The (Ukrainian) Revolution WILL be Blogged

The Postmodern Clog Blog ^ | 11/24/2004 | Discoshaman

[Once-Ler]

I don't think anyone here doubts that one candidate will be more pro-West than the other.

That depends on what you mean when you say "pro-west" If you mean pro-hollyweird, pro-gay, anti-church, anti-capitalist then I say pick the guy Soros wants.

[Rocky Mountain Mama]

But isn't Ukraine a sovereign nation after the breakup of the Soviet Union? Why is Russia interfering in their elections in the first place? I mean, I know why, but if Canada didn't elect the guy we wanted, oh well, it is their business, not ours. We don't send tanks to change it.

[struwwelpeter]

Since 1999 Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia have a treaty that is to establish a unified economic zone - and single currency - beginning in 2005. One problem Moscow has is this:

Mr Yushchenko, who advocates joining the EU and Nato, would have little interest in promoting the economic union between Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan that his rival supports.

It probably explains a lot.

[LibertarianInExile]

Yes, because you have solid evidence to back up your claim that Yushchenko is pro-hollyweird, pro-gay, anti-church, and anti-capitalist. Could you be more obtuse? Guilt by association in a region full of scumballs makes no sense!

Additionally, Soros is an idiot, but he's not the only idiot in the world. Putin is certainly not our pal, plus he happens to have progressively gotten more authoritarian while sitting on the world's biggest nuke stockpile outside the U.S. That in mind, you think Soros is the bigger threat to world stability, capitalism, and a Westernized Ukraine?

If you really do believe that, don't trade posts with me. Trade posts with an online psychiatrist.

[Once-Ler]

That in mind, you think Soros is the bigger threat to world stability, capitalism, and a Westernized Ukraine?

If you really do believe that, don't trade posts with me. Trade posts with an online psychiatrist.

Well, I'll consider your suggestion. You may want to practice what you preach. You seem angry. I been searching on a number of threads for information about Yushchenko and why the media tells me he is pro-west. I have learned much about the Ukraine, what a rotten bastard Yanukovich is, and the colors of tents in Kiev over the last 2 days but almost nothing about Yushchenko.

The question is not if Soros is a bigger threat to mankind than Putin or Yanukovich. It is who is a bigger threat to mankind...

A). political thug, prime minister, and hand picked successor to President Kuchma - Yanukovich

or

B). political thug, and former prime minister appointed by President Kuchma and kick out of office by the Ukrainian parliament - Yushchenko

I can't answer this question because I know almost nothing about Yushchenko other than he susceptible to poison and he is not Yanukovich. I suspect you are in the same boat as me but you have the moral clarity to call me ignorant.

Have a nice weekend LibertarianInExile. Hopefully we will find an issue we agree upon in the future.

[-=Wing_0_Walker=-]

Beware is correct. The "L"eft always likes to foment trouble, revolution etc. Then people are killed and chaos follows. It is the chaos that the "L"eft loves because they usually step in to take power (they hope).

[Huber]

Does the DC chapter have any plans to FReep the Ukranian and Soviet - er - Russian embassies?

(There was heavy coverage in the European papers today, and the Economist has run a front page story on Yushchenko.)

[LibertarianInExile]

I don't think your comments to me had a whole lot to do with what I've said here.

One thing was true--I seem angry because I am. So many people here are riding the fence and for reasons I cannot understand! We know that Yanuk is committed to bringing Ukraine back into the Russian bloc. We know that, while he and Yush are both former Communists (almost all the politicians there ARE), Yanuk was ENDORSED by the Communists, and Yush was EXPELLED by the Communists.

I understand we have to choose one, but in the past, when Americans were forced into this position, they reflexively chose the anti-Communist no matter his other flaws. And we aligned ourselves with some hideous dictators.

Here, however, the only thing you can point to that is hideous about Yushchenko himself is his face. Association with people who are dirty or politically not our friends does not make him their equal. Winston Churchill was not Josef Stalin. Bill Clinton is not Tony Blair.

Given our past practice of aligning with the anti-Communist, and the further fact that you have no reason to speak against him that I've seen yet, (notwithstanding your 'thug' claim, which you have not substantiated) I will not go against what I think is the right response in a situation where I don't know all the facts. I cannot suddenly do a 180 in my thinking to say, "Since I don't know all the facts, aw, heck, let's give the Russian-backed, Commie-endorsed candidate a shot!"

I am not calling you ignorant in that you don't know enough about the entire situation--we are both ignorant about this situation. However, I am certainly calling you ignorant in that you seem to think staying out of it is an option, or worse, you think so strongly about George Soros that you would actually push for the OTHER candidate without even considering that candidate's stated aims and what they would do to the Ukraine. That is to me the height of willful ignorance.

Staying out is not an option--it is a choice for the pro-Russian Yanuk, who will "win the election" if the U.S. and international community exert no diplomatic pressure. Choosing a candidate on the basis of financial backing from Soros is equally silly, when that candidate faces a man who will likely be the end of an independent and democratic Ukraine. Would you vote really for an Ulbricht or a Hoxha against a Soros-tainted Yush, even knowing what we know about them? From your arguments, it certainly seems that Soros is just that awful to you. Seeing you and many Freepers advocate letting this future Shcherbytskyi steal the Ukrainian government and consign the Ukrainian people to live under Russian domination--again--simply because of Soros...aw, it just makes me sick thinking that people can be that blinded by hatred. I know it is a common flaw, but I like to think most Freepers are more reasonable folks than the rest of the populace.

[Once-Ler]

I don't think your comments to me had a whole lot to do with what I've said here.
...
Given our past practice of aligning with the anti-Communist, and the further fact that you have no reason to speak against him that I've seen yet, (notwithstanding your 'thug' claim, which you have not substantiated) I will not go against what I think is the right response in a situation where I don't know all the facts. I cannot suddenly do a 180 in my thinking to say, "Since I don't know all the facts, aw, heck, let's give the Russian-backed, Commie-endorsed candidate a shot!"

I have never said I support Ya. I have said that those that cheer Yu are being lead around by Soros and the liberal media. You think you are right yet you admit you know nothing of Yu. I think both candidates are corrupt...that is how they climbed to the top. I think American meddling will be punished if Yu wins and turns out to be a failure.

However, I am certainly calling you ignorant in that you seem to think staying out of it is an option, or worse, you think so strongly about George Soros that you would actually push for the OTHER candidate without even considering that candidate's stated aims and what they would do to the Ukraine.

Well I appreciate the fact that you have given me nothing to consider regarding "the OTHER candidate's stated aims and what they would do to the Ukraine," and again callin ME ignorant. Yes I think staying out is an option when there is nothing to gain by getting involved.

I will be more than happy to admit I am wrong when some Freeper is able to tell me "the OTHER candidate's stated aims and what they would do to the Ukraine." I have asked many Freepers to do this. All have failed.

[LibertarianInExile]

"I have never said I support Ya. I have said that those that cheer Yu are being lead around by Soros and the liberal media. You think you are right yet you admit you know nothing of Yu. I think both candidates are corrupt...that is how they climbed to the top. I think American meddling will be punished if Yu wins and turns out to be a failure."

But Russian meddling won't be, because if Yanuk turns out to be a failure, he'll have given the country over to Russia and Russia will never allow itself to be 'punished.'

"Well I appreciate the fact that you have given me nothing to consider regarding "the OTHER candidate's stated aims and what they would do to the Ukraine," and again callin ME ignorant. Yes I think staying out is an option when there is nothing to gain by getting involved."

I will tell you again: we know that Yanuk will take the Ukraine back into the Russian fold and continue systematizing the Ukraine's already somewhat authoritarian government. Preventing this is in fact something to gain.

Here is some of the stuff that Yanuk's goons have already done during this election (eerily similar to RAT work here):

In support of Viktor Yanukovych

Dnipropetrovsk: The head of the Pavlohrad department of internal politics, O. Farmazyan, gathered local officials together on September 6th, where she gave each person explicit instructions on where and how to campaign for Yanukovych. Local leaders were warned that they would be held “entirely” accountable for the voting results in their areas of responsibility.

Dnipropetrovsk: Children at schools all over the Dnipropetrovsk region were provided with notebooks with the Prime Minister’s portrait and featuring a story about him. When asked to explain, the Yanukovych campaign said the publication was “at the initiative of some parents”.

Dnipropetrovsk: Representatives of the Zhovtnevyi rayon executive committee called a meeting of teachers and state workers on September 9th where they urged participants to campaign and vote for Yanukovych.

Donetsk: Secondary students at School #52 in Gorlivka were forced by their teachers to distribute Yanukovych campaign literature.

Zakarpatia: V. Rushin, acting rector of Uzhgorod National University, visited student dormitories to tell them to vote for Yanukovych.

Zakarpatia: Hospital workers in Mukachevo were ordered to survey patients, asking them which candidate they would vote for. The workers were required to submit a form giving a number for the “predicted number of votes for our candidate”. It was clear the candidate was Yanukovych.

Kharkiv: On September 2, three senior administrators at Kharkiv National University told students that if they would not be punished for absenteeism so long as they were campaigning for Yanukovych.

Kharkiv: Workers in the Chuguiv city department of education were ordered to distribute Yanukovych campaign material.

Kherson: Students at Kherson State University were forced to attend a concert put on by the Yanukovych campaign on September 3rd.

Kyiv region: The mayor of Pereyaslav-Khmelnytsky, K. Sokur, told school principals that they would be demoted if Yanukovych did poorly at their school’s polling site.

Kyiv region: Local government officials giving free veterinary services in rural areas induced villagers to put their names on signature lists in support of Yanukovych.

Chernivtsi: Teachers in the village of Magala have been threatened with dismissal if they do not work for Yanukovych.

Mykolaiv: A senior official in Novoodessa rayon called a meeting of village council leaders where he informed them they were required to campaign for Yanukovych.

Mykolaiv: The head of the Bereznaky rayon state administration, M. Lysuik, made a campaign speech in favor of Yanukovych at the rayon’s Independence Day celebration.

Odessa: In the town of Kotovsk, the Yanukovych campaign office is located in a public school. The head of the campaign is the school’s principal.

Sevastopol: Yanukovych campaign materials are posted in government offices.

Nationwide: The opposition-owned TV “Channel 5” has been systematically shut off in various parts of the country for “technical reasons”. The channel is no longer available in Donetsk, and parts of Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions and in the town of Uzhgorod, on the Slovak border.

Dnipropetrovsk: Teachers and state workers in Pavlohrad were warned by their superiors that they would be fired if they served as election commissioners for Yushchenko.

Dnipropetrovsk: State workers were seen on September 7th tearing down legal campaign material of Oleksandar Moroz but leaving Yanukovych material untouched.

Dnipropetrovsk: The popular, pro-Socialist party newspaper “Faces” was denied services at two printers in Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions. On September 13th, “Faces” was able to find a printer in Poltava region. The next day, however, men in police uniforms confiscated and destroyed 17,000 copies of the paper.

Kharkiv: Six hooded men armed with crowbars attacked and damaged video equipment belonging to the Yushchenko campaign. Yushchenko activists repaired the damage, but police prevented them from transporting the equipment to a public square for use in a campaign rally. When the Yushchenko activists tried to drive around a police roadblock, they found they way barred by a school bus full of children.

Kharkiv: Yushchenko campaigners were illegally barred by police on September 7 from entering the town of Klugino-Bashkyrivka, where a military base is situated. They were falsely told that area was closed to the public.

Mykolaiv: Internal Affairs police arrested Communist Party workers trying to campaign for Petro Symonenko in Kashtanovy Square. Their leaflets were destroyed.

Khmelnitsky: In Kamyanets-Podilsky, all the street lamps on the block where Viktor Yushchenko was campaigning were turned off even though the rest of the street remained lit.

Khmelnitsky: Two Yushchenko activists were detained by police, who confiscated campaign literature and prevented the men from contacting their families for several hours.

Khmelnitsky: State workers removed Symonenko campaign materials from legitimately rented space on city trolleys.

Ternopil: State radio stopped transmission in the middle of the Yushchenko campaign’s free air time. Transmission resumed, however, immediately afterwards, in time for radio commentary on the candidate’s program.

Ivano-Frankivsk: Local broadcast of the First National TV Channel was stopped just as the station was planning to broadcast a documentary about Viktor Yushchenko. Officials blamed “technical reasons”.

The election campaign become more visible during the first half of September. A large number of billboards promoting Viktor Yanukovych have appeared all over the country. According to Yanukovych’s Chernivtsi headquarters, the cost of one large commercial billboard is approximately 55 hryvnia (approximately $10) per month.

The most common campaign violations CVU observed were posters and leaflets printed without legally required publication information. The absence of this information allows candidates to avoid campaign spending limits. All the major campaigns practiced these methods, to one degree or another. CVU recorded fewer cases of voters being offered free goods and services in exchange for their voters.

Slanderous leaflets and publications continued to appear in different areas of the country.

Kyiv city: As this report was being released, the campaign of Viktor Yushchenko made public statements suggesting that the candidate had been deliberately poisoned. Yushchenko had been taken to Austria for extended medical treatment. His campaign characterized the poisoning as an assassination attempt.

Kharkiv: A dozen armed man violently interrupted a pro-Yushchenko concert in Voloska Balaklia. The men roughed up performers and members of the audience and, as they were leaving, fired four shots at the perfomers’ buses. The deputy head of the rayon department of the Interior Ministry left the concert before the attackers arrived and he returned when they had left.

Donetsk: Six men attacked and destroyed a Yushchenko campaign tent in Petrovsky rayon on September 13th.

Donetsk: Yushchenko activists were threatened by ‘skinheads’ while campaigning in Proletarsky rayon. Later, all three windows of their campaign office were smashed.

Zhytomyr: Three men forced their way into the apartment of L. Kryvushyna, an 84-year old pensioner, at 11:30pm and tore down the Yushchenko poster hanging from her balcony.

And of course this is pretty damn telling: the Yanuk folks very likely poisoned Yushchenko, to the point he looks like the old Bruce in Braveheart and is lucky to be alive.

"I will be more than happy to admit I am wrong when some Freeper is able to tell me "the OTHER candidate's stated aims and what they would do to the Ukraine." I have asked many Freepers to do this. All have failed."

If you want a discussion of some basic differences between Yush and Yanuk, how about these from the Jamestown foundation:

Yanukovych's first campaign speech at the Party of Regions congress and his election manifesto offer all things to all people.

Yanukovych's lengthy manifesto includes a huge array of promises that no politician could ever possibly keep. At the same time, the manifesto glides over democratization, and Yanukovych's election rally in Zaporizhzhia ignored this issue entirely. The Yanukovych platform also contains little mention of fighting corruption. At one point the manifesto merely calls for, "Reviving high morals and patriotism. In state service honest professionals will be employed" (Ukrayinska pravda, July 12). These omissions may be deliberate; should voters consider how well the authorities have fulfilled pledges made since Kuchma first came to power in 1994, their trust in the authorities will likely dwindle.

Yushchenko's platform stays clear of divisive issues such as language. Instead, he offers "Ten Steps for the People" (yuschenko.com.ua, July 9). These Steps include creating 5 million new jobs, emphasis on social spending, increasing budgetary revenues, and lower taxes. Step 4 is entirely devoted to "Battling Corruption Decisively," while other steps advocate creating safe living conditions, protecting families, promoting spirituality, reviving the countryside, and raising the combat capabilities of the military.

Both Yanukovych and Yushchenko ignore the key issue of integration into the EU or NATO. Yushchenko claims his foreign policy (Step 10) will be "honest, transparent, consistent, and profitable." There is no mention of NATO, the United States, the European Union, or the CIS Single Economic Space. He does mention relations with Russia, which are promised to be, "mutually beneficial, friendly, and stable."

----

Or this from Wikipedia:

As a politician, Viktor Yushchenko is widely perceived as a mixture of West-oriented and moderate Ukrainian nationalist. He is also an advocate of massive privatization of the economy. His opponents (and allies) sometimes criticize him for indecision and failure to reveal his position, while advocates argue that these are the signs of Yushchenko's commitment to teamwork, consensus, and negotiation. He is also often accused of being unable to form a united and strong team that is free of inner quarrels.

In 2004, as President Kuchma's term came to an end, Yushchenko announced that he was an independent candidate for president. His major rival was Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Since his term as prime minister, Yushchenko has slightly modernized his political platform, adding social partnership and other liberal slogans to older ideas of European integration, including Ukraine joining NATO, and fighting corruption. Supporters of Yushchenko are organized in the "Syla Narodu" ("Power of the People") electoral coalition, which is led by himself and his political ally Yuliya Tymoshenko, with the Our Ukraine coalition being the main constituent force.

----

Or this from his Ten Steps platform:

Ten Steps For The People Action Plan

1. Create Five Million New Jobs

To achieve this we will:
Create new jobs with respectable salaries; review and implement criteria for evaluating government work at all levels.
Focus economic policy on development of the domestic market.
Implement a system of government contracts and public works to create new jobs.
Guarantee a job for everyone who earns an academic degree under the sponsorship of a government organization.
Remove all obstacles for those who want to open a private business; support personal initiative.
Lower interest rates. Secure guaranteed access to loans for small and medium businesses.
Promote the development of advanced technologies to ensure Ukraine's presence on international markets.
Attract ten times more investment into Ukraine's economy than at present; this will create new jobs and new technologies.

2. Ensure Priority Funding of Social Programmes

To achieve this we will:
Raise pensions higher than the minimum cost of living. Abolish wage-leveling and discrimination in the provision of pensions.
Pay wage arrears within a year.
Rebuild the ruined health care system in every town and village. Guarantee each citizen a minimum package of free medical services.
Guarantee improvements in priority health care treatment for war and labor veterans, who dedicated the best years of their lives to serving our country – this is our sacred responsibility.
Create equal social conditions for invalids.
Renew respect in society for teachers; guarantee monthly salaries for educators that are not lower than the average wage in industrial sectors.
Every child, regardless of the parents' income, will be able to receive a quality education. Give priority to providing free higher education to children from low-income families.
Return to a ten-year system of education with a 5-point grading scale.
Build public housing for low-income citizens instead of constructing new government buildings or buying expensive automobiles for government officials.

3. Increase Government Revenue by Decreasing Taxation

To achieve this we will:
Lower taxes. When taxes are fair, they will be paid by each citizen, so that the shadow economy will become transparent and begin to increase budget revenues.
Decrease taxation of the salary fund – in five years it will not exceed 20%.
Simplify taxation procedures, making them transparent.
Separate business from government; protect entrepreneurs from extortion. End the practice of using law-enforcement bodies to exert pressure on businesses.
Rid tax administration bodies of corrupt officials; raise salaries for honest professionals. Taxes should be collected in full using methods strictly within the parameters of law. Abolish the state tax militia – there is no need for this repressive body.
Force oligarchs to pay all taxes due. I am against a new redistribution of property, but oligarchs must pay the full price for enterprises that were privatized at 'advantageous' prices; billions of hryvnia in collected taxes will be redirected towards reimbursing people robbed of their personal savings.

4. Force Government to Work for the People; Battle Corruption Decisively.

To achieve this we will:
Sack those who embezzled public funds and took bribes in the executive branch; appoint honest and respectable professionals instead.
Abolish useless government structures; reduce the army of bureaucrats. For the rest – ensure quality working conditions and decent salaries. A cheap bureaucrat costs too much. Every official will sign "A State Official’s Code of Honor" and strictly observe it.
Clearly define the role of government institutions. The state will not interfere in peoples' lives in those spheres where they can manage much better than the government.
Sack those judges that stained themselves with corruption and court decisions made to satisfy oligarchs. The courts should renew society's trust and faith in the court system; they will not punish, but defend, the rights of the people.
Conduct real political reforms: citizens will see that the government is working for the people in an effective way. Changes to the constitution will be adopted transparently and legally and will be implemented in 2006, after the election of the new Verkhovna Rada in free and honest elections.
Expand the rights and strengthen the financial basis for effective local self-government at the city, town, and village levels. Direct more budget resources to the regions and regional communities for resolving the most pressing public issues.

5. Create Safe Living Conditions

To achieve this we will:
Change the priorities of law-enforcement bodies: their main goal will not be ensuring the security of state officials but of all ordinary citizens.
Cleanse law-enforcement institutions of corruption, appoint honest and professional officers to command them, and provide them with appropriate political and material support. Begin a decisive campaign against criminals and organized crime.
Raise the level of public protection from natural and man-made disasters and catastrophes. Gradually solve the problems of the victims of the Chornobyl disaster. I guarantee that information about the environment will be completely open to the public.

6. Protect Family Values, Respect For Parents, And Children's Rights

To achieve this we will:
Reverse the trend of population decline.
Increase tenfold financial aid to mothers at childbirth. A mother's renunciation of professional activity for the sake of taking care of her child has to receive appropriate social acknowledgement.
Guarantee quality free medical care to women at childbirth.
Develop conditions for ensuring that families, instead of educational institutions, create a harmonious environment for raising children.
Provide government aid for those who are raising children or caring for the elderly.
Revive the network of state and communal kindergartens and nurseries, first of all in villages. Prohibit the sale of preschool institutions.
Establish conditions for parents to raise children and have decent incomes at home in Ukraine – not abroad.
Credit financing for buying or building housing will be available for every young family in villages as well as in towns and cities.
Abolish child homelessness. Give priority to the development of family-type orphanages.
Provide medicine, medical care, special food, and health-improvement treatment to handicapped children free of charge; create normal social conditions for them.
Establish an institution of family doctors.
Ensure strict observance of laws that prohibit the spread of amorality and violence. Our children will be protected from harmful influences.

7. Promote Spirituality and Strengthen Moral Values

To achieve this we will:
Create conditions for developing one’s personality through a high level of education and culture.
Promote the unity of the people of Ukraine, place societal and state focus on general human values; freedom; democracy; interdenominational accord, mutual respect and tolerance; justice and good.
Support public initiatives and citizen activism in solving state problems. The freedom of speech, active work of civic organizations and political opposition will guarantee that state policies are carried out in the interests of the people in the improved Ukraine.

8. Promote The Development Of Ukraine's Countryside

To achieve this we will:
End speculation on the land market. Land will be owned by those who work it.
Double agricultural productivity; sharply increase wages for agricultural workers.
Make financial resources available to agricultural workers instead of bureaucrats and intermediaries. Guarantee fair prices for agricultural products.
Raise the income of rural inhabitants to the state average.
Develop a contemporary transportation system, complete gasification, improve telephone communication, and reopen schools, clubs, medical and obstetrical stations in every village. The youth will have opportunities for applying their skills and will not abandon the countryside.

9. Raise Armed Forces Capabilities And Respect For The Military

To achieve this we will:
Mobilize resources for creating effective armed forces in Ukraine and for the development of defense technologies.
Reduce the length of conscript military service to 12 months immediately – starting with the spring 2005 draft.
Abolish conscription in favor of a professional volunteer army starting in 2010.
Provide housing for military personnel. Guarantee deserved housing and social conditions for all military personnel who transfer to the reserves.

10. Conduct Foreign Policy That Benefits The People of Ukraine
Ukrainian foreign policy will be honest, transparent, consistent, and profitable.
We will not evaluate foreign policy success on the number of visits and declarations. The main indicators will be the volume of investment attracted, the penetration of Ukrainian goods and services in global markets, and the security and protection of Ukraine's citizens abroad.
Relations with Russia will be mutually beneficial, friendly, and stable.
Our partners both in the East and in the West will see a different Ukraine: strong and reliable, which fulfills its obligations and is capable of defending its national interests.

----

I don't agree with everything on this list. I wouldn't do about a third of it. But at least he's open about his plans.

[Once-Ler]

Thank you for the information. It will take some time for me to digest. Can you please provide a link for Yu's Ten Steps platform? I tried a google search with some passages and I'm having no luck.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Rid tax administration bodies of corrupt officials

Force oligarchs to pay all taxes due.

Sack those who embezzled public funds and took bribes in the executive branch

Abolish useless government structures; reduce the army of bureaucrats.

Cleanse law-enforcement institutions of corruption

Ensure strict observance of laws that prohibit the spread of amorality and violence.

These are the things Kuchma and his oligarch cronies have a problem with.

[LibertarianInExile]

Here's the Our Ukraine party newsletter link:

http://www.ourukraine.org/newsletter/issue19/programme.php

Viktor Yushchenko (left) as he appeared in July 2004 and (right) as he appeared in November after the alleged poisoning. (Gleb Garanich/Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)

Note that the SOBs on Yanuk's staff joked and said something like 'Yushchenko must have gotten into some bad sushi.' Sounds like a comment your typical Russian Spectre member would chortle at, or a bad Schwarzenegger line. Except that they nearly killed the guy. They've also run Yush's car off the road and tried to kill him that way.

Yushchenko may well be a demagogue. He may be a scumball in his own right. He may be too left for my liking. But to my knowledge, he ain't a Communist, and he hasn't made Yanuk look like a leper. I will, I think, err on his side.

[LibertarianInExile]

Dead on BUMP.

[Once-Ler]

So Yushchenko is ugly too. I've already seen this picture. the AUSTRIAN doctors who inspected Yushchenko, diagnosed him with a viral infection and inflammation of the pancreas but found no traceable poison.

Yushchenko claims someone forced him off the road. Perhaps he just drinks.

But to my knowledge, he ain't a Communist.

He's a long time political hack who was appointed prime minister in 2000 by outgoing Commie President Kuchma. He may not be a Russian kind of Commie...maybe he's a China kind of Commie.

[LibertarianInExile]

I think you had a real shot at coming across as a rational human being until you equated being a political hack with being a communist.

We may disagree on 'no traceable poison' meaning that somehow he wasn't poisoned, especially since what I've read doesn't say that they found 'no traceable poison' but that they found symptoms characteristic of dioxin poisoning, and Austrian doctors were quoted as saying their patient's illness was due to both a serious viral infection and "chemical substances which are not normally found in food products"...i.e., POISON. Maybe you think that's tinfoil stuff, but whatever, we can disagree on that.

We can even disagree on your feeble slam on Yushchenko drinking, even though there are lots of other situations where Yanukovich's partisans acted like goons and it is no real stretch to believe they did so there.

But labelling all political hacks as Communists, that's going too far. Bob Dole is a political hack. Jeb Bush is a political hack. Heck, George H.W. Bush was a political hack. But they are not the same as Yanukovich. I don't recall any of them ever saying anything about ceding control of the U.S. back to England. Yanukovich did the equivalent.

But you are eager, of course, to smear Yushchenko as the Commie, simply because...in your heart you somehow PREFER to believe that both the leading candidates are Communists? Whatever.

[nimh]

LibertarianInExile: "I cannot believe the number of Freepers who have jumped on the "Soros likes it so it must be bad" bandwagon."

Thank God someone is making sense ... yes, it could just happen that somewhere in the world, Soros and Bush are *on the same side* - namely, together against the *actual* communists of the world - against authoritarian mob rule, and for a new 1989 ...

Hey, Reagan and Soros were on the same side back then after all, too - its what made the Milosevic's, Meciar's and Iliescu's of this world come to hate Soros's guts. After all, he funded pretty much every democratic, anti-communist opposition NGO there was in their countries.

In the US, "liberal" means lefty. But in Romania or Russia or Serbia or, yes, the Ukraine, "liberal" means anti-communist. It means being for a country where the ballot boxes arent stuffed and independent journalists dont run the risk of being beheaded, like one was in the Ukraine, apparently on Kuchma's orders.

Gentlemen, pick your side ...

[nimh]

For the latest news, read http://www.kyivpost.com

Also check out the PORA website at http://pora.org.ua/en/

The candidates' websites are:

Yushchenko: http://www.razom.org.ua/en/news/cat/1/ -- in Ukrainian, Russian *and* English
Yanukovich: http://www.ya2004.com.ua/ -- only in Ukrainian and Russian

[Once-Ler]

I think you had a real shot at coming across as a rational human being until you equated being a political hack with being a communist.

I do equate them when the country we are talking about is the Ukraine. In 1976 Yushchenko was department chief at the USSR State Bank. In 1984 he was appointed Deputy Director for Agricultural Crediting. In 1991 he was First Deputy Chairman of the Board at Bank Ukrayina. I bet, during all this time Yuschenko was a card carying COMMIE! Unless you think the Soviet Union was in the habit of promoting outside the party.

We can even disagree on your feeble slam on Yushchenko drinking, even though there are lots of other situations where Yanukovich's partisans acted like goons and it is no real stretch to believe they did so there.

It was a joke to prove a point that just because someone says they are out to get me doesn't me he's telling the truth. And I certainly believe Ya's men are ruthless enough to do it, but ability to commit a crime is not proof. In this case we don't even know if a crime was commited.

But labelling all political hacks as Communists

I wasn't clear. I did not mean to paint all political hacks as communists. Just the ones in the Ukraine and other breakaway republics.

But you are eager, of course, to smear Yushchenko as the Commie, simply because...in your heart you somehow PREFER to believe that both the leading candidates are Communists? Whatever.

It's got nothing to do with my heart. I want to believe that the people are rising up to demand an end to tyrany. It's my brain that keeps interfering. I can't believe you think he is not a communist, but WML?

[nimh]

I havent followed all of your discussion, just the last replies to each other, but it looks to me like you both could be right.

Yushchenko, its true, is a politician who's also had some mileage already, both under Kuchma and before that, as a Soviet apparatchik. I dont think that necessarily still makes him a communist, but at least it makes him an ex-communist. His experiences of the last few years may have totally radicalised him - it sure seems so - but sure, there's also the possibility that he's just being an opportunist, riding the waves of public outrage to power.

But *nevertheless* what we are seeing now can still also really be "the people rising up to demand an end to tyrany". I believe it is. The fury, the exasperation, the yearning for change of the masses out on the streets now are all real enough. Even were Yushchenko an opportunist appratchik rather than a sincere convert to anti-communism, he still won't be able to ignore the intent and passion of the uprising that brought him to power, if he does make it.

To wit: Zhao Zhiyang, the political patron of the Tien An Men protests, was an old political hack and a Communist, but did that make the Tien An Men demonstrations any less of a genuine popular uprising? Yeltsin was a political hack and a former Communist apparatchik, and yet he was the hero of the Russian's rebellion against the 1991 coup, and he proceeded to dissolve the Soviet Union, prohibit the Communist Party (at least for a while) and organise free elections. The East-German demonstrators whose mass protest eventually brought Egon Krenz to decide to open the Wall were lead by then-Communists, yet their revolt itself was an expression of genuine anti-Communism, and led to the dissolution of the regime.

It happens, like that. Sometimes you've got to row with the oars you have, however imperfect. The Ukrainian Democrats once tried to put up a genuine dissident, Chornovil, a nationalist intellectual, and he lost the country's first (and to some extent, last) free Presidential elections resoundingly to Kravchuk. Yushchenko is taking a different tack. Hence also the colour orange. Previous protests were dominated by the yellow-blue Ukrainian flag, but its connotations rouses too much instant resistance in Central and East-Ukraine, so Yushchenko's campaign came up with a new, fresh, 'neutral' colour. Hey, whatever it takes, is what I say.