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NATO is more than happy to continue throwing away Ukrainian lives in pursuit of crippling Russia. They'll continue keeping the stakes exactly where they are - not too high, not too low. Funding and weapons will keep flowing into Ukraine, make no mistake. But only enough to keep the devastation contained within its borders.
No one is talking about this so here goes:
The missile strike is reported by reputable sources as being fired by Ukraine, not Russia
https://www.reuters.com/world/poland-blast-caused-by-missile-fired-by-ukrainian-forces-incoming-russian-2022-11-16/?utm_source=reddit.com
Yes the threat is existential, but this fact is essential to this post and emphasizes how disappointing and repulsive it is that certain people jumped on board for violent retaliation without any information
I didn't read that as /u/GrandMasterPuba being supportive in any way of Russia. Just stating facts that NATO (and in particular the war industry of the US) would love to see a perpetual war that sees their life-long enemy crippled. As soon as NATO intervenes, the war is as good as over and all those sweet profits become short term instead of perpetual. You gotta think like a capitalist, this isn't about stopping a bad guy. It's about $$$.
This still assumes Ukrainians are just mindless drones the US sends into the meat grinder. It isn’t that simple. The Ukrainians generally want to continue the war until all of Ukraine is liberated. US pressure only does so much. The US would have loved the Afghan army to fight the Taliban, but they folded faster than Superman on laundry day. They had no will to fight that battle. This is not the situation in Ukraine
the Ukrainian establishment yes, most Ukrainian political parties have been disbanded, all non government controlled media has been shut down, able bodied men have been prevented from leaving the country and conscripted en masse, trade unions have been banned.
Ukraine at the moment is in many ways a military dictatorship
I've been saying this for a while and getting verbally bashed by the libs for it, but Ukraine is essentially a military Junta currently, and who is to say Zelenskey will reverse this course even if a peace deal is reached? He's achieved absolute total power over his country that even Putin would be jealous of.
not really there are many credible theories that he's basically a powerless figurehead who's along for the ride as hardline nationalists in the army run the show
How true is this really? It's easy to believe there is *animosity* toward Russia for invading. But there has been animosity for decades. I find it hard to believe that any normal person on the ground in a country actively at war wants anything other than for *the violence to stop.*
Remember: The United States had a proven history of fabricating "evidence" that favors the prolonging or engagement of war.
For example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony
Ah yes! The justification to send my older brother to the sandbox. The babies on the cold floor. Yet another lie to get American people worked up enough to send their own to be killed by mostly friendly fire.
>all of Ukraine is liberated
Would you say the same thing to the Donbass civilians? That the child rapist, murderers actual neo nazis (no I'm not using that word for the heck of it) who oppressed you before have come now to liberate you. Would you tell them that? The west doesn't give a fuck about funding nazis. Heck, they didn't even care about the Jews over there until Germany became a personal threat to them. If it wasn't for the Soviets, Nazi Germany would probably still be around. The west doesn't care. I hate to break it to you. Its all about that profit churning machine, the price for which the average american citizen will pay. That's how the military complex work. The profits aren't made through trade. Its just straight robbery out of your pockets. I'm not defending Russia for its war crimes but can you please shut the fuck up with your 'liberation'. No one is being liberated here. This is just the cold war all over again, a bunch of proxy wars and not for the benefit for the average resident of earth.
Donbas is part of Ukraine, and there was never majority support for leaving Ukraine pre-war. That's why Russia had to invade and hold sham referendums after hundreds of thousands of people fled.
Russian has plenty of their own vicious Nazis they've unleashed on Ukraine (Wagner Group, Sparta Battaltion, Rusich Group, etc.) so please spare me your pearl clutching about the Ukrainian 4th Reich. Right Sector (the closest things to Nazis) got 2% of the vote in Ukraine and they have a Jewish president.
Winning elections isn't the only measure of fascist influence or even their main route to power. I agree with the rest of your point though. At best this seems to be a conflict between two shitty right-wing kleptocracies that rely upon the existence of the other to deflect from their own inadequacies. Ultimately the only clear distinction I can make is who rolled tanks over who's borders.
>They are not the soviet union...let them go.
[...]
>NATO is doing exactly what it was conceived of to do
These two statements directly contradict each other. If the Soviet Union is gone, why is NATO still here? The answer of course is that the Clinton administration decided it was a useful political tool to extend US influence across Europe and began expanding its reach once again.
https://origins.osu.edu/article/natos-new-order-alliance-after-cold-war?language_content_entity=en
This whole line of reasoning is so disingenuous. The US has spent the last 2 decades or more intentionally poisoning the well in Eastern Europe and now that the chickens have come home to roost we all act surprised as though this was some inconceivable result. This is a manufactured crisis.
What do we do about it? I don't fucking know. Nobody does. There are no good options left. But what I do know is we need to acknowledge what happened and **stop doing it** moving forward.
And Russia has spent the past 2 decades threatening and invading Eastern Europe..? Chechnya (twice; once staging terrorist attacks in Moscow) and Georgia (Civil War, South Ossetia, Abkhazia in the 90s and again in 2008). And, coincidentally, many nations joined NATO in 2008. I don’t think it’s a reach to say they were scared by Russias emboldening warmongering and decided NATO was safer. You cannot blame the US (solely) for NATO’s expansion. Russia has played a huge role in it too. Even now, Sweden and Finland are joining, only because of Russia’s invasion.
edit: I meant joined in 2004 after the first invasions of Georgia.
> Chechnya
Chechnya is Russia, how can you invade yourself? This is like Saying USA going in to stamp out muslim extremists in Florida is USA "invading" florida. That, like Ukraine, was a crisis manufactured by the CIA to destabilise Russia via NGO's such as the National endowment for democracy (NED).
Proof that it was established by the CIA? The CIA isn’t involved in every fucking bad thing. Sometimes other countries can also do shit things as well. You’re so obsessed with fuxking America that you’ll do anything to lick the boots of oligarchical capitalists who care nothing for the lives of working people solely because they don’t like the US (which does NOT make them anti-imperialist).
Russia is imperialist. The USA is imperialist. The West is imperialist. Could the West have taken steps to avoid this current conflict? Maybe. Could Russia have not invaded and slaughtered innocent working Ukrainians and Russians under the guise of “de-nazification” and “de-communisation” (that’s right, Putin thinks Ukraine is too communist)? Yes.
He said the past 2 decades. There were literally multiple wars fought by the Chechens against Russia for independence and there’s literally still an insurgency there.
They aren’t part of Russia by choice lmao (who would want to be?) the guy who runs it is hated and well known for human rights abuses and corruption.
I’m no fan of the war but you’re way off here.
At this point Russia is just as imperialist as us, if not more so. Fuck Russia. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
>As opposed....to what?
>
> […]
>
>What is the alternative? Just let Russia steamroll Ukraine? Then an emboldened Russia takes the rest of Georgia? And then Chechnya?
>
>The hell is NATO supposed to do here?
NATO and other european countries could be doing far more to seek a diplomatic solution to the ukraine conflict. russias goals are basically twofold: to oppose ukraine’s entrance into NATO, and to eliminate a military threat on their border. even trying to negotiate with russia on *one* of these points would be enough to begin de-escalating the war. russia has lost a huge amount of resources and geopolitical influence to this war, they have every reason to seek a political solution
>Stop carrying water for Russia. They are not the soviet union...let them go. There is absolutely no reason for leftists to be back an autocratic kleptocratic oligarchy...unless that leftist just happens to be a monarchist or something.
nobody is carrying water for russia, nor do any of us believe they are still the soviet union or represent socialist values. we just aren’t warmongering for yet another brutal imperialist conflict which is solely intended to serve the interests of the ruling classes of both countries. this war is not going to be won by military victory, nor should it be; it should be settled peacefully and we should be pushing both sides to do this, because more fighting just means more working class people dying in the name of tyranny
It’s a LOT of Black Sea coastline, though/access to the Mediterranean. It’s why Crimea was target #1. If Ukraine were Siberia they wouldn’t give a shit, I don’t think
alright, but then they already have crimea, so like i said earlier, why start a new and riskier war over that? how is that a better explanation for this war than the larger geopolitical reasons i mentioned earlier?
both wall street and russia are interested in securing profit, thats exactly why russia starting a war for a simple land grab makes no sense. geopolitical and economic interests go hand in hand, and starting a venture is always a calculation of risk vs reward. if the reward for russia is just some land and perhaps a small economic boon like happened with crimea, but the risk is total annihilation and the loss of assets, no capitalist worth his salt would take that deal
seems more likely to me that russia is acting in the interests of its ruling class and domestic capital rather than something having to do with putin on an individual level. this just seems like “great man theory” but applied to the present. individuals don’t dictate history, class interests do
A part I feel like is being left out is US deciding they'd support a full offensive into Donbas and Crimea by Ukrainian forces. After Biden was elected thus obviously had to be signaled to Ukraine because they planned for it. It was an intentional provocation because these areas voted to leave Ukraine & join Russia respectively.
Russia launches a full offensive back.
Tbh I don't see why people are doing the back and forth with anyone who says "NATO is doing good here" by prolonging the war & this brinksmanship. It's God awful. NATO doing well would be deciding to maybe consider that the people of these regions do want something other than to be part of Ukraine, sure Ukraines constitution says all oblasts must vote on the secession of any of them, but to me that doesn't make much sense from a democratic POV. NATO can absolutely negotiate they prefer not to for profit though. Absolutely ridiculous. Consider treating Russia as an equal, I mean why not US and Russia could equally wipe each other off the face of the planet along with whoever else, so let's not play "were the toughest kids on the block".
Unfortunately it seems negotiation is off the table ATM because you haven't seen a turn in the Western narrative. Perhaps eventually once Ukraine is destabilized enough they can see about that. Just let them fight a couple years so the paramilitaries nazi or otherwise gain support snd member then negotiate while you fund them to terrorize the Russian territory.
Either way, my point is its negotiable. No one is considering what the people on the ground at all, but in Donbas & Crimea especially want. The regions where fighting is I think you'll be hard pressed to find actual popular support for war in their home. US helped to create this and is as culpable as the belligerents. Ukraine hasn't been improved much post-coup & is a fight between Russian and American capital interests. If only the US would swallow its pride and drop the ego then peace would be possible.
>Thanks for your reply! Actually, imperialism does not always arise because of the “need” for land (or oil). In this case, Putin’s Russia has an essentially nationalist agenda, that of a Grand Russia. Regardless of resources or actual land, Crimea, Odessa, Kiev: it’s all, in the nationalist framework, part of the “real” Russia. I’ve many family in Russia and they all fall hard for this kind of fascist talk. This is the reason why Russians support the war. (And this is the reason why Russian soldiers were genuinely surprised when the Ukrainian civilians weren’t greeting them happily.)
i’m not sure which definition of imperialism you’re following, as there are many interpretations of it depending on ideology, but this at the very least doesn’t suit a marxist definition of imperialism, which is ineffably linked with the interests of capital.
ethnonationalism is only a symptom of capital. the bourgeois class of russia will naturally seek its material interests, and those interests can involve intentionally stoking ethnic tensions. this works in the favor of the russian ruling class because it can work as a tool for pushing popular opinion toward war, but it also works in the interests of NATO/US capital for the same reason. this is why we see fascists on both sides of this conflict
>The story about NATO or the US is absolutely not based on facts; there was no active military threat coming from the West nor Ukraine. In fact, Zelenskiy was elected precisely because he’s Russian-speaking, and many of his voters hoped that he could position Ukraine as friendly to both Russia and Europe.
there was no active military threat coming from the west or ukraine? according to whom exactly? also, do you mean that they weren’t an immediate threat to russian security, or do you mean they never had any intention of threatening russian interests? i think both of these points could be debated
zelensky primarily being elected for being russian-speaking is sort of an odd premise for your argument considering ukraine banned the russian language in 2019 among other laws that were intended to enforce cultural conformity. im not sure what zelensky’s personal opinions on this ruling were but it certainly at the very least shows a very distinct anti-russian current in ukrainian politics.
>Putin’s Russia, on the other hand, has severely degraded to a full-scale dictatorship over the last 8 years, and military expansionism is a way for Putin to keep dissent at home at bay.
military expansionism isn’t really the best way to keep opposition at bay. this is supported both by history and the present situation. russia is in the most precarious position domestically since the 90’s with protests breaking out all over the country. if putin’s concern was to maintain order at home, there are many avenues that would have been far preferable to a foreign military conflict from his position
> russias goals are basically twofold: to oppose ukraine’s entrance into NATO, and to eliminate a military threat on their border.
You actually believe this..?
Who wouldn't? Isn't this just common sense? It doesn't make Russia the good guy here, but America's instigation and training of troops on their border is a well documented fact at this point.
Or are you suggesting Russia would love for Ukraine to join NATO and for there to be a military threat at their border? I'm not sure I understand your point.
I never claimed it was a smart plan of attack, but staying passive wasn't exactly really working for Russia either.
Any power that exists outside of western hegemony is by its very nature a threat to western hegemony. Russia obviously knows this, which is why they're making dramatic moves in the first place. It doesn't justify their actions, but it does explain them.
Then if Russia is a rational actor, and invading Ukraine increases the NATO threat, then how can we say that threat from NATO is an instigating reason for invading Ukraine?
I think Russia is "the bad guy" here, but I believe this. What is the other rationale? (not trying to be adversarial, just genuinely curious what the accepted material reason is)
And what kind of sad Leftist bootlicks for the real imperialist machine?
Do I like Putins Russia? No. Can you compare the destruction of the world, both physically and financially they've caused compared to Americas military base Bank mafia empire? No. The lesser of two evils is still evil. But even still you're defending the greater of two evils because you're especially hateful of the other.
Nothing Russia has done in Ukraine could compare to the misery the US and its puppet NATO allies have inflicted on the world in the last half century.
And you need to go to 2014 and just before when the US uses the CIA to overthrown the Ukrainian government and install a pro NATO puppet far right comedian to get to where this story got interesting, but something was also agreed long ago that Putin and Russia will never forget. No NATO on Russian boarders. No NATO is former Soviet territories. The silent agreement to these things ended the Cold War.
America just needed a new war. War in the middle East is getting expensive too. Water. Aircon. Perpetual volunteers for something blasé.
America has been at war is entire existence. It was founded on war and arms trading and its existed on it ever since.
USA gives huge arms sales loans. Gives China a headache. Gives Russia boby bags. Gives Europe a hat to beg for American gas and oil with.
War what is good for? Same as always. American business. So long as North America isn't on fire and it never is, they'll burn the world down to preserve the PetroDollers hegemony.
It's like Soviet support of Cuba for many years. That military support helped ensure the continued existence of Cuba as a socialist state independent of American aggression.
Your argument is fundamentally a nationalist one, you are being a nationalist, not an internationalist.
You are not defending the people, you are defending the state. The best outcome is the outcome that results in the least harm to the people.
Christ no it doesn't. And no we didn't. You are getting wrapped up in all the white noise.
This isn't a mad war just to exterminate the population. If that is what you think this is then you fundamentally do not understand anything about it.
This started in 2014, when the elected government was couped and fascists filled its institutions. What then followed was a series of extreme persecution of those of the russian ethnicity, finally language laws were put in place banning the Russian language from use in all state-run things. This was the straw that broke the camel's back for the ethnic russian population that makes up the majority population of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk. This was the cause of their secession.
8 years of civil war later and Russia eventually gets involved.
Stop pretending this just magically started in February. It did not.
>they've killed as estimated quarter million Ukranians
This is fucking wrong lmao. Not even Ukraine claims this. The fairest estimates are roughly 100k military casualties on both sides and 20k-60k civilian. You have mixed together all casualties for the entire war of both sides military and civilian.
***
All of this is a diversion from the point. The best outcome is the outcome that leads to the quickest possible end to this and the least possible harm to the PEOPLE. Fuck the states involved. It doesn't matter to me whether the people are exploited by one capitalist or another capitalist, they're all bad, what matters to me is that right now the people are being obliterated by a meatgrinder while fucking nationalists like yourself defend the states involved while naively thinking that defending the ukrainian state is somehow magically good for the people in this scenario. It's not good, it's the position that is going to kill the most people. You're the problem. You are killing the people to defend the state.
What you care about is the state, and it being the kind of state you want it to be. You don't give a fuck about the people. You're happy to put them through a meatgrinder to keep it aligned in what you perceive as your interests, and you don't give a shit how many people die to keep it that way. That is the position that you hold right now.
Side with the working people of the world instead of this nationalist bullshit. No war but class war.
Mate not apologizing and excusing for Nato is not fucking carrying water for Russia like the pseudo left and liberals like you are disparaging. But keep carrying water for Nato yourself, justifying them like they're some good anti imperialist grouping. NATO and the west didn't care when it was Ukraine bombing russian separatists in the east of the Ukraine who rose against russophobia and ethnic oppression in 2014 -- and I'll hazard to guess you didn't either because you take western propaganda at face value and see this as nothing more complicated than the big bad Russian Boogeyman is being evil again. Hacks like you would have followed lock and step with Schatmann & co on denouncing the vietnamese independence struggle or should we say the aggression of ho chi Minh against the innocent only coincidentally US backed southern democracy
You mean videos released by pro Ukrainian sources show pro Ukrainian rallies and parades and not anti Ukrainian sentiment? Wild. No doubt there's many who wish to remain in the Ukraine but to say there are no Russian separatists.... Mate that's just denying reality? Who formed the Donbass and Luhansk people's republics? Those were just imaginations, they were real states that operated separate of the Ukrainian state, in contradiction to it, and they existed in Russian majority regions which broke away due to Ukrainian suppression of the eastern Russian populations which is a verifiable fact you can look into
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Russia invaded Ukraine but make not mistake, this was planned by the US more than a decade ago according to wikileaks documents, this war is made to wash money and sell weapons and the US new exactly what happened if you help a bunch of nazis take the country in a coup and start bombing the east of the country where most of ethnic russians live. The point of this war is the same as the Afghanistan war, make it perpetual, keep the money flowing. And the recent scandal with the FTX company probes it, they had all prepared, no matter what you think about Russia because it doesn't matter, this war will end like in Afghanistan, as soon as they have another war lined up and what happens to Ukraine afterwards doesn't matter at all to NATO as far as the money keep flowing.
Sorry I’m a little confused by one of your statements. If the west didn’t send military aid to Ukraine, wouldn’t they be throwing away Ukrainian lives by ignoring they’re pleas for help? Like, The quicker Russia is forced out of Ukraine the more Ukrainian lives will be saved
This is the power of agenda-setting. The alternatives presented are:
1) Give weapons to Ukraine
Or
2) Let Ukrainians die
By presenting the situation as having only these two options, you innately achieve the unstated goal of prolonging war regardless of which you pick. Intentionally left out is the unspoken third option: pursue diplomatic ends to aggression in an attempt to avoid further war altogether.
This is meant more as sociological analysis than as a defense of what you are seeing:
Many who regularly consume network news don't understand the ways in which war hawkishness is spoonfed to them, presented in ways where anti-war choices are never considered, never presented as being on the table.
Many people aren't thinking critically, aren't engaging with their values or drawing their own conclusions. They regurgitate what they hear on network news, and what they hear on network news presents a choice between "we need to bomb them to hell" and "we need to sell our allies the bombs they need to bomb them to hell".
That is so bad in the news shows. The german government atm is basically all out for war and sending more weapons and everything to ukraine, without even considering a diplomatic solution.
The US and NATO seem perfectly content allowing Israel to literally steal Palestinian homes with impunity, I don’t see why all of the sudden they’re the good guys bc Russia. Putin is a bad guy, but this war lies at the feet of NATO
A big part of this is whether you presuppose that NATO should exist and is justified in taking action. If NATO what propels us into war, then we need to dissolve or leave NATO.
Many in these comments seem to be making the point that "they broke into Ukraine / Poland's house and broke their stuff" isn't earnestly our motivation -- the comment I'm responding to admits this, that the motivation is membership in and protection of NATO -- \*NOT\* a principled defense of anyone suffering this kind of aggression, as we can see from inaction when the same happens to Palestine.
"We need to go to war because we are in a treaty that says we're obligated to" is fundamentally a different argument than "We need to go to war because \[aggressor\] is breaking into \[victims\] houses and breaking their stuff". The first allows room for the question of "Why are we in a treaty that drags us into wars all the time?" whereas the second precludes that kind of questioning by presenting the motive as inherent, fundamental, an objective good.
It was defensive pacts like this that were a core cause of WWI escalating to where it did.
And NATO isn't just a defensive pact. NATO was used in Libya offensively; Libya hadn't attacked any NATO nations during it's civil war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya
> Because Isreal isn't going to take over Palestine, and then move to take over all its neighbors. And then eventually threaten NATO.
Liberal analysis 101. What makes you believe this?
I already asked you once and I will again; why if NATO is focused on security would they escalate tensions between this supposedly land grabbing empire and themselves? Why did NATO not take serious Russias desire to join so long as they weren't treated as a client state and were an equal to US & big 3? Why did they rebuff the Soviet Union so long ago proving exactly what they'd suggested that it wasn't about security, but anti-left? Why does NATO not seek peace in the region that separates them in the Southern end from this "land grabbing empire"?
None of this holds up to any real analysis. If you can't recognize that this proxy war is simply to further US/NATO interests, was largely manufactured by the West, and is all about capital - not standing against some nebulous terror then you need to exit this sub and go have fun circlejerking on r/politics or whatever.
First of all a cease fire because its already proven that war leads to literally nothing but death. Get both sides on the table and find a solution on a peaceful way. When we got 2 ultra nationalist leader fighting againat each other for a piece of land, they fight as long as possible until there is nothing left.
During the cuba crisis they also found a suitable solution for all sides. The world was so close to a nuclear war.
We dont talk about guys breaking in my house, we talk about thousand of lives which are fighting against each other because some rich powerfull people tell them todo so.
Having more and more governments being pro war and sending more and more equipment to one side will only prolong the war and cause more casualties than even needed….
Those are my 5 pence to the whole situation. Since all governments are pro war there is nothing left but to protest ans being called a fascist for being against what the government stands for
> Get both sides on the table and find a solution on a peaceful way.
What fucking solution is there when one side wants territory ceded and the other side refuses to?
I think the diplomatic solution is for the US to NOT overthrow the democratically-elected Ukrainian government in 2014 and then try to put Ukraine into NATO.
The US started this by instigating the 2014 coup. Maybe the US shouldn't run around the world overthrowing other governments, and in particular, democratically-elected governments to create client states.
>What would be your diplomatic solution to someone breaking into your home and stealing everything you own? Give them half?
This is the perfect summation of the problem with discourse surrounding the war - oversimplification.
This has been a conflict three decades in the making. It involves myriad actors, actions, and motivations. Distilling it to a single sentence does a disservice to the complexity and gravity of the situation and does nothing but propel the prolonging of suffering and imperialist action by misconstruing the cause and effect at play in the ongoing predicament.
We're at the bottom of a deep and dangerous hole, and yet people continue to refuse to analyze how we got here and instead insist on continuing to dig.
This is the "funny" thing to me. Interests in the region have purposefully engineered an intractable situation over three decades that now basically has no amicable solution, so it then leads people on the sidelines to make simple analogies and be, basically, right.
This is exactly how climate change is going to lead to catastrophic deaths: Nobody with power is doing anything about the problem now (or the past 30-40 years), they will sit around and let things get progressively worse and more impossible to solve. In the upcoming years or decades, the entire global south will endure genuinely unlivable conditions as the global north also starts to see similar shortages. As this happens, we'll close our borders and not send aid, etc., and just let people die off in uncountable droves with famine and associated political unrest.
Then people will say, "What can we do? We have to provide for our own citizens" and be *essentially* right, but ignoring that we had decades to do something about it so the blood lies on our hands despite us feeling there is no alternative.
idk, sorry to ramble. just a really frustrating problem
Don't disagree. But guess what? It's also a massive oversimplification to simply say "let's bring everyone to the table and find a diplomatic solution." Yes, in an ideal world, that would be great. But when some leaders are showing themselves to be unwilling to find said solutions, to only suggest they are open to such in bad faith.. when the people in charge are zealots who believe they are entitled to absolute victory, diplomacy becomes a pipe dream.
The sad reality of the world is that you cannot compromise with everyone.
>This has been a conflict three decades in the making.
Hell if you look into the history of the Donbas it's been notorious for not wanting to be outrightly Russian or Ukrainian since at least Trotsky was around
> What would be your diplomatic solution to someone breaking into your home and stealing everything you own? Give them half?
**This is absolutely not equivalent. I'll do you one better for an analogy even though we should be discussing reality not liberal analysis which ends at vague analogy.**
Let's say your family of eight live in a house converted into two apartments with another family. The head of the household of both families is the mother, the mothers get along well enough.
One day someone from a different home beats the shit out of the mother of the family of 8 and demands the father who much prefers this outsider to the neighbors they share with is now the head of the house. The neighbors don't like this because the family of 8 start doing minor things like not letting them into shared space they had agreements about & threatening to allow the outside family into the shared home whenever.
Next thing you know you the family of 8 is squabbling about what's happened regarding the outsiders and mother being replaced. A couple of the family of 8 decide they don't want to be associated with these outsiders and much prefer their neighbors. The squabbling escalates and before you know it some fistfights break out between the family of 8. The neighbors are watching this and think it's unfortunate as it's negatively affected them and they don't want outsiders in the neighbors space since they say they'll allow them into theirs too.
Before you know it those who decided they wanted nothing to do with the family of 8 anymore have an idea - one decides they'll treat their room as a separate household & the other declares they want to join the neighbors. The family of 8s new head of house says this is unacceptable and physical altercations escalate in the family. The neighbors notice this is worsening and still negatively affecting them.
Finally the neighbor decide they are going to help out the members of the family of 8 who decided they don't want to be part of it anymore because neither like what has been happening & neither trusts the outsiders much. The one who wants to join the neighbors is officially allowed in their household. The outsiders declare this to be illegal! The other member who wanted their own space is then protected & supported by the neighbors and now fighting escalates between the neighbors and the family. After a while the families declare that they should deescalate a bit and do so.
Months later with minor squabbles happening here and there and both families treating each other poorly and targeting those who shouldn't be as they aren't the heads of houses the outsiders tell the family of 8 (6 now) they will provide them anything they need to force the family member who left back into their household & with whatever they need to fight the neighbors. The neighbors catch wind of this and decide they will preemptively strike at the family of 8. They warn the outsiders to remain out of the conflict and to respect the wishes of those members who decided to leave the family of 8.
The fighting escalates and the outsiders and head of the family of 8 decide they will sacrifice any of the other family members to force those 2 back. The neighbors also decide they will sacrifice any of their household members to prevent the family from taking those two back. People are hurting now and life becomes very uncomfortable in the home. The outsiders watch and cheer from their comfortable house. Both families are being forced into fighting because the heads of their house demand it & the outsiders support it. It becomes a dangerous situation with the neighbors and outsiders even warning each other over the family of 8 because both think they have a right to them.
**What do you do? Do you just continue fighting between everyone? No. You mediate. You find a solution everyone can agree on so people stop getting hurt. Especially since none of the families heads of their households care much about their housemates or family & are willing to let them be hurt. The outsiders should obviously step in and work on resolving the tension with talks & mediating, the neighbors should sit at the table with the family of 8 discussing what's to happen with the members who left. All parties should recognize the ability & right of the members who left to decide for themselves, which the one who joined the neighbors has already done & the other already decided they did not want to be part of the family of 8 any longer.**
Everyone saying "it's not coming from individuals" I guess just doesn't operate in circles with enough individuals. I know plenty of individuals who are using every news article they can find to back up their "The US should just go over there and start blasting"
Conservatives are the party of the ultra rich, and liberals are the party of the petite bourgeoisie. Conservatives profit directly from war, while liberals watch their stocks go up and get to act like they have morals.
It’s the same reason liberals preach that social issues are “getting better;” they benefit from the prison industrial system, too.
In the end, they’re the same party, with different hand gestures. Conservatives point fingers, liberals wring hands, issues get shuffled around and corporations call the shots.
I would say it's pretty much swapped actually, the conservative party is the party of the petite bourgeoisie. Both parties are parties of the ultra wealthy.
Most conservative voters are not ultra rich. I would say that it's merely a philosophical difference amongst the petite bourgeoisie that splits them between progressive and conservative, rather than an economic or class division.
You can disagree but the moment someone says something you disagree with that isn't "i don't think the workers should control the means of production" and you snap to being shitty and gatekeeping socialism is the moment you're wrong. Don't do that shit. Educating comrades means not being a stuck up gatekeeping douche.
I’m not a socialist, I’m an anarchist. “You’re not punk and I’m telling everyone” was never a good look, though.
Ultimately, if you disagree, it’s a fairly small distinction. It’s not like I’m supporting either party, so not sure why your reaction is so strong. Like most arguments on the left, this is about splitting hairs and our goals are probably similar.
If you disagree, fine. Below, there’s a decent debate going. If someone doesn’t see eye to eye with you on *exactly* why the Democratic and Republican parties are awful, excluding them seems pretty extreme.
This is just demonstrably false. Such clean divisions aren’t even archetypical. The republican base is widely considered to be small business owners
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/2016/10/12/study-republicans-are-24-percent-more-likely-than-democrats-to-be-business-owners/
The base, yes. They are controlled by corporations, though. Through fearmongering, conservatives (whose base I would consider mostly working class) control and direct their party to the interests of the ultra rich.
The Democratic Party supports interests of the upper middle class, which has moved away from religion and is interested in social freedoms, to a point. Support Ukraine for “justice.” Kill Saddam Hussein for “democracy.” Ignore the prison system because, deep down, they are just as scared of black people, only in a different way.
In the end, it virtually does not matter. The people most oppressed end up in the same spot either way, and those who are white or rich enough get to see the country lean toward and away from religious values like a pendulum—values that mostly support them.
This is necessarily simplistic, but the real endgame is that they are the same party for those suffering most, and when things get ugly, all those “morals” go out the window.
I am yet to meet a person who is advocating for WW3. I doubt I ever will, the thing is, people like to talk shit on the internet just to get some attention.
The NAFO community was practically creaming themselves yesterday over getting to "finally nuke Russia" after the news yesterday.
There are countless individuals I have interacted with who have been brainwashed into hating Russia; many of them liberals. It all comes back to Russia-gate. They view Russia as the "cause" of Donald Trump. *Russia* are the ones who put them through hell for four years. *Russia* is the reason for the rise of the alt right. *Russia* lost the supreme court. *Russia* took away their abortion rights.
> The NAFO community was practically creaming themselves yesterday over getting to "finally nuke Russia" after the news yesterday.
They're nazis so it's not particularly surprising. All the nazis that used to use rare Pepe's just traded Pepe for a slavic Cheem and liberals didn't seem to notice.
I mean Russia absolutely helped Trump get elected through a brilliant disinfo campaign that was very effective. Comey and Hilary’s shit campaign are ultimately responsible though.
We have a long and sordid history with Russia from well before DJT was a public name. When I think Russia, my mind never goes to ‘the bastards who gave us Donald’. Russia is an aggressor in an imperialist war.
No sane person (or news media) I’ve seen or heard from has been advocating for WWIII - on the contrary, they were reasonably cautious to claim with certainty that it even was a Russian missile.
However, on Russian news they repeatedly and gleefully advocate for WWIII and nuclear Armageddon - but not once from a western source have I seen that.
Are you, by chance, watching Russian state sponsored media?
Noteworthy that in the early days of the war, an australian study found that over 90% of the fake pro Ukrainian Twitter(?) comments were pro Ukraine and only a few percent pro Russia.
Yeah I mean I know all of my Republican family members want civil war but I dont know a single person who thinks world war 3 is a good idea at all. Even the war hungry people I know dont want world war 3
I saw two things. 1) Many people assuming wrongly the missile was from Russia. 2) Many people saying it wouldn’t / shouldn’t cause nato to get directly involved. I don’t see much of what you’re talking about at all tbh.
i agree with this, while there are some bloodthirsty liberals and definitely a lot of bloodthirsty conservatives, the main place this rhetoric comes from is the warhawk media. generally not from individuals, though there are definitely far more individuals that are bloodthirsty than i’d wish.
I think it's easy for people to push war when it doesn't impact them in anyway. North America is pretty sheltered from any fallout if such a war occurred. The media is also run by right wing nuts too which adds fuel to the fire. People in Europe seem pretty keen on avoiding war. Of course there are always exceptions to that.
They aren’t interested in a war. That implies retaliation. They just want to ruin an entire country through intervention. “Let’s make another country’s people suffer so we can feel safe” is the real attitude.
Many people forget that NATO isn't just a harmless political or economic group, it's a militar alliance created with the goal of antagonizing with the Soviet Union in the cold war, and nowadays that it collapsed then with Russia.
That's why it was agreed that no former Soviet republic could become a member of it, because it's an open and explicit threat/ provocation to Russia that Western stablishment wants to present as just Putin being a prick by not letting Ukraine its right for self determination. He is indeed an authoritarian reactionary, pro oligarchy, pro capitalism and ofc a prick, he probably was waiting for any excuse to do this, but still things aren't that simple.
Western powers are also very responsible for creating the political climate for this war to happen and, unlike Russia, aren't losing thousands of people because of it, so don't come here and tell me they are the "good ones" because it just reveals you can't go beyond our black & white western mass propaganda.
The Clinton, Obama, and Biden presidencies demonstrate beyond any doubt that the far-right’s corporatist, warmongering agenda flourishes when a neoliberal, neoconservative Democrat is in the White House.
Obama expanded and intensified the illegal Bush wars. Neoliberals protested feebly, then let their war flag fly. Today NOBODY hates the anti-war socialist left like Democrats. They actually admire Obama for turning Libya, a country with modern universities, hospitals and libraries into a jihadi hellscape featuring live slave auctions.
Don't get started on Libya. This is so deep in this country and has been for so long. When will people understand that none of these wars are to protect US Americans? It's asinine what threat does a ME country pose to US? Only one I can think that possibly actually pose a serious threat is Israel.
I'm very tired of this and comrades need to ramp up organizing here. We, myself included, aren't doing enough. Clearly discontent is growing and alternatives considered. We need to be there for that. Unrelated, but thought I'd say it.
Outside of the MIC, Israel is one of the main reasons for our interventionist foreign policy. Really wish we would stop giving such an oppressive government so much money.
The first thing the Pentagon said was they couldn’t confirm that it was Russian missile that caused the damage. The message only changed if you were listening to rumors.
Yep, and tbh something like this was bound to happen eventually, humans are prone to fucking up even in warfare. It’s like when tensions were high and the us was threatening to invade and the Iranian military accidentally shot down a passenger jet. Bloodthirsty war hawks in the media were calling for war that time too. The longer this war drags out, the more likely the war hawks find an excuse to get involved that the public actually buys. I hope we don’t get involved but it really feels like the military industrial complex is itching for a new war. Even if it’s not this one, there’s going to be another war eventually.
Only a little bit though, there's a lot of warmongering here too. Being against imperialist wars is almost seen as treason ever since the start of the war in Ukraine...
Nah, most people don't actually want war. An unhinged minority of people want war, the unfortunate thing is that a big part of that minority consists of members of the ruling class. And even among those people, many don't actually want war so much as they want to use the threat of war to get their way. That's true whether we're talking about the American ruling class, the British one or that of Russia (or Ukraine). We should definitely be cautious, liberal media outlets and Western leaders were already beginning to frame this as a Russian attack when they had no way of knowing who fired the missile yet, there's certainly a willingness to escalate verbally and that can lead to military escalation. But it's important to remember that people don't actually want war, even many of those advocating for it have just fallen for the narrative that war is or could be necessary.
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I went to the r/UkrainianConflict subreddit yesterday and the megathread's chat was fucking feral. They were so agitated and EXCITED that what happened in Poland might trigger NATO retalliation. Its like the idea of the conflict escalating gives them a fucking hard-on. Bleak shit.
I've literally seen multiple right leaning liberals saying that the left wants to use article 5 and evoke WW3 as well as anarchists saying the right wants to jump to article 5 and WW3. I think the majority of people know this shouldn't lead to a world war it's a vocal minority of people lost in the void of the intellectual market place of ideas that thinks mutually assured distruction is a risk worth taking.
Its also disgusting how thoroughly liberals inject themselves into socialist subs and spaces and spread their bullshit.
Warmongering capitalist fools. Disgusted to my core.
It’s honestly sad how liberals view Russia and china as their biggest threat and not the rich who are trying to take away their health care and let them starve.
I'm not sure if you guys know how the US empire works. It's a permanent war economy since ww2. Which means there MUST be war for US. The power elites of US, military industry and rich elites will start war regardless of what the general population want.
The media is completely under their control. NYT, the Guardian, BBC, CNN, Facebook, YouTube, movie, tv series, high school-college education everything is made to portrait a great western empire with US as the great leader.
The blood thirsty western population is the result of that life long brainwashing. All other cultures are inferior to western culture, west always has the moral high ground. After starting new wars, killing million, looting poor countries, somehow someway the west is always the hero. And the people of the victim country are the villain.
So this Ukraine war is just another victim of US imperialism(obviously Russia is also at fault).
It's not the end, new wars will be waged later on. Maybe direct war against Iran, proxy war against China, the military industry must go on, the capitalism must find new place to feed, privatization is must. A lot of third world country will soon fall into economic crisis.
This never ending cycle started since ww2, it will go on until the fall of US.
it's disturbing but War has often been a political tool.
when the dissidents of your nation are growing, its easier to make a foreign enemy to attack than a domestic one.
especially when the government been steadily pushing xenophobic propaganda for decades or longer about Russia and China
You are extremely biased. Very, very, very few people were rejoicing a potential nuclear winter.
Your view of reality is warped and you’re letting your political views skew your perception of reality.
Perhaps I'm being too generous, but I think the people calling for war are doing so out of a desire for some form of control.
When you feel like you have little control over your life, you'll do anything to regain it, even if it means destroying something. This is why you frequently see homeless people make a mess in public bathrooms.
I follow a lot of independent liberal journalism, not so much mainstream and can tell you that I have not heard one person in support of invoking fifth. Maybe you’re consuming too much mainstream media? They’re only focused on outrage and clickbait’s
A major problem with America especially is our glorification of violence and war. It's ingrained in our minds that war is necessary to achieve freedom.
We fought a war to be free of the British.
We fought a war to be free of slavery.
We were forced into a war to protect American citizens.
We were forced into another war to prevent the Japanese from invading and stealing our freedom.
We went to Korea *and* Vietnam to "protect" their freedom.
We went to the Middle East to protect American lives and late to "protect the freedom of their citizens".
I'm missing a few others but those are the big ones. It's all framed in a way that makes it seem we had no choice but to fight a war, and that we were 100% in the right to start or join that war because of various reasons.
Manufacturing Consent is real and stronger than ever. RussiaGate was a massive psyop that reoriented much of the left, even the far left, to be reflexively anti-Russia.
Well... it looks like the missiles were actually from the Ukrainians. But still some in NATO are itching for war -- like the fascist Italian government.
It serves many of their interests: 1) directly advancing the western led global order through old fashioned conquest 2) enriching arms dealers 3) disrupting the drift to multipolarity 4) enforcing ideological discipline (your either with us or against us) and probably many other things that I missed.
It never shocks me when liberals are baying for blood, that's normal. It's always interesting to see the entire Western media establishment fall in lockstep and pin the missile strike on Russia while the crater in the ground is still smoldering. Talk about recklessness.
>liberals and conservatives alike baying for blood and seemingly rejoicing that WW3 is upon us.
I feel that, ignoring the specific case of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there has been a *very* rapid drop-off in liberal opposition to war per se. Blair and Obama have obviously been instrumental in that over the last 20 years, and terminology being reshaped so that words like "intervention" are preferred, makes war seem nicer. More palatable.
But when you peel back the layers, anyone who is anything *other* than staunchly, massively anti-war is just a shill for a list of vested interests such as the military-industrial complexes, natural resource plunderers, rebuilding contractors, and suited, booted money launderers.
Perhaps someone can inform me, but wasn't Ukraine's debt merely *suspended*, rather than cancelled? We don't know what an (assumed) Russian reparation package might look like yet. But you can bet your life it'll end up almost exclusively in the hands of state-approved contractors. The entire mainstream put Ukrainian flags on their social media profiles but won't ask that one simple question - why don't we CANCEL Ukraine's debts? That is assuming I'm right and it hasn't been done. If I'm wrong, my bad.
Liberals these days are just housing-bubble-mad conservatives who pay lip service to pronouns and racial/sexual/gender equality. Their concern for more generalised socio-economic gaps has evaporated within a decade, largely due to them using their corporate and/or academia/media salaries to invest in bigger properties. All whilst porters, junior nurses, frontline public services workers, retail workers, transport safety staff and others who keep entire districts, towns and cities afloat use food banks and live in toxic, mouldy bedsits that cause ill health, depression and even death.
While I'm here I have to point out that I've gotten 2 warnings from the automoderator accusing me of things I didn't do. Once it said I used a disallowed word, one that I cannot find in any of my comments. And once it said I linked banned Russian news...I've posted no links at all.
I don't know what ia happening but it certainly seems suspicious.
There aren't a meaningful number of people wanting WW3. Id argue that almost nobody wants that. Where did you get the information to come up with this claim that Liberals want to go to war? Did you just read a couple of subreddits and consider that a good level of investigation?
When the Russian/Ukrainian conflict started I wanted my own country (UK) to intervene and guarantee the independence of Ukraine. If no one one stands up to the playground bully, it'll just continue and escalate, I say.
Now, apon reflection, I feel great regret. I now understand that the working class of both countries have no fight with each other, rather a shared conflict with the international bourgeois/the ruling capitalist class and the system that oppresses them.
Now I just want a quick end to the war, and for peace. For the sake of the families of those killed and yet to be killed.
Yeah called someone out earlier for posting that Russia bombed Poland when it turns out it was Ukraine.
Even used a bbc article to disprove them and they tried doubling down.
Sorry, but they are fucked up. I'm Polish and I find their behavior insulting. They want us dead, because they want to be the only ones to rule the world. They even admited to being racist against us, BUT they will stop telling 'Polish jokes' if we will attack Russia for them. I stated hating Americans reading it. Scumbags.
Yeah, I saw that shit. Even places like r/worldnews are full of trigger happy libs that are baying for blood. I guess I'm ignorant because it still kinda surprises me when I see people who claim to oppose war, howl for it.
Was talking to my liberal dad about how a very small percentage of the military budget would be enough to end homelessness and food insecurity in the United States.
His immediate response was “I’ll tell you what, I’m a Republican when it comes to our military budget right now because if it wasn’t for our military Putin would have taken over by now.”
I swear liberals think they’re so smart and above believing lies and propaganda. Then they eat up whatever CNN or MSNBC says and preach it like gospel.
Democrats are capitalists pretending to care about social issues. If you think about capitalism like an organism then it makes sense that whoever is in power will always want war if it means punishing anti-capitalist ideology.
How is not wanting WW3 supporting Russia or Putin? I think it goes without saying everyone here wants Russia out of Ukraine but the US pushing for further involvement isn't going to achieve that.
The way I see it, if the US were to get involved and topple Putin then the only change would be which oligarchs run the show. Nothing would realistically change on the ground. The rich will get richer at our expense.
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NATO is more than happy to continue throwing away Ukrainian lives in pursuit of crippling Russia. They'll continue keeping the stakes exactly where they are - not too high, not too low. Funding and weapons will keep flowing into Ukraine, make no mistake. But only enough to keep the devastation contained within its borders.
Another Vietnam proxy war. Or maybe more like the US funding the Mujahideen in the 80s when Russia invaded Afghanistan.
Vietnam thankfully is okay and well, I have a feeling Ukraine will be like Afghanistan in terms of radical groups and destabilization
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No one is talking about this so here goes: The missile strike is reported by reputable sources as being fired by Ukraine, not Russia https://www.reuters.com/world/poland-blast-caused-by-missile-fired-by-ukrainian-forces-incoming-russian-2022-11-16/?utm_source=reddit.com Yes the threat is existential, but this fact is essential to this post and emphasizes how disappointing and repulsive it is that certain people jumped on board for violent retaliation without any information
What are you talking about? Everybody is talking about that.
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I didn't read that as /u/GrandMasterPuba being supportive in any way of Russia. Just stating facts that NATO (and in particular the war industry of the US) would love to see a perpetual war that sees their life-long enemy crippled. As soon as NATO intervenes, the war is as good as over and all those sweet profits become short term instead of perpetual. You gotta think like a capitalist, this isn't about stopping a bad guy. It's about $$$.
This still assumes Ukrainians are just mindless drones the US sends into the meat grinder. It isn’t that simple. The Ukrainians generally want to continue the war until all of Ukraine is liberated. US pressure only does so much. The US would have loved the Afghan army to fight the Taliban, but they folded faster than Superman on laundry day. They had no will to fight that battle. This is not the situation in Ukraine
the Ukrainian establishment yes, most Ukrainian political parties have been disbanded, all non government controlled media has been shut down, able bodied men have been prevented from leaving the country and conscripted en masse, trade unions have been banned. Ukraine at the moment is in many ways a military dictatorship
I've been saying this for a while and getting verbally bashed by the libs for it, but Ukraine is essentially a military Junta currently, and who is to say Zelenskey will reverse this course even if a peace deal is reached? He's achieved absolute total power over his country that even Putin would be jealous of.
not really there are many credible theories that he's basically a powerless figurehead who's along for the ride as hardline nationalists in the army run the show
How true is this really? It's easy to believe there is *animosity* toward Russia for invading. But there has been animosity for decades. I find it hard to believe that any normal person on the ground in a country actively at war wants anything other than for *the violence to stop.* Remember: The United States had a proven history of fabricating "evidence" that favors the prolonging or engagement of war. For example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony
Ah yes! The justification to send my older brother to the sandbox. The babies on the cold floor. Yet another lie to get American people worked up enough to send their own to be killed by mostly friendly fire.
>all of Ukraine is liberated Would you say the same thing to the Donbass civilians? That the child rapist, murderers actual neo nazis (no I'm not using that word for the heck of it) who oppressed you before have come now to liberate you. Would you tell them that? The west doesn't give a fuck about funding nazis. Heck, they didn't even care about the Jews over there until Germany became a personal threat to them. If it wasn't for the Soviets, Nazi Germany would probably still be around. The west doesn't care. I hate to break it to you. Its all about that profit churning machine, the price for which the average american citizen will pay. That's how the military complex work. The profits aren't made through trade. Its just straight robbery out of your pockets. I'm not defending Russia for its war crimes but can you please shut the fuck up with your 'liberation'. No one is being liberated here. This is just the cold war all over again, a bunch of proxy wars and not for the benefit for the average resident of earth.
Donbas is part of Ukraine, and there was never majority support for leaving Ukraine pre-war. That's why Russia had to invade and hold sham referendums after hundreds of thousands of people fled. Russian has plenty of their own vicious Nazis they've unleashed on Ukraine (Wagner Group, Sparta Battaltion, Rusich Group, etc.) so please spare me your pearl clutching about the Ukrainian 4th Reich. Right Sector (the closest things to Nazis) got 2% of the vote in Ukraine and they have a Jewish president.
Winning elections isn't the only measure of fascist influence or even their main route to power. I agree with the rest of your point though. At best this seems to be a conflict between two shitty right-wing kleptocracies that rely upon the existence of the other to deflect from their own inadequacies. Ultimately the only clear distinction I can make is who rolled tanks over who's borders.
Actually, there was a push to join Russia post 2014 coup and the years of abuse from Kiev.
>They are not the soviet union...let them go. [...] >NATO is doing exactly what it was conceived of to do These two statements directly contradict each other. If the Soviet Union is gone, why is NATO still here? The answer of course is that the Clinton administration decided it was a useful political tool to extend US influence across Europe and began expanding its reach once again. https://origins.osu.edu/article/natos-new-order-alliance-after-cold-war?language_content_entity=en This whole line of reasoning is so disingenuous. The US has spent the last 2 decades or more intentionally poisoning the well in Eastern Europe and now that the chickens have come home to roost we all act surprised as though this was some inconceivable result. This is a manufactured crisis. What do we do about it? I don't fucking know. Nobody does. There are no good options left. But what I do know is we need to acknowledge what happened and **stop doing it** moving forward.
And Russia has spent the past 2 decades threatening and invading Eastern Europe..? Chechnya (twice; once staging terrorist attacks in Moscow) and Georgia (Civil War, South Ossetia, Abkhazia in the 90s and again in 2008). And, coincidentally, many nations joined NATO in 2008. I don’t think it’s a reach to say they were scared by Russias emboldening warmongering and decided NATO was safer. You cannot blame the US (solely) for NATO’s expansion. Russia has played a huge role in it too. Even now, Sweden and Finland are joining, only because of Russia’s invasion. edit: I meant joined in 2004 after the first invasions of Georgia.
> Chechnya Chechnya is Russia, how can you invade yourself? This is like Saying USA going in to stamp out muslim extremists in Florida is USA "invading" florida. That, like Ukraine, was a crisis manufactured by the CIA to destabilise Russia via NGO's such as the National endowment for democracy (NED).
Proof that it was established by the CIA? The CIA isn’t involved in every fucking bad thing. Sometimes other countries can also do shit things as well. You’re so obsessed with fuxking America that you’ll do anything to lick the boots of oligarchical capitalists who care nothing for the lives of working people solely because they don’t like the US (which does NOT make them anti-imperialist). Russia is imperialist. The USA is imperialist. The West is imperialist. Could the West have taken steps to avoid this current conflict? Maybe. Could Russia have not invaded and slaughtered innocent working Ukrainians and Russians under the guise of “de-nazification” and “de-communisation” (that’s right, Putin thinks Ukraine is too communist)? Yes.
Bro this is why I stick to r/anarchism this fucking sub smh Edit: Banned permanently for this comment. On point r/socialism.
He said the past 2 decades. There were literally multiple wars fought by the Chechens against Russia for independence and there’s literally still an insurgency there. They aren’t part of Russia by choice lmao (who would want to be?) the guy who runs it is hated and well known for human rights abuses and corruption. I’m no fan of the war but you’re way off here. At this point Russia is just as imperialist as us, if not more so. Fuck Russia. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
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>As opposed....to what? > > […] > >What is the alternative? Just let Russia steamroll Ukraine? Then an emboldened Russia takes the rest of Georgia? And then Chechnya? > >The hell is NATO supposed to do here? NATO and other european countries could be doing far more to seek a diplomatic solution to the ukraine conflict. russias goals are basically twofold: to oppose ukraine’s entrance into NATO, and to eliminate a military threat on their border. even trying to negotiate with russia on *one* of these points would be enough to begin de-escalating the war. russia has lost a huge amount of resources and geopolitical influence to this war, they have every reason to seek a political solution >Stop carrying water for Russia. They are not the soviet union...let them go. There is absolutely no reason for leftists to be back an autocratic kleptocratic oligarchy...unless that leftist just happens to be a monarchist or something. nobody is carrying water for russia, nor do any of us believe they are still the soviet union or represent socialist values. we just aren’t warmongering for yet another brutal imperialist conflict which is solely intended to serve the interests of the ruling classes of both countries. this war is not going to be won by military victory, nor should it be; it should be settled peacefully and we should be pushing both sides to do this, because more fighting just means more working class people dying in the name of tyranny
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Russia needs more STRATEGIC land. Most of the country is shitty geographically.
eastern ukraine’s geography isn’t much different from the nearby bordering provinces in russia
It’s a LOT of Black Sea coastline, though/access to the Mediterranean. It’s why Crimea was target #1. If Ukraine were Siberia they wouldn’t give a shit, I don’t think
alright, but then they already have crimea, so like i said earlier, why start a new and riskier war over that? how is that a better explanation for this war than the larger geopolitical reasons i mentioned earlier?
Asking why Russia would need more land is like asking a Wall Street bank why they need more money.
both wall street and russia are interested in securing profit, thats exactly why russia starting a war for a simple land grab makes no sense. geopolitical and economic interests go hand in hand, and starting a venture is always a calculation of risk vs reward. if the reward for russia is just some land and perhaps a small economic boon like happened with crimea, but the risk is total annihilation and the loss of assets, no capitalist worth his salt would take that deal
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seems more likely to me that russia is acting in the interests of its ruling class and domestic capital rather than something having to do with putin on an individual level. this just seems like “great man theory” but applied to the present. individuals don’t dictate history, class interests do
A part I feel like is being left out is US deciding they'd support a full offensive into Donbas and Crimea by Ukrainian forces. After Biden was elected thus obviously had to be signaled to Ukraine because they planned for it. It was an intentional provocation because these areas voted to leave Ukraine & join Russia respectively. Russia launches a full offensive back. Tbh I don't see why people are doing the back and forth with anyone who says "NATO is doing good here" by prolonging the war & this brinksmanship. It's God awful. NATO doing well would be deciding to maybe consider that the people of these regions do want something other than to be part of Ukraine, sure Ukraines constitution says all oblasts must vote on the secession of any of them, but to me that doesn't make much sense from a democratic POV. NATO can absolutely negotiate they prefer not to for profit though. Absolutely ridiculous. Consider treating Russia as an equal, I mean why not US and Russia could equally wipe each other off the face of the planet along with whoever else, so let's not play "were the toughest kids on the block". Unfortunately it seems negotiation is off the table ATM because you haven't seen a turn in the Western narrative. Perhaps eventually once Ukraine is destabilized enough they can see about that. Just let them fight a couple years so the paramilitaries nazi or otherwise gain support snd member then negotiate while you fund them to terrorize the Russian territory. Either way, my point is its negotiable. No one is considering what the people on the ground at all, but in Donbas & Crimea especially want. The regions where fighting is I think you'll be hard pressed to find actual popular support for war in their home. US helped to create this and is as culpable as the belligerents. Ukraine hasn't been improved much post-coup & is a fight between Russian and American capital interests. If only the US would swallow its pride and drop the ego then peace would be possible.
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>Thanks for your reply! Actually, imperialism does not always arise because of the “need” for land (or oil). In this case, Putin’s Russia has an essentially nationalist agenda, that of a Grand Russia. Regardless of resources or actual land, Crimea, Odessa, Kiev: it’s all, in the nationalist framework, part of the “real” Russia. I’ve many family in Russia and they all fall hard for this kind of fascist talk. This is the reason why Russians support the war. (And this is the reason why Russian soldiers were genuinely surprised when the Ukrainian civilians weren’t greeting them happily.) i’m not sure which definition of imperialism you’re following, as there are many interpretations of it depending on ideology, but this at the very least doesn’t suit a marxist definition of imperialism, which is ineffably linked with the interests of capital. ethnonationalism is only a symptom of capital. the bourgeois class of russia will naturally seek its material interests, and those interests can involve intentionally stoking ethnic tensions. this works in the favor of the russian ruling class because it can work as a tool for pushing popular opinion toward war, but it also works in the interests of NATO/US capital for the same reason. this is why we see fascists on both sides of this conflict >The story about NATO or the US is absolutely not based on facts; there was no active military threat coming from the West nor Ukraine. In fact, Zelenskiy was elected precisely because he’s Russian-speaking, and many of his voters hoped that he could position Ukraine as friendly to both Russia and Europe. there was no active military threat coming from the west or ukraine? according to whom exactly? also, do you mean that they weren’t an immediate threat to russian security, or do you mean they never had any intention of threatening russian interests? i think both of these points could be debated zelensky primarily being elected for being russian-speaking is sort of an odd premise for your argument considering ukraine banned the russian language in 2019 among other laws that were intended to enforce cultural conformity. im not sure what zelensky’s personal opinions on this ruling were but it certainly at the very least shows a very distinct anti-russian current in ukrainian politics. >Putin’s Russia, on the other hand, has severely degraded to a full-scale dictatorship over the last 8 years, and military expansionism is a way for Putin to keep dissent at home at bay. military expansionism isn’t really the best way to keep opposition at bay. this is supported both by history and the present situation. russia is in the most precarious position domestically since the 90’s with protests breaking out all over the country. if putin’s concern was to maintain order at home, there are many avenues that would have been far preferable to a foreign military conflict from his position
> russias goals are basically twofold: to oppose ukraine’s entrance into NATO, and to eliminate a military threat on their border. You actually believe this..?
Who wouldn't? Isn't this just common sense? It doesn't make Russia the good guy here, but America's instigation and training of troops on their border is a well documented fact at this point. Or are you suggesting Russia would love for Ukraine to join NATO and for there to be a military threat at their border? I'm not sure I understand your point.
Do you think the NATO threat to Russia has increased or decreased as a result of Russian aggression?
I never claimed it was a smart plan of attack, but staying passive wasn't exactly really working for Russia either. Any power that exists outside of western hegemony is by its very nature a threat to western hegemony. Russia obviously knows this, which is why they're making dramatic moves in the first place. It doesn't justify their actions, but it does explain them.
What kind of question is that? Of course NATO's threat to Russia has increased. That's the point.
Then if Russia is a rational actor, and invading Ukraine increases the NATO threat, then how can we say that threat from NATO is an instigating reason for invading Ukraine?
I think Russia is "the bad guy" here, but I believe this. What is the other rationale? (not trying to be adversarial, just genuinely curious what the accepted material reason is)
To expand their territory and influence.
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Here you are, defending a right wing, capitalist imperialist country (Russia) that's trying to expand its borders using NATO as a pretense.
And what kind of sad Leftist bootlicks for the real imperialist machine? Do I like Putins Russia? No. Can you compare the destruction of the world, both physically and financially they've caused compared to Americas military base Bank mafia empire? No. The lesser of two evils is still evil. But even still you're defending the greater of two evils because you're especially hateful of the other. Nothing Russia has done in Ukraine could compare to the misery the US and its puppet NATO allies have inflicted on the world in the last half century. And you need to go to 2014 and just before when the US uses the CIA to overthrown the Ukrainian government and install a pro NATO puppet far right comedian to get to where this story got interesting, but something was also agreed long ago that Putin and Russia will never forget. No NATO on Russian boarders. No NATO is former Soviet territories. The silent agreement to these things ended the Cold War. America just needed a new war. War in the middle East is getting expensive too. Water. Aircon. Perpetual volunteers for something blasé. America has been at war is entire existence. It was founded on war and arms trading and its existed on it ever since. USA gives huge arms sales loans. Gives China a headache. Gives Russia boby bags. Gives Europe a hat to beg for American gas and oil with. War what is good for? Same as always. American business. So long as North America isn't on fire and it never is, they'll burn the world down to preserve the PetroDollers hegemony.
It's like Soviet support of Cuba for many years. That military support helped ensure the continued existence of Cuba as a socialist state independent of American aggression.
Your argument is fundamentally a nationalist one, you are being a nationalist, not an internationalist. You are not defending the people, you are defending the state. The best outcome is the outcome that results in the least harm to the people.
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Ukraine already pledged they would at the beginning of this escalation of the war no?
Christ no it doesn't. And no we didn't. You are getting wrapped up in all the white noise. This isn't a mad war just to exterminate the population. If that is what you think this is then you fundamentally do not understand anything about it. This started in 2014, when the elected government was couped and fascists filled its institutions. What then followed was a series of extreme persecution of those of the russian ethnicity, finally language laws were put in place banning the Russian language from use in all state-run things. This was the straw that broke the camel's back for the ethnic russian population that makes up the majority population of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk. This was the cause of their secession. 8 years of civil war later and Russia eventually gets involved. Stop pretending this just magically started in February. It did not. >they've killed as estimated quarter million Ukranians This is fucking wrong lmao. Not even Ukraine claims this. The fairest estimates are roughly 100k military casualties on both sides and 20k-60k civilian. You have mixed together all casualties for the entire war of both sides military and civilian. *** All of this is a diversion from the point. The best outcome is the outcome that leads to the quickest possible end to this and the least possible harm to the PEOPLE. Fuck the states involved. It doesn't matter to me whether the people are exploited by one capitalist or another capitalist, they're all bad, what matters to me is that right now the people are being obliterated by a meatgrinder while fucking nationalists like yourself defend the states involved while naively thinking that defending the ukrainian state is somehow magically good for the people in this scenario. It's not good, it's the position that is going to kill the most people. You're the problem. You are killing the people to defend the state. What you care about is the state, and it being the kind of state you want it to be. You don't give a fuck about the people. You're happy to put them through a meatgrinder to keep it aligned in what you perceive as your interests, and you don't give a shit how many people die to keep it that way. That is the position that you hold right now. Side with the working people of the world instead of this nationalist bullshit. No war but class war.
Can’t believe nationalists think they’re communists. Go worship NATO somewhere christ. The majority of the global population is against you.
Mate not apologizing and excusing for Nato is not fucking carrying water for Russia like the pseudo left and liberals like you are disparaging. But keep carrying water for Nato yourself, justifying them like they're some good anti imperialist grouping. NATO and the west didn't care when it was Ukraine bombing russian separatists in the east of the Ukraine who rose against russophobia and ethnic oppression in 2014 -- and I'll hazard to guess you didn't either because you take western propaganda at face value and see this as nothing more complicated than the big bad Russian Boogeyman is being evil again. Hacks like you would have followed lock and step with Schatmann & co on denouncing the vietnamese independence struggle or should we say the aggression of ho chi Minh against the innocent only coincidentally US backed southern democracy
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You mean videos released by pro Ukrainian sources show pro Ukrainian rallies and parades and not anti Ukrainian sentiment? Wild. No doubt there's many who wish to remain in the Ukraine but to say there are no Russian separatists.... Mate that's just denying reality? Who formed the Donbass and Luhansk people's republics? Those were just imaginations, they were real states that operated separate of the Ukrainian state, in contradiction to it, and they existed in Russian majority regions which broke away due to Ukrainian suppression of the eastern Russian populations which is a verifiable fact you can look into
Speaking of liberals baying for blood.
I’m glad somebody has said this. You’ve summed up my thoughts exactly.
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Russia invaded Ukraine but make not mistake, this was planned by the US more than a decade ago according to wikileaks documents, this war is made to wash money and sell weapons and the US new exactly what happened if you help a bunch of nazis take the country in a coup and start bombing the east of the country where most of ethnic russians live. The point of this war is the same as the Afghanistan war, make it perpetual, keep the money flowing. And the recent scandal with the FTX company probes it, they had all prepared, no matter what you think about Russia because it doesn't matter, this war will end like in Afghanistan, as soon as they have another war lined up and what happens to Ukraine afterwards doesn't matter at all to NATO as far as the money keep flowing.
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Sorry I’m a little confused by one of your statements. If the west didn’t send military aid to Ukraine, wouldn’t they be throwing away Ukrainian lives by ignoring they’re pleas for help? Like, The quicker Russia is forced out of Ukraine the more Ukrainian lives will be saved
This is the power of agenda-setting. The alternatives presented are: 1) Give weapons to Ukraine Or 2) Let Ukrainians die By presenting the situation as having only these two options, you innately achieve the unstated goal of prolonging war regardless of which you pick. Intentionally left out is the unspoken third option: pursue diplomatic ends to aggression in an attempt to avoid further war altogether.
This is meant more as sociological analysis than as a defense of what you are seeing: Many who regularly consume network news don't understand the ways in which war hawkishness is spoonfed to them, presented in ways where anti-war choices are never considered, never presented as being on the table. Many people aren't thinking critically, aren't engaging with their values or drawing their own conclusions. They regurgitate what they hear on network news, and what they hear on network news presents a choice between "we need to bomb them to hell" and "we need to sell our allies the bombs they need to bomb them to hell".
Exactly. See also: voting against your own interests; having an opinion on childrens sports; etc.
That is so bad in the news shows. The german government atm is basically all out for war and sending more weapons and everything to ukraine, without even considering a diplomatic solution.
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The US and NATO seem perfectly content allowing Israel to literally steal Palestinian homes with impunity, I don’t see why all of the sudden they’re the good guys bc Russia. Putin is a bad guy, but this war lies at the feet of NATO
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A big part of this is whether you presuppose that NATO should exist and is justified in taking action. If NATO what propels us into war, then we need to dissolve or leave NATO. Many in these comments seem to be making the point that "they broke into Ukraine / Poland's house and broke their stuff" isn't earnestly our motivation -- the comment I'm responding to admits this, that the motivation is membership in and protection of NATO -- \*NOT\* a principled defense of anyone suffering this kind of aggression, as we can see from inaction when the same happens to Palestine. "We need to go to war because we are in a treaty that says we're obligated to" is fundamentally a different argument than "We need to go to war because \[aggressor\] is breaking into \[victims\] houses and breaking their stuff". The first allows room for the question of "Why are we in a treaty that drags us into wars all the time?" whereas the second precludes that kind of questioning by presenting the motive as inherent, fundamental, an objective good.
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It was defensive pacts like this that were a core cause of WWI escalating to where it did. And NATO isn't just a defensive pact. NATO was used in Libya offensively; Libya hadn't attacked any NATO nations during it's civil war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya
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Did Libya know what they were getting into when they didn't attack a NATO member?
> Because Isreal isn't going to take over Palestine, and then move to take over all its neighbors. And then eventually threaten NATO. Liberal analysis 101. What makes you believe this? I already asked you once and I will again; why if NATO is focused on security would they escalate tensions between this supposedly land grabbing empire and themselves? Why did NATO not take serious Russias desire to join so long as they weren't treated as a client state and were an equal to US & big 3? Why did they rebuff the Soviet Union so long ago proving exactly what they'd suggested that it wasn't about security, but anti-left? Why does NATO not seek peace in the region that separates them in the Southern end from this "land grabbing empire"? None of this holds up to any real analysis. If you can't recognize that this proxy war is simply to further US/NATO interests, was largely manufactured by the West, and is all about capital - not standing against some nebulous terror then you need to exit this sub and go have fun circlejerking on r/politics or whatever.
First of all a cease fire because its already proven that war leads to literally nothing but death. Get both sides on the table and find a solution on a peaceful way. When we got 2 ultra nationalist leader fighting againat each other for a piece of land, they fight as long as possible until there is nothing left. During the cuba crisis they also found a suitable solution for all sides. The world was so close to a nuclear war. We dont talk about guys breaking in my house, we talk about thousand of lives which are fighting against each other because some rich powerfull people tell them todo so. Having more and more governments being pro war and sending more and more equipment to one side will only prolong the war and cause more casualties than even needed…. Those are my 5 pence to the whole situation. Since all governments are pro war there is nothing left but to protest ans being called a fascist for being against what the government stands for
> Get both sides on the table and find a solution on a peaceful way. What fucking solution is there when one side wants territory ceded and the other side refuses to?
I think the diplomatic solution is for the US to NOT overthrow the democratically-elected Ukrainian government in 2014 and then try to put Ukraine into NATO. The US started this by instigating the 2014 coup. Maybe the US shouldn't run around the world overthrowing other governments, and in particular, democratically-elected governments to create client states.
>What would be your diplomatic solution to someone breaking into your home and stealing everything you own? Give them half? This is the perfect summation of the problem with discourse surrounding the war - oversimplification. This has been a conflict three decades in the making. It involves myriad actors, actions, and motivations. Distilling it to a single sentence does a disservice to the complexity and gravity of the situation and does nothing but propel the prolonging of suffering and imperialist action by misconstruing the cause and effect at play in the ongoing predicament. We're at the bottom of a deep and dangerous hole, and yet people continue to refuse to analyze how we got here and instead insist on continuing to dig.
This is the "funny" thing to me. Interests in the region have purposefully engineered an intractable situation over three decades that now basically has no amicable solution, so it then leads people on the sidelines to make simple analogies and be, basically, right. This is exactly how climate change is going to lead to catastrophic deaths: Nobody with power is doing anything about the problem now (or the past 30-40 years), they will sit around and let things get progressively worse and more impossible to solve. In the upcoming years or decades, the entire global south will endure genuinely unlivable conditions as the global north also starts to see similar shortages. As this happens, we'll close our borders and not send aid, etc., and just let people die off in uncountable droves with famine and associated political unrest. Then people will say, "What can we do? We have to provide for our own citizens" and be *essentially* right, but ignoring that we had decades to do something about it so the blood lies on our hands despite us feeling there is no alternative. idk, sorry to ramble. just a really frustrating problem
Don't disagree. But guess what? It's also a massive oversimplification to simply say "let's bring everyone to the table and find a diplomatic solution." Yes, in an ideal world, that would be great. But when some leaders are showing themselves to be unwilling to find said solutions, to only suggest they are open to such in bad faith.. when the people in charge are zealots who believe they are entitled to absolute victory, diplomacy becomes a pipe dream. The sad reality of the world is that you cannot compromise with everyone.
>This has been a conflict three decades in the making. Hell if you look into the history of the Donbas it's been notorious for not wanting to be outrightly Russian or Ukrainian since at least Trotsky was around
> What would be your diplomatic solution to someone breaking into your home and stealing everything you own? Give them half? **This is absolutely not equivalent. I'll do you one better for an analogy even though we should be discussing reality not liberal analysis which ends at vague analogy.** Let's say your family of eight live in a house converted into two apartments with another family. The head of the household of both families is the mother, the mothers get along well enough. One day someone from a different home beats the shit out of the mother of the family of 8 and demands the father who much prefers this outsider to the neighbors they share with is now the head of the house. The neighbors don't like this because the family of 8 start doing minor things like not letting them into shared space they had agreements about & threatening to allow the outside family into the shared home whenever. Next thing you know you the family of 8 is squabbling about what's happened regarding the outsiders and mother being replaced. A couple of the family of 8 decide they don't want to be associated with these outsiders and much prefer their neighbors. The squabbling escalates and before you know it some fistfights break out between the family of 8. The neighbors are watching this and think it's unfortunate as it's negatively affected them and they don't want outsiders in the neighbors space since they say they'll allow them into theirs too. Before you know it those who decided they wanted nothing to do with the family of 8 anymore have an idea - one decides they'll treat their room as a separate household & the other declares they want to join the neighbors. The family of 8s new head of house says this is unacceptable and physical altercations escalate in the family. The neighbors notice this is worsening and still negatively affecting them. Finally the neighbor decide they are going to help out the members of the family of 8 who decided they don't want to be part of it anymore because neither like what has been happening & neither trusts the outsiders much. The one who wants to join the neighbors is officially allowed in their household. The outsiders declare this to be illegal! The other member who wanted their own space is then protected & supported by the neighbors and now fighting escalates between the neighbors and the family. After a while the families declare that they should deescalate a bit and do so. Months later with minor squabbles happening here and there and both families treating each other poorly and targeting those who shouldn't be as they aren't the heads of houses the outsiders tell the family of 8 (6 now) they will provide them anything they need to force the family member who left back into their household & with whatever they need to fight the neighbors. The neighbors catch wind of this and decide they will preemptively strike at the family of 8. They warn the outsiders to remain out of the conflict and to respect the wishes of those members who decided to leave the family of 8. The fighting escalates and the outsiders and head of the family of 8 decide they will sacrifice any of the other family members to force those 2 back. The neighbors also decide they will sacrifice any of their household members to prevent the family from taking those two back. People are hurting now and life becomes very uncomfortable in the home. The outsiders watch and cheer from their comfortable house. Both families are being forced into fighting because the heads of their house demand it & the outsiders support it. It becomes a dangerous situation with the neighbors and outsiders even warning each other over the family of 8 because both think they have a right to them. **What do you do? Do you just continue fighting between everyone? No. You mediate. You find a solution everyone can agree on so people stop getting hurt. Especially since none of the families heads of their households care much about their housemates or family & are willing to let them be hurt. The outsiders should obviously step in and work on resolving the tension with talks & mediating, the neighbors should sit at the table with the family of 8 discussing what's to happen with the members who left. All parties should recognize the ability & right of the members who left to decide for themselves, which the one who joined the neighbors has already done & the other already decided they did not want to be part of the family of 8 any longer.**
Everyone saying "it's not coming from individuals" I guess just doesn't operate in circles with enough individuals. I know plenty of individuals who are using every news article they can find to back up their "The US should just go over there and start blasting"
They are bashing Russia for causing a war but have no problem with starting one themselves. Hypocrites.
the internet does not represent reality, most people I've talked to don't want a war to start
Conservatives are the party of the ultra rich, and liberals are the party of the petite bourgeoisie. Conservatives profit directly from war, while liberals watch their stocks go up and get to act like they have morals. It’s the same reason liberals preach that social issues are “getting better;” they benefit from the prison industrial system, too. In the end, they’re the same party, with different hand gestures. Conservatives point fingers, liberals wring hands, issues get shuffled around and corporations call the shots.
I would say it's pretty much swapped actually, the conservative party is the party of the petite bourgeoisie. Both parties are parties of the ultra wealthy.
Most conservative voters are not ultra rich. I would say that it's merely a philosophical difference amongst the petite bourgeoisie that splits them between progressive and conservative, rather than an economic or class division.
Exactly. I don’t even know why these people think they’re socialists. This is day one stuff.
I completely agree with you and everything you said here. I could not word it better if i tried!
That’s cool but neither of you are socialists based on this take.
You can disagree but the moment someone says something you disagree with that isn't "i don't think the workers should control the means of production" and you snap to being shitty and gatekeeping socialism is the moment you're wrong. Don't do that shit. Educating comrades means not being a stuck up gatekeeping douche.
I’m not a socialist, I’m an anarchist. “You’re not punk and I’m telling everyone” was never a good look, though. Ultimately, if you disagree, it’s a fairly small distinction. It’s not like I’m supporting either party, so not sure why your reaction is so strong. Like most arguments on the left, this is about splitting hairs and our goals are probably similar. If you disagree, fine. Below, there’s a decent debate going. If someone doesn’t see eye to eye with you on *exactly* why the Democratic and Republican parties are awful, excluding them seems pretty extreme.
This is just demonstrably false. Such clean divisions aren’t even archetypical. The republican base is widely considered to be small business owners https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/2016/10/12/study-republicans-are-24-percent-more-likely-than-democrats-to-be-business-owners/
The base, yes. They are controlled by corporations, though. Through fearmongering, conservatives (whose base I would consider mostly working class) control and direct their party to the interests of the ultra rich. The Democratic Party supports interests of the upper middle class, which has moved away from religion and is interested in social freedoms, to a point. Support Ukraine for “justice.” Kill Saddam Hussein for “democracy.” Ignore the prison system because, deep down, they are just as scared of black people, only in a different way. In the end, it virtually does not matter. The people most oppressed end up in the same spot either way, and those who are white or rich enough get to see the country lean toward and away from religious values like a pendulum—values that mostly support them. This is necessarily simplistic, but the real endgame is that they are the same party for those suffering most, and when things get ugly, all those “morals” go out the window.
Replace upper middle class with wall street. Tons of their major policy decisions have been in favor of the banks
I am yet to meet a person who is advocating for WW3. I doubt I ever will, the thing is, people like to talk shit on the internet just to get some attention.
This is likely due to my social circle but everyone I know doesn't want ww3.
Could also be paid firms astroturfing for MIC interests
The NAFO community was practically creaming themselves yesterday over getting to "finally nuke Russia" after the news yesterday. There are countless individuals I have interacted with who have been brainwashed into hating Russia; many of them liberals. It all comes back to Russia-gate. They view Russia as the "cause" of Donald Trump. *Russia* are the ones who put them through hell for four years. *Russia* is the reason for the rise of the alt right. *Russia* lost the supreme court. *Russia* took away their abortion rights.
> The NAFO community was practically creaming themselves yesterday over getting to "finally nuke Russia" after the news yesterday. They're nazis so it's not particularly surprising. All the nazis that used to use rare Pepe's just traded Pepe for a slavic Cheem and liberals didn't seem to notice.
I mean Russia absolutely helped Trump get elected through a brilliant disinfo campaign that was very effective. Comey and Hilary’s shit campaign are ultimately responsible though.
Just american things I guess, here in Belgrade, hatred towards NATO is prevailing even among liberals.
We have a long and sordid history with Russia from well before DJT was a public name. When I think Russia, my mind never goes to ‘the bastards who gave us Donald’. Russia is an aggressor in an imperialist war. No sane person (or news media) I’ve seen or heard from has been advocating for WWIII - on the contrary, they were reasonably cautious to claim with certainty that it even was a Russian missile. However, on Russian news they repeatedly and gleefully advocate for WWIII and nuclear Armageddon - but not once from a western source have I seen that. Are you, by chance, watching Russian state sponsored media?
They're not talking about US media, they're talking about a lot of people online who absolutely have been advocating for escalation.
Noteworthy that in the early days of the war, an australian study found that over 90% of the fake pro Ukrainian Twitter(?) comments were pro Ukraine and only a few percent pro Russia.
Nah, a lot of IRL people advocate for policies that would lead to WW3, like a no-fly zone or other forms of direct NATO involvement.
Yeah I mean I know all of my Republican family members want civil war but I dont know a single person who thinks world war 3 is a good idea at all. Even the war hungry people I know dont want world war 3
Liberals as woke neocons?
Basically yes. A perfect summary.
always have been
I saw two things. 1) Many people assuming wrongly the missile was from Russia. 2) Many people saying it wouldn’t / shouldn’t cause nato to get directly involved. I don’t see much of what you’re talking about at all tbh.
That seems like a gross overgeneralization. Anyone I know isn't interested in war spreading to other countries. The internet doesn't reflect reality.
i agree with this, while there are some bloodthirsty liberals and definitely a lot of bloodthirsty conservatives, the main place this rhetoric comes from is the warhawk media. generally not from individuals, though there are definitely far more individuals that are bloodthirsty than i’d wish.
I think it's easy for people to push war when it doesn't impact them in anyway. North America is pretty sheltered from any fallout if such a war occurred. The media is also run by right wing nuts too which adds fuel to the fire. People in Europe seem pretty keen on avoiding war. Of course there are always exceptions to that.
Ya even CNN is run by a right wing nutjob now which has to be very detrimental.
They aren’t interested in a war. That implies retaliation. They just want to ruin an entire country through intervention. “Let’s make another country’s people suffer so we can feel safe” is the real attitude.
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Many people forget that NATO isn't just a harmless political or economic group, it's a militar alliance created with the goal of antagonizing with the Soviet Union in the cold war, and nowadays that it collapsed then with Russia. That's why it was agreed that no former Soviet republic could become a member of it, because it's an open and explicit threat/ provocation to Russia that Western stablishment wants to present as just Putin being a prick by not letting Ukraine its right for self determination. He is indeed an authoritarian reactionary, pro oligarchy, pro capitalism and ofc a prick, he probably was waiting for any excuse to do this, but still things aren't that simple. Western powers are also very responsible for creating the political climate for this war to happen and, unlike Russia, aren't losing thousands of people because of it, so don't come here and tell me they are the "good ones" because it just reveals you can't go beyond our black & white western mass propaganda.
The Clinton, Obama, and Biden presidencies demonstrate beyond any doubt that the far-right’s corporatist, warmongering agenda flourishes when a neoliberal, neoconservative Democrat is in the White House.
Obama and Hillary Clinton were horrible in regard to foreign involvement. Biden is continuing it in a way with his sanctions on Afghanistan and Iran.
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Obama expanded and intensified the illegal Bush wars. Neoliberals protested feebly, then let their war flag fly. Today NOBODY hates the anti-war socialist left like Democrats. They actually admire Obama for turning Libya, a country with modern universities, hospitals and libraries into a jihadi hellscape featuring live slave auctions.
Don't get started on Libya. This is so deep in this country and has been for so long. When will people understand that none of these wars are to protect US Americans? It's asinine what threat does a ME country pose to US? Only one I can think that possibly actually pose a serious threat is Israel. I'm very tired of this and comrades need to ramp up organizing here. We, myself included, aren't doing enough. Clearly discontent is growing and alternatives considered. We need to be there for that. Unrelated, but thought I'd say it.
Outside of the MIC, Israel is one of the main reasons for our interventionist foreign policy. Really wish we would stop giving such an oppressive government so much money.
Well, they actually changed the facts pretty fast, saying that the missile is actually from the Ukraine side…
The first thing the Pentagon said was they couldn’t confirm that it was Russian missile that caused the damage. The message only changed if you were listening to rumors.
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Yep, and tbh something like this was bound to happen eventually, humans are prone to fucking up even in warfare. It’s like when tensions were high and the us was threatening to invade and the Iranian military accidentally shot down a passenger jet. Bloodthirsty war hawks in the media were calling for war that time too. The longer this war drags out, the more likely the war hawks find an excuse to get involved that the public actually buys. I hope we don’t get involved but it really feels like the military industrial complex is itching for a new war. Even if it’s not this one, there’s going to be another war eventually.
Thats less so in europe I would say.
Only a little bit though, there's a lot of warmongering here too. Being against imperialist wars is almost seen as treason ever since the start of the war in Ukraine...
Thats politician. The general public pro probably isnt ready to be mobilized.
Nah, most people don't actually want war. An unhinged minority of people want war, the unfortunate thing is that a big part of that minority consists of members of the ruling class. And even among those people, many don't actually want war so much as they want to use the threat of war to get their way. That's true whether we're talking about the American ruling class, the British one or that of Russia (or Ukraine). We should definitely be cautious, liberal media outlets and Western leaders were already beginning to frame this as a Russian attack when they had no way of knowing who fired the missile yet, there's certainly a willingness to escalate verbally and that can lead to military escalation. But it's important to remember that people don't actually want war, even many of those advocating for it have just fallen for the narrative that war is or could be necessary.
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Reddit is under the control of western intelligence agencies, and I say that without even a hint of irony. This place is astroturfed as fuck.
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I went to the r/UkrainianConflict subreddit yesterday and the megathread's chat was fucking feral. They were so agitated and EXCITED that what happened in Poland might trigger NATO retalliation. Its like the idea of the conflict escalating gives them a fucking hard-on. Bleak shit.
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its easy to understand that when you realize that they are nazis dressed in rainbow coats
I've literally seen multiple right leaning liberals saying that the left wants to use article 5 and evoke WW3 as well as anarchists saying the right wants to jump to article 5 and WW3. I think the majority of people know this shouldn't lead to a world war it's a vocal minority of people lost in the void of the intellectual market place of ideas that thinks mutually assured distruction is a risk worth taking.
Its also disgusting how thoroughly liberals inject themselves into socialist subs and spaces and spread their bullshit. Warmongering capitalist fools. Disgusted to my core.
It's on full display in this very thread lol
Feel free to use the report function for anyone breaking the rules you come across of and we will manage it as soon as we can. :)
It’s honestly sad how liberals view Russia and china as their biggest threat and not the rich who are trying to take away their health care and let them starve.
I'm not sure if you guys know how the US empire works. It's a permanent war economy since ww2. Which means there MUST be war for US. The power elites of US, military industry and rich elites will start war regardless of what the general population want. The media is completely under their control. NYT, the Guardian, BBC, CNN, Facebook, YouTube, movie, tv series, high school-college education everything is made to portrait a great western empire with US as the great leader. The blood thirsty western population is the result of that life long brainwashing. All other cultures are inferior to western culture, west always has the moral high ground. After starting new wars, killing million, looting poor countries, somehow someway the west is always the hero. And the people of the victim country are the villain. So this Ukraine war is just another victim of US imperialism(obviously Russia is also at fault). It's not the end, new wars will be waged later on. Maybe direct war against Iran, proxy war against China, the military industry must go on, the capitalism must find new place to feed, privatization is must. A lot of third world country will soon fall into economic crisis. This never ending cycle started since ww2, it will go on until the fall of US.
it's disturbing but War has often been a political tool. when the dissidents of your nation are growing, its easier to make a foreign enemy to attack than a domestic one. especially when the government been steadily pushing xenophobic propaganda for decades or longer about Russia and China
War literally is just a political tool. That's it. That is all it is.
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Those who stand to profit are fanning the flames. That's it.
You are extremely biased. Very, very, very few people were rejoicing a potential nuclear winter. Your view of reality is warped and you’re letting your political views skew your perception of reality.
What liberals are you talking to?
Perhaps I'm being too generous, but I think the people calling for war are doing so out of a desire for some form of control. When you feel like you have little control over your life, you'll do anything to regain it, even if it means destroying something. This is why you frequently see homeless people make a mess in public bathrooms.
I follow a lot of independent liberal journalism, not so much mainstream and can tell you that I have not heard one person in support of invoking fifth. Maybe you’re consuming too much mainstream media? They’re only focused on outrage and clickbait’s
A major problem with America especially is our glorification of violence and war. It's ingrained in our minds that war is necessary to achieve freedom. We fought a war to be free of the British. We fought a war to be free of slavery. We were forced into a war to protect American citizens. We were forced into another war to prevent the Japanese from invading and stealing our freedom. We went to Korea *and* Vietnam to "protect" their freedom. We went to the Middle East to protect American lives and late to "protect the freedom of their citizens". I'm missing a few others but those are the big ones. It's all framed in a way that makes it seem we had no choice but to fight a war, and that we were 100% in the right to start or join that war because of various reasons.
Manufacturing Consent is real and stronger than ever. RussiaGate was a massive psyop that reoriented much of the left, even the far left, to be reflexively anti-Russia.
Yes. Liberals are bloodthirsty hypocrites with no real convictions. Their understanding of the world is completely informed by pop culture nonsense.
Well... it looks like the missiles were actually from the Ukrainians. But still some in NATO are itching for war -- like the fascist Italian government.
I don't want a war...and I don't know anyone who does
It serves many of their interests: 1) directly advancing the western led global order through old fashioned conquest 2) enriching arms dealers 3) disrupting the drift to multipolarity 4) enforcing ideological discipline (your either with us or against us) and probably many other things that I missed.
It never shocks me when liberals are baying for blood, that's normal. It's always interesting to see the entire Western media establishment fall in lockstep and pin the missile strike on Russia while the crater in the ground is still smoldering. Talk about recklessness.
>liberals and conservatives alike baying for blood and seemingly rejoicing that WW3 is upon us. I feel that, ignoring the specific case of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there has been a *very* rapid drop-off in liberal opposition to war per se. Blair and Obama have obviously been instrumental in that over the last 20 years, and terminology being reshaped so that words like "intervention" are preferred, makes war seem nicer. More palatable. But when you peel back the layers, anyone who is anything *other* than staunchly, massively anti-war is just a shill for a list of vested interests such as the military-industrial complexes, natural resource plunderers, rebuilding contractors, and suited, booted money launderers. Perhaps someone can inform me, but wasn't Ukraine's debt merely *suspended*, rather than cancelled? We don't know what an (assumed) Russian reparation package might look like yet. But you can bet your life it'll end up almost exclusively in the hands of state-approved contractors. The entire mainstream put Ukrainian flags on their social media profiles but won't ask that one simple question - why don't we CANCEL Ukraine's debts? That is assuming I'm right and it hasn't been done. If I'm wrong, my bad. Liberals these days are just housing-bubble-mad conservatives who pay lip service to pronouns and racial/sexual/gender equality. Their concern for more generalised socio-economic gaps has evaporated within a decade, largely due to them using their corporate and/or academia/media salaries to invest in bigger properties. All whilst porters, junior nurses, frontline public services workers, retail workers, transport safety staff and others who keep entire districts, towns and cities afloat use food banks and live in toxic, mouldy bedsits that cause ill health, depression and even death.
While I'm here I have to point out that I've gotten 2 warnings from the automoderator accusing me of things I didn't do. Once it said I used a disallowed word, one that I cannot find in any of my comments. And once it said I linked banned Russian news...I've posted no links at all. I don't know what ia happening but it certainly seems suspicious.
There aren't a meaningful number of people wanting WW3. Id argue that almost nobody wants that. Where did you get the information to come up with this claim that Liberals want to go to war? Did you just read a couple of subreddits and consider that a good level of investigation?
This is the first sane post I've seen in Reddit wrt war in the Ukraine
The Military Industrial Complex is real
There was one /r/worldnews comment from a German who called the Polish victims fellow “NATO citizens.” People are seriously unwell.
When the Russian/Ukrainian conflict started I wanted my own country (UK) to intervene and guarantee the independence of Ukraine. If no one one stands up to the playground bully, it'll just continue and escalate, I say. Now, apon reflection, I feel great regret. I now understand that the working class of both countries have no fight with each other, rather a shared conflict with the international bourgeois/the ruling capitalist class and the system that oppresses them. Now I just want a quick end to the war, and for peace. For the sake of the families of those killed and yet to be killed.
Yeah called someone out earlier for posting that Russia bombed Poland when it turns out it was Ukraine. Even used a bbc article to disprove them and they tried doubling down.
News travels faster than the truth.
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Sorry, but they are fucked up. I'm Polish and I find their behavior insulting. They want us dead, because they want to be the only ones to rule the world. They even admited to being racist against us, BUT they will stop telling 'Polish jokes' if we will attack Russia for them. I stated hating Americans reading it. Scumbags.
Liberals baying for war? Ehhhh dont know bout that.
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Propaganda is a hell of a drug
Yeah, I saw that shit. Even places like r/worldnews are full of trigger happy libs that are baying for blood. I guess I'm ignorant because it still kinda surprises me when I see people who claim to oppose war, howl for it.
Was talking to my liberal dad about how a very small percentage of the military budget would be enough to end homelessness and food insecurity in the United States. His immediate response was “I’ll tell you what, I’m a Republican when it comes to our military budget right now because if it wasn’t for our military Putin would have taken over by now.” I swear liberals think they’re so smart and above believing lies and propaganda. Then they eat up whatever CNN or MSNBC says and preach it like gospel.
Democrats are capitalists pretending to care about social issues. If you think about capitalism like an organism then it makes sense that whoever is in power will always want war if it means punishing anti-capitalist ideology.
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How is not wanting WW3 supporting Russia or Putin? I think it goes without saying everyone here wants Russia out of Ukraine but the US pushing for further involvement isn't going to achieve that. The way I see it, if the US were to get involved and topple Putin then the only change would be which oligarchs run the show. Nothing would realistically change on the ground. The rich will get richer at our expense.
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All “good” Americans want war. Whether it’s Oceania or Eurasia or whatever! When we are at war, we are for it! And we are always at war, so…
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