1. The Ukraine is not, despite the claims of some who are clearly deluded, a democracy and never has been. Its ranks high in corruption. It has long been dominated, as has the US and Russia, by oligarchs. Only demagogues, ideologues, and those demagogued and, as a consequence, not fully cognisant of reality can make the humourous claim that the Ukraine (or the US, for that matter), is a democracy.
Why is virtually no nation or state a democracy? One word, bureaucracy. As Max Weber and Robert Michels noted almost one hundred years ago, bureaucracies are inherently oligarchic because they are grounded in vertical hierarchies with different degrees of power and authority. Some, those few at the top, have more of each. Many more, those at the bottom, have less of each. Bureaucracies, in other words, are grounded, in inequality. Bureaucracies are inherently unequal.
Is the US a bureaucratic society? Yes. It's governmental, business, and cultural structures are bureaucratic. So, of course, is the Ukraine, Russia, and Canada. Of course, I know empirical evidence is not really relevant to those who prefer to live in the world of myth and legend, in the world of early John Ford films, in other words. So, in the final analysis, I know empirical facts are irrelevant to those who prefer to live their lives in a gauze of myth and legend and who prefer their reality to be unreal.
2. Speaking of those who prefer the mythic illusion and delusion to reality, demagogues, ideologues, and those blissfully demagogued have to ignore a host of facts. They have to ignore US overt and covert actions in the Ukraine, ethnic and linguistic divisions in the Ukraine, varying ethnic sympathies in the Ukraine, and, most pertinently, the American role in the overthrow or coup against a pro-Russian government in the Ukraine in 2013 and 2014.
As one commentor recently noted ignoring these indisputable facts, ones those who know little about the real rather those inscribed within an imaginary Ukraine live in a "black-and-white moral universe where tales of Good versus Evil always result in the princess being rescued by the knight [also see the film Pretty Woman] or whichever other comforting myths you need to tell yourself. The US deliberately chose — across administrations of both parties — to subsidize and “train” Ukraine’s military, flood the country with weapons, and otherwise assume the role of primary foreign sponsor. That’s the indisputable reality".
3. Sadly, those who prefer their reality to be mythic cannot counter and they don''t even try to counter, empirically grounded arguments, such as the points made by Weber and Michels about bureaucracies and oligarchies. They don't try to counter the clear historical fact that money and wealth, something the oligarchs have in bundles, dominate American economic and political life. They simply prefer to make empirically anemic generalisations grounded in the myths and legends of the American civil religion whether they are Republicans drugged up on their devotion to Tangholio or Democrats drugged up on the fantasy that the US, when run by Dems, is the essence of goodness in the modern world."
This, of course, makes having empirical discussions with the faithful true believer impossible since empirical evidence never impacts the minds of the true believers. As my old religion professor noted, one might as well bang one's head against a wall.
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