I got banned from /c/news by some anonymous coward for reporting a Z weirdo reactionary who was cynically coopting anti-imperialist language. You can find the details in my post history.
The admins here can't tell actual anti-imperialism from right-wing trolls who know just enough leftist rhetoric to get by because they haven't actually read Settlers.
I'm willing to give the Z crowd a little leeway given that the facts are:
Donbas were getting bombed for 8 years.
Ukraine's government banned the left parties and consolidated the media to prevent opposition to the war and anything that might end it.
Terror campaigns across the entire country.
The only way this war ends because of the above is Russia taking the territory that it can hold and then stopping.
US and nato are the cause of it all in the first place, and the real problem.
Like sure, Putin isn't going to lead us to communism, but it's pretty clear this war only ends one way which is how people are falling into the hole and supporting them.
Yeah absolutely, the current Ukrainian gov is a NATO puppet intent on provoking and prolonging this war for as long as possible, I don't dispute that. I'm just saying as leftists we don't need to actually pick sides in a proxy war between two decaying right-wing petrostates
It's tough and I'm not 100% sure how much is actually supporting Russia (other than just to end the war) vs just doing it for propaganda. Sometimes it's hard to tell with people, I've seen some that I know are capable of good analysis take up positions I genuinely know they don't believe and I think they do it as part of deliberately pulling at the contradictions.
Personally I want the war over as soon as possible and can see no other route to that than Russia winning and some realpolitik capitulation by the west. Kissinger's solution.
If it's an inter imperialist proxy war sholdn't people be wishing for the defeat of their own imperial block. So in this case the vast majority of this site being Westerners and even more so an americans or NATO member citizens would along these lines be taking the side of the defeat of NATO, US and Ukraine
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Now you went from "you shouldn't pick sides" to "it's legit to pick a side but criticize it and don't buy into all its bullshit and propaganda". And in my view 98% of the people in this community or in larger leftist spaces that do the former also do the latter and don't operate on delusions of "Putin is gonna bring back the ussr and the Russian army are epic anti imperialist fighters" .In fact the vast majority of the time this accusation is leveled against people is to discredit the very fact that "they have taken a side pragmaticaly"
Either way that group of leftists that support Russia just to support Russia in this community, let alone in the general anglosphere internet, is IMO insignificant. Even more so against the amount of that get falsely accused of doing so just because they have the "take a side" position you said was acceptable and nuanced. So your struggle session initiative here seems to be what's unneeded and to no avail.
Also your second paragraph you edited in is completely off. By this logic as a radical socialist you shouldnt (or it's not needed) have a take or an analysis or "take a side" regarding the vast majority of conflicts and things happening world wide . Let alone for this historically important and singularly dominating thing that has monopolized and polarized political and news discussion for months, that even inside left spaces saw huge shifts and realignments regarding foreign policy views and analysis.
No you should have a take and you should be posting about it in the niche socialist posting forum and if it's picking a side pragmatically then so what? If you don't want this then take down your post rn as well which is basically doing the same thing
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in quite a funny turn of events attempts to sanction russia have not only failed but made it so Saudi Arabia and other countries no longer trust the dollar
and to be clear I don't particularly care about who wins the war but this is bad for the American empire and that is cool and good
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