• alcoholicorn
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    8 months ago

    a person who has strong feelings about human rights and domestic US politics.

    My take on any enemies of the US is uncritical support; the only impact the US will have on those people is further immiseration, thus to criticize them as an American living in America is to carry water for imperialism.

    It’s why you see people get more worked up about Iranian oppression than Saudi oppression, despite Saudi Arabia being dependent on US military aid to oppress it’s people. The context of you, and American, hearing about gay rights in Palestine is to support further oppression of the Palestinian people.

    • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      My take on any enemies of the US is uncritical support

      So if a third party won the presidency someday, and the US turned against Israel, you’d uncritically support Israel?

      • alcoholicorn
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 months ago

        If the US stopped being the core of imperialism, of course I’d have to reevaluate.

        • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          8 months ago

          No, no, if they were still the core of imperialism. I don’t think that’s likely to change any time soon. But if voter sentiment in the US turned so aggressively and permanently against Israel that cutting off military aid to Israel became a huge campaign issue, and then it happened, and Israel went absolutely on a tear of anti-US realignment and made an alliance of survival with the governments of Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Or something like that. It’s a lot more plausible than other things that people are talking about, like legalizing weed or abolishing the FBI and DOJ.

          If that happened and the US still had a mostly-unchanged-otherwise foreign policy, would you uncritically support Israel because they’d become an avowed enemy of the US?

          • alcoholicorn
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            8 months ago

            Saudi Arabia and Egypt are also US puppets though.

            But yes, I would support the US decolonizing its own puppets.

            The uncritical support is right 99% of the time, there’s been a handful of weird historical flukes where the US accidentally ends up on the right side of history, such as WWII and briefly supporting Rojava against ISIS (which is really a wash, since they created the context that lead to ISIS, then supplied ISIS with trucks and weapons).

            • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              8 months ago

              But yes, I would support the US decolonizing its own puppets.

              That wasn’t the question.

              Would you uncritically support Israel, if they had a falling out with the US and started criticizing the US? Getting no military funding from us anymore, and getting up at the UN and calling out the US and giving criticism and making friends with countries that were avowed enemies of the US (while still killing Palestinians exactly like at present)?

              I feel like you’re saying you would, but I want to make sure I’m hearing you right.

              • alcoholicorn
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                8 months ago

                It gets more complicated when US is on both sides or the same side as one of its enemies; eg, China supplying weapons to US puppets Indonesia and Philippians against their maoist guerillas.

                But yes, in such a world where the US was openly taking action against one of their puppets, I’d have to support it, and be critical of whoever is supporting them.

                It would be one hell of a historical fluke though.

                making friends with countries that were avowed enemies of the US

                They kinda have been, historically, in the late 40s, the USSR sent them some weapons, and more recently, they had warm relations with Russia and China.

    • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      My take on any enemies of the US is uncritical support

      Also, I want to circle back to this for a second. Doesn’t this mean that we maybe shouldn’t take your advice on how as voters to approach the presidential election?

      Or does your “enemies of the US get uncritical support” stance come in conjunction with a “the US election is very important to me and I have some criticisms of the Democrats but they’re purely meant from a constructive helping-the-country-get-better point of view” viewpoint on electoral politics?

      • alcoholicorn
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        Yeah, there is a discrepancy, I should be voting for the candidate that would lead to the quickest and least violent destruction of the US, but I live here and I can’t give up the admittedly absurd hope that despite all evidence, the US will just you know, stop it, without a revolution or anything.

        There is a difference in what libs and I consider “helping-the-country-get-better” is; I feel helping the country get better at imperialism is a bad thing, they don’t.

        Conversely, I feel helping the country get better at improving material conditions for the working class at the expense of the capitalist class to be good, where libs do not.

    • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      8 months ago

      My take on any enemies of the US is uncritical support

      Hey, thanks for being honest. I wish all of you guys would lead with that.

      • alcoholicorn
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        8 months ago

        Have you seen literally every single military action the US has taken since WWII?

        If you assume the US is on the wrong side, you’ll end up with the right answer every time. They supported the fucking Khmer Rouge until 1993.

        • AbsentBird@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          8 months ago

          North Korea good because US bad? Seems a bit reductive.

          It’s not a fight between good and bad nations in my mind, it’s more about the struggle of people everywhere for liberation, justice, and equality. I’m pretty skeptical of most military actions since WW2 around the world. Such a destructive waste of human potential.

          • alcoholicorn
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            8 months ago

            No, US’s opposition to North Korea is bad. It doesn’t make North Korea good, but I’m not going to criticize within the context of America, since the only use of that criticism is to support further sanctions or military actions against the people of North Korea.