In an interview recorded on 10 Jan 2022, Chomsky unpacks the crisis that has sinse led to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He echoes John Mearsheimer’s vie wanout the necessary neutrality of Ukraine with regard to NATO-Russian relations. He decribes the decision by the USA in 2008, taken against the wishes of France and Germany, to invite Ukraine to enter NATO as being utterely unacceptable to any Russian leader (ie this is not a question of Putin’s megalomania). Like Mearsheimer, Chomsky implicates the expansion of NATO contrary to gurantees given to the Soviet Union at the time of the unification of Germany as an significant cause of the present crisis.
He also suggests that the implementation of the Minsk 2 agreement (2015) which would establish the neutrality of Ukraine, as a possible way forward. However, as Duncan Allan notes, “Minsk-2 supports mutually exclusive views of sovereignty: either Ukraine is sovereign (Ukraine’s interpretation), or it is not (Russia’s interpretation)” he calls this “the Minsk conundrum”.
There are few scenes in 20th-century cinema that I hold as dear as the opening scene of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Zerkalo (Mirror). I have identified with the young man in that scene in terms of the struggle to express myself in my art and, in terms of getting through life itself in difficult times …. as Russian forces assault the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv … I am reminded how the young man in this scene struggles to say that he hails from Kharkov (Russian for Kharkiv) …. My prayers are with that boy from Kharkiv.
Watch Freddy Sayers of Unherd and Konstantin Kisin, a well-known Russian-British comedian, podcaster, writer and social commentator, break down the coverage in the Western media, both mainstream and alternate, and offer some soundbites of their own. Kisin outlines Putin’s imperial aims as set out in his signal claim that large swathes of Ukraine are, historically and ethnically speaking, Russian territories. He goes on to criticize the Western media’s failure to understand what was being announced.. He discounts the theory that it is NATO’s sustained expansionism (ala Mearsheimer whose analysis is left unreferenced) that has provoked the Russian aggression and calls for an assertion of Western power in the face of a new Cold War II. This is of course very much a NATO perspective (There is nothing cold about the invasion from a Ukrainian perspective). Kisin does acknowledge the West’s broken promise to the former Soviet Union (Russia) not to expand NATO, and points to a reciprocal promise to protect Ukraine from Russian aggression, made in return for giving up nuclear weapons.
I must say that, while I am generally enamoured of Freddy’s objectivity and interlocutive rigour, and while there is much food for thought in this discussion, it is at this point that the conversation reveals a striking lack of depth. I feel that Freddy might have pushed Kisin to elaborate on the dialectic of NATO expansionism and Putinesque imperialism, and or on the symetry of Western duplicity. Indeed, what follows their heavyweight opening is much less substantial. Kisin’s declares that his wife is Ukrainian and displays some a domestic repurcussions of the geopolitical crisis. He touches on the potential refugee crisis and its consequences for Britain, not very generously at that., one might He then deigns to speculate on the decline of Western leadership and declares that Freddie and he are ‘metropolitian liberals’ … Hear Hear!!
Ultimately, this conversation is a striking example of a new genre of podcast intertainment (yes I think I have just coined that one!) – a kind of hyperbolic (despite Freddie’s signature restraint) intellectual soundbite … comedy? The irony of our times is that comedians are becoming better sources of facts, analysis and objectivity than the mainstream talking heads … it seems the make better natioinal leaders too!
Given the derth of intellect and integrity in the mainstream media here in Canada, I thought I would share a prescient analysis on the crisis (the 2014 crises) in the Ukraine by John Mearsheimer, who is an American political scientist and international relations scholar. There is no doubt that there are those in North American establishment who are, today, in the position to say to their political leaders, “I told you so!”
Have we reached that disastrous point of rupture – the balkanization of Ukraine, that Mearsheimer was hoping would be avoided?
The only possible justification for the invocation of emergency powers in the context of the Canadian Trucker’s protest and the occupation of Ottawa is the facticity of a fascist threat. Precisely, was the Freedom Convoy infiltrated by either domestic or foreign far-right elements. The Liberals have called for these extreme emergency measures and the NDP have supported them, but notably, the Conservative Party of Canada has been unequivically opposed.. The upshot of this bifurcation on the understanding of the facts or, at least on their interpretation, heralds the arrival of an unsightly and possibly irrevocable division in the political culture of the nation. We watched with incredulity as this happened to our neighbours in the USA. Their polity is now irreconcilably split between those who are ‘deplorable’ and those who want to ‘make America great again!’ Many thought it could not happen here in Canada, but the spread of such political decay in the liberal democracies of the West seems ubiquitious and inevitable.
While communal and sectarian sentiments are present in all societes, they are generally innocuous, until they are exploited and exacerbated by politicians to populist ends.When the nation’s mainstream politicians either court extremist sentiments (lets call this populism) or deem it fit to cast such aspersions on significant sections of their fellows (and this the spectre of populism), they are indubitably heralding a clamitous eventuality for their polity. When populism presents itself as an inherent part of the electoral process, it threatens to usurp democracy itself. (see my series of posts ‘It is Time to be Clear 1-8) But returning to the events in Ottawa, this facticity remains in question – are there far-right elements behind the Truckers movement, and was there in fact a tangible threat to the security of the nation? If there are organized right wing groups funding and/ or running the movement with a view to toppling our democratically elected government, I too am in full support of the invocation of draconian emergency measures. If, however, these fringe elements are meerely incidental and opportunistic hangers on to this movement, and their role and import have been greatly exaggerated, then I must take a very different stance.
Will these matters be aired and debated for the consideration of all Canadians? This question holds oraclular import for the future of the nation. Is there fascism … and who are the fascists?
Oh Canada, how are thy Laurentian fathers (and sons) fallen!
A motion to approve the Emergencies Act was passed in the Candian Parliament by 185 to 151 votes on the 21st of Febuary, with members voting along party lines. While Trudeau had not officially designated it as a no confidence vote , he had compared the it to a vote on a throne speech, thereby putting pressure on his caucus.to toe the line, by implying implying that failure might lead to the minority Liberal government falling. Joel Lightbound, the Liberal MP who had unequivocally criticized the government over its handling of the crisis, also voted in favour of the motion. According to the North Shore News , he said that he would be inclined to vote against the measures if it were not a vote of confidence.
In the course of the debate preceeding the vote, the Liberals were accused, by Conservative MP Raquel Dancho of strongarming his backbench and making a power play against political dissidents.
Oh Canada, how are thy Laurentian fathers (and sons) fallen!
I have been very impresssed by Tom Marazzo throughout the Truckers protest and the ongoing crisis of Canadian democracy. Whatever your presumption and position on this matter, this man deserves to be herad – “I want to be very clear that our intent has always been and always will be to talk to the official government of Canada.”
Oh Canada, how are thy Laurentian fathers (and sons) fallen!
The Koboi Project 
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