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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3040 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 2, 2025

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You've commented this (or something similar) multiple times without any concrete examples. Obviously "Russia is a good traditional Christian country trying to restore her rightful borders and we should support them against Nazi Ukraine" is maximum propaganda, but what does an edge case look like?

Is simply talking about Ukrainian corruption enough to be propaganda? How about bringing up the suspended elections without the context of past suspensions under total war?

Yes. “Ukrainian corruption” is a dog whistle for Russian propaganda.

Isn't that a bit like saying "greenhouse gasses" is "environmentalist propaganda"?

No. Saying that Ukraine deserves to be invaded and the massacre at Bucha was warranted because they didn’t have an election during wartime where parts of the country can’t vote because they are occupied by Russia is Russian propaganda.

But that's not what you said in the previous comment?

Huh? I’m confused.

You said:

“Ukrainian corruption” is a dog whistle for Russian propaganda.

But Ukrainian corruption is directly observable and widely accepted as existing. When I pointed it out you responded by saying that the implication that Ukraine deserves to be invaded because they suspended their elections is what is Russian propaganda, but that doesn't seem relevant to anything that was said further up the response chain.

Ukrianian corruption has no relevance in the context of the Russian invasion. Ukraine could be a hellhole, and it still doesn’t deserve to be invaded. Bringing up “Ukrainian corruption” is repeating Russian propaganda in an attempt to justify the invasion.

But it does. If we send X dollars to Ukraine to fight Russians, and only 0.1X actually gets to the goal, it's fundamentally different situation than if the whole X were used as intended. Note I am not claiming this exact number is correct, but the question of corruption is highly relevant - moreover, I have a suspicion the corruption contributed a lot to the reasons why Ukraine lost so much territory already in this war and why it's losing more. Not the only factor, but a contributing one.

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