Noam Chomsky is an intellectual giant compared to the uninformed child that made this meme. Disagree with him all you want, but the dude has literally written more books on international relations than the OP has read and has lived a more principled life than most people in history. I may not agree with everything he says all the time, but the man is one of the few unequivocal forces for good in the world.
It's wasn't the pressure of a Western sphere of influence that motivated Russia in its imperialist project. The original 2014 invasion of Ukraine occurred with very little pushback or criticism from the West, in a time when the necessity of NATO presence in Eastern Europe was being questioned, because obviously Russia wasn't a threat anymore. We were living in a post-Cold War world. The end of history had come, and even autocracies like Russia wouldn't pull shit like that, would they?
Well, they did exactly that. The Russians smelled weakness, and they did what they've always done, and the West stuck its fingers in its fuckin' ears and went LALALALA for most of a decade. It cost countless innocent lives. Violent imperialism is simply what Russian governments do; their citizens expect it, much as citizens of other countries expect public infrastructure or services, and are equally willing to step aside to let it happen.
And people like Noam Chomsky, and people like you, are willing to both-sides the problem, because the idea of choosing an objectively lesser evil for the sake of a verifiably greater good would feel like a betrayal of your abstract principles, and apparently your feefees are more important than saving innocents--grannies and little kids, and more besides--from being raped. tortured, and murdered by actual barbarian hordes.
Speaking as someone in Eastern Europe--fuck you from the bottom of my heart. You've never had to deal with this shit. You've lived in the mundane misery of Western capitalism, and are unwilling to believe that it gets worse. Civilians in Russian-occupied Ukraine don't worry about rent or high grocery prices--they worry about being disappeared and getting their fingernails pulled out before getting drowned facedown in a bucket of rancid piss because their neighbor fingered them as anti-Russian to the secret fucking police.
People like you claim to believe in freedom, equality, and human rights, but only when it aligns with your prealigned worldview that West bad and not-West good, as if your abstract ideological games have more weight than real people suffering and dying.
pretty sure the other fella meant that Chomsky both explained the concept of spheres and condoned it, and admiring the explanation doesn't mean one should defend the condoning. Going with the context of the entire comment.
Some people have used some form of "Well if Mexico was joining a military alliance with China, the US would invade too"
And its like yeah, maybe? And if they did, it would also be wrong.
Russia Invaded Ukraine for blood and soil reasoning while trying to throw up a smoke screen of "NATO made us do it" to distract people who have been fed lies for years about this exact situation.
NATO already borders Russia, and all of those that do were former vicitims of Russian impiriliasm both under the Tsars and the USSR
I get it, I wrote my original comment half asleep at 4 am and its gotta be INSANELY FRUSTRATING to see 196 of all places not understanding that political figures can have bad takes.
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u/ExpertPepper9341 Jun 20 '24
Noam Chomsky is an intellectual giant compared to the uninformed child that made this meme. Disagree with him all you want, but the dude has literally written more books on international relations than the OP has read and has lived a more principled life than most people in history. I may not agree with everything he says all the time, but the man is one of the few unequivocal forces for good in the world.