United States of Europe vs. Stalinland: Ukraine, pt. II

[Ned]

Yushchenko may go down in history as one of the four pillars of Eastern European democracy. He would join with Pope John Paul II, Lech Walesa, and Boris Yeltsin as courageous people who stood up to up for democracy at a time when events could have gone the other way.

The only people who could be sad about this turn of affairs are fans of the Russian or Soviet Empires.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Besides, Kuchma was certainly not a Russian stooge. He was pro-Russian, but he wove strong ties with the EU as well. A real Russian stooge would have gone the way of Belarus. Kuchma was much more independant than we like to depict ihm, and he was also much more pragmatic.

Also, He could've used force to crush the Orangeutans, and He did not. I think it's very nice of him.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Spiffor

I strongly disagree. Yushchenko is a corrupt hack who has already been Prime Minister. His coming to power comes along a grave political crisis, and a terrible division of the country.
It is very unlikely that such a bad president, in such a bad situation, manage to improve things any significantly. Actually, I expect many of the Orange supporters to be strongly disappointed as corruption and poverty will continue unabated.

There was two choices - one that decided to fiddle with the election and one who hasn't been caught in it. Yushchenko may be a bad choice, but isn't that the case in every country that doesn't have a monarchy ?

Please tell me why a president elected through fraud is a better one than one who may be rotten, but still preferred by a majority ? (and please, don't start BS about bush).

[DanS]

And vice versa. Reinforced Western prejudices reinforce Russia's political proclivities.

Russia has only itself to rely upon, to blame, and to worry about. Western impact on Russian internal politics is quite minimal.

Partly, this is an inevitable side effect of overcoming the anarchy and disarray of Yeltsin years. Partly, this is an impression blown out of proportions by western media.

In fact, what Putin is desperately trying to do is to create such a system of political parties and civic organizations that would make political pluralism work for the benefit of Russia, and not for its destruction as often happened in the past.

Colon will vouch for me when I say that I was willing to give Putin the benefit of the doubt on this. I agree that past wrongs have to be fixed, at least somewhat. Russia was robbed blind by her oligarchs. At a minimum, proper taxes have to be collected. In the absence of other totalitarian tendencies, I would support a rebalancing of some of the oligarchs' power to the people.

But add the reality together and you get a totalitarian stench that scares Westerners. Rather weak opposition parties being crushed. A strictly controlled TV press. Consolidation of power in the Czar's hands. A resurgent secret police. Rampant corruption in the top ranks of government. Talk of a "controlled Democracy" (that must be a Russian creation ). I wonder when the number of allowable presidential terms will be extended... At best, all of this stuff is a waste of valuable time for Russia. Russia gains nothing from these measures.

On the contrary, the West's long-standing insatiable thirst for grasping as many countries as possible has not been helping Russia's democracy. Not at all.

Listen to yourself talk, Vagabond. Russia's lack of democracy has nothing at all to do with the West's long standing thirst.

I would be surprised if it didn't happen. But please don't pretend that this is a result of Russia's recent behavior. It is a masterplan worked out loooong time ago. What happens now is just a convenient pretext for a decisive move.

Even if I were to accept your conspiracy theory, the way for Russia to "fight back" would be to become strong internally. If Russia were strong internally, then Putin wouldn't have to rig elections in the Ukraine. Indeed, as I pointed out above, most of what is happening under Putin will not make Russia stronger, but rather weaker. He should be raising wages, downsizing, and professionalizing the security services. Instead, he is monkeying around with centralization. I thought Putin was smarter than this. Collecting power is a fool's game.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by BlackCat
There was two choices - one that decided to fiddle with the election and one who hasn't been caught in it. Yushchenko may be a bad choice, but isn't that the case in every country that doesn't have a monarchy ?

Please tell me why a president elected through fraud is a better one than one who may be rotten, but still preferred by a majority ? (and please, don't start BS about bush).

The candidate who actually wins the popular vote deserves to be president indeed (although I continue to have my doubts on whether Yushchenko really had more legitimate votes than Yanukovych - remember both guys are corrupt liars).
However, the statement on which I disagreed was "russians will look at Ukraine with envy and ask why they are not doing it equally well". I do not expect Ukraine to fare any significantly better in a few years than today. Maybe if somebody new was in, somebody honest with a platform of widespread changes, that statement might have been true.

But Yushchenko won't solve corruption in Ukraine any more than Berlusconi did in Italia, and he isn't on the verge of making a revolution. The people of the so called "Orange Revolution" will soon understand that their dear leader brought very little change. And corruption and poverty will continue unabashed.

The only way for Yushchenko to significantly change the people's life is to try adhering to the EU, structurally change the Ukrainian society to that effect (like the Turks), and being poured billions over billions by the EU. I don't see that happening (at least, the billions part), because we have already more than enough billions to spend on the new members.

[KrazyHorse]

Why are russians so damn paranoid?

I think it's the guilt com,plex

[Combat Ingrid]

http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/issues/bilateral/countries/ukraine/index_en.htm

The enlarged EU has replaced Russia as Ukraine's foremost commercial partner (accounting for 35% of its external trade in 2003).

[alva]

These elections are completely fair cuz' our guy won.

[chequita guevara]

Give Crimea back to the Tatars!

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Stefu
For which we can thank Ted Striker

[Saras]

quote:
Originally posted by Serb

Keep your BS for Yankees or Euros. I know what's going on there.

And I don't?

If everything is so perfect there, then how the hell can you explain Russian exodus from Baltic states. Hundreds of thousands are expelled from there.

Link, bs-master.

Russians that stayed are treated as crap- no citezenship, no basic human rights.

They can get the citizenship if they pass the required tests. How people manege to live in a foreign land for 50 years and not learn the local language is beyond me. Well, maybe not beyond - perhaps they think that this land being independent is an aberration that will be corrected in due course, so why bother learning.

**** you too.

If all else fails, blind silly insults will save the day.

Biatches, if you ask me. Allies means partners, it means both sides can benefit from cooperation. The west can offer security for you, what can you offer for the west except your body? You think NATO desperately needs your single motorized division to protect Berlin or London? They are ready to protect you, but they do nothing for free. So, what kind of "allies" you are talking about? 'Biatches' is the word.

Nobody asked us to protect London or Berlin; people in NATO seem to be realists, unlike some Siberian sysadmins. And it's not like we're exactly stretching NATO forces with their security commitments for the Baltics.

I could of course tell you stories how our special forces dished out pwnage on Taliban , but you'll go "Spetsnaz!!! " "Komsomol!!! " etc in no time

[el freako]

Originally posted by Serb
Not at all. Yanukovich clearly won at southern and eastern Ukraine. About 15 million Ukranians (who produce 80% of Ukrainan GDP, I'll never tire to remaind this over and over again) are very unhappy about their candidate being robbed with victory.

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Source? That implies a GDP per capita of over 4 times as high in eastern Ukraine as in western.

Originally posted by Serb
You ask me to waste hell knows how many hours to make a research for you? Who will pay for that study?
Donetsk region alone is reponsible for 25% of Ukranian GDP. You have to believe me.

Why should we believe you, this distribution of GDP makes very little sense indeed - it would make the Ukraine one of the most unequal countries on the planet.

Even if you have seen data supporting what you claim (and I very much doubt it) you have to know how GDP per region is calculated in order to be able to make any conclusions about it:

GDP (which is value added across a region or area) is mostly generated within companies - the easiest way to assign the GDP produced within a company is to use it's address.
This means that if a company has its head office in one region but it's workers use a factory in another then all the value added produced by those workers is added to the region with the companies head office.
Whilst this is easy for statisticians to calculate (as is better than no regional accounts at all) it is well recognized that it can produce inaccurate results, for example in my native Britian inner London has a GDP per head (calculated using workplace based GDP) nearly two and a half times higher than outer London, but the disposable incomes of the households living in inner London is only 3% higher than those in outer London - the reason is that many people from outer London commute into inner London where their GDP is recored, but they live (and receive and spend their income) in outer London.

You have to understand how statistics are calculated if you are going to be able to draw meaningful conclusions from them (which is one reason why I keep taking issue with a lot of Giancarlo's statements).

[Sikander]

Originally posted by The Vagabond
Printed press is still free. TV has just been curbed back to American standards.

Wow, if that's the best insult you can come up with Russia must be feeble indeed.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by The Vagabond

If your government thought the same...

Official U.S. policy opposes the expansion of NATO to Ukraine. We only went along grudgingly to expand to the Baltic as LotM describes.

[Colon™]

Colon will vouch for me when I say that I was willing to give Putin the benefit of the doubt on this.

*vouches*