How some of the post-federation Ukraine threads feel like

264 comments

“No-n-no, it’s different this time because—because—because—“
- “In culture war crap, we tend to align! Yeah it’s for different reasons! I’m only for or against something because the people I hate decided it’s a new front!”
  I swear they just do Ukraine support out of a culture war thing because 2016 elections, Russia and Trump.
  
  Abandoning the idea that Russia buying a relatively miniscule amount of ads on social media/running bot farms swayed the 2016 election would mean that liberals would have to confront the idea that Trump won in 2016 b/c the country is actually more racist than they thought it was.
  
  That's the kicker here. If Trump was anti-Russia and pro-Ukraine, the libs would be falling over themselves to denounce this evil war and supporting an authoritarian regime.
- ... because this time the US is backing Ukraine against the aggressor, whereas in 2004 it was the aggressor?
  
  Hmm I wonder if anything interesting happened in Ukraine in for example 2014. Nothing in particular comes to mind.
  
  so when Victoria Nuland picked Ukraine's new government after instigating a coup and they killed ~16,000 ~~civilians~~ people in Donbas between 2014 and 2022 those were friendly, non-aggressive artillery shells?
  
  Russia is the aggressor in this war, and it's bad that they invaded.
  Russia invaded Ukraine in response to continued US policy of bringing countries near Russia's borders into NATO, a military treaty organization that Russia had tried to join but was barred from. Not acting would mean that Russia becomes increasingly encircled by military bases of a hostile superpower.
  The Ukrainians are the victims in a proxy war between two much larger powers. For the average Ukrainian, sooner the war is over, the better. Somehow repelling the invasion would be ideal, but every day of fighting destroys lives and homes.
  US policy in response to the invasion is to send military hardware to Ukraine, enriching its arms manufacturers and prolonging the conflict. They make the Ukrainian government pay for this by forcing the privatization of their government assets at bargain prices (note how this website exists and is fully translated to English). The actual fighting is still done by Ukrainians, who die for this.
  
  After bombing a dozen countries across the oceans into the dirt for decades, constantly opening more and more military bases closer and closer to Russian, stationing and pointing more and more nukes closer to Russia, and arming fascists in a country bordering Russia is being the aggressor
  This is so similar to arming the Mujahedeen against the USSR, but Europe version
  
  Ты придурок.

drops bombs across a country
If you have a problem with this, you should move under all the bombs we're dropping.
- also
  drops bombs across a country
  woah, why are all these immigrants suddenly SWARMING OUR BORDERS

Imagine a conman rips you off a dozen times. It's always the same scheme, too. The same conman comes to you again with the same scheme and says "but this is a legitimate business proposition!"
Even if you do your due diligence (which you did all those other times, right?) and it looks above board, you have to realize that trusting him yet again makes you a fucking rube.
- Charlie will definitely kick the football this time.
- You're right! This time the conman is totally telling the truth!
  
  The point 420blazeit69 is making is that for decades the US has been waging wars either proxy or direct and will point to how necessary it is for US intervention in the situation. In Afghanistan it was the first Al Qaeda then Taliban, in Iraq it was Saddam Hussein's WMDs. Al-Qaeda was originally funded by the CIA to fuck with the Soviets who were in Afghanistan. Saddam Hussein was part of a US backed assassination plot to kill the leader of Iraq in 1959 and only because of that failed assassination did the Ba'ath party really rise to prominence. The US makes decisions in its own self interest and damn the consequences, but it'll also use its own consequences as further justification for continued intervention.
  In this instance 420blazeit69 is referring to how NATO is an anti-soviet turned anti-russia alliance. Somehow Russia's borders seem to be right up against a bunch of US military bases. The continued expansion of NATO further east into Europe is threatening to Russia. The US has done regime change in Ukraine, the US is right on Russia's doorstep and people are shocked to see Russia react. The US damn near ended the world with the Cuban Missile Crisis. This war could have been avoided if US and NATO had just kept to themselves and in the end the people hurt by this are the Ukrainian working class being thrown into a meat grinder as western capitalists converge to further divvy up what's left.
  
  Have you ever wondered why?

in 5 years, after like 5% of the shady shit done for american empire in this theater comes to light from some wikileak, every lib weasel will be claiming they didn't support this proxy war and they were lied to. but they will be viciously calling for some "multi-lateral" (aka US, UK, EU) blood-letting police action in west africa to liberate the uranium mines.
- Of course, they'll say that they never supported the war, but in the next breath they'll talk about how this time it is different with whatever conflict the US is involved in at the time.
- You know he's not.
  
  We did basically do the Charlie Brown football trick to them with NATO membership. The US knew full well that Russia would take military action and the US still made false promises to Ukraine because they wanted to mire the region in a proxy war.
  
  That's an odd way to say that the US/NATO instigated this conflict

I have found that liberals really, really, hate being exposed as equals to republicans.
- "I just want my free healthcare and I don't care how many foreigners and poor people have to die for it."
- Because the divide is about aesthetics. They want to be seen as hip. They are cultural parasites who suck any radicalism out of any movement and turn it into twitter slogans.
- I've decided to stop using the words "liberal" and "conservative" as much as I can, and refer to them both merely as capitalists.
  
  It’s fun to remind conservatives that they’re just another flavour of lib though
  
  That's giving them too much credit. Most of the bootlickers you'll see don't own any capital and likely never will. Liberals are supremely cucked by the actual capitalists.
  
  Destroying their sense of identity is one of the most effective things you can do.

- There were a lot of protests in the UK at least before Bowling For Columbine came out.
  
  Up until 2020 the protests against the iraq war in the us were by far the biggest protest movement in history. The media simply didn't give the protest any airtime and it died on the vine. Most americans don't even know it happened.

Liberals really like making people they dont like leave the place they live
- But the top one is a conservative...
  
  Another type of liberal
  
  conservatives are liberals
  Death to America
  
  I hope this doesnt come across snarky but I just cant pass up the perfect chance to post
  
  The joke @cosecantphi@hexbear.net is making is that originally liberalism was broadly construed as anything in opposition to the rule of kings, which includes a whole bunch.
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_liberalism

:blue-maga:

They're the same picture

Also Technical Speaking , the Libs actually moved in with us , now they complain that they are somewhere else ...
- they can't stop colonizing, can they

Well the Moscow metro does look mighty nice...

I hope I don't get castrated for this by everyone here but I'm genuinely curious so I'm going to ask. For coxtext, I'm a dirty commie removed hippie dick suckin left wing lib (not a meme, I am literally a Liberal Democrat). Now that that's out of the way, I'd like to ask someone who disagrees with me why they think that supporting Ukraine is a bad move? The way I see it, the longer this war goes on, the weaker Russia gets. Sure it's costing the US (and other countries) a lot of money and resources but we are essentially weakining a not-so-friendly country of ours without having to send our own troops to fight it. Why is this a bad thing? Should I not care if Russia gets more powerful than it already is? Am I removed?
- I want you to look at the words "supporting Ukraine" then look at the rest of the paragraph you said after it. Especially the "why is this a bad thing?" part. Compare that question to the rest of what you just said. Really consider the words you typed.
  Now tell me if that actually sounds like you "support Ukraine" at all, or if you've just fallen for the same Jingoistic propaganda the US uses to justify all its wars and foreign intervention. Dead Ukrainians are not supported Ukranians. If you actually support Ukraine, you should push for peace, not more weapons to be sold to their government.
  
  Russia invaded their country with a military with the intent of taking land. What would peace look like?
  
  That's actually a fair point. To be totally honest, for me personally, I'm not exactly for Ukraine as much as I'm against Russia, if that makes sense. However, I do recognize that Ukraine got unfairly invaded by another country, and they should defend themselves.
  If you actually support Ukraine, you should push for peace, not more weapons to be sold to their government.
  I want peace, but not if that means Russia takes Ukraine against their will by force.
- The way I see it, the longer this war goes on, the weaker Russia gets.
  Why is the weakening of one of the few countries willing and able to challenge American unipolar hegemony a good thing from your perspective?
  
  Well, it's a good thing from my perspective because I'm an American, I want my country to be powerful.
- You can just say youre a liberal. We're literally communists (and socialists and anarcists of various tendencies). You arent left wing. You support capitalism and the US. You support the US hegemonic global order, and its imperial exploitation of periphery nations.
  We don't because we are actually communists. We support the global working class against the global ruling class. We stand against the US hegemonic order whether we are American or not, because we have an internationalist perspective.
  And Russia is not being made weaker. The US shorterm gains have mostly been against their European vassals who have been made weaker as a result of this conflict. The US saw them getting more independent by having ties to the Russian Federation and buying they're oil. The US was able to shut that down and poach companies from investing in Europe to move invesrment to the US instead due to the energy crisis.
- The way I see it, the longer this war goes on, the weaker Russia gets
  you are cheering for throwing real human people into the meat grinder because it will cause negligible wear on the meat grinder's parts. Isn't that absolutely horrible? Ukraine sucks, Russia sucks, nothing comes of war between them but suffering for the innocent people who have absolutely no agency in the matter
- 1st. we would only castrate you if you wanted free SRS for gender affirming care
  2nd. we are all liberals here (this is a joke, we're commies, anarchists, and socialists)
  3rd. i support the civilians of donbas and the surrounding area, who were bombed after America couped the geopolitically neutral government of Ukraine in favor of an anti-Russia government. being geopolitically neutral was a very obviously good take for the whole country, now their economy is in shambles and the average person on both sides in donbas are having a terrible time. ukraine is unlikely to recover to or go beyond its pre-1991 economy at this rate.
  for context, im a czech communist and believe slavic countries should at minimum have a freedom of movement agreement, though preferably i think we should be one country, we have so many tiny countries that are prone to being bullied, couped, and imperialized by foreign powers such as america. we all speak relatively similar languages, its very easy to learn enough of another slavic language to be able to have a shared vocabulary with anyone
- Not everyone has the privilege of being an American and having your consequences be an ocean away.
- Snark free answer:
  We believe that the expansion of the American empire is one of the greatest threats facing the world today. The strength and reach of America far surpasses anything that Russia could ever hope to achieve. Russia is only a fraction of the political and economic power of America.
  We don't like Russia. It is a neoliberal and reactionary state (like Ukraine). But we do not accept the idea that blood should be shed to weaken an "unfriendly" (read: designated target) state in service of maintaining American supremecy in the area via NATO.
  Tldr; why is the US supporting Ukraine a bad move? Because it supports US global supremacy.
  Snark:
  Liberal Democrat
  
  I appreciate the answer, if you don't mind me asking, are you American? If so, it just seems strange to me that you don't want your own country to be a strong political and economic power. If you're not an American, then that's an understandable opinion to have. It's possible I'm misunderstanding the theme of this instance.
  And also:
  Tldr; why is the US supporting Ukraine a bad move? Because it supports US global supremacy.
  I disagree with this because it isn't only the US that is aiding Ukraine, it's NATO.
- The way I see it, the longer this war goes on, the weaker Russia gets.
  Except that's not even true. How do people come up with shit ideas like this? Historically there's quite a few examples where Russia got stronger the longer a war lasted. Right now Russia is mobilizing hard and going into full wartime production of military hardware, while none of their adversaries are ramping up production, it's all just pleas and memorandums and contracts for 2032 and shit.
  Does Europe really want a 1.5 million battle-hardened Russian army with 2,000 modern tanks on it's NATO border 2 years from now? With 20 million UA refugees because that country is just a black hole of destroyed livelihoods? This is insane. This shit needs to stop especially from their POV.
  But yeah keep pipe dreaming up shit like "oh this war is good it weakens Russia, Tony Blinken told us on CNN". I'm sure it is.
- Don't use the R-word ever again, if that's what that last word you tried to post was.
  
  It was
  I checked their instance
- I'm a dirty commie
  I am literally a Liberal Democrat
  wow this place sucks now
  Death to America
- So if January 6th traitors were being aided with weapons from Russia we should have laid down and let them win to preserve lives?
- The way I see it, the longer this war goes on, the weaker Russia gets.
  We support the concept of multipolarity. We believe that that the US/NATO being the sole, dominant world hegemon is a bad thing. One big reason why we think that is because developing countries have suffered greatly under the neocolonialist policies of the World Bank and IMF, but they've been forced to accept whatever deal they're offered in order to have the market access needed to survive. In a multipolar world, these countries would have more options, and would have more ability to play major powers against each other.
  We also oppose capitalism. Both the US and Russia are capitalist countries, so we oppose both of them, but we consider the US to be the higher priority, because it is more powerful. We do not believe that the interests advanced by the US government and bourgeoisie are consistent with the interests of the American people.
  Sure it's costing the US (and other countries) a lot of money and resources but we are essentially weakining a not-so-friendly country of ours without having to send our own troops to fight it.
  The lives of Americans are not worth more than the lives of Ukrainians, or Russians for that matter. We want a swift end to the war, because, uhh, we value human life. Ukraine has been completely unwilling to negotiate or consider any territorial concessions, but realistically that's likely to happen whether we keep throwing people into a meat grinder for the next 20 years or not.
  
  So, you believe that Ukraine should just give up and allow Russia to take whatever they want?
  Also, forgive me because I think I'm misunderstanding the theme of this instance. Isn't this an instance for right-wing, conservative, Republican discussions, or is it something else?
- The way I see it, the longer this war goes on, the weaker Russia gets.
  The way you see it is filtered through 30 layers of western media whose interests are presenting Russia as both weak and about to collapse (for almost a year) but still strong enough that if it wasnt for NATO they would steamroll all of Europe.
  In reality while economically Russia might not be doing that good (mostly thanks to the neoliberal ghouls in the central bank), militarily they are really not giving their all in the Ukraine conflict, i dont even think they are halfassing things. This is presented as weakness in western media.
- I'd like to ask someone who disagrees with me why they think that supporting Ukraine is a bad move?
  I don't think the Ukrainian state as it is is worth supporting. It's not this bastion of democracy and freedom the western media pretends it is, it's a shitty corrupt oligarchy same as Russia.
  The way I see it, the longer this war goes on, the weaker Russia gets.
  I don't care about Russia getting weaker at all tbh. I'd much rather see the west greatly weakened than Russia as they are the bigger threat to world peace and prosperity.
  The reason I'm against the west helping Ukraine is they're clearly not helping them win the war, just prolong it. I'd much rather the war end right now with Russia (probably) getting the bigger piece of the cake as it stops the meat grinder on both sides. It's not because I give a shit about Russia winning, it's about stopping the killing. I don't believe people living in the war-torn area would be much better off under Russia or Ukraine as both states suck shit anyway, so stopping the killing is the best they're gonna get for the time being.
  
  I agree with most of this but I'm not sure how you can seriously claim that you don't think that the people of the Donbass will be better off under Russia when the Ukrainian state have been shelling and murdering them since 2014. The bar for Russia here is so goddamn low.
- Your a Fascist that supports an Assault and Persecution of a Minority. You Talk of "We" like US Capital Class interest are your interest ,..you are a Bad person that supports War and Suffering and Dehumanization , this is why you dont understand us , you are to Evil for it.
- We actually have a write up on this pinned in the news megathread. To put it very mildly you seem to have a pro-american nationalist viewpoint. We don't. NATO is a threat to all human civilization and needs to be neutralized if humanity wants to still have electric lightbulbs in 2101.
- How does Russia get weaker? Their trade with the rest of BRICS has been skyrocketing, their technology is actually getting developed for once, and the country is more unified than ever. All this war has done is decouple the Russian economy from the European one, which, sure, isn't ideal, but that's already happened.
  Now? The EU is more dependent on the US, and Russia is more dependent on China/India rather than the EU. Globalization is backsliding, and that's dangerous because globalization is what kept the peace after the Cold War.
  
  And what a 'peace' it was.
  
  Russia is weaker because the ruble is tanking, there aren’t developing better technology because we won’t give them the tools to do so, they are using up their military equipment faster than they can replace it and they are literally losing hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
- we are essentially weakining a not-so-friendly country of ours without having to send our own troops to fight
  human lives have value even if they’re not American
- We don't want US and NATO hegemony to continue, it's bad for millions of people in the global south. The postwar US military industrial complex is not a force for good and the closest it ever came to that was when it aligned with communists to end the fascist threat of the Nazis and Imperial Japanese. Bombing North Korea, bombing Cambodia and Vietnam, invading Iraq, occupying the Middle East forever, none of these were good things that any actual moral person could cotton to and say "well at least they were weakening a geopolitical enemy"
  Supporting Ukraine for now means supporting their brigades like Azov and hundreds of other neo nazi informal and formal militias. It means giving them cluster bombs and mines that'll turn eastern Ukraine into a child amputee generating land for centuries. However, your "support" for this cause is ultimately meaningless because America is going to do it without the consent of her citizens because the American war machine wants to generate profits by sending off munitions to be blown up and replaced at Congress expense while insisting they don't have money to feed hungry children, house the unhoused, nor have universal healthcare. For them it's not about doing their part by helping plucky Ukrainians in their struggle, they just want more stuff blown up.
  The end goal for Ukraine right now is apparently to take back the Donbass region and Crimea, these will both not happen. NATO trainers don't know how to fight a war when they don't have unlimited air superiority - the tactics they've taught have costed thousands of Ukrainian lives. Instead of fighting this stupid war, Ukraine should enter into peace negotiations (which they've tried to do!!! but NATO countries keep telling them not to). That might mean losing Crimea, maybe even Donbass - but the people who lived there, near as can be told, weren't exactly happy to be under the suzerainty of Ukraine anyway. It's a process that will come much more easily with the end of NATO and US support - just like what happened in the middle east following the withdrawal of US forces.
  I think every Hexbear user hopes peace comes soon instead of bloodshed and I'm pretty sure we're also in agreement that it'd be great if the Russian working class and Ukrainian working class would stop killing eachother and overthrow their section of the bourgeoisie and find a way to work together again in solidarity.
  
  I appreciate the long response, and I understand where you are coming from on a lot of your points:
  We don’t want US and NATO hegemony to continue, it’s bad for millions of people in the global south. The postwar US military industrial complex is not a force for good and the closest it ever came to that was when it aligned with communists to end the fascist threat of the Nazis and Imperial Japanese. Bombing North Korea, bombing Cambodia and Vietnam, invading Iraq, occupying the Middle East forever, none of these were good things that any actual moral person could cotton to and say “well at least they were weakening a geopolitical enemy”
  So if I'm understanding this correctly, you're essentially saying NATO and the US should keep to themselves, and the US should have stayed out of Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, and Afghanistan; I agree with this. However, The Ukraine war is a different situation in this case because there are no US or NATO troops there.
  Supporting Ukraine for now means supporting their brigades like Azov and hundreds of other neo nazi informal and formal militias. It means giving them cluster bombs and mines that’ll turn eastern Ukraine into a child amputee generating land for centuries. However, your “support” for this cause is ultimately meaningless because America is going to do it without the consent of her citizens because the American war machine wants to generate profits by sending off munitions to be blown up and replaced at Congress expense while insisting they don’t have money to feed hungry children, house the unhoused, nor have universal healthcare. For them it’s not about doing their part by helping plucky Ukrainians in their struggle, they just want more stuff blown up.
  I see where you're coming from on this one, I can't say I fully agree, though. We're giving them cluster bombs and mines to defend their country with, not amputate children. War is a shitty situation for all involved, but Ukraine and NATO did not start it, Russia did. And, yes, the American Military Industrial Complex does like its global conflicts where it can sell and test out its fancy weapons. In this particular situation, I ~~support~~ agree with doing this because those weapons are being used for defense against an invading force that I, as an American, am opposed to.
  The end goal for Ukraine right now is apparently to take back the Donbass region and Crimea, these will both not happen. NATO trainers don’t know how to fight a war when they don’t have unlimited air superiority - the tactics they’ve taught have costed thousands of Ukrainian lives. Instead of fighting this stupid war, Ukraine should enter into peace negotiations (which they’ve tried to do!!! but NATO countries keep telling them not to). That might mean losing Crimea, maybe even Donbass - but the people who lived there, near as can be told, weren’t exactly happy to be under the suzerainty of Ukraine anyway. It’s a process that will come much more easily with the end of NATO and US support - just like what happened in the middle east following the withdrawal of US forces.
  So just give up and allow Russia to take whatever they want, I disagree with this one. I also find it hard to believe that Ukraine is ok with giving up any territory to Russia.
  At the end of the day, I want Ukraine to win this war and have their country back. This outcome would also mean that Russia would come out weaker in the end. I'm ok with my tax dollars going to that.
- Ah, using a slur, you definitely have great takes, I’m sure of it
- What ever single normal person wants is the complete destruction of every country in NATO and their allies like the fascist dictatorship in Ukraine
- hey, what word got removed at the end there?
  
  Almost assuredly the r slur lmao
- For the majority of peoples and therefore nations, to be sovereign, they have to be able to play the various competing powers against eachother - one (even a declining one like RU) going down is not good for the stability of the world and will allow the heirs of white supremacist colonialists to run rampant as they have done for the past few centuries.
- are there any other peoples that you'd like to see destroyed and weren't you satisfied with 'weakening unfriendlies' in the middle east?
- The way I see it, the longer this war goes on, the weaker Russia gets. Sure it's costing the US (and other countries) a lot of money and resources but we are essentially weakining a not-so-friendly country of ours without having to send our own troops to fight it.
  I'm really skeptical of the "we're grinding Russia down with this!" narrative because the USSR had been cranking out war materiel to compete with the USA for literal decades; the RF has been working around Western sanctions for years and IIRC have been really focused recently on economic self-sufficiency in a few spheres.
  They're also the country with the most tanks in their fleet (total, not necessarily deployed), and they have air superiority, which Ukraine can't really challenge.
  Honestly it looks like Ukraine will lose, but not before defense contractors get to sign contracts worth billions of dollars replenishing the West's armories.
  Also by itself Ukraine's government isn't worth supporting, they've rolled back labor rights, allow the existence of fascist military units (Azov Battalion is part of Ukraine's version of a Gendarmerie - a military unit that polices civilians), and they're corrupt as fuck, they're privatizing aggressively during wartime.