I agree to this. I was literally just in the shower thinking how Linux, the space station, and the Olympics are the only times we as humans come together to collaborate
You know that Russia wasn’t able to compete in the Olympics or Paralympics this year, right? The individual athletes weren’t banned however, but they had to compete under a neutral banner and weren’t in the parade of nations.
Edit: I should have added, was disgusted because Israel were allowed to compete. Huge double standard there.
If I recall correctly Russia is not allowed to participate because of their state doping program not because of their politics. So unless there was an Israel state doping program discovered that’s not double standard.
@secret300 The project to discover elements 119 and 120 which previously were a US/Russia collaboration also put on hold. All of humanity moves backwards when we fight, nothing is gained.
“propaganda”? Oh. You mean like Russia started a full blown unprovoked war with a peaceful nation? That “propaganda”?
Sucks others got caught in the crosshairs, but that’s just what happens when your authoritarian government launches unprovoked wars and gets sanctioned.
NATO Expansion: The argument that NATO’s eastward expansion “provoked” Russia is often linked to Gorbachev’s 1990 talks with Western leaders. However, this promise was tied to Germany’s unification, not a blanket prohibition on expansion. And importantly eastern european countries sought NATO membership because of their historical (and justified) fears of Russian imperialism (a dynamic Marxists should understand as nations seeking sovereignty free from external dominance.)
Western Involvement in Ukraine: The U.S. supporting a regime change in Ukraine in 2014 is thought to be imperialism. But ignores the agency of Ukrainians, who led the Maidan protests because of already existing deep dissatisfaction with Yanukovych’s corrupt, oligarchic regime and his pivot to Russia. Supporting popular uprisings against oligarchs should align with Marxist values even if “the West” has its own interests
The Role of Fascism in Ukraine: Yes, Ukraine has issues with far-right groups like so many countries but exaggerating their influence as a justification for invasion serves to divert attention from Russia’s own reactionary politics. Far-right elements in Ukraine do not define the country’s political landscape, nor do they justify imperial aggression from another state. Russia has its own history of fostering right-wing authoritarianism.
Minsk Agreements: While the West" and Ukraine could be criticized for their handling of the Minsk agreements, Russia also violated these accords by continuing support for the separatists. Both sides share blame for the failure of Minsk, but it doesn’t make Russia’s invasion justified. Ukrainians didn’t provoke a full-scale invasion; they were defending their sovereignty.
NATO as a “Defensive” Alliance: Criticism of NATO’s imperialistic behavior is fair its actions in places like Libya show it isn’t 100% defensive. But in this case, NATO’s expansion was driven by countries seeking security from a historically imperialist power. Ukraine wasn’t “provoking” Russia by wanting self-determination; it was trying to secure its future.
You’re trying to push this “Actuall, but Ukraine DID provoke” narrative by mixing in unverified, ideologically biased material with references that are legitimate, but isolated incidents. Like linking far-right activity to justify the war conveniently ignores Russia’s (I should probably say everyone’s) own far-right issues. Marxists should reject imperialism in all its forms, including Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Mostly NATO, and by that I mean mostly the US. The Ukrainian state is in bed with and dependent on the US, so yes it was and is a participant.
mixing in unverified, ideologically biased material with references that are legitimate
The implication here is, the more biased, the less trustworthy/factual. This is false, and anyway, I don’t think you fully see the bias baked into the supposedly unbiased sources. And “unverified” I suspect means not blessed by Western states (which are run by the capitalist class[1][2]) or Western NGOs (which are funded by Western states and the capitalist class) or Western corporate media (which are owned by the capitalist class).
isolated incidents
Liberals often view history that way, but historical materialists don’t.
Yes, the self-determination of the Ukrainian people, the western Ukrainians and the eastern Ukrainians both.
And I believe in the right of the Eastern Ukrainians to not be attacked by fascist western Ukrainian paramilitaries[1] with tacit & overt support from the Ukrainian government and the US.
It certainly is violent, as all invasions are, though it’s not a full scale invasion. Russia has not fully activated its military, and it has no intent on taking all of Ukraine. That would be a terrible idea, if for no other reason than the fact that eastern western Ukraine is very anti-Russian and has a lot of fascists who are virulently anti-Russian. It would be a terrible idea to try to permanently occupy it. In contrast, the annexation of Crimea was practically a cake walk, because most of the people of Crimea wanted to be annexed. And it seems it was for the best for them, because they didn’t suffer years of attacks by western Ukrainians like their neighbors to their north.
Still, by international law the invasion was & is illegal, and it certainly is violent. After the 2014 coup, an anti-Russian government—blessed by Victoria Nuland (who had been on the ground handing out cookies for the coup)—was installed, eastern Ukraine declared its independence. This independence was not recognized the Ukrainian government of course. It was a very messy situation. Ukraine was in a state of civil war from the coup until the invasion. I don’t know what percentage of the people of eastern Ukraine welcomed the Russian invasion/liberation. 30%, 50%, 70%? I have no idea.
Unfortunately, as complicated as that all is, realpolitik can’t be ignored. For an analogy, consider the Cuban missile crisis (BTW we now know that the reason Russia & Cuba did that was because the US had secretly installed nuclear weapons in Turkey).
Imagine if Russia (or say China) were expanding its “defensive alliance” into south & central America, and making plans to expand it further, right up to the California–Texas border, which would likely lead to “defensive” nuclear weapons right on our back porch. Maybe they’re in talks with Canada as well, in an effort to “contain” the US. Realistically—regardless of what is internationally legal (which the US usually ignores anyway)—what would the US do?
The US has has been working a plan to break up Russia for the last thirty years. Ukraine is just a pawn to the US. This is the confrontation the US wanted, with the hopes of starting that Balkanization. It doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Ukrainians’ lives, never mind their self-determination. The US does this kind of thing all the time.
My question was: how does the violence of the invasion help the self determination of Ukrainian people?
I’ll be more explicit: why not simply acknowledge that the invasion is not only unlawful, but deeply immoral – and completely contradictory to the self determination of a people?
The eastern Ukrainians, who, after the Maidan coup, declared independence from the unelected government, and were subsequently terrorized by the Banderites, with tacit and overt support from the Ukrainian and US governments?
The men being pulled off the streets and pushed to the front lines against their will?
.
I doubt you actually know what real-life Ukrainians actually want, because I suspect your vision of the Ukrainian people may as well be from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And I suspect your conceptualization of self-determination is equally undeveloped.
I think the reason you’re interested in the Ukrainian people’s self-determination is because our governments and corporate media have spend the last two years telling you to care. But not real-life people. These are unrealized, cartoon Ukrainian people, who all coincidentally want exactly the same thing that Zelensky says Ukraine wants. They want you to imagine that the “self-determination” that all these cartoon Ukrainians want is exactly the same thing that the extremely corrupt, undemocratic Ukrainian government wants.
When I say I care about the Ukrainian people’s self-determination, I’m talking about the real-life, flesh-and-blood working class people, not the Ukrainian state.
Does invading your neighbor count as international collaboration? Not that all Russian people can be held directly responsible for the actions of their government.
@theunknownmuncher The US has been involved in probably 300 regime changes throughout the world, has invaded many countries, including those that we were not affiliated with. Russia invades a neighboring country when we install a leader that is going to allow us to put missiles on their border. I really hate to see political hegemony get in the way of a good collaborative effort, we all suffer for it if we allow this.
The US has been involved in probably 300 regime changes throughout the world, has invaded many countries, including those that we were not affiliated with.
Absolutely fair point. I agree with you on this portion of your comment.
@theunknownmuncher And I could give countless other examples of other countries. I don’t agree with the war, but I also know if we hadn’t installed Zelenskyy and if the United States had honored our promise to Russia not to extend NATO past East Germany, then it would not have happened. So I understand that it is hardly one sided on Russias part. If we didn’t fund Ukraine, if we didn’t offer them membership in NATO, none of this would have happened. And I’ll add if the Ukraine and Russia did not have large oil reserves and some other precious minerals, the United States would be a lot less interested in them. But that’s all in the past. Now, you and I can disagree with each other and we can disagree with what our governments do, but if we want to build a better world it has to happen through the cooperative efforts of citizens NOT governments because the latter just historically a lot less likely to happen. So I can’t see this move as at all productive towards ending this particular war or world peace in general, I see it as quite the opposite.
Wait, what?? Zelenskyy took office after being democratically elected in 2019. Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed the Crimea region of Ukraine in 2014. Your timeline does not check out there.
@theunknownmuncher Your timeline doesn’t go back far enough and I notice you completely ignored the bit about Eastern expansion of NATO and what the United States promised Russia.
@theunknownmuncher I don’t justify genocide, I acknowledge ALL conflicts involve at least two sides, and to punish only one of those sides is to take part in said genocide rather than oppose it.
I totally think them invading Ukraine is fucked up too but I also think the Israel situation is messed up too and would you be against someone maintaining code just because they are from Israel?
That would be wrong. Linux is supposed to be about more than political alignments its supposed to be a collaborative effort its always been about that.
This is wrong and its super wrong they don’t tell anyone what compliance they are following or who issued it to them which is also supposed to be against what open source is about.
@Midnight If Russia were the only one involved, and if weren’t provoked by outside powers like say, oh, the United States, yea I could agree with you but my knowledge of history precludes my accepting that explanation.
NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev HeardU.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
The Ukraine Mess That Nuland MadeAssistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland engineered Ukraine’s regime change without weighing the likely consequences.
The West’s Sabotage of Peace in UkraineIn May of [2022] Ukrainian media reported that then-British prime minister Boris Johnson had flown to Kiev the previous month to pass on the message on behalf of the western empire that “Putin is a war criminal, he should be pressured, not negotiated with,” and that “even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they are not.”
The War in Ukraine Was Provoked—and Why That Matters to Achieve Peace
The shooting war in Ukraine began with Yanukovych’s overthrow nine years ago, not in February 2022 as the U.S. government, NATO, and the G7 leaders would have us believe.
So many people forget that the Ukrainian Russian conflict never really ended, the idea that it was an unprovoked invasion is absurd, (and no, before someone decides to make a braindead comment, provoked does not mean justified.) There have been many leaked videos pre-invasion of violence towards both sides, and neither side made a proper effort to actually quell it, only surface level bullshit inorder to take the "moral ground:
Westerners usually don’t know any of that, because Western governments, NGOs, and corporate media erase all inconvenient context and history. I try to point folks toward developing real media literacy…
NATO will continue expanding as more and more border countries don’t want to deal with limp dick Putin. Russia will be broken up to small territories and anything that remains of the federation will be scrapped and sold for salvage to finance rebuilding what has been lost.
That is what the US has wanted for the last 25 years, but it’s unlikely to happen. The Global North has very significantly de-industrialized itself, and its attempts at sanctions not only haven’t worked, but are having the effect of it isolating itself from the global majority. Russia has aligned with the Global South. Hence BRICS+ and the larger developing multipolar bloc that’s going its own way, ignoring the US’ “rules-based international order” sanctions, developing its own international balance of payments outside of US dollar hegemony, and working to get out from under the boot of the IMF’s & World Bank’s debt traps.
the federation will be scrapped and sold for salvage
This is a shame, I always thought Linux was supposed to be an International collaboration, hate to see it caught up in this bullshit political agenda.
No it was code started by Linus that got huge.
I agree to this. I was literally just in the shower thinking how Linux, the space station, and the Olympics are the only times we as humans come together to collaborate
You know that Russia wasn’t able to compete in the Olympics or Paralympics this year, right? The individual athletes weren’t banned however, but they had to compete under a neutral banner and weren’t in the parade of nations.
Edit: I should have added, was disgusted because Israel were allowed to compete. Huge double standard there.
If I recall correctly Russia is not allowed to participate because of their state doping program not because of their politics. So unless there was an Israel state doping program discovered that’s not double standard.
@secret300 The project to discover elements 119 and 120 which previously were a US/Russia collaboration also put on hold. All of humanity moves backwards when we fight, nothing is gained.
“propaganda”? Oh. You mean like Russia started a full blown unprovoked war with a peaceful nation? That “propaganda”?
Sucks others got caught in the crosshairs, but that’s just what happens when your authoritarian government launches unprovoked wars and gets sanctioned.
No matter how many times Western states and corporate media insist that it wasn’t provoked won’t change the fact that it was[1][2].
NATO Expansion: The argument that NATO’s eastward expansion “provoked” Russia is often linked to Gorbachev’s 1990 talks with Western leaders. However, this promise was tied to Germany’s unification, not a blanket prohibition on expansion. And importantly eastern european countries sought NATO membership because of their historical (and justified) fears of Russian imperialism (a dynamic Marxists should understand as nations seeking sovereignty free from external dominance.)
Western Involvement in Ukraine: The U.S. supporting a regime change in Ukraine in 2014 is thought to be imperialism. But ignores the agency of Ukrainians, who led the Maidan protests because of already existing deep dissatisfaction with Yanukovych’s corrupt, oligarchic regime and his pivot to Russia. Supporting popular uprisings against oligarchs should align with Marxist values even if “the West” has its own interests
The Role of Fascism in Ukraine: Yes, Ukraine has issues with far-right groups like so many countries but exaggerating their influence as a justification for invasion serves to divert attention from Russia’s own reactionary politics. Far-right elements in Ukraine do not define the country’s political landscape, nor do they justify imperial aggression from another state. Russia has its own history of fostering right-wing authoritarianism.
Minsk Agreements: While the West" and Ukraine could be criticized for their handling of the Minsk agreements, Russia also violated these accords by continuing support for the separatists. Both sides share blame for the failure of Minsk, but it doesn’t make Russia’s invasion justified. Ukrainians didn’t provoke a full-scale invasion; they were defending their sovereignty.
NATO as a “Defensive” Alliance: Criticism of NATO’s imperialistic behavior is fair its actions in places like Libya show it isn’t 100% defensive. But in this case, NATO’s expansion was driven by countries seeking security from a historically imperialist power. Ukraine wasn’t “provoking” Russia by wanting self-determination; it was trying to secure its future.
You’re trying to push this “Actuall, but Ukraine DID provoke” narrative by mixing in unverified, ideologically biased material with references that are legitimate, but isolated incidents. Like linking far-right activity to justify the war conveniently ignores Russia’s (I should probably say everyone’s) own far-right issues. Marxists should reject imperialism in all its forms, including Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Mostly NATO, and by that I mean mostly the US. The Ukrainian state is in bed with and dependent on the US, so yes it was and is a participant.
The implication here is, the more biased, the less trustworthy/factual. This is false, and anyway, I don’t think you fully see the bias baked into the supposedly unbiased sources. And “unverified” I suspect means not blessed by Western states (which are run by the capitalist class[1][2]) or Western NGOs (which are funded by Western states and the capitalist class) or Western corporate media (which are owned by the capitalist class).
Liberals often view history that way, but historical materialists don’t.
Question: do you believe in the self-determination of Ukrainians?
Absolutely, but that was intolerable to the US, which is why they coup’ed its government in 2014 and installed a puppet one.
Yes, the self-determination of the Ukrainian people, the western Ukrainians and the eastern Ukrainians both.
And I believe in the right of the Eastern Ukrainians to not be attacked by fascist western Ukrainian paramilitaries[1] with tacit & overt support from the Ukrainian government and the US.
And I believe in the Ukrainian state to not suppress regional languages.
And I believe in the Ukrainian state to not ban political parties.
Right, so how does the full scale, violent invasion by a foreign state help the self determination of both Ukrainian peoples?
It certainly is violent, as all invasions are, though it’s not a full scale invasion. Russia has not fully activated its military, and it has no intent on taking all of Ukraine. That would be a terrible idea, if for no other reason than the fact that
easternwestern Ukraine is very anti-Russian and has a lot of fascists who are virulently anti-Russian. It would be a terrible idea to try to permanently occupy it. In contrast, the annexation of Crimea was practically a cake walk, because most of the people of Crimea wanted to be annexed. And it seems it was for the best for them, because they didn’t suffer years of attacks by western Ukrainians like their neighbors to their north.Still, by international law the invasion was & is illegal, and it certainly is violent. After the 2014 coup, an anti-Russian government—blessed by Victoria Nuland (who had been on the ground handing out cookies for the coup)—was installed, eastern Ukraine declared its independence. This independence was not recognized the Ukrainian government of course. It was a very messy situation. Ukraine was in a state of civil war from the coup until the invasion. I don’t know what percentage of the people of eastern Ukraine welcomed the Russian invasion/liberation. 30%, 50%, 70%? I have no idea.
Unfortunately, as complicated as that all is, realpolitik can’t be ignored. For an analogy, consider the Cuban missile crisis (BTW we now know that the reason Russia & Cuba did that was because the US had secretly installed nuclear weapons in Turkey).
Imagine if Russia (or say China) were expanding its “defensive alliance” into south & central America, and making plans to expand it further, right up to the California–Texas border, which would likely lead to “defensive” nuclear weapons right on our back porch. Maybe they’re in talks with Canada as well, in an effort to “contain” the US. Realistically—regardless of what is internationally legal (which the US usually ignores anyway)—what would the US do?
The US has has been working a plan to break up Russia for the last thirty years. Ukraine is just a pawn to the US. This is the confrontation the US wanted, with the hopes of starting that Balkanization. It doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Ukrainians’ lives, never mind their self-determination. The US does this kind of thing all the time.
My question was: how does the violence of the invasion help the self determination of Ukrainian people?
I’ll be more explicit: why not simply acknowledge that the invasion is not only unlawful, but deeply immoral – and completely contradictory to the self determination of a people?
The self-determination of which Ukrainian people?
.
I doubt you actually know what real-life Ukrainians actually want, because I suspect your vision of the Ukrainian people may as well be from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And I suspect your conceptualization of self-determination is equally undeveloped.
I think the reason you’re interested in the Ukrainian people’s self-determination is because our governments and corporate media have spend the last two years telling you to care. But not real-life people. These are unrealized, cartoon Ukrainian people, who all coincidentally want exactly the same thing that Zelensky says Ukraine wants. They want you to imagine that the “self-determination” that all these cartoon Ukrainians want is exactly the same thing that the extremely corrupt, undemocratic Ukrainian government wants.
When I say I care about the Ukrainian people’s self-determination, I’m talking about the real-life, flesh-and-blood working class people, not the Ukrainian state.
And never ask why the US has over 800 external military bases, while all other countries combined have less than 20.
Never ask a dronie how gullible they are, they’ll tell you.
Does invading your neighbor count as international collaboration? Not that all Russian people can be held directly responsible for the actions of their government.
@theunknownmuncher The US has been involved in probably 300 regime changes throughout the world, has invaded many countries, including those that we were not affiliated with. Russia invades a neighboring country when we install a leader that is going to allow us to put missiles on their border. I really hate to see political hegemony get in the way of a good collaborative effort, we all suffer for it if we allow this.
Absolutely fair point. I agree with you on this portion of your comment.
@theunknownmuncher And I could give countless other examples of other countries. I don’t agree with the war, but I also know if we hadn’t installed Zelenskyy and if the United States had honored our promise to Russia not to extend NATO past East Germany, then it would not have happened. So I understand that it is hardly one sided on Russias part. If we didn’t fund Ukraine, if we didn’t offer them membership in NATO, none of this would have happened. And I’ll add if the Ukraine and Russia did not have large oil reserves and some other precious minerals, the United States would be a lot less interested in them. But that’s all in the past. Now, you and I can disagree with each other and we can disagree with what our governments do, but if we want to build a better world it has to happen through the cooperative efforts of citizens NOT governments because the latter just historically a lot less likely to happen. So I can’t see this move as at all productive towards ending this particular war or world peace in general, I see it as quite the opposite.
Wait, what?? Zelenskyy took office after being democratically elected in 2019. Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed the Crimea region of Ukraine in 2014. Your timeline does not check out there.
@theunknownmuncher Your timeline doesn’t go back far enough and I notice you completely ignored the bit about Eastern expansion of NATO and what the United States promised Russia.
Your justification of genocide is both ludicrous and gross.
@theunknownmuncher I don’t justify genocide, I acknowledge ALL conflicts involve at least two sides, and to punish only one of those sides is to take part in said genocide rather than oppose it.
Political agenda is a funny euphemism for imperialist invasion and genocide.
Gee i’m glad israeli maintainers are being blocked as well.
I’m all for sanctioning them too. Economic sanctions are the bare minimum we should be doing to genocidal authoritarians.
I totally think them invading Ukraine is fucked up too but I also think the Israel situation is messed up too and would you be against someone maintaining code just because they are from Israel?
That would be wrong. Linux is supposed to be about more than political alignments its supposed to be a collaborative effort its always been about that.
This is wrong and its super wrong they don’t tell anyone what compliance they are following or who issued it to them which is also supposed to be against what open source is about.
@Midnight If Russia were the only one involved, and if weren’t provoked by outside powers like say, oh, the United States, yea I could agree with you but my knowledge of history precludes my accepting that explanation.
You see the Russians are the real Nazis, not the Banderites who attacked Eastern Ukrainians for the decade before this war started.
🥱
So many people forget that the Ukrainian Russian conflict never really ended, the idea that it was an unprovoked invasion is absurd, (and no, before someone decides to make a braindead comment, provoked does not mean justified.) There have been many leaked videos pre-invasion of violence towards both sides, and neither side made a proper effort to actually quell it, only surface level bullshit inorder to take the "moral ground:
Westerners usually don’t know any of that, because Western governments, NGOs, and corporate media erase all inconvenient context and history. I try to point folks toward developing real media literacy…
NATO will continue expanding as more and more border countries don’t want to deal with limp dick Putin. Russia will be broken up to small territories and anything that remains of the federation will be scrapped and sold for salvage to finance rebuilding what has been lost.
Ta-ta!
That is what the US has wanted for the last 25 years, but it’s unlikely to happen. The Global North has very significantly de-industrialized itself, and its attempts at sanctions not only haven’t worked, but are having the effect of it isolating itself from the global majority. Russia has aligned with the Global South. Hence BRICS+ and the larger developing multipolar bloc that’s going its own way, ignoring the US’ “rules-based international order” sanctions, developing its own international balance of payments outside of US dollar hegemony, and working to get out from under the boot of the IMF’s & World Bank’s debt traps.
The neocolonial plunderers already tried that, and they even got away with under Yeltsin, but then Putin kicked them out, which is why they’re especially butthurt about him.
@CaptDust @davel When you need to resort to insults like this it’s a clear sign you’ve lost the argument.
Not always, but often 😂
Putin is a despot trying to make his mark on history. No amount of appeasement from the global West would have stopped him from ordering the invasion.
this is the genocide you must be referring to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHWHqj8g7Bk