@Moon Kherson had the lowest support for it and had plenty of dissenting voters. but at the end of the day the vote like all votes was just to rubber stamp what organized elites have decided to do anyway.
@Moon@augustus That one is a hard one because it can go both ways. What if they were being coerced or the vote was rigged under Ukraine or when the West got involved too? The people always lose.
@augustus better: take the "I wish an internet-addicted retard would save me" meme and make it about Crimea hoping for Zelenskyy to come rescue them from Russia.
@eris@Moon it's not hard to believe that Russian speakers getting shelled by Kiev for 8 years and resisting it would vote to publicly side with Russia. war wouldn't even exist if Donbas was cool with post-maidan Kiev.
@Moon@augustus There’s zero evidence, it’s just a presumption of Westerners and their puppets overseas that no one would choose union with Russia because the Boomers grew up on ridiculous anti-Slav propaganda.
@lain@Moon@augustus Aren't they also both the largest countries in Europe? Imagine arming either of them further and what that does to the power balance in Europe.
@sim@Moon@augustus either way, I'm just pretty sick of people pretending that this is about "the people" or "freedom" or "European values" (ha!). Just end this war and let the people live again.
@lain@Moon@augustus Me neither until I read up on it early on and now I think, "Fuck!" These countries probably are too large and that is a part of the problem. The larger your country is, perhaps it is easier for it become corrupt?
@augustus@Suzu@Moon@sim Technically the British monarch has the authority to dismember the faggot government any time he wants, the royal family are just pussies and won’t do it cause they’re scared of getting beheaded in a civil war.
@augustus@Moon@sim@Suzu It was almost perfect, except female bishops were present. I threw my remote at the TV and broke it when I saw one so I missed the last parts.
@augustus@eris@Moon@Suzu Based. Although I was curious about it enough to watch. He remains to be captured if his concert was anything to go by and what we should expect moving forwards too.
@lain@Moon@augustus Yeah. What I found interesting about so many places of interest is that they have resources that the elites want. That is why I point out the oil in the country, it is about that again, isn't it? Everything else just seems to be a justification to obtain the oil and resources. The people won't be able to live until that dries up, even though they are the ones that should be able to benefit from it in their own country.
@sim@Moon@augustus honesty I don't think that's true, the cost of these wars greatly outweigh the benefits you can get from slightly cheaper resources. Especially Germany is getting poorer every day, losing more and more of its productive population and industry, and there's no real way that I see that the German political elites could profit from it.
@condret@Moon@lain Could say the same of Zelenskyy if we're going by that, but I think that is a distraction from the oil and resources the elites want.
@eris@Moon@augustus@Suzu Don't forget that focus on including multi-faiths in it, and that weird part where everyone was invited to take an oath. I wanted to see the peers taking an oath but oh well. At least we didn't miss out on his heir taking an oath.
@sim@eris@Moon@Suzu I heard there was a strange moment where Rishi Sunak was reading from the bible and it was awkward because he is a Hindu who worships Ganesh
@condret@Moon@sim well, how much does a war cost? Is american gas nationalized? There's just a lot of handwaving involved in the "it's all about resources" story, it's not all self explanatory or obvious.
@lain@Moon@sim the problem was that the cost of transport were too high to compete against russia. afaik the usa complained for years about germoney taking gas from russia
@lain@Moon@condret Mostly because it is a pattern, what did they have in common even with other wars? I remember people joking about the middle eastern wars being about the same thing. Then I think that I read something about some of the US elites getting involved with Ukraine for the resources there. I wonder if they want a monopoly on it.
@sim@Moon@condret yeah, I know the meme has been there for a long time, but how much truth is there to it? Wars are insanely expensive. At least I think it's not a direct reason, maybe a second order reason (I.e. to get sinecures in foreign country companies like biden's son.
@lain@Moon@condret Would the elites care about how much the war costs when they can just defer the costs for another generation? Or perhaps they benefit from wars and the contracts passed over? I think another angle there is the large US war machine and trying to justify that.
I still think there is something in the resources angle. In the past, there would be wars for land and resources. That was the boon that you would receive. I do wonder how it translates in modern times.
@sim@Moon@condret I think you're right on point in your first sentence, they don't care. But then the wars are not about cheap resources, but about power increase for the elites (which can involve being paid for stealing resources), and I think that's a meaningful difference.
@lain@Moon@condret@sim You can describe everything in terms of resources because everything is constraint by the availability of resources. It's not "they're fighting over resources", but "they're using resources in their fighting". American gas increases American political power, even if it's not nationalized. A government can stop, tax or otherwise hinder exports.
@lain@Moon@sim sometimes political processes get out of control. We can see that especially in this war. Putin for sure expected to run over to capture ukraine within a few days. Now he cannot order retreat without losing his face in front of russia's population and the oligarchs. The political costs would be too high for him. In that sense, he does not control the situation
@lain@Moon@condret Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that I think they want to keep resources cheap. But rather, it's more likely that they want to have a monopoly on them, they want control over it and to make the profits themselves. Basically a power increase. That or they don't want other people to have that power increase as it would be a threat to their own power. Because why does Biden's son care about the resources in Ukraine? What is the motive there when there are resources still in the US?
@lain@sim@Moon@condret You’re trying too hard to frame it in terms if material consequences. The elites do not care about those things. They just like to make human sacrifices for fun. That’s why they love war and abortion.
@eris@Moon@condret@sim alright, but now we went from "wars are fought for resources" to "wars are fought because elites love killing people", and that isn't the same thing.