this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2025
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Yeah, that's the take I was expecting to see. A mutual defence pact, formed to protect against the very thing Ukraine is experiencing, is a tool of oppression.
Who is NATO opressing, exactly?
You can think of NATO as a millitary pact of gangsters. The members of NATO make the bulk of their wealth through fleecing the Global South, through processes of Unequal Exchange and brutal IMF loans that come with clauses requiring them to sell off nationalized infrastructure and resources. NATO's role, other than Anti-Communism, is to essentially form "Big Stick Diplomacy" with countries that do not immediately play ball with their terms.
We can see this in Operation Gladio, as an example. Even ignoring the fact that several heads of NATO have been former Nazis, such as Adolf Heusinger, Leftists have opposed NATO for its role in defending US and EU Imperialism since its foundation. You can see that in modern Communist orgs like PSL's statement on the Russo-Ukrainian War, or FRSO's Statement on NATO.
That should give a background on why the Left generally opposes US millitary dominance over the world, and NATO's role in that. If it's hard to grasp, look at the ACAB movement. Why do people oppose a group that, on paper, is for "defending the people?" Because in reality, it defends a brutally exploitative system over all else, and thus racist and classist violence is a systemic part of that "defense."
Riiiight. Sure.
Nothing to do with the fact that pretty much every country that borders Russia has been invaded by them.
Not sure which part of my comment you're disagreeing with, so not sure how to respond. I included statements from Communist orgs directly, not Hexbear, so you could see that this is fairly universal among the anticapitalist left.
You genuinely don't think Russia is a threat to its neighbours, do you?
I think the fact that the Russian Capitalists (also called "Oligarchs") control Russia's industry, rather than the US and Europe like they did right after the dissolution of the USSR, has resulted in NATO buildup along Russia's border, just like back during the Soviet era when NATO put the Jupiter missiles in Turkey, nuclear arms, and extended a NATO base beyond West Germany's border and into East Germany, both of which prompted Operation Anadyr which led to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Those same Jupiter missiles, Kruschev would convince Kennedy to remove alongside Cuba removing their nukes, in an equal exchange of disarmament.
I absolutely believe Russia is a threat to those around them, sure, in the sense that all countries could be if a much larger power started massive millitary expansion along their borders. I don't think there is anything unique about Russians ethnically that would cause them to go to war, but that there are relatively explainable factors.
Which of my original comment did you disagree with? The purpose of NATO? The Imperialism practiced by NATO countries? The ties to the Nazi party? All of it? It would help if you explained a bit, because as it stands I made a pretty thorough comment and you sort of just brushed it all aside, which is difficult to maintain a discussion around.
I think the umbrage most people take is when that opposition to NATO turns into Russian apologism. Like you said yourself, it's a country owned and operated by capitalists waging wars against other capitalist interests. The conversation can end there, fuck both of them.
We should examine what gave rise to it, how we can end it, and what the possible outcomes are. We shouldn't just wash our hands and look away.
What is there to learn that we don't already know? The USA jockeyed for geopolitical influence during the Cold War, the USSR dissolved and was captured by capitalist interests, and now the Russian Federation is waging wars to protect and project their own influence.
Getting into the nitty gritty is pointless if you truly believe all sides are bad actors. The discourse online is a hollow wedge issue; just countless whataboutisms egging the masses to pick sides and keep the focus off of the people looting and destroying everything.
The quite active role of NATO and the US Empire is still something we need to analyze.
Lol if you're not a leftist just say so.
"Russia is clearly a hypercapitalist state at this point, and exporting misery to the helpless people all around them"
"Well you're not wrong but it's complicated"
No it isn't. The first thing is a complete argument and a good reason to oppose them, however you feel about NATO or the US State Department. Sending weapons to a resistance movement against their organized state oppression is clearly a wonderful thing, and I wish Ukraine everything they need in order to defend themselves against anyone who is trying to kill their citizens. It's not more complex than that.
If you feel like making excuses for Russia, or saying it "needs to be analyzed" or they're a useful bulwark against even worse forces and so we don't need to look too closely at their crimes (and where have I heard that logic before), then fine. Just don't put on a mantle of socialism while you are doing so.
I'm a Leftist, and I believe what you describe as a strategy, ie fighting a proxy war with Russia until the last Ukrainian bleeds for US profits, only really serves Russia and the US at the expense of the Ukrainian people.
This is why analyzing the reasons for conflicts is critically important.
You made excuses for Russia's interests to "maintain a buffer," i.e. slaughter the citizens of another sovereign nation until Putin and the Russian people can feel comfortable again: https://lemmy.ml/comment/16907792
When it's Russia, you say:
https://lemmy.ml/comment/16903455
When it's Palestine, you say:
https://lemmy.ml/comment/15521966
https://lemmy.ml/comment/13867216
You also said that support for Russia was a necessary part of support for progressing humanity by undoing the US:
https://lemmy.ml/comment/17512137
You also credited the USSR with "ending famines" lol.
You are not internally consistent. You are not a leftist, although you sometimes retreat into some kind of dialectical complication which is left-adjacent when challenged. You seem to be in love with genocidal capitalist states as long as they're on your team... but they're not going to save a place for you at the table. Your hopeful support for them will gain you nothing. You seem like you're sincere, to some extent, and I like your support for the Palestinians. Maybe someday you will start to be willing to apply the same yearning for freedom to people who are being oppressed by your friends, also, not just by your enemies.
I never said morals do not matter. What I do say is that we need accurate analysis to find real solutions. Palestinian liberation is real and possible, but for Ukraine, there is no path beyond suing for peace, and NATO de-escalation (ideally with a Communist revolution within the RF, but that appears to be far off).
In the grand scheme of things, Russia is absolutely moving against the US Empire, and the US Empire is a bigger obstacle for Socialism and the Global South. This means some actions Russia takes are good for the Global South, though only for its own interests.
The USSR did end famine as well. Famine was common throughout Russia's history until the Soviets ended it with improved agriculture.
So yes, I am a Leftist. You appear to be more of a stalker than anything else, to be honest.
Incorrect. Winning the war, bloodying Russia's nose and teaching it to stay the fuck inside its borders whenever it starts to feel that its interests demand that it needs to blow up some apartment buildings and power stations, is the path. That sounds like a good solution to me. This kind of thing, and the solution, needs to happen from time to time. Afghanistan, Vietnam, Palestine. It's not a morally ambiguous situation. Get them to go the fuck home, by force since they are coming with force, and if they're uncomfortable in the future with the state of the world and they feel threatened, they can cope with it in some manner that isn't a war crime and doesn't involve any unrelated civilians. Also, snatch Putin and put him in the Hague next to Netanyahu. Or maybe just put them on the streets of Kyiv and Jenin respectively and let the people more directly involved have dealings with him. That sounds like a great start for making the world a better place. It's a lot less ambiguous in its impacts than would be simply doing away with the US's power on the world stage.
The process of exacting that path is not exactly going great, of course because despite your protestations about how happy the US government is have this conflict, they barely seem to care about supporting Ukraine except every so often when it appears to be on the point of total collapse. But also, Russia isn't exactly winning either.
Again, I simply don't understand why you are morally clear on the moral clarity of the Palestine situation, but then all of a sudden say that it is not "practical" to discuss the clear morality of the situation in Ukraine.
Not really lol. Well... actually, Russia's sum total impact on the US empire has been significant, but not because they're killing Ukrainians. Their conduct in the war has been abysmal. They're succeeding beyond Bill Donovan's wildest dreams at fucking up our elections and reducing our abilities on the world stage. Personally I think it's incredibly unlikely that anything that comes out of that will produce a benefit for the Global South. We are not the only hegemon, and hegemony will not go away because of the collapse of the US. The question is whether what comes after will be better or worse.
I was curious about some of the things you were saying, and whether you change your arguments depending on who you're talking to, so I looked up "palestine" and "russia" in a search limited to you as creator. I didn't really find what I was looking for, but I did find that you spin your arguments extremely hard in one direction, talking about "practicality" and the need to be realistic when talking about Ukraine beating Russia. But, for some reason, when we're talking about Palestine surviving against Israel (or, for that matter, who's going to win the US election and what the impact will be) it's suddenly not necessary to be practical or "objective" or anything, and we can just talk about clear morality and what the justice outcome is. I think that as someone who clearly supports the right of ordinary people to be free from oppression, because you're obviously a leftist and would obviously support that, it's a curious reluctance to weigh in on the justice of a situation where a gangster-capitalist state is blowing up ordinary men, women, and children by the truckload for no other reason than that they want to keep their options open and feel comfortable geopolitically. That was often why the US did the same thing during most of the late 20th century, and it was wrong then, and it's wrong now.
Easy question: Is it moral for Russia to blow up a hospital? Is it moral for Israel to? Presumably you have simple straight answers to both. That's just the kind of thing I was curious about. I'm not trying to "debate pervert" you in Hexbear's self-serving terminology, but I have become sick of people making dissembling excuses for mass murder on my federated social network and decided today to be vocal in talking to one of them and calling him out for it. Hope that's okay.
It almost always does. They're a defence pact, which is only activated when a member state is attacked, and the people who oppose them are, without any exception I've ever seen, people who think Russia should be free to invade their neighbors.
you out here doing yeomans work
Can you narrow it down? I think it's good to have international cooperation on infrastructure, and is much better than exporting war and misery like the US does.
And this is why they show up in numbers, or not at all.
Yeah, you and your comrades' "loveliness" was instantly exposed to be in support of genocidal dictators, and then you slink away. That is the sort of thing we were glad to be rid of, even if for a while.