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Powerful article by Simon Jenkins in yesterday’s Guardian about what Truss is up to do;
In case it’s behind a paywall here’s how it starts;
“Liz Truss risks recklessly inflaming Ukraine’s war to serve her own ambition
Simon JenkinsThe foreign secretary’s belligerent comments on Russia reduce Ukraine to a pawn in the Conservatives’ power struggle
The foreign secretary, Liz Truss, is playing with fire. On Wednesday night she described Russia’s Vladimir Putin as a “rogue operator” lacking rationality, and with “no interest in international norms”. As a result, she said: “We will keep going further and faster to push Russia out of the whole of Ukraine.” She is clearly revelling in her imagined proxy war on the Russian bear and no one in Whitehall appears able to restrain her.
(…)
Before his stunt visit to Kyiv this month, Boris Johnson also instructed Volodymyr Zelenskiy not to make any concessions to Putin, a line Truss is clearly seeking to rival. It is not unknown for democratic leaders to play war games to excite their electorates, but this must be the first Tory leadership contest fought on the frontiers of Russia.”Normally you would expect the opposition party to expose this sort of thing but the Labour Party is apparently afraid that doing this would undermine its proud claim to be “the party of NATO” and its leftwing MPs have been cowed into submission by threats to be given the Corbyn treatment.
That’s assuming that he was a mercenary hired by the Ukrainian state and not a military adviser provided by the British state or a member of the SAS. It would be surprising if there weren’t any British army boots on the soil there.
I see Truss called her war-mongering speech “The Return of Geopolitics” declaring that “geopolitics is back”. But when did it ever go away in relations between the Great Powers as they compete to dominate sources of raw materials, trade routes and investment outlets and to control strategic points and areas to do this?
And of course it well explains the NATO-Russia War in Ukraine.
In view of Truss’s war aim of pushing Russian troops out of the whole of the Ukraine including Crimea, it is not surprising that the headline in today’s Times is “Truss fears Ukraine war could carry on for years”.
I am not sure, though, that “fears” is the right word. It should be “wants”. As that’s how long it would take to achieve her declared war aim. It is also unlikely to be achieved without NATO boots on the grounds and an exchange of tactical nuclear weapons by both sides.
Fortunately, diplomats from other countries regard her as a crackpot. As indeed she is if that’s what she wants.
A lot of the Greeks in Ukraine speak Russian not Ukrainian and so are persecuted by the Ukrainian nationalists. Some support Russia.
https://greekcitytimes.com/2022/03/18/greek-refugee-from-mariupol/?amp
Kent & Sussex branch are planning to finish distributing the election leaflets in Tunbridge Wells this Sunday 1 May. Anyone wishing to help, text or phone 07971 715569 about where to meet up.
Here is another example of Truss’s lack of grasp of realities and general stupidity. She has just declared that Britain’s war aim in (or for) Ukraine is to push all Russian troops out Ukraine, ie from the Crimea and the areas of the Donbas Russia seized in 2014 as well as what they have conquered this year.
“Russian forces must be pushed out of “the whole of Ukraine”, the Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has said.
In a keynote speech in London, Ms Truss said victory for Ukraine was now a “strategic imperative” for the West.
This amounts to the clearest statement yet of Britain’s war aims which have, until now, been limited to stating that President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine “must fail and be seen to fail”.
She said Western allies must “double down” in their support for Ukraine.
“We will keep going further and faster,” Ms Truss said, “to push Russia out of the whole of Ukraine.”
This implies that Russian forces must leave not just the territory occupied in recent weeks since their invasion on 24 February but also those areas they invaded and annexed eight years ago, such as Crimea in the south and parts of the eastern Donbas region.”https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61251698.amp
But also:
“The war in Ukraine is our war – it is everyone’s war… because Ukraine’s victory is a strategic imperative for all of us.”
For all of us? What interest have ordinary people in the US and its NATO allies achieving the “strategic imperative” of incorporating the whole of the Ukraine (or what would be left of it to achieve this) into their sphere of influence? None whatsoever. All they are getting out of it is the pain of an increased cost of living crisis.
At least she has cut the crap about this being a war for “democratic values” and admitted that it’s about geopolitics.
Moldavia won’t qualify to join any more than Ukraine did — they too have an internal breakaway problem which renders them ineligible.
This statement above from Blunden about why the US is supplying Ukraine with arms admits that in relations between capitalist states “might is right”:
“Our purpose is to make sure that they have within their hands the ability to repel the Russian aggression and indeed to strengthen their hand at an eventual negotiating table.”
This article from rt.com explains how a Transnistria came to be inhabited by Russian-speakers:
https://www.rt.com/russia/554330-uprising-transnistria-donbass-ukraine/
Whether he was right or wrong, Marx undoubtedly held the view that there were some things that had a price but not “value” in the sense of being the product of socially necessary labour. You mention some of them such as uncultivated land, honour, conscience, etc.
Uncultivated land is clearly not the product of any labour but can still have a price. Once it has been cultivated then it does contain an element of labour. Even so, the price of land doesn’t have to bear any relation to this. The price of land is a capitalisation of the rent it can bring in and this depends on its location and the uses to which this allows it to be put. It does not reflect any socially necessary labour that might also have been incorporated in it.
The value of a commodity, according to Marx, is a reflection not so much of the amount of socially necessary labour expended to produce it from start to finish as the amount that has to be expended to reproduce it. This means that if something cannot be reproduced then the labour theory value does not explain its price. Its price depends on the demand for it. Land is in this position.
There are other things that are also in this position, even though they are the product of labour. Works of art would be a typical example but also performing talents such as Messi and film stars. Because they cannot be reproduced the labour theory of value does not apply to them.
Louis Boudin has explained this well in his The Theoretical System of Karl Marx:
“This group includes all those things which, although produced by labour, are essentially the product of some higher natural gift or power, and are, therefore, irreproducible by mere labour. This includes all works of art and the like. Not being the subject of production or reproduction by labour they are, naturally not subject to the laws of value”.
So your defence of Marx’s Labour Theory of Value on the grounds that everything that has a price is in fact a product of some labour is unnecessary. It is not merely being the product of some labour that gives something a price reflecting the amount of socially necessary labour expended to produce it. The Labour Theory of Value only applies to “commodities” in the sense of something produced for sale that can be reproduced. Products of labour such as works of art or the exercise of sporting or acting skills are not commodities in this strict sense.
That’s yet further proof of the malign influence of the British government in the Ukraine. Having succeeded in sabotaging previous peace negotiations, they now want to escalate the war by supplying Ukraine with planes with permission to use them to bomb Russia.
All done, not for any material economic interest of the British capitalist, but simply to advance the political careers of the two main persins involved, Borys and the unspeakable Truss.
But also without any opposition from the Labour opposition, the self-proclaimed “party of NATO”.
Meanwhile even in the US there is some opposition amongst elected representatives. Here is a report of an exchange yesterday in the Senate between the Secretary of State and an isolationist senator, Rand Paul:
“In a heated exchange during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Tuesday, Paul accused the Biden administration of “beating the drums to admit Ukraine to NATO” even though it was a position Russia “absolutely hated and said was a red line.” (…)
Blinken said the White House would be open to an eventual deal between Russia and Ukraine that results in Ukraine becoming “an unaligned, neutral nation.”
“We, Senator, are not going to be more Ukrainian than the Ukrainians. These are decisions for them to make,” Blinken said to Paul.
“Our purpose is to make sure that they have within their hands the ability to repel the Russian aggression and indeed to strengthen their hand at an eventual negotiating table,” he added.”It is hard to imagine such an exchange taking place in the House of Commons. If any Labour MP were to suggest, like Rand Paul, that NATO might have provoked Russia over Ukraine joining (or at least provided Russia with a pretext to invade) they would be expelled from the parliamentary party. Starmer has stated that one reason why Corbyn won’t be re-admitted is precisely that he has dared to criticise NATO.
This makes Labour complicit in the aggravation of the cost of living crisis (even higher heating and fuel costs) due to the sanctions imposed on Russia.
There speaks a military man (though probably out of turn). But then he will also understand, as “entirely legitimate” from a military point of view, Russia’s bombing of railway hubs, oil depots, storage facilities, etc (and any collateral damage to civilians) — and leave it to the Ukrainian propaganda machine to describe this as “genocide”.
As the Russian Foreign Minister has said, “war means war.” (https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2022/4/26/russia-ukraine-war-lavrov-warns-of-risk-of-nuclear-conflict)
There speaks a military man (though probably out of turn). But then he will also understand, as “entirely legitimate” from a military point of view, Russia’s bombing of railway hubs, oil depots, storages, etc (and any collateral damage to civilians) and leave it to the Ukrainian propaganda machine to describe this as “genocide”. As the Russian Foreign Minister has said, war is war.
