If you really wanna go - alive or dead my friend

[Mimi]

That bear!

[Howard Beale]

Hey Flex, sorry for the delayed response, had a busy week and haven't had any real free time till just yesterday to dive in and read the links you posted, but before I get into any of that, and most importantly...

On the personal front, we spent time on Sunday with our Russian friend (and actually a friend of ours whose parents are in Belarus, they've been sheltering in place since the war started. Not sure if there's been any change since Belarus formally committed troops to the invasion). Turns out my friend's cousin was actually in Russia on business when hostilities broke out and wasn't able to get back to Ukraine. He ended up in Poland but his 70 year old mother can't/won't leave and the rest of his family (quite obviously and rightly) won't just leave her. So he had to go back into Ukraine knowing that he wouldn't be allowed to leave again and he'd be drafted into the fighting. So I guess he was issued his equipment and now my friend is waiting to hear if he's just staying in their hometown or if he's going to get sent to Kiev. None of the rest of the family is willing to leave anyone else at this point.

In my head and heart I am sure that I would do the exact same thing if my wife and children were in a warzone, but I am insanely, insanely grateful that such a choice has never been put in front of me.

The rest of my friend's family, as I think I said, is in Russia. All of them oppose the war with the exception of one sister who refuses to "talk politics" with my friend and probably supports the war. Her husband's family are midwesterners from Nebraska and haven't checked in to see how my friend's family is doing or how she is at all since the war broke out. Friend is quite worried about growing anti-russian sentiment (she sends her kids to russian school here in denver). I think she has good reason to be worried. The jingoism dial is definitely already being cranked and I think it will only get worse.

I just wanted to say that I'm really sorry to hear that your friends are in such a precarious position right now, but I am glad to at least hear that they're reasonably safe at the moment. Keeping them, and everyone affected by this horrible situation, in my thoughts.

Alrighty, I'll give a crack at some response here HB. Some agreement, some disagreement, maybe just some alternate perspective on a couple items. Also, apologies for any inadequacies in response on my part. It's been a while since I've tried to a deep dive political post and, uh, they're not that easy to put together when you're caring for a baby at the same time, I'm finding out.

I think we actually do have a lot of points of agreement, in some places our disagreements are more a question of degrees, and still have one major difference of opinion. As for the parts where we totally agree...

You'll get no disagreement from me that the United States represents the world's biggest imperial power and we meddle in affairs of which we have no business meddling, pretty much universally to very poor result. But that alone, to me, doesn't render Russia anti-imperialist, left wing, or de facto worth supporting.

Agreed.

Even if we question the roots and legitimacy of the current Ukrainian government, what Putin is demanding can't in any meaningful sense be characterized as recognizing the right of Ukrainians to self-determination.

Agreed.

Putin [is] a right wing Nationalist himself

Agreed.

[I'm] someone who has wanted to see NATO unwound and to see a re-ordering of the post-cold war landscape combined with large scale military de-escalation...

Same here.

...Putin cannot possibly be described as a friend to someone of that project.

Agreed.

...But that doesn't make it an objective of an invasion that I'm going to agree with.

...I'm not sure any of this justifies Russia's invasion of Ukraine, however.

...It's both abhorrent and worth fighting, while at the same time perhaps not rising the level of justification for military invasion.

Just to make my position crystal-clear on this, I'm not "pro"-Russia or default anti-Russia; I'm anti-imperialist and pro-not-saber-rattling-with-nuclear-armed-states. For the record: I condemn Russia (or any country, for that matter) preemptively invading a sovereign country as it is certainly a war crime to do so. While the people of Donbass being liberated from the daily horrors they've been living through for the past eight years is in itself a good thing, I believe Putin still had other avenues available to him that he could've pursued to achieve that.

As for whether Russia is engaged in a war of conquest: we disagree here. I don't believe this has been posted yet when you made your original post, but Russian state news accidentally put out a victory announcement which was filled with, by my reading, blood and soil rhetoric and talk of a ukraine finally reunited with Russia: https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-inva ... d-12553977

And while prior to that accidental release, Putin made gestures in his speeches claiming he didn't want to occupy Ukraine, his position - as you laid out - is that Ukraine demilitarize and, at the point of the guns of Russia's military, declare itself "neutral" and that it will never oppose Russian interests. Even if we question the roots and legitimacy of the current Ukrainian government, what Putin is demanding can't in any meaningful sense be characterized as recognizing the right of Ukrainians to self-determination. At best, he's demanding Ukraine be a client state of Russia. Which, sure, I get why he wants that. But that doesn't make it an objective of an invasion that I'm going to agree with.

I mostly agree with this, and to be clear I don't think American involvement didn't play a part - either with NATO expansion or with its deep involvement in Ukrainian politics - I guess I just think that in this instance our involvement is secondary or tertiary on the ranking of the "whys" of this conflict. Russia is its own imperial power with its own concerns, both "local" and global... I think Putin - a right wing Nationalist himself - views Ukraine as historically Russia and has made statements to that affect. While western actions may have been part of the fuel of the fire, I believe US/western actions alone would be insufficiently motivating to Putin if he didn't have more expansive, imperial ambitions himself that are rooted in his own russian "blood and soil" ethno-nationalism. It's down now, but he wrote a history of Ukraine and made it available on the russian government website - probably available on wayback machine and in it, and in his other speeches given in the last few weeks, he seems to make it clear to me that his vision of "independent" ukraine is still one that necessarily serves Russian interests.

Indeed it is! That statement is, on balance, much more measured and not anywhere near as unhinged as what I was expecting, especially in contrast to the blood and soil rhetoric of the portions of the leaked statement you linked to (your characterization of which I agree with). It's a long read and so there's a lot there we could dissect, but there's one paragraph that stood out to me as particularly pertinent to this discussion...

Of course, inside the USSR, borders between republics were never seen as state borders; they were nominal within a single country, which, while featuring all the attributes of a federation, was highly centralized – this, again, was secured by the CPSU's leading role. But in 1991, all those territories, and, which is more important, people, found themselves abroad overnight, taken away, this time indeed, from their historical motherland

It's important to keep in mind that these are statements that Putin is crafting with the Russian populace in mind, and I don't think that most Russian citizens and ethnic Russians in Donbass (or Crimea) would disagree with the excerpt I quoted here. These statements certainly come across as much more ominous—especially to Westerners—when divorced from that context; but we need to remember that the people of Donbass are ethnically Russian, speak Russian and essentially consider themselves to be Russian in every meaningful way. I think we're missing the full picture if we isolate Putin's statements from that reality.

You will hear no argument from me that in military conflict, both sides engage in activity any right-thinking person would call morally abhorrent. I'm hesitant to take claims made by Russian state media at face value (as I would be hesitant to cite Radio Liberty or whatever), but I think even if we leave out some of the more disputable claims, broadly accepted sources like UNESCO have documented, for example, the mines that ended up inspiring the Alley of Angels. I'm not sure any of this justifies Russia's invasion of Ukraine, however.

It's not unreasonable to be skeptical for the reason you stated, as one of the links I provided was from RT, but—I don't think there's much dispute at this point that the 2014 Trade Unions House Massacre actually happened. It's been reported by many sources and there's survivor and witness testimonies, lots of pictures and even videos of it. Wouldn't recommend seeking them out as I've heard they're quite graphic, but I know they do exist for anyone still unconvinced.

I posted the Alley of Angels photo and link to give everyone a sense of what's been happening in Donbass, but you're absolutely right, I should've done so with more clarity. Just now, I actually couldn't even find any of UNESCO's reporting on this outside of a tweet they sent out. There was a story from yesterday, unfortunately, about children (and adults) being killed by the Azov Battalion, and it's very likely that it's happened in the past, but since I couldn't find an exact breakdown of the numbers, it was sloppy on my part to not be more concise in how I laid that out. I want to be as accurate as possible, so I appreciate the criticism; my apologies to all on that one.

I revisited this (I hazily recall when it was initially leaked), and I don't really see a smoking gun here. Yeah, the US is engaged in a level of meddling in the affairs of the Ukrainian state that I don't support. But I spent the last couple days trying to find evidence that the United States actively trained, armed or otherwise coordinated the efforts of Euromaidan militants, to no avail. Would it surprise me that there was a deeper level of involvement of the United States than what we have evidence for right now? No, and if you have the receipts I will not be even slightly surprised (or favorable to US actions in that scenario). But right now this seems more like a hypothesis than unimpeachable fact. Mostly, the assertions that the 2014 revolution was a U.S.-led coup comes from, well, Russian state accusations. Which are fine, but not proof positive. Notably, I tried to find some comments from Russia when that phone call was leaked and at the time they didn't assert that it was proof that the U.S. was orchestrating a coup, more that it was embarrassingly shoddy statecraft (the "fuck the EU" being considered the particularly salacious bit at the time, it seems). this seems like two imperial states pointing at each other and saying "you're the bad actor here" when the reality is neither seems that interested in allowing Ukraine to determine its own affairs!

Maybe the term "smoking gun" was too strong, although I do find the contents of that phone call rather damning on its own merits. If you're making the point that I should have been more specific with what I meant by "coup"—fair. I wasn't saying that every aspect of the Maidan protests were astroturfed by the US from the word go. We didn't arm and train neo-Nazi militias—in the way that we did with, say, the Mujahideen in the '80s—in the actual lead-up to the Maidan uprising. There certainly were real Ukrainian citizens there protesting the Yanukovych government, and for good reason, no question. What I meant was that the Maidan Revolution played out in the way that a lot of these so-called Colour Revolutions so often do: actual grassroots protests spring up and then the NED, other NGO's and billionaires pour in funding to steer the events in a direction that are favorable to US interests. So, I don't really think we're in disagreement here, more just quibbling over semantics. If I swapped out "US coup" for "extensive Western meddling in Ukraine's affairs" we'd be in near-total agreement on this point, no?

Since I think we mostly agree on this one, I won't spend too much time on it, but I'll go into just a little more detail and link to some articles here so that anyone else reading who's interested can get a feel for the kind of meddling I'm referring to.

Here's a quote from the then-president of the National Endowment for Democracy, Carl Gershman...

"Ukraine is the biggest prize. The opportunities are considerable, and there are important ways Washington could help. The United States needs to engage with the governments and with civil society in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova to ensure that the reform process underway not only promotes greater trade and development but also produces governments that are less corrupt and more accountable to their societies. An association agreement with the European Union should be seen not as an end in itself but as a starting point that makes possible deeper reforms and more genuine democracy.

Russian democracy also can benefit from this process. Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents. Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.

Taken from this article: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2014/02/2 ... ign-policy

In addition to the NDA, George Soros also funded the events of Maidan through his Renaissance Foundation. Now, I'm well aware that there are a lot of people on the right who make up all manner of kooky conspiracy theories about how everything is funded by George Soros (often with none-too-subtle anti-Semitic overtones), but we're not talking about Sean Hannity making some baseless claim that Soros personally cut $1 million checks to every attendee at a BLM protest or something here, Soros has publicly spoken about this.

ZAKARIA: First on Ukraine, one of the things that many people recognized about you was that you during the revolutions of 1989 funded a lot of dissident activities, civil society groups in eastern Europe and Poland, the Czech Republic. Are you doing similar things in Ukraine?

SOROS: Well, I set up a foundation in Ukraine before Ukraine became independent of Russia. And the foundation has been functioning ever since and played an important part in events now.

Full transcript: http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1405 ... ps.01.html

Another billionaire, Pierre Omidyar, played a part in all this too: http://www.pando.com/2014/02/28/pierre-omidyar-co-funded-ukraine-revolution-groups-with-us-government-documents-show

It's also worth noting that Senators John McCain and Chris Murphy went to Ukraine in 2014 to attend the Maidan protests.



Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt were on hand to pass out cookies to protestors, and McCain and Murphy even spoke to the crowd. Here they are pictured with Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of Svoboda, a neo-Nazi political party in Ukraine...




Also on the neo-Nazi front: here's a clip of Yevhen Karas, the leader of another neo-Nazi militia, C14, speaking on how his and the other militias were "given so much weaponry" to "perform the tasks set by the West."

And while the Azov Battalion is wretched, the sheer exclusivity with which it's pointed to by pro-russian folks I follow as evidence of the total nazification tends to lead me to believe that it's more anomaly than randomly plucked example of ubiquitous neo-nazi infiltration at all levels of Ukrainian government. It's also not hard to find connections between Russia and its own fascist and neo-nazi allies. Vorobyev's Russian Imperial Movement has been training neo-nazis and spreading death and terror in Eastern Ukraine with the tacit approval of the Russian state since 2008 and Russia has direct ties with the neo-nazi Hungarian National Front. This isn't to minimize the ugliness of Azov Battalion and other ultra right military wings operating in Ukraine, but as we're rightly skeptical of U.S. claims to be primarily motivated by freedom in our international interventions when supporting "freedom fighters" in other countries as so forth, I just think skepticism of Russian motivation is warranted here. Sadly, most countries have grotesque examples of neo-nazi prevalence in their society. It's both abhorrent and worth fighting, while at the same time perhaps not rising the level of justification for military invasion.

The RIM in Russia, white supremacist groups in the US, and (as Marky mentioned earlier in this thread) the NF and BNP in Britian are all very much worth fighting, absolutely. As you pointed out, though, these groups do tend to be fringe elements in most societies. They certainly are in the three countries I just mentioned, which makes sense given our overlapping histories fighting the Nazis in World War II. You and I are Americans—we both know that we're raised to despise Nazis pretty much since birth in this country (which is a good thing, obviously). I'd imagine it's much the same for Brits, and the majority of Russians are certainly known to hate Nazis. Like, pretty famously so.

I don't know if we have any Ukrainians on this board, although I doubt it as I'd imagine they would've weighed in on this thread by now. If there are, though, I'll certainly defer to their expertise, as I'm not from Ukraine and have never been there. I want to be delicate here... but I think a point that Dr. M made earlier in the thread bears repeating...

The other thing I'll add, again historically rooted, is that when Germany attacked the Soviet Union and seized Ukraine, they found people very willing to participate in the genocide of Jews. This isn't to declare that all Ukrainians are Nazi sympathizers or antisemites, or that the current regime is Nazi sympathetic, only that there is a historical tie to Nazism that should be appreciated.

I want to very much reiterate Doc's qualifier that this isn't in any way to suggest that all, or even most Ukrainians are somehow Nazi sympathizers or anything like that, I would never want to incite any suspicion or xenophobia in that direction. Barring some incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, I'm going to continue to operate under the assumption that your average Ukrainian finds the ideology of Nazism and it's resurgent forms in their country as odious and abhorrent as the average citizen of any other country. Having said all that, from where I'm standing (over 6000 miles away, admittedly) I do see some very troubling things, and the Azov Battalion is just the tip of the iceberg.

There's no denying that the platform Zelensky campaigned and won on has been severely hampered by the pro-fascist elements in Ukraine, to the point that he eventually completely capitulated to them. Don't believe me?



Well, here he is presenting the "Hero of Ukraine" award, the nation's highest honor bestowed for "personal heroism or great labor achievements" to Dmytro Kotsyubaylo, the former leader of Right Sector, yet another neo-Nazi militia.

And remember C14's Yevhen Karas, the guy who was bragging about how fun killing people is?



Yeah, here he is (furthest right corner with back turned to the camera, sitting with several other neo-Nazi leaders present) in a meeting with Zelensky.

Staying on the subject of C14 for a minute, but focusing on Ukrainian politics at the local level: C14 has a formal, signed agreement with the city government in Kyiv to act as patrol, this includes beating and terrorizing the local Roma population and destroying their tent encampments.



It's also a troubling sign that our politicians and diplomats tend to meet with these ultranationalist figures when dealing with Ukraine...

Still worse, when [Andriy Biletsky,] founder of [the Azov Battalion,] a neo-Nazi party and now repackaged speaker of the Ukrainian parliament visited Washington in 2017, he was widely feted by leading American politicians, including Senator John McCain and Representative Paul Ryan. Imagine the message this sent back to Ukraine—and elsewhere.

Here's our president (then veep), meeting with McCain and Chris Murphy's old pal, Oleh Tyahnybok.



Outside of politics, there are some troubling manifestations in the culture at large as well. For example, until it recently closed there was a restaurant in Ukraine called Under the Golden Rose. It was named after and built directly across the street from the ruins of Ukraine's oldest synagogue, which stood from 1582 till it was destroyed by the Nazis in 1943. Located in Lviv—a city that only stopped paving its streets with the headstones of Jewish Holocaust victims less than a decade ago—the non-Jewish employees of UTGR dressed up as Orthodox Jews and, in lieu of listing their menu prices, encouraged customers to haggle over their check. I'm going to guess that if such a restaurant opened in the US (or the UK, or Canada, etc.), it'd end up shuttering its doors pretty quick. That there was enough of a demographic in Lviv who—in the absolute most charitable interpretation I can muster—saw this affront to decency as a cutesy and harmless enough gimmick to keep the place open for however many years it was in business is... deeply disconcerting, to put it as mildly as I can.

So yeah, I'd say "ubiquitous neo-nazi infiltration at all levels of Ukrainian government" is not all that hyperbolic of a description, considering that far-right nationalist militias have dealings at all levels of politics in Ukraine, from local government right up to the presidency. When your country has anti-Semitism themed restaurants, a white supremacist unit fully incorporated into its military, sends Heil Hitler-ing demagogues to interface with US diplomats and heads of state and your president kowtows to all this out of a not-at-all-unfounded fear of being overthrown in a neo-Nazi coup d'état—your country kinda sorta has a Nazi problem. I get that it's uncomfortable to talk about, but I don't think we can deny that it's definitely there, and way moreso than in most countries.

Until the actual invasion, I was inclined to think that the importance of NATO was significantly higher than it is in Putin's calculus. The case against the importance of NATO is laid out here. I don't know if I'd co-sign everything in that piece, but I think it at least suggests that Putin and Russia's concerns about NATO have been inconsistent over time and complicate a picture where NATO expansion has been an easy predictor of eventual future conflict.

I mostly agree with this, and to be clear I don't think American involvement didn't play a part - either with NATO expansion or with its deep involvement in Ukrainian politics - I guess I just think that in this instance our involvement is secondary or tertiary on the ranking of the "whys" of this conflict.

I think this remains our main point of disagreement. NATO expansionism, I still feel, is the leading factor that got us here. Here's a good thread that compiles a lot of warnings on this very topic from a variety of sources, and how the NATO question was, for Russia—to use the late, great Stephen F. Cohen's word—"existential."



So, we've got a wide spectrum of voices here, everyone from the leading scholar of Russian studies, Cohen, to America's War Criminal Laureate, Kissinger, screaming from the rooftops that continued eastward expansion of NATO is the Red Line of All Red Lines for Russia. I haven't seen a convincing enough argument yet in the other direction.

The reality is Ukraine was absolutely not going to become a member of NATO for a variety of reasons, and even if it somehow had a chance of joining that was at minimum a decade out.

More to the point, as someone who has wanted to see NATO unwound and to see a re-ordering of the post-cold war landscape combined with large scale military de-escalation - Putin cannot possibly be described as a friend to someone of that project. His actions have guaranteed the legitimacy of NATO in the west for at least a decade. If you're an unaligned country in Eastern Europe, you see in Ukraine that the only thing protecting you from Russian invasion is NATO membership. In Western Europe, we already see Germany increasing its military funding and there's already talk of a E.U. militarization that closely aligned to, you guessed it, NATO. If Putin wanted to see NATO fade to irrelevance, this has been a severe miscalculation.

Russia is its own imperial power with its own concerns, both "local" and global. While it has some legitimate concern of NATO, I maintain this was the absolute most catastrophic way to handle NATO expansion

Hey, preachin' to the choir on this one. My point in giving the context about NATO expansion in my original post was just that—to give context. I'm with you, I never thought Ukraine had a realistic chance of joining NATO. We can both see that, sure, but if I was ex-KGB and the sitting president of Russia, my assessment of the situation might be a little more rooted in paranoia. To be fair, it's not even a completely irrational paranoia, as Ukraine was basically acting as a NATO proxy and it's not as if there wasn't NATO weaponry within the country (hence one of Putin's demands being the removal of all foreign weaponry).

As an aside, shouldn't the events of recent days have made it nakedly obvious to everyone that the US never gave a fuck about Ukraine in the first place? They dangled the prospect of NATO membership in front of Zelensky, played him like a fiddle and then the moment the shit hit the fan, immediately it's, "Waitaminute, you thought we were actually gonna let you into NATO, kid? LOLZ!"

The reason for waiting until is possibly/probably at least partially demographic. When Putin took power he oversaw an impressive expansion in the birth rate of the country. That baby boom is now going to make the 18-30 demographic cohort the largest in russian for the next two decades - probably the maximum length of time Putin has left as a head of state at age 69. This coincides with a recent order that all russian men in that age cohort provide at least one year of military service. So a perfectly reasonably explanation for "why now" is because we're about to enter the period in Putin's time in charge when the Russian military will be at its largest.

This is a fair and interesting point that hadn't occured to me. I took some time to chew this one over, but, ultimately...

If, instead, he wanted to see a return to something like a bi-polar imperial "east vs west' new cold war, where NATO is countermanded by Russia's own sphere of influence and client states, the invasion may not be a bad move.

I'd say I basically agree with this, though I'd maybe phrase it a little differently. I don't know that he "wants" that, per se, but considering the adversarial nation he's dealing with has an imperialist stranglehold on most of the world and the full power of NATO muscle at its disposal, I can see why he'd want to maintain as much of a sphere of influence over Eastern Europe as possible. Not saying it's justified, or that I condone it (to be clear: I don't), but looking at it through a purely analytical lens, it makes sense.

I guess there's a question of "what I'd like to see happen." If any world leader decides to call me up, here's what I'll recommend:

1. End of hostilities, full removal of russian forces from Ukraine - including eastern ukraine and crimea;
2. Free and fair elections conducted in ukraine under international watch to rectify and clarify issues around the 2014 revolution/coup (depending on perspective);
3. Free and fair elections conducted in the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk,and Crimeria. On this I fully agree with the statement put out by Marxist Tendency (Russia):

Self-determination of the Donbas

Before discussing a future peace settlement, it is necessary to point out the main thing: the people of the Donbas have the right to self-determination. And this self-determination must be predicated on a free, democratic choice. Any indication that the fate of the Donbas should be decided by “all Ukrainians”, the government of Ukraine, or, even more so, the United States and Russia, is a betrayal of the democratic principle of the right to self-determination, no matter how it is presented.

Those who deny the right of the Donbas to self-determination say that it is “not a people”; they argue that it belongs to the “Ukrainian” or “Russian” people, depending on the nationalist inclinations of the speaker. They go so far as to deny the ability of the inhabitants of the Donbas to make an independent choice in principle. None of this stands up to scrutiny. In fact it comes down to shameful chauvinism and the denial of democratic rights to four million people.

However, firstly, upholding the right to self-determination does not mean automatic support for any separatism. We unconditionally recognise the right to self-determination of the DPR and LPR, and recognise the democratic decision of their people, whatever it may be. But we also consider it possible to speak about the most-progressive ways of exercising self-determination from the point of view of general interests of the working class and the fight for socialism. We believe that the choice, within the framework of self-determination, should proceed from the prospect of future cooperation and comradeship between the workers of Kiev, Donetsk and Moscow; unity between a miner and a programmer, a doctor and a teacher; between all of those who create value in society. That is why the choice must be free and conscious.

Secondly, we refuse to recognise a vote at gunpoint, with the imperialists and their satellites’ fingers on the trigger, as self-determination. A genuine democratic choice is possible only in conditions of political democracy and freedom of opposition. But at the moment, the authorities of the republics have degraded into corrupt clients controlled by Russia, and the opposition is being persecuted. Self-determination of the DPR and LPR is a matter for the future democratic and labour movement, which, in deciding on the fate of the Donbas, will inevitably act contrary to the existing authorities in the republics.

Full statement: https://www.marxist.com/statement-on-pu ... nd-lpr.htm (and a later statement fully condeming the russian invasion, which I unreservedly agree with: https://www.marxist.com/no-to-war-with- ... ention.htm)

I... can't disagree. You've won me over—I'd co-sign this. You and I probably wouldn't see eye-to-eye on the Crimea issue, but that's actually even more reason why I'd support this. To clarify issues around the annexation, I'd say re-do the referendum but this time unambiguously give them the choice between staying part of the Russian Federation or re-joining Ukraine. I'd imagine the former would once again pass overwhelmingly and that would hopefully put the issue to bed.

So yeah, good peace plan. Now we just gotta get you on the phone with Putin and Zelensky

My broader and more abstract hope is that if Russia and Ukraine can still broker a peace, it can still undo some of the damage to the larger political landscape in terms of unwinding NATO legitimacy and, in a very high-concept way, hopefully continuing the work of envisioning and working towards a social ordering that relies on international solidarity between peoples and the emaciation from state and empire.

Agreed, again. Assuming that you actually meant "emancipation"

But, you know, I'll settle for some kind of peace and safety for all afflicted by war, regardless of root causes and consequences.

Yes. This is the most important thing.



I think this was a good discussion. I got a lot out of it, I hope you got a little something out of it too. Thanks for engaging.







P.S. Congrats on the baby! Now I feel guilty about having added to your workload

[revbob]

Rattie is that you?

[Mimi]

Rattie is that you?

I miss him.

[Flex]

@Howard, really appreciate the great response. There's good stuff to digest, and I think you have some compelling responses on the stickier items for me to think about, and as last time dig into a little more. A couple quick things since I think we both are well-served with taking our time on lengthier responses:

1. I appreciate that we seem to agree on what we'd at least imagine as an ideal (although probably not likely) end. I don't know if I would have been able to articulate this a week ago, but our exchange and seeing many others happen in real time has gotten me thinking broadly about this. I think there's a lot to be said for thinking of the "so what" question a lot more than I think people do. It's easy to get bogged down in the nitty gritty of some of these debates but, at a certain point, discussing (as just a prime example) the exact degree of culpability NATO expansionists have sort of obscures the larger points of whether we support the way the international order is constituted now or whether we can imagine a different way to live, and what that would be. I think you and I (for example!) have much more in common as we think about the war than, I dunno, I would have pro-NATO liberal hawk or you would have with a pro-putin Stalinist even if some if some of our talking points during this exchange seem to lean in either of those directions to an outside observer. I think, particularly with social media, it can be hard to keep the Daily Discourse connected with broader principles; it's one of the things that this slightly longer forum format is good for, so I appreciate you striking up the conversation for that reason as well. When I went to, I think it was a week ago or so, a DSA-led anti-war rally in Denver I had a little hesitation because at first I hadn't been overly impressed with some of the responses coming out of the DSA but, like, at the end of the day the articulated ends were largely things I supported so why wouldn't I participate in this expression of solidarity, you know?

2. It's kind of funny, the way we tailor arguments to our audience, but again using the NATO example between our last exchanges I've had a couple conversations with in real life folks about this and probably came off sounding closer to your position here. With US media pretty quickly landing on "there was no chance NATO had anything to do with this conflict" my position which I'd characterize as "it was secondary, insufficient on its own to explain the invasion and/or still doesn't justify russia's actions" still accepts some place in the conversation for NATO - I mean, as you've well documented, Putin did talk about it a lot and there's a history that extends beyond him there - makes me sound significantly different than I do here. It mostly makes me chuckle, it reminds me of a few of our fellow posters here who mention how much they are amused by being considered further to the right here for being Bernie-backing social democrat types when in every other context they come off as bomb throwing leftists to most folks. Getting a taste of that myself with this one here. Maybe Gene was right, and I'm getting more conservative in my old age. Ha.

[Low Down Low]

Been reading Putin's People by Catherine Belton and one story that caught my eye was after Putin became president, a fascinating tale in itself, he wanted to bring the oligarchs to heel so had 20 of them or so brought to Stalin's well preserved dacha outside Moscow and gave them a dressing down in the same room in which the former dictator had ordered the deaths of many thousands of innocent civilians. I don't get the sense that Putin is insane or psychopathic, as some suggest, but he is clearly capable of evil and chilling brutality and I'm not sure how much comfort to draw from that distinction when it comes to the prospect of launching a full scale nuclear war.

[eumaas]

I'm definitely more conservative now as I'd be happy with social democratic governance here in the US and don't really think about revolution, though I think both revolution and social-democratic reform are about equally unlikely. I'm not involved in politics anymore due to my health being poor; had to make the decision to concentrate on trying to live the best life I could under these circumstances.

I saw an interview with the Marxist Russian dissident Boris Kagarlitsky and his take was that domestic issues are driving the war. That's a factor I hadn't heard much on. I'm sympathetic to the idea that Western meddling, NATO, etc played a role in this, though it doesn't absolve the Russian government for choosing to go to war. But that'll just get you accused of whataboutism even if you condemn the war as criminal. I also think the neo-Nazi issue in Ukraine is probably more serious than people are acknowledging now.

My sympathies are with the ordinary people who always suffer the most in war. I'm not really keen on how many people want to see a shooting war between the US and Russia as well, though I am sympathetic to the Ukrainians feeling a bit abandoned now that there's an actual military conflict, but courting WWIII is very bad.

I'm very disturbed by the rise of godawful jingoist sentiment against ordinary Russians and Russian culture we're seeing in the US and Canada (not sure on other countries); all this freedom fries-type bullshit, hatred towards Russian immigrants, canceling Russian cultural events even when the people involved have condemned the war, etc. It's the worst I've seen since the 9/11 to Iraq war period, and I'm guessing blaming Russia for Trump has played a role in ginning up this shit.

[Dr. Medulla]

I'm very disturbed by the rise of godawful jingoist sentiment against ordinary Russians and Russian culture we're seeing in the US and Canada (not sure on other countries); all this freedom fries-type bullshit, hatred towards Russian immigrants, canceling Russian cultural events even when the people involved have condemned the war, etc. It's the worst I've seen since the 9/11 to Iraq war period, and I'm guessing blaming Russia for Trump has played a role in ginning up this shit.

Entirely predictable, albeit sadly so. We do the propagandists' job by so reflexively conflating state with people and culture. Yet, even the people who so eagerly jump on that train never hesitate to say "not my president" if they didn't vote for the person in office. But that's the mechanics of any bigotry: I am an individual, my opponents are a herd.

[coffeepotman]

I didn't know there was such a Nazi presence in Ukraine, this changes everything.

[Flex]

I also think the neo-Nazi issue in Ukraine is probably more serious than people are acknowledging now.

I view this issue as somewhat akin to NATO: it's a real problem, possibly hard to know the true extent just as Some Guy sitting behind a keyboard in the U.S. with no particular specialization in the region but I definitely acknowledge it's a real issue, and given that it's hard not to look askance at Russia's actions as making things horribly worse for anyone with a sincere interest in opposing nazism and fascism where one finds it. Given that Russia trains and arms nazis in other countries in the region, Putin has advisors with neo-nazi ties, and the russian state supports their own nazi paramilitary squads in Donbass, like with NATO I'm highly skeptical that, say, dismantling azov battalion would have prevented an invasion. Seems like a pretext (and the best pretexts are the ones that have some correct moral dimension to them!) and, in that view, there's a take I've seen circulating that Ukraine probably had a point starting in 2014 to legitimize and bring in as many soldiers as they possibly could to prepare for what turned out to be the 100% justified fears of a Russian invasion. And, as with NATO, what's the result? Glowing reports of the heroism of azov battalion being distributed globally, that one nazi mayor getting uncritical air time on NPR, and so forth. As you point out, discussion of nazism in Ukraine is now totally verboten. Whatever the problem with Nazism is in Ukraine, anyone picking up a rifle to fight the Russian invasion seems to have been completely legitimated both in Ukraine and, if not globally, in most of the West. Again as with NATO, it's hard to draw any conclusion other that Russia's actions have just made things worse for anyone sincerely interesting in combating fascism and nazism.

And in defense of the regular people of Ukraine not just being rife with nazis, azov battalion and other right wing groups did reconstitute as a "legitimate" political party National Corps and managed to garner 2.15% of the vote in the last election and hold a grand total of 0 seats in the Verkhovna Rada (I've seen some folks say they have 1 seat but I can't really tell for sure). Now, 2.15% support is too fuckin' much (although I think it's less than some other western european fascist parties get in their elections and no one talks about invading them) and it's repulsive these armed groups exist with the sanction of the state, but to see tankie discourse (which isn't anyone here, mind) you'd think they had significantly more popular support than is probably really the case. Or wasn't until Russia's invasion, anyways. If Ukraine somehow gets out of this on the other side, it's hard to imagine a future where the country doesn't get significantly more right wing.

ETA: none of this is a rejoinder to any position of yours I realized I should make clear. It's more just expressing frustration at the general state of things.

[revbob]

I didn't know there was such a Nazi presence in Ukraine, this changes everything.

I recall reading a book on the connections between the various post war neo nazi movements in eastern Europe and the Republican Party. Also heard some good reporting on the same topic on WBAI back when I lived in their broadcast zone.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organiz ... tionalists

[Howard Beale]

It mostly makes me chuckle, it reminds me of a few of our fellow posters here who mention how much they are amused by being considered further to the right here for being Bernie-backing social democrat types when in every other context they come off as bomb throwing leftists to most folks. Getting a taste of that myself with this one here. Maybe Gene was right, and I'm getting more conservative in my old age. Ha.

I'm definitely more conservative now as I'd be happy with social democratic governance here in the US and don't really think about revolution, though I think both revolution and social-democratic reform are about equally unlikely.

Yeah, I guess at this point that's where I'm at—just try to move the Overton Window left whenever and wherever it's possible (like, say, Bernie did at least somewhat with his presidential runs). I think we live in a pretty right-wing country, and that's obviously by design. I'm reminded of that old Chomsky adage about how you keep a society under control by limiting the spectrum of political opinion and allowing what appears to be robust debate within that very limited spectrum (paraphrasing).

I'm very disturbed by the rise of godawful jingoist sentiment against ordinary Russians and Russian culture we're seeing in the US and Canada (not sure on other countries); all this freedom fries-type bullshit, hatred towards Russian immigrants, canceling Russian cultural events even when the people involved have condemned the war, etc. It's the worst I've seen since the 9/11 to Iraq war period, and I'm guessing blaming Russia for Trump has played a role in ginning up this shit.

I do think we're nearing a level of propaganda/jingoism that may surpass the Bush/Iraq War era (which is stunning), and yes, the xenophobia is going to get even worse, as Republicans will now also be pushing it instead of just Democrats. It also certainly doesn't help that Big Tech is now basically encouraging openly calling for violence against Russians.

I didn't know there was such a Nazi presence in Ukraine, this changes everything.

I thought I had a pretty decent handle on the outsized influence of neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine at the outset of the war, but even I've been consistently shocked the more I've been finding out on a near-daily basis. Just since yesterday I've learned...

•One of the members of Zelensky's ceasefire negotiation team, Denis Kireev, has been assassinated. Various neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine have long made clear that they will kill anyone (including Zelensky) who compromises with Russia. It's starting to appear that those were not idle threats.

•The chief of police of Kyiv from 2014 to 2021 is also a neo-Nazi.

•The BBC did a now-very-hard-to-find report in 2017 on the Azov Battalion and its relationship to Ukraine's Interior Ministry.

•In 2018, Ukraine made notorious Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera's OUN-B organization's slogan the official greeting of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Not just of the Azov Battalion, mind you, but for the entire Ukrainian military.

•Before he even went into politics, Zelensky did bits in his comedy routines about how the country is basically run by Nazis (and US meddling). There was a US-based Ukrainian guy on Twitter who posted a video of Zelensky performing standup on a TV special; it's now mysteriously gone. I could only find an archive of the thread, but the video doesn't seem to work, sadly. If I manage to find it again I'll post it.

I saw an interview with the Marxist Russian dissident Boris Kagarlitsky and his take was that domestic issues are driving the war. That's a factor I hadn't heard much on.

Good point. We haven't even mentioned the Nord Stream 2 pipeline yet, which is another gigantic part of all this...

[Low Down Low]

I thought I had a pretty decent handle on the outsized influence of neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine at the outset of the war, but even I've been consistently shocked the more I've been finding out on a near-daily basis. Just since yesterday I've learned...

•One of the members of Zelensky's ceasefire negotiation team, Denis Kireev, has been assassinated. Various neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine have long made clear that they will kill anyone (including Zelensky) who compromises with Russia. It's starting to appear that those were not idle threats.

•The chief of police of Kyiv from 2014 to 2021 is also a neo-Nazi.

•The BBC did a now-very-hard-to-find report in 2017 on the Azov Battalion and its relationship to Ukraine's Interior Ministry.

•In 2018, Ukraine made notorious Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera's OUN-B organization's slogan the official greeting of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Not just of the Azov Battalion, mind you, but for the entire Ukrainian military.

•Before he even went into politics, Zelensky did bits in his comedy routines about how the country is basically run by Nazis (and US meddling). There was a US-based Ukrainian guy on Twitter who posted a video of Zelensky performing standup on a TV special; it's now mysteriously

I find the whole thing very complex and difficult to understand. There's also the influence of Ihor Kolomoyskyi, one of Ukraine's chief oligarchs, who is on the FBI' s blacklist, but has been one of Zelenskys main financial backers while also funding the Azov, among other far right military battalions. It's all very murky and strange. And while it's easy to get why the ultra nationalist Ukrainian far right is standing up to Putin, i can't help wondering if all the far right groups pouring in from neighbouring countries (well, according to reports, anyway) understand that they are, nominally at least, fighting for a cause that is pro nato, pro EU integration, which doesn't seem a very neo nazi angle to be aligning yourself with. Maybe these folk are stuck in a cold war time warp and still imagine they are fighting the Russian red menace? I don't know really, while Putin is unquestionably the villain of the peace here, there's still a lot in the background I have a weak grasp of.

[Marky Dread]

I thought I had a pretty decent handle on the outsized influence of neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine at the outset of the war, but even I've been consistently shocked the more I've been finding out on a near-daily basis. Just since yesterday I've learned...

•One of the members of Zelensky's ceasefire negotiation team, Denis Kireev, has been assassinated. Various neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine have long made clear that they will kill anyone (including Zelensky) who compromises with Russia. It's starting to appear that those were not idle threats.

•The chief of police of Kyiv from 2014 to 2021 is also a neo-Nazi.

•The BBC did a now-very-hard-to-find report in 2017 on the Azov Battalion and its relationship to Ukraine's Interior Ministry.

•In 2018, Ukraine made notorious Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera's OUN-B organization's slogan the official greeting of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Not just of the Azov Battalion, mind you, but for the entire Ukrainian military.

•Before he even went into politics, Zelensky did bits in his comedy routines about how the country is basically run by Nazis (and US meddling). There was a US-based Ukrainian guy on Twitter who posted a video of Zelensky performing standup on a TV special; it's now mysteriously

I find the whole thing very complex and difficult to understand. There's also the influence of Ihor Kolomoyskyi, one of Ukraine's chief oligarchs, who is on the FBI' s blacklist, but has been one of Zelenskys main financial backers while also funding the Azov, among other far right military battalions. It's all very murky and strange. And while it's easy to get why the ultra nationalist Ukrainian far right is standing up to Putin, i can't help wondering if all the far right groups pouring in from neighbouring countries (well, according to reports, anyway) understand that they are, nominally at least, fighting for a cause that is pro nato, pro EU integration, which doesn't seem a very neo nazi angle to be aligning yourself with. Maybe these folk are stuck in a cold war time warp and still imagine they are fighting the Russian red menace? I don't know really, while Putin is unquestionably the villain of the peace here, there's still a lot in the background I have a weak grasp of.

The only take I have is at the end of the day it's the people that are suffering being displaced and torn apart. I guess we could discuss the politics til the end of time. We (I) dislike Nazi's and any regime that forces it's people to live in fear and keeps them oppressed. But you need somewhere to be able to live first and sadly Putin is destroying Ukraine.

[Sparky]

I thought I had a pretty decent handle on the outsized influence of neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine at the outset of the war, but even I've been consistently shocked the more I've been finding out on a near-daily basis. Just since yesterday I've learned...

•One of the members of Zelensky's ceasefire negotiation team, Denis Kireev, has been assassinated. Various neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine have long made clear that they will kill anyone (including Zelensky) who compromises with Russia. It's starting to appear that those were not idle threats.

•The chief of police of Kyiv from 2014 to 2021 is also a neo-Nazi.

•The BBC did a now-very-hard-to-find report in 2017 on the Azov Battalion and its relationship to Ukraine's Interior Ministry.

•In 2018, Ukraine made notorious Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera's OUN-B organization's slogan the official greeting of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Not just of the Azov Battalion, mind you, but for the entire Ukrainian military.

•Before he even went into politics, Zelensky did bits in his comedy routines about how the country is basically run by Nazis (and US meddling). There was a US-based Ukrainian guy on Twitter who posted a video of Zelensky performing standup on a TV special; it's now mysteriously

I find the whole thing very complex and difficult to understand. There's also the influence of Ihor Kolomoyskyi, one of Ukraine's chief oligarchs, who is on the FBI' s blacklist, but has been one of Zelenskys main financial backers while also funding the Azov, among other far right military battalions. It's all very murky and strange. And while it's easy to get why the ultra nationalist Ukrainian far right is standing up to Putin, i can't help wondering if all the far right groups pouring in from neighbouring countries (well, according to reports, anyway) understand that they are, nominally at least, fighting for a cause that is pro nato, pro EU integration, which doesn't seem a very neo nazi angle to be aligning yourself with. Maybe these folk are stuck in a cold war time warp and still imagine they are fighting the Russian red menace? I don't know really, while Putin is unquestionably the villain of the peace here, there's still a lot in the background I have a weak grasp of.

The only take I have is at the end of the day it's the people that are suffering being displaced and torn apart. I guess we could discuss the politics til the end of time. We (I) dislike Nazi's and any regime that forces it's people to live in fear and keeps them oppressed. But you need somewhere to be able to live first and sadly Putin is destroying Ukraine.

Well said, my sentiments precisely.