I’ve actually heard liberals say defining imperialism as economic is specifically a Leninist definition of imperialism, just so they don’t have to engage with it. Lenin was just trying to confuse us! Everyone knows the USSR was an empire. 🤡
Yep, the reason I’m trying to engage this way is because trying to explain Lenin’s analysis just leads them to saying that changing the name of something doesn’t change its nature, which is correct, and is why I try to focus more on even using their liberal definition they are wrong.
I’ve found some success in turning the focus back on the West. The NATO bloc has put Ukraine in $100 billion in debt, has made all of its aid conditional on the exploitation of its energy and mineral and agricultural resources, and is intent on fighting to the last Ukrainian. It makes Western imperialism in Ukraine pretty obvious, even if I don’t touch on Maidan being a coup that installed a neonazi banderite regime run by Western collaborators (because they’ll dismiss that as Russian propaganda).
My angle has always been that the West never wanted Ukraine to even win, they just wanted it to be a millstone around Russia.
Defending Russia’s actions seems impossible. As we see here, to the liberal mind, whoever swings first is the bad guy. That’s it.
I can normally get people to see at least how NATO is bad, but they inevitably see it as preferable over Russia, which is a better position but not great.
I’ve actually heard liberals say defining imperialism as economic is specifically a Leninist definition of imperialism, just so they don’t have to engage with it. Lenin was just trying to confuse us! Everyone knows the USSR was an empire. 🤡
Yep, the reason I’m trying to engage this way is because trying to explain Lenin’s analysis just leads them to saying that changing the name of something doesn’t change its nature, which is correct, and is why I try to focus more on even using their liberal definition they are wrong.
Does it work?
I’ve found some success in turning the focus back on the West. The NATO bloc has put Ukraine in $100 billion in debt, has made all of its aid conditional on the exploitation of its energy and mineral and agricultural resources, and is intent on fighting to the last Ukrainian. It makes Western imperialism in Ukraine pretty obvious, even if I don’t touch on Maidan being a coup that installed a neonazi banderite regime run by Western collaborators (because they’ll dismiss that as Russian propaganda).
My angle has always been that the West never wanted Ukraine to even win, they just wanted it to be a millstone around Russia.
Defending Russia’s actions seems impossible. As we see here, to the liberal mind, whoever swings first is the bad guy. That’s it.
I can normally get people to see at least how NATO is bad, but they inevitably see it as preferable over Russia, which is a better position but not great.