this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
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the US has never been isolationist? my brother in Christ, that's our entire history from the Munroe doctrine to the 45th/47th president
We are not brothers.
Maybe read some of it, then... then you can explain to me how a (supposedly) "isolationist" empire based in the continental Americas manages to have a gigantic naval base in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
SUPER easily. you're describing anti-imperialism, not isolationism. anti-imperialism: we shouldn't interfere in anyone's affair. isolationism: no one should interfere with what we're doing, no matter how vile and evil.
some examples of isolationists:
So you don't actually know what words mean - that explains a lot.
Will this be taking long, then?
No. I do. You don't. I can understand your frustration that "isolationism" sounds like something it isn't, but unfortunately it is what it is, and it has an established meaning and you not liking that doesn't change the fact that it means what it means. I saw you in another comment saying we shouldn't use the world the racists created for their concept, which I do agree with but most of the time we don't have the luxury of time to establish that I think it should be called something explicitly stupid like "fartpoggin" so that the sound of it is dumb enough to discourage people for falling into isolationism of fascism because the word the originators chose for it made it sound like something else or something sexy. But again. Most of time time we're talking to other people about things and the most expedient way to do that is to use established terms as they've been established. I WILL NOT be carrying a conversation where you try to convince everyone that America isn't isolationist because it's imperial. I'm sorry, but I just don't have time for that. Let's have the conversation about that America tortures the planet and the isolates itself from consequences by refusing to agree to the terms of the ICC, the Paris Climate Agreement, the fucking Treaty of Versailles, you fucking name it, we isolate ourselves from consequence ALL THE TIME (hence the term Isolationism)
It wouldn't have if you were willing to listen to others, but here we are. Still spinning our wheels because you don't understand what a word means and you think everyone who isn't you doesn't understand it. At a certain point this conversation will simply need to end because you're not paying attention to what anyone else is saying because you have the world's dumbest axe to grind and are getting in your own way of making coalitions with people who do basically agree with you, but you require purity of terminology in online discussions and drag a conversation away from what matters into administrivia that absolutely fucking doesn't
Established by whom? The same people who applauds when the US "tortures the planet and the isolates itself from consequences"?
Am I the only one who understands the propaganda value of terminology around here? Perhaps we are "still spinning our wheels..." but I'd say it's rather because the propaganda machinery of the status quo is still running rings around us if we even allow them to dictate the meaning of words at us.
Next you'll be telling me we should also not reject liberal's definition of things like democracy or justice.
See. That's the opposite of what I'm saying. We need to get them to understand that "isolationism" is a bad term. It's a bad thing. It's bad to be isolated from the rest of the world. We as individuals are meant to be connected into the context of the community around us. These fuckfaces want to be isolated and insulated and alone. This scales downwards. They want our imperial nation alone, they want their party alone, they want their city disconnected from others, they want their family alone, they want to be alone. They want to act and behave without consequence or reinforcement from anyone around them. But what a sad life! We are meant to have connections with our family, with our friends, with the people we encounter on the street, with visitors from other places. We're meant to go out into the world and meet other groups and bring all of that wisdom home with us and enjoy the fruits of our own labor returned to us as gifts from a mutually beneficial lifestyle of cooperation.
It's easier to repackage the emotional context of these words than it is to re-establish their meanings. Re-establishing meanings is new speak, it is a weapon of the enemy and I will not use it. Re-establishing the way these words impact us and each other, these are our weapons. This is the power that we have. Fighting fire with fire will only leave the whole world burned. It's better to fight fire effectively by isolating it with a fire line, starving it of fuel, and then dousing it.
How did you manage to lose the plot like this? We're discussing isolationism - the propaganda angle US political elites used to camouflage the fact that the US is a fundamentally imperialist entity.
NOT the equally-fake but only tangentially-related ideology of free-market individualism.
Really? Debunking propaganda is now a "weapon of the enemy" that you will not use?
Do tell... who is your enemy?
bruh. this is me debunking their prpaganda. i'm handing you what you need to get out there and flip their shit on its head. the person who said you've studied your theory but not your history? this right here. this is why they said that. you can't dislodge the white supremacist definitions once they become generally understood, which is what i was saying. we have to fight them by taking a broader view at why they fall for the propaganda and then fight that. our power isn't in the dictionary, it's in the emotions attached to the words as used in day to day speech.
my enemy is the white supremacist patriarchal hegemony. i learned to fight it from people who been fighting it from millenia. and the one thing they've always taught is that once a word has a commonly understood meaning you can't undo that while also using that word. you have to cease its usage as what you want it to mean, and you have to recontextualize it as being a cringey bad thing. i am trying to help you in your fight but your refusal to listen to others is deeply troubling and problematic. it makes me worry you're running with the wrong people out there in the real world.
so please. i beg you. go touch some grass and talk to some radical thinkers in physical space. because this ain't what you need to be up to.
No. You're not.
By NOT debunking propaganda?
Ie, NOT YOU?
Piss off, liberal.
Motherfucker. You're the one out here talking like the neoliberals I fight. I'm done having this argument with someone who does the work for the right wing propaganda machine for it unwittingly. Your behavior just intensifies the anger online that divides us in our struggle towards a true anarchist utopia. We are stronger together and we can't stand strong together if we're not talking to people in the way that actually converts them to our way of thinking. I'm gonna block you if you reply to this with the same snide snotty attitude that indicates that you don't understand the core underlying value of what I am trying to convey to you because you've already decided I think something I don't and want something I don't. You understand the theory of the propaganda we're fighting against, and I commend you for that, but you don't understand how it's actually fought because you haven't studied the history of what's worked and what's failed in the past. This is a deeply frustrating conversation that is sapping my energy so I'm gonna go out and touch some grass before this drains my energy to actually do it/
Ahhh! Something we agree on - your batshit incoherence IS frustrating.
Whew big radgie man who can’t take a joking phrase lol
Sheesh homie didn't realize he was playin with a ice cold badass muhfucker.