kd637_mi @ kd637_mi @lemmy.sdf.org

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Joined

2 yr. ago

Ok, so the West Germans and France, who received economic aid from the US who wasn't ravaged by war, fared better economically than those countries being supported by the Nazi devastated USSR.

I've heard first hand accounts from people from the west who talk about the only way to avoid disproportionate targeting by police and other state actors was to be not black or other minority. Not to mention the institutionalised corruption of over the top corporate lobbying. That's an absolutely fucked level of corruption too.

Of course people are happier now than at the fall of the USSR. The collapse of a nation has a massive and in this case negative instant impact on people's lives. The fact that things if gone up from there is not surprising.

Black people and Native Americans are still dealing with past and current displacement and discrimination, including a push to eliminate their culture and language. Canada is currently dealing with the results of their very recent genocidal attempts on their First Nations people.

That 'only a small number of people's argument really doesn't wash when you factor in the alternative that is capitalism. The very system that is increasing inequality faster and faster since the fall of its former main ideological enemy. It's true that light industry in the Soviet Union was underdeveloped, people didn't have as much choice in things like food products or consumer goods, but they were building from a completely different set of conditions. The ability of the west to produce so much that then gets wasted while still having starving, homeless, and undereducated people living in it is not a ringing endorsement of the system.

Bruh are you being willfully ignorant about that last point or do you legitimately believe I was saying Ukraine is the most powerful nation to ever exist?

Mali. The domain is free.

It shouldn't be surprising that prosperity advanced much more in the already advanced and industrialised west than in a former semi-feudal peasant economy country. The point is that that former semi-feudal peasant economy rose rapidly to become at least a perceived competitor to the west, even with the most destructive war ever waged on a large part of its most fertile and productive land.

Also, corruption and lying? That isn't specific to the USSR. People are and were miserable in the west too, cultural genocide was and is happening in the west too. Comparing like for like, socialism worked well for the USSR. It was able to heavily industrialise, house populations, create a space program and compete with the USA on the international stage.

That's a pretty poor takeaway I would say. The argument would be that the Nazis took direct inspiration from the early US idea of Manifest Destiny and the dealings with Native Americans. That in turn should give people reason to think about how to change their own society and how to make the world better, instead of handwaving it away by saying, 'Nazi genocide was worse, why are you bringing up the US?'

Dismissing something for being a fallacy is also a fallacy. There are historical, political, social, and economic reasons things happen, and sometimes it pays to put things in context. Limiting the discussion to the thing happening NOW and only NOW doesn't allow for a better understanding of the events.

Also, someone pointing out hypocrisy of other nations shouldn't be seen as a bad thing, especially if it's pointing out the hypocrisy of the most powerful and influential nation to ever exist. You can see based on past events such as the war on terror and endless drone striking of civilians how governments could expect that to be the standard way of operating. That doesn't make it right, only that military intervention has been and continues to be legitimised politically by the international community.

Well, I'm not just hand-wringing about this particular conflict. We are in a thread about this conflict and I am trying to explain my viewpoint on why bringing up the warcrimes of the US and allies is not simply whataboutism.

I really don't like how often I see people ok with the idea of nuclear war. I like Fallout as much as the next person but I don't think it's an accurate representation of nuclear apocalypse.

Ok, fair enough. But the achieving strategic objectives isn't on the side, it's the primary aim. People can see that and still support the US supporting Ukraine, but it seems so many people just think that the US are 'the good guys'. They aren't. No one is. The Ukrainian government aren't the good guys, stopping people from leaving the country and forcing them to fight, and honouring Bandera and Azov. The Russian government aren't the good guys, conscripting their own citizens to fight people they say are their brothers, and their denazifying rhetoric might have had some pull if they didn't trade back those very Nazis after Azovstahl. The US government and the collective west aren't the good guys, supplying just enough weaponry to keep Ukraine in the fight, then upping support when it looks bad.

Also, going back to my talk about precedents set by the USA, this sets a precedent for other countries to overtly arm, fund, train, and supply intelligence to their direct opponents in any if their future aggressive wars. If the counterargument to that is, 'well, they can try, but we will fuck them up,' then we are in might makes right territory, which is more or less how the US currently operates, but clearly not ideal.

You said the other commenter's point seemed to be 'because America did bad things we must let bad things happen'. That wasn't their point, at least not to my reading of it. I read it as trying to highlight the hypocrisy of the international community, which usually means the USA and associated countries.

None of this is to excuse the war in Ukraine, but if the international community is to mean anything, and to have any legitimacy, it needs to apply the rules across the board. Since it doesn't mean anything beyond what is good for the US/corporate interests, the rules have not, and will not be applied evenly.

The US is not trying to do the right thing, it is trying to advance it's interests in the region at the expense of Russia, and unfortunately for Ukrainians at the expense of them too, even if it benefits Ukraine as a state. The fact that the US can wage so many destructive wars that are later acknowledged as mistakes and still be seen as trying to do the right thing shows how effective the propaganda arm of the country is.

No it didn't level Baghdad or Kabul. It did level Fallujah. Russia hasn't leveled Kyiv. It has leveled Mariupol.

It isn't just the US, the issue is that it is all backed and supported by its allies, including my country. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, not to mention the previous wars the international community has been involved in. There are still extrajudicial killings using drones, which would be considered terrorism if done the the US or allies.

No, it's pointing out a precedent set by the USA and allies that wholesale slaughter of innocents is acceptable to the international community. Russia's invasion, whether legitimate or not, is no more spurious in its reasons than so many of the USA's ones over the last how ever many decades.

That doesn't make this one right, it just points out that the "rules based order" is a falsehood. Otherwise every US president in recent to not so recent history would also have an arrest warrant out for them, and the US would be sanctioned into the ground.

I generally have a hard time believing the US intends to do good outside of padding the pockets of corporate lobbyists and politicians. I'm not a fan of the whole "until the last Ukrainian" war that's happening either.

Yes.

I feel like boltgun is probably the pinnacle of space marine games tbh. The description of space marines in universe just maps so neatly to a boomer shooter. That and rogue trader are probably the two perfect genres for their 40k topic

But it wasn't so often the central theme of the episode. We've had 4 out of 5 stories based purely around current events.

I haven't seen Saga, but I feel the chronological cut would lead to a loss of punch in the scenes with young Vito. Part of it is knowing where he ends up and what happens, and comparing that to his beginnings.

It had some pretty funny moments, and the universe being trapped in an ever expanding warehouse is pretty Futurama, but I was pretty disheartened when I saw the name of the episode and when I saw it was just about Amazon. I hope not all of them are current event things.

I disagree that being born in a certain country gives you a duty to fight and die for it, especially as a lot of lower income people fall through the cracks when it comes to receiving help. Sometimes protecting your friends and family involves getting out of where you are. An untrained person given a gun against their will is often quickly just another number in the casualty list

I did my time in my country's military voluntary, something I now regret. I fundamentally disagree with the brutal overseas wars we were involved in, but at the time the conditioning was fairly strong. It took me a few years after being out to realise how bad it was. Luckily for me and my conscience I was never sent overseas through a quirk of how my training played out. I don't like the idea of people being forced into that environment.

Shooting out of a cannon with the wings hat and flying around in Mario 64 was such a pure fun experience for my kid brain. The switch in music and just soaring around a 3d level was really something special at the time.

I would rather it have ended on a high note as it did before the reboot if all the episodes are going to be kind of meh. New episodes for the sake of new episodes don't do it for me. I'm hoping it picks up though