Calling for Russians to shoot Putin while condemining “political violins” when Trump got shot will never not be funny.
I was saying BOOligarchs
You know what’s even more fucked up? Europe, Australia and even Ukraine sent troops also to murder Iraqis and Afghans then bragged how they did things for the US
That certainly sounds like Europe, Australia, and Ukraine.
Ukraine is in Europe… Also, Europe is not a monolith, i. e. France was strongly against the invasion of Iraq to the point some crazy amis renamed fries as freedom fries. Jesus, that’s the equivalent to confusing arabs with Ottomans… That’s some double standards right there.
I’m aware that Ukraine is in Europe, I was responding to their comment in the format they made it in.
The double standard is real but also fuck both the US and Russia for invading.
Both based takes
@usamemes
Our humanitarian intervention vs. their FULL-SCALE invasion
It’s not just FULL-SCALE, it is also ILLEGAL!
Our benevolent soldiers vs their satanic death squads
I really do think that liberals should take a hard look at themselves. They don’t flinch to call Russian soldiers orcs, and ascribe to their foreign policy a mindless bloodthirst. Do they think of US soldiers the same way? Or US foreign policy (even under someone like darling Obama)? Seriously: who is more “evil” Putin or Obama? By what measure?
At least the Donbass was experiencing genuine turmoil. The Obama regime had to invent a pretext for invasion whole cloth. And fifteen years later NATO hasn’t rebuilt even a single building in Libya. Mariupol looks a lot better than it did a year and a half ago.
ukros fully support the shitrahell genociders
“fully understands the core of international politics” lol
bit timid. I would have gone for
“intimately fathoms the very essence of international politics”
flip on the x-axis
You seem confused if you think supporting Russia and Palestine makes you anti-war/pacifist and supporting Russia and Israel makes you America’s laptop.
Last time I checked supporting Russia and Israel doesn’t make you anti-war/pacifist. And supporting Russia hardly makes you America’s lapdog
Upper right is similar to lower left - inconsistent values and inconsistent ideology. Pure hypocrisy. Dogs of US vs Dogs of Russia.
Supporting Palestine makes you a dog of Russia? Sounds like you don’t fully understand the core of international geopolitics
Do you actually believe it’s inconsistent? Because it’s really quite straightforward: The US-centered capitalist empire must be stopped, and it’s genocidal proxies need to be eliminated, for the survival of the human race.
Imperialist capitalist oligarchic country must be stopped so I should support another imperialist capitalist oligarchic country. Brilliant logic.
Imperialist capitalist oligarchic country must be stopped so I should support another imperialist capitalist oligarchic country. Brilliant logic.
Bottom line. Thank you.
The inconsistent part is giving a free pass to Russia when they do everything the US does just not as extensively.
If you actually believe they’re doing even a tenth of “everything” the US is doing, you are woefully underinformed to be having this conversation
Russia is not stealing the surplus value and resources of the global south on an immense scale, which is the primary reason why its resistance to the US Empire and its European vassals plays a progressive role because of this.
Russia steals the surplus value for within it’s borders, the US steals surplus value from beyond it’s borders. Like I said, Russia does everything the US does just not as extensively.
Russia is indeed capitalist, correct, not imperialist. Glad we can come to an understanding on why the US Empire is the biggest global obstacle to socialism, and that the Russian Federation’s lack of imperialism makes it worthy of critical support in undermining the US Empire.
So you support the Soviet Union, back when the USSR didn’t steal the surplus value within its borders?
I would love to hear you try to explain how the Russian Federation somehow gained as many sympathizers virtually overnight as the US empire did through decades of world-spanning regime change, propaganda networks and bribery
Supporting the liberation of Donetsk and Luhansk from the Banderite government they have been trying to secede from for a decade is a good thing, and that’s why the CPRF supports the Russian nationalists in the war. Had the west not supported a far-right coup back in 2014, it’s likely the war never would have happened.
That’s like an onion, just layers of naive. Russia has had imperial ambitions on Ukraine for a while and thinking that they care at all about the “liberation” of Donetsk and Luhansk is crazy talk.
“Material concerns? Physical reality? Oh ho ho, how charmingly naive, my dear boy. The true core of the matter is actually very simple, you see. Pushes glasses up anime-style Russia…is Just Evil.”
That broke me lmfao
What “imperial ambitions” do they have? Why would Russia not care about the survival of ethnic Russians right on their borders? Again, the CPRF supports Donetsk and Luhansk, as do most communist parties globally, so just saying I’m “naive” doesn’t actually form a coherent counterpoint.
Honestly can’t tell if it’s satire
Nope, why would it be?
Then you might not be very knowledgeable on the topic, lol
Fascist coup? Donetsk and Luhansk?
8 years of war?The average westoid never heard of that.
Can’t make it too complicated for the simpletons.
It all started when the RuZZian Putler invaded innocent ukraine for no reason, just like the conflict in Palestine started on oct 7 and nothing happened before that.
Redditor npc response #912
As if Redditors even have enough canned responses to reach 912. I wish they had that much veriaty
Removed by mod
Campism is when you can remember things that happened more than two weeks ago. And if you can remember things that happened more than three weeks ago, oh buddy, that’s tankie
lmao
Are you arguing that Donetsk and Luhansk don’t deserve liberation, on account of that being a “campist” take? Why would a “non-campist” not support their liberation?
See, if the government of a country want to genocide part of the population and that government is my husbando Zelensky, that me and western media mysteriously agree on being the most wholesome democratic leader ever, that’s democracy in action 😍😍😍 and don’t forget international law applies when evil Russia invades smol bean Ukraine, but if China even ATTEMPTS to breathe near Taiwan, international law is just a technicality anyway, we need to go in and fight evil authoritarian China! I’m very smart, you silly campists!
USA law too
Pretty much, lol!
It’s libwest.asocial, they support Ukraine because while they think they are anti-war/pacifist western propaganda convinced them that it actually is (it’s also convenient because they don’t have to investigate the other perspective if the enemy are one dimensional orc villains)
Nah-uh
when hamas does it it’s genocidal intent, when ukraine/israel do it is self-defence.
No, please, we need liberation. Our government has been a problem for a long time, just that neo-liberals are getting scared.
Liberation, Libya or Syria style?
what kind of natural reserves do you guys have ?
Oil, non-rare earth elements and rare earth elements.
Also works for them saying bomb them.
fuck those dirty Russians Ukraine should bomb all the cities
So you want them to hit civilians?
no I meant only places without people but still they need to retaliate
Then why say bomb the cities?
stop twisting my words when I want they’re the evil bad ones
It’s incredibly interesting how, according to western media, all the ukrainian attacks on russian infrastructure never cause any deaths but russian attacks always cause deaths every time.
Usually they just say there are no civilians in Russia and Ukraine killing ANY Russian is completely justified. Not the other way around though.
Also parallels their thoughts on Israel vs Palestine. Israel can kill any Palestinian and be “self defense” but when it comes to Israelis suddenly they care about the civilian distinction.
https://lemmy.world/comment/21824437
They don’t even go that far to distinguish the difference from my experience. Just go I didn’t mean that but I’m just gonna blame you for reading the words I used
(paraphrased) Murdering civilians is what Russia does. Why are you suggesting Ukraine do it?
It’s the only thing Russia will understand.
Later: “Noooo, I never said that Ukraine should murder civilians!”
Later: "Noooo, I never said that Ukraine should murder civilians
how dare you put words in my mouth dirty mler. I totally meant they should ignore civilians when saying it was the only thing Russia would understand
Amazing the overlap with the ones saying usa just needs more dems in congress to fix everything
One of my favorite kind of lemmitors on the fediverse is the “how dare you read the things I wrote” kind, where they start backpedaling only after getting massive backlash and then expect people to automatically believe their “clarifications” are sincere.
Even better when it’s also about something they do that with AND have no idea what they are talking about, cough that banjo guy and minimum wage|ACA being Romneycare|anything political
Who’s out here saying Ukraine should bomb “all the cities”? Most people from the first frame of OP would also be saying stop the bombing, not bomb more. E.g. stop the bombing of Palestine etc.
To echo divas post where the user could not comprehend how them saying Ukraine should bomb Russian cities because it’s the only way Russians will understand was frowned upon.
https://lemmy.ml/post/42340425/23621958
Then what asked to clarify said stop putting words in my mouth
here’s one I ran into just last week, someone claiming to have been unfairly modded on .ml, when they had received a temp ban because they were actually advocating for collective punishment of russian civilians “because it’s the only thing that Russia will understand”:
Murdering civilians is what Russia does.
Which side made a post stamp out of blowing up a family car with kids onboard >_>
Stop knocking over their straw man! They worked so hard to prop it up.
Both, both is good
It isn’t “fuck the [imperialist/authoritarian nation] government and its enforcers” for most people?
Russia isn’t imperialist. Imperialism isn’t when invasion or when big country is bad
Authoritarian is a useless pejorative as every nation that has been or currently is is “authoritarian”.
That’s a laugh. Putin and his political machine have expressed a desire to return to the days of the Russian Empire and has engaged in acts of conquest to that effect.
Russia is a mirror image of the US. While Anglo-Saxons were pushing west across North America, conquering indigenous peoples, Russians were pushing east out of Europe into Asia conquering indigenous peoples. They’re both dysfunctional countries with dysfunctional world views.
expressed a desire to return to the days of the Russian Empire
Show me. Pull up a shred of evidence for this obvious propaganda. Show me Vladmir Putin expressing the desire to reform the pre-1917 Russian Empire.
I never claimed that modern Russia is progressive, socialist, or something to be defended. I am a communist; Russia today is a capitalist oligarchy. Russia being imperialist and if I support them are separate questions.
Imperialism is not “when a country invades” or “when a big country has bad politics.” Imperialism refers to a specific stage of capitalism characterized by monopoly capital, finance capital dominance, export of capital, and systemic exploitation of dependent nations. By that definition, Russia today does not function as an imperialist power in the same way the US or the rest of the imperial core does. This is a simple statement of facts, not an endorsement.
Pointing to the Russian Empire’s historical expansion is irrelevant to whether the Russian Federation in the 21st century is imperialist. History alone does not determine a country’s position in the current global capitalist system. By that logic, nearly every existing state would be “imperialist” forever and the term would be rendered useless for meaningful analysis.
Likewise, saying Russia “mirrors” the US ignores material reality. The US sits at the core of global finance, enforces dollar hegemony, maintains hundreds of overseas bases, and systematically dominates entire regions. Russia does not occupy that structural position (even if they may wish to). You can criticize Russian nationalism or militarism without flattening all distinctions or redefining imperialism into a catch all for when big countries do bad things or when invasions.
Imperialism refers to a specific stage of capitalism
Then you’ve redefined the term Imperialism.
The term imperialism was coined by
LeninHobson, and it’s definition has remained constant for over a century. It’s actually liberals who have tried to flatten and bastardize it’s definition to hide the inevitable systemic nature of their crimes against humanity. The fact that you were introduced to the wrong definition first doesn’t make it the right one.Imperalism wasn’t coined by Lenin, he built off of Hobson and used Marxist analysis. Just a minor correction.
👈👈
No. You just don’t know what the word means.
By that logic, nearly every existing state would be “imperialist” forever and the term would be rendered useless for meaningful analysis.
Might need to reread that
How do you define imperialism if invading other countries with the same explicit intent to annex them isn’t it?
One of the reasons for this war was that the Russian Federation did not want NATO weapons and forces on their permanent border. If they were to annex Ukraine, they would have NATO weapons and forces on their permanent border. I understand why this narrative that they want to has spread, because it’s an easy to understand “bad guy” thing that makes it simple to frame this war as some kind of random medieval war of conquest, but when you think about it for five minutes, annexing Ukraine would go completely against their goal, which is to either dissuade the coup government from it’s NATO ambitions (now irrelevant) or, if they wont agree to a peace treaty, establish a buffer zone in the form of a Ukranian rump state. In no scenario does a full annexation serve their interests, and the pragmatic thing from their perspective is to let the basket case that Ukraine has become be Europe’s peoblem.
Russia has no colonies nor neocolonies, and doesn’t run their economy based on export of capital and plundering the surplus value of the global south, like the US and EU do.
Imperialism is characterized by the following:
-The presence of monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.
-The merging of bank capital with industrial capital into finance capital controlled by a financial oligarchy.
-The export of capital as distinguished from the simple export of commodities.
-The formation of international monopolist capitalist associations (cartels) and multinational corporations.
-The domination and exploitation of other countries by militaristic imperialist powers, now through neocolonialism.
-The territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers.
The global north, the US and Europe included, uses this export of capital to super-exploit foreign labor for super-profits. It also engages in unequal exchange, where the global south is prevented from moving up the value chain in production, allowing the global north to charge monopoly prices for commodities produced in the same labor hours. Russia does not do this, it has a paltry sum of the world’s finance capital, and this is proven by just how low their nominal GDP is compared to their GDP adjusted to PPP.
Imperialism is characterized by one political entity conquering or annexing thru coercion other political entities to bring new land, population, wealth, and natural resources under their control. No need to muck up or stretch out the definition.
In this case, the Statesian North imperialized the Statesian South, the Soviet Union imperialized Nazi Germany, etc. The definition you’re using is absurd and reductionist, the one I’m using is consistent, explains why it exists, how it functions, and how to end it.
If you’re truly using “annexation” as a definition of imperialism, then communists don’t have a problem with this “annexationist imperialism,” as it can absolutely be a good thing. Communists oppose the definition I explained, let’s call it “economic imperialism,” because it’s always bad and is the biggest obstacle to socialism globally.
Changing the name of the process doesn’t change the nature of it. Why are you getting so tripped up on what we call it, rather than the process itself?
Did you just make that up
If you pay attention to what Russia does internally and externally, Russia fulfills every one of those requirements except the last one (because they can’t, but they would be very happy too)
Nope, not really. Let’s see:
-The presence of monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.
Somewhat true domestically, Russia has many monopolies as a holdover from the socialist system. However, internationally, this isn’t true at all, only 4 of the top 100 companies in the world are Russian. Considering having monopolies on the world stage is necessary for imperialism, this is false for Russia.
-The merging of bank capital with industrial capital into finance capital controlled by a financial oligarchy.
Similar to the first one, somewhat true domestically, but internationally Russia only has one of the top 100 banks. Same as the first, this is therefore false.
-The export of capital as distinguished from the simple export of commodities.
Russia primarily exports raw materials and resources, so no, not at a significant scale. There’s more capital flight than export.
-The formation of international monopolist capitalist associations (cartels) and multinational corporations.
Again, Russia has no international monopolies, the closest is that they can make a lot of nuclear reactors. No.
-The domination and exploitation of other countries by militaristic imperialist powers, now through neocolonialism.
No neocolonialism is going on. Russia is annexing the 4 oblasts, but these are not colonies for Russia.
-The territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers.
Russia has no colonies nor neocolonies, no “territory” to claim.
Overall, Russia likely would be imperialist if it was financially more developed and capable of imperialism, but it can’t because it isn’t.
imperialism is when war
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch01.htm
Cowbee means economic imperialism - using the resources / wealth of another country for yourself. So invading another country would not, by itself, be imperialism.
I think this definition is a bit reductionist, but it’s a good starting point to ask ‘is this war for profit or some other reason?’.
but it’s a good starting point to ask ‘is this war for profit or some other reason?’.
Always an important question to ask but if Cowbee does mean that, then they should use the modifier to signify that they are talking about economic imperialism and not about Imperialism Imperialism.
All imperialism is economically motivated.
I am talking about what most leftists understand to be imperialism, which is why I called it as such, and explained it so there’s no room for doubt. The vauge concept of influence along international lines popular among apologists for imperialism as I describe it isn’t inherently a bad thing, while imperialism as I describe it is, and is the biggest obstacle to socialism globally.
If you want to rename imperialism to something else, and call imperialism “economic imperialism” then we can do that, I’d rather talk about the actual process itself than argue about nomenclature.
I do think your wording is causing some confusion. Of course, the aim of most imperialists is economic exploitation, but there historically there have been other drivers of conquest such as religion and racism.
Religion and racism were more justifications for the same base economic motivations, to be clear.
I think it’s not too much to expect to know basic terminology in a leftist space. In Argentina I’ve met plenty of social democrats who understand imperialism in its leftist sense, because being in the periphery means you see the consequences of imperialism, and this is a country where like 99% of the media is owned by the comprador class or international capital making propaganda for austerity, meritocracy and other bullshit.
If somebody doesn’t understand why their definition of imperialism doesn’t seem to be the one we use, maybe they can ask questions rather than interpret us in bad faith and so on.
It must be an election year. Here comes the “both sides” posts
Leftists have been opposing the US Empire every day for years, election season has nothing to do with it.
Libs can’t imagine any “activism” beyond voting for garbage people.
I was in a conversation w one yesterday where we were talking about how the Epstein illuminati had been in control of American politics for the last few decades using mass 4chan to control maga and also using reddit to control vote-blue-no-matter-who.
We got to the last election and how they’ll probably engineer the next one and he said that he would vote for Kamala Harris again despite knowing that the Epstein illuminati will mass social engineer a choice between someone like Harris and JD Vance because Vance is a fascist and Harris isn’t; as if we instantly forgot the conversation we were having.
Then I became completely stupified when he posited that Americans will react once they discover how Russia was using Epstein to collect the kompromat.
He’s the most political informed person I know and unquestionably more so than the American plebiscite and even he is clearly conditioned to accept the Russia narrative and i think it makes it clear that our cultural conditioning will outlast any impact that the Epstein will have on our society.
Yep, and going to brunch.
Hey now! I enjoyed a very nice brunch this morning, right at home. No mimosas though. And my dining companion needs a full body shave.
Brunch isn’t bad itself!
Revisionism! This is where Deng Xiaoping Thought will lead you. /joke
🫠
I know. I just wanted to chat you up. 😋
Haha, I appreciate it!
Oh no no no. Not both sides. One side.
I’m not American I don’t know when their elections are. Liberal doesn’t mean “Democrat” it means someone who believes in the capitalist “free market” policies and opposes alternate economic systems. In the US all parties are Liberal. This meme isn’t even just about Americans, it is more about how westerners in general post on Lemmy about what Russia did in Ukraine versus about what they all did in Iraq.
I’m not American I don’t know when their elections are.
Part of the Yankee political system is that “election cycles” are so long it’s basically always close to one at least. “Election year” describes at least one in every two years.
