I don’t have any comments about this specific post but i’ve noticed you’ve been posting quite a lot lately and just wanted to take a moment to say thank you for all of your hard work finding and sharing all of these interesting and intriguing articles with us and keep it up, i’m sure we all appreciate your contributions here.

Incidentally, Li Jingjing recently posted a video of a speech by the author of this article.

This is pretty much how i see it too.

It actually shocked me that something which we are used to discussing in the abstract such as the Marxist concept of unequal exchange can be demonstrated in such a simple fashion; i hadn’t even thought of it in that way before he mentioned in the interview that they noticed the West has basically been ripping them off by just comparing how much they got for the same products from the rest of the world to how much the West was giving them. This is the kind of straightforward example that can help people understand unequal exchange without having to get deeply immersed in a lot of fairly dry theory.

An interesting interview with a very underrepresented viewpoint. Most of the time we hear about Belarus it’s from an outside perspective, whether the hostile Western or the sympathetic Russian one. It’s refreshing to get Belarus’s own perspective which is similar but certainly not identical to Russia’s. In many ways Belarus seems to have been much more consistently principled since the fall of the USSR whereas Russia has gone through various phases and had to learn some painful lessons along the way.

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It will indeed be interesting to see what happens. Just to be clear i think the scenario you laid out is more likely to be chosen by the current bourgeois Russian leadership than the one i proposed, which would have been more likely to be chosen if Russia still had a socialist government.

I disagree. Any remaining rump Ukraine will be militarized to the teeth by NATO and turned into one large base from which to continue to threaten Russia in the future. It will continue to be propped up financially by the EU like the Baltics (and to some extent like Poland which due to its role as the US’ number one lackey in Eastern Europe has been heavily invested in) which without EU help would be equally dysfunctional and economically unviable as a rump Ukraine would, but are too important as a forward base against Russia. The only solutions for Ukraine are either full annexation or installation of a Russian controlled government protected by Russian forces, followed by thorough denazification and re-education over the next few decades, even if it will be uncomfortable for Russia at first. People like to say that Russia could not, would not and should not try to occupy western Ukraine, but i disagree, the Soviets managed to pacify the region eventually and it was at least as Nazified after WWII as it is today, there is no reason why Russia wouldn’t be able to suppress the terrorism and insurrection there if it really wanted to, much like they have in Chechnya. In fact it is more likely that terrorist attacks on Russian territory and Russian civilians will continue if they do not go all the way. For their own safety Russia must finish the job.

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Embassies of western countries in the global south are dens of spies and centers for fomenting subversive activity against the host state. US embassies are especially dangerous - the US embassy in Iraq for instance pretty much runs the country and is basically a big military base - and not far behind are UK, French and German ones. All that their “diplomats” do is blackmail and threaten other countries’ officials to do what they want, and if they still don’t obey they will create and prop up opposition groups to remove the un-cooperative government. They should be treated by global south countries no differently than western NGOs and western media, which are also dangerous and hostile to independent global south governments - as a profound threat to sovereignty and national security.

As if neo-colonialism isn’t still happening.

Meanwhile Ukraine itself and it’s most hardline supporters in the West are blaming Western governments for not giving them enough weapons or taking too long to do so. The recriminations are already starting. Remember that old saying: victory has many fathers but defeat is always an orphan. Nobody wants to admit it was their fault, everyone blaming everyone else, and in the end what we will see is a stab-in-the-back type myth forming and the Nazis seeking to take revenge on the West for this perceived betrayal after they are defeated by Russia. A wave of terrorist attacks by extremely radicalized people with combat experience and NATO provided weapons will sweep Europe at some point in the next few years.

The amount of explosives, small arms, drones, ammo and even stuff like handheld anti-armor and anti-air rocket systems that has already been lost track of and has entered black market circulation is likely to be absolutely staggering and i suspect we will all be shocked when we learn decades from now just how bad the leakage has been. And that is the kind of stuff that sadly - and i really fucking hope this doesn’t happen but we have to be prepared for the worst - will be used to attack a crowded event or take down a passenger plane by some crazed lunatic shouting “Slava Ukraini”. What the West has done in arming these psychopaths has been utterly criminal, and it will be Europeans, not Americans an ocean away, who will suffer and are suffering the worst blowback.

I’m not sure we can avoid this anymore but the least we can do is stop this insanity asap and turn off the fucking weapons faucet already. But that won’t happen because this is far too profitable for the defense contractors and European leaders have collectively worked themselves up into a blind, frothing-at-the-mouth-type, Russia-hating frenzy of anger and fear with their only solution to every setback being more escalation, pressing harder still on the gas pedal despite heading for a solid brick wall. They are now more gung-ho about the war than even their Washington masters are, truly a tail wagging the dog situation. And while we all understand that ultimately it was the US who started this and who bears the greatest responsibility, Europeans should under no circumstances be absolved because they have been enthusiastic accomplices.

I am not really informed on the most current state of Indian politics but my own gut feeling is that this is very unlikely to work. The BJP has entrenched itself pretty firmly from what i have seen so far. This would be like trying to oust Erdogan in Turkey. Despite some significant discontent they both unfortunately still have a very solid base of support, their opposition is weak and the electoral system in many places is heavily rigged in the ruling party’s favor. The advantage in India is that due to its being a federal state there are regions where the BJP just can’t and won’t make any inroads as the local governments there tend to also be very strong, and some of them are quite far left such as Kerala in southern India.

Here’s the frightening reality: today’s Redditors are tomorrow’s diplomats and leaders of the collective West.

If you think Reddit is an echo chamber then wait until you learn what the various Atlanticist think tanks, foreign policy councils and mainstream media newsrooms are like.

This coming from the Telegraph which is a shameless Atlanticist propaganda outlet is interesting to say the least.

Another hilarious excuse i’ve seen for this is blaming it on the Covid lockdowns.

I know the mentality of these sorts of people from my own country, they will proudly proclaim that they would rather see their country burn and everyone in it dead than allow “the enemy” to have it. And they think they are completely righteous in holding these views and they firmly believe that for this they will be seen as heroes when the history is written. These people exist in most countries, the only difference is they are usually a fringe minority and don’t manage to seize control of the entire country like they have in Ukraine. The last time an entire country was seized by this sort of suicidal national psychosis was Nazi Germany and there is no reason to believe this time will end any differently.

Or…you know…the Nazis in Kiev are just bullshitting as usual.