All the time I hear about "the CIA will coup this", "America supported that", "These people opposed US Imperialism". A topic could have absolutely nothing to do with america and involve a place on the exact opposite part of the earth and Americans will find a way to make it about America. For example, people talk about Russian politics and Putin yet seem to support Putin wholeheartedly because his Russia "opposes american imperialism". This framing of the conversation seemingly ignoring how Russian people feel about his reign, how the EU has been having to drag america into the latest sanctions against Russia, and how for the last 4 years America had an ostensibly Pro-Russian president. I swear American Leftists don't care at all about Capitalism or Communism and just want to oppose the United States. Most of the world and people don't care about American influence, let alone to such an obsessive degree.

  • thefunkycomitatus [he/him,they/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    There is a kernel of something here. It's something I've felt before as an American writing about specifically the history of colonialism and imperialism in other countries. It's like how really well meaning people can define others by their trauma rather than fully realize them as other human beings. I don't make a crass comparison to race but maybe OP is trying to allude to that kind of patronizing "I know your struggles" thing without actually listening to them. The history of these places isn't only the history of their subjugation. There's much that has happened and present despite the bad things.

    But then again it's hard to tell if OP just isn't mad someone supported Putin somewhere or something? Like was this just one comment about Russia that spawned this subtweet or are there other examples?

    • blobjim [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Nobody is going to be able to understand the entire history of every place on earth. What American socialists should understand is the relationship between the country they are in (the US) and the country they are discussing. 99.9% of the time that relationship is defined by American imperialism. I'm not going to be able to keep 196+ relationships to 196+ different countries plus the entire history of that country in my head or even learn about all of those connections, because that graph is exponential in size.

      • thefunkycomitatus [he/him,they/them]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Sure, I don't think everyone has to learn all of the history for every country. And I don't think you're a bad person if you don't.

    • entrancefee [none/use name]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I usually laugh when american leftists love Putin but there's countless examples one could bring up of this view among the american left. For example, the people who loved Assad and hate Rojava because its "an american puppet". I've developed my views talking to tons of Americans on forums or discord or twitter or wherever else they seem to appear these days.

      • elguwopismo [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Oh fuck off sorry we don't take issue with the military intervention for the prevention of mass killings, enslavement, and sexual assault on the non-Sunni populace by Salafist Jihadi militias. Whatever Assad isn't a swell guy, corrupt regime etc. Same for Putin. This understands nothing of the political and historical realities of either of these people nor their 'regimes'. I'll agree the YPG and PKK really showed some promise, communal progress and solidarity in the face of chaos, slaughter, a history of oppression, and so on. However you obviously possess zero understanding of the political and sectarian history of the area beyond the Kurds being oppressed. What about Turkey's role in all this, our NATO ally? Or the coming to fruition of a history of Wahabbism, emanating from the penninsula (also our allies), in the rise of Islamic State? None of this can be separated from the long opposition to Secular Left Nationalism/Socialism, and especially Communism, by Western powers nor from the reaction of the Islamic world to the Shia revolution in Iran nor Israeli reaction to the rise of Hezbollah - we especially cannot ignore the catalyst found in the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, the latter of which saw the Sunni minority lose its position of power over Shia-majority Iraq with the fall of Saddam and the Ba'athists. The harsh reality was that beyond a certain point there were no moderate militias in Syria, radicalism has been brewing for a long time and this has absolutely been a historical material interest for the US and its allies. It's not like Rojava was going to prevent mass sectarian violence throughout non-Kurdish Syria, it was difficult enough maintaining their own territory - it's a fucked situation for the Kurds, it has been for a long time and will continue to be (If you wish for me to write an ode to the awfulness of Erdogan's government I can do that too). However this should be a matter much simpler and more immanent than the staging of some abstract duality of practical Leninist discipline in opposition to utopian Anarchist mutuality over the topic of Rojava - Russian intervention in Syria saved lives and the Assad government is preferable to Salafist rule, plain and simple. Those are the lessons I want to draw from the situation.

        Personally, whatever take your moral purity, I could give a shit. I 'support' Putin and Assad insofar as I support taking tough and decisive action in order to protect life in the face of a brutal reality - this seems to me to be the only socially useful way of approaching the concept 'support' with regards to international politics and conflict, a way that may actually inform my approach to future conflict in this quagmire of a hellworld. Or I suppose you can go back being shocked at cold-blooded Nationalists doing shit that cold-blooded Nationalists have done throughout all of history, the libs sure seem to enjoy shaking their fists these boogeymen - seems like a good time.

        • entrancefee [none/use name]
          ·
          4 years ago

          I really have no clue where you pulled out this rant from out of laughing at americans loving putin and assad or came up with this narrative of me knowing nothing about syria. I don't really care about moral purity I just find americans knowing little about Assad and how he is seen in syria but having extreme opinions on the guy to the point of loving him very funny

          • elguwopismo [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            I have literally said zero good things about him, he's not a good guy, his regime is corrupt. Of course he's not the most popular he's Alawite in a Sunni-majority country and the Alawites have gotten preferential treatment from his father and himself. This ignores the reality of the alternative and the environment which gave rise to such a situation. From everything I've heard since the winding down and the funneling of the jihadis into Afrin and Idlib, it seems to me that the popular sentiment is a begrudging embrace (even for those less violently sectarian people whom nonetheless possess very little love for the Assad government) of the potential for stability in a region which had been thrown into utter chaos and violence for near a decade.