Objection

Ukraine is a difficult example, and I think we can safely say that the Soviet approach didn't work, and that's a key example that we can look at when evaluating the theory.

Like you said, Lenin's approach in practice wasn't consistent with his theoretical arguments. The approach was supposed to be a compromise between those concerns, as well as strategic concerns (the risk of divide and conquer) and political concerns (different factions calling for different things). But whatever his intents or justifications, the fact that Ukraine is such a mess today says that something went wrong in a big way.

It's easy to say that Ukraine should have just been given full independence, and that's probably correct, but we also don't know for sure what would've happened. What implications would that have had for WWII? Perhaps the strategic difficulties would have been offset by presenting a better image to other countries and getting more support.

Applying the theory to the present conflict gets even messier. In theory, Ukraine being independent would be a good thing, but in the current conflict it's really more about which sphere of influence it's in. The question of what to do when there's a secesionist movement within a nation that's not fully developed is particularly thorny. I really can't see any way things could work out for that region, unfortunately, so my stance is just to leave it alone.

In general, it's an enormously difficult and complex question, especially in practice, and the best we can do is to try to establish basic guidelines in the abstract, while looking at each situation case-by-case.

Sorry that you think it’s regulated by some law?

Typically people leave after saying goodbye but ok.

I responded to your dogshit any time I see it, regardless of whether or not you had me blocked, so I don’t know what you think that blocking me changed, lmao.

Well, when I see you baselessly accuse me of things, I of course reply to defend myself. And then you reply and we get into the whole thing where I keep asking you to provide a shred of evidence to substantiate your beliefs, and you reply that one must not test our Lord God the State Department and that blessed is he who believes the US government without having seen and skepticism is the tool of the devil, blah blah blah. And since you can't seem to resist preaching your holy gospel or chastising the faithless skeptics, I think I'm making it harder for you to abide by your decision to leave. So, for both of our sakes, I will now block you again.

Yes yes, by defending myself from the accusation of being a witch, I'm calling the Church a liar and proving my guilt. By defending myself from the accusation of being a "fascist" I'm "sealioning" and proving my guilt. We've been through this ridiculous song and dance.

Anything to bootlick for genociding minorities, I see.

I'm confused. You're bootlicking the genocide of Italians too. We're all bootlicking the genocide of the bubbly wumpuses in the fairy kingdom. All through the power of imagination, after we've completely severed any concern for evidence.

What’s the logic there, I’m curious.

I prefer to keep a short blocklist.

Sorry that you think a thread is timed like a real-world conversation? lmao.

I'm just wondering what the statute of limitations is here. Are you still gonna be in your farewell thread next week? Next month?

Don't worry, I'll block you again soon. I know you can't resist engaging with me.

Me providing a link (see bottom left for the exact link) to evidence in the very first comment, followed by quoting the link when disputed, and providing further evidence.

I'm talking about your accusations further down the thread. You know, the part where you call me a fascist for refusing to believe things without evidence?

followed by me providing evidence of your genocide denial

What does that matter? You're also a genocide denier, regarding the Italian Genocide. Everyone on earth is a genocide denier.

Like most Nazis, repeating lies often in the hopes that they’ll be believed is all you have.

No, actually, I have reason and evidence, which you lack.

Didn’t you claim to have me blocked?

I did have you blocked. I unblocked when I heard you left.

Sorry that I’m active in my fucking farewell thread

Your farewell thread from two days ago? Quite the Southern Goodbye.

Aren't you supposed to be logging off? Now that you've noticed I've unblocked you, I doubt you'll be able to stay away for a week.

Amusing that you literally link to me providing evidence multiple times.

Exactly what I'm talking about. You know that most people won't read through the conversations to know you're lying.

Sorry that you don’t like it when it’s pointed out that you’re an Uyghur Genocide denier.

Pretty rich coming from an Italian Genocide denier.

Here's some relevant theory from Lenin, which I'll try to summarize, because I found it insightful. Of course we have a century more of history to draw from, with some of these ideas put to the test, but it's useful to understand his position.

Marxism makes that analysis and says: if the "substance" of a war is, for example, the overthrow of alien oppression (which was especially typical of Europe in 1789–1871), then such a war is progressive as far as the oppressed state or nation is concerned. If, however, the "substance" of a war is redivision of colonies, division of booty, plunder of foreign lands (and such is the war of 1914–16), then all talk of defending the fatherland is "sheer deception of the people".

How, then, can we disclose and define the "substance" of a war? War is the continuation of policy. Consequently, we must examine the policy pursued prior to the war, the policy that led to and brought about the war. If it was an imperialist policy, i.e., one designed to safeguard the interests of finance capital and rob and oppress colonies and foreign countries, then the war stemming from that policy is imperialist. If it was a national liberation policy, i.e., one expressive of the mass movement against national oppression, then the war stemming from that policy is a war of national liberation.

Here, Lenin is correcting a misunderstanding stemming from socialist critiques of WWI and the rejection of the "defense of the fatherland" slogan. That rejection shouldn't be taken as a general rejection of defending nations, because some national projects are actually worth defending. The reason he rejected that reasoning in the context of WWI was that it was a deception: the war wasn't actually about defending nations, it was about fighting over who got to oppress colonies. We have to look at the political conflicts leading up to the war to understand what is being fought over.

In the Western countries the national movement is a thing of the distant past. in England, France, Germany, etc., the "fatherland" is a dead letter, it has played its historical role, i.e., the national movement cannot yield here anything progressive, anything that will elevate new masses to a new economic and political life. History's next step here is not transition from feudalism or from patriarchal savagery to national progress, to a cultured and politically free fatherland, but transition from a "fatherland" that has out lived its day, that is capitalistically overripe, to socialism.

The position is different in Eastern Europe. As far as the Ukrainians and Byelorussians, for instance, are concerned, only a Martian dreamer could deny that the national movement has not yet been consummated there, that the awakening of the masses to the full use of their mother tongue and literature (and this is an absolute condition and concomitant of the full development of capitalism, of the full penetration of exchange to the very last peasant family) is still going on there. The "fatherland" is historically not yet quite a dead letter there. There the "defence of the fatherland" can still be defence of democracy, of one's native language, of political liberty against oppressor nations, against medievalism, whereas the English. French, Germans and Italians lie when they speak of defending their father land in the present war, because actually what they are defending is not their native language, not their right to national development, but their rights as slave-holders, their colonies, the foreign "spheres of influence" of their finance capital, etc.

In the semi-colonies and colonies the national movement is, historically, still younger than in Eastern Europe.

Lenin argued that cultures need to go through a certain phase of development that generally requires being an independent nation. Since Western countries have already gone through this development, nationalism no longer serves any legitimate purpose, and only holds them back from progressing towards socialism. However, for colonized and oppressed cultures, they are generally first and foremost concerned with achieving national autonomy. Having achieved that, they can develop culturally and economically towards socialism, engaging as equals with the rest of the international proletariat.

However, there is further nuance:

In real life the International is composed of workers divided into oppressor and oppressed nations.If its action is to be monistic, its propaganda must not be the same for both. That is how we should regard the matter in the light of real (not Dühringian) "monism", Marxist materialism.

An example? We cited the example of Norway (in the legal press over two years ago!), and no one has challenged it. In this concrete case taken from life, the action of the Norwegian and Swedish workers was "monistic", unified, inter nationalist only because and insofar as the Swedish workers unconditionally championed Norway's freedom to secede, while the Norwegian workers raised the question of secession only conditionally. Had the Swedish workers not supported Norway's freedom of secession unconditionally, they would have been chauvinists, accomplices of the chauvinist Swedish landlords, who wanted to "keep" Norway by force, by war. Had the Norwegian workers not raised the question of secession conditionally, i.e., allowing even Social-Democratic Party members to conduct propaganda and vote against secession, they would have failed in their internationalist duty and would have sunk to narrow, bourgeois Norwegian nationalism. Why? Because the, secession was being effected by the bourgeoisie, not by the proletariat! Because the Norwegian bourgeoisie (as every other) always strives to drive a wedge between the workers of its own and an "alien" country! Because for the class-conscious workers every democratic demand (including self-determination) is subordinated to the supreme interests of socialism. For example, if Norway's secession from Sweden had created the certainty or probability of war between Britain and Germany, the Norwegian workers, for that reason alone, would have had to oppose secession. The Swedish workers would have had the right and the opportunity, without ceasing to be socialists, to agitate against secession, but only if they had waged a systematic, consistent and constant struggle against the Swedish Government for Norway's freedom to secede. Otherwise the Norwegian workers and people would not, and could not, accept the advice of the Swedish workers as sincere.

When two people bump into each other on the street, if both apologize and assume fault, it's less likely to lead to conflict than if they both try to rationally determine who's more at fault. This is essentially what Lenin calls for in what might be considered edge cases. Those of the dominant culture should err on the side of supporting secession (or at least the right to it) to avoid chauvanism, while those of the culture considering secession should be more critical and conditional about the prospect of a bourgeois-led independence movement.

I also don't want ICE kidnapping whoever they label as "Iranian sleeper cells," which would also be random nannies, farm workers, and gardeners.

Like I said, he's really just concerned with playing to a crowd that I'm not part of, so yeah.

It's an incredibly stupid strategy, but there's a couple factors that cause Dem leadership to keep trying it over and over.

First, and primarily, turning right tends to square better with what their corporate donors want.

They're also stuck in the past, they think we're still in the early 2000s where there was a broad, bipartisan consensus on interventionist foreign policy and taking away privacy rights and such. They think Trump is a bizarre, random fluke, and that there are countless moderate Republicans who still believe in that consensus. In reality, some didn't ever believe in it, some just followed whatever they were told to believe, but a lot became disillusioned when that consensus failed miserably, with decades-long wars accomplishing nothing.

Part of the problem is that they stay in their bubbles, and that "moderate Republican" perspective is disproportionately represented in elite, Beltway circles. People like Dick Cheney are almost universally reviled outside of those circles, but the Dems aren't even aware of it.

Then there's this "conventional wisdom" that puts everyone's political views on a one dimensional spectrum and concludes that the most moderate candidate will always win. Completely ignoring mobilization, enthusiasm, Trump's multiple wins which fly in the face of the theory, the ability to change people's political views and identities, the fact that politics is way more complex than one dimension (for example, the effect I mentioned before with Hispanic Trump voters).