• SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org
    21·
    33 minutes ago

    Yet, one is clearly still a lot worse than the other. It’s Russia and by a lot. Still glad not living in either country tho.

    • wpb@lemmy.world
      3·
      6 minutes ago

      So, I believe the same thing, of course. But I think it’s worth taking a moment to think about what we base those beliefs on. For me personally, it’s based almost exclusively on what I read / see in the news, and maybe a stray meme here or there. Posts like OP make me wonder to what extent my beliefs are justified. Because the post is entirely correct, right? For the same exact thing, the news media will use one term when it’s the bad guys doing it, and another term when the good guys are doing it. The war crimes that the US was committing in Iraq were called collateral damage at the time (and they were grievous, we’re talking the act of disappearing people, torture of thousands, murdering hundreds of thousands with cluster bombs and napalm, bombing hospitals, cutting off water to entire cities, truly heinous and extensive). Collateral damage. There were headlines in mainstream media calling the invasion “Operation Iraqi freedom”. In contrast, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was immediately (and rightly) called out as such, as well as their war crimes. I wonder to what extent my opinion of Russia is actually influenced by these differences in terminology and reporting. I don’t think I’m immune to propaganda.

  • RedditRefugee69@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    291·
    9 hours ago

    Agreed except for the secret police part.

    I feel like secret police are undercover cops who specifically enforce the laws or policy of secret courts.

    A cop posing as a kid online to bait a sexual predator isn’t “secret police” like the Stasi to me.

    • invalid_name@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      4 hours ago

      A cop infiltrating the notorious terrorist group ‘food not bombs’.

      Or watch the movie ‘Judas and the black messiah’. Its a dramatization of a real secret police plot in the 1970s.

    • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
      12·
      8 hours ago

      The Chicago blacksites seem like they would fit that description, they gave zero fucks about due process or civil rights, following their own law

    • Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      61·
      8 hours ago

      To me secret police are plain clothes officers who drive ordinary looking cars until the hidden lights come on. They’re literally keeping it a secret from the public that they’re enforcing the law.

      • RedditRefugee69@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
        1·
        2 hours ago

        That’s not a definition of “secret police” I’ve ever heard of, but you’re obviously more than welcome to think of it that way. Just know that’s not what the rest of us are referring to.

    • Mesophar@lemm.ee
      72·
      8 hours ago

      Agreed. Undercover DEA agent busting up a drug ring (regardless of debate about what drugs should be legalized) is a bit different from a task force suppressing political opposition through imprisonment and "accidents ". Though I’m wondering if the gap with decrease over the next four years…

      • Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        4·
        6 hours ago

        Count on it. I recall seeing videos of protestors around Trump’s last year in office getting yanked into unmarked vans. I think it was around the same time he was using customs and border protection to do peacekeeping operations.

      • RedditRefugee69@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
        1·
        6 hours ago

        Therein lies the issue with Crying Wolf.

        When the real US Secret Police is established next year, the alarm will already have been sounded and will therefore be less effective.

        • invalid_name@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          4 hours ago

          is established next year

          Oh honey. Do you know the history of the FBI? Of the american labor movement?

          Respect for the home domain BTW. Lemmy needs more porn if its going to grow, thank you for doing your part to nourish the open web.

          • RedditRefugee69@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
            21·
            2 hours ago

            There’s a big difference between the Stasi and the FBI. Granted, the FBI has been known to occasionally do Stasi-esque illegal shit (most notably assassinating MLK), but that’s not their mission statement and what they do the vast majority of the time.

            Again, you will probably be right in a little while when Project 2025 kicks in, but at present you’re pulling the fire alarm because someone is unwrapping a toaster strudel.

  • nifty@lemmy.world
    106·
    6 hours ago

    On the surface it seems like these comparisons are valid, but there’s truly a world of difference in how America deals with its people.

    The fact still remains that skilled immigrants can come to America and make a life for themselves. It doesn’t matter who they are. Or that non-white or non-Christians can get elected to the U.S. congress.

    America started out with an idealism it’s failing to live up to, and it’s the fault of those who indulge realpolitiks over that idealism. This isn’t an America problem, there’s a rot that’s taken over the soul of humanity. We’re casting aside intellectualism and enlightenment for realpolitiks.

    Make no mistake though, people cannot be trusted so you always have to protect yourself. But there’s no civilization without ideals for humanity.

    • rustydrd@sh.itjust.works
      11·
      27 minutes ago

      For sure. It’s absolutely valid to criticize the US on all of these points, but when people equate it with what goes on in Russia, it mostly tells me that people don’t fully realize how much worse the situation is in countries like Russia. As someone who was born in an Eastern Bloc country and whose grandparents actually went to jail for their political beliefs, I think it’s good to sometimes remind yourself about how different a life we now thankfully get to enjoy.

    • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      71·
      3 hours ago

      America was founded by genocidal slavers who were angry about being unfairly taxed.

      America has never been a moral nation. It is literally founded on stolen land, paved over the bodies of that land’s natives, and built by the labor of the enslaved.

      I would agree that America is not the only nation in the world with many of these problems. I’m an anarchist, so I fundamentally don’t really believe that a completely moral state is ever possible. But even so America stands out particularly starkly even in comparison to other contemporary states.

      • nifty@lemmy.world
        2·
        3 hours ago

        I think your point is valid, but what I am saying is we shouldn’t begrudge the past its lack of perfection. Let’s look at where people are now, and where they can go from here.

        Looking for answers in the past is often a fools errand. We need to shed the baggage of our forefathers.

        • spujb@lemmy.cafeEnglish
          11·
          2 hours ago

          The past is literally all we have. The past has also been shown to operate in patterns.

    • invalid_name@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      4 hours ago

      I might argue that the initial idealism of America was kinda bullshit; hollow blatantly dishonest propaganda so some oligarchs could get theirs and pay less taxes to Parliament. They never tried, they never cared. Their pretty words were always a foul wind. They kept their slaves. They made sure there was stratification. They crushed rebellions. They defended slavery as an ideal. They built it all on genocide and theft, including of the peoples who sparked the enlightenment their supposed ideals came from.

      Which isn’t to say these ideals are always empty, or always lived up to by the people who espouse them hobestly. Just… Bad example.

      people can not be trusted

      See, I’m not sure. I think our entire social apparatus is deeply antisocial, essential amasdive stochastic conspiracy to make everyone a bastard and trust impossible, and it still fails sometimes. I think if you allow them the opportunity to do good, you can develop them into people worthy of trust. I think if you dont trust the people with their own futures, then you can’t really have better. Not for long anyway; that’s kind of the lesson of Lenin and Robespierre.

      • nifty@lemmy.world
        1·
        3 hours ago

        Perfect is always the enemy of the good, we can’t fault people who’ve been dead and buried for centuries for their lack of understanding when we right now are incapable of it ourselves.

        I get what you’re saying about trust, but it takes just one to backstab you even if there are a million chill people. On a nation state level, that can have serious consequences.

        • invalid_name@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          3 hours ago

          perfect enemy of the good

          And in many cases, you’re right. I think thats the mistake Lenin and Robespierre made, actually; the biggest one at least, being unable to trust anyone else with making a less autocratic world. I do not believe the founders of the united States were trying to be good. I think they were lying, and pretty comprehensively pieces of shit.

          takes just one to back stab you

          Does it? I think the more you create a tense society balanced on a knifes edge cognitive dissonance of its own contradictions, and the more centralized(undemocratic), the closer it gets to true, but I don’t think it ever gets all the way there.

  • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
    222·
    10 hours ago

    *Invasion --------> liberate

    We already have that one. It’s true too. They’ll liberate you back into the stone ages. They’ll liberate you so hard, your great grandchildren will still feel the pain of it.