• Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      The global south. NATO is the millitary alliance of the world’s imperialist powers, a destruction of millitary unity among imperialists would severely weaken imperialism. NATO is “defensive” in the same way the Iron Dome is, it gives imperialist countries free reign to treat the world like something to be looted and plundered without fear of genuine blowback.

      • czl@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 days ago

        I’m sure Ukraine, the Baltic trio and Poland agree with you.

        Edit: shit, so many opinions of me based on a less than 15 word comment. I’m sure y’all are fun at parties.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          Considering they are aligned with the west, who plunder the world’s wealth through export of capital and unequal exchange, that’s not really surprising. Opposition to NATO is pretty basic among anti-imperialists and the global south in general.

          • partofthevoice@lemmy.zip
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            God damn it, I hate my education system. I thought NATO was the peacekeeper of the world — a valuable residue of WWII. One sided propaganda-based education developed to fuel a belief in American exceptionalism and nationalistic egoism. This education-level propaganda is pretty effective because you don’t actually know what details to question, and so you grow up with some pretty bold assumptions about how the world works (and don’t even realize it). They had me believing Christopher Columbus was some kind of messiah-explorer too.

            How does this happen? My anti-conspiracy brain wants to believe there’s no such thing as an evil man behind the curtain, twisting his mustache and orchestrating these details like ”meh, we need to make sure all the kids believe in this propaganda such that we have an imperialistic society.” So, short of that, how does this happen so effectively?

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              2 major factors: In any given society, the mode of production is reinforced by the culture, laws, and ideology of said mode of production. Secondly, people license themselves to believe that whatever they think benefits them is good. Capitalism reinforces ideas like individualism, NATO is good, etc, and we go along with it until our material conditions force us into seeing a new reflection of reality, be it at the workplace, or seeing hard evidence online, being the victim of a bombing campaign, etc. It isn’t a man behind the curtain, but capital and the capitalist class.

        • plinky [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          2 days ago

          Each one of these countries was in coalition of the willing, no? and zionist bootlicker extraordinaire as we can observe.

        • mrdown@lemmy.world
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          Nato is an imperialist alliance that was created to fight imperalist USSR. Many of the funding countries was still colonizing other countries when it was created. Nato also destroyed Lybia which is the clearest example of it not being just a defensive alliance. Nato also collaborate with Israel who hold the longest current occupation, again has nothing to do with Europe protection.

          The US could leave Nato today, attack a Nato country and Nato will do nothing about it

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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            One major correction, the USSR was anti-imperialist, which is why the imperialists collaborated to oppose them. Their colonies were in danger of liberation due to the soviets aiding anti-imperialist movements.

            • mrdown@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              If the USSR was anti-imperialist it wouldn’t have been involved in Afghanistan

              edit: Imperialism : a policy of extending a country’s power and influence through diplomacy or military force.

              It was imperialism since the goal was to spread socialism to other countries and I have no issues with socialism.

              • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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                Imperialism : a policy of extending a country’s power and influence through diplomacy or military force.

                I think it should be self evident why that definition is bullshit

                • mrdown@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  I am sure if i give the same definition or your definition to Nato countries they would say the same

              • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                That’s not what socialists mean by imperialism, by that vibes-based definition defeating Nazi Germany was “imperialism.” Imperialism is instead a form of international exploitation characterized by dominance of monopoly finance capital, export of capital, and super-exploiting the global south for super profits. Spreading socialism is anti-imperialist.

                • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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                  It’s not what anyone means by imperialism. If “extending your influence through diplomacy” is imperialism, then there isn’t a non imperialistic country out there

                • mrdown@lemmy.world
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                  I stand with the definition I shared which include the socialists definition but goes beyond it

                  • Conselheiro@lemmygrad.ml
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                    That’s a actually the problem. It’s a definition so broad to be useless. Neither provides any distinction between countries who fit or not the Marxist definition, but also encompasses almost the whole world. Give me a single country that isn’t imperialist according to that definition?

                  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                    2 days ago

                    It does not go beyond how socialists define imperialism, it reduces imperialism to vibes. Imperialism is a material phenomenon with definite characteristics, not whenever a country influences another. When you reduce imperialism to vibes, it certainly makes it more broadly applicable, but you lose sight of how and why it functions, how to stop it, where it comes from, etc. It’s like arguing that lions and cheetahs are both cats, and that therefore cheetahs are lions.

                    Imperialism, in simplified characteristics, functions as follows:

                    -The presence of monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.

                    -The merging of bank capital with industrial capital into finance capital controlled by a financial oligarchy.

                    -The export of capital as distinguished from the simple export of commodities.

                    -The formation of international monopolist capitalist associations (cartels) and multinational corporations.

                    -The domination and exploitation of other countries by militaristic imperialist powers, now through neocolonialism.

                    -The territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers.

                    The USSR had interventionist foreign policy, but it was not dominating other countries nor economically plundering them. In classifying it as imperialist, you run cover for the fact that the USSR was undermining economic plunder of the global south while the west was protecting and expanding that plunder.

              • UnspecificGravity@piefed.social
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                Comparing Afghanistan to 500 years of European colonialism is an interesting strategy.

                Especially since it send to ignore the fact Russia became involved in Afghanistan due in part to Western nations sponsoring a series of coups to take control of their former colony in the first place.

                • mrdown@lemmy.world
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                  I never said that 500 years of European colonialism is better than what happened in Afghanistan. European colonialism in India alone by the British alone was 100 millions death. Of course European colonialism is the worst thing that ever happened to the world.

          • UnspecificGravity@piefed.social
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            That’s a pretty difficult claim to support because it requires you to make some pretty insane assumptions about what would have happened without NATO.

                • None of them. I think they are all equally capable of committing the crimes, but a gang is more dangerous than individual criminals acting on their own. So the gang [NATO] disbanding is a net positive.

            • Samsuma@lemmy.ml
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              It’s not difficult (except for Europeans and their settler counterpart) to understand that the world would be better off without NATO, your whiteness. “If it weren’t for NATO then it would’ve been anyone else!” isn’t the convincing claim you think it is. The burden of supporting such chickenshit non-claim is on you.

                • Samsuma@lemmy.ml
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                  Yes, what’s your point? A terrorist organization ceasing to exist makes it slightly more difficult for European imperialist countries spearheaded by the largest imperialist, European settler-colony to collaborate and carry out their imperialist endeavors.