https://knockout.chat/thread/43486/36#post-1628560
"This thread isn't propagandist enough, I don't want my beautiful fantasy world being disturbed."
For context: Knockout is a relatively niche forum that was created by users of the more well-known Facepunch forums when the latter closed down in 2019.
Since the war in Ukraine started, they have regularly been having struggle sessions about the contradictions of being a progressive, pro-trans forum, yet also being fanatically pro-NATO and pro-Ukraine. Most of the time they uncritically believe any propaganda the West, Kyiv, or even British tabloids put out, and they will react extremely hostile to anything that dares break the narrative, as seen here.
Edit: Crap, I screwed up the thumbnail somehow.
I don't appreciate how some people here are totally playing into the Russian's plans by mindlessly sharing topics that only help Russia and only hurt Ukraine. Merely having those topics exist at all in the infosphere takes attention away from the fact that Russia is 100% wrong about everything in this war and Ukraine is 100% in the right.
JUST THINKING ABOUT BLADDERMIR POOPIN WILL CAUSE THE PSYCHOSPHERE TO FAVOR HIS SIDE!!!
DONT THINK IT
DONT SAY IT
DONT THINK IT
DONT SAY IT
DONT THINK IT
DONT SAY IT
When has supporting far-right paramilitaries because they happened to be fighting Russia at the time ever turned out bad?
This post brought to you by the Teutonic order and all their successor organisations and states.
This post is dedicated to the brave fighters of the Mujahideen.
this post is sponsored by the US and UK corporations and intelligence agencies that sponsored Mussolini and Hitler in their rise to power and used their labor camps to produce their goods and then nothing bad ever happened
Imma be honest, I know jack shit about Mussolini except his status as an honorary Australian.
You have the willingness/energy to point me in the right direction to learn about the inevitably there American involvement?
Prescott Bush had heavy business ties with the Nazis at least
I think Mussolini was backed by British intelligence, but I don't remember where I heard about it
Edit: oh wait it's just on the Wikipedia article:
In 1917 Mussolini got his start in politics with the help of a £100 weekly wage (the equivalent of £7100 as of 2020) from the British security service MI5, to keep anti-war protestors at home and to publish pro-war propaganda. This help was authorized by Sir Samuel Hoare, who was posted in Italy at a time when Britain feared the unreliability of that ally in the war, and the possibility of the anti-war movement causing factory strikes.[66]
Oh yeah, international capital United behind fascism. I am unfortunately ignorant about the whitewashed fascists (Mussolini and Franco). No surprise a Bush was involved. Of course.
Edit response: HAHAHAH of course a fucking factory strike is what pushed them. Ohhhhnooooo a factory might lose productivity, let’s fund the world’s most famously upside down man. Fucking bastards.
Thank you for sharing. My rage feels more pure now.
I love this idea that media consumption = military action, not even as active as giving Goku your energy for a spirit bomb.
They also regularly post braindead takes about China:
https://knockout.chat/thread/43449
If you have to resort to killing people and destroying their mental health to contain a virus that has vaccines and treatments that heavily reduce mortality at this point, it's not worth it.
Typical shitlib assumption at display here that China bad.
Never have I seen any evidence for these claims, it's simply a foregone conclusion, like it is with most Western liberals.
Yeah going to be honest I get the feeling that they (partially or heavily) used Covid as an excuse to increase government power and that they were always going to keep it permanent regardless of how covid actually played out.
"keep it permanent"
lol, lmao
Their "Zero-Covid" policy is just bullshit, how the hell can you fight a war against germs and win? I just checked their vaccination rate and it's NINETY PERCENT. In my opinion, nothing more should be done other than keep encouraging people to take the vaccine. It just looks like a ridiculous display of power and evil.
Ah yes, as we all know, humanity has never successfully eradicated any disease. Trying to save people's lives truly is a ridiculous display of power and evil.
China relaxes covid measures: https://knockout.chat/thread/44446
This was going to happen no matter what. CCP putting their fingers in their ears and claiming locking people in their homes was a necessary measure while these same people see other countries not doing it now was gonna stir the pot. Doesn't help that they didn't push vaccines and they been mostly spared from new variants.
Being spared from new variants is bad apparently. Also, Sinovac exists.
lol, lmao
Lockdowns work to some extent but it's not a long term solution. They had no plan to do anything before reopening, they were just going ham on tracking and lockdowns until a miracle happens. If their policy really was "zero covid" they'd be installing air filters in public spaces, making vaccines mandatory, giving N95s to everyone and making them mandatory inside, making tests easily available and require negative tests to attend events, etc. None of these measures are silver bullets even with perfect implementation, the solution is doing all of those imperfectly, and not a single country is doing anything close that.
Ah yes, they had no plan. Tracking and locking down of course means you are clueless, unlike the very intelligent actions from the likes of Florida and Sweden, which was to do absolutely nothing and let it rip, baby, let it rip.
And of course, a country with cities that have had notorious quantities of smog in the past would never have air filters in public spaces . I mean, just how ridiculous is that? Have you ever seen a Chinese person wearing a mask? Come on now people, the Chinese are so backwards they don't even know what masks are!!
This is your brain on Western propaganda.
China did try to push vaccines, but it's the sinovac ones which time and time again has been proven to be not effective enough
Bullshit that is disproven with just a quick cursory Google search. The WHO recognized it as effective even -- but of course, they believe the WHO is compromised by the evil Chinese and cannot be trusted, unlike the "respected" and "trustworthy" sources like the BBC or Bezo's Washington Post.
The whole forum is full of bad takes like these (and I've wanted to dunk on them for a long time).
They simply cannot fathom that the very same capitalist Western governments, which they acknowledge have been trampling on their rights for decades, and which they acknowledge have left them poor and living paycheck to paycheck, are also lying to them about the West's geopolitical rivals.
It's a great example for how even socially progressive people can be utterly brainwashed by Western propaganda.
They simply cannot fathom that the very same capitalist Western governments, which they acknowledge have been trampling on their rights for decades, and which they acknowledge have left them poor and living paycheck to paycheck, are also lying to them about the West’s geopolitical rivals.
this shit always drives me up the wall. like you understand that the media lies to you! why do you think they would tell the truth about other countries???
Yeah this shit is infuriating. You're so fucking close to getting it aaaaaaaaaaaaah
They're western chauvinists. No matter how dysfunctional their own society gets, they can't imagine that those people could possibly have a better one by any metric.
It's really pernicious too.
All sorts of people have the little "Well it may suck here; but it's better than everywhere else, right?" tucked away somewhere.
Ah yes. I’m sure the Chinese government really loved locking down their cities and grinding everything to a halt because…. Authoritarianism 1984. Those devious Chinese want to enslave everyone but also prevent people from going outside and working
Cornunism once again enslaving people to be lazy and depend on government handouts 😞
Their “Zero-Covid” policy is just bullshit, how the hell can you fight a war against germs and win?
This is really sad, we've done this multiple times in history with varying levels of technology.
Like Polio, or Smallpox.
We need to go back to 1600s, no antibiotics, no vaccines, nothing and die at age of 40.
Absolutely I don't want to imply otherwise, it's just sad to see such defeatism.
My sister in Christ: You are posting this on an ultra-obscure leftist online forum that the general public will never, ever know or give a single solitary fuck about.
Neither Ukraine or Russia will live or die based on literally anything posted there.
This applies to all niche political internet forums, Hexbear included.
I’m not sure why non cishet liberals suddenly defend Ukraine. Like, you have so many other European countries with a decent progressive culture to be chauvinist about. Why pick Ukraine lmao. I’m curious if they would defend Poland as the most progressive country if it was being invaded instead of Ukraine lol
It's utter derangement honestly or just not knowing anything about the world. Usually when I explain the situation in person to other queers they snap out of it
Helps that I can just start speaking a Slavic language to emphasize the point that I know more than them
They made minimalist infographics about it, made carrds with links to donate money for their army to buy guns through, and generally cloaked it in the same aesthetics that you see in movements against conservatives you see on tiktok. I’ve also seen that shit for Xinjiang (I’ve even see one link to a petition for a military intervention into Cuba lmfao)
TLDR it’s the :gusano-perplexed: effect
I wish to push back against the word “pick”. They did not pick anything. They are programmed robots. They are seemingly human, they have as much of a soul as anyone else. They lack free will. They simply do not think or reason. They obey their marching orders sent through media. The only choice they have ever freely made is to willingly live entirely within the simulacrum of reality created by mass media.
This is your brain on liberalism.
I’m not sure why non cishet liberals suddenly defend Ukraine.
That's fairly easy, the media has successfully pinkwashed Ukraine while constantly highlighting Russia's abysmal treatment of LGBT people. That Ukraine does not recognize the gender identity of most trans people and routinely drafts trans women into a military full of fascists, that over 80% of Ukrainians oppose gay marriage and that gay soldiers marry their partners' best friends so their partners at least would get to bury them if they die at the front, that queer people there are forced to fight for a state that shits on them, this is completely lost on most liberals. That Russia has made it illegal to be gay in public or that the province of Chechnia has actively placed honeypot accounts on gay dating sites to hunt down and murder its queer scene, OTOH, is not lost on them, as that gets more media coverage than Azovites assaulting gay bars in Ukraine or Zelensky making transphobic jokes on his tv show. The problem here is that while the pinkwashing of Ukraine is bs, the track record of Russia on LGBT rights is real. So if you want to battle the disinfo, it always comes off to libs as if you're downplaying our persecution in Russia. It's a highly successful propagandistic trap that falsely makes you come off as a reactionary homophobe when you question the state department line.
So while Ukraine and Russia are in reality both horridly queerphobic states gutted by neoliberalism and damaged by 30 years of anti-communist reactionary and religious rollback, and comparing them on LGBT rights is like trying to determine if the Tories or the GOP are more transphobic, while the only LGBT-friendly response to this war is to foster as much revolutionary defeatism as possible and offer asylum for queer people, especially deserters on both sites (which the EU's anti-Russian travel restrictions actively undermine, btw), that reality doesn't reach the average liberal at all.
And when you're queer yourself, this stuff just hits differently. We're constantly faced with the fact that large parts of this world want us dead, if we live in places like the US we're also under a constant threat of reactionary encroachment and stochastic terrorism, even in Europe being trans in public feels as if i got dropped off at the frontlines of the culture war just for the way i was born. And then we get to see how we're openly hunted in some parts of the world and when i'm being honest the way the left deals with queers is often kinda shitty and dismissive, too. Overall i think radical leftists are still my best option politically, but i see how somebody more propagandized than me would come to the false conclusion that western liberalism is the only self-preserving option for a queer person. It's a mistake, but it's one i find very easy to understand.
They're using military alphabet in their username, they are the very definition of "MORE LGBT TROOPS!" judging their image on a purely skin-deep level it just makes me think that they're probably the kind of person that sits in VR all day masturbating and wants to keep up that lifestyle.
The chronic VR wankers are more likely to be Nazis. These are simply liberals, “normal folk” as far as the internet goes, given a forum to express themselves.
The line between the two is almost non-existent.
Geopolitically they both support exactly the same thing but with a different flag stuck on it.
Yes. I agree. Libs are just fascists suffering from a delusion of morality.
They differ on domestic politics. They agree completely on everything outside their own borders, until 10-20 years later when they are finally told by the media that they can now talk about how it was a mistake.
The chronic VR wankers are more likely to be Nazis
Why is that? Never heard of VR being linked to Nazis
Buddy…do you truly believe that VR geeks are not more likely to be fascist?
They're 10x more likely to be furry and/or trans, and furries are way less likely to be fascist.
Basically VR is a privilege filter, its more expensive than most mainstream consoles so if someone is into VR you can rest assured they've spent thousands of dollars on a really fancy treat
They
She uses she/her pronouns. You can clearly see that in OP's pic. You can dunk on her without misgendering her. And yes, using gender neutral pronouns for trans women who expressly use she/her IS misgendering. I find her takes as awful as anybody here, but the way her transness is highlighted in the title when it should be completely irrelevant and the way people here casually dismiss her pronouns is unfortunately very typical for hexbears' treatment of trans people as soon as we aren't your trans comrades, but just normal people with unfortunately average and bad opinions. This isn't the first time it happens, which is why i'm calling this out. I'm also assuming good faith for most of the posters here, but i still need to adress this so my comrades have the opportunity to learn through self crit.
You're ofc free to dunk on us when we make a bad take, but our basic human rights are not conditional on us having flawless opinions on foreign policy, just as Andrew Tate being a garbage human being doesn't make it ok to use the n-word on him. I'm not saying that to draw an equivalency between using they/them pronouns for binary trans women and using the worst racial slurs out there, i'm saying this to highlight that there is a tendency in both liberal and leftist circles to view minorities with awful opinions as "fair game" where people can suddenly drop all pretenses and bring out the bigottry they normally hold back, and that's always a bad look. I'm not above that, either, i've said some things about people like Glen Greenwald in the past that at least bordered on homophobia, so i know how easy it is to fall into this trap and i'm glad i got called out for that by another poster instead of letting it go unchecked. Just as everybody in a structurally racist, sexist and homophobic society has internalized racism, sexism and homophobia, everybody in a structurally trans-exterminatory society has to deal with internalized transphobia (that even includes me as a trans woman, ofc it includes all cis people as well), so we should be aware of that and work on ourselves to improve that.
Sorry for hitting you specifically with an effortpost in the dunk tank, but this stuff really rubs me the wrong way and i need to adress this openly before it starts festering and gnawing at me. I could've directed this at other people using they/them pronouns for her as well, it happens a lot itt, but i didn't want to copypaste this and hit everybody over the head with it, so somebody had to take the heat. Once more, sorry it's you, but i need to vent this.
they’re probably the kind of person that sits in VR all day masturbating
God we need some Cyberpunk Edgerunners emojis
lmao I know exactly what you're talking about, they need giffing on a transparent background
Joined for Gmod help way back in the day. Forums been getting much better over time (under Facepunch it was definitely about a toxic as 4chan). Now it has a huge LGBT population and is much less edgy so it's gotten better, but its filled with socdems who think they've discovered the most pragmatic and progressive left position possible.
It's so frustrating seeing people post articles there about US failures and have everyone talking how awful the country is, that the government constantly lies to its people and hurts them, and that its wars (in the past, totally not now) were for the sake of exploitation and profit. Then as soon as the US says something negative about China it's all calls to war all of a sudden.
holy shit i actually used to post there myself. that forum always gave me annoying lib vibes and at least half of everyone there got into a big struggle session about the r word at one point. the final straw for me was one of the more active posters there getting really angry at me for saying china shouldn't be "punished" for covid so i just deleted my account lol
getting really angry at me for saying china shouldn’t be “punished” for covid
it shouldn't - the USA should be
Is there any reason at all you need to highlight she's trans? Her takes are shit, sure, but do they get worse because she's a trans woman? When it's not relevant that she's trans, why bring it up at all, let alone in the title?
Yeah I'm sorry, I just wanted to highlight the ridiculousness.
I find it extra infuriating when even people of the most vulnerable groups, who would be the first to get murdered by Nazis, are brainwormed to the point they think downplaying Nazis is somehow the correct way to go.
Ah, good old knockout.
Still by far one of the least bad :freeze-gamer: forums out there tbough
She has a bizarre assumption that western military assistance to Ukraine will end the war sooner, when it is clearly prolonging it at this point. Other than the fact that funding a rival power's enemy to prolong a proxy war is a known tactic we've seen the US use multiple times, we also know the west has sabotaged peace talks; Boris Johnson did so openly this year, and Merkel stated that Minsk 2 was purely in bad faith to give Ukraine more time to militarize.
