A joint announcement and a few housekeeping notes from UCR

[Hereno]

Then why wait until now? 

 

LSF was never actively gunning for INT that I am aware of (and if I'm not aware of it, I know you wouldn't be). Their MDoAP treaty was activated and they responded accordingly.

 

Even if they were gunning for INT, their alliance is probably in terrible fighting shape due to having to fight NoR alone for four months.

 

Even if they had rebuilt, being smart and waiting for a good chance to strike isn't cowardice. Although I'm not surprised that you equate intelligence with cowardice - it explains so many of your actions as of late. Nevermind that you are currently in an alliance using peace mode as a tactic. MK is at war, why don't you all just bum rush your opponents blindly?!? COWARDS! <_<

Edited January 28, 2013 by Hereno

[Sabcat]

Then why wait until now? 

 

You're labouring under the misapprehension that LSF were waiting for an opportunity to jump Int. We weren't. The bloc announcement you see here has been a long time in the making. The fight with Int and ODN we're in (and not even slightly driving) is a result of Int and ODN attacking NATO. Had Int chosen another alliance fighting Umbrella to counter we wouldn't be here. Had it just been ODN then we'd only be engaged with ODN. 

 

Might not fit with the narrative that some would like to build but that's the rub. This is nothing more than a sideshow. We could disappear along with UCR and it wouldn't make the slightest difference to anything going on right now. We're having fun though and you should too.

 

It'll all be ok in the end.
 

[Sabcat]

Oddly, if you want to see an example of someone gunning for this war, read Int's DoW against NATO. We get almost as much space in it as NATO do. Like I say though, it'll all be ok in the end.

[Wobblies]

Why didn't LSF take a pass at Int on their own, then? They had to wait until odds were overwhelmingly in their favor? And Int are the cowards? Laughable.

Stupidest thing I've read all day

 

[DeathAdder]

Congrats and welcome. o/

[Mongol Swede]

I recall when Senator Swedes refused to sanction a rogue who was attacking INT. First he lied, claiming he couldn't do it, then he retreated to an excuse about how he wasn't a senator for his alliance and therefore had no obligation. At some point his selfish motivation was revealed: the rogue was his trade partner.

You have zero integrity, old friend. You hide behind cheap slogans to hide your complete lack of it

-Craig

You sure like to leave out the key details of that story. A trade partner is easily replaced. This individual also happened to be a comrade, and I about drove myself crazy trying to work out an alternative, peaceful solution that would've more than replaced any material losses incurred by INT and, later on, my own alliance. Instead I had to contend with INT's will to dominate and the naive nature of my own alliance (which was no longer pink and thus forfeited its claims to Pink politics).

In fact, I'd say I was the only one with the courage to take on the challenges no matter the odds. And I'm pretty sure I didn't see you switch over to LSF when the call to take on NoR was issued by the LSF and eagerly encouraged by INT's own GenCom. But I sure did, and lost a five-year-old nation as a result.

But not you. Not INT. In fact, it was non-Leftists who once again took up the call courageously, just like all those years ago when the Byzantine Empire, of all of LSF's allies, was the one who stood by us. The folks who make up Shangri-la have more claim to courage than the bulk of the Left in most recent memory.

My integrity is in my scars, old top. Yours is muddled in tech deals and twisted treaty language.

[Sephiroth]

Welcome to Equilibrium, its nice to have you fighting alongside us.

[Comrade Craig]

My integrity is in my scars, old top. Yours is muddled in tech deals and twisted treaty language.

"Twisted treaty language," otherwise known as living in a global community and seeking consensus between all stakeholders. You know, the concepts we commonly associated with the ideals of anarchism. As always, you use ideology as a mask to hide your selfish motivations. You refuse compromise, you refuse to see the other side. Your stand on principles has ALWAYS been a lie. You selfishly demand your way or no way, and then you smugly pat yourself on the back for it.

This is you; this is me; this is the relationship between LSF and INT in a nutshell. You refuse to make tough decisions and you call it integrity. I make tough decisions and am vilified for it.

And I see you've rejoined LSF once again. You never miss an opportunity to jump in front of a parade.

-Craig Edited January 28, 2013 by Comrade Craig

[Mr Garcia]

I beg to differ, we had plenty of Leftist failure in the Great Wars era. One of the motivating factors for me when I served in the CPCN and INT was to help forge a leftist movement within CN that could avoid the humiliations of the past...you can imagine how disappointing it is for an old fart like me to see how things have panned out in 2012/13  :mellow:

 
 
 

Oh
man and the CN left lapses further into division reminiscent of the
early days of CN when the likes of the ICP, ICSN, SRI and of course the
LSF were at each others throats. No doubt the Commie haters are feeling
rather smug right now :(

 


Maybe you should start a conference again. I wouldn't call it "The Internationale" this time around though. :)
 
The difference between now and then is that the matter never turned into a shooting war, and in the end, all those alliances but the ICP participated in GW1 on LUE's side. After that, the ICSN merged into the ICP, and the rest is history. These conflicts way back in 2006 were just the afterthought of the splintering of the original ICSN. This split, in turn, was the end result of the bitter conflicts that existed within the ICSN long before the NPO and LUE ever laid hands on them. Everyone hated each other's guts.
 
The current situation of INT is interesting in light of the history of the left. The ICP initially had neutrality as a principle, even in GWI, but eventually it joined up with the League, and the SWF with Aegis, and so on. At the time, this was justified with the idea of the NPO and allies constituting a hegemonic imperialist power. Now, years on, this can hardly be credibly said, or you'd have to brand both sides in the ongoing war with this label, and then you'd have to go back to neutrality. In any event, both INT and the LSF have gone their own ways and found their own allies.
 
All the leftist alliances have learned to live in a world where people have different opinions, but the LSF just allies itself with whomever it wants, whereas INT has continued the years-old historical process of the biggest leftist alliance embedding itself into a major power bloc. That is a choice that one can make, but it can hardly be justified by anti-imperialism any more. For INT, the communism is a theme, a flavour, and that's their choice, and nobody can begrudge them that they're big and they've got powerful friends, etc. But they can hardly turn around and whine that the LSF are "attacking their own comrades" when such a connection has not existed for a while now.

 

 

"Twisted treaty language," otherwise known as living in a global community and seeking consensus between all stakeholders. You know, the concepts we commonly associated with the ideals of anarchism.

 

 

These are not concepts of anarchism. The wording of this is so general that it can apply to pretty much every situation. The international community, liberalism, pacifism, etc. Indeed, there are very few people who say: "My ideal is isolationism and autocracy where the interests of most stakeholders are cast aside." The very word "stakeholders" is interesting here, because it's one of the worst excesses of local government management-speak (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7948894.stm).

Yours is the language of corporatist social-democracy, rather than of anarchism. And of course it's not just your language that is presently playing this role.

Edited January 28, 2013 by Mr Garcia

[Cataduanes]

Maybe you should start a conference again. I wouldn't call it "The Internationale" this time around though. :)

 

The difference between now and then is that the matter never turned into a shooting war, and in the end, all those alliances but the ICP participated in GW1 on LUE's side. After that, the ICSN merged into the ICP, and the rest is history. These conflicts way back in 2006 were just the afterthought of the splintering of the original ICSN. This split, in turn, was the end result of the bitter conflicts that existed within the ICSN long before the NPO and LUE ever laid hands on them. Everyone hated each other's guts.

 

The current situation of INT is interesting in light of the history of the left. The ICP initially had neutrality as a principle, even in GWI, but eventually it joined up with the League, and the SWF with Aegis, and so on. At the time, this was justified with the idea of the NPO and allies constituting a hegemonic imperialist power. Now, years on, this can hardly be credibly said, or you'd have to brand both sides in the ongoing war with this label.

 

All the leftist alliances have learned to live in a world where people have different opinions, but the LSF just allies itself with whomever it wants, whereas INT has continued the years-old historical process of the biggest leftist alliance embedding itself into a major power bloc. That is a choice that one can make, but it can hardly be justified by anti-imperialism any more. For INT, the communism is a theme, a flavour, and that's their choice, and nobody can begrudge them that they're big and they've got powerful friends, etc. But they can hardly turn around and whine that the LSF are "attacking their own comrades" when such a connection has not existed for a while now.

 

I doubt another Popular Front type conference would actually work this time. My perception is that too much bad blood exists this time, as you rightly pointed out the sectarian divides of early CN had only really ever bordered on animosity rather than actual blood being spilled.

 

The bulk of your analysis is spot imo, as I remember principally in the CPCN was that there was a concerted effort to embed ourselves into the existing global framework. The was a huge context to this inasmuch that the netural principle inherent in the ICP was virtually non-existent in the CPCN, this stemmed from the terrible experience of the 2nd version of the ICP which got rolled within a week (granted it was a very disorganized attempt to refound an alliance, but hey we were young and idealistic :P ).

 

I will leave INT members to address the point of whether or not the espousal of leftist ideals is for show or not. I personally find the whole divide rather sad, your post has done little raise my spirits in this regard as it seems that the CN left are now in the grips of a sectarian and strategic divide that could be nigh impossible to overcome.

 

 

Also who were you back in the day? I must know (PM me if you wish) ;)

[Mr Garcia]

I'll PM you later today. I was not paying attention for pretty much the entire period of 2007-2011, so I can't say anything interesting about that time, nor about the CPCN, ICP refoundations, etc. I just wanted to expand on the parallel with ancient left history for a bit. I don't know if there is a direct line between ICP/SWF foreign policy then, and INT now.

[Cataduanes]

I'll PM you later today. I was not paying attention for pretty much the entire period of 2007-2011, so I can't say anything interesting about that time, nor about the CPCN, ICP refoundations, etc. I just wanted to expand on the parallel with ancient left history for a bit. I don't know if there is a direct line between ICP/SWF foreign policy then, and INT now.

To be honest there was no real correlation between the FA of the ICP/SWF imo, the only tenous continuity would be perhaps the seeking out of former coalition partners from the Great Wars era like the then isolated GATO (at the time was a virtual pariah state on the global scene, a state of affairs which climaxed with the GATO-1V war) and of course ODN. FOr the CPCN it was a case of working to ensure survival (The shadow of ICP 2 and NOV/NV loomed large) while for the ICP/SWF there was the options of coalition warfare int he Great Wars.
 
But yeah its great to be able to discuss ancient history, especially something so insular as CN Leftist politics from that era. Suffice to say I miss those early days.  :) Edited January 28, 2013 by Cataduanes

[MarxistBOZG]

Oddly, if you want to see an example of someone gunning for this war, read Int's DoW against NATO. We get almost as much space in it as NATO do. Like I say though, it'll all be ok in the end.

Oh give up the poor LSF, Poor Sabcat, Innocent bystanders charade and go re-read your thread on our forums where the first post is a provocative comment on our lack of NAP.

[Grigoris Lambrakis]

Maybe you should start a conference again. I wouldn't call it "The Internationale" this time around though. :)

 

I would welcome a conference discussing what the Left on planet Bob is and could be in 2013. This could be fun and perhaps even productive. Although there's too much bad blood right now.
 

The current situation of INT is interesting in light of the history of the left. The ICP initially had neutrality as a principle, even in GWI, but eventually it joined up with the League, and the SWF with Aegis, and so on. At the time, this was justified with the idea of the NPO and allies constituting a hegemonic imperialist power. Now, years on, this can hardly be credibly said, or you'd have to brand both sides in the ongoing war with this label, and then you'd have to go back to neutrality. In any event, both INT and the LSF have gone their own ways and found their own allies.
 
All the leftist alliances have learned to live in a world where people have different opinions, but the LSF just allies itself with whomever it wants, whereas INT has continued the years-old historical process of the biggest leftist alliance embedding itself into a major power bloc. That is a choice that one can make, but it can hardly be justified by anti-imperialism any more. For INT, the communism is a theme, a flavour, and that's their choice, and nobody can begrudge them that they're big and they've got powerful friends, etc. But they can hardly turn around and whine that the LSF are "attacking their own comrades" when such a connection has not existed for a while now.

 

I agree that neutrality would be a more consistent choice for the Left. However, our stance, LSF's and Int's at least, has been forged by our history to a point of no return. Chosing a side was not only a question of principles but also of survival, especialy at times when NoV/NoR was far more aggressive, allied to the dominant side and rolling us for the kicks. Now, after all these years and wars we've fought, if we were to declare neutrality, no one would take it seriously or conceder it sincere. It's too late for that.

 

Furthermore, despite the general feeling, there are traces of ideology on Bob which are worth defending from a leftist or at least "progressive" point of view, a set of principles, formed through the opposition to the Hegemony and Q, formed and applied through the Karma revolution: no forced disbandment of alliances, no reps paid for alliance wars, no perma ZI lists, no rolling people for speaking their mind. That's what the world was before Karma, you didn't even dare speak your mind on OWF, or you would end up blitzed the very next day. I do hope that you can see how the left relates to ideas such as free expression, self determination (no forced disbandment), opposing exploitation (no reps based on the right of might), protecting minimal individual rights (no perma ZI) etc.

 

From this point of view, embedding ourselves into this particular power bloc can be regarded very consistent with our ideals, which I'm not certain whether LSF can say about their recent choices.

[Groucho Marx]

 

 

we have no intention of becoming a limb (or finger, may be the better analogy) of any new attempts to control the global community by a few.

 

Thank you all for your time.

 

 

That's exactly what you're doing - throwing in your lot with a group of people setting out to control the global community by starting a war over the most ridiculous thing and using the most absurd "strategy".

[Subcomandante VL]

I would welcome a conference discussing what the Left on planet Bob is and could be in 2013. This could be fun and perhaps even productive. Although there's too much bad blood right now.

 

Speaking personally I'd welcome this too. I'm not sure what everyone else on our end would think though, and I have even more serious doubts about the rest of INT. You're sort of unique in many ways among them Trik.

[Subcomandante VL]

That's exactly what you're doing - throwing in your lot with a group of people setting out to control the global community by starting a war over the most ridiculous thing and using the most absurd "strategy".

 

 

Neither UCR nor LSF have any ties to the ones really running the show here. Ties to ties I suppose, but I'm rather certain the minute the anarchists feel like they're pawns in a larger game they'll jump ship. Tends to be the way they work.

 

At the moment though, I think I speak for all of us when I say we're content to be a part of the group just trying to overthrow the monarchy (so to speak).

Edited January 28, 2013 by VladimirLenin

[Baron Terror]

This time last year LSF was looking on the verge of succumbing to inactivity and fading away from this world. Events in the past year seem to have reinvigorated at least a part of the federation so I guess that's one silver lining to come out of all this bad blood. Honestly speaking though the drift began long before the last war, and I would even go as far to say all the resurfacing of the NoR drama was one last attempt to reconnect our alliances before we simply just moved to far in different directions.

[RevolutionaryRebel]

I'm sure this will blow over in a year. It's not like LSF and Int haven't been on opposing sides before. Of course; the last time it happened in one of my past lives, things were rather more polite between them. But even then, some were stirring up things on both sides. Any talk of trying to become the 'premier leftist alliance' via this war will prove just that, unless those who see themselves as pretenders for that title can prove themselves able to recruit, manage and support members better than Int. Are you man enough to do that, UCR/LSF?

[Comrade Craig]

I'm sure this will blow over in a year. It's not like LSF and Int haven't been on opposing sides before. Of course; the last time it happened in one of my past lives, things were rather more polite between them. But even then, some were stirring up things on both sides. Any talk of trying to become the 'premier leftist alliance' via this war will prove just that, unless those who see themselves as pretenders for that title can prove themselves able to recruit, manage and support members better than Int. Are you man enough to do that, UCR/LSF?

Simple disclaimer: I'm an outside observer and speak only as a member of the global proletariat.

The overlooked fact here is that INT is probably home to more former LSF/ICP/ICNS/SWF members than the LSF itself. Our world is shrinking day by day, and they've chosen to wage war upon the only population that could ever be sympathetic to their overall cause. While it is likely that this tactic of riding coattails will bring them a short term military victory (likely, but not inevitable), and will certainly earn them accolades from the opportunistic lynch mob they've chosen to join, it is short-sighted.

Obviously the combined forces of UCR and LSF pose no significant military threat to INT, as has been previously mentioned by all sides. This was a symbolic action orchestrated by specific individuals who failed to put forth a workable program for the Left; instead they have aligned themselves with a counterrevolutionary force as a means of imposing their agenda on an unwilling population.

-Craig

[Hereno]

INT has described itself as "an alliance of leftists, not a leftist alliance". Shangri-La has plenty of leftists, including myself, but we are not a leftist alliance either. When an alliance lead (in-part) by USMC123 can be considered as much leftist as INT, I'm not sure that this can really be considered a divide in the left in the first place. And I don't mean that to bash them, [OOC]or to say that the leftists among them are somehow less leftist IRL because of a fucking game or any garbage like that[OOC], because it's their alliance and they're free to play the political game however they choose. But it is impossible to have solidarity with alliances who do not view solidarity as important or even a relevant part of their foreign affairs. INT chose CNG and politicking over the CN left.

[Pingu]

Rest assured, however, that when this is all over we have no intention of becoming a limb (or finger, may be the better analogy) of any new attempts to control the global community by a few.

 

I wish you the best of luck with that.

 

I am sure your imperialist masters will thank your for helping build the new hegemony by consigning you all to labour camps. But at least you will be able to console yourselves with the memory of your pure intentions, however delusional.

[Comrade Craig]

2) I didn't fail to sway the "Party" (I still love your adherence to these corny Soviet-style altruisms, never change), I failed to sway your personality cult because you're a better and more experienced charismatic authority than I.

{OOC]My corny "Soviet-style" language is a device I use to maintain my hardline position while, at the same time letting people know that I don't take this crap too seriously. I get the vibe that perhaps we are really fighting sometimes... and I'm guilty of the hostility as much as anyone. Everyone says this, but I mean it: it's a game. I want to have fun with it, and I want you and the others to have fun, too. We all take this stuff too seriously sometimes... my lapse into communist-propaganda-speak is a self-deprecating way of making light of the silliness in our dramas.

-Me[/OOC]

[Comrade Mao]

This is pretty weird for me. I've been around long to see our (socialists of all types) collective fortunes wax and wane, alliances come and go, but we've never come to actual blows in this fashion, even when SRI and LSF were at each others throats. Do as you will, but this won't make you any less small or irrelevant to the powers you're supporting through your actions, nor will your pretensions towards "Leftist unity" actually get you anywhere.

[Grigoris Lambrakis]

The whole divide is amusing at best. Some guys claiming that they are pragmatic while they fight a suicide war. And some other guys claiming to be idealists while adding themselves to a dog pile. I should rebuild PFJ or something, there's too much Monty Python material being tossed around.