The nazis hosted the olympics, no imperialist war has ever stopped the olympics from letting someone compete. Even in the worst possible interpretation of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, barring them from the Olympics for it would be an entirely new precedent.
Russia is a fascist state. You are a fascist for supporting it.
Y’all will take the most lukewarm, neutral, fair takes on topics related to this issue and call it “support for Russia” is incredible. |
Nowhere, anywhere in op’s comment did she say that she supports Russia.
Ukraine is a fascist state. You are a fascist for supporting it.
Lol but western athletes aren’t fascists for not boycotting the event that Russia participating in? Seems like they have more power and influence than an internet poster
It feels weird to be the one to break this to you, but the nazis are widely considered to be fascists too. Some would say they were even a lil bit worse than Russia on the goosestepping front.
only fair enough, I remember when they made the US and UK do this after killing hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq
You’re not wrong, but just because the USA and UK got away with it doesn’t mean we should continue to let others get away with it. We can’t go back in time and fix it but we’ve got to start somewhere.
Why are we letting the people responsible for Iraq and Afghanistans current state get away with it? Like if the US wants to arrest a war criminal Bush and Cheney are right there. Same for Blair, or Harper, or any of the other architects of the invasions.
Because bourgeoisie law does three things. Firstly it protects capital against individuals. Secondly it protects itself against individuals so it can maintain “order”. Finally, it prevents capital against itself, to prevent it devouring itself in competition or sucking hard enough to create a revolutionary populace. Protecting individuals against each other or against capital is not the purpose of law enforcement, much less protecting people from war criminals. (Btw if anyone can find the parenti lecture this was based off, please tell me because i forget)
I’m not saying they should get away with it, I’m just saying that we shouldn’t let Russia get away with it because the United States and the UK got away with it. It’s like the Boomer argument that it’s not fair to them for student loans to be forgiven because they had to pay.
I’m not sure where in the world you live, but for myself, I’m in a western country. It would be far more easy for my country to hold the architects of the Afghanistan invasion to account than Putin. The fact that my government doesn’t indicates that all the talk of punishing Russia has nothing to do with punishing aggression, it’s just about punishing a rival
It’s actually far easier to hold putin to account than western leaders - the western hegemony is hardly going to turn on itself, but it can easily send arms to Ukraine.
That this arming of ukraine is for completely self interested reasons doesn’t mean it also has the side effect of helping a country fight tyranny. A good thing done for bad reasons can still be a good thing.
Would you support a policy of student loan forgiveness for only white people?
What the fuck is wrong with you?
Do you not understand why I said that? I would not support student loan forgiveness only for white people because, while I like student loan forgiveness, I can recognize that such a program would ultimately just be in the interest of white supremacy. I wouldn’t pull the disingenuous liberal line of “you’ve gotta start somewhere” as though the policy was tethered to some imaginary future state that it is nominally more similar to but practically much further from.
Likewise, saying “well, at least by holding Belarus to account some countries will be held to account, which gets us closer to all countries being held to account!” is absurd. It promotes western dominance, not the abstract idea of “holding countries to account”. Striking only one side saying that it’s closer to both sides being struck than striking zero sides would be is sophistry.
Why are we letting China get away with it? Why are we letting Saudi Arabia get away with it? The IOC is a toaster and it’s like you’re asking it to make you a whole roast dinner. It can’t even make toast properly…
I’m not asking for anything, I’m just pointing out the hypocrisy in calling for punishing Russia for war crimes when in every respect the US and her vassals have committed and are committing orders of magnitude more violence in the last couple decades
it’s just a coincidence that this stuff only ever starts with our state enemies huh? only the bad countries get sanctioned for doing the same things we/our allies do. only Russia has to compete with neutral flags. only African leaders get prosecuted in the ICC.
it’s all nonsense used to manufacture consent for war and military spending
Russia competes with neutral flags because they can’t stop doping. It has nothing to do with us vs them. They literally can’t stop cheating.
every single athlete at the olympics is doping
Source?
Common sense?
Have you played sports before? Even at the high school level teenagers are pumping their body full of steriods. I saw them do it myself, I’ve heard the stories from my friends who played rugby. Just look at top high school rugby or american football teams physiques, or at the cardio capacity of teenage track and field athletes. You really think that level is attainable without performance enhancing drugs, at such a widespread level? You really think that stops once these athletes become adults? How about the fact that all of Usain Bolt’s competition got caught doping? You can’t be this gullible. Seriously, read the article I’ve linked below.
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/bernstein-usain-bolt-is-probably-doping-and-you-know-it/
Russia’s sin here was official state involvement, not doping. As long as you pass the drug tests, nothing matters. Remember that Lance Armstrong never failed a drug test. Does that mean he’s a clean athlete? Of course not, and neither was any of his competition. The same applies to the Olympics, the same applies to almost all competitive sports.
So no proof? That’s what I figured.
I did play sports. None of us took anything.
The United States are the GOATs of state sponsored and planned doping at the Olympics. Many of the involved doctors have talked about it in the decades since the '84 Olympics.
“Just because we let the world’s most prolific serial killer get away with it doesnt mean he shouldnt be allowed to keep murdering if he pinky swears his victims really deserve it this time.”
We can’t go back in time and fix it but we’ve got to start somewhere.
We are in total agreement here, and we can start by seizing the levers of power, purging the government of capitalists, withdrawing all troops from everywhere and using them for reforestation work, dismantling the IMF, paying reparations to every country we’ve victimized, and putting every fossil fuel executive and lobbyist against the wall for their omnicidal crimes against all terrestrial life.
Can you even manage in a fever dream to think that this would set a precedent that would result in the US ever getting punished?
Punished for what? Throwing money and military support towards everyone when they need it? Oh, that. Right. As always, hating the USA is what the cool kids do these days. Until they need taxpayer money or military support. I’d love to see us cut off every ounce of support we give to other nations and see how that works out.
I’d love to see us cut off every ounce of support we give to other nations and see how that works out.
Me too! It would be an incredible turn of events that would massively benefit the world. Could you throw in removing the blockades on Cuba and the DPRK and others while you are at it?
COOL. GO AHEAD.
Lmao, the US, simultaneously the strongest and coolest country in the world and a cucked nation that can be bullied by even the smallest african country into giving away free protection.
What support do you think you give? The “support” you give is either A) The cost of running your own propaganda, and paying target-nation actors. B) Weapons you buy from your own capitalists. C) Bribes in exchange for target-nation puppets to exploit their own people for the benefit of your capitalists. There is no fourth category.
but we’ve got to start somewhere.
Somehow we always seem to be starting with US geopolitical enemies, never the US itself, despite literal centuries of heinous crimes.
Curious how that works.
4.5 Million but yeah, glad that the USA and the UK got sanctioned after leading such a genocidal war. This restores my faith in the rules based order.
Can we please stop overusing the word genocide
Sorry, you’re right. In the absence of specific genocidal intent, the US and UK are only guilty of crimes against humanity, the crime of aggression, and various sundry war crimes.
Yes, correct. Now Saddam Hussein on the other hand…
Edit: oh you’re one of the hexbear people, jesus you people are insufferable
Literally justifying the Iraq war while acting like we’re the assholes here, right
Saddam Hussein didn’t literally genocide kurdish people? Not saying that justifies a country halfway across the world to brutally occupy them, but it’s not like that didn’t happen.
He did. He was also supported by the CIA during his times as a torturer of communists and as a dictator launching gas attacks.
Holy fucking shit.
After hand wringing the word in context of the US killing millions of people.
And we’re insufferable.
Yes, but that is not a valid reason to justify the war because an autonomous Kurdish zone had already been set up after the Anfal in 1992. The only way Iraqi troops got in there is when the KDP invited them in during the Kurdish Civil War from 1994-7. Then once that was mediated and the KRG was split into two the Iraqi Army was no longer allowed in. The only real change 2003 brought was the legalising and formal institutionalisation of the KRG such that foreign capital was more willing to invest in it (encouraged, in fact, as the US tried to rebuild Iraq to stabilise things) and it had a big shiny “legal” sticker on it. The realities on the ground didn’t change though, especially as the constitutional articles surrounding referendums on Kirkuk and other disputed areas never came to fruition.
So by 2003 the Kurdish Question in Iraq had not been solved, but it had certainly been pacified in intensity, because a de facto independent KRG already existed!
I get what you’re saying, though. Yes, Saddam was an abhorrent and awful leader who was a genocidaire. However, the war was still an illegal catastrophe based on falsehoods that made things drastically worse for the Iraqi people. It is unjustifiable even when you take Saddam’s terrible-ness into account.
I agree with you and you resort to whataboutism in response. Somehow I’m the insufferable one?
Yikes.
Yeah killing millions of people was totally worth getting one man!
Now let’s bomb Washington DC to rubble and kill your family so we can get to Bush, the even bigger war criminal.
Did I say I think we should have invaded Iraq and Afghanistan?
Nah you just pearl clutched when we called Western Powers bad names.
I’m loosely in favor of restricting the use of the word genocide to when it’s definitionally appropriate myself, but that’s in the context of effective communication and clarity. So long as “genocide” is going to be used exclusively to refer to US State Department desginated enemies only, then it’s perfectly reasonable to liken the US/France/UK’s horrific foreign interventions genocide as well. Western interventions, both formal and clandestine, have killed many more than anyone else those imperialist fucks have accused of the word, so in the interest of showing just how absurd their usage is yes, we should and can call Western powers genocidal too.
I mean I do agree with you (as a genocide studies scholar in training, God willing!), but I think your view of the US as just a clumsy, misguided oaf doing the wrong thing for the right reasons is not accurate. It was never the case that the US tried to build a democratic government and failed-from the very start the US instilled Bremer (that idiot) as a dictator; he openly restricted freedom of the press, freedom of speech and association, and had people critical of the CPA arrested. Then afterwards the US tried to interfere in the elections to support Allawi but failed miserably. The CIA and the US embassy has always had a huge role in the picking of Iraqi Prime Ministers and other ministers and has never stopped quashing Iraqi self-determination and democratic will. Just look at what they supported Maliki through!
Thank you for your well informed comment, the whole thing was indeed a clusterfuck and you know more than me. What are you doing on that godforsaken instance?
I am a socialist and it is nice to be among socialists, put simply. I disagree with plenty of them on many issues but honestly I have not found people rude or mean to me-indeed, even less so than on liberal forums e.g., reddit. Plus there is an energetic solidarity and support for marginalised ppl (I am disabled + poor + mentally ill) that you do not get in most communities because I feel they understand more so the structural roots behind these marginalisations (since they are socialists!).
Also I was on hexbear since the start (the migration from /r/cth to chapo.chat) and I don’t really know what Lemmy is lol.
Post shit get hit. We welcome informed folks, well meaning curious questions, and fellow travelers with open arms. Sanctimonious liberals get the hog.
Also you: https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/1081955
When you say it like that sure, except they also deny the Uyghur genocide and ignore the fact that China has their internet walled off and heavily censored/policed.
Basically they’re so pro-communism that they looped back around and are now pro-fascists and drink the Kool aid. Not to mention the fact that China is only communist in name lol
Yes this is me, thank you for advertising my accurate comment. China is indeed targeting and concentrating minorities into camps. Words have meanings.
The UN disagrees with you
Calling that genocide is holocaust denial.
Stop hiding behind pathetic labels, you are in bed with fascists.
Does not seem like words have meanings. All the nuance in your tank is reserved for the constant America-led warmongering in the middle east with a death toll in millions, many more displaced, and known torture sites like Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and god known how many more black sites. Meanwhile the Uyghur are unequivocally being genocided despite ZERO CONFIRMED CASUALTIES four years into the news cycle. So your litmus test for genocide seems to be
despite the emphasis on words having meaning.astral_avacado said elsewhere that the Iraq Invasion was just “misguided” so its definitely a case of
with how they decide what is and isn’t a genocide.
Lmao good one
Monday: china is fascist
Tuesday: china is communist
Wednesday: china is communist in name only
Thursday: china is corporatist
Friday: china is state capitalist
Saturday: china is just authoritarian
Sunday: china is just totalitarian
Ukraine should perform under the flag of Bandera
the red and black one deeply associated with the far right, you mean?
The joke is that that represents their awful state ideology
Fun fact: flag, in Spanish, means “bandera”.
It’s the etymology of that name actually, italian word for flag (also bandera) got adopted in many slavic countries.
Lmao at whoever downvoted you. Do they disagree? Show your face coward!
Finally, some dignity and respect for human rights at the Olympics.
walks past barricade that hides homeless people
Ukraine having a normal one
We’ll see what comes first, Zelenskyy getting deposed or the Olympic games
Someone call the Whaaambulance.
Now we’re up to $900 per US household for this Ukraine stuff. Let’s throw a few more bucks at it to buy flags. Great use of taxpayer dollars. Sure, Jan.
This conflict has the potential to cause real change in Russia. We’re talking about potentially getting rid of Putin’s regime and it’s being done without sending any of our troops to die. The help Ukraine is getting isn’t charity, look at the bigger picture.
Putin has more support than ever…
For gods sake try to imagine this from a Russian perspective. NATO bombs are killing their people.
Like, seriously, imagine how your average American would react to this. Treat the Russians as human for one fucking second.
They are not going to fucking blame Putin for that. They will blame NATO!!!
without sending any of our troops to die
what about all the people from other countriesNever mind all the US vets that died over there lmfao
If foreigners are people then why can’t they vote in our elections?
Checkmate tankie.
This person just outing themself as craving the sending of Ukrainians into the fucking meatgrinder. The sheer disregard for human life is disgusting
Lmao. I’m sure they’ll overthrow the government, just like the Americans did to their own government after invading Vietnam and Iraq. Have you seen what the Russian government is doing to mild protestors? Black bagged, sent off to who knows where, doing who knows what. It’s Kent State by like 500x. This isn’t 1980s USSR. The people there support Putin. And those who don’t and protest are still denounced by the west for not doing enough, as if westerners have ever succeeded in holding their governments accountable.
The most realistic outcome is that Putin resigns in disgrace and 20 years later they make shoot and cry movies about Russian soldiers in Ukraine. And then they’ll rehabilitate Putin as a strong leader anyway.
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Though I personally don’t know who of the two evils would be the worse win in the long run, yes, agreed, very much this.
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Absolutely fair point, you may well be right. I pretty much agree on all points.
good thoughtful post
This conflict has the potential to cause real change in Russia
time is a flat circle
This is the most important proxy war of our lifetime!
The help Ukraine is getting will go to nill when these fascists finally lose
Most of which are armament that the US government already had in its arsenal. You’ve spent the money and now those missiles are actually in use instead of being hold in storage. I’m actually more interested in that 900 USD amount, where did you read or hear that exact number?
Who said I preferred it killing people half way across the world instead of rotting in storage
- Missiles being used to kill people in an endless stalemate is actually worse than them sitting in a box
- The people sending those missiles to Ukraine are going to buy more to replace them
- They’re also going to charge Ukraine for the missiles and insist the country sell off state assets for pennies on the dollar to make payments
Maybe it’s high time to overhaul that thinking and stop having a ridiculous military budget.
Holy shit, it’s so high because it gets used constantly.
You’re literally here supporting the use of it
Liberal thinkers are epic
I don’t know how this brain genius talking point got so popular.
So things don’t cost money when you already spent money on them? …You don’t think those stocks are going to be replenished having been depleted?
Because it has a point, albeit not perfect. Wouldn’t you rather the US not have a ridiculously big military budget and can divert spending to, say, education and healthcare?
Sure, it’s great that the US arsenal can obliterate any country in the world should the political powers will it, but this is not the best version of the world, honestly. As you said, it’s your money. Are you okay with it?
Sure, it’s great that the US arsenal can obliterate any country in the world should the political powers will it
Wouldn’t you rather the US not have a ridiculously big military budget and can divert spending to, say, education and healthcare?
Yes? But this seems like a non sequitur.
You see, we will reduce our military budget by using more weapons. This makes sense in the liberal mind
And now we have to replenish those arsenals… they absolutely will be replenished.
Like, if you give all the food in your cupboard to someone, no one would consider that “free”. You have to buy more food!
This argument seems so foolish I can hardly believe anyone actually thinks this way.
Doesn’t Russia already perform under neutral flags because of the doping?
They should just be banned entirely. How many doping scandals does it take? The presence of their athletes is all Russia cares about. They’ll Photoshop in some flags and parade it around state TV.
I don’t think that’s fair to the athletes. They have all worked super hard to make it to the olympics and they shouldn’t be banned because of their birthplace.
They are not allowed to represent their birthplace because the birthplace actively financing and supporting systematic doping. That is not the same as they are being banned.
I have no understanding for why you want to represent that.
I don’t think it’s fair to the other athletes who also worked super hard to make it to the Olympics. It’s not a prestigious competition if it’s full of cheaters.
All countries use doping, some are better to hide it.
We should also ban Russian cats from Cat Beauty Pageants while we’re at it because fuck them cats.
Go Ukraine, but it’s official, this worldnews community has become ragebait, like the original one :/
It’s particularly upsetting because lemmy.ml is a major instance. IMO, moderation in this c/ is infrequent and underwhelming. I don’t mean to hang the mods out to dry; it would take a big team to wade through this effluent and tame the trolls. The hostile “Here comes the Reddit refugees” and “OMG Tankie brigade” shit is just the easy stuff. A rule on lazy whataboutism would help the signal/noise ratio as well. This post is from RT, about Ukraine/Russia/Belarus but the biggest thread in here is rehashing the Iraq occupation. Can we just discuss the original topic? Is that so hard?
This post is from RT, about Ukraine/Russia/Belarus but the biggest thread in here is rehashing the Iraq occupation.
the ‘punishment’ of russia is night and day to what we saw happen to the US and its western allies after the invasion of iraq. you can go and cry about ‘whataboutism’ as much as you’d like, but those of us who live in a world not shrouded by a willful amnesia of a past historical events can see the gross display of hypocrisy for what it is—namely a confirmation by the western world that some victims (of war) are worth more than others
This post is from RT, about Ukraine/Russia/Belarus but the biggest thread in here is rehashing the Iraq occupation. Can we just discuss the original topic? Is that so hard?
This is why so many instances defederate from hexbear, they do this in every comment section. Just turn it into whataboutism against the US, and add nothing to the topic that’s actually being discussed by the article. They’re basically lemmygrad but brigade comment sections more often.
Instances defederate from hexbear because of emoji spam more than anything else.
Defederation because of political views is, frankly, dangerous for democracy.
This isn’t about their political views in particular, this is about them brigading comment sections and derailing from the original topic and shouting down anybody who disagrees.
Defederation because of political views is, frankly, dangerous for democracy.
What? This is such a ridiculous claim I’m not even sure where to start. Federation does not equal democracy, and defederation from a shitty spammy instance has zero impact on democracy.
Democracy is built on discourse of opposing views. If we just censor all opposing views, then what the fuck is even the point?
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Yet, people with these political views do exist in our society. We need to find a way to integrate them into society, not isolate them.
“My post is about black crime, stop mentioning other things like white crime. Yes, I only post about black crime, are you trying to say black people never commit crime? That they should be allowed to commit crime? Thought so.”
Sometimes bringing up context is important for discussing issues that some people would like to keep in a vacuum. The US competing at those same Olympic games under no penalty would be fucked up and makes it obvious that if Belarus was penalized here, it would be due to western politicking and nothing else (Russia already has the doping issue, so idk about that one)
No, you’re not helping. At all. It’s flamebait that can only derail the topic and turn into a circle jerk or verbal fistfight.
Here’s an example that may help: Why is China allowed to participate in the Olympics despite their genocides and brutal crackdowns? Why the double standard?
See? You’re demonstrating my point, it’s not just indifferent, it has a motive.
Though I don’t think you’re helping since Russia did invade while China is doing zero genocides.
I’m sure china is rounding up its citizens and putting them into reeducation camps based on their ethnicity and religious beliefs for reasons other than ethnic cleansing.
Being left wing doesn’t mean you absolutely must support china, especially since a lot of chinese policies are decidedly right wing and almost overwhelmingly authoritarian.
Like nost other “communist” parties in power before them, the CCP is populated mostly by self interested bourgeois that coopted the revolution and pursued a path of oppression against its own people.
Authoritarians gonna authoritate, who’d have guessed.
If you can’t even get the party’s name correct then you have no room to talk on them
Can we just discuss the original topic? Is that so hard?
When your entire schtick is anti-westernism then yeah it is that hard. I really don’t mind the comrades at lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml, they generate some thought provoking content at times. However their blind, predictable, and endlessly repeated talking points are tiresome in the same way that an invasion of Fox News viewers would be.
Another centerist attempting to equivicate the left who wants civil rights for all to the right who want to melt anyone the left advocates civil rights for. Yes, your rainbow capitalism will certainly save this planet.
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RT is propaganda
All news is propaganda.
No.
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Gtfo
Keep Ukraine out then
Just ban Russia and Belarus from participating FFS. Don’t even let them in under neutral flags.
In principle I agree but considering the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel are participating in all competitions without any sanctions I don’t see why we should be making a special case for Russia.
Hard disagree. Ukraine should be prevented from participating and Russia and Belarus should be treated like normal countries
Good riddance to Europe’s karens, then.
