radon1 wrote:Sixstrings wrote: Ukraine could conceivably take Crimea back
For what purpose? This nonsense again. The vast majority of people in Crimea do not want to have anything to do with Ukraine. Name anyone outside Ukraine who does actually.
Plummeting Oil Prices Could Bring Radical Change to Russia. What Comes Next?
The weakness of the petrostate economy could jolt Russia’s political elites—or its ordinary citizens—to take action.
http://www.thenation.com/article/194081/plummeting-oil-prices-could-bring-radical-change-russia-what-comes-next#
The current crisis, like the two before it, demonstrates the peril facing any petrostate, which is always vulnerable to events outside its control. Oil and gas revenues bring about 60 percent of Russia’s export revenues and fund an estimated 50 percent of its federal budget. Western commentators often criticize Russia for its oil export dependence, which shows a failure of historical memory. It was the post-Soviet Russian regime’s slavish following of the neoliberal “shock therapy” policies urged by the IMF and US Treasury Department that transformed Russia’s economy from the diversified industrial economy inherited from the Soviet period into a giant-size version of Kuwait, but with some 145 million people, a big army and nuclear weapons.
Since 1992, every Russian leader has promised to diversify the economy. However, despite state seizure of some key strategic industries in the Putin era, the state has not used its economic leverage to move away from the petrostate economy.
Under such conditions, three different directions of change seem possible. First, if Russia’s elite sees no future in the existing relation to global capitalism, it might seek to reproduce the current energy-export model, along with the flow of riches to the elite that goes along with it, through a deepened relation to China. Russia’s natural resources would be paired with China’s growing industrial prowess and huge appetite for raw materials in a combination that might develop into a serious rival to the US-dominated global system of today. However, it is not clear that China would agree to such an arrangement, given its lucrative insertion in the US-dominated global system.
A second possibility would be a major transformation of Russia’s economy through adoption of a developmental state model. Russia still has the potential to gradually develop a series of advanced industries, relying on its well-educated population and its still-strong scientific resources. This would require that Russia’s natural resources be devoted to development of the economy instead of enrichment of the elite. Such models have arisen in various countries, such as Japan in the late nineteenth century, South Korea in the 1950s and China since 1978. Each time some group has taken power that has disciplined the developing capitalist class, compelling it to follow the national development program rather than its own short-run enrichment.
Today, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation remains the only large party on the left, and there is no sign that its leadership seeks to go beyond the comfortable role of loyal opposition to the current regime. A vibrant democratic left movement exists in Russia, but it is not a major political force. With no mass movement on the horizon and no political party currently able to lead such a movement, this third direction of change seems unlikely in the near future, although there is a history of unanticipated mass-based radical change springing up in various times and places, not least in Russia in 1917.
Sixstrings wrote:Nobody else is ever going to take Crimea back, but I just think there are scenarios where Ukraine may be in a position to try it, in the future.
Sixstrings wrote:The vote to join Russia was just barely over 50%, if I recall, that means the other half wanted to stay with Ukraine.
radon1 wrote:Nonsense, from the first letter to the last, don't even want to comment. It was not 50%, it was overwhelming majority,
The Russian government’s claims that the March 16 referendum in Crimea resulted in a 96.7% vote in favor of annexation were always extremely dubious. But now, as Paul Roderick Gregory of Forbes points out, a report by Russia’s official Presidential Council on Civil Society and Human Rights suggests that the real numbers were far different from those previously claimed:
The website of the “President of Russia’s Council on Civil Society and Human Rights” posted a blog that was quickly taken down as if it were toxic radioactive waste. According to the Council’s report about the March referendum to annex Crimea, the turnout was a maximum 30%. And of these, only half voted for annexation – meaning only 15 percent of Crimean citizens voted for annexation.
The fate of Crimea, therefore, was decided by the 15 percent of Crimeans, who voted in favor of unification with Russia (under the watchful eye of Kalashnikov-toting soldiers).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/05/06/russian-government-agency-reveals-fraudulent-nature-of-the-crimean-referendum-results/
In any event, suppose that "Russia" says - ok, take Crimea back. What happens next? You think that the Crimeans may want to accept the rule of the Kievan goblins, who have neither respect nor leverage over them other than the temporary water/energy one?
Sixstrings wrote:Washington Post tells a different story
The report states that it is based on interviews with numerous Crimean officials, experts, civil society leaders, and ordinary citizens.
In the opinion of virtually all the experts and citizens interviewed:
- The vast majority of the citizens of Sevastopol voted in favor of unification with Russia in the referendum (50-80%); in Crimea, various data show that 50-60% voted for unification with Russia, with a turnout of 30-50%.
Sixstrings wrote:
They were doing just fine being hooked to Ukraine long before Russia rolled in this last year.
Strummer wrote:Did you even f***ing read it?
radon1 wrote:In any event, the facts have now dramatically changed. Ukraine did little to hold on to Crimea when it could. Crimea is no longer part of Ukraine in the view of Crimeans.
Sixstrings wrote:or a right to carve out a separatist state.
Strummer wrote:Nobody "carved out" anything. The state (Autonomous Republic Of Crimea) already existed for decades.
Sixstrings wrote:Russia thinks it's clever with the separatist state thing, but nobody falls for it.
Sixstrings wrote:Ukraine *never violated that lease*,
Ukraine's Donbas Is Like America's Deep South
A far more appropriate analogy for understanding Russo-Ukrainian relations is the Jim Crow South, with Russians as the whites and Ukrainians as the blacks. Not only have Russians and Russian speakers ruled the Crimea and the Donbas and enjoyed complete language and cultural rights. They have also proven to be the most reactionary, intolerant and illiberal population within Ukraine.
During Viktor Yanukovych's four-year reign from 2010 to 2014, Ukraine's Jim Crow South captured Kiev and began extending its norms to all of Ukraine. "Black" Ukrainians fought back, first with the Orange Revolution in 2004 and then with the Maidan Revolution of 2013-2014. The slogans of both revolutions centered on human and civil rights, dignity and personal autonomy -- just as during the civil rights movement in the United States. The "white" Yanukovych regime fought back -- in the same manner as racist whites in the Deep South -- with violence, intimidation and the equivalent of its Ku Klux Klan, the armed fanatics that eventually formed the core of the separatist armies.
Unsurprisingly, "black" Ukrainians have divided into a variety of factions. The overwhelming majority supported, and continues to support, moderation, tolerance and inclusion, along the lines of Martin Luther King. Although there is, alas, no equivalent of Dr. King in contemporary Ukrainian politics, most Ukrainian democrats employ his rhetoric and promote his ideals. But there are also "black" Ukrainian radicals. The right-wing Svoboda party's leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, has sounded remarkably like Malcom X. The hyper-nationalist Azov Battalion resembles the Black Panthers, and its leader Andrii Biletsky could easily pass for Eldridge Cleaver.
The analogy with the Deep South breaks down because of Russia's annexation of the Crimea and its invasion of eastern Ukraine. Russia's presence in these regions ensures that they will remain as reactionary, intolerant and illiberal as they have always been. If Kiev were to reach some political accommodation with the pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas, Ukraine would face an impossible choice. If the Donbas retains the autonomy it has always had, it will remain a Jim Crow bastion that will prevent Ukraine from becoming a liberal democracy. If Ukraine attempts to spread liberal values to the Donbas Deep South, the region's "white" elites and Ku Klux Klan will, once again, rebel. Moscow will claim that their rights are being violated by the Ukrainian racists and fascists in Kiev!
The United States could eventually overcome Jim Crow laws because Washington was stronger than the Deep South. As long as Russia supports the Donbas Deep South -- and that is likely to be for a long time -- Ukraine will be too weak to grant it autonomy or to absorb it. Faced with such an unenviable choice, Ukraine would be well advised to leave the Donbas to its own devices, borrow from Dr. King's rhetoric and "dream" of a sunny future.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alexander-motyl/alexander-motyl_b_6414802.html
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
Sixstrings wrote:
During Viktor Yanukovych's four-year reign from 2010 to 2014, Ukraine's Jim Crow South captured Kiev and began extending its norms to all of Ukraine. "Black" Ukrainians fought back, first with the Orange Revolution in 2004
radon1 wrote:Sixstrings wrote:
During Viktor Yanukovych's four-year reign from 2010 to 2014, Ukraine's Jim Crow South captured Kiev and began extending its norms to all of Ukraine. "Black" Ukrainians fought back, first with the Orange Revolution in 2004
Yanuk grabbed power in 2010, and to prevent this, Ukranians travelled back in time and arranged for Orange Revolution. Only to find out that Yanuk would still come to power in 2010. Run, Lola, run.
AgentR11 wrote:Other than the fact that its the Kiev loyal folks that called for screening camps, cleansing, language preferences, you might have a point. As it is; not so much. Huff is just doing a bit of race propaganda, makes for good soap sales here in the states.
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