Alan Grayson is wrong this time (on Crimea)

Rep. Alan Grayson is somebody I agree with most of the time and really admire for his guts, but this time he's got it all wrong. I fear he's having an Ameri-centric, knee-jerk left-wing reaction against the right-wing reaction against Putin.

First, "bloodless" cannot be the measure by which we judge the legitimacy of armed incursions by foreign powers. I daresay the U.S. could bloodlessly take over many countries if we came in with enough force quickly enough.  But that wouldn't make it right.

Second, as I've said before, the conditions in which the March 16 Crimean referendum were held, and the ridiculously short time frame, made the referendum illegitimate. Nobody in Europe would hold, much less recognize, a referendum organized under similar conditions on their own territory; so there's no reason for Europe or the West to recognize it in Crimea. To do so is actually a form of Western condescension: "Well, it's good enough for them."

(To illustrate it, I ask you to imagine a referendum for Florida's secession from the USA to join Cuba, since millions of ethnic Cubans live in Florida.  Imagine that this referendum started after Cuban troops invaded the Florida statehouse one night in Tallahassee; days later, those deputies who were allowed in by the Cuban troops, er, "local self-defense forces" voted to join Cuba (although there was no record or witness of the vote); then these deputies announced that this vote would be "confirmed" by a referendum in 2 weeks. This would be contrary to the U.S. Constitution and Florida's Constitution, just as Crimea's secession was contrary to Ukraine's and Crimea's, but that wouldn't matter, I suppose, under the ABSOLUTE right to anybody anywhere in any territorial sub-unit to their own self-determination.  Imagine further Cuba sending in troops to "protect" ethnic Cubans and "protect" their right to hold a referendum, while issuing ultimatums to local and state police, local military units, courts, etc. to pledge their allegiance to Cuba BEFORE the referendum was even held.... Need I go on illustrating how absurd this "legitimate" referendum in Crimea was?)

Third, let's recall that President Yanukovych fled Ukraine without explanation.  He was not "thrown out of power" by anybody; he chose, inexplicably, a day after coming to a compromise agreement with the opposition witnessed by EU ambassadors, (but not agreed to by Russia!), to flee Ukraine. This is not how a legitimate leader behaves.  In a few days it was discovered by the new government that $70 billion were unaccounted for in the state coffers; my guess is that Yanukovych fled preemptive to being arrested.

Finally, just to show that this is not  all about the U.S. and what we  think about a "second Cold War" or similar, just look at the reaction of Ukraine's neighbors in Poland, Moldova, the Baltics: they are not taking this "bloodless" revolution lightly, not to mention Ukrainians staring at 30,000+ Russian troops massing on the other side of the border. They are seriously frightened of Russia and what it might do next; and Grayson's official appeasement does not put their  fears at ease. 

Private charity fails to replace social programs

As I've noted before, charitable giving is "pro-cyclical," meaning it decreases during a bad economy when it's needed most.  

Hiltzik also points out that very little of charitable giving is aimed at the needs of the poor; and the rich are more miserly givers than the rest of us:

The smallest allocation of philanthropic giving to basic needs of the poor was made by the wealthiest donors, those with income of $1 million of more, who directed 3.8% of their giving directly to the poor. For the $100,000-$200,000 income group, that allocation was 12.4%.

"The existing evidence doesn't support the idea that wealthy donors will step in" to replace government transfer programs, says Rob Reich, an expert in philanthropy at Stanford. As he wrote last year, "Philanthropy appears to be more about the pursuit of one's own projects, a mechanism for the expression of one's values or preferences rather than a mechanism for redistribution or relief for the poor."

The largest single recipient of philanthropy is religion — 32% of the total, according to Giving USA. But only a small portion of that goes to outreach to the needy; more than three-quarters of donations to religious organizations is spent on "congregational operations," including facilities upkeep.

So here's the upshot:

What all this shows is that there's an unspoken subtext when people like [Representative Paul] Ryan complain, as he did during the 2012 presidential campaign, about "cold social programs from the federal Department of Health and Human Services" built by a government that "took away much of our greatness."

Ryan is evoking a golden-hued fairy tale of a past that never existed. In the real world today, those "cold social programs" from HHS and other federal agencies keep people fed and housed, and alive, and give their children opportunity.

Private charity can't replace government social programs

By Michael Hiltzik

March 30, 2014 | Los Angeles Times

URL: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20140330,0,1556558.column#ixzz2xRw4lXl7

Frum: The West CAN do something in Ukraine

Well worth reading!  This was my favorite chunk [emphasis mine]:

Tell me if you’ve recently heard a pundit or strategist say something like the following:

Russia is a great power. It is entitled to a sphere of influence on its borders. NATO and the European Union pushed Russia too hard while Russia was weak. Russia is stronger now, and so naturally it’s pushing back. We have to understand Russia’s need for friendly governments on its border.

Familiar, right? Now let’s consider why it’s an awful thing to say.

Every great power, of course, wants friendly neighbors. But the surest way to secure friendly neighbors is to be friendly yourself. It didn’t just happen that Germany is bordered by a friendly France to the west and a friendly Poland to the east. Germany has earned that friendship with its constructive policies in the years since World War II. Germany doesn’t need to subvert French and Polish democracy to ensure French and Polish friendship. Nobody can win an election in France or Poland on a platform of hostility to Germany.

If Russia finds itself in a different situation, it’s because of Russia’s own actions. Russia’s neighbors are frightened of Russia because Russia is frightening. Rather than allay those neighbors’ concerns, Moscow tries to manipulate neighboring political systems and install stooge governments. Neighbors a little further away—Poland, for example, or the Baltic republics—have every reason to worry that Russia would do the same to them, if it could.

But it can’t. And that’s because of the security guarantees enjoyed by NATO members.

That is why, Frum argues, "As a more effective and accountable government takes shape in Ukraine, it will become time to renew its application for NATO membership. This time, the answer should be ‘yes.’"

That's a pretty controversial stand in both the East and West, especially if you agree with many foreign policy "realists" that Ukraine is destined to be an eternal buffer zone between NATO and Russia. But Putin has just proven that a weak Ukraine is no buffer at all for Russia.  Putin could roll right over it to reach Moldova, Poland, and beyond.  Putin "changed the calculus," as Frum wrote, and so NATO expansion to Ukraine should be back on the table.

How the West Can Help Ukraine—and Stop Russia

By David Frum

March 27, 2014 | The Atlantic

URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/how-the-west-can-help-ukraine-and-stop-russia/359748/

Peninsula of Nazis: Russian Crimeans who served Hitler

This article is important enough to translate to English in order to put Crimea into its proper historical context vis-a-vis Russia's accusations of "nationalism" and "fascism" in certain regions of Ukraine. You are free to read or Google translate it yourself; the original is here. [Emphasis below mine].

Peninsula of Nazis. Russian Crimea in the service of Hitler

March 24, 2014 | CRIME.in.UA

Recently, thanks to the brilliant follower of Adolf Hitler, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian citizens who felt their homeland was Ukraine (not Russia or the Soviet Union) were automatically branded "Banderites" and "neo-Nazis."

For what purpose since the 2000's have our so-called "brothers" stamped all Ukrainian patriots and ordinary Ukrainians to whom is alien the "Russian world" with the stamps "Banderites" (banderovtsy), "Nazi collaborators" and the like?  Why does comrade Putin hate people who fought for the independence of their country against all comers: the Germans, the Red Army and Soviet partisans?  Probably because in the plans of that Nazi there is no place for an independent Ukraine, just as there was not in Hitler's plans.

Today we offer to lift the curtain and shed light on a number of facts that "Putin & Co." does not like to remember, preferring to pretend that it was not in Russia's history of betrayal of millions of Russians during World War II. That it did not exist in the great history of the great Russian millions, as if they just drowned in the endless pages of time.

The Russian media loves to make noise about the "complicity of banderovtsy with fascists," concealing the massive scale of collaboration in Crimea, including Sevastopol, in the period of the German-Romanian occupation. And today, this period of time is still a mystery of mysteries.

But not everything was so simple. If in the western regions of Ukraine, UPA [Ukrainian Resistance Army] protected its people from the Nazi aggressors, in the southeastern regions and in Crimea, it was more difficult -- on the contrary, legions became collaborators to help the invaders oppress native people. Since the middle of the summer of 1942 they went under the same banner under which now walks the Russian community, and wore the same uniform worn by the current Crimean Russian Cossacks.

And, by the way, they all spoke Russian. The absolute majority of Germany's supporters -- Russian Liberation Army (ROA) formations in the territory of Ukraine and Crimea -- were created mostly ​​of Russian-speaking collaborators.

And if Ukrainian battalions "Roland" and "Nachtigall" are a favorite topic of the Russian media, then it is time to tell you about homegrown Crimean Cossacks whose descendants today have lined up in the service of the Moscow as "fighters against fascism," but who in fact are fighting exclusively with the Ukrainian state. Even on the day of celebration of Victory over Nazism on May 9, under the flags of ROA they love to walk the streets of Sevastopol and demonstrate that "in the city of Russian glory" there is no limit to cynicism. The archives and statistics, and documentary research of many Russian writers are packed with dry eloquent facts.

So, Crimea put up "only" 45,000 (!) bayonets in the 11th German Army of Manstein who participated in the storming of Sevastopol.

In the 17th Army of the Wehrmacht were formed nine separate Russian companies.

Crimean "volunteers," unlike the UPA , who defended their land, took part in the siege of Leningrad. Crimean Tatars, by the way, did not take part in the "Wehrmacht," so any theses about "Crimean Tatar traitors" can find no basis in fact here.

Modern Crimean "fighters against fascism" are somehow not in a hurry to to tell Crimeans, how, and with whom, in Simferopol in February 1942 was formed the 5th Simferopol Cossack Squadron, Cossack Cavalry Regiment "Von Yungshultz" and the 1st Andrew Hundred near Simferopol.

In addition, Russian Hitlerites on the peninsula formed four Russian Cossack battalions, which became the basis of the Russian Cossack Security Division "Von Schulenburg." This Division was finally destroyed in battles with UPA in 1944.

In February 1942, in Simferopol, by the headquarters of the 11th Army of the Wehrmacht was formed the 5th Simferopol Rejtarskiy Cossack squadron, on the basis of which was established Cossack Rejtarskiy regiment under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel von Schulze's 1st Panzer Army.  In 1943 the regiment, as one of the best in the fight against the Red Army and the guerrillas, was included in the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division of the Waffen SS, and later expanded and was reorganized into the 15th Waffen SS Cossack Corps.

It should be noted that Hitler included Crimea in the Reikskomisariat "Ukraine". Therefore, it was the 15th SS Cossack Corps, formed in Crimea, not the SS Division "Galicia," that became the first collaborationist unit in Ukraine that was fully included in the Waffen-SS.

Corps-- not division, and still much more. Therefore, Lviv with its Division "Galicia" and two battalions that had not sworn allegiance to the Fuehrer and the Reich mostly went over to UPA, in great contrast to Crimean Cossacks.

In addition to the above facts, inhabitants of Crimea formed three Russian battalions marching in the Wehrmacht, 560th and 994th field battalions of the ROA. Besides the Cossack Corps, first in Sevastopol, and then in Simferopol were well-outfitted headquarters, command and two battalions of the 1st Grenadier Division of the SS "Russia" and initiated the formation of the 2nd Division.

Residents and prisoners of war in Sevastopol formed the 381st Sevastopol Educational Field Division of the Wehrmacht .

Coastal defenses from Sevastopol to Feodosiya in 1942-1944 were provided the team "Kringsmarine Black Sea," in which officers were Germans, and soldiers were Russian, exclusively recruited from the local population and prisoners of war. Although these "kringsmarintsy" at the approach of the Red Army shot their officers and went over to the partisans -- nevertheless, for two years they loyally served the invaders.

Separately, we should mention the Crimean police battalions -- the so-called "Hіwі" ("Volunteer helpers " -- helpers of the Nazis, of course).  In Sevastopol, a battalion was formed of 450 locals that guarded the seaport, and likewise in Crimea "helpers" blockaded Soviet partisans in the mountain forests.

If we compare the number of collaborators pf Crimea and Western Ukraine in their relation to the number of the local population in 1941, we obtain interesting results. In the western regions of Ukraine the number of collaborators that fell in the service of the occupiers (even including the general list of Ukrainian Division "Galicia" and battalions "Roland " and "Nachtigall") was about 2.5% of the total population of the region.  In Crimea -- it was almost 12%.

Today in the Crimea again operate the henchmen of a new Hitler -- from Moscow. Only now they are not fighting against the Soviet power, but against the Ukrainian government. And at the same time against Ukrainian citizens, who do not even really know how to speak Ukrainian .

And so that such "national traitors" would not stay on "native Russian land," Cossacks and FSB agents advise them "delicately" in Russian to leave their home and their Motherland. Because in Russia there is no place for Ukraine. In the twisted imagination of the Moscow Fuhrer there exists only "Little Russia" -- "a petty historical misunderstanding."

Section "Delta" group "IS ." Based primarily on research by Miroslav Mamchak.

Source: Flot2017.

Charity never did, never can, replace safety net

I've argued most of this before, (you can read some here, here and here), but Mr. Konczal lays out the exhaustive historical case that the U.S. never did manage to take care of its poor through private charity.

Contrary to what Paul Ryan, Newt Gingrich, Rand Paul, et al tell us, there never was a golden era in American history when private people and charities provided a safety net, or even anything close to one.

So the burden really is on far-right conservatives who want to tear down the safety net that was built to fix all these historical problems, to explain how they are going to invent something totally novel to American history, and guarantee that it will work when such patchworks or networks of charity have always failed in the past.

There's just no valid study, history or facts to back up their false claim.

The Conservative Myth of a Social Safety Net Built on Charity

By Mike Konczlar

March 24, 2014 | The Atlantic

URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/03/the-conservative-myth-of-a-social-safety-net-built-on-charity/284552/