On one hand, sanctions seem to only hurt the citizens of the countries they’re aimed at. Oftentimes this results in more deaths or food scarcity.
On the other, what is someone to do when something like the Russian invasion happens if you’d like to harm the offending nation and prevent further aggression/abuse? I legitimately do not know, and would love a take on some alternatives for punishing those kinds of things. I don’t think America does it right, especially when it takes very little to see who’s offenses we turn a blind eye to and who we demonize.
So sanctions not only apparently have an effect of primarily hurting civilians, they do and this is part of why the U.S. loves using them so much. Their tried-and-tested geopolitical strategy when dealing with countries who disobey them is a several front war. One aspect of their warfare is pushing the citizens of the country not only to die to weaken it economically and hurt morale and stability, but to push them to oust their own government. This is of course in tandem with propaganda, usually to suggest that the economic hardship brought on by the sanctions is the fault of their own government’s system, the “regime,” etc.
The Russian invasion is a poor example because this is a justified invasion in response to U.S. provocation, and because the U.S. wants to destroy Russia whether or not its civilians suffer. If we can see how, for example, how the collective anti-imperialist forces of the world have dealt with the belligerently murderous U.S., the strategy has been to try and deprive them of siphons they use to rob countries and fuel their war machine. China/Russia has done this simply by offering viable trade alternatives to dealing with the West, as one example. Military action is another route, as we have seen Niger and Ghana oust their Western puppet governments militarily. The war in Ukraine is also an example; NATO kept creeping forward, and fascists in Ukraine kept escalating violent attacks in the Donbas, so as much as Russia tried diplomacy for 8 years they eventually had to do something.
One good thing about truly aggressive/abusive countries, as history shows, is that they destroy themselves as much as they are destroyed by external retaliation. Part of the strategy to corral the U.S. is to not overplay their hands, do what is necessary (cut the siphons and stop new ones from forming), and let the rabid dog froth it out til it consumes itself.
Of course, in a just world order it would also make sense to punish the leaders who orchestrate such conflicts, but until the UN and the Hague are actual representations of world democracy and justice and not by and large just ways that the U.S. consolidates and legitimizes its power and punishes its enemies, this will be impossible.
This is me acknowledging upfront that I’m typing back to some sort of chatgpt-like AI bot. Aintnoway this is a person. I’m drawing this conclusion based off the complete fucking irrelevancy of this question in the context of the OP meme.
Here’s a spicy meatball for you: America is basically always the fucking “bad guy” historically, minus literally two times both of which it took waaaaaaayyyy too long to finally intervene. 100 years in the case of the union army finally ending chattel slavery in the US and years + a provoking attack in the case of fighting world-wide fascism. Every other war or military action the US has done, broadly without exception, has been evil shit, bad, solely for the interests of US capital (first) and/or allied nations such as the UK, France, etc. and their capital and imperial interests.
So, the obvious question then is: who the fuck does the US think it is to be the great arbiter of truth?
The country that bombed an entire northern half of a nation so heavily that no buildings existed basically? And for what? Wanting a democracy more aligned with the USSR and/or China? (DPRK or North Korea if this isn’t obvious).
Or the country that dropped two unnecessary atomic bombs on Japan basically with the intention of scaring the shit out of the USSR? And why did the USSR need scaring? Why did all those Japanese civilians need to be vaporized? Because, again, the USSR was explicitly opposed to US capital interests and this was simply unacceptable. The US gov would (and still does) happily vaporize millions of people if trade networks and access to resources can be maintained.
Hey here’s a relevant one to ponder considering the Russia/Ukraine conflict: you mean the country that funded a group of mostly psychopaths and religious fundamentalists in Afghanistan and the general region in the 1970-1980s who ran across that country murdering, raping, doing truly unspeakable shit, basically forced Soviet intervention in an attempt to maintain some semblance of a government. And then several decades later led basically directly to the 9/11 events and two more decades of the US ruthlessly bombing and murdering and supporting the same warlords… you’re telling me this country that would befriend and support people like bin Laden gets to say who’s the “bad guy” in the world?
So, off the bat, the US’s opinion is less than dogshit in value. Even dogshit would be disgusted at stepping in the US’s opinion.
If there ever to be any sort of intervention for some sort of righteous cause it absolutely has to start with the US sitting the fuck out of any negotiations, talks, votes, whatever. The US has proven too many times for 100 years+ that it absolutely cannot be trusted to do ANYTHING good. It will poison any discussion- something becoming very clear and apparent to world leaders who are now often seeking to bypass the US and use countries like China as an intermediary.
But you have open discussions, UN votes and such, you find the facts of the situation, and you figure out what the most “just” end to a conflict is.
It gets sketchy from there because I’m basically never going to justify bombing countries. It’s not happening. I could potentially see justification for a UN sanctioned removal (assassination) of especially toxic leaders… but the problem there, of course, is complicated by so many questions: “do we have access to all the relevant facts? What is the CIA (or to be totally fair: Russia or Chinese intelligence) hiding from us? How did the person/political group gain power? Trace it allllllll the way back. Who benefits from their downfall or continued time in power? Who loses? Is this just more US bullshit (always the first and main question from me)?”
Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi in Libya, bin Laden, Pol Pot, my list can continue, are all specific reasons that I find it very very very hard to believe the ANY US state dept condemnation and “justification for war.” Even fucking Putin is the direct fucking result of US interference and meddling that eventually caused the dissolution of the Soviet Union (in part anyway) and the resulting catastrophic, what I’d call a genocide, mass privatization and selling off of public property for pennies on the dollar of its actual value in former Soviet states which resulted in a shitload of suicides, material conditions plummeting, and, eventually, “strong men” like Putin rising up and seizing it from the puppets the US put in power.
So when it comes to the Ukraine/Russia stuff, all I can do, with all the historical context, is say “well, this was expected.” I really do feel bad for normal people caught up in the bullshit. I just think many Americans fail to grasp a very plain and simple truth: the American government is the reason for the shit in Ukraine. Whether you think Putin has a point or that he’s doing infinite genocide, it doesn’t matter, he’s there, those countries exist, because of meddling from the fucking United States. My main concern is less-so over a border conflict (which honestly I do not give a half fuck about- help evacuate Ukrainians who don’t want to be Russian and then cede the eastern parts to Russia. Why do Europeans care again? Oh yeah, orcs, bad guys, etc. never mind!) but more focused on Americans learning fucking something after the same thing happening a hundred times. Stop fucking meddling and stop creating reasons for war! And stop fucking falling for the state department lines like “well, maybe we did do some bad stuff! But Putin is doing it NOW! So we gotta stop him!” No. No, we never have to do anything. It’s a false dichotomy. It’s bullshit sold to tug on your poor American exceptionalism feefees and make you go “yeah, we blundered around. That was bad. But we meant well! Putin is just an evil orc-man!” I know it’s hard as fuck for Americans to accept that we are the bad guys, we did and do the bad shit, and that more meddling will never undo or fix OR EVEN HAS THE TRUE INTENTION OF “FIXING” situations once they boil over. That’s hard to accept, it sucks knowing that people before you put dominos in place and the least-bad option for you is mostly to stand back and let shit happen. If you try to put more dominos in or stop some from toppling, I can promise you based on all available history, those dominos are millions of people’s lives and you’re just setting up more to die no matter any sort of intentions you may have (which are probably wrong and misguided anyway).
Ooh! I love it when they tone police like this. Nothing says “I’m definitely right” quite like refusing to read anything that might contradict your position just because someone was rude on the internet.
I don’t even see how I was being rude. It’s more of a joke or whatever you might call it to say “someone’s questions and/or actions are so out of line that I believe a bot is posting.”
Maybe it’s not a good joke, or funny or whatever, which is fine, but I don’t agree with the assertion that I was being overly rude. I think he’s just irritated someone came in and listed a bunch of pretty much irrefutable shit and destroyed his little attempt to change the conversation.
If you type like a bot, I’m gonna call you a bot. I outlined my reasoning which was “your question had absolutely nothing to do with the OP’s meme.”
I apologize when I’m wrong, so I won’t be apologizing here.
I don’t know what the removed portion says, whether that’s on my end censoring or just rules around here, but feel free to DM me what was after “were a” and before the comma. I’m curious what I was being.
On one hand, sanctions seem to only hurt the citizens of the countries they’re aimed at. Oftentimes this results in more deaths or food scarcity.
On the other, what is someone to do when something like the Russian invasion happens if you’d like to harm the offending nation and prevent further aggression/abuse? I legitimately do not know, and would love a take on some alternatives for punishing those kinds of things. I don’t think America does it right, especially when it takes very little to see who’s offenses we turn a blind eye to and who we demonize.
Hello friend,
So sanctions not only apparently have an effect of primarily hurting civilians, they do and this is part of why the U.S. loves using them so much. Their tried-and-tested geopolitical strategy when dealing with countries who disobey them is a several front war. One aspect of their warfare is pushing the citizens of the country not only to die to weaken it economically and hurt morale and stability, but to push them to oust their own government. This is of course in tandem with propaganda, usually to suggest that the economic hardship brought on by the sanctions is the fault of their own government’s system, the “regime,” etc.
The Russian invasion is a poor example because this is a justified invasion in response to U.S. provocation, and because the U.S. wants to destroy Russia whether or not its civilians suffer. If we can see how, for example, how the collective anti-imperialist forces of the world have dealt with the belligerently murderous U.S., the strategy has been to try and deprive them of siphons they use to rob countries and fuel their war machine. China/Russia has done this simply by offering viable trade alternatives to dealing with the West, as one example. Military action is another route, as we have seen Niger and Ghana oust their Western puppet governments militarily. The war in Ukraine is also an example; NATO kept creeping forward, and fascists in Ukraine kept escalating violent attacks in the Donbas, so as much as Russia tried diplomacy for 8 years they eventually had to do something.
One good thing about truly aggressive/abusive countries, as history shows, is that they destroy themselves as much as they are destroyed by external retaliation. Part of the strategy to corral the U.S. is to not overplay their hands, do what is necessary (cut the siphons and stop new ones from forming), and let the rabid dog froth it out til it consumes itself.
Of course, in a just world order it would also make sense to punish the leaders who orchestrate such conflicts, but until the UN and the Hague are actual representations of world democracy and justice and not by and large just ways that the U.S. consolidates and legitimizes its power and punishes its enemies, this will be impossible.
America has invaded soooo many countries. They have no right to sanction anyone for anything.
This is me acknowledging upfront that I’m typing back to some sort of chatgpt-like AI bot. Aintnoway this is a person. I’m drawing this conclusion based off the complete fucking irrelevancy of this question in the context of the OP meme.
Here’s a spicy meatball for you: America is basically always the fucking “bad guy” historically, minus literally two times both of which it took waaaaaaayyyy too long to finally intervene. 100 years in the case of the union army finally ending chattel slavery in the US and years + a provoking attack in the case of fighting world-wide fascism. Every other war or military action the US has done, broadly without exception, has been evil shit, bad, solely for the interests of US capital (first) and/or allied nations such as the UK, France, etc. and their capital and imperial interests.
So, the obvious question then is: who the fuck does the US think it is to be the great arbiter of truth?
The country that bombed an entire northern half of a nation so heavily that no buildings existed basically? And for what? Wanting a democracy more aligned with the USSR and/or China? (DPRK or North Korea if this isn’t obvious).
Or the country that dropped two unnecessary atomic bombs on Japan basically with the intention of scaring the shit out of the USSR? And why did the USSR need scaring? Why did all those Japanese civilians need to be vaporized? Because, again, the USSR was explicitly opposed to US capital interests and this was simply unacceptable. The US gov would (and still does) happily vaporize millions of people if trade networks and access to resources can be maintained.
Hey here’s a relevant one to ponder considering the Russia/Ukraine conflict: you mean the country that funded a group of mostly psychopaths and religious fundamentalists in Afghanistan and the general region in the 1970-1980s who ran across that country murdering, raping, doing truly unspeakable shit, basically forced Soviet intervention in an attempt to maintain some semblance of a government. And then several decades later led basically directly to the 9/11 events and two more decades of the US ruthlessly bombing and murdering and supporting the same warlords… you’re telling me this country that would befriend and support people like bin Laden gets to say who’s the “bad guy” in the world?
So, off the bat, the US’s opinion is less than dogshit in value. Even dogshit would be disgusted at stepping in the US’s opinion.
If there ever to be any sort of intervention for some sort of righteous cause it absolutely has to start with the US sitting the fuck out of any negotiations, talks, votes, whatever. The US has proven too many times for 100 years+ that it absolutely cannot be trusted to do ANYTHING good. It will poison any discussion- something becoming very clear and apparent to world leaders who are now often seeking to bypass the US and use countries like China as an intermediary.
But you have open discussions, UN votes and such, you find the facts of the situation, and you figure out what the most “just” end to a conflict is.
It gets sketchy from there because I’m basically never going to justify bombing countries. It’s not happening. I could potentially see justification for a UN sanctioned removal (assassination) of especially toxic leaders… but the problem there, of course, is complicated by so many questions: “do we have access to all the relevant facts? What is the CIA (or to be totally fair: Russia or Chinese intelligence) hiding from us? How did the person/political group gain power? Trace it allllllll the way back. Who benefits from their downfall or continued time in power? Who loses? Is this just more US bullshit (always the first and main question from me)?”
Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi in Libya, bin Laden, Pol Pot, my list can continue, are all specific reasons that I find it very very very hard to believe the ANY US state dept condemnation and “justification for war.” Even fucking Putin is the direct fucking result of US interference and meddling that eventually caused the dissolution of the Soviet Union (in part anyway) and the resulting catastrophic, what I’d call a genocide, mass privatization and selling off of public property for pennies on the dollar of its actual value in former Soviet states which resulted in a shitload of suicides, material conditions plummeting, and, eventually, “strong men” like Putin rising up and seizing it from the puppets the US put in power.
So when it comes to the Ukraine/Russia stuff, all I can do, with all the historical context, is say “well, this was expected.” I really do feel bad for normal people caught up in the bullshit. I just think many Americans fail to grasp a very plain and simple truth: the American government is the reason for the shit in Ukraine. Whether you think Putin has a point or that he’s doing infinite genocide, it doesn’t matter, he’s there, those countries exist, because of meddling from the fucking United States. My main concern is less-so over a border conflict (which honestly I do not give a half fuck about- help evacuate Ukrainians who don’t want to be Russian and then cede the eastern parts to Russia. Why do Europeans care again? Oh yeah, orcs, bad guys, etc. never mind!) but more focused on Americans learning fucking something after the same thing happening a hundred times. Stop fucking meddling and stop creating reasons for war! And stop fucking falling for the state department lines like “well, maybe we did do some bad stuff! But Putin is doing it NOW! So we gotta stop him!” No. No, we never have to do anything. It’s a false dichotomy. It’s bullshit sold to tug on your poor American exceptionalism feefees and make you go “yeah, we blundered around. That was bad. But we meant well! Putin is just an evil orc-man!” I know it’s hard as fuck for Americans to accept that we are the bad guys, we did and do the bad shit, and that more meddling will never undo or fix OR EVEN HAS THE TRUE INTENTION OF “FIXING” situations once they boil over. That’s hard to accept, it sucks knowing that people before you put dominos in place and the least-bad option for you is mostly to stand back and let shit happen. If you try to put more dominos in or stop some from toppling, I can promise you based on all available history, those dominos are millions of people’s lives and you’re just setting up more to die no matter any sort of intentions you may have (which are probably wrong and misguided anyway).
I mean, I’d read your comment, but you asserted i was a bot and were a cunt, so I suddenly lost interest.
Good luck with your book, I hope to read it when your tone is more tolerable.
Don’t kid yourself, you wouldn’t read it anyway.
Ooh! I love it when they tone police like this. Nothing says “I’m definitely right” quite like refusing to read anything that might contradict your position just because someone was rude on the internet.
I don’t even see how I was being rude. It’s more of a joke or whatever you might call it to say “someone’s questions and/or actions are so out of line that I believe a bot is posting.”
Maybe it’s not a good joke, or funny or whatever, which is fine, but I don’t agree with the assertion that I was being overly rude. I think he’s just irritated someone came in and listed a bunch of pretty much irrefutable shit and destroyed his little attempt to change the conversation.
If you type like a bot, I’m gonna call you a bot. I outlined my reasoning which was “your question had absolutely nothing to do with the OP’s meme.”
I apologize when I’m wrong, so I won’t be apologizing here.
I don’t know what the removed portion says, whether that’s on my end censoring or just rules around here, but feel free to DM me what was after “were a” and before the comma. I’m curious what I was being.
Lemmy has a slur filter. It replaces them with
*removed*as you saw