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The breadth of bad takes about the situation is absolutely incredible. I'm currently on the ground in eastern europe, I speak a slavic language natively and can communicate okay in a few others. Even in countries with a vivid memory of soviet occupation there are vocal supporters of broad concessions to russian aggression and even people who outright believe in russian propaganda. Several of my friends are housing Ukrainian refugees and are afraid to make it publicly known. A friend of mine was debating removing the Ukrainian flag on her profile for fear it would result in her children being bullied in school. It's fucking wild.

THE FUCKING RUSSIANS WERE OCCUPYING YOU A COUPLE DECADES AGO, IT WAS NOT A GOOD TIME, HOW DO YOU NOT REMEMBER THIS?!?!?!

fwiw I would say the plurality of people are in support of Ukraine but I never imagined there would so much visible support for russia, or even concessions to russian aggression. It's very disheartening to see any question about the validity of Ukrainian sovereignty.

It is very disheartening, indeed. I fear also that the almost universal emotional support that the Ukrainian people had from the average westerner is going to chip away as the actual cost of the war continues, and as the Russian propaganda machine keeps pumping. What happens after the US midterms in the fall? What happens when gas prices continue to be high?

JFC being implicitly in favour of a powerful military occupying and bombing its weaker neighbour is not an edgy or contrarian or clever position. It's ethical bankruptcy.

I'm in a post-sov country that is strongly supporting Ukraine publicly and where no one is fearing persecution or bullying for taking in refugees. Nevertheless, there are always (33 years and counting) vocal minority voices that parrot Russian narratives.

I strongly believe there are several key factors to this: a similar cultural experience and societal identity for people over 50[1] and a strong influence stemming from the combination of only knowing Russian as their single foreign language and the prevalence of Russian TV channels in the 90s/00s as well as Russian YouTube channels more recently. The 90s were hard in post-soviet countries, many people got disillusioned, some never really got back on their feet.

In terms of misremembering the occupation: cognitive biases and flaws[2], nostalgia, regressively conservative, hyper nationalistic, as well as anti-US/Western sentiments, etc. are all abused by Russian propaganda and conspiracy theories. Some narratives are really textbook political myths[3] about the Savior, the Golden Age (I guess the US got a real taste of this one with the MAGA movement). Much like a significant number of Trump supporters in the US, supporters or Russia in my country are more likely to believe in chemtrails, sovereign citizen claims, global pedophile conspiracies, anti-LGBTQ narratives, etc.

1- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Sovieticus 2- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory#Mandela_Effect 3- http://facta.junis.ni.ac.rs/pas/pas201201/pas2012-08.pdf

> In terms of misremembering the occupation

By using the word „misremembering“ you only show the misunderstanding of real experiences of people which lived in that period. They may have experienced oppression, but it could be subtle and perceived very differently. Those people are not necessary living better now, often on the contrary. Transition to capitalism has left many behind, and being old, poor and misunderstood is certainly felt worse today than being young and not being able to buy American jeans back then. Calling it a false memory is intellectual snobbery.

The "FUCKING" ukrainians were "OCCUPYING" them to the same degree as russians, since they were both a part of Soviet Union.

This comment is delusional and in no way represents the history of the Soviet Union, nor the sentiment towards Ukrainians in post-soviet countries.

The history of Soviet Union is basically one Georgian followed by three Ukrainians.

And the Polish United Worker's Party in Poland were Poles. Does that make Poles hate other Poles?

Or were you trying to make some sort of point about the differences in the repressive mechanisms or social constraints established under Khrushchev vs Brezhnev?

And not a single one of them were representative of their countrymen. Stalin in particular seemed to almost relish doing nasty things to his country of origin.

Do you think any of them were representative of Russians?

Communism is a totalitarian cult after all.

I think maybe you have somewhat idealized conception of the state of Ukraine before the invasion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Ukraine

Both Ukraine and Russia have been dominated by a set of oligarchs since the fall of the Soviet Union, who have amassed an extreme amount of wealth and therefore, because of weak laws and bribery, control their respective countries to an extreme degree.

I don't see why anyone on the left, should prefer one of the sets of oligarchs to the other.

... I have no such "idealized conception."

Jeez, it's almost like one could be opposed to both autocracies and still support resistance against the Russian state. Like the actual left (or what's left of it) in Ukraine (and Russia) are.

A good resource is https://lefteast.org/

People on the left should stand up for the people getting their homes bombed. It shouldn’t matter if it is America bombing Afghans or Russia bombing Ukrainians. Unfortunately some people will only stand up for one or the other.

All of that is true. The problem is that both sets of oligarchs are currently fine; Russia is attacking everyone -else- in Ukraine. I know people personally who are displaced. There are refugees in what used to be my personal office. The Russian oligarchs are doing this unilaterally, and can stop any time. The west is sending only gadgets, not men, and regular Ukrainians are fighting the fight. (They too can stop any time, but it’s their country.) While I recognize why Russians are upset, they could have handled this better.

Since the crippling of unions and the deregulation of many economic sectors under Reagan, now ossified by the Citizens United decision, I could replace "Ukraine and Russia" with "Democrats and Republicans" and say (almost) exactly the same words about the US.

The only way I can imagine someone on the "left" having a reaction against NATO and Western imperialism (your term) is if they have an ax to grind ... probably more with regard to Western imperialism than NATO? (Probably with specific regard to the U.S. and Iraq.)

This goes for Chomsky as well.

You mean an ax to grind against all of the atrocities they've committed[1]? I'm not sure what you're saying...

1. https://github.com/binka/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md

What is it called when someone has a problem with the atrocities the U.S. committed but are willing to excuse the same atrocity by an Eastern power?

Almost all of them are tankies (wherefrom they earned the name), so I'd call them that. Chomsky isn't one.

It is possible that they have read enough about NATO’s formation, its murky history, and have a good idea about its function.

That is, if by left, you mean socialists rather than liberals.

"I am very disappointed by many of my fellow travelers on the "left" on this issue. "

Me too.

I am also very disappointed about their reactions to other issues too. Seems a lot of people on the left like to philosophize about issues but don't really like to acknowledge real world issues. I saw this when the rioting after the George Floyd went on. A lot of people refused to even think that maybe burning down shops is not a good response to racism. Instead they just kept on talking about systemic racism while ignoring the riots.

And now the response to Ukraine is often "Why do these Ukrainians make so much trouble? They should stop the killing and give up. They are losing anyway. We are pacifists, we don't like war". I agree that there may have been ways to deal with the situation better before the war but there is simply no excuse for Russia to attack the country and bomb cities. If somebody has responsibility to stop this, it's clearly Russia and nobody else.

I feel you, I just don’t think it’s limited to this one issue. I too strongly identify with most, perhaps all of the left’s causes: universal human rights, fighting world poverty, peace, protecting the climate. The only problem is, the amount of intellectual laziness displayed by some of the louder advocates of that side political spectrum annoys me beyond belief. For those people, policies seem to be accepted or rejected purely on gut feel and symbolics, not honest analysis of the consequences or even whether they would actually help achieve the purported goal. I can’t be the only one who feels that way, so if there’s an organized “rational left” movement somewhere, please sign me up.

As someone on the left, I think the big problem is the difference between some online leftists and "real-world" leftists, who fight for the things you mentioned, but don't spend time shitposting on twitter.

I certainly found it bleeds over into real life, but still, fair point.

> if there’s an organized “rational left” movement

They call those people "radical right wing extremists" and "Nazis"

You'll have to get out of the "left" far enough to see the rest of the spectrum first. That's hard right now.

I’m not sure what you’re suggesting here, but there’s no way to confuse the side of the political spectrum that actually cares about all human suffering with the one that cynically doesn’t.

I am suggesting that the political spectrum is not just "the left, which cares about human suffering," and "the right, which does not".

Or maybe I'm just nuts and there's no one else that thinks individuals should have agency to decide whether they're suffering or how that suffering should be alleviated.

This is just question begging. You're assuming that they don't, which is false.

I've been collecting interviews and discussions of intellectuals who seem, to me, thinking about this deeper and better.

https://verdverm.com/ukraine

The playlist is more up to date

> many of my fellow travelers on the "left" on this issue

What do you mean by "travelers" in this context?

It's a common expression in English? People who metaphorically "journey" together.

OK, I had no idea about that. I thought you spoke of Romani people, or travelers!

I read it as stating that one can travel through opinions, ie politics are a spectrum.

"Fellow traveler" is a term for a sympathizer of a cause (generally communism) who is not a bona fide party member

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fellow_traveller

“Fellow travelers” in this context is an old American term for socialists/communists who may or may not be a member of a socialist/communist party.

Interesting, OK! I've never heard "traveler" take on that meaning before.

I was assuming the poster spoke of Romani people (or "gypsies", but this is a racial slur) and it was clearly out of context.

Er... digital nomads?

> Actually what I've seen from Chomsky though so far is a bit more subtle than others. One of the worst I've seen was from Yanis Varoufakis.

Mr. Varoufakis definitely has excellent rhetoric skills, but many of his and his comrades positions and emphasis on resolving Ukrainian conflict would put put Ukraine on a plate for Putin. Makes me wonder what arrangements Mr. Varoufakis had made with Putin regime.

Perhaps apparachik does his analysis and writes books for him in exchange. Maybe popularity pumped up with bots in views, sales, invitations. Or an arrangement which protects the ground of democratic elections in Bolivia, Chile and others against a coup orchestrated by US.

All these things seem possible as the left never in history have been weaker to challenge those who have. And the prospects with Ukrainian war looks even more grimmer. And all of that because of a man who learned that wealth does not bring happiness.