Not Europe, germany did. This cant be accepted and is one of the worst things they have done in recent years alongside with the judicial suppor and political backing up they give israel. This must be condemned and fought against.

But since we are on the topic of war: who is supplying russia with the drones and fiber optics they use to invade Ukraine? Isnt that China? And isn't xi giving Putin the same political backing?

As I said: both capitalistic hell holes, but one has slightly less surveillance and slightly less political oppression.

[–] FunkyStuff@lemmy.ml 6 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

But since we are on the topic of war: who is supplying russia with the drones and fiber optics they use to invade Ukraine? Isnt that China? And isn’t xi giving Putin the same political backing?

This isn't comparable to genocide for several reasons. I mean, for starters, who's accusing Russia of genocide? I know that they've committed various war crimes and have killed thousands of civilians in their invasion, but neither of those suffice for the war to be considered a genocide. There has to be intent from the Russian side to exterminate the Ukrainian population in a generalized manner.

I'd also just say that with the various contradictions in place in the global stage, it is apparent to me that the only way for capitalism and fascism to be done away with is for every organ of USAmerican imperial hegemony to be dismantled. If the hegemony of the US imperialist ruling class is not dismantled, if the organs of that hegemony remain in place, then the earth is done for because of climate change; if that's not enough, there will also continue to be genocides like the one in Gaza wherever the white supremacist states can concentrate populations of climate refugees. There will be unprecedented famines and natural disasters. To be honest, a lot of these things are already all but guaranteed to happen with the amounts of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.

With that in mind, knowing what's at stake, and knowing that NATO is one of the organs of US imperialist hegemony, I can't in good faith consider that there's a moral equivalence between the US utilizing Israel as a forward operating base, a tip of the spear, into the heart of the oppressed nations and a testing ground for the extermination technologies of the near future versus China giving Russia military aid to prevent their massive northern neighbor from collapsing. Furthermore, since I am of a mind that thinks that NATO cannot continue to exist for anything resembling a viable future to be possible, Russia is doing my work for me by exhausting NATO military supplies. Every drone, missile, bullet, and tank burned up by Ukraine is a NATO resource that will not be used against someone in the Global South in the near future. Every one of them that Russia destroys is one that anti-imperialist forces would have to destroy in another circumstance, and as valiant as groups like Ansarallah have been in their resistance, they don't have the strength Russia has. I'm not going to condemn that.

I will condemn their war crimes, what has happened to the residential areas, hospitals, and even schools bombed by Russia is horrifying; but I won't condemn the war in general, it would be hypocritical.

To your final point, you don't understand what capitalism is if you think that Europe and the United States are a pole that is "just as capitalistic" as Russia and China. Like, dude, China is a massive net exporter country with a state run, centrally planned economy. Their government is fully democratic^[https://news.cgtn.com/event/2021/who-runs-the-cpc/index.html] and the portion of their economy that is still in the hands of private owners is set to shrink in every successive 5 year plan. That's not capitalism. Russia is a different story, they are capitalist and have a very reactionary government, but to say they're "just as capitalistic" as the West is a criticism that reveals a lot of ignorance. The West has such a large concentration of capital that they were the vanguard of the first, second, and third waves of capitalist imperialism. First in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, privately led by the finance capitalists seeking to extract more resources abroad as rates of profit fell at home.^[https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hobson-imperialism-a-study] ^[https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/] This is what led to and was epitomized by the world anti-fascist struggle, or WW2. That led to a period of US domination of world markets. Then in the 1970s came the state-led form of imperialism, carried out primarily by the United States' unbalanced deficit spending.^[https://michael-hudson.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/superimperialism.pdf] Lastly, now we are in a kind of third wave that is still definitely dominated by the US as the center of world finance capital. Russia has always been a secondary character in each of these phases, even the SSR.

[–] Jean_le_Flambeur@discuss.tchncs.de -1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I agree with you that the war on Gaza is worse than the war on Ukraine, as one of them is "only" imperialistic and the other is a genocide. We are on the same page here.

The EU as a whole is not as supportive of Israel as Germany though, Germany is quite an outlier here. This can be explained (but not excused) by the special relationship between the ex Nazi country and the majority of Israels citizens being Jews. Still, supporting the israelian genocide is fucking disgusting, no question. Ireland, Slovenia and Spain are much more supportive of Gaza is also part of the truth though.

I would support your idea of dismantling the us system, we are in the same page here as well, I am not that optimistic that this will get rid of fascism and capitalism though, Russia China and India and the EU will fill the void.

I also agree with your take on climate change, while by pure numbers China is one of the largest emitter, given they produce most of the worlds goods, I think their climate efforts are honest and my hope is that they will stick to their plans of co2 reduction and be a valuable force for climate. China's efforts here are very important and I respect them for that.

I also agree with NATO needing to be dismantled, I dont agree with you that Russia is doing that. Look at trump and Putin, the invasion of Ukraine is not fighting against america or the NATO, its imperial landgrabing a non NATO state. And even if Putin would fight the NATO directly, I dont think this will benefit our class, we are the ones dying in the wars, hunger in the famines and getting arrested for fighting for solidarity amongst the international working class, a true change cannot come from a tyrann winning over another tyrann, it need to be a struggle by the people against the oppressors

If you dont condemn an imperialistic country invading its small neighbour, you fight for the oppressor. War is never good for the working class, if you justify people dying in imperialistic wars, you are a class enemie in my eyes.

For your las paragraph is where I find it to get interesting as we have the same opinion, that a democratical controlled public economy is better then privately owned means of production. From what I've read China is moving towards private ownerships of means if production then away from it and the actual public decision-making gets progressively less in favor of concentration of power for the political elites (https://www.statista.com/chart/25194/private-sector-contribution-to-economy-in-china/) (https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/china-in-xis-new-era-the-return-to-personalistic-rule/)

Here it would help to get the data straight, I'm open to critically over think my position here

Your argument that USA is worse at nearly everything than nearly everyone else I would fully support.

Apart from that there is an argument to be made, that Democratic votes dont mean shit if the discourse is not free, the regime decides what information you can get, what is allowed to be discussed publicly and what is not. Not only are there information like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_China also My fellow exchange students from China tell me you can't talk critically about the regime, even in private conversations because you will face direct or indirect repercussions. Things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzchung_controversy also play into this picture.

A state where the working class is truely ruling needs a free working class who can freely from their opinion. This can't be done in a surveillance state.

I'm not saying there is no surveillance in the EU, just less then in China.

Also also: being able to vote doesn't make a country socialist or "not capitalistic", if it would america would fall into this category as well.

I think gramcis works are quite enlightening in that regard.

[–] FunkyStuff@lemmy.ml 4 points 7 hours ago

I also agree with NATO needing to be dismantled, I dont agree with you that Russia is doing that. Look at trump and Putin, the invasion of Ukraine is not fighting against america or the NATO, its imperial landgrabing a non NATO state.

Objectively, NATO is the only reason Ukraine is still standing. No NATO = no war, Ukraine wouldn't even have had the 2014 coup if it wasn't for NATO.

And even if Putin would fight the NATO directly, I dont think this will benefit our class, we are the ones dying in the wars, hunger in the famines and getting arrested for fighting for solidarity amongst the international working class, a true change cannot come from a tyrann winning over another tyrann, it need to be a struggle by the people against the oppressors

Struggle against oppressors often does take the form of great tyranny and violence. That's just how struggle works. If NATO is destroyed NATO is destroyed, the moral character of the people who do it don't impact the material reality. Is any part of what you're saying here actually a true thing that can be verified through study of history, or are they just moral platitudes that sound nice?

If you dont condemn an imperialistic country invading its small neighbour, you fight for the oppressor. War is never good for the working class, if you justify people dying in imperialistic wars, you are a class enemie in my eyes.

I gave my thoughts on the matter of civilian deaths in the war in Ukraine. My contention is that Russia's invasion of Ukraine weakens NATO; I could just as easily say that your refusal to fight NATO makes you a class enemy, and the critical difference is that my position can be justified by observing the ways that NATO is involved in really oppressing the world; meanwhile your disagreement with me is based in moral categories.

About China:

What your friends told you, plainly speaking, is just incorrect. You definitely can criticize the Chinese government publicly and privately. You can protest, the protests against the pandemic restrictions are the reason they don't do zero COVID in China anymore. There's active Hexbear users from China who do criticize the country's policies and are sometimes a lot more critical than the rest of us. Seriously, check out @xiaohongshu@hexbear.net's posting history. You can hop on Chinese social media like RedNote to see what people are saying; there will be a lot of positive things but negative things too.

On the issue of surveillance, I think surveillance and privacy is basically just dead in the water except for enthusiasts at this point. It's all screwed, worldwide, it's just a situation that's completely beyond repair. Every country that has wide internet access has mass surveillance and the whole world is a police state. Bad situation all around. I'm not gonna try to tell you that it's better in China than in some other countries because that's just not good consolation, lol. But if you think that China is a country that has more mass surveillance than the rest of the world, that is mistaken.

They don't control the flow of information, though. That part is wrong. Talk with Chinese people, I encourage you. They aren't living in some kind of secluded little bubble, they know what's going on around the world. My honest opinion is that sometimes they have overly naive takes about what it's like to live in the West, like they don't know how bad it is over here in a lot of cases. But they are broadly pretty well informed.

A state where the working class is truely ruling needs a free working class who can freely from their opinion. This can’t be done in a surveillance state.

I take specific issue with this argument. I mean, if you put some stress on the word "truly" then I don't disagree. It's a bit of a purity obsessed argument, but not strictly false. But if you really think that the condition of being surveilled is itself reason to forget about the tremendous historical progress China has achieved for their people, even though that surveillance and all other forms of state repression are things that Chinese communists have been aware of as necessary parts of state-building, then I think you are more concerned with creating a utopia than real emancipation.

Also also: being able to vote doesn’t make a country socialist or “not capitalistic”, if it would america would fall into this category as well.

I agree, what I meant is that China has a democratic state and that democratic state's partial ownership of the means of production makes China a socialist country. Both parts are necessary. State ownership without any form of democracy can look like Saudi Arabia. Liberal democracy with a capitalist economy is, at best, social democracy like the Nordic countries.