#Campism

[daloy-politsey]

[evilelitest2]

What is Ukraine Anyways?

Ok so lets start, what is Ukraine?  Ukraine is a nation in Eastern Europe, just south of Belarus, just East of Poland, just north of Romania and Moldova, and just West of Russia.  I know what you're thinking “Belarus, what's that '' so ok, maybe US geography could use a bit of work.  Before the war Ukraine had a population of 44 million people, and was either the largest or second largest nation in Europe depending on how you count Russia.  And I think that is worth focusing on. Ukraine is massive, about the size of Texas, and yet it's forgotten because it's next to Russia, the largest nation in the world. 

Ukraine is sometimes called “The Ukraine '' but that's controversial for reasons we will talk about later. So there are three main things that you need to know about Ukrainian history

First, Ukraine is famous for its fertile soil, the “Black Earth”, and is one of the major agricultural powers in the world, certainly it is the supreme agricultural powerhouse of Eastern Europe.  This also makes it extremely valuable to other nations who might want to colonize it.

Second, Ukraine doesn’t have much in the way of Natural Borders.  A Natural Border is a landscape feature which provides a convenient barrier between nations. A mountain range, a river, an ocean, or a desert are all good natural borders because it means that anybody who wants to invade you needs to really commit.  While part of Ukraine is on the Black Sea and you have the Carpathian mountains in the west, the rest of it is…really not, it's mostly a mix of farmland and steppe. 

Thirdly, this combination of fertile land and lack of natural defenses means that Ukraine has a long history of being invaded from almost every side, and one of the tricky legacies of this is figuring out where Ukraine stops and another country begins because The Commonwealth, Prussia, the Golden Hoard, Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottomans, and most infamously Russia have all had their shot at seizing Ukrainian territory. This is made worse because Ukraine is sort of in the middle of a bunch of other states, it connects between a bunch of territory.  This is actually where the term “Ukraine” comes from, it means “borderland” 

 As a result of said fertility and constant invasion, Ukraine is an extremely ethnically diverse region, both in terms of Religion and Ethnicity.  You have Ukranians, Russians, Tatars, Bulgarians, Jews, Hungarians, Romani and Pols living within the borders, with a lot of mixing between these groups.  

So one final thing I want to talk about is Slavs, because I am going to be using that term a lot and it is good for non-Europeans to know what that means.  Slavs is an ethnic/linguistic group that combines a wide variety of different ethnic groups, mostly linked through linguistic origin.  A lot of ethno-nationalists will claim that there is some sort of magical bond all Slavs have towards each other by blood, but it’s mostly language connections, like how French and Italian are different languages but are clearly related.  Slavic people’s include Czechs, Slavokians, Pols, Belarusians, Bulgarians, “Yugoslavians' ' (I am not going to get into the ethnic politics of the Balkans here, dear god no), Ukranians and ethnic Russians.   Many slavic languages (but not all) use the Cyrillic script, which comes from the Byzantine Empire (We will come back to them later don’t worry), including both Ukrainian and Russian.  What matters for us is that the Ukrainian and Russian languages are very closely related and are somewhat understandable to each other, there is even a dialect, Surzhyk, which mixes the two even further.  A good comparison is like Spanish vs. Portuguese, different languages but very close.  Why this matters is that many Russian nationalists claim that Ukranian isn’t actually a language, it's just a dialect of Russian.  I’m not a linguist, but everything I’ve read indicates it is its own language, it has a few unique letters and UKraine has this weird case with words going on.  The biggest evidence towards me though are Rusisans friends of mine who have told me that when they visit Ukraine they often have a very hard time understanding what is going on.  Also worth noting, most Ukranians speak Russian, about a third of them speak Russian as their first language, mostly in the east.  We will get on that later

FInally, let's take a moment to talk about religion.  Most Russians and Ukrainian are Orthodox Christians, aka “The Christianity people in the West forgets exists”.   Short version is that before the Catholic Protestant Split in the 16th century, the previous sexy christian Split was in the 11th century between the Orthodox East and the Catholic West.  Unlike the Reformation, this was less a doctrinal dispute and more of an organizational one, the Orthodox reject the Pope’s authority for the Byzantine Emperor, Catholics use latin as the liturgical language while the Orthodox used Greek, the Orthodox is a far more decentralized faith, they each have opposite signs of the cross, little things ike that.  There have been…a lot of wars between these two groups and a lot of bad blood left over from said wars, such as the Fourth Crusade which sacked Constantinople or the Teutonic Knights (we will get to them more later. 

Important for future events is the fate of the Byzantine Empire.  Basically, when the Western Roman Empire Fell, the Eastern Empire continued on going until 1453, when it was finally destroyed by the Ottoman Empire.  The Emperor was the head of the Orthodox church, so when the Empire fell, so too did the unity of the Orthodox church.  Imagine if the Pope was killed, Rome was destroyed and no new pope was declared.  So there isn’t one Orthodox CHurch, its several different Orthodox churches for each region.  

[notaplaceofhonour]

Hey @frankujito, what exactly about Holocaust denial, Khazar theory, and calls for the genocide of Jews puts antisemitism in scarequotes? Because that’s what I’m talking about, not mere criticism of Israel.

Don’t bother answering, though. The question is rhetorical and you’re already blocked. And I will continue blocking anyone else who denies or seeks to whitewash the antisemitism of these things or anyone who espouses them.

But I thought I’d highlight how this response illustrates just how blatant and obvious the lies are that some leftists will tell about Jewish leftists who dare criticize the antisemitism around them.

For instance, they claim I made no mention of Israel’s crimes, when in fact I very obviously did—more than once in that post. I even start the post they’re replying to with an acknowledgment that Israel abuses the Palestinians, and every sentence that follows takes as a given that Israel is in the wrong in how it treats the Palestinian people and commits crimes against them. I even say:

Oppose Bibi Netanyahu. Oppose Israel’s far-right, authoritarian government. Oppose its apartheid policies. Oppose its violent abuse of the Palestinian people. That isn’t antisemitic.

I go into further criticisms of Israel in greater detail elsewhere (a country I have never been to and have no ties to, and lord willing will never have to flee to, but apparently need to constantly be criticizing simply because I’m Jewish).

I should not have to make an itemized list of every specific crime the Israeli government has ever done in the moment just to talk about how the left shouldn’t embrace Holocaust denial and bombing civilians—just as I don’t need to list out every crime of Japanese Imperialism to talk about how the US bombing Japan was bad, or list out every crime the US has committed to talk about how the OKC bombing was bad, or list out every crime of the Catholic Church to discuss how Protestant anti-Catholicism is often rooted in bigotry. But you know as well as I do that you would not have been willing to listen even if I had sat there and listed out literally every crime that has ever been committed by the state of Israel or even every Jew in all of history.

My post about the left’s embrace of Hamas’ antisemitism was not made “the moment Palestinians were afforded a chance of freedom”. It wasn’t even made the moment some on the American and European Left started embracing antisemitic conspiracy theories like the Khazar theory and claims of Israeli “deep pockets” and control of mass media (side note: I wrote this line before I saw that this person continued on their tirade, in which they invoked exactly these tropes from the Protocols). It is only after YEARS of escalating and increasingly blatant calls for & acts of violence against Jews caused by the rhetoric I am criticizing that I made that post.

I could not have been more measured and nuanced without just shrugging my shoulders and saying “eh, what’s a little Holocaust Denial?”. But this person using the word “nuance” as a pejorative, as something I somehow shouldn’t have been engaging in, speaks volumes about where this attitude comes from. Some people just do not want to wrestle with the fact that a decades-long conflict between the corrupt governments of two oppressed peoples is going to be complex and complicated to engage with, and they will eagerly flatten it into a black-and-white, us-vs-them battle between the virtuous heroes and the dastardly evil villains.

And when anyone engages with this complexity, it is easier to lie and say they didn’t say what they said or that they don’t actually mean it, so you can sort everyone into “the good camp” and “the bad camp”. This Campist logic is exactly the same way of thinking that leads some people on the left to deny the atrocities of the USSR and/or side with modern Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Don’t fall for it.

[themistressofdolls]

Can pro gaza people on the shitty bird site just not boost Russian anti ukraine propagandists for like just one day please? Or even defend Russians genocidal ass invasion or make both conflicts some kind of competition of worth.

The US is worthy of heavy criticism but maybe its not good to take that as an excuse to simp for imperial authoritarians just because your politics are little more than vapid "US BAD"

Worth a look https://vatniksoup.com/en/soups/294/

[anarchistin]

honestly couldn't care less abt what any long-dead thinker 'would have thought' about something from today. it's a useless question, purely speculative, and a poor substitute for thinking about it yourself.

source

[evilelitest2]

A huge problem on the American left is that they often will take a stupid reductive right wing paradigm and just invert it. So American conservatives say

"American is the best country in the world"

Once they realize that is wrong, but they keep the paradigm and just conclude

"America is the worse country in the world"

which...doesn't help, its still American exceptionalism and its still denying the rest of the world agency

I feel like the root problem of american tankies' shallow ideals is redirected american exceptionalism. Internet and globalization has caused them to realize that that they're not in fact the best country in the world as school etc has told them. But instead of understanding that they have problems just like the rest of us (though tbf, their ability to cause other nations harm is unmatched) they now flipped to saying that the us must be the worst country in the entire world and the source of all evil. They cannot comprehend that non-americans are perfectly capable of doing the most heinous shit and thus assume that behind every war or conflict lies a us conspiracy and influence - because surely non-americans are just so innocent, naive and primitive and unlike americans lack the cunning to advance their political goals without help by the US. The fact that not only the US government but also its enemies can be vile at the same time and that sometimes they can even be on the good side is completely beyond them which is why they are never truly against imperialism, genocide or opression unless it is done by americans or their allies.

[russianreader]

Simon Pirani: No Path to Peace in Ukraine Through This Fantasy World

The Russian army’s meagre successes in Ukraine – such as taking the ruined town of Avdiivka, at horrendous human cost – have produced a new round of western politicians’ statements and commentators’ articles about possible peace negotiations. Hopes are not high, because the Kremlin shows no appetite for such talks. Its actions, such as nightly bombing of civilians and civilian infrastructure,…

[cmanateesto]

If you feel discouraged from an Anti-War rally, don't. It's better to stand united in defense of human life than allow the Corporate tyrants to have their way.

[starlightomatic]

it's interesting how many leftists claim to oppose the death penalty while supporting killing israeli civilians

[lurks-no-more]

Don't forget Venezuela, and Maduro's brutal, corrupt, authoritarian, constantly lying and utterly incompetent Chavista regime, that a lot of leftists online support just because it's opposed to the US.

My high school history teacher once said, "America has supported miserable governments just because they were Anti-Commie."

And I'm seeing the same with the Far Left. They are supporting some of the most objectively horrible "governments" in the world (Iranian regime, Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, etc) with stone age-era penal codes just because they're Anti-West.

[evilelitest2]

Background on Ukraine/Russia, Introduction

So let me ask you a question, to be honest, how many of you had heard of Ukraine before February of 2022?  The invasion of Ukraine is a very good example of why history is important. On February 23rd your view of the future was one way, and then boom, suddenly your entire world is upside down due to the invasion of a nation you had never heard of.  So lets try to correct that, together we are going to go on a comically dismal adventure into Eastern European history, it has Mongolian invaders, vikings, genocide, drinking contests, Yiddish humor, more genocide, increasingly esoteric arguments about maps, and genocides.   History is fun kids. 

Who is this for?  I want this to be for curious people who aren’t necessarily experts in history, but have an interest in history and want to be informed global citizens.  This isn’t written for people with PHDs in Eastern European studies, nothing I cover here is going to be more advanced than a basic college class (though it might be an Eastern European college class).   This is laymen’s history, history, if you want a more indepth expert understanding of the conflict you can do far far better than me friend.

So let’s talk about the question of delicious, delicious bias.  There is a school of thought that historians are supposed to present all things without any opinions, just reciting facts without calling in any judgment.  This is a school of thought held by liars, because nobody actually doesn’t make value judgements in how they view history, and I don’t want to insult your intelligence by assuming false neutrality.  I am going to present the facts and I am going to piss off a lot of people, but you should know from the outset that I think Russia’s invasion is an example of imperialism and every democratic nation should be invested in seeing Russia defeated.   That being said, I intend to cover up nobody’s dirty laundry, so if you expected to get through this without learning about what Ukraine’s partisans were up to in WWII, you should find a different show.  I firmly believe that atrocities are bad even when done using buzzwords I like.  Russian and Ukrainian nationalists are going to find these videos plenty uncomfortable, but don’t worry, the capitalists, communists, tsarists, liberals, and even anarchists are going to have their day in court as it were.  Though it shouldn’t need to be said, the Nazis were the worst of the lot.  

TLDR, I think genocide is bad, thats my bias.  

Ok, so the other accusation that is going to be thrown at me is that I’m anti Russia, that by reporting Russian history without the assumption Russia is god’s protagonist, I am letting slip my secret Russaphilic desires brought on by anti Russian racism.  So let's put this out in the open, I have…absolutely no family connection to Ukraine.  I have some Russian cousins by marriage but no familiar connection to Russia, as far as I know my family has no direct ties to eastern Europe.  That being said, I am in my personal life, an obnoxious Russophile.  I love the Russian language, I like Russian culture, I read Russian literature, listen to Russian music, watch Russian movies, fail to play Russian video games, admire Russian paintings and compose sad monologues about the futility of the human utopian experience in my downtime.  I actually know very little about Ukrainian day to day culture, I know the history but I haven’t seen any Ukrainian movies.  This isn’t a deliberate malicious choice, it’s just that being an empire does wonders for advertising. Hell I even…think that Kiev sounds better than Kyiv (cue booing) yeah yeah I know, it just sounds cooler I’m sorry, I don’t think Russia deserves to take your nation because of it, please don’t hurt me. 

So if I, Russian weeaboo par excellence, am able to admit that Russia’s invasion is unjustified and is the product of centuries of imperialism, then maybe thinking that isn’t part of a secret anti Russian agenda, but maybe you can like Russian culture and still think genocide is wrong.  Israel, take notes.  

Alright, i'm going to be posting these for awhile now, its gonna be fun

[slaviclore]

posting this because I'm seeing eastern europeans expressing increasing concern over this issue -- the socialists are calling it campism

From this article by Dan La Botz

[argyrocratie]

communists be like help me idealized and simplistic version of bourgeois legality

[eleemosynecdoche]

Anyways, sometimes I think I'm being too mean towards open-about-it communists on social media, many of whom are young and structurally pushed towards behaving in ways I find personally annoying, and then I see a post which could have been written by diehard anti-union go-USA anticommunist coworkers of mine and I think, "for fuck's sake". For fuck's sake.

[warcrimesimulator]

western leftists attacking palestinians for expressing solidarity with uyghurs or syrians because it doesnt fit their narrative are the same type of idiots as western rightoids/liberals accusing my ukrainian mutuals of being russian because they support armenians or palestinians.

[vividxp]

sometimes i have to internalize that 1) it's not exactly the same people at the scene of the crime, metaphorically speaking. and 2) people can come to realization about things later on and that's ok.

but man, being a younger adult seeing the craven callousness of some people that claim to have the higher ground today is...wearying. sometimes i'm like 'ok, but was i the only one who remembered what folks were saying back then'.