Both sides’ extremists over-react, but I don’t think that is necessarily true of the average person. Plus — the mere fact that the language proposal was, in your words, “scrubbed before it got to the floor, knowing it would cause way too much division and strife”, shows that those running the show are cooler heads, perhaps.
That said, while the extent of any “radical” activity I’ve been involved with is either here on FR or observing a couple local TEA Party rally’s, if “stuff” here was happening anything like what was happening in Ukraine to trigger Maydan, I’d be out in the streets too, and it wouldn’t be because of some outside influence. Too many people discount just how fed up many Ukrainians were / are with fraudulent elections, politicians who rob them at every turn, and in-your-face corruption at every level of gov’t down to beat cop. You could have packed George Soros, Obama, the EU & company, all under a mile of Antarctic ice, and Ukraine was still going to blow.
As for EU membership, it is NOT necessarily a path to full blown Socialism, tyranny, or whatever. Estonia, with almost no resources but their own people, self-discipline, and starting from what was, economically speaking, a pile of post-Soviet rubble, has a quite nice little free market economy churning along. Their own President even says “the Euro’s are from Pluto”, but Estonia manages the relationship accordingly and effectively.
Poland is a somewhat different case, but is also doing pretty well. Ukrainian Ukrainians, being right next door, look over and say, hey, why can’t we do that? It’s sure a lot better than what we have.
Additionally, reading some of the Ukrainian forums and so on leads me to believe ordinary citizens with “nationalist” leanings not only despise the pervasive corruption, they understand the country will never do well until it is scoured out, and they understand that under Russian influence the corruption will never be reduced to tolerable levels. You and I can preach Ukraine should take an entirely independent course, and I’ve said that in the past, but the more I learn, the more I realize the country has simply been mugged so badly that only lousy choices are possible. Some sort of EU association may be the lesser evil for them.
Internally, an arrangement somewhat closer to how the U.S. was configured after the Civil War MIGHT prevent a civil war in Ukraine, IF Putin can somehow be convinced to leave Ukraine alone. Unfortunately, I believe he will exploit the situation. Putin’s bizarre (to us) but typically Russian attitude of “My dog is bigger than your dog” mixed with paranoia is quite telling.
((((Too many people discount just how fed up many Ukrainians were / are with fraudulent elections, politicians who rob them at every turn, and in-your-face corruption at every level of gov’t down to beat cop. You could have packed George Soros, Obama, the EU & company, all under a mile of Antarctic ice, and Ukraine was still going to blow.)))))
Ukraine’s been a pressure cooker for years...that’s not going to change much. Governments in ALL nations today are corrupt as well there politicians etc. The powers that be know this all to well....but they play the nations like pawns on a chessboard in order to beat the clock for where they will sit once the NWO is in place..... It’s really not about the people only that the angry masses can be channeled/infilitrated to accomplish the agenda of others playing them at the top of the pile...and rarely seen.
Take a look at the Atlantic Council sites and you will see the agenda and their plays in this...they set much of the stage ....and the visible parties who are like organizors.
Putin will not let Ukraine go....unless he has control of the East and South....and he may just have that with time. Unless Ukraine’s new Government gets their act together they will simply be bypassed entirely and at best continue as a welfare state.