I posted earlier an emailed debate with the anarchist SUBMEDIA on their position on Ukraine. So, to be fair, I want to say that I also have been trying to talk to other parts of the US “left” and hit similar but different roadblocks. When it comes to the DSA nationally, they basically put out one official statement that was basically critical of NATO and has since then maintained radio silence. But some members within DSA are posting publicly for DSA to come back out and totally condemn Russia and support arming the Ukrainians. Such a statement was shared on the email list for my local Olympia DSA which I am a member. I took to the task of saying I disliked such a move and favored the DSA original position. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some people in the local were not happy. Particularly one person who I will not name but will share some of his dialogue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FIRST DSA MEMBER EMAIL (DSA1):<\/strong> FIRST RESPONSE (DSA2): <\/strong> MY RESPONSE:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I certainly don’t support the US sending weapons to Ukraine like this article does. Might as well drop the S from DSA is you’re gonna support the billions for war program. Nor would I support a supposed anarchist mutual aid group that is sending weapons to Ukraine like this does. I also frown at the false equivalency that places the US (with it’s 850 foreign military bases, toweringly larger economy, plus it’s drenched in blood hands from decades of war and aggression in\u00a0at least 9 countries) and\u00a0Russia\u00a0on the same level as imperialist powers. I certainly would not agree with their rewritten historical analysis of the 2014 violent coup guided by the CIA to some sort of war of\u00a0Russian\u00a0aggression back then. And while I support reaching out to Ukrainian socialist parties and the Ukrainian communist party, they are now underground having been banned by Zelensky who recently arrested the leader of the number one opposition party again for treason. Finally, and this might be trivial by comparison, but the blaming the\u00a0Russians\u00a0on US inflation is such Biden bullshit. The DSA maybe should find US socialists with a deeper understanding of US imperialism and US foreign policy and follow their lead. Here are just two, but you can search for more, but they are basically all going to be against sending weapons to Ukraine. RESPONSE DSA2:<\/strong> As for the second article, Finland and Sweden remained neutral through the entire Cold war, the ’90s and the 2000s. You don’t think the US wasn’t trying to get them to join the entire time? If Finland and Sweden want to join NATO, maybe it’s because they feel a genuine threat to their security. But please, tell me how the bumbling Biden administration that can’t even get a domestic agenda through somehow managed to orchestrate this entire invasion and judo Putin into invading Ukraine to frighten more countries and to joining NATO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Enough, Bruce. Nobody has any patience for your constant shilling for Putin. Russia doesn’t have to be on the same level as the United States to still be an imperialist power. The invasion of Ukraine is a war of aggression, not an inter-imperialist contest between the US and Russia. Nobody is crazy about the Azov battalion, but they are not representative of everyone in Ukraine and I can’t imagine the Ukrainian people would be better off under Russian hegemony. The atrocities committed by the Russian army in Mariupol and the towns around Kyiv suggest otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If this is the hill you want to die on, maybe some other organization would be a better fit for you. You have a troubling tendency to defend brutal authoritarians around the world that seems out of place in an organization of democratic socialists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MY RESPONSE:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes. Fighting against the rightward totalitarian militaristic US foreign policy that threatens WW3 is the hill I am willing to die on. Stopping the US sending weapons to active military conflicts is a hill that many activists in the US have said they would die on. Brian Wilson lost his legs as an activist trying to stop arms shipments to the Contras as a member of Vets for Peace in 1987 and here you are supporting arms being sent to literal Nazis in Ukraine. You want to die on the hill in Mariupol with the last soldiers of the Nazi Azov Battalion? Standing there with a comedian Zelensky, a war criminal Biden and the executives of Raytheon and Boeing? Die on that hill! Go for it! Give Biden the old sieg heil!<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you can\u2019t say no to the Democrats about WAR what can you say no to them about? US militarism is fully supported by both parties with no dissent. Maybe the Biden admin isn\u2019t bumbling the domestic agenda, maybe you\u2019re getting the domestic agenda that the power elite want to give you. Biden just passed the biggest military spending bill the US has ever seen, no problems there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The US has a history of interference in foreign elections and coups. Something like 53 countries? And Ukraine was a US backed violent fascist militia driven coup that overthrew their elected president in 2014. That caused a civil war and separatist states. If you don\u2019t know that watch \u201cUkraine on Fire\u201d by Oliver Stone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For 8 years now the eastern Ukrainians were being attacked by Ukrainian fascist militias. The US was puppeting their government, arming them to the teeth and training them at NATO training camps. This wasn\u2019t some fearful Ukraine going to NATO, this was a horribly corrupt Ukraine, deeply embedded by fascists, with a weak state ostensibly run by oligarchs like a mob being controlled by the US. A Ukraine that has been systematically getting rid of left opposition parties, news stations and targeting Russians for harassment. I feel for the Ukrainian people, but frankly Zelensky should be petitioning for peace rather than let his army be used by the US for cannon fodder against Russia! Russia is winning this war and Zelensky is just trying to line his pockets and probably get a Hollywood contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, don\u2019t believe the hype around Russian atrocities. I\u2019ve done the deep dives in researching Bucha, the maternity ward and the stories out of Mariupol. I\u2019m pretty certain that Russian atrocities are much more minimal than our media makes it out to be. I would speculate that this war will be proven as much much less harmful to civilians than the Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya wars. Civilian casualties are inevitable but Russia is doing better than we ever did at minimizing them. Plus the rebuild afterwards will be much better than either of those countries I just listed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hard pills to swallow? Here read this, then follow the independent journalists it lists off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/orinocotribune.com\/if-you-only-follow-mainstream-mcnews-you-have-no-clue-about-ukraine\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n And again, I just gave you two socialist parties in the US that had a better, actually socialist, position on Ukraine. There are many others! <\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2022\/04\/21\/pers-a21.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Then there is of course the rest of the world. China, India, Pakistan (who\u2019s President the US likely helped overthrow because they didn\u2019t go along with the Russia sanctions program), most of Africa, most of Asia and most of Latin America. Here is some Chinese Russian propaganda. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Europe bears brunt of Russia-Ukraine conflict rooted in NATO expansion, says economist https:\/\/xhnewsapi.xinhuaxmt.com\/share\/news?id=686139431219200&showType=3002&utdId=XkFQ0u\/goc8DAD6UUiA3IQFc&version=3.0.2<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the rest of the world outside the US and Europe, they take a much more nuanced position than you do. They don\u2019t point at Russia and say evil. They hear them when they say the US was turning their neighbor into a hostile base of aggression targeting them. And they are very excited to see them do what only Russia could do, which is to stand up to the US and say NO. Venezuela would like to be out from under the crushing US fist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On DSA and Ukraine from a close friend of mine..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a great article. Thanks for sharing. I agree with almost all of this but I do have one minor factual correction:\u00a0Russia\u00a0and Ukraine provide about 25% (or 30%) of the world’s wheat\u00a0exports,<\/em>\u00a0not total production. Almost all (I’ve read 99%) of the world’s wheat is consumed in the countries that grow it and major producers like the US, China, and India could easily make up for the shortfall by increasing wheat production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
http:\/\/www.fightbacknews.org\/2022\/2\/27\/activist-explains-why-anti-war-movement-wants-us-out-ukraine<\/a>
https:\/\/www.liberationnews.org\/u-s-vs-peace-biden-floods-ukraine-with-more-weapons-eyes-nato-expansion\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The articles you linked to are ridiculous. The “sphere of influence” argument used in the first article could just as easily been used to justify a full-scale US invasion of Cuba in the 1960’s. Hey, they were in America’s backyard and we felt threatened by\u00a0Russian\u00a0influence there, right? Were I Cuba at that time I’d take any help I could get if it meant not getting invaded by the US. That’s pretty much what happened and it’s not so different from what Ukraine is doing now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n