ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

unfortunately

you want a treat? western maoists reviewing movies:

http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/movies/

The thing about Maoists is that other leftists will spout similar rhetoric without ever thinking they're a Maoist.

Their attitude toward labor as "imperialist" is hateful and plays into the hands of everyone else who hates labor.

i once read a counterpunch article that argued without any ambiguity at all that the khmer rouge were good guys who had been wrongfully slandered by the evil western press. i know that website basically just consists of unedited rants by middle-aged leftist cranks but i still found that really shocking.

pointing and laughing is the only proper response to modern maoists

Badiou's position on Khmer Rouge was ambiguous until 2008 or so, as far as I know, although his major statement of support for the group (in Theory of Contradiction) was made in 1975, shortly after they'd taken Phnom Penh.
xp

I don't get present-day Maoists either, but I never really encounter them in the leftist circles I know.

there might be more maoists in hyde park in chicago than in beijing these days

we had a maoist teacher in my high school! she ran a club for students of west indian origin (there were many).

wasn't the khmer rouge fighting the north vietnamese, and therefore somewhat tolerated by the west?

That's not why Maoists like them. Maybe you only find Maoists in US colleges these days... and in Nepal.

Actually, I have to qualify my last post: Badiou's most extensive comment on Khmer Rouge was made in 1975, but apparently Badiou reiterated his support for the group in 1978, in the context of the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. In an interview with Eric Hazan in 2008 (http://kasamaproject.org/theory/799-31badiou-on-different-streams-within-french-maoism), Badiou took his distance both from the Khmer Rouge regime and the 'nouveaux philosophes' who made public statements of their anti-communism, and explained what he found useful in his own Maoist group of the late 60s:

There were three essential points of Maoist provenance that we practised: the first was that you always had to link up with the people, that politics for intellectuals was a journey into society and not a discussion in a closed room. Political work was defined as work in factories, housing estates, hostels. It was always a matter of setting up political organizations in the midst of people's actual life. The second was that you should not take part in the institutions of the bourgeois state: we were against the traditional trade unions and the electoral mechanism. No infiltration of the so-called workers' bureaucracies, no participation in elections; that distinguished us radically from the Trotskyists. The third point was that we should be in no hurry to call ourselves a party, to take up old forms of organization; we had to remain very close to actual political processes. As a result of all this, we found ourselves sharply opposed to the two other main currents [in French Maoism]. Our founding pamphlet attacked both the PCMLF on the right and the GP 'on the left'.

(...I'll reserve judgment on Badiou's formulation as a description of Maoism, and I'll stop here so as not to derail this thread.)

xx-post: Right, but I'm just saying. Today, the khmer rouge is among the worst of the worst, worse than apartheid or mao - and rightfully so. But liking them back in the seventies, as Badiou did, was something a bunch of people all over the political spectrum did.

so what? badiou et al were childish assholes; it's not as though the khmer rouge's crimes (or mao's crimes for that matter) were only rumors.

i mean there were enough people on the left at the time who saw mao and pol pot for who they were to make badiou's allegiances inexcusable. he can't claim ignorance, really, only bullheadedness.

Man, Badiou just gave an excellent analysis of the situation at the time in the ows-link, 'childish assholes' is so simplistic as to be laughable.

ha ha ha

You're an idiot. Wasting time on discussing with you is pointless.

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/04/new_york_times_propagandists_exposed_finally_the_truth_about_ukraine_and_putin_emerges/

You're an idiot. Wasting time on discussing with you is pointless.

― Frederik B, Tuesday, December 2, 2014 2:32 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sorry i'm not as concerned with you about the nuanced rationalizations of people who pledged allegiance to a tyrant who cultivated a cult of personality and -- through a combination of arrogance, ignorance, and venality -- wound up with the deaths of millions of chinese on his hands.

. it's not as though there weren't plenty of people on the left at the time who would have been happy to tell him he was full of shit.

sure, "childish assholes" is simplistic and rash, but i'm not too worked up about it.

one thing that's particularly grotesque that the height of (one segment of) the new left's fascination with mao was the mid-late 60s, the moment of the cultural revolution's worst excesses (which is far too polite a word to use in this context). while badiou et al were hoisting their little red books in parisian salons, chinese intellectuals were being assaulted and paraded through the streets for cooked-up "counter-revolutionary" crimes. that badiou et al couldn't know the full extent of the horrors of the cultural revolution isn't much of an excuse. enough was known.

I'm going to write this anyway since i can prob cp it into so many discussions with just small adjustments.

1) Being a maoist doesn't mean you 'pledge allegiance' to mao.

2) This was a time when politicians all over the spectrum cosied up to killers. Including Nixon and Mao for crissakes.

In conclusion, you're dumb, and you should read what Badiou says to get smarter. It's a good interview.

smh/lol @ one of ILX's arch liberal babies calling Badiou "a childish asshole"

reminder that the Black Panthers were Maoists, wonder if amateurist would call them "grotesque"

Patrick L. Smith article in Salon that Mordy posted is so poorly written I found it all but unreadable and gave up. As near as I could make out, the author seems to think that whatever Henry Kissinger says in an interview with a journalist is tantamount to the Voice of God speaking from a burning bush.

Tempted to say that every country gets the Seamus Milne it deserves.

i'm an "arch liberal baby"? what does that mean? what do you know of my politics?

fwiw i don't think badiou is childish /now/ -- i think even he'd admit to a bit of rash childishness at the time. he almost says as much in that interview.

btw are the black panthers beyond reproach now?

on ilx surely

(it's weird how people will insult me on the same or different threads with diametrically opposed caricatures. e.g. on ILM i've been called a stupid poptimist and an arch-rockist. i think people are just quick to insult here.)

(i've also been accused of being a chauvinist israel-stan /and/ some kind of hamas apologist.)

i'm a commie in the shul and a fascist in the academy so i feel u

yeah, i also inevitably emphasize different things when talking with people from different milieux. i think everyone does that.

you should read what Badiou says

i did, as i pointed out repeatedly. you're convinced that after reading it, i'd have a different view. i don't, really. sorry.

but yeah i admit that "childish assholes" is not the most nuanced critique of the new left's more-than-flirtation with maoism in the 1960s and 1970s. and of course badiou et al could in theory find value in some of the ideas mao espoused without "pledging allegiance" to him or align themselves with what mao was doing (or what was being done in his name) in china. but if you actually look at the history of western maoism it's not nearly so dandy. the cult of personality did have sway, and people really did wave away some atrocities and do a lot of ideologically-correct victim-blaming.

chris marker has a film, le fond de l'air est rouge, about the failures of western—and in particular, french—leftism, and there's a rather incisive (if a little allusive) critique of the new left's fascination with maoism in the middle.

anyway we should give this debate up since it's only tangentially (or analogically) relevant to putin/ukraine/etc.

did i mention that i think la chinoise is a great (and very funny) movie?

i'm an "arch liberal baby"? what does that mean? what do you know of my politics?

I know of your politics what I've read you post here & in other threads, and based on that I'd say your politics typify liberalism - is that not an accurate characterisation?

(although I'm not a Maoist at all, I think Mao had an interesting thing to say about liberalism btw ;) )

btw are the black panthers beyond reproach now?

― I dunno. (amateurist), Thursday, 4

no one is nor should be beyond reproach. but I asked that for two reasons - 1) to see what you think of radical, militant activism (as a sort of additional acid-test for your politics...) and 2) to give an example of Western Maoists who effectively applied Maoist ideas IRL as part of an organised struggle, as opposed to some nerd who makes youtube channels dressed in Rev Guard clothes as part of an infantile Role Playing Experience.

fwiw, I think leftists who support Putin either because they think it's still the 1950s and Russia's geopolitics=the USSR's or out of reflexive "anti-Imperialism" (b/c if you look at what Russia is doing now and don't connect it to neo-imperial ambitions then you must be a bit confused) are Pretty Bad and it's a very frustrating tendency.

Given Russia's existential demographic problems, its actions in Crimea / Novorossiya has more the character of a cornered animal than neo-imperialism. Which is of course why economic sanctions have had and will have little effect. Gasprom/Rosneft's next shareholder's report is irrelevant to the central question that vexes the Kremlin, which is the Russian nation's continued existance over the next few centuries.

can't they just wait for global warming to make siberia the most irrigable area in the world?

I know of your politics what I've read you post here & in other threads, and based on that I'd say your politics typify liberalism - is that not an accurate characterisation?

what sort of liberalism do you mean? i barely post on politics threads here compared to many. you act as though you were making a dispassionate, objective observation, but in the same phrase you called me a "baby."

i'm not sure what kind of litmus test you're applying here but as with many folks i think there are things the black panthers did that were great and other things that were bordering on horrific. if you expect me to express blanket approval or disapproval so that you can safely categorize my attitudes toward "radical, militant activism," then sorry i haven't served your purpose.

Xp, there's some controversy over whether Russian demographics are as bad as everyone makes out:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2014/09/03/8-things-masha-gessen-got-wrong-about-russian-demography/

There's definitely anxiety about the population not rising quickly enough from sections of the right, though, which feeds into both pan-Russian nationalism and things like the 'family values' campaign. The woman who proposed the laws against 'gay propaganda' has a track record of statements about needing to fill Russia with more people to ward off invaders. That said, the main concern is the huge underpopulated areas that border China, there's a paranoia that as China grows, it will colonise border towns. It doesn't sound particularly likely to me.

I'd see Crimea as an attempt to right what was widely seen as a historical wrong rather than classic imperial expansionism though.

glad i could contribute to this maoist--->badiou--->panthers derail good work all

Had no idea this was going on: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-12-16/no-caviar-is-not-getting-cheaper-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-russian-ruble-collapse#r=hp-ls

ruble now only slightly more valuable than bitcoin

xp has been discussed itt http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=40&threadid=100650

Lavrov has said today that Poroshenko is the best hope Ukraine has for recovery and that Russia has no opinion on whether Ukraine should move towards federalisation. The power of the market!

With Russian-backed separatists pressing their attacks in Ukraine, NATO's military commander, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, now supports providing defensive weapons and equipment to Kiev's beleaguered forces, and an array of administration and military officials appear to be edging toward that position, American officials said Sunday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/02/world/us-taking-a-fresh-look-at-arming-kiev-forces.html

Might be tough to get this past NATO given how much back and forth there was in the EU over extending sanctions. The challenge isn't just a lack of weapons, it's a lack of trained forces on both sides. Many of the pro-Kyiv forces are irregular militias, not the standing army - loading them up with expensive weapons is a recipe for disaster, not least because they have their own loyalties and paymasters. It's difficult to see how military aid could be restricted just to the proper army. The more destructive the weapons they've had access to (bombers and rockets / mortars) the more civilians have been accidentally killed.

Equally, unless NATO troops intervened directly (which they won't do), there's nothing to stop Russia simply upping the military aid it's giving the separatists in return. The major Russian intervention came when it looked like the separatists were heading for defeat - avoid that is much more of a priority than pushing them to take more land. This would be another escalation.

It looked like Poroshenko recognised that there is no viable military solution prior to the recent flare up in hostilities and i'm not sure that much has changed.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/10/usa-today-publishes-map-of-ukraine-without-crimea/

https://foreignpolicymag.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/screen-shot-2015-02-10-at-3-15-49-pm.png?w=1182&h=634