On May 09 2014 19:40 Cheerio wrote: About Mariupol. Despite Ukrainian military presense in the city, attacks on police department and some army block were held. The fire and smoke near (or inside as well) the Local Adminstrative Building is because of the tires being burned.
Were held by who?
***
EU countries are preparing to blacklist more Russian officials and two firms depending on what happens in Crimea and Donetsk over the weekend.
The names were discussed by member states ambassadors in Brussels on Thursday (8 May), but the final decision will be made by EU foreign ministers on Monday.
The ambassadors also reached a preliminary agreement on broadening the legal basis of the Russia sanctions.
One EU diplomat told EUobserver that both the status and the number of the new Russian names mooted in the ambassadors’ meeting were “small and disappointing”. *** A second EU source said: “We are still at the level of what we call ‘stage two’ sanctions, designations of individuals, not ‘stage three’, designations of whole sectors of the Russian economy.” Source.
I'm no fan of separatists taking over government buildings, but the Ukranian government lost any form of moral high ground they might have had when they decided that it was reasonable to shoot their own people. Thankfully, some Ukranian soldiers have enough moral sense not to shoot Ukranians. They must have found some new ones to carry out this offensive.
Here is proof of fascism in Ukraine, if everything else wasn't enough. No sane government would be so willing to kill their own people.
^Nice to know that Yanukovich (among bloody everyone else, is a fascist).
*** Good article by Paul Goble:
Staunton, May 9 – Moscow commentators have been denouncing the West for launching “a new cold war” against Russia, and a large share of Western commentators have assumed that this is because the Russian leadership doesn’t want one. In fact, Moscow is desperate to have that the new-old paradigm be restored at least at the level of rhetoric for at least three reasons.
First of all, if Moscow can get people in Russia and the West to talk about a new cold war, the Kremlin will have succeeded in boosting its status from what it has been since 1991. During the cold war, the USSR was the other super power, certainly not equal to the West in most dimensions but often treated as if it were nevertheless. Moreover, if that becomes the dominant paradigm again, there will always be people in the West who will argue not that the West needs to promote its interests against Russia but that the only way forward is compromise. And that too works to the benefit of Moscow.
Second, the Putin regime is pleased to use of the idea of a new cold war domestically to divert attention from its own disastrous economic policies and worsening demographic situation at home and to provide a justification for increasing repression. If as the new cold war paradigm suggests, Russia is a “besieged fortress,” few Russians can or will object to the kind of steps the the Kremlin says are necessary to defend them and their country. And if the West can be convinced to use the cold war paradigm, so much the better, because Moscow propagandists will then as they are already doing quote Western officials and commentators as evidence that the West has launched the cold war against Russia.
And third – and this is perhaps the most important reason Vladimir Putin has for wanting new “cold war” rhetoric -- It conceals what he is actually doing, helps elevate classical aggression and land grabs into something more and more elevated, and keeps the West off balance because it prevents many in the West from seeing what he is doing and from taking the kind of steps that are necessary to stop him. The cold war was a unique event, reflecting a specific kind of ideological and geopolitical competition. It is a mistake to assume that it is the default setting of the West's relations with Russia if there are fundamental differences of interest and opinion.
But what Putin has been doing in Ukraine and elsewhere around the periphery of the Russian Federation is not a revival of the cold war; it is a revenant of something earlier and in some ways is both uglier than that and more difficult to mobilize to counter: the kind of Russian piecemeal but regionally limited imperialism that Moscow used to extend its sway over an enormous territory by military conquest. Putin is trying to package this as something else just as his Soviet predecessors promoted the notion that territories conquered by Russian arms had “voluntarily joined” Russia. Now as in the past, such ideological games cloud the situation, at least enough to cause those who confuse balance with objectivity to echo some of these falsehoods.
And it is uglier in two other ways as well. On the one hand, Putin’s ideologists in contrast to his Soviet predecessors openly talk about whole peoples as the enemy and not just their leaders. Communist propagandists were generally, albeit not always, careful to distinguish foreign governments and intelligence services from the populations that these ideologists suggested were victims of these same institutions. Putin in contrast has promoted a vicious nationalism in which Ukrainians are treated collectively as an enemy nation and increasingly he and his minions are projecting that alternate version of reality on the entire populations of Western countries. That ideological shift makes future progress more difficult.
And on the other, Putin’s aggressive assertions that ethnicity is more important than citizenship and that empires are a better form of governance than nation states is sending messages to other powers on how they can and even should act. There is an all too direct connection between what Putin is doing in Ukraine and what Beijing is doing in the South China Sea and with the overseas Chinese. If what Putin is doing is allowed to succeed, China will not be the only country to follow Moscow’s lead in taking a revisionist, even revanchist stance in its policies.
Countering Putin is thus as important as countering the Soviet Union was, but it is going to be a far greater challenge. Because Putin’s actions take place on the margins of the existing Russian empire, they do not appear to be the existential threat to the West that the Soviet system was. Consequently, there will always be those in the West who will argue that the West should “understand” what Moscow is doing and reach “compromises.” And that is all the more likely because the West and especially the United States has relatively fewer resources to bring to bear than it did – and many more political leaders who are playing to the crowd by suggesting that what resources these countries have should be spent not on defense against a “distant Russian threat” but at home. Putin is playing to that and one could even say promoting that by his on again-off again aggression, with each step back gaining plaudits from those who refused to condemn his earlier two steps forward.
But because the Kremlin leader wants to revise all three 20th century settlements that are at the foundation of the current international order – the denunciation of empires in 1919, the rejection of the idea that ethnicity is more important than citizenship in 1945, and support for the end of Soviet empire in 1991 – the West does face a challenge: If Putin succeeds in Ukraine and elsewhere, the international system will be transformed not to one of a new cold war as he suggests and as some in the West fear but into something much worse: a Hobbesian world of all against all, in which once again the hard power of military force rather than the soft power of principles will be dominant.
That is not a world that the US or the West will find at all congenial – it will be even more uncomfortable for us than was the cold war -- but it is one they will be allowing to emerge if they do not work to contain Putin’s aggression – and ultimately reverse it. Source.
On May 09 2014 21:22 Ghanburighan wrote: ^Nice to know that Yanukovich (among bloody everyone else, is a fascist).
I think all of us, regardless of what side we're on, can agree that Yanukovich is most definitely a villain in all of this. That's hardly being debated here.
On May 09 2014 21:22 Ghanburighan wrote: ^Nice to know that Yanukovich (among bloody everyone else, is a fascist).
I think all of us, regardless of what side we're on, can agree that Yanukovich is most definitely a villain in all of this. That's hardly being debated here.
Yeah, I know. But you shouldn't call people fascists if they're not fascists. Killing civilians doesn't make you a fascist, certain beliefs make you a fascist. Civilians are killed everywhere, all around the world. There are many names for such people, and few are nice. There are exceptions as well, police forces kill people all the time, and sometimes its ok too. But using language like that is inappropriate - it's inappropriate to those who suffered at the hands of real fascists, it fuels discord among people that might otherwise get along, and it's simply not illuminating. I think a lot of people in the West are looking at Ukraine's actions the past few days and condemning many actions as too hard-handed + Show Spoiler [disturbing example] +
, yet they also condemned inaction as that led to the separatists torturing and killing other civilians. It's not black and white here, and labels like `these people are fascists' is trying to paint the situation as if it were. In the end, such labels work against deescalation, leading to more civilians losing their lives.
On May 09 2014 21:22 Ghanburighan wrote: ^Nice to know that Yanukovich (among bloody everyone else, is a fascist).
I think all of us, regardless of what side we're on, can agree that Yanukovich is most definitely a villain in all of this. That's hardly being debated here.
Yeah, I know. But you shouldn't call people fascists if they're not fascists.
Ukranian government is most definitely a government of fascists, and that is not downplaying the results of regimes such as Nazi Germany because given the opportunity, the current government would do the same (ex: Tymoshenko's comments on Russia). They simply don't have the military strength for that, because that would be more than enough reason to justify Russian intervention. That's essentially what happened in Georgia.
Not that the separatists are exactly the best of people, but the Ukranian government has proven itself worse.
On May 09 2014 21:33 Ghanburighan wrote:Killing civilians doesn't make you a fascist, certain beliefs make you a fascist.
They have that too. Fascism is in essence ultranationalism + victim complex + authoritarian government + murderous intent against the people who "wronged" you. That's basically what we have here.
On May 09 2014 21:33 Ghanburighan wrote:In the end, such labels work against deescalation, leading to more civilians losing their lives.
I think it's already too late for that. I don't see Ukraine staying peaceful for two more weeks, until elections come that may or may not change things.
Fascism is in essence ultranationalism + victim complex + authoritarian government + murderous intent against the people who "wronged" you. That's basically what we have here.
No its not.
From wiki: Fascism /fæʃɪzəm/ is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism[1][2] that came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. Influenced by national syndicalism.
[...]Fascist movements shared certain common features, including the veneration of the state, a devotion to a strong leader, and an emphasis on ultranationalism and militarism. Fascism views political violence, war, and imperialism as a means to achieve national rejuvenation, and it asserts that stronger nations have the right to expand their territory by displacing weaker nations. [...]
Murderous intent and victim complex are not essential to fascism belives. Strong state, militarism, nationalism are. Fasisct regimes often resort to murdering their political opnnents but its not essentail (they might very well pu thei oponents in jails rather than killing them). People too often belive fascism = Nazis.
On May 09 2014 21:22 Ghanburighan wrote: ^Nice to know that Yanukovich (among bloody everyone else, is a fascist).
I think all of us, regardless of what side we're on, can agree that Yanukovich is most definitely a villain in all of this. That's hardly being debated here.
Yeah, I know. But you shouldn't call people fascists if they're not fascists.
Ukranian government is most definitely a government of fascists, and that is not downplaying the results of regimes such as Nazi Germany because given the opportunity, the current government would do the same (ex: Tymoshenko's comments on Russia). They simply don't have the military strength for that, because that would be more than enough reason to justify Russian intervention. That's essentially what happened in Georgia.
Not that the separatists are exactly the best of people, but the Ukranian government has proven itself worse.
On May 09 2014 21:33 Ghanburighan wrote:Killing civilians doesn't make you a fascist, certain beliefs make you a fascist.
They have that too. Fascism is in essence ultranationalism + victim complex + authoritarian government + murderous intent against the people who "wronged" you. That's basically what we have here.
On May 09 2014 21:33 Ghanburighan wrote:In the end, such labels work against deescalation, leading to more civilians losing their lives.
I think it's already too late for that. I don't see Ukraine staying peaceful for two more weeks, until elections come that may or may not change things.
The term Fascism was first used of the totalitarian right-wing nationalist regime of Mussolini in Italy (1922–43); the regimes of the Nazis in Germany and Franco in Spain were also Fascist. Fascism tends to include a belief in the supremacy of one national or ethnic group, a contempt for democracy, an insistence on obedience to a powerful leader, and a strong demagogic approachSource.
the current govt. isn't fascist and the reason for that is that it's comprised of the same people that were voted into the parliament while Yanukovich was in power. The majority is in the hands of the Regions party, and it remains with them. But the fact that they have a parliament, they respect democratic processes and are calling for a general election shows that they cannot be authoritarian. Furthermore, as the people in the parliament were not ultranationalist before, they aren't ultranationalist now. Evidence for this comes from their willingness to give more rights to Russian-speaking citizens (Geneva and the current roundtable discussions), and their many statements in Russian. Also, if they had a victim's complex and murderous intent towards Russians, they would be attacking them, wouldn't they? But they, in fact, avoided conflict for such a long time that Russia annexed Crimea. But actually a victim's complex isn't part of fascism as the term is used.
Neo-fascism is a post–World War II ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, populism, anti-immigration policies or, where relevant, nativism, anti-communism, and opposition to the parliamentary system and liberal democracy. Allegations that a group is neo-fascist may be hotly contested, especially if the term is used as a political epithet. Some post–World War II regimes have been described as neo-fascist due to their authoritarian nature, and sometimes due to their fascination and sympathy towards fascist ideology and rituals.
However, I personally am of the opinion that semantics is not really that important here, so this will be my last post in response to that topic.
Neo-fascism is a post–World War II ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, populism, anti-immigration policies or, where relevant, nativism, anti-communism, and opposition to the parliamentary system and liberal democracy. Allegations that a group is neo-fascist may be hotly contested, especially if the term is used as a political epithet. Some post–World War II regimes have been described as neo-fascist due to their authoritarian nature, and sometimes due to their fascination and sympathy towards fascist ideology and rituals.
However, I personally am of the opinion that semantics is not really that important here, so this will be my last post in response to that topic.
I disagree that arguing semantics isn't important (but, hey, I have a PhD in semantics, so I might be biased ), but that's not the topic at the moment. If you call the government fascist you're still implying that they are nationalist, have anti-democratic values and have other characteristics which the current government in Kyiv does not fit. As for neo-fascism, the term is entirely alien to me, and a quick search through political science literature doesn't bring up any hits. Perhaps it's out there, but then, please, enlighten us. If it's merely the characteristics you brought out in your previous posts, then I already demonstrated that the Kyiv govt. does not fit the term.
Some details about Mariupol. According to Avakov (Minister of Internal Affairs) the mess started in the morning when around 60 armed people (separatists) attacked police department without making any demands. The attack turned into a full scale shootout. Reinforcements were sent. Eventually police forces prevailed. They claim 20 "terrorists" got killed. Police lost 1 and 5 were injured. But they don't have information about a military unit, and SBU forces, which were also taking part in the shootout.
The armored vehicles movement around the town was because of those events. One armored vehicle was captured by the separatists.
Pro-Russians just use the word fascism because they don't know anything else. It's just a pejorative term and they have no idea like LegalLord (he is twisting the general definition and what he says is complete BS) what its real meaning or origin are. There are different take on what the meaning is and it's controversial but the main reason why it isn't a fascist government is because like said before, there is still a democratic process in place and soon elections.
Maybe some fascists or really right wing or nazies parties in Ukraine have a bit of power and responsibility in the transitional government but it doesn't mean that the gov is fascist in general. Anyway there is no point discussing that because there are no real arguments for saying that. The only real fascist regime in the affair is Russia with its leader Putin (having one powerful leader is a point to have for a fascist state and gov) and it's funny because Pro-Russians talk about fascists in Kiev while they want to join the real fascist Russia.
The right wing groups in Ukraine aren't anti democracy or at least they don't show it publicly. The majority of the transitional government in Kiev isn't fascinated nor reproduce fascists practices, it isn't even authoritarian else the separatists would have been killed awhile ago. Now please stop arguing about the fascist transitional gov in Kiev, the gov isn't fascist (even tough 3 ministers are part of extreme right-wing groups among them some fascist) and that whole thing is just part of the Pro-Russians propaganda; it's extremely annoying to repeat things that have been said hundreds of pages ago and like I said if Pro-Russians were a bit smart they would conclude that the real fascist state is Russia.
Ok, LegalLord, if Ukrainian government is supporting Ukrainian "neo-nazis", can you explain to me what happened to the most notorious of them - Sasha Bilyy (wikipage)?
They have that too. Fascism is in essence ultranationalism + victim complex + authoritarian government + murderous intent against the people who "wronged" you. That's basically what we have here.
To be quiet honest, that sounds a bit like you're describing russia. You have the victim complex (the west! the WEST!), you obviously have an authoritarian government, the murderous intent, well.. Maybe not official from the kreml, but we all know that people in russia do want to pay back the US for whatever - and ultranationalism? I'd say yes, you might disagree - but at least in terms of nationalism there should be no discussion.
They have that too. Fascism is in essence ultranationalism + victim complex + authoritarian government + murderous intent against the people who "wronged" you. That's basically what we have here.
To be quiet honest, that sounds a bit like you're describing russia. You have the victim complex (the west! the WEST!), you obviously have an authoritarian government, the murderous intent, well.. Maybe not official from the kreml, but we all know that people in russia do want to pay back the US for whatever - and ultranationalism? I'd say yes, you might disagree - but at least in terms of nationalism there should be no discussion.
Would you say russia is a fascist country?
kill evil nazis that took power in Ukraine, there is plenty of that attitude in Russia right now. Propaganda works well.
EPT
), but that's not the topic at the moment. If you call the government fascist you're still implying that they are nationalist, have anti-democratic values and have other characteristics which the current government in Kyiv does not fit. As for neo-fascism, the term is entirely alien to me, and a quick search through political science literature doesn't bring up any hits. Perhaps it's out there, but then, please, enlighten us. If it's merely the characteristics you brought out in your previous posts, then I already demonstrated that the Kyiv govt. does not fit the term.![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BnMNs2JCIAA9gC_.jpg)
