I’m trying to learn more about the Russia/Ukraine conflict. In the articles that I find that seem to be critical of Ukraine, there are a few that are right wing that seem to have similar viewpoints as what I’ve read on here or in the more leftist articles.
For example this piece from National Interest, or this from the CATO institute.
There are others that aren’t flagged as right wing that are critical, but it’s just got me wondering, why would right wing politicians/publications perceive these things similarly to how some communists would when the ideologies of both are so extremely opposite?
Disclaimer: I’m not pro-ukraine at all, but in my search for info that’s not super pro-Ukraine propaganda, this is the stuff that comes up for me
It helps if you look at it from the angle of democracy vs authority, rather than left vs right. Both communists and fascists lean heavily into authoritarianism, making them quite similar in many regards.
It’s a tough category out there for “Most meaningless buzzword”, but I’d still wager good money on “authoritarianism” taking home first prize
"Our side: cool, democratic, sexy, morally-justified
Their side: dorky, authoritarian, ugly, morally-reprehensible"
You can’t define authoritarianism and we all know it. It’s just a thought-terminating cliche that you drop in political discussions to make yourself feel comfortable with supporting the status quo.
In the context of my comment, the opposite of democracy. So basically a person or a group of people holding (significantly) more power than another.
What does a democracy do if some people want to, and possibly have the means to, overthrow it and establish a dictatorship? Debate them? Send them a strongly worded letter?
Or do they exert their authority over them by arresting or killing them?
That is the weakest definition I’ve ever seen. Are you capable of defining it on its own terms, rather than by negation?
Democracy is a political system that vests its authority in subgroups, usually in representatives, and always privileges the powerful over the powerless. Even in an idealized democracy, if a group of people can sway a plurality or majority of votes, they have massive power over everyone else.
Looking at empirical implementation of democracy, rather than just projecting the lens of a shallow 6th-grade understanding of politics onto the corporate media narrative, would help you understand that.
When the fascist media corp says that a country is “authoritarian” it means that that country would have authority over them. In fascist countries the ghouls who own the media can pay off the corrupt state officials, in the countries they have called authoritarian, they can not. Anti-authoritarianism by media corpos just means they want to be above the law.
Ofcourse for normal humans this is different, every state would have authority over us.
I guess I’d call that action authoritarian.
In the end there are no perfect democracies, so far there have been no societies where every individual held the same amount of power. At the same time there have never been perfect autocracies either, as there have so far been no societies where one person held absolute power while everyone else held none. They are extremes in between which societies can move, no society is ever either one or the other.
“Fascists and communists are the same, excuse me now while I support dumping hundreds of billions of dollars into the military and police, make excuses for decades of US-backed anti-democratic coups and genocidal imperialist wars around the world, and support Biden as he continues or intensifies all of Trump’s policies (including caging children).” — liberals
Um, yikes Sweaty!
Don’t you know that they’re talking about how it’s democratic at home?
Sure it might be fascism writ large across every example of our overthrows, invasions, occupations, puppet governments, and the training and funding of death squads (because I’m going to completely ignore the fascism inflicted upon the internal colonies since I’m a middle-class liberal and it isn’t relevant to me personally) but that’s, like, whataboutism or no true Scotsman or ad hominem or something.
Don’t you know that they’re talking about how it’s democratic at home?
Yes, a democracy where like 5-7 states decide who the POTUS is, and where someone in California’s voted counts 1/3 as much as someone in Wyoming.
“You can only attribute to me specific string of words I typed in a specific order, not things that immediately follow from the ideas I expressed”
But wait, if communists and fascists are the same, then how come the US always supports fascists against communists?🤔
I said they are similar, not the same. The foreign policy of the US is mainly to protect it’s elites business interests. Communists like to put assets under state control, which is bad business for the US elites.
What is democratic about the current situation:
- The current global stage is dominated by the attempt of historical centers of imperialism (the U.S., Western and Central Europe, Japan—hereafter called “the Triad”) to maintain their exclusive control over the planet through a combination of:
- so-called neo-liberal economic globalization policies allowing financial transnational capital of the Triad to decide alone on all issues in their exclusive interests;
- the military control of the planet by the U.S. and its subordinate allies (NATO and Japan) in order to annihilate any attempt by any country not of the Triad to move out from under their yoke.
In that respect all countries of the world not of the Triad are enemies or potential enemies, except those who accept complete submission to the economic and political strategy of the Triad … In that frame Russia is “an enemy.”
After the breakdown of the Soviet system, some people (in Russia in particular) thought that the “West” would not antagonize a “capitalist Russia”—just as Germany and Japan had “lost the war but won the peace.” They forgot that the Western powers supported the reconstruction of the former fascist countries precisely to face the challenge of the independent policies of the Soviet Union. Now, this challenge having disappeared, the target of the Triad is complete submission, to destroy the capacity of Russia to resist.
The current development of the Ukraine tragedy illustrates the reality of the strategic target of the Triad.
The Triad organized in Kiev what ought to be called a “Euro/Nazi putsch.” To achieve their target (separating the historical twin sister nations—the Russian and the Ukrainian), they needed the support of local Nazis.
The rhetoric of the Western medias, claiming that the policies of the Triad aim at promoting democracy, is simply a lie. Nowhere has the Triad promoted democracy. On the contrary these policies have systematically been supporting the most anti-democratic (in some cases “fascist”) local forces. Quasi-fascist in the former Yugoslavia—in Croatia and Kosovo—as well as in the Baltic states and Eastern Europe, Hungary for instance. Eastern Europe has been “integrated” in the European Union not as equal partners, but as “semi-colonies” of major Western and Central European capitalist/imperialist powers. The relation between West and East in the European system is in some degree similar to that which rules the relations between the U.S. and Latin America! In the countries of the South the Triad supported the extreme anti-democratic forces such as, for instance, ultra-reactionary political Islam and, with their complicity, has destroyed societies; the cases of Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya illustrate these targets of the Triad imperialist project.
“USA provoked Russia into invading Ukraine” is not a communist talking point. It’s just a straight up fact. And it’s a fact that the American mainstream thought denies. Some interest groups will use this fact to delegitimise the current ruling party which is what is happening here. In the end, funding the war ended up pretty badly for the US with Europe somehow ending up worse off than Russia and the Global South rejecting the American line of sanctioning Russia. Republicans who want to win the next election are going to use facts as a cudgel when it is convdnient for them.
American fascists believe that the US should team up with Russia (which, for all its faults, is still a Christian and “anti-woke” nation) to take down China. American liberals believe that the USA is powerful enough to take on the entire world at the same time. Both are utterly deluded and are basically like the Eye of Sauron just after the ring has fallen into Mount Doom—looking around frantically, lashing out at everything. (Sorry for the Harry Potter-esque reference.)
Communists are against all imperialist wars. Fascists are only against the war in Ukraine—they’re completely in agreement with liberals when it comes to genociding Palestine. This is why, on the surface, communists and fascists coincidentally agree on Russia/Ukraine. Communists believe that Russia deserves critical support for fighting imperialism, even if it is far from a flawless country.
I don’t think there’s even a need of critical support to Russia as the later is as eager as the USA to expand and export its imperialist core, that is the capital, to the said buffer states. These imperialist viewpoints are disguise as “geopolitical interests” for the so called Russian government without genuinely asking for the consent from the Ukrainian people. The fact that Putin and his gang denies the concept of Ukrainian nation is an evidence that it is nothing but a fascist state. Not saying that whatever Ukrainian government doing is great, as we know that Zelensky banning on the Russian language and the employment of the Nazis in their programme are well known to the leftist circle. I’m simply treating it as a proxy war between two decaying imperialist powers fighting against each other. I only throw my pity on the Ukrainian and Russian people for their suffering in this meaningless war.
even so, supporting the imperialist that is not currently the global hegemon is the correct move towards weakening imperialism, no? obviously the only reason russia (its ruling class at least) is fighting the US is because it wants the same status, or at least similar geopolitical dominance of its region, but it is still fighting the US and its interests all the same. aren’t 2 competing imperialists interfering with each other’s imperialist goals better for the rest of the world than 1 unified imperialist coalition that can sweep aside any and all resistance with ease?
this is what we mean by critical support, we are critical of the theory and politics of russia, but conditionally and temporarily condone in some senses particular actions by russia against US global hegemony. if russia was the primary global right-wing hegemon exporting nazi-ism and terror throughout the world instead of the USA the positions would likely be reversed. even if you think russia is just a less powerful version of all those things the US is, we would prefer to see our enemies fight each other rather than team up.
I don’t think there’s even a need of critical support to Russia as the later is as eager as the USA to expand and export its imperialist core, that is the capital, to the said buffer states.
That’s not what imperialist core means (phrase is imperial core and it refers to a region and populace, not capital). Imperialism requires a lot more than simple export of capital. They also are not imperialist in this case, just as Saddam Hussein wasn’t imperialist to resist US invasion. Russia has plenty of domestic areas for investment and are famously the lowest capital-to-asset ratio in the capitalist world. Russia is not capital rich. They aren’t imperialist. Stop repeating this Liberal lie and misanalysis. Russia’s economy resembles that of a colonized resource nation, not an imperialist financialized economy. They are anti-imperialist and destroying imperialist outposts. They are allied with all AES. Wake the fuck up and get on the right side of the line, I’ll be celebrating when Ukraine’s fascist junta is destroyed and NATO is kicked out of Eastern Europe.
American fascists believe that the US should team up with Russia (which, for all its faults, is still a Christian and “anti-woke” nation) to take down China
This is absolute delusion that will never happen unless Russia is regime changed. Russia and China are closer than ever before, and Russia and America are more alienated than ever before. 0% chance of this in the short to medium term.
The conservatives I’ve been hearing being anti-Ukraine aren’t fascists, they are “realist” more moderate conservatives like The Duran and Mearsheimer. They actually talk positively about China and don’t buy into the sinophobic fear mongering.
If they lack principles (i.e., if they are liberals or fascists or conservatives or libertarians or whatever you want to call them) I can’t trust them.
There are several reasons that left and right opinion meet on this issue in particular:
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Right wing pundits see social conservatism (anti-LGBT etc.) in post-USSR Russia and see kindred spirits
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A specific faction of neocons in the administration and war machine see China as far more of a threat than Russia, and want peace or even an alliance with Russia to target China and break up the nascent Eurasian bloc - this includes rabid defense ghouls like John Bolton and cold-blooded analysts like (rest in piss) Henry Kissenger
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Pro-America realists who see that the US Empire is obviously taking a severe beating over this - and while the heartland can stay afloat by cannibalizing its European allies, the whole situation is badly weakening the NATO bloc as a whole - such as John Mearsheimer
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Pure and simple contrarianism: the Democrats support Ukraine, so the Republicans must oppose it
Inside the Empire there are always plenty of people who are evil, but do actually understand how the world works. When the stars align, they can make perfectly cogent, accurate arguments in favor of the same things we want, but as soon as the subject changes they switch straight back to lies, disinformation and controlled “misunderstanding”.
Thanks for this; I think having a understanding of “realism” helps to frame it a bit, which I didn’t have prior. One of the articles I linked is from an agency led by Kissinger I think, so that framework is the main influence there. I haven’t kept up with anything about China, Russia, or Ukraine so I think that lends to my confusion not being able to connect all of those dots.
Would China be more of a threat due to its economic growth?
Yes, their manufacturing growth is a threat; they’re helping third world countries build infrastructure and reduce dependence on Western finance; their rising living standards endanger the narrative of capitalist superiority; but worst of all is that they don’t let Western capital - especially financial and tech capital - have unfettered access to their population.
The wet dream of every Wall Street and Silicon Valley ghoul is to crack China open, balkanize it, neoliberalize it and drain all the blood out of its people like they did to Russia in the 90s. Imagine what 1.8 billion additional people would do to Facebook’s ad revenue or Blackrock’s rental income.
Libs support ukkkraine. Conservatives love owning libs, so they stumble into a correct idea.
