The picture that seems to be emerging is that both Trotsky and Lenin were supported by both allied powers (US/UK) and Germans-- whom they were of course fighting in WWI at the time, for the purposes of bringing down the Russian government and prolonging the war.
No it obviously doesn't make the "entire USSR" a "puppet" of the US. That is too simplistic and I think you get too caught up in this "puppet" idea in general-- when you should know that capital has no allegiance to national boundaries.

Again, the Trotsky thing is well known. Repeating that over and over makes you sound silly. Of course Trotsky was supported by the West. He was an ENEMY of the USSR and the revolution. If anything, it undermines your argument.

As for Lenin I haven't seen you produce or offer any evidence. In his interview all Sutton says is more or less that Lenin traveled through Germany. Which isn't a secret and it means nothing.

Is it your claim that Trotsky was the only faux-revolutionary? Were there not a number or others that Stalin put on trial? I most certainly admit that your knowledge here exceeds mine. It's your interpretations though that I question.
And we'll get to Lenin.

But yeah obviously there was a split that occurred with Stalin. I don't see how the fact that that happened weakens anything I'm saying. You act as if I'm saying the entire USSR was fake and that there weren't people who legitimately believed in the revolution for non-cynical purposes. And I'm not saying that all. I already said that that according to one of my sources, that Stalin wasn't told what to do by anyone, and that things changed with Krushchev. You seem to readily admit that.
It mostly seems like we agree on everything. Except on Lenin, who we'll drag through the mud shortly.

Sutton suggests that Lenin was mostly just used by the Germans for their own purposes and can't be termed a German agent, and that while Lenin knew of the German assistance, that he did not know much about it. So perhaps Lenin is off the hook. What did Stalin say about him?

hard to believe people favored russia more during the cold war. or maybe they don't consider russia a country back then? like it was ussr? idk

https://www.mintpressnews.com/propag...ic-low/275771/

If you click through to the underlying article the poll only goes back to 1979, so not much of the Cold War is included.

Nothing particularly surprising about it IMO.

Senator who received the most money from big pharma in 2020 was ... Bernie Sanders?

Huh.



Interesting.

makes sense given his forefront position wrt M4A

apparently, according to Peter Grose in Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles, Lenin reached out to American intelligence in 1917, but he was rebuffed

meanwhile, in contemporary politics

Republicans are responding to their losses at the voting booth by OPENLY making it harder to vote - no early voting on Sundays, voting only during working hours on weekdays, tighter restrictions on voting locations, etc.

Have you had a chance to look at the pdf I posted yesterday?

I opened it, saw that it was hundreds of pages, and closed it.

I'm happy to discuss any excerpt(s) that interests you.

Found this in the old thread.

I continue to feel this way.

The conclusion I'm drawing is that Lenin could be termed something like "useful idiot", who was unaware just how much the interests of the Bolsheviks aligned with Western powers, and that the Bolsheviks as a whole were massively supported with funds from both Germany and US/UK. And that it is therefore not hyperbole to call the Russian revolution a western backed coup. Which is all certainly very interesting and goes to the degree of influence that powerful interests have in geopolitical affairs.

I get that you want this to be true, but it's not.

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/findingcleo...cleo-1.4557887

i realize this isn't everyone's cup of tea, and there are a bazillion podcasts to listen to. but i've been kind of obsessed with this one.

it's by a cree woman, and it focuses on the story of one missing indigenous girl. but it involves "the 60s scoop" where canadian govt took hella indigenous kids from their families and gave them to white people.


it's cool to hear indigenous voices tell indigenous stories

a cree artist made this painting about the 60s scoop

they said the last canadian boarding school shut down in 1998!!! omfg!

usa shut the last one down in the 70s

if you don't know, indigenous kids were taken from their families and forced to go to these boarding schools where they tried to erase their culture. that was the whole point of the schools. they weren't allowed to speak their languages, they had to have christian names. they had to cut their hair and wear colonizer clothes

physical and sexual abuse was rampant. no one cared about the welfare of the kids or their families.

totalitarianism, ethno-elitism, genocide - the dark side of Reason*

the purported justification of abject cruelty on the grounds of paternalistic, self-righteous, ideological megalomania



* Reason (capital R) - the myth that supposed itself to end mythology

I feel ready finally to start delving into the thought of Jurgen Habermas.


Anyone itt care to share their personal takes on his work that I should bear in mind as I go?

I'm not super familiar with him, but from his wiki:

In the aftermath of the 11 September attacks, Derrida and Habermas laid out their individual opinions on 9/11 and the War on Terror in Giovanna Borradori's Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida. In early 2003, both Habermas and Derrida were very active in opposing the coming Iraq War; in a manifesto that later became the book Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe, the two called for a tighter unification of the states of the European Union in order to create a power capable of opposing American foreign policy.

Calling for a "tighter Europe" that can oppose US foreign policy misses the mark pretty badly imo and shows a lack of understanding of geopolitics.

Can you please draw out that link between his normative recommendation and your ascribed positive error?

He's calling for a stronger Europe that can act as an counter-balance to the US geopolitically, as if Europe doesn't just mostly just go along with the US already or if European leaders aren't the exact same corporatist warmongers that their American counterparts are.
And I think a fairly large disservice is done when the USA is singled out as Great Satan or when the US isn't treated exactly like what it is-- which is the power enforcement arm of an international business class that very much includes Europe.
So I fail to see how a "tighter Europe" would even begin to challenge the US geopolitically, as I do not believe this to be the aim of European leaders. And that's what needs to be addressed first.

reconsider the causal link, here

would you accept "competing corporatist warmongers", at least?