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   Nicholas Sarwark (nsarwark@universeodon.com)'s status on Wednesday, 03-May-2023 06:08:47 JST Nicholas Sarwark

   Sometimes, the war is described as a battle between autocracy and democracy, or between dictatorship and freedom. In truth, the differences between the two opponents are not merely ideological, but also sociological. Ukraine’s struggle against Russia pits a heterarchy against a hierarchy. An open, networked, flexible society—one that is both stronger at the grassroots level and more deeply integrated with Washington, Brussels, and Silicon Valley than anyone realized—is fighting a very large, very corrupt, top-down state. On one side, farmers defend their land and 20‑something engineers build eyes in the sky, using tools that would be familiar to 20‑something engineers anywhere else. On the other side, commanders send waves of poorly armed conscripts to be slaughtered—just as Stalin once sent shtrafbats, penal battalions, against the Nazis—under the leadership of a dictator obsessed with ancient bones.“The choice,” Zelensky told us, “is between freedom and fear.”
   https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/06/counteroffensive-ukraine-zelensky-crimea/673781/

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     Jeff C. 🇺🇦 (jeff@indieweb.social)'s status on Sunday, 07-May-2023 04:02:54 JST Jeff C. 🇺🇦

     in reply to

     @nsarwark Such a great article.

     It astounds me that there are those who claim to come from our shared ideological tradition who are incapable of seeing, regardless of policy choices vis a vis US support, who is the aggressor in this conflict.

     That some straight-up side with the imperialist heirs to the Soviet Union — a Communist country! — is even more astounding.