This is nothing new. Liberals have always done this throughout history. They put all the blame on individuals to cover up the root cause of these constantly reoccuring wars and genocides.
Netanyahu isn’t the problem.
Israel is. The West is. Imperialism is. Capitalism is.
By: @commie______central
Would you also agree most Russians are responsible for the invasion of Ukraine?
The only war is class war.
Don’t vulgarize the class struggle by erasing settler-colonialism from the equation. You’ve turned a uniting statement into its opposite, using it to defend a genocidal apartheid state.
Consider that Settler-colonialism cannot exist without class conflict. Class exploitation is the motivating driver behind genocides, slavery and apartheid.
Its core to the us vs them narrative and used as justification for imperialism.
Sure, I don’t disagree. I disagree with class reductionism, which itself is anti-Marxist.
Is anyone trying to defend Russia by pinning everything in Putin alone and saying we need to keep supporting Russia because they’re otherwise good? No? Then you’re just strawmanning
Not the point of this meme. If 90% of Russians supported the invasion of Ukraine there’s a good argument to be made that the war isn’t solved by simply removing Putin.
Same applies to Netanyahu and the genocide of the Palestinians.
That’s fair.
Unless the classes are a settler class in an apartheid state and their native victim class, apparently, according to you.
I would say the NATO leaders are responsible, as they’ve admitted their plan to provoke Russia into invading by breaking the minsk agreements and building forces up along the border.
“NATO made me bomb all those hospitals”.
You guys unironically use the exact same rhetoric Israel uses to justify what it does to Palestinians to defend Russian aggression in Ukraine because you incorrectly believe Russia is a balancing power to “the West” instead of just another flavour of imperialist, authoritarian oppressors.
Could you please address the points I’ve made.
I can’t address your point for the same reason I can’t refute that a teapot is currently orbiting Jupiter.
Go back to Reddit
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Explain how I can prove that there is not a teapot orbiting Jupiter right now and then I will understand how I can argue against a bunch of claims you’ve regurgitated without evidence.
I shouldn’t have to prove Santa doesn’t exist simply because you claim he does.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy)
Here ya go, big guy. Guess I won’t be hearing from you any time soon, lol.
Russia doesn’t have the finance capital required to be imperialist, and as such in a conflict between the clear imperialist hegemony and a reactionary nationalist state like Russia, Russia plays a progressive role. Churchill was a monstrous imperialist that committed genocide in India, but the Soviet Union was correct in identifying the UK as an ally against Nazi Germany, the larger threat at the time. Russia isn’t even an actual imperialist, and therefore its sovereignty should be respected, rather than continuously encircled with missiles pointing directly at Moscow.
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Everything I said is based on fact. Russia has an absolutely paltry sum of finance capital on the world stage. From an economic perspective, Russia is unable to advance from a developing industrial capitalist economy to an imperialist economy, even if it wishes to, as the world is already presently dominated by the moribund western empire headed by the US. In a conflict between the clear imperial hegemon and a reactionary, nationalist regional power, the regional power plays a progressive role internationally.
Regarding Churchill, the genocide committed by the UK is fairly well-documented. The UK, unlike modern Russia, has a network of neocolonies and and a much, much larger portion of international finance capital. It is through this mechanism, along with unequal exchange, IP monopoly, and NATO encroachment, that the UK plays a very present role in upholding imperialism.
Regarding accusations of Russia kidnapping Ukrainian kids, this has generally been proven false. Russia does not abandon children on the battlefield as a rule, though the west frames this as “kidnapping.” Regarding the targeting of civilian infrastructure, Ukraine is just as guilty of this as Russia is, if not more, especially when we factor in the previous period of the Ukrainian Civil War before Russia joined.
I think this is really just a semantic argument because you seem to be writing specifically with Lenin’s rather narrow definition of imperialism in mind.
If we go by the common understanding of imperialism which has been in use for at least a century before Lenin even picked up a pen:
You can absolutely classify the aggression the Russian Federation inflicts on former Soviet states as imperialism.
Would Finland have joined NATO if Russia didn’t invade Ukraine?
Does their voluntary entry into a defensive alliance constitute an “encirclement”? Do they not have a right to conduct their own diplomacy as they see fit?
Furthermore, when both Russia and NATO agree that MAD is a legitimate defensive measure, can either argue in good faith that “stationing” missiles is aggression? Russia points missiles at NATO nations, NATO points them back, both blocs openly agree that this is what has prevented nuclear war from breaking out (so far).
Finally, while I don’t completely agree with the conflation of the US and NATO, I think we can agree that the US as an imperialist power has absolutely taken every measure it can to sabotage communist states. However should Russia not respect the sovereignty of smaller nations surrounding it? Based on the actions of Russia towards former Soviet states who remained “neutral”, joining NATO seems to be the only way for them to prevent a Russian invasion.
This is such a broad definition that it becomes meaningless.
How so?
You’re probably familiar with the US Civil War, yes?
The Confederacy declared independence and established itself as a new nation, the Union took exception to that and fought them.
Was that imperialism?
I see where you’re going with this. It’s interesting to think about.
I think the crux of this argument isn’t the definition of imperialism, but of nation. Which if given the same scrutiny, could also be considered to be too vague a definition to be useful.
Asking a confederate, they probably would have said yes. Asking anyone else? Well, not a single other nation on earth recognized the confederacy, so probably no.
But I think the objective ambiguity you’re pointing at doesn’t make a word useless. A policeman shoots and kills someone. One side says murder, the other doesn’t. That’s the same fundamental ambiguity, but it’s resolved when we apply objectivity to it. Murder as a word isn’t useless, the same as imperialism.
My issue isn’t with the word imperialism, but with imperialism as an existing material process. I don’t hold to Lenin’s analysis because I prefer Lenin, I hold to it because Lenin described an actual existing system that I actively oppose. I do not oppose anything anyone may want to label as imperialism simply because they call it as such. As for NATO being imperialist, that point isn’t based on voluntary joining or not, but the fact that it is a military coalition of imperialist countries.
Respectfully, how can you not see that your response is simply:
“If I ignore everything you wrote, and if you simply agree with what I want you to believe, I’m actually correct”.
Rereading your original post, it also seems to imply that if Russia was richer (remember that it is not a socialist nation, the Russian economy does run on finance capital), you would be happy to classify its actions as imperialism.
Based on this, out of principle should we not oppose these actions which are fundamentally unjust regardless of who is committing them?
I don’t see that because I didn’t say any of that. Moreover, I never denied that if Russia had larger finance capital that it would likely develop in an imperialist direction. The important part is that that is currently a fantasy, and not actual reality. I do oppose actions that are fundamentally unjust, that’s why I suppose the US empire and NATO encirclement of countries that provokes needless wars and bloodshed for western imperialist profit.
If I’m honest, it seems to me that you believe an evil in the context of a “bigger” evil is actually good.
I can’t accept that. Russia’s imperialism is evil, just like US imperialism is evil. I won’t defend or accept either.
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this.
if those “Russians” came from other continents, and started stealing native Ukrainian land, calling it Russia due to biblical crap, while imperialists giving them a green card, then they started ethnic cleanse millions of indigenous people of that land, and established a fake western state called Russia, renaming every village with fake names using a made up language.
Then my answer is YES i would agree
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I mean those Russians are volunteering to murder Ukrainians for money.
Even if this were true (it’s not) you still moved the goal posts from your original statement. And even if it were true (it’s not) it still doesn’t pin the problem solely on Putin or on Russian citizens, almost like there’s nuanced material analysis to be applied across broad, complex international geopolitics.
EVEN THEN, Your analysis is just mediocre at best. Deliberately misleading, childish and ignorant at worst.
I agree with you. I find it to be a forest for the trees argument with many sympathetic to the Palastinians cause. They fail so see the driving factors behind the zionist project is class exploitation.
Instead they get drawn into the narratives of the elites on the other side who seek to exploit them through continuation of the project.
Like supporting a Mullah, because you are against the Rabbi, when the true enemy is the elites using religion…
No it is not about class. It is about ultranationalism and supremacism ideologies driving genocides
What drives ultranationalism and supremacist ideology if not class?
Racism. Racism has no class and it become systematic racism once the racist take power
What is racism other than declaring one’s superiority over others? Its just a sub form of classism’s.
Racism at a fundamental level is indisingishable from nationalism, or Religiocentrism.
Classism is the basic concept that one person deserves more than another. Its anti-equality. It has many subforms.
Racism is insufficient to describe the motivations of Zionism. Take the racism away and it still won’t address most of the problems of religiocentrism and nationalism in that state.
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