29 days
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- 29 days
My favorite example of this.
Hint: George Lucas has stated in the most plain-English unambiguous terms that the empire does in fact represent US imperialism in A New Hope. It’s in a director chat interview thing with with James Cameron if you feel like searching it up.
- 29 days
Oh boy now I can add this to my “Americans being so far gone that they don’t realize a movie about US imperialism is a movie about US imperialism”. Almost like MAGA thinking Homelander is a celebration of Trump for 3 whole seasons before realizing it may actually he the opposite.
- pineapple@lemmy.mlEnglish29 days
For people that say “don’t make x media political” I think that almost all media is inherently political, your making a statement about something that has real world connotations and people are going to form an opinion from it.
- 29 days
I was just thinking of the ex-gf who didn’t believe Star Wars was about Vietnam. I should add that to the list of reasons for the break up.
Never date a centrist. If they’re not a militant leftist, don’t bother kids. 😂
Not good thoughts, not good thoughts by the way. Thinking about the writing group I dropped because “that’s always been my thing”.
29 daysdisagreed. my wife, when we met, was right wing. but also very smart. also very empathetic. not very politically aware.
we were friends for a decade. dated for a bit. got married. talked politics for a few years. i asked a few pointed questions over the years. in 2015, agent krasnov’s response to the attacks in Paris in November of that year were enough for her to leave the republican party, without any of my prompting. dear gods i love that woman. i remember, the responses were all about him being right about some bullshit and nothing about calming and unifying people. nothing what a politician is supposed to do.
nowadays, yeah, never date anyone more right than Rick Allen.
The story goes that George Lucas was supposed to direct Apocalypse Now, but the studio didn’t like that he was gonna make it a 35mm black and white documentary instead of a blockbuster movie, so he said he’d make his own Vietnam war movie…with spaceships, and lasers!
he just did space chess and, uh, what are those women in cages called. gogo dancers?
- 29 days
And unlike the original Star Wars film, which made the parallels to the Vietnam War paint the US in a bad light, the latest Star Wars film riffs off the helicopter scene from Apocalypse Now!, but instead of presenting napalming the shit out of people as a bad thing, presents it as a good thing.
- 29 days
I had to look that up, “The Mandalorian and Grogu” is the name of the film for anyone else curious. I guess they learned all the wrong lessons from the success of The Mandalorian.
- 29 days
I love this meme with stormtroopers, because instead of the guy in front being about to die he’s in the safest possible place.
- Omgpwnies@lemmy.worldEnglish28 days
There was a bit of fan-lore I read a while back that the stormtroopers intentionally missed because Vader didn’t want them to kill his kids… really its because it would make for bad cinema if the NPCs killed the main characters 30 seconds into their first scenes…
- 28 days
It wasn’t because of his kids, but as later explained (in expanded material) the Millenium Falcon had a tracking device installed soon after it was detained.
Otherwise, consider that the Death Star could’ve blown the freighter out of the sky the moment it exited the hanger with its thousands of Point Defenses.
LITERALLY
Watching Star Wars as a kid is LITERALLY one of many reasons I give a fuck as an adult.
I paid attention to the fucking story.
- 27 days
No. It’s literally just space Nazi’s.
Guys… There are STORMTROOPERS in the Empire. It’s not subtle lol.
- 28 days
george lucas has stated very plainly it was about US imperialism in vietnam
- 28 days
The comparisons to Nazi Germany were deliberate, as the Nazis were inspired by the US Empire. Lucas himself said it was a metaphor for the Vietnam war.
- 28 days
NO! THEY are the space nazis!
Space nazis of the US empire.
Just like Starship troopers are space nazis of the US empire to it’s filmmaker.Now excuse me while I cut off your hand.
- 28 days
george lucas literally said it in an interview that the empire is the us empire…
- 28 days
Sorry, it’s pretty clearly stated in this interview by Lucas.
- 28 days
Hot take:
The Galactic Empire is portrayed as bad mainly due to it’s execution of power. The Empire’s ideals of order and stability don’t actually seem so bad in theory. Even the Mandolorian spin-off show supports this perspective.
- 27 days
Such ‘order and stability’ that they have a full-blown galaxy-wide rebellion organised against them (without involvement of the CIA or any other of NATO’s parts).
- 27 days
Whose order, stability for who? Order and stability are features of a system, not ideological beliefs. Pretty much everyone wants order and stability in the abstract, the problem is when the order is an extractive fascist police state that devastates planets and wipes out cultures so that the people perpetuating it can enjoy stability at everyone else’s expense.
- Diplomjodler@lemmy.worldBanned from community29 days
And what exactly is the difference between Western imperialism and other kinds of imperialism?
I know your question is rhetorical, because you always, always cape for the imperial core, but: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism
“Western” is inaccurate. The fascist Japanese empire was a monopoly-stage capitalist empire much like the others, and Japan is still a junior partner today’s [neocolonialism], but it’s never been “Western.”
This isn’t about cultures or genetics or location on the map, but about ownership of the means of production, international power dynamics, and sovereignty. It’s about imperialism vs anti-imperialism.
- 🦄🦄🦄@feddit.orgBanned from community29 days
“Western” is inaccurate. The fascist Japanese empire was a monopoly-stage capitalist empire much like the others, and Japan is still a junior partner today’s neocolonialism, but it’s never been “Western.”
So similiarly to Russia today? Is Russia also part of “western imperialism”?
Over 20 years go Russia—at the time lead by Putin—wanted to join the imperialism club, but the US rejected them: Ex-Nato head says Putin wanted to join alliance early on in his rule. Now Russia, rejected by the Global North, has no choice but to join with the Global South as allies instead of neocolonizers. Hence BRICS+ and the larger developing multipolar bloc that’s going its own way, ignoring the US’ “rules-based international order” sanctions, developing its own international balance of payments outside of US dollar hegemony, and working to get out from under the boot of the IMF’s & World Bank’s debt traps.
Honest question from a non-communist, based on your reply here. Does one need to support Putin to be a Marxist?
In a word, no. In a few more words, support for Russia (not Putin, as historical materialists don’t subscribe to great man theory) is only a partial, temporary, tactical one, in the context of imperialist liberation. Russia is still a capitalist state, though, so it’s a two stage strategy: first liberate colonized bourgeois states from colonizer states, and second revolution within those liberated bourgeois states.
Russia is an interesting case: it has already liberated itself from the post-Soviet “shock therapy” neocolonizers. This occurred during Putin’s administration, which is why he is especially hated by the US. So now the support for Russia is in the context of keeping the colonizers from recolonizing it, and supporting Russia to the extent that it helps other states liberate themselves. But Russia isn’t trying to “liberate” Ukraine, at least not all of Ukraine. It’s trying to resolve the genocidal attacks on the people of the Donbas, and it’s trying to resolve the imperialist military expansion at its border.
- 🦄🦄🦄@feddit.orgBanned from community29 days
t’s trying to resolve the genocidal attacks on the people of the Donbas
Oh, Kyiv part of Donbas?
and it’s trying to resolve the imperialist military expansion at its border.
By imperialist military expansion accross that border into a sovereign neighbor’s territory. Genius.
You’re still pretending this war started in February 2022, despite knowing better.
- Reuters, 2014: Leaked audio reveals embarrassing U.S. exchange on Ukraine, EU
- Leaked recording between Nuland and Pyatt: audio | transcript
- Counterpunch, 2014: US Imperialism and the Ukraine Coup
- BBC, 2014: Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict
- Human Rights Watch, 2014: Ukraine: Unguided Rockets Killing Civilians
- Consortium News, 2015: The Mess That Nuland Made Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland engineered Ukraine’s regime change without weighing the likely consequences.
- The Hill, 2017: The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda
- The Guardian, 2017: ‘I want to bring up a warrior’: Ukraine’s far-right children’s camp – video
- WaPo, 2018: The war in Ukraine is more devastating than you know
- Reuters, 2018: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem
- The Nation, 2019: Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine
- openDemocracy, 2019: Why Ukraine’s new language law will have long-term consequences
- Al Jazeera, 2022: Why did Ukraine suspend 11 ‘pro-Russia’ parties?
- Jacobin, 2022: A US-Backed, Far Right–Led Revolution in Ukraine Helped Bring Us to the Brink of War
- Consortium News, 2023: The West’s Sabotage of Peace in Ukraine Former Israeli Prime Minister Bennett’s recent comments about getting his mediation efforts squashed in the early days of the war adds more to the growing pile of evidence that Western powers are intent on regime change in Russia.
- Internationalist 360°, 2022–2024: History of Fascism in Ukraine: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV
- NYT, 2024: U.N. Court to Rule on Whether Ukraine Committed Genocide
NATO expansion:
- George Washington Univ., 2017: NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner
- Orinoco Tribune, 2022: Former German Chancellor Merkel Admits that Minsk Peace Agreements Were Part of Scheme for Ukraine to Buy Time to Prepare for War With Russia
- Al Mayadeen, 2023: Zelensky admits he never intended to implement Minsk agreements
- Jeffrey Sachs, 2023: The War in Ukraine Was Provoked—and Why That Matters to Achieve Peace
- Jeffrey Sachs, 2023: NATO Chief Admits NATO Expansion Was Key to Russian Invasion of Ukraine
NATO in general:- The Intercept, 2021: Meet NATO, the Dangerous “Defensive” Alliance Trying to Run the World
- CounterPunch, 2022: NATO is Not a Defensive Alliance
- Noam Chomsky, 2023: NATO “most violent, aggressive alliance in the world”
- Thomas Fazi, 2024: NATO: 75 years of war, unprovoked aggressions and state-sponsored terrorism
- Gabriel Rockhill, 2020: The U.S. Did Not Defeat Fascism in WWII, It Discretely Internationalized It
- 🦄🦄🦄@feddit.orgBanned from community29 days
You’re still pretending this war started in February 2022, despite knowing better.
Yeah it started in 2014 when Russia attacked Crimea.
- 29 days
https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/2014_Ukrainian_coup_d'etat
The coup happened first in Feb 2014. Crimea succeeded and was annexed in March 2014. Crimea in 2014 was 68% ethnic Russians, with only 16% Ukrainian language speakers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Crimea#Ethnicities_and_languages
Crimean leadership attempted to create an independent republic, but Crimea instead became an autonomous region in Ukraine in 1992. Ukraine abolished the constitution of Crimea in 1995 and allowed the Ukrainian central government to veto the Crimean parliament’s chosen prime minister.
https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Crimea
So the far right uprising and coup is where this started. Then the occupation and civil war on Donbas started shortly after this in April 2014. The majority ethnic Russian oblasts did not wish to be persecuted by the western Ukrainian banderites.
Death to the West lol. Can’t wait for China to crush you back into irrelevance, like it always should’ve been
- 29 days
One is an actual problem for the world and the other exists as a hypothetical?
- 29 days
Is that what imperialism means to you? Can you show me this Chinese military presence? Because it doesn’t fill me with confidence that you can’t get any more specific than the name of the continent.
You might want to actually educate yourself on what words mean instead of going with vibes and memes
what do you think etcetera at lemmy dot ml might think about the subject?
- 28 days
Why would you think .ml users would be uncritical to China? We just like our western imperialism balanced by eastern imperialism, thank you.
Perfectly balanced. As all things should be. To much to one side… or the other…
- 27 days
I remember the time before I learned much 20th century history, I was saying dumb shit like this all the time
- 29 days
Depending on the context, it could just be who’s doing it. Star Wars was originally specifically an allegory for the Vietnam War, which was a war of Western imperialism because the two countries making it a war rather than a country gaining its independence were France (who’d conquered Vietnam as part of their empire and weren’t happy that the Vietnamese didn’t want to be in their empire) and the US (who wanted to stop communists gaining power anywhere), both of which are Western countries. It was about that war in particular rather than imperialism in general because that war in particular was the one that was a big deal for the target audience at the time - if Lucas had been Japanese and making the film decades earlier, maybe he’d have made it an allegory for something else, but he wasn’t, so he made the film he made.
- 28 days
There really isn’t anything comparable to western imperialism, and western imperialism is the single largest barrier to human progress around the world. What is it with whataboutism?
Excuse my anger at the genocides conducted by the disgusting whites
