[lbo-talk] Reuters on the Biden-Ukraine connection

MM marxmail00 at gmail.com
Tue Dec 29 19:37:58 PST 2015



> On Dec 29, 2015, at 9:53 AM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
> I would like to see the substance of this post restated without reference (explicit or implicit) to anyone's "derangement." As written it meshes together two quite separate subject matters: (a) U.S.-Nato policy and (b) the source of error regarding such policy. As a result neither subject is clear.

My point was entirely methodological - not intended at all to suggest a specific reading of Nato's policy orientation to Ukraine, which is in any case: (1) neither static nor homogeneous (i.e., internally contested and subject to change over time, based on a host of factors); and (2) of considerably less interest or importance than what working class Ukrainians and their allies want, think and do. So, to make that concrete, I think it’s more important for people trying to live a commitment to emancipatory politics to follow, for instance, http://ukrainesolidaritycampaign.org/, than mainstream news reports about Biden’s telephone calls.

On the methodological point, I was merely trying to bring into sharp relief the gulf that exists between assuming that political actors are “trying to influence outcomes” (which is obvious and trivial) and assuming that they “orchestrate outcomes” (which is paranoiac, Protocols-of-the-Elders-of-Zion fantasy). And I think that distinction does indeed align very closely, at least in adults, to the difference between sanity and madness.



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