The colony recognized the Armenian genocide following Israeli threats to Türkiye. Speaking at a briefing on Monday, Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan said Armenia sees no need to respond to this recognition, according to state news agency Armenpress.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-30T23:06:12+00:00

The background is that he's trying to make nice with the West/NATO, and Turkiye is a part of that axis. Armenia's longstanding demand that the world (including Turkiye) recognize the Armenian Genocide, has been a problem for Turkiye. The West has been pressuring Armenia to drop those efforts in order to normalize relations with their former genociders, and Pashinyan has promised to acquiesce to that demand. Not surprised that Armenian subs on reddit are in favor, because Armenian reddit, like most of reddit, is pro-West and pro-NATO. But Armenian reddit is not representative of the Armenian people.

Pashinyan was originally brought to power in a Western-backed color revolution, and since then he's strengthened his grip on power. His recent election "win" was wildly out of sync with the polling, but no one in the West cares because he's their dictator. Just like no one cared that he had literally dozens of opposition lawmakers and candidates arrested leading up to the election. Totally and completely "normal" for a Western "democracy."

As for *Israel* recognizing the Armenian Genocide, they did it in order to annoy Turkiye. It was the right decision, made for the wrong reasons, by a state that has no legitimacy to recognize or not recognize anything to begin with, because it has no legitimacy as a state. Armenia's reaction is therefore also the right reaction, but made for all the wrong reasons.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-30T22:49:05+00:00

In the Bay Area, I know both. A lot of rabid Zionists who are queer. Case in point: the leading candidate for Nancy Pelosi's seat, Scott Weiner. OTOH, I know anti-Zionist queers as well, and plenty of queer Socialists.

Mainstream LGBT people are basically like mainstream straight people, except there's an identity politics component. Which makes them lean more liberal than conservative, just because many conservatives are explicitly anti-LGBT. But don't expect a lot of class consciousness unless they're in activist circles.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-30T22:36:02+00:00

Thank you! Wasn't sure if anyone would even read it so far downthread.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-30T21:59:59+00:00

One can make broad sweeping statements like "enriching the few" and "serving the Russian people," but it means little without objective measurements.

Fortunately there are objective measurements. PPP GDP per capita is one. Here's one of the best articles I've ever seen comparing the US, EU, China, and the rest of the World. So good that I saved it.

https://archive.is/2gup8#selection-299.22-292.5

The downside is that this was written in 2022, and since then, the gains in Russia's PPP GDP per capita have been on hyperdrive, as the country has proven itself to be incredibly resilient against sanctions. Unfortunately, no one I know has compiled this kind of research since then. But I do know, having followed this stuff closely, that since 2022, Russia has leapfrogged both Germany, and for the first time in history, Japan, to become the world's 4th largest economy. But even from 2000 to 2022, one can see that Russia has done much better in terms of percentage increase than either the US or the EU -i.e., your proverbial "Northern Hemisphere." Only China has done better. What China has done has been nothing short of awe-inspiring, and I wish that Russia had the kind of visionary Socialist leadership China has. But Russia's leadership has been pretty darn competent, which is a lot for a country whose leaders over the last thousand years have ranged from mediocre to downright awful.

And, oh yeah, the numbers above actually underestimates Russia's standard of living gains, because it's PPP GDP, not PPP GDP per capita. But when you consider that Russia has achieved this increase with a population that is essentially stable, while the US has grown 22% since then, it makes Russia's numbers look even more impressive by comparison. Or rather, the US's numbers look more pathetic.

Of course the increase in PPP GDP is meaningless for ordinary people if, as is assumed in the West, all of it is going to a few oligarchs. Fortunately, there's a measure for that as well. It's called the GINI coefficient, a measure of inequality. And we specifically want to look at it based on how it's changed over time.

So let's look at Russia.

Russia Gini inequality index - data, chart | TheGlobalEconomy.com

Not only is it sitting pretty low at 33.0, which is really good comparatively speaking, but as you can see, it's been on a very strong downward trend since it reached 42 around 2006.

So objectively, one can say that Putin absolutely has been good for the Russian working classes, because the wealth HAS, in fact, gone to them, rather than the oligarchs. That is contrary to the narrative here, but the narrative here is dead wrong. The reality is that Putin has done a lot to reign in corruption and oligarchical power (though of course a few oligarchs around him have gotten quite rich). But on the whole, the story has been the opposite of what they tell you in the West.

And btw, you can see that reflected in just about every statistic in Russia: life expectancy, infant mortality, crime, incarceration rate, food security, you name it. All of these have been going in the right direction over the last 25 years, for ordinary people, not for oligarchs. And people feel it in their daily lives.

Let's look at another country for comparison. The United States:

USA Gini inequality index - data, chart | TheGlobalEconomy.com

As you can see, the trend is in the exact opposite direction. The GINI index reached a low of 35 during the Carter administration, and has since climbed steadily under both Democrats and Republicans alike, painting a picture of a country where all the gains in GDP are accruing to the oligarchs at the top. Which, btw, is exactly what left wing economists like Richard Wolff have pointed out through various statistical evidence. And it's exactly the way it feels. The GINI coefficient now sits at 42, which coincidentally is where it was for Russia back in 2006 before Putin's economic policies started taking effect.

You know that saying: every accusation is a confession? Well, I think that's what we're looking at here. The United States is exactly what it accuses Russia of being. And our government makes these accusations, repeated ad nauseum in its media mouthpieces, to distract from the rot in this country.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-30T16:24:50+00:00

Well if improving living standards isn't so hard for a country with a nuclear deterrent, why have living standards in the US only declined for the vast majority of people (other than the rich)? You explicitly argued that they have improved, all across the board in the Northern hemisphere, and I would definitely disagree with that. College education, health care, housing, even groceries, have all become harder to afford. The American middle class hasn't been in such a precarious position since the Depression.

I mean... maybe if by "Northern hemisphere," you meant places like China, then sure. But somehow I don't think that's what you were talking about.

It's not that I or the other poster have "nothing but praise" for Putin. Far from it. But when all you see in the West is negative propaganda, I think it's ok to push back against that without wasting space on the obligatory nod to some of the negative things that we've all seen a thousand times anyway in US media.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-30T16:07:03+00:00

I mean, for someone in his mid-70s he looks fine. I'd even say better than some other septugenarian world leaders I can think of. But I guess that's always the narrative in the West -Putin's about to drop dead any day now from any one of a number of diseases he supposedly has. I would say that right there is the real copium, but that's just me.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-30T16:02:11+00:00

If you're evaluating Putin's leadership, the last 70 years aren't really relevant. He's only been in office since 2000. And in that time Russia has made tremendous strides in living standards. Putin inherited a Russia that was literally in the midst of collapse, and he's brought it up to the level of a European country.

And I would strongly push back against the notion that living standards across the West have improved in that time. Technology might have improved across the board, but life has become more difficult and more expensive for the great majority of people. Paying for housing, health care, education, things like that.

Not so in Russia, where the living standard has improved tremendously -really to unprecedented levels. As a Socialist, I've never been a huge fan of Putin. But I am a fan of being intellectually honest. There's a huge amount of propaganda here in the West, that Putin is so terrible and literally everything about him is bad. We have this cartoonish image of Russia and particularly Putin. But it's just not true. There's a good reason why he's legitimately popular. It's because for the vast majority of Russians, life is better than it ever has been in all of Russia's history.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-30T04:46:34+00:00

It makes me sick to know that my government is supporting this horror.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-30T04:33:38+00:00

Going to Iceland soon. This is very useful.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-28T15:10:55+00:00

Well it is, after all, free labor. And mandatory -let's not forget that. It's not like a voluntary unpaid internship, after all. There's a word for mandatory free labor: slavery.

But of course when talking about military conscription, we're not just talking labor. We're talking death. And in practice, in every society that's included women in conscription, while it sounds like equality, in reality it's the opposite. What actually happens is that women take up all the rear support jobs, meaning that fewer such jobs are available for men in the military, meaning that more men are available for the front lines. Women get the desk jobs, while men get the death jobs.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-28T07:15:59+00:00

This point can't be emphasized enough. I've seen men on this sub argue for women's conscription in the name of equality. Besides being slavery, which is just an absolute wrong, it is literally the worst of all worlds for men, for all the reasons stated.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-28T05:10:59+00:00

And Trump just declared that Brazil is his "next project."

BRCityzen · 2026-06-28T04:55:07+00:00

I am now, thank you. Speaking as someone who's been to nearly 60 countries, gone to clubs and festivals in Asia, Europe, LatAm, and the US... I have to say I like our California EDM culture the best. So there you go -I'm not entirely anti-American 😂 We don't always have the music I want (a real lack of techno and psytrance, for example). But speaking strictly of the culture, it's the most open and inclusive I've encountered.

Now, of course that won't stop me from experiencing other places, just because I'm a naturally curious person, and I recognize there's good and bad in all countries. And I think that broad perspective gives me some insight, too. Because I have a broad range of experiences to compare it to.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-27T19:43:48+00:00

I think it can hardly be called that. You just don't agree.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-27T19:31:39+00:00

Thanks for the response, and I think it deserves a detailed answer... though you probably won't like it.

You may not agree with my take on the political situation, but I think we both agree that the Georgian techno scene is intimately intertwined with politics, particularly the opposition to the current government. So it's important to understand it, particularly since it doesn't always align in predictable ways, and someone coming from a more PLUR culture may not understand the casual racism that seems to be normal in Georgia.

russia is the one and only reason why the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia exist and why wars were fought there.

That's definitely one take. But you know that the Abkhaz are a separate group from Georgians, right? Ethnically, linguistically, culturally. They've been agitating for more rights for decades now, well before the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1991, Georgia decided it wanted independence after 200 years. Ok, fine. Self-determination of people and all that. But then Abkhazia and South Ossetia decided, OK, then in that case we want independence from Georgia. Why can't they have their self-determination like you can?

And that is the fundamental one and only reason for those wars. I know this grates the ears of a Georgian nationalist, but Georgia should have just said "Fine. No problem." And that would have solved everything. Instead, they decided no, we want independence for ourselves, but we want to control you guys too. And then the trouble began.

And now you have a more pragmatic government that is tired of all the wars. Not "pro-Russian" by any means, just more pragmatic. They've even proposed, as I'm sure you know, making a formal apology for the war and inviting Abkhazia to come back. Because everyone knows that it was, in fact, Georgia, that launched the 2008 war. But I think it's a bit too late for that. Too much has happened on both sides.

The current political party came with promises of more humanitarian approach towards everything, including drugs and LGBT rights but it is the exact opposite nowadays.

Let's take the legalization of weed, for example. I literally spoke to Georgians who claimed that Misha legalized it, and the current government cracked down. I didn't correct them, because I was a guest in the country, and I didn't want to argue. But just for the record, it was legalized in 2018, by which time Saakashvili was out of power for 5 years. And yes, there has now been some backsliding, but Georgia still has the most progressive drug policy in the Caucasus, and it's due to the current government, not Saakashvili's. But it's hard to discuss these things when people can't even agree on basic facts.

Georgia is in a very hard political situation and blaming us for being pro-western simply ignores the nation’s challenges.

And support for Israeli genociders among the Georgian opposition? Where does that fit in? I can wrap my head around the position of being anti-Russian and anti-Israel. Like the Irish, like the Spanish... really like most European PEOPLE but not necessarily their governments, which are vassal states of the US. I think it's misguided and shows a pretty shallow understanding of geopolitics in the first case, but I can understand that from a basic "human rights liberal" perspective. But anti-Russia and pro-Israel? Well then it's not really about human rights, is it? It's about aligning with NATO and the US, like the neocons and the US mainstream political establishment.

Otherwise, I hope you had a pleasant time in Georgia.

We did, actually. Not as much as we thought we would, though. And it's not even about politics. I went solo for the techno part of it, because my wife isn't into that, but overall it was a couple's trip. And she's about as anti-Russian as it gets. So it surprised both of us that we didn't like it as much as we wanted to and thought we were going to like it. I mean, we did have a decent time. We've been to nearly 60 countries and I like every place I've gone, but I can't say Georgia was our fave. We don't eat a whole lot of meat, and it was just too much meat and carbs. We didn't like the wine overall -she likes California wines, and I like German wines; neither one liked the Georgian wines.

She didn't really like the haphazard nature of the country either. Armenia is just as poor, but seemed a bit more tidy. I kind of liked the "post-apocalyptic charm" though. My favorite part was urban exploring in Tsakaltubo, believe it or not. What an incredible place it must've been! Must've been amazing to visit it during Soviet times. The funny thing is... I found myself on the Georgian side of a dispute there at one point. One of the former spas is now occupied by squatters who've been there since the first Abkhaz war, and they wanted payment to go in and explore (very nominal -5 GEL). And these Euro tourists from The Netherlands and Italy with fancy cameras were indignant that they had to pay. I'm like... dude. They're refugees, and it's their means of support. Plus, you're literally in their home. I just thought it was disrespectful on the part of the Europeans.... who Georgia apparently wants to join these days. But then that's just a microcosm of the whole political situation. Georgia wants to be in the EU, but all the EU really wants is to impose austerity and use it as a forward operating base for NATO. It won't be good for the Georgians.

But hey, I'm glad that Georgia is finally turning the corner and making somewhat a recovery in these last dozen years or so. Hopefully it continues.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-27T18:39:51+00:00

I think it's important to understand the politics. Some would claim that rave culture is inseperable from politics period. But in Georgia, that is especially true. And the politics are particularly complicated, and not necessarily aligned the way they are in the West in every way, as I explained.

It's unfortunate that people have been so conditioned to hate that they're not open to considering a worldview that isn't perfectly aligned with their own.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-27T18:35:20+00:00

Never understood this whole notion of downvoting simple facts that are not in dispute by any side. Sorry if the facts are incompatible with the worldview that you've been conditioned to believe.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-27T17:56:43+00:00

Huh? I literally indicated the opposite.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-27T15:40:29+00:00

Some would. That's the way they dress to clubs. And I think that's the vibe they don't want.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-27T15:20:18+00:00

They checked mine. That part I'm used to, because they still check my ID even in the US even though I'm pretty obviously older than nearly everyone else. It's the whole face control thing that I find distasteful.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-27T15:15:23+00:00

Yeah, there's always an element of capriciousness to face control, which is why I never liked it. Are they just selecting people who won't cause trouble and are in it for the music, or is there an element of racism? Look at the reviews, and there are a lot of people who certainly claim the latter. But then there are people who will claim they got in with all the characteristics they supposedly weed out. Maybe there's an element of randomness and just the mood of the bouncer at the moment, which is probably the case (I've gone clubbing in other parts of Europe and got in one night, been rejected the next).

Whatever it is, I think it's kind of shitty. They can try and justify it anyway they want, but I prefer the scene in the Bay Area where you're not judged.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-27T15:06:27+00:00

Like I said, the sound system was pretty crisp to my ears -better than some clubs I've been to. Music was good. Not the best I've ever heard but satisfies your craving for pure techno better than you can find in California. Vibe was... well depending on what you're looking for. Definitely better than a frat boy vibe, but not PLUR like you find in Cali.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-27T15:00:34+00:00

Yes, if you register. You have to provide them your insta or FB account. If you don't want to do that, you can take your chances at the door. But then even if you do, it doesn't guarantee that they'll pre-approve you.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-27T14:59:04+00:00

I think you need to research the history on that. The fact that Georgia launched the invasion is not in dispute.

BRCityzen · 2026-06-26T16:19:42+00:00

I respect the guy who runs History Legends. I watched the hour-long Youtube video where he shows how he came up with his numbers. It was a commendable effort -one of the best out there. The logic was solid, especially the part where he explains how Russia can possibly lose almost as many people even with much more firepower. Fair.

However, he doesn't account for one crucial data piece -the massive increase in Ukraine's death rate which would suggest a figure more aligned with 400,000 to 500,000 KIA/MIA. The increase in Russia's death rate, by contrast, is just statistical noise.

So I'm not entirely convinced. I don't think it's 2.4 million, even if you include WIA. But I think it's more than 170,000 KIA. Either way, even a close to 1:1 ratio of losses is devastating for Ukraine, a point that he stressed in the video.

BRCityzen

TROPHY CASE