Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

  Ukraine has a tri-partite government structure characterized by an independent presidency and parliament and a semi-independent (though corrupt) judiciary, a vigorous multi-party system, fair and free elections -- most recently, of both president and the parliament -- a free (if sometimes irresponsible) press and protection of human, civil and minority rights. Of special importance is the fact that Ukraine's government is run by civilians only and that its president -- Petro Poroshenko -- has none of the strongman features that a fascist supreme leader promotes via a machismo-based cult of personality. Last but not least, Ukraine has not pursued any of the repressive policies associated with fascism. Oppositions, minorities and marginal groups thrive, civil society is strong, and, if anything, Ukrainians accuse the government of being too weak -- and certainly not too strong.

IS UKRAINE RULED BY FASCISTS?

Supporters of the Ukraine-is-fascist argument might say that Ukraine is not fascist, but its rulers are fascists who want to establish a fascist system of rule. Alas, this claim is absurd.

Poroshenko and his predecessor, Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov, are obviously not fascists. None of the current cabinet members has anything resembling fascist credentials. The government that succeeded the corrupt Yanukovych dictatorship in late February 2014 consisted of 19 individuals: only two (Defense Minister Ihor Tenyukh and Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Sych) were members of the right-wing Svoboda party and one, the Secretary of the National and Security Defense Council Andriy Parubiy, had right-wing ties until 2004.

In early 2014, Svoboda had 38 seats in Ukraine's parliament -- out of a total of 450. Svoboda's leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, had run for president in the 2010 elections that brought Yanukovych to power and received 1.43 percent of the vote. He ran again, in the presidential ballot of May 25, 2014, and received 1.16 percent. Dmytro Yarosh, head of the right-wing Right Sector, received a mere 0.70 percent in 2014. In the October 26, 2104, parliamentary elections, Svoboda and the Right Sector got, respectively, six seats and one seat.

So why, then, do Putin and his supporters see fascism ablaze in Kyiv? There are several reasons for this bizarre charge.

First, as the above characterization of fascism's key features should have suggested, the country that possesses all of them is not Ukraine -- but Putin's Russia. Its democratic institutions are at best moribund, having been transformed into pliant tools of the Kremlin; civil society and the press have been severely circumscribed; representatives of the military and secret police dominate all ruling elites and suffuse them with their antidemocratic ethos; the Russian nation and state are unabashedly glorified; Putin is the undisputed leader, and his macho image exudes vigor, youth and manliness; a variety of rabidly pro-Putin youth groups act as the vanguard of the state; the population overwhelmingly supports Putin and has done so since he assumed the presidency; ethnocentrism, a mistrust of both internal and external foreigners and a corresponding glorification of Russia's past (including its criminal Stalinist period) and present are the official worldview; Russia has taken to asserting its "rightful" place in the sun by engaging in war against Georgia and Ukraine.

It makes a great deal of sense for Putin and his propaganda apparatus to accused Ukraine of the very crime that he has committed -- so as to deflect world attention from his own transformation of Russia into a repressive state.

Second, the Kremlin needs to insist that Ukraine's democrats are fascists because it insists that Yanukovych was a democratic leader. Yanukovych was corrupt and dictatorial. He was rapidly closing down Ukrainian civil society and transforming the parliament into a rump institution, but he was too incompetent and too comical to be able to project the he-man image that Putin had perfected. Since the Kremlin refuses to acknowledge the right of people to oust tyrants, it has to insist that Ukraine is ruled by a "junta" -- which is just shorthand for fascism. According to this logic, Americans had no right to rebel against King George, and the government led by Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton was nothing but a junta!

Finally, the Kremlin's insistence that democratic Ukraine is fascist goes back to old Soviet -- as well as tsarist Russian -- stereotypes of Ukrainians who insisted on their democratic and/or national rights as traitors, agents of imperialism, capitalist stooges and, of course, fascists. Ironically, continued use by Putin and his supporters of such terminology demonstrates just how deeply they are still ensnared in Stalinist political culture.

The bottom line is this: Putin has transformed Russia into a fascist state. Ukraine ousted Yanukovych in order to avoid becoming fully authoritarian. The war Putin unleashed against Ukraine is his way of telling Ukraine that fascism and democracy are incompatible.

So yet again I have to repeat the interview with the Ukrainian government minister

You are still veneering off the matter of the Right Sector. So yet again I have to repeat the interview with the Ukrainian government minister who when asked said the Right Sector was very much with them and works in conjunction with the Ukrainian Army. Everyone knows the Sector is Nazi inclined hence the addition of the swastika yet the Kiev government has them in their Cabinet and must know these crazies are at the same time hell-bent on refusing to accept a cease-fire! Now that is some government and system.

For some time now these head bangers have been parading annually and usually included for a while very old members of the Ukraine SS during WW2. Never did I ever here of condemnation from the West or for the memorial put up for their murderous Ukrainian "fuhrer." Ukraine was a mess before the upheaval a year ago and it is self created no-one else needed to cause this becaue it is very, very deeply divided and Kiev ignored the East and were ridiculous in handling things. How a unified country could continue was always in  dangerous of falling aprt. Even without the US or Russia this tragedy would still have happened and to add to the problem dishing our loads of money to a rapidly failed State is another waste of time.

Veering off: To turn aside suddenly. RJHowie veered off from the subject of Russian involvement in the Ukraine to make the thread yet another attack on "Ex-colonials".

Quote from: rjhowie on 2015-02-22, 02:03:48

So yet again I have to repeat the interview with the Ukrainian government minister

Do you not know the basic questions of who, what, where, how and why?

The Russian "involvement" in Ukraine is by the volunteers I mentioned and especially Coassacks.

As usual tt92 trying to avoid anything that requires using his grey cells. It is always a fall back when you cannot answer a matter or incapable to time after time just go on slagging. Would not be so bad if you actually were properly involved but nope you like to think acting as you do but in fact saying nothing.

Meanwhile the West continues OT's involvement in Ukraine. Obama a while back at the time the coup happened stated  he had helped "broker a deal". Hhhm, interesting. That headbanger McCain was over there giving support (shows how desperate Kiev must have been). Then NATO that overdue lot for disbanding pushing for bases as we are being suffering propganada about the baltics even though that matter is utter bunkum as i pointed out. If I was Russia then I would be tempted to stop selling power at reduced rates to a failing mes of a country like Ukraine. And those in the West that loan money better steel themselves for another Greek repeat.

Lies just spew out of Kiev and the US led West just accepts them without any scrutiny or sense. And continuing to repeat the US hypocrisy the land of the free supported a coup against an elected government. This always gives an excuse for Yanks to spread their military as well as help military corporates and their Wall Street buddies. Small wonder America can be a global dictator when the run of the mill ex-colonists have the mindset of Sanguinemoonism. If looking for volunteers for the one-way trip to Mars send the White House lot because they are all the same and would not be missed.

And continuing to repeat the US hypocrisy the land of the free supported a coup against an elected government.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure.

That's the option when all peaceful means have expired. Tell a red blooded American he can't rebel and he'll laugh and say "Frick you." Oh dear, it seems I used profanity.

Far too simple y far mjsmsprt40 (and Sanguinemoon). What country has the complete record of interfering with sovereignty and internal affairs like America?! Instead of accepting the hard facts since WW2 instead a petty lip as if unfairly singled out. It does not matter whether a government is elected or not if the place doesn't conform to your idea of "democracy" (you don't practice yourself) or give into to your commercial interests (hence the regular excusing of defending your interests) then heaven help them. Just think of all the dictatorships you supported in South America which was a big list in just one part of the world and how well your commercial side was in them too.

The average Yank doesn't see this because of the way they have been brought up to think they are the greatest country in the world and has some therefore inherent right to influence everyone else. Well good  on Russia sticking that rubbish up your nose.  You could "win" Chicago man if you practiced what you preached. 

The average Yank doesn't see this because of the way they have been brought up to think they are the greatest country in the world and has some therefore inherent right to influence everyone else.

The papers at Hanslope Park include monthly intelligence reports on the "elimination" of the colonial authority's enemies in 1950s Malaya; records showing ministers in London were aware of the torture and murder of Mau Mau insurgents in Kenya, including a case of aman said to have been "roasted alive"; and papers detailing the lengths to which the UK went to forcibly remove islanders from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

However, among the documents are a handful which show that many of the most sensitive papers from Britain's late colonial era were not hidden away, but simply destroyed. These papers give the instructions for systematic destruction issued in 1961 after Iain Macleod, secretary of state for the colonies, directed that post-independence governments should not get any material that "might embarrass Her Majesty's government", that could "embarrass members of the police, military forces, public servants or others eg police informers", that might compromise intelligence sources, or that might "be used unethically by ministers in the successor government".

tlefty?

And still depending on tha tlefty, liberal, Guardian. Dear, oh dear.