Funny events in anti-woke world

[Gordon_4]

"In a world...enslaved by age of consent...."

I can't, I just can't. I'm sorry.

Hang on, how old is HE? And surely as a youth pastor he has a duty of care, part of which which should read “Thou shall not date underaged members of the flock” with apologies to the original Hebrew. I just, cannot fathom this being allowed by either his superiors OR her father.

Like my wife’s family are the kind of religious who’d have sent their kids to youth pastorships but I know for certain had one of the pastors been sniffing around their 14 year old daughters then there’d have been fucking murders.

 

[Generals]

it's not at all my fault that people are so drenched in jingoistic propaganda that they cannot figure out the difference between opposing the US taking more and more of the world and being pro-Russia.

Blindly repeating and accepting Russian propaganda does suggest a pro Russia stance. You seem very drenched in Russian jingoistic propaganda.

 

[tstorm823]

it's not at all my fault that people are so drenched in jingoistic propaganda that they cannot figure out the difference between opposing the US taking more and more of the world and being pro-Russia.

It is your fault that you assume all information about the world that isn't explicitly against America is jingoistic propaganda. Your skepticism of US reports on Russian invasion plans might be better recieved if you didn't treat fleeing Chinese Muslims with the same attitude.

 

[Hades]

Russia is a lot of things. A target of US aggression, a foreign distraction from domestic problems, a scapegoat; a regional power with completely reasonable security concerns about NATO expansion and encirclement; a state that subverts the imperialism of the United States in various ways, including by not taking part in US sanctions and engaging in trade with other targets of US aggression and hostility.

Its also a country that has a history of conquering and brutalizing its neighbors, which invades neighbors when they refuse to be their puppet state, dismiss the sovereignty of its former victims, poison people on European soil and who shoot down a passenger plain and then spend time sadistically bullying the families of those their actions have killed. Not to mention all the misdeeds Russia commits against its own citizens.

Russia is hardly a country of wholesome resistance against the US.

 

[BrawlMan]

A fucking cornucopia of yikes

More like an infestation.

 

[Trunkage]

It is your fault that you assume all information about the world that isn't explicitly against America is jingoistic propaganda. Your skepticism of US reports on Russian invasion plans might be better recieved if you didn't treat fleeing Chinese Muslims with the same attitude.

I'm completely skeptical of US reports on anything Russia. Both the Dems and GOP have lied about wars and Russia. Fortunately, I don't have to rely on just those reports. I personally think it would be completely stupid to follow one governments advice. Finding multiple sources, particularly from different countries, is a very good idea

 

[tstorm823]

I'm completely skeptical of US reports on anything Russia. Both the Dems and GOP have lied about wars and Russia. Fortunately, I don't have to rely on just those reports. I personally think it would be completely stupid to follow one governments advice. Finding multiple sources, particularly from different countries, is a very good idea

I agree. But the user I was responding to isn't skeptical of only US reports. He is skeptical of any reports from anywhere that aren't explicitly against the US.

 

[Trunkage]

I agree. But the user I was responding to isn't skeptical of only US reports. He is skeptical of any reports from anywhere that aren't explicitly against the US.

Yeah, I understand.

Even I, who disageess a lot with US policy, can set aside that for someone who is doing something worse. Being 'against the US' wouldn't stop me from working with them if they remain truthful. Nor do I think everything that comes out of the US is false (irrelevant of president.) That's patently false. Not everything that comes out of Fox is false. Things dont work like that.

Like, even if I'm super skeptical, I don't know why you can't prep various armies in case something does happen. I also wouldn't be invading anything first

It's possibly also me knowing that the US and the West have lied to get into multiple wars. So has Russia. I don't understand how Iraq lies was a suprise to people. They had people lying to Congress for the first gulf wars. It's normal. And I dont understand how the US think they ONLY lie all the time now. Nor do I think MSM is always FAKE NEWS. The lie becomes a huge focal point that drowns out all the times they were right

 

[Terminal Blue]

Only if you want to stretch that idea so far as to be almost meaningless. By that standard, if you consider Russia an empire, then you would consider expanding United States hegemony to be an anti-imperialist project. Surely you understand that "model of anti-imperialism and anti-fascism" implies a hell of a lot more than enemy of my enemy. You must.

What I don't understand is why the logic of "enemy of my enemy" applies at all.

If the US is an empire, then Russia is also an empire, because both engage in various forms of imperialism. The fact that one is vastly more successful at it than the other is irrelevant. Impotence is not the same thing as benevolence. A consistent anti-Imperialist stance would not endorse right wing, authoritarian, imperialist regimes merely because they are hypothetically "less bad" than other right wing, authoritarian, imperialist regimes, particularly not if the "less bad" in this case is merely a lack of state capacity, rather than any kind of ideological opposition to badness.

But if you are going to indulge the idea that the enemy of your enemy must be your friend, then at the very least have the self-awareness not to try to present your position as any kind of genuine opposition to fascism. You are not an anti-fascist. You are not an anti-Imperialist. You are anti-American, and that is all you are. Don't pretend that you are any better than the people offering material support to neo-Nazis in the Ukraine because they've decided that the enemy of their enemy must be their friend. Don't pretend that you won't turn a blind eye to fascism when it suits you, or when you decide you need the friends. It's not like you're not already doing it.

 

[Seanchaidh]

The fact that one is vastly more successful at it than the other is irrelevant. Impotence is not the same thing as benevolence.

It needn't be.

But if you are going to indulge the idea that the enemy of your enemy must be your friend

Again, haven't said that.

The single most powerful ruling class in world history must be brought low for progress to be made. Not the second, third, or fourth most. The most.

 

[Thaluikhain]

The single most powerful ruling class in world history must be brought low for progress to be made. Not the second, third, or fourth most. The most.

What, 2nd and lower don't need to be brought low as well? Does that apply to individuals or subgroups of the most powerful ruling class as well?

 

[Terminal Blue]

Again, haven't said that.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend"

That is the phrase.

The single most powerful ruling class in world history must be brought low for progress to be made. Not the second, third, or fourth most. The most.

It's the same ruling class.

How is that not obvious? They are the same. They are exactly the same. They are one single class defined not by nationality but by by their role within the global economy. They are not ideological opponents, they are competitors in the sense that all capitalists are competitors. They have far, far more in common with each other than they will ever have with anyone whose moral conscience is not rotted by excessive wealth. They like the same things, they hang out in the same spaces, they go to the same parties because they can afford to fly around the world to go to parties. They are the same people.

If they bother to play at national politics it's because they are bored and need a hobby, not because they care about the outcome.

 

[tstorm823]

The single most powerful ruling class in world history must be brought low for progress to be made. Not the second, third, or fourth most. The most.

Seriously, can all of you just give up the word progress already? You don't believe in progress, I want the word back

 

[Agema]

Again, haven't said that.

The single most powerful ruling class in world history must be brought low for progress to be made. Not the second, third, or fourth most. The most.

The people who run Russia are capitalist oligarchs. The post-communist development of Russia has led to a direct takeover of the state by its economic elites: not just like the West where businessmen have outsize influence over the political process and are the same sort of social group as the politicians, in Russia the economic and political elites are pretty much literally the same people. Lots of those Russian exiles were (and to an extent still are albeit much reduced) enormously wealthy - its just when they fell out of political favour and were forced to flee, their businesses were stripped from them and cannibalised by the loyal elites.

Let's bear in mind that up until Russia started to aggressively act against Western interests, these people wandered across the globe freely, mixing with other elites. There is substantial evidence Putin, who superficially claims to be only modestly wealthy, in fact is a billionaire, with his wealth very well hidden. Some of Putin's close personal associates with no apparent major income streams are extraordinarily rich - it is known tactic in criminal circles for bosses to have their wealth held by associates who are under less scrutiny. And this also gets into the territory of the intimate connections between Russia's political-economic elites and their organised crime. All the authoritarian crap that goes on in Russia - murdered journalists, rigged elections and imprisoned political opponents, etc. - is directly the responsibility of this hybrid capitalist-political class.

So at the point where anticapitalists are helping expose more of the world to even worse capitalists than our own, they are at best hopelessly misguided and at worst downright dangerous. If they have any sense of what left wing solidarity means, they certainly should not be sacrificing working class Ukrainians so they can thumb their noses at Jeff Bezos.

 

[BrawlMan]

they certainly should not be sacrificing working class Ukrainians so they can thumb their noses at Jeff Bezos.

Or worse, become Jeff Bezos! Or another monster no better and worse than Bezos!

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

you know be you hustling girl


spoiler alert: she's another qanon congressional candidate

 

[Seanchaidh]

The people who run Russia are capitalist oligarchs. The post-communist development of Russia has led to a direct takeover of the state by its economic elites: not just like the West where businessmen have outsize influence over the political process and are the same sort of social group as the politicians, in Russia the economic and political elites are pretty much literally the same people.

Our system is much better because the Emperor promotes territorial governors from among the merchant class rather than the aristocracy.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend"

That is the phrase.

That is a phrase that is notably not what I said. If I wanted to say that phrase, I would have said that phrase.

It's the same ruling class.

How is that not obvious? They are the same. They are exactly the same. They are one single class defined not by nationality but by by their role within the global economy. They are not ideological opponents, they are competitors in the sense that all capitalists are competitors. They have far, far more in common with each other than they will ever have with anyone whose moral conscience is not rotted by excessive wealth. They like the same things, they hang out in the same spaces, they go to the same parties because they can afford to fly around the world to go to parties. They are the same people.

If they bother to play at national politics it's because they are bored and need a hobby, not because they care about the outcome.

They are the same? Then you must agree with me about every practical matter.

If they are the same, then the answer is certainly not to buy or, worse, echo the narratives of the most powerful section of that same ruling class about the weaker; it is to do the opposite of that. It is to undermine alarms over what Putin may or may not do; to do whatever is possible to weaken the coercive power of the state one lives in-- its coercive power over both the domestic masses of people and foreign entities; to do the opposite of sending arms to Ukraine, to do the opposite of inflating military budgets in response to fears over some part of the world falling under the influence of some guy who is, in your words, the same as the people who already control it. Welcome, comrade, to the Bolshevik party! Will you be needing a rifle? The whites are going to be awfully angry about this, after all.

 

[Seanchaidh]

 

[Trunkage]

you know be you hustling girl


spoiler alert: she's another qanon congressional candidate

Instead of shaking paper at people with the 'proof', are we now going to shake laptops?

Also, how long did McCarthyism last?

 

[Trunkage]

Seriously, can all of you just give up the word progress already? You don't believe in progress, I want the word back

What do you think progress means?

Also, I'd note that in this context, progress means freedom