SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The Fine print: The following are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Journal by Runaway1956
The Ukraine crisis explained, in quite good detail, Sept 2015. 45 minute presentation, with ~1/2 hour of questions and answers following. If you don't want to click on it, fine. Regardless which side of the issue you sympathize or empathize with, you can see how the situation has developed, and how.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
https://www.mearsheimer.com
Yeah, it's 6 1/2 years old, but nothing of consequence has changed since Professor Mearsheimer's presentation.
Why is Ukraine the West's Fault?
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 140 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Hand me a pair of leather pants and a CASIO keyboard -- I'm living for today!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 01 2022, @01:05AM (41 children)
You didn't listen to the man, did ya? The "west" engineered that coup. Mearsheimer doesn't say so, but I'm aware that the Koch brothers were prime movers in the coup. We quite literally backed fascists and neo-Nazis in the coup.
Doo-doo-Tube is not paywalled. www.mearsheimer.com doesn't appear to be paywalled.
Any more questions?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday February 01 2022, @01:31AM (1 child)
I was locked out of the article, not the site, and the video has no transcript.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01 2022, @01:45AM
Give the video a watch. He's quite old, so 2x speedup is still understandable.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @01:37AM (25 children)
That's also what got kicked out in that alleged coup. You have a peculiar inability to recognize Russian fascism.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 01 2022, @01:46AM (23 children)
Odd choice of arguments. You see both sides as fascists, then? And, you're just choosing between two sets of fascists? And, all this time, I figured you for backing democracy and capitalism. Now, you're saying democracy and shit don't matter, so long as your preferred fascists are running things.
But, I'll argue your assertion. Whatever problems with corruption existed before the coup, the government was neither fascist, nor neo-Nazi. The various people living in Ukraine got along pretty well, until the new fascist government decided that Russians and ethnic Russian people were persona non grata. You'll have to find a different word to describe the Ukrainian government, fascist just doesn't cut it.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @02:11AM (22 children)
Merely that both sides had fascists or were supported by fascists. What gets missed in the "coup" narrative is that it was a puppet government propped up by Putin, a Russian fascist. That's a real serious problem that the "coup" fixed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01 2022, @02:42AM (15 children)
He's a psychopath who learned his trade in the KGB and promoted himself to mob boss. Do you think Xi Jinping or Maduro operate any differently?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @02:53AM (14 children)
No. Not sure why that should be relevant though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01 2022, @10:33AM (13 children)
Is Maduro a "fascist"? Enough idiots here completely misuse the word to besmear conservatives and libertarians that I'd have thought you might be interested in accuracy. Guess not?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @02:23PM (12 children)
All the other aspects of fascism come out of that IMHO.
As to your edgy comment about being "interested in accuracy", what does that have to do with this discussion?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday February 01 2022, @04:03PM (5 children)
Mussolini -- you know, the guy who invented the word, if not the concept? -- specifically defined it as the merger of corporate and state power.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @05:22PM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @05:49PM (3 children)
If you look at fascists of that period, they were hard core authoritarians pushing for the supremacy of the state - with them in charge. Doesn't look to me like that has changed. That's why bullet point 1) is first and foremost.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01 2022, @09:02PM (2 children)
Italian Fascism had it's roots in anarcho-syndicalism. It was an expansion of the guild system under a state imposed charter of labor and proprietary corporations -- the socialization of enterprise.
Putin is a vanilla kleptocrat, there's no political doctrine or ideology other than his 50% cut as power broker for oligarchs. The only commonality is psychopathy, we've seen exactly the same shit from communist dictators.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @09:16PM (1 child)
And the babble about the absoluteness of the state? We should just ignore that?
You might not have noticed, but there isn't a lot of ideology to fascism. Sure, Putin doesn't put a lot of effort into his flavor of nationalism. But then most fascists don't, once they get in charge. And my bullet 2) covers the kleptocrat part.
Which isn't that different, ideology-wise. The control structures are a little different.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01 2022, @11:13PM
Mussolini was a prominent socialist until he split over his support for the war. His belief was that the people were the state and therefore the state was the totalitarian embodiment of the people. Simply understood it was collectivization to nullify class struggle - as evident in the Fascist Cooperatives.
It was a reactionary ideology promoting spurious spiritualism while framing national syndicalism as opposition to liberalism and Marxist socialism. There's not really much ideology to Marxism either yet tomes are written to obscure the underlying stupidity. The fascists were no less stupid but they were, mercifully, less verbose. Liberalism entirely lacks an over-arching ideology, instead we have (or had) core principles and pragmatism.
The ideologies are irrelevant, for psychopaths it's about power. One of the problems with Putin's telling [globalsecurity.org] is that Western Liberalism arose from the Radical Whig tradition. [wikipedia.org] What we currently have on the left (and some moderates admit it [deadline.com]) isn't liberal in any sense of the word. Putin well understands this and is playing it to his advantage.
The Whigs weren't fascists either ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01 2022, @04:55PM (5 children)
Russia has a somewhat collectivist culture but it is currently an individualist society and Putin's ethno-nationalist rhetoric isn't doing his popularity any favors. He's a mob-boss kept in power by criminals. I wonder: would you still be banging your war drum if it were Russian oligarchs rather than Ukrainian oligarchs bribing Western politicians?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @05:23PM (4 children)
You really think Russian oligarchs aren't bribing Western politicians?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01 2022, @06:05PM (3 children)
How many Russian companies did Hunter Biden work for? Why exactly are we fomenting another proxy war over gas pipelines? [ecowatch.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @09:10PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01 2022, @11:17PM (1 child)
I'll get right on that when you come up with a definition of Putin's politics that's relevant.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @11:32PM
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 01 2022, @12:28PM (5 children)
Your argument begins to make more sense now. It's the puppet government you object to! Oh, wait, my mistake. Allow me to parse that more accurately. It's not the puppet government you object to, so much as who has their hands up the puppet's ass. Pupped governments propped up by the United States are cool, puppet governments propped up by Russia are evil. Got it.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @02:50PM (4 children)
In other words, it was a straightforward exercise of democracy. Sorry, Koch brother cooties don't magically make a coup. And this is just an exercise in whataboutism. What makes the Ukraine a puppet government at present? That it isn't part of Russia by now?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 01 2022, @03:13PM (3 children)
What makes Ukraine a puppet government? How about when Biden snaps his fingers, corruption investigations are shut down, and prosecutors are fired. You forgot about that one, didn't you?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @03:19PM (2 children)
And that proves Ukraine is a puppet how? I'm not disagreeing that the Ukraine is corrupt. You don't seem to have an understanding of what "puppet" means.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 01 2022, @03:37PM (1 child)
🙄
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @04:00PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01 2022, @01:56AM
Autonomous Workers Union (member of interviewed): Maidan and its contradictions: interview with a Ukrainian revolutionary syndicalist [libcom.org]
Global Labour Institute: 'Libertarian in spirit': the left and Maidan [libcom.org]
Antti Rautiainen: Anarchism in the context of civil war [libcom.org]
Autonomous Action: Moscow Autonomous Action on the Ukrainian war [libcom.org]
ye (author): Report from a visit in Kiev in April 2014 [libcom.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @02:31AM (12 children)
So if we had "listened to the man" we wouldn't have heard that the "west" allegedly engineered the coup (I'll use your language for now). That's your narrative not Mearsheimer's.
What happened is that Russia backed a terrible government and the alleged "fascists and neo-Nazis" offered (and apparently still do) a better deal to the populace. Seriously, did the Koch brothers (and whatever intelligence assets they might tap) really whip Russian intelligence? Sounds like a poor attempt at blame redirection. This was Russia's game. No way that the Koch brothers outplayed them.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday February 01 2022, @02:47AM (1 child)
:-) Your narrative is a lie. The man said straight up (10:25) that "the west is principally responsible for this mess, not the Russians"
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @03:05AM
No mention of the coup, right? So he indeed did not say that the West was responsible for the coup.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 01 2022, @12:31PM (9 children)
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @02:56PM (8 children)
I think more the continued harassment by Russia: supplying the civil war, continued hacking and disinformation campaign, and military exercises.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 01 2022, @03:09PM (7 children)
I'm so glad that the US is innocent of supplying a party to the civil war, or hacking, or disinformation, or even military exercises.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @03:20PM (6 children)
You tell me how any of that is destabilizing the Ukraine.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 01 2022, @03:35PM (5 children)
Maybe the "civil war" part of it?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @03:57PM (4 children)
How? Would a weaker Ukraine be more stabilized in a civil war? Not seeing it.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 01 2022, @04:22PM (3 children)
That's just . . . well, I don't even have words for it.
Maybe I need to hit the dictionary, and figure out how "civil war" and "stabilized" might relate to each other. Or maybe I need to cram a semester of reading comprehension in. We are both speaking American English?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @05:21PM (2 children)
Let me help. What's more stabilizing to a country in civil war, a) supporting the government of that country or b) supporting the rebellion - especially if the rebellion would have no chance otherwise? Answer a).
I find the games played here interesting. Earlier, you insinuated that alleged "fascists and neo-Nazis" were destabilizing the Ukraine:
When I pointed out the elephant in that room - seven plus years of destabilization by Russia, we get to the present inability to have words for it. I guess Putin wasn't the "fascists and neo-Nazis" you had in mind, but well, there he is.
My take is that there's a simple solution - get rid of Putin and return Russia to a democratic government. That'll fix a lot of problems in Russia and the Ukraine. Would-be dictators with shaky hold on power have ridiculous security requirements. And as we see, they cause a lot of trouble for their neighbors too.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 01 2022, @06:10PM (1 child)
So we just discount all the actions of the West that led to the overthrow of the previous government. None of that has meaning because 'PUTIN EBIL!' and "RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA!"
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @09:10PM
Indeed. Water flows downhill no matter how much the Koch brothers pay it to do so.
Interesting how noticing that there are seven plus years of deep and vicious Russian interference is Western propaganda.