If you have some sort of way to get invading soldiers out from where they dont belong, please do it. I, and many many others, would really appreciate that.
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I agree, but thereâs a time and place for everything.
Is there an option to opt out from this propaganda?
I understood gennanâs comment to mean that there are some issues that transcend politics and that the Ukraine war is one of them. Most people, regardless of their political positions or affiliations, look upon the Holocaust with horror and condemnation because they see it correctly as a profound violation of our common humanity and moral code. In other words, although genocide may arise from a particular political calculation, our reaction to it is not a political issue up for argument, but is a position founded on transcendent values. One can, of course, deny a transcendent moral code and reduce everything to politics (which is axiomatic among Communists like Putin), but in that case one has reached a fundamental philosophical polarity that cannot be resolved.
Since the evidence of a genocidal warfighting strategy by Putin is now strong and growing, I agree with gennan that Ukraine is an issue that rises above politics.
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Of course. Feel free to not use OGS. Thatâs how you opt out of anoekâs views and expressions.
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Thanks @Conrad_Melville. Thatâs indeed what I meant (except that I donât think Putin is a communist).
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Yes, on second thought, I agree with you. It would be more accurate to call him a supreme oligarch. What I was thinking of is that he came out of the philosophical environment of the Soviet Union.
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I think it meant for something greater then empty virtue-signaling Western people are so fond of.
Activism that doesnât change anything for the sake of feeling good about themselves.
With governments thereâre no good guys. The only reason governments support Ukraine is because it aligns with their interest. When atrocities benefit them, theyâre completely fine with it.
And regular good guys canât do anything. How many good people supported Assange? Well, he got screwed. How many people supported Navalny? Rots in prison.
And since we canât do anything real, we do something meaningless to placate ourselves. We post something or donate a little bit to make ourselves feel like we did something even if it changes nothing. Same thing with climate change which is arguably even more important. Itâs screwed but a lot of people try to make yourself feel better by recycling or doing other meaningless personal choices that do nothing really except make you feel like you did something.
Itâs all pretending to do something.
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Billions of dollars worth of financial, military, and humanitarian aid has been given to Ukraine. You think thatâs totally unrelated to strong expressions of public support?
If Assange had the support that Ukraine has, heâd be free.
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I donât attend protests to stop the import of Russian fossil fuel in my city to feel good, I do it to voice my opinion and hopefully influence the current government in changing its policy (after all, in my country those politicians want to be re-elected next turn, mass protests look bad).
Showing sympathy online, however insignificant, can help with bringing others over the bridge to join such protests. Itâs basically the same as with those commercials on TV, or propaganda: if you see a message often enough, you start believing in it.
I donât think adding a flag in support of a certain cause is empty virtue-signaling. It does have an effect and has a potential to change things towards your cause.
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I think we just use the term âpoliticsâ in different ways. Which isnât much of a problem, especially when we are aware of it.
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@Allerleirauh: What you are ridiculing is the concept of morale. Doing something for the sake of morale is not âsomething meaningless.â Indeed, a study of the subject reveals that it is far more than just cheerleading to boost public spirit. It lays the foundation for a philosophical stance and lies at the heart of things like Rooseveltâs Fireside Chats and of Churchillâs famous âWe will fight them on the beachesâŚâ speech. Morale has affected diverse phenomena from the activity of the stock market to the outcome of wars.
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Thatâs about money. Selling weapons is good for a lot of people. Aid is often loans that need to be repaid and is used to debt enslave countries. Both happen regardless of public support.
Ugh, I wanted to stay out of thisâŚ
This public support is not totally unrelated to what the people who provide all that support (especially the military oneâŚ) want to support.
Or unrelated to the fact that this specific invasion hurts some people more than say, the Syrian one, for obvious reasons.
That is not to say absolutely nothing ever improves. I believe things improve but not fast enough for the interested parties to usually experience the improvements (for example womenâs rights, long way to go, better than previous century, depends on the place etc).
I donât support Russia invading Ukraine.
But letâs not pretend people in general miraculously started caring about other wars as a whole. See if public sentiment has changed, it hasnât. Europeans here and there very vocally say that these blond refugees are more welcome than those dark ones.
Or that the promotion of Ukraine and burying any negativity against the country (NOT the refugees, the country) isnât a result of powers wanting to promote positivity for Ukraine.
With all the economic alliances and agreements brewing amidst the war.
Of course the undying American/ western propaganda against âcommunismâ is alive and well and part of the discussion. We shouldnât deny complications because it might hurt our point, because people see that things are omitted and they feel cheated.
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And itâs obvious even when itâs not being said vocally by anyone. And itâs shameful. But that doesnât make welcoming them in the way itâs done wrong. (I know you neither said nor meant that @Gia, still wanted to make the point.)
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Yes, Iâm not of the mentality âdonât help anyone until my cause gets helpâ but of âsince weâve improved and now helping X, people please hear about Y as wellâ.
I prefer puppies, but Iâll never kick kittens.
There is no reason for us to quibble or go around definitions of what is politics and what is not. There are lexicons and political sciences on that.
However, if we argue that a contention and war between countries leaves the spectrum of politics (which is mostly objective) and goes into the spectrum of morality (which is mostly subjective), you open a pandoraâs box that everyone in Europe has fought hard to close with the introduction of the EEC/EU.
Whether we like it or not, Europe has had a history written in blood and is full of wars.
Thousands and thousands of years of wars to be exact.
If you open the pandoraâs box again and start elevating every war in a âhigh moralâ issue, then we will end up with more wars in Europe because everyone will jump on that bandwagon and return to have another look of older wars and disputes with âmodern standardsâ.
It is already a volatile environment in some borders with old dislikes and feuds still lurking underneath the seemingly still surface of the EU.
I do not want to wake up one day and see the propaganda pamphlets about the Balkan wars and whose great-grandfather used to live on which village that is now on the âwrong sideâ of the borders, ok? 
Please try to be more considerate. 
The university of Florida recently renaming the âKarl Marxâ lecture hall despite Marx being a German, is still objectively funny.
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Your quotation from my post has been ripped from the context. If you read the whole post, you will see that it is explicitly predicated on the belief that the Ukraine war is now a genocidal war, which, for the reasons stated, transcends politics. I stand by everything I wrote there (except for my characterization of Putin, which I corrected in the next post, in response to gennanâs comment).
A murder is a moral decision.
A genocide is a political decision.
Dressed and decorated as morality / religion / the weather was weird that day, but itâs politics.
Because politics isnât left - right, communism - not communism. Itâs just reduced to that because it makes it easier to control.
Try to explain to the average person the web of politics that goes into Ukrainians dying as we speak and most will short-circuit. But if you say âwell, itâs not politics because thereâs no political parties here, just right and wrongâ, voilĂ they are now experts and confident (and none the wiser for the next time theyâll have to navigate a similar issue).
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I hope you see the irony in âgenocideâ being a relatively recent term/word and politically defined by the âgenocide conventionâ:
If it âtranscends politicsâ one has to wonder to where it transcends to ⌠what is âafter/beyond/above politicsâ and what are the rules there? I think that is a fair question.