Fantastic piece, thanks. It has been head-spinning to watch leftists take up Russia's side in this war. Really appreciate your insight regarding the gullibility of those striking the cynical pose ... something I've often felt at a gut level, but not been able to put into words, until now. Mostly because I think cynics use that "sour churlishness" to deflect any kind of criticism of what they have to say. And it's pretty effective!
Come on now, John! This is no different than things have been since the beginning of “democratic centralism”. Oceania has always been at war with East Asia!
Every week there's a new attack on Ukraine from the Left, it seems. The latest is from Monthly Review. The Nation has been a Putin fellow traveller for most of the 2000s. Then there's Chomsky...
Bravo. The Chomsky Industrial Complex seems to think that if they didn’t remind the rest of us about US imperialism every five minutes, we would entirely forget about it.
More seriously, their equivocations and willful failure to engage with Ukrainian perspectives - pervasive in the Anglosphere but also widespread in European countries whose languages I can read - represents a moral collapse on par with the pre-popular front Stalinist left.
Fantastic piece, thanks. It has been head-spinning to watch leftists take up Russia's side in this war. Really appreciate your insight regarding the gullibility of those striking the cynical pose ... something I've often felt at a gut level, but not been able to put into words, until now. Mostly because I think cynics use that "sour churlishness" to deflect any kind of criticism of what they have to say. And it's pretty effective!
Come on now, John! This is no different than things have been since the beginning of “democratic centralism”. Oceania has always been at war with East Asia!
Every week there's a new attack on Ukraine from the Left, it seems. The latest is from Monthly Review. The Nation has been a Putin fellow traveller for most of the 2000s. Then there's Chomsky...
The Nation strikes me as reflexively pro-Kremlin. And it agrees with Putin that the end of the Soviet Union was a catastrophe.
This was extensively quoted and praised on LawyersGunsMoney blog, with a link back to this stack.
I read the excerpts, not knowing it was by you, and thought it was damned smart stuff.
Now that I click over to see that it is by you, it makes me glad to be doing my small part to support you financially.
Keep up the good work!
This is great.
Bravo. The Chomsky Industrial Complex seems to think that if they didn’t remind the rest of us about US imperialism every five minutes, we would entirely forget about it.
More seriously, their equivocations and willful failure to engage with Ukrainian perspectives - pervasive in the Anglosphere but also widespread in European countries whose languages I can read - represents a moral collapse on par with the pre-popular front Stalinist left.
Great piece. It's really refreshing to read such an intelligent critique of this reflexive cynicism.
Hell yeah
Outstanding piece!