I describe Russiagate as the Deep State response to the potential (perhaps in some small ways realized) softer tone between the US and Russia under Trump. The Deep State presumed Hillary would be elected. My fear was that military confrontation might begin pretty soon after Jan 21, as Hillary was the ultimate Deep State invention--a proven imperial hawk, a friend of Kissinger since the 1970's, a Zionist to the core, a neoliberal bankster slave to the core, yet with the required appearance of being a progressive--despite the very destructive Presidency of her Husband* which from all appearances she strongly supported then and still does. Hillary seemed to approve of stronger action against Russia, before the election, and afterwards, and the whole Russiagate narrative which she and her Deep State friends authored, proves it to the hilt--that they wanted and still want greater cold if not hot war with Russia, and will stop at nothing to get there.
(*Remember the million Iraqi children killed by the heartless US sanctions against Iraq for basic supplies such as to continue chlorinating their water? Only by the even more militarily destructive standards of all Presidents who have followed does Bill Clinton look like a peace nik. And then he tore up the most basic welfare program, AFDC, and eliminated the basic banking protections of the New Deal, and failed to allow regulation to be extended to credit derivatives, the crucial actions which directly led to the crash of 2008. He intended to destroy Social Security as well, fortunately Monica Lewinsky saved us from that. On the plus side, he created a partial decade of prosperity--the best we've had since the 1960's--through long overdue tax increases.)
I see Russian actions in Ukraine and Crimea to have been largely defensive responses to well orchestrated US/NATO provoked seccessionism and imperial expansion. And, the biggest part of all I contend, is that we did and are continuing to do far worse. By such standards there should be far harsher sanctions against--against the USA for our continuing actions and influences in many places, including Afghanistan and Yemen and Palestine.
My critics portray me as being too soft on Putin, too soft on Russian imperialism as well as backwardness in civil rights. And, most troublesome to me, they say I'm not considering the point of view of Russian leftists, and those of Ukraine and Syria. They question my leftism...and assert I've been brainwashed by Russian propaganda.
But this brings up many key points, in philosophy, the nature of leftism, and so on.
In philosophy, the important thing is the whole truth, the big picture. On the world stage, US imperialism has wreaked far greater destruction over the world than Soviet/Russian imperialism.
Of course it cannot be denied that, in the big picture, there are small villans as well as the bigger ones.
But, there is a basic problem here. We (the USA, and NATO Countries, and Israel and Saudi Arabia and other imperial clients of US) are the ones doing the greater violence. For us to criticize Russia is to ignore the log in our own eye, in the words of Jesus, to criticize the mote in another's.
OK, there is one way we *could* do this, and it would be in each and every case criticizing Russia we simultanously, without interruption, similarly denounce our own crimes. Or, better yet, start with ours and proceed to the lesser Russian's, and so on.
But when have you heard that done? I've heard it once or twice, in gazillion comments about evil Russia, Putin, Assad, etc.
In fact, following the same reasoning, it's far worse Not to mention our crimes, than not to mention the Russian (Syrian, etc) crimes.
So then, in being soft on Russia, Putin, Syria, Assad, etc., or not even mentioning them at all, one is being far less bad than doing the reverse...which nearly everyone does all the time.
So, then, it can't be all that bad. And given there is a limited amount of time, at any such point as making an argument, and in life in general, it can't be such a big deal to save a bit of time by not mentioning all the lesser points, ad infinitum.
And, meanwhile, WE (the people of the US) are the ones nominally an otherwise somewhat more responsible and capable of peacefully confronting and diminishing the US Imperial violence. By criticizing the violence of others, we may position ourselves to further violence with less violent actors, principally not because of their violence but because they are independent of US, and a threat to our hegemony. This furthers the greater evil of mentioning their crimes and not ours, by providing the starting point for even worse crimes on our part. We further the ends of the greater evil, effectively becoming part of it.
So much for my philosophical point.
About those Russian leftists. One always has to understand that Leftism is not inherently a local thing. By it's own definitions and concerns, leftism is global. Leftists are the true Globalists.
But there are several problems here. In our own time, Globalism has been hijacked by those who would decimate labor solidarity, drive wages to starvation and free capital to rule over all. As Jim Hightower calls it, Globaloney.
Such little official social democracy as we have in this world, real existing social democracy, exists almost entirely through nation state institutions. Very little of it exists in global institutions. Social Democracy has been stripped out of the newfangled multilateral agreements such as NATO and WTO. Only the crippled and essentially powerless UN is there anything almost like social democracy, and there it only takes the form of high minded declarations without any funding.
So, as a leftist cares about social democracy, always better than none even if not the perfect proletarian rule, he cares about nation institutions.
But as a leftist cares about the world, a leftist also cares about the world imperialism of capital, which is precisely what all existing globalism is, with the tiny exception of a tiny amount of progressive world labor unionism and NGO's. And, even moreso, this leftist would care about where the greater imperial world violence comes from.
And in the bigger stage, the US has been the greatest and most destructive imperialist. If our Russian Leftists have not been blinded by US propaganda or contributions, they would see this as clearly as I do.
If they choose not to, then they aren't real leftists, are they?
(*Remember the million Iraqi children killed by the heartless US sanctions against Iraq for basic supplies such as to continue chlorinating their water? Only by the even more militarily destructive standards of all Presidents who have followed does Bill Clinton look like a peace nik. And then he tore up the most basic welfare program, AFDC, and eliminated the basic banking protections of the New Deal, and failed to allow regulation to be extended to credit derivatives, the crucial actions which directly led to the crash of 2008. He intended to destroy Social Security as well, fortunately Monica Lewinsky saved us from that. On the plus side, he created a partial decade of prosperity--the best we've had since the 1960's--through long overdue tax increases.)
I see Russian actions in Ukraine and Crimea to have been largely defensive responses to well orchestrated US/NATO provoked seccessionism and imperial expansion. And, the biggest part of all I contend, is that we did and are continuing to do far worse. By such standards there should be far harsher sanctions against--against the USA for our continuing actions and influences in many places, including Afghanistan and Yemen and Palestine.
My critics portray me as being too soft on Putin, too soft on Russian imperialism as well as backwardness in civil rights. And, most troublesome to me, they say I'm not considering the point of view of Russian leftists, and those of Ukraine and Syria. They question my leftism...and assert I've been brainwashed by Russian propaganda.
But this brings up many key points, in philosophy, the nature of leftism, and so on.
In philosophy, the important thing is the whole truth, the big picture. On the world stage, US imperialism has wreaked far greater destruction over the world than Soviet/Russian imperialism.
Of course it cannot be denied that, in the big picture, there are small villans as well as the bigger ones.
But, there is a basic problem here. We (the USA, and NATO Countries, and Israel and Saudi Arabia and other imperial clients of US) are the ones doing the greater violence. For us to criticize Russia is to ignore the log in our own eye, in the words of Jesus, to criticize the mote in another's.
OK, there is one way we *could* do this, and it would be in each and every case criticizing Russia we simultanously, without interruption, similarly denounce our own crimes. Or, better yet, start with ours and proceed to the lesser Russian's, and so on.
But when have you heard that done? I've heard it once or twice, in gazillion comments about evil Russia, Putin, Assad, etc.
In fact, following the same reasoning, it's far worse Not to mention our crimes, than not to mention the Russian (Syrian, etc) crimes.
So then, in being soft on Russia, Putin, Syria, Assad, etc., or not even mentioning them at all, one is being far less bad than doing the reverse...which nearly everyone does all the time.
So, then, it can't be all that bad. And given there is a limited amount of time, at any such point as making an argument, and in life in general, it can't be such a big deal to save a bit of time by not mentioning all the lesser points, ad infinitum.
And, meanwhile, WE (the people of the US) are the ones nominally an otherwise somewhat more responsible and capable of peacefully confronting and diminishing the US Imperial violence. By criticizing the violence of others, we may position ourselves to further violence with less violent actors, principally not because of their violence but because they are independent of US, and a threat to our hegemony. This furthers the greater evil of mentioning their crimes and not ours, by providing the starting point for even worse crimes on our part. We further the ends of the greater evil, effectively becoming part of it.
So much for my philosophical point.
About those Russian leftists. One always has to understand that Leftism is not inherently a local thing. By it's own definitions and concerns, leftism is global. Leftists are the true Globalists.
But there are several problems here. In our own time, Globalism has been hijacked by those who would decimate labor solidarity, drive wages to starvation and free capital to rule over all. As Jim Hightower calls it, Globaloney.
Such little official social democracy as we have in this world, real existing social democracy, exists almost entirely through nation state institutions. Very little of it exists in global institutions. Social Democracy has been stripped out of the newfangled multilateral agreements such as NATO and WTO. Only the crippled and essentially powerless UN is there anything almost like social democracy, and there it only takes the form of high minded declarations without any funding.
So, as a leftist cares about social democracy, always better than none even if not the perfect proletarian rule, he cares about nation institutions.
But as a leftist cares about the world, a leftist also cares about the world imperialism of capital, which is precisely what all existing globalism is, with the tiny exception of a tiny amount of progressive world labor unionism and NGO's. And, even moreso, this leftist would care about where the greater imperial world violence comes from.
And in the bigger stage, the US has been the greatest and most destructive imperialist. If our Russian Leftists have not been blinded by US propaganda or contributions, they would see this as clearly as I do.
If they choose not to, then they aren't real leftists, are they?
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