Jesus , cringe far-right propaganda
at least half those archeotypes are typical among the far right though
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Have you considered opposing ALL fascists, particularly the ones invading another country and committing genocide?
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You don’t oppose them now? Putin’s regime isn’t even delivering for Russia. They tried to safeguard themselves from NATO threats, only to cause mass migration of working age men, kill at least 50k of their own soldiers, and caused NATO to expand and be strengthened. Hell, Ukraine will probably join NATO once the invasion is over. They got overconfident over how easily they took Chrimea and thought they could just blitz the rest of the country, failing to realize that Ukraine had prepared over the past decade and that most of Ukraine would see them as invaders. They fucked over their own imperial ambitions while accomplishing basically nothing.
Communists don’t defend Russia
Communists shouldn’t defend the Russian Federation. Yet for inexplicable reasons, many self-proclaimed communists online do so. Typically they’re tankies with all sorts of other problematic opinions.
I have literally never seen it.
I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but it doesn’t happen in the places I frequent - and I frequent a LOT of Leftist communities.
Edit: People are pointing to the Tankies Lemmy community. The place designed for tankies. I’m not arguing they don’t exist. I’m aruing against the people saying they’re all over the place and pervasive in other communities and that they’re not a commonality and not the usual communist/socialist.
Pointing to the Tankies communities doesn’t change anything I’ve said.
It’s rampant in certain ML communities. A lot of people are so caught up in their reasonable opposition to the US, it’s foreign policy and the military industrial complex that they start to see any US enemy in a positive light, despite many of those enemies being significantly worse.
Which communities. Someone else pointed to that same community - and I looked at a post and saw nothing but support for Ukraine.
What do you want me to see here?
I think you meant to link a Lemmy post - but accidentally posted the article from the Lemmy post instead of the comments themselves.
You are right, I’m sorry. Here’s what I meant to share: https://lemm.ee/post/3842553
I’m an unabashed leftist who has been active in leftist spaces online since “leftist spaces online” meant particular groups on usenet and I see Russia apologists masquerading as socialists almost every day
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Is lem.ee not federated with lemmygrad.ml? They’re right here my guy you don’t have to search hard.
https://lemmygrad.ml/post/1254216
This whole thread is basically just tankies frothing over military aid sent to Ukraine and me of course having the dumbest discussion of ny life. Just an example but they are simply insane or stupid, or just insanely stupid.
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I have literally never seen it.
I have no clue how that’s possible considering how the Ukraine war has caused their apologia to crawl out of the woodwork.
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Okay? But the people we’re talking about think Ukraine should be invaded by Russia.
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Well American conservatives also defend Russia, that doesn’t mean they’re communists
So stop associating things
Go back up to the image and see the one labeled “Hard Right.” You’re welcome.
I think you’re a little confused. I never claimed all Russian supporters were communists, or vice-versa for that matter.
At least soviet gulags were just concentration camps, not extermination camps.
The left spectrum is the best one :P
I mean, I don’t disagree. I consider myself left-of-centre and the Soviets a lesser evil compared to the Nazis, or even the Tsars they replaced.
Has your instance defederated from lemmygrad? Otherwise you wouldn’t make such claims.
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I’m a communist and I don’t, so there’s one.
That’s tankies. Not all communists are tankies. Tankies are just incredibly loud. And love to brigade.
I think the problem is that the meme chooses to use the term “communist” rather than “tankie.” No principled communist would defend a plutocratic petrol state like current day Russia, unless they simply opposed the west more than they supported Marxism. It seems like this meme is targeted at centrist Americans and right wing liberals who think poorly of communism because they were alive during the Cold War, and think antifa hurts their cause more than they help. The peacenik one is pretty spot on, but the first two kind of suck.
No arguments there, the first two def could’ve done with better labels. I’m just shitposting from my ‘best of’ folders while the Fediverse finds its feet, not a content creator, so I do apologize for the problems caused by the share.
Only fascists with a red aesthetic - Tankies, if you will.
Judging by the number of Lemmygrad users spewing their regurgitated kremlin propaganda all over the place i’d say you should reconsider your position
This is a biased piece of pseudo intellectual misinformation. Communists don’t defend Russia and “lefty” (couldn’t you be more obvious in your bias if you tried) antifascists do not assume whole nations are fascist at all - clearly they attack fascists in their own countries without attacking everyone.
This is just dumb centrist shit masquerading as discourse.
Not all communists, geez
But some are definitely doing this. If you haven’t encountered them, consider yourself lucky
If you haven’t encountered them
Good god, the tankies are insufferable edgy memelords on the fediverse
Do you know what sub this is?
Do you really need someone to remind you of how Set theory works?
How did it say that all communists are like this? You’re just assuming things and getting mad over it.
This post isn’t about categories of leftists or communists, it’s about categories of genocide apologists. Most communists do not defend Russia (I hope) but among those who defend Russia, some claim to be communist.
I mean can you even call yourself a communism if you dont defend genocide? Cant have communist utopia without it.
Just see my last comment in the sea of tankies. All these stereotypes are real and people like that live and breathe.
There are also many People that identify with the names of group a,b,c that oppose Russia. There are for example Antifa Groups fighting against Russia. If I would guess the percentage of People that identify with the names of group a,b,c that oppose Russia could be roughly as follows: A 75% B 95% C 35% Just numbers I made up.
Yes. This image is claiming that some people who support Russia/oppose Ukraine self-identity as anti-fascists and argue their point from that perspective. Not that those people represent everyone who would identify as anti-fascist nor the majority view of anti-fascists.
I don’t think the labels are meant to be all-encompassing - all of the categories have significant amounts of Ukrainian supporters. Most self-identified antifa, I would say, would be Ukrainian supporters, as would most self-identified communists who aren’t tankies. It’s more “Genocide apologist + [A,B,C,D,E] most likely means this”.
Look i cringe and ROFL as much as the next guy when some dumbass tankie comes defending tyranical goverments and calling one racist just for critcising the ccp, but this meme is idiotic, since its deffinetly made targeting those dumbasses and made with the intend to roundup both us vs them just to generate fighting, and is kinda indulging in what it bashes, not that theres anything possitive to take away from tankies and its not like we are gonna change their mind if we repeatedly scream to them tianamen square massacre, but rounding up people just to shittalk those idiots is very suspisous and i cant stop but feeling that whe are being manipulated.
This may seem a tangent, but bear with me. You make an interesting point. Your view should be considered.
You look deeper into the mentality us vs them behind this meme. You identify that as a possible strategy to keep people apart. That is something worthwhile considering.
Now, problem is your post is hard to parse. You have what amounts to a whole paragraph with only one period. My suggestion: break information into small chunks. That greatly helps your readers. It allows them to become more engaged with your content.
Now, leaving that aside. Thanks for trying to reason through this shallow us-them mentality.
Thanks 4 that m8, problem is i needed to constantly bash tankies in order to not appear as one of “them” to the “us” so that one of us starts atacking me because they labeled me as a them. Besides, english is not my first language so it may be hard to follow sometimes.
Don’t worry about English. Text is text. My mother tongue is Portuguese. Precisely because the internet is full of people like us, i. e., that are not totally comfortable with English, we should make our texts easier to parse.
Your mind is in the right place. That’s the hardest part. Adjusting your writing style is much easier. So be confident.
Yeah but the paragrapg thing is easier than expected I started doing it also.
English is also not my first language
What a lovely comment. Thank you for thoughtfully and politely making the internet a better place.
Aren’t the last three all kind of the same? Especially C and D
they are both shitty rationalizations, but the root belief behind them is different, and the method to get them to shut up is different.
F. The Pacifist
“All war is bad, even when defending against invasion. The Allies shouldn’t have invaded nazi germany to stop their fascist imperialism and genocides, just have peace talks! Maybe NATO and Ukraine needs to just talk with russia. So easy. Fucking war mongerers on bOth siDes. Peace Talks Solves Everything! SMH My Head”
Hrm uh… I would describe myself as a leftist antifascist.
And I do not think that elements of fascism within Ukraine’s society and government make it somehow deserving of being invaded, absorbed into Russia, having their culture erased, and worse.
Getting more technical, maybe the term anarcho-communist is i think actually accurate, but then you end up with less politically informed people assuming I am the worst thing imaginable, a violent anarchist terrorist that wants to violently overthrow every government and replace it with nothing, while simultaneously /also/ being an authoritarian who believes in a vanguard party, no dissent allowed an oh money and property are not allowed to exist any more.
Then on the other hand you could say maybe social libertarian, but you run into the same problem woth the other terms: Every American thinks Libertarian = AnCap, and ‘social’ as a prefix denotes basically ‘communism lite’ to most Americans.
What I actually am is a person who believes in the right to privacy in personal matters, freedom of speech as in the ability to say unpopular things and be judged by people individually and by groups collectively, but not at the point of a goon squad with guns or the ability to imprison or impoverish you preventing you from criticizing an existing power structure, be it government, corporate, religious or otherwise.
I believe in protecting the oppressed, providing a reasonable standard of living, education amd medical care for all, that people should genuinely, directly care and help their neighbors (not indirectly by donating to some incredibly inefficient charity, and especially not by hypocritically acting extremely concerned about whatever issue but not actually /doing/ anything /useful/ about it).
I believe that American society is far too individualistic and selfish, that worker co ops with a democratic governance structure are a far superior way to organize economic production than the authoritarian private business model that defines social relations within especially large corporations, but even most medium and small business enterprises I have ever been a part of as well.
And I also do my best to temper these beliefs with realism, knowing that these things are an idea of a better world to strive for, in a world that is brutally unfair, difficult to predict, and is full of many, many others who disagree.
You might even say that even when societies are organized into nation states, even when employees are organized into corporations, or adherents organized into religions, at a bigger picture level they all compete with each other in a rather stereotypically anarchic way, often violating the ‘rules’ that are supposed to govern their interactions, and nearly always employing every method possible to bend those rules, break those rules and get away with it, and to be the ones making those rules.
I can, and did, easily fit in to all the chapo themed sub-lemmies, it is very easy to joke about the hypocrisy of American domestic politics and economic practices.
But they never talk about the Ukraine Russia conflict.
Sure, they all agree that Israel is doing a genocide, which is my opinion as well.
But you cannot be critical of China. I barely mentioned that /maybe/ if Taiwan wants to be independent, that a flawed democracy exerting its will to self determine should not just de facto be waived away by the geo strategic situation, and they all got extremely edgelord extremely quickly.
Eventually the topic turned to surveillance and freedom of speech, and they basically all entirely believed that China has no problems with that at all.
Delusional.
Its actually very confusing to me that online Chapo fan communities are seemingly all Marxist-Leninists, or Maoists, or even more confusingly to me think that the Chinese government and societt even is communist, when they are so obviously state capitalists (red fascists, as many here seem to say).
The Chapo podcast almost never touches on foreign policy beyond making fun of how absurd many American foreign policy decisions are and how poorly informes most Americans are about other societies.
Anyway this is a long post but here is more kindling for this thread:
I am a lefty antifascist, but I don’t believe that Ukraine’s right to self determine democratically should be overridden by the Russian state.
And though I believe that war itself is a crime… I do not see how any reasonable person can think that Ukraine should just lie down and give up.
Is this supposed to be sarcasm? No communist thinks Russia is Soviet.
Oh shit, he pulled out the logical fallacies to win an internet debate
Nope and they theoretically disapprove.
On the other hand they praise Putin for leading the fight against the liberal west and choose to see the Ukrainian war in that perspective, fully drinking the Kremlin cool aid.
They don’t think it but their actions are saying the opposite. Otherwise a tankie like Edy Ongaro wouldn’t have traveled 1000 km to go die in Donbass trying to help Russian kill the bad fascist Ukrainians
Or another tankie like Jorit would have understood the irony of painting a murales “against the Ukrainian atrocities” on a residential complex destroyed by the Russian army
Every news source has its biases, and for some it is more than biases. I’ve read Fox News and Russia Today (English and Russian versions, because they are very different sites, of course. Not that I can easily read it nowadays) because even if they might post only selective facts, it also gives you an idea of what the propaganda campaign, if any, is trying to concentrate on, at the very least from their point of view. The real problem with “contrarians” is saturation by actual paid propagandists and that they don’t have a problem encasing themselves inside a very small bubble while calling everything else a bubble. But it’s hard to be a critical thinker if your don’t “contrarian” yourself.
It’s been bizarre some of my interactions with group A and B. I’ve been active in leftist circles for most of my time on the internet. I definitely get and agree with a lot of the criticisms with the US, NATO, and the EU, but I don’t get how so many people think the Russian or Chinese government are any more righteous, especially considering the human rights violations and encroachments on sovereignty we’ve seen from both countries. Not just in their past either, but within the last decade!
The situation kinda feels like how Japan justified its imperialism to the outside world during the Invasion of China, South Asia, and the Pacific. Their official stance was they were aiming to rid Asia of Western imperialism and replace it with a sphere of co-prosperity, Despite this message however, they were absolutely brutal to the lands they occupied. The murdered and raped indiscriminately, and those they kept alive they enslaved and worked to death in brutal conditions. No sane person today who knows the extent of their harm would ever defend them as a power, even if their supposed message was “anti-imperialism.”
You can oppose western imperialism, US hegemony, and capitalism without siding with other imperialists, fascists, and psuedo-communists. The actions of a country should speak for them, not the messages their propaganda tries to make you believe. Considering what I know from Russia’s Soviet legacy with Eastern Europe, the actions they took against Chechnya and Georgia, their local treatment of dissidents, the brutal persecution of queer people that makes Florida look tame, the war crimes and human rights violations committed in Syria and Africa by Wagner, and the bombing, killing, raping, and kidnapping of civilians in Ukraine. I don’t see how anyone could defend them or their actions. I know the US is guilty most of it through out its history too, but you shouldn’t oppose a monster by supporting another monster.
I think that at least some of it is a knee-jerk reaction to the narrative that is pushed. There is no analysis, no debate, at the moment NATO is sold like some kind of NGO, countries that until yesterday were bombing others with zero concerns today are standing in (justified) horrors for the Russian war crimes, like if we discovered war in 2022. For some, this narrative is simply unacceptable, even if it ends up in the right place (i.e., supporting Ukraine in defending itself from an imperialist nation). The problem comes with the NAFO-fellows and the likes, where immediately as soon as you say anything to bring up these very contradictions, you are a genocide denier/enabler/supporter.
I am sure that for others is a matter of countering the US, or the mainstream media or whatever, though.
I tried explaining this to some tankies but instead I got banned from the community before I could finish my point.
Because they only exist to push the putin agenda. They’re the Jordan Peterson of the left, but I wouldn’t even call them leftists. They’re red fascists.
The red-brown alliance lives on in a way…
I think they make a cream for that
I posted on lemmy.ml calling out tankies as terrible human beings. Pointed out the term was coined by communists disgusted at their fellows cheering on the Soviet’s brutal oppression of other communists. Said tankies don’t deserve the title of “communist”, because at its core the ideals of communism are equity and human dignity. Called Marx “flawed and written for a world that existed 175 years ago”.
They did not like that at all.
Capital is crap.
But Communist Manifesto was the cliff’s notes for the 20th century and the best psychological description of capitalism that I’ve read.
Ideally. In reality marx was a couch potato who lived off his parents wealth. An armchair socialist like most tankies today.
I mean, Marx never claimed to have all the answers. His whole schtick was that society was progressing to a new and fairer stage of human civilization and economic organization, not that he knew the smoothest way to get there.
I always think of Marx as a brilliant economist, because he identified a lot of real issues with capitalism as industrialization was in full swing.
He really sucked on the political side of things though. “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” will always result in an Animal Farm situation. Just human nature.
I think communists fell into the trap of thinking that because a dude is right about a lot of things it means he’s right about everything. It’s kinda like a cult in that way.
As Marx once said, “If one thing is certain, it is that I am not a Marxist.”
That being said, ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat’ is very widely misunderstood, in no small part due to Marxist-Leninists using it as cover for their vanguard bullshit.
human nature
Every time I read someone expressing this view, I feel like encouraging to read something from Graeber, for example “Debt”. Not for the discussion on debt itself, but mostly for the different ways societies were organized over millennia.
Ok.
I encourage you to read Animal Farm, it’s probably a lot less boring than this Graeber guy.
Assuming someone hasn’t read already Animal Farm is like assuming they haven’t ever read a book.
Orwell wrote a critique of modern society, soviet Stalinist society in particular, in animal farm. It’s not an anthropology book, it’s political satire that came from a socialist (!). I am not sure your induction that it applies to all humans under every circumstance was therefore intended by the author (lord of the flies might be a much better example in this case).
Graeber is actually far for boring, and as an anthropologist his writing tend to be a bit more general.
Either way, of course I’ve read Animal Farm.
Excellent poster! Now I can pinpoint my opponents during internet battles!
There are waaaaay too many E’s on Lemmy.
It’s made by them
That’s why I went with Kbin, didn’t want to use software made by them.
Kbinners RISE UP!
When I first opened Lemmy and saw the very first post was a leftist post complaining about Neoliberals, I knew what I was about to get myself into with this place.
Yeah it’s the one thing putting me off the platform. Like I’d describe myself as pretty hard left, and a pacifist. But Russia is a fascist state performing an unprovoked attack on a neighbouring nation. Just because many NATO nations have right wing problems (and tbh I feel a lot of people on the left haven’t heard the expression “don’t make the good the enemy of the perfect” - shit is bad in the West but it’s nothing compared to life in Russia) doesn’t undo that fact and Ukraine has the right to defend itself and it’s right that we support that.
The fact that some may consider NATO’s support to be hypocritical given the middle East doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
100%, my man. Ukraine is a sovereign state defending itself from an unprovoked attack.
If my neighbour was getting attacked, I’d help them too, out of common decency, and common sense to keep the neighbourhood safe.
It’s really astounding. But to cheer you up, enjoy some supremely based ancoms
The fact that some may consider NATO’s support to be hypocritical given the middle East doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
Yeah that’s the weirdest line of thinking of seen on this. “If we aren’t always the ones doing evil things then we’re being hypocritical!” Like we should never do the right thing because occasionally being on the right side is worse than being hypocritical? Or maybe it’s that doing something wrong in the past means you should never try to do the right thing? Or maybe if someone has done something wrong in the past it’s simply not possible for them to ever do something that’s right? What is the logic here?
I believe this is part of the “don’t make the good the enemy of the perfect” thing. Because we’re not good in all ways it is assumed that everything we do is for evil. You see it even some of the responses to my post - that we’re only providing support because it fuels our military industry profits. And to be honest, that is probably true. But like it’s still doing the right thing, even if it’s for the wrong reasons.
Just because Russia is wrong doesn’t make supporting Ukraine right. The only reasons US turned on the money tap for Ukraine is so that is can be funneled through Lockheed Martin & Co, essentially injecting cash straight into the MIC pulsing veins.
Hundreds of thousands of dead Ukrainians and Russians be damned- shareholder value is going up.
Now it doesn’t take much imagination to think of scenarios where the money tap turns off - just let Trump win next year and watch him speed run turning it off - and then what? What if Ukraine ends up being overrun anyway by Russia?
What was the point of all the dead young men? For a territory that is primarily ethnic Russians who primarily speak Russian. For a territory like Crimea who has been part of Russia proper for hundreds of years until handed over arbitrarily by a premier in the 1950s.
You want me to be honest? I don’t give a shit which corrupt Eastern European government is the legitimate sovereign over Eastern Ukraine and Crimea. Russia or Ukraine, makes zero difference to me. Not worth potential nuclear war. Not worth dangerous global inflation. Not worth pushing Russia away from Europe and towards China.
We are making a big mistake which everyone will pretend is “obvious” like Iraq 20 years ago. Of course jingoists can’t see anything other than war in front of their noses. Anything else seems almost absurd
Nope. Setting the precedent that stronger nations can take territory from weaker nations by force would mean an immediate end to the post WW2 rules-based international order and would bring an end to the most peaceful era in human history.
Xi is watching Ukraine very closely as he has made nearly identical claims about Taiwan and much of the South China Sea. So are the Japanese, Koreans, and Vietnamese. This is not a path that ends well.
Taiwan isn’t really identical to Ukraine. China is nearly a magnitude larger while Russia is only about 4~5x bigger. Taiwan is also infinitely more important to the global economy and US foreign policy than Ukraine.
Ukraine doesn’t matter. Russia controlled it for the entirety of the Cold War and it never mattered. This whole thing is essentially a Ukrainian independence war starting in 2014.
I’d say the US invasion of Iraq was dramatically worse for the “rules-based international order” since US had very little reason to be in Iraq, a country halfway across the world.
Having said all that, US support of Ukraine has nothing to do with the rules based order. I re-iterate - it’s to a) pump money straight into Lockheed Martin & friends b) test out a bunch of new military tech (sort of like Spanish Civil War before WW2) and c) an attempt to make Russia bleed for every inch of territory
I wish people would take ideology out of these discussions.
I wish people would take batshit conspiracy theories out these discussions.
The US doesn’t need external reasons for defense spending. Trump (nor anyone else in the GOP) is going to cut defense spending. So that’s all just something you made up in your head, but isn’t at all a real thing.
The Soviet control of Eastern Europe actually was a big thing in the Cold War. It’s actually what the cold war was mostly about. So what are you talking about Soviets controlling Ukraine was no big deal?
And you should read up on the Helsinki Accords https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki_Accords
That agreement (and many more that followed on from that) countries in Europe agreed to respect each other’s sovereignty. Mostly because they didn’t want another World War. Putin has violated those agreements.
This isn’t just ideological, though when a fascist invades a neighbouring country on the grounds that people of their ethnicity lives there, it raises some concerns doesn’t it? But at any rate, Russia invaded a sovereign democracy. It’s only right that all of the democracies of the world oppose this.
All you are doing is arguing in favor of realpolitik over the many other possible incentive structures that political theorists have proposed as informing the ecology of international relations. While I think realpolitik certainly plays a role, I also think it’s stupid not to recognize that there are many other forces at work as well, at least some of which really are based on good intentions, no matter how far awry they may have gone.
Uh no definitely not the only reason.
US is buying russia’s defeat and demiliterisation on the cheap.
EU and US are not always on the same page but on this they are.
Starting shit in Europe is very personal and very symbolic to western nations as well having the massive precedent of WW2.
Cold war is great for stable economic MIC growth. Actual war is the opposite especially when other goods and trade is harmed causing inflation and all other economic shenanigans that one would want to avoid outright or from escalating.
Ukraine and other eastern Europe countries now looking to seek protection of nato with which there are mutliple requirements and conditions for said joining and few of which are core liberal democractic based.
Its never one thing. Politics is like a never ending game of dominoes where pieces fall and right themselves anywhere and everywhere
It’s never one thing but more like a pie chart. If we looked at the biggest chunks on the pie chart, they would be the things I outlined and take up the majority of the chart. Hurting Russia is nice, you’re right, but Russia is not a real threat. Other countries don’t need to join NATO. Russia does not have the capacity to properly invade Ukraine, the poorest country in Europe right next to their border. The only real threat Russia has is nuclear weapons, and should Russia start nuking non-NATO countries I don’t think Article 5 is going to matter - the US is going to respond.
I view Ukraine war a lot like the Spanish Civil war in 1936. Nice playground to test out new military tech. Nevermind the hundreds of thousands of young men who are going to die or be permanently maimed, Ukraine having their demographics crippled for the next century, and the hundreds of millions of poor across the world who are suffering under rising inflation due to things such as food supply
I agree war in Europe is very “symbolic” but that doesn’t matter in a geopolitical sense. It’s only useful as a propaganda tool in order to justify the eternal prolongation of the above mentioned destruction
“It’s never one thing but more like a pie chart. If we looked at the biggest chunks on the pie chart, they would be the things I outlined and take up the majority of the chart. Hurting Russia is nice, you’re right, but Russia is not a real threat. Other countries don’t need to join NATO. Russia does not have the capacity to properly invade Ukraine, the poorest country in Europe right next to their border. The only real threat Russia has is nuclear weapons, and should Russia start nuking non-NATO countries I don’t think Article 5 is going to matter - the US is going to respond.”
Russia not a threat? Im sure ukraine disagrees, as with other border nations.
Russia actual capabilities wernt truly known to be this terrible until they invaded and even what was known wasn’t universal and apparent to everyone.
Others dont need to join nato? Sure. Until they do. WW3 and European wars seem like a silly concept and then it happens all of a sudden nato looks to be a great deal to get back to that sense of security as well as having a gurantee of that security.
I view Ukraine war a lot like the Spanish Civil war in 1936. Nice playground to test out new military tech. Nevermind the hundreds of thousands of young men who are going to die or be permanently maimed, Ukraine having their demographics crippled for the next century, and the hundreds of millions of poor across the world who are suffering under rising inflation due to things such as food supply
Its more like the Korean war with old tech and surplus being used up. While im sure there is new technology to be had the majority of it is all old stuff. From 1960’s to 2000’s
I agree war in Europe is very “symbolic” but that doesn’t matter in a geopolitical sense. It’s only useful as a propaganda tool in order to justify the eternal prolongation of the above mentioned destruction
It does matter to every European indvidual. Their personal cognition of history and current values is one where starting WW3 was not a reality they had but now the potential is very real. Im assuming you are american so maybe you dont understand what it means to have a neighbouring country at anytime can roll over your border as well as not having the worlds largest military or police which a single american city can have more then some countries entire armies.
People do have genuine feelings and reactions. Its not all calculated Patriots string pulling
Russia not a threat? Im sure ukraine disagrees, as with other border nations.
Russia is not able to, with some of the highest military spending on the planet, properly invade a weak country right on their borders. Again, we’re talking about the poorest country in Europe. Whereas if we look at the American invasion of Iraq - within a month the Iraqi government had collapsed. Now, let’s see what other countries Russia could presumably invade.
The only real options are
-
the baltic states which are already in NATO. So no need for NATO to spread there.
-
poland - who has a military budget more than 3x Ukraine’s along with a more modern air force and air defense system. Not to mention they are also in NATO. Even if Poland wasn’t in NATO, Russia would stand no chance.
-
finland - this is probably Russia’s best bet - they were spending about 20% less on their military as Ukraine in 2020. however Ukraine and Finland have drastically different geographies. Ukraine is mostly open plains so Russia historically wants to control Ukraine as it’s an easy way to invade Russia (
both Napoleon and(edit: i refreshed my memory on French invasion and was incorrect. They went through Belarus) Hitler exploited this in order to invade Russia). However Finland is dense forest and the winters are harsh. The USSR even tried to invade Finland right around WW2 and failed miserably. And back then Finland was a poor backwater relative to what it is today.
So, Finland I think is justified in wanting to join NATO but realistically it’s not necessary. Should Finland get invaded, they would end up getting support from the US and Europe just like Ukraine is getting now. In 1939 they didn’t get that support and they still held back the Russians. Now with them being much richer relatively and Russia being weaker - it just isn’t realistic
Do you see what I’m saying? Russia isn’t a real threat. The only card they hold is nuclear weapons, and that’s a last resort option because they know it would very likely signal the end of the regime.
While im sure there is new technology to be had the majority of it is all old stuff. From 1960’s to 2000’s
Yes, both Ukraine and Russia are bringing out relics in this fight. Russia is burning through old Soviet tanks from the 1950s. But modern air defense systems, cruise missiles, drones, and modern satellites have never been used in this capacity. This is great for the US. They are able to use their satellites and communicate real time information to the Ukrainians. They learn what’s best to pay attention to, what are the limits of their tech.
All parties have learned just how useful drones can be. They’ve been used in many ways. As recon, as ways to attack people in trenches by simply dropping grenades on them, as suicide drones, etc. US military engineers are taking this massive treasure trove of data and reinvesting their work and money into places that have been shown to be most effective.
Not to mention all the behind the scenes cyber warfare / intelligence gathering that is going on. I’m telling you - a lot of people in the MIC are very happy about this war. And of course our defense contractors are getting tens of billions of dollars which can conceivably become hundreds of billions before this war is finally through.
People do have genuine feelings and reactions
Obviously people have genuine feelings. But governments don’t have feelings. They practice realpolitik and that involves lots of educated smart people making cold calculated decisions. Feelings mean nothing to deciding whether to go to war or even when talking about internal policies. There’s that famous quote said to Yanis, that minister from Greece. “Elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy” by the German finance minister in a Eurogroup meeting.
Im assuming you are american
I was born in South America. Although I concede there is very little risk of nations invading each other in South America just like in the USA.
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Now it doesn’t take much imagination to think of scenarios where the money tap turns off - just let Trump win next year and watch him speed run turning it off - and then what?
Are you honestly saying that if Trump wins he’s going to cut defense spending? Like really? You actually think the GOP is going cut defense spending? Reaaaaalllllly?
If so I got some NFTs I want to sell you LOL.
Money to Ukraine. Not defense spending. Try reading more slowly next time. That helps me sometimes.
We’re discussing the billions of dollars going to a) prop up the Ukrainian budget and b) “military aid” which goes through our favorite defense contractors.
It’s very likely should Trump win that this fountain is getting closed. He’s said as much fairly explicitly.
Cut defense spending? No. Stop sending weapons to Ukraine? Almost certainly.
So it follows that the whole conspiracy theory about Ukraine being a scheme to justify defense spending is all bullshit. The US doesn’t actually need external reasons to justify defense spending.
I mean, yeah, the conspiracy theory is bullshit. Just pointing out that if Trump wins, turning off the tap of support to Ukraine is very much a possibility.
Well yeah, Trump is Putin’s puppet.
The US doesn’t actually need external reasons to justify defense spending.
Yes it actually does. Congress can’t just pass a bill randomly and send $100 billion to Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. It needs a big seemingly groundbreaking reason. Which is partly why this war has been so hyped up and Russian is depicted as a major threat to Europe when realistically they are so weak they can’t even properly conquer the poorest country in Europe right next to their borders.
I say partly because it actually is a fairly important war being the largest war in Europe since WW2. But absolutely, just like Cheney & co took advantage of 9/11 to funnel money into war, our modern day politicians are doing the same thing. It’s not a conspiracy theory. Or at least, in 20 years from now people will talk about it as if it’s obvious.
Where is this $100 billion to Raytheon and Lockheed Martin? Is this real legislation or just something you made up?
20 years from now people will be talking about how obvious it was that Glavset was pumping propaganda on the internet. How could people have been silly enough to believe their obvious bullshit?
But here we are. Russia brazenly invades a sovereign democracy and a legion of people on the internet think “this is fine” simply because the internet told them to think this way. Ah you can be contrarian to all logic and reason (be a rebel!) by supporting foreign authoritarians!
Also A’s, B’s, and D’s.
There is waaay to many of all of them.
They’re A-D masquerading because it has some plausible deniability.
Most of type E. “Peacelink” are actually type C. “Right Wing” in disguise. Conservatives are inherently drawn to conspiracy theories
- The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
- Great replacement
- and now Nato “Bioweapons Labs” theory.
- Donald Trump was the most Anti Nato president the US. ever had.
- Hungarian conservative Orban tells us Ukrainian people can not win the war
The most popular conspiracy theories are right wing ones. But conservatives arn’t exclusively drawn to them. Political brainrot has no political affiliation.
Propaganda is terrible at telling you how to think. But it is very good at telling you what to think about
And c and d. They’re all the same people on lemmy
There are way too many on the planet I guess
I’ve seen too many As myself
Fake “Communist” losers
