• came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    9 months ago

    they are not my friends, but i know some libs that cosplay as leftists and they completely bought into the nato-framing of the russo-ukrainian war from the jump, while they are generally opposed to what is happening in Gaza.... but not enough to voting for Genocide Joe, ofc.

    for russo-ukraine, it was a part of the world they have fuck all analysis about but the news footage really played up how sympathetically white ukranians are. like one admitted that the footage of ukranians being displaced bothered them more, on an emotional level, than the US invading and displacing iraqis. major us-foreign-policy vibes. combine that casual racism with the fact that there was no geographical placeholder information for them about eastern europe. NATO aggression? what's that? total clean slate for the media blitz to fill.

    with Gaza, the extermination and land grab has been a project for a long time. these libs have met muslims since 9/11 and heard voices contradicting state department messaging about the middle east, a place the US has been terrorizing and bombing and invading multiple times in our lifetimes. they have developed their own opinions in that time and there is even acknowledgement of Biden's enthusiastic role in the 2003 invasion of iraq.

    of course, they are libs so A Dang Cheeto In The White House is more of a threat to their comfortable brunching than Genocide Joe exterminating Gazans, so their aversion to genocide isn't that motivating.

    i will never, ever forget something i think Christman said about how genocidal war was not a problem for Europeans/The West until Hitler committed the unpardonable crime of doing it to Europeans. i have never heard a more succinct framing for perennially fickle western outrage about slaughter.