the remaining differences are mostly about aesthetics and not about the use of violence to maintain hegemony
In my opinion liberals who agree fundamentally with deposing Maduro but claim to deeply disagree about the methods are not even temporarily taking the side of anti-imperialism, they’re imperialists who want procedure, “by the book” imperialists.
At the risk of getting a bit speculative or subjective, I think they are basically bullshitting. They don’t disagree with it enough to do shit, even participate in safe legal dissidence. Seriously, someone who would be okay with this if it wasn’t “illegal”, because the elite of the metropole agreed on devouring a given peripheral country, seems like one of the enemy. As opposed to the antizionist movement where liberal peaceniks can be good allies.
100% agreed. Ruling classes make laws to suit their interests, and law is opposed to morality and compassion in a lot of cases. US slavery was legal. South African and Israeli apartheid were/are legal. US torture camps like Guantanamo bay and Abu Ghraib are legal.
Even plea-bargaining in the US is a form of medieval-type coercion (confess your sins and we’ll reduce your punishment), and is a pillar of their justice system.
That’s not what liberalism is, even hyperbolically.
Then define liberalism
A political ideology that advocates for hyper-privatization, selfishness, and protection of private property.
Counter point: it’s exactly what it is.
I’ve seen a lot of liberals saying things along the lines of “but if we don’t follow the rules based order it will set a bad precedent! What’s stopping China now deciding to invade Taiwan on the justification that they don’t like their government?”
Edit: oh fuck I didn’t scroll down into the comments there’s already one here
The situation is quite different, China has every right to do so. Because every country has the right to conclude its civil war. Such a civil war is still ongoing between the PRC (Peoples Republic of China - “China”) and RoC(Republic of China - “Taiwan”), both claim to be the legitimate government of the entity China. The reason the PLA did not finish the job in the 40s was US intervention and the start of the korean war.
This is a completely internal matter for China according to international law.
It’s absolutely an internal matter but I’d still like to see a peaceful conclusion. That said it would be really funny if China did just pull a US and kidnap their president to take over it only for all the liberals to then cry and blame Trump for setting a bad precedence. Of course that would never happen though and they would immediately pivot their talking points back to China bad.
A peaceful conclusion is certainly preferable.
only for all the liberals to then cry and blame Trump for setting a bad precedence.
Liberals are unable to do this. The creation of Kosov and the preceeding illegal bombing campaign on Jugoslawia set the precedent for Russias actions in Ukraine. Libs are mighty silent about this fact.
Its more like a coin with liberal values on one side and fascism on the other. And when we hold it up to look at one side and describe what we see to someone with different beliefs, all they see is the other side.
For clarification’s sake, the coin is capitalism.
Hm, I’m not sure. I was thinking more like this post was a piece of propaganda or discourse, so the coin would also be a piece of propaganda.
I think part of the problem in our analysis is a problem of abstraction. Capitalism is actually the treasury that mints the coin, the social relations that turn the coin into profit. But it’s true that the appearances of capitalism is fundamentally different than its actual function.
I like the comparison of chattel slavery as a contra example. Chattel slavery was an institution that was morally reprehensible, even to the founders of the US. It shocked the conscience of virtually anyone who considered it (although a good lesson in social humanity is the tendency to just not consider it, as a defense) meanwhile it was true that some slaves lived somewhat better cared for materially than many white workers, whose destitution was necessary to uphold the practice of mass subjugation of the slaves. The severe cruelty of the ownership of one person over another somewhat hides the material reality of slavery. The historic matetial basis for the abolition of slavery was the fact that northern industrialists were better at getting more labor our of workers and paying them an individual wage much less than the cost of maintaining the life of a slave, which often included the old and young who could not work.
On the contrary, capitalism has all the appeals of freedom, democracy, self a actualization, when it is actually itself a form of part-time slavery. We consent, via contract, to sell our time and energy to a boss who pays us a wage that is worth less than the commodities that are produced using the tools the boss “owns”.
Liberal ideals give rights to everyone on paper but capitalism denies rights to most people in practice. The capitalist state manages the political contradictions that arise, since the cold industrialized reality that pits worker against owner is fundamentally unstable. A middle class is an ideological project that stabilizes the contradictions, splitting the masses of people between a mass who aren’t willing to give up their individual privileges even if they hold " liberal" values, and the masses who are so exploited they lack the time and energy to fight for the liberation of all workers. All these groups are split further, of course, along lines of race, gender, etc., the illusions are sustained by having people’s direct experience contradict narratives of oppression and resemble the liberal values that capitalism heralds.
The two sides of capitalism are, objectively, the exploited workers and the owning capitalists. That relation is the base, but the superstructure creates the illusions and social relations that facilitate the base.
Back to the coin, the two-sidedness of the discourse can be expanded to practically any polemic, propaganda, rhetoric, etc., so that only one “side” of the coin is apparent to the people on each side of the discourse.
How this relates to the original meme, as leftists we can see our side of the Maduro discourse, we see the fascism of red and blue MAGA, but they don’t see that part even when they express views that are objectively fascist. Their side of the coin doesn’t have a coherent perspective on what fascism even is, they arent able to self-criticize in a way that shows them what we see.
So the coin as an objective thing works better as an allegory for a piece of propaganda rather than the thing itself. Once we start considering the actual qualities of the people who hold certain views, and how this all relates to production of capitalist relations among the masses, I think the example starts to fall apart since it deals with individuals projecting our desires and expectations, which are based on feedback we get from an objective system whose essential nature the system has to hide from those of us the system exploits.
Sorry got carried away there, I appreciate your context because it opens up the subject quite a bit more than my comment did.
In the wise words of Eyeballslicer:
Don’t forget hates every genocide except for the current one
Cares about every genocide except for the real ones
Naaaasaah, many liberals don’t give a shit about past genocides, even denying it
They only give a shit about the One True Genocide.
The white genocide in south africa
Painfully true.
It’s like backing the boxer who has already won the fight.
We should bet on how soon Trump is going to kidnap governors in blue states
Here’s hoping. Seems to be the one way (barring total economic collapse and the breakdown of payment systems) for gringos to get on with balkanizing themselves already.
May the US die in the 2nd civil war! 🙏
2 weeks at this rate
The States’ right to do what Trump tells them to do
Maduro is the democratically elected president of Venezuela. With 51% of the vote, compared to his opposition gaining 43%, the US Empire has tried to rely on manufacturing false evidence against Maduro so their compradors can gain power. Venezuelans didn’t believe it, though, so the empire was forced to engage by force, bombing hospitals and murdering dozens of civilians in the process.
These lies undermining Maduro are the same claiming there is no genocide in Palestine, that socialism is scary and evil, that Trump won 2020, that Saddam had WMD. These lies are undermining a country that nationalized their oil industry, requiring foreign capital to only have a minority stake. For this sin of keeping Venezuelan wealth for Venezuelans, the empire kidnapped him.
Venezuelans are not stupid, though, nor are they willing to be colonized. The millitary and working classes both are aligned with the Bolivarian revolution. When the empire tries to establish a comprador regime, they will fail.
Viva Venezuela! Viva Maduro!
Has evidence on the vote tally stuff being fake come out? The whole thing is so plastered with imperialist propaganda it’s hard to find anything trustworthy.
The only “evidence” I’ve ever seen cited (by western media of course) was all stuff the US does on a larger scale: blocking candidates from ballots, closing/changing polling places at last minute, etc (can’t remember the rest, it was too stupid to take seriously). I have however read several accounts that the elections were overseen by hundreds of world officials and has been repeatedly said to have been one of the most democratic elections ever.
Hmm, believe this or the US who has been meddling in South America for 70+ years? 🤷♂️
The blocking of certain candidates happend for good reason: Those were involves in assassination plots against the government and coup plots. Any other country would have jailed them or outright put them to the wall.
Yeah I did hear that tons of observers said this, but if you search you only find articles with “independent observer says foul”.
It’s honestly hard to resist the constant trolling / psychological terrorism by MAGA and the smarmy gaslighting by the “left”. Makes you “want to believe” the less painful option. I mean seriously it’s the exact same playbook trump used on Jan 6th lol.
Tbh any doubt I had in his legitimacy is lessened by the U.S abducting him. That demonstrates he’s a legitimate problem for the U.S, which makes it more likely he’s a legitimate boon for the people of his own country (doesn’t confirm it, mind you)
I know it’s not a good line of reasoning, but if you legitimately adopted this mindset you’d be correct 85-99% of the time.
Could you clarify why it’s not good reasoning?- A = u.s. abducts leader
- B = leader is a problem for the u.s.
- C = leader is a boon to the people
- D = leader is (likely) legitimately elected
Argument:
- If A then B
- If B then C
- If C then D
- A
- Therefore D
We just need “If C then D” to chain A to D since the comment up top didn’t mention it . Oh, I think I see a problem here. In the us with leaders we constantly have “D and not C,” and even worse than the not C’s are the nazis. Ok, I’ll stop.
B doesn’t inherently mean C is correct, there’s just very strong correlation. It’s useful for quickly guessing, not for actual in-depth analysis. Though, the US did really love the Nazis for a good while, still does.
Nothing substantial so far, it’s drenched in consent manufacturing.
Liberals will go on and on about how any defense of the Venezuelan government marks you out as a “Tankie”, then clap like seals as US tanks and helicopters obliterate homes, massacre civilians, and snatch people up as political extortion.
These are the same tactics used time and again by ICE Agents within the US’s own borders. They’re the tactics used abroad, to quell dissidents in The Philippines and Haiti and Gaza and Yemen. These are the actions of a fascist government for the purposes of genocide of native peoples, seizure of lands, and generating capitalist profits.
Anyone who endorses it has picked a side. Just a shame they can’t have these decisions carved into their foreheads for all the world to remember.
I got called a tankie because I said you shouldn’t just invade other countries over on Reddit.
Like tankie never really meant anything before but now it’s the opposite. Being against tanks makes you a tankie at this point.
The western powers led by the US use tanks far more often also. The US never gets accused of being tankies, even tho it used tanks in almost every one of its wars, including the wars on Iraq, Panama, Grenada.
It also uses tanks domestically against the people (police in every city have tank-like vehicles). They also used tanks in the waco standoff also where they burned ~100 people alive.
Of course the US prefers bombing people from the sky, but that’s not considered an atrocity by western chauvinists.
I’m starting to think there are bots that run on just being contrary to whatever we write. For every comment I see now, there’s one that goes against it in the most absurd way possible. Divide and conquer
Like tankie never really meant anything before
I mean, its historically described Soviet policy in Eastern Europe and Chinese domestic policing (Khrushchev putting down the Hungarian fascist revolt with armored infantry and Deng sending tanks into Tienanmen Square).
Now it just means whatever the opposite of neoconservative policy is, updated daily.
Being against tanks makes you a tankie at this point.
Everyone knows that if you’re against US tanks, you must be in favor of non-US tanks. You’re either with US or you’re with the Tankie-rists
I mean, its historically described Soviet policy in Eastern Europe and Chinese domestic policing (Khrushchev putting down the Hungarian fascist revolt with armored infantry and Deng sending tanks into Tienanmen Square).
Only the first one.
Always reminds me of this masterpiece quote:
First we must study how colonization works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him in the true sense of the word, to degrade him, to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race hatred, and moral relativism; and we must show that each time a head is cut off or an eye put out in Vietnam and in France they accept the fact, each time a little girl is raped and in France they accept the fact, each time a Madagascan is tortured and in France they accept the fact, civilization acquires another dead weight, a universal regression takes place, a gangrene sets in, a center of infection begins to spread; and that at the end of all these treaties that have been violated, all these lies that have been propagated, all these punitive expeditions that have been tolerated, all these prisoners who have been tied up and interrogated, all these patriots who have been tortured, at the end of all the racial pride that has been encouraged, all the boastfulness that has been displayed, a poison has been instilled into the veins of Europe and, slowly but surely, the continent proceeds toward savagery. And then one fine day the bourgeoisie is awakened by a terrific reverse shock: the gestapos are busy, the prisons fill up, the torturers around the racks invent, refine, discuss.
People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: “How strange! But never mind — it’s Nazism, it will pass!” And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, but the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it.
— Aimé Césaire Discourse on Colonialism (Please read it, it’s short)
Incredible, thanks for sharing
Problem is, Maduro is a figurehead. He’s not a mastermind. The regime will carry on without him. Nothing has been achieved by this kidnapping except a threat to Venezuela, and a message to China and Russia that this is how the world works now.
Edit: Also a lot of innocent or mostly innocent people have been murdered. Trump is a literal murderer.
a message to China and Russia that this is how the world works now.
It’s not now though, it’s how the US always did things regardless of the party currently in charge.
Indeed. But the general direction of world order has been moving against that sort of thing, and increasingly, many serving US politicians and citizens. Trump is undermining both US and global progress away from the worst traits of human hegemonic History and putting them back on full display.
As if the entire western world wasn’t already backing mass genocide in Palestine.
Yeah, it’s shit. But if we let bad be the enemy of better, we’ll never get anywhere.
Do you think a world without the institutions o mentioned would do any better for Palestinians?
As t least there’s still widespread support and sentiment among the populations of the western world, and Israel is very much a pariah state in many nations’ eyes. It’s just not within most nations’ power to intervene.
Even then intervention is tricky. We don’t people to do what Trump did in Venezuela, because history has shown it doesn’t lead to better long term outcomes.
There is no world where mass genocide is “better” and I have nothing but contempt for people who think it is.
And you can fuck off with your bullshit pretending that the West opposes Isreal but is just oh so reluctant about intervening. That is self absolving nonsense from a genocide apologist.
That is the most disingenuous interpretation of my comment I can imagine.
You’re finding enemies in your own trenches my friend. The genocide in Gaza is absolutely horrific, and I am not making any excuses for it.
I’m just saying we live in a better world now as a whole than years past, recent years notwithstanding. Think mid-Obama as maybe the most hopeful time in recent memory as far as advancement toward the Global Goals was concerned, and yeah I know Obama was still bombing foreign countries in the name of anti-terror and killing innocents to get at Obama Bin Laden.
Do you find any optimism in the world or are you pure nihilism?
You are absolutely makeing excuses, and outright misrepresenting reality, for the West’s participation in the Gaza genocide. You are absolutely not in the same trenches as me, because I am opposed to the genocidal West, and you make excuses for them.
I’m just saying we live in a better world now as a whole than years past, recent years notwithstanding. Think mid-Obama as maybe the most hopeful time in recent memory as far as advancement toward the Global Goals was concerned
Pure vibes based air with literally nothing concrete to back it up. This is the hight of privileged solipsism to think the years after the GFC were some golden age. I don’t care how “hopeful” your privileged ass was, what you actually mean is that you preferred it when the war criminal in charge of the US Empire was well spoken.
Do you find any optimism in the world or are you pure nihilism?
I find optimism in seeing the clear signs that the American empire is nearing its end.
the general direction of world order has been moving against that sort of thing, and increasingly
What makes you think so?
Institutions like NATO and the ICC, global trade agreements, security guarantees, economic interdependencies, multiculturalism, air travel, the infrastructure of the internet. The fact a bridge collapse or building fire might make international headlines. Movies and culture from around the world being mainstream.
What makes you not think so?
Because in practice none of these things in any way deterred countries from using their military and covered assets to practice imperialism.
In a way some of the things you mentioned were essential for this modern imperialism like NATO(just as one example of many it was NATO equipment, intel and training that allowed Azerbaijan invade Armenia), economic dependencies(invasion of Venezuela started with economic sanctions), movies, culture and the Internet(more specifically corporate owned social media) used for propaganda and controlling public narrative.
I do agree though that there are anti-war and anti-imperialism trends in Asia(we recently got to see China and India leaders shake hands, that’s very new and exciting), Africa and South America.
There’s blue maga people, or at least person, who keeps saying Maduro was just extracted by Trump because they are friends… While completing ignoring the death and destruction if it let’s them get one on trump
It’s possible he’s just making a deal with Maduro, who he’ll send back to Venezuela as his pawn. I guess we’ll see.
Maduro is a former bus driver, union organizer, and firm supporter of the Bolivarian revolution. It’s very unlikely that he’d be made a comprador, and even less likely that the supporters of the Bolivarian revolution would let it slide.
iirc Maduro was already in negotiations to surrender himself to Trump as a part of some deal that would lift the sanctions. But the negotiations took too long for Trump.
Maduro being a figurehead isn’t a problem, it’s a good thing. The alternative would be the destabilization of Venezuela and the coup by a Milei-like libertarian who would give every inch of Venezuelan soil to US corpos and destroy worker rights.
Maduro being a figurehead isn’t a problem, it’s a good thing.
If anything, it clearly shows he isn’t the dictator US claims he is, so maybe it’s time for the clueless to doubt rest of that mountain of bullshit spewed against him and Venezuela.
Sure, it’s better than the alternative. But it still makes this move functionally meaningless aside from the reasons I mentioned.
Lemmy.world really has some of the most uneducated reactionaries.
Trump threatens Jorge Rodriguez with more blatant terrorism unless he privatizes the world’s largest oil supply. If the new admin capitulates, Trump calls that a win. He gets the oil and the spectacle without losing a single american troop. The US will lose respect from its allies - again - but they never do shit about it. iTs AmErICa FiRsT. america
Rubio and the Cuba lobby are furious though. They are serious about regime change. The option that gets the most people killed.
It isn’t a threat, it’s a gift
Was gonna say center should be don’t care as long as congress approved but that only applies to the blue maga side
Did congress approve Libya or Serbia?
This!
I told you about the West, America in particular. I told you about these spineless, self-centered, hedonistic nihilists. I told you, bro. 😕🤷
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Free Palestine
It’s an accurate descriptor of die-hard liberalism.
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Removed by mod
So many removals
How’s that purple cake with blue frosting tasting?
Please report comments like these yall.
what kind of comments I need to report? it was removed
Click more, then view comment / view user moderation history in lemmy-ui
thanks mate
It’s in the logs. Admin removed / banned for a comment that compared Chavez and Maduro’s leadership tactics those of Trump.
had no idea you can check the logs. how?
Depends on the Lemmy client you’re using. Some don’t support logs. If you’re using the default web client, it’s in the sidebar at the root level of a community. Look for a “modlog” button around the moderator handles.
Just view moderation history in the three dots menu of the banned comment.
Removed by mod
What is the problem with me saying that reactionary liberals and reactionary conservatives both support the genocide in Palestine?
It was ambiguous enough that it looked like those were your expressed views, check the modlog.
You could’ve asked!
I’m not a mod.
