Here’s the full quote:
Russia is waging this war – in their minds, in their estimation, in the estimations of the third world – at the behest of everyone who has been fucked over by American imperialism. While Russia is engaging in ??? [eerie dentist acts? I got nothing] that are unconscionable and unjust and violent, and totally immoral, that is the analysis that the rest of the countries around the globe are looking at. That is what they’re looking at! They’re looking at Ukraine as an extension of the West and they’re looking at – [reading chat] “You sound like Israel asking Hamas why they won’t just agree to a ceasefire” … WHAT DO YOU MEAN [begins yelling and missing the point]"
I mean, regardless of the truth value of that statement, I’d say I agree with Hasan. Anyone outside of the Western cultural sphere of influence (and not in Eastern Europe) will default to that position because their countries have been f’d, to one degree or another, by American/Western imperialism. It’s a very understandable position, right?
Not really. The two have nothing to do with each other.
“The Chinese government shouldn’t have shot all those people in Tienanmen Square.” “Yeah, but you have to remember Western imperialism.”
“The Khmer Rouge shouldn’t have killed a quarter of their country’s population.” “Yeah, but you have to remember the Vietnam War.”
“Ireland shouldn’t have covered up for sex-abusing priests.” “Yeah, but you have to remember Protestant oppression of the Catholics…”
The whole premise is nonsense. I do know people from outside the US who took this attitude to Putin, I can think of specific ones of them that I talked with about Putin and they told me I was an ignorant American, more or less, and Ukraine’s not innocent and the US intentions in Ukraine are not good either. They thought it was hilarious that I was all heated up about Putin and (in their minds) not heated up about the US government doing more or less the exact same thing in their region of the world for the last several decades.
And then the 2022 invasion happened.
And as soon as it was apartment blocks and hospitals blowing up, power plants, shelling Chernobyl, kidnapping kids and taking them back to Russia, they all of a sudden got real fuckin’ quiet about Putin kind of being an admirable guy because, what the hell at least he’s trying to stand up to the US instead of getting fucked around by them or else making corrupt deals like everyone else. They weren’t stupid or naive about what a war like that meant, who was paying the horrifying price, or how much or how little it was doing to solve American imperialism anywhere else in the world. And so they were shocked and horrified, watching the scale of the suffering. They didn’t want to try to do little backflips to connect it to some kind of noble cause somewhere else that it was supposedly in service of.
Any other reaction, honestly to me, means you are at best some kind of sheltered and elitist person, some kind of person who feels like making excuses for innocent people dying because you want to cling to some pet theory. As the person in Hasan’s chat very succinctly alluded to, I would never make that kind of excuse on behalf of the US, or for Israel or any other horrifying state-power entity that’s doing awful things and spreading around propaganda about it. So why is Hasan doing it? That’s fuckin’ weird, don’t do that.
I love how Tankie’s most popular modern figure is Hasan, a guy who lives in a mansion, uses sports cars, dresses in Gucci clothes and attends frat parties at other mansions. Best representation of their ideology, really, rich kids and man children who are angry
I don’t really have a problem with someone being a streamer or being successful. I was always kind of on the fence about Hasan (still am actually), I like him because he is a strong leftist voice and maybe I should not be nitpicking him here. This is the first really dumb thing I’ve heard him say.
I guess I see him, after seeing this, as similar to Joe Rogan for the left: He’s actually generally sensible, he has a very loyal audience who mostly lines up with his political leaning, but he talks about complex issues without really understanding them (or apparently even trying to), which makes him vulnerable to saying or promoting total bullshit by accident. Case in point…
Oh, Hasan isn’t a leftist, he’s a tankie full and through. I like this video, it goes through his many views
Holy shit
I’m not watching this entire thing, but it’s bad. I watched some sections and holy shit.
The first random thing I happened upon was Hasan talking about trans issues, overtalking someone from the chat who disagreed with him and demanded evidence which was literally open on his screen at the time, called them transphobic (?), then banned a trans person who chimed in to say that yes they agreed and Hasan was doing a bad job arguing for trans issues, and then spent extensive time berating them on stream, wishing bad things on them in the future…
I honestly can’t even do it justice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdCFycPw3fI&t=575s
Holy crap man. I generally sort of discount people trying to find reasons to nitpick some leftist voice, because pretty much everyone has some kind of imperfection and whatever, it’s fine, we don’t need to constantly be shedding allies because fuck anyone who ever did something allegedly etc etc whatever. Anyone can have a bad day if they’re on streams a ton of the time… but this is bad. And it makes me not surprised at all if he has the same type of super-confident wrong take on geopolitical issues.
Edit: Also, by far the saddest thing is the nonstop scroll of people cheering him on and celebrating this person getting banned, just whizzing by in the chat. Shit is fucked. Our society is in a bad state.
You should catch up on the Ethan Klein and Hasan drama, it’s pretty damn juicy. I think when it comes to these online debate-bros, you should take note of how often they admit their mistakes and take accountability for their actions. I don’t think Hasan has ever admitted he was entirely wrong about an issue. When he does admit wrongdoing, it’s always some sort of catch or ‘but’ attached to it.
Try not to judge society by them though, they don’t have much sway over the majority of the population.
I have to know a random guy I never heard of said something?
