If tankies are pushed to criticise tankies, they’ll say “Well I suppose the problem with tankies is an inability to criticise any non-Western country, they think that all things Western and automatically bad and all things non-Western are automatically good”.
That’s what the Grayzone is. They try to minimise the badness of Putin and Assad to blame everything on the West. The West is not omnipotent; other countries have their share of the blame.
Although it’s an allegation overused by liberals, propaganda funded by Russian influences are a real thing. And the Grayzone certainly acts like one.
That’s what the Grayzone is. They try to minimise the badness of Putin and Assad to blame everything on the West. The West is not omnipotent; other countries have their share of the blame.
I think you would need to give examples to back up and clarify what you’re saying. Blame doesn’t operate on rules of universal fairness; it operates on who is provably doing what. The western empire may not be omnipotent, but it is the predominant force of military might across the world, which uses that might to undermine, destroy, and control. No one else comes close to the US’s hundreds of military bases and its decades of orchestrating coups, which it has far from stopped doing / attempting to do.
Using phrasing like “share of the blame” sounds off to me. It’s not a pie with which you have to recognize how big Putin or Assad’s piece is. It’s an extremely imbalanced dynamic of power and exploitation and within that dynamic, it’s important to recognize where someone like Putin lands in relation to his own people beyond the anti-imperialist struggle, but not to inflate what that means for the rest of the world while the western empire is still a dominant force that would squeeze out any self-determination for Russia and hollow it out for foreign capital if they could.
Given the massive imperial core propaganda against Russia & Syria and the massive harm the imperial core wreaks compared to anti-imperialist Russia & Syria†, it’s appropriate to comparatively “minimize” the “badness” of Putin and Assad‡. Also, we in the imperial core have no way to influence Russia or Syria, so there’s no point in us focusing on their (comparatively minor) faults.
†Russia & Syria aren’t anti-imperialist because they’re morally “good.” There are material reasons for it. For example, around 20 years ago Russia wanted to join the imperialism club, but the US rejected them. Ex-Nato head says Putin wanted to join alliance early on in his rule. Since then Russia, rejected by the Global North, has had no choice but to join with the Global South as allies instead of neocolonizers. Hence BRICS+ and the larger developing multipolar bloc that’s going its own way, ignoring the US’ “rules-based international order” sanctions, developing its own international balance of payments outside of US dollar hegemony, and working to get out from under the boot of the IMF’s & World Bank’s debt traps.
‡Focusing on Putin and Assad in particular sounds like great man theory, which Marxists reject.
If tankies are pushed to criticise tankies, they’ll say “Well I suppose the problem with tankies is an inability to criticise any non-Western country, they think that all things Western and automatically bad and all things non-Western are automatically good”.
That’s what the Grayzone is. They try to minimise the badness of Putin and Assad to blame everything on the West. The West is not omnipotent; other countries have their share of the blame.
Although it’s an allegation overused by liberals, propaganda funded by Russian influences are a real thing. And the Grayzone certainly acts like one.
On the plus side, it’s done some important investigative work, like around the alleged Douma chemical attack: https://thegrayzone.com/2020/09/29/grayzones-aaron-mate-testifies-at-un-on-opcw-syria-cover-up/
I think you would need to give examples to back up and clarify what you’re saying. Blame doesn’t operate on rules of universal fairness; it operates on who is provably doing what. The western empire may not be omnipotent, but it is the predominant force of military might across the world, which uses that might to undermine, destroy, and control. No one else comes close to the US’s hundreds of military bases and its decades of orchestrating coups, which it has far from stopped doing / attempting to do.
Using phrasing like “share of the blame” sounds off to me. It’s not a pie with which you have to recognize how big Putin or Assad’s piece is. It’s an extremely imbalanced dynamic of power and exploitation and within that dynamic, it’s important to recognize where someone like Putin lands in relation to his own people beyond the anti-imperialist struggle, but not to inflate what that means for the rest of the world while the western empire is still a dominant force that would squeeze out any self-determination for Russia and hollow it out for foreign capital if they could.
Given the massive imperial core propaganda against Russia & Syria and the massive harm the imperial core wreaks compared to anti-imperialist Russia & Syria†, it’s appropriate to comparatively “minimize” the “badness” of Putin and Assad‡. Also, we in the imperial core have no way to influence Russia or Syria, so there’s no point in us focusing on their (comparatively minor) faults.
†Russia & Syria aren’t anti-imperialist because they’re morally “good.” There are material reasons for it. For example, around 20 years ago Russia wanted to join the imperialism club, but the US rejected them. Ex-Nato head says Putin wanted to join alliance early on in his rule. Since then Russia, rejected by the Global North, has had no choice but to join with the Global South as allies instead of neocolonizers. Hence BRICS+ and the larger developing multipolar bloc that’s going its own way, ignoring the US’ “rules-based international order” sanctions, developing its own international balance of payments outside of US dollar hegemony, and working to get out from under the boot of the IMF’s & World Bank’s debt traps.
‡Focusing on Putin and Assad in particular sounds like great man theory, which Marxists reject.
Unfortunately one of their main writers is a major crank.