Comment on I work long hour and make little money
DonEladio@feddit.org 1 day ago
Why don’t we start to do this in reverse? “Я гей-фермер из Владивостока. Я поддерживаю слом системы.”
Because russia is not a democracy and an average russian is staying away from politics due to learned helplessness. Because of multiple factors, even protests won’t change anything. You can call for sabotage, but that isn’t what an average person would do.
Besides, their internet is far more restricted. They don’t have access to twitter. They use vk and registration there essentially requires a gov id, 1 per citizen.
You grow up in those countries, you’d soon learn to keep quiet.
My family was all born in mainland China, we live in the US right now, my parents keeps telling me to stop criticizing the government, as in neither the governments of of PRC and USA. Because in their mind:
dissent = trouble
shut up = safe
Which I mean, to be fair, seeing how PRC allegedly has overseas operatives and also the US’s current autocratization, they might actually have a point.
I don’t agree with that idea, but I get where they’re coming from. They lived through the Cutural revolution stuff. My dad was a kid during those times, my mom was born near the end of it, but she heard direct first hand accounts from my maternal grandparents. So… those fears gets passed on. My mom told me many times to not post anti-government views on the internet… even here in the US… 👀
dissent = trouble shut up = safe
That’s true in the US, anyone who thinks they have free speech hasn’t said anything that anyone cared about, and were asleep the entirety of 2020 and hasn’t turned on the news now that Trump’s ICE are so wildly incompetent they don’t even bother to obfuscate what they’re doing.
Those who don’t move don’t notice their chains.
I know what you mean. My parents (both Ukrainian) were telling me to lower my profile and don’t post anything political cause we don’t know where are we heading. They did enjoy their freedom to criticize gov at home & with the family members though, but in a very characteristic Ukrainian trait - all the government bad, they all steal etc.
My wife’s granny from Belarus, she switched to very quiet whisper every time she was talking about politics. Even in Ukraine, where people faced no consequences. Because walls have ears.
And re genetic memory, I know what you mean cause even people that didn’t experience Holodomor had very different attitude towards food, having stashes & wasting food was basically unthinkable.
…even protests won’t change anything.
the fact that you get Siberia’d for holding a blank poster on the street says more than enough to this end.
This isn’t the key factor. Every protest that has big political change goal is potentially dangerous for those who participate, in every country. That didn’t stop Ukrainians, for example.
But the thing that russian gov wouldn’t just go away. Even if 10 millions would be on the streets for like a month. Even if they defend against riot police instead of running away. The key figures would just stay till the bitter end. They would use army. And then what, an average russian doesn’t have a rifle at home. And who would you fight, an army?
At this point it’s easier to just join russian corps in Ukrainian army. At least it is organized.
But then again, they won’t get 10 mil on the streets. And they won’t resist the riot police. Russian protest is a sad view.
When Russia was not in the war, protests were way more prominent. Some of them were not sad at all.
The thing is, protests don’t do shit on their own. They are tools that opposition use to organise and send a message, and Putin learned to strike where it hurts, so when you participate in a protest all you achieve is that you paint a target on your back.
This is one of the reasons Ukranian protest of 2014 ultimately prevailed, cops were targeting protesters and not the leaders, so it became an organised fight.
That propaganda won’t work comrade Ivan, we all know there no gay farmers in Vladivostok. Our wise government made sure of it!
But yeah, jokes aside, it’s currently a crime to support LGBT in russia. Being gay = being rebel against regime, cause real rebels either already dead, in prison or fled. Next in line, if I would guess, would be jews I think.
Do you mean propagandise the Russian population? The West is already doing it by way of Radio Free Europe, NED and other NGOs. It is not a discussion that comes up often, but on occasions Russian trolls will bring up about color revolutions Russian spheres of influence that advocate for democratic reforms, which is catalysed by the West through said media and institutions. Hence, for the Russian jingoists and Kremlin, their own propaganda against the West is justified. But if you ask the trolls what is objectively bad with promoting democracy? You will get crickets. That is certainly better than propping up illiberal and regressive groups.
Don’t forget PBS.
Sesame Street is literally one of the most effective pieces of western propaganda. Reaching, primarily, kids and moms, in oppressive, patriarchal societies.
Better pull the plug from that, right Donnie?
can’t control women and kids unless they feel helpless and scared.
kind of pathetic when you think about it. the only control that they can hold over you is the control you allow them to force upon you.
become ungovernable, fuck the oligarchy.
what is objectively bad with promoting democracy?
Because calling a US puppet regime democracy, doesn’t actually lead to liberal peace values. As in Ukraine and Georgia, it lead to immediate war for purposes of diminishing Russia. Democracy has turned into “empty branding” for establishment rule.
You’re talking about CIA-orchestrated coups and without popular support. Almost all color revolutions tend to be grass roots movement, albeit have soft power influence from outside.
Almost all color revolutions tend to be grass roots movement, albeit have soft power influence from outside.
Contradictory. Soft power with lots of money gets lots of influence. Where any revolution can cause destabilization that favours CIA agenda/control, it will get funded. Opinion that “more trade with EU would be nice” gets funded into protests. Black flag nazi executions of protesters get narrated as Governmnent executions, and the protest frenzy causes a coup.
In Georgia and Ukraine, or just taking the Ukraine example, Maidan liberalism received no governance representation whatsover inside coup government. Only nationalists who would provoke a war on Russia got power. So there is 0 link between the substance of popular complaints, and the resulting evil of transforming complaints into CIA agenda.
In this exact case you will be wadhed away with a wsve of homophoby. Because in Russia, many people with otherwise sane and non-destructive views are still homophobic. To compare with some other country, I would say it’s something like in Turkey.
So if I was trying to improve Russian society through “good kind of propaganda”(not sure it’s a thing), I would start from something else, and not from this problematic topic. Otherwise if will be generally harder to find wide support.
And when I’m thinking of that, homophobia in Russia is just a result of people “worrying too much about other people’s shit” - everyone knows how you should or shouldn’t live, and ready to tell you about it. So if you work on that in general, that would help.
Levitator2478@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Not sure whether this is serious, but to provide a serious answer: you can’t create a healthy democracy by spreading misinformation. Misinformation that’s aligned with your agenda might help push it in the short term, but it also undermines trust (in this case trust in what the average person is saying, since you can’t tell who genuine participants in a discussion are). In a low trust environment, people tend to gravitate toward big personalities and believe sources and make decisions based on their own gut feelings (i.e. their personal prejudices) rather than on things like people’s real experiences and accurate information from trusted institutions.
Demagogues like Putin thrive in this environment because ultimately they don’t have (or care about) solutions to the average person’s problems. They get by based on personality, stoking prejudice etc. But policies that are based on the truth and what the average person actually needs suffer.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 1 day ago
That’s part of why russia is like this actually. Propaganda both pro and anti soviet wasn’t telling the whole truth and shit got weird
DonEladio@feddit.org 1 day ago
It was a joke. I lived and worked in Russia for some years. I understand that the country has more fundamental problems to resolve.
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 20 hours ago
You use this to build a case that Russia is the side with an unhealthy democracy. Categorically, it is 100% misinformation that Russia was not provoked into defending itself as a result of Ukrainian puppet nationalist leadership installed by the US. That we walk around thinking “healthy democracies have sub 40% approval for their rulership” and any country with 80%+ approval can only be a dictatorship is another massive level of misinformation.
Walking around thinking pure demonic warmongering lies is reality is by far the most destructive misinformation bubble you can possibly support. Sleepwalking through your rulerships’ “healthy democracy” by internalizing their right to supremacism is guaranteeing your submission to their pillaging of country.