If you want a point of view that isn’t in your bubble, what many people call “tankies” are in fact campists. By that I mean they commonly engage in authoritarian apologia for anyone purportedly “against the west”.
Iranian government brutalizing its own people? Butwutaboutdawest. Russia waging an imperialist war to absorb a neighbour? Butwutaboutnato. China threatening it’s neighbours? Butwutaboutdawest.
Nothing is ever their fault, any atrocity committed is either a false flag or misinformation because the only thing that matters is the team on the shirt, not any actual actions.
God forbid somebody can be against US imperialism and against Russian imperialism simultaneously, that’s much too nuanced.
NATO: only time it’s ever been triggered was for the US “war on terror”. A smaller more local NATO that ACTUALLY focuses purely on regional defence rather than some regional defence, some helping US imperialism in the middle east would be much better.
EU: Very imperfect, but the best chance we’ve got to stand up and support ourselves without being beholden to either Russia or the US. If we want real autonomy, we’ve got to work together regionally. Individual European countries stand no chance solo on the world stage.
Iranian government: Rightfully paranoid, but that paranoia seeps into every aspect of it’s interaction with it’s population. I do wish they could somehow modify their government to allow more individual liberties, clamp down on human rights abuses while keeping the aspects of it that have allowed it to resist the US. I don’t know how that might look, but it’s definitely not happening now that the US have gone “hold my beer” and committed war crimes that make what Iran did look trivial by comparison. The population definitely can’t push for reforms when in an active shooting war where infrastructure that civilians rely on is being deleted.
eu:
-Perfect but just short of it
-The imperfections overshadowed by importance
-Importance comes from value of european lives
-Threatened by Russia and the US
-Once again important due to needed unity
Iran:
-Scared and worried
-Untrust worthy of governing it’s people
-I care about iranians rights a lot
-They deserve to have their government modified
-Modifications should not harm resistance to US
-We need to plan for that change in government
-The US warcrimes against iran are bad but we should focus on how much worst than Iranian government’s they are
-The issue with the warcrimes is that they are getting in the way of resisting their government
Are you racist? I feel like you’re not judging these two groups of people equally
Can you also do this for US and Israel as well, i think comparing how lenient you’ll be with them when they’re not being massacred like cattle vs how rigid and cold you are with Iranians while they are is going to say so much
Can you please point to where I said I was the arbiter of what that change would look like or what the yardistick should be?
The equivalence here which is not broken imho, and if broken I need to change my POV, is local autonomy for both EU citizens and Iranians are of prime importance. Both EU citizens and Iranians deserve to control their own respective governments, free of outside influence. Both EU & Iranian people deserve to be in charge of their own day to day lives, without an imposition of any particular religious behavior or set of norms.
Sometimes it can devolve into campism, but no, mostly it is not being pro-west through double standards and false dichotomies. Combining your fist point and last point, the disagreement is the falseness of your last statement. “US and Russia can be bad at once” but Russia is inherently evil that can not not be considered an extreme, existential evil until a total collapse and replacement of its government and any Russian that isn’t actively rebelling against their government is an evil orc. But the US is bad because Trump is crass and rude and I would like more polite politicians leading wars of aggression against other nations, and if a Democrat were in power, they would do 4% less imperialism which would make it an acceptable amount. Radical politics in the US is obviously too far and “tankie”, the furthest left without being “tankie” that could be allowed is Mamdami increasing local taxes by 3%.
Iranian government brutalizing its own people? … China threatening it’s neighbours?
again, extreme double standards. People are protesting their government, that justifies foreign intervention and invasion? Should the Russian and Chinese governments have invaded and aiding armed agitators in the US in 2020 because the BLM protests were larger scale protests against the government? The most credible accusation of “genocide” in China against the Uighurs was a cultural genocide from making them learn Mandarin and basic Han Chinese etiquette, not any form of mass scale violence (again, even though all the anti-tankie positions are based on ignoring reality, but it is the opposite of Gaza where nearly all human rights organizations say that there is a genocide in Gaza but not in China). But cultural genocide is defined so that forcing people to learn and use another language counts. The problem for “non-tankies” is that that means that Ukraine has engaged in an equivalent cultural genocide since 2014 when notably only Ukrainian language would be officially used in schools, government bureaucracy, signs, etc. because of the fascist far-right’s power after Euromaidan which caused the Russian separatist movement. Though Russia was definitely more interested in realpolitik considerations, other than true concerns of ethnic Russians in the Donbass. But you are a tankie if you don’t think Putin spontaneously decided to invade in February 2022 for no reason except being evil.
For China threatening their neighbors, that is hard to parse, since it is hard to find anything that that might be real. They are famously willing to work and trade with anyone, even including Israel, and attempt to de-escalate and isolate from geopolitics. I am guessing you mean Taiwan, which mostly isn’t them actively threatening them with military force, but the US politicians using that potential to legitimate military presence in SE Asia. And again, invasion of Taiwan wouldn’t be justified, but there is mostly nothing other than Taiwan being close to China means having any planes and ships near the Chinese coast is a “threatening position”. And, because it is a frozen civil war, both sides agree that both territories are Chinese territory. Again, to explain to the USian, imagine if the UK intervened to protect part of the Confederacy to continue surviving in Florida, and both USians and Floridians agreed that Florida was part of the USA.
Again, if you are justifying a “both-sidesism” by foreign intervention and invasions/wars of aggression, then there is a quantitative argument to be made. You are a tankie if you don’t think China and Russia are objectively and extremely more evil than the US and West, even if the US “can be bad” too. But just in the 21st century the US has invaded/attacked Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Venezuela, and Somalia (non-exhaustive) and backed genocides in Israel and Yemen. Russia has invaded Ukraine, and a separatist part of Georgia, and not as actively armed, but tolerated Israels genocide. And China tolerates Israel, and supposedly might think of some time possibly invading Taiwan. The “anti-tankie” sees this and says that Russia and China are irredeemably evil and must be opposed and their citizens hated at all costs, but I also dislike some things Trump said or vaguely denounced the invasion of Iraq so “both sides bad” and “I am the real nuance understander”.
Sorry, I’m confused. Were you responding to me? When did I bring up Uyghurs or claim that Iranian people protesting justifies an invasion? When did I claim every Russian is responsible for the decisions of the Russian government? I feel like you’re shadowboxing an imagined version of my position.
Also, I went into in great length in the other thread, I think you’re very very wrong about Russia & Ukraine. What you wrote of my supposed position is yet again a parody strawman.
EDIT: Also, I’m not making a quantitative argument except in the context that the amount campists trust these governments to always be honest and truthful is absolute, while anything the US government says is always evil lying propaganda. Quantitatively, the US produces and disseminates far more propaganda. That doesn’t give people the excuse to blindly believe everything everyone else says though.
I am pointing out in the original context of Kittenrulz and your denunciation of how tankies can’t accept that someone can be “against Russian Imperialism and US imperialsim” is actually the straw man. Again, I am sure you can find one loser somewhere to cherry pick that actually thinks that Russia and China are perfect and US is only evil. But your portrait of both Lemmy “tankies” and the “tankies” referenced by OP’s meme is just that they would not maintain a double standard for the US and its adversaries and that you are “nuanced” for not agreeing with 100% of what the US does while accepting the worst propaganda about its adversaries.
I pointed out your inclusion of Iran and Russia because again, opposing Lemmy “tankies” on Iran is them calling out support of the CIA and Mossad to expand the anti-government protests and providing material support like arms and Starlink terminals to aid the protests. It forces the unfortunate position of having to be wary due to consequences and not principle. I think the original Kittenrulz post brought this up but as terrible and flawed as Ghaddafi, Saddam Hussein, and Assad were, letting the US and their proxies overthrow and destroy their governments still made the lives of people in those countries much worse. For Russia, that was pointing out that there is much more vilification of Russians and willingness to sanction and undermine their economy and citizens than Americans even though just the Iraq war alone was an even worse and less justified war of aggression. Again, I am pointing out that all accusations of “tankie” boil down to just not maintaining this double standard. And I was working off of the original banning of Kittenrulz and you invoking the Russian Invasion. The accusations of “tankie” around the Russian-Ukraine war do boil down to having any explanations or understanding of the causes of the war beyond “Putin is evil, so he does evil things like invading countries”. Kittenrulz and most “tankies” do not say that it is good and just, though I will admit there are a minority that take Russia’s side due to the full embrace of overt Nazism within sectors of the Ukraine government and armed forces since 2014 and exacerbated by 2022. Though that was a convenient talking point for Russian officials rather than a real motivation, and the war empowering and legitimizing these Neo-nazi formations.
Thank you for not strawmanning me and actually walking through your experiences with others who are “anti-tankie” rather than assuming the worst of me.
I legitimately don’t have time to respond to absolutely all of this in huge detail, so assume that if I didn’t respond to a specific point I just didn’t have much to say about it.
It forces the unfortunate position of having to be wary due to consequences and not principle.
I do generally agree with this in principle. The governmental structure of Iran, for example, makes a lot of sense if your explicit goal is to be as coup-proof as possible. This is very much a double-edged sword: a country built on legitimate paranoia often sees any protest as foreign interference, regardless of the reality.
Kittenrulz and most “tankies” do not say that it is good and just, though I will admit there are a minority that take Russia’s side
Maybe I’m just taking crazy pills here, but most of the opinions on the war over seen here can be boiled down to “Evil Ukrainian Nazis bad, Russia good”. That is legitimately what I see during the rare moments I look over here.
full embrace of overt Nazism within sectors of the Ukraine government and armed forces
It can’t be “some sectors” and a “full embrace” at the same time, can it? There were some well known units that were very explicitly neonazi, but at no point did they have any control over the civilian government or military high command.
Though that was a convenient talking point for Russian officials rather than a real motivation
I do generally agree with this in principle. The governmental structure of Iran, for example, makes a lot of sense if your explicit goal is to be as coup-proof as possible. This is very much a double-edged sword: a country built on legitimate paranoia often sees any protest as foreign interference, regardless of the reality.
Again, at the expense of being strawmanned, this is enough to invoke “anti-tankie” rules. Most of the anti-tankie action in blahaj.zone, .world, and all the other liberals is acknowledging this. And taking into context that articles and opinions of “look at how evil and bad and irredeemable country and its people is” is apologizing for authoritarianism. If you are not cheering for the overthrow of the Iranian government simply because the US would do everything to make something worse result from it, you are a “tankie” and what blahaj and .world mean by the word.
Maybe I’m just taking crazy pills here, but most of the opinions on the war over seen here can be boiled down to “Evil Ukrainian Nazis bad, Russia good”.
I may be a little optimistic in how few people took seriously the Russian government’s official story of the invasion being entirely because of the overt Nazism of the Ukrainian armed forces and the explicit anti-Russian ethnosupremacy of the Ukranian government in their civil war that started in 2014, but it is still a minority. But I will say that I am worried that I am taking crazy pills. A large part of the accusations of “tankie” is not agreeing with “Russia evil orcs, Ukrainians are perfect elven defenders of Western Civilization”. I still stand by my previous statements of any attempt of explaining the Russian paranoia of a hostile military alliance moving closer to its borders (NATO was supposedly only supposed to defend against the Warsaw Pact, though NATO pre-dated it) and the fact that the US was attempting Color Revolutions on its border (I know that for invoking color revolutions I need to justify against anti-CIA bias. But color revolutions do take advantage and empower actual discontent of the local population, the CIA can’t summon governmental changes with a wave of a wand. It is just what the US government and media supports and legitimizes.) But ever acknowledging that Russia would be upset by the CIA helping to install a hostile government on its border, with plans to join a hostile military alliance, is tankieism.
It can’t be “some sectors” and a “full embrace”
Just like the Republican party can fully embrace MAGA but only some sectors of the US are Trump acolytes. Euromaidan produced very organized and energized neo-nazi groups like Azov Battalion, C-14, Aidar, etc. And even though they didn’t have a majority in the elected government, the fact that they had a very large amount of angry, motivated, and armed men with military supplies mean that the government knew they could not cross or displease them. They have taken priority and given special consideration due to the war of the last 12 years. An ethno-nationalist military formation will be more motivated and more willing to fight hard than a random conscript. This has become significantly more apparent since 2022 where the actual conscripts that are grabbed off the streets are sent to their death as cannon fodder, so that Azov or Aidar can take advantage of the softened line and expended munitions to try to attack a possible weak point. The war has legitimized these neo-nazi groups and empowered them as they have greater recruitment since you are less likely to have your life thrown away as cannon fodder if you enlist with them rather than wait to be conscripted and thrown against Russian drones. And they are legitimized by being the forces capturing territory and fighting off Russian advances as the normal rank and file are sacrificed for it.
And taking into context that articles and opinions of “look at how evil and bad and irredeemable country and its people is” is apologizing for authoritarianism. If you are not cheering for the overthrow of the Iranian government simply because the US would do everything to make something worse result from it, you are a “tankie” and what blahaj and .world mean by the word.
After talking with you and seeing your opinions, I don’t think you’re a campist (or ‘tankie’). There’s way too much nuance for that. I may disagree with some of your points, but I follow your logic and you don’t seem to be just repeating propaganda. I obviously can’t speak for any instance admins or other users anywhere on the fediverse, I’m just talking for myself and my opinions.
Russian paranoia of a hostile military alliance moving closer to its borders (NATO was supposedly only supposed to defend against the Warsaw Pact, though NATO pre-dated it)
The issue with that line of thinking is that NATO is a voluntary alliance. Generally speaking, here in eastern Europe, countries join NATO when they feel threatened by Russia. We’ve seen that pattern play out over and over: Russia plays brinksmanship over their border, violating airspace, testing limits, etc, and countries join. Finland and Sweden specifically joined in direct response to the Russo-Ukraine war.
A large part of the accusations of “tankie” is not agreeing with “Russia evil orcs, Ukrainians are perfect elven defenders of Western Civilization”.
I hope I’ve made it clear that that is not at all my point of view on the topic. Again, can’t talk for anyone else.
But ever acknowledging that Russia would be upset by the CIA helping to install a hostile government on its border, with plans to join a hostile military alliance, is tankieism.
The issue with this is that most of the countries involved have relatively recent memories of Russification, forced compliance with first the Russian Empire, then the USSR. I absolutely agree that the CIA would and has helped these movements, but as you say, the CIA can’t wave a magic wand and summon these movements. They have to exist, and they have to be large.
This has become significantly more apparent since 2022 where the actual conscripts that are grabbed off the streets are sent to their death as cannon fodder, so that Azov or Aidar can take advantage of the softened line and expended munitions to try to attack a possible weak point.
This sounds like an inversion of the classic “USSR/Russian meatwave” meme. It’s ridiculous when people talk about it when it comes to Russians, as if they have some mythical predisposition to throwing their soldiers lives away for no gain, and it’s equally ridiculous when people attribute that to the Ukrainian military. Both sides have suffered grueling losses due to the nature of the combat, and the learning curve with modern drone combat.
I hope though, while you’re almost definitely aware of the war crimes of the Azov and Aidar battalions, you’re also aware of the long list of war crimes of various Russian units. From the intentional striking of civilian targets (including hospitals), torture of civilians, abduction of children, gang rapes, and more. I 100% agree that Ukrainians aren’t ‘perfect elven defenders of the west’, but let’s be very very clear about what the Russian military is doing.
This sounds like an inversion of the classic “USSR/Russian meatwave” meme. It’s ridiculous when people talk about it when it comes to Russians, as if they have some mythical predisposition to throwing their soldiers lives away for no gain
It is not this inversion or repeating of propaganda. There has been a long stream of news about the press gangs and there seems to currently be an inflection point of Western Europe and US media needing to acknowledge the level of violent and desperate conscriptions over the last weeks (just to concretely cite a single source rather than keep being vague and handwavey, https://eventsinukraine.substack.com/ has tracked the use of conscription press gangs as a Ukrainian journalist that had been living in Ukraine). It is not just a “Human Meatwave” type of mentality, but an acknowledgement of the reality of the tragedy of Ukraine in this whole war. It was one of only a few former Soviet Republics to not have its per-capita GDP recover to its 1991 level after shock therapy and was considered the most corrupt nation on earth until the war motivated western sources to fake the numbers. The economic out-migration caused Ukraine to be in a deep demographic crisis before the war even started. The reason for the press gangs and very violent conscription is because of the population and manpower difference. Russia can throw away an equal amount of lives to Ukraine while only maintaining limited conscription, but Ukraine has to try to get as many able bodied men as it can.
The description came down to the ultra-nationalist/neo-nazi groups vs the conscripts. Because they are motivated by nationalism and views of racial supremacy, the neo-nazi groups have higher morale and are more dedicated than the conscripts pulled off the streets. This means that the conscripts are used in the high risk or earlier waves of any operation, since the neo-nazi groups are more valuable units due to their higher levels of training and esprit de corps.
Iranian government brutalizing its own people? Butwutaboutdawest.
That seems like a reasonable question to ask in order to not blindly adopt national chauvinists views. Shouldn’t you put developments in context to avoid getting swept up in a propaganda push?
Is this the “authoritarian apologia” you mentioned? Maybe you could give a citation of someone doing it so we can judge if they are being unreasonable.
Russia waging an imperialist war to absorb a neighbour? Butwutaboutnato.
Is it imperialist? Russia is doing this to expand profit seeking for its national-level monopolies or otherwise export capital? If so they are doing a bad job. Or maybe you don’t know what imperialism is in this context.
Regarding NATO, yes understanding its purpose and it’s member activities in the lead up to Russia invading Ukraine is actually a basic necessity for grasping why it happened at all and why it isn’t just revanchism or “imperialism”. Can you tell me what happened re: the Minsk agreements and why that is relevant? What were their contents?
China threatening it’s neighbours? Butwutaboutdawest.
I honestly don’t know what this is even about. Maybe Japan remilitarizing? It’s not hard to see why that would be concerning.
Nothing is ever their fault, any atrocity committed is either a false flag or misinformation because the only thing that matters is the team on the shirt, not any actual actions.
I have never seen someone saying anything remotely in the vein you are referencing that doesn’t also have criticism for those nations.
Perhaps you could give an example.
God forbid somebody can be against US imperialism and against Russian imperialism simultaneously, that’s much too nuanced.
One would have to start with an understanding of imperialism.
Shouldn’t you put developments in context to avoid getting swept up in a propaganda push?
That’s reasonable. I personally knew a lady who was beaten, imprisoned and starved for a week by the morality police for forgetting her hijab at home though. I struggle to think of a context that would justify that. This was many years ago though, as I understand it the morality police and their systematic human rights abuses were largely unofficially abolished in 2023 after mass protests.
The new wave of protests from this year were largely about inflation and cost of living, as far as I understand. You don’t get to thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries via effective crowd management.
Is it imperialist? Russia is doing this to expand profit seeking for its national-level monopolies or otherwise export capital? If so they are doing a bad job.
In order: yes, yes, yes, and also yes.
My opinion is that the primary motive of the original full-scale war, which they honestly thought they could get done in 3 days, was primarily to expand the workforce due to their crippled demographics, while simultaneously scoring an easy propaganda win domestically, giving a black eye to the US and EU, and get a hold of the rare earth minerals which were being prospected in eastern Ukraine at the time. It also didn’t hurt that before they bombed it, the area was relatively industrialized. Due to the incompetence of authoritarians in general and their inability to admit defeat (just look at the US in Iran today if you want a 2nd example), they are forced to keep going to save face no matter how pointless it is and how many people die.
In terms of motivation for Russia to continue their war long past the point of sunk costs, it probably also doesn’t help that because they’re fully in a war economy now, the end of the war will cause their economy to crash.
As a capstone to this: you don’t get a pass on imperialism just because you’re bad at it. If that was the case, Mussolini did nothing wrong.
I honestly don’t know what this is even about. Maybe Japan remilitarizing?
Take your pick. Saber rattling with Taiwan, encroaching on the Phillipine’s maritime waters, skirmishing with India and Pakistan on their border, and more.
I have never seen someone saying anything remotely in the vein you are referencing
I see every other day here references here to Ukrainian Nazis, Russian self-defense, etc. As an Eastern European who’s heard second-hand from refugees what’s going on in detail, I hope you can understand why that’d piss me off a little. So afraid of falling for US propaganda so they’re gobbling up Russian propaganda instead.
That’s reasonable. I personally knew a lady who was beaten, imprisoned and starved for a week by the morality police for forgetting her hijab at home though. I struggle to think of a context that would justify that.
Who said you have to justify it? Can you give a link and quote of the person who tried to make you?
This was many years ago though, as I understand it the morality police and their systematic human rights abuses were largely unofficially abolished in 2023 after mass protests.
Human rights discourse is fraught and almost always extremely national chauvinist, racist. But yes there has been a moderation.
The new wave of protests from this year were largely about inflation and cost of living, as far as I understand. You don’t get to thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries via effective crowd management.
I’m not sure what this means.
In order: yes, yes, yes, and also yes.
Then you are wrong.
My opinion is that the primary motive of the original war, which they honestly thought they could get done in 3 days, was primarily to expand the workforce due to their crippled demographics
Well yes not ending the war after that 3 days, which was an option for Ukraine but rejected by their masters, would have been the way for Ukraine to not be destroyed as a country.
Unfortunately for Ukrainians, they have been sacrificed and their country ostensibly sold on loan. Russia did indeed hope they would choose to not do that.
But who knows what you mean by “crippled demographics”, the demos were not particularly different in Donbas. Also why ignore the history leading up to it.
while simultaneously scoring an easy propaganda win domestically, giving a black eye to the US and EU, and get a hold of the rare earth minerals which were being prospected in eastern Ukraine at the time.
Actually none if that is imperialism except maybe the rare earths but that’s really not an inherently compelling argument on its own because all land has value, but not all invasions or annexations are imperialist. Russia was not exactly hurting due to lack of rare earths. They were hurting from being slowly isolated from European markets and from a war zone on their border. 8 years of neo-Nazis shelling ethnic Russians in Donbas after Euromaiden and you’re speculating it was rare earths?
It also didn’t hurt that before they bombed it, the area was relatively industrialized. Due to the incompetence of authoritarians in general and their inability to admit defeat (just look at the US in Iran today if you want a 2nd example), they are forced to keep going to save face no matter how pointless it is and how many people die.
Material forces constrain what “authoritarians” can do in this way, this is naive fantasy speak about how nation states operate. In reality, the refusal to do Minsk III is what set the stage, it is a recognition that a hard break was sought by Ukraine’s masters and no negotiation would be forthcoming that even had the pretense of another agreement to fail to meet the conditions of. The destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline is a good example of the break being sought. With Ukraine off the table for a political negotiation, that left only the establishment of an ongoing material dynamic: demilitarization by force, annexation of Donbas, surviving a new economic status quo.
Speaking of the new economic status quo, Russia fared well despite the various financial nuclear options leveraged against them. This was probably a surprise to their neoliberal bankers, but the base reality of the situation made sustaining it appealing.
Take your pick. Saber rattling with Taiwan,
That is stoked by the West and there are no new developments on that front that aren’t the US trying to escalate via moving yet more military assets there. Or China moving ships across waters right in between the mainland and the island slightly more often or with a slightly different exercise.
You call this making threats?
encroaching on the Phillipine’s maritime waters
I guess if we are being vague about what encroaching is okay. Building up and claiming various contiguous waters in the south china sea that would have otherwise been international waters and continuing to dispute long-disputed claims to some islands.
You call this making threats?
skirmishing with India and Pakistan on their border
Name them and let’s see what the big deal is. PS, is it threatening.
I see every other day here references here to Ukrainian Nazis, Russian self-defense, etc.
So what? This doesn’t respond to what I said at all.
As an Eastern European who’s heard second-hand from refugees what’s going on in detail, I hope you can understand why that’d piss me off a little.
Ah, I thought so. Honestly don’t really have the time and energy to go back and forth with these massive walls of text, so I’ll just say that you’ve fallen hook line and sinker for Russian propaganda.
Ukrainian Nazis exist, just like there are Nazis in literally every country on the planet. They weren’t in control of anything, nor were they in any way in control of the government. The “ethnic Russians” were primarily Russian army troops out of uniform. There’s piles and piles of evidence about this. The low intensity war between Russia and Ukraine was to destabilize Ukraine to attempt to force it back into Russia’s sphere of influence against the will of the populace. If that isn’t imperialist, I don’t know what is.
I don’t know why I’m writing all this out, tbh. You’ve drunk the Kool aid. Anything “an enemy of the west” says is believed uncritically, no actual thinking, just regurgitation.
Have a wonderful day regardless, and I honestly hope you’re doing well.
Ah, I thought so. Honestly don’t really have the time and energy to go back and forth with these massive walls of text, so I’ll just say that you’ve fallen hook line and sinker for Russian propaganda.
Ah, I thought so. Honestly don’t really have the time and energy to go back and forth with these massive walls of text, so I’ll just say that you’ve fallen hook line and sinker for Russian propaganda.
Ah yes it’s my fault that you have no response. Just throw in a thought-terminating cliché.
Ukrainian Nazis exist, just like there are Nazis in literally every country on the planet. They weren’t in control of anything, nor were they in any way in control of the government.
See how you are just going on and on about things I didn’t say rather than responding to what I did say?
Though Ukrainian neo-Nazis absolutely were in control of exactly what I referenced: running front-line militias that shelled Donbas. This was widely reported until 2022 when Western media needed to push that to the side.
The “ethnic Russians” were primarily Russian army troops out of uniform.
No the ethnic Russians I am referring to are about half of the people who lived and live in Donbas. Civilian population centers were shelled.
There’s piles and piles of evidence about this.
No there aren’t.
The low intensity war between Russia and Ukraine was to destabilize Ukraine to attempt to force it back into Russia’s sphere of influence against the will of the populace.
Historical revisionism that ignores Euromaidan and the grassroots response in Eastern Ukraine to the coups and anti-ethnic Russian, anti-left campaigns that followed. Do you think it was the Russians that locked union organizers in a building and set it on fire?
If that isn’t imperialist, I don’t know what is.
Yes, exactly, you don’t know what imperialism is.
I don’t know why I’m writing all this out, tbh. You’ve drunk the Kool aid.
Self-soothing to help rationalize why you have no actual response to what I’ve said.
Anything “an enemy of the west” says is believed uncritically, no actual thinking, just regurgitation.
Oh? What specific claims by “an enemy of the west” have I believed uncritically?
Have a wonderful day regardless, and I honestly hope you’re doing well.
Just an FYI but Ukraine wants to be the Greater Israel of Europe. Struck an Iranian ship, is great friends with Netanyahu, has vans that kidnap Ukranian citizens to be sent to the meat grinder. ( https://busification.org/ )
You’re pro-Palestine but also pro-Ukraine? So anti war-ism but supports western’s interests that also support genocide.
Cringe memes aside, anyone who can say with a straight face that poor little Putin was forced into this war against his will has obviously not been listening to the words coming out of his mouth.
Don’t worry, right wing meme formats are all these fucks can debate with. They know they have no arguments beyond “nuh huh, my country good” and “you deserve to be removed for questioning things”
These people don’t think. They just repeat propaganda from China and Russia and think it’s the truth. They’re no different than people who believe Trump’s ramblings.
They think they are, but they aren’t. If Trump was in charge of China they’d be head over heels.
This reads extremely like a story someone tells themselves in order to avoid having to engage with what other people actually think. Very “of course these natives aren’t trying to tell me anything important, they’re just mindless Bad Guy savages” vibes.
If you want a point of view that isn’t in your bubble, what many people call “tankies” are in fact campists. By that I mean they commonly engage in authoritarian apologia for anyone purportedly “against the west”.
Iranian government brutalizing its own people? Butwutaboutdawest. Russia waging an imperialist war to absorb a neighbour? Butwutaboutnato. China threatening it’s neighbours? Butwutaboutdawest.
Nothing is ever their fault, any atrocity committed is either a false flag or misinformation because the only thing that matters is the team on the shirt, not any actual actions.
God forbid somebody can be against US imperialism and against Russian imperialism simultaneously, that’s much too nuanced.
I think the most common position I’ve seen on these “tankie” spaces is:
I mean the current state of Russia is the consequence of the illegal dissolution of the Soviet Union against the will of the people after all.
I think that liberals see this as the term that the other guy used: “Butwutaboutdawest”
Mmm yes, very nice. Now let’s see your opinions on NATO, the EU and the Iranian government.
NATO: only time it’s ever been triggered was for the US “war on terror”. A smaller more local NATO that ACTUALLY focuses purely on regional defence rather than some regional defence, some helping US imperialism in the middle east would be much better.
EU: Very imperfect, but the best chance we’ve got to stand up and support ourselves without being beholden to either Russia or the US. If we want real autonomy, we’ve got to work together regionally. Individual European countries stand no chance solo on the world stage.
Iranian government: Rightfully paranoid, but that paranoia seeps into every aspect of it’s interaction with it’s population. I do wish they could somehow modify their government to allow more individual liberties, clamp down on human rights abuses while keeping the aspects of it that have allowed it to resist the US. I don’t know how that might look, but it’s definitely not happening now that the US have gone “hold my beer” and committed war crimes that make what Iran did look trivial by comparison. The population definitely can’t push for reforms when in an active shooting war where infrastructure that civilians rely on is being deleted.
Ok so
eu: -Perfect but just short of it -The imperfections overshadowed by importance -Importance comes from value of european lives -Threatened by Russia and the US -Once again important due to needed unity
Iran: -Scared and worried -Untrust worthy of governing it’s people -I care about iranians rights a lot -They deserve to have their government modified -Modifications should not harm resistance to US -We need to plan for that change in government -The US warcrimes against iran are bad but we should focus on how much worst than Iranian government’s they are -The issue with the warcrimes is that they are getting in the way of resisting their government
Are you racist? I feel like you’re not judging these two groups of people equally
Can you also do this for US and Israel as well, i think comparing how lenient you’ll be with them when they’re not being massacred like cattle vs how rigid and cold you are with Iranians while they are is going to say so much
Can you please point to where I said I was the arbiter of what that change would look like or what the yardistick should be?
The equivalence here which is not broken imho, and if broken I need to change my POV, is local autonomy for both EU citizens and Iranians are of prime importance. Both EU citizens and Iranians deserve to control their own respective governments, free of outside influence. Both EU & Iranian people deserve to be in charge of their own day to day lives, without an imposition of any particular religious behavior or set of norms.
Sometimes it can devolve into campism, but no, mostly it is not being pro-west through double standards and false dichotomies. Combining your fist point and last point, the disagreement is the falseness of your last statement. “US and Russia can be bad at once” but Russia is inherently evil that can not not be considered an extreme, existential evil until a total collapse and replacement of its government and any Russian that isn’t actively rebelling against their government is an evil orc. But the US is bad because Trump is crass and rude and I would like more polite politicians leading wars of aggression against other nations, and if a Democrat were in power, they would do 4% less imperialism which would make it an acceptable amount. Radical politics in the US is obviously too far and “tankie”, the furthest left without being “tankie” that could be allowed is Mamdami increasing local taxes by 3%.
again, extreme double standards. People are protesting their government, that justifies foreign intervention and invasion? Should the Russian and Chinese governments have invaded and aiding armed agitators in the US in 2020 because the BLM protests were larger scale protests against the government? The most credible accusation of “genocide” in China against the Uighurs was a cultural genocide from making them learn Mandarin and basic Han Chinese etiquette, not any form of mass scale violence (again, even though all the anti-tankie positions are based on ignoring reality, but it is the opposite of Gaza where nearly all human rights organizations say that there is a genocide in Gaza but not in China). But cultural genocide is defined so that forcing people to learn and use another language counts. The problem for “non-tankies” is that that means that Ukraine has engaged in an equivalent cultural genocide since 2014 when notably only Ukrainian language would be officially used in schools, government bureaucracy, signs, etc. because of the fascist far-right’s power after Euromaidan which caused the Russian separatist movement. Though Russia was definitely more interested in realpolitik considerations, other than true concerns of ethnic Russians in the Donbass. But you are a tankie if you don’t think Putin spontaneously decided to invade in February 2022 for no reason except being evil.
For China threatening their neighbors, that is hard to parse, since it is hard to find anything that that might be real. They are famously willing to work and trade with anyone, even including Israel, and attempt to de-escalate and isolate from geopolitics. I am guessing you mean Taiwan, which mostly isn’t them actively threatening them with military force, but the US politicians using that potential to legitimate military presence in SE Asia. And again, invasion of Taiwan wouldn’t be justified, but there is mostly nothing other than Taiwan being close to China means having any planes and ships near the Chinese coast is a “threatening position”. And, because it is a frozen civil war, both sides agree that both territories are Chinese territory. Again, to explain to the USian, imagine if the UK intervened to protect part of the Confederacy to continue surviving in Florida, and both USians and Floridians agreed that Florida was part of the USA.
Again, if you are justifying a “both-sidesism” by foreign intervention and invasions/wars of aggression, then there is a quantitative argument to be made. You are a tankie if you don’t think China and Russia are objectively and extremely more evil than the US and West, even if the US “can be bad” too. But just in the 21st century the US has invaded/attacked Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Venezuela, and Somalia (non-exhaustive) and backed genocides in Israel and Yemen. Russia has invaded Ukraine, and a separatist part of Georgia, and not as actively armed, but tolerated Israels genocide. And China tolerates Israel, and supposedly might think of some time possibly invading Taiwan. The “anti-tankie” sees this and says that Russia and China are irredeemably evil and must be opposed and their citizens hated at all costs, but I also dislike some things Trump said or vaguely denounced the invasion of Iraq so “both sides bad” and “I am the real nuance understander”.
Sorry, I’m confused. Were you responding to me? When did I bring up Uyghurs or claim that Iranian people protesting justifies an invasion? When did I claim every Russian is responsible for the decisions of the Russian government? I feel like you’re shadowboxing an imagined version of my position.
Also, I went into in great length in the other thread, I think you’re very very wrong about Russia & Ukraine. What you wrote of my supposed position is yet again a parody strawman.
EDIT: Also, I’m not making a quantitative argument except in the context that the amount campists trust these governments to always be honest and truthful is absolute, while anything the US government says is always evil lying propaganda. Quantitatively, the US produces and disseminates far more propaganda. That doesn’t give people the excuse to blindly believe everything everyone else says though.
I am pointing out in the original context of Kittenrulz and your denunciation of how tankies can’t accept that someone can be “against Russian Imperialism and US imperialsim” is actually the straw man. Again, I am sure you can find one loser somewhere to cherry pick that actually thinks that Russia and China are perfect and US is only evil. But your portrait of both Lemmy “tankies” and the “tankies” referenced by OP’s meme is just that they would not maintain a double standard for the US and its adversaries and that you are “nuanced” for not agreeing with 100% of what the US does while accepting the worst propaganda about its adversaries.
I pointed out your inclusion of Iran and Russia because again, opposing Lemmy “tankies” on Iran is them calling out support of the CIA and Mossad to expand the anti-government protests and providing material support like arms and Starlink terminals to aid the protests. It forces the unfortunate position of having to be wary due to consequences and not principle. I think the original Kittenrulz post brought this up but as terrible and flawed as Ghaddafi, Saddam Hussein, and Assad were, letting the US and their proxies overthrow and destroy their governments still made the lives of people in those countries much worse. For Russia, that was pointing out that there is much more vilification of Russians and willingness to sanction and undermine their economy and citizens than Americans even though just the Iraq war alone was an even worse and less justified war of aggression. Again, I am pointing out that all accusations of “tankie” boil down to just not maintaining this double standard. And I was working off of the original banning of Kittenrulz and you invoking the Russian Invasion. The accusations of “tankie” around the Russian-Ukraine war do boil down to having any explanations or understanding of the causes of the war beyond “Putin is evil, so he does evil things like invading countries”. Kittenrulz and most “tankies” do not say that it is good and just, though I will admit there are a minority that take Russia’s side due to the full embrace of overt Nazism within sectors of the Ukraine government and armed forces since 2014 and exacerbated by 2022. Though that was a convenient talking point for Russian officials rather than a real motivation, and the war empowering and legitimizing these Neo-nazi formations.
Thank you for not strawmanning me and actually walking through your experiences with others who are “anti-tankie” rather than assuming the worst of me.
I legitimately don’t have time to respond to absolutely all of this in huge detail, so assume that if I didn’t respond to a specific point I just didn’t have much to say about it.
I do generally agree with this in principle. The governmental structure of Iran, for example, makes a lot of sense if your explicit goal is to be as coup-proof as possible. This is very much a double-edged sword: a country built on legitimate paranoia often sees any protest as foreign interference, regardless of the reality.
Maybe I’m just taking crazy pills here, but most of the opinions on the war over seen here can be boiled down to “Evil Ukrainian Nazis bad, Russia good”. That is legitimately what I see during the rare moments I look over here.
It can’t be “some sectors” and a “full embrace” at the same time, can it? There were some well known units that were very explicitly neonazi, but at no point did they have any control over the civilian government or military high command.
Thank you for acknowledging that.
Again, at the expense of being strawmanned, this is enough to invoke “anti-tankie” rules. Most of the anti-tankie action in blahaj.zone, .world, and all the other liberals is acknowledging this. And taking into context that articles and opinions of “look at how evil and bad and irredeemable country and its people is” is apologizing for authoritarianism. If you are not cheering for the overthrow of the Iranian government simply because the US would do everything to make something worse result from it, you are a “tankie” and what blahaj and .world mean by the word.
I may be a little optimistic in how few people took seriously the Russian government’s official story of the invasion being entirely because of the overt Nazism of the Ukrainian armed forces and the explicit anti-Russian ethnosupremacy of the Ukranian government in their civil war that started in 2014, but it is still a minority. But I will say that I am worried that I am taking crazy pills. A large part of the accusations of “tankie” is not agreeing with “Russia evil orcs, Ukrainians are perfect elven defenders of Western Civilization”. I still stand by my previous statements of any attempt of explaining the Russian paranoia of a hostile military alliance moving closer to its borders (NATO was supposedly only supposed to defend against the Warsaw Pact, though NATO pre-dated it) and the fact that the US was attempting Color Revolutions on its border (I know that for invoking color revolutions I need to justify against anti-CIA bias. But color revolutions do take advantage and empower actual discontent of the local population, the CIA can’t summon governmental changes with a wave of a wand. It is just what the US government and media supports and legitimizes.) But ever acknowledging that Russia would be upset by the CIA helping to install a hostile government on its border, with plans to join a hostile military alliance, is tankieism.
Just like the Republican party can fully embrace MAGA but only some sectors of the US are Trump acolytes. Euromaidan produced very organized and energized neo-nazi groups like Azov Battalion, C-14, Aidar, etc. And even though they didn’t have a majority in the elected government, the fact that they had a very large amount of angry, motivated, and armed men with military supplies mean that the government knew they could not cross or displease them. They have taken priority and given special consideration due to the war of the last 12 years. An ethno-nationalist military formation will be more motivated and more willing to fight hard than a random conscript. This has become significantly more apparent since 2022 where the actual conscripts that are grabbed off the streets are sent to their death as cannon fodder, so that Azov or Aidar can take advantage of the softened line and expended munitions to try to attack a possible weak point. The war has legitimized these neo-nazi groups and empowered them as they have greater recruitment since you are less likely to have your life thrown away as cannon fodder if you enlist with them rather than wait to be conscripted and thrown against Russian drones. And they are legitimized by being the forces capturing territory and fighting off Russian advances as the normal rank and file are sacrificed for it.
After talking with you and seeing your opinions, I don’t think you’re a campist (or ‘tankie’). There’s way too much nuance for that. I may disagree with some of your points, but I follow your logic and you don’t seem to be just repeating propaganda. I obviously can’t speak for any instance admins or other users anywhere on the fediverse, I’m just talking for myself and my opinions.
The issue with that line of thinking is that NATO is a voluntary alliance. Generally speaking, here in eastern Europe, countries join NATO when they feel threatened by Russia. We’ve seen that pattern play out over and over: Russia plays brinksmanship over their border, violating airspace, testing limits, etc, and countries join. Finland and Sweden specifically joined in direct response to the Russo-Ukraine war.
I hope I’ve made it clear that that is not at all my point of view on the topic. Again, can’t talk for anyone else.
The issue with this is that most of the countries involved have relatively recent memories of Russification, forced compliance with first the Russian Empire, then the USSR. I absolutely agree that the CIA would and has helped these movements, but as you say, the CIA can’t wave a magic wand and summon these movements. They have to exist, and they have to be large.
This sounds like an inversion of the classic “USSR/Russian meatwave” meme. It’s ridiculous when people talk about it when it comes to Russians, as if they have some mythical predisposition to throwing their soldiers lives away for no gain, and it’s equally ridiculous when people attribute that to the Ukrainian military. Both sides have suffered grueling losses due to the nature of the combat, and the learning curve with modern drone combat.
I hope though, while you’re almost definitely aware of the war crimes of the Azov and Aidar battalions, you’re also aware of the long list of war crimes of various Russian units. From the intentional striking of civilian targets (including hospitals), torture of civilians, abduction of children, gang rapes, and more. I 100% agree that Ukrainians aren’t ‘perfect elven defenders of the west’, but let’s be very very clear about what the Russian military is doing.
It is not this inversion or repeating of propaganda. There has been a long stream of news about the press gangs and there seems to currently be an inflection point of Western Europe and US media needing to acknowledge the level of violent and desperate conscriptions over the last weeks (just to concretely cite a single source rather than keep being vague and handwavey, https://eventsinukraine.substack.com/ has tracked the use of conscription press gangs as a Ukrainian journalist that had been living in Ukraine). It is not just a “Human Meatwave” type of mentality, but an acknowledgement of the reality of the tragedy of Ukraine in this whole war. It was one of only a few former Soviet Republics to not have its per-capita GDP recover to its 1991 level after shock therapy and was considered the most corrupt nation on earth until the war motivated western sources to fake the numbers. The economic out-migration caused Ukraine to be in a deep demographic crisis before the war even started. The reason for the press gangs and very violent conscription is because of the population and manpower difference. Russia can throw away an equal amount of lives to Ukraine while only maintaining limited conscription, but Ukraine has to try to get as many able bodied men as it can.
The description came down to the ultra-nationalist/neo-nazi groups vs the conscripts. Because they are motivated by nationalism and views of racial supremacy, the neo-nazi groups have higher morale and are more dedicated than the conscripts pulled off the streets. This means that the conscripts are used in the high risk or earlier waves of any operation, since the neo-nazi groups are more valuable units due to their higher levels of training and esprit de corps.
That seems like a reasonable question to ask in order to not blindly adopt national chauvinists views. Shouldn’t you put developments in context to avoid getting swept up in a propaganda push?
Is this the “authoritarian apologia” you mentioned? Maybe you could give a citation of someone doing it so we can judge if they are being unreasonable.
Is it imperialist? Russia is doing this to expand profit seeking for its national-level monopolies or otherwise export capital? If so they are doing a bad job. Or maybe you don’t know what imperialism is in this context.
Regarding NATO, yes understanding its purpose and it’s member activities in the lead up to Russia invading Ukraine is actually a basic necessity for grasping why it happened at all and why it isn’t just revanchism or “imperialism”. Can you tell me what happened re: the Minsk agreements and why that is relevant? What were their contents?
I honestly don’t know what this is even about. Maybe Japan remilitarizing? It’s not hard to see why that would be concerning.
I have never seen someone saying anything remotely in the vein you are referencing that doesn’t also have criticism for those nations.
Perhaps you could give an example.
One would have to start with an understanding of imperialism.
That’s reasonable. I personally knew a lady who was beaten, imprisoned and starved for a week by the morality police for forgetting her hijab at home though. I struggle to think of a context that would justify that. This was many years ago though, as I understand it the morality police and their systematic human rights abuses were largely unofficially abolished in 2023 after mass protests.
The new wave of protests from this year were largely about inflation and cost of living, as far as I understand. You don’t get to thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries via effective crowd management.
In order: yes, yes, yes, and also yes.
My opinion is that the primary motive of the original full-scale war, which they honestly thought they could get done in 3 days, was primarily to expand the workforce due to their crippled demographics, while simultaneously scoring an easy propaganda win domestically, giving a black eye to the US and EU, and get a hold of the rare earth minerals which were being prospected in eastern Ukraine at the time. It also didn’t hurt that before they bombed it, the area was relatively industrialized. Due to the incompetence of authoritarians in general and their inability to admit defeat (just look at the US in Iran today if you want a 2nd example), they are forced to keep going to save face no matter how pointless it is and how many people die.
In terms of motivation for Russia to continue their war long past the point of sunk costs, it probably also doesn’t help that because they’re fully in a war economy now, the end of the war will cause their economy to crash.
As a capstone to this: you don’t get a pass on imperialism just because you’re bad at it. If that was the case, Mussolini did nothing wrong.
Take your pick. Saber rattling with Taiwan, encroaching on the Phillipine’s maritime waters, skirmishing with India and Pakistan on their border, and more.
I see every other day here references here to Ukrainian Nazis, Russian self-defense, etc. As an Eastern European who’s heard second-hand from refugees what’s going on in detail, I hope you can understand why that’d piss me off a little. So afraid of falling for US propaganda so they’re gobbling up Russian propaganda instead.
Who said you have to justify it? Can you give a link and quote of the person who tried to make you?
Human rights discourse is fraught and almost always extremely national chauvinist, racist. But yes there has been a moderation.
I’m not sure what this means.
Then you are wrong.
Well yes not ending the war after that 3 days, which was an option for Ukraine but rejected by their masters, would have been the way for Ukraine to not be destroyed as a country.
Unfortunately for Ukrainians, they have been sacrificed and their country ostensibly sold on loan. Russia did indeed hope they would choose to not do that.
But who knows what you mean by “crippled demographics”, the demos were not particularly different in Donbas. Also why ignore the history leading up to it.
Actually none if that is imperialism except maybe the rare earths but that’s really not an inherently compelling argument on its own because all land has value, but not all invasions or annexations are imperialist. Russia was not exactly hurting due to lack of rare earths. They were hurting from being slowly isolated from European markets and from a war zone on their border. 8 years of neo-Nazis shelling ethnic Russians in Donbas after Euromaiden and you’re speculating it was rare earths?
Material forces constrain what “authoritarians” can do in this way, this is naive fantasy speak about how nation states operate. In reality, the refusal to do Minsk III is what set the stage, it is a recognition that a hard break was sought by Ukraine’s masters and no negotiation would be forthcoming that even had the pretense of another agreement to fail to meet the conditions of. The destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline is a good example of the break being sought. With Ukraine off the table for a political negotiation, that left only the establishment of an ongoing material dynamic: demilitarization by force, annexation of Donbas, surviving a new economic status quo.
Speaking of the new economic status quo, Russia fared well despite the various financial nuclear options leveraged against them. This was probably a surprise to their neoliberal bankers, but the base reality of the situation made sustaining it appealing.
That is stoked by the West and there are no new developments on that front that aren’t the US trying to escalate via moving yet more military assets there. Or China moving ships across waters right in between the mainland and the island slightly more often or with a slightly different exercise.
You call this making threats?
I guess if we are being vague about what encroaching is okay. Building up and claiming various contiguous waters in the south china sea that would have otherwise been international waters and continuing to dispute long-disputed claims to some islands.
You call this making threats?
Name them and let’s see what the big deal is. PS, is it threatening.
So what? This doesn’t respond to what I said at all.
I don’t care what pisses you off.
PS you skipped over 75% of what I said.
Ah, I thought so. Honestly don’t really have the time and energy to go back and forth with these massive walls of text, so I’ll just say that you’ve fallen hook line and sinker for Russian propaganda.
Ukrainian Nazis exist, just like there are Nazis in literally every country on the planet. They weren’t in control of anything, nor were they in any way in control of the government. The “ethnic Russians” were primarily Russian army troops out of uniform. There’s piles and piles of evidence about this. The low intensity war between Russia and Ukraine was to destabilize Ukraine to attempt to force it back into Russia’s sphere of influence against the will of the populace. If that isn’t imperialist, I don’t know what is.
I don’t know why I’m writing all this out, tbh. You’ve drunk the Kool aid. Anything “an enemy of the west” says is believed uncritically, no actual thinking, just regurgitation.
Have a wonderful day regardless, and I honestly hope you’re doing well.
Go back to Reddit
Ah yes it’s my fault that you have no response. Just throw in a thought-terminating cliché.
See how you are just going on and on about things I didn’t say rather than responding to what I did say?
Though Ukrainian neo-Nazis absolutely were in control of exactly what I referenced: running front-line militias that shelled Donbas. This was widely reported until 2022 when Western media needed to push that to the side.
No the ethnic Russians I am referring to are about half of the people who lived and live in Donbas. Civilian population centers were shelled.
No there aren’t.
Historical revisionism that ignores Euromaidan and the grassroots response in Eastern Ukraine to the coups and anti-ethnic Russian, anti-left campaigns that followed. Do you think it was the Russians that locked union organizers in a building and set it on fire?
Yes, exactly, you don’t know what imperialism is.
Self-soothing to help rationalize why you have no actual response to what I’ve said.
Oh? What specific claims by “an enemy of the west” have I believed uncritically?
Uh-huh
How many days are they into the 3 day operation?
Just an FYI but Ukraine wants to be the Greater Israel of Europe. Struck an Iranian ship, is great friends with Netanyahu, has vans that kidnap Ukranian citizens to be sent to the meat grinder. ( https://busification.org/ )
You’re pro-Palestine but also pro-Ukraine? So anti war-ism but supports western’s interests that also support genocide.
Cringe memes aside, anyone who can say with a straight face that poor little Putin was forced into this war against his will has obviously not been listening to the words coming out of his mouth.
Don’t worry, right wing meme formats are all these fucks can debate with. They know they have no arguments beyond “nuh huh, my country good” and “you deserve to be removed for questioning things”
These people don’t think. They just repeat propaganda from China and Russia and think it’s the truth. They’re no different than people who believe Trump’s ramblings.
They think they are, but they aren’t. If Trump was in charge of China they’d be head over heels.
This reads extremely like a story someone tells themselves in order to avoid having to engage with what other people actually think. Very “of course these natives aren’t trying to tell me anything important, they’re just mindless Bad Guy savages” vibes.