Ukraine: That Tears It

Russia’s gone and taken over Crimea. If I were Turkey, I’d be scared. If I were Ukrainian I’d be absolutely terrified. So far as I can see Russia wants two things: control of the Black Sea and its warm-water port and control of the nexus of natural gas lines located in Ukraine and there isn’t going to be much left of Ukraine if Russia gets them. Is the EU willing to fight for that gas?

Ukraine: Tug of Pipeline

(This post has been corrected and combined with two other posts, to create the more complete Ukraine: The Great Game, v2.0. I am leaving it here so that links and references stand.)

Visualize tug-of-pipeline, with a whole crowd of creatures on the west, a pipeline, and a bear on the east, and all of it taking place on Ukrainian soil.

Ukraine was the origin of the Soviet national gas industry in the 1920s. Ukraine's fossil fuel economy has grown hugely since then, and Ukraine into a nexus of pipelines and a home to refineries and gas storage facilities. The pipelines cross the country, carrying fuel from east to west.

From Ukraine vs Russia: Tales of pipelines and dependence, author Jerome a Paris. Full figure at link.

Russia, because of this, which is huge, and because of its port on the Black Sea and its agricultural productivity, not unnaturally wants to control Ukraine. The European Union, fearing dependence on Russian gas supplies, not unnaturally wants to control Ukraine. There are some fine points, which Jerome a Paris (presumably a pseudonym) spell out in Ukraine vs Russia: Tales of pipelines and dependence.

But the other point, which is not at all fine, is that Russia has twice forced genocidal famines in Ukraine, first in 1921-2 under Lenin and again in 1932-3 under Stalin. The Ukrainian people, because of this, and because of a longer history of oppression, for perfectly obvious reasons hate Russia. Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych apparently sold out to Russia, and party because of this Yanukovych is now a hunted man.

And, where does Russia fit in? It appears that stories of emergent fascism in Ukraine are Russian disinformation (in this connection, it is perhaps useful to remember that Vladimir Putin was for many years a KGB officer.) There is a fascist faction in Ukraine but, so far, it is not in charge. When asking about fascism, however, I ask where it is that the government has chosen a group to oppress, and put the full power of the state behind that oppression. And that, of course, is Russia, with it tormenting of gays.

And yet the geopolitics will not be denied. Europe wants gas. Russia has gas. Ukraine is in the middle. It is hard for this bird to see much hope of a positive outcome for Ukraine in this.

More Bitcoin Snark

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Ukraine and Russia, a few notes

(This post has been corrected and combined with two other posts, to create the more complete Ukraine: The Great Game, v2.0. I am leaving it here so that links and references stand. I have struck out my exceptionally egregious errors so that misinformation is not spread, but am leaving them for completeness.)

Situation, as I so far understand it:

1. Russia wants Ukraine firmly under control because of its agricultural productivity and its ports on the Black Sea.
2. Ukraine wants out of the Russian sphere of influence because of over a century of oppression, culminating in a genocidal famine, the Holodomor, which was the work of Stalin.
3. Ukraine is currently energy-dependent on Russia. Fuel shipments from Russia to the rest of Eastern Europe also pass through Ukraine. Pipelines from Russia to Milan and Frankfurt also run through Ukraine.
4. Chernobyl is in Ukraine, making nuclear power an unlikely method for achieving Ukrainian energy independence.

A few links:

• “Russia under Putin,” Greg Afinogenov
• “Ukraine. I break radio silence,” “The Blog Fodder”
• "Ukraine vs Russia: Tales of pipelines and dependence," "Jerome a Paris," Dec 30, 2005.
• “The Fascism Lurking Under the Winter Games”, David Neiwert
• Buzzfeed: Ukraine Paid Right Wing Bloggers to Post Talking Points. This looks like a Russian disinformation campaign.
• Ukraine: What emergency measures and what long-term changes are needed?

There seems to me a risk of Russian invasion, or Russia simply cutting off the fuel next winter. How will the world react?

Belt-tightening, Screw-tightening, and Revolution

The whole cuts-cuts-cuts strategy strikes me as rather like balancing a family budget by deciding which members of the family to starve. And when the family has a rich uncle who is living high on the hog, and a survivalist who is spending huge amounts of money getting into fights, well, I don't think starving someone makes a whole lot of sense. 

If a family has an income shortfall, it has several options. It can find more pay work. Rich members of the family might contribute more of their personal wealth. And, yes, it can decide to spend less. But spending less by starving family members is a non-starter; there is no family after that.

The past two years have been an exercise is screw-tightening for conservatives. The unemployment insurance extensions are gone, making tight family budgets tighter. Now SNAP cuts are coming in, increasing food insecurity. The conservatives won't be satisfied until we have people starving in the streets, like we did in the 1930s depression.

Something is going to break. But what? Murdoch's Wall Street Journal recently published a piece by the very wealthy Thomas Perkins saying that he fears a kristallnacht from progressives directed at the very wealthy. A remarkably ill-thought-out idea: the comparison he wants is with Stalinism, not Naziism. But give the devil his due: he isn't entirely wrong. The very rich have been subjected to enormous and vehement criticism. It must get wearing and harsh words are sometimes followed by violent deeds. The rest of us, though, are subjected to poverty, and wondering how to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table, and this is the work of the very rich, who looted the banks, threw millions out of their homes with their real estate machinations, and have made it near-impossible for people of modest means to save. For the rest of us, the violent deeds have already started, backed by wealth and the power of the state.

I think the talk of an uprising is intended to justify a clamp-down. There is, I am sure, some faction of the rich, powerful, and foolish who would be delighted to put all those weapons they have bought the various police forces to work. The Journal is voicing their fears.

The years since 2008 have, I think, seen an exhaustion of options. As the Reagan Revolution reaches its culmination, the American people have been reacting through political channels. First, we changed the President. Then the House. Then we had a sit-down strike on Wall Street. Now we have exhausted simple politics, and so there is a confused time of considering choices.

What next?

Democratic Economic Policies Work

(In answer to one of these annoying forwards.)

Historically, the economy does better under Democratic Presidents than Republicans. Think about it. There was Hoover, who presided over the beginning of the 1930s depression, and then the two great borrow-and-spenders Reagan and Bush II. Bush II presided over the beginning of what is turning out to be the worst depression in US history. On the other hand, FDR presided over a decent recovery, and Truman, JFK, LBJ, and Clinton presided over prosperous times. Obama, embarrassingly, makes economic policy like a Republican, and we are now in a depression likely to dwarf that of the 1930s.

Democratic economic policies work better than Republican economic policies. I believe this is because they are closer to Keynesian macroeconomic reality.

(Reference, though not scholarly: Bulls, Bears, and the Ballot Box.)

Slogans of the Progressive Libertarian Party

(Which probably isn't either, but it sounds like a good name.)

We are for:
  Full employment!
  A broad middle class!
  Saving the Earth!
  Human rights!
  Health care!

We are against:
  Aristocracy!
  Human rights for corporations!

And the only one of these for which there is no obvious method of accomplishment is full employment, which must be accomplished by a mix of fiscal and monetary policy—by Keynesian economic policies, in other words.

Right now there is no leadership or organized party with these goals, but everything here is possible.  We know how to do it.  Keynes once wrote of Trotsky, "He assumes that the moral and intellectual problems of the transformation of Society have been already solved—that a plan exists, and that nothing remains except to put it into operation." But this is no longer true.  We know how to do it.

Let's get started.

(This post may be updated at whim.)