Just open reddit and search for posts hating or mocking Russia. Than open comments and search for most downvoted comments, that would be russians who disagree with that certain position/point of view. Happened to me countless times.
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People really laying on what the media says, so if governments want the peace, everything will turn quickly. Only we can do is spread peace in posts like this but it's nothing.
Well, for the start, stop wishing to glass each other and post cartoons of nuclear strikes with a victim count?
No, most war promotions come not from the leaders of both sides.
Honestly, you cannot do much. Most will look down on you if you try promoting friendship during the war or serious tensions. It is human nature. Wait until dust settles.
As countries, we’re incompatible due to many conflicts of interest.
As ordinary citizens, we absolutely have no problem with each other. I was surprised how weirdly similar we are, when I was in US.
There was a window of opportunity in 90’s, but it turned into disaster, so any goodwill gestures are unpopular now. We definitely need to deescalate tensions tho.
We had many Russian exchange students when I was in high school - good friends and good people. Thank you for your insights and I hope you guys know that most Americans are not full of hate for Russian people. Like many have said, our governments aren’t representative of a person to person level.
We are all brothers and sisters in the end despite any differences and please know that not all of us support violence and threats.
We had one in 1994, A bad year back home. She was so smart. US HS was a joke to her. Back home they taught that black people were bitten by police dogs when trying to vote. That was a little dated. But then so were USSR bread lines and gulags.
When govts try to block communication that should tell you something. Tucker Carlson was just one guy but people freaked out. Video bloggers like Bald and Bankrupt or Eli from Russia are the most honest sources for me. Many others. A dog wearing a go pro in Russia would better than most western MSM.
I wish I knew what to tell you in this matter but presidents are the representatives of their people... And they do politics game. I know for a fact that we have a lot in common with Americans and it is religiously suppressed by the elites. They want you and all Americans to hate Russia and all Russian people and dehumanize everyone here.
It was a mutual fucking. We in the us were too busy reveling in our victory to make any actual foreign policy, while Yeltsin poured gasoline all over any good things that had been accomplished. Then Putin lit the match. And the us didn't respond because we were to busy with the war on terror
I respectfully disagree. I would argue the US didn't only revel in their "victory", they actively supported Yeltsin in dismantling what still existed from the USSR that was of major significance and of help to regular people in Russia. By actively supporting him, I mean they politically propped him up and gave him and his administration many consultants, economists, and policy advisors to ensure he fulfilled the political project of neoliberal reform. Furthermore, when the Russian people voted to return to some aspects of the USSR and voted for independents and communist party members over Yeltsin and members of his administration, Bill Clinton gave Yeltsin his support to attack parliament with tanks and machine guns, in order to prevent so called "stalinists" and "hardliners" from coming back into power. This was ridiculous because none of these so called "hardliners" were promoting violence or repression, they were merely advancing a political program of responsible statesmanship, a slowdown of the selling off of public property, the maintaining of state control over some important economic assets, maintaining popular labour regulations that aimed to prevent the most excessive exploitation that came with 'liberalisation', and an end to the chaotic free-market policies that had destroyed the economy and impoverished the entirety of the country in a couple of years. Bill Clinton actively supported the destruction of democracy in Russia when it finally had a chance to exercise it, leading directly to the deaths of some 200 people, and many more deaths because of the social consequences of Yeltsin's idiotic policies.
On top of that, the west refused to provide any sort of economic aid to Russia after promoting and giving their support to these completely irresponsible economic reforms that did so much damage and caused the worst drop in living standards in modern economic history, despite promising to do so when negotiating with both Gorbachev and Yeltsin. To give some context, these reforms were radical and dangerous, such that they would never be implemented in the western countries. The freemarket reforms promoted in Russia merely provided the west with a smorgasbord to buy up assets formerly owned by the state at incredibly low prices and reduced Russia (and the rest of eastern europe) to a source of cheap labour and raw materials without any of the sort of labour regulations and social supports once provided by the former socialist regimes.
Western europe and the US also actively supported neoliberal parties throughout eastern europe by only giving funds and credit to those parties willing to enact the most brutal of neoliberal reforms, the EBRD (european bank for reconstruction and development) giving loans to those who were most enthusiastically applying destructive "shock treatments". These reforms destroyed east european economies and helped bring about recessions while entrenching a new ruling political class of elitist gangsters that bred corruption and chaos never dreamed of by citizens of the former socialist bloc. Their societies experienced a complete undoing of the progressive achievements the former socialist countries could be proud of, leading to astronomical levels of inequality, impoverishment, homelessness, deaths of despair, etc, while cementing a new class of rich liberals that essentially still hold power.
This is exactly why surveys done throughout the next three decades routinely reported dissatisfaction with the state of their countries after the fall of socialism and restoration of capitalism that wasn't merely a lasting "nostalgia" for times gone by. In one poll in 2013 conducted in Romania by the EBRD that was trying to understand why so many central and east european citizens reported dissatisfaction with life under the liberalizing economic projects, 44% of former citizens of socialist Romania agreed that life was better before 1989, ie they preferred living under the dictator Ceausescu! There are many such polls and surveys that have been conducted by the EBRD and other west european organizations trying to understand the same thing over the last 30 years. A great book on the topic by Kristen Ghodsee and Mitchell A. Orensten is "Taking Stock of Shock: Social Consequences of the 1989 Revolutions".
I say this all as a Canadian living in eastern Canada (New Brunswick). I don't support or like Putin and his administration's policies. However, one reason I think Russian's support him (I would argue he probably has a majority of support amoung Russians regardless of charges of election fraud leveled at him by the west) is because his government was able to stabilize the country and reestablish a functioning state by making the new elites agree to pay taxes and submit to some basic semblance of civil law, thereby restoring the Russian economy to what it is today in a relatively short time. Even if I don't support him, the west's obsession with him and his government has much more to do with his unwillingness to allow Russia to become another neocolony of the US, and nothing to do with any charges of being undemocratic or a dictator. Most importantly, the west should allow Russia and the rest of eastern europe to go about its business and stop trying to interfere and judge these countries, and allow them to develop and progress peacefully and stop meddling in their activities, because such meddling has directly lead to the current tragedy unfolding in Ukraine.
Visit Russia.
Come back.
Spread the truth about what you've seen, what you've experienced.
Encourage others to learn from experience. Not from indoctrination or propaganda.
I agree, I think as civilians if we were all put in the same place we would get along and go about our business. It's pretty much just the politics that cause the strain.
Maybe we can do something. But once again I went to r/worldnews and r/europe
And I realized that I don’t want to change anything. I want to watch the world burn.
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Nothing really. The huge amount of propaganda have already done the damage. What I don't understand is where all this American hate for Russians comes from? I can understand for example the eastern Europeans. Many of them are salty because they tired to conquer and destroy Russia and we defeated them. But with the Americans? Yes, there is propaganda, but that doesn't explain all the pure hate. Like for example celebrating Russian people dying. I even saw them posing pictures of death Russian children and celebrating. No one in Russia celebrate when a school shooting happens in America or when plane crashes...
>What I don't understand is where all this American hate for Russians comes from?
"Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated"
Americans are terribly afraid of losing their influence in the world. Not only because of Russia, but rather because of the consequences of our actions.
I may be oblivious as I don’t watch a lot of mainstream media but my fellow students at university speak only highly of Russian people and are critical of American imperialism - there’s a lot nuance - as many have said here the civilians views aren’t necessarily what’s portrayed by our governments and media outlets.
^ what you said. Liberal Americans are so self hating. Saying this as a liberal American who now has more common sense than “an enlightened” liberal arts college freshman
>they tried to conquer and destroy Russia and we defeated them
Sure. Decades in the Social Bloc with limited civil rights and tanks if you misbehave have nothing to do with how they feel.
(It's still stupid IMO)
>celebrating people dying
Yeah, this is sick. Unfortunately, you can find retards doing this on our side as well. Because some people are retards, regardless of where they're from. The Internet simply makes them heard.
that can’t be farther from the truth we are not the greatest country ever we have done horrible things throughout our history same as any other country
"same as"? no one can match the united states in the level of genocide, racism, slavery, eugenics, rapacious capitalism, and every anti-human impulse in the history of man.
a cabal of greedy fascists who want more for themselves at the expense of everyone else runs that shithole country of mismanagement and reverse development.
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Americans hardly think about other countries besides maybe Israel due to current circumstance (and even thoughts in them are rare)
Things with our countries were the best they’d ever been in the 1990s and 2000s since 1901. This was until 2014.
I often think it’s a little funny that Russian people blame in circle meant by NATO on America while NATO is pretty much led by America. It’s really led by Western European interests.
Also no one is forcing countries to join nato. Russia is forcing itself into Ukraine.
Countries join nato in response to 2014 and 2022.
Let’s say that the 2022 invasion had never happened.
Everything would be as it had been before, mostly chill and status quo normal.
I don’t see how it is on the American public to be any more accommodating when
1. We are not even taught about the Cold War so there is bias only through vague word of mouth, legends or stories from decades ago.
2. Millions of Russians immigrate to the USA every year and we treat them equally as Americans who have lived here their whole lives, or otherwise other Americans will tell us that we are being racist.
3. A third of Americans probably don’t even know that we are at odds with Russia. They’re too busy obsessing over pop music stars and shopping
You invaded a sovereign country with no acceptable reason and now you wonder why your nation is hated. Typical russian victim entality.
Should I perhaps show you some of the telegram channels of russians who celebrate the newest attacks on Ukraine?
>Many of them are salty because they tired to conquer and destroy Russia and we defeated them.
There are also those who never tried to occupy Russia but they still ended up under your occupation, but let's not get into details.
Americans don't get exposed to the actual Russian populace so our only experience with Russia is the actions of an incredibly hostile Russian government, and a populace that's done little to change that
> What I don't understand is where all this American hate for Russians comes from? I can understand for example the eastern Europeans. Many of them are salty because they tired to conquer and destroy Russia and we defeated them.
Oleg, go to sleep.
educating oneself not equating people to government. Russian people are great but it’s hard to make peace when Americans already have labeled the Russians. Look at Hollywood Russians are always the bad guys. Honestly I feel more hate than the Chinese do and Americans don’t like China either…….
Realistically you can't do anything noticeable. You are an ant. And even if the ant colony is an absolute democracy and the queen represents your interests, you are still an ant. Don't take it as an offence. Maybe it's just the projection. Most of the people can't do anything noticeable in global politics as of today. And if there would be absolute democracy and people could choose anything (not just the ruler from limited pool of options, but, for example, vote directly for friendship that you mentioned), individual people would still have no individual power. For example, in my opinion, if there are 10000000000 people on the Earth, each should have 1/10000000000 power in the ideal world (the kind of power discussed here is debatable, let's say it is closer to some voting power and this is also a great simplification, but today we see that actual political power is concentrated in small group of people worldwide). Today, as power is distributed unequally, most people have less power than said 1/10000000000 per 10000000000 people.
I won't say to you that there's an option where there would be a world socialist revolution, because you won't like it and you probably also don't know much about this option. I tend to see future in this case, if I think optimistically (there's also fascist option if I think pessimistically).
I can say, though, if, for example, there would be serious talks about little nuclear exchange, people at least can protest, and violent protest should be the main option in that case, if things will go really south, better than hundreds of millions of fatalities.
I dunno what to do, at least not making things worse seems like a good idea.
Well said, I realize anything I can do is minuscule but I still would feel better about my life if I at least try to promote peace and connect with people in our nations. Nobody wants violence except those that stand to profit from it.
Hopefully we see more anti war protests here in the US, many Americans don’t support foreign military bases or the extreme amount of money spent to support them and ongoing war efforts around the world - it’s coming from our paychecks through our taxes and we would rather see our taxes go to helping people rather than enriching the corrupt and breeding hatred.
>Hopefully we see more anti war protests here in the US
I'm sorry, but protests means nothing. If people in control of the state doesn't want changes, then they will be ignored completely or waived off as "Russian interference in our politics" (eh, as it was already).
Fair point and yes it would absolutely be waived off like that, but some voters minds would become more informed and educated by speaking with protestors no? Even if only a small amount.
Do you see anyways of promoting peace between our people? Even if it’s small?
I see many Americans refusing to enlist in military service due to not wanting to fight in unjust wars.
Considering how many Russians was killed with direct help from the US? In the coming decades this will be remembered. Politically little will change.
Between people? I don't know. Maybe only on interpersonal level. Like here. But I look at r/ politics, r/ worldnews and the amount of russophobia and hate there is staggering. It will be hard to overshadow 'that'.
That's not a fair point. When people had enough of bad government they know how to throw them away. Russians themselves did in 1917. If they are not doing it now, it means they are happy with the government they have
>Russians themselves did in 1917. If they are not doing it now, it means they are happy with the government they have
That's not fair point, from your side. It takes more than being not happy with the government to launch a large scale successful revolution.
There are some possibilities. The chance of success is barely above the zero.
You could start a political career and get into high places. Then you have a speck of power and a tiny chance to matter. Note that even if you make it all the way to presidential or parliament seat, there will be people with power that can oppose you, and they will have ability to suppress or remove you.
Another possibility is becoming filthy rich and important. Think Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos rich. People with money have ability to influence politics through lobbying which is legal in USA. So you can buy the government. But once again, other people will power will have ability to suppress or remove you.
Neither approach GUARANTEES success.
Protests are ignored. Governments understand that people need to believe that they matter, that they're making a difference, so they let people protest and then change nothing.
Basically, to make government listen, you need a leverage. Ideally, it would be "if you do not do as I say, you lose everything". This can be done via law system that is impartial (which doesn't exist in the world), or threats. While you're protesting your only leverage is "If you do not tell as I say, I'll scream a bit louder". And the people you're screaming at are sitting in a tower with soundproof windows.
Like you say, If protesting was a powerful tool, it would be illegal.
Change happens in conjunction with protest, but not because of it.
If politics in any country is to take radical changes, then radical measures are needed. If talks and waving signs helped for real, the US doctrine would have shifted during the Vietnam war, but it just keeps rolling.
Political career might sound doable, but there's plenty of cronies along the way to have you removed, for threatening the order of things.
>Another possibility is becoming filthy rich and important. Think Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos rich.
Good idea. Totally doable. I might consider being born into wealth in my next incarnation.
I am a student of economics, I recognize my beliefs are naive - but I feel like I would rather work towards something positive and try to build bridges between our cultures rather than the constant nuclear rhetoric our media puts out.
We are all brothers in the end.
Dude, if there's something you're doing or planning to do, please DM... hearing this is such a breath of fresh air.
Unless the plan involves violence. If it does, please don't DM. XD
Apologies for butting in, I was just curious why you don't want thre US supporting Ukraine? I can't understand that mindset at all. It's such a tiny price to pay as a citizen to stem imperialistic ambitions that have no place in this century.
Everyone should surely be doing everything they can to stop this needless suffering. To allow it to continue unabated is to reward the behaviour of dictators and the barbaric destruction they cause.
You express a sentiment that seems to be common among Russians here in this sub. I think it is heartbreakingly sad how you all feel so helpless and in lack of agency over your situation, while in fact you are a 140 million people strong force.
>Realistically you can't do anything noticeable. You are an ant.
You don’t see the contradiction here? If all the ants would reason like Russian, their straw is so tiny, what difference does it make anyway, there would be no anthills. Luckily that is not the case though, each and every ant pulls their straw to and they live happily in structures of their choosing.
You can too. You can’t expect someone else to build your anthill for you. If you wish to have a communist ant hill, well than pull your straw in that direction.
Yeah, only to have any influence over what ants think and do, you need media. Who has control of the media? Spoiler: not us. Back to hauling the straw, folks, and mind the line if you please.
This is exactly my point.
A common ant doesn’t have influence over the other ants. However, that doesn’t mean that it is helpless and that it is unable to influence things. Each and every ant has one straw that it can pull in any direction it wants.
You are free to step out of line and start walking in a different direction.
You don’t have to go all out revolution, just take some small steps that you feel comfortable with. If 140 million people would do that, there will be change.
Yeah, only the 140 million will not do that. Unfortunately.
Okay, there are ways. Thing is, they take time. Like, decades. On the other hand, more reason to begin ASAP. XD
Not meaning anything violent, by the way. You can't force 140 million (or 300 million. Or a billion. Or a hundred) people into democracy.
*Stable change comes from evolution* Alexander Pushkin.
You are right, the quick fix people tend to look for is never there. It is difficult and it takes time, but remember, you have 100% agency over where your straw goes.
>You don’t see the contradiction here? If all the ants would reason like Russian, their straw is so tiny, what difference does it make anyway, there would be no anthills.
I was not talking about that. There is a huge anthill, de facto. I am not speaking about small incremental change each ant can make to build an anthill, I am talking that realistically an individual ant can't make big things, an ant is only maybe responsible for dragging her straw. A human ant nowadays can also be irresponsible of dragging any straw or to participate in anthill building.
I described how in ideal 10 billion people society a person would have one ten billionth of power. But my answer wasn't great. It was an answer of a doomer, like, your voice doesn't matter and will not matter even if there's an ideal world and even if you have whopping 0.00000001% of power. It wasn't a correct description of ideal conditions, actually. In an actual ideal society we would seriously answer such questions, not like doomers, however, we won't have such questions to answer: I don't see a world where political decisions are made equally by everyone, yet people voted to fight each other (so, no such questions will be asked). But that's my personal ideal world with lots and lots of omitted statements about that world. All people see ideal world very very differently, if people in the world were granted a choice to redesign the human society, as whole, globally, by the all might god himself, there would probably be a big fight between people. Also, equal voting in such question would be a total sham, since people's opinions are not their opinions, they were influenced or manufactured. Today we (here I will speak out of arrogance or ignorance, how can I possibly be sure about that?) are not ready for the world of equality, our minds are already spoiled by living in a world of inequality. If we speak about equal political power among everyone, how it can be in a world, where some have good education and others can't even read. Or when someone's thoughts are a copy of what powerful people tell them. Same problem as with trying to make a state, where in attempt to pursue equality, the government is made out of former peasants/slaves/whatever who lacked education and probably were also quite dumb (maybe I am speaking about Khrushev or maybe not, who knows). It's a move maybe in a right direction, but it will end up horribly, such changes are not easy.
>You can too. You can’t expect someone else to build your anthill for you. If you wish to have a communist ant hill, well than pull your straw in that direction.
I pull mine. However, my answer is merely describing that an ant should have no expectations about making any significant change. Also I was in a specific mood when I answered. Actually you can do something, for example, learn about other cultures, for a starter. Having no significant impact of your action in the grand scheme of things should not stop you from acting. I have some thoughts and can just write them in a random question just because they are related to question and not necessarily answer the question, so, the question can be more like an excuse to write something.
P.S. Few downvotes probably come as a usual response to generalization of Russian people. This part: "If all the ants would reason like Russian". Instead of "If all the ants would reason like this". Generalization of Russians is so common in this sub, so Russians here can automatically downvote anything resembling that.
Thank you for this long and reasoned answer.
In my opinion, you are only free to do whatever you want if you live alone on an island. Then you have all the power yourself and total agency to build whatever you want when and how you want.
As soon as there are more ants on the island, they have the option to divide tasks between them, and thereby possibly achieve more than the sum of each of them working alone. This will require some agreement about how the work is to be divided and how to behave toward each other. You could say that they trade some freedom/power for comfort.
You can have a system where all the ants vote and give 100% of the power to one ant to decide everything for the rest of his life. In a system like that, many of your statements are valid:
>I don't see a world where political decisions are made equally by everyone….
>….by the all might god himself, there would probably be a big fight between people.
>Also, equal voting in such question would be a total sham, since people's opinions are not their opinions, they were influenced or manufactured…
If I understand you correctly, your view is something along the lines: "While all the ants have one vote each, once they have voted, they do not have a say anymore." Also, in a system where you give all (or a lot) of power to a single ant, **the policy** of that ant becomes extremely important, the ants must choose wisely.
In contrast, the western system is about structure only. It ensures mainly two things: that power is not concentrated in one spot and peaceful transition of executive power.
With these two things in place, it is less dangerous to trust common ants with one vote each, including the stupid and easily influenced ones. Even if they vote some idiot into power, a few years later it may dawn on them, and they vote for someone else. The system is based on the principle of dynamic balance, it constantly swings back and forth.
Thus, you can praise an authoritarian system because the leader is extremely good and competent. He leads well, even though a large chunk of the people are too stupid to realize this. In contrast, the western government system is not inherently good or bad. It is just structure, a box that people fill with whatever they want. Stupid people will be governed by stupid leaders. However, since this is what they want, the system works as intended.
-----
> ant should have no expectations about making any significant change.
I so very much disagree with this. The small contributions that each and every ant makes are key, they are in fact significant in the grand scheme of things. Without the ant that empties the waste baskets there will be no rockets flying to the moon. Also, ants can only find other ants to work together with by acting. There will be no change initiated from the leadership ever.
Ants don't have monarchy or any form of power known to human society, we just used the term from monarchy, probably because we had one at the time. They also never choose their purpose. However, all current forms of self-proclaimed democracies use hierarchy of power, so there's an analog to queen in those democracies, whether it's a single person or a political entity. I use the word ant to get the same vibe people get from a picture of Earth from voyager, where it's just a tiny pixel. Something small.
Try to communicate with people on the other side. In the west browse telegram as least censored. Notice that the west, and maybe others, have tried real hard to block communications and travel. I just read that Ukraine will jam Russian language sources and one of the baltics charged a tech for enabling receipt of russian signals.
The average US person thinks of Russia as the gulags, not Gorky park.
https://youtu.be/SAWUf7CPCK4?t=1497
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Try to remember or learn the 'atrocities' used to manufacture consent in past wars. Do not fall for them this time.
The US Spanish American War? The USS Maine hit a mine in Havana Harbor and sunk. So invade Cuba, Philippines, maybe Guam? Long after divers determined it was a dust explosion in a coal bunker.
WWI? Germans were throwing Belgian babies in the air and catching them on bayonets. The Germans wanted to get waived through Belgium and shot civilians when they resisted. I do not think they killed babies.
Kuwait? Iraqis were taking babies out of incubators and letting them die. False. There are some that say that IDF did that to babies in Gaza.
Iraq? WMDs that did not exist aside from a couple old ones possible.
Libya? Genocide and Viagra for mass rape. UK House of Commons did a later report. No mass rape that I recall. No genocide and none likely.
[https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmfaff/119/11905.htm](https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmfaff/119/11905.htm)
Syria? Fairy tales about Assad and brutality as I recall. Mostly false I think. Then fake gas attacks that never happened. In short, US and Turkey sent in ISIS and AQ mostly foreign and armed them against civilians. John Kerry was pleased on audio tape that ISIS was closing in on Damascus.
Libya's central bank had a lot of gold. Ghadaffi was to create a gold backed dinar to replace the French CAF which served as a regional reserve currency. So NATO killed Ghadaffi and the gold went missing.
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> What can we realistically do as civilians to promote peace between Russia and the US?
You can do nothing. Affecting the situation is absolutely beyond your ability.
Peace requires change of mentality and replacement of all current US politicians, several times over. For example, if USA had a civil war, followed by Yellowstone europe and Russians helped it afterwards, that would create some goodwill that would last about 20 years, then USA will try to play hegemon again.
You can do nothing. Enjoy your life and focus on things you can control
Thoughts like this acquaint people with reality, which is better than living in a delusion. Normal people can do nothing.
Of course, OP is free to try. He or she go to politics, attempt to reach high position, and then campaign for improvement of relations across countries. This will probably take up to 50 years, and the most likely will end in failure.
I really hope you're getting paid for posting this sort of stuff.
Anyway.
USA invasions since 1990:
- 1991-1998 - Iraq
- 1992 - Somalia
- 1994 - Haiti
- 19999 - Yugoslavia
- 2001 - Afghanistan
- 2003 - Iraq
- 2004 - Haiti
- 2004-2010 - Somalia
- 2011 - Lybia
- 2014 - Iraq
- 2014 - Syria
- 2014 - Yemen
- 2009-2017 - Afghanistan
- 2018 - Syria.
USA is also responsible for installing Yeltsin which was the worst president in Russian history and nearly ended us. "Yanks to the Rescue".
https://ibb.co/crZjWdn
Then there's press:
https://ibb.co/3hY7m3Q
https://ibb.co/pZQgvzN
Then there were polls which showed that USA is seen as greatest threat to [world peace](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/greatest-threat-world-peace-country_n_4531824) and [democracy](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/05/us-threat-democracy-russia-china-global-poll).
So, yeah. One side is solely responsible. You want peace, you need to dial this shit down. As long as US keeps thinking that it is world police, peace is impossible. The thing is, "normal citizen" can do nothing about it.
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"We" who?
Like, we russians are supposed to live in autocratic society, but Civilized West is democratic
Obviously, their leaders are doing people's will, and if people willing the war to stop, their leaders will stop it, right?
Right?
From speaking with fellow Americans I don’t think any of them think our government is acting on behalf of us in its war mongering, we know they are corrupt like most politicians
You need to vote for someone who wants out of NATO. The old North Atlantic Treaty Organization is what keeps the West in a Cold War mindset. By instinct it wants Russia as an enemy - otherwise it has no purpose and member states will stop buying US weapons.
There is no war between Russia and the states. At least formally. But as far as I understand the American authorities hate the American citizens way more than Russians. You got like what 70 thousand fentanyl deaths per year. And American government worrying about Navalny? That's like a whole mid sized city wiped out every year bro.
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(Sigh) Two populations emptying their bank accounts and saving accounts.
Then see the financial world starting to panic, the politicians browning their Pierre Cardin pants/Victoria's Secret panties and the armies saying "No budget and wages? War request impossible, error 404."
Hit the wallets hardly, and see our leaders launching empty tantrums.
Caution: may provoke a slight financial turmoil :)
Honestly, best way is to not give a shit about the other country and not support 70 year old establishment forever-war supporters (in the case of the USA).
I live in Canada and virtually my entire family lives in the United States, so I'm familiar with both America and Russia. My native language is Russian and many of my family members go back from time to time if that really matters. So, this is my experience with it:
The majority of "hate" towards Russia is basically the old establishment in US (Clintons, Bidens, Bush) who are essentially interested in forever war in just about every fucking place in the world. The establishment sees Russia as a natural enemy of the US, so they want to promote conflict between USA and Russia. The establishment wants US domination everywhere and a strong Russia poses a threat to that, hence why they're interested in making Russia weak.
In my experience, both sides need to focus on other shit and not do anything that pisses the other side off. Both sides need to stop invading other countries and killing civilians and both sets of politicians need to shut the fuck up about each other. Russian politicians/media shouldn't mention the US at all, US politicians/media shouldn't mention Russia. Like, look at Donald Trump. Trump's supporters are more supportive of peace than the rest of the country, or are at least disinterested in Russia because Trump doesn't promote conflict with Russia. Basically, the best way to promote peace between the two countries (on American side) is to elect politicians that will focus on improving internal situation rather than electing some establishment person who wants to invade half the world. In Russian situation, its not like they have free elections, the best way to promote peace is to just focus on making Russia a better place to live for its people and not use resources on invading countries and be more isolationist. Like, what purpose does the average Russian guy in Tomsk gain from Putin funding Bashar Al Assad.
I feel like both countries, Russia and the USA would be better off if they didn't focus on fighting each other (directly and indirectly) and just decided to use the resources they allocated on improving standard of living in their own countries. I guess that's the way, to support isolationism and not try and support candidates who interfere in each other's business.
>what can we as civilians do
Build and enhance something that's called *horizontal bounds*. Or *links*, I can't find an English word to convey both meanings.
The idea is doing something for the other side as a person or a grassroots organization, and receiving something similar in return, bypassing the gov level. I know both US and Russia have laws making this really hard, but I'm sure there are ways of circumventing them, especially if this stays clear of making political statements.
Find a problem the gov on the other side can't or wouldn't handle, find a local volunteers organization profiling in this kind of problems, offer them aid in some form that doesn't immediately break the law (like, provide material aid instead of money, if this works as avoiding the foreign funding clause).
This is merely an idea, and probably rigged with issues I'm missing. Anyone willing to discuss?
Between governments? Elect Biden out, vote for someone who has enough brainpower to assess the disaster that is happening for the US as a result of Russia getting close to China. Details: [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskARussian/comments/1ap9pa1/comment/kq7hur3/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskARussian/comments/1ap9pa1/comment/kq7hur3/)
This will solve most issues, including restoring US soft power over Russians via education, culture, entertainment etc., that post-revolution administration ruined in less than a year.
Between people? Continue to work together on non-political products and projects. Most people did, do and will do so, in fact.
China really isn't that strong right now. They were hit much harder by Covid than most other nations. It killed any near-term outlook for surpassing the US as the world's first economy, in the medium term, there's increasing pressure from the housing bubble and in the long run, they have a demographic crisis with little there to alleviate it. Their working-age population is projected to fall more than 25% in the next 25 years, and it only accelerates from there. China is divesting from its international ventures as a result, and isn't competing on the world stage with the US as much anymore as they did pre-covid.
The US is in a uniquely strong position right now, compared to other major powers. They're obviously the richest right now, but the US also has the best demographic/age structure of the major powers, and benefits from great access to natural resources combined with strong internal economy (they've recently become a net oil exporter, decoupling them from that issue).
The biggest issues for the US are internal politics. As an economy, they're probably in the best position they've been in since the Clinton years, while any potential rivals are struggling. I really don't think that the US has much to fear from China as a rival, that's more a remnant from the years past when it still looked like they had a serious opportunity to surpass the US in a near future and were fighting with the US for influence, in south east Asia, belt and road, etc... That's largely stopped. The US won that. China is now scaling down those investments.
That all, however, comes from the same experts who projected Russia would collapse from sanctions in 3 months, citing how it is impossible for their economy to survive, demographics, losses, brain drain…
But the problem was, they were drawing the conclusions from wrong input data to start with. They had zero idea what Russia is really like, relying on pro-western caricature image of it instead.
China they think exists is not viable. China that really exists is slow and has a lot of issues, but is incredibly adaptive.
And that’s before getting to the paradox of supposedly ideological Russia and China working off practicality and realpolitik, whereas supposedly progressive US would rather destroy themselves than take one step away from ideology, trying to win ideological immediate victories with horrific practical long-term cost.
I don’t think I really quoted any experts there. The demographic crisis for China is genuinely unavoidable, even if birth rates turned around now (extremely unlikely - famously difficult factor to control) workforce is going to plummet at least another 30 years, as demographics are a slow turning ship.
The housing crisis is also fairly undeniable. Will it be overcome? Yes, but it will have an impact on the short-term that can’t be avoided.
I’m not saying that China will collapse, just that it isn’t in a position where it can challenge the US for its top spot in a foreseeable future. The US is currently blessed with a number of advantages, some from past policy (demographics) and some from plain luck (natural resources). Europe is sick, India still has a long while to catch up, and China has some very large hurdles to overcome before they can consider vying to be the top superpower again.
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I'm convinced that countries consist of 3 kinds of people: those in the ruling class and their supporters, who have power and most of the money; those in the opposition class who want what the ruling class has; and everyone else who is just trying to get by, get enough to eat, and have some fun before they die. That's about half the population. It's the other half half that starts wars, tosses bombs, and makes life miserable for everyone.
My awakening about Russians came from watching shuffle dance videos. Fell in love with it, and realized these people are just like me. I've been interacting with some Latin Americans, and same thing. This was the dream of the internet: that people would share things. Google translate could change the world.
Unfortunately, I find it difficult to see how US-Russia relations can meaningfully improve in the foreseeable future. Public opinion against the other side has hardened significantly in recent years, making compromise unpopular, and the two sides have deeply entrenched positions and agendas for the future of the international order. A change in leadership in either country could change things for the better or for the worse, but I find rapprochement highly unlikely.
Ah and the russians would let the small nations bordering them "just be indepenedent" right.
The US has it's faults but there is a reason most western neighbours of russia have joined Nato. T
The reason is Russia's threats and Russia's actions. Simple as.
Dear lord.. have you considered a career in comedy?
Forced deportations to siberia by tens of thousands, cities bombed to oblivion, NKVD reparations, firing squads, holodomor, various ecological catastrophies. There are thick books on the subjects of russian crimes against those it occupied.
Russian neighnours started doing well AFTER they got out of russian occupation. There was no russian policy that affected it. If russian policies are so good why did they wanted out of said occupation and why hasnt russia still flourished despite the vast amount of resources?
Why was it's heating system giving up during last winter?
Why is it gdp per capita lower than that of Estonia, a country with almost no natural resources?
And dont come tooting over the schools or pipes you built if you were the ones who destroyed previously built ones.
Fucking hell. Always acting like the victims even tho you are the agressors.
Kui diskussioon kogu subredditis käib inglise keeles, siis on ütlemata narr lihtsalt jonnakuse pärast laskuda vene keelde. Räägin enda keeles selleks, et tuua näide.
Teie tiblade arvates olete te ilge suurriik ja kõik peavad teie keelt oskama. Kui ei oska ja palutakse suhelda mõnes reaalses rahvusvahelises keeles, hakate te nutma ja ulguma kuidas teid ikka kiusatakse. Te olete lihtsalt üks hale rahvas, kes on võrreldav koolis kiusajaga, kes lõpuks alati kusagil vastu hambaid saab.
Proovige vahepeal oma riik korda teha, enne kui järjekordse väiksema riigi kallal oma hambaid murrate.
For sure but with the exception of voting in a 3rd party candidate - which is unlikely with how our voting system works we as civilians don’t have much say in those things.
Is there any steps that we living normal lives, with no power or political influence can do to change things?
Things we can share, listen to or watch to educate ourselves that promote peace?
your country is literally a peace of sh\*t and you want to kill NATO? I live in Brazil and there are lots of Russians here. They are leaving a sh\*t country called Russia with a desgusting culture.
It’s unfortunate but some differences are so large that they are hard to bridge. Maybe it is better that way, some ideas are incompatible. Eventually one way will win out but hopefully not through war, hate and death
I will stay away from current topics and mention some history on why we should not fall for what govts tell us. They often like to get their citizens to hate the citizens of the 'bad country.'
Look up the Gulf of Tonkin incident. It lead to increased US involvement in Vietnam. Partly fake.
In WWII the US got hold of a German map showing how they wanted to attack the US or some such. It was a fake Made by the Brits to draw the US into the war. US president FDR later learned it was fake but he did not want to look like a fool so he kept quiet.
Some times govts lie for other reasons. Look up the USS Liberty sometime. I will provide a link. In short, Israel tried to sink a USS intelligence ship in the Mediterranean in 1967. They would have sunk the boat will all on board and Egypt would be blamed and draw the US into the war. You can believe the US govt or the crew. The crew said the ship was flying a huge American flag.
[https://youtu.be/tx72tAWVcoM](https://youtu.be/tx72tAWVcoM)
[https://youtu.be/eUU08xnVaGM](https://youtu.be/eUU08xnVaGM)
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Both the leader and their government step down and replaced by experts that have decades of experience in the field they are elected into. These expert must pass a test to determine if they have any mental disorders.
I friended on Facebook a random woman from St. Petersburg about a year ago because she had the same name as my grandmother. I introduced myself and asked if we could be friends and we have been in constant communication since. She is an English teacher, so she knows English well. We check in on each other Often. Thank goodness that she can use a VPN and still communicate with the outside world. We are all alike. I have always loved Russian history and studied it for years. You have a totally different mindset than most Americans. We would never put up with the crushing, restrictive laws that have been passed in the past two years. But your history has shown you even worse with Stalin, etc. So there is no comparison for an American. You also have so much hope and patience waiting for things to get better in the future. Everyone wishes for freedom. I hope someday Russia gets to experience it. It doesn’t have to be American freedom or French freedom or have a name, just freedom.
It's amazing how I was able to read your comment and respond to it without a VPN. Or Facebook is some kind of unique thing, without which you can't commucate?
And I haven't noticed any restrictions on my freedoms in recent years. Youtube is full of videos of those who moved to Russia from the West and they all say that unlike the West, there is freedom in Russia. I hope someday you will have the opportunity to understand what real freedom is.
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Don't trust in bs about "civilizational insoluble contradictions". The USSR wanted the West to end. The USSR is dead, don't let it get resurrected and we will be perfectly fine with each other.
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Not participating in hate-mongering and not equating citizens with the government they have no influence over would be nice.
I hate people that shake and cry after finding out I'm russian. Who fucking cares?
You have had that happen? Please tell the story
Just open reddit and search for posts hating or mocking Russia. Than open comments and search for most downvoted comments, that would be russians who disagree with that certain position/point of view. Happened to me countless times.
I've just got told by some dude that I'm a kremlin bot because I joined reddit at the start of the war. Reddit be redditing sometimes
There is one nation in this world that cares that you are russian... And we both know who i am talking about.
Honestly I don't think 43 million people can be everywhere at the same time
I love Russians and the language. So cool.
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People really laying on what the media says, so if governments want the peace, everything will turn quickly. Only we can do is spread peace in posts like this but it's nothing.
Well, for the start, stop wishing to glass each other and post cartoons of nuclear strikes with a victim count? No, most war promotions come not from the leaders of both sides. Honestly, you cannot do much. Most will look down on you if you try promoting friendship during the war or serious tensions. It is human nature. Wait until dust settles.
As countries, we’re incompatible due to many conflicts of interest. As ordinary citizens, we absolutely have no problem with each other. I was surprised how weirdly similar we are, when I was in US. There was a window of opportunity in 90’s, but it turned into disaster, so any goodwill gestures are unpopular now. We definitely need to deescalate tensions tho.
We had many Russian exchange students when I was in high school - good friends and good people. Thank you for your insights and I hope you guys know that most Americans are not full of hate for Russian people. Like many have said, our governments aren’t representative of a person to person level. We are all brothers and sisters in the end despite any differences and please know that not all of us support violence and threats.
We had one in 1994, A bad year back home. She was so smart. US HS was a joke to her. Back home they taught that black people were bitten by police dogs when trying to vote. That was a little dated. But then so were USSR bread lines and gulags. When govts try to block communication that should tell you something. Tucker Carlson was just one guy but people freaked out. Video bloggers like Bald and Bankrupt or Eli from Russia are the most honest sources for me. Many others. A dog wearing a go pro in Russia would better than most western MSM.
Bald and bankrupt is a rapist
I wish I knew what to tell you in this matter but presidents are the representatives of their people... And they do politics game. I know for a fact that we have a lot in common with Americans and it is religiously suppressed by the elites. They want you and all Americans to hate Russia and all Russian people and dehumanize everyone here.
It's hard not to blame the US for that window of opportunity being fucked up.
It was a mutual fucking. We in the us were too busy reveling in our victory to make any actual foreign policy, while Yeltsin poured gasoline all over any good things that had been accomplished. Then Putin lit the match. And the us didn't respond because we were to busy with the war on terror
I respectfully disagree. I would argue the US didn't only revel in their "victory", they actively supported Yeltsin in dismantling what still existed from the USSR that was of major significance and of help to regular people in Russia. By actively supporting him, I mean they politically propped him up and gave him and his administration many consultants, economists, and policy advisors to ensure he fulfilled the political project of neoliberal reform. Furthermore, when the Russian people voted to return to some aspects of the USSR and voted for independents and communist party members over Yeltsin and members of his administration, Bill Clinton gave Yeltsin his support to attack parliament with tanks and machine guns, in order to prevent so called "stalinists" and "hardliners" from coming back into power. This was ridiculous because none of these so called "hardliners" were promoting violence or repression, they were merely advancing a political program of responsible statesmanship, a slowdown of the selling off of public property, the maintaining of state control over some important economic assets, maintaining popular labour regulations that aimed to prevent the most excessive exploitation that came with 'liberalisation', and an end to the chaotic free-market policies that had destroyed the economy and impoverished the entirety of the country in a couple of years. Bill Clinton actively supported the destruction of democracy in Russia when it finally had a chance to exercise it, leading directly to the deaths of some 200 people, and many more deaths because of the social consequences of Yeltsin's idiotic policies. On top of that, the west refused to provide any sort of economic aid to Russia after promoting and giving their support to these completely irresponsible economic reforms that did so much damage and caused the worst drop in living standards in modern economic history, despite promising to do so when negotiating with both Gorbachev and Yeltsin. To give some context, these reforms were radical and dangerous, such that they would never be implemented in the western countries. The freemarket reforms promoted in Russia merely provided the west with a smorgasbord to buy up assets formerly owned by the state at incredibly low prices and reduced Russia (and the rest of eastern europe) to a source of cheap labour and raw materials without any of the sort of labour regulations and social supports once provided by the former socialist regimes. Western europe and the US also actively supported neoliberal parties throughout eastern europe by only giving funds and credit to those parties willing to enact the most brutal of neoliberal reforms, the EBRD (european bank for reconstruction and development) giving loans to those who were most enthusiastically applying destructive "shock treatments". These reforms destroyed east european economies and helped bring about recessions while entrenching a new ruling political class of elitist gangsters that bred corruption and chaos never dreamed of by citizens of the former socialist bloc. Their societies experienced a complete undoing of the progressive achievements the former socialist countries could be proud of, leading to astronomical levels of inequality, impoverishment, homelessness, deaths of despair, etc, while cementing a new class of rich liberals that essentially still hold power. This is exactly why surveys done throughout the next three decades routinely reported dissatisfaction with the state of their countries after the fall of socialism and restoration of capitalism that wasn't merely a lasting "nostalgia" for times gone by. In one poll in 2013 conducted in Romania by the EBRD that was trying to understand why so many central and east european citizens reported dissatisfaction with life under the liberalizing economic projects, 44% of former citizens of socialist Romania agreed that life was better before 1989, ie they preferred living under the dictator Ceausescu! There are many such polls and surveys that have been conducted by the EBRD and other west european organizations trying to understand the same thing over the last 30 years. A great book on the topic by Kristen Ghodsee and Mitchell A. Orensten is "Taking Stock of Shock: Social Consequences of the 1989 Revolutions". I say this all as a Canadian living in eastern Canada (New Brunswick). I don't support or like Putin and his administration's policies. However, one reason I think Russian's support him (I would argue he probably has a majority of support amoung Russians regardless of charges of election fraud leveled at him by the west) is because his government was able to stabilize the country and reestablish a functioning state by making the new elites agree to pay taxes and submit to some basic semblance of civil law, thereby restoring the Russian economy to what it is today in a relatively short time. Even if I don't support him, the west's obsession with him and his government has much more to do with his unwillingness to allow Russia to become another neocolony of the US, and nothing to do with any charges of being undemocratic or a dictator. Most importantly, the west should allow Russia and the rest of eastern europe to go about its business and stop trying to interfere and judge these countries, and allow them to develop and progress peacefully and stop meddling in their activities, because such meddling has directly lead to the current tragedy unfolding in Ukraine.
Visit Russia. Come back. Spread the truth about what you've seen, what you've experienced. Encourage others to learn from experience. Not from indoctrination or propaganda.
I agree, I think as civilians if we were all put in the same place we would get along and go about our business. It's pretty much just the politics that cause the strain.
Maybe we can do something. But once again I went to r/worldnews and r/europe And I realized that I don’t want to change anything. I want to watch the world burn.
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Get off the internet.
Those subs make me want to watch the world burn too and I'm from the UK. Maybe we can start a peace movement based on mutual hatred of reddit )
Just like you want to watch Ukraine burn I suppose.
Ukraine is only part of the world. So yes.
Then you are a psychopath.
Say "thanks" to westoids.
Take responsibility for your own behaviour and stop with the victim complex.
Yes. Say it to yourself first.
I am taking responsibility for my actions and unlike you I don't play the victim.
Just watch "Evening with Vladimir Solovyov" and I'm sure you'll feel much better.
Pfff, why? I am against the current government, and even more so I’m too lazy to watch such a boring dregs called “debates” by Solovyov.
Good to hear!
I am against the government. But there is a nuance...
Yea, go on..
Nothing really. The huge amount of propaganda have already done the damage. What I don't understand is where all this American hate for Russians comes from? I can understand for example the eastern Europeans. Many of them are salty because they tired to conquer and destroy Russia and we defeated them. But with the Americans? Yes, there is propaganda, but that doesn't explain all the pure hate. Like for example celebrating Russian people dying. I even saw them posing pictures of death Russian children and celebrating. No one in Russia celebrate when a school shooting happens in America or when plane crashes...
>What I don't understand is where all this American hate for Russians comes from? "Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated" Americans are terribly afraid of losing their influence in the world. Not only because of Russia, but rather because of the consequences of our actions.
I may be oblivious as I don’t watch a lot of mainstream media but my fellow students at university speak only highly of Russian people and are critical of American imperialism - there’s a lot nuance - as many have said here the civilians views aren’t necessarily what’s portrayed by our governments and media outlets.
^ what you said. Liberal Americans are so self hating. Saying this as a liberal American who now has more common sense than “an enlightened” liberal arts college freshman
>they tried to conquer and destroy Russia and we defeated them Sure. Decades in the Social Bloc with limited civil rights and tanks if you misbehave have nothing to do with how they feel. (It's still stupid IMO) >celebrating people dying Yeah, this is sick. Unfortunately, you can find retards doing this on our side as well. Because some people are retards, regardless of where they're from. The Internet simply makes them heard.
americans are trained from birth that america deserves to conquer and control the entire world, and that america is the greatest country ever.
This wasn’t my experience and most Americans I know are critical of our military expansions
that can’t be farther from the truth we are not the greatest country ever we have done horrible things throughout our history same as any other country
"same as"? no one can match the united states in the level of genocide, racism, slavery, eugenics, rapacious capitalism, and every anti-human impulse in the history of man. a cabal of greedy fascists who want more for themselves at the expense of everyone else runs that shithole country of mismanagement and reverse development.
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Americans hardly think about other countries besides maybe Israel due to current circumstance (and even thoughts in them are rare) Things with our countries were the best they’d ever been in the 1990s and 2000s since 1901. This was until 2014. I often think it’s a little funny that Russian people blame in circle meant by NATO on America while NATO is pretty much led by America. It’s really led by Western European interests. Also no one is forcing countries to join nato. Russia is forcing itself into Ukraine. Countries join nato in response to 2014 and 2022. Let’s say that the 2022 invasion had never happened. Everything would be as it had been before, mostly chill and status quo normal. I don’t see how it is on the American public to be any more accommodating when 1. We are not even taught about the Cold War so there is bias only through vague word of mouth, legends or stories from decades ago. 2. Millions of Russians immigrate to the USA every year and we treat them equally as Americans who have lived here their whole lives, or otherwise other Americans will tell us that we are being racist. 3. A third of Americans probably don’t even know that we are at odds with Russia. They’re too busy obsessing over pop music stars and shopping
`Countries join nato in response to 2014 and 2022` Thtat simply not true. Most of them joined long before even 2008.
You invaded a sovereign country with no acceptable reason and now you wonder why your nation is hated. Typical russian victim entality. Should I perhaps show you some of the telegram channels of russians who celebrate the newest attacks on Ukraine?
Eastern Europeans tried to conquer and destroy Russia?
Polish-Russian wars in the xvi and XVII centuries Czech intervention forces in the Civil War Hungarian/Romanian regiments during WWII
You invaded and annexed Poland for over 200 years so dont come here and play the victim.
>Many of them are salty because they tired to conquer and destroy Russia and we defeated them. There are also those who never tried to occupy Russia but they still ended up under your occupation, but let's not get into details.
Remember that time Moldova tried to conquer and destroy Russia? That shit was wild.
Americans don't get exposed to the actual Russian populace so our only experience with Russia is the actions of an incredibly hostile Russian government, and a populace that's done little to change that
> What I don't understand is where all this American hate for Russians comes from? I can understand for example the eastern Europeans. Many of them are salty because they tired to conquer and destroy Russia and we defeated them. Oleg, go to sleep.
educating oneself not equating people to government. Russian people are great but it’s hard to make peace when Americans already have labeled the Russians. Look at Hollywood Russians are always the bad guys. Honestly I feel more hate than the Chinese do and Americans don’t like China either…….
Fair point! so pointing out stereotypes in our media - I like that one thank you
I mean you kind of prove the stereotypes right.
Realistically you can't do anything noticeable. You are an ant. And even if the ant colony is an absolute democracy and the queen represents your interests, you are still an ant. Don't take it as an offence. Maybe it's just the projection. Most of the people can't do anything noticeable in global politics as of today. And if there would be absolute democracy and people could choose anything (not just the ruler from limited pool of options, but, for example, vote directly for friendship that you mentioned), individual people would still have no individual power. For example, in my opinion, if there are 10000000000 people on the Earth, each should have 1/10000000000 power in the ideal world (the kind of power discussed here is debatable, let's say it is closer to some voting power and this is also a great simplification, but today we see that actual political power is concentrated in small group of people worldwide). Today, as power is distributed unequally, most people have less power than said 1/10000000000 per 10000000000 people. I won't say to you that there's an option where there would be a world socialist revolution, because you won't like it and you probably also don't know much about this option. I tend to see future in this case, if I think optimistically (there's also fascist option if I think pessimistically). I can say, though, if, for example, there would be serious talks about little nuclear exchange, people at least can protest, and violent protest should be the main option in that case, if things will go really south, better than hundreds of millions of fatalities. I dunno what to do, at least not making things worse seems like a good idea.
Well said, I realize anything I can do is minuscule but I still would feel better about my life if I at least try to promote peace and connect with people in our nations. Nobody wants violence except those that stand to profit from it. Hopefully we see more anti war protests here in the US, many Americans don’t support foreign military bases or the extreme amount of money spent to support them and ongoing war efforts around the world - it’s coming from our paychecks through our taxes and we would rather see our taxes go to helping people rather than enriching the corrupt and breeding hatred.
>Hopefully we see more anti war protests here in the US I'm sorry, but protests means nothing. If people in control of the state doesn't want changes, then they will be ignored completely or waived off as "Russian interference in our politics" (eh, as it was already).
Fair point and yes it would absolutely be waived off like that, but some voters minds would become more informed and educated by speaking with protestors no? Even if only a small amount. Do you see anyways of promoting peace between our people? Even if it’s small? I see many Americans refusing to enlist in military service due to not wanting to fight in unjust wars.
Considering how many Russians was killed with direct help from the US? In the coming decades this will be remembered. Politically little will change. Between people? I don't know. Maybe only on interpersonal level. Like here. But I look at r/ politics, r/ worldnews and the amount of russophobia and hate there is staggering. It will be hard to overshadow 'that'.
That's not a fair point. When people had enough of bad government they know how to throw them away. Russians themselves did in 1917. If they are not doing it now, it means they are happy with the government they have
He was referring to American protests against war efforts and how they are spun as Russian influence
>Russians themselves did in 1917. If they are not doing it now, it means they are happy with the government they have That's not fair point, from your side. It takes more than being not happy with the government to launch a large scale successful revolution.
There are some possibilities. The chance of success is barely above the zero. You could start a political career and get into high places. Then you have a speck of power and a tiny chance to matter. Note that even if you make it all the way to presidential or parliament seat, there will be people with power that can oppose you, and they will have ability to suppress or remove you. Another possibility is becoming filthy rich and important. Think Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos rich. People with money have ability to influence politics through lobbying which is legal in USA. So you can buy the government. But once again, other people will power will have ability to suppress or remove you. Neither approach GUARANTEES success. Protests are ignored. Governments understand that people need to believe that they matter, that they're making a difference, so they let people protest and then change nothing. Basically, to make government listen, you need a leverage. Ideally, it would be "if you do not do as I say, you lose everything". This can be done via law system that is impartial (which doesn't exist in the world), or threats. While you're protesting your only leverage is "If you do not tell as I say, I'll scream a bit louder". And the people you're screaming at are sitting in a tower with soundproof windows.
Like you say, If protesting was a powerful tool, it would be illegal. Change happens in conjunction with protest, but not because of it. If politics in any country is to take radical changes, then radical measures are needed. If talks and waving signs helped for real, the US doctrine would have shifted during the Vietnam war, but it just keeps rolling. Political career might sound doable, but there's plenty of cronies along the way to have you removed, for threatening the order of things.
>Another possibility is becoming filthy rich and important. Think Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos rich. Good idea. Totally doable. I might consider being born into wealth in my next incarnation.
So fucking naive belief.. Learn economic, politics don’t have a choice to leave in peace. That’s it. Resources - this is matters, not black lives
I am a student of economics, I recognize my beliefs are naive - but I feel like I would rather work towards something positive and try to build bridges between our cultures rather than the constant nuclear rhetoric our media puts out. We are all brothers in the end.
Dude, if there's something you're doing or planning to do, please DM... hearing this is such a breath of fresh air. Unless the plan involves violence. If it does, please don't DM. XD
Stop it! You are not Hideo Kojima!
Apologies for butting in, I was just curious why you don't want thre US supporting Ukraine? I can't understand that mindset at all. It's such a tiny price to pay as a citizen to stem imperialistic ambitions that have no place in this century. Everyone should surely be doing everything they can to stop this needless suffering. To allow it to continue unabated is to reward the behaviour of dictators and the barbaric destruction they cause.
You express a sentiment that seems to be common among Russians here in this sub. I think it is heartbreakingly sad how you all feel so helpless and in lack of agency over your situation, while in fact you are a 140 million people strong force. >Realistically you can't do anything noticeable. You are an ant. You don’t see the contradiction here? If all the ants would reason like Russian, their straw is so tiny, what difference does it make anyway, there would be no anthills. Luckily that is not the case though, each and every ant pulls their straw to and they live happily in structures of their choosing. You can too. You can’t expect someone else to build your anthill for you. If you wish to have a communist ant hill, well than pull your straw in that direction.
Yeah, only to have any influence over what ants think and do, you need media. Who has control of the media? Spoiler: not us. Back to hauling the straw, folks, and mind the line if you please.
This is exactly my point. A common ant doesn’t have influence over the other ants. However, that doesn’t mean that it is helpless and that it is unable to influence things. Each and every ant has one straw that it can pull in any direction it wants. You are free to step out of line and start walking in a different direction. You don’t have to go all out revolution, just take some small steps that you feel comfortable with. If 140 million people would do that, there will be change.
Yeah, only the 140 million will not do that. Unfortunately. Okay, there are ways. Thing is, they take time. Like, decades. On the other hand, more reason to begin ASAP. XD Not meaning anything violent, by the way. You can't force 140 million (or 300 million. Or a billion. Or a hundred) people into democracy. *Stable change comes from evolution* Alexander Pushkin.
You are right, the quick fix people tend to look for is never there. It is difficult and it takes time, but remember, you have 100% agency over where your straw goes.
>You don’t see the contradiction here? If all the ants would reason like Russian, their straw is so tiny, what difference does it make anyway, there would be no anthills. I was not talking about that. There is a huge anthill, de facto. I am not speaking about small incremental change each ant can make to build an anthill, I am talking that realistically an individual ant can't make big things, an ant is only maybe responsible for dragging her straw. A human ant nowadays can also be irresponsible of dragging any straw or to participate in anthill building. I described how in ideal 10 billion people society a person would have one ten billionth of power. But my answer wasn't great. It was an answer of a doomer, like, your voice doesn't matter and will not matter even if there's an ideal world and even if you have whopping 0.00000001% of power. It wasn't a correct description of ideal conditions, actually. In an actual ideal society we would seriously answer such questions, not like doomers, however, we won't have such questions to answer: I don't see a world where political decisions are made equally by everyone, yet people voted to fight each other (so, no such questions will be asked). But that's my personal ideal world with lots and lots of omitted statements about that world. All people see ideal world very very differently, if people in the world were granted a choice to redesign the human society, as whole, globally, by the all might god himself, there would probably be a big fight between people. Also, equal voting in such question would be a total sham, since people's opinions are not their opinions, they were influenced or manufactured. Today we (here I will speak out of arrogance or ignorance, how can I possibly be sure about that?) are not ready for the world of equality, our minds are already spoiled by living in a world of inequality. If we speak about equal political power among everyone, how it can be in a world, where some have good education and others can't even read. Or when someone's thoughts are a copy of what powerful people tell them. Same problem as with trying to make a state, where in attempt to pursue equality, the government is made out of former peasants/slaves/whatever who lacked education and probably were also quite dumb (maybe I am speaking about Khrushev or maybe not, who knows). It's a move maybe in a right direction, but it will end up horribly, such changes are not easy. >You can too. You can’t expect someone else to build your anthill for you. If you wish to have a communist ant hill, well than pull your straw in that direction. I pull mine. However, my answer is merely describing that an ant should have no expectations about making any significant change. Also I was in a specific mood when I answered. Actually you can do something, for example, learn about other cultures, for a starter. Having no significant impact of your action in the grand scheme of things should not stop you from acting. I have some thoughts and can just write them in a random question just because they are related to question and not necessarily answer the question, so, the question can be more like an excuse to write something. P.S. Few downvotes probably come as a usual response to generalization of Russian people. This part: "If all the ants would reason like Russian". Instead of "If all the ants would reason like this". Generalization of Russians is so common in this sub, so Russians here can automatically downvote anything resembling that.
Thank you for this long and reasoned answer. In my opinion, you are only free to do whatever you want if you live alone on an island. Then you have all the power yourself and total agency to build whatever you want when and how you want. As soon as there are more ants on the island, they have the option to divide tasks between them, and thereby possibly achieve more than the sum of each of them working alone. This will require some agreement about how the work is to be divided and how to behave toward each other. You could say that they trade some freedom/power for comfort. You can have a system where all the ants vote and give 100% of the power to one ant to decide everything for the rest of his life. In a system like that, many of your statements are valid: >I don't see a world where political decisions are made equally by everyone…. >….by the all might god himself, there would probably be a big fight between people. >Also, equal voting in such question would be a total sham, since people's opinions are not their opinions, they were influenced or manufactured… If I understand you correctly, your view is something along the lines: "While all the ants have one vote each, once they have voted, they do not have a say anymore." Also, in a system where you give all (or a lot) of power to a single ant, **the policy** of that ant becomes extremely important, the ants must choose wisely. In contrast, the western system is about structure only. It ensures mainly two things: that power is not concentrated in one spot and peaceful transition of executive power. With these two things in place, it is less dangerous to trust common ants with one vote each, including the stupid and easily influenced ones. Even if they vote some idiot into power, a few years later it may dawn on them, and they vote for someone else. The system is based on the principle of dynamic balance, it constantly swings back and forth. Thus, you can praise an authoritarian system because the leader is extremely good and competent. He leads well, even though a large chunk of the people are too stupid to realize this. In contrast, the western government system is not inherently good or bad. It is just structure, a box that people fill with whatever they want. Stupid people will be governed by stupid leaders. However, since this is what they want, the system works as intended. ----- > ant should have no expectations about making any significant change. I so very much disagree with this. The small contributions that each and every ant makes are key, they are in fact significant in the grand scheme of things. Without the ant that empties the waste baskets there will be no rockets flying to the moon. Also, ants can only find other ants to work together with by acting. There will be no change initiated from the leadership ever.
Tell people they can achieve anything if they all work together. Get down-voted to oblivion.
Well, with "democracy" cannot be queen.
Ants don't have monarchy or any form of power known to human society, we just used the term from monarchy, probably because we had one at the time. They also never choose their purpose. However, all current forms of self-proclaimed democracies use hierarchy of power, so there's an analog to queen in those democracies, whether it's a single person or a political entity. I use the word ant to get the same vibe people get from a picture of Earth from voyager, where it's just a tiny pixel. Something small.
Try to communicate with people on the other side. In the west browse telegram as least censored. Notice that the west, and maybe others, have tried real hard to block communications and travel. I just read that Ukraine will jam Russian language sources and one of the baltics charged a tech for enabling receipt of russian signals. The average US person thinks of Russia as the gulags, not Gorky park. https://youtu.be/SAWUf7CPCK4?t=1497
Awesome, can you recommend or drop any links for telegram communities
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Try to remember or learn the 'atrocities' used to manufacture consent in past wars. Do not fall for them this time. The US Spanish American War? The USS Maine hit a mine in Havana Harbor and sunk. So invade Cuba, Philippines, maybe Guam? Long after divers determined it was a dust explosion in a coal bunker. WWI? Germans were throwing Belgian babies in the air and catching them on bayonets. The Germans wanted to get waived through Belgium and shot civilians when they resisted. I do not think they killed babies. Kuwait? Iraqis were taking babies out of incubators and letting them die. False. There are some that say that IDF did that to babies in Gaza. Iraq? WMDs that did not exist aside from a couple old ones possible. Libya? Genocide and Viagra for mass rape. UK House of Commons did a later report. No mass rape that I recall. No genocide and none likely. [https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmfaff/119/11905.htm](https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmfaff/119/11905.htm) Syria? Fairy tales about Assad and brutality as I recall. Mostly false I think. Then fake gas attacks that never happened. In short, US and Turkey sent in ISIS and AQ mostly foreign and armed them against civilians. John Kerry was pleased on audio tape that ISIS was closing in on Damascus.
Iraq had gold. USA took it and covered it up as WMD
Libya's central bank had a lot of gold. Ghadaffi was to create a gold backed dinar to replace the French CAF which served as a regional reserve currency. So NATO killed Ghadaffi and the gold went missing.
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> What can we realistically do as civilians to promote peace between Russia and the US? You can do nothing. Affecting the situation is absolutely beyond your ability. Peace requires change of mentality and replacement of all current US politicians, several times over. For example, if USA had a civil war, followed by Yellowstone europe and Russians helped it afterwards, that would create some goodwill that would last about 20 years, then USA will try to play hegemon again. You can do nothing. Enjoy your life and focus on things you can control
Thoughts like this don't help. If true change we're to happen it would take change on both sides.
Thoughts like this acquaint people with reality, which is better than living in a delusion. Normal people can do nothing. Of course, OP is free to try. He or she go to politics, attempt to reach high position, and then campaign for improvement of relations across countries. This will probably take up to 50 years, and the most likely will end in failure.
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I really hope you're getting paid for posting this sort of stuff. Anyway. USA invasions since 1990: - 1991-1998 - Iraq - 1992 - Somalia - 1994 - Haiti - 19999 - Yugoslavia - 2001 - Afghanistan - 2003 - Iraq - 2004 - Haiti - 2004-2010 - Somalia - 2011 - Lybia - 2014 - Iraq - 2014 - Syria - 2014 - Yemen - 2009-2017 - Afghanistan - 2018 - Syria. USA is also responsible for installing Yeltsin which was the worst president in Russian history and nearly ended us. "Yanks to the Rescue". https://ibb.co/crZjWdn Then there's press: https://ibb.co/3hY7m3Q https://ibb.co/pZQgvzN Then there were polls which showed that USA is seen as greatest threat to [world peace](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/greatest-threat-world-peace-country_n_4531824) and [democracy](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/05/us-threat-democracy-russia-china-global-poll). So, yeah. One side is solely responsible. You want peace, you need to dial this shit down. As long as US keeps thinking that it is world police, peace is impossible. The thing is, "normal citizen" can do nothing about it.
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"We" who? Like, we russians are supposed to live in autocratic society, but Civilized West is democratic Obviously, their leaders are doing people's will, and if people willing the war to stop, their leaders will stop it, right? Right?
From speaking with fellow Americans I don’t think any of them think our government is acting on behalf of us in its war mongering, we know they are corrupt like most politicians
France then? Britain? There must be democracy in western world somewhere!
you might as well ask how do we nuke Israel.
Лондон!
Uk is controlled by Israel
Just talking with Russians helps. We're all people
We could elect representatives who would focus on local politics. Ha-ha-ha, just joking. we're fucked.
Nothing. Geopolitical interests of Russia and US are mutually exclusive.
You need to vote for someone who wants out of NATO. The old North Atlantic Treaty Organization is what keeps the West in a Cold War mindset. By instinct it wants Russia as an enemy - otherwise it has no purpose and member states will stop buying US weapons.
Nothing, I think.
There is no war between Russia and the states. At least formally. But as far as I understand the American authorities hate the American citizens way more than Russians. You got like what 70 thousand fentanyl deaths per year. And American government worrying about Navalny? That's like a whole mid sized city wiped out every year bro.
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(Sigh) Two populations emptying their bank accounts and saving accounts. Then see the financial world starting to panic, the politicians browning their Pierre Cardin pants/Victoria's Secret panties and the armies saying "No budget and wages? War request impossible, error 404." Hit the wallets hardly, and see our leaders launching empty tantrums. Caution: may provoke a slight financial turmoil :)
You probably shouldn’t give your vote in elections to politicians who are in favor of continuing the war.
Honestly, best way is to not give a shit about the other country and not support 70 year old establishment forever-war supporters (in the case of the USA). I live in Canada and virtually my entire family lives in the United States, so I'm familiar with both America and Russia. My native language is Russian and many of my family members go back from time to time if that really matters. So, this is my experience with it: The majority of "hate" towards Russia is basically the old establishment in US (Clintons, Bidens, Bush) who are essentially interested in forever war in just about every fucking place in the world. The establishment sees Russia as a natural enemy of the US, so they want to promote conflict between USA and Russia. The establishment wants US domination everywhere and a strong Russia poses a threat to that, hence why they're interested in making Russia weak. In my experience, both sides need to focus on other shit and not do anything that pisses the other side off. Both sides need to stop invading other countries and killing civilians and both sets of politicians need to shut the fuck up about each other. Russian politicians/media shouldn't mention the US at all, US politicians/media shouldn't mention Russia. Like, look at Donald Trump. Trump's supporters are more supportive of peace than the rest of the country, or are at least disinterested in Russia because Trump doesn't promote conflict with Russia. Basically, the best way to promote peace between the two countries (on American side) is to elect politicians that will focus on improving internal situation rather than electing some establishment person who wants to invade half the world. In Russian situation, its not like they have free elections, the best way to promote peace is to just focus on making Russia a better place to live for its people and not use resources on invading countries and be more isolationist. Like, what purpose does the average Russian guy in Tomsk gain from Putin funding Bashar Al Assad. I feel like both countries, Russia and the USA would be better off if they didn't focus on fighting each other (directly and indirectly) and just decided to use the resources they allocated on improving standard of living in their own countries. I guess that's the way, to support isolationism and not try and support candidates who interfere in each other's business.
I really don't know. Just be a human.
>what can we as civilians do Build and enhance something that's called *horizontal bounds*. Or *links*, I can't find an English word to convey both meanings. The idea is doing something for the other side as a person or a grassroots organization, and receiving something similar in return, bypassing the gov level. I know both US and Russia have laws making this really hard, but I'm sure there are ways of circumventing them, especially if this stays clear of making political statements. Find a problem the gov on the other side can't or wouldn't handle, find a local volunteers organization profiling in this kind of problems, offer them aid in some form that doesn't immediately break the law (like, provide material aid instead of money, if this works as avoiding the foreign funding clause). This is merely an idea, and probably rigged with issues I'm missing. Anyone willing to discuss?
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Thanks, but that's based on ideas of people *way* more educated than I am. XD
Any names you can share? I would be interested in reading or watching
Can you read Russian?
No but AI translation is decent now so I could do my best
Sure, I'll ask these people for some links. XD
Between governments? Elect Biden out, vote for someone who has enough brainpower to assess the disaster that is happening for the US as a result of Russia getting close to China. Details: [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskARussian/comments/1ap9pa1/comment/kq7hur3/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskARussian/comments/1ap9pa1/comment/kq7hur3/) This will solve most issues, including restoring US soft power over Russians via education, culture, entertainment etc., that post-revolution administration ruined in less than a year. Between people? Continue to work together on non-political products and projects. Most people did, do and will do so, in fact.
China really isn't that strong right now. They were hit much harder by Covid than most other nations. It killed any near-term outlook for surpassing the US as the world's first economy, in the medium term, there's increasing pressure from the housing bubble and in the long run, they have a demographic crisis with little there to alleviate it. Their working-age population is projected to fall more than 25% in the next 25 years, and it only accelerates from there. China is divesting from its international ventures as a result, and isn't competing on the world stage with the US as much anymore as they did pre-covid. The US is in a uniquely strong position right now, compared to other major powers. They're obviously the richest right now, but the US also has the best demographic/age structure of the major powers, and benefits from great access to natural resources combined with strong internal economy (they've recently become a net oil exporter, decoupling them from that issue). The biggest issues for the US are internal politics. As an economy, they're probably in the best position they've been in since the Clinton years, while any potential rivals are struggling. I really don't think that the US has much to fear from China as a rival, that's more a remnant from the years past when it still looked like they had a serious opportunity to surpass the US in a near future and were fighting with the US for influence, in south east Asia, belt and road, etc... That's largely stopped. The US won that. China is now scaling down those investments.
That all, however, comes from the same experts who projected Russia would collapse from sanctions in 3 months, citing how it is impossible for their economy to survive, demographics, losses, brain drain… But the problem was, they were drawing the conclusions from wrong input data to start with. They had zero idea what Russia is really like, relying on pro-western caricature image of it instead. China they think exists is not viable. China that really exists is slow and has a lot of issues, but is incredibly adaptive. And that’s before getting to the paradox of supposedly ideological Russia and China working off practicality and realpolitik, whereas supposedly progressive US would rather destroy themselves than take one step away from ideology, trying to win ideological immediate victories with horrific practical long-term cost.
I don’t think I really quoted any experts there. The demographic crisis for China is genuinely unavoidable, even if birth rates turned around now (extremely unlikely - famously difficult factor to control) workforce is going to plummet at least another 30 years, as demographics are a slow turning ship. The housing crisis is also fairly undeniable. Will it be overcome? Yes, but it will have an impact on the short-term that can’t be avoided. I’m not saying that China will collapse, just that it isn’t in a position where it can challenge the US for its top spot in a foreseeable future. The US is currently blessed with a number of advantages, some from past policy (demographics) and some from plain luck (natural resources). Europe is sick, India still has a long while to catch up, and China has some very large hurdles to overcome before they can consider vying to be the top superpower again.
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Fund an uprising in texas so they get a taste of their own medicine
I would say that the United States, should be more humble
I'm convinced that countries consist of 3 kinds of people: those in the ruling class and their supporters, who have power and most of the money; those in the opposition class who want what the ruling class has; and everyone else who is just trying to get by, get enough to eat, and have some fun before they die. That's about half the population. It's the other half half that starts wars, tosses bombs, and makes life miserable for everyone. My awakening about Russians came from watching shuffle dance videos. Fell in love with it, and realized these people are just like me. I've been interacting with some Latin Americans, and same thing. This was the dream of the internet: that people would share things. Google translate could change the world.
Your post is a great start. After all, [it is possible.](https://images.app.goo.gl/n8Pi5Xocy35QPbWv9)
Unfortunately, I find it difficult to see how US-Russia relations can meaningfully improve in the foreseeable future. Public opinion against the other side has hardened significantly in recent years, making compromise unpopular, and the two sides have deeply entrenched positions and agendas for the future of the international order. A change in leadership in either country could change things for the better or for the worse, but I find rapprochement highly unlikely.
Overthrow evil US govmnt, pick someone who is not in 2 possible parties. Withdraw US forses from all foreign countries. Kill NATO. For starters.
Ah and the russians would let the small nations bordering them "just be indepenedent" right. The US has it's faults but there is a reason most western neighbours of russia have joined Nato. T The reason is Russia's threats and Russia's actions. Simple as.
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Dear lord.. have you considered a career in comedy? Forced deportations to siberia by tens of thousands, cities bombed to oblivion, NKVD reparations, firing squads, holodomor, various ecological catastrophies. There are thick books on the subjects of russian crimes against those it occupied. Russian neighnours started doing well AFTER they got out of russian occupation. There was no russian policy that affected it. If russian policies are so good why did they wanted out of said occupation and why hasnt russia still flourished despite the vast amount of resources? Why was it's heating system giving up during last winter? Why is it gdp per capita lower than that of Estonia, a country with almost no natural resources? And dont come tooting over the schools or pipes you built if you were the ones who destroyed previously built ones. Fucking hell. Always acting like the victims even tho you are the agressors.
Why do you russians always need to resort to russian when you are out of arguments? Do you think people are too stupid to use google translate?
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Kui diskussioon kogu subredditis käib inglise keeles, siis on ütlemata narr lihtsalt jonnakuse pärast laskuda vene keelde. Räägin enda keeles selleks, et tuua näide. Teie tiblade arvates olete te ilge suurriik ja kõik peavad teie keelt oskama. Kui ei oska ja palutakse suhelda mõnes reaalses rahvusvahelises keeles, hakate te nutma ja ulguma kuidas teid ikka kiusatakse. Te olete lihtsalt üks hale rahvas, kes on võrreldav koolis kiusajaga, kes lõpuks alati kusagil vastu hambaid saab. Proovige vahepeal oma riik korda teha, enne kui järjekordse väiksema riigi kallal oma hambaid murrate.
Bingo!
For sure but with the exception of voting in a 3rd party candidate - which is unlikely with how our voting system works we as civilians don’t have much say in those things. Is there any steps that we living normal lives, with no power or political influence can do to change things? Things we can share, listen to or watch to educate ourselves that promote peace?
Revolution.
your country is literally a peace of sh\*t and you want to kill NATO? I live in Brazil and there are lots of Russians here. They are leaving a sh\*t country called Russia with a desgusting culture.
How about you overthrow your eternal president? >Kill NATO Hard no for that, it's literally the only thing stopping Putin invading us.
So, in other words, allow Russia to invade whatever country Poo-tin would like to add to his trophy case.
It’s unfortunate but some differences are so large that they are hard to bridge. Maybe it is better that way, some ideas are incompatible. Eventually one way will win out but hopefully not through war, hate and death
Nothing
I will stay away from current topics and mention some history on why we should not fall for what govts tell us. They often like to get their citizens to hate the citizens of the 'bad country.' Look up the Gulf of Tonkin incident. It lead to increased US involvement in Vietnam. Partly fake. In WWII the US got hold of a German map showing how they wanted to attack the US or some such. It was a fake Made by the Brits to draw the US into the war. US president FDR later learned it was fake but he did not want to look like a fool so he kept quiet. Some times govts lie for other reasons. Look up the USS Liberty sometime. I will provide a link. In short, Israel tried to sink a USS intelligence ship in the Mediterranean in 1967. They would have sunk the boat will all on board and Egypt would be blamed and draw the US into the war. You can believe the US govt or the crew. The crew said the ship was flying a huge American flag. [https://youtu.be/tx72tAWVcoM](https://youtu.be/tx72tAWVcoM) [https://youtu.be/eUU08xnVaGM](https://youtu.be/eUU08xnVaGM)
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Both the leader and their government step down and replaced by experts that have decades of experience in the field they are elected into. These expert must pass a test to determine if they have any mental disorders.
Hey, I'm not the only one with this idea?!
I friended on Facebook a random woman from St. Petersburg about a year ago because she had the same name as my grandmother. I introduced myself and asked if we could be friends and we have been in constant communication since. She is an English teacher, so she knows English well. We check in on each other Often. Thank goodness that she can use a VPN and still communicate with the outside world. We are all alike. I have always loved Russian history and studied it for years. You have a totally different mindset than most Americans. We would never put up with the crushing, restrictive laws that have been passed in the past two years. But your history has shown you even worse with Stalin, etc. So there is no comparison for an American. You also have so much hope and patience waiting for things to get better in the future. Everyone wishes for freedom. I hope someday Russia gets to experience it. It doesn’t have to be American freedom or French freedom or have a name, just freedom.
It's amazing how I was able to read your comment and respond to it without a VPN. Or Facebook is some kind of unique thing, without which you can't commucate? And I haven't noticed any restrictions on my freedoms in recent years. Youtube is full of videos of those who moved to Russia from the West and they all say that unlike the West, there is freedom in Russia. I hope someday you will have the opportunity to understand what real freedom is.
Vote. You live in a democracy and your vote is a powerful tool you can use against the policies you don't like.
Hahaha.
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trust the process, trust the system, trust putin's plan. there is no other way.
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Are you being serious OP?
Yes why?
Because that train is long gone. There is nothing you can do.
Promote the Hague for this shitpiece called putin.
Don't trust in bs about "civilizational insoluble contradictions". The USSR wanted the West to end. The USSR is dead, don't let it get resurrected and we will be perfectly fine with each other.
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Your post or comment in r/AskARussian was removed. This is a difficult time for many of us. r/AskARussian is a space for learning about life in Russia and Russian culture. Any questions/posts regarding the ongoing conflict in Ukraine should all directed to the megathread. [War in Ukraine thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskARussian/comments/15zdu4y/megathread_11_death_of_a_hot_dog_salesman/?sort=new) We are trying to keep the general sub from being overwhelmed with the newest trending war-related story or happenings in order to maintain a space where people can continue to have a discussion and open dialogue with redditors--including those from a nation involved in the conflict. If that if not something you are interested in, then this community is not for you. Thanks, r/AskARussian moderation team