Robert Parry rightly bashes Paul Krugman, Thomas Friedman, and E. J Dionne as dangerous morons.
Not only are the likes of Paul Krugman, Thomas L. Friedman and E.J. Dionne Jr. spreading dangerous propaganda, they are setting the stage for a new Cold War and possibly even a nuclear confrontation.Consortium News
The Liberal Idiocy on Russia/Ukraine
Robert Parry
11 comments:
What a load of crap. Parry's history begins with the ouster of Yanukovych and claims it to be a US-instigated coup. He completely discounts the Euromaidan protests (and killing of protesters by the Yanukovych's Burkut militarized police force) that was sparked by the President rejecting the EU agreement and forced by his Russian keepers to sign on with Putin - all because of "Russian sensitivity" - i.e. the desire to completely dominate all former Soviet block nations.
Yes, there was concern and grievances by ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, but a political solution became impossible with the introduction of foreign troops, i.e. little green men, from Mother Russia. That is a fact on the ground as well as the hostile annexation of Crimea in contrast to the relatively huge constraints by the US - all conveniently overlooked by Parry in his rush to blame the matter on the US based on a couple of out-of-context excerpts from people not directly involved in any way imaginable other than pontificating.
This website shouldn't propagate such horse pucky.
Salsabob, all views welcome here.
I attempt to balance the extremely one-sided view in the US MSM with other views. I don't endorse any of them unless I specifically say so.
The Western media paint the historical dialectic that is continuously unfolding as the struggle between good and evil, those in white hats and those in black hats. That is just BS. Here Parry is calling out US liberals on it.
Many if not most Russians see it exactly opposite and that's incorrect, too. What is significant is that such opposition has often led to major conflict historically and that is the danger now.
As far as the history affecting the present situation goes, there is hysteresis and path dependence extend back for centuries, and one of the fundamental dynamics is also ethnic and religious differences. It would take a book to set this forth in context, and that would still just be one author's view.
Except that there's reams and reams (and I mean REAMS of easily-verifiable video)of evidence that A) the Maidan protesters *never* intended violence; elections were only a few months off. B) It wasn't yanukovich's guys that shot them--they've been identified, and they belong to Kolomoisky's Dnieper-1 band of outlaws, and C) the coup was engineered by Victoria Nuland (tapped phone calls and other evidence) and accomplished by the US' patented 'regime change' system--using 'local warlords' to do the dirty work. Remember the Mujahideen we funded, trained and armed? The Contras in Nicaragua? There are many more. This is a well-developed, frequently-used, and very recognizable technique. It *was* a bit of a screwup to tap real live genuine Nazis to do it tho. They've been running amok ever since. Because of them, formerly non-Russian parts of Ukraine are agitating for secession now too. There's a wonderful photo of Nato and friends..
That's one of Kolomoisky's pet Nazi militias--the Azov battalion, to be precise.
I suggest you try looking at the actual evidence with an open mind toward determining reality before making yourself look like a bigot.
--zapster
link didn't take--here's the cut and paste version:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-84UBCE21q04/VH-s7aS_0xI/AAAAAAAAFwc/lQyn94bXUcE/s1600/Azov%2Bneo%2Bnazi.jpg
Most of us have strong opinions on way of another and marshall evidence for them. This enriches the debates with putative facts, many of which are, however, in dispute.
What we shouldn't lose sight of in the heat of argument is that what we are doing here is political economy and that involves looking at economic and financial change in the text not only of economics and finance but also the larger context in which these are embedded as complex subsystems in a complex system of the global economy and geopolitics. In the larger context it is about the development of humanity as a species. The challenge is tying all this together well enough to get some idea of what is happening and what trends are developing.
One doesn’t make money betting on one's favorite team unless it is the best team. We are not trying to figure out who the good guys and bad guys are as much as the process that is unfolding and what the social, political, economic and financial implications are. For this we have to keep the big picture in mind in the background.
Two subsequent election confirmed that Ukrainians want to move away from this sorry failure of civilization that is Russia. As for elections in Russia... no comment.
So coup or no coup, Ukrainians want to move towards European civilization, with all its flaws.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/180110/ukrainian-approval-russia-leadership-dives-almost.aspx
Except people of the eastern Ukrainians, who voted to go to an independent state or join Russia.
There's a civil war going on in the Ukraine between the east and west in spite of the way the Ukrainian leaders and West frame it as "terrorists" aided by a Russian invasion.
I view it as a proxy war between NATO (chiefly the US) and Russia that's been going on for some time. The conflict in Georgia was an instance of it.
Now China has pretty much announced a strategic alliance with Russia signaling that it also opposes NATO expansion to the east.
It's looking like the US deep state has decided that now is the time to move before a multipolar world becomes a reality and the US loses military, political and economic hegemony.
This is forcing the faster development of a multipolar world and it's looking like a collision course with both ship putting on speed and making sure that all weapons systems are ready.
European political leaders are now arguing over whether this is worth another war in Europe that will almost certainly involve tactical nukes.
Factually wrong. The elections in the East were a sham. Look at the poll above, includes the East. And for the "civil" war, if not for Russian Army, these guys wouldn't have a leg to stand on, as they themselves admit. They are basically two guys and a truck with an AK47.
Anyway, why is this nonsense polluting an MMT site? Do you guys want to discredit a perfectly sound framework with this lame naivete?
zapster - no one in their right mind is going to base their belief of this conflict on a single photo - there are bad apples in every barrel. You need a preponderance of information to support the nonsense of this being a US pre-planned coup as opposed to a series of events, controlled by no one, of different cultures pulling against each other, all within a mixing bowl of haves and have nots, and mafia govt corruption in Russia AND Ukraine; the last thing the US needed with Iraq, Syria, Libya, Iran and the rest of the ME cauldron was a flare up between Russia, Ukraine and Europe - no one cared until Russia made it their business to make us care. Your supposed tapped phone calls and videos ain't gonna cut it; prove your conjecture or stop propagating your utter simplistic BS view of the world.
Tom - yes, the eastern ethnic Russian Ukrainians had gripes, but if you roll the clock back, they were more concerns than actual grievences, and alot of that was based on horse pucky like the rumor that Russian speaking would not be allowed. They were made to panic and fear the worst by constant bombardment of Russian news propaganda. Maybe it could have been negotiated out or maybe it would inevitable lead to civil war, but either way, there was no excuse for outside injection of foreign forces into a sovereign country. Let's see what 'zapster' comes up with of ACTUAL evidence of any US or other Western interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine and then compare that to the ACTUAL annexation of Crimea and the ACTUAL injection of artillery shells and "little green men" in tanks - there is no comparison, there is no balance - to suggest otherwise only reveals an irrational predisposition against the US. I'm not a fan of all US foreign policies, but if one wants their complaints to be taken seriously, there has to be at least a tad of recognizing reality.
There a 100s of grievances among peoples of Eurasia revolving around how lines on the map should be drawn to make this or that governing majorities. The general recognized philosophy since the fall of the USSR was not to re-draw boundaries or at least take it very slow through a peaceful process without overt external pressures particularly military. Anyone with a lick of history should know how slippery the slope is to something that would make every other potential conflict in the world look like child's play. Been there, done that, millions died. That is what the West is upset with Putin about; Ukraine has very little to offer the West. It's what it represents - Putin can re-draw the lines of Europe. Let's be a little more circumspect and in touch with reality... or, possible pay a very big price.
PeterP,
I share your concern for why these seemingly non-MMT issues keep getting posted. My concern may actually run deeper. I think there is considerable frustration in the MMT community from having a workable framework for so much that is wrong not only in our economy but our society and culture, and yet not being able to get very far with its acceptance into actual policy making.
There seems so much align against the rationality of MMT - financial elites, banksters, utterly stupid sell-out pols. I think that frustration can lead to exasperation and then possible followed by irrational, simplistic conjecture of the US, particularly the govt, can do nothing but evil no matter the issue.
Unfortunately, that can greatly discredit the good that MMT has the potential to provide. MMT already has a hard row to hoe without the baggage of half-ass conspiracy theories and knee-jerked US bashing.
Then just read the posts tagged MMT.
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