Traffic on the single bridge that links Russia to Moscow-annexed Crimea and serves as a key supply route for the Kremlinā€™s forces in the war with Ukraine came to a standstill on Monday after one of its sections was blown up, killing a couple and wounding their daughter.

The RBC Ukraine news agency reported that explosions were heard on the bridge, with Russian military bloggers reporting two strikes.

RBC Ukraine and another Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda said the attack was planned jointly by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Ukrainian navy, and involved sea drones.

  • @[email protected]
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    I couldnā€™t care less what this fascistā€™s take is, and I find it really sus that you admonished me on the mistake with whoever that golden dawn guy was but then refer to a fascist yourself while calling him a liberal.

    You know where those ā€œfascistā€ accusations come from? Precisely that kind of stuff, ā€œX belongs to Russiaā€. Anyhow I cited him as an example of the opposition FFS, not because I share those kinds of view which shouldā€™ve been obvious. As to ā€œliberalā€: Thatā€™s exactly what heā€™s classed as in Russia. After the 2022 invasion portions of the opposition did start to reflect on imperialism in a more thorough manner than ā€œdoing things by force bad but actually yes Ukraine is Russiaā€ but with the current state of things, well, prison, keeping their head down, or in exile. Not to mention that opposition is not exactly a majority position the majority position is ā€œI donā€™t care about politics thatā€™s a thing for politicians I just want to have a job and a Dachaā€. Utter depoliticisation. Fatalism runs deep in Russia.

    ā€œProcedureā€ is whatever people will popularly accept in an event like this. You get to make it up as you go along and as long as the various factions willing to do violence will agree with it youā€™re good.

    Well, point being that they didnā€™t have to make it up but an ordinary impeachment procedure wouldā€™ve taken a while. In any case any iffiness resulting from that, questions about constitutionality etc. were made up for by elections not soon after. Also, Yanukovych already had fled, the office of president was de facto without incumbent.

    Yet you referred to the whole thing as a ā€œcoup/revolutionā€. It was, big picture and the result, neither of those two but the people not liking that the government they elected reneged on promises and then had themselves new elections for a new government: Neither did suddenly the military reign (coup), nor did the country get a complete make-over, new constitution etc. (revolution), it was a, well, letā€™s call it a special electoral operation. In more established democracies those things happen more smoothly and without violence, but early elections arenā€™t exactly a particularly rare thing. Yanukovych probably assumed his handlers would send him backup just as they had in Belarus.

    Yanukovychā€™s protest law btw was much iffier when it comes to constitutionality as the Rada didnā€™t actually have the votes to pass it. Also, shit only really hit the fan once he doubled down like that.

    Some of it was a communist effort.

    Yeah I know but theyā€™re irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Communists of the type you refer to exist all over Europe, theyā€™re tiny, cultist, splinter factions. Well-organised but without the manpower to do anything, least of all stage a revolution. Do I need to remind you that ā€œdone by people calling themselves communistā€ doesnā€™t imply ā€œpopular supportā€, which you were insinuating. In this situation they were useful idiots for the FSB.

    • Move to lemm.ee
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      Communists of the type you refer to exist all over Europe, theyā€™re tiny, cultist, splinter factions.

      This is not true in France, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Norway or Austria where communists have significant presence in governance and rapidly rising support. I agree with you that weā€™re struggling elsewhere on the continent, for the most part. I think the generalisation is unfair given these arenā€™t exactly unimportant countries. Are you American? This topic is much more interesting and would be way less hostile than it has been up to now between us.

      • @[email protected]
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        Not those kinds of communists. GUE/NGL parties range in self-identification from communist to democratic socialist and are indeed quite large and established, even if they donā€™t have huge electoral successes in many countries. S&D is generally way more popular, socdems of various intensities. GUE/NGL is proportionally strongest in Greece, Cyprus, Portugal and Ireland (at least by EU election results I canā€™t be arsed to go through national ones). Theyā€™re not the kind of party who would stage a coup and then falsify elections.

        The splinter groups I was talking about are the like of the German MLDP who get less than 0.1%, compared to Die Linke which isnā€™t unaccustomed to double-digit results. Best MLDP result ever was 0.4% in the 2006 Sachsen-Anhalt state elections. Which, of course, fits into their ideology, they believe that capitalism can only be overcome by a revolution and its vanguard. You know the type, in fact I think youā€™re deeply familiar with it. Occasionally they manage to get a seat on the municipal level. They donā€™t have a group in the European Parliament because they donā€™t get in.

        • Move to lemm.ee
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          GUE/NGL

          Iā€™m not actually referring to this bunch, although theyā€™re certainly one you could. I am referring mainly to national results. I think however that your measurement comes from ā€œelection resultsā€ whereas this is misleading with regards to communist activities in any given country. Take france for example where you could measure the activity of communists by the results of the PCF. This however is not the sum of communist activity or strategy in the country. The vast majority of Melenchon supporters would be communists if the soft option did not exist. Most of us are revolutionaries in one breath and democratic socialists in another. It entirely depends on the circumstances. I live in Britain, I firmly believe revolution is the only path to socialism, does that mean Iā€™m a revolutionary in the british conditions though? Fuck no it doesnā€™t there is no chance of a revolution right now. Thus my activity takes place through other channels and work, in the trade union movement and in electoral groups.

          The splinter groups I was talking about are the like of the German MLDP who get less than 0.1%, compared to Die Linke which isnā€™t unaccustomed to double-digit results. Best MLDP result ever was 0.4% in the 2006 Sachsen-Anhalt state elections.

          Germany is a huge problem right now there is a massive swing rightwards occurring. The socdem to fascist pipeline was in full swing in the recent election. Youā€™re correct that the left has collapsed there. I do caution against over using electoral results as a measure of communist activities though, none of us believe in electoralism as a pathway to socialism so activity in the electoral system is more about recruitment, spreading socialist education and generally used as a sort of thermometer for the trend of things.

          • @[email protected]
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            1ā€¢1 year ago

            Most of us are revolutionaries in one breath and democratic socialists in another.

            Oh I donā€™t doubt it. The thing is: The ilk I was referring to donā€™t do democratic socialism even when living in democracies. They may not boycott elections but theyā€™re not really trying to win them, either, the motivation just isnā€™t there because they donā€™t believe it could achieve anything.

            Germany is a huge problem right now there is a massive swing rightwards occurring.

            2/3rd of AfD voters donā€™t agree with the party platform. And not just in the ā€œhavenā€™t read itā€ sense but right-out ā€œyeah I donā€™t like them this is a protest vote fuck all those Wessis in Berlinā€ type of deal. And the east being full of open Nazis isnā€™t exactly new, neither is them infiltrating civil society there the trouble is, and was, since the 90s, that the GDR had no civil society to speak of because politics was something the party did. What we see right now is a combination of protest voters having tried all other parties and are now left with the AfD (and still donā€™t get that if they want a party that shares their ideas, they should bloody fund one) and of the far-right getting bold (which will likely mean theyā€™ll overplay their hand), all in enabling circumstances that have been in place for at least a decade. Oh, Russian disinfo whipping the conspiracy crowd right from ā€œcorona dictatorshipā€ into ā€œclimate dictatorshipā€. We didnā€™t have that for long thatā€™s relatively new.

            The percentage of people with a closed right-extremist world view is actually larger in the west than in the east, yet election results are the exact opposite. Open Nazism is rarer in the west because Antifa, while not necessarily larger, has a way easier time drawing upon wider civil society so the Nazis keep their head down. Thereā€™s xenophobia and feelings of disenfranchisement in the east, the AfD plays into it, and if Wagenknecht ever gets around to actually founding her party sheā€™ll scoop those votes straight up. ā€œUnemployed before refugeesā€ and ā€œtrans rights are human rights but fuck neopronounsā€ is by and large about as far as you need to go to calm those waters, a thing Die Linke never managed to do. Oh, and having selective expropriation of means of production in the programme wonā€™t hurt. Going all-out would not be popular but targeted initiatives, completely different matter.

            • Move to lemm.ee
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              I donā€™t think it matters if 2 thirds of them donā€™t support the whole platform. What matters is simply that they supported them. It doesnā€™t matter that people here in Britain donā€™t support the whole platform of the tories, they still supported them on Brexit, enabling them to go ahead with the entire rest of their platform.

              The percentage of people with a closed right-extremist world view is actually larger in the west than in the east, yet election results are the exact opposite. Open Nazism is rarer in the west because Antifa, while not necessarily larger, has a way easier time drawing upon wider civil society so the Nazis keep their head down. Thereā€™s xenophobia and feelings of disenfranchisement in the east, the AfD plays into it, and if Wagenknecht ever gets around to actually founding her party sheā€™ll scoop those votes straight up.

              Iā€™m not that familiar with Wagenknecht, is she what happens when the strasserite types of morons understand that nazis are bad but couldnā€™t explain to you why?

              ā€œUnemployed before refugeesā€ and ā€œtrans rights are human rights but fuck neopronounsā€ is by and large about as far as you need to go to calm those waters, a thing Die Linke never managed to do.

              A good thing. Neopronouns are fine and good. People donā€™t understand them but thatā€™s ok, eventually they will, assuming the right donā€™t manage to kill everyone first.

              but targeted initiatives, completely different matter.

              This was the landlords expropriation shit right? Did it ever actually get implemented or did it get snatched out from under the people through other means? I am betting on the latter.

              • @[email protected]
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                Iā€™m not that familiar with Wagenknecht, is she what happens when the strasserite types of morons understand that nazis are bad but couldnā€™t explain to you why?

                Strasserite fuck no, sheā€™s a card-carrying communist, always has been, joined Die Linke when it was still the SED. Masters inā€¦ philosophy, I guess, on Marxā€™ interpretation of Hegel. PhD in macroeconomics. If the GDR hadnā€™t fallen sheā€™d probably sit in the central committee. Ceased to do Stalin apologia in the 90s, still does Russia apologia and has rather unhelpful Ukraine takes (ā€œletā€™s just all stop shootingā€, ā€œceasefire nowā€). Against a vaccine mandate but that only ever has been debated about in the abstract, anyway, definitely not a denier. Where she really breaks with the rest of Die Linke is the stuff I alluded to (with a bit of populist spin as sheā€™d then also be bound to do it in her new party): The main beef she has with her party is over, as she puts it, Die Linke forgetting to advocate for the broad masses and instead fixating on (however justified) minority issues. See that as you will itā€™s certainly the exact perception people in the east have of the party.

                A good thing. Neopronouns are fine and good. People donā€™t understand them but thatā€™s ok, eventually they will, assuming the right donā€™t manage to kill everyone first.

                Iā€™m drawing the line at having a neutral pronoun anyone can use. I donā€™t mind one bit if some enthusiasts want to go all-out and have as many pronouns in a group as there are people but donā€™t expect me to keep track of all that I can barely remember names (faces and characters and histories, no issue, but names just donā€™t stick). Itā€™s bad enough that Indo-European languages have gender-afflicted noun classes itā€™s a better idea to just get rid of them (or at least class distinctions between different groups of people1) than to explode the number of classes.

                Or, to put it with Zizek: Why LGBTQ+ canā€™t we just all be +.

                This was the landlords expropriation shit right? Did it ever actually get implemented or did it get snatched out from under the people through other means? I am betting on the latter.

                Oh no it went through. Berlinā€™s government is currently dragging its feet (CDU/SPD, both opposed the referendum) but they have to implement it.


                1 Pun not intended but Iā€™ll take it

                • Move to lemm.ee
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                  1ā€¢1 year ago

                  The main beef she has with her party is over, as she puts it, Die Linke forgetting to advocate for the broad masses and instead fixating on (however justified) minority issues. See that as you will itā€™s certainly the exact perception people in the east have of the party.

                  This is the kind of stuff Iā€™m alluding to. Maybe not strasserite, maybe nazbol-ey. Either way itā€™s not communist. Thereā€™s a significant segment of communists who have fallen rightwards through anti-idpol bollocks failing to understanding marxist intersectionality. Theyā€™ve mistakenly decided it all needs to be rejected for popular support rather than re-educating the population into recognising the intersectionality is a requirement for the broader masses to succeed, we simply donā€™t have the numbers otherwise in the new cosmopolitan societies that were constructed after nation-states ended and got built into the multicultural multi-racial cosmopolitan societies they are today.

                  Iā€™m drawing the line at having a neutral pronoun anyone can use. I donā€™t mind one bit if some enthusiasts want to go all-out and have as many pronouns in a group as there are people but donā€™t expect me to keep track of all that I can barely remember names (faces and characters and histories, no issue, but names just donā€™t stick). Itā€™s bad enough that Indo-European languages have gender-afflicted noun classes itā€™s a better idea to just get rid of them (or at least class distinctions between different groups of people1) than to explode the number of classes.

                  I donā€™t think anyone wants you to keep tracks, just to acknowledge and respect it. Itā€™s not really something that lgbt people came up with either, it has existed prior to the modern day and Iā€™m willing to bet thereā€™s at least one isolated group out there somewhere using some unusual shit. At the end of the day itā€™s just a way to describe their gender when ā€œmanā€ or ā€œwomanā€ doesnā€™t work for them. Itā€™s pretty harmless and seems to particularly resonate with people that arenā€™t neurotypical so ehhhhhh itā€™s fine. Power to them really. Iā€™m glad theyā€™re happy. I donā€™t have neopronouns but it doesnā€™t affect me so you know.

                  Or, to put it with Zizek: Why LGBTQ+ canā€™t we just all be +.

                  I couldnā€™t care less what this socdem lib thinks. He was losing my attention with his rape obsession for years but he completely lost my attention when he started writing for the cia outlets like Radio Free. Heā€™s not getting away with ignorance he knows whatā€™s up.

                  Oh no it went through. Berlinā€™s government is currently dragging its feet (CDU/SPD, both opposed the referendum) but they have to implement it.

                  When? Is there a timeline? If theyā€™re dragging their feet theyā€™re just looking for the circumstances necessary to drop it. When I saw this happen my immediate thought was ā€œtheyā€™ll never ever implement thatā€. If they ever do I will be incredibly surprised.

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                    1ā€¢1 year ago

                    marxist intersectionality.

                    ā€¦what? Intersectionality is like a late 80s concept.

                    Theyā€™ve mistakenly decided it all needs to be rejected for popular support rather than re-educating the population into recognising the intersectionality is a requirement for the broader masses to succeed,

                    How do you re-educate when the masses think youā€™re not interested in their success? How do you get people interested in other peopleā€™s issues if they think youā€™re shafting them?

                    Thereā€™s been a massive erosion of the social systems over here roughly starting in 2000 with Schrƶder, New Labour type of stuff, right after Kohl pushed through his neolib privatisation agenda, victims of which were among other things the complete industry of the GDR ā€“ factories were sold for pennies to western competition who then shut stuff down. Itā€™s a double whammy.

                    Whereas back in the GDR you were not able to open your mouth without the Stasi taking notes and not able to run your mouth without the Stasi picking you off the street, if you didnā€™t you were guaranteed to be able to get a job, fund a family, have some vacations etc. economically the situation wasnā€™t great but you didnā€™t need to worry about falling through any cracks (as long as you kept your mouth shut). The GDR had no Lumpenproletariat. Itā€™s the exact opposite right now. And people in the east are, rightly, blaming politicians for it. And now Die Linke appears to them to worry more about neopronouns than being demsocs or even socdems.

                    Sure you can do both, caring about one doesnā€™t really affect caring about the other ā€“ but you also have to avoid the above perception. Most of all, if you make progress in one area but not the other you might have to tone down those successes lest the perception be that you only fight for one.

                    As to the numbers game: For a majority youā€™ll need the masses. No two ways about it. A minority politics focus might win you activists, but not elections.

                    and seems to particularly resonate with people that arenā€™t neurotypical so ehhhhhh itā€™s fine.

                    Not the schizo spectrum thatā€™s for sure, trust me, Iā€™d know. Autism spectrum, sure, when it comes to subjectivity theyā€™re hyper-normies. Now I donā€™t mind yā€™all having prescriptive identities but you donā€™t have to be muppets about it.

                    I couldnā€™t care less what this socdem lib thinks.

                    I meanā€¦ you donā€™t have to to consider the point? Ok, hereā€™s what Rosa Luxemburg said: Why LGBTQ+, why not just +?

                    When? Is there a timeline? If theyā€™re dragging their feet theyā€™re just looking for the circumstances necessary to drop it. When I saw this happen my immediate thought was ā€œtheyā€™ll never ever implement thatā€. If they ever do I will be incredibly surprised.

                    Dragging their feet among other things included ā€œwe need studies, we need a framework law first, and we have to make sure that itā€™s even compatible with Berlinā€™s constitutionā€ (the Berlin constitution, unlike the federal one, wasnā€™t explicitly written to be compatible with state capitalism, but in any case the federal one takes precedence), so they tasked an expert commission with figuring all that out. Said commission just recently reached its final verdict: No framework law needed, yep of course itā€™s constitutional, itā€™s probably even going to be cheap.

                    The government is constitutionally required to implement it, the referendum was legally binding. The rest is a matter of rule of law. If they refuseā€¦ well courts can hold them in contempt but thatā€™s not going to do much. But it would cost them the next elections, or probably rather cause early elections because the SPD wouldnā€™t want to dig their heels in over this one. Or there can be another referendum, this time of the ā€œthis exact law shall now be in forceā€ kind, not the ā€œthe senate shall legislate on this matterā€ one.