This rule has held true my entire life so far, and has probably been true since the 1940s.
Although i definitely know people who are pro-Palestine and pro-Ukraine and its like uhmmmm lol
Although i definitely know people who are pro-Palestine and pro-Ukraine
Are they actually pro-Palestine though or does their support stop once Palestine actually does anything?
at least one i know for sure is pro-Palestine in all regards, but he also won't stop libbing out for Ukraine. All he thinks is Russia is oppressing Ukraine and completely ignores everything that led up to it. He said the war in Donbas was a Russian psyop so he ignores it that way. He's also a big fan of the UN and NATO and claims to be an anarchist of some kind. But he's anti capitalist as well. It's really made me lose a lil respect for his inconsistent views. Unfortunately like many people he refuses to budge on those opinions, despite me telling him how they are contradictory.
yea its been a disappointing topic of conversation so i just avoid it now. he stopped sending me BBC articles of "Russia is totally losing and fighting with shovels."
in my example it's more like he wants the revolution but thinks it will immediately become a non-authoritarian utopia and we won't have to oppress anybody. He also wants to eat the rich? it truly is liberal levels of contradictions. Me and him used to just be simple Obama loving libs but he still hasn't shaken all the lib off.
Have you educated him on how counterrevolutions kill even the mildest succdem if they don't defend themselves?
that would require a person who can admit they were wrong, and this is not that person
I would venture to guess that people with these views just don't know anything about history. I'm still very limited on my knowledge, especially when it comes to Ukraine but I know enough about US Imperialism to be sus of any intervention. Like, I know very very little about the history that led up to the war in Ukraine but I never was vehemently for or opposed to defending them simply because I know better than to pick a side without being very informed about what led to it. But I can see why people would have that position, not to say I defend them having that position.
I would venture to guess that people with these views just don't know anything about history.
i wish it was like that. its more like they are just some strict 100% anti authoritarian, but they also want a revolution. it's like the first disagreement ive had with someone that i agree with 95% of the time. it just turns into OH YOU LIKE THE STRONGMAN DONT YOU, so as a result i just avoid my current view on Stalin aka he didnt do as many wrong as the west says he did.
That's hella crazy though!! Because the US IS THE STRONG MAN! Do they not make the connection that since Ukraine is backed so heavily by the biggest imperialist superpower that maaaaybe, they should rethink their position? That fact just refutes their position, even! It's super unfortunate that it seems most people aren't willing to connect the dots in that way. They just look at the immediate situation that is put before them and won't make the effort to look into the nuance.
In some way, I feel lucky that a lot of people I know are either undercover Marxists, or are leftists in spirit but don't feel strongly when it comes to a lot of international politics so I don't have to fight against them with this stuff. Although, I think what inspired me to read theory and move into reading Lenin and then Stalin was that one of my comrades is a Trotskyist lol so I wanna be able to dunk on them with a rich background of knowledge...Or maybe agree with them but at least do it after exhausting a bunch of literature to know that I'm informed on all positions
in his mind the strongman only exists in "authoritarian" states, which he lumps Hitler/Mussolini/Stalin/Kim Jong-Un all into one big group as far as that's concerned. He's part of that group of anarchists that thinks every revolution has just led to authoritarianism and state capitalism. Wants the revolution, but also every previous revolution is bad? im like yea ok, eat up that American propaganda.
oh and my particular example is also a Trotsky fan. so yeaaaaaaaaaa. He gifted me Fascism: What it is and how to fight it he's such a fan.
Oh man I feel like you're talking about my one friend who grew up as a British Trotskyist. We've argued in circles for hours about Ukraine (he also thinks the Donbas civil war was a Russian psyop), with me trying to fully articulate where I'm coming from with regards to the history of the region and my understanding of imperialism, only for this guy to complain that I was gish galloping and "parroting Russian propaganda." Then he came back a few days later and was like, errm, so I looked into it and yeah I guess there's right wingers in Ukraine. But still didn't admit he was wrong on that issue!
He also thinks that Lenin's letters should have made Trotsky the emperor of communism or whatever. I got him to admit that he treats his ideology as basically a religion. Ultimately I realized there's no getting through to someone who's unable or unwilling to admit when they're wrong. Gotta say I can't respect that level of arrogance.
I like him in other contexts so I just avoid any controversial topics now, which includes the entire Russian Revolution and any questions about China's socialism. The upside is now I know more about those topics from looking into things after those arguments!
Sorry for the rant, I've been holding that one in for a while.
i wish it was that simple haha. he's one of my closest friends and i lived with him for years. the only thing he watches on youtube is reaction videos.
If he likes the UN, is he not convinced by the UN report on Donbas? Tbf there is a way of reading that report as an 'it just happened' probably 'because Russia' – an event that simply materialised out of nowhere – it doesn't get into the blame/chronology/historical context very clearly.
they were fake virtue signallers who were using palestine as a rhetorical shield to make them seem "good" and supporting "underdogs" since that's a Liberal virtue. As soon as Palestine does anything though, that fake support evaporates. A lot of it was probably libs trying to own the online tankies by saying "see Ukraine is just like Palestine!"
A Marxist understanding of capitalism leads to anti-imperialism. Anti-imperialism is understood by detractors as a simple rhetorical dressing over simplistic heuristics like “reflexive anti-americanism,” “history repeats itself,” and “the military-industrial complex needs contracts,” but all of these are reductive. Marxists understand that human political leadership in the imperial periphery, whether enlightened or tyrannical, will only be antagonized by empire for one single possible reason: it is getting in the way of market penetration. This is phrased succinctly by Kevin Dooley when criticizing Noam Chomsky’s support for a military alliance between the Kurds and the USA in Syria: “The difference between [Chomsky’s] position and a hard-line anti-imperialist position isn’t tactical. What he’s arguing is simply a violation of anti-imperialist principles based on a fundamentally different understanding of what can drive the empire to act in the world.” [16]
The accusation that anti-imperialists are unconcerned with human rights deserves a sharp rebuke. The USA was born of slavery and genocide, dropped atomic bombs as a matter of political brinkmanship, imported Nazi scientists and installed war criminals like Klaus Barbie and Nobusuke Kishi around the world to defend and advance anti-communist positions [17], and enthusiastically supports gruesome butcherers today. Simply put, Capital has destroyed innumerable countries and murdered hundreds of millions directly and indirectly. It is precisely a concern for the rights of humans that should make one immediately skeptical of any humanitarian posturing by Capital. Anti-imperialism not only means support for the important pro-social projects of states like Cuba, Vietnam, and China; it also means critical support for non-socialist states such as Iran and Russia. Critical support acknowledges that, though instituting various indefensible policies, enemies of empire are not being antagonized because of said policies. The only thing that can drive empire to act in the world is capital accumulation.
from https://redsails.org/why-marxism/
Although i definitely know people who are pro-Palestine and pro-Ukraine and its like uhmmmm lol
I've seen people take this stance and it's baffling b/c of what happened in the DPR/LPR in the last 10 years.
but that was just a RUSSIAN PSYOP so it's not real and therefore libs can ignore it in their tiny minds
Bit idea: Start claiming that Islamic extremism in Palestine is just Israeli propaganda. Then start claiming "so what. Every country has religious extremists".
Its not Isreali propganda, but if I'm remembering right the US and Isreal did covertly support Hamas to supplant the PLO
They’re Russian separatists so it’s ok to bomb them for a decade
Donbass is literally being genocided by the Ukrainians, and has been for the last decade.
It's very simple: once all the politicians and journalists involved in lying us into Iraq has been taken out and shot, then, when the people who shot them ask me to support a side in a foreign conflict, that's when I'll consider it.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
I'd like to say I miss the days of laughing at blathering presidents because it's its own genre of comedy. But it never actually stopped after Bush, so we're not missing out.
Ive been trying to use this point with liberals but they're either to brainwashed into loving the USA and agreeing with all of its foreign policy or they immediately label me a right wing trumpet and completely disregard anything I say on any political topic.
Sometimes, SOMETIMES, they're convinced of the blatant hypocrisy of the US government but then they just get really depressed and end up at the mental hospital.
This new liberal
exists because the Trump segment of the right wing are opposed to the war in Ukraine. They're only opposed to it either because it's Biden's war or because they think Putin killing the gays is a good thing.
Why the fuck are my tax dollars supporting this? Israel just gets to have a war whenever they want and they don't have to ask "how will we pay for it?".
If America has been in a single war where it was force for good I would be shocked.
The obvious answer you'll get is WWII but I'm skeptical. US interests supported Hitler and Mussolini. Before, during, and after the war. It's enlisted troops might have been a force for good. But on the whole, the question of the benevolence of US involvement is—well, I'm unconvinced.
US involved themselves once it became clear the Soviets would win. Why? Because opening a second front enabled them to occupy half of europe and sit around the table in Berlin that determines what happens after the war.
It functions as a deterrent to the Soviets. It is the reason the Soviets stopped at Berlin. Had there been no second front? The Soviets would have occupied it all. All of Europe would be red.
the germans declared war on the US when they thought they were about to beat the soviets? who keeps promulgating this backwards narrative?
how do you explain US aid and cooperation with the Soviets if their real goal was simply undermining them? why did the soviets stress the need for a second front? all of europe would be red, if there was no question of Soviet victory. why give the neofascists a beachhead? why browbeat them about hot long its taking them to make a beachhead?
American lend lease equipment didn't start arriving until the Battle of Moscow had already started and none of it was put into deployment until it was over. The Germans had lost the war at this point.
I did not say the US goal was simply undermining the Soviets. I said that the goal of their decision to put boots on the ground was so that they took territory and would therefore be a presence against the Soviets occupying the whole of europe.
The soviets wanted a second front, it was good for ending the war faster, it was good for reducing the number of lives lost in the war. It was not good for communism, the goal was simply defeating the fascists, communism was secondary at the time, these are lives and the Soviets cared about them.
the allies could not say with any confidence that the nazis were broken by Moscow. some nazis knew but were too delusional or afraid to admit it i imagine. using a hindsight fairly disputed post-op point for when the nazis "lost" to prove lend lease wasn't helpful or intended to help lacks historical perspective. imagine telling a soviet they'd won the war in january 1942. lmao
but you still haven't explained why the US aided the soviets. okay we don't want the Soviets liberating Europe... why'd they give them resources? could they not slow the advance of the Red Menace across the continent by turning off the tap?
at the core of this is a refusal to reconcile capitalist interests possibly overlying an antifascist project. some US firms were invested in nazi germany. they made out with US government reimbursment for damages, and keeping wartime profits. that section of capital did not make it so the US interest in defeating the nazis was not economical. on the contrary, it was a retread of WW1, a defence of investments and loans to France & the UK, a defence of their colonies, and by the end an appropriation of their capital and imperial interests. the Nazis were an obstacle to the majority of US capital expansion prospects. US favor to and shipping of war materiel to the UK prior to Barbarossa conclusively indicate this reality, separate from a enthusiasm members of the US bourgeoisie and government may have possessed for nazi snuffling of communists---the nazis still had to go, as competitiors in the imperial game.
If you were a high ranking SS member you would be real happy for US involvement but I am not sure I trust their opinion.
All the genocide we did with the money we got from selling arms to Europe also is a mark against.
true for literally every American war in history except WW2, which was an exception only because they were forced to be allied with a proletarian state by circumstance. A total one-off exception that proves the rule
Of course the CIA can fuck you over even there by funding both sides so if the Socialists win they can tear them apart from the inside.
That's called confirmation bias. The US has interests like any other country on Earth. Sometimes thats a good thing, other times it's not. Blanket generalizations and simplifications like this, just show you're not even paying attention, you're just looking for whatever confirms your own beliefs already.
Name a time after world war 2 where the US was justified in a military action in another country.
Considering the motives that drove us to finally join WW2, I'm not even 100% comfortable calling the US justified there.
Still better than the goddamn frenchies and anglos, who raised and hand-fed face-eating leopards, needing to have their faces torn off to be convinced
"boy these leopards are mighty mean, we should probably put them down"
Not necessarily. Confirmation bias involves some emotionally charged interpretation of data rather than inductive reasoning. But nothing OP said seems emotionally charged.
https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md
Yeah sure, compiling a list of US atrocities requires one to assume there are enough to compile the list and seek out details on each item. But if you take a look, the far more salient fact IMO is that it is a giant list spanning the history of the US from even before the US was officially a nation. An alien might just induce that the US is actually quite a violent institution, either in isolation, or compared to similar lists for other nations on earth
If you are a communist, I’d say the American project is antithetical to your beliefs lol
The US is not "just like any other country on Earth". They are the global hegemonic empire with 700 bases worldwide that have engaged in 50+ coups and dozens of invasions, killing tens of millions of people. Not one other nation is "just like this"
"If I'm the Imam of Mecca, and American imperialism is fighting the devil, I'm on the side of the devil."
-Kwame Ture (going hard!)
careful around these parts with that heat, comrade
