https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/02/18/698461/US-antiwar-rally-washington
Anti-war is anti war, full stop. If you're preening and hemming and hawing about how any sort of anti-war action is bad, you're an arm-chair ultra-leftist. The Liberals joined us on the protest line against the Vietnam invasion, abandoned us in the march to massacre Iraq and Afghanistan, and are actively against us in trying to balkanize Russia with China in their cross sights after they're done. The inverse is true with the Republicans, with the caveat that all of this flips once more on its head the moment they trade out the fossil in the white house.
On the singular issue of fighting against american imperialism in the name of Anti-war, you do not get to pick who's joining you on the protest line - that's chosen for you by the historical conditions that lead to this moment in time - you play with the cards you're dealt with and you do your best to push the odds in your favor.
side note, I sure as hell ain't holding my breath for this event, but I'll be increasingly jokerfied if it actually starts gaining ground lmao.
Are you against American imperialism and against NATO expansionism?
What if I'm against American Imperialism, NATO expansionism, and red/brown alliances?
American fascists, such as misanthropic or the atomwaffen's "National Socialist Order", nor are the fascist-infiltrated paramilitary groups aren't organizing anti-war protests, they're either participating in the war and getting blown up right now, or agitating for the war, or attempting to accelerate the american collapse through terrorist actions.
I'm done with this. If you and your org think this is the proper course, I'm not going to talk you out of it and you're not going to talk me into it. I'll tell you this, seeing who you all are willing to align with and who your twitter is platforming, I certainly don't feel like PCUSA are my allies right now.
You're more than entitled to your very respectable opinion. So as long as you're against American imperialism and against NATO intervention in the Ukraine War then I'll personally consider you an ally on the issue.
I would gladly burn this country to the ground and live in relative poverty if it would end American imperialism and I could live in peace with the woman I love.
While I'd much rather see an America in the outlines of Z Foster's 'Towards Soviet America' with some edits for modern circumstances, assuming that's not a possible path towards world socialism and peace, I genuinely hope your wish comes true.
to be blunt, unideological right-wing hogs who're usually herded by reactionary sheepdogs towards interests of empire.
I agree with you. But that's down the road by roughly two years.
Assuming that two years down the road that the ukraine war concludes, biden loses the whitehouse and trump or depantspiss wins. It would be inevitable that the hogs would go out to brunch and the ghouls would start ratcheting up the war machine with China in the cross-sights.
At this assumed future point, I would pivot towards agitating among the disempowered democrats to being anti-war against the republican government, seeing how it's easily more fertile grounds historically.
its more than long enough.
Libs and hogs, popularly speaking (as in ground level and not ghoul level) constantly operate in mirrored opposition to each other depending on who's ghouls are cranking the lever for the next 4 years. The only notable time there's been any noticeable change to the undercurrents is in the brief periods where the lever of power is handed off to the other party's ghouls and you see a subsequent fragmenting of the outer edges of the popular sides as one kicks the other out of the brunch seat and starts eating while the ousted one starts griping about not getting their treats. That fragmenting that occurs is the act of radicalization of the most politically conscious people that were within the status quo field that both libs and hogs jostle in. You can see this in how Bernie losing yet Biden winning resulted in the embryo of socialism emerging into the common parlance of America once more after decades of red-baiting.
Simply put, Libs only cling to liberalism until it starts stomping on their face while shouting "MODS! MODS!"
Also, on your note about hogs. We're capital C Communists, We literally champion Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che, Sankara, Bishop, Foster, Hall, Il-Sung, Jong-Il, and all the countless other heroes of the people they consider 'scary people'. I'm pretty sure that's much more scary, since they're actively financing Ukraine fascism.
Also transmission belts are a thing.
The issue is when people like Trump or DeSantis are in power the Libs don’t interpret that as liberalism but as fascism-lite and instead of becoming sympathetic to the left, suck up to whatever mediocre savior the DNC puts in front of them. So helping the right wing will probably make deprograming Libs harder, if anything Pete Buttchug running the country as things slowly go to shit would be better optics for us.
So I partially agree, partially disagree with this. I would agree with the first part that the material conditions of the majority of politically conscious liberals predispose them to accept any line from their preferred status quo warriors full hook, line, and sinker. The part I would disagree with is having the goal of deprogramming politically concious libs as their material conditions predispose them to supporting the status quo and any attempt to persuade them otherwise results in, at best, creating well-meaning succdems that fundamental want nothing to change and will backstab you the moment you push too hard, at worst repulse them into outright neoliberal anti-communism where they will support fascist death squads hunting you down.
I will also add on the inverse for politically conscious chuds. Their material conditions also push them back towards the status quo, with any attempt to persuade them usually results in at best weirdly conservative succdems - think Trudovik with Right SR characteristics - or at worst the fascist death squads that that neoliberal anti-communists empower to hunt you down.
I would argue the ideal target for for agitation is the generally apolitical worker with whom it doesn't really matter if they unconsciously lean towards liberals or conservatives as they're more interested in improving their material conditions over bickering in the world of pure idealism that is American political theater.
To tie this into where you said...
Honestly all this just backs up my theory that the left is in a shit spot where there’s not really any immediate action we can take that doesn’t have a high chance of just making things worse for us. The only real course of action is trying to predict the future and prep for action then.
I would argue in disagreement in that there's always actions that the Communist and Anarchist Left can take that has tangible benefits. This is accomplished by entering critical and supporting workplaces and actively agitating for collective unionization to materially improve the living conditions of your coworkers, or entering into critical and supporting workplaces that has weak unions and growing a more radical wing out of the discontented workers to supplant the union leadership that collaborates with the boss with more militant - and hopefully socialist - leadership. This, and all the other kinds of organizing work - be they tenant's unions, unemployed unions, non-profit insurance companies, ethnic community centers, youth education programs, food distribution centers, etc. - is the real substantive work that builds the power of the Communist and Anarchist Left in America. Continuing on to some other bits of your comment...
If there’s photos of you marching with some anti-vaxx YTer named “EpicKek” who supports Russia cuz the thinks Zelensky is a secretly-trans Satanist pedophile, there’s no way you can really explain away that.
I'll be blunt on this, your primary targets at any sort of political event is the people that attend protest events and not any of the organizers themselves, if your group is not also directly organizing the event. Ideally your goal would be to have agitprop pamphlets that's targeted to your audience and educates them with material facts that would point them towards taking a more knowledgeable anti-war position other than whatever claptrap theyve heard before. This could include facts about how this war started in 2014 and was planned for in '91, or playing to their biases and slipping in subtle messages such as "Both Communist China and North Korea support Russia in their war against Biden's NATO globalists and their nazi dogs in Ukraine, which is why Biden is constantly trying to start wars with all of them." And you take those pamphlets and larp as a trotskyite for a hot minute and hand them out as far as you can.
And a final note,
That’s shit you can keep on the DL.
No duh lmao nobody wants to get their ass kicked for being a larper. You should operate with subterfuge in mind. Which is why I referenced transmission belts.
im just a bit lib
Not the strong argument you think it is here while posturing as the pure socialist
You can’t have your cake and eat it to oh pure one who dabbles just a bit in liberalism
Any prioritization of optics above your revolutionary defeatist duty is liberalism yes
Yes you do, you refuse to participate in a mass movement against imperialist war machine because it would “look bad” on the “left”
It is your duty as a member of the imperial core to sabotage your own nation’s ability to make war in any way possible, regardless of whether it results in collapse, barbarism, socialism or anything else. Your first duty to the people of the world is to bring down your own beast and stop it’s attacks
Those “imperialists” are calling to defund CIA and abolish NATO currently and pulling crowds
Loud mouth morons who happen to be saying something reasonable even if it is for all the wrong reasons?
It’s like voting in the guy who wants to murder kittens cuz you want to get the guy who murders puppies out of office.
No. Nobody is voting. It is like saying killing kittens is bad with some people who probably think killing puppies is ok. They aren't even killing puppies.
when they say we should go to war with China I will protest them with the democrats who will be against that war
That’s not true, I am organizing with ANSWER Coalition, The People’s Forum, PSL, CodePink in a principled event to demand peace. Not a bunch of fascists, libertarians, and patsoc grifters.
So lets get this straight for everyone reading this,
This persons response to the fact that "red/brown alliances are bad" is "nothing can be done without allying with fascists".
So in other words, our hero here want a repeat of what happened to all the communists, bless their hearts, who tried a red/brown alliance in
nazilandg*rmany during the mid 20th century.What a fucking genius.
:amerikkka-clap: :amerikkka-clap: :amerikkka-clap:
doing something automatically being better than doing nothing is some liberal :brainworms: that some of us apparently still need to work on
don't pour water on a grease fire y'know?
I'd rather be alone in my house than not alone in my house with Tucker Carlson.
If the only option to defeat fascists is to align with different fascists, then it's time for the nukes to fly.
The fascists are whoever is currently in charge of the globe spanning fascist empire, and it is currently the Liberal Democrats acting most fascistic with their warmongering
Quite convenient of you, a comfortable member of the core, to absolve yourself of all responsibility and demand total destruction of everything instead of putting in any effort in uncomfortable coalition building with those who are aligned with your interests currently
And it's the petty sore losers of the core who feel their power slipping that demand the nuclear war, you warmonger
Except there is an anti-war left, several people in this thread have given examples of anti-war protests organized by actual leftists, they just don't have the platform of Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard, because they're actual principled communists and not grifters.
the empire is liberal. It really diminishes the danger of fascism to just call everyone right wing a fascist.
Fascism isn't just when you're racist violently
Wrong. The American empire is fascist to everyone at the business end of their gun. You are just on the good side of it, so you don’t care.
Democrats are fascists. America is fascist.
Liberalism is violent and exploitative that gun is being used to further the ends of liberalism
When I say something isn't fascist I do not mean that it is good I mean that it is not fascist
America is fascist. In every sense. Fascism doesn’t seem like fascists to those coddled in its embrace
fascism is a very specific idea of how society should be run that is admittedly hard to define but does involve a belief in a societal militarism revolving around a conflict of races whereby only some races have a right to exist that also involves the systematic rooting out and killing of those seen as lesser or subversive.
America is not fascist America is liberal. Liberalism is also horrific
America is fascist in the actual sense, you just are inside the core so you cannot see what it really is.
it is currently the Liberal Democrats acting most fascistic with their warmongering
Sorry but this is just straight up not true. Not because liberals aren't bloodthirsty imperialists, but because right wingers are currently talking about "a throne of Chinese skulls" while gearing up to do Krystalnacht 2 on trans people. There is no cooperation there that doesn't end in mass graves.
I mean, unless you're signatory to the Grand Red/Brown Alliance Treaty all you're doing is giving brown shirts the power to alter your policy choices by doing whatever they want.
Let me, for this comment, speak officially as a cadre of the party. This is purely my opinion and perspective that is resulting from my own personal experience, that is to say what I've seen and what I've heard.
The Party of Communists USA is unilaterally against American Imperialism and any attempt of NATO expansionism into Ukraine. On this critical, and singular, issue that can lead to a world war and nuclear extinction - we have cooperated or participated with any political organization that has this goal as well. This means that if there is a pan-left united front in California that is primarily organized by Trotskyite parties that is organizing anti-war protests, which there is, then PCUSA will participate in coalition to grow the west coast anti-war sentiments, which it has. This means if PSL was organizing an anti-war protest on the east coast against further funding of the Ukraine War and encourages everyone to come and march with them, which they did, then PCUSA will join their protest event and help agitate against the war with them other groups, which it has. If a because by the circumstance of a blue ghoul is in the white house causing a war leads a bunch of hogs and burned out bernie bros to organize an anti-war rally, then any members of PCUSA around there may go there to educate and agitate the people that go there to adopt more anti-war and anti-fascist positions than whatever's planned to be said there.
Secondly, and this is still with my cadre hat on, neither the politburo nor the central committee has made any decision on this because thats a completely irrelevant topic of discussion that would waste valuable time. All clubs can reserve their opinions on the topic and can choose what actions they wish to take to further accomplish their tasks, be that focusing on anti-war agitation, researching historical documents to compile books, entering club members into workplaces with the purpose of unionizing them, doing agitprop art projects, or generally vibing if they're a sole member in an isolated area.
If you have any follow-up questions, or witty comments feel free to state them, be they general or official
Official hat on, I'll forward your comment to the Social Media Department. the split of the ultra-left faction hit the SMD the hardest since all of the splitters were terminally online leftists that manned our internet stuff, which is a shame since they were quite good at it.
And since you tacked on that edit, I'll add that insofar as I am aware on the west coast, when the CPI leadership dissolved itself on the east coast then Maupin undissolved CPI, the west coast CPI split between a few maupin loyalists and quite a few more people that wanted to wash their hands of the group and decided to do their own thing. The group that decided to go their own way are a portion of the pan-left anti-war group ran by Trotskyites and by proximity are the only, formerly associated, 'maupinite' group the party has worked indirectly with since the very fun revelation about his behavior was revealed.
Official hat on, you're welcome. It can take months for any changes to departments by their membership bodies. Additionally it also depends on the individuals composing the collective. An example of this would be that a lot of people would be more affable to the work done by the party LGBT committee (they're working on translating and compiling works of Magnus Hirschfeld) , or the party Animal Rights Committee (they're :im-vegan: ) and some people might not be affable towards other party committees.
The person saying the event is good and should be supported turning out to support the event isn't exactly a gotcha
Yeah totally, it's cool to form an "anti-war coalition" with a bunch of people frothing at the mouth for a US-China war.
We live in a fascist nation filled with fascist imperialists on both sides of the fake political spectrum. Any opposition to war is going to temporarily align with whatever fascist party is out of power, that is no reason not to oppose imperialist war
You had no problem rallying with libertarians in 2001 to oppose the Iraq War because the GOP was in power, so the DNC nag at the back of your head was soothed. Now it’s blaring alarm bells and it still has power over you, you still have residual liberalism holding you down
JFC, I'm not arguing against oppossing the war, quit putting words in my mouth. Starting a coalition with a group of people banging the war drums against China isn't anti-war, it's arguing for the bureaucraric reallocation of resources to another front. This is not opposing war. The only thing will functionally accomplish is laundering the reputation of a bunch of right-wingers who, when the time comes for war with China, will be able to hold up their credentials as having been against "the bad war", so you can trust them when they support "the good war". And they will say "see, even the left knows I'm trustworthy" and show everyone a picture of you and them holding hands.
And no, I didn't have a problem with the Libertarian Party opposing the Iraq War because I was a fucking 13 year old. I've since grown up and realized that you actually aren't going to get many working class people to buy into your message when they see you in a partnership with people who think the minimum wage and labor protections should be abolished.
How is calling for the abolition of NATO and the CIA furthering war towards China?
The Iraq war had a better anti-war movement than the current state of the US, so maybe you should take lessons of mass movements from them and stop being a purity scold, a perfect example of the isolating idealist failures of the western left
Yes I think they are serious about their list of demands. If a mass movement forms around a platform of demands, you must take it seriously
You are just loading up all these assumptions. I don’t agree that the movement at these rallies wants a war with China
Isolationism and an end to empire. And to spend their tax money on their own country for once.
We don’t need to work with them beyond ending the NATO proxy war and throwing a wrench in the war machine.
It’s telling that you, again, prioritize your own domestic political agenda over stopping imperialist war and damaging the empire you are part of. Your priorities are just wrong, and you fundamentally do not see stopping the war as a worthy goal by itself. You are acting chauvinistically
Oh, Lt. Col. Tulsi Gabbard is for the dissolution of the CIA and NATO? That's quite a view for an active US Army Officer.
The Iraq war had a better anti-war movement than the current state of the US, so maybe you should take lessons of mass movements from them and stop being a purity scold, a perfect example of the isolating idealist failures of the western left
Yeah, how did that go. Did you stop the Iraq War?
First off I would argue you're confusing the bumbling hogs with the ghoul sheepdogs that want to herd them.
Second off they're frothing at the mouth to stop a US-Russia war in the here and now.
While I'm in complete disagreement with Alaskaball here, this is a stupid fucking comment and you should delete it. Stop fedjacketing people you disagree with.
They will not because they do not exist as a remotely coherent ideological unit within the U.S. They have no actual political structures to draw from, no real backing or base of support, and it takes years of de-programming to get people to think in an even remotely principled left-wing manner, let alone begin to organize and execute a political agenda on those principles.
pessimism
Shit like this makes me doomer as hell. A bunch of millionaires leading weirdos protesting the war, not because it’s imperialist infighting, but because it’s woke and gay or some other nonsense.
The people who said “never again” after the Iraq war have 0 interest in that principle. What is to be done? “Organize” the 5 random people in your neighborhood, 1 of them being an FBI informant? What does that even look like? Stand in front of the embassy? Yell at some politicians who are dusting their $6000 suit as they walk to work? Aside from straight killing somebody, all this shit seems pointlessly performative.
1 of them being an FBI informant
if we all organized the 5 people in our neighborhood they'd eventually run out of agents :think-about-it:
I don't care about their workings out they got the right answer
Nobody likes any of these people. Other than ron paul, only like 0.25% of the country knows about any of these goons
reporting on them just makes actual leftists look crazy which is an objective of the state department
I agree but these speakers aren't leftists
I'd rather not have my political opinions associated with right-wing antivaxxers
That's not how movements work. People who agree on the issue being able to work towards a shared goal even if they disagree fundamentally about everything else is a sign of a successful campaign.
The anti-vietnam war movement wasn't all leftists either
Yeah, that would be true if we weren't talking about fascists. Theres no good that will ever come from joining a movement with fascists
reverse night of long knives, but if we had the ability to do that we could just do it without the fake teamup
Interesting, most of the residents of the third world are terrorized by the imperialist fascist empire regardless of which imperialist fascist party is in charge
Those are good things, sure, but what exactly is the strategy for how this group hopes to achieve them? Making demands that you have no power to back up is pointless idealism.
The BLM marches were at least willing to use force to make their point, this event is just "Hey pls stop your massively profitable war because we're asking nicely
Yeah dude, protesting against police murder is definitely the same thing as the going to a rally with Tulsi Gabbard, Jimmy Dore and the Libertarian party.
Yeah dude, protesting against imperialism and world war 3 is definitely the same thing as the going to a rally with Kamala Harris, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party
A nationwide movement with aims like "stop killing black people" or "spend less money on cops" is being a lot more realistic than a handful of cranks saying "disband NATO."
Looks like a pretty clear message of ending the war, not a whole bunch of other stuff that's obviously never going to happen. Also doesn't look to be run by chud grifters lol.
The difference is that the people involved are actually reputable (afaik). If they got concessions, it wouldn't be chud grifters negotiating what those concessions look like. Personally, I don't like the tendency for protests to have broad, general demands with no plan for achieving them, but I can put up with it if it's people on my side saying it, because if they ever need to negotiate their actual demands I can trust them to do so.
These are all good and even MORE “unrealistic” (according to you), I would say “broad”, than the other anti-war rally. That makes it better not worse, you must’ve never gotten off your ass and protested anything.
Ah, the classic, "If you're not on board with this specific protest with extremely sus leadership you're completely worthless," tact. That kind of thing just tells me that you're opposed to the idea of vetting movements altogether, which confirms to me that I can safely disregard your perspective.
Faux red-brown alliance anti war rally? Sounds fucked up
There has been a failure of the American "left" to occupy this space first. the democratic party (including Bernie and "The Squad" ) is unanimous in their support of NATO's imperialist proxy war, fails to understand (or deliberately ignores) any history before february 2022, and AOC even dismissed anti-war people at her own town hall meeting as "Larouchites".
Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad are both correct about this conflict, but there isn't any activism to rally around their perspective. So the contrarian right who think Putin is based trad homophobe christian leader and supports Russia to own the libs (rather than being sincerely against NATO) have taken to shitting up the discourse and occupying the space that should be occupied by the anti-war left. The crisis of unipolar US-led globalization have broken the brains of the American "left."
There isn't an American left in mainstream politics. If you mean the american left parties, then they have all been uniformly anti war, but thet are tiny and no one listens to them; even the shit CPUSA national org has had a strong anti nato anti ukraine war line. The only time you see Americans in general organize in significant numbers for an anti war position is when it actively involves American citizens fighting and dying. Talking about the "American left" as a coherent entity is like talking about fucking unicorns.
There was so much hope in the old sub as people like AOC and Sanders were trying to win. They hadn't seen it before. Every "left" politician in the US bends the knee to the point of giving up on even the milquetoast slightly-left things they said when they were new.
I should have known better lol. I knew all about George Bush stealing the election, COINTELPRO and all that shit. But man, when Bernie starting pulling real numbers and getting results right out of the gate (which would have carried any other candidate to victory off pure media attention alone) I could feel the hopium. Normal people I knew in real life were talking about nonprofit healthcare and shit because every candidate was forced to ape Bernie's position on it.
I think if sanders had won we might have seen something. Like I don't think the world would have shifted overnight, but that kind if success for a left wing movement might have given some coherence to the real energy that was there and the desperate desire for change that everyone still feels. Unfortunately getting owned by the dems really just scattered anything that might have been. I don't think an electoral strategy is possible anymore, it is too discredited by sanders loss; assuming electoralism was ever really viable to begin with, a sentiment I am partial to thinking it wasn't really.
Fair enough, and my apologies for calling you out. I guess I am just tired of endless pessimism and your post was unlucky enough to trigger me.
:this: yeah, that's the problem when the US "lefts" most prominent public figures are social fascists with no understanding of internationalism let alone understanding imperialism
So when a candate deliberately leaves out a foreign policy tab in thier issues page that's a big red flag.
Using the fucking term "Larouchites" makes me realize how AOC has to know by now how compromised she is and beholden to the power structures the democratic party has created to fucking smother anything tangentially left.
Exactly. The American left/radical liberals did some vote triangulation politics nonsense to support the war because they don't want to lose the support of liberals and the democratic party, who they got into bed with. They put out one very mild anti war statement (that letter from the squad) to test the waters, saw the push back from liberals and immediately withdrew their statement.
Teaming up with democrats will cause the death of social progressive and more left wing views. Once democrats can't hold minorities hostage by holding their human rights over their heads, they will lose their votes too, little by little. This gives the "third way" (we all know what that is) a perfect opportunity to strike.
This is what I can piece together as a non American.
have taken to shitting up the discourse and occupying the space that should be occupied by the anti-war left
Ok but isn't it a good thing that someone is occupying the space.
someone is occupying the space.
no, because as I said, the right's """anti-war""" position is more out of a contrarian admiration of Putin and there is no sincere anti-imperialism among the right.
wall of text if you care about this
They support Putin against "d3generate globohomo judeobolshevism" and other such nonsense spectres they've conjured up in their own heads. If you go to the right spaces on the internet (corners of 4chan for instance) you can see this in action, but you can also see it on Tucker Carlson. The American, Canadian, British and European right have taken to thinking of their own governments and international institutions as Communist conspiracies (despite enormous evidence to the contrary). They do not oppose the actual existing privileges of unipolar western hegemony, they just hate it when they see a NATO official wave a rainbow flag and they support Putin who they see as a based anticommunist Christian crusader fighting Satanism or something. They have an incoherent narrative. Meanwhile, "respectable liberals" who support these imperialist institutions have to convince their voters that imperialism is actually progressive, hence the bad-faith attempt to pretend their proxy war against Russia is about protecting progressive European values. Hence the pinkwashing of imperialism, the attempt to falsely gain support for imperialism by pretending these imperialist institutions are progressive, or attempting to support feminism/LGBT. This strategy dates to the 19th century, when British imperialism in Afghanistan and French imperialism in Africa were framed as attempts to liberate women from backwards cultures, and so on. There is a yin-yanging between the bourgeois liberals and conservatives in the imperial core, for lack of a better term. the conservative bourgeoisie will falsely appear progressive for being "anti-war" for contrarian and absurd reasons. The liberals bourgeoisie will support imperialism while appearing to support bringing "human rights" to the "backwards east" with "lethal aid."
The real cause of this war is complicated. Russia was a source of cheap energy for Europe. Nordstream Pipeline brought natural gas to Germany in a cheap, predictable way without fluctuating price points. The Germans then sold it to other Europeans. However America wanted to sell Europe liquid natural gas. Problem is, it's expensive, has to be shipped by boat, and fluctuates in price. Europe didn't actually want that shit. So they sought out Russian energy because it was cheaper. Meanwhile Ukraine was about to tighten its relationship with Russia in 2014. President Yanukovych was faced with a choice between a $17 billion high interest IMF loan that came with strings attached (anti-labor measures, austerity, deregulation, imperialist looting of natural resources, the usual), or a Russian aid package that was $15 billion, lower interest, and came with cheap energy deals. He chose the Russian aid package. So America couped him, brought Poroshenko (president) and Yatsenyuk (prime minister) to power. Poroshenko helped integrate nazi gangs into the Ukrainian military, who were receiving training and weapons from America through the CIA front National Endowment for Democracy. Meanwhile Yatsenyuk canceled the Russian aid deal and took the IMF loan, plunging ukraine into poverty, putting Ukrainian farm land into the hands of foreign (US-allied) companies, etc. The communist party of Ukraine was banned in 2015 for being "Russian influenced." The Russian language was no longer to be taught in public schools despite a significant population in the Southeastern half the country speaking it as a first language, and so on. Crimea held a referendum to become part of Russia. It passed. Russia annexed Crimea. Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine started their own separatist movements and the government began a civil war against Donetsk and Luhansk that saw the Odessa massacre in a trade union hall , as well as the shelling of Donetsk with artillery. So only after 8 years of civil war did Russia finally invade Ukraine when the threat of Ukraine joining NATO (NATO membership usually involves US stationing bases/weapons in Ukraine, close to Moscow) reached a fever pitch. The main cause of the war is US financial interference in Ukraine, and NATO expansion. Both NATO and Russia are attempting to have influence in Ukraine, but the escalation arguably began with the coup in 2014. I don't know much about the orange revolution in 2004, but some have pointed to that as also a US-backed color revolution. And to an extent, the privatization of the Russian economy by Yeltsin was also US-backed, since the USA poured billions into Yeltsin's election campaign, and supported his shelling of the Russian parliament. So the aggression on NATO's part goes back decades.
Yes every part of how they got to their position is backwards and stupid but as Putin isn't actually doing the war to repress foreign gay rights I'm not going to take that seriously
if they accidentally harm American imperial interests out of misguided bigotry I am still going to take the damage to imperial interests as a win
if they accidentally harm American imperial interests out of misguided bigotry
not what is happening. For them to harm American imperial interests, they would have to actually be opposed to them in a non-symbolic way. But their opposition is purely symbolic.
they are opposed to the war in Ukraine. Blocking money to the Ukraine war isn't symbolic it's real
ah, but that's the sleight of hand. They'd rather be in a proxy war with China over Taiwan instead! Also another reason their opposition is purely symbolic is that it's a partisan opposition rather than a political opposition. If Ron DeSantis or Dan Crenshaw got elected tomorrow and continued escalating, I don't think they wouldn't care anymore.
Yeah but China isn't going to invade Taiwan and Taiwan is more resistant to US demands than Ukraine. For example Taiwan refused to toe the US policy line over Tibet
China isn’t going to invade Taiwan
Taiwan isn't an independent country. It's part of China. This is acknowledged by the UN. So the entire logic of the country invading itself is an invention of US foreign policy.
Taiwan and Taiwan is more resistant to US demands than Ukraine. For example Taiwan refused to toe the US policy line over Tibet
True, but that doesn't change the fact that the """anti-war""" right wing in the US are more mad about the emphasis of US foreign policy than they are about US imperialism in general. It doesn't change the fact that their opposition is mostly to spending on the wrong war rather than spending on war at all. The """anti-war""" right is absolutely fine with NATO expansion and defense budget ballooning, they just hate when liberals spend money instead of them. This is the subject of the conversation. There is no real reason to build a coalition with these people or even critically support them when they do the """right thing""" for the wrong reasons.
Taiwan isn’t an independent country. It’s part of China. This is acknowledged by the UN. So the entire logic of the country invading itself is an invention of US foreign policy.
Not that relevant a distinction pretty clearly whatever they are they have their own separate miltary and don't do what the Chinese government says.
True, but that doesn’t change the fact that the “”“anti-war”“” right wing in the US are more mad about the emphasis of US foreign policy than they are about US imperialism in general
yes but in order to be against something in general you must be against it in the specific. They are anti this war and until the next war that means they are anti war
They are anti this war and until the next war that means they are anti war
ask them if they want to decrease the defense budget or end NATO and see where that goes. They don't care about the root cause of it. They want to snip a branch (for the entirely wrong reasons) but they'll scream bloody murder if you try to pull the plant out by its roots.
that is true. But it is also true that the branch of it needs to go
also their reasons don't matter they don't amount to anything more than contrarianism
also their reasons don’t matter they don’t amount to anything more than contrarianism
this is where i disagree fundamentally. Two people can identify the same problem, but will believe the problem is a problem for very different reasons, and offer very different solutions as a result. Because of that context, their reactionary solutions to the problem they have identified are horrible, and will make things worse, and they should not be permitted to steer the conversation or be supported as they fight to gain control of the situation.
the solutions they have suggested are to cut off funding. Do you have a better idea if so I would legitimately love to hear it
they want to shift funding to fighting China, not cut it off. this conversation is going in circles.
There isn't a war with China nor is there likely to be in the immediate future
What do you mean? The US is constantly escalating tensions with China because it views China as its main geopolitical and ideological competitor. the US military is planning for war with China as early as 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy5FALVrULM
it's a shame, because while I hope you're right, I can see with my own eyes that America is slowly surrounding China with military bases and aircraft carriers, they are already supplying Taiwan (internationally recognized as Chinese territory) with weapons and training. Japan is re-militarizing for the first time since WW2, and a former CIA director and several war hawks have co-authored a series of articles in foreign policy magazine on how to escalate and prepare for war with China. So it seems to me this "saber rattling" is getting very very serious
Yeah it is serious but it's more along the lines of US aggression to the soviet union than Iraq. China scares them enough that they won't straight up have US soldiers try and kill Chinese people directly
You can always tell the boomers and GenX because they grew up with this shit and can recognize it from a block away.
I'm not young. I grew up with this shit. It is precisely growing up with this shit that makes me truly believe America is an increasingly unhinged rogue state planning for war with China. It is precisely growing up with this shit that makes me not trust when the American right, who cheerleaded the destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen, suddenly pretend to be """"anti-war"""". i don't buy it
This would 1) push Russia and China even further together in a Eurasian military alliance bloc and 2) Make the US look unstable and unhinged to the rest of the world.
Overall, a better outcome for anti-imperialism than the US competently isolating and destroying Russia.
The US military empire is becoming increasingly riddled with contradictions and incompetent, and swapping back and forth between parties hinders their plans when they undo things out of contrarianism
This would 1) push Russia and China even further together in a Eurasian military alliance bloc and 2) Make the US look unstable and unhinged to the rest of the world.
1 and 2 are both already happening regardless of what the american """"anti-war"""" right achieves
they should not be permitted
Permitted? They need to pass an ideological barrier to advance material causes? Who is doing the permitting? Seems like most people here have an attachment to some notion of allowing or disallowing change based on their own ideological basis. We don't get to make that choice, as materialists we ought to critically support causes which move the needle away from imperialism regardless of intent or ideology, there is no coalition, only critical support for a cause which we both happen to support. This is how politics work, should Deng not have opened relations with the U.S in order to preserve an intangible ideological integrity? No of course not, you have to advance your interests even if it means working with those that do not share your goals.
we ought to critically support causes which move the needle away from imperialism
the """"anti-war"""" reactionaries aren't doing that though.
Permitted? They need to pass an ideological barrier to advance material causes? Who is doing the permitting?
we are by not advancing a true anti-war movement to combat their fake movement that sucks all the oxygen out of the room
Ron Paul whatever you may think of him is not a fascist. Fascism proposes that war and the profits from it are the primary engine of technological progress and modernisation. A fascist would not be anti-war. The fascists like the proud boys went and fought in Ukraine
Eh, libertarians in the US are just a different kind of fascist as far as im concerned. They're pro-apartheid because of the fig leaf of "property rights" but really theyre just rascists, "anti-war" but only because theyre isolationist who don't understand where the treats come from. The reason they don't support empire is because they think treats materialize from atlas shrugged style industrialists and not from imperial exploitation of the global south. Ron Paul has always been full of shit and a racist clown.
The US empire isn't fascist either it is liberal. Liberalism includes the violent economic exploitation of the global south for imperial benefit a notable example of such a liberal state would be the British empire.
fascism is a specific ideological framework which is incompatible with libertarianism. Both of them are bad but not equally so and it's incorrect to lump them in together
I don't get pedantic when it comes to fash. Its fash all the way down. Liberals are just fash who don't know it yet, but will be in a crisis of capital. Social democracy is the left wing of fascism etc.
that's not not being pedantic it's just being wrong. Fascists love to be lumped in as just another part of the liberal machine
liberals don't magically turn into fascists when capital hits a crisis. When there is a threat of Communism capital will seek safety from violent fascists these will not be the exact same people
calling liberals fascist is barely more politically literate than calling the security guard at the mall fascist for pissing you off
Okay cool. But why do you care about defending libertarians, especially Ron Paul of all people?
If you accused Ron Paul of being Jack the Ripper i would defend him because what you're accusing him of is blatently false.
There are many legitimate reasons to criticise the man and libertarians but that doesn't make them a fascist.
calling everyone you don't like a fascist undermines your ability to call out fascists like Nick Fuentes and makes them seem like just another part of the right wing. Similar to how republicans calling everything socialist has removed a lot of stigma over the word socialist
The conservative movement that championed Barry Goldwater (who shares Ron Pauls "principled" stance against civil rights) and Ronald Reagan was a crypto-fascist white supremacist movement. After Reagan it became the mainstay of conservative politics in this country. I have a hard time not seeing Nick Fuentes as just another part of the right wing in the US since the right wing in the US has been crypto-fascist my whole life. I think libertarians are completely full of shit about what they believe and that they don't deserve defense just because they pretend to be against US empire sometimes. Is crypto-fash better than fash? I guess, but does it matter? Personally, I don't think so.
You disagree with calling Ron Paul a fascist. Okay. I get that there are differences between the different types of liberals, especially if you want to be specific correct. He's racist, homophobic, antiabortion, he's fought to uphold white supremacist patriarchy his entire life. He is still against the civil rights act. He's against US empire because of archaic isolationist beliefs (ask him about the gold standard lol) and because he thinks taxation is theft and feels agreived that so much money goes to that. So, what does that make him to you? And why is it important to defend libertarians here?
No Reagan was a neoliberal white supremacist. Being racist, white supremacist, anti-abortion, sexist etc are not on their own fascist although they are very much in line with fascism.
fascism is a very specific idea of how society should be run that is admittedly hard to define but does involve a belief in a societal militarism revolving around a conflict of races whereby only some races have a right to exist that also involves the systematic rooting out and killing of those seen as lesser or subversive. That is not Ron Paul but it is Nick Fuentes and the fact you can't see that is terrifying
Reagan began a system of mass impoverishment for black Americans. A fascist would have rounded up and killed them do you see the difference and why I say it is dangerous to conflate them
I think theres a lot less difference between Reagan, Paul, and Fuentes than you do. I'm not saying theres no differnces, I'm just not sure that those differences matter the way you do. I guess because Reagan would have happily rounded up black people and killed them if he could have, and Ron Paul would have been happy to join.
No Reagan wouldn't have rounded up black people to be killed he wanted them as an economic underclass to be exploited and wanted to take away power from black communities that could have been used to challenge capital. He wanted to do these things because he was racist yes but he wasn't an exterminationist. Violent white supremacy does not on it's own qualify as fascist things can be terrible while not being fascist
take the AIDS crisis. A homophobic neoliberal such as Reagan would ignore it as they don't care enough about gay people to affect their belief in the government not being responsible for people's welfare. A fascist would blame the gays, Jews etc and have them all killed
Okay. It sounds like splitting hairs between different kinds of fascists to me, but i respect that these definitions matter to you comrade. Thanks for the discussion :fidel-salute:
I encourage you to read more leftist theory about what fascism is and how it works.
I respect your rightful anger at Ron Paul and Reagan who are unmistakably ghouls
That's an awful lot of effort to put into sabotaging a movement that does not exist
Im suprised Yang isn't getting in on this sheepdog/grifter convention
Tulsi's gonna be there though, they can't have too many walkaway types or the grift will be too obvious for even chuds to ignore.
Yeah, besides, being anti-war probably isnt "forward" enough for Yang
True, but he's also pro-attention/pro grifting so it wouldn't suprise me if he showed up anywhere lol. But, yeah he's more mainline in his positions (to the extent those positions mean anything) than this crowd.
Great I hope they achieve all of these goals and no other goals
there is no generic anti-war politics at all there is only being against each individual war
Ignore our revolutionary defeatist duty? Live comfy in the core? Sit around online and let the 3rd world rot? Send our taxes to kill Donbas civilians in Ukraine?
Are you just a straight up pro-war Natoid because you’re starting to sound like one?
Russia and the anti-imperialist bloc, and all those within the imperialist bloc who cause it any hinderance or damage in its ability to make war
They are temporarily the second group, the one you cut off from my comment and didn’t address. They are hindering the US empire and it’s ability to make war, so they are temporarily correct and deserve critical support in this rally as long as they stick to their stated platform. I’ll attend all these rallies if they exert any pressure on the US government to withdraw from its proxy war
:jesse-wtf:
This message and account will delete itself in an hour. From 9:30 PM Estern time to 10:30
lmao touch grass :data-laughing:
edit: I presume you're talking about this article. I find your "secrecy" hilarious but I will read it in good faith.
IIRC they were saying that people who had a problem with the Rage Against the War Machine rally platforming reactionary rhetoric were either useful idiots for America or an actual op by the American government (though I might have that backwards tbh their comment was kinda cryptic). Their substack is full of stuff calling the PSL and other orgs CIA infiltrators, and tbh I don't even necessarily disagree with every criticism they make of the PSL I just think that the CIA allegations are unsubstantiated and that the tone and focus of the author in all of their posts is so internet brained that it's completely disconnected from reality. Like yes, Veterans for Peace has a lot of liberals in it and leading it, great investigative reporting there comrade.
I honestly have no clue why they tagged the people they tagged. Maybe because we commented a way they liked or didn't like in a thread about it?
I'm sorry but it's hard to take you serious when I'm reading the first paragraph of a multi-page epic substack essay and you're unironically spelling it "amerika".
Yet the thread on that pure rally is filled with more people like you calling it impure and associated with grifters and nitpicking it.
anti war right
That is such a fucking weird phrase to read.
How did it come to this?
lol this is the one endorsed by Posobiec and CPI weirdos.
Totally normal and safe. And normal.
I don't know how anyone here can have existed during the Trump era and genuinely think these fucking goons are "anti-war".
They're anti-Democrat they don't give any actual fucks about war and imperial slaughter. If they had a coherent worldview they'd be the most pro-war people on Earth.
Tbh, I'm getting major flashbacks to the astroturfed Tea Party rally against Healthcare back in the day.
I doubt any anti-War in Ukraine movement is going to get anywhere. There are not many Americans dying there. It's just :brrrrrrrrrrrr: at the moment.
Even the economic impact on the US has been far less compared to Europe.
This post doesn't need 300+ fucking comments. I'll just say this:
Unless your rally is willing enough to engage in rioting or other forms of illegalism and adventurism, then it's nothing more than a glorified parade and a recruitment drive for the orgs that organized the event. This is regardless of whether the rally is a Sanders rally or a pro-Ukraine rally or the "bad" anti-war rally or the "good" anti-war rally. The George Floyd riots were effective precisely because they were just that: riots. Not every BLM rally in 2020 became riots, but it's the threat of rioting that kept the pigs on their toes. Once the ops came in to sabotage the rallies from within as part of a counterinsurgency strategy, then the rallies became glorified parades and hence useless.
The funny thing is, that you can call irl groups “feds”, “deep state”, “infiltrated”, etc. all you want on hexbear.net. But it’s a breach of the rules to do the same to accounts. That’s “fedjacketing”. Anyway I better log off -I have a protest to attend.
Weird how they're not protesting for Russia to end the war immediately by withdrawing. Surely there's no other motivations behind this right?
Why would Americans protest for Russia’s government to do something? That’s just imperialist intrigue. You have no control over other nation’s governments and you shouldn’t be rallying with your own against the enemies of your empire. It’s correct of them not to attack Russia.
Nobody is attacking Russia. Defending yourself (and your allies) against an aggressor is always the correct choice. These protestors could be in front of the Russian embassy but strangely enough that's not going to happen. I wonder why?
nobody is attacking russia
NATO expansion
attempted or successful color revolutions in neighbors of russia: Syria, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan...
I wonder why every neighbor of Russia is being absorbed into NATO or turned into a battlefield
:LIB:
I agree recognizing Russia defending the Donbass republics from NATO armed Ukrainian neo-nazis should be at the forefront of the American anti-war movement
I mean, I know they're operating in bad faith, but this is logically sound. They're protesting their government for actions they can control. Why would they be protesting in Washington for Russia to end the war?
People around the world rightfully protested against the Iraq war, you can argue both ways.
Largely those protests were to stop their government joining in
"Largely" is putting heavy work here, in the UK for example there was the Stop the war coalition. Remember your history. people actualy protested asking the US to move out of Iraq not just for their tax bucks to stop flowing to the war effort.
you know the stop the war coalition was protesting Blair right. I was there
those people weren't living in the seat of global imperial power, which is arming the fascists on the other side of the conflict
y'all need to read some god damn lenin what the fuck are these liberal takes getting upvotes for here
What the fuck are you people even talking about?
Like read a god damn wiki before briging your witty takes instead? Iraq war protests Feb 2003
Not exhaustive list of cities major cities: Berlin, London, Paris, Madrid, Lisbon, Syndey.
Clearly Germany, UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Australia are not in the seat of the global imperialist center rofl.
I wasn't even argueing in favor of protesting, just the fact there is no "logic" that says you can only protest shit your own government is doing. The war was lead by the US. Only the US had the power to stop the war.
Iraq War was an act of imperialist aggression. The Ukraine conflict is defense against imperialist aggression. It’s fine for those outside an empire to protest an empire attacking others. It’s not OK for those within the empire to rally their own empire to support the war narratives of their own core
Sure. I was only arguing against the logic you can only protest shit your own government is doing. That is clearly no logic at all.
Shit like this makes me doomer as hell. A bunch of millionaires leading weirdos protesting the war, not because it’s imperialist infighting, but because it’s woke and gay or some other nonsense.
daily reminder this country sucks
