Political Memes

Extremist opinions and people on all ends of the spectrum are dumb and never right. The earlier a person realizes that, the better.

The west defending ukraine

"The west" ain't defending shit. At best it only throws more timber into fire.

I know we all hate uhhh, nuanced takes, and I'm especially too much of a brainlet to really have a good take on global politics, but I think I can give a crack at it, going by the rest of the shit in this thread.

Generally, war is bad, because it kills the poor of a nation, the racial minorities which can get sent to the front lines, and the political radicals which can do outreach (leftist, or, also, leftist), who would attempt mutual aid in those circumstances. It's a circumstance in which you can more easily justify any number of pretty horrible actions.

I think if I'm looking at the war with an ultra-cynical lens, as I think would befit global politics broadly, the united states isn't taking an interest in ukraine so much because they're some sacred ally, but because they see it as a way to drain russia of a bunch of money, keep the military industrial complex running, and do it while not sparking international incident and also while not expending any of their own troops.

I also don't really know at what point this war is thought to end. If we give russia's horrible oligarchic power structure more leeway, if we give them some sort of concession, then they're just gonna keep that and leave ukraine to get fucked or worse. Probably it would result in less loss of life, which is good, but, generally not a desirable outcome, even if I'm not really sure ukraine is a tipping point in terms of resource gain for russia, and making russia an international player. I think the economy has been pretty much in the shitter since like, russia was formed, and probably in the immediate post revolutionary period, from what I understand, like, after industrialization, they were just kinda fucked like, around stalin times, maybe.

At the same time, though, the most I can really think of is that this war might end when internal support from russians, mostly from the russian oligarchy outside of putin, puts enough pressure on it that it either stops entirely or results in some sort of internal power struggle. I don't know if that's really going to happen, they all seem pretty much insanely corrupt, and I dunno what america might do other than kind of, attempt to spark internal dissent, which also seems like a bad idea based on how much success we've had with that historically. The russian people seem to be maybe the most propagandized people on earth, even considering the americans and chinese, which is saying something, so I dunno if internal dissent from the populous would ever mount enough to overthrow anything, as much as we might hope.

If we pull out, that doesn't solve the problem long term, but it would give maybe some amount of time to kind of pursue other avenues with which the russian government might be dealt with more thoroughly. I also don't know, right, because right now we're sort of in a position where, since we've entered the war, everyone on either side is going to be very recalcitrant to end it. The costs, they are too sunk. It would've been much better had this war ended before it began, but unfortunately that wasn't really in anyone's geopolitical interest, and ukraine, once again, is fucked over. Realistically we should've sped up them becoming part of the UN, before a full-blown war came up, but then maybe that was the big L in the first place, and I dunno if there's a circumstance in which they get out without russia getting some pie, just because of where they kind of ended up historically. Probably if I had to guess, the war is going to end either when russia concedes (which, as said, doesn't seem likely unless russia's internal bureaucracy collapses or undergoes some sort of change), or when russia gains some amount of territory in negotiations, gains something as a concession, and then hopefully the rest of ukraine can actually become part of the UN, in which case I will feel really dumb, because we could've just got there from the beginning without an ultramassive loss of life.

I think probably ending the war sooner is better rather than later, because at the very least that maybe gives us more time for putin to slowly age out of his position, but it would still be a decade before he's even biden's age, so, kind of dubious, and given where they're at right now, probably some other jerkoff would just get appointed, so there would have to be some amount of change in the intervening time.

I dunno, war seems uhh, bad, maybe. If you want the tankie take, it's going to basically be that this is a war which kills people (not based), that geopolitically benefits america (not based, as america sucks), and also that they more broadly align with BRICS as a kind of, more forward thinking, and perhaps better alternative to america, mostly as it exists through china. The problem as I see it is that every other country in that initiative outside of china and maybe south africa, is pretty much a diet-fascist shithole, and china is also very tenuously better than the US, it seems to me, to be very much an open question, as to whether or not the chinese shadow government will come out once america collapses and go full sicko commie mode, or if they'll just turn like, extreme golden age neofascist company town garbage mode. I would like to believe one, but in my heart of hearts, I know that nothing good ever happens, so, I think probably we're just fucked and BRICS will also suck once they probably take over in wake of a probably graceless collapse of american empire, if that's even allowed to really happen.