Nothing but lack of sovereignty is stopping them from dropping support for Ukraine tomorrow, making up with Russia and starting up the cheap energy flows from the east via tanker ships while working on building some new pipe-lines with US military proximity detection alarms on them.
They are constrained by their liberalism and the limits of its imagination. Liberalism which is largely filtered through Atlantacist, UK, or US lens via media, press, etc.
So I think I’m also quite skeptical of this being anything but an attempt to act up, gain leverage and better terms from master America.
The irony of ridiculing them for liberalness while suggesting they cozy up to imperialist Russia, who is actively waging a war of conquest in their own backyard. That’s the type of shit I usually hear right before someone insists Russia had NO CHOICE but to attack their neighbors because all their neighbors are joining defensive alliances when they see how Russia abuses their neighbors.
Adolf Heusinger: As a top Nazi officer, Heusinger served as acting Chief of Staff of the Army for Nazi Germany, helping plan invasions of Poland, Denmark, Norway, and Austria. He was later appointed Inspector General of the West German Armed Forces and became Chairman of the NATO Military Committee in Washington D.C.
Hans Speidel: A Nazi lieutenant general and chief of staff to Erwin Rommel, Speidel became Supreme Commander of NATO Allied Ground Forces in Central Europe (1957–1963).
Johannes Steinhoff: A former Luftwaffe top fighter ace who became Chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 1971 to 1974.
Reinhard Gehlen: A Nazi intelligence officer who helped construct a German foreign secret service with U.S. assistance, which later influenced the creation of the BND
Ferdinand von Senger und Etterlin: Lieutenant in the Nazi invasion of the USSR (Operation Barbarossa). He participated in the Battle of Stalingrad. He was awarded the German Cross in Gold. At the end of the war he was a deputy High Command personnel of the Third Reich Navy. He later commanded several tank battalions and became a general and commander-in-chief of NATO’s Allied Forces Central Europe between 1979 and 1983.
Franz Joseph Schulze: Lieutenant in the service of the Nazi air forces as commander of a regiment. He received the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. In post-war Germany he was a general and later commander-in-chief of NATO’s Central European Allied Forces from 1977 to 1979.
Karl Schnell: Major and first officer of the General Staff in Nazi Germany, also received the Iron Cross. He replaced General Ferber as Commander-in-Chief of NATO’s Allied Forces Central Europe between 1975 and 1977.
Ernst Ferber: Lieutenant colonel in the Wehrmacht General Staff, decorated with the Iron Cross. He became Commander-in-Chief of NATO’s Central European Allied Forces between 1973 and 1975.
Johann von Kielmansegg: General Cabinet Officer of the Nazi Army High Command, where he rose to Colonel and commanded several regiments in the field. After the war he joined the German Army and rose to Brigadier General and rose to the highest positions in NATO as Commander-in-Chief of Special Forces in Central Europe in 1967.
Yeah, unfortunately, if you convince a bunch on imperialists to band together, even if for a benign reason like defense, they will realize that they can collaborate on doing imperialist shit from time to time. It still doesn’t change the fact that the biggest reason eastern European states make an effort to join NATO, especially those formerly in the Soviet bloc, is for defensive assurances, typically assurances against Russia.
Sometimes, the enemy of my enemy isn’t my friend. It’s just another asshole bickering with the first asshole.
Russia is providing humanitarian aid to Cuba (that is being starved by your US) and helping to repel European colonizers in Africa, e.g. the Sahel. Yeah, Russia isn’t the USSR but one can realize who is the lesser evil in the Global South’s eyes.
I could list humanitarian aid the US has delivered, too, almost certainly at times at odds with Russian cruelty, but I don’t really want to go there because I don’t see it as a meaningful distinction because I primarily see the difference between the US and Russia as one of capacity, not ethics. If Russia had the power and position the US has, I don’t think they’d act any better. They’re no less evil; they just have less capacity to enact evil. That’s why I can understand a desire to distance oneself from the US and can even understand how Russia could be perceived as an ally, but I don’t think they’re a genuine ally. They’ll help to the extent it furthers their own goals, and they’ll turn on you as soon as that furthers their goals.
it’s telling that you have to come up with idealist hypotheticals of why Russia could be bad if they were like the US. Instead of just, looking at and describing reality where the USA is the fascist empire rampaging across the planet with 800 foreign military bases while Russia has 0.
You have been trained your whole life by the Liberal hegemonic worldview that was instilled as you in education and through media to immediately begin Rationalizing everything, digesting it into a soup where you are the good guy and those who oppose you are the bad guys, or at the least that everything is the same and nothing matters. Every single geopolitical and historical fact you have ever encountered and discussed with others has been filtered through this Liberal Idealist Rationalizing process, where you break it down and come up with some hypotheticals or twist it through some contortions and what-ifs and allegories and metaphors until it comes out what you want it to.
Stop doing that. Just look at hard facts. Use materialism and empiricism. Stop being a fucking debate nerd who needs to turn everything into gotchas and rhetorical fallacies. It’s not only tiring to those who engage with you and makes you insufferable, it also makes it so you have no fucking idea what is actually happening on Earth and will consistently be wrong. Ever wonder why the “tankies” are always right, about opposing American Wars while you squishy idealist lefties are consistently incorrect and fall for it over and over? Why does your tendency always believe in every American imperialist project like Ukraine, Israel, Syria until it’s over or in serious decline and finally removes its mask? Maybe just try listening to the people who were right the whole time and continue to be right, and find out how it is they’re doing it (it’s materialist marxist analysis).
They’ll help to the extent it furthers their own goals, and they’ll turn on you as soon as that furthers their goals.
You see, while hypocrite liberals feign reproach, the Global South understands that. You can live with Israel as an ally, others will grab any helping hand available because they don’t have the luxury to refuse. While THE UNITED STATES represent an EXISTENTIAL THREAT to the entire world, there’s no other way.
Whether Russia gets on that level or not, that’s a consideration for another day.
Whether Russia gets on that level or not, that’s a consideration for another day.
Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m overly pessimistic about it. But I just don’t think it’ll pan out the way you hope. I don’t see dependence on Russia panning out well for more than just a little while. Maybe it’s worth a moment’s respite, but I worry it only perpetuates the cycle, not breaks it.
It’s not “doing imperialist shit” from time to time as you say. It’s imperialist as a foundational aspect. Its goal is to secure US imperialist world order. It’s as defensive as Israel’s existence. Defense against “the enemy” (which goes back and forth between Russia and China these days) is pure consent manufacturing.
Sometimes, the enemy of my enemy isn’t my friend. It’s just another asshole bickering with the first asshole.
To address this, sure. The way that maga people are also against democrats. But this situation is not that. Aligning with the US only serves the US imperialist order and MIC capitalists. US wields the largest military force in the world, 800+ bases on every continent, all major financial institutions. Russia and China do not. Dismantling this order is of utmost importance for the liberation of people worldwide. This is why alignement away from US and towards global south is crucial for Europes future.
If you think NATO is for defense you have some serious brain de-worming to do. You know the genocidal warmongers who kill millions have little interest in “defense”. Stop playing dumb. NATO is interchangeable with the USA, and the USA is the most fascist nation on Earth currently (alongside Israel and Ukraine, which it put into place and uses as proxies). Wake the fuck up dude you live in the Death Star.
A perfect example of a Liberal with no imagination, if anyone wanted to see it. Stuck in the ruts of your propaganda and ideology, you just can’t help but doing the same thing over and over which is why you will never escape daddy America’s orbit.
I’ll freely admit the US is on some grade A bullshit. I’ll also freely admit it’s the inevitable end result of centuries of behavior. But cozy up to modern Russia instead? I could understand the idea if they were still the USSR, but that’s not what they’ve been for decades. Just because you’re distancing yourself from one abusive asshole doesn’t mean you run straight into the arms of another abusive asshole.
sad to see how myopic you are and blinded by propaganda. maybe you should wonder why is “abusive imperialist modern russia” running the American oil embargo of Cuba to deliver humanitarian aid in the form of energy, the only one on Earth to do it? Why are they allying themselves closely to the DPRK and China? Why are they helping decolonize Africa and destroy the French and US backed terrorist groups? Why did they help stabilize Syria for so long and prevent it falling into Zionist Al Qaeda control much earlier?
You can answer 'they don’t have good intentions, it’s just in their interest to align against the imperialists and with their victims". OK, I don’t care. Russia fights on my side, meanwhile westerners never have not even the ‘leftists’.
If you learned a bit more about the Ukraine war you would realize they are right there as well. Ukraine was overtaken by a CIA backed Nazi coup in 2014 and was built up by NATO to invade and balkanize Russia, starting by cleansing all the ethnic Russians in the Donbas regions. Tens of thousands dead by Nazi hands before Russia intervened. If anything Putin is too soft and too late, he should have hardened his heart earlier and done what was needed before it could fester and entrench itself to the extent it did but he kept getting strung along by the fake Minsk agreements (which Merkel later openly admitted were done in bad faith and perfidiously to buy time to arm Ukrainian nazis)
If anything Putin is too soft and too late, he should have hardened his heart earlier and done what was needed before it could fester and entrench itself to the extent it did but he kept getting strung along by the fake Minsk agreements
Liberals who view Putin as an aggressive tyrant are just like the conservatives who viewed Obama as a radical socialist.
Obama was terrified of being perceived as a radical leftist and was constantly compromising and capitulating to the right in order to prove that he wasn’t one. It didn’t make a difference, because the right wing’s boogeyman caricature of him was impervious to facts and reality.
Similarly, Putin has constantly brushed off provocations and sought to compromise with the West (to a foolish degree even), but his actions have no effect on his portrayal, because the NATO media cinematic universe needs a villain.
You can answer 'they don’t have good intentions, it’s just in their interest to align against the imperialists and with their victims". OK, I don’t care. Russia fights on my side, meanwhile westerners never have not even the ‘leftists’.
I’m going to focus here because I think this is the real crux of our disagreement. I don’t see Russia as fighting for you. I see them as fighting over you. This is why I see siding with Russia as little more than trading one master for the other. It will feel amazing to overthrow the current masters, but then what? How long will that elation last when Russia starts tightening their grip?
If you learned a bit more about the Ukraine war you would realize they are right there as well. Ukraine was overtaken by a CIA backed Nazi coup in 2014 and was built up by NATO to invade and balkanize Russia, starting by cleansing all the ethnic Russians in the Donbas regions. Tens of thousands dead by Nazi hands before Russia intervened. If anything Putin is too soft and too late, he should have hardened his heart earlier and done what was needed before it could fester and entrench itself to the extent it did but he kept getting strung along by the fake Minsk agreements (which Merkel later openly admitted were done in bad faith and perfidiously to buy time to arm Ukrainian nazis)
Isnt it weird how you ignored this and focused on doing word salad? It’s almost like you have no actual material argument and are focusing on waxing poetic over something that hasn’t happened.
The crux is not in your wet dreams of evil “Ruzzian” backstabbing the crux is in what’s happening in real life.
I ignored it because the last several times I engaged in good faith, there was never really much evidence of what they claim. Like I’ve seen the same 4-5 pictures of Ukrainians with Nazi symbols, including some groups of like a couple dozen, and it’s obviously problematic, but they claim it’s systemic and provide anecdotal evidence. There’s never anything concrete, so it goes nowhere in the end, and the core point that just because they’re right to move away from the US doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to move toward Russia, gets lost. We can argue shades of who’s worse, and maybe you’re technically right, but I think that largely comes down to opportunity. The US has the capacity to get away with more shit, so they do more shit. If you diminish the US by building up Russia, Russia will likewise gain the capacity to get away with more shit and do more shit. I get the anger, but I think people get so upset with the US, they mistake their enemy’s enemy for a friend instead of just two of their enemies fighting over who gets to own them.
Europe should’ve cozied up with China if they feel like cozying up with Russia is politically untenable and geopolitically unsound. But Europe and Europeans are far too Sinophobic, so they can look forward to further vassaldom by the US.
China cannot provide energy to Europe in the short term. Europe has to get that either from the USA, from Russia or from the Middle East (or some combination of the 3)
Since the imperialists have disabled all the Russian pipelines into Europe, and pretty permanently burned the bridges of their relations with Russia now Russia is pretty much off the table for a few decades at least. Plus their capacity is all going to China now anyway, and their oil and gas infrastructure is also being harried by Ukrainian attacks on Russian tankers, depots and refineries. They’ve layered so many sanctions onto Russia it will basically be legally impossible to unwind it, they’ve dug themselves a hole.
The Middle East is now off the table, since Europe stood by and watched a genocide for 3 years build into a massive regional war and let America escalate the war that then wiped out all of it in the short to medium term. For 5 years at least (even if the war ended and the strait opened today) the Middle East will be unable to provide any significant amount of energy to the EU. They could have intensely pressured the US and Israel to reel it in at any point since October 2023, but instead they have done the opposite, giving them diplomatic cover and military logistical assistance and censoring and brutalizing their own populations on behalf of Zionism.
So the EU had a chance where they could be independent, but they blew it. It’s probably too late now. They are now slaves to the USA energy markets for the medium term future at least - and yes, it is entirely the fault of European leadership and their myopic ideological view that allows the US to easily corner them and force them into whatever position it wants. If they had been less sinophobic, less russophobic, less zionist and pushed back more against the USA to guarantee Minsk 1 & 2 and the JCPOA then none of this would be happening, but everytime Israel/the USA commit barbarous and perfidious acts, they are always there to cover for them and side with them reflexively.
If they had been less sinophobic, less russophobic, less zionist and pushed back more against the USA to guarantee Minsk 1 & 2 and the JCPOA then none of this would be happening, but everytime Israel/the USA commit barbarous and perfidious acts, they are always there to cover for them and side with them reflexively.
There is no conceivable geopolitical benefit for the EU to entertain notions of Taiwanese separatism or any other anti-Chinese talking point like the US. Absolutely nobody in Taiwan thinks the EU will help them, and I seriously doubt your average Euro could tell Asians apart anyways. They don’t even lost out that much relative to the US once China becomes a hegemonic power. At least Australia gets the excuse that they’re geographically close to China when the EU doesn’t even have that.
But apparently the European brainpan can do nothing but seethe that they are being eclipsed by Asian countries they still think inferior despite being Asians themselves. The thought of being Asian is so revolting that they would rather larp as living on some fake continent and be pushed around by a bunch of even faker settler-colonial societies.
So the EU had a chance where they could be independent, but they blew it. It’s probably too late now. They are now slaves to the USA energy markets for the medium term future at least - and yes, it is entirely the fault of European leadership and their myopic ideological view that allows the US to easily corner them and force them into whatever position it wants. If they had been less sinophobic, less russophobic, less zionist and pushed back more against the USA to guarantee Minsk 1 & 2 and the JCPOA then none of this would be happening, but everytime Israel/the USA commit barbarous and perfidious acts, they are always there to cover for them and side with them reflexively.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. It’s akin to striving for freeing the superstructure while piling chains on the base so to speak as while technological dependence is an issue its a lesser one than the real problems they’ve gotten themselves in and it’s pure liberal rose-tinted glasses that convinces them otherwise. There is no way this can lead to any kind of independence from the US given the overall situation.
If anything it’s a smokescreen to rah-rah-rah against the US for EU audiences while actually creating a draconian censorship regime over the internet that is responsive to the EU in particular which crushes, deplatforms, censors, criminalizes pro-Palestine speech, anti-EU speech, anything critical of the EU-Atlantacist foreign policy blob, etc. They want complete control over speech and the internet within their borders. So it’s an attempt at exercising some limited autonomy rather than being entirely subservient to the latest whims of whatever US admin just got in power and decides that they must destroy woke or other nonsense which isn’t great for the stability of the liberal project long-term. And that last sentence I think is the real problem. Trump has been leaning on them trying to push American culture war crap which doesn’t sit right with European liberals who have decided that kind of thing is ‘Russian’ so this is their attempt to prevent the US from gaining that leverage over them but it’s too little too late given all else that’s happened. Some good things like a few open source projects will get funded via it at least.
Yes Europe chose it when they chose belligerence and war, they chose to sit idly by as Trump invaded Venezuela, attacked Iran and started a proxy war they knew was fully preventable with Russia. They let the US blow up Nordstream and helped cover it up. They are cravens and they chose their bed, and they will sleep in it. They could have stopped the rampaging USA with a concerted effort if they wanted to, but they didn’t. They liked what it was doing.
Europe’s issue is that it is not a particularly unified group, it’s a mash of different countries with wildly different cultures that have been carefully kept together so far. The issue is that they are torn between holding together the EU and the abusive relationship with the US, this is how they approach things so weakly, because they must confer and get consensus lasting so long on fast moving issues that the US ends up steamrolling over them. If like you say some european countries took as strong a stance as you want them to, others would not, and it would ultimately threaten the whole union. The US would seize on the split and aim to break it entirely.
There are many contradictions interwoven together driving what’s happening.
Then I don’t see how a move towards European sovereignty is a thing. I think certain European countries like France are trying to decouple, but for every France, there is a Lithuania and a Kosovo and a Germany that are completely invested in the Burgerlander imperialist project at the expense of Europeans, both worker and capitalist. To really challenge the US, the EU has to still exist. France doing its own thing and Spain refusing to fully cooperate genociding Palestinians while the former Dutch prime minister sucks up to Trump by calling him daddy just weakens EU unity. Ideally, the US wants the entirety of Europe as a vassal, but it could live with a fractured Europe with enough vassals to make sure that Europe can never reunite. At bare minimum, they can count on Germany, the UK, the Baltics, and Kosovo as loyal vassals and can probably rely on the Netherlands, Scandinavia, and Poland as well. That’s already a huge chunk of Europe.
Energy dependence was not Europe’s choice.
Yet it is their reality. And it sort of is.
Nothing but lack of sovereignty is stopping them from dropping support for Ukraine tomorrow, making up with Russia and starting up the cheap energy flows from the east via tanker ships while working on building some new pipe-lines with US military proximity detection alarms on them.
They are constrained by their liberalism and the limits of its imagination. Liberalism which is largely filtered through Atlantacist, UK, or US lens via media, press, etc.
So I think I’m also quite skeptical of this being anything but an attempt to act up, gain leverage and better terms from master America.
The irony of ridiculing them for liberalness while suggesting they cozy up to imperialist Russia, who is actively waging a war of conquest in their own backyard. That’s the type of shit I usually hear right before someone insists Russia had NO CHOICE but to attack their neighbors because all their neighbors are joining defensive alliances when they see how Russia abuses their neighbors.
if you mean NATO, maybe check up on their history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NATO_operations
Nazi Aligned Terrorist Organization
Adolf Heusinger: As a top Nazi officer, Heusinger served as acting Chief of Staff of the Army for Nazi Germany, helping plan invasions of Poland, Denmark, Norway, and Austria. He was later appointed Inspector General of the West German Armed Forces and became Chairman of the NATO Military Committee in Washington D.C.
Hans Speidel: A Nazi lieutenant general and chief of staff to Erwin Rommel, Speidel became Supreme Commander of NATO Allied Ground Forces in Central Europe (1957–1963).
Johannes Steinhoff: A former Luftwaffe top fighter ace who became Chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 1971 to 1974.
Reinhard Gehlen: A Nazi intelligence officer who helped construct a German foreign secret service with U.S. assistance, which later influenced the creation of the BND
Ferdinand von Senger und Etterlin: Lieutenant in the Nazi invasion of the USSR (Operation Barbarossa). He participated in the Battle of Stalingrad. He was awarded the German Cross in Gold. At the end of the war he was a deputy High Command personnel of the Third Reich Navy. He later commanded several tank battalions and became a general and commander-in-chief of NATO’s Allied Forces Central Europe between 1979 and 1983.
Franz Joseph Schulze: Lieutenant in the service of the Nazi air forces as commander of a regiment. He received the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. In post-war Germany he was a general and later commander-in-chief of NATO’s Central European Allied Forces from 1977 to 1979.
Karl Schnell: Major and first officer of the General Staff in Nazi Germany, also received the Iron Cross. He replaced General Ferber as Commander-in-Chief of NATO’s Allied Forces Central Europe between 1975 and 1977.
Ernst Ferber: Lieutenant colonel in the Wehrmacht General Staff, decorated with the Iron Cross. He became Commander-in-Chief of NATO’s Central European Allied Forces between 1973 and 1975.
Johann von Kielmansegg: General Cabinet Officer of the Nazi Army High Command, where he rose to Colonel and commanded several regiments in the field. After the war he joined the German Army and rose to Brigadier General and rose to the highest positions in NATO as Commander-in-Chief of Special Forces in Central Europe in 1967.
Yeah, unfortunately, if you convince a bunch on imperialists to band together, even if for a benign reason like defense, they will realize that they can collaborate on doing imperialist shit from time to time. It still doesn’t change the fact that the biggest reason eastern European states make an effort to join NATO, especially those formerly in the Soviet bloc, is for defensive assurances, typically assurances against Russia.
Sometimes, the enemy of my enemy isn’t my friend. It’s just another asshole bickering with the first asshole.
Russia is providing humanitarian aid to Cuba (that is being starved by your US) and helping to repel European colonizers in Africa, e.g. the Sahel. Yeah, Russia isn’t the USSR but one can realize who is the lesser evil in the Global South’s eyes.
I could list humanitarian aid the US has delivered, too, almost certainly at times at odds with Russian cruelty, but I don’t really want to go there because I don’t see it as a meaningful distinction because I primarily see the difference between the US and Russia as one of capacity, not ethics. If Russia had the power and position the US has, I don’t think they’d act any better. They’re no less evil; they just have less capacity to enact evil. That’s why I can understand a desire to distance oneself from the US and can even understand how Russia could be perceived as an ally, but I don’t think they’re a genuine ally. They’ll help to the extent it furthers their own goals, and they’ll turn on you as soon as that furthers their goals.
it’s telling that you have to come up with idealist hypotheticals of why Russia could be bad if they were like the US. Instead of just, looking at and describing reality where the USA is the fascist empire rampaging across the planet with 800 foreign military bases while Russia has 0.
You have been trained your whole life by the Liberal hegemonic worldview that was instilled as you in education and through media to immediately begin Rationalizing everything, digesting it into a soup where you are the good guy and those who oppose you are the bad guys, or at the least that everything is the same and nothing matters. Every single geopolitical and historical fact you have ever encountered and discussed with others has been filtered through this Liberal Idealist Rationalizing process, where you break it down and come up with some hypotheticals or twist it through some contortions and what-ifs and allegories and metaphors until it comes out what you want it to.
Stop doing that. Just look at hard facts. Use materialism and empiricism. Stop being a fucking debate nerd who needs to turn everything into gotchas and rhetorical fallacies. It’s not only tiring to those who engage with you and makes you insufferable, it also makes it so you have no fucking idea what is actually happening on Earth and will consistently be wrong. Ever wonder why the “tankies” are always right, about opposing American Wars while you squishy idealist lefties are consistently incorrect and fall for it over and over? Why does your tendency always believe in every American imperialist project like Ukraine, Israel, Syria until it’s over or in serious decline and finally removes its mask? Maybe just try listening to the people who were right the whole time and continue to be right, and find out how it is they’re doing it (it’s materialist marxist analysis).
You see, while hypocrite liberals feign reproach, the Global South understands that. You can live with Israel as an ally, others will grab any helping hand available because they don’t have the luxury to refuse. While THE UNITED STATES represent an EXISTENTIAL THREAT to the entire world, there’s no other way.
Whether Russia gets on that level or not, that’s a consideration for another day.
Don’t assume I approve of that even a little bit.
Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m overly pessimistic about it. But I just don’t think it’ll pan out the way you hope. I don’t see dependence on Russia panning out well for more than just a little while. Maybe it’s worth a moment’s respite, but I worry it only perpetuates the cycle, not breaks it.
It’s not “doing imperialist shit” from time to time as you say. It’s imperialist as a foundational aspect. Its goal is to secure US imperialist world order. It’s as defensive as Israel’s existence. Defense against “the enemy” (which goes back and forth between Russia and China these days) is pure consent manufacturing.
To address this, sure. The way that maga people are also against democrats. But this situation is not that. Aligning with the US only serves the US imperialist order and MIC capitalists. US wields the largest military force in the world, 800+ bases on every continent, all major financial institutions. Russia and China do not. Dismantling this order is of utmost importance for the liberation of people worldwide. This is why alignement away from US and towards global south is crucial for Europes future.
If you think NATO is for defense you have some serious brain de-worming to do. You know the genocidal warmongers who kill millions have little interest in “defense”. Stop playing dumb. NATO is interchangeable with the USA, and the USA is the most fascist nation on Earth currently (alongside Israel and Ukraine, which it put into place and uses as proxies). Wake the fuck up dude you live in the Death Star.
A perfect example of a Liberal with no imagination, if anyone wanted to see it. Stuck in the ruts of your propaganda and ideology, you just can’t help but doing the same thing over and over which is why you will never escape daddy America’s orbit.
I’ll freely admit the US is on some grade A bullshit. I’ll also freely admit it’s the inevitable end result of centuries of behavior. But cozy up to modern Russia instead? I could understand the idea if they were still the USSR, but that’s not what they’ve been for decades. Just because you’re distancing yourself from one abusive asshole doesn’t mean you run straight into the arms of another abusive asshole.
sad to see how myopic you are and blinded by propaganda. maybe you should wonder why is “abusive imperialist modern russia” running the American oil embargo of Cuba to deliver humanitarian aid in the form of energy, the only one on Earth to do it? Why are they allying themselves closely to the DPRK and China? Why are they helping decolonize Africa and destroy the French and US backed terrorist groups? Why did they help stabilize Syria for so long and prevent it falling into Zionist Al Qaeda control much earlier?
You can answer 'they don’t have good intentions, it’s just in their interest to align against the imperialists and with their victims". OK, I don’t care. Russia fights on my side, meanwhile westerners never have not even the ‘leftists’.
If you learned a bit more about the Ukraine war you would realize they are right there as well. Ukraine was overtaken by a CIA backed Nazi coup in 2014 and was built up by NATO to invade and balkanize Russia, starting by cleansing all the ethnic Russians in the Donbas regions. Tens of thousands dead by Nazi hands before Russia intervened. If anything Putin is too soft and too late, he should have hardened his heart earlier and done what was needed before it could fester and entrench itself to the extent it did but he kept getting strung along by the fake Minsk agreements (which Merkel later openly admitted were done in bad faith and perfidiously to buy time to arm Ukrainian nazis)
Liberals who view Putin as an aggressive tyrant are just like the conservatives who viewed Obama as a radical socialist.
Obama was terrified of being perceived as a radical leftist and was constantly compromising and capitulating to the right in order to prove that he wasn’t one. It didn’t make a difference, because the right wing’s boogeyman caricature of him was impervious to facts and reality.
Similarly, Putin has constantly brushed off provocations and sought to compromise with the West (to a foolish degree even), but his actions have no effect on his portrayal, because the NATO media cinematic universe needs a villain.
I’m going to focus here because I think this is the real crux of our disagreement. I don’t see Russia as fighting for you. I see them as fighting over you. This is why I see siding with Russia as little more than trading one master for the other. It will feel amazing to overthrow the current masters, but then what? How long will that elation last when Russia starts tightening their grip?
Russia, unlike the West, supports liberation movements in the Global South
Isnt it weird how you ignored this and focused on doing word salad? It’s almost like you have no actual material argument and are focusing on waxing poetic over something that hasn’t happened.
The crux is not in your wet dreams of evil “Ruzzian” backstabbing the crux is in what’s happening in real life.
I ignored it because the last several times I engaged in good faith, there was never really much evidence of what they claim. Like I’ve seen the same 4-5 pictures of Ukrainians with Nazi symbols, including some groups of like a couple dozen, and it’s obviously problematic, but they claim it’s systemic and provide anecdotal evidence. There’s never anything concrete, so it goes nowhere in the end, and the core point that just because they’re right to move away from the US doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to move toward Russia, gets lost. We can argue shades of who’s worse, and maybe you’re technically right, but I think that largely comes down to opportunity. The US has the capacity to get away with more shit, so they do more shit. If you diminish the US by building up Russia, Russia will likewise gain the capacity to get away with more shit and do more shit. I get the anger, but I think people get so upset with the US, they mistake their enemy’s enemy for a friend instead of just two of their enemies fighting over who gets to own them.
Europe should’ve cozied up with China if they feel like cozying up with Russia is politically untenable and geopolitically unsound. But Europe and Europeans are far too Sinophobic, so they can look forward to further vassaldom by the US.
China cannot provide energy to Europe in the short term. Europe has to get that either from the USA, from Russia or from the Middle East (or some combination of the 3)
Since the imperialists have disabled all the Russian pipelines into Europe, and pretty permanently burned the bridges of their relations with Russia now Russia is pretty much off the table for a few decades at least. Plus their capacity is all going to China now anyway, and their oil and gas infrastructure is also being harried by Ukrainian attacks on Russian tankers, depots and refineries. They’ve layered so many sanctions onto Russia it will basically be legally impossible to unwind it, they’ve dug themselves a hole.
The Middle East is now off the table, since Europe stood by and watched a genocide for 3 years build into a massive regional war and let America escalate the war that then wiped out all of it in the short to medium term. For 5 years at least (even if the war ended and the strait opened today) the Middle East will be unable to provide any significant amount of energy to the EU. They could have intensely pressured the US and Israel to reel it in at any point since October 2023, but instead they have done the opposite, giving them diplomatic cover and military logistical assistance and censoring and brutalizing their own populations on behalf of Zionism.
So the EU had a chance where they could be independent, but they blew it. It’s probably too late now. They are now slaves to the USA energy markets for the medium term future at least - and yes, it is entirely the fault of European leadership and their myopic ideological view that allows the US to easily corner them and force them into whatever position it wants. If they had been less sinophobic, less russophobic, less zionist and pushed back more against the USA to guarantee Minsk 1 & 2 and the JCPOA then none of this would be happening, but everytime Israel/the USA commit barbarous and perfidious acts, they are always there to cover for them and side with them reflexively.
There is no conceivable geopolitical benefit for the EU to entertain notions of Taiwanese separatism or any other anti-Chinese talking point like the US. Absolutely nobody in Taiwan thinks the EU will help them, and I seriously doubt your average Euro could tell Asians apart anyways. They don’t even lost out that much relative to the US once China becomes a hegemonic power. At least Australia gets the excuse that they’re geographically close to China when the EU doesn’t even have that.
But apparently the European brainpan can do nothing but seethe that they are being eclipsed by Asian countries they still think inferior despite being Asians themselves. The thought of being Asian is so revolting that they would rather larp as living on some fake continent and be pushed around by a bunch of even faker settler-colonial societies.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. It’s akin to striving for freeing the superstructure while piling chains on the base so to speak as while technological dependence is an issue its a lesser one than the real problems they’ve gotten themselves in and it’s pure liberal rose-tinted glasses that convinces them otherwise. There is no way this can lead to any kind of independence from the US given the overall situation.
If anything it’s a smokescreen to rah-rah-rah against the US for EU audiences while actually creating a draconian censorship regime over the internet that is responsive to the EU in particular which crushes, deplatforms, censors, criminalizes pro-Palestine speech, anti-EU speech, anything critical of the EU-Atlantacist foreign policy blob, etc. They want complete control over speech and the internet within their borders. So it’s an attempt at exercising some limited autonomy rather than being entirely subservient to the latest whims of whatever US admin just got in power and decides that they must destroy woke or other nonsense which isn’t great for the stability of the liberal project long-term. And that last sentence I think is the real problem. Trump has been leaning on them trying to push American culture war crap which doesn’t sit right with European liberals who have decided that kind of thing is ‘Russian’ so this is their attempt to prevent the US from gaining that leverage over them but it’s too little too late given all else that’s happened. Some good things like a few open source projects will get funded via it at least.
Yes Europe chose it when they chose belligerence and war, they chose to sit idly by as Trump invaded Venezuela, attacked Iran and started a proxy war they knew was fully preventable with Russia. They let the US blow up Nordstream and helped cover it up. They are cravens and they chose their bed, and they will sleep in it. They could have stopped the rampaging USA with a concerted effort if they wanted to, but they didn’t. They liked what it was doing.
Europe’s issue is that it is not a particularly unified group, it’s a mash of different countries with wildly different cultures that have been carefully kept together so far. The issue is that they are torn between holding together the EU and the abusive relationship with the US, this is how they approach things so weakly, because they must confer and get consensus lasting so long on fast moving issues that the US ends up steamrolling over them. If like you say some european countries took as strong a stance as you want them to, others would not, and it would ultimately threaten the whole union. The US would seize on the split and aim to break it entirely.
There are many contradictions interwoven together driving what’s happening.
Then I don’t see how a move towards European sovereignty is a thing. I think certain European countries like France are trying to decouple, but for every France, there is a Lithuania and a Kosovo and a Germany that are completely invested in the Burgerlander imperialist project at the expense of Europeans, both worker and capitalist. To really challenge the US, the EU has to still exist. France doing its own thing and Spain refusing to fully cooperate genociding Palestinians while the former Dutch prime minister sucks up to Trump by calling him daddy just weakens EU unity. Ideally, the US wants the entirety of Europe as a vassal, but it could live with a fractured Europe with enough vassals to make sure that Europe can never reunite. At bare minimum, they can count on Germany, the UK, the Baltics, and Kosovo as loyal vassals and can probably rely on the Netherlands, Scandinavia, and Poland as well. That’s already a huge chunk of Europe.