Thursday 7, April 2022

Ukraine and fascism

I am not an expert on Ukraine, any more than I was on Covid or supply chains. Twitter is a source which is not ideal, but it does have some good content. I think it’s worth reading this. Certainly, it must be correct to say that Russia is already a fascist state, in the sense that it is controlled by a small group which controls the corporations in the country. I am sure that the corporations are not models of governance themselves, but the congruence of the state and business interest is surely a key feature of the Russian state, which itself is a consequence of the disastrous “Washington Consensus” privatization of swathes of Russian nationalized industries was forced on Russia by the IMF, World Bank, WEF et al.

I am not saying that the current kleptocratic state that is Russia today is entirely the fault of the USA, but one feels that if Russia had been treated like Europe after WWII by the USA, with a Marshall Plan equivalent and help to rebuild society, this would not have happened. OK, I’m no historian, but it clearly was a disaster for the ordinary Russian peasant.

As a Russian-speaking person of color who was born and raised in Ukraine, I believe that I am in a position to speak on the issue of nationalism and neo-Nazism in Ukraine. A long thread 👇

— Mariam Naiem (@mariamposts) April 7, 2022

UK average real earnings

It would be better to show median earnings, but this is interesting.