this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2024
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Earlier today I showed my mom the Soviet animated short film Polygon. It is a stunning and dark anti-war film, and at the end of this film she said, "Someone should show this to Putin!" — and this bothered me a bit, though I didn't air my grievances out loud. There are certainly some implicit points I would agree with, that Putin is an untrustworthy bourgeois leader, that world leaders often wage wars without knowing their actual human cost, that objectively speaking Russia has invaded Ukraine; but I still felt like my mom's heart was coming from a place of really just buying into propaganda by the same Western capitalists who profiteer from making the war as long and destructive as possible, eager to further their interests in the region even if it leads to a nuclear third world war.
My mom's remark reminded me of when I was visiting relatives across the pond in occupied Anishinaabewaki a number of years ago, and one of the things we did for one of our get-together traditions was to talk about a goal we had for the next time we'd see each other. And I had said that I'd just started learning Russian, so I wanted to become proficient in that language by the next time we saw each other. And one of my relatives said something along the lines of, "Hopefully you can get to the bottom of who's meddling in our elections!" — and even being a radlib at the time I just thought that that was a really inappropriate thing to say to someone taking an interest in another language and another culture... Indeed, I recall the whole room being kind of awkwardly silent after that, so it seems the other libs were in agreement.
That relative who made the "election meddling" remark is of course still a settler who is reinforcing and benefiting from an illegal occupation of the country in which she resides, a country which isn't even given the dignity of dotted lines on a world map. And when she concerns herself so much with elections that are fundamentally illegitimate, I don't have much hope for her to suddenly "become based". My mother on the other hand, she grew up in that settler-colony but has now spent half her life outside of it, and she's been very supportive of me being a communist and she has accepted or unlearned many things about the world, and even said that she treats me as an authority on politics to some extent; however, there's still so many things that she hasn't unlearned — and given that we live in the imperial core, and given her own background, that she might never unlearn. And that disappoints me to think about, because I generally do have a lot of respect for her and wish her only the best.
...So yeah, I guess "dae ebil Putler" is going to be my "favorite" facepalm-inducing take that libs regularly trot out. Even left-wing groups in my country with large Marxist and/or anarchist factions will do this tailist bullshit about Ukraine, that leaves me wondering how much I have to actually put up with their nonsense to get anything done.
The "evil Putler" narrative, combined with Israel's insanely brazen behavior, has made me give up hope that Western society has any chance of improving.
I'm sorry, but if you can't draw the connection that the very same countries who demonstrably, enthusiastically support an ongoing genocide, and are actively spreading lies about it MIGHT NOT have told you the truth about the Ukraine war, then there simply is no hope for you.
Call me an optimist, but I do think that Europeans can and will be better — because before one can develop a thorough and principled opposition to imperialism, one will necessarily have a superficial and unprincipled opposition first, just from seeing things that don't make sense. Right now I think we are in that phase, increasingly, because the rhetoric about and widespread solidarity with Palestine that we see in the public today is unprecedented, right?
I think belief is also often a very social thing: though people often pride themselves on "being rational", in reality people often will not accept an idea until it reaches a certain threshold of popularity that "proves" it should be taken seriously, or otherwise people will not accept an idea unless it comes from someone specific that they see as trustworthy. So the more people with a low threshold are convinced, the easier it becomes to convince those with a medium threshold, then finally the high threshold — so like basically all things, a society's Overton window is like a chemical reaction, right? People buy bourgeois narratives because everyone around them does and says that bourgeois media is trustworthy, and bourgeois media itself says that it is trustworthy, and so this has become a self-reinforcing cycle that regulates which ideas are open to discussion. But ultimately it is inevitable and in Europe's interests that Europe will align itself with Russia rather than with the USA, and it is equally inevitable and in Europeans' interests to realize this; so the question is more when people in Europe will start to realize this rather than if — what will it take to break this self-reinforcing cycle, and will the satisfaction of "Told you so!" outweigh the frustration of "You only got that now?!"
Craig Murray has an essay where he apologizes for being wrong on Ukraine for just this reason.
. . .
Is it available online? I googled "Polygon Soviet movie" and got a Red Scare propaganda film.
https://youtu.be/NnJbtbh4tDE
Bizarre that it didn't show up for you. I googled it and got the correct result right away.
Oh, wow, this is good stuff. Thanks!
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
lol, that film couldn't be more obviously aimed at the West, one of the main war profiteer vultures even says something like ”If we had something like this in our colonies, we could've kept them” IIRC.
(of course, a sufficiently brainwormed lib will say something like ”Ukraine used to be colonized by Russia”)