- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmygrad.ml
- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmygrad.ml
Redditors please consult the chart:
hmm… And why would you say supporting Russia and Palestine count has “understanding geopolitics”? I say this as someone who does not know too much about it.
Both Palestine and Russia are on the western “to be conquered”-list. The difference that Russia can muster enough military power to directly oppose those plans. Palestine is in amuch worse position. Both however, are support worthy because of their place on that list.
Question: If Trump reverses the direction of US foreign policy, and starts openly seeking for Ukraine to be conquered and have its resources and land taken by Russia and the US, would it become support worthy because of its place on that list?
How about Canada? If he starts trying to conquer Canada (not that I think he would, I think it is pure posturing) would it then start needing Lemmygrad’s support?
That would make both states just two more puppet states the US eventually shot in the head. At no point did these states oppose the US empire, they were just good lapdogs until daddy US took them behind the shed and put a bullet to their head.
I want to ask about how strongly Russia’s economy is doing, and how they are rising and NATO is falling apart and the EU is going to all crumble and freeze in the dark with no fossil fuels while Russia stands strong, and how that all ties in with this whole theory, but I have lost interest.
I wish you luck with your geopolitical theories. Y’all are weird.
Well, you deserve an answer regarding your economic question for the way. Russias economy is doing pretty well, its government used the time from 2014 onwards to create alternatives to western markets. For example gas and oil go to India(who resells some to the EU) and China now. And the US who, of course, does not comply with the sanctions. Another factor of Russias resilience to western sanctions is the historical fact that the west sanctions non-western countries all the time. This created a situation in which most of the world is under western sanctions of varous kinds, the sanctioned countries are less inclined to follow western dictates regarding Russia. So Russia still can trade with most of the world.
Meanwhile Europe did expect to get cheap gas as always no matter how much it antagonized Russia. Unfortunately for them, Russia did not renew the delivery contract it had with the EU countries(which would guarantee delivery for a pre-settled price). Leading to the EU having to buy Russian gas on the spot market (highly variable prices). Some EU countries did not antagonize Russia as much, and thus had their contract renewed, thney got fucked another way by big daddy Washington. With the US blowing up Northstream 2 and Ukraine stopping transit over its territory, the EU is physically cut off from Russian gas and and has to find alternatives fast.
One adress was Qatar, who can not cover the demand. Another was the US, who can but wants multiple times what Russia demanded. Furthermore, in either case the delivery would happen in liquified form. Which is ecologically problematic to say the least.
Liquidification requires lots of energie and produces a shitload of CO2 emissions. Driving it over by special ships (of which not enough exist) again pumps lots of CO2 out and poisons the oceans because the large ship machines are using the absolute worst for fuel. That stuff then has to get on land, sufficient terminals only existed in Spain, in Germany they had to be built ignoring safety standards, because they were needed asap. The US gas is extracted from shale, as a side effect of shale oil extraction. This process poisons the land and water, leading to tab water being flamable in many parts of the US.
Overall this means rising energy costs in the west, which means less favourable conditions of energy intensive companies. The US solves that way by pulling all restrictions regarding shale oil extraction, digging up Alaska and so on and providing tax incentives for companies moving to the US - in short: They loot their vassal states in Europe.
Europe is fucked. Which, of course, leads to tensions within NATO. Especially as the US wants the euros to shoulder the cost of their occupation now, too. Teh EU countries have already been weakened by austerity and neoliberal politics, now have to pump billions into their militaries. Said money is created via debt on one side, via further cuts on social services on the other, creating internal tensions. Said tensions can be observed by the rise of the far right in every EU country.
Another reason for inter NATO and EU tensions is the fact that the countries in the Eu who did not antagonize Russia, now also are fucked. Because the US and it’s ukranian dog blocked direct pipelines.
So put together the situation, the EU got fucked by the US and its own stupidity, Ukraine got fucked by NATO, EU, US and its own stupidity, Russia got away cleanly, the US got away cleanly at the cost of its imperial periphery. Climate Change won big. Humanity lost big.
“To be an enemy of the United States is risky, to be an ally is fatal.”
Posting to !asklemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml would likely get a lot of good answers.
Or any other geopolitics ask community if you don’t want extremely .grad replies.
Noooo come to my shitlib chamber!!!
Both work against US Imperial Hegemony. Palestinian liberation is fully supported as it’s a national liberation movement for people subjected to settler-colonial genocide, critical support for Russia is due to it currently working against US dominance, which is the primary obstacle for Humanity to progress economically into a more equitable global system.
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If you’re describing Marxist-Leninists as being interchangeable with “tankies,” and MLs are by far the most common form of Marxist and Socialist world-wide, what’s the point in denoting the top-left quadrant as “Socialist/Anarchist?” Moreover, Anarchists are not a monolith, many don’t support continuing the war.
I think the original is more generous, anti-war-ism is genuinely a relatively positive way of putting it even if critical support for Russia is deemed to be “fully knowledgeable.” The original fully acknowledges the principles of never striking first millitarily as a viewpoint with understandable moral basis, while also suggesting that that isn’t the complete picture.
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I don’t think you’re accurately describing the reasons Russia invaded Ukraine, the material reality points more towards Russia wanting to thoroughly demillitarize Ukraine by any means necessary and certify Ukrainian neutrality with NATO, rather than joining it.
As for standing for Socialism and the liberation of the working class, the majority of Marxists believe that the current largest obstacle in that path globally is the US Empire, and US Hegemony. Russia poses less of a threat to Socialism worldwide than the US by virtue of not having nearly the power of the US. I have no doubt that the Russian Federation would be just as exploitative of the Global South if they were in the same position as the US Empire, but they aren’t, and instead their path to further profits relies on dethroning the US. This dethroning of the US is also necessary for Socialists, hence critical support insofar as it appears to be working against the US Empire.
Let’s consider the opposite viewpoint, though. What happens if Ukraine, against all odds, succeeds in beating back Russia, maintains millitarization, and joins NATO? Russia further weakens, and becomes folded into subjugation under the US Empire. This likely results in opening up of some of Russia’s assets to foreign plundering, strengthens NATO (the US Empire’s millitary wing, essentially), and thus also weakens the position of the Global South.
What most Marxists support is a quick end to the war, via peace deals. The US continuing the war in order to shackle Ukraine with massive IMF loans and secure ownership of key resources and minerals stands in the way of that, and wishes to prolong the war so they can carve out as much value out of Ukraine as they can. Increasingly, Ukrainians themselves want the war to end, rather than sacrificing themselves for US profits, even if it means Russian victory. There is no actual path to victory for Ukraine without NATO full-on joining in, causing a catastrophic level of death and destruction.
What should a Socialist side with, in this situation? Where is the path to the best possible outcome, in your opinion?
le DAE campism! True marxism is being a useless western trot!
the comments and the downvotes would be fascinating if it weren’t so clear that they come from a place of deeply ingrained willful ignorance.
even the american liberal media is starting to admit that this is true, yet american liberals clutch onto it for whatever reason and i wish i could understand why.
My guess is that their thinking is based on the sunk cost fallacy. The Western ruling class has been wasting everybody’s tax dollars on this conflict for several years now and nobody wants to see all of that dosh go to waste by letting Kiev and Moscow sign a peace treaty that inhibits NATO expansion.
What I find upsetting is how so many people can dismiss the antisemites in the Ukrainian military and other institutions with half-baked excuses like ‘it’s okay because the neo-Nazis are all gone now’ (which they aren’t), ‘it’s okay because they have a Jewish president’ (who isn’t fixing the problem), and ‘it’s okay because Russia’s got neo-Nazis too’ (which is irrelevant; they aren’t the ones benefitting from our tax dollars). I know that it doesn’t bother neoclassical liberals to keep beating their war drums, but that they can gloss over Ukrainian antisemitism as a nonissue and an open and shut case… just astonishes me.
Maybe we have a basic understanding of geopolitics and the facts. Like Ukraine never had a Nazi problem. How could you compare a dictatorship to a free democracy and call the democracy Nazis like hello?
Ukraine never had a Nazi problem.
…wow.
Also your links don’t work. Also you’re an idiot. You’re a useful idiot for the Russians
the lemmyworlds and their orbiters are gonna be upset about this one
I’m interested to hear from someone that will disprove this, surely there are good examples given the voting on this.
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Use your words, if you can.
That is the flag of the Russian National Union, a neofascist party that has been defunct for twenty-six years.
Lmao that was the most pathetic thread i seen in a long time.
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I feel like you’ve built two straw-men and conflated them together. I haven’t seen anybody arguing either case on the left side of the meme in response to the images depicted (or similar) on the right side of the meme. People wanting to send weapons to Ukraine generally tend to also say it doesn’t have a Nazi problem (and may compare Russia with Nazis), and people wanting pacifism in Palestine also don’t like weapons and support sent to Israel.
I don’t want weapons sent to Nazis in Ukraine that are going to be Europe’s new flavor of domestic terrorist when the funding and weapons run dry because Europe thinks cutting all their social services is enough to do a “Slava Ukraini!” :D
Surely this wont spawn a new generation of right-wing domestic terrorists in Europe that have an easily antagonized base already susceptible to right-wing propaganda. Not at all. Then again, the west truly sows what it reaps.
Nazis in Ukraine wtf bro?
You’re not seeing it because this post is heavily censored
This comment section wasn’t so full or censored when I commented that, and I know the ones I saw before they were censored weren’t saying that.
Okay just letting you know I’m not attacking you
It’s good, I would have thought the same if I were to stumble on it now. Somebody must have provided an extremely quick downvote, because I hadn’t downvoted you
Violence is always the answer. The questions are simple:
How do we gain a political advantage? How do we gain an economic advantage? How do we gain a social advantage?
Anyone that says violence is not the answer doesn’t understand the tools that marginalize them and the people they care about.
There will be violence in Ukraine regardless of whether weapons are sent there or not. The second option will make it so there’s noone to police the russians. Pretty much like palestinians can’t do much about israelis slaughtering them.
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That points to October 7th, 2023. The settler-colonial genocide of Palestinians has been going on for a century.
Could you be specific about the two things you are comparing? Should we go back and look at ukraines history of being invaded by Russia?
We can look back on the history of the two nations, and we can look on the history of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. The major difference is that Israel was formed as a genocidal ethnostate on Palestinian land, whereas the invasion of Ukraine seems to be a proxy war for the US to carve out as many IMF loans as possible while Russia tries to thoroughly demillitarize Ukraine.
Why did Palestine strike back against Israel on October 7th? Why did Russia invade Ukraine?
Russia invaded Ukraine because Russia is out for global domination. It’s obvious.
No, lmao. The Russian Federation is nowhere near powerful enough for that, nor do they have an actual material nor ideological reason for that. It’s pretty clear that the Russian Federation simply hates NATO being on its border, especially Ukraine, and is thus trying to demillitarize Ukraine by any means necessary so that it can no longer consider it a potential threat.
There aren’t grand delusions of world conquest, nor is there any evidence of a larger plan. If they wanted World Domination, then they would have expanded beyond Ukraine by now in the Russo-Ukrainian war. They haven’t, and instead we are seeing pushes for peace talks now that it looks like such talks will be clearly in Russia’s favor. If they wanted global conquest, why stop before taking all of Ukraine? Why Ukraine specifically?
I understand detesting the invasion on moral grounds, but inventing reasons just because they sound more scary doesn’t get you any closer to solving the problem and ending the war.
It’s “obvious” only if history began on Feb. 24, 2022.
NATO expansion:
- George Washington Univ., 2017: NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner
- Orinoco Tribune, 2022: Former German Chancellor Merkel Admits that Minsk Peace Agreements Were Part of Scheme for Ukraine to Buy Time to Prepare for War With Russia
- Al Mayadeen, 2023: Zelensky admits he never intended to implement Minsk agreements
- Jeffrey Sachs, 2023: The War in Ukraine Was Provoked—and Why That Matters to Achieve Peace
- Jeffrey Sachs, 2023: NATO Chief Admits NATO Expansion Was Key to Russian Invasion of Ukraine
.
NATO in general:- The Intercept, 2021: Meet NATO, the Dangerous “Defensive” Alliance Trying to Run the World
- CounterPunch, 2022: NATO is Not a Defensive Alliance
- Noam Chomsky, 2023: NATO “most violent, aggressive alliance in the world”
- Thomas Fazi, 2024: NATO: 75 years of war, unprovoked aggressions and state-sponsored terrorism
- Gabriel Rockhill, 2020: The U.S. Did Not Defeat Fascism in WWII, It Discretely Internationalized It
.
The Maidan coup and fascist paramilitary attacks on eastern & southern Ukraine:- Reuters, 2014: Leaked audio reveals embarrassing U.S. exchange on Ukraine, EU
- Leaked recording between Nuland and Pyatt: audio | transcript
- Counterpunch, 2014: US Imperialism and the Ukraine Coup
- BBC, 2014: Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict
- Human Rights Watch, 2014: Ukraine: Unguided Rockets Killing Civilians
- Consortium News, 2015: The Mess That Nuland Made Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland engineered Ukraine’s regime change without weighing the likely consequences.
- The Hill, 2017: The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda
- The Guardian, 2017: ‘I want to bring up a warrior’: Ukraine’s far-right children’s camp – video
- WaPo, 2018: The war in Ukraine is more devastating than you know
- Reuters, 2018: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem
- The Nation, 2019: Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine
- openDemocracy, 2019: Why Ukraine’s new language law will have long-term consequences
- Al Jazeera, 2022: Why did Ukraine suspend 11 ‘pro-Russia’ parties?
- Jacobin, 2022: A US-Backed, Far Right–Led Revolution in Ukraine Helped Bring Us to the Brink of War
- Consortium News, 2023: The West’s Sabotage of Peace in Ukraine Former Israeli Prime Minister Bennett’s recent comments about getting his mediation efforts squashed in the early days of the war adds more to the growing pile of evidence that Western powers are intent on regime change in Russia.
- NYT, 2024: U.N. Court to Rule on Whether Ukraine Committed Genocide
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Do you find it hard to sleep at night, knowing that the Spectre could be lurking in your room?
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I’m just blocking them and moving on. Think reporting will do any good?
Reporting them for what?
Unsure whats going on. But seems like the upvotes symbolize a wave of trolls.
The comment got removed with a good reason
Reporting for what, exactly? Which part is misinformation, that Palestinians are fighting a national liberation movement against genocide, or that Ukraine has a non-trivial amount of Nazi brigades like Azov?
That depends. Name another Nazi brigade. I’ve literally only ever heard Azov when people call Ukrainians Nazis. Where are the rest? What are there names? One brigade does not a political problem make. So where are the rest of the Nazis? What is their influence in government? What laws are they pushing? What do they control? Where are the Nazis?
The OUN is a good example, there’s Azov, left-wing parties have been banned by the government, there is rising antisemitism, glorification of Stepan Bandera, demonization of the Soviets, and rising Nationalism. Azov is mentioned often because it’s one of the loudest and proudest Neo-Nazi elements within Ukraine, but Ukraine itself has had a long-running Nationalist strain that has pulled from Stepan Bandera, who aided in the Holocaust and fought against the Red Army.
Yup. That one’s on me. I should have been more specific. I asked for an example of Nazis with power in Ukraine and you gave it to me.
Let me try again, what Nazis, specifically named, are in power today? Because what you linked mentioned one politician who is still active today who is vaguely linked to the OUN and it didn’t even tell me what that link was. Similarly “Rising antisemitism” and “rising nationalism” are meaningless in this day and age. I need you to show me what you mean when you say those things. I asked for evidence, not more claims.
Stepan Bandera isn’t active today, he was a Nazi collaborating fascist that the nationalists in Ukraine that make up the majority of the current political climate generally uphold as good. This leads me to believe that you aren’t really familiar at all with Ukraine’s history, at which point you’re better off not trying to get it drip fed from me, but instead read up on it and then come to your own analysis before engaging online.
That being said, because you did directly ask, there have been many far-right celebrations of Bandera and have been happening for decades. I even deliberately avoided Israeli sources, because the Zionists in control of Israel often label pro-Palestinian protestors as anti-semetic, but the Ukrainian neo-nazis are the real deal.
The article also mentions that in 2014, Azov was incorporated into its armed forces in an official capacity. This wasn’t a brigade that became Neo-Nazi later, it was added after. The government deliberately and knowingly incorporated them.
I really do recommend you do your own research on this, though, as it’s clear that you don’t have a firm grasp of Ukraine’s history, or what has gradually led up to the Russo-Ukrainian war.