====================================================================== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. ======================================================================
On 3/13/14 5:24 PM, Marv Gandall wrote:
Louis is always interested in the political background and institutional affiliation of authors of articles like this in order to assess their credibility, which is entirely appropriate.
I send forward massive amounts of material that I think would interest Marxmailers, including a review of Pinkett's new book by Eduardo Porter.
To recapitulate my views on the Ukraine briefly as I have been developing them over the past few weeks:
1. Poverty, corruption and hatred toward Russian domination fueled the protests that led to the collapse of Yanukovych's government.
2. Sympathy for the far right as indicated by polling about attitudes toward the fighting forces in WWII amounts to 16 percent nationwide and only nears a majority in Galicia, a province that has 10 percent of the country's population. In Kyiv, 89 percent of the population views the Red Army favorably, as opposed to 2 percent favorable toward the armed wing of Bandera's ultraright group.
3. In the past 15 years, there are only two reports of violent attacks on Jews in the Ukraine. Social scientists who follow anti-Semitic trends view France and Britain as far more worrisome.
4. There is nothing more progressive about Russia in comparison to the EU. The Eurasian Trade organization is not COMECON and Putin is not Brezhnev.
5. Fascism is not on the agenda anywhere in Europe despite the fact that there are fascists everywhere. If you are going to worry about the ultraright, worry about France where Le Pen got twice the vote of Svoboda.
6. The new power in Ukraine is poised to impose a Greek-style austerity. People who have been suffering from a total economic collapse are not likely to rally around a government imposing it because it invokes nationalistic themes. In fact, as I indicated already, there are reports that the average citizen who supported Euromaidan views it as having a "dirty past", according to the Estonian foreign minister.
That's about it, I guess. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
