Oliver Stone's complete putin interviews

wv wrote:

Btw, i think Putin understands this very well. From listening to him, i get the impression he looks at all nations as Gangster-states. Especially the US.

Yeah it;s part of his schtick internally to say see democracy doesn’t work anywhere, so why bother. This makes him the worse enemy of internal democratic opposition because he has already excused himself for suppressing it. There won;t be a Russian Bernie.

wv wrote:

But then Putin hasnt dropped 26,000 bombs on innocent people, either. So they are both Gangsters in my eyes. But different kinds.

I don’t know how many bombs he dropped on Chechnya or Syria. But…yeah he has blood on his hands. I do know that Russian air bombardment was crucial to the 2nd Chechnyan war and is also crucial to the Russian Syria campaign.

wv wrote:

As far as the “but we all know this stuff” — Well, but we are disagreeing. So how do you account for the disagreement?

My point on that is simply that the “but we’re bad too” argument might work with a rightie, who might be unaware of the problems built into american foreign policy. But as a rule leftists already know that stuff, so when leftists condemn Putin–as they should IMO–reminding them of american abuses is kind of redundant. The left is not hypocritical on this stuff. When it comes to that, I go along with one of the anti-Putin leftists I posted (linked earlier):

We should express our solidarity with Russia’s embattled democrats and leftists. We don’t have to choose between critiquing our own foreign policy and opposing unjust foreign governments. In a sense, critics of western foreign policy have more of a responsibility to speak out. While supporters of, for example, the Iraq calamity can be more easily batted away by Putin apologists, nobody can accuse people like me of hypocritically failing to critique western foreign policy. Russia is ruled by a human rights abusing, expansionist, oligarchic regime. The Russian people – and their neighbours – deserve better. And the western left is surely duty-bound to speak out.

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I dunno zn. I could be wrong, but i get the impression that you dont think Obama/Clinton/CIA are as bad as I think they are.

I know Putin is every bit as bad as I think he is.

In terms of the americans, it is a lot more complicated and to me never reduces to simplifying slogans. I felt the same way whenever anyone said “Iraq is all about oil.” No actually it wasn’t…and to me, personally, simplifying things is not leftist. Being open to knowing the complexities is leftist.

With the americans you have to leave the neat packages that come with conspiracy theory for something more along the lines of ideological theory.

Otherwise I just hear slogans and tune out.

The first time you asked that question (do I think they are as bad?) I had the same answer. I personally have trouble with anything that skips the complexities and goes straight to slogans. That’s really really true of how I look at things. Always has been, always will be. So no, no american president you named has as much blood and authoritarian oppression on his hands as Putin. Saying that is just NOT the same as exonerating the americans. Especially since it;s not either/or. It’s entirely possible to condemn both for what they actually are (ie. condemn them in comparison to real democracy and real economic justice).

Remember I was also saying Trump is far far worse than people were assuming he would be. That was back in the days when some were saying well Hillary and Trump were not that different. You don’t have to be blinded by Hillary to see that simply was not true.

wv wrote:

26,000 bombs in one year.

Count the bombs in Chechnya. Weigh the blood in Chechnya. Add Syria. One difference is that you won’t find the numbers for Russia. That’s because it’s controlled information. The propaganda result of that is that Putin gets to pretend he is offering a valid critique of imperialism when in fact he is just suppressing information and playing a transparently cynical imperialist game. Meanwhile the figures you cite from an american source? It’s the Council on Foreign Relation’s adding up the defense department data. Quote me a Russian private think tank critical of Russian imperialism. Plus of course we are not being beat up by secret police gangs for discussing the american info.

Russia just does the internally authoritarian thing of suppressing numbers and lying and limiting access, and somehow this KGB asshole manages to convince some western leftists he has the high ground?

The issue isn’t who uses propaganda. They both do. The issue is whether or not WE see through it. I will say I make an effort to see through both.

I already posted a quote from a Russian leftist saying that this national self-obsession is not genuinely analytic. Here it is again because I find it compelling:

For the American left, of course for them only American imperialism exists, yes? I can’t understand it. . . . In Russia, there are a lot of leftists who also believe that Russia is the main evil in the world, it’s a reactionary empire, and it should be destroyed. Or, at the same time, you have a lot of leftists who believe somehow Russia is resisting American imperialism [and] who support these “republics” in the East of Ukraine.

But you have a huge provincialization of the left as a whole because they can’t even understand each other and every leftist community, they believe in their own national reality. And that’s why they can be so easily manipulated. By whom? By Russia Today? I think it’s a very pitiable situation because the Russian propaganda machine, which is not the most clever, not so smart . . . it can so easily manipulate such a big sector of the Western left. It points to the problem of the Western left itself, but not the strength of Russia Today.

That quote sums it up for me on this issue.

Plus, of course, one of the old self-defeating routines of the left is to engage in conflicts over who is more “pure.” I have to admit that “purity wars” always leave me exasperated.

Speaking of which I wish others would chime in to this discussion. We’re hogging it.

wv wrote:

Its the Foreign policy where the US beats Russia in brutality.

I’m not being very clear apparently. What I quoted from you there? That’s precisely what I am saying is not true.

The only people spinning it that way are Russian. But then we can’t use honest Russian generated figures to tally their death count. THAT was the point of mentioning Russian internal thuggery. You can quote american generated numbers on american military actions. There are no numbers for the Russians–that’s completely disallowed. So what are you comparing?

But I don’t need the numbers. It is obvious Russian imperialism, while different in some regards just in terms of where it operates, is absolutely no better and no less bloody handed. In fact if anything it operates with more naked impunity.

That’s why the Russian leftist I quote reminds us that Marx’s take on imperialism was that it is competitive. There’s no one imperialism, there’s competing imperialismS. In this case we’re discussing 2 imperialisms. Neither has the high ground. Neither is “better.” Neither is worse. IMO we’re supposed to be even-handedly critical of both.

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wv wrote:

zn wrote:

I’m not being very clear apparently. What I quoted from you there? That’s precisely what I am saying is not true.

The only people spinning it that way are Russian.
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Nope. Not true.

As far as being ‘even-handed’ — i think ‘you’ are the one not being even-handed.

So, now what?

See to me, the US-corporotacracy is more murderous than the russian-oligarchy simply because the usa CAN be more murderous. Its got more power. I think they are both ‘imperialist’ or what i prefer to call ‘murderous’. I dont think Obama is more ‘evil’ i think he just has more power. And thus he murdered more innocent people. Using the CIA, economic policies, and bombs.

I’m done now, in this thread. I’ve had my say. I think Chomsky would agree with me, btw.

We dont have to agree on this meta-stuff. I am completely in agreement that ‘leftists’ should be inclusive, form alliances, and have a big tent. You and i agree on health care, corporate-personhood, citizens united, a gazillion other real-world policy issues.

I dont think we agree on what the ‘system’ ‘is’ or how bad it is. No big deal. Shrug.

w
v

Well, again, we have no idea. Because there are no private Russian think tanks looking at the Russian equivalent of the pentagon’s own numbers on military actions. There’s also no american-funded media outlets in Russia critiquing the regime with that regime’s own data. So how many times have Russian planes bombed Syrian hospitals? Harder to get the numbers on that.

I do know that doing that is as brutal as anything the americans do.

And so of course, the critique of both ought to be even-handed. Imperialisms ought not to exist, whether they’re bigger or smaller in scale. Thinking that doesn’t allow me to cut Putin any kind of break whatsoever.

As far as “the system” I haven’t even discussed that. I am not sure why you think you know what I think about that—I didn’t bring it up. I didn’t think this conversation was about that. I do know I feel the same way I have for decades. It’s basically the same now as when Reagan was waging war on central and south american liberation movements, or when the mainstream was blaming Khomeini for the damage done by the american-backed Shah. I shouldn’t have to say that’s the way I feel, or defend it, or “prove” anything.

I was focusing on Putin here in this one sub-conversation. I don’t cut him a single break, along with his western supporters and apologists. Saying that has nothing to do with any attitudes toward the americans, because bringing up one (americans) in the context of the other (Putin) always looks to me like argument by deflection. I just agree with PA more on Putin’s Russia than I do with you, is all.

So now what?