I gotta say the death cult shit on the left is so wildly fucking weird to me. it really is one of those just like entirely sociopathic things where people have just decoupled themselves from empathy so much through frustration and demoralisation they’ve ironically, which always ends up meaning earnestly but detached and with a thin veneer of dismissal, embraced this idea that horrific judgement day levels of shit is needed on certain countries and large groups (not talking about the bourgeoisie here, but the working masses), millions we all openly agree are shaped and brainwashed by systems outside of their control. do bad people and places cause unimaginable pain? for sure, but to then throw that blind injust dehumanised violence back at the masses that characterises imperialism and capitalism is full of this Christian evangelical smite and divine retribution of those who have sinned beyond salvation and must die to cleanse the world.
I already know all the explanations, ‘it’s just a meme’, ‘the imperial core did bad stuff so needs to suffer’, ‘the west will never embrace socialism unless enforcement via mass violence and destruction of all institutions and infrastructure’. but the thing is like, you read any text by international communists, black radical groups, anti imperialists, they literally all say ‘we just want you to stop being assholes so we can be friends who work together’, and so it seems to be this self hatred that fuels this than any outside demands, one which just seems really unnecessary and honestly childish especially from people who claim to have a deeper materialist analysis which breaks down why these opinions and actions are so common and systemically enforced.
the iranians have never meant “yankees should be genocided” death to <country> has always been about opposition to imperialism and neocolonialism.
some navel-gazing arrogant americans think half the world literally wants them dead but they’re the most incurious hateful people imaginable so their opinion doesn’t really count on whether victims of the yankees’ slogans hurt their feelings
Go and ask any American what “death to america” means to them. I’m willing to bet at least 1 in 500 (which is extremely generous) may actually have a hint of a contextual background understanding of what that means. Everyone else is gonna tell ya the most simplest answer you can extrapolate from that phrase.
If you’re gonna be a western leftist whining about irony poisoning that causes western leftists to post doomer shit while you yourself are also a hog in the mud pits with the rest of us, don’t hide behind other countries peoples like the Iranians and own up to the fact you’re looking into the mirror and shuddering at what you saw then going “folks I think we should log off and touch grass” in the most condescending libshit way possible.
its not necessarily a yank’s fault they’re uneducated about what their country has done but anyone who lacks the compunction to ask “why is this person chanting death to america?” and not take their answer from a idiot news host ‘they hate us for our freedoms’—these people don’t deserve a voice on the meaning of a slogan from a country they know nothing about in a language they don’t speak.
(also im not DtB im just defending the formula, which especially should be unproblematic here because we’re aware of the context of the phrase)