Share |

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Tymo Thanks Paralymic Team for ‘Victory Over Russia’

She obviously doesn’t want to lose her western Ukrainian voters.

So she picks Ukraine’s Paralympic score — #4 in the world — and starts waving it in front of the Russian bear. At least, that’s how she wants to be perceived:



PM Yulia Tymoshenko: Ukraine was at her best, and the victory over Russia was also stellar. We thank you very much for your victory, guys!


Still, actions speak louder than words. BYuT recently co-sponsored a bill that requires civil servants to be proficient in Russian, thus cementing decades of Russification from which Ukraine has not yet fully recovered. Two BYuT dissenters, MPs Andriy Shevchenko and Yevhen Suslov, have made a motion to strike out the requirement.

Meanwhile, the Party of Regions has announced a temporary halt in its coalition talks with BYuT until former Orange coalition partners sort things out.

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/96970.html
Original source: http://5.ua

Sources:
http://ua.proua.com/news/2008/09/25/125339.html

http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/9/25/81812.htm

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was of the opinion in the past that, in Parliamentary elections, the whole stinking lot ought to be thrown out, and entirely new people should have been voted in.

Thus, I came to the conclusion that the people should have voted for PORA (when it still held together), and we wouldn't have this bickering, festering, stinking, ugly rot in Ukrainian politics.

I believe I was right.

This whole mess is not only a product of the "political elite."

People in Ukraine need to look in the mirror for the rest of the story on who is to blame for this "political elite" shark frenzy/zoo/jungle.

Gabriela said...

Hello Taras:
I've just read your comment on a translation I've made for Global Voices Online (original English text here). I really hope the best for your country. I'll be aware of the process through my translations.
From Peru, all the best for you, and through your for every Ukrainian,
Gabriela.

Taras said...

Muchas gracias, Gabriela!

You’re doing a great job translating Ukrainian voices into Spanish! All the best to Peru from Ukraine!


Elmer, we definitely need to clean house in Ukraine.

Soiled as it is with special interests, the current deck of cards has outlived its usefulness.

Still, elites are just that way — whether it’s Ukraine or America.

Our elites certainly outrank Western elites on social irresponsibility, corruption, and income disparity. They climbed on top of us amid the chaos and cronyism of the 90s, during a crisis deeper than the Great Depression.

In America, I see a disconnect between elites and ordinary taxpayers. Main Street gets billed for the sins of Wall Street, as much of the global economy faces its deepest crisis since the Great Depression.

With Ukraine’s economy dollarized and dependent on commodity prices, it feels like being sandwiched between two elites.

Anonymous said...

You've been reading too many liberal newspapers, Taras, which have many facile sound bites, but no analysis and no hard news.

Main Street and Wall Street?

Elites in the US?

Please explain who the "elites" are in the US that control everything, like the elites do in Ukraine.

In many state legislatures, which are most certainly not composed of "elites," there are term limits to prevent the kind of abuses that happen when the same old people, elite or not, keep getting elected.

In Congress, one can get elected out of office in a heartbeat. It's happened quite a few times, even to some Speakers of the House.

The President is limited to two 4-year terms in office.

There is a system of checks and balances between the 3 INDEPENDENT branches of government - legislative, executive, judicial.

There is a huge middle class, unlike in Ukraine, and there are many safety mechanisms and programs to alleviate poverty.

As you can see, I don't accept the notion of "elites" controlling everything in the US.

In Ukraine, Tymoshenko is cozy with Kuchma people, who are cozy with Yushchenko people, who are all trying to be cozy with Akhmetov. They are all cozy with each other, and trying to hang on to their "political elite" status as long as possible.

Change the name of the country to Akhmetovia. It would more accurately reflect what's happening in Ukraine.

Unless the people finally wake up and get their act together.

Ukraine has a "capture economy."

I don't think there's anything like that in the US now.

http://blog.kievukraine.info/2008/09/great-giveaway-revisited.html

Taras said...

Have I been reading too many liberal newspapers? Not necessarily.

As I was saying, our elites have much more power. But that doesn’t make your elites any holier when it comes to crises like the one you — or perhaps we — currently have.

I don’t see too many Main Street Americans willing to sacrifice their hard-earned money for what Wall Street hath wrought.

You and the Kyiv Post are absolutely right about the “capture economy.” And for slaves like me, the saddest thing is the prospect of being captured twice: by the dons of Donbas and by the gamblers of Wall Street.

I hope Americans will get their act together, too, and will save their country and the world economy from a major recession.

Anonymous said...

Taras, these sound bites are being bandied about, left and right, as a convenient tool for infotainment.

Dramatic and vapid generalizations go with the territory also, as a tool to capture readership or viewership.

But there is no analyis in them, and there is no information in them.

I still want to know who the "elites" are in the US.

There is one very, very important thing that I left out - when a person runs for office in the US, and in most other countries, there is no "party list" system.

Independent, Libertarian, Dem or Repub or any other party, man or woman, one runs as an individual candidate, whether it be for a county or state office.

And those candidates work very, very hard with personal door-to-door campaigning, personal appearances at various group gathering and functions, etc.

In federal elections, representatives are elected from each state, as Senators, and Congressmen are elected to represent a Congressional district.

So an office-holder is extremely attuned to, and responsible to, the people who elected him or her.

None of this "party list" system, which in Ukraine works only to perpetuate a political elite.

And there is no blanket immunity, as in Ukraine, which serves to insulate and bolster criminal activity of the "political elite."

I've been told that in Ukraine there is actually "more democracy" than elsewhere, because, gee whiz, look, there were 50 political blocs or parties that ran for parliament the first time, and 20 political blocs or parties that ran the second time, and, gee, look at how often Ukraine has elections.

Nevertheless, somehow the same "political elite" winds up in office, doing nothing except enlarging the capture economy and engaging in bickering, feuding and looting.

I don't buy that.

Anonymous said...

Taras, notice any familiar names in the Kyiv Post article?

Boiko? Novitsky?

Remember Vanco?

How is it that Novitsky got into that deal with Akhmetov?

And it seems like rooshan and Ukrainian oligarchs hand out a lot in Cyprus.

http://larussophobe.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/the-nemtsov-white-paper-part-ii-section-2/

And so as a result of a chain of strange commercial deals carried out during the time Putin was pulling the strings at Gazprom, assets worth tens of billions of dollars have been stripped from it. Many of these assets were shed only to pass into the control of a personal friend of the president of Russia. And such deals are continuing to take place: for example, in April 2008 it was announced that Gazprom was urgently divesting itself of the Sibur petrochemical company which was being sold to some Cyprus offshore company at well below its market price.