this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
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[–] Blissingg@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Opening the comments section of stories like this is always a real eye opener for the type of people lemmy has attracted kinda sad.

[–] assembly@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

No kidding. Who is honestly against moves like this? I mean very few issues are black and white and defending Ukraine is as close to being on the right side of history as one can get. They were invaded by a much larger country that suppressed them for so long. They are a democracy that is trying really hard to further the will of their people. Russians are committing genocide against the local population. Supporting Ukraine and watching the Ukrainians fight back for their freedom is one of the few great parts of history that inspires.

[–] Bobo_Palermo@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

The only real country that comes close to Russia lately as far as a polarizing bad guy is WWII Germany, and THAT is saying something.

[–] zalack@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

Yeah. I get being cynical about all of the wars the U.S. has been part of in my lifetime.

But if you can't see how helping the Ukrainians is unequivocally the right thing to do, I don't know what to say. To me it's nice to be the good guys for once and point our defense industry at something worthwhile.

[–] zzz@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Okay I'll bite. Some people support Ukraine but don't support more weapons spending. In the early days of reddit, a lot of the power users were libertarian leaning programmers, and Lemmy has naturally attracted that cohort. You can see subs like Privacy and Piracy moving here, and there is a staunch anti government position that comes with anti centralization. I don't think these people should be called sad, as some are very well reasoned and thoughtful about their anti government position. What's more, if you don't live in the United States, it's very easy to call out the hypocrisy of US government warmongering e.g. in the middle east.

[–] zacher_glachl@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I gotta say, the tankie infestation of the fediverse is giving me serious second thoughts about this place. I get that it will get better over time as more people join and dilute the crazies, but I currently have a very hard time suggesting lemmy to people because of this.

[–] andrei_chiffa@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's fediverse. You don't like an instance, you create your own and defederate from the ones you don't like. That's the nice thing about it.

[–] zacher_glachl@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

So what, am I going to defederate from lemmy.world which is like the most generic possible instance but posts there still attract these loonies? At that point I can just ditch the fediverse because it's useless as a reddit replacement.

[–] brain_in_a_box@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Good, go back to reddit if you want a neoliberal echo chamber.

[–] expatriado@lemmy.world -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

maybe you shouldn't leave your brain in a box

[–] brain_in_a_box@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

wow... You really are a redditor.

[–] Blursty@lemmy.world -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I guess you've no problem with the open Nazis on here? Says a lot about you.

[–] zacher_glachl@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

No, that doesn't "say a lot about me" at all. I keep having to block tankies and similar shit bubbling up from lemmygrad. I've not seen an open nazi post here yet but if I see one be assured it gets the banhammer as well and "nazis" gets added to my growing list of "insane fringe groups prominent on lemmy which I never had to interact with on reddit".

[–] C3ltic@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's already a huge handful of conservative communities and almost every conservative I've ever met is suddenly very upset with our military budget and without any proof think Zelensky is just pocketing the money.

But it has felt like they're still the minority for the time being.

[–] dangblingus@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Have you seen the community list? The top conservative communities have like 150 subs.

[–] Something_Complex@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

They are like rats, or cockroaches. Everywhere, scare normal people away, and live in the darkness.

[–] kingthrillgore@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Part of the reason why I wanted a fresh start on kbin but alas, this is what the fediverse is built on.

I'm considering making my own instance and shitcanning the Lemmy instance.

[–] Aesthesiaphilia@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

You're on lemmy.world right now, dummy. "Starting over" on kbin doesn't mean anything if you keep coming to lemmy and commenting on lemmy threads.

[–] hark@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

What I see are some dissenting opinions and then people parroting US government talking points browbeating and downvoting them. Russia is absolutely wrong for invading Ukraine, but let's not overlook the US government using Ukraine as a pawn to advance its own geopolitical ambitions, similar to how it benefited from arming groups in Afghanistan when Russia invaded there.

I'm hoping Lemmy provides for more nuanced and diverse discussion instead of brigading and shouting down of opinions simply for going against the officially-approved narrative of the US government.

[–] rook@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

hated for being world police but also hated for not "doing something" about international injustices. US can't win.

[–] hark@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

International injustices like the US helping the Saudis genocide Yemenis? The problem is that the US is self-serving in its self-appointed role of world police. They don't care about injustices and only use (or even create) them as excuses to carry out selfish geopolitical objectives.

[–] rook@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

no like north korea threating to glass its neighbor, or russia threatening to glass europe, or china claiming that taiwan belongs to them, or ISIS saying that all non-muslims deserve death, but yeah cherry pick all ya want

[–] hark@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

North Korea is all bark and no bite. North Korea benefits China by acting as a buffer and benefits the US by strengthening ties between the US and South Korea and Japan. There is no interest in changing this arrangement.

Russia didn't get this way over night. The USSR collapsed and the US capitalized on the situation by enforcing markets in a way to grab wealth. There were many opportunities to rehabilitate and allow Russia to participate in the world as a peer but that went against the US need for an enemy and to dominate them, as evidenced by the Wolfowitz doctrine. Russia's economy was terrible and Putin did well for himself betting on oil which gave the Russian economy some stability and which is how he got popular. You'll find that the price of oil collapsed in 2014 and the protests were happening in Ukraine around that time threatening the puppet he had there.

Just watch as the plan is spelled out for you on American television: https://www.cc.com/video/8067fc/the-colbert-report-crisis-in-ukraine-gideon-rose

As for ISIS: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/03/us-isis-syria-iraq

[–] BombOmOm@lemmy.world -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There were many opportunities to rehabilitate and allow Russia to participate in the world as a peer but that went against the US need for an enemy and to dominate them

Germany was actively buying and expanding their gas imports from Russia, Russia's largest export good. Germany was quite happy with this arrangement until Russia invaded Ukraine, cut gas exports, and started actively bragging about how they would freeze Europe. Russia could have continued raking in the piles of cash from their gas exports to Europe, but, that isn't what Russia wanted. Russia didn't want to participate on the world stage as an equal, they wanted to dominate Ukraine and take what Ukraine had for themselves.

[–] hark@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

A decent chunk of Russia's gas runs through Ukraine and Russia had their puppet in Ukraine overthrown in 2014. Their gas business was already in danger from a long time ago and was constantly being attacked on all fronts, including sanctions and fearmongering campaigns against the nord stream pipelines. You can point to the current situation and say the fear was justified, but it took a lot to get to this point.

Shutting off their largest export is a move of desperation which they made while smugly pretending they were more indispensable than they actually are. Heck, invading Ukraine was a move of desperation itself. As you can see from the Gideon Rose interview I posted, the US was actively moving to isolate Russia for a long while. It doesn't justify Russia's actions, but also these actions didn't crop up out of nowhere. The US has overthrown governments over oil (even when they have plenty of other countries to get oil from) and here is Russia having its main export threatened.

[–] 133arc585@lemmy.ml -1 points 1 year ago

Nobody in their right mind is hating on the USA for not being world police. It's just White Man's Burden in disguise. Oh dear me you're so burdened by having to civilize the rest of the world, boohoo. Nobody asked them to, people even push back against it, and yet they do it anyway and then have the gall to complain about how much doing so is inconvenient. Then, two minutes later, the USA will complain about "sovereignty" and pretend they aren't encroaching on sovereignty every time they pretend to be world police.

[–] 1ongsword@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

The fact that you were downvoted so heavily for saying "two-sided discussion is good", presumably because Americans got uncomfortable with the accusation that their government is writing their narrative for them, tells me that on this specific issue it's most likely going to be an echo chamber

People have been hearing one side of this debate for so long that it feels kind of like a lost cause, to me. I've more faith that productive discussion can be had re: China than this war

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

What's sad is how little our country knows of war outside of the US propaganda machine. We spend more on war in one year than the next ten countries combined, and those countries mostly have health care systems that don't bankrupt their people. Canada, for instance, spends a mere 23 billion a year on war.

We on the other hand don't have health care so our country can involve itself in eight or nine wars at once, and our people think it's a good thing because they can't form a coherent thought outside of what they're being told on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC.

[–] Blissingg@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

“Our” that’s one big assumption there brother not everyone here is American. I don’t know why you assume the U.S military budget is stopping Universal credit being a thing over there it’s a far more deeply rooted issue than just the military budget. Look how contentious even something like the Obama care was never mind a full blow universal care system.

[–] Airazz@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

US spends about as much per capita on healthcare as many other developed countries. The issue is that your insurance companies pocket a lot of it. Be angry at them, not at Ukraine or the weapons going to Ukraine.

[–] Aesthesiaphilia@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

The US would actually spend less on healthcare if we had a single-payer or other "socialist" system instead of the mess we currently have. So that line of reasoning doesn't make sense. We don't make war instead of spending on health care. We make war and spend on health care.

[–] ElZoido@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

The reason that the US doesn't have universal healthcare is not it's military support for Ukraine.

[–] pasci_lei@kbin.social -1 points 1 year ago

They were always there. Lemmy literally is developed by tankies and genocide deniers.