So The West just collectively acts like it never happened huh?

  • @Munrock@lemmygrad.ml
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    391 year ago

    WMDs in Iraq

    Gulf of Tonkin

    Nord Stream Sabotage

    Kiev 2014

    Indigenous populations everywhere they colonize

    Partition of India

    Japan wanting to surrender before Hiroshima

    I mean there’s so much stuff you have to actively forget to maintain the delusion that you’re supporting the good guys when you support The West that it’s no wonder liberal brains are just slush. The only reason they don’t have brain matter dripping out of their ears is because of the thick globs of sticky, viscous fascism blocking the exits.

      • @redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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        161 year ago

        It doesn’t seem possible, does it?

        A small part of it is that many people seem to ‘want’ to be deceived. Or, at least, they want to just carry on with their lives, which for the most part are unnecessarily difficult. Like, living with the constant fear of eviction, interest rate increases, unemployment, minor emergencies like the fridge or toaster breaking…

        When I bring up politics I’m often told to lighten the mood. And a small part of that seems to come from having been deceived into thinking the only critique of the status quo will be a depressing liberal/bigoted complaint that cannot fix anything, anyway – the type of framing that’s pushed by news media and comedians.

        The bourgeoisie, to the extent that it has unified thoughts, appears to think that by keeping people oppressed and distracted in this way, leaves those people with no time to think about changing the system. At least in the neoliberal era, the ruling class is dead-set against relieving the petty load of unnecessary difficulties.

        Radicalism in the West seemed to drop off through the Keynesian era. Neoliberalism wouldn’t have been possible in most places between circa 1900 and 1970. The theorists were pushing for it for much of that time, but they failed. Organised workers had momentum. Then the organised workers appear to have become complacent and were unprepared for organised neoliberalism.

        Partly this is economic. Partly it’s as above, to overwhelm people with the simple task of staying alive and ahead of bills. It will backfire. The very act of crushing people like this does not give them much time to theorise. It does anger them so much that they become willing to fight for a better existence.

        The bourgeoisie is right to think that such spontaneous action will be easily quelled. But it’s a big gamble that not one revolutionary vanguard party will spring up to organise and direct that anger.

        • @Shrike502@lemmygrad.ml
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          111 year ago

          Then the organised workers appear to have become complacent and were unprepared for organised neoliberalism.

          Not sure I agree with this assessment. Surely the multiple operations of western intelligence organisations had something to do with it? Surely the change of direction of USSR had something to do with it?

          • @redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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            71 year ago

            Hmm… Yes, you’re right to push back on that.

            Could it be a mixture of all four: complacency, organised neoliberalism, (counter) intelligence, and the fate of the USSR? (In no particular order.)

            I’m still not sure ‘complacency’ is correct, now you’ve highlighted it, although the Western left did seem to have been caught off guard. Maybe they put too much faith in their own effectiveness (under-acknowledging the influence of the threat of USSR-style socialism on their own governments) on the one hand, and were not wary enough of intelligence operations on the other hand?

            Do you think organised neoliberalism was a significant factor? Or would you say that it would not have been enough if the USSR had continued? I don’t like the idea that neoliberalism would have been implemented passively, all things being equal (I don’t think that’s what you were saying).

            One thing I hear every so often is that western leftists abandoned Marxism-Leninism after Khrushchev’s Secret Speech. Following this logic, I would ask: is this the complacency, in the idea that Western leftists could abandon Marxism-Leninism and still hope to win?

            But I’m not sure if this version of events is true. Did principled MLs really abandon their ML parties, etc, or did non-MLs use the opportunity to decry ‘Stalinism’ (which had been decried by many in the West for decades already)? And was there an intelligence campaign to use the Secret Speech to promote other forms of Marxism, critical theory, etc, at the expense of Marxism-Leninism (on the basis of a now-tarnished reputation)?

            This leads me again to the same question: what happened within the Western left to leave it so unprepared to protect itself if (we now know: when) the USSR fell. I fully agree it was not simply complacency. That was too flippant of me.

            Does this improve what I said, or am I still making an error somewhere?

            • @Shrike502@lemmygrad.ml
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              41 year ago

              It does improve a lot, although I think I should apologize for being perhaps too harsh. Perhaps you are correct to use complacency in the meaning that people have simply expected the contradictions to just resolve the conflict, for the capitalist countries to just gradually collapse and for communism to win.

              In this sense, yes - I do believe they’ve underestimated the organized neoliberalism. Both in terms of its ability to artificially prolong the lifespan of capitalist countries (i.e. the petrodollar system) and it’s ability to influence superstructure (and thus - the economic basis).

              Likewise with the ML and generally leftist groups in the west. Without the guidance of principled Marxists (and with USSR also deviating from it), it was easy for them to fall prey to infiltrators, opportunists and other tendencies.

              I get a sense we are speaking of the same things, but in different terms, that’s all.

              • @redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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                41 year ago

                No need to apologize at all! You were polite and I appreciate the criticism. Please continue to challenge me if I say anything that does not sound right.

                I’m now wondering whether an ML critique of the Western left since the 1970s is crucial to rebuilding it effectively. Nowadays I mostly hear arguments in favour of rebuilding the unions, as if the West’s problems are solely due low Union membership. That is important, but it’s only one part of the puzzle.

                There are lots of folk tales about militant Trotskyists in the 80s and the May 1968 movement up to Mitterrand in France, etc. These stories were built into a new narrative around Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn that the ‘left’ was on the rise again.

                Still, I fear the western left will keep failing and keep falling to chauvinism unless it fully understands what happened in the last 40 years: (i) by failing to see that Marxism-Leninism is needed; and (ii) in failing to see how the ‘left’ became fragmented and weak.

                I agree with you. I’d say that a resurgence of effective Western leftwing movements can only follow an analysis of

                neoliberalism. Both in terms of its ability to artificially prolong the lifespan of capitalist countries (i.e. the petrodollar system) and it’s ability to influence superstructure (and thus - the economic basis)

                And of how

                ML and generally leftist groups in the west[, w]ithout the guidance of principled Marxists (and with USSR also deviating from it), it was easy for them to fall prey to infiltrators, opportunists and other tendencies.

                Do you (or others) know of any good texts that synthesise these issues?

                I think Stuart Hall may have written about this. The blurb for his Road to Renewal sounds relevant:

                …these essays show how Thatcher has exploited discontent with Labour’s record in office and with aspects of the welfare state to devise a potent authoritarian, populist ideology. Hall’s critical approach is elaborated here in essays on the formation of the SDP, inner city riots, the Falklands War and the signficance of Antonio Gramsci. He suggests that Thatcherism is skillfully employing the restless and individualistic dynamic of consumer capitalism to promote a swingeing programme of ‘regressive modernization’.

                The Hard Road to Renewal is as concerned with elaborating a new politics for the Left as it is with the project of the Right. Hall insists that the Left can no longer trade on inherited politics and tradition. Socialists today must be as radical as modernity itself. Valuable pointers to a new politics are identified in the experience of feminism, the campaigns of the GLC and the world-wide response to Band Aid.

                This could be focused on the British Labour party. Many other books do that and suffer because they then argue that reforming Labour will solve the problem. (I doubt Hall makes that argument.) I might give it a read.

                Alex Callinicos might also discuss politics in the same decades in Against the Third Way (but I think it’s more of a critique of Blairism).

        • @PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          It will happen as it always did. They quell every change like in the cooking pot and untill lid stays on, everything is “fine”, they just add more and stronger clamps. Then entire thing explodes.

          • @redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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            91 year ago

            Exactly that. And those in the pot don’t always notice the heat rising, but they know when it’s boiling.

      • Ghost of Faso
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        111 year ago

        they where never on trial so getting away with it is as easy as doing nothing

    • Yiazmat
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      121 year ago

      bruh I’ve almost given up on trying to explain this shit to my friends. I keep getting accused of “falling for Russian propaganda” and I want to scream. People here are so heavily propagandized that talking about anything that goes against the west’s narrative is immediately dismissed as propaganda. It’s maddening.

      It must be so nice to just explain everything away that easily and go about your day.

      • @DrSankara@lemmygrad.ml
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        91 year ago

        Just wait 10 - 20 years. Just like Iraq and such, after this amount of time the soft left will accept it and it will become a part of mainstream discourse.

        Or maybe it will vanish from people’s minds and mainstream discourse as quick as it came

  • @PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    Yes, even fucking Sweden of all countries, the people just currently aspiring to join the NATO in explicitly antirussian move, after investigation admitted that it was sabotage, it was not amateurish but professional work, and Russia didn’t do it.

    That statement leaves very little to imagination, the only difference from the usual is that it came out very quickly and not after years. Western propaganda will naturally do what it always do in similar cases.

  • @pgtl_10@lemmygrad.ml
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    271 year ago

    Scream Russia! Russia! Russia! Then quietly admit they are lying when people moved on.

    Kind of like Hunter Biden’s laptop.

  • QueerCommie
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    271 year ago

    I was listening to some libs that I kinda like besides when Socialism and Russia come up and they basically said “Russia was trying to show the west that they refuse to send any more gas” which doesn’t make sense when you consider that they’re literally rebuilding it now.

    • @Beat_da_Rich@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      Dontcha love how Russia blowing up a major sector of their economy while they commit to a costly invasion makes perfect sense to liberals? Like the logic is 100% sound. Putin is just that irrationally evil and short sighted.

    • Arsen6331 ☭
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      1 year ago

      Also the fact that they could’ve shown the west that by shutting off the pipes, instead of destroying billions of dollars worth of their own work that took years to accomplish and is a major revenue source for them, while also fighting in a very expensive invasion and needing the money Nord Stream provided.

    • @knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml
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      111 year ago

      Also when you point out that Russia was more than willing to sell gas to European customers the whole damn time all you get is a “nu’uh no they didn’t” followed by the head being stuffed into the sand.

  • Water Bowl Slime
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    201 year ago

    I don’t think most people heard about it in the first place. Headlines come and go like a raging river and this story spent like one day in the spotlight before getting swept away by more important things. Like celebrity drama and crypto scams.

  • 陆船。
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    171 year ago

    Best not to bring it up after the initial outrage. People might realize it makes zero sense for Russia to have blown it up while they freeze this winter

  • @Franfran2424@lemmygrad.ml
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    31 year ago

    “Russia totally blew up their leverage over the west because why not”

    Ignores US helicopters and amphibious assault ships in the area