Minsk ‘Worse than Munich,’ Landsbergis Says
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Minsk ‘Worse than Munich,’ Landsbergis Says by paul goble (noreply@blogger.com)
Paul Goble
Staunton, February 13 – Many including the author of these lines have compared what happened in Minsk this week with what happened in Munich in 1938, but Vytautas Landsbergis, the man who played the key role in recovering the independence of Lithuania, argues that the Minsk meeting was “much worse than Munich.”
One reason for that conclusion, he points out, is that in 1938, there were no SS officers from the Sudetenland taking part and demanding the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. “At the very least, they were not sitting” at the negotiating table. But in Minsk, precisely such people were (ru.delfi.lt/news/politics/landsbergis-eto-huzhe-chem-myunhen.d?id=67161678).
As a result, the Western participants lent to them and their demands a legitimacy which invading forces do not deserve and should never be given. Such hirelings of an aggressive state “must not be allowed to sit” at such talks. To allow them to do so is to give up the game and yield to the aggressor.
If Russia now presumes to dictate what should be the constitutional order in Ukraine and if he has gained the assent of the German chancellor and the French president, Landsbergis continues, then the world has the right, even the obligation to ask, “when will you begin to observe the [Russian] Constitution, Mr. Putin?”
If he has no intention of doing so – and clearly there is no evidence for any other conclusion, Landsbergis suggests – then, “keep your mother shut and don’t talk about the Constitution.” Ukraine is “a democratic country, we have an elected parliament,” and its president Petro Poroshenko can say “I am an elected president [but] you appointed yourself.”
The Lithuanian leader said that he was disappointed that German Chancellor Angela Merkel apparently accepted Putin’s “’puppet theater’” when she suggested that the Kremlin leader had put pressure on the separatists to sign the agreement. To say that is also to give them a status independent of Moscow which they do not deserve.
And although Landsbergis did not list them, there are three other ways in which Minsk was worse than Munich. First, at Munich, Prague was not asked to participate in the capitulation of its partners. Second, at Minsk, the most powerful Western country of the time was not excluded. And third, at Munich but not at Minsk, those doing the appeasing admitted as much.
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U.S. Jewish Groups Back Azerbaijan Despite Rights Concernsby noreply@rferl.org (Carl Schreck, Luke Johnson)
Amid international criticism of Azerbaijan’s human rights record, U.S.-based Jewish organizations are firm in their support of Baku.
 РБК Украина |
Арсений Яценюк считает ключевым вопросом мира восстановление контроля над границей
Коммерсантъ Премьер-министр Украины Арсений Яценюк в своем интервью " target="_blank">CNN заявил, что ключевым условием минских соглашений является закрытие границы между Украиной и Россией и возвращение контроля над территориями Донецкой и Луганской народных республиках. Яценюк: Основная цель Киева - вернуть контроль над Донецком и ЛуганскомКомсомольская правда Яценюк назвал основной целью Киева возвращение контроля над Донецком и ЛуганскомВзгляд Яценюк намерен вернуть Донецк и ЛуганскТВ Центр - Официальный сайт телеканала Интерфах-Запад -Информационное агентство России ТАСС -РБК Украина Все похожие статьи: 16 » |
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НТВ.ru В Киеве утверждают, что ополченцы получили задачу установить контроль над городами Дебальцево и Мариуполь Донецкой области до 15 февраля, когда стороны должны прекратить огонь. 1371. Поделиться ссылкой на выделенное. Twitter · Facebook · Вконтакте · Google+. Прямая ... Киев: Ополченцы получили задачу взять два города в ДонбассеРБК Статус участника боевых действий получили почти 8 тысяч военныхУкраинское национальное информагентство Минобороны Украины заявило о плане сепаратистов взять Дебальцево и МариупольSlon.ru - Редакция деловых новостей Интерфакс - Украина -Интерфакс -УНИАН Все похожие статьи: 91 » |
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Fighting continues in Ukraine despite looming cease-fireby Michael Birnbaum, and Daniela Deane
MOSCOW — Ukrainian soldiers and pro-Moscow rebel forces clashed Friday ahead of a cease-fire hammered out by European leaders desperate to halt the conflict in eastern Ukraine but also openly questioning whether the peace deal will stick.Read full article >>
Russian Chauvinism is the Gravedigger of the Russian Imperial Idea, Pokrovskaya Says by paul goble (noreply@blogger.com)
Paul Goble
Staunton, February 13 – The chauvinism Russia’s war against Ukraine has unleashed is becoming the grave digger of imperial consciousness among Russians, forcing them to recognize that the non-Russian countries don’t want to be part of Russia ever again and that parts of the Russian Federation aren’t really part of Russia either, according to Elizaveta Pokrovskaya.
And the death of the imperial idea marks the end of empire just as surely as when an empire loses its colonies, the Moscow analyst argues; and now that this is happening in Russia, it marks “the irreversible and absolute end of the era of Russian empires” that has existed for centuries (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=54D99AE38C5E8).
“The death of the Russian imperial dragon has dragged out over a century,” she writes. In 1917, the Russian Empire died; in 1991, the restored empire died a second time; and now, “the imperial project under the name ‘Russian world’ is approaching to its end, having barely begun,” she argues.
That experience, Pokrovskaya says, underlines an important reality: “the era of empires ends not only when there are territorial changes but also when the imperial idea itself finally dies,” when people at the center recognize that the benefits they thought they were getting from the empire are illusory and that the burdens of empire are too heavy to bear.
That process, she suggests, is not taking place “at one and the same time on the fields of battle and in the consciousness of millions of people.” And it is happening precisely now when “much it would appear is pointing in the opposite direction.”
The reason for her conclusion, Pokrovskaya says, lies in the fact that many people include within the definition of Russia “territories and peoples which in fact do not have any relationship to it.” Abroad, many people from Ukraine or Poland still think of themselves as being from Russia, she says.
And that has been reinforced for many both abroad and at home by the fact that there has been “an a priori application of the ethnonym ‘Russian’ to practically everything connected with the USSR,” something Moscow has used to get support from emigres and assumed is true for many people who identify otherwise.
One can understand the absurdity of this situation if one imagines that an Arab asked where his family was from would say “’From Turkey, from Damascus” because that city was once part of the Ottoman Empire or that a Czech asked the same thing would say “from Austria, from Prague.” Such responses are unthinkable and impossible.
But they aren’t with Russians abroad or at home. “The Russian Empire should by rights have died at the same time with the Ottoman and the Austro-Hungarian ones, but in contrast to them, [its] remains after 20 years have been exhumed and galvanized” and many think that the past truly lives on for Russia as Russians imagine it.
For many in both the USSR and the West, “Russia finally became a synonym of the USSR,” she writes, and as a result the Communist party came up with the idea of “the Soviet people as ‘a new historical community’… which was simultaneously a goal and a euphemism for designating the absorption of the population of the USSR into the Russian imperial paradigm.”
Despite the disintegration of the USSR in 1991, “this imperial paradigm and the ideology corresponding to it did not pass into oblivion” either in Russia itself or in the non-Russian countries which emerged. In part, this can be explained as a classic case of “post-imperial syndrome,” Pokrovskaya argues, “but not by that alone.”
Many Russian imperialists continued to be encouraged by those like Yegor Gaidar and Vladimir Putin who talked about the end of the USSR as “the most important geopolitical catastrophe of the 20thcentury.” And many non-Russians considered to feel themselves part of an entity larger than their new countries.
“In many post-Soviet republics” in the 1990s, Boris Yeltsin was called “’the main president,’” and in the first years of the 20th century, Vladimir Putin was viewed as “’the natural leader’ of the post-Soviet space.” Under those conditions, “the idea of rapprochement and even ‘unification with Russia in some form or other’ was quite popular” in many places.
So what is taking place “literally before our eyes?” Pokrovskaya asks. On the one hand, parts of some of the non-Russian countries – Transdniestria out of Moldova, Abkhazia and South Osetia out of Georgia and the eastern Donbas out of Ukraine – have been pulled into closer ties with the Russian center.
But on the other, “although the imperial skin has been maintained a bit, the food for supporting the imperial idea no longer is.” The events in Ukraine first the Maidan and then the Russian invasion have led to the appearance of “a new Ukrainian civic nation for which imperial Russia and for Russian imperial projects Ukraine has been lost and apparently so forever.”
The Russian imperial project has lost far more than Ukraine, however. It has lost Belarus which is now increasingly ethnically conscious. It has lost Georgia because of the 2008 invasion. It has lost Moldova, and it is “slowly but consistently” losing any chance for including any of the Central Asian countries as well.
As a result, there are not very many candidates for inclusion, as a growing number of Russian imperialists are being forced to acknowledge as well. But, Pokrovskaya continues, “the imperial idea can die only when the myth about ‘the unity of the empire’ dies in its very center,” and that is what is happening now.
Russian imperialists no longer talk about Ukrainians and Russians being “one people.” Such assertions seem ever less plausible. But it is becoming obvious to ever more of them, now that “the genie of chauvinism” has come out of the bottle, that many of the peoples inside the borders of the Russian Federation can no longer be described as “one people” either.
“Only by breaking with the empire, with the imperial idea, and with imperial consciousness” can “a Russian civic nation” be formed. No imperial nation finds this an easy path. “But it is inevitable, and the experience of other former imperial nations, from the English and the French” and all the others “will be useful” for Russia.
A quarter of a century ago, “it became clear” to many that Russians no longer had the resources to maintain an empire, Pokrovskaya says. Now it is becoming clear that “there are no bases for the establishment of the so-called ‘Russian world,’ and that this means that the Russians simply have no other way out besides the creation of their own nation, a Russian civic nation.”
“The era of Russian empires is coming to an end. But this does not mean that the era of Russia and Russians is also ending. Another era is beginning, the era of the Russian civic nation, of Russian civil society, and of a Russian nation state,” she concludes.
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 УНИАН |
«Нам до мира еще ой как далеко»: После Минска Порошенко «мобилизует» Нацгвардию
ИА REGNUM Достигнутые в результате длительных переговоров договоренности в Минске дают надежду на деэскалацию ситуации в Донбассе и ее урегулирование мирным путем, заявил президент Петр Порошенко. «Вчера в Минске при мощной международной поддержке, с абсолютной четкой ... Порошенко: Украина будет выполнять минские договоренностиВести.Ru Порошенко: нет уверенности в выполнении минских договоренностейУНИАН Порошенко не хочет производить впечатление наивного человекаГазета.Ru Московский комсомолец -Версии.сом -В городе Все похожие статьи: 158 » |
Aggressive HIV Found in Cubaby webdesk@voanews.com (Joe DeCapua)
An aggressive form of HIV has been discovered in Cuba. It develops into full-blown AIDS within just three years. Researchers said the progression happens so fast that treatment with antiretroviral drugs may come too late. Professor Anne-Mieke Vandamme said Cuban health officials first alerted her about the aggressive form of AIDS. They asked for help in finding out what was happening. “We have a collaborative project with Cuba and the Cuban clinicians had noticed that they recently had more and more patients who were progressing much faster to AIDS than they were used to [seeing]. In this case, most of these patients had AIDS even at diagnosis already,” she said. Vandamme is a full medical professor at the University of Leuvan in Belgium. She and her team studied more than 70 patients and divided them into various groups. One group was made up of those who developed AIDS quickly. “So this group of patients that progressed very fast, they were all recently infected. And we know that because they had been HIV negative tested one or a maximum two years before,” she said. She said that on average, without treatment, HIV infection takes 5 to 10 years to become full-blown AIDS. That’s determined by the scarcity of CD-4 immune cells and the number of opportunistic infections a patient has. Usually, she said, a fast progression of HIV to AIDS is more a result of the patient’s weak immune system rather than the particular subtype of HIV involved. What’s happening in Cuba is different. “Here we had a variant of HIV that we found only in the group that was progressing fast. Not in the other two groups. We focused in on this variant [and] tried to find out what was different. And we saw it was a recombinant of three different subtypes,” she said. This new form of HIV is a combination of sub-types A, D and G. It’s been named CRF19. Vandamme said, “Another thing was that they had much more virus in their blood than the other patients. So, what we call the viral load was higher in these patients. “ The patients with the aggressive form of HIV also had higher levels of a molecule called RANTES. It’s released as part of the immune response and raises the alarm about infection. Researchers have determined why this form of HIV progresses to AIDS so quickly. Vandamme said for infection to take place, HIV has to attach itself to a cell at – what she calls – anchor points. In medical terms they’re called co-receptors. Vandamme said, “There are two types of co-receptors that HIV can use: CCR5 or CXCR4. And in the normal progression of the HIV to AIDS it often happens that the virus switches co-receptor. It almost always starts with using CCR5 and then it switches to CXCR4 after many years. And once it switches the progression to AIDS goes very fast.” But instead of taking many years to switch co-receptors, the new form of HIV in Cuba does it less than three years. Vandamme says the inclusion of HIV subtype D in the new variant may be key. It contains an enzyme that enables HIV to reproduce in greater numbers – and it takes proteins from other subtypes and uses them in new virus particles. The good news is that the aggressive form of HIV responds to most antiretroviral drugs. The bad news is people may not realize they have full-blown AIDS until it’s too late for therapy to do any good. Vandamme said the variant has been seen before in Africa, but there were very few such patients and it does not appear to be spreading there. However, it is in wide circulation now in Cuba and now can be easily studied. So, there may be an African link, but further study is needed. She said it’s vital for people having unprotected sex with multiple partners to be tested for HIV early and often.
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· · ·
 The Moscow Times |
UPDATE 2-Russian assets rally on Ukraine peace deal and $60 oil
Reuters Russia's dollar-denominated RTS stock index was up 5.6 percent to 910 points, while the rouble-based MICEX was 1.7 percent higher at 1,833 points. On Wednesday, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France signed an accord that envisages a ... US Downplays New Russia Sanctions With Eyes on Cease-Fire DealThe Moscow Times US says Russia still deploying heavy arms in UkraineEconomic Times Kerry says US may roll back Russia sanctions if Minsk agreements enactedKyiv Post all 62 news articles » |
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The devilish detail of this document is highly advantageous to the Russians, writes Niall Ferguson
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Генконсульство России в Нью-Йорке ждет доступа к экстрадированному в США Владимиру Дринкману
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 Полит.ру |
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 New York Times |
US Faults Russia as Combat Spikes in East Ukraine
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President Obama on Wednesday will host a summit bringing together police, religious leaders and others to confront extremism in American neighborhoods. The White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism will look at domestic and international efforts to prevent extremists from radicalizing and recruiting young people in America and elsewhere. VOA's Luis Ramirez reports.
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 New York Times |
A Russian TV Insider Describes a Modern Propaganda Machine
New York Times Not what the news was, but what they would make it, said Mr. Pomerantsev, the author of a recent book chronicling the moral and financial corruption of modern-day Moscow and the manipulation of a Russian television industry that he later joined. He ... |
Photographs provided to Senator James Inhofe by Ukrainian officials as proof of Russian involvement in Ukraine were taken during the 2008 Georgia war.
Multicolored Snow in Russia? No Worries, Officials Say
New York Times In Russia, where it is a bit more familiar, there is typically no fear, unless the snow on the ground happens to be blue, as it was in Chelyabinsk this week, or orange, as it was earlier this month in Saratov on the Volga River. In Chelyabinsk, a city ... and more » |
Efforts to regulate the sale and personal consumption of marijuana are underway from the United States to Uruguay and points in between. How these efforts impact public attitudes and personal behaviors is subject to much speculation and debate. Join us for a public discussion with three leading researchers from the Latin America Marijuana Research Initiative (LAMRI) who have just completed extensive field work and surveys about marijuana regulation, the first of its kind in the region.
Directions:
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Менять расписание повода нет: ЕС не счел Минск основанием для отмены санкций
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The United States has accused Russia and pro-Russian rebels of violating "the spirit" of a fresh peace deal for eastern Ukraine.
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 НТВ.ru |
Лидер Радикальной партии Украины Олег Ляшко признался, что его сестра воюет на стороне луганских сепаратистов
Радиостанция ЭХО МОСКВЫ "Моя сестра Виктория, с которой мы вместе выросли воюет с оружием в руках на стороне террористов в Луганске", - сказал Ляшко в эфире "Шустер live" на телеканале "112". Ляшко известен как политик, крайне непримиримо настроенный по отношению к противникам единства Украины ... Украинский радикал Ляшко рассказал, что его сестра воюет на стороне ополченцевНТВ.ru Сестра лидера Радикальной партии Украины воюет на стороне ополченцевРоссийская Газета Ляшко рассказал о воюющей на стороне ополченцев сестреLenta.ru Подробности -Коммерсантъ -РИА ФедералПресс Все похожие статьи: 46 » |
Почему министр иностранных дел России был осмеян во время выступления перед мировыми государственными деятелями? Копирует ли российская дипломатия приемы сталинской дипломатии? Превратился ли цинизм в стержень российской внешней политики? В программе Юрия Жигалкина обсуждают американские эксперты.
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U.S. President Barack Obama has described the deaths of three young Muslims gunned down in North Carolina this week as "brutal and outrageous murders."
 Gallup.com |
ISIS, Terrorism Seen as Graver Threats Than Russia, Ukraine
Gallup.com WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Despite the intensifying fighting between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists before the cease-fire agreement Thursday, Americans place the conflict low on the list of critical threats to U.S. interests in the next decade ... and more » |
 OAnews |
WSJ: лидер Ирана ответил на секретное послание Обамы
OAnews Верховный лидер Ирана аятолла Али Хаменеи ответил на секретное письмо американского президента Барака Обамы, в котором глава Белого дома предложил иранским властям сотрудничество в борьбе против террористов из "Исламского государства" (ИГ). Официальных ... и другие » |
 CBS News |
Russia asks UN Security Council to support cease-fire agreement
Fox News Russia is asking the UN Security Council to endorse the new cease-fire agreement on Ukraine and has called upon all parties involved to fully carry it out. UN diplomats said the council is expected to meet Sunday to vote on the surprise resolution ... Russia asks UN Security Council to take action on UkraineCBS News all 65 news articles » |
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Petro Poroshenko warns that a peace deal signed with Vladimir Putin was already being undermined by fighting raging in east Ukraine hours before a Saturday deadline, as the US releases satellite images it says shows Russia still deploying heavy arms 
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Ukraine’s president has warned that an agreement to end the fighting ravaging the country is in “great danger” just hours before the ceasefire is due to take effect.
 Хроника мировых событий |
Во время переговоров в Минске в Украину въехали 50 российских танков
Хроника мировых событий Украина разочарована удаленностью России от имплементации минских договоренностей, заявил представитель Украины в ООН Юрий Сергеев. «Мы не скрываем нашего разочарования, что руководство России немедленно отделило себя от процесса имплементации (минских ... В ООН не обсуждают вопрос о направлении миротворцев на ДонбассОбозреватель Совбез ООН на экстренном заседании рассмотрит резолюцию России по УкраинеЗеркало недели Совбез ООН экстренно обсудит проект резолюции по УкраинеАпостроф Аргументы и факты -Zarusskiy.org Все похожие статьи: 320 » |
 GIGAmir |
Посол США на Украине "показал" присутствие российских военных под Дебальцево (фото)
Росбалт.RU КИЕВ, 14 февраля. Посол США на Украине Джеффри Пайетт в своем микроблоге опубликовал "свидетельства" присутствия российских войск в районе Дебальцево. "Мы уверены, это российское военное вооружение, не оружие сепаратистов", — заявил Пайетт, опубликовав 3 ... Посол США на Украине увидел в Дебальцево российские системы ПВО со спутникаВести.Ru Посол США на Украине нашел системы ПВО в районе ДебальцевоИнтерфакс В США опубликовали снимки предполагаемых российских систем ПВО близ ДебальцевоПолит.ру РБК Украина -Интерфакс - Украина -Snob.ru Все похожие статьи: 41 » |
The satellite images, posted Saturday on Twitter by the U.S. ambassador, were meant to bolster the case that Russia has joined separatists in an all-out assault on the Ukrainian Army.
Fighting Rages in Ukraine With Cease-Fire Set to Take Effectby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
Fighting raged in Ukraine Saturday between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists, just hours before a cease-fire aimed at halting the conflict it set to take effect. The cease-fire is due to be implemented at midnight Saturday (12:00 a.m. Sunday local time, 2200 UTC Saturday), several days after the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany agreed to the truce in the Belarussian capital, Minsk. The U.N. Security Council is expected to meet Sunday for an emergency session to shore up the cease-fire. U.N. diplomats say the 15-member body will vote on a Russian-drafted resolution calling on all parties to implement the deal. On Friday, fighting in eastern Ukraine was intense in the strategically important area around Debaltseve. At least 26 people were killed, including Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. The United States on Friday accused Russia of sending large amounts of military supplies and equipment to pro-Russian fighters in eastern Ukraine. Russia has denied sending troops or weapons across the border to aid in the fighting, which has killed at least 5,400 people and wounded thousands more since separatists launched their uprising 10 months ago. “We are very concerned about continued fighting along and beyond the line of contact including in heavily populated civilian areas and reports of additional resupplies of tanks and missile systems coming across the border from Russia in the past few days,” said U.S. State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki during a briefing Friday. “The Russian military has deployed a large amount of artillery and multiple rocket launcher systems around Debaltseve where it is shelling Ukrainian positions,” said Psaki. She added the U.S. had obtained its own information. “We are confident these are Russian military not separatist systems. The Russian military also has air defense systems deployed near Debaltseve. We are also confident these are Russian military not separatist systems.” The U.S. said it also has evidence that Russian units along the border with Ukraine were preparing a large shipment of supplies meant for pro-Russian forces fighting in eastern Ukraine. “This is clearly not in the spirit of the week’s agreement,” said Psaki. She called on all sides to show restraint ahead of the cease-fire set to begin at 12.01 a.m. on Sunday. “Actions, not words, are what will determine whether the agreement will produce what it’s suppose to produce.” The cease-fire agreement was reached on Thursday after marathon talks among France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia, Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). It calls for a cease-fire, the withdrawal of heavy weapons by both sides, for Ukraine to pull back from the current line of contact, for Russian-backed separatists to withdraw to a line agreed upon in a Minsk deal reached in September, and for an exchange of prisoners. Ukraine and a host of Western governments accuse Moscow of stoking the rebellion in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east with arms and fighters. Moscow has repeatedly denied providing direct support to rebels, and claims that Russian troops seen fighting alongside rebels are volunteers.
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Fascism in Putin’s Russia Likely to be Fascism of the Left, Oleynik Says by paul goble (noreply@blogger.com)
Paul Goble
Staunton, February 14 – Most in Russia and many in the West are so used to thinking of fascism and especially Nazism as a phenomenon of the extreme right that they do not remember that Nazism was National Socialism and that until the Rohm Purge it was as much a movement of the left as of the right.
That failure to understand the roots of Nazism, a failure largely maintained by Soviet and Russian insistence that the Nazis never be identified by the full name of their party – the National Socialist German Workers Party – and by intellectual laziness in the West is limiting the ability of analysts to understand the kind of fascism Vladimir Putin is building.
As a result, while many have talked about “a Weimar scenario” for Russia, few have considered that Vladimir Putin may seek to promote what could be called “left-wing” fascism rather than the “right wing” kind that most people think is the only one that can exist or that the “left-wing” variety, which stresses socialist elements, explains the support he and it have.
In yesterday’s “Vedomosti,” Anton Oleynik, a scholar at Memorial University in Canada, argues that fascism has its roots not in the class politics Marxism suggests but elsewhere, in “the discrediting of formal institutions because of the lack of correspondence between them and actual practice” and a sense that in that situation one’s interests can be defended only by force (vedomosti.ru/opinion/news/39372581/ugroza-fashizma?full#cut).
To the extent that is the case, he argues, fascism in Russia would not necessarily be introduced by the extreme right but could draw support “by its actions” from ordinary citizens and representatives of the authorities,” who have lost any faith in the “formal institutions” of domestic governance or international relations.
In that event and for that reason, “as was the case in Weimar Germany, the fascist project in Russia has the chance to gain the support of the majority,” although those who support this project won’t call it fascism or themselves fascists. But then, as Oleynik points out, “Hitler didn’t call himself a fascist either.”
Oleynik begins his article by observing that it is now fashionable in Russia to use the word “fascist” and its derivatives to talk about the extreme right in that country. But that use by itself distracts attention from “a source of fascism which allows it to flourish precisely in Russia today – the inability of formal institutions to correspond to the expectations of the population.”
Institutions, as Douglas North has pointed out in his book “Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance,” establish the frameworks for human interaction, that is, “the rules of the game.” But what is critical, Oleynik says, is whether formal institutions correspondent to actual practice or not.
If they don’t, then sooner or later, people turn away from the formal institutions because “no one likes playing in an ‘alien’ game.” That is exactly what has happened in Russia both with regard to democracy at home and the international rules of the game established by the West over the last two decades abroad.
When an individual or a country refuses to play by the rules, it either “refuses to play” and leaves the game to others or makes an effort to impose its rules on others by force.
The Weimar Republic lasted only 14 years, but it represented an attempt to find “a ‘wise compromise’ between revolution and the status quo. (It was also, Oleynik notes, “the first attempt at the existence of a unified Germany.”) The attempt did not succeed and ended with Hitler’s coming to power.
There has been much interest in Russia in the Weimar case “because of certain analogies between Weimar Germany and post-Soviet Russia. The latter also became the product of a rejection of a revolutionary variant of development.” Indeed, “in 1991, a real revolution did not take place.”
Instead, “in place of the Soviet empire which had disappeared gradually has been restored another empire, a New Russian one. Its size is not comparable with the Soviet one, but the principle is the same,” Oleynik says. That sets up the possibility that after a Weimar-like period, Russia could enter into a fascist one.
One of the first to warn of this danger was Aleksandr Yanov in his 1995 book, “After Yetlsin: ‘Weimar’ Russia” in which he pointed to the internal weakness of the empire, something exacerbated by the weakness of democratic institutions into what he suggested was “an explosive mixture.”
During the prosperous first decade of the 21st century, many forgot about this prediction, but in fact, it was exactly during that period that the preconditions for its fulfillment were met: “The empire stood up again. Sovereign democracy strengthened. Art and sport flourished,” again just as in Weimar times.
In many respects, Oleynik says, “the defeat of the USSR in the Cold War played a role analogous in contemporary Russia” to what Germany’s defeat in World War I did. “Formally, there wasn’t any capitulation, but the status of super power was lost” and from the point of view of others, Russia was no longer an empire but “an ordinary country.”
As in Weimar Germany so too in post-Soviet Russia, many people were anything but acceptant of that change, and their feelings were exacerbated by the fact that “as in Weimar Germany,” democratic institutions in Russia “’haven’t worked.’” As a result, democracy has come to be associated only with elite games and popular suffering.
German theorist Peter Sloterdijk said of Weimar that “everywhere the bitter feeing of having been deceived was combined with the sense that everything had to begin again from square one,” a statement that could be applied with equal force to post-Soviet Russia, Oleynik argues.
Moreover, as Sloterdijk has written, fascism “directly rejects efforts to somehow legitimate itself by openly proclaiming cruelty and ‘holy egotism’ as a political necessarity and a historical-biological law.” In such circumstances, nationalism “becomes one of the means of rejecting formal institutions of democracy and international agreements viewed as alien and as having been imposed from the outside.”
Again, Russia fully fits into this pattern, deploying force outside its borders to correct what it sees as a world order that was imposed on it and force within its borders to correct a situation that the institutions it was compelled to accept do not work or in fact work directly against its interests.
If the economic situation worsens and popular dissatisfaction increases, Oleynik suggests, these forces working to bring fascism, especially a left fascism, to Russia will only increase not only as a survival strategy for the elites but also as a means of resolving the sense of betrayal among many members of the population.
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 Forbes Ukraine |
Бои идут в 20 км от Мариуполя, окрестности города подвергаются обстрелам
Газета.Ru «По информации штаба сектора М зоны АТО, в настоящее время идут боевые столкновения украинских военных с боевиками по линии населенных пунктов Широкино — Лебединское с применением тяжелой артиллерии с обеих сторон. Украинские военные закрепились на позициях и ... Артобстрелы и танковый бой под Мариуполем: "уничтожено" село ШирокиноNEWSru.com Бои идут в 20 км от Мариуполя, террористы несут потери - горсоветЛІГА.net Боестолкновения идут в 20 км от границ Мариуполя, противник несет потери – горсоветИнтерфакс - Украина Search News -ОРЕАНДА -Московский комсомолец Все похожие статьи: 52 » |
Widespread Support among Russians for Non-Traditional Families Disturbs Orthodox by paul goble (noreply@blogger.com)
Paul Goble
Staunton, February 14 – In a poll timed to precede Valentine’s Day -- a holiday the Russian Orthodox Church opposes -- Russians showed high levels of tolerance for non-traditional family arrangements, highlighting changes in Russian society, undercutting Putin’s neo-traditionalism, and frightening many Orthodox who blame this pattern on the West.
The VTsIOM polling agency, which has close ties to the Russian government, reported yesterday that “the majority” of Russians now consider most forms of non-traditional family arrangements acceptable, marking a tectonic shift in Russian attitudes over a remarkably short time (regions.ru/news/2545423/).
According to the poll, 87 percent of Russian do not see anything wrong when an unmarried woman gives birth to a child, with 72 percent noting that this happens and 15 percent even supporting the idea. Eighty-one percent say they consider couples living together without official registration as completely acceptable, and only 16 percent condemn that.
Seventy-nine percent see nothing wrong in married couples deciding to remain childless, with 62 percent saying that each such case should be considered on its merits. Twenty-five years ago, a third of those polls condemned such decisions; today, “only 18 percent do,” VTsIOM reported. And fewer than half of the same said that infidelity was “unacceptable.”
Not surprisingly, the Russian Orthodox clergy with whom the Regions.ru news agency spoke viewed this as a disaster, the product of urbanization, media promotion of egotism, and Western influence. And undoubtedly, some of the causes they point to are in fact the real ones behind these figures.
But whatever the causes, these figures show that Russian society has changed in fundamental ways and that any effort by the church or by the Putin regime to push it back to where it was either on issues of marital legitimacy or the number of children couples will have are going to be resisted, whatever the pro-Kremlin neo-traditionalist propagandists say.
And those changes in attitudes toward family life will affect others and make it far harder for the regime to turn things around in a variety of other sectors than the Kremlin or many in the West imagine, forcing it to devote far more resources to achieve that goal than it has so far or alternatively forcing it to make a compromise with this new reality.
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Report: Obama, Khamenei Exchange Lettersby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
Iran's supreme leader and the U.S. president have exchanged correspondence as the two sides try to reach a nuclear accord, according to a report in the The Wall Street Journal. In a story posted online Friday, the Journal says Ayatollah Ali Khamenei "has responded to overtures" from U.S. President Barack Obama. Khamenei wrote to the U.S. leader "in recent weeks" in response to a letter from Obama in October "that raised the possibility of U.S.-Iranian cooperation in fighting Islamic State" if an agreement on a nuclear deal is reached, the report says. An unidentified Iranian diplomat told The Wall Street Journal that the supreme leader's response to Obama was "respectful," but non-committal. The news about an earlier letter from Khamenei to Obama has also emerged, according to the Journal. The newspaper says the earlier letter "outlined a string of abuses" that the supreme leader felt had been committed against Iran over the last 60 years. An anonymous White House official confirmed the 2009 letter from the Iranian leader. Neither the White House nor Iran's government has officially confirmed correspondence between the two leaders, the newspaper says. Iran and a group that includes the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany are trying to reach a framework agreement by March 24 as part of their years-long effort to resolve questions about Iranian nuclear activity. They have given themselves until July 1 to agree to a final deal. The so-called P5+1 group wants Iran to scale back its nuclear activity and ensure it is not developing nuclear weapons. Iran has insisted its nuclear program is peaceful and wants the repeal of sanctions that have hurt its economy.
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Obama Decries 'Brutal' Slaying Of Muslim Students As Question Of Motive Persists by noreply@rferl.org (Carl Schreck)
The killing of three Muslim students in North Carolina has sparked nationwide mourning in the United States and fierce debate about hate crimes and anti-Islamic prejudice.
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Putin Moves to Take Full Control of Regional Television Channels by paul goble (noreply@blogger.com)
Paul Goble
Staunton, February 14 – Concerned that regional TV channels in Russia might broadcast something at variance to Moscow ones, especially in the run-up to the 2016 presidential elections, Vladimir Putin is moving quietly but quickly to take total control of those channels based outside of Moscow and in some cases still relatively independent of it.
That is the conclusion of Rashit Akhmetov, the editor in chief of Kazan’s “Zvezda Povolzhya,” in his lead article in the current issue, and it is one that suggests there may be some real fights ahead between Moscow and those regional channels, especially in Chechnya, over how much control they will have in the future (no. 5 (733), February 12-18, 2015, p. 1).
Putin has already succeeded in taking full control of the central television channels, Akhmetov says. He has even achieved something no one thought possible: transforming the slogan of NTV, which Boris Yeltsin created to be an alternative to the official line, from “news is our profession” to “soap operas are our profession,” Akhmetov says.
And it thus should come as no surprise that Putin is working to achieve the same thing in the regions, even though this effort has received less attention than it deserves, because he is obviously worried about a situation in which regional channels broadcast one point of view while his Moscow channels broadcast another.
Twenty years ago, Tatar media figures dreamed of creating a single Tatar media space in that Middle Volga republic, and Putin’s actions now first in Moscow and then in the regions are a testimonial to how right they were to focus on television as a way of shaping the national agenda, the “Zvezda Povolzhya” editor says.
But if Putin succeeds – and there is evidence that he will most places but not in all – this will be a real “Leviathan,” one in which “Moscow will seek to exclude even the theoretical possibility of a difference of opinions in the regions,” something that may be especially important now because the economic crisis is hitting them harder than it is hitting Moscow.
However, Putin is going to face a difficult time in some places, Akhmetov suggests, and he points to Chechnya as an example. Putin asked Ramzan Kadyrov not to go ahead with his march in support of Muhammed and minimized Moscow coverage of it, but Kadyrov, “confident of his support” among Chechens, went ahead anyway on both counts.
That contrasts sharply with the behavior of Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov, who lacks that confidence and who agreed not to have a march or give the Chechen one much coverage even though Minnikhanov has been named by Putin himself as Russia’s point man in relations with the Muslim world.
That suggests that Putin will move first – or indeed, has already moved – against the TV channels in those republics and regions which no longer have elections and where those in office are not very confident of how much support they have. But the Kremlin leader will be able to do so even there in most cases because few Russians now care much about freedom of speech.
Russia’s problem, Akhmetov concludes, is that “state capitalism rather than democracy replaced state socialism” in large measure because “the majority of the population” did not want democracy but were only concerned about their standard of living. Polls suggest, he continues, that “only one percent” of Russians care about media freedom.
The only thing that may change that he suggests is if Russians discover that countries which have media freedom do much better economically than countries which don’t, something for which there is evidence even now given that the ruble goes up when Putin talks about democracy and it goes down when he moves away from it.
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 Forbes Ukraine |
Порошенко допустил введение военного положения на Украине
Lenta.ru Президент Украины Петр Порошенко заявил, что если на Украине не будет установлен мир, то по всей стране будет введено военное положение. Об этом сообщает «Интерфакс». «Еще до Минска на заседании Кабинета министров Украины, я предупредил, что нам нужно будет в ... Порошенко введет военное положение по всей Украине, если не будет мираУНИАН Военная угроза с востока еще не один год будет нависать над Украиной – ПорошенкоСЕГОДНЯ Порошенко допустил возможность введения на Украине военного положенияВзгляд РБК Украина -НТВ.ru Все похожие статьи: 43 » |
 РБК |
Ополченцы отказались прекращать огонь в районе Дебальцево
РБК Ополченцы самопровозглашенной Донецкой народной республики не будут прекращать огонь в районе Дебальцево в случае попытки прорыва украинской армии. Об этом заявил ее руководитель Александр Захарченко. Ополченцы ведут бои под Дебальцево. Архивное фото. Захарченко пообещал провести выборы в ДНР по местным законамГазета.Ru Захарченко: ополченцы намерены прекратить огонь в полночь 15 февраляВести.Ru Взрыв прогремел в Донецке рядом с резиденцией ЗахарченкоРИА Новости Интерфакс -Московский комсомолец -Маяк Все похожие статьи: 69 » |
Fighting Rages In Eastern Ukraine Ahead Of Ceasefireby noreply@rferl.org (RFE/RL)
Deadly fighting continues to rage in eastern Ukraine, hours before a ceasefire between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces is due to take effect.
Obama Lays Out Plan for US Secondary Educationby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
U.S. President Barack Obama has laid out his plan to ensure that more children graduate from school fully prepared for college and a career. In his weekly address Saturday, Obama said there have been signs in recent years that elementary and secondary school students are doing better. He said it was learned last week that the U.S. high school graduation rate hit an all-time high. But he said students will only do better in a 21st century economy than their predecessors did if they are educated better than those who came before them. The president said he wants to work with Congress this year to replace the No Child Left Behind law with one that addresses the overuse of standardized tests, makes a real investment in preschool and gives every student a fair shot in the economy. Obama also criticized a Republican-led education bill in Congress, saying it would lock in cuts to schools for the rest of this decade. He said if the bill were in place, the United States would end up investing less in education in 2021 than it did in 2012. Last week, Republicans on the House Education Committee pushed through a bill that would leave it to states to decide how to improve failing schools and would replace several federal programs with a flexible local grant program.
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Published on Feb 14, 2015
Украинскую армию и спецслужбы пришлось создавать буквально в считанные месяцы, в ходе событий вокруг Крыма и Донбасса. Но что привело к этой ситуации, как произошел крах силовых структур? Гость программы Виталия Портникова "Дороги к свободе" - бывший премьер-министр Украины Евгений Марчук.
Ссылка на источник - http://www.svoboda.org/media/video/26...
Ссылка на источник - http://www.svoboda.org/media/video/26...
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Украинскую армию и спецслужбы пришлось создавать буквально в считанные месяцы, в ходе событий вокруг Крыма...
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