“Ishchenko seems to be as mystified as I am that they could fail to understand this.” There is a benefit in this not understanding. The PMC class in the U.S. and Ukraine, socially, economically, and by education are aligned with the “looting oligarchs.” They benefit from dispossessing the rabble, and are not its deplorable victims. Yet.
I wonder how Ishchenko is incorporating the NYT CIA dump and their (very expensive) meddling in the fomenting of Ukraine’s civil war and the ongoing disaster.
Note the strong working men in the glowing presentations on wondrous rebuilding are pretty much dead or gone. So they’ll just put everything online. The FTX of states indeed.” Opportunity knocks for the ghouls of war:
Indeed I was tempted to go into that and a few other things but thought it best to stick with what would be in the time frame of the manuscript being submitted, but the coverage of the CIA, NED role etc was a weaker part of the text
I remember the Ukraine 2030 video I couldnt believe wasnt a parody, and I know the US also forced them into some sort of digital bank id program to "fight corruption"
Of course, scope of book….That video had me on the floor. Is there a genre “horror cartoon”? I do love insightful book reviews so yeah, keep doing ‘em.
Yeah like I still struggle to believe that is real and was produced by some sort of cabinet minister. They are actively trying to make their country and experiment in transnational capital, it is crazy. It really just is the case that a dreadful faction accumulated the power.
thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I find doing occasional book reviews to be a good change of pace, and it makes me feel like I'm using my literature degree! [In reality, you write criticism that would go in journals in that field, I was only assigned a book review once in college]
I also figure it's good to sometimes support authors, especially being as I ask people to support me, and book sales are not great these days.
You wrote: 'To me, personally, one of the most frustrating things has been the constant discussion of Ukraine’s “freedom” and “sovereignty” when they functionally want to cede control of their country to Brussels and international capital and hordes of NGOs. In short, “sovereignty” is a red herring, as neutrality was Ukraine’s best option if that was the goal.'
When the Feb 2022 invasion began my pro-Western Russian friends yelled at me for taking the position that UA has to make peace with RF or it will be ruined. It was stuck with a weak bargaining position between major powers and has to be on peaceful terms with both. You can't talk about sovereignty when choosing to be a puppet state.
I am reminded of the weird situation in the UK in the Thatcher/Major years. My educated Marxist friends were pro-ECC. Why? It was a mystery to me with the ECC being explicitly pro-business (actually a cartel club). I slowly concluded that they wanted to cede sovereignty, believing doing so would bring a more just law and governance to the UK. It now seems to me this belief was rooted in contempt for the Thatcherite Conservative governments and possibly also contempt for certain expressions of Britishness. I shared the contempt but Thatcher's Euroscepticism and old-style British nationalism don't mean the ECC is your friend.
It is generally inevitable that when there is a sufficient level of conflict during the state one or both sides ultimately try to draw in outside powers. A lot of Americans are also pretty open in the belief that Americans have bad political views and thus we would be better off with less sovereignty, of course the also don't know anything about how people in other parts of the world think.
It is indeed curious, though, the amount of affinity many supposed leftists have for the EU, which does primarily exist to facilitate the transnational movement of capital, albeit with a heavily regulated form of capitalism.
I dont fully understand the laws, but part of the issue is Ukraine has mandatory military service anyway, then a break between that and when you can be drafted.
And it might be materially better for a while but Europes economy does not seem long for this world.
But yeah its been put in really reductionist ethnic terms for a variety of reasons.
Regardless the point is that it is something along the lines of Ukrainians are in their normal active duty/reserves years 18- 25 anyway and then there has been a 2 year break until you turn 27.
But their demographics are upside down anyhow their birth rate is now sown to 0.7 children per woman
“Ishchenko seems to be as mystified as I am that they could fail to understand this.” There is a benefit in this not understanding. The PMC class in the U.S. and Ukraine, socially, economically, and by education are aligned with the “looting oligarchs.” They benefit from dispossessing the rabble, and are not its deplorable victims. Yet.
I wonder how Ishchenko is incorporating the NYT CIA dump and their (very expensive) meddling in the fomenting of Ukraine’s civil war and the ongoing disaster.
Note the strong working men in the glowing presentations on wondrous rebuilding are pretty much dead or gone. So they’ll just put everything online. The FTX of states indeed.” Opportunity knocks for the ghouls of war:
https://www.sir.advancedleadership.harvard.edu/articles/digital-transformation-in-ukraine-before-during-after-war
https://features.csis.org/enabling-ukraines-economic-transformation/#section-1-fw6R6f9ZRF
Indeed I was tempted to go into that and a few other things but thought it best to stick with what would be in the time frame of the manuscript being submitted, but the coverage of the CIA, NED role etc was a weaker part of the text
I remember the Ukraine 2030 video I couldnt believe wasnt a parody, and I know the US also forced them into some sort of digital bank id program to "fight corruption"
Of course, scope of book….That video had me on the floor. Is there a genre “horror cartoon”? I do love insightful book reviews so yeah, keep doing ‘em.
Yeah like I still struggle to believe that is real and was produced by some sort of cabinet minister. They are actively trying to make their country and experiment in transnational capital, it is crazy. It really just is the case that a dreadful faction accumulated the power.
I don't normally enjoy book reviews, but this was a banger. Great read, thanks.
thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I find doing occasional book reviews to be a good change of pace, and it makes me feel like I'm using my literature degree! [In reality, you write criticism that would go in journals in that field, I was only assigned a book review once in college]
I also figure it's good to sometimes support authors, especially being as I ask people to support me, and book sales are not great these days.
You wrote: 'To me, personally, one of the most frustrating things has been the constant discussion of Ukraine’s “freedom” and “sovereignty” when they functionally want to cede control of their country to Brussels and international capital and hordes of NGOs. In short, “sovereignty” is a red herring, as neutrality was Ukraine’s best option if that was the goal.'
When the Feb 2022 invasion began my pro-Western Russian friends yelled at me for taking the position that UA has to make peace with RF or it will be ruined. It was stuck with a weak bargaining position between major powers and has to be on peaceful terms with both. You can't talk about sovereignty when choosing to be a puppet state.
I am reminded of the weird situation in the UK in the Thatcher/Major years. My educated Marxist friends were pro-ECC. Why? It was a mystery to me with the ECC being explicitly pro-business (actually a cartel club). I slowly concluded that they wanted to cede sovereignty, believing doing so would bring a more just law and governance to the UK. It now seems to me this belief was rooted in contempt for the Thatcherite Conservative governments and possibly also contempt for certain expressions of Britishness. I shared the contempt but Thatcher's Euroscepticism and old-style British nationalism don't mean the ECC is your friend.
It is generally inevitable that when there is a sufficient level of conflict during the state one or both sides ultimately try to draw in outside powers. A lot of Americans are also pretty open in the belief that Americans have bad political views and thus we would be better off with less sovereignty, of course the also don't know anything about how people in other parts of the world think.
It is indeed curious, though, the amount of affinity many supposed leftists have for the EU, which does primarily exist to facilitate the transnational movement of capital, albeit with a heavily regulated form of capitalism.
I dont fully understand the laws, but part of the issue is Ukraine has mandatory military service anyway, then a break between that and when you can be drafted.
And it might be materially better for a while but Europes economy does not seem long for this world.
But yeah its been put in really reductionist ethnic terms for a variety of reasons.
Regardless the point is that it is something along the lines of Ukrainians are in their normal active duty/reserves years 18- 25 anyway and then there has been a 2 year break until you turn 27.
But their demographics are upside down anyhow their birth rate is now sown to 0.7 children per woman