Month: March 2022

The single greatest advantage the United States has over China is that high-skilled immigrants would much rather move here.

Imagine if we reformed our immigration system to actually let them…

The chart above comes from a tremendous recent paper by @r_zwetsloot.

As a matter of national security, US policymakers should implement the policies below to maintain our talent lead over China.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/winning-tech-talent-competition

Originally tweeted by Alec Stapp (@AlecStapp) on March 14, 2022.

A number of immigrants offer their own experiences in that thread to explain why some people still want to come to the US:

I landed in the United States 10 years ago with nothing but credit card debt.

After one startup exit, one big tech job, and one unicorn, I genuinely believe that it wouldn’t have been possible anywhere else in the world.

Here are 10 things I love about this country:

1. Work Ethic

First thing I noticed was that everyone regardless of occupation took pride in doing a bang-up job, even when no one looked.

I asked people: “why do you pour everything into a job even when it is seemingly thankless?” And it was like asking fish “what is water?”

2. Lack of corruption

In the 10 years in the US, I’ve never been asked for a bribe, and that’s surprising.

When you know that you predictably get to keep a sizeable portion of the value you create and that no one will arbitrarily stop you, it makes it easier to be ambitious.

3. Win-win mindset

People don’t try to screw you on deals, they play the long game, and align incentives in such a way that everyone wins.

This is especially apparent in Silicon Valley where you can’t underestimate anyone because one day you might be working for them.

4. Rewarding talent

From sports to engineering, America is obsessed with properly rewarding talent. If you’re good, you’ll get recognized.

The market for talent is dynamic — if you don’t feel valued today, you can find a better place tomorrow.

5. Open to weirdos

Because you never know where the next tech, sports, or arts innovation will come from, America had to be open to weirdness. Weirdos thrive without being crushed.

We employ people with the most interesting backgrounds — dropouts to artists — they’re awesome!

6. Forgiveness

Weird and innovative people have to put themselves out there, and as part of that, they’re going to make mistakes in public. The culture here values authenticity, and if you’re authentic and open about your failures, you’ll get a second and a third chance.

7. Basic infrastructure

Americans take care of their public spaces. Parks are clean, subways and busses run on time, and utilities & services just work.

Because life can be livable for a time without income, it was possible for us to quit our jobs and bootstrap our business.

8. Optimism

When you step foot in the US there is a palpable sense of optimism. People believe that tomorrow will be better than today. They don’t know where progress will come from, but that’s why they’re open to differences.

When we started up even unbelievers encouraged us.

9. Freedom

Clearly a cliche, but it’s totally true. None of the above works if you’re not free to explore & tinker, to build companies, and to move freely.

I still find it amazing that if I respect the law and others, I can do whatever I want without being compelled/restricted.

10. Access to capital

It’s a lot harder to innovate & try to change the world without capital. If you have a good idea & track record, then someone will be willing to bet on you.

The respect for entrepreneurship in this country is inspiring. And it makes the whole thing tick.

Because of the character limit, I couldn’t caveat the generalities that I made. It’s hard to talk about an entire nation without making those. And my experience can be very different from yours. Also, we can do a lot better, and make sure everyone has equal access to opportunity.

Finally, many of the things that I talked about are under threat, largely from people who don’t know how special they have it. America is worth protecting, and realizing that progress can be made without destroying the things that made it special.

Originally tweeted by Amjad Masad

Does that sound like the country you know? Here are a few more:

My reasons:

1. Decentralized economy allows anyone to grow without prior connections

2. With time you can become an American beyond citizenship as the country is an idea not an ethnicity

3. Quality of life

4. Size of the market / diversity of opportunities

Originally tweeted by Jorge Garcia (@jagbolanos) on March 14, 2022.

For me:

1) freedom of choice (freedom it’s literally in the constitution).

2) access to high quality education,(used to be relevant when I moved here)

3) America can be a bit more playful than the rest of the world. (C.f. freedom)

4) opportunity to work.

Originally tweeted by Rationalyst (@rationalyst) on March 14, 2022.

I like america because there are lesser social constraints that seem arbitrary

Originally tweeted by Rahul Goel 👹 (@rahulxgoel) on March 14, 2022.

Path to citizenship. People leave lot of money on the table by not working in Middle East and instead immigrating to CAN/UK/AU because they can eventually get citizenship.

Originally tweeted by Kaam Raj (@KaamRaj1) on March 14, 2022.

Bill of Rights!

Originally tweeted by kanwardhaliwal (@kdhaliwal) on March 15, 2022.

Comparatively better chances to grow as big as you want/better work culture, comparatively better treatment of women and social security and “The American dreams” are the reasons people move to the US from India.

Originally tweeted by Dr. Darmina Jivani(patel) (@Darmina_Jivani) on March 14, 2022.

If you’re an ambitious kid anywhere in the world, you want to move to the USA. Even the ambitious Scandinavians want to work in the USA. I’ve never heard anyone talking about their Chinese dream. Chinese want to move to the USA, not vice versa. That’s America’s true superpower.

Originally tweeted by Pushkar Singh (@pushkar_g_singh) on March 14, 2022.

There are plenty of people who would like to come here to escape persecution and poverty in their own countries as well and they contribute as well. In fact, they have been the backbone of America from the beginning. But attracting high skilled, highly educated immigrants has been key to our economic success and we should be making it easier not more difficult for them to come here. We need them.

It’s probably a mistake to believe that parents aren’t upset about education. But as this piece by Jennifer Rubin points out, it’s not for the reason everyone says it is:

Contrary to what Republicans claim, “critical race theory” is not taught in schools, and a handful of examples of poor judgment among educators does not reflect what goes on in the vast majority of schools. Standardized texts and curriculums — which are largely factual and rigorous across a diverse array of states, from California to Alabama — determine what is taught in the classroom.

The media has promoted GOP hysteria that schools are subjecting students to bizarre pedagogy designed to make them feel guilty about racism. But polling data shows that most parents want teachers to discuss race and do not want schools to ban books. Likewise, the recent recall of multiple progressive school board members in San Francisco might have had much more to do with parents’ frustration about the board members’ priorities than with their political ideology. (Maybe they should have worried more about catching kids up on basic academic topics than renaming schools?)Advertisement

On a related issue, most parents have not found fault with school covid policies. In fact, as politicians lifted restrictions, many parents expressed concern about repealing mask mandates. Still, pundits say that parental anger over school closures threw the Virginia governor’s race to the GOP candidate, Glenn Youngkin. Umm, maybe not.

The Democratic data firm TargetSmart did a deep dive on the Virginia results and found: “The county level data shows no correlation between school closures and vote swings to Republicans. Of the top 10 counties in Virginia ranked by days with in-person education during the 2020-2021 school year, 6 of the 10 saw a larger swing toward Republicans than the state average swing of 5.3%.” The pollsters also determined: “The biggest swings toward Republicans occurred in southwestern Virginia, where schools were open for in person instruction for most of the year.”

And what about instruction on race in the classroom (even if it was not technically CRT)? That does not explain the shift toward Republicans, either. Instead, TargetSmart reports there was super-high turnout among older — and thus more conservative — voters. “Voters age 65 and older are an estimated 15.9% of Virginia’s population according to the census, yet accounted for 31.9% of all ballots cast in 2021,” the pollsters explain.

They add: “This ‘silver surge’ is an untold story that fundamentally undermines the conventional wisdom that COVID-19 protocols in schools and fears about Critical Race Theory in curriculum determined the outcome of the election. Looking ahead to future elections, especially November’s midterms, this bloc of senior voters will likely continue to turn out and have a significant impact on the electorate as a whole.” (This segment of the electorate might be interested in the midterm agenda laid out by Florida Sen. Rick Scott, which would strike at both Medicare and Social Security.)

This would not be the first time that mainstream coverage got hijacked by right-wing hysteria. Democrats who concluded that voters were rebelling against “wokeness” might want to reconsider. Indeed, Democrats might want to extract an entirely different lesson on the school issue.

Democrats should welcome the debate about politicizing schools. Republicans have turned schools into a battleground for their extreme social vision. They have denied racism in American history, attempted to ban books, and have persecuted transgender and gay students. Democrats should be calling foul and insisting that the federal and state governments stay out of local school board business. (Wasn’t this the GOP view for decades?) Instead, Democrats should address the real problem: students who have fallen badly behind because of a lack of classroom time. That will require funding, that Republicans surely will oppose, to expand tutoring and summer school and to increase teacher pay.

Republicans may talk good game about classroom instruction, but they have long refused to pay for quality education. Democrats, on the other hand, passed legislation to fund schools to deal with everything from improving ventilation to making masks available before vaccinations were available for kids. More than 99 percent of schools are operating in-person thanks to those programs, which Republicans consistently opposed.

It’s no easy task to differentiate what voters are really concerned about and what partisans would like us to think they are concerned about. In this case, voters have not rebelled against sensible school administration; Democrats can retain their traditional advantage on education.

There are many reasons to be upset with American education. But the main problems are lack of money resulting in poorly paid teachers crumbling under the weight of student loan debt and overcrowded classrooms. And a whole lot of parents should probably take a good look in the mirror before they complain because some of this is also caused by the insistence that kids not be required to adhere to normal classroom etiquette (like putting their phones away in class!) and refusing to work with teachers and administrators to help provide a decent learning environment.

And yes, some of the pedagogy is really ridiculous, but it’s not because they are teaching critical race theory or “indoctrinating” kids into being transgender. It’s because there are a bunch of consultants who make a lot of money flying into school districts with “new” concepts that haven’t been well tested in real education systems. But that’s a different problem.

Rubin is right that Democrats should fight like hell to put this issue back on their side of the debate. Most concerned parents are worried about schools but they aren’t freaking out about Black history or transgender kids. They’re freaking out because they sense that their kids aren’t getting educated and they are looking for someone to help them. Bigotry isn’t going to do that but that seems to be the only thing on the agenda.

The Romans had cancel culture too …

Bush cannot be allowed to paint over the atrocities committed during his presidency. He, and all those who participated at all levels, should be held fully accountable by both American and international courts of law:

A detainee at a secret CIA detention site in Afghanistan was used as a living prop to teach trainee interrogators, who lined up to take turns at knocking his head against a plywood wall, leaving him with brain damage, according to a US government report.

The details of the torture of Ammar al-Baluchi are in a 2008 report by the CIA’s inspector general, newly declassified as part of a court filing by his lawyers aimed at getting him an independent medical examination.

Baluchi, a 44-year-old Kuwaiti, is one of five defendants before a military tribunal on Guantánamo Bay charged with participation in the 9/11 plot, but the case has been in pre-trial hearings for 10 years, mired in a dispute over legal admissibility of testimony obtained after torture.

I truly don’t understand why the media are so eager to portray Bush today as a some kind of avuncular figure puttering around in his art studio, a reminder that “Republicans could be serious politicians.” When he was president, the US became victim to its worst atrocity since Pearl Harbor (a direct result of his neglect); the US invaded another country on lies that Bush well knew were lies; Bush showed stunning incompetence and a lack of empathy for the victims of Hurricane Katrina; and so very much more.

Bush was a catastrophically bad American leader, the worst president ever — until the Republicans gleefully decided they could go even lower.

TFG Donald Trump sought a retraction from The Hill for a story about financing his non-campaign campaign for president. The story left the impression that Trump was aking supporters to fund his new plane. His 757 is reportedly in disrepair and since his inauguration has been left sitting outside next to a FedEx depot at an airport outside Newburgh, New York.

In a weekend fundraising email titled “Update: Trump Force One,” Trump said he is “building a BRAND NEW Trump Force One.” His team posted the email days after the borrowed jet flying him from an event to Mar-a-Lago had an engine failure and had to return to the airport in Louisiana:

“The story was incorrect,” Trump told The Hill. “I already have a plane, the same one I used on the 2016 campaign.”

[…]

“It is owned by me and financed by me, with no debt,” Trump added, noting he had to fly on Air Force One when president for security reasons.

Trump insisted he never saw the email before it was sent to his list.

Regardless, Trump stated, the story was “ridiculous. … Can you imagine me using campaign funds for a plane?”

He’s joking, right?

A Democratic super PAC filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Monday alleging that Trump is “violating campaign finance law by spending political funds on a 2024 presidential bid without formally declaring himself a candidate,” reports the New York Times. The filing quotes Trump’s own statements that indicate he knows exactly what he is doing. He is dancing around campaign finance rules because “filing would set off restrictions on how he could raise and spend campaign money, including his existing war chest.”

Paging Michael Cohen.

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Would Vladimir Putin would ever stand trial for war crimes in Ukraine? Fred Kaplan asks the question at Slate prematurely. Where, when, and by whom seems rather academic at this point. Retired West Point law professor Gary Solis tells him, “Early on in my course, I would remind my students to remember the first law of armed conflict: Don’t lose.”

Putin has not lost yet. Nor won. He has by one account 90 percent of his forces remaining and shows no sign of wavering. Having failed to vanquish Ukraine in the two- to three-day lightning strike for which he’d planned, he seems determined to punish the populace for resisting.

Masha Gessen discussed with Ezra Klein Putin’s tactic when things go poorly: scorched earth. We’ve seen it before in Grozny, the capitol of Chechnya. “There was not going to be any opposition tolerated to the war,” she said. “And there was not going to be any independent media coverage tolerated of the war.” She fears what comes next in Ukraine:

And what we’ve seen over the last week and a half in Ukraine is they planned a coup. The coup clearly failed miserably. Their first attempts to get paratroopers into the country to just have some kind of quick military operation and their designs on the Ukrainian public greeting them with open arms all turned out to be completely deluded and fantastical. And so then they tried to take half the country at least with tanks and infantry. Also doesn’t go so well. And I think we know what comes next.

That podcast posted on Friday. And today (Tuesday)? Russians shelled an apartment building overnight in Kyiv. The BBC asks, How far would Putin go to destroy Ukraine?

There are a number of fire trucks, but it will take time to put out the fires because almost every single flat was damaged.

It’s quite close to the area where the fighting is going on. There are reports that Russian forces are about 10 to 15km away.

There has been a lot of speculation about whether the Russian troops would be willing to bomb Kyiv. This place, the capital of Ukraine, has symbolic value for them, as well, with all those orthodox churches and historical sites.

However, sights like this suggest that Russian troops are ready to use brutal force in order to take Kyiv.

Cell phone video technology and the media landscape has changed dramatically since Grozny, and Ukraine is closer to the heart of Europe. Putin cannot hide what he’s doing even from the Russian people. Putin can disappear domestic protesters, but his propagandists are outmatched this time by Ukrainianian citizens, by the world media, and by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, former entertainer and owner of a media company.

Zelensky has posted videos daily from Kyiv, as proof of life, discouragement to under-trained Russian conscripts, and to rally world opinion against Putin. On Monday, he urged Russian troops to surrender and be well-treated, offering them a “chance to survive.”

In a new address overnight, Zelensky spoke directly to Russian soldiers, in Russian: “You will not take anything from Ukraine. You will take lives… But your lives will also be taken. But why should you die? What for? I know that you want to survive.” pic.twitter.com/Vf774OKufF

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) March 15, 2022

Some will criticize, as Eugene Robinson does this morning, the bias inherent in the nonstop coverage of Ukraine. The brutality in Yemen and Syria and elsewhere has been worse. Yet coverage is not nearly as universal nor as shocking-the-conscience stark:

Still, I have to wonder whether something more than technology is involved in the way this war, as opposed to other wars, is being presented. The unmistakable subtext of the coverage is: These are people just like us, and we could be at risk like them.

The vast majority of the victims in Ukraine are European, White and Christian. Quite a few speak at least a little English. With their puffer coats and their rolling suitcases, they look familiar as they climb onto the trains that speed them into exile. Their children play with Muppets dolls and Legos.

Whether intentionally or subconsciously, news organizations make this war more vivid and more tragic by focusing so tightly on victims and refugees. We get to see them as individuals, not as an undifferentiated mass. Viewers and readers are invited, if not forced, to imagine ourselves in similar circumstances. It is no wonder that so many members of Congress, reflecting the views of their constituents, are pressing the Biden administration to intervene more robustly, despite the obvious risks of entering an armed conflict with Russia.

The fact that they look like him has not stopped Putin from brutalizing them in a fratricidal war of his choosing. It may in fact make it easier for him.

I concede Robinson’s point. We are biased in what captures our attention. Then again, there is only so much of our attention to go around (Johann Hari’s “Stolen Focus”). I’m reminded everytime someone what-abouts someone that if they are so concerned about their own pet issue then why don’t they pay as much attention to the accuser’s. The implict charge is it reflects a moral failing rather than limited attentional and moral bandwidth.

All we can do is all we can do. And in a world of crises and villians, it will never be never enough.

Update: Replaced original cell-phone image.

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CNN's @jaketapper examines former President Donald Trump's history of siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin despite Russia's repeated aggression. pic.twitter.com/yGILA7MN2i

— CNN (@CNN) March 14, 2022

Just saying …

I think the president should wear a mask in public. Omicron is still around, the president is 79 yo, and we are likely to see a new surge in the next week or 2. https://t.co/F3xHterCS4

— Jonathan Reiner (@JReinerMD) March 14, 2022

We are? Well, probably. Take a look at this twitter thread about the horrific surge that’s happening in Hong Kong right now. Apparently, they didn’t vaccinate the old people for some reason. (Why???)

NEW: I’m not sure people appreciate quite how bad the Covid situation is in Hong Kong, nor what might be around the corner.

First, an astonishing chart.

After keeping Covid at bay for two years, Omicron has hit HK and New Zealand, but the outcomes could not be more different.

After accounting for lag between infection & death, *1 in 20* cases in Hong Kong currently ends in death.

To put that into context, HK’s case fatality rate (NB different to infection fatality rate) is currently higher than England’s pre-vaccine peak. Two years into the pandemic.

Hong Kong doesn’t just look grim when compared to its Asia-Pacific peers.

In March 2020 we saw awful pictures from northern Italy. Last winter, UK & Portugal saw huge mortality spikes, and last summer it was Namibia, but Hong Kong has now set a new global record for daily deaths

The cumulative view almost looks like a glitch in the data.

Hong Kong’s total death toll has risen almost vertically in the last two weeks, shooting past not only its Asia-Pacific peers, but now European countries including Norway and Finland. And that line will keep rising.

Comparing Hong Kong to its peers, all of whom kept Covid largely at bay for the best part of two years, it’s extraordinary the extent to which it is an outlier in terms of the lethality of this wave.

So what’s driving this?

Vaccines.

Or more specifically: the elderly vaccination rate.

When Omicron hit, *more than two-thirds of people aged 80+ in Hong Kong were still unvaccinated*, compared to a couple of percent in New Zealand and Singapore. This was a year after vaccines became available.

Exacerbating this is that most of Hong Kong’s elderly vaccinees had China’s non-mRNA Sinovac shot, which is less effective than Pfizer etc at blocking infection.

Sinovac does fare better against severe disease, but overall this is likely to have contributed to the poor outcomes.

Now you might think, well, the over-80s are only a small share of the population, so surely this can’t have such an enormous impact on overall fatality rates?

But that would be to miss the fact that, all else being equal, older people are at far *far* higher risk of death from Covid than younger

But back to charts:

All the data we have suggests vaccines are working remarkably well. Far beyond what had been hoped for a year ago.

For example, a fully-vaxxed 80-year-old now has the same risk of dying from Covid as an unvaxxxed 50-year-old. That's an enormous drop in risk! pic.twitter.com/EEsfStlR8m

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) July 24, 2021

So vax rates by age are better understood like this, with bars sized according to each age group’s baseline mortality risk.

That is a helluva lot of red, unvaxxed people. And in Zero Covid countries there are no prior infections, so these people are completely immuno-naive.

In a situation grimly reminiscent of England in March 2020, outbreaks have torn through Hong Kong’s care homes, killing more than 1,000 vulnerable residents in a matter of days.

Again, this is two years into the pandemic.

Here’s our full story, from @mroliverbarnes, @primroseriordan, @imandylin2 and me, on the crisis in Hong Kong and how it got there

But there’s more…

Earlier I warned about what might yet be around the corner.

Aside from Hong Kong itself, where the surge in cases in recent days is sure to have locked in hundreds more deaths, the looming crisis is mainland China, where elderly vaccination rates are only slightly better than HK

Around 15 million over-80s in mainland China are still unvaccinated. An astonishing number

https://twitter.com/imjames_k/status/1502625265004027910

In recent days China has locked down tens of millions in several cities, as it braces for a much worse wave than Jan 2020 where the bulk of infection was confined to Hubei province.

Story from @rwmcmorrow @primroseriordan @ruiyanggloriali @KathrinHille

https://www.ft.com/content/d59c7636-d895-4138-8e07-e9fbfdbd100f

Some concluding thoughts:

One thing I would hope people take away here is that this really underscores the importance of differentiating between Omicron’s intrinsic mildness and immunity-driven mildness.

In December, as Omicron took off in South Africa, many of us emphasised time and again that the observed reduction in severity in a population with lots of vax and infection was likely to be coming as much from that immunity as from intrinsic mildness

A reduction in rates of severe disease and death relative to cases is not a new pattern!

Remember first chart in this thread? Here’s the exact same pattern, but in UK.

Did we say "Delta appears to be milder"? Nope. What changed was levels of immunity, here mostly via vaccines. pic.twitter.com/g8VRwao751

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) December 10, 2021

Originally tweeted by John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) on March 14, 2022.

Meanwhile, back in the states:

A wastewater network that monitors for Covid-19 trends is warning that cases are once again rising in many parts of the U.S., according to an analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data by Bloomberg. 

More than a third of the CDC’s wastewater sample sites across the U.S. showed rising Covid-19 trends in the period ending March 1 to March 10, though reported cases have stayed near a recent low. The number of sites with rising signals of Covid-19 cases is nearly twice what it was during the Feb. 1 to Feb. 10 period, when the wave of omicron-variant cases was fading rapidly.

It’s not clear how many new infections the signs in the sewage represent and if they will turn into a new wave, or will be just a brief bump on the way down from the last one. In many parts of the country, people are returning back to offices and mask rules have been loosened — factors that can raise transmission. At the same time, warmer weather is allowing people to spend more time outside, and many people have recently been infected, which may offer at least temporary protection against getting sick again – factors which would keep cases down.

“While wastewater levels are generally very low across the board, we are seeing an uptick of sites reporting an increase,” Amy Kirby, the head of the CDC’s wastewater monitoring program, said in an email to Bloomberg. “These bumps may simply reflect minor increases from very low levels to still low levels. Some communities though may be starting to see an increase in Covid-19 infections, as prevention strategies in many states have changed in recent weeks.”

Bloomberg reviewed data for more than 530 sewage monitoring sites, looking at the most recent data reported during the 10-day window from March 1 to March 10. Out of those sites, 59% showed falling Covid-19 trends, 5% were roughly stable, and 36% were increasing. Rises or declines are measured over a 15-day period.

A woman burst onto Russia’s main live evening newscast today with a sign that says:

“Stop the war
Don’t believe propaganda
They’re lying to you”

And chanting: “Stop the war! No to war!”pic.twitter.com/pKVKZFVEM3

— max seddon (@maxseddon) March 14, 2022

She apparently pre-recorded a message:

Marina Ovsyannikova, the woman who ran onto a live state TV news broadcast, even recorded a message beforehand. In it, she says her father is Ukrainian. She calls for anti-war protests, says she’s ashamed about working for Kremlin propaganda, and she denounces the war absolutely. pic.twitter.com/nOpUY9bH74

— Kevin Rothrock (@KevinRothrock) March 14, 2022

Translation:

What’s happening in Ukraine right now is a crime and Russia is an aggressor country. The responsibility for this aggression is on the conscience of one man, and that man is Vladimir Putin.

My father is Ukrainian, my mother is Russian and they have never been enemies. The necklace around my neck is a symbol for Russia needing to immediately stop this fratricidal war and our brotherly people could still make peace.

Regrettably, for the last few years, I worked on Perviy channel and worked on Kremlin propaganda, I am very ashamed for this right now. Ashamed that I allowed to tell lies from the television screen. Ashamed that I allowed the zombification of Russian people.

We were silent in 2014, when this was just beginning. We did not protest when the Kremlin poisoned Navalny. We just, without saying a word, watching this anti-human regime.

And now the whole world has turned away from us and the next ten generations won’t clean themselves from the shame of this fratricidal war. We are Russian people who think, who are smart. It’s only in our power to stop all this madness.

Go to protests. Don’t be afraid of anything. They can’t imprison us all.

/end

Apologies, the most important thing: Her name is Marina Ovsyannikova.

Originally tweeted by Jane Lytvynenko (@JaneLytv) on March 14, 2022.

Wow, that’s truly brave.

CPI opening ceremony with Soviet and American flags with The Internationale and The Star-Spangled Banner playing in the background before the unvailing of the Donetsk People's Republic flag! Proud to be apart of this historic day! pic.twitter.com/xNdOMhatLt

— Dr. Ryan Cotten ☦️ (@BeyondSeraphim) March 13, 2022

I’ll never understand it. Putin is an authoritarian monster. But even today, after he invaded his neighbor, is inflicting massive carnage on civilian populations and has completely cracked down on anyone in Russia who dissents, these so-called left wingers are with him.

Here is an article by the group in that tweet above, “The Center for Political Innovation” which fashions itself as socialist and anti-imperialist. (There’s a very tedious video if you want to go down that rabbit hole which I unfortunately did and wish I could get that hour of my life back.)

In a nutshell, Russia is totally justified in invading a country and seizing it as its own territory because of the West’s imperialism. And anti-war liberals are at fault:

With the Russian Federation’s decision to recognize the independence of the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, the Western Left has shown their true colors and loyalties.

Self-described communists, anarchists, and social democrats have flooded Twitter and other social media platforms with NATO propaganda and Ukrainian flags, claiming Russia has launched an unprovoked invasion in a desperate and psychotic land grab.

This, of course, couldn’t be farther from the truth. Since the US-supported Euromaidan coup of 2014, the Donbas region has endured indiscriminate artillery shelling and military aggression from the Kiev regime.

With these facts in mind, we must now turn to see the response from the synthetic left.

Vaush, Hbomberguy, ContraPoints, and many other Breadtube figures have spent the last several days retweeting and sharing Twitter posts from the Ukrainian government’s account. This is not, however, a recent development. These figures and their supporters have consistently pushed the NATO narrative around the world, especially in the Middle East. No different than their support for the ‘Free’ Syrian Army or YPG of Rojava, they’ve acted as tools for US dominance and media hegemony.

The American anti-war movement, which was born out of the 1960’s hippie era opposition to the Vietnam War, had, up until now, generally taken the appropriate stances against US and NATO aggression when the situation really demanded it. The anti-war hippies mostly understood that despite their dislike of the ‘authoritarian’ Soviet Union supporting Ho Chi Mihn, opposing the actions and narrative of the US was principal.

Slogans such as “one side’s right, one side’s wrong, victory to the Viet-Cong!” rang throughout cities in the US as thousands of Americans seemingly innately understood the core principles of anti-imperialism. This sentiment, which carried through to the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, has now completely betrayed their roots. It is because of this, the distinction between anti-war and anti-imperialist politics has become as clear as day.

The anti-war movement has continued to be composed primarily of the children of upper middle-class families acting on a sense of guilt for their comfortable lifestyle. The anti-imperialist camp, however, comes from over a century of Marxist theory and praxis across the world. It’s this foundational difference that has become so vitally important in the last week as tension between Russia and Ukraine have come to a head.

Mainstream Western news outlets such as CNN and BBC are working overtime to paint Russia as the aggressor in this conflict, and it has been successful. By leaving out the most vital factors in what has provoked Russia to act, it appears as an attempt to conquer Ukraine.

Figures associated with Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), Communist Party USA (CPUSA), and other ’socialist’ organizations seem to be more concerned with pushing the antiwar message instead of the anti-imperialist one. The anti-war crowd of activists view any sort of military action as unjustifiable, generally disregarding any historical or modern context to what may have provoked some sort of action.

Friendly reminder that you can condemn Russia's attack on Ukraine AND simultaneously challenge the US's imperialist agenda and war profiteering. #NoWarInUkraine

— CODEPINK (@codepink) February 24, 2022

The most recent, disgusting, and pointed example of the pro-imperialist but “antiwar” synthetic left comes from the Internet personality known as Vaush. He very recently published a video from one of his live streams detailing the importance of socialists and communists in the west to essentially support the North Atlantic Treaty organization over the forming axis of resistance, specifically Russia.

On March 1 Ralph Nader released an article to CounterPunch, a self proclaimed independent media source, stating “Putin, unable to get over the breakup of the Soviet Union, probably has imperial ambitions to dominate in Russia’s backyard.” Though Nader attempts to play a “neither Washington, nor Moscow” card (A stance beloved by Trotskyists during the Cold War), this position defaults to support for NATO’s aggression and ambition against Russia.

The popular message from those in the synthetic left is that of ‘competing imperialism.’

Often they make reference to Vladimir Lenin’s position on the First World War and the need to oppose both the Allied Powers and the Central Powers as they fight to carve up Africa. This, however, has been taken out of context entirely. Imperialism describes the specific economic mode of finance capital dominating government and economy.

Imperialism is not merely war or conflict, in fact, Lenin and his theoretical successors often suggest that Imperialism rarely involves open military conflict. Instead, it relies on the entrapment of foreign markets through loans and hegemonic economics. The Russian Federation’s actions against Ukraine, by the Marxist definition, is not and cannot be imperialism. Ergo, it is no surprise those pushing the narrative of US versus Russian imperialism are social democrats and bastardizers of Lenin’s ideology.

Despite this rhetoric coming from the liberal professional managerial class that the synthetic left seems to love so dearly, some figures in mainstream media have approached this situation with the proper analysis. Tucker Carlson has, despite his parroting of anti-China rhetoric, exposed his massive audience to an anti-imperialist message. It is the hundreds of thousands of industrial and agricultural workers that listen to Tucker Carlson that Communists must ally with, in the hopes of not only defeating the narrative of the US state department, but NATO’s global hegemony, and desired war against Russia and its people.

No different than CPUSA and the Comintern in the ‘3rd Period,’ in which communist understood the vital importance of forming a popular front with all those willing to oppose the Nazi regime in Germany, we must take the same position, as Russia works to ‘denazify’ the Ukraine. American communist must put any and all criticisms they may have of the Russian Federation on the back burner and focus on the main threat to global peace and stability, which is NATO.

They are also all-in on this “Putin needed to disarm Ukraine’s WMD program” and “neo-Nazis are in charge of Ukraine” bullshit.

It’s very, very small left fringe. There is some presence on social media but it’s pretty insignificant. However, as you can see, there are some pretty big names with whom they are in solidarity and it’s not just those Fox News miscreants. Prominent lefties are on board as well:

Aren’t you curious why they don’t want you to see this? https://t.co/Dc8N3MvKju

— Susan Sarandon (@SusanSarandon) March 11, 2022

Right. Except it’s still on Youtube, which is owned by Google. I watched it earlier. (You have to admire the slickness of Greenwald’s accusation though. I don’t even know what a “producer’s page” is and I’ll bet nobody else does either.)

When it was pointed out that this neo-Nazi group he is obsessed with as some sort of justification for Putin’s alleged motivation has no presence in the government or any kind of popular support, there was this:

Uh huh. And if it’s true they are present in the military — indeed, probably most militaries in the world have a faction of authoritarian nationalists within them, whether organized or not — it continues to be pounded as a perfectly reasonable rationale for what has transpired .(In very careful lawyerly fashion, he makes sure that he never says it directly. Tucker is not quite a smooth, but he follows the same “just asking questions” bullshit path.)

Now we have this same faction moving on to excuse Russian aggression because they are on a phony crusade to “disarm Saddam Zelensky of his WMD” which is just mind-boggling. There was a time when people of integrity were against making up lies about weapons of mass destruction and other propaganda to justify the invasion of a sovereign country. It was rightly called military imperialism. For some reason it’s ok when the president of Russia does the same thing.

The chutzpah is astonishing: