the japanese invasion of china and unit 731 would certainly fall into that category and they are definitely not "the west"

Yeah, they were really bad, but I'm not going to quibble about if 731 was truly and literally "unique" because Mengele also existed, and so did several other projects of torture and murder, though most of the ones that exist at this moment (especially per capita) are being run by either the US or the allies it has the firmest allegiance to, like Israel and Saudi Arabia.

and their specific evilness is more unique than just having power at any given moment.

The problem with the US as far as this conversation goes is not simply "having power" and it's absurd to characterize it that way. The proximate issue is not that one country is a big boy and it's unfair on all the human ants that it has license to step on, though I do think ultimately you could argue that that is the problem, but that's also fundamentally the problem with any sort of tyrannical imperial states, such as WWII Japan. If they didn't have the power to enforce it, viewing Chinese and Korean people as lower than animals would still be a problem, but would be a more mundane (albeit still serious) social issue and not a world-historical crisis.

unless you dont count that which in itself is western chauvinist

Your attempt at a faux-progressive uno reverse is embarrassing.

Later you say:

it seems to me like you just want to "win" an argument on the internet

hmm . . .

why even pick a side in the russia/ukraine thing? they both suck and ukraine was always going to lose anyways. no point in tying yourself to either horse

The ironic thing is that despite Contra being the type of person to complain about "purity testing" and such, it's the Marxist position that even in bourgeois in-fights there are better and worse outcomes and that often includes who wins and how.

In that house one never hesitated to take a stand against the conflicts in which one could recognize "the different fractions of the bourgeoisie." Neutrality was abhorred. In the words of his favorite poet, the implacable Ghibelline, Marx hunted neutral souls to the gates of hell . . .

"Gespräche mit Marx und Engels", by Charles Longuet, Marx's son in law

That both states are evil matters much less than how the outcome of the war will impact the world.

What is the point of even saying this? I tried looking it up but xitter needs an account and her sub is a cesspit calling "tankie" concern for Gaza hypocritical in the face of Stalin's 9 million victims.

She's basically just a New Yorker op-ed writer but aggressively leaning into queer theater kid aesthetics, which really flatters the sensibilities of some people who want to find a way to call it progressive and trendy to support Democrats

I'm not really a tofu enjoyer, but she is writing like she has never even eaten maybe anything if she thinks the two are equivalent in this specific aspect (or really any other).

It's not just a matter of empathy, though you are right that they certainly lack it. It's the fact that the very nature of their class position demands that they act cruelly or else get out-competed by someone who does, which is a widely unifying principle that is only set aside when a business that can't compete with its larger equivalents decides to instead cut out a tiny share of the market to appeal specifically to left-liberals who want to have "moral consumption" as part of their lifestyle brand.

This isn't any sort of real philology on my part, but the class interests of the bourgeoisie put them at odds with the vast majority of humanity, and that remains as long as they have that class position. The broad benefit of society is typically even a detriment to them, as it diminishes the totalizing power over their monopolization of what were once the commons, their ability to inflict social murder. There is only one tolerable kind of bourgeois individual, and that is the traitor to their class interests, and even then the existence of those rogue elements must be used to further the project of the destruction of their class rather than as some insipid anecdote that they "aren't all bad" and therefore that class antagonism can be removed without removing classes.

And all of this is to serve capital, the organizing principal which dominates the actions of the bourgeoisie whether they like it or not, which itself is served by humans but is not human.

So taken literally, yes, obviously it's hyperbole, but I don't think you can identify an element of society for whom it is less hyperbolic than for the bourgeois.

I should have included the obligatory link:

https://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/trotsky.htm

A) If Le Monde is RT, NYT is Hamas

B) Yeah, the US military is full of disgusting fascists. Do you think that the leftist response to that fact is "Oh, well if the US military does it, that must mean it's cool for other people to do it too, because we believe the US military is a legitimate thing that should continue to exists and not be ripped to atoms"?

Of course, your equivalence isn't that strong when you consider that groups like Azov, which were full of open pogromists (see the origin of the "orc" meme) went from being an openly and doctrinally fash paramilitary to formally folded into the military, where their influence was allowed to spread and members were even tasked with doing things like representing Ukraine to the Greek parliament for some reason.

When some barrack-room boys' club has a picture leaked of them brandishing Swastikas in the US, there's a scandal and sometimes people are fired or there is at least some formal apology as a garbage cover-story is offered. In Ukraine, it's not a leak, it's every other picture that is high enough resolution to make out what that funny patch is (spoiler, it's a totenkopf or lightning bolts or something), or at least that had been true for some time into the war. Even their original logo that they partially rebranded from well into the war was more fascist iconography. But, like, what do you expect? Banderism is popular and has faced almost no challenge, down to that slogan, "slava ukra'ini!" which was another chestnut for OUN-B enjoyers passed right down from their father.

But let's say that it was just like the US military socially. Any leftist should conclude that it should also be like the US military in terms of the prescription: disassembled with prejudice. Bringing the US up here serves no purpose, unless you want to say that their destruction is more urgent because it would do more good for the world, where I would agree with you, but the Nazi symbology has very, very little to do with it.

She supports the only opposition that matters: democrats and socdem video essayists

It's my favorite thing when neoliberal slime appropriate the stupidest elements of Trotskyism.

Also, I have no respect for anyone who uses the word "oligarch" to mean "Asiatic-style capitalist" and I struggle to conceive how professed anticapitalists can still like her. Well, of course I can, she's part of their consumer lifestyle brand, she's an affectation of quippy, artsy, intellectualism that is so much more effective at bringing about real change by punching left over and over and over.

As far as I know, the stigma within some Jewish cultures against intermarriage ("shiksa," etc.) has been provably relatively "successful," but that doesn't make it not an antisemitic trope, and indeed it's one fash love to use. It still is one and I'd say you just shouldn't call a Jewish person inbred unless they were doing racial purity politics which, well, actually you could still call the bulk of hardline zionists inbred by that metric, so I guess it's a wash.

That said, I think he has only actually applied it to what amount to a particular subcultural strain of hog in Israel (where he is using it to mean chauvinist hick) and the IDF like you said, where I don't remember the context. There was another time where he laughed at some Jewish students reporting on Fox that they were called inbred by campus protesters, but Hasan said it was because of the absurdity of the interview (which I think is fair, it was very mellow dramatic for zero evidence or corroboration of an event that "happened" in broad daylight in a busy space with cameras around).

But yeah, there's a repeated issue with reporting on him using the Destiny wiki/subreddit as a source, which tells you about how much real research his right-opposition tends to do.