That also includes simping Putin and Xi.
Are these Putin and Xi simpers in the room with us right now?
Yes they’re from 3 Lemmy instances, one of them being yours.
It’s so crazy that I’ve never met one then, only people with takes that are nuanced and are based on non-CIA approved sources (although I really think this only applies to Xi, I’ve never seen a single person supporting Putin)
Seriously though, I think you’re pre-emptively blocking out what people are actually arguing just because you perceive it to be russian or chinese or whatever propaganda. Almost everyone I’ve talked to/seen has had reasonable takes that are based on evidence, and a huge part of that is asking why they believe what they do instead of just screaming “TANKIE” at them
Such a lame, cliched, drone-speak of a comment. You sound like when all the MAGA turds simultaneously started sarcastically typing “orange man bad” online. One brain, infinite fingers.
ok
When people say Russia, do they include their government? Because the Russian government can fuck off alongside any government. I consider myself far left and I refuse to simp for any government or its leaders. Now if we’re talking about the Russian and Chinese working class, I’ll always support them.
When people say Russia, do they include their government?
I would think that would be all they are including. regular russian civilians aren’t out there making a lot of propaganda, it’s all either state owned media or right-wing nationalist influencers. except for the occasional video trying to convince people that pork tongue is actually good.
No government can wage a war for twelve years against wishes of their own population.
How do you explain the US wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan?
The US population elected a president who was promising to end the Afghanistan War in 2008. That war ended in 2021. That’s at least 12 years of war against the wishes of the majority.
Damn, americans must love expensive insulin
Ok? They might, if they wanted they could have adopted one of the European healthcare models a long time ago.
Now if we’re talking about the Russian and Chinese working class, I’ll always support them.
There’s literally one question that I ask Russian people that determines if they are worth the support. Just ask them if Crimea should return to Ukraine. That’s it.
Actually… No, don’t do that if you still want to believe in them.
I think “support the working class” doesn’t have to mean “do whatever they say”. We’re all generally propagandized into oblivion. Like, the US working class has been concerned about immigrants and trans women in sports but it’s not pro-worker to go after those things.
You’re based.
I truly don’t understand that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” rhetoric that LOT of folks maintain out there just because they hate the US. Like if China or Russia were better places to live. The worst part is that this is what dominant classes want, polarization.
It’s wild because I know the folks saying those things are aware that politicians are not their friends. So I don’t know why they allow themselves to be captured by otherwise problematic beliefs. We don’t apply enough nuance and separation of ideas from people.
Yeah, it’s really wild.
I personally am from center-left, though I have some common views with anarchism and this is one of them.
Hell yeah
When people say [country] it’s their government.
When people say [group of people] it’s that group of people.
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I still support worker-lead efforts. I just don’t fold to singular figures or authorities. I’ve watched people excuse abhorrent shit simply because it’s a person they otherwise like.
Hey bud I don’t actually think you can get any further to the left than anarchism.
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Ironically, calling anarchism “disorganization” is almost always a result of capitalist/authoritarian propaganda about what anarchism is. Sorry you can’t conceive of a world where people organize themselves without the use of oppressive violence.
“Without a hierarchical authority system of a small group ‘directing’ the large group, the people can’t remain organized!” - every supposed “stateless”, “classless” ML.
Incorrect. Anarchism is against unjust hierarchies. It can absolutely be organized.
So two things worth mentioning IMO, one important, the other kinda pedantic but still important from a theory POV:
-
Being the “furthest left” is not always the best tactic, and certainly not a strategy. If being far left means a practical program to unified liberation and resistance to capitalism, that’s great, I’m right there with you. But actual conditions are contradictory and constantly struggling to be the furthest left is sectarian/opportunist and not practical/critical.
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Capitalism contains anarchist elements, such as anarchy in production. There are right wing anarchists ho want to consolidate power by delegitimizing/eliminating social protections; not liberate the masses to self actualize, but liberate the individual to rob and oppress.
I don’t make these point to attack you or anarchism, I work with anarchists and feel affinity with them, and I think they would agree with me on these points. But in my experience, the point is not to be the furthest left, but to have the best means to determine actual truth and teach others to think critically. In some ways, the left/right paradigm does more harm than good, even if it is useful in other contexts.
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Au contrare, virtually all anarchists are ultra-left.
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Any independent thinker should indeed seek to critically understand multiple perspectives, yes. Although even just being able to formulate perspectives of other countries, or being willing to challenge blatant misinformation will get you accused of being an imperialist by left-posturing Western chauvanists.
You can make the argument for Russia but I really don’t understand how China, a country that has been at peace for over 40 years and which is developing an alternative economic sphere such that countries are not forced to accept whatever conditions the West imposes, could possibly be considered “imperialist.” I’m guessing people will just be like, “Well what if they invaded Taiwan? The things happening purely in my imagination prove China bad.”
Why not loathe the existence of every nation state on earth? The worst religion is nationalism, and there is stiff competition.
ML discovers anarchism.
Spending time on Chinese social media has shown me platforms that read exactly like the garbage from the right wing talking heads here on Twitter. Extreme nationalist sentiment is very, very, common. I have seen soooo many memes expressing desire to just wipe out the Philippines, and just repopulate it with mainland Chinese. Memes about their eventual control over Africa, which uses surprisingly western racist stereotypes to portray Africans. So much discussion that mirrors MAGA like behavior, in many ways, but just discussing the greatness of China, instead. So many who, at least claim, to wholeheartedly believe revisionist, extremely idealized, versions of China’s past, often including things that just are not physically possible. There is a lot of open talk about what China is going to do to so many of it’s neighbors when it over takes the US, and NATO recedes from the region. I stopped going on their, because it was just becoming more, and more, X-China. Then my translator stopped using social media there, expect for work, as well, and now I just can’t.
Friends of mine who have spent the past 20+ years living in China are reporting seeing more, and more, of it offline too, when politics was not something Chinese would publicly really talk about, especially to foreigners. However, especially in the past 10 years, they said their open expression of xenophobia, hardline nationalist sentiments, desire to take, and punish other countries, has become almost common in certain social spaces there, and it is worrying them. These people moved to China after studying Chinese language, culture, and history, for many years, including attending Chinese universities. They loved it there. Now they are talking about how it is sounding more, and more, like the rhetoric you get from flag wavers in the US.
So I do not trust China to maintain it’s non-expansionism once NATO not longer controls so many of the waters around them. Nationalism is popular their, and the idea of finally taking revenge for the century of humiliation only grows.
It is so annoying to hear people prop up China or Russia and North Korea as these moral islands. There is no moral outpost in the world.
So I do not trust China to maintain it’s non-expansionism once NATO not longer controls so many of the waters around them.
Right. China bad, I forgot. This isn’t sinophobia at all.
Do you have anything else than anecdotal evidence? How much of a percentage of the Chinese social media can you scan for this type of ultra-nationalist and fascist content? There are like 1 billion people there.
decides to become highly imperialist, all of a sudden, I’m not going to care as much. If, all of a sudden, China starts invading a bunch of its neighbors, then that’s a huge d
I think most anarchists do exactly that. The obvious tension is that marxists want to replace one state with another, whereas anarchists would prefer not to swap one yoke for another.
Is there such thing as a Marxarchist? Lol. I read Marx, but don’t believe in swapping one ruler for another, or that one governing body is somehow magically morally above another.
Marxxxxanarchisting.
the most common strain of anarchism these days is anarchocommunism, which is by and large a movement that is defined by defiance of all hierarchy and broad agreement with Karl Marx on matters of economics as they apply to hierarchical violence
There is anarcho-Communism but Marx’s philosophy is very state-centric, even if it does ultimately oppose the existence of a state.
If you’ve read Marx, I’d suggest reading the anarchist criticisms of him by Kropotkin, Proudhon, and Bakunin.
I’m not well-versed on those yet, so definitely piquing my interest. Thanks!
Conquest of Bread by Kropotkin is an absolute must read.
I actually started reading this a while back. This is a good reminder to go back to it.
Closest thing that comes to mind is autonomism
Way ahead of you
Nice instance name 👍
I do!
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When your contribution to the discussion consists of nothing but witlessly hurling pejoratives you don’t get to act surprised and offended at getting booted
Funny, bcs I notice pretty much everyone who talks about “Russian Propaganda” uses that to mean “anything that contradicts the US state department and billionaire owned media narrative about US geopolitical adversaries”
“… in favor of Russian state departament and oligarch owned media narrative”
ftfy, now fuck off
You notice people slurping up one propaganda while you’re slurping up another, and think you’re smarter than they are.
“Both sides are the same! I am very smart.”
Yes, those two are the same. They’re not two different sides. The side opposite them both is woke, learns what propaganda looks like, recognizes it, refuses it, and doesn’t employ it as a tactic. Get outta here trying to paint me as a centrist when the common enemies of mankind are all on the side of rape, genocide, and greed.
Try harder halfwit
Then surely you would know that NATO’s propaganda is far more pervasive and commonplace than that of non-NATO countries, and that just because another source disagrees with NATO’s official message it’s not necessarily propaganda (at least, not one that fabricates evidence)?
Then surely you would know that NATO’s propaganda is far more pervasive and commonplace than that of non-NATO countries, and that just because another source disagrees with NATO’s official message it’s not necessarily propaganda (at least, not one that fabricates evidence)?
Yes I know that. It is propaganda, though. I mean, it’s pretty fuckin obvious. Hilariously so. I get that it works really well on uneducated people living in enforced ignorance, but I’m not one of them. You’re a faux-communist dictatorship propaganda sockpuppet and you stick out like a sore thumb.
Hint: maybe you shouldn’t all post this dreck on .ml accounts.
wasn’t expecting instance racism today on lemmy lmao. give me some of your enlightened, non-propagandized takes then
So that’s a definite “yes” on believing everything the US State Department has to say about the geopolitical adversaries of the US?
Have you stopped beating your wife yet? Yes or no. If you don’t answer I will interpret that as a “no”.
Can’t stop what you never started!
That’s exactly what a domestic abuser would say!
Oh, you’re just a straight up tankie lmao. Ta-ta!
Not beating the allegations lol
Damn, it usually takes two or three rounds of replies to get them to just admit it like that.
Rule 1 is long past dead…
Yes, but english language political discussions are 70-80% russophobia and sinophobia by volume.
I really do not agree. Yes there are some discourse about how good it is to rely on these countries, but the same can be said about the protofascist regime in the USA. Also I think the Russian government have prooved they are not to be trusted. The Russian people are however mostly just victims under a brutal regime.
It doesn’t matter. I have argued with literal western sources, like primary attributions what the chief of the NED said or the archived funding page of the NED, or academic works by Ukrainian scholars. Photos and western media articles about the Nazi problem in Ukraine.
Nothing with convince a liberal that the Nato isn’t a holy alliance of the pure and willing to bring freedom, justice and democracy to Ukraine. A full embrace of the fantasy that the west finally fights “the good fight” again.
All I want is peace and a diplomatic solutions, an end to the warmongering. But what do pacifists get today? Endless insults and mocking. The liberals and “leftists” are acting just like MAGAts and climate change deniers and anti-vaxxers. I look from one to the other and back again and see no difference.
Ukraine has a Nazi problem? Oh man, that is horrible!
Do Ukrainian Nazis invade rob and murder their neighboring countries? That would be a really bad thing for Nazis to do.
How many seats in the Ukrainian parliament are currently held by Nazis?
This is a pretty good 2026 article written by a Ukrainian academic: Ukraine’s military has a real Nazi problem | Responsible Statecraft
Or see the coverage of the recent reburial of Nazi collaborator with state honor by Zelensky. Note how different and prominent the headlines are between Israel newspapers and the western mainstream newspapers.
The bigger question though is who got into power and how during the regime change:
Read a bit from this book written by another Ukrainian academic scholar: The Maidan Massacre in Ukraine: The Mass Killing that Changed the World | Springer Nature Link. From the conclusions:
The analysis of various evidence, such as synchronized videos, audio recordings, testimonies of the absolute majority of wounded Maidan protesters, and some 500 other witnesses, shows beyond any reasonable doubt that the Maidan protesters and the police were massacred by Maidan snipers located in Maidan-controlled buildings in a rationally organized operation with involvement of far-right and oligarchic elements of the Maidan opposition. This mass killing led to the overthrow of the Yanukovych government and ultimately to the Russian annexation of Crimea, the civil war and Russian military interventions in Donbas, and the Ukraine-Russia and West-Russia conflicts which Russia escalated by illegally invading Ukraine in 2022.
This isn’t just this guy saying it, or propaganda, or a conspiracy theory - a 2023 jury trial verdict in Ukraine comes to the same conclusion after reviewing all the evidence. Buried trial verdict confirms false-flag Maidan massacre in Ukraine – Canadian Dimension
If you really want to know the truth and do not trust these articles you can download the original trial verdict in Ukrainian and try google translate. Unfortunately I have not found a way to do a full english translation myself because the verdict is a 14mb html file.
So tell me, if true, is this important at all? To the question of who came into power? Of how this is pretty much ignored or labeled disinfo?
Do Ukrainian Nazis invade rob and murder their neighboring countries? That would be a really bad thing for Nazis to do.
108 civilian protesters and 13 police officers were murdered in the “Revolution of Dignity”.
Does it excuse Russia’s invasion? No. But it makes it much less of a simple and one sided situation. All of this after the CIA/NED chief bragged about wrestling Ukraine away from Russia. See Anatomy of a Coup: How CIA Front Laid Foundations for Ukraine War for more western sources.
So you can mock and laugh all you want. The facts remain the ugly facts when you use “non Russian aligned” sources.
Does it excuse Russia’s invasion? No.
Bottom line right here. You are going on quite a bit about stuff that has absolutely no bearing on the most important issues of the day.
Russian war crimes in Ukraine have killed about 4 orders of magnitude (10,000 times) more people than the incident you mention here. And you feel it’s important and relevant to discuss the reburial of one guy who died a half century ago. Your priorities are severely misplaced. The main tool of propaganda is not the lie, but the emphasis, and your emphasis on small things in trying to distract from 10,000 times bigger things is wildly out of whack.
Damn right. All the best lies have a grain of truth to them.
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Quite.
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All you want is for the Ukrainians to stop fighting back, you mean.
I don’t think for a moment Ukraine is getting NATO support for altruistic reasons, but that doesn’t mean NATO started this fight. Nobody in the EU wanted a proxy war with Russia. They were all making tons of money from Russia, and vice versa.
The Russian pretext for the invasion has shifted about a dozen times since the war started, and Putin’s little green men were all over the border region stirring up trouble ever since the invasion of Crimea. These are all documented facts too. He gambled he could get away with it without much of a fight, and lost the bet. Fuck around and find out I guess.
It’s also true that there is a well documented percentage of Ukrainians who are literally neonazis, like the Azov brigade. But surely one could reasonably assume the biggest reason Ukrainians hate the Russians nowadays is because Russia invaded their country, not some CIA psyop, or because they’ve been reading Meine Kampf to the kids at night.
I don’t think for a moment Ukraine is getting NATO support for altruistic reasons, but that doesn’t mean NATO started this fight. Nobody in the EU wanted a proxy war with Russia.
Well the CIA/NED under Obama wanted to “wrest Ukraine from Russia”. You can follow the western sources and the webarchive pages of the NED webpage yourself if you want: Anatomy of a Coup: How CIA Front Laid Foundations for Ukraine War
“Fuck around and find out” describes this brinkmanship very well. I mean, who could have known:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War
In 2000, Vladimir Putin became Russia’s president, while Georgia “experienced” the Rose Revolution in 2003 and moved towards forging closer ties with the United States and NATO. Consequently, Georgia–Russia relations deteriorated rapidly by 2006 and spiralled into a diplomatic crisis by 2008.
The quotes around “experienced” are mine, because I love that word to describe what happened. Well what did happen? A color revolution at the border of Russia led to civil war. National Endowment for Democracy’s Role in Colour Revolutions and Regime Change
In Georgia (2003), the Rose Revolution that removed President Eduard Shevardnadze involved extensive support from NED-funded civil society groups and election monitoring organizations. U.S.-based training organizations, working under NED’s ecosystem, assisted in movement-building strategies, communication, and exit polling operations that delegitimized the incumbent government [3].
I haven’t read the academic sources for the Rose Revolution myself, but the CIA/NED has been doing this shit for decades all around the world.
All you want is for the Ukrainians to stop fighting back, you mean.
I want to the truth and a diplomatic solution. And ideally those responsible for the regime change, the maidan massacre and the war prosecuted. But I guess all of this history, it never happened.
And … “the revolution was the fault of the CIA and not my own shitty government losing the support of the people” convenient excuse award goes to [drumroll] … you. Congrats, TRWTFOTCANMOSGLTSOTPCEA winner, 2026!
Russia, China, the US, the EU are imperial entities with imperial interests. None of them and non of their propaganda outlets care about the Ukrainian people.
Given that, it’s perfectly realistic that the US willingly engineered a situation where conflict was inevitable.
If you think the US wanted Ukraine in NATO for the good of the Ukrainian people, you’re delusional.
If you think the US invested millions in pro western „news outlets“ in Ukraine for the good of the Ukrainian peoples, you’re delusional.
Just as delusional as those that think Russia invaded Ukraine to liberate its people.
How are you defining China as imperialist? Does China engage in global politics? Yes. Do they engage with global Capital? Yes. Do they use soft power to achieve nationalist aims in national conflicts? Sometimes. Are they a hegemon? Depends how you define hegemony, but its a fair assessment.
Do they use their military might to spread their influence and national agenda? No. Do they have Military bases in other countries? No (Russia has like 12, USA has like 130). Do they try to expand their territory? They engage in border conflicts and Taiwan is contentious, but mostly no.
Imperialism is using military might to establish economic dominance or neocolonialism, to establish economic monopolies and an imperialists friendly ruling class in a foreign country. Influencing another country can be regarded as hegemony, depending on the definition of hegemony being used, and imperial countries are hegemonic. But hegemony is soft power, imperialism is hard, direct domination. Hegemony is not imperialism.
Looking back over your comment, and realizing you also consider the EU as imperial, I think you’re confusing hegemony, in an IR/sociological context, for imperialism. EU is not imperialist. They are a function of like global capitalism, which is imperialist, but EU is not imperialist.
France is absolutely imperialist on its own, the other EU powers are at least imperialist to the extent that they are and were directly involved in US imperialist wars. China is a different case, theoretically there is a possible future were china is the first post imperialist power. I think it’s much more likely though, that at some point they will use either military coercion, start militarily supporting „rebels“, or at some point do direct military intervention, to protect their investments abroad, the ones that they are currently building out.
Call me a cynic, but I think if China ever becomes the world hegemon, they will behave as such.
Hm. I mean, thats a really good point. Now you’ve got me thinking about the differences between neocolonialism and hegemony, as well as the difference between the historic imperialism of EU nations, vs the role of the EU; as well as like how the national interests of a formerly imperialist country functions within the imperialism of global capital. Not sure where to start but its a very compelling line.
Re: China as global hegemon, we are all becoming Mearsheimer-ists, aren’t we?
China (PRC) kinda already is - but it’s not supporting rebels.
Its crushing rebels to secure the incumbent government’s assistance to ensure they keep their investment/get to get it all.
- Mining in Myanmar. (Arming and assisting Tatmydaw in the ongoing civil war)
- Ports and crops, and probably gems, in Sri Lanka (Weapons, Intel, training, and possible boots on the ground killing off Tamil Leadership).
- Pakistani marble, ports, (and oil iirc). (with PMCs in Balochistan, and arms sales to Pakistan, plus the anti-India (fuck Modi) alliance).
I assume similar things in bits of Africa, but I’m sadly ignorant of much there. (I’d put money on Chinese support of Ethiopiab government during the ethnic cleansing and nigh on civil war a few years back though).
Do they (China) try to expand their territory?
Well, they quitely took over what, 10% of Bhutan, since 2021 - and noone cares, because noone cares about Bhutan, right? Bhutan didn’t sold those territories, and isn’t even trying to defend them, because how would that work.
And that it is militarily a very good position in case they’d want to expand into India, that’s just a coincidence, I’m sure.
I mean yeah, I get it, compare it to the empire of evil and it looks benign. But it isn’t good, just a lesser of two evils.
I mean, that’s a really good example! And I appreciate it. Do you have any more resources about it? The wiki article is a little vague, and it would be interesting to compare with border skirmishes w India.
I’m a little hesitant to frame things as “evil” but I get your point. Its really hard to pin down China international policy, IMO, so having something concrete to review is always helpful.
Only what Bhutan newspapers outputs - Kuensel and the other one I forgot the name (paywal https://kuenselonline.com/dz/news/bhutan-china-border-talks).
Bhutan is literally being “polite” invaded (as in: not bombing the capital or hospitals, just army rounding up people and destroying their villages) and is doing anything to deescalate and stop, but it is a much weaker party. They tried formal protests in Chinese Embassy in India, they are trying… negotiations (e. g. https://www.mfa.gov.bt/joint-press-release-on-the-25th-round-of-boundary-talks-between-bhutan-and-china/), but they are still being annexed against their will by China - see also https://blogs.soas.ac.uk/china-institute/2024/12/18/the-bhutan-anomaly/
“polite invaded” isn’t a thing
Well, yeah, sorry, in my mind it is different than e. g. what Russia is doing or Israel, because China is not bombing the Bhutan capitol. They destroy the villages and drive away or kill the locals.
But I should’ve clarified. (And I am condemning China here if that was not clear).
Thanks, I’ll look these over
Other examples , though much less blatant are the ways that the PRC won the Sri Lankan civil war and led to the total massacre of the Tamil Tigers, and the PRC’s ongoing support for the Tatmydaw in Myanmar - pulling lots of levers and helping keep the aircraft bombing rebel population centres going.
You can be an imperialist by supporting other nation’s governments to get your own benefit.
I mean, the links provided above re:Bhutan aren’t what I would describe as blatant. One link is paywalled, one link is very tame and conciliatory toward China, one link makes some bold claims but upon inspection has a particular political alignment, and cites some compelling but not really definitive sources. Its been a good place to begin, but IMO doesn’t demo anything conclusive.
I’ll look into the situation in Sri Lanka, and Myanmar. I agree that China is not above real politik when it comes to foreign relations, but any references you could share would also be appreciated.
Chinese arms in Myanmar- but be aware that the United Wa Army are allies of and get their weapons from the PRC.
A longer opinion piece from the same paper on China’s meddling in the ongoing civil war, and earlier parts of history.I was sure I had found a PRC diplomatic statement about the Sri Lankan Civil War and China’s aid for legitimate governments opposing separatism, but my 百度夫 is weak today - or I need to VPN into China to get better search results. I’ll try to find time to dig it up, but some poking about will find plenty on Chinese aid to Sri Lanka in the first two decades of the 21st century while the war was ongoing.
I don’t find these sources to be particularly damning toward PRC. The section in the second reference that was like “why would an authoritarian communist country support a democratically elected government?” Was just like redscare bs. Is it hard to believe that China does not want a civil war on its border? That they would make moves to stop illegal arms markets? Criticisms of China would be much more convincing to me if the reporters weren’t holding flashlights under their chin and describing somewhat normal and peaceful IR tactics in a spooky ominous tone.
Like, no, I don’t think supporting a military junta is a moral good. But I can also recognize that, after 5 years of civil war, China may want to normalize relations with their neighbor. If they invaded to overthrow the junta, that would also be bad. If they support the rebels, then the junta uses that to foment anti-Chinese sentiment on their border. It might be appropriate to disagree with the policy, but it seems to be coming from a source where no matter what actions PRC took, there would be risks and grounds fr criticism.
Based on the sources you provided, even reading through the doomish tone, Chinese actions appear pretty rational. Not above criticism, perhaps, but such criticism should be carried out in a principled and not opportunist or polemical manner, at least, if it is to be convincing to me. I like objective views, and I like views coming from real people. Lacking that, and serving a big dose of propaganda, is a real turn off for me.
Thanks for the links I’ll check them out
Separate comment because its easier to talk that way:
EU is not imperialist. They are a function of like global capitalism, which is imperialist, but EU is not imperialist.
That sentence does not make sense. Its a shade of green but not green makes no fucking sense.
Here’s my reasoning: Capitalism is global, capitalism is imperialist, the national or transnational character of capitalism is geographically dependent. The EU as an entity does not carry out imperialist activity outside of the national/transnational framing. It engages in trade, legal definition/refinement, regulation. It empowers capitalists within the EU to conduct business on a global stage. The EU does not have a military, it does not operate a military that functions imperialistically. It can serve as an organizing force that unites national capital to coordinate national militaries with the aims of empowering national capital to conduct business globally.
Honestly the more I think through this the harder it is to parse out differences. Most, if not all, EU members are imperialist, but the imperialist part of them is national, not transnational. Honestly I can’t really fault your perspective, and I’d like to develop it more than a “I’m right, you’re wrong” type debate would really allow. I’d be interested in resources that support your position.
I think this depends on whether by EU you mean the actual political leadership body, or the member countries as a general Western-European power/cultural/economic projection project.
The EU itself cannot compel military action by member countries, for instance, so you could argue it is never imperialist. But if all the major EU countries are also in NATO and sign up to help the US invade Iraq and Afghanistan, is it really unfair to criticize the EU as a shared Western-European bloc?
I mean, yeah, after writing my way through it, I can appreciate the perspective. I generally like to be precise, concrete with definitions.
But the more I thought about it, the more I worked through it, I found it interesting that, based on strict definition of the EU, as an entity unto itself with particular functions, it is like you say, it is never imperialist.
But when searching for the contours of it, where an imperialist or historically colonial member nation ends, and where global imperialism picks up, those lines are not clear at all. I’m sure they are defined legally somewhere, and I would be interested in those legal definitions, but when defined by its relation to power, it is conspicuously “never imperialist”, while existing between, and functioning in tandem with, national imperialist powers and global imperialist powers. Like it’s a little too unimperialist for an entity that is situated deep within, and rooted intrinsically with imperialism.
I think it has been a good discussion and exercise sussing this out, I don’t think i was wrong with my comment, but I was also only looking at it from this one perspective that doesn’t consider the EU’s most crucial relationships. And as a matter of fact, I think defining the thing, particularly in the realm of social/economics/IR, by its relationship is much more revealing and historically accurate. So i guess I mean i started with the concretization process when I commented, but it wasn’t until we continued discussion that I was able to really work it out.
But that’s why I contribute to discussions! In good faith, I learn a lot
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What way are you reading the meme because the government and mainstream media are incredibly hostile towards Russia and China.
The character depicted at the bottom isn’t the government or mainstream media, it’s the “independent thinker”
The enemy of my enemy isn’t necessarily my friend, they just happen to be aligned with me in that one, single, specific enimity.
It takes a lot more to be somebody one can trust than merely sharing a single dislike.
As I read it, that meme represents people who don’t actually think like this and instead whilst claiming to be skeptics blindly accept whatever they’re told by those who voice dislike of one or two of the same things they do (for example, American Imperialism).
Social media is today’s mass/mainstream media. Capitalist imperialists own both that and the traditional channels. They decide the message in both. Being hostile “officially” and contradicting that algorithmically is a choice
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Holy fucking edgelord.
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💋
Based. Venezuela and Cuba too (I’m from Venezuela, founder of the ALBA-TCP/BAPO-PTT [Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America - Peoples’ Trade Treaty], and Cuba is the main provider of military and political support of the Venezuelan Narcoterrorist State).
Sadly the mod team here drinks that propaganda like water. I’m amazed this didn’t get removed by them.
