Awoo

Ah man. I'm not sure where I did that this time. Tell me what's grated you and I'll take it back. I thought I gave you a pretty explanatory response.

Is it because I keep calling american liberals right wing? I thought the last portion of my comment explained quite well what a real left looks like, that's our left, those are our luke-warm mainstream folks with their socdem policies of welfare capitalism saying all the things that would get you called a tankie on reddit. That's the soft-left of the UK, not even the hard-left.

I think we're going to end up talking past each other as we disagree and there's a few things we'd just end up repeating over and over so forgive me for skipping a chunk here. I will respond to this though:

destroying the economy even further

"Even further" is an odd choice here. The Russian economy is stronger now than before the war sanctions. The sanctions failed miserably, everything that Russia could no longer get from the west it simply gets from South East Asia (China/India mainly) and the Middle East now. Reddit thinks there was some great economic smashing of Russia but it really horribly failed.

Winning the war is unrealistic at this time, would take a long time

"Winning" here is more a question of when parties will get round a table to negotiate again. The war almost ended in April but Boris Johnson put a stop to the deal that would have done that. It could end quickly, it could also take a long time, dependent almost entirely on how long the west wants to drag it out as a proxy war for. There is also the question of whether the US and EU might pivot to a focus on China, which would also result in getting round a table to end the Ukraine war first as they simply do not have the means to focus on both at once.

And about the USA, yeah that’s a bit of a whataboutism. There is a lot of division there and I think they are one bad president away from significantly worsening the situation. We will see about that too I guess.

It's not really whatabout. It's just useful to have a comparative baseline for "division" to understand what is necessary to create and succeed in a coup. Do you think one would succeed in the US under the current conditions? What factions and groups would need to be involved? This thought experiment is useful for understanding the kind of divisions, alliances and coalitions necessary to making a coup succeed elsewhere. It helps ground your thoughts in a more material reality rather than the fantasies peddled in the media circuit.

unlike governments, corporations aren’t subject to many of the regulations governments are

Lmao the governmental security state isn't subjected to those anymore than the corporate security state is. Best you'll get is a limited hangout in 20 years.

But yeah you're not wrong that it's bad already. But it's gonna keep getting worse.

i’m not particularly interested in unpacking the psychology of Putin

We've swapped from discussing the actual concept of power, factions and influential forces that lead to a country going in one direction or another to "putin".

Do you think that this war would not have happened if a different leader existed? Which politician in United Russia would not have started this war? Which politician in the communist party? Anyone?

Get past the idea that this war was caused by one man. There are material causes and forces at work that go beyond that. Once you get past that then you can start to understand how and why things happen, something that is extremely useful in avoiding its outcome next time - something I absolutely want to see happen but also something I am not sure americans are capable of given that you've supported every single forever war america has ever engaged in.

and if "Stirring the pot remains your intention rather than calm, rational discourse, I suggest you try antagonizing someone else.

Hmmm I do have a somewhat constructive motivation, I'm trying to change the context a little. One thing I've found with my interactions on reddit is that americans don't tend to have an understanding of the left at all, given that the democrats are to the right of our right-wing. A lot of them say things like they want a nice welfare state but have no understanding of how radical the left has to be in order to achieve one, or to defend its existence. Jeremy Corbyn defends the USSR publicly and loudly. Diane Abbot has defended Mao on national TV. John McDonald publicly states "it is my job to overthrow capitalism". Frankie Boyle says we shouldn't be violent, we shouldn't do anything illegal, instead we should make it legal to kill all the capitalists, on national TV with the BBC funded by the taxpayer. My point in stirring a bit is to draw a little more attention to the culture differences we have. Because Americans often seem to mistakenly think they have a left when they don't, and I've found that drawing attention to these significant baseline differences sometimes inspires a bit more curiosity in american liberals to understand it.

And the point of answering why it happened is because it is a necessary component of finding the solution.

Let's try this instead, so that we're not focused on me and we're in an area that's a bit more constructive: Why do you think the war happened? What caused it?

I don't think I've insulted liberals that much here but for the sake of stirring the pot this is the general sentiment toward them in my city: It might help some culture differences going on here.

Let's keep it calm yeah? Keep in mind that nothing either of us do or say here matters and there is zero need for it to get emotional. There's no need whatsoever for this to turn nasty and it'd be a shame if it did.

edit: something that has always fascinated me is how someone could so ardently claim to be a “Marxist” while going to such lengths to defend the actions of an oligarchic autarch of a strictly capitalist and fascist country.

Nobody has said that. However calling it a fascist country is just a complete misunderstanding of fascism. There is a faction of fascists in Russia, Navalny being a core figure among them. Putin and his faction are authoritarians, deeply unpleasant people, but fascists they are not and misusing the word is misguided. We should use it accurately.

I've also not defended them. I've said what the left's interpretation of the causes of this war are. You've turned that into "defender of russia" yourself. I can assure you that I and none of the other people I reeled off on that list are fans of the russian state. I want an end to the war, and I didn't want a state to it either. The difference between our factions is that liberals seem to think more guns and more bombs end wars, whereas socialists do not.

well, when the fact that the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine is what started the war is what’s inconvenient, that’s when “narratives” and “interpretations” assert themselves to deflect blame and cast aspersions upon others who some happen not to like for whatever reason.

You're doing the "narrative" here. You can't stop yourself from talking like a deeply propagandised individual, this phrase "illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine" is not how normal people talk, it's precisely the language used to set a narrative, and is repeated over and over and over and over in liberal media as part of media collaboration with western interests to set this as the official line of the west and deeply engrain it in its populations. With that said this is a particularly american turn of phrase and is not one used in Europe after the pushback against it succeeded, resulting in at least a little more nuance in our regional politics on the matter.

It, however, doesn’t change the facts of the matter, regardless of how many straw men, ad hominem, whataboutisms, or other logical fallacies get bandied about.

That Russia invaded? Yes certainly. But without the context, without understanding the forces in play, without understanding the influences and the historical context you can't tell me WHY russia invaded. And that's the thing here. The liberal explanation of why is just "Because Putin grrrrr, conqueror!", which is I think something you must agree is not really an adequate or academic explanation.

People should pay attention to these incidents of corporate security-state forces performing these kinds of actions against individual targets. It is a matter of time before individual targetting expands to widespread activity. Such "intelligence services" in corporate organisations will expand in power in much the same way intelligence services expand in power in government organisations. They function the same way as the security state does.

It's completely a matter of interpretation and narratives. The western community has one that serves their interests while Russia has one that serves their interests. Meanwhile the left has a completely different one that recognises the military industrial complex of america profiting off of its new forever war while millions of innocents are sent to their deaths.

You subscribe to the liberal one. That's fine. I do not.

I suspect our opinions differ on what "sovereign" actually is here too. I don't consider much of Europe to be particularly sovereign, but instead to be vassal states of US empire referred to colloquially by the american media as "the international community", a funny name given that it excludes 2 thirds of the world. We probably differ on that opinion as well though.

that’s an… interesting viewpoint, and, as a “Westerner”, i see little evidence to support this narrative aside from some Western think tanks both existing and, perhaps thinking what you propose.

You only need to look at (very small) sample of the attendees of the Atlantic Council's meetings to see that it is directly responsible for a huge amount of policy. These people aren't attending for a laugh, they attend because they know its power and have the same interests and goals as the organisation.

Understanding the role of these organisations in the wider net of actors is a fundamental knowledge area that most liberals don't have as a result of only really paying attention to media, who always play their role down as the media functions as fundamental collaborators with state interests.

as for what started this war? that was Russia’s illegal invasion of another sovereign nation. period. and, unless you’re implying that “the West” or even the US somehow controls him or his actions, I don’t see how either had anything to do with Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.

This is the liberal western interpretation. It is not the global left's interpretation which has a fairly significant consensus that this war was caused by nato expansionism, ignoring fair security concerns, and the 2014 coup that led to the civil war that preceded this. The left generally doesn't view this war as having started in 2022 but instead in 2014, with Russia eventually joining as a belligerent after exhausting the potential methods of ending it via the Minsk agreements. Both the anarchist and socialist left worldwide pretty much agrees on this, with people ranging from Chomsky, Vijay Prashad, Wolff, Yanis Varoufakis, Lula, Corbyn, Cuba, Bolivia, european socialist parties etc etc etc all having the same take across the board. None of whom get much media exposure of that of course, because like I said before the western media is collaborative with the interests of western states.

I think for context I should add that I live in the UK and that from the perspective of British politics, american liberals are to the right of our conservatives, most of you would be Tories in the UK. Understanding this context is probably important for you to understand that I do not include liberals when I say "left" or "global left", the american democrats are extremely right wing.

When companies are so large they have internal secret police doing spook shit at the highest levels of the company.

I think any serious presidential competitor has yet to emerge - none of the Communist candidates, or Navalny, are credible IMO. 9 months is plenty of time to make a campaign happen though.

I don't think this is realistic. You're asking for sweeping massive electoral pattern changes that won't happen without a massive crisis functioning as a catalyst. I can't see a source for such a crisis on the horizon though, the frontline isn't going to change while the economic sanctions were resoundingly defeated and hurt we european residents significantly more than Russians.

FWIW if you want examples of leadership changes during a war, how about Neville Chamberlain?

Chamberlain was not changed by an election of the population of the UK, he was changed by Conservative party infighting leading to the 1922 committee demanding his resignation in a "do it or we'll do it for you" ultimatum, as they have always done. Chamberlain resigned his position as leader of the Conservative party and Churchill took it.

There was no election in the UK between the years of 1935 and 1945.

Or the two revolutions in Russia itself in 1917?

Generated by an unpopular war in a series of wars that the tsar repeatedly got people killed in for his vanity. This is not an unpopular war though and there is no anti-war movement, it is supported by every political faction of the country. Even the euro liberals don't openly state their opposition and that's not because they would disappear (they wouldn't) but because it would be wildly unpopular and harm their political growth, they are forced into silence through the conditions that currently exist.

that Putin will be simply “encouraged” behind the scenes to retire rather than run again

This requires factional fighting, which is non-existent at this time. He has broad across the spectrum support both in his party and in opposition groups because they all see him as ushering in a multi-polar world, which is extremely beneficial to the interests of every faction that exists. I still do not see where you think the factionalism exists for this to happen. Who? Why? What faction is going to push him out and for what purpose? With everyone wanting to see the completion of this project there's no faction internally to interrupt it.

Yeah? Which one? CGTN? Sixth Tone? Ever meet Jingjing? I assume it's an english one given you seem to be a native speaker.

This answer doesn't actually refute the article on whether it is accurate or not so I guess you're going to agree that it's accurate then?

Is China special? Not really. I’d argue that all large-scale news organizations around the world function as propaganda of a sort, whether private or public. China’s is usually just more ham-fisted.

Absolutely 100% and we have the CIA's John Stockwell in the 70s discussing about their complete and total infiltration of and ability to put out anything they want in the media back in then, their control and ability has only advanced in the 50~ years since.

Small local newspaper media on the other hand is often populated with good people, even the ones owned by very large corporations, because of the reduced pool of potential writers and staff.