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Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Add to the above list if you can, thank you.


Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins


Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.

Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)

Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources.

On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.


Yesterday's discussion post.


  • Kieselguhr [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Ugh it's always disheartening to see based people having bad takes.

    An old Marxist teacher of mine said this the other day:

    Whatever you say about US aggression, this [Ukraine] war goes beyond everything. This goes beyond Vietnam. Sometimes pure evil manifests in history and there's nothing else to say about it, there is nothing to argue about.

    Did you just say it goes beyond Vietnam? You are literally one of the smartest most knowledgeable people I've ever met, but this is just nonsensical propaganda.

    cf.:

    "In 1995 Vietnam released its official estimate of the number of people killed during the Vietnam War: as many as 2,000,000 civilians on both sides and some 1,100,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters."

    "Over 7.5 million tons of bombs were dropped by the US and its allied nations during the Vietnam War."

    War is fucking horrible, but how the hell can you say that 3 months of war in Ukraine goes beyond Vietnam?

    :jokah:

    • HauntedBySpectacle [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      That kind of perceptive disconnect with this war really makes me feel like I'm going insane sometimes. There is no relationship between the actual, measured level of death/destruction and people's perception of it. There is no level of hyperbole that is unacceptable. The fucking President called it a genocide and the worst in Europe since WW2 (everyone forgot :yugoslavia: ???) and no one batted an eye. I don't understand what liberals see when they see this war, when they speak about it it's like fan fiction, just a completely different reality from mine. They actually see a couple thousand deaths versus millions and say the former is worse, and manage to say it as if you were the crazy one. And you don't need to go back as far as Vietnam, the Afghanistan war literally ended last year and yet bringing it up is like ancient history somehow. I hate to use the term outside the abuse context, but it really feels like constant gaslighting. An uninterrupted stream of unreality from people in my own life right up through the highest levels of power, influence, and visibility. If I couldn't look at the numbers myself and confirm that I'm not nuts, I don't know how I'd feel.

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        The elephant in the room is Yemen, with approximately 400,000 deaths and counting, and no talk of sanctioning Saudi or the US.

        • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          The genocide in Yemen will be the model for neoliberal response to climate change going forward.

          Far from sanctions, they're using this as the model

        • HauntedBySpectacle [he/him, comrade/them]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          No talk of sanctioning the Saudi Arabia or the US is a generous assessment of the discourse. I don't think most people know that there is anything going on there, if they even know of the place at all; they sure as hell don't know we're currently helping invade, blockade, and starve a whole country.

          Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen... there really are quite a lot of elephants.

      • star_wraith [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I don’t understand what liberals see when they see this war

        They think white, "civilized" people shouldn't be fighting like this. Neoliberalism (they think) brings peace and stability to the world. White folks fighting challenges this notion that the white people who have accepted neoliberalism aren't actually better than anyone else.

      • Kieselguhr [none/use name]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Yes! This is exactly why I commented here. I am grateful for this place. Whenever I wander into liberal spaces I feel like they are from a parallel universe.

        And yet... the factual truth is that 70000 civilians died in the Afghanistan War (at least) , and cca 3000 civilians died in Ukraine. Both figures are from mainstream sources, but suddenly you are a tankie if you'd tried to suggest that there were worse wars in the past 10 years. More than twenty times the civilian casualties. All for a war that haven't achieved any political objectives apart from making the Military-Industrial Complex richer.

        It's their manufactured reality that would shatter if they were actually consistent in calling out war crimes.

    • SoyViking [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Sometimes pure evil manifests in history and there’s nothing else to say about it, there is nothing to argue about.

      How the fuck can you be a fucking Marxist and know about an analytical tool as powerful as historical materialism and then go "I dunno sometimes pure evil just happen for no reason I guess"?

      • Kieselguhr [none/use name]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Exactly what makes me so confused. He usually has much more nuanced takes. I had to read it twice, because this kind of shitlib take is completely out of character.

        He teaches Althusser and Badiou btw

          • Kieselguhr [none/use name]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Nah. Week 2 of the war I decided not to engage in debates about the conflict, especially with people who see this as some kind of Good vs Evil war like we are living in Narnia. Maybe after the war some people will be more willing to take an historical perspective, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

            I am just flabbergasted that even Marxist professors are prone to this.

        • TreadOnMe [none/use name]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Old age and propoganda get even the best of us. Especially if there is no material incentive not to believe it, and every material incentive to.

    • Alaskaball [comrade/them]MA
      ·
      3 years ago

      How disgusting and eurocentric. Racist old fuck deserves having his nose rubbed in a pile of agent-orange covered dogshit for such an opinion.

      • Leper_Messiah [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Also don't forget all of the unexploded ordinance that litters the countries america bombed just for funsies, that still kills dozens of people every year to this day

        In Laos alone the yearly average death toll is around 50 people, usually mostly children and farmers

        • star_wraith [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          50 people now. Total for Laos is 20k dead since the end of the war.

        • Frank [he/him, he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Plus many high-explosives and rocket propellents are toxic all by themselves, or decay in to toxic substances.

    • plov_mix [comrade/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I’m always fascinated by the notion of “pure” evil. What does that “pure” mean? Like what is pure evil uncontaminated by, in contrast to regular evil?

    • justjoshint [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      This goes beyond Vietnam

      i literally cannot stop thinking about this. how can you put so little thought into a statement

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Lot's of people have dogshit takes and blind spots. Kill your heroes.

    • Ursus_Hexagonus [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Made me think of this anecdote about Tony Blair and the Iraq war

      https://youtu.be/25aYrfvOGUs?t=1055