This is the same American corporate press which will collectively wig out over a stage layout at CPAC that supposedly resembles an ancient Norse rune used as a Nazi symbol (https://archive.is/5w1iK), or flamboyantly accuse a staffer seen making the "OK" sign at the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing of utilizing "Nazi dogwhistles." (https://archive.is/xdvP7)
But a Totenkopf patch designed by a company named Reich is just an unfortunate coincidence of bad optics. Sure.
It's just pure power politics. It's ok when we do it and we decide when it's not ok. We'll dishonestly use nazi smears on our opponents and cover up legit Nazi concerns amongst our allies.
"If one looks back over the past quarter of a century, one finds that there was hardly a single year when atrocity stories were not being reported from some part of the world: and yet in not one single case were these atrocities – in Spain, Russia, China, Hungary, Mexico, Amritsar, Smyrna – believed in and disapproved of by the English intelligentsia as a whole. Whether such deeds were reprehensible, or even whether they happened, was always decided according to political predilection.
The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. For quite six years the English admirers of Hitler contrived not to learn of the existence of Dachau and Buchenwald. And those who are loudest in denouncing the German concentration camps are often quite unaware, or only very dimly aware, that there are also concentration camps in Russia. Huge events like the Ukraine famine of 1933, involving the deaths of millions of people, have actually escaped the attention of the majority of English russophiles. Many English people have heard almost nothing about the extermination of German and Polish Jews during the present war. Their own antisemitism has caused this vast crime to bounce off their consciousness. In nationalist thought there are facts which are both true and untrue, known and unknown. A known fact may be so unbearable that it is habitually pushed aside and not allowed to enter into logical processes, or on the other hand it may enter into every calculation and yet never be admitted as a fact, even in one’s own mind." - Notes on Nationalism - Orwell
Go to YouTube The Grayzone live. It ran last Friday. It has a picture of Rachel Maddow squinting into a camera. No episode number. When I ran the link YouTube told me it was no longer available. The second time it took me to the main page and the report was there.
Because of Ukraine's history prior to, during and after WW2, people in Ukraine sometimes believe the Nazis were better than Soviets.
In Reality, Ukrainians simply want neither a Russian or a Nazi in their country period.
But it should surprise no one that some Ukrainians see wearing Nazi symbols as a ginormous FU to Russian soldiers rather than wearing it as a Nazi allegiance. It is the middle finger to their "liberators" from the Nazis. Get it?
If the Ukrainians are Nazis, why did they overwhelming elect a Jewish president. Whey did only 2% of the people vote for Svoboda, the ethnic ultranationalist party with some openly Neo-Nazi elements.
After Stalin collectivized Ukrainian farmers in the 1930s and did nothing to alleviate a famine that killed up to 5 million Ukrainians in the Holodomor genicide, many Ukrainians looked upon the German army as liberators in 1941 and joined a Nazi-inspired insurgency that lasted until 1952. If you had lived in Ukraine during WWII, you might have joined too given the difficulty of a moral choice between Stalin's Communism and fascism. Fascism was a big movement everywhere in Europe at that time; the fascists won a civil war in Spain.
Today there are few Neo-Nazis in Ukraine and they have no influence in the government. Nevertheless, Putin wants you to believe that every anti-Russian Ukrainian is a Nazi. His attack on Ukraine, the war crimes his forces have committed, and the terror air attacks on cities far from the front have made every Ukrainian anti-Russian.
I agree and view Ukraine, other buffer countries as the victims of geography. It’s terrible, the loss of life saddens me but what are we to do about it? Especially when grifters, war profiteers are making policy.
Ukrainian and Russian (and Belorussian) are mutually unintelligible languages that have developed since a proto-Eastern Slav language was spoken in Kievan Rus a thousand years ago. Are Spanish, French and Italians the same people because they were all part of the Roman Empire and speak languages derived from Latin? Of course not. Are the Dutch, Germans, Austrians, and Swiss the same people because they were part of Charlemange's Medieval Carolingian Empire that existed about the same time as Kievan Rus? Of course not. Putin has fed you BS.
The Ukrainian people were mostly independent from the Russia people to the north for more than 500 years after the fall of Kievan Rus to the Tatars. Then, like Lithuanians, Poles, Finns and many other peoples we now recognize as non-Russian, they were FORCIBLY incorporated into the Russian EMPIRE by Catherine the Great. As elsewhere, they attempted to Russify Ukraine with immigrants and ethnic cleansing. That didn't make Ukraine Russian any more than it made Poland, Lithuania and Finland Russian.
70% of the people in Ukraine have been raised speaking Ukrainian at home; 30% speaking Russian. That percentage does increase the further East one goes in Ukraine, but there is no line or geographic feature that separates the Russian dominated areas from Ukrainian. The only legitimate border is the one that has been recognized since the USSR was formed and ratified by Russia in the Budapest Memorandum in 1994. Due to their domination of the Ukrainian people, Russian is the language of the big cities and the elite; Ukrainian is the language of the countryside and ordinary people. Zelensky grew up speaking Russian.
You may be underestimating the exponential growth in propaganda tools since his time. The Wright Brothers would not be able to fly an F-35 today either.
They reap the social/political rewards but pay no financial price for their never-ending propaganda. If the traditional conservative opposition to boycotts is turning to support, we might finally see a change.
The Grandfathers of the nationalist movement in Ukraine that assumed power in the 2014 coup were Nazi era collaborators. This included forming SS units to round up Jews and fight the Red Army, and included two full divisions of Ukrainian soldiers who helped the Third Reich man the Atlantic Wall in France, where Ukrainian soldiers battled the D-Day landing forces on Germany's behalf. Yes, you read that right. Allied forces on D-Day fought Ukrainian troops who were part of the Third Reich. Today's Ukrainian nationalists are Nazi-loving and hate Russians for among other things "race mixing" and not remaining "true Slav's." Those are their ideas, not mine. No amount of MSM whitewashing is going to cover up why Ukrainian units have Nazi symbols or hide the fact that this current Ukrainian government and its thugs are fully fueled by hate and are brutally amoral.
As far as I’m concerned the whole battalion could be manned by acolytes of Mother Teresa and there still would be NO COMPELLING AMERICAN INTEREST IN THIS BORDER DISPUTE. End the war, stop the slaughter.
And they wonder why Israel won't take a firm stand on this war. We have a complicated history with both countries, much of it negative. So, we'll watch this latest struggle from the side-lines as much as possible. Find it strange that people like Biden don't get it (Israel's position).
This has also been a GREAT way for the Biden family to further their money laundering opportunities in Eastern Europe, which seems to be the family business? Funny how the progressive "left" in America are all in on grift and warmongering now.
Israel did take a stand when it opposed the Russian invasion. It also has provided millions in humanitarian aid to Ukraine and, more recently, is training Ukrainian soldiers on missile defense batteries (the training is happening in Poland).
Unlike the NATO countries, Israel has no military alliance that could send allied soldiers to fight at its side (in fact, its doctrine has always been to be able to fight its own conflicts by itself). Among its difficult balancing acts is having Russia in Syria (didn’t Obama abandon Syria to its fate as one of Iran’s “equities” in the region?) Also there is a large and vulnerable Jewish community in Russia.
Israel has been managing things quite well, all things considered - as opposed, say, to the Palestinians (whether the PA, Hamas or the other terror groups) that are four-square behind Russia. And why not, they all deny the peoplehood, independence and history of their opponents (Russia with Ukraine, the Palestinians with Israel) and seek their destruction as sovereign nation states. So let’s not forget the context.
The past does weigh on both Ukraine whose citizens in most cases collaborated with the Nazis in seeking out and murdering their Jewish fellow citizens. All one can say is that their anti-Communism was used to erase their Nazi sympathies in choosing their 20th century heroes.
While today’s Ukrainians should not be treated as if they were the perpetrators of anti-Jewish atrocities, they do need to reckon with their country’s past. For starters, Zelenskyy can apologize to the Knesset for that part of his speech in which he ludicrously claimed that the Ukrainians as a whole helped save the country’s Jews. I for one won’t hold my breath.
Israel is managing quite well compared to the Palestinian terrorists? Never mind they're practicing apartheid and that's not just me saying it it's literally every single human rights organization on the planet. Israel is a bellicose right wing piece of shit. No amount of your whitewashing is going to change that.
You are referring to the treatment of Palestinians that are not Israeli citizens? That's not apartheid. The Palestinians consider themselves to be citizens of their own independent, Palestinian state, not Israel. Mostly, they are not even willing to recognize the existence of Israel. They refuse to even use the word Israel, only ever referring to is as "the occupier" or "the zionist entity". Facts.
These are two nations at war. They have been at war for a long time. The Palestinians have done a good job of recruiting the NGOs to take their side by casting the issue as human rights abuses or apartheid. That's ridiculous. Israel does not need to afford equal rights to belligerents on the opposing side, who are prosecuting a war against Israel.
I'm not trying to say that Israel's policies are beyond reproach, but massaging the definition of apartheid to try to simply dismiss their legitimacy altogether is just sloppy, motivated reasoning. It's a complex situation and, unless you are willing to engage that complexity, you are just another loud person taking the fashionable lefty stance on an issue you are mostly ignorant about.
LOL what a load of utter gibberish. The Palestinians are under complete control by the Zionist government of Israel. Zionists created the Palestinian State and installed Hamas specifically so they could label all Palestinians terrorists and thus excuse their vile inhumane treatment of them. Your understanding of Apartheid and the geopolitics of that region are woefully lacking. You're just embarrassing yourself with commentary like this.
You are aware, aren’t you, that both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch departed from the internationally recognized definition of “apartheid” and invented one that not only ensnares Israel but, if they felt like applying the standard across the board, would include most Western countries.
Your intemperate language suggests a mind impervious to taking on any facts that don’t fit your pre-conceived narrative. Nevertheless, you may wonder why both Freedom House and The Economist’s Democracy Index rank Israel where they do (and ahead of some Western European countries) and neither sees anything approaching “apartheid” however defined. Neither entity is known for any pro-Zionist bias, so don’t bother with that argument
Israel needs no help from anyone in ensnaring itself. Ad hom is not welcome on these threads but your retreat into it surely invite it.
Your posts are completely stereotyped. You go to ad hom immediately. And you talk about what is a nice look?
The ratings of Israel as a democracy discredit the raters and suggest they are not objective. And your comments about apartheid and its definition are reminiscent of the relentless attempts by the US to change definitions of genocide. Preposterously, given the atrocities committed on their Natives.
Maybe you should take your complaints up with The Economist and Freedom House.
As to your analogy to the US attempting to change the definition of genocide (though I’m not sure of the context, Rwanda? China? Myanmar?), you perhaps didn’t realize that AI and HRW are in the position of the US in trying to alter an internationally accepted definition.
"Freedom House advocates for U.S. leadership and collaboration with like-minded governments to vigorously oppose dictators and oppression, and strengthen democracy around the world. We amplify the voices of those struggling for freedom in repressive societies and counter authoritarian efforts to weaken international scrutiny of their regimes.
From their website. Laughable on its face. Neolib/neocon funded propaganda outlet for US imperialism and the MIC.
And the Economist's pet "democracy" project is another arm of their MIC propaganda outlet.
Quoting either in support of the Zionist government of Israel demonstrates conclusively that you are a bellicose purveyor of MIC propaganda and a vile zionist yourself.
Here's AI's definition of apartheid, would you reject out of hand with no analysis or evidence whatsoever.
"Apartheid can best be understood as a system of prolonged and cruel discriminatory treatment by one racial group of members of another with the intention to control the second racial group. democracy around the world."
According to your "analysis" this is not a legit definition of apartheid. Only a Zionist would find fault with this because they are the ones practicing apartheid.
My point is that there is an international definition under which Israel is simply not an “apartheid” state or anything approaching it which is precisely why AI and HRW had to invent a more expansive definition - which they apply to no other country which should be the ultimate tell for the fair minded observer.
For those actually interested in the definition under international law, here’s the link to the UN Convention.
The other issue with the NGO reports is that much of what passes as supporting evidence has been shown to be demonstrably false or shorn of all explanatory context. But you’re entitled to your opinion nonetheless.
Apartheid? Where are the Jews in Palestinian territory on the West Bank? Cite a post-'48 example of any Muslim country having Jews, when they formerly had major Jewish populations. Apartheid much? Or just ethnic cleansing? Pick your poison.
You mean they took a few shekels from the billions of dollars American taxpayers give them every year ( < one days interest?) and passed it on to the Ukes?
It’s a bad look when you respond to an imaginary post that suits your fantasy rather than to what was written. What evidence do you have that Israel is sending money to Ukraine? In other words, you claim a “fact based skepticism” without providing any facts. What I wrote is pretty easy to confirm.
For what it’s worth, you don’t gain any credibility by resorting to the strange shorthand of “Ukraine.” But perhaps your goal is not to be taken seriously.
Huh? I was writing for the reading enabled. This is from you -“ Israel did take a stand when it opposed the Russian invasion. It also has provided millions in humanitarian aid to Ukraine ”.
It was your first sentence. I was simply replying to it.
It’s not every day that someone describes their own post as imaginary. Fantasy? Are you unwell? If so may you have a speedy recovery.
I see, apparently you misread “millions in humanitarian aid” not as in-kind aid but as “millions to buy their own aid.”
If you also want to say that all money is fungible, then I guess every time Israel sends its disaster relief teams and field hospitals to a country in need, that Israel redirecting US dollars.
Aside from engaging in the silly “-washing” rhetoric, it is evident that you have no actual knowledge of how Obama’s military assistance package with Israel works.
I don't think so because there's never been even a whisper of such action and you can be sure if there were the NY Times would have it on the front page. Their hatred of Israel and Jews in general is pretty dysfunctional.
That’s false. Israel was portrayed in an absurdly romanticized fashion for decades, but in recent years that’s changing as people start to understand the Palestinian side of the story.
What side? The Palestinians have been offered a state many times and they have walked away. What more is there to say? And the longer they wait the worse it gets but that's their fault. They are not victims. They chose to be where they are.
I realized what you're saying is nonsense over 20 years ago when I saw map of that "state' which was a spider web of Israeli controlled roads with check points and settlements (which have only expanded since then)... it was the definition of an apartheid state then as now. No different than the economically, politically and militarily isolated enclaves the South African government had set up during their Apartheid.
People write long articles and even books about the Camp David talks in 2001- 2002. They fell apart for reasons nvolvinf all sides.
And nobody forces Israel to keep building settlements. If their boy concern was security, they wouldn’t have built any in the first place.
And anyway, if you have to say “ what side”, it suggests you can’t be bothered to do any reading about the other side. You could visit the B’Tselem website, which documents the crines of all factions. You could read the Israeli historians who describe what happened in 1948. Etc. You could even read Palestinians speaking for themselves.
The Palestinian narrative is well understood and has been repeatedly advanced ad nauseum. As a consequence, no one is surprised by the Palestinians’ full fledged support of Russia in seeking the destruction of its Western-looking neighbor. Seems like a “birds of a feather” situation.
While your thinking about it, remind us all of the Arabic word (not the Western loan word of Palestine) by which the Palestinians refer to their “ancestral” homeland. After all, every national liberation movement has an indigenous word for their homeland ... except the Arabs of Palestine. Why is that?
I hadn’t seen that argument before. So it is okay to expel people and steal their land if, according to you, they don’t have an appropriate label for the area where they live.
Nationalism is a modern disease, or so I understand. I have zero interest in supporting anyone’s nationalism or in this case, I have zero interest in either supporting Zionism or Palestinian nationalism. But I can recognize major human rights violations committed in their name. Israel is not the squeaky clean democracy that only wishes to live in peace.
And that’s all I am going to say here. I jumped in because one person was claiming the NYT hates Israel, which is ridiculous.
Their disdain for Jews goes along with their disdain for other minorities. I think we're about to see a real tidal shift because they have absolutely shit on all of these voting blocs that they considered safe to such an extent that they are not nearly as safe.
What “position” are you suggesting that Israel is taking that lines the pockets of US politicians? More to the point, do you have any evidence for your claim or are you pretending to just ask an innocent question, the better to hide your Israel as puppet master trope?
Orwell died in 1950. I was born in 1948. I was brought up labor zioinist religion was for the birds. Orwell in his essay on Nationalism said Israel would become a Fascist state and he evens describes the mechanics. It is a chilling essay.
B/c Israel is up to it’s ears with oligarchs, crooks, gangsters, shady businessmen and ordinary dual citizens of both Ukraine/Israel and Russia/Israel? It’s not about Nazis in the least, it’s about both combatant countries being intimately tied together with Israel socially and financially.
That's a pretty cynical view of things and while I agree to some extent there are also many of us who remember the actions of Russians and Ukrainians throughout our history.
I live in Canada. We are a liberal democracy and Fully Democratic according to the Wikipedia Democracy Index. The USA, France, Israel are not among the Fully democratic nations.
I read Orwell he is a great Western Philosopher who fought against tyrants his whole life.
WE have been in a cold war against the Saudis since Freeland was Minister of Foreign Affairs and whose side is your neoliberal Empire supporting?
You live in a democracy? I seem to remember Freeland and Trudeau not only freezing the bank accounts of protesters but also of anyone who contributed to their fund raising efforts. That doesn't sound like democracy to me (not to mention the covid b.s.....)
I live in a town where truckers live. One lives across the street. We had a party for the dissident truckers but 85 % supported Trudeau and Legault. That is liberal democracy.
Our truckers are educated and they believe in Canadian democracy not the Feudalism of the American Empire.
You are an American living in a neoliberal theocracy with a gifted ministry of truth.
George Orwell fought fascism his whole life and was a giant philosopher whose essays told us how to write about politics.
Russia is a neoliberal theocracy as is your Empire.
Canada is in a cold war with Saudi Arabia's theocracy and America is on the side of the Saudis. Here in Quebec refugees are welcome from Saudi Arabia, Russia and Ukraine. In fact we welcome all refugees Cubans. Haitians and even Americans but Freeland and Trudeau believe in liberal democracy and have the support of 70% of Quebecers and Quebec isn't even liberal. Our government is conservative and to the left of Bernie Sanders and has been social democratic since the Quiet revolution of the 20trh century.
We support Ukrainian sovereignty.
We fear American Nationalism it is fascistic and theocratic.
I don't always support our Liberals but I trust their motives are justice and responsible government. I usually vote more socialism and less neoliberalism and consider America our greatest existential THREAT and I love America's people I even married one.
I married a philosopher little knowing Americans greatest fear is truth and science.
The SS had tremendous success recruiting volunteers from Belgium and Holland during WW2, France was allied with the Nazis and most of the German population were collaborators and “Hitler’s willing executioners”. Croatia had some embarrassing moments, too. Human tribal instincts and hate mongering are not to be trusted and war is hell (there will always be atrocities) and should be avoided.
To say that France was "allied" with Nazi Germany is to confuse an occupation with an alliance. I very much doubt that the population celebrated being ruled by the German military, terrorized by the Gestapo, and having its resources expropriated at gunpoint, its young men forced to labor for the Germans, and two million of its soldiers held hostage as prisoners of war.
Yes, the " independent" southern part of France, i.e., Vichy France, had a de facto collaborative administration, but I doubt its citizenry welcomed being ruled on behalf of the Germans.
There was a French government in exile that took control of French colonies, an independent navy, (which had to be neutralized by the British for fear it might fall into German hands), a volunteer French force fighting with the Allies, and an underground resistance, the Maquis. I'm not aware of a volunteer French force -- certainly a significant one -- fighting on behalf of the Axis powers, but am open to being corrected.
There was a police force. And they deported Jews on behalf of the Axis. There also was an army that peaked at 550,000 men by 1942. But you could have googled that.
My point was not to defend Ukrainian Nazis nor to say modern day France is Nazi, but to encourage some humility amongst those feeling smugly superior to people living in nations who were long under autocratic rule…..because when we were under autocratic rule we sometimes actively collaborated, sometimes passively collaborated and kept our heads down and very rarely “resisted” (and even then it was often in the pay of autocrats from the other side). How many Russia. people would be brave enough to oppose Putin?
Humans on war footing can quickly become evil. War should be avoided where possible. Hate mongering and “othering” is to be condemned. Autocracy, censorship and cancellations is to be stomped out. That is my point.
Thank you for the link. In reading it, it appears that the French army to which you refer was a German-supervised interior force whose purpose was to control the French population and defend French territorial independence abroad. Yet the German military suspected its loyalty to the Reich, and Hitler ordered it disbanded in '42.
My objection is to call an occupied country, with a puppet government that cannot be said to legally represent a subjugated population, as "allied" with its Nazi occupier; it's a misuse of the word. Yes, there were elements in France that collaborated with the Nazis, but saying France was "allied" with the Nazis during WWII is simply historically incorrect.
I'm pleased to see that the Dutch farmer's fighting the EU takeover of agriculture are winning control of their Parliament. And some Dutch leader's are calling for a separation from the EU. Their organized resistance to oppressive government seems to be having an impact.
It’s not as popular in Ukraine as some think. We have our own Nazis, white supremists, etc. it just hits closer to home in Ukraine, as Natalia and Treeamigo point out. And maybe we just enforce a stricter uniform code for our own military...maybe we’d see the same if not?
It's more complicated than that but yes there were many ultra-nationalist and pro-Nazi elements in Ukraine, especially the Azov Brigade. However, choosing between Hitler and Stalin is no easy decision in history. At the same time the Ukrainians were notorious for being among the most ferocious of the concentration camp guards/workers.
Ukranians did have to pick between Hitler and Stalin, and it was a horrible choice..
I often think what would I choose if I were in that situation? Not an entirely abstract question for me as my family was torn by these events..
Some Ukranians chose Stalin. Some chose Hitler. Many chose to simply fight for their land…
Speaking of those Ukrainians fierce. Yes, they are more fierce than us, Russians, which goes both ways. When it goes a certain way not only they were fierce in concentration camps they were also pretty fierce during the often referenced kulakization that caused Holodomor.
The mother of famous Soviet film director Gregori Chukhrai (he has an Oscar nominated film) Claudia Chukhrai was a Ukranian actively participating in de-kulakizatin of her fellow Ukranians. She wasn’t alone.
My grandparents lived through the Holodomor while my grandfather served in the Red Army, and then fled Ukraine in 1944 after Von Manstein used their house as his HQ for a week on his retreat west.
People did what they had to do to survive. Fwiw, my grandparents signed a petition on in the initial Nazi occupation of their village to release the local Jewish doctor b/c he was the only doctor around. That worked about as well as you might think. I have a great uncle who died at Stalingrad in the Red Army-he was severely wounded and had a goat stomach transplanted into him at a veterans hospital, while my grandparents and aunt spent a minute in Dachau when they fled west to Germany-while leaving my uncle behind in Ukraine.
Oh, dear what a story and what an utter tragedy!! I store all those stories in my heart all the time, they are my constant reminders of the fragility of life.
My mother in law was 5 when Germans stationed in her Ukranian village. She fell of the fence and broke her wrist. Her mom sent her to the Nazi doctor for the lack of better alternatives. The Nazi doctor fixed her bone.... She grew up and worked as an OB surgeon and retired at the age of 78. You never knew whom and what you would encounter in those days.
My grandmother lived through Holodomor as well, only in Russia. It was the same brutal expropriation of private property as it was in Ukraine, only it was less publicized. The de-kulakization took place in Russia just as well, but it must have been less noticed, because Ukraine traditionally had better farm habits since Ukraine has better farmlands. There is even a special term for it: Chernozemie (literally translated as black soils, meaning fruitful soils); the territory of Ukraine was not affected by the ice age, with its glaciers taking a deep layer of fruitful soils, as it happened in many areas of Russia. This is why farming was historically more successful in Ukraine and their de-kulakization appeared more dramatic. But the famine that followed grant social experiments of the Bolshevik regime severely affected populations of both, Russia and Ukraine.
Going back to the original question of the post, the request to cover Nazi symbols among Ukrainian fighters is sickening. There is a special brand of hopelessness about this lack of honest reporting. And with the blowup of the dam today in Kherson, this hopelessness is taking to the next stage.
They disliked Russia because the Russians were fellow Slavs who left home, fought off the Poles, the Swedes, the Mongols, breached the Urals and settled in the Far East, went to Alaska and all the way to California. They are the brothers who left home and even went to space. They hate the Russians in a family kind of way because Ukraine has been eclipsed. And yes, Russia eventually absorbed Ukraine by the pleadings of Ukraine's own elites who needed protection from the Poles and Habsburgs. Most of Ukraine's territory today was gifted to it by Soviet era leaders in order to make being part of the USSR more palatable. Problem was, these areas were lived on primarily by ethnic Russians in towns founded by Russian monarchs. This led to an explosion of hatred and resentment post 1991 because these people didn't want to be part of Ukraine. That's why this war is happening: a Russian friendly government elected in Ukraine was overthrown by nationalists in 2014 who have a strict view of what Ukrainian society should be and went about engaging in an anti-Russian pogrom.
The area has been contested for centuries. Some Slavs don't want Russian suzerainty. I doubt it has anything to do with jealously of the accomplishments of Russians.
If that were true than why is Ukraine trying to alter history books editing out Russian accomplishments? Why are ethnic Russians born in Ukraine suddenly "Ukrainian" in Western museums? Why is Ukraine altering maps to pretend that some ancient Ukrainian state existed in Russia's place? It's not myth-making to confirm historical reality: Yuri Gagarin was Russian, Fort Ross California was settled by Russia, Vladivostok isn't a myth, it was founded by Russia, and Russians won World War 2 while much of Ukraine set it out or actively collaborated with the Third Reich. Of the USSR's 26 million deaths in the war well more than 20 million were ethnic Russians.
Having "won" WW2 with a great deal of material support from the US, the Russians expanded their empire into Eastern and Central Europe. I doubt there are any Poles today who feel any great gratitude to the Russians. Having suffered at the hands of both the Nazis and Stalin there is little desire for Russian suzerainty in Eastern or Central Europe.
If Russian achievements are being removed from Ukrainian text books that is hardly just. Russian civilization contributed significantly to European art, music, literature, and science. Certainly the Wehrmacht was broken on the Eastern Front. Russia has much to be proud of. That said, maintaining its empire and colonies is no longer feasible. At this stage, Russia needs to consider whether it is a part of Europe or a vassal of China.
In an age of nuclear weapons no nation is going to invade Russia (or China) in the manner of Operation Barbarossa.
You should research WW2 more. Lend Lease provided the USSR with some 11% of the war material used to prosecute the war. The USSR produced some 89% of all material used for the war effort and nearly 100% of items for civil use. What the USSR did use from the West was paid for in full, the last check being paid by the Russian Federation, with interest, in 2006. Westerners love to try and take credit for a WW2 victory where Russians did the bulk of the fighting and dying but Western histories pretend that the War in the East was a sideshow, ignoring the fact that more than 80% of German resources were deployed in that direction, including manpower. Russian expansion into Central and Eastern Europe post war was understandable when viewed from the lens of alliance politics; create a system out of those states or watch distant enemies come and do the same, turning them into hostile bastions close to your borders. We have watched this play out since 1991 and events have justified Stalin's fears, certainly.
I agree about some degree of protection for nuclear states, but it's the USA government who doesn't. It is they who withdrew from the ABM Treaty and who publically declared the principles of "Prompt Global Strike" and "Full Spectrum Dominance." Russia's strategic defense buildup since 2005 is a reaction to these stated programs, including hundreds of new Russian ICBM's and SLBM's designed to evade missile defenses. One of the ways Russia paid for this was to downsize the Army. The USA participation in the 2014 coup, the fueling of nationalist elements in the Ukrainian state and security forces can be seen quite rightly as an American effort to go around Russia's strategic arsenal and attack Russia using a large proxy force, fueled by hate.
China is not interested in taking in Russia as a vassal state. To China, Russia is little more than a not-very-exotic middle eastern bazaar, where they go to buy, with a little haggling, a few things they want and need: oil, gas, coal, minerals, maybe some wheat and barley. Hard to conceive of a bigger pain-in-the ass for a nation than having to wet-nurse Russia as a vassal state.
We have been liking and disliking each other for over a thousand years, that included fighting, eating, celebrating, marrying and having kids together.
Ever meet a survivor of the Holodomor? I have met lots.
The irony being that the most ardent promoters of russophobia in Ukraine are the Galicians. Galicia was under Polish control during the 1930s, where there was no Holodomor. The Ukrainian nationalists of the time knew, but paid little significance, since, like the fascists that they were, they were all about The Nation whilst being indifferent to the fate of the people living in it.
In fact, the areas of Ukraine that suffered the most were some of the least Ukrainianized.
But, since we're talking about historical events here, why are the people Iraq or Vietnam not entitled to hate the US?
Some of them certainly do. But in my experiences long after the war in Viet Nam, many in the south appreciated the real sacrifices made on their behalf by Americans. Up north, not so much...
I can only report my experiences. I didn't meet every person in the country. I was surprised by it though. You may also recall the Boat People. Those people had to leave after the war because they would receive zero government services. They were ostracized and left to die for being on the losing side. War is not recommended.
It was more than being on the losing side. They betrayed their own country to side with an invader that killed ?3 million Vietnamese, dropped more bombs on them than were dropped in all of WWII, rained illegal chemical weapons on them, caused epidemic congenital malformations, landmined their farms, defoliated their jungles, carpet bombed their neighbours, whored their women, and ruined their society and if Goldwater and ?Hillary Clinton had had their way, they would have nuked the peasants. The thousands of Amrtican war criminals who ran and executed these atrocities have never done hard time, not even Calley who mowed down an entire village of women, children and old people.
Wash your mouth out with soap and go visit the war museum in Ho Chi Minh City.
How about the survivors of the same famine that Ukrainians (Stalin was born in Georgia) called the Holodomor but from other regions like Kazakhstan which also suffered? It was a complicated situation. I recommend Yasha Levine's substack where he has discussed it and how it was really kinda invented over here in the West. Also this guy has a more strident take. https://leohezhao.medium.com/myth-of-the-holodomor-11df0c62aec0
Uh, my Ukrainian grandparents, from the Sumy area, could personally attest to the Holodomor NOT being a “Western” invention. The commissars and cannibals were not media inventions. But thanks for your input in this thread Mr. Duranty, always good to see The NY Times maintaining it’s high standards…..
No further comment big guy? You're generally pretty loquacious yourself. Is this an admission that you have Nazi collaborator Ukrainians in your family tree or just that you don't know? You've never not replied for more than 12 hours. We're worried! SLAVA BANDERA!!! I've provided you with a lot of information, so I understand if it's difficult to process quickly! PROOF OF LIFE, Stxbuck!!! And say hi to your banderite granny!
I don’t know what kind of twisted rabbit hole you are trying to shove your head down. I can sleep at night just fine with whatever happened with my relatives in WWII, and not provide moral cover for a piece of shit like Putin and his cronies in the 21st century. If being a propaganda bot for his agenda floats your boat, go for it, you are one deluded individual on the interwebz.
"Canada is not however “most nations”, but has rather had the misfortune of hosting some of the most virulent groups of rabid ultra-right wing Ukrainian fascists who were transplanted into the Prairies and west coast by Anglo-American intelligence networks in the wake of WWII.
Today, many of these 2nd and 3rd generation Banderites control powerful institutions like the Ukrainian Congress of Canada (UCC) and have bred such confused and dangerous ideologues as Canada’s own Deputy Prime Minister (and leading Rhodes Scholar) Chrystia Freeland who sees no shame in her grandfather’s leading role as a Nazi collaborator in WW2 or in holding up right wing flags associated with the fascist Organization for Ukrainian Nationalists at a recent rally in Toronto."
"Acting from the epicenter of this fascist nexus in Alberta, Professor MacDonald has courageously decided that “enough is enough” writing on the topic of the famine which Ukrainian fascists have mis-labelled a “genocide targeting Ukrainian nationalism”. In his controversial facebook post, MacDonald wrote that “it was the Hitlerite Nazis who created the famine myth in 1933 to discredit the Soviet Union, the enemy they most feared. The Nazis wrote front page stories in German newspapers, which were then taken up by the reactionary British press.”
Within his very useful writings, there is something vital which Professor MacDonald fails to bring up.
The British Hand Behind Holodomor (and Nazism)
For those who are not aware, the two figures most responsible for the “on the ground evidence” of Holodomor were two journalists named Gareth Jones and Malcolm Muggeridge. By looking at these two figures, we should not be surprised to find ourselves bumping into the highest echelons of a British think tank named the Round Table, which acted as the guiding hand behind the rise of Nazism."
Freeland! And the following...we get ourselves the subject of some of Taibbi's most fruitful blogging....CANCEL CULTURE!
"In his controversial remarks professor MacDonald asked how could such a myth continue to be perpetuated for 70 years after the defeat of fascism to the extent that Canada has passed bills which recognize Holodomor memorial days? Here, the professor noted the Anglo-American operation to transplant leading SS war criminals into Canada saying:
“In Canada, former Nazi collaborators and their spawn have long led the phony Holodomor campaign. After the Second World War, Canada became a haven for Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazis and killed their own citizens to serve Nazi aims. Once in Canada and with the help of the Canadian state, these war criminals built reactionary domestic organizations (e.g. the UCC) which persist to this day. These organizations displaced already-established progressive Ukrainian organizations. Some collaborators achieved high positions, for example, Waffen SS member Petro Savaryn served as VP of the national PC Party and was Chancellor of the University of Alberta for four years.”
Of course the Ukrainian Student Association has demanded the Professor be fired saying in an open letter “we call upon the University of Alberta to immediately reprimand and terminate Dougal MacDonald for anti-Ukrainian hate speech and denial of Holodomor”."
And a well researched book on the topic (free download).
Maybe you missed the part about the famine stretching well beyond Ukraine and into Kazakhstan and other areas of the USSR. The term itself was coined here in the West (with Nazi assistance) by Ukrainian refugees, after the fact. The "myth" part primarily refers to how it is "remembered" by the Ukrainian community today as though they were the only ones or even primarily the ones affected by the famine. Holodomor excludes everyone else who suffered. It is also a "myth" because as it is told, it implies full intent of genocide, directed only at Ukrainians, on the part of Stalin and his regime, when in fact it was largely a combination of dumb mistakes and pseudoscience forced onto the people of USSR out of sheer stupidity, not malice.
I recommend the whole article, but here's a relevant passage, and Yes. The fucking word is a "western invention" - sorry to break it to you. I know it's difficult when we are forced to re-contend with long-held opinions and understanding of history.
"the term Holodomor came into being only in the late 1980’s, conjured up by Ukrainian nationalists trying to fan the flames of Ukrainian independence from the Soviet Union in its final years, in short, a fake word used to define a fake narrative.
The famine that swept through the Soviet Union in 1932-33 was very real—there is no denying this. But it was not an isolated event, but rather part and parcel of the Stalin-driven policy of forced collectivization of agriculture. During the period of forced collectivization between 1930-37, Robert Conquest estimated that some 14.5 million peasants lost their lives; of these, some 5 million were Ukrainians who died during the famine of 1932-33.
These are horrible numbers, reflective of human tragedy and suffering of an unimaginable scale. Robert Conquest’s groundbreaking work, The Harvest of Sorrow, has served as one of the primary sources behind the resurgence of Ukrainian nationalism in the late 1980’s. Indeed, as Conquest himself concluded, “Stalin…saw the [Ukrainian] peasantry as the bulwark of nationalism; and common sense requires us to see this double blow at Ukrainian nationhood as no coincidence.”
But even Conquest had to admit that this conclusion was pure speculation on his part. “As to Stalin’s personal guilt,” Conquest wrote, “we cannot document the responsibility in the sense of any decree exists in which Stalin orders the famine.”"
Here's another article on the matter, also with a relevant excerpt:
"The whole thing is rather absurd but what makes it even more absurd is that the whole narrative started off not from Ukraine but from Canada. An unknown author started writing about this historical incident in the mid 1980s and came up with the term. There was not even a word Holodomor before that.
Come to think of it, Ukraine did have a reason to blame one country for genocide which was not Russia but Germany in fact. Shall we remember a very transparent and public plan Ost which talked about the fact that 30 000 000 Ukrainians should be brutally obliterated in any way imaginable so that Germany can advance eastward into the territory of the USSR. There is also a proven genocide in Babi Yar when the Germans killed 30 000 Jews merely because they were Jews. There was a hidden agenda to literally get Ukrainians and the local Jews at each other’s throats in another instance of “divide and rule.”"
In fact it gets really complicated. William Randolph Hearst - a prominent pro-Nazi and anticommunist - gladly spread the legend far and wide with his papers.
"Remarkably, the roots of the “Holodomor” (“deliberate starvation”) myth lie in the longstanding Cold War standoff between Soviet Russia and the West. After the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, infamous Nazi collaborators — members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and their paramilitary UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) units — fled into Western Europe and the United States, escaping punishment for their hideous crimes, including ruthless terror against peaceful Jewish, Ukrainian and Russian civilians.
In 1949 the CIA and the US State Department sponsored the OUN-UPA leaders’ immigration to the United States, planning to use them as subversion groups and intelligence agents in the Cold War against the Soviet Russia."
Tell your grandparents I said "Hi", "Slava Ukriane!" ooh, aaaand "Praise Bandera!" Do you happen to know if they were Nazi collaborators? I'm not even kidding, a huge number of Canadian and American Ukrainians in fact were, and it has likely been swept under the rug of family history and even "forgotten."
Essentially - and this is an opinion I share with others is that:
1. The concept of the "Holodomor" whereby it was coined here in the West by Nazi collaborating Ukrainian "refugees" is that it's Nazi/fascist propaganda, clearly tied to Nazi/fascist propagandists and Nazi/fascist collaborators who make no secret of it. WRH was truly a Nazi/fascist scumbag.
2. Its use was initially to discredit the Soviet Union and it was recently resurfaced here and in Ukraine following the Nazi/fascist Maidan coup of 2014 as a means of smearing Russia/Russians and inflaming Ukrainian ultra-nationalism, which of course led to the current war.
3. It's used in the same way as an accusation of "anti-Semitism" is used in order to silence those with whom the people using it disagree and to "cancel" people in the EU, Ukraine and US/Canada.
4. Based on scholarly research, both into the initial allegations, the fraudulent photographs and news stories used to promote it, including by WRH papers and research into the Soviet archives that were declassified after the fall of the USSR, it's also completely fake, but based on a kernel of truth - as much propaganda and many "conspiracy theories" tend to be. Stalin did not intend to murder millions of Ukrainians any more than he did the many millions more of other citizens of the USSR who perished in the famine. Stalin was a brutal totalitarian, but he was also Georgian so he'd have no reason to wipe out a bunch of people in his home country.
P.S. since I've written a novella of my own here, I would like to point you to a real genocide: The so-called Irish Potato Famine, which was perpetrated by mercantile capitalists and bankers in England against the peasants of Ireland so as to wipe them out.
One has to wonder why someone would fight against Russia. Expecially after centuries of enduring war. There is a reason the USSR was so big. Because the Russian empire conquered many people.
No it didn't. The West conquered many people. All over the world. Russia settled in lands all across Siberia and even the Pacific Northwest of North America and never once herded anyone into an Indian reservation. Russians founded communities without trying to conquer every tribe they encountered. Russia has a history of being invaded but has very little history as an invader. You are switching around who did what to whom. Africans say over and over that Russians were the first Northerners to treat them as people.
I have read about that. And Russians did battle Native Siberian tribes too. The expansion outward nearly always leads to conflicts. But in the pantheon of European expansion and conflict with the "other" Russians acted the least atrocious among all. Russians generally fought defensive engagements outside their Forts which grew in Russian cities and Russians declined broadly at assaulting native communities. And even today, there are no Siberian Indian Reservations. Native Siberians are Russian Federation Citizens and live in cities in their own communities. Russia's defense minister is himself a member of one of these minorities, a fact that has subjected him to hate filled comments in Ukrainian Telegram channels and militia videos. And Russia's exploitation of native labor was bad but it wasn't slavery and exacted far less economic price or blood than the British-American slave trade, slavery in America, or the brutal costs of the Raj in India. You are trying to make Russians into the American West or the British Empire and that's untruthful to a huge degree. It might not have been fair or even pretty but Russians East of the Urals were saints compared to European-American standards of conduct.
Sure. There's a lot there to dislike, including Russian Fur Companies forcing Inuit to hunt for them with little compensation, and even some battles when natives attacked Russian settlements but never once did Russians massacre anyone or conquer their villages. In all the time Russians spent on Hawaii they never overthrew the Queen and annexed the islands, as the Americans did in the 1890's. Reading List:
Journal of Early Modern History: "Political Claims, an Extensible Name, and a 'Divine Mission': Ideology of Russian Expansion in Siberia"
"The Russian Fur Trade 1550-1700" by Raymond Henry Fisher"
Andrei Grinev Val'terovic translated by Richard Bland "Russian Colonization of Alaska: Preconditions, Discovery, and Initial Development 1741-1799. University of Nebraska Press.
MissAnneThrope for what it’s worth I live in PNW. Have engaged in conversation with elder Russians while walking around an Orthodox Russian cemetery. Also agree with Ricky’s other comments. Hard for me to understand why Americans get so enmeshed with the slaughter of peoples in other countries while “ not remembering” the past & yes even present atrocities done to ( outdated label btw) Native Americans.
I think you will be waiting a long time, then. The history of Russian expansion from the time of Peter the Great until the collapse of the Soviet Union is well known. Russia conquered Finland and the Baltic States, took its chunk of Poland (and suppressed several revolts in the 19th century), grabbed parts of the Ottoman Empire (including the Caucasus and up to Crimea) among other things. The sparsely populated Siberia could not resist Russian military advances. There’s a reason that today the bulk of Putin’s conscripts for his Ukraine war came from the Russian hinterlands and not Russia proper. It’s suggestive of how Russians value their non-Russian fellow citizens.
As to the views of Africans, it was more a consequence of Russian “anti-colonialism” which itself was a policy directed more at weakening the West than out of any regard for the long suffering Africans.
That the West is hardly without sin does not exonerate Russia. Invoking a phony Russian past doesn’t help clarify matters either.
Taking a big dive into pool of stereotyping people are you? Woke culture including the NYT does this often and common sense Americans find this behavior offensive. They find something to fit the narrative of the day and use it to destroy the target of the day.
“The claim that neo-Nazi or far-right groups hold any significant power in Ukraine is absurd,” according to Jared McBride, an adjunct history professor at UCLA whose work specializes in nationalist movements and mass violence and genocide in Russia and Ukraine.
For reference this symbology historically is called memento mori an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death. The concept has its roots in the philosophers of classical antiquity and Christianity, and appeared in funerary art and architecture from the medieval period onwards. The symbology has been used by military units, marking poison bottles, and pirates. Not buying what you are selling.
I'm actually not sure what you're trying to say. But one thing I do know is that a relatively small cohesive group of ideologically committed, violent people can influence and even take over a government. In Nazi Germany, it was called the Night of Long Knives. In 2014 in Ukraine, Neo-Nazi thugs from the Right Sektor, etc. helped topple the Ukrainian government and committed such atrocities as in Odessa, setting a building on fire filled with opponents of the new right wing Ukrainian government the US helped install. And since then, also with apparent CIA help, set up the kill list website filled with politicians who dared express an interest in compromise / negotiation as well as journalists, cultural figures and over a hundred children... including international figures added to that kill list like Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters, former weapons inspector Scott Ritter and Grey Zone journalist Max Blumenthal.
According to the Guardian, on May 2, 2014, "the seizure of the trade union building was the violent culmination of a day of street battles in this Black Sea resort city. The clashes reportedly began after protesters gathering for a rally in support of a unified Ukraine were attacked by pro-Russia activists armed with clubs and air pistols."
Note the Pro-Ukrainian rally was attacked by Pro-Russian activists. This event is not even remotely like "Night of Long Knives."
"Police largely stood aside as the two sides hurled Molotov cocktails, cobblestones, and bricks at each other. Girls as young as fourteen were smashing cobblestones to break them up into missiles of a manageable size. Combatants on both sides were armed with body armor, helmets, and shields and carried baseball bats, chains, metal bars, and air pistols." This description sounds like the Antifa summer of 2020.
Both sides acted poorly, the police were ineffective, and the outcome was tragic. The tragedy was not a one-sided event; whereby this account, more than 30 people died. Shamefully, it seems more like a tragic week in Chicago.
What I am trying to say is I see no evidence the Ukrainian government is controlled by Nazis (whatever that means today), small elements of society will act out everywhere in the world, and stereotyping a race or nation is evil. Yet, that happens here at home by our elected representatives on a daily basis.
So may we assume from the contents of this laundry list of historical minutiae you seek to identify a problem? And that the answer to that problem might be a Russian annexation of Ukraine and development into a de facto client state?
And besides what you mentioned, there were many Ukrainian guards at the death camps and the Bandera led units killed over 130,000 to 200,000 Poles in ethnic cleansing campaigns in western Ukraine in addition to participating very actively in the Final Solution.
Ukrainian history, like all history, is complicated and messy. 3.5 to 5 million Ukrainians died in the forced collectivization of farms undertaken by Stalin and the Soviet Union, which is why Ukrainians fought for Germany. Ukrainian soldiers wearing Nazi insignia today have the deaths of their countrymen and ancestors as part of their historical memory. What should be clear is that they are fighting to defend their country. That does not make any Nazi ideology that they profess acceptable, but needs to be acknowledged as part of the horrible nature of this war.
Most of their country that they are fighting to "defend" was gifted to them in 1922 and 1957 by USSr's leaders. This included millions of ethnic Russians living in cities and towns founded by Catherine the Great. Factual detail. Another factual detail? Ukraine has been shelling and using military force against ethnic Russian communities inside Ukraine for the past eight years. Even after an agreement was reached to provide these areas autonomy, and secure their language rights Ukraine refused to honor the deal and made excuses. The Ukrainian President bragged on TV that Russian children would hide in basements while Ukrainian children would go to school. Both Hollande and Merkel admitted in filmed interviews that the agreements were just a ruse in order to arm Ukraine to the hilt. This isn't self-defense of a country, it's political-military cover for a pogrom to which Russia finally responded with force after trying diplomacy for seven years.
Listen to you try to justify allying with Nazi's and committing atrocities because Soviet agricultural policy was a disaster. Really, read what you wrote again. This impulse is why the USA is looking the other way at the Nazification of Ukraine's armed forces and why Western media are asking Ukro soldiers to cover up their patches.
Nazi symbols aside, The Ukrainians have a rich and, arguably ajustified hate of Russia. In fact most countries that once were under the iron fist of the USSR feel that way about Russia today.
Nonsense. Most of those countries conspired with outside powers to attack Russia long before the USSR. Baltic States invaded Russia and fought a battle on a frozen lake 1,000 years ago trying to take Pskov from the Muscovy body politic. Swedes invaded Russia. Poland invaded Russia several times, once using a Catholic actor pretending to be the long lost heir to the throne. Poland later allied to Napoleon in the 1812 invasion hoping at long last to secure wide areas of Russia for itself. Italy, Hungary, the Balts, Finland, Romania, and Ukrainians all joined the Third Reich and sent armies to aid Germany. Romania's Barbarossa Army force surpassed a quarter million men. In the Baltics hard core Reich supporters among the Baltic populations took part in murdering thousands of Russian children, many in torture camps and medical experimentation. 26 million USSR citizens died in the war, the vast majority of them Russian. Compared to that history the Soviet Administration of Eastern Europe was downright benign.
Please forgive my impudence I am autistic not educated. My great great grandparents fled Ukraine during the Russian Pogroms I know my history and know my Empires. I know Crimea in 1853 when the Russians tried to overthrow the Turks in Crimea. I know Twain's Russian Journals. Twain thought in Yiddish.
A Russian oligarch is a Russian oligarch is a Russian oligarch.
It is always dangerous to be a Jew in the Russian Empire.
No one can accuse Mark Twain of anti Semitism he was very public Judeophile and being a fan of Frederick Douglas makes him very liberal in the world of philosophy.
The patches, that I found on an image search, all had volknut patches below the skull in a helmet patch. The volknut is germanic but it originates 1000+ years prior to the nazis.
Also, I wasn't aware of the Ukrainian "race" mixing with Germans. (I am well of the historical presence of Germans in the Ukraine but that's the thing, they were Germans who happened to be in the Ukraine not Ukrainians).
The words “Hamas” and “terrorist organization” appeared together in New York Times articles only 13 times during the year. The words “Israel” and “apartheid” appeared together 39 times, although Israel is not an apartheid state and Hamas is a terror organization, officially, according to the US State Department,
Why would anyone care who the US government calls a terrorist organization?
As it happens, though, Hamas is a terrorist organization and Israel practices apartheid. I am not a big fan of the NYT— for many years they whitewashed Israeli brutality. But now that several human rights organizations say that Israel practices apartheid, including the Israeli organization B’ Tselem, the NYT reports it.
However, the editors still published a NYT editorial claiming that Israel is a democracy with we we share common values— perhaps true if you include the uglier ones along with the good.
Good that you keep your eyes on “The Jews” and those “brutal” Israelis. Wave that flag of Jew hate since it is low morals and bigotry that puts your harsh focus only on The Jews. All the other countries are more moral and democratic?.....maybe comment on Uganda and their hate law against LGBTQ that passed last week. No they are poc and you focus on The Jews solely. In Israel where pride is practiced unlike the entire Middle East. Criticism is good just spread it around that way it won’t appear as Jew Hated.
Don’t be absurd. It is possible to notice that a great many countries violate human rights, but in the case of Israel people like you immediately assume that anyone who notices Israeli brutality is fine with the brutality of other countries.
I mostly focus on the crimes of the US and it’s Allie’s and in recent years the worst has been the US supported Saudi war on Yemen. But there are also the sanctions we impose on various countries which do nothing except cause suffering for ordinary people. And yes, Israel also deserves criticism.
But that is enough time wasted on your bad faith argument.
I’d put my first-hand friends and travel experiences so far above your selected flywheel of BS... You’ve made up your mind. I know exactly why. Pretty common. Go read The Grey Lady Winked. That’s a good primer.
And I did notice you changed the subject from clear manipulation by journalists to Israel.
Somehow my other reply didn’t show— anyway, it is absurd that you think only one side complains of bias. You don’t seem to know anything about this topic except your firsthand experience.
As for the rest, having grown up in the South I know how little first hand experience is worth— you could grow up white in the South and not know anything about the ugly history of your own background.
The Israeli government intentionally installed Hamas so that they could label the Palestinians terrorists as they themselves became what they claim to hate the most. Racist apartheid practicing monsters.
And somehow, when responding to charges of antisemitism, it's relevant that Zelensky was born Jewish but irrelevant that Trump's daughter and grandchildren are Jewish.
They're the ones the ADL represents. You know, the same ADL that said it was impossible to “make an inference about the wearer or the Ukrainian Army” just because they sported Nazi symbols. Impossible!
That's the thing- the Nazi paraphernalia may very well be meant as an extreme middle finger to Russia, but the media shouldn't be suppressing it (if you oppose Putin as I do, you shouldn't want to cede the high ground of truth to him), and it's bizarre to see these establishment lefties excuse it.
Ha ha, I also went from Bernie Bro Nazi to Trump Maga Nazi. Gotta love it. Meanwhile, Biden is absolutely the worst president in my lifetime that started with Eisenhower. And Bernie turned out to just be controlled opposition.
Considering how Biden handled COVID (when was the last time you heard anything about vaccines? Testing?), and that he sicked the Fed on the working class to solve inflation by giving all our money to the billionaires and openly destroying jobs, AND he immediately tried to start WW3 at the first possible time, I no longer view the Dems as the lesser evil.
Especially when he was entertaining a few friends on a bus, and they were recorded laughing. I was still surprised it didn’t kick him out of the 2016 primary.
It's important to realize that according to the New York Times only people who disagree with the reporters politically can be Nazis. J6 rioters are Nazis, anti-trans parents are Nazis, don't say gay bill supporters are Nazis, but Freedom Fighting Ukrainians with swastikas, deathheads, runes, 88 patches/tattoos/embroidery etc. can't be Nazis, because the New York Times supports the Ukraine war. However, Putin and Russians who don't have swastikas, deathheads, SS logos, runes, 88 etc. patches/tattoos/embroidery are 100% Nazis, because the New York Times is against them.
well, we are causing the problem. Taiwan ordered billions in arms from us years ago and paid for it and we're giving it all to Nazis instead. President dumbkopf
Agree. We have surrounded the Sea of China with military bases and then pretend to wonder why China objects! No China is entering Cuba and we have no basis on which to object. Not that I would anyway.
And, my God, now for reasons that mostly have to do with the unbelievable greed of our elites, we are in a forever war with Russia, with the progressive-left and their "peace caucus" as water carriers. I have never felt a movement de-legitimized faster or more effortlessly than their stance on this war and on the Covid lockdowns, both just in the service of a shadowy, evil elite. They really seem appallingly idiotic and simple; the whole lot of them AOC, etc.
During a NYC newspaper strike (I think it was around 1978) a parody edition called “Not The New York Times” appeared and its moniker was “All the news that gives you fits, we print.”
Roger Waters has to be investigated for performance art where he dons a Nazi uniform to protest authoritarian dictators and war, yet this is perfectly ok? I think this should be explored in James Comey’s next novel.
Have you seen the Wall or been to his recent show? He is absolutely protesting war and authoritarianism.
Israel has a right to exist (I guess) but so do Palestinians who have been living under an apartheid like regime on the West Bank for decades.
The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to be illegal under international law. Those are facts which Waters is merely serving up to spread awareness.
Ouy, there is no apartheid. All Israeli citizens have equal rights. Non citizens can come work in Israel if they don't kill us, hence border control. The Palestinians have been offered their own state many times and have turned it down. Their motto "from the river to the sea". Do you even understand what that means? There are 22 Muslim Arabs states. Do the Jews not get even one?
Their land? Who was their president? Where were their borders? It was all Pan-Arabism back then. The Lebanese, Jordanians, Syrians, etc all just plain old Arabs. After 1948 when they attacked Israel and lost they suddenly became Palestinians (which previously had been the term for Jews in the Middle East). But don't bother to educate yourself.
yes .....what about every other country that occupies others like China does Tibet ? But it isn’t those amoral “Jews” you can shame! Criticizing Israel is OK but your obsessive focus may be Racist
Indeed the Muslim groups stole the land from the Israeli people, who had lived there for thousands of years before the Muslims came into existence. Yet Muslims are more free in Israel than in any other Middle East country.
Indeed Muslims are freer in Israel than in any other country in the Middle East. They serve in parliament and in the government. They worship freely. They can fly nonstop to Saudi Arabia for their pilgrimage.
The Palestinians suffer under the control of the terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah which are largely funded by Iran (and thus indirectly by the U.S. through Obama's deal).
Deliberate misspelling of your disgraced Leader but just keep banging the drum that all things are because of “the Jews” and complaining that you are stopped from Hating Israel by reasonable citizens. Waters may be a 70s proto Nazi Oldies act for you and your clan but we still love Pink Floyd in spite of this Throwback proto Nazi
This is the story of the genocide by the Ukrainian People (Nazis) who mass murdered my family and all Jews in Kiev. Still an underlying nazi country (Zelensky married to a christian) that is a failed state that funded the Biden Crime Family. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bila_Tserkva_massacre
Remember when the MSM was in hysterics, claiming on the basis of no evidence other than Ukrainian say-so, that the Russians had, for no particular military reason, attacked the Babi Yar Memorial?
The Israeli Ambassador had to state that the Memorial was untouched.
We American Christians, Catholic Orthodox Protestant, helped defeat the Darwinist Racist Nazi War Machine, and the Racist Darwinist Master Race Japanese War Machine. My Uncle Tom Devereux on USS North Carolina, our family’s Chinese American Catholic friend and godfather to my younger son Bob Fong US Navy (1926-2018 RIP Bob).
Of course the Russians/Soviets bore the greatest brunt in WWII, over 25 million soldiers and civilians killed.
I personally find that insignificant too (his wife's religion). What I do find significant is that Zelensky's main funder for his original campaign was an oligarch who also funded the Azov Battalion and as Seymour Hersh has reported that Zelensky has siphoned off millions and millions of dollars of US aid. All of which indicate that Zelensky is a corrupt collaborator in a nationalistic right wing government with significant Neo-Nazi influence.
The mainstream media uses the fact that Zelensky is Jewish to deflect charges that Ukraine has a Nazi problem. The fact that he's married to a Christian and baptized his children in the orthodox church shows that he's really not much of a Jew. So the argument is weak.
None of this is any secret to anyone even sort of paying attention.
The German military recently had to remind the Ukrainian conscripts it is training that displaying Nazi symbols and regalia is a serious offense in Germany.
For that matter, the Oh So Not Nazi That's Just Russian Propaganda Azov sponsored a neonazi "music festival" in Kiev in September, 2021. We have since been duly assured that they have reformed, just as soon as they became useful.
Also there are no institutional obstacles to getting clear information. Just take a look at the myriad of Telegram channels. There are thousands and thousands of channels with 1st person content being uploaded by people on the front lines. The hard part is getting someone in official capacity to actually put their name on what is really going on. The big story this week is that Russia blew up the Ukrainian intelligence HQ after the attacks on Moscow by Ukraine. There were probably several NATO officers inside the HQ. Many years ago the US put a bomb through the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade because the Chinese were sharing intel with the Serbs, officially it was an "accident".
The real story is that Ukraine is losing this war badly, there is cemetery after cemetery full of dead Ukraine soldiers. We just haven't seen those kinds of images coming out of Russia... and YOU CAN'T HIDE A CEMETERY. Military commissars are grabbing people off the street left and right in Ukraine. Ukraine just reversed its policy of allowing POW to not have to go back to serve on the front-lines. Ukraine has killed 2 proxy armies and is now running on fumes. 35k foreign trained soldiers are coming back for the spring "counter-offensive" but there are serious questions about whether Ukraine can actually even mount any kind of offensive after a year-and-a-half at war. In the meantime Russia has pivoted to a war-time economy and has over a 1 million troops trained and ready to attack. But the war propaganda machine in the US is pumping the same crap it was pumping out during the Afghanistan war.
Yeah, this is the second time Matt has suggested that this war isn't being covered when in fact this war is being covered more than any prior war.
It's just mostly on Telegram, and you have to piece things together from conflicting on-the-ground sources and then higher level analysis of media and weapons shipments etc.
There are various analysts looking at maps daily, citizen reporters, smaller You Tube analysts etc.
The war is being covered and it's got shit to do with Ukrainian "embedding" rules.
Colonel Douglas Macgregor, Michael Vlahos, Big Serge (substack), there are a ton of Russian embedded journalists, Alexander Kots to name one of many. Embedded journalists have always been problematic as "covering" a war. They only cover one side. What is interesting about this war is that none of the institutional global news is willing to discuss even the most rudimentary aspects of the war. At the same time, several western journalists were shot up trying to go to the front lines in the beginning of the war so fair enough that they don't want to go see the front lines.
Glenn Greenwald had a good piece at the beginning of the Ukraine war saying basically "remember there is no propaganda like war propaganda, be careful of anything you read or hear". That's when the Ghost of Kiev was supposedly shooting down half-the-Russian Air Force, Putin was going to be deposed within 2 weeks, Putin had cancer and was going to die, the entire Russian military had been decimated etc etc etc.
The simple technique of creating cognitive dissonance was used to prevent people from pointing out what was known since the beginning. One would simply have to suggest, "these allegations you're making have been associated with Russian disinformation." That was enough to spook most people and prevent them from falling down a "rabbit hole." Most of Western narrative control relies on clever nudges like that.
In reality, the Nazi thing was very clear and transparent from 2014 onwards. But is the West allying itself with hardcore virulent Nazi contingents to achieve its geopolitical aims really that surprising? Operation Gladio is worth revisiting.
I had an experience I mentioned here back in April— the NYT published a piece quoting a Ukranian official who implied that all reports of Ukranians shelling civilians, going back to 2014, were Russian propaganda. I linked to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reports from 2015 which said both sides were shelling civilians indiscriminately.
The NYT didn’t publish it. I wrote it three times, was very polite, and in the meantime other people’s comments ( opinions on both sides but without facts) were published, but mine, which disproved the premise of the story, wasn’t.
I won’t say this is absolute proof of deliberate censorship, but it probably was. For one thing, anyone who even casually followed this story back in 2014-2015 would have know this. So aside from my comment, the NYT deliberately chose to leave out facts which would contradict what their Ukranian official was claiming.
I am sure the NYT engages in censorship. I too have been "censored".
Statements from me along the lines of "Many working class people have every right to feel betrayed by the Democratic Party given the corporate policies effectuated by the Clinton Administration", never see the light of day.
That’s interesting. My comments are usually published, but I try to walk on eggshells if I criticize the NYT specifically and sometimes those comments are published. And sometimes not.
One asshole at the trucker convoy waves a Nazi flag = they are all Nazis. Multiple accounts from multiple divisions of Nazi symbols = please take it off for our propaganda machine.
I'm not sure about the incident you are referring to with the trucker convoy, but I know that at the lockdown protests in Michigan, the only flag with a swastika on it read, "Heil Whitler," clearly comparing Governor Whitmer to Hitler because of her draconian lockdown measures. This was blatantly obvious to anyone with half a brain. What did the governor do? State that she was disturbed by the Nazi imagery at the protest, of course.
The Nazi flag in question was describing Justin Trudeau as a Nazi. But just like Roger Waters, comparing authoritarians to Nazis makes you the Nazi. If you're on the wrong side of the CIC.
Ofcourse. The same newspaper which claims all of US history, except their 1619 project, is revisionist, now has to make some convenient revisions to the Approved Cause.
For that matter, The Guardian had a gushing photoshoot of female Ukrainian paramilitaries a few years back, one in which The Graun feigned ignorance of the significance of the 14/88 patches that these women sported.
Hell, I don't exactly travel in skinhead circles, but I know what that means.
And I lived in Ukraine for much of my adult life, and yes, the place was crawling with Nazis, then and now.
Feral Finster is there an urban/rural divide in Ukraine like here in the States? Looking at satellite images of the Donbas region it looks like our farm country with small towns. If it's like here I would guess you have some hard-working, God-loving, and independent people that don't give a shit about the political side of the war but just want to grow crops and take care of their family. Poor conscripts on both sides are dying in a rich man's war.
Good question. The rural/urban divide in Ukraine isn't all that regional, although when I lived there, Galicians (especially those not living in Lvov) were seen as hillbillies. Eastern Ukraine is itself fairly urbanized but there are lots of farmers, and the conscripts in the Ukrainian army are mostly country boys. This is because they have less pull with the government and no money to bribe their way out of service.
And yes, a lot of people do not want to be dragged into this war. Probably the best way to explain it is that Europe is seen in Ukraine (and Russia) as The Land Where Institutions Basically Work. Whether and to what extent this belief has any basis in fact or not is irrelevant - it's the perception that matters.
For Ukrainians, if the price of being admitted to that magical land was to hate and murder their kinsmen, well, plenty of them were willing to pay that price. This is also one reason why Russia is so loathe to escalate. They don't want to smash Europe, they want Europe to come to its senses. They don't hate Europe, in many ways, they'd like to be a part of it.
I should add that originally, the Russians employed volunteers on six-month contracts (which in turn shows that, whatever else has happened in Ukraine, it wasn't all part of some Eleven Dimensional Russian Grand Master Chess Strategy). Later, regular army units were used, along with mobilized reservists.
This is the same American corporate press which will collectively wig out over a stage layout at CPAC that supposedly resembles an ancient Norse rune used as a Nazi symbol (https://archive.is/5w1iK), or flamboyantly accuse a staffer seen making the "OK" sign at the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing of utilizing "Nazi dogwhistles." (https://archive.is/xdvP7)
But a Totenkopf patch designed by a company named Reich is just an unfortunate coincidence of bad optics. Sure.
It's just pure power politics. It's ok when we do it and we decide when it's not ok. We'll dishonestly use nazi smears on our opponents and cover up legit Nazi concerns amongst our allies.
That's their advantage, because they have the access. I doubt a truly independent journalist would be allowed in
Only a racist one
A company named R3ICH should probably not be read as “Reich” but as “3 Reich”, as in “Third Reich”…
First Rule of Tribal Thinking: Everything We do is good.
Second Rule of Tribal Thinking: Everything They do is bad.
Easy, eh?
"If one looks back over the past quarter of a century, one finds that there was hardly a single year when atrocity stories were not being reported from some part of the world: and yet in not one single case were these atrocities – in Spain, Russia, China, Hungary, Mexico, Amritsar, Smyrna – believed in and disapproved of by the English intelligentsia as a whole. Whether such deeds were reprehensible, or even whether they happened, was always decided according to political predilection.
The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. For quite six years the English admirers of Hitler contrived not to learn of the existence of Dachau and Buchenwald. And those who are loudest in denouncing the German concentration camps are often quite unaware, or only very dimly aware, that there are also concentration camps in Russia. Huge events like the Ukraine famine of 1933, involving the deaths of millions of people, have actually escaped the attention of the majority of English russophiles. Many English people have heard almost nothing about the extermination of German and Polish Jews during the present war. Their own antisemitism has caused this vast crime to bounce off their consciousness. In nationalist thought there are facts which are both true and untrue, known and unknown. A known fact may be so unbearable that it is habitually pushed aside and not allowed to enter into logical processes, or on the other hand it may enter into every calculation and yet never be admitted as a fact, even in one’s own mind." - Notes on Nationalism - Orwell
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/
They are seers,
The New York Times FINALLY decodes Trump's Twitter typos https://www.theblaze.com/glenn-radio/nyt-trump-tweet-typos
https://www.foxnews.com/media/ny-times-op-ed-trumps-twitter-typos-code-extreme-supporters
See.
Ancient runes of the Clan of the Red Cap, deciphered!
GRAYZONE has a new depth report on the issue.
Link?
https://www.youtube.com/live/FOk5VySfRyl?=shar
Just took me to a long list of vids?
Go to YouTube The Grayzone live. It ran last Friday. It has a picture of Rachel Maddow squinting into a camera. No episode number. When I ran the link YouTube told me it was no longer available. The second time it took me to the main page and the report was there.
Those articles are from three years ago.
Yeah, and things are much better now three years later?
Because of Ukraine's history prior to, during and after WW2, people in Ukraine sometimes believe the Nazis were better than Soviets.
In Reality, Ukrainians simply want neither a Russian or a Nazi in their country period.
But it should surprise no one that some Ukrainians see wearing Nazi symbols as a ginormous FU to Russian soldiers rather than wearing it as a Nazi allegiance. It is the middle finger to their "liberators" from the Nazis. Get it?
They are Nazis. No amount of mental gymnastics will change that fact.
Got it?
Buh, buh, buh, "Zelenskyy is jewish!"
Kinda, sorta, maybe.
What a retarded objection to the facts.
In any event, look up "kapo".
Yes Virginia, they are Nazis.
https://rumble.com/v2sb9ca-system-update-show-92.html
If the Ukrainians are Nazis, why did they overwhelming elect a Jewish president. Whey did only 2% of the people vote for Svoboda, the ethnic ultranationalist party with some openly Neo-Nazi elements.
After Stalin collectivized Ukrainian farmers in the 1930s and did nothing to alleviate a famine that killed up to 5 million Ukrainians in the Holodomor genicide, many Ukrainians looked upon the German army as liberators in 1941 and joined a Nazi-inspired insurgency that lasted until 1952. If you had lived in Ukraine during WWII, you might have joined too given the difficulty of a moral choice between Stalin's Communism and fascism. Fascism was a big movement everywhere in Europe at that time; the fascists won a civil war in Spain.
Today there are few Neo-Nazis in Ukraine and they have no influence in the government. Nevertheless, Putin wants you to believe that every anti-Russian Ukrainian is a Nazi. His attack on Ukraine, the war crimes his forces have committed, and the terror air attacks on cities far from the front have made every Ukrainian anti-Russian.
I agree and view Ukraine, other buffer countries as the victims of geography. It’s terrible, the loss of life saddens me but what are we to do about it? Especially when grifters, war profiteers are making policy.
The situation is tragic. I don’t know what to do about it, but I do know letting Russia take over Ukraine is the wrong thing to do
Ukrainians are Russians. This is a civil war.
This is not a civil war.
Ukrainian and Russian (and Belorussian) are mutually unintelligible languages that have developed since a proto-Eastern Slav language was spoken in Kievan Rus a thousand years ago. Are Spanish, French and Italians the same people because they were all part of the Roman Empire and speak languages derived from Latin? Of course not. Are the Dutch, Germans, Austrians, and Swiss the same people because they were part of Charlemange's Medieval Carolingian Empire that existed about the same time as Kievan Rus? Of course not. Putin has fed you BS.
The Ukrainian people were mostly independent from the Russia people to the north for more than 500 years after the fall of Kievan Rus to the Tatars. Then, like Lithuanians, Poles, Finns and many other peoples we now recognize as non-Russian, they were FORCIBLY incorporated into the Russian EMPIRE by Catherine the Great. As elsewhere, they attempted to Russify Ukraine with immigrants and ethnic cleansing. That didn't make Ukraine Russian any more than it made Poland, Lithuania and Finland Russian.
70% of the people in Ukraine have been raised speaking Ukrainian at home; 30% speaking Russian. That percentage does increase the further East one goes in Ukraine, but there is no line or geographic feature that separates the Russian dominated areas from Ukrainian. The only legitimate border is the one that has been recognized since the USSR was formed and ratified by Russia in the Budapest Memorandum in 1994. Due to their domination of the Ukrainian people, Russian is the language of the big cities and the elite; Ukrainian is the language of the countryside and ordinary people. Zelensky grew up speaking Russian.
Joseph Goebbels would not be able to get an intern job in a modern day America.
? He'd be in charge.
You may be underestimating the exponential growth in propaganda tools since his time. The Wright Brothers would not be able to fly an F-35 today either.
They reap the social/political rewards but pay no financial price for their never-ending propaganda. If the traditional conservative opposition to boycotts is turning to support, we might finally see a change.
I don't think the Russian soldiers would be given the same deference.
The Grandfathers of the nationalist movement in Ukraine that assumed power in the 2014 coup were Nazi era collaborators. This included forming SS units to round up Jews and fight the Red Army, and included two full divisions of Ukrainian soldiers who helped the Third Reich man the Atlantic Wall in France, where Ukrainian soldiers battled the D-Day landing forces on Germany's behalf. Yes, you read that right. Allied forces on D-Day fought Ukrainian troops who were part of the Third Reich. Today's Ukrainian nationalists are Nazi-loving and hate Russians for among other things "race mixing" and not remaining "true Slav's." Those are their ideas, not mine. No amount of MSM whitewashing is going to cover up why Ukrainian units have Nazi symbols or hide the fact that this current Ukrainian government and its thugs are fully fueled by hate and are brutally amoral.
As far as I’m concerned the whole battalion could be manned by acolytes of Mother Teresa and there still would be NO COMPELLING AMERICAN INTEREST IN THIS BORDER DISPUTE. End the war, stop the slaughter.
And they wonder why Israel won't take a firm stand on this war. We have a complicated history with both countries, much of it negative. So, we'll watch this latest struggle from the side-lines as much as possible. Find it strange that people like Biden don't get it (Israel's position).
Biden does what his employers tell him. He doesn't give a crap
I.e.--Raytheon, General Dynamics, etc.
This has also been a GREAT way for the Biden family to further their money laundering opportunities in Eastern Europe, which seems to be the family business? Funny how the progressive "left" in America are all in on grift and warmongering now.
Not so far from their KKK days if you think about it. The real thug life
Madison Grant finally has his "progressive" dreams fulfilled!! He must be so happy.
Actually he craps hisself most days.
Ha! so true it's funny
It's hard to tell if he can give a crap after 50 years shiling. Plus, he's basically a ventriloquist dummy at this point.
good point and quite illustrative. Who's hand is up his a$$ you think?
Israel did take a stand when it opposed the Russian invasion. It also has provided millions in humanitarian aid to Ukraine and, more recently, is training Ukrainian soldiers on missile defense batteries (the training is happening in Poland).
Unlike the NATO countries, Israel has no military alliance that could send allied soldiers to fight at its side (in fact, its doctrine has always been to be able to fight its own conflicts by itself). Among its difficult balancing acts is having Russia in Syria (didn’t Obama abandon Syria to its fate as one of Iran’s “equities” in the region?) Also there is a large and vulnerable Jewish community in Russia.
Israel has been managing things quite well, all things considered - as opposed, say, to the Palestinians (whether the PA, Hamas or the other terror groups) that are four-square behind Russia. And why not, they all deny the peoplehood, independence and history of their opponents (Russia with Ukraine, the Palestinians with Israel) and seek their destruction as sovereign nation states. So let’s not forget the context.
The past does weigh on both Ukraine whose citizens in most cases collaborated with the Nazis in seeking out and murdering their Jewish fellow citizens. All one can say is that their anti-Communism was used to erase their Nazi sympathies in choosing their 20th century heroes.
While today’s Ukrainians should not be treated as if they were the perpetrators of anti-Jewish atrocities, they do need to reckon with their country’s past. For starters, Zelenskyy can apologize to the Knesset for that part of his speech in which he ludicrously claimed that the Ukrainians as a whole helped save the country’s Jews. I for one won’t hold my breath.
Israel is managing quite well compared to the Palestinian terrorists? Never mind they're practicing apartheid and that's not just me saying it it's literally every single human rights organization on the planet. Israel is a bellicose right wing piece of shit. No amount of your whitewashing is going to change that.
You are referring to the treatment of Palestinians that are not Israeli citizens? That's not apartheid. The Palestinians consider themselves to be citizens of their own independent, Palestinian state, not Israel. Mostly, they are not even willing to recognize the existence of Israel. They refuse to even use the word Israel, only ever referring to is as "the occupier" or "the zionist entity". Facts.
These are two nations at war. They have been at war for a long time. The Palestinians have done a good job of recruiting the NGOs to take their side by casting the issue as human rights abuses or apartheid. That's ridiculous. Israel does not need to afford equal rights to belligerents on the opposing side, who are prosecuting a war against Israel.
I'm not trying to say that Israel's policies are beyond reproach, but massaging the definition of apartheid to try to simply dismiss their legitimacy altogether is just sloppy, motivated reasoning. It's a complex situation and, unless you are willing to engage that complexity, you are just another loud person taking the fashionable lefty stance on an issue you are mostly ignorant about.
LOL what a load of utter gibberish. The Palestinians are under complete control by the Zionist government of Israel. Zionists created the Palestinian State and installed Hamas specifically so they could label all Palestinians terrorists and thus excuse their vile inhumane treatment of them. Your understanding of Apartheid and the geopolitics of that region are woefully lacking. You're just embarrassing yourself with commentary like this.
Doug -- try Xanax.
You are aware, aren’t you, that both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch departed from the internationally recognized definition of “apartheid” and invented one that not only ensnares Israel but, if they felt like applying the standard across the board, would include most Western countries.
Your intemperate language suggests a mind impervious to taking on any facts that don’t fit your pre-conceived narrative. Nevertheless, you may wonder why both Freedom House and The Economist’s Democracy Index rank Israel where they do (and ahead of some Western European countries) and neither sees anything approaching “apartheid” however defined. Neither entity is known for any pro-Zionist bias, so don’t bother with that argument
Israel needs no help from anyone in ensnaring itself. Ad hom is not welcome on these threads but your retreat into it surely invite it.
Your posts are completely stereotyped. You go to ad hom immediately. And you talk about what is a nice look?
The ratings of Israel as a democracy discredit the raters and suggest they are not objective. And your comments about apartheid and its definition are reminiscent of the relentless attempts by the US to change definitions of genocide. Preposterously, given the atrocities committed on their Natives.
Maybe you should take your complaints up with The Economist and Freedom House.
As to your analogy to the US attempting to change the definition of genocide (though I’m not sure of the context, Rwanda? China? Myanmar?), you perhaps didn’t realize that AI and HRW are in the position of the US in trying to alter an internationally accepted definition.
"Freedom House advocates for U.S. leadership and collaboration with like-minded governments to vigorously oppose dictators and oppression, and strengthen democracy around the world. We amplify the voices of those struggling for freedom in repressive societies and counter authoritarian efforts to weaken international scrutiny of their regimes.
From their website. Laughable on its face. Neolib/neocon funded propaganda outlet for US imperialism and the MIC.
And the Economist's pet "democracy" project is another arm of their MIC propaganda outlet.
Quoting either in support of the Zionist government of Israel demonstrates conclusively that you are a bellicose purveyor of MIC propaganda and a vile zionist yourself.
Here's AI's definition of apartheid, would you reject out of hand with no analysis or evidence whatsoever.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/#:~:text=Apartheid%20can%20best%20be%20understood,take%20our%20course
"Apartheid can best be understood as a system of prolonged and cruel discriminatory treatment by one racial group of members of another with the intention to control the second racial group. democracy around the world."
According to your "analysis" this is not a legit definition of apartheid. Only a Zionist would find fault with this because they are the ones practicing apartheid.
My point is that there is an international definition under which Israel is simply not an “apartheid” state or anything approaching it which is precisely why AI and HRW had to invent a more expansive definition - which they apply to no other country which should be the ultimate tell for the fair minded observer.
For those actually interested in the definition under international law, here’s the link to the UN Convention.
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.10_International%20Convention%20on%20the%20Suppression%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Apartheid.pdf
The other issue with the NGO reports is that much of what passes as supporting evidence has been shown to be demonstrably false or shorn of all explanatory context. But you’re entitled to your opinion nonetheless.
Have you read George Orwell's essay on Nationalism where he describes how Israel becomes a fascist state?
It is a chilling read. Orwell died in 1950 . I was two at the time and just beginning to read.
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/
Apartheid? Where are the Jews in Palestinian territory on the West Bank? Cite a post-'48 example of any Muslim country having Jews, when they formerly had major Jewish populations. Apartheid much? Or just ethnic cleansing? Pick your poison.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
You mean they took a few shekels from the billions of dollars American taxpayers give them every year ( < one days interest?) and passed it on to the Ukes?
It’s a bad look when you respond to an imaginary post that suits your fantasy rather than to what was written. What evidence do you have that Israel is sending money to Ukraine? In other words, you claim a “fact based skepticism” without providing any facts. What I wrote is pretty easy to confirm.
For what it’s worth, you don’t gain any credibility by resorting to the strange shorthand of “Ukraine.” But perhaps your goal is not to be taken seriously.
Huh? I was writing for the reading enabled. This is from you -“ Israel did take a stand when it opposed the Russian invasion. It also has provided millions in humanitarian aid to Ukraine ”.
It was your first sentence. I was simply replying to it.
It’s not every day that someone describes their own post as imaginary. Fantasy? Are you unwell? If so may you have a speedy recovery.
I see, apparently you misread “millions in humanitarian aid” not as in-kind aid but as “millions to buy their own aid.”
If you also want to say that all money is fungible, then I guess every time Israel sends its disaster relief teams and field hospitals to a country in need, that Israel redirecting US dollars.
Aside from engaging in the silly “-washing” rhetoric, it is evident that you have no actual knowledge of how Obama’s military assistance package with Israel works.
That's how the brethren roll here.
What is your problem?
I was responding to the claim that Israel was supporting Ukraine and expressing my fact-based skepticism. What is your problem?
"fact-based skepticism." That's a new one.
The real question is Alison what is YOUR problem?
Zionism.
Does Israel's position line the pockets of our politicians and their corrupt donors as lavishly as pumping money in to democracy?
I don't think so because there's never been even a whisper of such action and you can be sure if there were the NY Times would have it on the front page. Their hatred of Israel and Jews in general is pretty dysfunctional.
That’s false. Israel was portrayed in an absurdly romanticized fashion for decades, but in recent years that’s changing as people start to understand the Palestinian side of the story.
The NYT loves and supports Israel.
That's just a fact.
Just "not enough" for some I guess.
*it's never enough, is it?
I guess we read different editions of the Grey Lady, then. Your claim is belief by the evidence, but I suppose you need to believe what you must.
What side? The Palestinians have been offered a state many times and they have walked away. What more is there to say? And the longer they wait the worse it gets but that's their fault. They are not victims. They chose to be where they are.
I realized what you're saying is nonsense over 20 years ago when I saw map of that "state' which was a spider web of Israeli controlled roads with check points and settlements (which have only expanded since then)... it was the definition of an apartheid state then as now. No different than the economically, politically and militarily isolated enclaves the South African government had set up during their Apartheid.
People write long articles and even books about the Camp David talks in 2001- 2002. They fell apart for reasons nvolvinf all sides.
And nobody forces Israel to keep building settlements. If their boy concern was security, they wouldn’t have built any in the first place.
And anyway, if you have to say “ what side”, it suggests you can’t be bothered to do any reading about the other side. You could visit the B’Tselem website, which documents the crines of all factions. You could read the Israeli historians who describe what happened in 1948. Etc. You could even read Palestinians speaking for themselves.
Bullshit.
The Palestinian narrative is well understood and has been repeatedly advanced ad nauseum. As a consequence, no one is surprised by the Palestinians’ full fledged support of Russia in seeking the destruction of its Western-looking neighbor. Seems like a “birds of a feather” situation.
While your thinking about it, remind us all of the Arabic word (not the Western loan word of Palestine) by which the Palestinians refer to their “ancestral” homeland. After all, every national liberation movement has an indigenous word for their homeland ... except the Arabs of Palestine. Why is that?
I hadn’t seen that argument before. So it is okay to expel people and steal their land if, according to you, they don’t have an appropriate label for the area where they live.
Nationalism is a modern disease, or so I understand. I have zero interest in supporting anyone’s nationalism or in this case, I have zero interest in either supporting Zionism or Palestinian nationalism. But I can recognize major human rights violations committed in their name. Israel is not the squeaky clean democracy that only wishes to live in peace.
And that’s all I am going to say here. I jumped in because one person was claiming the NYT hates Israel, which is ridiculous.
The NYT hates Israel?
Really?
Really?
Prove it.
I'll wait.
Just an example: https://www.camera.org/article/the-abc-s-of-media-spin-the-nyt-and-a-terror-attack/
Not interested in your insane bullshit.
Their disdain for Jews goes along with their disdain for other minorities. I think we're about to see a real tidal shift because they have absolutely shit on all of these voting blocs that they considered safe to such an extent that they are not nearly as safe.
What “position” are you suggesting that Israel is taking that lines the pockets of US politicians? More to the point, do you have any evidence for your claim or are you pretending to just ask an innocent question, the better to hide your Israel as puppet master trope?
Short answer: Yes.
Orwell died in 1950. I was born in 1948. I was brought up labor zioinist religion was for the birds. Orwell in his essay on Nationalism said Israel would become a Fascist state and he evens describes the mechanics. It is a chilling essay.
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/
He said a lot of things. I find it particularly funny when my friends who are totally bought into the new US fascist regime quote Orwell.
B/c Israel is up to it’s ears with oligarchs, crooks, gangsters, shady businessmen and ordinary dual citizens of both Ukraine/Israel and Russia/Israel? It’s not about Nazis in the least, it’s about both combatant countries being intimately tied together with Israel socially and financially.
That's a pretty cynical view of things and while I agree to some extent there are also many of us who remember the actions of Russians and Ukrainians throughout our history.
I live in Canada. We are a liberal democracy and Fully Democratic according to the Wikipedia Democracy Index. The USA, France, Israel are not among the Fully democratic nations.
I read Orwell he is a great Western Philosopher who fought against tyrants his whole life.
WE have been in a cold war against the Saudis since Freeland was Minister of Foreign Affairs and whose side is your neoliberal Empire supporting?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/11/canada-saudi-arabia-support-us
Both Russia and the USA are theocratic and neoliberal.
Read 1984 after reading Orwell's essays.
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/
You live in a democracy? I seem to remember Freeland and Trudeau not only freezing the bank accounts of protesters but also of anyone who contributed to their fund raising efforts. That doesn't sound like democracy to me (not to mention the covid b.s.....)
Have you read Eric Hoffer's The True Believer (thoughts on the nature of mass movements)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15916.The_True_Believer
I live in a town where truckers live. One lives across the street. We had a party for the dissident truckers but 85 % supported Trudeau and Legault. That is liberal democracy.
Our truckers are educated and they believe in Canadian democracy not the Feudalism of the American Empire.
You are an American living in a neoliberal theocracy with a gifted ministry of truth.
George Orwell fought fascism his whole life and was a giant philosopher whose essays told us how to write about politics.
Russia is a neoliberal theocracy as is your Empire.
Canada is in a cold war with Saudi Arabia's theocracy and America is on the side of the Saudis. Here in Quebec refugees are welcome from Saudi Arabia, Russia and Ukraine. In fact we welcome all refugees Cubans. Haitians and even Americans but Freeland and Trudeau believe in liberal democracy and have the support of 70% of Quebecers and Quebec isn't even liberal. Our government is conservative and to the left of Bernie Sanders and has been social democratic since the Quiet revolution of the 20trh century.
We support Ukrainian sovereignty.
We fear American Nationalism it is fascistic and theocratic.
I don't always support our Liberals but I trust their motives are justice and responsible government. I usually vote more socialism and less neoliberalism and consider America our greatest existential THREAT and I love America's people I even married one.
I married a philosopher little knowing Americans greatest fear is truth and science.
The SS had tremendous success recruiting volunteers from Belgium and Holland during WW2, France was allied with the Nazis and most of the German population were collaborators and “Hitler’s willing executioners”. Croatia had some embarrassing moments, too. Human tribal instincts and hate mongering are not to be trusted and war is hell (there will always be atrocities) and should be avoided.
Re: Treeamigo
To say that France was "allied" with Nazi Germany is to confuse an occupation with an alliance. I very much doubt that the population celebrated being ruled by the German military, terrorized by the Gestapo, and having its resources expropriated at gunpoint, its young men forced to labor for the Germans, and two million of its soldiers held hostage as prisoners of war.
Yes, the " independent" southern part of France, i.e., Vichy France, had a de facto collaborative administration, but I doubt its citizenry welcomed being ruled on behalf of the Germans.
There was a French government in exile that took control of French colonies, an independent navy, (which had to be neutralized by the British for fear it might fall into German hands), a volunteer French force fighting with the Allies, and an underground resistance, the Maquis. I'm not aware of a volunteer French force -- certainly a significant one -- fighting on behalf of the Axis powers, but am open to being corrected.
There was a police force. And they deported Jews on behalf of the Axis. There also was an army that peaked at 550,000 men by 1942. But you could have googled that.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_Army
My point was not to defend Ukrainian Nazis nor to say modern day France is Nazi, but to encourage some humility amongst those feeling smugly superior to people living in nations who were long under autocratic rule…..because when we were under autocratic rule we sometimes actively collaborated, sometimes passively collaborated and kept our heads down and very rarely “resisted” (and even then it was often in the pay of autocrats from the other side). How many Russia. people would be brave enough to oppose Putin?
Humans on war footing can quickly become evil. War should be avoided where possible. Hate mongering and “othering” is to be condemned. Autocracy, censorship and cancellations is to be stomped out. That is my point.
Thank you for the link. In reading it, it appears that the French army to which you refer was a German-supervised interior force whose purpose was to control the French population and defend French territorial independence abroad. Yet the German military suspected its loyalty to the Reich, and Hitler ordered it disbanded in '42.
My objection is to call an occupied country, with a puppet government that cannot be said to legally represent a subjugated population, as "allied" with its Nazi occupier; it's a misuse of the word. Yes, there were elements in France that collaborated with the Nazis, but saying France was "allied" with the Nazis during WWII is simply historically incorrect.
There was never a French military force fighting on behalf of the Axis powers---the rest of your post is accurate.
North Africans beg to differ. Google “Armistice Army”
Is Nazism popular in Holland these days?
I'm pleased to see that the Dutch farmer's fighting the EU takeover of agriculture are winning control of their Parliament. And some Dutch leader's are calling for a separation from the EU. Their organized resistance to oppressive government seems to be having an impact.
It’s not as popular in Ukraine as some think. We have our own Nazis, white supremists, etc. it just hits closer to home in Ukraine, as Natalia and Treeamigo point out. And maybe we just enforce a stricter uniform code for our own military...maybe we’d see the same if not?
It's more complicated than that but yes there were many ultra-nationalist and pro-Nazi elements in Ukraine, especially the Azov Brigade. However, choosing between Hitler and Stalin is no easy decision in history. At the same time the Ukrainians were notorious for being among the most ferocious of the concentration camp guards/workers.
Ukranians did have to pick between Hitler and Stalin, and it was a horrible choice..
I often think what would I choose if I were in that situation? Not an entirely abstract question for me as my family was torn by these events..
Some Ukranians chose Stalin. Some chose Hitler. Many chose to simply fight for their land…
Speaking of those Ukrainians fierce. Yes, they are more fierce than us, Russians, which goes both ways. When it goes a certain way not only they were fierce in concentration camps they were also pretty fierce during the often referenced kulakization that caused Holodomor.
The mother of famous Soviet film director Gregori Chukhrai (he has an Oscar nominated film) Claudia Chukhrai was a Ukranian actively participating in de-kulakizatin of her fellow Ukranians. She wasn’t alone.
My grandparents lived through the Holodomor while my grandfather served in the Red Army, and then fled Ukraine in 1944 after Von Manstein used their house as his HQ for a week on his retreat west.
People did what they had to do to survive. Fwiw, my grandparents signed a petition on in the initial Nazi occupation of their village to release the local Jewish doctor b/c he was the only doctor around. That worked about as well as you might think. I have a great uncle who died at Stalingrad in the Red Army-he was severely wounded and had a goat stomach transplanted into him at a veterans hospital, while my grandparents and aunt spent a minute in Dachau when they fled west to Germany-while leaving my uncle behind in Ukraine.
Oh, dear what a story and what an utter tragedy!! I store all those stories in my heart all the time, they are my constant reminders of the fragility of life.
My mother in law was 5 when Germans stationed in her Ukranian village. She fell of the fence and broke her wrist. Her mom sent her to the Nazi doctor for the lack of better alternatives. The Nazi doctor fixed her bone.... She grew up and worked as an OB surgeon and retired at the age of 78. You never knew whom and what you would encounter in those days.
My grandmother lived through Holodomor as well, only in Russia. It was the same brutal expropriation of private property as it was in Ukraine, only it was less publicized. The de-kulakization took place in Russia just as well, but it must have been less noticed, because Ukraine traditionally had better farm habits since Ukraine has better farmlands. There is even a special term for it: Chernozemie (literally translated as black soils, meaning fruitful soils); the territory of Ukraine was not affected by the ice age, with its glaciers taking a deep layer of fruitful soils, as it happened in many areas of Russia. This is why farming was historically more successful in Ukraine and their de-kulakization appeared more dramatic. But the famine that followed grant social experiments of the Bolshevik regime severely affected populations of both, Russia and Ukraine.
Going back to the original question of the post, the request to cover Nazi symbols among Ukrainian fighters is sickening. There is a special brand of hopelessness about this lack of honest reporting. And with the blowup of the dam today in Kherson, this hopelessness is taking to the next stage.
Interesting. Thanks for all of this information
Except that the NYT actually did honest reporting. That is how we know about ineffective attempts at a coverup
Yes; that is a good point.
That's an easy choice, pick Stalin.
Also, since 2014 the new Ukrainian government has been naming streets after and putting up statues of Stepan Banderra.
Probably didn't like Russians for a whole lot of historic reasons including later the Holomodor.
They disliked Russia because the Russians were fellow Slavs who left home, fought off the Poles, the Swedes, the Mongols, breached the Urals and settled in the Far East, went to Alaska and all the way to California. They are the brothers who left home and even went to space. They hate the Russians in a family kind of way because Ukraine has been eclipsed. And yes, Russia eventually absorbed Ukraine by the pleadings of Ukraine's own elites who needed protection from the Poles and Habsburgs. Most of Ukraine's territory today was gifted to it by Soviet era leaders in order to make being part of the USSR more palatable. Problem was, these areas were lived on primarily by ethnic Russians in towns founded by Russian monarchs. This led to an explosion of hatred and resentment post 1991 because these people didn't want to be part of Ukraine. That's why this war is happening: a Russian friendly government elected in Ukraine was overthrown by nationalists in 2014 who have a strict view of what Ukrainian society should be and went about engaging in an anti-Russian pogrom.
The area has been contested for centuries. Some Slavs don't want Russian suzerainty. I doubt it has anything to do with jealously of the accomplishments of Russians.
Seriously, this smacks of Russian myth making.
If that were true than why is Ukraine trying to alter history books editing out Russian accomplishments? Why are ethnic Russians born in Ukraine suddenly "Ukrainian" in Western museums? Why is Ukraine altering maps to pretend that some ancient Ukrainian state existed in Russia's place? It's not myth-making to confirm historical reality: Yuri Gagarin was Russian, Fort Ross California was settled by Russia, Vladivostok isn't a myth, it was founded by Russia, and Russians won World War 2 while much of Ukraine set it out or actively collaborated with the Third Reich. Of the USSR's 26 million deaths in the war well more than 20 million were ethnic Russians.
Having "won" WW2 with a great deal of material support from the US, the Russians expanded their empire into Eastern and Central Europe. I doubt there are any Poles today who feel any great gratitude to the Russians. Having suffered at the hands of both the Nazis and Stalin there is little desire for Russian suzerainty in Eastern or Central Europe.
If Russian achievements are being removed from Ukrainian text books that is hardly just. Russian civilization contributed significantly to European art, music, literature, and science. Certainly the Wehrmacht was broken on the Eastern Front. Russia has much to be proud of. That said, maintaining its empire and colonies is no longer feasible. At this stage, Russia needs to consider whether it is a part of Europe or a vassal of China.
In an age of nuclear weapons no nation is going to invade Russia (or China) in the manner of Operation Barbarossa.
You should research WW2 more. Lend Lease provided the USSR with some 11% of the war material used to prosecute the war. The USSR produced some 89% of all material used for the war effort and nearly 100% of items for civil use. What the USSR did use from the West was paid for in full, the last check being paid by the Russian Federation, with interest, in 2006. Westerners love to try and take credit for a WW2 victory where Russians did the bulk of the fighting and dying but Western histories pretend that the War in the East was a sideshow, ignoring the fact that more than 80% of German resources were deployed in that direction, including manpower. Russian expansion into Central and Eastern Europe post war was understandable when viewed from the lens of alliance politics; create a system out of those states or watch distant enemies come and do the same, turning them into hostile bastions close to your borders. We have watched this play out since 1991 and events have justified Stalin's fears, certainly.
I agree about some degree of protection for nuclear states, but it's the USA government who doesn't. It is they who withdrew from the ABM Treaty and who publically declared the principles of "Prompt Global Strike" and "Full Spectrum Dominance." Russia's strategic defense buildup since 2005 is a reaction to these stated programs, including hundreds of new Russian ICBM's and SLBM's designed to evade missile defenses. One of the ways Russia paid for this was to downsize the Army. The USA participation in the 2014 coup, the fueling of nationalist elements in the Ukrainian state and security forces can be seen quite rightly as an American effort to go around Russia's strategic arsenal and attack Russia using a large proxy force, fueled by hate.
China is not interested in taking in Russia as a vassal state. To China, Russia is little more than a not-very-exotic middle eastern bazaar, where they go to buy, with a little haggling, a few things they want and need: oil, gas, coal, minerals, maybe some wheat and barley. Hard to conceive of a bigger pain-in-the ass for a nation than having to wet-nurse Russia as a vassal state.
Or a chat GPT bot….
Are you a Russian bot?
It’s Holodomor. Голодомор.
We have been liking and disliking each other for over a thousand years, that included fighting, eating, celebrating, marrying and having kids together.
Ever meet a survivor of the Holodomor? I have met lots.
The irony being that the most ardent promoters of russophobia in Ukraine are the Galicians. Galicia was under Polish control during the 1930s, where there was no Holodomor. The Ukrainian nationalists of the time knew, but paid little significance, since, like the fascists that they were, they were all about The Nation whilst being indifferent to the fate of the people living in it.
In fact, the areas of Ukraine that suffered the most were some of the least Ukrainianized.
But, since we're talking about historical events here, why are the people Iraq or Vietnam not entitled to hate the US?
Some of them certainly do. But in my experiences long after the war in Viet Nam, many in the south appreciated the real sacrifices made on their behalf by Americans. Up north, not so much...
You apparently think that American bombs, napalm, WP and Agent Orange only fell on one part of the country.
Some sacrifice Americans made, bravely trying at gunpoint to thwart unification of Vietnam.
I can only report my experiences. I didn't meet every person in the country. I was surprised by it though. You may also recall the Boat People. Those people had to leave after the war because they would receive zero government services. They were ostracized and left to die for being on the losing side. War is not recommended.
It was more than being on the losing side. They betrayed their own country to side with an invader that killed ?3 million Vietnamese, dropped more bombs on them than were dropped in all of WWII, rained illegal chemical weapons on them, caused epidemic congenital malformations, landmined their farms, defoliated their jungles, carpet bombed their neighbours, whored their women, and ruined their society and if Goldwater and ?Hillary Clinton had had their way, they would have nuked the peasants. The thousands of Amrtican war criminals who ran and executed these atrocities have never done hard time, not even Calley who mowed down an entire village of women, children and old people.
Wash your mouth out with soap and go visit the war museum in Ho Chi Minh City.
Well, I have more Ukrainian experience than most here, and I've met more Holodomor survivors than most. I was surprised by what many told me.
How about the survivors of the same famine that Ukrainians (Stalin was born in Georgia) called the Holodomor but from other regions like Kazakhstan which also suffered? It was a complicated situation. I recommend Yasha Levine's substack where he has discussed it and how it was really kinda invented over here in the West. Also this guy has a more strident take. https://leohezhao.medium.com/myth-of-the-holodomor-11df0c62aec0
Uh, my Ukrainian grandparents, from the Sumy area, could personally attest to the Holodomor NOT being a “Western” invention. The commissars and cannibals were not media inventions. But thanks for your input in this thread Mr. Duranty, always good to see The NY Times maintaining it’s high standards…..
No further comment big guy? You're generally pretty loquacious yourself. Is this an admission that you have Nazi collaborator Ukrainians in your family tree or just that you don't know? You've never not replied for more than 12 hours. We're worried! SLAVA BANDERA!!! I've provided you with a lot of information, so I understand if it's difficult to process quickly! PROOF OF LIFE, Stxbuck!!! And say hi to your banderite granny!
I don’t know what kind of twisted rabbit hole you are trying to shove your head down. I can sleep at night just fine with whatever happened with my relatives in WWII, and not provide moral cover for a piece of shit like Putin and his cronies in the 21st century. If being a propaganda bot for his agenda floats your boat, go for it, you are one deluded individual on the interwebz.
BTW here's another article from a collaborator of Matt Taibbi, Matthew Ehret.
https://canadianpatriot.org/2022/03/18/fires-rage-in-canada-as-professor-attacks-the-myth-of-holodomor-2/
Re: My aside about Canadian Banderites:
"Canada is not however “most nations”, but has rather had the misfortune of hosting some of the most virulent groups of rabid ultra-right wing Ukrainian fascists who were transplanted into the Prairies and west coast by Anglo-American intelligence networks in the wake of WWII.
Today, many of these 2nd and 3rd generation Banderites control powerful institutions like the Ukrainian Congress of Canada (UCC) and have bred such confused and dangerous ideologues as Canada’s own Deputy Prime Minister (and leading Rhodes Scholar) Chrystia Freeland who sees no shame in her grandfather’s leading role as a Nazi collaborator in WW2 or in holding up right wing flags associated with the fascist Organization for Ukrainian Nationalists at a recent rally in Toronto."
"Acting from the epicenter of this fascist nexus in Alberta, Professor MacDonald has courageously decided that “enough is enough” writing on the topic of the famine which Ukrainian fascists have mis-labelled a “genocide targeting Ukrainian nationalism”. In his controversial facebook post, MacDonald wrote that “it was the Hitlerite Nazis who created the famine myth in 1933 to discredit the Soviet Union, the enemy they most feared. The Nazis wrote front page stories in German newspapers, which were then taken up by the reactionary British press.”
Within his very useful writings, there is something vital which Professor MacDonald fails to bring up.
The British Hand Behind Holodomor (and Nazism)
For those who are not aware, the two figures most responsible for the “on the ground evidence” of Holodomor were two journalists named Gareth Jones and Malcolm Muggeridge. By looking at these two figures, we should not be surprised to find ourselves bumping into the highest echelons of a British think tank named the Round Table, which acted as the guiding hand behind the rise of Nazism."
Freeland! And the following...we get ourselves the subject of some of Taibbi's most fruitful blogging....CANCEL CULTURE!
"In his controversial remarks professor MacDonald asked how could such a myth continue to be perpetuated for 70 years after the defeat of fascism to the extent that Canada has passed bills which recognize Holodomor memorial days? Here, the professor noted the Anglo-American operation to transplant leading SS war criminals into Canada saying:
“In Canada, former Nazi collaborators and their spawn have long led the phony Holodomor campaign. After the Second World War, Canada became a haven for Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazis and killed their own citizens to serve Nazi aims. Once in Canada and with the help of the Canadian state, these war criminals built reactionary domestic organizations (e.g. the UCC) which persist to this day. These organizations displaced already-established progressive Ukrainian organizations. Some collaborators achieved high positions, for example, Waffen SS member Petro Savaryn served as VP of the national PC Party and was Chancellor of the University of Alberta for four years.”
Of course the Ukrainian Student Association has demanded the Professor be fired saying in an open letter “we call upon the University of Alberta to immediately reprimand and terminate Dougal MacDonald for anti-Ukrainian hate speech and denial of Holodomor”."
And a well researched book on the topic (free download).
http://web.archive.org/web/20150102103906/http://www.rationalrevolution.net/special/library/tottlefraud.pdf
Seriously, I've done a lot more reading on this than you likely have. There was no need for the insults comparing me to some NYT "journalist."
Maybe you missed the part about the famine stretching well beyond Ukraine and into Kazakhstan and other areas of the USSR. The term itself was coined here in the West (with Nazi assistance) by Ukrainian refugees, after the fact. The "myth" part primarily refers to how it is "remembered" by the Ukrainian community today as though they were the only ones or even primarily the ones affected by the famine. Holodomor excludes everyone else who suffered. It is also a "myth" because as it is told, it implies full intent of genocide, directed only at Ukrainians, on the part of Stalin and his regime, when in fact it was largely a combination of dumb mistakes and pseudoscience forced onto the people of USSR out of sheer stupidity, not malice.
https://www.scottritterextra.com/p/the-holodomor-myth
I recommend the whole article, but here's a relevant passage, and Yes. The fucking word is a "western invention" - sorry to break it to you. I know it's difficult when we are forced to re-contend with long-held opinions and understanding of history.
"the term Holodomor came into being only in the late 1980’s, conjured up by Ukrainian nationalists trying to fan the flames of Ukrainian independence from the Soviet Union in its final years, in short, a fake word used to define a fake narrative.
The famine that swept through the Soviet Union in 1932-33 was very real—there is no denying this. But it was not an isolated event, but rather part and parcel of the Stalin-driven policy of forced collectivization of agriculture. During the period of forced collectivization between 1930-37, Robert Conquest estimated that some 14.5 million peasants lost their lives; of these, some 5 million were Ukrainians who died during the famine of 1932-33.
These are horrible numbers, reflective of human tragedy and suffering of an unimaginable scale. Robert Conquest’s groundbreaking work, The Harvest of Sorrow, has served as one of the primary sources behind the resurgence of Ukrainian nationalism in the late 1980’s. Indeed, as Conquest himself concluded, “Stalin…saw the [Ukrainian] peasantry as the bulwark of nationalism; and common sense requires us to see this double blow at Ukrainian nationhood as no coincidence.”
But even Conquest had to admit that this conclusion was pure speculation on his part. “As to Stalin’s personal guilt,” Conquest wrote, “we cannot document the responsibility in the sense of any decree exists in which Stalin orders the famine.”"
Here's another article on the matter, also with a relevant excerpt:
https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/01/04/the-real-truth-behind-holodomor/
"The whole thing is rather absurd but what makes it even more absurd is that the whole narrative started off not from Ukraine but from Canada. An unknown author started writing about this historical incident in the mid 1980s and came up with the term. There was not even a word Holodomor before that.
Come to think of it, Ukraine did have a reason to blame one country for genocide which was not Russia but Germany in fact. Shall we remember a very transparent and public plan Ost which talked about the fact that 30 000 000 Ukrainians should be brutally obliterated in any way imaginable so that Germany can advance eastward into the territory of the USSR. There is also a proven genocide in Babi Yar when the Germans killed 30 000 Jews merely because they were Jews. There was a hidden agenda to literally get Ukrainians and the local Jews at each other’s throats in another instance of “divide and rule.”"
In fact it gets really complicated. William Randolph Hearst - a prominent pro-Nazi and anticommunist - gladly spread the legend far and wide with his papers.
"Remarkably, the roots of the “Holodomor” (“deliberate starvation”) myth lie in the longstanding Cold War standoff between Soviet Russia and the West. After the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, infamous Nazi collaborators — members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and their paramilitary UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) units — fled into Western Europe and the United States, escaping punishment for their hideous crimes, including ruthless terror against peaceful Jewish, Ukrainian and Russian civilians.
In 1949 the CIA and the US State Department sponsored the OUN-UPA leaders’ immigration to the United States, planning to use them as subversion groups and intelligence agents in the Cold War against the Soviet Russia."
Tell your grandparents I said "Hi", "Slava Ukriane!" ooh, aaaand "Praise Bandera!" Do you happen to know if they were Nazi collaborators? I'm not even kidding, a huge number of Canadian and American Ukrainians in fact were, and it has likely been swept under the rug of family history and even "forgotten."
Essentially - and this is an opinion I share with others is that:
1. The concept of the "Holodomor" whereby it was coined here in the West by Nazi collaborating Ukrainian "refugees" is that it's Nazi/fascist propaganda, clearly tied to Nazi/fascist propagandists and Nazi/fascist collaborators who make no secret of it. WRH was truly a Nazi/fascist scumbag.
2. Its use was initially to discredit the Soviet Union and it was recently resurfaced here and in Ukraine following the Nazi/fascist Maidan coup of 2014 as a means of smearing Russia/Russians and inflaming Ukrainian ultra-nationalism, which of course led to the current war.
3. It's used in the same way as an accusation of "anti-Semitism" is used in order to silence those with whom the people using it disagree and to "cancel" people in the EU, Ukraine and US/Canada.
4. Based on scholarly research, both into the initial allegations, the fraudulent photographs and news stories used to promote it, including by WRH papers and research into the Soviet archives that were declassified after the fall of the USSR, it's also completely fake, but based on a kernel of truth - as much propaganda and many "conspiracy theories" tend to be. Stalin did not intend to murder millions of Ukrainians any more than he did the many millions more of other citizens of the USSR who perished in the famine. Stalin was a brutal totalitarian, but he was also Georgian so he'd have no reason to wipe out a bunch of people in his home country.
P.S. since I've written a novella of my own here, I would like to point you to a real genocide: The so-called Irish Potato Famine, which was perpetrated by mercantile capitalists and bankers in England against the peasants of Ireland so as to wipe them out.
That's a Nazi talking point!
One has to wonder why someone would fight against Russia. Expecially after centuries of enduring war. There is a reason the USSR was so big. Because the Russian empire conquered many people.
No it didn't. The West conquered many people. All over the world. Russia settled in lands all across Siberia and even the Pacific Northwest of North America and never once herded anyone into an Indian reservation. Russians founded communities without trying to conquer every tribe they encountered. Russia has a history of being invaded but has very little history as an invader. You are switching around who did what to whom. Africans say over and over that Russians were the first Northerners to treat them as people.
Perhaps you should read about Russians keeping natives captive and ransoming their families for Sea Otter pelts. Humans suck.
I have read about that. And Russians did battle Native Siberian tribes too. The expansion outward nearly always leads to conflicts. But in the pantheon of European expansion and conflict with the "other" Russians acted the least atrocious among all. Russians generally fought defensive engagements outside their Forts which grew in Russian cities and Russians declined broadly at assaulting native communities. And even today, there are no Siberian Indian Reservations. Native Siberians are Russian Federation Citizens and live in cities in their own communities. Russia's defense minister is himself a member of one of these minorities, a fact that has subjected him to hate filled comments in Ukrainian Telegram channels and militia videos. And Russia's exploitation of native labor was bad but it wasn't slavery and exacted far less economic price or blood than the British-American slave trade, slavery in America, or the brutal costs of the Raj in India. You are trying to make Russians into the American West or the British Empire and that's untruthful to a huge degree. It might not have been fair or even pretty but Russians East of the Urals were saints compared to European-American standards of conduct.
Wow. I believe you. I would value finding out more about this. Books? Sources? Sincerely, not sarcasm.
Sure. There's a lot there to dislike, including Russian Fur Companies forcing Inuit to hunt for them with little compensation, and even some battles when natives attacked Russian settlements but never once did Russians massacre anyone or conquer their villages. In all the time Russians spent on Hawaii they never overthrew the Queen and annexed the islands, as the Americans did in the 1890's. Reading List:
Journal of Early Modern History: "Political Claims, an Extensible Name, and a 'Divine Mission': Ideology of Russian Expansion in Siberia"
"The Russian Fur Trade 1550-1700" by Raymond Henry Fisher"
Andrei Grinev Val'terovic translated by Richard Bland "Russian Colonization of Alaska: Preconditions, Discovery, and Initial Development 1741-1799. University of Nebraska Press.
MissAnneThrope for what it’s worth I live in PNW. Have engaged in conversation with elder Russians while walking around an Orthodox Russian cemetery. Also agree with Ricky’s other comments. Hard for me to understand why Americans get so enmeshed with the slaughter of peoples in other countries while “ not remembering” the past & yes even present atrocities done to ( outdated label btw) Native Americans.
I think you will be waiting a long time, then. The history of Russian expansion from the time of Peter the Great until the collapse of the Soviet Union is well known. Russia conquered Finland and the Baltic States, took its chunk of Poland (and suppressed several revolts in the 19th century), grabbed parts of the Ottoman Empire (including the Caucasus and up to Crimea) among other things. The sparsely populated Siberia could not resist Russian military advances. There’s a reason that today the bulk of Putin’s conscripts for his Ukraine war came from the Russian hinterlands and not Russia proper. It’s suggestive of how Russians value their non-Russian fellow citizens.
As to the views of Africans, it was more a consequence of Russian “anti-colonialism” which itself was a policy directed more at weakening the West than out of any regard for the long suffering Africans.
That the West is hardly without sin does not exonerate Russia. Invoking a phony Russian past doesn’t help clarify matters either.
Stalin had some tough competition. And it kept going well after he died.
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/05/30/u-s-empire-named-most-murderous-killing-machine-in-history/
Taking a big dive into pool of stereotyping people are you? Woke culture including the NYT does this often and common sense Americans find this behavior offensive. They find something to fit the narrative of the day and use it to destroy the target of the day.
“The claim that neo-Nazi or far-right groups hold any significant power in Ukraine is absurd,” according to Jared McBride, an adjunct history professor at UCLA whose work specializes in nationalist movements and mass violence and genocide in Russia and Ukraine.
For reference this symbology historically is called memento mori an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death. The concept has its roots in the philosophers of classical antiquity and Christianity, and appeared in funerary art and architecture from the medieval period onwards. The symbology has been used by military units, marking poison bottles, and pirates. Not buying what you are selling.
I'm actually not sure what you're trying to say. But one thing I do know is that a relatively small cohesive group of ideologically committed, violent people can influence and even take over a government. In Nazi Germany, it was called the Night of Long Knives. In 2014 in Ukraine, Neo-Nazi thugs from the Right Sektor, etc. helped topple the Ukrainian government and committed such atrocities as in Odessa, setting a building on fire filled with opponents of the new right wing Ukrainian government the US helped install. And since then, also with apparent CIA help, set up the kill list website filled with politicians who dared express an interest in compromise / negotiation as well as journalists, cultural figures and over a hundred children... including international figures added to that kill list like Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters, former weapons inspector Scott Ritter and Grey Zone journalist Max Blumenthal.
According to the Guardian, on May 2, 2014, "the seizure of the trade union building was the violent culmination of a day of street battles in this Black Sea resort city. The clashes reportedly began after protesters gathering for a rally in support of a unified Ukraine were attacked by pro-Russia activists armed with clubs and air pistols."
Note the Pro-Ukrainian rally was attacked by Pro-Russian activists. This event is not even remotely like "Night of Long Knives."
"Police largely stood aside as the two sides hurled Molotov cocktails, cobblestones, and bricks at each other. Girls as young as fourteen were smashing cobblestones to break them up into missiles of a manageable size. Combatants on both sides were armed with body armor, helmets, and shields and carried baseball bats, chains, metal bars, and air pistols." This description sounds like the Antifa summer of 2020.
Both sides acted poorly, the police were ineffective, and the outcome was tragic. The tragedy was not a one-sided event; whereby this account, more than 30 people died. Shamefully, it seems more like a tragic week in Chicago.
What I am trying to say is I see no evidence the Ukrainian government is controlled by Nazis (whatever that means today), small elements of society will act out everywhere in the world, and stereotyping a race or nation is evil. Yet, that happens here at home by our elected representatives on a daily basis.
Not buying what you’re selling. Respectfully disagree Joe.
Ukrainians cannot be fascists since St. Zelensky is Jewish!
So may we assume from the contents of this laundry list of historical minutiae you seek to identify a problem? And that the answer to that problem might be a Russian annexation of Ukraine and development into a de facto client state?
And besides what you mentioned, there were many Ukrainian guards at the death camps and the Bandera led units killed over 130,000 to 200,000 Poles in ethnic cleansing campaigns in western Ukraine in addition to participating very actively in the Final Solution.
Ukrainian history, like all history, is complicated and messy. 3.5 to 5 million Ukrainians died in the forced collectivization of farms undertaken by Stalin and the Soviet Union, which is why Ukrainians fought for Germany. Ukrainian soldiers wearing Nazi insignia today have the deaths of their countrymen and ancestors as part of their historical memory. What should be clear is that they are fighting to defend their country. That does not make any Nazi ideology that they profess acceptable, but needs to be acknowledged as part of the horrible nature of this war.
Most of their country that they are fighting to "defend" was gifted to them in 1922 and 1957 by USSr's leaders. This included millions of ethnic Russians living in cities and towns founded by Catherine the Great. Factual detail. Another factual detail? Ukraine has been shelling and using military force against ethnic Russian communities inside Ukraine for the past eight years. Even after an agreement was reached to provide these areas autonomy, and secure their language rights Ukraine refused to honor the deal and made excuses. The Ukrainian President bragged on TV that Russian children would hide in basements while Ukrainian children would go to school. Both Hollande and Merkel admitted in filmed interviews that the agreements were just a ruse in order to arm Ukraine to the hilt. This isn't self-defense of a country, it's political-military cover for a pogrom to which Russia finally responded with force after trying diplomacy for seven years.
Listen to you try to justify allying with Nazi's and committing atrocities because Soviet agricultural policy was a disaster. Really, read what you wrote again. This impulse is why the USA is looking the other way at the Nazification of Ukraine's armed forces and why Western media are asking Ukro soldiers to cover up their patches.
Nazi symbols aside, The Ukrainians have a rich and, arguably ajustified hate of Russia. In fact most countries that once were under the iron fist of the USSR feel that way about Russia today.
Nonsense. Most of those countries conspired with outside powers to attack Russia long before the USSR. Baltic States invaded Russia and fought a battle on a frozen lake 1,000 years ago trying to take Pskov from the Muscovy body politic. Swedes invaded Russia. Poland invaded Russia several times, once using a Catholic actor pretending to be the long lost heir to the throne. Poland later allied to Napoleon in the 1812 invasion hoping at long last to secure wide areas of Russia for itself. Italy, Hungary, the Balts, Finland, Romania, and Ukrainians all joined the Third Reich and sent armies to aid Germany. Romania's Barbarossa Army force surpassed a quarter million men. In the Baltics hard core Reich supporters among the Baltic populations took part in murdering thousands of Russian children, many in torture camps and medical experimentation. 26 million USSR citizens died in the war, the vast majority of them Russian. Compared to that history the Soviet Administration of Eastern Europe was downright benign.
Please forgive my impudence I am autistic not educated. My great great grandparents fled Ukraine during the Russian Pogroms I know my history and know my Empires. I know Crimea in 1853 when the Russians tried to overthrow the Turks in Crimea. I know Twain's Russian Journals. Twain thought in Yiddish.
A Russian oligarch is a Russian oligarch is a Russian oligarch.
It is always dangerous to be a Jew in the Russian Empire.
No one can accuse Mark Twain of anti Semitism he was very public Judeophile and being a fan of Frederick Douglas makes him very liberal in the world of philosophy.
The patches, that I found on an image search, all had volknut patches below the skull in a helmet patch. The volknut is germanic but it originates 1000+ years prior to the nazis.
Also, I wasn't aware of the Ukrainian "race" mixing with Germans. (I am well of the historical presence of Germans in the Ukraine but that's the thing, they were Germans who happened to be in the Ukraine not Ukrainians).
Meanwhile, these same people think anyone wearing a MAGA hat is a veritable Nazi.
The words “Hamas” and “terrorist organization” appeared together in New York Times articles only 13 times during the year. The words “Israel” and “apartheid” appeared together 39 times, although Israel is not an apartheid state and Hamas is a terror organization, officially, according to the US State Department,
Why would anyone care who the US government calls a terrorist organization?
As it happens, though, Hamas is a terrorist organization and Israel practices apartheid. I am not a big fan of the NYT— for many years they whitewashed Israeli brutality. But now that several human rights organizations say that Israel practices apartheid, including the Israeli organization B’ Tselem, the NYT reports it.
However, the editors still published a NYT editorial claiming that Israel is a democracy with we we share common values— perhaps true if you include the uglier ones along with the good.
Good that you keep your eyes on “The Jews” and those “brutal” Israelis. Wave that flag of Jew hate since it is low morals and bigotry that puts your harsh focus only on The Jews. All the other countries are more moral and democratic?.....maybe comment on Uganda and their hate law against LGBTQ that passed last week. No they are poc and you focus on The Jews solely. In Israel where pride is practiced unlike the entire Middle East. Criticism is good just spread it around that way it won’t appear as Jew Hated.
Don’t be absurd. It is possible to notice that a great many countries violate human rights, but in the case of Israel people like you immediately assume that anyone who notices Israeli brutality is fine with the brutality of other countries.
I mostly focus on the crimes of the US and it’s Allie’s and in recent years the worst has been the US supported Saudi war on Yemen. But there are also the sanctions we impose on various countries which do nothing except cause suffering for ordinary people. And yes, Israel also deserves criticism.
But that is enough time wasted on your bad faith argument.
Ok Adolf
Never been to Israel? Thought so.
Compelling argument. Must have taken you hours to think of some way to refute what one can read regarding human rights violations, the Nakba, etc…
I’d put my first-hand friends and travel experiences so far above your selected flywheel of BS... You’ve made up your mind. I know exactly why. Pretty common. Go read The Grey Lady Winked. That’s a good primer.
And I did notice you changed the subject from clear manipulation by journalists to Israel.
Expect pushback when you do that.
Somehow my other reply didn’t show— anyway, it is absurd that you think only one side complains of bias. You don’t seem to know anything about this topic except your firsthand experience.
https://web.mit.edu/hjackson/www/The_NYT_Distorts_the_Palestinian_Struggle.pdf
Now I’m done.
As for the rest, having grown up in the South I know how little first hand experience is worth— you could grow up white in the South and not know anything about the ugly history of your own background.
“Why would anyone care...”
Game recognize game. Haha.
The Israeli government intentionally installed Hamas so that they could label the Palestinians terrorists as they themselves became what they claim to hate the most. Racist apartheid practicing monsters.
Having any contrary opinion at all will soon be grounds for being declared a Nazi. Really dilutes the brand, don't you think?
Just like "racist."
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/ackshually-thats-racist
And somehow, when responding to charges of antisemitism, it's relevant that Zelensky was born Jewish but irrelevant that Trump's daughter and grandchildren are Jewish.
Zelenskyy is married to a Christian and is as Jewish as most secular American Jews which is zero
They're the ones the ADL represents. You know, the same ADL that said it was impossible to “make an inference about the wearer or the Ukrainian Army” just because they sported Nazi symbols. Impossible!
Good point
First thing they need to learn about are the Nazis/Fascists, something they obviously don't know or care to know.
That's the thing- the Nazi paraphernalia may very well be meant as an extreme middle finger to Russia, but the media shouldn't be suppressing it (if you oppose Putin as I do, you shouldn't want to cede the high ground of truth to him), and it's bizarre to see these establishment lefties excuse it.
Lol, true, I voted for Bernie in the primary and Trump in the general and went from powerlib to Nazi in one season.
I dont like Trump and had little faith in Bernie but Biden is legit one of the most destructive politicians in my lifetime.
I just don't see how "grab em by the p-word" makes Trump worse than Biden.
Ha ha, I also went from Bernie Bro Nazi to Trump Maga Nazi. Gotta love it. Meanwhile, Biden is absolutely the worst president in my lifetime that started with Eisenhower. And Bernie turned out to just be controlled opposition.
I've made this analogy many times, 2020 was a choice between bullshit and horseshit.
Bullshit is not edible, but horseshit, if you have to, it really ain't that far off from falafel, if you just keep telling yourself that.
Theres nothing you can say about bullshit to get that down.
While selling Puddin Pops!
Considering how Biden handled COVID (when was the last time you heard anything about vaccines? Testing?), and that he sicked the Fed on the working class to solve inflation by giving all our money to the billionaires and openly destroying jobs, AND he immediately tried to start WW3 at the first possible time, I no longer view the Dems as the lesser evil.
Especially when he was entertaining a few friends on a bus, and they were recorded laughing. I was still surprised it didn’t kick him out of the 2016 primary.
It's important to realize that according to the New York Times only people who disagree with the reporters politically can be Nazis. J6 rioters are Nazis, anti-trans parents are Nazis, don't say gay bill supporters are Nazis, but Freedom Fighting Ukrainians with swastikas, deathheads, runes, 88 patches/tattoos/embroidery etc. can't be Nazis, because the New York Times supports the Ukraine war. However, Putin and Russians who don't have swastikas, deathheads, SS logos, runes, 88 etc. patches/tattoos/embroidery are 100% Nazis, because the New York Times is against them.
Lol what a stupid stupid war
agreed. and what a useful war for so many awful people
And now those same people are going to try to suck us into a war over Taiwan!
well, we are causing the problem. Taiwan ordered billions in arms from us years ago and paid for it and we're giving it all to Nazis instead. President dumbkopf
Agree. We have surrounded the Sea of China with military bases and then pretend to wonder why China objects! No China is entering Cuba and we have no basis on which to object. Not that I would anyway.
And, my God, now for reasons that mostly have to do with the unbelievable greed of our elites, we are in a forever war with Russia, with the progressive-left and their "peace caucus" as water carriers. I have never felt a movement de-legitimized faster or more effortlessly than their stance on this war and on the Covid lockdowns, both just in the service of a shadowy, evil elite. They really seem appallingly idiotic and simple; the whole lot of them AOC, etc.
useful idiots, always needed by those who want to run our lives
ALL WARS MATTER
NO LIVES MATTER
You’re Mom matters!
Wait what
Thanks Matt. All the News That’s Printed to Fit?
“All the news that fits, we print.”
During a NYC newspaper strike (I think it was around 1978) a parody edition called “Not The New York Times” appeared and its moniker was “All the news that gives you fits, we print.”
Love that! I remember the parody, but not its contents. That moniker is great.
This should be ok the masthead! I love it.
Roger Waters has to be investigated for performance art where he dons a Nazi uniform to protest authoritarian dictators and war, yet this is perfectly ok? I think this should be explored in James Comey’s next novel.
Waters doesn't protest authoritarian dictators and war he protests the existence of Israel and believes Israel should not exist. Very different.
Have you seen the Wall or been to his recent show? He is absolutely protesting war and authoritarianism.
Israel has a right to exist (I guess) but so do Palestinians who have been living under an apartheid like regime on the West Bank for decades.
The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to be illegal under international law. Those are facts which Waters is merely serving up to spread awareness.
Ouy, there is no apartheid. All Israeli citizens have equal rights. Non citizens can come work in Israel if they don't kill us, hence border control. The Palestinians have been offered their own state many times and have turned it down. Their motto "from the river to the sea". Do you even understand what that means? There are 22 Muslim Arabs states. Do the Jews not get even one?
Well, you stole their land, what do you expect? Gratitude?
Their land? Who was their president? Where were their borders? It was all Pan-Arabism back then. The Lebanese, Jordanians, Syrians, etc all just plain old Arabs. After 1948 when they attacked Israel and lost they suddenly became Palestinians (which previously had been the term for Jews in the Middle East). But don't bother to educate yourself.
.. and you're still stealing it
yes .....what about every other country that occupies others like China does Tibet ? But it isn’t those amoral “Jews” you can shame! Criticizing Israel is OK but your obsessive focus may be Racist
🤦
Indeed the Muslim groups stole the land from the Israeli people, who had lived there for thousands of years before the Muslims came into existence. Yet Muslims are more free in Israel than in any other Middle East country.
I feel I have to point out that Palestine has never been a country.
Indeed Muslims are freer in Israel than in any other country in the Middle East. They serve in parliament and in the government. They worship freely. They can fly nonstop to Saudi Arabia for their pilgrimage.
The Palestinians suffer under the control of the terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah which are largely funded by Iran (and thus indirectly by the U.S. through Obama's deal).
Israel is an Apartheid Regime
Dude I’m a Jew so idk what you’re trying to say
Waters is corbanism ( British leftist hated of Jews) trying to be rock and roll. Silly old racist and his oldies act should be ignored.
Yes. I know who Jeremy Corbyn js. I even know how to spell it correctly. He’s being incorrectly labeled as a racist too
Deliberate misspelling of your disgraced Leader but just keep banging the drum that all things are because of “the Jews” and complaining that you are stopped from Hating Israel by reasonable citizens. Waters may be a 70s proto Nazi Oldies act for you and your clan but we still love Pink Floyd in spite of this Throwback proto Nazi
Stay to your beliefs. But it’s a waste of time to “argue”. (It’s like pissing into the wind.) End the damn Proxy War!
So you're saying it's not really the uniform.
No, it is and was used about 25 years ago when the piece was first performed but Waters has taken his hatreds elsewhere (towards the Jews).
Hatred of Israel is not hatred of Jews.
Or, put another way: one can identify as Jewish while rejecting Zionism.
love it but the last word is everything
This is the story of the genocide by the Ukrainian People (Nazis) who mass murdered my family and all Jews in Kiev. Still an underlying nazi country (Zelensky married to a christian) that is a failed state that funded the Biden Crime Family. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bila_Tserkva_massacre
Remember when the MSM was in hysterics, claiming on the basis of no evidence other than Ukrainian say-so, that the Russians had, for no particular military reason, attacked the Babi Yar Memorial?
The Israeli Ambassador had to state that the Memorial was untouched.
We American Christians, Catholic Orthodox Protestant, helped defeat the Darwinist Racist Nazi War Machine, and the Racist Darwinist Master Race Japanese War Machine. My Uncle Tom Devereux on USS North Carolina, our family’s Chinese American Catholic friend and godfather to my younger son Bob Fong US Navy (1926-2018 RIP Bob).
Of course the Russians/Soviets bore the greatest brunt in WWII, over 25 million soldiers and civilians killed.
Can you explain like I’m 5 the relevance of Zelensky being married to a Christian?
I personally find that insignificant too (his wife's religion). What I do find significant is that Zelensky's main funder for his original campaign was an oligarch who also funded the Azov Battalion and as Seymour Hersh has reported that Zelensky has siphoned off millions and millions of dollars of US aid. All of which indicate that Zelensky is a corrupt collaborator in a nationalistic right wing government with significant Neo-Nazi influence.
Agree with all of that; was just wondering if I was missing something in regards to the missus.
The mainstream media uses the fact that Zelensky is Jewish to deflect charges that Ukraine has a Nazi problem. The fact that he's married to a Christian and baptized his children in the orthodox church shows that he's really not much of a Jew. So the argument is weak.
I guess I'm assuming a smart five-year old.
That is helpful thank you
None of this is any secret to anyone even sort of paying attention.
The German military recently had to remind the Ukrainian conscripts it is training that displaying Nazi symbols and regalia is a serious offense in Germany.
For that matter, the Oh So Not Nazi That's Just Russian Propaganda Azov sponsored a neonazi "music festival" in Kiev in September, 2021. We have since been duly assured that they have reformed, just as soon as they became useful.
Do you have a link for the first story?
https://t.me/ukraina_ru/132970
... at least they’re still asking...? It won’t be long before they don’t ask and just photoshop it out. It’s probably already happened.
Ok, that still provides me with no comfort....
What a perfect symbolization (pun intended) of the fact that the media cares nothing about literal Nazis if the facts interfere with their concocted narrative. The Guardian reported on the Azov Battalion’s Nazi leanings in 2014 (https://archive.is/9drYL) but then calls them “national heroes” in a September 2022 article (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/22/ukrainian-putin-ally-viktor-medvedchuk-exchanged-for-200-azov-battalion-fighters-zelenskiy-says) in which it implies the claim that the Azov fighters are “neo-Nazis” is Russian propaganda(!). Absolutely shameless.
Also there are no institutional obstacles to getting clear information. Just take a look at the myriad of Telegram channels. There are thousands and thousands of channels with 1st person content being uploaded by people on the front lines. The hard part is getting someone in official capacity to actually put their name on what is really going on. The big story this week is that Russia blew up the Ukrainian intelligence HQ after the attacks on Moscow by Ukraine. There were probably several NATO officers inside the HQ. Many years ago the US put a bomb through the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade because the Chinese were sharing intel with the Serbs, officially it was an "accident".
The real story is that Ukraine is losing this war badly, there is cemetery after cemetery full of dead Ukraine soldiers. We just haven't seen those kinds of images coming out of Russia... and YOU CAN'T HIDE A CEMETERY. Military commissars are grabbing people off the street left and right in Ukraine. Ukraine just reversed its policy of allowing POW to not have to go back to serve on the front-lines. Ukraine has killed 2 proxy armies and is now running on fumes. 35k foreign trained soldiers are coming back for the spring "counter-offensive" but there are serious questions about whether Ukraine can actually even mount any kind of offensive after a year-and-a-half at war. In the meantime Russia has pivoted to a war-time economy and has over a 1 million troops trained and ready to attack. But the war propaganda machine in the US is pumping the same crap it was pumping out during the Afghanistan war.
Yeah, this is the second time Matt has suggested that this war isn't being covered when in fact this war is being covered more than any prior war.
It's just mostly on Telegram, and you have to piece things together from conflicting on-the-ground sources and then higher level analysis of media and weapons shipments etc.
There are various analysts looking at maps daily, citizen reporters, smaller You Tube analysts etc.
The war is being covered and it's got shit to do with Ukrainian "embedding" rules.
Colonel Douglas Macgregor, Michael Vlahos, Big Serge (substack), there are a ton of Russian embedded journalists, Alexander Kots to name one of many. Embedded journalists have always been problematic as "covering" a war. They only cover one side. What is interesting about this war is that none of the institutional global news is willing to discuss even the most rudimentary aspects of the war. At the same time, several western journalists were shot up trying to go to the front lines in the beginning of the war so fair enough that they don't want to go see the front lines.
Glenn Greenwald had a good piece at the beginning of the Ukraine war saying basically "remember there is no propaganda like war propaganda, be careful of anything you read or hear". That's when the Ghost of Kiev was supposedly shooting down half-the-Russian Air Force, Putin was going to be deposed within 2 weeks, Putin had cancer and was going to die, the entire Russian military had been decimated etc etc etc.
The simple technique of creating cognitive dissonance was used to prevent people from pointing out what was known since the beginning. One would simply have to suggest, "these allegations you're making have been associated with Russian disinformation." That was enough to spook most people and prevent them from falling down a "rabbit hole." Most of Western narrative control relies on clever nudges like that.
In reality, the Nazi thing was very clear and transparent from 2014 onwards. But is the West allying itself with hardcore virulent Nazi contingents to achieve its geopolitical aims really that surprising? Operation Gladio is worth revisiting.
It's still happening.
I had an experience I mentioned here back in April— the NYT published a piece quoting a Ukranian official who implied that all reports of Ukranians shelling civilians, going back to 2014, were Russian propaganda. I linked to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reports from 2015 which said both sides were shelling civilians indiscriminately.
The NYT didn’t publish it. I wrote it three times, was very polite, and in the meantime other people’s comments ( opinions on both sides but without facts) were published, but mine, which disproved the premise of the story, wasn’t.
I won’t say this is absolute proof of deliberate censorship, but it probably was. For one thing, anyone who even casually followed this story back in 2014-2015 would have know this. So aside from my comment, the NYT deliberately chose to leave out facts which would contradict what their Ukranian official was claiming.
I am sure the NYT engages in censorship. I too have been "censored".
Statements from me along the lines of "Many working class people have every right to feel betrayed by the Democratic Party given the corporate policies effectuated by the Clinton Administration", never see the light of day.
That’s interesting. My comments are usually published, but I try to walk on eggshells if I criticize the NYT specifically and sometimes those comments are published. And sometimes not.
One could argue the Nazis “won” after the war when they found a home in the USG.
Operation Paperclip.
One asshole at the trucker convoy waves a Nazi flag = they are all Nazis. Multiple accounts from multiple divisions of Nazi symbols = please take it off for our propaganda machine.
The media sinks to another level of depravity.
I'm not sure about the incident you are referring to with the trucker convoy, but I know that at the lockdown protests in Michigan, the only flag with a swastika on it read, "Heil Whitler," clearly comparing Governor Whitmer to Hitler because of her draconian lockdown measures. This was blatantly obvious to anyone with half a brain. What did the governor do? State that she was disturbed by the Nazi imagery at the protest, of course.
The Nazi flag in question was describing Justin Trudeau as a Nazi. But just like Roger Waters, comparing authoritarians to Nazis makes you the Nazi. If you're on the wrong side of the CIC.
Ofcourse. The same newspaper which claims all of US history, except their 1619 project, is revisionist, now has to make some convenient revisions to the Approved Cause.
For that matter, The Guardian had a gushing photoshoot of female Ukrainian paramilitaries a few years back, one in which The Graun feigned ignorance of the significance of the 14/88 patches that these women sported.
Hell, I don't exactly travel in skinhead circles, but I know what that means.
And I lived in Ukraine for much of my adult life, and yes, the place was crawling with Nazis, then and now.
Feral Finster is there an urban/rural divide in Ukraine like here in the States? Looking at satellite images of the Donbas region it looks like our farm country with small towns. If it's like here I would guess you have some hard-working, God-loving, and independent people that don't give a shit about the political side of the war but just want to grow crops and take care of their family. Poor conscripts on both sides are dying in a rich man's war.
Good question. The rural/urban divide in Ukraine isn't all that regional, although when I lived there, Galicians (especially those not living in Lvov) were seen as hillbillies. Eastern Ukraine is itself fairly urbanized but there are lots of farmers, and the conscripts in the Ukrainian army are mostly country boys. This is because they have less pull with the government and no money to bribe their way out of service.
And yes, a lot of people do not want to be dragged into this war. Probably the best way to explain it is that Europe is seen in Ukraine (and Russia) as The Land Where Institutions Basically Work. Whether and to what extent this belief has any basis in fact or not is irrelevant - it's the perception that matters.
For Ukrainians, if the price of being admitted to that magical land was to hate and murder their kinsmen, well, plenty of them were willing to pay that price. This is also one reason why Russia is so loathe to escalate. They don't want to smash Europe, they want Europe to come to its senses. They don't hate Europe, in many ways, they'd like to be a part of it.
I should add that originally, the Russians employed volunteers on six-month contracts (which in turn shows that, whatever else has happened in Ukraine, it wasn't all part of some Eleven Dimensional Russian Grand Master Chess Strategy). Later, regular army units were used, along with mobilized reservists.