Ukraine, Russia etc.

[Mr. Tea]

Speaking of the Bizarre: didn’t the German Government just arrest a Jewish person protesting the Israeli regimes genocide for,…wait for it,…Antisemitism?

There are many things wrong with the modern German government, not least its support for Israel. But Israel isn't the country under discussion here, so this smacks of whataboutery. And Germany is justified in helping Ukraine defend itself.

A person - or a government or country - can be right about some things and wrong about others. Russia, for example, is not supplying arms to Israel, which as far as it goes is a point in its favour. But it doesn't cancel out everything else Russia has done or is doing.

Try not thinking in terms of countries belonging to "teams" that one must either support or oppose.

 

[GhostofKinski]

What's doubly funny about his ludicrous equation of the countries helping Ukraine defend itself from genocidal fascism with Nazi Germany is that the Nazis weren't even the only state to commit genocide in Ukraine in the last century, because millions of them were deliberately starved to death by Stalin. But I'll happily bet my house that Finkers either thinks the Holodomor was "greatly exaggerated by Western historians", or some other snivelling bullshit about how its victims deserved it for being bourgeois kulaks or whatever.

These guys present themselves as being the diametric opposites of the Zionists who maintain Israel's "right to defend itself" by bombing whole families, but they're just another flavour of the same product.

Wait, what!? Your imagination is running away from you. Who’s denying something that wasn’t even brought up until you just mentioned it. Idk if you think you’re talking to some starry eyed campus kid. Tbh, I don’t even know WTF you’re talking about at this point.

 

[GhostofKinski]

There are many things wrong with the modern German government, not least its support for Israel. But Israel isn't the country under discussion here, so this smacks of whataboutery. And Germany is justified in helping Ukraine defend itself.

A person - or a government or country - can be right about some things and wrong about others. Russia, for example, is not supplying arms to Israel, which as far as it goes is a point in its favour. But it doesn't cancel out everything else Russia has done or is doing.

Try not thinking in terms of countries belonging to "teams" that one must either support or oppose.

Whatsboutery!? Isn’t that how every war starts?
You are a smart guy Mr T but you lost me a page or so ago.
There’s something else at play here that is confined to between your ears.
Maybe I’m missing something.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Wait, what!? Your imagination is running away from you. Who’s denying something that wasn’t even brought up until you just mentioned it. Idk if you think you’re talking to some starry eyed campus kid. Tbh, I don’t even know WTF you’re talking about at this point.

You're not familiar with pro-Russian Westerners consistently minimising Soviet atrocities?

 

[GhostofKinski]

I live in a giant building that is probably 40% Russians. I can have shopping bags of groceries in both hands and an ikea bag hanging crossways, literally weighed down and they can be three steps ahead of me and still let the door slam in my face.aside from some novels and political thought I don’t have much use for them.
I don’t watch corporate media outlets so if there is a strong pro-Russian movement here I’m neither aware, nor looking to join.

 

[Clinamenic]

@GhostofKinski maybe you’ve already realized that Tea, despite his talent for punnery and his myological acumen and his humanitarian contributions in experimental weapons research, is nonetheless a driving force behind many of the more tedious exchanges here. Some have, not unreasonably, called him the messiah of centrist banality.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I live in a giant building that is probably 40% Russians. I can have shopping bags of groceries in both hands and an ikea bag hanging crossways, literally weighed down and they can be three steps ahead of me and still let the door slam in my face.aside from some novels and political thought I don’t have much use for them.
I don’t watch corporate media outlets so if there is a strong pro-Russian movement here I’m neither aware, nor looking to join.

TBC, my comment about Soviet atrocities was about Finkelstein, not you.

 

[Mr. Tea]

@GhostofKinski maybe you’ve already realized that Tea, despite his talent for punnery and his myological acumen and his humanitarian contributions in experimental weapons research, is nonetheless a driving force behind many of the more tedious exchanges here. Some have, not unreasonably, called him the messiah of centrist banality.

Come on, I've stopped rising to m_b's bait, at least!

 

[Mr. Tea]

He is, it has to be said, a master_baiter, ho ho ho.

 

[GhostofKinski]

TBC, my comment about Soviet atrocities was about Finkelstein, not you.

I’ve followed Norman’s public career since his first book. I know he’s said that his parents were the world’s last two Stalinists, lol.
And it was as simple a reason as they liberated the camps they were in.
I know he’s talked about being a Maoist in his youth, but claims he doesn’t subscribe to any of those ideologies anymore.
He is working on a book chronicling the ICJ case against Israel, so I haven’t bothered him.
Having said that: if you go through his Wiki page there’s a link to his site where you can email him. We exchanged about a half dozen Btwn 10/23 and mid ‘24.
He was pretty good about talking/answering questions but they tended (especially in the first couple) to just be a few sentences long.
I might suggest you ask him yourself via email if you really want to know.
As an aside, I listened to the entire ICJ hearings and when contrasting the two sides, I said it was like watching Kurosawa’s Rashomon. In an interview a few days later I heard him use the analogy & it made me feel like I hadn’t wasted the man’s time completely

Edit: I try to be a bit stand offish when it comes to international politics. Especially the demonization of nations who behave the exact same way we do. It’s really just the principle of reciprocity. I don’t feel comfortable wagging my giant foam America #1 finger at one nation while we are
Assisting a holocaust. I take that shit personally as it’s done in my/our name.
Israel, Saudi Arabia,.. all day every day I’ll pounce on as they are direct beneficiaries of our military aid.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I’ve followed Norman’s public career since his first book. I know he’s said that his parents were the world’s last two Stalinists, lol.
And it was as simple a reason as they liberated the camps they were in.
I know he’s talked about being a Maoist in his youth, but claims he doesn’t subscribe to any of those ideologies anymore.
He is working on a book chronicling the ICJ case against Israel, so I haven’t bothered him.
Having said that: if you go through his Wiki page there’s a link to his site where you can email him. We exchanged about a half dozen Btwn 10/23 and mid ‘24.
He was pretty good about talking/answering questions but they tended (especially in the first couple) to just be a few sentences long.
I might suggest you ask him yourself via email if you really want to know.
As an aside, I listened to the entire ICJ hearings and when contrasting the two sides, I said it was like watching Kurosawa’s Rashomon. In an interview a few days later I heard him use the analogy & it made me feel like I hadn’t wasted the man’s time completely

Edit: I try to be a bit stand offish when it comes to international politics. Especially the demonization of nations who behave the exact same way we do. It’s really just the principle of reciprocity. I don’t feel comfortable wagging my giant foam America #1 finger at one nation while we are
Assisting a holocaust. I take that shit personally as it’s done in my/our name.
Israel, Saudi Arabia,.. all day every day I’ll pounce on as they are direct beneficiaries of our military aid.

It's to his credit if he will actually correspond with random members of the public, but I don't think I'll bother because the chances of either of us changing the other's mind are pretty slim.

BTW it was a total guess on my part about him minimising the Holodomor, but the first Google result for "Norman Finkelstein holodomor" turned up this gem:



I find it odd that he gives the USSR a free pass on the grounds that they helped defeat the Nazis (after Hitler invaded them and ended the cosy little agreement he had with Stalin), because the US obviously also played a vital role in that victory, and that doesn't stop him and his comrades obsessively despising it.

A lot of this kind of politics feels very Oedipal. Sins of the father, and all that.

 

[GhostofKinski]

It's to his credit if he will actually correspond with random members of the public, but I don't think I'll bother because the chances of either of us changing the other's mind are pretty slim.

BTW it was a total guess on my part about him minimising the Holodomor, but the first Google result for "Norman Finkelstein holodomor" turned up this gem:

View attachment 22995

I find it odd that he gives the USSR a free pass on the grounds that they helped defeat the Nazis (after Hitler invaded them and ended the cosy little agreement he had with Stalin), because the US obviously also played a vital role in that victory, and that doesn't stop him and his comrades obsessively despising it.

A lot of this kind of politics feels very Oedipal. Sins of the father, and all that.

There is no way I am clicking ‘join’ to get access to Destiny person.
I’ll take your word for it.

 

[Mr. Tea]

There is no way I am clicking ‘join’ to get access to Destiny person.
I’ll take your word for it.

Oh, OK. I didn't know you have to be on Reddit to use the link. But it's just a YT link within a Reddit link, and while he does acknowledge the deaths, he also says it wasn't a genocide.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Germany also massively funding Israel's genocide.

bourgeois campist politics are so stupid. Finkelstein is a campist, you are a campist (even if unconsciously).

I know "You're both wrong. I alone have the correct position" has been your schtick since forever, but this is flatly untrue. (Your statement about me, I mean - the bit about Germany is true (in fact it doesn't go far enough, because they're not just funding it, but are Israel's only important arms supplier other than the US), but redundant, because I've made the same point myself.)

There are many things wrong with the modern German government, not least its support for Israel.

The only "camp" I'm in is the "Campism is stupid, reactionary, and usually racist" camp.

 

[GhostofKinski]

Oh, OK. I didn't know you have to be on Reddit to use the link. But it's just a YT link within a Reddit link, and while he does acknowledge the deaths, he also says it wasn't a genocide.

Yeah, no worries. I don’t have any other socials and don’t want to add any. I thought it was a twitter thing or something.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Yeah, no worries. I don’t have any other socials and don’t want to add any. I thought it was a twitter thing or something.

Nah, just a YT link within a Reddit link (which is admittedly an ass-backwards way to share information on a message board.)

 

[thirdform]

you operate by the logic of nationalism tea. You support Ukraine against the Russians (german and American imperialism) but support Palestine against Israel (which can occasionally dovetail with russian and Iranian interests). I'm certainly not here to condemn (let alone criticise) that position, because you are not one of us (and being part of the communist movement must always be via voluntary agreement). That isn't hypocrisy, so much as the default mode of engagement on the terrain of capitalist states. Capitalism itself generates the bogeyman of campism.

The communist position is not that Palestinian and Ukrainian nationalism are unjustified (what does that mean, anyway)? but that they cannot offer any kind of solutions to their respective conflicts.

Abandon the delusions of your bananas and realise that your opinions are not and never have been an act of individual conscience. you are function. we are all functions.

inb4 the you're just being utopian rebuttal, we think in centuries, not in years.

 

[Mr. Tea]

you operate by the logic of nationalism tea. You support Ukraine against the Russians (german and American imperialism) but support Palestine against Israel (which can occasionally dovetail with russian and Iranian interests).

Why "but" and not "and"? Your choice of word here is very telling.

I don't actually "support Ukraine" or "support Palestine." I support civilians who are being bombed. This means I support Western military aid to Ukraine, because it's helping them defend themselves, and they may yet pull off a military victory that will ensure their own safety and make further Russian aggression in Europe less likely.

It's a very different situation in the Levant, because Hamas obviously cannot actually achieve military victory over Israel. They've known this from the outset, which is why they've focused on killing civilians and taking hostages.

So I think you're wrong about there not being a "solution to the conflict" in one of these cases, anyway. Many conflicts have had a solution - in fact a solution of one sort or another has occurred in every historical war that's no longer being fought. Naturally new conflicts arise all the time. I'm rather pessimistically going to say that that's probably an unavoidable consequence of human nature.

 

[thirdform]

tea I would argue with you over this but you fundamentally don't see societies as divided against themselves. so of course you will call military victories in wars solutions.

The sense in which I was using solution was pursuant to the propaganda of said nationalists of oppressed nations, as opposed to any solution in general. After all, the social democrats in WW I era Germany paved the way for the Hitlerian solution, and we would not want to call that a good solution, by any stretch of the imagination. It was the worst of all possible solutions, from the perspective of the working class, Jews and minorities.

If you think a russian defeat in Ukraine will unite the Ukrainian nation when the time comes to post-war reconstruction then I'm not sure what to say. You are right about Palestine though. There is no national liberation movement, not since the PLO accommodated to Israel.

 

[Mr. Tea]

TBC, I'm not saying Ukraine repelling the invasion will usher in an era of egalitarian socialist peace and kittens and rainbows forever more. I'm saying the Ukrainians themselves seem to think it preferable to being ground into the dust under the Russian boot yet again, and I'm inclined to believe them.