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Menu There is no diplomatic solutionIsrael should declare three nos;
no to nuclear Iran, no to two-state solution, no to bi-national state
no to nuclear Iran, no to two-state solution, no to bi-national state
@PELONI-
Well…I’d told you very plainly some time back, and of course I’m sure you realised it was like tossing tennis ball against a brick wall trying to knock it down, , but chose to exercise your undoubted talents to play around a bit.
As I’ve said before now, I like good prose, and can follow the most convoluted sentences or arguments with ease. I look forward to them, indeed.
Of the several posters here with whom you’ve engaged, from time to time, I may be the only one who, at some time, has not criticised the length of your responses/detailed explanations, or plainly refused to read them. Perhaps Sebastien also.
Like Popeye…”I yam what I yam”…. I mean of course, that “I know what I like”.
Or, like the W.W. Jacobs widow, who had “grief in one eye, and calculation in the other”…
@Edgar
LOL…
I have to admit that I recognize some strong truths in what you describe all too well.
@PELONI-
The surging and ebbing acrimony (ironical logic V irrationality) reminds me (not for the first time as I’ve previously posted on it) of a hamster on his ENDLESS run around an enclosed wheel.
For another reason, which you will readily comprehend, I’m reminded of that old chestnut, of the visitor to a lunatic asylum chatting with an inmate.
“Inmate; .They’re all crazy here ye know, except thee and me……and I’m not too sure about thee….”..
@Reader
Well, as far as winning another argument, I don’t know. I am less interested in winning an argument than settling the facts you claim are being misrepresented.
All I requested from you, since you deemed such an enlightened tone to state that I was so ignorant, was were was the great error in what I described, presuming you actually have an answer beyond your superior scorn. The reality is that the nationalists have a right to their national desires and expressing it within a relative form of discourse, which does seem beyond their interest or capabilities of course, but they have a history, and ignoring it or obscuring it by suggesting their nation was whisked into existence thru some form of Soviet gift (chuckles), is the height of revisionist delusions, at least that is the view from one less knowing than yourself. Which is why I tempted you with a chance to explain your superior knowledge to us less enlightened beings. Or not. As I said, your choice.
BTW, I never believed you were French, silly. I was just noting that you were being more than a bit harsh.
@peloni
I don’t lose my temper, (in fact, I tried to stop a fight between you and Felix), I am not here to correct someone’s numerous deliberate errors (which I already mentioned and which you, somehow, ignored).
At this point you are trying to provoke another fight in order to “win” another argument – I am not going to play along.
BTW, I am not French, I just happen to have some knowledge about the rules of discourse in several languages.
As I already mentioned elsewhere, stick to the medical field where you actually have some knowledge of what you are talking about.
@Edgar
Fair point. I chose to consider it as such given the naming, but it is fairly stated that the struggle of identity easily predated the fall of the then current rulers as did the origin of the state.
Also the nationalist leadership of the 1917 period actually predated their fall as well and were among the underground elements in hiding at the time.
@Reader
Rather than losing your temper and becoming quite unpleasant (I know it is a cultural thing when your French side shines through), you could simply enlighten the rest of us unintelligent beings with what I said was actually not true. So, the opportunity is still available once you put your Frenchy temper back in the sock drawer, or let us leave it at that, if you prefer. Your choice.
I’m not sure I agree with the statement about “the first Ukrainian State”.
The land had always been there. It has been ruled independently by somebody, Grand Dukes, princes, Grand Princes, Kings and etc. It’s names have varied, as has the land mass, but there has definitely been rule there since remote times. It was even at one time a Roman subordinate state, and before that an independent kingdom .. It was ruled for 200 years by the Khazars, and the Kievan Rus, etc. Cossack Hetmans.
To say it was not called “Ukraine” is “begging the question”, a petty way of reasoning, specious, even spurious.,…….
Israel was not always called Israel either. Canaan, Israel, Yehuda, Shomron, Southern Syria, Paelestina,etc. But always under someone’s rule.
@Reader
Well, do enlighten us with your divine intelligence, oh great one, LOL…
The point I was making, and I believe it is a fair one, is that the nationalist movement of that period and the shortness of its existence was very related to the nationalist movement of today, as I say, after a fashion. Not to besmirch your estimation of your own opinions, of course.
@peloni
I am starting to think that you aim to have the last word in any discussion no matter what, and your method consists of generating a lot of white noise with so many questionable statements that no one could take take the time to refute each of them.
You know absolutely nothing or next to nothing about either Russia or Ukraine, and yet you presume to reconstruct the whole history of the current conflict from one episode which meant nothing to most people at the time except for a few “nationalists” who have been causing trouble ever since which proved to be very harmful to the Ukrainians and their country created by the USSR.
@Reader
Actually, the first real Ukrainian state was created by Ukrainians, themselves, 4-5yrs before the Soviet Union was itself a state, or union, or however you care to describe it. The Ukrainian People’s Republic, UPR, was announced in early 1917 and it expressed something remarkable within Ukrainians that has never died over the past 100yrs, even as it laid suppressed first by Soviet overlord-ship, and later by oligarchic self interest. Hence, when you suggest the initiating force behind the Ukrainian nation was the Soviet Union, it is not only untrue, but it eliminates a significant portion of the origin of the current crisis.
Ukraine demonstrated their independence and agency by unilaterally entering into a treaty arrangement with the Germans while the Russians did not, and was the first state to sign a peace treaty, officially withdrawing from the Great War, much to the chagrin of the British who declared the treaty void, very typical of the British presumption. The Ukrainians developed their own language employing distinctions within the alphabet, identified their own heritage and made their own identity to be one which was identified, if by no other hallmark than that it was quite distinct from Russian. In doing so they gave root to the contest of wills that has since existed in Ukraine for the past century, where the unifying Ukrainian nationalists stood very much at odds with the multicultural model of what some have termed the multicultural or pan-cultural model. The contrast of goals within Ukrainian state between these two models, nationalists vs multiculturalists, actually led to the first spilling of blood between Ukrainians (in Odessa as I recall, ironically) over the distinctions between these two models, and this can be related thru to the current conflict, after a fashion.
The history is of course much more complicated than this alone, but this all predated the rise and control of the Soviet Union or the interventions of the Germans using Ukraine as a proxy against Russia(sound familiar?) or the breakup of Austria or the invasion by Poland, so not to suggest it is as simple as I have described it, but Ukraine was very much acting upon its own model, demonstrating that Ukraine was not a golem state carved at will into existence and given life by the Soviet Union. In fact, the frustrated determined attachment by the Nationalists’ desire of their own state controlled by their own people led Bandera to become addicted to the fascist model of ethnic superiority, which falsely maligned all Russo-Ukrainians as being non-Nationalists which was easily not true. His support of ethnic purity was a corruption within the Nationalist movement which led to perpetuation of this fascist credo being passed into the post-Soviet era where it existed long enough to resuscitate itself with new vitality, greater support and much greater power following the 2014 US coup, all of which led to the outbreak of civil war in Ukraine. FYI, it was a civil war, despite Felix assertion that it was not. The foreign involvement does not change this reality.
A very quick telling of a very complicated tale, but it makes the point that the Ukrainians did make their own declaration of statehood, held a tight bond to their nationalist desires and own none of this origination to the Soviet Union, which did however make it a much greater land mass, as I noted, due to policies associated with personalities and practicalities.
@peloni
You realize, of course, that this is a very minor point, and that if it was controlled by the Germans it was hardly Ukrainian.
The first real Ukrainian state was not only created by the Soviets but the Soviets instituted a program of “Ukrainization” in the new republic.
However, I think, the acquisition of the Western Ukraine by the USSR before the war in order to push the borders of the USSR further West messed up Ukraine because of the cultural differences brought in by the western population.
@Reader
Forgive me, but this is actually not true. The Ukrainian state was initially formed ~1917 and was controlled for a period of about 9 months in 2018 by the Germans before the Ukrainians retook responsibility for there own people once again. It was a short lived project, which left a great heartache for her people who seemed to display a disproportionate love of their independence given the three year history of the experiment, before it was brought into be one of the four originating nations of the Soviet Union which was not formed til 1922. The passion of national identity that was ignited in that short three years, however, was to go forward to fuel the murders and deaths of many Russians, many Poles and many Ukrainians over the many decades since, and it seems that even after 100yrs, this process is not yet spent beyond the exhaustion of the various players involved. The reality is not, however, that the Ukrainian state was a creation of the Soviet Union, even as the Soviet Union, for various reasons of personality and practicality, did appreciably increase the size of this nation over the past century, while creating a frankenstein state of spare lands originating from other nations.
@MSimon
I don’t have to ask you.
Russia needs neither any more resources nor any more wars – it lost 27 million people in WWII, you are ascribing the motivations of the US to Russia.
Russia is surrounded on its borders with a number of NATO military installations housing atomic weapons.
For Russia it is an existential threat and the West utterly refused to even consider the Russian pleas and demands for scaling back this threat.
This situation is many times worse than the Cuban missile crisis which had the US writhing in hysterics until the crisis was solved through diplomacy.
Why don’t you go and read up on all the wars for other countries’ resources or for a sheer power grab fought by the US for the last 75 years or so, and add up all the civilian casualties they have caused?
In addition, there was never a country named “Ukraine” until the Soviet Union created it and added a huge chunk (from the East) of the former Russian Imperial territories to the newly created republic.
I forgot to mention.
PTSD destroys rational judgement.
===
How could it be otherwise? Anger is a very big driver.
Edgar G. April 30, 2022 at 9:11 am
Yet, in every century it seems that there is at least one, often more, major conflict(s) with massive casualties, as if Homo Sapiens can’t help itself, but MUST kill, -caveman style.
Hitler was an abused child. Stalin. Putin. Child abuse causes PTSD.
PTSD leaves the victim permanently angry
PTSD leaves some victims in extreme desire for power and control
PTSD destroys human empathy and trust
PTSD victims believe the world owes them a living
PTSD victims believe they are never wrong
Sound familiar?
Also read “People of the Lie” by Scott Peck https://amzn.to/3ILCvUX
This is a serious question, one that no one else has responded. I hope you or some other, who holds nothing but scorn for Russia’s role in this very unfortunate tragedy, might share their thoughts.
Honest politics? There is NONE. Sometimes you can choose between worse and much worse. And that choice probably won’t matter anyway.
I am learning more about Zelenskey all the time. ONE thing, as far as I am concerned, he is no longer a Jew. He had his children baptized as Christians and himself identifies as a Christian.
The Nazi rule was 3 Generations. Does the Ukrainian Right Wing hold to that? My study of them doesn’t go that deep.
I am sure that if the US invaded Ukraine for any reason, all those who now curse Russia would cheer for the US even if the US carpet bombed the whole of Ukraine first and replaced its government with the US’ own “sons of bitches”.
You didn’t ask me.
In any case this is a resource grab. East Ukraine has gas and oil.
Kolomoysky is more of a mafia don than a religious Jew, and he is notorious in Ukraine.
I don’t know why he identified with the Ukrainian far right in 2014, as I recall he was invited to the US years ago and asked to restrain himself and to quiet down his pronouncements.
I am sure that if the US invaded Ukraine for any reason, all those who now curse Russia would cheer for the US even if the US carpet bombed the whole of Ukraine first and replaced its government with the US’ own “sons of bitches”.
Jewish@Honeybee-
How could any judgement by a 100% Jew and Zionist, , however harsh in the eyes of a Texas Liberal, be anything else for a Jewish apostate who of his own accord and surely against his parents’ honour, regards himself as a Christian and made his helpless children into Meshummadim.
If you mean how do I Iudge myself, well, I’m conservative politically and liberal socially.. I judge myself critically when I feel it’s neccessary. And I take unpopular positions if I feel that I’m right.
In other words it’s up to YOU what YOU think, and I decide my own outlook.
Your comment is so ambiguous that I am not sure I’m even answering as you wish, but you can see, I’m making EVERY attempt to do so. Or are you playing one of your “enigmatic\’ (supposedly) games. as a Southern Belle’s prerogative…..
Maybe you read too much Scarlett O’Hara…?Although Virginia is a long way from Texas.
You can see that I’m trying to fathom and respond accurately.
@Edgar G: Such a harsh judgment of Zelensky. How would you stand up to your own judgments?
@sabasarge
“Vicious”, not “viscous”
?
@Edgar
“In the episode, the crew of the Enterprise visits a planet engaged in a completely computer-simulated war with a neighboring planet, but the casualties, including the Enterprise’s crew, are supposed to be real.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon
@SABASARGE and MSimon-
I am learning more about Zelenskey all the time. ONE thing, as far as I am concerned, he is no longer a Jew. He had his children baptized as Christians and himself identifies as a Christian. To come to the Knesset, even by Zoom, and appeal to them as a Jew was a chutzpah that is the only relatively Jewish thing about him. Jews have Chutzpah, no denying that.
To make a comparison with the Holocaust showed a Goyisher insensitivity, which is quite common. What was he after, I wonder, maybe thinking that if he went over well in Israel, he’d get strong financial backing from wealthy Jews. You know, Jews own most of the money in the world.
No wonder that his Jewish, religious parents do NOT want any limelight and were totally against their son being a politician and now President. They are hardly “proud of him”.
According to that interview they gave, they seem ashamed of him, and also seem to blame themselves for it. But I think that is just the religious, modest Jew taking blame for another’s faults. I don’t know why any Jews are in Ukraine at all, especially religious Jews, and the I feel the same about those in Germany and Poland. They KNOW that they are hated by the Goyim, yet they stay…..and complain at Anti-Semitic incidents.
With all that, it is Ukraine which was attacked and invaded, not Russia, which is the aggressor and should be denounced universally as such. There are better ways to settle differences.
I’m beginning to believe that resorting to actual mortal combat shows a primitivity that humankind should have long grown away from, especially after the horrors of WW1 and especially WW2.
Yet, in every century it seems that there is at least one, often more, major conflict(s) with massive casualties, as if Homo Sapiens can’t help itself, but MUST kill, -caveman style.
@Levitin
Serious question for you, if you care to respond. The use of the wolfsangel that you describe of the horizontal crossed Z is an emblem of the Nazi Waffen SS Panzer division. There is also the Nazi Black Sun emblem on the flag behind the horizontal crossed Z. So, my question is this: Are you sure that these symbols have nothing to do with neo Nazi’s? Are you sure these photos are doctored?
Have you read this article:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220131135010/https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/.premium-inside-the-extremist-group-that-dreams-of-ruling-ukraine-1.6936835
The author is anything but a supporter of Putin.
I think this may shock you. It shocked me, and I never believed that Azov was as innocent as you claimed.
The Azov battalion was created by Kolomoysky (a religious Jew) in 2014 to defend Ukraine against Putin’s aggression. It includes volunteers of different ethnicities, in particular, many Jews. The Azov’s symbol (crossed horizontal Z) has nothing to do with Nazi swastika. I suspect that swastikas on the photos are the photoshop work of Russian agents (alas, Israel is full of them). All this “material” looks like Putin’s propaganda provocation. Don’t believbe it!
@sabasarge
Well state!
@MWJR
Surely the EU would lose their way crossing the channel, LOL.
But a more serious comparison lies in the case when NATO did attack Serbia to support the KLA. Also when NATO did attacked Libya to support Al Queda. How do you compare these wars of NATO aggression with the the war in Ukraine. Recall that NATO had no treaty ally in either Yugoslavia, nor in Libya, and no NATO member shared a border with either of these targeted nations with whom NATO declared a need of war out of self-defense. This is a serious question, one that no one else has responded. I hope you or some other, who holds nothing but scorn for Russia’s role in this very unfortunate tragedy, might share their thoughts.
Perhaps the “hero” Zelenski would get more sympathy from this particular Jew if he hadn’t tried using the Holocaust to shame Israel into doing more than the massive humanitarian undertaking that Israel had already began if he wasn’t sending hundreds of millions of dollars to Iran through their trade agreements. Using the Holocaust while helping enable a country who has made clear their desire and intention to destroy the planets only Jewish Nation is the height of hypocrisy. He might also get points if he wouldn’t consistently vote against Israel in the UN.
Hero? Nope, just a thug who uses his “Jewishness” when it’s convenient. And yes, Ukraine has a viscous history of Jew-hatred.
Russia-Ukraine? Of course I have sympathy for the innocents, but for me, a pox on both their houses.
First of all: this is not ‘Zelensky’s army’. If with all the regular Ukranian army a few extreme groups also fight (which being nationalists they should), that does not mean all of Ukraine is fascist. There are plenty of fascist groups in Russia too – not to say Putins whole enterprice with this war borders on fascism and worse. And the men pictured here are showing off, not fighting.
Second: Even if there are a number of fascistoid groups in Ukraine and even in the army, that is no justification for Russia’s unprovoked invasion, killing of civilians and destruction of cities. There should be no war, and certainly not such war crimes. Suppose European Union attacked Great-Britain because we do not agree with Brexit…
@MSimon
@HealerMadeline@aol.com
@Honeybee
I would suggest that this war was no less unjustified than the war in Libya or Syria or Iraq. Actually, given the historic association between Ukraine and Russia, the US coup conducted against the legitimate(whatever that means in Ukraine) Russo-leaning Ukrainian govt in 2014, and the geographical proximity of the violence in Ukraine to Russia’s border which was sharply elevated just prior to Russia’s invasion, I would suggest that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is far more legitimate than the precedent presented by NATO’s wars of preemptive strikes. It was, in fact, the precedent of NATO’s irresponsible actions in Libya, Syria and Iraq upon which Russia closely modeled her delayed involvement in Ukraine adding her own efforts to settle her concerns repeatedly over the past decade without any productive response by the collective West.
But I would be curious how any of you, or anyone else, might refute this statement.
Putin is stoking the Far Right in Russia. I thought he was against Nazis. Just the “German” variety.
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/if-russia-serious-about-de-nazification-it-should-start-home
Neo-Nazis are in Russia too, anti-Semites are all over the world, including US where we see huge increase of antisemitic acts…But Russia is now with overwhelming, over 80% support of Putin’s war, is a raw model of nowadays fascism. Regardless of reasons that Putin picked, this war is unjustifiable!
@ MSimon: I agree with your assessment . I too dislike smearing the Ukrainians as Jew-hating fascists. How does justify the ravages that Russia has unleashed upon helpless Ukrainians.
They are killing Russian invaders, not Jews. I’m a Jew who is OK with that. So much for their swagger.
Quite a panoramic testimony.
Ah, you mean there are good fascists?
From what I gather they represent about 2% of the vote. And are probably a reaction to Soviet Genocide.
And to top all that off they seem to like being in the Army of a country that has a Jewish President. Their Jewish hatred seems directed against Jewish Bolsheviks. Personally I don’t like Jewish Bolsheviks either.
The Russians have been very unkind to Ukraine. It has left scars. This is one of them.