No that was boring and unspecific.

As for Finland and Sweden's rush to join NATO - as ever, one simply needs to follow the money:

The demographic most opposed to NATO membership in Sweden is young men, aged 18-29. And little wonder. They are the segment of the population that would be called upon to join any future military excursion. Contrary to the assumption that Russian aggression has shocked Swedes into unanimous support for the alliance, opposition appears to be on the rise. ... Polling by Helsingin Sanomat describes the typical NATO supporter as educated, middle-aged or older, male, working in a management-level position, earning at least €85,000 a year and politically on the right, while the typical NATO-sceptic is under the age of 30, a worker or a student, earning less than €20,000 a year and politically on the left.

Some of the most ardent supporters of NATO membership can be found among Sweden and Finland’s business leaders. Last month, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö hosted a ‘secret NATO meeting’ in Helsinki. Among those in attendance were Swedish Minister of Finance Mikael Damberg, top-ranking military officials and powerful figures in the Swedish and Finnish business communities. Chief among them was the billionaire Swedish industrialist Jacob Wallenberg, whose family holdings add up to one third of the Stockholm Stock Exchange. Wallenberg has been NATO’s most enthusiastic cheerleader among Swedish executives.

...The decision to join NATO does not just rely on a hollowed-out discourse of solidarity; it is also presented as a vital act of self-interest – a defensive response to the ‘Russian threat’. In Sweden’s case, we are asked to believe that the country is currently facing greater security risks than during both World Wars, and that the only way to address them is to enter a beefed-up military alliance. Although Russia is supposedly struggling to make headway against a much weaker opponent in Ukraine – unable to hold the capital, hemorrhaging troops and supplies – we are told that it poses an imminent threat to Stockholm and Helsinki. Amid such confected panic, genuine threats to the Nordic way of life have gone ignored: the withering away of the welfare state, the privatization and marketization of education, rising inequality and the weakening of the universal healthcare system. While rushing to align with ‘the West’, the Swedish and Finnish governments have shown considerably less urgency in tackling these social crises.

https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/joining-the-west?pc=1442

Turns out I too, like listening to 'local' voices - just not voices that happen to align with the rich and powerful.

Meanwhile, being 'liberated' by the West looks like:

In March, the Ukrainian parliament passed wartime legislation that severely curtailed the ability of trade unions to represent their members, introduced ‘suspension of employment’ (meaning employees are not fired, but their work and wages are suspended) and gave employers the right to unilaterally suspend collective agreements. But beyond this temporary measure, a group of Ukrainian MPs and officials are now aiming to further ‘liberalise’ and ‘de-Sovietise’ the country’s labour laws. Under a draft law, people who work in small and medium-sized firms – those which have up to 250 employees – would, in effect, be removed from the country’s existing labour laws and covered by individual contracts negotiated with their employer. More than 70% of the Ukrainian workforce would be affected by this change.

Against a background of concerns that Ukrainian officials are using Russia’s invasion to push through a long-awaited radical deregulation of labour laws, one expert has warned that the introduction of civil law into labour relations risks opening a “Pandora’s box” for workers. ... Vitaliy Dudin, an expert on labour law and a representative of the Social Movement organisation, says the proposed new law is the “most radical approach to destroying the social partnership model”. For Dudin, the most destructive part of the new legislation is the introduction of Ukraine’s civil law into employment relations. According to him, Ukraine’s civil law is based on the idea that two parties are equal, whereas the relationship between an employer and employee is not – the employer is always in a more advantageous position. “This is a rollback to the 19th century. By introducing civil law into labour relations, we can open Pandora’s box,” he says

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/ukraines-new-labour-law-wartime/

Can't post pictures of atrocity porn to get-off to on this topic, however. Not that Russia would do any better, but the West is no less a terminal virus which similarly ought to be expunged.

:eyes:

I have good beer and bad average beer set out in the fridge.

Those who deny that Trump is a symptom are enablers of the cancer that spawn him. Trump supporters in everything but name.

Any time people think the problem with Trump is a problem of "disinformation", it's worth remembering those people are contributors to that problem:

“Disinformation” was the liberal Establishment’s traumatic reaction to the psychic wound of 2016. It provided an answer that evaded the question altogether, protecting them from the agony of self-reflection. It wasn’t that the country was riven by profound antinomies and resentments born of material realities that would need to be navigated by new kinds of politics. No, the problem was that large swaths of the country had been duped, brainwashed by nefarious forces both foreign and domestic. And if only the best minds, the most credentialed experts, could be given new authority to regulate the flow of “fake news,” the scales would fall from the eyes of the people and they would re-embrace the old order they had been tricked into despising. This fantasy turned a political problem into a scientific one. The rise of Trump called not for new politics but new technocrats.

Like other pathological reactions to trauma, the disinformation neurosis tended to re-create the conditions that produced the affliction in the first place. (Freud called this “repetition compulsion.”) By doubling down on elite technocracy — and condescension toward the uneducated rubes suffering from false consciousness — liberals have tended to exacerbate the sources of populist hostility.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/05/the-liberal-obsession-with-disinformation-is-not-helping.html

This account of the birth of capitalism is significantly influenced by structuralist or classical liberal lines of thought: the market is an impersonal sphere of exchange, organized and regulated by a rationally constructed structure of norms and rules; there is a movement from chaotic and haphazard world to the managed and predictable system, and the progressive improvement aims to satisfy human needs more effectively and efficiently. — Number2018

None of what I said implies any of this, or at least, anything you wrote after "impersonal sphere of exchange".

Where is the capital in this definition of capitalism? By capital, I mean resources or money which are employed in order to purchase the materials for the production of commodities (raw materials, tools) and labour, commodities being items being produced to be sold on the market at a profit (hopefully, for the seller). This doesn't seem to be in the definition above, but if we don't have this, we can't distinguish between capitalism, and some kind of society where everyone is self-employed. — RolandTyme

Capital is precisely what orients production towards the market: it is that which takes control of production. As I said in a further post in this thread:

One needs to make a distinction between the mere existence of capitalist enterprises and capitalism as generalized mode of production. It's true that capitalist enterprises - enterprises whose raison d'etre is to make profits - have been around since whenever. It really doesn't matter. What does matter is when social reproduction (the reproduction of society) becomes dependent on such enterprises, and relies upon them as a condition of their existence. That's the 'ism' part of capital-ism. This is broadly why one can make a distinction between feudalism and capitalism, even as instances of capitalist enterprise could be found all through feudal society.

Or, since you asked for a reference:

"We suggest a useful distinction can be made between capital as a ‘simple’ transmodal social relation and the historically specific capitalist mode of production. Or put more simply, a distinction must be made between ‘capital’ and ‘capitalism’. While capital – as we have seen – refers to a social relation defined by the relation between capital and wage-labour, capitalism refers to a broader configuration (or totality) of social relations oriented around the systematic reproduction of the capital relation, but irreducible – either historically or logically – to the capital relation itself.

...These broader relations of power oriented around the systematic reproduction of the capital relation enable us to distinguish between ‘antediluvian forms’ of capital from the historically specific epoch of capitalism. In antediluvian forms, the capital relation was reproduced within a broader configuration of relations that pertained to non-capitalist modes of production. As such, antediluvian capital was subordinated to the non-capitalist social relations within which it existed, and could not posit itself as the condition of its own reproduction: that is, as self-valorising capital." — Anievas and Nisancioglu, How The West Came To Rule

The socialist economic system and planned economy or centrally planned economy or command economy, among others. Mode of production and impersonal markets are features of these economies, too — L'éléphant

Two things. First, and least important - it is a mistake to conflate command economies with 'socialist economic systems'. This is a caricature, one often pushed by Americans for whom state control counts as the antithesis of capitalism. It is not. But this is a minor point. In any case capitalist economies are shot through from top to bottom with 'planning', albeit planning for the sake of profits, rather than anything else.

Second and far more important: a command economy is the opposite of impersonal exchange: it thoroughly personalizes (or rather, socializes) a market such that exchange in a command economy are precisely not spot exchanges. Market 'control' by a central state means precisely that such markets are anything but impersonal, and that exchanges under such conditions are embedded in social and political relations which dictate them from without. So it is wrong to say, as you have, that impersonal markets are features of command economies. I don't say this in any kind of defence of command economies. But it does point to a misunderstanding of either impersonal exchange, or command economies on your part.

See - you can't even get a simple, easily verifible fact like that right. Let alone paragraphs of it.

If I wanted badly written wikipedia summeries and two minute Google searches I would go to the source.

Didn't read any of that.

The US as a country cares about Ukraine as a country. — magritte

Lol.

Uh, poor as in woe-is-me poor not poor as in poverty-poor.

But considering Ukraine is an economic basket-case and will be even more so now maybe the difference is not all that great tbf.

"Elected"

Ah here we go, from Feburary:

"Somalia's leadership has made a swift reversal on an oil exploration deal signed with a US company. On Saturday, the Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Abdirashid Mohamed Ahmed announced that production sharing agreements had been signed with US-based firm, Coastline Exploration Ltd. Ahmed said in a statement that the deal was "a huge moment" for the people of Somalia. But with the ink barely dry, both Somalia's president and prime minister announced the deal was off. In a statement, the office of President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed said the deal was nullified. The presidential palace Villa Somalia tweeted that "it contravenes Presidential Decree 7/8/2021 which bans the inking of deals during elections so as to protect public resources from exploitation during elections."

Protecting public resources from exploitation? Time to be concerned about terrorists again!

https://m.dw.com/en/somalias-president-cans-us-oil-deal-hours-after-it-was-signed/a-60846562

---

It's not unlike that time last month when India, having refused to join in on Russian sanctions, all of a sudden, out of the blue, from completely nowhere, found themselves at the centre of US concern for "human rights abuses". Which of course it is up to it's neck in, but only used as a cugdel when American interests are not satisfied.

--

America is obviously very concerned with the poor people in Ukraine :sad:

I think this idea is central to the way this topic is being discussed. Western powers have so much blood on their hands from colonialism onward that they are permanently stained by it. If they were now some third world states with an unfortunate past, we might live and let live - mistakes were made but everybody who made them is dead now. But they're not. They're the wealthiest, most powerful nations on earth - an earth containing 800 million starving people. It's not complicated morality to say that if you've benefited from the impoverishment of other countries you owe them a debt until the field is levelled again.

The unwillingness to look into the historical causes of any situation, like Ukraine, was, of course, always solely to do with this unwillingness to confront the extent to which the wealth and power of today were built on the flagrant abuse of the past. What's particularly insidious this time is the effort to literally wipe that history from the debate. I think the combination of an easy cartoon villain, an oven-ready non-American hero, and the new language of dis- and mis- information have presented an opportunity to create a dangerous new narrative which says "all that's in the past now, the reality is a new fight of good vs evil and you must pick a side" where 'picking a side' involves absolving the 'goodies' of all their past wrongs (and letting them keep all the wealth and power they thereby gained in the process).

It's insidious because the framing of good vs evil attaches atonement for the past crimes of imperialism (even up to crimes of last week, yesterday, just now...) to one of only two mutually exclusive positions, the other of which is 'evil'. We can see that framing all over the rhetoric used here.

Yet the only reasonable answer to the complaint that "Oh it's always about the US, the west, capitalism..." is "Yes". It is always about the US, the West and capitalism. — Isaac

I don't know how to put it better than this.

As for the above conversation, I don't support terrorism, but I sure as day support counter-terrorism.

Oops.

These are the demented murderous fucking clowns that people here are falling over themselves to defend as goodies against Russian baddies.

These people are so used to treating plots of land beyond their borders as their personal fiefdoms that they can't keep straight which one their imperial designs are currently bearing on.

That's kind of the point. 4,000 Ukrainians killed since the war began (UN figures). 350,000 children on the point of starvation in Somalia (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs figures) - 258,000 died in the same conditions in 2011, so it's no exaggeration. They're asking for $1.42 billion, a fraction of what the US alone has spent on Ukraine.

And America sends soldiers...

But it's not really about America, it's about the mindless jingoistic faddishness of the media-glamour vomited up time and again, on demand whenever Western powers need an excuse, distraction, new yachts... whatever. — Isaac

This is exactly it.

I'd like you to know I didn't read any of this. Not a word. If I wanted a second-hand Wikipedia summary I'd do it myself. However, why do you think Algeria was in such a shitty position to begin with? Well, because it had been plundered and turned to shit by the countrymen of a certain poster here. Everything follows from that.

You said you'd judge Western reaction and hypocrisy if they send troops. And if they do worse? Like getting others to die for them? Off the hook?

We call it a lollipop for all I care. It's irrelevant. What is relevant is the differences in the circumstances. When and if the U.S. send hundreds of thousands of troops along with heavy armour and air support into Somalia and kill tens of thousands of Somalis, I'll gauge Western reaction then and judge hypocrisy or lack of it on that basis. — Baden

Why would the US do that when they can get Ukrainians to die en masse on their behalf? A frankly worse thing to do.

It's consistent to be absolutely against that move and recognize that the US hasn't launched a massive invasion of the country, — Baden

No, it's a special military operation.

What apologies? I'm just drawing a factual distinction between a government requesting military assistance from a foreign power and foreign power starting a war. — Michael

And I'm drawing a factual distinction between a government requesting military assistance from a foreign power and a local population - or at least part of a local population - requesting military assistance from a foreign power.

The government either invited them or they didn't. — Baden

And the populations of Donbass invited Putin or they didn't.

Here's what you're missing: it doesn't fucking matter. If the US is sending troops overseas, they shouldn't be. Because nothing but suffering and death follows. It's that simple. Stop. Apologizing. For. US. Empire.

Well, Zelensky didn't ask Russia to invade — Michael

According to Putin, he was invited by Russian-speaking populations who were - and this is actually true - getting fucked by the Ukrainian central government. But go on, make your apologies.

The Somalia angle might make sense if what happened in Ukraine was that Zelensky asked Putin for a couple of hundred Russian troops to help suppress an insurgency and Putin obliged. Of course, that's just about the opposite of what happened, so the comparison doesn't work. — Baden

Except this is exactly what Putin said did in fact happen in the Donbass. But of course, when the US says it, one is obvious propaganda - which it is - and the other is, uh, good guys being good guys, helping friends out.

When US oil interests are at stake, well, we can really believe that help is called for. And that the US is obliged to help, despite the evidence being that every place on the planet they fight in they leave a fucking crater and a mountain of dead.

How goddamn hard is it not to apologize for US Empire.

States like Somalia are famous for identifying with their governments, of course.

Slava Somalia. May they ward off the little special military operation happening over there.

No no the appropriate reaction is to downplay a century of consistent American imperialism and international corpse-production and revert to the State Department Putin bad; Everyone else unquestioningly Good model of international politics.

You have a strange notion of outrage. But then, you are addicted to me.

It's always good fun too to remember why the US was in Somalia last time:

The truth slipped out when the Los Angeles Times (January 18, 1993) reported that “Four major U.S. oil companies are quietly sitting on a prospective fortune in exclusive concessions to explore and exploit tens of millions of acres of the Somali countryside.” The story notes that “nearly two-thirds of Somalia” was allocated to “the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips in the final years before Somalia’s pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown.” The companies are “well positioned to pursue Somalia’s most promising potential oil reserve the moment the nation is pacified.” The article reports that “aid experts, veteran East Africa analysts, and several prominent Somalis” believed that “President Bush, a former Texas oilman, was moved to act in Somalia, at least in part,” to protect corporate oil’s investments there.

Government officials and oil industry representatives insisted there was no link. Still, Conoco (owned by Du Pont), actively cooperated in the military operation by permitting its Mogadishu offices to be transformed into a U.S. embassy and military headquarters. The U.S. government actually rented the offices from Conoco. So U.S. taxpayers were paying for the troops in Somalia to protect Conoco’s interests, and they were paying the corporation for the privilege of doing so. The Times article continues:

[T]he close relationship between Conoco and the U.S. intervention force has left many Somalis and foreign development experts deeply troubled by the blurry line between the U.S. government and the large oil company. . . . “It’s left everyone thinking the big question here isn’t famine relief but oil—whether the oil concessions granted under Siad Barre will be transferred if and when peace is restored,” [one expert on Somalia] said.“It’s potentially worth billions of dollars, and believe me, that’s what the whole game is starting to look like.”

The intervention was treated as a humanitarian undertaking and then as a nation-building operation. U.S. and UN troops fought pitched battles, killing several thousand Somalis, in attempts to hunt down a “warlord” deemed too independent-minded. One did not have to be a Marxist to suspect that Washington’s goal was to set up a comprador order, not unlike the deposed Siad Barre regime, that would be serviceable to Western investors. — Parenti, Against Empire

Those oil fields are of course still around. So yeah, more dead American soldiers would be excellent. As excellent as dead Russian soldiers.

I just like the implication that displaying a literal other country's flag implies American support. It is a wonderful encapsulation of imperialist arrogance. I hope alot of American soldiers die in Somalia (again). Just as I hope a great deal of Russian soldiers die in Ukraine.

Actually not 'all of it' as muslim extremism has happened far earlier too and there's for example Algeria — ssu

Well that was a war on terror conducted by the French. Who deserved every dead Frenchman killed by an Algerian.

The Somali government is happy to see American troops in Somalia. — ssu

Imagine if someone took seriously the idea that the Russian invasion is OK because the people they invaded are happy to see Russian troops in Ukraine.

They would be rightly be called an apologist for mass suffering.

Could it be more clear?

Learn what flags mean, for starters. — ssu

I know quite well what flags mean. I just figured it'd be less important than supporting genocidal regimes. But I know you've got a thing for colors.

Actually it would be an interesting topic of how much of the emergence of jihadist organizations is a direct consequence because of the "War on Terror" itself — ssu

Well, it's a simple 'all of it', but I know this is a fuzzy topic for you because you like to defend superpowers and their holocausts.

Oh go back to fantasizing about rape.

What's that? You're selective about which murderous scum you like to flag-wave for? Yeah, I thought so. And considering those who fly the other flag are a US creation anyway, I'm not sure your color dilettantism matters.

Hey you probably shouldn't express your rape fantasies in public. And why 'their women'? There are plenty of independent women Nazis that don't need to be owned by no Nazi man. Your sexism is unbecoming.

Well we should kill all Nazis everywhere, and probably all their sympathizers and PR men too, and while it's clear that Putin isn't the guy for the job, I'm not sure that direct US taxpayer funding jibes with that project either.

One fun way of running Nazi PR is to pretend that they're not really a problem in Ukraine.

Just a thumbs up from me. A great threat and analysis and I would love to jump in, but I am unfortunately too short of time to focus on the really serious threats on this forum :chin: However, I applaud the analyis of our leading light. — Tobias

Thanks Toby - I appreciate it.