President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman informed Russians this week that the “special military operation” that Putin launched in Ukraine in February 2022 was set to go on much longer because it is now “a war against the collective West.”
That’s right: a war.
It was remarkable to hear that word from Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Journalists were explicitly banned from using it as the invasion began and thousands of Russians have been detained, fined and imprisoned for telling the truth about a war which has now been raging for almost two years.
“Moscow deputy Aleksey Gorinov was sentenced to seven years in prison for saying ‘war,’” Sergey Davidis, head of the Political Prisoners Support group, told The Daily Beast. He said over 20,000 Russians have now been detained and punished for protesting against the war. “That includes 131 Russians who have been sentenced to long prison terms in punishment for peaceful or for more radical anti-war actions,” he said. “I don’t think punishments against the war will now be milder after the Kremlin openly says ‘war.’ Putin will be next to declare it.”
I don’t think there is any benefit in trying to justify bigotry as there are almost as many reasons as there are bigots.
Did they have bad family lives? Probably, most of us have nowadays, but I know plenty of people that have gone through some harrowing shit and it doesn’t make them want to erase trans people.
I mean, you can go ahead and spend as much mental energy as you want reviewing every possible thing that led them down the path of enjoying the suffering of others, but I don’t see in any way how that is practical in curbing the damage they are doing to the fabric of our society.
People who dream of violence against innocents are monsters and I have no ethical or moral responsibility to consider the cause of the week they claim is behind their antisocial behavior.