SeventyTwoTrillion

the only people trivializing fascism are those who see fascism symbology like the swastika, Black Sun, various nordic runes, etc on the soldiers they're egging on and go "doesn't look like anything to me!" while advocating for the double genocide theory

this can be true, but a lot of the time, because the author has the ability to write anything and not be constrained by reality, what they write often isn't a critique of a real situation so much as it is a reflection of their own internal biases and internalized propaganda about that real situation.

the example that most immediately jumps to mind is Rowling's house elves being slaves and also liking being slaves and actually you're a bad person if you don't want them to be slaves anymore. I mean, sure, it could just be an entirely made-up fantasy race that likes being enslaved, but it could also be internalized propaganda about other races, especially considering that she was born in the decaying/fallen British Empire.

So I would argue that the books in the thread image are, obviously unintentionally, actually more about how propaganda about "authoritarian" states during the Cold War influenced the authors of that time, rather than those books saying anything about the Soviet Union.

I think it's generally best to not rely on fiction when trying to make a point to others who don't already agree. It can be a nice bonding moment between two people that already agree - we could talk about how Don't Look Up if we both agreed about humanity's role in climate change and how many people don't give a shit because they think they're invincible or already got theirs, but bringing up the film to a climate change denier just isn't going to go well unless approached very carefully.

Which referendums are you referring to and does any country besides Russia or North Korea accept the results?

literally the consent "isn't there somebody you forgot to ask?" meme but with America

but this is also a very funny way of imagining how self-determination and independence movements work a lot of the time. Imagine a world where a newfound country breaks free from an existing one and then that newfound country sees that 90% of the UN, including the country they just broke free from, doesn't recognize them for doing that and they're just like "Well, shucks. I guess we're going back and re-joining the country again, because these people aren't ready to accept us yet!"

the problem isn't necessarily pointing out the problems with any particular country, that can be done as a legitimate discussion, what gets really fucking annoying is when people only talk about the problems with a certain country and then when questioned, are like "Oh, no! We also hate it when America does this thing! We're just talking about X country right now!" when that's clearly false. like, you say "Fuck China for having mass surveillance" on reddit and you get 100k upvotes, 20 platinum awards and some dude's firstborn son, whereas if you say "Fuck America for having mass surveillance" you'll get "Hm, well, you see, this is a complicated topic, because on the one hand..." or even just "Yeah, but it's nothing compared to China though!"

the problem is also when what you're talking about is necessarily a comparison because no action exists in a vacuum free of context. if I say "The US is an awful, imperialist country that has invaded all these nations, and NATO has also invaded and destroyed nations, and we should not support them even if Russia is doing a bad thing because Russia's death toll is so much lower than the West's" then all I would get on most lib platforms is "That history doesn't matter! What matters is the here and now, when Russia is doing a bad thing and NATO currently, at this precise moment in time, is not! Bad things are bad things! You can't wave them away through context!"

but the question isn't "Is Russia doing a bad thing", I don't think anybody would deny except the most fervent Russian nationalist that Russia has done at least some bad things in Ukraine, the question is "Who should we support in this war" and so the fact that NATO and the US has killed tens of millions of people within the lifetime of the current president and doomed hundreds of millions more to backbreaking labor in mines and plantations and sweatshops, and Russia, well, hasn't, is a perfectly pertinent point to make when asking who to support. This is also why liberals are so utterly gobsmacked when third-world countries don't come out against Russia, because they have been on the receiving end of this campaign of carnage that the US has wrought around the world and so, logically, think Russia is the lesser of two evils. can't they see that Russia is evil! can't they see that Putler is the devil doing a genocide!? they must be brainwashed by Russian disinformation propaganda! we must up our efforts to spread Correct Information!

people get arrested during strikes and protests all the time in America. of course, you would justify it as "actually they were breaking Clause 8 of Section 9A so it was against the law and they shouldn't have done it!" without questioning if that law might possibly have been drawn up specifically to punish those people because the government couldn't do it legally before. no, all laws in America come straight out of the Founding Father's dick as a glorious bukkake for us all to share freely, while in tyrannical states like Russia and China, all laws are to be questioned and/or drawn up by the supreme ruler himself because he was really extra totalitarian that day

never try idealism kids, it turns you into this

Again, purposely digging up confidential information and then exposing it is illegal.

Going up to Snowden and saying "Erm, sir, you might have told us that the American government is spying on us every moment of our lives, but, erm, actshually, doing that was illegal, so unfortunately, sir, you are not epic and you don't deserve freedom of speech protections"

what an absolute fucking dweeb, holy shit

I will go tell Putin to make it "confidential information" that he's a bad person, then maybe you'll shut the fuck up for a single moment of your life because a bootlicker like you will be forced to obey it if you ever go there

that's impossible, the entire Russian army has been destroyed a hundred times now by Ukraine, over 15 million Russian troops have been killed last time I checked, there are no snipers left

the Zaporozhye front is just the Ukrainians doing a giant war re-enactment of what would have happened if there were any Russians left alive, but due to the 1:984219 casualty ratio, there aren't any Russians left

I'd love to see how you people will react when Mexico joins BRICS and the US invades it.

I cannot fucking wait for China and Russia to do freedom of navigation exercises between Cuba and Florida like how the US does with Taiwan and China and for Americans to just fucking LOSE it. Holy shit, it'll be so funny. "No, this isn't the same because China is evil and we're the good guys!"

The imperialism of marching your border closer and closer to NATO's troops from 1990 to 2022 is truly the worst kind. Russia must be punished for putting Moscow that close to Ukraine.

couldn't possibly have anything to do with the pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass who were getting slaughtered for years before 2022. those people don't matter, only pro-Ukraine people matter. couldn't possibly have anything to do with security interests. only NATO's security interests matter, not Russia (or China's). couldn't possibly have anything to do with having armed NATO-trained troops in a country that recently experienced a US-backed coup. of course, if Russia puts Wagner forces in African countries (so not even inside NATO's "sphere of influence") that recently experienced a coup, that's an entirely different thing because uhh Russia is bad and NATO is good. that's Russian imperialism. us putting our troops in coup'd countries is freedom and bringing democracy. and also that wasn't a coup, it was actually the citizens doing it all by themselves.

Holy shit, NATOpedia made an article saying "Hey, there might be actual historical context to this situation and Putin didn't wake up on February 24th and decide to murder a bunch of people because he's a very evil bad bad man and King Zelensky shall slay the dragon and then we all live happily ever after." is actually Russian disinformation? Oh my fucking god. These people are unbearable.

Ukraine has a responsibility to make sure US and foreign support isn’t wasted and they’re doing just that.

idk dude, maybe you should stop sending wave after wave after wave of leopards and bradleys into minefields if you want to not waste Western resources

I hope Ukraine kill all these invading Russian motherfuckers and that Putin dies too.

the saddest thing is that at the end of this war, there will be hundreds of thousands if not millions of dead Ukrainians, all who died because of Western hatred. but you won't actually care, will you? the lives of the average Ukrainian mean nothing to you. you could send a hundred Ukrainians to die horrifically in the no man's land and if a Russian stubs his toe because of it, you would call it a worthy sacrifice, because causing the Russians inconvenience and suffering is worth much more than saving the lives of innocent people who have been conscripted at gunpoint.

if it wasn't a worthy sacrifice, and you thought this wholesale slaughter should stop, you would support ending the war, like the left does.