The person in the picture is u/spez (fastest and the goofiest picture I could find).

Also, please don’t take it seriously. It’s a shitpost. Thanks.

    • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
      5·
      3 days ago

      Putin and Xi are dictators in the same way that Trump is trying to be. They consolidated power under their office, removing term limits and checks, and manipulate the democratic process in their favor (often with blatant ballot stuffing and crushing opposition, in the case of Putin).

      The US political system, as corrupt as it is, isn’t quite to that point yet, though unfortunately that might be changing soon.

        • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
          4·
          2 days ago

          I started to make a long effort post detailing Putin’s rise to - and subsequent consolidation of - power, but then I came to my senses and realized it would be pointless. If I went through with it, you would just do what you’ve been doing already, dismiss all sources I provide as false and biased propaganda while engaging in ridiculous whataboutism. I decided it would be a poor use of my time, is this really how you want to be spending yours?

    • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      11·
      3 days ago

      Did you hear what happened to Alexei Navalny? How anyone can think that Russia is not a kleptocratic dictatorship is beyond me.

        • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          9·
          3 days ago

          Ok so even assuming all this is true, (which is a big assumption, but whatever), does that deserve a summarily death sentence?

          Please drop the immediate whataboutism for once

          • Bloomcole@lemmy.world
            1·
            3 days ago

            First, what I said about Navalny is true since everything I mentioned is on video. Just like the Azov nazis he was later made to clean up his image to be pallatable for the west as ‘good warriors of democracy’.
            Not one article mentioning any of this about the ‘saint and citizen activist’ in any MSM. Keep repeating: we have free, independent and neutral press!
            And his ‘death sentence’ was more than likely also caused by western jail visits.
            He was rotting in jail, out of the news and he had outlived his propaganda use for the west.
            The only thing they could do was make him a martyr.
            The Skripal farce is more difficult to prove but it stinks like hell.
            As if they couldn’t let them or Navalny have an accident or have him shot in a robbery went wrong.
            Nooo, let’s smuggle some Novishok, the autograph of the Russian state to kill people that have no importance.
            And how remarkable that this evil dedliest poison on earth killed NONE of the intended targets, stupid Russians!
            I bet you never heard about the first Poison Dagger exercise, where they practiced just that, an attack with biological weapons.
            That lasted 3 weeks, and was held in Canterbury, the home of the Skripals. And wouldn’t you know it, 1 day after the end of these exercises the real thing happened.
            And who ‘found’ the victims? Her identity was first kept a secret but months later when it was out of the news they decided to give her an award for her ‘performance’ she just happened to be the daughter of the highest medical authority in the English army.
            She and her parents do not live anywhere near Canterbury.
            As other key 'witnesses’they had a couple, Mr and Mss something.
            When you saw their pictures they looked a bit shabby at best. Turns out they were crack junkies living in a halfway house. Very credible.
            Like many of the official narrative their stories turned out to be inconsistent with reality.
            Even the Skripals themselves have denied they were poisoned in the place the Brits claim.
            But how could they be poisoned with Novishok, the trademark of evil Russia then?
            By another coincidence Canterbury happens to be only 10km from Porton Down, where they have a military biological warfare research center.
            Together with Fort Detrick in the US it’s the only place in the west know to have Novishok.

            Maybe you should read more verifiable stuff and not uniquely swallow western ‘news’.
            That is, if you have the possibility since they ban everything and decide what we can and can’t see bcs ‘Russian disinfo’ and us plebs can’t make up our own mind or discern what is true.

            Whataboutism is a term used by the west that makes it impossible to call out hypocricy or double standards.
            West: “we are better than X country bcs this or that!”
            Reply: “no actually you do this or that so you’re even worse”
            West: “whataboutism!”
            And let’s indeed stick to the subject, there is no objective reasoning to call Putin or Xi dictators.
            You will have to do better than “but Navalny” or simply admit the truth that it’s western framing.