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In my experience, a very significant proportion of self-reported "anti-fascists" and "anti-imperialists" turn out, upon closer scrutiny, to actually be anti-US-

In my experience, a very significant proportion of self-reported "anti-fascists" and "anti-imperialists" turn out, upon closer scrutiny, to actually be anti-US-fascism and anti-US-imperialism. They ignore, downplay, deny and ridicule all allegations of fascism and imperialism when perpetrated by others, like China or Russia. In a somewhat related vein, there are entirely too many "anti-colonialists" in what is now fashionably called The Global South who, when push comes to shove, reveal themselves to be actually kind of okay with colonialism as long as it's not perpetrated against them. When a colonialist war of aggression is perpetrated against these white folks called "Ukrainians", and perpetrated by Russia, a country they really rather like, then what's a little colonialism between friends? Heck, Russia shows up with a colonialist militia to prop up dictators and mine for diamonds and gold all over the Sahel and it's like, heck yeah, thank for your kicking out the French. Really interesting logic.

komali2 8mo ago
Tankies. I argue with them constantly. My opinion, they're mostly middle class westerners that grew up in a cradle of empire, sucking from the teat of exploitative resource extraction. Then when they stopped seeing the benefits of imperialism as their country fell into late stage capitalism and eating itself alive, they turn their resentment against capitalism and correctly identify it as what's ailing their society, but somehow completely fall for the propaganda that there are socialist countries on this planet that are "fighting capitalism." They do nothing to challenge their deeply rooted western arrogance or imperialist savior complex, and begin lecturing people from smaller nations that actually, it's not imperialism when a country with a red flag does it.
- verall 8mo ago
  I like to think that it is drummed up to increase division between left leaning people but of course I don't really know. Best of luck to you.
  - komali2 8mo ago
    Hah, leftists don't need help drumming up infighting, it's our national pasttime.
- derelicta 8mo ago
  Show one example of Chinese imperialism. Or soviet imperialism. Or Vietnamese imperialism. Or Cuban imperialism.
  - komali2 8mo ago
    Do you mean PRC? The invasion of Tibet is canonically imperialism according to Party doctrine: they were "freeing the population" from the reactionary ruling class, which is maybe a great thing to do, but is by definition imperialism. Making threats against sovereign Taiwan is imperialism, though of course a soft form for now. However it has engaged in imperialist economic pressure such as when it prevented vaccine deliveries to Taiwan during COVID-19, forcing the country to develop its own domestic vaccine. The genocide and economic exploitation in Xinjiang is old school imperialism. As for the soviets, if American operations in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam are imperialism, then so too were Soviet operations in Afghanistan.
    - derelicta 8mo ago
      For Tibet, may I remind you the local population rose up against tyranny. That they requested assistance from their central govt into putting down rabid theocrats is only fair tbh. But as every time, when the people are fighting against criminals, the western press only gives the microphone to the said criminals, especially when the stolen property of those criminals is being freed (the property being humans). Also only fools still believe in a genocide in Xinjiang. Show me the camps. Show me the victims. Show me the refugees. Show me any muslim person genuinely outraged about it. I can show you plenty for Palestine, but for some reason for some western leftists, these people do not count.
      - elefanten 8mo ago
        When one is this far gone into a nationalist information bubble haze, it ceases to be productive to argue with them. Everything this poster demands to be “shown” is openly available in abundance from the relevant victims, decades of it. But offered such material they will quickly categorically dismiss it all and move goal posts again. Yes when CCP undertakes an ethnonationalist settler campaign into Tibet and then instructs the settlers to “call for help”, it can be presented as Tibet “asking” for CCP authoritarianism. Same playbook as Russia in eastern Ukraine. Yes, when the Xinjiang muslim population is terrorized by police state and concentration camps in a country with no free speech, it is hard to find locals publicly complaining and advocating for themselves.
skinnymuch 8mo ago
I’m sure the western chauvinists all over Hacker News and Reddit are actually correct. NATO, US, EU going into East Slavic civilization are the innocent ones. “what's a little colonialism between friends” who has ever said that? Why not stick to what is actually said, that it’s an aggressive war by NATO?
- kspacewalk2 8mo ago
  I'm from Ukraine and I'm very curious about this "East Slavic civilization" you mention. What is it? Are my cousins who are fighting to defend their homes, relatives and neighbours from Russian fascists part of this civilization, or only the scumbags trying to re-colonize them?
  - elefanten 8mo ago
    Yup yup. Evil NATO denying the native “panslavism” that all Slavic people yearn for, to put them safely into the Russian yoke they so love. /s
palmotea 8mo ago
> In my experience, a very significant proportion of self-reported "anti-fascists" and "anti-imperialists" turn out, upon closer scrutiny, to actually be anti-US-fascism and anti-US-imperialism. They ignore, downplay, deny and ridicule all allegations of fascism and imperialism when perpetrated by others, like China or Russia. Or, to put it another way: they're really anti-Americans. It's interesting to see the exaggerated responses to Trump. Objectively, he's less authoritarian than say the PRC, but he's unlocked a lot of probably pre-existing resentment in US allies (probably derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_difference...), and gotten a much stronger and more vicious response. I mean, if you're mad about what happened to that 5 year old immigrant with the hat in Minneapolis, what you you think about what's happening to kids in Xinjiang and Tibet (e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/01/09/world/asia/tibet-china-boarding-schools.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/01/09/world/asia/ti...)? > Gyal Lo, a Tibetan education researcher, became alarmed by the boarding schools in 2016, when he saw that his two preschool-aged grandnieces, who were attending one in his hometown in northwestern China, preferred to speak Mandarin, not Tibetan. > When the grandnieces, then ages 4 and 5, went home on the weekend, he said in an interview, they appeared withdrawn and spoke awkwardly in Tibetan with their parents, much changed from when he saw them in the previous year. Now they behaved “like strangers in their own home,” he said. > “I said to my brother, ‘What if you don’t send them to the boarding school?’” Gyal Lo said. “He said he had no choice.” > Gyal Lo set out to investigate the changes that families were going through as the schools expanded across Tibetan regions in China. Over the next three years he visited dozens of such schools, and saw that many Tibetan students spoke little of their mother tongue and were sometimes only able to see their parents once every several weeks or even months. It's much worse and more systematic.
- kspacewalk2 8mo ago
  I mean, not to descend too deeply into the stereotype of nerds and comic books, but you'd probably be a lot more distraught and critical of Professor X making terrible, self-interested and decidedly unfriendly choices than you would be about Magneto doing Magneto things. Annexing Greenland, even if it did happen, is objectively not nearly as terrible as the genocide of Uygurs or murdering tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians. You just don't expect it from America, that's all. But no worries, give us time, the rest of us are re-calibrating our expectations and next time we won't be nearly so comically shocked.

komali2 8mo ago

Tankies. I argue with them constantly. My opinion, they're mostly middle class westerners that grew up in a cradle of empire, sucking from the teat of exploitative resource extraction. Then when they stopped seeing the benefits of imperialism as their country fell into late stage capitalism and eating itself alive, they turn their resentment against capitalism and correctly identify it as what's ailing their society, but somehow completely fall for the propaganda that there are socialist countries on this planet that are "fighting capitalism." They do nothing to challenge their deeply rooted western arrogance or imperialist savior complex, and begin lecturing people from smaller nations that actually, it's not imperialism when a country with a red flag does it.

verall 8mo ago
I like to think that it is drummed up to increase division between left leaning people but of course I don't really know. Best of luck to you.
- komali2 8mo ago
  Hah, leftists don't need help drumming up infighting, it's our national pasttime.
derelicta 8mo ago
Show one example of Chinese imperialism. Or soviet imperialism. Or Vietnamese imperialism. Or Cuban imperialism.
- komali2 8mo ago
  Do you mean PRC? The invasion of Tibet is canonically imperialism according to Party doctrine: they were "freeing the population" from the reactionary ruling class, which is maybe a great thing to do, but is by definition imperialism. Making threats against sovereign Taiwan is imperialism, though of course a soft form for now. However it has engaged in imperialist economic pressure such as when it prevented vaccine deliveries to Taiwan during COVID-19, forcing the country to develop its own domestic vaccine. The genocide and economic exploitation in Xinjiang is old school imperialism. As for the soviets, if American operations in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam are imperialism, then so too were Soviet operations in Afghanistan.
  - derelicta 8mo ago
    For Tibet, may I remind you the local population rose up against tyranny. That they requested assistance from their central govt into putting down rabid theocrats is only fair tbh. But as every time, when the people are fighting against criminals, the western press only gives the microphone to the said criminals, especially when the stolen property of those criminals is being freed (the property being humans). Also only fools still believe in a genocide in Xinjiang. Show me the camps. Show me the victims. Show me the refugees. Show me any muslim person genuinely outraged about it. I can show you plenty for Palestine, but for some reason for some western leftists, these people do not count.
    - elefanten 8mo ago
      When one is this far gone into a nationalist information bubble haze, it ceases to be productive to argue with them. Everything this poster demands to be “shown” is openly available in abundance from the relevant victims, decades of it. But offered such material they will quickly categorically dismiss it all and move goal posts again. Yes when CCP undertakes an ethnonationalist settler campaign into Tibet and then instructs the settlers to “call for help”, it can be presented as Tibet “asking” for CCP authoritarianism. Same playbook as Russia in eastern Ukraine. Yes, when the Xinjiang muslim population is terrorized by police state and concentration camps in a country with no free speech, it is hard to find locals publicly complaining and advocating for themselves.

skinnymuch 8mo ago

I’m sure the western chauvinists all over Hacker News and Reddit are actually correct. NATO, US, EU going into East Slavic civilization are the innocent ones. “what's a little colonialism between friends” who has ever said that? Why not stick to what is actually said, that it’s an aggressive war by NATO?

kspacewalk2 8mo ago
I'm from Ukraine and I'm very curious about this "East Slavic civilization" you mention. What is it? Are my cousins who are fighting to defend their homes, relatives and neighbours from Russian fascists part of this civilization, or only the scumbags trying to re-colonize them?
- elefanten 8mo ago
  Yup yup. Evil NATO denying the native “panslavism” that all Slavic people yearn for, to put them safely into the Russian yoke they so love. /s

palmotea 8mo ago

> In my experience, a very significant proportion of self-reported "anti-fascists" and "anti-imperialists" turn out, upon closer scrutiny, to actually be anti-US-fascism and anti-US-imperialism. They ignore, downplay, deny and ridicule all allegations of fascism and imperialism when perpetrated by others, like China or Russia. Or, to put it another way: they're really anti-Americans. It's interesting to see the exaggerated responses to Trump. Objectively, he's less authoritarian than say the PRC, but he's unlocked a lot of probably pre-existing resentment in US allies (probably derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_difference...), and gotten a much stronger and more vicious response. I mean, if you're mad about what happened to that 5 year old immigrant with the hat in Minneapolis, what you you think about what's happening to kids in Xinjiang and Tibet (e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/01/09/world/asia/tibet-china-boarding-schools.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/01/09/world/asia/ti...)? > Gyal Lo, a Tibetan education researcher, became alarmed by the boarding schools in 2016, when he saw that his two preschool-aged grandnieces, who were attending one in his hometown in northwestern China, preferred to speak Mandarin, not Tibetan. > When the grandnieces, then ages 4 and 5, went home on the weekend, he said in an interview, they appeared withdrawn and spoke awkwardly in Tibetan with their parents, much changed from when he saw them in the previous year. Now they behaved “like strangers in their own home,” he said. > “I said to my brother, ‘What if you don’t send them to the boarding school?’” Gyal Lo said. “He said he had no choice.” > Gyal Lo set out to investigate the changes that families were going through as the schools expanded across Tibetan regions in China. Over the next three years he visited dozens of such schools, and saw that many Tibetan students spoke little of their mother tongue and were sometimes only able to see their parents once every several weeks or even months. It's much worse and more systematic.

kspacewalk2 8mo ago
I mean, not to descend too deeply into the stereotype of nerds and comic books, but you'd probably be a lot more distraught and critical of Professor X making terrible, self-interested and decidedly unfriendly choices than you would be about Magneto doing Magneto things. Annexing Greenland, even if it did happen, is objectively not nearly as terrible as the genocide of Uygurs or murdering tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians. You just don't expect it from America, that's all. But no worries, give us time, the rest of us are re-calibrating our expectations and next time we won't be nearly so comically shocked.