5 Reasons Why Leftists Should Defend Russia | New Eastern Outlook [View all]

[MattSh]

by Eric Draitser

As tensions between the US and Russia have increased in the last year, so too has the polarization of public opinion. While the western corporate media has reverted to its formerly antagonistic, Cold War era attitude toward Russia – predictably radicalizing much of western public opinion, infusing the discourse with a decidedly Russophobic bias – it has increasingly been left to those on the political margins to deconstruct the false narrative, expose the Empire’s agenda, and defend the right of sovereign nations to act independent of western diktats.

And it is here, on the political margins, where many are willing to speak out against the US agenda in Ukraine and beyond, where the real fight for hearts and minds is taking place. The political mainstream will simply go along with the narratives presented to it by the Empire’s compliant media, thus ensuring its continued impotence and irrelevance to policy. However, a loud chorus of critics, dissidents, and anti-imperialist voices is becoming increasingly impossible to ignore.

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Many self-proclaimed “leftists” have merely transposed their anti-Soviet politics into an anti-Russian ideological posture, which sees in Russia both an embrace of capitalism and a desire for imperial revanchism. In this way, such groups (numerous on what passes for the “organized Left”) run interference for the political establishment, serving to dilute the potency of an anti-imperialist message through internecine conflict, demonization, and sectarianism. They proclaim that there is nothing about Russia worth defending for leftists. But is this true?

Here are a few reasons why those on the left who argue that Russia is “no better than the US” are either plainly ignorant, or they have ulterior motives:

1. Opposing US-NATO. <more...>
2. BRICS, SCO, and “Multi-Polarity.” <more...>
3. Opposition to Shock Therapy and Disaster Capitalism. <more...>
4. WWII, The Holocaust, and Defending Historical Memory. <more...>
5. Political Support for Victims of US Imperialism. <more...>

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If it is true that Russia’s political elite have finally recognized their own global importance, the world will benefit. Hopefully, some on the so-called Left will also come to this realization. If not, then they should cease to call themselves anti-imperialists, and instead admit what they really are…the left flank of the Empire.

Complete story at - http://journal-neo.org/2015/02/20/5-reasons-why-leftists-should-defend-russia/