Red_Scare [he/him]

I followed the link and read that they call liberation of Estonia from the Nazi occupation a “Soviet re-occupation” in Wikipedia. This is a disgrace.

I didn’t mean to suggest Baltic states are one people! And of course I’m aware of class and social differences. I lived through much of shock therapy suffering you mention, I wish we could talk in person, I have lots of thoughts I’m not sure how to put into writing…

I think culturally, from Catholicism and Lutheranism to Latin script to just architecture surrounding them in their cities, people in Baltic states feel European in the way Ukrainians, Moldovans, and Georgians simply can’t.

I remember a lot of late-Soviet Russians coopting reactionary language - when state informed them of the crimes South African whites commited on the black population, Russians would say “aren’t we whites too?” which was of course in part a joke, but there was an underlying sense of entitlement to be the oppressor, to be the slave master. I bet you’d find less of that in the Eastern republics where people still remembered living under Russian Empire yoke and had less reason to self-identify as prospective oppressors. When in the referendum Russians voted lowest of all the republics in support of preserving the USSR (except Baltic republics), I think this is a large part of the reason why (also worth mentioning Eastern republics voted by far the highest to preserve it). It’s the feeling of belonging to a powerful, respected, “cultured” nation that deserves more than the plebs around them. I think Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, and Balts had even stronger claim to proper “Whiteness”. Ukrainians on the other hand needed much more mental gymnastics to devise a theory where Russians were “Mongolised” since medieval times and Ukrainians were the only “pure” Slavs which also somehow made them essentially Nordics… They managed of course, but it was laborious.

Again I wish we could talk in person cause I can see I’m fumbling.

I think even without false flag operations it would be difficult to keep Baltics within the USSR for long, from what I know they were the only ones where significant part of the population hated USSR and never accepted it.

Having grown up in the Soviet Ukraine and having visited Soviet Latvia a couple times (mom’s best friend lived there), lots of people in the Baltics really didn’t want to be in the USSR and considered themselves occupied by Russia, unlike people in Soviet republics of Ukraine, Georgia, Moldavia, etc.

In Baltics it was common that people on the street would refuse to speak Russian even if you only asked how to get to the train station (despite learning Russian in schools), something that only started happening in Ukraine or Georgia after decades of Western propaganda (and still it’s pretty much only people who grew up on Western propaganda who behave like that, people who grew up in the USSR still mostly consider all Soviets brotherly nations).

Every crisis under capitalism resulted in gigantic wealth transfer to the ultrawealthy. They get to scoop up devalued enterprises and properties for cheap while regular people lose their homes, small businesses, farms and whatnot. I actually think people who plan their wealth in centuries care very little about price fluctuations on their medieval palaces, multinational corporations, intellectual property, art collections and so on. They understand the value does not equal price. It’s the regular folks who pay mortgage on their only house who care about currency stability.

This exactly!

But this is what they have to say about taxing the rich, just compare the language used, no accusations of “gaming the system” here:

The party’s left flank wants heavier taxes on capital. That might deter investors, including those who buy Britain’s government debt. As well as risking economic damage, creating a concentrated group of big losers can be politically fraught. Some backbenchers fantasise about throwing fiscal caution to the wind.

They end by claiming, without any arguments, as if it’s simply self evident, that the closest historical parallel to the current Labour budget is that time Conservatives under Truss tanked the entire economy in a week:

A better parallel is the market panic that followed Liz Truss’s irresponsible “mini budget” in 2022. This caused violent moves in gilts, exposed vulnerabilities in the financial system and imposed a lasting risk premium on British debt. The difference between her cavalier leap and today’s cautious drift is a lot smaller than it looks. If Britain cannot budget responsibly by choice, then markets will force it to do so by necessity—thereby damaging the entire economy.

As always, the Economist, a journal that speaks for the British millionaires, is pursuing a very instructive line.

What facts? It’s a right wing smear piece, not like it cites any sources. She’s pro-EU and anti-Russia and came into politics from economist / banking background, everything else is opinions.

As a Russian speaker, this is some outright fascist shit and I’m disappointed to see it here. The content warning does not quite cover how deeply misogynistic this peace is and I mean the seething hatred of women you’d be surprised to see in print anywhere. Just balls to the wall mask off pure bigotry.

To be honest, reading the Russian text makes me think she’s probably alright if that’s the best thing they can come up with against her. Do better.

Disclaimer - happy to provide a more accurate translation than this toned down, sanitized, palatable crap. Just ask.

I mean holy fuck this shit is vile. Just… Wow, I did not need this.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/palestine-action-plasticine-t-shirt-b2809864.html

Here’s your answer

Over 1 million preventable deaths in EU a year. Just last week EU pledged to more than double military spending, an increase of 613 billion EUR, so you can expect that figure to grow very rapidly.

Also look at this graph:

source

You can clearly see two groups of countries, ones with huge preventable mortality are all ex communist countries. Thank fuck for capitalism and EU membership huh?

There was a conspiracy in the Labour party to sabotage him, and there was an organised smear campaign in the media across the political spectrum from the Guardian to Telegraph, but in the end it’s the regular Brits who refused to have him. He wasn’t some fringe communist, he was the leader of a party in a two-party state ffs. It didn’t take a lot of research to find out what his policies were, the manifesto was widely available and printouts were left at so many doorsteps, mine included. But the daft fucking removed chose Bojo cause look at his hair this bloke must be right larf down the pub. And that’s the most charitable reason cause if not that, it was the burning desire to harm brown and queer folks at any cost.

deleted by creator

I didn’t make a prediction, I just meant this is completely in character for Putin.

I’m shocked. Shocked!

Well, not that shocked.

It’s legal up to 6th month if approved by a doctor (which they pretty much always do). This “guidance” is attempting to “crack down” on women who end pregnancy too late, but in reality we all know this is just further victimising women for having a miscarriage, and when cops are deciding which miscarriage looks “susipicious” to them we all know who they’re going to harass and traumatize.

they’re just saying what techbro lobbyists tell them to, to get that economic bubble nice and ready to pop

Happy to hear this, good on Russia for finally understanding its future doens’t lie with Europe.

Thank you!

Prashad: “I think of him now as the man who went and shocked the European Parliament”

Yeah but I still remember him as the man who went and shock-therapied my homeland into 10,000% annual inflation.

I know he’s kinda the voice of reason in the mainstream media now, still can’t help but retch when I see him.

Could you share the link to the complete interview?

Are you serious? Europeans colonised and enslaved most of the world, pick any genocide at random and more likely than not it will be commited by Europeans.

Not to mention there’s a genocide ongoing right now with full support of the EU.

Pain, hunger, and cold are physical too!