That’s of course a free speech issue. But the contrast between the alleged deep commitment to free speech claimed by many Americans and the fact that this issue wasn’t that much of a deal-breaker in support for the current US administrator suggests that theatrics and ostentatiousness are a significant driver of free speech polemics.

When I was living in the US I didn’t find local polemics about free speech to be convincing.

It honestly felt more like a theatrical way to highlight one’s alleged “independent” mindset and virtues. It just didn’t seem genuine.

Recent development have largely proven my thinking on this issue. Many Americans who claim to support “freedom of speech” don’t understand the concept and don’t really care about it (beyond theatrical repetition of phrases that they’ve heard other locals use).

While I too am skeptical of the true commitment of large section of the US population to freedom (in the real sense not in the American “I support free speech!” sense), I would not underestimate the fundamental unpredictability of history.

Not a fan of Lenin, but the notion that “there are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen" is a powerful observation of human history and behaviour.

Not saying this is going to be a inflection point, but there are always steps to reach a given inflection point.

Even hunting DEA agents is a massive stretch.

On a purely cost-benefit analysis basis, hunting for DEA agents is simply not worth it, it makes more business sense to take the loss and focus on the fact that drugs will continue to be profitable until there is full decriminalization (of any drug consumption) and legalization of less harmful drugs.

You do you.

So India was engaging in separatism from the UK in 1947?

No one is buying your attempts at pointless pedantry.

Speratists? What? Not wanting to be part of the USSR or even russia (like Chechnya tried to liberate itself from russian degeneracy) is not “seperatism”, it’s wanting to be free and engaging in your own culture.

It’s not about splintering, it’s about decolonisation. A continental colonial empire is still a colonial empire (just look at the state of local language education in most russian “republics”).

Something to think about for people in the West who hope for a magical “Deus Ex Machina” type change in russian society.

Lets not forget that Gorbachev, widely perceived in the west as some sort of liberal reformer did not want to end russian occupation of independent countires that were part of the USSR and he supported the annexation of Crimea. Not to mention that the impetus for the end of USSR/Warsaw pact came from countries such as Poland, the Baltic nations and Ukraine, not from russia.

And what of current russians liberals? Reading Vladimir Kara-Murza’s latest article in Washington Post would make you think that the issue is putin and not russian society:

Putin’s anxiety is understandable. The Kremlin knows that public opposition to the Ukraine war is much greater than what its propaganda would admit.

And yet Kara-Murza, the darling of the west, also said the following (in an address for the French senate no less):

There is another reason why the Russian Defense Ministry recruits so many members of ethnic minorities [to fight in the war against Ukraine]: as it turns out, because it is psychologically really difficult for [ethnic] Russians to kill Ukrainians. Because we are one people. We are very close peoples, as everybody knows. We have nearly the same language, the same religion, and centuries of history in common. But if it’s someone from another culture, allegedly it’s easier [for them to kill Ukrainians]. I hadn’t really thought about it before. I thought the reasons were primarily economic. But after what [a colleague who spoke about the Buryats] said, I started thinking about it too.

And this is a Western educated russian “liberal”. Can you imagine what goes through the head of the vast majority of russians?

Sounds like propaganda.

Cartels tend to be relatively cautious on US soil and make a genuine effort to avoid generating heat. There is limited benefit for them to get engaged in something like this especially considering the politically sensitive nature of targeting ICE specifically.

It’s not impossible for one or two individuals to “take matters in their own hands”, but I can’t see this being a blanket policy implemented by senior leaders of multiple cartel groups.

As I said, I don’t buy the propaganda excuse. Independent information sources (in russian) have always been easily available and accessible by all (literally in under 10 seconds). Just look at the creation dates of the DW Russian or BBC Russian YT channels (or even their own TV Dozdh). By mid 2010s YT was widely available not only on desktop, but even on smartphones. Not to mention russians full well know what the KGB is like and how dishonest they are.

Let me give you an illustrative example.

You have Vladimir Kara-murza, darling of the west, went to jail for public opposition to the full scale invasion, western educated and with UK citizenship. And yet here is a recent statement from Kara-Murza:

There is another reason why the Russian Defense Ministry recruits so many members of ethnic minorities [to fight in the war against Ukraine]: as it turns out, because it is psychologically really difficult for [ethnic] Russians to kill Ukrainians. Because we are one people. We are very close peoples, as everybody knows. We have nearly the same language, the same religion, and centuries of history in common. But if it’s someone from another culture, allegedly it’s easier [for them to kill Ukrainians]. I hadn’t really thought about it before. I thought the reasons were primarily economic. But after what [a colleague who spoke about the Buryats] said, I started thinking about it too.

He said this in a speech to the French senate, no less!

We are not on people and I want nothing to with any of them, be it putin or Vladimir Kara-Murza.

And yet WaPo decided to give him the opportunity to write another bullshit article about russian victimhood and innocence.

Putin’s anxiety is understandable. The Kremlin knows that public opposition to the Ukraine war is much greater than what its propaganda would admit.

Is Vladimir Kara-Murza under the influence of propaganda while living in the west?

Agreed regarding the negative elements of American exceptionalism. But people in the US have a spectrum of views and the US has had a measure of dynamism in terms of social attitudes. The same cannot be said about the overwhelming majority of russians.

What a myopic and childish worldview.

We live in an imperfect world, good trends need to be capitalized on and not dismissed with some edgelord BS.

So independent that Moscow could extract all food supplies from Ukraine to create a horrific man-made famine.

The fact of the matter is that tankies don’t believe in self-determination or democracy (the few who are not shitposting and/or engaging malicious demagoguery).

You are a tankie though.

In what substantive manner (real world issues) are you different from a stereotypical tankie?

In this very thread you bring up “approved narrative” in context of russian genocidal imperialism. This is comically stupid (and very ironic) for anyone that knows russian and has lived there.

You even bring up “workers dictatorship” in a seemingly serious manner. There have never been any worker’s dictatorships, just some thugs dominating everyone else with some communist styled marketing and PR.

It’s still possible for internal US dynamics to change and there have been positive outcomes from US foreign policy (Germany, Japan, Poland, Baltic nations).

The same cannot be said about russia and China.

Strongly disagree on this one. Tankies and MLs are almost universally supportive of genocidal imperialism and authoritarianism.

Had some unhinged ML quote tweet my post about how she was in no position to complain about removal of Soviet monuments (she doesn’t live in Kyiv, doesn’t walk in Kyiv’s parks and doesn’t pay local taxes).

“Libs” do not all hold identical views on Palestine. If anything, negative perceptions of Israel (not just the current leadership) is on the rise. Libs are no where near tankies or MLs in terms of toxicity and comical stupid polemics (I refuse to believe tankies genuinely believe NK is a vanguard against imperialism and a great place to live).

I have Lemmygrad and Hexbear blocked. ML still has a few communities that need to move off ML.

FWIW, I actively mod/curate several communities that have become vibrant alternatives to the original (half dead) ML variants.

I actually joined Threadiverse via ML (did think the domain and their application was strange but didn’t think too much about it) and then I realized Dessalines also admins Lemmygrad and he is a scumbag; of course I left ML ASAP.

I am generally doing my part to move over to Piefed, which also has a lot of cool features and better devs.

Might be worth looking at the behaviour of so called leftists on Lemmy.

Many of them openly support and cheer for russia’s invasion of Ukraine and support summary killing of Ukrainians (“summary executions in Bucha [and beyond] is a BIA conspiracy!!!” is not a serious statement), openly state that Ukraine does not have the right to self-determination and generally support the extermination of Ukrainian culture, language and identity.

I am from Ukraine, from Donbas (Lugansk) no less. What sort of reaction do you expect when you see alleged leftists cheers for the total occupation of Lugansk by the Russians with BS like “Lugansk is free of da Nasizzz !1!1!”.

Or what about Jeromy Corbyn fanboys denying Corbyn’s open support for russian genocidal imperialism (keep in mind these type of things get reported in Ukrainian media)? The fucker literally worked for Russia Today (which is managed by russian intel) and cheered the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

As far as I am concerned, I hope all tankies meet the same fate as “Donbas Cowboy”, Russell Bentley.

Bentley’s wife, Lyudmila, then claimed that Russian soldiers from a tank battalion abducted him.

According to the Investigative Committee, Vansyatsky, Agaltsev, and Iordanov tortured Bentley on April 8, and he died shortly afterward.

Vansyatsky and Agaltsev are suspected of blowing up a car with Bentley’s body in it and ordering Bazhin to get rid of what was left of his remains.

Is this an unreasonable reaction to disgusting tankies? What reaction do you expect?

Russian society’s genuine love for genocidal imperialism has nothing to do with propaganda (if that’s what you were referring to).

Mind you, they are fully capable of change, they just don’t want to and have no incentive to do (Westerners enabling and promoting their victim-hood narratives only contributes to this).

Rajoelina, 51, was first president from 2009 to 2014 before returning to power in 2023. He was increasingly isolated after losing the support of a key army unit that joined thousands of youths activists known as “Gen Z Madagascar” to protest against corruption and poverty. The movement had earlier turned down an invitation to meet him for dialogue and demanded his resignation.

…

Among the demonstrators were soldiers from the elite Capsat unit, which played a major role in the 2009 coup during Rajoelina’s rise to the presidency after mass protests forced his predecessor Marc Ravalomanana out of power.

I believe I read in another article that the soldiers that helped his return to power in 2023 also publicly called to oppose Rajoelina.

I don’t really understand how the president was allowed to have dual citizenship. For senior positions in the judiciary/legislative/executive branch, I don’t think dual citizenship should be allowed. You can make rare, special exceptions, but not for the presidency (or say the supreme court or party leadership).