be worth of a vote isn’t the worst idea in the world so it’s better than that. You don’t think there is anything at all in having some means of people that are willing to do more for their country be it military or otherwise should have more of a vote than those that do nothing and would leave it the second it isn’t doing enough for them? Some people want to make their country and the world a better place, why should they get less than someone that does nothing.
I’m not arguing that Turing should have been on the front line or that the Bevin Boys weren’t serving their country and willing to do everything possible to help their country and should have equality. Just those trying to escape when things go bad shouldn’t have the same rights when things go well off the backs of others.
Dude “You should have to provide service to the abstract idea that is ‘the nation’ in order to get your human rights” is just fascism, no matter how you try to spin it.
To be protected by that country yes.
See how long you get to have your rights when you stop paying taxes or ignore the laws of the state
starship troopers the movie was a literal send-up of fascism and you are sitting here arguing that we should do fascism so absurd it is the realm of actual parody
or you’re advocating for the book’s straight up fascism. either way, you should eat a bullet, nazi.
I’m on about the book.
It’s militaristic but it isn’t fascism.
Oh hey, an actual Fascist.
Absolute state of the world that the view that people should defend their country is facism. I’m sure the allies didn’t see themselves as fascist in WW2
The allies didn’t have a ‘service guarantees citizenship’ model, dipshit.
You don’t think the allies out people in jail for not helping with the war effort?
Right tell me how every example of “you need to do something for your country to get citizenship” is fascism? Plenty have people have argued that you need to be educated to vote or to have land to vote or whatever. They are shit systems yes but they aren’t fascism.
You’re just using an over used internet buzzword. It’s going to lose all meaning eventually.
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They are shit systems yes but they aren’t fascism.
Yes they are
yeah uh, nationalism is usually bad. imagine fucking dying for lines on a map. Imagine killing for them.
Yea what the Russians are doing is fucked. People just trying to live their lives and they come in and start killing and controlling.
was just minding its own business the same way Germany was in the 1930’s 
lol yeah bud history started the day putin ordered the invasion and nothing happened between then and oh i don’t know, 2014
If you hate people leeching off the government, just wait until you hear about every single CEO and “Captain of Industry”.
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So essentially install a military dictatorship, because only the military gets any votes?
Mate, the Starship Troopers movie was a satire, not a fucking checklist.
I was on about the book.
The film is great but philosophically it’s a shadow of the book.
So only able bodied men and women. Big yikes. Also people who aren’t soldiers are leeches. Even bigger yikes.
Obviously not read starship troopers thet make it very clear that anyone can serve and will be accommodated. And they make it very clear that being in the military isn’t the only way to serve.
It’s just above providing for your country and earning the right to vote.
Oh well if starship fucking troopers says it. You do realize that’s satire right. Jesus fuck you fascists are so fucking oblivious it isn’t funny.
