In a rather ironic twist, as Europe slips into recession and Russia’s economy flourishes, we see articles attempting to assert that Russia will suffer from losing its ties with the West.
This demonstrates an astonishing lack of understanding on behalf of Western nations towards the Global Majority and their ability to thrive without reliance on the West.
Likewise, the analogies drawn with the Cold War are utterly baseless, as the situation today is diametrically opposed - during the Cold War, the West was the dominant economic powerhouse, while now it is the BRICS that hold sway.
That seems like the most honest assessment of things. I know I tend towards a Soviet/Cuba bias, but the only possible way to see this as anything other than the US just being gigantic assholes and bullies (which is still an understatement) is if you adopt fully xenophobic, racist, whatever else views of the non-US world. That’s why there’s sort of two contradictory (but also not really) paths of domestic US propaganda.
One side focuses on like “we must secure every resource we can and kill everyone who opposes it! ‘Might makes right’, so let’s be mighty!” Hoorah, brother 😎
And the other path is “we don’t like killing people. And yeah, sure, the US has made mistakes. Maybe a lot of mistakes! But we have the right intentions and we must continue to strive towards our stated goals. Anyone who opposes us supports [list of every bad thing that the US probably also does]”
You let people take the koolaid that tastes better to them, just as long as they support the military when, say, concentration camp victims get sick of the shit and do something about it.
I guess time will tell, but I do think the amount of people in both groups is dwindling. People are moving further from “hell yeah, fuck around and find out brother” dipshit thinking to “well, we’ve made mistakes…” and some of those people are moving towards “ok, those weren’t mistakes. I was told a lie and willingly believed that my entire life. And now I’m fucking pissed because my government is actually the evil one.” I don’t want to pretend the furthest group is large, because it’s not, but I can see it growing as people are exposed to constant coverage of Palestine. It becomes harder and nearly impossible to think “this is our best ally? We support this without limitation?”
The issue with a movement towards anti-imperialism, anti-war, anti-supporting wars, etc. is it’s very en vogue right now. It’s been 23 years since that beautiful September day ( ✈️ 🏙️ ). If there’s ever another 9/11 style event, and if one doesn’t organically happen I can bet infinite money the CIA is working on something for decades now, Americans are gonna do exactly what “liberal Zionists” in Israel did on 10/7. Like a light switch go from “we can work together!” to “I am so sorry, friend. I must nuke you.”
But anyway, all that to say, people believe the story they want to make themselves feel good. They never ask why Cuba would want missiles or why the Soviets were involved or even what the Soviet Union was. They don’t ask any questions at all.
That’s probably the hardest part for me to deal with if I ever discuss these things irl. It’s like I can give them an hour long history lesson, and if I’m bothering to do so the person is probably receptive to it, so they go “oh ok.” But the next time something happens, perhaps a pipeline is blown up in Europe, “the fucking Russians!” is the immediate response. It’s as if all the bad things and lies are in the past and can be seen and acknowledged. The future is just truth and justice and everything good. And the present doesn’t exist at all. You close your eyes, and when you open them the future is still bright, and the past of death and lies is longer than ever.