Anarchist voices on Ukraine

Anarchist voices on Ukraine

From Countervortex

In Episode 145 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg contrasts statements from anarchists in Ukraine and Russia—who call unequivocally for Putin’s defeat and removal from power—with the relentless lecturing from stateside “leftists” that the Ukrainians must cede territory in exchange for “peace.” These stateside voices include (inevitably) Medea Benjamin and (of course) Noam Chomsky on (predictably) Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now. They actually call for the United States to “negotiate” with Russia—the Great Powers deciding the fate of Ukraine, without the participation of the Ukrainians (exactly as in the 1938 Munich Agreement, in which Czechoslovakia was betrayed to the Nazis). Both these ostensible leftist positions line up with figures from the political establishment. On Chomsky’s and Benjamin’s side are Elon Musk and Donald Trump. On the side of the intransigent Ukrainian and Russian anarchists are Ukraine’s former defense minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk writing in Foreign Affairs, and President Joe Biden, who told CNN: “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” Is it possible that Joe Biden has a more progressive position than Noam Chomsky? Actually, yes. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

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Image: “Anti-fascist resistance” logo via Russian anarchist group Autonomous Action

There are 71 Comments

Bill Weinberg the? great. he is correct about the cretins of the establishment left (low-hanging fruit for actual anarchists), but his own history of imbecilic nationalist sub-leninist anti-imperialism is not a great one.

" Is it possible that Joe Biden has a more progressive position than Noam Chomsky? "

Please define progress.

“Is it possible that I’m a neoliberal and I don’t even realize it??”

I don't care whether you like Bill Weinberg. What he says in this podcast about the peace-at-any-price/ negotiations-now anarchists and leftists is right on the mark. What is there to negotiate? We demand that Russia withdraw from Ukraine. That will end the war immediately!

There was a war going on before the special military operation began. It had been going on for 8 years. Over 10,000 people lost their lives in that time. If the Russians withdraw how will it end war?

Hard to take a comment utilizing the phrase "special military operation" seriously, but well...

We know this and pointing it out isn't that deep. Obviously things have ramped up this year as a result of the Russian invasion with hundreds of thousands dead in a matter of months, though something tells me loss of life isn't really your concern...

Who taught you that language policing? Yes, it’s an operation in a war that has been going on and in which many lost their lives before this year (not enough for you to care either I think). Calling it “Putins war” and the like helps cover the tracks for our military industrial complex which has bought and paid for this war. It has already been pretty well memory holed that three years ago it was in the center of the first trump impeachment that of course we have to arm Ukraine to fight Russia, and when this agenda gets brought up again this year it’s treated like crazy Russian propaganda. Why do you want to help obscure these connections? Who does that benefit?

The liberal media was right (mostly) about trump (bad) and Covid (real). Now they’ve shifted seamlessly into a very distorted language about this war in which things are not so one sided, but all sorts of people are still eating up the “fact checks” and talking points crammed into every article. As an anarchist, if you ever find yourself loudly supporting US talking points about arming fascists “because there are worse countries”, please slap yourself in the face immediately.

I didn't say anything about suggestions for foreign policy lol. Anyway, there are fascists and nationalists on both sides. "As an anarchist" I'm not obligated to pick favorites. I was pointing out my concern with the level and extent of violence that, in this scenario, must of Russia's ruling class has chosen to enact.

You say there was a "war going on" before the Russian imperialist invasion (that you use "special military operation" tells us all we need to know about you). The fighting in eastern Ukraine was initiated and organized by pro-Russian officials and oligarchs. Polls did not show any desire on the part of the Russian-speakers for independence from Ukraine (although many wanted more local autonomy). In any case, the war would have been over years ago if the Russians had not sent in military forces and aid to the "separatists." In any case, whatever validity the local civil war had, has long been overwhelmed by the wholesale invasion of the Russians, their bombing of cities, massacring of the population, and annexing large parts of the country.

I agree, when there are enough lives on the line we must rally behind the strength and wisdom of the US war machine. I’m sure they had a really good reason for killing hundreds of thousands of people in Yemen during the same time frame too. Not happening to white people means not enough clout for Anarcho celebs to chase!!! Send more rockets to Ukraine and please don’t Google Stepan Bandera or how celebrated he is in modern Ukraine. Let’s just say Ukrainian nationalism began with Shevchenko and then fast forward to Zelenskyy.

"We demand that Russia withdraw from Ukraine. "

Who "we"? You mean NATO leaders?

I think you're alone here to be rallying with them, so this "we" is very dubious, Wayne.

Who is demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine? you ask.
Well, I was thinking of the Ukrainian anarchists, as well as anarchists of Bylorusia and of Russia itself.

I was also thinking of the Ukrainian working class and the rest of its population, pretty nearly unanimously.

What about the NATO leaders? you ask. They have their own reasons to want to push back Russian expansion. There are two sets of imperialists which are in conflict. NATO has been expanding eastward. Russia has been seeking to take back the various countries which used to be ruled by the Soviet Union. To hell with both of them! In this case, the Ukrainians have been able to get arms from the Western imperialists, and I do not condemn them for that (where else were they to get arms?). But they should not trust them.

And what would western anarchists gaining by aligning with the US war machine and Ukrainian nationalists, as you suggest? Do you even have a point here besides “Putin bad”?

Some anarchists are 100% in step with western governments, demanding unlimited public funds be spent on US intervention in Ukraine and calling anyone who disagrees a “Putin supporter”. Much better than 20 years ago when many anarchists were supporters of the evil Iraqi dictator who threatened global democracy. Critical solidarity with the military-industrial complex because democracy and stuff!!! Feels good doesn’t feel like we’re on the way to WWIII at all

Wow! Opponents of solidarity with the Ukrainian people remind us of US atrocities in Yemen, of the US military-industrial complex, of the US war machine, of the NATO leaders, and generally of the evils of Western imperialism.

All of this is perfectly true and important to raise. But none of which prevents condemnation of the Russian state's imperialist invasion of Ukraine, nor the justice of the Ukrainian people fighting back against the invasion, nor the participation of Ukrainian anarchists in that fight, nor the Ukrainians taking arms from whomever will supply them instead of letting themselves be destroyed.

These comments by those who won't support the Ukrainians are ignorant. They do not know (or pretend not to know) that we anarchists who solidarize with the Ukrainian people are also opponents of Western imperialism and Ukrainian capitalism. Just a few posts upward, you can see my previous remarks [15:54]: "There are two sets of imperialists which are in conflict. NATO has been expanding eastward. Russia has been seeking to take back the various countries which used to be ruled by the Soviet Union. To hell with both of them!"

These "campists" write as if there was only one imperialist camp, that of the US and its allies. But while this is the dominant imperialist camp, it is not the only imperialism nor the only repressive government. Anarchists of all people should oppose every imperialism and every oppression in the name of liberty, democracy, internationalism, and libertarian socialism.

Definitely anarchists should throw our full support behind the lovely *bourgeois* concepts and practices of liberty (Statue Of, plus all the philosophical conceits of the followers and inheritors of Locke and Mill), democracy (the institutionalized rule of whoever the dominant class decides constitutes a majority, which has always been formulated with far more exclusions than inclusions), fake internationalism (Price continually and consistently promotes some bizarre formula equating Ukrainian nationalism with a rejection of "the state" -- typical for a left Anti-Imperialism, which has always supported smaller states and states-in-formation against bigger states). We can leave aside the facile and false equation of libertarian socialism with anarchism ( for now).

Aren't *you* telling me what I should do? Namely that I shouldn't tell *you* what to do?
Of course I was not ordering you to do anything. I don't care what you do. I was advocating for a set of ideas and actions for the anarchist community, for what are the best directions for those who regard themselves as revolutionary anarchists. If you feel you have nothing to learn from anyone else, and no reason to be in dialogue with other anarchists, then go in peace my ignorant friend.

Those who believe they know what's best for anyone else, let alone resorting to terminology like "what's best for the community," is the root of authoritarianism.

No Wayne, we are very clear that you support US imperialism in Ukraine while you criticize it elsewhere. If you’re in the west then opposing Russia and supporting Ukraine puts you in step with our government. Pretty simple really and nothing to do with campism. I’m not a campist and I obviously don’t support Putin. But I live in the US so what concerns me politically is the tens of billions of dollars in weapons that the US has been pouring in to nearly a decade of bloody civil war in eastern Ukraine. Only liberals and clout chasers feel the need to grandstand about the evil russkis and label everyone who questions their governments’ agenda as a Putin supporter, tankie, campist etc. It also would be funny that you think there’s no difference between imperialisms, if it wasn’t so suited to the fact that while the Anglo-American-western European sphere wants its brutal colonial past and present to be hand waved away like that. You aren’t supporting (just) “the Ukrainian people” but the most heavily armed empire on earth.

To paraphrase another comment, if you agree more with joe Biden than with Noam Chomsky, you just might be a liberal.

Pane Wryce (ha-ha) writes that "you support US imperialism in Ukraine while you criticize it elsewhere." So even though you admit I oppose US imperialism elsewhere in the world, you accuse me of being "in step with our government." Meanwhile you deny being a "campist," but say that I am ludicrously wrong to believe that " there’s no difference between imperialisms." You imply that the US and its allies are worse imperialisms than is today's Russian state.

During the Cold War, it used to be charged that if you raised an opinion which coincided with the views of Russia or the CP, you were accused (for no other reason) of being pro-Communist. Support for Civil Rights, union organizing, disarmament...these were all held as "Communist" positions. Certainly it was considered pro-Russian to oppose the Korean War or the Vietnamese War. My alter ego, Pane, has turned this method inside out. If I oppose the Russian invasion and support the Ukrainians as they fight back, I must be pro-NATO! But I reject this method. I make up my own mind, regardless of which imperialist "side" is being taken by one set or another of my enemies.

Good old Pane denies being a "campist" or pro-Russian, and "I obviously don’t support Putin." This is even if you think that Russian imperialism is not as bad as US imperialism (there is a "difference between imperialisms"). But you do not condemn the Russian invasion. You do not support the resistance of the Ukrainian people. You do not recognize their right to get arms from whomever they can. You denounce anarchists who are in solidarity with the Ukrainian workers and oppressed as supporters of Western imperialism. The difference between your views and those of someone who supports Russian imperialism is not very clear.

You’re doing that exact thing again: if I don’t support you I support Putin. Ok dude. I just wanted to say that the difference between imperialisms is not moral, it is material, practical and strategic. The US is the richest most powerful country and the political/military keystone of global capitalism today. Russia is not. Also, I live in the US and I think you do too (a westerner anyway). Supporting “our” empire’s war effort to remain supreme global hegemon does not for even a second make you anti imperialist even when you can find instances where the US’s proxy look like the underdog (if you squint, and crop out the rest of the picture). The fact that American anarchists can equate Ukraine with Palestine is just showing how some are Americans first and anarchists second who know very little about the rest of the world, it’s history or the US role there.

Yes there are differences among imperialisms. The US empire is, as you say, currently the strongest, wealthiest, and most influential (even if on the decline). Does this mean that we should be indifferent to other, relatively weaker, imperialisms when *they* invade, threaten, exploit, or damage other non-imperial countries? I don't think so.

My doppelgänger, Pane Wyrce (ho-ho), misses the point altogether. The conflict is not just between Russia and the US (and its allies). It is also between Russia and Ukraine (a capitalist but not imperialist country). It was Ukraine which was invaded, not the NATO countries. It is the Ukrainian people who are fighting and dying, not US troops. The Ukrainians are not just puppets but a people with their own agency. For the moment their interests run in parallel with Western imperialism, but that does not make them the same. Just as during the Cold War, the interests of the Vietnamese ran in parallel with Stalinist Russia--but it was a gross error to regard the Vietnamese-US war as mainly a conflict between the US and the Soviet Union! It was entirely possible to be in solidarity with the Vietnamese people without supporting either the Soviet Union or the Stalinist-nationalist leadership of North Vietnam or the southern resistance.

The point I’m missing is… that the war is happening in Ukraine? I think I got it.

“Does this mean that we should be indifferent to other, relatively weaker, imperialisms when *they* invade, threaten, exploit, or damage other non-imperial countries?” Actually yeah, pretty much. The other thing you keep ignoring is that you and I are citizens of a particular empire and our location as such conditions the impact of our words and actions. Ukraine, like Israel, is a dependent state that performs mercenary functions for our government. Even if it wasn’t, and I don’t really want to waste any more time on your evidently intractable ignorance of regional history and politics, but if it wasn’t, you can bet the US wouldn’t be pouring weapons and cash in by the fuckton, and I would still say yeah, I don’t want “our” government getting into some conflict halfway around the world just for the sake of selling weapons and fucking with a rival, and I wouldn’t support its chosen Allies even through autonomous channels. There are no reasons good enough to support foreign military adventures by a power like the US, the claimed reasons are always acceptable to liberals and conservatives alike (who are as United for Ukraine today as they were against Iraq in the not too distant Past) but they are always lies and dirty work always winds up outsourced to some of the worst regimes imaginable. And again even if not? the domestic political consequences are extremely negative for us for several reasons- inflation, massive giveaways to the arms industry, consolidation of a reactionary mindset- of a piece with all the other ways that the current administration is doing almost all of the same policies as the last one just with marginally more tact. If there was a strong left/anarchist/resistance movement here there would be protests against the foreign war funding, instead all too many on “our side” can’t figure out which end of this thing is up. My advice is stop pontificating entirely about whether Ukraine or Russia is more fascist and focus on the fascists running your own country.

You should also support it in Ukraine. The fact that the US is an imperialist and has invaded many countries does NOT mean Putin is somehow not an imperialist for doing what Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush did. Imperialism is imperialism, whether of US origin, Belgian origin, French origin, German origin, Russian origin, or anyone else.

In fact, we have to wonder just how far Putin's ambitions extend given that he interfered in the 2016 US election to help Trump, halfway around the world from Russia. Hell, we can just about call Putin a MAGAt for that one. Policy wise he is similar to combining the domestic policy of Trump with the foreign policy of G. W. Bush.

Two empires are fighting in Ukraine, why are you supporting either, let alone the more powerful one?

Comparing Palestine and Ukraine is fucking insane, Ukraine obviously plays a much more Israel-like role for the “western democratic order”

You (Anon 01:38) write "Comparing Palestine and Ukraine is fucking insane, Ukraine obviously plays a much more Israel-like role ..." Please elaborate. Israel dominates and threatens the "Middle East" and directly oppresses the Palestinian Arab people, whose land it have stolen. Ukraine does not dominate, threaten, or oppress anyone. Instead it is dominated, threatened, and oppressed by the Russian state (and has been for centuries). Now it has been invaded, cities destroyed, people massacred, and parts of the country's land seized. How is Ukraine like Israel rather than the Palestinians?

(Of course neither Ukrainians nor the Palestinians are revolutionary internationalist anarchist-socialists. Nor is Israel for that matter.)

So, so many things wrong with everything you post Wayne, so obvious you have no idea what you’re talking about. First- finish the sentence- for the western order. Israel and Ukraine are both doing American dirty work with American money, weapons and soft power.
In the course of which, the UN and Amnesty international have both said Ukraine has been committing war crimes in the Donbas since 2014, since then Ukraine has also been suppressing the Russian language and the history of WWII while building monuments to Nazi collaborators. Is there some reason you think it’s okay to kill and oppress Russian people specifically? It’s also insane to be like “so what if they’re not anarchist socialists?” We are talking about literal fascists, this isn’t some hair splitting thing. It doesn’t even seem like you finished the thought. Yes, so…? What’s even your point? I oppose my government’s support for Israel, it’s also not because I support mainstream Palestinian politics, even though they’re also anti-Zionist; I’m not sending money to hamas (which some folk punk band literally was doing a while back trying to remember who).

You (Anon 17:26) write that "Israel and Ukraine are both doing American dirty work with American money, weapons and soft power." Israel is doing "American dirty work" by dominating its region, threatening Iran and other countries militarily, and oppressing the Palestinian Arabs, whose land they have stolen.

How is Ukraine "doing American dirty work"? The Ukrainian people are defending themselves from a Russian attack, invasion, massacre of its people, seizure of its land, destruction of its cities. The Ukrainians are fighting back, being forced to take arms from wherever they can get them. If the Russian state had not invaded, there would have been opening for Western imperialism. In any case, to go through the problems with the Ukrainians hardly justifies the Russian assault and occupation of this country. I am afraid you are doing Russia's dirty work.

Of course I meant "no opening"

Wayne

Goddamnit Wayne. Pooping FROM your butthole does not make you an organic farmer. Do you understand, comrade? Death to AmeriKKKan imperialism!

Different anon here.

Wayne, this is absurd: " I am afraid you are doing Russia's dirty work." And you cheapen yourself for making such ridiculous statements. Not only that it creates the same idiotic logic that could state that YOU are doing NATO's dirty work.

Be better than this. The fate of a free humanity depends upon it!

You can be as dramatic as you like Wayne, every comment you make shows you are either totally ignorant of the past 8 years of history in Ukraine, or willfully spreading propaganda for NATO-backed fascist war criminals. You may want to look into the past 80 years of European history too and NATO’s foundational and continuing mission of enlisting fascists to fight for the US empire.

If the US and Russia want to fight at sea or on totally unpopulated desert-and can CONFINE the fighting to there, than the "pox on both houses" makes sense.

Ukrainians however have chosen for themselves to resist Putin. I support them as I do anyone defending their homes from imperialisy foreign troops. NATO supports them because the European countries quite corrently figure they are either at the table with Ukraine or on the Menu in Putin's office. The US in turn is drawn in by its ties to Western Europe. None of that changes the validity of the choice of the people of Ukraine to resist.

Also, let mw put things THIS way: if I am in a gun battle with a dozen Proud Boys and ammo is running short, no way will I turn down a loaded magazine of the same caliber offered by a Stalinist. I might use the literature delivered with it for patches to clean the barrel but I will gladly take the ammo. So it is in Ukraine...

I would love it if you would spell out what that’s supposed to mean. Europe is expected to do the US’s bidding politically and to be a captive energy market increasingly cut off from Russia. Spoiler, just like the last war this one is about oil, no matter how many muddled analogies you throw at it (you’re not in Ukraine fighting proud boys you’re in the US supporting a foreign military intervention). It’s weird how you’re in the center of American power and you still think it’s being “drawn in” rather than carrying out its own agenda as the worlds only superpower is accustomed to do.

Thus the US will still answer to them under some conditions (e.g. WWI). As for Proud Boys, I have to fight them HERE, no trip to Ukraine or anywhere else needed. I was in all three of the battles against them in late 2020-2021 in DC: Nov 14, Dec 12, and yes, defending Black Lives Matter Plaza on J6 itself.

It would be soooo ironic if the Proud Boys took an isolationist stance and opposed US involvement in the war, thus actually being MORE aligned with anarchist values than Luke or Wayne, oh the horror!

Soooo ironic! Hooo boy wouldn't that make up for the racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, nationalist bootlicking, and worshiping of authority!? Derp durrrrrrr durrr.

WWI is your reference point for current events? That makes sense as it puts you exactly a century behind understanding the Ukraine war (1914-2014). I don’t care what you say you’ve done, that’s ad hominem too. Why don’t you stop posting your own name for a minute and actually learn something about it?

WWII was different, Axis attacked first. WWI was totally senseless,blew up over alliances created in the scramble for colonies. WWII came out of a lopsided end to WWI made possible by late-war US involvement.

Almost all the history of Europe since 1914 was set in motion by WWI. It caused the Russian and Bolsevik revolutions, these booted Russia out of the war. Then came the sailor's mutiny in Germany, which escalated all the way to revolution, followed by a politics in the new Weimar democracy of street thugs, militias, and street fighting (kind of like the US today). After WWI, absolute monarchy in Europe was mostly finished, and colonialism was weakened. The far right however was just biding their time.

At this time both "state communism" and open fascism began gaining power as rivals to market capitalism. This came to a head with first WWII and then the Cold War. Rigut-wing fash lost in WWII and were temporarily removed from power. Most of Europe's colonies finally escaped, only to run into market colonialism, which is rougly to military colonialism as market capitalism is to fascist capitalism.

If this long chain of events not happened it is doubtful there would be anything to fight about today between Russia and Ukraine. Putin would not be in power, there would be no Soviet history for him to invoke, etc etc etc. Remove WWI from European history and its entire course goes in a new and unknown direction.

All this didn't start w WWII, it started with WWI. Hell this is recent compared to the first civil war in the US, which was 1861-1865 and set up a lot of the conditions behind the current instability here. Speaking of WWI, the trench warfare in Donbass has been said to look a lot like it, and has gone on 8 years, meaning some of those trenches have been in use twice as long as those in France 1914-1918.

"So it is in Ukraine" is to indicate Ukraine has to take their ammo and arms from whoever will offer them,just like I would have to do here if I were in a gun battle with Proud Boys and ammo was running out. Different place, same drill. Just trying to put you in the shoes of those who are doing the fighting and have no time to argue about how many NATO or Warsaw Pact devils can dance on the head of a pin.

Are the feds giving you guns to fight proud boys??? I assume not- but to literal nazis in Eastern Europe, whose pogroms make your little Antifa dust ups look like nothing, they’ve given $50 billion. this isn’t a hypothetical. It’s not an abstract idealistic argument about moral justification or what you think you’d do in Ukraine or what you have done here. It isn’t about you period. Hard for Americans to grasp, I know…

The most powerful of those Nazis wear the "Z" and work for Putin. Some of them work in online troll farms whose output can be seen in internet forums.Others do things like mass deportations of Ukrainians to remote areas in Russia (possibly Siberia again).

Plus Russia has a fascist at the very top. The existance of the openly fascist Azov Battalion (those left after Maripul) is an indictment of the Azov battalion itself, not of all of Ukraine. If Azov and Russia want to fight in the desert or open sea, let them. Battles with automatic weapons and high explosives in residential areas are another thing entirely. So is Putin's attempt to invade, conquer, and annex Ukraine. Nobody EVER has the right to do that.

Plus the Vatican has a fascist at the very top. The existance of the openly fascist Roman founded religion (those left after Nero and Claudius) is an indictment of the Vatican security forces, itself, not of all of Rome. If the Catholic fascists and Russia want to fight in the desert or open sea, let them. Battles with automatic weapons and high explosives in residential areas are another thing entirely. So is Pope's attempt to invade, conquer, and convert Russia. No real anarchist EVER does that!

Why don’t you learn something about Ukraine from before 2/24/22 and that doesn’t come from mainstream media instead of running your fascist-sympathizing mouth like some liberal bot?

Who is being deported to Siberia?? Are you thinking of Dr. Zhivago or something? First- USians are so steeped in Cold War cliches that you can just accuse Russia of anything, no critical thought necessary, even in wartime.

generic allegations that Russians are “nazis” while so many Ukrainian troops are literal nazis seems like you have really lost the plot. So why are “our nazis” better than “their nazis,” exactly? You also seem to overlook that the side being armed and funded by the richest countries on earth is also pretty powerful...

I notice how you and Wayne, like most liberals on the internet, can’t really address any of this stuff without taking paranoid ad hominem swipes at anyone disagreeing with you- we must be kremlin paid trolls, tankies, maga, or some other frightful creature to be safely ignored.

What is even the endgame to you?- bandwagoning to expose liberals to anarchism, Hope Bloc style? I’m realizing that iterative generations of post-liberal anarchists recruiting one another is a pretty good explanation for some of the most annoying and trifling people in this movement/milieu….

As many Russians have fled the country to avoid Putin's press gangs (draft) as he has been able to mobilize. Russians who oppose the war derail arms trains, burn down recruiting centers, and have even shot the commander of a recruiting office.

Putin is very much a fascist, and as many hard fash have gone to Russia and joined mercenaries fighting for Putin as went to Ukraine to join Azov. Both countries have problems with hard fash, but only the attacker has a hard fash on top. Zelinsky is a typical European head of state (well, maybe with a backbone transplant) while Putin walks in the footsteps of Hitler with invasions of multiple countries BEFORE the current attack on Ukraine.

Tell me more about these "hard fash". Don't leave out ANY of sweaty details. I'm nearly,,,,,, there.

Luke seems to be using “fascist” to mean “someone I disagree with who uses violence”, like when conservatives say “antifa are the real fascists”. So, no meaningful understanding of fascism applies. I guess he’s stuck in the western media bubble where you only hear good things about the US’s chosen Allies like Ukraine, who we’ve been paying to war crime the Donbass for almost a decade. I wonder if Luke supported the Iraq war, after all they told us that Saddam was a fascist dictator who endangered democracy everywhere and he already attacked Iran and Kuwait! The thing is that before US/NATO involvement, Iraq was a relatively modern country where people had electricity and running water and such and now it’s a mad max ethnoreligious civil war hell scape - see also Afghanistan, Libya, coming soon Ukraine… This war isn’t something that “just happened” and the US “just happens” to be on the “right side”. these wars don’t all turn out bad “by accident”

And opposed Bush's invasion of Iraq for the same reason I oppose Putin's invasion of Ukraine today. Had the US brought back the draft, many tactics now used in Russia would surely have been used here, as they had been during Vietnam.

It is hard for you folks to stay on topic. The first and main issue is the Russian state's imperialist invasion of Ukraine, and the Ukrainians fighting back. That there are fascists among the Ukrainians is less important than that there are fascists among the Russians, which is an authoritarian one-man autocracy. Neither is the fact that the Ukrainians have taken arms from the Western imperialists. If we accept that they are correct to fight back, then we should support their right to get arms from wherever they can. Nor is it central that Western imperialists have their own aims which are not democracy and the rights of smaller nations. This should be pointed out but it does not change the key issue: Russian invasion and Ukrainian people's resisstence. Anarchists should be on the side of the oppressed, always.

The laughable self-parodies continue. Endlessly repeating your assertions based on a priori assumptions doesn't make them more true or factual. Endlessly playing "but look over here" while pointedly ignoring every example of contextual and historical counter-evidence is the game of demagogues and politicians. You have shown a consistent lack of capacity for anything approaching a good faith argument, preferring to presume the motivations of everyone who dares to disagree with your outlier anarchism. As usual, you're on the wrong side of history, Wayne. It's long past time for you to stfu.

You (Anon 15:25) refer to my "outlier anarchism." Meaning most anarchists don't agree with me, which supposedly makes me wrong. It is true that most anarchists who write comments on this site don't agree with me. It is also true that most anarchists in Ukraine do agree with me. So do most anarchists in Belorusia and even in Russia--according to the reports which appear at this site! Other anarchists agree with me about solidarity with the people of Ukraine. In the US this includes Crimethinc and the Utopian Tendency, among others. And I have demonstrated repeatedly that the classical anarchists have supported wars of national self-determination, from Bakunin and Kropotkin to Malatesta to the French anarchists who defended the Algerian rebels, etc. So I am not such an "outlier" as you appear to think.

You charge me with "presum[ing] the motivations of everyone who dares to disagree" with me. And so you tolerantly (ha-ha) tell me to "stfu." Others curse me and make childish obscene potty insults. While my comments may have occasionally been (too) sharp for polite debate, I don't think I have been generally intolerant or insulting towards those anarchists who disagree with me--certainly not to the extent that others have been toward me! These are serious discussions, involving terribly important issues, and not worth drowning in stupid insults.

Hi Wayne. Your mom likes obscene potty insults. She's with me right now and wanted me to tell you to spend less time with anarchists that disagree with you and make you feel like an "outlier." Perhaps a trip to Ukraine or Belarus or the Utopeon Tendency website where you can touch butts and affirm each others State and War loving ideas together.

try again

"If we accept that they are correct to fight back, then we should support their right to get arms from wherever they can."

Such a perfect example of authoritarian thinking and fascist apologia if there ever was one.

Translation: X is terrible and bad but if Y needs to Z then X is okay! This is how fake anarchists justify working with cops, nazis, authoritarians, voting, manarchism, eating animals, war, work, factories...... anything for the Cause. I bet Wayne still believes the Communist lie of "withering away the State". Fuck outta here.

Wayne you're an unprincipled, spineless, piece of shit.

First we gotta make sure the Ukrainian fash win over the Russian fash... theeen later on... eventually... we'll have a liberal democracy. Once all the attack drones and brainwashed ultramacho militias are taken out of service. Then the State will implode itself and give away its monopoly to Worker control... then, only then we will be able to have anarchism.

Hmm, very annoying, the clichéd constructed syndicalist-esque form of "anarchism". The binary-war perspective is so much a result of a manipulation and control of collective physiologically reflexives directed into a cultural ideological domain with very little critical analysis of ethnic and political values of either side. Typical authoritarian techniques Honed over the centuries. What more can I say Wayne, except that the intellectual peasantry thrive on this social opiate!

Oh yeah I rushed this before checking, ---collective physiologically reflexives---should be ---collective physiological reflexes---.You know Wayne, using people's fears.
--intellectual peasantry--- poetic language to describe a sheepish poverty of logic, cos you gotta be dumb sheeple to believe in State capitalist warfare.

Maybe I am an "intellectual peasant....dumb sheeple...believ[ing] in State capitalist warfare." Imagine! To think that when a country is invaded by the army of a foreign imperialist, which blows up your homes, kills your people, and seizes your land, that the working people of that country would want to fight back to drive out the invaders! Clearly they are "sheeple." Actually I think they are heroic and active agents of their own lives. But perhaps that is my "physiological reflex" to admire people who fight for their freedom.

Admiration is not physiological, it is a psychological evaluation, and its best kept in your own backyard and not promoted and applied blindly into a universal methodology. Read some books about Hiroshima and Dresden and the bombing of civilians and remember that victors write history!

There Wayne "War Machine" Price goes again in bad faith replies. In ALL of your little tirades nobody was every talking against a people defending themselves. They were always talking against your boot licking the State you've aligned yourself to as a way to justify The People[TM] working with other States that you approve of, you transparent, unprincipled, spineless, Marxoid piece of shit.

You (Anon 18:58) declare that i am in "bad faith" because no anarchists (on this list at least) "was ever talking against a people defending themselves." This is followed by an Anon who regards Ukrainians versus Russian invaders as "fash vs. fash," meaning that they at least do not support the Ukrainians against the invaders.

Also you seem to have missed the many posters on this list who deny that the Ukrainians are "a people" (or a "nation" or "country") and therefore justified in defending themselves.

For a people to defend themselves (which you insist you are for) they need weapons. Where would the Ukrainian workers and anarchists get these weapons? Some they might capture from the enemy and some they might make in hidden factories. But to have the big success Ukrainians have had in driving back the invaders, they have needed masses of arms from the imperialist West, which have been passed on by the Ukrainian state to front line fighters. Sorry, but that's the way it is. This does not mean that anarchists should trust NATO or trust the Ukrainian state or ruling class. These are our enemies. But take guns? Hell yes, Coordinate actions for a time? Sure. Take advantage of being part of the people's war to spread anarchist ideas? Absolutely.

But to stand outside the battle and declare that you won't participate so long as NATO or the state are also involved? That is being "against the people defending themselves," in reality, whatever your good intentions.

Too bad we don't agree. But to end your comments with personal, childish, potty-mouthed, mindless, insults which are unrelated to the discussion, does not prove your poin--nor does it make *me* look bad.

I just came here to say how The Wayne Vs LeWay troll fight is the best match up in decades on this site. Let these two wrongheaded trolls destroy each other, like Ukrainian Vs Russian fash.

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