The western values Ukraine is defending are becoming more apparent by the day.

  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
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    7 months ago

    Oh this must be that whataboutism we keep hearing about. Meanwhile, I love how running out of resources means it’s ok to abandon all your values in the minds of liberals. Mask sure falls off pretty fast.

    • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      So explain, then, what point you’re making and what your alternative is? Your initial statement is intentionally vague and seems to have a very direct agenda to make Ukraine look bad by posting this article. And I didn’t claim Ukraine expanding its martial law powers was “right”, because its not, but it is at least understandable considering how their entire country is teetering on the edge of complete civil collapse (and such restrictions are with precedent, most nations do during wars and even America did restrict a lot of liberties during WWII/vietnam/etc). Sticking to your morals is valiant but pointless if it means you get overrun by those without morals.
      But your vague statement seem to think this change makes them worse than Russia.

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
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        7 months ago

        The point I’m making is very simple and should be obvious. When the regime has to grab people off the street and force them to fight, then it has no legitimacy. This isn’t a case of people willingly defending their country, it’s fascist regime backed by the west that’s forcing people to die in a senseless war. If you can’t understand such basic things then what else is there to say to you.

        • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          7 months ago

          Alright, let’s roll with that logic: A sovereign government that violates the sovereignty of it’s citizens is illegitimate. Since Ukraine is now violating the sovereignty of it’s citizens for wartime mobilization, it is an illegitimate government. That’s a sound premise, actually. In a vacuum this would be true.

          However, that completely loses the nuance that Ukraine is not the aggressor in this “senseless war”. Ukraine did not violate it’s citizen’s sovereignty, RUSSIA DID by initiating the war of annexation against the sovereign government of Ukraine. By violating the sovereignty of the government, Russia thus violated the sovereignty of every citizen under that government. None of this would have been necessary had the initial aggression not been committed.
          So, now extend your argument: Let’s go ahead and accuse Ukraine of violating human rights with this expansion of power. You must also do so for Russia, who backed Ukraine into this corner in the first place, and who is also committing infinitely worse violations against the civilian territory they have thus far annexed. Are you willing to do that? Because so far, you haven’t.

          You seem to be echoing a large number of Russian propaganda points trying to paint Ukraine as some fascist shithole, and not the independent nation being overrun by a expansionist dictatorship that it is. This argument is not in good faith.

          • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
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            7 months ago

            However, that completely loses the nuance that Ukraine is not the aggressor in this “senseless war”.

            Weird, last I checked Ukraine was involved in a war against Donbas since 2014 as even western media reported at the time.

            Ukraine did not violate it’s citizen’s sovereignty, RUSSIA DID by initiating the war of annexation against the sovereign government of Ukraine.

            And if people of Ukraine wanted to defend the state then they would be voluntarily fighting to do so.

            By violating the sovereignty of the government, Russia thus violated the sovereignty of every citizen under that government. None of this would have been necessary had the initial aggression not been committed.

            None of that has anything to do with the western sponsored regime in Ukraine forcing people to fight Russia for western interests.

            So, now extend your argument: Let’s go ahead and accuse Ukraine of violating human rights with this expansion of power. You must also do so for Russia, who backed Ukraine into this corner in the first place, and who is also committing infinitely worse violations against the civilian territory they have thus far annexed. Are you willing to do that? Because so far, you haven’t.

            The premise the west peddles is that Ukraine is defending western values against Russia which is already presumed to be bad. However, if it turns out that Ukraine is doing the same things you claim are bad when Russia is doing, then what values is Ukraine defending exactly?

            Turns out this conflict isn’t about values it all, it’s about whose sphere of influence Ukraine is going to be under.

            You seem to be echoing a large number of Russian propaganda points trying to paint Ukraine as some fascist shithole, and not the independent nation being overrun by a expansionist dictatorship that it is. This argument is not in good faith.

            Meanwhile, you’re making an incoherent argument that doesn’t make a lick of sense trying to defend literal fascism in Ukraine.

              • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
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                7 months ago

                I love how you just straw man when being called out on your bullshit and then try to take the high ground. A real class act.

              • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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                LOL. What a ridiculous take. “Alliances”. You don’t have national alliances, neither do any of us, because we’re people. We have opinions. And the opinions of most of the left globally is that the USA is the greatest scourge of humanity and Russia is in a fight for its existence against an American proxy in the form of Ukraine.

                It’s also such a thought terminator when you libs assume the only way people could arrive at this opinion is if you’re paid to do it, as opposed to libs who clearly are free thinkers and don’t get paid for their ideas they just arrive at them fully independently even though it completely aligns with US propaganda efforts, official State Dept narratives, and the clear oligarch-run news media consensus. You could never be paid to have your ideas, but your opponents? Of course they have nothing worthy of arguing because they are paid shills regurgitating from a script.

            • xionzui@sh.itjust.works
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              Weird, last I checked Ukraine was involved in a war against Donbas since 2014 as even western media reported at the time.

              It’s almost like Russia has expressed its desire to annex Ukraine for over a decade now and has been sending disguised military units to create a “resistance” to fabricate a justification for “liberating” parts of Ukraine into Russian territory. Weird… It’s not like they explicitly gave that as one of the 20 conflicting reasons for this invasion or anything

          • robinnn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            It literally is a fascist shithole. It’s littered with monuments to Nazis and Nazi collaborators, it’s armed forces are filled with Nazis, its leadership pays homage to Nazi collaborators, and the entire reason we’re in this situation is the US-backed coup in 2014 of which Nazis were the prime domestic force, and which led to the proliferation of Nazi gangs. Ukraine is not an independent nation.

            You talk about Russia violating sovereignty, what about the Ukrainian bombing of the Donbas (illegal cluster munitions used) and repeated violations of ceasefires? Russia didn’t invade Ukraine out of the blue, they had specific demands for the end of far-right nationalism, repression of Russian speakers, and NATO expansion (NATO itself being a Nazi collaborationist institution).

              • robinnn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                I don’t care if my comment is “normal,” but it is “rational and source-supported.” You’re not “calling out hexbear users,” you’re flaunting your ignorance. Points sourced one by one:

                It’s littered with monuments to Nazis and Nazi collaborators [*] [*]

                its armed forces are filled with Nazis [*] [*] [*]

                Tweet by the National Guard of Ukraine:

                its leadership pays homage to Nazi collaborators [*] [*] [*]

                and the entire reason we’re in this situation is the US-backed coup in 2014 of which Nazis were the prime domestic force [*] [*]

                and which led to the proliferation of Nazi gangs [*] [*]

                (illegal cluster munitions used) and repeated violations of ceasefires [*] [*]

                they had specific demands for the end of far-right nationalism, repression of Russian speakers, and NATO expansion [*] [*]

                NATO itself being a Nazi collaborationist institution [*] [*]

                • QuietCupcake [any, they/them]@hexbear.net
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                  7 months ago

                  I just want to thank you and @davel@lemmy.ml for the time and effort you put into these heavily-sourced and informative comments. Even if these lying, willfully ignorant shitlibs can’t appreciate it because it so clearly demonstrates how wrong they are and how little they know, some of us reading do appreciate it. I’ve learned a lot as a result and am better equipped to help others who might be willing to try to better understand the situation too.

                  • davelA
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                    7 months ago

                    lying, willfully ignorant shitlibs

                    Not everyone in the audience is that. I was a Burgerland lib once, too, exposed to the exact same propaganda for decades, so I know at least some can break out of it, if they’re curious & intellectually honest.

                    After witnessing in real time how obviously fabricated the justification for the Iraq War was, and how seemingly credulously the media propagated it, I was no longer able to ignore the cracks in the propaganda. It still took me many, many years to peel away layer after layer. It’s a process. I’m just trying to help people get there faster than I did. The dissonance between what’s happening in Gaza & the West Bank right now and Western governments’ & corporate media’s coverage of it is even harder to ignore than the Iraqi WMD lies were twenty years ago, so this is an opportune moment for others.

                  • WittyProfileName2 [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                    7 months ago

                    No it’s just thinly veiled Islamophobia.

                    Some fascists have an urban myth that since pork is haram, Muslims shot by a bullet covered in lard go to hell.

                    Chechnya has a lot of Muslims and Ramzan Kadyrov is the head of state of Chechnya, so “Kadyrov orcs” is a dog whistle for Muslims.

                  • davelA
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                    7 months ago

                    Lard is pig fat, which they use because it’s not kosher, despite most of their targets not being Jews. Nazism is vibes-based and seldom makes sense. Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. —Voltaire

                • PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocksB
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                  7 months ago

                  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

                  *

                  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

                  I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.

              • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                It’s hilarious that you people think the mods of a random instance are a front for the Hexbear NKVD or something, as opposed to the simple explanation that what you call “Russian propaganda” is what we call “things the west will admit six month later.”

                Six months from now you’ll be pretending you always knew Ukraine was a fascist shithole as you argue for the emergency conscription of Volksturm units to stop the Russian horde.

              • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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                7 months ago

                Are you saying that Ukraine does not celebrate Bandera as a national hero or that Bandera was not a Nazi? Are you saying that Ukraine did not knowingly integrate explicitly neo-Nazi militias who recruited on the basis of their neo-Nazi ideology or that that those battalions are not neo-Nazis? Are you saying that the USA doesn’t vote against the resolution to condemn celebration of Nazis every single time it comes to vote or that the resolution isn’t actually about condemning the celebration of Nazis?

                Just trying to figure out which “facts” you’re working with here.

              • robinnn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                @empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com Your comment has been up for over four hours, so 0 for 1 on predictions. I gave you citations for what I said in my comment, things you would have known if you would’ve looked into the conflict at all. You were so concerned with “discourse based in logic” and “source-supported comments,” so what happened?

                It’s extremely scummy to imply I’m a liar or making stuff up, then when I go and prove what I’ve said, you can’t even respond to apologize. If your comment was just a dishonest method of wasting my time, then you should be banned and have your comment removed.

                • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                  I wish just once that one of these “market place of ideas-facts and logic-rational source-supported” lib debate perverts would actually engage with your posts. You always have tons of sources for everything and you cite them in posts like its an MLA style essay, and then these libs just ignore it.

                  I know “rational discource-logic-source supported” are just affectations for these people, but they clearly don’t even care about trying to appear like its anything more than that

          • davelA
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            You seem to be echoing a large number of Russian propaganda points trying to paint Ukraine as some fascist shithole



            Edit to add: Usually someone responds with, yeah well Russia has fascists, too, to which I usually respond:

            There are Russian fascists. Take Navalny, for example, who the US tried to use in its regime change efforts so that it could resume its neoliberal shock therapy plundering that started under Yeltsin and ended under Putin.

            • Unruffled [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              Quoting Internationalist 360° as a reliable source isn’t going to win anyone over. And the ‘The Hill’ article you listed concludes something that is the opposite of what you are claiming:

              The odious Russian media tried to paint Ukraine as a land of Nazis, though that is patently wrong. Ukraine has a thriving Jewish community, and its far-right is still on the fringe.

              We all understand your point of view, everyone’s a Nazi if they are against Russian/Chinese imperialism.

              • davelA
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                We all understand your point of view, everyone’s a Nazi if they are against Russian/Chinese imperialism.

                I don’t think that at all. Being “against” Russia or China doesn’t per-se make someone a fascist. I’m not confused about what fascism is, and I don’t use it as a floating signifier for stuff I don’t like.

                But neither Russia nor China is imperialist. The imperial core is imperialist, otherwise known as the Global North.

                .
                Over 20 years go Russia—at the time lead by Putin—wanted to join the imperialism club, but the US rejected them: Ex-Nato head says Putin wanted to join alliance early on in his rule. Now Russia, rejected by the Global North, has no choice but to join with the Global South as allies instead. This shift in allegiances has been massively accelerated by the sanctions of this war.

                Ukraine has a thriving Jewish community

                So fascism means hating Jews? What about the fascists genociding Palestinians in Israel as we speak?

              • robinnn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                Notice that point from “The Hill” has no examples or evidence. It’s not relevant; they were citing the examples given not the author’s out-of-the-blue conclusion (which can be chalked up to the counter-bias that was the reason it was cited). I have another comment on this post proving that the far-right is not “still on the fringe.”

                Quoting Internationalist 360° as a reliable source isn’t going to win anyone over.

                Oh, I see the issue: you don’t understand how sources work. They’re not citing Internationalist 360° as a reliable source by itself—if you would’ve read until the end of the article you would’ve seen that the author provided a list of sources used. The article is simply a summary of the history using those sources.

                Please tell me about “Chinese imperialism.” I’d love to hear about how Chinese investment in Africa, the only FDI with a positive impact on development, is “imperialism.” I’d love to hear how the PRC’s claim to Taiwan, despite being accepted by nearly every country on earth and recognized by the UN (and favored upon by the majority of Taiwanese despite no clear support for total reunification, hence its not happening yet when China could conceivably force it upon the population), the US admitting that their cynical support for separatism is only to keep the PRC down, is “imperialism,” and in fact Taiwan is an independent state with no relation to China (despite its constitution being the Constitution of the Republic of China, and its president the president of the Republic of China, with the so-called ROC claiming sovereignty over all of the mainland of China, Outer Mongolia, and Russia—see the emblem of the ROC Marine Corps).

              • zkrzsz [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                We all understand your point of view, everyone’s a Nazi if they are against Russian/Chinese imperialism.

        • gladflag
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          7 months ago

          So if enough people won’t fight the government should shut down and let the invaders take over? Is that your alternative? Civilisations sometimes need to force people to work for a common good. See also vaccines.

          • Dolores [love/loves]@hexbear.net
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            common good

            what is good for the commons about shoveling more unwilling ukrainian bodies at a fight they want to be over

            • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              awesome yes, they should let putin take everything over so he can then shovel Ukrainian and Russian bodies into his next annexation project!

              • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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                That’s literally what will happen if Ukraine keeps on fighting. They have sent literally every soldier and every piece of equipment they had into the breach. They have sent multiple times over the budget of Russia’s military in and it’s been destroyed. They are running out of everything. The average age of a Ukrainian soldier has sky rocketed.

                This only stops with a negotiated peace deal.

              • Dolores [love/loves]@hexbear.net
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                yeah if they want to surrender that’s their decision, lmao? people in other countries don’t exist to be pawns of US foreign policy, they actually have their own lives and interests

            • gladflag
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              Lmao. They’ve got an army from another country tearing through their land. I reckon they’ve got larger problems than “this isn’t the best form of democracy in the world”. Again, no solution from you apart from lying on their backs.

              • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
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                If people wanted to defend their land they would do it voluntarily. Evidently this is a hard concept for liberals to wrap their heads around.

              • Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone
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                Hey man, there’s no point arguing with this guy, he’s a Russian shill.

                He’s all over lemmy spreading this shit all the time

                • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
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                  Ah yes, anybody pointing out the obvious is a Russian shill. Amazing how McCarthyism is still alive and well.

                • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  Yep, and the instant horde of Hexbear users brigading the comments section in their defense is patently obvious as to what’s going on. Astroturfs gonna astroturf.

                  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
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                    Ah yes people demonstrating that you’re full of shit with sources are the ones astroturfing. Go home little turd.

                  • davelA
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                    Orc hordes at Hexbear, their meat waves astroturfing.

          • davelA
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            The “common good” in bourgeois democracies is the good of the capitalist class at the expense of the working class.

            Wikipedia: Bourgeois revolution

            Bourgeois revolution is a term used in Marxist theory to refer to a social revolution that aims to destroy a feudal system or its vestiges, establish the rule of the bourgeoisie, and create a bourgeois (capitalist) state. In colonised or subjugated countries, bourgeois revolutions often take the form of a war of national independence. The Dutch, English, American, and French revolutions are considered the archetypal bourgeois revolutions, in that they attempted to clear away the remnants of the medieval feudal system, so as to pave the way for the rise of capitalism. The term is usually used in contrast to “proletarian revolution”, and is also sometimes called a “bourgeois-democratic revolution”

            BBC: [Princeton] Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy

            I don’t mean to imply that Russia isn’t a bourgeoise democracy—it is as well, but at least it’s not under the boot of the imperial core like Ukraine is. Russia emancipated itself from the US neocolonial shock therapy plundering that began with Yeltsin and ended with Putin.

          • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            If even an actual invasion does not motivate a sufficient number of people to volunteer to fight for their government, then why should that government be seen as worth preserving?

        • xionzui@sh.itjust.works
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          So basically, a country that is invaded has the option to either roll over and be destroyed or fight back and become “illegitimate” and should be destroyed anyway? Basically an invader has free rein to destroy any country they feel like? That’s some nice victim blaming there. Incredibly abusive thinking.

          • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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            Who was Ukraine invaded by? Russia only? Or does it count when the USA foments a coup and even sends its regime change agents to oversee the coup, hand picks the successor, and deliberately hand picks someone that will invite the undemocratic nuclear-armed nazi-led transnational NATO to take it’s land for military installations? Because as Russia sees it, a nuclear armed military has been marching across Europe to it’s Ukrainian border across which Europe has invaded Russia twice. Is NATO allowed to move in as long as the USA coups the leaders who are against it?

            Ukraine’s legitimacy in the West is founded on the narrative that it’s a white Christian democratic freedom loving bastion. When it suspends human rights, bans unions, bans communist parties, shells civilians, attacks civilians bridges with civilians on it, enlists Nazis, celebrates Nazis, honors Nazis, and then just starts grabbing men off the street and sending them to die with no training, it loses that legitimacy. Ukraine must surrender and negotiate a peace deal. The only other option is mass murder of its civilian population through forced consignment in a war of attrition that it is badly losing, has always been losing, and has never had a chance of winning.

      • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        Yes, America did concentration camps in WW2. One more piece of evidence that the US government is an irreconcilable danger to everyone both outside and inside itself.

      • Doubledee [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        I think one thing that’s getting lost in the discussion here is you keep talking about governments as if they are people. Ostensibly liberal states exist to protect human beings and their rights. At the point where “you” have to let “your” values slide in order to deal with “your” existential crisis we are talking about the governent as if it has feelings and its own aspirations that deserve to be treated with the same seriousness we theoretically want to apply to human welfare.

        I feel very bad for Ukrainians, to be clear, I think they’ve been mistreated by the US who used them to try and get one over on an adversary in the knowledge that other people will be the ones dying if it goes poorly. That’s certainly very bad.

        However you feel about the justice of the invasion, though, we’ve reached the point where even people who support the war and want Ukraine to win are defining winning as a negotiated settlement where they give up territory. If NATO is not willing to fight Russia directly (clearly they aren’t) and continuing the aid to the conflict is not even providing a reasonable way for Ukraine to retain its territory and even cheerleaders who are on the side of Ukraine’s government believe they will have to negotiate a settlement then WHY ARE WE NOT PUSHING THAT? More Ukrainians are being expected to die, against their will as you freely acknowledge, for no long term strategic purpose.

        The death and destruction from this war is a human tragedy. It will be more tragic if it is prolonged for years only to end in the same way it could have within months.