Image Transcription:
An 8-panel Phoebe Teaching Joey meme.
The first panel is Phoebe from Friends saying "Russia".
The second panel is Joey from the same show replying with "Russia".
The third panel is Phoebe saying "has invaded".
The fourth panel is Joey repeating back "has invaded".
The fifth panel is Phoebe saying "Ukraine".
The sixth panel is Joey repeating back "Ukraine".
The seventh panel is Phoebe saying the completed phrase "Russia has invaded Ukraine".
The final panel shows Joey proudly proclaiming "NATO just started a proxy war".
"Russia has invaded Ukraine" is a true statement. "Russia has invaded Ukraine therefore I should do/say/support ..." is false in general, a deceivingly simple deduction that is hiding a lot of complexity under the rug. For example, what do I want to achieve by doing that? Is it beneficial for the working class? Does anyone want me to do it at all costs to support imperialism? Am I using an appropriate framework for extending ethics reasoning to large organizations and groups of people? What actions are lawful? If no one has the power to enforce that a country will not take unlawful action against another, how is it reasonable of me to expect that the other will not defend itself by unlawful force, if that is de facto its only defense? Am I having a positive impact on the world by simply acting against every country that does something I consider unlawful? If I do so more to some countries than others, am I not acting in favor of some countries? Shouldn't I choose what countries I act in favor of? If I don't do it, who is choosing that for me?
I don't know, I wouldn't like my country invaded by a nuclear power, my house bombed, my family kidnapped and murdered, my workplace destroyed, does anybody in the working class think that helps anyone?
There are many hypothetical ways. For example, that might prevent further war in the future, or might be the continuation of an existing conflict. It might alter the balance of power in the world in a way that is eventually beneficial to working class struggle. Hell I can think of thousands of ways in which not starting a war would have been worse than starting it. The fact that you can simply stamp a meme, appeal to emotion and make a huge logic jump without a single word is perplexing.
Hope you stretched before those fuckin gymnastics
Ok, so I need to think bigger, ok:
The invasion has shifted a lot of power in Europe back into NATO and the MIC.
If russia gets anything out of this, it will only demonstrate that challenging borders by force is worth it to all authoritarians out there (even the ones you don't like). Keeping unilateral border change taboo is one of the most effective ways to prevent wars, by removing the long-term economic incentive at the short-term cost of lives and working class suffering.
If russia gets what it wants, expect more nuclear proliferation and a more unstable political landscape.
Humiliating the UN as a mediator and multilateralism by adopting an offensive realist perspective where the strong impose and the weak suffer...those are some working class values right there.
All of these are major working class losses, but keep dreaming about how russia's violence is going to bring about your working class utopia on these foundations of violent bullshit.
Those are very good points, and I agree with most of them. Overall I think this invasion is detrimental to the international interests of the working class. The only part where I disagree with you is that I think bringing about a more unstable geopolitical order (a side effect of the path the conflict has eventually taken) is beneficial, as it will weaken the mechanisms holding together imperialism. I might be wrong though, and I would like to discuss this more in depth to hopefully understand what options I should support. But I fully reject the argument expressed by this meme and some of the people in this thread, as such simple (even emotional) reasoning tends to give me paranoia that I'm being manipulated by ideas created by propagandists. Is it okay if we continue this conversation in the dms?
The assumption that "a more unstable geopolitical order" will "weaken the mechanisms holding together imperialism" seems incredibly flawed, to put it in charitable terms.
By stability I mean we're not going back to russia's beloved 17/18/19th century many-player politics with wars happening everywhere all the time.
With nuclear weapons on the table, you have 2 options: a hegemon "world police" or a bipolar order (US and China).
If you want a true multipolar order and decentralised power, first you will need strong international law and institutions, not more of this imperial crap.
Ok, I'm done.
Your first mistake here is assuming that imperialism is only when the West does it. If Ukraine is forced to give concessions to Russia in any form, any wannabe imperialist now knows they can now chip away other countries' land if they are willing and capable of enacting enough violence, whether that country is Western or not, and they might get away with it. Unstability weakens multilateralism; multilateralism disincentivizes unilateral aggression.
Multilateralism is the exact opposite of what would happen if the US manages to fend off Russia and China. The only way multilateralism can truly emerge is a confrontation between two or more blocks where there is no clear winner and thus big countries need to offer more autonomy to small countries in order to win them over. The US sparking wars to keep poor countries sending raw materials home, leveraging the dollar and nuking from orbit anything that even remotely looks like socialism as they've been doing right up to this point is the worst case scenario, and the global events that are weakening this should go on as much as possible. The best case scenario is that a revolution becomes easier due to instability, and cooperation between socialist powers appears as a new stabilizing force.
What even are words? What is ANYTHING? Ladies and gentlemen of the supposed jury, it DOES NOT MAKE SENSE! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit!
That’s a lot of words to say nothing.
This is a great example of dialectics and why it's garbage.
It's funny how tankies come up with walls of texts but they always exclude the will of the people. Like wtf, is this just a piece of land for you bigger powers argue about?
Over 90% of the people in the country that is at war want to be a part of NATO.
Edit: I was certain that I read about an over 90% agreement about joining NATO but checking for sources the most recent I found said 83%.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/record-83-ukrainians-want-nato-membership-poll-2022-10-03/
Yeah, and people in Crimea never ever wanted to be part of Ukraine, and yet Zelensky has promised to take them back. Same for most (although in this case not all) people in the Donbass, which was invaded by Ukraine in 1917. Putin stated he would invade (or "take back", who cares at this point) just those territories, so doesn't that make him the good guy here? Of course I don't believe he is, or Zelensky is, there are no good guys anywhere in this story.
You're still arguing for an invasion of a sovereign democratic (although, like most countries not without problems but they're definitely taking some massive steps for a more open society and a more transparent government... DURING A WAR) country. And the need for Russia to push through those documented fake elections for separation while they occupied the territory says everything you need to know about how legitimate this whole invasion is.
Yeah, but then it's not "the will of the people" that matters here, but maybe international law or whatever other principles.
Dude you're not making sense at this point. Like not even to yourself I mean to say.
...then "accidentally" launched an attack on Kyiv, on the other side of the country. "Oops, sowwy 🥺", amirite? 🤦
Firstly, I'd like to warn you: you're on [email protected] . You're not going to find many friends here.
Secondly, I gotta say: I can't help but notice some questions very conspicuously absent from your list. Very important questions, too.
If a capitalist wanted me to hand a sandwich to a homeless man, and was rolling the cameras and spewing propaganda about how this couldn't happen in a communist country... I would still hand the sandwich to the homeless man.
Because a man's gotta eat, you know? His needs don't change because some monster has an agenda that gets fulfilled when his needs are met.
Thank you, your answer was very valuable to me. It's helped me get a better perspective on the problem. I have a tendency to cold-bloodedly redirect the trolley, you know? I feel that's the right thing, but I respect your humanity here.
Thanks for hearing me out.
I actually thought long and hard about those questions and came to the conclusion that I should support Ukraine.
Probably not what you were after.
Holy gishgalloping word salad, Batman!
You're using Russian tactics I see, what with all the irrelevant misdirection, confusion and word masturbation. Shut up.
You could have said nothing and saved yourself a ton of time, but here you are writing ALL THAT to say literally nothing.
That's a long way to say you would have opposed fighting against Hitler's Invasion on Poland and, later, the Soviet Union.
The ones that are considered that way by the international community.
International law is designed in a way to prevent war and military/economic powers from exploiting others. So basically to uphold everyone's right to autonomy and independence.
In this case the invasion would be extra unlawful because of bilateral treaties.
I mean usually you do unless you are against others having their right to act independently and keeping their autonomy.
I think most would consider that to be positive.
Yeah, you would very clearly favor the countries that do not invade others in this case.
I could go on and on but the answer to all of these questions is very clear to the absolute majority of people imo.
You need to perform some real mental gymnastics to arrive at a conclusion favoring an invasion if you based your reasoning on these questions and the respective answers.