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I call bullshit on the latter part of that statement. If it’s wrong it’s wrong no matter who does it.
lol no you don’t get it! You’re just trying to distract from the atrocities of your country that I consider you to be complicit in! I’m not complicit in the atrocities of MY chosen state! lmfao
Edit: death to the IDF, death to nazis. I wasn’t referencing Hamas, they didn’t even cross my mind in this context.
It’s totally in good faith when Israelis talk about how awful Hamas is on LGBT+ rights or when Americans do the same shit over Iran. You’re definitely not just carrying water for imperialism.
I’m sure the people whose struggle you’re so concerned about will thank you as they can’t afford bread due to sanctions and their family is eviscerated by bombs.
It’s funny how I’m not even talking about Hamas, which I don’t view as much of a state, and more of a militia operation? Ik they’re technically the elected government but?
I’m talking about large scale world governments specifically. I’m not condemning mostly powerless people struggling for their lives.
Edit: Hamas isn’t even on my mind because how much of a “power structure” are they? Not to sound insensitive but I assume their capabilities are extremely limited. Death to the IDF, death to nazis. :)
It’s the same mechanism. When you say “Actually Iran/Cuba/Venezuala/China/other place the US wants to starve and/or bomb is bad”, you’re just carrying water for imperialism. It’s genuinely more harmful than when the right tries to justify those actions because it tricks people who would otherwise support those people into supporting hostile actions against them in the name of opposing their government.
The grossest part is that the people making these assertions never know what they’re talking about and genuinely don’t care beyond its utility as hostile evidence. Showing some lemmitor who thinks Cuba hates gays or isn’t democratic their latest constitution doesn’t shock them that they’ve been mislead and result in any change in position, instead they just forget that bit of trivia and move on, sure they’re helping somebody by supporting America’s hostile actions against them.
Why don’t you take this opportunity to post evidence of common misconceptions for other readers? /gen
Maybe I’m coming around on China, it’s the only one of those I would disagree with. So try to dispel some of my opinions on the Ugyhur situation. I got banned from .ml last night so I didn’t get to finish my fun argument.
I lived in Urumqi for a few months (also met some Ugyhurs when I was living in Kazakhstan).
So try to dispel some of my opinions on the Ugyhur situation.
I can’t dispel them if I don’t know the specifics, but in general, what you hear in western media is either made up or taken wildly out of context.
Until the 2010s, there were significant issues with terrorism, with riots happening in Urumqi. There’s still a few glass panels you can see where it doesn’t quite match the rest of the underpass entrance or whatever. The government responded by 1. absolutely massive economic development projects, from wind farms to greenbelts and infrastructure, 2. Increased affirmative action, so a lot more Uhygurs were going to college in Beijing and Shanghai, and 3. sending basically anyone convicted of any crime to a job-training facility, the idea being that people who have jobs would be less disenfranchised and harder to radicalize. It was generally successful in that there’s been fewer terrorist attacks and a lot more economic development among the Ugyhur population, but 3 was unpopular enough they wound that down in the late 2010/early 2020s. Other measures to stop the terrorist attacks include hiring a shitton of police and security guards. Every mall, apartment building, and hotel has at least 1, sometimes 2 60 year old guards on their phones. They often can’t read or speak mandarin fluently.
Orthogonal to this there’s a sort of racist/patriarchal attitude you see from some Han people the government tries to address somewhat with anti-discrimination laws.
There’s a struggle in Xinjiang (and much of China) about how to bring intangible aspects of cultures into modernity, often it’s resolved through creating a commercialized version of the thing that can sustain itself in a market economy. I have mixed feelings here.
How can 3 be anything more than effectively being labor camps? Can you personally or do you know someone personally that attests to whether they had a choice? Whether there were protections in place? Whether these were all fairly deemed “criminals”? What were their crimes? I think I saw someone use the figure 1million? There’s just no way that can be ethical, right?
It’s totally in good faith when Israelis talk about how awful Hamas is on LGBT+ rights or when Americans do the same shit over Iran. You’re definitely not just carrying water for imperialism.
Just like it’s totally okay to be a raging alcoholic who attacks random people on the Internet for opinions they do not hold.
Thats not at all how I interpret the message. I interpreted as “when the US is invading somewhere under the guise of bringing freedom and peace,” rather than, someone saying something bad about russia and it being refuted by the US being worse. In the first case the post can be true and still condemn multiple parties, because the US does infact try to excuse itself that way.
I do agree in general but it’s this view a bit simplistic?
There are many cases where this exact logic has been used to distract people and create infighting.
For example we can see the personal carbon footprint ad campaign sponsored by oil companies.
You can hate both sides. The Iranian regime has killed substantially more Iranians (this year) than the USA has. Doesn’t make the USA a good country, both countries are shit. The main difference is that the USA is a developing theocracy whereas Iran is an established one.
The main difference is that the USA is a developing theocracy whereas Iran is an established one.
I’d say the main difference is thay the USA has nuclear weapons and has killed dozens of millions of innocents, while Iran has only tried both and so far failed.
The people killed in Iran were killed by US and shitrael funded and armed traitors shooting at civilians not by ‘the regeeeeem’.
And it’s unfortunately a few 1000’s, not the 30-40ooo’s the propaganda wants to make it as justification for their warcrimes.
And to even think the USSA killed less people is disgusting.I’ve met a lot of Iranians. None of them want to live in a theocracy. And none of them doubt for a minute that they’ve been executing protesters. Iranians themselves tend to be pretty secular people living under a bullshit theocracy.
Again, I have absolutely no love for the USA or Israel and absolutely despise trump. But don’t go round claiming Iran is anything other than an oppressive dictatorship.
You can meet a lot of ‘Cubans’ too in Florida or wherever that don’t like the Cuban government.
Gusano opinions don’t count.
Exactly like those anecdotal ‘Iranians’ you met.
All those definitely not-astroturfed protests in the USSA waving shitraeli flags.
If you would believe the western mouthpieces everyone in Iran is against their government and wants the shah back.
If that were the case then why didn’t a revolution happen since they’re being bombed and the fuhrer and shitrael have tried their best infiltrating?
They had a revolution once, and it was exactly against this torturing dictator puppet regime installed by the US.
I and you may not like the theocracy, don’t use it as an excuse for their regime change operations.
It’s their choice to decide on their country and they vastly support it.
You’re using the same BS hasbarats use to whitewash the genocide in Palestine.
But look what they do to the gays, we need to bomb them into freedom!You do you 👍
A well argued reply as expected.
I don’t see much point in arguing with someone like you. A member of the irgc could literally tell you to your face “I have personally killed 10 children” and you would still blame America, because your entire political identity is based on America bad, Israel bad. You’re immune to reason so I’d be wasting my time.
A member of the irgc could literally tell you to your face “I have personally killed 10 children
They couldn’t tell me because they don’t do that. That’s factually americans and shitraelis.
My entire political identity is factually based on America bad, Israel bad.You can’t argue with me because you can’t win on facts.
You don’t offer reason or facts only propaganda in return.
Now run, get back in your Tel Aviv basement
Power is murderous, the greater the power the more murderous.
As the US declines other already-murderous powers will prove themselves every bit as vile as western hegemony.
The problem is in the nature of power structures, not who has fought their way to the top at the moment.
Power structures and, well… people.
The allies of the US are largely saying fuck everything about this and not joining. Don’t include us in their bullshit.
What does “and allies” encompass?
What does “murderous power structure” even mean?
Sources?
Yes the US is doing bad things. Human history is pretty much different groups taking turns doing the most murdering.
I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but can you show me a realistic path to stop it? Every time a power has fades in history, another one steps up to take its place.
Can you prove to me that the next one will be better than the one we have now?
Agreed, but are you suggesting we sit back and enjoy? The only way to get over this stage is to call it out. Understand what is happening, create mechanisms that dissuade murderous psychopaths from positions of power.
For example, take money out of politics. As a politician you are not entitled to personal wealth. You have to give everything you have away and you live on minimum wage. End political donations etc etc.
If I had to guess on allies I would point to the coalition of Western European countries who routinely join US imperialist wars like the “war on terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Id say the military industrial complex is a murderous power structure. If you want specifics look at the Pentagon, CIA, and various “defense” contractors such as Raytheon, Palantir, and so on.
IMO the path to stop it is something like anarcho- communism which you can start doing in your own neighborhood by forming collectives.
Yeah basically came to say this
I don’t believe for a second anyone else would be better. They are currently just smaller.
Does anyone have sources for this?
I’m not an expert, and a quick look on Wikipedia shows that comparing just 2 recent big wars, the USA coalition’s invasion of Iraq (2003-2011) killed approximately 151k to 655k[i] Iraqis, while the major Russian invasion or Ukraine (2022-ongoing) killed about 200k[u] Ukrainians.
Anyone have better numbers, and other non-defensive invasions?
[i] 151000 (2003-03/2006-06) New England Journal of Medicine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Family_Health_Survey
460000 (2003-03/2011-06) PLOS Medicine Survey https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3797136/
654965 excess (2003-03/2006-07) Lancet survey, 186318 by coalition, 144246 by others, and 276472 by unknown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_casualties
[u] BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce8n4l8elpgo This is just Ukrainians - if you include the Russian casualties then it may be more than 3 times that, and since some Russian soldiers may have been forced into the war (unlike in the Iraq war on the Western side), Russia should be held responsible for them getting killed also.
This.
However, it doesn’t excuse the US from their military crimes.
In Russia, we also gladly use “what about”: yeah, we might not be perfect, but just look at the USA… Bad rhetoric. (RU might take the cake for being the largest evil on earth, but even so it doesn’t excuse others’ crimes).
Those are active murders, and are ignoring passive ones. Every death due to sanctions, every starvation in the US itself, every preventable death due to being blocked by the healthcare system. Add every death in Palestine, the Vietnam war, the internal struggles of China before the nationalists were defeated, every time they sold weapons to any group…
According to the 2019 data at https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death 0.4% of deaths are from nutritional deficiencies (this may be defined differently from starvation), and 0.2% from war battle deaths, but that graph includes deaths which would occur because of aging so the percentages massively downplay these causes - I haven’t been able to find good sources for stats on preventable deaths.
What I also can’t find is the percentage of indirect deaths caused by wars, which from that graph would probably mostly be from disease which could be big. Not to mention injuries, disabilities, etc…
Sanctions probably are also a big cause of death from disease, neonatal deaths (3.3%), maternal deaths (0.4%), etc., but I personally think lots of sanctions and boycotts (of e.g. apartheid South Africa, Russia, North Korea, Palestine, Israel, Iran, USA) are actually good (I don’t know much about the Cuban) even-tho innocents are victimized long before the authoritarians and/or oligarchs are ousted by the sanctions.
I’m not doubting your comparative analysis of these wars, but instead I would like to place another claim on the table: wars are no longer the primary vehicle of violence in our global society, just the most naked and public-facing violence.
Some examples of these other acts (and these are indeed heavily interrelated):
- IMF loans and enforced austerity/liberalization
- NED-related influence operations
- coups
- sanctions
- embargoes
- military presence itself (via bases)
- funding of militant proxy groups
(Note that the primary vehicle of harm here is slowly economically depriving and strangling average people up to the last dollar, worldwide). Then you add this suffering to when the violence becomes protracted and sharpened via war.
Russia simply can’t do this. Idk if it wants to; it probably does considering Ukraine (also Russia isn’t like a person lol and I don’t think it’s all just Putin bc putting shit on one guy is naive imo; you can always replace the one guy). But Russia does not have the military and economic influence the US does.
This is just my understanding of the world like philosophically as I’ve spent 20-something beautiful years on this blue-green marble and another 375 on the red one (and also I’m like… incredibly lazy as a person!) so no sources 😔 but I am amenable to receiving new evidence!
Your comments are welcome to my response to user Calfpupa above.
Russia has killed more than the US in the last several years. Iran has also killed tens of thousands of its own citizens.
I don’t support the war in Iran, but come on. This comment is just ridiculous.
US worldwide sanctions are killing way more than Russia and Iran. US hegemony leads all others in death
Just because you believe the propaganda and are uninformed doesn’t make it so. The imperialist USSA and shitrael are responsible for arming the terrorists that murdered Iranian civilians to justify even more warcrimes.
You’re parroting regime propagandaLiberals have never come across a color revolution that they didn’t love.
Don’t engage the trolls
Engage, converse, expose.
The Republicans are way more murderous than the Democrats so I guess criticising the Democrats is a distraction and helps the fascists according to OP’s logic.
There is no material difference between when a democrat votes to bomb Iran to liberate them vs when a republican votes to bomb
Libya-Iraqn because they want to murder more Muslims.Surely you’re capable of admitting that the Republicans are putting far more immigrants in concentration camps than the Democrats, and therefore they’re more murderous.
If you can’t admit who’s causing more harm, then I don’t see the point of having any kind of discussion with you.
The greater harm is those posing as allies to the marginalized, those that built those camps, those that lay the foundations for Republican crimes against the working class.
The old good cop bad cop routine really works on you eh. Can’t see past it and you’re incapable of having a proper conversation about the issue. You get offended, you think it’s so obvious… I would kindly suggest that you look at the USA’s & allies’ foreign policy trajectory historically over the years. If you manage to look at the facts you will see that no matter which party is in power, the goals remain the same.
Watch how AOC and the like will not get elected and instead you will get a Newsom character running instead. Happened with Bernie and Hillary before and it will happen again.
AOC is just the new Bernie the Sheepdog, controlled oppositon
Who would you like to see run for the dems?
Dems as a party need to be abandoned. Liberals scream FPTP then refuse to support better candidates to get them FPTP.
Nobody, that is a regime party and can’t be fixed. It needs to go.
You need genuine 3rd parties, not these astroturfed faces pretending to be leftist keeping this theater going since forever.Fair enough, but is there anyone after Nader?
Democrats voted to fund Trump’s ICE. There is no material difference.
Maybe look up the numbers for the Drone King and Genocide Joe if you want to go there.
If you can’t admit Blue MAGA is just as bad you deserve Red MAGA, and I’m glad you got it.
Well aren’t you just a ball of positivity? 166 comments federating over to our instance, and only 16 net upvotes across them. And if you downvote nearly half as often as you upvote, then it really seems like you’re not getting much value out of this site. You might have a nicer time if you log off and go make some friends. You know, go bowling or play some video games. I think you’ll have more fun than arguing with people on the internet, which, uh, seems to be most of what you do here.
What is that tool?
it’s called the ad hominem tool.
The petty last resort for those without arguments or facts.I’m just curious how some users who have dedicated haters would look.
LOL another one scavenging through comments and attack the messenger when no arguments.
So there’s plenty of disgusting USSA imperialist bootlickers on here.
It’s not a popularity contest.
I don’t like his anti-regime attitude so I’m pretentiously going to suggest he leaves. Would be much easier for you wouldn’t it?
I’m going nowhere buddy.
You can stuff your ridiculous meaningless upvote count and whatever irrelevant BS up your blue magat ass.
If you want gleichschaltung go back to your regime controlled Reddit where you can be in your little echo chamber.
I like it perfectly fine here calling out regime bootlickers and putting them in their place, even if they disgust me sometimes.Ad hominem argumentum is all they got. They expect you to fall in line and support all their neoliberal bullshit in their echo chambers. They don’t want discussion they want compliance
BlueMAGA is 10 times worse than MAGA. MAGA tells you to your face they hate you. BlueMAGA will smile at you, embrace you, and hug as if they’re an ally while they’re driving a knife in your back. And before they do that, they will tokenize you if you were marginalized.
Which Democratic candidate has run on a platform of bombing Iran to liberate them?
Do you not see how the way the democrats who voted against the War Powers Resolution justified their votes? There is bipartisan consensus on imperialism abroad and concentration camps at home.
Oh, I thought you were referring to the electorate voting on candidates that were explicitly pro war with Iran.
As for how the two parties voted in the House of Representatives, I would argue that there is a clear material difference between one party voting 210-4 to reign in Trump’s war, and the other voting 215-2 to let Trump keep on bombing.
None of them ever campaign on these issues, they just do it. There’s never been a war that Democrats weren’t foaming at the mouth to get into
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When leftists do attack Republicans, you think we are one of you. Republicans and Democrats are cut them the exact same cloth, for the exact same ends.
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Socialists are not democrats, they are on the polar opposite of the political scale. The Democrats as a whole do not mind fascism. They just prefer it covert, something they don’t have to think about or see or even acknowledge, something they won’t interrupt their brunch.
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We do target Republicans, but liberals are so ignorant, they assume that we are one of you when we do it.
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