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Revolution in Kiev

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Re: Revolution in Kiev

#151

Post by nikolak »

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…

They also use Molotov cocktails to burn/kill police officers and some of them are using those air(?) guns.

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#152

Post by claudius »

csomar wrote: post #48
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…

I'm not sure why you got a downvote. Can someone explain how destruction or burning stuff can bring power or wealth? (you can find my opinion here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7124322 )

The key is that there is little to no destruction. Destruction looks like [0], what you see on the pictures from Kiev is a minor annoyance and can be fixed within a few days. Burning old car tires might not be the ecologically best way to dispose of them, but as long as it is limited to a short period of time, it likely does less harm than a single day of people commuting to work by car in a given metropolitan area.

Oh, and regarding your apparently main point that destruction cannot bring wealth: If destruction results in large-scale investments in the right areas (think Marshall Plan), it can bring an enormous amount of wealth in a very short time.

[0] http://img.welt.de/img/bildergalerien/crop108305768/83787296...

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#153

Post by dmytrish »

nikolak wrote: post #151
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…

They also use Molotov cocktails to burn/kill police officers and some of them are using those air(?) guns.

None have been killed with a Molotov cocktail so far.

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#154

Post by riffraff »

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…

I would suggest that it's more likely the protesters simply do not have interest in killing people.

For example,shooting during riots in the '70s in italy was very common even though we do not have a gun culture.

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#155

Post by nikolak »

dmytrish wrote: post #153
nikolak wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also use Molotov cocktails to burn/kill police officers and some of them are using those air(?) guns.

None have been killed with a Molotov cocktail so far.

True, I didn't mean to imply that there have been deadly casualties, but that's the goal of throwing Molotov cocktail on someone. Saying that the protesters aren't using violence is wrong.

None have been killed because they have firefighters and fire extinguishers with them, doesn't change the fact that throwing Molotov cocktail into someone's face can, and probably will, kill them.

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#156

Post by cdash »

dmytrish wrote: post #153
nikolak wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also use Molotov cocktails to burn/kill police officers and some of them are using those air(?) guns.

None have been killed with a Molotov cocktail so far.

In fact I would like someone to point me to a documented case where a riot officer has ever been killed from a molotov cocktail because I seriously do not think it has ever happened anywhere in the world.

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#157

Post by eitland »

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…

Glad to see the Ukrainians are peaceful.

I also grew up in a heavily armed and very peaceful nation and like others I suspect this has more to do with culture than with access to weapons.

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#158

Post by dmytrish »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #119
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…

There are certainly great pictures, but depth and nuance? You can't see people's ideology and in their faces. Pretty girls can still be crazy nationalists and fascists. Does age and gender really prove anything as the author seems to suggest? He also says that the crowd is well organized. Who organizes them if they are so diverse? Who are the people who deny others access to some areas as he reports? There are very f…

Yes, the pictures don't prove much, here you have to trust the author, he's spending quite some time in the heart of the events.

Pretty girls can still be crazy nationalists, that's true. The point is that if some crazy form of nationalism has taken so wide-spread popularity in Ukraine, it would be well-known abroad already. That's not the case, it seems that the only foreign force concerned with Ukrainian nationalists are Putin's medias.

Ukrainian nationalists are often overrated: their traditional message and goal is "Glory to Ukraine", anti-Moscow feeling is also strong (not surprisingly), and alas, some historical "domestic" antisemitism which almost never comes into real actions and sometimes is actively fought (Maidan now actively protects Jews from any assaults, our government has tried to speculate on this, Berkut are also mildly antisemitic - it's a common Slavic trait). What I have never seen is hate to others based on ethnicity or just being other.

From my little experience (I live in Kiev), people are organized informally and it's an amusing self-organization: a lot of my friends (including me) have been supporting peaceful Maidan with presence, money and food. Guys at Hrushevskogo do not have some formal organization, they deny access to interlocutors if they see you're unprepared for the hell at the front line.

If you have more questions, I'll be glad to answer.

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#159

Post by TeMPOraL »

nikolak wrote: post #155
dmytrish wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None have been killed with a Molotov cocktail so far.

True, I didn't mean to imply that there have been deadly casualties, but that's the goal of throwing Molotov cocktail on someone. Saying that the protesters aren't using violence is wrong. None have been killed because they have firefighters and fire extinguishers with them, doesn't change the fact that throwing Molotov cocktail into someone's face can, and probably will, kill them.

I think the goal is probably to scare/deter them and make a piece of ground unpassable for a short while.
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