• mcv@lemmy.zipBanned from community
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    1 day ago

    Russia is no more a “brutal dictatorship” than the US is, or the UK, or any number of other capitalist shithole countries that call themselves “democracies.”

    Surely you must recognise how ridiculous that claim is.

    Sure, Trump would love for it to be true, and he’s certainly trying to, but even in the US, you can still publicly say this, while in Russia, you’d be headed for prison. Putin’s political opponents frequently fall out of windows or catch some polonium poisoning.

    These things are not the same, and pretending they are, makes you blind to how much worse they can still get. Russia is absolutely more of a brutal dictatorship than even the US, but especially than most European countries.

    I’m not denying the toxic influence of money either, but that’s still not comparable to the hold Putin has over his country and his media.

    • LemmeAtEm@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      Putin’s political opponents frequently fall out of windows or catch some polonium poisoning.

      Hmm… I wonder what happened to the original leadership of BLM? And hey, what are Fred Hampton and Mark Clark up to these days? Has Gary Webb published any articles recently?

      These things are not the same, and pretending they are, makes you blind to how much worse they can still get. Russia is absolutely more of a brutal dictatorship than even the US, but especially than most European countries.

      Oh believe me, I am well aware how bad they can get, you’re just completely unaware of how bad they’ve already been. You believe all these lies about how terrible Russia is, looking at it only through the lens that western propagandists have carefully cultivated for you without realizing that every accusation they’ve levied on their enemies is a confession about what they themselves have been doing all along. You’re as intellectually domesticated by US imperialist interests as any diehard Kremlin-supporting Russian citizen, only you have the benefit of being on the side that enjoys global hegemony without even understanding what that word means. You’re all up in arms about the lies of the media of an enemy state without having even an ounce of self awareness about the lies of the media you’re consuming, the very same media from which you think you’ve learned how uniquely bad the enemy’s media is.

      • mcv@lemmy.zipBanned from community
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        1 day ago

        I don’t even live in the US. I live in Europe, and I’m concerned about the freedom and safety of my fellow human beings, and I’m disgusted by how US imperial interests have suddenly decided to embrace Putin and is turning against Europe.

        My side is not enjoying global hegemony. I only wish Europe asserted itself against wannabe hegemons like the US and Russia, but political leaders here are too cowardly for that.

        I see American media increasingly parroting Putin’s viewpoints, because of this American realignment, and that’s what you’re asking me to blindly accept? No, fuck that. You talk a lot about others being controlled by propaganda, but I don’t see an ounce of self awareness in you.

        • burlemarx@lemmygrad.ml
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          18 hours ago

          The leaders in Europe are all financial capitalists who invested a lot of capital into US financial system. Even if European people face hunger tomorrow, their assets are secured at US banks. For this reason, they don’t care whether they sign deals that are unfavorable to the European people.

          • mcv@lemmy.zipBanned from community
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            17 hours ago

            We definitely should elect better leaders, that’s for sure. These have to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing. It takes too much effort, and it’s going way too slowly, but they can be moved. They’ve moved somewhat (not enough) on Ukraine, Gaza and even the environment, all due to popular pressure, but they need to move a lot further. People need to stop voting for the right wing idiots they keep electing.

            • burlemarx@lemmygrad.ml
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              7 hours ago

              You should definitely elect better leaders. If something is consensus in all so called “democracies”, is that everyone thinks everyone else need to elect better leaders. The majority of the working people, which comprises the majority of population of most (pseudo-)democratic countries are mostly unsatisfied with their governments. This is occurs repeatedly and consistently in all liberal democracies, with a few exceptions. If there’s something all liberal representative democracies look alike is that most people don’t feel their interests are being represented by their government.

              There’s a reason why this happens in all capitalist societies. Note that it’s not an individual issue and the reason is not lack of education and stupidity, as people often say, as even well educated individuals do bad voting decisions. This is a social and systemic issue and it’s not a coincidence.

              I won’t tell you why, I want you to think about it. Then tell my why this happens.

          • mcv@lemmy.zipBanned from community
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            1 day ago

            That’s certainly what they want you to accept. What Putin wants you to believe. But this is clearly a case where US and European interests diverge. Trump wants to play nice with Putin while waging his economic war on Europe and the rest of the world, while Europe is trying to stop or slow Russian aggression. And degrading itself trying to keep Trump onboard.

            It’s a mess, but defending against aggression is still better than surrendering to it. Europe needs to learn to stand on its own feet.

            • Aria@lemmygrad.ml
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              23 hours ago

              That’s certainly what they want you to accept. What Putin wants you to believe.

              The USA empire doesn’t work by having individual governments enter secret conspiracies to obey the USA in favour of their own interests. The USA government and military are just stewards of the empire, the empire doesn’t exist to benefit them.

              Ultimately the majority of oligarchs whom the USA empire exists to serve are born in Europe, or they come from European dynasties that happen to live in the USA. It’s simply a system of systemically and organically empowering those who benefit capital.

              The EU, which has incredible sway over the politics of EEA nations, is explicitly an organisation that exists to create oligarchs out of capitalists. And who are the European capitalists? Are they staunch nationalists? No of course not, they’re globalists with huge amounts of wealth tied up in USA stock exchanges. That means that with only one level of separation, the EU’s explicit mission becomes an implicit mission to strengthen the USA empire’s power over EEA nations.

              But this is clearly a case where US and European interests diverge.

              I would recommend this video to you on the topic: https://youtu.be/J_4srRdIK4k It’s recent and current, made by a person who supports social democracy, that is to say, he’s not a socialist or a Marxist. He doesn’t use marxist dialectics in his analysis but still comes to the same conclusions. I think you’ll find him more agreeable. He presents clearly without making assumptions about prior knowledge, citing all his claims, as much as possible using Western sources.

    • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      Surely you must recognise how ridiculous that claim is.

      You seem to endlessly fall back on this, have you noticed? Just raw Appeals to Personal Incredulity.

      • mcv@lemmy.zipBanned from community
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        1 day ago

        I always start out believing people are capable of critical thought and self awareness, until they prove otherwise. Plenty of that in this discussion, unfortunately.

        Should I just accept that you’re incapable of critical thought or grasping meaningful nuance?

            • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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              1 day ago

              You losers should really expand your list of rote thought terminating cliches, they get incredibly repetitive when you just use them over and over again.

            • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.worldBanned from community
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              18 hours ago

              If you really want to be sure you can see their profile and modlog show they’re just rage baiting trolls.