We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, January 31, 2014

When is the far-right acceptable to the West? When it's in Ukraine

Click here to access article by Neil Clark from RT's OpEdge.
The reality is that you can be as ultranationalist, as Neo-Nazi, as racist and as homophobic as you like – so long as you are opposing a government that the western elites want toppled. The extremism of Ukrainian far-right groups is therefore swept under the carpet, because such groups want Ukraine to sever its links with Russia. Yes, they’re fascists, homophobes and racists, but they’re “our kind” of fascists, homophobes and racists i.e. anti-Russian ones.
Although in my wanderings through the World Wide Web I encountered articles on Ukraine that made reference to the rise of the right-wing in that country, it really didn't register how far right the emerging Sovoda party is in Ukraine. After all, in my eyes most parties are right-wing because most are sponsored by capitalists. Clark in this article really prompted me to do a little more research, and I discovered he is absolutely correct in his observations. See this, this, this, and this. 
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