Noam Chomsky on language, left libertarianism, and progress
conversationswithtyler.com
conversationswithtyler.com
Ideed, nothing novel and basicaly impossible to avoid if you have a society with elites (even left oriented elites will do the same, even worse)... It is a tautology that elites will censor what it is against their interests. I wander if is even desirable to build a society with elites that are open to be replaced by "better" values, or "better" execution. It looks to me that the only good approach is to have societies composed by many small "sub-societies" with different values and different elites that compete on attracting supporters. Of course this is not with very serious challenges too...
Is there a list of these dangerous ideas somewhere?
Because I'm searching for new, dangerous ideas that I haven't heard before, and they're not so easy to find.
You’re so close.
You're an useful idiot of dictators.
Ukraines elites are useful idiots in an American proxy war against Russia.
(Noam Chomsky On The Russia-Ukraine War)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD_JdwimnjU
I do not think that "fight Russia to the Last Ukrainian" is driving Western politics, but I believe there's enough cynicism and hypocrisy (and useful idiots) in the West.
Americans didn't wanted to have a proxy (or any other) war against Russia. Americans tried to preserve USSR to keep the region stable and nukes in one place, when it didn't worked they tried establishing good relations and even invited Russia to NATO. Russia didn't wanted to be in an alliance where Latvia has as much say as they do. Because Russia wanted to regain its empire.
This is what Eastern Europeans were trying to say for 30 years, and the West didn't listened. Even after 2008 and 2014.
And then comes Chomsky&company and says "you easterners should be happy to live in a dictatorship >sphere of inlfuence< because we leftists know better what's good for you. No need to thank us". This is just colonialism.
Since 90s it's always been Russia escalating and the West refusing to respond strongly enough, which gave Russia the perception that the West is weak and they can get even more if they escalate further.
If West reacted in 2008 how they react now - we could have saved 100s of thousand of people AND avoided 2 wars and billions in military and humanitarian spending. We didn't, because it was easier in the short term to look the other way.
But you can't ignore such things forever.
That feels like 1930s and policy of appeasement, when Germany was taking back Rhineland, creating Luftwaffe, annexing Austria and France with Britain were just looking and doing nothing. Then Munich agreement came about and France with Britain signed it because they did not wanted to do anything. The rest of history is just WW2.
It is almost comical to think, that WW2 in Europe could have been reduced to local conflict between Germany and France fighting over Rhineland.
I agree in the case of Russia, China seems to be dovish in regard of Ukraine.
"If West reacted in 2008 how they react now - we could have saved 100s of thousand of people AND avoided 2 wars"
I'm not sure here. My guess is Merkel and Macron were right in 2008: trying to get Ukraine and Georgia into NATO would have meant war with Russia. (actually Russia and Georgia fought a war in 2008 about South Ossetia).
In my opinion Russia is the bad revisionist guy, but the politics of the West were amateurish and reckless. And in my opinion Ukraine needs a deal and it should have tried to keep Minsk 2. And I do not see this as colonial mindset, as Ukrainian I would think the same.
yes, that's usually how this works
> My guess is Merkel and Macron were right in 2008: trying to get Ukraine and Georgia into NATO would have meant war with Russia
Merkel just wanted cheap resources and "strategic independence" of USA. Nobody actually expected NATO vs Russia war in 2008 no matter which decision was taken. It was selfish and short-term politics, simple as that.
> as Ukrainian I would think the same
Ukrainians overwhelmingly disagree, but I'm sure you would be in the minority that is "right" :) You know better without actually living there after all :)
But I actually have an opinion and this carnage is terrible.
I am against participation in the war and stand by it. Western war mongers do more harm than good, and no one should rely on them.
(the political situation is very different, but it is a lesson anyway, do not trust your allies, they have their own agenda)
The plans before WW2 were for Poland to defend for several months before the help arrives. WW1 made it look realistic. Blitzkrieg made it impossible, but it's anachronistic to view it as a betrayal. They simply didn't knew.
Anyway, no matter how you look at it - Poles still fought for returning to the "western Europe" after that "betrayal". Because west might "betray" you, but Russia will genocide, censor, torture and exploit you till barely anything remains.
These are the choices people in Eastern Europe have to make.
If West didn't joined WW2 - Holocaust would finish succesfully. Then the plan was to starve most of Slavs, keep the rest as slaves and settle German colonizers in Ukraine to feed the 3rd Reich.
By now we would have Nazis control half of Europe and have nukes. Much better? Or maybe the "warmongers" had a point?
Ukrainians tried to find peace with Russia since 1991. There's just no way to do it. Russia wants to annex the whole Ukraine. They openly say this on their TV. And russian occupation isn't "safe". If you participated in any patriotic organisation, if you have Ukrainian tattoo, if you were important cultural or political figure - you are on russian list and they will kill you after they occupy Ukraine. This already happens on occupied territories. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/21/us-claims-russ...
Ukrainians don't have a choice. And people like you make their situation worse.
I do not rule out that I am wrong and that a tolerable agreement with Russia is not possible.
But then the problem of defeating a nuclear-armed state remains.
The few pacifist-minded people like me are not relevant anyway. But it is relevant that the West ultimately does not want nuclear war, and also avoids sending troops. The support is enough for a long bloody war, the outcome is uncertain, I am pessimistic.
I agree: this is not planned betrayal (though there is some cynicism) but may end catastrophically anyway.
Why is this any different to the many times in the past a nuclear armed state has lost a war?.
Mearsheimer: Russia Sees ‘Existential Threat,’ Must Win
https://peaceworker.org/2022/04/mearsheimer-russia-sees-exis...
>https://peaceworker.org/2022/04/mearsheimer-russia-sees-exis...
When Russia saw an existential threat when Wagner was marching towards Moscow nothing happened.
Russia doesn’t understand appeasement they only understand force.
It’s kinda sad how badly the realists like Mearsheimer have utterly failed to model Russian behaviour.
Giving Russia appeasements in Ukraine would just embolden them to try again.
They must lose decisively.
Any threat of nuclear war from Russia pales in comparison to the threat of future wars when nuclear proliferation goes through the roof, because you can invade whoever you feel and always win with nukes.
For his penchant for pushing half-truths, and intellectually distorted reasoning in other forms.
He explained: (1) the root cause lies in the April 2008 NATO summit Declaration that Ukraine (and Georgia) “will become members of NATO”;
The root cause of what happened to the so-called victim was their going out dressed like that last night. Also, if anything that summit was known for conspicuously "kicking the can down the road": It was more notable for declining to accept their applications of that time, precisely because of Russia's objections -- instead downgrading them to "aspirant" status.
There is no evidence in what Putin has said that he wants to make Ukraine part of Russia,” Mearsheimer adds.
Well, not all of it. He just wanted to annex parts of it. Leaving behind a rump state permanently pliable to Moscow's interests.
Its important to note, that this statement (and, particularly, the accompanyiny decision not to offer Membership Action Plans to Georgia and Ukraine at the time) was reporting a positive response to Russia’s urgent demands to delay Georgia and Ukraine admission to promote regional peace and stability.
Also worth noting that, yes, Russia immediately invaded Georgia after it, so there is a pretty good argument that this acquiescence is a key turning point in Russian aggression, but this undermines rather than supports that the problem was NATO expansion—the problem was NATO weakness.
Why does Ukraine need a deal? Ukraine already has at least one international agreement that Russia signed saying they would never threaten the borders of Ukraine in anyway.
What is going to stop Russia from breaking any future deals, like they have broken deals in the past?.
What Ukraine needs is for Russia to leave because they realise that staying in Ukraine is too devastating for their country.
Evidently this the only thing Russia understands, force.
Not much, probably sanction them, cut off ties and generally cease trade.
But I don’t think they’d invade, nor do I think if they did invade they would commit the horrible crimes (genocide, rape and torture of children, etc) that the Russians seem to love to do.
I don't think this true. The successful resistance to Russia is due to the current strength of Ukraine's military. They have been improving rapidly in response to 2014. Georgia is nowhere near as strong or easy for us to supply.
Georgia is pretty sparsely populated apart from the capital - half of the population lives in Tbilisi. Relatively easy to create air defense for such a country.
Georgians took one of these routes early on and tried to collapse the tunnels but were driven back by russian airforce before they could do it.
Given enough material support it was perfectly possible to stop Russia there. But I wasn't even talking about that - even just introducing serious sanctions in 2008 would probably prevent the further escalations by Russia. Instead we persuaded Putin that we are divided and won't react. So he tried in Ukraine and Syria. And Ukraine again.
And when we finally reacted seriously he's suddenly surprised and accuses us of "trapping him" :)
Yes, had NATO rebuffed Russia’s lies about its peaceful intentions in the region and its protestations of the destabilizing effect of extending MAPs to Ukraine and Georgia and extended both countries MAPs and interim security guarantees in 2008, the sequence of Russia-initiated wars that began immediately after they succeeded in tricking NATO would not have occurred. That is eminently clear in retrospect; Russia was trying to buy breathing room for intervention, and succeeded.
To be fair, that was far from clear prospectively at the time; it wasn’t like Hitler overtly seeking the Sudetenland after the Anschluss: aggressive expansionism hadn’t been telegraphed, and it wasn’t a “give them a bit, and they won’t take more” situation. The people who made the wrong choices in 2008 weren’t in the position as the people arguing for appeasement today, despite the last 15 years of history.
> Poland's Lech Kaczyński in August 2008 traveled to Tbilisi together with the presidents of Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to show solidarity with Georgia in the face of Russia's invasion of that country, according to accounts by officials.
> He said at the time: "Today Georgia, tomorrow Ukraine, the day after tomorrow the Baltic states, and then, perhaps, the time will come for my country, Poland."
https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7785/artykul/2353833,11-year...
1. Nobody takes "spheres of influence" seriously in modern day. It's a 19th century simplification that divides countries into empires and colonies. It doesn't really describe the complexity of modern day international relations where even very small countries like Iceland can have disproportional impact.
2. China is building a military base in Cuba, and yet you are probably not even aware of that, because again, the world is a little bit more complex than what you've become to believe and officials operate with more than just a phone line to bomber command.
Russia was playing along till mid 00s and when they got their economy more or less together - they immediately started testing the boundaries. Each time they tried anything - nothing bad happened to them. So they tried some more.
His opinion is as legitimate as saying the halting problem is trivially solvable.
But apparently Ukrainians should just surrender and hope for the best.
And in that history, we used to be under the Russian yoke - someone for a relatively short time (Czechia), someone for centuries (Estonia), and the vast majority of the formerly yoked nations used their first opportunity to bail and swear never again. Which means never again, even at a cost of an all-out defensive war. Fuck Russia and their backward, cynical, violent empire. They view us as escaped satellites that need to be put back into their rightful orbit and we view them, well, as zombified orcs that bring torment, death and general civilizational regression on the tips of their bayonets.
Even countries that escaped that mournful fate, like the Finns, armed themselves to the teeth just to dissuade Russia from ever trying to conquer them again. The upkeep of the Finnish army is a nontrivial part of that small nation's finances, but everyone knows that it is money wisely spent.
As for the Ukrainians, they don't have any reasons to love Russia historically, and much less so after the campaign of terror that Putin unleashed on them. Even cities that were majority Russian-speaking, such as Kharkiv and Odessa, suffered from extensive Russian bombing.
IDK what happens in Chomsky's head that he can see photos from places like Bucha and not understand that the hatred of the Ukrainians against the aggressors is genuine. Perhaps he is deluded enough to consider them fake. As former subjects of Moscow, nope, this is the Russian world in action as we and our ancestors have experienced it.
Most Ukrainians wanted peace within Ukraine. It was some others who didn't and they got their wish.
This is literally not true and even if it was it doesn’t matter it’s their country they can ban Russian if they want.
> Ukraine is not sweet and innocent like the lame-stream press would have you believe.
I’m confused about this justifies the rape, torture and summary executions of civilians as well as the countless other war crimes.
> Most Ukrainians wanted peace within Ukraine. It was some others who didn't and they got their wish.
Russia is the one who decided not to have peace when they decided to break the Budapest memorandum multiple times.
Russia can leave and peace will be had, or Russia can stay and Russians will continue to die in droves.
That's quite a chauvinistic attitude to take -- and ignores the complex history of linguistic diversity in Ukraine.
No linguistic expression should be banned anywhere, period, full stop.
(To be clear: this is no way supports what the troll account above you was posting, which was of course pure nonsense).
> No linguistic expression should be banned anywhere, period, full stop.
The point is moot anyway as Russian is not banned in Ukraine, even as Russia is actively invading it.
Exactly the same as saying "It's their country, they can do whatever they want to minority X" in any other context.
I live in Poland. I was in Ukraine many times. I work with Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians. My cousin married an Ukrainian. There's millions of them here. Literally nobody except for Russian propagandists ever complained about abuse of Russian-speaking Ukrainians.
Kyiv (the capital) was mostly Russian-speaking till very recently. Most of Ukrainian politicians up to this point were Russian speaking. 5 of 6 presidents of Ukraine so far come from eastern Ukraine and were speaking Russian as their first language - including all the western-leaning ones (Yushchenko, Poroshenko, Zelenski).
Eastern ("russian-speaking") Ukraine is much more wealthy, almost all big cities and universities are there - because it's where the natural resources are. Western Ukraine is mostly countryside. Most of the Ukrainian elites come from the east.
Most Ukrainians speak both languages and switch depending on the context.
Ukrainian got more popular not because of some imagined persecution, but because Ukrainians started to associate Russian language with invaders and genociders after Russians: - poisoned presidential candidate - falsified elections - invaded Crimea and Donbas - annexed Donbas - invaded the rest of Ukraine
This didn't started in 2014 - it started in 2004.
As for neo-nazis exerting control - neonazis tried to run for parliament after 2014. They got 0.7% of votes. That's lower than in most countries in the western Europe, including Germany (AfD has ~15% support) and my own country Poland.
Not to mention that Russia currently is a totalitarian dictatorship that actively promotes killing Ukrainians on the TV. There's more neonazis in one russian division than in the whole of Ukraine.
None of what has happened in Ukraine in the past 20 years justifies the invasion.
None of it justifies the Russians rape and torture of civilians.
None of it justifies the litany of war crimes including castrating PoWs and committing genocide.
So why are you trying so hard to justify it?.