11 ms·

Why aren't Russians protesting (more)?

11 points by necromanc 4y ago

seydor 4y ago
Why aren't the westerners protesting more? Seriously, where are my peace and love protests? In many countries people don't care much anymore, they 've resigned that they can't change things, this is a high level long strategic game in which their opinion doesn't matter. We 've willy-nilly removed each other's mass media from the view, despite our hyperconnectedness. This is what you get after decades of the west emulating the dictators of the east in their authoritarianism. We need a new peace movement, not one that is tied to progressive sensitivities.
- zubairq 4y ago
  Yes, this is correct, we don't protest much in the West. When the government acts in a way that we don't agree with then we may protest a bit, as was the case before the Iraq invasion, but then after a few days/weeks we stop protesting and go back to work , so that we can put food on the table.
- jfengel 4y ago
  I think most westerners feel that peace-and-love aren't an option here. Even most pacifists believe that a country has the right to defend itself, and nearly everybody outside the Russian sphere of influence sees this as Ukrainian self-defense. There might be protests if Westerners were putting their lives on the line here, but they aren't. I'm told there are some protests in Germany about the very real hardship of losing Russian gas, but I think they see Russian aggression at fault and most would rather work around it. Which is to say: most westerners see their governments doing more or less the right thing, and aren't protesting. They see it as highly unlikely that they've been so misled about the situation in Ukraine as to think that it should surrender to Russia. Pacifists have always had to contend with rhetoric about "just wars", and this is one of the clearest examples they've seen in decades. They've certainly protested against many unjust Western wars -- usually not terribly effectively, but they did come out. And I think they would if they felt it was relevant now. No amount of exposure to Russia's mass media is likely to change their minds about that. Such as today, with Russian media announcing a 99+% result in a "referendum". They can't even begin to imagine that this will inspire protests from Western pacifists.
  - seydor 4y ago
    That was maybe true in the first months of the war. Western audiences have not been asked about the actions taken by heads of state and NATO for months. I dont think anyone believes that ukraine is going to retake its full territory, nor that they should. There will be growing skepticism during the winter
    - _kbh_ 4y ago
      > I dont think anyone believes that ukraine is going to retake its full territory, nor that they should. There will be growing skepticism during the winter Im actually more confident that Ukraine will have a decisive victory then I was a month or so ago. Russia has entered the desperation stage of the war by mobilising 300k barely trained conscripts and throwing them straight to the front lines (some are already POWs). This has shown me that Russias losses are significant and that they cannot sustain there professional army, which is the first sign things are going to go very south very quickly.
NoPie 4y ago
It just looks that Russians themselves don't want to die in the war but otherwise supported it. I was reading vk.com and generally there was 1 post or comment against the war in Ukraine for every 10 or 20 posts pro-war. Now the ratio is 1 post against the draft versus 1 post pro-draft. You see the change? Russians mostly supported the war and those few people who were ready to protest against the war were simply overwhelmed and suppressed by those who supported it. Some people live in bubble where they see that everybody around them thinks similarly to them but that doesn't seem to be the whole reality in Russia. I am not convinced about the resistance against covid restrictions in Russia. Russia had its own share of lockdowns and restrictions. It wasn't as free as Sweden. It avoided some most stupid ones like vaccine mandates. But the UK also didn't have vaccine mandates. Was it due to people actively resisting? Possibly, but I don't think you had something so active as Canadian convoy in February 2022. It can rather be explained that the authorities were not really very eager to introduce those measures in the first place. When they encountered even lukewarm resistance, they gave up because vaccine mandates were not effective at all. Look, Russia had abysmal vaccination rates among elderly (the only measure that really mattered). That shows the failure of public health institutions. The UK (no mandates) and Canada (strong mandates) both had very good vaccine coverage among elderly – which shows that regardless of mandates, it is possible to ensure high vaccination uptake among risk groups. Russia doesn't have that and mandates wouldn't have helped anyway. No wonder authorities gave up so quickly even with a moderate resistance to those measures.
- netsharc 4y ago
  > I was reading vk.com and generally there was 1 post or comment against the war in Ukraine for every 10 or 20 posts pro-war. In a climate where protesting against the war can get you beaten up, arrested, and sent to jail for 20 years, I wonder why the numbers are like that... I wonder.
  - NoPie 4y ago
    True, but some of those on vk are people I know personally and they were actively supporting it. Others were more reserved and said, the war massacres are wrong but Ukraine is still bad and it would be better if they capitulated to Russia. This all indicates that the support for the war is immense. And what changed now that many of the same people now are against the draft? I didn't notice it among my contacts, they mostly stopped writing or said something that every bad thing passes, even mobilization will come to an end but there are some examples where some people very actively changed their opinion with the start of mobilization.
AzzieElbab 4y ago
1 - protesting against millions strong security apparatus is not that easy. 2 - 75-80% of population still support the war
tksiden 4y ago
It's probably suppressed. The common man is being sent to die for elite goals. In Germany, people are rebelling against the usa. They believe Joe Biden had nordstream destroyed

11 points by necromanc 4y ago

Why aren't the westerners protesting more? Seriously, where are my peace and love protests? In many countries people don't care much anymore, they 've resigned that they can't change things, this is a high level long strategic game in which their opinion doesn't matter. We 've willy-nilly removed each other's mass media from the view, despite our hyperconnectedness. This is what you get after decades of the west emulating the dictators of the east in their authoritarianism. We need a new peace movement, not one that is tied to progressive sensitivities.

zubairq 4y ago
Yes, this is correct, we don't protest much in the West. When the government acts in a way that we don't agree with then we may protest a bit, as was the case before the Iraq invasion, but then after a few days/weeks we stop protesting and go back to work , so that we can put food on the table.
jfengel 4y ago
I think most westerners feel that peace-and-love aren't an option here. Even most pacifists believe that a country has the right to defend itself, and nearly everybody outside the Russian sphere of influence sees this as Ukrainian self-defense. There might be protests if Westerners were putting their lives on the line here, but they aren't. I'm told there are some protests in Germany about the very real hardship of losing Russian gas, but I think they see Russian aggression at fault and most would rather work around it. Which is to say: most westerners see their governments doing more or less the right thing, and aren't protesting. They see it as highly unlikely that they've been so misled about the situation in Ukraine as to think that it should surrender to Russia. Pacifists have always had to contend with rhetoric about "just wars", and this is one of the clearest examples they've seen in decades. They've certainly protested against many unjust Western wars -- usually not terribly effectively, but they did come out. And I think they would if they felt it was relevant now. No amount of exposure to Russia's mass media is likely to change their minds about that. Such as today, with Russian media announcing a 99+% result in a "referendum". They can't even begin to imagine that this will inspire protests from Western pacifists.
- seydor 4y ago
  That was maybe true in the first months of the war. Western audiences have not been asked about the actions taken by heads of state and NATO for months. I dont think anyone believes that ukraine is going to retake its full territory, nor that they should. There will be growing skepticism during the winter
  - _kbh_ 4y ago
    > I dont think anyone believes that ukraine is going to retake its full territory, nor that they should. There will be growing skepticism during the winter Im actually more confident that Ukraine will have a decisive victory then I was a month or so ago. Russia has entered the desperation stage of the war by mobilising 300k barely trained conscripts and throwing them straight to the front lines (some are already POWs). This has shown me that Russias losses are significant and that they cannot sustain there professional army, which is the first sign things are going to go very south very quickly.

NoPie 4y ago

It just looks that Russians themselves don't want to die in the war but otherwise supported it. I was reading vk.com and generally there was 1 post or comment against the war in Ukraine for every 10 or 20 posts pro-war. Now the ratio is 1 post against the draft versus 1 post pro-draft. You see the change? Russians mostly supported the war and those few people who were ready to protest against the war were simply overwhelmed and suppressed by those who supported it. Some people live in bubble where they see that everybody around them thinks similarly to them but that doesn't seem to be the whole reality in Russia. I am not convinced about the resistance against covid restrictions in Russia. Russia had its own share of lockdowns and restrictions. It wasn't as free as Sweden. It avoided some most stupid ones like vaccine mandates. But the UK also didn't have vaccine mandates. Was it due to people actively resisting? Possibly, but I don't think you had something so active as Canadian convoy in February 2022. It can rather be explained that the authorities were not really very eager to introduce those measures in the first place. When they encountered even lukewarm resistance, they gave up because vaccine mandates were not effective at all. Look, Russia had abysmal vaccination rates among elderly (the only measure that really mattered). That shows the failure of public health institutions. The UK (no mandates) and Canada (strong mandates) both had very good vaccine coverage among elderly – which shows that regardless of mandates, it is possible to ensure high vaccination uptake among risk groups. Russia doesn't have that and mandates wouldn't have helped anyway. No wonder authorities gave up so quickly even with a moderate resistance to those measures.

netsharc 4y ago
> I was reading vk.com and generally there was 1 post or comment against the war in Ukraine for every 10 or 20 posts pro-war. In a climate where protesting against the war can get you beaten up, arrested, and sent to jail for 20 years, I wonder why the numbers are like that... I wonder.
- NoPie 4y ago
  True, but some of those on vk are people I know personally and they were actively supporting it. Others were more reserved and said, the war massacres are wrong but Ukraine is still bad and it would be better if they capitulated to Russia. This all indicates that the support for the war is immense. And what changed now that many of the same people now are against the draft? I didn't notice it among my contacts, they mostly stopped writing or said something that every bad thing passes, even mobilization will come to an end but there are some examples where some people very actively changed their opinion with the start of mobilization.

AzzieElbab 4y ago

1 - protesting against millions strong security apparatus is not that easy. 2 - 75-80% of population still support the war

tksiden 4y ago

It's probably suppressed. The common man is being sent to die for elite goals. In Germany, people are rebelling against the usa. They believe Joe Biden had nordstream destroyed