NATO apologism

Look, NATO is bad, that's why it's absolutely necessary for anti-imperialism purposes that Russia invades its neighbors before they can get into NATO!

Which works about as good as rhe war on terror
- "Bro just one more invasion bro I swear this time it'll really solve ~~terrorism~~ Western Imperialism(tm) for good!"
This is logic amped up to 11 right here, folks.

I'd be glad if NATO didn't exist.

It would mean countries wouldn't feel threatened by their neighbors, and no invasions would happen.

But until that is the case, NATO is necessary.

I would much prefer every country in the planet being in NATO.
Any country attacks any other country? Literally the whole world goes to defend it. So no invasions are possible.
It wouldn't work though. Wouldn't take much time for alliances to form that agree to not follow NATO'S rules.
- Nato already does not enforce their mission against the US and US backed vassel states
- Nah, I want war. I want the rest of the world to go to war with the US. They've got a Nazi problem. We beat the Nazis in 1945 and we might need to beat them again in 2045.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_massacre#False_leads
NATO isn't there to defend you, it's there to serve the interests of a bunch of rulers and elites
- That might be hard to grasp but sometimes the interests or rulers and elites do align to some degree with the average person in their country. Most rich and powerful people have a lot of investments that are worth significantly less when unpredictable things such as invasions happen that disrupt trade.
- Believe it or not, both things can be true
- I mean the rulers and elites live in the same countries as many of us do and they sure as shit don't want war where they live. It might not be here to defend us, but it's here to defend the countries we live in.
- I can't hear you with that imperialist cock brushing against your tonsils.
Are you my hundred year old Jewish great uncle? How'd you get on here?

Gentle reminder that blocking the entire Lemmy.ml instance has made this place a lot less … tankie

Can you do that yet without your instance just entirely defederating?
- Yes. Go to: settings > blocks > scroll down
  At the end of the page, below your blocked users and communities, there is a list of instances, which you blocked. You can add instances there aswell.
- Sync has it as an app option, and several of the apps I was using prior to sync had something similar.
  This has vastly improved my experience on Lemmy's Top 6 Hours
- No. User-level instance blocking is not the same as instance-level defederation. User-level instance blocking is equivalent to blocking all the communities from that instance. AFAIK you'll still see posts and comments from the blocked instance in other communities. More problematically, the blocked instance still influences your feed via its votes.
- Most apps have a instance block in the settings.

Ah yes, that paragon of leftist virtue...

...checks notes...

Muammar Gaddafi?

And they wonder why they don't get taken seriously.

The point is not that Gaddafi was a leftist, but that NATO is an evil imperialistic offensive organisation that overthrows governments
Of course Libya was never a NATO mission, was done by two countries (I include the UK as part of the USA at this point) that certainly could have coordinated even if NATO did not exist. France has always been the most NATO sceptical country in the union as well.
Oh and let's not forget that blaming NATO allows them to forget the real reason France got involved there. But why would they want to distract people away from Sarkozy and his neoimperialism? Let me check what's he got to say about Ukraine... Yup, checks out
- Yeah my money is on the 60.000.000€ (IIRC) Sarko illegally got for his electoral campaign from Gadaffi (donations and such are very regulated in France and that was clearly very illegal), and then Gadaffi started to get vocal about it... ... and then suddenly he got caught bu French forces and oupsie daisy boom.
  Nothing to do with NATO.

I got banned on a lemmy.ml sub for pointing out a post was misleading, that's it.

I think I was banned from some communities there but I don’t remember which ones and haven’t missed them. I’m probably better off.

lol before I realized what ml meant I made a comment that I thought that communism had never happened yet on earth but that it could one day. You wouldn’t believe the rage and attack from dozens of people who were inconsolable.

They also got mad when I said that there are only a few actual leftists in government in the US. Turns out that everyone is one, dontchano

Your first sentence is not wrong; as I understand Marx’s writing. Essentially it is not possible to go from agrarianism straight to communism without first building an industrial society. That’s how Russia / USSR, China etc don’t “technically” count.
- I’m referring more to the fact that Marx envisioned the populace rising up. What really rose in places like Russia and China was a group of self appointed elites who were really just reactionaries.
  Tankies get mad because they believe that their utopia already exists and everyone else is an idiot for not ascribing to the same.
- Your first sentence is not wrong; as I understand Marx’s writing. Essentially it is not possible to go from agrarianism straight to communism without first building an industrial society. That’s how Russia / USSR, China etc don’t “technically” count.
  Don't worry, Lenin et co said you could do it if you believed extra super hard and gave all the power to a small clique of intellectuals. Lenin, like Jesus and the Gospels, takes precedence over prior teachings.
- That’s how Russia / USSR, China etc don’t “technically” count.
  The Lenin government did experiment with a direct transition to full communism, but found - as Marx predicted - that they didn't enjoy the industrial surplus needed for a post scarcity society. So he rolled back to the New Economic Plan, which Stalin inherited. Stalin went full tilt on industrialization, which upset a lot of agricultural workers and ended with him putting down a revolt in his native Georgia and tendering his resignation as a result.
  The party wouldn't accept the resignation, so Stalin had to come back and win WW2 as a result. Russia avoided the fate of many of the Eastern Bloc states thanks to that rapid industrialization.
  After the war standards of living surged, in large part thanks to the Communist model. The kind of communal lifestyle possible under pre-WW conditions wasn't attractive anymore, so Russians kept industrializing over the next 40 years. And when they couldn't match the US + Japan speed of development, they fell over in the attempt.
  But to say they weren't "doing Communism"... The quality of life in the Eastern Block improved remarkably quick and access to resources was broad based and egalitarian. The economy was centralized and planned. The proletariat dictated the political agenda.
  Certainly, at the time, American economists could tell the difference between the US and Soviet systems, even if they doggedly insisted central banks making private loans was freedom while central committees allocating jobs and resources was tyranny.
  It's only after the USSR collapsed that we got an earful about "Not Real Communism".
"Read theory and you would know what I'm talking about."
That is a common thought terminating response to any critique of communism. That being said, I learned to flip the table. Tankies talk about theory, so mention empirical and practical results. They tend to either shut down or ban you.
inconsolable
i like the idea of using inconsolable to refer to grown ass adults. Pure comedic value.
- Cheers!
…what does the ml stand for?
- Marxism Leninism
  They are the original Lemmy devs which is why I joined there. Horrible mistake, reactionary idiots who project their insecurity on others while thinking that they are the only ones who figured out the secret sauce. Pretty much exactly sovereign citizen level quackery.
  look up the word “tankies” to get an idea
- Area code for Mali… and I assume shorthand for Marxist Leninist.

Those... aren't even mutually exclusive opinions? NATO can exist for more than one reason.

There is only one good opinion at any time, citizen. The correct opinion (my opinion) can change any time, but any different opinion is doubleplusungood.
No no no, they said "what about--," so the argument is over.
Well if NATO exists for more than one reason and serve multiple purposes, then claiming NATO exists only for defensive purposes is wrong. Since it also exists for other purposes. Then it is also wrong that it is necessary harmless to Russia. I believe that is a logical conclusion?
But as soon as you express such an opinion you get branded a putinist and downvoted. That is why the lemmy.ml community protects itself from ~~nato expansion~~ lemmy.world users.
This question is so hot because it goes towards Russia's justification for invasion, and for the claims of Ukraine and US to be completely innocent in the causes for the war. IF nato not only serves as a defensive organization but also serves as a tool for regime change then Russia does at least have a shitty justification for a preventive war - to prevent more arms building in Ukraine. And the war clearly has shown that Ukraine with enough weapon supplies by the west is a serious threat to Russia.
You do NOT have to be a tankie to be angry about the "brinkmanship" of the US, Ukraine and nato - and Russia. You can be angry at all parties. But the overwhelming propaganda or dogma on reddit and lemmy.world is that only Russia is to blame. This makes any diplomatic solutions impossible.
That is WHY the propaganda is so strong and why this opinion that nato eastward expansion represents not just defensive purposes is not allowed. Because otherwise you might end this war diplomatically.
Now the overwhelming majority of users will not give one inch on this position. You see how they make fun of this very serious and painful topic. I feel empathy for all the ukrainian and russian lives lost and get angry at the jokers preventing any honest discussion about the causes and possible solutions to this war. It is as painful as the israel/palestine conflict. So .ml and hexbear DO need to protect themselves from these kind of "nato is only defensive" crap because frankly, it is painful.
In this "post-truth" sense there is little difference between liberals or "lefties" and MAGAts. They deny historical facts or logical arguments. Except that the magats are weirdly also pro russia because of trump. That does not mean ml users are "pro" Russia or tankies. That is just a slur. There is plenty to hate about Putin. Especially his interference in social media and elections is abominable. But the neoliberals are no better!

What happened in Libya according to them?

Poor Gaddafi was attacked by the corrupt NATO, to the disgust of the rest of the world (except that it was resolution by the UN security council).
- except that it was resolution by the UN security council
  You mean the Security Council over which Russia has veto power? That UN Security Council?
- Except there is strong evidence that Western powers (predominantly France, the UK and US) created the fiction of Gaddafi being a global supervillain and then used NATO forces to enact regime change in Libya, under the pretext of "preventing civilian casualties". In fact, the real objective was to secure Libyan oil reserves and open the country up to western markets.
  NATO is often used an extension of Western foreign policy. To pretend it is solely a benevolent peace keeper is just as simplistic and naïve as saying that everything the West does is pure evil.
- Thanks for the reminder, happy cake day
- All the happy cake days to you! What will you do with your time without them? ;) EDIT: i.e., without lemmy.ml
One air campaign in Libya (permitted by UNSCR 1973) > fourteen Russian invasions
Checkmate, Westoids

I’m just waiting till the deferation from lemmy.ml

Only 30 days?

I'm shocked it wasn't a permaban, honestly.
They're being reasonable 😏

They love to pick and choose who to enforce their rules against.

Mine's not even as interesting. Lemmy.ml rule 4: no ads/spamming. ¯(ツ)/¯

Time to block an instance :p

Hard agree. The Fediverse would be much healthier if more instances defederated Hexbear, lemmygrad, and lemmy.ml. They constantly spread propaganda for violent dictators.
- I find Lemmy.ml users tolerable, mostly. At least, not significantly worse than other instances. It's the admins and mods that concern me. It's why I avoid .ml communities like the plague.
Time for other instances to defederate. Blocking an instance on the user-level unfortunately isn't the same as instance-level defederation.
- Yea, lemmy is a bit of a mess. And from some interactions I've had with mods and devs, it would seem they like their platform a bit derailed
Blocked ml months ago, couldn't have made a better choice. Their user's comments still show up though. Only ml communities get blocked.
- I give individual users the benefit of a doubt but I also long ago blocked it and several other tankie instances.
- I have the "boost for lemmy" app, it has wildcard filters. I used to to get rid of feddit, after about 20 of their users spammed me with slurs for not speaking german on an australian instance

So what is nato then?

Everyone keep asking what is NATO.
But nobody is asking how is NATO.
- Whomst is NATO?
- Why is nato?
Real answer or NCD answer?
- I've literally never heard of the word "real", NCD it is.
On your phone, you have an app called Safari/Chrome/Firefox. Try opening it and then typing the 4 letters “nato” into the text box at the top. Once you’ve finished, hit enter.
There you will find the answer.
- That was a rethorical question, but thank you!
- My mind is blown. Slay.
It's a list of words for each letter in the English alphabet so they they can be spelled unambiguously over the radio.

Honestly, can't we defederate from that shithole. I don't see why we need to get a post every other day just to ruin everyone's day

Well at least people got educated on left side extremism. I think it puts things in the broader perspective and maybe even someone decided to research these topics some more.
It makes you wonder about communism as a whole. Does it always lead to totalitarianism? Etc
It’s healthy to see all the nut jobs from time to time and reflect on your own steps.
If your views align with the nut jobs for example that makes you wonder hmm something is wrong.
- Tankies are totalitarian right winners cosplaying as left wingers. Communism hasn't been in power in Russia since Gorbachev. It's been nationalists since then. They swung. They swung hard. They kept the totalitarianism and got rid of the leftness. I'd have made largely the opposite choice.
- People whose views align with nutjobs think that everyone else is being dramatic.
- It makes you wonder about communism as a whole. Does it always lead to totalitarianism? Etc
  considering the answer to democracy is literally "well you can vote one in" as we have recently found out in america.
  Yeah probably. If even the most rugged institutions are not impervious to this problem, i think it's fair to safe that no institution is.
  It’s healthy to see all the nut jobs from time to time and reflect on your own steps. If your views align with the nut jobs for example that makes you wonder hmm something is wrong.
  my rule of thumb for politics is that if you have an opinion it and you are wrong and you should stop holding that opinion. Politics is vastly too complicated for even a lifelong PHD thesis to be capable of understanding. Let alone some dude who gets all his news from idiots yelling at a camera online.
  The best thing we can do is to prevent ourselves from getting to extreme before it starts.
This is how it's supposed to work on the Fediverse. If you don't like an instance, you defederate. I take no position on people at lemmy.ml, but unless people are rage addicts the best thing to do is ignore instances you find objectionable.
Can't, it drives engagement.
dont know why lemm.ee the instance am on is federated with hexbears

i was recently banned from like 5 different ML communities, no clue why, hi ML admin or mod if you could tell me why that would be cool.

It was probably something stupid i did, i never read rules. (in my defense, they're always the same and i'm never going to follow them lmao) But regardless, silent bans are weird.

silent bans, aka "shadow bans", are deeply assholeish. But being an asshole is normal now. Which is messed up.
- gotta love the internet now :)
- modmin have the ability to shadow ban you?
Don't worry, there's no reason to read the ML rules since they don't follow them anyway. 90% of bans there have nothing whatsoever to do with the rules.
However, I will say it's generally good practice to read the rules in other places.
- based, generally i'll read rules if i'm ever posting actual posts, but since i comment 99% of the time, it really doesn't matter IMO.

So, I blocked the instance about a week ago, I don't feel like I'm missing anything.

I only wonder how the people/government of Mali feel about them using their country's top-level domain for.... Whatever it is they're using it for.

I dunno enough about Mali to really say, but I'm pretty sure that Lemmy.ml has nothing to do with that country... For them the ML means.... Something else entirely.

Well, yeah. Kinda like how most .tv domains don't really have anything to do with Tuvalu, or .io with the British Indian Ocean Territory, etc.
- youtu.be is not a Belgian website.
- Yep. It happens a lot. Most of the time it's benign, fairly neutral websites.
  As the other commenter mentioned, youtu.be is another example.
  I don't have a problem with people using TLDs for other countries or anything, my curiosity is whether Mali cares that it's essentially a site glorifying Marxism–Leninism owned and operated by people who don't live there, and apart from their glorified ideologies sharing an innitialism with the country code, the two don't necessarily have any overlap....
  Just seems like a PR problem if people take to using your country code TLD to spread propaganda that you disagree with, because your country will be regularly mentioned when discussing the site.
  I don't think anyone here will conflate Lemmy.ml with the people, beliefs or properties of the people of Mali, but all it takes is for one extremist tied to that site, to do something horrible, have a spotlight shined on lemmy.ml, and one over-enthusiastic journalist to mention that .ml is the country specific domain for Mali, and all of a sudden, otherwise ignorant common folk are associating acts of terrorism and violence with your country.
  The government of Mali and specifically the department that runs the TLD, has the power to revoke their domain registration... I'm just saying.
It stands for Marxism-Lenininism I aasume.
- My understanding is that .ml was cheap (maybe free?) and the Marxist-Leninist thing was a happy coincidence/backronym.
Reminds me of the story of people's .mil emails going to the .ml top level domain and the Malian government asking the US to fix their shit
- Somehow that doesn't surprise me in the least.
Oh I thought it was machine learning all this time

Are you referring to the intervention in Libya? The one that happened in 2011?

Lmao of course this place is ran by hardcore war crime apologist PugJesus who advocates for jailing Edward Snowden and Julian Assagne.

Tell me more about how October 7 was Legitimate Resistance(tm). God knows you can't get it up unless civilians are getting murdered.
Link?
- https://lemmy.world/comment/12021907

!yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com

I don't even understand the screenshot. it seems like a ban but reads like someons opinion about their opinion about someone else.

The turquoise text is the comment that op made which prompted a .ml admin to ban them.
The bottom text is the mods reasoning.
- Yeah I get that. I think its because the banned comment is sorta sarcastic so its generalizing the opinion of the thing which then with the ban just gets sorta wierd to read. It feels like the not not not of pinochio from shrek.

Boo fucking hoo, you were wrong and come crying here about "tankies"? You are the exact same, just on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Get some self awareness. NATO is a bunch of warmongers who managed to get Putin to do the greatest PR coup for them just as they were losing significance - and now they could be important because at this moment Russian regime is the greater evil. But instead they do fuck all in helping Ukraine to a decisive victor, proving again that those shitstains just want to prolongue the conflict to line the pockets of their buddies in the military industrial complex. Disgusting fucks, all of them!

they tricked Putin into genocide 😤😭
- How weak is your position if the only "argument" you have is pretending to quote something that you invented yourself?
Yeah You indeed are a disgusting fuck
- and you're a little cutiepie who needs a hug. smooch
NATO is a bunch of warmongers who managed to get Putin to do the greatest PR coup for them
Lmao. I refuse to believe that any sane, adult person can hold this opinion. Nobody's THAT fucking stupid, right?
- Nobody’s THAT fucking stupid, right?
  Narrator: "They were, in fact, THAT fucking stupid."
  I love that NATO is even Putin's puppetmaster.
- Make sure you don't pull a muscle performing all those mental gymnastics.
- That is indeed the way it appears that the west is viewing this conflict. A great way to make extort a lot of money from taxpayers for "not enough to live but too much to die" support for Ukraine, and it's perverse that the powers that be don't even blink at sacrificing the lives of tens of thousands of Ukrainians for that.
  And come to think of it - a shorter conflict would also mean less Russian lives lost.
  Capitalism is murderous. :(

Goddamn it thank you for reminding me why I stay off of Lemmy. 😡

Lemmy is a big place bro... this is lemmy.ml a notorious tankie pit where they glorify various communism regime and excuse their genocides and war crimes.

even one of the mods is a commie

PSA: Not every commie is a tankie
- I disagree. I personally don't see any reason why someone would seriously see communism as legit without shoving there head in the sand. At least the free market doesn't lead to mass starvation. To be fair it isn't a black and white thing but communism is a failed system from the 20th century
- I was using them interchangably

https://sh.itjust.works/post/8419342

more than just a few instances it would seem

Unrelated to the post but how and why is only one thing in swedish and the rest is english(om 30 dagar)?

The logged reason and cited comment were written in English, but the user posting the mod log is using a Lemmy client set to Swedish language/from Sweden?
- But why is expires in english?

Read the username wrong at first

You are a brainwashed propagandist with that comment. Good for them. Can you explain to me why the US and NATO did not intervene with the genocide in Georgia? Make that TWO genocides. Who did? How much territory did they take? You know that counts in your inaccurate figure just as an example.

Americans are too stupid for the Internet.