I’m wondering what our take on this is.
Here’s an example on libsky . It reads as genuinely frustrated. However I’ve seen this same line trotted out by NAFO about Ukraine and how it’s impossible it’s being directed by the US Government, because people have agency (making it Russian propaganda/“shallow analysis”).
I feel like there’s a small point being made, obviously not all groups funded by America/American proxies are incapable of acting alone.
The groups exist regardless of America, but American support ensures that they are able to seize power, and are manipulated in certain directions.
Yeah I agree. However even this gets the response of “you’re denying agency!!!” by libs. It’s incredibly naive.
In any given society that’s in a state of conflict (which is true of all class societies) there will always be groups that hold some position or another, some will be religious regressives, revolutionaries, industrialists, financiers, compradors, etc. The fact that an external power can come and grant one of those groups enormous power is actually the action that denies the people agency. Without that interference, the group that can gain majority support will just naturally have a path to achieving its goals.
I saw someone describe this phenomenon as basically “applying ‘therapy speak’ to geopolitics”, and I don’t think they were wrong really.
The groups exist regardless of America,
I mean… Yah, but also when the US is giving them funding, weapons, training, media coverage, and basically recruiting for them… Between the Jakarta Method, Gladio, and their derivatives the USA (and the Billionaires that own it) is the reason many of these groups exist as anything more than some drunk assholes getting in trouble at a local pub. Like at this point, Nazis and their adjacents across the globe are largely a creation of the US with a smattering of help from European powers.
I guess my point is you could still have national bourgeoisie taking a group from bar gang to small militia, and even a considerable one might not quite be able to take power, if not for a small nudge by America. Of course American nudges aren’t usually small, but they don’t necessarily have to be big. They just have to be that final push that takes them over the threshold.
And everything is a sliding scale, and eventually the system of American geopower starts eating its own tail and becoming self-perpetuating. At this point we might have completely moved from the chicken to the egg phase.
On the one hand, yeah that sounds totally reasonable, but on the other hand the US has been running a mass murder program across the globe for 70+ years, non-stop creation of these groups and everything it entails, a global propaganda machine that is nigh inescapable, full invasion into select countries… and yet they’re still forced to play whackamole as leftist movements regularly gain traction. Like to Burkina Faso right now. In a way, I’m kinda optimistic that we’re that resilient. And tbh, I kinda suspect that if the US people just pulled their heads out of their butts and realized their duty as citizens of the imperial core to sabotage all these efforts, that there would be a massive global shift very quickly.
My Food Not Bombs group currently exists. It would still exist if it was receiving weapons, funding, intelligence, logistical support, etc. from Russia, but we would also be way funnier and more noteworthy.
Edit: I’m not being snarky. I’m just imagining my Food Not Bombs group being supported by the Russian Federation.
These same people cry about things like “russiagate” and foreign influence on our population whenever it does something they don’t like.
Yeah it comes off as a very radlib form of concern trolling. So much for “agency”!
All I know for certain is if the empire, the zionist entity, and their stenographers are all celebrating, it is not my party.
the problem is setting it into a binary, foreign-supported groups can be completely mercenary or just as wholly dedicated with no aid at all, and there’s a million shades in the middle based on complicated material and ideological bases that are not easily investigated.
but lacking interviews with actual actors involved which the vast majority of people never get to do, it’s easier to put people in one or the other box without too much research, whatever melds best with your existing worldview.
People can legitimately support something and it can also be ultimately puppeted by imperialism. Also “denying the agency” of the international mercenaries lmao
