Russia's Cosmonauts Arrive on the Space Station - Wearing Ukraine's Colors (space.com) 137
Three Russian cosmonauts arrived at the International Space Station last night for a six-month stay, writess the Times of London.
They were wearing flight suits "in the yellow and blue of the Ukrainian flag, in what appeared to be a daring statement against the war."
Space.com reports: Cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, the Soyuz commander, was asked about the colors during a hatch-opening ceremony webcast by Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos. He responded (in Russian) that there was a surplus of yellow fabric in the warehouse, according to space exploration enthusiast Katya Pavlushchenko, who posted a Twitter thread about the exchange.
Not everybody's buying this answer, however. Some folks with knowledge of spaceflight procedures seem to think it could be a show of support for Ukraine, which Russia invaded on February 24.... There are other possible explanations for the flight suits as well. For example, multiple people on Twitter have pointed out that the colors are close to those of Bauman Moscow State Technical University, which Artemyev, Matveev and Korsakov all attended.
This is all just speculation; all we have to go on at the moment is Artemyev's cryptic response during the hatch-opening ceremony. Hopefully one of the cosmonauts will offer some more details in the not-too-distant future. None of the three newly arrived cosmonauts hails from Ukraine, by the way. Artemyev was born in present-day Latvia, Matveev is from St. Petersburg and Korsakov was born in what is now Kyrgyzstan.
Next month a SpaceX Dragon is expected to carry three millionaires to the Space Station for a week-long visit.
They were wearing flight suits "in the yellow and blue of the Ukrainian flag, in what appeared to be a daring statement against the war."
Space.com reports: Cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, the Soyuz commander, was asked about the colors during a hatch-opening ceremony webcast by Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos. He responded (in Russian) that there was a surplus of yellow fabric in the warehouse, according to space exploration enthusiast Katya Pavlushchenko, who posted a Twitter thread about the exchange.
Not everybody's buying this answer, however. Some folks with knowledge of spaceflight procedures seem to think it could be a show of support for Ukraine, which Russia invaded on February 24.... There are other possible explanations for the flight suits as well. For example, multiple people on Twitter have pointed out that the colors are close to those of Bauman Moscow State Technical University, which Artemyev, Matveev and Korsakov all attended.
This is all just speculation; all we have to go on at the moment is Artemyev's cryptic response during the hatch-opening ceremony. Hopefully one of the cosmonauts will offer some more details in the not-too-distant future. None of the three newly arrived cosmonauts hails from Ukraine, by the way. Artemyev was born in present-day Latvia, Matveev is from St. Petersburg and Korsakov was born in what is now Kyrgyzstan.
Next month a SpaceX Dragon is expected to carry three millionaires to the Space Station for a week-long visit.
Quiet telling. (Score:5, Insightful)
For all the bluster of Russian politicians about de-orbiting the ISS and harm to others, these are how scientists choose to act: in support of peace and their fellow humans. Perhaps there is hope for the future of humanity.
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I'm surprised they aren't worried about what will happen when they get back to Earth, or what might happen to their families.
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I bet they're more worried about what happens if Putin is permitted to reform the USSR
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Re: Quiet telling. (Score:2)
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I'm surprised they aren't worried about what will happen when they get back to Earth, or what might happen to their families.
I suspect they flew to space thinking if things keep up the way they are there may not be a Russia (or USA) to come back to. :-)
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I'm surprised they aren't worried about what will happen when they get back to Earth, or what might happen to their families.
My money's on the return capsule having an "anomaly" on the way back, and a toasty end for the astronauts on board.
Re:Quiet telling. (Score:4, Interesting)
For all the bluster of Russian politicians about de-orbiting the ISS and harm to others, these are how scientists choose to act: in support of peace and their fellow humans. Perhaps there is hope for the future of humanity.
I've heard that looking down at our little blue marble tends to change a person's outlook on life.
And Physics has a slightly liberal bias.
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Well "liberal" may be the wrong word because it's such a loaded word, especially in the US which redefines what it means every election. But science has a bias towards changing theories when new data arrives, as opposed to a classic conservative "never change" stance. Science has had its conservative eras though, trust in the old authorities and don't trust the new guys who disagree.
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Well "liberal" may be the wrong word because it's such a loaded word, especially in the US which redefines what it means every election. But science has a bias towards changing theories when new data arrives, as opposed to a classic conservative "never change" stance. Science has had its conservative eras though, trust in the old authorities and don't trust the new guys who disagree.
Oh yeah. But Science uses it's conservative members. It does keep us from bouncing to every new hypothesis.
And actually we love the arguments. I think that's the difference. Politics has death and destruction as the last step of disagreement, Science has either accept the preponderance of evidence, come up with something better, or just hush.
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This doesn't surprise me. I have a Russian colleague who is working outside the country right now. He said that right now inside Russia, at least academic, circles for ever one war hawk beating the drums, there are three that oppose the war. Most of them are just to scared to speak up against it.
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The russians, under Putin, certainly are going their own way, costing their
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And yet Ukraine has been improving greatly. They have made tremendous gains, and yet Russia, the most corrupt country of all, uses this corruption as a very transparent excuse. The biggest corruption removal was when they voted out Yanukovich which was what triggered Putin the first place, and he invaded mere days afterwards. Putin was disturbed, maybe afraid, of all these changes in neighboring countries to go and look west instead of east; Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan. And Georgia was invaded for exac
Re: Quite telling? (Score:2)
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As much as conspiracy theorists would like to believe it, the UN is not the US/Russia/China/Illuminati world government. One "side" doesn't get to strip a country of their "powers."
Russia has a veto on the security council. Which got overruled by the general assembly. Which is how it's supposed to work.
Re: Quite telling? (Score:2)
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The permanent members of the security council are the great powers who won WWII. Is that a bit obsolete? Yeah, probably. But don't just kick Russia off, kick them all out and reform the council as a fully elected body.
Great power politics are great power politics. Russia has finally committed nation-state suicide by playing the game too aggressively. Their choices now are to become North Korea or toss out Putin and spend the next twenty years doing what the US tells them to do. But their invasion of Ukraine
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The problem is that news media wants to report facts, which means confirmed death numbers that have a high degree of verification - numbers that the experts give not what Zelenskyy says. Zelenskyy may be right of course, which is why the reporting (at least in print rather than soundbites on tv) gives two numbers; the "experts say" number and "may be as high as X according to some" number.
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Russia has admittted 498 military deaths, likely the number CNN is reporting as it's 'official'.
I've read this morning that US and UK officials are estimating about 7,000 Russian military deaths.
Other sites are using videos and photos to confirm destroyed vehicles. In modern times, I understand, an armoured vehicle getting hit by an anti armour round tends to kill everyone inside, and the number of destroyed armoured vehicles, using video and photo evidence, is in the multiple hundreds. There are quite like
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Well, "permitted" because there's no way to get them off of the security council.
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Russia knows that it will get away with annexing Ukraine, even if it has to completely lay it to waste, as long as international cooperation and trade can be restored.
RIght now, it doesn't look like international cooperation and trade will be restored until they GTFO of Ukraine. Long-term plans are all being changed with no expectation of going back.
Russia needs to be isolated and cut off from all international support in every way.
That sounds like what is currently happening.
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Russia knows that it will get away with annexing Ukraine, even if it has to completely lay it to waste, as long as international cooperation and trade can be restored. It really counts on the West losing interest, blaming it on a few people and using that as an excuse to keep working with Russia.
I think that Russia and their admirers have a mistaken notion that we want to work with Russia, There are a sizable number who would like to Turn Moscow into a sea of Trinityite.
We've been there before, in WW2, where annexation and appeasement simply made things worse. Russia under today's dictatorship is merely trying to do what Hitler and then Stalin tried.
I've seen the future, and it's bright in sparkly in a bad way.
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It's not 'the Russians' that are the problem, it's Putin.
Russian civilians are just like us, wanting a comfy bed, secure job, few worries and a better future for their kids.
It's Putin and his dreams of restoring the glory of the empire that is the problem.
So nuking Moscow is not a good idea.
Dropping a tac nuke on where-ever Vlad is hiding, however, might be...? But only if he decides to go nuclear first, that is.
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It's not 'the Russians' that are the problem, it's Putin.
Russian civilians are just like us, wanting a comfy bed, secure job, few worries and a better future for their kids.
It's Putin and his dreams of restoring the glory of the empire that is the problem.
So nuking Moscow is not a good idea.
Dropping a tac nuke on where-ever Vlad is hiding, however, might be...? But only if he decides to go nuclear first, that is.
The problem if we appease Putin, is that he plans to retake all of the land that they lost when the old Soviet Union broke up.
I dont men to be blunt - but the problem is his citizens are obeying him. So they are his extension.
Re:Quiet telling. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't lose hope (and motivation) because you confuse current trends with long-term outcomes.
The problem is that progress tends to follow a sawtooth form - it surges forward in rare victories, and then is continuously eroded by the efforts of the selfish and powerful.
It's easy to look around at the continuous decline, and forget about the rare victories that tend to push the tip of each sawtooth just a little higher than the one before. Especially during times like these when the major nations are all ruled by oligarchies of various stripes, who have had decades of visible successes dragging trends downward.
But you only need to look at the long term trends throughout history to see that resistance is worthwhile. The forces of greed sometimes turn the tide for a while, but we've determinedly progressed towards less violence, more equality, and greater personal rights and freedoms for thousands of years.
Resist.
Even when you lose every battle. Resist.
It slows the decline, and every now and then somebody, somewhere, manages to actually win an important battle and make progress. And as much as it may not feel it, that progress owes much to the thousands of losing battles that slowed the decline enough that the gains were able to exceed it.
Say it: Russia is the aggressor. It's a war. (Score:2)
If the Cosmonauts want to make a statement, they need to commit to a statement. Do you want me to believe that they snuck those colors up there without official backing? Russia treats manipulation as an art form.
Re: Say it: Russia is the aggressor. It's a war. (Score:3)
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People went to that rally because they were forced to by their employers. Some people just stamped their ticket and left.
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Um, maybe they're making a statement while trying to create some level of deniability so their lives aren't completely fucking ruined in making it.
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Try to understand how this will be used by Russian media. The official take is that it's not a war but a "special military operation" to denazify Ukraine. If the cosmonauts don't clearly condemn the war, this can easily be spun as supporting their brothers and sisters in Ukraine who are facing genocide under the Nazis. Ukraine and Russia are friends, you know. Yes, it's fucked up, but that's the party line.
An ambiguous statement is worse than none at all. I don't think Russians have realized the gravity of
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If Russia continues the war in Ukraine, Russia is going to be thrown back 40 years. Russians can kiss the world good bye. They're going to compete with North Korea for shittiest place on Earth.
Yup. Putin thinks the world will quickly forget if there is money at stake, but I think he underestimates how toxic doing business with Russia under his leadership is now going to be going forward.
misinterpreting the message. (Score:5, Interesting)
These uniforms are built, planned and packed well in advance, and are not chosen by scientists -- they're chosen by politicians and party operatives.
Most likely, these colors were chosen in advance to celebrate Ukraine's "liberation" or "de-nazification", and were probably chosen at a time when Russia was still wildly miscalculating how long such an operation would take, and how fierce the objections would be both in Ukraine and in the West.
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Most likely, these colors were chosen in advance to celebrate Ukraine's "liberation" or "de-nazification"
That's right, just like when the war ended Americans flew Nazi flags at home in celebration. Wait wut?
There's no way they would fly the flag of the country they invaded to celebrate its liberation. That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
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Most likely, these colors were chosen in advance to celebrate Ukraine's "liberation" or "de-nazification"
That's right, just like when the war ended Americans flew Nazi flags at home in celebration. Wait wut?
There's no way they would fly the flag of the country they invaded to celebrate its liberation. That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Well the Nazi flags were for the Nazi's not Germany, and no one the allies cared about protested invading Nazi Germany, so not the right metaphor, though still a good point.
But I think it's more likely that no one was thinking about the Ukrainian flag when they chose the uniforms.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not just three weeks. Once troops were massing along the border it was very clear that an invasion was going to happen. So 5 to 6 weeks.
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These uniforms are built, planned and packed well in advance, and are not chosen by scientists -- they're chosen by politicians and party operatives.
Most likely, these colors were chosen in advance to celebrate Ukraine's "liberation" or "de-nazification", and were probably chosen at a time when Russia was still wildly miscalculating how long such an operation would take, and how fierce the objections would be both in Ukraine and in the West.
I think you'll find that you are talking bollocks.
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Twitter says those pages (or page, now that I look closer?) do not exist...
I wonder when they ceased to exist?
The war has been going on just over three weeks (Score:2)
Uh (Score:2)
Next month a SpaceX Dragon is expected to carry three millionaires to the Space Station for a week-long visit.
Uh ... okay? Was this supposed to be some kind of omnibus space summary story?
Or are we supposed to compare and contrast unfavorably?
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Or are we supposed to compare and contrast unfavorably?
Better fucking believe it.
Can't get shit for news on the topic without someone's value judgement added, or thinly veiled attempts at getting you to make one.
They were wearing flight suits "in the yellow and blue of the Ukrainian flag, in what appeared to be a daring statement against the war."
I'm not sure if 3 Russian cosmonauts launching from a military-controlled launch site wearing yellow and blue jumpsuits emblazoned with big-ass Russian flags appears to be a daring statement against the war. If anything, it sounds like a "Mission Accomplished" banner.
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I'm not sure if 3 Russian cosmonauts launching from a military-controlled launch site wearing yellow and blue jumpsuits emblazoned with big-ass Russian flags appears to be a daring statement against the war. If anything, it sounds like a "Mission Accomplished" banner.
I don't know about that. It kind of looked like a "Russians for a free Ukraine" kind of statement. This is on the heels of a bunch of their reporters publicly coming out against this invasion as well.
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I don't know about Russia, but in the US, astronauts are dressed very carefully by other people.
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On the other hand, in other countries they actually know how effective their own militaries are.
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The Russians are being plenty effective. Just really inefficiently.
Ukraine is on the ropes. Every day more of the country is reduced to rubble, and Zelenskyy gets closer to promising to wear a gimp suit in Putin's sex dungeon for the rest of his life, or whatever that fucking whackjob really wants.
I for one... (Score:2)
...welcome our soon-to-be Ex-cosmonauts.
SpaceX may be makeing an rescue mission (Score:2)
SpaceX may be makeing an rescue mission to take home people up there now. Over the people paying for an trip
What are they going to do? (Score:2)
For at least the next 6-months they're safe. Once they go back to the surface all bets are off, but I'm guessing they figure by then whatever happens will be over and maybe Putin will be dead/deposed or have forgotten about this.
Tighter you grip, more grains slip through (Score:2)
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Something that all authoritarian dictators fail to recognize: the tighter they attempt to grip their citizens, the more of them slip through their fingers.
That's a great quote, but is it true? Stalin had a nice firm grip that let nothing slip.
Bullshit (Score:3)
There is no "daring display". These people cannot chose their own flight-suits and it is not possible to make new ones or dye them in a short time. This is pure coincidence.
They were wearing the same uniforms last year! (Score:2)
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I understand that things are sensitive now, but it would be best not too drag politics and wars into space.
It's a multi-national space station, and the multiple nations were included in it for purely political reasons (since the USA could afford to build the whole thing, and wound up having to pay for Russia's module anyway.) The whole fucking thing is political. People like you who try to hide from politics are why we can't have nice things. Everything has political ramifications, and pretending otherwise is how we get Putin trying to reform the USSR.
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Actually he sort of has a point. It would be one thing for them simply not to fly any colors in silent protest of what their government is doing (and had actually started doing years before, after a fashion). But to show up wearing the colors of the Ukranian flag?
Those cosmonauts will be killed by their own people. Or jailed indefinitely. There's really nothing to be gained here.
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Actually he sort of has a point. It would be one thing for them simply not to fly any colors in silent protest of what their government is doing (and had actually started doing years before, after a fashion). But to show up wearing the colors of the Ukranian flag?
Those cosmonauts will be killed by their own people. Or jailed indefinitely. There's really nothing to be gained here.
Maybe we can bring them home on a Crew Dragon. We need more Ukraininans, and a whole lot less Russians/
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Russians are fine, we can use more Russians. We just don't want the Russians who are in charge over there and with their backwards empire favoring stances.
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Russians are fine, we can use more Russians. We just don't want the Russians who are in charge over there and with their backwards empire favoring stances.
I know what you mean. I've had the occasion to meet and work with a number of Russians, and I haven't met one I didn't like so far.
But as a country, they seem to have a strong case of bad boy syndrome. They keep going for leaders who are not good for them.
There is a school of thought that Putin might be in the final stages of his life, and wants to relive the glory years when he was KGB'in it during the Cold war and his East German nirvana. This is not unlike Great Britain thinking that they will be r
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If it is true that this was planned as a PR statement by Putin's government, then perhaps nothing will happen.
Re: Why the provocation? (Score:2)
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IIRC we paid for Russias module because we were worried their brilliant scientists would get sucked up by Iran or Iraq as part of their attempts to build nuclear weapons.
That doesn't pass a smell test. Not enough of the money would ever get to the engineers in question to compete with the kind of bonuses those nations would pay. It just doesn't make any sense at all.
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People like you who try to hide from politics are why we can't have nice things. Everything has political ramifications, and pretending otherwise is how we get Putin trying to reform the USSR.
Actually, politics infecting the totality of life is how you get totalitarianism. It's kind of what it says on the tin.
Politics always affects the totality of life (Score:2)
Worse you're going to have a big government no matter what. That's because you're going to have a large military in order to protect your nation from being seized by guys like Vladimir Putin. If the United States didn't have a military you can bet your ass Putin would be
Re: You are probably wrong. (Score:2)
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This post is wrong. Chances are good that the flight suits colors have nothing to do with Ukraine; they are probably university colors. See Jonathan McDowell below.
https://twitter.com/planet4589... [twitter.com]
What a load of shite.
Re: in 6 months time (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine NASA astronauts wearing palestinian flags...
You make a lot of good analogies, but you chose one that doesn't make any sense.
We've never invaded Palestine.
Re: in 6 months time (Score:5, Informative)
I like how Beau of the fifth column puts it. Foreign policy is a card game where everybody cheats. It's about power and nothing else. So whether it's people in Yemen or the Palestinians or South American banana pickers or any other group we're all going to look the other way while our government allows terrible things to happen for the sake of our own hegemony. And we're always going to have an excuse why it's okay when we do it, why we didn't get our hands dirty this time
Re: in 6 months time (Score:4, Insightful)
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I remember one call in talk show where they host was criticized by being too pro-Israel, and then the next caller bitched out the host was too pro-Palestinean. Which said to me that he was being fair.
It's way too political and phrased such that one side is saintly and the other is evil personified. So Israel shoots a rocket, Palestine shoots some rockets bad, Palestine takes the most casualties, and my mother says "poor Israel, always being picked on", because that's the talking point email she gets. Kind
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Yeah but we kind of went out of our way to help Israel do it.
No we didn't.
While I have major issues with the Israeli occupation of Palestine the fact is that Israel occupied the territory on it's own in response to an invasion of its own country. Sure, we sold them weapons but we sell all kinds of countries weapons.
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Sure, we sold them weapons but we sell all kinds of countries weapons.
In many instances, we "sold" those weapons AT COST. Stop pretending the US doesn't subsidize the Israeli occupation of Palestine, while states are passing laws against BDS, a perfectly legitimate means for a US citizen to decide how NOT to spend their money!
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Stop pretending the US doesn't subsidize the Israeli occupation of Palestine...
What a wonderful point you would have made there if I had actually been doing that. We're talking the initial taking of territory, not the decades long occupation. Do try to be more attentive.
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> We're talking the initial taking of territory
The current "illegal occupation" of Palestinian areas isn't about territory taken from Egypt, Syria, or Jordan during the 1967 war.
And the idea of an "initial taking", I think it can easily argued that that happened with the creation of Israel in 1948.
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Go back and read the comment string from the top. I have no interest anymore in responding to people changing the subject.
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> Go back and read the comment string from the top.
I already did.
"Imagine NASA astronauts wearing Palestinian flags..." "We've [the US] never invaded Palestine" "Yeah but we [the US] kind of went out of our way to help Israel do it."
You then said "We're talking the initial taking of territory"
I'll give you that point partially. However I think the original analogy was more about an ethical position than a technical one about a choice of words or how they relate to specific events. My comment was about di
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We've also repeatedly block UN votes on the occupation of Palestine.
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Why is every response to my post intent of on changing the subject to the occupation? Go back and read the whole thread as I'm done wasting my time.
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Wtf is with people today? Please give me the exact quote where I even came close to implying that and I'll explain why you're an idiot.
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Wtf is with people today? Please give me the exact quote where I even came close to implying that and I'll explain why you're an idiot.
You may think people don't read between the lines of what you say.
Either you don't understand what that is, which would be sad, or you do and nonetheless mean it.
Re: in 6 months time (Score:5, Insightful)
Understand I'm not picking sides because of a given race Creed or whatever. If the positions were switched the Palestinians would be doing the same thing because human beings are kind of awful. But we should recognize that human beings are kind of awful and build systems that make it so they can't get away with doing that. And when those systems break down we need to do maintenance and repair on them and put them back in place.
Anything less will eventually lead to more mass genocide. And it's just a question which random group will be picked this time
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But everything about it is amazingly politicized. Things only ever get passed with a simple majority, not even a 60%. Israel traditionally got a lot of extra support in cold war days, then it got a boost with the terrorism panic, but there are enough younger generations that wonder why we bother.
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Imagine NASA astronauts wearing palestinian flags...
You make a lot of good analogies, but you chose one that doesn't make any sense. We've never invaded Palestine.
To me that analogy makes full sense. Both cases are about wearing colors of a foreign country, while wearing the uniform of their own country. Many astronauts are or were with the military, and anyway wear uniforms with identifying flags, and showing allegiance to a any foreign flag could already be a serious offense.
Both cases represent a statement of support of a country in an international conflict; it causes great prejudice to the peaceful collaboration in space, a breach of the unwritten rules that hav
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Imagine NASA astronauts wearing palestinian flags...
You make a lot of good analogies, but you chose one that doesn't make any sense. We've never invaded Palestine.
To me that analogy makes full sense. Both cases are about wearing colors of a foreign country, while wearing the uniform of their own country.
You see, the difference is that if an American astronaut wore a Palestinian flag, he wouldn't be supporting the US Invasion of Palestine - Because last time I checked, we had no plans to invade Palestine and annex it.
On the other hand, support for Ukraine by Russians might get you a tasty bowl of polonium sup if Putin decides that something more impressive than high speed lead poisoning isn't the cheaper solution.
No analogy is perfect, but that one assumes that The USA is like Russia, invading and ann
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Don't take this analogy as an attack over USA. I know USA has not invaded countries (at least recently) and is not a belligerent in the Russian-Ukrainian war. And these facts are exactly what makes this imperfect analogy even more impressive. Because I expect that if a US astronaut would wear colors of a foreign flag, a public outcry would follow (particularly given the place that the flag has within the US society). And that makes the statement of the Russian cosmonauts even bolder, possibly facing very ha
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Don't take this analogy as an attack over USA. I know USA has not invaded countries (at least recently)
Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Don't take this analogy as an attack over USA. I know USA has not invaded countries (at least recently)
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Way to purposely miss the point. Tell me of the USA'a annexation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the imposition of a US puppet government.
Trying to equate Putin's Russian annexation of the Crimea, and his attempted annexation of Ukraine in a latter day emulation of 1930's 40's Germany and Stalin's post WW2 takeover of many countries in Europe to eith annex or install puppet governments is pure support of Putin, Boris. You've earned your salt and bread tonight tovarisch!
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Don't take this analogy as an attack over USA. I know USA has not invaded countries (at least recently) and is not a belligerent in the Russian-Ukrainian war. And these facts are exactly what makes this imperfect analogy even more impressive. Because I expect that if a US astronaut would wear colors of a foreign flag, a public outcry would follow (particularly given the place that the flag has within the US society). And that makes the statement of the Russian cosmonauts even bolder, possibly facing very harsh consequences.
That said, I am genuinely interested in knowing what would really happen to the hypothetical US astronaut wearing a Palestinian case: would that be considered free speech, would they just be set aside for next missions, or would they be sent to courts-martial? Same question for a German Raumfahrer wearing a Turkish flag (or the contrary), or a French spationaut wearing an Algerian flag (or the contrary). Each situation is unique, and I'd love to hear a knowledgable opinion.
I suspect that an astronaut wearing a Palestinian flag wouldn't see much repercussion, as we're not at war with Palestine - Israel is. As well, at this point - the ultra-right Christians who support Israel because they want to grease the skids for Armageddon, might freak. But they freak at everything.
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support for Ukraine by Russians might get you a tasty bowl of polonium soup
Tea, most likely. Polonium tea.
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Imagine NASA astronauts wearing palestinian flags...
Imagine the singular worst case of whataoutism ever dumped on humanity.
Know the difference there Ivan? There wouldn't be any repercussions. I wouldn't be too surprised if the Soyuz capsule has a malfunction on the Cosmonauts return to earth.
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And you can do that openly in the US without being arrested. You can probably even do the same in Israel itself and still be fine.
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Seems to me there's a lot of Russians who publicly sympathize with the Ukrainians, which is all the more compelling because they *can* be arrested for it. When you have freedom of speech, talk is cheap.
As tensions rise it's important to remember that this is a conflict between governments competing for power. And Russia is a dictatorship - the Russian people have basically no voice in their government. Any attempt to conflate the Russian government and its people is extremely misguided at best, and at wo
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Which is one of the reasons why it is such a bad comparison to point fingers at the US within context of what happens to Palestinians.
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How to make an elephant out of a fly.
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Yes, but is that the reason for choosing the color scheme of blue and yellow? These are astronauts, they're not stupid or naive, and three of them agreeing on it, without a doubt knew what message that uniform would send. So Ukrainians get the message that some Russians feel their plight, while the propaganda blinded Russians just say "so sad that they were naive to use unfortunate school colors."
Re: (Score:2)
I can hear the kvetching from here. We would never hear the end of it.