![Cowbee [he/they]](https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/c18ce632-5fb5-4888-8226-3dc55a07acc4.jpeg?format=webp&thumbnail=128)
Oof some tough questions for them
So the underlying, material reason for why you think Russia invaded Ukraine, was because they wanted to "bully" Ukraine? And that NATO is just an international "anti-bullying" alliance? No, lmao.
NATO is an alliance of imperialist nations. They band together, agreeing to each exploit their own corner. The biggest players are the US Empire, as well as the former hegemons Germany, the UK, and France. The other NATO members play along so that they can ride along on this system of monopoly capitalism expropriating vast wealth from South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and more. If countries go against NATO desires economically, they get bombed, like Yugoslavia, Libya, etc.
NATO promised Gorbachev that they wouldn't expand eastward, decades ago. This is because originally, NATO was an anti-communist alliance. However, with the fall of the USSR, the west needed a new enemy, so they stuck with Russia even after Russia tried to join NATO. With NATO building up in Ukraine, following the Euromaidan coup of 2014 cementing the Ukrainian Nationalists as the leaders of Ukraine, and their relentless shelling of the donbass region, Russia invaded as it didn't feel like it wanted a belligerent neighbor, and decided to take pre-emptive action.
The entire invasion never would have happened without NATO.
Why do you think Russia invaded Ukraine? Like, what is their primary goal. The impetus that drove them to approve the invasion.
Secondly, what do you think the functioning role of NATO is?
In what way is it untrue? It's a bit simplified, but I wouldn't really consider many western right-wingers to be anti-NATO nor any leftists pro-NATO.
No, they aren't. Liberalism is the ideological superstructure of capitalism, while leftists support socialism of various fashions. The driving distinction between right and left is retaining the current system, or progressing onwards to the next.
Nothing I said was wrong, nor does that make it "Russian propaganda." The RF has been clear, they oppose NATO encirclement. Gorbachev was promised decades ago that NATO wouldn't expand eastward, yet it has over the decades. NATO is used primarily as a threat towards countries that don't let the west economically dominate them, be it the USSR to Iran to Libya to Yugoslavia to the modern Russian Federation.
Joining NATO is indeed voluntary, yes. Russia even tried to join it a couple decades ago, and was denied. Russia was barred entry from the imperialist alliance, as if they were allowed in, NATO could not be used as a threat against them to force them to open up their economy more. The ex-soviet now-NATO states faced immense economic crisis and right-wing takeover due to the chaos that ensued when socialism was ended and the USSR dissolved, making them very western-friendly.
No, I'm not a Trump supporter, I'm a communist. I strongly oppose western imperialism, and based on the evidence we have, there's no proof that Russia intends on taking on all of Europe. This is just scaremongering to fuel the millitary industrial complex and justify the perpetuation of NATO even after the collapse of the USSR, which it was formed to fight.
Either Russia is too weak to take Ukraine and thus NATO isn't even necessary, or it's strong enough but uninterested in total war and is happy with its level of involvement. The former means NATO isn't even needed as Russia would be too weak, the latter means NATO isn't needed as Russia has no plans to expand, nor does it have any economic basis for it.
I think it's very telling that you can't actually dispute any of my points, you just call me Russian and a Trump supporter for stating the standard leftist line on NATO and the Russo-Ukrainian War.
I think you're confused, liberals aren't left. The commenter you are replying to is complaining about liberals, ie "moderate" right wingers, failing to understand far-right wingers.
Dunno, I live in the US. Surely you can look it up, no? Nice 2 month old, 1 comment account, by the way.
This is genuine racism, holy shit. "Simple minded orcs?" Blaming the conflict on the inherent intellectual inferiority of the asiatic slavs, who you call "orcs" due to their asiatic features? This is straight up WWII Nazi propaganda levels of racism.
There's no evidence of this, though. Scaremongering about Russia taking Paris and whatnot has no economic backing. Russia has been clear about why it invaded Ukraine, it wants to demillitarize it as it was cozying up to NATO, and NATO has been encircling Russia for decades. If NATO didn't exist, there would be no reason for the Russo-Ukrainian war to begin with, as Russia doesn't stand to gain much, if anything, economically.
- The devs are communists.
- Using Lemmy over Reddit is already an ideological choice for many of us, ergo you will find people with a stronger ideological backbone here.
- Conditions in the English-Speaking world are getting more dire. The US Empire is struggling to prop itself up, billionaires control more and more of the wealth while working class folks control less and less, and more people are getting involved in reading theory and organizing.
- Many leftist subreddits were shut down and fled to Lemmy, the same has not happened to the same degree for right-wing subreddits.
It's as simple as that, really. I suggest you start reading some leftist theory, I made a Marxism-Leninism Beginner Reading List to help people who want to start doing that (comes with audiobook versions, too).
Also, your insinuation that those of us more politically active must be young and not worldly is infantilizing bullshit.
And yes, I know what community this is in, this is more for others to see if they genuinely have the same questions.
There was intense conflict along ethnic lines on both sides. NATO didn't intervene to "stop a genocide," it bombed hundreds of state-owned factories and murdered over 2000 civilians (including 300 Albanians, which NATO claimed to be "protecting"). The real drive was to destroy a nation that dared to be a part of the Non-Aligned Movement, and make them subservient to western interests, opened up for foreign plundering.
The ethnic violence was horrible, but NATO didn't really fix it, it took advantage of it as a reason to get involved and achieve the aims of western powers economically.
The right is pro-NATO, as NATO is the main millitant arm propping up western imperialism, and the left is anti-NATO for the same reasons. There's no "alt-left," lol.
The USSR was socialist, governed by a communist party. The Nordic model is capitalist, as it is dominated by private ownership of large firms and key industries, and relies on imperialism to function. I suggest you do more research on these subjects.
This is nonsense. It's neither historically accurate nor logically accurate, in the USSR for example wealth disparity was dramatically minimized. Please, open a book sometime.
The US does not have a unique set of physics that only it applies to. We have a wealth of historical experience proving the ineffectiveness of entryism, even in the US. People have tried this, it doesn't work, and even if it did miraculously work we would have a worse party than if we put all of that effort into building up PSL.
Yes, the original point was "gays bad." Like I said, all of the points range from awful to chauvanistic at best.
It's not that they got "infected," they got occupied, and were under a brutal fascist dictatorship for decades. The brutal repression has resulted in a starkly divided ROK. I have a lot of sympathy for the southern half of Korea, and those trying to kick out US Imperialism.
The period where the Soviet Union supported Cuba, Palestine, Algeria, Vietnam, China, and countless other liberatory struggles? Where the Soviets sent the first human to space before the US? Where the hard effort in building up an industrialized society was beginning to pay off greatly despite the devastation suffered during World War II?
Yes, the Soviet Union was far more progressive than the US and Western Europe in that period, where the western countries were busy committing genocide, colonialism, imperialism, and more. I don't need your "help" if your worldview fundamentally rests on excusing genocide and twisting a country that aided in the liberation of many countries as worse than that, somehow.
Over time, the southern half of Korea is becoming more and more divided and radicalized. It's utterly dominated by monopoly capital, and some of the most far-right individuals in the world. At the same time, labor organizing is on the rise, and they just elected a soc-dem that is trying to normalize relations with the DPRK and PRC while distancing a bit from Japan and the US (though not a full pivot).
I think as the US Empire wanes, the trends in the ROK point towards either peaceful reconcilliation with the DPRK along the lines of expanded trade and cooperation, hopefully an actual merge of the two along the lines of the "one country, two systems" approach, or revolution outright in the southern half. The DPRK is far less divided politically, and the ROK depends on the US Empire's millitary too much to remain stable as the US Empire fades.
Because it doesn't matter. Russia hasn't attacked NATO countries, sure. Unless you're saying western imperialism is a good thing, and that it was correct to encircle and reject Russia's attempts to join NATO. You're JAQing off.