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Revolution in Kiev

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Re: Revolution in Kiev

#121

Post by IgorPartola »

smsm42 wrote: post #114
IgorPartola wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gun ownership I Ukraine is pretty restrictive: http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/ukraine . Given these events it is probably a good thing otherwise a lot more people would be dead now.

You are aware of the fact that strict gun laws don't mean no guns? Your own link shows there are 3 million guns in Ukraine. If there's a need, some of them - probably hundreds of them - would find their way to the hostilities. But I'm not sure there is the will to escalate the situation this far. Because then the next step is using the army and heavy weaponry, and that means civil war and massive casualties. No one r…

I do not want to turn this into a gun control debate. You are right, it is best to avoid actual armed conflict.

However, having roughly 6.6 guns per 100 people means that guns are rare enough not to be used all the time. In general, the slavic nations do not have a culture of guns and gun violence among civilians (thank goodness), and that's what we are seeing here. Guns being rare means that they are not the first thing you reach for in a riot.

By the way, Ukraine has mandatory draft, so most men (women are ineligible for draft) do know how to handle weapons.

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#122

Post by chmike »

yetanotherphd wrote: post #17
rosser wrote: post #4

I feel like this kind of thing (the various Arab Spring uprisings, the Ukrainian revolution, &c ) is very well served by the cacophony of amateur/citizen journalism that flows out of an individual event. Sure, at the time, it's incredibly noisy, because there's so much primary source material being created, with such incredible depth and nuance. Once people start to be able to assemble a comprehensive understanding o…

A lot of what seems to be grassroots could be aided, and perhaps even orchestrated, by sophisticated groups with a political agenda, e.g. the CIA. It would only take around 10-20 bloggers to create the illusion that the majority people in the country felt a certain way. EDIT: and nowadays, they wouldn't just blog, they would post to Reddit, and maybe even HN.

I doubt the CIA could have plot the political decision of Ukraine to turn their back on Europe. This is the cause of this, as far as I know. Ukrainians hoped to be able to work in Europe like their neighbour countries and this has been denied to them. Obviously that political decision was strongly "influenced" by Russia. This is why so many people are taking part in these contests. Every single Ukrainian is concerned by this political choice and unhappy of it. I don't think CIA could make such mass popular protest sprout and sustain in front of strong political resistance.

People just want to get away of misery. If Russia want to keep this country in its "federation" there is a very clear and "simple" thing to do. Keeping this country from joining europe by force is just delaying the final issue as it happened with Hungary and all these other countries. This Federation hold together by force will fall appart anyway soon or later unless Russia manages to offer equivalent job opportunities and salaries as Ukraininag could get in Europe.

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#123

Post by emilis_info »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #75
kremlin wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate this alternative viewpoint! Thank you! From the outside, it's hard to know what to believe. I'm not just going to take your word for it, but it's at least nice to see someone making the point that it's not as black-and-white as it seems.

Don't take my word for it. Just realize that there are 2 sides, and 2 viewpoints to read... All the media coverage has been very one sided...

Extending your argument about 2 viewpoints: lets go listen to what astrologers have to say about criticism from astronomers...

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#125

Post by smsm42 »

desireco42 wrote: post #14

Stunning photography. What I see here is large scale destruction of presumably their city by it's citizens. I don't see how anything good can come out of mass hysteria and destruction. Edit... I don't believe for a moment and based on numerous other reports in the media, that assertions about peacefulness of this protest are true or represent anything but something that poster would like to be. Doesn't sound likely a…

In addition to the quotes above, please note Kiev is a huge city (3M+ people), and the hostilities are concentrated in relatively small area. Indeed, the harm done to the area seems to be substantial, but not irreparable (some cleaning up, repaving and repainting would probably cost a lot, but nothing seems to be irreversibly destroyed). So there's no large scale destruction of the city by its citizens.

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#126

Post by Mikeb85 »

smsm42 wrote: post #116
Mikeb85 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who would win the next elections is the question for the citizens of Ukraine, which they will decide once Yanukovich is gone. The problem is that whoever leads the Party of Regions would likely win the next election, which is why these protests are happening. The opposition knows they can't win. http://www.uceps.org/eng/poll.php?poll_id=115

The link you showed shows the polls pre-hostilities, up to October 2013. These data are useless now - once it started, everything changed. Also, even there PoR has 20% of the votes. Not exactly the winning position.

It actually is the winning position when the opposition still has less support and PoR is at it's weakest.

The protests will only intensify PoR support in the south and east of the country.

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#127

Post by smsm42 »

IgorPartola wrote: post #121
smsm42 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are aware of the fact that strict gun laws don't mean no guns? Your own link shows there are 3 million guns in Ukraine. If there's a need, some of them - probably hundreds of them - would find their way to the hostilities. But I'm not sure there is the will to escalate the situation this far. Because then the next step is using the army and heavy weaponry, and that means civil war and massive casualties. No one r…

I do not want to turn this into a gun control debate. You are right, it is best to avoid actual armed conflict. However, having roughly 6.6 guns per 100 people means that guns are rare enough not to be used all the time. In general, the slavic nations do not have a culture of guns and gun violence among civilians (thank goodness), and that's what we are seeing here. Guns being rare means that they are not the first t…

Let me just say that being drafted in soviet-model army and knowing one's way around civilian firearms is not the same thing. But I'm sure even with 6 guns per 100 that means that there could be at least dozens of guns present in the scene. Yet so far we didn't hear any of them firing, which I don't attribute just to luck. But you're right, most of the protestors probably don't own a firearm, and those who may own it probably won't take it there.

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#128

Post by x0x0 »

hooande wrote: post #94

This is an amazingly low tech revolution. The primary weapons of the protestors are: smoke, flammable liquid, rocks, shields and giant slingshots. These tools could have been used in the Peloponeasian War as easily as in 2014. It really says something about the character of the revolutionaries that they are willing to fight without modern weapons or equipment. I don't know enough about the Urkaine to asses the merit…

that plus bravery and the (correct?) hope that the police and military will basically be unwilling to pull triggers

a handful of tanks and people willing to fire on their fellow citizens would probably rout the protests

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#129

Post by thesz »

IgorPartola wrote: post #117

Man, the amount of disdain people have for protesters in the comments to this story is really shocking. I do not exactly understand where it's coming from. Yanukovych is a corrupt petty thief and rapist, turned politician, who has very close ties with Russia, and is stealing from the Ukrainian people through corruption. He rigged an election in 2004 and only massive riots prevented him from coming into power then by…

Those commenters have very justified disdain.

They want Ukraine to join European union. and the fate of Ukraine will be pretty grim in that case. My (not only mine's, actually) conclusion is based on experience of former Baltic USSR republics and former states from the Socialist block, including Bulgaria, Slovakia, etc.

Never mind that burning car tires means producing benzopirenes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzo%28a%29pyrene Those compounds are 1000 times more harmful than lead.

They are making Kiev to be very bad for living quite fast.

So, in short, protesters are stupid judging from several points of view.

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#130

Post by sekasi »

jwr wrote: post #109

Did anyone else notice how refreshing this kind of reporting feels after being used to what the mainstream media feeds us? This story is low-key, trying to present all aspects, trying to stay objective -- it's been a long time since I read something like this from a journalist.

This. So much this. The article is not trying to drum dramatics or hype or anything that western media is brainwashed to do with everything. It's just simple, honest and very brutal.
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