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jacaw @sh.itjust.works

1y ago

Suddenly seeing more hexbear posts. Did we re-federate with them?

If so, was it polled somewhere?

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857 comments

I appear to be out of the loop. What's wrong with hexbear? I'm not familiar with the instance.
- They're just an annoying bunch of wannabe communists who sound incredibly smug and post a ton of stickers in comments. Having said that I've moved to lemm.ee when lemmy.world defeterated from hexbear.
  
  When you guys mention the imperial core, what are you talking about? DC? Hollywood? Wall Street? Brussels? London? Paris? Berlin? The Hague? Where is this imperial core you keep mentioning?
  
  "imperial core" isn't a phrase we made up. It refers to World Systems Theory, a theory of international relations invented by a guy named Immanuel Wallerstein which argues that imperial "Core" countries (think the traditional "developed" or "first world" countries. Mainly the US and Europe) have a particular extractive, colonial relationship with "Periphery" countries (think poor, raw material exporting, rentier states like Kyrgyzstan or Nigeria).
  Then there are semi-periphery countries which are still tied into the imperial core in some way, but have enough sway economically and geopolitically to kind of stand on their own. They have a different kind of relationship to the imperial core, compared to the periphery (these would be the BRICS countries, largely).
  That's a gross over simplification, but hopefully that answers your question.
  Edit: Here's a really good explanation of World Systems Theory that goes into more depth
  
  Wasn't aware of this framework, thank you for taking the time to explain it :)
  
  No problem!
  
  To be fair, colonialism is a human trait and it's been proven in every large society time and time again. You think the current US/UK empire is bad but if you look in your own back yard it's the same thing with a different spin.
  It is inevitable, humans are destined for this. It's unfortunate but it's what we do.
  
  That's just the propaganda you've been fed. The world doesn't need to be xenophobic or exploitative. These are learnt behaviors.
  
  No man these are facts. Proven, hard irrefutable facts.
  
  Just because you're a terrible person doesn't mean everyone else is.
  
  I have no idea what you're trying to say here
  
  Like a Christian deep in the closet talking about how gay people just need to suppress the natural urge all men feel to engage in gay sex, you believe that your internal experiences are universally shared across humanity. Because you are a selfish, deeply evil person, you refuse to believe that there is actually any such thing as a good person at all. You feel smugly superior to the rest of us who refuse to admit we're all evil, without realizing that not everyone thinks like you.
  
  yeah but the thing is other countries' policies didn't inspire apartied and the nazis and their holocaust.
  the US's exterminationist and segregationalist The US did those thing
  Hitler wrote in his diary how good america was at genociding its undesireables, and took it and ran with it
  The United States: world leader in being the absolute fucking worst thing in human history since 1619
  
  But that's kind of my point. The CCP engages in almost identical policies and political strategy. It's just under a different banner with a different mascot.
  
  Absolutely fucking wild to go yeah the US Inspired the nazis and aparteid and segregation, but china has the belt and road so its basically the same
  The fuck?!
  
  If somebody looks at you and likes a thing you do, and then goes and commits genocide because they liked that you liked their favorite potato chip, does not make you connected to their genocide.
  You are fabricating connections while denying reality.
  
  Hitler literally wrote in his diary how good the US policies of extermination and land settling were, and, quite famously, his basis for Lebensraum: the material basis for the holocaust
  Get the fuck out of here nazi apologist
  
  You think the current US/UK empire is bad but if you look in your own back yard it's the same thing with a different spin.
  I don't think any non-Western country has enslaved a continent, refused to pay reparations for enslaving an entire continent, and continue to plunder an entire continent of its resources.
  
  I'm going to make the bold claim that the Tang dynasty and the Achaemenid empire was nowhere near as bad as the Spanish empire or the British empire and unlike the first two, the second two are still relevant in modern times.
  
  Do you seriously think Cambodia "enslaved a continent"? Like, I think Pol Pot was one of the more destructive leaders in human history, but you're being silly.
  Japan was working on it but only partially did it. China didn't. Persia? uh . . . I don't think so. Egypt? No. Spain was part of the overall effort that the US and UK were part of.
  
  I genuinely would like to understand what you guys at hexbear are about but every time I poke my head into that instance you guys are "dunking" every other instance with language nobody else understands. It's very alienating.
  
  you guys are also like, just huge dicks without provocation. like all the fucken time. 99% of what i see from hexbear users is either condescension or outright hostility.
  
  honestly it's a pretty friendly instance all told, we just have p strong feelings about politics and bigotry
  and admittedly a lot of us have little patience for the worst among you bc we deal with that shit permeating society at every level on a constant basis
  
  Oh, so you understand how everyone else feels about you then.
  
  :smuglord:
  
  Yeah, cognitive dissonance hurts, so you respond aggressively, perfectly understandable, if disappointing.
  
  Really? cause when I look through comment sections it's always liberals spewing the same fucking lines, and acting like everyone they disagree with can't possibly also be from marginalized groups. (In fact most seem to take the fact that you disagree with them as prima facie evidence that you can't be from a marginalized group!)
  The amount of casual misogyny, racism, and generally sickening comments I've seen has shot through the roof since we federated, and it's exclusively been coming from lemmitors.
  
  Give me an example of a user from Hexbear being racist/transphobic/homophobic etc.
  Just one. Please.
  
  also, coincidentally, i see a lot of folks from marginalized groups specifically complaining about y’all being insensitive and shitty.
  Now that's a lie if I ever saw one lmao
  
  "All the they/thems in this thread are bigots, they're actually right-wingers!" - WTF is this take
  
  usually how conversations go is this
  I see a reply to a post by a liberal stating a point which we regularly debunk
  to help them see why they might be wrong, I politely, and in good faith, though often with a little force, push back on it and explain why they are incorrect
  they then smugly and condenscendingly reply with a sentence like "Oh, so you've come along with your CCP/Kremlin propaganda now / Oh great, the Hexbear horde has arrived / Actually, it's much more complicated than that [refuses to elaborate] / Actually, you're wrong because of [link to wikipedia]"
  we then start dunking given that they aren't operating in good faith
  perhaps reddit's typical style of "debate", where you smugly reply thought-terminating cliches and decontextualized quotes at each other while being variously awarded and downvoted, is more harmful and damaging to actual discussion than our style of "You're wrong, here's why you're wrong with a bunch of references included, hell, most of them are to western media because if I don't then you'll start screeching 'CHINESE CCP XI JINPING PROPAGANDA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH' at us"
  additionally, we have no downvotes, and haven't for three years, because it just fosters anonymized disagreement and even harrassment without any constructive points being made. thousands upon thousands of times, I've seen arguments become people just saying quotes like "Well, communism works on paper but not in practice" and "If you sacrifice freedom for security then you deserve neither" or "Did you know that the Founding Fathers warned against parties?" and just a hundred other pseudo-points gathered from a lifetime of being exposed to various kinds of media and irl interactions, without even the slightest curiosity as to the underlying philosophies and ideas and complexities and nuances behind, say, what authoritarianism really means, or whether democracy is necessarily "when you have elections" or if there's something deeper, or even just the basic histories of the USSR and China and Cuba etc. the average Westerner's knowledge of anything beyond culture is as wide and deep as a puddle. I'll even be a little self-depreciating and include myself in that, though I am actively working to improve.
  no matter how often you remind people that downvotes should only be used for comments that don't "contribute to the discussion", no matter how good their intention, downvote systems online always devolve into "I dislike you and/or the point you're making and I'm not going to explain why. fuck you." disagreement on Hexbear can only be done through posting and replying, and sorting these things out through discussions (or "struggle sessions") rather than building up silent resentments over time that split everybody up, and because of that, it's by far the healthiest online community I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot. it's also why we come across as overbearing - even if we had only a third of the members, the site culture of "if you disagree, reply and tell them, you can't downvote" means that we're all used to commenting a lot and could overwhelm other instances which are more used to downvote-and-move-on tactics.
  
  Hexbear - "that's true, I see how our culture can be hard to decipher"
  Lemmylib - "you guys are huge dicks without provocation"
  Hexbear - oh well fuck you then :)
  Lemmylib - "see, so hostile!"
  If we respond to people being needlessly aggro with quip derision it's "so uncivil!" If we respond to people in good faith by trying to explain our differing views it's "wow im not going to read that!"
  So what should we do?
  
  You have a very strange idea of "without provocation"
  
  Honestly your best bet is probably to do some reading first, unfortunately. A lot of Hexbear dialect is that way because it's tied to concepts that come from books and thinkers we're broadly familiar with.
  If you're more into video stuff you could try this guy. I think he's pretty approachable.
  Actually if you went into the megathreads and asked most people would probably give you suggestions too. We are fiesty but in my experience we also like to be helpful to people with questions.
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/channel/UCGog4JPn5-W3_XIKccENysg
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
  
  We're literally just communists. Read any introductory text to communism and 99% of what we say will make sense in context.
  
  "Donald Trump is a liberal"
  Break this down.
  
  I'll oversimplify a bit, but here you go. In economic terms, liberalism is a market oriented economy, and the current iteration of neoliberalism is marked by social welfare cuts and tax cuts for the rich with "trickle down" effect in mind (allegedly). That ideology is shared by both the democratic and republican parties. The difference between communists and liberals in the sense the word is most often used, is that economic approach, and from that perspective both liberals and conservatives are "liberal".
  Now the common use of the word is a bit different, but that's almost exclusively US from what I can tell. Hexbear is also international though, and liberal is a common term for right wingers where I'm from for example.
  Hope I could help.
  
  "The colloquialisms from the place I am directly talking about don't matter as much as this one I am using, everyone who disagrees is propagandized"
  This is what I'm seeing when I read your comment. I can call the sky green all damn day, that doesn't make it green, you dip.
  
  Exactly the same as a chud saying college biology is fake pseudoscience because of the biology they were taught in 5th grade.
  In any decent political science education in the states you will also see these definitions. You can stop having a tantrum about it.
  
  Really? I see them answering the question you asked.
  
  Let me oversimplify even more. Donald Trump upholds the American Revolution which turned British America into a liberal republic.
  
  This isn't a colloquialism. This is a basic definition used within political science.
  If you're going to talk politics on a serious level then using the terminology of political science matters and, if that's too much of a stretch, then at least avoid colloquial terms which contradict the terms used in political science.
  
  Americans can call the sky green as much as they want. In the rest of the world, Liberalism = Liberalism, not "democrat".
  Liberals are people that believe in liberalism, which can be summed up as "everyone has the individual right to be an asshole, even if it fucks everyone else over".
  
  Locke was a classical liberal. Trump is a neoliberal. This is very simple.
  
  Liberalism has a couple of different definitions. The one you're thinking of is the one in US politics where "Liberal" is synonymous with "Left'. This isn't how it's being used here though.
  Liberalism, as a broad ideological trend that came out of the enlightenment, contains within it, Conservatism. Conservatism was theorized by people like Edmund Burke who, seeing that the previous feudal hierarchy was dying off, sought to preserve it, at least as much as was possible, by accepting Liberal notions of property rights and capitalism.
  So, instead of a social hierarchy being ordained by God, it's decided by the market, and social conflict is meditated through the liberal, Lockean, Republic.
  So when we call Trump a liberal, we mean it in this broad sense. He's still a conservative, but conservatism is a subset of capital L Liberalism.
  This is in contrast to Leftism, which also contains a lot of things within it, but breaks from a lot of the philosophical assumptions that undergird Liberalism.
  
  liberalism is the ideology of capitalism. donald trump is a capitalist. donald trump is a liberal. easy.
  
  Is there anything confusing about that statement?
  
  Uh, I think I was right to be suspicious of their good faith.
  
  I genuinely would like to understand what you guys at hexbear are about
  Well, I'd be more than happy to have a good faith discussion with you. No dunking, I promise 🙏
  
  You've caught me going into a busy Labor Day weekend but sure, I'll think up some questions to ask.
  
  If you ask good faith questions and give context for why "Hey, I'm a liberal and I don't understand X could you explain what you mean?"
  You WILL get excellent engagement and people will give you very good answers
  its easy, and if you genuinely want to learn give it a shot
  
  To be clear in the dunking threads folks are not usually engaging in good faith with us. When I was on another server and replied with actual questions to stuff everyone was incredibly nice to me and explained stuff super well. Can agree though that folks can see dunking as alientating. I promise though if you can get past that it's one of the friendliest communities I've found on the web.
  
  The imperial core is the countries that have been most involved in the imperialist plunder of other nations, so that would be the US, Canada, UK, France, Belgium, Germany, etcetera
  
  Don't forget China, Tibet?
  
  Tibet was an oppressive theocratic slave society whose people China liberated.
  
  Woo boy provide me a source for this one
  
  Serfdom in Tibet controversy - Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_in_Tibet_controversy
  Here is a very both sides wiki article to start with. You can see the weakness in the argument in the defense of Tibet as they're semantic arguments.
  
  Ok cool I'll check it out and report back. Thanks.
  
  If you want information about Tibet, let me know.
  I am a westerner who was raised Tibetan Buddhist so I'm pretty familiar with Tibetan history and... it's really not the country which gets painted as this peaceful utopia free from political intrigue or human rights abuses that was all about enacting and embodying compassion.
  There's contemporary examples of this, and perhaps the most obvious example is the Karmapa controversy (try figuring that little doozy on your own without being steeped in Tibetan history lol) which often overlooks significant issues such as the struggle over who would hold the seat of Rumtek monastery in Sikkim and lay claim to the considerable amount held in trust for the Karmapa (which featured a wealthy patron, at one point, stationing a small private military to prevent one of the Karmapas from entering the monastery) along with suspicious death of Jamgon Kongtrol Rinpoche and his delegation in a car accident when he was instructed to "test the brakes" on a newly serviced car (BMW? Mercedes? I forget...) or the historical significance of the then-Dalai Lama outlawing the recognition of the Tai Situpa lineage (and liquidating his monastic holdings and forcibly converting the Kagyu monks under his tutelage to the Gelug school) and the current Dalai Lama lifting this centuries-long ban and the implications this would have on the recognition of the current Karmapa(s).
  Then there's historical examples of this, like the famous example of the politically-influential polymath Lungshar, whose son was considered for being a reincarnation of the next Karmapa (this process of recognising reincarnations, strangely enough, tended to exclusively occur to children within wealthy and politically influential families such as Lungshar's) who was sent as part of a delegation to Europe by the British who were courting Tibet at the time as they sought to expand their colonial holdings from India up into Tibet. Lungshar was smitten by western political systems and he sought to bring about reforms to democratise the Tibetan theocracy.
  Unfortunately for Lungshar, his son died under suspicious circumstances around the time that his agenda for political reforms was running into direct opposition by the conservative political powerbrokers in Tibet (monks/lamas and aristocrats) and, in a surprising turn of events, Lungshar was "discovered" to have been practising black magic (they found a piece of paper with someone's name on it inside his shoe which was considered black magic - this name happened to be of the aristocrat Timon who held high offices in the Tibetan theocracy and who happened to be a conservative and the main figure who openly opposed Lungshar's reform agenda. How they knew to check Lungshar's shoes is a matter for speculation...) and so, as punishment, Lungshar had his eyes gouged out on Timon's order and Lungshar lost his political influence and the movement supporting the liberalisation of the Tibetan theocracy was effectively extinguished by this act.
  There's this extremely romanticised, idyllic notion that westerners tend to have about Tibet (and the fact that Avatar: The Last Airbender is something treasured by westerners rather than being looked at with a skeptical eye for all of its overt orientalism, to me, speaks volumes about just how canonised this notion is) but history paints a markedly different picture than the one we tend to have.
  
  https://redsails.org/friendly-feudalism/
  several Content Warnings in the essay
  
  It's okay to be wrong, Taiwan is a beautiful country. Sorry if that makes you upset.
  
  Taiwan doesn't recognise Taiwanese independence. Let that sink in.
  
  Oh no, it definitely does.
  you probably didn't see this interview with their PM talking about precisely this.
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/dQw4w9WgXcQ
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
  
  Note that they said "Most involved" Russia, for instance, has always been the modern "Sick man of Europe" since the fall of the USSR. It's imperial aspirations don't extend as far. And it's relationship to the historic Core of the US and Western Europe, is as a semi-peripheral nation trying to coalesce a regional sphere of influence with itself as the center of gravity. None of that makes it a Core country though.
  Maybe if the current world system collapses, and it filled that vacuum. But that hasn't happened.
  Imperial Core refers to the World Systems Theory of International Relations, first put forward by Immanuel Wallerstien. I would suggest you read up on the topic before making half-baked responses like this.
  
  US (see native Americans)
  Spain (see Cuba/ Mexico)
  Wow you just got touchdowned on.
  
  Canada (see indigenous)
  Wow you just mega-mollywhopped inside of.
  
  wait, do you think calling canada a genocidal colonist state in the imperial core is an own to us?
  Thats literally our point
  
  Lol you don't see the irony?
  
  Are we making a list together or not?
  I guess it's just me; here
  Score several more for China, more current too.
  
  This is so adorable.
  
  https://redsails.org/friendly-feudalism/
  
  You know how any time there's a map where it colors countries who vote on UN resolutions, or countries where you can be thrown in jail for being poor, etc etc etc etc, you know how its usually a very similar map with US Europe and western allies on one side, and the entire rest of the world (the other 6.5 billion people) on the other?
  Yeah, that teeny group that seems to always get its way controlling global politics is the imperial core.
  
  The Imperial Core was clearly on Coruscant.
  
  RIP
  
  did it blow up tho
  
  Where is this imperial core you keep mentioning?
  They prefer to be called The International Community™
  
  And occasionally the "We make the rules, you take the orders" rules-based order.
  
  Where is this imperial core you keep mentioning?
  Probably start with where all the giant battleships come from: https://www.businessinsider.com/magnitude-of-us-naval-dominance-2013-11
  Why does the USA need all those battleships if they're not doing imperialism? Are they just cosmetic battleships? Just for shits and giggles?
  
  I was answering his question, not trying to be hostile. I did not insult him at all. Just voicing my opinion.
  
  Ok, so the imperial core is in DC to you, got it. The previous reply is more thoughtful than that.
  
  Another user already explained world systems theory, but there's also the school of global historical materialism, that analyses the relationship and structure of the imperial core/triad and the periphery/global south. Samir Amin was a leading figure in that, he also coined the term "Eurocentrism". You can find quite a few recordings of his lectures for free on YouTube, or pirate his books (he's dead now, so it's not like he'd get the money anyways).
  
  I've grown up under a communist government in a socialist republic. So while I have no degree in Marxism-Leninism, I can assure you that all of my schooling was infused with it. Same goes for most of popular culture. I don't despise communism, as is often the case with people like me, the idea is noble, if utopian. The ideology, like all ideologies, is scary for its intolerance and disregard of human nature. I will therefore gatekeep any pure ideolog, just to save my own faith in humanity.
  
  If you put down the thesaurus and actually think about things you will perhaps start to understand. I grew up in former Czechoslovakia until my adulthood under the rule of the communist party until we overthrew them in 1989. The effects of that time are still with me. The human nature that came to light during communist rule would make your hair stand on end. All in pursuit of ideology. You can't comprehend what you're advocating for further than some utopian theory you read.
  
  Gonna be real, your smug levels are pretty high right now yourself.
  
  My apologies, I was generalising. I've had perfectly normal interactions with hexbear users, but I also saw a bunch of very circlejerky threads populated by hexbear users which I found unbearable (or should it be unhexbearable?).
- Lots of tankies from what I'm seeing, they're the "alt-left" if you will, they believe in just as much weird stuff as the alt-right but are on the left side of the spectrum... Heck they end up meeting on many things...
  
  Could you provide an example of Hexbears agreeing with the alt-right about something specific? I think a lot of people conflate "disagreeing with the liberal consensus" with "thinking a MAGA thing" when they're really pretty different.
  
  They are pro Russia.
  
  Hexbear is very categorically not pro Russia, we're just not pro West
  
  I can't hear you, the Arms Deliverys to Ukraine are to loud!
  Fuck you people. You are pro China and Russia.
  
  We are pro China, we are not pro Russia
  
  Same thing.
  Taiwan is a Country
  
  Not really. Not even amerikkka agrees
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=JMtopY3pcZs
  https://piped.video/watch?v=Vu3zmbFGwQA
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
  
  Just posting an image of a man who stood in front of an actively moving tank, crawled all over it, then walked away unscathed doesn't prove anything that you think it proves.
  Go do that on one of your own military's tanks today. You'd be doing me, yourself, and frankly the entire world a favour if you had the courage to try it.
  
  Why don’t you link a video of this incident instead of just a still image?
  
  I am incredibly owned rn
  
  Lmao your instance literally blocks it. Just shows how your instance can go fuck themselves.
  
  Our instance doesn't show any externally hosted images, it's not about what's in the image idiot
  
  correct, we don't allow racism or bigotry on our instance, fashie. sorry that offends you.
  
  classic centrist move, idk why people question their alignment so much
  
  It's the 1989 Tiemaman square Tank Man picture and Xi Jinping as Whinnie the Pooh, images commonly censored in China as one of them demonstrates clear oppression and the other discredits the CCP.
  
  Oppression is when you stand in the way of a tank and the tank stops for you, and then you climb on top of the tank and have a conversation with the guy in the tank, and then you walk off completely unharmed
  
  Oh, so @CookieJarObserver is using the racist Whinnie the Pooh insult.
  
  As always. Scratch a liberal and a fascist/racist bleeds.
  
  Have you ever seen the complete tank man video? he doesn't get run over, while in the authoritarian US state vehicles are often running into peaceful protestors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-W-7WPWfE4
  
  How dare those tanks not run over that man! Don't they understand that freedom is when you just plow into people like US security forces do.
  
  I'm fairly new to Lemmy. What does that signify? something to do with federation I guess? I can see the picture - Xi as Pooh Bear..
  
  Recently someone started trying to bring large Lemmy instances down by posting CSAM on large instances with open sign ups, as a result the hexbear mods made it so that images from untrusted instances wouldn't be shown to hexbear users to avoid hexbear users having to see stuff like that and to reduce the mods workload, idk whether its a temporary measure or not but for now all images from untrusted instances are just replaced with the words removed externally hosted image* on our end
  
  you're literally pro-nazi and you're complaining about us lmao
  
  Lmao go further supporting genocides.
  
  Say that more than 3 screen inches from you supporting ethnic cleansing next time please.
  
  So you support the genocide in Donbas?
  
  When being "not pro west" means not analyzing the conflict but simply adopting the same point of view as Russian propaganda just because Ukraine is supported by the west then yeah, you're pro Russia.
  
  What is the Russian propaganda that we’re repeating in regard to Ukraine?
  
  Why can't you see the difference? We see the west and Nato as having propagated and profited off of this conflict. Russia is guilty as well as Ukraine in fanning the flames of war. But peace is a far better alternative to war and far better than flooding the area with weapons. Weapons that will continue to do damage long after hostility ends. Pro Russia How?
  
  When being "not pro west" means not analyzing the conflict
  Just like you analyzed our news megathreads from the last year to make this assessment?
  It just fucking baffles me how people from other instances feel so comfortable talking shit straight from their ass. I just don't understand the mentality. It's fucking slimy. You can just do that shit and you don't feel dirty?
  
  No thanks, I'm not into brigading :)
  
  Nah, I just don't like being subjected to Chinese propaganda or any other propaganda as a matter of fact...
  
  ...except if it originates in
  clearly
  :PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS::PIGPOOPBALLS:
  
  Why do you think it is impossible to just dislike two things at once?
  
  Mostly about China and North Korea.
  Alt right and alt left both deny Uyghur camps, and think Kim Jong Un is pretty awesome.
  
  In my experience alt right folks are pretty anti China, to the point where that is often the reason they oppose the Ukraine war, as it is dividing the attention of the Christian west from the rising, menacing Tigers that threaten white society.
  Hexbears are often skeptical of Adrian Zenz who is usually the source of claims about China. Most that I've seen acknowledge that there are camps (China openly says it is running programs to deradicalize separatists and fundamentalists in the region), but disagree that they are as bad as western media depicts them, and would probably argue that western nations are concern trolling about the issue regardless because it is easy to question whether American foreign policy is motivated by concern for Muslims. Genuinely curious, who is an alt-right guy who doesn't think there are camps in Xinjiang? I've never encountered a pro-Chinese reactionary.
  As to Korea I thought MAGA types just memed about Kim Jong Un because Trump sort of got along with him. Hexbears think that the Korean War was bad and that Korea is acting predictably given that a nuclear power is constantly threatening them with annihilation. There are a variety of positions in Hexbear on the DPRK though, and I can't really account for all of them, but I think they arise out of a genuine anti-imperial and anti-war sentiment, and a healthy doze of skepticism of western narratives of a state enemy. I don't think you could say that for the alt right.
  
  Trump derangement syndrome is all too real and the proof is how liberals reacted to him trying to end the Korean war.
  
  Same thing with Afghanistan.
  
  Alt Right and alt left both deny the existence of the tooth fairy
  
  Last I checked the alt right believes them same claims about the world that dems do in terms of the supposed camps, they just think they are good because the alt right hates muslims
  
  You guys and the MAGA types seem to have very similar views on the Russia/Ukraine situation at the moment.
  
  Could you be more specific?
  I think, for example, that most alt-right types oppose the war either because of chauvinistic beliefs about American boys and American blood and treasure being spent on foreigners, or because they would like to work together with Russia to counter China and think a war with them hurts the white struggle against the eastern hordes. No one on hexbear would defend either of those positions.
  It needs to be more specific than "both of you are against continuing the war." Just like it wouldn't be fair for me to accuse you of being alt- right because you and them both agree that there weren't WMDs in Iraq and that that invasion was sold on false pretenses. You might both technically agree but it would be missing the point.
  
  It's theories about how spheres of influence work, that Russia has a right to take over Ukraine, or at least override it politically. Very much similar to Kissinger's Great power politics in the days of the USSR. It's somewhat different than the Russian right which is their divine right to Empire, over the Ukrainians and the Poles and Slavic countries in general. The ideologues Ivan Ilyin and Karl Schmidt influence that part. But notably, both parts believe that there's a place that Russia must dominate in Europe, and that other great powers must not interfere there. Leftists also are influenced by these theories, especially when they remember the reaches of the Iron Curtain far into Central Europe. The USSR had a history of intervening into the politics of its satellite states. Notably in Hungary when there were democratic protests, they sent in tanks to quell the uprising. This theory echoes in 2014 when the Ukrainians changed their government, and Russia invades and annexes Crimea. Many on the far left and far right see the massive protests as creeping American influence that does not belong in the region. They fear NATO expansion as it is a threat to Russia; In the west it's Russia itself, and in Russia, it's Russian greatness in Empire.
  
  I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand. Liberals don't believe that countries exert influence on other countries around them? You think Joe Biden objects to the concept of spheres of influence? You brought up Kissinger, you don't think US foreign policy is operating under the logic of realpolitik? I'm not sure what the alternative is to believing that countries act to pursue their interests in other countries. That just sounds like a description of the concept of foreign policy.
  
  notably in Hungary when there were democratic protests
  You’re talking about the fascist uprising where they went around marking the houses of Jews and Communists for extermination, like only a decade after the Soviets saved the world from Hitler?
  
  we want an immediate end to the war. in what way does wanting an end to the death make us comparable with the alt-right?
  
  How is being pro russia and wanting war to end in any way compatible though? They invaded Ukraine. They literally started a war. That's a pretty disgusting deflection tbh
  
  Russia started a war. Ukraine has two choices. Surrender and end the bloodshed, or fight tooth and nail and pour more innocent people into the meat grinder and then surrender. There is not a third option. Obviously they should choose the former.
  
  NATO/US started the war when they couped the democratically elected Ukrainian government in 2014, and when the US installed regime started bombing civilians in the Donbass
  
  Oh so Russia is just saving Ukrainians from US imperialism by bombing them and committing war crimes. Thank god for our wonderful leader putin o7
  
  Where did I say any of that? I was simply correcting the poster about who the original instigators of the conflict were, and pointing out the fact that the banderite regime has been killing innocent Ukrainians for years, history did not begin in February 2022
  Acknowledging the US's role in creating the conflict and the crimes of the regime they installed is not the same as supporting Russia's actions
  
  Calling for an immediate end to the war is dishonest and supports Russia
  
  We’re just not keeping our head in the sand here. Ukraine is not taking back Crimea, or even the Donbas. The counteroffensive failed horribly. Cheering for more bloodshed isn’t going to make a better outcome in the end.
  
  "cheering for more bloodshed." Are you telling on yourself? You act like a counteroffensive is supposed to be fast and easy. It's not, war is bloody and deadly and Russia is not going to call for peace until they achieve their objective of overthrowing the Ukrainian government or achieving a peace deal where they can keep Ukraine's economic sectors
  
  You act like peace deals are the same thing as calls for peace. They can still have peace deals to appear they want peace when they started the war in the first place back in 2014
  
  you provide links proving any of your points
  do it right now
  
  Yall calling for the continuation of the war are telling on yourselves. Otherwise you'd fucking be fighting rather than advocating behind a computer for others to die. Too scared to go to Spain and fight the fascists?
  
  Oh man the the US union should've just given up the civil war instead of continuing the fighting. Think of all the good Americans that will die. Let's just let the confederates secede instead of having a bloody conflict
  
  You think the country that has a national holiday to celebrate their Nazi era leader is the Union in this analogy?
  
  Nice false equivalent. Keep trying.
  
  You act like a counteroffensive is supposed to be fast and easy.
  It's September. Their window to make any gains in their counteroffensive has passed. Now they have to fight against the weather on top of the Russians.
  
  The only progress the counteroffensive has made is in destroying Western materiel and getting scores of Ukrainians killed. They haven’t even reached the second defensive line yet. The total amount of territory retaken is like 100 meters of farmland. I’m calling it a failure because it is a failure.
  
  Hey, it's made a lot of money for the military-industrial complex too!
  You can't call it a wash like that when, back home, the almighty line is going up.
  
  "Ukraine should surrender so that they can spare their civilian and combatant lives to Russia which totally won't abuse their land and people as they've done in the past"
  
  https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/putins-war-vanishing-goals#:~:text=So%2C%20before%20the%20start%20of,of%20Luhansk%20and%20Donetsk%20oblasts.
  
  So wait. Your criteria for who should win is based on the aftermath... So you think Ukraine should be allowed to complete it's ethnic cleansing?
  
  What ethnic cleansing?
  
  There were pogroms and mass murders at the ground level and there were laws targeting Russian speakers from the governmental level. The weapons Trump was impeached for tying political favors to were being used against resistance militias. They were being used to bomb facilities built in the soviet era that pump hot water into people's homes as the local method of heating during the winter. They locked over a hundred people in a building and burned them alive in it. They broke multiple treaties with Russia in order to do all of this. This was the lead up to the war.
  
  What ethnic cleansing?
  Whoop, there it is! I'm quoting that for posterity before you delete this comment.
  You're literally denying an attempted genocide right now, y'know that?
  
  Russia could make that happen, you know. They could pull their forces out. Right now, that would end the conflict.
  
  Do you think we’re in charge of the Russian military? The war is going to end eventually one way or another. We might as well push for the path that preserves Ukrainian lives.
  
  Are we in charge of the Ukrainian military? Not that it really matters, but still.
  Russia can unilaterally end the conflict. Ukraine cannot (yet). Calling on Ukrainians to surrender while they still want to defend themselves is cowardice. I would rather support their continued struggle.
  
  And Ukraine could have prevented all of this by simply abiding by the several peace deals they signed before the war started. What's your point?
  
  Oh, so Russia deciding to invade Ukraine is the fault of the Ukrainians? Cool. Very normal opinion.
  
  You just insulted me with the sole thrust being that I'm not in your echo chamber.
  I'm referencing real world events. Do you not believe Ukraine broke both Minsk I and II as a lead up to the war? Do you not have google?
  e: And what's this weasel bullshit where you slipped in 'Ukrainians' like I'm going after the citizens and not the government? The Ukrainian people haven't had a legitimate government since 2014 when the one they actually elected themselves was deposed in a far right western backed coup.
  
  Do you not believe Ukraine broke both Minsk I and II as a lead up to the war?
  What I think is that it doesn't matter in the context of an aggressive war against a country that was not threatening Russia.
  Minsk I came about after the Russian military had invaded and annexed Ukrainian territory. The first of these two agreements is already taking place after the initial aggression and thus are not really factors in the question of whether Ukraine should defend itself from that aggression.
  With that said, Minsk I saw violations on both sides and fell apart for that reason. Minsk II was fundamentally similar to Minsk I and thus was going to struggle to escape the same fate. While the Russians claimed that Ukraine violated the terms of Minsk II, they also claimed that they were not a party to Minsk II and thus were not violating it with their own troop buildup. Of course, they also claim that Ukraine's supposed violations of Minsk II were justification for further Russian invasion, despite claiming to not be a party to the treaty. That's some duplicitous behavior and, again, if I were in Ukraine I would not want the Russian military in my country.
  All that said, the point that Minsk I and II are not justification for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. They sure as hell were not justification for the initial invasion of Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk (not existing yet during those) and they're not justification of Russia's continued invasion deeper into Ukraine.
  
  What I think is that it doesn't matter in the context of an aggressive war against a country that was not threatening Russia.
  Lol well that's just a fucking lie. Zelenksy was openly threatening to host nuclear weapons for Nato on the eve of the invasion. Do you have a selective memory or are you just fucking ignorant of the entire history of this conflict and should therefore shut the fuck up?
  Minsk I came about after the Russian military had invaded and annexed Ukrainian territory.
  They didn't invade; they were already there. The legitimate government of Ukraine leased the naval base to them in Crimea and when the western backed coup government wanted to revoke the lease they simply stayed. Accuse them of squatting.
  The first of these two agreements is already taking place after the initial aggression and thus are not really factors in the question of whether Ukraine should defend itself from that aggression.
  Well that's just fucking stupid. Peace treaties don't count if they came after a war?
  Sorry you just lost my attention with that one
  
  Damn too bad they’re not going to do that, so what should we do about that? We support a negotiated settlement to the conflict in order to achieve peace, you support marching every single Ukrainian person into a meat grinder to die. Which of is more right wing?
  
  This isn't about us. What "we" should do is to support and show solidarity with the side being attacked by an imperialist, dictatorial state and help them defend themselves.
  When the Finnish were defending themselves in the Winter War it would not have been just to say "they should just surrender to save their lives". The Finns did eventually surrender, but only after they had stomped the Soviet army all across Finland. They continued fighting not to die but so that they could live.
  The Ukrainians are fighting now not to die but so that they can live in (relative) freedom.
  Again, this "we should just capitulate to whatever warmongers want" stuff is shameful and cowardly, doubly so for people on the Left.
  
  Lol of all the examples, you pick another group of Nazis as a favorable point of comparison!! Wtf. Thank GOD the Soviets beat the Finnish Nazis in that war and then went on to beat the German Nazis after that.
  Also lmao at calling Ukraine a free country compared to Russia, it’s just as fucked politically even prior to this invasion, now they’ve banned all left wing parties and are putting up statues of Nazis all over the place, fuck off, this has nothing at all to do with freedom.
  
  Finland allied with the Nazis after the Winter War, in an attempt to regain their sovereignty from the USSR. They were not allied with Nazi Germany during the Winter War--and after the war, the leadership of the USSR agreed that Finland was not a particular risk and could be left alone.
  Also lmao at calling Ukraine a free country compared to Russia
  Ukraine is a far, far freer country than Russia. Of that there should be no doubt. On what merit, what axis, is Russia a freer society? Perhaps there is one, but Russia today is a corrupt, dictatorial, fascist state whose ruling party routinely imprisons or assassinates its political opposition or just general dissidents. They're also hardcore anti-gay, among other things.
  Ukraine did suspend a number of pro-Russia political parties recently. Even if it was specifically targeting left-wing parties that still pales in comparison to Russia's treatment of political opposition and let's not forget that Ukraine is currently waging a defensive war against Russia. Also Zelensky is Jewish so i doubt he is putting up Nazi statues or in favor of doing so. I presume you're referring to activity of the Azov Battalion or some other group inside Ukraine and while those are dangerous and problematic, the Nazis in the Russian army are (I suspect) a more serious threat to the Ukrainian people right now.
  
  Russia and Ukraine are basically the same politically, except for there are more Nazis in power in Ukraine. Prior to the invasion Ukraine was categorically ranked as the most corrupt country in Europe, Zelensky himself is in the Panama papers, they absolutely are not good on gay rights either, they overthrew their democratically elected president in 2014 in a CIA backed coup to put in a government handpicked by the U.S. (we can listen to Nuland picking the government on leaked phone calls), they’ve banned political opposition and all leftist parties (not pro-Russia, just all leftists. Being leftist generally means having semi sane takes like not wanting everybody in the country to die, so they had to be banned by the Nazi regime).
  Also I didn’t say Russia is a free country, but Ukraine is easily just as bad if not worse, it’s a total farce to make this about freedom or democracy or any of that shit. Hell if democracy in Ukraine was real the war wouldn’t be happening, Zelensky was elected to end the conflict in the Donbass, he went to the front lines and told the Nazis to lay down arms and they told him to fuck off lol. You can watch the video of that happening.
  
  imagine dying on the “war is bad” hill. i can agree on that point, and i don’t even need to politically align myself with real shitters and make a fool of myself in pseudo-public to do it!
  
  imagine not thinking war is bad. imagine believing American propaganda given its track record.
  
  Bro, this war is totally different to every other war, bro!
  Trust me, bro! I know we got duped into supporting:
  The Korean War
  The Vietnam War
  The war in Iraq
  The other war in Iraq
  The war in Afghanistan
  The war in the Philippines
  The war in Guatemala
  The war on Cuba
  The war in Laos
  The war in Cambodia
  The war in Somalia
  The war in Yemen
  The war in Libya
  The war in Grenada
  The war in Yugoslavia
  ...but this time it's an existential threat!! Trust me, bro!
  
  imagine dying on the “war is bad” hill
  art
  
  I find these terms agreeable
  
  Chad
  
  "Very" implies you've drilled down beyond the very first superficial similarity.
  Please offer two things in which we have in common since you're clearly not just talking out of your ass.
  
  boo hoo someone is to your left politically and you're mad about it.
  
  The only person that looks mad here is you...
  
  cope
  
  Heck they end up meeting on many things...
  name literally a single one or quit spreading this bullshit.
  
  Genocide denial.
  
  Denounce the US genocide against Martians right now or you're a genocide denier.
  
  I had some conversations here. They were saying that China isn't doing anything to the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. That seems like genocide denial to me.
  
  Why are you linking an actual propaganda thinktank as an example as of Uyghur Genocide?
  You could link any source, but you link one that is staffed by people who's careers have been purely to lie about American's enemies and push American interests?? I hope you're a little sharper than that and you're just linking that because you hope other people will swallow anything.
  "HEY GUYS THIS ORGANIZATION THAT IS PAID TO TELL ME THAT CHINA IS BAD, GET THIS, SAYS CHINA IS BAD!!"
  Come on bud.
  
  You want the wiki?
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide
  
  It isn't the government, and the sources cited within are very good. Would you only accept China or Russia's word for it? Or are western sources okay?
  
  Both the US state department and the CIA have had to acknowledge that there is no genocide going on in Xinjiang
  That's very misleading. They say they have insufficient proof to say it is racially motivated. (Which is a prerequisite for genocide) But there is certainly great oppression happening there.
  
  Forced sterilisation (birth rates are down 60% vs about 10% for the rest of China) and forceful reeducation? They don't care about the language as much as the shared cultural identity separate from China.
  
  Birth rates were already much lower in the rest of China, did the Han do a genocide on themselves first lol or is declining birth rate the norm in a country with massively improved economic conditions and development, and has that begun to affect the more rural regions of China?
  
  Why would the CPC, in the same breath, exempt the Uyghurs from the One Child Policy but also force sterilization?
  
  Hell yeah I'm a genocide denier.
  I deny white genocide without any remorse 😎
  
  So you believe in White Genocide?
  
  Being pro Russia, genocide denialism, authoritarianism, being hateful of ideas that don't conform to their worldview, racism (just not towards the same people), the list goes on and on.
  
  Hey, I'm a Hexbear user and I really think you have the wrong impression of what our site is. Idk if you're open to reconsidering or if you're just trying to get a few antagonistic words in but I'll tell you my experience as a long time user:
  Being pro Russia
  Our site isn't pro-russia. We just want the war to come to a swift end without any further bloodshed. Some people take offense to that because we don't think the best way to do that is to send more guns, tanks, planes, dollars, etc into the warzone. That benefits no one except the arms manufacturers and the money lenders. Not regular people on either side.
  genocide denialism
  The only thing I can think of that you would be referring to is the "holodomor" or something similar that happened in the USSR. It's not that we deny that many people did die in these horrible tragedies or that there wasn't Soviet government involvement in some of them but that these very real events are being distorted for political reasons by people who want to paint the USSR in a certain, wholly bad, light. As communists (or anarchists), we try to be very open to criticism and new ways of thinking about or doing things but not when the intent is to do historical revisionism to make the people who liberated the concentration camps and ended the crimes of Nazism seem like Nazis under a different name.
  Authoritarianism
  Well, I guess this is true in a way. As revolutionists, we do seek to change the system by establishing a new authority with the capability to make this change. But have you ever noticed how the current system maintains and perpetuates itself? Sure, you can vote (and we don't seek to abolish that!), but when that fails and working-class people take to the streets seeking change, why is it that people with guns and tear gas and riot shields try to stop them and maybe even imprison them? It's not that leftists are uniquely "authoritarian" but that we want to use that authority for representing regular, working-class people and to bring about a better world where that authority isn't necessary anymore. Our anarchist users probably have a somewhat different take on this but one of them will have to talk about it lol
  being hateful of ideas that don't conform to their worldview
  Sure, there are a lot of ideas that we hate. But isn't that everyone? I hope we could all agree on hating things like fascism, racism, sexism, transphobia, etc etc. Our users probably feel more strongly about that than most people lol but that's just cuz a lot of us have been targets of those kinds of ideas. Other than stuff like that though... this site has been one of the most accepting places on the Internet in my experience. Sure, we argue a lot (sometimes too zealously lol), but just cuz we care a lot about getting things right. On our site, we don't have downvotes to encourage users to actually challenge bad ideas and voice their opinion instead of just feeling satisfied having slightly influenced an algorithm.
  racism (just not towards the same people)
  This just hasn't been my experience and I know most of our users would agree. Racism gets swiftly removed on Hexbear and lots of people replying challenging it. Do you have any examples? This has just been so contrary to my time on the site. Unless you mean jokes about white people but I hope I don't have to explain why that's not a problem lol
  Anyway, I just want our instances and our users to exist together in peace. I know we have very "different" ideas from what is considered the mainstream in the west and on most of the English-speaking internet but I know our presence on the "fediverse" can be a positive thing and that we can get along. I hope this helps you to understand our site a bit better.
  
  The whole "we want to end the war" argument just reeks. It stinks of russian propaganda. Russia started the war. They invaded Ukraine. Would you have the same viewpoint if the US was the invader? I've seen that comment several times and it kinda starts sounding like a red fascist dogwhistle
  
  The war did not start in 2022, your analysis of what has been happening before the invasion needs to go back before that.
  
  Ok
  
  I guess instead of "war" I should have said "conflict" btw
  
  It was a low-key civil war, make no mistake about it.
  Your government doesn't just allow armed, organised (largely ultranationalist) paramilitary groups to conduct ethnically-motivated attacks on its own soil without their tacit approval, especially not when those same paramilitary groups tended to get absorbed into the state military forces later on.
  This isn't the wild west were talking here.
  Fuck, if a protest action in your own country can deploy the pointy end of the state against you immediately then the civil war against the easternmost part of Ukraine could have had a police/military response within days rather than leaving it to play out over literal years.
  
  No sure, I get where you're coming from, but for the purposes of the other poster I think it was best to adjust my language.
  At the time time, it's also best for the purposes of the other poster to reply with your perspective as well haha
  
  dude history has a context
  
  Unless by racism you mean racism but I hope I don’t have to explain why racism isn't a problem lol
  🤡🤡🤡
  
  Do you think "anti-white racism" is even remotely as bad as other forms of racism? Or even a problem at all? White people already have all the privileges bestowed upon them by a fundamentally white-supremacist society. Making fun of this concept on our tiny social media website isn't hurting anyone.
  
  Do you think “anti-white racism” is even remotely as bad as other forms of racism?
  In the vast majority of cases, no, not even close.
  Or even a problem at all?
  It's 100% a problem, for multiple reasons. First and foremost, it's racist, so it's already inherently a problem for that reason alone. But it's also a problem because your [hexbear's] moralistic self-righteousness combined with your [hexbear's] obvious hypocrisy gives people opposed to your ideals that much more ammunition (and of course you don't care about that, but that itself is also part of the hexbear problem).
  And the worst part is that, as with so many of hexbear's problems, there's no reason for it. It's such an easy problem to fix, and would give an instance like hexbear that supposedly prides itself on its inclusivity such a huge boost in credibility. If you want to set yourselves up as morally unimpeachable, then be morally unimpeachable! Set an actual example, and be leaders that bring people together, not because of compromising your beliefs, but by actually being consistent, steadfast, and intellectually honest about the beliefs you already have.
  And sure, I get the importance of having a place where you can feel comfortable and meme hyperbolically about problems you feel are important, and about the people who don't agree with you. That seems to be the direction that most hexbears seem to want to go.
  But, in the end, it is racist, and it is disingenuous to promote yourselves as this bastion of anti-racism while encouraging literal racism on your instance and then act all surprised pikachu face when you get called out on it.
  
  It's 100% a problem, for multiple reasons. First and foremost, it's racist, so it's already inherently a problem for that reason alone.
  Nothing is "inherently" anything. What makes, for example, anti-black (as contrary to anti-white) racism bad in spaces like this? It furthers the psychological harm caused by the racist material conditions of white-supremacist society and normalizes these conditions. Racist rhetoric is part of the superstructural justification for these conditions that makes the oppressor feel superior and the oppressed feel inferior and like they deserve it. This contradiction does not exist for white people and that is why anti-white racism effectively does not exist, except maybe beyond a limited level in inter-personal relationships. It might make individual white people feel a little bad but it has no material backing.
  But it's also a problem because your [hexbear's] moralistic self-righteousness
  I'm not the one pearl-clutching over anti-white racism.
  combined with your [hexbear's] obvious hypocrisy gives people opposed to your ideals that much more ammunition (and of course you don't care about that, but that itself is also part of the hexbear problem).
  This issue doesn't really give anyone "more ammunition" against us. Part of the reason we do keep these kinds of jokes around (besides being funny) is because it tends to out reactionaries (like how you are being right now).
  And the worst part is that, as with so many of hexbear's problems, there's no reason for it. It's such an easy problem to fix, and would give an instance like hexbear that supposedly prides itself on its inclusivity such a huge boost in credibility.
  I'm pretty sure most of the people making "cracker" jokes on here are white themselves. I don't think Hexbear is known as the "anti-white" instance lol
  And sure, I get the importance of having a place where you can feel comfortable and meme hyperbolically about problems you feel are important, and about the people who don't agree with you. That seems to be the direction that most hexbears seem to want to go.
  Yeah, I mean that's pretty much what Hexbear is. I don't think anyone here would want to be "morally-unimpeachable leaders" or even to what end that would be.
  
  i don't care about being racist toward white 'people'
  
  "Up yours, woke moralists! 😠 We'll see who cancels who."
  
  Can't be racist against white people
  
  Really? Go tell that to Jews... Or the Irish... Or Acadians (heck, french Canadians in general)... The list goes on and on...
  
  Man, that goalpost must be fucking light for you guys to move it around that often!
  
  Would you also say that black people can't be racist towards other black people? 'cuz some people in Rwanda would love to have a discussion with you I'm sure! Heck, Haitians would love to talk about Dominicans with you!
  
  I would say it would depend on the structural conditions and who holds power over whom
  
  can't be racist against white people
  "goes on to name people crackers excluded from the 'white' definition in order to colonize them"
  
  Oh so the definition of being white varies now? People are dermofluid or something? "I'm white skinned but I'm not white."
  Also it's still happening today but you would never admit that a white French Canadian or an Irish can be the victim of racism because their skin color somehow makes them immune to it or some shit.
  
  I can't tell how serious you're being but I read a really good book on this subject- The History of White People
  The TL;DR on that is that whiteness is a social category, not an objective observation of human beings and their differences. For most of American history, as an example, Anglo-Saxons, Dutch/Low Germans and Scandinavians were considered a superior race to the 'alpine' and 'mediterranean' races of High Germans, Spaniards, and Italians. Irish weren't Anglo-Saxon, they were Celtic and were thus considered inferior. The racism people observe when they see 'Irish need not apply' signs or slurs directed at Italians in the 1800s were because those people were not considered 'white' at the time. It's an over-simplification, but these groups needed to be incorporated into the dominant group before they would be given the treatment we generally think is normal for white people.
  Which is very jarring to us, since obviously Irish and Italians and Bavarian Germans are 'white'. But it literally does vary, and the entire purpose of the category is to render people inside of it superior by virtue of belonging to it, it's a category that exists to express supremacy.
  
  Racism is inherently vague, because race is made up. There are no differences in any way between a white and black person, or any other race.
  
  "white" is a concept made up to justify slavery and white supremacy. you are actually hitting on something really important, the definition of being white HAS varied widely in history. when the concept of whiteness was first being developed, it was in order to justify categorizing people as white or non-white, and then the eugenics movement ran away with that concept to promote racial supremacy- not racial identity, but racial supremacy. so "white" as a category did indeed refer to specifically condoned peoples with supposed genetic, moral, intellectual superiority. and the definition of "white" did indeed vary then as well as now. irish, italian, slav, spanish, jews were all once distinctly non-white by the definition of "whites" at one point. the definition has changed since then because it has always been a non-scientific concept designed to identify "us" from "them" and justify the subjugation of whoever was considered non-white at the time.
  
  Oh so the definition of being white varies now? People are dermofluid or something? "I'm white skinned but I'm not white."
  The definition of being white, like all definitions, can indeed vary based on time and place, yes. Whether someone is white "enough" to be included in the category of "white people" is not an objective fact and will change from culture to culture, from time to time, and even from one individual perspective to the next.
  Racial categories in Europe were more complex than they generally are today, especially in America. It's difficult to maintain distinctions in race between different European nationalities when everyone's immigrating to the same place and having kids together, so over time these subtle distinctions have dropped off somewhat in favor of the simpler categories of "white" and "non-white." But some of these distinctions still remain, for instance, many people who identify as "white nationalists" or even "white supremacists" also hate Jews, including Jewish people with white skin. Hitler's infamous 14 words declare that a future must be secured "for our white children," yet clearly he did not consider white-skinned Jewish people to be included in that definition.
  As absurd as it may be to say that someone can have white skin but not be considered white, it can happen. The reason it doesn't make sense is because race is, to a large degree, something that is socially constructed and nonsensical.
  
  Imagine considering Xi Jinping Winnie the Pooh memes to be racist, while simultaneously arguing that you can't be racist against white people.
  And for good measure, considering the use of the word "crazy" to be an offensive term against the mentally ill.
  Those things are crossing the line. But overt racism is fine as long as it's self-deprecating.
  
  No one here is pro Russia lol. We just recognize that the war in Ukraine is an intractable meat grinder, and working for peace is more productive than continuing the conflict in an effort to further enrich War Contractors.
  
  Woah woah woah, calm down there chief.
  I have that same opinion having seen hexbear posts for the past 6 months. It's not invalid because it makes you upset.
  
  "These two groups disagree with me, that means they must agree with each other!"
- I had some conversations here. They were saying that north Korea is a lovely democracy, Russia is totally justified in Ukraine, and China isn't doing anything to the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Just some examples from yesterday.

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