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Cake day: June 8th, 2023

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  • Do you think the USSR and Eastern Europe were free from the tendencies of capitalism to create imperialist war? The only post-WWII wars in Eastern Europe were skirmishes by capitalist-funded nationalists (quasi-fascists) and the civil war in Yugoslavia exacerbated by NATO to balkanize the country. The wars that the USSR supported were all pre-existing national liberation movements against imperialist colonizers, and they nearly always entered after imperialists had thrown massive resources into oppression. For example, Vietnam.


  • I thought it would be implied that I’m speaking about modern times. The economic system is the msin driver in large societies, though. In Europe, prior to capitalism, the primary determinant was feudal interests.

    Chimps don’t have war. They fight, but is every skirmish a war? Wars come from creating and wielding armies.


  • Capitalism is the primary driver of wars, it determines the basic structure of what is and is not permissible, generates nation-states (these did not always exist, actually), and then creates the conditions by which the national bourgeoisie nation-states push for war in order to become international bourgeoisie (imperialists).

    For example, the US keeps the middle east in a regular state of war to prevent them from having independent policies regarding oil. It is concerned about oil because of the petrodollar. It is concerned about the petrodollar because it is th3 primary financial war instrument by which it jeeps other countries sending superprofits its way and otherwise screwing with countries using interest rates. And it does those things because the US is the global seat of capital, it is where the big finance companies are based.

    How many wars have there been in the middle east since 2000? How has the US been involved? Do they just do it for the thrill of domination?





  • What about Ukraine?

    First, under no circumstances should you support genocide. Stop trying to excuse genocide. Actually fight against it. You know that question, “what would you have done against the Holocaust?” Right now it would be, “fret about which Hitler to support and make excuses about how Jewish people would be killed anyways”.

    Anyways.

    The Biden-Harris administration’s policies on Ukraine are exacting maximum pain on the people of Ukraine, using them as a tool to hurt Russia. At every step of the way, only maximum pressure on Russia has been their consideration. So either accept that the most likely outcome of Trump there would be a deescalation or acknowledge that the motivation here is bloodlust.

    Trump will hand over everyone in that country

    Ukraine already lost. Its future has been mortgaged to western financial interests and it will not be regaining its lost territories. The people therr have been shelled by Kyiv’s far right forces (the ones with Nazi tattoos) for a decade, they aren’t sympathetic to Kyiv even if some territory were, under wild circumstances, returned. It was never plausible for Ukraine to win militarily. All of liberals’ talk about Ukraine is fantasy children’s tales that have nothing to do with reality.

    Dragging out Ukraine is just forcing more death and disposession on the Ukrainian people.

    while speeding up climate change with “drill baby drill”.

    The Biden-Harris administration has set record levels of US fossil fuel production and is an exporter of oil and natural gas. Harris has publicly promised to support fracking, a tool that, when novel, Obama used as an international weapon to crash oil prices and hit targets of US empire - Venezuela, Russia, Iran.

    Both parties are against the continued survival of humanity re: climate change, one of them just pretends otherwise, throwing money at a domestic renewables industry that largely just routes it to finance and tech rather than produxtive capacity. Oh, and continuing Trump’s trade war on China, which is currently threatening to end large swaths of the US solar industry as installations of new solar panels are waaaaay backed up.

    As the world becomes less livable, more wars and genocide will fallow.

    So get off your butt and start fighting the good fight! Cheerleading genocidal frackers definitely isn’t that.




  • That’s too 5-d chess for “the US” to pull off.

    It is not a complicated strategy. It just requires a large group that cares about the petrodollar. The US has a ton of those people in high places in government and finance.

    The US invented the petrodollar.

    I find it more plausible that the US supports Israel because Israel has a lot of powerful supporters in the US who manipulate public opinion and government policy.

    Israel has powerful supporters in the US because it is in the interests of capital to support Israel. The higher interests of capital do understand why the Middle East must be destabilized for their own gain. They are fully aware of and influence, for example, the invasion to control Iraq’s oil fields and depose the government of Iraq that was acting too sovereign about it. Same for the Syrian oil fields seized and controlled by the US to this day. This is also why the US promotes the Saudis as an ally - they stabilize the petrodollar system. It is no coincidence that they also target an independent Yemem.

    Powerful supporters are just the middlemen for capital, as are major media campaigns. It is not explanatory to say that powerful people support a country or policy. Of course they must do so, that is how every policy decision happens: the powerful people fall in line with the decisions of capital, decisions that may have been made decades ago but are now entrenched. Capital also leverages its close collaboration with the highest levels of the state. The White House is constantly consulting finance, economic advisors from finance, think tanks built to advance the interests of finance, etc (finance is the dominsnt wing of caoital in the US). And in the other direction, capital is constantly making threats and PR pushes.