4 ms·

One thing I've noticed is that people who are very anti-america often end up being very pro other anti-america people. Choamsky comes to mind. America bad, ther

One thing I've noticed is that people who are very anti-america often end up being very pro other anti-america people. Choamsky comes to mind. America bad, therefore Russia good. I'm not a fan of the CIA, to put it mildly, but the idea that the US "provoked" Russia into invading Ukraine is obvious Russian propaganda. Here's a heuristic for knowing if something is Russian propaganda: is it a story where Russia has no agency? Then it's Russian propaganda. You'll notice the amount of stories floating around where Russia is portrayed as "we had no choice, there was nothing else we could do". Notice that American propaganda is very different. The US illegally invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, but it never defended its position as "Isis is there, we have no choice but to invade", or "Sadam has WMD, we have no choice but to invade". No, the way that America writes its propaganda is very different. It says "we do have a choice, and we choose X because of freedom/national security interest/whatever". It's very telling that Russia is always "we had no choice". It's self-victimization propaganda, coming from a weak country.

ttonkytonk 3y ago
While I think your first sentence is true, I think this is a consequence of being human - i.e. it's hard to be an objective observer. Remember, all these countries were Warsaw Pact countries. And from my limited knowledge of the situation I recall that Russia's attempt to join NATO was basically responded with, "You have to wait your turn" as if they were just another country, not the country that the alliance was formed because of to begin with. It's kind of like the story of the prodigal son, only instead of a joyous welcome the father tells him to "wait his turn". It's also occurred to me that things like not allowing Russian athletes to fly their flag at the Olympics must be profoundly humiliating. I remember happening to see a speech a neo-con made where they called the idea of thinking of countries in terms of international citizens (and therefore the U.S. should behave like a good citizen) "crazy", but the question is, "how else should we act?" It's kind of like thinking of various universities in terms of their sports rivalries, instead of institutions of higher learning working for a common cause. In conclusion, the observation that critics think in terms of moral polarities applies equally to the criticized, and should be cold comfort.

ttonkytonk 3y ago

While I think your first sentence is true, I think this is a consequence of being human - i.e. it's hard to be an objective observer. Remember, all these countries were Warsaw Pact countries. And from my limited knowledge of the situation I recall that Russia's attempt to join NATO was basically responded with, "You have to wait your turn" as if they were just another country, not the country that the alliance was formed because of to begin with. It's kind of like the story of the prodigal son, only instead of a joyous welcome the father tells him to "wait his turn". It's also occurred to me that things like not allowing Russian athletes to fly their flag at the Olympics must be profoundly humiliating. I remember happening to see a speech a neo-con made where they called the idea of thinking of countries in terms of international citizens (and therefore the U.S. should behave like a good citizen) "crazy", but the question is, "how else should we act?" It's kind of like thinking of various universities in terms of their sports rivalries, instead of institutions of higher learning working for a common cause. In conclusion, the observation that critics think in terms of moral polarities applies equally to the criticized, and should be cold comfort.