naraburns nihil supernum
2yr ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
He hates America and the West because they are strong and successful.
But the same mindset did not hate the USSR when they were strong and successful.
An easier explanation is "The enemy of my enemy's friend is my friend (defeasibly)." It's not that leftists have any particular admiration for the Palestinians, Muslims, or whatever. Instead, their opposition to Israel is because Israel is an American ally, and America is seen as the enemy by modern leftists. It's the same with Putin and Ukraine: the average leftist does not like Putin, but they dislike Ukraine, because they see it as a friend of America.
If one wanted to continue the same train of thought, which I personally don't share, they might argue that all the communists who stopped supporting Soviet Union and became anarchists, Trotskyists, Maoists, New Left etc. did so because Soviet Union was strong and successful.
I'm not actually sure what the exact point would be. A lot of people would have at least seen the Soviet Union as strong right to the very end. However, there was a steady drip of people from a pro-Soviet left to various anti-Soviet left positions even before that, and these were often connected to open displays of strength (Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968 etc.)
Soviets were clearly stagnating in hindsight, but at the time? Direct comparisons were few and far between, and the people who had a chance to make them certainly seemed surprised enough.
He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, "there would be a revolution."
The Soviets didn't even manage to send people to the moon, but until they were at the brink of dissolution they also didn't even admit they had been trying. Walter Cronkite even bought the Soviet line, ''It turned out there had never been a race to the Moon.'' The fact that Soviet lunar lander hardware and a Saturn-V-scale launcher had ever existed was only revealed decades later, by accident.
In the case of the anarchists and the Trotskyists, this requires ignoring a lot of what they said, without a clear justification.
Maoists did support the Soviet Union until Mao didn't. They also rejected China as soon as it stopped being Maoist and while it was still far from being a superpower, suggesting that ideology really was their big motivator.
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Notes -
But the same mindset did not hate the USSR when they were strong and successful.
An easier explanation is "The enemy of my enemy's friend is my friend (defeasibly)." It's not that leftists have any particular admiration for the Palestinians, Muslims, or whatever. Instead, their opposition to Israel is because Israel is an American ally, and America is seen as the enemy by modern leftists. It's the same with Putin and Ukraine: the average leftist does not like Putin, but they dislike Ukraine, because they see it as a friend of America.
If one wanted to continue the same train of thought, which I personally don't share, they might argue that all the communists who stopped supporting Soviet Union and became anarchists, Trotskyists, Maoists, New Left etc. did so because Soviet Union was strong and successful.
...
I'm not actually sure what the exact point would be. A lot of people would have at least seen the Soviet Union as strong right to the very end. However, there was a steady drip of people from a pro-Soviet left to various anti-Soviet left positions even before that, and these were often connected to open displays of strength (Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968 etc.)
...
Soviets were clearly stagnating in hindsight, but at the time? Direct comparisons were few and far between, and the people who had a chance to make them certainly seemed surprised enough.
The Soviets didn't even manage to send people to the moon, but until they were at the brink of dissolution they also didn't even admit they had been trying. Walter Cronkite even bought the Soviet line, ''It turned out there had never been a race to the Moon.'' The fact that Soviet lunar lander hardware and a Saturn-V-scale launcher had ever existed was only revealed decades later, by accident.
...
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In the case of the anarchists and the Trotskyists, this requires ignoring a lot of what they said, without a clear justification.
Maoists did support the Soviet Union until Mao didn't. They also rejected China as soon as it stopped being Maoist and while it was still far from being a superpower, suggesting that ideology really was their big motivator.
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