Almost one twitter worth of aid.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
Almost one twitter worth of aid.
Fair enough, I thought you were including her specifically as on the extreme tip of the horseshoe, which I think would be inaccurate.
Have you seen any commentary analysing the likelihood of a full mobilisation? To my mind, it’s a last resort (other than you know what) - deeply unpopular and further cratering the economy by removing a large chunk of the workforce.
Damn, someone should tell the anarchists they either
a) aren't radical
or
b) support authoritarian government
And honestly, that poem obviously has nothing to do with the Horseshoe theory.
Anarchism cannot be reduced to the flat left-right spectrum of politics - and it's the extremes of left and right that we've been discussing. Thus your post is irrelevant.
Moreover, the poem has a lot do with horse-shoe theory: it describes the collapse of the centre, torn asunder by extremist forces that have a mutual vested interest in doing so.
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I haven't, but if I had to guess I'd say it's coming. It's already happened in the break-away eastern regions that are not formally part of Russia.
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The only thing this proves is that the left-right spectrum is flawed, which in no way helps your argument that there's some kind of specific centre to defend at all costs against the tyranny of the fringes. And while it is flawed, no serious political scientist will put the anarchists anywhere other than solidly on the left. And if you don't care about political scientists, ask some anarchists. They're about as radical left as it's possible to get. Certainly more radical than the Communists.
As for the poem, he's not saying what you're saying. For one, he's definitely not talking about democracy when he refers to the centre. For another, let's avoid using people who were born in the 1800s as some kind of arbiter of what the political (or moral) centre is. Yeats was a great poet, but he was also someone who admired Mussolini, supported eugenics, and flirted with fascism at times.
It will be very very difficult for Putin to order full mobilisation without looking like an obvious liar, having already referred to this as a limited special operation. I suspect that’s why he’s relying on foreign mercenaries, Chechens, those from Donbass etc, leaving some plausible deniability in Russia itself. I think it’s unlikely but who knows. Worth noting that full mobilisation is both very expensive and difficult to sustain too. And if your limiting factor militarily is how many heavy weapons, tanks etc you have then it’s not necessarily that helpful to have all these untrained men without a way to transport and defend them.
I do wonder if I’m saying that in hope more than expectation though.
I’d just like to add to this that this thread has become my go-to place for information and views, well done everyone!
He won't look like a liar when he announces that the special operation became a war because NATO joined Ukraine to fight a full scale war against Russia. That would be a legit reason easily sold to the Russian public, and apparently their propaganda is already making those claims and therefore preparing for an official war.
Your other points look solid though.
I vote for a far-left party here in Portugal. On their website it's easy to find articles criticizing Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba, etc. They always put forward legislation trying to get more people to vote (16 year olds voting, making it easier for immigrants, resident foreigners voting in local elections). They are the biggest proponents of more transparency in political decisions, often at odds with centrist parties. These are just 3 examples.
So if someone tells me I'm just as dangerous to democracy as someone who votes for chega, our far-right party, who are openly racist and homophobic, want to limit immigrant votes and praise strongmen like Trump or Bolsonaro... yeah sorry but it's bullshit. It's a very lazy way of generalizing without looking at anything specific.
Well, idiots are idiots, sure, but that's not what people refer to when they mention horseshoe theory, it's radicals on both side are the same. They obviously aren't.
Out of interest, do YOU believe that the party you vote for is ‘far left’, or is it a term that’s been given to them?
I think they are far left. They were born of a mix of socialists, environmentalists, anarchists, trotskysts and dissidents of the communist party.
Unless we're only using the far-left tag for the old cliche of parties who want to overthrow the capitalist government and create a socialist new order. If that's the case, then I guess they're not far left.
The left-right spectrum is flawed, I agree, because any analysis based solely on it excludes a lot of things (e.g. is it left-wing or right wing to be opposed to nuclear power, and why?).
But within the context of the original discussion, most political activists do identify as being somewhere on that spectrum, rightly or wrongly. And within that context there is mostly definitely a centre ground range, as well as extremes of both left and right. To deny this is ridiculous.
Regardless of what you claim about anarchism, it does not sit well on the left-right spectrum. For example, there are plenty of libertarians, especially in the U.S, who most certainly would not consider themselves left-wing, not to mention a variety of "survivalists" who oppose all forms of authority and favour extreme self-reliance.
It doesn't matter whether or not Yeats was specifically talking about democracy, because it's clear that that part of the poem is partly about extreme fringes vs a more moderate centre.
No-one is talking about each and every individual case, such as yours or such as the particular far-left party you mention. But in general terms it's true to say that far-left parties are not great supporters of democracy, which is why many of them for decades supported the old Soviet Union, and even now are extremely muted in any criticism of Russia.
Russia being hacked at an unprecedented scale according to Wired:
https://www.wired.com/story/russia-hacked-attacks/
Exactly. Seems most 'socialist states' are run by tin-pot dictators.
I wonder if she is a little embarrassed by who her few bedfellows ended up being. Even Boebert supported it.
Maybe (though the likes of North Korea are as socialist as they are democratic), but here's a friendly reminder that the thread we're in is about a ultra-conservative, ultra-religious state run by a dictator being the aggressor.
As much as I appreciate AOC for what she does on other topics that matter for people who share more or less her age range and interests like me, I have to disagree with her explanation here. The 4th Amendment should sit in the corner when it comes to assets belonging to crazy rich people associated with a government that is a mortal enemy to everything the United States (or the West for all it matters) stands for.
Seriously, the 4th Amendment should not apply here.
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Unfortunately we're arguing about politics and poetry, so we're never going to agree. We're also taking the thread increasingly off-topic, I can only imagine Raoul hasn't seen this yet or we'd have been moved to the Geopolitics thread in a second.
I don't get this explanation. What kind of sanctions doesn't violate that amendment?
The kind sanctions that allow a president to do impose them without congressional oversight, I think she’s saying. I don’t agree with her but I can understand that she wouldn’t want to set a procedural precedent.
Kyiv just attacked. Two explosions, some smoke, but seems relatively minor.
This will sound strange, but I think this is actually a good sign for Ukraine about how the war is going.
This is just a terrorist attack to strike fear into the Ukrainians, and if they would be successful on the battlefield they wouldn't need to perform such strikes.
I guess the argument would be that frozen assets aren't forfeited, and can be again accessed by sanctioned parties if the sanctions are later removed.
But obviously that defense seems very out of character for her. If someone introduced a bill "urging the president to seize assets of US billionaires to pay off student loans" would she vote against it and claim that it would be urging the president to violate 4th amendment rights of billionaires?
Horseshoe for sure.
No, you’re right. There is a lot of desperation from Russia, but it’s hard for your country to be winning when it is subjected to state terrorism daily.
Houseshoe?
And there it is.
So I read this as fear of the next Republican candidate using this bill as a precedent to seize assets of whoever they 'choose' are criminals.
A theory that explains something except in multiple different cases when it doesn't... it doesn't sound like a very good theory to me. Again, it just sounds lazy.
In fairness, generalisations are almost by definition lazy. By the that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have a point. The problem is when someone characterises things like this as being a defining factor in the right/left extremities.
I agree, left-right is often unhelpfully reductionist, especially when you start talking about politics in a little more detail. Political leanings should be plotted in a 3D model (yes, I"m serious here), with power structure on the x axis (from anarchist to totalitarian), economic views on the y axis (from socialist to capitalist - I'm talking 100% extremes of each), and moral views on the x axis (from conservative to progressive).
In that kind of model, anarchists fit, cause they are simply glued to the anarchist end of the x axis, and can then be divided into anarcho-capitalists, anarcho-communists, and everything else. What you guys are talking about in the horseshoe theory, is people that are pretty much glued to the totalitarian side of the x axis, where indeed it doesn't really matter anymore for the people in your (imaginary) state where you sit on the economic axis.
None of this has to do with Russia anymore, but if it's interesting it's interesting.
Pfft! Posts are moved in 3, 2, 1...
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I think this going to develop in a
Nuclear war, 99%
Nuclear war, 99%
Russia surely doesn’t have a chance of full
Mobilisation. Their current employed military is suffering from low morale. It’s one thing to be a coward as a citizen and not rally against putin, it’s another to go to war for him.
Mobilisation. Their current employed military is suffering from low morale. It’s one thing to be a coward as a citizen and not rally against putin, it’s another to go to war for him.