what a relief

so you say all these brave 140 millions men and women cant remove one crazy dictator?

it seems that youtube embedding doesnt works properly here (as well as posts counting)...anyway, here is a link I want to share about fear and fearless:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwbGAuS_KwM

Not without the help of the army or of someone from his close circle....he lives in a bunker for goodness sake, is paranoid about security and coupes etc and has been extremely paranoid for years!!!
Do you think Russia is a democracy, we gather by tens of thousands via FB, protests for a few days and someone will resign? We are talking about a dictatorship with a very repressive state apparatus.

Look

here's another good one if you're interested. its from 2015 but the way it describes western media it could be written today.

https://www.thenation.com/article/ar...able-citizens/

It is a remarkable aspect of the current conflict that the people who have suffered that most as a result of the Ukrainian civil war, the eastern Ukrainians, have received little sympathy from Western media that are usually only too eager to cover the hardships brought about by war. The reason is neither hard to divine, nor is it lost on people we spoke to in Donbas. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the Russian-speaking population of the Donbas is being subjected to a conscious campaign of dehumanization that is being waged primarily by private armies funded by Ukrainian oligarchs. Because the people of the Donbas are ethnic Russian speakers, their suffering is discounted.

If only it were that easy.

In just the same way that all 140 million plus of them are not Putin fanboys blindly following and agreeing with him they’re not all against him either.

What is it that you don’t get? Not all Russians are the same, just as all Ukrainians aren’t the same or any other nationality for that matter. Sharing a nationality with somebody doesn’t mean you have to think like them or agree with them.

To a degree.

I think there are cultural traits that mean a country will find it difficult to form a government that may align with one's own western ideals.

The people of some countries would appear to trend towards a more fascist type of rule, or at least of having apathy towards it. Italy and Spain would be in this category.

Russia could be classed as Fascist and would fit that moniker in the way it is being run.
Due to state-run propaganda, there is a degree of idolisation of the leader and as long as people have jobs, food on the table and somewhere to live, they are happy to accept the status quo.

Where it is changing in Russia now is that people, especially the younger ones, have more access to travel, foreign interests and so on and they want something different.

ftfy

According to the Ukraine 2001 census, only 38% of the Donbas population are ethnic Russian. I reserve my sympathy for the 62% who got dragged into a "Russian copy republic" and into an ongoing war since 2014 without any choice.

how are spain and italy "apathetic to fascism" today? or are you talking about last century?

So Italy, Spain and Russia... anyone else?

so the rumours have been around for a while - that wikipedia will be banned in Russia.. latest development below (deepl translation, slightly corrected)

"Roskomnadzor will draw up a protocol on an administrative offense under Article 13.41 of the CAO RF against the Internet portal "Wikipedia" for the failure to remove inaccurate publicly significant materials, as well as other prohibited information.

In accordance with the request of the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia, Roskomnadzor sent a notice to the administration of the Internet resource to immediately remove misleading information on the subject of the special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine, aimed at misinforming Russian users.

According to Russian law, the owner of the site faces administrative liability in the form of a fine of up to 4 million rubles for failure to remove such unlawful materials in due time."

quoted from РоскомнадZop (Roskomnadzor) - note the spelling - the letter "Z", the one on the Russian tanks, does not even exist in the Russian alphabet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roskomnadzor (the irony)

__________________
If you are going through hell, just keep going.

At this point Russia looks like it is going to go the way of China and adopt a policy of censorship, because nothing about the facts are going to change in the months and years following this conflict and if they don't want the Russian people to read the truth then they are just going to have to filter anything resembling free press.

you are welcome

for sure it will not be easy. shifting off dictator was never and never will be easy
but it doesnt release russians from collective responsibility even if they are not the same

According to Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky who investigated (asked around his German aquintances) the denazification of Germany only appeared around 1968 (!), and he meant the time about which Hitler was finally seen as the global evil that he was and the German people started to clearly understand what Germany did during ww2. He doesn't have high hopes for Russia either. He doesn't believe this process will be a fast one i.e. seeing Putin as the global evil he currently really is.
This was in an interview with DW, I can look for the link if anyone is interested.

The vast majority of people in any country just want to live their lives in peace without being bothered by the government. They will not rise.

Furthermore, those who will rise against their government have a fundamental problem. The tyrant has the monopoly on violence. Which is why the tyrant keeps the army well paid and fed. Or terrorised in the lower ranks.

That is exactly what you want, a country with a strong economy between you and your enemy. That is what post war Germany was to the allies.

Nationalism in a greater degree is one step away from Fascism. Italy, for example has had problems with a 'proper' democracy for ages.
Short-term coalition governments and instability are crying out for someone to step in and rule the country properly.
There are political parties in gaining momentum in Italy which could only push it further right.
The population can't seem to see this. May be they don't care.

Maybe apathy isn't the right word. May be it's 'tendency.'

Which part of my post did you feel you needed to report to the site admin?

Maybe it was all of it?

Anyone else?

Worryingly, yes.