Absolutely true but the problem is that this just fundamentally isn’t a rebuttal to accusations of human rights abuses by countries tankies support. Those still happened and defending them is just as bad as nationalistic chuds who think the US or Israel did nothing wrong.
So at best it’s whataboutism, which might be at least slightly valid if leftists refused to criticize western powers. But, y’know, we are one of the main groups that does that…
I guess I wanted to dialectically both reject and embrace human rights and failed on the second part. One tankie argument I get is that it’s more revolutionary to criticize your own government than others but I never got why not both. While rejecting Russia’s war of aggression, I focus my activism on my government’s climate politics and racist police and foreign policy well knowing that Russia and the US are both worse in these regards.
Absolutely true but the problem is that this just fundamentally isn’t a rebuttal to accusations of human rights abuses by countries tankies support. Those still happened and defending them is just as bad as nationalistic chuds who think the US or Israel did nothing wrong.
So at best it’s whataboutism, which might be at least slightly valid if leftists refused to criticize western powers. But, y’know, we are one of the main groups that does that…
I guess I wanted to dialectically both reject and embrace human rights and failed on the second part. One tankie argument I get is that it’s more revolutionary to criticize your own government than others but I never got why not both. While rejecting Russia’s war of aggression, I focus my activism on my government’s climate politics and racist police and foreign policy well knowing that Russia and the US are both worse in these regards.