This is very interesting. I often end up listening to people like Alexander Mercouris or Brian Berletic or Scott Ritter on military stuff. None of those people are Left. But they are anti-US imperialism and domination. Their worldview is kind of "anti-globalist" which I find repellent, but I listen to their analysis anyway
So do I, and both Berletic and Mercouris have been pretty damn useless on the Gaza genocide - Mercouris because he doesn't want to alienate a good part of his reactionary audience and/or can't get over his own prejudices, Berletic because, like so many Americans who have rejected their country's goodness, cannot bring himself to see its failures - i.e. he will accept that the US is a force for evil rather than good, but he still insists they're the greatest ever at being evil...
In any case, this anticolonial war has shown the limits of the right-wing commentariat. With the exception of Ritter but then he goes back a lot longer than both and has had a an anti-imperialist practice and not just a commentariat...
I agree. Mercouris and Berletic are useless now (love your formulation that he has pride in being "the greatest ever evil"!) Ritter is also a "patriot" who insists this country "live up to its values", and although he is a good military analyst he does not understand the big picture of neo-colonialism and wealth extraction/looting of the global majority. The anti-imperialists I turn to regularly are Justin Podur, Bikrum Gill, Pawel Wargan and Matteo Capasso.
I think that the analyses offered by both Alexander Mercouris and Brian Berletic on the Gaza situation are limited by the course taken by Israeli politics and our general lack of knowledge of the way in which Hamas conducts itself politically and militarily, not to mention the frames of reference they use to approach political and military strategies. One problem is that we're all against terrorism, no? This makes it difficult to argue the fact that Hamas is a legitimate resistance fighting with the means at it's disposal against an illegitimate occupying force (a self-governing concentration camp bound by armed force can be defined in no other way).
From where I stand, criticising Hamas for its actions is rather like critcising the Marquisands in the Midi-Pyrenées for venturing up north to attack, maim and kill the German occupiers and their collaboratators during the Second War, but they did, many died, and the Germans reacted by using collective punishment against the innocent to discourage further attacks, albeit with less blind hatred of the French and considerably less viciousness and genocidal intent than the Israelis towards the Palestinians. Unfortunately, my views are not yet widespread but I suspect public opinion will follow knowledge, not least thanks to the widespread use of social media as a news source.
t would appear that frames of reference in the West are changing rapidly, and the nature of the Occupation and of Israel as a state are being questioned and re-assessed as never before. I think the Alexander and Brian will develop greater knowledge and understanding of the situation in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria in short order and we will find their analyses increasingly valuable as time goes on, just as we did with the Ukraine.
Btw, I find it astounding that people like Sachs, Mearsheimer and Crooke end up with the same little clique of right-wing youtubers when they are ostracized by the libreral mainstream
There are as many versions of the Right as there are of the Left, and as many areas of overlap as there are of disagreement. When it comes to war and peace, I suspect the majority of Left and Right are in agreement, maybe for very different reasons, and both are opposed to Liberal interventionists, Neo-Libs, Globalists, whatever, and their deadbeat camp followers.
In the west in any case, the whole fucking 68 student hippy new left pacifist shit has really confused people - to the point where I am now pretty certain it was all a CIA psyop alienating young working class people to the point where they supported a Polish trade union promoted by Thatcher, Reagan and John Paul II without asking any questions - hell, most trotskists went there too. Solidarnosc and Tiananmen were the first colour revolutions, and they divided the left and still do to this day. Iraq 2003 managed to get some unity back but then the Syrian war really fucked people up again, that's where all the NAFO types made their debut as an organised anti-Assad/pro-White Helmets-crew, that's when people like Robert Fisk and Seymour Hersh were finally discredited... Now the Gaza genocide seems to reunite the left again, or at least those of us who haven't slipped all the way down the pandemic slope into the Great Reset BS...
Yes, it took a full-on genocide to unite the Left. They simply could not get past the "but Russia invaded" trope because they had not been following the history since 2004. And yikes - Seymour Hersh on Gaza was cringe. But my bottom line on Left unity is that if you think you are too clever to be taken in by state propaganda, and you are not wearing a mask, don't bother with your other bona fides, you have lost the plot.
This is very interesting. I often end up listening to people like Alexander Mercouris or Brian Berletic or Scott Ritter on military stuff. None of those people are Left. But they are anti-US imperialism and domination. Their worldview is kind of "anti-globalist" which I find repellent, but I listen to their analysis anyway
So do I, and both Berletic and Mercouris have been pretty damn useless on the Gaza genocide - Mercouris because he doesn't want to alienate a good part of his reactionary audience and/or can't get over his own prejudices, Berletic because, like so many Americans who have rejected their country's goodness, cannot bring himself to see its failures - i.e. he will accept that the US is a force for evil rather than good, but he still insists they're the greatest ever at being evil...
In any case, this anticolonial war has shown the limits of the right-wing commentariat. With the exception of Ritter but then he goes back a lot longer than both and has had a an anti-imperialist practice and not just a commentariat...
I agree. Mercouris and Berletic are useless now (love your formulation that he has pride in being "the greatest ever evil"!) Ritter is also a "patriot" who insists this country "live up to its values", and although he is a good military analyst he does not understand the big picture of neo-colonialism and wealth extraction/looting of the global majority. The anti-imperialists I turn to regularly are Justin Podur, Bikrum Gill, Pawel Wargan and Matteo Capasso.
I think that the analyses offered by both Alexander Mercouris and Brian Berletic on the Gaza situation are limited by the course taken by Israeli politics and our general lack of knowledge of the way in which Hamas conducts itself politically and militarily, not to mention the frames of reference they use to approach political and military strategies. One problem is that we're all against terrorism, no? This makes it difficult to argue the fact that Hamas is a legitimate resistance fighting with the means at it's disposal against an illegitimate occupying force (a self-governing concentration camp bound by armed force can be defined in no other way).
From where I stand, criticising Hamas for its actions is rather like critcising the Marquisands in the Midi-Pyrenées for venturing up north to attack, maim and kill the German occupiers and their collaboratators during the Second War, but they did, many died, and the Germans reacted by using collective punishment against the innocent to discourage further attacks, albeit with less blind hatred of the French and considerably less viciousness and genocidal intent than the Israelis towards the Palestinians. Unfortunately, my views are not yet widespread but I suspect public opinion will follow knowledge, not least thanks to the widespread use of social media as a news source.
t would appear that frames of reference in the West are changing rapidly, and the nature of the Occupation and of Israel as a state are being questioned and re-assessed as never before. I think the Alexander and Brian will develop greater knowledge and understanding of the situation in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria in short order and we will find their analyses increasingly valuable as time goes on, just as we did with the Ukraine.
Btw, I find it astounding that people like Sachs, Mearsheimer and Crooke end up with the same little clique of right-wing youtubers when they are ostracized by the libreral mainstream
for various thought crimes...
There are as many versions of the Right as there are of the Left, and as many areas of overlap as there are of disagreement. When it comes to war and peace, I suspect the majority of Left and Right are in agreement, maybe for very different reasons, and both are opposed to Liberal interventionists, Neo-Libs, Globalists, whatever, and their deadbeat camp followers.
I'm not a big one for "plus oneing", but this is excellent.
I +1 this comment
Don't you think anti-communism discourse played a part in making it seem that the "left" is unaware of military history or the comprehension of it?
In the west in any case, the whole fucking 68 student hippy new left pacifist shit has really confused people - to the point where I am now pretty certain it was all a CIA psyop alienating young working class people to the point where they supported a Polish trade union promoted by Thatcher, Reagan and John Paul II without asking any questions - hell, most trotskists went there too. Solidarnosc and Tiananmen were the first colour revolutions, and they divided the left and still do to this day. Iraq 2003 managed to get some unity back but then the Syrian war really fucked people up again, that's where all the NAFO types made their debut as an organised anti-Assad/pro-White Helmets-crew, that's when people like Robert Fisk and Seymour Hersh were finally discredited... Now the Gaza genocide seems to reunite the left again, or at least those of us who haven't slipped all the way down the pandemic slope into the Great Reset BS...
Yes, it took a full-on genocide to unite the Left. They simply could not get past the "but Russia invaded" trope because they had not been following the history since 2004. And yikes - Seymour Hersh on Gaza was cringe. But my bottom line on Left unity is that if you think you are too clever to be taken in by state propaganda, and you are not wearing a mask, don't bother with your other bona fides, you have lost the plot.