The baltic chihuahuas strike again

  • iByteABit [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    10 days ago

    It’s like NATO is a group of friends pulling a prank on someone and Estonia is the one that just says something so over the top that it makes the prank obvious and ruins it

    • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
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      10 days ago

      A lot of western news articles make more sense if you stop thinking about them as trying to inform you of something, and start thinking about them as trying to get you to feel a certain way. The goal is to push people towards idealist thinking as much as possible, and disregard reality as much as possible. The goal of this piece isn’t to inform, it’s to give liberals a smug “serves them right” feeling as they pat themselves on the back for being the moral ones during their morning 5 minutes of hate.

    • SoyViking [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      10 days ago

      I’m curious as well. The western block is awful but the Baltics are noticeably worse. This is despite them having actually experienced the USSR which is remembered fondly in other post-soviet states.

      There has to be a reason for why this has happened. Is it really just because the west made a strategic decision to prioritise investment/bribes and propaganda in the Baltic states?

      • RomCom1989 [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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        10 days ago

        Because they,like most of Eastern Europe have a deep seated hatred for Russia, originally for a good reason,as the Baltics were colonized heavily by both Germans,and later Russians during the time of the Tzars

        After they got their brief interwar independence they were heavily anticommunist,in opposition to the USSR for obvious reasons

        During WW2 ,they were some of the most zealous antisemites,and killed almost all the Jews in the Baltics,Germans declared the area Jew free at one point (those that collaborated,there were many partizans on the side of the USSR,but you don’t hear about them because the whole history of Eastern Europe was rewritten by the traitors that sold us out and the gusano parasites that came in from the fascist emigres)

        • SoyViking [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          I get that there is old historic animosity to tap into and that they have a history of widespread fascism that was still remembered upon the time of the destruction of the USSR. But to an outsider it seems like this is the only thing there is. It is as if the memory and appreciation of antifascist partisans and almost half a century of peaceful soviet life and development has been completely repressed. You never hear anyone push back on nationalism, Russophobia and Nazi apologia. You don’t even hear about old people being nostalgic for their youth.

          Has the propaganda really been that successful? How did they do it?

          • RomCom1989 [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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            10 days ago

            That is a thorny question

            I believe it’s a sum of multiple reasons

            First,the people who were foolishly led into thinking that capitalism would be better didn’t want to admit they were wrong and dug their heels in and attributed every failure to the nebulous “legacy of communism”

            Second,the latent reactionary sentiments

            Third,the inferiority complex we all seem to have,this desire to join the ranks of the West in the vain hope we get a fraction of their prosperity

            And fourth,you have to understand,when I say the history was rewritten by gusanos and revisionist traitors,it was rewritten.30 years have gone by since Communism fell,and now all the middle aged people and the young adults were taught a twisted version of history and it’s been turbocharged by the unsatisfactory development brought by capitalism and the poverty that still exists

            As for why the Baltics and Poland are the worst,I can’t say,since Romania had different conditions,but my thinking is that they got the somewhat less bad deal and are more integrated than the rest of the former Warsaw Pact,same goes for Czechia

            • RomCom1989 [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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              10 days ago

              Not only was the Eastern Bloc looted,but it’s very ideological base was uprooted and it’s very society shattered and then remoulded through heavy US and EU interference to become the perfect vassal region

          • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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            10 days ago

            I think it’a actually a serious crime in one or two of the Baltics to speak true history aloud.

            I really thinkj the decade of apicalyptic demographic collapse did a lot to destroy the historical memory of the ussr.

        • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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          10 days ago

          Notably the waffen ss was a little freaked out by how anti-semitic Estonia was. Something like, what was it, .01% of Jews in the Baltics survived the war?

          The Baltics role in the Holocaust continues to this day I want to say Estonia and Latvia having ongoing struggles with the descendents of survivors bc survivors understandably want to property of their murdered ancestors back. There’s also a lot of bizarre laws against acknowledging the actual history of the 20th century. It’s real bad.

      • vovchik_ilich [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        10 days ago

        Baltic states have a history of nationalism and Russophobia dating back to pre- and during USSR. Modern propaganda turns peaceful migration movements of Russians into Baltics during USSR into ethnic replacement conspiracy theories.

      • BelieveRevolt [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        10 days ago

        Is it really just because the west made a strategic decision to prioritise investment/bribes and propaganda in the Baltic states?

        Probably, yeah. The first prime minister of post-USSR Estonia was also a Milton Friedman fanboy in his early 30s, which was very good for the ghouls who wanted everything privatized.

      • borschtisgarbo@lemmygrad.mlOP
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        9 days ago

        The baltics were practically western neo colonies throughout the 1920s and 30s. They all actually had big socialist movements – The Bolsheviks received 40% of the vote in Estonia during the 1917 elections. Really wild how they’ve managed this

    • vovchik_ilich [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      10 days ago

      30+ years of russophobic indoctrination, 100 years of Radio Free Europe blasting in their radios, moderately industrial nations before USSR who believed they could ride the imperialism train like England, France, Germany and US and reach economic parity with them. Same thing as with Poles kinda.

      • RomCom1989 [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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        10 days ago

        While the Estonians and Latvians only have repression under Livonians(the order,not the ethnic group) and Teutons to look back to,I’m guessing Lithuanians are on the “we had an empire!” type of brainworms

        Is that accurate?

        • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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          10 days ago

          Yes they were the strongest Baltic tribe and the only one able to defend themselves so their brainworms also come from having their own empire and then from having entire societal elite thoroughly polonised. But the teutonic shit is also there just from the second hand, since after Poland got partitioned the new Lithuanian nationalism and redefinition of nation came from petty bourgeoisie and unlike polonised nobility, Lithuanian bougies were germanised because basically all the cities in Baltics were full of German influence.