What a devious plotter! He made Russia invade his country so that he could become a dictator. Genius!

Half a millennia of near endless military conquests and civil wars. What’s not to love?

You changed the subject.

Because your liberal reformists consolidated enormous powers in the executive branch. Again. You keep giving governments the ability to end elections and entrench themselves indefinitely. That’s exactly what it will do, every time.

What a ridiculous thing to write in the context of this discussion. Martial law was not enacted via self-coup. The Ukrainian executive did not wake up one nice morning, realize it had some kewl powers and thought let’s enact martial law so that we can entrench ourselves. It was enacted when a foreign power invaded. It will be revoked the moment Russian soldiers return the fuck back to Russia.

And how’d that work out?

Given that the Roman Republic lasted for something like 480 years (509 – 27 BC) ? Pretty damn well thank you very much, that’s a longer lifespan that any of our current republics (minus San Marino I guess).

While in a state of martial law. A constitution re-written as recently as 2015, the year following Ukrainian Oligarch Petro Poroshenko’s ascension to power. You’re witnessing the end stages of the collapse of democracy in the country under a set of rules authorized barely a decade ago.

Why is martial law currently in effect buddy? Can you think of anything that would guarantee the immediate revocation of martial law? Anything? Any ideas?

Fun fact: the original meaning of a dictatorship was precisely the case where the Romans extraordinarily appointed someone to have full authority to resolve a specific problem, such as when a serious threat the the state was present.

The Ukrainian constitution says no elections while war. Zelensky does not hold any dictatorial authority beyond the one given to him by the Ukrainian people and laws when he was elected.

If you are going to be mad at someone for straining Ukrainian democracy, be mad at the country invading it, and thus triggering the suspension of elections.

It’s called being invaded and by definition, yea, it’s kind of exceptional.

“Zelensky won’t break the law.”

This is absolutely criminal. The world should stand up to the gangsters in Washington and run the illegal US embargo to deliver aid to Cuba.

If we have learned anything from the last decade, the centre-left now is faced with a dilemma: deep reforms to drain the abscess that oozed out the fascists or continue with neoliberal business as usual, effectively giving the far right time to regroup and try again next time.

Excellent summary.

And indeed even for a pendulum swing, it hasn’t been anywhere near as dramatic as the anti-legalization moral panic discourse would suggest.

Prohibition just gives power to the smugglers and the enforcers. Imagine if all consumer drugs and related shit was just legalized across the hemisphere. No more chartels, drug war, drug running, drug police. Just taxes, public health interventions and regulatory enforcement. Canada took the first step with cannabis and guess what, society hasn’t collapsed.

Got to be able to tell your right wingers apart. He’s a fuck face but Doug Ford is not a fascist like Poilievre. The flu virus, deadly as it is, is not COVID.

Hey Brits, take a cue from Canada and shut your fascists down.

Hope you beat this thing as quickly and smoothly as possible, so I can be annoyed at your modding style again! Jokes aside, take care, all the best wishes for a successful recovery that is very boring and predictable.

You’re wrong saying that it’s a non-story. If you’d asked the question ten years ago, it wouldn’t be a third. The news is that this possibility has been born. That’s big news.

Nah that was British boomers being stupid.

Some people seem to have replaced Great Man historiography with Great Manipulator historiography.

C’mon Jews, speak up!

Have you been around the last couple of years? From Naomi Klein and Mahsa Gessen to Omer Bartov and Gabor Maté, Jewish intellectuals have been major voices against the genocide. And organizations like JVP and IJV in different countries, have been doing immense legwork and organizing. Not to mention the Refuseniks in Israel, and organizations like Standing Together.

If you haven’t heard Jews speaking up, you haven’t been paying attention.

In my experience that’s not the case. But your mileage may vary. And make sure you have your adjectives right. Jew and Israeli are not the same thing. In any case crushing antisemitism outside of Israel is a huge step to defeating Zionism.

This is how we defeat the Jewish Agency for Israel. Make it antizionist praxis to genuinely welcome migrating Israelis and to encourage diaspora Jews to not do Aliyah (Why move to an apartheid hellhole? Here in [insert your country] is a lovely and safe place to flourish as a Jew!). It’s a double win: you get a good friend and neighbour, and the palestinians get one less colonizer to worry about!

EDIT: Added benefit: you piss the fuck out of far right asshats in your country.

So then what you need to do is build …what… ? Take your thought to it’s logical conclusion.

Look, dear American people, there is no cavalry coming to save you. You have to do this. It’s your country. Build the infrastructure, build the organization.

Start small, build up: https://youtu.be/vvaquOcNEKI