cfgaussian

@cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml

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cfgaussian OP , (edited )

Probably. I haven't clicked on that link but that sort of thing is to be expected from this source.

When i recommend a piece i generally vet it for that sort of stuff, and if there is any problematic content i try and add a warning. But i don't vouch for other things the same author may have written.

We should always be aware of the bias of the media we consume, and when reading analysis by conservative leaning authors like this one, caution is advised. That's part and parcel of critical media consumption, knowing what we can take that is of value from a piece of media and what to discard.

cfgaussian OP ,

My money is on no, on all three counts. They won't stop antagonizing China over Taiwan, they won't let go of project Ukraine, and they certainly won't abandon their most precious neocolony. These people have no reverse gear. All they know how to do is double down.

cfgaussian ,

Based.

Progressive African American journalist fired for pro-Palestine stance ( www.workers.org )

The Hill’s firing of Gray was in retaliation for an interaction between her and Yarden Gonen, whose sister was allegedly taken hostage during the al-Aqsa Flood. Throughout the interview, Gray calmly and cordially disagreed with Gonen, who was espousing Islamophobic and anti-Arab bigotry, as well as repeating the debunked...

cfgaussian ,

That's almost definitely not happening.

I wouldn't be so sure. I don't know about Substack but afaik Patreon has deplatformed people for political reasons before, including anti-imperialists.

So it would be huge for them to lose chunks of creators' revenues if those were to leave over political differences.

This is a very naive argument, in a way akin to the liberal notion that the market regulates itself because if corporations behave contrary to what people want they will lose money.

The idea that corporations will allow free speech because it's in their financial interest to do so just doesn't conform with what we observe happening in reality. Oftentimes political pressure placed on platforms by governments, media and powerful lobbying groups is stronger than the economic incentives to resist that pressure.

cfgaussian ,

Maybe. Though you could make the same argument for big platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Technically they operate with the same model of taking a profit from others' activity. But because they are so big and that is where most people are, it's hard to make a switch.

At the end of the day you still run into the problem of monopolies. Not just of the platforms themselves but more importantly of the financial institutions that they rely on. Who processes the transactions? As long as the payments still go through the US dominated financial system any platform will be vulnerable to political pressure to have their access to said financial systems cut off if they do not comply.

The only real way to escape is to build structures outside of the West's financial transaction architecture, for platforms to adopt payment systems that go through the kinds of alternatives that Russia and China are trying to build at the moment.

cfgaussian , (edited )

I don't know where you ever got that idea from. They are bigger than ever, at least on paper. Admittedly they have lost a significant part of their most trained and motivated pre-war core by now, but a lot are still around and formally they have only gotten bigger because the Kiev regime keeps sending the best recruits and best equipment to Azov and the various other Nazi units (some of which, like Kraken, are made up of pure psychopaths...), because these units have the political connections to the Right Sector and the other Banderite political groupings that are really in charge of Ukraine.

So anything that goes to the Ukrainian military eventually ends up in their hands if it's any good. And they've become more and more legitimized and more integral to the Ukrainian army as their ideology has been normalized in the ranks of the professional military and widely adopted by a large segment of the population. Also, a whole bunch of them got captured at Azovstal in Mariupol but were exchanged over time and most of them immediately went back to fighting. Really dumb move. The Russians know who these people are and won't be taking them prisoner a second time.

But despite their reputation they're really kind of shitty fighters. Like the IOF they're good at terrorizing civilians, not so good at fighting wars. Mostly they fulfil the role of blocking detachments to keep the unwillingly mobilized in line and shoot anyone who tries to run or surrender. Which is ironic because there have been a bunch of instances when they themselves outright ran instead of following orders when they were sent in as a last resort, noticed the situation was FUBAR, and they just fucked off and left the poorly trained conscripts to die just to delay the Russians for a bit.

cfgaussian ,

I still think the US debt is meaningless. Don't see why they would need to do austerity regardless how big the debt is. If they do implement austerity, which they may at some point, it won't be because of the debt but because they have decided it is in their advantage to do so. Austerity is a means of disciplining the working class. It's for beating us into submission so we come begging to capital for scraps.

cfgaussian ,

I am not aware of such an attitude in AES countries. Historically it was in fact quite the opposite, youth political organizations and organizations promoting an active lifestyle were encouraged and celebrated.

I think in principle there's nothing wrong with the idea, actually it's probably quite a healthy and socially beneficial thing. Of course that doesn't preclude the possibility that in some cases the implementation was not the greatest or that sometimes bad actors found their way into them. But those problems always exist with anything that you do, we're talking about the general principle.

And yes, as another comrade pointed out, FDJ and Komsomol were not scouting organizations, you're probably confusing them with the pioneers. Though the former also sometimes took part in activities of that type it was not their primary purpose.

cfgaussian ,

I don't think anyone ever claimed that Mearsheimer is a Marxist.

cfgaussian ,

I agree. It's always important to consume media critically.

Understanding bias, and understanding that just because someone makes good points on one topic doesn't mean they can't have garbage takes on many others, is important. But we shouldn't completely close ourselves off to every media source except those that we already agree with 100%.

I am happy to see that Mearsheimer is getting called out on his imperialism apologia and pro-US hegemony bullshit even in the comments of this video, whose audience is most certainly not a majority Marxist one. Even non-Marxists can see that his kind of "realists" are only "realistic" about the Russia conflict because they want to pivot to China instead.

cfgaussian ,

Of course. It's good to clarify the ideological orientation of a piece of geopolitical analysis so that we know how to contextualize it and understand where its strengths and weaknesses lie based on the biases of the source. The article you linked is very good and all the points it makes are absolutely correct.

I think most of us here would agree that outside of his analysis of the Ukraine conflict (which for someone with his popularity and reach in western geopolitical circles is decent, though woefully incomplete - he never talks about the Nazi problem in Ukraine and the shelling of the Donbass for instance!) Mearsheimer is not that impressive of an analyst.

Georgia Unmasked: Foreign Agents & Foreign Presidents ( www.youtube.com )

Unpacking the Georgian "Foreign Agent" law, formally known as "The Law on the Transparency of Foreign Influence." Why did it cause such drama? Why did the West label it a "Russian law"? Who is the French-born president that vetoed it? And who was actually protesting it?

cfgaussian , (edited )

I would argue oil was also secondary. The primary reason was to make an example out of a country that was becoming a little too independent. It was supposed to be the first domino in a longer line of countries in the region left over from the cold war that were not yet aligned with the US (or at least not sufficiently integrated into the neoliberal hegemonic world order) and needed their governments toppled one way or another. The US wanted to turn the entire Middle East into obedient client states.

cfgaussian , (edited )

The US doesn't have allies. It uses countries and proxies as long as they are useful and then it discards them.

Yes the US and Europe had given all kinds of weapons to Saddam, including chemical weapons, to use against Iran. But they eventually turned on him, just like they turned on their puppet narcodictator Noriega in Panama.

One reason for this was that it was no longer as convenient for the US to have puppet military dictators in the post-Soviet period. They became too much of a PR liability and the MO of the US changed to doing color revolutions to install ostensible "liberal democracies" which were just as easy to control through NED, USAID, etc. but allowed the West to maintain a "cleaner" image.

Another reason was that Saddam had been in power for so long that he was turning more nationalistic and began to show too much independence for Washington's liking. The last straw was when he wanted to start selling oil in Euros rather than dollars, but they wanted to get rid of him long before that.

cfgaussian , (edited )

There is too much emphasis on the Israel lobby in this video.

It certainly wasn't the sole or even the main factor, but the Zionist lobby definitely wanted the invasion and pushed for it hard. Iraq was a big obstacle to Zionist expansion plans in the region, just like Syria is today.

Saddam invaded Kuwait under the pretext of territorial claims.

The territorial claims are not a pretext, Kuwait was a province of Iraq that was split off by the British who made it their colonial bridgehead in the Gulf in order to better control the region and gain access to its resources. However that wasn't the main reason why Saddam invaded Kuwait.

The reason was primarily economical and had to do with Kuwait slant drilling into Iraqi oil fields effectively stealing their oil. Kuwait, having essentially been transfered from being a British protectorate to a US one, did this with US encouragement and support, implicit promises to protect them in case of conflict.

Meanwhile however the US was also telling Iraq through back channels that they would not intervene in case of a conflict with Kuwait, emboldening them to invade so the US could have a pretext to bomb and sanction them.

Saddam staged an assassination plot against Bush Sr.

This was never proven. In fact it is more likely that the whole thing was staged by elements in the US deep state (CIA) to push the US government over the edge in their decision to take out Saddam.

A possible belligerent running amok in the region was something that would not be tolerated.

So the US became the belligerent running amok instead? You are implying that the imperialists were interested in preserving the stability of the region but that is actually the exact opposite of what they have always wanted. They benefit from conflict and instability in key geographical locations like the Middle East. They purposely created the conditions for the rise of ISIS, covertly armed and funded them, and then launched the dirty war on Syria.

Keeping the region in chaos halts Eurasian economic integration and regional economic development (for example: multiple pipeline projects that were similarly threatening to US geopolitical interests as Nordstream was were put on ice or permanently canceled as a result of these wars), leaving not just the region itself but the entire continent more vulnerable to neo-colonial exploitation.

cfgaussian ,

I'm sorry if my response came across as pedantic. It wasn't my intention to "win" anything, i only wanted to introduce some nuance into this discussion and bring up a few additional things to think about.

cfgaussian ,

Are we too serious on lemmygrad compared to hexbear?

cfgaussian ,

Wait and see. Too early to tell. Always judge politicians by what they do once they get into office, not by what they say while trying to get elected.

cfgaussian ,

The reactions from the Western media so far are split between hoping she will be less "populist" and more "pragmatic" (by which they mean more of a malleable technocrat who will bend to the bourgeoisie and to US diktat) than AMLO on the one hand, and trying to smear her by association with him on the other, whom they despise and call all sorts of names and try to portray as anti-democratic and pro-crime compared to previous right wing governments. As usual they try to pin all sorts of economic woes on the left. And of course they are already demonizing her for her party associating with other left wing governments like Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

And not one of the mainstream media articles about her i've read so far has mentioned that she is extremely pro-Palestinian.

cfgaussian ,

He didn't lose, he just cannot serve another term. She belongs to his party and he effectively campaigned for her. His popularity greatly helped boost her in the election. As a result of this election AMLO's party now has such a historic majority in government that the liberal media is fearmongering about how this may even give them a mandate to change the constitution.

cfgaussian ,

The liberal media have already been portraying AMLO as a dictator for his "populist" policies, if his party tried to change the constitution to make it more leftist all the liberals would go crying to the US for intervention and regime change.

cfgaussian ,

Ok but you do realize that the purpose of this article is to defend the Zionist lobby by falsely equating it with the other groups mentioned in the piece? This is in effect a pro-AIPAC article.

cfgaussian , (edited )

Pretty much the most sensible prominent German politician right now. And that's not a compliment to her - she has a lot of bad right wing takes, including on vaccines - it is an indictment of the German political class which is absolutely atrocious.

As a communist i certainly won't be voting for her but i do hope that enough "normies" do, so that her party siphons off support from both the mainstream liberal parties as well as from the AfD which are both far worse alternatives. But electoral politics should really always be viewed as secondary at best.

The main benefit that having a prominent voice like hers that is against the establishment is that important issues such as Germany and the EU's unhinged warmongering policy toward Russia (and likely soon China) are brought to the forefront of public discussion, which is something that the Euro-Atlanticist establishment hate being challenged on because they know their position is both insane and also unpopular once there is any meaningful opposition rather than having only one narrative be pushed by the media 24/7.

cfgaussian ,

I'd say it's the capitalists who are fucking you, not your fellow workers. Especially not those who are the most vulnerable, exploited and poor.

As for a "Marxist-Leninist take on immigration", well there isn't one. This is too broad of a framing. You need to ask more specific questions and the answer will differ on a case to case basis. As materialists we understand that different circumstances call for different policies. You cannot adopt a universal position on a political issue that is independent of material reality. The notion that we can arrive at a policy, an ideological stance or a "take" that is always correct simply by virtue of some intrinsic moral or philosophical universality is pure idealism.

To quote Mao: "Where do correct ideas come from? Do they drop from the skies? No. Are they innate in the mind? No. They come from social practice, and from it alone;"

cfgaussian ,

Paywalled.

cfgaussian , (edited )

Makes some good points but i don't love how this article is written, stylistically i mean. Can't quite put my finger on it but it feels unstructured, chaotic, almost stream of consciousness and linguistically experimental. Works if you're trying to do art, but political commentary should be clear, to the point and easily understandable.

cfgaussian ,

I agree, it's a thought provoking piece with some interesting ideas on how to view what is happening.

cfgaussian OP , (edited )

According to this article as late as June 2021 the US imperialists still believed they could replicate the Sino-Soviet split and drive a wedge between Russia and China by playing on Russia's supposed fear of China. When this turned out to be a delusion they absolutely lost their shit and went all out on trying to destroy/regime change Russia via proxy war.

The ultimate goal, as anyone who has been paying attention knows and as we have been pointing out for years, has always been to take down China.

cfgaussian ,

has emboldened the axis of evil in its quest to destroy the free world

Quite the opposite, it is the free world led by Russia and China that is destroying the Anglo-European axis of evil, to great delight from the global majority.

cfgaussian ,

This is typical western media. It is all like this.

cfgaussian ,

Is it possible we're just being outcompeted

The answer appears to be a resounding yes, even according to western reporters:

"I Went To China And Drove A Dozen Electric Cars. Western Automakers Are Cooked"

cfgaussian ,

postmarxist-hegelian thought

Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about?

Denver police refuse to clear student encampment in Auraria ( www.workers.org )

Chief Ron Thomas refused to dismantle the demonstration, which he said was very peaceful, for a second time. He said “there is no legal way” for officers to dismantle the demonstration “unless they do something that creates an unlawful assembly. We are absolutely not going to go in and sweep out this peaceful protest just...

cfgaussian ,

This is just the pigs saying "we'll gladly do it but you need to give us a better pretext first".

cfgaussian ,

It's also a very quick descent which saves time (which, i am told, is equivalent to money), and you don't need to keep the engines running anymore for the descent so you can save on fuel too. Always look on the bright side.

cfgaussian ,

How is the USA going to force you to pay taxes if you live in China? You can just...not do it. Just make sure all your assets are in Chinese accounts first so they can't steal your shit.

cfgaussian ,

"I'm a free thinker. I only trust information if it comes from CIA controlled outlets."

cfgaussian , (edited )

This is the wrong way to think about things. The task of communists is not to save capitalism from itself (as the social democrats wish to do) out of fear of fascists taking over. It is to build a disciplined, militant and class conscious revolutionary movement such that when the time comes it is us and not the fascists who will lead the masses. It is a complete waste of your energies to worry about whether capitalism is declining too quickly. If it is declining quickly that just means we have a better opportunity to educate, agitate and organize, taking advantage of the discontent that the decline is causing. The more the collapse accelerates the more we must redouble our efforts.

cfgaussian ,

What you are describing is a hostage situation and we don't negotiate with terrorists.

cfgaussian ,

You're missing the point, in this analogy the worker is the hostage and the boss is the terrorist. Also i was being facetious.

cfgaussian ,

I find contentious threads like this fascinating, for one thing you can really see who here is American and who isn't based on their deeply culturally ingrained views on this issue.

cfgaussian ,

There's no "splitting the neoliberal vote" in Germany. Not only are all the other parties neoliberals too, but Germany has a parliamentary system where what happens is that parties will enter into coalition to achieve a majority needed to govern, so giving the Greens votes just makes them more likely to end up in a government coalition. And this has absolutely disastrous results as we have seen with the current SPD-Greens government.

Green parties may be different in other countries but in Germany the current incarnation of the Green party are absolute lunatics.

cfgaussian ,

I think this is exactly the right answer. Yes the neocon warmongers plan a lot of these conflicts in advance, but when they happen they turn out to have been disastrously bad ideas that, even with all the chaos and destruction they cause and contrary to their expectation of advancing the position of US imperialism, end up actually putting the US in a worse position than when they started and with their enemies stronger and more united.

How the citizens of Crimea defended their homes in 2014 from the Kiev Junta's death squads ( lemmygrad.ml )

The striking success of Russia's Crimean operation in February 2014 has overshadowed just how close the peninsula came to becoming another front of the post-Maidan civil war. Much praise and glory belongs not only to the “polite people” who appeared across AFU strategic objects in Crimea, but also to the people of Crimea -...

cfgaussian OP , (edited )

That is a great article for those who want to delve further into the history of the events of 2014 and additional Crimea background. Thank you!

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