Western European leaders really be like “so during WW2 we basically made a pact with the devil himself by allying ourselves with Stalin and USSR and after the war we pretty much sold half of the continent to him and because of that, basically none of the Eastern European countries have a chance to develop properly because they were forced to live under communism and only gained their independence in the ‘90s. but hey, look at us! and at our prosperous economy, that we started to build right after the war, unlike y’all! we pull the strings out here cause we have money and influence! oh, what did you say? you want to have more influence and be treated seriously, instead of us patronizing you? well boo hoo, you should have tried NOT to be poor lol”

Leftists in particular may think, when criticizing NATO expansion, that they are correcting their own or fellow citizens’ biases as citizens of an imperial power that has often acted in bad faith. They may think they are adequately acknowledging this fraught legacy by focusing their critique on what they perceive to be Western expansionism. But they in fact perpetuate imperial wrongs when they continue to deny non-Western countries and their citizens agency in geopolitics. Paradoxically, the problem with American exceptionalism is that even those who challenge its foundational tenets and heap scorn on American militarism often end up recreating American exceptionalism by centering the United States in their analyses of international relations. It is, in Gregory Afinogenov’s words, a “form of provincialism that sees only the United States and its allies as primary actors.” Speaking about Eastern Europe and Eastern Europeans without listening to local voices or trying to understand the region’s complexity is a colonial projection.

Implicitly, it is based on a counterfactual scenario in which NATO is not enlarged and Russia does not attack Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 and again in 2022. It fails at the same time to consider a different counterfactual scenario: NATO enlargement does not happen, and Russia invades its neighbors nonetheless.

In the westsplaining framework, the concerns of Russia are recognized but those of Eastern Europe are not. This, again, mirrors the Russian line that “Ukraine’s current regime lacks any sovereignty,” which of course also operates within a framework inherited from the bipolar world of the Cold War. Eastern Europe is something that can be explained but isn’t worth engaging with.

^ when a mf has become so spineless that the consequences of his shitty political positions don't just stop to the speedrun of the rise of the far right in his own country, but also affect international politics when he keeps on parroting kremlin rhetoric

[Day 204. You, in all these Sorbonnes and Heidelbergs of yours. On humiliation and political agency]

A friend wrote to me that she does not know how to talk about this war to someone from a remote country. That someone is far away, perhaps in Great Britain, perhaps in New Foundland, and from that safe distance he writes that the key to starting and ending a war is humiliation. That you cannot expect the war to end when you humiliate.He speaks about humiliation of one mr putin and his imperial russia, on its own initiative getting the crap beat out of it by Ukraine. Or of something like that. For it has been a game of Chinese whispers, a second hand account: one person told me what she had heard from the other, translating it from a foreign language. Humiliation.Predictably, that person did not speak about the humiliation of Ukraine or the Ukrainians, but of russia and one mr putin. And I am emotional and easily excited. When I hear or read such words, I begin to see red, as if some stains covered my eyes, and it becomes much harder for me to see, to hear, to understand. I begin to turn inside out, and this process is hard to control. Yes, I feel blood flowing to my head and begin to understand how the people of the middle ages, whose behaviour has not been tamed by the muzzle of public education system, could die of rage.I really don’t know the source of this Western thinking, according to which russia is the only political actor east of Elbe river. And only this trembling of the russian soul is of importance – only russian pride, russian interests, laws and influences, only russian phone in the kremlin.I tried to tell my friend, in just one sentence, how hard it is to explain our experience of the bloodlands, as our region has been called by professor Timothy Snyder, to the citizens of states that have never been occupied, to the people coming from the nations whose biological existence has never been threatened.The first words of our national anthem are „Jeszcze Polska nie umarła póki my żyjemy” (Poland has not yet perished, So long as we still live. ), Ukrainian anthem begins like this: Ще не вмерла Украіна, И слава, и воля! Ще намъ, браття-молодiї, Усміхнетця доля! (The glory and freedom of Ukraine has not yet perished Luck will still smile on us brother-Ukrainians.)We do not affirm greatness, power or glory. Our anthems state that as long as one Pole or Ukrainian is alive, our nation and state exist too, and we can wait for the change of fortune. You, deeply rooted in your beautiful cottages and vineyards, will need an effort of sorts to understand it.I am 48 years old. In all likelihood, I am the exponent of the first generation in our region that will be able to inherit something valuable in your, Western understanding, from their fathers or grandfathers. If we take social transformation into account– perhaps this is the first such generation since centuries.My inheritance from my great-grandmother consists of old keys to an unknown house she left somewhere behind, and a cross she carried through all the paths of her exile, through Tobolsk, through Sovkhoz Sovstroy, to so-called Recovered Territories, which were a foreign land to her.All that is left by my great-grandfather is his military service book and letters of some guy, who apparently became an administrative official in Solice-Zdrój, together with a handwritten discharge from a hospital in some remote city near the Uzbek border, claiming that such and such has died and was buried by the roadside.These are valuable things, very valuable, but their value cannot be translated to your language of benefits, to your white elephants on the shelves, to your cottages, to your maisons.For centuries, hardly anybody in this part of Europe inherited much more. If it rained, it poured, mostly soldiers from the East. I wanted to write just that, but in the end I asked myself: does this message have any sense to the people who discuss, after 6 months of war, the humiliation of russia and putin as well as – predictably – of great russian culture?But did somebody ask the great peacemakers of the west, why didn’t they enquire about humiliation when Saddam Husein was concerned?Or emperor Hirohito?Or Hitler?Or Pol Pot?Or Ho Chi Minh?Did they care whether Benito Mussolini was resentful because of his defeats in North Africa? And they were much more shameful than the beating received by putin’s minions near Izyum. Why are the great thinkers of the West under impression that russia in its current form is indispensable to the world? Or even needed? Why cannot they think without russia playing the role of a fucking empire that humiliates everyone in the firing range of its tanks, AK-47s, Iskander, Kaliber or Kinzhal missiles?Why don’t they think Ukraine is indispensable – a country that didn’t attack anyone during 31 years of its independent existence – but they assign this label to russia, which waged two wars on Chechnya, started a war against Georgia, sponsored the secessions of Transnistria, Abkhazia and Ossetia? Why cannot it cross the minds of the western peacemakers that the agency of some colonel of KGB, raised to power by the machinations of russian military-industrial complex and some little dickheads of mafia, is more important than agency of a boy who lost two legs and an arm to a russian landmine.Or agency of this boy on the photograph, who says goodbye to his dad.I have a son of similar age, so this is my soft spot.For many days I have been trying to establish the identity of the boy on the photograph. The boy is saying goodbye to his father, who later died defending his country against the aggressor, who in turn feels humiliated by the very existence of the attacked country.Why does nobody ask about the agency of this boy? About his humiliation? His pain? His eternal longing for his father?I will answer you, my friend, before you text me with a question how to talk to all these deep thinkers and peacemakers of the west.Don’t talk to that people.Propose them a simple solution instead. We will buy them Ukrainian passports in some shady district of Wrocław, we will teach them Ukrainian anthem and will paradrop them to some part of Ukraine occupied by the exponents of great russian culture, perhaps near Donetsk or Luhansk. And let them have a chat with russians, who are brimming with agency.They have a fair chance of succeeding before they get killed, or raped, or raped and then killed, like many citizens of Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol, Hostomel, Kremenchuk, Vinnytsia.See, this war, fought by Ukrainian warriors of both sexes, has broader meaning than defence of their home country.This is war for our dignity and agency. For dignity and political agency of small, constantly invaded nations between Elbe and Dnipro or Volga. Nations that were constantly sacrificed  in the name of the lofty goals of states whose school curricula contain no mention of – what the fuck is this? - Katyń. It’s high time that they begun to notice us, they started to learn to understand us, to see us and consider us in their decisions.This is a war for our agency and existence. War waged so that somebody in Berlin, Paris, Rome, in some Harvard, Berkeley, Oxford, Cambridge or Sorbonne will understand that there are people living here. There are entire nations here and even if they are small like Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Georgia, Moldova – their fate cannot be decided by one phone call to kremlin.It just cannot.And we all here feel this.That is why Bulgaria gave Ukraine half of its anti-air defence and half of its air forces, that is why Poland gave one third of its tanks, that it why Lithuanians collected money for a new Bayraktar in three days.All of this happened because we don’t need to talk about this.We feel this.That is why this embarrassing cake man going by the name of Scholz squirms like an eel and makes faces, and whatever he does, he looks like a cartoon figure, both ridiculous and seriously afraid that his world view is about to crumble.And many things suggest that you, Olaf, and your successors, will need to learn a lot anew. Know this, the leader of an European power that sent to Ukraine weaponry for 700 million euro, whereas Poland, according to official data, sent almost thrice as much. This sum does not even include a bazillion of fundraising efforts, auctions, private payments, individuals buying optical equipment, rain boots, pouches, bulletproof vests, IFAK first aid kits and many pore things that we just do without much talking. Because we feel it has to be done. It is our cause.That is why Czechs, while fundraising for Ukraine, often pay the exact amount of 1968 korunas.I hope, boy from the photograph, that I will get to know Your name, as well as the name of Your Dad, and that one day we will be able to say, albeit crying, that his death was not in vain. Not that it was worth it, because death in itself has no value whatsoever – death, even of someone fighting for a noble case, cannot be considered a value. Death is always an irreparable loss of value, that of human life, so I can’t say it had been worth it. I will say: not in vain.I await our meeting, even though now I know neither your name nor that of your father, but bringing this about is exactly a kind of miracle the Internet has been made for. The illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is continuing. Hold on, boy.Stay strong, Ukraine.[text: Radosław Radek Wiśniewski, translation: Paweł Kozioł]

https://x.com/elicalebon/status/1756449361339502689?s=12&t=WGQSfbz7S-srcLaKjLhtqA

"Independent" & "Objective" journalism:

Germany, the one and only Savior of the world, or at least of Europe. Rember, German sacrifices to democratic values are deep and real because the gas is costly, Merkel was at the forefront in condemning ruzzia for 2014 invasion on Ukraine, and it seems Germany themselves were the victim of WW II

We had a fun day coming and going, spinning our #kingkong rifles at the gun show! It was really cool to introduce a whole new demographic to the #sportofthearts . Thanks for having us! * * * * * #spintronix #spintronixguard #designsbyking #colorguardrifle #trickswithking #colorguardmemes #westplains #westplainsciviccenter https://www.instagram.com/p/Cok9qCRuPIb/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

SOMEBODY ONLINE JUST WESTPLAINED TO ME HOW MY VERY OWN SURNAME’S SUPPOSED TO BE SPELLED. I LITERALLY CANNOT WITH THESE PEOPLE

I mean, I feel the issue is, aside from main character syndrome, she does it to wwx etc, Yu Ziyuan is the main case of us seeing said punishment. We don't really see other examples that aren't Lan Quiren's corporal punishment (and tbh I do see a lot of abusive takes on him) or Jin Gunagshang who like... always seen as awful in modern AUs always is an abusive monster to the best of my knowledge? Though when it comes to cultural issues I think most modern AUs are set in the US and tbh thank God because I don't want this fandom to write about China (not saying you can't tackle abuse in Chinese society or whatever but like... I don't trust the fandom not to Westplain it).

oh yeah, there are a lot of very clear reasons for it, which is why I've tried to be super clear that it's like, an interpretation I personally dislike rather than one that's objectively wrong or that I don't understand (I incidentally also dislike abusive/actively homophobic modern Lan Qiren, but again, I get where it comes from).

but yeah we've got the JGS hate covered, as a fandom

Why western leftists can` t understand that we, CEE not only won` t trust russia but our survival instinct tells us that we can` t anymore.

I saw your ask post about Roger being dismissive about regimes that are anti-u.s. Are you still a fan though?

Not quite what I said. I said he was dismissive of the wrong done by some regimes that are anti-us, for the sole reason that they are anti-us. Basically the 'enemies of my enemies are my friends' mindset, coupled with the easy mental strategy of automatically accusing the entity that's already been found guilty many times [the US], so that way there's only ONE (1) villain to rail against and everything is so much more simple.

Of course I'm still a fan. I don't see how Roger being mistaken on this topic, however big the mistake, negates the importance and depth of the fantastically naked lyrics & poems he's written, the beautiful simplicity of his music and the sincerity of his advocacy for the cause of the Palestinians, the indigenous people of Ecuador or for Julian Assange.

If I suddenly decided he was a bad person for being wrong about Ukraine, that would be cancelling, and a very stupid, sketchy, immature and kinda peer pressure-driven behaviour. I think people who do this not only have a serious lack of understanding in the complexity of human beings and how opinions work, but also have (or had) some kind of unhealthy, idealizing parasocial relationship w/ Roger. What I mean is, when you've attached yourself to a celebrity -whom, naturally, you don't truly know much about- in a way that fills some kind of emotional void in your psyche, placed them on a pedestal of imagined virtues, and filled in the blanks of the mystery that is their private life and true persona with opinions & traits that suit your views & ego like they're your richer, more talented, morally perfect alter ago, and this to such an extent that you end up subconsciously assuming they agree with you on everything, then of course, the feeling of betrayal when you learn they are flawed or simply that their cognition is independant from yours must be very intense.

Look at the people in the roger waters tag, going "I knew he was a asshat/shitty person/bastard, because : a lot of songs he wrote when in PF are about himself (how dare he, the effing megalomaniac) / he gives his opinion more often than I'd like him to / Gilmour says he's an asshole and because I prefer listening to Gilmour's music I'll just assume he's right / He made decisions I don't understand and because I don't like him I'll assume they were motivated by hate / I personally don't like his personality/music and have therefore decided he's a bad person", etc. (When it's not simply recourse to the idiotic, meaningless concept of westplaining ... "YoU cAn'T dIsAgrReE wItH NoN-wEsTeRn cOuNtRiEs On ThEiR oWn pOliCiEs cAuSe tHeY hAvE LeSS iNfLuEnCe sO iT's UnFaIr !!😡" ) Those are the only 'justifications' I've seen so far for cancelling Roger. Pretty pathetic tbh. Though his words are the object of discontent, they are almost never criticized directly. Negative comments on social media are always ad hominem attacks. I wonder if they even bother to read the statements tbh. These people are obviously frustrated in some weird entitled way, and incapable of constructive criticism.

My understanding of Roger's problem is that he's surrounded himself & attached himself over the years with people & news outlets that are not telling him the full truth, and in true Roger Waters fashion, he'll defend them and their views unfailingly. That's how he is, once he believes in something he goes the whole. effing. hog. He's a very 'whole' person, if that makes sense, which is both a curse and a blessing. Probably, he was galvanized by their radical anti-US stance, and either out of naivety or dishonesty -probably both-, didn't pay attention to their questionable connections. The subtlety in this issue is that, even if the portrayal of the horrors of US politics in Russian & Chinese gov-owned media turns out to be 100% correct, it absolutely doesn't mean it can't still be part of a propaganda scheme. Manipulators can and will state genuine facts in order to appear truthful & encourage adherence to their entire agenda. The thing is, no one makes the effort to engage in calm, honest debate with him and explain to him exactly why he's wrong. It's always : he's oBviOuSLy wrong and also he's a prick, end of. Even Zelenska's response was basically this. Despite the fact that Roger wants to have that debate and has asked to be corrected in previous messages. One has to give him that...

TL;DR = Roger needs to grow up & learn that even liars can sometimes tell the truth. People on the Internet need to grow up & learn that even good, sane people can be very wrong but still have positive things to contribute.

"The Collapse of the New Polish Left." Damian Winczewski, Monthly Review. "This outline of the political situation in Poland, which, after its neoliberal transformation has been ruled alternately by liberals and nationalists, constitutes a context for the reflections of contemporary politically active left-wing intellectuals. Having largely abandoned the Marxist apparatus as obsolete, they attempt to resort to or create new, fashionable concepts that intend to re-empower the left. In fact, however, these turn out to be ideological justifications for increasing opportunism... "...In recent years, following the full-scale Russian military intervention in Ukraine and the outbreak of a massive international-scale crisis in which the Polish authorities have played a major role, the reconstruction of the intellectual and political identity of the Polish left has become even more difficult. At present, the majority of its representatives speak with one voice with the government camp, supporting the militarization of the country and even competing with the government for bizarre, militaristic ideas. At the ideological level, the dissociation of the Polish left from its Western anti-imperialistic counterpart has been justified by the concept of “Westplaining,” which was introduced into the public debate by Jan Smoleński and Jan Dutkiewicz, both columnists for Political Critique. According to them, “Westplaining” is basically any criticism of the United States and NATO. It allegedly treats the peoples of Eastern Europe as objects and ignores their belief that the United States and NATO are agents of rescue from and an alternative to centuries-old Russian colonialism.

"In other words, according to columnists associated with the Polish left, criticism of Western imperialism in a period of war is forbidden because support for it is the democratic will of the East European peoples. This is how Polish leftist activists compensate for decades of failures and missed opportunities: by lecturing their Western colleagues from a position of moral superiority and making themselves spokespeople for an abstract populace, while the real Polish working class, after years of being left alone in class struggle, is already completely indifferent to such leftist messages. The Polish left is now deluding itself into believing that it will win the favor of the people by affirming a conservative ideology allied with Western imperialism... "...Overall, the New Left received the smallest working-class support of all parties (only 5 percent of the vote) [in the October 2023 elections], with their biggest supporters appearing to be the metropolitan middle class. Despite this, they have announced great success, as they could become an important part of the new government under the leadership of the neoliberals of the Citizen Platform (which won 30.7 percent of the vote). These politicians, in turn, are already announcing cuts in social spending and the need to “balance the budget.” To paraphrase the ancient king of Epirus, Pyrrhus: A few more such successes of the left, and there will be no left at all."

https://monthlyreview.org/2023/12/01/the-collapse-of-the-new-polish-left/

keep scrolling if you've got a good mood

I have gotten some dose of "the leftist activist you like stands by the worst kinda westplainers" and a "don't forget why you live in two worlds even in your friendships". Right after the usual "vermin" funsies towards the disabled from the lefties and the diagnoses of "stupid" by those who don't care about being less of the vermin themselves. :v I miss some of my addictions, buy I'm off to indulge in a socially expected one in a moment so there's that.

You're believing this shitty opinion from this shitty person? He said and explained several times that he isn't an antisemite and not every one only has to be for Ukraine.

not sure what "not every one only has to be for Ukraine" means but it's pretty clear that in the context of Ukraine he's just a shitty westplainer. I'm actually living in central Europe so I don't have his privilege of waxing poetics about peace. Another poor, poor western celebrity.