alanjjohnstone
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TS – “there’s no way ordinary people would be challenging their “leaders” who are attempting to incorporate them into the neo-liberal hell-hole that is the EU…”
FACT-CHECK
Sixty-three percent of Moldovans support EU membership, while 33% oppose it. Currently, 82% of Moldovans believe current relations with the EU are either very good or somewhat good and 67% believe it is one of the country’s most important economic partners.
TS- “It must be “outside agitators”. Said every fascist ever.”
A reminder that this was exactly the argument TS and the Chinese government made concerning the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong – that they were instigated by the US.
The repression continues to this day with the ongoing trial of dissidents for “subversion” ie engaging in elections to paralyse the government with a plan to win a majority of seats.
TS finds that anything that does not concur with his political perspective is “fascist” regardless of their actual real politics.
I knew of Transnistria but I have to confess I never heard of the Gagauz issue. It too can be linked to the EU and the Eurasion Economic Union divide I have referred to in earlier posts.
Another aspect I had not understood is from a Turkish analysis that one of Russia’s strategic aims was to create a satellite state of Novorossiya a region that Putin also declared to have been wrongly given to Ukraine like Crimea.
An interesting statement from Moldova’s president who also faces a Russian-supported breakaway separatist republic problem.
Maia Sandu accused Russia of planning to use foreign saboteurs to bring down her country’s leadership, stop it from joining the EU, and instrumentalise it in the war against Ukraine.
Recent protests against the administration’s pro-Western course have been described as part of a Kremlin-sponsored campaign to destabilise the government.
“Through violent actions disguised as protests by the so-called opposition, the change of power in Chișinău would be forced,” Sandu said.
The plans would involve foreigners from Russia, Montenegro, Belarus and Serbia entering the country to carry out subversive actions and trying to spark protests in an attempt to “change the legitimate government to an illegal government controlled by the Russian Federation,” the Moldovan president said.
According to Sandu, Russia aims “to overturn the constitutional order, to change the legitimate power from Chisinau to an illegitimate one that would put [Moldova] at Russia’s disposal to stop the European integration process.”
An important caveat, however. The intelligence came from Ukrainian sources but confirmed by Moldova
Echoes of the 2014 Crimea/Donbas playbook.
Moldova’s president warns Russia plans coup d’etat in the country
Tin-tin in America drawing goes for €2m
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/feb/11/tintin-in-america-herge-drawing-auction-record
Yevgeny Prigozhin said that it could take 18 months to two years for Russia to fully secure control of Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland of Donbas.
He added that the war could go on for three years if Russia decides to capture broader territories east of the Dnieper River.
Of course, for someone who runs a mercenary army, the longer a war goes on, the more profits he accrues.
But it may also be a sign of him disparaging the Russian army’s performance as it is no longer a secret that tension and rivalry exist between the two forces.
https://www.anews.com.tr/world/2023/02/11/wagner-owner-says-war-in-ukraine-will-drag-on-for-years
In the same interview he says Wagner no longer recruits convicts from Russian prisons but that the Russian army now does.
Perhaps more ‘anti-war’ is the American right-wing libertarians that have increased their influence within the Republican Party, advocating a non-intervention isolationist foreign policy.
Wars launched by the government seem a complete waste of taxpayer money to the individual capitalist. Unless, of course, they themselves benefit from the government contracts.
Their reasoning is that free-market capitalism naturally leads to a world of personal freedom and economic prosperity, but this is thwarted by the power of the State. The power of the State grows at times of war therefore, war must be opposed as a way to drive back the power of the State.
A year on from the initial invasion and TS still hails the success of Putin’s army, that has been reduced to the use of convicts to fight in the front lines.
One year from now, TS will be still parroting the Kremlin’s propaganda that the 2024 offensive will be the decisive breakthrough.
Once again, to remind TS, none of Putin’s supposed war aims have been achieved, no matter how much TS tries to sugar it.
There are those of us here who seek an immediate ceasefire even if it means the price of peace is giving up territory.
It matters little to us if Putin is ‘rewarded’ with the territory his army presently occupies, the Crimea and parts of the Donbas.
TS – “China is run by Marxists…”
I won’t refer to anything we have written but from someone who once believed China was on the path to ‘socialism’ (which we never have)
“It’s Not Socialism”: China is a Capitalist Cheap Labour Economy, Based on Exceedingly Low Wages
“…starting in the early 1980s, China has become a full fledged capitalist country…”
“…While China currently plays an important and positive balancing role on the geopolitical chessboard, it is not a “socialist” Nation State…”
“…It is important that people on the Left who describe China as a socialist country take cognizance of the oppressive nature of China’s cheap labour export economy…”
“…China is not a socialist country. Quite the opposite. It is a low wage economy…”
“…The interests of powerful Chinese business groups … are represented at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership…”
“…The Socialist Mainstream has casually dismissed to even acknowledge the facts pertaining to land concentration, ownership and the rise of social inequality and the development of buoyant luxury goods sector for a small privileged social minority…”
It seems as if you reject the concept that there can exist a capitalist mode of production without the capitalist class, where a party bureaucracy can substitute for private owners and collectively own and control the means of production.
It also appears that you believe that there is a transitional society called a ‘workers state’ that is non-exploitative and acts in the interests of working people, sometimes labelled ‘socialism’ or a ‘people’s democracy’, which is not capitalism but not yet communism.
I refer you to our Party tweet that Fox News reported.
If we can agree that in all countries of the world today, the dominant economic system is capitalism, whether the fictitious “free enterprise” or mixed “command” economy, what is the inherent common quality of such society?
The Marxist would say it is the profit-motive, the accumulation of capital that is driven by the expansion and growth of the market.
If all nation-states are subject to this imperative, regardless of intent, they will inevitably come into conflict with others.
There can be no win-win.
For one national capitalist class to succeed and thrive, its rivals must lose.
Not necessarily immediately as we see both the US and China can increase their trade and reach a certain amount of mutual benefit from their imports and exports, offshoring and out-sourcing factories.
Just this week despite the increased military tension and a trade war commerce between US and China reached a new record – $690.6bn (£572.6bn)
But in the long run, competition will intensify and national capitalists, the nation’s corporate interests and what Marx called its executive committee, a country’s government, will engage in economic warfare, as we see happening with those industries facing a direct challenge are protected by the government tariffs.
Of course, there is an internecine phase where Big Business squabbles over the taxes paid (or more often than not avoided and evaded) and both US and China have had corporations reined in by the government in recent years.
The economic war to preserve and expand one’s market is also played out on the world stage as we see in Africa, client-states being fought over to capture raw materials and resources.
Another aspect to consider. One of the assumptions of Brexit was that the UK could win new business agreements with non-EU countries but the reality was that by not having the leverage of a strong trading bloc, the UK has lost out on negotiating advantageous terms for itself even with so-called allies such as the USA and Commonwealth countries. There is no loyalty to be expected from supposed friends in business. The UK GDP has fallen because of Brexit.
I began by saying that capitalism can be identified by its need to make profits for its owners, whether private investors or state-bureaucrats. Marx’s achievement was in revealing the source of profits – the surplus-value extracted from the unpaid portion of the worker’s labour-power.
If the Labour Theory of Value is true there can also be no win-win for the employee. That is why wage labour is described as legalised robbery by all Marxists. There is no fair pay. It is the reason why Marxists say that all wealth is created not by entrepreneurship but by labour. We are robbed regardless of whether we work for a privatised company or a nationalised one.
But to answer the question, socialism or barbarism? , if a nuclear war doesn’t get us, climate change will.
And that is another direct consequence of capitalism’s greed for profit.
Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters criticised for calling for peace because he accurately said it was provoked and despite calling the invasion illegal.
Rather than representing the view of Russia, the musician said he was speaking on behalf of “four billion or so brothers and sisters” – the majority of Earth’s population.
He continued: “So what do the voiceless millions have to say? They say thank you for hearing us today. We are many who do not share in the profits of the war industry.
“We do not willingly raise our sons and daughters to provide fodder for your cannons.
“In our opinion, the only sensible course of action today is to call for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine. Not one more Ukrainian or Russian life is to be spent, not one, they are all precious in our eyes.”
Waters was earlier smeared as an anti-semite for his criticism of Israel and support for BDS. Unrelated? Or convenient timing?
Perhaps the author’s opinion is correct regards urban warfare. He does cite exceptions such as the first siege of Grozny where he concedes the Chechen’s defence had the advantage. I don’t think his thesis is applicable to Bakhmut but no matter.
My point is that Russia launched its attack to take the town in the middle of last year and has so far failed to do so. Yet you insist it is a sign that Russia is winning the war. I think that is delusional.
On August 4 the Wagner Group reported that it had broken through to occupy the eastern suburbs of Bahkmut.
Six months later, they are still on the eastern outskirts of Bahkmut.
Our Russian Chairbourne Division tactician considers that to be a military success.
In a battle for a city, the customary rule is that it is the attacker who suffers the heavier casualties, not the defenders. I see no evidence that the battle for Bahkmut should be any different.
I don’t know the true cost of lives for either side. Nor does TS. But once again, the sacrifice of a single drop of workers’ blood for either Ukraine’s or Russia’s oligarchs is not worth being spilt.
The United States was behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline system last year, citing a single unnamed source “with direct knowledge of the operational planning.”
The attack on the Russia-to-Germany gas pipelines was carried out by the U.S. Navy “under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22″ and with the help of the Norwegian navy and secret service.
According to Hersh, Norwegian officials proposed that the June NATO exercise in the Baltic Sea—sponsored annually by the United States Sixth Fleet naval unit—”would be the ideal cover to plant the mines” on the pipelines.
Last June, with the authorization of President Joe Biden, U.S. Navy divers planted “remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines”.
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream
In a letter led by Harvard Law School’s Animal Law & Policy Clinic and the Wild Minds Lab at the University of St. Andrews School of Psychology and Neuroscience in the United Kingdom, 380 signatories urge senior National Institutes of Health officials to “review the protocols and justifications” related to the “funding of unethical experiments on macaque monkeys and other non-human primates taking place at Harvard Medical School.”
