• hark@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 hour ago

    The US is the biggest source of imperialism in the world. We don’t have to always follow that up with “butwhatabout” to distract from that, which is what the US media machine does by running stories all the time to manufacture consent for its own imperialism.

    • bytheclouds@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      45 minutes ago

      People that are being literally killed, tortured, displaced, bombed, denied their identity, starved, raped, genocided right now by China/Russia/North Korea, looking for any support, any help from anyone willing to give it

      A Leftist American: US is the biggest source of imperialism in the world and you’re not being oppressed by the US, so you’re not real. Have a good day. takes a privileged slurp from the huge cup of Starbucks and closes his Macbook

      • hark@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        27 minutes ago

        Nice caricature, but it has nothing to do with my post. Pointing out that the US is the biggest source of imperialism doesn’t mean no one else is doing bad things, but thanks for proving my point. Fuck Starbucks and Apple, by the way.

        • bytheclouds@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          21 minutes ago

          The whole point of the OP is that being against US imperialism doesn’t mean you have to be very purposefully silent about yhe atrocities committed by the US geopolitical rivals because they are US enemies therefore good.

          It’s a very prevalent thing about US lefties, if you’re not aware, I’m telling it to you, as a Ukrainian lefty myself. I agree, fuck Apple and Starbucks (never had one and heard from friends it’s shit). Also fuck Russia for killing a bunch of my friends and fuck those US “leftists” like Chomsky, who suck Russian dicks.

  • humble peat digger@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    6 hours ago

    I think people should separate

    A) ideal world they want
    B) what has to be done now to survive because everyone is an asshole

  • doingthestuff@lemy.lol
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    edit-2
    3 hours ago

    Take away imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression, and what are we left with? Man I wish you were advocating anarchism, but I’ve almost given uphope of seeing people understand its wisdom.

  • slumlordthanatos@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    110
    arrow-down
    14
    ·
    21 hours ago

    Remember folks: China is communist in the same way that North Korea is democratic and the Nazis were socialist.

    It’s just a smokescreen.

    • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      23
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      12 hours ago

      Eh, there’s a notional aspiration to socialism at least, which is more than can be said about the US sphere of countries.

      In practice though? Yeah, China is hyper-captialist, without much of the social security present in wealthier countries.

      Why Leftist get a hard-on for the former USSR, Russia and China, or frankly any country, is beyond me.

      There are positive and negative outcomes in line or against socialist ideals everywhere (I think people are too black and white about China in both directions personally)

      I just do not understand simping for any country, just because they are “socialist”.

      • AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        2 hours ago

        The USSR at least outwardly promoted socialist values like solidarity and being kind to your fellow people. They fucked up pretty bad in practice, but at least they made an attempt.

      • Wxnzxn@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        10 hours ago

        That notional aspiration to socialism is basically the ideological smokescreen. It was much more effective in the Cold War era, but it condenses down to: “Suffer through our version of (state) capitalism and exploitative labour for our capital accumulation” - be it by state institutions or even state-sponsored billionaires - “and at the end of it, we promise, there will be communism.”

        But that “communism” then tends to be like nuclear fusion - always 20 years away.

        • bluewing@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          9 hours ago

          My money is on fusion before proper socialism.

          There is always someone willing to twist the rules and game the system to get more money and power than everyone else. The 1% have always existed and so have the worker class. It will always shake out to that.

          • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            3 hours ago

            My money is on fusion before proper socialism.

            Utopia is literally “no place” for a reason, and anything less than a utopia will be deemed “not proper socialism” (like literally every place that has ever tried some flavor of communism/socialism) so my money is on fusion as fusion is more likely than utopia.

          • Wxnzxn@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            3 hours ago

            Even just as a technicality, the 1% have not always existed, most tribal societies did not have class divisions like that. Both anthropological studies of existing tribal societies show examples of that, and the archaeological record, too, lays out it was common.

            And I understand feeling like that, but it is a pretty weak argument, tbh. It is even hard to engage with, because it’s basically starting at a completely different outset of concepts and understanding. Firstly, it reduces socialism to only systems of perfect equality of power - when even Marx acknowledged that this is not only impossible but also undesirable.

            Then it just packs all kinds of class arrangements into “The 1%” and “the worker class”. Was European feudalism like that? Ancient palace economies? Tribal gift economies? Pre-historic tribal arrangements? The Incan/Andean planned economy? Each with their own complexities, class relations and all showing that the basic idea - humanity evolving along it’s material capabilities and necessities - hold true.

            Lastly, related to the idea that proper socialism would mean perfect equality of power - sure, corruption in some way has probably always existed. People will also always murder each other in some way. Using that as an argument to say it is impossible to establish a system that minimises murders is how your reasoning sounds to me.

            And the system is always what limits or enables the way this corruption and gaming the system plays out. How much property and/or power can be concentrated? Capitalism concentrates vastly more wealth and capital than the systems before it, both for good (e.g. the development of productive forces has enabled many things) and ill. Just because perfection may not be possible, does not mean a system without exchange of value and capital accumulation is impossible (has existed before for sure, yes, even for more complex economies than a small tribe), and it does not mean it has to exist in a way that is more barbarous than the current state of affairs.

      • sparky@lemmy.federate.cc@lemmy.federate.cc
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        11 hours ago

        IMO this is why it takes an additional axis to define a government, not just left/right but also free/authoritarian. You can find examples of all combinations. Left wing and repressive? Cuba. Left leaning and free? Sweden. Right wing and repressive? Russia, Saudi Arabia, whatever. Right leaning and free (mostly)? USA.

        Obviously, there’s a gradient within these axes, but it’s strange to see people cheering on a country that matches their preferred left or right wing ideology if they’re super repressive.

        • GrammarPolice@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          11 hours ago

          This is why we need to reeducate people and stop using the traditional left-right spectrum and start using the axis spectrum

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            5
            ·
            7 hours ago

            Even the axis spectrum is unproductive, ideologies and frameworks cannot be distilled into single data points on a map, no matter how many axes you add.

            • GrammarPolice@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              6 hours ago

              The axis spectrum has proven to be very efficient imo. A lot of the politics we talk about are mainly composed of social and economic elements which the axis spectrum portrays well.

                • GrammarPolice@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  6 hours ago

                  These views aren’t complicated though, or aren’t as complicated as you think. Most of our political opinions can be boiled down to any of the 4 quadrants of the axis.

                  Can you name any view that doesn’t fit into this axis?

        • RidderSport@feddit.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          9 hours ago

          I think Saudi Arabia is the perfect example of why even that model isn’t even enough. I mean sure they are a monarchy and quite self-focused but not really in a nationalistic way. To be fair I don’t know much about their domestic politics. To put them into the same corner as Russia, eh dunno.

          • Authoritarianism doesn’t necessarily require nationalism or vice versa, though they’re often linked, that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. The USA is pretty flag waving, nationalist brained but individual freedom exists. Versus a country like Saudi as you mention is not particularly nationalist, but repression is widespread.

            They are quite different than Russia, but looking only at individual freedom, the two are similar in that freedom of speech is not respected and leaders are not fairly elected.

          • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            8 hours ago

            I couldn’t ask for clearer evidence than not accepting Saudi Arabia as authoritarian to demonstrate that “free vs authoritarian” are just propaganda terms and that how “free” a country allegedly is is really just a function of how aligned it is with the US.

            In what universe is Saudi Arabia more free than Cuba?

            • sparky@lemmy.federate.cc@lemmy.federate.cc
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              5 hours ago

              I think some aspects of freedom are to some extent objectively observable, eg, is freedom of speech or religion observed? These can exist independently of US alignment - there are many countries in the global south that can qualify as free or partially free.

              • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                1 hour ago

                Mhm. I wonder, which objective metrics led you to list the US as more free than Cuba?

                Cuba’s family code is one of the most progressive pieces of legislation in the world concerning LGBT rights and gender equality, meanwhile, there are parts of the US where you can get arrested for using the bathroom, or for merely failing to rat out trans kids to the cops. The US performs mass surveillance on all citizens and has the most sophisticated spy network in the world, it has used extrajudicial, indefinite detention without trial (in addition to having the highest incarceration rate in the world), along with torture (ironically, on illegally occupied Cuban soil). The US has kangaroo courts where children as young as six have to represent themselves in court with no right to an attorney, against threat of deportation. The police are equipped with military-grade equipment designed to fight insurgents, with the police budgets of individual cities exceeding that of the militaries of many countries: Cuba’s military spending is several times less than the police budget of Phoenix, AZ.

                Does any of that factor into your analysis?

                • sparky@lemmy.federate.cc@lemmy.federate.cc
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  2 hours ago

                  Cuba’s one-party communist state outlaws political pluralism, bans independent media, suppresses dissent, and severely restricts basic civil liberties.

                  Cuba lacks basic freedom of speech or freedom of the press, to say the absolute least. Typical tankie whatabout-ism. In fact, you’re proving the point of the person I originally replied to in this thread!

                  https://freedomhouse.org/country/cuba

    • JWayn596@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      49
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      21 hours ago

      A core tenant of socialism is a democratized workplace, being able to vote for your wage and company policy, like an Engineer choosing when to launch the rocket instead of some MBS degree.

      Last time I checked I dont think factory workers in China that make all our shit can do that.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        7 hours ago

        Workplace democracy isn’t necessarily a core concept of Socialism, at least not in the Marxian sense. Removing the issues that come with the profit motive alleviates issues you describe. Instead, Marxists advocate for public ownership and central planning with extensive democratic controls, without necessitating competing democratic worker coops. Engels argued against such a concept in Anti-Dühring, actually, believing such a system to revert to Capitalism through competition and accumulation.

      • Eldritch@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        19 hours ago

        Yes. That was the point of what they posted. None of those groups are what they claim to be beyond nominally.

      • Antiproton@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        11 hours ago

        Which is also why socialism will never work. Humans are piss poor at evaluating the common good and making decisions collectively (see also: the last US election.)

        • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          26 minutes ago

          And ceos are somehow significantly worse and consistently (and in many industries), almost exclusively make decisions directly opposing the common good including intentionally leading the world forward into societal and ecological collapse and quadrupling down on that stance… Because it makes them more quarterly profit. I guess we just have to let AI do it.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      11
      ·
      edit-2
      6 hours ago

      China has a Socialist Market Economy, it hasn’t reached Communism of course but at the same time the Public Sector covers over half of the economy, and is gradually folding the Private Sector into it with the degree to which it develops. This is the process Marx and Engels described a Socialist State would take. From Principles of Communism:

      Question 17 : Will it be possible to abolish private property at one stroke?

      Answer : No, no more than the existing productive forces can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. Hence, the proletarian revolution, which in all probability is approaching, will be able gradually to transform existing society and abolish private property only when the necessary means of production have been created in sufficient quantity.

      The backbone of the PRC is central planning and public ownership, Marx is regularly taught in class, and Marxism-Leninism continues to be the dominant and guiding ideology. They are ideologically Communist, and it is rather silly to protest otherwise simply because they haven’t immediately siezed all property, which would be anti-Marxist as the PRC is still underdeveloped.

      The purpose of Marxian analysis of Capitalism is the insight that markets naturally centralize and develop complicated methods of planning. You can’t just will these into existence, and markets provide a quick way of creating them. Once they have sufficiently developed, markets cease to be the best tool to use, and public ownership and central planning becomes more efficient. Given that the PRC is Marxist, it stands to reason it is useful to analyze them with a Marxist lense. I have yet to see a genuine Marxist take on why the PRC is not Socialist, only liberals paying lip service to Marx yet vulgurizing him into a Utopian Idealist, and not a Materialist.

      • Vespair@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        15 minutes ago

        Look, I’ll admit I’m not as smart as some of the folks who debate this topic, so for me it comes down to a simple question:

        Do the Chinese people own the means of production? Not a government body claiming to represent the people, but the people themselves; do the people own the means of production? Can the factory workers choose how the factory operates?

        If no, then what’s the point?

      • cm0002@lemmy.worldOP
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        6 hours ago

        You can call their economy whatever you want, doesn’t stop them from being a dictatorship.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          10
          ·
          edit-2
          6 hours ago

          That’s moving the goalposts though, isn’t it? I was responding to the claim that the PRC isn’t at all Communist, which is false regardless of your opinion of it being “good” or “bad” whether overall or in comparison to the US.

          Further, I am not sure why you describe it to be a dictatorship, even Mao was forced to step down after the tremendous struggles during the Cultural Revolution. Xi is an elected official, and there are 8 political parties besides the CPC that actively contribute to the decision making progress of the PRC, the CPC is merely the largest at 96 million members out of 1.4 billion people.

          In order to accurately judge the merit or lack thereof of the PRC, you have to actually take a real look at what it looks like, question why Beijing has an over 95% approval rate, and see what the living conditions look like for the people that actually live there. If you perpetuate sloganeering because it is convenient, then actual, systemic problems you could be criticizing go under the radar.

          • cm0002@lemmy.worldOP
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            6
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            4 hours ago

            Xi is an elected official, and there are 8 political parties besides the CPC that actively contribute to the decision making progress of the PRC,

            Right right right, just like Russia and North Korea has “elections” lmao

            Beijing has an over 95% approval rate

            Lol, and I’m sure that has nothing to do with the fact that speaking against Xi and the CCP makes you disappear or that China has been known to lie about official statistics all the time

            You didn’t just drink the Kool-aid, you’re drunk on it

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              7
              arrow-down
              6
              ·
              edit-2
              3 hours ago

              That’s really funny, given that you listed 0 sources against what I said. Just general suspicions and vague gesturing. Why is it that you believe I must have drunk kool-aid yet believe yourself to be immune to it?

              Is Harvard now Chinese propaganda? "While the CCP is seemingly under no imminent threat of popular upheaval, it cannot take the support of its people for granted. Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread, our survey reveals that citizen perceptions of governmental performance respond most to real, measurable changes in individuals’ material well-being."

              What about the fact that the US passed 1.6 billion dollars to propagandize against China? These are public record, you are not immune and neither am I. We exist in largely the same systems and probably similar circumstances, and those circumstances include direct US State Department propaganda against the PRC.

              You have no counter-narrative, when faced with real, present facts you toss them aside and come up with your own justifications, rather than re-evaluating your prior perceptions. That’s no way to get to the truth of the matter, it’s dogmatism and reflects an unwillingness to tackle real problems.

  • pimento64@sopuli.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    114
    arrow-down
    12
    ·
    1 day ago

    “NOOOOOOO you have to pick one of the two teams or you’re a RADICAL CENTRIST!!!”

    • Astronauticaldb@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      24 hours ago

      Not really the point, but that’s a funny little oxymoron; to be a radical anything you’d need to be actually committed to something so much that you want to do actual ground work to further a cause.

      • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        23 hours ago

        It is a real thing but the term radical is used a bit different

        The radical in the term refers to a willingness on the part of most radical centrists to call for fundamental reform of institutions.[1] The centrism refers to a belief that genuine solutions require realism and pragmatism, not just idealism and emotion

        So not radical as in extremist action but radical change

    • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      25
      arrow-down
      40
      ·
      1 day ago

      Now hang on. If you pretend the two teams are the same and refuse to pick a side because neither is perfect so it doesn’t matter, you are an enabler of fascism.

      You can support a team while acknowledging their flaws. Refusing to play because the better team isn’t perfect is either naive or malicious.

        • Soup@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          21
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 day ago

          You still have to commit to an actual decision when the times come. Adjusting each cycle is what everyone should be doing, knowing that each person will likely stay where they’re at because why wouldn’t they?

        • snooggums@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          13
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 day ago

          That’s what I do.

          Not surprisingly, the Republicans are always the worst and the only local opposition that has a slim chance of winning are Dems so I end up voting a straight Dem ticket despite refusing to register for the party. If there was an independent with a chance of winning I would consider them, but haven’t seen any on the local positions.

        • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          11
          ·
          1 day ago

          If you like being ineffective at driving change, then yes this is an option. Otherwise, you’ll have to work through one of the gate keepers.

      • lugal@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        19
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        1 day ago

        Once you talk about “both teams”, you imply there are only two instead of supporting those who to this day resist all states

        • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          1 day ago

          If you’re talking about a presidential election, there are two teams. The rest of the time, you should work on your own team, but when the big race is happening, there are only two viable contenders.

        • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          11
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 day ago

          No, I’m saying there are “radical centrists” who pretend they are above the fray and claim both sides are equally flawed, while invariably showing up to vote for conservatives.

  • ComradeMiao@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    58
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    1 day ago

    This is just like how I can praise so many things about China, push back against anti-China US propaganda, and still not pretend it isn’t an authoritarian regime where Xi made himself essentially life time president now.

    Speaking of that, are there any left leaning subs that aren’t delusional?

  • TCB13@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    15
    ·
    9 hours ago

    “oppressive govts that use socialism to hide their atrocities” => welcome to European politics.

    • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      5 hours ago

      All of those ‘Socialist’ governments in the EU, with the highest quality of life, highest quality of happiness, and some of the least wealth disparity in the world, are committing atrocities against their own people?

      Some of these governments probably commit atrocities in countries other than their own, but that would be because of Capitalistic and Imperialistic policies, not Socialistic ones.

      • TCB13@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        2 hours ago

        What you’re missing there is that the Europe you describe is only a small sub-set of countries. The rest are committing atrocities against their own people in the form of continuously increasing the number of people living close to poverty and by enacting policies that ended up making majority of the youngest generations unable to buy/rent homes and/or eventually have children.

  • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    29
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    edit-2
    21 hours ago

    Really though, the level of imperialism apologizing I’ve seen has been pretty humorous on this platform. Like people will say with a straight face that we need to support our client state Israel to secure our regional interests. It’s the same song and dance from the concert of Europe giving guns to the corrupt African client kings so they can murder the other guy’s corrupt African client kings. All for the noble civilizing influence of the state. But this time it’ll turn out different. Just like it was different every other fucking time an empire ideologically justified it’s imperialism. Because this one time is exceptional, unlike all the other instances of exceptionalism. Furthermore, I consider Carthage to need to be destroyed

    • Krauerking@lemy.lol
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      5 hours ago

      Well it does work until it doesn’t and the high imperialists get out of it can be quite high. A chunk of the oligarchic boomers feel like they have have everything they ever could have wanted even if their younger counterparts are starting to get greedy for more like addicts they are. And now we have fights between the rulers that want it to stay exactly as is and those that want more battling it out while we get nothing for those of us below that want better.

      Lessons are learned and forgotten constantly in this world. The next empire along will also justify its existing as a good until it no longer can.

      Let’s see what happens when Carthage falls and weapons are handed out asking the meek to pick sides to groups promising to own them better. I doubt that it will be a lesson we learn and pushed off to be learned again later.

      • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        3 hours ago

        It works until they start believing their own propaganda, which America did long ago. Using flimsy justifications to steal things from people will enrich you. Driving your empire because you must continuously validate those justifications will destroy you.

    • RustyEarthfire@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      18 hours ago

      Really though, the level of imperialism apologizing I’ve seen has been pretty humorous on this platform. Like people will say with a straight face that we need to support our client state Israel to secure our regional interests.

      Is this being federated from some platform other than Lemmy? Because I have literally never seen someone support that position here.

      • Krauerking@lemy.lol
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        5 hours ago

        Likely you are understating how often that occurs as much as the person is overstating how much that occurs. You don’t interact with those people and they, trying to argue against, constantly interact with them.

        I’ve seen people absolutely take the side of “Israel must be protected, there is no other answer” and plenty of it on Lemmy and it comes from its users.

        Don’t diminish other people’s experience when they share it, people are often honest about their perspective even if it might be wrong. Ignoring it does no help for either of you.

  • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    24
    ·
    10 hours ago

    Wait, are you saying “both sides bad?” “Both sides are the same?” Am I hearing this right?

    Look, if either Xi Jinping or Donald Trump is going to emerge as leader of a global hegemon, then any and all criticism of Xi Jinping is the exact same as being a Trump supporter. When are we going to do something about all these secret Trump supporters pretending to be leftists?

    At least, that’s what I’d say if I accepted the absurd logic of lesser evilism the liberals were constantly berating everyone with.

    • Fridam@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      20
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 hours ago

      No, they are saying one side being bad doesn’t make “the other side” perfect or immune to criticism

      The US participating in the Palestinian genicide does not excuse Russia invading Ukraine. The US invading Iraq does not excuse nationalists in India attacking Muslims

      It is not the same thing, and western imperialism doesnt make non-western imperialism ok. Even if it is a lot worse

      • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        15
        ·
        edit-2
        8 hours ago

        Right, and what I’m saying is that by that very same logic, Trump supporting the Palestinian genocide doesn’t justify the democrats supporting the Palestinian genocide - they should not be considered immune to criticism either, and when people criticize them, they should not be assumed to be supporting the other side.

        • Fridam@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          10
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          8 hours ago

          Right, so I was replying to you trying to make the meme into a " both sides bad" or “both sides are the same”-argument, pointing out how it is not

          I find your answer to my reply irrelevant to the point I was making

          • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            14
            ·
            edit-2
            8 hours ago

            It’s not saying that both sides are bad? You sure about that one, chief?

            What’s it saying about US imperialism? Good or bad?

            What’s it saying about countries the US opposes? Good or bad?

    • deaf_fish@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      9 hours ago

      Both sides can be bad in different ways. Just because both sides are considered bad, doesn’t mean they are the same.

  • ZeroOne@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    18
    ·
    edit-2
    10 hours ago

    Except US is biggest imperialist & no one intelligent is supporting Russia just cause “America Bad” Typical RadLib Let’s hear your complains about Socialism (He’s gonna call me a Tankie & ban me huh😂)