CicadaSpectre @ CicadaSpectre @lemmygrad.ml

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2 yr. ago

I always find it telling how authors have to walk on eggshells to even suggest something against the popular narrative, even when it's become so obvious that anyone who bothers to look into it can see the reality. The way this article starts with setting the scene as sort of relaxed, and how the title reads like "We're obviously super great and everything, but is it possible that maybe just this once we're wrong?"

It's the same with the Ukraine conflict. It wasn't until the catastrophic failure of a counterattack that people even began suggesting that it might have been a disaster, or that Ukraine is flawed - at least in more public media - and even then, the earlier stuff starts off so... "Well obviously the Ukrainians are in the right and totally could win, but maybe this was a bad idea".

I don't know, I just find it pretty telling in our freedom-loving society, which values Free Press and Free Speech, that every mainstream journalist acts like they'll get executed if they report something that displeases their masters. I mean, getting fired and blacklisted from a major media outlet would probably serve the same purpose anyway, so...

I've considered trying to move to Massachusetts someday. Maybe not Boston, because living in cities always seems like a hassle to my small town ass, but somewhere near it.

Exactly this. Unfortunately, nearly every American I've met - even the left-leaning - is convinced that, in spite of its flaws, the US is still the safest/best place to be. They're so disillusioned with the American government and society, but still fervently believe every other system and place is worse (except the Nordic model). And they'll believe me if I tell them why whatever they do support isn't as good as they think, but they take serious convincing to even entertain the idea that China isn't as bad as they think. Us Americans have been hardwired to be distrustful of any good thing, to a fault, and it's really sad when you think about it. It's just bizarre we can be so anti-government as a country and still blindly do exactly what the government wants.

I worked at a hospice (I guess you could call it that?) here in the States, and this nurse was from Romania. I've noticed a trend with "former communist citizens" randomly working in "I was from communist country" into interactions for some kind of sympathy, I guess? There was no rhyme or reason for it, but while talking to her, she brought up she hadn't had bananas when growing up in Romania because they were a communist country. When I suggested it might have been because a lot of bananas were grown in American-controlled regions and the US probably refused to trade them to communist countries, she looked really confused at me, like she hadn't expected me to actually give a sensible reason for it. I've also talked to a comrade who worked as a psych student and had to deal with an Eastern European entrepreneur who would do the same thing: work in something about how he didn't have access to (X), blame it on communism, laugh, and wait for some kind of positive affirmation about it, then get uncomfortable or confused if whoever they're talking to doesn't care.

I sense a pattern, especially when I read articles from other wealthy or well-off immigrants from socialist countries. A sort of exaggeration of hardship that, in a vacuum, looks bad, but with context undermines its severity. But I only know a few cases, so maybe it's just coincidence. Then again, if I were to move and live comfortably in a socialist country, I'd probably tell the citizens how much shit was wrong here in the States, even unprompted.

Something that's darkly amusing about that, living here, is that the election results are almost a 50/50 split every time on the national level, and sometimes even when one candidate has more than the other guy, the other guy wins anyway. So, even if everyone had faith in the system and that the numbers are accurate (which politicians do cheat, so they really aren't), that still means that: a) roughly half the country is going to be against the winner and support any effort to undermine them, and b) even getting a majority doesn't really mean much if the Electoral College can just support the other candidate.

But yeah, I just gotta keep voting Blue for that harm reduction they can't deliver on, while living in a state that's consistently 2/3 Republican in every election, and which passes laws that make it difficult to vote for anything else.

I'm not bitter in the slightest.

I think part of that stems from Westerners (at least where I live) struggling to comprehend how large, populous, and diverse China is as a country. It's presented and taught as a monolith, unless the media/government is trying to push a secessionist movement, then all of a sudden everyone thinks they're an expert on an ethnic group they only thought of as "Chinese" until influencers told them they're oppressed.

This isn't the first time I've heard some alleged former citizen of an Eastern Bloc country bring up the lack of imported fruits, and I always found it odd that they choose to blame the communist government instead of, idk, the fact banana republics were controlled by imperialists and probably insanely hard to come by? Regardless, it also feels like a petty caveat to throw onto a weak argument about why I should feel bad for them having grown up in a country with free housing, low unemployment, free education, and free healthcare (or damn near free, anyway). Because they didn't get Star Wars or oranges often?

"Woefully uneducated"... that's something else. Where I live, our schools are so badly underfunded it's insane. I remember in high school, we had to read a bunch of Ayn Rand and I wondered why the fuck we had to do that. I mean, Orwell was bad enough but kinda made sense because he's just always been on the reading list. Then I read the covers of the brand new Rand novels we got in spades, and they were all donated by the Ayn Rand Society.

Libertarians rely on undercutting education and state restrictions on what can be taught in public schools, specifically so they flood the schools with their "charitable donations" of free propaganda. Started working in education and it's even worse being on the other side of the school desk, lol.

It seems to be their preferred strategy.

Yeah, they're good at that.

True, but I'm thinking about the grassroots fascist orgs that coordinate online, that got involved in this whole project. I've talked to fascists before, and there is a breed of them that really would burn a whole country down to incite fascist sympathy across Europe. If the US gave them power, knowingly or unknowingly, in Ukraine, then I think there's more at work than just the ghouls in leadership.

I'm sure it will backfire for the liberal element in the West, but this is exactly what the fascists could have hoped for. And unless those would-be terrorists are dealt with in the aftermath of the war, I foresee a fascist shitstorm in a region that's primed for fascist takeover.

I can't shake the feeling that more than a few people planned for a Russian victory from the beginning, martyring Ukraine for a fascist revival in Europe. Not saying people didn't genuinely think Ukraine could win, just that there were cleverer puppeteers who sacrificed the country for a wider fascist movement.

If that doesn't change, then it's less resources and risk holding the Russian-speaking areas, but the West will try and stir the pot in the area. I don't think we'll see them simply abandon fascist assets just to use them as scapegoats. I think they'll keep anti-Russian terrorism going in the region as long as it takes to force Russia to get involved again.

I've been under the impression Ukraine was an explicit trap for Russia, to draw them into a quagmire war they couldn't really avoid, and that the West intends to draw it out for as long as possible to tie up Russian resources and possibly even break them through attrition.

Ukraine's current regime has become aggressive towards its Western paymasters, hyped up on their own fascist rhetoric if their politicians are anything to go by, and they're losing bad, proving they're an unreliable and dangerous ally. However, I don't think they'll be thrown under the bus quite yet. I suspect, if NATO's puppet regime can't win, they'll just turn the region into a terrorist state. Whatever government Russia sets up there will need constant Russian military support, and this will be used as propaganda of how Russia "conquered" Ukraine. Fascist resistance, heavily armed, will be trained, supplied, and directed by NATO for years to come, shown as "freedom fighters", while every action Russia takes to keep its borders secure - or even to help Ukraine against fascist terrorism - will be skewed and displayed as tyranny.

In other words, the US will do what it does in every country it fails to install its puppets. At least, that's my prediction. But who can say?

I'm sure racism is a component, but to me it reads more like the arrogant self-righteousness the West engages in, mixed with falling for their own propaganda. Americans, at least, still think the stories from the beginning of the war of massive Russian losses and Ukrainian farmers taking out battalions of tanks are still true. When you try so hard to create this image of the invincible underdog, you shouldn't be surprised when your own side plans for that kind of impossible prowess. Everyone in the West was stirred up into a frenzy about the righteousness of the Ukrainian cause, the tenacity of the Ukrainian people, and the miraculous heroics they allegedly pulled off. I'm not surprised that, at some point, someone actually fell for their own lies. They're paying for it. Or rather, the Ukrainian people are paying for it, sadly.

That's a fair assessment, yeah. I don't think a pipeline needs to be deliberately created, though. I honestly think a lot of the propaganda in this country develops as a byproduct of other stuff, and anticommunists just try to nurture and reinforce it when it happens. Seems like the practical thing to do. Why waste time, money, and energy trying to create a propaganda apparatus from scratch when you can just use a fraction of the resources to give people who already believe the propaganda a platform? Over time it feeds itself.

liberals reading

That's funny.

Here in the US, I've noticed the only people who don't support Ukraine and were allowed a platform to promote those views were ultraconservative Trump types. I have a suspicion that's by design, to help further discredit any counter-narrative.

And as others have said, the "alt-right pipeline".

Too true.