It’s not about the literal meaning of the statement it’s about the meta i.e. how it’s been used in the last decade or so as a way of trying to get away from the uncomfortable challenges that much of the world is essentially forced to react to US beligerence at all levels. So when liberals say Africa is corrupt and that’s why the West has to do what it does and leftists say that the corruption commonly referred to in many African states is actually the result of the the West hand picking the leadership and creating all the incentives for corruption and actively working against any accountability that comes with asserting sovereignty, the liberal will say “two things can be true at the same time” as a way of saying “But I’m not wrong that it’s actually the fault of the corrupt leaders” when in fact the challenge is trying to say that the US is the cause of both the immediate suffering caused by the overt actions of the US and the US is also the cause of the corruption that the liberal is trying to displace blame onto.
freagle
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You can’t be racist against white people so it’s ok
So, again, we have on the one hand people saying “you can’t attack Russia directly because it’s got nukes, you have to use a proxy” and then when Russia says “Ukraine is the North Atlantic proxy” suddenly there’s no memory of the previous understanding and it’s actually a war solely between Russia and Ukraine and Ukraine couldn’t possibly be a threat.
Keep working the two points together. In order to attack Russia, the West needs a proxy. Russia said Ukraine was a threat. Ukraine wasn’t a threat, it’s just Russia being crazy. We have to stop Russia, but we can’t attack it directly, we need a proxy.
Around and around we go until, hopefully, you realize what it means for Ukraine to be a proxy. It would mean that the US was building logistics in the country. It would mean that the US was preparing to US Ukrainian soldiers to fight Russia. It would mean establishing lethal force under the guidance of the West within Ukrainian territory.
And what do we see? Joint Ukraine/NATO exercises beginning in the late fall of 2013. Increasing support for NATO among the right wing of Ukraine. An ascendant right wing in Ukraine spurred on by right wingers in the US. More joint NATO/Ukraine exercises, increasing in frequency, in scope, in lethality. Exercises simulating the invasion of Kaliningrad. Exercises for the interoperability of long-range missiles that would be used to attack deep into Russian territory.
Ukraine was never a threat to Russia, I agree. Ukraine was always a proxy of the West and the West was the threat to Russia. The West, using Ukraine as a proxy, was the threat, and Russia could not field a proxy in this situation, like they had when they were part of the USSR, partly because they are nowhere near as strong as the USSR and partly because this proxy is on their border and not 2 or 3 borders away. Russia had to fight this proxy war itself, directly, with its own people.
But you’ll keep turning round to “but Russia is the aggressor, they invaded, Ukraine wasn’t a threat” and I’ll bringing you to the top of the cycle: you can’t attack Russia directly because it has nukes, you have to use a proxy. Ukraine is that proxy. Russia claimed Ukraine is a proxy of the West and that this was dangerous for its national security, so it invaded. And you want to stop Russia, but you can’t attack them directly, because they have nukes, so you need a proxy. Ukraine is that proxy. And Russia said Ukraine is a proxy and therefore its a threat.
Ad nauseam. I’m so tired of this thought termination, this cognitive dissonance riding on Russophobia disguised as holy righteousness disguised as a moral high ground.
Again, on the one hand, this thread correctly states “you can’t go and directly attack Russia, because it’s a nuclear power. You need a proxy”. And on the other hand when Putin says Ukraine was acting as the North Atlantic proxy and was a material threat to Russian national security you say “he’s just making shit up because he’s a fascist”.
Never does it occur to you that a fascist dictator motivated by fascism would not actually spend 3 years making zero progress when they have the 3rd largest military in the world. Never does it occur to you that Russia might have legitimate national security interests. Never does it occur to you that there is absolutely zero evidence in the intelligence analysis of all of the 5 Eyes that indicate Russia has been planning or intending or preparing to actually attack Europe and expand into an empire.
No. You just think that whoever fires the first shot is the bad guy and that’s the end of your ability and willingness to think.
Russia is a nuclear power; you can’t wage open war against them
Correct!
And what do we call this war then?
It’s… ?
A proxy war!
Between which parties? Between Russia and the North Atlantic countries led by the US.
And who is the proxy for the North Atlantic? Ukraine. And who is the proxy for Russia? There is none.
So Russia invaded a North Atlantic proxy with it’s own citizens. Why would it do this?
Russia is a nuclear power; you can’t wage open war against them
Correct. So when Russia says that they attacked Ukraine because the North Atlantic countries, led by the US, was using Ukraine as a proxy against Russia, do you acknowledge this to be true or do you believe that no such thing was happening and it’s just a cover story for 1 man to act out his megomaniacal fantasies against no real threat?
- Poverty (which they’re alleviating), and the trappings of poverty (like poor labor conditions, corruption, and abuse).
- Environmental degradation (which they are alleviating) and all the trappings that come with it (like greater impact on the poor, bad health outcomes, corruption).
- Threats from state actors (which they are alleviating) and the trappings that come it (like selective repression of dissent, organizing, and collaboration, surveillance and chilling effects, etc)
Literally anything that causes an idea to spread is propaganda. Advertising, calls for help, gossip, commentary, analysis, storytelling, hell public art or theater or even just public conflict. That’s what the word means, the means of idea propagation.
What kind of global imperial superpower doesn’t drop bombs for 35 years in a row? That doesn’t sound like any global imperial superpower I have ever heard of in the last 600 years. If China is a global imperial superpower without doing the whole war crimes thing, I’m almost inclined to say you’ve sold me on global imperialist superpowers being redeemable!
A false dichotomy is when you only present two possible options when the set of options to choose from is much greater.
This is not attempting to get you to choose, but rather expose the hypocrisy of those who say “the US is bad right now but at least it’s not China”
One starting point to understand Chinese claims is this letter to the OHCHR: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/2022-08-31/ANNEX_A.pdf
From here you can research their claims and find sources for them.
Like I said, it’s not terribly easy if you start from the assumption that Western audiences refuse to accept non-Western sources.
They weren’t training all of the Uyghurs. And it’s actually very difficult to get information on the topic at all. Plus there’s overlapping names with the movement for East Turkistan, etc.
The most damning evidence is really just looking at the bombings and terrorist violence in Xinjiang over the past 20 years and realizing that what China did in Xinjiang - even including things like the use of police to limit freedom of movement and expression and using government to compel certain behaviors like education and the like - was potentially one of the first ever successful deradicalization campaign conducted against US-backed terrorists in East Asia.
Nope. Think of it like a trolley problem.
Absolute comedy gold
I’m not angry, Lu. I’m just disappointed
Oh hey, I got you mad enough to chase me around now, eh? Welcome! I like that your primary beef with me is that you think I can’t read but then you post this particular link. Very well done! Do continue, please.
You do realize that the border is with Tibet, right? An autonomous region within China that has never been recognized as a state with firm boundaries in all of human history. The border is contentious because borders are contentious. As much as you might not like border disputes, there is nothing socialist or anti-socialist about having border disputes. Nepal doesn’t want to make a big diplomatic stink over the situation. You want to psychologize them as fearful of China and therefore China isn’t socialist?
You’re not making any sense. China is not engaged in imperial capitalist expansion simply because there’s a few hundred acres being built on by the TAR along their own border in ways that violate the border. That’s a resolvable tension and doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.
Yeah a border dispute over a few hundred acres. Please don’t use words like “territorial expansion” when discussing a few hundred acres along a contentious border that has historically been undefined and only in modern times have there been an attempt to make them fixed.
I find it hard to believe that China is engaged in territorial expansion when it hasn’t dropped a single bomb in 35 years
Or do mean the border dispute with India? Because that’s an artifact of the British drawing shitty borders and imposing them on subjugated people and those people have not established an effective framework for redressing the problem yet
You should read about Unequal Exchange. The Nordics are the way they are because they benefit from the massive wealth extraction of the empire.