Good god, I’m helping the fascists? You’re the one who endorses fascist policies and repeats fascist talking points. The rise of fascism, as I said before, is due it being a useful tool for the ruling class in preserving the status quo, hence why these talking points are pushed and why demagogues are trying to make the population afraid of immigrants. It worked on you. The problem of people fleeing poverty and violence will never be solved by closing the borders, that just makes it worse, and many people die because of it.

I use “third world”, because it wasn’t originally intended as “third class” or whatever, and everybody knows what I’m talking about. “Global south” is not geographically correct, “developing countries” is a liberal euphemism that doesn’t capture what’s going on (“exploited countries” would be better), and when I say “periphery” nobody knows what I’m talking about.

Libs like the educated immigrants, I’m aware. Just not the unwashed masses, who actually need the most help. But oh god why would I think that’s because of racism? Is it because biological racism has been replaced with talking points about culture and education in polite circles? You should rather be afraid of the fascists at home, they actually have momentum and numbers. But then again, the stuff you’re saying is basically the same shit you hear from them, so I guess that’s not a problem then. They’re going after Muslims and not atheists, so I guess that’s not your problem.

And I definitely think you are, out of xenophobia, imagining some horror scenario of migrants coming to your country and taking over. This is some grade A paranoia, and with this assumption you can justify all sorts of barbaric policies.

You’re afraid the migrants are going to undermine your freedoms. Those people are poor PoCs, that’s who I mean.

If the exploitation stops, those third world countries will have growing economies and people will have a path to prosperity. People don’t just go to other places because those places are richer, they go because they’re desperate. They won’t be as desperate, they’ll have a future to look forward to.

You would advocate turning back climate refugees because of what, demographics? Like what is this shit, I’ve heard this stuff before. “Those people are not like us, they’re uncivilized! They’re going to replace us!” Blablabla, your racism is showing. You’re so afraid of migrants and what you imagine they might do, you’d rather they die than come to your country.

1. If the exploitation stops, people will be less inclined to migrate, since poverty and exploitation-related violence and wars are the major contributors.
2. They won’t. Plus, liberal democracies aren’t really democratic to begin with, since the only voices that actually count or those of the rich. If the ruling class can no longer rely on loot from the colonies, they’ll need to actually take on real structural problems at home, or be replaced, since they can no longer afford to just bribe the working class with cheap consumer goods. This is a chance to actually push for more democracy.
3. The majority of people do not respect human rights right now, you being a good example, since you argue that the human rights and democratic rights of poor PoCs are somehow less important than your own rights. Also, in case you haven’t noticed, the West is going fascist rather quickly right now, and it’s not the fault of the immigrants at all.

You can be an atheist in very many poor countries with no problem, and LGBTQ rights weren’t very good in the West not so long ago either, and seem to be getting worse. I expect reactionary attitudes to go down globally when this injustice is addressed. In the third world, reactionary attitudes are pushed by the comprador ruling classes there, often by allying with religious institutions, and driven by a desire to fight socialists. In the West, the recent fascist wave is caused by a desire of the ruling class to maintain power and profits, firstly by blaming scapegoats and secondly because the fascists are more willing to use violence to crush the opposition and uphold capitalism and imperialism. Hence why they’re getting money from billionaires. All this reactionary shit is intrinsically linked to the need to maintain the exploitative status quo. Heck, this whole argument started about borders and the fascists are the ones that advocate for the most brutal border policies. Why? Because that strengthens the system. The system is in crisis, and fascists are needed to keep it going with violence, as it might collapse otherwise.

Western governments will never give up that global apartheid system, unless they have no other choice. They will need be forced into accepting terms. This means their militaries and other institutions need to be thrown out of the colonies, and they won’t go without a fight. It means they need to lose all leverage over international trade and finance. When they are defeated and no longer able to exploit, the border guards will become pointless and self-defeating. I think and hope this would also trigger/coincide with a revolution in the West, but who knows. The Western countries will have to change for sure.

Then you go on about rights and freedoms, but this system does not meet the basic needs of most humans, does not respect their human rights, and the majority of people are therefore far from free. Do you think your freedom hinges upon oppressing others? Because that’s absurd. Are you thinking of privilege maybe? I guess privilege is a kind of freedom, just not for everybody.

Yes. There’s a system of global apartheid, where people in many regions are super-exploited and are forced to live precarious lives without human dignity, safety and their basic needs met. This system can only work due to people getting pushed back and murdered at the borders, and being discriminated against if they make it over the border somehow.

The whole system needs dismantling, and getting rid of the borders is going to be key.

otherwise it’ll completely legitimise nations to start wars to take land for themselves

Have you been sleeping for the last decades? There were plenty of wars. The US didn’t stop them, in fact, the US started a bunch of them, and more were started by US allies, or waged with US help. The US supports illegal occupation (“taking land”) all over, too.

So is there actually any norm anyone adheres to? Seems to me the actual norm is “don’t do anything the US doesn’t like”. It’s got nothing to do with starting wars or taking land.

Most countries aren’t worth defending tbh

Why?

The makers of this map, Freedom House, receive funding mainly from the US government. They also took money from BAE Systems, Britain’s biggest arms manufacturer.

Have you heard of the Cuban Missile Crisis?

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/05/john-f-kennedy-had-a-russian-back-channel.html

The meeting described above took place in 1960, and the “close adviser” was the incoming president’s brother, Robert F. Kennedy. It is not unusual for the Russians to want to establish contacts with an incoming presidential administration, especially when there is tension between the two countries.

Inofficial channels like this are a not an unusual thing generally, no?

Do people actually recognize these? I don’t think I’d recognize most of them whatever the icon pack. Might as well be hieroglyphics.

Why though? Can’t imagine that these rounds are going to change the course of the war, so why? Are they out of non-Uranium ones?

I don’t think I can go any more official than the OHCHR, and I don’t think I can convince you of your good vs evil narrative with any source. People got shelled, it’s obviously implied they got shelled by the other side, and no theory to the contrary is put forward in the report.

I’ll let you ponder this: This would be the first conflict in which one side commits all the war crimes. Even more curious, the side which commits no war crimes has a bunch of volunteer units literally using Nazi, SS and Bandera iconography. You know, the guys that marched hundreds of thousands of civilians into the woods and murdered them. Does that seem plausible to you?

You do realize that direction of the shelling wouldn’t be hard to determine? If you look at the side of a shelled building you know roughly which direction the shells are coming from. In your worldview OHCHR was duped by some elaborate conspiracy of repeated false flag attacks. That doesn’t even pass the sniff test. Also, why bring MH-15 into this? You cannot discredit my OHCHR source by bringing this up, what’s the connection there?

Yes it says that exactly, unless you think the “armed groups” shelled themselves.

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Countries/UA/OHCHRThematicReportUkraineJan2014-May2016_EN.pdf

OHCHR estimates that between mid-April 2014 and 31 May 2016, at least 9,404 people, of which up to 2,000 are civilians, have been killed as a result of the conflict. The vast majority of civilian casualties, recorded on the territories controlled by the Government of Ukraine and on those controlled by armed groups, were caused by the indiscriminate shelling of residential areas, in violation of the international humanitarian law principle of distinction.

Na better believe Prigozhin, that guy never told a lie or said anything that was totally wrong.

So it’s not racist to say Russia is still in a barbaric mindset, because they are bombing apartment buildings in Ukraine? Is that it? Even though the way it was phrased implies that barbarism is typical of Russia and its history, and also falsely implies NATO isn’t barbaric and isn’t doing the same thing, and it’s a well-known racist trope?

This person’s comment exhibits the common double standard of the good civilized nations vs. the uncivilized primitives bullshit, which is about the oldest racist narrative there is.

And shelling civilians in the Donbas is presumably the equivalent of putting on a nice dress in your metaphor?

Make extremely inappropriate and wrong rape comparison ⇒ Accuse anyone who disagrees of being a rape apologist ⇒ FUCK TANKIES!

Extremely normal and sound logic there, definitely not just vibe-based emotional manipulation.