Category: social revolution

Ukraine April 12, 2022 from alethonews.com shared with thanks

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his delight on Tuesday after Kiev’s successor to the Soviet-era KGB arrested the country’s most prominent opposition leader.

The President shared a photo of his handcuffed rival Viktor Medvedchuk on social media, with the caption: “A special operation was carried out by the SBU. Well done! Details to follow.”

Zelensky announces ban on all 11 Ukrainian political parties The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine decided to ban the activity of all Opposition Parties

Medvedchuk heads the second largest party in the national parliament, the “Opposition Platform – For Life.” He was previously placed under house arrest, last year, as part of Zelensky’s clampdown on dissent, which was granted tacit approval by the regime’s Western supporters.

Formed in 1991, to replace the KGB, the SBU is Ukraine’s main intelligence and security agency.

Medvedchuk, who opposed the 2014 Kiev Maidan, and believes the country’s Western turn to be detrimental to Ukraine’s interests, has led his party since 2018. He previously served as Chief of Staff to former President Leonid Kuchma, in the early 2000s.

Corporate media parrots the Azov Battalion – World …Photo captions by the New York Times indicate that Azov Battalion soldiers were among the first to enter Bucha …..The Western corporate media has embraced Ukrainian neo-Nazis as “sources of information”

Some Western commentators have labelled him as Vladimir Putin’s “closest ally in Ukraine.” However, the Russian President has described Medvechuk as a “Ukrainian nationalist.”

In 2019, Opposition Platform – For Life won 13% of the vote in a parliamentary election, making it the country’s largest opposition faction. Last year, polls showed that it had passed Zelensky’s Servant of the People as the most popular party in the state.

That seemed to prompt a crackdown by Zelensky, who closed media outlets associated with Medvedchuk. Soon after, the politician was arrested on politically motivated “treason” charges.

Zelensky nationalizes TV news and restricts opposition parties On Saturday and Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky invoked his emergency powers under martial law to suppress several opposition political parties and implement a “unified information…

Medvedchuk has rejected accusations of being “pro-Russian,” insisting his party represents millions of ordinary Ukrainians. In February 2021, he accused Zelensky of seeking to establish a dictatorship in Ukraine and suppress the legally elected opposition.

Authorities in Kiev also charged Zelensky’s predecessor Petro Poroshenko with treason, back in December 2021 – on the same charge as Medvedchuk: illegally buying coal from the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk and thus “financing terrorism.” Poroshenko made a big deal out of publicly returning to Ukraine in January, and a Kiev court refused to jail him.

Unlike Medvedchuk, Poroshenko has substantial support in the West.

“Unacceptable”: Zelensky parades Azov fighters at Greek … Zelensky’s speech with two Azov militants in front of the Greek Parliament caused a scandal .

The US and its allies have sought to justify their support for Ukraine by saying Zelensky is a democrat fighting for freedom, and have presented Russia’s actions towards Kiev as motivated by a fear of democracy.

Moscow sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, following a seven-year standoff over Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements and end the conflict with the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk.

The way to end the war is to stop it. It costs us very little to give the Russians basic security and make Ukraine, with its now nazi led 250,000 strong military, into a neutral state in the EU.

All US dominated goverments and media are demanding more and more lethal arms to be sent free to Ukraine to fight Russia. Most people go along with this, but a moment’s reflection shows you cannot put out a raging fire by pouring gasoline on it.

Russia has a huge military, plenty of cash, is now the strongest Nuclear Power and is controlled by a dictatorial authoritarian state with strong public support.

We cannot defeat Russia by pouring arms into a corrupt bankrupt state, now fatally crippled with no air force and with a now nazi controlled military.

It’s just another chapter in the endless wars financing the US military/industrial economy. This is more War Capitalism desperate for new markets to save the precarious US financial empire.

That’s why Russia has had to endure ever increasing NATO provocation, endless new bases, missiles, and nuclear armed planes and ships on its borders.

Russia was also forced to put up with 8 years of ongoing Ukrainian shelling of the ethnic Russian population in Donbass, killing an estimated 14,000 people, with zero wortd or MSM outcry .

The way to end the war is to stop it. It costs us very little to give the Russians basic security and make Ukraine, with its now nazi led 250,000 strong military, into a neutral state in the EU.

The alternative is endless slaughter and suffering on all sides. When will we wake up from Media and pandemic induced mass hysteria and racist nationalism, stop the arms deliveries and demand a sane and agreed end to the Ukraine war.

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Greek Railroad Workers Block Delivery of U.S. Tanks to Ukraine – World …

worldbeyondwar.org  by Simon Zinnstein, Left Voice, April 11, 2022

Workers at TrainOSE, a Greek railroad company, have been refusing to transport U.S. tanks destined for Ukraine from Alexandroupoli, a port in the northern part of the country. After workers there refused, bosses tried to force railroad workers from elsewhere to take on the work.

“For about two weeks now,” the (KKE) said in a statement, “there has been pressure on the employees of the engine room in Thessaloniki to go to Alexandroupoli.” 

Continue reading “Stop Arms to Ukraine. Stop the War… Workers Block Delivery of U.S. Weapons in Greece, Italy and Germany”

New allegations have surfaced after weeks of signposting that Russia could use chemical weapons in Ukraine

A view of the sea fishing port near Azovstal factory in the city of Mariupol, April 9, 2022 ©  Leon Klein / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion has accused Russian forces of deploying a chemical weapon against its fighters during the siege of Mariupol. Moscow has warned that such claims could be used to create a pretext for the US and its Western allies to step up efforts to punish Russia over the ongoing conflict.

An unidentified chemical agent was dropped from a drone on Monday, leaving several Ukrainian fighters in the area struggling to breathe, according to unverified accusations posted on Telegram by the ultra-nationalists.

“A poisonous substance of unknown origin” was used, the militants claimed, allegedly leaving three fighters suffering mild respiratory issues, dizziness and headaches.

However, an aide to Mariupol Mayor Petro Andryushchenko noted that the allegations of a chemical attack hadn’t been confirmed, according to Reuters.

Separately, the Ukrainian parliament accused Russian forces of “firing on nitric acid tanks” in the Donetsk region. “This was reported by the patrol police,” according to a post on the parliament’s Twitter account on Monday night. “Locals are urged to prepare protective face masks soaked in soda solution.”

Western officials quickly pounced on the allegations, warning of severe consequences for Moscow. “We are working urgently with partners to verify the details,” UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said. “Any use of such weapons would be a callous escalation in this conflict, and we will hold Putin and his regime to account.”

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In Washington, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said US officials were monitoring the situation in Mariupol. “These reports, if true, are deeply concerning and reflective of concerns that we have had about Russia’s potential to use a variety of riot control agents, including tear gas mixed with chemical agents, in Ukraine,” he added.

READ MORE: US confirms dispatch of chemical weapons protection

US, UK and Ukrainian leaders have claimed for weeks that Russia might deploy chemical or biological weapons in its military operation in the former Soviet republic. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated those concerns on Monday, calling for stronger sanctions against Russia to deter the use of such weapons.

“It is time to make this [sanctions] package in such a way that we would not hear even words about weapons of mass destruction from the Russian side,” Zelensky said. “An oil embargo against Russia is a must.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki first set the stage for an alleged Russian chemical or bioweapon attack last month – while responding to reports from Moscow on US-funded biolabs in Ukraine. She called the charges “an obvious ploy” and said “We should all be on the lookout for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false-flag operation using them.”

READ MORE: US clarifies position on use of chemical weapons

Also last month, US President Joe Biden said NATO members would respond “in kind” if Russia used weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine.

Moscow launched a large-scale offensive against its neighbor in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Lugansk and Donetsk, where the city of Mariupol is located. The German- and French-brokered protocols had been designed to regularize the status of those regions within the Ukrainian state.

Russia has now demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military alliance. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two rebel regions by force.

Anticolonialism and Resistance to Binaries

By Gregory D. Smither April 12, 2022 Via Beacon Press

Female-bodied people who assumed male social roles and dressed like men were known as elxa’ Male-bodied Quechans who took on women’s social roles and wore female clothing were known as kwe’rhame

When the Quechan people first encountered Spaniards in the mid-16th century, their homelands stretched from the Colorado River to the Gila.

The Quechan spoke a Yuman dialect and lived in small, patrilineal bands. These social ties developed over time into larger tribal groups known as rancherías comprising as many as five hundred people. By the mid-16th century, the Quechan had a history of fighting to preserve their collective identity and provide sustenance for the members of each ranchería.

Balancing the subsistence needs of rancherías demanded that Quechans pay attention to the limits of local ecologies. One of the ways they did this was through a flexible system of gendered labor. Quechans lived with local ecosystems, paid attention to environmental changes, and noted fluctuations in the flow of rivers.

Binary distinctions—wilderness/civilization, male/female—had little utility in this ever-changing world. People needed to adapt to local ecosystems and embrace a fluid understanding of what it took to ensure the health of their respective communities.

Rigidly prescribing which types of labor men and women must perform made little sense to the Quechans; instead, they fostered a dynamic worldview that empowered individuals to take on roles based on evolving skill sets, accomplishment, and communal need. Europeans didn’t appreciate this complexity.

When they caught their first glimpses of Quechan society their reports suggested that men were employed in menial tasks that required greater physical strength, while people who took on a more feminine appearance engaged in skilled labor involving agriculture and the distribution of food.

Quechan life focused on community collaboration. Individual expression wasn’t frowned upon so long as it adhered to the protocols of reciprocity and balanced the needs of everyone who lived within the ranchería.

Unlike the Spanish, Quechan people never developed a system of wealth accumulation like those encouraged by the individual or mission-operated encomiendas, a type of estate and system of forced labor in the Spanish settler colonies. An extensive network of trade routes connected communities, facilitating an exchange economy that supported life on the rancherías.

Within this social system Quechan people nurtured blended gender identities and formed intimate relationship that sometimes breached the heteronormative ideals that Europeans brought with them to the Americas.

Marriage usually involved a monogamous relationship, although it was not unheard of for a man to have multiple partners. Marriage began with a proposal. The parents of the intended groom usually initiated marriage negotiations with the intended’s family, a process that often started shortly after a young woman had her first menses. A dowry was established, and gifts were distributed among the extended family.

Intimate social and sexual relationships in Quechan society also included kwe’rhame and elxa’ people. Male-bodied Quechans who took on women’s social roles and wore female clothing were known as kwe’rhame. Female-bodied people who assumed male social roles and dressed like men were known as elxa’. For both kwe’rhame and elxa’ people, the adoption of these identities in a Quechan ranchería was as much a spiritual as a physical experience.

Like scores of Native communities throughout the American West, Quechans placed great importance on dreams. Visions that foretold a person’s future path were viewed as spiritual messages. For people with gender-fluid identities, teenage dreams held particular importance. Dreams awakened young people to their special identity and, particularly for the elxa’, their considerable spiritual powers, which other Quechans both feared and respected.

Continue reading “How Indigenous Societies Fought to Preserve Their Blended Gender Identities in the Face of Colonialism”