"Why do people want to talk about stuff that affects their daily lives so damn much???"

a fledgling democracy

Sees notably corrupt country the U.S. couped in 2014, where even the anti-corruption president has personal funds stashed in offshore bank accounts

"Is this a fledgling democracy?"

most likely nobody is going to read

Being too lazy and uncurious to read a handful of paragraphs is not something to be proud of

Russia and Ukraine may have agreed on a tentative deal to end the war in April, according to a recent piece in Foreign Affairs.

“Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement,” wrote Fiona Hill and Angela Stent. “Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.”

The news highlights the impact of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s efforts to stop negotiations, as journalist Branko Marcetic noted on Twitter. The decision to scuttle the deal coincided with Johnson’s April visit to Kyiv, during which he reportedly urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to break off talks with Russia for two key reasons: Putin cannot be negotiated with, and the West isn’t ready for the war to end.

Foreign Affairs is a Kremlin propaganda outlet now?

It's as if leftists do not actually like Putin or any of the other ghouls on the Russian side, but are instead critical of NATO and willing to consider NATO opponents as rational actors instead of cartoon villains.

The thing about civility and good-faith conversations is that street runs both ways. I'm glad to see a lot of that happening here, but I'm also seeing some folks who seem to think civility means "I can say whatever I want but a hint of anger on your part is a bannable offense."

You are saying the builders of Auschwitz are no different from its liberators.

Reddit bingo card

Lol so you initially ignore being wrong, then acknowledge you were wrong somewhere else, then say "well that was meaningless" when you go back to claim you were adult enough to say you missed on that one? ...What?

Go back to reddit if you're going to be a debatelord

Ha you were conclusively proven wrong and didn't even blink. A brain so smooth no facts can get stuck on it.

Intelligence agencies love the drug trade because:

1. It's easy (certainly for a state actor) dark money
2. It's ubiquitous
3. It gives you blackmail material on all sorts of useful people
4. It gives you the proven ability to smuggle bulk quantities across the globe
5. Who is going to blow the whistle on you?

the only viable left leaning political party in the US

I vote for Democrats because shit, why not? But what is the worth of a party that:

• Does not function as a party (single defectors routinely kill major legislation without consequence)
• Is incapable of countering the rising tide of fascism, or unwilling to do so
• Has no plan to address the Supreme Court, which will continue to kill anything legitimately good if left unchecked
• Is too beholden to capital to push even the most tepid climate change legislation (the Green New Deal)
• Constantly attacks its left flank, preferring to chase the votes of suburban reactionaries
• Isn't even reliably pro-labor
• Tailed popular movements on all sorts of civil rights issues
• Still can't be bothered to even de-schedule marijuana, the most slam-dunk popular policy one could imagine + a huge driver of mass incarceration
• Is on basically the same page as Republicans with respect to foreign policy
• Generally offers nothing besides "at least we're not as bad as Republicans, most of the time"

Where is that party going? It's never going to meaningfully address climate change, it offers only crumbs to the working class, and any social change has to be led from the outside.