• Barbarian@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    arrow-down
    38
    ·
    23 days ago

    If you want a point of view that isn’t in your bubble, what many people call “tankies” are in fact campists. By that I mean they commonly engage in authoritarian apologia for anyone purportedly “against the west”.

    Iranian government brutalizing its own people? Butwutaboutdawest. Russia waging an imperialist war to absorb a neighbour? Butwutaboutnato. China threatening it’s neighbours? Butwutaboutdawest.

    Nothing is ever their fault, any atrocity committed is either a false flag or misinformation because the only thing that matters is the team on the shirt, not any actual actions.

    God forbid somebody can be against US imperialism and against Russian imperialism simultaneously, that’s much too nuanced.

    • EmmiLime@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      36
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      23 days ago

      God forbid somebody can be against US imperialism and against Russian imperialism simultaneously, that’s much too nuanced.

      • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.comBanned from community
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        21
        ·
        edit-2
        22 days ago

        How many days are they into the 3 day operation?

        Hey that’s not a number, how many days are they into the 3 day operation? And yes, I don’t like when people get attacked by a bigger stick. I’m sure you guys are more consistent. Keep LARPing as communist revolutionaries!

        • EmmiLime@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          19
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          23 days ago

          Just an FYI but Ukraine wants to be the Greater Israel of Europe. Struck an Iranian ship, is great friends with Netanyahu, has vans that kidnap Ukranian citizens to be sent to the meat grinder. ( https://busification.org/ )

          You’re pro-Palestine but also pro-Ukraine? So anti war-ism but supports western’s interests that also support genocide.

        • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          13
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          22 days ago

          FYI, Russia never actually said anything about it being a “3 day operation”. That’s fake news that caught on.

        • Pinto, the Bean@lemmy.worldBanned from community
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          7
          ·
          21 days ago

          They’ll win in Ukraine any day now, just a few more losses and they’ll have it! Ukraine is losing, that’s why they’re gaining ground and Russia has more casualties.

          Russia is winning, 2+2=5

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            17 days ago

            Russia has consistently been taking more ground. The idea that Russia is losing because they likely have more total casualties while on the offensive does not mean Ukraine is winning for Ukraine to win the war must become unsustainable for Russia. To the contrary, it seems the Ukrainian front line is slowly eroding as Russia takes key defensive positions, and Ukraine is slowly losing the ability to replace lost or AWOL troops.

          • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            21 days ago

            Lol, I’ve been hearing since mid 2022 about how Russia was down to fighting with sticks and will lose any day now.

            Ukraine is winning, 2+2=5

      • Barbarian@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        28
        ·
        23 days ago

        Cringe memes aside, anyone who can say with a straight face that poor little Putin was forced into this war against his will has obviously not been listening to the words coming out of his mouth.

          • RiverRock@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            22
            arrow-down
            5
            ·
            edit-2
            22 days ago

            This reads extremely like a story someone tells themselves in order to avoid having to engage with what other people actually think. Very “of course these natives aren’t trying to tell me anything important, they’re just mindless Bad Guy savages and i can probably just guess whatever primitive bullshit they’re thinking” vibes.

            Also, lol, dude, you are mindlessly repeating liberal cope about communists who oppose western warmongering while wearing the name and image of a guy who was famously slandered as a communist and imprisoned by liberals for opposing western warmongering. Very free thinking and anti-authoritarian of you to spontaneously recreate the social attitude of 1917.

    • mathemachristian [he/him]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      24
      ·
      edit-2
      23 days ago

      God forbid somebody can be against US imperialism and against Russian imperialism simultaneously, that’s much too nuanced.

      I think the most common position I’ve seen on these “tankie” spaces is:

      I mean the current state of Russia is the consequence of the illegal dissolution of the Soviet Union against the will of the people after all.

      • ZeroHora@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        ·
        22 days ago

        I mean the current state of Russia is the consequence of the illegal dissolution of the Soviet Union against the will of the people after all.

        I think that liberals see this as the term that the other guy used: “Butwutaboutdawest”

    • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      22
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      23 days ago

      Iranian government brutalizing its own people? Butwutaboutdawest.

      That seems like a reasonable question to ask in order to not blindly adopt national chauvinists views. Shouldn’t you put developments in context to avoid getting swept up in a propaganda push?

      Is this the “authoritarian apologia” you mentioned? Maybe you could give a citation of someone doing it so we can judge if they are being unreasonable.

      Russia waging an imperialist war to absorb a neighbour? Butwutaboutnato.

      Is it imperialist? Russia is doing this to expand profit seeking for its national-level monopolies or otherwise export capital? If so they are doing a bad job. Or maybe you don’t know what imperialism is in this context.

      Regarding NATO, yes understanding its purpose and it’s member activities in the lead up to Russia invading Ukraine is actually a basic necessity for grasping why it happened at all and why it isn’t just revanchism or “imperialism”. Can you tell me what happened re: the Minsk agreements and why that is relevant? What were their contents?

      China threatening it’s neighbours? Butwutaboutdawest.

      I honestly don’t know what this is even about. Maybe Japan remilitarizing? It’s not hard to see why that would be concerning.

      Nothing is ever their fault, any atrocity committed is either a false flag or misinformation because the only thing that matters is the team on the shirt, not any actual actions.

      I have never seen someone saying anything remotely in the vein you are referencing that doesn’t also have criticism for those nations.

      Perhaps you could give an example.

      God forbid somebody can be against US imperialism and against Russian imperialism simultaneously, that’s much too nuanced.

      One would have to start with an understanding of imperialism.

      • Barbarian@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        14
        ·
        edit-2
        23 days ago

        Shouldn’t you put developments in context to avoid getting swept up in a propaganda push?

        That’s reasonable. I personally knew a lady who was beaten, imprisoned and starved for a week by the morality police for forgetting her hijab at home though. I struggle to think of a context that would justify that. This was many years ago though, as I understand it the morality police and their systematic human rights abuses were largely unofficially abolished in 2023 after mass protests.

        The new wave of protests from this year were largely about inflation and cost of living, as far as I understand. You don’t get to thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries via effective crowd management.

        Is it imperialist? Russia is doing this to expand profit seeking for its national-level monopolies or otherwise export capital? If so they are doing a bad job.

        In order: yes, yes, yes, and also yes.

        My opinion is that the primary motive of the original full-scale war, which they honestly thought they could get done in 3 days, was primarily to expand the workforce due to their crippled demographics, while simultaneously scoring an easy propaganda win domestically, giving a black eye to the US and EU, and get a hold of the rare earth minerals which were being prospected in eastern Ukraine at the time. It also didn’t hurt that before they bombed it, the area was relatively industrialized. Due to the incompetence of authoritarians in general and their inability to admit defeat (just look at the US in Iran today if you want a 2nd example), they are forced to keep going to save face no matter how pointless it is and how many people die.

        In terms of motivation for Russia to continue their war long past the point of sunk costs, it probably also doesn’t help that because they’re fully in a war economy now, the end of the war will cause their economy to crash.

        As a capstone to this: you don’t get a pass on imperialism just because you’re bad at it. If that was the case, Mussolini did nothing wrong.

        I honestly don’t know what this is even about. Maybe Japan remilitarizing?

        Take your pick. Saber rattling with Taiwan, encroaching on the Phillipine’s maritime waters, skirmishing with India and Pakistan on their border, and more.

        I have never seen someone saying anything remotely in the vein you are referencing

        I see every other day here references here to Ukrainian Nazis, Russian self-defense, etc. As an Eastern European who’s heard second-hand from refugees what’s going on in detail, I hope you can understand why that’d piss me off a little. So afraid of falling for US propaganda so they’re gobbling up Russian propaganda instead.

        • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          17
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          23 days ago

          That’s reasonable. I personally knew a lady who was beaten, imprisoned and starved for a week by the morality police for forgetting her hijab at home though. I struggle to think of a context that would justify that.

          Who said you have to justify it? Can you give a link and quote of the person who tried to make you?

          This was many years ago though, as I understand it the morality police and their systematic human rights abuses were largely unofficially abolished in 2023 after mass protests.

          Human rights discourse is fraught and almost always extremely national chauvinist, racist. But yes there has been a moderation.

          The new wave of protests from this year were largely about inflation and cost of living, as far as I understand. You don’t get to thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries via effective crowd management.

          I’m not sure what this means.

          In order: yes, yes, yes, and also yes.

          Then you are wrong.

          My opinion is that the primary motive of the original war, which they honestly thought they could get done in 3 days, was primarily to expand the workforce due to their crippled demographics

          Well yes not ending the war after that 3 days, which was an option for Ukraine but rejected by their masters, would have been the way for Ukraine to not be destroyed as a country.

          Unfortunately for Ukrainians, they have been sacrificed and their country ostensibly sold on loan. Russia did indeed hope they would choose to not do that.

          But who knows what you mean by “crippled demographics”, the demos were not particularly different in Donbas. Also why ignore the history leading up to it.

          while simultaneously scoring an easy propaganda win domestically, giving a black eye to the US and EU, and get a hold of the rare earth minerals which were being prospected in eastern Ukraine at the time.

          Actually none if that is imperialism except maybe the rare earths but that’s really not an inherently compelling argument on its own because all land has value, but not all invasions or annexations are imperialist. Russia was not exactly hurting due to lack of rare earths. They were hurting from being slowly isolated from European markets and from a war zone on their border. 8 years of neo-Nazis shelling ethnic Russians in Donbas after Euromaiden and you’re speculating it was rare earths?

          It also didn’t hurt that before they bombed it, the area was relatively industrialized. Due to the incompetence of authoritarians in general and their inability to admit defeat (just look at the US in Iran today if you want a 2nd example), they are forced to keep going to save face no matter how pointless it is and how many people die.

          Material forces constrain what “authoritarians” can do in this way, this is naive fantasy speak about how nation states operate. In reality, the refusal to do Minsk III is what set the stage, it is a recognition that a hard break was sought by Ukraine’s masters and no negotiation would be forthcoming that even had the pretense of another agreement to fail to meet the conditions of. The destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline is a good example of the break being sought. With Ukraine off the table for a political negotiation, that left only the establishment of an ongoing material dynamic: demilitarization by force, annexation of Donbas, surviving a new economic status quo.

          Speaking of the new economic status quo, Russia fared well despite the various financial nuclear options leveraged against them. This was probably a surprise to their neoliberal bankers, but the base reality of the situation made sustaining it appealing.

          Take your pick. Saber rattling with Taiwan,

          That is stoked by the West and there are no new developments on that front that aren’t the US trying to escalate via moving yet more military assets there. Or China moving ships across waters right in between the mainland and the island slightly more often or with a slightly different exercise.

          You call this making threats?

          encroaching on the Phillipine’s maritime waters

          I guess if we are being vague about what encroaching is okay. Building up and claiming various contiguous waters in the south china sea that would have otherwise been international waters and continuing to dispute long-disputed claims to some islands.

          You call this making threats?

          skirmishing with India and Pakistan on their border

          Name them and let’s see what the big deal is. PS, is it threatening.

          I see every other day here references here to Ukrainian Nazis, Russian self-defense, etc.

          So what? This doesn’t respond to what I said at all.

          As an Eastern European who’s heard second-hand from refugees what’s going on in detail, I hope you can understand why that’d piss me off a little.

          I don’t care what pisses you off.

          PS you skipped over 75% of what I said.

            • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              16
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              23 days ago

              Ah, I thought so. Honestly don’t really have the time and energy to go back and forth with these massive walls of text, so I’ll just say that you’ve fallen hook line and sinker for Russian propaganda.

              Ah yes it’s my fault that you have no response. Just throw in a thought-terminating cliché.

              Ukrainian Nazis exist, just like there are Nazis in literally every country on the planet. They weren’t in control of anything, nor were they in any way in control of the government.

              See how you are just going on and on about things I didn’t say rather than responding to what I did say?

              Though Ukrainian neo-Nazis absolutely were in control of exactly what I referenced: running front-line militias that shelled Donbas. This was widely reported until 2022 when Western media needed to push that to the side.

              The “ethnic Russians” were primarily Russian army troops out of uniform.

              No the ethnic Russians I am referring to are about half of the people who lived and live in Donbas. Civilian population centers were shelled.

              There’s piles and piles of evidence about this.

              No there aren’t.

              The low intensity war between Russia and Ukraine was to destabilize Ukraine to attempt to force it back into Russia’s sphere of influence against the will of the populace.

              Historical revisionism that ignores Euromaidan and the grassroots response in Eastern Ukraine to the coups and anti-ethnic Russian, anti-left campaigns that followed. Do you think it was the Russians that locked union organizers in a building and set it on fire?

              If that isn’t imperialist, I don’t know what is.

              Yes, exactly, you don’t know what imperialism is.

              I don’t know why I’m writing all this out, tbh. You’ve drunk the Kool aid.

              Self-soothing to help rationalize why you have no actual response to what I’ve said.

              Anything “an enemy of the west” says is believed uncritically, no actual thinking, just regurgitation.

              Oh? What specific claims by “an enemy of the west” have I believed uncritically?

              Have a wonderful day regardless, and I honestly hope you’re doing well.

              Uh-huh

            • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              13
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              23 days ago

              Ah, I thought so. Honestly don’t really have the time and energy to go back and forth with these massive walls of text, so I’ll just say that you’ve fallen hook line and sinker for Russian propaganda.

              Go back to Reddit

    • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      23 days ago

      God forbid somebody can be against US imperialism and against Russian imperialism simultaneously, that’s much too nuanced.

      Mmm yes, very nice. Now let’s see your opinions on NATO, the EU and the Iranian government.

      • Barbarian@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        19
        ·
        23 days ago

        NATO: only time it’s ever been triggered was for the US “war on terror”. A smaller more local NATO that ACTUALLY focuses purely on regional defence rather than some regional defence, some helping US imperialism in the middle east would be much better.

        EU: Very imperfect, but the best chance we’ve got to stand up and support ourselves without being beholden to either Russia or the US. If we want real autonomy, we’ve got to work together regionally. Individual European countries stand no chance solo on the world stage.

        Iranian government: Rightfully paranoid, but that paranoia seeps into every aspect of it’s interaction with it’s population. I do wish they could somehow modify their government to allow more individual liberties, clamp down on human rights abuses while keeping the aspects of it that have allowed it to resist the US. I don’t know how that might look, but it’s definitely not happening now that the US have gone “hold my beer” and committed war crimes that make what Iran did look trivial by comparison. The population definitely can’t push for reforms when in an active shooting war where infrastructure that civilians rely on is being deleted.

        • PotatoPie@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          17
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          23 days ago

          Ok so

          eu: -Perfect but just short of it -The imperfections overshadowed by importance -Importance comes from value of european lives -Threatened by Russia and the US -Once again important due to needed unity

          Iran: -Scared and worried -Untrust worthy of governing it’s people -I care about iranians rights a lot -They deserve to have their government modified -Modifications should not harm resistance to US -We need to plan for that change in government -The US warcrimes against iran are bad but we should focus on how much worst than Iranian government’s they are -The issue with the warcrimes is that they are getting in the way of resisting their government

          Are you racist? I feel like you’re not judging these two groups of people equally

          Can you also do this for US and Israel as well, i think comparing how lenient you’ll be with them when they’re not being massacred like cattle vs how rigid and cold you are with Iranians while they are is going to say so much

          • Barbarian@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            15
            ·
            22 days ago

            Can you please point to where I said I was the arbiter of what that change would look like or what the yardistick should be?

            The equivalence here which is not broken imho, and if broken I need to change my POV, is local autonomy for both EU citizens and Iranians are of prime importance. Both EU citizens and Iranians deserve to control their own respective governments, free of outside influence. Both EU & Iranian people deserve to be in charge of their own day to day lives, without an imposition of any particular religious behavior or set of norms.

            • PotatoPie@lemmy.zip
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              12
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              22 days ago

              The issue that you wouldn’t worry about regime change in any country in the EU if that country was being bombed by two aggressors

              The fact you care so little about the aggression to the point you’d rather focus or keep bringing up issues that no Iranian in their right mind would prioritize right now because death, killing, missiles, no water or electricity, currency devalued, shows how little you care about that suffering

              You’d never bring up regime change or emissions or drug trafficking for any EU country if they were being hit by more than 2000 missiles

              you are insane at best and racist at worst, i’m sorry but you have to reflect here or just actually watch how united everyone in Iran is for their government right now