"You exist to serve yourself. People are dying because our government is destroying the planet, and you think the victims are just as bad as the aggressors because it makes you feel morally superior."
Whoaaaaa whoa whoa whoa. What? No I don't. The US government is the most evil and damaging institution in the world today, followed by almost every Western corporation and government. Thing is though, here's the sticking point - none of that makes me want to suck Putin's dick like you do. He's an asshole and I will not side with him ever. I don't line up behind monarchs like a bootlicker.
About Putin being the threat to world peace, no he's not, not any more than Xi Jinping or some other shit head oligarch. He's just a symptom of a disease. The disease is industrial capitalism. It afflicts every country in the world these days. It even afflicts Antarctica these days.
See, what Putin is doing is watching the corrupt elites have a little feud amongst themselves and he is quite pitifully picking sides, saying "my oligarch is better than your oligarch!!" Whether it's true or not isn't really interesting or important. The main point is how sad and stupid it is to view any of them favorably. Every last one of them is an enemy of the global public and are the chief perpetuators of a global system that is threatening all of our lives. Endless war and imperialism, neocolonialism, corruption, environmental devastation, vacuous consumerism, predatorial capitalism, these things are as much Putin's game as anyone's, it's just that he isn't as impactful as the US is because he leads a second-tier country, and apparently has a Napoleon complex about it. Poor baby. I don't give a shit. If he had an ounce of courage, if Obama or Cameron or Xi did, they would go rogue and undermine their bullshit governments from within, whistleblow on it and all the rest. But they won't do that, because it's scary and they're cowardly pigs. There have been like, probably less than 5 times that national leaders have done that kind of thing in history, maybe none at all. All serious and lasting changes come from the bottom up. In America, we Americans have a responsibility to get our government dethroned. The way we do that does not involve licking Putin's boot. Let the Russians overthrow Putin, and we will overthrow our government. Lord knows Western Europe is ripe for another round of revolutions - let us pray they aren't fascist revolutions. If they are, let us pray the antifascists can beat them back.
What Putin's problem is is that he doesn't see that fascism and authoritarianism are everywhere. It's like a disease, it's a cancer on industrial society. The only way out is for the host to reject it completely. The population, the general public of the globe - we are the host.
About my past support for interventionism - to hell with statist intervention. Intervention as a general principle, to defend human rights and destroy authoritarianism - yes. Hell yes. Intervention by authoritarian governments - hell no. Disband all national militaries. People's self defense militias are enough, we don't need fucking massive gangs led by megalomaniacs squabbling over fucking oilfields or scraps of coastline for their doomsday subs. All that shit can go to hell, both sides. Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, all of those were bullshit.
When something like Rwanda happens, it is naive bullshit to think that the "international community" (which actually means the global elite class) will step in and do anything. If they do, it will be for some cynical reason, to pursue some political objective, using the crisis as a prop. Absent that, they will do nothing. It's for average people, collectively organizing, to stand up in solidarity and offer assistance in crises to groups that are in trouble. We are a long fucking way from that, but groups like the foreign fighters in the YPG seem to me an echo of what is possible in that regard. Less bombing campaigns, more international solidarity.
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Thucy's radical left club
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