Photographs shared on social media show bags attached via string to white translucent balloons carrying toilet paper, dark soil, and batteries, among other contents....
The problem with news about North Korea is that tabloids and defectors can literally just make shit up and it will be republished uncritically by “respectable” news sources so you have no way to judge its credibility.
Or maybe it’s all true, and to get between cities, north koreans have to pull the train to the next city. Which is actually a fake city, surrounded by fake farms, attended by fake farmers. Then they steal hollywood movies and are immediately executed by anti-aircraft gun for watching western media.
Do you have a rental storage place around you that offers 10 dollars a month intro pricing? You can just leave your garbage there. Pay one month, cash, and never come back.
They were more like paramilitary than militia since they employed armored cars, tanks, and aircraft from the regular military of Weimar Germany when needed.
I have very good memory. I remember people in the streets to end the immigrant concentration camps and police brutality, I remember fury at Trump’s trade war with China, I remember Trump talking about getting rid of Roe v Wade.
And then I remember all that same shit getting worse under Biden while the libs went back to brunch.
I can also remember having the same experience when Obama continued and expanded Bush’s wars, spying, and bailouts for wallstreet, and somehow libs were telling me these things were either good or electorally smart (turns out no, triangulation doesn’t peel off moderate republicans, it just makes people stay home).
This is the horseshit that gave us Trump in the first place, and the dems are deadset on doing it again.
Those are more like your eyes adjusting to brightness/darkness. You’re not tricking yourself into thinking the alcohol taste or coffee bitterness are good, you’re desensitizing yourself to them, which lets you sense other flavors.
Sometimes there’s no other strong flavors so you get “Huh, this cold brew concentrate tastes like water, I didn’t even add ice, try it” “wtf that is so bitter!!”
True, from the vitriol I’ve seen directed at Russians living in former Ukrainian territories, it’d genuinely be a toss-up whether they’d go with the guys who invaded and occupied them or the ones who passed anti-russian laws and have banderites talking about ethnically cleansing them in parliament.
There’s really no good outcome for anyone involved, and a longer war makes all of them worse.
When you do the math of “Half a million dead Russians, and it didn’t cost us a single life”, you betray that Ukrainian lives literally do not matter to you and that you consider dead Russians a good thing.
if the majority of Ukrainians actually would prefer Russian rule they’d just stop fighting
That would require the Ukrainian government represents the interests of the majority of people in Ukraine. There’s only a handful of governments whose actions are consistently in the interest of and supported by its people. None of them are in eastern Europe.
If Russia has legitimate reasons, why are all the reasons they give for their actions always a bunch of lies?
I’m not saying the invasion was legitimate or justified, those concepts don’t even factor into state actors. I’m explaining the things that motivated it.
If they have the truth on their side, why not tell the truth?
They’ve said over and over that it was over the failure to enforce the Minsk II agreement. But lies are convenient and animating so you get both. Same reason the US media pretended that Iraq had chemical weapons and was involved in 9/11. The populace probably would have been happy to go to war without those reasons, but it makes it easier and increases domestic support for the ruling party.
Both parties agreeing to peace as soon as possible would be ideal, but we only need one party to stop this war. I don’t speak Russian and my country is not enabling Russia to continue the war, it’s enabling Ukraine to continue the war.
But if I did have psychic powers and could tell Putin what to do, I’d tell him to sue for immediate peace, ideally with the occupied regions having internationally monitored referendums on whether to join Ukraine vs Russia, but ending this phase of the conflict and moving on to the decades of militia violence and terrorism ahead would be worth even giving up that.
You’d happily allow things to degenerate into a decades-long insurgency
We’re getting a decades long insurgency whether Russia or Ukraine controls the region. There was an insurgency before the war, and there’s sure as hell gonna be one now. Ending the war is the only way we can slow the rate things are getting worse for the people there.
As far as which insurgents, that’s much more complicated, you can’t just say all insurgent factions are good or bad.
The victims are the people. Every day this war goes on means more victims. The only reason I examine Russia’s reasoning is to predict future behavior, moral judgements on Russia or Putin’s character have nothing to do with this since the only moral action is what benefits the people.
The alternative is what? Putin just hates the Russian and Ukrainian people so much he decided to create a humanitarian disaster? That he wanted the wealth and productivity of land that currently looks like a WWI battlefield?
Lets be realistic. Putin is an agent of Russia’s national bourgeoisie, he wouldn’t have power if he didn’t offer anticommunism and stability for the oligarchs he depends on.
It’s Foreign Affairs, literally a state-department mouthpiece, you have to read between the lines and understand the way they use emphasis and conjecture to manipulate the narrative.
The atomic unit of propaganda isn’t lies, it’s emphasis.
I didn’t say anything about believing Putin, I wouldn’t trust him as far as I can throw him. My point is that you have to read any media critically and understand how they are trying to twist the facts. I chose a state department-aligned source so you wouldn’t disregard it out of hand.
The fact is that Russia offered a peace deal that would have ended the war with Russia even giving back much of the territory it had taken 2 years ago, Zelensky pulled out of the peace talks when he had guarantees of unlimited support. The writer’s bias of course, makes them suggest that actually Russia didn’t really want Ukraine to accept the peace deal.
Sadly the people enabling Putin doesn’t care what either of us think. The people enabling Zelensky might. Opposing only the other side in a war is the same as supporting the war.
I’m not making moral judgements, if justice were served, both Putin and Zelensky and every other representative of capital would be devoured by the workers who choose between rent, medicine, and food. I’m looking for the closest avenue for ending the war that anyone who pretends to represent me can effect.
For me, an American, that means not sending weapons so they have to agree to peace.
Seeing a lot of this lately... (lemmy.world)
Via Berkeley Mews
North Korea drops balloons carrying trash and propaganda in South (www.bbc.com)
Photographs shared on social media show bags attached via string to white translucent balloons carrying toilet paper, dark soil, and batteries, among other contents....
Cop Rule (sh.itjust.works)
Advil candy. That delicious candy shell you love with chocolate inside. Or try the Tic-Tac version; candy shell all the way through! (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
Trump told donors he will crush pro-Palestinian protests, deport demonstrators - The Washington Post (Gifted article, no paywall) (wapo.st)
Ant smell (mander.xyz)
EU ministers fume as ‘outrageous’ Hungary yet again blocks military aid for Ukraine (www.politico.eu)
A large number of EU resolutions on Ukraine are being blocked by Hungary, said Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis....