Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
Billy_TParticipantConservatives duped by Russia disinformation campaign, claim U.S. is holding bioweapons in Ukraine
Russia appears to be planting false stories about U.S. bioweapons in Ukraine – and conservatives are falling for it
By Jon Skolnik
Published March 10, 2022 5:14PM (EST)Right-wing personalities are spreading baseless notion that the U.S. is producing bioweapons in Ukraine, a Kremlin-backed conspiracy theory apparently used to justify Russia’s devastating invasion of Ukraine.
The theory, reported by Media Matters, was publicly presented during a Tuesday Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in which Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., asked Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland whether Ukraine has access to “chemical or biological weapons.”
Nuance responded that Ukraine has “biological research facilities” that the State Department is concerned might fall into Russian hands.
Later, Rubio noted that “Russian propaganda groups” are spreading “information about how they have uncovered a plot by the Ukrainians to unleash biological weapons in the country.”
Advertisement:To that point, Nuance acknowledged that “it is a classic Russian technique to blame the other guy for what they are planning to do themselves.”
While U.S. intelligence officials have repeatedly denied possessing bioweapons in Ukraine, members of QAnon have spread the theory near and far – and now, it’s getting validation from mainstream conservatives with massive followings.
On Wednesday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson suggested that Nuland, who suggested that Russia might be using disinformation tactics, was in fact the one waging a propaganda campaign against Russia.
“So what you are saying, Victoria Nuland, if, for example, you were funding secret bio-labs in Ukraine but wanted to hide that fact from the people who were paying for it in whose name you are doing it, then you might lie about it by claiming the Russians were lying about it,” Carlson ranted. “In other words, you might mount a disinformation campaign by claiming the other guy was mounting a disinformation campaign. Is that what you are saying, Victoria Nuland?”
Ex-Trump advisor Steve Bannon echoed a similarly meandering line of thinking that same day, instructing Florida residents to ask Rubio whether the CIA and Defense Department gave him specific questions to stick to in the hearing.
“What are they creating?” Bannon asked of the agencies. “Are we involved in any way? Have we financed it? Are we partners? Do we actually know what’s going on?”
Trump national security adviser Mike Flynn was even more to the point, declaring that the U.S. had somehow admitted to developing bioweapons in Ukraine.
“I was told that biolabs in Ukraine was a conspiracy theory yet here we are,” Flynn wrote over Telegram. “They are now admitting it openly.”
While it is true that the U.S. has biolabs in Ukraine, there is no evidence that the U.S. is building bioweapons with them. In fact, the U.S. operation of these labs stems from a 2005 agreement between Ukraine and the U.S. to secure old Soviet-era weapons that were left behind in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s disintegration, CNN noted.
“The US Department of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction Program works with the Ukrainian government to consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern in Ukrainian government facilities, while allowing for peaceful research and vaccine development,” the U.S. embassy explained back in 2020.
Advertisement:According to CNN, the theory that the U.S. is holding bioweapons in Ukraine typically flares up during times in which Russia is under intense international scrutiny. Kremlin agents have been known to plant pro-Russia stories in fringe media outlets, which results in conspiracy theories percolating to more mainstream personalities with larger audiences
Jon Skolnik
Jon Skolnik is a staff writer at Salon. His work has appeared in Current Affairs, The Baffler, and The New York Daily News.
MORE FROM Jon Skolnik • FOLLOW jonsskolnikBilly_TParticipantOur friend, Nathan J. Robinson, has a good article on the overall discussion of Ukraine:
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/03/can-we-have-an-intelligent-adult-conversation-about-russia
___
His article, along with much of the back and forth in recent days, has me thinking about an obvious missing piece of this puzzle. Of course, we can always keep going back in time and find some new “origin” for these conflicts. We can even go back before these nation-states even existed, obviously. But I think a major starting point being lost here is this:
NATO’s current boundaries are close to the boundaries of Europe prior to WWII. NATO has basically just gone back to the Europe before that war, and prior to the USSR’s imperialist expansion westward at war’s end and its aftermath. Too much of the discussion, IMO, seems to just assume NATO “expansion” happened in countries that somehow formerly belonged to Russia somehow. Um, no. They were conquered by force and absorbed into the Soviet Empire. Yes, there was a pincer movement by both the US and Russia to extend their respective spheres of influence and exploit war’s end to one degree or another. They both tried to carve up Europe and elsewhere to suit their own imperialistic ambitions. But from the European perspective, the Warsaw Pact countries were always a part of Europe, and never a part of Russia.
National boundaries suck. The concept of nation-states is a (deadly) fiction. But if we’re going to deal with them as factual entities, we shouldn’t fall into all too convenient cut-off dates. We should try to find the point in history when these factual entities held their most authentic form for the longest period of time — at least in relative terms.
Billy_TParticipant‘Which do you think best describes Russia?’ Communist: 42% Socialist: 13% Capitalist: 11% Something Else: 17% YouGov / March 1, 2022 / n=1495 / Online https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/aa58ig9d3b/econTabReport.pdf
That poll is depressing. The USSR was never communist, at least not beyond small enclaves. Communism being the absence of the state, you can’t have a communist nation-state. Nor was it socialist. It was state capitalist, as Lenin said. He said he had to yank Russia into the 20th century, establish capitalism to do so, and socialism could wait. And they waited, and waited, and waited, and it never happened. After 1991, of course, it went hyper-ultra-capitalist, outdoing even the US on those grounds. Pretty absurd that such a large number of people think post-USSR Russia is communist or socialist. Emma Goldman wrote this back in 1936: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-there-is-no-communism-in-russia
Well, that’s depressing, but not surprising. US citizens know nothing about the world beyond our borders. And as the world grows smaller, it seems like we become more and more disconnected with it. We The People are willfully invested in not wanting to know about anything outside of the US. Climate change, habitat destruction, war – the world is on fire, and we’re relying on a population that doesn’t know or care what a fire hose is to somehow muster the political will to extinguish it.
Agreed. Leaning into despair far too often these days. I think the US reaction to the pandemic sealed the deal for me, once and for all.
We live in a country with a very large percentage of idiots, and those idiots tend all too often to be the loudest, most aggressive, and often the most violent among us, almost as if they’re proud of their idiocy. Climate Change, inequality, the pandemic . . . support for a fascist coup, support for the most overtly sadistic, mendacious, bigoted conman in our history . . . Far too many Americans think night is day, black is white, right is left, and so on.
We live in strange times, constantly shaking up our assumptions and moral compasses. Testing my own view of humanity, as I’ve long believed in the fundamental goodness of people . . . that it’s just a tiny percentage at the top causing our woes. The sociopath 1%, basically. Lately, I’ve been doubting my own theories more and more, and that depresses the hell out of me.
Billy_TParticipantWTF is wrong with this guy?
<p dir=”ltr” lang=”en”>Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military? The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out. You would be doing your country – and the world – a great service. — Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) March 4, 2022</p>
<script async=”” src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
I can’t stand Graham. But if we’re going just on the quote you posted, he’s absolutely right. In this case, the Brutus response is the moral, ethical, and humane way to go, given Putin’s entirely unprovoked slaughter of Ukrainian civilians, bombing their nation into smithereens, threatening to use nukes, and almost causing a nuclear catastrophe last night.
Billy_TParticipantJust saw your “retweet” of the Trevor Noah clip.
I was unaware that you follow me on Twitter. I must follow you, too, without realizing it.
I don’t have an account. Just went directly to your twitter feed via links you and others have left here. I’m guessing that means I can’t respond. Just look on from afar, etc. In horror and amazement.
WV has mentioned in the past that’s he’s been doing anthropological studies of Left Twitter, but I don’t know his “handle.” Given that you’re both Seahawks fans, you must talk a lot about Seattle? I suppose I could always duckduckgo “leftist Seahawk fans.”
;>)
Billy_TParticipantZooey,
Just saw your “retweet” of the Trevor Noah clip. Dammmm! That’s saying the quiet part out loud. I noticed some of that in my viewing of the coverage, too, but didn’t watch enough teebee to see how widespread it was. Noah puts it all together, gives context, etc.
Hopefully, media folks will take heed and realize the cringeworthy nature of their reportage, but I’m not holding my breath.
Billy_TParticipantDonald is more dominant than any DT ever of any era. Entire offensive game plans are constructed with Aaron Donald in mind. What DT ever garnered the attention Donald does? He routinely has to fight through double and triple teams. The 60’s and 70’s could probably be considered the golden age of DTs. Olsen, Joe Greene, Alan Page, Randy White, even Larry Brooks (John Hannah called him the best DT he ever faced) but none of them from an individual standpoint impacted the game like Aaron Donald. It’s hard to even know which one of that group was the best, whereas Donald is head and shoulders above his contemporaries. Sapp and Suh at their best aren’t in the same class.
.
Randy White’s an interesting case. Fear the Turtle!
Even in that era of lower player weights, comparatively speaking, he was considered way too small to play DT. Just 250. But very fast, very quick, and crazy strong. He was a 4.6 guy and could bench press close to 500 pounds. He might be the closest “type” to Donald.
Oh, and you’re forgetting Bob Lilly. As much as I’ve always detested the Cowpokes, I’d say Lilly is the only other DT from that era who could go toe to toe with Olsen. I still give the nod to Merlin, with room to spare. But Lilly was up there.
Billy_TParticipantPlus: I think a lot of Steelers were elevated (rep-wise) because of those Super Bowl wins. Aside from Greene and Lambert, perhaps, I think the rest of their HOF guys are overrated.
Have to disagree! Ham and Blount were genuinely great players, up there with Greene and Lambert. Blount even survived the transition from the pre-rules changes secondary play that made them mostly assassins, to the new-rules secondary that transformed them into coverage backs. He thrived in the later world just as much as he did in the previous world.
Okay. I’ll givya Blount and Ham. Webster too. On the fence about Franco Harris. But after that? No way on Swann’s (way), or Stallworth, for instance. Shell was good, but I don’t think he was HOF. Bradshaw was gutsy, and had his moments, but I think he’s in there because of the Super Bowls. To me, he was never head and shoulders above his peers at QB.
It’s obvious they had a lot of talent. But, again, I think if you switch, say, two of those Super Bowls to the Rams, the membership of the Hall looks quite different today, with several more guys in horns.
Billy_TParticipantIMO, the key in comparing players from different eras is to transpose them completely. If you take someone out of the 1960s and play him today, update the whole kit and caboodle.
As in, that player trains 365 days a year now, instead of half of that time, or none of it. He’s now able to exploit new tech, bio-feedback, AI-assistants, video, personal dieticians trained to work with athletes, etc. etc. Whether or not he takes advantage of all of that is a different matter. But it doesn’t make any sense to drop the 6’5″, 275-285 pound Olsen, say, into today’s game, and keep him at that weight, deny him all the tech, weight-training, and AI stuff, etc.
In short, it really only makes sense to compare people from the same era. How dominant were they compared with their peers? Yeah, it can be interesting to theorize about time travel, but you have to assume the player inhabits that new time in all ways, or it’s really not a fair fight.
I echo WV’s take here:
Merlin couldnt pass-rush the way Donald can, but Donald couldnt stuff the run as consistently as Merlin did.
And I still don’t think there’s ever been a more dominant DE than Deacon. It’s not even really close for me.
Plus: I think a lot of Steelers were elevated (rep-wise) because of those Super Bowl wins. Aside from Greene and Lambert, perhaps, I think the rest of their HOF guys are overrated. If the Rams had won a coupla back then, they would have had far more in the Hall, especially on Defense. Not winning basically doomed too many of them to second fiddle status, or obscurity.
Billy_TParticipantZooey,
Looks like Graham is taking fire from all sides after his comments:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/03/04/lindsey-graham-putin-assassinate-ukraine-crisis/
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) was sharply criticized by fellow lawmakers on both sides of the aisle Thursday after saying that the “only way” to end the crisis in Ukraine is for Russians to assassinate President Vladimir Putin.
. . .
The White House on Friday rejected Graham’s call for an assassination.
“That is not the position of the United States government and certainly not a statement you’d hear from come from the mouth of anybody working in this administration,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at the daily briefing.
Members of Congress also criticized Graham’s tweets as reckless, including members of his own party.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said, “This is an exceptionally bad idea.” Sanctions and boycotts of Russian oil and gas are solutions, along with military aid for the Ukrainians, Cruz said.
“But we should not be calling for the assassination of heads of state,” he added.
. . .
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said calls for Putin’s assassination from U.S. politicians “aren’t helpful.”
“I really wish our members of Congress would cool it and regulate their remarks as the administration works to avoid WWlll,” Omar tweeted. “As the world pays attention to how the US and [its] leaders are responding.”
Norman Eisen, who served as U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic during the Obama administration, said such comments would only raise tensions.
“Now Putin can say ‘one of the most senior U.S. Senators has called for my assassination,’ ” Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said. “Why would you want to help him?”
Billy_TParticipantIt’s not a good look to call for somebody’s assassination publicly, especially if one is a prominent politician oneself.
Agreed. As mentioned in my follow-up. American politicians need to shut up about that and anything remotely like it.
Billy_TParticipantGotta clarify my comment a bit. It makes me think of the trolley dilemma:
https://www.thoughtco.com/would-you-kill-one-person-to-save-five-4045377
Proactively ordering the death of someone is one thing, passively accepting it is another, navigating between those choices (and the unforeseen), still another. The effects of doing nothing, doing X, doing Y, etc. etc.
To boil this all down: it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest if there were a Brutus in Russia. The US, however, shouldn’t be involved in any way, shape, or form.
In that sense, Graham was wrong to make that public statement. He’s a person with some degree of power. He should have left it unsaid.
Billy_TParticipantThe problem/dynamic Marquez had, as laid out in that vid, fascinates me.
I see that issue play out all the time among leftists all over the internet.
I had a short exchange with Caitlin Johnstone on twitter about this topic.
And i got booted off an old british message board (the Lifeboat) because
of this ‘issue’ — Ie., do you refrain from criticizing Castro, Hugo Chavez, Lenin etc (or in my case Assad)
because ‘any’ criticism will just be used by the Capitalist-West to further its biosphere-killing-agenda. In the case of Marquez, he genuinely liked Castro as a friend, but he didnt like the authoritarian stuff. But he chose NOT to criticize Castro because, as he noted it would be used by the West against socialism. The other approach is just to ‘tell the truth’ however you see it.
I go back and forth on this. Its not an easy answer for me. Used to be easy, but I’m not sure anymore. I used to think “just call it like you see it” — but now, I think that may be similar to people saying “I’m color-blind” etc.
I dunno.
wv
Orwell was pretty consistent on just telling the truth. Camus as well. I know you know all of this . . . but, they both were lifelong leftists, who often directed their critique at the left. I admire the hell out of both of them for their willingness to suffer ostracism in the service of the truth. But, as you mention, it does come with a ton of drawbacks.
For instance, to this day, conservatives try to use Orwell as a sword and a wedge against the left, most of them, no doubt, not knowing he was a diehard socialist. They assume he wrote Animal Farm, for instance, as a blast against socialism. Nope. He wrote that parable as a description and warning of its betrayal, and the perversely powerful lure of capitalism. Orwell, like Chomsky, consistently said the USSR was never socialist . . .
Anyway, I think today’s context is far more complicated than the WWII era, and the pre- and early post-war years. More stuff is flying at us, from all angles, and it’s tougher to sift through the fog. Navigating this, I imagine, is far more difficult than it was for Garcia Marquez, and I suspect he had it easier than Orwell, Camus, Malraux, and leftists from around the globe in that time frame.
Billy_TParticipantUsing the quote-option failed. Will try it this way instead . . .
____
Zooey wrote:
WTF is wrong with this guy?
Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military?
The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out.
You would be doing your country – and the world – a great service.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) March 4, 2022
I can’t stand Graham. But if we’re just going on the quote above, I’m in total agreement with him. The Brutus approach is logical, given Putin’s absolutely unprovoked invasion. He’s slaughtered thousands of innocent Ukrainian civilians, bombed their country to smithereens, threatened to use nukes against X, Y, and Z, and almost caused a nuclear catastrophe last night, seizing a nuclear facility.
It’s the ethical, moral, and humane way to go at this point. He’s made it clear that he won’t stop slaughtering innocent civilians until he has control of all of Ukraine, and who knows where he’ll go next?
Billy_TParticipant…Isn’t it natural that they want to move away from Russian influence? …”
… Well we just see it differently, and I’m pretty sure its simply because we come at things from a different point on the political-compass, and we view capitalism differently. But that question you ask is a good one. But it brings up so many deep political issues involving ANY nation-state. Who is the ‘they’ that want to move away from Russian influence? What are the Ukranians’ options? Maybe ‘they’ prefer neutrality? What if the percentages are all over the place and depend on the amount and level of information the Ukranians have? What if ‘X’ group of Ukranians prefers russian influence, ‘Y’ group prefers Nato, and ‘Z’ group prefers neutrality, and ‘W’ group has no idea? There’s a gazillion questions and I would never trust the US/Western media or ‘academics’ or ‘experts’ (or the Russians) to ask those questions, or answer those questions. w v
All of that’s moot now, of course. Pre-war, most Ukrainians didn’t think Putin would invade. Almost until the actual day of the invasion. So any preference they may have once had is now forever colored by Putin’s attack on their nation. It’s going to be based now on Putin’s slaughter of civilians, his destruction of residential areas, hospitals, schools, dorms, etc. A million people have fled the onslaught. It’s pretty clear Putin wants the entire country for himself and his legacy, and will install a puppet regime to control it.
Last night, there was almost a nuclear catastrophe, as Putin’s forces seized a nuclear facility, and Putin is saber-rattling about using nukes as well. If any Ukrainians were on the fence, one way or another, they’re now going to rush headlong into the waiting arms of the EU and NATO, and they’re going to hate Russia for generations.
Billy_TParticipantBack to Solnit’s comments on Warren, which I didn’t know about until you posted them . . .
It’s amazing to me that people to her right see Warren and Sanders as basically the same: commies. So, while you and I think of Warren as moderate to conservative on the issues, Solnit is not as far off as those to her right. The pro-Trump folks hate Warren for being on the “far left,” in their view.
Personal observation, with caveats: If we think in terms of a sliding scale, and one’s ability to sync up with reality, the further to the right one goes from “leftist,” the less they can sync up — with exceptions, of course. Liberal is worse than leftist; moderate is worse than liberal; centrist is worse than moderate; right of center is worse than the center; to the right of conservative is worse than conservative, and so on. That’s how I see things in general, in short-cut terms.
Again, exceptions, and everyone has blind spots, regardless of their politics. Everyone. I also think we’re obligated to rid ourselves of those blind spots as soon as we know they exist. A difficult task, etc.
Billy_TParticipant‘Which do you think best describes Russia?’
Communist: 42%
Socialist: 13%
Capitalist: 11%
Something Else: 17%YouGov / March 1, 2022 / n=1495 / Online https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/aa58ig9d3b/econTabReport.pdf
That poll is depressing. The USSR was never communist, at least not beyond small enclaves. Communism being the absence of the state, you can’t have a communist nation-state.
Nor was it socialist. It was state capitalist, as Lenin said. He said he had to yank Russia into the 20th century, establish capitalism to do so, and socialism could wait. And they waited, and waited, and waited, and it never happened.
After 1991, of course, it went hyper-ultra-capitalist, outdoing even the US on those grounds.
Pretty absurd that such a large number of people think post-USSR Russia is communist or socialist.
Emma Goldman wrote this back in 1936:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-there-is-no-communism-in-russia
Billy_TParticipantZN,
Tried to post a response to the youguv poll. No luck. Might be the link to an Emma Goldman article. Not sure. Shouldn’t have been a problem.
Billy_TParticipant== I dont think she gets anything wrong about Putin/Trump. But then I dont think Jimmy Dore gets anything wrong about Biden and M4A.
Solnit and Dore both give me problems. If you read Solnit stuff (and i have two of her books) she blames Reps, and was soft on Obama. She actually blamed ‘the people’ for not essentially moving Obama more to the left. She didnt blame him. So she triggers me, the same way Dore triggers me or any ‘blue team’ or ‘red team’ person triggers me.
The only ones who dont trigger me, at this late stage of my life are the folks who rip into the dems and the reps, both. And that aint Solnit, and that aint Dore. Its the anti-capitalists. And there aint many out there in the US.
I mean, why doesnt she do an article about how her Dems and the reps are both destroying peace and life on this planet? Why is that impossible for her (and Dore, and all the rest) to do? I suspect its because they would not be able to earn a living in this country. w v
WV,
Interesting. Then you know a lot more about Solnit’s work than I do. I’ve just heard good things about her, mostly in literary arts journals. But I haven’t read any of her books yet.
To your main point. I agree critics should go after both parts of the duopoly, and the capitalists who pull their strings. But we live in a winner-take-all system, politically and economically. Two rotten choices. One wins, the other loses, obviously. Go after both, and you may indirectly aid and abet the party you think is more rotten — to one degree or another. So they go after the one they think is more odious. Or, they simply see them as good versus bad, and it’s a very easy call for them.
Like you, I see them as both rotten. But I’m also guessing that I see a much greater difference between them than you do, as far as their relative impact on life and the planet. I think it actually matters which of our two horrible choices holds power, and that’s reinforced for me almost on an hourly basis these days.
I want them both to hit the road, Jack. But as long as we have just the two choices . . . I’ll take a centrist, corporate Dem eight days a week over a fascist. And I think those are our choices right now.
Billy_TParticipantRebecca’s views do not resonate with me, fwiw: “…One of the things I liked about the idea of an Elizabeth Warren presidency was her boldness and acuity in diagnosing the sheer scale of the problem and her radical but pragmatic solutions…” R. Solnit w v
Well, hopefully, you’re not dismissing her article about Trump/Putin based just on her views about Warren. Remember the earlier discussion about friendships between people with differing political views?
;>)
It is possible to like Warren and tell the truth about Trump/Putin, etc. etc. The former doesn’t rule out the latter.
Yes, it’s a shame that some people think of Warren as “progressive.” But I’d take the moderate senator from Massachusetts over anyone the GOP offers — seven days a week and twice on Sunday. She’s not Sanders, of course, but then Sanders doesn’t go nearly far enough to the left for me. I see him as “moderate” too. Just a different kind of moderate. He wants Denmark on the Potomac. I suspect Warren wants a toned down FDR.
Aside from her take on Warren, what do you think Solnit gets wrong?
Billy_TParticipantSame caveat goes for the Salon article. Lotsa links within the article, so it’s best read on the site.
Billy_TParticipantI missed this until just now, WV. Still have about 20 minutes left. Fascinating.
I read several of Garcia Marquez’s novels when I was younger, and some of his short stories, but never really delved into his politics. Of course, in general, most of the writers of the Latin American “Boom” period were leftists, but there were exceptions. Some of them moved across the spectrum over time, too, usually from left to right, unfortunately. I think (but am not sure) that was the case for Octavio Paz and Mario Vargas Llosa, whom I met at a book-signing years and years ago. Though Jorge Luis Borges, if memory serves, remained a conservative, but was basically “apolitical” for the most part.
It’s interesting that most of them could retain their friendships, despite major political differences. I imagine that would not be the case if they were coming of age today.
Thanks for posting this.
Billy_TParticipantThought it would add to the above to also post the latest from Chauncey Devega,
https://www.salon.com/2022/03/02/how-supremacy-fuels-the-love-affair-with-vladimir-putin/
How white supremacy fuels the Republican love affair with Vladimir Putin
The American right’s romance with Putin is no mystery: Trumpers see him as leading a global war for whiteness
By Chauncey DeVega
Published March 2, 2022 6:01AM (EST)Racism is not an opinion. It is a fact.
This is true both in the United States and around the world.
As W.E.B. Du Bois presciently wrote in 1903, the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line. That is true in the 21st century as well, even if the context has changed — and that could remain true in the 22nd century as well (assuming humanity survives that long).
Racism and white supremacy continue to structure American society, largely by privileging some groups (those defined as “white”) and disadvantaging others (especially those deemed “Black,” but other nonwhites as well). These outcomes are the aggregate result of individual, systemic and institutional discrimination and other forms of racial animus. This has been a fixture of American life and society since before the founding of the republic through to the post-civil rights era and now the Age of Trump and a 21st-century form of fascism. In practice, racism and white supremacy are a “changing same,” constantly adapting over time to fit American society in support of the maintenance and expansion of white privilege, white power and white control.
Advertisement:RELATED: Right’s cynical attack on “critical race theory”: Old racist poison in a new bottle
Racial attitudes and values help to structure how Americans, particularly white Americans, feel about both domestic politics and foreign policy. For example, it is no surprise, and really no mystery — as some members of the mainstream news media and commentariat appear to believe — why many Republicans and other members of the white right defend or even embrace Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine. This is readily explainable: The Russian president is viewed by them as a champion of “conservative values” and the possibility of a return to what they have deluded themselves into believing was a “golden age” of white male Christian dominance over all areas of American (and global) society.
Putin’s politics, values and strategic goals, at least in a general sense, largely align with those of today’s Republican-fascist movement and the larger white right. Taken together, they are a global front aimed at undermining or destroying pluralism and multiracial democracy.
Robert Reich summarizes this in a new essay for the Guardian, where he writes: “The Trump-led Republican party does not openly support Putin, but the Republican party’s animus toward democracy is expressed in ways familiar to Putin and other autocrats. … Make no mistake: Putin’s authoritarian neo-fascism has rooted itself in America.”
Writing at Jewish Currents, David Klion explores this further:
On the right, leading voices like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, and Donald Trump himself have been more likely to offer actual defenses of Putin and Russia. … But there’s also a deeper ideological affinity between the Western far right and Putin’s Russia, one that emphasizes Russia’s Christianness and whiteness, its hostility to LGBTQ minorities, and its potential role as a bulwark against China, which many on the right view as 21st century America’s true geopolitical rival.
In an essay last Sunday for the New York Times, Emily Tamkin discusses the right’s preoccupation with Putin’s supposed “strength”:
Advertisement:“Strong” may be the key word here. In this construction, a strong leader is apparently one who cracks down on opposition, cultural and political, and does not concede. This idea then dovetails with right-wing ideas that liberal elites are actively corroding deeply held traditional values — including traditional gender roles. For those who spend a fair amount of airtime worrying about the emasculation of men, the kind of strength portrayed by Mr. Putin — who on Monday convened his top security officials and demanded they publicly stand and support him — is perhaps appealing.
Many of the admirers of the world’s strongmen on the American right appear to believe that the countries each of these men lead are beacons of whiteness, Christianity and conservative values. …
These comments, from the right, aren’t exactly advancing a new position. In 2018, the political commentator Pat Buchanan said that Mr. Putin and the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko were “standing up for traditional values against Western cultural elites.” …
Russia is neither all white nor all Christian — it is a country that encompasses several regions, religions and ethnicities. Still, it is often perceived as white. … [T]his construction of Mr. Putin as a beacon of far-right values began with the ultra-far-right nationalists in Europe and later spread to the United States.
James Risen is even more direct in a recent essay for the Intercept:
Advertisement:[Putin’s] brutal invasion of Ukraine is just the latest move in his long-running strategy to rebuild the Russian empire by any means necessary. But while Putin hasn’t strayed from his obsessions of 30-plus years ago, the U.S. Republican Party has been comprehensively altered into something that would have been unrecognizable in 1989. Today, much of the American right is in thrall to Putin and other autocrats, and a segment of the extreme right now harbors a hatred for Western democracy. The new American right somehow sees Putin as a guardian of white nationalism who will stand up to the “woke” left in the West. They don’t seem to care that he is a murderous dictator who has launched a war in the middle of Europe. …
But while other Republicans in Congress denounced Putin’s invasion, they refused to criticize Trump or other Putin sympathizers in their party. That follows the usual pattern within the GOP, in which establishment politicians try to ignore Trump — only to be overshadowed and eventually overwhelmed by him. …
In the United States, meanwhile, perhaps the biggest political question in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is whether the Trumpist wing of the Republican Party will continue its sympathy for and appeasement of Putin. For now, it seems likely that pro-Putin Republicans will continue to allow their hatred for progressives and adherence to white nationalism to blind them to what Putin really is.
These observations help to highlight three foundational realities about American politics and the color line in the post-civil rights era and the Age of Trump. The first of those is that today’s Republican Party is America’s and the world’s largest white supremacist and white identity organization.
Advertisement:The second is that “conservatism” and racism are now fully one and the same thing here in America.
The third is that on a fundamental level Trumpism and American neofascism are nothing new. Instead, they represent a continuation of evil forces that have long been present in American society — and show few signs of being vanquished. Ever since the invention of “race” as a concept in or around the 15th century, white supremacy and racism have been a global project. In America today, the Republican Party and “conservative” movement are the leading proponents of such anti-human ideas and values — and are wholly invested in perpetuating and strengthening them far into the future.
Billy_TParticipantIf you disagree with me, it’s because you were never a real Rams fan.
No one can call themselves a true Rams fan if they don’t acknowledge the game-changing impact of Billy Truax — and that includes the Super Bowl this season. Aaron Donald? Sure. But without the foundation put in place by Billy Truax, none of this would have been possible.
Back to Ukraine for a moment:
Part of the calculus for any act of war: If we don’t do this, X will happen. But there’s another huge part that all too often is discounted: If we do go to war, what are the consequences?
I think, going in, Putin had to know that the world would react in a seriously negative manner. He likely didn’t foresee the extent or the solidarity of reactions — Switzerland’s break with neutrality, and all the sports, tech, and entertainment bans, for instance. But he must have known he would be largely isolated and it would hurt him financially. He also must have known that NATO would then have no reason to ever hold back from further expansion. The “if you expand, I will attack” card is gone after he invades.
To make a long story shorter, I personally can’t see any “upside” for him or Russia, thinking in pre-war terms. None. Zero. Zip. And that’s not even counting the most important downside, the massive loss of life and health that doesn’t seem to ever end after a war. He and Russia lose a ton, and his best case scenario is that he puts a Russian puppet in charge of Ukraine, while the entire world is unified in opposition. NATO has support now to do the very thing Putin said was a threat to Russia. As in, his invasion will cause more NATO expansion. Plus, the EU drops Putin like a bad dream. As in, things are far worse for Putin and Russia after even a “successful” invasion.
Billy_TParticipantWV,
Good response. And spiced up with some of your ™humor too. That’s needed right now.
My earlier long and winded road, regarding capitalism: I think if I hadn’t written it, I wouldn’t know what the hell I was saying either.
;>)
Basically, on your earlier question about ultimate responsibility for the invasion: Yes, capitalism. It creates an entirely artificial climate of bottom-up competition for jobs and scarce resources, to go with the top-down stuff that’s always been there. It’s likely the first economic system in history that developed its own gaslighting infrastructure to create (a mostly successful) buy-in from the masses.
Capitalism depends on that, unlike any previous system. It has to create a climate where people think they’re involved with this crap by choice, instead of via a matrix of force and dire necessity. This also leads to our being pitted against each other, and seeing this as “natural” when it’s not. That gets us closer to accepting war too. The concept of the nation-state does some heavy lifting along those lines as well. But it’s mostly the global economic system.
My take on Ukraine, however, is that this is a specific event, with specific moral agents involved, and only one of them can say No. Putin had the power to just say No. We’re not going to invade. We’re going to hold good-faith talks with Zelensky and company and try to persuade him to stay out of NATO, if that’s our desire. Not via threats — which is all Putin has done for two decades — but through actual negotiations.
In my view, this specific case is entirely on Putin. He didn’t have to invade. Nothing forced him to, except for his own lust to extend his already gargantuan nation-state.
Billy_TParticipantWV,
Saw that I dealt with similar questions yesterday, in the 9:11am post. Reading that one should make my recent answer a bit clearer.
Would appreciate a response. Hope all is well.
Billy_TParticipantAlso, I’m not seeing any formal agreement by NATO to accept Putin’s demand to block new countries from joining. He made the demand. Doesn’t mean NATO agreed to it.
And this aspect bothers me as well: I think the authors who tried to equate NATO’s expansion with Putin’s invasion — or say the former justifies the latter — need to re-calibrate their moral compasses. Nation-states that willingly join an association aren’t in the same universe as nation-states that seek to block that at the point of a gun. There is an obvious moral and ethical distinction between the former Warsaw Pact countries choosing to join NATO, and Putin’s gobbling up Georgia, Crimea, and now Ukraine. I would think this would be easy for leftists. Condemn Putin’s actions, full stop.
Billy_TParticipant======== Cant say I understand any of that, BT. w v
I guess it is a bit long-winded. Will try to boil it down.
I’m seeing, especially since 2015/2016, an inordinate amount of energy spent (from some on the left) trying to “understand” Russia’s actions — and by extension, Trump’s. This can take the form of absolute denial that things we know happened ever happened. Or it may just be jumping through endless hoops trying to excuse it, or just saying none of it matters. This all too often lines up perfectly with GOP talking points, Fox News, and Putin’s propaganda, etc. etc. These same people do not spent one iota of time trying to “understand” the actions of people and entities on the other “side(s).
I would get it if the same attempt to “understand” was evenly applied, or its opposite: condemnations of all sides without explanations. But I do not get the lopsided nature of the critique, nor do I get why Putin and Trump are the objects being defended in the first place. As mentioned, I would if “leftists” were fighting on behalf of the oppressed, the powerless, the earth, or their champions — as per leftist tradition. But Putin is a far-right dictator, and quite possibly the world’s richest man. Trump is a billionaire too. Both men are in direct opposition to every leftist stance on the books, and Trump and his party, especially, constantly demonize the entire left.
Billy_TParticipantThe critique of western europe and north america (and China) combined in terms of world colonial, economic, and technological effect is of course something you can count on everyone here agreeing with.
Yep. The whole post, but this especially.
Billy_TParticipantQuick follow-up:
I should have mentioned This Life, by Martin Hägglund. I think his book’s philosophical/social analysis is one of the best I’ve encountered, and the closest to my own sense of what should be and why.
-
AuthorPosts
