Needs more blaming the West
Honestly, it seems like everyone in that place wants to kill everyone else. You could swap the sides in that meme and it’d still make sense.
No. Most of the civilian populations don’t want it. They’re the victims caught in the middle between the fascist Netanyahu government and the Hamas terrorists.
No one that I know of from the West has tried for compromise in Palestine since the 1990s. The sign should say “We stand with Israel! Here’s some weapons.” Biden putting sanctions on like 4 people somehow counts as this revolutionary sign of progress, and they’re still in the middle of blowing up the last of the medical facilities.
I love when people claiming to be communists defend the hyper capitalist modern Russia. I have my criticisms of the ussr, but it’s dead and buried and Russia is as much the Russian Soviet as the Russian Soviet was Czarist Russia.
Tankies don’t have anyone they can root for that’s coherently communist or socialist anyways. China isn’t really, Russia is just an oligopoly with one guy on top for life (if you substitute land ownership with ownership of sectors of the economy then Russia looks a lot like a feudal monarchy).
Their one immutable belief is the “US bad”. That’s it. That’s their speed of light. Everything else must twist to maintain that position. If Ukraine elected a pro-western leader, it MUST be a CIA coup. They couldn’t have possibly chosen that for themselves because “US bad”. If Russia starts an offensive war of conquest it can’t just be their fault, they must have been provoked.
Before Russia invaded Ukraine they could pretend like only evil capitalist countries invade others. The invasion broke them since they have to someone maintain that position while also justifying the invasion , again, because US bad. This is really all they have now.
So, here’s how US bad: the US for several years has been provoking Russia by inviting Ukraine into NATO with no actual intent on letting them in. We’ve used them to offload massive stockpiles of old military equipment and secured all rebuilding of Ukraine to US companies. As soon as the Ukrainians start advancing, the US begins to fail on its commitments.
It’s possible to center ones ideals around the US being bad while also believing that Russia is bad.
Akshually, Ukrainians want to join the EU, not NATO. If you don’t believe me, look up the survey prior to 2014/2015 on how many want to join NATO and EU. You will find that majority of Ukrainians do not want to join the alliance but it’s completely opposite for the latter. The yearning by Ukrainians to join NATO changed overnight after the Russian annexation of Crimea. Gee, I wonder why?
NATO=/= EU. They are two completely different things! That’s like Ireland being attacked by Russia for being in the EU even though majority of Irish abhor NATO! Equating the two organisations is part of Russian propaganda. Because for the Russians, a sovereign country not aligning to them economically is the same as opposing them militarily.
It’s a blindspot among Westerners to refuse seeing the Russian mindset. They have their own worldview that is alien to the West and vice versa. The Russians have Eurasianist worldview where the center of the world and power is Asia; and their country carving a huge piece of that pie. Even oppositions of ruling government-- from communist to Putin era-- are hard-core nationalists as well from Alexander Solzhenytsin to Alexey Navalny. They are poster boy of Russian opposition from their respective time and yet believe Russia should also go its own way. They might be more liberal minded Russians, but they are nationalist first and foremost, and Eurasianists at that.
So, with that in mind, for the Russians, Ukraine and Georgia joining the EU-- a socio-economic bloc-- is unacceptable and tantamount to joining NATO; even though the fucking majority of Ukrainians and Georgians do not want to join NATO until further Russian provocations, brought by Russian siege mentality, pushed those countries to crave to join NATO. If Putin does not want NATO expansion, he certainly pushed two more countries to join, namely Finland and Sweden. Even Alexey Navalny-- Putin’s main presidential opponent-- said of the current president as the worst in geopolitics for having just provoked more countries to join NATO if the intention is to prevent its expansion. Those who says otherwise and keep harping about West provoking Ukraine to join NATO is Russian propaganda, because from the latter’s pov, either Ukraine signs a deal with them economically, or it means opposing them existentially too. Because Russia wants to carve their own sphere of influence.
That shit kills me. I was reading something on hexbear about some recent anti-gay stuff in Russia. It was all about critical support, and not just Russia. They also talked about critical support for Nigeria, despite them having the death penalty for gay people, because they’re “anti-imperialist.”
Why doesn’t it go the other way? Why can’t you give “critical support” to countries making strides in human rights while criticizing their economic policy?
To me, their priorities seem pretty fucked up. Between exploitative economic policy and killing or imprisoning people for existing as themselves, I know which one I’m going to be “critical” of and which one will cause me to refuse support for a country in any way.
Being anti-imperialist is usually the determining factor of tankie (“critical”) support. Being against the US is apparently how you are anti-imperialist, so if you decide to conquer an American ally to grow an empire, you are apparently anti-imperialist. I guess that’s where you “critically” support them by cheering.
I don’t get it.
In Germany the Left has been divided into Antiimps (Antiimperialists) and Antideutsche (Antigermans) since the 90s. Antiimps being pro Palestine, Anti-USA, western Imperialism, NATO etc… and Antideutsche being pro Israel, pro USA and against a united (or any kind of) Germany.
Of course those positions developed over the years, but they still explain where and how those ‘new’ perspectives came to be. Worth to read into it.
Putin be unironically
It’s hard to avoid a “no true scottsman” with the current state of bots and propaganda accounts.
But as far as I can tell, there are hardly any lefties, or even tankies, who unironically support Russia or even a middle ground position. Despite their hate of the west, Russia is clearly the greatest evil here.
Most of the middle ground positions I see come from fox news.
Maybe. But previously when I engaged with people making this same claim, when they provided their evidence (a link to a hexbear post) and I actually spent the effort to verify it, it was trivially clear that their evidence was wrong, and when I showed that to them, they blew up and blocked me from the entire community (they were a mod).
Since then I’ve been pretty skeptical of people making this claim.
Don’t take my word for it. Even though your instance is defederated from them you can still go to hexbear.net and search locally for posts about Ukraine.
If you want context: Hexbear is largely a fanbase of Chapo Trap House. Most people who report on Hexbear usually are unaware of this.
But as far as I can tell, there are hardly any lefties, or even tankies, who unironically support Russia or even a middle ground position. Despite their hate of the west, Russia is clearly the greatest evil here.
Unfortunately, I can attest to a great many tankies who unironically support Russia or a ‘middle ground’ position. I could post examples all day long and not run out. At least, not run out of examples. I’d run out of will to live pretty quickly.
The last time someone said that to me, they sent me a post from hexbear that was clearly a joke, and when I showed them where it said it was a joke, they blocked me.
I think any argument for peace and negotiations and compromise with Russia is met with overwhelming downvotes. Worse on reddit, pacifism is seen only in controversial now. The above meme is clearly pro-war propaganda too, as to prevent any rational discussion. It’s total victory or death.
If you’re a pacifist, you’re treated as a communist-nazi.
If you’re a pacifist, you’re treated as a communist-nazi.
If you’re advocating that Ukraine should lay down its arms before clear security guarantees are in place, or at the loss of its territory you may as well be a “communist-nazi”.
This was Russias final offer - which I’m not advocating for but it does contain some perfectly reasonable demands to protect themselves from US aggression. Of course Russia wants to keep using Sevastopol and doesn’t want offensive weapons on their boarders.
Putin highlighted the fact that it was “NATO that was undertaking dangerous attempts to develop Ukrainian territory and increase its potential along [Russia’s] borders”. He demanded “reliable, legal guarantees” that would preclude NATO from expanding its territory toward Russia or deploying its strike weapon systems in countries bordering Russia.
Of course, if you’re denying that the US is a terrorist regime that has killed millions of innocent civilians and ruined many countries in the last decades then you may well be a fascist.
I’m certainly not denying that Russia is an authoritarian far-right regime that suppressed Ukraine and that Ukraine absolutely has a right to be free. But if you’re bordering on Russia, you’ll have to make accommodations and be smart. Total war is not smart.
The historical experience of the USSR was a brainrot on communists. Having a bias for Soviet nationalism is already bad enough, but imagine letting that evolve into Russian nationalism. Defend the same right of self-determination for Ukraine you would have defended for Vietnam 60 years ago.
