http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/Reporters-Notebook-Kievs-Jews-fear-oppositions-anger-might-turn-against-them-334759

Kiev’s Jews fear opposition’s anger might turn against them
By SAM SOKOL
12/12/2013 07:33

KIEV – I’m stand­ing in Kiev’s Town Hall on Wednes­day, down the street from the city’s Maid­an (“Inde­pen­dence”) Square, the site of mas­sive protests by hun­dreds of thou­sands of Ukraini­ans dis­sat­is­fied with their country’s lead­er­ship and eco­nom­ic ties with Rus­sia.

The square, and near­by state build­ings, occu­pied by cit­i­zens incensed by Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yanukovich’s deci­sion to spurn an EU trade deal and move Ukraine fur­ther into Russia’s orbit, are a teem­ing camp­ground of tents, ban­ners, lean-tos and makeshift soup kitchens exhibit­ing, at first blush, an almost fes­ti­val atmos­phere.

It is only after one notices the small army of pro­test­ers break­ing up ice and pil­ing up snow, to add to grow­ing bar­ri­cades, that one real­izes that Maid­an has been a bat­tle­field.

On Tues­day night, riot police flood­ed roads to the square and moved slow­ly into the main camp, bull­doz­ing tents and bar­ri­cades with trac­tors mount­ed with shov­els.

The police tried to storm city hall, but pro­test­er pushed them back, wield­ing high pres­sure fire hoses from the structure’s upper floors.

Wan­der­ing through the build­ing sev­er­al hours after the fight, hav­ing come straight from the air­port, I notice hel­met­ed men, some wear­ing cam­ou­flage pants tucked into mil­i­tary style boots, putting away the hoses as pro­test­ers stream into the build­ing.

In the main hall, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the var­i­ous oppo­si­tion fac­tions have hung ban­ners from the gallery. Vol­un­teers hand out flags and solic­it dona­tions for their par­ties.

An old woman sit­ting at a desk sur­rounds her­self with items bear­ing the logo of Svo­bo­da, an ultra-nation­al­ist fac­tion that the local Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty and the World Jew­ish Con­gress con­sid­er neo-Nazi.

Pro­test­ers sleep­ing on floor mats fill much of the hall, many with gas masks and hel­mets by their side. Off to the side, sev­er­al makeshift clin­ics dis­trib­ute med­i­cine and stand ready to admin­is­ter first aid to the wound­ed.

One young man, a lin­guist by trade, tells me that despite the fears of many in Ukraine’s Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, there is no real dan­ger of an out­break of anti-Semi­tism, even with the active par­tic­i­pa­tion of Svo­bo­da in the protests.

“I’ve been teased and called a Jew by friends for stand­ing up against anti-Semi­tism, and I sup­port Svo­bo­da here,” he tells The Jerusalem Post. Svo­bo­da and the oth­er oppo­si­tion groups, he says, must be sup­port­ed as an alter­na­tive to a lead­er­ship that many Ukraini­ans see as inept and cor­rupt.

Still, it is chill­ing to be so close to so many mem­bers of the par­ty.

At the end of the day, how­ev­er, the protests are a force of their own, one that the oppo­si­tion lead­ers can only try to har­ness.

Speak­ing with the Post, Eduard Dolin­sky, direc­tor of the Ukrain­ian Jew­ish Com­mit­tee, says that while he does not know of any attacks against Jews, there is a gen­er­al feel­ing of anx­i­ety on the part of the com­mu­ni­ty.

Pro­test­ers affil­i­at­ed with Svo­bo­da, he says, have led chants, orig­i­nal­ly used by Ukrain­ian Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors, call­ing for the death of “ene­mies” of Ukraine.

How­ev­er, Igor, a Ukrain­ian expat who returned home from Ger­many to join the protests, dis­agrees with Dolin­sky.

Hold­ing aloft a ban­ner urg­ing Yanukovich to resign in favor of an inter­im gov­ern­ment pend­ing ear­ly elec­tions, Igor tells me that many peo­ple chant the slo­gans with­out under­stand­ing what they mean.

This, Dolin­sky argues, is disin­gen­u­ous.

While there are no indi­ca­tions that anti-Semi­tism has become a part of the pro­test­ers’ dis­course, local web­sites have begun tal­ly­ing which Jew­ish fig­ures are on their side and which sup­port Yanukovich, a Jew­ish shop­keep­er tells the Post.

Fear that the anger of the crowds could turn against the Jews is ever present among mem­bers of the tribe in Kiev, prompt­ing the Ukrain­ian Jew­ish Com­mit­tee to turn to its Amer­i­can coun­ter­parts for help.

“We have turned to the Amer­i­can Jew­ish Com­mit­tee and the [Amer­i­can Jew­ish] Joint [Dis­tri­b­u­tion Com­mit­tee] to for­mu­late emer­gency plans,” Dolin­sky says. “We don’t have any in place.”

As for me, I plan on spend­ing much of the night in the square.

Reuters con­tributed to this report.

As you know Russ­ian Ukraini­ans are wide­ly opposed to EU inte­gra­tion. My wife hails from a south­ern mar­itime town where the pop­u­la­tion con­sid­ers itself Russ­ian and the ukrain­ian lan­guage is hard­ly ever heard at all. In a recent wide-audi­ence polit­i­cal pro­gramme on Russ­ian TV, an ana­lyst was say­ing the protest move­ment was fas­cist in nature. This kind of view­point, or the Russ­ian view of things — which they are enti­tled to, after all Kiev is an impor­tant Russ­ian his­tor­i­cal city — goes large­ly unmen­tioned in West­ern Euro­pean media; sim­i­lar­ly dur­ing the “orange rev­o­lu­tion”, Yushenko and Tim­o­shenko were paint­ed as the “good guys” if not as saint­ly angels and Yanoukovich as the “bad guy”. Nobody ever heard of the for­mer two’s pos­si­ble and prob­a­ble links with fas­cist, pro-Ger­man ele­ments. There’s plen­ty rea­son not to blind­ly side with the Russ­ian view either, but the manip­u­la­tion is evi­dent.

Here’s more on the far-right ide­ol­o­gy and extreme nation­al­ism get­ting pushed by the Svo­bo­da par­ty. Inter­est­ing­ly, one of the the­o­ries about Svo­bo­da’s rise is that it was fos­tered by Yanukovich to serve as a far-right alter­na­tive that could drag sup­port away from Yulia Tymoshenko. But Svo­bo­da grew into an out of con­trol neo-Nazi mon­ster and is now lead­ing the protests. At least that’s the the­o­ry. Fos­ter­ing the rise of your local neo-Nazi group is, gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, always real­ly stu­pid thing to do so if Yanukovich real­ly did push for the rise of Svo­bo­da his gov­ern­ment is earn­ing a well-deserved Dar­win award:

The New York Times
Unease as an Oppo­si­tion Par­ty Stands Out in Ukraine’s Protests

By ANDREW E. KRAMER
Pub­lished: Decem­ber 16, 2013

KIEV, Ukraine — As he strode onto the stage at Inde­pen­dence Square to the cheers of tens of thou­sands of pro­test­ers, Oleg Tyag­ni­bok, the leader of the Ukrain­ian nation­al­ist par­ty Svo­bo­da, punched a fist into the air and shout­ed “Glo­ry to Ukraine!” and a roar came back: “Glo­ry to its heroes!”

The peo­ple stomped and chant­ed. When it was over, Mr. Tyag­ni­bok, who is stout of build and rugged­ly hand­some, wad­ed into the crowd to greet cheer­ing and ador­ing sup­port­ers.

The upris­ing shak­ing Ukraine start­ed when Pres­i­dent Vik­tor F. Yanukovich declined to sign a far-reach­ing trade and eco­nom­ic deal with the Euro­pean Union late last month, leav­ing open the high­ly unpop­u­lar prospect of the country’s enter­ing a Russ­ian-spon­sored cus­toms union with Belarus and Kaza­khstan.

Offi­cials in Moscow and Kiev said that Pres­i­dent Vladimir V. Putin of Rus­sia was like­ly to offer some form of des­per­ate­ly need­ed finan­cial assis­tance to Ukraine when he met on Tues­day in Moscow with Mr. Yanukovich. But the offi­cials took pains to add that the cus­toms union — essen­tial­ly a free-trade zone across a large sec­tion of the for­mer Sovi­et Union, allow­ing goods to trav­el across bor­ders with­out clear­ing cus­toms — would not be dis­cussed at the meet­ing. Their state­ments seemed aimed at avoid­ing fur­ther provo­ca­tions of the thou­sands of pro­test­ers here who bit­ter­ly oppose the deal.

These are heady days for the three oppo­si­tion polit­i­cal par­ties here, who were large­ly mar­gin­al­ized before the demon­stra­tions erupt­ed. But none of them are ben­e­fit­ing quite so much as Svo­bo­da, a name that means free­dom.

And that is far from a uni­ver­sal­ly wel­comed devel­op­ment. The par­ty traces its roots to the Ukrain­ian par­ti­san army of World War II, which was loose­ly allied with Nazi Ger­many, and its debut in Par­lia­ment last year elicit­ed objec­tions from Israel and groups that mon­i­tor hate speech.

In the protests, its activists make up much of the street mus­cle on the square, stand­ing on lad­ders on the bar­ri­cades, wear­ing bicy­cle hel­mets and ski masks, and tot­ing clubs of table legs or pipe, on the look­out for the riot police. As the protests have unfold­ed, the party’s role has grown.

For Mr. Tyag­ni­bok, a uro­log­i­cal sur­geon by train­ing who joined the par­ty at its incep­tion in the ear­ly 1990s, the aim is to trans­late that high­er pro­file into an even larg­er role in the country’s future pol­i­tics, based on an unyield­ing nation­al­ism.

“Our under­stand­ing of nation­al­ism is love,” he said in a recent inter­view in one of the build­ings in down­town Kiev that are occu­pied by pro­test­ers, a site known as the Head­quar­ters of the Resis­tance. “Nation­al­ism is love of the land, love of the peo­ple who live on the land, and it is love of a moth­er. Love of a moth­er can­not be bad.”

Mem­bers of Ukraine’s Par­lia­ment saw things dif­fer­ent­ly a decade ago. In 2004, they vot­ed to expel Mr. Tyag­ni­bok over a speech in which he described World War II-era par­ti­sans brave­ly fight­ing Ger­mans, Rus­sians, Jews and “oth­er scum.” He went on to slur what he called the “Jew­ish-Russ­ian mafia” run­ning Ukraine.

Until 2004, Svo­bo­da had been called the Social-Nation­al­ist Par­ty, which crit­ics said was just a word flip away from its true ambi­tions and a delib­er­ate ref­er­ence to the Nation­al Social­ism of the Nazis. Unabashed neo-Nazis still pop­u­late its ranks, orga­ni­za­tions that study hate groups in Europe say.

Svo­bo­da nev­er won more than a frac­tion of a per­cent of the nation­al vote, in spite of hav­ing strong­holds in city coun­cils and region­al leg­is­la­tures in its base in west­ern Ukraine. Its for­tunes changed with the elec­tion of Mr. Yanukovich. Ser­hiy Rudyk, a par­ty offi­cial, said the new president’s pro-Rus­sia poli­cies angered Ukraini­ans, help­ing Svo­bo­da in the bal­lot box.

Crit­ics of the party’s role in Ukrain­ian pol­i­tics have anoth­er expla­na­tion. The par­ty, they say, drew strength from an orches­trat­ed pol­i­cy of Mr. Yanukovich to fos­ter a right-wing com­peti­tor to his main polit­i­cal rival, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, who had pre­vi­ous­ly enjoyed strong sup­port in the country’s west.

In 2011, for exam­ple, Mr. Yanukovich’s sup­port­ers unfurled the flag of the Sovi­et Union dur­ing march­es in Lviv on Vic­to­ry Day, a hol­i­day that com­mem­o­rates the end of World War II, despite a munic­i­pal law ban­ning the dis­play of Com­mu­nist flags in the city lim­its. It was a wedge issue that gave Svo­bo­da a lift in the polls. Svo­bo­da denies this assess­ment, and it is a stat­ed ally of Ms. Tymoshenko.

The next year, how­ev­er, the par­ty won 8.5 per­cent of the seats in Par­lia­ment, pro­vok­ing warn­ings from Israel about ris­ing anti-Semi­tism and xeno­pho­bia in Ukraine, a coun­try with a rich his­to­ry of both. On their first day in Par­lia­ment, Svo­bo­da law­mak­ers start­ed a fist­fight with mem­bers of Mr. Yanukovich’s par­ty.

The par­ty, crit­ics say, became some­thing of a Frankenstein’s mon­ster for Mr. Yanukovich, and it has grown beyond all expec­ta­tions with its activists now play­ing an inte­gral role in the bar­ri­cad­ing of Inde­pen­dence Square.

Par­ty activists have been bus­ing into Kiev for weeks now, set­ting up in the occu­pied low­er two floors of Kiev’s City Hall. They lounge on yoga mats under crys­tal chan­de­liers, wear­ing armor made of in-line skat­ing, motor­cy­cling and ski­ing gear, with mil­i­tary gas masks looped about their belts. Many sport mohawks, a tra­di­tion­al Ukrain­ian hair­cut called an oseledets.

...

West­ern diplo­mats say they respect Mr. Tyag­ni­bok for keep­ing con­trol of the unruly nation­al­ist wing on the streets. Dur­ing the police action out­side City Hall, bystanders found a bag of gaso­line bombs made from half-liter beer bot­tles, but Svo­bo­da offi­cials main­tain that the police plant­ed them there, to frame the par­ty.

Note that Svo­bo­da was the group that orga­nized this par­tic­u­lar birth­day bash:

15,000 Ukraine nation­al­ists march for divi­sive Ban­dera

AP 4:36 p.m. EST Jan­u­ary 1, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — About 15,000 peo­ple marched through Kiev on Wednes­day night to hon­or Stepan Ban­dera, glo­ri­fied by some as a leader of Ukraine’s lib­er­a­tion move­ment and dis­missed by oth­ers as a Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tor.

The march was held in Ukraine’s cap­i­tal on what would have been Ban­der­a’s 105th birth­day, and many of the cel­e­brants car­ried torch­es.

Some wore the uni­form of a Ukrain­ian divi­sion of the Ger­man army dur­ing World War II. Oth­ers chant­ed “Ukraine above all!” and “Ban­dera, come and bring order!”

How­ev­er, many of Ban­der­a’s fol­low­ers sought to play down his col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Ger­mans in the fight for Ukraine’s inde­pen­dence as the leader of the Orga­ni­za­tion of Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ists, Ukraine’s fore­most nation­al­ist orga­ni­za­tion in the first half of the 20th cen­tu­ry.

Ban­dera, who died 55 year ago, remains a deeply divi­sive fig­ure in Ukraine, glo­ri­fied by many in west­ern Ukraine as a free­dom fight­er but dis­missed by mil­lions in east­ern and south­east­ern Ukraine as a trai­tor to the Sovi­et Union’s strug­gle against the occu­py­ing Ger­man army.

...

His group also was involved in the eth­nic cleans­ing that killed tens of thou­sands of Poles in 1942–44. The Orga­ni­za­tion of Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ists por­trayed Rus­sians, Poles, Hun­gar­i­ans and Jews — most of the minori­ties in west­ern Ukraine — as aliens and encour­aged locals to “destroy” Poles and Jews.

Ban­dera was assas­si­nat­ed in 1959 by the KGB in West Ger­many.

In Jan­u­ary 2010, less than a month before his term in office was to end, Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yushchenko posthu­mous­ly dec­o­rat­ed Ban­dera with the Hero of Ukraine award. That led to harsh crit­i­cism by Jew­ish and Russ­ian groups. The award was annulled by a court in Jan­u­ary 2011 under Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yanukovych.

Kiev has been the scene of mas­sive pro-Euro­pean protests for more than a month, trig­gered by Yanukovy­ch’s deci­sion to ditch a key deal with the Euro­pean Union in favor of build­ing stronger ties with Rus­sia.

The nation­al­ist par­ty Svo­bo­da, which orga­nized Wednes­day’s ral­ly, was one of the key forces behind the protests, but oth­er oppo­si­tion fac­tions have said the Ban­dera ral­ly is unre­lat­ed to the ongo­ing protest encamp­ment in cen­tral Kiev.

@Pterrafractyl–

Note that McCain met with these crea­tures recent­ly. http://www.channel4.com/news/ukraine-mccain-far-right-svoboda-anti-semitic-protests

Busi­ness as usu­al for GOP “mod­er­ates.”

Keep up the great work,

Dave

The con­tin­ued influ­ence of neo-nazism in the Ukraine ( or parts of it?) is well doc­u­ment­ed here. It con­firms my ques­tion­ing about the cur­rent protest. How­ev­er two puz­zles exist. If this account is true why would the EU want Ukraine to join. The right wing beliefs are an afront to The Euro­pean Char­ter of Human rights etc. But then the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment already has mem­bers from the extreme right. Also, per­haps puz­zling, in the Guardian 4 Jan­u­ary 2014 a num­ber of world lead­ing aca­d­e­mics have signed a let­ter call­ing for ’ a Mar­shall-like plan to sup­port Ukrain­ian soci­ety in estab­lish­ing democ­ra­cy and civ­il soci­ety. What if a neo-fas­cist extreme right wing gov­ern­ment is then elect­ed car­ry­ing an anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic ban­ner and ensue­ing actions against the pop­u­lace or sec­tions of it

Per­haps not sur­pris­ing­ly, Ukraine’s harsh new anti-protest laws appear to have cat­alyzed mas­sive and vio­lent protests:

Ukraine protests turn into fiery street bat­tles
By MARIA DANILOVA, Asso­ci­at­ed Press | Jan­u­ary 19, 2014 | Updat­ed: Jan­u­ary 19, 2014 4:24pm

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Anti-gov­ern­ment protests in Ukraine’s cap­i­tal esca­lat­ed into fiery street bat­tles with police Sun­day as thou­sands of demon­stra­tors hurled rocks and fire­bombs to set police vehi­cles ablaze. Dozens of offi­cers and pro­test­ers were injured.

Police respond­ed with stun grenades, tear gas and water can­nons, but were out­num­bered by the pro­test­ers. Many of the riot police held their shields over their heads to pro­tect them­selves from the pro­jec­tiles thrown by demon­stra­tors on the oth­er side of a cor­don of bus­es.

The vio­lence was a sharp esca­la­tion of Ukraine’s two-month polit­i­cal cri­sis, which has brought round-the-clock protest gath­er­ings, but had been large­ly peace­ful.

Oppo­si­tion leader Vitali Klitschko tried to per­suade demon­stra­tors to stop their unrest, but failed and was sprayed by a fire extin­guish­er in the process. Klitschko lat­er trav­eled to Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yanukovy­ch’s sub­ur­ban res­i­dence and said the pres­i­dent has agreed to nego­ti­ate.

“There are only two ways for events to devel­op. The first one is not to nego­ti­ate,” Klitschko was quot­ed as say­ing by the Inter­fax news agency. “A sce­nario of force can be unpre­dictable and I don’t rule out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a civ­il war. ... And here we are using all pos­si­bil­i­ties in order to pre­vent blood­shed.”

Yanukovych said lat­er on his Web site that he has tasked a work­ing group, head­ed by nation­al secu­ri­ty coun­cil head Andriy Klyuev, to meet with oppo­si­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tives to work out a solu­tion to the cri­sis. How­ev­er, it was unclear if either side was pre­pared for real com­pro­mise; through­out the cri­sis, the oppo­si­tion has insist­ed on the gov­ern­men­t’s res­ig­na­tion and call­ing ear­ly pres­i­den­tial elec­tions.

The U.S. Embassy called for an end to the vio­lence. “We urge calm and call on all sides to cease any acts pro­vok­ing or result­ing in vio­lence,” it said in a state­ment.

The cri­sis erupt­ed in Novem­ber after Yanukovy­ch’s deci­sion to freeze ties with the Euro­pean Union and seek a huge bailout from Rus­sia. The deci­sion sparked protests, which increased in size and deter­mi­na­tion after police twice vio­lent­ly dis­persed demon­stra­tors.

But anger rose sub­stan­tial­ly after Yanukovych last week signed an array of laws severe­ly lim­it­ing protests and ban­ning the wear­ing of hel­mets and gas masks.

Many of Sun­day’s demon­stra­tors wore hard­hats and masks in defi­ance of the new laws. They set sev­er­al police bus­es on fire and some chased and beat offi­cers.

Police respond­ed with tear gas and stun grenades. Water can­nons were also fired at the pro­test­ers in tem­per­a­tures of ‑8 C (18 F), but the clash­es con­tin­ued.

The harsh new laws brought a crowd of tens of thou­sands to the protest at Kiev’s cen­tral square on Sun­day.

While most remained on the square, a group of rad­i­cals marched toward a police cor­don sev­er­al hun­dred meters away block­ing an area hous­ing gov­ern­ment offices and began attack­ing riot police with sticks to push their way toward Ukraine’s par­lia­ment build­ing. The crowd then swelled to thou­sands.

The blasts of stun grenades echoed and plumes of smoke rose above the crowd. Activists chant­ed “Shame!” and “Rev­o­lu­tion.” The Inte­ri­or Min­istry said more than 70 police were injured, four of them seri­ous­ly; there were no imme­di­ate fig­ures for pro­test­er injuries.

...

Scores of oppo­si­tion lead­ers and jour­nal­ists have been attacked, harassed and pros­e­cut­ed, since the anti-gov­ern­ment protests start­ed Nov. 21.

Yanukovy­ch’s gov­ern­ment has ignored pre­vi­ous demands made by the oppo­si­tion.

Oppo­si­tion lead­ers denounced Yanukovy­ch’s leg­is­la­tion as uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and called for the for­ma­tion of par­al­lel gov­ern­ing struc­tures in the coun­try.

“The pow­er in Ukraine belongs to the peo­ple,” Yat­senyuk said.

These so called oppo­si­tion lead­ers are ridicu­lous. If they think that the pro­mo­tion of fas­cism, OUN/UPA/SS Gali­cia orga­ni­za­tions does­n’t mean spit­ting into the faces of Ukraini­ans, Rus­sians and oth­er peo­ple who were born in USSR then they are wrong. Fas­cists should be stopped and I hope they will be stopped.
Yuschenko and his wife are a big ques­tion too...

@Ivan–

Revul­sion at, and oppo­si­tion to, the OUN/B fas­cists and their ilk is by no means lim­it­ed to for­mer res­i­dents of the USSR.

OUN/B ele­ments have been involved in all kinds of mis­chief, includ­ing the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy.

https://spitfirelist.com/anti-fascist-archives/rfa-15-the-world-anti-communist-league-pt‑2/

Best,

Dave

I’m still try­ing to fig­ure out the web­site “Strate­gic Cul­ture”. It’s very Rus­so-cen­tric and it seems it may be State-dri­ven, but I’m not sure.
They spare no oppor­tu­ni­ty to crit­i­cize Ger­many as excerpts from the arti­cle below sug­gest:

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/02/03/munich-imposing-their-own-will-on-eastern-europe.html

Munich: Impos­ing Their Own Will on East­ern Europe
Natalia MEDEN | 03.02.2014 | 00

(excerpts)
The Munich secu­ri­ty con­fer­ence is a unique podi­um to address the prob­lems of world pol­i­tics. Once a year politi­cians, heads of inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions, diplo­mats and secu­ri­ty experts get togeth­er.
***
The West­ern media does its best to get around analo­gies and com­par­isons. The address is also dif­fer­ent now – the hotel the Hotel Bay­erisch­er Hof (Bavar­i­an court­yard) in Munich. Some­times it pops up that Führerbau, the Hitler’s res­i­dence built by fas­cists, is locat­ed on Königsplatz (King’s Square), less than a kilo­me­ter away. That’s where the lead­ers of Great Britain, France, Ger­many and Italy signed a treaty called the Munich pact or Munich Agree­ment. It is called the Munich col­lu­sion in Rus­sia and the Munich Dic­tate in Czecho­slo­va­kia.
***
The event orga­niz­ers invit­ed Ukrain­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Leonid Kozhara and maid­an lead­ers Vitaly Klitschko and Arseniy Yat­senyuk, as well as oli­garch Petro Poroshenko, who seems to be one of Washington’s favorites. Their meet­ing with Ker­ry had been announced in advance. Nation­al­ist Oleh Tyah­ny­bok was not invit­ed, oth­er­wise he would like to walk the streets of Munich and vis­it Führerbau and the well-known Hof­bräuhaus pub­lic brew­ery as well as oth­er places of sight­see­ing in the city known to be the fas­cism cra­dle. Don’t think he is kept out of Ger­many, he knows his way around there, Tyah­ny­bok has been invit­ed by the cells of Ger­man right wing rad­i­cals and rul­ing con­ser­v­a­tives asso­ci­at­ed with the Kon­rad Ade­nauer foun­da­tion. Ger­mans know how to work with for­eign right wing nation­al­ists. They do it for bright future, of course. For instance, in the sev­en­ties the BND (the Bun­desnachrich­t­en­di­enst – Ger­man over­seas intel­li­gence ser­vice) effec­tive­ly coop­er­at­ed with the Croa­t­ian Nation­al Com­mit­tee – the orga­ni­za­tion proud to take its root in the Ustasa move­ment. Amer­i­cans are not very choosy too. John Ker­ry unam­bigu­ous­ly called on Ukrain­ian oppo­si­tion lead­ers to join togeth­er in their fight against the gov­ern­ment. In Munich many switched to the view that the “choco­late boy” Petro Poroshenko has been select­ed by the Unit­ed States to lead Ukraine in future. The coop­er­a­tion with Ukrain­ian oppo­si­tion, start­ed by John Ker­ry, will be con­tin­ued by his expe­ri­enced deputy Vic­to­ria Nuland. She is dry behind the ears in the mat­ters relat­ed to the post-Sovi­et space. Nuland is to come to Kiev on Feb­ru­ary 6 after vis­it­ing Greece, Cyprus and the Czech Repub­lic. This time the Deputy Sec­re­tary is not expect­ed to give cook­ies away on maid­an, she is in for tack­ling burn­ing issues. Per­haps Tyah­ny­bok will not refuse to meet her, even though the guest is not Aryan.

Once more an attempt to take con­trol of East­ern Europe is under­tak­en in Munich. It does not look like Euro­peans are inter­est­ed in anoth­er Drang nach Osten as much as their Amer­i­can part­ners are. Not all are hap­py about the fact that every­thing in the West­ern world, unlike in the pre-war Munich, is decid­ed by one cen­ter of pow­er instead of find­ing an agree­ment between dif­fer­ent groups of inter­ests. It’s well known what the 1938 Munich adven­ture result­ed in, but his­to­ry can­not be repeat­ed, that’s what the Munich event con­firmed. Some politi­cians start to rou­tine­ly talk about inter­fer­ence into oth­er states affairs, includ­ing the use of force, and it makes one won­der. This kind of atti­tude is becom­ing unac­cept­able…
———————

Any­body know more about this site?

The “Choco­late Boy” ref­er­ence to Poroshenko is about his busi­ness — a can­dy empire.

@SWAMP–

I’ve nev­er heard of the site before, but from the syn­tax, which seems trans­lat­ed or formed by some­one for whom Eng­lish is not the pri­ma­ry lan­guage, I sus­pect Russ­ian-ori­ent­ed and/or gen­er­at­ed.

Let’s see what oth­er readers/listeners can come up with.

NB: I’m work­ing to get a whole bunch of shows “in the can” so I can wind up the “Eddie the Friend­ly Spook” series.

770 and 771 are “up and run­ning.”

Best,

Dave

One of the main Ukrain­ian far-right groups, Pravy Sek­tor, is let­ting the world get to know it a lit­tle bet­ter in a new round of inter­views. One of the things we’ve learned: Pravy Sek­tor claims to have a lot of guns and is ready to use them:

TIME
Exclu­sive: Leader of Far-Right Ukrain­ian Mil­i­tant Group Talks Rev­o­lu­tion With TIME

In his first inter­view with for­eign media, Dmitro Yarosh, leader of the far-right mil­i­tant group Pravy Sek­tor, says he and his antigov­ern­ment cohorts in Kiev are ready for armed strug­gle
By Simon Shus­ter / Kiev @shustryFeb. 04, 2014

Take the smell of an army bar­racks, add a bit of char and gaso­line, and you’d have a rough idea of the air on the fifth floor of the House of Trade Unions, the head­quar­ters of the rev­o­lu­tion in Ukraine. When pro­test­ers first occu­pied the build­ing in Decem­ber, their lead­ers divvied up its floors among the polit­i­cal par­ties and activists involved in the revolt. Since then, the only floor off-lim­its to jour­nal­ists has been the fifth, which hous­es the mil­i­tant arm of the rev­o­lu­tion, Pravy Sek­tor (Right Sec­tor), the coali­tion of right-wing rad­i­cals that grew out of the upris­ing. They had good rea­son to avoid pub­lic­i­ty. After their vio­lent clash­es with police last month, their mem­bers could face years in prison if the rul­ing gov­ern­ment sur­vives the revolt.

But on Sun­day night, their leader Dmitro Yarosh agreed to give his first inter­view to a for­eign media out­let. It was not so much an act of van­i­ty as a polit­i­cal com­ing-out. He has clear­ly grown tired of being the movement’s anony­mous enforcer. In recent days, as a nego­ti­at­ed end to the cri­sis has start­ed com­ing into view, the need for a mil­i­tary wing of the rev­o­lu­tion has dimin­ished. And so has the trust in its upper ranks. The main­stream oppo­si­tion lead­ers, like the for­mer world box­ing cham­pi­on Vitali Klitschko, have faced grow­ing pres­sure to dis­tance them­selves from Pravy Sek­tor, which the U.S. State Depart­ment has con­demned for “inflam­ing con­di­tions on the streets.” Increas­ing­ly mar­gin­al­ized, the group has grown much more assertive and, in some ways, has start­ed going rogue.

In his inter­view with TIME, Yarosh, whose mil­i­tant brand of nation­al­ism rejects all for­eign influ­ence over Ukrain­ian affairs, revealed for the first time that Pravy Sek­tor has amassed a lethal arse­nal of weapons. He declined to say exact­ly how many guns they have. “It is enough,” he says, “to defend all of Ukraine from the inter­nal occu­piers” — by which he means the rul­ing gov­ern­ment — and to car­ry on the rev­o­lu­tion if nego­ti­a­tions with that gov­ern­ment break down.

But so far, those nego­ti­a­tions have been mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant strides toward resolv­ing the cri­sis. On Tues­day, the par­lia­ment began debat­ing a sweep­ing reform of the con­sti­tu­tion, while allies of Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yanukovych sug­gest­ed for the first time that he is ready to con­sid­er ear­ly elec­tions. Both moves would mark a major break­through. But Yarosh, watch­ing from the side­lines, has begun to doubt whether the nego­tia­tors have the inter­ests of his men at heart. “This whole peace­ful song and dance, the stand­ing around, the nego­ti­a­tions, none of it has brought real change.” Dozens of his men, he says, remain behind bars after their street bat­tles against police two weeks ago.

With that in mind, Yarosh and anoth­er mil­i­tant fac­tion began a par­al­lel set of nego­ti­a­tions over the week­end. On Mon­day, they claimed to be in direct talks with Ukraine’s police forces to secure the release of jailed pro­test­ers, includ­ing mem­bers of Pravy Sek­tor. Main­stream oppo­si­tion lead­ers said they had not autho­rized any such talks. At the same time, Yarosh has demand­ed a seat at the nego­ti­at­ing table with the Pres­i­dent. Once again, he was flat­ly denied. His ide­ol­o­gy, it seems, is just too tox­ic to let him in the room.

But nei­ther can Klitschko and his fel­low politi­cians eas­i­ly sev­er their ties with Pravy Sek­tor. The group serves some of the uprising’s most essen­tial func­tions. Its fight­ers con­trol the bar­ri­cades around the protest camp in the cen­ter of Ukraine’s cap­i­tal, and when riot police have tried to tear it down, they have been on the front lines beat­ing them back with clubs, rocks, Molo­tov cock­tails and even a few cat­a­pults, in the mold of siege engines of the Mid­dle Ages. Around the coun­try, its fight­ers have helped seize gov­ern­ment head­quar­ters in more than a dozen cities. “Pravy Sek­tor has proved its loy­al­ty to the ideals of free­dom,” Yarosh says. “Now we need­ed to present this move­ment as a source of lead­er­ship.”

In any kind of fair elec­tion, that would be near­ly impos­si­ble. Pravy Sektor’s ide­ol­o­gy bor­ders on fas­cism, and it enjoys sup­port only from Ukraine’s most hard-line nation­al­ists, a group too small to secure them a place in par­lia­ment. But tak­ing part in the demo­c­ra­t­ic process is not part of Yarosh’s strat­e­gy. “We are not politi­cians,” he says in his office, a pack of Lucky Strikes and a walkie-talkie on the table in front of him, while a sen­try in a black ski mask and bul­let­proof vest stands by the door. “We are sol­diers of the nation­al rev­o­lu­tion.” His entire adult life has been spent wait­ing for such a rev­o­lu­tion to “steer the coun­try in a new direc­tion, one that would make it tru­ly strong, not depen­dent on either the West or the East.”

Through all his years in the nation­al­ist move­ment, Yarosh, a 42-year-old father of three, says he has nev­er had any form of occu­pa­tion apart from his activism. The son of two fac­to­ry work­ers, he was born and raised in a provin­cial town in east­ern Ukraine, and became involved in the nation­al­ist under­ground in the late 1980s, just as the Sovi­et Union was dis­in­te­grat­ing. Near­ly all of the satel­lite states of the USSR, from the Baltics to Cen­tral Asia, were then push­ing to break away from Moscow’s con­trol, and in 1988, Yarosh joined one of the more rad­i­cal groups fight­ing for an inde­pen­dent Ukraine.

The fol­low­ing autumn, months after the Sovi­et Union pulled its troops out of Afghanistan, Yarosh was draft­ed into the Red Army, a com­mon form of pun­ish­ment for polit­i­cal activists at the time. He was sta­tioned briefly in Belarus before being trans­ferred to Siberia, where he served as a guard at strate­gic mis­sile sites. The Sovi­et doc­trines of uni­ty between Rus­sia and Ukraine did lit­tle to soft­en his views. “If any­thing, the army made me more con­vinced that my path is cor­rect,” he says. When Ukraine declared inde­pen­dence from the Sovi­et Union in 1991, Yarosh went on hunger strike to demand a trans­fer to the new­ly estab­lished Ukrain­ian army. His com­mand­ing offi­cers ignored him.

In 1994, a few years after he was dis­charged and returned to Ukraine, he joined a right-wing orga­ni­za­tion called Trizub (Tri­dent), and slow­ly climbed its ranks before assum­ing lead­er­ship in 2005. Along with sev­er­al oth­er far-right groups, Trizub formed the core of Pravy Sek­tor when the cur­rent upris­ing broke out in Ukraine two months ago. Its main adver­sary has always been Rus­sia, although it also has lit­tle patience for West­ern influ­ence on Ukraine. “For all the years of Ukraine’s inde­pen­dence, Rus­sia has pur­sued a sys­tem­at­ic, tar­get­ed pol­i­cy of sub­ju­ga­tion toward Ukraine,” Yarosh says. “So of course we will pre­pare for a con­flict with them,” he adds, espe­cial­ly after Russia’s recent inva­sion of anoth­er one of its for­mer satel­lites, Geor­gia. “If they stick their faces here like they did in Geor­gia in 2008, they’ll get it in the teeth.”

...

For the past two decades, he has been wait­ing and prepar­ing for the start of the “nation­al rev­o­lu­tion,” and now that he finds him­self at the head of its armed divi­sion, he does not seem ready to let it pass peace­ful­ly away, at least not on any­one else’s terms. “Peo­ple have got­ten in touch with us from around the coun­try, say­ing, ‘Guys, don’t let us down. Take us to vic­to­ry, to inde­pen­dence, if the oth­er lead­ers are inca­pable of that,’” Yarosh says. “So if the time has come for an active strug­gle, I am ready to car­ry it to the end. I am not afraid of that respon­si­bil­i­ty. I see no rea­son to hide my face.”

Here’s more on the roots of Pravy Sek­tor:

Agence France-Presse
Far-right para­mil­i­tary vows protest defi­ance in Ukraine
Feb­ru­ary 5, 2014 11:33pm

Even as Ukraine’s main oppo­si­tion lead­ers meet with the author­i­ties to try to resolve their long-run­ning stand­off, one influ­en­tial and unre­pen­tant voice stands out — that of far-right para­mil­i­tary leader Dmytro Yarosh.

“The rev­o­lu­tion will win in Ukraine!” the shaven-head­ed 42-year-old told AFP in a rare inter­view at his field head­quar­ters — an entire floor in an occu­pied trade union build­ing on Inde­pen­dence Square in cen­tral Kiev.

Yarosh’s masked and hel­met­ed fol­low­ers — some armed with guns, oth­ers wield­ing base­ball bats — patrol the bar­ri­cades around the protest tent camp and were in the front­lines of clash­es with riot police, throw­ing Molo­tov cock­tails.

“We got things mov­ing, we breathed life into the rev­o­lu­tion,” said Yarosh, him­self a for­mer Red Army sol­dier who claims he is no fas­cist but a nation­al­ist defend­ing Ukraine against for­eign dom­i­na­tion — whether from the EU or Rus­sia.

...

He said that his group does not have its own arse­nal but that he had autho­rised a “secret” num­ber of indi­vid­ual mem­bers with weapons per­mits to cre­ate “an armed pro­tec­tion unit”.

Yarosh said his fol­low­ers — who seized the agri­cul­ture, ener­gy and jus­tice min­istries but then gave them up after pres­sure from oth­er oppo­si­tion lead­ers — could also resume their “block­ades” of offi­cial gov­ern­ment build­ings.

These kinds of warn­ings show up dif­fer­ences with­in oppo­si­tion ranks and cast doubt on whether the most rad­i­cal mil­i­tants will be will­ing to end their protest even if oppo­si­tion lead­ers man­age to strike a deal with Yanukovych.

Asked if he is con­cerned about being put in prison, Yarosh strikes a defi­ant tone.

“In a rev­o­lu­tion, it’s fun­ny even to think about some­thing like that. Once it’s all over, we’ll see who puts who in prison,” he snarled.

For all the fight­ing talk, Yarosh is also keen to see a polit­i­cal future for his para­mil­i­taries — who have won sup­port and respect in Ukraine for their role in the protests even from peo­ple who do not share their far-right views.

“If the rev­o­lu­tion achieves its aim, we can talk about the cre­ation of a new polit­i­cal move­ment with its own niche,” he said.

It is not hard to see what that niche would be.

Unlike many pro­test­ers, who see greater inte­gra­tion with Europe as an ide­al, Yarosh said Brus­sels was a “mon­ster” respon­si­ble for a “gay dic­ta­tor­ship and lib­er­al total­i­tar­i­an­ism” that impos­es “anti-Chris­t­ian and anti-nation­al rules”.

Yarosh said he has been an activist in the Ukrain­ian nation­al­ist cause for more than 20 years and is the leader of a hard­line nation­al­ist group Trizub (Tri­dent), many of whose mem­bers are now activists in Pravy Sek­tor.

He says his group is the “suc­ces­sor” of the con­tro­ver­sial Ukrain­ian Insur­gent Army (UPA) who bat­tled Poles, Sovi­et and Nazi forces in west­ern Ukraine dur­ing and after World War II.

The UPA is hat­ed in Poland for its cam­paign of slaugh­ter against Pol­ish civil­ians in the Vol­hy­nia region in 1943 and then in Gali­cia in 1944, now con­demned as eth­nic cleans­ing.

The rebels on occa­sion col­lab­o­rat­ed with occu­py­ing Nazi forces as well as fight­ing them and — most con­tro­ver­sial­ly — some of its mem­bers served in the Gali­cia branch of the SS.

Asked how he felt about Jews, Yarosh said that he was not an anti-Semi­te but con­sid­ered as “ene­mies” any “eth­nic minor­i­ty that pre­vents us from being mas­ters in our own land”.

Even though the UPA slo­gan “Glo­ry to the Heroes!” rings out fre­quent­ly on Inde­pen­dence Square, Yarosh’s views are com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent from those of main­stream oppo­si­tion lead­ers.

While Yarosh does not overt­ly con­demn them, it seems that their on-and-off nego­ti­a­tions with Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yanukovych are grat­ing.

“I don’t want to crit­i­cise them or they’ll get offend­ed and start cry­ing,” he said.

Note that the Ukrain­ian Insur­gent Army was the mil­i­tary wing of the OUN‑B.

Not good: It looks like the far-right ele­ments of the Ukrain­ian pro­tes­tors are plan­ning on goose step­ping to the beat of a dif­fer­ent war-drum­mer whether or not there’s a cease­fire:

NBC News
Can a Divid­ed Oppo­si­tion Con­trol the Vio­lence in Ukraine?
By Tra­cy Con­nor
First pub­lished Feb­ru­ary 20th 2014, 1:51 pm

The bloody col­lapse of a cease­fire between the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment and the oppo­si­tion has raised ques­tions about who’s in con­trol of the protests in Kiev’s Inde­pen­dence Square and who can stop the sit­u­a­tion from descend­ing into even more dead­ly chaos.

As NBC News’ Richard Engel report­ed, it was front-line demon­stra­tors who shat­tered a frag­ile truce just hours after it was announced late Wednes­day into ear­ly Thurs­day by the lead­ers of three polit­i­cal par­ties who have been lead­ing the anti-gov­ern­ment move­ment since the fall.

“The three lead­ers who appar­ent­ly accept­ed the cease­fire were not in con­trol of that sit­u­a­tion,” Eugene Rumer of the Carnegie Endow­ment for Inter­na­tion­al Peace said of armed pro­test­ers’ surge for­ward, which sparked auto­mat­ic gun­fire from riot police.

While the crowds that have been flock­ing to the square include ordi­nary Ukraini­ans who say they don’t iden­ti­fy with any par­ty, there are con­cerns that right-wing mil­i­tants are try­ing to hijack a grass­roots cam­paign against the rul­ing Par­ty of Regions and Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yanukovych.

“The young peo­ple who have turned up in the last month, the ones with the Molo­tov cock­tails and the firearms, they are not con­trolled by the polit­i­cal par­ties. They are rad­i­cal­ized ele­ments,” said Dominique Arel, chair of Ukrain­ian Stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ottawa.

“The par­ties are not con­trol­ling the front-line activists. No one is con­trol­ling them.”

The offi­cial oppo­si­tion is divid­ed into three camps:

The Ukrain­ian Demo­c­ra­t­ic Alliance for Reform (UDAR, which trans­lates to “Punch”), head­ed by for­mer heavy­weight box­ing cham­pi­on Vitali Klitschko. The 6‑foot‑7 pugilist, who has a Ph.D but lit­tle gov­ern­ment expe­ri­ence, may be the most pop­u­lar man in the coun­try right now.

The Father­land par­ty, led by for­mer eco­nom­ic and for­eign min­is­ter Arseniy Yat­senyuk. It was found­ed by Yulia Tymoshenko, the hero of 2004’s so-called Orange Rev­o­lu­tion, who became prime min­is­ter but was jailed after Yanukovych took pow­er.

The Svo­bo­da, or Free­dom Par­ty, helmed by nation­al­ist Oleh Tyah­ny­bok leans to the right and draws sup­port from the west­ern, Euo­pean-allied regions of the coun­try. Although it has sought a more main­stream pro­file, some say it’s linked to a para­mil­i­tary group that uses a Nazi-style sym­bol.

The strange-bed­fel­lows make­up of the oppo­si­tion cer­tain­ly rais­es ques­tions about how it would gov­ern if it suc­ceeds in dri­ving the Par­ty of Regions and Yanukovych from pow­er.

...

Trou­bling to some, how­ev­er, is the appar­ent ascen­dance of stone-throw­ing pro­test­ers aligned with the rad­i­cal Right Sec­tor, a group that thinks the Free­dom Par­ty is too lib­er­al. There may be mil­i­tant left-wingers and even anar­chists in the mix, too.

“That’s the uncon­trol­lable ele­ment of the square right now,” Arel said. “It’s not like Yat­senyuk and Klis­chko are giv­ing them orders.”

“They would rather not have vio­lence,” he added, as the death toll from the fight­ing soared. “Because it has a way of get­ting out of hand.”

@Pterrafractyl–

NBC “Snooze” real­ly high­lights the fun­da­men­tal flaws in our polit­i­cal sci­ence and atten­dant rhetoric.

Words like “demo­c­ra­t­ic” and “mod­er­ate” have lit­tle or no mean­ing here.

Note that the “Orange Rev­o­lu­tion” with its “Hero”–Ms. Timoshenko–is seen as the flow­er­ing of democ­ra­cy in Ukraine.

Mr. Yuschenko’s wife was Yka­te­ri­na [Chu­machenko] Yuschenko, for­mer deputy direc­tor of Pres­i­den­tial Lia­son under Rea­gan.

The for­mer Ms. Chu­machenko head­ed the top OUN/B front group in the Unit­ed States before mar­ry­ing Yuschenko.

Yuschenko–that flower of democracy–named Stephan Ban­dera and Roman Shukhuye­vich (sp?) as “Heroes of the Ukraine.”

When SS, their col­lab­o­ra­tors and Ein­satz­grup­pen fuehrers–war crim­i­nals of the first order–can be called heroes and the forces that so label them are “demo­c­ra­t­ic” and/or “mod­er­ate,” we are tru­ly in a Naz­i­fied cog­ni­tive and rhetor­i­cal fun­house.

Sheesh!

Best,

Dave

It looks like Yulia Tim­o­shenko is about to be released and a cease­fire deal has been agreed upon but that does­n’t mean there’s going to be a cease­fire:

Ukraine crowds want Yanukovich out despite polit­i­cal deal

KIEV Fri Feb 21, 2014 3:08pm EST

(Reuters) — Emo­tion­al crowds on Kiev’s Inde­pen­dence Square round­ed on oppo­si­tion lead­ers on Fri­day after they signed an agree­ment with Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yanukovich to end a pro­tract­ed cri­sis, and said they would not wait any longer for him to go.

Pas­sions ran high as the cof­fin of a vic­tim from Thurs­day’s vio­lence, when dozens were killed dur­ing anti-gov­ern­ment protests, was borne through the crowd to the stage on the square, appar­ent­ly catch­ing oppo­si­tion lead­ers off guard.

Despite the deal signed by Yanukovich and the oppo­si­tion, many on the square were in no mood to call off the protests which erupt­ed in Novem­ber after the pres­i­dent aban­doned a trade pact with the Euro­pean Union and turned instead towards Moscow.

After anoth­er open cof­fin was held aloft by the crowd, a pro­test­er wear­ing bat­tle-fatigues leapt up to the micro­phone and trig­gered roars of approval as he declared: “By tomor­row we want him (Yanukovich) out!”

Refer­ring to the three oppo­si­tion lead­ers, includ­ing box­er-turned-politi­cian Vitaly Klitschko, who were stand­ing behind him, the man said: “My com­rade was shot and our lead­ers shake the hand of a mur­der­er. It’s a dis­grace.”

“We have giv­en you politi­cians a chance to become min­is­ters in the future, even the pres­i­dent, but you don’t want to ful­fil our one demand — that this crim­i­nal leave office.”

“We, sim­ple peo­ple, are telling the politi­cians behind our back, that there is no way Yanukovich will be pres­i­dent for the whole year. He has to be gone by 10 a.m. tomor­row.”

“If it is not announced by 10 tomor­row that Yanukovich is gone, we’re going to attack with weapons,” he said.

Ear­li­er Klitschko drew cat-calls and deri­sive whistling from the crowd when he had praised as “very impor­tant” their polit­i­cal achieve­ments dur­ing the day.

Klitschko and his fel­low oppo­si­tion lead­ers, Arse­ny Yat­senyuk and nation­al­ist Oleh Tyani­bok, ear­li­er signed an EU-bro­kered deal with Yanukovich in which Yanukovich made impor­tant con­ces­sions after two and a half months of con­fronta­tion on the streets of Kiev.

These includ­ed ear­ly elec­tions, for­ma­tion of an inter­im gov­ern­ment and a return to an ear­li­er con­sti­tu­tion which will mean him giv­ing up key pow­ers, includ­ing con­trol over the make-up of the gov­ern­ment.

Klitschko lat­er apol­o­gised for shak­ing Yanukovich’s hand, tak­ing the micro­phone and telling the crowd: “If I offend­ed any­one, I ask their for­give­ness.”

But many among the pro­test­ers were firm in their rejec­tion of the accord.

...

Not good.

Jour­nal­ists who should know bet­ter from Charles Pierce to Dig­by to Jane May­er today are mourn­ing the death of “Amer­i­can Hero” and
“Polit­i­cal Mav­er­ick” John McCain.

McCain! Who egged on Maid­an pro­test­ers while stand­ing shoul­der to shoul­der with Svo­bo­da nazis against a back­drop of Ste­fan Ban­dera
ban­ners.

McCain who inflict­ed the clue­less right-wing hack Sarah Palin on the world as his vice-pres­i­den­tial run­ning mate!

McCain, part of the Keat­ing Five, who sold out for $112,000 in cam­paign dona­tions from sav­ings and loan crook Charles Keat­ing while stiff­ing
Ari­zona tax­pay­ers for $3.4 bil­lion.

McCain whose father-in-law Jim Hens­ley was con­sid­ered a hench­man for Ari­zona mob fig­ure Kem­per Mar­ley (him­self a Mey­er Lan­sky pro­tege).
Don Bolles the Ari­zona reporter mur­dered by a car comb in 1976 was report­ed­ly look­ing at both Kem­per and Hens­ley regard­ing gam­bling
oper­a­tions at dog and horse rac­ing tracks around the state at the time of his death.

And it’s so rich that McCain feigned dis­gust with anoth­er mob cutout like Trump, both men relaxed and com­fort­able in the com­pa­ny of fas­cists
too. But jour­nal­ists who know bet­ter are keep­ing shame­ful­ly silent on THIS John McCain!