Ukraine-Russia has done to a lot of American conservatives what BLM narratives did to liberals: anything less than being actively anti-Russia (with libs it was "anti-racist") is complicity. You aren't allowed to be critical or insist on staying out because silence is violence.
Conservatives managed to more or less avoid this with covid, BLM, and Jan. 6, but Ukraine-Russia got them good
Emoji in bio, silence is violence, shouting down dissenters (look at what Fox News did to Col. MacGregor) as criminal accomplices, Marvel themes, and now Zelensky is to conservatives what Fauci is to liberals, utterly beyond reproach, but libs also agree this time
This has spanned the entire spectrum of conservatives, too, from MAGA people to natcons
A lot of the "new" conservatives -- whether MAGA, populist, or natcon -- are going along, as if the last time this happened we didn't get, among other things, the Patriot Act
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Zelensky is exacerbating the danger to civilians by arming criminals, prohibiting men from leaving with their families, and telling civilians to fight Russians who don't want to fight them.
If you wanted to get civilians killed for pro-war Western media, then this is how.
If you want to get civilians killed, tell them to throw Molotov cocktails at vehicles that cannot even be damaged by Molotov cocktails -- which is what Zelensky's government is telling people to do.
Russians are trying to mitigate civilian casualties. Even Kadyrov has begged civilians to stay out of the fight.
But by arming them as Zelensky has done, they risk becoming unlawful combatants, which means they may not even be afforded basic protections like POWs.
That building is an Azov base and the strike appears to have been aimed at deterring civilian recruitment (see flyer)
Reposting and clarifying because there are civilians in the area, but the strike was aimed at a *military* target because Azov has used this location for a while
Ukraine's strategy actually seems to be maximizing civilian casualties by organizing around civilians and civilian infrastructure so that the US and NATO will get directly involved
Fortunately, not many civilians seem to have been killed yet and Russians have so far left infrastructure untouched. People mostly still seem to have water, electricity, etc
People will balk at what I am saying, but we are actually familiar with this strategy, it's just typically employed by Middle East insurgents rather than Europeans
This is what happens when you go along with dumb shit like "pouring out vodka to own Putin," and you're going to see more attacks on American citizens with Russian ancestry before this is over.
Americans have allowed themselves to be psyoped into literally attacking each other by warmongers in the media
It is actually horrifying how conservatives and liberals were so quickly and effectively programmed by Marvel movie themes into supporting escalation with Russia and now even attacks on other Americans who happen to be Russian
Ukraine-Russia resulted in a catastrophic information failure. People, including blue checks, deliberately sharing fake news, memes, and updates one the one hand, and then actually *demanding* no one push back on obvious propaganda aimed at NATO allies and the US on the other
Never seen anything like this before in any conflict in my life. This really is a new era of information warfare where the meme is more important than reality for people
Peoples' behavior toward this stuff really does mimic entertainment: they get angry when you point out some obviously fake thing is fake (ghost of Kiev), like you just got up and turned off the television
The Snake Island story was fake, the Ghost of Kyiv was fake, the photos of Zelensky in body armor were fake (they're old pictures being circulated as new ones)
Ukraine-Russia is World War Reddit
Zelensky is still in Ukraine, so that's good, but many people have already matched the viral images of him in kit on the "front lines" with older ones from a while ago before the conflicted started
You have to be skeptical of every sensational meme and breaking news story
The only really insane pro-Russian psyop I've seen appears to show Avoz units hurting civilians, but it looks so staged that it's hard to believe that it's not just Russians pretending to be Ukrainians