It seems like you and your tech friend are Joe Biden supporters because you benefit from the current system. It’s interesting how people in the tech world think they are political experts without actually having studied politics. Your false confidence in this area seems to come from your expertise in another field. You labour aristocrats will never see fascism come simply by reason that it doesn’t affect you negatively. For the poor black person in the US, fascism is already here; for the labour aristocrat, it is always just around the corner. For Palestine, it has been developing there for about a hundred years now, supported by the USA and by people like you.

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The “adult in the room” was being an elitist smug who only cared about civility. A textbook liberal basically.

I’m in the liminal space between the living and the dead. Where past, present and future blur into a nightmarish existence of what should have been, could be and must become—a spirit with no home yearning to come into being. I’m in hell, probably.

I remember that strip club story posted here on lemmygrad, and the video was alarming, but I did learn a little about that from Blackshirts and Reds. Certainly, the West wants Ukraine on their side to further exploit them, and that includes their women. Their hatred of Russia is also rooted in anti-communism; they still think of it as a communist country, and they see Ukraine as a victim of communism. Maybe, without realizing it, they hate Russians because the soviet union didn’t permit exploitation by Western capitalism. For those countries, it’s less about race and more about that. Capitalism and white supremacy are now strongly linked together, and white people feel entitled to everything. They become enraged when people don’t comply with their demands. In the end, it’s anti-communism and white supremacy that guides them. The thought of all humans becoming ‘equal’ is, to white people, a significant loss of privilege, which is their biggest fear.

Regardless of any proclamations, they see Ukrainians as untermenschen, Bandera learned it the hard way and Zelensky is learning now.

True, it doesn’t mean they genuinely consider them more ‘white’ than Russians or part of the West. However, I do think they are trying. Most likely because of the war. It’s useful propaganda and helps the liberals gather support against Russia, a people they despise with passion.

Ukrainians are a separate nation. This was never doubted under USSR.

I know that Lenin and Stalin recognized the differences and granted Ukraine self-determination. But again, I do believe liberals are trying very hard to separate them completely. They want them on the side of the West rather than anything close to Russians.

Correct, but I dislike that liberals point that out when the Western world has done the same. They are either ignorant of those laws or think liberalism and their politicians are allowed to get away with it. If we confront them, they always say that’s “whataboutism.”

The ruling class was overly confident of their victory in the 90s over communism. They are high on their own supply to this day and think China will collapse any time now. Essentially, they don’t believe they need to give significant concessions because, in their view, there is no alternative, and workers have no choice other than capitalism. It’s not just our politicians who think there is no alternative, but many ordinary people as well.

Emily Harding: The self-centered piece is this completely self-defeating debate, where you have people saying, well, why are we sending all of these resources off to Ukraine? Why are we spending all this money on Ukraine, when we really should be keeping it here for a fight in the Pacific? Or, we really should be keeping it here for domestic priorities? It’s just the wrong way to look at it. First of all, from a basic numbers perspective, I think Angus King of Maine has a really good speech on this, the money that we spend on Ukraine doesn’t leave the U.S. It goes to the U.S. defense industry. It goes to U.S. companies that send aid to Ukraine. The vast majority of it stays here.

It truly baffles my mind that anyone can believe this BS. The defence industry is a private, profit-driven entity. It is funded by taxpayers, with wealthy white men pocketing all the profits.

What Putin has done with his invasion of Ukraine is say: I don’t care about any of that. I want the world system to be remade in a way that I like. I want to prove that the U.N. is pointless, that the U.S. is weak, that U.S. democracy is not all it’s cracked up to be. And I want the U.S. fighting inside by itself against itself, rather than using its vast global power to ensure a safer, more prosperous globe. Chinese have looked at that and said, we like that idea. What we want is a world that’s made safe for Chinese business. We want to be able to run the world the way that we think it should be run. We don’t care about personal freedoms. We don’t care about democracy. What we care about is making money for us and for our businesses. So we’re on board with that as a plan too. Let’s see how we can disrupt this global system in our favor.

What she accused China of doing is what the U.S. does—100% projection.

The entire transcript is a bunch of nonsense and cope.

I’m in the middle of Against Empire by Parenti. It’s good, but I enjoyed Blackshirts and Reds more. Parenti is a great writer, and he is easy to understand, so I will continue to read his stuff. As for novels, I ordered 2001: A Space Odyssey not too long ago and will try to read it sometimes. I have manufacturing consent sitting on my bookshelf, plus some others from Chomsky I haven’t read yet. I bought them during a short anarchist phase I had and grew out of very quickly after reading Lenin’s stuff. Often, I buy books and end up never reading them. Uhh I should stop doing that and download them illegally instead.

I don’t really support Putin, but rather only his anti-imperialist position.

The massacre was obviously the work of NATO. Russia doesn’t gain much from this, considering they’re already in Ukraine and Putin won the election. And NATO is inhuman enough to pull something like this out of desperation to destabilize Russia. It’s another horrible tragedy committed by the heartless ruling class of the empire.