Look, you will have to have more intellectual discipline / integrity and engage with people. I asked you specifically two questions, and you ignore them. Can you please answer them? Should I repost them?
How about just one: how can one point out complete hypocrisy and double standards in frantic calls to action, without using "whataboutism"?
> I think you are indeed fairly consistent: US bad, Russia good, just like Chomsky.
No, my position is that USA, Russia and China are all empires, they're bad in some things and good in others. (Wow, shocking.) This is a rather reasonable position, and it only sounds to you like "US bad, Russia good" because your starting point is to barely notice any crimes by USA and its allies, and only by Russia. So literally any information that comes out of the real world will seem like it's written by a Russian bot. It is the "whataboutism" you fear.
Chomsky probably has a similar position on condemning Russia, but spends most of his time criticizing USA because of the "Chomsky Principle". I actually criticized him for this in our latest interview. And I got him to condemn the Russian invasion which he likened to Hitler's and Stalin's invasion of Poland. Is that good enough for you?
When it comes to Ukraine and USA, I pushed him as well in the most recent interview I have done with him last week: https://vimeo.com/713049567/07f9561d88
I disagree with Chomsky in other areas. I've had a debate with him on my show for example about how influence is a form of capital that he benefits from and he is part of the celebrity culture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv5mI6ClPGc
> This is also the core idea of whataboutism: US bad, Russia good. Always, no mater what. It is not: US bad, Russia bad, no.
That's a total straw man. If someone said this, then whataboutism would quickly slap them down and ask what about Russia leveling Grozny to the ground and killing HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people, or leveling Homs and Aleppo to the ground. That is a whole other level of destruction. And Russia is responsible. Russia BAD, get it? But notice that in all those instances, you didn't even bother to comment too much about it, let alone call for complete ostracism of Russia from the world economy, politics, culture, etc. What Russia did in Chechnya is far bigger destruction and could literally be called a "genocide" of Chechens. But why didn't you post much about Syrians and Chechens? Let me tell you the uncomfortable truth: they are not White Europeans. So therefore their lives matter to you as much as Yemenites or Afghanis.
Yes what about Yemenites, Chechens and Afghanis? Isn't it interesting that Russia was BAD and far WORSE back then, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, and the Afghan war a million people died, but somehow Russia wasn't banned from everything?
So you see, whataboutism can even help you care about the other people that Russia attacked. So no, Russia not good. Russia bad. And China bad. And USA bad. But also good in other things. But you aren't getting the point. To you, anything deviating from complete and utter agreement with "USA good, Russia bad" is to be shut down and walked away from.
No, I do not do victim blaming of Afghanistan. You again commit the same fallacy. I condemn Russia's invasion of Afghanistan. The question is, what can we do to prevent a million civilians from dying in senseless extended wars? Your answer is "never mind that, Russia bad! Let's send them weapons so they can keep fighting, oh those poor civilians, what was the name of their city again?"
> Why do you think Zelensky or Arestovych wanted war?
I don't think Zelensky did, I think Arestovych did. Why? Because he flat out says that's what he wants -- so that Ukraine won't get "absorbed" into Russia. He doesn't quite spell out this false dichotomy or what would be so bad about this "absorbing", he doesn't stop to think maybe he's wrong before torpedoing a diplomatic process ... because the civilians who will be dying in the war won't be him personally or his folks. That's what I'm talking about, politicians can sit in their comfortable chairs and order armies to kill each other, while civilians sit under bombs. Did you ever see Good Will Hunting rant to the NSA? Watch it.
https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/75617/
In the peace process, one guy sent in the delegation by Zelensky was simply killed by Ukrainian SBU, on "suspicion of being a traitor". I am more informed than you think! When this war just broke out, I asked for an intro and spoke to David Arakhamia on Facebook and urged him to be serious and creative in the peace talks in Belarus. In case you don't know, Arakhamia became the most famous negotiator (the guy in the hat, who always said he wears the hat because he "doesn't respect" the peace process). You can see Ukrainians begging on his wall to make a peace deal. He paid lip service to it, but when it came to it, they met for 2 hours and bounced. Several times. And the civilians pay the price.
Just like you are happy to send weapons of which nearly 100% will explode on Ukrainian soil and kill UKRAINIAN CIVILIANS. The people that I care about. The civilians. (not just in Ukraine but everywhere). And the people you claim to care about. Is there any number of civilians at which you'd draw the line and say ... maybe it's better to do diplomacy instead of pouring more weapons into the region?
If you won't listen to me, listen to Interpol: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/02/ukraine-weapon...
Or listen to human rights organizations for years: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2018-07-09/ty-article/ri...
But all you're doing is parroting propaganda that says, Ukraine's politicians are amazing, Azov are just patriots, USA is just a concerned bystander, and anything half the world population says that you don't like must be because they got a check from the Kremlin. Wow, those guys must be so rich, paying off half the world...