lizzy مثلية الله ☭ 
yea iran's government famously bombs random countries on the other side of the earth unprovoked
RE: https://mastodon.scot/@MartinTaudio/116148867695362874
RE: https://mastodon.scot/@MartinTaudio/116148867695362874
like wtf is this even supposed to mean in the current context
lucasmz (en)@lizzy dont let people get fooled into fighting for the big men's interests
Erebus@lucasmz @lizzy Maybe? I think its a little too ambiguous. For example, the first sentence could be used to blow up all all the civilization clash rethorics that has been used since the end of the cold war to justify invasions, but at the same time, it could be used too to deny its importance in the present context when its clearly a thing.
Gray@lizzy While the direct comparisons of the government is definitely a shitty comparison currently, I think the major point that neither government actually cares for its people, and the difference between state officials and civilians is typically larger than between civilians of different countries.
I kinda took it as discouraging anyone from ever supporting a war of aggression (the US and Israel being the aggressors in the current context), because the reasons your government has given you to hate the people they're killing are definitely untrue.
Lars@lizzy i think the quote is saying that neither government is acting in the interest of the people. this manifests in different forms. the american people didn't exactly ask for america to bomb random countries, they'd rather that money be spent on their needs. and the iranian people certainly didn't want to be massacred for protesting their government either.
@lizzy also, iran may not have the capabilities to directly go start random wars, but they do sure like meddling in foreign affairs by funding terrorist proxies; and let's not forget that many of the drones that russia has been using in the invasion of ukraine are very much iranian.
@lizzy it's definitely fair to say that iran sucks. does it suck more than the US? depends on perspective. from the perspective of random 3rd party countries, the US is a much higher risk, for reasons of scale alone. from the perspective of the respective citizens (which the quote seems to be getting at?), i'd consider iran to be considerably worse. as much as current US politics suck, that kind of mass murder just isn't a thing there.
@lizzy perhaps most importantly, i would not mistake the quote to mean "the US and Iran are equally bad" (by whichever measure), which is a fairly ill-posed question (from which perspective?). "the same" is meant qualitatively.
really the statement is just: the individual people of conflicting states tend to have much more in common, and get along much better, than their respective governments. and that suggests a failure in how our systems work: clearly that can't be the will of the people.