Because proles are proles and you may be racist enough to think your western lives are worth more but when it comes right down to it, to the bourgeoisie who rule the west consider all proletariat as expendable by their nature for profit or in this case for offense and defense of their empires.
Rome once seemed invincible too and yet look what now remains.
The challenges are great. The blood spilled will be enormous in the thrashing dying of the beast. But it will fall. Look at how Russia stands against them and realize it is the blossoming of hope. That eyes of billions look at Russia and see in their stand hope for their own shackles to Europe and their American masters. Their order is weaker now than it has been at any time since they ascended at the end of the second world war. It is crumbling. And while it is not a foregone conclusion they’ve made serious blunders and we are now deep in the game.
Let fear be for the enemy. Don’t let the confident demeanor fool you. The arch imperialists and bourgeoisie of the west are terrified and it gets worse every day. It expresses itself in petty outbursts. Some of their actions are slow because of control and plotting yes, others however are now slow because of uncertainty, their hands faltering above the chess-board, trembling because they’re no longer certain their old move-set will work this time and it’s all they have.
He’s broadly anti-decoupling with China to my knowledge. Somewhat willing to say good things about China. I mean he see’s Chinese things like Ali-pay/WeChat and wants to emulate them. Being against escalation against Russia is also good actually.
He’s like Trump and I’m honestly not sure how people here are not getting that was what I was saying. I mean I’m not going to trip over myself to disown him anymore than I have already. I shouldn’t have to because there should be some critical thought given.
Do you have any evidence he is a hawk? Of the variety who would advocate using nuclear weapons or something to avoid giving up US hegemony (as many of the more silent bourgeoisie who control the US government and defense contractors would tend to be) as opposed to a self-serving but also self-defeating capitalist who can’t stop gorging himself off the profit potential of staying linked with China. I mean I hope he and others like him are like that and continue to exist. I guess as an ML I can’t help but be a bit optimistic that some of the bourgeoisie are selling us rope even in this day and age.
I mean there are degrees here. I don’t know if wandering liberals have downvoted me or what but I think what I said speaks for itself and honestly I don’t like Musk, so I’m not really going to compile a list of “why communists should think this guy is useful”, it’s just not worth my time and it was just musing. It was my hot-take. I don’t believe it to be incorrect, no one has really hit me with anything that changes my view.
Admittedly I did forget that but it doesn’t change the larger picture. Also I really doubt he instigated that incident. He’s just a loud-mouth.
Look, he’s not a friend. But he’s like Trump, says things and takes positions strangely contrary to the hawks /at times/. Besides that his fan-boys go nuts and have melt-downs over this so it’s all very amusing. If you think he’s the worst because he’s a loudmouth you’re objectively not paying attention and you are a liberal and there’s no quibbling over that because that’s not material analysis.
Come to think of it, he kind of resembles Trump in another way, he has this huge ego and interest in building a brand off his name, not directly like Trump but he does things like sell himself, get himself in Star Trek episodes, goes out of his way to get others to stroke his ego, has a craving for being seen as very smart, very capable, a genius.
I don’t get why people here are losing their minds over my saying that maybe uh he’s useful in certain ways and I enjoy him not shutting up and being a quiet bourgeoisie. If anything his talking continues to do a lot to ruin his own efforts.
He seems pro-China. This isn’t because he’s a good person but that doesn’t matter.
People will critically support Iran despite the fact they execute communists, homosexuals, and disobedient women yet I say this Musk fool has his utilities and it’s nice he’s saying this and pushing these things and people lose their damn minds as If I’m fan-girling for him instead of simply making observations that he’s taking positions that while probably born out of self-interest and his own pompous arrogance are good actually. Some bourgeoisie are liable to at times sell us large quantities of ropes not because they want us to use them but because it lets them profit.
But this thread seems like it’s been brigaded by liberals so whatever.
He’s arrogant and childish and petty which hinders him. He’s also a reactionary but his selfish pettiness so far has done some interesting things in sabotaging the evil empire.
As to getting people killed. What the fuck does that mean? You sound like a fed crowing on about the dangers of subversive thinking and commies getting people killed.
The US is grinding Ukraine’s population to grist and ironically Musk was one of the few prominent people who said that was bad, they weren’t going to win and it was pointless and dangerous to continue. All true.
I know, I know. No one must insult the nazi fascist Ukraine regime and it’s American cheered genocide of its own people for western arms manufacturer profits.
I have to be honest. Musk as much as he’s an absolute ass is also making the types of moves I like to see to enable a continued globalized world. He’s the kind of bourgeoisie I hope wins the struggles ahead because he’s preferable to the alternatives for a soft US empire implosion. He just keeps on doing things that I can’t help but cheer, not because they’re objectively good in a vacuum but because they’re creating the best conditions and/or navigating the conditions making the best choices for AES and the global south freeing themselves.
Looks like Apple should have lobbied the US government harder to play fair, allow Chinese phones like Huawei access to chips and markets according to their own professed preference for “free markets”. Oh well, fuck around and find out.
^Least fascist, most freedom espousing liberal when poked only a little.
Adventurism is not a solution. The feds, the fossil fuel industry in fact invite it. It makes it easier for them to paint the whole movement as violent, dangerous, to crack down on even peaceful types, to surveil them, to get overtime bonuses, to arrest, infiltrate, subvert, etc. To slap the whole thing with a domestic terrorism label and charge anyone near a protest. Send in fed agitators who commit violent acts, charge anyone present near them as accomplices, throw them away for a long time, repeat until it’s broken up.
The problem is the widespread apathy and resignation of people. The capitalist system is not going to change it yet the people refuse to change the capitalist system. It’s not an immediate danger, it’s hard to understand, hypothetical. It feels hotter but by the time it becomes truly unbearable for the comfortable middle class even militant action won’t reverse it and there will be a feeling of defeat and hopelessness.
Sabotage might slow them down a little but honestly the types of prison sentences people who do it face and the drop in the bucket impact it really has means even just advocating and getting an increase of taxes or costs passed onto people for use of fossil fuel is likely to be more effective in decreasing consumption and carbon emissions than sabotage. Because sabotage drives up prices too and they’re happy to pass costs onto the average proletarian. It’s like how refineries in California all mysteriously have problems around the same times together and prices go up.
Fundamentally it’s a problem of living under a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie who themselves don’t care about climate change or may even welcome it for darker plans they have for humanity. Government is the one that can resolve this problem. What could actually change it would be militant labor organizing. If we could somehow organize strikes on big industries and shut the economy down, you could force the politicians to pass laws to ameliorate the worst aspects of climate change and carbon emissions, you couldn’t fix the problem or address it systemically like with proletarian rule but it would be something.
The sad thing is all these whiplash fast reversals of propaganda still have no meaningful impact on the western propagandized mind. They don’t notice despite being months apart, the contradictions never reach them. They just go from one thing to the next, from smirking to seething without beginning to question whether hmm maybe the media is lying to them. It’s just incredible. Because it used to be a process that took years from falsehood to truth reveal. Incredible and incredibly saddening too.
Trafficking is such a strong word but if the Cubans say so, guess those Wagner guys did an oopsie.
Looks like the State Dept finally rang them up and said they were Roooosian propaganda or a threat to NATO security and of course they buckled. Only surprise is this didn’t happen sooner but it shows the boot is falling, the clampdown is rolling. Ukraine has provided a great excuse to consolidate media control.
Back in WW2 the military had an office for controlling the press, people like to think that was in the past, a situation of special total war but with Ukraine that’s coming back. Social media and tech companies obediently do what they’re asked to by the government in the vague and nebulous name of national security or defending democracy or fighting disinformation or whatever and this isn’t going to go away once Russia wins in Ukraine, it’s part of the collapse, the tightening of the leash, to prevent counter-narratives that explain the decay of capital and empire. Russiagate was the first pretext, the real beginning of moving from just having intelligence analysts doing “narrative shaping” on social media sites to censorship, deplatforming, algorithmic suppression, a duty to combat “misinformation” as deemed by the bourgeois press subservient to the American empire.
We’re not a large target right now but we could become one. Most large hosting companies talk up free speech but will buckle when Uncle Sam comes knocking, especially when he can threaten them with legal problems for other more profitable, dubiously legal content they host unless they comply on this.
They wouldn’t be concerned with Russia nuking them because Russia has shown such restraint. Their propagandists and narrative are one thing, their intelligence analysts are not so blind as to genuinely believe Putin would be coming for them next. The only real factor is how much they feel they need to put on a show so they don’t look weak to their vassals but a show is not the same as inviting full nuclear war and they’ve already been humiliated in various ways and just ignored it or taken it.
The west would know if Russia conducted a single nuclear strike that it was not part of an opening salvo. Why? Because basic nuclear doctrine dictates if you intend to do that you strike full force with the hopes of catching your enemy with their guard down and minimizing retaliation. Once you’ve done that they’re on high alert, they’re on hair-trigger alert and Russia would most likely be smart enough to take steps to show their nuclear forces are ready, but not about to imminently launch any further attacks and the west would believe them. A pre-emptive strike against Russia would not work right now. They know this. Russia has a dead-hand system that will ensure their arsenal is launched even in the event of a successful decapitation strike. Washington would know Russia doesn’t want to be eliminated and see how much it took to push them to use just one, they would know Russia won’t launch full on them unless they escalate much further on their own.
Even a hypothetical escalation of tit-for-tat would have several off-ramp points for both the US and Russia and I don’t think that would happen.
Excuse? Absurd. The US is the only country to have used nukes in anger. Are we talking about the same country? The one that shamelessly invents false flags for all its wars and changes the rules on the fly to suit it? That US? It’s not about excuses, if they had the capability to intercept 95% of Russia’s strike response they’d have launched already and obliterated them, they’d come up with an excuse after the fact and justify it. It’s not about Russia giving them an excuse, they don’t need one, the west operates in their own delusional sphere of justification and supremacy. It’s about cold, hard, facts. Western planners know they’d be eliminated at this juncture by engaging in a nuclear war with Russia. The west doesn’t need an excuse, they need an ability to do it and not be destroyed and they don’t have that.
People, even here struggle to be sober and thoughtful, they knee-jerk react to nuclear war with sweeping declarations any use will automatically trigger the end of the world. This is materially false. The capitalists would have been willing to end the world rather than let the Soviet Union win, but they aren’t willing to commit suicide to avenge a cannon fodder eastern vassal state in a power fight with another capitalist nation that just wants their aggressive alliance further from their borders. They may yet end the world in a fight over China rather than let it (and proletarians) win but I don’t think this conflict, this issue of Ukraine or even some fodder buffer NATO state (which was engaged in de-facto hostilities against Russia and fair game) being injured is going to get their fingers on the trigger to tighten.
That’s my thinking. I think it’s rational, sober, but I also freely admit no one can fully understand all that goes into the thought processes of western military leadership or predict their actions, that’s as true for me as it is for a Rand Corpo analyst with high security clearances or for Russian intelligence. I don’t trust the west and its leadership to behave morally and their rationale can be a bit twisted at times but it’s for that reason I think in many ways a small event doesn’t matter. What the west intends to do, they will do, they don’t really need excuses, they’re happy to manufacture them when their plans demand it, that’s always been the case. They’re going to do what they’re going to do. They navigate the road they’re given, invent things, use what they can as excuses for what they wanted to do anyways.
Where did I insinuate NATO care about international law? They care about self-preservation and all the preaching in the world and self-righteousness they know will not protect them from nuclear blasts.
Oh, well my point with international law was it was for the eyes of the global south, partners, friends, etc. They are in the clear based on the post WW2 consensus. Legally, existing UN conventions can’t touch them. The west is of course hypocritical and they don’t believe in international law, hence the constant refrain of “rules based order”, whose rules? Theirs. And subject to change.
Russia cares about and should care about the perception of their actions not from NATO but of the global south, of those outside it. And those countries do want a certain fairness. If Russia just one day nuked a major Polish city for no reason they wouldn’t be supported for that. On the other hand if they were backed into a corner, attacked, engaged by a NATO member country and retaliated through whatever means after many warnings most of the global south would understand and correctly say the blame lay on that NATO nation and Russia had tried to be reasonable. So yes following international law is important, it shows that Russia/China are unlike the west upholders of an actual unchanging order of rules, law, order, fairness. What I was outlining is Russia has stuck to the process, the laws. They have upheld the letter and spirit better than the west and exercised more restraint than the west ever would.
Meh. You’re silly if you think western strategic planners see eastern European NATO members as any less fodder than they see Ukrainians as. They don’t want to invite a strike on NYC for the sake of avenging a military base in Estonia. They don’t want to invite a strike on Guam, Pearl Harbor, or Rammstein in return for avenging Estonians.
Now could the deranged, incompetent, thoroughly senile, prone to aggression and unable to think clearly Biden do so anyways? Possibly but that’s not to be taken as doctrine or strategic thought of the US so much as one angry, mentally unstable old man who bought into too many conspiracy theories (Russiagate) and vaguely hates Russians because he lived through the cold war.
In many ways the nuclear umbrella is a bluff. I mean thinking logically assuming your vassal gets wiped out by nukes, why would it make sense for you then to commit suicide by cop by attacking the same country and getting wiped out yourself just to punish them? There might be some white solidarity with western Europe and I wouldn’t test it by trying to wipe out Britain or France or Germany but Poles, Estonians, Baltic fascists, most Americans don’t know much about them or care. A minor retaliatory gesture maybe. Handing out nukes so countries can “defend themselves” maybe. But striking back and inviting your own demise for someone you were using as a pawn anyways? Eh. I’m just not entirely convinced.
It might have made some sense during the cold war when the Soviets had massive tank and troop divisions and could convincingly sweep into Europe and take over France, Germany, etc, where the idea was if you didn’t nuke them then, it was but the opening gesture of a wider war and invasion, but with modern Russia which they know couldn’t stand against NATO’s combined forces without paying a terrible and too high price which they simply aren’t willing to do, and which they know deep down has no intentions of trying to occupy or liberate western Europe, it makes little sense.
Tactical nuclear weapons are typically just lower yield devices for use on the battlefield. The utility of such a weapon against an airfield/base versus a full sized non-tactical warhead is obvious as it limits damage outside the strike area. It’s brain-worms to shit on the term as it does have a meaning. It’s more moral to use tactical lower-yield weapons in strikes on military installations because it minimizes civilian casualties in areas nearby.
Russia has not ruled out use of nuclear weapons. They have very clearly stated they will be forced to use nuclear weapons if their existence is threatened. A NATO member attacking them could rise to meet that criteria though I grant this is a very weak fitting of that.
It does however if true put NATO directly participating in carrying out attacks. Under US own doctrine they’re long past culpable and even by the rules of war under international law a strike from within a country at another country (with the assent and agreement, participation of its military and government) does constitute an act of belligerence, aggression, and war and invites and allows for retaliation against that country in whole which is de-facto engaging in war on the victim country (Russia). Legally, their ass is covered I think at this point. That’s what I’m saying.
One last thing. The Obama admin held a war-game that simulated a Russian tactical nuclear strike on a European NATO installation. Their response was to nuke Belarus, not Russia because they feared it invited retaliation. This was before the Belarus/Russia union state and stationing of nukes in Belarus occurred by the way so it was more swatting at a random ally state and partner.
The real problem around using a nuclear weapon against eastern NATO vassals is not necessarily any kind of doctrine-led spiraling escalation but the PR situation and Biden being a senile, belligerent, humiliated fool who reacts irrationally. You can kill ten thousand civilians with firebombs and cluster munitions and people shrug and call it war, but kill 5000 soldiers with a nuclear weapon and suddenly it’s a monstrous act or barbarity. Pfft.
Right now there’s less to gain than lose in using nuclear weapons for Russia.
However, if the deranged Biden regime keeps pushing and escalating as they seem intent on doing, there’s going to come a moment of decision. The deranged Eastern European NATO members may host strikes from their countries (we could be here now), Russia may conventionally retaliate, they’ll deny they were doing that and attempt to invoke Article 5. At that point even if the US/UK/France/Germany don’t commit, if they get Poland on-board Russia will need to use nuclear weapons and the west and their media will still say they did it for no reason and call them monsters. And at that point if the US allows Poland to go marching in or fully unleashing their air force, they won’t launch a single nuke in retaliation if Russia nukes their military because they’re using them as canon fodder at that point which was the whole point of bringing them into NATO in the first place (so the western Europeans wouldn’t have to die, a free crumple-zone for conflict with Russia full of people the west doesn’t consider fully human). That’s my assessment.
I do have another thought. RT claimed in a story a week ago or so that Ukraine had no working airfields in pristine enough condition to allow them to take-off and recover F-16 fighter jets they were going to be given. The implication being they would have to take off and land from surrounding countries and that would be uh an escalation. If that is true and the facts on the ground don’t change (Ukraine getting airfields pristine enough in the far west to service them and dealing with strikes to damage them) then a provocation like this could be a minor test of that type of thing.
If they really are doing this, and Russia really needs to prove it if so. There is a good argument for Russia making good on their threat and letting fly tactical nuclear weapons against these military installations that are participating. The rub of course being that could draw NATO into things directly and may be something they’re hoping for to rally people. The flip side being, if they don’t and let them walk all over them, cross that line, they’ll keep crossing lines forever. The most positive outcome of using such weapons is it could shock the west into backing off. The worst of course is it brings NATO including the western nations and not just the nuclear crumple zone ones in the east, into the fray directly and/or leads to a retaliatory nuclear strike on a Russian installation and spiraling escalation from there.
Hesitation will be taken by the west as weakness and a sign to escalate further.
Then again I’m not certain much as the US is sacrificing Ukraine and it’s people and already sacrificed Germany’s economy that they wouldn’t like to grab and throw the more deranged fascist eastern members of NATO into a hot war with Russia. Which could get very bad. The Biden regime I think may not be accepting of a defeat at all and think they can get into a direct war with Russia slowly, destroy them and push them out of all of Ukraine.
Quite honestly with these maniacs I can’t be certain they want an excuse for a full nuclear strike on Russia but thinking they can catch them with their pants down and come out on top for round two with China.
So using a nuclear strike could be playing into their hands but I’m not sure what options Russia has.
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They’re really coming for him over this. Also please see things like this as a great example of divisions within the bourgeois. Musk is more international finance leaning whereas the thought in the US is controlled by the industrial aka military/defense/intelligence types.