As for the sentiment for USSR - of course it is strong inside brainwashed russia

If the citizens of Bad Country agree with my propaganda, that’s proof of how bad their country is.

If the citizens of Bad Country reject my propaganda, they’re brainwashed, which is proof of how bad their country is.

Intent is a key element of genocide. Just like if you kill someone by negligence it’s not murder, if you kill a lot of your own people by mismanaging a war it’s not genocide.

At this rate Ukraine is genociding it’s own population

We should not throw this term around casually.

You’re right that there’s a difference between, say, Pinochet disappearing thousands of political opponents as a more-or-less open policy of internal repression and the level of police violence we’ve seen thus far in the U.S.

You’re wrong that Biden is going to do anything to help.

Direct escalation would make things more unpredictable.

This is the U.S. strategy – to provoke Russia into a response that will turn more than Europe against it.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/strong-anna-louise/1959/tibet/index.htm

From an American journalist who are multiple trips to China during the middle of the 20th century. Was originally published as a book; bonus points if you can snag a copy of that.

I don’t particularly believe that Russia is anything but the first western state to evolve from capitalism to an authoritarian kleptocracy.

The U.S.?

Nah, they’re trying to win, they’re just constrained by:

1. Being a capitalist party that can’t firmly promise much material aid to voters
2. Being an imperialist party that can’t respond to widespread discontent with current imperial wars
3. All upper leadership having golden parachutes in media, banking, law, etc.
4. No real way to force Biden out
5. No better option (again, given the restraints of a capitalist party) than an incumbent who’s already beaten Trump once
6. Liberal ideology like “we need a strong Republican Party” and “we can’t simply arrest this guy we’re calling a fascist”
7. The general incompetence that crops up when party leaders basically can’t fail their way out of endless party job opportunities

If you and I got in a boxing match and for some reason I insisted on wearing 50 pound weights on my ankles, I could try really hard and would still suck given my self-imposed constraints.

Do you mean inheritance laws?

This has to help, though you wonder how much. Plenty of libs were radicalized under Trump, but plenty more went back to brunch when Biden won.

The propaganda excuse for American atrocities is that they were isolated incidents, bad apples, unrepresentative of who we are. Even whole eras get whitewashed this way. Trump is so much more buffoonish than any president in living memory that he plays right into that.

Agitation and education are examples of praxis one can do without an organization. Ideally they should put people on the path to organizing, or directly be part of an organization effort, but even in isolation they at least sow the seeds for people to move in the right direction.

Both bad takes.

Setting aside the whole issue of how it looks for leftists to say they support Trump, for any reason, the State Department wouldn’t even let Trump pull troops out of Syria, so of course they aren’t going to let him do anything that would seriously damage NATO. Congress has already passed a law to keep presidents from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO, and you could just as well argue that the war in Ukraine is placing more stress on the organization than any pissy comments Trump made about who’s paying what.

With the DPRK, Trump did nothing of material significance. He could wake up tomorrow and go back to calling Kim “Rocket Man.” Like with NATO, he’d face intense institutional opposition to any serious change, and he doesn’t care enough to try and fight that.

Then there’s the whole issue of Trump being widely viewed as an aberration, which means NATO countries will take his yammering less seriously and U.S. decisionmakers will be less likely to view his actions as precedent.

Did Russia just wake up one day and decide to invade? Did the largest country on Earth for some reason decided it would start a costly war just to grab a little more land?

Why do you think Russia invaded?

Mr Zelensky has long said he will not negotiate with Russia directly until Moscow’s forces leave all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea.

I can see why he isn’t holding elections; this is a ludicrous position that can do nothing but get more of his people killed and maimed.

When people flee a poor capitalist country, they are economic migrants, not refugees from capitalism. When people flee a poor communist country, they’re fleeing communism.

Parenti quote

Would be interesting to filter out the U.S. (and maybe other imperial powers) from the “world” line.

Act fast!

Why wouldn’t you count the world wars?

Damn this “managed democracy” guerilla marketing for Helldivers 2 is out of control