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Revolution in Kiev

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321–330 of 377 posts

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#321
post #64

The reality distortion field the protesters have formed is impressive. They've completely overshadowed a few key points: - The Yanukovych government offered a power-sharing agreement with the opposition, offering Yatsenyuk the PM position and Klitschko the deputy PM job, which the opposition rejected: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-oppositions-rejects-vik... - The fascist element - one of the opposition leaders…

This is an impressively ignorant comment. Few hundred thousand people are standing on the street for weeks (months!) and what does the government do? Create new oppressive laws! How do you react to that when your peaceful demonstration is declared illegal?

Power-sharing, hah. Who cares about power-sharing with opposition? Opposition is weak and not respected, nobody will be satisfied if they would go with this proposition and they perfectly understand that. What would you do if you knew that if you accept premier minister seat, but people will still stand on the streets? They are afraid to accept that proposition and rightfully so.

Tyahnybok is as fascist as anybody else. His rhetorics is just rhetorics, and he's allied with Yatsenyuk right now, who is widely regarded being Jewish.

Whatever. That is not a valid viewport, but a bunch of bullshit.

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#322
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Exactly. This idea that for every issue there must be two valid viewpoints each with good points is fallacious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation

So let's just blindly accept the US-centric viewpoint on everything, which has been proven to be manipulated much of the time...

The idea isn't that there are 2 valid viewpoints, but that more often than not the truth lies between 2 extreme viewpoints.

Good job on arguing against a straw-man you two created...

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#323
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They've already lost Moldavia recently, and didn't they lose Georgia, too? The Rose Revolution gang were ousted in the most recent elections in Georgia...

And former Georgian President Saakashvili is coming to the USA to teach, as a Senior Statesman: http://fletcher.tufts.edu/News-and-Media/2013/12/20/Presiden...

Of course he is. It was always known that he was just a US stooge, and didn't look out for his people's interests.

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#324
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They want Ukraine to join European union No. If you were more familiar with the situation, you would understand that EU is only being used as a token signal (not goal) of the direction the country should be heading in. What the protesters really want is for the current government to resign and not to sign a (undoubtedly corrupt) deal with Russia that would effectively infringe on Ukraine's economic and political so…

The problem of course is that Ukraine has no economic sovereignty already. It is utterly dependent on Russian gas for its energy needs. Even if Yanukovich steps down, next leader will have the exact same problem - where to get gas to power the country and you can bet your last grivna that the price of gas will go ballistic if Ukraine is to do something, anything to jeopardize the security of Russian borders. For exam…

To add to this, they're also dependant on Russia for trade. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ukraine/balance-of-trade

The vast majority of trade Ukraine does is with Russia, so souring that relationship will spell economic doom for Ukraine. Unless the EU is willing to purchase more products from Ukraine than Russia while at the same time providing them with loans and cheap gas I don't see how a trade agreement with the EU is a good thing.

It's not like Yushchenko was able to get anything beneficial from the EU, why does anyone think Yatsenyuk, Klitschko or Tyahnybok will do any better (assuming any of them could even get elected splitting the vote in the west)?

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#325
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah right, that's John Kerry (under orders from Barack Obama) who is orchestrating Ukrainian revolution. That's one of the funniest theories about that whole mess I ever read. >>> but it could just as well be part of a clever complex multi-year gambit by the Russians who have a strong tradition of playing chess You realize that not all Russian are the same, not all of them drink vodka, are chess grandmasters, wear u…

I have been to Russia more than once. And I speak Russian well enough to travel there on my own, with no support from any travel agencies or guides. On one occasion a couple of guys wanted to steal my suitcase, because I foolishly left the airline stickers on it so they knew it had to contain something worth stealing. But they didn't grab it. They didn't pull out a weapon. Instead they smiled and laughed and try to t…

Yes, you've been to Russia a couple of times and you've encountered a couple of Russian con men. That makes you an expert in all things Russian and gives you deep insight into Russian soul and Russian politics. And gives you the right to tell people who grew up there how it really is. I get it.

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#326
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the Wikipedia link you citrd: "In autumn 1943 some detachments of the UPA attempted to find rapprochement with the Germans. Although doing so was condemned by an OUN/UPA order from November 25, 1943, these actions did not end.[58] In early 1944 UPA forces in several Western regions engaged in cooperation with the German Wehrmacht, Waffen SS, SiPo and SD."

UPA is very controversial - it was responsible for mass murdering whole villages during WW2 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Poles_in_Volhynia_... ) > The peak of the massacres took place in July and August 1943 when a senior UPA commander, Dmytro Klyachkivsky, ordered the liquidation of the entire male Polish population between 16 and 60 years of age.[7][8][9] Despite this, most of the victims were women…

Yeah, building a new state on an old hatred doesn't usually end well.

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#327
post #315
post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, Google's been around for slightly more than a decade. I can totally see it losing its monopoly over time (same for Amazon). Also, are Google and Amazon doing a bad job? Are customers (e.g. those who place ads or buy books) unhappy? If a monopoly delivers I have no problem with it. Furthermore, Google doesn't prevent other players from entering the market, it doesn't lobby the government to regulate sear…

The fact that monopolist doesn't need to play dirty doesn't mean it's not a monopoly. In fact it's the definition of natural monopoly. Same with the fact that customers are happy. Yep, monopoly can fall, like everything else. Still the statement "natural monopoly is a myth" is false. Besides - states can fall just like companies. They are just bigger and fall slower than companies, but they eventually all fall. But p…

> They are more like share owners than customers - they can vote on who will be on the board. And they can migrate if they doesn't like some policy.

I never understood this argument. If I don't like every company, I can start my own company and disrupt the market. But if I don't like every state in existence, I cannot start my own country and migrate to it.

It is more like slavery: you can choose your master, but you can never become fully free. Just like russian Yuriy's day( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri%27s_Day ): once a year russian peasants were granted the right to move to another master. "If you don't like your master, why don't you go to another?".

> if you want to do sth like this please do it on volunteers.

This is the exact problem with governments/states: people are not allowed to live however they like. It is not like anarchy is crazy social order that even anarchists are scared to try. Anarchists are simply not allowed to start their own country/city and live there.

> BTW google started in 1997 IIRC. It's like the old movies that came out decade age = in nineties

BTW, google is not a monopoly in many countries(including USA). It doesn't even have a majority market share in every country(e.g. Russia, China)

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#328
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They want Ukraine to join European union No. If you were more familiar with the situation, you would understand that EU is only being used as a token signal (not goal) of the direction the country should be heading in. What the protesters really want is for the current government to resign and not to sign a (undoubtedly corrupt) deal with Russia that would effectively infringe on Ukraine's economic and political so…

The problem of course is that Ukraine has no economic sovereignty already. It is utterly dependent on Russian gas for its energy needs. Even if Yanukovich steps down, next leader will have the exact same problem - where to get gas to power the country and you can bet your last grivna that the price of gas will go ballistic if Ukraine is to do something, anything to jeopardize the security of Russian borders. For exam…

Note that I said "economic and political". At present, Ukraine is mostly politically sovereign. The deal with Russia would make it much worse, especially on political front.

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#329

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…

While I sympathize with the protesters, the disdain you speak of should surprise no one. First, Yanukovich won the last election when his opponents were in power. I think this is a good enough indicator that he has lots of supporters. Second, the Ukrainians went through all of this already in 2004 and apparently nothing particularly good came out of it. The country is in the same place it was 10 years ago and Yanukov…

> I've met a random Ukrainian couple while vacationing recently. They didn't speak Russian at all, so most definitely not from the east or other pro-russia kind of Ukrainians. And when asked about this uprising they expressed complete and utter apathy.

If you are Russian-speaking, it is very likely they feigned apathy so as to not offend you or to get bogged down in an extended political argument.

Re: Revolution in Kiev

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstood me. My argument was simply that there are many people who support Yanukovich and unsurprisingly feel disdain towards those trying to overthrow the president they've elected.

Thanks for clarifying. I understand people in his core regions and pro Russia Russians supporting him. I cannot understand the fairly progressive and very intelligent community here on HN supporting this wanna-be dictator.

If you understand the Ukrainian Russians could you please clarify why they support the dictator? Are they not intelligent enough?
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