|
Gudrun Schyman is also definitely not the "established left"
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2023 11:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 20:08 |
|
|
To a lot of people she is the defining leader of the Left Party in Sweden. She is one hundred percent part of the left-wing establishment in the general populace’s mind
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2023 12:32
|
|
|
Thelonius Van Funk posted:Gudrun Schyman is also definitely not the "established left" I didn't want to say "The Swedish left" so I went with that because Vänsterpartiet itself has also been fumbling the exact same ball. It felt appropriate anyway.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2023 12:41
|
|
|
the "work towards a ceasefire" tendency is not necessarily pacifistic, it can also stem from thinking that this particular war is not worth fighting to the extent it would have to be fought in order to achieve the desired outcome. the ceasefire position has as its strongest side that is knows roughly where it wants to go, i.e. towards a new security organisation in europe and an end to the present conflict. it has no obvious way of getting there (who benefits from a ceasefire? would any party believe the others agreed to one in good faith? can we even get them to the table?), but it's got a more-or-less identifiable goal which is intrinsically attractive; war is atrociously bloody, expensive and ugly and we would presumably all prefer for it to not be ongoing. with danger of relitigating some very ugly arguments itt, the case for continued war effort in ukraine is also beset by a bunch of questions - notably, just how far are we willing to go to prevent an end of the war on russian terms? at the end of the day, open war against russia may be necessary to prevent this, and that would be unacceptable - and then we're back to discussing how we think the war will develop as time goes by, how much we're actually willing to sacrifice for ukrainian sovereignty over the donbas and crimea, how much of our own strength we're willing to expend in the face of a rising china and other possible geopolitical events, etc. many of these are questions which are generally glossed over in favour of insisting that the present course of action is working, and that ukraine will "win" (rarely defined independently, so presumably it means what the ukrainians say that it means, i.e. the full restoration of the 2013 borders by military force) given a continuation of our relatively moderate commitment, and that russia will accept this without doing anything overly reckless like deploying weapons of mass destruction. i do not personally think that this is realistic in the immediate future. so the pro-war-effort side has a direction and an obvious goal, but no clear answer to what happens should anything go seriously wrong with its plan - what is the fail-state for the ceasefire tendency is the standard operating procedure of the war-effort side. it also has the issue of its best-case scenario involving the deaths of a six-digit number of additional people. the point being, neither side is so much ideologically inconsistent as it is more complicated than straightforward pacifism vs jingoism. a lot of the people arguing for a peace process in the present war would not be the ones arguing for it in other cases. they would probaby *support* some kind of peace process, but they would not be at the forefront of arguing for a peace process in e.g. west sahara independent of the substance of such a process. this is because they generally see the present war in terms of their own societies, meaning that factors like the risk of escalation and permanent strengthening of US military hegemony are important factors in them wanting this war in particular to not be a going concern. they do not see the overall cost of the war ending not entirely on ukrainian terms as necessarily prohibitive compared to other factors. open war is the death of principle even if one can score an outright military victory, and it's very difficult to think clearly about it once one is caught up in it. it is always better to try to avoid one breaking out. almost no contemporary western ideology other than neoconservativism is really prepared to substantively address these issues, and the answers given by neoconservativism are deeply unpleasant. e; this is why the argument over whether russia is a fascist state has such valence - implicitly, if russia is fascist it means that there is a necessary moral and geopolitical obligation to stop them here and now, because they will keep doing military aggression unchecked if they are not defeated immediately. it allows liberal and left-leaning types to rationalise costs which would otherwise be unacceptable in the name of the war effort. V. Illych L. fucked around with this message at 12:56 on Jan 14, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2023 12:51
|
|
|
Frankly, the question if Russia is fascist is utterly irrelevant. They have started a war of aggression, and have repeatedly both made statements advocating and committed acts tantamount to the crime of genocide. Ukraine has asked for the means to defend themselves. It should be freely given until Russia gives up and withdraws.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2023 13:07
|
|
|
Lenin posted:they generally see the present war in terms of their own societies I will hand-pick this, out of context, to touch on something that your post seemed to ignore. Obviously we do not live in the 1950's anymore, but the Finnish rationale for a lot of our UN votes back then and a little further out from that were based on the dual rationale of "don't upset the two global superpowers [but more importantly the CCCP] and try to maintain the logic that smaller independent states should have a right to self-determination and existence without outside tampering or outright violence". I've yelled at people over at the Finnpol thread about this too, it just happens to be a happy coincidence that we can frame helping the Ukrainian war effort as a moral cause, but that is sort of beside the major foreign policy point for a small, as-of-yet non-aligned nation such as Finland, that we would like smaller or larger (in the case of Ukraine) nation states bordering Russia to remain independent and free of political meddling by the bargain-bin Goebbelses they have running the show over at Putin's Russia. It doesn't necessarily have to deal with Russia's political system per se either, just that we can observe their actions over the past 20 years, with all the assassinations and such, and the open warfare happening now and before, and declare "none of that for us please", and that seems like a sufficient rationale, for me. Obviously the calculus is different for Norway, who are under Uncle Sam's protection racket already, and have a miniscule land border with Russia to begin with (and as per the Swedish defense doctrine, a two-week Finnish padding on the way of a bigger land border). Obviously the "end state" of the war is unknowable, and it doesn't seem readily apparent that Putin will be defenestrated if the war just goes on long enough. And, again, from bordering Russia, it doesn't seem like an appetizing idea of the Russian Federation just disintegrating into small nation-states waging tribalistic war against each other and outsiders, potentially with weapons of mass destruction, either. Which probably is the desired end state by NATO. But Putin's Russia didn't really leave "Western nations" with any good options, here, either. We're at a discontinuity in Fukuyama's end of history, again, and have to make do with what our idiot leaders can think up now that they've been awakened from their slumber of awaiting good posts at the Commission.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2023 13:13
|
|
|
If, on the other hand, you think of war as the failed state of diplomacy, then a ceasefire can also mean a chance to resume diplomacy.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2023 14:42
|
|
|
BlankSystemDaemon posted:If, on the other hand, you think of war as the failed state of diplomacy, then a ceasefire can also mean a chance to resume diplomacy. If the Ukrainian government wants a ceasefire, they can seek one. In the mean time, we should ensure they have the means to defend themselves against a frankly genocidal war of aggression. Failure to support the people of Ukraine is in my view simply passively acquiescing to genocide.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2023 15:01
|
|
|
Rust Martialis posted:If the Ukrainian government wants a ceasefire, they can seek one. In the mean time, we should ensure they have the means to defend themselves against a frankly genocidal war of aggression. In lighter terms, perhaps, a ceasefire in this situation would still be an unfortunate signal from the (selfish) point of view of small states near or bordering Russia, since it would implicitly endorse land-grabs (and murder, rape, genocide, all sorts of really bad things that no one should want!) by Russia, and it is in the interest of small states to discourage these kinds of developments. That bigger states are willing, more or less willingly  , to help out, well, helps, but all the same, it does not behoove small states' foreign policy in general to push towards a cease-fire on what would at this stage be Putin's terms.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2023 15:10
|
|
|
Rust Martialis posted:If the Ukrainian government wants a ceasefire, they can seek one. In the mean time, we should ensure they have the means to defend themselves against a frankly genocidal war of aggression.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2023 15:18
|
|
|
Rust Martialis posted:Frankly, the question if Russia is fascist is utterly irrelevant. They have started a war of aggression, and have repeatedly both made statements advocating and committed acts tantamount to the crime of genocide. it is irrelevant *to you* it is clearly not irrelevant to the people making the argument e. also, it's difficult to the point of impossibility to form a viable political line on this basis - we should be agitating openly and vocally for arms to the PLO at the very least, and to states also subject to US-led aggression whenever that comes. this is clearly a non-starter, and so the line cannot be upheld in a principled way. V. Illych L. fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Jan 14, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2023 18:04
|
|
|
V. Illych L. posted:it is irrelevant *to you* I am not answerable for other people's stupid arguments. quote:e. also, it's difficult to the point of impossibility to form a viable political line on this basis - we should be agitating openly and vocally for arms to the PLO at the very least, and to states also subject to US-led aggression whenever that comes. this is clearly a non-starter, and so the line cannot be upheld in a principled way. Utter nonsense. We ('the West') should indeed provide the support the Palestinians have asked for. They have asked for political recognition and support, and we should indeed do so, but the active military support Ukraine is asking for is not what the PA is asking for. We should also oppose US (or Russian or Chinese or other nation) aggression globally. Not being American my ability to oppose American actions is somewhat limited, but I have donated, protested and voted in line with my beliefs. And I am frankly disgusted by the way some people play politics with genocide. I've cut off contact with a couple people who went from pro-Palestinian 25 years ago to being outright Israeli apologists over the intervening years. Rust Martialis fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Jan 15, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 01:17
|
|
|
Always a good time when the galaxy brain posters mistake this for one of the dozens of Ukraine threads
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 02:11
|
|
|
Sadly right now the usual reporting of "racist did a racism" coincides with Ulf doing something stupid with regards to NATO. And hence,  Sweden should have finished their dr. Strangelove project, then they could at least somewhat justify their projected arrogance!
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 08:31
|
|
|
Rappaport posted:Sweden should have finished their dr. Strangelove project, then they could at least somewhat justify their projected arrogance! https://www.statista.com/chart/15942/our-people-are-not-perfect-but-our-culture-is-superior-to-others/
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 09:16
|
|
|
Politeness is part of the parcel, surely.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 10:33
|
|
|
Libertarian/liberal friend of mine who is active with Amnesty International arguing that this is the perfect time to invade Russia at a party last night.  I find it a bit strange that some people get invested the way they do. Like, all of these imperialist countries have been invading other countries and blowing away civilians for our entire lifetime and people will genuinely claim that this is a a war between democracy and tyranny. At least pacifism is a bit of a consistent stance.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 12:24
|
|
|
Capital yearns for the blood of the Poors. Nationality is irrelevant.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 12:28
|
|
|
thotsky posted:Libertarian/liberal friend of mine who is active with Amnesty International arguing that this is the perfect time to invade Russia at a party last night. Well, nuclear holocaust could conceivably buy some time for the climate, so who's to say if your friend is an omnicidal moron or not.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 15:12
|
|
|
SplitSoul posted:Well, nuclear holocaust could conceivably buy some time for the climate, so who's to say if your friend is an omnicidal moron or not.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 15:18
|
|
|
Rust Martialis posted:I am not answerable for other people's stupid arguments. so what's your position on a NATO no-fly zone over eastern ukraine? Beeswax posted:Always a good time when the galaxy brain posters mistake this for one of the dozens of Ukraine threads this is, unfortunately, a major live issue in scandinavian national politics and intimately connected to the major realignment of at least two major scandinavian political parties (the swedish social democrats going pro-NATO and the norwegian Socialist Left ditching their anti-NATO stance). it is very difficult to imagine how the issue is not pertinent to the thread. i'm personally happy to let it drop - i'm in a strong minority on a very emotional issue, which is never a good time on the internet - but when people characterise the positions held by scandinavian political talkers and thinkers (gudrun schyman and V in this case) about what scandinavian parties and countries should do, it's very difficult for me to see how a response is out of the bounds of this thread V. Illych L. fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Jan 15, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 16:43
|
|
|
Edit: nm
Beeswax fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Jan 15, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 16:46
|
|
|
Beeswax posted:Why would you ask that question ITT see my edit. this is very much a live and very important issue to a lot of the scandinavian left, and the outbreak of war has directly precipitated substantial shifts in long-held and very important positions in important scandinavian political parties.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 16:49
|
|
|
Beeswax posted:Always a good time when the galaxy brain posters mistake this for one of the dozens of Ukraine threads It’s well within the purpose of this thread to discuss the war’s effects on Scandinavia specifically, and it’s a bit difficult to do that without covering the requisite context, i.e., talking about the war in the broader sense as well.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 16:56
|
|
|
V. Illych L. posted:see my edit. this is very much a live and very important issue to a lot of the scandinavian left, and the outbreak of war has directly precipitated substantial shifts in long-held and very important positions in important scandinavian political parties. Yeah I went ahead and edited out my gripe after your edit. All good
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 17:03
|
|
|
I always wondered what the internal politics of Finland looked like at the idea of joining NATO on their own. Are there any debates about that?
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 17:22
|
|
|
so, in the interest of being in good faith instead of just having a snarky one-liner, the reason why the position on a no-fly zone is pertinent is because a part of my stated response to charges of unprincipled behaviour on the part of schyman and parts of the swedish left is that it's hard to formulate a principled line which is workable at all outside of the politically unacceptable (i.e., neoconservativism or similarly highly militaristic ideologies). a valid response to this point is a counter-example - i.e., if one can demonstrate that a principled line is perfectly workable, then my point is refuted. the case presented is that of epistemic centering - i.e., once we decide that a particular agent meets certain criteria (i interpret this as a legitimate national representative being subject to undue aggression in this case), our obligation is simply to fulfil any requests by that agent. this is a facially straightforward principle, and it's relatively popular in some cases, especially in some strains of contemporary anti-racism. here, it is extended to geopolitics. imo there are a number of objections which may be presented to this: restricting oneself to simple factual historical requests by qualified agents is not reasonable in evaluating the consqeuences of adopting such a line; had saddam hussein had hopes of substantial military support in 2003, he presumably would've called for such support. even disregarding such quibbles, however, one imo obvious case where this becomes problematic is in responding to the ukrainian calls for a no-fly zone over eastern ukraine. this would see uniformed personnell using highly valuable materiel in direct military conflict with russia, and has been quitely but firmly shut down by most actual proponents of arming ukraine. at the very least, it means that such an epistemic centering-based approach is not the actual line of those proponents. so, by the proposition i mean to say 1) the proposed principled line is at the very least highly radical and seen as controversial in meaningful ways, and 2) this indicates that the line is at least not obviously workable, i.e., it needs more justification. i'll accept that i was probably a little excessively concise and confrontational, and that i could've made things easier by simply putting all this in the previous post, but  e; editing V. Illych L. fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Jan 15, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 18:38
|
|
|
cinci zoo sniper posted:It’s well within the purpose of this thread to discuss the war’s effects on Scandinavia specifically, and it’s a bit difficult to do that without covering the requisite context, i.e., talking about the war in the broader sense as well. That's good to know.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 18:43
|
|
|
SplitSoul posted:That's good to know. It’s an obvious thing, but since there are reports coming in for this conversation, as is the tradition with a few of the regional threads in D&D, it has to apparently be stated explicitly.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 19:04
|
|
|
Edit: ah nevermind.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 21:06
|
|
|
turkish student was denied internship at swedish univeristy with the reason given by a professor being "Vi skulle gärna ta emot dig. Dock, då Turkiet inte tillåter att Sverige gå med i NATO så måste jag avböja. Sorry!" Rust Martialis posted:Utter nonsense. We ('the West') should indeed provide the support the Palestinians have asked for. They have asked for political recognition and support, and we should indeed do so, but the active military support Ukraine is asking for is not what the PA is asking for. what they are asking for right now is tempered by what they can reasonably expect to get, im sure they would like to get bunch of man portable anti tank and anti air systems but since they have no chance of getting them and it would only get israel very mad at them they dont ask for it Megamissen fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Jan 15, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2023 22:05
|
|
|
Megamissen posted:what they are asking for right now is tempered by what they can reasonably expect to get, im sure they would like to get bunch of man portable anti tank and anti air systems but since they have no chance of getting them and it would only get israel very mad at them they dont ask for it
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2023 06:29
|
|
|
Scandinavia is in kind of a weird position because apart from energy politics, Russia could decide to become real dicks over access to the Baltic sea
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2023 12:09
|
|
|
Fruits of the sea posted:Scandinavia is in kind of a weird position because apart from energy politics, Russia could decide to become real dicks over access to the Baltic sea How so? Denmark or Sweden could try, maybe even Finland, but Russia is not in the place to block anyone in the Baltic Sea. They’re literally attached to it at a far end pocket.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2023 12:41
|
|
|
Not like some sort of WW3 scenario, just passive aggressive brinkmanship like China carries out around its neighbours. Military ships buzzing each other or inconveniently situated in shipping lanes and the like. I'm surprised more of this hasn't happened to be honest.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2023 12:49
|
|
|
Turkish nationalists are getting super belligerent against Swedes in general on social media, and it's really weird to see. I'm pretty sure that they had no opinion on Sweden a year ago. And now they're lecturing on Sweden-Finish cultural relationships and attacking Försvarsmaktens inclusivity ads.
Feliday Melody fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Jan 16, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2023 13:23
|
|
|
Feliday Melody posted:Turkish nationalists are getting super belligerent against Swedes in general on social media, and it's really weird to see. I'm pretty sure that they had no opinion on Sweden a year ago. And now they're lecturing on Sweden-Finish cultural relationships and attacking Försvarsmaktens inclusivity ads.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2023 13:34
|
|
|
Fruits of the sea posted:Scandinavia is in kind of a weird position because apart from energy politics, Russia could decide to become real dicks over access to the Baltic sea In terms of passive brinkmanship NATO and its partner client states have been doing military training exercises in the Baltic Sea commanded by the United States of America on an annual basis for the last 60 years. quote:The mission of the first BALTOPS was to 'show-the-flag' to maintain the U.S. right to sail in international waters even those in the Soviet Union's backyard. To paraphrase Bernie Sanders "The Soviet Union doesn't exist, the Warsaw Pact is over, who are you worried about?". Feliday Melody posted:Turkish nationalists are getting super belligerent against Swedes in general on social media, and it's really weird to see. I'm pretty sure that they had no opinion on Sweden a year ago. And now they're lecturing on Sweden-Finish cultural relationships and attacking Försvarsmaktens inclusivity ads. The NATO strategy document from 1949 states the following: quote:Of particular significance is the requirement that the objectives of the North Atlantic Treaty be accomplished in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations. quote:The parties to the Atlantic Treaty have declared: I'm surprised more people from other nations haven't taken a more dim view of the behavior by people in Sweden until now. Shakespeare says that "something is rotten in the state of Denmark" but Sweden isn't far behind. Why should Türkiye allow such a crude country that has a government associated with vile, undemocratic Neo-nazis and that hasn't abolished its undemocratic Monarchy to join NATO?
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2023 14:51
|
|
|
Jon Pod Van Damm posted:From a long term perspective the Nord Stream pipelines are still vulnerable to more Scandinavian mischievousness. You believe the sabotage was a Scandinavian op?
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2023 15:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 20:08 |
|
|
Jon Pod Van Damm posted:From a long term perspective the Nord Stream pipelines are still vulnerable to more Scandinavian mischievousness. Is this one of those rare medium effort trolls?.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2023 15:38
|
|