I’m anti-imperialist and pro-metricist.
Too many reports for the comments of this post so I’m locking this
It’s kinda unavoidable that if one major power loses influence, another will benefit from the vacuum. You can’t really oppose your own country’s imperialism without making the case that other countries taking advantage is an acceptable risk.
This is more or less the story of WWI. With the increasing tensions and military buildup, socialists of countries across Europe formed the Second International and agreed in the Basel Declaration, which said that they would use the crisis to rise up simultaneously against every imperialist power and put an end to both the war and to capitalism:
If a war threatens to break out, it is the duty of the working classes and their parliamentary representatives in the countries involved supported by the coordinating activity of the International Socialist Bureau to exert every effort in order to prevent the outbreak of war by the means they consider most effective, which naturally vary according to the sharpening of the class struggle and the sharpening of the general political situation.
In case war should break out anyway it is their duty to intervene in favor of its speedy termination and with all their powers to utilize the economic and political crisis created by the war to arouse the people and thereby to hasten the downfall of capitalist class rule.
But once the war actually broke out, most of them found reasons to rally around their country’s flag. German socialists pointed to the conditions of serfdom under the Tsar and pointed to the massive colonial empires of Britain and France, while British and French socialists argued that Germany undemocratic under the Kaiser and had more responsibility for starting the war. They mostly agreed that both sides were bad, but they said they were only fighting to safeguard their countries “against defeat” rather than for victory, but regardless, for all intents and purposes it was the same thing. Of course, in all of these countries, there was considerable political pressure and propaganda pushing them to fall in line and to regard the enemy as worse, and many people did what was personally advantageous regardless of what they had said previously.
There was only one exception, where the socialists took advantage of the war to overthrow their government, without regard for the possibility that it could help the other side, and they did end up ceding a fair bit of land too, but they were able to put a stop that that theater of the meat grinder everyone was being fed into.
The way I understand the meme, it’s not saying anti-imperialism is wrong. It’s saying that being a tankie, i.e. simping for china and russia doesn’t qualify as anti-imperialism.
As near as I can tell, advocating for peaceful, dovish, isolationist policies is enough for someone to be considered a tankie (ironically enough). WWI era socialists who did not fall in line behind their governments certainly faced similar accusations.
Since neither Russia nor China is peaceful, dovish, or isolationist, what are you on about?
And there you have it. If you advocate for peaceful, dovish, isolationist policies, you are a tankie because you’re letting other nations that aren’t those things win. The exact same logic that caused “leftists” to rally around their own imperialist governments in WWI. Germany wasn’t socialist, so why should the British socialists let them win? Britain wasn’t socialist, so why should the German socialists let them win?
The phrase-bandying Trotsky has completely lost his bearings on a simple issue. It seems to him that to desire Russia’s defeat means desiring the victory of Germany. (Bukvoyed and Semkovsky give more direct expression to the “thought”, or rather want of thought, which they share with Trotsky.) To help people that are unable to think for themselves, the Berne resolution made it clear, that in all imperialist countries the proletariat must now desire the defeat of its own government. Bukvoyed and Trotsky preferred to avoid this truth, while Semkovsky (an opportunist who is more useful to the working class than all the others, thanks to his naively frank reiteration of bourgeois wisdom) blurted out the following: “This is nonsense, because either Germany or Russia can win”
What is the substitute proposed for the defeat slogan? It is that of “neither victory nor defeat." This, however, is nothing but a paraphrase of the “defence of the fatherland” slogan. It means shifting the issue to the level of a war between governments (who, according to the content of this slogan, are to keep to their old stand, “retain their positions"), and not to the level of the struggle of the oppressed classes against their governments! It means justifying the chauvinism of all the imperialist nations, whose bourgeoisie are always ready to say—and do say to the people—that they are “only” fighting “against defeat”.
On closer examination, this slogan will be found to mean a “class truce”, the renunciation of the class struggle by the oppressed classes in all belligerent countries, since the class struggle is impossible without dealing blows at one’s “own” bourgeoisie, one’s “own” government, whereas dealing a blow at one’s own government in wartime is (for Bukvoyed’s information) high treason, means contributing to the defeat of one’s own country. Those who accept the “neither victory-nor-defeat” slogan can only be hypocritically in favour of the class struggle, of “disrupting the class truce”; in practice, such people are renouncing an independent proletarian policy because they subordinate the proletariat of all belligerent countries to the absolutely bourgeois task of safeguarding the imperialist governments against defeat. The only policy of actual, not verbal disruption of the “class truce”, of acceptance of the class struggle, is for the proletariat to take advantage of the difficulties experienced by its government and its bourgeoisie in order to overthrow them. This, however, cannot be achieved or striven for, without desiring the defeat of one’s own government and without contributing to that defeat.
When, before the war, the Italian Social-Democrats raised the question of a mass strike, the bourgeoisie replied, no doubt correctly from their own point of view, that this would be high treason, and that Social-Democrats would be dealt with as traitors. That is true, just as it is true that fraternisation in the trenches is high treason. Those who write against “high treason”, as Bukvoyed does, or against the “disintegration of Russia”, as Semkovsky does, are adopting the bourgeois, not the proletarian point of view. A proletarian cannot deal a class blow at his government or hold out (in fact) a hand to his brother, the proletarian of the “foreign” country which is at war with “our side”, without committing “high treason”, without contributing to the defeat, to the disintegration of his “own”, imperialist “Great” Power.
Whoever is in favour of the slogan of “neither victory nor defeat” is consciously or unconsciously a chauvinist; at best he is a conciliatory petty bourgeois but in any case he is an enemy to proletarian policy, a partisan of the existing governments, of the present-day ruling classes.
The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War, V.I. Lenin
That’s an extremely longwinded way to avoid the question.
You asked what I’m on about and I told you what I’m on about. No question avoided.
You posted all that, and didn’t even answer the damn question.
What question did I not answer?
Since neither Russia nor China is peaceful, dovish, or isolationist, what are you on about?
WWI era socialists who did not fall in line behind their governments certainly faced similar accusations.
Eugene Debs went to prison for that exact reason.
Listen, I’m as anti-imperialist as the next guy. But realistically if the core of capital that has nearly unopposed dominion over the entire world recedes, another entity that deserves the moniker of ‘empire’ completely equally will step in to fill the void! And if that’s the case, we should just support the most morally righteous empire. Ours >:-D
Nature abhors a vacuum.
Turtle Island managed to not have white people using such logic for thousands of years just fine
if one major power loses influence, another will benefit from the vacuum.
Multipolarism is not a vacuum. Hypocritical “Rules based world order” delusion backed by sycophantic colonies to tyranical CIA is a propaganda tool that deludes an empire into over reaching and collapse and “the vacuum”.
I think you may have misunderstood me. I’m not saying that imperialism is justified because of the possibility of a vacuum, I’m saying that the possibility of a vacuum is an acceptable risk for the sake of opposing imperialism.
It’s something that really bothers me about communism and socialism being derisive in the US, even in 2024, about 35 years after USSR fell.
The alternative to community-centric society is autocracy, typically devolving into monarchism.
Death to monarchists!
I mean “atheism” is still a dirty word in politics, thousands of years after the prejudice against that started. Apples to oranges, sure, but just goes to show how long it takes for public opinion to shift sometimes.
[LONG RAMBLE]
TLDR: Atheism wasn’t really regarded as a threat (other than the thing that USSR enforced) until the aughts and the New Atheism movement, at which point right-wing religious ministries turned from hating on other ministries to hating on atheists and secularists.
Atheism has some fascinating recent history. In the 1970s and 1980s atheists were disregarded almost entirely since it was an asserted position mostly by hard-line scientists and philosophers. Most of the none population instead went to (or at least associated with) left-wing churches. My parents (my Dad who is a rocket scientist and was atheist except in name) joined my mom and I at the Church of Religious Science (later the Science of Mind Church) which is pretty darned lax and easy to accept as religions go.
And the religious right (then, the Southern Baptist Church and the rising Evangelical movement) hated us and declared us false. They also did this to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (still regarded as a dangerous cult) and the Roman Catholic Church. John F. Kennedy got a lot of flack for being Catholic, and Republicans insisted he’d be beholden to the Holy See – and they tried to pressure him! – but he demonstrated he could serve the US as president and keep the Vatican at arm’s reach. Romney was still getting crap for his Mormonism in his 2012 presidential run, but it blended seamlessly into all sorts of other biographical anomalies that suggested character problems.
I should add there was a pro-religion sentiment in the US that was really anti-USSR. Marx recognized religion as the opiate of the people a symptom that the masses were suffering from precarity or scarcity, but Marx was saying the response of the community should be to feed them and keep them free of want, and as the dispair fades the need for religious practice will fade as well. (We’re not sure if he’s completely right.) So Lenin and Stalin’s response was to ban religion, which didn’t actually address the issue, but it gave the US justification to push church-going in the mid 20th century as a thing that pinko commies didn’t do.
Anyway, atheism became significant movement thing due to two factors. One was the new atheist movement which orbited Richard Dawkins and the top atheist guns. Dawkins motivation (as he tells it) was the 9/11 attacks, which showcased the power of religion as a force multiplier in violent conflict. But there was also a certain privilege that religious movements and religious institutions were given that secular ones were not, which was a favored topic of Douglas Adams. And so bringing atheist and secular organizations to equal status as churches was a big early goal of the new atheist movement.
The other factor bringing the rise of popular atheism was the rise of the internet which allowed us all to actually talk about things and confront that a lot of us already had awkward relationships with our respective religious institutions. Myself, this was a period for me to naturalism, ruling out supernatural elements until one comes and bites me on the butt. (This is the dream for IRL ghost hunters, to have a poltergeist beat them with their own duffel. Pain is temporary but evidence lives forever on the internet!)
That said the aughts marked the spread of atheism (and the consequential collapse of left-wing church attendance. Right wing church attendance has been falling less quickly but noticeably, and ministries continue to be in panic about it. And this was when anti-atheist pro-Christian and pro-Muslim movements (who absolutely don’t ally) started organizing to scare everyone how terrible we godless folk are, as if our interest in intellectual exercise and not the hypocrisy endemic to right-wing Christian ministries is what is driving parishioners from their pews.
[/LONG RAMBLE]
God how true this is for all the America bad people
Lemmy has wayyyy to many people who can’t understand that America bad ≠ China good.
I was banned from /r/Latestagecapitalism for not agreeing with “China good”, tried to explain the opposite: “China bad ≠ America good”. They didn’t care.
Yeah it’s annoying when any criticism of Occupied China results in them talking about America
What the living fuck are you talking about ‘occupied China’
that is the most brain broken anti-historic nonsense I’ve ever heard. The CPC is literally the result of decolonizing themselves. It was occupied until then. Not to be cliched but crack a fucking book holy shit
I am aware of the terrorists sitting back while Real China 🇹🇼 tried protecting the people from the Japanese then not having the strength afterwards
Chiang Kai-Shek was kidnapped by his own guards because he was too preoccupied on hunting down the communists to the ends of the earth to stop the Japanese from running rampant.
I’d love to hear your explanation of how 8000 people hiding in one of the most remote regions of China came to win the civil war, if not through widespread popular support.
So you’re literally a genocidal fascist or too stupid to bother reading the history you’re claiming as the source of your righteousness.
My money is you’re dumb af
Are you trying to deny that more Nationalist forces died during the 2nd Sino Japanese War than CCP forces and trying to call me dumb or are you just pro-Imperial Japan and trying to say they freed China?
As a matter of fact I will take this opportunity to call you dumb because your red herring of ‘who lost more troops against Japan’ has literally no bearing on any point of contention thus far raised.
Well given how Lemmy is mostly American ultra-leftwing it’s weird when they talk about changing China when they can’t even change their own neighbourhood, or even their own home.
Eh, Lemmy isn’t that left wing. It’s just normal left.
Depends on the instance, Lemmy ranges from liberal to Anarchist to Marxist. Most instances lean in one of those major directions, or at most 2.
Drag noticed something after the election: All the non voters say it’s not their fault, because Kamala is more to blame. They think blame is a limited resource. They think you can only blame either the DNC OR the voters, not both.
It’s the same as with China. They think if America is bad, then China has to be good. If there’s evidence of China being bad, the counterevidence is that America is worse.
Tankies think only one thing can be bad at a time. It’s the same with genocide, too. We can’t care about Ukraine and trans people and West Bank, because WhAt AbOuT gAzA.
The tankie mind only has room for one single bad thing in each subject. Only one bad genocide. Only one bad empire. Only one bad politician. They can’t conceive of two things being bad at the same time. It does not compute. When they say they understand two things being bad, they’re lying. They can only understand it in short term memory. They can’t internalise it and apply it to long term memory. Fifteen seconds after they admit two things can be bad, they forget it. It’s like clockwork. “America and China are both bad… 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15… China can’t be bad because America is bad! I’m not to blame for Trump’s win because Kamala ran a weak campaign! Gaza is the only genocide that matters!”
When you have the same energy for the ongoing genocides of both the Native Americans and the Black descendants of slavery in America that you have for Ukraine or bearing water for Israel, apparently, that’s the day I believe these four paragraphs of uninvestigated drivel isn’t projection and cope
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15… and you’ve forgotten that two things can be bad again. Drag said genocide in West Bank is bad, so you assumed drag doesn’t oppose genocide in Gaza and must support Israel. It’s like clockwork.
Since I know you’re gonna be a pedantic little weasel about this otherwise, here’s my list of things that I consider ‘bad’, to minimize and compartmentalize my views into your narrow little field of cope: any and all nations that profited, from the colonial age to modernity, off of the trade of African slaves, or off the extraction of resources from a motherland they have already spent 400+ years fundamentally violating. America, Europe, Spain, Portugal, France, every single fuckin’ one of the Nordics, all of them.
Beyond that, I consider all settler-colonies said white settlers have spawned since the colonial era ‘bad’-- which is to say, Israel too. I think you’ll find that’s a great deal many more than just two– they’re just not the people you want me to be sharpening a spear for.
And westerners-- American, european, doesn’t matter which-- have not given me reason to extend the benefit of the doubt in over a year that they aren’t zionist settlers or waterbearers for such. After all, most westerners are settlers themselves; and birds of a shit feather often flock together.
Fact of the matter is, our definitions of “imperialism” are two different definitions. You crutch yourself on the ignorant neoliberal definition, that “anti-imperialism” is just “against ALL empires”-- a naive, idealist stance. MY definition of “anti-imperialism” stands against the settlerdom I have been forced to live under the thumb of, all my life.
You are manifestly unserious.
Is China also killing people in the middle east?
imperialism is when the middle east, because everyone knows that only one country can be bad at once and america runs a monopoly on genocide
go read a book, I’m done with talking to you illiterate morons incapable of understanding any sort of nuance
Yeah but it’s a very easy/not even contest that “China better than America”. You don’t need China to be good for that to be true.
China good though
-_-
(As an anarchist)
-_-
Who is China good for?
Gets it in one.
There’s a reason everyone is currently demonizing liberal ideology instead of standing up for the rights that the conservatives are working to strip away.
Liberal ideology is a regressive conservative ideology.
It was progressive three centuries ago. It’s not anymore, it’s outlived it’s usefulness.
Unfortunately tankies throw out the good parts of liberalism along with the bad, and endorse throwing people in gaol for wrongthink.
There really aren’t any good parts to liberalism. If you’re a liberal and the current year starts with a 2, you’re a monster. Like full on, need to be forcefully reducated kinda monster.
But to your second point, all nations, societies, and groups need to do that. It’s a fundamental aspect of society. There hasn’t been a society yet that doesn’t.
Not being arrested for publicly disagreeing with the government is a good thing.
The college students divest israel protests?
Yup, America also bad. I suppose you could say the difference is that America pretends to be good, while China is openly totalitarian.
Depends on the disagreement. If you think the country should burn and it’s people suffer and are advocating for that, you should maybe be arrested.
Speaking of bad parts of liberalism: it’s wrong to throw Hitler into jail for spreading nazi thought
Look at what your values actually are
Jesus fuck tankies are fucking morons. Do you actually think anybody buys your shitty argument?
If my argument is shitty, please engage with it instead of mugging for a crowd you assume is already on your side
No, I’m not going to spend effort engaging in good faith with an argument clearly made in bad faith.
Noooooo I want the empire that hides all the bad things they do so I don’t have to think about it while I drive my SUV and buy Starbucks!!! /s
Idk man, I feel like a lot of us “America bad” people are from Europe and don’t support China or Russia either.
Yeah the problem isn’t “America bad”, it’s “America bad, therefore China/Russia good”
Yeah you’ll see that implied a lot on Lemmy.ml
I’m Black; what reason I have to think the country that murders my people not only in the streets, but sometimes in their own beds, is a good force on the world? It is a very easy calculus for me:
“ain’t no Chinese, Cuban, or Russian that ever hard-r’d me. Plenty of Americans have. Ain’t no Chinese, Cuban, or Russian that ever side-eyed me for just walking down the street. Plenty of white Americans have. Ain’t no Chinese, Cuban, or Russian that ever held me at gunpoint unjustly, either. More than one sallow American pig has.”
If that meterstick was good enough for Muhammad Ali in reference to Vietnam, it’s good enough for me in reference to the people the white moderate claims should be my ‘enemies’.
Nation states are designed to divide the human race into more easily managed chunks.
That’s why I don’t support governments or countries, I support people and anarchist liberation movements :3
No gods no masters
✊️
Peace, Justice, and Anarchy
✊
Only dragons, right?
Only bad dragons 😉
Hate your state
Exactly! I’m so tired of being accused of being a liberal and/or a fascist every single time I note that China or Russia isn’t some perfect leftist utopia, but in fact just another empire that is a pain in the ass not only to other countries but also their own citizens.
China is a fascist ethnostate, Russia is another neoliberal capitalist state, North Korea IMO cannot be described as socialist, Vietnam is pretty cool but mixed and only partially socialist, Cuba is not great tbh just in general, Venezuela is horrible, the Nordic states are just Social Democrat states, Israel has multiple worker co-ops but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re still a genocidal ethnostate, that just about covers all the tankie countries.
Russia has long reached the end state of neoliberal capitalism, fascism. The US is currently transitioning.
Israel is a tankie country now? Don’t they support Palestine? Let’s not rob tankies of their only correct opinion!
Kinda how they believe Chinas genocide is justified Tankies have no real problem with genocide
I haven’t seen a single Marxist in favor of Israel, though, you’re just inventing people at this point. Unless you’re trying to describe entirely different groups under the same general umbrella, but that confuses the convesation.
I’m using the term “tankie” to describe fake leftists, Israel has a lot of fake leftists and so called “Labor-Zionists”
The people supporting China, Cuba, Vietnam, Venezuela, etc. and “critically supporting” Russia in its anti-Western stance are generally Marxists, and none of these people support Israel, and none fully support Russia. Israel has some few people that support the faux-Socialist “Kibbutz” system, but these people are anti-China, anti-Cuba, anti-Vietnam, anti-Venezuela, etc.
That’s why I am saying it’s confusing the conversation, your “tankie” doesn’t hold all of the views you mentioned, you’re describing separate groups under one label, a label almost always used for Marxists, and as such it leads to obfuscation of your actual message, hence confusion from other users.
If you think China is fascist, you’re brainwashed. There isnt another explanation for thinking the most democratic nation currently on the planet is fascist.
China perfectly fits the definition of a fascist ethnostate. Their economy is indirectly managed by the government while having capitalist elements (state control is the only “socialist” elements), they enforce a language, one ethnicity is clearly depicted as the “true Chinese ethnicity” (despite China having many), censorship is rampant, they’re committing a genocide, and at the end of the day THEY’RE NOT EVEN SOCIALIST.
It’s amazing how you neolibs expose yourselves. You sure you wouldn’t be more comfortable on reddit little buddy?
I’m an Anarcho-Sydicalist -_-
Oh, you’re an idealist stuck two centuries behind everyone else. Capital can and will crush everything you build through your ideology, so drop the anarcho part until capital is eliminated globally, or enjoy being a slave to capital your entire existence.
the most democratic nation currently on the planet
Sorry, but I didn’t see anyone mention Denmark or Norway anywhere in this thread.
I mentioned the Nordic states, they’re ok as far as neoliberal western states go (not very)
Oh, so you did! I missed that.
I’ll just say, having lived in Vietnam for quite some time, it certainly is a much better country than China, but describing it as “mixed” and “partially socialist” understates its issues. Corruption is rampant and open, and is the way of things in both the private and public sectors.
As just one example, the Saigon Metro project began construction not long before I stopped living there in 2012, and was scheduled to finish in 2018. Rampant corruption with that project has meant multiple times it’s just stalled with seemingly no progress made for years, and the Japanese construction company hired to do some of the work threatened to pull out over cost overruns caused by the corruption. It’s a lovely country in so many ways, and its government is so much better than those that tankies usually love to praise in terms of the degrees of gross authoritarian bs, but it’s got a long it could improve in many regards.
Why would anyone mention racist petrocountries that are essentially Saudi Arabia but white?
Sorry, I thought we were talking about democratic countries. Didn’t realise it was “make up whatever shit makes you feel good” time.
Sure. Except if you allow those in power to define the meaning of demos, every single country that ever existed - including Nazi Germany - was democratic. As a result, the term democratic becomes tautological in that it is always true regardless of the system involved.
So yes, your statement that China is a nation is true.
Democratic countries don’t silence people for outing criticism.
You must be sarcastic, otherwise your comment just doesn’t make any sense.
Good thing China doesn’t either.
How are you so sure? How do you see beyond western and Chinese propaganda and get to a semblance of truth? Genuine question.
I’ve lived in China for work. It’s genuinely no different than say, the Denmark in terms of “repression” except instead of arresting those that threaten capital, they arrest those that threaten the people (usually on behalf of capital). It’s not an anarchist paradise, they haven’t achieved communism, but they’re likely the furthest thing from fascism that’s still a nation. Anyone that claims to be on the left and dislikes their methods or compares them to fascists are genuinely either not on the left, or are baby lefties stuck in the 1800s in terms of reading and philosophy.
The chinese web novel reverand insanity literally got banned for criticizing china. The guy who wrote it can’t write it anymore and you can’t even pirate the novel in china. cuz its been deleted off the chinese internet.
That’s nice and all, but there are literally millions of critics that aren’t banned, whose work is publicly available, who criticize from a place of wanting to improve, not destroy.
China is ML, and if there’s anything MLs live to do, it’s criticize each other.
The vast majority of people that actually get banned from producing certain works either spread entirely false propaganda created by western intelligence agencies ( uighur “genocide” ) or want to remove the government entirely and replace it with a kleptocracy like the US has.
I also noted this was a problem with the Rebel Alliance (who just supports a republic of oligarchs), and was called a centrist for my efforts.
See, they shouldn’t have gone with the First Order. They should’ve had the New Republic stamp out the Empire, only to create a new empire itself.
Star Wars is supposed to be palatable to children, and my guess is that those types of politics muddy the waters too much for kids to grasp. Simplistic and clear “good vs evil” lines appeal to wider audiences.
“But they’re the good guys!”
Tankies support the more problematic empires such as Russia and China.
Did you not read the meme? Imperialism is bad no matter who is doing it, and arguing over which empire is more ‘problematic’ is counterproductive, as we should oppose all empires instead of wasting all of our time and effort on getting on each other’s throats.
true, being rude to other people is bad. We should stop being rude and criminalize it.
wait…
Less problematic in some ways, more problematic in other ways. We shouldn’t be supporting the “less problematic” empire. We should be fighting any and all empires.
And in doing so they may have pushed large parts of the Chinese-American community to the right. Tankies caping for the CCP were not a good look for the moderate immigrants who had been fucked over by the Chinese government in various ways.
they may have pushed large parts of the Chinese-American community to the right.
That’s just the Gusano effect, frankly. Why would someone who supports the ML regime move to China’s self-nominated existential enemy, after all?
No, those who oppose just come over here and Yeonmi Park themselves all over the place. You see it in ever single “Castro took my grandfather’s plantation” wannabe-settler who conveniently leaves out that el viejo’s plantation was staffed by slaves; I expect exactly the same out of Chinese expatriate capitalists afraid they’re next (when there’s actually still hella billionaires that haven’t been milled yet).
“moderate” immigrants from China don’t exist. You can’t be moderate between two entirely different and incompatible socioeconomic systems.
What’s that behind your back? Are you hiding a pile of severed children’s hands because they didn’t harvest rubber fast enough??
Goodness, thanks for reminding me, now I won’t sleep. Regardless, THAT empire is thankfully gone.
It’s literally the same empire you live in
You’re just repeating the meme.
They are all bad, they are all part of the problems we face globally, and whatabouting “them” to avoid facing criticism of “us” only serves those in power by deflecting criticism of them.
More problematic to whom? The US literally changed the political direction of my country and fucked us over real hard.
Where are the chinese wars and regime change operations? At least Russia only attacks its neighbors at most so countries far away have nothing to fear, unlike the US invading and destroying countries all around the globe.
Call them empire or whatever, but being unable to admit that the US is the bigger threat to real freedom in the world only contributes to the causes of the biggest and arguably most brutal empire in history, that is in constant state of war since it was founded.
Maybe it doesn’t matter which empire is more problematic.
Well, at least global south countries are gonna have to choose between them or play both sides at best to survive the foereseeable future, so at least in some instances it does matter.
What will Nigeria choose? Chinese or US exports, loans, cultural influence etc
No country can be fully independent from the world around, so they do have to choose allies and foes.
More problematic to whom?
people living under the threat of them
Where are the chinese wars and regime change operations?
cold war (they did the same as the us, but just lost), tibet, uigurs, taiwan, mongolia, and don’t forget their brutal mining operations in africa
At least Russia only attacks its neighbors at most so countries far away have nothing to fear, unlike the US invading and destroying countries all around the globe.
but in return the us only conqueres nations far away from them (at least in the last 100 years), also that’s not really better, russia got a lot of neighbors
the US is the bigger threat to real freedom in the world
imo, it purely depends on the region you’re looking on
most brutal empire in history
historically britain outcompetes them imo, but in the 20th century, yes they were, now I’d say china tho, just look at their actions in africa, they’re kinda repeating briyish history there
but it’s nice, that you have manners and don’t want to ban everyone disagreeing with you like some on grad
You just went through a regime change operation of Russia. Or did you think Trump and all those extremist right-wing governments in Europe won all on their own?
Putins propaganda machine made those happen. They infiltrated so many social media groups spreading lies to make everyone more xenophobic so they can invade Ukraine and all previous USSR regions without them getting help.
On Lemmy, they are mostly hiding in your instance.
Rachel Maddow hollowed out an entire generation of liberal’s brains. Everything bad is because boogeyman.
I wonder why a westerner who gets their news from english speaking western sources which profit off of the same wealth extraction as the empire they are part of would think like this? Surely the western free press would not be influenced by the whims of capital and empire. Obviously China and Russia must be the “worse empire”, my empire told me so!
Well, just personally speaking, I know Russian, and reading Russian news sources (state-owned as well as those that have been banned by the Russian state) from time to time, and talking with Russians directly, hasn’t even remotely convinced me that the “Russian empire” is equally bad as the “western empire”.
The vile Russian Empire, with its Romanov dynasty, super problematic. If Peter is so great, why does he look so wimpy compared to Joe Rogan? Hah, those stupid tankies don’t even realize the Chinese empire has been abolished for over 110 years!
Sorry for being snarky… Of course modern China is an empire. Just without overseas military bases. A soft empire, one might say.
They gettin into the overseas military bases; talkin’ bout Djibouti and a lil’ Cambodia as a treat
4 Chinese bases, as compared to 800 or so US bases. And what is the death toll of Chinese military interventions since the second World War? Not sure, but it certainly isn’t racking up to the millions upon millions killed by US foreign intervention. Like the other commenter is saying, don’t support nation states, good on you. But doing bothsidesism and false balances when talking about Empire is absurd. Like calling US empire ‘less problematic’ 🤡
China is still in their phase of keeping their interventions within their borders. The “trail of tears phase” so to say
Oh no I was just being pedantic
You got me. Nice one, funny person.
Of course modern China is an empire. Just without overseas military bases. A soft empire, one might say.
4 Chinese bases
So China does have oversees bases and is therefore in fact not a “soft empire” but a fully fledged empire.
Don’t know why you bring up the US, we were talking about China. Which is by your definition an empire and should be treated as such.
No, foreign bases does not an empire make. If that was the case, watch out for Bangladesh. This dick measuring between nation states is unproductive and serves to legitimize imperialism itself. Rather than comparing oppressions, our focus should be on understanding and opposing the global system that enables imperial powers to divide and exploit working people worldwide.
without overseas military bases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Garrison
And if you’re gonna say Hong Kong doesn’t count because it’s already been assimilated into the empire, that’s not great evidence against it being an empire.
TF you mean ‘assimilated’
If I lease you a part of my house (AT GUNPOINT NO LESS) for 10 years am I doing an imperial aggression when I move my stuff back in afterwards?
So imperialism is okay when you have a de jure cassus belli?
I’m strongly of the belief, by reading them in the context provided, that you don’t know what any of those words mean
Imperialism - building an empire by exerting control over foreign powers
de jure - by law
cassus belli - cause for war
So conquering other places is okay when the law says you have a good reason to send soldiers marching down their streets?
You got me. Vivat Roma!
We conquering Cartage with this one 🔥🔥🔥
IMPERIVM SINE FINE
"The pure (libertarian) socialists ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted.
Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed." - Michael Parenti, “Blackshirts and Reds”
spooks
Max Stirner? In my 196? I’m for it.
Stirner being a pseudonym Engels used to avoid Marx’s wrath directly and to act as an ideological foil for Marx to respond to is still one of the funniest conspiracy theories I’ve heard.
A fellow egoist? In my 196? I’m in for it (because it pleases me).
anti imperialist/colonial supporters when they find out that the entire timeline of human history is conquest, colonialism, and imperialism.
Feudalism dominated throughout human history, yet kings and queens have been dethroned in a good portion of the world.
the ones who prospered were the most aggressive ones, even conquering the whole world by force, it’s a survivorship bias situation.
not every group of humans is aggressive, but those eventually get conquered by the agressive ones, military power always ends up winning.
It’s unscientific to say that any country, given the chance, would do the same as the europeans or the US empire did to the world.
At least the Chinese century will prove or disprove this theory, given it’s the first significant power shift in the last 500 years, let’s see if they will be so brutal as the US and its allies (you know who) are to the world.
I firmly doubt it, there are no signs of brutality to other nations coming from the chinese, at most you could argue of some internal issues. There are no invasions, war or regime change operations done by China yet.
As someone from the global south, I don’t fear China or even Russia in the least, I only fear what the US or Europe will try to inflict in my country, like the recent regime change operations that I lived through, that was pretty harsh.
the “always conquered” thing, this is a fatalism only justified by it being what happened, not what always must happen. this is an incredibly important distinction.
there are no signs of brutality to other nations coming from the chinese
China is literally committing genocide on the Uyghurs. What makes you think they wouldn’t do the same to other groups they dislike if they get into power?
Now they are buying all resources they can in Africa doing the same type of Colonialism Europe did a hundred years ago.
That is pure empire/hegemon propaganda that gets to write your history. The same applies to Ukraine agitation Holomodor designation, and the writers would will tell you Hamas is responsible for existing and near future genocide.
China responded to terrorism through education and job creation, in what is now a free and prosperous sharing region. Empire has purely demonic intentions in its foreign policy and propaganda.
Even if you buy into all the best Chinese propaganda (oh, so it’s “terrorism” when Uyghurs fight against the state, but you’re ok with Palestinian freedom fighting? Where’s the consistency, tankies??), there’s no denying that China is imperialist by virtue of the fact that they rule over the Uyghur and Tibetan peoples despite enormous cultural differences to the ruling imperial core and a demonstrated desire for independence.
US rules over California
You’ll note that at no time did I try to make an argument that America is good. That’s…the whole point of this post
And btw Hawai’i would have been a much stronger example to pick to highlight American imperialism.
Even if your sources weren’t biased western rags and people that can’t speak a lick of Mandarin but can talk all the trash in the world about China in support of white settlerdom (adrian zenz has 23 citations on your bullshit-ass wikipedia article alone), at least China pays for the things they buy; rather than stealing it at gunpoint like the Americans, the French, any part of the countries that profited off the Transatlantic Slave Trade rly, other et cetera. While we wanna bullshit about ‘debt trapping’, since that’s obviously what you’re talking about, what’s the IMF again?
Deeply unserious; and DEFINITELY not beating the “weakest link” allegations.
the ones who prospered were the most aggressive ones, even conquering the whole world by force, it’s a survivorship bias situation.
this is my fundamental gripe with the problem, yes it’s technically a survivorship bias, but how do you remove it, that’s the hard question.
If 10 people in a group agree to leave 10,000 USD on a table, such that after 20 minutes, they can all split it amongst themselves, and then turn off the lights in the room and plug their ears in the meantime, someone if not multiple people are going to try and take it all for themselves.
Evolution has fundamentally programmed in a form of survivorship bias within basically every species. I don’t think you can separate it unfortunately.
not every group of humans is aggressive, but those eventually get conquered by the agressive ones, military power always ends up winning.
exactly.
It’s unscientific to say that any country, given the chance, would do the same as the europeans or the US empire did to the world.
i wouldn’t say that they would explicitly, but i would argue that being in a position of that much power, over that much of the world, in that much of a volatile position, there is a very high likelihood that they would influence some amount of the world, in a similar manner.
At least the Chinese century will prove or disprove this theory, given it’s the first significant power shift in the last 500 years, let’s see if they will be so brutal as the US and its allies (you know who) are to the world.
if we’re talking about modern day china, they already do a lot of power projection in the sea, illegally, same in the air. I don’t know if they’re doing any predatory lending to other countries, but that could very well change in the future, so we can’t say anything about it now. It’s highly likely that china at least wants other countries to be dependent on themselves at the minimum, which i would argue is a form of this power projection.
They are 100% in a position to do things that are more predatory, time will tell, i predict they will, it’s inevitable, but i could be wrong. Either that or china itself implodes before we get to that point, so who knows.
personally i know nothing about their military presence outside of the previously mentioned stuff. So i can’t really say anything about it, but there’s probably at least one bad thing they’ve done. Again, time will tell.
It’s highly likely that china at least wants other countries to be dependent on themselves
I may prefer being dependent to being conquered by force
how do you remove it
You can’t remove the bias in favour of aggression, but you can decouple aggression and oppression. You need to train the non-predators to get aggressive in defending one another. Look at elephants. They’re herbivores. They’re not out there attacking other species to exploit them. But no predator, not even lions, fucks with elephants. Because if you fuck with elephants, they’ll kick your ass.
Interesting point, based on this I could argue that military might (elephant power) is necessary for peace, if not used to coerce others
a country that builds nuclear power to protect itself but has a no first aggression rule could be a parallel to the elephants
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
That’s Latin for “if you want peace, prepare for war”. It was true 2000 years ago and it’s true now. If you want to be a pacifist, you should learn a martial art. If you want a peaceful government, you should learn to use a gun.
I’m on mobile (and sleepy) rn, so I don’t think I can properly respond to all your points, but thanks for this comment, I found it overall very constructive!
I’d just like to question one point for now
If 10 people in a group agree to leave 10,000 USD on a table, such that after 20 minutes, they can all split it amongst themselves, and then turn off the lights in the room and plug their ears in the meantime, someone if not multiple people are going to try and take it all for themselves.
Where are these people from? Urban, Rural, which country, which region etc, culture can have a big influence on that, I’d guess more collectivist cultures would have a different approach to this experiment than individualist ones such as you described. The country I live is also individualist so I see your point, but is all of humanity really like that?
A Native American tribe of 10 people would probably coordinate to be able to split the money, or even to invest collectivelly in their own village for example. A group of 10 New York executives with survival of the fittest mentality would probably act like you described.
Just some food for thought, hope you or anyone reading finds this interesting.
It absolutely is, but my take on that is we’re just bad at doing community-based government and need more practice.
possibly, but i think it’s a sort of fundamental problem. I would be curious if history/anthropology has any sort of knowledge on societies that didn’t have a hierarchical power structure within itself. But i’m guessing it’s very uncommon, if not unheard of.
If humans could do a communal governance structure effectively, one would think it would have already been tried, and successfully implemented.
Democracy is probably the closest thing we’ve ever had, but it’s still not perfect.
I’m sure theres also a lot of psych and socio research on this as well.
there’s also the question of whether it’s even possible to have a communal government structure in the first place, the world is incredibly complex, and politics is even more complex, doing things correctly is very hard.
TL;DR i don’t think it’s possible, and i’m not sure it ever will, judging by how humans behave.
So true! All the peaceniks yapping about the a bomb, flowers and trees are just pinkos. I heard a guy call for ceasefire in Palestine the other day, and I screamed to him: “Fuck off to Iran, if you like it so much”.
Yes, that is exactly what I was saying, and you definitely are a very literate person who is not putting words into anyone’s mouth.
