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this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2024
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I'd say US imperialism is many magnitudes worse than any other governments, except for the brutality of Israel. Who else has more than 750 bases in at least 80 countries worldwide and spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined. But sure Russia, Iran, China, North-Korea, Venezuela bad.
It's funny, but not surprising how much you're down voted here. The meme is heavily upvoted for equating (presumably US) imperialism and (presumably Chinese) authoritarianism. But give an example of how much worse the US is, and people who pretend to hate imperialism fall over themselves to defend the US.
I think the point is that both are bad. But somehow it always ends up with a competition where the US is more bad than the rest, and the rest is therefore somehow excused when .ml is involved
It's important to recognize that when you equate two countries, you tacitly support the dominant narrative. Saying "ABC Bad and XYZ Bad" without doing work to contextualize the extent, impact, and level of "Badness" serves to exaggerate the evils of the "less bad" and understate the evils of the "more bad." Condemning equally is therefore an unequal condemnation for unequal evils.
See, that's the issue.
Pointing at state A and saying it's bad invokes the response "Well B is by far more bad, if you look at contextualized extent, impact, and level of badness!" thus down playing the bad state A has done.
It's like, A hit X with a fist, but B hit Y with a bat, twice and on the shins, so what A did isn't so bad actually. Instead of just admitting hitting is wrong.
It's best to correctly contextualize all bad. Simply saying X is bad if one country does .5X and another does 2X equalizes each into merely "X."
Exactly! :)
My point is that that is bad, it obscures reality and leads to incorrect conclusions.
Incorrect conclusions about bad actions being bad no matter who does it?
Bad actions have different intensities and scales. Such equal condemnation for unequal evil leads to people who refuse to take a Pro-Palestinian stance, which implicitly sides with Israel as the stronger force.
The whole point is to condemn evil whatever the intensity, scale or who is responsible.
But somehow it always comes to a comparison of evilness (obviously always the US) which somehow excuses (mostly Chinese or Russian) atrocities. And that is the issue.
I just showed you the consequence of your framing, correct? The goal isn't to excuse anything, but to come to correct conclusions. Your line of thinking supports the genocide of Palestinians, because it becomes a toothless "both sides bad," resulting in "continue the course." It's the equivalent of coming out and saying "cancer is bad," it doesn't change anything.
But it doesn't. It perfectly fine to say Hamas terrorist attacks are wrong and at the same town saying the Israeli genocide is wrong.
The problem is that when Russia bombs a children's hospital and it's pointed out as a war crime, there's always some schmuck saying "Oh yeah?! But the US is responsible for hundreds of thousand dead civilians in Afghanistan!"
And yes, that is fucking heineous but it doesn't make leveling a hospital less severe. 🙄
A bad is a bad.
Again, your moral equivalence results in standing back and watching Palestine be erased from the map. Equal condemnation for unequal evils minimizes the worse and raises the lesser evil.
I don't understand your logic at all. Being anti-terrorism is not equal to being pro-genocide and vice versa.
It isn't a black and white world and taking a stance doesn't require sith lord reasoning.
Saying that you condemn both assault and murder doesn't make one worse and the other less so. It's a simple acknowledgement of wrong acts being wrong which is perfectly fine.
Equating all bad as simply "bad" regardless of context, intensity, direction, and more is a privledged western position that seeks to undermine liberatory movements and entrenches the status quo. The status quo may be "bad," but by your analysis so it overturning the status quo. This is the kind of moralism that was used against the Civil Rights Movement, Palestinian Liberation, anti-slavery movements, and more.
"Both are bad" is not a serious geopolitical thought. Every real project will have negative aspects, so if you reduce your analysis to declaring something bad for having bad aspects you will never be able to discriminate between, say, the Nazis and the partisans who fought them and liberated their countries and concentration camps.
Or, in this case, being unable to discriminate between the global seat of capital behind basically every single war and an ongoing genocide and a growing power who hasn't had a war in decades and works to get countries out of IMF debt traps. You prevent yourself and others from seriously contending with how the world works and what place you can have in it.
Nazis executing civilians is bad. Partisans executing civilians is bad. A bad action is bad no matter the intention.
Insert some quote about how the history is filled with good intentions.
Tell the 'unlawful' killed that it's ok, it was a growing power who haven't attacked someone for a long time and just tries to lift your country out of poverty that bombed you to bits not the cashking warmongerer, and see if they agree with your reasoning.
Again, this is not a serious geopolitical thought.
Respond to my reasoning in any way whatsoever.
Just like how both the Democratic party and the Republican party are bad, but somewhere here it always ends up with competition where the Republicans are worse, the rest is somehow excused when .world is involved.
And yet Russia still managed to launch a war with casualties on par with Iraq. Sorry sunshine, if you're a global power, you've got a body count in the millions. Period.
Very true. But is this an inherent trait of the world, or is there some path forward that would change or mitigate this fact?
Shoot... US imperialism is soft-serve ice cream compared to the empires of history. Those military bases by and large extend the American security umbrella to protect the host country, not to put its population to the colonial boot and extract wealth. Yeah they sort of have to tow the line on US foreign policy, but it's a far cry from, say, the Boer enslaving natives in South Africa or Alexander the great wiping out populations who defied him.
The US has a long laundry list of dirty deeds, but overall the US "empire" has led to the longest and wealthiest period of global peace and scientific/technical/social advancement in the history of humankind. That doesn't excuse anything but neither is it particularly useful to condition our allegiances on utopian absolutes of moral purities. When we do, evil wins (e.g., see recent election where 10M Democratic voters stayed home).
Amartya Sen estimated that Indian capitalism killed around 4 million people per year as compared to China's more planned economy. Indian capitalism was maintained by the British and the US as part of "decolonization" and the superprofits reaped from India and ending up in the US are basically public record.
This is a larger total number than basically any older empire you can think of.
Oh sweet summer child. Those are forward bases for US imperialism. They have been used to stage and supply every oppressive US war and to control shipping routes. They don't all just sit there doing nothing. How much did Vietnam enjoy the "security umbrella" of US bases, again?
This is just plain dishonest imperislist propaganda.
US bases are a symptom of already being beholden to the US. The people of Okinawa hate the US base there. It is only there because Japsn was conquered in WWII and surrendered to the US, and the US built it into a satellite for harassing Korea, China, and the USSR.
US imperialism is carrying out a genocide in Gaza right now via their ethnic supremacist proxy and just toppled the Syrian state, which will likely go the way of Libya if it doesn't balkanize first. The US supports its ckient states that engage in slavery, such as the Saudis or Qatat, where South Asian laborers are brought in and their passports stolen.
The US supported apartheid South Africa in a way that is very similar yo how it supports Israel.
Where is this period of global peace? The US is engaged in constant war. Where is this wealth? If you exclude socialist blocs the trends on poverty reverse. Scientific advancement was global and much of what you could list will have Soviet or Chinese workers behind it.
"If we don't accept evil, evil wins" just listen to yourself, it doesn't even make sense in this simplistic form.
And who are "we"? Your statements place you squarely against those who suffer under global capitalism, dismissive of ongoing genocide. You're basically doing the Stephen Pinker thing, and he is full of shit in addition to being buddy buddy with Epstein.
Hmmm... well, with Trump dissolving our coalitions, we'll get to see how a nice a place the world is after the pax Americana. Next thirty years should be interesting.
The dying empire continues to lash out and pax americana is a myth.
Are you really sure you want to be ascribing global trends to the US empire?
Yes., absolutely. The post-WW2 world order was led and architectured by the US. Think of the Marshal plan, Breton Woods, NATO, the UN, the space race and cold war, and the huge impact of the US Navy providing global security for oceanic trade.
Whoosh
"Everything is very good, actually"
Read a fucking history book at least once. The only country that makes the top 5 is russia by the sheer scale of terrain it held at one point and age.
Not even sure if US imperialism makes it to the top 5. With all its capitalism, systematic racism, history of camps, military might across the globe. Barely top 5.
Read. A. History. Book.
Israel? Fucking peanuts with its genocide of Palestine. PEANUTS!
Seems like this post is about you! :)
Facts gets downvotes here!
Do you know how opinions are different from facts?
Such a sad excuse for an intellect.
Downvoted for being a dick.
It's an opinion backed up by facts.
Fools get downvotes here. When the US launches a violent offensive directly on a neighboring independent country with the intent of destroying its people and conquering its land, which NK and Russia are currently trying to do, maybe you'll have a point.
Let's just summarize the argument made here using actual facts:
It's pathetic.
your conditions are too specific. what the US did to Iraq, Vietnam, Korea,... is already bad enough. But these dont qualify because they arent neighbors of the us, and the intentions arent exactly what you listed. still, these are already bad enough.
I absolutely love the part where you guys are all so vocal about "but the US did this and this" but have literally nothing to say about @mydude@lemmy.world up there acting like Russia and North Korea are perfect little saints while actively trying to wipe out civilians.
Just Tankie Things™️
dont blame me for the opinions of someone else. Just note how hipocritical you sound by dismissing criticism of the us while criticizing russia. Why not both?
So you have no defense for your selective defense of US imperialism and lash out at others when it is noted.
Anarchist instance btw
Fucking lmao
DOUBLE LMAO
Acting like Putin and Kim are chill is about as "anarchist" as Elon Musk thinks he is.
Notice that rather than address the absurdity if an "anarchist" ahistorically defending US imperialism, you've decided to make things up on my behalf.
Kill the Redditor in your brain.
I love the part where you, once again, describe yourself there while continuing to tiptoe around the matter at hand.
Just come out and say it, already. "I don't have a problem with imperialism, just the wrong imperialism."
Kill the 🤡 in your brain.
And FWIW, I am incredibly tired of this BS, so I'm blocking you because I'm tired of you flooding my replies.
This is just a stream of rhetorical posturing to avoid ever directly addressing any of the criticisms presented.
"Neighbor" is doing all of the work here, as the US had pushed its frontiers far away from itself for about a century. Of course the US has actually invaded:
[More but I don't feel like compiling the full list]
And some of those in the last half century or so!
Of course, if you remove the morally meaningless qualifier of "neighbor", your point goes entirely out the window. I think this is obvious to everyone, including you, so really the question is why the need to lie to yourself about US imperialism? Why downplay it in bad faith?
What a shock.
"Neighbor" was never an important detail, and only someone struggling to string together some type of deflection from the point would focus so deeply on it. The point, as is abundantly clear to anyone with a couple of braincells to rub together, is that these countries are doing that now, as in at this moment, and are targeting civilians, which the person in responding to gladly ignored with their "but no, everyone says Russia is bad" bullshit.
And you have the gall to accuse me of making a bad faith argument. Once again, pathetic.
Neighbor is the only qualifier that makes your claim arguably true for, say, 30-40 years. You included it yourself, I didn't make you so it. If you get rid of the term "neigbor", you are simply wrong.
Instead of running away from it and trying to blame me for noticing, you could just acceot where I am correct and try to synthesize.
You will get into conflicts and be consistently wrong if this is how you respond to correction.
That applies to several countries, including US-backed Israel and the US-backed reactionaries in Syria, which is why the term "neighbor" does so much work. And in providing that obfuscatory defense, you are doing the thing you claim others are doing, which is excusing and minimizing war and death on civilians.
It requires very little gall. You are putting on quite the display at the moment with the flurry of insults and deflections.
Of course the US citizens won't agree with this, so their government has to do it somewhere else, so the US could wash their hands. Funnily enough, last time someone did this, a CEO was murdered to get accountability.
This kind of crap is another level of hypocrisy.