Comment on The crusade against Lemmy devs, lemmy.ml, and so-called "tankies"
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 10 hours agoIf you have the chance, travel. You’ll notice a distinct lack of Westerners standing around and cracking the whip. If anything, they’re building wells and handing out vaccines.
It’s arguably the strongest faction, although China’s also up there. But, there’s still plenty of sovereignty to go around.
Cricket@lemmy.zip 9 hours ago
Oh, I’ve traveled plenty and lived in more than one country. You seriously believe that there are more Westerners building wells and handing out vaccines around the world than there are trying to control other countries militarily and economically in order to extract as much wealth from them as they can? If you do believe that, I’m not sure that we will get anywhere with our discussion.
China’s barely getting started. Although they are very strong economically, they pale in comparison in terms of projecting military force or trying to control and manipulate other countries. I just heard a couple days ago that just the US has over 700 military installations across over 80 countries, while China has like 2 or 3. Also, the US has been involved in overthrowing dozens and dozens of governments around the world since World War II, many of them democratically elected.
When China becomes the 800-pound gorilla and shows the intent to subjugate the entire world, I will be glad to argue against them instead. I’m not inherently for China or Russia or anyone else blindly. I at least try to judge countries just like I judge people, based on their actions and nothing else.
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 9 hours ago
More in terms of what? TBF I’m from a relief work background, but it seems to me most Western institution don’t care enough to send people at all.
That includes the period where black people literally couldn’t vote. Don’t you think the West has changed?
To pick an example on this side of the Cold War, obviously the US and a few select friends fucked up Iraq for no reason, but then again lots of people fucked up each other within the non-Western world. Russia is doing a whole lot of that right now.
The West at least cares about human rights and democracy in the abstract. And, at this moment in history, anyone else that does is probably friendly with the West. Isn’t that worth something, if our actions are, at worst, just as bad?
Cricket@lemmy.zip 7 hours ago
More in terms of numbers of people and money. I think the West still cares about their colonies and neo-colonies a lot. Consider the number of Western military bases around the world, plus the number of intelligence analysts and operatives from every Western country still actively trying to control and manipulate large portions of the world, plus Western corporations with large presences around the world, still extracting wealth to this day. I agree that much of it is outsourced to local middlemen, but I feel that there’s still much more people applied to these ulterior motives than toward legitimately helping the world.
I think Afghanistan was a rare exception because of Osama, like you said. Most other Western interventions around the world are for extracting oil, minerals, heck, even fruit.
With regard to foreign policy? I really don’t think the West has changed much. The US, UK, and other Western countries are still interfering with other countries to this day, with no legitimate reason to do so.
Compare the Wikipedia lists of foreign interventions by the US, France, China, and Russia sometime. It’s not even a race. The West has lapped the other powers while they were getting started out of the gate.
I think we have finally arrived at the crux of the issue. The West cares about human rights and democracy mostly for propaganda and as vehicles to expand their power and interfere with other countries. The West has overthrown democratically-elected governments and installed human-rights violating dictators plenty of times, up until recently, and will continue to do so while they can. For all of Russia’s and China’s internal ills, and I know there are a lot of them, they pale in comparison to the West in terms of the ills that they have brought upon the rest of the world outside their borders.
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 6 hours ago
Not as much as you’d think, honestly. For things like resources, there are corrupt deals that get funneled through places like Saychelles, but if you actually look at the savings that come out of it it’s like pennies on the Western end. Uh, [here’s one of the reports I think I read]. They’re really screwing the global poor for nothing. Meanwhile, the low-end manufacturing jobs are popular because they tend to pay better than anything else available, and are arguably lighter work than going out in the fields; nobody’s really losing there.
Western wealth comes from other Western wealth, for the most part. Solid institutions, high education rates and lots of capital, which allows all kinds of complicated industries to exist. That got started on colonialism and slavery, but it doesn’t need it to exist now.
I’m also involved in politics. There’s legit ideology there, just like there was legit ideology in the Soviet Union.
Although the far right is a different beast, obviously. These days the US is a lot like a second China, from a Canadian perspective.
What are you thinking of there? I can’t really come up with anything past the 80’s. Some leaders will blame the West for their own domestic protesters, but it’s always BS. If the US couldn’t find one guy for that long they certainly can’t whip up an entire nation.
To the rest, I’ll say we both know the earlier history, and I’d probably agree the West needs taking down a peg circa 1920. The Cold War is a bit murkier, because the USSR liked a good puppet or intervention as well.