All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Ozymandias]

Nutland isn't the people of Ukraine who demonstrated in the streets at great risk. You are, once again, stealing agency from the Ukranian people. For you, only the west has agency and the world revolves only on that axis. You deny agency to the Russians, including their ability to wage a brutal war, and see it only as a 'natural response' just as much.

And it's incredibly short-sighted.

The Ukraine had a few more inhabitants than the few thousands who attended those protests, what "agency" did they have?

Better than choosing to be blind, for sure.

[Tendrin]

The Ukraine had a few more inhabitants than the few thousands who attended those protests, what "agency" did they have?

Better than choosing to be blind, for sure.

Half a million people protested in Kyiv alone. By comparison, 1 million people in Tahrir square collapsed the government of Egypt.

[thwhtGuardian]

It says I try not to read nonsense, thank you.

No, it says you believe nonsense.

[Ozymandias]

Says the guy who posts comments defending the murder of woman and children civilians by an invading army at the orders of an unhinged mad ma. I would laugh if it was so damn disgusting.

Poor Zelensky, don't talk about him like that! He did what he could!

Seriously, the guy just didn't know what he was running up against.

[Ozymandias]

No, it says you believe nonsense.

Nonsense is what I watch on TV whenever I turn it on, which is why I also do that less and less these days. You should try it, yo might learn something.

[Tendrin]

Poor Zelensky, don't talk about him like that! He did what he could!

Seriously, the guy just didn't know what he was running up against.

Let's remember what was in the peace agreement that you're talking about here and why it was unworkable.

“The key political provisions are incompatible, in my opinion, with Ukraine’s existence as a sovereign country,” said Duncan Allan, a fellow at Chatham House who specialises in the Minsk Agreements.

In his analysis, the Minsk plan for the political reintegration of Donbas was put together hastily and contains contradictory points, which has led to the two sides arguing for interpretations that are advantageous to them.

Indeed, other analysts suggest that if Kyiv was pressured into implementing Russia’s version of Minsk, there could be a severe backlash from ordinary Ukrainians that could destabilise the country internally.

Allan believes that the agreements have a “very convoluted and confused sequencing procedure”.

Under the agreements, Ukraine wants Russia and its proxy forces to withdraw and allow Ukraine to take back control of the border before the proposed local elections under international standards take place. Then, instead of granting the territories the special status that Russia has argued for, Kyiv would give the territories some extra powers but essentially incorporate them into its existing decentralisation programme.

Ukraine’s interpretation of the agreement envisions alterations to some of the prickliest political elements, but in doing so, it negates what Russia has shown it wants from Minsk – the ability to continue to control the territories and through them have a say in Ukraine’s national affairs on an ongoing basis.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr...sk-agreements/

[Catlady in training]

You might take offense or insult if you feel that way, but none was intended. It's not denial of agency so much as an acceptance of the reality of the world that larger powers often dominate or influence smaller ones for their own ends. Whether that was European Colonial powers in centuries past across the globe, or the US and USSR gobbling up allies and supporting enemies of the other in proxy wars this past century. Russia doesn't have the clout it once had to do so, but the US does still do this across the world. I don't think anyone can reasonably deny this, though if you feel that's not the case I'd be interested to hear why that is.

The US wanting something and a smaller nation wanting the same thing (whether for the same reason or different ones) doesn't mean that their alliances are illegitimate or that they were forced into them (though in many cases they might be, or at least heavily influenced). As to overestimating my country's influence and power projection, or meddling in the affairs of other countries (not just Russia/Eastern Europe, but literally all over the world) I wish I was. But you don't have to be a student of history to have seen what we do and are doing. As to NATO not being a threat to Russia and their waning influence in the region, and being merely a "defensive alliance", I would say that's very much wishful thinking and borders on willful ignorance (mayhap harder not to take as insult, but again if you see it that way I'd love to hear an explanation).

I started to reply, but I realized I was just repeating my previous posts, so I guess we better agree to disagree about the level of influence the US has over sovereign nations and how much that even matters, when there are much worse threats in the World and one has to ally with someone.

I will repeat, I point these things out not to excuse Russia's invasion and war against Ukraine but because I believe it's helpful to discuss motivations (even false, exaggerated, or outdated ones) in any given situation. Russia is right to be concerned with the West's growing influence. It is wrong to react to that with violence and war. And it has hurt itself beyond measure by doing so in this particular instance. I will also repeat that it's not helpful to reflexively attack anyone who points out that the situation isn't completely cut & dry, good vs evil. We saw what happened when my country invaded another country under false pretenses and the propaganda machine was on the other side. It wasn't a good thing.

Again, I repeat, russia or any other country for that matter doesn't have a reason to fear NATO, as it is a defensive alliance, unless they have intentions to invade or otherwise attack their members.
(And since I have a feeling an argument about Belgrade is comming, I will add: or unless they plan to commit a massive genocide.)

There's a large percentage of people in every country who have an "us first" attitude, and don't want to get involved in other people's problems. Can't say they're always wrong, either. Our country famously was slow to get involved in the European Wars last century, and two of the main complaints right-wing voters in the US have every election cycle is immigration/refugees and foreign aid, despite the good both do and the extremely exaggerated problems involved with them. Also, on the Soros point, there's sadly an anti-semitic streak in most countries as well. You'll often hear talk about "international banking interests" and "secret cabals", and some will venture out further and mention the Rothschilds. Soros is still a socially acceptable dogwhistle for them.

I was just trying to illustrate, what types of people are generally against NATO and US here. Kind of our equivalent of MAGA people.

[Catlady in training]

Nonsense is what I watch on TV whenever I turn it on, which is why I also do that less and less these days. You should try it, yo might learn something.

[Tami]

“You have no choice. Not your choice, not your body, your body is mine.”

"This is where we are headed folks!"

[Ozymandias]

Let's remember what was in the peace agreement that you're talking about here and why it was unworkable.


https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr...sk-agreements/

Sounds to me like the author of that article is denying agency to the Ukrainian people, as expressed by their vote when freely electing Zelensky on the promise of peace. Peace already signed upon by the previous democratically elected president of Ukraine. Fortunately, Ukronazis were there on the front-line, to ensure the survival of true freedom and democracy. The freedom to shell some democracy on their separatist compatriots.

[Mister Mets]

I can say I refuse his main premise, so whatever his conclusion it will be based in a faulty logic process. Not interested. BTW, you don't consider rude to tell someone you're "noticing" what they do or how? As if you were tasked with some specific duty in that regard?

I think he is articulating a commonly held viewpoint. If you believe Ukraine is not free, you can present the evidence for that.

You seem dismissive of the idea that Ukraine is free, so you wouldn't be the one to make a different argument that even if Ukraine is free, the political reality is that they should acquiesce to all demands by the more powerful neighbor.

[Dalak]

On Chapelle, I was responding to specific points about whether he was trying to frame trans people, or whether he should have assumed immediately after he was attacked that his comments should be interpreted a particular way. I understand that someone who is critical of him in these specific circumstances is going to be critical of him in general, so that it can be seen as a proxy for how he is in general but that's a bad attitude, encouraging people to be wrong on specific questions in order to signal support on a larger topic.

When there's a question about what people secretly believe, it's always worth noting that a possible answer is that they don't know enough about a question to offer an opinion either way. That's mostly where I am on the question of whether Dave Chapelle is a transphobe. I am confident he wasn't trying to frame trans people.

On masks on airplanes, the argument is mostly not about facts. When it comes to masks in schools, I did post the understanding of the facts at the time (mainly late August/ early September 2021) and that's the relevant context.

It seems to me that some people on the left are coming up with their own definition of CRT and then insisting that Republicans agree to it. This seems to be what you're doing if your view is that we shouldn't even go with textbook definitions, while being vague about where your definitions come from.

We had a big argument about the numbers, and you seem to contradict yourself.

I posted an interesting statistic from a respected periodical The Week.

You accuse the writer of lying, and me of lying as well. That seems like a stretch. If a writer gets it wrong, and someone else posts it, it's possible that the writer wasn't lying and made some miscalculation, but it's certainly possible that someone posting what a journalist wrote isn't familiar with a potential flaw. I get that someone posting Infowars or Seth Abramson should know better, but that's a nasty response to someone posting from The Week.

I still think your understanding of the exchange is incorrect.

Here was the article. https://theweek.com/life/1006253/the...er-trans-teens

Here's the section I quote.


It's worth noting that The Week summarizes major stories. It doesn't go into significant detail.

According to a survey of transgender youth from June 2017-June 2018 in the National Library of Medicine, two-thirds of those who identified as nonbinary were assigned female at birth. Incidentally, the percentage was higher for individuals who identified as having a binary gender (IE- male, female, trans male/ trans man/ trans masculine or trans female/ trans woman/ trans feminine.)

I posted a link to what appears to be the survey in question.
https://www.acha.org/documents/ncha/...ATA_REPORT.pdf

Trans men are 0.3% of the students. However, the percentage of afab (Assigned Female at Birth) students who are trans men will be higher than the percentage in a survey of all college students.
Other students are listed as genderqueer, non-binary, agender, or genderfluid. The total percentage is 3.7 percent, although this is of the larger student body and not limited to students who are afab.


The original context was also whether there had been an increase from 1 in 2,000. Even if we had a restrictive definition of trans limited to trans men and trans women, there would be a major increase in students identifying as trans men if 1 in 200 afab students are seeking services related to being trans men.

There is a view that people who identify as genderfluid or non-binary or agender do not count as trans, and I thought that was the dispute, but you said it wasn't.

https://community.cbr.com/showthread...=1#post6031977

I admit that it was possible, in the context of what had been posted, that a significant majority of individuals identifying as nonbinary, agender, etc were biological males/ raised as boys, and that this would skew the statistics. I looked up the data, and there's no indication of this.
The reporter rounding up a bit checks out.

Dave has made Anti-Trans bigotry his platform lately, so why should we give him the benefit of the doubt when that was his first instinct? I find much is revealed by unforced errors people make in their first reactions to things.

Definition of CRT according to the Newyorker story you reposted and I linked to in the reply you said I didn't provide a definition in:

"As Rufo eventually came to see it, conservatives engaged in the culture war had been fighting against the same progressive racial ideology since late in the Obama years, without ever being able to describe it effectively. “We’ve needed new language for these issues,” Rufo told me, when I first wrote to him, late in May. “ ‘Political correctness’ is a dated term and, more importantly, doesn’t apply anymore. It’s not that elites are enforcing a set of manners and cultural limits, they’re seeking to reengineer the foundation of human psychology and social institutions through the new politics of race, It’s much more invasive than mere ‘correctness,’ which is a mechanism of social control, but not the heart of what’s happening. The other frames are wrong, too: ‘cancel culture’ is a vacuous term and doesn’t translate into a political program; ‘woke’ is a good epithet, but it’s too broad, too terminal, too easily brushed aside. ‘Critical race theory’ is the perfect villain,” Rufo wrote.

He thought that the phrase was a better description of what conservatives were opposing, but it also seemed like a promising political weapon. “Its connotations are all negative to most middle-class Americans, including racial minorities, who see the world as ‘creative’ rather than ‘critical,’ ‘individual’ rather than ‘racial,’ ‘practical’ rather than ‘theoretical.’ Strung together, the phrase ‘critical race theory’ connotes hostile, academic, divisive, race-obsessed, poisonous, elitist, anti-American.” Most perfect of all, Rufo continued, critical race theory is not “an externally applied pejorative.” Instead, “it’s the label the critical race theorists chose themselves.”

And as was pointed out to you before: Christopher Rufo, a prominent opponent of critical race theory, in March acknowledged intentionally using the term to describe a range of race-related topics and conjure a negative association.

“We have successfully frozen their brand — ‘critical race theory’ — into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions,” wrote Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. “We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category. The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’”

So as that's the originator of the CRT boogeyman, that's the definition of CRT that the GoP have been running with.

Mask misinformation is mask misinformation.

I hope you aren't a math teacher, because it's simple to see where you are you are wrong here. I don't believe that these studies represent what you say they do, but since I'm not going through the effort to read through and prove it to someone who won't accept it I'll use simple math assuming they do:

3.7% x .66 = 2.44 round down to 2.4
2.4 + .3 = 2.7

You are defending rounding up from 2.7% to 5% to excuse believing a lying story or for supporting the transphobia that the story and Shrier are peddling. Your lies came from gaslighting me pretending you didn't understand what I was saying and trying to make me think I was arguing things I wasn't so many many times which you are continuing in this post. Just stop pretending Mets.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/me...e9eb1c0aeba4aa



So, now we're letting Florida interfere in medical textbooks?

I have to agree with Mets in the response to this, the Textbook is trying to undercut Florida using them to excuse their transphobia by doing this IMO.

On the quoted statistics about increasing trans kids since 2008, I'd like to point out that this issue was among the fringiest of the fringe even in LGBTQ+ circles a decade and a half ago and people in the mainstream weren't receptive to recognizing it, let alone supporting it, so the question should be are people "jumping on the bandwagon" and looking to change their assigned gender because it's the "in thing" now or would they have liked to have done so in 2008 in far greater numbers but the culture and climate was so inherently hostile that they didn't see it as an option as something to even speak about (probably even to trusted people like parents, mentors, or therapists) let alone attempt?

This has been pointed out multiple times by at least 2 other posters than I, but Mets doubles down every time.

[JB]

Let's remember what was in the peace agreement that you're talking about here and why it was unworkable.


https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr...sk-agreements/

I'm glad the Minsk agreements are being brought up because it seems a few posters are not even aware that Ukraine has been in a civil war since 2014. After Minsk I failed and heavy fighting resumed, Minsk II was mediated by France and Germany in 2015 and the US was not invited, as Merkel said that the US sending armaments to the Ukrainian government would only make things worse. It was signed by Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky (Donbas), OSCE representative Tagliavini, Ukrainian representative Kuchma, and Russian representative Mikhail Zurabov.

Much of the fighting stopped but conflict in Debaltseve continued. Right Sector (neo-nazi organization) leader Dmytro Yarosh said that he "reserved the right" to continue fighting, and that "Minsk II was unconstitutional." And in the south of Donetsk Oblast, fighting between the DPR and members of the Azov Battalion continued near Mariupol. There really was no chance of a ceasefire happening as long as these groups were left unchecked.

[Tendrin]

I'm glad the Minsk agreements are being brought up because it seems a few posters are not even aware that Ukraine has been in a civil war since 2014. After Minsk I failed and heavy fighting resumed, Minsk II was mediated by France and Germany in 2015 and the US was not invited, as Merkel said that the US sending armaments to the Ukrainian government would only make things worse. It was signed by Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky (Donbas), OSCE representative Tagliavini, Ukrainian representative Kuchma, and Russian representative Mikhail Zurabov.

Much of the fighting stopped but conflict in Debaltseve continued. Right Sector (neo-nazi organization) leader Dmytro Yarosh said that he "reserved the right" to continue fighting, and that "Minsk II was unconstitutional." And in the south of Donetsk Oblast, fighting between the DPR and members of the Azov Battalion continued near Mariupol. There really was no chance of a ceasefire happening as long as these groups were left unchecked.

That's true enough, yes, but that doesn't change what Russia's very clear and obvious goals were or why negotiations stalled on implementation, with Russian negotiators insisting on the most favorable reading for themselves in a way that gave them a pocket veto over Ukranian politics. Obviously, any politician whose base of support lays outside of the seperatist areas isn't going to agree to that. Really, everything goes back to Putin's decision making. The collapse of Yanukovych government in 2014 came about because of Russia leaning on him, sparking a long-simmering frustration that led to the Ukranians deciding to rise up. Putin then invading in 2014 in the aftermath to annex Crimea and set up puppet states which galvanized the far right in Ukraine by giving them something to rally around, placing countless people in harms way to create an unnecessary civil conflict, out of fear of Ukraine drifting out of his 'sphere of influence'.

It really is *all his fault*.

[babyblob]

"This is where we are headed folks!"

The sick thing is the GOP does not even See how dumb and full of hypocrisy they are when it comes to medical choice.

We all remember the outcry that did and still happens with covid

Gop - Masks, Vaccines? My body my choice, the government should not interfere or tell someone what they can do with their body in terms of medical care.

Also the GOP - We have to ban a woman's right to get an abortion, or a persons right to make the choice with their parents and health care professionals on gender care.

Or they may see it and just dont care because they are so wrapped up in hate and control.