loukanikos

loukanikos wrote

I don't think its fair to assume neutrality. I condemn both Ukraine and Russia here but that doesn't mean I don't support Ukrainian resistance. Simply put, I disagree with strategy. I think it was reckless for the Ukrainian state to engage such a vastly better equipped enemy.

A few couple historical precedents I think would be the French in 1940 and the Afghan Mujahideen in 1978:

  • The French regime in 1940, realizing their strategic failure to evacuate civilians, realized the totality of destruction that would be wrought in fighting a war on their own soil. They surrendered to the Nazis and appealed to their allies for recourse. They could have fought, like the Poles did, but they had witnessed nearly 200,000 people die in fighting and were unwilling to subject themselves to that. They later engaged in very successful resistance and espionage efforts, and eventually conventional warfare when they were reinforced.
  • In Afghanistan, when the Soviets invaded in 1978, the Mujahideen was formed as an irregular resistance from volunteers. They were backed by powerful patrons in the from of the West who gave them arms, equipment, training (recognize any similarities?). They did not attempt to wage conventional war. They did not try to defend populations centers. They fled to the countryside, hid in arduous terrain and planned deliberate sabotage and counter attacks against state and military targets. Over many years they were able to repel their invaders.

Now compare those two precedents to what is going on in Ukraine. The Ukrainian government's goal is ostensibly an attempt at both conventional and asymmetrical warfare. Likely they will be very successful at harming the Russian effort. However the strategy they have chosen is extremely dangerous to civilians and will result in extreme death and destruction.

The Ukrainian state are still maintaining a regular army and they are conscripting civilians.They could have chosen to focus efforts on surrender/retreat and to form irregular resistance groups of volunteers. Instead they have actually deployed some military to remove civilians (males of a certain age) from the refugees. These people are then being pressed into service. So there is now conventional warfare with a regular (non entirely volunteer) military that trends the conflict towards total war, destruction of infrastructure (roads, bridges, power plants). This is coupled with irregular warfare conducted in an asymmetrical manner, formed of civilian volunteers and resistance groups who are for some reason holed up in residential areas -- most of which have not been properly evacuated yet. Instead of evacuating Kiev in the early days, the Ukrainian state began distributing weapons, publically providing instructions for manufacture of molotovs. Now they are using civilian evacuation as a bargaining chip and capitalizing on civilian deaths as part of appeals to allies. Recently, I have now even seen a civilian defense group on telegram proudly posting pictures of their cadre from inside a school. This is a irresponsible and characteristic of extreme tragedy.

The Ukrainian state wants the best of both strategies which means the worst of both types of conflicts for its people. Personally I can't stand for that.

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loukanikos wrote

You, decades after the Eastern European version of communism collapsed and Russia turned into a turbocapitalist, authoritarian regime, are still claiming that the man in charge of it is some kind of “anti-imperialist” hero, despite him doing pretty much all he can to assure his stated aim of rebuilding the Russian empire and beyond

There is an extreme dissonance in the Western consciousness as to what exactly has happened in Eastern Europe since the end of the USSR. At some point growing up, I saw acknowledgement in Western media of what the author calls "turbocapitalism". Then it all was sort of hand waved and sanitized. Eastern European characters was kind of turned into a trope in most film/TV/storytelling, not unlike the concept of noble savage. A funny example of this was about Ukraine, where Nicolas Cage and Jared Leto played arms dealing brothers in a movie called Lord of War which ironically climaxed in a scene with Jared Leto trying to do a massive line of cocaine in the shape of the borders of Ukraine.

I do believe the author is in some aspects creating a strawman here but there is no doubt that westerners, esp. Americans, are completely ignorant to Eastern European history on the whole. Most American history textbooks are pretty light on details after about 1980. That's not exactly helpful to having an informed public. I think what is needed to innoculate this type of relativisation (using authors word) is concise and well written history of the contemporary period in post-Soviet states. I'm not talking about a great man history following Ceausescu, Nazabayev, Yeltsin, Putin, Lukashenko, etc. We have that shit -- far too much of it. I mean a real people's history. Something akin to Howard Zinn. Maybe this already exists? If anyone knows let me know.

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loukanikos wrote

Always good to check whataboutism but I just wanna say that I am worried about this. There is a chance this conflict becomes a protracted Russian occupation with heavy insurgent elements. In that case, many anarchist organizations will emerge (this has already begun). We could very well see the black army reborn under the spirit of Nestor Makhno's ghost.

However anarchist organizations will certainly not find support amongst the terrifyingly well organized and provisioned right wing outfits in the region. Sure, they may be united by a common enemy at the moment, but that doesn't mean there is a common goal there.

All this of course can be waved away if the conflict is short-lived and reasonable statists (can believe I just said those words) come back into power. Yet I can imagine a darker and grittier version of this war where Azov and its ilk are a real threat to those who would seek to establish truly free revolutionary projects in Ukraine.

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loukanikos wrote

Reply to comment by ziq in Fuck leftist westplaining by Bezotcovschina

Was that person a leftist? I saw that tweet too but just assumed it was a weird centrist take. What passes for leftism today is... Well anyways I guess this is why I have trouble identifying under the big tent anymore.

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loukanikos wrote

I'm not an expert on NATO history by any means but I whole heartedly disagree. The fatal flaw in this line of reasoning, as I see it, is that just because something serves a useful purpose or is necessary -- as NATO and it's expansion has and is -- does not mean it's above criticism.

This is similar to the "oh you think we should improve society somewhat, yet you participate in society" argument.

To accept that NATO expansion was good simply because it helped certain people at a certain time is to accept a lack or originality and innovation in world politics and diplomacy.

You know what else helps a lot of people, saves untold millions of lives? Antibiotics, fossil fuels, synthetic fertilizer. Can those things also be the cause of our downfall as a species? Absolutely. Everything is good until it's not anymore. Its up to us as critical thinkers to imagine new world systems and new ways of living instead of just continuing old ones because they're there.

NATO and it's expansion in the 90s was a classic example of Statists just pursuing a continuation of an existing, cold war era policy when the moment called for something new and better.

Am I speaking from a place of privilege here? Definitely. Do I have the benefit of a quarter century of retrospect? Surely. Does that mean I should shut the fuck up? I think not. To accept the status quo of the international ststem as the best possible outcome is in my view not just unimaginative but perhaps a betrayal of our duty to recognize the failings of statism.

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loukanikos wrote (edited )

Reply to comment by fortmis in Friday Free Talk by Tequila_Wolf

I'm not an expert but basically it was created after WW2 as a pact between countries in case of the attack of the USSR. USSR made its own version of NATO called the Warsaw Pact. Then the Warsaw pact and the USSR fell apart in the very early 90s.

In the mid 90s Russia and the West started something called the "Partnership for Peace" which was popularized as an attempt to bring Russia into the fold and included Russia and other non-NATO states.

Instead though the US let that process stagnate and focused on expanding NATO membership despite Russian requests to the contrary. There was desire to form a new pan-European military pact but they ignored that and pursued military intervention in the form of NATO operations in the Balkans.

Basically I'm suggesting that NATO was past expiry when the USSR fell and maybe a weakened, post-Soviet Russia could have acceded to the EU (or something similar) instead of becoming a militant nationalist warmonger.

Sorry for long winded answer. To clarify, there was no "end date", I'm just being snarky.

edit: sharing a source from FOIA-ed documents about diplomacy at the time https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2021-11-24/nato-expansion-budapest-blow-1994

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loukanikos wrote

I have been really thinking hard about international relations. Specifically, I have been thinking about how the West really decided to leave NATO in place like a quarter of a century after its use by date.

Maybe had the US spun down NATO in 1995, my family car would be an electric Ford-Sukhoi AF-150 flying pickup truck and there would be a joint lunar base. Now instead I will maybe die in nuclear holocaust because Bill Clinton and a bunch of electoralists needed to win some swing states.

Russia was weak and easy to pick on after the soviet state collapsed and the West wanted to keep the military industrial party going forever. Its so dumb what states pump their resources into.

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loukanikos wrote

Reply to by fail

Love the phrase 浑水摸鱼 - “muddy waters make it easy to catch fish"

I normally just say the term "acceleration" but this is much more apt (and poetic to boot).

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loukanikos wrote

Things have gotten really bad in Uttar Pradesh. The leader of the state is more extreme than the current hardline leader of the right wing. I have heard first hand accounts of really serious vigilanteism committed by far right youth groups. The whole situation is trending towards openly fascist state policy.

The current leader of India, Modi, is quite a facsist but largely in an opportunistic format. He is a con artist. However Yogi Adityanath, the leader in UP, is a dogmatic idealogue who makes the rest of the right wing party look like the cartoons of fat pig capitalists. If Yogi continues to rise in stature, India's right wing could be perhaps the largest Fascist threat the world has ever seen.

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loukanikos wrote (edited )

It's not a great system but at the same time this is the closest thing you can get to a pension in most US jobs. I don't really fault you for putting into it. Retirement is one of the only perks built into the current economic system.

As a doomer, I don't actually expect I'll ever get to use mine but I still go through the motions mostly out of a sense of uncertainty about the future.

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loukanikos wrote

My partner was asking me if I had a comb today and I didnt event recognize the word. I heard "cone". I was thinking she was asking about pinecones because I had been collecting them a few days ago. So, no I don't comb my hair

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loukanikos wrote

Also in terms of a quote, the Diogenes quote about learning to eat lentils so you never have to defer to a king is a pretty awesome quote in my opinion.

The philosopher Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper.

He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.

Said Aristippus, “If you would learn to be subservient to the king, you would not have to live on lentils.”

Said Diogenes, “Learn to live on lentils, and you will not have to cultivate the king.”

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loukanikos wrote

Thanks for doing this. I have some half thought out notes that are jotted down about this. It's probably worth forming those into something cohesive.

One suggestion for topic to cover in this essay: would it be worth writing about the Chinese anti-work movement? It's called lying flat or 躺平<< tang ping>>. I think the existence of the movement in so-called red China is worth discussing, especially as it relates to the synegergy between various wrokerist ideologies.

I know that when covering anti-work the podcasters who make "It Could Happen Here" covered this aspect a good amount. Personally I found it fascinating, I think largely because it showed me that we in the west may have more in common with our Chinese counterparts than we normally consider despite a heavy language barrier and the existence of almost exclusively separate internet and media.

Anyways, I'm not so sure that movement is directly connected to western anarchism such as with Bob Black. They seem to invoke more ancient Greek stuff such as Diogenes. Yet I think that might be worth exploring the link nonetheless.

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loukanikos wrote

I want to form a commune or like a type of intergenerational community (maybe not a commune per se) in the woods with my wife and our eventual kid(s) and a few other families or friends. I'd get a flock of ducks and I'd like to plant like a million trees, especially chestnuts. Ideally, I'm imagining this is something we do as capitalism kind of crumbles away and we are able to lay the framework for a new society from this. That's the dream anyways.

It feels like it could happen, depending on what neoliberals do (fail to do) to address climate change. Even if capitalism doesn't end then I'll still take a few ducks in a backyard, I guess.

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