I’m not on Twitter, so I get my news elsewhere, but most of the actual pictures I see are from here. So is there some kind of bias where only the fascist imagery gets posted here in the the dunk tank? Or do the libs scrolling through Ukrainian posts on Twitter literally see and ignore fascist imagery on every single post? Like, if they see 1000 Ukrainian soldiers, will they see 1000 fascist symbols?
The CIA spent the postwar years doing all kinds of gross things, one of which was trying to move as many nazis to Ukraine as possible, with the specific aim of creating a fascist uprising in the USSR and possibly a Ukrainian fascist break-away state. They accelerated this program after the USSR coup, and the result is a modern Ukrainian state with outright neo-nazis in positions of power over the police, cities, and entire government. This is also why Ukraine doesn’t bother to do the hilariously simple trick of just telling their troops to stop wearing white nationalist, nazi patches, or perhaps suggesting to volunteers using assumed names to stop picking “Adolf” or “Dirlewanger” or whatever - they are all part of an explicitly fascist national project.
Wow, that’s… incredible. The CIA has done some fucked up shit, but that’s something else entirely. Do you have a quality source on this? I’d like to follow up on this claim.
Edit: holy shit
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I don’t trust NATO sources, do you have a youtuber?
It makes me so fucking mad how much of this shit you can learn just from their own declassified documents. They’re not even trying to hide it
what in the goddamn fuck
I hope I’m alive to see how history will contextualize america’s decades-long nazi support around the world in the context of wwi - russian revolution - wwii - cold war - whatever is coming.
When we consider the history of all societies to be the history of class struggles, it’s maddening to think that chain of events as capitalists trying everything in their power to keep profits going and growing and combating workers that try to do take the next step. I also think wwii nazism is still not the worst that capitalists can possibly do to stop communism. The worst is still to happen and america will be the actor.
I’ve spent some time to find an account that’s properly federated to Hexbear just to comment, because wow, if I never doubted that the U.S. were meddling in Ukrainian affairs (what with the leaked phone calls and all that jazz), I can see that the beast is way bigger than expected; it made me understand this server’s perspective better. And to think they don’t even hide it…
Honestly, even if you all didn’t change your tone but just added this kind of links to your comments, you’d have an easier time convincing people.
I’ve been on hexbear for years and I didn’t know this tidbit, although I was aware that GLADIO stuff like this has happened. Learn new things every time I visit here lol.
GLADIO
Oof, yet another thing where I saw the tentacle but not the kraken behind…
If you wish to understand the leftist perspective on the US beyond the “tankies just think everything the US does is automatically bad”, I strongly recommend that you read Killing Hope and The Jakarta Method. Arming and supporting fascists to slaughter and subjugate everything that looked even vaguely socialist or just wanted to be unaligned during the Cold War has been business as usual for many decades and Ukraine is just a bullet point in a very long and bloody list. Fair warning: the stuff in those books can make you extremely angry. I legit had to put Killing Hope down and go do something else after going through the Guatemala chapter to shake off the utter disgust.
Thanks for the recommendations, and the links! If you’ll allow me the redditism, username checks out. The missing pieces are falling into place, notably about NATO, which I didn’t understand that well the hatred for; going down the rabbit hole of Operation Gladio mentioned by iie, and seeing how they’ve, for instance, supported extremist groups and commissioned terror attacks in my country with the U.S. pulling on the leash was a ride…
You’re welcome. As always, I am asking liberals to read the Progress of Truth.
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We should just get a bot to pin this to every new ukraine-related post
Edit: holy shit
This exact thought has created hundreds of thousands of marxist-leninists over the years. Stick around, you’ll have a lot of these moments.
If you also accept people that feel closer to the anarchist ideals (not the “I’m free to do what I want, no rulez!!” type), I’ll do.
I love my anarchist comrades.
I’m still in the infancy though, so, don’t mind too much if there’s some bad takes here and there; they’ll eventually stop after more reading.
That tends to be how it goes. Bad takes in good faith are usually met with direct explanation. Hopefully that is your experience as well.
Yeah, you don’t have to agree with everything to still be family.
Google “Project AERODYNAMIC CIA”, the documents are all on the CIA’s own website
Ever hear of The Jakarta Method?
I had not. I looked it up and have since bought the book, and just… I have no words that can really do it justice.
It’s a lot, but it’s a really good (and important) read. I found that, for me, it really hammered home how much of the conflict out there is class war where the nazi’s and their adjacents ( neo-nazis, kkk, christo-fascists, mujahideen, etc) are ultimately just the foot-soldiers of capital against the workers of the world.
Unfortunately, The Jakarta Method just kinda scratches the surface of the horrors of the last century. I definitely recommend Vijay Prishad’s Washington Bullets for a more broad overview of what Jakarta Method covers at an individual level. Also, The Blowback podcast is great, especially Season 2 if you’re looking for CIA shenanigans. I’ve not read a book on it yet, but Operation Gladio is also pretty important when it comes to the CIA and supporting nazis and other fash.
Project Aerodynamic was one part of the CIA network of Ukrainian Banderite Nazis creating propaganda literature.
https://www.foiaresearch.net/project/aerodynamic
This nazi was the main guy involved in running the operation. Prolog Research was his publishing firm funded by the CIA to generate anti-soviet pro-Ukrainian nationalist books.
From 1949, Lebed lived in the United States. During 1952–1974, he headed the Prolog Research Center in New York; in 1982–85, he was Deputy Chairman and since 1974 he was a Member of the Board of Directors of the institution. In 1956-91 he was a member of the board of the Ukrainian Society of Foreign Studies in Munich and Toronto, publishing committee "Chronicle of the UPA (1975). Author memories “UPA” (1946, 1987). Thanks to his collaboration with the CIA and their active shielding of him, Lebed was never tried for the war crimes he and his men had committed against Poles and Jews during WWII.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mykola_Lebed
The works published through Prolog later became incorporated into history curriculum to cement the false narratives they had established.
More about that here: https://www.villagevoice.com/in-search-of-a-soviet-holocaust/
IMO they publish all these pictures on purpose as part of a wider campaign to normalize nazism.
There’s a video out there from pretty early in the war with an azov officer bragging and laughing about how easy it was for them to dupe the entire western media apparatus into apologizing for their obvious fascism, so yeah.
I haven’t seen it since it was first making the rounds though, and I have no idea how to even start trying to find it again.
TBH I think that guy got it backwards. He didn’t “dupe” the media, it’s just his masters running interference for him. The CIA has him wrapped around their collective little finger, not the other way around. Kind of like a dog thinking they tricked their owner into feeding them.
Oh definitely, but it does demonstrate how it’s an intentional effort. Unlike his masters this fascist dog just comes right out and admits it.
I’d love to get a source for this if you have one.
Same, but like I said I have no idea where to even start looking
I don’t internet very well
I think there are pieces of it in this clip compilation video
I just posted it in a comment yesterday. Funny how often it becomes relevant and how few liberals know about this, even over a year and a half later.
tagging @GhostofLeninsGhost@hexbear.net in case this helps.
Thank you!
Ukrainian fascists are the commandos of the war and have people sympathetic to them all up the chain. They are provided with a lot of power on the ground and this includes the production of propaganda.
You see a lot of Nazi imagery because (1) there are indeed a lot of Ukrainian fascists in the military and (2) the Ukrainian fascists are the ones creating the photo ops.
Liberals are first and foremost ignorant and most don’t even notice or recognize sonnenrads or whatever most of the time. And when it’s pointed out, they become defensive, as this has been their rah-rah nationalist moment, the first war in a long time they feel they can outwardly support. Acknowledging that they’re supporting Nazis creates cognitive dissonance that leads them to lash out like children.
Acknowledging that they’re supporting Nazis creates cognitive dissonance that leads them to lash out like children.
Or just straight up deciding that Nazis aren’t that bad after all. “If I’m supporting Nazis, and I know that I’m cool and good, then Nazis must not actually be that bad either.”
I haven’t seen that specifically, more just these ones don’t count and then ranting about the USSR.
I haven’t seen an outright defense of nazis, just a defense of looking the other way. Which materially makes no difference, but as far as the thought process goes it’s a bit different than fully saying nazis are good
I can see what you mean, but on the other hand the sentiment of “Well, Hitler did have some good points” is common enough, for example. I would say it leans more towards the “not so bad” thought process than the “not actually Nazi” thought process. I think that the “not so bad” thing is probably more of a cryptofascist tactic than it is a liberal excuse, but in my experience there’s a hell of a lot of crossover between those two. Otherwise, the concept of the “scratched liberal” wouldn’t be so constantly applicable.
I have never seen a lib irl say hitler has good points, but I have seen them argue that Stalin was worse. Like before, effectively the same statement materially, but I think the thought process is a little sneakier.
I think the scratched liberal goes fascist without even knowing it. They’re not going to just suddenly get on board the “hitler good” train, but they’ll get on the “well they’re on our side this time” train, you know what I mean?
It’s a semantic difference, but idk I think it’s somewhat, if not important, worthwhile to note that they are a different creature being used by the fascist, less so than a fascist outright.
I have never seen a lib irl say hitler has good points
Consider yourself fortunate, then. I have, more than once.
I think the scratched liberal goes fascist without even knowing it. They’re not going to just suddenly get on board the “hitler good” train,
I agree. There’s a reason we call it a pipeline.
if not important, worthwhile to note that they are a different creature being used by the fascist, less so than a fascist outright.
It’s absolutely worthwhile (and important) to differentiate between out-and-out fascist and ignorant liberal. I just think for a lot of them, certainly the ones we’d call scratched libs, it’s more a matter of degree than of kind. It’s a spectrum, and unfortunately they usually end up sliding in one direction along that spectrum.
I do think you’re right that it’s far more often that a lib will deal with their cognitive dissonance by going the “that’s not Nazi” route as opposed to the “Nazis aren’t all bad” route, but I still contend that the latter does happen, and I have actually seen it happen.
A lot don’t because they’re just ordinary people in a shit war, and I don’t blame them for fighting any more that some french or german dumbass volunteering in ww1. Even if you know the theory and are socialist, Revolutionary Defeatism is a hard road to follow in a real war, especially at first.
But pretty much every elite or regular army unit does. And as militia get hardened by these cadre more and more take on their fash ideology, much as German proto fascists infiltrated the units that would become the freicorps.
It’s fucked and Ukraine is gonna be a hotbed of not just Fascism but full Nazism if it survives, win or lose. Of course this war continues to strengthen the Fash opposition to Putin (who sucks, but isn’t a fascist) in Russia as well. Only silver lining is that the communist rank and file is increasingly agitated as well.
Because there’s been a concentrated propaganda effort since the 2014 coup to make fascist ideology acceptable. Look at what happened to the polled approval rating of Bandera between 2014 and 2022. It pretty much doubled. That is not an organic thing, it happened because the fascists wanted it to, and pushed hard for the normalisation of fascism since their 2014 coup.
I’ll be as fair as I can about it, really seems like it’s around 1 in 10.
Which is a fucking lot.
If one Nazi sits down in an armored vehicle with 9 others, you now have 10 mechanically mobilized Nazis
Unlike going to a restaurant or rally, being drafted into the military is by definition not voluntary association.
Skill issue. I would simply defect. Really don’t have to many consequences to worry about when the alternative is dying to protect your landlord’s house
for real, they’re using you for cannon fodder, even amerikkkans figured out how to frag their commanding officer
There is obviously a bias because the pictures with fascist imagery are worth posting for that very fact, but also a lot of major news outlets keep struggling to post even a small gallery without needing to scrub it.
Ukrainian nazis are an insignificant minority with no real political power, but also it would be way too much to ask them to stop wearing nazi symbols or to not show them off front and center in all their propaganda.
And really, doesn’t every military have its nazis? That’s why we also constantly see pictures of American and Russian soldiers wearing nazi patches, right?
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Red Army enters chat
There probably actually are plenty of US military Nazis though
Ukrainian nazis are an insignificant minority with no real political power, but also it would be way too much to ask them to stop wearing nazi symbols or to not show them off front and center in all their propaganda.
This is patently false. The head of the Ukrainian armed forces posed with a painting of Bandera on Banderas birthday and it was posted on the official twitter of the Ukrainian parliament. The head of the armed forces is not a position with no political power.
For the 8 years between maidan and Russia’s entry into the civil war there were dozens of stories in western media and reports by foreign governments regarding the rise of nazism in Ukraine.
You have to be intentionally ignorant to say that Nazism isn’t a major thing in ukraine.
It’s hard to infer tone over the internet sometimes, so no harm done. Just letting you know that Babs was making a joke highlighting the absurdity of deluding one’s self into thinking that Ukrainian Nazism doesn’t run deep.
Oh thank god.
I was getting a bit weirded out thinking “how is this a hexbear?”
Our poster’s are just to good folks. Many people are saying this
I get got on here every so often too
It would be so fucking easy NOT to have death heads and sun-wheels on everything. It just seems that there is 0 problem to flaunt fash imaginery in the Ukranian forces. Which isnt suprising since neo-nazism seems to be pretty commonplace in Ukraine (even by european standards).
I think I disagree. At this point it feels like in Ukraine you get shot for not sporting enough nazi flair.
The exact bias that lead to Canada plucking a Nazi out of the thousands of possible veterans they could have chose and honored, yes
Turns out when virulently reactionary nationalism goes unchecked it proliferates among the populace. The entire reason those same nazis were allowed in to begin.
i assume the ones most on social media are the most ideologically commited, some unenthusiastic draftee probably isn’t bragging and masturbating online about it.
The draftees are getting beaten and shot by the Nazi recruiters and “rear guard”
stalin shouldn’t have stopped at berlin
Libs loving Nazis - NATO!
Nazi Arming and Training Organization.
I have seen a lot of Ukrainian soldiers without fascist tatoos
I did a bit of digging through news articles and found @Awoo@hexbear.net metric of 1 in 10 having fascist symbols or tattoos to be pretty accurate
I have the feeling if it wouldn’t be prohibited in a lot of countries, there would be cities with 10% or more having facist tattoos haha looking at you Germany, France, Italy, Israel, …
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After almost a decade of reporting on this war, I’d like to chip in with a couple of thoughts on why you might see these symbols on the battlefield in Ukraine. Not to justify these soldiers’ decisions — as any use of Nazi symbols should always be condemned — but to offer my explanation for this phenomenon.
So, why are these symbols present on the battlefield?
First of all, let’s establish one fact. No, Ukraine does not have “a Nazi problem.”
lmfao
Just like in many places around the world, people with far-right and neo-Nazi views, driven by their ideology, are prone to joining the military and participating in conflicts. One also has to take into account that in Ukraine, nationalism with deep historical roots is tied to a desire for independence from Russia. It has driven many to take up arms to fight in what they believe is an existential war against a neighbor that seeks to subjugate and destroy their country. Among them, people with far-right views.
“deep historical roots” going all the way back to Second World War, where a minority of Ukrainian soldiers willingly sided with a genocidal fascist regime that wanted the complete extermination and enslavement of the Slavic people. weirdly enough, the part of history where an overwhelming majority of Ukrainians sided with the Red Army to free Eastern Europe from those genocidal fascists isn’t represented quite as much, but that’s not important, obviously.
These groups were aggressive and highly motivated. It is, of course, true that, for instance, the Azov Battalion was originally founded by neo-Nazi and far-right groups (as well as many soccer ultra-fans), which brought along with it the typical aesthetics — not only neo-Nazi insignia but also things like Pagan rituals or names like “The Black Corps,” the official newspaper of Nazi Germany’s major paramilitary organization Schutzstaffel (SS). But as with any country, real neo-Nazis in Ukraine were and still are a tiny minority.
It hasn’t helped that, since 2014, some Western journalists have made the supposed “rise of the far right” a staple of their coverage of Ukraine, as headlines of supposed neo-Nazis in the country are consistently attention-grabbing. And right before the full-scale invasion, certain American journalists wrote about how Ukrainian neo-Nazis were allegedly using the threat of Russia’s full-scale invasion to seize power in the country.
But guess what — the Russian invasion did happen, and the neo-Nazi power grab never did. Not only was there no serious evidence ever presented to support claims of an attempted “coup,” these fringe elements are nothing compared to Ukraine’s state and military machine.
Ukraine’s government is absolutely fucking littered with fascists, what the fuck?
did this author think that the fascists would be like “We have an announcement to make! We are taking over the Ukrainian government. We are Nazis. We are fascists. We want to do genocide and are very evil. Please carry on!”
absolute fucking morons. if fascism was already an institutionalized force in the government as it was after the US-backed coup of 2014, you don’t need to do dramatic takeovers of power! you just continue doing what you’re doing! fascism was already the de facto arrangement of the Ukrainian government!
this is like saying “The racist power grab in America never happened. There was never a point where racists and white supremacists took control of Congress and the House in a dramatic coup d’etat. We beat racism in the Civil War. There is no racism in America today. This was definitely true by the time Obama was elected president (the good ol’ “buhhhh if zelensky jew then how fascism?!?!?!!” thing). You are a stooge of foreign governments if you argue that America still has racists in it when a black president was elected. There is no systemic racism in the United States today.”
Lmao. I wanted to do a comprehensive breakdown like this, but gave up and posted a simpler comment instead. Good work 70trillion!
Good work 70trillion!
give me back my other 2 trillions!
Nah, your too powerful. Have to spread them out to the rest of us so we can catch up.
Igood write up! It’s embarassing for some lemmyverse rando to just come in here with this nonesense after hexbears have spent well over a year dissecting the Ukraine war to a subatomic level. Like bruh we know as much about this conflict as anyone in the west can, and what you’re saying does not pass the smell test.
So why is this happening? In the oversimplified memory of some around the world, particularly within various militaristic subcultures, symbols representing the Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany’s Armed Forces, and the SS are seen to reflect a super-effective war machine, not the perpetrators of one of the greatest crimes against humanity in human history.
This, this is why a Ukrainian SS member was applauded in the Canadian parliament. The history of Ukraine is fighting with Russia to defend communism. When you tear that down, there’s no heroes left but Hitler.
the Nazi German army was tremendously effective and efficient, which is obvious because the war didn’t last 6 years with an overwhelming Nazi defeat.
wait. shit.
(it’s constantly funny how westerners love armies and countries that just fucking ate shit. just completely got fucking owned. totally embarrassed in front of the world.)
Westerners: Hey say what you will but at least the Nazis were really efficient and effective war fighters
Hitler, after the nazi invasion of the USSR failed: holy shit, the soviets have a better economic system than us, greater productive capacity, and their people are vicious, courageous fighters
Hitler: how the fuck are they making so many T-34s and Il-2s make it stop
Western nazi apologists: akkkshually if it wasn’t for lend lease the glorious ubermensch would have won
when you literally think more of hitler and nazi germany than hitler did, maybe it’s time to follow his ultimate example and do the world a favor
Say what you want about the Nazis, but at least their genocidal super-effective war machine ran on time.
So super-effective that it lost the one war it fought it
First of all, let’s establish one fact. No, Ukraine does not have “a Nazi problem.”
It’s not that they don’t see the problem, it’s that they don’t see it as a problem.
Heckin Ukraine doesn’t have a nazi problem, they have a nazi opportunity !!
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