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Neo-Nazis Pour Into Kiev
A stream of European jihadists have traveled to Syria to wage holy war. Now a group of European neo-Nazis are traveling to Ukraine to save the white race
In early February, Fredrik Hagberg stood at the rostrum in Kiev’s City Hall, offering fraternal and comradely greetings from Sweden to the sweaty, bruised, and exhausted Ukrainian insurrectionists scattered throughout. The place was festooned with flags—some celtic crosses, a stray Confederate banner, a standard for the political party Svoboda, whose members essentially controlled the building—reflecting the dubious politics of its occupiers.
Revolutionary tourists, thrill seekers, and parachute journalists suffused Kiev. Sen. John McCain, actress Hayden Panettiere, and French intellectual Bernard Henri-Levy roused massive crowds with paeans to freedom and national sovereignty, while offering moral support to the opposition forces led by former boxing champion Vitaly Klitschko.
But Hagberg, a square-jawed and baby-faced member of the Swedish armed forces, had a darker message.
“I stand before your forces of revolution to tell you about what your future might be if you fail your glorious endeavour,” he said in fluid-but-clipped English. “I stand here as a Swede. However where I come from is no longer Sweden.” Hagberg warned Ukrainians that a successful revolution must chart a path that carefully avoided the evils of abortion and ethnic mongrelization, one that harshly punished welfare abuse and rejected the normalization of homosexuality. “Officials in Sweden like to calls us the most modern country in the world. I say to you, brothers, this is what awaits you if you choose to follow our example. You now have the opportunity to choose and create your own future. Do not accept the trap of choosing either the West or Russia.”
It’s unclear who, if anyone, invited him, but Hagberg was speaking as a representative of Nordisk Ungdom (Nordic Youth), a Swedish neo-Nazi group that celebrates “a traditional ideal of a better man, striving for something greater and more noble than his own personal benefit; an idealistic man who fights for Europe’s freedom.” Visitors to the group’s English-language website are met with with a Barbara Kruger-like advertisement beseeching visitors to “help us to help the revolution! Support a free Ukraine! Donate Now...” Because Hagberg is trying to provoke his fellow neo-Nazis into travelling to Kiev to help shape a new, fascist-friendly Ukraine.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/28/the-swedish-neo-nazis-of-kiev.html
36 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
91. John McCain met with the leaders of Svoboda:
U.S. Senator John McCain, right, meets Ukrainian opposition leaders Arseniy Yatsenyuk, left, and Oleh Tyahnybok in Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday, Dec. 14, 2013.
photo and caption courtesy of Business Insider
Svoboda: The rise of Ukraine's ultra-nationalists
...Take Oleh Tyahnybok, the rather rugged leader of Svboda, which dominates the Western-most provinces of Ukraine. Western media has described him as one of the three most important opposition leaders and he's met foreign dignitaries like John McCain. He is also a potentially dangerous man. In one infamous speech in 2004, Tyahinybok lashed out at the "Moscow-Jewish mafia" and the "kikes". In 2005, he wrote an open letter to the President asking him to halt the "criminal activities" of "organised Jewry". It should be noted that he insists he is not anti-Semitic, simply "pro-Ukrainian" and that he has won prosecutions against him for ethnic hatred.
But Svboda has form. It is a member of the Alliance of European National Movements, along with France's National Front, the British National Party and Hungary's Jobbik. Its policies include taking farm land into national ownership and giving to people to hold on a "hereditry basis". No one who was not born in Ukraine can become a citizen; outsiders cannot adopt Ukrainian children. In 2005, one of the party's deputies founding the Joseph Goebbels Political Research Center. It was later renamed after a German conservative revolutionary. That particular deputy described the Holocaust as "a bright episode in European civilisation" which "strongly warms the hearts of the Palestinian population." The best defence against Jewish corruption is childbearing Ukrainians. Women carry the societal and racial morality … the 300 ovulations of every Ukrainian woman, as well as the 1,500 ejaculations of every Ukrainian man are the same national treasures as, say, energy resources or deposits of iron, coal or oil.
Some of Svboda supporters are people who believe that the German invasion of Ukraine in the 1940s was not an occupation but a liberation from "Jewish Bolshevism". Needless to say, they also don't like gay people.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100260665/ukraine-the-opposition-arent-all-angels-some-are-neo-nazis/
They sound worse than our own Tealiban! That's from the UK Telegraph, which I guess is a good source. There are links to follow in the article:
http://blogs.reuters.com/john-lloyd/2014/02/21/ukraines-important-next-move/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20824693
I'm not sure what is going on there, just still gatthering data without filtering it as much as possible to get a feel of it and sort out the facts separate from the confusion that emotions might arouse. I'm thinking of the people of this region, and not wanting a war to get going that is going to destabilize Europe and then keep going.
What do you think of that?
I read they also want a nuke. It all sounds damned scary to me.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024559393#post91
And was informed differently, and here is the subthread. And that the man who is now president, is not Svoboda, which has a despicable rep but is very strong in the far western parts of Ukraine, a tiny portion of the country:
103. Of course the article doesn't mention that Arseniy Yatsenyuk is the member of the largest political party in Ukraine.
He's a member of the Fatherland party (which isn't a reference to Nazi Germany). The Fatherland party was the second largest party until a few of the members of the President's party (Party of Nations) withdrew from the party. Typical sensationalist garbage. Yes, the Svboda is an ultra national far right party and yes they're one of the groups of protesters. They currently have 7% of the seats in parliament. None of the interim leaders are from that party. Three groups make up the opposition, Fatherland, the Punch party of the boxer and Svboda. The Russian propaganda comes in when they try to make it seem like the entire opposition is the Svboda party.
McCain met with them. They are legitimate members of Parliament and the opposition, and nobody has told McCain he isn't the Secretary of State, McCain's former campaign manager and other neo-con groups worked with President Yanukovich.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024559393#post103
140. I thought my links were good, Telegraph, BBC and Reutiers. But what are neo-cons and people that are
not part of the Department of State doing running around over there?
I don't think he's on a mission for Obama or Kerry, and I don't trust 'Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran' Johnny for a minute.
I still think Svoboda is the most hateful group around and should not be tolerated. That is some sick stuff there, in line with the most rabid of what we have here, all mixed into one stinking heap. It concerns me that private interests such as McCain represents, Palin or whoever, are propagandizing the American people on this. They want a war!
It's not like Europe doesn't know where this will lead, so they have reasons to be upset, even a bit sensationalist with the history there.
I googled and followed a lot of links last night, saw some of the videos made by Svoboda, and this same meme that you and others say is being pushed by the Russians, all appeared on many sites at once that I don't care for anymore, like Counterpunch, etc.
The headline on all of them reads almost exactly the same:
Ukraine and the Rebirth of Fascism in Europe
Right Sector The Great Ukrainian Reconquista
Euromaidan: The Dark Shadows Of The Far-Right In Ukraine Protests
Svoboda: The rise of Ukraine's ultra-nationalists
Ukraine protests are no longer just about Europe
Those are BBC, Guardian and the Telegraph. I haven't seen anything from the Daily Mail, which I've been told is a sensationalist source.
I don't know how this is being covered in American media. I can see why some people are worried about what is going on there considering what is going on in our country. I don't watch television, as it's all RW trash to me.
As far as the Russians are concerned, this may be their propaganda, but they aren't doing anything but standing to the side in this affair, despite the loss of revenue they had.
Are you saying the Russians are fooling the press in Britain?
Just trying to get all the data I can. I don't follow the CT that says the evil USA in charge of the world. We obviously are not and I don't care for the kind of byzantine plotting that some ascribe to us. We aren't that clever.
And I admit that I cannot grasp the parliamentary system of government. It's so fluid as to be almost fleeting and that seems unstable to me. But then all I've lived with our system, which is too inflexible now.
The one thing I do know, is that with extremists, they really will pull out all the stops and do not change their minds. That these people are even in the government, is very disturbing. We don't elect people like that here except Teabaggers who would like to see it all burn.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024559393#post140
In another thread, a link to this was posted by frazzle:
to frazzled.
Ukraine: The Haze of Propaganda
by Timothy Snyder
From Moscow to London to New York, the Ukrainian revolution has been seen through a haze of propaganda. Russian leaders and the Russian press have insisted that Ukrainian protesters were right-wing extremists and then that their victory was a coup. Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, used the same clichés after a visit with the Russian president at Sochi. After his regime was overturned, he maintained he had been ousted by “right-wing thugs,” a claim echoed by the armed men who seized control of airports and government buildings in the southern Ukrainian district of Crimea on Friday.**
Interestingly, the message from authoritarian regimes in Moscow and Kiev was not so different from some of what was written during the uprising in the English-speaking world, especially in publications of the far left and the far right. From Lyndon LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review through Ron Paul’s newsletter through The Nation and The Guardian, the story was essentially the same: little of the factual history of the protests, but instead a play on the idea of a nationalist, fascist, or even Nazi coup d’état.
In fact, it was a classic popular revolution. It began with an unmistakably reactionary regime. A leader sought to gather all power, political as well as financial, in his own hands. This leader came to power in democratic elections, to be sure, but then altered the system from within. For example, the leader had been a common criminal: a rapist and a thief. He found a judge who was willing to misplace documents related to his case. That judge then became the chief justice of the Supreme Court. There were no constitutional objections, subsequently, when the leader asserted ever more power for his presidency.
In power, this leader, this president, remained a thief, but now on a grand, perhaps even unsurpassed, scale. Throughout his country millions of small businessmen and businesswomen found it impossible to keep their firms afloat, thanks to the arbitrary demands of tax authorities. Their profits were taken by the state, and the autonomy that those profits might have given them were denied. Workers in the factories and mines had no means whatsoever of expression their own distress, since any attempt at a strike or even at labor organization would simply have led to their dismissal.
There is much more at the link, it's well worth the read:
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/mar/01/ukraine-haze-propaganda/
It descibes an oligarchy that was strangling the people of Ukraine. That is why we saw so many peaceful protestors as it began and didn't stop. And former Red Army Ukrainians came to the aid of students, along with Russians and all the groups we can imagine. Gay activists worked with them.
The author, is described as:
Timothy Snyder is Housum Professor of History at Yale and the author of Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. This month, he is to deliver a Philippe Roman Lecture on the origins of the Holocaust at the London School of Economics. (March 2014)
Titles he has written are:
#
Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine
March 20, 2014
#
Ukraine: The New Dictatorship
February 20, 2014
#
‘In the Cage, Trying to Get Out’
October 24, 2013
http://www.nybooks.com/contributors/timothy-snyder-2/?tab=tab-blog
He asks these questions:
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?
This article changed my mind where none of the blustering opinions at DU could have. I still want a just outcome for all these people and for Svoboda to be soundly smacked down. I see why the EU wants to deal with the new government and not Yanukovych.
I still see no villains other than on the personal level, and appreciate even more that we are NOT going to war over this. Now I think some have been misled and I admit to great confusion on this. I'm thinking Yanukovych did need to be taken out of power.
** I also understand why they may think that way. In their minds, they are fighting a war from long ago. They do not know a new way to deal with their own corrupt oligarchical rulers, so they must revert to old enemies.
JMHO.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024592583#post41
And about the weakness of the Neo-Nazis in Ukraine:
As I understand it, the interim President is a member of the All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland" party which, on reading about it, sounds like a mix of the conservative parts of the republican party in the US and regular socialism. I've edited some from my original post in this reply to you as I've learned more... I came to this discussion willing to learn and see what the reality there is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Ukrainian_Union_%22Fatherland%22
Ideology and stances
Batkivshchyna has an eclectic ideology; the party stated it advocates "European values" and "a high level of living for people".
The party wants to simplify procedures for opening and closing of businesses. It also wants to "establish a new minimum wage and will raise wages and pensions and lower taxes" and it wants to limit the kinds of taxes to seven and simplify the methods of payment and "minimise the possibility of tax evasion through offshore companies". It also wants to create "public non-profit construction company that will build affordable housing".
The party wants a campaign against corruption. It advocates an "anti-corruption lustration" whereby state officials' expenses and property values are compared with their tax declarations. If there is a discrepancy, the officials will be criminally charged and banned from public office. It wants to establish a "National Anti-Corruption Bureau" modeled on the FBI (an idea that has circulated in Ukraine since the late 1990s). The party believes that what has been "stolen" through corrupt tenders and insider privatizations should be returned to the state budget. Organizing election fraud will be criminally liable and voting in parliament for absent lawmakers punishable.
According to the party, only citizens of Ukraine will have the right to private ownership of land, but "high concentration of land in one hand" will not be allowed.
The party sees Ukrainian membership in the European Union (EU) as a strategic goal and wants to "cancel humiliating visa regimes" and a visa-free travel for Ukrainians to the EU. It would like to see "a mutually beneficial and equitable agreement on the establishment of free trade with Russia". In June 2013 the parties parliamentary faction voted for the denunciation of the 2010 Ukrainian–Russian Naval Base for Natural Gas treaty. The parties 2012 election program did not mention NATO.
The party wants to prosecute "Law enforcement involved in political repression" and to impeach current Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his “anti-people regime” to "return Ukraine to the path of European integration".
The party tries to reverse the Azarov Government policy of raising the status of the Russian language.
The party is in favor of party-list proportional representation elections with open lists. And Citizens' Initiative's after 50,000 signatures are collected. The party also wants to empower local governance.
Government grants should be awarded to graduates who successfully passed testing for studies at Ukrainian universities.
The basis of Ukraine's health system will be mandatory health insertion and the gradual development of voluntary health insurance by employers.
The party wants to introduce jury trials into the Ukrainian law system and wants to "depoliticise" the process of appointment of judges. It also wants an independent judiciary that will increase the role of the Supreme Court of Ukraine. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine, "which has compromised itself with decisions that were ordered (by the Yanukovych administration)," should be liquidated.
The criminal code be "Europeanized" and law enforcement brought under civil control.
The party wants to improve human rights in Ukraine.
The party believes that the Holodomor was genocide of the Ukrainian nation.
It appears they have a plan for governance, and returning some privatized things to the Commons. If only we had that idea here...
I heard in some videos they want to protect their elderly and disabled. I thought perhaps the former leader was enforcing austerity measures already, but it turns out he was just supporting the oligarchy and leaving people with no redress for their greviances.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014739395#post3
I've been learning about all the angles in this conflict. This one article seemed to be very clear indeed, using the history of the protest. Make of it what you will:
to frazzled.
Ukraine: The Haze of Propaganda
by Timothy Snyder
From Moscow to London to New York, the Ukrainian revolution has been seen through a haze of propaganda. Russian leaders and the Russian press have insisted that Ukrainian protesters were right-wing extremists and then that their victory was a coup. Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, used the same clichés after a visit with the Russian president at Sochi. After his regime was overturned, he maintained he had been ousted by “right-wing thugs,” a claim echoed by the armed men who seized control of airports and government buildings in the southern Ukrainian district of Crimea on Friday.**
Interestingly, the message from authoritarian regimes in Moscow and Kiev was not so different from some of what was written during the uprising in the English-speaking world, especially in publications of the far left and the far right. From Lyndon LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review through Ron Paul’s newsletter through The Nation and The Guardian, the story was essentially the same: little of the factual history of the protests, but instead a play on the idea of a nationalist, fascist, or even Nazi coup d’état.
In fact, it was a classic popular revolution. It began with an unmistakably reactionary regime. A leader sought to gather all power, political as well as financial, in his own hands. This leader came to power in democratic elections, to be sure, but then altered the system from within. For example, the leader had been a common criminal: a rapist and a thief. He found a judge who was willing to misplace documents related to his case. That judge then became the chief justice of the Supreme Court. There were no constitutional objections, subsequently, when the leader asserted ever more power for his presidency.
In power, this leader, this president, remained a thief, but now on a grand, perhaps even unsurpassed, scale. Throughout his country millions of small businessmen and businesswomen found it impossible to keep their firms afloat, thanks to the arbitrary demands of tax authorities. Their profits were taken by the state, and the autonomy that those profits might have given them were denied. Workers in the factories and mines had no means whatsoever of expression their own distress, since any attempt at a strike or even at labor organization would simply have led to their dismissal.
There is much more at the link, it's well worth the read:
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/mar/01/ukraine-haze-propaganda/
It descibes an oligarchy that was strangling the people of Ukraine. That is why we saw so many peaceful protestors as it began and didn't stop. And former Red Army Ukrainians came to the aid of students, along with Russians and all the groups we can imagine. Gay activists worked with them.
The author, is described as:
Timothy Snyder is Housum Professor of History at Yale and the author of Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. This month, he is to deliver a Philippe Roman Lecture on the origins of the Holocaust at the London School of Economics. (March 2014)
Titles he has written are:
#
Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine
March 20, 2014
#
Ukraine: The New Dictatorship
February 20, 2014
#
‘In the Cage, Trying to Get Out’
October 24, 2013
http://www.nybooks.com/contributors/timothy-snyder-2/?tab=tab-blog
He asks these questions:
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?
This article changed my mind where none of the blustering opinions at DU could have. I still want a just outcome for all these people and for Svoboda to be soundly smacked down. I see why the EU wants to deal with the new government and not Yanukovych.
I still see no villains other than on the personal level, and appreciate even more that we are NOT going to war over this. Now I think some have been misled and I admit to great confusion on this. I'm thinking Yanukovych did need to be taken out of power.
** I also understand why they may think that way. In their minds, they are fighting a war from long ago. They do not know a new way to deal with their own corrupt oligarchical rulers, so they must revert to old enemies.
JMHO.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024592583#post41
I'm guessing you are a fast reader and going over all of that isn't too burdensome. It's how i've evolved my opinion on this. I may yet change my mind again. I simply wish that the people there will find a way to live in a just society with peace.
U.S. Senator John McCain, right, meets Ukrainian opposition leaders Arseniy Yatsenyuk, left, and Oleh Tyahnybok in Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday, Dec. 14, 2013.
photo and caption courtesy of Business Insider
Svoboda: The rise of Ukraine's ultra-nationalists
...Take Oleh Tyahnybok, the rather rugged leader of Svboda, which dominates the Western-most provinces of Ukraine. Western media has described him as one of the three most important opposition leaders and he's met foreign dignitaries like John McCain. He is also a potentially dangerous man. In one infamous speech in 2004, Tyahinybok lashed out at the "Moscow-Jewish mafia" and the "kikes". In 2005, he wrote an open letter to the President asking him to halt the "criminal activities" of "organised Jewry". It should be noted that he insists he is not anti-Semitic, simply "pro-Ukrainian" and that he has won prosecutions against him for ethnic hatred.
But Svboda has form. It is a member of the Alliance of European National Movements, along with France's National Front, the British National Party and Hungary's Jobbik. Its policies include taking farm land into national ownership and giving to people to hold on a "hereditry basis". No one who was not born in Ukraine can become a citizen; outsiders cannot adopt Ukrainian children. In 2005, one of the party's deputies founding the Joseph Goebbels Political Research Center. It was later renamed after a German conservative revolutionary. That particular deputy described the Holocaust as "a bright episode in European civilisation" which "strongly warms the hearts of the Palestinian population." The best defence against Jewish corruption is childbearing Ukrainians. Women carry the societal and racial morality … the 300 ovulations of every Ukrainian woman, as well as the 1,500 ejaculations of every Ukrainian man are the same national treasures as, say, energy resources or deposits of iron, coal or oil.
Some of Svboda supporters are people who believe that the German invasion of Ukraine in the 1940s was not an occupation but a liberation from "Jewish Bolshevism". Needless to say, they also don't like gay people.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100260665/ukraine-the-opposition-arent-all-angels-some-are-neo-nazis/
They sound worse than our own Tealiban! That's from the UK Telegraph, which I guess is a good source. There are links to follow in the article:
http://blogs.reuters.com/john-lloyd/2014/02/21/ukraines-important-next-move/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20824693
I'm not sure what is going on there, just still gatthering data without filtering it as much as possible to get a feel of it and sort out the facts separate from the confusion that emotions might arouse. I'm thinking of the people of this region, and not wanting a war to get going that is going to destabilize Europe and then keep going.
What do you think of that?
I read they also want a nuke. It all sounds damned scary to me.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024559393#post91
And was informed differently, and here is the subthread. And that the man who is now president, is not Svoboda, which has a despicable rep but is very strong in the far western parts of Ukraine, a tiny portion of the country:
103. Of course the article doesn't mention that Arseniy Yatsenyuk is the member of the largest political party in Ukraine.
He's a member of the Fatherland party (which isn't a reference to Nazi Germany). The Fatherland party was the second largest party until a few of the members of the President's party (Party of Nations) withdrew from the party. Typical sensationalist garbage. Yes, the Svboda is an ultra national far right party and yes they're one of the groups of protesters. They currently have 7% of the seats in parliament. None of the interim leaders are from that party. Three groups make up the opposition, Fatherland, the Punch party of the boxer and Svboda. The Russian propaganda comes in when they try to make it seem like the entire opposition is the Svboda party.
McCain met with them. They are legitimate members of Parliament and the opposition, and nobody has told McCain he isn't the Secretary of State, McCain's former campaign manager and other neo-con groups worked with President Yanukovich.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024559393#post103
140. I thought my links were good, Telegraph, BBC and Reutiers. But what are neo-cons and people that are
not part of the Department of State doing running around over there?
I don't think he's on a mission for Obama or Kerry, and I don't trust 'Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran' Johnny for a minute.
I still think Svoboda is the most hateful group around and should not be tolerated. That is some sick stuff there, in line with the most rabid of what we have here, all mixed into one stinking heap. It concerns me that private interests such as McCain represents, Palin or whoever, are propagandizing the American people on this. They want a war!
It's not like Europe doesn't know where this will lead, so they have reasons to be upset, even a bit sensationalist with the history there.
I googled and followed a lot of links last night, saw some of the videos made by Svoboda, and this same meme that you and others say is being pushed by the Russians, all appeared on many sites at once that I don't care for anymore, like Counterpunch, etc.
The headline on all of them reads almost exactly the same:
Ukraine and the Rebirth of Fascism in Europe
Right Sector The Great Ukrainian Reconquista
Euromaidan: The Dark Shadows Of The Far-Right In Ukraine Protests
Svoboda: The rise of Ukraine's ultra-nationalists
Ukraine protests are no longer just about Europe
Those are BBC, Guardian and the Telegraph. I haven't seen anything from the Daily Mail, which I've been told is a sensationalist source.
I don't know how this is being covered in American media. I can see why some people are worried about what is going on there considering what is going on in our country. I don't watch television, as it's all RW trash to me.
As far as the Russians are concerned, this may be their propaganda, but they aren't doing anything but standing to the side in this affair, despite the loss of revenue they had.
Are you saying the Russians are fooling the press in Britain?
Just trying to get all the data I can. I don't follow the CT that says the evil USA in charge of the world. We obviously are not and I don't care for the kind of byzantine plotting that some ascribe to us. We aren't that clever.
And I admit that I cannot grasp the parliamentary system of government. It's so fluid as to be almost fleeting and that seems unstable to me. But then all I've lived with our system, which is too inflexible now.
The one thing I do know, is that with extremists, they really will pull out all the stops and do not change their minds. That these people are even in the government, is very disturbing. We don't elect people like that here except Teabaggers who would like to see it all burn.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024559393#post140
In another thread, a link to this was posted by frazzle:
to frazzled.
Ukraine: The Haze of Propaganda
by Timothy Snyder
From Moscow to London to New York, the Ukrainian revolution has been seen through a haze of propaganda. Russian leaders and the Russian press have insisted that Ukrainian protesters were right-wing extremists and then that their victory was a coup. Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, used the same clichés after a visit with the Russian president at Sochi. After his regime was overturned, he maintained he had been ousted by “right-wing thugs,” a claim echoed by the armed men who seized control of airports and government buildings in the southern Ukrainian district of Crimea on Friday.**
Interestingly, the message from authoritarian regimes in Moscow and Kiev was not so different from some of what was written during the uprising in the English-speaking world, especially in publications of the far left and the far right. From Lyndon LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review through Ron Paul’s newsletter through The Nation and The Guardian, the story was essentially the same: little of the factual history of the protests, but instead a play on the idea of a nationalist, fascist, or even Nazi coup d’état.
In fact, it was a classic popular revolution. It began with an unmistakably reactionary regime. A leader sought to gather all power, political as well as financial, in his own hands. This leader came to power in democratic elections, to be sure, but then altered the system from within. For example, the leader had been a common criminal: a rapist and a thief. He found a judge who was willing to misplace documents related to his case. That judge then became the chief justice of the Supreme Court. There were no constitutional objections, subsequently, when the leader asserted ever more power for his presidency.
In power, this leader, this president, remained a thief, but now on a grand, perhaps even unsurpassed, scale. Throughout his country millions of small businessmen and businesswomen found it impossible to keep their firms afloat, thanks to the arbitrary demands of tax authorities. Their profits were taken by the state, and the autonomy that those profits might have given them were denied. Workers in the factories and mines had no means whatsoever of expression their own distress, since any attempt at a strike or even at labor organization would simply have led to their dismissal.
There is much more at the link, it's well worth the read:
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/mar/01/ukraine-haze-propaganda/
It descibes an oligarchy that was strangling the people of Ukraine. That is why we saw so many peaceful protestors as it began and didn't stop. And former Red Army Ukrainians came to the aid of students, along with Russians and all the groups we can imagine. Gay activists worked with them.
The author, is described as:
Timothy Snyder is Housum Professor of History at Yale and the author of Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. This month, he is to deliver a Philippe Roman Lecture on the origins of the Holocaust at the London School of Economics. (March 2014)
Titles he has written are:
#
Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine
March 20, 2014
#
Ukraine: The New Dictatorship
February 20, 2014
#
‘In the Cage, Trying to Get Out’
October 24, 2013
http://www.nybooks.com/contributors/timothy-snyder-2/?tab=tab-blog
He asks these questions:
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?
This article changed my mind where none of the blustering opinions at DU could have. I still want a just outcome for all these people and for Svoboda to be soundly smacked down. I see why the EU wants to deal with the new government and not Yanukovych.
I still see no villains other than on the personal level, and appreciate even more that we are NOT going to war over this. Now I think some have been misled and I admit to great confusion on this. I'm thinking Yanukovych did need to be taken out of power.
** I also understand why they may think that way. In their minds, they are fighting a war from long ago. They do not know a new way to deal with their own corrupt oligarchical rulers, so they must revert to old enemies.
JMHO.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024592583#post41
And about the weakness of the Neo-Nazis in Ukraine:
As I understand it, the interim President is a member of the All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland" party which, on reading about it, sounds like a mix of the conservative parts of the republican party in the US and regular socialism. I've edited some from my original post in this reply to you as I've learned more... I came to this discussion willing to learn and see what the reality there is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Ukrainian_Union_%22Fatherland%22
Ideology and stances
Batkivshchyna has an eclectic ideology; the party stated it advocates "European values" and "a high level of living for people".
The party wants to simplify procedures for opening and closing of businesses. It also wants to "establish a new minimum wage and will raise wages and pensions and lower taxes" and it wants to limit the kinds of taxes to seven and simplify the methods of payment and "minimise the possibility of tax evasion through offshore companies". It also wants to create "public non-profit construction company that will build affordable housing".
The party wants a campaign against corruption. It advocates an "anti-corruption lustration" whereby state officials' expenses and property values are compared with their tax declarations. If there is a discrepancy, the officials will be criminally charged and banned from public office. It wants to establish a "National Anti-Corruption Bureau" modeled on the FBI (an idea that has circulated in Ukraine since the late 1990s). The party believes that what has been "stolen" through corrupt tenders and insider privatizations should be returned to the state budget. Organizing election fraud will be criminally liable and voting in parliament for absent lawmakers punishable.
According to the party, only citizens of Ukraine will have the right to private ownership of land, but "high concentration of land in one hand" will not be allowed.
The party sees Ukrainian membership in the European Union (EU) as a strategic goal and wants to "cancel humiliating visa regimes" and a visa-free travel for Ukrainians to the EU. It would like to see "a mutually beneficial and equitable agreement on the establishment of free trade with Russia". In June 2013 the parties parliamentary faction voted for the denunciation of the 2010 Ukrainian–Russian Naval Base for Natural Gas treaty. The parties 2012 election program did not mention NATO.
The party wants to prosecute "Law enforcement involved in political repression" and to impeach current Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his “anti-people regime” to "return Ukraine to the path of European integration".
The party tries to reverse the Azarov Government policy of raising the status of the Russian language.
The party is in favor of party-list proportional representation elections with open lists. And Citizens' Initiative's after 50,000 signatures are collected. The party also wants to empower local governance.
Government grants should be awarded to graduates who successfully passed testing for studies at Ukrainian universities.
The basis of Ukraine's health system will be mandatory health insertion and the gradual development of voluntary health insurance by employers.
The party wants to introduce jury trials into the Ukrainian law system and wants to "depoliticise" the process of appointment of judges. It also wants an independent judiciary that will increase the role of the Supreme Court of Ukraine. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine, "which has compromised itself with decisions that were ordered (by the Yanukovych administration)," should be liquidated.
The criminal code be "Europeanized" and law enforcement brought under civil control.
The party wants to improve human rights in Ukraine.
The party believes that the Holodomor was genocide of the Ukrainian nation.
It appears they have a plan for governance, and returning some privatized things to the Commons. If only we had that idea here...
I heard in some videos they want to protect their elderly and disabled. I thought perhaps the former leader was enforcing austerity measures already, but it turns out he was just supporting the oligarchy and leaving people with no redress for their greviances.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014739395#post3
I've been learning about all the angles in this conflict. This one article seemed to be very clear indeed, using the history of the protest. Make of it what you will:
to frazzled.
Ukraine: The Haze of Propaganda
by Timothy Snyder
From Moscow to London to New York, the Ukrainian revolution has been seen through a haze of propaganda. Russian leaders and the Russian press have insisted that Ukrainian protesters were right-wing extremists and then that their victory was a coup. Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, used the same clichés after a visit with the Russian president at Sochi. After his regime was overturned, he maintained he had been ousted by “right-wing thugs,” a claim echoed by the armed men who seized control of airports and government buildings in the southern Ukrainian district of Crimea on Friday.**
Interestingly, the message from authoritarian regimes in Moscow and Kiev was not so different from some of what was written during the uprising in the English-speaking world, especially in publications of the far left and the far right. From Lyndon LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review through Ron Paul’s newsletter through The Nation and The Guardian, the story was essentially the same: little of the factual history of the protests, but instead a play on the idea of a nationalist, fascist, or even Nazi coup d’état.
In fact, it was a classic popular revolution. It began with an unmistakably reactionary regime. A leader sought to gather all power, political as well as financial, in his own hands. This leader came to power in democratic elections, to be sure, but then altered the system from within. For example, the leader had been a common criminal: a rapist and a thief. He found a judge who was willing to misplace documents related to his case. That judge then became the chief justice of the Supreme Court. There were no constitutional objections, subsequently, when the leader asserted ever more power for his presidency.
In power, this leader, this president, remained a thief, but now on a grand, perhaps even unsurpassed, scale. Throughout his country millions of small businessmen and businesswomen found it impossible to keep their firms afloat, thanks to the arbitrary demands of tax authorities. Their profits were taken by the state, and the autonomy that those profits might have given them were denied. Workers in the factories and mines had no means whatsoever of expression their own distress, since any attempt at a strike or even at labor organization would simply have led to their dismissal.
There is much more at the link, it's well worth the read:
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/mar/01/ukraine-haze-propaganda/
It descibes an oligarchy that was strangling the people of Ukraine. That is why we saw so many peaceful protestors as it began and didn't stop. And former Red Army Ukrainians came to the aid of students, along with Russians and all the groups we can imagine. Gay activists worked with them.
The author, is described as:
Timothy Snyder is Housum Professor of History at Yale and the author of Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. This month, he is to deliver a Philippe Roman Lecture on the origins of the Holocaust at the London School of Economics. (March 2014)
Titles he has written are:
#
Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine
March 20, 2014
#
Ukraine: The New Dictatorship
February 20, 2014
#
‘In the Cage, Trying to Get Out’
October 24, 2013
http://www.nybooks.com/contributors/timothy-snyder-2/?tab=tab-blog
He asks these questions:
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?
This article changed my mind where none of the blustering opinions at DU could have. I still want a just outcome for all these people and for Svoboda to be soundly smacked down. I see why the EU wants to deal with the new government and not Yanukovych.
I still see no villains other than on the personal level, and appreciate even more that we are NOT going to war over this. Now I think some have been misled and I admit to great confusion on this. I'm thinking Yanukovych did need to be taken out of power.
** I also understand why they may think that way. In their minds, they are fighting a war from long ago. They do not know a new way to deal with their own corrupt oligarchical rulers, so they must revert to old enemies.
JMHO.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024592583#post41
I'm guessing you are a fast reader and going over all of that isn't too burdensome. It's how i've evolved my opinion on this. I may yet change my mind again. I simply wish that the people there will find a way to live in a just society with peace.
It would make the white-er 
is how naïve you are about this region.
the threat of nationalism in Ukraine is very real whether you like it or not.
I personally hate 'president' putin... and think his actions have been extremely over the top...
but to pretend that right wingers aren't taking over the Ukraine wont change that.
I know the Ukrainian people were good intentioned getting behind these protests... their government was/is indeed corrupt...
but the folks leading the protests and ripping those statues down were right wing fundamentalists. im sorry, they just were.
so now the 'new government' of Ukraine is in and they are just as corrupt as the last bunch.. with ties to the CIA (weve tended to back nationalists since WW2 ended, not sure why..) and organized crime (mobs)..
I hardly think ousting one corrupt government for another form of corrupt government was really the goal most Ukrainians had in mind.
don't let your hatred for one man blur history for ya... enough of us hate him enough that you can hold back a little, I promise 
the left hasn't had a fight in this since day one...
just a corrupt corporatist government against multiple corrupt criminal right wing nationalist groups... with the angry (at the sitting government) Ukrainian people caught in the middle.
lets just hope the international community punishes Russia for its actions economically.. I say squeeze until the bread lines start to form again, but that's just me.
