kontextmaschine:

Always funny to see leftists understanding the wider world through the lens of their sectarian infighting and thinking the American right gives a single solitary shit about Bashsar al-Assad

Like I only look into that stuff enough to see it’s not worth looking taking seriously on its own terms, it strikes me as mostly a

• ‘90s-ass R2P “Human Wites!” liberal internationalism* but co-opting contemporary street leftist energy and like, Andrew Reid Ross for modern relevance

* which is to say, basically assuming American hegemony

vs. a

• Anti-imperialist tendency which sees itself as the continuation of 20th century leftism and is seen by its enemies as a continuation of 20th century leftism’s subordination to Russian geopolitical interests. Which is to some extent an unknowing or cynical reuse of dormant and now ridiculous Cold War themes, and where aligned mostly incidentally because the Russian state apparatus is coevolved, including ideologically, with the American Empire. But in some cases coming through ideological or structural inheritance from institutions that really were aimed towards Russian interests, and in others because they really are structurally incorporated into the apparatus’ modern form.

to be the defining form of “The Left” in certain online political spaces.