Comments on: Anne Applebaum can’t tell left from right

By: dstein

dstein — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 19:10:12 +0000

Mr. Brown – that’s a good point, but just because you hate communism and russian influence doesn’t mean you have a free pass to align yourself with a totalitarian racist government. Many of these protestors may well want Democracy and freedom from Russia, but they aren’t going to get it with Yuschenko in power: they’re going to get the remnants of the nazi regime along with 40 years of hard core right wing politics. You can cheer all you want for democracy in action, but Yuschenko is really really bad news.

By: abb1

abb1 — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 15:50:27 +0000

I’m with the protestors. Who are you and van den Heuvel with? I’m with the protesters too. But let’s not get too excited. I agree with Seth: take it with a bit of healthy cynicism.

By: seth edenbaum

seth edenbaum — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 15:16:15 +0000

Why is it so unreasonable to be somewhat of a cynic about all sides? Abb1, To say that Russia does not have legitimate concerns, is not to ignore that they exist. The Ukrainians are pawns for both Putin and Bush, and other than that we could and should be having the same discussion about eastern Ukraine as we are about Kansas. On the ground the argument is between those at the bottom with few expectations, and those with hopes and aspirations for themselves. Since I don’t celebrate self-interest as a moral principle, I view both sides with irony. But if course that’s not the same as defending the rulers themselves. It’s the continuing Haussmannization of the world.

By: Hektor Bim

Hektor Bim — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 14:55:21 +0000

abb1, the problem with van den Heuvel’s article is clear. Pointing out that Russia has legitimate interests or that the US government is not a philanthropic organization is not the problem. The problem is what these articles always lead to, this article not excepted. What this article effectively pushes is for us to back off from supporting democracy in Ukraine, for us to cringe our heads and say “both are bad, it doesn’t matter” and give in because it wouldn’t do to annoy Russia. If we are for democracy and human rights and the rule of law, then we should be for them everywhere. That means we should be for them in Venezuela and Ukraine and anywhere else. It doesn’t affect how I feel if the US government is hypocritical. The choice in Ukraine is clear: either you are for imperial meddling, faked elections, extrajudicial killings, and creeping authoritarianism or you aren’t. Yanukovich and Kuchma are for these things, and the protesters are against them. I’m with the protestors. Who are you and van den Heuvel with?

By: Hektor Bim

Hektor Bim — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 14:54:42 +0000

By: vernaculo

vernaculo — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 09:26:10 +0000

What is up with Yuschenko’s face anyway? Is that a right-wing plot, or a left-wing self-mutilation plot to create sympathy? Or is Yuschenko not left-wing? If you campaign against a communist aren’t you automatically not left-wing? Berezovsky, what about him? Now there’s a fine fella. And he’s close with Roman Abramovitch, a truly fine fella – they don’t come any finer than Abramovitch. And Yulia Tymoshenko, where’s she at in all this? Good guys? Soros was trying to unselect Bush wasn’t he? Now he’s trying to unselect Yanukovych? So that’s good isn’t it? There were all these pictures of pretty girls in the snow putting flowers on the shields of the riot police – was that p.r.? Or is the p.r. suggesting that that was p.r.? How much spin can be applied to an event before it creates terminal velocity? Anyone who suggests that any political contest of any import now is anything more than two not-goods running against each other, with a slight tilt one way or another the deciding factor, for at least the next couple of years, is a nincompoop. What does Kurt Vonnegut have to say about Yuschenko? That’s what I want to know.

By: Andrew Brown

Andrew Brown — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 08:46:18 +0000

dstein: this is a general problem with all the anti-soviet movements in Eastern Europe and their descendants. In that part of the world, you just naturally eneded up allied with Hitler if you thought that defeating communism/Russian imperialism was the most urgent problem. In the mid-Eighties, I spent some time with the then Baltic independence movements. their elder generation saw nothign wrong with watching Nazi propaganda films about the “crusade against Bolshevism”. But the important point is that their children were horrified. TGA is, as usual, right on the money.

By: Andrew Brown

Andrew Brown — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 08:40:33 +0000

But I always (and out-of datedly) think of Appelbaum as a British journalist. At one stage she was actually employed by the Spectator, and I have certainly been to meals in London at which she was present more or less as a native. So she does know a lot about the British press, its hatreds and competitiveness..

By: Matthew

Matthew — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 08:29:45 +0000

She does name a Guardian journalist, whose naame I can’t remember and I can’t look at her story because I’m not registered (and lazy), but the article she quotes from is constantly praising the American effort in Ukraine. So the only point really is whether it is accurate or not, and I see no reason to believe it isn ‘t.

By: abb1

abb1 — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 08:15:19 +0000

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Truth and Consequences in Ukraine. Look, what’s wrong with pointing out that the US government – to whatever extent it’s involved, and it sure is – is not a philanthropic organization? Look at Venezuela. What’s wrong with pointing out that the Russian government has legitimate concerns there? Steele is making perfectly sensible points; his points aren’t everything one could say about this situation, but the more obvious aspect of it has been trumpeted (and, perhaps, overamplified) all over the place, so why repeat it?

By: dstein

dstein — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 04:06:56 +0000

Well, the problem is that Yuschenko isn’t just getting support from western movements looking to build a right wing anti-soviet bloc along their border, its that they have a lot of support from former Ukrainian Nazis. There’s a reason he was in the front row at Slava Stetsko’s funeral, and a reason why his wife ran the Captive Nations project for two years. There’s a really big story here about Yuschenko’s nazi ties that is only getting scratched at, hopefully we’ll get some more of it soon.

By: nick

nick — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 00:03:40 +0000

Many of the same people who found it hard to say anything bad about Saddam Hussein find it equally difficult to say anything nice about pro-democracy demonstrators in Ukraine. And who are these people, exactly? Remember, too, that Anne Applebaum's column two weeks ago pooh-poohed all the talk about electronic voting paper trails: Most Americans now conduct at least some of their financial transactions without paper, or at least sleep happily knowing that others do. Yet when it comes to voting -- a far simpler and more straightforward activity than electronic bank transfers -- we suddenly become positively 19th century in our need for a physical record. It is, if you think about it, quite inexplicable.... Given our reliance on computerized accounting, the explanation for the American paranoia about computer voting cannot be rational. Oh, yes. Electoral accountability for thee, but not for me.

By: Giles

Giles — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 22:57:33 +0000

Indeed Chris – and I’ve seen articles by him in the Telegraph. Its called PR - you Put your message where you think you’ll get a Responce. And presumably by targetting the Guardian, he thinks there is fertile ground for this line amongst its readers.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 22:39:37 +0000

Applebaum rather had the ground cut out from under her when the left-wing Guardian published a rather good article by Timothy Garton Ash this morning, tearing the living crap out of Laughland ‘n’ Steele. I think that the real problem is that American journalists can’t really conceive of a newspaper industry less fearfully boring than their own.

By: George

George — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 22:14:51 +0000

The plot to spread the rumor of a rightist plot to bring down a leftist plot is actually a leftist plot? I think that’s the plot of Foucault’s Pendulum. Seriously, when I first heard the claim that the “Orange Revolution” might in some small way have been facilitated by the US, I was shocked at the idea that American intelligence could have accomplished something both competent and admirable.