#russian neocolonialism

[tomorrowusa]

"MAGA Mike" Johnson needs a ride (to Mar-a-Lago) not ammo.

Vicariously, Vladimir Putin is House Speaker these days. 😡

Why do MAGA Republicans hate freedom?

[communist-ojou-sama]

Like, this may come as a shock to people like Tumblr liberals who are totally stuck in the Western anglophone neoliberal ideology echo-chamber but like, outside of the west, out there where the majority of the worlds people live, Kwame Nkrumah's thought is taken more seriously than Milton Friedman's. So why will left liberals engage with Friedman's thought, even if only to debunk it, but not engage at all with Nkrumah's writings on neocolonialism, and just write it off?

There's a common charge leveled by supposedly "open-minded" liberals toward anti-imperialists, that we just 'blindly' support any force that's contravailing US the US on a regional or global scale, but how am I supposed to take this seriously as anything but projection?

We anti-imperialists often make specific, verifiable claims about happenings in global geopol, such as that the so-called "Free Syrian Army" consisted mostly of salafi jihadists allowed into Syria through their northern border with Turkey, and that it doesn't make sense that a civil war could simply Materialize in a country like Syria which right before the war started had one of the lowest ratios of guns to people in the world, or that the Maidan coup regime that swept into power in Kiev in 2014 was heavily infiltrated with fascists, and would not have been able to consolidate power without the instrumentalisation of fascist gangs and paramilitary organizations.

The liberal response to these specific claims, then, is to point to reports from corporate media with every incentive to lie, themselves doing no independent investigation but instead parroting verbatim the word of the State Department as fact, and dismissing all independent media investigations out of hand with no further thought.

In a situation such as this, can that response really be considered "open-minded"? It seems that time and time again intellectual rigor is reserved for discussions of technocratic tinkering within the west's iron curtain, and not the lives of people outside of it.

There's plenty of brain-juice to be expended on justifying why the US economy is actually in good shape and the people saying they're struggling more than before are just stupid, but when it comes to considering why African heads of state choose the China Development Bank over the IMF as an economic partner or Russia over the NATO states as security partners, these leaders of millions are dismissively written off as histrionically anti-Western, paranoid, and too mentally weak to see through Russian and Chinese propaganda. Is it this really a 'rational' way to look at the world?

Personally, I think not.

[txttletale]

i realize that my last post might be a bit overwhelming and doesn't give a starting point, so here's a truncated version of the highlights in a vaguely recommended reading order:

friedrich engels, principles of commmunism

karl marx, wage labour & capital

friedrich engels, socialism: utopian & scientific

rosa luxemburg, reform or revolution?

vincent bevins, the jakarta method

v.i. lenin, the state & revolution

v.i. lenin, what is to be done?

walter rodney, the russian revolution: a view from the third world

michael parenti, blackshirts and reds

v.i lenin, imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism

eduardo galeano, the open veins of latin america

walter rodney, how europe underdeveloped africa

frantz fanon, the wretched of the earth

kwame nkrumah, neocolonialism: the last stage of imperialism

zak cope, the wealth of (some) nations

karl marx, the german ideology

edward herman and noam chomsky, manufacturing consent

elaine scarry, the body in pain

michel foucault, discipline and punish

ed. stuart hall, representation: cultural representations and signifying pratices

christian fuchs, theorizing digital labour

[pharma-tard]

Share thoughts!!!!

I'm hungry so this won't be the most eloquent explanation, but basically I think it's more likely for Trump to win than Kamala. Normally that's "who gives a shit" territory for me, because a pro-war and (by nowhere but America's standards) "anti-war" president both have to deal with their country's geopolitical reality/tragectory and (more importantly) what their oligarchy wants.

But this one is meaningful mostly because of what Trump represents on the world-stage -- which is a shift to East Asia away from Europe (whereas Kamala represents the current policy). "Away" is the keyword here. Before, the US could, in the analogy of a boxing match, just change who they're swinging at with their right vs their left. They can't anymore, they can try to dodge the guy who'd get their left normally, but they have to focus on one of them at a time.

I don't think the US elite wanted to admit that, a lot of them still don't. They have a lot invested in neocolonialism in the former Warsaw Pact/Yugoslavia, but as the mode of control has increasingly become the EU (vs directly), that vassalage-autonomy has come at the price of being more expendable in extreme cases such as we live in now.

Chinese disruption to US financial hegemony is more troubling to them than the EU taking L's and it fucking up their investments in the larger region, by a lot. Their elite want to (keep) own(ing) Ukraine, for example, but they need the world to run on dollars. Right now, China is the primary country enabling dedollarization, which means China is now the majority-accepted primary threat according to the American elite.

So what I predict happening is the EU will be left to deal with Europe on their own, and the EU establishment won't have nearly as much American support to keep them in power. NATO will still be there, and the US will still try to exert influence, but mostly within the "secured" areas and ones that are more directly chained to Washington than chained through Brussels. It's clear that the EU as a junior partner is seen as a mistake to the US, as well, so in a way everything since the end of 2021 can be spun advantageously for US geopolitics.

Meanwhile, the US' focus is going to be on China, with increasing diplomatic pressure on India & trying to further inflame their situation with Pakistan. Australia, Japan, Thailand, and New Zealand will become less autonomous within the American sphere, or at least that'll be the goal, while the main geopolitical battlegrounds will be around Taiwan*, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Korean peninsula, and Burma. Maybe Bangladesh also. I think the inevitable loss to Russia in Ukraine will solidify Mongolia in the Russian/Chinese sphere of influence though.

The Middle East situation won't fundamentally change, or at least its tragectory will continue in the way it has been since the failed attempt to destroy Syria.

Anyway, they know all this and that's why media coverage around Trump has become more in the tone of him winning next, even if it is in a "oh God oh fuck" tone. All of its about marketing, manufacturing consent, and reducing shock.

[fat-fuck-hairy-belly]

I remember how about two years ago everyone was laughing at Russian soldiers documenting their own atrocities in Ukraine through Instagram, but I don't see anyone batting an eye at the IDF doing the same in Gaza. I remember everyone making fun of Russian officials claiming they struck hidden ukronazi battalions whenever they bombed hospitals and apartments, but I don't see anyone making fun of Israeli officials doing the same in Gaza. I remember everyone making fun of Putin accusing the world of russophobia when he was condemned for invasion of Ukraine, but I don't see anyone making fun of Netanyahu for doing the same. I remember all the companies tripping over themselves to stop service in Russia and Belarus after invasion of Ukraine, but I don't see the same happening in Israel. The same people that two years ago called Russians and Belarusians bloodthirsty animals and made jokes about starving the Russians out are now cheering on the Israel government while it openly commits war crimes.

Western world's response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a fluke, it was one in a thousand years occasion where the morally good choice just happened to align with the Western interests (and even then not completely, the war would have already been over if the US provided Ukraine with the same level of support they give to the Israel.)

And Western response to the genocide of Palestinians has completely shattered the illusion liberals have built of the rules based world order. The world is still living in the 20th century, with the west funding and perpetrating atrocities to maintain their neocolonial hold over the world. Liberals condemn the US destabilizing South America in the 60s but will call you a terrorist for condemning doing the same to the Middle East. They will celebrate Vietnam war protesters but take away your rights and send you to prison for protesting modern genocides. I hate the world that the Western Europe has built. Hannibal should have burnt down Rome and strangled that wretched civilization in it's crib, nothing good has come out of it.

[thesorcerersapprentice]

Thank you to the fabulous @that-cyber-writer for tagging me in this Writing Questions Tag Game! D.M. Foyle, as @that-cyber-writer is also known, is working on a nail-biting crime thriller entitled Tangled Wires starring Raz, a brilliant hacker on the run from the Russian mob. Interested? Go check out Tangled Wires and all of Foyle's projects here! I'm tagging (no pressure!): @inkovert @outpost51 @aquadestinyswriting @merlina87 @sarah-sandwich @lucianinsanity @winterandwords @threeking @avrablake @the-finch-address @thawinoakenshield @the-down-upside-finch @lunarmoment @sodaliteskull @kingkendrick7 @harps-for-days @cee-grice @tate-lin @rubywrite @poppy-in-the-woods @hippiewrites @the-down-upside-finch @lexiklecksi @linaket and anyone else who'd like to participate!

✦ What is your absolute all-time favourite idea you’ve ever had?

The one that inspired the novel I'm writing right now, The Sorcerer's Apprentice! Initially, I just wanted to explore the relationship between two individuals at completely polar opposite moments in life: one, an elderly character, preparing to die and looking back; and the other, a youthful character, just beginning to come into their own, in early adulthood, still figuring out who they are and what they believe in, facing forward. It would be a lie to say that the novel isn't still very much built around this dynamic, between the elderly sorcerer Valeriano and his young apprentice, Altaluna. But it's grown from the original idea to incorporate issues and topics I hadn't expected; climate change, environmental disaster, colonialism and neocolonialism, the body as a machine, contemporary theories of perception, abusive family dynamics, and more. These topics and their associated plot/world ideas are likewise what makes The Sorcerer's Apprentice my favourite written piece to date. It's like the more I dig, the more I enjoy what I'm doing. If the first idea was compelling but lukewarm, the accumulation of ideas that has ensued as I attempt to do the initial idea justice has taken it to the next level.

✦ Is there a question you’ve been asked that really stands out to you and that you still think about sometimes?

Not that I can think of off the top of my head! Sorry :S I wish I did.

✦ What is your favourite part of being a writer? What parts could you take or leave?

The trouble is, you can't have any of it without all of it, so this is a bit of a trick question, to which I don't really have a clear answer. I love it all. I hate it all. I struggle every step of the way. And I have the time of my life, always.

✦ What is your greatest motivation to write/create?

It's changed over the years! As a child, I just liked exercising my imagination. In my teens and early twenties, I wrote to escape or to envision the life I wanted, the person I wanted to be, and how I wanted to be perceived by others. Now, my greatest motivation is rage. I am one very pissed-off adult lol I suppose the difference is also that now I actually have something to say, something I feel is worth saying. And I feel that very strongly, which helps me get over the bad days at the desk where no words are coming or where I doubt my capacity to write at all. Because it doesn't matter. This -the message of my novel- has value to me. It's more important than my small personal feelings of insecurity or ups and downs. So I'll find a way. That's my motivation. It's not really that I want to write, it's that I have to. It's that I can't live in a world where this isn't said ~ and where it isn't said the way I'd like to say it.

✦ What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever read or been given as a writer?

The best advice I ever received was from a world-renowned author in his 90s who told me that it (writing) never gets any easier, so basically, your choices are either quit or keep going with the knowledge that it's never going to magically turn into a picnic, no matter how much experience/talent you have. I also got some lovely advice a couple years ago from (I think?) Anne Lamott in her writer's memoir Bird By Bird. In one of the chapters, she mentions that if you lack inspiration, you can always write to get your own back, aka. you can always write as a way to avenge yourself. And that just flipped a switch in my brain. I don't think I'd be writing The Sorcerer's Apprentice without that little seed she planted.

✦ What do you wish you knew when you were first starting out writing?

Nobody knows what they're doing. You'll never be more prepared than you are right this minute. But also, you have to live a little before you can know what you want to say ~ the same way you have to live a little to figure out who you are. Writing is organic. It grows with you. You have to let yourself grow, so the writing can follow.

✦ What is your favourite story you’ve written to completion? Link it if you’d like and can!

I don't have a favourite completed story to share, so I'm sharing a link to my current WIP, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, a fantasy novel exploring the interplay between colonialism, capitalism, and environmental catastrophe through the fraught relationship between a mysterious sorcerer and his protogé.

✦ Which of your characters would you say has the most controversial mindset? Why do you say so, and how do you personally feel about their ideals?

Valeriano, the antagonist of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, is the only character I've ever written whose views are absolutely despicable in almost every way. I'd be very concerned if my readers don't find his mindset controversial. The man is sexist, racist, and classist; he discriminates against any LGBTQ+ classification that isn't his own (biphobia, anti-lesbian, etc.), he's morally perverse, and he bristles with a sense of in-born superiority. In short, he represents the polar opposite of my own personal views and ideals.

✦ If you, when you first started writing, met you now, what would younger you think?

A younger me would definitely not recognise me, let alone understand why I'm writing what I'm writing. And that's how it should be! I'm glad little me enjoyed a time when all that mattered were unicorns and fairies, and the world was bright, open, and good. I wouldn't take that away from little me for all the world, not for anything. Plus, I have the lingering feeling that little me would be proud of me anyway. Even if she doesn't quite get it. She'd trust me and my choices. We'd be different, but we'd be cool, you know?

© 2024 The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. All rights reserved.

[fortressofserenity]

America's heroes and US hegemony

Both Superman and Captain America epitomise Americana, as in they're patriotic symbols of American culture. Admittedly, I'm in the dark about the latter, but I feel why would America be home to so many well-known superheroes is that America sees itself as a powerful nation, albeit one with a tendency towards vigilantism to boot. When America expanded further west, the law was kind of poorly enforced so it's up to the average citizen to take justice into their own hands so they did.

It's not that it's entirely absent in other countries, but with many European countries they historically had knights. As in people who're actually sworn protectors of the land and countries they're entrusted with or something, so this is possibly why Europeans don't immediately entertain themselves with their own superheroes. Even if there are Europeans who like and do superhero stories themselves, homegrown superheroes are either unpopular or get tempered by different influences as it is with Miraculous.

From what I've seen, though it has superheroes the way they become superheroes has more in common with magical girl stories than it does with the dual identity used by both DC and Marvel writers. It's also French and France has a major appetite for Japanese comics, so that's why Miraculous turned out the way it did. (Unsurprisingly, Daft Punk did an animated movie with Leiji Matsumoto.) So with America being the current superpower, it's unsurprising that this plays into having a lot of patriotic characters.

Over at DC, you have the likes of Superman, Star-Spangled Kid, Stargirl, Uncle Sam, Liberty Belle, even Wonder Woman (during WWII) and some that I might've either forgotten or can't name in any way. Then at Marvel, you have Captain America, Miss America, American Eagle and many other Captains America. When you have a powerful nation-state like America that it feels almost imperative to create a lot of patriotic characters, something Canada tried to do though none of them are as famous as they are.

They arguably have some renown, but nowhere near what both Superman and Captain America enjoy. As they are, they epitomise what America sees itself as: all-powerful, mighty and trusted by many. This kind of goes hand in hand with American hegemony and imperialism where America seeks connections with its allies and former colonies, even if it gets weirdly inappropriate. This way, it continues to be seen as a benefactor even though others see it as the hegemon it really is. So Superman and Captain America are portrayed as the world benefactors, despite being Americans.

While nationalistic superheroes aren't unique to America, but with America being a superpower that it feels natural for these two to be better known than other countries', globally speaking. Bumilangit may have Nusantara, but he's not well-known outside of a few select countries. America being a hegemon would do anything to be seen as the hero of the world, so having these two play into how it perceives itself to be. Out there to save the world from its enemies, read America's enemies.

Around the time when there was a Cold War between America and Russia, there were Soviet characters like Colossus (a man who turns himself into steel as Josef Stalin's new surname meant steel in Russian), KGBeast, Natalia Romanova (a spy, how convenient), Red Star and Negative Woman. They weren't always antagonistic, but they're othered by American characters in some way. Because America is a hegemon that not only popularises the American way of life, but also sees itself as normal above others.

Sort of like how Storm's depicted as something of an exotic black woman whose ways are so unlike Americans, but one that others her a lot as well. How many overseas superheroes come to live and work in America, which has certain ramifications for those living under American neocolonialism like the Philippines. I feel being under America has kind of undermined Philippine autonomy, like it seems more attractive working for America rather than bettering the nation.

Not to mention, it's not uncommon for Filipinos to be leerier of the east than they are with America. Even though realistically, as the Philippines is closer to China than it is to America, so it seems sort of counterintuitive to cleave more to a nation more remote from us than the rest of East Asia is. But that's how American imperialism works, sometimes in ways that go against what's expected. And why I believe this is one other factor that undermined the Philippine comics industry.

We're too reliant on America in ways we should be better off bettering ourselves and reconciling ourselves to the east, so we often see American products as fancier and cooler than our own. To the point where the Philippine comics industry ended up this way, Filipinos would rather work for Marvel and DC than on bettering the local comics industry. And one that doesn't bode well for our future unless if we let go of America.

[mariacallous]

On Thursday evening, Vladimir Putin spent more than three hours treating a crowd at the Valdai Discussion Forum to his usual litany of criticisms of the West for its “neocolonial policies” and the destruction of “traditional values.” As he’s done many times, the Russian president talked about the emerging “multipolar world” and argued that “Russia’s existence” guarantees the survival of the globe’s “diversity, variety, and complexity, which is a key to successful development.” Meduza’s Andrey Pertsev explains how the Kremlin hopes to etch Putin’s Valdai Club speech in history.

When fielding questions from the audience and moderator Fyodor Lukyanov, Putin publicly congratulated Donald Trump on his electoral victory in the U.S., praising the president-elect for demonstrating courage after his first assassination attempt. Putin also said he doesn’t reject dialogue with Washington and repeated his readiness for potential peace talks — but not on the “basis of Kyiv’s demands.”

After Putin’s participation at the Valdai Forum, his administration distributed guidelines to Russia’s state-run and pro-Kremlin news outlets (and to “experts” who act as the national media’s pundits) explaining what they should tell the public about the event. Meduza obtained a copy of these guidelines, which don’t mention the president’s comments about Trump or potential peace talks. In other words, the Kremlin neither ordered nor prohibited reporting on these topics.

Instead, the Putin administration’s coverage guidelines frame his Valdai Forum speech as “the event of the year in the realm of ideas and meaning” and depict the president himself as “a major global leader” spearheading the “doctrine of a new world order.” In fact, Russia’s propagandists have been told to lay it on even thicker by arguing that Putin’s speeches demonstrate “a breadth of political and philosophical thought” and that the “depth of his understanding of processes” distinguishes him from his cruder Western counterparts.

According to the Kremlin’s media guidelines, Putin’s ideas belong to a “philosophy of universal development and security,” and the Russian president himself has become “the voice of the world’s majority — and at the same time, the voice of the ordinary man.” 

The administration breaks Putin’s “new world order doctrine” into six points:

Openness between states;

The absence of “universal dogmas”;

The necessity of considering each country’s voice in making “global decisions”;

The rejection of certain international blocs (this apparently doesn’t apply to the BRICS organization);

Closing the developmental gap between nations; and

Pursuing equality for all peoples.

The Kremlin’s guidelines tell the media to emphasize that “Russia in the Putin era” has a special role in “building the new world order.” Russia’s grand contribution, says the presidential administration, is to “protect the rights and freedoms of humanity.” At the same time, the Kremlin’s guidelines ignore the many rights and freedoms that Russian officials have legally revoked in recent years.

Pro-Kremlin media outlets have already started acting on these instructions. For example, the website Vzglyad.ru lifted several quotes from the administration’s guidelines in its report on Putin’s Valdai speech, calling it the “doctrine of a new world order” and evidence of the president’s “broad political vision.”

[stele3]

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

It's been really illuminating watching the language of the Western War Machine work in real time. I think the thing that's been impressed on me the most is that "terrorism" is never a crime that you commit, it's a crime that you experience.

Even during wars where the explicit strategy was the targeting of civilian infrastructure with the intent of causing fear and societal unrest (which never worked btw), America were never terrorists. We never frame it in the fashion that America did wrong in WW2, or the Korean War, or the Vietnam War, or any of the wars in the Middle East. Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were unique, evil tragedies but this was not so for the cities we firebombed, for the nukes we dropped, for the forests we drenched in napalm and carcinogens, for the countries we ravaged and left to their own devices.

The American public in this rhetoric is a truly bizarre group of people. They are simultaneously never at fault for the crimes of their government, which is understood to move and act without their consent, because we are not uniquely evil, and yet also we are scared by comparatively mundane acts of violence. The American public is easily terrified, weak, and able to be goaded into war, and only years later do we finally realize something is wrong with what we're doing.

And yet even then, the system that dehumanizes our enemies, that turned Japan into a nation without any free thought, that turned Vietnam into a nest of vipers, that turned the Middle East into a loosely formed conglomerate of terrorists, dehumanized the victims too. No victim of 9/11 has a name or a face anymore, their own beliefs do not matter, one could sardonically say that they valiantly gave their lives so we could go to war. What does remembering 9/11 even mean anymore? Remembering the faceless victims hanging from the ceiling of the White House, cocooned in the American flag, preserved ever patriotic and supportive of our war efforts?

Part of the reason I think that the reaction to Palestine has been so angry is that a lot of people are finally seeing the war machine behind the curtain. They want us to believe that Palestinians are just like every group labeled an enemy before them: that they are inhuman, that they carry the blame uniquely, that we are justified in bombing their homes and destroying their lives. Destroying Palestinian neighborhoods and towns should be received the same as torching a Vietnamese village: with cheers and applause. They want us to believe that Isreal, a nation that is constantly supported by Western powers, a nation that is significantly more well-armed than any other in the vicinity, will collapse and crumble if you do not personally stand behind it. Maybe it will in the vein of South Vietnam when it stops being politically expedient for the people in the power to continue to support them, but I doubt it. It's an important piece in the neocolonial puzzle of the Middle East.

Maybe it was Ukraine that gave them the confidence to keep going for it. After all, tons of liberals fully backed the idea that Russian citizens were uniquely evil and should suffer and starve, that Russians were completely and totally to blame for everything their government did, while they cheered fascist military factions for being their own personal Avengers. But maybe this conflict has gone on for simply too long for that curtain to be pulled over people's eyes again.

Justice and liberation for Palestine.

[tomorrowusa]

The EU is considering whether it is a good idea to be the friend of a friend of a war criminal.

'Pandora’s box': EU weighs changing relations with China

If Xi Jinping chooses to "befriend a war criminal, it is our duty to get very serious about China," Lithuania's foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, told DW when asked what he thought about the Chinese president's three-day visit to Moscow and his meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

The International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Putin late last week, accusing him of war crimes.

The only way forward for the European Union now, Landsbergis said, is to take "first steps on de-risking and eventual decoupling from China. The sooner we start, the better for the union."

[ ... ]

China has been supporting Russia's war efforts, however, in several indirect ways. This includes the ramping up of economic exchanges and exports of dual-use equipment, said Grzegorz Stec, an analyst at the Brussels office of the Mercator Institute for China Studies, a German foundation.

Among the equipment exports are "tires, trucks, clothing and other goods that can be used by the Russian military, although those are not specifically weapons," he told DW.

If the West were to find tangible proof of China providing large-scale military equipment to Russia, Stec pointed out, that would be "a red line" for the Europeans. But he recommended taking a cautious approach before accusing China of supplying weapons to Russia, given the magnitude of the potential geopolitical implications.

The perceived Chinese tilt towards Russia has not done it much good in Europe.

Regardless of this reluctance, Europe's attitude towards China is more skeptical than it has been in decades, said Reinhard Bütikofer, chair of the European Parliament's China delegation.

"The Chinese haven't been very successful in dealing with the Europeans lately," he told DW. "I would say they have squandered a lot of the political capital that they used to have."

[ ... ]

"The Chinese are trying to balance two incompatible goals. Being best buddies with Putin and being good friends of the Europeans at the same time," Bütikofer said. He made clear he doesn't think they can achieve both."As Abraham Lincoln said, you can fool some of the people all of the time or all the people some of the time. But you cannot fool all the people all the time." In concrete political terms, he explained, this meant that they would "fail if they insist on their no-limits friendship with the Russians."

In 1949, as he was laying the groundwork for the establishment of The People’s Republic of China, Chairman Mao Zedong declared, "The Chinese people have stood up!" The brutal invasion of Ukraine has finally made Europe stand up to Russia’s neocolonialist revanchism.

China will do better if it understands that a significant shift in thinking has taken place in Europe. The days of playing footsie with Putin and of accommodating Russian oligarchs in European democracies are gone.

[dandelionjack]

when you're russian and jewish and half your family lives in israel and some relatives in ukraine and you're a communist staunchly against western imperialist neocolonialism 2022-3 may have driven you just a little bit up the wall

[ithacanradio]

"the naturally ignorant and authoritarian people of Africa are allying with Russia for the nefarious plan of destroying civilization, furthermore since last year Russians are actually Bloodthirsty Asians" huh. I've heard this before -"and do NOT look too closely at the fact that the EU is a neocolonial power in Africa and that the Ukrainian government we put in charge through a nazi led coup had been bombing Donbass for eight years before we started caring about what was going on in the region"

weird how long the "Cubans/Chinese/Venezuelan/Korean people are all one big evil brainwashed entity where there's no individuals and also they're all stupid" anticommunist propaganda is lasting. starting to think some of you guys might be racist

[darkmaga-returns]

First things first—Merry Christmas to all readers!

Gilbert Doctorow appeared on Judge Nap’s show today, apparently at his own request and because he believed what he had to say was very important. Here’s his own explanation:

‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 24 December: The New Sovereignty On this day before Christmas, Judge Napolitano had a very full schedule of interviewees to compensate for his being off the air for a week starting tomorrow. Accordingly, I consider myself lucky to have been given time to review with him several of the key issues in Russian-US relations. We spoke about the interview of Azerbaijan president Aliyev with RT released a day ago, about how Azerbaijan’s ability to remain a fast ally of both Russia and of NATO member Turkey over the course of 30 years suggests a future for Ankara in BRICS notwithstanding bad feelings in the Kremlin over Turkey’s assisting the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.

I would add that there may also be a hint here that there may have been some understanding between Turkey and Russia regarding Syria, before the event. One thing that seems certain—and we’ll get to this below—is that what Turkey now has in hand is almost certainly not what the Anglo-Zionists had in mind. If Turkey stabbed Russia in the back, as many say, I’m not sure how you would describe what Erdogan has been up to since the ouster of Assad.

Here is the transcript of Doctorow’s comments to Judge Nap, which begins around the 21:00 minute mark. What’s so fascinating about this is that Azerbaijan has long hosted an Israeli presence, both intel and military, on its border with Iran, while maintaining close ties to Russia. Just as the Turkish relationship with Israel is changing, the same may now happen with Azerbaijan:

Dr. Gilbert Doctorow : The New Sovereignty.

Did you want to talk to me about Azerbaijan and its relationship to Russia Is there something there we need to know about, Professor Doctorow? Yes, sir, for a number of reasons, but let's start with my source. A day ago the Russian State television released an hour long interview that the head of Russia Today, Dimitri [?], took with the president of Azerbaijan, Aliyev. They touched on on a variety of things. The two important points to come out of this one is that Mr Aliyev--who has been sitting on on the fence, or sitting on two chairs between East and West for a large part of his tenure as president, which began in 2003--he has clearly come down on the side of Mr Putin, because in that interview he repeated verbatim the argumentation and the language that Putin has used steadily as this Special Military Operation has gone on--that is, the importance of national sovereignty and looking after national interests and opposition to the neocolonialism of France and other European powers.

[mariacallous]

The Kremlin reported on Tuesday that Vladimir Putin is headed to North Korea for a two-day visit — his first in 24 years. Hours before his arrival, the Russian president published an op-ed in the official newspaper of North Korea’s ruling party. In it, he emphasized the two nations’ long history of friendly relations and portrayed the countries as two persecuted but resilient victims of an aggressive United States. Meduza sums up Putin’s claims in English.

Ahead of his two-day visit to North Korea beginning Tuesday, Vladimir Putin penned an op-ed for Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the country’s ruling Workers' Party, under the title “Russia and the DPRK: Traditions of Friendship and Cooperation Through the Years.”

In the article, which was also published on the Kremlin’s official website, Putin writes that the “friendly and neighborly relationship between Russia and the DPRK, which is based on the principles of equality, mutual respect, and trust, goes back more than seven decades and is rich in glorious historical traditions.”

The Russian president notes that the Soviet Union was the first country in the world to recognize North Korea as a state and establish diplomatic relations with it, writing that the USSR “helped its Korean friends build a national economy, establish a health care system, develop its science and education, and train administrative and technical personnel.”

He goes on to say that modern Russia has continued this trend, developing a “multifaceted partnership” with North Korea, including when it comes to Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine:

We highly value North Korea’s unwavering support for Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, its solidarity with us on key international issues, and its willingness to uphold our shared priorities and views at the United Nations.

Putin also uses the article to repeat narratives about how Washington is trying to “impose a global neocolonial dictatorship based on double standards” and that it was the U.S. “and its satellites” who provoked the war in Ukraine. He writes:

Our adversaries continue to supply the neo-Nazi Kyiv regime with money, weapons, and intelligence, allowing and effectively encouraging the use of modern Western weapons and equipment to strike Russian territory, and often striking clearly civilian targets. They’re threatening to send their own troops to Ukraine. At the same time, they’re trying to wear down our economy with ever-new sanctions and cause an increase in socio-political tensions within our country.

“All of their attempts to contain and isolate Russia have failed,” Putin asserts, noting that the country’s “Korean friends” have “defended their interests just as effectively” despite “years of economic pressure, provocations, blackmail, and military threats from the U.S.”

At the conclusion of the essay, Putin says he hopes that Russia and North Korea will be able to “elevate [their] bilateral cooperation to an even higher level.” He ends by wishing “good health to Comrade Kim Jong Un” and “peace and large-scale success in development to the friendly people of North Korea.”

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, drastically reducing the list of countries he can visit without fearing arrest.