reddit won’t even let them approve my post
seems like a new low
Honestly just goes back to that absolute dolt Yeltsin in the end. He delivered Russia to the neoliberal oligarchic hordes, was given a verbal promise by Bush admin v1 that NATO would expand, and because he had a ridiculous fantasy of Russia joining NATO, decided not to turn that verbal promise into a signed treaty. Then he realized how much of an idiot he'd been, and how badly he got played, and started crying about it. By that time the damage was done, and the US pulled the rug out from underneath Russia.
and Putin is the product of that, Russia post soviet was shitty.
The sabre of imperialism must rattle
Edit: also the elites love that the USSR is out of the way so that Russia can be exploited, but Putin sold the country out to their homegrown elites instead of global megacorps and has kept things that way which has made them mad again.
Great post! I have one potentially minor quibble that probably doesn't matter to your audience, but I'll make it anyways in case it can lead to productive discussion.
The US and Russia are both expansionist, but it has been argued that only the US is imperialist - in terms of the concept described by Lenin and expanded on over time by others, including the great Utsa Patnaik. In that sense - one that can claim to be both original and the typical socialist understaffing - imperialism is the expansion of exploitation based on globally monopolizing capital, wherein entire countries become exploited by having their markets "opened" for "investment", by force or other coercive mechanisms. Russia is run by a monopoly capitalist class and a recent expansionist past, but it is harder to argue the effect of opening up foreign markets to ensure a greater scale of exploitation in their interest. To the extent that it does happen by, say, annexing Crimea, it would be a few steps removed. They have other plans related to th national, less so international, bourgeoisie, like having a big deep-water port for trade, nationalism-based defense from the global bourgeoisie who are trying to export capital to Russia, and selling oil and gas to Europeans to the west.
The Russian owner class would, of course, love to be the international fat cats, but they are not actually in a position to pull those levers. Those are firmly in the hands of the global bourgeoisie + their American regime partners.
tl;dr: wars and expansionism aren't the same thing as imperialism.
Yeah that totally makes sense. A message tailored for the audience! Unfortunately you can't assume an overwhelming appreciation of Lenin's theory on r/dankleft (yet!).
That is a good word! Ukraine national identity is relatively young, the region has a very long history being part of Russia, and we're talking about ethnic Russian areas. There's a much more local and historical component well-summarized by irredentism.
They’re posting it here to show the Reddit people since Reddit keeps blocking them from posting on Reddit.
Saving this for linking to friends who may ask about my opinions on this. Thanks. Also love your youtube
This might be the right place to ask this but I remember reading that Ukrainians aren’t concerned about an invasion. It also said a representative of Ukraine said the United States didn’t make a fuss about Russia doing the exact same thing last year.
This is so vague but it was informative.
Ukrainians aren’t concerned about an invasion.
American media reports this every day, and then gets some ghoul from RAND or the Atlantic Council to talk about how invasion is imminent. It's a devilish propaganda machine that's yelling fire in the theater, and planning on being the one to light that fire. I listen to my local NPR station everyday. Today they had a professor from a university who is well versed on the Ukraine stuff, and who has reasonable takes. The host kept asking loaded questions that all implied that Russia would invade, despite this professor repeatedly telling the host that unless provoked, it would cripple Russia to partake in an all out confrontation. The State Dept is throwing around terms like "scorched earth" to describe what Russia could eventually do. It's complete nonsense, and honestly it's scary as fuck the level of bloodlust that the US is showing.
this is on behalf of trying to show this to people at r/dankleft, since their mods confess that reddit won’t even let them approve my post
The wut...
Honestly it's even simpler than all this. A sizeable portion of Donetsk and Luhansk want to secede from Ukraine. Ukraine will not allow them to vote on the matter, and so it has escalated to war. Ukraine is invading two states that have declared themselves sovereign rather than letting the people of the Donbas decide their own fates through voting. Russia
has yet to actually invade anywhere and while theyshould not invade anywhere, it is impossible to say they should shrug their shoulders and do nothing when Ukraine attacks sovereign states between their borders.also consider these facts about some leaders of NATO
- Adolf Heusinger, chief of the Operationsabteilung (third-in-command of the Wehrmacht) from 1940-1944 and Hitler’s acting Chief of Staff 1944, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee 1961-1964
- Hans Speidel, chief of staff to Erwin Rommel, Supreme Commander of NATO’s ground forces in Central Europe 1957-1963
- Johannes Steinhoff, Luftwaffe fighter pilot during WWII and recipient of the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross (the Nazi military’s highest award), Chairman of the NATO Military Committee 1971–1974
- Johann von Kielmansegg, General Staff officer to the High Command of the Wehrmacht 1942-1944, NATO Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe 1967-1968
- Ernst Ferber, Major in the Wehrmacht and group leader of the organizational department of the Supreme Command of the Army (Wehrmacht) 1943-1945 and recipient of the Iron Cross 1st Class, NATO Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe 1973-1975
- Karl Schnell, battery chief in the Western campaign in 1940/later First General Staff Officer of the LXXVI Panzer Corps in 1944 and recipient of the Iron Cross 2nd Class, NATO Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe 1975-1977
- Franz Joseph Schulze, Lieutenant in the reserve and Chief of the 3rd Battery of the Flak Storm Regiment 241 and recipient of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross in 1944, NATO Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe 1977-1979
- Ferdinand von Senger und Etterlin, Lieutenant of 24th Panzer Division in the German 6th Army, participant in the Battle of Stalingrad, adjutant to Army High Command, and recipient of the German Cross in gold, NATO Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe 1979-1983
How could Russia be surrounded by NATO countries? It's bordered by the Ocean on two sides, and China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan to the South.
Look at where people live in Russia and that will help paint the picture. There are people that live in central and eastern Russia, but the vast amount (roughly 75%) of Russians live west of the Urals.
Moscow is only about 600km from the border with Ukraine, that is far closer then all major European capitals in comparison, it is like imagining a war starting with the enemy right under your nose.
like i am not exactly sure but i think those border are mountainous and more easily defendable while ukraine is less so and way closer to Moscow so ukraine being a nato country would surround their less defensible border, the only two other countries on those borders that would not be on nato would be finland and belarus
I'm getting logged out of the old reddit website. Every single day now. It could be some options I've set or something, or a bug.
