Justice @ Justice @lemmygrad.ml

Posts

0

Comments

129

Joined

2 yr. ago

Hope you aren't American or Western European... got bad news for you on the "government lies" part

That seems like the most honest assessment of things. I know I tend towards a Soviet/Cuba bias, but the only possible way to see this as anything other than the US just being gigantic assholes and bullies (which is still an understatement) is if you adopt fully xenophobic, racist, whatever else views of the non-US world. That's why there's sort of two contradictory (but also not really) paths of domestic US propaganda.

One side focuses on like "we must secure every resource we can and kill everyone who opposes it! 'Might makes right', so let's be mighty!" Hoorah, brother 😎

And the other path is "we don't like killing people. And yeah, sure, the US has made mistakes. Maybe a lot of mistakes! But we have the right intentions and we must continue to strive towards our stated goals. Anyone who opposes us supports [list of every bad thing that the US probably also does]"

You let people take the koolaid that tastes better to them, just as long as they support the military when, say, concentration camp victims get sick of the shit and do something about it.

I guess time will tell, but I do think the amount of people in both groups is dwindling. People are moving further from "hell yeah, fuck around and find out brother" dipshit thinking to "well, we've made mistakes..." and some of those people are moving towards "ok, those weren't mistakes. I was told a lie and willingly believed that my entire life. And now I'm fucking pissed because my government is actually the evil one." I don't want to pretend the furthest group is large, because it's not, but I can see it growing as people are exposed to constant coverage of Palestine. It becomes harder and nearly impossible to think "this is our best ally? We support this without limitation?"

The issue with a movement towards anti-imperialism, anti-war, anti-supporting wars, etc. is it's very en vogue right now. It's been 23 years since that beautiful September day ( ✈️ 🏙️ ). If there's ever another 9/11 style event, and if one doesn't organically happen I can bet infinite money the CIA is working on something for decades now, Americans are gonna do exactly what "liberal Zionists" in Israel did on 10/7. Like a light switch go from "we can work together!" to "I am so sorry, friend. I must nuke you."

But anyway, all that to say, people believe the story they want to make themselves feel good. They never ask why Cuba would want missiles or why the Soviets were involved or even what the Soviet Union was. They don't ask any questions at all.

That's probably the hardest part for me to deal with if I ever discuss these things irl. It's like I can give them an hour long history lesson, and if I'm bothering to do so the person is probably receptive to it, so they go "oh ok." But the next time something happens, perhaps a pipeline is blown up in Europe, "the fucking Russians!" is the immediate response. It's as if all the bad things and lies are in the past and can be seen and acknowledged. The future is just truth and justice and everything good. And the present doesn't exist at all. You close your eyes, and when you open them the future is still bright, and the past of death and lies is longer than ever.

"In 1962, the USSR secretly tried to install nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba. After the U.S. imposed a naval quarantine, it withdrew. Soviet leaders saw the retreat as “bordering on humiliation.” The U.S. won wide praise for deftly managing the crisis."

Oh, is that what happened, The Hill?

Because I recall reading/learning that after Castro overthrew the US-favored assclown Batista in a popular revolution, the US via CIA and other secret orgs funded the gathering together of ex-Cuban, now American, counterrevolutionaries, who had fled in the wake of Castro and Che cracking down on those pieces of shit. Eventually this resulted in the somewhat comical Bay of Pigs failed invasion of Cuba by the US- oh I mean by the American ex-Cubans working with CIA money and backing... but not the US official sanctioning. Classic. Btw if the US gov say they'll pay for all your shit but won't go as far as openly claiming you if shit hits the fan you can be sure shit is about to hit the biggest fan and you are about to die.

Anyway, the US had also conveniently and brazenly placed Jupiter missiles with nuclear payloads inside Turkey within easy striking distance of the Kremlin and Moscow. A massive provocation which the US would never tolerate in a role reversal (proven immediately after!).

So the Cuba and USSR work out a plan to move nukes, secretly, to Cuba so that the next time the US decides to start fucking around they can lean back and go "oh? What do you think about these big boys?" This effectively gave Cuba full protection from further US invasions because that would result in nuclear missiles landing in the continental US. It also allowed the USSR to be on equal footing again, with a counter to the US's Turkish nukes. Win-win.

US: "Cuba and USSR consent, yes, but didn't you forget to ask someone else?"

The United States caught wind of the nukes and, somewhat understandably, but also in a fully hypocritical fashion simultaneously, flipped its fucking shit. They were talking about invading Cuba still anyway and I guess just sort of "tanking" any resulting nuclear fallout to send a message of strength to the Soviets/world (ie that the Americans are fucking insane and willing to die in nuclear apocalypse before allowing Soviet victory. Not the first or last time this happened!). Luckily this all did get resolved basically only because the Soviets finally blinked, probably because they knew the Americans were actually insane enough to die. Of course the promise with Kennedy, before his brains got splattered all over his wife, was that the Soviets openly withdraw their missiles and the US would also withdraw the Jupiter missiles. Pretty sure the latter did not happen... the US got a little distracted, one might say.

So, the suggestion that the USSR was the aggressor is fucking imperial propaganda. No other term for it. You can argue the Soviets made mistakes, whatever, but to frame them as the ones to cause the crisis is purely and fully a lie. Unless you're into victim blaming (the US is).

I also don't think the withdrawal of the Soviets, who had gotten concessions from JFK, was seen as embarrassing for the USSR more so like "holy fuck, the US is batshit insane... this is worse than we ever imagined." After the US military and intelligence reaction to events.

Again, imperial propaganda framing absolute bloodthirst and an objectively insane reaction based on a chain of events begun by an over reaction to the overthrow of a dictator. These right wing warhawk types think that immediately smashing the "withdraw right the fuck now or we will invade you, nukes be damned!" at the first slight reaction to your actions... is good?

They still act like this btw. Eg the retaliation against "Iranian-backed" MENA region militants recently. The US is doing a fucking genocide in Palestine, bombing Yemen again, and threatening the entire region. Three military die in a place the US never belonged to begin with and immediately everyone with Col or Gen in their name is screaming to the sky about nuking Tehran.

Dogshit, batshit country

Makes sense. I figured it wouldn't be Qing since Mao/the communists broadly (and the nationalists like Kai-Shek for a time) were known for opposing and defeating the resulting warlords after the fall of the Qing.

I suppose it could just represent Mao, who stood for the incredibly poor peasant class, holding down the remaining and emergent (during the warlord period) wealthy or bourgeoisie. Forcing them to kneel in shame or something like that. The figure also appears ghostly or ethereal. Maybe like he's resting his hand upon a now-dead ruling class. Lenin is sitting on the (I think) Tsarist statue head in a similar symbolic depiction.

Trotsky on the ground made me laugh a little. I assume this was done by a Stalin-era Soviet artist? Also who is the person Mao has his hand on? Chiang Kai-Shek? A peasant? A former warlord or fallen communist leader?

The word impotent gave me a hilarious mental picture of a vampiric Trump who can't "get his teeth hard" to bite people.

This should be a comedy sketch if it isn't already. A vampire that has to take like Blue Chews to get their fangs hard enough to perform.

"Vampires, listen up. Are your fangs more like overcooked spaghetti now days? Are you having trouble getting ready for your nightly encounters? Have you been in a situation where you really wanted to suck that sweet, fresh neck-blood but your gear wasn't operating?

Well, Count Trumpula has a product for all our befanged, sparkly travelers of the night."

I don't mean this in some sort of dipshit "I don't see race!" way, but I must be totally pulled from the Hasbara propaganda machine at this point. When I hear, see, or think about Palestine at this point I just think "the asshole colonizer arm of the US" country and "the indigenous people they displaced and are genociding currently." Like I've just totally slotted them in my brain, and not to say they're exact equivalents because that's reductive obviously, into white Europeans and their genocide of the Americas.

All of that to say when I'm reminded that Israelis and their propagandists attempt to falsely frame this around religion it's always a bit jarring and takes a second for the rage to hit once I realize how moronic and frankly evil a lot of Zionists are. People like President Genocide Joe and his staff of little Himmlers. It's the same exact propaganda and lies that echo through every mass extermination and attempt at or successful theft of land in history.

Unfortunately something I've come to realize recently is many Americans today think the genocide of the natives was justified or they just don't care. Well, I didn't just realize this; I was reminded of this truth is more correct. Maybe they acknowledge individual bad acts by Americans and Europeans (trail of tears) but they always default back to "both sides" and will never concede that one side had a righteous and correct resistance and the other side was just slaughtering people to steal their land and resources and it's not more complicated than that. This "American exceptionalism" cope has pickled millions of brains the exact same way Zionism has to Israelis and Nazism to Germans, etc.

I was wondering why I felt sad all year

Thanks for summing it up

Yes, people in the west specifically the US need to realize the only purpose of messaging like this is to put the barest level of grease on the window so that it lightly obfuscates what we can see.

This statement and others like it will be (attempted) to be put forth by Israelis and their defenders for decades to come when people bring up the genocide of Palestinians in 2023 and annexation of northern Gaza. They'll say "no no read the tweets! See! They let them leave!"

Yes yes. I was doing "a clever" in that response. Actually I thought you were setting it up for that reason.

"You can blame it all on meeeeee"

Genocidal rhetoric for years, people speaking about extermination come into power, laws passed that legalize theft from those who were spoken about being genocided, police openly begin beating and killing them in public, random citizens do the same with no repercussions and also rob them... fast forward years "wow, but who knew they were all being murdered?"

I prefer saying "the third Reich lost, and the fourth Reich was born." Or "the German fascists lost, and the American fascists won."

The immediate turn after the war against the fascists of the world into the US fighting socialism... just like the fascists were doing is pretty much irrefutable proof. Unless one adopts the moronic mindset that America is "good" and was justified to do multiple wars including genocides not unlike what the German Nazis did against the "evil" USSR and other socialist countries.

But yes this example overall also shows the liberal attitude of "well, yeah, Nazis are bad but he was a scientist! He's smart! Not like those other evil guys like Hitler! It made sense to use his mind to help us... against the dirty commies!" (And yes I know many of the third reich's high command was highly educated holding PhDs, JDs, MDs.)

It's been repeated a lot over the years. People tend to distance themselves from slave stuff, but the Wehrmacht is given a pass. Goes hand in hand with the purposeful myth around "Germans didn't know" when all evidence points to everyone knowing.

Liberals unironically get pissed all the time about people saying "we didn't execute enough Nazis" and "we should've executed every single person who participated in enslaving black people after the civil war." They legitimately lose their minds over it, and the only reason I can assume they do so is because somewhere deep down they know they would have joined the Wehrmacht (I'll be nice to them) and served the Nazis. They know they would've be a white hired worker for a plantation owner and held down slaves while they got punished for trying to escape or not picking cotton fast enough or whatever.

And off topic, but kind of not, in Band of Brothers (show about the US Army 101st Airborne during WWII) Maj. Dick Winters, the main protagonist pretty much, a man that's represented as and, I suppose probably was, a "moral" man as far he didn't gamble, swear, commit adultery, drink alcohol or smoke, etc. But he did volunteer to be an officer in the war against Nazi Germany and not only that he volunteered knowingly for the airborne paratroopers who dropped behind enemy lines and did all the video game shit Americans, and the world now, know all about. This guy was, from whatever I know, a "good guy." WWII being pretty much the only foreign involvement that America has been on the right side of.

And how did the show end in the last like 15 minutes? He accepts the surrender of a German officer, higher ranked than him (compared across armies). And the officer offers him his sidearm in a symbolic way reminiscent of "old wars" where the head generals or king or whatever present their sword and bend the knee. Then this guy who just spent like 18 months blowing away Nazis, like a fuckload of Nazis, stands up and says "you may keep your sidearm, colonel." And then the colonel nods and goes to attention before saluting the American major who returns the fucking salute.

Then there's a goddamn another scene where a Nazi German general is surrendering but refuses to surrender to an enlisted person so Winters sends a respected American Lt. to handle the formal surrender. And they let this guy give a speech to his whole company to the tune of "you did your duty and I hope you go and live long lives now."

Incredibly long side route there, but that just shows how liberals are in the most extreme example. They had to show "honor in defeat" of the Germans. Why? I dunno. They love it though. They love that shit about institutions and "doing your duty" and if your duty was participating in a genocidal government's blood and soil war campaign to conquer all of Europe and the USSR? Well, so what? You can't say that general should've been shot! He was honorable! Those plantation masters were good southern gentleman! Look at Robert E Lee! So respectful!

I really hate liberals and this last week has made me realize and see what I always knew, but I can't make excuses at all anymore. They're every bit as bloodthirsty and nationalistic and racist and everything else as the conservatives. They just don't like to advertise it until they "have a reason" but oh boy, give them a reason and they're signing up for the Wehrmacht. First in line to do their duty...

I was more specifically referring to the part in the table portion (whatever that's called. The very top first area) that says something like "recognized as a genocide by X number countries". It's just putting that out there right off the bat for the average person going "wait a second... I thought this was... ah! Yeah! I knew it! Genocide denier!" My faith in humans to read beyond that table is... low.

But even if they scroll to the intro that you quoted, I mean, that is such a lightly veiled accusation. Like if a neutral statement is a 5/10, I'd say that's 7/10 towards accusatory. Maybe that's my bias. Including "man-made" in the intro, I dunno, I wouldn't do it ESPECIALLY when it's now become a hot issue for liberals and right wingers to call the Holodomor a genocide. The author is just fueling their beliefs, imo.

I suppose this delves into ethics and such around authorship of pages like this and their responsibility to limit misunderstandings and false narrative propagation. I personally believe science and history writers, even if writing a summary for a wiki, do have this responsibility to make clear that while there might be controversy on a subject, it's manufactured controversy. Like a Wikipedia on abortion I would expect (I haven't looked) to NOT mention anything about pro-life, God, etc. until some later section specifically labeled "Controversies" and then lay out why people have an issue with it from purely non-scientific, non-medical, purely theological and ideological bases. The same should be done regarding the Holodomor. It can be in the introduction even, but briefly mentioned with something like "some far right coalitions in certain countries have attempted to classify the famine as genocide for ideological reasons." That's a factual statement. I'm sorry if that hurts right wingers feelers when they read it on Wikipedia BUT ITS TRUE and putting up vaguely worded things and starting off the article by saying "all these countries call it a genocide!" is representing the right wing narrative.

There's other examples on Wikipedia of doing misinformation or "kinda true if you ask the right wingers" shit. The Korean War is an easy one. It says the DPRK started the war when it crossed the border (they mean the US-created 38th parallel which neither side considered significant or a border). History shows that the US and US controlled SK instigated the war and the DPRK was defending its fledgling democracy. See a problem with accusing defenders of being attackers? I do. And it just happens to be the US's official stance on the war... which... do I need to say the US is lying? Does that need to be said?

Anyway, this was a bit scattered, but my point summarized is Wikipedia tends to always take pro-US stances and anti-USSR (and adjacent countries) stances, which is a big fucking problem considering the US constantly lied during the Cold War making these narratives up and now they're repeated forever on Wikipedia. I'm not a fan.

Wikipedia still has up Nazi propaganda in regards to the "Holodomor" with old or cherrypicked or outright false statements from sources calling it a genocide when in fact it's widely recognized as, basically, a fuckup of Soviet policy under Stalin. Not genocide.

The "double genocide" shit is Nazi propaganda and yet Wikipedia legitimizes it. Any ignorant person who googles it after reading "derp derp Stalin killed 10 kazillion people!" Would find themselves quickly on a webpage "confirming" that false belief.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor link for anyone curious.

Wikipedia can be decent for some stuff, but while shit like this remains on the site, I dunno, it can't be trusted in many regards.

Thanks I hate it

Most obvious monopoly since Ma Bell. Even worse than Microsoft which was also obviously a monopoly. Break them all up. Microsoft, ATT (for the... 4th time? Maybe just abolish them at this point...), Comcast, Verizon, Google, Apple, the list goes on. All those food corps that end up being 3 parent companies owning everything else. Break it all up. Force unionization also while going through the legal processes.

And that fuels many westerners views of Ukrainians today. The insane right wingers ended up in Canada and some in the US and much like the "exile Cuban" population in Miami (mostly) aka gusanos they spent decades spreading bullshit anti-Soviet, anti-communist (generally), pro-Nazi narratives. And American/Canadians being fucking morons... just ate that shit up, same as they did/do for those right wing Cuban-Americans.