cfgaussian @ cfgaussian @lemmygrad.ml

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3 yr. ago

This is very well put comrade, and i fully agree! Compassion is what must always fundamentally drive us, but moralistic black and white thinking is antithetical to Marxist dialectics.

I've said it before and i'll say it again, westerners just don't do well with the existence of contradictions. We tend to have a hard time understanding that things can be both good and bad at the same time. For many of us, even for well-meaning leftists, it has to be either one or the other. If something has even one bad aspect to it then it cannot possibly be good, or conversely if something is good it cannot possibly have bad sides to it. There is a kind of infantile, Marvel comic book way of thinking that has infected far too much of western society.

Perhaps it is because of the dualistic, (good vs evil) nature of western religions as opposed to eastern philosophies which more often consider two opposing aspects to be able to coexist in the same thing (Yin-Yang)...anyway, i don't want to get distracted with metaphysics here. Point is we need to learn that it is possible to admire the many good aspects of a society like the DPRK while rejecting the problematic ones. The same goes for having critical support of other, even more problematic countries but which nonetheless fulfil an important anti-imperialist function and which do not deserve to be the target of western orchestrated hybrid warfare, coercive economic measures or color revolutions. Purity fetishes will get us nowhere.

We have to accept that not all contradictions of a society can or will be resolved immediately, especially when that society is facing existential external threats and is still struggling materially. Yes there are also exceptions such as Cuba which has admirably managed to institute some of the most progressive social legislation in the world even while suffering under a brutal blockade, but in general we should expect that most societies need first to resolve their primary contradictions before being able to resolve their secondary ones.

From the point of view of the finance sector and the stock markets it's not a horrible idea at all. What do they need industry or infrastructure for?

As i pointed out in another comment, i for one am used to this, i saw firsthand the stunning efficiency of neoliberal capitalism in building infrastructure projects: https://www.euronews.com/2020/10/31/berlin-airport-opens-10-years-late-and-three-times-over-budget

Of course. What is the point of building infrastructure if politicians and their corporate buddies can't pocket a few billion in public tax money? Can you even imagine such madness as building a bridge at cost and on schedule? Can you even imagine your country not being ten years late and three times over budget when they build, say, an airport for their capital? I can't.

It's theater. They have to play along with the bullshit narrative they are trying to construct about the Moscow terrorist attack.

Why not? The Baltics are not real countries. They are oversized NATO bases with occasional SS parades.

That would make sense, but then again i have found it is difficult to predict what Russia will do next in this conflict. Unlike the Ukrainians and the collective West who are extremely predictable the Russians often surprise me. Which indicates that they are playing the deception game well, because if i could predict their actions then so could their enemies. As usual, we'll just have to wait and see...

Sad...always tragic when something that had so much work put into it gets destroyed...but it was to be expected. This is the Find Out part of FAFO. On the bright side, the dam still stands, unless the Ukrainians decide that without the power station it is of no use to them anymore and they may as well try and score some propaganda points with another Kakhovka-like false flag.

Taking a broader view and leaving aside emotions though, i have to say this whole conflict has been a master class in escalation management from the Russian side. They have ratcheted up the pressure at exactly the pace that has suited them, even when their own side was calling to take the gloves off much earlier. At this point these sorts of strikes have a far greater impact than had they happened a year or two ago.

And far from being a mere kneejerk response to certain recent provocations from the Ukrainian side i think that what we are seeing now was meticulously planned way in advance as part of the broader overall strategy of attrition. It's no coincidence that just as Ukraine is weaker and more exhausted than it has ever been Russia is ramping up pressure all across the front... and now we see these strikes in the deep rear.

The European elites are all just yapping dogs who feel safe to be as provocative and belligerent as they want because they think daddy USA will come to protect them if they ever get themselves into trouble by their own actions. This is a dangerous delusion, the US does not and has never had any loyalty toward its so-called "allies", and when shit hits the fan they leave you holding the bag and fuck off. Europe may very well have to learn this the hard way. NATO is a massive bluff that the Russians just haven't called yet, but nothing guarantees that this will stay that way forever, especially if they ever get really fed up with the Euros' insolent bullshit. For my own sake as someone who has to keep living in this deindustrializing shit hole, i can only hope that the Russians continue to have the patience of a saint. I wouldn't be half as patient as they are if i had to deal with these absolute children in charge in the EU right now.

Yuuup. If the trolley represents capitalism and liberals want to let it murder one worker and conservatives three, why the fuck would we vote for either of them instead of derailing the trolley itself so no one has to die in the future? But no, screams the liberal, we need the trolley, the trolley brings me iphones.

So many options to choose from and yet liberals are trapped in their little mental box where the choice is always a simple binary.

"Communism no iphone" is such a stupid meme. If you can't make iphones without exploitation, imperialism and environmental destruction, then maybe there shouldn't be any iphones! But no, spoiled, entitled brats need to have their treats and their toys no matter how many people have to suffer for them. (Also, Chinese socialism is currently managing perfectly fine to make smartphones, but that's beside the point...)

"But Trump would have done the same thing!!"

What's funny is that these are the same people who will yell at you in a panic that "Trump wants to destroy NATO!"...

Me i'm pretty convinced that he actually would do nothing more than try to milk some more money out of the US's NATO vassals, but by their own "harm reduction" argument if they are convinced that Trump would pull the US out of NATO that is actually a reason to vote Trump. Yes he would still be a Zionist running dog, but at least he would have crippled one arm of US imperialism.

Mind you i don't actually believe that this argument is correct (in reality Trump is a cynical opportunist who says "populist" things but ends up being just another imperialist, albeit a cheap and stupid one; and even if he was sincere there are massive systemic barriers in the US state apparatus built up to prevent a "rogue president" from undermining the imperialist project), but it is the logical conclusion of the world view that these liberals profess.

In the end the conclusion remains the same: liberalism enables and breeds fascism.

At this point it's not even clear to me which track really represents which party.

And how do i know that there aren't even more people tied to the tracks off picture that we can't see?

Also, here's an alternative: take your hand off the switch and go and untie those people!

Or how about another alternative: grab a big piece of wood, throw it on the tracks and derail the entire train.

No...sorry, i can't even pretend to take this analogy seriously. What an infantile way of discussing politics...

One of the hallmarks of liberalism is the inability to comprehend that other legitimate viewpoints than theirs exist in the world. They project their own (justified or not) likes and dislikes onto everyone else and think that secretly everyone in the world thinks like them and just needs to be liberated by the enlightened West. This manifests in a high level of condescension and dismissiveness toward other people's cultures and outright refusal to even try and understand their politics on any deeper level beyond a superficial caricature. It is much easier to just label everything that is not western style liberal democracy as authoritarian, autocratic, dictatorial, etc.

They may as well call it doing a Hobbit, because every time they tried that they went There And Back Again. After Napoleon tried it Russian troops ended up in Paris, after Hitler tried it Soviet troops ended up in Berlin. Do they somehow hope third time's the charm? Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results is usually not a sign of sanity.

Unless you're Ukraine announcing months in advance exactly where you're going to launch your big "counter-offensive" giving Russia all the time in the world to prepare defensive lines.

If they wanted to they could have bullied Algeria into letting them through.

This coming from the same France that was too chickenshit to intervene to reverse the Niger coup that evicted the French from one of their most important neo-colonies. Excuse me if i don't take their threats too seriously... I'll believe it when i see it.