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U.S. Trained Fascists To Storm Kiev
US forces to hold exercises in Ukraine
The United States plans to send soldiers to Ukraine in April for training exercises with units of the country's national guard.
Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said in a Facebook post on Sunday that the units to be trained include the Azov Battalion, …
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Avakov said the training will begin April 20 at a base in western Ukraine near the Polish border and would involve about 290 American paratroopers and some 900 Ukrainian guardsmen.
Volunteer Ukrainian unit includes Nazis
Though the 900-member Azov Brigade adds needed manpower to repulse the rebels, members who say they are Nazis are sparking controversy, and complaints of abuses against civilians have turned some residents against them.
A drill sergeant who would identify himself only as Alex wore a patch depicting Thor's Hammer, an ancient Norse symbol appropriated by neo-Nazis, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
In an interview with USA TODAY, he admitted he is a Nazi and said with a laugh that no more than half his comrades are fellow Nazis. He said he supports strong leadership for Ukraine, like Germany during World War II, …
The U.S. military will train east European Nazis to fight east-Ukrainian "Russians". One wonder how well that will end. The last armies trained by the U.S. military were the Georgian, Afghan and Iraqi one. All turned out to be major failures in combat. All were prone to abuse of civilians, prisoners and other crimes.
The training will start on April 20. That is Hitler's birthday celebrated by Nazi groups like Azov. The decision to train fascist Ukrainian national guard troops instead of the Ukrainian military smells like a White House interference. Who else would up with such a childish idea of needling Russia?
Then again … At least those Azov folks may in the end hurt the right people:
He vowed that when the war ends, his comrades will march on the capital, Kiev, to oust a government they consider corrupt.
to D at 14, 23 & jfl at 12
I now have a bit of time for my own syllabus of errors on ecclesiastical history. Seems a suitable project for an atheist on Easter Sun. (with Mrs. M. at Mass at St. Pat’s).
Let me begin by noting — I’m not so much pro-Catholic as anti-anti-popery. It’s just such a WASPy, white bread, Establilshmentarian sort of bias, isn’t it?
To lysias and Harold — thanks for the hand with Weimar, nice work at 18-20.
The church as an institution has generally not reacted to or behaved as well as it should in the post-Reformation era. Let’s not pile on others failings as well.
Though the Bishop of Rome bears the title of the chief priest of the old Roman state paganism pontifex maximus, the Catholic Church is much more a medieval and early modern institution than a ancient holdover.
As the Roman Empire began to disappear in the West, the barbarian chieftans began to obtain formal political power. For a number of reasons, they had the needed skills and manpower to deal with other barbarian horsemen. They obtained grants of land for their service, as well military ranks that later evolved in the feudal ranks of duke and count.
The Byzantine continuers of the Senate and People of Rome maintained a base at Ravenna, and granted continued to grant these titles for some time after the deposition of Romulus Augustulus, last emperor in the West, in the late 400′.
Often, they took over the countryside and left the “Romans” in the town under Roman law, administered by the last remaining Roman institution — the Church. It was not uncommon for the last remaining Roman notables to become bishops, even if they were not actually Christian, as their Stoic duty to their charges. Bishops ruled as secular princes in places like Rome, Cologne, Liege, and Milan.
It was not uncommon for cathedral chapters and urban populations to have a formal say in the election of bishops in the early middle ages. Kings and other nobles often controlled sees through rights of nomination, often granted in recognition of royal grants or asserted as a state prerogative.
Practice varied widely from area to area, with pagan deities and practices repurposed as Christian saints and traditions. And during the “Babylonian captivity,” it was political prize pawn.
The impulses of the Reformation and the trend towards centralized, royal power largely created the present organization. Like the absolute monarchs of the day, the papacy sought to enhance its power. It began to insist on greater conformity, promoting the cult of the Virgin over local favorites. Election of the pontiff was removed the the nobles and people of Rome and given over solely to clerics.
It was this link with absolutism — not inherent in Christianity, but a product of a definite conjuncture of historical forces and conditions — that Locke was reacting against.
Absolutism was not solely a Catholic phenomena. Frederick the Great and Peter I and Catherine II were in this mold. But to the constutional monarchists of England and the leaders of the Dutch Republic, absolutism and Baroque meant Catholic, and they wanted nothing to do with either. See Wren’s St. Paul.
France disliked Baroque, but that’s because they saw it as Spanish. See Versailles — ornate neo-classical, not hyperactive Baroque.
Were I to be in the business of creating a syncretic “true church,” I’d go with Catholic ritual and Protestant doctrine and governance. Oh, wait, that’s Luther and the Episcopalians, my bad.
I actually tried to steer Mrs. M. to the Anglicans when she began to want to formalize her faith, but the locals were all way too conservative. But she found a local parish with a radical priest, so back to the Old Time Religion.
I do have a beef with Luther, actually, but that’s over his pamphlet against the peasant’s revolt of 1525. His exegesis on justification by faith, however, seems quite sound. We see what damage a celibate clergy can do, sadly.
Having preached my own “anti-sermon,” an anti-hymn seems appropriate. Here’s Kristofferson and the Foo Fighters, Sunday Morning Coming Down.
“Now go and sin no more.” John 8:11. Drink up, barflies!
Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 5 2015 15:26 utc | 42
VR & jfl, 78-82, 85
I looked around and tried to confirm the proclamation. I had a look at the original document and it struck me as a fake.
What self-respecting group of social revolutionaries produces a document with a date stamp? Where it should be eloquent and compelling, it is dry and official. It reads more like a notice to Kiev than a manifesto. It makes no appeal to the masses, says nothing on what movements, classes, or social strata it seeks to represent.
It might be in some way related to the reported arrests of 39 people in connection with Moscow-directed “sabotage.”
They were taking orders from pro-Russian separatist leaders in Ukraine’s rebel-controlled east and were planning the murder of a lawmaker and several pro-Western activists, SBU chief Valentin Nalivaichenko said.
“According to their plan, this would be the start of the seizure of territory to wrest Odessa and its surrounding region and create a new quasi-republic,” he said.
Whatever the reality of the new Odessa government, it is clear that Poroshenko is continuing to consolidate his authority. If the account of the OUN battalion at 85 is correct, all volunteer battalions have been brought under the (formal) control of the military. OUN and Pravyi Sektor were the last holdouts, they’re in the 93rd. Brigade now, though PS is still at the front.
But there remains the problem of mass social unrest. Novorossiyan analyst Aleksei Bluminov argues Social protests may spiral into “left terror” in Ukraine after the ultra-right Kiev bans communist and left ideology
“The ban of the Communist, and in fact, any left-wing ideology, and the establishment of criminal penalties for the promotion of corresponding ideas is not an accident or a deviation. It is a natural result of the policy carried out in Ukraine for the past year by the winning ultra-right forces.
“The current phase of repression and persecution against the left is directly linked to catastrophic failures in government policy by Arseniy Yatsenyuk, imposing on the country the measures dictated by IMF under the guise of ‘austerity’,” said the analyst.
Eric Zuess has it pitched about right in these two pieces. Two bloggers who sought an independent investigation of the Odessa Profsoyuz arson were “disappeared” earlier this week, and the independent Vesti was attacked as well as thousands of websites shut down by MiniTrue in Banderastan. “Whereas none of the perpetrators of the massacre has been prosecuted, the regime is trying to eliminate its opponents.” “Yarosh helps Obama not only by terrorizing the few remaining independent news media in Ukraine, but also by installing Obama’s regime there, and now, increasingly, by fighting his war there.”
I do not think the “Odessa Commune” has arrived quite yet. But it there is some fear that this sort of resistance is an option. Borotba, for its part, vows to continue the struggle.
The Ukrainian junta only implements what it promised a year ago on the Maidan, where anti-communism and demands to punish the left were not only the norm, but rather a dress code. It went unnoticed only by those who did not want to see reality because of political myopia, cowardice, conformism, or opportunism for short-term gain.
Naturally, with the most consistent, ambitious and tough anti-social policies in the history of Ukraine, the far-right regime is trying to protect itself from the sole ideology that can objectively lead the resistance to its dictates, through political repression and censorship.
Now that’s a Manifesto. “I’m for the revolution’s coming, I don’t know where she’s been….”
Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 11 2015 2:45 utc | 86
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