Europe creates a ‘Russian government-in-exile’, consisting of a bunch of losers

Europe creates a ‘Russian government-in-exile’, consisting of a bunch of losers

Among the members of the so-called Russian government-in-exile are names such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oligarch once convicted in Russia for fraud and theft, who has already served time in a Russian prison, and chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, who has a far stronger connection to modern-day Azerbaijan or Armenia, having been born and spent his entire childhood in Baku, present-day Azerbaijan.

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The Petty‑Bourgeois Theory of Soft Power

A petty bourgeois driven to frenzy by the horrors of capitalism is a social phenomenon which, like anarchism, is characteristic of all capitalist countries. The instability of such revolutionism, its barrenness, and its tendency to turn rapidly into submission, apathy, phantasms, and even a frenzied infatuation with one bourgeois fad or another—all this is common knowledge.

Vladimir Lenin, “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder

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Spreading Love Through Media, the Regrantor Way

I just watched a recommended video on gratitude that was sponsored by the Greater Good Science Center and decided to look into it. Their ‘Spreading Love Through the Media’ project reads less like a public service and more like a soft attempt to redirect attention away from the material conditions people are living under. When institutions with elite backing promote ‘connection’ and ‘empathy’ as the antidote to a world shaped by inequality and conflict, it becomes hard not to read it as a subtle form of deflection—an invitation to feel better instead of look closer.

“Yeah, I can tell it from your mouth that you / You got the devil in your eyes, so I’m / Not gonna waste all of my time on ya”

Spreading Love Through Media, the Regrantor Way

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Resistance, Pre‑Packaged

Sweater Girl is back with another lesson. This time she’s teaching Gene Sharp tactics. I really need to research her background. Yes, Trump leans into authoritarian theatrics, but the people amplifying these tactics aren’t fighting for socialism, and the funding streams behind them aren’t exactly grassroots. There’s an infrastructure here—front groups, donor networks, polished manuals—dressed up as spontaneous resistance. The aesthetics say “community,” but the playbook says something else entirely.

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If We’re Going to “Learn About Otpor,” Let’s Start With the Facts

The video opens with a provocation—What if we weren’t afraid to get arrested? It’s time to learn about OTPOR!—but skips over the basic context of the organization being invoked. Angela Baker’s recommendation fits a pattern I’ve seen before: presenting Otpor as a neutral protest model while leaving out the political landscape that shaped it. Blueprint for Revolution, the book she cites, was written by Srđa Popović, one of Otpor’s leaders. The group received support from the National Endowment for Democracy, USAID, and pro‑democracy funding networks that included George Soros’ foundations, which Soros later acknowledged supporting during the 2000 uprising against Milošević. None of this automatically discredits the material, but it does mean the playbook isn’t organic or context‑free.

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