robbo203
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BS. Kiev lost its right to ever again rule over ethnic Russians when it tried to exterminate them.
Knobbo, when you don’t know shit about shit, don’t say shit. Lol
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It seems our resident simp (or should that be pimp?) for Russian capitalism and its imperialist tzar, Vladimir Putin, has been rattled. So much so that in his haste he hasn’t even bothered to read what others write before jumping headfirst into the fray with his customary rant.
Look, as a socialist, I couldn’t care two hoots about the “right of an independent Ukraine” to exist. Or an independent Russia. Or an Independent Britain or United States. I look forward to the day when the toxic institution called the nation-state along with its supporting capitalist ideology of nationalism disappears off the face of the earth.
“True Scotsman” (the name says it all!) understands nothing of this. Sadly he hasn’t got a socialist bone in his body. His pathetic nationalism makes him willing cannon fodder in the cause of some or other capitalist state. Presumably Scotland but also apparently Russia too. What a dilemma our kid must face – I assume he is little more than a precocious teenager judging by his cocky writing style – should his beloved Scotland find itself at war with his beloved Russia.
Anyway, the point is that I simply quoted from an article on “Putin’s imperial ambitions and Ukraine’s three-hundred-year road to statehood” and TS immediately jumps to the conclusion that I support the worldview of the author writing that article. I don’t but that does not mean I dismiss everything that the article said.
TS clearly – and as usual – did not read the article in question. Because very clearly there are sentiments recorded in that article expressed by Putin that affirm his imperialist outlook.
Putin really does see himself as some sort of modern-day version of Peter the Great notwithstanding that he sees himself as being on some sort of moral mission like “denazifying Ukaraine” (he could start with Russia if he was that intent on denazification). In March 2014 he said in a speech “Kyiv is the mother of Russian cities,” and argued that Russia and Ukraine were historically inseparable. “Ancient Rus is our common source and we cannot live without each other.” A few days later Russia annexed Crimea.
I fail to see how anyone can plausibly deny this is an instance of blatant imperialist annexation. It doesn’t matter what the motives were and no one here is defending the actions of the Ukrainian state vis a vis the Russian minorities in Crimea or the Donbas. But the facts speak for themselves. The actions of the Russian state in sending invading forces into another country were technically those of an imperialist power and there is no getting around this.
That, mind you, as I said is on a pretty narrow definition of imperialism – equating it with military invasion and conquest. We Marxists would take a wider view of imperialism in terms of which it can be seen as the latent or manifest expression of capitalism’s own expansionist dynamic. In short, imperialism is a global phenomenon in the same sense that capitalism is. It is merely the symptom of capitalism and capitalism is global
On the imperialist ambitions of Putin’s capitalist regime….
“He repeatedly denied Ukraine’s right to independent existence – and, at times, that the country exists at all as an independent entity. Instead he appeared to accept the unity of the two countries as historical fact. In doing so, he revealed the structures of an imperial ideology with a chronology and ambition that goes far beyond post-Soviet nostalgia to the mediaeval era.”
It seems to me that imperialism is only the logical expression of nationalist sentiment in the context of modern capitalism with its built-in expansionist dynamic. There is no nation-state anywhere in the world that is not manifestly or latently imperialist. The mistake is to assume imperialism is just military intervention and conquest but there is also an economic aspect to imperialism as well. In every sense of the term, Putin’s Russia is a fully-fledged imperialist capitalist power
Interesting article here on the support base of Putin’s authoritarian and neoliberal capitalist regime
“And just as the 1990s oligarchs were deeply entangled with the state, so the “siloviki” (securocrats) who have replaced them as the arbiters of political power under Putin are embedded in the capitalist system. For all their superficial differences, both groups turned the apparatus of the state into an instrument for individual enrichment. As business and mafia groups were gradually brought under the control of the security services, the state absorbed and internalized their profit-driven ideology and modi operandi.”
https://jacobin.com/2022/08/russia-liberals-scapegoat-working-class-vladimir-putin-war-ukraine
It makes you cringe but I am sure our resident apologist for the Russian capitalist regime will endorse her sentiments!:
“A Russian state TV commentator and longtime ally of President Vladimir Putin is encouraging Russians to die rather than lose to Ukraine and the West. Margarita Simonyan, the head of RT who is not eligible for conscription because she is a woman and media member, said during the most recent broadcast of Sunday Evening with Vladimir Solovyov that the war is worth people dying because the world is at a “dead end” due to lack of values”.
“Just like a hand grenade will never be a vacuum cleaner, the Guardian will never be a “news” paper. The role of the Guardian is not to act as a venue for the expression of free ideas it is an apparatus for manufacturing consent.”
______________________________________________________________LOL TS. You are as ever, endlessly amusing. Granted, the Guardian is a capitalist newspaper that will frame the news from a capitalist perspective. But do you seriously imagine the trashy far-right capitalist organs like the racist “Russia-Insider” and others you draw your “facts” from are any different?? They pump out the pro-capitalist propaganda of the obnoxious Putin regime you simp for and you buy it all, lock stock, and barrel, without question and without demur.
Don’t forget – you were the one that started this daft line of argument that just because the Guardian is a liberal capitalist organ we can safely reject anything it says as false. Facts are to be judged not by their connection with reality but by the political acceptability of the source revealing them according to you. Now that that argument has boomeranged back on you are trying desperately to backtrack.
I thought you said he was a gajillionaire “richer” than Elon Musk? Do try and get your story straight. But anyways yes, dismiss what the Guardian says out if hand because it’s a lie. I’ve already explained why it’s a lie and provided evidence in support of my position.
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I never said that and you have done nothing of the sort.
According to you anything that the Guardian writes must ipso facto be nonsense because the Guardian is a trashy liberal paper. However, you feel quite free to quote and endorse trashy far-right commentators like “Russia-Insider” and others. Yet you feel offended when socialists point out the utter hypocrisy of you doing precisely that while arguing that just because they are far-right commentators does not mean what they say is not true. Well, by the same token just because The Guardian is a liberal bourgeoisie paper (we agree on that) does not mean that what it says is not at times correct, does it now?
And then you wonder why all your reformist efforts come to nothing.”
Oh, the irony. Remind me, how long has your little band of ‘brothers’ been pushing your “well-meaning” pipe dream? 🙂
___________________________________________________________Lizzie, it will remain a pipe dream unless and until people like you come round to sharing it and seeking to realise it. It’s not just our loss that it has not been realised; it is yours as well!
This is the point. The precondition for establishing socialism – the mass understanding and support it needs – has not even remotely been reached. The vast majority of the population is not socialist. We know this very well and it is precisely for this reason that socialism has not yet been tried.
However, capitalism has been tried and the reformist attempt to run capitalism in the interests of the workers – like running the abattoir in the interests of the cattle inside – has demonstrably failed. The same old problems keep cropping up again and again. We perceive them as problems from our personal perspective but from the impersonal perspective of the capitalist machine they are just a sign that the system is working perfectly normally
Capitalism has failed us yet you persist in supporting a system that cannot logically operate in our interests. You don’t see the problem in its wider context. Tiny reformist victories such as the abolition of the poll tax are held up as examples that sustain the illusion that the system is amenable to progressive improvement and perfection. You don’t see that, like water finding its own level, what the system gives with one hand it takes with another.
Yet you continue to support this system. It is the fact that you and millions like you continue to support this system that makes socialism appear to be a “pipe dream”. That is the only reason why it appears to be that
“His views on Trump and vaccines are irrelevant to the topic of Russia/Ukraine. Edward Snowden and Scott Ritter are also conservatives. Does that disqualify them as sources of information? Or what about Newton, who believed in alchemy, or Darwin who was a racist? As far as physics and biology are concerned their views stand the test of time.”
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How amusing. So TS, having criticized socialists for using sources like the Guardian (even though he has used western sources like Reuters!), now defends his use of comments made by right-wing trumpites and the like, on the grounds that their politics are irrelevant to the “facts” they report on. So if the Guardian reports that Putin has a personal fortune of 1 billion are we to dismiss this out of hand because it is just…er… the Guardian, a liberal bourgeoise rag, TS?
“Christ, you people are mind-crushingly tedious. No wonder your Party has such an infinitesimally small membership.”
_________________________________________________________________Lizzie, why do you say that? You do the SPGB and its members a great disservice by imagining some abstruse topic like finance capital or “money creationism” is all that interests them. Like many other members, I have a wide range of interests, many of which go way beyond the field of economics…
At the same time, it’s silly denigrating attempts to get to grip with these topics as “mind-crushingly tedious”. Well-meaning reformists like yourself are forever trying to rush in to solve this or that problem capitalism throws up without really bothering to understand how these problems arise. And then you wonder why all your reformist efforts come to nothing. Impatience is not a virtue
“No, I don’t support Islamo-fascism so I don’t support the Taliban. But neither did I support the NATO invasion of the country. Did you support NATO’s invasion?”
_____________________________________________________________After all this time on this forum, it is astonishing that TS can even ask this question. Of course, we don’t support NATO or any other capitalist bloc including Putin’s Russia. It is the only sane and socialist response one can give. A plague on all their houses. To hell with all their nationalist warmongering. Nationalism is a toxic mental disease that needs to be expelled from the body politic of the working class
This will spell the end of the world. If it happens better quit your job and spend all your money quicksmart. Neither will be of use any longer.
https://www.newsweek.com/finland-will-allow-nato-place-nuclear-weapons-border-russia-1754925
_____________________________It takes two to tango. Of course, the provocative actions of NATO and its expansionist policies are part of the reason why the world is in the perilous state it is but equally, if a nuclear war happens as a result of NATO placing nuclear weapons in Finland, the abhorrent capitalist regime in Russia would also be responsible. There is always a choice – even in the face of NATO expansion. There is no law of the universe that says you have to insanely press that nuclear button and destroy humanity.
It’s because the Russian regime just like the appalling regimes that constitute the Nato alliance are all driven by the sick fantasy called nationalism. They all think there is something called their “nation-state” that is worth hanging on to and defending. TS, and millions of workers like him, with his own attachment to this toxic mental disease called nationalism, is part of the problem, not the solution
“And where does Marx say that workers can not have leaders?”
_________________________________________________________For the benefit of our ignorant anti-socialist “True Scotsman”….
“As for ourselves, there is, considering all our antecedents, only one course open to us. For almost 40 years we have emphasised that the class struggle is the immediate motive force of history and, in particular, that the class struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat is the great lever of modern social revolution; hence we cannot possibly co-operate with men who seek to eliminate that class struggle from the movement. At the founding of the International we expressly formulated the battle cry: The emancipation of the working class must be achieved by the working class itself. Hence we cannot co-operate with men who say openly that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves, and must first be emancipated from above by philanthropic members of the upper and lower middle classes. If the new party organ is to adopt a policy that corresponds to the opinions of these gentlemen, if it is bourgeois and not proletarian, then all we could do — much though we might regret it — would be publicly to declare ourselves opposed to it and abandon the solidarity with which we have hitherto represented the German Party abroad. But we hope it won’t come to that. https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1879/09/18.htm
“Lol, ideology is not a true/false proposition, it’s a matter of values. You are comparing apples and oranges. Go back to philosophy for kindergarteners class.”
_________________________________________________________Yes and according to your “kindgartener” logic your own values must fit quite comfortably with a Nazi outlook which must be considered “right” by your standards given the sizeable electoral support the Nazis attracted. Mind you I am not surprised. Your bootlicking, craven support for the disgusting authoritarian capitalist regime of Putin and his fellow oligarchs speaks volumes. If anyone is a dupe of ruling class propaganda it is you TS
“I guess our resident clown, TS, must think that the Nazis were “winning the battle of ideas” when the Nazi Party secured 37.3 percent of the popular vote in the July 1932 elections…”
37 per cent is not winning.
__________________________________________________________Not the point
You are equating the validity of an argument with the number of supporters it attracts. Therefore according to your daft logic, there was quite a lot to be said in favour of the Nazis and that, indeed, you would consider yourself to be some extent a Nazi as well – at least to the extent that you believed they were right which they must have been having garnered 37% of the electoral support
