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Thoughts on Ukraine / Russia Debacle?!

DaltheJigsawDaltheJigsaw Mountain View Veteran

Wrote an introduction Blog post on Ukraine, as I'm from there and I believe it be interesting to look deeper within my mind and heart, to see if there is anything that would be interesting to share.

http://leonidbasin.blogspot.com/2014/03/thoughts-on-ukraine-russia-debacle.html

Comments

  • Nice document. Sorry about the state of the world :(

  • Aspiring_BuddhistAspiring_Buddhist Seeker of the Buddha Within WA Veteran

    I think Putin is trying to bring back Russia's "Glory Days." He needs to knock it off - people are suffering now as they were back then.

  • ZenBadgerZenBadger Derbyshire, UK Veteran

    I have a few friends in Kiev who are very worried by the latest developments. I really hope things calm down for them soon.

  • karastikarasti Breathing Minnesota Moderator

    I really don't understand the whole matter, but I'd like to have a better grasp. I know Ukraine was having protests and their president fled. Then Russia invaded. Why is Russia interested if Ukraine is not part of Russia anymore? Are they trying to take Ukraine back? I saw Ukraine voted overwhelmingly to join Russia. Why? If Russia is posed to attack Ukraine, why are the people so interested in joining Russia? I have a lot of questions, sorry, lol.

    In any case, it is concerning. Any time any countries are threatening to turn others into dust, it is a concern to the whole planet.

  • JasonJason God Emperor Arrakis Moderator

    Yeah, I have some thoughts.

    Ukraine is being torn apart and it seems like there's plenty of blame to go around. Some blame Russia and pro-Russian Ukrainians. Some blame the West and pro-EU Ukrainians. Some blame the oligarchs. Some blame the fascists, who fall on both sides, although primarily on the pro-West side. Some say that Ukraine is the just the latest victim of US/Russian imperialism and the new Cold War.

    On the face of it, I think they're all right, each side ultimately adding to the political instability. But on a deeper, more abstract level, I think the seeds of this crisis are the competitive social relations inherent in, and which dominate, 'exploitative' modes of production such as capitalism (and feudalism before that)—the former being the material basis for the continued social reproduction of the latter.

    Unlike those who assume 'human nature' is a fixed, static thing that's naturally greedy, competitive, etc., I take the position that much of what we label human nature is fluid and changeable yet strongly conditioned by the world around us, including the economic 'base' of society, the way society reproduces itself. Hence the forces and social relations that are embodied within any given mode of production help shape and influence the ideas and social relations within that society (and in a global context, that includes those between nation-states). In A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, for example, Marx famously writes:

    In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.

    In a capitalist system, what Marx termed the 'coercive laws of competition' forces individual capitals to compete with one another and exploit labour as much as they can in the pursuit of profit; and at the same time, these coercive laws of competition force individual workers to compete with fellow workers, locally as well as globally, for jobs that provide the wages they depend on to survive. And this, in turn, influences and reinforces relations (individual, national, etc.) that are built upon or grow out of this socio-economic foundation.

    Ukraine, then, can be seen as an extreme example and reflection of this competition, particularly between nation-states and especially the EU (and the US) and Russia. In the final analysis, most global conflicts have material, socio-economic causes underlying them, not ideological ones. Imperialism is really just the coercive laws of competition unfolding at the political level via the expansion and protection of markets and spheres of influence; and Ukraine is currently in the middle of an imperialist tug-of-war between national competitors that's tearing the country apart from the inside out.

    Unfortunately, there are no simple solutions to these things, and who knows how it's going to turn out in the end. But regardless of the outcome, I can't help but wonder what a world characterized by a mode of production based on cooperation and free association (rather than competition and unequal social relations) might look like and how it might change things. Just imagine the possibilities.

    GlowDaltheJigsawbetaboyDaftChris
  • BhikkhuJayasaraBhikkhuJayasara Bhikkhu Veteran

    In the words of my old Italian grandmother.. "I'm a no giva damm".

    And before im called heartless ill say its because its human politics as normal happening across the globe any second of any day. What I find more interesting is how the news media decides what is important enough in the world for us to know.. Probably when its connected to onw government agenda or another. The news media exists to create fear and give us the illusion of news.

    Invincible_summerhow
  • karastikarasti Breathing Minnesota Moderator

    Twitter is actually one of the better forms of news, if you know how to use it. Because it's all just people reporting on what is happening around them. Increasingly, news reports on major networks like CNN will state "We learned of this development from reader photos and comments on twitter." Which is kind of funny, LOL. Many times I've seen big stories break on twitter only for major news agencies to take hours to get a story up about it.

    News is definitely biased. You can sometimes glean a story from multiple international sources, but a lot of big things happening in the world barely get a mention, if one at all, based on our interest on a political or economic scale. Such as the unrest in Venezuela. Barely mentioned because of what is happening in Ukraine, yet the atrocities are all over the internet. "They" just decide it is not important.

  • vinlynvinlyn Colorado...for now Veteran

    Twitter has its place, but it reports things that happen, not context, and without context, things that happen have little real meaning.

    I would not expect news organizations to be less biased than individuals. We're all biased. This forum is biased. When we read the newspaper or browse online websites, we are biased in what topics we select to read. That's the world. Everywhere.

    And how much does it all matter? Sometimes I'm not so sure. Pick your foreign topic. I'll pick Benghazi. The average conservative every-day American Republican up-in-arms over the Benghazi incident probably can't even tell you that Benghazi is in Libya, and almost certainly can't point to Libya on a map. The average American liberal Democrat who once worried about genocide or starvation in Darfur, probably didn't know whether it was a city or a country (it is neither), and couldn't point to the Sudan on a map...although they probably would at least know it was in Africa.

  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    edited March 2014

    Actually, I haven't followed it. I've chalked it up in part to Russia being up to its old tricks. They encouraged a Russian enclave in Moldova to split off (I don't know if that was successful or not), they encouraged Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia to split off from Georgia, they're always stirring the pot. Now they want the Crimea, naturally, and are using the unrest as an excuse to make a grab. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point they made a grab for western Ukraine.

    What I don't understand is why the US wants Ukraine to join NATO. It's such an unstable country, and what would be the point, anyway? It seems unwise, and provocational.

    And yes, Putin is playing cowboy to boost his popularity, kind of like when Reagan sent the Marines in to Grenada, and Fujimori in Peru started a war with Ecuador. Successful military actions boost presidents' popularity at home.

    sigh Samsara: don't let it happen to you! :(

    Cinorjer
  • vinlynvinlyn Colorado...for now Veteran

    As I understand it -- and admittedly that's not in depth -- the Crimeans have strong ties to Russia.

    I agree with you about the NATO aspect. My guess is that's just to make it more "off hands" to Russia.

    Very interesting -- and I think accurate -- that you compare Putin's persona to Reagan's persona.

  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    edited March 2014

    @vinlyn said:
    As I understand it -- and admittedly that's not in depth -- the Crimeans have strong ties to Russia.

    Well, yes, so? Hungarians in Transylvania have strong ties to Hungary. Does that mean Hungary should grab Transylvania? Should Germany grab back Alsace, because German descendants there feel closer to Germany? Are we going to start re-drawing maps, now?

    :angry:

    (why don't the emoticons work anymore?)

  • vinlynvinlyn Colorado...for now Veteran

    Not even the quote section is working okay!

    All I said was, "the Crimeans have strong ties to Russia". I didn't say maps should be withdrawn. And I have mixed feelings about self-determination in this, and many cases.

    As to your question as to whether we should start redrawing maps, my general answer to that is no.

    Where does democracy come into it?

    Which map is the right map? I just skimmed through Crimean history on Wikipedia. What a mess it has always been. Which map during which part of history is the right map.

    What right does the Ukraine have to Crimea?

    This reminds me a lot of the whole Pakistan separating from India issue, and then the squabble over disputed territory between the two.

    Or continuing squabbles over parcels of land between Cambodia and Thailand based on history.

    I'm not so sure that the obvious answers to the issues are necessarily the right answers.

  • karastikarasti Breathing Minnesota Moderator

    Oh most definitely I didn't mean to suggest individuals were better than media, or less biased in any way. Just that when you can search for hashtags, you can find a lot of posts and pictures that help paint a picture of things going on (not a full picture, of course) that can be used in conjunction with media reports to compare and contrast. News and journalism is not much in the business of informing but more so entertainment.

    So what about this poll Crimea supposedly did? I understand it's probably not legally binding. But if it really is true, and was done reliably, and 93% of the people want to belong to Russia, is it up to someone else to tell them otherwise? Why was Crimea "given" to Ukraine, anyhow? It just boggles my mind that regions are traded like toys on the playground. Horrible board game.

  • DaltheJigsawDaltheJigsaw Mountain View Veteran

    @Jeffrey said:
    Nice document. Sorry about the state of the world :(

    Thank you! Me too!:(

  • DaltheJigsawDaltheJigsaw Mountain View Veteran

    Thank you to all of you for reading/commenting and discussing! I appreciate you all!

  • DaltheJigsawDaltheJigsaw Mountain View Veteran

    @ZenBadger said:
    I have a few friends in Kiev who are very worried by the latest developments. I really hope things calm down for them soon.

    Yeah, I've spoke to a few myself and they are terrified as well:(

  • DaltheJigsawDaltheJigsaw Mountain View Veteran

    @Aspiring_Buddhist said:
    I think Putin is trying to bring back Russia's "Glory Days." He needs to knock it off - people are suffering now as they were back then.

    Yeah, he is off-putting! I know he has done a lot in Russia in the sense of economy, but now he is becoming more and more of a dictator! This is his third term, if you will not include his friend being the president and him being the vice-president. The people, however, did vote for him, so what else can I say...But I will try to speak from the Ukrainian standpoint, in my next article.

  • Steve_BSteve_B Veteran
    edited March 2014

    Crimea has a violent war-torn history. The charge of the Light Brigade was in Crimea. Florence Nightingale, the battlefield nurse, was in Crimea.

    Crimea is a peninsula in the south eastern part of Ukraine, not wholly unlike Florida to the US. Its population is largely ethnic Russian and its culture decidedly Eastern, as opposed to Ukraine as a whole which is ethnic Ukrainian and tilting Western. Here's a very brief history:

    The ethnic Tatar people in Crimea were seen as troublemakers by Stalin, who endeavored to violently persecute and drive them out. Krushchev continued the policy and then made Crimea part of Ukraine instead of Russia. This seems bizarre in the current context, but at the time it made sense for two reasons: 1. All the countries were part of the Soviet Union, so it didn't matter much anyway; and 2. it allowed him to dilute the Tatar population with a large influx of ethnic Russians, pushing far beyond Crimea into Ukraine at large. The plan was to overwhelm and culturally dilute Ukraine with Russians. Resorts were developed along the Black Sea coast, and people were encouraged to migrate.

    Now that there is no Soviet Union, the Russians in Crimea find themselves attached to the "wrong" country, as Ukraine as a whole has since transformed culturally into much more of a Western country. Capitalism has not made it wealthy, however, due to massive political corruption.

    In Kiev, the pro-Moscow president of Ukraine was already distrusted and unpopular, but when he cancelled an EU energy deal and signed one with Russia, that was the final straw. The Ukrainians revolted and chased him from power. They have not formed an expressly pro-Western government, but they have scheduled elections for later this Spring and a strong pro-Western tilt is the likely outcome.

    Meanwhile, the ethnic Russians inhabiting Crimea are deeply suspicious of the Kiev government. Putin masterfully played public opinion by fabricating stories of Ukrainian thugs attacking Russians, so the Crimean Russians see Moscow as the protector. The outcome of the vote was no surprise to anyone. The result is extremely high tension, with flames fanned by both Russia and the West. With the massive Russian military presence there is no effective Western or NATO military response possible; the deck is overwhelmingly stacked. So the West's response is simply to scream good and loud, threaten political and economic sanctions, look for ways to harass Russia, etc.

    Dakini
  • vinlynvinlyn Colorado...for now Veteran

    @karasti said:...
    So what about this poll Crimea supposedly did? I understand it's probably not legally binding. But if it really is true, and was done reliably, and 93% of the people want to belong to Russia, is it up to someone else to tell them otherwise? Why was Crimea "given" to Ukraine, anyhow? It just boggles my mind that regions are traded like toys on the playground. Horrible board game.

    Yes, exactly.

    I don't know much about the present situation. But I learned a lot about slicing up countries when I did quite a bit of reading and studying about Thai history. Even today there are resentments about the current map of Thailand on the part of Thais, Cambodians, Malaysians, and Burmese. Event today there are resentments by Thai citizens who are ethnic Khmer (Cambodian), ethnic Malay, and ethnic Burmese.

    And each group has logical reasons they should own this or that land. But the map is what it is, and who is to say which map throughout history is the right map? The just map? And how do we factor in the intrigue of the British and French in Thai history.

    History is not pretty.

  • Are Ukrainians willing to fight to defend crimea?
    A war that Ukraine cant win.
    Russia is flexing its muscle. US and EU doesnt want a war.
    There is not much that can be done to stop Putin.
    The question is, will putin be satisfied with only crimea?
    or will he go on to annex places like Donyetsk?
    It is a simple case of a large powerful country bullying a small neighbour.

  • Western leaders cannot face a ‘looming’ war. So I guess they'll patch something up - and let Russia gobble part of Ukraine

    http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/western-leaders-cannot-face-a-looming-war-so-i-guess-theyll-patch-something-up--and-let-russia-gobble-part-of-ukraine-9179978.html

  • CinorjerCinorjer Veteran
    edited March 2014

    What's interesting is talk now going around that this Russia-EU and America conflict will prove once and for all who owns the world, national governments or multinational corporations.

    Nations are trying to utilize a war fought entirely on the economic and resource front, not with bombs and bullets. Sanctions have been largely ineffective as tools to force concessions because multinational corporations with quarterly profits greater than most national economies have deep ties with these countries and multi-million dollar joint ventures, and they have made sure there are enough loopholes that while local hospitals might not have supplies, their gas and oil keeps flowing. So what happens to the talk of sanctions now?

    A few people have their available and known assets locked down. Some import/export trade now has to be laundered through third, "neutral" countries. In the end, the big power players get what they want.

    JeffreyTheswingisyellow
  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    edited March 2014

    ugh. The NY Times today says Putin has declared Crimea a part of Russia.

    "Watch the map get redrawn", said a comment in my local paper.

    Should Alaska annex Kamchatka?

  • Aspiring_BuddhistAspiring_Buddhist Seeker of the Buddha Within WA Veteran

    @Dakini said:
    ugh. The NY Times today says Putin has declared Crimea a part of Russia.

    "Watch the map get redrawn", said a comment in my local paper.

    Should Alaska annex Kamchatka?

    If Palin were still in charge, she might!

    vinlynEarthninja
  • robotrobot Veteran
    edited March 2014

    B.C. should definetly annex the Alaska panhandle.

    Invincible_summer
  • Invincible_summerInvincible_summer Heavy Metal Dhamma We(s)t coast, Canada Veteran

    I guess this is all a big lesson on how arbitrary and constructed the idea of nationhood is.

    Theswingisyellow
  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    edited March 2014

    ugh. I can't take it. It's too much.

    :zombie:

  • DaltheJigsawDaltheJigsaw Mountain View Veteran

    @Dakini said:
    ugh. I can't take it. It's too much.

    :zombie:

    What is?

  • TheswingisyellowTheswingisyellow Trying to be open to existence Samsara Veteran
    edited May 2014

    :wave:

  • DaltheJigsawDaltheJigsaw Mountain View Veteran

    @Theswingisyellow said:

    :wave:

    ??

  • It's part of a broader strategy by Moscow to peel away districts of newly-independent states. Take Moldova. Moscow has encouraged Russians in the border area referred to as Transdniestria to break off from Moldova. That one could well be the next to go. And there was the military action in Georgia, supporting southern Ossetia and Abkhazia in their breakaway attempts.

    Moscow foments separatism where it benefits them, and stifles it where it threatens them. For example, Yakutia (Sakha Republic) in 1990 came within one vote of Parliament to secession from Russia. They voted to restrict membership in Parliament to Yakut language speakers. They began to develop as much independence from Moscow as possible, and pursued ties with Canada and the US. Moscow reacted by taking over leadership of major institutions by Russians. So, where earlier there had been a "Yakutization", suddenly, there was a re-Russification.

    This type of tactic goes on beyond the borders of the former USSR, as well. Moscow supported Serbia in the Kosovo conflict, and rumor had it in Romania that Russia was fomenting separatism from Romania among the Hungarian minority in Transylvania. Because at the time, Romania was anti-Moscow, and was allied with China.

    Geopolitics. OY! :shake: .

    Cinorjer
  • CinorjerCinorjer Veteran
    edited October 2014

    For a million years, the human monkey tribes of the world have jostled and fought over who owns what territory. Czar Putin is only doing what rulers have done for recorded history. And the people do the same thing they have always done, kill and die for their tribal land.

    It's hard not to despair of anything ever changing, isn't it?

  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    edited October 2014

    @Cinorjer said:
    For a million years, the human monkey tribes of the world have jostled and fought over who owns what territory. Czar Putin is only doing what rulers have done for recorded history. And the people do the same thing they have always done, kill and die for their tribal land.

    It's hard not to despair of anything ever changing, isn't it?

    People tend to think that Russia went through a huge change after the USSR crashed. I've always told people that a good rule of thumb in trying to understand Russia is, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." I had no illusions about Yeltsin being some liberator. Putin doesn't surprise me, either. Same old, same old. Medvedev seemed to be something new and different, but he turned out to be a puppet, and wasn't allowed to flex his muscles and actually do something good for Russia. :( . I think the Russian people generally are ready for meaningful change (in spite of the supposed popularity of Putin), but it ain't gonna happen. Not anytime soon.

    Cinorjer
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    I thought this was utterly hilarious....

  • NirvanaNirvana aka BUBBA   `     `   South Carolina, USA Veteran

    ^ Nothing like the banners and colors of Patriotism/Tribalism to make people feel so good about themselves: to be Part of Something Larger than themselves. We put on our garments of Righteousness to enlarge our puny selves.

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