I know a handful of trans people IRL that stan Ukraine very hard. I mentioned that trans people were being held at the border and are being forced on to the front lines instead of being allowed asylum. This just caused these people to double down and say, no no, its Russia's fault! I can't even do a simple 'oh both sides are bad for trans people so you shouldn't get invested' because they think Ukraine is like Sweden and both are European and therefore enlightened on LGBT stuff and anything else is me belittling the situation. And even more obviously, they don't speak any Slavic language and therefore are incapable of talking to first parties about anything happening in Eastern Europe.
Of course, these people only cared about Ukraine recently. I've been in contact with LGBT groups in Eastern Europe helping ferry marginalized people to safer locations through funding, scanning police radios, and miscellaneous illegal activities in association to those governments (did you know it can cost an American 50 bucks to save a lgbt person mentioned on a radio in Chechnya from Kadyrov's goons? true story). Ukraine was no exception. It sucks to be there. Women desperately apply to be 'mail order brides' in order to escape the post soviet dystopia that is Ukraine. Trans people are no exception here, the outlook is grim and people do a lot of very sad things in order to get out of these post-soviet states and for every one person the org I was in helped 100 slipped through the cracks. The population of Ukraine has been posting negative growth numbers since the collapse of the USSR and has lost nearly 10 million inhabitants from either death or immigration, 1/5th of the population. And that is part of the reason why they're in the predicament they're in now- all the people who weren't nationalist left. Only people that are 'Ukraine or die!', or are too poor to leave, are left in the country. But everyone seems to be acting like Ukraine is a veritable utopia in comparison to Putin's Russia.
I had one lady compare it to the holocaust. She said Putin was stealing people's kids or something, which I don't know if that is true or not. But it really stung for me. My family had members in it that were kidnapped by the Nazis and we only learned about survivors of that a couple years ago. Our town was annexed by Nazis. Our family was never listed as victims because there was no paper trail, perhaps on purpose by the Nazis. For a while, we just figured that side of our family died/went missing during the war. But the real situation is that the parents were likely killed by the Nazis and the babies were kidnapped to be Germanized in the Rheinland (which is where we found them after a DNA test, they were put into adoption agencies and raised German instead of Czech [other theory is some decentralized Nazis killed the parents and took the kids to adoption]). And the thing that irks me here is that people are saying these things with supreme authority, that there is no possibility that they are being misled and that what they are saying is 1000% factual. I think this way of thinking is terrifying. Its precisely the sort of thinking that the Nazis themselves preyed on. And the idea to be so gungho and know absolutely what is going on one month from the outset of a war when even my own family didn't understand the full extent to which we were affected by Nazis for nearly 80 years is mindblowing to me.
And i just find it disgusting to compare things to the holocaust. If we have documented evidence of people being used as slaves, their bodies being thrown in mass graves and starved to death, and being murdered for not working hard enough - I am more than glad to compare it to the holocaust. The industrialized nature of the genocide perpetrated in the holocaust was the defining feature of it. Its possible to be terrible and evil and not be comparable to the holocaust.
I'm just tired. Like, I've dedicated quite a lot of my free time to helping people across the globe that I'll never meet in person and I'm just so disheartened when people throw all of my experience with people over there out the window as soon as a headline from Azov Battalion twitter hits their brainwaves.
I don't know. Fuck everyone for listening to the news instead of doing something productive with their day myself included
Social media and in-particular the gameification of it has turned it into a simultaneous consensus-finding and consensus-reinforcing machine.
It is nearly impossible to break people out when this machine is reinforcing itself relentlessly.
This works for socialists too of course, when people are broken out and into socialist spaces the reinforcement changes from liberal to socialist, but it only works if you can get people into several of those spaces in the same way that they are in several liberal spaces. Their existing liberal social media bandwidth needs disrupting by socialist social media bandwidth.
Social media and in-particular the gameification of it has turned it into a simultaneous consensus-finding and consensus-reinforcing machine.
Well said, the speed of consensus building slapped us all in the face that we live in much different circumstances than the last all hands on deck propaganda push
much different circumstances than the last all hands on deck propaganda push
Definitely, I graduated highschool the year we invaded Iraq. Shit was wild and disturbing then, especially immediately post 9/11, I can not express how much more powerful the machine has become in the last 20 years to anyone that didn't experience it then. The reason this is so similar is because the increase in both cases and the deployment of new tools and tactics is similar.
24 hour news channels and the accelerated media cycle that followed didn't exist on September 10th, they were there but they were basically like C-SPAN with commentary.
Now we have the social media sphere and a news cycle that can develop in hours and anyone can go viral and it's just terrifying to behold from the perspective of someone at least some what politically conscious since before then.
I'm around the same age, and yeah, it's whiplash inducing and terrifying to behold. The frenzy seemed to just snap into place instantly, but the reality is they have been preparing for this for years, and it was just a matter of lighting the match.
Coordination of all MSM outlets, blue check twitter, reddit, fact-checker sites, op-eds. With hints toward wholesale censorship and possible criminalizing viewpoints that don't fall in line. The CIA of previous decades would be shitting themselves with joy.
Witnessing all of this, combined with the police state capabilities and violation of civil liberties we saw unleashed during the BLM protests, looming climate change/refugee crisis, and instigation of the west toward China over territories, how can you not believe we are at the threshold of some very bad shit.
Libs will go back to losing their mind over orangeman soon, hand-wringing about Jimbo and his big truck and penchant for getting riled up about the gays, meanwhile embracing the liberal media whipping up anti-China racism to critical levels with no critical thought, ready to unleash and harness the pent up hatred by flooding airwaves at a moments notice.
they think Ukraine is like Sweden and both are European and therefore enlightened on LGBT stuff
Russians are European. Most of the russian population lives west of the urals
Oh yeah for sure but have you considered theyre evil multiethnic Asiatics
I used to be furious and react really emotionally, but over years I calmed down by repeating to myself: We are just watching the normal, everyday pulse of fascist propaganda. The mechanism intensifies it's work during crisis but it's the same old massage, it's random echoes we keep hearing from people in our circles. Nothing extraordinary is happening that hasn't been happening for centuries, and that will stop only after the removal of the overlaying structure, with the US regime atop. Just stay focused, keep on learning/contributing and spreading the message.
I’ve dedicated quite a lot of my free time to helping people across the globe that I’ll never meet in person
I especially applaud to this - just keep doing the god's work. In general we need much more specific action, instead of endless depressed circlejerks about climate change and no way out and yadda.
PS If nothing else, get up folks and go out for your daily walk!
Don't feel too bad about it. Propaganda works, and westerners unfailingly believe media**___**
:cat-trans:
Hang in there comrade, people have fucking lost their minds these days.
I've had a similar frustrating experience with a lot of my trans and gay friends. I think think it's been kind of a slap in the face to be reminded that even though someone is very oppressed it doesn't mean they're going to properly reject the system and ideas of that system.
Yeah... like almost all the trans people in this group are socialist but they still have this take :sadness-abysmal:
For my friends at least, it really does seem like a case of not doing the reading and the work to truely understand the extents and the holistic being of capitalism. Our friends instantly snapping to the capitalist perspective is truely cruel.
They're weird. I think for them its more of a time and distance thing. They have good takes on Syria and Afghanistan, for instance. Or good takes on domestic policies. But I think since Ukraine is so new theyre eating the propaganda hook line and sinker, I just hope they don't dig a hole on this mentally. And they really need to evaluate their framework for thinking about things, because the most important time to have a good opinion is when, you know, the thing is actually happening and you can do something about it in a small way, not a decade later when you're writing an oped about the latest forever war
I'm sick of the (really just an extension of nationalism) knee-jerk Ukraine standing, too. It's real "with us or against us" hours without even knowing jack about the situation or context. I'm sure it's even worse when you clearly know so much about it and have invested in helping people there long before it was the news of the day.
Thank you for doing that work! And I hope your comrades come around, though it might take some time. You mentioned that you know some ways to help trans people escape danger in Eastern Europe - is there anywhere you could point me so I could get started on helping as well? I'm happy to do research myself as well.
So I can't give you super specific details because that might cause problems due to certain legalities but the group I was part of was (very loosely) associated with Rainbow Railroad and trickled more radical people from that org. Rainbow Railroad is a pretty good charity and if you look at their statements none of the leading officers of the organization take a dime from the funding account. If you go down the volunteering rabbit hole you'll run in to the people I worked with eventually. So if you want a quick and easy place to donate to that is legit thats the place you wanna go. The org itself is very lib but the rabbit hole isn't.
The org itself is very lib but the rabbit hole isn’t.
That's how we all have to operate these days (anyone doing Cool Shit (TM) ). Not even encrypted channels are safe so you gotta leave just a vague enough trail of breadcrumbs that you'll only (hopefully) get true comrades. At least it narrows down the vetting process through several filters. Stay safe out there.
Yeah it personally took a huge mental toll on me so its why I say things in the past tense. It felt terrible to hear what was going on and being unable to help in so many instances that it peaked my anxiety to kingdom come. I still go in and help in various ways but I've taken a more hands off approach for my own sanity. There are people that are way more rad and able than I am in the rabbithole and I'm very grateful they exist.
tell me I’m a shitty trans person for not supporting Western imperialism
:yikes:
all the people who weren’t nationalist left
Come on now. Libs keep saying this about Russia and at least it gets pushback on this site.
It's fucking true though for a lot of eastern Europe. Most of the lefties either died out or left by now. Like it's happening to my home town in Czechia it's slowly becoming liberal as the old gen of communists die out or the kids they raised leave for better opportunities than the current capitalist hell scape. Like fuck I'm not even in Czechia right now I'm literally an example
I'm not saying there are NO leftists but the numbers are significantly decreased just look at the demographics of communist stronghold cities. Like at least in Russia there are significant ethnic minority populations that simply had it better under the USSR so they have unwavering support for communism, however in places like Czechia we only have a couple of districts in big cities for communism and big industrial and agricultural towns. Prague in particular has been having districts decrease each year and the map of city councils controlled by communists goes down every election. Some of this is state suppression but to be honest, whenever I'm in Czechia finding other socialists is scant outside of communist meetings. Communist membership rates are going down and it doesnt help that our associated newspapers are publishing more stupid conspiracy shit by the day (one recently published an antivax article)
Yeah it got a lot of hate mail and I asked my rep in the party to demand that all links to that paper be scrubbed from the party website if they dont take that and related articles down. He seemed down for it
I'm not saying there are lot of leftists in Eastern European countries. I'm just pushing against the idea that most people in Ukraine, Russia who disagree with their countries' politics can just get up and leave. Czechia is in EU and has 6x higher GDP per capita than Ukraine. Here in Russia half of my university buddies would jump at an opportunity to move to a more developed/progressive country, but even for clever IT people with good command of English struggle to find a job in America/Europe and get a work visa. For the majority of population even getting a tourist visa is a pipe dream.
Yeah I agree that not most left, but 1/5th of total population either died or left. That's a huge number. And yeah in Czechia its different its very easy to just go across the border and work in Germany and come back to see family on holidays or birthdays or something. Though a lot of those people don't come back and Czechia has been relaxing its citizenship laws in an effort to stem the flow
I know a weirdly high number of left wing Russians leave to China because theres a program in Harbin and some border cities for Russian work visas
I've preemptively brought it up a couple times though, to try to immunize some people from that particular strain of propaganda
You’re are not alone in the anger towards libs. This is the curse of being a leftist where our principals come into conflict with others identity politics.
I can completely sympathize , I'm tired too. It's deeply demoralizing when people you've been able to work with for sometimes years just do a complete heel turn because of what the dominant narrative says.
