Full Putin speech from yesterday with English subtitles about the annexation of the Ukrainian territories. He talks about many things, how he sees Russia, the West, the United States, Europe, the goals of the western elites, Russian history, Soviet history, what Russia stands for, etc, so it's interesting for anyone who would like a lecture about what is the perspective of the Russian government about all those things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP69jld8XAE

The fact that he accuses the West of racism and neocolonialism tells me he would gladly go back to recruiting western communist useful idiots to subvert their own countries just like in the Soviet days if he could. He also says that during the 20th century the West was plundering the rest of the world while Russia was uplifting people from poverty and starvation, lmao

@deadheat
Don't know what he might mean by racism, but there is a thing to be said about neocolonialism, about how USA exports and basically enforces it's cultural values all over the world. The easiest example is how the West harasses Asian nations over eating dogs, while we eat cows, an animal outright sacred to the Hindus, without a care in the world.

@alyx Watch it for full context, it's not very long.

He goes with the narrative that, since the Middle Ages, the West tries to control the world by force and crushes any people or culture that tries to be free or independent. He doesn't even talk about economy, geopolitical context or anything like that, it's a "war of civilizations" narrative where the West is just evil and goes around the world oppressing everyone else. It's the same narrative of the left against "white people". Meanwhile, he presents Russia as a force for good, freedom and sovereignty in the world.

Reminder that he is saying these things in the speech where he is presenting the annexation of Ukrainian territories as new states of Russia. Reminder that Russia has engaged in the forced Russification of their neighbors for over a hundred years.

@deadheat
He's technically not wrong, just hypocritical.

Yeah, I plan to watch it a bit later.

@alyx >He's technically not wrong

It's a completely twisted view of European history that is promoted by leftists agitating for the destruction of Western countries in a communist revolution or foreign despots like Putin trying to justify their own ambitions against the West. It's a narrative crafted for political purposes.

@deadheat
I'm personally not talking about what Europe has done historically, but what is happening now. And "crushes any people or culture that tries to be free or independent" is not that much of an exaggeration to what EU is doing to its Eastern members. Look at how EU reacts when Viktor Orban does one of his "Hungary is for Hungarians" type speeches. Or how an Hungarian town was voted as the most beautiful European town, only to be denied the actual prize because it wasn't diverse enough.

It's not oppression in the old colonialism sense, or even in the leftist sense, but it is undeniable that the West is spreading it's culture and values everywhere it can, and sometimes by underhanded means.

I don't necessarily think this is bad. Overall I value American culture more than my own. But sometimes, the way the West bullies other countries into accepting their values as the objectively correct ones, simply rubs me the wrong way. Again, my go to example is how Asian countries were bullied into banning the practice of eating dogs for no objectively good reason. The only reason we object to eating dogs is because our culture is emotionally attached to them. But Hindus are emotionally attached to cows, and we find their refusal to eat cows silly.
The fact that Western culture cannot comprehend this hypocrisy and pretends it's objectively morally abhorrent to eat dogs is fucked up imo.

@alyx @deadheat We could find some middle ground and stop eating either

@Alex @deadheat
Or we could recognize that we just find eating dogs disgusting, but it's not inherently immoral, so just let the Asians do their thing.

@alyx @Alex @deadheat I don't care that they eat dogs tbh, what I have a problem with is the perverse and satanic cultural practice of intentionally inflicting as much pain on the organism before killing it. That shit puts someone on my plate, in my crosshairs, they're not people anymore to me, they stopped being people and are now free objects for me to use how I see fit, if only others saw it the same way so we could use them as slaves.