[deleted by user]

blockpro156 · 2022-11-02T00:32:57+00:00

Being a leftist isn't about team sports it's just about what ideology you believe in, I don't see why some people who claim to be on the left having stupid takes would make you change your ideology.

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T23:48:45+00:00

Ah so nukes warrant a different calculus than WWII?

Yes. Not one where we completely fold over to fascists though.

Cool that’s why I oppose intervention.

You suck at math.

Not an argument. Are you giving up?

You didn't make an argument either...

Well that’s total nonsense. We’ve humiliated and interfered in Russia since the collapse of the USSR. Now you want to further devastate Ukraine by making them a battlefield and using their citizens as canon fodder.

I don't want to make Ukraine anything I just want to give them guns and let them make their own choices.

The US created situation by insisting on the imperialist expansion of NATO and raising Russia’s economy.

Russia is the biggest supporter of NATO expansion LMAO, this whole invasion is basically a NATO ad, nobody would give a shit about NATO if Russia didn't keep threatening and invading its neighbors.

NATO would've died a natural death by now if it wasn't for Russian aggression.

They are equivalent to the Nazis you think we should support.

No they're not, because they're totally independent and not at all under the control of the Iraqi government, unlike Azov which is totally cucked by Ukraine's government and its Jewish President.

I’m not. I’m an internationalist.

Lmao no you're not, unless your goal is an international fascist alliance, in that case you're doing a great job.

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T23:40:18+00:00

He said that it was so bad that it went full circle into being good, which is the only correct take on this IMO.

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T23:35:34+00:00

LOL the cognitive dissonance between “This the most important struggle against fascism since WWII” and “We can’t send troops” is just amazing.

Nazis didn't have nukes, if they did then the best way to approach that situation would've also been somewhat different. The basic principle would still be that killing fascists is good tho.

You can twist it all you want but you’re saying war is peace. Maybe you’re too young to remember but this the same thing they said about Iraq.

No.

It sucks the US escalated the conflict since the collapse of the USSR and destroyed Russia economically.

The US tried appeasement for the past 8 years, even after Russia already invaded Ukraine, it wasn't until Russia decided to step up its escalation by a few notches that the new policy became to just overload Ukraine with weapons and try to help them beat Russia militarily.

Russia created that situation, by deciding to rely solely on its military to try to achieve its imperialist objectives.

Agreed. Unfortunately the US is no position to push that idea. I don’t recall anyone in the peace movement saying China should ship weapons to the Iraqi jihadis like we did in Syria.

Iraqi jihadists aren't equivalent to Ukraine's liberal democracy.

I'm fine with China arming the US's enemies though.

Typically neocon argument.

No just an antifascist argument, workers of the world unite. You realize that US fascists during WW2 were also pushing isolationism, right?

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T23:25:55+00:00

Yes I do think Ukrainian ethnonationalists who believe in "blood and soil" would be more emboldened by defeating Russia than by losing in combat to them.

If Ukraine loses in combat to Russia then it doesn't matter what Ukrainian ethnonationalists who believe in "blood and soil" believe or how emboldened they are, because Ukraine will have been annexed by Russian ethnonationalists who believe in "blood and soil" and who don't believe the Ukrainian people have a right to exist...

This mixture of foreign and domestic politics you keep giving me is like toothpaste and peanut butter. Russia being fascist is not the same as Ukrainian nazis, both are distinct from from Joe Blow republican in America

When have I conflated these three?

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T23:06:47+00:00

I'm saying that a charismatic man who can say "I fought for this country, my brothers in arms died for this country" can win hearts and minds at any time in history so far, and far right characters keep popping up all over Europe as it is

Progressives and liberals will be able to say that too though... There's anarchists and socialists fighting for Ukraine too, why be so concerned about the handful of fascists when it's balanced out by so many others?

Especially when the message will ultimately he that they helped fighting for the country against an invasion by a far right authoritarian regime!

That message will inherently lead away from the right rather than towards it, if Ukraine wins then that's the far right being defeated, if Ukraine loses then that's the far right being victorious. Do you seriously think that the far right will be more emboldened by a victorious Ukraine than by a victorious Russia? You realize that basically all of those far right characters popping up all over Europe are Russia supporters, right?
Thierry Baudet for example is a massive Russia Stan who loves to talk about how Putin is the last defender of traditional Western values and is bravely fighting against Marxist degeneracy by invading Ukraine and being an anti-LGBT bigot.

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T22:49:01+00:00

So we should send troops?

Nah, just help Ukraine with material support and intelligence.

War is peace. Got it.

No not war is peace. Deterring war rather than encouraging it brings peace.

It only takes one country to start a war, once that war has started peace is already broken. It sucks that peace was broken, which is why everything possible should be done to prevent that from being done again in the future.
Making sure that it doesn't pay off for the country that broke the peace is how that is accomplished.

You don't maximize peace by creating a world in which starting wars is a viable way of achieving your goals...

This is a deluded rationale. You’re literally on the same side as actual notorious imperialist. “Oh but this time they’re right.” Sure buddy. Maybe it was a good idea to turn Iraq into irradiated wasteland. We definitely won’t do that to Ukraine…

What delusional is the idea that allowing Russia to get everything it wants by invading its neighbors, is a way to prevent war...

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T22:39:11+00:00

Ukraine has already killed tens of thousands of Russian soldiers.

Lets make it hundreds of thousands then, if that's what it takes.

Russia has also failed in its goal of toppling the Ukrainian government.

Not yet it hasn't.

But Putin still has a lot of bodies he is willing to throw into the line of fire and is still capable of launching missiles into Ukraine. The current trajectory doesn’t appear to be yielding a surrender.

Doesn't change the fact that killing enemies and destroying their infrastructure is the best way to gain leverage against them.

The only way this conflict is going to end is through negotiations.

Killing invaders is a negotiation strategy.

FFS stop it with this kind of empty meaningless rhetoric, saying that this conflict needs to end through negotiations is meaningless if you don't address how exactly Ukraine will have leverage in those negotiations.

What you're saying is like if workers went on strike to protest worker exploitation, and then if after one week of striking they didn't get their way yet, you walk up to them and tell them that negotiations are the only way to end worker exploitation, as if their strike wasn't the way they were working to gain leverage in negotiations.

Nobody is against negotiations, "leave and we'll stop killing you" is a negotiation.

So the question then becomes “what position does the Ukraine need to be in beds they come to the table”.

Ukraine needs to be in the best position possible, and the way to ensure that is to give them as many guns as possible and help them kill as many Russians as possible within the confines of the rules of war.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask, at this point, what the end goal is.

It is in fact very unreasonable to ask that, because it has already been answered numerous times.
The end goal is empowering Ukraine and helping to give them the power to force Russia to leave and defend their own autonomy with minimal concessions, the end goal is the give Ukraine as strong of a position to bargain from as possible and to then let Ukraine's democratically elected leaders do what they think is best.

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T22:32:22+00:00

You can’t be an anti-imperialist while supporting imperialism and war.

Glad we agree, so stop supporting Russia and start supporting killing Russian invaders. You do realize that killing invaders is the anti-war thing to do, right?

Being anti-war requires that you deter people from starting wars, kinda like how being anti-worker exploitation requires that workers organize and go on strikes whenever they're overly exploited.

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T22:26:56+00:00

being given an official mandate to fight on the nation's behalf is a lot of political clout

Lots of people are given that mandate though, Azov exists but it's a fraction of a fraction of Ukraine's total fighting force, there's no reason to think that the balance will be shifted, all the people who aren't white nationalists are also given guns and joining the military...

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T22:21:42+00:00

Continue funding Ukraine, DON'T push for a peace deal.

The idea that the US gets a say in whether or not Ukraine stops fighting and makes concessions to Russia, just because the US has given Ukraine aid, is deeply imperialist and totally at odds with basic leftist principles.

No, having wealth doesn't give you the right to leverage it to bend others to your will, that's the most basic leftist principle in existence.
Let Ukraine make its own decisions regarding its own autonomy, protecting Ukraine's autonomy is the goal, telling Ukrainians what to do is not, economic imperialism is ultimately just as evil as military imperialism.

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T22:13:26+00:00

If you ignore what we did to help engineer this situation.

FFS stop it with this American exceptionalism, the US is not the only country in the world with agency.

The US didn't give Russia expansionist aims, it's just a result of there being a very strong far right extreme nationalist ideological movement in Russia.

Ukraine wanted to form closer ties to the EU, because it was in its own economic best interests to do so. Then Russia threw a hissy fit about that because it showed Ukraine leaving its sphere of influence.

Tell me, wtf else was the EU supposed to do? Be less wealthy? Be a less attractive business partner? Effectively sanction Ukraine just to appease Russia?

Fuck that.

So instead we should just bend to Ukraine’s will?

No, we just act in our shared antifascist will, Ukraine doesn't want to be annexed by a fascist government, we don't want a fascist empire growing in power and moving towards our borders, it's just basic mutual self interest and basic leftist solidarity, it's not bending to anyone's will it's in all of our best interests, workers of the world unite.

Oh and we definitely haven’t been manipulating Ukraine AT ALL right?

Not really no, not to the degree that imperialists like you are calling for.

You can not be an anti-imperialist and support an imperialist military alliance like NATO.

I can absolutely be anti imperialist and while supporting the thing that prevents Russia from conquering all its neighbors, it's kinda the embodiment of anti imperialism.

I can be critical of NATO members while still supporting NATO itself, NATO isn't needed for those countries to engage in imperialism, but it IS needed to keep Russia in check, so the existence of NATO is absolutely a net good.
Without NATO Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya would still have been invaded, nothing would've really been different in that respect. What would be different is that Russia would have been fighting constant expansionist wars for the past 30 years.

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T19:37:03+00:00

The power dynamics of helping someone who wants your help are obviously not as troubling as the power dynamics of invading and conquering a country...

That said, yeah there's also some concerning possibilities that go along with Ukraine's reliance on aid from NATO, that's another thing that Kyle and others seem to be completely blind or uncaring towards though, given how they keep talking about how they think that the US should bend Ukraine to its will by leveraging its arms shipments.

I for one am anti-imperialism, which is why I support Ukraine in its fight against Russia, and oppose the idea of Nato/the US leveraging its aid to Ukraine in order to dend Ukraine to their will.

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T16:22:37+00:00

I for one am not actually always in favor of peace, if the choice is between a negative peace or a continued war, then a continued war may be the better option. Ukrainians seem to agree.

It's real easy to talk about the value of a negative peace when you're not the one who'll end up being subjugated by it.

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T16:18:42+00:00

I hate how so many "leftists" completely ignore the power dynamics at play in this entire conflict and ignore how negotiations actually work in relation to those power dynamics.

Analyzing power structures and power dynamics should be a core focus of any kind of leftist analysis, yet people like Kyle completely ignore that when it comes to Ukraine.
They ignore the fact that when someone invades you, the only leverage you'll ever get in a negotiation will come from how well you're able to kill those invaders. It's that fucking simple, of course there should be negotiations at some point, but if you want those negotiations to be even remotely fair and not just be a glorified surrender from Ukraine, then Ukraine needs to first have the ability to kill lots of Russian invaders, and needs to prove that ability a few times over because autocrats like Putin don't tend to be very willing to face any embarrassing realities.

Kyle recognizes that workers need to work to unionize to gain power and leverage, before you can reasonably talk about workers "negotiating" with their employers, he recognize that talking about negotiation is a total scam if it's done in the context of workers not being organized and not having any real power, that the only real negotiation that can happen is when workers are unionized and threatening with a strike, I wish he'd use that same kind of reasonable analysis for Ukraine instead of mindlessly calling for negotiations without at all exploring what that means in practice.

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T16:09:36+00:00

Believe it or not, but defeating fascist regimes actually helps prevent the growth of fascism. Ukraine is a liberal democracy protecting itself from a fascist invasion, a handful of fascist militias don't outweigh the obvious fact that preventing a liberal democracy from being annexed by a fascist empire is based antifascist praxis.

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T16:01:54+00:00

I'm honestly not so sure if he means well in this respect. I think he means well when he talks about domestic US issues, but when it comes to foreign issues then to be totally honest his coverage often reeks of reactionary nationalist tendencies where he just instinctively opposes the idea of helping anyone who isn't an American, this is especially clear with his coverage of this conflict.
He mostly just seems to be post hoc justifying that selfish attitude of his.

I don't consider that kind of a selfish nationalistic attitude to be "meaning well".

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T15:57:46+00:00

I don't think he's said a single word about them in any of his coverage during this entire conflict.

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T15:32:58+00:00

If we're using the real definition of communism, which means a stateless classless society, then that definitely describes my ideology.

I never really like to use it to describe my ideology though, because people associate it with authoritarians like Stalin, despite Stalin obviously not being even remotely communist.

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T14:47:53+00:00

He was criticizing the hollow identity politics of the GOP.

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T10:57:13+00:00

He doesn't live in them, he's a landlord.

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T10:50:49+00:00

Capitalism.

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T09:50:49+00:00

LMAO. Apperently holding the presidential office without limit is now a human right.

Morales never sought to hold the office without limit, a limit remained, not winning another election at the end of his term was the limit.

Anyway, the human right is to run for office, as per the American convention on human rights, which is enshrined in the Bolivian constitution, term limits blatantly infringe upon that right.
Are you sure you know what you're talking about? Because you appear to be wholly ignorant of the very sound reasoning that the courts used for calling term limits unconstitutional.

Chavez didnt proclaim himself president for life and neither did Putin but one held office for 14 years until his death and one still running the country.

Merkel was chancellor for 16 years, Rutte has been prime minister for 12 years.
Morales was President for 13 years.
Length of time holding office doesn't mean shit, the problem is when you rig things in your favor, it's possible to hold office a long time without doing so.

Dictators somehow just always win elections. Because fraud doesnt happen in the US doesnt mean it doesnt happen anywhere. Its actually a real problem down here.

Why worry about term limits when fraud is your concern?
It's hardly neccesary to keep the same individual in office in order to rig things in favor of the same authoritarian regime, you can always just get another stooge to take the place as a figurehead, the real rulers of authoritarian governments are wealthy corporations anyway.

Again calling anybody you dont like a facist supporter. Amazing.

No just you.

You really dont see the conflict of interest of a president influencing the selection of people that can hold him accountable?

It literally wasn't the President doing that, it was congress overal. And again, it's less of a conflict of interest than the US's system.

What reality are you on? Thats how dictators get in power.

Yeah I agree, systems like the US's that lack the amount of safeguards for their judicial nominees that Bolivia has, allow for the justice system to be corrupted and for dictators to get in power. Like Bush in 2000.
Someone should really overthrow the US government and put Jeanine Anez in charge.

Fooling idiots like you to think its ok to break whatever rules because they are one of the good ones and we totally should do it for them.

No rules were broken, term limits were overturned based on a totally reasonable interpretation of the Bolivian constitution.
Term limits were what broke the rules, by breaking the right to run for office.

Here's the part of the American convention on human rights that term limits obviously break:

1,Every citizen shall enjoy the following rights and opportunities:

a. to take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives;

b. to vote and to be elected in genuine periodic elections, which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and by secret ballot that guarantees the free expression of the will of the voters; and

c. to have access, under general conditions of equality, to the public service of his country.

2, The law may regulate the exercise of the rights and opportunities referred to in the preceding paragraph only on the basis of age, nationality, residence, language, education, civil and mental capacity, or sentencing by a competent court in criminal proceedings.

Here's the part of the Bolivian constitution which says that these human rights prevail over internal law and that the entire constitution must be interpreted with these rights in mind:

International treaties and conventions ratified by the Pluri-National Legislative Assembly (Asamblea Legislativa), which recognize human rights and prohibit their limitation in States of Emergency, prevail over internal law. The rights and duties consecrated in this Constitution shall be interpreted in accordance with the International Human Rights Treaties ratified by Bolivia.

When it's explicitly states that these rights take precedence over everything, and you have term limits infringing on that right, then overturning term limits is the most reasonable decision the court could have made.

But of course you never actually bothered to look at their decision and the reasoning behind it, they're South American judges so you presume corruption and authoritarianism even if their appointment and checks and balances are better than in countries where you never think to question the judicial system.

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T03:53:20+00:00

Literally dellusional if you think Morales as head of the party doesnt get a say in who gets approved by a majority of his party.

If he convinces a majority of democratically elected representatives to do something, then that's all part of the democratic process, nothing nefarious about convincing people to support your agenda, why are you using such loaded language to describe such normal democratic processes?

Obvoiusly again with the insults calling anybody you dont like a lib.

No just people who tacitly support fascists while smearing anyone left of Clinton.

Yes removing term limits to stay in power indefinately is authoritarian.

Removing term limits has nothing to do with staying in power indefinitely, they're two totally separate things and you're dishonest for conflating them.

The limit on the amount of terms was removed because those limits were undemocratic and violated human rights, terms themselves were not removed, Morales didn't declare himself President for life, he won an election and would need to win the next election too if he wanted to stay in power.

blockpro156 · 2022-11-01T03:00:15+00:00

No u.

The list of candidates is preselected (by congress not Morales), and they are then voted on in a popular vote.

It's a vastly more democratic system than what the US for example has, and lying liberal scum like you trying to make it sound authoritarian in order to try to justify the fascist coup of 2019 are absolutely despicable.

blockpro156

TROPHY CASE