I am genuinely confused by hexbear's opinion on the Ukraine war ( lemmygrad.ml )

What I have learned:

  • Russia has already won the Ukraine war
  • Which NATO started
  • A lot of people in the West think that Ukraine should surrender
  • Also Ukraine was the world's main provider of CSAM
  • Also Ukraine is exploited by the West but if they can unite with Russia then their economy and everything else will finally be alright

It's literally like a bizarro world and everyone is over there agreeing with it. I'm genuinely confused by, who even are these people (what is the mixture of Russian bots / Russian-aligned ordinary people / confused Westerners / some other explanation.)

a_wild_mimic_appears ,

The amount of cognitive dissonance is massive. they proudly present their pronouns, completely ignoring that doing so would get them on the russian shitlist superfast. Also, just like with the OG nazis, the enemy is simultaneously strong and weak, stupid and cunning.

It's kinda sad. after the wall fell and russia started cooperating economically with the rest of europe i was a bit of a fan, but what Putin and his cronies have done to the country and their neighbours is inexcusable.

Maggoty ,

Unfortunately propaganda works. And the Russians have been working at it for a long time. To be fair, so has the West. There are absolutely Russians out there who believe in conspiracy theories we've spread.

The problem of course is that propaganda like this is self serving and generally impedes the progress of civil society. We can't recommend a change in our government without getting called a dirty commie and lumped in with these guys. Russians can't do it either, not without being called a Western traitor and arrested. And yes I realize those are two different outcomes, the point is the problem is just as hard to get around.

gentooer ,

I completely forgot I blocked Hexbear. Looks like I made a good decision.

draughtcyclist ,

Glad I'm not the only one. My feed is smarter for it.

h3mlocke ,
@h3mlocke@lemm.ee avatar

Oh, you forgot the "Ukraine is 90% nazis" part

mindbleach ,

Reality is a team sport, to some people.

kandoh ,

There are some Americans, who upon learning that the US is not the mythological good guy it's propaganda portrayed it as, are dealt such severe psychic damage that the only way their fractured mind is able to cope is to just assume the opposite worldview must be true.

The key takeaway is that they're not capable of thinking for themselves. They require others to tell them what to think, and that's either going to be US or Russian propaganda.

TJDetweiler ,

That first paragraph is poetic

phoenixz ,

There are loads of people who think that about their own country. There are also loads of people who think that any country at all can be perfectly good or perfectly evil, or that in a conflict, one must always be right and the other wrong.

People love to shit on the US for it's aggressive meddling in other countries, but somehow forget that China and Russia do the exact same, you just hear about it less.

DAMunzy ,

And that other countries do it just on a smaller scale.

Maggoty ,

There's actually a name for that in politics. It's the rubber band effect and it's entirely human.

Floey ,

The opposite kind of is true. But the enemy of your enemy isn't necessarily your friend and it's hard to say if the US and Russia are even truly enemies when they both bend to capital.

Rusty ,

I assume hexbear is just the russian troll factory.

I can read Russian and I sometimes read Russian media and it uses almost exactly the same topics for their people. There is a new one that they started to repeat recently and it's that Zelensky is an illegitimate president, because his term has ened.

blarth ,

These takes are pretty hot with QAnon conservatives in America too. Wonder why. 🤔

Maggoty ,

I mean they feel for a rando on the Internet claiming to be an FBI Agent giving the internet the real story. If I was in info ops I'd target them too!

Quacksalber ,

That is the power of an echo chamber. My favorite post by a hex was when he tried to convince me that the Tiananmen Square massare was fake. He had a comprehensive list of over 20 links prepared, with bangers like "Actually, the massacre wasn't happening on Tiananmen Square, but next to it. Checkmate globalists". I'd love to link it here, but shame on @goat for deleting that post and sending them to the Tankie corner, because now I can't find it anymore, not even in the mod log.

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

I think I saw a version of that. Also featured a celebration of Tank Man, because it was a sign that the Chinese forces were being very humane about it because he felt empowered to show his resistance and the tank stopped and didn't want to run him over, see, they didn't mean any harm!

Railcar8095 ,

One version that was puked over me was "the west lies that he was ran over by the tank, when it reality he was shot , then they moved the corpse to the side and then the tank moved".

Of course some others say he just walked away (got bored I guess?) and had a long and happy life.

ZombiFrancis ,

Well that was just the Barbara Walters interview with Zemin. I think the official stance on who he is/was and what happened to him is just a big '¯_(ツ)_/¯'.

barsoap ,

Actually, the massacre wasn’t happening on Tiananmen Square, but next to it.

That one's true. There's probably been some deaths on the square itself but the bulk was in side-streets blocked by Peking locals in solidarity with the students, once the army fought itself through that and arrived at the square it issued an ultimatum and the students caved. Eleven of the withdrawing students were later killed away from the square by a stray tank crew. The tank man picture was taken the day after.

Don't get into fights with tankies over such things. Rather ask why the CCP was stomping Dengists -- which is what the students were.

ZombiFrancis ,

Brigading with burner accounts really undermined the veracity those screenshot threads might've had.

abraxas ,

Oh god yeah, all the freaking time. I feel my brain turn to Jello when someone goes all-in on the "massacre was fake" bullshit, often insisting that no pictures exist, pretending it's just the Tank Guy pic. Someone references the notorious bike pic, they pretend you're talking about a similar bike pic that's a LITTLE less clear about tank treads crushing human bodies. You link them the actual bike pic, they either pretend they don't see the slaughter (best I heard was "they're not dead or run over, they're just taking a nap") or they start saying "well those were the violent people and China saved the peaceful protestors from them"

It makes me want to vomit

Audacious ,

It's weird that those forums are in English, reading the insane takes and rhetoric. I also noticed many of the accounts are just prolific posters, making the community seem small to me. Also saw an account with a trans flag, which is surprising they would accommodate such a person or such a person would have those weird views on lemmygrad.

iarigby ,

I would LOVE to find a non deranged communist forum but like I said on another comment, I have yet to encounter one which does not make me vomit all over the screen after I see them celebrating bloodshed in Ukraine and masturbating to the idea of an independent sovereign nation being crushed by brutal, authoritarian, and savage state.

It’s heartbreaking that people seeking an ideology with genuinely noble intentions turn into such violent loons. On hexbear (and co) I think they are genuinely mostly from the west but try so hard to stick it to US imperialism that they literally end up supporting a significantly more horrifying empire. I sometimes think that they deserve to have been born into Soviet Union or present Russia but I genuinely cannot bring myself to wish such horror on a human being. Their thoroughly typed and carefully cherry picked facts vs what the victims of these regimes went through have the same vibe as Tucker’s recent montage/comments about trip to Russia.

Most propaganda is grain sized, very subtle and so well masked that most people swallow without noticing it. It is structured so vaguely and discreetly that others who smell it are not able to produce hard enough evidence.

And with enough time we get the stereotypical tankie communities - gullible teenagers, bitter adults that are so blinded by search of an alternative that by endless reading they somehow achieve ignorance and betray fundamental human values, and some Russians having the time of their life having their disgusting views and evil atrocities welcomed, accepted, and spread for free.

They do not allow discussions, but the Russian propaganda that gets spread on other servers or social media cost them nothing emotionally while all of us who have to argue back need to resurface feelings that we suffer under Russia’s terrorism, after inheriting the generational trauma from parents born into Soviet Union.

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

slrpnk.net seems to have some genuine socialist / communist ideology without the tankie flavor. They have a couple of users who I think are pretty effective "and that's why Emma Goldman would be okay with letting Trump come to power!" shills, but for the most part it's just the good stuff. IMO.

iarigby ,

checked it out, thanks! Love that the community is so active

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

Yeah they're good 'uns

Schmoo ,
@Schmoo@slrpnk.net avatar

Slrpnk.net leans anarchist, and historically there has always been a vocal subset of anarchists who advocate abstaining from electoral politics on principle. The upcoming US presidential election is the perfect storm for this stance to thrive and still it is a minority position even among the most anarchist instance on Lemmy, so I'm pretty happy with the diversity of opinion expressed there. I think it's important we hear those minority voices and a bit unfair to call them shills.

mozz OP Admin , (edited )
mozz avatar

Oh no, I wasn't talking about the general "don't vote" contingent on slrpnk -- that seems fine; just like you're saying, it seems authentically arrived at. I was just saying that there are a couple of users there that seem to have a particular and very specific focus on this exact election and specifically on not voting in this election, and not much interest in anarchism beyond its application to parts that would be generally applicable to someone who was trying to engineer a result for Trump in the election.

I mean, what the hell, no one needs my permission to say whatever they feel like saying. But to the extent that my opinion on it matters, I don't think slrpnk overall or its general "fuck the system and yes that includes the voting system" vibe that it has are indicative of anything shill related, no.

Maggoty ,

I know we've had our run ins about this but it's really about this election because Biden is doing egregious stuff. It's not this election for no reason. And the shills that are just trying to make people never want to vote again are getting a ton of ammunition.

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

Have we had run-ins?

IDK, other than his absolutely war-criminal support for Israel I'm not aware of all that much about Biden that is real ammunition. (Not that that's a minor issue 😢) Pretty much everything else has crumbled into weird half-truths and propaganda when I've been poking at it, I think; what were you thinking of when saying he's doing egregious stuff?

I also don't think that refusing to vote for Biden is going to make anything any better. If someone is doing direct action to change things, or an influence campaign to try to push him to the left, that all sounds frickin fantastic. Just committing to not voting doesn't really make sense to me though -- it's functionally the same as saying you'll vote for Biden no matter what; i.e. basically no pressure at all to change his policy (but with the added horrifying danger of maybe electing Trump.)

Maggoty ,

Oh you're not horrible or anything. You've just been on the other side of some of those conversations. Also as far egregious stuff he just dropped an EO on immigration that's sure to get the ACLU fired up. Which doesn't really spark joy in my life.

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

You can join the conversation here where I talk a little more about the background of that decision -- because it came up over there, I looked it up, and migrants are currently waiting years for their cases to be heard (just to put some facts behind what I was saying in that comment).

Maggoty ,

Oh then they're getting that entirely wrong. You're not supposed to check out of the system and never vote. You're supposed to withhold your vote, that you normally use. Those are numbers they can see and run polling to figure out how to better represent people, (in a good faith system). If you just never engage then you never get represented. And if you never get represented then you're just watching the country walk away from you.

olafurp ,

I agree, they simply put all the blame on the West for the world's problems no matter what it is and to be fair I often agree with those statements.

It's just purely idiotic to support another country going the same thing and denying facts such as Russia invaded Ukraine.

I'm a socialist, somewhat left of a standard social democrat in the EU, but fuck, these guys are giving the whole ideology a bad name. There are still some recent movements that are good such as solarpunk, degrowth, minimalism, third spaces and tool libraries. I hope the Gen Z and Alpha get in on those so they can vote out our generation of rampant consumerism and privatisation.

Jayjader ,

I came across raddle.me a few months ago and spent a few nights trawling it without finding anything questionable - though I might just be too ignorant of parts of history to pick up where they fail. It's very anarchist-flavored so while that might not be your preferred brand of communism I think it avoids descending into "deranged". In any case, their faq/about page should give you a better idea than whatever I could write here.

iarigby ,

perfect, thank you!

h3mlocke ,
@h3mlocke@lemm.ee avatar

Is raddle federated?

Jayjader ,

I don't think so, no.

DAMunzy ,

I've heard horror stories about the USSR but I've also heard meh stories where life wasn't the best but their needs were taken care of- not having luxuries but socialized healthcare and housing so don't live in fear like I do currently in the US of being one medical hiccup from being in a world of hurt or one interaction with a cop and the legal system from destroying my life. Will my kids say they have this generational trauma too?

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

one interaction with a cop and the legal system from destroying my life

Uhhhhh

I have bad news for you about the USSR

Every system has good and bad, and the US is so bad at so many things that most industrialized countries do for their citizens no problem, that I would never be the one to say it doesn't need radical improvement. And I really do (truly) get what you mean about living in a non-capitalist society and the wonderful things about the system just taking care of you (which it doesn't in the US). But at the same time, "needs were taken care of" and "don't live in fear" are two things that are very very far away from what was the stable reality of living in the Soviet Union.

iarigby ,

I can imagine why you think that this reasoning makes sense but these are completely unrelated things. Many people in the US live in deeply brutal psychological and economic distress that resulted from decades of worker hostile reforms. People in social democratic European countries live under capitalism and deal with its issues too but the socialist policies limit the severity to the point where it’s not outright traumatic. In all countries people need to thrive for socialist change and a system that treats humans kinder but this does not mean that we need to in any way tolerate people trying to drag brutal and horrific dictatorships into a positive light

Maggoty ,

r/antiwork was that at one time. Then it got swallowed by the reddit hivemind.

On Lemmy the thing I keep running into is they're either tankies or anarchists, nothing in between. And while anarchy has some great ideas for making our lives better it's not a state we're ever going to achieve in a good way.

PugJesus ,
@PugJesus@lemmy.world avatar

And while anarchy has some great ideas for making our lives better it’s not a state we’re ever going to achieve in a good way.

And while anarchy has some great ideas for making our lives better

it’s not a state we’re ever going to achieve

anarchy

not a state we're ever going to achieve

Sorry, I know you meant state as in "state of being" and not "political state", but I found it too funny to pass up.

Maggoty ,

Lmao yeah. It's just kind of hanging there isn't it?

cor ,

you will not find a non-deranged communist forum because: 89% of all users will be shills… the remaining 11% will be beaten down, ridiculed, and/or banned for saying anything not deranged….

i’ve asked in person, lifelong activist/leftists and they all say the same thing: online forums are so infiltrated and fucked it’s not worth the aggravation.

i don’t think it’s worth giving up on entirely, but even if you make a no-tankies/ direct russian propaganda repeating, they just pivot to FUD, forum sliding, concern trolling…

even totally sane, reasonable accounts can be fake just so they can get inside the next level or take over moderation…

Jayjader ,

OP, the link is to lemmygrad.ml but you keep citing lemmy.ml in this thread; are you mixing up the 2 without realizing it or do you intend to mean both?

I haven't seen much of anything on lemmy.ml that reaches grad.ml's level of what you describe. Then again, I stick mostly to somewhat-niche interest subreddits that receive a decent amount of participation from other federated servers.

In my experience even hexbear users are surprisingly (for the internet) good and decent to others, as long as you can avoid provoking their "the capitalist US empire is the current hegemony that's killing the planet and ourselves, and we don't punch down, therefore our vitriol is a uni-directional torrent" mode of operation that others in this thread have mentioned.

Obviously, the classical "cult" approach resembles that as well (love-bomb anyone not explicitly an enemy, close ranks against any potential discrediting of the movement). In my books most of them are ordinary people, from whom (legitimate) despair of the current state of the world has leeched all desire for compromise.

I don't have a less patronizing way of saying it, but they remind me of someone who, after years of abuse by their partner, finally snaps and gravely injures said partner. In some sense, it's on the rest of us to not have intervened beforehand, and at the same time their lashing out really doesn't help things.

Oh, and this probably reads as hippy anar-kiddy logic to them, which is part of why I personally stay away from most of their politics-related communities.

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

OP, the link is to lemmygrad.ml but you keep citing lemmy.ml in this thread; are you mixing up the 2 without realizing it or do you intend to mean both?

I have interacted with lemmy.ml people a decent amount, so most of what I'm saying in the comments is referencing them. I have some level of difficulty in even interacting with lemmygrad or hexbear people, either a block or some kind of federation issue, IDK, so they form sort of a unified maybe-unfair stereotype view in my mind. But certainly to me the linked thread makes them seem wildly misinformed and super-confident and condescending about the truthfulness of their misinformed view.

In my experience even hexbear users are surprisingly (for the internet) good and decent to others, as long as you can avoid provoking their "the capitalist US empire is the current hegemony that's killing the planet and ourselves, and we don't punch down, therefore our vitriol is a uni-directional torrent" mode of operation that others in this thread have mentioned.

Usually my experience is that if you have to edit your viewpoints to conform to what someone wants to hear, or else they will attack you, that person's worth avoiding interacting with.

Not trying to be unkind about it (esp since specifically where hexbear is concerned I have basically no firsthand experience at all interacting with them) but that's my feeling.

(legitimate) despair of the current state of the world has leeched all desire for compromise

The part that I don't get about that is the support for some of the actors that are primary engines of death and destruction in the current state of the world.

I had this really disorienting experience when I first started interacting on Lemmy, like "the world is fucked" "I know!" "the American system is pure poison" "yeah preach" "it's authoritarian and violent and police state and unjust wars and no real freedom" "you're so right brother" "and that's why we have to support Russia!" and that was the point where I had to sort of gingerly prod at what were their views and why, and everything I found from that point on was hostile counterfactual condescending insanity.

That's not lack of compromise, that's just being wrong and proud of it.

I don't have a less patronizing way of saying it, but they remind me of someone who, after years of abuse by their partner, finally snaps and gravely injures said partner. In some sense, it's on the rest of us to not have intervened beforehand, and at the same time their lashing out really doesn't help things.

IDK man. Maybe. Like I say I'm not trying to be unkind. They read more to me though like a person fleeing abuse from one partner, and then self-destructively choosing a partner that's 10 times worse (or maybe more accurately starting a pen-pal relationship with a convict who if they got out and interacted with them would literally do 10 times worse or kill them.)

Jayjader ,

either a block or some kind of federation issue, IDK

I think your home instance, sh.itjust.works (whoops, that's this community's instance, not your home) (mbin.)grits.dev, defederated from both of them.

My own, jlai.lu, hasn't, so I see some of their posts crop up in my "All" timeline.

I have interacted with lemmy.ml people a decent amount, so most of what I’m saying in the comments is referencing them

Huh, that's not what I was expecting. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Usually my experience is that if you have to edit your viewpoints to conform to what someone wants to hear, or else they will attack you, that person’s worth avoiding interacting with.

Not trying to be unkind about it (esp since specifically where hexbear is concerned I have basically no firsthand experience at all interacting with them) but that’s my feeling.

This might be a question of personal tolerance to types of interaction (similarly, not trying to be unkind). I see it as selectively choosing when to engage (and on what to engage with), but I can totally understand if to you that is me editing my viewpoints to conform to what they want to hear. For the record, I don't often engage at all with grad and hexbear, not even up- or down-votes; I'll read what they have to say if the post title I come across sufficiently grabs my attention. There are a number of lemmy.ml communities that I do directly interact with regularly, mostly tech-related.

Given how sometimes aggressively apolitical most of the fediverse tech spaces are, there is a part of the discussion that I value around current events that I have had a hard time finding outside of lemmy.ml. The best I've found are awful.systems and slrpnk.net (notably the permacomputing community at the latter). The scope of the first is intentionally limited to cathartic deconstruction of bad things, and the second I find lacking too much substance to suffice. There's raddle.me, but as they're not federated with the wider 'verse it doesn't really fit the bill either.

I don't have the energy or know-how to be the change I wish to see, but if there was an instance outside of these three (.ml,grad,hexbear) that provided a place for the construction of good things (admittedly, following my personal definition of good) in place of the bad, I could see myself blocking them after one too many full-on tankie posts cropping up in my feed.

Actually, now that I think about it, mostly what I get from the hexbear and grad posts are a less-substantive form of the catharsis that awful.systems provides but on a broader range of topics. It is, sadly a coin toss on whether that catharsis will be ruined by everything you so rightly are put off by.

I had this really disorienting experience [...], and everything I found from that point on was hostile counterfactual condescending insanity.

My experience lines up with yours, except for me not even attempting to prod at all.

The part that I don’t get about that is the support for some of the actors that are primary engines of death and destruction in the current state of the world.

That’s not lack of compromise, that’s just being wrong and proud of it.

I think there's being wrong and proud of it, and there's being so scared and whip-lashed by the obvious contradictions of the West's purported values and it's geopolitical impact on the rest of the world over the past few centuries that you lose any sense of truth. That's maybe me being a bit melodramatic. On the other hand, I see it as akin to how a person's drowning "reflex" is to pull whoever comes close down with them - to the point that lifeguards need specific training (and a flotation device if I'm not mistaken) to be able to save a drowning person without endangering themselves as well.

They read more to me though like a person fleeing abuse from one partner, and then self-destructively choosing a partner that’s 10 times worse (or maybe more accurately starting a pen-pal relationship with a convict who if they got out and interacted with them would literally do 10 times worse or kill them.)

That's probably closer to the mark. It doesn't help that the former partner has friends all over the world that are very dismissive of any allegations. When I talk about the onus on us to intervene, I mean it more in the sense that we should be finding people that we can train and employ to be internet lifeguards.

On one hand, I don't think they deserve to be written off as heavily as what I often see expressed in the rest of the fediverse. You don't solve someone's trust issues by ragging on their poor follow-up choices.
On the other hand, this is online social media, not an irl group of friends and acquaintances. I don't exactly expect any specific person to do the work to reach them via these spaces.

Thanks in any case for trying to productively engage with me on this. This exact conversation is tiring on the best of days.

blackn1ght ,

This thread makes me laugh.

They're getting their knickers in a twist thinking that Biden is escalating and would be the cause for a nuclear war, conveniently forgetting that:

  • Russia invaded Ukraine
  • Russia has been constantly making threats to use nuclear weapons against western nations since the invasion started
  • Russia attacks Ukraine from within their own borders
mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

Russia seems to be trying to manage the west to prevent escalation

My sides

nonailsleft ,

Cool, this is one of the most upvoted comments:

I know right, crazy how that works. Imagine Russia telling Mexico they can fire missiles into Texas.

Like yeah ok if the US was trying to annex Mexico and Russia started supplying the latter with weapons and discussing the ROE, then yeah

I'm sure 'DankZedong' would like the 'Mexinazis' to keep their Russian missiles strictly south of the border in such a scenario

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

I mean I do think that somewhere in the crazy is a valid point on that specific score. There's actually a moderately close analogy in Nicaragua, which the US was actively attacking, and then they started sourcing fighter jets from Russia purely to try to defend against our air force actively fucking them up inside their borders, and the whole of the US political spectrum freaked the fuck out, took it to the UN, escalated the war, there were all these editorials about what a crisis it was, etc etc, and that was barely even on the same continent as us.

This was all during the 1980s, when I actually think that US foreign policy was quite a lot closer to Russia's current foreign policy than not. I think we've mellowed somewhat since then, although we're still fine with killing civilians the world over when it serves our purposes. But yes, the US has a few data points worth of history of freaking out completely over "threats" from foreign alliances that are not even on the same continent (or hemisphere if you want to go back to the 70s) as us. I think the difference is that Russia has been antagonizing its neighbors on the west so thoroughly now that almost 100% of them actively want to gear up for real war with Russia, which I'm sure would make any country nervous regardless of how it got to be that way.

nonailsleft ,

Yeah so their point sure is valid as long as you think the US was right to attack Nicaragua and they shouldn't have tried to defend themselves

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

Er

Well, yes 🙂

Consistency isn't their strong suit I've noticed

arymandias , (edited )

If this is a honest question I will try to give some honest context, I do not represent a Hexbear, so these are just some views that I have that make me sceptical of the narrative that currently exists.

After the cold war there were calls to establish a common security structure including Russia to try to ensure peace in Europe. Instead the US (with pressure from past satellite states of Moscow, Poland, Czechia, etc) chose to maintain NATO and on top of that invite everybody except Russia, many foreign policy experts already warned that this was a recipe for war, but wether it was malice or incompetence they were ignored. 

Fast forward to 2008 the US suggests inviting Ukraine (and Georgia) to NATO, and Russia makes extremely clear that this would not happen, that this was a red line for them. Now you can disagree with Russias right to say anything about the military alliances of its neighbours, but the fact that Russia is a military regional power with nukes is something you need to deal with. Again wether it was incompetence or malice is hard to say but the next 14 years are basically a chain of escalatory actions by the US combined with a series of stronger and stronger warnings from Russia that this would lead to war.

During the events themselves it is hard to judge as a civilian what exactly is happening in geopolitics, the US has a very clear trackrecord of treat inflation or simply lying about its true intentions or the truth on the ground. It could of course be that this is one of those rare cases where the US are truly the Good Guys™️ or it could be that this is a ploy to weaken a rival with the only price being the destruction of a country they don't care about and the death of hundreds of thousands of military age males they don't care about.

Badeendje , (edited )
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

For OP: This above is the Russian talking points light, presented as a reasonable timeline. It glances over so much important stuff.

Hexbear is a group of useful idiots steered by the Russian MOD. Anything that destabilized their adversaries is good. This als means feeding a wide array of victim blaming, feeding competing narratives and generally making people question if there actually is a truth.

Shut up about NATO expansion

arymandias ,

This is such destructive rhetoric, everything you disagree with is Russian propaganda. Yes of course Russia is trying to influence western opinion with war propaganda, because that is what countries at war do. But the US has shown so clearly in the past that they can not be trusted to be the single source of truth, because spoiler alert: they are also a country (de facto) at war.

Badeendje ,
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

No, even remotely trying to provide justification for the Russian campaign of terror and atrocities against Ukraine is destructive rhetoric.

RUSSIA IS THE BAD GUY. No if's and's or but's about it. There was no existential threat to Russia, there was/is no plan to invade Russia, there are no Nazis ruling Ukraine.

Every day we see in the newspapers new examples of the barbarism the Russians show towards their Ukranian neighbors. Russia steals children, actively targets civilians, civilian infrastructure and even first responders. It armed terrorists with an advanced Anti air system and shot down a passenger airliner.. the list of bad guy things is endless.

And the whole "disagreeing with the narrative because there is more to it" is just propagating Russian talking points and helping them muddy the water. Russia joining NATO would have been the death of nato. And in turn the structure for keeping Russia in check would have been gone.

All former Soviet states lived under the brutality of Moscow and know first hand that they cannot be trusted. It is good they where believed.

arymandias ,

The US has done everything you (correctly) accuse Russia of in Iraq, Vietnam, and South America (either directly or via proxies). What does that make the US?

Imperialist states do imperialist things, the least we can do (coming from a European perspective) is to try to maintain peace by a combination of international law and pragmatic ad hock peace deals where international law is unattainable.

Badeendje ,
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

Ad hoc peace deal with Russia where had, yet here we are.

And whataboutiam doesn't help here. I'm not defending the US im arguing Ukraines right to sovereignty.

arymandias ,

You are defending US foreign policy.

Badeendje ,
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

Again, the reason we are here is because of Russian foreign policy and Ukraine not bending the preverbial knee.

The fact that Ukraine did not want to bend the knee and felt strong enough to do so only due to support from the EU and the US says something about the weight of the Russian diplomatic gorilla.

War is just diplomacy by other means. And Russia cannot accept a free and prosperous neighbor that had enough natural resources to actually be a financial threat to Russia while having close enough ties in culture and language to show the average Russian that there is an alternative to Putin's cleptocracy.

YeetPics ,

You are defending Russian and Chinese foreign policy.

YeetPics ,

The US has done everything you (correctly) accuse Russia of in Iraq, Vietnam, and South America

So it's equally as bad or it's okay.

What point are you making with this whataboutism?
Two things can be true at once ffs.

arymandias ,

This is not a whataboutism, I’m saying two imperial states are destroying a country as part of their power politics, as a counter argument to Russia are the bad guys and the US can be trusted.

Badeendje ,
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

Ukraines interests are supported by the US and the EU and many other countries after their democratically elected government goes on a worldwide tour pleading for help against an invasion.. totally the same thing.

If the police end up storming your house after a couple of armed criminals take over your house.. their interest are also aligned with yours. Their motivation differs from yours though.

Land_Strider ,

The link you have provided with that title and thumbnail (written "Deal with it") is no better than the Hexbear or Russian MOD propaganda you are belittling. Sounding cool or assertive while "shutting up" a (main) discussion point will only resonate with the same type of right-wing nationalist people in your own circle, while you are criticizing the same group albeit in another circle.

I wonder if you ever considered the same adjectives can be applied to you from others' perspectives at a glance.

Note: Not implying any stance here on my part. Just pointing out what can be drowning the discussions while everyone points fingers at someone.

Badeendje ,
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

The title is antagonistic, the content is well reasoned though. I don't have any control over the title.

Sootius ,

It glances over so much important stuff

Sure does. Like the 8-year long shelling civilians campaign that Ukraine was undertaking on Donetsk and Luhansk, solely on the basis that it wanted to deny them a vote on their own autonomy.

Badeendje ,
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

They had a vote.. in the 90s and wanted away from Russia. Afterwards Russian proxies in the Donbas started a war.

Socsa ,

You mean the civilians who shot down a civilian airplane?

Badeendje ,
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah civilians able to source a BUK air defence system from the Russian army through direct calls with Russian MOD personell.

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

Two quick questions: How many combatants and how many non-combatant civilians were killed in this shelling campaign over the course of the whole 8 years?

And also, if Chechnya wanted to vote on their own autonomy from the Russian Federation, what do you think would be Russia’s reaction? Just purely as a hypothetical.

Leate_Wonceslace ,
@Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

The bastard Admitted to being a Hexbear troll. Don't waste your time.

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

I notice he's not real eager to answer either question 🙂

arymandias ,

And about the NATO thing, what do you think would happen if Mexico and Canada tried to join a military alliance with China?

I’m not victim blaming, I’m blaming the US and Russia for playing cynical geopolitical games and destroying a country along the way.

YeetPics ,

If Canada or Mexico wanted to make ties with China that's their perogative.

America doesn't get to dictate the affairs of it's neighbors.

I wouldn't dedicate my free time to screeching 'death to Canada' and being a dipshit to everyone who doesn't share a carbon copy of my faulty perspective.

arymandias ,

I’m not asking what you want the US to do, I’m asking what do you think the US would do.

boredtortoise ,

Just saw this thread, sorry for chiming in.

The US would do like Russia or China does, act as a reactionary. They're all untrustworthy and aggressive.

It both makes sense that Russia is afraid of countries joining NATO and that he countries are joining because of Russia.

YeetPics ,

Let me check my crystal fucking ball.

Ffs you're dense.

zyratoxx ,
@zyratoxx@lemm.ee avatar

Ngl the US would react quite pissed just like it reacted during the Cuba crisis.

Placing nuclear warheads in range of enemy cities is OK, but when the enemy wants to place their nuclear warheads in range of my cities as a reaction it's a cause for nuclear war.

And the US has overthrown quite a lot of governments for their own interests (starting with the banana wars and later extending to anti-communism and oil), so toppling the Mexican / Canadian government to get them back on track actually isn't far fetched.

But I agree with your last point. Even tho I don't like the US I'd never make opposing the US at all cost even if I have to side with literal fascists & mass murders my main purpose of life. Out of China, Russia, Iran and the US, the US is the lesser evil (at least for now... Idk what MAGA is up to)

M0oP0o ,
@M0oP0o@mander.xyz avatar

I would think it would be like when Canada and Mexico did not break ties with Cuba after the Cuban revolution during the cold war. You know that time when the USSR and USA tensions where way higher then today? So political rumblings?

iarigby ,

these are just some views that I have

Where else other than hexbear or Russian state media were you able to find such egregiously biased views?

arymandias ,

John Mearsheimer among others, were do you get your views from?

iarigby ,

primarily from all the bombs Russia dropped on my country when we dared to move past the swamp that Soviet Union drowned us in and decided to join NATO so Russia would not invade us the third time. And from the torture I have seen done to the war prisoners and civilians they abducted from around the occupation lines.

Your argument violently disregards the human beings in Ukraine and Georgia who have tragically suffered for generations under Russian oppression, and are ready to fight to death rather than return to being slaves of those disgusting imperialistic maniacs again. western communists or edgy political scientists or whatever reason/intention you have for talking so extremely condescendingly about these conflicts literally forget that we are actual people who have themselves made a decision to regain independence and chose the alliance with the west. We are being terrorized, murdered, tortured and raped by Russians to force us back to their repulsive and disgusting empire, which was such literal hell that thousands upon thousands of Ukrainians keep choosing death over going back. These are our countries and I aggressively despise anybody who so much as entertains the reasoning where we require permission and approval from fucking Russia. There is a single solely responsible party in these wars, the one that occupied a sovereign country and committed such horrific acts of cruelty that even hearing about it leaves a person traumatized.

The nuance that the academic you named tries to argue for, I assume has many interesting points and arguments, but for a very specific discussion topic and a narrowly justified aspect of this war, only with people who are in touch with reality about the Ukraine war, conflicts in Georgia, history and goals of Russia, etc. But here it can be seen as nothing else but intent to shift blame and responsibility away from the aggressor, and an attempt to advocate for the loons on hexbear celebrating bloodshed and masturbating to the idea of independent sovereign nation being crushed by brutal, authoritarian, and savage state.

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

Who are the others?

I think John Mearshimer’s analysis of the situation is extremely accurate on the whole, but what he says is very different from what you’re saying.

  1. He describes the origin of the conflict as a misunderstanding between Russia and the West - where the West isn’t actually trying to provoke Russia, but their actions are interpreted as hostile. Actually Mearshimer’s analysis in this respect is a lot of where I got my own view on it.
  2. He says that Russia’s goal at this point is to simply smash Ukraine completely, to teach the world a lesson about what will happen to anyone who tries to make them feel unsafe. You might agree with that (it sounds like maybe you do), but certainly that’s not the consensus view on Hexbear from what I’ve seen - it would make you an outlier compared to them I think.

From which respected academic did you get the idea that the West was provoking Russia on purpose by expanding to include countries Russia was attacking or threatening (which presumably then weren’t themselves the driving force wanting NATO or EU membership)?

arymandias , (edited )

I’m not trying to represent all of Hexbear, my views differ from the norm (just as yours seems to differ from the lemmy.world norm).

Second, I don’t want to give the impression that I’m certain on everything. It just seems very clear to me that the current narrative is dangerous and risks leading to escalation beyond Ukraine and has already caused a lot of suffering, (I think in this I echo Mearsheimers views, see the recent interview on the Spectators Americano podcast). Wether it was intentional or accidental I purposely left open in my original comment because, like I said, it’s very hard to judge at this point. But given the US trackrecord it’s probably a healthy dosis of both overconfidence in their power as well as cynical intent.

To me it’s hard to imagine that after Russia put their army on the border and explicitly said, Ukraine stays neutral or war, that the US wasn’t aware of the consequences. Clearly Ukrainian lives were not on the forefront of their decision making process at that point. So then the question is what was.
But these are my personal opinions, and I’m happy to be convinced otherwise (but calling me a Russian bot is not very convincing I find).

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

the current narrative is dangerous and risks leading to escalation beyond Ukraine and has already caused a lot of suffering

I would say it's all the shelling and rocket attacks and bombings, not so much the narrative.

In general I think trying to talk and understand the world is not a hostile act. If you're trying to deliberately distort honest conversation to justify something, then that's a bad thing, but just saying that some sincere narrative right or wrong can be a dangerous thing all on its own, I don't agree with.

To me it’s hard to imagine that after Russia put their army on the border and explicitly said, Ukraine stays neutral or war, that the US wasn’t aware of the consequences.

Bro

What if I put a couple of my friends on the border of your house, and explicitly said, hey if you try to do X Y or Z then I might have to kill you. What's your reaction? What's fair in that scenario? If you ask for some allies to come over because you plan on doing X Y and Z anyway and fuck the border-standers, does it all of a sudden become the allies' fault that any of that happened? What you're saying is just a very weird allocation of blame to me.

Like I say, what Mearsheimer says on this issue actually makes a good deal of sense to me, but what you're saying here is very different from what he says about it, as far as I know. I think one of the critical issues is whether the whole thing was a "ploy" by the West -- he definitely doesn't think that, that I'm aware of. Where did you get that idea? It definitely doesn't seem to me that fighting between Russia and various former-USSR states needed any additional help in order to develop, although I'm sure the US is happy it's happening and happy to help it go badly for Russia.

Clearly Ukrainian lives were not on the forefront of their decision making process at that point.

I think it's relevant what the Ukrainians think. Are you saying that rejecting Russia's orders for what they were and were not allowed to do, knowing that Russia might attack them as a result, was not their decision but someone else's? What do you think they think about it?

Here's a little excerpt, somewhat related, from "Sky Above Kharkiv" by Serhiy Zhadan:

"And I'd like to make another point. I was rather skeptical of the current government. I was struck by one particular thing. The elections of 2019 brought a lot of young people to power -- not my peers (I'm a far cry from being young) but a bunch of political youngsters who didn't belong to dozens of parties or hadn't worked for all kinds of shady cabinets of ministers. 'But why do these young people,' I thought, 'act like old functionaries from the Kuchma era? Where did their childish urge to make a quick buck and flaunt it come from? Why aren't they trying to be different?' Thing is, I personally had the chance to do what I still consider rather constructive, useful things with a lot of them -- everyone from ministers to mayors and governors. Nonetheless, I'd look toward the Parliament building and ask myself, 'Why aren't you trying to be different?'

"Now [in wartime] with the naked eye you can see them trying to be different. Advisers, speakers, ministers, negotiators, officers, mayors, and commanders -- these forty-year-old boys and girls whose generation has been dealt the cruel lot of having to stand up for their country. And this applies no less (and possibly even more) to the millions of soliders, volunteer fighters, and just regular people pitching in, people shedding the swampy legacy of the twentieth century, like mud falling off new, yet well-chosen combat boots. Young Ukrainian men and women -- that's who this war of annihilation is being waged against. And then, in contrast, are the heads of Russia, Belarus, America, and Germany. The first two are old delusional geezers from the past century who look a lot like old Russian armored vehicles, but they're old. And they're Russian, which, in itself, does little to recommend a vehicle. Then there are the latter two -- they're cautious office clerks, retired capitulators who aren't brave enough to admit that they, too, are involved in what's going on."

arymandias ,

What do you think started, and kept WWI going, narrative. Every party believed or was sold that they could win this thing if they just kept climbing the escalation ladder. With the result that an entire generation of boys and men was gone for basically nothing.

What if I put a couple of my friends on the border of your house, and explicitly said, hey if you try to do X Y or Z then I might have to kill you.

For a start I would not do X, Y and Z, this is the whole idea of realism, accept the world as is. Threats work, I'm sorry. If your response is to call the police, there is no police in the world of international politics, you have to play the hand you're dealt.

And in the case of Ukraine this was sadly a very bad hand, that is why I don't blame Ukraine for much. You could of course blame Ukraine for being lured by the power of the US, and that they could thus safely ignore dire warnings from Russia. But as they say, with great power comes great responsibility, so I choose to put the blame at the hands of Russia and the US.

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

What do you think started, and kept WWI going

  • An entanglement of defensive allegiances
  • Increased industrialization meaning that nations could field an army undergoing massive attrition for years and years without suffering a crippling lack of production at home, and
  • Lack of understanding on the part of political leaders of how the face of war had changed

narrative. Every party believed or was sold that they could win this thing if they just kept climbing the escalation ladder.

I mean… not really. Surely, at the time, the “dangerous” narrative was anything against the war. To me, allowing a freer flow of ideas would have helped to resolve the war sooner, and deciding that certain narratives were dangerous and should be stayed away from (leading to difficulty in understanding what was happening) was a factor that made things worse, not better. No?

For a start I would not do X, Y and Z, this is the whole idea of realism, accept the world as is. Threats work, I'm sorry.

I am glad that you are not involved in the foreign policy of either Ukraine or any country I care about. There is realism, sure; the world is not always a comic book where being righteous is enough. Then, also, there is cowardice, and then beyond that there is saying that someone else who is rejecting cowardice is to be blamed (along with anyone who gives them assistance in standing up) for danger they find themselves in as a result.

Ukraine seems likely to be able to hold on to a significant chunk of their territory and self determination, after deciding to pay a heavy heavy price for it, in homes and cities and money and lives and anything else. You can take your condescending stuff about realism and whose decision that was, and what kind of lives under Russian rule they should be resigning themselves to instead, and shove it up your ass.

arymandias ,

You seem to conflate questioning a narrative with banning a narrative, I have the intent nor the means. I value being able to have an open discussion on topics as important as war, especially based on substance rather than resorting to personal insults and such.

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

No, I'm disagreeing with the idea of describing a narrative as "dangerous" as a reason to criticize it, instead of whether it's true or not. To me, whether it's a sincere and accurate description of the world is the main thing.

I'm being rude to you because, to me, you're being wildly insulting to the Ukrainian people. Sorry. Maybe it is uncalled for. But I know some Ukrainians. Telling them to lie down to Russian aggression because of "realism," and criticizing the resistance their country is putting up, is way more insulting than anything I've said to you.

YeetPics ,

narrative

Why would Joe Biden provide tools of narration to all those WW1 powers

Belastend ,

that line of reasoning essentially makes every single US invasion ok. and every single oppression okay. Because threats work and fuck you for being weaker.

arymandias ,

Accepting how the world works is not the same as saying it’s moral.

If someone threatens to shoot you, you saying it’s immoral is not a practical defense, unless there is some kind of higher power like a justice system with a police to enforce it. But the entire point of international politics is that such a force does not exist, just countries with interests.

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

I mean the evidence exists that NATO is a substantially higher power here

Also, as I said, there’s a huge difference between “I know it’s not an ideal outcome but I’m scared and want to save my skin” - I won’t say someone’s always wrong for saying that, by any means - and saying to someone else who’s fighting and suffering to defend themselves “I know it’s not an ideal outcome but you should be scared, and accept it to save your skin.” It’s like cowardice by proxy. Especially while they’re winning.

arymandias ,

NATO is still a collection of nation states with interests, being powerful does not mean you can be trusted. (As the US has shown multiple times)

The people actually fighting this war, don’t want to, they need to be forcibly conscripted by the Ukrainian government, I have met multiple people that can no longer renew their pasport because the Ukrainian government (and western governments by extension) want them to die at the front.

And finally Ukraine is losing, and probably always was, the economic and manpower difference is just too big. There was a point in the summer of 2022 where Ukraine had a position to get a deal on relatively good terms, and there actually was a peace process going on. But somehow this broke down, I’ve heard rumors that it was the UK or the US that convinced/coerced Zelensky to walk away. I really hope that isn’t true because that would mean they have a lot of blood on their hands, and mostly Ukrainian.

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

The plot thickens

Ukrainians I know do not agree with your assessment of blame, to put it mildly

Which direction is the front line moving over the course of the last year? I am curious what your picture is of the reality on the ground. Before the US aid package came through, it was 100% fair to say Ukraine was losing or on the verge of starting to lose, but now is very different on any time scale you could select. In my reality at least. Why do you say they are losing?

Follow up question, where do you get your information? From media (which?), from Lemmy, where?

arymandias , (edited )

https://www.ft.com/content/d7e95021-df99-4e99-8105-5a8c3eb8d4ef

https://youtu.be/slkn2-N3oR0?si=d9Z_4KEvKS5kYXjp

If you read between the lines of ft articles it becomes quite clear that the manpower problem is almost insurmountable, but there are also other articles from nyt or Dutch or German mainstream media that try to package it positively but can not hide the underlying problems. And then there is John Mearsheimer who gives a higher level overview, that to me sketches quite a clear picture of Ukraines prospects.

Plus I like to listen to “war nerd radio” podcast. It’s not a news source perse, but they discuss the Ukraine war sometimes and they seem to be better at predicting what is to come than most news papers. For example they were rightfully quite skeptical about the great summer offensive of 2023 whereas other sources were promising the conquest of Crimea.

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

war nerd radio

Holy shit holy shit

Is that Gary Brechner? I had no idea he was even still around, if it is; I liked him quite a lot, like a million years ago

You are citing people I generally agree with, but I do not agree with what Mearsheimer is saying here. You're also pointedly ignoring my question about how the front line is moving.

Just to take what I think of Mearsheimer's points in lightning round:

  • He talked about striking the homeland and escalation -- the US's approval for strikes inside Russia is very limited, for exactly this reason
  • He talks about S-400s mooting any strikes anyway, when Ukraine has been blowing up S-400s. They don't seem to be this dominating force for defending even themselves let alone the area where they're placed
  • Concerns about manpower are real, but also, they've been that way since the jump and the fucking front line hasn't gone anywhere. It's possible that Ukraine will get ground down over time but it hasn't happened yet and during the ammunition shortage would have been the most likely time for it to happen.
  • He talks about the motivation for strikes inside Russia to be "to up the ante" because Ukraine isn't winning -- it's just a weird framing. I don't think that is the motivation; I think Ukraine just needs to strike at forces that are attacking them instead of suddenly going hands-off as soon as something's 5 km across the border from them.

IDK man. I'm not convinced. Want to answer the question about movement of the front line? And is this stuff in answer to my question about where you get your information? These people are generally pretty highly qualified people in my view, yes.

For example they were rightfully quite skeptical about the great summer offensive of 2023 whereas other sources were promising the conquest of Crimea.

Yeah that sounds pretty accurate from what I remember of Brechner. Just like Mearsheimer he has a record of having been accurate about the future, in retrospect, which is a pretty fuckin difficult thing to do.

arymandias ,

Yes those are my sources and yes it is Gary Brechner aka the war nerd, he is sadly getting old but I really enjoyed his recent series on the us civil war. 

I didn’t answer because I don’t know. I have heard it theorized that Russia is depleting the Ukrainian forces and building up behind the lines for a summer offensive, but also that the recent reshuffle of the Russian Security Council means that Putin expects the war to last until at least 2025. It is mostly speculation so not really a value add. 

On all the details, I am just like most people dealing with limited information. And it’s hard to get a good idea what’s happening on the frontlines and on the broader strategic battle field. But there are sources I trust and sources that have shown to be at best incompetent and at worse straight up propaganda. This might be one of those rare morally uncomplicated wars, but the fact that the loudest voices in support of Israel are also oft the loudest voices in support of further escalations with Russia makes me skeptical.

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

Eh

Russia is depleting the Ukrainian forces

Yeah just like the US depleted those Vietnamese forces so effectively for so long and that was the key to their victory

hard to get a good idea what’s happening on the frontlines

But surely it is possible to see which direction they are moving, or not moving, on a scale of hundreds of km over years, no? I mean you're not obligated to actually follow through on the answer, but I think you can see what I'm getting at .

loudest voices in support of Israel are also oft the loudest voices in support of further escalations with Russia

...

Dude now you're just saying talking points.

People on Lemmy like both Palestine and Ukraine because both of them got attacked by oppressive neighbors for basically no reason. The US State Department's position on the two is wildly inconsistent, but the position of most human people (or most people I interact with online at least) is not.

"Further escalations with Russia." One, the State Dept is actually being very careful about laying down rules for use of US arms to try to avoid escalation. I suspect that most of what you mean about escalation is "no fair fighting back!" Two, if Russia doesn't want to get escalated against they can get the fuck out of the country and stop killing people. This crying about how everyone is being mean to them and it's really dangerous and everyone better stop it, right now, because it's escalation, while they are still doing their side of the fighting uninterrupted on someone else's sovereign territory, is a bunch of shit.

Upset about the results of the peace talks? Pack your shit, get back across the border. Go home. There you go, peace.

Want no escalation? Pack your shit, get back across the border. I suspect all your oil refineries and airbases and radar stations will suddenly stop blowing up without warning which you think is so improper. Etc, etc, and so on.

Sorry to be rude about it again. But hey! At least I didn't come to your country and blow up your apartment building and kill a bunch of your friends and family.

https://mbin.grits.dev/media/78/89/7889a61530dfdf000f4993854e9c684701111af5106b14dad078ec0451833434.jpg

arymandias ,

But surely it is possible to see which direction they are moving, or not moving. 

It doesn’t matter where the frontline goes in a war of attrition, it matters what resources you have. This is why Ukraine is loosing, it has a manpower problem, the only resources the west can not help with. 

Yeah just like the US depleted those Vietnamese forces so effectively for so long and that was the key to their victory. 

Ukraine is not North Vietnam. I’m sorry to repeat myself but Ukraine has a man power problem, people don’t want to die for this cause. If anything, they more resemble South Vietnam, and we all know how that ended. 

Dude now you're just saying talking points.

Sure it’s a talking point, but it’s also true. Seeing Ursula von der Leyen advocate for war crimes in Gaza with the same vigor as supporting escalation in Ukraine makes me skeptical of her motives. Same goes for Blinken crying about Ukrainian civilian casualties and saying dead children are the price of war about Palestinians, kinda makes you wonder. And they make the decisions, not random guys and gals on Lemmy. 

Want no escalation? Pack your shit, get back across the border.

I’m not Russian, I have no power over what they do. Peace is complicated, and requires living with injustice, but in return you spare a lot of suffering from happening. 

Sorry to be rude about it again.

I mean I can rude as well. If you think this conflict is truly worth dying for, then go there, and go die.

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

Ursula von der Leyen

Blinken

Surely "Anthony Blinken is full of shit sometimes" is something we can find some common ground on. I've never heard of this other person and her saying something dumb will not impact my assessment of whether Ukraine (or, for that matter, Palestine) should be allowed to defend themselves.

I think mostly we are talking in circles at this point. Ultimately it doesn't really matter what you or I say about it; what plays out on the ground will play out on the ground whatever anyone's typed assessment of the conflict on the internet says.

I can agree with a certain amount of the framing that Western governments as a whole sadly don't really give much of a shit about Ukrainian casualties and the overall outcome for the country. But I've spoken with and read from a large enough handful of Ukrainians that I am confident that your assessment of their feelings about the conflict is very wrong.

Justas ,
@Justas@sh.itjust.works avatar

Mearsheimer, Morgenthau and similar "political realists" are the main reason why the world is in such a messy state.

They dehumanise entire societies into poker chips to be traded between the superpowers, disregard their national interests and ignore history and non-european states when convenient.

arymandias , (edited )

You switch cause and effect, realism tries to describe the word as is and not as it should be and then bases policies on that. Of course basing your policies on realism changes the world, but US policy has mostly been based on liberalism for the last 30 years, and yet the world is still made up of poker chips and superpowers.

Of course the policies you choose based on realist principles can be used to increase your power as a country (and thus use poker chips cynically) or it can be used to build a prosperous and peaceful world (given the limitations of the natural anarchic state of international politics).

As a Dutch person I accept that the US can decide to turn the Netherlands into a nuclear testing ground whenever it wants and there is nothing we can do about that, but given this fact we should still try to create a peaceful world.

Justas ,
@Justas@sh.itjust.works avatar

You switch cause and effect, realism tries to describe the word as is and not as it should be and then bases policies on that.

It's less of a linear relationship and more of a feedback loop. The more politicians buy into this political theory, the more effect it has on the world and vice versa.

yet the world is still made up of poker chips and superpowers.

Iran is a good example of being neither. There are also a bunch of non-state actors who challenge the status quo. Realism fails to explain Al Qaeda, Taliban and ISIS joining the poker table.

Commercial actors are also become more and more powerful and their interests often do not align with those of the state. Google and Meta have a higher revenue than several countries and is capable of influencing public opinion.

Realism fails to explain how all superpowers fall apart from within or from outside forces eventually. Where is the British Empire? Where is the Dutch Empire? Where are the Romans?

Of course the policies you choose based on realist principles can be used to increase your power as a country

It can also be used to lose your power, destroy your credibility and sabotage your economy. Realism also doesn't take soft power into account. You can easily trade your soft power for hard power but it is very difficult to get soft power back.

(given the limitations of the natural anarchic state of international politics).

But international politics are governed by international law and various treaties. Just because some countries can break international law and get away with it, doesn't mean that the law itself is meaningless.

As a Dutch person I accept that the US can decide to turn the Netherlands into a nuclear testing ground whenever it wants and there is nothing we can do about that, but given this fact we should still try to create a peaceful world.

You can do a lot about it, from petitioning other governments to cease diplomatic relations to terrorism. Even a small country, like the Netherlands, is a complex social system with it's own interests and guiding principles and not just a chip in political games of giants.

mozz OP Admin ,
mozz avatar

See this seems perfectly coherent even if I don’t agree with a lot of it - I actually do agree with the idea that Russia is motivated by a desire to keep hostile alliances from creeping up literally to their border, in a way that’s not readily understood in the West and leads to things being provocative from Russia’s POV. But also, I think that’s often not the intent from the Western side, and I think the Magnitsky Act and the subsequent reigniting of the Cold War and Russia’s extensive interference with US domestic politics is also vital context, and I think the idea that the Ukraine war is a “ploy” that the US invented is very obviously not accurate. But like I say, sure, this is a coherent thing we could talk about as to why I do or don’t think it.

But none of that is what’s on the other side of the link up at the top. If there are people on hexbear / lemmygrad who think the kinds of things you just said, they are currently being drowned out by people who think Russia is on the verge of winning the war and anyway they’re just trying to help Ukraine and the West is trying to destroy Ukraine, and similar comically insane things, who will just get super hostile if anyone disagrees with them about any of it.

Mastengwe ,

Hexbear is generally confused by everything, so it makes sense that nothing they say makes sense.

It’s best to think of them like this:

Imagine The_Donald, but instead of it being a cesspit of right-wing ignorance, it’s a cesspit of communist ignorance.

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