What’s up with this straight up pro-china and pro-russia stuff on Lemmy lately?
It’s not even praising the people of China and Russia, but rather their gov directly.
Obviously the states have problems, and the EU to a lesser degree, but they at least have some human rights.
Is this some kind of organized disinformation campaign?
Others have given great answers, but the short-answer is that it’s not a “disinformation campaign,” nor is it organized. It’s because Lemmy has a lot of leftists, especially Marxist-Leninists, and MLs both support AES (“Actually Existing Socialism”), like the PRC, and critically support capitalist countries forced into allying with them against the Global North’s imperialism.
In terms of their net impacts on the world, the US and EU far outweigh the evils of Russia. Russia is certainly flawed, but unlike the US and EU Russia doesn’t rely on expropriating vast amounts of wealth from the Global South, sanctioning, couping, or genociding those who go against imperialism. It isn’t because Russia is some moral paragon, but because they simply lack the means to be imperialist, they are boxxed in by the west and lack the financial capital to rely on expropriation of wealth.
As for the PRC, it gets far more support, because it’s the leading socialist country. 800 million people were lifted from poverty, and it’s rapidly improving. Even when the west runs propaganda against them, like the COVID lab leak theory or the Chinese spy balloon hysteria, the PRC is being widely supported by the Global South as the PRC is providing a genuine alternative to the genocidal west.
If you (or anyone else) want an introduction to Marxism-Leninism, here’s my Read Theory, Darn It! introductory reading guide!
Russia is literally conducting an imperialist invasion of Ukraine right now…
I can’t stand this shit when fake leftists defend authoritarian, imperialist states because they oppose the west.
Just because Russia “opposes” the west doesn’t make it any better than them.
Russia is literally conducting an imperialist invasion of Ukraine right now…
The most prolific invader in the world - NATO - did a coup in Ukraine, tried to bring weapons and personnel to Russia’s most important border near Russia’s most populated parts, and has been conducting terror attacks against the Russian population.
The rest of the world has every right to defend against NATO, so you either have a good explanation for what else Russia could have done in this regard, or your criticism of Russia is not serious.Just because Russia “opposes” the west doesn’t make it any better than them.
The fact that Russia hasn’t done anything nearly as bad as things like the invasion of Iraq - let alone the genocide of Palestine - does make Russia better.
The most prolific invader in the world - NATO - did a coup in Ukraine
You mean when the largest european democratic movement in decades ousted a Russian puppet who refused to pass a bill ratified by the Ukrainian Parliament?
tried to bring weapons and personnel to Russia’s most important border near Russia’s most populated parts
This never happened.
defend against NATO,
NATO is a defensive alliance. The closest it’s ever gotten to starting a war was Afghanistan and not every member participated.
And before you wind up the next “gotcha”, there are lots of dog shit imperialist countries in NATO, but we’re discussing the organization itself here.
The fact that Russia hasn’t done anything nearly as bad as things like the invasion of Iraq
Georgia, Chechnya, Syria, Afghanistan?
And also this is your moral foundation? It doesn’t matter what crimes Russia is committing so long as they never commit more crimes than the US?
NATO is a defensive alliance.
- The Intercept, 2021: Meet NATO, the Dangerous “Defensive” Alliance Trying to Run the World
- CounterPunch, 2022: NATO is Not a Defensive Alliance
- Noam Chomsky, 2023: NATO “most violent, aggressive alliance in the world”
- Thomas Fazi, 2024: NATO: 75 years of war, unprovoked aggressions and state-sponsored terrorism
- Gabriel Rockhill, 2020: The U.S. Did Not Defeat Fascism in WWII, It Discretely Internationalized It
The closest it’s ever gotten to starting a war was Afghanistan and not every member participated.
- Previously: NATO didn’t stop a genocide [in Yugoslavia]; it aided one[1][2][3].
- Previously: NATO […] destroyed Libya.
Right. I agree that NATO tacitly supports US imperialism but you’re also conflating the actions of the US with NATO as a whole. Turkey did not invade Afghanistan for example.
Also the idea that NATO caused the Bosnian Genocide is laughable. The bombing is the only reason it stopped. Your argument is literally “those boys, women and children were CIA assets, trust me bro”
But regardless, I think we’re not actually engaging correctly with each other’s points here. Let’s refocus with some simple facts.
- NATO did not attack Russia.
- Russia invaded Ukraine.
Do Ukrainians have a right to defend themselves from Russian imperial aggression?
Edit to add: Oh, that one was already in my previous comment. Sorry for repeating myself. Here’s a talk by Parenti to summarize.
Also the idea that NATO caused the Bosnian Genocide is laughable. The bombing is the only reason it stopped.
Tell me you didn’t engage with the material I provided without telling me you didn’t engage with the material I provided. Here’s another: Michael Parenti » To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia
I engaged with it. It’s saying the Serbs were responding to a proxy war initiated by the CIA when they were literally just exterminating Bosnians.
You can give me your summary but I’m not reading any more dubious links on the matter, especially when link bashing is being used as a rhetoric device to prevent your argument being challenged.
And again:
- NATO did not attack Russia
- Russia invaded Ukraine
Do Ukrainians have a right to defend themselves from Russian imperialism?
The Russo-Ukrainian War is about forcing Ukraine to be neutral to NATO, and resolving the conflict between Kiev and the Donetsk and Luhanks People’s Republics that requested Russian support after the Minsk agreements fell through due to Ukraine failing to keep up their end of the bargain. It isn’t an imperialist war, the goal is not expropriation of wealth, it’s to keep NATO out of the main path by which Russia has historically been invaded from the ground, such as in World War II by Nazi Germany.
Russia is not worthy of critical support just because “west bad.” Russia can’t imperialize countries like the west has. It tried, back when Putin requested to join NATO 2 decades ago, but Russia was denied because the Nationalists in Russia didn’t want to open their markets up to foreign plunder like in the 90s. As a consequence, Russia is forced to ally with the anti-imperialist countries, largely made up of countries in the Global South and socialist countries. The Sahel States, for example, are turning to Russia and the PRC as an alternative to western plunder, because Russia physically cannot imperialize in the same way the west does. It fundamentally lacks the ability to export vast amounts of capital and outsource production.
If you’re going to call leftists “fake,” then you should at least do the due dilligence to familiarize yourself with the Marxist analysis of imperialism.
The Minsk agreement has nothing to do with the formation of the Donetsk “republic”.
Though Russia respecting the territorial integrity of Ukraine was a big part of it nobody seems to remember.
Yanukovych refused to sign a free trade agreement with the EU that the Ukrainian Parliament had ratified, leading to the largest democratic protests in Europe in decades. When he was ousted from power, Russia realized they were losing their puppet, invaded Crimea and fully backed fringe separatist movements providing money, arms and Russian regulars on “vacation” to generate a pretext for the 2014 full scale invasion.
it’s to keep NATO out of the main path by which Russia has historically been invaded
NATO is a voluntary defensive alliance. The only reason it has expanded is because Russia continually tries to invade the former Soviet republics.
If eastern Europe wasn’t terrified of Russia, they wouldn’t be applying to join.
Putin requested to join NATO 2
Sure Putin at some point allegedly expressed interest in joining NATO. Who the fuck knows what happened but he also allegedly refused to apply for membership.
Russia didn’t want to open their markets up to foreign plunder like in the 90s
Do you have any idea what the market is like in Russia? Have you ever even visited? It’s a state run by robber barons with palaces and yachts all over the world. The west couldn’t plunder what Putin and his cronies have already robbed.
Look at what China managed to build since the 90s and look at the failed state of Russia after decades of Putin’s rule.
The Sahel States, for example, are turning to Russia and the PRC as an alternative to western plunder
You mean the gold mines Wagner was running in Africa to plunder for the Russian war chest?
It fundamentally lacks the ability to export vast amounts of capital and outsource production.
You acknowledge Russia wants to, but you admit the only reason they don’t, is that they can’t? So we’re in some sort of agreement here.
familiarize yourself with the Marxist analysis of imperialism.
Attempting to expand your countries power through military action is the textbook definition of imperialism.
Marx (correctly) views imperialism as an inevitability of a capitalist system due to its drive to expand and accumulate capital, but he didn’t define the word.
What’s most disappointing is how little respect is given to democratic movements by authoritarians posing as socialists. People completely ignore the voices of Ukrainians fighting to defend their homeland.
People completely ignore the voices of Ukrainians fighting to defend their homeland.
Which Ukrainians?
- The oligarchs running the state?
- The Banderite fascists?
- The eastern & southern Ukrainians, who, after the Maidan coup, declared independence from an unelected government, and were subsequently terrorized by the Banderites for nearly a decade, with tacit and overt support from the Ukrainian and US governments?
- The western Ukrainians who want the war to end?
- The men being kidnapped off the streets and pushed to the front lines against their will?
Previously: If not for the US/NATO, this war wouldn’t have happened in the first place.Which Russians?
- The oligarchs running the state?
- The Wagner fascists?
- The Russian democrats and anti-fascists who, after opposing Putin’ss unelected government, were subsequently terrorized by the FSB for nearly a decade before being imprisoned or killed?
- The Eastern Russians who want the war to end?
- The men being kidnapped off the streets and pushed to the front lines against their will?
See how easy it is to write this bullshit? And mine is actually true.
You’ve rejected western propaganda, which is fair, but then rather than engaging with reality critically, you’ve just bought into Russian propaganda without a second thought.
What’s your point, that Ukrainians are an undifferentiated mass of Euro stans like our government and media portray them? Because that’s bullshit. We’re not talking about Russians, we’re talking about Ukrainians, including those with linguistic, cultural, familial, and business ties to Russia.
you’ve just bought into Russian propaganda without a second thought.
Do you think I’m watching RT and reading Pravda? Almost everything I’ve read or heard has come from Western sources. Almost all the links in my previous comment are Western sources.
The western trade agreement required privatization of safety nets and general austerity politics, the Russian loans did not. The Russian loans had more respect for the sovereignty of Ukraine than the western loans, hence the decisuon of Yanukovych. The nationalists in the west couped the government with the assistance of the west, installing the Banderite nationalist regime, while the ethnic Russians in Donetsk and Luhansk seceded after seeing their president get couped.
NATO is an alliance of imperialist states that has been led by Nazis like Adolf Heusinger. Its sole purpose is to perpetuate imperialism, and encircle countries that oppose having their markets plundered by the west. Russia is not trying to “continually invade” countries.
Putin wanted to join NATO because Putin wanted Russia to be able to imperialize the global south like the west does. Pretty clear-cut.
Yes, Russia is a deeply flawed nationalist country owned by capitalists. The PRC is socialist, which is why it has achieved far more in the same span, and did not collapse into capitalism like Russia did.
The Sahel States are a coalition of anti-imperialist countries that are nationalizing their industry and focusing more on trading finished goods than raw materials. This was impossible when the west was imperializing them, Russia is not imperializing the Sahel States because they can’t.
Yes, Russia is a deeply flawed nationalist country that, by circumstance, is forced to align with progressive, anti-imperialist movements and socialist countries. Nobody is saying “Russia is a perfect country that is ideologically pure,” that’s the point of critical support.
Russia is not trying to expand their power through conquest, their goal is to demillitarize Ukraine and ensure its neutrality with NATO, as Ukraine is the best front to stage a war on Russia.
Marx analyzed imperialism in its very early stages, it was Lenin that expanded that theory into the Marxist canon and thoroughly established and analyzed it. There are practically no Marxists that reject Lenin’s analysis of imperialism.
I do listen to Ukrainians, support for the war is falling sharply, and the ethnic Russians in LPR and DPR have wanted independence from Ukraine for over a decade. The best thing for the Ukrainian working class is a quick surrender of the 4 oblasts, NATO neutrality, and a prompt socialist revolution to oust the Banderite regime.
I do listen to Ukrainians
Except when they democratically decide on closer ties with the EU?
I want to focus on your belief that NATO started this war and that Russia is somehow defending itself because it’s inherently contradictory. It requires you to believe the following:
- The Ukrainian Parliament under Yanukovych was not democratic so couldn’t ratify the trade agreement, but Yanukovych was.
- The Maidan protests were staged by nearly 800,000 NATO drones, but the much smaller Donetsk separatist movement was legitimate and wasn’t a Russian imperialist front.
Can you speak more to those ideas?
NATO has been pressing eastward despite making agreements with Russia that it would not. From the beginning, NATO was formed as an anti-communist alliance, and even after the Soviet Union fell it has been a key tool in encircling Russia to get them to open up their markets to foreign plunder, a tried and true strategy used elsewhere.
Yanukovych was correct in not pursuing the western requirement of austerity politics and becoming a puppet of western countries. NATO used this as an opportunity to overthrow Yanukovych and install a far-right Banderite regime. When the Donbass region wanted to secede, Kiev responded with ethnic repression in the form of language suppression and outright shelling, shelling which accelerated in the weeks leading up to Russian invasion.
With a far-right regime that is violently Russophobic and is cozying up to the number 1 anti-Russian millitary alliance in the world right on their borders, Russia decided to invade when diplomacy fell through. Russia does not give a shit about extraction from Ukraine. They are not in this for the plunder. Russia purely wants Ukraine to promise NATO neutrality, and stop the ethnic cleansing in Donetsk and Luhansk.
This is the bog-standard communist take. Orgs like The Party for Socialism and Liberation have released statements, same as FRSO’s statement. You are unfamiliar with communism yet are trying to use it against itself.
Did you respond to the correct post? This isn’t relevant to what I asked.
Obviously the states have problems, and the EU to a lesser degree, but they at least have some human rights.
The US has big problems with human rights, that start with zionist first rule, and needing misery and oligarchist pillaging to make Americans have bigger problems than warmongering, Israel supremacy, directly corrupt and rigged elections, or “well first they are comming for the others”, and I still have bigger problems.
The NATO colonies are even far worse. Democracy means rule by those allowed by CIA, with population programmed with CIA values. The CIA programming, and total capture of politicians, means normalizing the real enemy to the NATO colonies as a permanent friend and master. The only valid elections in entire world are those approved by CIA values. Never any need for evidence of invalidity, you just take State Department/Elon Musk view that “we will coup whoever we want to coup”.
Our countries dress pure corruption as freedom. While freedom seems awesome, the freedom to corrupt, lie, propagandize you into oppression demonic evil diminishment of nations labelled less free, and you internalize those wars as a supremacist right instead of the theft of your prosperity simply makes the corruption of democracy too powerful relative to your critical thinking, attention and distractions from your oppression.
Without CIA influence over a country, it can hope to govern itself in national interest instead of CIA allied oligarchy. Russia and China are mostly successful at this. Freedom is awesome, but the powerful’s freedom to corrupt will always result in greater overall corruption, oppression, and oligarchism Normalizing CIA involvement in your media and democracy means your nation is doomed, and lemmy defending demonic evil corruption is the direct result of a lifetime of propaganda.
Liquid democracy is easily available with current technology. Already substantially implemented in crypto currency tokens. It’s the only real democracy. That people each have an equal share in their country’s government, and its revenue/left over revenue, is distributed as a dividend, means making sure there is a lot of left over revenue instead of corruption.
Never seen any of this stuff. Not even once.
“Was I brainwashed by Western propaganda?”
“No, only shithole commie countries like China have propaganda”
Do you folks not know that two things can be bad at the same time
Do you people get given a pre-opproved list of thought terminating cliches phrases? Because you always say that exact phrase, word for word, even when it doesn’t remotely apply to the conversation at hand, as is the case here.
This post got brigaded; you know, that thing that the very same people accuse us of 📽
https://sh.itjust.works/post/44029753
Some of them even broke out their alt accounts, which they use exclusively for vote-spamming. One of them has a two year old account that’s never made a single post or comment. We ban those.
The “Every Accusation a Confession” rule of thumb strikes again.
Thank you for staying on top of this kind of shit and exposing them when necessary.
Anti-communist social chauvanists arguing with each other over what socialism and communism are when none of them have read theory and all seem to be allergic to joining an org will never stop being funny. Plus there’s one person asking for an upvoted zionist opinion, and when another user linked a zionist comment from a MWoG mod, they got banned for doing so.
Genuinely not sure what the world looks like when viewed through their myopic viewpoint.
CW gross ideation about /u/davel:
spoiler
these people are seriously unwell, absolute nazi bar.
I came across one of them saying I was a degenerate roach in another thread there:
The stormfront / kiwifarms strategy seems to be to set up shop anywhere that won’t ban them, and lets them doxx whoever they want. And there are A LOT of lemmy servers that won’t take action and ban them.
What’s interesting is that davel doesn’t put pronouns in their name, so that comment is confusing.
Lemmy federation still has a quirk regarding display names. Most instances still have my display name cached like that.
lmfao hooman rights is when you do genocide and jail people protesting it
Lol, OP is mad they got their post removed for claiming that Covid was a Chinese bioweapon.
Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014 ran a proxy war in the interim and has failed to complete it’s military objectives after nearly four years of total war?
Russia has over a million casualties.
Is this what winning looks like?
Your instance is probably one of the few who still federated with lemmygrad and hexbear as you described both these instances to a T. You can either block these instances or create an account with one of the numerous instances that have defederated from these absurd groups.
Got to keep that echo chamber sealed
China is literally the only hope humanity has to survive climate change at this point and if you’re not aware of that you’re ignorant, sorry
Don’t want to start an argument, genuinely asking, how is china the “only hope”? If we look at certain european countries, or even canada, brazil or the drc, they run on a much larger percentage of renewables than china. China is still running 60% coal.
As for tech, china does have a lead in many technologies, but it’s not like they’re the only ones that can make good products in those categories.
I have literally never in my life heard of a country make an ambitious climate goal and then actually achieve it other than china. China is the only country actually investing substantial money into all that renewable energy research while western countries cling to fossil fuel profits (almost like capitalism affords incredibly wealthy oil companies inordinate political and economic authority, huh).
There’s literally a fucking meme of California vs China talking about high speed rail, after like 20 years California had built shit and China’s built over 25000 miles of it. I’m pretty sure here in present year that’s 46000 miles of it.
China is stockpiling resources and building infrastructure to plan for the absolute devastation that is going to be wrought on human society over the next few decades. What the fuck has literally anyone else done? If any country in earth is going to be resilient enough to weather the crop failures and super storms we’re destined for and, god fucking i hope, be in a position to help anyone else (and with an ideological basis that would impel them to without expecting a century of debt bondage in return) it’s going to be China.
A little follow up: Why don’t you live in China or Russia if life is so bleak in the western countries?
What are you, twelve, or are you a grown-assed adult asking this question?
Whilst everyone here is just disagreeing with you on basically all points OP, I have to agree. There have lately been a lot more weird memmes, often factualy inaccurate and providing no real argument, that support or defend the Chinese, Russian or North Korean government. I do not in any way agree with the sentiments of these memes* but if people actually hold those opinions their free to discuss it, but I would wish that they didn’t do it in the form of bad memes in the general use communities, but maybe instead in one of their own, as stuff generally works on Lemmy.
Also, a lot of the worst memes came from one single account. I have since blocked that one person and it improved the situation remarkably. And for anyone who wants to attack me for “not being able to stand hearing other people’s opinions”, the memes this person (or to be real, probably bot) posted were factualy incorrect, badly made and not funny in any way. I don’t come to Lemmy for political discussion but for memes and other fun threads.
* This is just about my personal opinions and doesn’t effect anything I wrote above but here we go. Read if you want. Regarding the endorsements of China, Russia and North Korea my main problem is that I think democracy is the most important feature of a state for I think yhat the state should exist to serve it’s people and to do so in a way that reflects the people’s wills. Therefore, I have a really hard time supporting any non democratic state. Also, in regards to Russia, they invaded Ukraine! I have a very hard time having any empathy for a state that shows such violent aggression against one of their neighbours. Especially as I can not see how Russia or the rest of the world stands to gain anything from this war. Ofc North Korea and China have also done horrible things but I think have have gotten my point across at this point, I think democracy and free speech is important. That said, if someone can point to a particular part of, or some project of, some non democratic country that’s working well and then say “hey, maybe we should try that”, then I have no problem with that. But fully endorsing and saying that we should be like a, for example, China to me is a absolutely horrible idea.
Also, because people will claim that I did even though I didn’t say a shit about it, I do not either particularly like the US. What I said about democracy and not invading other countries applies to them to. I’m also not from the US but rather from Sweden in the EU
EDIT: after reading even more of this thread I think I’m starting to understand that many people just support Russia and China because there a counterweight to the US. For me this could maybe be a valid argument for supporting some of what China does but it does not for me mean that I can endorse China and their non democracy leadership and darker sides. Things simply don’t add up for me, I can’t support China because the US shouldn’t get to powerful because China should neither have that power.
I have a really hard time supporting any non democratic state.
And China is a democratic state, unless you’re just using “democratic” here as a code-word for “western capitalist”, which I’m guessing you are.
I have a very hard time having any empathy for a state that shows such violent aggression against one of their neighbours.
Yeah! That aggression should be shown to countries far away, in the Global South! Invading countries on other continents is fine, just not your own…
I think democracy and free speech is important.
Which is why I will support the enemies of the countries with the greatest history of overthrowing democratic governments, supporting dictatorships, violently suppressing opposition, and murdering journalists. Those countries being the USA and the EU members.
But fully endorsing and saying that we should be like a, for example, China to me is a absolutely horrible idea.
Why? Do they not bomb enough countries for you? Are you horrified to see a country where people are better off each year rather than worse?
I’m also not from the US but rather from Sweden in the EU
And the EU is just as fucking bad as the USA.
China and their non democracy leadership
They are a Democracy, you chauvinist, certainly as much as the West is. You just mean they aren’t western capitalists.
US shouldn’t get to powerful because China should neither have that power.
The US has gotten to powerful, and it’s done far more heinous shit than China ever did. This is peak example of westerners being terrified of non-westerner having power because they assume they’ll be as abusive with it as you have.
This poster was banned? Guess you cant ask these kinds of questions on a .ml community.
They were pushing the “lab leak” theory and “spy balloon” theory.
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wait until you see that there there’s a ~200 comment thread on the snark comm discussing this thread in addition!
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cw: nazi bar
I can’t imagine a more useless waste of time than being on a community dedicated to anti-communism. What’s funny is when the literal fascists join in and the anti-communist liberals are always surprised that their nazi-bar is welcoming of nazis.
The australian running that comm has such a predictable worldview
‘left right terminology doesn’t have a place’ - sounds like they prefer the third position.
They’re a zionist, but in the mealymouthed ‘two state solution’ vein, probably due to their shared experience as a colonial occupier.
We liberated them from Fascism, and they will never forgive us.
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The US always needs a boogeyman to justify massive defense spending
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