Russia Derangement Syndrome has now metastasized into a full-blown crackdown on dissent against NATO expansion and imperialist-serving anti-Russian narratives. We are perhaps, if not already, facing the early days of illiberalism because the powers that be realize that their previously liberal ways have become obsolete. The most profoundly disturbing part is that the majority of liberal and even anti-war “leftist” Americans are fine with the idea of waging an apocalyptic war on Russia. According to a recent CNN survey conducted by smerconish.com, 77% responded favorably to “NATO going into war for Ukraine.” Another survey conducted on a popular Youtube channel that fashions itself as a “populist” news outlet, Breaking Points, asked in a poll, “Do you support western sanctions and economic warfare against Russia?” 66% of their viewers responded in favor of the sanctions.
While “sanctions” may sound benign, a favored method of the Clinton-esque State Department, it is in fact an egregious act of war. Sanctions starve populations by seizing food imports from around the world, they deprive nations of construction materials used for infrastructure, and they block trade of raw materials such as crude oil, which is already affecting gas prices around the world. In Canada right now, it is a little above $8 per gallon while in the United States, gas is as high as $6 per gallon.
Of course, the increasing gas prices won’t affect well-off celebrities like George Takai, who tweeted the following; “Americans: We can endure higher prices for food and gas if it means putting the screws to Putin. Consider it a patriotic donation in the fight for freedom over tyranny.” Well Sulu, many Americans cannot afford to pay their medical bills or their student debt. Too many work two, or even three, jobs just to pay rent for a studio apartment – let alone being able to afford a Tesla. A combination of stagnant wages, a national mental health crisis, mass layoffs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, baby formula shortages, and Silicon Valley tech censorship, all seem to be sowing the seeds of mass discontent.
Going back to the aforementioned surveys, most Americans fail to comprehend that support for a war on behalf of Ukraine would likely mean an escalation towards thermonuclear conflict with Russia. In other words, these Americans are unknowingly consenting to World War 3. When I say this will not end well, I mean that WW3 will result in the deaths of hundreds of millions, if not billions, around the world and, potentially, the end of human civilization. This war will be far more all-encompassing than soldiers shelling each other on the frontlines in Eastern Europe. Victory or defeat – we will not observe it from the comfort of our own unscathed homes.
Geopolitical experts have long warned of what has become of the conflict in Ukraine, such as well renowned political scientist, international relations scholar, and distinguished professor of University of Chicago, John J. Mearshirmer. On September 25, 2015, he put forward a dire warning:
“What’s going on here is that the West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked…and I believe that the policy that I’m advocating which is neutralizing Ukraine and then building it up economically and getting it out of the competition between Russia on one side and NATO on the other side is the best thing that can happen to the Ukrainians. What we’re doing is encouraging the Ukrainians to play tough with the Russians. We’re encouraging the Ukraninans to think that they will ultimately become part of the West because we will ultimately defeat Putin and we will ultimately get our way, time is on our side. And of course the Ukrainians are playing along with this and the Ukrainians are almost unwilling to compromise with the Russains and instead want to pursue a hardline policy. Well, as I said to you before, if they do that the end result is that their country is gonna be wrecked. And what we’re doing is encouraging that outcome. I think it would make much more sense for us to work to create a neutral Ukraine. It would be in our (USA) interest to bury this crisis as quickly as possible. It certainly would be in Russia’s interest to do so and most importantly it would be in Ukraine’s interest to put an end to the crisis.”
In essence, NATO used Ukrainians as-cannon fodder-to-be in an attempt to lure Russia into Ukraine’s war on Donbass. For 8 years Russia had demonstrated remarkable restraint despite the Communist Party of the Russian Federation’s call for Putin to send military support to the Donbass Republics and for Russia to recognize the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) Only after Kiev again intensified its provocations did Russia send its troops to end this war that Kiev had been waging on what it considers to be its own people. But those who really started this war were the people of the banking cartels, that have a global monopoly on oil. They served every US president since FDR, with Joe Biden being merely another puppet (albeit a barely coherent one) of the finance capitalists who run the Pentagon, CIA, and Washington D.C. Despite the Kiev’s war against the ethinc Russians of Donbass and the efforts of Western banking monopolies to halt the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, which would export Russian oil to Germany and other Western European countries for a low cost, many western leftists and so called “anti-war” activists insist on not taking a stance, due to the false illusion that Russia is just another imperialist country. Does this idealist perception of Russia as an imperialist country benefit the left?
As serious anti-imperialists, we must look to Lenin’s definition of imperialism, as outlined in Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism:
Alongside Lenin’s definition of imperialism, it must be stated that Russia is by no means an imperialist nation. The capitalist system there has not reached the level of monopoly capitalism – in fact Russia is run by a national bourgeois state struggling on the periphery of the international capitalist system. For a more thorough analysis on why Russia is not imperialist, I highly recommend reading Stansfield Smith’s article written for the Monthly Review from 2019 called, “Is Russia Imperialist?”
Hopefully this article helps the reader in understanding the nature of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict and what is at stake for the world. Whatever grievances one has with Russia, Americans must remember that a person must get one’s home in order before he or she begins criticizing another’s. We have one world to fight for and our fight starts at home.
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