Then why are you talking about it in the same terms as naive nationalists who don't know materialism? It's some really sus shit to proclaim to know all this but then make zero effort to differentiate your rhetoric from the "inherently authoritarian ruzzian orcs" crowd, continuing to frame it as though people who happen to be born in a certain socially constructed polity are somehow inherently a problem, while arguing pretty unmaterialistically that Russians (not the Russian Federation, just Russians gestures vaguely) started the conflict in Ukraine rather than joining a conflict that had been ongoing for nearly a decade. I'm not saying you're not a materialist, but I am saying i detect latent nationalist brainworms.
Do you get as pedantic if I were to say “the Americans benefited from chattel slavery”
Not the person you replied to, but I’d like to jump in on that question. Yes, we should be; do you think Black Americans benefited in any way from slavery?
You didn’t say “America” though, you said “the Americans”:
Do you get as pedantic if I were to say "the Americans benefited from chattel slavery"
Versus
Saying that black Americans did not benefit from slavery, doesn't mean that America itself didn't benefit from slavery.
You had to change your language from the American people to the American state in order to be able to claim that people are putting words in your mouth because they’re not doing that and you conflate people and states all over this thread.
The thing people are trying to get you to not do is conflate people and states because that kind of rhetoric is inherently nationalistic and invites belief in a unified immutable polity where none exists.
The given context is you flattening 200 years and three Russian states into wanting a warm water port.
It’s not unreasonable for a person reading your responses to see that particular form of national essentialism and then you referring to all Russians as wanting that thing and recognizing at the very least someone with extreme nationalism brain.
It’s okay to be wrong here. If you’re okay with it you can move on to something else after learning some shit. If you’re not okay with it you’ll end up dying mad and no one wants that.
I’m not talking about the veracity of your original claim, whatever that is.
The thing you’re wrong about is that it’s obvious what you’re talking about when you aren’t careful with your nationalist language and present the modern history of Russia in the Black Sea as a book entitled “the quest for a warm water port”.
If it was there wouldn’t be a bunch of people giving your posts the hairy eyeball in written form.
If it was obvious you’d have a bunch of people apologizing for doubting you instead of thoroughly questioning you to figure out what the heck you mean.
And if that questioning was gonna turn up a hapless lib who stumbled into right wing language without knowing, you’d be recognizing it instead of digging your heels in!
Nations are not communities and never have been. The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex.
— Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States (1980)
When you frame your arguments in this nationalist way, you’re concealing these conflicts of interest. It would be clearer if you frame it in a way that specifies exactly who you mean.
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Then why are you talking about it in the same terms as naive nationalists who don't know materialism? It's some really sus shit to proclaim to know all this but then make zero effort to differentiate your rhetoric from the "inherently authoritarian ruzzian orcs" crowd, continuing to frame it as though people who happen to be born in a certain socially constructed polity are somehow inherently a problem, while arguing pretty unmaterialistically that Russians (not the Russian Federation, just Russians gestures vaguely) started the conflict in Ukraine rather than joining a conflict that had been ongoing for nearly a decade. I'm not saying you're not a materialist, but I am saying i detect latent nationalist brainworms.
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Not the person you replied to, but I’d like to jump in on that question. Yes, we should be; do you think Black Americans benefited in any way from slavery?
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You didn’t say “America” though, you said “the Americans”:
Versus
You had to change your language from the American people to the American state in order to be able to claim that people are putting words in your mouth because they’re not doing that and you conflate people and states all over this thread.
The thing people are trying to get you to not do is conflate people and states because that kind of rhetoric is inherently nationalistic and invites belief in a unified immutable polity where none exists.
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The given context is you flattening 200 years and three Russian states into wanting a warm water port.
It’s not unreasonable for a person reading your responses to see that particular form of national essentialism and then you referring to all Russians as wanting that thing and recognizing at the very least someone with extreme nationalism brain.
It’s okay to be wrong here. If you’re okay with it you can move on to something else after learning some shit. If you’re not okay with it you’ll end up dying mad and no one wants that.
Removed by mod
I’m not talking about the veracity of your original claim, whatever that is.
The thing you’re wrong about is that it’s obvious what you’re talking about when you aren’t careful with your nationalist language and present the modern history of Russia in the Black Sea as a book entitled “the quest for a warm water port”.
If it was there wouldn’t be a bunch of people giving your posts the hairy eyeball in written form.
If it was obvious you’d have a bunch of people apologizing for doubting you instead of thoroughly questioning you to figure out what the heck you mean.
And if that questioning was gonna turn up a hapless lib who stumbled into right wing language without knowing, you’d be recognizing it instead of digging your heels in!
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My point is perhaps best expressed as follows:
— Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States (1980)
When you frame your arguments in this nationalist way, you’re concealing these conflicts of interest. It would be clearer if you frame it in a way that specifies exactly who you mean.
Removed by mod