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    Re: a political science academic gives an alternative view re "our" response to Uk.... Archived Message

    Posted by Raskolnikov on November 13, 2022, 8:02 am, in reply to "a political science academic gives an alternative view re "our" response to Uk...."

    As "an example of the occasional contrary opinion" that is allowed it's quite instructive. It is two minor contrary points amidst a litany of admissions of how bad Russia, Iran and North Korea are and then finishes up with a "China bad, Uigur Concentration camps" for good measure. No wonder it's allowed.

    Weirdly, I just went back to the link to copy some quotes but it is now showing access denied.

    His two points were that "most of the world" (by population) is not behind the US/NATO stance on Ukraine and that NZ's stance was motivated by material interests rather than moral issues. Neither of these is particularly ground-shaking and nowhere does he raise the issue of NATO expansion or U.S. escalation. None of the context of the coup comes up either.

    These two minor points are made amidst this kind of thing (I found a mirror to quote):

    Russia has clearly violated Ukraine’s sovereignty and committed war crimes in Ukraine. And in the last month alone, the US has criticised North Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia for directly or indirectly assisting Russian aggression.

    North Korea has been spotlighted for shipping artillery shells to Russia, while Iran has been in the hot seat for supplying drones to Russia. And then there is Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has thrown in its lot with Moscow by cutting oil production in October. This increases oil prices, allowing Russia to reap maximum revenue from its oil exports, which can then fund its aggression in Ukraine.

    Any mention of what the U.S. has been doing? The recent South Korean end run for shells? Nope.

    He finishes with this collection of "China bad":

    It’s hardly a secret that that China runs industrial scale re-education camps for Uyghurs in Xinjiang; has increasingly consolidated its authoritarian political practices in Hong Kong; that, if given a choice, Tibetans would evict the Chinese Communist Party; that public opinion in Taiwan does not favour unification with the mainland; and that the Xi Jinping regime has concentrated, rather than diffused, political power in its decade of rule.

    So I think it is instructive as to what kind of dissent is allowed; very little and it has to be accompanied with lashings of main-stream bromides aimed at official enemies.

    I found the article mirrored here:

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-nzs-morality-narrative-ukraine-doesnt-work-nicholas-khoo

    just in case it is still access denied.

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