Posted on 03/13/2022 8:42:12 PM PDT by DoodleBob
When Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine on February 24th, it caused a lot of problems for voices on the right and the left.
Putin has a lot of fans in both corners, and these fans had spent years portraying him as a tactical genius, bamboozling us all with his four-dimensional chess moves. Right up until February 23rd, these Putin stans had been assuring us that Putin would never do something as dumb as launch a full-scale invasion of a sovereign democracy.
Ever since then, the right have been able to change gears on Putin fairly seamlessly. This is WAR, and right-wingers absolutely love a good war. Trump is already thinking of ways to escalate the situation ad absurdium.
But what about the left?
Putin has actually cultivated an army of left-wing sympathisers over the years, largely thanks to his support for the RT news network which often broadcasts counter-narratives against the West’s mainstream media. The leftists that appeared on RT (before it recently stopped broadcasting) are not necessarily pro-Putin. But they are anti-West in a way that serves Putin’s propaganda goals, which is why they get a platform.
Many of these left-wingers are fighting a battle that started in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq. They are staunchly anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, and anti-war.
Which are all respectable positions. But now they’re in a bind. They can’t support a war, but they also can’t say Putin is bad. What’s a tankie to do? Simple. Just blame the Ukrainians for fighting back:
The ex-RT position is that Ukraine should just surrender
The three tweets above are all from former RT contributors who now find themselves unemployed and stuck in an ideological wasteland.
Their logic basically goes like this:
Russia is much stronger than Ukraine
Lots of people will die in the resistance
It’s sad when people die
Ukraine should stop resisting
Which… kind of seems like saying imperialism is okay? And victims should just roll with it?
Plus, it also assumes that a unilateral surrender would result in no further casualties. Or at least, no casualties beyond the Russian execution list. And any causalities that might arise if Russia continues its expansion into the Baltics.
But that’s ignoring the fact that Putin’s regime is propped up by imprisonment of opposition voices, police brutality against protestors, and state-sanctioned murder. The only way to install a puppet government in Ukraine (one of Putin’s “reasonable” demands) would be to use even more brutal repression.
The pro-Putin left doesn’t seem to care about the question: “What would happen to the Ukrainian people if they surrendered?” They just need a position on Ukraine that doesn’t challenge any of their other beliefs.
How did the far-left end up supporting Putin?
Let’s take a quick trip down memory lane.
In 2003, the United States and Britain launched an illegal invasion of Iraq.
This war was justified under some extremely shady pretexts. Namely, that the country’s leader, Saddam Hussein, was helping Al Qaeda (a lie) and hoarding weapons of mass destruction (also a lie).
If you were around in 2003, you probably remember that people did not take this lying down. The march to war was met with massive civil protests around the globe.
Over 10 million people in 600 cities marched against the war on February 15, 2003. Three million people marched in Rome that day, setting a world record for the largest single protest in history. The record is still unbroken.
People were mad.
Most of these protests were organized by groups like Stop The War in the UK. STW is a group, still active today, that formed immediately after 9/11 with the noble goal of preventing a military response to the terrorist attacks. And they were right about that, as we’ve seen in the intervening years.
STW has very complicated internal politics that would take hours to discuss, but the important thing to know here is that many of the leading members were veteran hard-left figures in the British Communist movement.
These people are furiously anti-capitalist and furiously anti-imperialism, which can sometimes boil down to straightforward anti-Westernism. To this group, anything that the West does is inherently wrong.
It’s wrong because the West is doing it, and it is therefore advancing Western goals. For these people, “West” and “Imperialism” mean the same thing. And the 2003 anti-war moved seemed to prove that they had a point.
My enemy’s enemy is my friend
Putin is catnip for these people because he has been aggressively fighting Western imperialism for years.
Plus, his RT network has personally enriched several of the voices in this movement.
As Putin became move confrontational with the west (Georgia, Crimea, Syria), these people became extremely skilled at taking the Russian side. After all, were all of these actions not a form of anti-imperialism?
If you believe that imperialism=The West, then yes.
And, if you believe that imperialism=The West, then the situation in Ukraine will make your head explode. Because the invasion definitely looks like imperialism, but the West are against it.
How can Putin, a guy who has been anti-West and is therefore great, do something bad?
Crushing democracy in the name of peace
None of the Stop The War-types came out in 2003 and said that Iraqi forces should surrender to prevent loss of life. In recent years, many of them came out and supported the incumbent governments of Libya and Syria.
Why did they stand behind Qaddafi and al-Assad? Because NATO were on the other side.
This position of “lay down your weapons and accept defeat” seems to be a recent idea among the far-left anti-war movement. As far as I’m aware, none of them recommend that either side in Yemen surrender to halt the slaughter over there.
So, what they’re really saying is, “hey, I know that being invaded is bad. But look on the bright side. At least you’re not being invaded by the West.”
It’s weird how the loon right and loon left hate each other but are so often on the same side.
It’s not clear to me how saying it’s suicidal for Ukraine to keep up this fight is “supporting” Putin.
Isn’t Scott Ritter a pedophile?
I posted an example of one of those pieces of Mitt in post #3.
He wants to kill ordinary Russians "because Pooty".
A freaking "medical ethicist".
I hope the Russians take note of him, and where his family lives.
“This is WAR, and right-wingers absolutely love a good war.”
He mis-spelled “Uniparty”
He looks one cheeseburger away from a visit to the ER...and when that happens many will say "I’ll condemn him. I’ll shame him. I’m blame him … We can penalize him more, say he will have to pay more on his hospital bill. You can’t get life insurance, disability insurance at affordable rates if you aren’t dieting."
Yes - he's a JeffreyPedo, not a JoePedo, though.
Be a shame if he got a visit from some “concerned” Russian types...
Geez, what are these guys’ FreeRepublic handles? I read these sentiments all the time here!
Those here supporting Putin or criticizing Ukraine or arguing we shouldn’t help, have adopted many left wing arguments. This article identifies many of those themes as coming from the far left.
This is where the “liberal” vs “leftist” distinction comes.
I think generally there is no distinction.
The hardcore left are being circumspect but the squad, Warrens, Bernies etc...have made their statements that this is all the fault of the U.S. and western imperialism known quietly.
It’s weird how the loon center agrees with the deep state on everything, even when they stand to derive no benefit from this acquiescence.
The Ukraine war is a proxy war between two factions of the left.
The old anti-authoritarian left has been marginalized, and they aren’t one of the warring factions.
It’s between the nationalist neo-Stalinist left and transnational corporatist progressivism.
Not sure what means.
Scott Ritter, the Burger King pedophile...as I recall, his wife is a Russian whom he met while inspecting Soviet weapons sites.
It is an attempt to demoralize Ukrainians. The same people that claim Ukraine cannot win are also the ones who constantly scream how invincible Afghanistan is.
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