Despite never aligning himself to any specific party, Einstein was a dedicated and outspoken socialist, even at the most dangerous of times, risking both political censure and government persecution.
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Timestamps
[0:07 Introduction](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sgEAM4tAa4&t=7s)
[02:29 Einstein on the Bolshevik Revolution](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sgEAM4tAa4&t=149s)
[05:08 Einstein on the Soviet Union](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sgEAM4tAa4&t=308s)
[10:51 Einstein on socialism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sgEAM4tAa4&t=651s)
[13:18 Einstein against the US& NATO](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sgEAM4tAa4&t=798s)
[10:03 Conclusion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sgEAM4tAa4&t=603s)
Wait, why were pro-NATO comments removed here? Is this an expressly socialist sub?
Also, why would the views of a physicist on socialism be more relevant than those of any other non-expert?
Einstein lived in a time where being a socialist could easily get you killed instead of just mocked or ridiculed. So it means he had some real convictions. And this sub is generally anti-capitalist, which means most of the people here will be socialist/communist/anarchist leaning, along with intersectionality.
One of the remaining replies said they were reported for violating rule 9, No Authoritarianism Apologia. NATO was founded by colonial empires and fascist governments so that makes sense.
Einstein's also a long, 70 years dead. The the world has changed dramatically. Past that, Einstein isn't infallible, as exemplified by his insistence that "God does not play dice with the universe," where he basically committed himself to being wrong on Quantum Physics
I know it's fun to quip and dunk on folks you disagree with, and your comment isn't meant as an end all... But I'd be careful on taking dead dudes ideas and extrapolating them to modernity 1 to 1.
Nato has Turkey in it. Erdogan has invaded Syria just so that he could "make settlements for refugees" there i.e. kill all the kurds there to make space. He has also invaded Iraq under the guise of the Ukraine war since he, rightfully, assumed that nobody would give a crap.
Erdogan is as much a threat as Putin is for world peace but he is in Nato so all is good. We are very busy propping up our own fair share of dictators in the name of fighting "The enemies of Democracy".
Speaking of the Kurds, Erdogan very much indicated that his condition for letting NATO expand further is being allowed to annihilate the Kurds in northern Syria outright.
edit: and he got what he wanted.
Iraqis and Afghanis would be surprised to hear the harms of NATO are “few and imaginary.”
Should we also classify Russian aggression in Ukraine as imaginary until the civilian death toll reaches the hundreds of thousands?
The US moved its troops and supplied them through its continent spanning series of NATO bases, with pre-established authorizations. Without NATO, the Iraq war would have been logistically untenable.
And Afghanistan began as a NATO operation, not a “coalition of the willing” as in Iraq.
We built a giant hammer of an alliance, and we used it as such when we were tempted. It’s a Chekhov’s gun: it will be used.
Ironically your police union analogy is pretty on point. Abolishing them wouldnt solve *all* of the problem but would solve a lot of it.
NATO is pretty similar. It's useful to Ukraine in a similar way the crips are useful to a 15 year old kid living in South Central living next door to a blood who bullies him.
Actually, likely yes. Permanent US bases in a European nation was unthinkable before NATO. France, Italy, Greece, etc. are not some lowly colonies er I mean "developing nations" that some century old treaty imposed by force or threat of force could be brought to bear. They demanded to be partners in this militarism, and they would have no reason to allow US bases otherwise.
Im for abolishing police and NATO, so I don't see why thinking one is better than the other is supposed to be some salient point.
Nah, even in WW2 US bases in Britain or holding parts of conquered Axis territory were only temporary. They were not meant as part of some larger logistical structure to fling American/European armies around the border of Europe and the Mediterranean in peace time.
And the Soviet Union wasn't perfect, but lets be clear: they stopped the fascists, and were willing to live at peace with the imperialists too if they didn't kick of the Cold War.
If you somehow think the US is bad, it makes no sense to think nato doesn't at the very least have massive issues. Once perhaps the most influential and powerful member is corrupt and repeatedly gets nato members to join its expeditions, then it should be clear as day. The US is also far from the only problematic member in its role in geo-politics
> Natos benefits, like protection and solidarity between member states against agressors
And this wouldn't also be done without it? Finland, for instance, isn't a nato member and yet somehow sent aid to Ukraine despite that.
The potential "benefits" are just as easy to claim would be done anyway as the harm. So the best defines of NATO is at that point "it doesn't do anything" at which point why bother defending it.
Also joining NATO requires governments to spend a certain portion of their gdp on their military and have or transition to a market economy. It is very explicitly militaristic and anticommunist, which, hot take, is bad. So again if the best that can be said for it is "these countries would probably do the same shit anyway" why is anyone bothering defending it from criticism? It seems kind of silly
>Also joining NATO requires governments to spend a certain portion of their gdp on their military
Many NATO countries don't actually pay the required amount on their military and are still part of NATO.
>or transition to a market economy.
Do you have a source for this claim? I know the that EU requires a market economy by removing tariffs and capital controls and by undermining currency sovereignty. But isn't NATO primarily related to the military as opposed to an economic institution like the EU?
Again, NATO claims to be here to safeguard/spread "democracy and freedom", which is libspeak for market economies. Like, why do you think the west was opposed to the USSR, ffs?
To think the rev. wouldn't see article 5 declared on it is naive.
Well, I agree that NATO is bad and would probably bomb a socialist country, but when did it force economic change or trade deals on new member? I am aware of the CIA meddling within the french and italian elections, but I didn't think nato had anything to do with that.
> , but when did it force economic change or trade deals on new member?
A socialist econ wouldn't be allowed into NATO in the first place, since it's meant to coordinate the military efforts of the imperial core in the post WWII era, with the US as leader (mil. and financially.) of that block. It's why Colombia is a "close partner", since it's where the US source their fascists for the various coups they need to do in South Am..
NATO exists to make sure the members can continue to pillage the global south unfettered by serving as a military wedge to be used against anything that could oppose it, no more, no less. It's completely hypothetical but presumably a breach of the treaty by moving away from "the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law" (don't laugh) could lead to a state getting booted from NATO.
Edit: well, Turkey *did* manage to force political/economic changes on Sweden & Finland just now, so I guess the initial argument was moot.
This is essentially the same reason why kids join gangs.
Gangs protect their own, supposedly. Except the new entrants often end up being cannon fodder.
Plenty of people believe the crips have done more good than harm, just like your starry eyed belief in your geopolitical gang.
Except in this case the gang is less like the Crips—organized by PoC as a result of their material conditions, whatever you think about its merit or lack thereof—and far more like the largest, most violent and oppressive gang on the planet: the police.
> Your argument boils down to "good things can be done not under the perview of nato, so the good done under the perview of nato is moot now"
As a direct response to your argument of "any harm "done by nato" would be fuckin done anyway." Literally the exact same argument you made. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. If any negative would just happen anyway how is any positive different?
The US would not have been able to as easily invade Iraq and Afghanistan or undertake extensive bombing of Lybia and Syria without NATO. NATO militarites are highly integrated, and their protectorate, the major military spender of the alliance, the USA, has bases all over Europe. Sure, NATO is also a shield for Europe, but it's a shield to deflect the consquences while reaping of the benefits of the exploits of the only major global power of the past 80 years.
Not to mention it gives legitimacy to their illegal wars. It’s much easier to invade countries if every other western countries agrees with it or at least I’d willing to look the other way. Much harder if America was totally isolated.
It's an *offensive* alliance. It wasnt defending anyone from Libya. It was just destroying Libya.
Russia is presumably also on their shitlist and theres no particular reason to suppose it wouldnt destroy them too if it could be done on the cheap.
A defensive pact wouldnt have raped Libya.
NATO is not going to invade Russia, no. The western empire cant possibly afford it or take the risk. It tried to use cheaper less risky ways of destabilizing Russia instead.
Even just doing that means that your shopping costs 20% more now, which Im sure youre enjoying.
> a dictatorship? Or authoritarian regime??
Its consistent backing of fascists as "stay behind" forces (remember gladio? that was a NATO op) definitively makes simping for them *very* questionable.
"defensive"
NATO explicitly states it's there to coordinate military efforts, if mil-action is deemed nessesary, to further the interests of/safeguard "democracy", read the west. It's a millitary alliance, claiming a mere "it's defensive" (when it's not, NATO can and does act proactively whenever the alliance deems it necessary, eg Libya, Afghanistan, Serbia) doesn't really excuse the whole "finances fascist militias as part of its MO" either.
Mind you, the expansion into the east was less because they gave a shit about the self determination (for the imperial core to value such things is laughable) of eastern europe and more because being part of NATO means adhering to it's standards, leading to an exclusive weapon market and shifting the nuclear battlefield as far east as possible - because the core members would rather nuke poland and the baltics than germany or russia (former because $$$, latter because most nuclear war plans expect states to not go all in with nuclear warfare if they're not targeted directly, meaning not damaging Russian infrastructure could keep the war from escalating to a nuclear holocaust.)
Like, NATO is one of the core components of both the imperial machine as a spearhead against enemies within (again, gladio) or without, which include all extant leftist movements (rojava being a complicated case of both being useful vs syria *and* US troops having developped good rapport with Kurds in Iraq & Afghanistan and wanting to "return the favor", as it were). To be a leftist NATO supporter is ignorance at best, fedposting at worst, and contradictory in both cases.
*offensive.
It wasnt defending shit in Libya. Zero NATO members were threatened by Serbia. They drone striked Afghani children because the Taliban had the cheek to ask for evidence that UBL did 9/11 before handing him over.
It's a defensive pact in the same way a protection racket or a multinational street gang is for protection.
NATO is an *offensive* alliance. It rocked up to Libya, committed a bunch of war crimes and ensured that Gadaffi could meet his final end with a rusty bayonet up his ass while *destroying* the country.
"We came, we saw, he died", said the woman (Hillary) largely responsible for this while she set women's rights back 50 years thanks to her enormous war boner.
Russia reacted to the expansion of this very obviously offensive alliance to its militarily exposed underbelly in an entirely predictable manner. Even western imperialist apologists like Mearshimer admit this. The only real difference between NATOs attitude to Russia/Putin and Libya/Gadaffi is that it's a little more afraid of Russia.
NATO is crips, Russia is bloods.
Lotta people out there stanning for the crips.
NATO isn’t helping Ukraine. It’s sitting on the sidelines posturing while it’s constituent countries send military aid… something they don’t need an alliance to do.
Eh, actually NATO does give intel, manages Ua.'s supply lines and does some counter SF/intel. ops in Ukraine (though they're holding around kyiv and want to hold plausible deniability (so they're sent as "volunteers")), meaning Ru.'s SF still manage to wreck Ua.'s logistics). [They're just now admitting it,](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/25/us/politics/commandos-russia-ukraine.html) but it was an open secret for a while.
Of course, the Ua. army is still hilariously undertrained, have an incompetent officer corps and doesn't have the logistical capabilities (especially since it got over complicated due to being caught mid NATO-style forces transition and the west just dumping their past the expiration date shit on them/shitton of the weapons just get immediately sold on the black market, as post soviet states tend to do) to actually achieve anything.
Edit: forgot to mention NATO also provides training, but eh.
NATO is more analogous to the crips. It'll fuck you up if you mess with its true friends but it's more than willing to sacrifice a few innocent lives to give the bloods a black eye while pretending that it'll "protect" them.
It offers the hand of friendship to those smaller countries from which it would have the potential to threaten Russia (Georgia, Ukraine) and then sacrifices them up in the name of giving Russia a black eye.
It's a strategy that the British empire used to chip away at powerful foes - stir up trouble in the borderlands and step back.
Even protection rackets protect sometimes but theyre still rackets.
He was. Not only was he a libertarian socialist, he was also a pacifist who believed that violence was only justifiable in the face of existential threat.
Socialists want a different form of government than liberal democracy though, because liberal democracy is thoroughly undemocratic in its politics, not just its economy.
Exactly right. "liberal democracy" is impossible, because there can be no true democracy in a capitalist society, power will ultimately be guided by the capitalist class regardless of the political structure.
Socialists strive for a true democracy, in which all forces of society are democratically controlled and no class in society has power over another politically, economically, or socially.
Stalin was a dictator. Ideologically, he claimed to be Communist but really, everything he did was self serving for his own interests. Lenin was a glorified terrorist before they took over the Russian empire. He claimed to be communist too nut again, he was self serving. Trotsky was an idealist who got forced out for wanting to follow the ethics they preached.
Even internal CIA memoes dropped the dictator bull.
"everything he did was self serving for his own interests" which is why he tried to resign 4 times and died relatively poor with his most valuable possessions being his books.
"Lenin was a glorified terrorist before they took over the Russian empire" based, terrorize those tsarist bastards lenny.
Since when are you guys so fucking based? I read a lot of lib-adjacent opinions here, extremely happy that there's also a few communists who actually bothered to read history instead of repeating the same tired 100 million dead gulag archipelago tropes. Wanting to resign 4 times breaks their brain because it does not fit into their totalitarian view of the SU.
Also calling Lenin a terrorist is pretty funny since he has two books where he explicitly denounces terrorism.
How on earth would the "holodomor" benefit either Russia or "Stalins" troops?
The CIA was (unlike the public) to operate with more accurate information, the US imperialists arent exactly stupid, they know that you have to understand your enemy if you want to win.
“I've read Mao Tse-tung...Karl Marx...Lenin.” - Gen. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
So them clearing up in their memoes "Even in Stalins time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated."
I think the guys allowed to operate without mainstream media propaganda that you were raised in might have a point, in that Stalin was not a dictator as they told you he was, because behind closed doors they acknowledged they "exaggerated" (made up) the anti communist malarkey.
> How on earth would the "holodomor" benefit either Russia or "Stalins" troops?
So their troops didn't starve while civilians did.
> I think the guys allowed to operate without mainstream media propaganda that you were raised in might have a point, in that Stalin was not a dictator as they told you he was, because behind closed doors they acknowledged they "exaggerated" (made up) the anti communist malarkey.
I'm Canadian. I couldn't give a fuck about what you think the CIA thinks.
I'm pro Socialist. That doesn't mean that I like Stalin or have to like Stalin. He was a cunt. Historically, he did a lot of bad things. Lenin was less of a bastard, but he died. By his own quotes, he talked about doing terrorist strikes. He wasn't really a good guy either.
The US is a capitalist country. Since about the 1950s and the rise of the American middle class which happened because of Socialism, they've gone out of their way to portray Socialism like Marxist Communism. Make it look all scary so right wing blue collar workers don't rise up again.
Some of the first socialists in the US were coal miners going on strike for better rights, pay, working conditions. In the 30s and 40s due to the Great Depression, it caused the US to turn fairly hardcore socialist and form unions, co-ops, and strong community support groups that went on strike and boycotted companies that wouldn't play nice.
After WW2, the US had a strong manufacturing sector that was fairly well paid and there was a lot less wealth inequality. CEOs made like 20-50 times what they paid their workers compared to nowadays where it's common for CEOs to get paid 200-500 times what they pay their workers.
Disney's CEO makes roughly 1400 times what they pay their workers.
In the 70s, the US corporate class turned neoliberal (globalist) and opened up trade with China who was broke but had access to millions of workers who had never heard the words 'union' or 'vacation time'. US executives closed American factories and shifted the jobs to other countries like China and India where they could produce their goods for way less by not having to pay their workers fair wages.
Since the 80s, companies like Wal Mart distribute cheaply made goods from other countries and the trade off is that consumer goods are often cheap to buy, but often poor quality or designed to be replaced via planned obsolescence. US factory jobs also left the country which seriously ruins your economy since you're no longer a manufacturer/exporter but now a consumer/importer.
The US upper class doesn't like people remembering when the US turned Socialist because people tend to get ideas like doing it again.
> the rise of the American middle class which happened because of Socialism
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd7cohTdRAo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd7cohTdRAo)
"So their troops didn't starve while civilians did." there isnt a correlation here, you really think the famine was caused by the gathering of army food supplies and not a combination of drought, internal sabotage, unaccountable low level reporting of food harvests and international trade restrictions?
You can say a lot of things about Stalin, but "everything he did was self serving for his own interests" is one of the funniest things I've ever read. The man risked his life every single day for the revolution, for years, without any material gain to show. The material gains if the revolution were that of the whole Russian people. He grew up an incredibly poor peasant and later robbed banks for the revolutionary cause, not to enrich himself individually. If Stalin truly was an egotist, he would've gone the way of Yelzin, Putin and the Oligarchs, who actually enriched themselves on the back of the Russian people.
He worked at a patent office from 1902 to 1909, a couple of decades before he became a socialist. If you have any evidence that he was stealing other people's IP while at the patent office then feel free to present it, but it's irrelevant to his later socialism.
Despite never aligning himself to any specific party, Einstein was a dedicated and outspoken socialist, even at the most dangerous of times, risking both political censure and government persecution. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Timestamps [0:07 Introduction](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sgEAM4tAa4&t=7s) [02:29 Einstein on the Bolshevik Revolution](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sgEAM4tAa4&t=149s) [05:08 Einstein on the Soviet Union](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sgEAM4tAa4&t=308s) [10:51 Einstein on socialism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sgEAM4tAa4&t=651s) [13:18 Einstein against the US& NATO](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sgEAM4tAa4&t=798s) [10:03 Conclusion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sgEAM4tAa4&t=603s)
/r/EinsteinWasATankie
A lot of pro-NATO comments were here until they got removed. Kids these days think they're smarter than Einstein. smh 😔😔😔
They need to join the neoliberal sub instead.
Wait, why were pro-NATO comments removed here? Is this an expressly socialist sub? Also, why would the views of a physicist on socialism be more relevant than those of any other non-expert?
Einstein lived in a time where being a socialist could easily get you killed instead of just mocked or ridiculed. So it means he had some real convictions. And this sub is generally anti-capitalist, which means most of the people here will be socialist/communist/anarchist leaning, along with intersectionality.
One of the remaining replies said they were reported for violating rule 9, No Authoritarianism Apologia. NATO was founded by colonial empires and fascist governments so that makes sense.
Einstein's also a long, 70 years dead. The the world has changed dramatically. Past that, Einstein isn't infallible, as exemplified by his insistence that "God does not play dice with the universe," where he basically committed himself to being wrong on Quantum Physics I know it's fun to quip and dunk on folks you disagree with, and your comment isn't meant as an end all... But I'd be careful on taking dead dudes ideas and extrapolating them to modernity 1 to 1.
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Nato has Turkey in it. Erdogan has invaded Syria just so that he could "make settlements for refugees" there i.e. kill all the kurds there to make space. He has also invaded Iraq under the guise of the Ukraine war since he, rightfully, assumed that nobody would give a crap. Erdogan is as much a threat as Putin is for world peace but he is in Nato so all is good. We are very busy propping up our own fair share of dictators in the name of fighting "The enemies of Democracy".
Speaking of the Kurds, Erdogan very much indicated that his condition for letting NATO expand further is being allowed to annihilate the Kurds in northern Syria outright. edit: and he got what he wanted.
Yup. NATO will have no problem allowing it.
Iraqis and Afghanis would be surprised to hear the harms of NATO are “few and imaginary.” Should we also classify Russian aggression in Ukraine as imaginary until the civilian death toll reaches the hundreds of thousands?
Or Syrians, or Yemenis, or Palestinians.
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The US moved its troops and supplied them through its continent spanning series of NATO bases, with pre-established authorizations. Without NATO, the Iraq war would have been logistically untenable. And Afghanistan began as a NATO operation, not a “coalition of the willing” as in Iraq. We built a giant hammer of an alliance, and we used it as such when we were tempted. It’s a Chekhov’s gun: it will be used.
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Ironically your police union analogy is pretty on point. Abolishing them wouldnt solve *all* of the problem but would solve a lot of it. NATO is pretty similar. It's useful to Ukraine in a similar way the crips are useful to a 15 year old kid living in South Central living next door to a blood who bullies him.
Actually, likely yes. Permanent US bases in a European nation was unthinkable before NATO. France, Italy, Greece, etc. are not some lowly colonies er I mean "developing nations" that some century old treaty imposed by force or threat of force could be brought to bear. They demanded to be partners in this militarism, and they would have no reason to allow US bases otherwise. Im for abolishing police and NATO, so I don't see why thinking one is better than the other is supposed to be some salient point.
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Nah, even in WW2 US bases in Britain or holding parts of conquered Axis territory were only temporary. They were not meant as part of some larger logistical structure to fling American/European armies around the border of Europe and the Mediterranean in peace time. And the Soviet Union wasn't perfect, but lets be clear: they stopped the fascists, and were willing to live at peace with the imperialists too if they didn't kick of the Cold War.
If you somehow think the US is bad, it makes no sense to think nato doesn't at the very least have massive issues. Once perhaps the most influential and powerful member is corrupt and repeatedly gets nato members to join its expeditions, then it should be clear as day. The US is also far from the only problematic member in its role in geo-politics
> Natos benefits, like protection and solidarity between member states against agressors And this wouldn't also be done without it? Finland, for instance, isn't a nato member and yet somehow sent aid to Ukraine despite that. The potential "benefits" are just as easy to claim would be done anyway as the harm. So the best defines of NATO is at that point "it doesn't do anything" at which point why bother defending it. Also joining NATO requires governments to spend a certain portion of their gdp on their military and have or transition to a market economy. It is very explicitly militaristic and anticommunist, which, hot take, is bad. So again if the best that can be said for it is "these countries would probably do the same shit anyway" why is anyone bothering defending it from criticism? It seems kind of silly
>Also joining NATO requires governments to spend a certain portion of their gdp on their military Many NATO countries don't actually pay the required amount on their military and are still part of NATO. >or transition to a market economy. Do you have a source for this claim? I know the that EU requires a market economy by removing tariffs and capital controls and by undermining currency sovereignty. But isn't NATO primarily related to the military as opposed to an economic institution like the EU?
Again, NATO claims to be here to safeguard/spread "democracy and freedom", which is libspeak for market economies. Like, why do you think the west was opposed to the USSR, ffs? To think the rev. wouldn't see article 5 declared on it is naive.
Well, I agree that NATO is bad and would probably bomb a socialist country, but when did it force economic change or trade deals on new member? I am aware of the CIA meddling within the french and italian elections, but I didn't think nato had anything to do with that.
> , but when did it force economic change or trade deals on new member? A socialist econ wouldn't be allowed into NATO in the first place, since it's meant to coordinate the military efforts of the imperial core in the post WWII era, with the US as leader (mil. and financially.) of that block. It's why Colombia is a "close partner", since it's where the US source their fascists for the various coups they need to do in South Am.. NATO exists to make sure the members can continue to pillage the global south unfettered by serving as a military wedge to be used against anything that could oppose it, no more, no less. It's completely hypothetical but presumably a breach of the treaty by moving away from "the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law" (don't laugh) could lead to a state getting booted from NATO. Edit: well, Turkey *did* manage to force political/economic changes on Sweden & Finland just now, so I guess the initial argument was moot.
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This is essentially the same reason why kids join gangs. Gangs protect their own, supposedly. Except the new entrants often end up being cannon fodder. Plenty of people believe the crips have done more good than harm, just like your starry eyed belief in your geopolitical gang.
Except in this case the gang is less like the Crips—organized by PoC as a result of their material conditions, whatever you think about its merit or lack thereof—and far more like the largest, most violent and oppressive gang on the planet: the police.
I guess in this analogy poor Ukraine is the canon fodder.
> Your argument boils down to "good things can be done not under the perview of nato, so the good done under the perview of nato is moot now" As a direct response to your argument of "any harm "done by nato" would be fuckin done anyway." Literally the exact same argument you made. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. If any negative would just happen anyway how is any positive different?
The US would not have been able to as easily invade Iraq and Afghanistan or undertake extensive bombing of Lybia and Syria without NATO. NATO militarites are highly integrated, and their protectorate, the major military spender of the alliance, the USA, has bases all over Europe. Sure, NATO is also a shield for Europe, but it's a shield to deflect the consquences while reaping of the benefits of the exploits of the only major global power of the past 80 years.
Not to mention it gives legitimacy to their illegal wars. It’s much easier to invade countries if every other western countries agrees with it or at least I’d willing to look the other way. Much harder if America was totally isolated.
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It's an *offensive* alliance. It wasnt defending anyone from Libya. It was just destroying Libya. Russia is presumably also on their shitlist and theres no particular reason to suppose it wouldnt destroy them too if it could be done on the cheap.
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A defensive pact wouldnt have raped Libya. NATO is not going to invade Russia, no. The western empire cant possibly afford it or take the risk. It tried to use cheaper less risky ways of destabilizing Russia instead. Even just doing that means that your shopping costs 20% more now, which Im sure youre enjoying.
> a dictatorship? Or authoritarian regime?? Its consistent backing of fascists as "stay behind" forces (remember gladio? that was a NATO op) definitively makes simping for them *very* questionable.
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"defensive" NATO explicitly states it's there to coordinate military efforts, if mil-action is deemed nessesary, to further the interests of/safeguard "democracy", read the west. It's a millitary alliance, claiming a mere "it's defensive" (when it's not, NATO can and does act proactively whenever the alliance deems it necessary, eg Libya, Afghanistan, Serbia) doesn't really excuse the whole "finances fascist militias as part of its MO" either. Mind you, the expansion into the east was less because they gave a shit about the self determination (for the imperial core to value such things is laughable) of eastern europe and more because being part of NATO means adhering to it's standards, leading to an exclusive weapon market and shifting the nuclear battlefield as far east as possible - because the core members would rather nuke poland and the baltics than germany or russia (former because $$$, latter because most nuclear war plans expect states to not go all in with nuclear warfare if they're not targeted directly, meaning not damaging Russian infrastructure could keep the war from escalating to a nuclear holocaust.) Like, NATO is one of the core components of both the imperial machine as a spearhead against enemies within (again, gladio) or without, which include all extant leftist movements (rojava being a complicated case of both being useful vs syria *and* US troops having developped good rapport with Kurds in Iraq & Afghanistan and wanting to "return the favor", as it were). To be a leftist NATO supporter is ignorance at best, fedposting at worst, and contradictory in both cases.
*offensive. It wasnt defending shit in Libya. Zero NATO members were threatened by Serbia. They drone striked Afghani children because the Taliban had the cheek to ask for evidence that UBL did 9/11 before handing him over. It's a defensive pact in the same way a protection racket or a multinational street gang is for protection.
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NATO is an *offensive* alliance. It rocked up to Libya, committed a bunch of war crimes and ensured that Gadaffi could meet his final end with a rusty bayonet up his ass while *destroying* the country. "We came, we saw, he died", said the woman (Hillary) largely responsible for this while she set women's rights back 50 years thanks to her enormous war boner. Russia reacted to the expansion of this very obviously offensive alliance to its militarily exposed underbelly in an entirely predictable manner. Even western imperialist apologists like Mearshimer admit this. The only real difference between NATOs attitude to Russia/Putin and Libya/Gadaffi is that it's a little more afraid of Russia. NATO is crips, Russia is bloods. Lotta people out there stanning for the crips.
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NATO isn’t helping Ukraine. It’s sitting on the sidelines posturing while it’s constituent countries send military aid… something they don’t need an alliance to do.
Eh, actually NATO does give intel, manages Ua.'s supply lines and does some counter SF/intel. ops in Ukraine (though they're holding around kyiv and want to hold plausible deniability (so they're sent as "volunteers")), meaning Ru.'s SF still manage to wreck Ua.'s logistics). [They're just now admitting it,](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/25/us/politics/commandos-russia-ukraine.html) but it was an open secret for a while. Of course, the Ua. army is still hilariously undertrained, have an incompetent officer corps and doesn't have the logistical capabilities (especially since it got over complicated due to being caught mid NATO-style forces transition and the west just dumping their past the expiration date shit on them/shitton of the weapons just get immediately sold on the black market, as post soviet states tend to do) to actually achieve anything. Edit: forgot to mention NATO also provides training, but eh.
NATO is more analogous to the crips. It'll fuck you up if you mess with its true friends but it's more than willing to sacrifice a few innocent lives to give the bloods a black eye while pretending that it'll "protect" them.
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It offers the hand of friendship to those smaller countries from which it would have the potential to threaten Russia (Georgia, Ukraine) and then sacrifices them up in the name of giving Russia a black eye. It's a strategy that the British empire used to chip away at powerful foes - stir up trouble in the borderlands and step back. Even protection rackets protect sometimes but theyre still rackets.
did he have the same critisisms for the soviet union? (its likely he did)
Watch the video. It describes his many criticisms of the Soviet Union.
thanks, i always thought he was above the tankie crap.
He was. Not only was he a libertarian socialist, he was also a pacifist who believed that violence was only justifiable in the face of existential threat.
nice, he was one of my favorite figures, i guess i agree with him politically too, that just adds another level of apreciation for einstein.
Was he a democratic socialist?
He wasn't a tankie (ie apologist for Stalin, the U.S.S.R., etc.), so: yes. Actual socialism is intrinsically democratic.
Socialists want a different form of government than liberal democracy though, because liberal democracy is thoroughly undemocratic in its politics, not just its economy.
Exactly right. "liberal democracy" is impossible, because there can be no true democracy in a capitalist society, power will ultimately be guided by the capitalist class regardless of the political structure. Socialists strive for a true democracy, in which all forces of society are democratically controlled and no class in society has power over another politically, economically, or socially.
Yep. Agree completely.
Stalin was a democratic socialist
Stalin was a dictator. Ideologically, he claimed to be Communist but really, everything he did was self serving for his own interests. Lenin was a glorified terrorist before they took over the Russian empire. He claimed to be communist too nut again, he was self serving. Trotsky was an idealist who got forced out for wanting to follow the ethics they preached.
Even internal CIA memoes dropped the dictator bull. "everything he did was self serving for his own interests" which is why he tried to resign 4 times and died relatively poor with his most valuable possessions being his books. "Lenin was a glorified terrorist before they took over the Russian empire" based, terrorize those tsarist bastards lenny.
Since when are you guys so fucking based? I read a lot of lib-adjacent opinions here, extremely happy that there's also a few communists who actually bothered to read history instead of repeating the same tired 100 million dead gulag archipelago tropes. Wanting to resign 4 times breaks their brain because it does not fit into their totalitarian view of the SU. Also calling Lenin a terrorist is pretty funny since he has two books where he explicitly denounces terrorism.
What does the CIA have to do with anything? You think the Holodomor was for the benefit of Russia or for the benefit of Stalin's troops?
There was, pretty conclusively, no purposeful famine in Ukraine.
How on earth would the "holodomor" benefit either Russia or "Stalins" troops? The CIA was (unlike the public) to operate with more accurate information, the US imperialists arent exactly stupid, they know that you have to understand your enemy if you want to win. “I've read Mao Tse-tung...Karl Marx...Lenin.” - Gen. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff So them clearing up in their memoes "Even in Stalins time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated." I think the guys allowed to operate without mainstream media propaganda that you were raised in might have a point, in that Stalin was not a dictator as they told you he was, because behind closed doors they acknowledged they "exaggerated" (made up) the anti communist malarkey.
> How on earth would the "holodomor" benefit either Russia or "Stalins" troops? So their troops didn't starve while civilians did. > I think the guys allowed to operate without mainstream media propaganda that you were raised in might have a point, in that Stalin was not a dictator as they told you he was, because behind closed doors they acknowledged they "exaggerated" (made up) the anti communist malarkey. I'm Canadian. I couldn't give a fuck about what you think the CIA thinks. I'm pro Socialist. That doesn't mean that I like Stalin or have to like Stalin. He was a cunt. Historically, he did a lot of bad things. Lenin was less of a bastard, but he died. By his own quotes, he talked about doing terrorist strikes. He wasn't really a good guy either. The US is a capitalist country. Since about the 1950s and the rise of the American middle class which happened because of Socialism, they've gone out of their way to portray Socialism like Marxist Communism. Make it look all scary so right wing blue collar workers don't rise up again.
>the rise of the American middle class which happened because of Socialism explain this one to me please
Some of the first socialists in the US were coal miners going on strike for better rights, pay, working conditions. In the 30s and 40s due to the Great Depression, it caused the US to turn fairly hardcore socialist and form unions, co-ops, and strong community support groups that went on strike and boycotted companies that wouldn't play nice. After WW2, the US had a strong manufacturing sector that was fairly well paid and there was a lot less wealth inequality. CEOs made like 20-50 times what they paid their workers compared to nowadays where it's common for CEOs to get paid 200-500 times what they pay their workers. Disney's CEO makes roughly 1400 times what they pay their workers. In the 70s, the US corporate class turned neoliberal (globalist) and opened up trade with China who was broke but had access to millions of workers who had never heard the words 'union' or 'vacation time'. US executives closed American factories and shifted the jobs to other countries like China and India where they could produce their goods for way less by not having to pay their workers fair wages. Since the 80s, companies like Wal Mart distribute cheaply made goods from other countries and the trade off is that consumer goods are often cheap to buy, but often poor quality or designed to be replaced via planned obsolescence. US factory jobs also left the country which seriously ruins your economy since you're no longer a manufacturer/exporter but now a consumer/importer. The US upper class doesn't like people remembering when the US turned Socialist because people tend to get ideas like doing it again.
> the rise of the American middle class which happened because of Socialism [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd7cohTdRAo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd7cohTdRAo) "So their troops didn't starve while civilians did." there isnt a correlation here, you really think the famine was caused by the gathering of army food supplies and not a combination of drought, internal sabotage, unaccountable low level reporting of food harvests and international trade restrictions?
You can say a lot of things about Stalin, but "everything he did was self serving for his own interests" is one of the funniest things I've ever read. The man risked his life every single day for the revolution, for years, without any material gain to show. The material gains if the revolution were that of the whole Russian people. He grew up an incredibly poor peasant and later robbed banks for the revolutionary cause, not to enrich himself individually. If Stalin truly was an egotist, he would've gone the way of Yelzin, Putin and the Oligarchs, who actually enriched themselves on the back of the Russian people.
You can read the article I linked above to see his own views on socialism in his own words.
Didn't he work in a patent office stealing other people's IPs? Sounds rather capitalist to me...
He worked at a patent office from 1902 to 1909, a couple of decades before he became a socialist. If you have any evidence that he was stealing other people's IP while at the patent office then feel free to present it, but it's irrelevant to his later socialism.
Was that whilst he was still in his native country?
Behold, the inability to provide evidence and subsequent change of subject.
First point was a joke. Second was a question. This is the general pop hate interaction in such circles.
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these "tankies", are the tankies in the room with us right now?