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Comment by wsc981 | Hacker News Reader

I do agree Europe is on a decline and in my opinion it is irreversible. It’s one of the reasons why I am happy to have been migrated to South-East Asia from The Netherlands.

The reason why I believe it’s irreversible is because of the power of the media. Too many people still believe the global warming narrative and are open to mass immigration. Not to mention the fact that the USA has succeeded in convincing many Europeans that Russia is to be an enemy instead of an ally.

All of this will greatly increase the cost of living for the common man while at the same time the welfare state is being destroyed. Europeans will face much hardship the next decennia and I don’t think they’ll be able to recover.

I know this will be an unpopular opinion, but I’ll voice it here anyways :)

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Ooo, a pro Russia climate change denier. Don't see those in polite society often.

Believe me, there are many in the liberal sphere who do not support unlimited mass migration. Open borders are not compatible with a welfare state.

As for denying the changing climate and supporting Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I don't feel anything I can type in short order would enlighten the reader if they don't already see the injustice after a few hundred thousand dead.

>Open borders are not compatible with a welfare state

Maybe you liberals shouldn't support neoconservative conflicts that drive the migration in the first place. Hillary's State Department did such a great job in Honduras, Libya, Syria. The same is happening now in Ukraine. These conflicts are all about preserving American hegemony, nothing more.

> These conflicts are all about preserving American hegemony, nothing more.

Should tell the Russians that they seem to think the war in Ukraine is about fixing the “mistake” of Ukraines independence.

This is so delusional. The Eastern oblasts were prevented from declaring independence for years based on Russian pressure. Russia doesn't want Ukraine, they just don't want NATO setting up shop on their borders. The same way the US would never tolerate China setting up shop in Northern Mexico or Southern Canada. NATO has spent the years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union breaking all of their assurances to Russia that it would not expand, literally encircling them.

> This is so delusional.

I am just quoting what the Russian media said in there accidentally posted victory article early on in the war.

But I agree it is super delusional.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220226051154/https://ria.ru/20...

>> Russia is restoring its unity - the tragedy of 1991, this terrible catastrophe of our history, its unnatural dislocation, has been overcome

I suggest you read the article i think you’ll find the word NATO doesn’t even appear in it.

> they just don't want NATO setting up shop on their borders

Then they have already failed as the Russian border with NATO is now longer then it would be if you included Ukraine and Ukraine isn’t even in NATO.

I don’t think it was this though as Germany gave Russia assurances before the war that they would veto Ukraines NATO application.

> NATO has spent the years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union breaking all of their assurances to Russia that it would not expand, literally encircling them.

There was never any formalised agreement to not expand NATO, so no promise was ever made.

Regardless of that Russia has multiple international agreements with Ukraine (that are formalised) that say they will never threaten their sovereignty.

Why doesn’t Russia have to follow those?.

Another question one might ask is why Russias neighbours want to join NATO it’s probably because Russia has invaded nearly all of them at some point in time.

Seems pretty reasonable to me to want to defend yourself from what at this point seems like a likely future invasion,

>the word NATO doesn’t even appear in it.

The word NATO appeared in every diplomatic negotiation about the Donbas preceding and subsequent to the war. Don't waste people's time with nonsense-- I can find an article in US media that also puts forward every conceivable position if I try hard enough.

>Regardless of that Russia has multiple international agreements with Ukraine (that are formalised) that say they will never threaten their sovereignty.

Why doesn’t Russia have to follow those?.

You mean like the Minsk accords that Zelensky failed to implement? The Ukrainian people put their faith in him to end the war, but he caved to the Right. Turns out actors don't make good presidents, as we know in the US as well. https://harpers.org/archive/2023/10/the-tragedy-of-volodymyr...

> Don't waste people's time with nonsense-- I can find an article in US media that also puts forward every conceivable position if I try hard enough

It’s not nonsense it’s russias own position on the war straight from there own kremlin approved propaganda outlets.

I know it’s an inconvenient article as it dispels the narrative of this war being about NATO and shows it for what it really is, russian imperialism.

> You mean like the Minsk accords that Zelensky failed to implement?

All the agreements I speak off predate the Minsk accords by years to decades.

russia didn’t follow any of them so why should we have faith they would follow anything new?.

It’s not like russia obeyed the Minsk accords either (shocking I know).

russia doesn’t appear to follow international agreements when it doesn’t benefit them.

So once again I ask why does russia get to ignore and violate all the formalised agreements it has with Ukraine.

Where as everyone else has to obey vague not in writing promises that where never formalised?.

Well I'll agree to disagree on a number of points here, but I respect your sentiment. I don't believe that the media is powerful. On the contrary, I feel that the media being weakened and focused on sensational content is the reason we're in this mess. While the European media was supposed to be one of the entities keeping government officials and Eurocrats in check, their systematic weakening has led to those failing governments to implement widely unpopular policies that only harmed the social fabric of the continent.

I also can't believe the big bad USA has turned the Baltic states, Poland, Ukraine, etc on Russia. It's because the media is just too weak in Russia, China, Iran, North Korea so they haven't been able to communicate their upstanding values clearly enough.

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