Yes, this is ancient. Yes, it will be reposted whenever Things are Happening.

It’s hard. I wish we could kick them in the nuts over the internet. Not because it would necessarily change anything, but so that the rest of us could be a bit less stressed about it all.

<- The Based Department.

Like the meme. Thanks.

Fair points. To be honest, my main concern when commenting in spaces like these is the state of “leftist” spaces, since that’s what’s directly affected by the act of commenting. I think allowing the chauvinism to run unchecked without being confronted makes these spaces quite painful to inhabit, especially for those targeted by that chauvinism.

Related to what you’ve said, I’ve got one of the classics from the Chinese internet… You might enjoy it in the unlikely event you haven’t seen it before.

Remember JDPON Don. Internationalists are in control. Trust the plan.

I agree with what you’re saying, but I have a comment on the last paragraph.

I think it’s necessary to confront Americans with this. If they’re coddled and allowed to continue existing in a world where their exceptionalism is treated as the default, there’s no chance they’ll ever change. I think at least online they should be force to confront the idea that, to many people in the world, their country is a despicable force of evil and destruction.

Beyond that, I’m tired of spaces online revolving around Americans, their news, their political opinions, and their chauvinistic worldview. There are 8 billion people in the world, and I think Americans are the ones who should have to reckon with the fact that perspectives which conflict with theirs are just as, if not more, valid. When they’re catered to in spaces like this, they keep coming back and spewing more chauvinism, which makes the spaces hostile to everyone else.

Of course, this depends on where and how and who I’m talking to, as well as the purpose of the conversation.

You are right IMO that it’s very much like white fragility and also disproportionately a problem with white Americans.

People are people, and most Americans are people.

Haha, just caught that little bit of flair at the end of your comment. Good one.

It could be seen as a tankie post about muricans still having more freedom of speech vs russians. Thats how I saw it, because it was crossposted from tankie-land.

OK, so you read the comment completely, objectively wrong (the truncheon says “visa ban” on it, visa bans are imposed by other countries) because you turned off your ability to connect basic concepts when you saw the “tankie-land” word.

1. This comic was drawn before this happened, I think.
2. How is this related? The comic is about the international reaction towards Americans and Russians, not the domestic government reaction to protesters against these things.

I am genuinely baffled. This is completely unrelated to the point of the comic or to it being possible to cross-post from Hexbear.

I don’t know what to say about the fact that liberal "news"papers are publishing propaganda pieces that could easily pass as left-wing memes.

Prescient comment, given what the replies ended up looking like.

The US is currently under the control of a Russian asset called Krasnov.

“Everything bad America does is because Russia is controlling it.”

I’d accuse you of being a bot in turn, as a joke, but to be honest I think it says more that a lot of Americans really think this way.

I salute your effort to push back on this stuff. I think you hit the nail on the head in your previous comment for why people never seem to do any basic kind of “maybe Russia also has real geopolitical considerations and is not simply populated by evil orcs” analysis. I’ll quote the part I think explains it below, emphasis added by me.

The critical thinking question

As you say, Europe had a brighter future when it had better relations with Russia. If the Europeans want to destroy their own industry and sink their economies by helping the US cut them off from Russian oil with this manufactured conflict, then I suppose no one else can stop them.

Spreading the word of the Hexbear emoji collection across the fediverse.

I want to point out here that this comment is also an expression of the type of western fragility I’ve discussed elsewhere in this thread. Americans are in no danger of having their civilian homes destroyed by anyone other than their own government (edit: more likely blackrock, the actual master of their government lol). Least of all for anything related to this meme or what it represents. Americans, as a group, are not the victims of imperialism. They are its perpetrators.

Love the sinner, hate the sin.

I would like to point out that this is primarily a line used by evangelicals to obscure their very real hatred of so-called “sinners”.

In my opinion the reactions people have to memes like this are broadly symptomatic of western fragility. The people around the world who truly, really hate America (and even sometimes hate Americans) are generally the victims in this situation, rather than Americans who are the targets of a dislike which has no power structures behind it and does not affect them materially. The analogy to “anti-white racism”, while not perfect, clarifies this in my opinion. I’ve expanded on it elsewhere in this thread.

they sound like “they do bad, so we must do worse”

This is a strawman of the general pro-Palestine crowd and more or less exactly replicates zionist framing of the whole discourse.

People have a right to spit hatefully at “Israel”. Frankly from my perspective it’s strange not to feel a desire to do so (meaning, not to feel a hatred of “Israel”).

You:

private … toothbrush

I will NOT hear such revisionism from you, comrade! The toothbrushes WILL be COMMUNAL!

Yes! Death to the entire AmeriKKKan state, including all its bourgeois institutions, whether they are “public” or private.