05-06-2014, 06:42 PM
cbelt3 wrote:
Source
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/05/05/ukr...e-reality/
Russian Propaganda is screaming about the National Socialist Menace. Yep.
Are there some of them ? Yep. Are they in charge of the Ukranian government ? Nope. Did Bad Stuff happen in Odessa ? Yep.
Welcome to civil war, which was made real by Russian interventionism and colonialism.
Ultimately it's Vlad's fault. And the Na-z-i wannabes are playing right into Vlad's hands.
I basically agree with this assessment - other than saying that it is Putin's fault. It is partially Putin's fault and he certainly plays a central role, but there are a whole lot of people who are responsible for things getting into the place they are in the Ukraine. There are hotheads all over the place who are more than happy to harm people and destroy things to get their way. Nazi hotheads form one pole and extreme Russian nationalists form the other. Most of the people of the Eastern Ukraine would rather find a way to get along in spite of the cultural differences - which aren't really all that great. But polarization has strongly taken hold - you are for us or against us, our way or the highway. Polarization can gain momentum from violent confrontations - which is exactly what the polarizes want to do anyway.
That polarization is being played out at the local level by actual long term residents of the area. And that local level of polarization is being driven by the interplay of global geo-political dynamics that are always prone to the same danger of polarization. Geo-political polarizations tend to come about because of competition for control of resources by the dominate governing groups within nations. I think competition for energy resources is a big factor in this situation. Ironically, the economics of energy resources seems to create conditions that could limit how far political leaders are willing to let the situation be polarized. Energy producers - like Russia - need the capital that comes from selling their energy resources to energy consumers - like Western Europe - to fulfill their political policies. And, of course, the energy consumers need the energy resources from the energy producers. Perhaps Putin's biggest hat is his chapeau de huile - wearing the crown of a fossil fuel oligarch. How much of a reward does he want and how much is willing to risk to get it?
A game of chicken. Tit-for-tat (that goes back how far in the past?). More and more polarization. Putin could have made choices that would have averted these events. But so could a lot of other people, including a lot of the people in the Ukraine itself.