By the way, ‘whataboutism’ (originating as ‘whataboutery’) was literally invented by a British loyalist columnist Sean O’Conaill in the 70s who was whining about Irish Republicans’ accurate criticism of British atrocities in Northern Ireland.
The so-called leftists in the west do not even realize they have are using imperialist propaganda whenever they mention whataboutism.
And then popularised by, I believe, a Romanian zionist?
TIL
The so-called leftists in the west do not even realize they have are using imperialist propaganda whenever they mention whataboutism.
leftism in the west seems to be at such a degraded state that its practitioners vary wildly in its application and i suspect that it speaks to the dearth of sounding boards for it.
not for the lack of peope trying – the epstein class uses its authority to discredit, kill, persecute leftists on their side of the planet and the brainworms they created via things like COINTELPRO are generational enough too make an overwhelming majority of westernerss sit and do nothing about iit at best and cheer it on at worst.
Whataboutism started as a way to point out hypocrisy used to evade responsibility by pointing our some other unrelated moral wrong. It is now used by libs to evade responsibility by denying a related moral wrong. Impressive sleight of hand
Whataboutism is often used as an argument to fight typical Western hypocrisy and moral relativism. They often go about hey county/political party X did something they consider bad, but when you point out the historical context and imperialist ramifications, they claim this is whataboutism.
An example, lack of freedom of expression is bad in China, but when you point out their moral relativism when give examples of people who suffer serious consequences when they manifest themselves in Western empire countries, they start the whataboutism rant.
Whataboutism started as a way to silence supporters of the IRA when they pointed out the British did worse stuff.
I believe more people need to just block the ML instances. The propaganda machine is just churning out. I kept it before because there was some good content and different povs but now it’s just flimsy arguments about the left and right being the same so don’t vote
If you are from the US, then your concept of left is completely broken and meaningless. Even in other parts of the world where there is a weak reformist or neoliberal working class left, they are one step ahead of the US. How come you don’t even have a bad workers’ party? Liberals are the left in the US, when liberals are, in every other parts of the world, part of the right or center-right.
No chud, please study a little bit of theory to understand what are class interests, who are the dominant class of society. Even reformist literature would be good for you.
“everyone should hide from the wrongthink with me so I don’t have to feel lonely in my cowardice”
What you call left and right keep taking turns to fuck my country so to me they are the fucking same, targets.
When you say “propaganda machine,” are you alleging Lemmy.ml users are backed by a group?
flimsy arguments
I have seen nothing from ML but facts.
There are plenty of those to prove their point.
It’s the fake ‘left’ BTW. Don’t flatter the libs.
If all this is an inconvenient truth and too much to handle by all means retreat to your echo chamber and circlejerk.
Or keep making infantile memes to vent your little frustrations.Thank you for shitting in our space before you leave. Bye
You can fuck off any time you like.
Be civil and nice.
Rules: 1. Be civil and nice.
Civility is a two-way street and making up bullshit about a whole group of people is quite uncivil, no matter the tone the bullshit is presented in
Removed by mod
The fact that 5 users upvoted a post that got removed by your own mods speaks clearly about your opinions of upholding Rule 2 of lemmy.ml
Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
Removed by mod
Continue to have comments get removed
Lol: “mods! mods! He called me a no no word!”
Looking at jankforlife’s posts: sharing Russia Today links
You should be happy someone is seriously taking the plurality of views you libs are supposed to like and introduce you to point of views that are outright banned in most of west.
Your right: I support search engine deindexing of FoxNews
When I see a user post multiple articles from right wing Russian state news propaganda, my initial thought is not: what lovely well rounded freepress individual
“Free press”
Where the bourgeois are “free” to distort the truth to their liking.
Exactly like the Russian oligarchs are doing right now, just like every other countries oligarch controlled media. Bloomberg: USA, Rupert Murdoch: UK AU, Van Thillo (DPG Media): BE NL
Exactly, there is no “free press”. But reading articles critically can reveal lots of interesting information that would be hard to find otherwise.
You ever shared a BBC or CNN link?
Fair enough.
Surely not? How dare they share a heinous state-affiliated media?? Dont they know its untrustworthy? Unlike our clearly unbiased BBCCNNMSNBCCCTVCSPANREUTERSAPNEWS? Dont they know the very unbiased mediafactchecktruthorg has rated RT news 5 whole pinnocios? Now let me return to reading the Kyiv Post.
Did I read the article they shared? No, like a clever citizen I saw it was RT, so I shut my eyes. No need to engage with the material, Snopes told me not to read it.
Nice uno reverse of the OP’s meme.
Revolutionair socialisten die internationalisme serieus nemen zouden vrede zonder annexaties moeten eisen. Het gaat hier om internationale solidariteit.
https://socialisme.nu/het-antioorlogsverzet-in-rusland/
For you Dumb Americans the English translation:
Revolutionary socialists who take internationalism seriously should demand peace without annexations. This is about international solidarity.
A left-wing Russian-speaking group in Germany and their contacts in Russia are once again on the view that Ukraine is waging a justified defensive war against Revanchist Russian imperialism. This is the so-called defeatist position, as also promoted during the First World War by the German socialist Karl Liebknecht: the enemy stands domestically and a defeat of Russia is the least evil.
That’s completely wrong and ahistorical. The “defeatist” position in WWI was the position that completely rejectedthe notion that any side was fighting a “justified defensive war,” instead viewing as a conflict between imperialist powers. On that basis, defeatism called for revolutionary action against one’s own government, whichever government that is. It was an explicit rejection of “the lesser evil.”
Lenin called Trotsky out over this point very clearly and explicitly:
Theory
To desire Russia’s defeat, Trotsky writes, is “an uncalled-for and absolutely unjustifiable concession to the political methodology of social-patriotism, which would replace the revolutionary struggle against the war and the conditions causing it, with an orientation—highly arbitrary in the present conditions—towards the lesser evil” . . .
The phrase-bandying Trotsky has completely lost his bearings on a simple issue. It seems to him that to desire Russia’s defeat means desiring the victory of Germany. . .
What is the substitute proposed for the defeat slogan? It is that of “neither victory nor defeat.” This, however, is nothing but a paraphrase of the “defence of the fatherland” slogan. It means shifting the issue to the level of a war between governments (who, according to the content of this slogan, are to keep to their old stand, “retain their positions”), and not to the level of the struggle of the oppressed classes against their governments! It means justifying the chauvinism of all the imperialist nations, whose bourgeoisie are always ready to say—and do say to the people—that they are “only” fighting “against defeat”. “The significance of our August 4 vote was that we are not for war but against defeat,” David, a leader of the opportunists, writes in his book. The Organising Committee, together with Bukvoyed and Trotsky, stand on fully the same ground as David when they defend the “neither-victory nor-defeat” slogan.
On closer examination, this slogan will be found to mean a “class truce”, the renunciation of the class struggle by the oppressed classes in all belligerent countries, since the class struggle is impossible without dealing blows at one’s “own” bourgeoisie, one’s “own” government, whereas dealing a blow at one’s own government in wartime is (for Bukvoyed’s information) high treason, means contributing to the defeat of one’s own country. Those who accept the “neither victory-nor-defeat” slogan can only be hypocritically in favour of the class struggle, of “disrupting the class truce”; in practice, such people are renouncing an independent proletarian policy because they subordinate the proletariat of all belligerent countries to the absolutely bourgeois task of safeguarding the imperialist governments against defeat. . .
Whoever is in favour of the slogan of “neither victory nor defeat” is consciously or unconsciously a chauvinist; at best he is a conciliatory petty bourgeois but in any case he is an -enemy to proletarian policy, a partisan of the existing governments, of the present-day ruling classes.
What on earth does maintaining the territorial integrity of a bourgeois state have to do with international solidarity?
It’s a good thing I’m not a Leninist or I would feel pretty silly now. Nevertheless time has moved on and other strategies of Socialism have continued in different directions each European country and its cultural influence. Some recognising that ignorance or defence of autocratic actions don’t slide after talking about power to the people.
The source you linked explicitly chose to bring up the defeatist slogan in the context of WWI, and then described it as something entirely different than what it was. Maybe you should link a source you’re actually willing to stand by.
Some recognising that ignorance or defence of autocratic actions don’t slide after talking about power to the people.
Do “autocratic actions” include things like banning political parties you disagree with and drafting people en masse? You are defending autocratic actions and trying to get it to slide by talking about “power to the people.”
Drafting your population when you have a foreign adversary dropping bombs on you is the right thing to do. It is known as self defence. I know I’ll get some hate for this from most people but yeah. As a Dutch man my country’s history contains the defeatism to the fucking Nazis.
Do you have a publisher that you 100% stand by? Come on.
Bad faith news sources like RT, FoxNews, OngehoordNederland. Should not have the same rights sorry, similar to blocking bad faith politicians from being elected, see the ongoing case for removing AfD.
It’s unsurprising that this is from a Trotskyist website, which endlessly frames internationalism from a pro-western angle and justifies swelling NATO. How does Ukraine actually get peace without annexations? Even if Kiev pushed all the way back to the prior borders, they’d have to continue the Ukrainian Civil War against Donetsk and Luhansk that they couldn’t win after 8 years of fighting prior to Russia’s involvement. The Donbass doesn’t want to be a part of Ukraine anymore, so this is just an erasure of the right of nations to self-determination.
You americans can only see black and white can’t you? This is about to systematic squashing of any form of anti war opposition of Russian civilians. And to be solidar to those inside while not capitulating to the same form of imperialism Israel is using by setters.
Again, Trotskyists love absolving themselves of any responsibility to oppose NATO internally, pushing it onto Russians, caping for western imperialism, and erasing the sovereignty of the Donbass region. Also silly to bring in Israel when Zelensky said he wants Ukraine to be the “Israel of Europe.”
Also silly to bring in Israel when Zelensky said he wants Ukraine to be the “Israel of Europe.”
You americans can only see black and white can’t you.
Addition: It is in bad faith to assume that my critic for the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine is an endorsement of Zelenskyy‘s purchase of Israeli weapons.
What do you mean? I just told you I would never be so silly as to even read something written by state affiliated media. I was told by BBC to look up anything I read on truthbiaschecker.america first, and that site rated RT 8 pants on fire! So I would never read it, I stick to trustworthy media such as AP and CNN.
Likewise I would never engage with anyone whose character allows them to even look at a russian. If their hominem is so ad then I know not to think about their argument.
