Three wars in one: (1) the Second Great Interimperialist War between the British, French, and Americans on one side and the Axis on the other; (2) the defence of Soviet power from fascist invasion; (3) popular (often communist led) opposition to fascism
Western ally boots on the ground is a large part of what kept the Greek, Italian and French communusts from winning and is what allowed them to prevent the red army from marching to the atlantic. The western allies were never the "good guys".
Atomic war is inevitable. It will destroy half of humanity: it is going to destroy immense human riches. It is very possible. The atomic war is going to provoke a true inferno on Earth. But it will not impede Communism.
I HATE THE LINEARBANDKERAMIKS I HATE THE TREEKILLERS AND THEIR MESOPOTAMIAN BACKERS I MISS THE MESOLITHIC FORESTS AND HUNTERGATHERERS
But yeah, the wikipedia page is missing a few so and its actually around 10-15 cradles of agriculture, none in Europe
Closest would be the proto-indoeuropeans domestication of horses and proto-uralic's domestication of reindeers, but those were both the results of copying and adapting agricultural methods of their neighbours, so really truly independent cradles of the invention of agriculture
Though, to play devils advocate, its plausible that the early Europeans had developed fishfarming of some kind; pre-~4,000 Europe has a lotta question marks around it bc of the sea level changes (southern Sumeria by the Gulf has the same issue facing archaeological investigations)
Lotsa bolsheviks said the same about Germany. Thankfully lenin set them straight, or the ussr never woulda existed.
You should still be fragging officers. The marxist position in an interimperialist war is revolutionary defeatism, not rallying behind our imperialists
Albertans dont think some liberals are good, they believe them all to be ontologically evil daemons bent on destroying their freedom to bear arms and guzzle oil.
Especially if theyre named trudeau.
Imo if carney keeps tearing up enough of trudeaus policies (and the tories keep failing provincially and federally) we'll see the tories split into "progressive conservatives" who support the liberal party federally and the new progressive conservative party in alberta, and "outright fash" who will support the tories and ucp
Basically "we europeans and canadians should abandon the american hegemony and make pals with china (but not russia they are evil) bc america is aiming a gun at our heads"
Fuck we are in interesting times
If carney govt did this, at least a third of the albertan seperatists would become lifelong carney stans and their movement would deflate overnight
Its a very interesting speech, though I'm now even more sure the US will invade us lmao
This part in particular is huge imo In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel, later president, wrote an essay called The Power of the Powerless. And in it, he asked a simple question: How did the communist system sustain itself?
And his answer began with a greengrocer. Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: "Workers of the world, unite!" He doesn't believe it. No one does. But he places the sign anyway to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists.
Not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.
Havel called this "living within a lie." The system's power comes not from its truth but from everyone's willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source: when even one person stops performing — when the greengrocer removes his sign — the illusion begins to crack.
Friends, it is time for companies and countries to take their signs down.
For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.
We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.
This fiction was useful. And American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.
So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.
This bargain no longer works.
The anticommunism is annoying and expected, and the reason its there is obvious (porky is more scared of fascism than communism as always). But outright calling the whole rules based international order a fiction to serve american hegemony that canada supported bc it benefitted us is pretty new i think?
Like others who follow the news more closely can correct me, but has any canadian head of state called the US a global hegemon before? Is hegemon even a word politicians in the west usually use? I associate it more with global south and especially chinese politicians.
My impression is very much that carneys trying to hitch canada onto the winning horse (china). If europe and canada had any geopolitical sense theyd stop backing ukraine immediately imo, if only to stockpile weapons to fight the yanks (and ideally to restore ties with russia) But the speech is like "we epically supported ukraine" so it sounds like he wont try that
The episode of pokemon where the lead construction worker cancels the dam project bc it would kill the digletts is one of my favourite episodes of anime ever. In addition to post-scarcity ecological scifi, pokemon is a world where a construction worker can choose to veto a dam
Toriyama definitely doesnt seem to like real estate guys or militaries (and he loves nature), but lacks the theoretical basis to be more consistent or imagine a non-capitalist world, hence why Bulma is a billionaire's daughter. He reminds me sort of Tolkien in this way.