Russian Tensions
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The propaganda war
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60571737And those 15 nuclear power stations…what if is asked here
https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-the-risks-of-war-in-a-nuclear-state/a-60963926
Here’s another, ridiculous piece of war propaganda from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence. How could anyone believe that a group of bearded Muslims speaking Russian with a foreign accent would be able to get anywhere near the Ukrainian President? Or perhaps they were supposed to be suicide bombers?
But there is a more sinister aspect. In the USSR people from the Caucasus were internal migrants doing the sort of shitty jobs that immigrants do in Britain, discriminated against and regarded as the lowest of the low, as this article from 2017 pointed out. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence evidently thought that it was a good idea to evoke the spectre of savage Muslim fanatics in order to consolidate Ukrainian nationalism amongst the population.
Just heard the Ukrainian President say that God is on his side. Of course he is. But he is also on the Russian side. He seems to love inciting wars so he can support both sides and enjoy seeing them slaughter each other.
And in this case it’s the same Orthodox God.
Del.
How did Putin get to have the autocratic power he has?
Parliamentary bourgeois democracy was supposed to have come in following the dissolution of the Bolshevik state-capitalist framework. So how has Putin now got the supreme power of a Khruschev?
Why the West will not intervene militarily or impose a no-fly-zone
And yet Russia keeps mentioning and threatening it.
We know capitalism is the cause of war, and yet that involves human agents in enacting it.
Is it not then especially worrying to have an autocrat determining what happens next?
Mental illness is also produced by capitalism, and the mentally ill, or even anyone, carries out suicidal and destructive acts in a spasm of rage. Putin has more than a broken beer bottle to hand, more than a razor blade. He has a nuclear arsenal at his beck and command. Unstable and seeing his state blocked out of world markets might lead to the ultimate irrational act.
The WSM puts too much faith in human reason, I think. Mostly humans act irrationally and passionately, destructively and against their own interests. We see it in the streets at night, the abusive household, and elsewhere. Yes, capitalism is the cause, not nature. The result is nonetheless to be feared, is it not? The spoilt aristocrat, the enraged husband, the desperate autocrat. It is true with any of them. So yes, it is up to one man. But this is not Great Man Theory, it is the fact of material cause producing through human agency. That’s why this is so terrifying.
Putin was (re-)elected president in elections in 2018. He was first elected in 2000.
The elections would have been far from ideal by democratic standards (certain candidates were banned, no equal access to publicity) but there is no evidence that the end result would have been different.
In other words, he didn’t seize power illegally or unconstitutionally. And he wouldn’t have been able to exercise the full powers of president without the support of an elected Parliament (even if the elections there were fully democratic either). So he is more like Erdogan of Turkey than a straightforward dictator like Hitler or Stalin.
AC, Not so long ago, the US military command who feared that the rantings and ravings of Trump could bring about war contacted their counterparts in Russia and reassured them that if the order was given by Trump to launch a nuclear attack, the military would disobey their commander-in-chief.
Isn’t it possible within the Russian high command there are similarly reasoned and rational senior officers who would not comply?
Let’s hope so.
They say, but I don’t know, that Putin is ranting and shouting at the poor progress of his troops.And notice his 20 foot table with which he distances himself from his underlings.
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