Capitalism is inherently corrupt.
Without class consciousness the only two possible outcomes are a "choice" between different factions of the capitalist power elite at the steering wheel.
They also don't consider sending troops into the trenches in WW1 as authoritarian, or as a "crime of capitalist empires"
The bolsheviks were evil and authoritarian, but WW1 was just an unfortunate event in history that happened to countries that happened to be capitalist
prison population
But they broke the law! 
They always do this with the USSR too
When you point out colonial crimes and engineered famines in the colonies of western Empires, that's "unfortunate" and "sure, that's bad too", but USSR "is worse because it did it to its own citizens" 
They don't know shit about fuck and they are so arrogant about it too
Good luck on your journey
Yeah, fuck you too
Russia winning a land war in Europe was totally reasonable and foreseeable. Frankly, it was so foreseeable it’s crazy that the West pursued that fight.
This is exactly why it's terrifying that Western leaders believe their own propaganda
I've just checked what Zizek was up to nowadays 
I shouldn't have
CW: SA
(from the end of January)
This romanticized notion of Russia is often combined with another leftist dogma: that NATO is the ultimate evil. According to this view, anyone in conflict with NATO must have something good or virtuous about them. By this logic, Ukraine is disqualified from support because it’s seen as merely fighting a “proxy war” on behalf of NATO.
when I pointed out that treating Ukraine’s defense as a proxy war for NATO essentially insults Ukrainians, people don’t seem to grasp it. Ukrainians are being portrayed as if they could choose peace but instead decide to engage in a war that displaces a quarter of their population, just for the sake of a proxy war. But in reality, it’s a matter of their survival.
So, as of mid-march, not a proxy war at all
I once made this comparison: it’s like a woman, Ukraine in this case, being brutallyremovedd. In despair, she tries to do something — what would you do if you were in that situation? I can only imagine as a man, maybe you would scratch, try to hit his eyes, or do whatever you could to survive. And then the West’s response would be to say to this woman, "It’s too painful, don’t provoke him."
I truly, deeply deplore this analogy, not that war is nice, but someone who has been writing about Marxist aesthetics should know better, should know that metaphors are ideological constructs, and explaining war with sexual assault is straight out of the trashcan of ideology
For propagandistic purposes, sure, but this is just trash, and not worthy from a "marxist philosopher"
From euromaidanpress:
USAID shutdown imperils Ukraine’s independent media sector, with over 50% of grant-funded outlets facing imminent closure, threatening decades of progress in press freedom and democratic values.
Georgescu though? He's a foreign agent, must be banned
(I mean, fuck him, but the double standards are ludicrous)
Reporters Without Borders previously said that Ukraine moved up 18 places to 61st out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index, the global press freedom ranking in 2024.
Love to see freedom thriving
I received a report from our delegation on their meeting with the American team in Saudi Arabia. The discussion lasted most of the day and was good and constructive—our teams were able to discuss many important details.
Our position remains absolutely clear: Ukraine has been seeking peace from the very first second of this war, and we want to do everything to achieve it as soon as possible and in a reliable way—so that war does not return.
At this meeting with the Americans, Ukraine proposed three key points: silence in the skies—stopping missile strikes, bombs, and long-range drone attacks; silence at sea; real confidence-building measures in this whole situation, in which diplomacy is ongoing, which primarily means the release of prisoners of war and detainees—both military and civilian—and the return of Ukrainian children who were forcibly transferred to Russia.
The American side understands our arguments and considers our proposals. I am grateful to President Trump for the constructive conversation between our teams.
During today’s talks, the U.S. side proposed taking an even bigger first step—a 30-day full interim ceasefire, not only stopping missile, drone, and bomb attacks, not only in the Black Sea, but also along the entire front line.
Ukraine is ready to accept this proposal—we see it as a positive step and are ready to take it. Now, it is up to the United States to convince Russia to do the same. If Russia agrees, the ceasefire will take effect immediately.
Well, the government's the enemy, and social democracy is the enemy because it's not Russia as such. But the neocons and neoliberals need a convenient enemy around which to mount the libertarian takeover. You always need an enemy to do what you're trying to do.
The libertarian billionaires want to do to Europe and the United States just what the neoliberals did to Russia in the 1990s. They want to turn over all of the mass of government property—national parks, government real estate, government agencies—all of these, they want to turn over to the financial managers to turn into monopolies that can be financialized and create wealth in the form of stock market gains and bond market gains. That’s what the game is.
It’s not so much geopolitical antagonism towards Russia—that’s just the superficial wrapping. It’s about a political, anti-government, fascist ideology. That’s what I think we’re dealing with.
No, I see them going on together, using each other, shifting back and forth—whichever flies, whichever gets you the best polling results. Do you demonize Russia? Do you demonize your own government? Mix them up, add them together, link them.
But again, I say it for Europe: the strategy of Europe catching up with either the United States or Russia-China is not going to solve your problem. It’s just not. It’s going to cost you—the very turmoil, as Michael began today’s conversation—the very turmoil of the next three, four, or five years. As you move your resources away from everything you’ve been doing to building a defense establishment, it’s going to create all kinds of difficulties. They have to take those resources away from all of the things they need to be doing to try to catch up with the rest of the world.
The decline of Europe is a hundred years old. I don’t see this doing anything other than accelerating it even further.
Then we’re in full agreement. The Eurozone is a dead zone.
And let’s be clear—it is shooting itself in the foot. It is very busy shooting itself. Its notion—maybe this is a good way to end—you know, for 500 years, Europe could claim to be, and it did make the claim, that it was the center of the world. It was the Roman Empire, then the great medieval era, then the great colonial takeover of the whole rest of the world, organized in, by, and for Europe.
What we are watching is a late stage in the dismantling of the role in the world that Europe played. It is now less and less and less. And the lead is taken by England, which in a way is correct, because they took the lead the other way. They brought Europe forward—it went from a cold, wet offshore island of Europe to the Great British Empire. And now it’s on its way back to what it was, and the rest of Europe with it.
And all of these are ideologically mistaken notions of how in the world you’re going to cope with that decline, let alone reestablish a place. And maybe that’s the way empires always go. They rise, they are spectacular, they rule, and oh boy, do they look bad as they turn into the ruins that all of them before also ended up as.
Why not Europe too?
But we’re watching it.
I think that the French, the Germans, and the British are lining up behind a war scare. The articles in the Financial Times—the very titles—Warfare Instead of Welfare—that’s it. That’s the only card they have to play.
The support of the welfare state? They don’t do it. They never have done it. It wouldn’t look genuine if they tried it now. So they’re going to go down that road.
And let me tell you why, in one last way of doing this, why this is crazy. They are going to be lined up against two major alternative powers—the United States on one hand and China-Russia combined on the other. Those two parts of the world are already many years ahead of Europe in the level of military technology, in the level of military production they can undertake, and they are working night and day in their struggle with each other to get even further ahead.
You know who’s far behind? The Europeans. And they’re not going to catch up. They don’t have the money for it. They don’t have the political support for it. This is a desperate way for a few leaders with a short future to try to hold on for as long as they can. That’s it.
That’s why I call it a Hail Mary pass. This is not thought through. This is desperate.
They came back—Starmer and Macron came back—and told the Germans that they got absolutely nothing in their visit to Mr. Trump. And Mr. Zelensky? Even less. In the days since the Zelensky visit, the United States has announced a reduction in the intelligence that they provide to Ukrainians. They’re leaving.
And if you think the Russians were able to win as much as they have when they were facing the combined U.S. and Europe, then what do you think is going to happen when it’s Europe all by itself? This is a joke. This is a desperate effort.
That’s why they have to resuscitate the danger that Russia will come. And they have to give it a five-year timeline—"It’s going to happen in five years." Normal human beings are able to understand that absolutely nobody knows what’s going to happen in five years. And never did.
Nobody understood where we would be now six months ago. So this notion—"we have to take away welfare from you in order to build up a military in a world where our two potential adversaries are light years ahead of us"—remember, Europe has not developed its own military for 50 years.
It is a trivial military. It’s got to start.
This is a joke.
Here's the single largest problem of Europe—just so people get it. Europe is a disunified place. It's got lots and lots of countries, big and small. Every one of them worries about the loyalty of the others. When Mr. Trump comes and offers good deals to one of them and then another, do you really think he won’t get any of them? Don’t be silly—of course he will.
The suspicion in Paris about what the Germans might be negotiating, and in both of those places what the British might be doing, and the Italians—oh my God—that's what makes Europe weak as a player. And the last thing blows my mind. "We are unified." Yeah, but the Russia you're thinking of opposing is now part of BRICS and has China as an ally. Are you kidding?
You really want to develop your military with the Americans hostile toward you on one side and the Russia-China BRICS on the other? You're crazy. This is the behavior and mentality of people who are desperate. And if they take their steps—which I think they will—because it will certainly please the people they've always pleased, the industrialists, the financiers, the people who run Europe, they are going to pay a price.
They cut the welfare that has been the uniform gift to the European masses for the last 75 years. You start really taking that away—I don’t mean nibbling, they've been nibbling—but I mean really taking it away, and you're going to see a swing to the far right and the far left that makes what you've already seen look like nothing in comparison.
Only desperate politicians, especially in the history of Europe, would do this. They really are seeing it, and you can see it—look in the eyes of von der Leyen or any of the others. You look closely, and you see desperation and anxiety. These are people heaving Hail Mary passes down the field.
Richard D. Wolff & Michael Hudson on The EU Has LOST its Mind
Understand this—let me come at it from a slightly different angle. I think that the leaders of France, Germany, and England are in very, very deep difficulty at home as political leaders. All of them—the newly elected Merz in Germany, but also Macron, who was elected long ago by a fluke, and Starmer, who got in due to the wholesale withdrawal of British voters from the Conservative Party—are in deep trouble.
According to public polling, Merz is taking over a government that is basically a continuation of the Scholz government, with Scholz's party as his partner, just as Merz was Scholz's partner before. This is the same old, same old. These are politicians whose entire political careers have been as junior partners—I'm being polite here; a synonym would be "lackey"—of the United States.
Now, they have discovered that the United States, their backer, their liaison, their supporter, is abandoning them. As a result, they are headed for political collapse. They have no support anymore—their own people don’t want them, and the United States is less and less interested.
Take the absurd visits of Macron and Starmer to Washington last week. They were spoken to as if they were visiting cousins who couldn’t be rescheduled for a later time. Everything they had hoped for was denied, culminating in the Zelensky theater at the end of the week. These were demonstrations of absurdity.
What we’re witnessing here is the behavior of desperate politicians—snatching those 300 billion from the Russians when every major financial advisor has told them the obvious: they will pay a long-term price. No shaky government in the world will ever leave its money in Europe again after seeing what the Europeans are prepared to do with it. This is a bigger blow to Europe's importance than anything related to Ukraine.
Why would you keep fighting a losing war? You have to be desperate to do that.
They've put some cluster munitions on their wishlist on the Raytheon website
My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts.
Not a proxy by the way.
Those phantasmagorical cartoons and AI slop about Chad Zelensky did not age well
“americas help” comes at a cost.
fun fact:
Britain had borrowed heavily from the U.S. government to equip its troops and feed its people [during WW1], ultimately owing some four billion dollars. After years of frustrating negotiations on the interrelated issues of war debts and reparations, London stopped servicing this debt in 1934.
And the reason they stopped servicing debt is because Tsarist Russia owed Britain, which then would have been used to pay back the US, but after the revolution the new Soviet government repudiated all Tsarist-era debts.
By 1928 the argument had become acute, and Coolidge became vocal: “It is sometimes represented that we made a profit out of the war,” he declared. “Nothing could be further from the truth.” The war had cost America “half her national wealth…. No citizen of the United States needs to make any apology to anybody anywhere for not having done our duty to the cause of world liberty.” Toward Europe “we have accepted settlements of obligations, not in accordance with what was due, but in accordance with the merciful principle of what the debtors could pay.”
“My blood boiled at Coolidge’s proclamation,” Churchill wrote his wife. “Why can’t they let us alone? They have exacted every penny owing from Europe; they say they are not going to help; surely they might leave us to manage our own affairs.”
To the British cabinet Churchill was even more censorious: Coolidge, he wrote, had “the viewpoint of a New England backwoodsman. The crudity and amateurish character of this utterance is likely to offer his successor an opportunity for doing something different….Mr. Coolidge will soon sink back into the obscurity from which only accident extracted him.”
I love the phrase "world liberty" with regards to world war fucking one
Starmer said "we are at a crossroads in history," and unveiled the following plans:
Ukraine Peace Initiative: The UK, France, and other nations have agreed to collaborate with Ukraine on a plan to end the conflict. This plan will be developed in coordination with the US.
- Summit Agreements: During a recent summit, four key points were agreed upon:
- Maintaining the flow of military aid to Ukraine.
- Ensuring Kyiv's participation in any peace negotiations.
- Committing European leaders to deter future Russian aggression against Ukraine.
- Establishing a "coalition of the willing" to defend Ukraine and guarantee peace.
- UK Financial Support: The UK will provide Ukraine with access to £1.6bn ($2.01bn) for the purchase of new missiles.
- US and European Roles: Starmer emphasized that while Europe should take the lead in any peace deal, US backing is essential for its success.
"while Europe should take the lead in any peace deal"
Have you tried calling Lavrov yet for fucks sake you wanker? EU technocrat ghouls had a whole peace summit last year without Biden and Russia, what has come of that? Any progress towards peace on your part?
How are libs eating up this bullshit?
He should just call an election and not run, then retire somewhere safe until he gets assassinated by Banderists
Because he's a terrible diplomat
It's so fucking ironic considering how liberalism came to be through violent revolutions