I am not opposed to self determination for the people of Crimea; I am opposed to this referendum. Nobody can seriously argue there has been a chance for a campaign in which different viewpoints can be freely argued, with some equality of media access and freedom from fear and intimidation.
Hitler invaded Austria on 12 March 1938. The Anschluss was confirmed in a plebiscite on 10 April, just 28 days later, by a majority of 99.7%. Putin has done it in less than half of the time, and I have no doubt will produce a similar result in the vote. The point is not whether or not the vote reflects the will of the people – the point is whether the will of the people has been affected by military demonstration, fear, hysterically induced national psychosis and above all an absence of space for debate or alternative viewpoints.
There is no reasonable claim that Putin’s swift plebiscite is necessary because of an imminent threat of violence against Russians in Crimea. There is absolutely no reason that a referendum could not have been held at the end of this year, in a calm and peaceful atmosphere, after everybody had a chance to campaign and express their position. Putin has proved that force majeure is powerful in international politics, and there is every reason to believe that he could have finessed international acceptance of such a referendum in due course. Germany, in particular, is much more interested in its own energy supplies than in the rights of Ukraine. In twenty years in diplomacy, I never saw a single instance of Germany having any interest in rights other than its own national self-interest. It is very likely such a genuine referendum would have gone in Russia’s favour. But the disadvantages of open debate about the merits and demerits of Putin’s Russia, and his own self-image as the man of military prowess, led Putin to take the more violent course.
The vote yesterday in the Security Council should give every Putinista pause. Not even China voted with Russia. The Africans and South Americans voted solidly against. That is not because they are prisoners or puppets of the United States – they are not. Neither did they take the easy road of abstention. The truth is that what Putin is doing in Crimea is outrageous.
What happens now is going to be interesting. I greatly fear that Putin is looking to stir up as much disorder in Ukraine’s Eastern provinces as possible, perhaps with the aim of promoting civil war in which Russia can covertly intervene, rather than open invasion, but I do not put the latter past him. Against that, I am quite sure Russia did not expect the extreme diplomatic isolation, in fact humiliation, it suffered at the UN yesterday. I am hopeful Russia may step back from the brink.
The EU I expect to do nothing. Sanctions will target a few individuals who are not too close to Putin and don’t keep too many of their interests in the West. I don’t think Alisher Usmanov and Roman Abramovic need lose too much sleep, that Harrods need worry or that we will see any flats seized at One Hyde Park. (It is among my dearest wishes one day to see One Hyde Park given out for council housing.) Neither do I expect to see the United States do anything effective; its levers are limited. I doubt we have seen the last of Mr Putin’s adventurism.
Human society is not perfectible, which does not mean we should not try. I believe western democracy, particularly in its social democratic European manifestation from approximately 1945 to 2000, achieved a high level of happiness for its ordinary people and an encouraging level of equality. For approximately 20 years unfortunately we have witnessed a capitalism more raw and unabated than ever before, and massively growing levels of wealth inequality, a reduction in state provision for the needy, a distortion of state activity further to line the pockets of the rich, ever increasing corruption among the elite and growing levels of social immobility and exclusion, a narrowing of the options presented by major political parties until there is not a cigarette paper between them and their neo-conservative agendas, and a related narrowing by the mainstream media of the accepted bounds of public debate, with orchestrated ridicule of opinions outside those bounds. Democracy, as a system offering real choice to informed electors, has ceased to function in the West leading to enormous political alienation. On the international scene the West has retreated from the concept of international law and, heady with the temporary unipolar US military dominance, adopted aggressive might is right polices and a return of the practices of both formal and informal imperialism.
But every single one of those things is true of Putin’s Russia, and in fact it is much worse. Wealth inequality is even more extreme. Toleration of dissent and of different lifestyles even less evident, the space for debate even more constricted, the contempt for international law still more pronounced. Putin’s own desire for imperialist sphere of influence politics leads him into conflict with aggressive designs of the west, as for example in Syria and Iran. The consequence can be an accidental good, in that Putin has thwarted western military plans. But that is not in any sense from a desire for public good, and if Putin can himself get away with military force he does. His conflicts of interest with the west have deluded a surprising number of people here into believing that Putin in some ways represents an ideological alternative. He does not. He represents a capitalism still more raw, an oligarchy still more corrupt, a wealth gap still greater and growing still quicker, a debate still more circumscribed. It speaks to the extreme political failure of the western political system, and the degree of the alienation of which I spoke, that so many strive to see something beautiful in the ugly features of Putinism.
I remember they used to say they were pointing at the sky and shouting, “Seagulls”!!
Anyway off topic and I don’t care.
RIP Clarissa Dickson Wright, aged 66. She had a rotten father and childhood but overcame both with jollity and good humour. She also did us the favour of outing Bliar as ‘Miranda’ in his junior barrister days. Should have been given an OBE or something similar for that.
http://downwithjugears.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/is-tony-blair-light-in-loafers.html See comment
PS Did not approve of her going hare coursing.
Anyway, look who he’s with…
Uncle Craig.
First photo, that salute again at another gig.
From two thirds the way down, multitasking fascist voting-machine action shots in Ukrainian parliament.
A must see: http://hinter-der-fichte.blogspot.fr/2014/03/ukraine-die-kernluge-von-der-legitimen.html
By the way Dad, I think I’ve worked out who the good fascists are. Thanks.
Herbie
Who is he with? I agree that’s pretty relevant.
Sofia
Sorry, where’s the photo you refer to? The only “salute” on the link you give is the same photo again. Further down is a photo of somebody else definitely giving Nazi salute – the entire demeanour and body language is very different indeed. It only serves to reinforce my doubts about the first photo.
Craig, but even just judging him from the company he keeps, it is hard to give him the benefit of the doubt, for me, that is. I understand what you say. Until these riots kicked off I doubt many of us had heard of any of these guys, except Klitschko. The important things for me are that the legitimate government of Ukraine has been toppled by a western-funded political right-wing mob, whose early actions were to release the crooked Timoshenko from prison, and later actions, if reports are correct to ship Ukraine’s gold reserves to the United States in exchange for dollars. I can believe this because the US federal reserve is on its last legs and nobody is buying treasury bonds any more. So the Ukraine has exchanged something tangible for nothing more than shipload of confetti.
John Goss,
You know I am in no sense a fan of Hilary Clinton. But look at second photo down here
http://www.constantinereport.com/anti-fascists-hillary-clinton-historical-confusion/
Just googling I found photos of practically everybody famous you can think of in like position. If you want I’ll post a dozen more links. If you freeze a wave, it can and very frequently looks like that.
“If reports are correct”… yesssssss.
Somewhat lean profile of the boxer in rebellion. The alliance twixt Svoboda, Fatherland, UDAR for the 2015 electiions must be like Yalta, where Stalin is the only bad guy in the room.
https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/vitali-klitschko-a-profile-in-opportunism/
“n 1996, Vitali Klitschko became a professional boxer and moved first to Germany and then to California. Like many wealthy, successful East Europeans who became rich in the West, he adopted an unrealistic, idealized view of his native land. Thinking that his millions and worldwide popularity translate into an understanding of Ukrainian politics, Klitschko tried to become mayor of Kiev. When that did not work out, he entered national politics using his “UDAR”—an abbreviation for “Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform” translated as “Strike” or “Punch”. While outwardly his party espouses “liberal democratic” values in the tradition of Germany’s CDU, he forged an alliance with the neo-nazis of Oleh Tyahnybok and was literally, the most visible leader of the anti-Yanukovych radicals.”
Hurbiy
“Yes. What do the Ukrainians want, asks the lurker made flesh.
The simple answer is that the neocons don’t care.
_____________________
What you wrote was simple (in the negative sense of that word) but it wasn’t an answer. Why are you afraid to engage with the lurker made flesh?
The facial expression of Hilary is giving non-verbal signals to the person waved to. Almost identical to the facial expression of the Ukrainian bloke. As I said, I have got numerous examples I found. I really do not think that photo is evidence. That of course does not mean the man is not far right. I really don’t know if he is or not. The Kiev government is a motley coalition of far righters, oligarchs and some academic “technocratic” types.
Tovarish!
“Well I happen to live here in Europe and would rather not be fucked!”
____________________
Have you ever considered the possibility that your mind is already fucked up? They tell me some apples might be the cure….
Craig
“Who is he with? I agree that’s pretty relevant.”
The bloke on the left is Oleh Tyahnybok, leader of Svoboda, a fascist group, and he enjoys fascist saluting as well.
He’s quite central to the thug operation and indeed the new govt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleh_Tyahnybok
“At least we may now refer to habby and crew as “Eminences”, were we so childish and bothered.”
It’s the flip-side of the LP “Revolutionary songs for Putinistas”
Ben “Sadly, by throwing his lot in with the neo-nazi thugs of the Brown Revolution, Klitschko showed” quote from the article you list. Actually gives no evidence of an alliance between Klitschko and the far right, other than the fact they both opposed Yanukovich. Well, I opposed the Iraq war and so did the BNP. Was I in alliance?
So many people on these threads think that by linking to some fool of their own political persuasion they enhance their case. All to do, I think, with the Left’s traditions of “democratic centralism” and appeal to authority. Most common symptom is that, because some utter fool wrote nonsense about the importance of the (militarily derelict) Russian Black Sea Fleet to the situation in Syria, I don’t know what I am talking about for not referencing that absolute pile of irrelevant bollocks
Here’s Yats’ friend, Oleh, in all his glory, in the Daily Stormer, no less.
There’s much more where this came from, I’m afraid.
http://www.dailystormer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Svoboda-party-Oleh-Tyahnybok..jpg
From Craig
“In fact I only twigged this morning that several of the Putinistas here are BNP.”
____________________
D’you know, I never thought of that -remiss of me!
I had thought that the Eminences were simple West-haters, or deluded arseholes, or mere useful idiots, but this thought of yours would actually explain several aspects of their posts. Like their worship of rasPutin as the proverbial “strong man”, standing up to those evil foreigners plotting to do done the Reich (sorry, I meant Mother Russia).
“..to do down..”
Who was worser; Neville Chamberlin or Winston Churchill?
That link doesn’t seem to work. I wonder why.
Anyway here he is again:
http://www.israelunseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/oleh.jpg
Herbie
I don’t think it is in doubt that Tyahnybok is far right. Not quite sure what you are trying to prove. But I think you have to try much harder to prove links between him and the other chappie than one rather suspicious photo.
“Most common symptom is that, because some utter fool wrote nonsense about the importance of the (militarily derelict) Russian Black Sea Fleet to the situation in Syria, I don’t know what I am talking about for not referencing that absolute pile of irrelevant bollocks”
Pretty sure that was my foolish notion. Sevastapol and Tartarus are the only ice-free ports available to Russia; hence of strategic importance. Do you think I’m the only entity who recognizes?
A Node says
“If the electors fold their voting paper before posting it, nobody can see who they’ve voted for.”
_____________________
You’re so right! You have solved the riddle of “why transparent boxes” – it’s to encourage voters to fold their voting papers!
Sorted! LOL
Nonsense people. Next they will claim that Ukrainians do not exist as a nation and that their nation is historical error. Stop. Wait a minute. This has already been said.
Nonsense people.
A Node
“Craig, take it as a healthy sign that many of your regulars are not slaves to your opinion. Labelling and smearing us is below your usually high standards.”
_________________
And smearing Craig (“drunk”, “mad”, neocon”,”FCO stooge”…) is well up to your own usually low standards.
So, Craig
When you asked me:
“Who is he with? I agree that’s pretty relevant.”
You meant what exactly?
I merely provided an answer.
In the interest of openness I link this picture from Ukrainian Truth which supports Craig’s position that it might be a wave. It is not the way I wave but I concede it could be the way Yatsunik waves.
http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2013/06/17/6992353/
It does not change my belief that these are western-funded usurpers of a legitimately elected government for their own political ends. They are not the products, in my opinion, of a popular movement.
“They are not the products, in my opinion, of a popular movement.”
It was a popular movement of ‘anything is better than this’, and the opportunists highjacked, John.
Ben
Of course I assume you have never heard of Novorossiysk, Taman, Tuapse, Vladivostok, Kallingrad? All these are warm sea ports and first 3 are in Black See where Russia has larger see line than Ukraine.
It is easy to claim when no knowledge exits. It is easy to brainwash when no knowledge exists and when blind stupidity exists.
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2014/03/russian-troop-exercises-near-current-ukrainian-border.html
Flypaper………