Here we go again

tymoshenko

Another dreary Color Revolution in the Ukraine — this time with genuine neo-Nazis to spice up the goulash, or rather, the borshcht — and Challah-Girl herself literally wheeled back on stage. Really, I thought we had heard the last of this one.

Greater Germany — sometimes referred to, euphemistically, as ‘Europe’ — is rejoicing, of course. Another paw amputated from the old Bear, and now to be thrown into the neo-liberal stew and boiled to the bone. Served with a side order of Brussels sprouts, of course.

Maybe this time it will really work; though one should never reckon without a live Bear, to paraphrase Professor Tolkien.

Presumably the officers on the bridge of Deathstar USA are also pleased, though you couldn’t tell it from John Kerry’s exceptionally wooden and tongue-tied performance. Still, Kerry remains an infallible touchstone: Anything the poor old ponderous tool says is a lie, so when he assures us that this is not a matter of East versus West, we can be absolutely certain that it is.

Not for the first time, I am struck by how little has changed since the days of Lord Palmerston and the Crimean War.

Naturally I wondered how the Left moral misotyrannists would react to this one. So I went to the gold standard, Comrade Louis Proyect, the Great Wet Hen himself, whose indignant cluckings I have rather missed since he exiled me from the disciplinary delights of his bondage-dungeon mailing list (quite rightly, too).

One was not disappointed:

If you read Global Research or the World Socialist Website, you’d tend to think that the troubles in the Ukraine are the result of a cabal by the Republican rightwing and the Ukrainian bourgeoisie to use the native fascists as a battering ram against Putin’s allies who are trying to preserve state-owned industry…. As I have pointed out in a previous post, the picture is a lot more complicated.

Louis has always ‘pointed something out’ in a preceding post — or some dozens of them — and of course one is always on safe ground to observe that life is complicated. In this case, though, it would be difficult to find an account less complicated than the straw man Louis constructs in this characteristic passage, and sets into brief lumbering life, like a flimsy third-rate Golem, only to incinerate it a sentence later.

(I can’t help marvelling at the fact that Louis himself apparently does read Global Research and the World Socialist website, and seems to think that the rest of us do so as well. A dirty job, but no doubt somebody has to do it; and Louis seems like just the guy.)

26 thoughts on “Here we go again

    • I’m sure there’s plenty of real spontaneous public fury about the “shitty lives” ordinary people lead in the Ukraine. No doubt the same is true in Syria. And Yanukovych is an awful, awful guy. So is Putin. So was Nicholas I.

      There’s really not much to disagree with in the Ames piece that StO links to above. All the players are more or less awful people, and there’s nobody you’d like to cheer for. Whatever hope ordinary people have that their admittedly ‘shitty lives’ will be improved by wearing those telegenic, mass-produced orange face masks — complete with logo — will certainly be crushed, no matter which monster wins.

      Ames, rightly, wants us to understand that it’s, well, complicated; the Ukrainian public aren’t just wind-up toys operating under CIA orders.

      And of course they’re not. But in this sordid gang war that’s calling itself a revolution, there are certainly Russian stooges and Euro-stooges. To what extent the latter are also US stooges is an interesting question. Greater Germany has undoubtedly become a power in its own right.

      • What is your information source regarding German direction or even deep involvement in the recent switch-o-change-o in Ukraine? Do the neo-Nazi players there trace back to Germany or is it a different local element that represents Greater German interests there?

        I hope that doesn’t sound hostile. I would (ignorantly, perhaps) have imagined that memories of Germany’s last visit to the region would have left a taste bitter enough to linger a few more generations at least.

        • None whatsoever, apart from the fact that one of the supposed demands of the insurgents was greater integration with that cobbled-together Frankenstein’s monster, ‘Europe’. Which is, of course, another way of saying ‘Germany’.

          • The euro market
            Is the greatest achievement of
            The collective spirit of
            All white continentals
            since Napoleon
            Demolished
            the holy roman
            Empire
            It’s really for Catholics

            The Protestant northern rim
            is
            For ever in indignant scoff mode

        • One might add that many Ukrainians welcomed Germany’s last visit quite enthusiastically and proved to be stalwart friends of that European connection.

          • Yes, Nazi Germany had allies in the Ukraine after Operation Barbarossa conquered the territory in 1941. A recent article by the younger Blumenthal gives Ukrainian dead from extermination programs by the SS and their local Ukrainian allies at 3 million including 900,000 Jews. This followed the Stalinist starvation and related programs of the 1930’s which annihilated and exiled debated numbers of Ukrainians up into the 10,000,000 range. This may explain the enthusiasm you mentioned above.

            But in my recent reading around the net I have not seen much mention of Germany in the promotion of the last 2-3 weeks’ disorder in Kiev and elsewhere. On the other hand “our” Victoria Nuland has bragged about what glorious disorder her $5 billion budget has been able accomplish. Photos show her beaming beside Ukrainian leaders who are elsewhere photographed giving well practiced Nazi salutes.

            To this point Germany doesn’t appear to be taking a leadership role in Ukraine. It was different earlier in the Balkans conflic wrt Croatia. I wonder what is the difference that made this the case. And if you are making the case that the ECB is German dominated and, therefore, “join the EU” equals “join Greater Germany” I just disagree. And suggest that Libya shows that the other EU members are capable of causing great trouble without German participation in the project IF the US plays along. It is too long. Sorry.

        • Germany here is the label
          For the soul of corporate Europe

          As to bitter memories
          That’s the Poles not the Ukes

          But I write belatedly to champion my now ghastly truck tire of a harvest maid

          Yu yu lateinova

          Her hair in better times
          reminded me of the soviet
          Pop mag icon photos
          Pasted over the hunger games
          Playing out Beneath
          S issimo’s first two
          five year plans
          over the great

      • I’m sure the folks who followed Franco or the Wahhabi nutbars fighting in Syria for $400 per month and all the throats you can slit have shitty lives as well. People don’t just take to the streets because some US-backed NGO called for a demonstration on Twitter. There have to be some real grievances there.

        But that’s besides the point. History is full of failed revolutions fought by sincere people but led by opportunistic scumbags. The sincerity or lack thereof of the people out on the streets is not the issue, but who and what exactly are they fighting for. Do they even know?

        I tend to think that any side in the game that receives the support of the US government and mass media will turn out to be the worst of all possible evils should they ever come to power, if history is any guide. Anybody who solicits the military or political intervention of the US in his country is either a fool or a tool, no exceptions. He is certainly not a patriot.

          • I yield to none in anti-US bias. Boink makes some very good points here, and there’s no doubt that I’m too cavalier, every time, about this sort of thing. There is indeed no reason why the current intervention in the Ukraine has to be a carbon-copy of the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. But the resemblances do seem pretty strong.

  1. E-mail from a kind friend. Subject line: You shouldn’t pick on Proyect

    The guy is dumb and he writes like a ham sandwich.

    If I wind up in hell, I will be reading his movie reviews for all eternity.

    You need more robust villains.

    My friend is certainly right about Proyect: Who breaks a butterfly upon the wheel?

    I need somebody else to pick on. Suggestions? It can’t be somebody who’s already being extensively picked on.

  2. Wrong! The idea is to pick on a righteous leftist kook, not some establishment mouthpiece. My vote is not for a person and rather an establishment: Counterpunch. Ever since Alex’s death, the site’s lost its zing. Their essays/articles have become drippier and drippier by the day.

    On a positive note, I took pleasure at seeing that corrupt Euro kiss ass hag, Yulia having lost her allure and putting on a few pounds:-)

  3. You see, it’s like this:

    The people you allegedly think are the “good guys” are really the bad guys because they have allegedly done business with the people you think are the “bad guys” and therefore, the “bad guys” are really the good guys because they want to remove the real bad guys from power…with heavily-armed “peaceful protestors” of course. The fact that the people you think are the “bad guys” are being armed, financed and encouraged by other people you think are “bad guys” does not detract from their commitment to democracy and freedom one iota. If you disagree with any of this you are a bad guy who supports dictators.

    Louis “le scat, c’est moi” Proyect’s bullshit in a nutshell. This stuff can induce Proyectile vomiting in those with the strongest stomachs. You have been warned.

    Not sure why the dig on Global Research. Most “leftist” “Marxist” “progressive” and “liberal” sites out there are nothing but pro-imperialist and one percenter propaganda masquerading as support for the working class and its struggles. Global Research may not always get it right, but they are a helluva lot more credible than just about any online site I can think of. I’ve never seen any evidence of their being as compromised as much of the so-called “Left.”

    • I do occasionally read Global Research, so I shouldn’t have been so dismissive. There’s something about it that worries me, though. Difficult to say why. Do I correctly sense a whiff of Larouchism?

  4. Once in a while. Lou Lou points me to a little documentary I may not have heard of and is worth seeing. Thankfully, he links to the trailer (for a commission?), so I can look at that without having to wade through his turgid reviews and give myself a migraine navigating those horribly wide margins. If the doc looks any good, I sneak down to the Quad or whereever during a “lunch break.”

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