«Navalny, as Ukrainians and liberal Russians remember well, vehemently supported the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008 and even used derogatory, dehumanising terms to refer to the Georgian people. Several years later, he would apologise for the terms he used, but never for his support of the Russian war on Georgia.

….

He saw the Russian people as victims of injustice under Putin’s regime, not the Ukrainians. In his view, no wrong had been committed against Ukraine that was worth righting.»

….

In late February 2023, Navalny’s team published a 15-point manifesto that sought to clear much of the controversy around their views of Ukraine. Importantly, the manifesto acknowledged the internationally recognised borders of Ukraine, implying the need for the restoration of Ukraine’s sovereignty over Crimea and all other currently occupied Ukrainian territories.

The document also insisted on withdrawing all Russian troops from Ukraine, offering reparations, investigating war crimes in cooperation with international institutions, and ultimately letting Ukraine live and develop as Ukrainians want.

For many Ukrainians, however, this change of heart is well past its due date. In today’s Ukraine, very few believe that the Russian aggression can be stopped by anti-Putin activism, even one that is unambiguously pro-Ukrainian.»

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/3/4/why-ukraine-is-wary-of-the-russian-opposition

Perry Bacon, Jr. speaking plain:

«It would not help Biden in 2024 to say he is trying to win “White voters in the Midwest who are conservative on racial issues.” Such phrasing would imply that these Americans’ race, racial views and lack of education were playing a role in their voting choices, something they likely would not want to hear from a politician.»

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/07/college-degree-status-working-class-blue-collar-politics/

@dymaxion 🔗 https://infosec.exchange/users/dymaxion/statuses/109972680527742347 – I’ve talked about this in smaller contexts, but I haven’t found any traction and time is getting short. When the Nazis passed the enabling laws for the book burning on April 8th, 1933 — exactly 90 years ago in 34 days — the first thing they burnt, the same day, were the archives of the largest trans and gay research institute in the world. When they say now that we didn’t exist until after the war, the only reason they can get away with it is that they burned all the accumulated evidence. https://assemblag.es/@hugo/109972631252644527

Well, here’s a fun read.

https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/manhattan-advice-and-variations

Brilliant.

@MarkHoltom 🔗 https://mastodonapp.uk/users/MarkHoltom/statuses/109943326577512522 – That didn’t take long.

https://popular.info/p/is-it-ok-to-be-white

I thought this part was pretty funny:

There’s a lot going on in this sentence:

«In Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere, the West’s geopolitical adversaries are calculating whether the U.S. and its allies have the stamina and cohesion to defend the rules-based international order that has benefited the West for decades.»

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-is-the-wests-war-now-5d468bdb?st=to3uetiyp76sxyw&reflink=share_mobilewebshare

(Normally, WSJ’s opinion pieces are crap, but (a) I’m not sure this really is opinion, and (b) I like it, so there.)

All eyes on Nigeria for the moment.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/25/nigeria-election-millions-go-to-the-polls-in-crucial-bellwether-vote

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/russia-ukraine-war-one-year-national-identity/673192/?utm_content=edit-promo&utm_source=twitter&utm_term=2023-02-24T10%3A30%3A56&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social

So, this is a nice feel-good article, but here’s my take: China is moving to make Russia a client state. Russian gas and oil (and maybe resources from the Donbas) will flow to China. Big geopolitical move for China. Ukraine will wind up as yet another frozen conflict. The US will lose interest. (France is talking surrender, of course.) The “non-aligned” world will just sit this out.

I’d love to see Ukraine recover everything (they could long-term-lease Sevastopol to Russia, maybe), but once China starts supplying weapons to Russia, Ukraine will make no more progress unless the West really steps up, and I just don’t see that happening.

This would have gone better if we’d put heavy weapons in the pipeline sooner, but of course we didn’t.

It might even be too late for Taiwan, unless they get serious really fast about becoming a porcupine.

If the West wakes up (and maybe we are; the peace dividend is over), we’ll be entering another cold war, which is sad because war is wasteful, but the alternative is the spread of corrupt, authoritarian governments that abuse humans.

I know it’s popular to say that the US is that now, but: no. (Not yet, anyway.)