Thread by @shaunjlawson

I've always been completely intolerant of authoritarian behaviour from a very young age.

I can't stand bullies, I can't stand authoritarian teachers either (conservative v liberal is a very real dividing line in education).

You might even call me a zealot. A pro-democracy one

That'll go down well. "Hang on, Tony Blair was too. Blairite warmonger imperialist scum".

To clarify: no, I'm not someone who will ever support bombing a country into democracy. I'm just someone who stands for and with liberal democracy, openness, pluralism and freedom.

And I've been as appalled by Western aggression, imperialism and neo-imperialism as anyone else. The continent I live in knows all about the latter.

But just because the West has done indefensible things in the past doesn't mean it never gets it right. Often, it does.

Right now, Ukrainians are fighting for their very lives in a manner none of us could even conceive of.

I don't understand those who don't stand with them against imperialist tyranny. I especially don't understand those who victim blame.

"She was flirting with other partners! Whistling sweet nothings to them, being courted by my enemies! SHE WAS ASKING FOR IT".

Ukraine is a democratic sovereign state. You cannot defend the sovereignty of Saddam's Iraq, then blame Ukraine for its people asserting their rights.

You cannot defend the sovereignty of Gaddafi's Libya - even after he publicly demanded genocide in Benghazi against the opposition - then blame Ukraine for its people asserting their rights.

Oh, and memo to Russia. When Chechnya broke away, you launched a horrific, murderous war

Two Ukrainian areas unilaterally break away, you fund them, you arm them, you annex further sovereign Ukrainian territory... and you call the result 'genocide'?

Try seeing what happens if any part of any country anywhere just unilaterally secedes. War is normally the result.

I think it quite likely would be if, for example, California or Texas ever tried it from the US. In a different but related way, it certainly has been in Kashmir.

Then look at how the Spanish authorities reacted when Catalunya idiotically declared unilateral independence.

Under leaders who *knew* a majority of Catalans did not support them: who *knew* they'd get no international recognition whatsoever, but went ahead anyway. Just pure wanton recklessness.

Making them every bit as bad as the hideous Spanish government of that time.

National independence movements only ever truly succeed when a massive majority of their people support them. Not half of the people; a massive majority.

Otherwise, all that results is bitterness, division and sometimes worse.

If Brexit - the outcome of which was actually, to all intents and purposes, "er... um... we don't know" - hasn't taught people that, then well.

But there's something else I want to add. Something very specific to a time of war.

It's a 2022 version of 'careless lips sink ships'.

At times of war, everyone pulls together. Everyone. This is the first war in my lifetime in which there's at least a theoretical existential threat to the whole of Europe.

That existential threat is wielded by Russia.

The same Russia whose cyberwarfare and troll armies have caused chaos across the West for at least the last 8 years. It's not been all their fault, no; but they've had plenty to do with it.

And one of the ways they've succeeded is in stupid people sharing and believing bullshit

- Stupid people who seriously believed Hillary Clinton wanted to go to war with Russia

- Stupid people who believed Bernie Sanders had been 'robbed' of the Democratic nomination when he got millions and millions less votes than she did

fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-s…

- Stupid people who think one individual in the US State Department, Victoria Nuland, somehow caused a 'coup' against one of the most corrupt leaders Europe has ever known.

A 'coup' in which Ukraine's Parliament voted him out for his corruption and his bloodthirsty behaviour.

- Stupid people who believed the never-ending lies of a Leave campaign, several of whose key figures were funded and backed by Russian money

- Stupid people who claimed that Joe Biden had 'dementia'

- Stupid people who think vaccinations are part of 'The Great Reset', masterminded by Bill Gates and George Soros

- Stupid people who think long overdue action against a mob funded by the far right illegally occupying an entire city for weeks on end was a sign they were right

- Irredeemably stupid people who think that Ukraine has a 'puppet government', rather than one granted a huge mandate by its people

What do these stupid people do? They point to a meme. Or a video. Or something they saw on Facebook. Or an article from their favourite website.

Websites like Global Research, Zero Hedge or Mint Press. Or those, like The Jacobin, which certainly does good work but fits literally everything into an already preordained world view.

And unlike science, which requires MANY peer-reviewed studies with watertight, quality controlled methodology, these people think that one article, one meme or one video somehow proves their case!

They don't ask themselves about the provenance of the source. Or who stands to benefit from what's being said.

And unlike in the past, when conspiracy theories were the preserve of the fringe and the media had proper gatekeepers, now, it's like the Wild West.

Meaning these conspiracies spread. And because they provide seductively simple explanations, people swallow them. Extraordinary numbers do.

In the US, QAnon is actually growing. And Biden's approval ratings are crumbling. They're in trouble. Lots of it.

What have conspiracy theories around the vaccine done? They've killed people. Maybe hundreds of thousands of people.

What did the British public swallowing bullshit funded by Russian money do? It irreparably harmed the future of their country, especially its young.

And what would conspiracy theories about the war in Ukraine do now? Especially stuff as intellectually bankrupt as "Russia just want to remove a fascist puppet government"?

It endangers Ukrainians. Ordinary people like you or me who are petrified.

Who may lose their lives at any moment.

The more people swallow this shit, the less support they'll give, morally or financially.

The more people swallow this shit, the more likely Putin is to get away with it - which is WHY HIS GOVERNMENT AND THEIR TROLL ARMIES SPREAD IT.

I can't abide that. Not when people's lives are at stake.

And I especially can't abide it from people who say, without a shred of irony, "authoritarian, corrupt war-monger, you say? Sounds like Johnson. Corrupt kleptocracy, you say? Sounds like Britain".

Britain and the West may be many things. And our Prime Minister is a national and international disgrace.

But we're not in this situation. Please God, we never will be in this situation. You have no idea what it's like to live in fear of losing your lives at any moment.

You have no idea what it's like living next door to a massive nuclear state.

You also have no idea what it's like to live somewhere whose past governments have taken corruption to undreamt of levels almost anywhere in the West. Including the UK.

This isn't a game. People's lives are at stake. Millions are fleeing across the border; fathers left behind to fight as their wives and children wonder if they'll ever see them again.

But it's *because* so many have treated politics like a game that we're in this mess now.

Tribalism, dogma, we won you lost get over it.

Authoritarianism - which wants to destroy democracy, destroy the freedoms you or I completely take for granted - feeds off that. It loves division and it injects as much ignorance into the bloodstream as possible.

Just *think*. Do *actual* research. Read across a whole range of sources from different perspectives; don't just jump at the first thing your echo chamber shares and think you, some random on the internet, somehow have it all figured out.

You don't.

And stop using things that happened in the past as evidence that it must be happening again now.

"The US and UK always lie! Iraq ring any bells?"

The US and UK intelligence on Iraq was a catastrophe. On Ukraine, it's been spot the hell on and that'll be causing Putin real panic

"The CIA always support fascism! 1970s South America ring any bells? Hail Chavez! Hail Maduro! Hail Castro! Long live the revolution!"

A 'revolution' which siphons off millions from the people into their corrupt tyrants' offshore bank accounts. A 'revolution' which denies their people any basic rights. A 'revolution' which, in Venezuela's case, has precipitated the worst refugee crisis in Latin American history.

The CIA have next to nothing to do with what's going on right now. If you think they do, try asking yourself:

- Why was Vietnam such an utter disaster?
- Why was Iraq such an utter disaster?
- Why was Libya such an utter disaster?
- Why did Afghanistan become an utter disaster?

- How did the CIA allow a deranged lunatic and Russian asset with access to the nuclear codes to become President, then attempt a coup against the whole country?

- How did the CIA fail to prevent 9/11?

- Why are there left wing governments aplenty across South America?

- Why was an alleged 'coup' against Evo Morales followed by fresh elections which returned the left?

Y'know, given the CIA are apparently this all seeing, all powerful body which magically controls everything?

Even Europe's started inching back leftwards in recent times. Oh no, the CIA can't be happy, know what I mean?

🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

It. Is. Ridiculous. And the lack of basic respect it shows any people anywhere who decide FOR THEMSELVES at the ballot box is staggering.

And it's to that point on basic respect I'll return.

The absolute bare minimum the people of Ukraine deserve is your respect. Their courage is astonishing; they have defied almighty odds thus far; they are facing the kind of peril you or I have never experienced.

The idea that they're doing this - risking their lives every day - for a 'puppet government controlled by Washington' would be ridiculed by a bunch of 6-year-olds.

Keep coming out with this drivel, and there's only one man you're serving. The monstrous Vladimir Putin.