I would like to highlight just one piece of a long conversation with the involved party. Way too long. We were talking about the Ukraine war.
I can’t decide which of two things is what’s up:
- There is something wrong with me that I care this much about an impassioned debate with someone who’s obviously not real productive to talk with.
- It is actually a good thing to disagree vocally any time someone pops up to make lame excuses for rape, murder, shelling of apartments, torture, killing of journalists, killing of opposition party members, lying, destroying civilian energy infrastructure in winter, and through it all blaming the people you’re attacking for not “wanting peace.” I get the idea of trying to “keep the peace” and not turn every comments section into a huge geopolitics fight, but it’s start to look to me like “keeping the peace” by not admitting that some family member is a child molester or something. It’s very weird that this stuff is tolerated and not shouted down every time it rears its bootlicking head.
Anyway, here’s a very selected single through-line of the conversation:
They:
The difference with Palestine is that Palestinians are being genocided by an Imperialist entity. Ukrainians are not being genocided, though the US and UK seem to want that to happen when they sabotage peace talks. Russia is interested in a demillitarized Ukraine, the US wants it to continue so it can continue to aquire Ukrainian resources and damage Russia, and Ukrainians themselves want the war to end more than anything else.
Me:
… your talking points are a little out of date. Russia just recently sabotaged peace talks by continuing to attack Ukraine in ways they agreed they wouldn’t, after coming to an agreement in peace talks. That’s what sabotaging peace talks looks like. Are you not aware that that’s happening?
They:
As for sabotage, it was early in the war, and Ukraine was willing to talk. The US and the UK said no. Pretty clearly a violation of Ukraine’s rights in the conflict to begin with, it’s always been a proxy war using Ukrainian lives instead of the US. Its a free war.
Me:
Tell me why it doesn’t count that Russia blew up a bunch of stuff they specifically peace-agreed that they wouldn’t blow up, like just now within the last few days.
They:
Ukraine is not innocent, though not evil either, the correct stance is a peace deal ASAP. I never said anything “didn’t count,” I am telling you that the best outcome for everyone is a peace deal immediately, and you’re trying to twist that into me loving Russia.
Me:
Is it sabotage of a peace deal to blow up a bunch of energy infrastructure the same day that you agreed you wouldn’t attack each other’s energy infrastructure?
They:
I’d say sabotaging peace deals and violating agreements is a bad thing, sure. If Russia did that, then that’s bad.
Me:
Sounds good. Taking the hypothetical out of it, would you say that Russia did sabotage the peace deal when they attacked Ukraine’s energy infrastructure the day they agreed not to attack each other’s energy infrastructure?
They:
Sure, fuck em, but it would be mutual disrespect of the ceasefire deal. It is best for all parties that a peace deal be made.
And with that, I’m disengaging, like I said I would.
I have discovered that pointed direct questions, without toleration for a lack of answers, is the kryptonite to a certain type of bad-faith arguing. He got butthurt and refused to continue the conversation when I didn’t want to move on and let him slip-slide away from the question and keep talking about what he wanted to talk about and only that.
In case there’s anyone out there wondering “wait, which famine?” Don’t worry, I got your history right here.
These governments didn’t just have famines, they had famines so massive they have their own names with a capital “The”.
They’re also super well known for ending imperialism, those dastardly empires on the Baltic Sea/in the Caucasus/in Central Asia were no match for the totally non-imperialist spread of russian culture and rule
Everyone in East Germany, North Korea, Hungary, the USSR, all those bastions of victory was saying “Thank God I’m here and I don’t have to go to someplace where I would be oppressed by imperialism, and instead I can be here, happy and free.” They actually had to put up walls and borders to make sure none of the Westerners could stream in and take advantage of all their communism.
You know, one of the most outrageous things about communism to me is that every communist government you’ve ever heard of goes through this insane phase where they try to apply Marxist theory to plant biology and it just doesn’t work. Like, you know your theory, good work, but that doesn’t mean that you can use Marxist theory to work out orbital periods or protein structures. Get against the wall comrade wheat, you’re being charged with anti-revolutionary crimes.
It is the nature of anything where whether you’re correct is determined by whether you agree with the man with the gun, instead of whether you can convince other people by talking it out with them and people are allowed to disagree.
well they did "solve famine"and then weaponized it
(that’s every single famine. famine is always man made, and is almost always an act of genocidal greed)
How do you propose to solve the famine comrade? Easy, just say there is no famine.
It’s true though the Soviets solved famine for about ten million people.
They won’t own that as a logistical failure of the Soviet state, because in many cases they deliberately used famine to murder
undesirablescounterrevolutionaries. And then they surreptitiously blame said famine on the people they murdered to tie it all up neatly.
motherfucker what. i know tankies are completely nuts but WHAT!?
He’s currently doubling down, saying everyone in the PRC is food secure.
I showed him this and asked him what the little dip in “World” and “Asia” was:
Solved. Completely fucking solved lol.
Also, Russia wants peace in Ukraine, but the US won’t let them.
I’m working on finding a channel that was posting absolutely hilarious little cartoon vignettes from Ukraine about the war. My new strategy when someone is spending an absolutely endless amount of time and energy arguing some totally ridiculous thing to me, is instead of just trading barbs with them forever, to post to some productive location something opposite to their point of view that will get more attention. Thus the impact of everything they said in their comments on the overall consensus hivemind is negated and then some, and I don’t have to spend unlimited amounts of typing time.
I mean, technically Russia does want peace, just a peace where they own the sovereign nation subjugated by force.
Kevin Weeks talked about this in his autobiography. He said that Whitey Bulger would always only use violence as a last resort. As an example, he brought up a time when he and Whitey went over to someone’s house, and they tried every way from Sunday for a long time to talk him into giving Whitey the money. But no matter how they tried to explain it, the guy just wouldn’t. So of course Whitey had to fuck him up. Like really bad. See? Absolute last resort.
I grew up in the Old Colony housing project in South Boston and became partners with James “Whitey” Bulger, who I always called Jimmy.
Jimmy and I, we were unstoppable. We took what we wanted. And we made people disappear—permanently. We made millions. And if someone ratted us out, we killed him. We were not nice guys.
I found out that Jimmy had been an FBI informant in 1999, and my life was never the same. When the feds finally got me, I was faced with something Jimmy would have killed me for—cooperating with the authorities. I pled guilty to twenty-nine counts, including five murders. I went away for five and a half years.
I was brutally honest on the witness stand, and this book is brutally honest, too; the brutal truth that was never before told.
So, violent and unreasonable, until they were faced with their own consequences, until they turned into the exact same rats. Sounds about right.
