Posted on 04/25/2014 1:07:29 PM PDT by dangus
Imagine if, after Obama took over the U.S. presidencies, not only did he fire every Republican civil servant, but all Republicans were forbidden from holding public office. Every Republican Representative, Governor, Senator, local legislator, judge, precinct captain and staffer was given a lifetime ban from ever holding elective office.
If you think the red-blue divide in America is sharp, you should see the orange-blue divide in the Ukraine. The Eastern, blue areas voted more than 90% for Viktor Yanukovich, while the Western, orange areas voted more than 90% for Yulia Tymoshenko.
More than politics divides the two halves of the Ukraine. The West was long dominated by the Polish-Lithuanian Federation, and speaks a version of Slavic that was greatly influenced by Polish. The East speaks Russian. Most Western sources refer to the latter as "Ukrainian," but both dialects are native to their respective regions. In the 2010 election, the East carried enough of the swing-voting central areas to oust the corruption-stained Western-led parties.
Now that Westerners have reclaimed power following a coup, they are plotting what they call a "lustration."
The Washington Post explains lustation here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/09/what-is-lustration-and-is-it-a-good-idea-for-ukraine-to-adopt-it/ Lustation, as defined by the Washington Post, refers to a policy that seeks to cleanse a new regime from the remnants of the past. Former Communist countries have used lustation to keep former communists out of their governments. But this typically resulted in merely exposing the anti-democratic activities of the Communists to public scrutiny, and, in some cases, barring certain secretive officials from the bureaucracy. But the Ukraine would use lustation to prohibit anyone associated with the former government. Meanwhile, socialist-nationalist party criminals are welcome to serve.
Both major political parties in Ukraine are severly corrupt. "Blue " Yanukovich is frequently described by his opposition as having stolen $16 billion from Ukraine. What he actually did was work out a deal with Russia to wipe out $16 billion of debt from the Ukrainian treasury, in exchange for agreeing to allow Russia to end its discount of fuel to Ukraine. "Orange " Yulia Tymoshenko, on the other hand, became one of the richest people in Eastern Europe by personally profiting off of gas deals with Russia, and was convicted of bribing judges, embezzlement, and tax fraud. Publicly, U.S. sources decried her conviction as "selective enforcement," although she certainly was the wealthiest person and made her wealth off from crony-socialist "economic rent;" Her company didn't produce much of anything; it merely re-sold Russian gas to Ukrainian people at an enormous, government-enabled profit. Privately, as revealed by Wikileaks, U.S. Embassy sources decried that her left-wing economic policies betrayed "an obvious lack of economic foundation” and “had wasted the opportunity for implementing the economic reforms that came with the financial crisis." Yet, not only are Tymoshenko's operatives not covered by the Lustation policies, she is actually running for re-election. So when you hear rhetoric about "Russians" in the Ukraine fighting for what isn't even their country, you should know:
N.B. I am inevitably going to be attacked for being an agent of Russia for this article. Let me make clear:
The Eastern Ukraine, even the Donbas, is not Crimea. Crimea had been part of Russia for as long as there had been Christians in Crimea. It left Russia at a time when St Petersburg itself probably would have seceded. In exchange for voting to join Ukraine, it was promised self-governance, but the Ukraine unilaterally terminated Crimea's autonomy.
To analogize to the United States, Crimea would be like Puerto Rico… if Puerto Rico were annexed by the United States only in 1992. The Donbas region would be like the Steel belt.
I am not arguing that the Donbas should be part of Russia; my whole point is that the "Russians" in the Donbas are Ukrainians! My only point in writing this article is to explain a motivation for seemingly extreme actions by residents of the Donbas region of Ukraine. I strongly hope Russia does not annex the Donbas, although its conceivable that the Donbas may decide this is in their best interest. But for now, the Donbas is fighting largely for "federation," not "independence," and certainly not annexation.
What if Obama was elected and ignored all the republicans who resisted him and ignored the American’s people wishes on important issues like Health Care but did these things against the people anyway because as he says “I won”?
Interestingly enough, this scenario is not all that hard for me to imagine...
Just as well; in a pure democracy 51% could vote to kill the other 49%...
Yep, it is not secret that Timoshenko was imprisoned by Yanukovich regime for being a Russian agent.
More important, her charges has both factual and legal ground, though the real reason behind it is of course that Yanukovich feared she would covertly deal with Putin and oust him (unlike recent perception as a Russian puppet, in reality Yanukovich was quite an unpredictable actor and not that much pro-Russian at all).
Having an unpredictable leader in he Ukraine irritated the EU/US elite one time too many so they painted him as "pro-Russian blah, blah" and sent in the very same sort of street agitators and organizers they've used successfully elsewhere. If the guy they're so proud of staging a coup against was a "pro-Russian", under Putin's thumb he'd have never gotten the deal Russia made him on debt relief and energy prices.
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