It's a critical materialist look at the war in Ukraine, and focuses on how people (like me) in the west can maximize our aid to the innocent people trapped in this war. I'm going to try to turn it into a youtube video in the coming days.
If you have liberal friends on facebook who might positively respond to a gentle reminder that our paths of direct action aren't limited to just sending a few bucks overseas, I hope you'll consider sharing this. Also thank you so much to those of you who do continue to send aid to reputable humanitarian organizations. Personally I refuse to donate to the military because I can't in good conscious send money to a fund that will directly arm the Amov nazis, because I'll bet anything that when the dust settles on the Russian invasion, a sectarian civil war is what comes next.
Edit: Also every time I try to read this piece I fucking hate it, because I know the audience I'm addressing is lib-pilled. If you have any suggestions on how I could improve it, I totally encourage your critical feedback.
Fuck imperialism and fuck war... I love you guys
Every conflict ends in some kind of negotiation, so let’s skip the prolonged bloodletting, save countless lives and get to it, already.
I love this and will probably use it myself in person.
...the fact that Putin is acting in a way that looks pretty similar to what a US president would historically do — only needs to be construed as apologia if you can’t bring yourself to criticize war crimes regardless of who is committing them.
:this: x :10000-com:
I can hardly blame people for doing it — it’s exactly the type of grainy analysis one would expect to see from citizens of a country which dumps hundreds of billions of dollars into propaganda, and then disseminates that propaganda via increasingly sophisticated media platforms that use all of our sensitive data to ceaselessly atomize, delude and distract us.
I'm trying to look at this with a lib perspective and I think this is probably where you're going to lose a few people. You're right, obviously, but you ought to find a way to word it that won't make your average liberal feel talked down. It's important for them to feel like they came to these conclusions themselves after reading your article.
Edit: Totally mean this as constructive critique. If I misunderstood the tone you were going for, that's my bad.
This is solid feedback, thank you. It was really a struggle to write this shit for this exact reason... I want so badly to take off the kid gloves, but I know I shouldn't. I'll probably take another pass at this part. Seriously, thank you for reading and thanks for the critical feedback.
Telling people their brains have been sandblasted smooth by propaganda is fun but unproductive.
Billions into adversity and public relations which came far from its historical roots in propaganda.
But the original version cuts sharper.
I really like this wording! im probably gonna steal some version of this. also its fun hearing how other people can effortlessly word things in a way my stupid overactive brain could never manage
:martin from the simpsons going "damn your feeble brain":
Honestly your text and the way you phrase it is rad. Your style is Imho more honest and piercing. But maybe it is true that collective work is beneficial
Thank you for reading, comrade. It's gonna be hard as shit convincing liberals to do anything about this, but I think the next step is organizing with local activists and the local university to get more students/neighborhoods involved in direct action. The work continues.
Excellent article. Thank you for writing and sharing this.
Thank you for reading comrade, I really appreciate it.
This is really good, thank you for taking the time to write it up :ancom-heart:
Thank you, comrade. I love this community so much. I'm already getting so much more constructive feedback here than I will anywhere else. You guys give me hope that isn't for nothing
Great piece. Sending it to my lib family group who are sharing Leon Krauze tweets. Thank you!
Thank you so much for sharing! I can't believe how truly fucking idiotic the takes are that people are circulating on social media. Hopefully your fam appreciates the perspective of someone with some skin in this game.
really? fuck. sadly it's hard to find good/neutral sources to reference that aren't gonna put normal people to sleep. i watched that particular vid by CR and thought it was fine as a primer for the audience i'm shooting for. totally open to other sources if anyone has a better suggestion, though.
Until the US government does what it should, which is broker a diplomatic meeting with the Kremlin to put an immediate cessation to the ground warfare and further invasion of Ukraine, and bring the west to start negotiating new political, economic and military relations with Russia.
These negotiations would almost certainly include Ukraine maintaining neutrality with regard to NATO, and possibly part of the Donbas region being peacefully annexed to Russia as a means to stop the bloodshed and guarantee no further expansion of Russia into Ukraine.
I love this idea. How do we get libs to organize around this approach, which the media/government will inevitably denounce as too "conciliatory" to Russia, and furthermore how do we prevent US/NATO from starting shit up again a year from now? If we don't need libs to organize... how do we get the liberal US government and media to listen to a bunch of people who aren't even libs?
these are great questions
How do we get libs to organize around this approach, which the media/government will inevitably denounce as too “conciliatory” to Russia
we start by pointing out that failure to negotiate with Russia is a de facto concession that the lives of the people being slaughtered right now are "worth it." as soon as you can establish with libs that [practically] all wars are fought
eitherto secure material resources for privatization,or in some limited circumstances for state security (expanding into land with advantageous geographic features in the event of ground warfare, for example, but this is still just resource privatization),you force them to recognize that, insofar as they believe war is justified, they believe that material resources are worth more than human lives. i'm hoping that their egos and their projections of themselves as "humanitarian" or "progressive" will run face-first into this fact, and it will act as a wedge opening the door to further conversation.and furthermore how do we prevent US/NATO from starting shit up again a year from now?
or Russia, for that matter (Putin is a capitalist) -- going back to how all wars are fought for material resource privatization, I point out in this article that the west's failure to invest in renewable energy for decades has left us holding a bag of shit when these conflicts occur... but again, that's a feature and not a bug when oil tycoons own your government. one way we could get to a world in which wars over material resources become obsolete is through international, diplomatic agreements for nations to deter warfare by investing huge sums of money into state controlled renewable energy sources (the fucking sun comes to mind) on a scale like China is doing, while proportionately de-arming nuclear and other weapons. obviously, this is an incomplete answer and its pie in the sky shit, but its exactly what every normal fucking person wants. the chief obstacle to it has historically been that all nuclear powers' chief exports tend to fucking be a) oil, and b) weapons (d'oh!)... so the only ray of hope for this shit is that, at some point, renewable energy will actually be fucking profitable, as the world WILL run out of oil, eventually.
obviously, the stuff I talk about in this article marks a starting point and not a finish line, and we all know that war is inherently part of capitalism. but the only practical thing worth worrying about, in my mind, anyway, is how do we stop the ongoing slaughter of innocent people as soon as possible.
Reads fine aside from the general strike bit. Not gonna happen especially over this.
i agree it's not gonna happen, but :spider man going i forgot the part where thats my problem: that's really not the point of this piece. my job is to tell these people what they can do to maximize their aid through direct action. just because they won't do it, doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it.
