freagle

Oh wow, that was an awesome clarification. Thank you! I see now that I was greatly confused by the analogy with the European concept of a fetish in foreign cultures, that such a thing was a set of beliefs held by a people. It did not click for me that commodity fetishization is not an analog to what the European’s believed foreign cultures believed about certain objects, but rather an analog to the role Europeans believed it to play in that society, specifically a material role, a causative role.

Thank you for that.

On the content front, I think there’s a debate to be had, but not now. I need to process and reread with this new focus. Thanks for taking the time. I really appreciate it.

Genuine question, have you read any of Capital?

Yes, but I definitely don’t fully understand it. You and I disagree on the meaning of this concept, and I’m keen to learn, but if it’s not too arrogant, I’d like to continue pushing my understanding and having you critique it so I can learn where my error in understanding is.

“Fetish”, in “commodity fetish” refers to the commodity appearing to have mystical properties, when in actuality it’s an inanimate object.

I always thought this was sort of a metaphorical or poetic way of describing the phenomenon. Like, what even is an example of a “mystical property” that would apply in the context of industrial modernity? I don’t think Marx was critiquing the phenomenon of people believing their kitchen knives were sharp because of their connection with the divine or that automobiles were able to heal your epilepsy if you just laid your head against the engine block.

But it appears animate; it appears to be capable of magical things

Again, this seems metaphorical. My understanding is that Marx’s analysis is that when individual commodities are fetishized he meant that people believe that commodities as commodities are capable of meeting the believer’s personal human needs, when in reality it is actually the human relationships that are meeting the needs through the application of labor on nature to produce that which is needed.

To reiterate, I’m presenting my understanding so you can critique it and help expose my incorrect understanding.

it also makes social relations between people appear as relations between things

I understood this not to be an also but rather a restatement of the same thing referred to by the magical/mystical framing.

the relation of domination between capitalist and worker appears as an exchange of commodities, a wage in exchange for labour-power

Yes, this I see and agree with. I believe it’s consistent with my understanding and does not represent a contradiction with my understanding. Although it’s interesting to see it framed this way and think “was Marx saying this as individual human relations or as class relations, or both?”

Clout-chasing is just clout-chasing, The desire to make money is because, well, we live in a capitalist society, and more money means you can get more stuff

Isn’t this mystical thinking? “Money means you can get more stuff” is ascribing a power to commodity (in this case money) that is actually a power inherent in the relationship between humans. Money is a perfect example of “a belief that the exchange values of goods are inherent to them” and an example of a pathway by which “social phenomena such as market value, wages and rent are reified”

Bringing it back to the video thing, content creators see what they produce as a commodity, a commodity collectively call “content”. If you’ve spent any time at all in the world of content, you know that the way people relate to the production and management of content has “absolutely no connection with the physical nature of the commodity and the material relations arising out of this” (to quote Marx).

And the OP’s post is a prime example. Communication is the fundamental reality when it comes to content. Humans communicate with each other. We’ve created ways to communicate across time and space. And instead of using it to communicate things that humans need or desire to communicate, content creators see content as a way to make money. As such, they subvert the original communication goals and produce lies, rage bait, or shallow attractors and then fill that content with “calls to action” to “like and subscribe” or spend their time trying to be part of other content to spread their “brand awareness” etc, etc, etc.

All of these things feel like the magical properties Marx is describing. All of these things reify the social phenomena of rent, intellectual property, advertising revenues, etc. And none of these things bear any resemblance to real human communication, which is the fundamental “what” that content actually is.

That’s my argument. And I feel like it’s pretty solid. But again, it’s easy for me to feel that way if I have a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept. If I thought cheese was anything that contained milk, and I poured milk on spaghetti, it still wouldn’t mac-n-cheese but I would be real confident it was. So, please don’t take my words to be a religious argument or something I hold strongly. I’m happy to abandon my whole argument if you can help me understand what I’m missing or what I’ve assumed that makes my thinking erroneous.

And if you do engage with this, thanks for your time and effort in helping me develop a clearer understanding.

Characteristics which had appeared mysterious because they were not explained on the basis of the relations of producers with each other were assigned to the natural essence of commodities. Just as the fetishist assigns characteristics to his fetish which do not grow out of its nature, so the bourgeois economist grasps the commodity as a sensual thing which possesses pretersensual properties.

So when OP says “fuck why are videos like this. Why can’t videos just be like that” what is happening?

Is it that OP is assigning characteristics to videos that are actually expressions of the relationship between the producers and consumers of those videos, and of the distributors and the advertisers etc?

As far as I can tell, people chasing clout for money is a human relationship, one of deprevation, desperation, and manipulation. And those relationships drive behaviors which result in the characteristics of commodities, like media.

I don’t know. Maybe I’ve misinterpreted Marx all this time. It’s certainly a topic I haven’t deeply wrestled with in concert with others. Happy to be corrected and learn.

And what observable effect does that have on the world that isn’t exactly what OP is describing?

It means turning everything into a commodity - every hobby, every human act, every creative endeavor, every way of life. The commodity form is fetishized and the drive to commodify everything is what OP is railing against.

Commodity Fetishization

Buying imports with your only revenue is exactly the problem when you use that money to destroy your own domestic farms and factories.

It certainly does when you’re a total market economy. Chavez nationalized a bunch of food production and collectivized the farms.

Venezuela’s debt tripled because the government issued billions in bonds on the open market while oil was at an all-time high of over 100 dollars a barrel

Because it was a petrostate when Chavez was elected and it was literally the only and best source of economic wealth the country had after decades of deliberate underdevelopment by compradors working with the imperialists to keep the country dependent. This is standard IMF/Word Bank shit. Venezuela didn’t become a petrostate in 1999 as part of its economic strategy. It started a revolutionary movement in 1999 on the basis of an impoverished petrostate riddled with corruption and neocolonial economics. You can’t time the markets. Chavez made the best decisions he could with limited experience, limited foresight, and the limited amount of embedded skill and experience in the community to run a country under a collectivized and nationalized model. The 2008 oil price crash was, in essence, an economic natural disaster that occurred at an incredibly fragile time for Venezuela.

You can absolutely say that they did bad a job of nationalizing and collectivizing. And of course they did, they were at the beginning of their revolutionary process. Russia’s collectivization and China’s collectivization processes went terribly before they actually solved their cycles of famines. It takes time to build these things. Venezuela’s only chance was the price of oil remaining high. They lost their bet with the market. They didn’t have many other choices. And again, if you want to present what they are, I refer you to the Monday-morning quarterbacking critique.

Being a revolutionary state that is collectivizing and nationalizing land, industry, and natural resources is not a way to get help from the international community with financial problems. The US was already engaged in covert operations by 2002, on the ground in Venezuela. By the 2008 crash, covert operations were maturing and intelligence networks were established. Venezuela was going to have to figure it out on their own. It took 9 years to go from electing Chavez to the crash. It took another 9 years before the economy showed signs of recovery, particularly through allowing USD into the economy. And then the US sanctioned Venezuela, determined that it should not recover.

I’m sure you would have done better if you were in charge.

Calling Smartmatic’s whistleblowing imperialist is a convenient way to ignore that they were the regime’s closest partners for 13 years

Such editorial restraint you have. Not mincing words are we. The regimes closest partners. Really?! Not Morales? Not Castro? Not PDVSA? Not Sidor? No, of course it was Smartmatic. I mean, who could say otherwise right?

If you spend over a decade letting capitalists run your unhackable democracy, you do not get to act shocked when they reveal how the sausages are made.

And apparently you don’t get to question the veracity of their statements even though that have plenty of financial incentives to lie. It’s such a weird thing for you to claim is unassailable. A private company? Lie?! How could they!? They had a contract with the government that lasted 13 years!!! How could they lie!!!

You people are far too credulous.

As for the report from 2019, let’s see how unbiased and fact based it is:

Expressing deep concern for the more than 4 million people compelled to leave the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and also that the 2019 Venezuela Humanitarian Response Plan identifies a population of 7 million in need because of, inter alia, violations of the rights to food and health, violence and insecurity, the collapse of basic services, the deterioration of the education system, lack of access to pre- and post-natal care, and insufficient mechanisms for protection from violence and persecution on political grounds

By this point the sanctions were well established. No mention? Just that the Bolivarian government is committing violations of the rights to food and health? US covert ops on the ground since 2002 (also well established by the time the report came out). No mention? Just that the Bolivarian government is overseeing conditions of violence and insecurity? And after all that, insufficient mechanisms for protection from violence and persecution on political grounds? My brother in Christ - this year there were literally Venezuelans openly asking for a full scale invasion in exchange for oil money. I know the UN categorizes that as “political opinion” and “freedom of expression” but give me a fucking break.

Also strongly condemns the widespread targeted repression and persecution on political grounds in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, including the excessive use of force against peaceful protests, the excessive use of force during security operations, arbitrary detention, torture, ill-treatment, extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances by security forces, such as the Fuerzas de Acciones Especiales and pro-government civilian armed groups

Oh man. Can you imagine? A Bolivarian revolution with pro-government civilian armed groups actually choosing to fight fellow Venezuelans? Man, I wonder what could ever cause them to do that? It couldn’t be brainwashing, do you think? Maybe there’s legitimate security concerns with subversive and counter-revolutionary action on the ground in a country that the US has been targeting for 20 years and has fully function covert operations on the ground? Maybe? No. It must be condemned as “political violence” that truncates “the fundamental human right” to choose to be a junior partner to a psychopathic genocidal empire.

Urges the Venezuelan authorities to immediately release all political prisoners

Can you imagine releasing Machado… oh wait. She’s not in prison. In fact, she was detained briefly and then released. Real murderous dictator vibes there. How is she still alive? Is it A) Venezuela isn’t just murdering the opposition or B) she’s well protected by US covert ops operating in Venezuela?

Expresses grave concern at the fact that there have been at least 6,000 killings resulting from security operations in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela since January 2018 and that, according to information analysed by the High Commissioner, many of these killings may constitute extrajudicial executions;

This report is from September 2019. That report LAUNCHED the fact finding mission. Meaning the 6K number was arrived at before fact finding began.

If you actually read each of the fact finding reports, the first doesn’t actually use “internal chain of command documents” in its methodology and only reviewed about 274 cases and only investigated 223. The methods they used were: “confidential interviews, both in-person and via secure telephone or video connections; (2) confidential documents obtained from individuals and organizations, including legal case files; (3) a call for submissions; and (4) review of open source information”. Not exactly confidence inducing.

I just went through all 5 years of fact finding reports. There is nowhere near deaths totally 5k/year. I encourage you to go through the documents yourself and find evidence for the claim of 5k/year. There is ONE claim of 5k deaths in 2018 that they claim is provided directly by the Venezuelan government. The footnote says “Provided by the Venezuelan government”. I haven’t found the actual source. The Venezuelan government denies that the number, which appears to mean that it denies having provided documented evidence for the number. That’s all I’m able to find right now, so I’m considering it hearsay until I see whatever document the UN thinks the government provided them.

I’m not an authoritarian. Dismantle the US too.

I disagree with the great Satan, but I believe all of his lies

Anyway, this has been fun. Keep simping for the empire while also claiming you hate it. They love when you do that.

I wonder why Venezuela’s debt tripled starting the year that the US tanked their ability to access debt at non-usury rates. So curious! Blowing oil revenues on imports? You don’t say? You mean they bought things with their only source of revenue. Shockingly corrupt!

Oh I don’t dismiss the chairman of the holding company that owns smartmatic as a capitalist. I dismiss him as an imperialist. The British upper class has a lot to do with oil imperialism. Just ask Iran what happened when they nationalized their oil.

I dismissed the founder and CEO of smartmatic as a capitalist because he is. He’s clearly not a Bolivarian or he wouldn’t be in bed with a British Lord building out digital voting infrastructure in the periphery. He stands to gain a lot from the capitalists coming back into power, and the chairman does as well.

As for the report, the UN claims that the Maduro regime killed 5k people but they make that claim by extrapolating from interviews, news articles, and satellite footage. There has been no corroborating evidence on the ground. It’s totally specious.

As for torture, I don’t think anyone in Venezuela is losing sleep over American spies and their collaborators getting the “enhanced interrogation” techniques that those same American spies unleashed on the world.

Look, I’m not saying the Venezuelan government is run by saints. They’ve done things that are harmful to people, they’ve killed people, and they have most definitely killed innocent people.

But the US kills almost 6k annually through prison deaths alone, and another 1000 in police custody/police homicides. Every country has black ops, every country does spy hunting, every country under attack by the US has to take calculated risks understanding that they are going to be catching innocents in the net.

And again, Maduro wasn’t wrong! Machado was literally asking US oil companies to convince the US to invade in exchange for wealthy contracts. We know for a fact that Machado and her cohort were working directly with US covert ops running money, arms, training, organizing, and facilitation. It’s not like there wasn’t a covert subversive international threat inside Venezuela. There was one and the Bolivarian Armed Forces is responsible for finding these people, disrupting their networks, and stopping their operations.

You can’t use moral logic here unless you apply it evenly, and the result of you applying it evenly would be that nearly every country would need regime change because their leaders are bloodthirsty dictators who indiscriminately commit human rights violations.

The reality is that Maduro is unpopular because 1) the economy is shambles from economic sanctions, 2) there’s still a large contingent of capitalist roaders who would rather be a junior vassal of the US and make their millions as compradors and 3) he is uncharismatic as fuck.

The masses are suffering economically and have been for years. Under Maduro, food production for major domestic food crops more than doubled and national food availability more than quadrupled. That’s astounding given their situation. The masses still want the Bolivarian revolution to proceed. They do not want to become a neocolony again. But they want the suffering to end. And all the US has to do is stop the crime against humanity that is collective punishment.

The idea that we need to focus on the unconfirmed 5k people killed by the government instead of the multiple thousands killed by the sanctions and the 20 years of violent subversion that the US has been enacting is a clear sign that you don’t have your priorities straight. Or rather, you do, but they are aligned with the empire.

I disagree with Satan, but I believe all his lies

The US sanctions regime for nVenezuela back in 2006 restricted its access to credit markets, they weren’t “formal sanctions” but they were government actions to economically harm Venezuela. That caused a debt trap for the country which weighed the economy down and it never recovered.

The voting machine company that made those claims has a British Lord as a Chairman, and the CEO of the company is a capitalist in Venezuela. Hardly an unbiased source.

And the UN republished reports that are specious pretty often. Instead of arguing from authority about the UN says this or that, read the actual report. They don’t have proof of the numbers dead that they claim. They have speculation based on research methods including interviewing emigres and looking at satellite images. They don’t have researchers on the ground figuring it out, they are publishing numbers with plenty of room for interpretation.

Don’t believe everything you read.

The UN has always characterized anti-subversive activities as human rights abuses. They’ve done it in a dozen countries. And again, they don’t actually have documentation of crimes against humanity. Read their own report.

In 2013, Maduro was incredibly popular. Hell, in 2019 he was incredibly popular. So despite the fact that he felt it was critical to prevent the American-aligned party, who was actively calling for a US invasion, from taking power, he was still their by the will of the people for at least 8 of those 12 years.

The claims that Maduro was a dictator are primarily biased readings of a conflict between the US and the anti-imperialists in Venezuela. The US first started organizing regime change in Venezuela 25 years ago. The first attempt was staffed by Venezuelans, but funded, organized, trained, and facilitated by the US. The sanctions have killed tens of thousands of Venezuelans and driven poverty and hunger to levels of desperation. This is why there’s been millions of emigres.

For 25 years the US has been sending covert operations staff to Venezuela, training people who would like to overturn the government against the will of the people, and when Maduro stepped into office he became part of that battle. His choice was to hunt the subversive elements in the country and purge them, with or without murder. Even at the worst estimates of his body count, which are based entirely on speculative evidence and just sort of guessing based on satellite imagery and interviews with poor hungry people (who will say anything for safe passage and food for their kids), he has some far less violence than the US has to Venezuela in the same time frame.

This is not a choice between a dictator and a US intervention. These are interrelated processes. The crack down on dissent is a result of the president of Venezuela securing the country against US subversion. If the US wasn’t subverting, the president wouldn’t be cracking down. We know this because it happens in the run up to nearly all historical regime changes run by the US. Iran under Mossadegh also nationalized the oil fields, just like Chavez, and he was also popular, just like Chavez, but when the US and UK started building the operations for the coup, Mossadegh had to find them and stop them. If he didn’t, they would harm the Iranian people. He spent a couple years getting more and more draconian on his attempts to find the spies and subversives and purge them. And he lost in the end.

Maduro was not wrong that there were literally US spies and special ops all over the country. He was not wrong that the opposition party was working with them. He was not wrong that they were trying to harm the Venezuelan people for money and power. But he failed to stop them.

So now we’re left with the question - should he have purged harder, or should have done it differently? And the only way you can answer that question is if you understand what the government of Venezuela was doing for the last 25 years since Chavez first took office. You need to know how they were working to prevent this sort of outcome, what things they did implement, and then you need to study what other governments have implemented and whether Maduro could have done it differently.

And at that point you’ll hopefully be humble enough to realize that you’re Monday-morning-quarterbacking running a fucking country when you’re up against a US regime change operation and that you really have no ground to stand on to critique Maduro as a dictator who needed to be stopped for the good of his people.

Wait what? Obama and the Clintons were also Republicans?

So your argument is that this article is fine because journalism is when you moralize and make false equivalencies and just generally write your own opinion without actually doing any journalism because Russia bad. That’s your whole argument. Someone tried to warn us about the pending invasion of Ukraine that we all knew was coming, because Russia is so evil that no one could possibly know what they’re up to and need fiction writers that are “dissidents” to tell us what’s happening behind the iron curtain.

This article is trash and there’s no way to defend it so you have to resort to arguing that trash articles that fit the narrative are fine because Russia bad.

And if you think I’ve spread any disinformation here, go ahead and call it out. I’ll be happy to back it up with sources instead of vague literary allusions to YA murder fantasies.

LOL. You’re so cooked.

No, our school age propaganda taught us that Russia is our mortal enemy and the enemy of democracy. Fuck, it was the entire premise of Command and Conquer Red Alert (what if the Russians were the real fascists?)

Russia had been appeasing and then matching US escalation in Eastern Europe and particularly Ukraine for a long time. No need for this dissident novelist to warn everyone through “fiction”. Russian military build was open and obvious. You’re living in a fantasy world of spy games between the good democratic guys and the evil fascists, never asking once why the US saved thousands of Nazis, with the help of the Vatican, to not only flee the country but integrate them throughout the Western hemisphere while the Soviets did nothing of the sort. Never once stopped to ask why West Germany had openly Nazi political leaders take over under the Allies watch while East Germany was accused of totalitarianism because it kept purging Nazis and their sympathizers.

Look, Russia today is not Soviet Union. They’re a liberal capitalist hellscape in the same philosophical category as the US. But the US is clearly the enemy of democracy everywhere, having overturned a dozen or more democratic governments all over the world.

This article is the topic though. And this article is total fucking trash.

It’s really easy to come to conclusions you were taught since grade school, isn’t it?

OK, let’s go piece by piece. From the article:

Since Putin’s ascent to power in 2000, the Kremlin has seen the US first as an unreliable partner, then as a full-fledged adversary with an ambition to divide and rule in the ex-Soviet neighbourhood.

But it all suddenly went back to a partnership of sorts when Trump returned to the White House at the beginning of 2025. The US all but terminated its financial aid to Ukraine and adopted the posture of near-neutrality, though it still supplies crucial intelligence to the Ukrainian army. In the latest iteration of its National Security Strategy, the US even dropped Russia from the list of “direct threats”.

Zero mention of sanctions. Immediately disingenuous.

Given all the above, it is hardly the best time for the Kremlin to spoil a difficult but all-in-all good working relationship with Trump’s administration over something as distant and unrelated to Russia’s core interests as Venezuela.

Again, DJT has made no move to alleviate sanctions and, in fact, as recently as October increased sanctions on Russia.

Yes, Russia would make all the expected noises. Its United Nations envoy, Vassily Nebenzia, has claimed that by threatening Venezuela, the US is engaging in “aggressive neocolonialism”. He said it is “cynically imposing its order as it tries to retain global domination and the right to exploit other country’s riches with impunity”.

This is the correct line. The cynicism is pure editorializing, not journalism. This is what we were all raised to know as “Yellow Journalism” which our teachers only talked about with regard to things that happened a century ago and never used contemporary examples.

But Russia would not go out of its way to save a friendly Latin American government. Russian support for Venezuela will always be directly proportional to the US pressure exerted on Russia in connection with Ukraine.

Complete fabrication, not journalism. Russia has absolutely gone out of its way to create mutually beneficial relationships with various countries and it has taken economic, military, and diplomatic actions to defend them.

The potential fall of Nicolas Maduro’s government is not going to be the end of the world for the Kremlin. […] Iraq and Syria both serve as good examples.

No, they don’t. Syria is a major problem for Russia, still, because of its roots in US-sponsored terrorism. As for Iraq, whatever mutual benefit Russia enjoyed with Iraq was easily a cornucopia compared to the past 30 years.

it would put Russia and the US on an equal moral footing with regard to the war in Ukraine

This is the central claim. There are no other claims as to the benefit to Russia. And as it stands, it’s totally specious. A US invasion of Venezuela and the Russian invasion of Ukraine are equivalent in exactly two ways - they are (1) an invasion and (2) of a smaller by a larger. That’s where the equivalencies end.

The US aggression in Venezuela would justify Russian aggression in Ukraine in the eyes of many, especially in the Global South

As if the Global South doesn’t already justify Russian aggression? The BRICS have not condemned the invasion, and BRICS accounts for over 50% of the world’s population. The Global South already sees the Ukraine war as justified.

And finally from the article:

If, in addition to Venezuela, the Trump administration presses forward with its irrational desire to occupy Greenland, the situation would be ideal for the Kremlin. It may even open avenues for post-Ukraine rapprochement with the EU-led part of Europe, currently its main global nemesis.

The entire reason for the US to occupy Greenland, far from being irrational, is literally because it is strategically valuable in a military conflict with Russia. That’s why there are NORAD assets there. That’s why the US setup a base there. The shortest flight path for Russian ICBMs to the US passes over Greenland. It’s not irrational, it’s very much targeted at Russia.

There. Now that I’m done with ripping up the article as so much yellow journalism trash, let’s see if I have enough space to respond to you.

It’s not just a moral equivalency, it’s an alliance against western democracy

Please. A) the article doesn’t say that at all. B) western democracy produced Trump. American Democracy was founded by slave breeders and genociders. DJT and Epstein can’t hold a candle to Thomas Jefferson’s depravity.

Also, a lot of oil money to be made by some powerful individuals in U.S. in exchange for turning against their own country’s values

What are you talking about?! This is what the US has been since even before its founding! It has ALWAYS committed mass murder and genocide for resources. It has never stopped doing it. You’re living in a fantasy land.

the world police acting on behalf of spreading western democracy

I just threw up in my mouth

Just like Russia will claim when they attempt to takeover all of Europe.

I’m sorry what? US military intelligence has consistently reported that Russia has no motivation to do this, no plans to do this, and no ability to do this. Which is it, by the way? Russia is losing 20 soldiers for every 1 Ukranian and doesn’t have enough helmets or boots or even guns, or Russia is going to roll Europe? Can’t be both. Either Russia is a collapsing or it’s a godlike power that can takeover all of Europe.

isolationists (or maybe Continentalists?) because they still want to achieve the conservative ideals of conquest and dominance

Again, total cognitive dissonance. Which is it? Are they isolationists or are they intervening in the affairs of others? Can’t be both.

he will drop the isolationist rhetoric completely and partner with Iran and China to take over everything Trump claimed on behalf of the U.S

Wow. You are fully pilled. There is neither the political desire nor the physical ability to do what you’re talking about. There is no evidence for it. You are sourcing fan fiction and don’t realize you’re participating in a collective psychosis. Engage with reality. I beg you.

Russian oil companies have joint ventures with the Venezuelan oil monopoly, PDVSA

Right… so Russia stands to lose from a US invasion and not gain.

As for your perspective on sanctions, you are grasping at straws. The sanctions have hit insurance, banking, and finance as well as everything else. Billions of dollars have been frozen. Russia cannot engage in billions or even trillions of dollars of transactions that it once did. The article you cite explicitly has the US holding on to seized oil. The part you highlighted shows how US investors who lost money because of sanctions on Russia are the ones being prioritized, not Russian actors. The deal that didn’t go through would have transferred a massive amount of assets from Lukoil into the hands of US oligarchs for $0 dollars.

You highlighted it ostensibly because you think it helps make your point, but it really doesn’t.

We have two distinct piles of evidence here: (1) Trump and his clique appear to be making decisions that benefit Russia militarily and (2) Trump and his clique are definitely making decisions that harm the Russian economy and all of the people that are part of it. You and many others seem to think that (1) can only be explained by Trump being a Russian asset and you ignore (2) entirely.

Here’s my take. The US is militarily cooked. It can’t actually engage in Ukraine. It would get trounced. It can’t actually engage in Taiwan, it would lose handily. It can’t even get involved in Iran right now because it would lose. Instead, the US is continuing to kill peasants, fishermen, average civilians, and indigenous people through shock and awe campaigns on defenseless opponents. There is no way Trump could do militarily what Biden could not do. What about sending more weapons to Ukraine? The US can’t make them fast enough. I think that’s the truth. The US cannot afford to send weapons into that proxy conflict anymore because they don’t have enough to turn the tide and they need everything they have for other conflicts now and in the future. They lost in Ukraine and they cannot win. And Trump is president while the US pulls out. And everyone thinks that makes him a Russian asset. I don’t think he could be do anything more even if it turned out he was Zelensky in a fat suit.

This interpretation makes (1) and (2) link up. Actually, the US is still an opponent of Russia, Trump is still the president of the US, and the president has to follow through on what the dominant strategy of the US national security planners say. And I think what they’re saying is “we’ve lost Ukraine and do not have the means to win it without risking every other strategic goal we have, and we refuse to do that. You’ll have to make do with sanctions”

What the actual fuck? The benefit Russia will receive from a US invasion of Venezuela is moral equivalency? That’s it?

Fuck off with this drivel. Find some actual journalists who know how to think.

The US under Trump intensified economic sanctions on Russia. Where’s that in the calculus? Maybe the reason the US isn’t supplying weapons to Ukraine is because it literally cannot afford the risk of doing so when it is facing other conflicts.

Fairly certain it was a limited purge

More than any other country on the planet.

The US hasn’t declared war since WWII

American conservatives are liberals by definition, and liberals are right wing globally speaking