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> On Mar 29, 2014, at 11:46 AM, Louis Proyect <l...@panix.com> wrote: > >> On 3/29/14 11:39 AM, Marv Gandall wrote: >> I don't know whether any or all of the contributors are on Louis' >> Index Librorum Prohibitorum, but I hardly need add that in itself >> would not be sufficiently persuasive to invalidate the facts and >> interpretations which are presented. > > > As if we have been debating the threat posed by the EU. We've been debating the role of the US and EU governments and Ukrainian right-wing nationalists (of both the Thatcherite and neo-fascist persuasions) in the overthrow of the Yanukovych government, which was based on the ethnic Russian population in the eastern part of the country. All of the contributors to whom I referred have characterized the change of government as a "putsch" and "coup d'état", and have seen it as inseparable from "the threat posed by the EU". On the other hand, you've vigorously disputed that these forces played any significant role in the Maidan movement and in the new government which it produced. You've celebrated the Maidan protests as a great advance despite the fact that the leading role was played by right-wing ethnic chauvinists, with the revolutionary left and liberals isolated and, in some cases, brutally expelled from the square with the tacit consent of the demonstrators. You've dismissed any suggestion that the Russian absorption of Crimea was provoked by its legitimate fear of creeping NATO encirclement as just so much irrelevant "geopolitics". You've baited anyone who points to these discomfiting facts as Putin apologists and purveyors of the false myth that the Ukrainian masses are "fascists". In fact, I haven't seen anyone suggest the same on the list. I expect most of us would agree with my impression that support for Maidan and the new government comes primarily from politically unsophisticated and desperate working people who idealize the West and, in particular, it's right-centre parties, and who are especially vulnerable to exploitation by the EU/US/IMF troika on that account. It's not enough to pay lip-service to the "EU threat" while pretending that it has not manifested itself in any significant way in the events of the past few months, and has had nothing to do with the related issues we have been debating on the list. ________________________________________________ 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