Left - Blog Posts
In light of recent events I am posting this here
I NEED TO EXUDE AS MUCH ELDRITCH TERROR AS POSSIBLE
i want eyeballs tattooed on my palms :)
glory or wisdom? love or power? violin or piano? fire or water? air or earth? forest or river? black or white? left or right? heads or tails? theatre or cinema? give or take? dawn or dusk? gold or silver? art or music? morning or night? venus or mercury?
ʎɹɔ oʇ ʇɟǝl sɹɐǝʇ ou 4.20
22/100 days of productivity: Today was so stressful: I had 2 kholles. A kholle is a specific oral exam in french school system particularly in preparatory class. A kind of equivalent seems to be tutorial. I'm not totally sure about it though. Anyway, I was so exhausted after it that I came for a walk and come back an hour later for my last class of the day where I was not productive at all. Back home, I had an assignment which involved watching videos about fluid studies. That was funny. PS: I am totally left handed. I mean, I can't use my right hand like other left handed do. I always use my left hand to use a mouse which seems to be usual for a lot of people.
A short reminder that Russia is imperialist, has been imperialist for a long time, and there’s no way around that fact.
Sections of the Western left have developed a narrative according to which Russia has been gradually surrounded by NATO and that supposedly “provoked” Putin. It’s increasingly difficult to sustain the notion that Russia is simply “defending itself” after 24 February 2022, but the thing is - the invasion did not come out of the blue. One needs a different narrative to understand what Russia actually is: an aggressive imperialist power alongside other imperialisms.
So, a different narrative:
- 1994: Russia, with US support, acquires Ukrainian nuclear arsenal in exchange for the assurances to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity
- 1997: Russia acquires the Sevastopol naval base and almost all of the ships (82%, to be exact)… in exchange for the assurances to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity!
- 2004: Russia meddles in Ukrainian presidential elections, fighting hard to force an undemocratic fraudulent outcome, but fails
- Mid-to-late 2000s: As punishment for Ukraine electing Yushchenko, Russia uses energy blackmail, a form of economic coercion not very different from the IMF and World Bank lending and conditionality
- 2008: NATO refuses to adopt a roadmap towards Ukraine’s membership and in effect postpones the decision indefinitely. Ukraine’s security is in no way guaranteed, while Russia has already demonstrated the propensity to use coercion to force Ukraine to do its bidding
- 2009: Dmitry Medvedev, then president, writes to Yushchenko that “Russia does not pose and cannot pose any kind of threat to Ukraine”, so seeking NATO membership is stupid. Yea, sure
- 2014: Russia, which “does not pose and cannot pose a threat to Ukraine”… annexes Crimea. Really, Dima?? I thought you were for real??
Of course, by annexing Crimea Russia not only makes all the previous statements that it “can never pose a threat to Ukraine” a ridiculous lie, but also breaks the 1994 memorandum and 1997 treaty. “We are the Kremlin. Our word is worth nothing”
- Crimea’s annexation provokes armed separatism in Donbas that Russia supports and coordinates, including direct military command and control, and then completely subordinates Donbas “authorities”, in effect occupying the region
- Ukraine’s still not in NATO, its security is still in no way guaranteed, and the supplies of US weapons only begin in 2018. They are kept to a minimum… out of fear of provoking Russia!
- Nevertheless, on 24 February 2022 Russia launches a full-scale invasion to establish 100% control over all of Ukraine in one way or another. There is literally no military development on the ground that could have provoked the invasion. On Russia’s part, it’s a war of choice in exactly the same way the invasion of Iraq was a war of choice for the US in 2003.
Now, this is only the general outline. One should add Russia’s drowning of Ukraine with spies and agents of influence, money to corrupt Ukrainian politicians and massive acquisition of Ukrainian assets to impose economic and political dependency.
These are well-known facts, but so many on the left refuse to see the story behind them. It’s a story of decades of imperialist aggression, culminating in a war that cost 150,000 lives in 2022 alone. Any discussion of left-wing internationalism should begin with recognizing the reality of what Russia is and what it did.
Okay so i recently started doing dissections in my biology class and if you’ve ever done a dissection you know that you have to flip the left and right because you are facing the specimen, which leads me to a head canon:
Scully constantly gets her left and right confused. Not when shes autopsying, thats the only time she actually knows it, but shes terrible at giving and taking directions. She’ll look at a map and tell Mulder to turn right only to realize three miles later that they were supposed to go left. Mulder will tell her the paper she’s looking for is in the pile on her left and she only looks in the right stack 1 in 3 times
