Comment on Is anyone else not feeling that patriotic for July 4?
Valmond@lemmy.world 3 days agoWell it’s not all rosy, but today immigration has become a weaponized tool, the Kremlin pays immigrants to ship them over to the Baltic states, uses propaganda in all ways to sway people to vote on bad things etc.
I’m not saying the EU is some sort of haven, but it’s probably one of the better places.
I think you are spot on with nationalism etc. It’s a fucking plague. We have enough of everything but no no let’s not share it. Sigh.
About Russia though, they have always always been the bad ones (except 1991-2000? Maamybee), and we do a very very poor job of blocking their misinformation campaigns. It’s also way more powerful today with social media than it was just ten years ago.
So today we got what we got, we can’t just “remove” all governments in the EU for example, it would just lead to a disaster. Fighting for a better world? Yes, I’d love that.
Allero@lemmy.today 3 days ago
Immigration being seen as a weapon has always bewildered me. If people come to your country, commonly running away from famine and warm, and you see them as nothing but a weapon, something is seriously wrong. I am aware some countries like Finland are already fairly filled with immigrants, but Europe could use some more cooperation to solve this.
To my perspective, Russian government was not the bad one, it was a rival, as in yet another place being run by shitheads. Funnily enough, 1991-2000 was actually the time when liberties coming from Perestroika were tanked again, the country was destroyed against people’s will, and wild privatization combined with corruption has left millions in deep poverty. People had their homeland taken away from them before they could react. But it was also the time when Russia had better relations with Europe and the US, which is why this period is seen as “Russia being good”.
Removing all governments overnight is not feasible indeed. But we should admit the harms patriotic and, as a radical extension, nationalist models cause to society at large and our global cooperation, we should own up to what it means to hostility, warfare, and breeding idiots who make it worse for all of us. Every time someone tries to instill patriotic feelings within the population, they just want to make us more controllable and divided. We shouldn’t let them. And as an extension of that, we should advocate for direct democracy and gradual dissolution of government as a main controlling entity.
Valmond@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Oh fuck my comment disappeared 😑
Valmond@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Oh fuck my comment disappeared 😑
Edit:
I’m trying to recreate the long post:
Russia boats/ships/buss people from Africa to the Finnish border while simultaneously doing “immigrants Violent & bad” psyops is what I meant as using immigration as war.
After peristroika we was relieved not because you were friendly with the US/ Europe but 1) no more hot or cold war (you’d be surprised how we saw Russia from our side, an agressive dictatorship on our border basically) 2) A shot at democracy/freedon for the russian people (that they blew.)
For the rest I’m quite on board, with some caveats ofc. We need a government because everyone can’t know everything, we need trusted people to run our schools, hospitals, nuclear plants and so on. For the rest? Yeah bring that power down to the people!
Allero@lemmy.today 2 days ago
Oh, I know that feeling! Sorry to know the long comment is gone, happened to me more than once.
Oh, so you attribute the rise of Finnish right-wing to Russia as well, as in Russian agencies artificially create a wave of anti-immigration and then sending immigrants in? Honestly, with all the real damage Russia has done, I feel like it is used as a scapegoat here; among a few reasonably confirmed cases (mostly of Russia killing dissidents abroad etc.), there is a sea of practically baseless speculation. Last time I saw this was a few days ago, when German military vehicles burned and journalists attributed it to Russia because some random pro-Russia Telegram channel mentioned it (and did so with clear errors).
Cold war, we should remember, was a two-sided conflict. It was not good vs evil, it was capitalist world full of red scare and propaganda vs communist block full of authoritarianism and, again, propaganda. Both sides could do much more to maintain peace, it’s just that one side has eventually collapsed, leaving the other to rule the world. And as much as Europe was concerned about USSR being on their doorsteps, so was USSR concerned about militarization of Europe with the aid of the US. That’s what this entire showoff is based on; it’s not a one-sided show of intimidation, and, arguably, both sides would rather not have it.
I’m not sure what you consider to be a shot of democracy - perestroika itself or the dissolution of the Soviet Union? In first case, yes, it was a welcome change, but as some of the Soviet republics, particularly in the Baltics, were essentially held in by force and censorship, it was a catalyst for the future dissolution. Dissolution itself brought a lot of freedom to the former republics which were not super fond of being Soviet to begin with, but was a disaster for Russia, Belarus, and new states in the Middle East. In the latter, there was nothing to blow as there was nothing democratic about them to begin with - it was just a bunch of new dictators.
Speaking of Russia in particular, while trying to show a face of democratic change, Yeltsin has consolidated power by creating puppet parties (including a puppet Communist party), silencing opposition by not letting them into main federal TV channels that were the main information source at the time, and destroying actual democratic institutions, sometimes with actual military force (see the assault on Congress of People’s Deputies). By the time Putin (heavily endorsed by Yeltsin as the new leader of the country) got to rule Russia, it was already heavily in United Russia party’s grip. Make no mistake - this was a show of democracy designed to be blown.
We should certainly have experts running and planning critical parts of the economy, but we should also make sure it’s as hard to corrupt as possible. Governments are prone of injecting propaganda in schools we both care about, cutting medical spending, and attacking nuclear plants during the wars. If we should have governments at all, they should either work through as much of direct democracy and self-organizing as opposed to representative power (which is quite close to anarchy), or through careful and open computerized planning with active input of the people.
Valmond@lemmy.world 2 days ago