this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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Only devil's advocate in war I will ever advocate for is "what happens to the populace when their government eventually gets collapsed"
Russian government is corrupt as hell and the military is fucked, dont get me wrong, but if we get a repeat of Brazil/Korea/etc. where a 'west-friendly' dictator is installed, I would rather them be under their current gov
Whether a Western-backed dictator would be better or worse is hard to say. All dictators are, of course, terrible, but it's difficult to discern just how terrible each one is before they come to power. In any case, we can and should demand better of our governments than that. We may be deeply flawed democracies, but we are still democracies, and must stand in support of our ideals, not dictators, no matter how West-friendly. Fuck, at least some of the time.
From history, the dictators are never better than the alternative. USA owned West Germany hiring ex-Nazi elites to run the gov, Pinochet refining torture methods for the CIA, all of South Korea's dictators post-Korean War
I meant some dictators are better than others, not that some dictators are better than less autocratic forms of government.
Yeah, sure. Go ahead. Compare American-backed dictators and non-American-backed dictators.
Not a lot of difference.
there actually is, the amount of civilians killed, because unlike the soviets, the Americans kept a leash of theirs.
like you want to compare dictators? while bad, Pinochet killed fewer people than pol-pot
Not really.
Pol Pot was supported by China, not the Sovs. What's more, Pol Pot was hardly an 'average' outcome.
Do Brazil and NK have West friendly leaders? First I've heard.
Does it count if the last president wasn't pro West and did everything a Russian asset would do?
North Korea is as it is BECAUSE of what the US did to South Korea. When your neighbor, previous countrymen get taken over by a foreign occupying force and you have no allies to protect you, you get weird and reclusive in self-defense
what are you talking about? North Korea is literally the Chinese created Buffer state, if you want to talk about legitimacy, the state of Korea before the China/Russia backed civil war (North Korea somehow had modern Russian MIGs, and most of their army spoke only Chinese) is what because south Korea.
North Korea is an isolationist because it is a despotic dictatorship.
It's Russia. It will be a dictator or nothing, it is their culture and has been for centuries.
Yeah-yeah. All Russian are genetic slaves and should be sanctioned, cross border naked and only on foot, except those who have millions of stolen money in bank account are definetly not genetic slaves, but honorary citizens.
That's not quite what I meant, but I understand how it could be taken that way. I'm just kind of sour because they had ridiculous strongman after ridiculous strongman in the Tsars, had a genuine worker's revolt, and then squandered it on ridiculous strongman after ridiculous strongman, then that government folded only to be replaced by a ridiculous strongman. The Russian people deserve way better than that, but it sort of seems like they don't feel like better is possible. I can sympathize, Americans are similar that way, and I think Americans will elect empty suit after empty suit, because American culture is superficial in the same way that Russian culture is fatalistic about power and corruption.
Okay, so everyone who is reading this but isn't up on their early 20th century history knows - Nicholas II did not particularly want to be Tsar. But he considered it his duty and divine position to be an 'unshakeable autocrat' anyway who opposed democratic reforms at every turn. Nicholas had to have one of his close relatives threaten to shoot himself in the head with a revolver in front of Nicholas before Nicholas allowed the protesters their demands for a very defanged parliament in 1905.
This is also hogwash. The February Revolution was a genuine worker's revolt characterized by spontaneous mass strikes, riots, and refusal of orders by war-weary soldiers at the front once they heard of the unrest. WW1 was a tangled mess, but neither Kaiser Wilhelm nor Nicholas searched in earnest for solutions, because they thought the other parties would back down, or that it would be a short war. Neither, of course, was true. But they were genuinely friendly in their correspondence on account of the royal families of Europe being one somewhat inbred family tree, so some historical revisionists like to assume that they're innocent.
Another inaccuracy. Germany didn't have trouble with the 'sheer number of bodies' that Russia could send to the front. The Eastern Front in WW1 they were actually considerably successful in. It was simply a desire to refocus all of their forces, and Austro-Hungary's, to other fronts by ending the war with Russia sooner. Lenin did not arrive in Russia until the February Revolution had already occurred.
It was not a lack of offers from other royal families that condemned him, it was the fact that the workers soviets' hated his fucking guts and would have killed him if the Provisional Government tried to ferry him out.
I personaly don't give rat's arse what happens to russians when their government collapses. They brought it onto themselves, both by being "apolitical about it all" or by supporting and cheering the government all the way back ten years ago when it was just "little green men" and "polite people".
And how about the millions who weren't okay with Putin, but were forced into silence because one person can't fight governmental tyranny? Like, I don't support Russia's invasion and I think Putin needs to pay, but do millions of Russians who had no say whatsoever (and were brainwashed for decades through expertly crafted propaganda) deserve to starve alongside their children for the actions of a monster?
If you say 'yes', then tell me if all Americans deserve to suffer the consequence of Trump's presidency when the majority didn't even vote for the guy.
Yes, because none of them stood up against Putin.
Trump didn't invade Mexico tho
What, you expected people to stand up against a tinpot dictator who would happily torture them and their families? Would you do that?
And Trump was literally about to take the final step towards killing democracy in America. He might not have invaded Mexico during his term, but he sure was setting up the environment where he could've gotten away with it and quashed any protest against it.
yes. it's a family tradition after all, sometimes there ARE things worth dying for.
most of the military was not on Trumps side, it at best would have sparked a civil war, and the trump-tards aren't that great in number
As a brazilian being screwed by our corrupt communist president but hate the US imperialism as well, we should just nuke Brazil ☺️
Learn what communism is lol
Or social democracy, which actually works
He is literally in the brazilian Worker's Party, which unsurprisingly is a communist party, and also said "being called a communist is something to be proud of". I am stating facts.
If I say I’m an Olympic Athlete I don’t suddenly become an Olympic Athlete.
People can say they’re communist all they want but I’ve never heard of a “””communist””” leader that wasn’t just a fascist in disguise.
Ok
Lmao mf thinks I like Bolsonaro
Why so you think that, people that uses insults instead of arguments?
Lemmy is becoming reddit lmao
Lmao indeed, blaming the platform because ppl not agreeing with your take on "reality".
You're looking to make that a reality, bringing right wing views here and laughing in people's face who point it out.
I meant Pinochet not Lula, Lula is chill
Pinochet is Chile. I don't remember who the Brazilian dictator was.
Getúlio Vargas? Idk about Chile, but at least in Brazil, in most places, Getúlio is considered a national hero
I think they meant the later dictatorship spawned from the 1964 coup, the US-backed one.
Oh, the Regime Militar, oh yeah, that happened, but US didn't really "intervene", the dictators were really just american friendly most of the time
We didn't end up intervening, but we were definitely in full support of their efforts. I guess this is really all semantics in the end.
True true
Lula getting ignored at UN 💀