I don’t think it’s so much about democracy and freedom as it is about the self-determination of Ukraine and the further security of Europe against an imperialist Russia. But for sure, criticising Ukraine is not easy these days due to exactly those concerns.
What about the self-determination of Donetsk and Luhansk? Their secession from Ukraine following the Banderite coup in 2014 is what sparked the war. Further, Russia isn’t imperialist, it has no colonies nor neocolonies, and is blocked out of the international monopoly of finance capital. Annexation of territory isn’t the same as imperialism. Finally, Russia poses little to no threat to Europe, Europe is pushing this narrative to justify increasing militarization as imperialism as a system is weakening, giving Europe less super-profits extracted from the periphery.
What about the self-determination of Donetsk and Luhansk?
Would you say those secessions happened freely and without armed pressure from Russia?
Russia isn’t imperialist, it has no colonies nor neocolonies, and is blocked out of the international monopoly of finance capital. Annexation of territory isn’t the same as imperialism.
I don’t know about that. As I understand it, imperialism is the pursuit of a state encompassing many nations. Is Russia a nation state?
Finally, Russia poses little to no threat to Europe
I live in a group of European nation states currently experiencing hybrid warfare from Russia, according to what we see with our own eyes and what is reported by both trustworthy state sources and independent media, corporate or not. Russia is clearly not just a threat, but a currently hostile nation.
Nobody in my region wants this war to continue. Ideally everyone would lay down arms and demilitarize (including Europe and the US). For border and independence issues we could look to long term solutions similar to those found in Denmark, where the border disputes with Germany were solved with free and fair referendums, while the independence of Iceland was a collaborative effort between two good faith nations.
The secession of Donetsk and Luhansk maps neatly with how Donetsk and Luhansk voted prior to 2014:
It’s fairly clear that the Donbass region did not appreciate the Banderites couping the president supported by the Donbass.
As for imperialism, it isn’t the pursuit of a single state over many nations, in the modern era it is a stage in capitalist development characterized by the dominance of finance capital (the merger of bank capital and industrial capital) and the proliferation of global monopolies. This forces a system of international extraction in the form of capital export, through systems like the IMF, and backed militarily by systems like NATO. Europe, the US, etc. are imperialist, Russia is not.
As for what you claim to experience, it’s largely government propaganda from capitalist dictatorships. Fascism is rising in Europe because of the decay in imperialism, and fascism needs an enemy. Russia is not interested in attacking Europe and has no reason to do so, unless imperialist organizations like NATO continue to encircle and entrap it.
Funny enough, war with Europe is even less likely now, as Russia has increased economic ties with prospering countries like China, and the US/Ukraine blew up the Nordstream pipeline. Europe has a real potential to gain from Russian LNG, as Europe still needs it, but Russia is doing just fine economically thanks to working with more stable business partners. Russia has nothing to gain from war with Europe.
How do you distinguish the truth from European / capitalist propaganda and Russian propaganda?
I’m happy to re-examine my views of the situation here, but the claims you make do not correspond to any media or state reporting in my region, which includes publicly owned sources, corporate sources and independent sources. Some of that is capitalist propaganda for sure, but a lot of it is clearly aligned against capitalist interests. Yet they report similar hostilities from the Russians, and similar reports on imperialist (in the definition I gave above) agenda from the Russians.
If none of those can be trusted, what can? Only sources outside the EU?
What kind of source on Russian hostilities would change your mind on the matter?
What’s “true” is based on facts and evidence, how we interpret truth causes stark disagreements. How we highlight, omit, and even falsify information all plays a role in changing viewpoints and presenting the same information in different ways. Which sources are reported critically vs. uncritically, etc.
In the context of capitalist states like those found in Europe, both the public and private sectors serve the capitalist class, and as such are not aligned against capitalist interests. The state is not outside class society, but within it.
Independent media is more likely to be anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist, such as The Grayzone and Liberation News. Sources from socialist/progressive governments, like CGTN, TELESUR, and Granma are also obviously anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist. I’m sure there are socialist orgs in Europe doing their own reporting, such as PTB in Belgium.
I’m not sure what you think you can change my mind on, what specifically do you disagree with that I’ve said? Which claims do not correspond to the reality you believe you are seeing?
I’m not sure what you think you can change my mind on, what specifically do you disagree with that I’ve said? Which claims do not correspond to the reality you believe you are seeing?
Not so much interested in changing your mind on something specific, but I think the only valuable version of this conversation is dialectical. Theredore I’m very interested to hear what ways you imagine changing your mind on matters such as the role of Russia in international politics.
If you can’t imagine changing your mind, then I can’t really learn much from the conversation, but if you can, I’d love to hear how, and reconsider my own view.
For clarity, you are referring to dialectics in the traditional Greek sense, and not in the Marxist sense, dialectical materialism? For me, analysis needs to be on the basis of dialectical and historical materialism, and the facts and evidence need to be indisputable.
At the present moment, because Russia doesn’t have the same imperialist role that the west has in the world, the periphery is siding with Russia at increasing rates (though mostly China), and is therefore charting an alternative that allows the periphery to escape the underdevelopment traps the imperial core has set out for them. In this manner, Russia is playing a progressive role in undermining imperialism, not advancing it.
Ukraine, as a tool used by the west without care for the lives lost, is presently under a Banderite regime engaged in repressions against the Donbass region. The west is harvesting Ukraine for resources and using it as a battering ram to weaken Russia, in order to get Russia to concede to imperialist domination like what happened in the 90s after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
For clarity, you are referring to dialectics in the traditional Greek sense
Yes, in the sense that a good faith conversation between people of opposing understandings of the world can lead to a synthesized, higher understanding.
The facts and evidence need to be indisputable.
Would a source be automatically untrustworthy if it disputes your claims? If a source reports that Russia is currently undertaking an aggressive campaign of hybrid warfare in Europe, or if it claims that Russia is an authoritarian regime currently engaged in a war of choice and aggression in Ukraine, what could make you take that source seriously? Would that mainly be if the source is sponsored by a communist state?
I don’t think it’s so much about democracy and freedom as it is about the self-determination of Ukraine and the further security of Europe against an imperialist Russia. But for sure, criticising Ukraine is not easy these days due to exactly those concerns.
What about the self-determination of Donetsk and Luhansk? Their secession from Ukraine following the Banderite coup in 2014 is what sparked the war. Further, Russia isn’t imperialist, it has no colonies nor neocolonies, and is blocked out of the international monopoly of finance capital. Annexation of territory isn’t the same as imperialism. Finally, Russia poses little to no threat to Europe, Europe is pushing this narrative to justify increasing militarization as imperialism as a system is weakening, giving Europe less super-profits extracted from the periphery.
Would you say those secessions happened freely and without armed pressure from Russia?
I don’t know about that. As I understand it, imperialism is the pursuit of a state encompassing many nations. Is Russia a nation state?
I live in a group of European nation states currently experiencing hybrid warfare from Russia, according to what we see with our own eyes and what is reported by both trustworthy state sources and independent media, corporate or not. Russia is clearly not just a threat, but a currently hostile nation.
Nobody in my region wants this war to continue. Ideally everyone would lay down arms and demilitarize (including Europe and the US). For border and independence issues we could look to long term solutions similar to those found in Denmark, where the border disputes with Germany were solved with free and fair referendums, while the independence of Iceland was a collaborative effort between two good faith nations.
The secession of Donetsk and Luhansk maps neatly with how Donetsk and Luhansk voted prior to 2014:
It’s fairly clear that the Donbass region did not appreciate the Banderites couping the president supported by the Donbass.
As for imperialism, it isn’t the pursuit of a single state over many nations, in the modern era it is a stage in capitalist development characterized by the dominance of finance capital (the merger of bank capital and industrial capital) and the proliferation of global monopolies. This forces a system of international extraction in the form of capital export, through systems like the IMF, and backed militarily by systems like NATO. Europe, the US, etc. are imperialist, Russia is not.
As for what you claim to experience, it’s largely government propaganda from capitalist dictatorships. Fascism is rising in Europe because of the decay in imperialism, and fascism needs an enemy. Russia is not interested in attacking Europe and has no reason to do so, unless imperialist organizations like NATO continue to encircle and entrap it.
Funny enough, war with Europe is even less likely now, as Russia has increased economic ties with prospering countries like China, and the US/Ukraine blew up the Nordstream pipeline. Europe has a real potential to gain from Russian LNG, as Europe still needs it, but Russia is doing just fine economically thanks to working with more stable business partners. Russia has nothing to gain from war with Europe.
How do you distinguish the truth from European / capitalist propaganda and Russian propaganda?
I’m happy to re-examine my views of the situation here, but the claims you make do not correspond to any media or state reporting in my region, which includes publicly owned sources, corporate sources and independent sources. Some of that is capitalist propaganda for sure, but a lot of it is clearly aligned against capitalist interests. Yet they report similar hostilities from the Russians, and similar reports on imperialist (in the definition I gave above) agenda from the Russians.
If none of those can be trusted, what can? Only sources outside the EU?
What kind of source on Russian hostilities would change your mind on the matter?
What’s “true” is based on facts and evidence, how we interpret truth causes stark disagreements. How we highlight, omit, and even falsify information all plays a role in changing viewpoints and presenting the same information in different ways. Which sources are reported critically vs. uncritically, etc.
In the context of capitalist states like those found in Europe, both the public and private sectors serve the capitalist class, and as such are not aligned against capitalist interests. The state is not outside class society, but within it.
Independent media is more likely to be anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist, such as The Grayzone and Liberation News. Sources from socialist/progressive governments, like CGTN, TELESUR, and Granma are also obviously anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist. I’m sure there are socialist orgs in Europe doing their own reporting, such as PTB in Belgium.
I’m not sure what you think you can change my mind on, what specifically do you disagree with that I’ve said? Which claims do not correspond to the reality you believe you are seeing?
Thanks, I’ll look into it!
Not so much interested in changing your mind on something specific, but I think the only valuable version of this conversation is dialectical. Theredore I’m very interested to hear what ways you imagine changing your mind on matters such as the role of Russia in international politics.
If you can’t imagine changing your mind, then I can’t really learn much from the conversation, but if you can, I’d love to hear how, and reconsider my own view.
For clarity, you are referring to dialectics in the traditional Greek sense, and not in the Marxist sense, dialectical materialism? For me, analysis needs to be on the basis of dialectical and historical materialism, and the facts and evidence need to be indisputable.
At the present moment, because Russia doesn’t have the same imperialist role that the west has in the world, the periphery is siding with Russia at increasing rates (though mostly China), and is therefore charting an alternative that allows the periphery to escape the underdevelopment traps the imperial core has set out for them. In this manner, Russia is playing a progressive role in undermining imperialism, not advancing it.
Ukraine, as a tool used by the west without care for the lives lost, is presently under a Banderite regime engaged in repressions against the Donbass region. The west is harvesting Ukraine for resources and using it as a battering ram to weaken Russia, in order to get Russia to concede to imperialist domination like what happened in the 90s after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Yes, in the sense that a good faith conversation between people of opposing understandings of the world can lead to a synthesized, higher understanding.
Would a source be automatically untrustworthy if it disputes your claims? If a source reports that Russia is currently undertaking an aggressive campaign of hybrid warfare in Europe, or if it claims that Russia is an authoritarian regime currently engaged in a war of choice and aggression in Ukraine, what could make you take that source seriously? Would that mainly be if the source is sponsored by a communist state?