Thanks for the response Mark. Here are my responses to some of the things you bring up.
*** Mark: “We did go back once already, didn't we? Trump refused to answer Merkel's question whether the US would defend Europe from attack and, a few years later, Biden's US led the NATO coalition to support Ukraine. Why couldn't there be many years of back and forth?” Me: Maybe, but this feels different. Trump-Merkel was attention-seeking on Trump’s part, as I remember it. This is two well-timed interventions by senior administration figures at very important meetings. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s just fireworks, but I don’t think so. And I don’t think European governments think so either. I think they’re panicking. Mark: “As historic forces push to integrate European nation states, we have seen countervailing forces leading to their dissolution into regions such as Catalan and smaller nation-states such as Scotland. Would a Wallonia and a Flanders in the EU make more sense than a Belgium? How do you see this playing out? Does such processes help or retard European integration?” Me: There’s been a constant dialectic: as state-level integration is pushed forward, more space opens up for small nations (“sub-nations”). “Independence within Europe” has been how small nationalisms have spun it in previous periods. It neither helps nor retards integration; it accompanies it, and to an extent complicates it. Mark: “It's hard to discern what the US presidential administration is doing. So much reality television, government-slashing theater, and a new colonial bluster by someone too ignorant to understand that we export capital to countries rather than occupy them with armies these days. When we do invade and occupy lands it's in part to transfer public funds to the US war industry or to achieve some other global goal for key special interests like fossil capital. Trump's beliefs are up for sale and changeable: He is always ready to redo or cancel a performance.” Me: Maybe, but this seems strategic, on the part of the whole administration, not just a Trump tantrum. As I say, I may be wrong, but it feels serious. Mark: “I think we find similar campist views among Trotskyists and post-Trotskyists.”. Me: I agree. They have a lot of purchase. Mark: "I thought BSW recently underperformed ..." Me: I thought 5% was quite a lot, given it's her first time out. AfD + BSW means 1 in 4 Germans on an 80+% turnout voting for deportations. That's worrying. Mark: “Defend Ukrainian workers in words while we agitate in the US and Europe to deny them defensive weapons against an invader. What is to be gained by such a policy? Why not international working class solidarity instead?” And: “I expect that Polish, Baltic, and other working people will reasonably ask how they are to defend themselves from invaders. It might be good to lead what is to be supported before what is to be opposed.” Me: There’s no easy answer. “Defend the right of self-determination in Ukraine” is a propaganda demand. So is “international working class solidarity”. They’re unobjectionable, but they don’t achieve anything. The real policy is the socialist revolution, but we’re nowhere near that. The problem is that if the condition to Ukrainian resistance to Russian intervention is dependence on NATO weaponry, then you’re at the mercy of what NATO or the dominant powers within it want, and look what just happened. Zelenskyy’s in Washington now as I write this, signing away goodness knows what. I’m not prepared to allow my government to use my money to make weapons to send to Ukraine so it (my government) can further its (my government’s) interests in my name and that of the self-determination of nations. No, and that’s what we have to say to the Ukrainians. It won’t get you anywhere. Say you’re Finland, or Lithuania, or Poland. You quite rightly fear getting gobbled up by Russia, and the US comes along and says, ok, don’t worry, we’ll give you all these weapons and we’ll protect you. So you don’t have a problem, until you do, until the US says, sorry, it’s not on our agenda to help you anymore, you’re on your own. Good luck. Which is what just happened to Ukraine. And then the Europeans come along and say, don’t worry, we’ll do it. And you don’t have a problem again, until you do. It’s not a solution: I can see why it’s attractive if you live in Finland, or Lithuania, or Poland, or wherever, but it’s the solution. Look what happened to Ukraine. That’s why I said: “A peace that is bought with imperialist power will never anywhere turn out to be a just or lasting peace and it is the duty of socialists everywhere to disabuse the notion of the possibility of peace and justice emanating from the barrels of the imperialists' guns.” That’s the truth. It’s a hard truth, but that’s what there is. If there were an easier answer than socialist revolution, then that’d be great, but there isn’t, and pretending there is helps nobody. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#35547): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/35547 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/111412499/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
