Timothy Birdnow

Having an argument on Facebook with a guy who wants to excuse Ukraine for everything because, like, Russia bad and stuff.

John Dyslan says:

Not unusual for changes during war time. Lincoln did some in Civil War. We did some during WWII as well as other western countries at that time.

NYC elections were delayed two months or so due to 9/11.

Tim responds:

Lincoln did not postpone the U.S. election despite the fact polls showed he was going to lose. (He won, and probably thorugh some ballot box stuffing.) Whenever there is postponement it is only for a very short time and out of necessity. What we are seeing in Ukraine now is more akin to how Hitler took power in Germany.

John responds:

Lincoln suspended other things. Situation in Ukraine is different.you have a country that invaded it and playing havoc with the country in many ways.


Tim retorts:

Yes he did and he got spanked by the Suprme Court for it. Lincoln did some bad stuff during the war, including suspending habeas corpus and arresting newspapermen who didn't go along with him.The peaceful transfer of power is a hallmark of any democratic republic (or is the ideal) and if we countenance the rulers there doing this how can we say they are better than Putin and the oligarchs ruling Russia? Putin at least held a bogus election; more than Zelensky is willing to do. Now why is that? Could it be Zeloensky fears what the election might say? He cannot be all that popular as he's failed to drive the Russian out and refuses to negotiate. But be that as it may the point is the Russians are not in the whole of Ukraine and organizing an election is far from impossible. Zelensky has done a number of things, including kickout out much of the Russian Orthodox Church and suppressing the use of the Russian language in Russian speaking areas. As I say, most dictators start this exact same way. There is always some "emergency" to justify "temporarily" suspeending rights and elections. Hell,America is still under many wartime provisions - Second World War wartime that is. Once this stuff comes it rarely goes.

Mr. Dyslan retorts:

why should Zelenskyy negotiate and I doubt Ukrainians want negotiation? Negotiation would include ceding land to the Russians. Would you be ok if either Russia or China invaded the U.S. and to end the war we agreed to give up Alaska and the west coast? In wartime, various things get suspended for various reasons. They have to for various reasons as well. Same happened in WWII. There were rations, government took over manufacturing facilities so they could just produce stuff needed for war.

Tim responds:

John Dyslin you ask "why should Zelenskyy negotiate " Because his people are dying in vast numbers. And because the Russians are not going away. Fighting continues because Zelensky still thinks NATO is going to come into the war (WWIII) and because he is being funded by the West. But it's destroying the country.

Most wars end via negotiated settlements. But Zelensky is essentially demanding Russia surrender when they are clearly winning.

At this point it probably would lead to ceding land and that sucks. But they won't even open negotiations. The fact is Ukraine won't even talk to the Russians and they demand terms that the Russians are not going toaccept. I rather suspect Ukraine could get out of this largely unscathed if they would agree not to join NATO and stop trying to keep Russia from building a new pipeline, and would quit pressuring Russian-speaking minorities, and the Orthodox Church. I think Russia is only interested in territory for the sake of oil and gas transportation.

We could go into all the things the Ukrainians did to cheese off the Russians. There are a great many things. That doesn't justify an invasion by Russia, of course, but the Russians do have grievences. But that isn't the point. The point is at this stage Ukraine can only win with a major escalation of the war via western entry (WWIII). Some times you have to face the fact you lost.

Which is precisely why Zelensky doesn't want to hold elections; he fears what they will show.

"Would you be ok if either Russia or China invaded the U.S. and to end the war we agreed to give up Alaska and the west coast?"

This are not even remotely similar comparisons. Great Russians make up the majority in the eastern Ukrainian provinces, and Ukraine was in fact a part of the old USSR. And we would have a credible chance of winning if we kept fighting. What is happening in Ukraine is a nation that has already lost is simply extending the battle time courtesy of western investment.

This is more like the American Civil War after Lee's surrender. Lee rejected a proposal to switch to guerilla warfare and surrendered. What did that cost the South?But after a certain point you've lost and all you are doing is throwing away lives. Lee understood that which is why he surrendered. And that was why Lincoln's reconstruction proposal was fairly generous. After Lincoln's assassination the radical Republicans implemented a very hard reconstruction plan to punish the south.

Imagine if someone had made a negotiated settlement before it came to that? Think of the lives and suffering it would have avoided.

You are not really THINKING about this so much as being moved by emotion. I suspect you are still looking at this through the cold War prism. This isn't the Cold War and Russia isn't the Soviet Union.

Are they the aggressors? Sure. But are they this terrible threat? No; they can't even ffinish off Ukraine.

We have to deal with them logically. If you want to end this war the way to do it is get the price of gas and oil down. But the Western elites refuse to do that, being married to this pie-in-the-sky "green energy" nonsense. (The Russians created and funded much of the green energy scam precisely so they could corner the energy market - look it up.)

I have yet to hear anyone explain the pathway to victory, or what victory will look like. What is the end game? All we have is essentially a demand that Russia surrender. it's not going to happen. If nothing else Putin MUST be able to go back to his people and say he won something. Otherwise he'll be out (meaning he'll be dead) and he's simply not going to do that. So what is your vision of victory for Ukraine? I want specifics that can be achieved, not simply "that they win" or "Russian troops out" but how this thing will be resolved entirely. Nobody ever gives those because nobody is talking. And unless you are prepared to start the big one you had better have a plan besides "Russia out".

"In wartime, various things get suspended for various reasons."

Did Franklin Roosevelt suspend elections? Did Churchill? Did Hitler for that matter? Actually Hitler did,but not the allied leaders. What does that tell us?

So you are of the opinion we mut "suspend democracy in order to save it" to paraphrase George W. Bush? At what point do you bring it back? In a week,a month, a year? How does this differentiate Zelensky's government from Putins? Neither hold free and fair elections. Putin still maintains the facade of having them while Zelensky isn't going to bother.

There is a huge difference between temproarily diverting economic activity to war production, or deficit spending for war, or whatnot and ending elections.

What other suspensions have we seen in Ukraine? Zelensky arrested the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, for starters, so he's taken out someone who can stop him from acquiring total power. He also dissolved Parliament when it suited him in 2019. Even if these actions were justifiable they simply circumvented the democratic process, all in the name of the war.

Would WE tolerate that? This is worse than the stuff Joe Biden has been doing here in America and it's all in the name of the war.

Again, I would ask you to give a detailed endgame for all of this. We've given Zelensky more than enough money at this point. He needs to give us at least a flippin' election for our money.

What happens if America stumbles into war under Joe Biden? Should we suspend elections and let Biden dissolve our parliament and arrest our Supreme Court?

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:38 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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