SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
“Crises teasingly hold out the possibility of dramatic reversals only to be followed by surreal continuity as the old order cadaverously fights back.”
this is, what, round 3 or 4 of the dirty bomb accusations? not that I believe they’re fake necessarily; just because the general public didn’t immediately know that the world almost ended numerous times during the Cold War doesn’t mean that those incidents didn’t happen.
assuming they’re true, it’s bizarre that Ukraine keeps entertaining the idea. but I’m getting less worried about it over time because NATO’s forced disarmament courtesy of Russia is proceeding apace so that direct NATO involvement with conventional warfare is getting more difficult to conceive of, and the US isn’t interested in ending human civilization because of a conflict making them a ton of money without visible Western casualties in Eastern Europe. maybe it would have been an effective tactic in 2022, but in late 2024 it’s already iffy and in a couple more years of war and destruction of NATO stockpiles, it’ll be laughable
The Palestinians in Gaza may or may not be broken, but Hamas is far from that point, and they are who call the shots. And an earlier comment in the megathread has said that Hamas isn’t even attending the ceasefire talks, which doesn’t exactly scream desperation. I think that militarily, things are going about as well as things could be given the circumstances. Total civilian catastrophe that will require decades if not centuries to fully recover from even if the war and Israel ends tomorrow, but I’ve been watching things fairly closely and see no indications that the Resistance is backing down out of fear of being beaten (apparently Hezbollah is just ignoring the threats given to them by Western countries); just a lot of Western wishcasting about how X or Y force is definitely intimidated or about to give up that then gets ah-well-nevertheless’d later on.
a warm water port on a sea whose gate is guarded by a NATO member is not especially valuable, considering they already hold Crimea. maybe there’s an element of ensuring Ukraine doesn’t have access to it but I can guarantee that this did not figure whatsoever into Putin’s decision to start the war
it makes sense from the perspective of their interests but from an internationalist perspective, it’s very bad form to say “I’m willing to unconditionally vote for you and thus endorse your policies of murdering and impoverishing millions abroad so long as my interests are satisfied by this arrangement.” You will win many fewer friends abroad with this “I will instantly sell you out, without even making real demands of my leadership, if I perceive that I will benefit” mentality, when international solidarity is more important than ever.
so in a certain sense I can’t “blame” them, I understand their motivations perfectly well given the Republican threat, but that doesn’t make the endorsement not shitty and a counterproductive plan in the medium-to-long term, as per Gramsci:
The concept of the “lesser evil,” most relativizing, can be conceived as this kind of apologia. There is always a lesser evil than the previous lesser evil, a greater danger in comparison to the previous greater danger. Each greater evil becomes lesser in comparison with an even greater one, and so on indefinitely.
This turns out to be nothing more than the form taken by the process of adaptation to a regressive movement, such that while reaction proceeds efficiently, the antithetical force is determined to capitulate progressively, in small stages, and not all at once. If it were otherwise, the condensed psychological effect might give rise to an active competing force, or to a reinforcement of it if such a force already existed.
No one is immune to dogshit takes and I think there’s a difference between being incredibly wrong and whatever is going on in Cope’s brain now.
yeah like holy shit, this is just a full cognitive reset. somebody took him into a top secret neurology lab and hooked up some electrodes to his brain to invert every single one of his beliefs. usually this kind of thing is a slower process of gradually losing faith in communism after either witnessing defeats. or improvements in your own prestige and economic standing which turn you against redistribution and radical action because you’re personally benefiting now. or being included more in liberal institutions promoting the idea that you can change things from the inside without a revolution - plus, it would be rude to go against all your new buddies on the board!
you don’t usually witness a single event and its aftermath and in mere weeks/months go “well, that’s it. everything I once believed in now completely incorrect and I’m joining the people I was once fighting” I mean, you can get reddit libs who are like “I was once the most radical communist EVER but then the woke people came along with their pronouns and now I believe that Hitler had some good points” but we all know they aren’t serious; Cope wrote whole books and shit
please put a content warning for SA in the title, given the subject