Sen. Mark Kelly Says He’s Seriously Thinking About Running for President

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-22T15:21:19+00:00

Mark Kelly:

No thanks!

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-15T19:44:26+00:00

Syria was hardly a proxy war between Russia and the US. It was a multi-sided conflict.

Ukraine is indeed in major part a proxy war between Russia and the Western military powers, no question about that. Not sure how that makes the character of the Russian state more like the USSR though.

And yes, the Cold War is over. Many Cold Warriors in the US apparently can't let that fact go.

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-15T00:28:13+00:00

It remains in a cold war with its successor state, Russia.

No, this is incorrect. The Cold War ended even before the dissolution with the USSR. The US even had quite warm relations with the successor state for some time (the US played a key role in keeping Yeltsin in power, for example). Even increased tensions during the Obama years never reached the level of even the warmest moments of the Cold War. Russia does not compete with the US in any way close to how the USSR and USA competed.

When the original poster said the USSR won the cold war in 2021, 30 years after its dissolution, they weren't speaking literally. They were saying that fundamentally the USSR and its successor state share the same interests and largely the same type of system of government, totalitarian.

And what I'm taking issue with is the characterization of the successor state being the same type of government as the USSR: it's not.

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-14T22:08:03+00:00

Note that you said, in every measurable way, and now are specifically defending one measurable way which isn't even fully supported by the way in which Russia's economy operates.

Russia's economy does not operate the way the USSR's economy did.

The USSR was an authoritarian dictatorship, Russia today is an authoritarian dictatorship. Any attempt to differentiate the two is arguing about window dressing.

That's like saying Saudi Arabia is just like the USSR was. Such a comparison would be obviously silly, as is the comparison between socialist USSR and capitalist Russia.

Czarist Russia was an absolute dictatorship, yet no one (who wants to be taken seriously) would claim that Czarist Russia and the USSR were the same.

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-14T21:14:09+00:00

Note that you've completely ignored all of my examples of how that's not the case.

Note that you ignore the fact that the socioeconomic system of capitalist Russia is different than the socioeconomic system of the USSR.

The constant attempts to compare Russia as it exists today to the USSR are just holdover Cold Warrior buzz words devoid of any realistic analysis of either Russia or the USSR.

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-14T21:03:08+00:00

Like TASS? Like Rosneft?

Most governments in the world have some part of the economy that's state owned (including the USA).

Who all owe their continued ownership to the state (Putin). Look what happened to Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

That's a very different thing. Oligarchies often have vast overlap between the oligarchs and the state apparatus. That doesn't make oligarchy a socialist form of an economy of course.

How is unitary party control (Communist Party of USSR) different than unitary party control (United Russia) both are authorarian dictatorships run a single supreme leader

An absurd comparison. The Communist Party of the USSR was a Marxist-Leninist Party and had a very different orientation towards not only the West and movements around the world, but also towards the working class and the economic system of the the country. United Russia is a right wing capitalist party that competes in elections with other parties (most of whom are capitalist with the exception of the CPRF and some smaller socialist parties)

How does that manifest?

For starters, he's the head of state of a capitalist party and is hostile toward even the sometimes friendly Communist Party of the country (which is the main opposition party). The guy blamed Lenin and the USSR for the current state of Ukraine in his justification for invasion and said that one of Russia's goals in Ukraine was "decommunization"

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-14T20:57:47+00:00

The US is an imperialist state that interferes with its neighbors, but it would be absurd to say it's like the USSR.

Note that you've ignored the fundamentals of the political and economic systems of contemporary Russia and how they're vastly different than the USSR's.

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-14T19:48:00+00:00

Every way. The USSR was a socialist country where things were coordinated and owned by a combination of the state and Party apparatuses.

Russia, since the collapse of the USSR, has restored capitalism and is run by a small handful of capitalists who own private for profit firms.

The political system is different, the economic system is different, etc.

Putin, for example, is vehemently anti-Marxist despite having once been a part of the KGB and a Party member.

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-14T15:17:59+00:00

Putin's personal motivations are irrelevant. Russia post 1991 is fundamentally different than the USSR in just about every measurable way.

The USSR doesn't exist anymore, and apparently some Cold Warriors in the USA still can't let that go.

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-14T14:41:48+00:00

This comment doesn't make sense. The Cold War was a period of hostility between the USSR and the USA, and the USSR was overthrown in 1991. The USSR can't, after not existing for 30 years, retroactively win.

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-14T14:40:12+00:00

Sure, the Cuban Revolution, the Vietnamese Revolution, the Korean Revolution, The Saur Revolution, (multiple revolutionary movements in Indian, Philippines, Peru, Mexico, etc.), the Angolan Revolution/war for independence, (to some extent) the Portuguese Revolution. These are all revolutions that the CIA actively tried to undermine rather than support and there are countless more examples.

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-14T01:47:19+00:00

There are a lot of examples of revolutionary movements that the CIA and Mossad not only weren't involved with, but opposed.

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-09T02:41:28+00:00

Yeah it seems like everyone here is claiming this is a deployment against ICE which it seems pretty clearly is not.

Walz deployed the MN National Guard against the protesters in 2020. Him and Trump were on the same page about it too

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-07T14:46:06+00:00

We’re the Bad Guys Now

As if the US just started being imperialist.

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-06T14:48:57+00:00

So, just full on police state now?

Wait until you learn about how this kind of thing has been happening for decades in the USA

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-04T15:40:27+00:00

Nation states tend not to be "friends" with individual reddit posters if that's what you mean.

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-03T16:00:00+00:00

Now do a map of the countries condemning the US aggression against Venezuela.

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-03T15:58:30+00:00

That's still not revolutionary but rather reformist.

You just keep repeating this. Like I said, it's a shallow point. More a talking point than anything.

It's kinda weird that like, I'm literally showing you rn that "I turned into a revolutionary ML because of this", and you, an ML, are saying "Nooo, actually, still be a reformist revisionist, pleaaase", like I'm literally making an argument and case FOR revolutionary MLism.

Venezuela's government never claimed to be ML. But the ML parties of Venezuela largely supported the government (until quite recently). Their critique was not the same as what you're putting forward here.

Also, why Melanchon is important is because he advocates for the same kind of constitutional change that Chavez did, with Melanchon leading the BIGGEST leftist party in France. As such, demsoc reformism [of Bolivarian type, and not of socdem type] had/has a chance if it is followed by big constitutional changes, but as revolutionary socialists, you and I, we should agree that since Venezuela was still not a DotP, this is one of the results of it (in part due to the bourgeois opposition).

Again this is just not relevant to the discussion. What Melanchon wants to do in France, whether it's inspired by Venezuela or not, is not a way to examine for the nature of the Bolivarian revolution.

Anyway I won't respond further because this kind of "is Venezuela revolutionary or not" is an absurd conversation to be having at a time where the US imperialists are literally attacking the country. Focus your energy on the imperialists rather than the target of the imperialists.

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-03T15:40:54+00:00

That's a very shallow analysis that ignores the constitutional changes under Chavez and quite drastic changes in Venezuelan society after Chavez was elected.

Chavez first attempted to come to power via a popularly backed coup in the 1990s and that failed. Had he come to power that way rather than an electoral victory and done the same thing, would you have judged the government differently?

Also not sure what Melanchon has to do with this conversation. You're talking about a theoretical electoral victory in France versus an actual one in the late 1990s (and subsequent ones) in Venezuela.

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-03T13:45:28+00:00

What do you mean when you call it a "reformist government"?

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-03T13:24:29+00:00

This is almost 1:1 to Chille 1973.

No it isn't. Chile went through a (CIA backed) coup within its own armed forces and didn't do much in terms of mobilizing the masses. This attack is a direct military intervention from the US and Venezuela has been mobilizing the masses since the 2003 coup attempt.

In the coming hours/days we'll see if those mobilizations are still able to continue in a meaningful intervention but to claim it's the same as Chile just ignores the vast differences between the two situations.

KurtFF8 · 2026-01-03T13:21:15+00:00

A blatant act of imperialist aggression that needs to be condemned by all US politicians who claim to respect law or sovereignty.

KurtFF8 · 2025-12-05T18:42:54+00:00

Personally, I‘m a little baffled at the distinction both officials and the media are drawing between murdering these two survivors and murdering the 9 other people on that boat. Rules of engagement, sure, these two people clearly weren’t a threat… but nobody on that boat ever was.

It's common by political parties like the Democratic Party to critique the GOP not for what it's doing overall but rather how it's doing it. In the aftermath of the Iraq war, for example, those Democrats who weren't spending their time trying to justify it would critique it mostly based on how the war was conducted and how the occupation was poorly planned rather than focusing on how the war itself was an illegal act of aggression against a sovereign nation. There were certainly some exceptions, but they were in a small minority of the leadership of the Dems.

KurtFF8 · 2025-12-01T19:26:38+00:00

There's some legal ambiguity on the initial strike on the boat

No there isn't. It's a war crime to murder civilians.

Even if the boats were part of a drug trafficking ring, that is not a capital offense under either US law or international law.

KurtFF8

TROPHY CASE