Support them when they do good things, criticize when they do bad things. It goes for any country. Feels like its 2022 again and people are relearning what “critical support” means.
It’s the standard Western leftist take that we have seen regurgitated so many times over the years.
It is no different that asking: why is Iran so conservative? why is Afghanistan so conservative? why are so many countries in the Global South so conservative? Why don’t they elect a left wing government that we can support?
Hint: read up the history of left wing movements from those countries, what happened to them and especially the role of US/Western imperialists behind it.
Again, it is sad we continue to see this kind of ahistorical and non-materialist takes from the Western left. It provides no explanatory power to the material conditions of our current world, nor does it have any prescriptive power to guide left wing movements toward defeating capitalism.
It ends up with a “good guy” vs “bad guy” delineation with a bit more nuance but really not so much different from your standard liberal take.
Argentina is one of the best real world examples on why voting for left always end up on the right. Again, with this kind of discourse you cannot explain how someone like Milei could get elected and so you end up blaming the Argentinian people for being stupid for electing a right wing libertarian to destroy their own country.
There is very little room for left wing movements in the Global South to survive until Western imperialism has been completely and thoroughly defeated.
Yeah when we look at the narrative around Putin. Its unironic great man theory as if he is behind all the reactionary and conservative aspects. The worst part being the liberal fetish for color revolutions. The idea there is some liberal hero being oppressed and would be ready to replace him if only we support them. They tried that shit with Navalny even though nobody anywhere even knows him and not realizing he was just as racist and a nazi shit as everyone else.
Putin would be coup by the kind of people that think the war is embarrassing and would be ready to do a full mobilization(an additional 1 million or so) and actualy start bombing and destroying Ukraine indiscriminately.
This whole idea of a slow paced war of a attrition is not without its shaky moments(the Moskva,Kherson retreat, the Moscow attack etc).
Nobody pretends the war is without cost, but Russia is managing this cost because they’re being very conscious and smart about e.g building the military industry, making sure to transfer more wealth to workers even if just government subsidies etc.
Of course none of this is to say Putin deserves any praise but he was willing to admit to his previous mistake of being naive and willing to bring Russia closer to the west. His replacement in a coup would be someone even more resentful not less, someone even more agressive towards Ukraine not less.
The mythical “western values” loving Russian? That was quite literaly Putin 25 years ago lol.
There is very little room for left wing movements in the Global South to survive until Western imperialism has been completely and thoroughly defeated
I posted about this a while back. I think (and hope) that the path forward is along these lines but it will of course happen over a long time period. Practically this will take the shape of slackening control of western imperialism enabling political alternatives to be tried. There will be failures, false starts, and even fully wrong solutions (Milei is a good example of the latter) but precisely because people will be able to try things without the CIA or capital bringing down the boot we have a chance to see some critical successes.
Support them when they do good things, criticize when they do bad things. It goes for any country. Feels like its 2022 again and people are relearning what “critical support” means.
But you don’t support Ukraine, so that means you want all Ukrainians fed into a woodchipper and Putin to rule all of Eurasia forever
Liberals really mock conservatives for having no nuance, then turn around and proceed to show they have none either
It’s the standard Western leftist take that we have seen regurgitated so many times over the years.
It is no different that asking: why is Iran so conservative? why is Afghanistan so conservative? why are so many countries in the Global South so conservative? Why don’t they elect a left wing government that we can support?
Hint: read up the history of left wing movements from those countries, what happened to them and especially the role of US/Western imperialists behind it.
Again, it is sad we continue to see this kind of ahistorical and non-materialist takes from the Western left. It provides no explanatory power to the material conditions of our current world, nor does it have any prescriptive power to guide left wing movements toward defeating capitalism.
It ends up with a “good guy” vs “bad guy” delineation with a bit more nuance but really not so much different from your standard liberal take.
Argentina is one of the best real world examples on why voting for left always end up on the right. Again, with this kind of discourse you cannot explain how someone like Milei could get elected and so you end up blaming the Argentinian people for being stupid for electing a right wing libertarian to destroy their own country.
There is very little room for left wing movements in the Global South to survive until Western imperialism has been completely and thoroughly defeated.
Yeah when we look at the narrative around Putin. Its unironic great man theory as if he is behind all the reactionary and conservative aspects. The worst part being the liberal fetish for color revolutions. The idea there is some liberal hero being oppressed and would be ready to replace him if only we support them. They tried that shit with Navalny even though nobody anywhere even knows him and not realizing he was just as racist and a nazi shit as everyone else.
Putin would be coup by the kind of people that think the war is embarrassing and would be ready to do a full mobilization(an additional 1 million or so) and actualy start bombing and destroying Ukraine indiscriminately.
This whole idea of a slow paced war of a attrition is not without its shaky moments(the Moskva,Kherson retreat, the Moscow attack etc). Nobody pretends the war is without cost, but Russia is managing this cost because they’re being very conscious and smart about e.g building the military industry, making sure to transfer more wealth to workers even if just government subsidies etc.
Of course none of this is to say Putin deserves any praise but he was willing to admit to his previous mistake of being naive and willing to bring Russia closer to the west. His replacement in a coup would be someone even more resentful not less, someone even more agressive towards Ukraine not less.
The mythical “western values” loving Russian? That was quite literaly Putin 25 years ago lol.
I posted about this a while back. I think (and hope) that the path forward is along these lines but it will of course happen over a long time period. Practically this will take the shape of slackening control of western imperialism enabling political alternatives to be tried. There will be failures, false starts, and even fully wrong solutions (Milei is a good example of the latter) but precisely because people will be able to try things without the CIA or capital bringing down the boot we have a chance to see some critical successes.