discipline posted:who wants to make a FBI/HASBARA KKKREW flag for these guys
how about you photoshop up yourself A FULL-TIME JOB!?!?!
c_man posted:yeah so now we're back the "the lion assad" and how if you don't support him uncritically you're engaging in imperialist propaganda
lol
c_man posted:yeah so now we're back the "the lion assad" and how if you don't support him uncritically you're engaging in imperialist propaganda
unironically this.
RedKahina posted:exemplary terror against the uppity (Haiti, Honduras, Venezuela, Libya)
i realize the timeline you're talking about but we can go ahead and add Afghanistan and Iraq here whose major crimes were being semi-durable examples of opposition to U.S. policy. iirc at least for Iraq this was widely accepted across the IR field, no matter their bent, in the interregnum period between the "Gulf Wars", that Iraq and Libya were defining new ways to oppose unipolarity (whether a unipolar world was considered real by the writer or just an attempt by the U.S.) and a lot of ink was spilled worrying over how best to fuck up Saddam Hussein's challenge to the U.S., which consisted of continuing to exist and say bad things about us while we flew bombing runs over Iraq and starved its people and wrecked their regionally gold-star standard of living and generally continued to wage war for an entire decade. these academics as we know had a direct shit pipe running from their towers into the White House and still do
c_man posted:so you're saying that lessons is claiming that the current level of us intervention in syria is fine?
I honestly have a hard time pinning down what he's saying because he also said that if pressed of course he supports the Syrian government against the U.S. and im like 
getfiscal posted:discipline posted:who wants to make a FBI/HASBARA KKKREW flag for these guys
how about you photoshop up yourself A FULL-TIME JOB!?!?!
c_man posted:but the question was never "should you support the US", compared to which, sure, fine. is acceptance of this with reservations about assad and his government still imperial propaganda?
the point is that emphasizing assad's faults at a time when he's under imperial onslaught is kind of unhelpful. it reminds me of people bringing up allegations of Gaddafi's involvement in Thomas Sankara's death when Gaddafi himself was lynched by US-armed rebels who only succeeded because of a NATO bombing campaign. or the constant need certain anti-war figures felt to note that saddam was a bad bad man.
getfiscal posted:.custom228497{color:#04048C !important; background-color:#F7F7F7 !important; }discipline posted:who wants to make a FBI/HASBARA KKKREW flag for these guys how about you photoshop up yourself A FULL-TIME JOB!?!?!
I can't wait until 3D printers can print us all jobs
daddyholes posted:Remember, all of the back end liberal over-justification for Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine whatever, Vietnam, post-WWII Europe, however far back you wanna go to the edge of public figures just straight out saying that white Westerners deserve more things, past that era, all of this has always been sold as "Intelligent Policy Improvements That They're Gonna Love"
so why is it "not possible" or whatever to say "don't go to war, don't sell arms, demand accountability/cessation of us foreign involvement, regardless of whatever government structures they have that we don't like"? that sounds to me like the liberal soundbite for dealing with the gulf states. i don't see why you're assuming any kind of narrative consistency for the soundbites that the state department puts out, and reacting directly to it seems like bad strategy (letting the media/state department etc frame the debate)
HenryKrinkle posted:the point is that emphasizing assad's faults at a time when he's under imperial onslaught is kind of unhelpful.
then wouldn't it be a better strategy to develop a line that is more or less indifferent to whether or not there are legitimate reasons why someone would oppose the state in the absence of US imperialism?
c_man posted:so why is it "not possible" or whatever to say "don't go to war, don't sell arms, demand accountability/cessation of us foreign involvement, regardless of whatever government structures they have that we don't like"? that sounds to me like the liberal soundbite for dealing with the gulf states. i don't see why you're assuming any kind of narrative consistency for the soundbites that the state department puts out, and reacting directly to it seems like bad strategy (letting the media/state department etc frame the debate)
I don't know who you're arguing with but it's not me, it's perfectly possible to say all sorts of horseshit
HenryKrinkle posted:c_man posted:but the question was never "should you support the US", compared to which, sure, fine. is acceptance of this with reservations about assad and his government still imperial propaganda?
the point is that emphasizing assad's faults at a time when he's under imperial onslaught is kind of unhelpful. it reminds me of people bringing up allegations of Gaddafi's involvement in Thomas Sankara's death when Gaddafi himself was lynched by US-armed rebels who only succeeded because of a NATO bombing campaign. or the constant need certain anti-war figures felt to note that saddam was a bad bad man.
I don't think you understand that comic. It's not criticizing anti-war activists for "going off-message", it's pointing out the shallowness and stupidity of American political discourse where it's necessary to constantly affirm you don't support Saddam to be taken seriously on the Iraq war. This isn't a choice we make or a matter of left strategy, if this is a public debate and not just leftist forums and microsects eventually you are going to have to face these accusations, and if you decide to then defend Assad/the Syrian government/whatever you make things so much harder on yourself. Now you have to sell all these other arguments, that the Syrian people support Assad, the human rights reports are unreliable, the Ghouta attacks are a false flag, and all the rest. None of these are essential to the actual political goal, stopping American intervention, they just muddy the waters and marginalize your cause, you are fighting a battle you can't win for no particular reason besides your own desire to Uphold The Lion.
c_man posted:people talk about the iowa writer's workshop as a CIA project
frank conroy did 9/11
There are already people out there on the edges of American media who are defending Assad, bashing the rebels and mocking the U.S. propaganda, who aren't on the left. They're not allies but they're vocal and present and they'll probably still have jobs tomorrow. This isn't an impossible line to take for an American nor an alien one from outer space to Americans. Nor will the line convince most Americans, but that's not my goal. Many loathe our President. That won't bring him down, but it makes people receptive and colors their prejudices. There is a lot of anti-Arab racism in the United States but, Syria or Assad in particular? In a period of a few years when the American press has basically buried every story about Palestine? And it's the tie-and-scarf leadership vs. Federally Certified Genuine Al Q? YouTube vs. LiveLeak? There has been nothing done on Assad like the work that was done to make Americans believe in the utter barbaric genetic and social depravity ascribed to the leaders of China or the U.S.S.R. - our government hasn't found the time - and Assad has effectively humiliated Americans' diplomats in front of the American media and the American people, making them look like warmongerers and asses (i know, keep going) through his secret negotiations with Russia. I think it's likely that a lot of Americans learned who Assad was on the day Putin shoved Obama into a locker and handed him some amount of Assad's lunch money. Motherfucker was not even in the AoE. And the legacy of Mongolian conquerors has always predisposed the people of America toward "strongmen", especially when their glistening sinews are struggling to hold a door shut with all the people from the countries they rule on the other side. It doesn't even matter if anyone's actually trying to open the door.
The peak opportunity for fair-weather anti-imperialism is extremely fucking nigh, given all the people who have all the reasons in the world to Meme Putin's tits against Obama's Al Qaida In Damascus. At least some amount of people in America do not know who to believe, given how gruesomely their own government has behaved in front of them in the very, very recent past, that is, it has killed more than its quota of Troops, and now they are home killing each other, which doesn't make us hate the government or the military or even the wars but it does make us remember the wars for longer than usual. This is probably the best time for this line in the history of the United States if it even matters what people in the United States think and I'm willing to go whole hog in getting anti-imperialist discussions out there before someone points out for me that without foreign aid the rebels might even lose!, which is only the line that Americans are hearing ten or twelve times a day from "both parties" if they watch the news, and then I have to try to talk about that without talking about supporting Assad.
For my part I don't believe for a minute that you're going to win people over to the Damascus line, you've had 3 years to do it and you've gotten nowhere, not in the US, not in the Middle East. I think this project is going nowhere and you're fooling yourself when you say it is. You say this is the best opportunity in ever to win people over, okay, let's check back in five years and you can either throw it back in my face or explain why that opportunity was squandered.
daddyholes posted:What's your follow up when you're accused of supporting Assad? Is it a lot of mud in the water? Does explaining your version of it get you closer to the people you're trying to convince? Do you just lie? It's not the easiest line, it's the easiest line that still communicates the message that will make the most or right impact. And I'm not saying I have the right one, I'm asking what the impact is that you're trying to make.
There are already people out there on the edges of American media who are defending Assad, bashing the rebels and mocking the U.S. propaganda, who aren't on the left. They're not allies but they're vocal and present and they'll probably still have jobs tomorrow. This isn't an impossible line to take for an American nor an alien one from outer space to Americans. Nor will the line convince most Americans, but that's not my goal. Many loathe our President. That won't bring him down, but it makes people receptive and colors their prejudices. There is a lot of anti-Arab racism in the United States but, Syria or Assad in particular? In a period of a few years when the American press has basically buried every story about Palestine? And it's the tie-and-scarf leadership vs. Federally Certified Genuine Al Q? YouTube vs. LiveLeak? There has been nothing done on Assad like the work that was done to make Americans believe in the utter barbaric genetic and social depravity ascribed to the leaders of China or the U.S.S.R. - our government hasn't found the time - and Assad has effectively humiliated Americans' diplomats in front of the American media and the American people, making them look like warmongerers and asses (i know, keep going) through his secret negotiations with Russia. I think it's likely that a lot of Americans learned who Assad was on the day Putin shoved Obama into a locker and handed him some amount of Assad's lunch money. Motherfucker was not even in the AoE. And the legacy of Mongolian conquerors has always predisposed the people of America toward "strongmen", especially when their glistening sinews are struggling to hold a door shut with all the people from the countries they rule on the other side. It doesn't even matter if anyone's actually trying to open the door.
The peak opportunity for fair-weather anti-imperialism is extremely fucking nigh, given all the people who have all the reasons in the world to Meme Putin's tits against Obama's Al Qaida In Damascus. At least some amount of people in America do not know who to believe, given how gruesomely their own government has behaved in front of them in the very, very recent past, that is, it has killed more than its quota of Troops, and now they are home killing each other, which doesn't make us hate the government or the military or even the wars but it does make us remember the wars for longer than usual. This is probably the best time for this line in the history of the United States if it even matters what people in the United States think and I'm willing to go whole hog in getting anti-imperialist discussions out there before someone points out for me that without foreign aid the rebels might even lose!, which is only the line that Americans are hearing ten or twelve times a day from "both parties" if they watch the news, and then I have to try to talk about that without talking about supporting Assad.
thanks for the detailed answer!
Lessons posted:discipline posted:it always amuses me how people say "oh well there's nothing I can do to help" and don't even try. I'm speaking on an anti-imperialist panel at Left Forum and am involved with organizing an anti-imperialist group in New York. maybe it's not perfect but it's a start. I hope to demoralize the enemy at home, which I think is important.
I'm not actively involved in anti-war stuff at the moment because literally nothing exists in my city and I'm unemployed, I used to be involved during the Iraq war in upstate NY and when I was in Greensboro.
Anyway thats not the point it's that American's stance on Assad's government is irrelevant to the outcome of the war no one here is "lifting a finger to help the victims of US brutality and rapacity defend themselves" in anything except the sense of 'moral support' unless they are sending money to Syria or going themselves
Ah, located your problem: Get a fucking job.
swampman posted:what did assad ever do for me
Lessons posted:The Nazi project was a program of annexation and racial extermination for the purposes of settler colonialism which doesn't really have anything to do with what you're describing.
lol The Nazi project was not a program of racial extermination, that was the result of successful Soviet resistance.