© Reuters/Valentyn OgirenkoKiev, January 25, 2014
The 'progressive' Western political elites and the establishment journalists who act as PR agents for them would like us to think that they are unequivocally opposed to neo-Nazism, homophobia, racism and far-right political extremism.
But how genuine is their opposition? The current disturbances in Ukraine and the western response to them, suggests that it's highly selective to say the least.
Let's imagine for a moment that there were violent demonstrations led by ultranationalists and neo-Nazis in a Western European country, and that those demonstrators held up posters of figures who had collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. That they had shouted neo-Nazi slogans and their leaders had made anti-Jewish and homophobic statements. That these same protesters had used violence to try and topple the democratically elected government - and that they had seized government buildings. We can expect the western elites and establishment journalists to fiercely denounce the protesters, who would definitely be labeled
"rioters," that they would call for
"law and order" to swiftly be restored and for the leaders of the demonstrators to be arrested, and for them to be prosecuted under hate speech legislation.
Yet this is exactly what has been happening in Ukraine, and far from condemning the far-right protesters, the Western elites have been enthusiastically supporting their cause.
Before Christmas, Senator John McCain, the US's leading neocon politician, flew to Kiev and dined with opposition leaders, including Oleh Tyahnybok, leader of the extreme far-right Svoboda party. Later, McCain stood alongside Tyahnybok at an anti-government rally. In 1999 a report from Tel Aviv University, cited by Britain's Channel 4 News, called Svoboda
"an extremist, right-wing, nationalist organization which emphasizes its identification with the ideology of German National Socialism." In 2004, Tyahynbok claimed that Ukraine was run by a
"Muscovite-Jewish mafia." Although the party has tried to clean up its image since then, the far-right extremism and ugly ultranationalist rhetoric remains - but that doesn't seem to trouble too much the western elite figures cheering on street protests, in which Svoboda and other ultranationalist groups have played such a leading role.
The same hypocrisy is shown in relation to the issue of gay rights.
Comment: Current events in Ukraine seem to be following the same old template we have seen in action so many times before. Latin America, Yugoslavia, Egypt, Libya and Syria - the actors are sometimes different but the basic scenario is always the same: psychopathic elites crushing the masses.