Russia-Ukraine

[Deleted member 215]

Russia should've just applied to join NATO.

 

[yaxomoxay]

That is news to me. I’ve never met a leftist who is pro-Putin and I live in Commiefornia. The only people I’ve encountered defending Putin in the US are the authoritarian far right, who see Putin as a noble warrior fighting the Jewish globalist new world order. But I imagine the far left in America differs somewhat from the far left in Europe or Latin America.

I would admit that in my experience most pro-Putin (*) individuals are on the right. As for Xi, he short circuits his brain.

(*) however I also noticed that if anyone says anything even remotely in favor of something Putin did, they get labeled immediately as “pro-putin”

 

[Deleted member 215]

remotely in favor of something Putin did, they get labeled immediately as “pro-putin”

That is true, or even something that is critical of the West and happens to be a criticism Putin has made.

It's like how the Soviets used to "whatabout" the lynching and discrimination against blacks in the U.S. Did they actually care about the plight of black Americans? Of course not. But they weren't wrong about what they were calling to attention. And anyone who agreed was labeled a "communist".

 

[Zoidberg]

That is news to me. I’ve never met a leftist who is pro-Putin and I live in Commiefornia. The only people I’ve encountered defending Putin in the US are the authoritarian far right, who see Putin as a noble warrior fighting the Jewish globalist new world order. But I imagine the far left in America differs somewhat from the far left in Europe or Latin America.

Yeah, it's sensibly different. Now put yourself in the place of someone who lives I don't know, say in Bolivia. They are poor, struggling, and the US/CIA indeed did everything they could to fuck up with not just your country but most of your continent, dating back to the 1950s, so there's already a strong sentiment anti US. They never went to school after age 12, and all of a sudden, they get the internet in 2010 on their brand new smartphone, and the first thing that pops up is videos about how the US is bombing Libya. Who are you going to believe: RT who's showing you a well presented "documentary", or the US who says that Gaddafi was a dictator and needed to go, given their history?

I mean, look at the grasp Infowars has in the US, it's not hard to understand that populism can be very appealing, and RT is very good at tailoring their message based on their audience. In the UK, RT UK went after the racist far Right audience, whereas in Spain they appealed to the anti-imperialist Leftie audience.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

That is news to me. I’ve never met a leftist who is pro-Putin and I live in Commiefornia. The only people I’ve encountered defending Putin in the US are the authoritarian far right, who see Putin as a noble warrior fighting the Jewish globalist new world order. But I imagine the far left in America differs somewhat from the far left in Europe or Latin America.

I would admit that in my experience most pro-Putin (*) individuals are on the right. As for Xi, he short circuits his brain.

(*) however I also noticed that if anyone says anything even remotely in favor of something Putin did, they get labeled immediately as “pro-putin”

Unfortunately, you will find some on the 'far left' in Europe.

They are not explicitly pro-Putin per se at the moment (who can be?), but they are anti-Imperialist, anti-colonial, anti-war, and - re Ukraine - all too keen to point to the anti-Semitism deeply rooted in much of the history and culture of western Ukraine (which has historical validity; Babi Yar - which was bombed (by the Russians) this week - commemorates one such atrocity) - but, bearing in mind that Mr Zelensky is Jewish, has no relevance, politically, whatsoever, in the current conflict.

And, historically, they have tended to view Russian transgressions in a more benign and forgiving light - and explain them away readily - than those of the "west".

 

[Zoidberg]

Unfortunately, you will find some on the 'far left' in Europe.

They are not explicitly pro-Putin per se at the moment (who can be?), but they are anti-Imperialist, anti-colonial, anti-war, and - re Ukraine - all too keen to point to the anti-Semitism deeply rooted in much of the history and culture of western Ukraine (which has historical validity; Babi Yar - which was bombed (by the Russians) this week - commemorates one such atrocity) - but, bearing in mind that Mr Zelensky is Jewish, has no relevance, politically, whatsoever, in the current conflict.

And, historically, they have tended to view Russian transgressions in a more benign and forgiving light - and explain them away readily - than those of the "west".

Exactly. Not really pro-Putin, but they still swallowed his propaganda and will readily regurgitate it. This was just yesterday in one of the Whatsapp groups I’m in.
Russian propaganda spreads like wildfire in those (slightly less so now than a couple of years ago, I think). To spread that video right now, with all that's going on, you really have to believe in it.

 

[Deleted member 215]

Unfortunately, you will find some on the 'far left' in Europe.

They are not explicitly pro-Putin per se at the moment (who can be?), but they are anti-Imperialist, anti-colonial, anti-war, and - re Ukraine - all too keen to point to the anti-Semitism deeply rooted in much of the history and culture of western Ukraine (which has historical validity; Babi Yar - which was bombed (by the Russians) this week - commemorates one such atrocity) - but, bearing in mind that Mr Zelensky is Jewish, has no relevance, politically, whatsoever, in the current conflict.

And, historically, they have tended to view Russian transgressions in a more benign and forgiving light - and explain them away readily - than those of the "west".

I mean I’m anti- all those things too. But the Nazi argument is silly and disingenuous. If any Eastern European nation has more Nazis than Ukraine, it’s Russia.

 

[Zoidberg]

But the Nazi argument is silly and disingenuous.

And it works. Because you're not exposed to it, but Russia has been at war against Ukraine for 8 years already, and they have been laying the propaganda groundwork that Ukrainians are nazis for a long time, and a lot of people have willingly subscribed to RT on Youtube, on Facebook, "to get a balanced view". RT also operates in specific ways that make it effective: extremely short articles, a circular ecosystem of news reporting, which is basically entirely controlled by the Kremlin, but extends to many, many different outlets, so that you could start clicking around into a propaganda rabbit hole for two hours without getting out of their network.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

I'm glad you mention this. Because the far left is often pro-Putin, just like how poor Americans often thought that Trump was "just like them". Yes, I know it doesn't make any sense, but they are totally invested in the anti-West sentiment. This is true at least in Southern Europe and in Latin America. Far left, in this context means not progressive, but anticapitalist or even openly communist. Hell, I know people who idolise Stalin (!).

They always start "Yes, he's a homophobe, but.... " and then they spit out every single Russian talking point against NATO, the US and the EU. Never a word about his 22 years in power, his incestuous relationship with the billionaire oligarchs mafia, human rights abuse... For them it boils down to he's against the West = he's good. Just look at the recent EU resolutions against Russia and you'll find both far Right and far Left MEPs abstaining from voting (which is basically a "yes, go ahead, I'll look away" in diplomacy)

You might not realise it, but modern Russian propaganda has been hard at work for about fifteen years, they have had plenty of time to build their discourse, find allies, extend their network into academia...

(And I say that as someone who by most standards could be considered a leftie, for the record)

However, I'm glad to say I just read 20 minutes ago that RT US is rumoured to be about to shut down. I guess with the last round of sanctions now in place it's too expensive to maintain and they don't see the point in keeping it.

I don’t know anybody on the left who is pro Putin. The closest I can think of is being anti-US imperialism, but good luck finding any country that isn’t slave to that in one form or another, aside from places like North Korea and Iran. At the very least they have to sign off on the US being #1 and don’t attempt a sizeable sphere of influence that threatens the US sphere of influence. Does Putin fit into that? Absolutely, but so do a lot of other countries. They just don’t let it get to them or attempt to change it.

If this is socialism is a slippery slope to communism and praising that thing, Russia isn’t communist. I’m fairly ignorant of Russia’s economics, but I’ve never heard anybody say look to Russia as a positive example of modern socialism. I honestly don’t know what they have going on there, but it doesn’t seem like taking care of their population or having any kind of balanced equality is a priority or even an interest.

I also frequently hear from the left that the US is an oligarchy just like Russia, and that isn’t a compliment by any stretch. The irony is the US “elites” in politics often demonize Russian oligarchy despite being part of the same system. Our politicians just have a lot more rich they need to serve. Is that the distinction? We can’t be an oligarchy because there are more than a dozen super-rich they need to answer to?

 

[Huntn]

I guess cheating on your wife with porn stars, multiple divorces, etc. is SOMEBODY’s definition of a “perfect pedigree“? Any ONE of those things, or bragging about grabbing women by the pussy or calling Mexicans rapists, would have disqualified most candidates in the past. Sorry… not buying the idea that Trump had a perfect pedigree by anybody’s definition. It seems like you’re trying to jam a round peg into a square hole to keep your concept going.

It perfectly astounding how not only could such an illustrated POS like DJT, identified as such before the election, get elected, and still have an energetic following 4 years later, which illustrates if nothing more how badly our standards have fallen, and just how broken we are that a minority could imagine finding their salvation in this poisonous disaster of a wannabe dictator, who belongs behind bars.

To clarify he could not have done this alone. He is just the wheezing, bloody cough, coming from our rotten lungs.

 

[Macky-Mac]

I think it's not really a matter of being pro-Putin, but rather that there are some "lefties" who feel so compelled to argue that anything that happens that might be viewed as bad is actually the fault of the West, and particularly the US......and that argument gets misunderstood as coming from somebody who is "pro-Putin"

 

[Zoidberg]

I don’t know anybody on the left who is pro Putin. The closest I can think of is being anti-US imperialism, but good luck finding any country that isn’t slave to that in one form or another, aside from places like North Korea and Iran. At the very least they have to sign off on the US being #1 and don’t attempt a sizeable sphere of influence that threatens the US sphere of influence. Does Putin fit into that? Absolutely, but so do a lot of other countries. They just don’t let it get to them or attempt to change it.

If this is socialism is a slippery slope to communism and praising that thing, Russia isn’t communist. I’m fairly ignorant of Russia’s economics, but I’ve never heard anybody say look to Russia as a positive example of modern socialism. I honestly don’t know what they have going on there, but it doesn’t seem like taking care of their population or having any kind of balanced equality is a priority or even an interest.

I also frequently hear from the left that the US is an oligarchy just like Russia, and that isn’t a compliment by any stretch. The irony is the US “elites” in politics often demonize Russian oligarchy despite being part of the same system. Our politicians just have a lot more rich they need to serve. Is that the distinction? We can’t be an oligarchy because there are more than a dozen super-rich they need to answer to?

I’m not saying it makes sense. I’m saying that’s what they believe. Even if they don’t idolise Putin per se, they will still embrace the message that Russia is selling. Just like with Brexit. Sure, people voting for it, didn’t think “lets’s make Russia great again!”, but they still acted in Russia’s best interest (via Farage).

It’s normal that you don’t know anyone on the left who’s pro-Putin. You and the people you mingle with are not the target audience, so of course you haven’t been exposed to it (you’re not even in the right country).

Spain is a good example: Russian propaganda went after Podemos voters (far left), but when it became apparent that they couldn’t really make any significant change (they seldom got more than 15% of the vote), they pivoted and started going after Vox voters (far right) about the same time as Vox hired none other than Steve Bannon as a consultant. Small world, uh?

It’s not about policies or ideals, it’s about populism and stirring shit. Russia doesn't care whether Spain exits the EU under the far Left or under the far Right, their goal is to weaken the EU. So they won't say they are pro-Putin, but they will be anti-West, and that's good enough.

 

[Huntn]

And it works. Because you're not exposed to it, but Russia has been at war against Ukraine for 8 years already, and they have laid the propaganda groundwork that Ukrainians are nazis for a long time, and a lot of people have willingly subscribed to RT on Youtube, on Facebook, "to get a balanced view". RT also operates in specific ways that make it effective: extremely short articles, a circular ecosystem of news reporting, which is basically entirely controlled by the Kremlin, but extends to many, many different outlets, so that you could start clicking around into a propaganda rabbit hole for two hours without getting out of their network.

We were slow. Did’nt Putin make his feelings known as far back as Georgia? As I’ve made clear I’m a bit ignorant about this bit of history, and I know this is hind sight, but you‘d think someone would have suggested Ukraine being fast tracked into NATO unless after their change in leadership, they made no overtures? A bunch of former satellites joined in 2004.

Edited date…

 

[Zoidberg]

We were slow. Did’nt Putin make his feelings known as far back as Georgia? As I’ve made clear I’m a bit ignorant about this bit of history, and I know this is hind sight, but you‘d think someone would have suggested Ukraine being fast tracked into NATO unless after their change in leadership, they made no overtures? A bunch of former satellites joined in 2009.

Putin had his guy there until 2014. When Ukrainians (at least in the West) wanted their country to become more European, with the ambition of one day joining the EU, Yanukovych wanted the opposite. He got ousted, and seeing that the writing was on the wall, Putin moved into Crimea and started war in the East, which ensured Ukraine couldn't join NATO. The rest of the country kept moving further West (ideologically) and Putin saw weakness in the reaction in the West (weak sanctions, loopholes galore, no consequences), so he got bolder.

 

[Thomas Veil]

Exactly. When you strip this thing down, what it amounts to is a control freak's massive hissy fit.

 

[User.45]

For a second I read that you studied under Hannah Arendt and my brain went in full intellectual excitement mode!

Go get a room guys

 

[Scepticalscribe]

A bunch of former satellites joined in 2009.

2004, @Huntn, 2004.

Not 2009.

And, Bulgaria and Romania joined in 2007.

I'm a bit of a pedant (very anal, put it down to my background as an historian; facts matter, and so do dates) about such things.

Elsewhere, I suspect that @Zoidberg, @Pumbaa, @yaxomoxay, and @Arkitect - among others - may agree with me: Please, please, please, spare me US exceptionalism.

And please stop, cease, desist from - thinking that how the US experiences some philosophies (rooted in European history, politics, culture and experience) is the same as what Europe knows, lived, and has experienced. It isn't.

The European historical experience, and political experience - and what passes for what is defined as "right" (far right) and "left" (far-left) is not the same as the US.

Just because what passes for the left in the US is not (slavishly) - or, axiomatically - pro-Russian (a historic hangover from having been pro-Soviet) does not mean that other far-left (and there was a time, in my youth, when I belonged to, danced with, identified with, willingly, perhaps myopically, but most certainly, insanely idealistically, - that world) groups, individuals, fellow-travellers in Europe (anyone take a look at Jeremy Corbyn's fatuous press conferences this week? Or, the voting preferences registered by a few idiots on the far left in the European Parliament, who were elected under Ireland's geninely generous proportional representation electoral system?) do not still (yes, perhaps, illogically, inexplicably) hold these views.

 

[User.45]

I'm glad you mention this. Because the far left is often pro-Putin, just like how poor Americans often thought that Trump was "just like them".

Can you specify which far leftists are proPutin? I've never met a leftist who is proPutin, in the eastern block, the right wing is way more cosy with Putin than the left.

 

[Zoidberg]

Can you specify which far leftists are proPutin? I've never met a leftist who is proPutin, in the eastern block, the right wing is way more cosy with Putin than the left.

Like I said earlier their propaganda doesn't follow ideology, it will get what it can get by any means necessary. Like @Scepticalscribe said, they are not overtly -usually at least- pro-Putin, it's more insidious, but if it quacks like a duck...

In Spain, for instance, their logic is:
We are against the war, and Spain shouldn't arm the Ukrainians because weapons would enrich the military-industrial complex. So, anyone who sends weapons to Ukraine is pro-war, and imperialists. Putin is fighting them, so he's fighting imperialists, so that's good. It's sad that civilians will die, but what can you do, that's on NATO!"

To find the full explanation in the particular case of Spain you have to go back a few decades. Franco was a pure old school fascist, even if he remained neutral during WW2.

After the war, the US went ballistic with the Red Scare, and was more than happy to help Franco, because his regime was anti-communist, so he received considerable help from the US. To sum up, the right wing dictator was anti-communist, so the left wing thing to do was to like communists. This idea has pervaded through time, and it is still quite widespread. Then you add a few years of propaganda to whitewash the soviet atrocities, and you have a far left that's receptive to Russia being actually the good guy against the imperialists.

If you can read Spanish I can link many examples.

 

[User.45]

Like I said earlier their propaganda doesn't follow ideology, it will get what it can get by any means necessary. Like @Scepticalscribe said, they are not overtly -usually at least- pro-Putin, it's more insidious, but if it quacks like a duck...

In Spain, for instance, their logic is:
We are against the war, and Spain shouldn't arm the Ukrainians because weapons would enrich the military-industrial complex. So, anyone who sends weapons to Ukraine is pro-war, and imperialists. Putin is fighting them, so he's fighting imperialists, so that's good. It's sad that civilians will die, but what can you do, that's on NATO!"
You'll find a whole lot of blog articles and alt-left youtubers spreading that message.

If you can read Spanish I can link many examples.

Thanks! I definitely don't know too many Spanish people so this makes sense. Would be interested in the links, yeah. Youtube on the other hand. Nobody should do youtube to get informed about politics.