[FRIAM] war footing

[glen]

Yeah, I'm not sure I buy the rhetoric that NATO countries can't directly engage Russian forces because of the risks associated with world war or nuclear war. But I'm too ignorant to play that game at that level. My sentiment is the US should just take out that convoy. "Bring it on," I guess.

But I disagree with you that the internet has *not* facilitated networked in-groups. We see such now with remote work, virtual conferences, eHealth, electronic mental health, meditation apps, Bandcamp, Patreon, ... hell even the righties have been networked by things like Gab and GiveSendGo. So, the problem I'm highlighting *has* been delivered on by the internet. But such networking has presented us with *another* problem, the lack of a shared foundation between networks.

The overlapping, non-intersecting, networks between the left and right in the US are founded on an an ungrounded abstraction, left vs right, much like the ungrounded abstraction between Russian vs. Ukrainian citizenship, national identity. Now that the internet has delivered us ways to perforate abstractions like citizenship and nation, we need refined or new ways to re-ground such networks in concrete things like food, shelter, health, climate, and infrastructure.

I guarantee that if I get a chance to talk to one of the spitting righties at the convoy protest planned for Olympia this Saturday, I'll be able to ground that interaction in things like beer and potholes. But the antifa standing next to me won't be interested in talking to the bearded fat trucker about beer and potholes. That sign you're carrying is irrelevant. What matters is that there's a fantastic brewery just down the street that brews a killer Vienna lager. And Aline in Wonderland's political positions are irrelevant compared to whether she had a good time visiting Paris.

Grounding matters, as SteveS' link to adversarial collaboration indicates.

On 3/3/22 08:26, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> < We won't win the socio-cultural or climate war that way. We need tactics that unify the geographically/politically *perforated* in-group as a network, not according to artificial nationalist citizenhood and such. >
> 
> There's a targeted way to stop attacks on Ukrainian cities, and that's with the use of air power against Russia's supply lines.   The west is not yet prepared to do that, so it has opted for collective punishment.   Yeah, I also read those Meduza articles, and clearly there are courageous people in Russia trying to stop all this.    Although I must admit when Trump was elected, I thought isolate the US midwest like the west is isolating Russia and bring them to kneel!    I remember thinking in the early '90s that the internet could address the problem you highlight, and it hasn't delivered on that at all.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of glen
> Sent: Thursday, March 3, 2022 7:37 AM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] war footing
> 
> OK. I don't disagree with any of that. But I still think it's somehow "flat" or "surface" tactics only. Thanks to Tom for the Meduza link, this story also targets the problem:
> 
> https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/03/02/why-no-mass-protests-in-russia
> 
> Similar to the link off Cody's post, where you can send BTC to the "Come Back Alive" charity <https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/> and the similar but anti-violence DAO set up by the Pussy Riot member, there needs to be a way to in-group *actual* Russians while out-grouping Putinistas. E.g.
> 
> https://news.sky.com/story/food-was-great-unfortunately-putin-spoiled-our-appetites-by-invading-ukraine-tripadvisor-disables-russian-reviews-12555968
> 
> In Patreon's takedown notice for the Come Back Alive charity, they point out that there are many Ukrainian "creators" you can support directly. But we can also support in-group Russians directly, encouraging those who reject authoritarianism and act within their own tiny little sphere of influence. Without those rhizomic tendrils of influence into and *with* our in-group in Russia, ham-handed things like sanctions will simply turn them against us, against what they associate with "democracy", "liberalism", and "the West". We already see this in the rhetoric from our socialist lefties, blaming the status of Russian oligarchs on our introduction of neoliberalism after the collapse of the USSR. And we see it in the righties at the convoy protests, objectifying "liberals" and blaming them for positions they don't even really hold.
> 
> These blunt instruments like sanctions are better than, say, bombing Moscow, but not by much. They're still too blunt. We won't win the socio-cultural or climate war that way. We need tactics that unify the geographically/politically *perforated* in-group as a network, not according to artificial nationalist citizenhood and such.
> 
> The phrase "hearts and minds" helps, but isn't concrete enough.
> 
> On 3/2/22 16:04, Steve Smith wrote:
>> Glen -
>>
>> I really appreciate your outlining this so well.
>>
>> It is always easier to imagine that *other people* can magically do
>> things that we know from our own experience that we cannot (or choose not to) do.   I also felt very impotent to do much of anything about Trump's tenure except commit to myself (and encourage other fence sitters) to put aside petty ideals and vote *effectively* against Trump in 2020.   I voted against Trump in 2016 but also Hillary by voting for Green Jill Stein (before I discovered what an anti-vaxxer she is, even as an MD).  I would not have done so if I thought NM could fall to Trump, but if I'd lived in another state where he was a shoo-in I might have also thrown my vote into the "protest" category.  Biden was easier for me than Hillary to accept, even though I'd have chosen any one of about half the big slate in the primaries.  Bernie near the top. I may have talked a few of my more curmudgeonly friends out of voting for a write-in simply because they didn't get Bernie (or Mayor Pete or Tulsi or ...) .   This was one election where the total "popular vote" was important even if it didn't "count" as such.   There were a couple of candidates I'd have had a hard time not passing over in "protest" but not if it was going to change the outcome.
>>
>> I do think, however, that gumming up Russia's gears, even if it hits the populace hard is important.   Making the clear, unequivocal statement that Authoritarian Belligerence isn't welcome.   I was shamed by the US under Trump (and Bush for that matter) but did not begrudge my shamers... I did (do) feel responsible for what my country does in my name, even if/though I feel fairly disempowered in most specific ways.
>>
>> I doubt that the Russian citizenry is suffering any more than the Ukranian citizenry, and insomuch as many of them are friends/family, there are surely things *they* can do to help Ukrainians that is hard for the likes of you or me to do.  That doesn't mean I shouldn't try, though I do moderate that by the myriad *other* things i should be doing both domestic and foreign with my first-world privilege.
>>
>> If we can make it out the other side of this without a devastating (or even trivial but earthshaking) nuclear exchange, I hope it leads to many rethinking the size of the world's nuclear stockpile.   I just saw a headline that implied that Belarus was going to host some of Russia's nukes.  It was *the right thing* for Ukraine to give up the nukes on it's soil at the end of cold war, but imagine how things would look (better or worse) if Russia knew that Ukraine held a handful of nukes? Time to disarm ourselves...
>>
>> -Steve
>>
>>> This video brings home, to me, the inherent conflict with "do what it takes to ...":
>>>
>>> I'm Russian I want the rest of the world to hear me out
>>> https://youtu.be/FUE40mkEYeo
>>>
>>> Even though I'm worried she's a plant, she makes the valid point that things like sanctions don't hurt the ultra wealthy. And in a country where the elections really are rigged (or you're young enough to have had no way to intervene before the gravity well became inescapable), what does it mean to "do what it takes to ..."? The last number I heard was Russian authorities arrested 2700 protesters. And given guys like Magomed Tushayev <https://www.jpost.com/international/article-699032>, the gods only know what else has happened.
>>>
>>> I mean, I felt pretty impotent with Trump as President. And I'm a relatively well-off white male in a relatively trustworthy democracy. What hope do those fed up with Putin and his government have? Only the hopes of coming years, if not decades of poverty, protesting, and bearing the risk of dying in jail or at the hands of a Tushayev?
>>>
>>>
>>> On 3/2/22 14:59, Steve Smith wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I like to hope that the net effect of Putin's nonsense on the heels of Trump&Co's nonsense is that everyone else might actually get fed up with Authoritarian capriciousness and do what it takes to shove it out the airlock and get on with our lives w/o so much of the toxic something-ulinity.
>>>>


-- 
glen
When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.