there has always been a weird looking man in moscow torturing the people into believing better things aren't possible and that this is how every country is. as an american, i am watching that torture get normalized here. i have seen how little it takes to break someone, and how much it takes to break someone out. none of this is meant to infantalize or defend the russian people. they need to wake up. but they can't wake themselves up, and we don't have the leverage to deprogram them. focus for now on deprogramming the people you can. it takes work, but it's worth doing. if there is to be any hope of resisting russian terror it must not be allowed to spread. once we staunch the bleeding outside russia we can start talking about deprogramming them.

like. i really feel like i sound more on russia's side in this conversation than i mean to but i've seen what russia does to children first hand. i knew someone that it took 10 years of deprogramming to get out of that mindset. she was not born a killer, but she would have been made one. and it took 10 entire years to undo the damage that had been done in 2.