imperialism against imperialists is good
No no, you don’t understand. America bad, therefore anything against America is automatically good. It doesn’t matter who it is or what they do.
Ah yes, the Noem Chomsky. Famously when he was defending Pol Pot’s regime.
The US is the biggest source of imperialism in the world. We don’t have to always follow that up with “butwhatabout” to distract from that, which is what the US media machine does by running stories all the time to manufacture consent for its own imperialism.
Someone had their Chomsky-o’s for breakfast this morning.
Whataboutusm is a russian invention and is 9 times out of ten usad to excuse russia agressions.
Trying to change the subject was not invented by anyone in particular, but the US likes to slap that label onto everything that directs criticism at them. For example, the US has the highest prison population per capita but will preemptively scream about enemy countries imprisoning people with countless stories in the media. Calling out the hypocrisy is countered with accusations of “whataboutism” but that’s not whataboutism, it’s simply pointing out hypocrisy since it’s the same subject.
I’d say that Russia is the biggest source of suffering caused by imperialism in the world right now ( just going by the death toll of the Ukraine war ) . Is saying that a ‘distraction’ from American imperialism?
Gaza absolutely dwarfs Ukraine in terms of suffering caused by imperialism.
Honestly, this is why I increasingly believe that people who say things like the OP don’t actually believe American Imperialism is bad, they’re just doing whataboutism to defend it.
The data for Ukraine is so contested that it’s hard to put a number on it, but it’s probably higher than the Israel Palestine conflict, and at least comparable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli–Palestinian_conflict
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine#Casualties
If you’re going to try to cite a claim, please don’t just drop the Wikipedia pages on the subjects. In fact, don’t cite Wikipedia at all.
Complicated subjects like this have dozens of citations which often contradict eachother. The great thing about wikipedia is that it shows multiple sources and where they came from. This is a far higher standard of evidence than just cherry-picking one source that agrees with me and pretending that it’s definitive. Meanwhile the only thing you’ve cited is your imagination.
Yeah, but you don’t actually check any it the citations, nobody who cites Wikipedia does.
You didn’t even say which part of the Wikipedia articles you were citing
People that are being literally killed, tortured, displaced, bombed, denied their identity, starved, raped, genocided right now by China/Russia/North Korea, looking for any support, any help from anyone willing to give it
A Leftist American: US is the biggest source of imperialism in the world and you’re not being oppressed by the US, so you’re not real. Have a good day. takes a privileged slurp from the huge cup of Starbucks and closes his Macbook
Nice caricature, but it has nothing to do with my post. Pointing out that the US is the biggest source of imperialism doesn’t mean no one else is doing bad things, but thanks for proving my point. Fuck Starbucks and Apple, by the way.
The whole point of the OP is that being against US imperialism doesn’t mean you have to be very purposefully silent about yhe atrocities committed by the US geopolitical rivals because they are US enemies therefore good.
It’s a very prevalent thing about US lefties, if you’re not aware, I’m telling it to you, as a Ukrainian lefty myself. I agree, fuck Apple and Starbucks (never had one and heard from friends it’s shit). Also fuck Russia for killing a bunch of my friends and fuck those US “leftists” like Chomsky, who suck Russian dicks.
One problem I see is that people feel like they have to work in absolutes or match their opinions 100% with everything within a group. How the grouping forms is not always clear, but apparently if one is associated with that grouping, they feel the need to defend everything in that grouping and attacking everything that isn’t.
There is some discussion to be had in the role of the US using proxies to undermine global rivals, but that does not justify Russia invading Ukraine, nothing does. Absolutely, fuck Russia.
Thank you.
I just don’t like the pushback against this meme, when all it says is “Yes, US imperailism is bad, it doesn’t mean that Stalin did nothing wrong”, but for some reason people push back with “US imperialism is bad FULLSTOP, shut up about everything else”. Which is exactly how Nortb Korea-glorifying tankies behave. I may have lumped your comment in with those, sorry for that.
… or to hide their own imperialism.
The crimes of the US empire dwarf anything you bring up on any “authoritarian” countries that are curiously always enemies of the US. No complaints on Myanmar here no sir!
“oppressive govts that use socialism to hide their atrocities” => welcome to European politics.
All of those ‘Socialist’ governments in the EU, with the highest quality of life, highest quality of happiness, and some of the least wealth disparity in the world, are committing atrocities against their own people?
Some of these governments probably commit atrocities in countries other than their own, but that would be because of Capitalistic and Imperialistic policies, not Socialistic ones.
What you’re missing there is that the Europe you describe is only a small sub-set of countries. The rest are committing atrocities against their own people in the form of continuously increasing the number of people living close to poverty and by enacting policies that ended up making majority of the youngest generations unable to buy/rent homes and/or eventually have children.
“against their own people” is a chauvinist attitude. Why would it be particularly bad to oppress people in “their own” country vs other countries? The only way this logic works is if you subscribe to nationalism and are projecting it onto others.
EU countries overlap with NATO, an aggressive military force that, among other things, destroyed Libya, turning it from the highest HDI African country into a hellscaoe with open air slave markets fought over by warlords. Would it be worse for that to happen to Germany?
EU countries also still have their own neocolonies. Sahel countries are still trying to kick out the French, who saddled them with debt and still controls their banking systems. Would it be worse if that were happening to French people?
Finally, there are no socialist countries in the EU, nor “socialistic” countries. Every EU country is run for and by capiralists and by capitalist parties. They have social safety nets left over from the cold war when they were combatting and coopting communists and they are now being slowly dismantled by capital.
I think you missed my point, entirely. I wasn’t saying that governments committing atrocities in other countries versus their own people were any different, morally speaking.
I was simply pointing out that the quality of life for the working class, and low amount of wealth disparity, etc in this country is largely due to Socialist policies keeping Capitalism in check, and also pointing out that Capitalist policies cause atrocities, in general.
This was in response to the comment saying that countries were hiding atrocities behind the banner of Socialism.
Atrocities of any kind are abhorrent and I agree that they need to be denounced. I also agree with pretty much everything else that you said. Socialism is near dead and dying in Europe. I just think that the sprinkle of Social policies that is left in the EU still holds back Capitalism from being quite as horrible as it could be.
I think you missed my point, entirely. I wasn’t saying that governments committing atrocities in other countries versus their own people were any different, morally speaking.
Then why say “their own people”? It doesn’t make sense. Parent didn’t use that qualifier. Maybe you used it because it is so often used in combination with the other terms? Either way, I am singling out this qualifier because it is a way that PR and propagandistic terms color our thinking. It does not mean I think you were being malicious.
I was simply pointing out that the quality of life for the working class, and low amount of wealth disparity, etc in this country is largely due to Socialist policies keeping Capitalism in check, and also pointing out that Capitalist policies cause atrocities, in general.
But these countries don’t have socialist policies! They are capitalist countries run by capitalists and capitalist parties. I already described the causes behind their social safety nets.
This was in response to the comment saying that countries were hiding atrocities behind the banner of Socialism.
I understand. I actually interpreted parent as being critical of the Eastern bloc, but I didn’t comment on this.
Atrocities of any kind are abhorrent and I agree that they need to be denounced.
I agree in the abstract sense but just like with “their own people”, what gets called an atrocity, how its veracity is established, and how often it enters discourse are all subject to the propaganda we are all immersed in. In addition, the context in whicj atrocities are “denounced” matters. Were the people tallying up lists of Saddam’s crimes in 2003 just denouncing atrocities like good, empathetic humans? Were they not helping to build consent for a much worse invasion? What about the US’ genocidal sanctions on the country for the prior decade plus? We, of course, do not live in a vacuum and what we are told to denounce is often aligned with ruling class agendas.
The overall topic of this thread is that baby leftists want to keep criticizing and denouncing the targets of US empire that they are told to hate. They have not engaged critically with the denunciations themselves and when others do so they begin insulting and deflecting. And they certainly don’t exist within any project to actually achieve anything against atrocities, because if they did they would be laser-focused on their own country where they can do actual organizing work, which will largely be in the US and Europe.
As an example of liberals’ having their attention to atrocities dictated by think tanks and imperialist media, we can look to Yemen. I could not get liberals to care about the US-backed bombing campaigns and US blockade of Yemen. Schoolbuses bombed, weddings bombed, basic civilian infrastructure bombed out to attack food, water, and electricity. Aid rotting on ships because the US prevented them from docking and unloading for 8+ months. Nobody even talked about Yemen in the US or Europe. Not regularly. You don’t see lemmy.worlders bringing it up all the time as atrocities you should denounce every time the topic of the US itself comes up. Every time target countries of US empire are mentioned, hiwever, it is time for kneejerk denunciation ans bad faith insults at anyone with a modicum of understanding of geopolitics.
I also agree with pretty much everything else that you said. Socialism is near dead and dying in Europe.
It’s gone. It fell with the USSR and then NATO-led balkanization of Yugoslavia. Europe is capitalist.
I just think that the sprinkle of Social policies that is left in the EU still holds back Capitalism from being quite as horrible as it could be.
I might agree but I frame it differently. The social policies remain because they are too popular to remove, but capitalism is eating away at them from multiple directions. Privatization is everywhere, as are benefit cuts to siphon into militarization. The latter is only possible due to fearmongering over Russia. But more dangerously, European countries oppress the left, such as banning communist parties or even expressions of solidarity with Palestine. That results in “the discourse” being dominated by liberald and protofascists. But the liberals are presiding over declines in conditions due to capitalism, so when they lose popularity, protofascists gain it. This will produce repeated one-two punches of austerity, dismantling social programs, and scapegoating marginalized people. And all while the US drains Europe’s industrial base. Europe’s utility as a forward base against the USSR is gone and they are now a bloodbag for US’ vampires.
Remember folks: China is communist in the same way that North Korea is democratic and the Nazis were socialist.
It’s just a smokescreen.
China has a Socialist Market Economy, it hasn’t reached Communism of course but at the same time the Public Sector covers over half of the economy, and is gradually folding the Private Sector into it with the degree to which it develops. This is the process Marx and Engels described a Socialist State would take. From Principles of Communism:
Question 17 : Will it be possible to abolish private property at one stroke?
Answer : No, no more than the existing productive forces can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. Hence, the proletarian revolution, which in all probability is approaching, will be able gradually to transform existing society and abolish private property only when the necessary means of production have been created in sufficient quantity.
The backbone of the PRC is central planning and public ownership, Marx is regularly taught in class, and Marxism-Leninism continues to be the dominant and guiding ideology. They are ideologically Communist, and it is rather silly to protest otherwise simply because they haven’t immediately siezed all property, which would be anti-Marxist as the PRC is still underdeveloped.
The purpose of Marxian analysis of Capitalism is the insight that markets naturally centralize and develop complicated methods of planning. You can’t just will these into existence, and markets provide a quick way of creating them. Once they have sufficiently developed, markets cease to be the best tool to use, and public ownership and central planning becomes more efficient. Given that the PRC is Marxist, it stands to reason it is useful to analyze them with a Marxist lense. I have yet to see a genuine Marxist take on why the PRC is not Socialist, only liberals paying lip service to Marx yet vulgurizing him into a Utopian Idealist, and not a Materialist.
You can call their economy whatever you want, doesn’t stop them from being a dictatorship.
That’s moving the goalposts though, isn’t it? I was responding to the claim that the PRC isn’t at all Communist, which is false regardless of your opinion of it being “good” or “bad” whether overall or in comparison to the US.
Further, I am not sure why you describe it to be a dictatorship, even Mao was forced to step down after the tremendous struggles during the Cultural Revolution. Xi is an elected official, and there are 8 political parties besides the CPC that actively contribute to the decision making progress of the PRC, the CPC is merely the largest at 96 million members out of 1.4 billion people.
In order to accurately judge the merit or lack thereof of the PRC, you have to actually take a real look at what it looks like, question why Beijing has an over 95% approval rate, and see what the living conditions look like for the people that actually live there. If you perpetuate sloganeering because it is convenient, then actual, systemic problems you could be criticizing go under the radar.
Xi is an elected official, and there are 8 political parties besides the CPC that actively contribute to the decision making progress of the PRC,
Right right right, just like Russia and North Korea has “elections” lmao
Beijing has an over 95% approval rate
Lol, and I’m sure that has nothing to do with the fact that speaking against Xi and the CCP makes you disappear or that China has been known to lie about official statistics all the time
You didn’t just drink the Kool-aid, you’re drunk on it
That’s really funny, given that you listed 0 sources against what I said. Just general suspicions and vague gesturing. Why is it that you believe I must have drunk kool-aid yet believe yourself to be immune to it?
Is Harvard now Chinese propaganda? "While the CCP is seemingly under no imminent threat of popular upheaval, it cannot take the support of its people for granted. Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread, our survey reveals that citizen perceptions of governmental performance respond most to real, measurable changes in individuals’ material well-being."
What about the fact that the US passed 1.6 billion dollars to propagandize against China? These are public record, you are not immune and neither am I. We exist in largely the same systems and probably similar circumstances, and those circumstances include direct US State Department propaganda against the PRC.
You have no counter-narrative, when faced with real, present facts you toss them aside and come up with your own justifications, rather than re-evaluating your prior perceptions. That’s no way to get to the truth of the matter, it’s dogmatism and reflects an unwillingness to tackle real problems.
The fact you have so many down votes is astounding to me. People really dont like to face that they may be wrong or biased about something. Easier to tap the down vote and scroll on.
I posted it elsewhere in the comments here, but I truly believe Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing” should be mandatory reading. People tend to accept the narratives that align with their percieved interests, ergo no matter what lengths I go to myth dispelling and citing facts, articles, numbers and more, I get accused of “getting drunk on the kool-aid.” Nobody is immune to propaganda, helping understand why people believe what they do is important in combatting that.
A core tenant of socialism is a democratized workplace, being able to vote for your wage and company policy, like an Engineer choosing when to launch the rocket instead of some MBS degree.
Last time I checked I dont think factory workers in China that make all our shit can do that.
Workplace democracy isn’t necessarily a core concept of Socialism, at least not in the Marxian sense. Removing the issues that come with the profit motive alleviates issues you describe. Instead, Marxists advocate for public ownership and central planning with extensive democratic controls, without necessitating competing democratic worker coops. Engels argued against such a concept in Anti-Dühring, actually, believing such a system to revert to Capitalism through competition and accumulation.
Yes. That was the point of what they posted. None of those groups are what they claim to be beyond nominally.
Eh, there’s a notional aspiration to socialism at least, which is more than can be said about the US sphere of countries.
In practice though? Yeah, China is hyper-captialist, without much of the social security present in wealthier countries.
Why Leftist get a hard-on for the former USSR, Russia and China, or frankly any country, is beyond me.
There are positive and negative outcomes in line or against socialist ideals everywhere (I think people are too black and white about China in both directions personally)
I just do not understand simping for any country, just because they are “socialist”.
That notional aspiration to socialism is basically the ideological smokescreen. It was much more effective in the Cold War era, but it condenses down to: “Suffer through our version of (state) capitalism and exploitative labour for our capital accumulation” - be it by state institutions or even state-sponsored billionaires - “and at the end of it, we promise, there will be communism.”
But that “communism” then tends to be like nuclear fusion - always 20 years away.
This is just like how I can praise so many things about China, push back against anti-China US propaganda, and still not pretend it isn’t an authoritarian regime where Xi made himself essentially life time president now.
Speaking of that, are there any left leaning subs that aren’t delusional?
where Xi made himself essentially life time president now.
What? When?
authoritarian regime
Both of these terms are obfuscstory propaganda that mean a person hasn’t placed enough scrutiny on what they have internalized. That might sound like I am simply attacking you, but I mean this as a way of answering your (combative) question: you want a space where people have some basic ideas about cold war propaganda but where they retain a significant amount of chauvinist framibgs from that propaganda. You can find like-minded people wherever left education arrests itself, which is why you won’t find it in organizations or spaces that require reading on these topics.
To explain my response, I’ll go over the two words.
Authoritarian. This word is poisoned beyond clear meaning. Every state is authoritarian, so what is the meaning of calling a particular state authoritarian? Every revolution is authoritarian, so do you also criticize them as such and seek out anti-revolutionary spaces? In reality, I know that this term is just thrown around in chauvinist contexts as a dog whistle. In this context it just means “bad” and “the enemy”. It’s the liberal version of, “they hate us for our freedoms”.
Regime. This term is synonymous with givernment or state, but just colors it as, again, “bad”. Venezuela must always be described as being led by a regime, not a government. As a target of imperialist propaganda, it must be implicitly propagandized as illegitimate and bad. Think of someone saying, “the Biden regime”. How often do you hear that phrase? If you’ve heard it, it was a socialist trying to make this point and even the playing field.
If you remove the propaganda aspects, your framing becomes, “still not pretend it isn’t a government”. Becomes less spicy, doesn’t it? Despite having no differences in meaning outside of implying it is bad.
Finally, Xi didn’t make himself president for life, he must be regularly reelected. The government itself removed term limits in the normal way: with a vote. Imperialist media calls this “president for life” because they are chauvinists. When the US had no term limits, was every president “president for life”? Aren’t term limits antidemocratic, i.e. more authoritarian?
In short: please do some self-criticism on this internalized chauvinism and you will find it easier to find comrades. You are currently in an incoherent position and that means you’d only find comeradery among the incoherent snd incurious. Be around people that challenge you based on their reading and knowledge.
If you find one, let us know
Probably on DB0.
Of course you can, unless you’re on a certain lemmy instance.
Yeah, Lemmy.world.
Yeah, I hate how they brigade discussions and spam bear stickers.
Least incoherent .worlder
It’s hard finding people with this opinion, sadly. I’m with you on this one comrade
are there any left leaning subs that aren’t delusional?
Not on lemmy, no.
TYpIcAl ShItLiB
I HatE when cApiTal lEtter ALternation doesn’t hoLd a hidDEn BUt relevant meSSage, don’t You?
He ate all DeBussy?
Really though, the level of imperialism apologizing I’ve seen has been pretty humorous on this platform. Like people will say with a straight face that we need to support our client state Israel to secure our regional interests. It’s the same song and dance from the concert of Europe giving guns to the corrupt African client kings so they can murder the other guy’s corrupt African client kings. All for the noble civilizing influence of the state. But this time it’ll turn out different. Just like it was different every other fucking time an empire ideologically justified it’s imperialism. Because this one time is exceptional, unlike all the other instances of exceptionalism. Furthermore, I consider Carthage to need to be destroyed
Really though, the level of imperialism apologizing I’ve seen has been pretty humorous on this platform. Like people will say with a straight face that we need to support our client state Israel to secure our regional interests.
Is this being federated from some platform other than Lemmy? Because I have literally never seen someone support that position here.
Ah, Cato the Elder. He had a good cheesecake recipe, but was otherwise a complete jackass.
As a Venezuelan who’s against Yankee imperialism and our current oppressive “”“”“Socialist”“”“” government, I approve this message.
Would be nice having the “real socialists” condemn the fake socialists
We do though, look up BadEmpanada
I was going to ask about the downvotes and then I remembered this is Lemmy lmao 🤣
Oh, you reminded me to check out Yanis Varoufakis’s latest videos!
He talks of imperialism and the differences between China and the USA.
Thanks for the meme!
For those interested: https://lemmy.world/post/23027760
Why is that post heavily downvoted?
Your instance is full of incurious liberals
That i agree with
Subscribed.
100% this.
Be sure to consider that the past examples of US imperialism were widely supported by Americans just like you. In hindsight, we can often see more clearly since we aren’t immersed in the contemporary propaganda.
Really, Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing” should be required reading for anyone considering themselves a Leftist.
Thanks for sharing!
No problem! 🫡
Fixed it .
Based & Redpilled
Weren’t you saying you ML mfs don’t support authoritarianism like a week ago?
