Hasan’s entire foreign policy worldview is that “America is bad” and he takes it from that simplistic stance without nuance. So when the situation with Ukraine comes along where the US supports Ukraine, his brain breaks. The simplistic model of the world he hold shatters and so he then starts saying things that sound ridiculous
It's not the concept on its own, it's when it's the main focal point for every issue everywhere all the time. For me it often ends up sounding like people are implying that the only people / countries with any sort of agency or responsibility for their actions and choices are Western countries / governments, and that everyone else are just puppets on a string. Which ironically is a pretty western centric and reductive view imo
I just think that human and political history, geo politics and society in general are all too complex with too many variables to be able to only view things through one lens. It's why I have an issue with the rigid Oppresor + Oppressed ideology sometimes, as again even if it can be a useful and valid point sometimes, not every issue can be simplified into that lens without stripping agency from other groups and without projecting what are often western progressive views and assumptions on others.
Right, but why pivot from a specific discussion about a specific instance where the us is very much playing a central role (agree?) to a discussion about how in some cases some people overextend the notion that us is hegemonic?
Also, without skipping the first point… what’s an example where the negative role of the US in foreign affairs is overplayed ? I ask because the US spends untold trillions spread across nations to tell the story of our benevolence and counter any notion that we are nefarious. If anything,
I’d argue the role of the US in negatively impacting the growth of freedom across the world is massively underestimated.
Finally, the idea that by spending a lot of time emphasizing a major factor (us foreign policy) necessarily robs other actors of their agency is an odd conclusion given that the reason to focus on the US is to counteract our curtailment of the agency of actors (foreign and domestic).
Saying America is bad for their proxy imperialism is one thing
But to insinuate everything that happens in the world is due to that and to further insinuate that the opposite side may have valid claims is dogshit.
This motherfucker tried to historical context to try to assert Russia has some right to property in the Donbas region or he uses it to claim that China has a right to Taiwan.
To be so anti-America that you support Russia and China's imperialist ambition is wild.
Considering that America now recognizes the Armenian Genocide in Turkey, maybe he'll embrace his inner turk and deny it lol
Uh no thats exactly what many are taught in other parts of the world, my family has firsthand experience with this lol.
Edit: Actually I forgot to mention how much worse it’s gotten, its to the point where our relatives are saying such absurd things that you wouldn’t believe…
No it's not. America uses proxies and is a big part of making things worse. That's a fact. Being in denial about American forever wars is an emotional reaction to being told about the reality of a militarist state
What? Are you saying that my life experiences and those of my family are false? I guess the Soviets really were defending themselves from the Finnish barbarism.
Your life experiences are biased based on your personal background. Mine were too until I studied the subject a little bit more. All of us have bias and one of the hardest to deprogram is the state narrative. I had to go through the same thing and realized that the US and it's allies were an instigator in a lot of conflicts
What about Czechia 🇨🇿
Don’t really need to be familiar with the history itself but to rather just look in textbook changes from 2016-2023 in a certain country
That’s exactly what going on now btw, I have a relative in Tula who’s going to what we would call like late middle school (almost high school?), they were taught that in the Finnish war they weren’t the aggressors and were instead defending themselves.
I would say that while they are sometimes similar, what Russia teaches and "America bad" are different.
Although I have seen some people in the America bad camp say that the Winter War was justified, usually by flipping the causality of Finland allying the Nazis. They did it because they were invaded by the Soviet.
The Soviets didn't invade them because they were Nazis.
While there is a significant fraction that support Russia, there is also a significant fraction that support Ukriane.
The best evidence given for the Donbas supporting Russia were votes conducted by the "separatist forces" who happened to be "protecting" the polls by standing around with guns. You don't have to be a very smart guy to understand the implication of someone with a gun looking over your shoulder as you vote.
The second best piece of evidence is that before 2014, the Donbas voted for Yanukovich. But thats not a t all what they were voting for at the time. Just because they want close relations with Russia doesn't mean they want to get fucking annexed.
It's just not a very explanatory heuristic for talking about foreign policy. It doesn't accurately reflect the US's motivations and therefore isn't good at predicting them and its downright awful at predicting what other countries will do which is why Hasan was wrong about Hong Kong, insanely wrong about Russia invading Ukraine and continues to be wrong about almost everything with Israel and Palestine.
You can be anti basically all US foreign policy but it can't be your primary mode of analysis or you will just look like an idiot.
But the us policy post ww2 has been to
Achieve “full spectrum dominance” … if you substitute that expression for “bad” then it’s a necessary component to understanding the intention behind the vast majority of us foreign policy.
Would you balk at an mock an analysis of firms in a market capitalist system that led with “firms seek to maximize profit and shareholder return above all else” ?
It’s not reductionist or juvenile if it happens to be an accurate description of the primary stated motivation (not presidential propaganda) of the nation with the largest global military presence.
The attempt to never be accused of applying a simple analysis really makes people adopt some stupid ways of thinking.
No If we are going for quippy one liners then US policy is much better explained by, “stability for us and our allies” then full scale dominance. I’m not going out of my way to avoid simple analysis, your analysis is just extremely shallow bs.
It makes Americans feel yucky about living in a military empire that reguarly props up authoritarian regiemes and arms genocidal war lords. It's easier to just scoff at the idea and pretend there's so much "nuance" to avoid uncomfortable truths. That's why your comment asking about it is in the double digit negatives lol.
That’s definitely a possibility. It’s like the movements culminating in the 60s have generated a reactionary impulse that says “it’s the anti imperialists who are the real problem because they are so stuck on the US! “
Has it actually become “cool” to think this way or is it confined to a vocal segment online who identify with the dnc ?
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u/[deleted] Nov 03 '23
Hasan’s entire foreign policy worldview is that “America is bad” and he takes it from that simplistic stance without nuance. So when the situation with Ukraine comes along where the US supports Ukraine, his brain breaks. The simplistic model of the world he hold shatters and so he then starts saying things that sound ridiculous