8 hours ago
I try to capture this sentiment all the time in conversations here in America - we are privileged simply to say, “I feel unsafe” and have it taken seriously when vast swaths of the world would simply reply, “you and everyone else, why are you stating the obvious”
The western world’s calibration on what it means to feel unsafe is so far out of whack that it’s often hard to take seriously.
6 hours ago
The phase "Tankie" was coined to describe the communists who still supported the USSR after it deployed tanks to put down the Hungarian revolution, the left wing opposition to aid to Ukraine is generally them (well them and the peace at any cost crowd). Though the tankie logic has additional steps to take into account Russia not being communist, you see NATO opposed communism, and Putin's Russia also opposes NATO thus Putin's Russia is in fact good.
5 hours ago
> Russia not being communist
There are current pictures of active Russian military vehicles bearing the USSR-style hammer and sickle, and there are reportedly older Russians who still idolize Stalin—who is responsible for over 20 million deaths (accountings vary).
Economically, of course, Russia is no longer communist, but some would argue (pedantically) that it technically never was. At any rate, Russia never completely disavowed the previous system, and Putin has tried to rehabilitate his country's previous regimes, attributing their failures to Western treachery. So arguably their flavor of "Communism" was never fully erased and veins of it still persist in their society.
9 hours ago