If you wanna read my response:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AntifascistsofReddit/comments/l6w37t/alexi_navalni/glo5j8y?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
it's personal
sure love to project my feelings of personal aggrievement onto the war machine that holds me and everyone I know underwater!
Antifascistsofreddit is one of those three arrow subs that knew what the third arrow was when they made it. Marginally more tolerable than r/againsthatesubreddits but the subreddit has always been insufferably radlib.
um ackshully sweatie we should defeat Nazis by attacking the people who defeated the Nazis. The kind of antifascists who will sell their neighbours to the regime for bread.
The kind of antifascists who will sell their neighbours to the regime
*because the law says so, "I'm a good person, I follow the laws"
Supporting a Color Revolution to install a fascist to own the Maga guys
"Neither Moscow nor Washington" That's why we are going to only support Washington-backed stooges, to show how neutral we are
I thought antifa was an explicitly anarchist/socialist thing, what with the red and black flags in the logo. But OP isn’t even a socialist based off his post history.
So I guess it’s good that libs are joining radical antifascist movements, but it’s also really shitty that they get to scold actual long-time activists as Russian agents and just generally project their shitty American-exceptionalism
The only thing they do is muddle/coopt the whole thing ruining it, just like when they started dancing in the BLM protests. Then a kid or someone totally ignorant of politics get interested, find that coopted shit and think this is how it is.
Libs ruin everything. Libs ruin everything.
There’s this really stupid multi-panel image called “death of a hobby” or something like that, and it’s basically this incel chart that details the stages of how nerdy hobbies /subcultures slowly get coopted and transformed as evil womans and normal people join in
Basically the initial stage is that the hobby is dominated by a dedicated group of hobbyists who know the hobby inside and out, they genuinely enjoy doing it and develop a subculture around it. Then, friends of friends start joining in, but they don’t know the rules and care more about using the hobby as a means to socialize and meet with other people
Eventually, the hobby itself becomes so watered down that the original people leave, going off to start a new thing, where the cycle starts again.
Anyways, I find that if you get rid of the sexism and change it around a little, it can describe how liberals infest and coopt social movements. There may be a few good-natured libs who join BLM thinking they truly do want to participate in black liberation, but since they lack proper material analysis and politics besides “we can fix racism by winning hearts and minds” they just completely miss the point of radical groups, stripping them of their revolutionary character. After a few years, the movement becomes an empty husk you use to hang out with friends and take photos at. The original communist/radicals in the movement then have to leave and join another radical group
If I can find the original image I will link it
After trying to find a little more information about Navalny's nationalist views I came across this buzzfeed listicle and I refuse to be the only one here who has to suffer by seeing it
- He has some quirky hobbies.
Navalny is super into Twitter, Instagram, music and, yes, even Breaking Bad. Hank has Schraderbrau and his mineral collection!
Damn that's so quirky!!!! Then about halfway through they mention how he called Muslims cockroaches but just... keep going as if it was nothing? "Oh yeah btw he's a fucking nazi. But look how bold he is tho 😍"
I mean, Putin is bad, issue is pretty much everyone who could take his place right now is as bad or worse
aah yes, simping a far right fascist to flex on libs, the ultimate move
Is Putin a shitbag? Yes, he is.
Is Navalny a better option? Most likely no, he's just pro-US.
Should we simp for any of them? No, wtf.
That's it.
I think Navalny would be a whole lot worse, if he is truly western-aligned then he might stop supporting China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, etc. like Putin does. Obv, both are capitalist bastards and suck
i'm more concerned with putin's internal politics, which are absolute crap
i would much rather choose to eliminate suffering of tens of millions of russians over stopping aid to iran or some other country...
I get where you are coming from, but I just don’t see why Navalny would stop the suffering of tens of millions of Russians. He’s western-aligned, a nationalist, and a capitalist. He would just be another neoliberal bastard who sells out his country for money. He claims to be anti-corruption and pro-democracy, but those two things don’t suddenly improve the lives of tens of millions of people.
But, since you are actually Russian, you probably understand the situation much better than me, so I could be completely wrong. I don’t want to speak as if I know the political climate in Russia more than an actual Russian
i in turn see where people criticizing navalny on chapo are coming from, but i suspect that most people's knowledge of the situation in russia is distorted, at least partially, in particular, i don't think people realize how much of a capitalist country russia actually is (or at least the class disparity present here), or the level of corruption that is present here: the ruling class of billionaires (with a little bit of millionaires sprinkled in the lower positions), who got rich in the chaotic and unlawful privatization of the 90s, who completely control the press, media, judicial system, who repress people for their political views, who remove funding from welfare programs... people's life expectancy, income, happiness, access to welfare are consistently falling
this is basically ronald raegan and margaret thratcher on steroids with a sprinkle of remnants of the soviet union, in the sense that russia's ruling class doesn't even need to pretend that they're trying to serve it's people..
Navalny's promise is capitalism with fewer restraints. The repression of Putin causes less suffering than the lawless corruption of the "democratic" 90s, when rich oligarchs were allowed to roam free.
Russia needs a revolution. But the time is not yet ripe. The majority of people are apprehensive of change and the leaders urging change are liberal capitalists who'll only make it worse.
most members of the opposition are particularly opposed to 90s economic system, that is, they opposite the unlawful privatization of massive previously public manufacturing plants, corruption among oligarchs and state-owned corporations, which is basically how basically all russia's billionaires were created and the leading cause of problems in russia; navalny and the opposition's views are social-democratic, you are mistaken if this is what you took from analyzing their political agenda...
most members of the opposition are particularly opposed to 90s economic system, that is, they opposite the unlawful privatization of massive previously public manufacturing plants
Opposing it is worthless. The robbery is complete. They do not seek to reverse it.
They're allied with libertarian and conservative parties. They also oppose state subsidies for minority regions of Russia and want to put up barriers with former SU states - those are their nationalist/nativist measures.
Their ideology (from Wiki):
...в будущем и по мере развития, согласно партии, российское государство должно будет взять на себя роль арбитра, отказавшегося от активного вмешательства в общественные отношения, но следящего за тем, чтобы никто не нарушал установленных правил.
В качестве воплощения идеи социального государства партия рассматривает задачу преодоления слишком большого экономического неравенства между россиянами, решение проблемы социальной напряжённости, а также «переход к социальному миру, основанному на принципах справедливости и равенства перед законом всех граждан России».
В экономике партия придерживается центристских взглядов, согласно которым необходимо избегать как полной свободы экономических отношений, которая является причиной слишком большого экономического и социального неравенства, так и распределения общественных благ на уравнительной основе, что является причиной замедления экономического и социального развития.
TL;DR Centrism, centrism, centrism. Non-interventionism.
Any Russian party will support some social democracy. But they're not more social democratic than the status quo and the classes that would support them would be westward-looking capitalists who oppose all government intervention.
Promising to oppose corruption is worthless, too. Ukraine has been trumpeting a total war on corruption and nothing has changed. Corruption is the natural byproduct of capitalism.
He's backed by the US. And then there is a long list of shitty things he has said. In any case, it's not up to me to pick a lesser evil cuz I'm not russian. But what I am sure about is that color revolutions are bad.
In any case, it’s not up to me cuz I’m not russian.
And any color revolution is ultimately bad for the people living there.
well, i am russian, which would mean that the political situation in russia is something tangible to me, as it concerns me directly, and as much as i dislike the us, i would much rather have decent healthcare, housing, freedom of speech, judicial system, welfare at the cost of having a us allied government
i know it's hard to compromise, and yes, navalny does hold controversial nationalistic beliefs on many issues, but it's the best option we have at the moment
this is not that relevant here, navalny himself isn't that involved in the political process per se, as in he doesn't run for state duma or for other legislative bodies, because it's very unlikely he will be let to participate, especially so looking at the recent developments, but he and the fbk are "brewing" a lot of other candidness for various legislative positions, that is FBK supports them in various ways: helping promote them, offering legal help, helping to collect signatures to participate in elections etc etc
he himself may not be popular with the general population, but the majority of russians are fed up with their living conditions, which is shown by the declining rates of support for united russia (the current ruling party), and as a result people are ready to vote for literally anyone else besides united russia members, which is where the aforementioned candidates come in, who have a solid program of action etc etc, and this is for whom people do actually vote
the presidential role is not that important in this case, in the sense that the opposition in russia is focused on occupying and controlling smaller scale, more local government positions, which would in turn allow them to work up the chain so to speak by having more control over making sure the elections are fair etc etc
