• Kept7963@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Because of course people are always reasonable and back people and policies that are in their interest.

    It seems like by and large there’s support in Russia for the invasion in Ukraine. They might not be willing to go to full mobilisation, but if they don’t have to die themselves they’re fine with the invasion.

    Do you propose that the Ukrainians should stop fighting and plead with the Russian people to overthrow Putin?

      • fubo@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Capital in Russia isn’t controlled by a bourgeoisie structurally aligned with liberal values as in classic Marxism; it’s controlled by an oligarchy descended partly from imperialist Soviet officials (e.g. Mr. Putin of the KGB) and partly from organized crime.

          • fubo@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Capitalists can compete with one another without being thrown out of windows. Oligarchs can’t.

              • fubo@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Mr. Bezos felt free to oppose Mr. Trump in ways that nobody in Russia feels free to oppose Mr. Putin, because they will be poisoned or thrown out a window if they do.

                I’m no fan of Mr. Bezos, but this is nonetheless true. Capitalists in the West get away with shit that oligarchs in Russia would get murdered for. That is a distinction worth thinking about, even if they are all buttheads.

                • masquenox@lemmy.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  Again… capitalists are oligarchs - western media just refers to Russian capitalists as “oligarchs” because they want to (falsely) distance themselves from those “bad” Russian capitalists.

                  And no… Bezos’s (supposed) “opposition” to Trump doesn’t mean squat. The US oligarchy doesn’t rest on a single strongman - there is no need to push oligarchs out of windows if all the oligarchs will act in the interests of the oligarchy anyway. This is not the case in Russia.

                  • fubo@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    I hope you understand that what you’re saying looks like an unfalsifiable conspiracy-theory to someone who doesn’t share your specific assumptions.

              • fubo@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                In classic Marxism, the economic conditions of a class generate political ideology as a superstructure.

                Liberalism is the political ideology of the Western bourgeoisie, generated by an interest in both private property and social and industrial innovation. The bourgeois capitalist seeks to preserve private ownership of property while securing independence of his investment venture from the disapproval of earlier elite classes; thus the bourgeoisie favors liberal ideas such as “freedom of contract” and “freedom of the press” while scorning both traditional authorities (the church, the aristocracy) and populist or “Digger” radicalism.

                The Russian oligarchic elite is not in that sort of socioeconomic situation, and so they don’t generate the same sort of ideology.

                  • fubo@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    I hope you’ve noticed that there’s not really any separation between Russian “industrial capital”, Russian “government”, and Russian “organized crime”. That is not the case under bourgeois liberal capitalism; those things are normally at least somewhat separated from one another by rival interests. In modern Russia those interests are united.

      • Ghostc1212@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Or perhaps people naturally feel an affinity for the place they grew up and the people they are most culturally and socially related to, and are thus liable to feel patriotic about their homelands without any input from, idk, the illuminati or whoever you think controls society

          • Ghostc1212@sopuli.xyz
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            1 year ago

            The national bourgeoisie use those patriotic feelings to manipulate the working class into slaughtering their actual brothers and sisters across borders.

            Or perhaps different countries have different geopolitical interests which sometimes drive them to inflict violence upon eachother in pursuit of those interests

            The people facing the exact same conditions, the exact same assault on their living conditions, the exact same war imposed on them.

            Sweden and Finland have massively better living conditions than Russia and both have governments which were elected by the people. The illuminati you speak of are also either not very strong there or are incredibly benevolent considering how good the social programs are.

            Ukraine and Russia were both victimized heavily by socialists, causing their shitty economic system today, but Ukraine is attempting to align itself with the west, geopolitically and economically, so that it can reap the same economic benefits that the rest of their brothers in Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Western Europe, North America, and Asia are all reaping from having free market economies and extensive international trade. The oligarchs in control of Russia don’t like this, because Ukraine has too many resources, is too close, and is too geographically valuable to lay outside of their empire, so they impose this war upon the Ukrainian and Russian people so that they can secure their interests. And of course, Ukrainians don’t like this, and neither does the West, so the Ukrainians fight back and we help them.

            To be an internationalist isn’t to devalue a connection to the community of fellow workers in your country, it’s to extend it across borders.

            To be an internationalist is to ignore all of human history and psychology in pursuit of a utopian pipe dream.

            • masquenox@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              Or perhaps different countries have different geopolitical interests

              Riiight… because the average Russian is gaining so much by this war? Just like the average USian benefited so much from the US occupation of Afghanistan?

              considering how good the social programs are.

              Do you mean the social programs they only have because Swedish and Finnish elites feared a Russian-style revolution so much? Those social programs?

              causing their shitty economic system today,

              Russia’s “shitty economic system” was created by the west’s rapacious “shock doctrine” of the 90s, dipshit. Get your facts straight.

              To be an internationalist is to ignore all of human history and psychology in pursuit of a utopian pipe dream.

              Riiiight… because imaginary lines drawn on a map must (somehow) be genetically encoded in humans by some kind of capitalist magic.

              Sheesh… bootlickers gonna bootlick, I guess.

              • Ghostc1212@sopuli.xyz
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                1 year ago

                Riiight… because the average Russian is gaining so much by this war? Just like the average USian benefited so much from the US occupation of Afghanistan?

                The Russian oligarchy, which is the current ruling class of Russia and descends from Soviet bureaucrats and mobsters, did stand to benefit greatly. Russia isn’t a democracy, so it’s only natural that the government doesn’t care about the people.

                The occupation of Afghanistan was incredibly popular among the American people when it began largely because Afghanistan was harboring people who, y’know, committed the biggest terror attack in history against the United States. It only became unpopular once it turned into a slog, and the reason we took so long to leave is because our withdrawal from Iraq went terribly and we didn’t want a repeat. Nobody gained much from it.

                Do you mean the social programs they only have because Swedish and Finnish elites feared a Russian-style revolution so much? Those social programs?

                Am I supposed to be defeated by this? Democracy works because of an agreement between the government and the people, wherein the government serves the interests of the people and is run by bureaucrats chosen by the people, and in exchange the people do not rebel against it and allow it to do government stuff. Of course democratic governments implement social programs out of fear of social instability, that’s a feature, not a bug.

                Russia’s “shitty economic system” was created by the west’s rapacious “shock doctrine” of the 90s, dipshit. Get your facts straight.

                Shock therapy was invented by the former leader of the RSFSR after he overthrew Mikhail Gorbachev, in order to turn the centrally planned Soviet economy into a free market economy. In the process, it ended up creating the oligarchy, made up of former Soviet bureaucrats and organized criminals. Everyone in the Russian upper class today got there because they took advantage of the absolute garbage system used by the USSR.

                Riiiight… because imaginary lines drawn on a map must (somehow) be genetically encoded in humans by some kind of capitalist magic.

                Humans are wired to be tribalistic and to view land as their tribal property, and to get violent over resources during times of scarcity so that their tribe survives the winter. If you pay attention in history class, you’ll see that humans have done this in some form from the stone age to the modern era. Nationalism is just human tribalism taken to the extreme, kinda like socialism is just envy taken to the extreme.

                Sheesh… bootlickers gonna bootlick, I guess.

                Cry about it, I guess.

                • masquenox@lemmy.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  The Russian oligarchy

                  I guess you can’t tell the difference between a Russian capitalist and the average Russian citizen, huh?

                  Afghanistan was harboring people who

                  Oh, are you talking about that guy that was found in Pakistan? That the guy you are talking about? Also… 9/11 wasn’t a “terror” attack. If the US wants to play colonialist empire, it becomes a justifiable target. All of it.

                  Democracy works

                  Stop using terms you don’t understand. You have never experienced democracy, and you know nothing about it.

                  Shock therapy was invented

                  No, Clyde… get this right - “shock therapy” was invented by the Chicago Boys in the 70s and 80s… Chilean “students” of magical capitalist grifters such as Milton Friedman. Your history is as garbage as your politics.

                  Humans are wired to be tribalistic

                  Then you should have no trouble providing proof of this “tribal” gene whose existence you are peddling, Clyde. I hope this won’t take you long.

                  Cry about it, I guess.

                  Having tears in one’s eyes is still far better than having shoe polish on one’s tongue - it doesn’t matter if it’s over-priced shoe polish.

                  • Ghostc1212@sopuli.xyz
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                    1 year ago

                    Oh, are you talking about that guy that was found in Pakistan?

                    I know you’re a communist and therefore aren’t able to understand things about the world, but you have to know that people can, y’know, move around, right?

                    Also… 9/11 wasn’t a “terror” attack. If the US wants to play colonialist empire, it becomes a justifiable target. All of it.

                    By this logic, the USA should’ve committed genocide in Afghanistan like the Soviets did because if Afghanistan wants to play terrorist they become a justifiable target. But I’m sure you’ll come up with pretzel logic to say that that’s somehow not what you’re saying.

                    Stop using terms you don’t understand. You have never experienced democracy, and you know nothing about it.

                    The United States invented freedom, liberty, democracy, and McDonald’s. I should know a thing or two about all of that.

                    No, Clyde… get this right - “shock therapy” was invented by the Chicago Boys in the 70s and 80s… Chilean “students” of magical capitalist grifters such as Milton Friedman. Your history is as garbage as your politics.

                    Who cares, the only people who actually implemented it that anyone cares about are Boris Yeltsin and his colleagues in Eastern Europe.

                    Then you should have no trouble providing proof of this “tribal” gene whose existence you are peddling, Clyde. I hope this won’t take you long.

                    Look, look, look, I know you’re a communist, but you have to be able to understand that genetics are complicated, right? It’s not possible for me to give you one or two genes that are responsible for human psychology, there’s like thousands of them that all interact with eachother to make you act like you.

                    I guess this is what happens when you lack the ability to comprehend anything that isn’t quantifiable. Thank you, materialism!

                    Having tears in one’s eyes is still far better than having shoe polish on one’s tongue - it doesn’t matter if it’s over-priced shoe polish.

                    bourgeois shoe polish tastes better than Stasi shoe polish lmao

        • masquenox@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          it’s up to the people within Russia to inform themselves better

          People in the US certainly didn’t manage that in 2003.

            • masquenox@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              If the people in the US have proved themselves incapable of “informing themselves better” (despite having far better sources of information to do it with), why are Russians on the hook for not doing so?

              Besides… one should be careful what one asks for - if the people of the world were to “inform themselves better,” it would be the US that gets treated as a “hostile and rogue nation.”

                • masquenox@lemmy.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  Nope… still seems as relevant to the conversation as it was the first time I stated it.

                  Here, let me help keep you on track… if the people in the US have proved themselves incapable of “informing themselves better” (despite having far better sources of information to do it with), why are Russians on the hook for not doing so?

                  • Fisting for Freedom@sh.itjust.works
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                    1 year ago

                    If you believe that Americans should’ve been better informed, then you surely agree the same applies to Russians at the current time, right? Why, then, focus attention on something from 20 years ago instead of the active, ongoing situation in Ukraine?

                    Whataboutism is a way of derailing a discussion with a seemingly related, but actually irrelevant, side point. Which is what you’re doing.