Russian Tensions

March 2024 Forums General discussion Russian Tensions

Viewing 15 posts - 691 through 705 (of 5,146 total)
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  • #227110
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Way to provoke Putin to take the final step.

    #227111
    Bijou Drains
    Participant

    Bloody typical isn’t it. Just as Newcastle look like building a decent team, the world gets destroyed in a nuclear Holocaust!

    I had hoped the team would be in European action soon, but not this way!

    #227112
    ALB
    Keymaster

    So the EU wants to ban RT and in Britain so does the Labour Party (of course, nothing less would be expected of “the party of NATO”) but in the days when bourgeois democrats really believed in the principles of bourgeois democracy this would have been denounced as an infringement of freedom of speech.

    When in the middle of fighting an actual war the British government banned the Daily Worker in 1941 this had to be done under a carefully drafted regulation and apologised for. Today, apparently, governments can decide to do this just like that without a state being at war.

    In 1941 we protested against the suppression of the Daily Worker even thought we had waged war on the so-called Communist Party since it was founded. Our grounds were:

    “The S.P.G.B. has its own, quite different, point of view. True to our basic principle we do not support suppression of opinion, however false we believe that opinion to be.”

    Why should RT be banned? Many of us watch it to be able to informed of what Russian state propaganda is saying. Others will do so too. People should be able to watch it and make their own minds up just as should be able to watch the BBC and other TV station churning out propaganda and make their minds about that too.

    #227113
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Also ominous: US citizens advised to leave Russia asap.

    #227114
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    French citizens advised to leave Russia asap.

    #227115
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    They are also suppressing Russian students and Russian musicians. It is something similar to the Muslim ban, pretty soon they are going to ask for the closing of Russian Orthodox churches

    #227116
    Bijou Drains
    Participant

    MS – “pretty soon they are going to ask for the closing of Russian Orthodox churches”

    Either that or they will have cut a deal with the local franchise of Religion Inc (copyright Lenny Bruce) so that they bless the war and tell them that god is on their side.

    #227119
    Bijou Drains
    Participant

    The Party should make use of the historic position on capitalist war by puplishing the 1914 statement of the Party.

    THE SOCIALIST PARTY of Great Britain seizes the opportunity to re-affirming the Socialist position, which is as follows:

    That Society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of the means of living by the capitalist or master class, and the consequent enslavement of the working class, by whose labour alone wealth is produced.

    That in Society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a CLASS WAR, between those who possess but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess.

    That the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exist only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers.

    These armed forces, therefore, will only be set in motion to further the interests of the class who control them – the master class – and as the workers’ interests are not bound up in the struggle for markets wherein their masters may dispose of the wealth they have stolen from them (the workers), but in the struggle to end the system under which they are robbed, they are not concerned with the present European struggle, which is already known as the “BUSINESS” war, for it is their masters’ interests which are involved and not their own.

    THE SOCIALIST PARTY of Great Britain, pledges itself to keep the issue clear by expounding the CLASS STRUGGLE, and whilst placing on record its abhorrence of the latest manifestation of the callous, sordid, and mercenary nature of the international capitalist class, and declaring no interests are at stake justifying the shedding of a single drop of working class blood, enters its emphatic protest against the brutal and bloody butchery of our brothers of this and other lands who are being used as food for cannon abroad while suffering and starvation are the lot of their fellows at home. Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and Socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of Socialism.

    THE WORLD FOR THE WORKERS

    August 25th, 1914
    The Executive Committee

    I also think the EC should re approve the same statement.

    #227120
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    BD, our weakness is not the clarity of our position but that it is not heard.

    I would prefer something that references the current conflict.

    I suggest that we translate a statement into Russian and Ukrainian which may widen our audience a little bit when it is posted on the internet.

    Cde.Shenfield of the WSPUS can accomplish the former. Not sure if we have any Ukrainian speakers and Google translate can be flawed.

    #227121
    Bijou Drains
    Participant

    Very interesting article from Counterfire where they interview Boris Kagarlitsky (John Rees and Lindsey German’s left wing vanity project) written in 2014 about the Euromaidan protests and their development. There is a lot of typcial bolshevik inspired hot air, but some good factual information, etc.

    https://www.counterfire.org/interview/17422-ukraine-s-uprising-against-nato-neoliberals-and-oligarchs-an-interview-with-boris-kagarlitsky

    #227122
    Bijou Drains
    Participant

    AJ – my point is to say that our position has been historically consistant. Not many political parties are happy to say they supported the 1914-18 slaughter (especially the Labour Party), but they did then, and they are serving up the same jingoistic nonsense today that they did then.

    #227123
    Bijou Drains
    Participant

    Report from Katya Adler re the EU on BBC website

    She says:

    “The violence on the ground in Ukraine and the fact that the EU sees Vladimir Putin’s actions as an attack on wider European stability and security has focused minds in the EU.

    It’s working in a much faster, more united way than we normally ever see.

    The EU today announced for the first time that it would be purchasing weapons and delivering them to a country in conflict, Ukraine.

    The words “unprecedented” and “watershed moment” are something you’re hearing a lot in Brussels at the moment, but it’s actually relevant.

    Over the weekend, Germany really made the headlines across all of Europe by turning its modern day defence policy completely on its head.

    It is traditionally very weary of getting involved in military conflict because of its history in World War Two.

    Now it’s saying that it will be sending weapons directly to Ukraine and it will be massively investing in its own military, which will come as a relief to Nato allies.”

    Is that a sign of NATO/EU’s worries? My take is that NATO is that has come to the conclusion that Russia’s military might has been exposed as being less frightening than it appeared to be and that they are taking the view that it is time to make hay when the sun is shining. The worry is that they push Putin into a corner.

    It goes without saying that the working class have no dog in any of these fights.

    #227124
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    US talked tough on Nord Stream 2 but this article reveals how Biden’s sanctions exclude any serious ban on Russia’s energy export.

    https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-vladimir-putin-joe-biden-business-united-states-53a2fae4a7985b2b703824b012f7c34e

    Biden defended his decision to preserve access to Russian energy in order “to limit the pain the American people are feeling at the gas pump.”

    #227125
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    An article on religion

    https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-vladimir-putin-kyiv-europe-nationalism-ff22c6c17784674a5eaad0f0a1ff17ca

    There have been appeals to religious nationalism in both Russia and Ukraine

    #227126
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    Russia’s war on Ukraine risks displacing “over seven million people”, the EU commissioner for crisis management said.

    “We are witnessing what could become the largest humanitarian crisis on our European continent in many, many years,” Janez Lenarcic told a media conference.

    https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220227-europe-must-prepare-for-millions-of-ukrainian-refugees-eu-commissioner-says

    But let us not forget how opposed Fortress Europe has been to other refugees and one factor is the ethnicity of the refugees

    This article describes the double-standards

    https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2022/2/27/western-media-coverage-ukraine-russia-invasion-criticism

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