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Ukraine

Here's an interesting read if you strip away the nonsense from the first few paragraphs - it gets better after that first Q&A i promise:

Madina Tlostanova: We are witnessing an alarming revival of old-fashioned geopolitics



Interesting suggestion that ukanian nationalism developed out of anti-colonial politics - which given the people that our own wild anti-colonial boy has ended up supporting is worth a little think about.

Coming back to this, according to my great-gran, some of the former "Makhnovisti" who made it over here in the '20s, including my great-gran's youngest brother, thought in terms of a Ukrainian "nationalism", but it wasn't about forming a Ukrainian state, it was about all those who identified as Ukrainians having a territory where they could be "Ukrainian", whether Eastern Catholic, Russian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Jewish or atheist, of Polish, Lithuanian, Russian or whatever heritage.
 
Yes, the fucking Wolfgang runes - the ones favoured by those lovely chaps the SS. You know, the ones guilty of the holocaust.

The sig runes are runic letters from the proto-Germanic Futhark. Like I said, actual alphabetic letters, as opposed to invented symbols.
The "wolfhook" or wolfsangel isn't a rune in any runic alphabet.
There's no such thing as "wolfgang runes", except maybe if you're Noddy or a conspiracy theorist who doesn't have enough iron in their diet.

That's like scribing a spunking cock onto a piece of wood, and then claiming it's Ogham.
 
Thats because they (Right Sector, Svoboda) are fascist - purely fascist.

192 pages into the thread is this is somehow news to you?

I have nothing but contempt for the Kiev regime, but that doesn't mean I'll spend all day excusing the imperialist behaviour of the Russian state, a state which has absolutely no lingering loyalty to any kind of socialism or anti-capitalism, a state which is about a rizla paper away from being fascist itself?

There's two types of nasty authoritarian nationalism fighting it out here, and rather than being able to criticise both you've criticised one type and but heaped praise on the other. I expect nothing better from CR because he's a proven liar and his own politics are that of a right-wing nationalist once you scratch the surface, camoflague is a pity case, but you I would've liked to think would be beyond this crude goodies vs baddies narrative but sadly not.
 
I have nothing but contempt for the Kiev regime, but that doesn't mean I'll spend all day excusing the imperialist behaviour of the Russian state, a state which has absolutely no lingering loyalty to any kind of socialism or anti-capitalism, a state which is about a rizla paper away from being fascist itself?

Is it?
 

To be honest i'd try to avoiding using the word fascist because that's got a specific meaning that I don't think Putin's Russia quite meets, but it's a militarised, ultra-nationalist, autocratic state dominated by the security services and corrupt incorporated oligarchical business interests. That's how I'd describe it, gangster capitalism and autocratic state power, and it's not nice whatever way you cut it. Whether that alone counts as "fascism" is a semantic debate.

Russia is no better than the EU or USA in any aspect. Why we should apply a softer set of rules to them than we'd apply to the west I have no idea, especially since the old excuse of it being a "Worker's State" no longer fits since 1991.
 
Coming back to this, according to my great-gran, some of the former "Makhnovisti" who made it over here in the '20s, including my great-gran's youngest brother, thought in terms of a Ukrainian "nationalism", but it wasn't about forming a Ukrainian state, it was about all those who identified as Ukrainians having a territory where they could be "Ukrainian", whether Eastern Catholic, Russian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Jewish or atheist, of Polish, Lithuanian, Russian or whatever heritage.
This piece (introducing a book on the Borotbisty rather than the Makhnovshchina as the title would suggest) sort of touches on this, on the internal/external stuff and the national movement in the years immediately post 1917 and of ukranianisation as a hidden form of anti-stalinism in later years:

The unknown revolution: Ukraine 1917-21
 
One side is out and out fascist, wolfgang runes, fascist salutes, praise and adoration of a nazi collaborator the lot

All of them? What's a wolfgang rune by the way?

so of course I'm going to criticise them more than people who sing the Internationale, write Antifa on their flags and have anti fascist banners on their barricades.

All of them?

Fascists are people who wear fascist symbols and the presence of some of them makes everyone a fascist.

Antifascists are people who wear antifascist symbols and the presence of some of them makes everyone an antifascist.

That's really all you need to know :rolleyes:
 
To be honest i'd try to avoiding using the word fascist because that's got a specific meaning that I don't think Putin's Russia quite meets, but it's a militarised, ultra-nationalist, autocratic state dominated by the security services and corrupt incorporated oligarchical business interests. That's how I'd describe it, gangster capitalism and autocratic state power, and it's not nice whatever way you cut it. Whether that alone counts as "fascism" is a semantic debate.

Russia is no better than the EU or USA in any aspect. Why we should apply a softer set of rules to them than we'd apply to the west I have no idea, especially since the old excuse of it being a "Worker's State" no longer fits since 1991.

I know it isn't fascist or approaching it. I just thought you were being quite lazy, tbh. Your above description as well ... I wouldn't say Russia (what are we meaning here, the state or the people?) is particularly ultra-nationalistic, nor 'miliiarised,' depending on how we're both using those terms. Autocratic is interesting, although we'd need to look at that more closely, rather than it being an easily repeated cliche referring to Russia's political culture and historical continuities (or not) with the present. And where have I applied a softer set of rules for them?
 
I know it isn't fascist or approaching it. I just thought you were being quite lazy, tbh. Your above description as well ... I wouldn't say Russia (what are we meaning here, the state or the people?) is particularly ultra-nationalistic, nor 'miliiarised,' depending on how we're both using those terms. Autocratic is interesting, although we'd need to look at that more closely, rather than it being an easily repeated cliche referring to Russia's political culture and historical continuities (or not) with the present. And where have I applied a softer set of rules for them?

We're quite clearly talking about the Russian state. And what's the point in a semantic debate over if Russia is or isn't a fascist state, semi-fascist, a state with autocratic borderline-fascist features, to be honest I don't think that kind of tedious semantic argument would be of any use on this thread. It is a very militarised state, with limited democratic features, economically based around a corrupt oligarchy of business interests which are incorporated partially into that state. There is a strong all-pervasive sense of nationalism which is deeply tied into Russian imperialism just as Tory nationalism was tied to the British Empire. It also has an extremely strong neo-nazi political movement which Putin has at times pandered to, not just in terms of gay rights but on a host of issues.

The portrayal then of this state's actions in Ukraine as being motivated by some kind of sincere anti-fascism, when in actual fact they're not in the slightest bit concerned by the fascism of the maidan but by it's geopolitical implications, fascist or otherwise, is really fucking outrageous, especially for those of us who are also anti-fascists and anti-imperialists and don't want to be associated with that kind of pathetic Casually Red style uncritical Putin-worship.
 
... over a quenelle from some footballer, someone jiggling their elbow...
Is that all it was?
That's a relief. Europe's Jews and anti-fascists will feel reassured, now that CR has explained that the quenelle has no wider significance other than Anelka jiggling his elbow. A pity CR wasn't heeded at the time by the aforementioned groups, as it would have calmed a lot of peoples' fears, and saved a great deal of media kerfuffle.

BTW is the gesture still just "someone jiggling their elbow" if performed outside a synagogue or the site of a former concentration camp?
 
We're quite clearly talking about the Russian state. And what's the point in a semantic debate over if Russia is or isn't a fascist state, semi-fascist, a state with autocratic borderline-fascist features, to be honest I don't think that kind of tedious semantic argument would be of any use on this thread. It is a very militarised state, with limited democratic features, economically based around a corrupt oligarchy of business interests which are incorporated partially into that state. There is a strong all-pervasive sense of nationalism which is deeply tied into Russian imperialism just as Tory nationalism was tied to the British Empire. It also has an extremely strong neo-nazi political movement which Putin has at times pandered to, not just in terms of gay rights but on a host of issues.

The portrayal then of this state's actions in Ukraine as being motivated by some kind of sincere anti-fascism, when in actual fact they're not in the slightest bit concerned by the fascism of the maidan but by it's geopolitical implications, fascist or otherwise, is really fucking outrageous, especially for those of us who are also anti-fascists and anti-imperialists and don't want to be associated with that kind of pathetic Casually Red style uncritical Putin-worship.

Oh, I think there is some importance in whether a state can be defined as being fascist or not, particularly if you want to talk about it yourself but when you come up against a questioning of your position all of a sudden it becomes not so important. And it's important when seeing what actual fascists are up to in that country. And if you're going to use the term autocracy in a Russian context why can't we then examine what that means in contemporary Russian society? You're also over-egging the influence of fascists from below. The Nazis and their like will be kept in the gutter. And even the influence of the elitist politics of Dugin is questionable.

Putin's government, like opposition in the past, may have borrowed from the anti-American, geopolitical aspects of his politics with looking at the prospects of Russia's re-emergence as a great power, but we would need to determine with a bit more specificity the kind of influence he has had in Putin's government in challenging the US when it comes to former Soviet republics in Europe and Asia, and Russia's Asian territory being used as leverage in relations with one of the most economically important parts of the world. Your posts have been rather cliched, particularly around such things as democracy, autocracy etc. And if you're aiming that last bit at me, quite simply you can fuck off.
 
And if you're aiming that last bit at me, quite simply you can fuck off.

Just on this, no I wasn't aiming that exclusively at you, consider it a friendly warning shot fired over your bow to dissuade you from entering those murky Putinist waters.

Again I don't think a long and semantic argument over "To what extent is Russia a fascist state" does much to help our undertstanding of why they're acting the way they are, and it's relevance to Ukraine, so I would rather not. I've made my opinion clear on what type of state Russia is and I think it's an honest and accurate assessment. I don't particularly care if that quick assessment on a message board looks "clichéd" because I think it's pretty much right.
 
Just on this, no I wasn't aiming that exclusively at you, consider it a friendly warning shot fired over your bow to dissuade you from entering those murky Putinist waters.

Again I don't think a long and semantic argument over "To what extent is Russia a fascist state" does much to help our undertstanding of why they're acting the way they are, and it's relevance to Ukraine, so I would rather not. I've made my opinion clear on what type of state Russia is and I think it's an honest and accurate assessment. I don't particularly care if that quick assessment on a message board looks "clichéd" because I think it's pretty much right.

You are one condescending arsehole. Have you not bothered reading any of my Russia-related posts on this site for several years (including under my old username?) If you did you'd know I am in no danger of entering those 'murky waters,' as you put it. I'd bet I know more about Russian nationalism, fascism and 'Putinism' than you do but thanks for offering to hold my hand. I don't see why your position can not be up for discussion, whether it be short, long, 'tedious' or otherwise. You can behave like CR at times with the displays of pig-headedness. I also have the honour of being on his sulky ignore list.
 
You are one condescending arsehole. Have you not bothered reading any of my Russia-related posts on this site for several years (including under my old username?) If you did you'd know I am in no danger of entering those 'murky waters,' as you put it. I'd bet I know more about Russian nationalism, fascism and 'Putinism' than you do but thanks for offering to hold my hand. I don't see why your position can not be up for discussion, whether it be short, long, 'tedious' or otherwise. You can behave like CR at times with the displays of pig-headedness. I also have the honour of being on his sulky ignore list.

This might be my very favourite post anyone has ever made in my direction on my time on this forum, and that includes being called a rimjob cunt by BA on the old Penny thread.

Anyway I'll take your word for it that you're not a Putin bum-licker and bid you good-day. And there is no higher honour than making Casually Wrong's ignore list so I'll take that as a positive.
 
Seriously, get over yourself. Stick to what you know. At least you haven't written whole essays today, so that's the tedious bit taken care of. No need to talk sideways about taking my word for it, other posters here can vouch for me on that score.
 
Seriously, get over yourself. Stick to what you know. At least you haven't written whole essays today, so that's the tedious bit taken care of.

Hang on weren't you the one just criticising me for not writing a long tedious diatribe about "is or isn't Russia a fascist state?" Make your mind up.
 
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