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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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...
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…..
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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).
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.
The United States State Department under Obama inserted themselves into Ukraine, acting like they were the CIA in Guatemala, Vietnam, etc. to overthrow the duly elected President in 2014. People like Victoria Nuland, Samantha Power continue to surface throughout the world like Cold War KGB or CIA officers to destabilize foreign governments. The corruption and money laundering through Ukraine is on a massive scale; the US government will keep this war going as long as they can, even if it means using Nazis to do their dirty work for them. And that includes both Democrats and Republicans.
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?
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
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?
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
good point and quite illustrative. Who's hand is up his a$$ you think?
Ha! so true it's funny
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.
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
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.
What is your problem?
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.
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.
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/
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.
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.
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”
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.
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.
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.
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…..
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.
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.
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).
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.
Meanwhile, these same people think anyone wearing a MAGA hat is a veritable Nazi.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
“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.
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.
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?
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
Yes. I know who Jeremy Corbyn js. I even know how to spell it correctly. He’s being incorrectly labeled as a racist too
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.
love it but the last word is everything
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.
The United States State Department under Obama inserted themselves into Ukraine, acting like they were the CIA in Guatemala, Vietnam, etc. to overthrow the duly elected President in 2014. People like Victoria Nuland, Samantha Power continue to surface throughout the world like Cold War KGB or CIA officers to destabilize foreign governments. The corruption and money laundering through Ukraine is on a massive scale; the US government will keep this war going as long as they can, even if it means using Nazis to do their dirty work for them. And that includes both Democrats and Republicans.