The Russia is getting more evil thread

[TimJames]

@triggercut

Is it anti-establishmentism? For example, if the US and NATO are doing a thing, whatever that thing is, the opposite thing must be more virtuous?

It’s anti-establishment but in a consistent and principled way. (I’m speaking in general/hypothetical terms since so few people are actually this way.)

If you believe global wars, the military industrial complex, and the new world order are impediments to socialism (or libertarianism, to bring the horseshoe theory into play) then you’re probably going to resist the idea of endless war and blank checks to Raytheon. Not to mention how in today’s hyper-socialized world on social media, even raising these concerns is shouted down by mainstream society, which contributes to a narrowing range of allowable opinion, which makes an extreme like socialism even less likely to be heard in the future.

Part of the challenge is it becomes difficult to have this conversation once the atrocities start — talking about the future of NATO is more helpful before Russia has invaded a neighbor.

On that, there’s another police analogy I like to use here involving justifiable homicides. Often the instant the cop pulls the trigger, he’s technically within his rights since he’s being threatened with great bodily harm or whatever. The problem is everything that led up to that point, and how the police insert themselves into situations in a way that increase the likelihood of conflict. So the extreme right and left may have useful things to say about why we got here with NATO and how best to reintegrate post-Soviet Russia into the world. We’ve had those conversations briefly in this thread. It can be pretty frustrating to hear when the bullets are still flying.

I’ll make one comment that if you’re genuinely interested in understanding this perspective, it will be hard to do that if you start with the premise that everyone is “for” Russia or on their payroll just because they’d like to find an endgame that doesn’t involve endless dollars to the same military-industrial complex they’ve been fighting since the beginning.

And again, my comments apply to people that ostensibly have principles they’re trying to stick with. You can probably count those people on Twitter on one hand.

[KevinC]

Europe, please step up in any way you can. For your own sake. I don’t trust the trajectory the US is on and looking at the hollowed out shell that is the German military… well, I think it’s well past time to start investing in defense.

https://wapo.st/3Dz04AH

U.S. allies in Europe are growing increasingly concerned that the united front presented by the West in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could quickly unravel if Republicans are victorious in next week’s midterm elections, ceding an advantage to President Vladimir Putin just when Ukraine is making progress on the battlefield.

In the eight months since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a rare level of transatlantic consensus has taken hold over the need to support Ukraine. Collectively, Ukraine’s allies have pledged over $93 billion in military, financial and humanitarian assistance, with the lion’s share of that promised by the United States.

Since comments by the House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) that a Republican-controlled House wouldn’t continue to issue “blank check” funding for Ukraine, officials in both Kyiv and Western Europe have begun to wonder if Ukraine can continue to count on the United States.

[Aceris]

@triggercut

Is it anti-establishmentism? For example, if the US and NATO are doing a thing, whatever that thing is, the opposite thing must be more virtuous?

Or is it this odd affection for the old Soviet Union? I’ve seen this view and sometimes wondered if it comes from a miscast memory of that state as not an authoritarian government with a secret police and whose people lacked any sort of personal liberty, but instead as this shining socialist beacon undone by insidious capitalism and western imperialism.

And then there’s specific cases, like Max Blumenthal who used to write for mainstream liberal/left publications like Huffington Post, Salon, Washington Monthly, Daily Beast and The Nation, but who appears now to be pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine mostly because the checks from Putin have all cleared. He went to work at RT about 6 years ago, and though he’s no longer there, it seems at least plausible that he may still be on the Kremlin payroll perhaps.

There’s a few things going on here.

Firstly there’s old school “anti-imperialism”, which always had a great deal of selectiveness in what qualified as imperialism. There’s almost a sense that anyone who is fighting NATO is good because they are fighting NATO who are the real threat, and so any “failings” must be minimised and excused.

Note this is much much larger than “tankies” - for example the tankies largely lost the ideological struggle within the UK hard left, but the winners were still committed anti-imperialists who would stop briefly to condemn Russian tanks in eastern european capitals and shy away from direct partnership with the USSR before continuing to advocate for soviet interests in basically every geopolitical scenario - Corbyn is the distiallation of this ideological trend in the UK - we would see him condemn anti-NATO actors when their guilt was unquestionable, but the fact this kept happening didn’t dissaude him from taking money to produce Russian and Iranian propaganda.

Secondly there are at least a couple of formerly respectable western left-wing journalists who were active in the middle east and who seem to have morphed into mouthpieces for totalitarianism between the early 2000s and ~2015. I have speculations on how this might have happened but nothing concrete; but this is definately a thing that happened to a small number of people for some reason.

@KevinC

Europe, please step up in any way you can. For your own sake. I don’t trust the trajectory the US is on and looking at the hollowed out shell that is the German military… well, I think it’s well past time to start investing in defense.

The question we should be asking is not why Trump managed to be right on the following issues (he fucked up the policy responses anyway), but why the “smart people” managed to be so so wrong:

• China
• European energy policy
• European defence policy

[BloodyBattleBrain]

@KevinC

well, I think it’s well past time to start investing in defense.

An easy way to reinvigorate British industry!

[TheWombat]

@scottagibson

I don’t get the sense that all these signatories are tankies. I think some of them are just of the “all war is wrong and immoral and should be avoided at almost any price.”

Except this is also part of the same strain of thought that saw violence by Pol Pot or the Viet Minh/Cong or the Red Army Faction or (fill in the blank) was justified, because reasons. I question whether it is actually opposition to war per se or opposition to certain groups/nations waging war without an (ideological) license.

Dunno. It’s dumb either way. I mean, I take a very postcolonialist sort of view of modern history, one in which the West certainly has plenty to answer for and spends quite a bit of time in the dock. I like to think though that I don’t assume that one oppressor/victim relationship means that all relationships involving those groups are always and forever more locked into that context. Theoretical structures like postcolonial theory, critical race theory, Marxism, whatever are tools for analysis; they should never be scripts for forcing everything into neat little static boxes.

@TimJames

I’ll make one comment that if you’re genuinely interested in understanding this perspective, it will be hard to do that if you start with the premise that everyone is “for” Russia or on their payroll just because they’d like to find an endgame that doesn’t involve endless dollars to the same military-industrial complex they’ve been fighting since the beginning.

And again, my comments apply to people that ostensibly have principles they’re trying to stick with. You can probably count those people on Twitter on one hand.

Well said. Sadly, our level of discourse across the board has regressed not to the mean but to a nadir somewhere.

[anonymgeist]

@soundnfury

If y’all haven’t read Vasiliy Grossman’s Life and Fate (which it seems hardly anyone has), he makes the parallel between Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Literarily, it’s an evolution of Tolstoy’s theme in War and Peace that the Russian aristocracy and the French are similar and that only the Russia people can defeat Napoleon. But, historically, Grossman was the first reporter to report from the Nazi camps, and he was Ukrainian. Life and Fate is thick, but it’s great.

I’ll second that. One of the absolute best books I’ve ever read.

[DaveLong]

Abandoned Russian base holds secrets of retreat in Ukraine

[KevinC]

By the end of August, the documents show, the force was depleted, hit by death, desertions and combat stress. Two units – accounting for about a sixth of the total force – were operating at 20% of their full strength.

Wow. 20% strength units still on the front? No wonder they routed like they did.

[ShivaX]

I have no frame of reference for this, but it’s a thing.

NOËL 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

[triggercut]

@Aceris

Secondly there are at least a couple of formerly respectable western left-wing journalists who were active in the middle east and who seem to have morphed into mouthpieces for totalitarianism between the early 2000s and ~2015. I have speculations on how this might have happened but nothing concrete; but this is definately a thing that happened to a small number of people for some reason.

You can say “Max Blumenthal” by name. :D

[KevinC]

@Aceris

Secondly there are at least a couple of formerly respectable western left-wing journalists who were active in the middle east and who seem to have morphed into mouthpieces for totalitarianism between the early 2000s and ~2015. I have speculations on how this might have happened but nothing concrete; but this is definately a thing that happened to a small number of people for some reason.

I would enjoy hearing your speculation!

[CraigM]

Context: Armenia and Azerbaijan have been in a series of skirmishes and wars over the last 30 years over their borders, as there are ethnic enclaves, exclaves, and mixed regions. For a host of reasons (oil, chiefly) Azerbaijan has been supported by Europe and Nato, Armenia is effectively a Russian client state. Azerbaijan supplies a bunch of gas to Europe through pipelines in Turkey.

They are currently in armed conflict. With Russia unable to intervene Armenia is left to hang. Azerbaijan seeks to connect its western province, geographically separate from the rest of their territory, by annexing southern parts of Armenia.

Iran also has a large Azerbaijani population in their northwest, and for this reason nominally supports Armenia with Russia, but is hesitant to go full bore as that Azerbaijani population is a risk of broader conflict and loss of territorial control.

[scottagibson]

@TheWombat

@scottagibson

I don’t get the sense that all these signatories are tankies. I think some of them are just of the “all war is wrong and immoral and should be avoided at almost any price.”

Except this is also part of the same strain of thought that saw violence by Pol Pot or the Viet Minh/Cong or the Red Army Faction or (fill in the blank) was justified, because reasons. I question whether it is actually opposition to war per se or opposition to certain groups/nations waging war without an (ideological) license.

Maybe? Most of these people were children or even unborn at the time of Pol Pot and the Viet Cong and the Red Army Faction. You and I remember it, but it was largely before their time. The whole Soviet experiment, from launch to inevitable crash, is at best a childhood memory of the ignominious end.

I think there is a part of progressive thinking that is simply anti-war, peace-at-almost-any-price. I don’t always agree with it, but I understand where it comes from. It doesn’t strike me as if they’re saying only the good socialists can rightly invade their neighbors.

@TimJames

I’ll make one comment that if you’re genuinely interested in understanding this perspective, it will be hard to do that if you start with the premise that everyone is “for” Russia or on their payroll just because they’d like to find an endgame that doesn’t involve endless dollars to the same military-industrial complex they’ve been fighting since the beginning.

Well said.

[Soapyfrog]

It’s nice of Azerbaijan to forcefully side with Ukraine, but if they are also cynically seeking to expand their territory at the expense of their neighbors that’s a no go.

[TheWombat]

@scottagibson

I think there is a part of progressive thinking that is simply anti-war, peace-at-almost-any-price. I don’t always agree with it, but I understand where it comes from. It doesn’t strike me as if they’re saying only the good socialists can rightly invade their neighbors.

Fair enough, and of course few actually came out and said that (though I’m pretty sure some felt it). At some point though peace at any price is indistinguishable from amorality when it comes to international affairs.

[Dave_Perkins]

@Mark_Asher

@KevinC

I’m expecting a Tucker Carlson segment on the same topic by end of the week. :)

And I’m expecting a Ben Garrison cartoon of Biden with horns and a pitchfork.

And I’m expecting someone to post the Garrison cartoon here, like someone who wants to share a pic of their used toilet paper.

[KevinC]

Hey, no kink shaming here!

[alekseivolchok]

None of you are free of sin. You deserve this torture.

[Menzo]

Well this is an interesting turn of events.

Europe now has so much natural gas that prices just dipped below zero | CNN...

For months, officials have warned of an energy crisis this winter as Russia — once the region’s biggest supplier of natural gas — slashed supplies in retaliation for sanctions Europe imposed over its invasion of Ukraine.

Now, EU gas storage facilities are close to full, tankers carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) are lining up at ports, unable to unload their cargoes, and prices are tumbling.

The price of benchmark European natural gas futures has dropped 20% since last Thursday, and by more than 70% since hitting a record high in late August. On Monday, Dutch gas spot prices for delivery within an hour — which reflect real time European market conditions — dipped below €0, according to data from the Intercontinental Exchange.

[lordkosc]

Is this due to America sending its natural GAS? :D

#doingmypart