• Adkml [he/him]
    hexbear
    62
    9 months ago

    “you don’t want to support a bunch of nazis. Go russia.”

    A big part of why I ended up hear in hexbear is because it's one of the only places where everybody doesn't lie about your beliefs to just off handedly dismiss your concerns.

    It's really interesting how everybody actually in this sub talks about how it's bad Russia invaded and they're deffinitly aggressors and denounce them, we just think nazis are bad.

    At a certain point after seeing dozens of people say "you said nazis are bad therefore you support russia" you kind of stop giving a shit what the people actively lying abaout you are saying.

    We're sating we don't support a bunchbof nazis.

    Dumbshit libs then have to insist that it's because we're just a bunch of Russian nationalists, because otherwise they might have to wrestle with the thought that they're frothing mad at people for saying nazis are bad.

    • ProxyTheAwesome [comrade/them]
      hexbear
      36
      edit-2
      9 months ago

      A big part of why I ended up hear in hexbear is because it's one of the only places where everybody doesn't lie about your beliefs to just off handedly dismiss your concerns.

      Ok, then I won't lie and will state the truth as bluntly as possible. I personally think the anti-Russia stance of western socialists is chauvinist and incoherent and have argued as much constantly here, with mixed support. As I have explained down below, it's a western socialist's revolutionary defeatist duty to oppose their own empire by being a fifth column and critically supporting its enemies. Lenin was quite clear on this, it does not mean passive fence sitting and both-sidesism. It in fact, is much the opposite. It's active attacks on one's own imperialist government through organized activity to interfere with NATO war funds, NATO war supplies, NATO war support, etc.

      It's an incoherent position to say "I oppose my nation's imperialism but I also oppose the enemies of my nation". You don't get to say both. We can argue if the invasion in February 2022 was a strategic error or not, but that doesn't really matter because we are not Russian war strategizers. We are western socialists. Do you understand your place and role? It's to weaken your empire, and if you can work with its enemies to do so you should.

      It's really interesting how everybody actually in this sub talks about how it's bad Russia invaded and they're deffinitly aggressors and denounce them, we just think nazis are bad.

      Z. Russia is defending itself and I support their invasion. I think Nazis are bad and need violent action taken against them when they build up concentrated military power. I'm glad someone is finally doing it, despite Putin being a liberal cuck who waited 8 years too long to do it - strung along by EU perfidy.

      • FactuallyUnscrupulou [he/him]
        hexbear
        16
        9 months ago

        I've definitely come around from 'war is bad, no one should be at war' to 'the elimination of reactionary forces, specifically those who adorn nazi regalia, is paramount to the continuation of humanity'. Is Russia perfect, no; is Russia killing Nazis at a faster rate than the rest of the world, absolutely yes. Do I want every Nazi in the world dead yesterday, yes; who is going to deliver that goal, Russia; who isn't going to deliver that goal, US and NATO.

        • tickthetunic [none/use name]
          hexbear
          7
          9 months ago

          I understand where you are coming from but I have a hard time squaring the circle of "US involvement in the middle east only caused further explosion of extremism" and then acting as if Russia invading Ukraine won't have the same effect with what they claim to be fighting.

          • FactuallyUnscrupulou [he/him]
            hexbear
            16
            9 months ago

            The US involvement in the Middle East has led to an increase in extremism. The US military withdrew from Afghanistan and Western media along with the useful idiots were upset we weren't continuing the war, those same folks are now thrilled we are supplying Ukraine. The extremism is coming from inside the house.

            • Vncredleader [he/him]
              hexbear
              8
              9 months ago

              This and extremism in the Middle East (whatever we wanna define that as) is less immediate or tangibly a threat to Americans as fascism in Ukraine is to Russians. That and the US refused to engage with the governments of these countries and instead blocked diplomacy, whereas Russia did attempt the legal path repeatedly but Minsk kept being violated

            • tickthetunic [none/use name]
              hexbear
              6
              9 months ago

              Again I see what you are saying, I just don't agree that what Russia is doing actually delivers the goal you are after, based on our own continual examples that it doesn't work that way.

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
      hexbear
      25
      edit-2
      9 months ago

      I do think it's bad Russia invaded but also both parties are the aggressor here. NATO has been gearing up for this kind of conflict since at least the early 90s. The coup in 2014 was like the dress rehearsal for right now.

      Russia invading was honestly a strategic mistake and it's a tragedy this came to open warfare, but it's not like Russia invaded for no reason, or only to secure power for its own sake. The separatists have been fighting in the region for a while.

      While the start of the war might have been different, at this point though NATO is the primary aggressor. They refuse any calls for ceasefire from the Russian side, they continue flooding Ukraine with guns, they keep up the message they'll keep fighting until even Crimea is Ukraine again. Just these impossible lofty goals designed to keep the war churning. NATO loves this war. They've cemented Ukraine as a permanent ally against Russia and they have cause to stir up another permanent war. More quagmires.

    • @TheFriar@lemm.ee
      hexbear
      4
      edit-2
      9 months ago

      But this is kind of my point. The viewpoint depicted in this meme and the bunches of others like it I’ve seen lately is just propaganda going the other way.

      It’s a complete oversimplification—and this is EXACTLY what everyone is saying liberals are guilty of. And while it’s true of liberals because it’s a simple narrative that is easy to paint sides into (and American politics is nothing if not ideas painted two colors for ease of identity), it’s also very true of what’s happening here.

      People who paint themselves as communist are saying “Ukraine = Nazis,” and just because Russia has a communist history, see “Russia=communist.”

      It’s the same sickness that’s completely rotten in the US: a massive oversimplification for ease of allegiance to your stated party/ideals. This one is just painted communist and therefore is getting praised around here.

      • CyborgMarx [any, any]
        hexbear
        54
        9 months ago

        People who paint themselves as communist are saying “Ukraine = Nazis,” and just because Russia has a communist history, see “Russia=communist.”

        This is a straight-up inversion of reality, literally nobody on Hexbear believes Russia is a communist country, do you seriously think we are unaware of the collapse of the Soviet Union or the fact Putin was one of the butchers of Russian communism? Ironically, it's liberals who seem unaware of the soviet collapse and still thirty years later try to present Russians as being "ethnically-communist" or have you completely missed liberal rhetoric over the last year?

        Also “Ukraine = Nazis" isn't an oversimplification, it's an accurate description of current Ukrainian political economy, as this latest Waffen SS episode has so blatantly demonstrated

          • @redtea@lemmygrad.ml
            hexbear
            31
            9 months ago

            from every reputable source I can find, Ukraine’s nazi/far-right/white supremacist problem isn’t any more problematic than any other country in the world.

            In that case you're not reading reputable sources.

            The (Neo-)Nazis in Ukraine fuelled a civil war that killed, injured, and displaced thousands for the better part of a decade. (14,000 deaths, 30,000+ injured, and over a million displaced.)

            For you to profess that you know what you're talking about and conclude that Nazis in Ukraine are no worse than Nazis/the alt-right in any other country suggests at least four possibilities:

            1. You don't know what you're talking about,
            2. You know what you're talking about and callously don't care about the misery,
            3. You know what you're talking about and are downplaying the problem because you agree with the Nazis, or
            4. You recognise that every NATO member state is also run by (neo-)Nazis (and Nazi-adjacents) and have decided that Ukraine is no worse than the US, France, Germany, Britain, Canada, Australia, etc, notwithstanding the civil war, because those other countries do the same thing as Ukrainian Nazis but outside their borders.

            I'll leave it for you to decide which one it is.

          • UlyssesT [he/him]
            hexbear
            24
            9 months ago

            But pledging allegiance to a different superpower

            No one here was doing that you. Ignorant. FUCK.

          • duderium [he/him]
            hexbear
            15
            9 months ago

            “There’s Nazis all over the place so what are we supposed to do?” And yet for some odd reason Nazis have a habit of not existing in communist countries. It’s almost as though nazism can be eliminated entirely by getting rid of the capitalist economic system that generates them!

      • RollaD20 [comrade/them, any]
        hexbear
        49
        edit-2
        9 months ago

        People are calling Ukraine a nazi state because it is full of nazi apologists, is full of nazi symbolism, their national heroes are nazis, their military is full of nazis, they parade genocidal SS members in foreign governments, and so on. Plenty of people here speak on the tragedy that Ukrainians are experiencing but that doesn't mean you ignore the nazis, who at a minimum served as the tail 'wagging the dog' of the Ukrainian state escalating violence in the conflict with the DPR and LPR, cascading into the war.

        No one is saying Russia = communist. By that logic, Ukrainian history also would imply it as being communist, they have just as much a right to that legacy as Russia. Talking for myself, I am mostly horrified at the complete acceptance and triumphalism that nazis have received in the west in the past couple of years. I imagine most users of this site feel the same way. I repeatedly talk with people IRL about this conflict that goes into history and context for why Russia is not insane nor evil for this war, despite it still being a tragedy, and I get a lot of people who call me a putinbot, tankie, or some equivalent thought terminating cliche.

        I think a lot of people have chosen a side because we have not been meaningfully allowed a voice to advocate for peaceful diplomatic measures. Calls for peace and diplomacy are met with accusations of russian propaganda. Nazi membership is merely russian propaganda now. So, for many, these are the sides and you have to choose one or the other and some US leftists are choosing revolutionary defeatism, sometimes it has a more vulgar pro-russia/anti-nazi stance but it's wayy better than the vulgar pro-nazi stance lmao.

        • MoreAmphibians [none/use name]
          hexbear
          25
          9 months ago

          they parade genocidal SS members in foreign governments, and so on.

          The Waffen-SS guy is a Ukrainian-Canadian. He was ratlined to Canada after WW2 (along with a lot of other Ukrainian Nazis). There are a huge number of monuments to Nazi collaborators in Canada. Modern Ukraine's only involvement with this specific Nazi is Zelensky applauding for him and Canada bringing him on to honor Ukraine.

          By that logic, Ukrainian history also would imply it as being communist, they have just as much a right to that legacy as Russia.

          Thanks for saying this. WW2 Ukraine did more to fight Fascism than any nation other than Russia. Ukrainians who fought against Fascism outnumber the Nazi collaborators by over 10 to 1. Ukraine did more to defeat the Nazis than all the western allies combined. It's shameful how modern Ukraine and the entire west idolize the collaborators and spit in the face of those who fought against the Nazis.

          • @TheFriar@lemm.ee
            hexbear
            5
            edit-2
            9 months ago

            Not to mention, the far right nazi affiliated parties have never gotten more than 3% of the vote.

            Neo nazis and white supremacists and far right people are everywhere. To paint this entire conflict as “denazification” is literally just gobbling up party propaganda for the sake of making life more cut-and-dry for these peoples chosen political beliefs…which is exactly what they’re saying liberals are doing. Which—to be entirely fair—is true of liberals. But it’s also entirely true of these communists. Stupid team sports politics is stupid team sports politics.

            • @TraumaDumpling
              hexbear
              10
              9 months ago

              if nazis are no problem in ukraine, how did they continure the civil war after the peace agreements? why did they ban all opposition parties? why make speaking russian illegal? why does every fucking photo of the AFU have a Nazi symbol in it? if nazis only have 3% of the vote, how do they have 15% of the seats in parliament? please do some basic research, i found all of this with a google search, its not even hidden very well.

              https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/e/7/233896.pdf

              https://press.un.org/en/2022/ga12483.doc.htm

              https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc14823.doc.htm

              https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/ukraine-has-nazi-problem-vladimir-putin-s-denazification-claim-war-ncna1290946

              https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Countries/UA/Ukraine_14th_HRMMU_Report.pdf

              https://www.state.gov/reports/2018-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/ukraine/

              https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/02/the-historian-whitewashing-ukraines-past-volodymyr-viatrovych/

              https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/white-supremacists-other-extremists-respond-russian-invasion-ukraine

              https://thehill.com/opinion/international/359609-the-reality-of-neo-nazis-in-the-ukraine-is-far-from-kremlin-propaganda/

              https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraine-s-got-a-real-problem-with-far-right-violence-and-no-rt-didn-t-write-this-headline/

              https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/azov-battalion

              https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2015-000653_EN.html

              https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cohen-ukraine-commentary/commentary-ukraines-neo-nazi-problem-idUSKBN1GV2TY

              and for the record, if there was someone invading america to kill our nazis, i would support them also.

            • ZapataCadabra [he/him]
              hexbear
              4
              9 months ago

              If Nazis hold top positions in the military and local governments and the national government continues to support and empower them, does it really matter if Nazi parties don't win elections? They get what they want anyways.

      • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]
        hexbear
        41
        9 months ago

        People who paint themselves as communist are saying “Ukraine = Nazis,” and just because Russia has a communist history, see “Russia=communist.”

        Ukrainian fascists control the Ukrainian government while Russian communists are just controlled opposition with no real power in Russia.

        • duderium [he/him]
          hexbear
          10
          9 months ago

          Just want to say that although the KPRF is not what it once was (lol), I think it’s better than controlled opposition. The fact that the western press never mentions it and that the vast majority of Americans are unaware of its existence entirely is proof enough for me that imperialists don’t trust it and that it is actually a threat to them.

      • ProxyTheAwesome [comrade/them]
        hexbear
        39
        edit-2
        9 months ago

        But this is kind of my point. The viewpoint depicted in this meme and the bunches of others like it I’ve seen lately is just propaganda going the other way.

        Propaganda that praising and clapping for literal Nazi jew killers is bad actually? Why is that propaganda and not just simple, blunt truth that Canada self-owned with? Russia didn't make Canada clap for the jew killer and thank him for his service, they did that all on their own because it's who they are.

        It’s a complete oversimplification—and this is EXACTLY what everyone is saying liberals are guilty of. And while it’s true of liberals because it’s a simple narrative that is easy to paint sides into (and American politics is nothing if not ideas painted two colors for ease of identity), it’s also very true of what’s happening here.

        What's a complete oversimplification? Be explicit, what is being oversimplified? That Canada is filled with tens of thousands of Ukrainian Nazis that they purposefully accepted into their country to break the pro-labor Ukrainian diaspora that existed there pre-WW2? The decades of historical revisionism and nazi apologetics becoming mainstream that allow for this to happen? This was all consciously pushed by your leaders, who are nazi sympathetic. If anything, the oversimplification is that this makes like a little whoopsie by 1 Canadian MP instead of part of a decades long Nazi project by Canadian elites specifically, and western elites more broadly.

        NATO was staffed top to bottom with Nazis. Operation Aerodynamic began funding and spreading nazi ideology in Ukraine before the bodies were even cleaned up from Nazi genocide. The west installed fascists and Nazis into power in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Ukraine, Indonesia, West Germany and dozens of other places. This is who they are.

    • ZapataCadabra [he/him]
      hexbear
      1
      9 months ago

      I am torn, I go back and forth. The main polity I blame is the US for just endless reasons, but mainly the maidan coup. That I'm consistent on. I go back and forth on if Russia's invasion is justified. My gut instinct, like you, is to say that war is bad so Russia, while reacting to real hostilities from the greater west, should not have resorted to invasion.

      The powerful posters at Hexbear keep reminding me that Russia did hold off for 8 years. Ukraine and NATO lied about Minsk. And when you think about the people of Donbas, it makes Russia feel more justified. Ukraine has been bombing it's own cities for nearly a decade. Do those people deserve to suffer? Obviously this war is terrible for the average Ukrainian, but so it is for the Russian speaking Ukrainians.