Even though federation has led to racists and/or NATO defenders showing up, I've also encountered a number if very cool people from other instances posting things like helpful advice on federation stuff, vivid descriptions of getting vored by a pack of anthro-hyenas, interesting insights and opinions on Star Trek lore, etc. I still haven't found much in the way of active hobby communities, but it's pretty cool to see more Star Trek and furry stuff in the timeline, and I feel it makes having to deal with the occasional deranged lib worth it.
Anyways, to all the genuinely cool people who wander into Hexbear threads, I'm very glad you've showed up to bless us with your wonderful posts and I hope you stick around.
Despite probably being labeled a NATO sympathizer, I'm confused about your stance towards NATO and I wanted to ask a question:
Do you agree that Ukraine was invaded by russia, and that Ukraine has a right to defend itself? Are russia the bad guys in your general worldview?
NATO is a big part of the support for Ukraine, so I'd like to understand the people here and why NATO is disliked/hated.
Sorry if this comes across as trolling, I've found a lot of threads from CTH that I've enjoyed but I don't want to jump in without understanding things first.
Ukraine certainly was invaded by Russia, but let’s be clear about why exactly Russia invaded. The US/NATO had been pushing for membership and for Ukraine to host US missiles. These things have been explicitly opposed by Russia since even before Putin was president, and this was the stated reason for the invasion. Imagine if Russia decided to install missiles in a country close to the US, like Cuba for example? This of course happened and the US freaked out leading to a tense nuclear standoff.
Also, since the invasion, US leaders have repeatedly stated that their goal is to pull Russia into a forever war in Ukraine. They have stymied Ukrainian attempts at negotiating and are not at all interested in peace or “democracy” for the Ukrainian people.
Russia invaded and was wrong to do so, but the US/NATO helped instigate the war in the first place and continue to use Ukraine as a pawn for their own geopolitical goals at the expense of ordinary Ukrainians. Trying to frame it in terms of “good guys” and “bad guys” is absolutely wrong imo and oversimplifies what is really going on. The correct position in my view is to support negotiations that would end the conflict and allow ordinary people there to live normal lives again. This is something that the US/NATO has repeatedly opposed.
This is also in my opinion a good video on the topic and worth watching: https://youtube.com/watch?v=WZv0-0cx96g&feature=sharea
In addition to this, NATO has a pretty horrible history of involvement in things like rigging elections and supporting terrorist groups. Operation Gladio is a good place to start on reading about that: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio NATO is, and always has been, a tool of US empire and nothing else. Of course people here would oppose it.
nah, good faith questions never come off as trolling. anyone who wants to learn is welcome here.
They are currently waging a hybrid war against most countries in the world. For every year of my living memory either NATO is bombing some place in the middle east, waging lawfare/starvation wars against countries in south america, or all of the above against someone in Africa. NATO is the sort of group that would rather see the peoples of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger die of hunger rather than pay market price for their goods. NATO will continue to blockade Venezuela until their oil is owned by american shareholders. NATO has bombed half of the muslim world, and now insists that it's leadership has been bought off by perfidious chinese money. And the Chinese, who played the game and followed the rules, even they must be cowed into poverty and submission.
It's a defensive alliance between warmongerers, and I know that if NATO decided to stage nukes/troops against my people we wouldn't be able to resist. Of course we stand with Russia. We wish we were them. We wish Libya could have resisted NATO. We wish Syria could resist NATO. We wish Iran, Cuba, Iraq, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Niger, Palestine, and so many others could resist NATO. We can only hope that China and Russia can, because if they can't, we are truly doomed to NATO's whims.
And NATO's made it clear. We are the jungle. We are less than human. And we are treated as such.
What you see as double standards is just us trying to survive your governments.
g00d post
I noticed you consistently capitalized Ukraine and consistently used lowercase for Russia here. This kind of stuff was started by the far-right reactionary regime in Ukraine to further dehumanize Russians by refusing to recognize them as a legitimate people. You would do well to abandon this trend and properly capitalize Russia, acknowledging that Russians are in-fact human. Some people are lazy in their typing, but this seems to be deliberate in this case.
Edit: Checking your post history, there's another instance of this from 7 days ago as of the time of this post. Russians are as human as anybody else, and shouldn't be demoted to sub-human levels by refusing to capitalize the words "Russia" and "Russians". Regardless of how you may personally feel about the Russian government's actions, it's not okay to deny recognizing an entire people's fundamental humanity.
Edit Edit: Checking your post history from other instances reveals far more instances of this, all consistent. Point stands.
This is true. I don't apologize for it (yet?), but I don't intend to deny their humanity and I'm kind of shaken that it's interpreted that way. Which is entirely on me, and I wanted to thank you for the shock because it's a blind spot I don't like to have. I obviously have some thinking to do.
Not capitalizing certain names is my personal choice to show that by their actions they no longer have my respect. For instance I do the same for the billionaires that are constantly in the news, and the ex president who has tried to steal the election.
My reasoning/feeling for applying it to russia is that their state TV shows constantly dehumanize Ukraine. Regardless of history and how the point was reached, russia invaded Ukraine and have stated clearly that they consider the state of Ukraine to simply not exist. Ukrainians have been tortured, raped, and systematically genocided by russia.
Respectfully, I understand that you or many here may not agree with those statements, but I'm not sure how to progress from there
How about you watch this video about what's actually been going on in Ukraine, that Western media (including all their big tech proxies) has basically censored with a conspiracy of silence on reporting: Ukraine Targets Elon Musk, US Aid Dwindles, Ukraine's Offensive Increasingly Depleted
What ever lack of respect you have for Russia (or anybody, for that matter), you should take that up in the form of airing your grievances in a precise and targeted approach to what exactly you don't like about them or their actions. It is unnecessary to use lowercase when referring to a person or a people's proper identity, as it suggests they are of a lesser or illegitimate race/status. There's acceptable processes for showing you have a dispute with a person or entity (Russian government, for instance), and refusing to capitalize someone's name or race isn't one of them. You've been manipulated into a practice that is against people's fundamental right of having their humanity recognized.
You seriously have to ask yourself if this is worth it, continuing down this path. Do you really want to be remembered this way?
Can I draw from this the implication that you respect
?
I don't have a lot of respect for the democratic party really. Which is outright adoration compared to what I think of the republicans!
Not a libertarian either. I dunno, I don't really fit in. Which isn't some dumb "I'm not like the other ~~girls~~ voters" crap, I just don't agree with much...
Lol I can't stay away today it seems. Oh well, I'm a sucker for punishment I guess.
Of course I'm forgetting a bunch of stuff.
Maybe I should just be Monster Raving Loony party instead?
Remember that you're speaking mainly to communists. I hate the Republicans, the Democrats, the Libertarians, the Greens, and basically any party that you've likely heard of besides the larger communist parties (which are meh). Rejecting all the neoliberal parties is not in itself even slightly incoherent, and it seems that a rejection of the domestic aspects of neoliberalism are your strongest throughline here.
I agree with almost every bullet point as-presented, discounting the second one because you express ambivalence there anyway.
I think the "two planet" thing is silly because terraforming Mars is much more expensive, wasteful, and difficult than terraforming Earth, but I don't think you'd split the party over that one. I also disagree about taxing churches, but I think there should be better standards for establishing a church and they should, as you say, be subject to regular auditing.
I furthermore think minors should be allowed on social media but that's kind of a difficult question and there should be more serious age-gating. China has some interesting laws in this respect, actually, with accounts that are tied on the back end to your real-life identity but with that information not displayed to others. It makes it much easier to track down when someone says something alarming (e.g. a bomb threat, talk of being abused, etc.) while letting them have anonymity to their peers and avoid stalking.
But beyond that (and what I said are my personal opinions anyway), everything you said is consistent with common socialist platforms. I think, so long as you're reserved in your communication style, you'd have a good time over on hexbear.net and people would send you reading/videos that you might find interesting and informative.
Here is a video that comes to mind as being relevant to matters that you discuss:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nPVkpWMH9k
And here's a letter written by Lenin that I think you'd like (when Lenin says "liberal" he essentially means "capitalist" and "social democrat" is "communist"):
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/mar/11.htm
You are an excellent person, I'm thankful for our conversation and I appreciate you.
Aw, thanks. I'm glad I got to talk to you too
China by Numbers: Improvements to legal system over the past decade
A look at the country's (China's) progress in improving rule of law
Facebook Targets Cambodia's Prime Minister: A Lesson in Securing Information Space
This myth of other countries salivating for opportunities to penetrate and manipulate the US' information space is complete projection. The US itself leverages its big tech companies' de-facto monopoly on much (if not most) of the world's information space, as Facebook and other US-based big tech firms operate globally and are used for what you've basically parroted about TikTok.
US media/social media platforms have always been used for war-like purposes, even domestically within the US. Every election they strong-arm dissenting views that contradict the narratives the capitalist class finds threatening to their legitimacy and the legitimacy of their system of liberal democracy. You don't have to take my word for it, you'll see it yourself as election season heats up again in the US.
If anything, TikTok has offered people (especially marginalized groups) an alternative that isn't as vulnerable to direct US manipulation via the national security state. That's why the US has hysteria over TikTok; because they can't control it the same way that they can other firms like Facebook which are directly integrated into the various three-letter agencies (most notoriously the CIA and FBI, but also the NSA in terms of data collection and storage). Tiktok offers a place where working class people can more effectively dissent against the US' tyranny without being censored, de-platformed or otherwise sabotaged so easily.
Edit: Your policy positions trend positively overall, so that's comforting.
Nobody's convinced by this weak excuse. You might as well just go all the way by saying "ruZZian" like all the NAFO fellas are doing.
I don't find it very persuasive, but it's a hill absolutely not worth dying on to argue against it compared to looking at the actual content of claims.
I'm not trying to convince you nor anyone. I presented what I feel and think, based on my experience.
It is a complex situation. Russia are definitely bad, and so are NATO. Both want the war. Ukraine is caught in the middle. NATO want to supply weapons and have prevented the peace talks from moving, even when Ukraine has wanted to. Russia has behaved predictably since 2014, made interests clear. Many are unreasonable, but this is geopolitics. Before conflict United States has encouraged violation of Minsk 2 and Ukraine to behave genocidally in eastern Ukraine.
Outside of this NATO is an imperialist alliance which was built by political meddling such as gladio. It is used as a tool to help United States wage war and death over the world for US corporate interests.
Do you agree that the Ukrainian people had the right to defend themselves from the Ukrainian government while it was trying to kill them for being the wrong kind of Ukrainian? Russia didn't just invade, they intervened in an ongoing almost decade long civil war.
There's nothing good about Russia. It's the same sort of neoliberal hellhole "democracy" as europe and america.
Russia is a neoconservative dictatorship, period. The US is crony capitalist hell but it's nowhere as bad as Russia. Try being gay in Texas or Ukraine and tell me it's worse than being gay in Russia.
You're using american definitions rather than human standard definitions of "liberal".
If you understand that Russia is just doing the same thing America usually does it might start to make more sense. Western liberals rabidly defending Ukraine and calling Russia evil is amusing considering they have spent their lives benefiting from the same brutal practices on other countries.
But for a better understanding of this, Russia has for a long time considered Ukraine as effectively their territory or one of their puppet states, much like America does with others. What you are seeing with this invasion is the result of a slow erosion of this notion by western influence. Think of this as a long game aggression similar to how it would be if foreign powers convinced one of the United States' territories to try to secede. That is what people refer to when they speak of NATO aggression. It is all about weakening Russia by removing one of their holds on what used to be their empire. Now they are moving to protect their interests.
You may cry foul at this, but the US would likely find reasons to invade one of it's neighbors (Canada or the United Mexican States) if there was a communist regime change that was propped up by China. You would likely happily argue that the United States has the "right" to per-emptively invade and depose the hostile government to protect its interests. It is strange that you would accusingly ask if Ukraine has the "right" to defend itself, when it could be easily argued that Russia has the "right" to invade. Zelensky is seen as a regime change by Russia and they seek to depose him and bring Ukraine back into their fold.
Considering their prior status, it could be framed that Ukraine is fighting for it's "independence" from Russia, but at the expense of becoming under the thumb of NATO and the rest of Europe. NATO's ambitions for Ukraine are no more honorable than Russia's, and it is the Ukrainian (and Russian) people that will suffer by being caught in the middle of bourgeoisie power struggles between superpowers. The depiction that NATO is merely helping Ukraine defend itself out of the goodness of their hearts is a disingenuous framing of NATO's intentions.
In the end it doesn't matter if a country has a "right" to defend itself, but rather if they are capable of doing so. Ukraine has been on paper an independent country after the collapse of the USSR but functionally seen as still property of Russia, at least notionally. That has weakened to the point where war has broken out. A key take away from understanding the leftist position regarding this war is that we are not very invested in it and don't feel we need to pick a side, but if you really want us to pick a side, most often we will pick Russia. Not because we love Russia, but because we hate NATO.
There is nothing in Russia’s actions that supports this.
If you look at the events leading up to the 2013 Maidan coup, it was very clear that the main wedge issue was the existing tariff-free agreement between Russia and Ukraine and with Ukraine signing the EU Association Agreement, it would open up the floodgates for EU goods to enter Russian market but not the reverse.
Putin did not object to Ukraine signing the deal with EU, simply that they had to work out the tariff issue, and if not, then Ukraine would lose its tariff-free status with Russia, which means a massive loss in trade revenue for Ukraine since Russia was its main trading partner. Putin wanted to talk with both Ukraine and EU but the EU said no, which led to Yanukovych delayed signing the deal with EU because he needed more time to work this out with Moscow - and by then the fascists coup had already been mounted.
What people don’t understand is that the EU Association Agreement was an economic warfare against both Russia (destroying Russia’s domestic industry) and Ukraine (forcing IMF loans and austerity on them).
The 2014 sanctions imposed on Russia due to its annexation of Crimea had effectively erased Russia’s economic growth of the 2000s, why would any country want to do that to itself?
At the end of the day, Russia is yet just another neoliberal state that wanted a stronger business tie with the EU, it doesn’t want to deal with Ukraine’s shit. The Western hegemon did not want Russia to be part of it, and especially with the cheap natural gas Russia was selling Germany and their increasing partnership that had seriously threatened America’s hegemony in Europe. And so, Maidan had to happen. Ukraine war has to happen.
Thank you for this.
In regards to your question, you're more than welcome to stop by our news megathread and ask the same question if you don't think you've received a sufficient answer here or wish to hear more information on the topic