Hunter Biden, the president’s problematic son, has finally been indicted for his years of tax evasion. Only in an egregiously unequal society like ours do the children of the rich and powerful get away with corruption for as long as Hunter Biden has.
https://jacobin.com/2023/12/russia-social-breakdown-national-psyche-economic-political-corruption-soviet-capitalism
Insanely critical of Russia:
Also:
https://jacobin.com/2023/04/russia-ukraine-war-putin-demographic-crisis-social-reproduction-biopolitical-imperialism
https://jacobin.com/2018/12/tony-wood-russia-putin-cold-war
https://jacobin.com/2023/06/russia-fascism-wagner-coup-atomization-associationalism-neoliberalism-society
https://jacobin.com/2023/09/russia-azat-miftakhov-political-repression-putin
Literally the first thing on that list:
[Okay, Putin might be bad, but the real villain is the US and the more liberal regimes that preceded him]
And you only have to get to the fifth article to find one that flat-out denies the fact of Russia’s interference in US elections.
This is what Kremlin propaganda aimed at the US left looks like, “sure Russia is bad, but the accusations against them are lies and it’s really NATO and the US that are responsible for everything bad that has ever happened involving Russia”
Ding ding! Articles like these are trying to get you to say, “Yeah, I agree that Hunter should be prosecuted. Yeah, there are two tiers of justice,” after which, they steer the narrative to the right.
Getting people to agree on basic facts or ideas that are weakly linked (or maybe not even at all) is a tactic of persuasion.
How is the left reasonably addressing what the right are happy to exaggerate leading people to the right? Doesn’t ignoring it and letting the right own the issue lead people to the right?
No. Because the right doesn’t traffic in facts. Reality is a nuisance. They want you to engage honestly, but they have no such need or compulsion. Engaging honestly tacitly implies their claims are worth honest engagement. It gives them credit, while they can discredit you with lies they can invent wholecloth.
What needs to be pointed out is this thinly veiled attempt to propagandize for the right.
They don’t want you to have a basic understanding of issues they are greatly exaggerating so you can explain to people what’s actually going on without propagandizing it? This kind of sounds insane that you think being able to explain right wing exaggerations in a grounded way helps the right. Tail between the legs sort of thinking there.
That’s not what I said. If people want to engage honestly, then you can explain what’s going on, but articles like these are acting like It’s Hunter Biden that’s the last straw. Where were they when Jared Kushner was doing the same shit? Or Trump? Or any other rich asshole? They don’t need to use Hunter’s name at all, but the fact that they are headlining him specifically means their bent is to the right.
We can (I hope) have an honest conversation, but with regards to this article, it’s propaganda designed to sway naive people to the right.
The right don’t want to know what’s going on they exaggerate it, this is what’s going on and it’s not exaggerated, it’s smart to name Hunter because this is a specific election issue regarding him personally the right will be exaggerating to insane levels. Knowing what’s actually going on is obviously a good thing and people shouldn’t be shy or censored about addressing it, that’s just pathetic IMO and only helps the right. That this is an election issue can’t be dismissed, the right have the power to make this an election issue and we don’t control that. The best response is a reasoned one that informs and doubles-down on how elites should, but are, treated differently by the justice system. That’s exactly the point being made here.
Hunter is not relevant to the larger discussion of the rich getting free passes, insomuch as he needs to be a headline. That just gives credence to the weak impeachment efforts from House Republicans trying to tie Hunter to his father. Hunter is not a novel case, and we cannot fail to recognize the effects of running his name as a headline for this issue.
And that’s what I take umbrage with. I agree the rich should be held accountable. But these headlines help the extreme right, since too many rarely read past the headline. The author/editor are using his name on purpose, and the only people doing that and wringing their hands saying, “Wow, isn’t this a problem?” are the bobble heads on the right.
Putin is a tool of oligarchs yes and Russia’s economy is doing what America has done in the global south for the last 70+ years. That’s what imperialist capitalism is, it causes these conflicts with competing imperial actors.