Update: the Gravel Institute just privated their video. Good for them, better a month late than never. Update2: as of the 27th of March they put it back up. Update 3: as of the 28th of March they privated it again Also, as some of you pointed out, I mistook the picture of Taras Shevchenko for Bandera around the part where I talked about protesters' signs. I'm suspecting however that the Gravel Institute made the same mistake, given the context of the image.
Btw do you think after the ukrainian war that the EU will be more federelized specifically getting a EU army since france is getting the EU presidency. Also since you live in germany as I understand it do you think germanies anti nuclear movement is dying after this and germny finally use nuclear power to get rid of russian dependence on natrual gas.
Well done, Adam! The amount of passionate support you're showing towards Ukraine is honestly leaving me in awe. I wonder if the striking similarity of injustice Czechoslovakia once endured in her history or you being hell of great person is the reason. I'd say both if anybody asks me! =) Get well soon! Pesky cold got me too, maybe even "that thing", people don't give a damn about masks in Kyiv nowadays 😅
oh but if you say that to the people who subscribe to the gravel institute. They will tell you "fuck you". Without any type of argument or reasonable dialogue. Wow, and I wonder why people don't take them seriously.
If Prager U and The Gravel Institute had a final showdown, Prager could give Gravel the "we're not so different, you and I" speech, and it wouldn't be entirely contrived.
I never trusted Gravel. Always seemed like they were jealous of Sand and are just trying to get attention. Gravel is also much rougher than sand, and much less pleasant to walk on. Gravel is inferior to Sand in almost every way.
Adam Something, a former nazi that is incapable of admitting he might still hold reactionary beliefs like calling NATO defensive for destroying Libya, is probably not the source you want for fighting misinformation.
“To show how completely absurd this claim is, I will, unfortunately, have to backtrack the story to the dawn of human civilization.” The joys of fact checking.
@@InfiniteDeckhand "Brandolini's law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, is an internet adage that emphasizes the difficulty of debunking false, facetious, or otherwise misleading information, especially in comparison to the difficulty of creating the misinformation in the first place.[1] It states that "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than is needed to produce it."[2][3] " From wikipedia
@@Rowdy422 Indeed. The micro-novels I find I sometimes have to write to debunk ignorant stupidity is a chore deserving of a knighthood. Adam does so with hard hitting in-your-face facts, with a wonderful touch of ironic sarcasm thrown in for good measure.
@@Ocinneade345 Listen, I am a committed leftist and all, but bullshit is bullshit. A good portion of their videos are misleading at best. This is because the Gravel Institute is not an educational platform; rather, it is a platform meant to MOBILIZE the left. Nuance and "truth" take a backseat in these cases.
🚨🚨🚨 AAAAAAHHHHH!!! 🚨🚨🚨 school is sooooo boring i am in 8th grate and its so boring i am having sucess on youtube so i think i will drop out of school. i dont have friends so i need your opinon rosa
Just a correction for 14:34 , the image on the top left isn’t Bandera related, those are the portraits of old Ukrainian writers that were pro Ukrainian during the times when Ukraine was a part of the Russian empire, Taras Shevchenko (left) and Lesya Ukrainka (right)
Good catch, thanks! Damn, missed that one. EDIT: I'm starting to believe Gravel themselves mistook Shevchenko for Bandera, hence why they included him together with the black-red flags.
pro russian emperialism institutions like these existed in the cold war, they are clearly funded by russia, this divide also benefits the right in the US by making it seems like to be on the left you have to be pro stalin and pro putin
To me PragerU put out far more sensible content, they more of centre right with both liberal and conservative values. I am not even American but such org in my country would be considered leftist.
@@Anonymous-qb4vc lmao Prager U is total junk that publishes open love letters to oil companies and denies the realities of the unique horrors of American chattel slavery. You know how George Bush used to say Al-qaeda resents us because they hate how free we are? That’s the quality of analysis Prager U offers. Utter garbage.
@@Anonymous-qb4vc In isolation some things PragerU say are true, but overall, they still push lies about history and politics. If a group says enough things, eventually something will be right. It also depends on what video(s) you have watched, some videos only have minor errors while others make false claims from the start. Some of their Vietnam war videos misrepresent the truth by saying the US almost won the war while claiming Mao was bad for doing the Great Leap Foward shows the vastness of truth to lie in different PragerU videos
Also, CRUCIAL POINT, Yanukovych himself was promising to lead Ukraine to the association deal with the EU. It was a popular position back then as well. Him shutting the talks was a shock move, and Yanukovych literally swerved the entire country by derailing something he promised to sign. Then that was solidified by brutal beatings of students that came out to protest by Berkut, Ukraine's infamous riot police unit at the time. That is what led to Euromaidan and the Revolution of Dignity.
Yeah he promised to both go for eu and Russia. That’s probably one of the reasons he got elected. The more trades the better. And Russia didn’t invade and threaten Ukraine at the time.
Him and Erdrogan over in Turkey essentially did the same thing, overnight pulling their country away from an EU/Nato sphere just because, and to hell with all the naysayers, though they've seemingly gotten away with it sadly
@@Ynwell_theslaaneshi Yeah, and nobody expected Russia to invade. Before Putin's reelection, Medvedev stated that Russia could get into EU as well. Ppl legit saw EU as a good thing until Russian propaganda started fiercely promoting Russian nationalism and the anti-western/anti-EU narratives (again tbf)
@@_remblanc Putin himself wanted to enter into Nato years ago, and seing about Medvedev declaration, it clearly shows that is the West that dont want Russia neither in European Union or Nato. Heck, Macron itself has said in the past that Europe Union should protect itself against U.S and Russia, and Nato of course use the discourse about "protecting countries from Russia". So as you can see, Russia is not part of Nato or E.U because the west dont want, and since the West started to use anti-russian rhetoric, them the Russia started to adopt Nationalism. Russian Nationalism is a sympton of Western anti-Russian rhetoric. This is why nationalism is bullsh1t and should be abolished, together with capitalism.
It's very scary that it took a 40 minute video to debunk 12 minutes of misinformation. Not to mention that it probably required many more hours of research to do it.
Now imagine trying to debunk all of the disinformation Adam pushed in this video. These comments are filled with people trying to draw attention to them.
I'm glad you touched on a major point that annoys me about this war. You have people who, while they're not the crazy idiots that support Russia, still go "oh but Azov is so bad, we can't have nazis, so I can't support either side!" or that they actually believe Russia is there to go kill nazis. This war is the best recruiting campaign Azov could have hoped for. Their numbers are swelling because everyone is signing up to defend Ukraine. To go with that, think about how many Ukrainians will see Azov members fight and die against the Russians - think about the people trapped in Mariupol. Trying to convince those people then that these guys are bad is significantly harder - the average person yelling online wasn't actually protecting that person's town, but Azov did - and just like that, you have a new Azov member. The end result is just going to be more Azov members than before the war started. This war is no solution, it'll only make the problem worse.
The Azov's are surrounded and getting crushed in Mariopol. They've been relegated to a few blocks with in the city center and will soon run out of food, fuel and ammo. There isn't even a Mariopol anymore and Ukraine is cut off from the Azov sea so in a week or two, there will be no more Azov. And good, fuck em. Fuck Russia as well but for a Jewish president to have done nothing about the literal Nazi's in his army because they're good fighters is like the Mujahedeen's more extremist elements running wild and Massoud not doing anything about it.
Actually, outsiders joining Azov will dilute the group's fascist tendencies. The new people will be anti-Russian. But there's no reason to assume they'll become far-right extremists, unless they were already favorable to the right.
Gravel Institute: “The new government branded these rebellions(Donetsk and Luhansk) ‘terrorist actions’.” These rebellions: *shot down a civilian airliner(Malaysia Airlines 17)*
Best part is instead of immediately leaving the area and apologizing, they turn to banditry and just started to loot the plane crash, I've seen insurgencies with more dignity than that.
@@UnknownOps damn I remember the video of them going through the plane and damn nearly immediately recognizing it was a civilian plane, if they didn’t already know.
Well to be fair they shot the Boing by mistake. They did however terrorize 7 million people who live in the captured Lugansk and Donetsk provinces. And by the very recent confession of Pavel Grubnik, an actual far-right neonazi scum who is now leader of KRP and was a former minister of Interior of DPR, there are NO more males aged 20-50 today in LDPR. They are either all killed or in the trenches.
And the man who shot down the airliner has openly admitted that he, like all of the "rebels" in Ukraine's eastern provinces, is an agent of the Russian government.
Another small thing is that actually Yanukovych was ousted AFTER he left the country. It isn't true that he was forced to leave after the vote. He fled himself with all the money and only after that the Parliament voted him out.
Don't waste time replying to trolls. The report button is there. Yes, they could be bots, and yes they'll just make new accs, but this isn't for them. This is for your sanity.
True. Adam also lied by omission, just like he criticized Gravel for. He claimed that in the 2014 crimea referendum the 2 options were "Join Russia" or "Independence". This is a lie. The 2 options were "Join Russia" and "Stay in Ukraine with the autonomy afforded to Crimea by the 1992 Constitution". The 1992 Constitution allowed Crimea to have its own foreign policy, meaning that Russia could have kept the Sevastopol Naval Base, which was the biggest motive behind the annexation. Now because of this many argue that the autonomy option was de facto independence, which is a fair point. However Adam didnt mention this, he lied by omission, not stating that that the 2nd option was "independence" is his interpretation of it, and not an undisputable fact. Adam is a hypocrite and a liar.
Did you watch the video, he claims Ukraine isn't a proxy war... How the hell do you define a proxy war if ukraine is not one?!? He literally claims that it is akin to justifying the nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia. Sloppy work, shows a clear lack of understanding of Geopoltics. Please do not support this shitty video.
That’s quite literally what Gravel Institute’s “trailer” video is on their channel. At first I was optimistic, and that “at first” didn’t last too long.
@@33up24 if they were a tankie then they’d be getting exactly what they wanted. The premise of the monkey’s paw is that it twists your wishes into horrible outcomes, like a malevolent genie
That news segment that goes "It was the ultranationalist movement who was the loudest and most violent" Yes.. that is sortof to be expected of the ultra-extreme faction. It'd be incredibly weird and surprising if the loudest and most violent elements of the protests where the Concerned Grandmas of Ukraine Association.
This is why teaching humanities is important in schools. It teaches you to question sources, to analyse them, to question why reportage is edited and by whom. Critical thinking is essential when trying to study world events. Unfortunately most people just see an emotional headline without question and then don't ask any questions. If reportage uses quotes or footage in isolation and without context always ask why. If reportage doesn't quote named sources, as opposed to just giving opinion or the generic an "insider", or a "source close to" then always ask why. Even when using fully attributable sources always investigate the source being quoted. Every one has opinions, and that's ok, but the problems start when people of any political leaning listen to opinions, (propaganda), without questioning it. Stay smart.
Seriously. It pisses me off so so much when people say "why do we have to learn [subject] in school when we're never going to use it?" Even my mother, a teacher, often asks that question. This idea that we should only learn what is absolutely necessary to work one (usually low-skilled) job for the rest of our lives is extremely frightening, and is exactly what the right wants.
I'd say that classes such as AP comparative government should have an honor-level or common-placement level required class for highschool graduation. It is such a good class for truly understanding the world in modernity.
@@simonnilsson8375 I'm in a completely safe place now. But the most difficult thing is that you have to worry not only for yourself but also for all your relatives. We created a group in the messenger where all my relatives and friends from Ukraine are. And the frightening part is that our usual conversation always starts with the phrase “is everyone alive?”.
@@simonnilsson8375 And right after that, we share funny memes about the war and Putin. I decided to add this part because my first comment seemed too sad to me😅
@@davidgjam7600 Ngl, I'm always impressed by the style of the infographics and motion graphics that they put out. Data is BS and mischaracterization, but it looks good. Its like evil mini kurzegast
Also a Ukrainian. I just wanted to thank you, you doing so much for us, Ukrainians by spreading unbiased information and fighting propaganda. All the best, stay well
The 2016 Polish War film "Hatred (Wolyn)" which depicts the horrifying and brutal genocide of Polish civilians by Urk nationalists in the 1939 Ukraine is still banned in Ukraine showing how cowardly and hypocritical the Urks are when it comes to "Freedom of Speech" and confronting their own disgustingly whitewashed history. Ukraine is not a victim nation, it has its own atrocities.
@@Dorne_is_the_GOAT You have to keep in mind that the director of the film Wojciech Smarzowski says that the film is not the book on the history, but rather a work of art. I am so sorry for the Polish loss in that time, but also i have to mention that many of the Ukrainians died from the Polish response: "In the period of 1943-45, an estimated 80 to 10 thousand Poles and 10 to 15 thousand Ukrainians had fallen victims in the conflict". It was a tragedy for both nations. I guess the most important part in this is that due to the Treaty in Riga in 1921 Ukraine was forced to give Ukrainian Volyn territories to Poland, although Poles were a minority; for Volhyn the percentages were 70%, 16% and 10% for Ukrainians, Poles and Jews which preceded the conflict. I myself for the freedom of speech, and i am so glad this events are behind. I am thankful from all my hearth for every support every one is doing. Together we can end the spread of kremlin genocide, child rapes, war crimes and everything else they are bringing which is happening right NOW.
I find it interesting how she brought up how the east stressed Russian Identity more Almost as if Ukrainian farmers were starved to death in the 1930s and many of which were replaced by Russian settlers.
It's like people going "Ackschually, did you know that most people in Crimea are Russian, so that's why Russia should get to have it." Well gee, I wonder what happened to the actual natives of the area. I wonder why the Tatars now make up only 12 percent of the population despite inhabiting the place since the medieval era. And why for some strange reason half of them live in Uzbekistan instead of their homeland. It's almost as if *someone* pulled a Manifest Destiny on a strategically important peninsula, but *who* would do such a horrible crime against humanity? Perhaps certain groups within the Russian majority who apparently like to organize marches with portraits of a mustachoid Georgian man to intimidate the remaining natives know the answer. Yes, let's reward nations for successfully genociding and colonizing an area, I can't see how that might set a horrifying precedent for the future.
Other examples of Russian imperialism are removals of germans in Königsberg, karelians basically non-existent in Karelia. Estonian and Latvian lands and language were pushed back during cold war in favour of Russians, and today large Russian minorities live there.
It’s a complete rehash of the Northern Ireland argument. “Britain should keep Northern Ireland because it’s majority Protestant” why is that. Maybe because even before the potato famine there was massive crackdowns against Catholics in the north which used to be the most pro independence region.
At 14:39 upper left: those are portraits of a young Taras Shevchenko and Lesya Ukrayinka, two of the most important poets and foundational figures of Ukrainian literature and culture. The captions under the portraits are lines from their poems.
The point about ISIS and the Taliban actually raises an interesting counter argument against Azov-whinging: 1. Nationalist political extremists come to power in difficult to control regions when a power vacuum is created by an invader 2. Azov battalion is a group being empowered by the ongoing war in Ukraine. Therefore: It is a moral imperative that anyone who dislikes Azov battalion’s neo-Nazi politics ensure that no power vacuum forms in Ukraine - if you don’t want Azov to take control, you make sure the sitting democratic government remains intact.
@@timogul you don't see the problem with the above argument? The overthrow of yanukovych and subsequent power vacuum led to the formation of Azov battalion shortly after. This is an argument against US policy in Ukraine.
@@timogul also what you said destroys this claim of Ukraine being some paragon of democracy, because you say screw democracy because I don't like the guy.
Nah man, NATO imperialism is objectively the greater evil, that's the issue here. What's happening is white leftists are going mask off and showing how attached they are to their white identities and western imperialism. They know their cushy first world lifestyles depend on western imperialism so they'll never ever fight it seriously. POC leftists are sickened by all of you and now there's a very real split happening along racial lines in the west. Seriously it's not a coincidence that pro-Ukraine is 99% white.
@@mohq9573 poc leftist here, you're full of crap. Stop tryna turn a conflict between two white, Orthodox Christian, East Slavic countries into some kinda global race war. First off, even though NATO imperialism is objectively the greater evil, that does not apply to this conflict. You're presenting a false dichotomy. No one forced Russia to invade the Ukraine, and it is as unjustifiable as the US-led NATO invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, NATO bombings of Libya, material support to Israel, support of coups against democratically elected leaders in South America, etc. This is straight out of the US' playbook in Vietnam: after fighting for independence against the French, Ho Chi Minh hoped to have nominal relations with the US so they can sell resources for capital to build up their industrial base (as India, China, and the USSR did) without being beholden to China, due to a history of Chinese imperialism against Vietnam. The US instead invaded them under the guise of supporting a neocolonial puppet regime in the south to "protect the sovereignty of anti-communist regional forces from the belligerent USSR-aligned North." Vietnam ended up having to seek material support from China and the USSR, which the US said was evidence that their invasion and occupation was justified. Sound familiar?
If they don't deal with the now-incorporated nazi batallion now, they ARE going to have a problem later. This is like, the basics of how this works. Historical mistake.
“A country has deep seated conflicts. So it’s only right to stand by and let them die.” I feel like this is a claim I keep hearing over and over so disappointingly.
@Idiosarchy If one doesnt want to fight for their country they should do everything to leave, thats fine. Im too much of a pussy to fight for my country. However, not helping those that are willing to die to preserve their country is wrong.
That's not it at all. The whole point of a humanitarian intervention is to prevent both sides in a war from killing each other's civilians. How many wars has American taken sides in *not* ended in attempted ethnic or sectarian cleansing by the winners? Are there any?
@Idiosarchy So, I bet you anything, they want this war to stop asap, sure; but guess what? They dont want to be under a Russian government. The same Russian machine that has imprisoned THOUSANDS of protestors for calling for a stop to the war. Getting your worldview informed by one single person (in this case, Hasan) really does rot the mind. The logic behind these kinds of arguments are baby-brained at best
Opposing US imperialism is a good thing, but not if you do it by running directly into the arms of another imperialist nation. It'd be like Star Wars fans rooting for the Empire because they opposed Princess Leia's monarchy by blowing up Alderaan.
Pointing out that the far-right are going to gain power from this conflict is not anti-Ukranian, we should never minimise the horrors of fascists and their stated goals. Russia's invasion is disgusting, but that doesn't mean that nationalism isn't still a very real threat for the future of Europe.
@@AC-fg4kg Nobody's trying to minimize fascism, just criticizing those who use the threat of fascism as a lever to spin a narrative that an invasion is justified. Calling out boogeyman tactics doesn't mean there isn't a threat, just that someone is using that threat to manipulate.
@@AC-fg4kg Currently the biggest threat of fascism is coming from Russia; Funding, training, and giving legitimacy to Fascist paramilitaries around the world, Direct ties to various allies and supporters of Putin and his government, justifying the invasion based on "blood and soil", etc. Concern about far right forces gaining power is correct, but also be heavily concerned about where they already have the power to get paid to commit warcrimes across Central African and the middle East.
@@soviut303 I didnt see Gravel saying the invasion was justified though? I'm honestly a bit baffled by this video because, while there were many lazy explanations in the Gravel video, none of them indicated support for the invasion. Rather, it read very clearly to me that these guys were explaining how, in the aftermath of a power struggle for Ukraine, there are well-funded, organized, armed fascist groups that could hold significant sway in Ukrainian politics. Without Gravel indicating "invasion justified Russia good", many of Adam's points kinda become... completely moot. I think a much more accurate, honest analysis of the Gravel Institute's original video is that lazy explanations about the history of fascist elements across Europe, paired with their typical PragerU-style appeals to emotion, turn genuinely decent analysis into another Leftist propaganda piece to "own the libs"
Now, I haven`t watched most the video yet, but branding yourself as "Prager U but on the left" is pretty funny considering I`m probably gonna watch a video on how that`s literally the case.
Some people subscribed to the Gravel Institute, including myself, have even called them out on them not calling out Russian imperialism. They responded, saying they'd make a video covering the topic, but it seemed a bit insincere as if they would've released that video any day now.
To be fair I believe it takes them a while to make each video, so they could still be working on it and their sussy Ukraine video coming out when it did was probably bad timing (doesn't excuse the misinformation in the video though, and they should probably have chosen to at least delay uploading it or even cancel it altogether)
@@robertwinslade3104 when you have a follow up video about the same subject, you usually send it as the next video, you don’t wait a month (as of right now, they probably will not post it today or tomorrow anyway), even if “but it takes time”, it didn’t take them time to say shit on a protest and a national hero.
I self-identify as being on the left, and boy am I dissatisfied with this video by the Gravel Institute, even if I'm supportive of effort to counteract PragerU's propaganda. We deserve better than this. I get that America's foreign policy can be criticised, yet, turning to Russia for this sole reason seems the wrong attitude to get. As J.J. McCullough said in his two-part video about the opposition between the totalitarian Chinese government and the no less totalitarian Falun Gong cult, "the enemy of your enemy cannot always be your friend".
Consider that Dennis Prager himself came out very early and said that he disavowed Putin's invasion, that Putin's claims about Ukraine were wrong, and that it didn't matter to him that many of his opponents on the left were also opposing the invasion. Perhaps you should reconsider him as your "default enemy".
@@WaspCameraInSpringfield Broken clocks and all that. Prager is still a lying bastard who pushes a fundamentally flawed version of the world onto people looking for confirmation bias. The guy never said anything about a "default enemy," so that's just a strawman, though it is accurate that Prager is an enemy.
@@WaspCameraInSpringfield PragerU still has some terrible takes and a lot of weird apologia for stuff like the Confederacy and British Imperialism. They’re never going to be our political allies. But credit where credit’s due for a sane take.
@@zandaroos553 PragerU pretty explicitly affirmed that the Civil War was fought over slavery and that the Confederates were the bad guys. In which video did they defend the CSA?
14:16 "Maidan" means "square", the location is actually called "Maidan Nezalezhnosti" = "Indepenence Square". I see the Gravel people are just as skilled at languages as they are at questioning Russian propaganda...
Ukrainians also colloquially use Maidan as "protest". As in, "we'll go on a maidan against Zelensky if he doesn't get his shit together". Kinda makes more sense, doesn't it? :) P.S. He got his shit together
When I first heard about how the Gravel Institute wanted to be the left-wing PragerU, I hoped that meant they would copy the "effective political advocacy" part, not the "fill the videos with lies" part.
@@gmodrules123456789 What's frustrating is that they claim to want to push non-leftists (so presumably, centrists or right-wingers) to the left, but all of their videos seem designed to preach to the choir lately. It's degenerated into a tankie cesspool.
@@gmodrules123456789 You mean the DSA who claimed the 2014 revolution was all orchestrated by the CIA (because only America has agency)? The DSA that responded to the invasion by calling for the US to withdraw from NATO? I rest my case.
@@gmodrules123456789 So the Ukrainians didn't take to the streets on their own in 2014? They had to be encouraged by the CIA? Woke American exceptionalism strikes again.
Well it would be nice to have a well scripted and resourced channel with a leftist bent making small concise and focused videos that are more digestible than the hour long, overly dramatic, and low content density stuff most video essayist do. Tho yeah gravel institute has lost my respect for shit like this.
The description of the channel itself strongly implies that they're not trying to combat lies with truth, but that they're trying to fight right-wing lies with left-wing lies.
They started out with honest intentions about attacking the right wing media cults and then after the founder died it just took a hard left turn into becoming prager u just for tankies.
One massive problem with a lot of these videos is some topics CAN'T be neatly summed up in five minutes. Hell, some of them can't be summed up by a year of reseach, and even once you have a grasp on it there's a massive gray area.
Eh, I dunno. Defending Neo nazis? Yeah, thats gonna take some time. Pointing at neo nazis and saying "this is concerning"? You can do that in about 30 seconds.
@@Imbalanxd Problem there is there are neonazis everywhere, so just using their presence in a country to prove your agenda is kinda moot. This also serves as a reminder that to help reduce the number of worldwide neonazis, if you see one, punch one.
@@Imbalanxd I see the russian invasion as a bigger issue, we can deal with neo nazis after the war, right now however they are invaluable troops since no one else is coming to save ukraine from imperial far right russia
This just in: The Gravel Institute has now made the video private and therefore unavailable to the public; they have effectively deleted it. I wouldn't be surprised if that decision was directly caused by your video and similar videos from others. I think that counts as a win! My question is does this improve their credibility in your mind? Like it seems like they have realized their mistake. It would be nice to see a video that admits this, but at least they have taken down their Russian propaganda. I'd be curious to hear thoughts :) Edit: the video is now back up. It was definitely down for a bit there but they've put it back up again.
Just verified and yeah they took it down. Like if they don’t come up with a video trying to correct their mistake, then I’d take this move as trying to hide the evidence. And to remind people, their video was still up DURING the invasion of Ukraine. The best they did was change the title of the video and description. That’s it. It didn’t occur to them to actually apologize on Twitter or anything of how badly they fu*ked up.
The fact that they made that video at all is a bad sign. I'll consider them guilty due to that evidence, unless they can prove their innocence by uploading a video correcting themselves, thoroughly. You don't just use that many disingenuous claims and little lies by mistake, it was all deliberate. And even if they were doing that to just do a "US bad" video, they not only still used lies and disingenuous tactics, but also used Ukraine as a pawn in the America-smearing game, while Ukraine was in the middle of a pre-invasion crisis.
Being Ukrainian I can't thank you enough for this video. I've been lurking in comments to some vids, trying to convince people that their idea of Ukraine is wrong, but I just feel like I'm hitting the stone wall all the time. Hope that people who need to watch it, will watch it
I would gladly fight for Ukraine, were I younger but I won't stay after the war is over to participate in its political system Ukraine has some SERIOUS issues that you will need to solve and I will agree that your nation doesn't need to be wiped of the map But it also doesn't need to be both martyred or demonized Ukraine, just like any other nation in the world is not a saint, it's impossible to ever have a nation be a saint not even Canada And it's stupid how people justify a small Nachizs presence is enough to glorify a God damn invasion!
@@rejvaik00, you're the kind of person who'd see a bloody, battered woman and think, Well, she probably wasn't the greatest person, blah, blah, blah. I mean, no shit, genius -- no country is angelic. But right now Ukrainians are suffering hideous war crimes. You must be in a very comfortable place right now, rej.
@@Johnny.Fedora I literally just said I support Ukraine in its efforts to defend itself regardless of what shade is thrown it's way And would even join them in their right to defense were I 30 years younger and still had my right hand So I don't know what you mean. I know Ukraine is suffering war crimes and I hope it stops, there is *_nothing_* that can be said to justify this invasion by Russia And I denounce the fools who claim there is, I don't know how I can make it any clearer So I don't know what you are trying to say, Ukraine has a right to exist and I will support that but at the same time it has serious political problems that I wouldn't want to a part of solving once the war ended
@@rejvaik00 I think there are a few things that could justify this invasion from Ukraine, with justification beginning with failed diplomacy from the West in the 90's
I'm support Ukraine fight for freedom but after I watch Donbass - 2016. Documentary Anne-Laure Bonnel. I'm feel very confused sad and shock is this true just like bucha hit me it feel horrible
Love to see consistency in your videos, calling out all types of lying and disinformation, not just one side of the political spectrum. Too many people are focused on "the other side" and what they spread ideology and narrative wise. What people need to be calling out is all the bullshit, not just one side's bullshit. We won't get anywhere if we don't help clean up both sides of the street.
Exactly I'm not sure why there's still Communists/Socialists that support Russia because that means the Soviet Union is coming back. Yet they're just supporting an Eastern version of capitalist imperialism. Not to say that Ukraine doesn't have a NAZI movement in it. But so does Russia there's NAZIs on both sides if you look at it. I've been confused how Stalin/The Soviet Union signed a non aggression pact with Germany in the 1930s. And it's been loosely states that the Soviet Union would have joined the Germans in WWII (an idea not sure how close that came to really happening). Seeing today how Russia's invasion of Ukraine has united both the Stalinist Communists and Alt. right Now Nazis here in the US. It makes perfect sense now. By no means is Ukraine a perfect democracy and I don't like their censorship or Russian culture suppression. I'm still opposed to the US being this indirectly involved in the war. All this will mean is the US has more imperialism in Eastern Europe and all those billions of dollars we spent there. We're probably going to be getting that money back by managing a lot of their resources especially natural gas. This is kind of a crappy situation we're all in. None of us like war but democracies are starting to become an endangered species around the world. We need to support all of our democracies we have left. Hopefully without military intervention.
@daniiel mlinarics one of the problems with the left is leftist infighting, and fake leftists are making it worse, i had to side with the capitalists in an argument against some crazy communist spitting lies and not giving any evidence since he does not speak english and probably used google translate, which leads to misunderstandings, and since leftists dont have the same idea of what they want, some want capitalism other socialist, and different ideas of how to implement them and how would they work
They're both anti-liberal, unlike you. There's nothing weird about it. Liberal democracy is a sham and its based on imperialism. The "western world" is destroying the planet with its pig-like greed and has murdered hundreds of millions and enslaved entire races. Its decline is a good thing. Installah it will nothing but dust soon.
@@thewalrus45 They're just honest, whereas liberal democracies add layers of obfuscation between the ruling class and the subjects to give the illusion of choice & freedom. This is to trick whitey so they can pretend they're the good guys while their economic system is a literal nightmare killing millions and set to destroy the planet.
@brandovlogs you can find a lot of footage of fascists (or generally far righters) fighting with Russian troops against Ukraine, especially right after 2014
I do find it odd how people who ride the Putin train when it comes to Ukraine emphasize Ukraine's internal problems, as if that justifies Russia's actions in any way? Like, Poland was a right-wing military dictatorship with a huge antisemitism problem when Germany and the USSR invaded in 1939. Poland's internal issues don't justify imperial powers carving up its territory and stomping on its sovereignty.
I see also a lot of people that put everyone that is advocating for deescalation down as being pro Putin, but that is not always the case. Ukraines internal issues are also important in regards to how the west should deal with this war. How do we prevent what happened in Afghanistan to happen again in Ukraine? How can we ensure that we're not helping the equivalent of the Taliban to gain power in Ukraine? The easiest way would have been if russia didn't invade, but we have no control over what russia does, so it makes sense to focus on the actions of the west. For what it's worth I don't think we should go for a purely diplomatic response to an aggressive war, also because the Ukrainians seem to truely want to fight. Still, I think it's unfortunate that any other position is being labeled as pro Putin and we cannot have a constructive discussion about this. All this "you're with us or against us" rhetoric really rubs me the wrong way.
It's the world order that the west has constructed. Regime change is justifiable if the west doesn't like it. See Latin America, Iraq, Libya, etc. The Russians have started doing it now
@@Kaepsele337 Putin can nuke the world whenever he wants .Yes. I am not an expert so I don't understand how doing less and lengthening this conflict works as de-escalation. Is this "saving of the 99 by the sacrifice of one" going to backfire? If it does backfire n they take Ukraine,will de-escalation stop an advance on other non NATO state? Edit: This is why I disagree on the de-escalation stance. Diplomacy only works when the enemy has alot to losing. Putin has nothing to lose. According to the Banzai charge he's taking, only a lot to gain in capturing Ukraine.
This reminds me about something I found really weird with one of the few Gravel videos I've watched: the rather weird comparisons; comparing life expectancy in the US with one or two countries, then switching to completely different countries when comparing another metric, and switching countries *again* when looking at a third metric. This was all very confusing, since I (obviously) don't have the various metrics of all the nations in the world in my head at all times.
@@mohq9573 That is a whole lot of loaded words and feelings, eerily reminiscent of the misinformation spread by the Kremlin mentioned in this specific video.
@@mohq9573 you're doing a great job making criticisms of his content - even the possibly sound ones - look invalid by default just by association with such a nakedly bad-faith non-sequitur.
@@mohq9573 "used to be a neo-nazi" So he changed for the better, that's good ^^ "still thinks it's important to say the n-word" Okay, I never heard him say that. I don't think it's right, but a lot of countries don't have the same taboo with the n-word than the US, in France we changed the title of "Ten little n-words" from Agatha Christie in 2020, and the right-wing made a backlash about it ^^' "he also supports NATO" That's not even a bad thing XD I don't like US imperialism, but if I lived in an eastern Europe country like Poland or Hungary, I would support NATO too, that's the best deterrent of russian imperialism ^^ And where does Adam S lives? Oh right, Hungary :p
I'm glad someone on the left is talking about this, I only unfollowed them on twitter when the invasion started and I realized the extend of their unethical rhetoric.
Yeah. Ukraine is justified ethically than Russia is. In any angle. Gravel Institute is a cognitively dissonant pseudo-left tankie organization. Damn near Bonapartist, if not outright. They're idiots.
I never found them entertaining or effective in their rhetoric. Seemed a little half assed. Their mission was mostly already done for them by everyone else on the left, they aren't doing anything unique and content creators on the left gain much of their legitimacy through their personalities, creating an unperson-able youtube channel does not help people trust you cause they can't hold you personally accountable for mistakes in videos.
Nah man, NATO imperialism is objectively the greater evil, that's the issue here. What's happening is white leftists are going mask off and showing how attached they are to their white identities and western imperialism. They know their cushy first world lifestyles depend on western imperialism so they'll never ever fight it seriously. POC leftists are sickened by all of you and now there's a very real split happening along racial lines in the west. Seriously it's not a coincidence that pro-Ukraine is 99% white.
I’ve been a subscriber of theirs and this was the first time I critically evaluated their videos, and it truly was eye-opening. Even being a leftist, this reminded me to use critical thinking above emotion for all media and information. Thank you!
Yeah, that's what I was thinking...are we looking at the same graph?? I'm guessing they recorded that line before seeing the graph they were going to insert as visuals...? IDK, I don't know how anyone can say it hasn't gotten better in Ukraine, without actively not looking at the progress and development - like all the roads they fixed...which is going to need to be redone after the Russians stop destroying them, but they'll bounce back. Hopefully pretty quickly, with help from the West/other countries.
it's funny because in other poor third world countries they would say they didn't get better due to "Evil america" but when it comes to ukraine, russia annexing ukraine's territories, funding separatists and stealing parts of the black sea for themselves have nothing to do with ukraine's ability to improve their living conditions.
Western leftists often say not to speak over leftists in the third world, but it’s so painfully obvious Gravel didn’t consult a single Ukrainian, much less a Ukrainian leftist, in making this video
GDP just measures the amount of trade in a country. It is not an indication of the well being or improvement of the material conditions of the population.
I can't understate how helpful this video is to me. I grew up in a fundamentalist conservative culture which has deeply instilled in me a host of cognitive biases which, as you mentioned regarding Prager U, bypass my critical thinking skills. To see how the Gravel Institute is exploiting these same weaknesses is sickening, and I appreciate a good nuanced take on Russia, Ukraine, extremism, etc.
The fault I keep seeing in peoples' reasoning is that they use a talking point that equates moral judgment with a nuanced look at what has happened up until this point, and what's coming next. Putin is a fascist, and that is that, it's that easy. But there's certainly complexity in the dynamics between politicians, Europe, Russia, and more, and I highly encourage a nuanced look at the complexity of the situation (like how this is in effect an extension of Euromaidan and so on), but invariably it's painfully blatant that Putin is either Putler or Nicholas III of the Russian not-Empire where the second February Revolution is soon to follow.
I guess the tricky part is to tell apart those who want helpful debates versus those who just want to instil hate and anger, regardless of where they are on the spectrum.
@@ng.tr.s.p.1254 Yeah bro, MLK and Malcolm X achieved so much by debating. Debating solves everything. No need to have emotions & passions. Just listen to the white boy debatelords with no stake in anything except preserving first world lifestyles, they definitely have insightful perspectives. Ignore the POC, they're a bunch of tankies who think America bad.
It's really incredible the Gravel Institute decided that fighting monsters by becoming the monsters themselves as an incredible idea. I am sorta disappointed because their video on the Irish Famine seemed alright.
2 more things easy to verify: 1. Bandera "collaborated" with Nazi Germany not much longer than USSR. * USSR switched sides only in April 1941. * Bandera's OUN declared independence of Ukraine in June 1941. * Bandera was arrested by German Nazi soon and was in concentration camp until 1944. * He rejected to collaborate without independence guarantee for Ukraine. 2. Eastern Ukraine voted for Yanukovich, but not for Russia. * Yanukovich promised integration with EU as a primary goal for the country. * Maidan revolution in 2014 started when Yanukovich broke that promise. * The revolution turned to violence after an order to beat up and arrest protesters and adoption of laws that limit human rights and violate Ukrainian constitution.
The crimes especially of the pro-Ukrainian protestors in 2014 were hardly persecuted, which several human rights orgs pointed out. Don't misunderstand me, I am all against the nazi narrative and hope that this unjustyfiable war ends asap with Ukraine sovereign. Just adding that some issues or groups must not be forgotten after the war is over.
I would like to learn more about the crimes you are talking about. The only known source of such information to me is russian lies. In October 2014 Ukrainian nationalists got 1 seat in parliament out of 450 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Ukrainian_parliamentary_election. They didn't have any power to escape justice.
The 2016 Polish War film "Hatred (Wolyn)" which depicts the horrifying and brutal genocide of Polish civilians by Urk nationalists in the 1939 Ukraine is still banned in Ukraine showing how cowardly and hypocritical the Urks are when it comes to "Freedom of Speech" and confronting their own disgustingly whitewashed history. Ukraine is not a victim nation, it has its own atrocities.
Could everyone please stop calling it a "Maidan Square" or "Maiden Square". It's called "Independence Square", which in Ukrainian is "Maidan Nezalezhnosti" (Майдан Незалежності). Where the word "maidan" (майдан) means a square. During the revolution the square was often referred to as "the square" - "maidan". But "Maidan Square" means "Square Square" only in two languages.
I'm just glad someone talks about the parallels with the occupation of Sudeten Land because it scares me how similar these events are and it shows what would have happened if Ukraine didn't resist.
9:10 The drop in GDP per capita is extremely speculative. In the USSR it was artificially high because of heavy industries located in Ukraine serving the whole USSR. But the real quality of life of Ukrainians was a fraction of what we had after Ukraine gained independence, even during the war. In the last years of the USSR there was not enough food in Kyiv. But yeah, high GDP. Outrageous.
You can look at other factors if you think the GDP was too inflated to really be authoritative. For example, food security collapsed in the first years of the post-Soviet era, because instead of long lines for basic food items, you had thousands of impoverished people not even lining up in the first place when subsidies for food stopped. Things like life expectancy, maternal mortality rates and other healthcare indicators are usually pretty good objective parameters to indirectly assess economic wellbeing of the majority population.
@@olenickel6013 immediate post Soviet life must have been hard. As much as I detest the Soviet Union, they at least had the bare minimum. All that just disappearing overnight must have been a real shock. But as we’ve seen, it improved over the years as they got back on their feet and started to thrive, free from the minuscule rations and poverty standards of living.
It’s genuinely disappointing that Gravel Institute is just becoming the tankie equivalent of Prager U. In this instance, they think they’re informing people and criticizing imperialism but in reality they’re spreading the exact same misinformation and propaganda of a far-right autocratic country, justifying that country’s blatant imperialism, and then blaming the victims of the invasion that is now killing them and destroying their homes. They do respectable and informative videos but this is just beyond hypocritical and is active harmful by spreading false information and supporting a dictators literal conquest of a neighboring country for daring to exist independently.
@@matteoreyes405 Nah, what's happening is a real divide between imbeciles who think NATO is a lesser evil and all the other intelligent people. White leftists are going mask off and showing how attached they are to their white identities and western imperialism. They know their cushy first world lifestyles depend on western imperialism so they'll never ever fight it seriously. POC leftists are sickened by all of you and now there's a very real split happening along racial lines in the west. Adam's fanboys are all white kids who used to be alt-right so just know the company you keep with this guy.
Holy shit, now I know where the arguments that Ukraine was nazist came from, literally every argument against Ukraine I've seen so far is copied word-for-word from this Gravel Institute video.
No it is not , i havent even seen that video and i can tell you the same thing . if you think that this is some kind of propaganda do the research yourself , try being objective instead of emotional and you will see , that AZOV is a neo-nazi party that has Factories making weapons and Shipyards and are in all pores of society in UA . If you need i will source every claim .
@@Pascal257 hey, I've seen people call RT an unbiased source of information before the invasion. So it's not hard to see how many people would fall into the tankie Prager U rabbit hole. People are really unskilled at detecting biases.
Being an American and seeing how readily people in my country lionize figures like Christopher Columbus, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Robert E. Lee, it's easy to understand how Ukraine could do the same for a controversial figure from their history. Most of the time, the majority of people like to deny or downplay the horrible things these people did so as to sanitize their image and promote their more "heroic" aspects. What most people do *not* do is to place a spotlight on the slaveholding or the genocides and say "Yes, this is why we should admire these people." I'm not defending the practice. I think having a clear and honest view of history is the best way to keep it from being repeated (he says as his country pushes towards another genocide) but I think it requires either a shocking lack of critical thinking or a fact-free agenda to acknowledge the fact that most Americans who admire controversial historical figures do so despite their negative aspects while at the same time claiming that many/most Ukrainians admire Bandera *because* of his.
25:25 The law which they are talking about came into force in 2021. How the hell did they put it next to 2014 events? By the way, it doesn't forbid usage of any language, it just makes Ukrainian kinda a 'language by default'. If you think that the idea that Ukranian-speaking Ukrainian should be able to recieve services or buy goods in Ukraine in their native language is somehow 'nazi'... I don't even know what to say. Also I want to add that noone checks or controll how you talk to your customers. This law can be enforced only if customer makes a complaint. There were very few of them. And as far as I know, noone was fined for it. So... yeah, horrible nazi regime.
That's a good point about making Ukranian the default language is a really reasonable action, that's being taken out of context/made sound worse than it is. I think the same is true of Ukranian nationalism in general; there's definitely extremists taking it too far, but Ukraine's totally entitled to its sovereignity and the defense of it, when videos like the one Adam's talking about seem to be trying to imply most or all nationalist sentiment in Ukraine is the ultra-nationalist far-right kind.
If that is "Nazi", Quebec must be the Handmaid's Tale as Quebec has far stricter laws enforcing French's prominence in businesses (going as far as forcing businesses to invent new "French" terms for foreign loan words even when they don't come from English such as "Pasta".
Gravel Institute was always sketch, because leftist don't need propagandist, but actual speakers about issues. Shaun warned us when Twitch "left" was becoming a thing and he's now proven right.
No, we need everyone we can get at this point. The right and the liberals are trying to snuff us out at every possible opportunity, employing the use of their own propagandists to great affect. One of the biggest issues with the left is that we always try to take the high road out of moral superiority, but the problem is that our enemies do not and are completely willing to play dirty. So what if Gravel produces a singular bad video or if Second Thought simplifies things a bit? They're still doing mostly good work and do not deserve to be completely outcast just because a few small mistakes. There are some exceptions to this - Hasan feels like he's just milking leftists for his own selfish gain at this point - but we cannot afford to be too picky with our allies out of moral puritanism, because if we do then the Nazis win, plain and simple.
@@maximilianomadrigal6661 Lmao a tankie claiming moral superiority and linking Bad Empanada on an unrelated comment. We’re not the ones enabling an unhinged nuclear-armed fascist dictator here.
The problem that a lot of the online left has with short-form, or easy-to-digest content, is straight-up classism. If you're working a physically demanding manual job, or having to work two jobs to pay the bills, or bring up kids as a single parent, you're not going to watch a three-hour video dissertation where an art-school kid deconstructs Harry Potter (with costumes), because you don't have the time or energy. Having grown up in such circumstances, I long considered that the reason the bourgeois left didn't frame their arguments in terms that were easily accessible to the likes of my parents and grandparents, was because they failed to grasp the reality of life when you're shit-poor. I eventually came to the conclusion that nobody can be that bad on purpose, and that it was a passive instrument to keep "those people" away from their preppy little circle-jerk. My position has now long been that, if you're not attempting to gain mass outreach, you're not on the left, and are more than likely an affluent coloniser of a space intended for workers' self-liberation. And, no, this applies to the Marxist/ML "read theory" types also.
Nah man, NATO imperialism is objectively the greater evil, that's the issue here. What's happening is white leftists are going mask off and showing how attached they are to their white identities and western imperialism. They know their cushy first world lifestyles depend on western imperialism so they'll never ever fight it seriously. POC leftists are sickened by all of you and now there's a very real split happening along racial lines in the west. Seriously it's not a coincidence that pro-Ukraine is 99% white.
I too thought 'Hm, a leftwing PragerU? This could be interesting. First video I saw was a video about The Falklands War, presented by an Argentinian guy. But I quickly realised the channel is aimed solely at American leftists who want to feel bad about themselves ('I'm not like other seppos' syndrome) as the guy explained how _everything_ was the fault of the dastardly Americans. The Fascist Junta, Argentine nationalism, Thatcher, the invasion, etc... all Americans. Apparently Argentina has no agency of its own and everything went to Reagan's plan. So yeah. Just a lefty-USians masturbatory aid.
they were actually a very good channel up until their founder, Mike Gravel died, and it was only recently, within the last 3 - 5 months did they become what you discribed in your comment.
@@WaspCameraInSpringfield mike gravel was a good guy, but theyre using what he created to push a confermation bias to feed into their viewers hate for the US
I’m a relatively left leaning American (a Fabian specifically) but Gravel’s content is genuinely asinine. I like to call it left-exceptionalism, the idea that even if they’re not right-wing these guys have such an America-centric worldview that makes them just as bad as American nationalists
14:42 Fun fact: On the top left photo, the people are Taras Shevchenko and Lesya Ukrainka (kosach). Both were extremely famous writers who fought for the independence of Ukraine from the Russian empire in the 19th century. Both have died at a relatively early age, Taras dying at 47, in st.Petersburg from bad health caused by imprisonment in Siberia for supporting Ukrainian pro-independence groups, while Lesia died at the age of 42 to tuberculosis
I can understand how they believed how Russia wasn’t going to invade Ukraine, I for a while thought it was crazy and stupid and didn’t think I was gonna happen. And I’m gonna admit I did think it was American propaganda and I was wrong clearly, however deleting tweets and changing videos and descriptions isn’t the right way to say “we were wrong” they seem to want to be seen as always 100% correct.
To be true, we still think it was crazy and stupid of Russia (i.e. the Kremlin) to invade Ukraine. Looking back at the events in 2014, it also becomes clearer that Putin just accuses the west of being more successful than him in installing a puppet - like another Belarus. But in fact, the Ukrainians did it and stood up all by themselves. They just needed more help from the outside later on.
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, and Georgia in 2008. Look up videos of Dzhokhar Dudayev speaking how russians WILL invade Ukraine. He was assassinated by russia in 1996. Everyone here KNEW that russians will invade and attack former USSR countries because they did in since 1991, only major stop was after Chechnya because russian army was devastated after two wars, but they never stopped their occupation of Transnistria in Moldova, Karabakh in Azerbaijan, and Abkhazia in Georgia, all invaded in 1991. 30 years of Western denial of russian aggression was painful for all people who suffered it.
For a person who lived through those events in Ukraine, I can't find the words to describe how disingenuous the Gravel Institute video was. I hope your video would help people to see how twisting a thing here and there and omitting some details can twist a story very heavily.
I'm not gonna lie, when Gravel Institute showed up I was actually kind of excited. I was hoping for short, digestible videos that would be good introductions for people interested in leftism. I might be willing to sit down and watch an hour long "this is dumb and bad and here's why" video but I know 95% of people aren't. But this one left a real sour taste in my mouth.
Wow. That's just mind-blowing... As a Ukrainian lefty I'm shocked and baffled by amount of bullshit in GI's video... Thank you for your work! I think after war my Patreon subscription list will increase😉
@@deliveryjoe2538 it seems to be a grassroot movement. I don't know any serious party to represent us... Closest I've found was something like British LibDems... Bet it's telling
I like how they are saying that: "look, Ukraine broke away from USSR and now their GDP is lower, never got as good as they had it!" and conveniently ignore the sharp drop in 2010 and 2014. I wonder what happened back then that lead to our GDP being so low... we will never know...
Gravel Institute talking about "The cultural ties of Ukraine to Russia" is such a joke. It's like talking about the Native Americans' cultural ties to USA. Russia constantly engaged in genocide of Ukrainians and even when it transformed in the USSR it still focused on destroying the Ukrainian tradition, language and culture. I know I'm not throwing around statistics, but this motive is deeply inbeded in Eastern European culture. Ask any 70+ year old Polish person, and they will not speak English, but speak Russian fluently.
@@faunt07 devil in the details: we`re talking bout cultural ties not of historical origin. Sure, historical origin is similar, but cultural ties are now definitely a joke.
@@faunt07 Ukrainians have their own language. It's like saying Spanish and Portuguese are "the same people". It's borderline racist. Just because the Kievan Rus encompassed Russian, Belarus, and Ukraine, doesn't mean that those peoples don't have independent cultures and are not allowed to have sovereignty. Besides, the Rurik dynasty was made up of Scandinavian Conquerors (Vikings) that sailed the rivers in between the Baltic and Black seas. The Kievan Rus aristocracy was not even Slavic. The Slavic tribes just preferred them over Turkish overlords.
@@faunt07 And so are we Latin Europeans! Spoiler warning: we still are distinct cultures with distinct traditions! This is will only stop being so if one of said cultures oppresses and assimilates/genocides the other. That is what Putin wants to do: exterminate Ukranian identity, fully assimilating Ukraine. As well as Belarus, but Belarus is controlled by Putin's lapdog Lukashenko who says he's eager to be Putin's lil general like in the good ol soviet days when he was a colonel of the soviet army or something
@Roniixx more people should say that politics are a spectrum. I really don't like phrases like "florida's trump" or "france's trump" when discussing le pen and Ron Disantis. Its reductive for either side.
Well the problem with it is 'west, especially UK and US bad' Historically, socialists and communists side with fascists on the question of overthrowing liberal democracy. And as Orwell points out, pacifists are pro-fascist
As someone who has recently gone through a tankie phase I appreciate this video. I think the problem is that many people grow up being taught how great the west is and how horrible everywhere else is only to find out that they've been lied to and as a result they end up over correcting by blindly hating everything western and simping for anyone who opposes it.
They are even using Russia's favorite trick: "They are actually shooting/bombing/rocketing themselves to makes us looks bad." when they describe sniper shooting people at maidan
Russia is literally doing this with everything. If they say the others are doing it first, them claiming that it's actually the Russians who do this for real sounds a lot weaker. It's childish playground behaviour, but seems to work just fine with adults too.
@@BlackBoxGamers So Russia should know that doing the same thing is bad and evil. Then why are they also doing it? Because Russia is also bad, evil and apparently more stupid. Stop with the whataboutism.
@@RaveDecoy242 How can you not understand what a 1 to 1 comparison is lmaooo Putin is stealing IDF and America's playbook dude LMAOOOO. America used "They have bio weapons" to get their Shiiii pushed in by dudes in sandals for over 20 years. IDF constantly uses "Humas" as an excuse to shell and torture palestinians. "Whataboutism" Dude you just learned a new word
I’ve only ever watched 1 Gravel institute video - the one about the Irish famine I am Irish and I 100% agreed with what they said, but even then the language used seemed biased, emotional and too similar to PragerU’s to the point where I joked to myself that they were the leftist PragerU So even when they’re right it’s uncomfortable
I think that's one of their goals: to be a left-wing PragerU. Not necessarily a bad thing, but of course, going in that direction will inevitably mean being sensationalist to some degree
Example of misleading statistics: at 8:51, the axis of the graph is misrepresentative since the graduation starts at 8 instead of 0 giving a wrong impression to the data. Be sure to always look at the graduation of the axis, it is very commonly modified to serve that purpose (make small differences look huge, enhance trends, etc.)
It’s genuinely disappointing that Gravel Institute is just becoming the tankie equivalent of Prager U. In this instance, they think they’re informing people and criticizing imperialism but in reality they’re spreading the exact same misinformation and propaganda of a far-right autocratic country, justifying that country’s blatant imperialism, and then blaming the victims of the invasion that is now killing them and destroying their homes. They do respectable and informative videos but this is just beyond hypocritical and is active harmful by spreading false information and supporting a dictators literal conquest of a neighboring country for daring to exist independently.
@@paulbaker9879 I mean this video was absolutely terrible but whatever your opinion most of their videos and the people behind it are definitely left wing.
I honestly think bitesized leftist content doesn't work. Being left is being nuanced. Even with the gravel videos I agree with, the way they say things without backing anything up just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
That’s kind of the problem. You can deliver right wing talking points in bite sized pieces, but you need way more context for the Leftist perspective. They have an advantage because they don’t need to change minds, just simply reinforce their viewers biases. That’s kind of what’s going on here. It’s all emotionally driven and viewers are lied to by omission. I really wish Western Leftists were highly critical of everything, not just America.
It's not even that if I'm being honest. All Gravel could really do to _actually_ contextualize this war is quickly talk about the Russian right-wing that has permeated throughout the country since the dissolution (and even then it was a pretty powerful force during "communism"), the discussion of the palingetic nationalism that has characterized this faction in the country, and the broader societal and economic strategies Russia has taken to enforce its hegemony over Ukraine. Throw some points about Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Euromaidan and Ukrainian's wishes, and boom. Now you know the whole reason this war exists. The problem is that GI actually believes Russia's bullshit about this. Taking it hook line and sinker because they heard "Western imperialism" and immediately the leftist brain alarms go off.
Lol this is kind of delusional. Left and right are both perfectly legitimate political positions and either can be right or wrong in different areas at different times under different circumstances The 'well.... MY side is absolutely right' is just childish and actually not at all nuanced. It's delusions of grandeur. If one side was absolutely right and the other absolutely wrong then the debate would've been settle centuries ago lol but no... You're special You're clever Cleverer than most in fact So whatever you believe is clever and nuanced and correct and perfect.
@@tobene What you mentioned parallels my disillusionment on being an educator years ago. It turns out that Brandolini's Law (aka the BS asymmetry principle) doesn't just apply to arguing with people, but with educating the populace in general. One day, I could prepare to educate a class on how vaccines work with cited sources of peer reviewed journals, but someone somewhere else could just pull antivax $#!+ out their @$$ and spread it via social media making it feel like it undoes my work at least a thousand fold.
Regardless of the video is taken down, the damage is already done. Videos like this get 90% of their views in the first month, so it’s unlikely they will change their strategy of misinformation
Also, I'm pretty sure a REALLY important factor gravel institute leave out is that the Azov Battalion has its roots in Kharkiv, a city in eastern Ukraine... I mean if east good and west bad then these guys are the best of the best
@@thatindiandude4602 not only that. The Eastern bloc under communism was vastly more conservative than Western Europe. As Adam said in the video “it’s fascism painted red”. This is why misogyny, xenophobia and ultra-nationalism are more prominent in Eastern Europe - east Germany is a great example. Russians are the most conservative from all Eastern bloc countries - as the titular and imperial power in the region, they spread their vision of a greater world with them on top, all other nations being merely vassals. The win over hitler further fuelled the Soviet feeling of superiority.
@@seriousbees But it's all void in conflict with Russia who worked together with Hitler before and during first years of war. Poland was attacked together by Germany and Russia at the start of WWII. Look up Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact for example. Russia who made Stalin their national hero (who killed milions upon milions) and happily worked with nazis calling on Ukraine for Bandera is really pot calling the kettle black
Man, Adam you are killing it. This particularly bewildering branch of leftists who are incapable of holding two conflicting thoughts for more than second have been somewhat of an enigma to me for a while. Seeing the Gravel Institute actively cater to them is quite sad. I do agree with their general idea, just because overcomplexity has been an enemy of popularising leftist thought for ages. However, I do not understand why this always has to be coupled with America bad. In the long run, it is doing popular leftists and the breadtubers a disservice, IMHO.
As a leftist, I think it amazing that some leftist have defend despite being a authoritarian capitalist regime with a lot of human rights(especially lgbtq+ rights) because “American and west Europe bad”. American imperialism is bad but so stuff like Russia and China imperialism
The Russia invasion really exposed a lot of leftists by revealing their entire ideology as "America bad". Apparently calling out Russian imperialism means you support US imperialism... even though you can condemn both without trying to say "Yeah Russia might be bad, but the US is worse!"
@@christophergreen6595 America is bad but it doesn't mean other countries with access to the same resources couldn't be worse. You can't search for a government that will be "the good guys", they all do nasty shit to some extent because of the way international politics in this global capitalist order work. Which is why "socialism in one country" is a silly idea. Even if the country were to be socialist, it'd still be acting in a capitalist international order and engage with the rest of the world through the destructive framework of competition that is the direct cause of all those atrocities.
What's wrong with calling the US bad? They've literally been the biggest enemy of almost every popular radical left movement internationally for over a century.
I remember when the Gravel Institute first launched, I was excited of the prospect of having a sort of "leftist Prager U" that could use short and concise videos to make left wing ideas more approachable for a moderate audience. However, it would appear that this is not what has occurred unfortunately. Any moderate would be very quickly turned away by the blatant "anti-Western" rhetoric that most of their videos use, meaning the only people who watch their videos are people who already hold those beliefs. Personally, I feel that the Institute is only doing more harm than good for the leftist movement, and it's a shame really.
It is really frightening when the Leftist ideal of "American could be better" mutates into "American is the villain". I've seen groups that I like and support, push pro CCP propaganda simply because it supports the west is a bad narrative.
Honestly, comming from a former communist country (well, socialist really, at least in the second half of it's existence under the USSR umbrella) this does not surprise me.
What's happening is white leftists are going mask off and showing how attached they are to their white identities and western imperialism. They know their cushy first world lifestyles depend on western imperialism so they'll never ever fight it seriously. POC leftists are sickened by all of you and now there's a very real split happening along racial lines in the west. Adam's fanboys are all white kids who used to be alt-right.
22:21 "President Yanukovych has been voted out by parliament forced to leave Kyiv" He left Kyiv during the night of 21 February 2014. Assisted by Russian Spetsnaz (from Putin's interview for BBC/ Wikipedia) Parliament voted on NEXT day, 22 February - he left the country and create a political crisis (there are no vice president of Ukraine or president's deputy) Even Gravel's videos are against their story.
It's legitimately disturbing how a ton of commentators in both right, left, and moderate spheres turned on a dime when the invasion happened. Goes to show how fragile most people's political ideologies really are
You think this is a bad thing or a good thing? Like yea people don’t have principles but I kinda see it as “well people who hold fringe views can be scarred back into reason”
@@The_Faceless_No_Name_Stranger I hope your perspective is more true, and the world sees Russia as a Right-Wing state rather than an actual Communist Society.
Yeah people who are usually against war are putting Ukrainian flags in their bio and calling for arming nazis with more rocket launchers. It's pretty crazy.
Tankies like to talk about how rough post-soviet life was for breakaway republics, as though the USSR didn't brutally subjugate those nations then spend decades plundering and despoiling them. If you ever want to make a tankie mad, tell them how unfair it was for Russia to put Chernobyl in Ukraine then deliberately ass around with it until it exploded; they hate that.
14:44 - this is not a Bandera portret! This is young Tarash Shevchenko - the greatest Ukranian poet, and right of it a portret of Lesya Ukrainka - one of Ukrainian literature's foremost writers.
Yes, many residents of eastern Ukraine were angry at the post-revolution Ukrainian government. But that doesn't mean they support an armed rebellion! In most countries there are many people angry at their current government.
People from both sides of political spectrum don't like our current Polish goverment but, if you ask them about collaborating with Russian goverment to gain independence, it won't end up good for you Even those who are euroskeptic prefer the Union over Russia It's as if this world we live in wasn't black and white. What a shocker
of course now that Russia has spent a month doing their best to kill all eastern Ukrainians, they've found that their own government is a lot more congenial to their needs and wants.
Yeah and many residents of western ukraine were angry at the Yanukovych government for staying neutral, but that doesn't mean they support a violent coup! In most countries there are many people angry at their current government.
Something I noticed you didn't mention: the way they discuss the right sector's involvement in Euromaidan and suggest that they both hijacked it and were a small group also fits perfectly with the fascist "the enemy is both strong and weak" approach.
@@danielshepard1449 Again - literally the same hysteria about Antifa we see from right wingers over and over and over. This wasn't a right wing coup backed by the US. I'm sorry you Americans can't cope with the fact that you're not the center of the world anymore.
@@DaL33T5 "antifa" isn't an argument, they aren't being given unlimited rifles and rocket launchers and receiving US military training. They don't have a membership structure with thousands of members incorporated into the national guard with a civilian outreach program. They haven't been credibly accused of war crimes. And they aren't nazis. Is that enough differences for you?
It is funny how they treat Shevchenko as Bandera and red-black flag like bandera flag, as you can find red-black flag (alongside with blue-yellow) on a painting "Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks" by Ilya Repin dated by 1880- 1891. As a Ukrainian I can say that there was no sentiment to Bandera or any other far-right personas before 2014, once Ukrainians decide to protest against usurpation of power in the country and choose to follow the European path. But what I can say with confidence, that preparation of split between east and west Ukraine was long ago before 2014, in east pro-Russian parties where spreading message that anyone who's not supporting pro-Russians are Nazis, in 2004 whole Yanukovych vs Yushchenko campaign was built on it, anyone who's supported pro-European candidate was called nazis, there were billboards of Yushchenko with mustache and swastika in Donetsk. In opposite western regions was spreading message about eastern marginals that support soviet union times and speak language of occupier. Not even mentioning that ground for Crimea annexation was preparing long ago before so called referendum, by russian propaganda, entertainment industry and FSB agents inside Ukraine. But after 2014 Ukraine as a nation decided to find its own heroes in history and make them symbols of our resistance, yep Bandera might be not the best of people being but he fought red nazis for freedom of Ukraine as we are nowadays. In 2014 nationalism was the only choice as only people who are ready to die for their country can protect their country interests. It is funny tho how in Russia being nationalist is totally okaish, they support marches with Russian Empire flags and slogans like "Russia for Russians", "Moscow for Muscovites" so as and so on, but once these ideas are highlighted in any post-soviet county it will be treated as nazism.
i got a really bad feeling watching that video. considering i loved their channel and got excited for a new video, >and< i didnt know much about ukraines history, it honestly felt like it justified russias invasion and it took me a good few days to really figure my shit out. it was suuuuper weird to believe something and realize the whole world was telling you something else, from every political position. so.. yea i dont trust them anymore edit: holy shit that was a lot of replies. i do wanna add that i enjoyed how much they shed a light onto the us's dirt its just frustrating (mainly as a latinamerican) to see that the people calling all that out to a bigger audience are, at best, terribly misguided and horrible in research and at worst, a beacon for tankie shit? good god
Yeah, same here, I actually wasn’t able to watch the whole video Vaush posted (yet I really like his videos), because the whole framing was disingenuous : a protest with few Nazis isn’t a Nazi protest, a national hero siding a part of his life doesn’t mean he’s a Nazi , he even spent some of his time in a concentration camp, Ukraine isn’t “the east vs the west”.
@@TurtleChad1 uh dude buddy are you ok you sound kinda deranged? I have never heard this and it would suck if it was true… whats happening? Do you have a source. Sorry.
India has historic ties to the UK, look they speak English, it obviously means they are rigthful subjects of Britain and has nothing to do with our years and years of colonial subjugation 🤓 Putin logic☝️🤦♂️
And Moskwa historically belongs to Poland lol I live in a city that has been under control of 5 different countries. Anyone who knows European history knows how braindead this kind of reasoning is. Borders moved like crazy in the past
