Image Transcription:
An 8-panel Phoebe Teaching Joey meme.
The first panel is Phoebe from Friends saying “Russia”.
The second panel is Joey from the same show replying with “Russia”.
The third panel is Phoebe saying “has invaded”.
The fourth panel is Joey repeating back “has invaded”.
The fifth panel is Phoebe saying “Ukraine”.
The sixth panel is Joey repeating back “Ukraine”.
The seventh panel is Phoebe saying the completed phrase “Russia has invaded Ukraine”.
The final panel shows Joey proudly proclaiming “NATO just started a proxy war”.
Victim blaming at it’s finest! Ukraine gets invaded, it must be their fault!
Maybe Ukraine shouldn’t have been dressed so provocatively.
Westerners don’t get it. They didn’t see citizens in Crimea and Donbas walking around in their “fuck me, Putin” shorts and their “imperialism now” borscht stained t-shirts.
Thank you for the laugh, see you in hell. :)
They’re nazis because the NATO helped them not be colonized and drained of resources by Russia. Not wanting to have your hospitals and schools bombed, makes you a nazi obviously.
I think the Russian conception of Nazi is literally someone who threatens Russia. The rest of the world focuses on the totalitarian ideologies and anti semitism, Russia largely focuses on just that they were against Russia.
I think the Russian conception of Nazi is literally someone who threatens Russia.
Yep. Just like the US definition of socialist/communist/terrorist
Hmmm. I’m amazed that Lemmygrad and Hexbear users haven’t descended en masse to “dunk” on this.
Yeah, the US has done awful shit. I get it. It’s not the greatest country. We’ve invaded other countries and killed innocent people - Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam (which was really just an extension of the French-Indochina war), and many others. We’re still fighting–and possibly losing–battles against racism, religious extremism, and homophobia in our own borders. We have blood on our hands for sure. But our guilt in other matters does not make Russia innocent in this matter. Nor, for that matter, does the existence of neo-Nazis in Ukraine–including the Ukrainian parliament–mean that the country deserved to be invaded, and innocent civilians killed.
I thought Lemmy World preemptively defederated Hexbear…
Another BRICs war.
Another CSTO war.
NATO is not the aggressor. Ukraine is not the aggressor.
And Russia isn’t a victim.
Fuck Russia. Fuck the stooges that defend Russia.
Image Transcription:
An 8-panel Phoebe Teaching Joey meme.
The first panel is Phoebe from Friends saying “Russia”.
The second panel is Joey from the same show replying with “Russia”.
The third panel is Phoebe saying “has invaded”.
The fourth panel is Joey repeating back “has invaded”.
The fifth panel is Phoebe saying “Ukraine”.
The sixth panel is Joey repeating back “Ukraine”.
The seventh panel is Phoebe saying the completed phrase “Russia has invaded Ukraine”.
The final panel shows Joey proudly proclaiming “NATO just started a proxy war”.
[I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. 💜]
Oh, my bad! I read, “I am a human” and my brain inserted the word “not.”
You are a human. Good work. And thank you for the reminder. I will try to include image transcriptions in the future.
All good, fellow human.
Good bot.Thanks[EDIT: my bad! I read “I am a human” as “I am NOT a human” for some reason.]
Beep boop.
Good God bot.
Bad bot.
Oh, did it give a bad transcription?
The transcription is fine, just… !Transcription wrote that they’re human. Are they a lying bot? If so, bad bot. Are they human? If so, then the bad bot is the bot detector!
I exclude Tankies from the far left. Because at its heart, the left is anti-authoritarian. Tankies lost the plot somewhere and decided that full authoritarianism was the way to go, regardless of the human suffering that lead to.
An authoritarian regime that claims to be communist is no closer to the communist ideal of a stateless utopia than a fully capitalistic state. If the capitalistic state is democratic with popular socialist programs, then it’s actually closer to the communist ideal than an authoritarian state that merely claims communism. I’m using European democracies as my gold standard.
The problem with tankies is that they have latched on to the Stalinist notion of the necessity for dictatorship to achieve the unification of the proletariat and the dismantling of the Plutarchy. The other problem is most of them are Soviboos obsessed with Russia and the USSR in general.
It would be fine if they were consistent. Wrong, but fine.
What grinds my gears is the full on simp-itry of Putin and Xi in particular. None are communist in any way. Both full on capitalists. I would argue USSR was never communist but even so the cut off date was 1991 everything after has absolutely no left wing whatsoever.
Tankies are just atheist MAGAs with a different God Emperor they worship.
If Xi is a full on capitalist, how do I make the capitalists in my country charge billionaires with crimes and actually convict them?
Here in the US, our capitalists are so brazen they steal billions a year in wage theft, they spend the majority of their companies profits on stock buybacks and lay off employees while making the remaining workers pick up the extra load with no extra compensation, they buy politicians and literally write the majority of all of our regulation. They bury studies that show their contribution to the climate crisis, they spend billions on misinformation campaigns to take the targets off their back… they sabotage renewable energy and prevent meaningful investment in public transportation. They lobby to further increase our military budget, which serves primarily as a welfare pot for military industrial corporations, who can charge exorbitant prices for garbage products, and who’s lobbying efforts have sufficiently restricted the market as to prevent new players from entering.
I mean, fuck dude, there is literally more inequality than prior to the French Revolution. We’ve walked straight into neo-feudalism, and people are more concerned with utopian visions of the future than actually creating change in the present.
I think the difference is Hierarchy.
Xi and Putin put themselves at the tippy top while in the US due to how “democracy” works, who’s in charge can shift around. Billionaires here are the higher ups while the government acts as contractors/employees to them. You can’t fire your boss.
So what you’re saying is, in China, the capitalists aren’t the boss, but they are here?
Because at its heart, the left is anti-authoritarian.
Well, no. It’s not. The left/right spectrum is mostly understood as an economic spectrum, with the right believing in individual ownership of capital, the means of production, and land (and, of course, personal property), with the left believing in collective ownership of capital, the means of production, real estate (and in fringe cases, no personal property). Collectivism doesn’t necessarily mean anti-authoritarian; anarchists are just one flavor of collectivists.
Marxist theory states that authoritarian control is a necessary precondition to absolute communism, until everyone is enlightened enough (more or less; I’m greatly simplifying this, since his treatise is 500+ pages and dense as hell) to be able to fully self-govern in a communist utopia.
I tend to agree that a democratic society that has strong collectivist tendencies while preserving strong individual autonomy is more desirable than an authoritarian gov’t. Personally, I tend towards anarchism, but my view of humanity has dimmed enough in the last decade that I no longer believe that it’s a viable form or governance.
Marxist theory states that authoritarian control is a necessary precondition to absolute communism
That’s actually Leninist theory, Marx never went that direction. And Lenin was the one who betrayed the revolution to seize power, followed by a true despot in Stalin.
The actual origin of the terms Left and Right go back a bit further than Marx, they go back to the French Revolution. There was a vote, the question was, “Should the king have an absolute veto over new laws passed by the assembly” Those who said yes sat on the right of the podium, those who said no sat on the left.
Those on the left wanted no king at all, they wanted the people to have the power.
Communism was only deemed a left-wing ideology because the people held the power, not the wealthy few.
As a note, conservatism was also created out of the French Revolution, as a sort of blowback against it. It uses wealth to create and enforce social hierarchies.
Anyway, once you’ve betrayed the revolution and installed a dictator, communism is not considered left-wing, it’s a tool of authoritarianism, where the king owns all and merely allows the peasants to live in his kingdom.
I’m with you on this one. I kinda always thought Marx’s and Engel’s point was:
Capitalism is the stepping stone from feudalism to something far better.
I don’t think they had in mind that the next step after capitalism would be going back to despotism. Like you said, these people lost the plot.
George Orwell’s Animal Farm captures it perfectly. Everything is going (mostly) great until the Pigs take over and become despots.
“All Animals Are Equal but Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others”
I would love if the US adopted a Euro style social democracy. Shit would be so much better.
Take it from a European - no it wont, we’re like 2 steps behind you in the race to the bottom.
Don’t aspire to have the polite facade over the dumpster fire like we do, aspire to abolish the system entirely.Well, at least we have some variety and an actual political spectrum, that’s still better than red-blue monoculture.
at least we have some variety and an actual political spectrum
lol, no, no we don’t…
E: not in the mainstream “ever likely to be elected” category anyway, they all serve capitalism here too
Which country? Europe has a pretty large spectrum of policies depending where you live. On average though I’d say your standards of living are still better than what the average American would enjoy.
Well said!
deleted by creator
Why not both? Russian invaded Ukraine and the US is using it as a proxy war.
Yeah, the US is absolutely capitalizing in it. Why wouldn’t you destabilize a geopolitical rival if they commit an unforced error?
It’s just tragic that Russian and Ukrainian civilians are caught up in this shit that Putin started
They destabilized themselves. Russian couldn’t win before all this aid showed up, now it’s just a cruel meat grinder. I would have preferred a income tax rebate for my portion of this aid being sent to bury people I’ve never met, in places I’ll never go.
that is insensitive.
Hopes and prayers! give me my $1000 back though.
This seems like a win/win/win. We have a huge stockpile of weapons we built up almost explicitly to fight Russia (if need be), and now it gets to be used against them. And it doesn’t cost any American lives, which would make it seem like we’re exploiting another country to fight for us. But we’re not, we’re actually helping them repel an invader, so we get to be the good guys while getting everything we want! If we stopped sending weapons, Ukraine would be screwed. So everybody wins except the Russian!
It’s rare in this world that a situation like this comes along, and we should be able to feel good about finally being the good guys.
I’d like to opt out and take my portion of this expense as a income tax rebate please.
Firstly, we’ll save a lot more money than that by auditing the DoD like Katie Porter and Jon Stewart keep advocating for. I would much rather take my portion of a DoD audit on my next tax return.
Secondly, would you like your next tax return to include shares in a Patriot missile system? Because I don’t know about you, but I don’t actually have any use for soon-to-be decommissioned weapons.
Were you planning on overthrowing the bourgeoisie with your share of those missile systems?
I was thinking if taking my family out to dinner. Maybe vacation, I’m not too sure what my cut would be.
Given that you’re worried about income taxes, your cut is very small.
In the name of equality, my family share would be total cost / 331.9million * 3.
That’s not how income taxes work (you already got paid a rebate for your dependents) and equality in taxation is not a thing you actually want.
No. Go sit in the corner Tommy.
Cool Id like to opt out of all the help you have recieved or will recieve. Please dont accept medicare or medicade.
Also please stay off the of the portion of highways that I payed for.
Thanx.
I will only use the government services I pay for, I promise. And I pay for every inch of road i drive on with my fuel tax so don’t worry about that!
Actually you didn’t. I paid for some of those roads and I want that money back!
Take it up with the people who you wrote the check too!
Then I call your debt to me for my portion of the taxes I paid for the highways you drive on, the social security you’ll claim when your older, and the 12 years of public education we paid for you and your children…
What? Don’t want to pay that back? Then stfu and deal with it. Taxes are paid for the services rendered (education, medical expenses, highways, etc).
After you pay for the services that money isn’t yours, it’s the government’s. You don’t get to tell other people how to spend their money. You choose to live in society so you choose to accept the services and their costs. The government uses this income, which is their money, and spends it how they see fit.
Don’t like it? Too fucking bad. I didn’t think I would have to explain basic middle school economics to somebody who’s almost definitely a fully grown adult today.
My roads are paid for by my fuel tax, my social security (which I’m sure will never come back to me) is payed by myself now to get back negative returns later in life, and I pay for my children’s education. I’d love to opt out of social security actually, they can even keep what I’ve paid in to date. You’ve contributed nothing to me actually, and the government isn’t someone else or a corporation spending profit, it’s all of us.
You’re just proving more and more you don’t understand tax theory and American economics.
What part is wrong? my fuel isn’t taxed? I don’t pay SS tax? I don’t pay my kid’s tuition? I’d love to know what phantom taxes I can stop paying.
You do realise that regardless of whether you pay tuition, public education taxes were still collected on the assumption your children would possibly go to public schools. Your taxes alone do not fund your SS. Your taxes alone do not fund the things you would have benefited or do benefit from in America.
That’s why they’re paid for with taxes. So you don’t pay as much.
But I guess literal taxation theory 101, the fucking bare basics of tax theory, literally the simplest of the simplest concepts in economics was too difficult to conceptualise for you that you needed it stated plainly.
I’m extremely confused how people who are “I’m so leftist bro!” say you see, this fascist dictatorship HAD to invade a sovereign nation and abuse and murder tens of thousands of people, shoot missiles at apartment buildings and kidnap thousands of children because you see, our own countries and NATO are mean to them, due to the fact that we exist.
I honestly think most of the people that simultaneously take both of these positions are working for the Kremlin. There are probably a lot more bad actors who are being paid to muddy the waters than any of us would guess.
the amazing and disturbing thing is all of the republicans in the US who say everything the kremlin does and exhibit the exact same types of behavior.
I mean, not really. They’re already foolish enough to be Republicans, it’s not really hard to hijack the direction of that sort of idiocy. The problem is having that kind of impact if you actually hold yourself to some form of ethical or moral standard.
There’s a lot you can do if you don’t care about how it affects anyone else. If you do, it leaves certain strategies off the table, for better or for worse
Yeah, imagine to my surprise when after being a leftist for years finally take a look at the communist communities on Reddit and then here and they literally say THE EXACT SAME SHIT as the conservative groups about the war in Ukraine, all the way down to Zelensky and his cabinet being Nazis. Noped the fuck out of those communities real fast.
This is a NATO proxy war in that NATO, an organization created to provide European countries protection from Russia’s territorial ambitions, is providing assistance to a European country to help protect them from Russia’s territorial ambitions.
I can’t get over the circular logic of thinking Russia is justified in its invasion of another country by the fact that the other country wanted to be better prepared to defend against Russia invading it.
“I need to beat up my neighbor for trying to take a self defense class, because if he takes the class I won’t be able to beat him up.”
Dude, it only comes up if you’re trying to beat up your neighbor. just don’t do that.
Because both extremes are being pushed and used by the CCP to divide their geopolitical opponents
We should’ve gone to war with Russia when they interfered in our elections https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa
And how are you going to do that without guaranteed nuclear armageddon for all?
Proxy wars, of course.
Of course.
Just put it on the pile with the rest of them.
Apart from the brief respite of peacetime known as World War II, I’m not sure there’s been a point in the last 100 years where they haven’t been in some sort of proxy war with each other.
Aside from the word “started” both are obviously true. We certainly did not start the war in Ukraine, but we are for sure using it to fight a proxy war.
It is fascinating that Zelenskyy has become the sole major voice of Ukraine to the west. Clearly Ukrainians hate Russians and many will die fighting to avoid the kind of oppression and genocide that would happen if Russia took control, but the idea that there is zero dissent and nobody just wants to surrender to stop the casualties does not pass the sniff test. Feels very political like the propaganda wars of the first and second world wars.
83% of Ukrainians want to join NATO.
You know what makes a population really unlikely to want to surrender? An invading military that’s perpetrating war crimes all over their country and has a propensity for conscripting civilians from occupied regions.
Providing arms and aid to a small country that is fighting for its own sovereignty is not a “proxy war”. It’s providing aid to an ally.
Ukraine
small
It’s the second largest country in Europe after Russia (even when only taking Russia’s European territory into account which is larger than India. Russia is humongous, colonial empires do tend to be. Roughly the size of China+USA combined).
Turkey is larger in case you’re counting them in, France larger when you’re counting overseas territories. About twice as big as Italy.
You’re talking about land, I meant population and GDP. They’re in 8th place in population and way down in 23rd place by GDP. Having a country with a lot of land means almost nothing as a factor for winning a war.
Land mass can factor into victory in a war. It can help to spread an attacker forces for example, imagone trying to occupy say California, Alaska, or Texas.
Either that or it is a proxy war, but not the bad kind.
All tankies should kiss themselves. Fuck them.
Except that the problem I have with tankies is their tendency to wish death upon people, (or, at least, accept casualties as some kind of ideological necessity.)
I don’t even wish death on Neo Nazis. I wish Life After Hate upon them. The organization, after all, has ripped people right from the bowels of Neo Nazi organizations. I’d like to see more of that.
I sure as hell don’t wish death upon misguided idealists who think killing political rivals is somehow going to build a world free from authoritarianism. They don’t need to die: they need to examine their beliefs.
“Russia has invaded Ukraine” is a true statement. “Russia has invaded Ukraine therefore I should do/say/support …” is false in general, a deceivingly simple deduction that is hiding a lot of complexity under the rug. For example, what do I want to achieve by doing that? Is it beneficial for the working class? Does anyone want me to do it at all costs to support imperialism? Am I using an appropriate framework for extending ethics reasoning to large organizations and groups of people? What actions are lawful? If no one has the power to enforce that a country will not take unlawful action against another, how is it reasonable of me to expect that the other will not defend itself by unlawful force, if that is de facto its only defense? Am I having a positive impact on the world by simply acting against every country that does something I consider unlawful? If I do so more to some countries than others, am I not acting in favor of some countries? Shouldn’t I choose what countries I act in favor of? If I don’t do it, who is choosing that for me?
I don’t know, I wouldn’t like my country invaded by a nuclear power, my house bombed, my family kidnapped and murdered, my workplace destroyed, does anybody in the working class think that helps anyone?
There are many hypothetical ways. For example, that might prevent further war in the future, or might be the continuation of an existing conflict. It might alter the balance of power in the world in a way that is eventually beneficial to working class struggle. Hell I can think of thousands of ways in which not starting a war would have been worse than starting it. The fact that you can simply stamp a meme, appeal to emotion and make a huge logic jump without a single word is perplexing.
Hope you stretched before those fuckin gymnastics
Ok, so I need to think bigger, ok:
The invasion has shifted a lot of power in Europe back into NATO and the MIC.
If russia gets anything out of this, it will only demonstrate that challenging borders by force is worth it to all authoritarians out there (even the ones you don’t like). Keeping unilateral border change taboo is one of the most effective ways to prevent wars, by removing the long-term economic incentive at the short-term cost of lives and working class suffering.
If russia gets what it wants, expect more nuclear proliferation and a more unstable political landscape.
Humiliating the UN as a mediator and multilateralism by adopting an offensive realist perspective where the strong impose and the weak suffer…those are some working class values right there.
All of these are major working class losses, but keep dreaming about how russia’s violence is going to bring about your working class utopia on these foundations of violent bullshit.
Those are very good points, and I agree with most of them. Overall I think this invasion is detrimental to the international interests of the working class. The only part where I disagree with you is that I think bringing about a more unstable geopolitical order (a side effect of the path the conflict has eventually taken) is beneficial, as it will weaken the mechanisms holding together imperialism. I might be wrong though, and I would like to discuss this more in depth to hopefully understand what options I should support. But I fully reject the argument expressed by this meme and some of the people in this thread, as such simple (even emotional) reasoning tends to give me paranoia that I’m being manipulated by ideas created by propagandists. Is it okay if we continue this conversation in the dms?
By stability I mean we’re not going back to russia’s beloved 17/18/19th century many-player politics with wars happening everywhere all the time.
With nuclear weapons on the table, you have 2 options: a hegemon “world police” or a bipolar order (US and China).
If you want a true multipolar order and decentralised power, first you will need strong international law and institutions, not more of this imperial crap.
Ok, I’m done.
The only part where I disagree with you is that I think bringing about a more unstable geopolitical order (a side effect of the path the conflict has eventually taken) is beneficial, as it will weaken the mechanisms holding together imperialism.
Your first mistake here is assuming that imperialism is only when the West does it. If Ukraine is forced to give concessions to Russia in any form, any wannabe imperialist now knows they can now chip away other countries’ land if they are willing and capable of enacting enough violence, whether that country is Western or not, and they might get away with it. Unstability weakens multilateralism; multilateralism disincentivizes unilateral aggression.
Multilateralism is the exact opposite of what would happen if the US manages to fend off Russia and China. The only way multilateralism can truly emerge is a confrontation between two or more blocks where there is no clear winner and thus big countries need to offer more autonomy to small countries in order to win them over. The US sparking wars to keep poor countries sending raw materials home, leveraging the dollar and nuking from orbit anything that even remotely looks like socialism as they’ve been doing right up to this point is the worst case scenario, and the global events that are weakening this should go on as much as possible. The best case scenario is that a revolution becomes easier due to instability, and cooperation between socialist powers appears as a new stabilizing force.
The assumption that “a more unstable geopolitical order” will “weaken the mechanisms holding together imperialism” seems incredibly flawed, to put it in charitable terms.
That’s a lot of words to say nothing.
You could have said nothing and saved yourself a ton of time, but here you are writing ALL THAT to say literally nothing.
I actually thought long and hard about those questions and came to the conclusion that I should support Ukraine.
Probably not what you were after.
Firstly, I’d like to warn you: you’re on !tankiejerk@lemmy.world . You’re not going to find many friends here.
Secondly, I gotta say: I can’t help but notice some questions very conspicuously absent from your list. Very important questions, too.
- How many civilians have died in Russian airstrikes?
- How many Russian weapons have been destroyed or intercepted by lend-leased military equipment?
- How many people would those weapons have killed?
- How many Ukrainian civilians’ lives would have to be saved for their salvation to be worth 10% of America’s military budget?
If a capitalist wanted me to hand a sandwich to a homeless man, and was rolling the cameras and spewing propaganda about how this couldn’t happen in a communist country… I would still hand the sandwich to the homeless man.
Because a man’s gotta eat, you know? His needs don’t change because some monster has an agenda that gets fulfilled when his needs are met.
Thank you, your answer was very valuable to me. It’s helped me get a better perspective on the problem. I have a tendency to cold-bloodedly redirect the trolley, you know? I feel that’s the right thing, but I respect your humanity here.
Thanks for hearing me out.
It’s funny how tankies come up with walls of texts but they always exclude the will of the people. Like wtf, is this just a piece of land for you bigger powers argue about?
Over 90% of the people in the country that is at war want to be a part of NATO.Edit: I was certain that I read about an over 90% agreement about joining NATO but checking for sources the most recent I found said 83%.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/record-83-ukrainians-want-nato-membership-poll-2022-10-03/Yeah, and people in Crimea never ever wanted to be part of Ukraine, and yet Zelensky has promised to take them back. Same for most (although in this case not all) people in the Donbass, which was invaded by Ukraine in 1917. Putin stated he would invade (or “take back”, who cares at this point) just those territories, so doesn’t that make him the good guy here? Of course I don’t believe he is, or Zelensky is, there are no good guys anywhere in this story.
You’re still arguing for an invasion of a sovereign democratic (although, like most countries not without problems but they’re definitely taking some massive steps for a more open society and a more transparent government… DURING A WAR) country. And the need for Russia to push through those documented fake elections for separation while they occupied the territory says everything you need to know about how legitimate this whole invasion is.
Yeah, but then it’s not “the will of the people” that matters here, but maybe international law or whatever other principles.
Dude you’re not making sense at this point. Like not even to yourself I mean to say.
Holy gishgalloping word salad, Batman!
That’s a long way to say you would have opposed fighting against Hitler’s Invasion on Poland and, later, the Soviet Union.
What actions are lawful?
The ones that are considered that way by the international community.
International law is designed in a way to prevent war and military/economic powers from exploiting others. So basically to uphold everyone’s right to autonomy and independence.
In this case the invasion would be extra unlawful because of bilateral treaties.
Am I having a positive impact on the world by simply acting against every country that does something I consider unlawful?
I mean usually you do unless you are against others having their right to act independently and keeping their autonomy.
I think most would consider that to be positive.
If I do so more to some countries than others, am I not acting in favor of some countries?
Yeah, you would very clearly favor the countries that do not invade others in this case.
I could go on and on but the answer to all of these questions is very clear to the absolute majority of people imo.
You need to perform some real mental gymnastics to arrive at a conclusion favoring an invasion if you based your reasoning on these questions and the respective answers.
You’re using Russian tactics I see, what with all the irrelevant misdirection, confusion and word masturbation. Shut up.
This is a great example of dialectics and why it’s garbage.
