super spreader

Got to the grappling tournament yesterday. Much more of an ordeal than expected. The word "shitshow" was used repeatedly to describe the crowding and disorganization. Apparently, not the best representation of how these events usually go. On the one hand, I wish I'd signed up so that I could jump in there. It was kind of exciting.

On the other, I was already exhausted, cramped, and uncomfortable after the long car ride and hours of waiting around with nowhere to sit. Left at 10am and didn't get home until midnight. The next event is even further away. Think I'll skip it. I don't want to get up at 4am for the trip to Boston.

It was also my first super-spreader event since the pandemic started. It was hot an humid from all the people packed into much too small a space. They were way overbooked, and no one was masked or anything. Masking would have been sorely inadequate anyhow. There was even a kids' division. 

I estimate a roughly zero percent chance that the air was not chock full of covid. This is what I'm talking about, when I say we need to be able to count on our immune systems. Events like that are going on regularly now, and we can either avoid them entirely, or just do what we can to make sure we can handle it. There were probably even anti-vaxxers there, but the only lives they're risking are their own. We were all exposed to covid just the same.

Hopefully I've already had covid two or three times by now, and my immunity is strong, but I guess we'll see.

update, 5 days later: mild sore throat, fever of 101 😒

planning ahead

This month has been tough. Not as tough as for the people getting bombed in Ukraine, but it's depressing to keep wading into the news about it. I've completely given up giving a fuck about electoral politics, but geopolitical controversy can still get its teeth into me, apparently.

Least, think that's why I've been depressed, but who the hell knows. I'm constantly falling back into depression for one reason or another. I've been getting to the gym less regularly, since getting sick a few weeks ago. 

Didn't get to the gym yesterday, didn't think I'd make it today, but somehow managed to get it together at the last minute, and wow, I did really well. Got some nice takedowns and submissions. Executed a perfect no-gi seoi nage on someone way bigger than me, and then got him with a kimura. For once, tapped other people out more times than I had to tap out.

I'd planned on competing at a BJJ event in New Hampshire tomorrow, but getting sick derailed those plans. Easily derailed, because I'm pretty reluctant. It's something that I need to do. I need to be able to say I've done it. It's the safest place to start, before moving on to anything more exciting. I didn't register in time, but tagging along to spectate instead. Maybe that will help me feel more confident about giving it a shot next time. April 16th I'm told. Oh crap, that's soon.

Now I'm home again and not sure what to do with myself. Guess I'll go back to reading about the collapse of western civilization. Sure, it sounds kinda cool, but to be honest, it's going to be really miserable. A slow painful process most won't live to see the end of. As we lurch from each catastrophe to the next, everything else is still getting worse in the background, from wealth inequality and authoritarianism, to climate change.

Now we've got this war, where the US crossed a red line that people across the political spectrum, left, right, and center, have been calling a red line we really shouldn't cross. Biden himself said it 30 years ago. Corporate media stenographers are scrambling to muddy the waters of history, but the real decision makers in our government knew their actions would strongly provoke Russia to invade Ukraine. I'd assumed they'd overestimated their ability to bully every other country in the world, but what if they'd actually planned all of this?

This has been in the works for years, maybe decades, whatever they're up to. The color revolution in 2004, then Maidan in 2014. Arming and training militants the entire time, funding far right political groups, organizations, and propaganda.

Maybe they wanted Russia to do this. They clearly want to drag the war out as long as they possibly can, no matter how many Ukrainians have to die. They've admitted that the goal is to bleed Russia. Maybe that was the plan. One way or another, I suspect their real intent is to cripple Russia, so that they can do what they've done to so many other countries. Regime change, chaos, war.

Do you think Putin is really that bad? How much do you know of where Russia was twenty years ago vs where they are now? And stop with the evil dictator nonsense. It's a country of over a 150 million people, many of which view Putin favorably and his actions in Ukraine necessary. 

How much death and destruction this time? Orders of magnitude more than what's going on now. If any country is the new Nazi Empire, it's the USA, and we need to be stopped. I'm hoping from the far east to the global south, they realize it.

They may not need to attack us militarily. We've overextended ourselves with these sanctions. We're more vulnerable. Maybe they could do it economically. De-dollarize the global economy, sell our debt. Watch us collapse under our own morbid weight. One way or another, the US has become an existential threat to the entire world.

Not that I really have any hope. I'm pretty sure everything will play out even worse than I could have predicted.

no hate, no war

I know, Zelenskyý is Jewish, but that proves about as much as electing Obama proved in the US. It's almost beside the point though. When we talk about Ukrainian Nazis, we aren't necessarily talking antisemitism. 

There's a gamut to these C14 Azov types, ranging from blatant hatred for Jews, all to way to Jewish Ukrainians who just hate Russians. For a lot of Ukraine, there is a longstanding hatred for Russians, and this is important to understand in the context of their ascendant fascism. They aren't talking about eradicating Jews, so much as eradicating Russians. Castrating Russians. Banning their language, culture, and politics. 

This hatred goes way back to the early 20th century. They were conquered by the USSR, and bore the brunt of Stalin's horrific famine still widely considered intentional. While history books state it as fact, there's a lack of evidence for intentionality. Unlike the holocaust, there were no Soviet leaders openly stating that they wanted to starve people. That claim was pinned on them by Nazis and their capitalist allies. It's Nazi propaganda, immortalized in our history books. Regardless, horrific and understandably traumatizing for the survivors.

From what I understand, Ukraine's Nazi roots go back to when they murdered a million and a half Jews during WW2, and viewed Nazis as liberators for freeing them from the Soviet Union. That did not go well for them either, but this hatred for their neighbor seems to have been enduring. They've banned communism, and now they've banned socialist parties as well. They're essentially banning all the leftwing parties now, claiming they're Russian sympathizers. 

Maybe this is understandable in light of current events, but half the country is Russian-speaking, while a fifth are ethnically Russian. It doesn't make sense for them to be hostile to Russia. This is what Putin keeps talking about, how they're one people, they share a common history and culture - which western media distorts to mean he wants to annex Ukraine. 

On both sides, there are moderates, but the other half of Ukraine is more favorable to the west. At their extreme, the far right, literally fascists. These are the people the US government empowered and installed. The people they've been training in guerrilla tactics for years. These are the people getting their army slaughtered, Ukrainians of all kinds, who have no choice in the matter. 

To be clear, I do oppose the war. It's horrible. I just think it's Ukraine and the US pulling their strings that are the real cause of it. Around the world, we've installed right wing governments, crushing the left, causing chaos and war. It's the same old story here, except this time the terrorists we've created are white.

Russia is a capitalist country these days, but something you'll never hear on corporate news is that Putin's primary opposition in Russia is not Alexei Navalny, but the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Corporate media hates Putin, but they hate his real opposition even more. Alexei's party would even lose to Jill Stein. 

Apparently, he's blind in one eye now, from being splashed with Zelyonka. Imagine being bound to a pole so that you can't get it off. This is how they've been punishing Ukrainians accused of looting or Russian sympathies. In the freezing cold, with their pants down, beaten, whipped, their faces slathered with Zelyonka, a disinfectant and strong dye which can cause blindness and chemical burns if left on the skin too long. 

Usually the Roma, constantly being accused of thievery, they're poverty stricken, and often subject to violence and hatred in Ukraine. The countless instances of this abuse are all over social media. Military and law enforcement never do anything to protect them, even as fascist thugs destroy their encampments, beating and occasionally murdering them. Ukrainian fascism extends way beyond antisemitism.

Biden, Pelosi, John Kerry, and Mitt Romney all have sons sitting on boards of directors for energy companies who do business in Ukraine. According the Panama Papers, the most corrupt country in the world. The Clintons were involved with Ukraine as well. Obama was in office, when the US helped overthrow their government in 2014. I find it interesting that they've been pushing all this hatred for Russia since about the same time. Coincidence, maybe.

Whatever their motives for all the Russiaphobia, I find it appalling that so many fall for it, and are now so emotionally invested in hate, they'll never see past it. Propaganda robs people of values, filling the void with hate and fear. On every major network, nothing but hysterical calls for war. I no longer wonder how the holocaust was possible, not for anything Russia is doing, but for what their adversaries are doing. How many people looked away, because they largely believe the propaganda? Of course it's wrong, but.

I guess the main reason I stand with Russia is precisely because they're so hated. The more you hate them, the more firmly I'll stand against it.

NATO is for Nazis

When people started calling out the white supremacy of defending Ukraine, I didn't really buy it. I figure we don't care about Yemen, because it's not profitable to care. Russia being a major competitor to our national interests, we're told to care a lot more about everything they do. Which country they were doing it to didn't matter as much.

I realize now that I was way off. Our national interests seem to be why our country has been doing what it's doing. Overthrowing Yanukovych, and setting up a puppet regime. Arming and training Nazis. At the national level, it's all about fucking with Russia. Pillaging as much as we can, but right up to a very specific line.

The fervor at every other level, from congress to random people on the street seems different though. We've been told to hate Russia for years, sure, but this is on a whole other level, and it's not like Russia's attacking Yemen. They're attacking Europe, as VP Kamala Harris emphasized recently. It's been in the news over and over, various talking heads blathering on about how this is different, because this isn't the Middle East, Africa, or Asia. Unironically, they exclaim, Ukrainians are like us.

What is NATO? They're all European countries, but not all European countries have joined yet. Ukraine, for example, is not a member. Contrary to what was stated by a White House journalist demanding we give anything and everything Ukraine might need to wage war. Because they're a member of NATO, she said. Again, they're simply not. It doesn't seem to matter to many people. It's a technicality. NATO is for protecting white people, and white people are in trouble. Why aren't we nuking heaven and earth to save them?

I've been having fun with Twitter, right? I need to stop soon. For the same reason I stopped before. It's not healthy.

I got to the gym today. Rolled with many people. Did well enough to feel good about it. A side effect of my cardio being so much better is that my muscles get very sore. I'm able to push them harder than I'm used to being able to.

I'm feeling a little less glued to current events now, but still, it's consuming. This war is a lot more important to me, too. This isn't because I'm part Russian. I'd be responding similarly if we were flipping out like this to protect Taiwan from China. All sorts of little differences aside, these are huge powerful countries. It's a much bigger deal that this could ignite a world war.

Maybe what upsets me the most has been to see everyone cheering for American imperialism. The left has been vanquished in one country after another, and this is the consequence. Jingoism on all sides, demands for more censorship, authoritarianism, fascism. People who normally claim to oppose war, wanting our military to send everything they've got into Ukraine. Arm Nazis. Set up a no-fly zone. Start a world war. Whatever it takes.

I'm also susceptible to what's in the news cycle, what everyone else is talking about. What's going on in Yemen is no less horrific, and in some ways more so, but it's not newsworthy. The Ukrainian military is getting absolutely massacred. Tens of thousands of deaths. We only hear about the few thousand Russians, and civilians who are getting killed by both sides. 

At this rate, Ukraine is more brutal, but it can't possibly go on for years the way Yemen has. It's taken seven years for a few hundred thousand to get killed in Yemen. Sure, a million more are starving too, but nevermind that.

I compare them, because they are both going on right now. Why aren't rooms filled with reporters demanding the White House devote our entire budget to protecting Yemen from Saudi Arabia? One is an ally, while Russia is our nemesis, but why do we form allies and enemies the way we do? To protect our interests, our empire. We protect Europe and her colonies, and choose our alliances with that in mind.

If you're one of these people, more upset about Ukraine because they're European, it is in fact you and I who are not the same.

дети mариуполя

Hey, I know that word. "Deti," painted in Cyrillic outside the theater. Like a plea for mercy. There are children here. Please. Being the orcs that they are, they instead saw it as an invitation, target practice for their bombs.

That is what one side would have you believe ..the other has some evidence to the contrary, but it's hard to believe, either way.

This was tweeted three days before the incident.

"Information allegedly came from Mariupol locals (reminder - they are mostly ethnic Russian) that neo-Nazi from Azov gathered Mariupol women, children & elderly into the building of Mariupol drama theatre and are going to blow it up, blaming the victims on "Russian shelling"

Three days before the incident. There are also clips and other stories about locals corroborating the story. None of it exactly reliable of course, but awfully prescient.

This is Russia's statement, "During daylight on March 16, Russian aviation carried out no missions involving strikes on ground targets within Mariupol limits."

What's being alleged is horrific. Children rounded up and locked into a building to be blown up? Whichever side you're on, who would want to believe such a thing? In this case, there is no third explanation. Either way, one side did something that is painfully difficult to believe.

They're doing missile tests over in Belarus for some reason. It seems like a bad time. When news of it first hit Twitter, there was no explanation. Just something about explosions going off near multiple cities in Belarus.

I kinda flipped out. A coup seemed like a very real possibility for the advantage it would give the US against Russia. If this is something that had been planned out for a long time, maybe overthrowing Russia's closest ally while they're busy with Ukraine would make for a powerful broadside.

Anyhow, turns out it wasn't that. Dammit though, I'm on edge over this. All the different ways it could escalate feel all too likely. If Ukraine holds out, everything just keeps getting worse. Russia can't really stop, due to the existential threat posed by letting the US military set up outside Moscow. Russia isn't going to lose, but they might not be able to win, either.

A peace deal is the only way this ends at all well, but Ukraine is refusing the condition of neutrality, let alone everything else. Independence for Donbass republics, recognition of Crimea as Russian, things that may be negotiable, but they need the neutrality. 

Ukraine is treating it as an existential threat, because the US is insisting on it. Getting tens of thousands of Ukrainians killed, and for what? No one is demanding full surrender. No regime change, no occupation. Just, don't let NATO / US set up shop there -but this isn't about Ukraine. They're just being used as a tool by the US to get Russia, and they're getting wrecked in the process. Only an abject puppet regime would behave this way.

Meanwhile, they've got a radicalized Nazi problem that the west has been giving billions in weapons to. It wasn't a justification for the invasion, but they're going to be a problem for that entire region for a long time to come. From what I've seen, yeah, they would do that to children.

Update: Now that everyone's outraged on both sides, it turns out, there was a third possibility. They let the people leave, before blowing the place up. AP reports zero casualties.

braving the cesspool

As concerned as I am to have let myself get drawn back into Twitter, it's been interesting to realize that I'm a lot better at it than I used to be. I'm not afraid to follow and engage with people. Some follow me back. I don't worry about it, or feel rejected when they don't. When I used Twitter in the past, I knew I was doing it wrong, but I wasn't comfortable trying to amass followers and interactions by really putting myself out there like this.

My worldview may not be popular, but I'm getting better at engaging with humanity in general, and that even carries over to social media. I've also started to calm down, when people give me their awful takes, comparing Putin to Hitler and all that, while supporting actual Nazis. Russia bans Nazism. Ukraine bans communism. We're arming far-right extremists to the teeth instead of promoting diplomacy.

Liberals have become Nazi sympathizing warmongers, but it doesn't get under my skin as much anymore. I'm still horrified by the potency of western propaganda, but it is what it is. I do my best to dispel it, one ignorant jackass at a time. What's really addictive turns out to be arguing with people, and I'm back to learning everything I can, so that I can do it more competently, and less emotionally. It helps not calling someone an ignorant jackass, for one thing.

Changing minds doesn't occur in a single argument, but introduce people to new ideas and supporting facts, and it can be like planting a seed. I've learned a lot from the people who have argued with me, even if I've never admitted, even to myself, at the time. Minds change, it just takes a while.

For the longest time, the role other people played in my dreams was not at all normative. I'd only dream of random strangers or close family I've known since childhood. I never dreamed about people I'd interacted with only as an adult. I'm not a fan of dream interpretation, but suspect that's quite telling. Only very recently have I found myself dreaming of people I know from the gym. People I've talked to, people I've become brave enough to ask to spar or grapple. People I've felt glimmers of connection with.

Not some sort of idealized connection, just regular people I know very little about, whose company I've enjoyed in the moment. Something in me has been improving, for the first time in my life. The downside of that is realizing how much I've missed out on, these past forty years. Why have I been hiding from this my entire life? It feels pretty tragic, now that I've got so little time left to do much with it. I keep trying not to think about that.

I want to start competing, and have a few years left to give that a shot. Hard to be optimistic that I'll be able to say the same as I approach sixty, but for now, so far, so good. I need to be able to prove myself, before I can think about teaching anyone else.

I've had a sore throat all week, so on top of being distracted by geopolitics, I haven't been getting to the gym, and my mental health has been waning because of it. I try not to dwell too much on how yet another week goes by, sitting around doing nothing. I haven't gotten tested, because I don't think it matters. It's probably BA.2, but a test doesn't change anything. 

I can't go to the gym when I'm symptomatic, even if a dubious test comes up negative. I'm not going to keep testing myself every day, even if it's positive. It just seems like common sense to worry more about symptoms than test results. For two years now I've been meaning to buy a simple thermometer, but I keep forgetting, so of course I have no tests on hand, either.

The gym is such high risk, everyone there gets exposed. We all get new variants the moment they hit Vermont. Anyone there who worries about it doesn't understand the situation. Realistically, we need to focus more on bolstering our immune systems to be able to handle it than think we can somehow evade exposure entirely.

Scary as it may be, it's so important to take risks in life. That's what makes life worth living.

я ничего

Things were going so well for like five minutes, but then the US had to go and start another war, and I can't find my way back to not giving a shit.

I know, you think Russia started it, but that's because you are grotesquely misinformed, and I fucking hate it. I'm absolutely disgusted by everyone standing with Ukraine. That's not what I want to blog about, but it's what keeps trying to come out.

I want to be neutral and objective and above it all, but no. I can't get there. 

Democrats are fucking psychopaths.

I hate being back on Twitter, but the fact is, I'd be uninformed without it, too. Getting our information via social media isn't that simple. Clearly most people on Twitter don't follow real journalists, and aren't any better informed than they would be watching MSNBC. That's the tricky part. It's so easy to settle into an echo chamber, where you'll still be just as wrong about everything.

So people scoff at getting your news via social media, but the reality of it is that it's the only way for most of us to get such granular up to date data to do our best to make sense of. What's really insane is thinking you're informed watching corporate media. They're so full of shit, it's unbelievable.

Russia bombed a "children's hospital," according to Zelenskyj, calling it genocidal, and the media runs with that. When it later turns out no one died in this alleged genocide, that doesn't get the same coverage. They also leave out the part about how it wasn't a fucking hospital anymore, because it had been converted into a military facility, precisely so that they could express this asinine outrage when it gets bombed. And you all fall for it, over and over. You want to know about a real hospital bombing atrocity, look no further than what the US has done in Afghanistan.

Ukrainian Nazis have been ethnically cleansing the Donbas region for years. Russia is right to intervene. Doing nothing meant more people dying every day, but no one gives a shit about that, because it's not what their tribe tells them to care about. Russia is offering a very reasonable peace deal, but people don't know about that either, because our garbage media doesn't want them to. 

We're told the demands are maximalist and outrageous. People argue with me, as if Russia is demanding half of Ukraine and regime change. All Russia is asking for is an amendment to their constitution mandating neutrality, blocking NATO, and recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent. You know, the parts of Donbas that Ukraine has been brutalizing until now. They're not calling for any changes to the Zelenskyj regime, but without NATO, the puppet strings would be cut. That's what the US is calling unacceptable.

Goddammit though. I didn't want to write any of this. I'm just pissed off because I can't stop being pissed off. Everything you're all rooting for would be a bloody catastrophe. Russia has to win this, or the humanitarian cost will be massive, even if it doesn't lead to a world war. What the US has been doing over there is absolutely monstrous, and Ukraine has been complicit. They need to be stopped, and I hope to hell Russia can pull that off. 

waffen schutzstaffel

I've been seeing this symbol a lot. It's been heavily promoted. They say it's just a small percentage of their military, and that Nazi mayor is just one mayor, yadda yadda yadda. They have a Jewish president, proving about as much as the US having a black president. We have 40 million black people in this country, proving we're not racist, right?

At least Obama never apologized for being black or called it one of his faults. Zelenskyj's in a tough position, I hear. I think there's a pretty good chance they'll kill him if he "capitulates" to the Russians. 

Maybe I'm a little sensitive to these things, but when I saw what the Azov symbol becomes when rotated -45 degrees and flipped horizontally, I found it shocking. No one else seems to, though. Old news or what? Not many people recognize the black sun symbol behind it, but the combination of the two makes this really indisputable. That's the Nazi SS, twin lightning bolts. Everyone recognizes that one, right? These are open Nazis being openly glorified by the Ukrainian government and in turn western NATO enthusiasts.

🖕WTF🖕

We're sending Nazis 14 billion in military aid, to help turn Ukraine into Russia's Afghanistan, but healthcare and education are still beyond the pale. Now we've got "peace rallies" calling for arms shipments and direct military engagement with a nuclear superpower. Jews supporting Nazis, because they hate Russians more. Liberals are celebrating all of this, of course. The world has gone completely fucking nuts. I can't wait to go get punched in the face some more.

human shields

 It's a pretty vile accusation, but.

It has become increasingly clear to me that the powers that be do not care about Ukrainians. All the recent talk about how they only care about white countries is to distract from the reality that they don't care at all. NATO's puppeteers want Ukraine to suffer. They want volunteers from all around the world to go there and get blown up. Think of the headlines.

What kind of war has people volunteering from all over to join in? This is the craziest propaganda campaign I've ever seen, and I'm someone that's old enough to remember #russiagate. Course it's those dastardly Russians again. This confrontation has been in the works for a while.

It's amazing how many people don't even understand what NATO has to do with anything. They argue against the strawman of Putin being there to fight Nazis. Some of the people he's been fighting are big fans of Stepan Bandera, but that's not why he's there. It's been made explicitly clear many times over that NATO crossed a "red line" by setting up military infrastructure in Ukraine. Whether Ukraine joins NATO or not becomes a moot point, if NATO's militarizing their borders, regardless.

That is what Putin claims as justification. That is what we knew would have this consequence. We were warned that Russia was about to invade, because NATO was about to provoke it. Easy to predict things when you're the cause of them happening. It makes very little sense to question this explanation, only to pretend he wants to march west as far as he can. He doesn't even want Ukraine. It will be a quagmire for Russia, for many years. That's exactly what the US wants. This is why they're declining even the most basic diplomacy. They've decided to sacrifice Ukraine to get Russia.

People are so deranged, they're talking no-fly zones. Zelenskyj himself, proving to be an absolute psychopath, demanding NATO shoot down Russian aircraft, rather than work anything out diplomatically. Even worse, a surge in talking points and articles about the dangers of nuclear holocaust being overblown. Are we seriously at the brink of wiping out all life on earth, because people are this stupid?

"..the west is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked." -John Mearsheimer, 2015

* * *

On a brighter note, I got punched in the face a lot today. Even got my first bloody nose - from that woman who doesn't want people going too light on her. That'll teach me. Afterwards, she thanked me for not holding back. I was a little shocked, because I was still holding way back. I've been afraid I go too easy on everyone, so I asked another guy, and he tells me I do go pretty hard.

What?! I hardly ever hit anyone in the face, and when I do, it's ridiculously gentle. I mostly aim for the body because it feels safer, but still, I'm going super light. Sparred that biggest-guy-in-the-gym again today. He tells me I've got a lot of power, and I'm thinking dude, I barely even hit you. I wonder if he thinks he barely hit me, too. Literally more than twice my weight, it makes a little more sense the other way around, but he sure nailed me a couple times. Turns out it was because he was getting a little mad. 

I worry so much about going too hard, but I've been going too hard all along? I'm fast and aggressive, and maybe that's what people respond to. They perceive that as going hard, even though I'm barely hitting them. I don't know, I need to talk to one of the coaches about this. I'm honestly not sure what to make of it. 

I'll be back at the gym tomorrow. Still getting there just about every day. Somehow, still in one piece.

alternative media

An important piece of manufacturing consent is the way mainstream media narrows the scope of acceptable discourse. Outside their boundaries is considered so extreme as to be unthinkable. No one in their right mind could hold a truly opposing view - if what the media were saying were true. Of course, it isn't true. So much of it as manipulative trash.

Imagine if the Mexican government were overthrown with the help of Russia, their newly installed leaders deciding to ally with Russia, allowing Russian military bases and missile silos to line our southern border. What do you think would happen? Right or wrong doesn't even enter into it. The US would raze Mexico to the ground.

No matter how horrific the events in Ukraine become, the blame for it lies squarely on the US and NATO. There are countless articles and comments by top officials going back decades, stating that imperial expansion into Ukraine would start a war with Russia. The more the world pours weapons into Ukraine, the worse it will get, but they don't seem to care. As one tweeter put it, "The US wants a proxy war with Russia, and we'll kill every Ukrainian in the country to get it if we have to."

US gov’t knew NATO expansion to Ukraine would force Russia to intervene

This is Azov Battalion's symbol rotated -45 degrees, and flipped horizontally. I mean, come on. This isn't even subtle. These aren't just racist Trump supporters, and we're giving them billions in cutting edge weapons and military equipment. It's incredible that western corporate media is trying to claim that Ukraine's Nazi problem is just Russian propaganda. Whitewashing Nazis because you hate Russia is absolutely disgusting.

How Ukraine’s Jewish president Zelensky made peace with neo-Nazi paramilitaries on front lines of war with Russia

This started in 2014, and people are so propagandized, they have no idea. Even if they're aware of the revolution, they're often unaware that it was a far right coup (gee, where'd all the Nazis come from) that did not have majority support. It wouldn't have succeeded, had it not been bolstered by the Obama administration. This had lead to eight years of bloody conflict, taking the lives of 14,000 Ukrainians, predominantly of Russian heritage, half of them being civilians.

A US-Backed, Far Right–Led Revolution in Ukraine Helped Bring Us to the Brink of War

The notion that Ukraine has been a peaceful democratic country until Putin came along is a huge lie. Putin is trying to end the conflict we've caused. The west is intent on prolonging it.

#StandWithPutin

Dammit, I've been sucked back into social media and arguing with strangers all day. I hate this. I just want to armbar people, not bicker over corporate media nonsense. What's going on in Yemen is a million times worse than Ukraine, but people are obsessed with whatever they've been propagandized to be obsessed with.

The US, EU, and NATO are the bad guys here. It's all about escalating tensions on purpose to feed the military-industrial complex while dominating the world economy. Why are they encircling Russia if not to do the same to them that they do everywhere else? Putin is right to make this desperate effort to defend Russia from their psychopathic bullshit. 

The American left has been crushed. Liberals have become blood-thirsty lunatics. Conservatives aren't much better. Fuck the USA.