They didn’t even know who the kid was.

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.

Give em hell

Their comment however was not about simping MTG. It was questioning Democrats sucking ass.

The most vulnerable people in your country are already being hunted down and put in concentration camps. Helping the fascists keep the lights on is not resistance.

If you are not ready to do political and institutional resistance that actually raises the stakes, you will create the conditions where people will either have to choose complete capitulation to fascism or violent insurrection.

And is there any particular reason why a political crisis should be averted? Any particular reason why the administration would not have to be frantically diverting is attention to these issues for the next couple of weeks until some kind of crescendo results in a resolution?

Resistance means making them have to pay a price every step of the way. Each day they don’t have to spend their effort to go on TV to do some petty politicking is a day where they have the bandwidth to spin doctor the events in Minneapolis.

I’m Greek-Canadian. In Greece, yankee go home is a classic anti-american slogan in leftist circles.

I don’t know where you found the “tons of posts encouraging violence”. I have made multiple posts encouraging non-violent resistance.

edit: here is precisely what I was commenting 6 days ago about violence: https://lemmy.ca/post/58814479/21200438

Hey Yanks, is this what resisting trumpist fascism looks like?

Call them and ask them if today’s shooting would change their mind.

It’s called the DSA. Help them take over the husk of the Democratic party.