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1 month agoNazi nations tend to homegenise their political compasses and promote subsequent ghouls produced to leadership.
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Thanks for explaining. Is it because it is urban warfare? What has Ukraine done well to get that ratio? It’s a bit of an ask but would you know an article /resource that goes into it that is not from a transatlantic bias ie supportive of Russia in the is war but has good critique on their warfare?
Would you know why it is almost 1:1? Is there massive under-reporting on the Ukrainian side? Did Russia make mistakes that account for this?
Asia Times has not been the same since Pepe Escobar left (only half joking).
For anyone who has read down this far, book recommendation: Thinking in Systems by Meadows (recommended initially by OP :) )
^Very much this.
Like any accusation of atrocity propaganda against anti-imperialist states, villifying of immigrants, or accusations of lack of democracy, we now have an easy new Western Magnum Opus to point to; it won’t convince anyone still benefiting from present material conditions but it may help any nasecent leftist organisations/proto-organisations in the west to help sharpen their political theory of attack ie who not to waste their time “persuading”.
Will likely just be replaced by a smarter/more ruthless fascist/liberal. This is not a lesser evil argument, just reflecting the direction of change.
In addition to my last answer I realised I didn’t go into positivism with the context of history/historiography (ie regarding OP article’s subject): it would be relaying events/facts about history without understanding the explanatory power behind it all.
You will often see this where a historian (outside of the academic discpline, and even within it) explain historical events as the decisions of “great” men/women (ie igorning the masses and systems that allows these “great” people to come into a poisiton of power and allowing them to take the actions they do, and ignoring the weight of systems or masses of peoples in the direction of history ie class struggles) or the serendipity/randomness of events.
The above is the equivalent of recognising brownian motion of individual particles in a fluid (ie individual “random” movements) and then not considering diffusion or osmosis ie a direction of entropy.
It is the denunciation effectively of the science of history, historical materialism, and taking an idealistic metaphysical non-scientifc perspective instead.
Ie as noted in my previous comment - positivism could be considered “measurement” = understanding; taking historical events (assuming what being relayed is true) and then not recognising the interconnectedness of systems when you zoom out.
Being a dialectical materialist, however does not mean there is no obejctive reality - we are not idealists - but recognising that objectivity includes the relationships between things and not assuming understanding something by removing it from its fullest context.
Hope that helps.
Crudely speaking, positvism is that measurement = understanding.
That facts and sciences are “neutral” from the society that produces them and it devalues systems thinking. It atomises and isolates variables. Consider for example racial science such as skull measurements to assess intelligence, or IQ currently, or genetics for biological determinism etc.
To begin with it may be worthwile looking at the arguments against Karl Popper’s positvism (eg falsefiability) and how quantum physics proves positvism is not correct (while doing so you will also discover where positvists also claim that quantum physics backs them up!).
Then it may be worthwile doing a deep dive into dialectical materialism:
Material always before the idea:
Sure but I meant along the lines that a person’s formal qualifications does not exclude them from expertise.
The man is a grifter. He has a BA in English literature (writing as entertainment and art) and then paints himself as a Geo-political analyst and historian using game theory.
He may well be a grifter but a similar argument was/is used against Grover Furr.
We should be able to understand why someone’s position is wrong regardless of whether they are an intelligence asset or not, or whether they will be recruited to one in the future.
https://lemmygrad.ml/post/9818961/7340383
He is wrong because his analysis is wrong. Western intelligence organisations spend money on propaganda partly to help define the acceptable political spectrum socially as a license to align with imperialism; brainwashing ain’t a thing, whether said intelligence service understands or not:
https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/
This guy is wrong because he has a pseudo-scientific perspective but so do most western historians, political analysts and economists; and most of our media whether that be news or entertainment. They all lean heavily on idealist metaphysical understandings of reality. Even western science has to fight tooth and nail inadvertently against the positivism deeply ingrained in acadaemia.
We have to understand what the kernel of truth is from our enemies so it can be a tool we can use for own ends. We live in this liberal world where the bourgoisie overwhelming dictates what information we have access to and how it is presented. It is from their seeds their destruction is formed.
That first minister is a fucking cowardly gobshite piece of work which is why he got the job in the first place.
Whenever someone responds with apparent legalism in defense of the indefensible the reply to that should be why their first response was not that the law should be changed instead. Hiding behind legalism means you agree with that interpretation of the law and too cowardly to hoist your fascist flag/flag of subservience instead.
And watch a bunch of “western marxists” denigrate China when that happens.
It’s just detente because their hands were forced; it will be made clear with countries who do make better trade relations with China but will double down on fascism domestically.
The article was a game changer for me on “brainwashing” - it’s a beautifully dialectical materialist take - along with:
And with that, that book too (Why the World Needs China: Development, Environmentalism, Conflict Resolution & Common Prosperity, by Kyle Ferrana)
Thank you for taking the time to explain! Thanks for sharing the approach: these lessons can be valuable.
I began this essay by relating the tough lesson that people often weren’t receptive to my research into anticommunist atrocity propaganda narratives. However, this wasn’t the only lesson I learned in all this time. I also learned about an actually effective strategy against anticommunist propaganda, centered around the steady share of positive communist accomplishments, both contemporary and historical. I learned it from other folks, because it did not come naturally to me. The dynamics at play are palpable: when people are on-board with positive accomplishments, they shred false negatives (and reason through the real negatives) all on their own.
https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/
Book recommendation: Why the World Needs China by Kyle Ferrana
Didn’t have all the receipts to dunk but managed to turn the conversation towards western media bias in reporting.
How?
Thanks!