• TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    The “orc” comments began with Ukrainian fascists’ dehumanization of Chechens, which included but was not limited to people in the Russian military. This became popular in Western communities around the same time as the islamophobic pork fat bullet-dipping incident that was endorsed by the UA MoD. It spread to include all Russians, though it is used primarily by the most vehement Russophobes and simply tolerated by your average cheerleading liberal.

    Name calling aside, I think it’s incredibly dishonest to term the rooting and supporting for Ukraine as “jingoism” when that word describes what has been happening in Russian society for the past year far more appropriately.

    This is a form of absurd binary thinking. I am not required to “both sides” my criticisms in order to be honest, particularly when what I am criticizing is the dominant and uncritically accepted narrative, including what this post - and the vast majority of comments rezoonding to it - is literally an example of.

    If it makes you happy, okay cool Russia is also jingoistic. Now answer me this: do you see any Russian nationalist statements in these threads?

    The American invasion of Iraq was bad and jingoist rhetoric was used to justify it, yes, but the exact same has been happening in Russia to a far more extreme degree during this war.

    I’m describing a repeated phenomenon in the exact same society to people who absolutely don’t think of it that way. American collective consciousness is very poor at learning past lessons and applying them to current events. One reason is that they don’t teach this stuff in school.

    Please feel free to make this case to any Russians here that think their nationalism isn’t comparable to bad examples of prior Russian nationalism.

    How can you ignore that while denouncing mere name-calling on social media and passive support in the war from the side of the West?

    You said you oppose dehumanization, but here you are minimizing to call it mere name-calling.

    Interesting.

    • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      I think this would be the appropriate time to point out that Russia can stop this war at any time by leaving, whereas Ukraine can only stop it by convincing Russia to leave. They already tried concessions, and that didn’t work.

      And the rest of the world can’t stop the war at all, it can only act to prolong it or favor one side or the other.

      • OrangeSlice@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        This seems like a false dichotomy, Ukraine can surrender as well, as unpopular as it would be. Ukraine has been following the lead of the US, even before the invasion. This has lead them away from any negotiations, right to where they are today.

        • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          You are correct that it’s a false dichotomy. Because what I said wasn’t a dichotomy at all, but your statement that surrendering to a foreign country and ceasing to be a nation, stopping teaching your language, culture and history and instead becoming willing servants to the master Rus race is an equivalent option to Russia leaving an internationally recognized nation alone, no longer killing their citizens and destroying their infrastructure… well that’s a false dichotomy.

          It’s an option, yes, but there’s no equivalence. And I expected someone to respond to this effect, and so picked my original words carefully.

          Because, you see, while current citizens of Ukraine may still exist as Russians if they accept Russia’s demands, Ukraine itself won’t. That’s the end goal here, and Ukraine realizes that now. Originally they thought Russia just wanted a port, and grudgingly gave them Crimea with the understanding that hostilities would cease. But that wasn’t enough. Russia wanted to run Ukraine as a satellite country just like Belarus. At that point, Ukraine is no longer a sovereign nation.

          So no, they can’t just give in to Russia. The options are to fight until Russia leaves, or become Russian. No option exists to be Ukraine and not have Russia leave.

          This was tried in North America by the way… Europeans came in and destroyed the language, culture and history of the people living there and took their land as their own. It wasn’t right then, and it isn’t right now. And Ukranians don’t want to have to live through the horrors of residential schools, changing treaties and biological warfare. They’d rather learn from history than repeat it.