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The left divides on sham referenda carried out with a gun to people's heads

Joseph Green
 

Incredible as it may seem, there is division in the left over Putin's referenda in Ukraine.

There are already apologists for Putin's imperialist and anti-democratic sham referenda arguing
that the fake figures and dictatorial procedure don't matter since American elections are rigged;
thus the Russian apologists hold out a hand to Trump, and not for the first time. Also there are
those writing, in response to the comparison between the Austrian and Ukrainian referenda,
that "So what will you do about it? How does it matter that you call it a sham vote? The fact
remains that it is now Russian territory according to the Russians and they will defend it as such
from now on. How will you change that fact?" Meanwhile Monthly Review Online estatically
reported that "Four breakaway territories of Ukraine ask to join Russia"
(https://mronline.org/2022/09/30/four-breakaway-territories-of-ukraine-ask-to-join-russia/ )

So thanks to Michael Karadjis, who posted a link on Facebook to a graphic which compared
Hitler's 1938 Austrian Anschluss referendum, with 97.77% and 99.71 figures, and Putin's 2022
Ukrainian Anschluss referenda with 93.11%, 87.05%, 98.42% and 99.23% figures. He wrote:
"Putin's sham 'referendums' under military occupation when most of the population have fled
and get no vote and those there 'vote' with guns in their faces. And then I've seen seemingly
intelligent people commenting as if there were anything real about the announced figures,
which were probably just inventions anyway." (The figures for the Anschluss vote are for the
announced "yes" vote and the supposed turnout, whereas the fantasy figures for Putin's sham
referendums are for the four different regions.)
John Reimann
 

The editors of MR online write a disclaimer: "Monthly Review does not necessarily adhere to all of the views conveyed in articles republished at MR Online. Our goal is to share a variety of left perspectives that we think our readers will find interesting or useful. —Eds."

This is a fraud. First of all, do they publish material that exposes Putin for the fascist lover that he is? Do they ever publish anything that produces evidence about China's oppression of the Uighurs? Second, they should have some journalistic standards. Any serious editors would simply not publish pure crap. Would they publish Holocaust denialism? Would they publish Covid conspiracy theory material? This statement is a way of putting out pure Putin propaganda and then denying any responsibility for it.

John Reimann

--
“Science and socialism go hand-in-hand.” Felicity Dowling
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
Avram Rips
 

Exactly. Many years ago noticed the pro state China slant. Even though argued that different publications on line and print version, but seems indistinguishable the pro Putin slant of both publications.


On Sunday, October 2, 2022, John Reimann <1999wildcat@...> wrote:
The editors of MR online write a disclaimer: "Monthly Review does not necessarily adhere to all of the views conveyed in articles republished at MR Online. Our goal is to share a variety of left perspectives that we think our readers will find interesting or useful. —Eds."

This is a fraud. First of all, do they publish material that exposes Putin for the fascist lover that he is? Do they ever publish anything that produces evidence about China's oppression of the Uighurs? Second, they should have some journalistic standards. Any serious editors would simply not publish pure crap. Would they publish Holocaust denialism? Would they publish Covid conspiracy theory material? This statement is a way of putting out pure Putin propaganda and then denying any responsibility for it.

John Reimann

--
“Science and socialism go hand-in-hand.” Felicity Dowling
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
Michael Pugliese
 

Re : "The editors of MR online write a disclaimer: "Monthly Review
does not necessarily adhere to all of the views conveyed in articles
republished at MR Online. Our goal is to share a variety of left
perspectives that we think our readers will find interesting or
useful. —Eds."

Something noted four times here , on Marxmail,
https://groups.io/g/marxmail/search?p=%2C%2C%2C20%2C0%2C0%2C0&q=Monthly+Review+does+not+necessarily+adhere+to+all+of+the+views
, I even thought of making a specific thread on it , with this subject
line ,"Monthly Review does not necessarily adhere to all of the views
conveyed in articles," when I noted it just a few days ago @
https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/19584 .

As I noted in that post , as a reader of MR since 1978 , and I will
add , having in my Google Drive many articles from MR since they
started publication in may 1949 , and a reader of
https://mronline.org/ , going back to when Yoshie Furuhashi was the
editor of its previous iteration MRZine , the ideological alignment /
slant of MROnline , has a consistently campist orientation , which
indicates a harder line than MR itself would , I think want to signal
it agrees with, in terms of what it puts , on paper for the print
edition It would appear almost every article, printed on The Grayzone
and Covert Action magazine , even those by the most disreputable
hacks, https://mronline.org/2022/08/12/russians-welcomed-as-liberators-in-many-eastern-ukrainian-cities-contrary-to-western-media-depictions/
,
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/08/10/russians-welcomed-as-liberators-in-many-eastern-ukrainian-cities-contrary-to-western-media-depictions/
, who are aligned with neo-fascists such as Alexandr Dugin ,
https://translate.google.com/website?sl=auto&tl=en&hl=en&client=webapp&u=https://assets-pointer.kro-ncrv.nl/public/styles/image_md/public/media/images/MicrosoftTeams-image%2520%252834%2529_0.png?itok%3DphXWDaTK
, via https://pointer-kro--ncrv-nl.translate.goog/nederlands-ex-familielid-assad-op-propagandatour-door-syrie-en-oekraine?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp
and https://tvpworld.com/59683101/dutch-newspaper-warns-against-russian-disinformation-in-western-media
, get disseminated further into the left medfa ecosystem to get
swallowed by the more credulous activists , who lack discernment . Cf.
that crapola from a hack like Sonja Van den Ende , to what Covert
Action Quarterly published back when I first started reading it in the
80's, https://covertactionmagazine.com/archives/ , when it had far
more stringent editorial standards. Now Covert Action magazine , has a
managing editor , who is a Monthly Review Press author,
https://monthlyreview.org/product/the-russians-are-coming-again-the-first-cold-war-as-tragedy-the-second-as-farce/
, which in its footnotes recommends as "intelligent," a book on Putin
by Dugin , who writes articles for it , using as credible sourcing ,
articles from the far right newspaper The American Free Press and the
LaRoucheite Executive Intelligence Review ,
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/01/03/there-is-absolutely-no-reason-in-the-world-to-believe-that-bill-clinton-is-a-cia-asset-except-for-all-the-evidence/
.

To return to MR and MROnline. the MR I started reading as a teenager ,
would feature a broad range of viewpoints , on contentious issues on
the left, of a divisive nature in activist circles, here is an
example, "Angola, China, and Southern Africa: China and Angola, Angola
and After; Editors Reply,"
https://monthlyreviewarchives.org/index.php/mr/article/view/MR-028-01-1976-05_1
. When has MROnline opened itself to ,"that variety of left
perspectives," on Ukraine , represented by articles in
https://www.tempestmag.org/ , for example?
https://www.tempestmag.org/2022/09/war-and-resistance-in-putins-russia/
, an interview with the Russian socialist , author of
https://www.versobooks.com/books/3881-dissidents-among-dissidents .
Where is the challenge to the preconceptions of the tankie Stalinoids
, which MR by its narrowing of the MROnline to presenting only these
articles which buttress the Russian Imperialist narrative frame, and
never present opposing viewpoints to that? Not that I expect , say ,
Dan La Botz , to start appearing ,
https://newpol.org/issue_post/internationalism-anti-imperialism-and-the-origins-of-campism/
on MROnline , but, c'mon, there are times I visit MROnline , and
wonder if I should renew my MR subscription , out of spite.
Michael Pugliese
 

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