What government hasn’t committed an atrocity?
The “student governments” mock-government things in K-12 school probably
Sure why engage with the actual reasons that leftists express for (varying levels of critical) support for any given country when you can ignore all that and dunk on this vague and convenient strawman.
Would you like me to drag out quotes of the exact kind of fucking insanity I’m talking about, or will you dismiss those as made-up strawmen that I conveniently planted over dozens over accounts with thousands of upvotes over a space of years and across multiple platforms?
Gogogo power rangers
But… dichotomy is best my? Putin can’t be lying, because other states bad.
that use the aesthetics of socialism
This isn’t even a criteria for many
Can anyone explain what the aesthetics of socialism are and which atrocities are being hidden?
Could it be China? But they aren’t Socialist.
I think Xi self identifies as Marxist Leninist
Not in practice, but they do claim to be (and in fairness, do some things in a more “socialist” way - looking at you privatisation in the west…)
I think this what OOP means with “aesthetics”, it’s that they claim to be a socialist state, when in many ways, it’s rather capitalist.
Regardless, holding up any country as a beacon of all that is good is pretty silly, if you ask me.
No where (that I know of) should be emulated in every regard.
Could it be China? But they aren’t Socialist.
Take that up with tankies, who will argue long and passionately that China is actually very socialist.
That’s why they keep repeating the phrase “critical support”. They support oppressive regimes in their fight against the US, but still remain critical of them (any criticism of their favorite dictatorship will get you banned).
It’s actually more like “critical hit” in a video game. If they hit a critical support with their internet comment then North Korea gets +5 anti imperialism for 20 minutes. It’s the meta bro
Whataboutism is awesome for the empire. Incidents that happened 40-90 years ago can be equivocated with current empire abuses, and rulers protecting their nations from Empire’s “democracy” manipulations meant to destroy those nations can be demonized as less perfect than the utopia of western democracy illusions.
Liberalist freedom or constructive anarchy is only a possibility if US empire is not intent on destroying you.
Incidents
Lol
“Whataboutism” is one of the most prevalent logical fallacies. It never makes any sense.
The infallabile “ha, gotcha” fallacy
However it can be used to point out someone’s hypocrisy. If country A is genociding people from country B, while screaming about people from country B genociding people from country C, “what about your genocide” is an appropriate response.
Calling out hypocrisy can be valid but it must further discussion, not shut it down. In your example, if country A is committing genocide while condemning country B for genocide, the problem isn’t just country B’s actions. It’s that country A is deflecting from its own crimes instead of addressing them.
Saying ‘what about your genocide’ only matters if it leads to accountability for both. If it’s just used to avoid taking responsibility, then it’s whataboutism. It shifts the focus without solving anything.
To reiterate, whataboutism is deflection meant to shut down further discussion.
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Appealing to hypocrisy is a fallacy, full stop. Someone can be a hypocrite but that has no bearing on whether an action is justifiable for both/neither.
If the much worse enemies of the USA have a lot to gain by the USA’s downfall and are actively promoting said downfall, then it’s not whataboutism to unmask them like a scooby doo villain.
Tankies don’t give af about trans rights, Tankies don’t give af about any human rights, Tankies don’t want you to live and flourish in any capacity at all. Do not be fooled by their rhetoric all over Lemmy.
Tankies don’t give af about trans rights
Who exactly are you talking about? At least HB bans transphobes, has a majority LGBT mid team, and Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue on their reading list, that I uhhh will definitely get back to, and I cant imagine ml and grad are that different.
It’s literally a crime to portray LGBT in Chinese media, they’ve been censoring it harder than ever recently.
Don’t even get me started on Russia or Iran.
Russia and Iran are explicitly anticommunist.
It’s literally a crime to portray LGBT in Chinese media
I think youre missing important context if thats true at all. Theres an openly trans Chinese movie star.
My conversations with chinese trans people indicate they have their own struggle, its quite different from that of trans people in the west.
In any case, my criticisms of the CPC, in the context of westerners having a China Bad circlejerk, only serves to justify further hostile actions, including against those “victims” theyre handwringing about. It is no different from when zionists talk (read make shit up) about the plight of LGBT people in Palestine, with the end goal being further harm towards all Palestinians, including LGBT people.
It’s mostly from .ml in my experience, Hell, look at the goons spouting off against tgis post in these very comments. .ml
IMO, self respecting instances need to defederate from .ml so they are not so overrun by tankie clapping sealions… Just like with hexbear, they deserve to be silenced by social forces.
Another top contender is that all things with defects or drawbacks are equally horrible and unacceptable.
yes, slavery is bad
but that doesn’t mean you have to support genocidal unionists who made their living slaughtering native Americans.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_War_of_1862
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Walk_of_the_Navajo
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_Creek_massacre
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_River_War
https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/great-american-buffalo-slaughter
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Seminole_War
The fact that you can, within 3 hours, call out leftists for critically supporting (admittedly sometimes backwards) nations that have withstood relentless attacks from western imperialism and empowered the global south, and then post a bizarre civil war meme praising genocidal generals, is honestly hilarious.
Critical support is only fair when you do it, I suppose.
Ah, the braindead refrain of “Critical support!” without a hint of criticism.
I can express support for Iranian nuclear ambitions without trying to paper over that they’re an immensely repressive theocratic regime which regularly brutalizes its own citizenry and funds genocide abroad, but tankies like you pretty invariably slobber on the boots of anyone who isn’t the dreaded West.
Take your ‘Westoid’ tankie cringe elsewhere.
what genocide is Iran funding?
They sent literal tens of thousands of paramilitaries to Syria who directly engaged in ethnic cleansing and sectarian massacres in support of the Assad regime, supported the Houthis who have engaged in ethnic cleansing and sectarian massacres, Iraqi militias which engaged in sectarian massacres and continue terrorist activities against the Iraqi government to this day, and Hezbollah which, surprise surprise, engaged in sectarian massacres.
See thats one take but is “US Imperialism” not just codeword for NATO?
Not unless what you wrote is code for “I’m an ignoramus and like to spout the brand of dogma I’ve based my identity on”.
But it’s not, is it?
I’ve just always heard “US Imperialism” in context of things like NATO, Ukraine, Vietnam, formerly Afghanistan, and Israel but TBH Israel is more the UK’s baby, Vietnam had more French soldiers on the ground, and people like to conveniently leave out US cooperation with Saudi Arabia.
It just feels like a term with intentionally blurred context and no real meaning outside of a derogatory term for NATO. What do you think it means?
Imperialism isn’t just about military actions. The US also has great economic impact. Just look at all the BS coming out of Trump’s trade wars… Imperialism is about being bullish in interaction and expanding influence and control. It looks messy … because it is messy.
Note: As the original post points out, just because the US is bad does not magically make enemies of the US good regardless of the color of cloak they hide their own BS behind.
All the Bullshit coming out of Trump’s trade wars impacts the USA first and foremost. It’s not forcing any other nation to sell for less or cut off relationships to other nations.
If making mutually beneficial deals was “imperialism” then it sounds like you just want the USA to suffer in general.
IMO calling out Iraq would be a great argument against US Imperialism. Exxon Mobil was the bigger winner from that invasion.
All the Bullshit coming out of Trump’s trade wars impacts the USA first and foremost.
Failed imperialism is still imperialism. Trump’s trade wars are, quite nakedly by his own statements, meant to force other countries into a position of subservience to the US (and Trump himself). That they’ve failed because Trump doesn’t understand jack about shit doesn’t mean it wasn’t an attempt to use economic coercion as a means of imperialism - it just means Trump et co are incompetent imperialists.
but TBH Israel is more the UK’s baby,
UK’s baby, but adopted by the US and spoiled rotten since the 1980s.
Vietnam had more French soldiers on the ground,
When people say ‘Vietnam War’ they don’t mean ‘the entire colonial history of Vietnam’, they mean ‘the US involvement in Vietnam’s civil war’, wherein there certainly were not more French than US soldiers on the ground - one of the key issues of that conflict is that the French asked us to help and then scurried off with us holding the bag and too immersed in ‘anti-communist’ rhetoric to leave without losing face.
and people like to conveniently leave out US cooperation with Saudi Arabia.
How’s that in opposition to US imperialism? The US helping one of the worst countries in the region impose their will on surrounding countries in exchange for their support seems rather in-line with imperialist aims.
No
If NATO was about countries being subservient to the US, then the MAGA fashy types would be 100% in support of NATO.
NATO is an alliance and fashy types have a hard time grasping the idea of countries having partnerships that aren’t a hierarchical master/servant style relationships. Since it’s not a “do whatever the US tells you to do” imperialist style relationship, guys like Trump assume that it must mean the US is somehow subservient to NATO and therefore hate it. They can’t understand there being any power structure that isn’t hierarchical and therefore is a bad thing.
It’s similar with Putin too. Except he assumes it’s a hierarchical power structure where the US is the master and the other members are subservient. Tankies follow the same line of thinking.
Authoritarian type people simply cannot grasp non-hierarchical relationships so alliances between sovereign nations just don’t make sense to them.
Don’t worry - this is tankiejerk. We’re an anti-tankie comm. Bootlickers aren’t tolerated here.
Russia is a right wing plutocracy and isn’t using the aesthetics of socialism, so is this about China and not Russia/Ukraine?
Russia, china etc… Things taht tankies support
How do you personally oppose US imperialism? Do you support “things” like Palestine? Does that make you an Islamist or against LGBTQ or an anti-semite?
Are you asking for advice, or are you asking to justify the “office” meme?
Both honestly. I’m curious how people mean to oppose US imperialism, and how they mean to criticize US Empire and their meddling while avoiding the “Russia supporter” label. I suspect the answer is either:
a) Russia is the worst imperialist, Putin is like Hitler and any diplomatic solution is futile because they never keep to their deals and will invade Europe and others if unchecked. So we have to shield the US empire from criticism in this case because it’s the lesser of two evils
b) Any opposition to more weapon and materiel support for Ukraine makes the war take longer and cause more damage, and if criticism of US role in Ukraine were to vanish, Ukraine could win the war quickly
c) Because there has been so much agitprop that Russia pumped into the internet for the last two decades, and because of paranoia that everyone is a bot or a shill, arguing about this is as pointless as arguing with a climate denialist. The left is only going to accept mainstream liberal news and “safe” majority social media trends and reject anything else out of hand. Nobody has time and energy searching and reading and analyzing the dissident views.
Obviously I don’t agree with either of those, but I’m honestly curious and maybe I’ve missed something.
Both honestly. I’m curious how people mean to oppose US imperialism, and how they mean to criticize US Empire and their meddling while avoiding the “Russia supporter” label.
… by criticizing US imperialism without playing apologist for Russian imperialism. I didn’t realize this was hard.
Maybe by buying local things, supporting local businesses, detachemnt from the US etc… But not by supporting Russia or their friends
Well ultimately there is little any of us can do. The mainstream narrative is controlled by the plutocrats and US empire, and that controls the outcome of elections.
Do you think criticizing the US involvement or meddling in other democracies and their support with intelligence and weapons in Ukraine, would this criticism be support for Russia? Even if the facts are verifiable?
Do you think criticizing Russia for their meddling and invasion is supporting the US empire?
I believe we must do both. Like criticizing the US and Israel and also criticizing the Islamism of Hamas and their terrorist October 7 attacks. Same with Iran or China.
I also agree that Russia is much worse than those examples (e.g. supporting climate denial and Trump). I just don’t think keeping the meatgrinder in Ukraine going is worth suppressing any discussion about diplomatic solutions - or suppressing the truth of how we got here.
I also agree that Russia is much worse than those examples (e.g. supporting climate denial and Trump). I just don’t think keeping the meatgrinder in Ukraine going is worth suppressing any discussion about diplomatic solutions - or suppressing the truth of how we got here.
Ah yes, things would be so much better if Ukraine would just roll over and let Russia commit genocide. Then it wouldn’t be a meatgrinder, because only one side would be dying! Progress! /s
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Even if the facts are verifiable?
or suppressing the truth of how we got here.
Oh please, do tell how we got there! I’m feeling giddy!
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It kinda doesn’t matter what you call China, mixed economies outperform market economies.
Every major fucking country on earth today is a mixed economy.
Fair point, probably not the best term to use. In the video, Clinton uses “command economy” to describe them, and singles them out as member of the WTO that isn’t a market economy.
China hasn’t been a command economy since the 80s, though. And command economies consistently underperform market economies, to a staggering degree.
I mean, they’re everyone’s largest trading partner. You’d expect a planned economy to under perform the evolutionary pressures of a market. The first time. But the second? Or the third? What about command economy that learns from what didn’t work in the past?
If every country is a mixed economy, then they’re just the far end of the spectrum. More command than market, at least compared to most other places.
I mean, they’re everyone’s largest trading partner.
They’re also the largest country, by population, in the world.
You’d expect a planned economy to under perform the evolutionary pressures of a market. The first time. But the second? Or the third? What about command economy that learns from what didn’t work in the past?
Uh, but planned economies do underperform compared to a market. The spike in Chinese prosperity was because of intense market reforms in the 80s and 90s which significantly increased prosperity and turned the country from immensely backwards and impoverished to increasingly developed.
If every country is a mixed economy, then they’re just the far end of the spectrum. More command than market, at least compared to most other places.
Not really. The Chinese public sector of their economy is actually lower, as a proportion of GDP, than Sweden.
I’m curious about the source of this statement
The Chinese public sector of their economy is actually lower, as a proportion of GDP, than Sweden
Can you provide source? Because for State Owned Enterprises I can only find metric ~40% (China) vs 10% in Sweden.
https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA/JPN/GBR/SWE/ITA/ZAF/IND/CHL/FRA/GRC/NLD/ESP/RUS
China’s private sector has become much larger than in years past - from ~2% of the economy in the 1980s, to ~20% in the late 1990s, to a majority now (though there’s some quibbling as to the exact numbers).
No, sorry, only one thing can be true at once. My working memory is really small.
Aesthetics is doing some heavy lifting in that statement.
