@alexl @eliasr

"Zelensky won the presidential election in a landslide in 2019 after much of his campaign was allegedly bankrolled by one of Ukraine’s richest — and most corrupt — oligarchs, Igor Kolomoisky."

https://nypost.com/2022/02/24/who-is-ukraines-president-volodymyr-zelensky/
@alexl @eliasr

"Instead, he said, the United States is simply using Ukraine to try to weaken its geopolitical rival. “War against Russia,” he said, “to the last Ukrainian.”

@otso @alexl@mstdn.io

I get the impression that you dislike the US and Israel. Fine, but if you let that drive you all the way to supporting Putin then I urge you to stop and think for a moment.

Here are things I want, things I care about:

- Freedom
- Democracy
- Human rights
- Free speech
- Peace

I want this for everyone.

1/?

@otso @alexl@mstdn.io

Unfortunately, people in Russia do not have democracy and they do not have free speech. That seems to me like the fundamental problem that lead to war. If Russia had been more democratic then this war would not be happening. People generally don't want war. (I call it war although in Russia saying that is apparently not allowed, no freedom of speech there.)

As for Ukraine, you might not like its leaders but it's clearly a more democratic country compared to Russia.

2/?

@eliasr
Not supporting Putin at all, but I like people to be accurate;

If Democracy prevents war, then how come USA has been at war for a vast majority of its existence?

It was an ex-field marshal of Napoleon, as King of Sweden, that started the "tradition" of Sweden staying out of wars. Part of accepting him as new Crown Prince by the parliament, was the expectation that he would attack Russia and bring Finland back to Sweden.

I fail to see that there is any direct causation.

@otso @alexl

Follow

@niclas

I have two answers to that:

First, the democracy in USA is far from perfect. In particular it seems like companies wanting to make money have too much influence, which I think has contributed to USA being at war more than what would have been the case otherwise. Simply put, the military industry has a lot of power, they want business and for them, war means more business.

1/?

@otso @alexl@mstdn.io

@niclas

A better functioning democratic system (than the current situation in USA) would mean more power to people and less power to huge companies. (Please note that USA is a pretty damn good democracy if we compare it to Russia which is not a democracy at all. For example, USA has real political opposition, you do not know in advance who will win elections, and people have freedom of speech.)

2/?

@otso @alexl@mstdn.io

@niclas

Second, it's not so much that a democracy never goes to war, it's more that democracies tend to not go to war against each other. It is possible for a democracy, even a well functioning democracy, to go to war. But it will not happen without very strong reasons, and it will not be about attacking another democracy. People will never think that attacking another democracy is justified, and therefore a democracy (if it works well) will not do that.

3/3

@otso @alexl@mstdn.io

@eliasr

I like your last point, but I am not convinced that "democracy" itself is necessarily the (only/major) catalyst of peaceful co-existence. Integrated economies, stronger cultural influences and exchanges, and regional identity (say European) than national identity (say German).

It seems that USA is the major outlier, as it continuously interfere with other nations and occasionally get to invasions. OTOH, Europe had a few thousand years of head start in wars. Maybe tired.

@otso @alexl

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