Quebec opens doors to Ukraine refugees
Quebec says it is opening its doors to refugees from Ukraine. They’ll have six months to learn enough French to communicate with the government, but at least Russians won’t be bombing them.
The Ukrainian flag is being flown at city hall and there was a demonstration Thursday in support of Ukraine.
Raymond Lutz 14:09 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
Hey, We will gladly welcome fleeing Azov Battalion members as we did in the past! The Jewish News of Northern California: Canada admits letting in 2,000 Ukrainian SS troopers
Kate 14:18 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
That was years ago, Raymond Lutz, and not germane to the situation at hand.
qatzelok 14:35 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
What is so different with the situation at hand?
The West’s recent relationship with Ukraine has been mainly “terrorism-funding.”
dhomas 14:55 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
Have Russian bots taken over the regular commenter accounts? What’s going on here?
Tim S. 15:23 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
I learned a new word yesterday: “tankie” – basically westerners whose leftish leanings blind them to anything problematic about the USSR/Russia. Seems to explain what’s going on here.
qatzelok 15:36 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
You might need more than one word to understand the situation, Tim S.
Tim S. 15:44 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
Q: don’t worry. As the grandson of a Ukrainian leftist, I’m pretty sure I understand the situation. You?
walkerp 15:48 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
This is getting as embarrassing as back in the Stalin years when the French leftists defended him right up until the bitter end.
There is a very simple principle at play here. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Kevin 16:59 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
Tim S.
The tankies have now been joined by the Trumpists who are cheering that Russian TV is airing clips of their Great Leader praising the shirtless cowboy who uses a lot of Nair.
DeWolf 17:29 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
Poor Russia, it had no choice but to invade! Just like the US had no choice to invade Iraq! /s
Tankies claim they are anti-imperialist yet support all kinds of imperialist aggression from Russia and China. It doesn’t make sense until you realize that in their world, the US is the only empire, and everything revolves around it like the earth around the sun.
Putin’s made himself very clear in his long speech that his ambition is to restore the Russian empire, but as long as it’s not an American empire it’s a-ok in the tankies’ book!
qatzelok 19:13 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
So “tankie” is used to smear people that don’t support war against China and Russia.
Got it.
Ian 19:19 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
Do you prefer quisling?
walkerp 20:25 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
Or fifth columnists.
Kevin 21:42 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
Qatzelok
No, it smears people who support agression by Russia and China
nau 22:41 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
Let’s not dismiss q’s definition of tankie too quickly. Given their response, the leaders of the American empire clearly don’t want a war with Russia either, so why not allow q a moment to stand in tankie solidarity with them.
DeWolf 01:11 on 2022-02-25 Permalink
Do you think the Bay of Pigs invasion was justified, qatzelok? After all, Cuba is right next door to Florida. The US had “no choice” but to attack. Same excuse Russia is using, although weirdly enough they aren’t attacking any countries that actually have NATO bases, so as usual with this sort of thing the excuse rings hollow. Not to mention it’s just one of many half-hearted excuses.
Bottom line is that Putin doesn’t think Ukraine should exist, as he said very clearly in his speech. There is no “war against Russia.” Russia invaded a sovereign country. It proactively started a war.
walkerp 08:34 on 2022-02-25 Permalink
Nobody wants a war.
The problem with these weird “progressive” stalinists is that they argue that Russia is justified in invading Ukraine.
Even if the US had engineered the overthrow of Yanukovych in 2014, it still would not justify this invasion.
qatzelok 14:20 on 2022-02-25 Permalink
“Won’t anyone think of those poor Libyan students!”
**NATO destroys Libya**
Next meme…
DeWolf 14:33 on 2022-02-25 Permalink
So Russia is justified in destroying Ukraine because NATO and the US have done a lot of bad stuff through the years?
Pure whataboutism…
CE 15:06 on 2022-02-25 Permalink
Cool ideology, bro.
Michael 15:18 on 2022-02-25 Permalink
Communist sympathizers are having a hard time explaining themselves right now.
They spent years saying “America Bad” and right now the best thing we have is a neighbor that has the largest military force the world has ever seen.
“NATO aggression” is a lie fed to the naive while he chokes Ukrainians to death with his hands.
Ant6n 17:24 on 2022-02-25 Permalink
I saw a bunch of this apologist stuff on Taylor noakes twitter account three days ago. It’s pretty jarring to see such bs.
walkerp 17:48 on 2022-02-25 Permalink
It really is.
Discouraging when we are aligned on so many things locally and then you have to wonder if they are just really stupid and ideological or actually a Russian assett (and possibly both).
nau 09:55 on 2022-02-26 Permalink
I doubt anyone posting here regularly is a Russian asset, and I don’t read either Raymond or qatzelok as stupid. Describing them as ideological suggests that some people aren’t ideological but I don’t think there’s anyone who isn’t. The world is too complicated for anyone to fully understand, and everybody consciously or otherwise uses ideological shortcuts to try to make sense of it. Where people differ is in how rigid they are with respect to their ideologies. For some people who have always seen themselves in the role of the person who has to remind most everyone else that America is hardly some straightforwardly benign force in the world, it can be hard for them to recognize that a moment like this is not one that requires making that particular point. I imagine (perhaps wrongly, I know little about them) q and R fall in that category. Beyond that, there are still lefties who have an authoritarian bent, who think the Castro or Chavez model gets the job done and somehow convince themselves that Putin and Xi are in the same mould, just with greater ability to stick it to the yanks.
MarcG 11:07 on 2022-02-26 Permalink
Isn’t Russia just another shitty capitalist state? Does ‘Communist’ just mean you’re not in bed with the USA?
dhomas 11:18 on 2022-02-26 Permalink
Many people think the US is “bad”. One of the US’ main geopolitical rivals is Russia. But the enemy of your enemy is not always your friend. In some cases, like this one, they can both just be assholes. In other words, the US being “bad” doesn’t automatically make Russia “good”.
Meezly 12:50 on 2022-02-26 Permalink
I lurk on a forum for the local Chinese community that used to be casual, but over the years has become more political as it’s been overtaken by the few pro-China advocates and their political stuff was always about calling out US and Western imperialism, the constant “America Bad” rhetoric, as Michael said.
I’m fine with all that because much of it’s true, but if anyone ever criticizes China, then they’re quick to condemn you. There was some activity during the Olympics, but since the Ukraine invasion, complete silence.
I would like to think they’re probably conflicted and I’m a bit curious as to the stance they’d take, but not that curious to go out of my way to pose that question to them online.