I'm not smart enough to figure it all out.
Some say the US/CIA funded the "revolution."
Some say that the "revolution" involves neonazis.
Some say that the "revolution" has taken down a plutocratic authoritarian who rigged elections.
Some say that the "revolution" is like the American revolution-- that it has a bunch of wealthy people using the cover of the "revolution" to exploit the people of the Ukraine.
Some say that the protests that took place in the streets and in the Maidan include real people who were fighting for real democracy.
Some say demonstrators have been instigated by US NGOs.
Some say this is a ploy to pull Ukraine into the European Union, so the Ukraine can be strip-mined to feed the elites and bankers in the EU.
I don't know. It seems to me that there can and may be truth in ALL of these.
Young people who demonstrated in the streets have died. Were they paid, as some people say? Possibly. But they are dead and that is tragic.
I wonder if there are similarities between what happened in Ukraine and what happened in Egypt. In Ukraine, Neo-nazis are reported to have played an active role in the demonstrations. In Egypt, there were factions that were not seeking independence and democracy, but rather control. We know the US played some role there.
In Libya, I was pretty confused about who the good guys and bad guys were. I was sure that the US should not have gotten involved without formal congressional support. Congress failed to do its job there. Now, Libya's become a sad mess. And now we know that the CIA was deeply embedded there... and that the US really screwed up there.
I lean towards supporting revolution. Revolution is messy. Revolution challenges the status quo and disrupts that which is fragile and strengthens that which is antifragile-- like bottom up de-centralized aspects of economies, cultures and the way people interact.
The US CIA has used revolutions to put dictators into power. The CIA spooks, tools of presidents and the plutocrats and corporatists who direct presidents, use people to foment action in the streets. Sometimes it works and the deep powers get what they want-- an authoritarian figurehead in place who will cooperate. Sometimes, the CIA actions produce situations like Libya and Egypt and Iran.
During Occupy we know that there were many government infiltrators-- people placed amongst the genuine protesters to disrupt, to create violence, to give police excuses to act, rough up, to become violent.
Glenn Greenwald has a new article out at firstlook/theIntercept-- How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations. This article is not really surprising, but it fleshes out just how far along the ideas that Cass Sunstein spoke of-- using the internet and online postings to disrupt and influence. It makes it clear that anyone who thinks that something as big as a revolution or a movement like Occupy is something that can be boiled down into some simple explanation is deluded.
Is it still possible for a genuine revolution to happen? Perhaps it happened in Tunisia. But with what we know about Ukraine, Egypt, Libya and Occupy it is just about incumbent upon an aware person to look at any "revolution" as a collection of behaviors with a collection of influences.
It's incumbent for any person who wants to participate in just about any protest, let alone a revolution, to recognize that some of the people there are not what they seem. Should that stop people who want change from participating? Some of the commenters on articles about the Ukraine would seem to indicate that the Ukraine "revolution" was totally bogus, totally funded by the USA, totally supporting neo-nazis.
In the US, there were people who said that Occupy was composed of bad people of one sort or another-- not the people who tend to read this website, but people did say those things. And there was some truth to it. Little did we, or THEY, know that the bad guys were with Department of Homeland Security.
The good news is that the CIA doesn't always get what it aims for. Sometimes the disruption and the revolutions they and their corporate and elite allies start or fund or foment produce different, unexpected outcomes.
Maybe there will be some good that comes out of what's happened in the Ukraine, in spite of the CIA, in spite of the Neo-nazis and the European Union. Maybe there are people who will find a way to embrace the disruption, embrace the chaos and produce antifragile connections and bottom-up alliances that produce some good-- more democracy, more equality, more fairness. Maybe not. Maybe the worst players will prevail.
I also believe that there are too many people talking about false flags, as Glenn Greenwald reports in the aforementioned article-- that some of the people raising the spectre of false flags everywhere we turn are disinformation agents or the people who have been duped by them.
Things aren't simple. Things aren't clear. Get used to it. If you try to find black and white explanations, you're embracing the meme the mainstream media and the people who oversee it, including the CIA and its overseers, want you to see. It's easy to fall into that heavily programmed thought template.
What do you think?
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