There are a bunch of sicko neoliberals and insufferable redditors there, yes, but there are also some normal libs and a few comrades, and it seems like a good way to encourage lemmy generally to re-embrace leftism.

I've been using an alt to talk on there and it's honestly not that bad. It's a little bad, but not that bad. I think if we just try to patiently explain ourselves, we have a reasonable chance of reaching people and shifting the general political alignment.

Those of us who aren't up to dealing with ghouls (I am frequently included in this group) can just stay at home here and that's just fine.

Anyway, just an idea. I would appreciate feedback.

  • ProletarianDictator [none/use name]
    ·
    3 days ago

    Because they saw UA getting a democratically elected government, whereas in Russia, they have a czar for life.

    Czar literally means king in Russian. You may not think their electoral system is valid or representative of the people, but they objectively do not have a king.

    Also because they hoped to repeat what they were able to achieve in Crimea and in Georgia - chop off as much as they can get away with, and wave around the nuclear cudgel so everybody would be too scared to stand up to the bully.

    Russia is the largest country on the planet and extremely rich in resources, they don't need or want to conquer Ukrainian land. Crimea is desirable to Russia insofar as it makes a NATO naval blockade of Russia's Black Sea access near impossible, which Russia recognized as a viable threat after the Maidan coup.

    Because RU is an empire, and an empire must have colonized peoples to exploit.

    This comment looks ridiculous if you have an understanding of the region prior to 2022. Much of the region was originally Russian prior to the formation of the USSR. Getting included in the Ukrainian SSR wasn't a big deal because they were all apart of the same country, until its dissolution. Now, under the Ukrainian government, a culturally Russian peoples have had their language removed from all of public life and were on the receiving end of anti-Russian pogroms and terrorism. These people do not see Russia as a colonizing empire, hence the people of Donbas and Lugansk seeking independence from Ukraine.

    Why is everybody here in Hexbear so opposing the imperialism of the West, and so much supporting the imperialism of the East?

    Critical support. Russia's invasion is a reaction to US imperialism. No one here is cheering on the death and destruction going on in Ukraine. We want this war to be over, but the US doesn't. Our understanding is that the US tries to destabilize their adversaries by instigating war or regime change in regions along their borders, so reactions to that are less important to condemn than the US's hegemonic Imperialism.