most nuanced liberal
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/2135509
this is practically a child’s view of the world. good guy vs bad guy. Russia = bad, NATO = good. plus, someone should tell her she has it completely backwards: ending russia is kinda natos entire thing
Yeltsin and Putin both wanted to join NATO:
Even Stalin tried a little to join NATO
Wasn't there an informal deal struck between Gorbachev and (I think) Clinton that Russia would be allowed to join NATO if the Soviet Union broke up? Or am I misremembering that
I wonder how Libyans feel about this:
NATO gave informal promises to Gorbachev to not expand eastward (Gorbachev was stupid to believe these promises and not get them in writing as formal, legally-binding promises)
The Soviet Union tried to join NATO in 1954 but wasn't allowed
Meanwhile NATO kept expanding
and including "former" nazis in its ranks
Gorbachev was stupid to believe these promises and not get them in writing as formal, legally-binding promises
If he had them as formal promises it wouldn't matter. You can just break international agreements what are they gonna do call a cop
Good point. I made that point less about the actual prevention of NATO expansion, which, yes, wasn't gonna happen either way, and more about NATO today taking advantage of Gorbachev's stupidity and thus having plausible deniability that claims were ever made in the first place, since none of those promises were formal, legally binding, and documented outside of recently-declassified British archives.
I remember back in 2003, when liberals were able to call Bush out on his "with us or against us" shit. I swear something badly broke liberals (more than usual) in the last decade.
The establishment neocons and blue dog D's started being as loudly anti-Trump as possible, which grew the Democrat's tent. When your hammer is anti-Trump, anything Trump agrees with is a nail.
If you’re pro-piss then you're anti-shit. Makes perfect sense.
ACTCHEWALLLLY its "if you're anti-shit then you’re pro-piss."
in the year 885, shortly after founding Kievan Rus, Oleg the Wise proclaimed, “ending nato is kinda our whole thing”
critical support for oleg the wise in his struggle against the genocidal amerikkkan empire
If we can support Syria and Iran critically, we can do the same for Russia in its fight against American imperialism.
amen. emphasis on critically tho. too many liberals think “critical support” means “super extra support”. all of us here understand that Russia is capitalist and pretty horrible on LGBTQ rights (not rlly worse than amerika tho). the difference is that NATO represents western empire: an institution that suppresses most of the world and extracts $10 trillion every year from the global south. Russia’s imperial ambitions are strictly regional, thus much easier to curtail by AES states. the global empire is infinitely more harmful to the proletariat of the world than a regional empire. im preaching to the choir here but i hope lemmy libs read this and understand
I agree on all your points except for the existence of Russian imperialism. By Lenin’s definition—correct me if I’m wrong—imperialism is when finance capital is consolidated enough in a given country for that country to begin exporting capital abroad. This might have been the case before the war since so many Russian oligarchs had their billions stashed in western banks, but the contradictions of imperialism itself—its need to grow and consume itself from the inside—now mean that this is no longer the case. Those Russian billions are either frozen or withdrawn as far as I know. Russia’s alignment with China and the BRICS, its long history of fighting for the global south (consider the images we’ve seen for years now of African protestors waving Russian flags), suggest to me that Russia is not actually imperialist and that it is indeed fighting for its life and existence (as it says). Putin is an opportunist appointed by Yeltsin (himself appointed by Clinton!), but opportunism can sometimes point in the right direction because there is no other way for it to survive. (The current president of South Africa is a criminal who likewise deserves our critical support due to his alignment with the BRICS, although none of us are going to be complaining if the EFF takes over next year.) All of us likewise know that a NATO victory in this war will just begin another nightmarish chapter of imperialism in eastern Europe, while a NATO defeat will present opportunities for workers around the world to throw off the American yoke.
Can you share more about your perspective concerning treatment of LGBTQ+ citizens between the two nations?
Hasn't Russia's war on Ukraine done more to reinvigorate NATO than anything else in the past decade? If the goal is the diminishment of NATO, then Russia's war on Ukraine is definitely bad for that goal.
The war with nato was always going to be "reinvigorated" whenever it chose to start a war with Russia. There's nothing Russia can do about that. They just need to win. Also, it's not as if the war wasn't inevitable. There's so much money to be pulled out of Russia while the nato armies are on their way to China. There's no way the richest westerners were just gonna leave it on the table.
How can anyone be pro NATO? It's part of the imperial core/triad's powers monopoly on military force and intervention, that oppresses left wing or even general anti colonial movements globally, including within their own countries. There are plenty of people in the global south that are anti NATO and not even left wing! Imagine being to the right of Imran Khan on the issue of NATO and global monopolies of power!
If you are not against the imperial core/triad practicing a form of collective imperialism and neocolonialism by the use of organisations like NATO, the World Bank, IMF and the WTO, how can you even be on the left? Is the left not internationalist?
If you do not oppose the "monopoly of five advantages" the imperial core/the west aims to have in weapons of mass destruction, mass communication systems, financial and banking services, technology and access to natural resources through imperial rents, how can you even have hope for a better world?
The entire purpose of NATO was to destroy the USSR. But the USSR does not exist anymore. So now, its only purpose is to keep the military-industrial complex going. American corporations are 100% willing to immiserate the people of Eastern Europe and even Germany (Nordstream) to keep their weapons sales up. Hey, we abandoned Iraq and Afghanistan, and Taiwan is too risky - gotta use those weapons somewhere.
The goal is to "Latin Americanise" Eastern Europe and let them join the EU on unequal terms. Ask Greece how that goes when the EU has a financial crisis.
well in that case critical support for comrade russia i guess??? these libs really aren't doing a great job of stoking pro-russian sentiment tbh
I'm not going to act like Russia's government isn't all fucked up and stuff via neoliberalism, but insofar as multipolarity is concerned, they're really keeping America from going totally hog-wild on their usual rape and murder across the global South.
Russia literally requested, many times, to join NATO. Wrong way around - NATO's whole purpose is to see a country of people reduced to rubble (and also any other countries it feels like along the way).
ending nato is kinda russias whole thing
I think you got that backwards pal, Russia’s whole thing is being a large country where people live. The military alliance formed with the single goal to encircle and eventually destroy the Soviet Union on the other hand, they’re kinda focused on destroying Russia
If you’re anti soviet union then you’re pro nazi germany
ending the soviet union is kinda the nazis thing
Sorry I missed the part where NATO was an authoritarian regime that genocided people en masse.
Also hasn't Russia repeatedly threatened countries to not join NATO? https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/12/russia-threatens-retaliatory-steps-if-finland-joins-nato.html
I get that NATO is a primary threat towards Russia because, y'know, they're currently attempting genocide against Ukrainians, but to compare NATO to Nazi Germany is a little disingenuous don't you think?
clearly
No, it's about right. I mean, the US is essentially Nazi Germany except successful. They even directly inspired Nazi Germany's policies.
Hmm...
HMMMMMMM.....
NATO gave informal promises to Gorbachev to not expand eastward (Gorbachev was stupid to believe these promises and not get them in writing as formal, legally-binding promises)
HMMMMMMMMMM?!?!?!?!
??????????????????????????????????????
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where the fuck have you been the past decades you absolute buffoon
The countries in NATO have been engaged as aggressors in almost all wars in the 21st century.
For the first 40 years of NATO's existence it sought to undermine democracy and reinforce the states of NATO aligned countries in Europe through terrorism and assassination.
They then rather genocidally carpet bombed Yugoslavia killing and wounding thousands of civilians ( many of whom were from Kosovo the people they purportedly wanted to help), 3 foreign diplomats by bombing a foreign embassy not in anyway involved in a conflict and completely destroying the infrastructure of Serbia.
They then genocidally invaded Afghanistan where they destabilized the country, toppled the government and then put pedophile psychos in charge because they were the ones willing to work with us, killed nearly 100,000 civilians, and then ended up putting the original government back in charge 20 years later.
Finally they genocidally took the most prosperous country in Africa, a country with universal college, healthcare, jobs programs, and housing, a desert country that had a 200 year supply of water and bombed the fuck out of it, destroying the water supply, plundering the gold, supporting the precursors to ISIS, and turned the country into a place with fucking slave auctions.
But yeah NATO isn't genocidal, they just topple governments and bomb/terrorize civilians.