Quote Originally Posted by Eric C. View Post
It might not be the right place to put this up, but since you already touched upon this subject...
Russia Approves Law Imposing Stricter Rules On Bloggers
So, your freedom to write is being seriously restricted in a certain country, and the scariest part of that is that it only seems to be the beginning...
Thanks for the link. But I'm not surprised that they defined viral blogs as public media. But what's really interesting in that article is President Putin calling the internet a "CIA project". If anyone else said that I'd call them a nutjob. But Putin was a high-ranking officer in the KGB for 16 years so I'm listening.
But does the new law affect me as a writer? Even as a Russian citizen it wouldn't affect me because I have no interest in journalism or supporting political unrest. I only write fiction and sci-fi and btw, if I was a Russian citizen I would be a Putin supporter. Very few world leaders have ever impressed me but Vladimir Putin has. Nobody's perfect but I consider him one of the greatest leaders in human history. The hero in my first book is a lot like him.


Quote Originally Posted by Eric C. View Post
If answers ##1 & 4 aren't obvious to you, then would you mind answering if ANY OTHER country has a right to interfere there, and if such an interference would be justified, and if not, then why?
In a perfect world, no country would have the right to interfere. But this isn't a perfect world and I'm not an idealist. Poland and Lithuania could claim a right to interfere since they invested a lot of time and resources in Western Ukraine. But it still wouldn't be that important for security reasons. Tbh, no other country has a valid reason to interfere in Ukraine except Russia since they built so much of Ukraine. The Western staged coup of the democratically elected leaders of Ukraine and the new US installed government are a direct threat to Russian national security in a country that wasn't a threat to Europe or the US. Ukraine only wanted modernization. Now what they'll be getting is austerity.
As for the UN, I don't believe it serves anything but the West. I also consider it to be a corrupt organization that only listens to 1/2 of the world (the Western half).

Quote Originally Posted by Eric C. View Post
And it should have been. For that conflict is happening on the Ukrainian territory, and it's the Ukrainians who have the final word in that argument.
There are rules for any debate. The topic I chose was undeniable facts and the International arena. I would have to be in Ukraine to discuss the Ukrainian views of the crisis.
And I disagree with your last statement. Imo, It's the NGO's and other foreign agents operating in Ukraine that will have the final word. I don't believe that it was the Ukrainian people that started the conflict and I don't believe they'll be happy with the outcome.
The only demand I saw from the Ukrainians was for modernization. My question is, why has every country involved refused that demand? And that's as idealistic as I get...
But if I was an idealist then I would say, why not invest in Ukraine from the east and the west and modernize it... instead of using it this summer for NATO military exercises and forcing it into austerity? Yeah that's fiction but it sounds cool.