Sometimes it can devolve into campism, but no, mostly it is not being pro-west through double standards and false dichotomies. Combining your fist point and last point, the disagreement is the falseness of your last statement. “US and Russia can be bad at once” but Russia is inherently evil that can not not be considered an extreme, existential evil until a total collapse and replacement of its government and any Russian that isn’t actively rebelling against their government is an evil orc. But the US is bad because Trump is crass and rude and I would like more polite politicians leading wars of aggression against other nations, and if a Democrat were in power, they would do 4% less imperialism which would make it an acceptable amount. Radical politics in the US is obviously too far and “tankie”, the furthest left without being “tankie” that could be allowed is Mamdami increasing local taxes by 3%.
Iranian government brutalizing its own people? … China threatening it’s neighbours?
again, extreme double standards. People are protesting their government, that justifies foreign intervention and invasion? Should the Russian and Chinese governments have invaded and aiding armed agitators in the US in 2020 because the BLM protests were larger scale protests against the government? The most credible accusation of “genocide” in China against the Uighurs was a cultural genocide from making them learn Mandarin and basic Han Chinese etiquette, not any form of mass scale violence (again, even though all the anti-tankie positions are based on ignoring reality, but it is the opposite of Gaza where nearly all human rights organizations say that there is a genocide in Gaza but not in China). But cultural genocide is defined so that forcing people to learn and use another language counts. The problem for “non-tankies” is that that means that Ukraine has engaged in an equivalent cultural genocide since 2014 when notably only Ukrainian language would be officially used in schools, government bureaucracy, signs, etc. because of the fascist far-right’s power after Euromaidan which caused the Russian separatist movement. Though Russia was definitely more interested in realpolitik considerations, other than true concerns of ethnic Russians in the Donbass. But you are a tankie if you don’t think Putin spontaneously decided to invade in February 2022 for no reason except being evil.
For China threatening their neighbors, that is hard to parse, since it is hard to find anything that that might be real. They are famously willing to work and trade with anyone, even including Israel, and attempt to de-escalate and isolate from geopolitics. I am guessing you mean Taiwan, which mostly isn’t them actively threatening them with military force, but the US politicians using that potential to legitimate military presence in SE Asia. And again, invasion of Taiwan wouldn’t be justified, but there is mostly nothing other than Taiwan being close to China means having any planes and ships near the Chinese coast is a “threatening position”. And, because it is a frozen civil war, both sides agree that both territories are Chinese territory. Again, to explain to the USian, imagine if the UK intervened to protect part of the Confederacy to continue surviving in Florida, and both USians and Floridians agreed that Florida was part of the USA.
Again, if you are justifying a “both-sidesism” by foreign intervention and invasions/wars of aggression, then there is a quantitative argument to be made. You are a tankie if you don’t think China and Russia are objectively and extremely more evil than the US and West, even if the US “can be bad” too. But just in the 21st century the US has invaded/attacked Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Venezuela, and Somalia (non-exhaustive) and backed genocides in Israel and Yemen. Russia has invaded Ukraine, and a separatist part of Georgia, and not as actively armed, but tolerated Israels genocide. And China tolerates Israel, and supposedly might think of some time possibly invading Taiwan. The “anti-tankie” sees this and says that Russia and China are irredeemably evil and must be opposed and their citizens hated at all costs, but I also dislike some things Trump said or vaguely denounced the invasion of Iraq so “both sides bad” and “I am the real nuance understander”.
Sorry, I’m confused. Were you responding to me? When did I bring up Uyghurs or claim that Iranian people protesting justifies an invasion? When did I claim every Russian is responsible for the decisions of the Russian government? I feel like you’re shadowboxing an imagined version of my position.
Also, I went into in great length in the other thread, I think you’re very very wrong about Russia & Ukraine. What you wrote of my supposed position is yet again a parody strawman.
EDIT: Also, I’m not making a quantitative argument except in the context that the amount campists trust these governments to always be honest and truthful is absolute, while anything the US government says is always evil lying propaganda. Quantitatively, the US produces and disseminates far more propaganda. That doesn’t give people the excuse to blindly believe everything everyone else says though.
I am pointing out in the original context of Kittenrulz and your denunciation of how tankies can’t accept that someone can be “against Russian Imperialism and US imperialsim” is actually the straw man. Again, I am sure you can find one loser somewhere to cherry pick that actually thinks that Russia and China are perfect and US is only evil. But your portrait of both Lemmy “tankies” and the “tankies” referenced by OP’s meme is just that they would not maintain a double standard for the US and its adversaries and that you are “nuanced” for not agreeing with 100% of what the US does while accepting the worst propaganda about its adversaries.
I pointed out your inclusion of Iran and Russia because again, opposing Lemmy “tankies” on Iran is them calling out support of the CIA and Mossad to expand the anti-government protests and providing material support like arms and Starlink terminals to aid the protests. It forces the unfortunate position of having to be wary due to consequences and not principle. I think the original Kittenrulz post brought this up but as terrible and flawed as Ghaddafi, Saddam Hussein, and Assad were, letting the US and their proxies overthrow and destroy their governments still made the lives of people in those countries much worse. For Russia, that was pointing out that there is much more vilification of Russians and willingness to sanction and undermine their economy and citizens than Americans even though just the Iraq war alone was an even worse and less justified war of aggression. Again, I am pointing out that all accusations of “tankie” boil down to just not maintaining this double standard. And I was working off of the original banning of Kittenrulz and you invoking the Russian Invasion. The accusations of “tankie” around the Russian-Ukraine war do boil down to having any explanations or understanding of the causes of the war beyond “Putin is evil, so he does evil things like invading countries”. Kittenrulz and most “tankies” do not say that it is good and just, though I will admit there are a minority that take Russia’s side due to the full embrace of overt Nazism within sectors of the Ukraine government and armed forces since 2014 and exacerbated by 2022. Though that was a convenient talking point for Russian officials rather than a real motivation, and the war empowering and legitimizing these Neo-nazi formations.
Thank you for not strawmanning me and actually walking through your experiences with others who are “anti-tankie” rather than assuming the worst of me.
I legitimately don’t have time to respond to absolutely all of this in huge detail, so assume that if I didn’t respond to a specific point I just didn’t have much to say about it.
It forces the unfortunate position of having to be wary due to consequences and not principle.
I do generally agree with this in principle. The governmental structure of Iran, for example, makes a lot of sense if your explicit goal is to be as coup-proof as possible. This is very much a double-edged sword: a country built on legitimate paranoia often sees any protest as foreign interference, regardless of the reality.
Kittenrulz and most “tankies” do not say that it is good and just, though I will admit there are a minority that take Russia’s side
Maybe I’m just taking crazy pills here, but most of the opinions on the war over seen here can be boiled down to “Evil Ukrainian Nazis bad, Russia good”. That is legitimately what I see during the rare moments I look over here.
full embrace of overt Nazism within sectors of the Ukraine government and armed forces
It can’t be “some sectors” and a “full embrace” at the same time, can it? There were some well known units that were very explicitly neonazi, but at no point did they have any control over the civilian government or military high command.
Though that was a convenient talking point for Russian officials rather than a real motivation
Sometimes it can devolve into campism, but no, mostly it is not being pro-west through double standards and false dichotomies. Combining your fist point and last point, the disagreement is the falseness of your last statement. “US and Russia can be bad at once” but Russia is inherently evil that can not not be considered an extreme, existential evil until a total collapse and replacement of its government and any Russian that isn’t actively rebelling against their government is an evil orc. But the US is bad because Trump is crass and rude and I would like more polite politicians leading wars of aggression against other nations, and if a Democrat were in power, they would do 4% less imperialism which would make it an acceptable amount. Radical politics in the US is obviously too far and “tankie”, the furthest left without being “tankie” that could be allowed is Mamdami increasing local taxes by 3%.
again, extreme double standards. People are protesting their government, that justifies foreign intervention and invasion? Should the Russian and Chinese governments have invaded and aiding armed agitators in the US in 2020 because the BLM protests were larger scale protests against the government? The most credible accusation of “genocide” in China against the Uighurs was a cultural genocide from making them learn Mandarin and basic Han Chinese etiquette, not any form of mass scale violence (again, even though all the anti-tankie positions are based on ignoring reality, but it is the opposite of Gaza where nearly all human rights organizations say that there is a genocide in Gaza but not in China). But cultural genocide is defined so that forcing people to learn and use another language counts. The problem for “non-tankies” is that that means that Ukraine has engaged in an equivalent cultural genocide since 2014 when notably only Ukrainian language would be officially used in schools, government bureaucracy, signs, etc. because of the fascist far-right’s power after Euromaidan which caused the Russian separatist movement. Though Russia was definitely more interested in realpolitik considerations, other than true concerns of ethnic Russians in the Donbass. But you are a tankie if you don’t think Putin spontaneously decided to invade in February 2022 for no reason except being evil.
For China threatening their neighbors, that is hard to parse, since it is hard to find anything that that might be real. They are famously willing to work and trade with anyone, even including Israel, and attempt to de-escalate and isolate from geopolitics. I am guessing you mean Taiwan, which mostly isn’t them actively threatening them with military force, but the US politicians using that potential to legitimate military presence in SE Asia. And again, invasion of Taiwan wouldn’t be justified, but there is mostly nothing other than Taiwan being close to China means having any planes and ships near the Chinese coast is a “threatening position”. And, because it is a frozen civil war, both sides agree that both territories are Chinese territory. Again, to explain to the USian, imagine if the UK intervened to protect part of the Confederacy to continue surviving in Florida, and both USians and Floridians agreed that Florida was part of the USA.
Again, if you are justifying a “both-sidesism” by foreign intervention and invasions/wars of aggression, then there is a quantitative argument to be made. You are a tankie if you don’t think China and Russia are objectively and extremely more evil than the US and West, even if the US “can be bad” too. But just in the 21st century the US has invaded/attacked Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Venezuela, and Somalia (non-exhaustive) and backed genocides in Israel and Yemen. Russia has invaded Ukraine, and a separatist part of Georgia, and not as actively armed, but tolerated Israels genocide. And China tolerates Israel, and supposedly might think of some time possibly invading Taiwan. The “anti-tankie” sees this and says that Russia and China are irredeemably evil and must be opposed and their citizens hated at all costs, but I also dislike some things Trump said or vaguely denounced the invasion of Iraq so “both sides bad” and “I am the real nuance understander”.
Sorry, I’m confused. Were you responding to me? When did I bring up Uyghurs or claim that Iranian people protesting justifies an invasion? When did I claim every Russian is responsible for the decisions of the Russian government? I feel like you’re shadowboxing an imagined version of my position.
Also, I went into in great length in the other thread, I think you’re very very wrong about Russia & Ukraine. What you wrote of my supposed position is yet again a parody strawman.
EDIT: Also, I’m not making a quantitative argument except in the context that the amount campists trust these governments to always be honest and truthful is absolute, while anything the US government says is always evil lying propaganda. Quantitatively, the US produces and disseminates far more propaganda. That doesn’t give people the excuse to blindly believe everything everyone else says though.
I am pointing out in the original context of Kittenrulz and your denunciation of how tankies can’t accept that someone can be “against Russian Imperialism and US imperialsim” is actually the straw man. Again, I am sure you can find one loser somewhere to cherry pick that actually thinks that Russia and China are perfect and US is only evil. But your portrait of both Lemmy “tankies” and the “tankies” referenced by OP’s meme is just that they would not maintain a double standard for the US and its adversaries and that you are “nuanced” for not agreeing with 100% of what the US does while accepting the worst propaganda about its adversaries.
I pointed out your inclusion of Iran and Russia because again, opposing Lemmy “tankies” on Iran is them calling out support of the CIA and Mossad to expand the anti-government protests and providing material support like arms and Starlink terminals to aid the protests. It forces the unfortunate position of having to be wary due to consequences and not principle. I think the original Kittenrulz post brought this up but as terrible and flawed as Ghaddafi, Saddam Hussein, and Assad were, letting the US and their proxies overthrow and destroy their governments still made the lives of people in those countries much worse. For Russia, that was pointing out that there is much more vilification of Russians and willingness to sanction and undermine their economy and citizens than Americans even though just the Iraq war alone was an even worse and less justified war of aggression. Again, I am pointing out that all accusations of “tankie” boil down to just not maintaining this double standard. And I was working off of the original banning of Kittenrulz and you invoking the Russian Invasion. The accusations of “tankie” around the Russian-Ukraine war do boil down to having any explanations or understanding of the causes of the war beyond “Putin is evil, so he does evil things like invading countries”. Kittenrulz and most “tankies” do not say that it is good and just, though I will admit there are a minority that take Russia’s side due to the full embrace of overt Nazism within sectors of the Ukraine government and armed forces since 2014 and exacerbated by 2022. Though that was a convenient talking point for Russian officials rather than a real motivation, and the war empowering and legitimizing these Neo-nazi formations.
Thank you for not strawmanning me and actually walking through your experiences with others who are “anti-tankie” rather than assuming the worst of me.
I legitimately don’t have time to respond to absolutely all of this in huge detail, so assume that if I didn’t respond to a specific point I just didn’t have much to say about it.
I do generally agree with this in principle. The governmental structure of Iran, for example, makes a lot of sense if your explicit goal is to be as coup-proof as possible. This is very much a double-edged sword: a country built on legitimate paranoia often sees any protest as foreign interference, regardless of the reality.
Maybe I’m just taking crazy pills here, but most of the opinions on the war over seen here can be boiled down to “Evil Ukrainian Nazis bad, Russia good”. That is legitimately what I see during the rare moments I look over here.
It can’t be “some sectors” and a “full embrace” at the same time, can it? There were some well known units that were very explicitly neonazi, but at no point did they have any control over the civilian government or military high command.
Thank you for acknowledging that.