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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDon't know why Russians are getting their nose in a twist over Fascists on their border....
JI7
(89,260 posts)Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)JI7
(89,260 posts)i'm not just talking about cultural attitudes .
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)the new Ukrainian government are not "fascists" nor were the popular demonstrations against the Yanukovych government a phenomenon of the far right.
Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)When riot police were sent to beat the students, who came to defend them? More Afghans, but Afghans of a very different sort: Ukrainian veterans of the Soviet Red Army, men who had been sent to invade Afghanistan during after the Soviet invasion of that country in 1979. These men came to defend their children, as they called the students. But they were also defending a protest initiated by a man born in Kabul at the very time they were fighting their way toward it.
(snip)
On February 20, an EU delegation was supposed to arrive to negotiate a truce. Instead, the regime orchestrated a bloodbath. The riot police fell back from some of the Maidan. When protesters followed, they were shot by snipers who had taken up positions on rooftops. Again and again people ran out to try to rescue the wounded, and again and again they were shot.
Who was killed? Dozens of people, in all about a hundred, most of them young men. Bohdan Solchanyk was a young lecturer at the Ukrainian Catholic University, a Ukrainian speaker from western Ukraine. He was shot and killed. Yevhen Kotlyov was an environmentalist from Kharkiv, a Russian speaker from eastern Ukraine. He was shot and killed. One of the people killed was a Russian citizen; a number of Russians had come to fightmost of them anarchists who had come to aid their Ukrainian anarchist comrades. At least two of those killed by the regime, and perhaps more, were Jews. One of those Afghans, Ukrainian veterans of the Red Armys war in Afghanistan, was Jewish: Alexander Scherbatyuk. He was shot and killed by a sniper. Another of those killed was a Pole, a member of Ukraines Polish minority.
Has it ever before happened that people associated with Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian, Armenian, Polish, and Jewish culture have died in a revolution that was started by a Muslim? Can we who pride ourselves in our diversity and tolerance think of anything remotely similar in our own histories?
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/mar/01/ukraine-haze-propaganda/
Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)White supremacist banners and Confederate flags were draped inside Kievs occupied City Hall, and demonstrators have hoisted Nazi SS and white power symbols over a toppled memorial to V.I. Lenin. After Yanukovich fled his palatial estate by helicopter, EuroMaidan protesters destroyed a memorial to Ukrainians who died battling German occupation during World War II. Sieg heil salutes and the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol have become an increasingly common site in Maidan Square, and neo-Nazi forces have established autonomous zones in and around Kiev.
An Anarchist group called AntiFascist Union Ukraine attempted to join the Euromaidan demonstrations but found it difficult to avoid threats of violence and imprecations from the gangs of neo-Nazis roving the square. They called the Anarchists things like Jews, blacks, Communists, one of its members said. There werent even any Communists, that was just an insult.
There are lots of Nationalists here, including Nazis, the anti-fascist continued. They came from all over Ukraine, and they make up about 30% of protesters.
One of the Big Three political parties behind the protests is the ultra-nationalist Svoboda, whose leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, has called for the liberation of his country from the Muscovite-Jewish mafia. After the 2010 conviction of the Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk for his supporting role in the death of nearly 30,000 people at the Sobibor camp, Tyahnybok rushed to Germany to declare him a hero who was fighting for truth. In the Ukrainian parliament, where Svoboda holds an unprecedented 37 seats, Tyahnyboks deputy Yuriy Mykhalchyshyn is fond of quoting Joseph Goebbels he has even founded a think tank originally called the Joseph Goebbels Political Research Center. According to Per Anders Rudling, a leading academic expert on European neo-fascism, the self-described socialist nationalist Mykhalchyshyn is the main link between Svobodas official wing and neo-Nazi militias like Right Sector.
....
http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/us-backing-neo-nazis-ukraine
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)doesn't mean they ALL are. "30% of protesters" is not a majority of protesters. The fact that the protests against Yanukovych's government embraced the political spectrum from left to right should be a sign of the broad popular support the protest movement had, if anything.
TomClash
(11,344 posts)Svoboda and Right Sector have six portfolios. There are only 20 in the entire government.
Both parties are anti-Semitic, racist. Svoboda's popularity is growing fastest among the most educated citizens.
The new Deputy PM for Economic Affairs supports a complete abortion ban, including cases of rape.
And it's not like the Fatherland coalition is anything most DUers would embrace either.
Yanukovych was a stupid pig, but these people aren't exactly progressives.
Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)TomClash
(11,344 posts)Adrahil
(13,340 posts)And, of course, that means 70% aren't far right nuts. Don't get me wrong. I don't like Svoboda or Right a Sector. But they are no where near a majority in the new government, as some here would have you believe.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)This is how parliamentary politics works, usually. There are coalitions. In exchange for supporting the government on issues that would be considered confidence votes, smaller parties receive ministry portfolios. This is how politics works in basically every country without a winner-take-all electoral system.
One can support the right of Ukrainians to protest their government in the name of democratic self-determinism without endorsing the specific elements involved. Expecting them to embrace Western-style liberalism overnight is a bit much to hope for; they need a base of established democratic institutions and reponsible government and the rule of law to start from, first, for that, and it's something they haven't had under Yanukovych.
TomClash
(11,344 posts)I understand how a parliamentary system works. Ukraine has had a parliamentary system for a generation, since Kravchuk. Yanukovych was elected under that system.
Svoboda received defense and economic portfolios - generally the most important.
You are correct - Svoboda is not a majority. But the most important point is that none of the parties in the new government is progressive. This is not a coalition or unity government. It is composed almost entirely of rightists, with a sprinkling of centrists.
malaise
(269,144 posts)Glad Lawrence Wilkerson said what he did on Chris Hayes progam - said he'd do exactly what Putin is going following the coup and that anyone who disagrees is lying
Igel
(35,337 posts)The chants of those who were in a state-approved demonstration in Moscow, in support of the occupation of the Ukraine.
I know people who get upset when they hear "USA! USA!" at sports events and term it "fascist". Granted, the difference between a football game and armed occupation of territory that belongs to another country is a slight technicality, but surely we can extend it.
So why should Russia be upset at fascists on its borders when it has so many--that we'd call "fascists"--within its borders?
Journeyman
(15,037 posts)NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)Well done...
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)johnp3907
(3,732 posts)Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)Wearing an expression of insult or disgust. Might be a Western PA thing?
I went for contrast by understatement.
johnp3907
(3,732 posts)But I'd also never heard "chip-chopped ham" until well into adulthood, and now I hear it's been a common Pittsburgh area phrase for decades. I've still only ever really heard it in Isaly's commercials, or read it in the paper.
(Kinda off topic here. Sorry)
Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)Back in college in '72, many a night we went to the main Isaly's at Bates and the Blvd. of the Allies. Huge chip-chopped ham sandwiches for about a quarter. Klondikes for a dime.
Gone.
pampango
(24,692 posts)their ethnic brethren, government control of unions and hating on gays. In Ukraine the far-right is a minority. In Russia - given government policies on the use of the military to unify their ethnic group, keep unions weak and outlaw gays - well it makes you wonder who the fascists are.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(108,136 posts)cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)Really?
You actually believe that this is about fascists?
The astonishing Russian losses in WWII are the political basis of the pretext.
Duh.
But it is a pretext. It is not real or sincere.
FFS.
Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)To the provokers: Careful what you wish for.
Jenoch
(7,720 posts)DemocraticWing
(1,290 posts)How much more anti-gay terror does Putin have to unleash to sufficiently convince American liberals that he's not on our side?