World News

[Badger]

Ukraine is pretty fucked up right now.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/01/22/pictures-central-kiev-protests_n_4645476.html

[JFIF]

love the guy wearing a strainer on his head

[Badger]

love the guy wearing a strainer on his head

It's a step up from this guy.

[Tommy]

What are the protests even about? Can someone give me the abridged version?

[Badger]

What are the protests even about? Can someone give me the abridged version?

Ukraine is balanced precariously between remaining a close partner of Russia, or joining the EU.

The government want to remain friends with Russia. Russia wants another ally, and the Ukrainian government are being given deals like this as what's commonly seen as a "reward" for staying loyal to Putin. It helps since the country is in financial difficulty and close to defaulting.

A significant number of people in Ukraine, however, don't care about that and want to move towards the EU, in the hopes of having higher standards of living and better trade with, and access to, the western world. The government is completely shutting out public opinion on this matter.

The conflict has been escalating until a few days ago, when the government decided to say freak it to civil liberties and put in place some rather heavy-handed laws, making it jailable offences to blockade public buildings, wear masks or helmets at demonstrations, erect unauthorised tents in public areas, and even made it arrestable to "slander a government official."

So now people are going crazy with riots over being ignored by an elected government, and violently or legally repressed by their rushed new laws.

[Miamipuck]

Most Ukranians I know hate Mother Russia. Man if you call them Russian, which most ignorant derriere Americans are apt to do, there's a possibility they may shank you.

[JFIF]

Most Ukranians I know hate Mother Russia. Man if you call them Russian, which most ignorant derriere Americans are apt to do, there's a possibility they may shank you.

That's because....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

If you've ever read about it, you know HOW super fucked up it was. Lots of cases of cannibalism, parents were literally eating their children.

I have no idea why Stalin isn't considered universally as bad or worse than Hitler (at least in general public perception). Most people know Stalin was a mass murdering tyrant, but I feel like Hitler is just talked about way more than Stalin when it comes to "being evil". They're on the same level of genocide. Pol Pot also

[Ignatius J Reilly]

That's because....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

If you've ever read about it, you know HOW super fucked up it was. Lots of cases of cannibalism, parents were literally eating their children.

I have no idea why Stalin isn't considered universally as bad or worse than Hitler (at least in general public perception). Most people know Stalin was a mass murdering tyrant, but I feel like Hitler is just talked about way more than Stalin when it comes to "being evil". They're on the same level of genocide. Pol Pot also

Because Jews.

[Heismanberg]

It's a step up from this guy.

hahaha

[Miamipuck]

Because Jews.

Yeah because Stalin loved Jews and Hitler didn't?

Hitler wasn't nearly as sneaky as Stalin. Hitler was the first to state sponsor genocide and mass produce it like he was Henry freaking Ford. Stalin who killed more people as a whole again was really sneaky about it and people didn't find out about the magnitude of his depravity until he was long gone.


Sadly for all the Russians that were killed most were Russians and noone gave a excrement.


 For instance, during the Battle of Berlin, Russians summarily executed tens of thousands of Germans, tens of thousands of German women were raped repeatedly. You never hear about it because nobody gives a excrement. That was just a week or two of fighting.


Basically it's a mix of my point, Adams and the fact Russia won and was largely able to write history how they saw it. To the victor I suppose.

[Tommy]

Hitler was definitely worse. It's one thing being a genocidal maniac, but Hitler and his buddies systematically tried to wipe out an entire race of people. The way they went about it, too, is particularly mindnumbingly cruel.

[JFIF]

Hitler was definitely worse. It's one thing being a genocidal maniac, but Hitler and his buddies systematically tried to wipe out an entire race of people. The way they went about it, too, is particularly mindnumbingly cruel.

I'm convinced you didn't actually read any of the posts in this thread.

[Badger]

"And he was a mass-murdering fuckhead, as many important historians have said. But there were other mass murderers that got away with it! Stalin killed many millions, died in his bed, well done there; Pol Pot killed 1.7 million Cambodians, died under house arrest at age 72, well done indeed! And the reason we let them get away with it is because they killed their own people, and we're sort of fine with that. “Ah, help yourself,” you know? “We've been trying to kill you for ages!” So kill your own people, right on there. Seems to be… Hitler killed people next door... “Oh… stupid man!” After a couple of years, we won't stand for that, will we?"

-Eddie Izzard

[Tommy]

That's the thing, and one of the reasons why I'm a full supporter of interventionism. We shouldn't be able to just stand by while an entire group of people are getting wiped out. Hell, even those fuckn Western Europeans stood by and let ethnic cleansing happen in their own fuckn back door, and couldn't care less.

[Badger]

That's the thing, and one of the reasons why I'm a full supporter of interventionism. We shouldn't be able to just stand by while an entire group of people are getting wiped out.

Unless they are Armenians or Tutsis, then we don't care.