About "the IMF and World Bank — two core elements of the system — remain fully functional, continuing they're roles despite the "end" of the system? "
Their Bretton Woods roles were to monitor the fixed exchange rate of the US$ versus other currencies but then the US pulled out so their roles have gone, gone!

Go on believing that if you like. Their actual roles have never changed, even if their "official" roles once did. Otherwise they would have been shut down at the "end" of the Bretton Woods system.

Most people, including me, long ago forgot that IMF and World Bank had to do with the Bretton Woods thing AND with the clearing system (abandoned on 31st December 1959). Both are often critized, sometimes correctly and sometimes incorrectly) but both have, for decades, helped countries and important corporations out of trouble. They have to cover their costs, which is difficult as they often help out over-debted countries

There always are indirect consequences. The end of the clearing lead to the end of the "Verrechnungs-Stelle" in Zürich and Dad to a new far better job, and me and brother got a beautiful world map. That it shows the borders of 1947 makes it rather more interesting. It is now on the wall above my bed

Some anti-Russian propaganda with some good points [URL="http://blog.skepticallibertarian.com/2014/05/28/next-time-you-hear-about-a-fascist-coup-in-ukraine-remember-this-chart/?fb_action_ids=10204069176228951&fb_action_types=o g.recommends"]here

That's the first I've heard of the coup being described as "fascist" (other than in esto's posts here). I suspect usage of the term today has little to do with its original meaning anyway.

It's eastern rhetoric. Nothing in common with what is in western dictionaries. It was like that in soviet time (officially called socialist) from Oïmyakon to Eisenach. The Berlinwall was "die antifaschistische Schutzmauer".
The fact that there were real neonazis in the armed and muscled troops of the nationalists didn't help either. But elections have shown that:
- real neonazis are politically worth nothing in elections and help with forces (the others have their own too, don't worry)
- western Ukrainians voted for an oligarch who was in every business and government since independence, including a very Russian friendly attitude when it was time to have one and he will get it back in no time, like every time
- oligarch = corruption. There is no argument here
- eastern Ukrainians had no candidate to vote for, so it doesn't matter whether they participate or not to the vote
- Poroshenko's rhetoric changed from antirussian to easternUkrainian-friendly policy in no time. Last year, it was the other way around. There are more wonders in Ukraine in a year than in the whole Bible
- It is not in Russia's interest to have two Ukraines, Russia wants to have a friendly Ukraine as a whole but the means to achieve that might change from times to times. Armed forced in Slaviansk used to be one, they are contra productive now and Putin doesn't exactly say the contrary either
- I don't like Putin and I don't really like Russia that much, but their government has the advantage to act logically and rationally. This is in itself reassuring, even if one disagrees, because the nationalists are totally brainless even if they might have a point once in a while. No trust-building, even the western Ukrainians didn't really vote for the hard core nationalists
- Timoshenko is politically dead even if she is a martyr… that's how little trust the wester Ukrainians have in the ex-orange revolution party
- It's Ukraine, corruption explains everything, forget smart politics even if you're right on paper.

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Es wird nichts ausgelassen, um mich hier herauszuekeln. Ein Lehrbuch. False accusations and attacks continue. There is no stopping righteous people when they are wrong.

Probably a good time to recall one of Stalin's greatest quotes:

I got a thank from both Texaner and Marton for the same post on Ukraine. Call Oslo, I want the Nobel Peace Price.

Ukraine is as corrupt as the rest of the (ex) Soviet Union. Poroshenko and Putin are not corrupt people as such. Both upon demands of times changed their tunes a bit. But this is politics business

We aim to please

BTW I see the peaceful unarmed pro-Russian protesters managed to shoot down a helicopter last week

From outside, it looks like it. But Belorussia and Ukraine are a couple of levels above Russia. Baltic states a couple of levels beneath. Putin did clean up quite a bit the local authorities and the corruption dropped so dramatically compared to the Eltsin area that the population feels it. From what I've heard, Azerbaijan is the top of the top. Georgians, Armenians and Central Asians won't talk to strangers about this, so no way the info gets out in either direction. We'll never know how corrupt those countries really are, we can guess. But without regular visits, it's hard to keep up. I admit.

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Es wird nichts ausgelassen, um mich hier herauszuekeln. Ein Lehrbuch. False accusations and attacks continue. There is no stopping righteous people when they are wrong.

Who (besides you) is calling anybody "peaceful unarmed pro-Russian protesters"??

Take a look at the link you posted in post 451

That link referred to one specific incident, not a category of people. There is no logical or lawful basis for extrapolating from that single incident the arbitrary labeling of any other group of Ukrainians as "peaceful unarmed pro-Russian protesters". Get real.

Inductive fallacy. It's in the book since ancient Greece. Don't say you weren't prepared, you had 2400 years to read and do your homework.

I guess you don't read any Russian media, they are describing the Kiev authorities as "fascist" every chance they get. Just search for the word on Russia Todays website, it's there in abundance:

http://rt.com/search/everywhere/term/fascist/

Just an example, after the presidential elections last week:
It's not any new thing really, Russian nationalists have used the word "fascist" to describe people from Ukrainian and the Baltics since WW2 because those groups by large did not want to be annexed by the Soviet Union. Today it's more of a "blanket word" used by Russian nationalists to describe their neighbors who aren't pro-Russian. It's easy to paint a whole country as an enemy using that word. And it's effective. Any mention of WW2 in Russia envokes alot of emotions and sense of national pride. And when the media whips people into a fury of emotions and national pride...

The Western media has stayed pretty steady calling them "pro-Russian separatists" for the most part, but the Russian media changes (even sometimes within the same article) between: pro-federalization, militia, freedom fighters, self-defense forces, volunteers, etc.

In this (Russian sourced) article, they call them "local self-defense forces" but then say they shipped 33 coffins back to Russia? If they are coming over the border from another country, it seem to contradict the "local" part.


http://en.ria.ru/world/20140529/1902...3-of-Them.html

Russian involvement is clear. Putin has backed off publicly, most likely due to worsening relations with EU. But it's clear he still supports them quietly, as the Russian border gaurds do nothing to stop the flow of men and arms into Ukraine, and Putin has not called on the pro-Russian rebels to lay their arms down. At the moment, it looks like his plan is to turn the East into a "grey zone/no-mans-land" kind of like he did in 2008 with Georgia/South Ossetia/Abkhazia.

Right now things are not looking good in the Donetsk/Lughansk regions. People are starting to flee in large scale, to relatives in other parts of Ukraine or Russia. People in other parts of Ukraine are looking at what is happening there in Lughansk/Donetsk and are fearful of having this spread to their towns/cities, which is kind of uniting the rest of the country.

I wonder why somebody would want to flee from a place bombarded by the national army.

The method is not new and well proven. The Red Army at the end of WW-II qute seriously paved their advance by shocking locals into fleeing in a hurry

Well I've been following RT, and frankly haven't noticed the word in headlines or editorials, though perhaps some individuals have been quoted using the term. Or maybe I'm just inoculated against the term itself.

The article doesn't actually say 33 coffins were "shipped back to Russia" — only that 33 Russian nationals were identified and sent to their relatives. There is no indication as to how many of those relatives live in Russia, Ukraine or anywhere else. My point: Even if all 33 were Russians being returned to Russian relatives in Russia, what exactly is the objection to their voluntarily coming to the aid of their perceived comrades in their quest for more autonomy vis-a-vis Kiev?

No less than US and NATO involvement. I find Russian involvement the more tolerable: Russians have a right to care about what's happening on Russia's front porch. More suspect is why the US/NATO/IMF/World Bank so desperately needed to facilitate the deposition of a democratically elected government and the imposition of a pro-US, pro-EU, pro-NATO government in its place, to be "validated" by an "election" in which Russophiles can only choose between various versions of the US/NATO/IMF/World Bank alliance.
Uniting exactly how (against Kiev? against Lughansk/Donetsk?)? And where is this documented?

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"Live every day as if it were going to be your last; for one day you're sure to be right." — Harry Morant

The Russia is funneling Chechen soldiers to Ukraine, even as it is withdrawing the its troops deployed next to the Ukrainian border. Bodies are repatriated back quietly.