Whataboutism exists to show fucks like you contradictions in your beliefs, not to excuse what is happening. Opposition is so strong in any capitalist country nowadays, isn’t it? Freedom of speech is universal right, until couple of journalists say something too “freespeachy”. Sure, making people to vote between two indistinguishable candidates is fine, but when one guy wins throughout the years - FREEDOM IS LOST, AUTHORITARIANISM IS ON THE RISE. Play pretend game of thinking that these two are so different, that one can be called democracy and other is fascistic dystopia is really funny.
AND OF COURSE THERE IS A FUCKING NAZI SLOGAN IN THE FLAIR, HOW VERY DEMOCRATIC.
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What’s funny is they don’t know what whataboutism is. If someone says “Russia is doing a bad thing” and I reply with “USA is doing that same bad thing”, that’s not whataboutism. I’m speaking about the same topic you are. If I were to say “USA is doing some other bad thing (that wasn’t related at all to that topic” then that would be whataboutism.
That’s what it academically means.
Real word use its literally just a new word for hypocrisy that in their minds makes rhe hypocrisy thing not count.
Ironically its the same thing as the whole fake news thing. It was originally a literal deffinition but then chuds drove it into the ground until it meant “news I don’t like”
Liberals did the same thing and now whataboutism is “a valid point that I don’t like”
It really is hilarious they think they’re different, let alone better than red Maga.
Ironically, you misunderstood whataboutism. A few definitions for context:
- “the act or practice of responding to an accusation of wrongdoing by claiming that an offense committed by another is similar or worse” (Merriam-Webster
- “the strategy of responding to an accusation with a counter-accusation instead of a defense of the original accusation.” Wikipedia
- “a conversational tactic in which a person responds to an argument or attack by changing the subject to focus on someone else’s misconduct, implying that all criticism is invalid because no one is completely blameless” Dictionary.com
The specifics of the definition change, but the broad idea is consistent. Your example of “but what about the USA” is a perfect example of whataboutism because not only does it not address or defend Russia’s “bad thing” but it also attempts to redirect the accusation to a different country.
But simply calling something “whataboutism” doesn’t mean the person bringing up someone or something else doesn’t have a point. It’s frustrating seeing someone say “oh you used a whataboutism, you have no argument” because it’s still good to note if the pot is calling the kettle black.
You really thought you was doing something with this long ass effort post I know your fingers hurting like shit
Who let them try to cook
But simply calling something “whataboutism” doesn’t mean the person bringing up someone or something else doesn’t have a point.
Horseshit, y’all use it as a thought-terminator and nothing else. So 'til THAT meta changes, you’re full of shit, and STILL not worth debating because you have literally no moral high ground to criticize the actions of any other fucking country with your four hundred unbroken years of genocide, slavery, and fomenting of terrorism.
If they use a “but you use whataboutism”
Just tell him, fallacy fallacy…
After all, it’s deeply unserious all around here?
- Say the US must combat Russia because they are evil because of bad thing.
- Wait until someone tells you the US does the same bad thing to a worse degree.
- Call it whataboutism as it was given in response to your first statement.
- It is now a fallacy, so you can ignore the existence of the presented fact. Russia is still evil and the US isn’t, since you do not accept the info given to you.
- Continue supporting the US against Russia because they are evil because of bad thing.
Exactly. This is the real problem with calling out whataboutism. People like us actually understand what whataboutism means, we’re not stupid. We’re calling it out against liberals because they don’t see the hypocrisy of their system.
Ah, fair point, but you used the word “liberals” in the classical political sense, and not to describe exclusively supporters of the Democratic Party as a reb-blooded American would do. This can only mean that you are a Russian bot programmed to spread misinformation, as there is not such a thing as organic, differing workframes if these can be used to oppose the hegemony of the USA. I shall now proceed to discard your statement.
My programming was caught again!
It was not so hard to detect it. After all, there are only 3 types of people on the internet:
- People who defend and uphold the hegemony of the white and civilized West
- Russian bots
- Paid Chinese trolls
你好
“Whataboutism” is a term invented by US diplomats and the CIA to deflect pointing out the hypocrisy of the US.
Really? Never knew that, could you link where you found out?
I don’t have a link, but look up journalist Michael Bernard who started using the term to criticize the Soviet Union “deflecting” human rights abuse accusations by the US, in the 1970s. Shortly after his article got published in a local Australian newspaper, the term started getting used everywhere in the West regarding the Soviet Union, indicating a concerted effort, as there were direct references to the article (e.g. New York Times articles referencing an unknown Australian journalist writing for a small local magazine).
There’s another story that it was invented by a British journalist for doing the same criticism for the IRA, but it never really got popular until Michael Bernard used it in his own article.
It was actually invented by the British to use against IRA and their supporters.
The original name is “and you are lynching ne–os” which was the response the soviets gave any time Americans tried to take moral high ground. They literally changed the name to whataboutism to hide the fact the original made them sound like the nazis that they are, and it worked.
In a way it’s kind of like how they made “tankie” in a way to disguise who the tanks were going after.
Fucks me up that so little has changed that now it’s just the crackers lynching everybody not cishet and anglo then trying to hide under “whataboutism” as a tarpaulin
Which is why whataboutism is a valid argument most of the times. If you’re accusing a someone of A while someone you support (or even you!) also does A, then clearly A is not a deal-breaker for you and irrelevant for your preferences.
<(MLK and Malcolm X were assassinated by the American state for being “too radical”, Asange is being extradited for reveling that the US government lied and just recently a whistleblower was shot for wanting to reveal Boeing’s dangerous cornercutting)
It’s so annoying that liberals treat the US as a “flawed but still a force for good” and that the US is the “ imperfect but still forefront at spreading tolerance and democracy in the world”. It makes me sick.
The US propaganda machine is a sight to behold.
I don’t understand why antisocialists find overwhelming electoral victories so hard to believe. It’s as if they’re so naïve about the world that they refuse to believe that even men with abhorrent personalities and a track record of abusing minorities can still be enormously popular among ordinary adults. Their admiration for Winston Churchill exemplifies that.
In any case, the Western ruling class is mostly responsible for the present situation. It’s no good to gripe about it without having any historical context.
They can’t possibly comprehend a leader with over 20% approval rating where you don’t have to vote between a polite nazi and a dick nazi.
Real opposition… Zero
Navalnists in shambles 🤣
Aykshully Navalny is dead so there is no real opposition 🤓
While i apreciate westerners thinking pro-western opposition in Russia was just one man, in reality there is many more of them.
How brave. I’m sure Russian officials are quaking in their boots.
Heroiam slava, all right.
If Russia was such a cartoonishly evil dictatorship, they wouldn’t be having elections at all. But then, if you try to articulate that Putin is simply popular the conversation shifts from “Putin is evil” to “All Russians are evil”
I also love how libs avoid discussing the fact that Ukraine, which they tout as fighting for their values, cancelled elections.
Zelensky is basically an unelected dictator at this point.
quite literally
After outlawing opposing political parties.
Also the whole thing about how russians are just grabbing people off the streets to throw on the front line when one country in the war is actually doing conscription and it isn’t Russia.
No you see, it’s to trick all those Russians into thinking they have a democracy, they’re all brainwashed you see, which means the US has to invade them to install a real democracy in their country, because they just don’t know what that looks like (Just ignore the last time the US did that to them, creating their current situation in the first place)
I’m firm in the camp of “let them out themselves as racist monsters” When dealing with fascists your job is to appeal to disinterested onlookers.
Just once I’d like to get an actual response from one of the libs who say that all russians deserve to be discriminated against, ostracized from the international community, and even bombed because they aren’t doing anything to stop their obviously evil government from committing war what that means for Americans after Iraq and Afghanistan.
So far it’s a 100% succes rate of “whataboutism”
I mean it sucks but posting dank memes is some pretty low hanging fruit.
It’s “you know what’s actually super cool and subversive, these CIA talking points.” the subreddit
It’s the absolute bottom of the barrel of redditors that think posting a picture of Xi as pooh bear is the edginess funniest thing you can do.
Although if you wanted to see the opposite of this meme on the front tnpage you could literally just make a post “as a progressive I’d like to ask you to not post anything saying that Russia is the good guy in the war because that would really trigger me” and they’d do a 180 and fill their front page with pro Russia stuff.
Ironically, the term “dank” like “dark and damp” fits the subreddit much better than the “cool” internet slang version of the word. These memes feel like they come out of a nasty smelling mouldy basement.
Terrible meme format too, it’s basically just a shitty ad.
I’ve noticed the “memeification” of ads a lot in the last few years, companies make an ad, then it becomes a big meme out of nowhere for a few weeks before disappearing completely. I’m convinced that this is companies trying to use a kind of “memevertising” though I have no proof of that. It seems to happen right before big movies come out too, suddenly there are memes about the movie everywhere and they just vanish after the movie comes out.
just a shitty ad.
Many things are. That’s superstructure with capitalist basis for ya!
Oh great that shitty ass Pimples Zero ad from the Philippines.
And to think that’s one of your nation’s few famous memes that reached the internet…
Their brains? Zero
No brain, thoughts terminated…
Thank God in America we have the opportunity to voice our dissent by voting in primaries.
What’s that, the dnc is just canceling primaries again because for the third time in a row its incredibly obvious the primaries are rigged to shit if they’re even allowed to performatively happen?
Oh well we had the opportunity so time to vote for the people everybody tells you you have to vote for.
“Real opposition and freedom of speech in Russia has never been tried”
I hate to be that guy but if your opponent argues against other geographic regions, the correct term should be “Whereaboutism”
