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Re: Empire [message #98363 is a reply to message #98362] Sun, 09 March 2025 11:01 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
Wayne Parham is currently offline  Wayne Parham
Messages: 18924
Registered: January 2001
Illuminati (33rd Degree)

In the analysis described by Jeffrey Sachs in the link above, you will notice mention of two Ukrainian political figures:
The history of these two men illustrates the heart of the conflict very well, in my opinion.  I've mentioned their behavior a few times in this thread and in the other one about Ukraine here in "the Dungeon" forum.

I traveled to Odessa, Ukraine several times during the era when those two were "duking it out" in politics.  Back in the 1990s and 2000s, I saw first-hand how the population of Ukraine viewed these men.  It's pretty much how most of the rest of the world saw things too - anyone actually watching - which included Jeffrey Sachs.  Of course, most people here weren't really paying attention to Ukraine back then, so Americans had no view of this until the last couple years.

But if you read up on these men, what you will notice is that Yanukovich had been a criminal from early life and so gained ties to novi-russki back when they were just local thugs.  That was really his main occupation.  Naturally, his ties to the novi-russki "oligarchs" brought him closer to Putin later in life.  About five years after Ukraine became independent, Yanukovich became a politician.  He was essentially hand-crafted to be a shill for the novi-russki and for Putin.

What you will also notice is that Yushchenko was not a criminal in his youth or at any other time.  He became involved with banking as a career, way back in the 1970s, long before Ukraine was independent.  When Ukraine became independent, he helped to create their currency system and was appointed to various economic/political positions by the newly-formed Ukrainian parliament called the Verkhovna Rada.

So the difference between these two men is night and day.  It is obvious to anyone native to the culture than one of them is a class act and the other is a thug.  One is tied to the novi-russki and all the corruption that goes with them.  The other is an upstanding citizen and respectable civic leader interested in breaking from that.  

Yushchenko was widely respected as an honest businessman.  He was never allied with any novi-russki.  He wanted to be free from the corruption of the novi-russki that was so prevalent.  Yushchenko was very popular with the population of Ukraine.  Yanukovich, on the other hand, was a life-long criminal, a thug that had obvious ties to political corruption and to the Kremlin.

At one point in 2004 - during an election cycle with Yanukovich - Yushchenko was poisoned using dioxin.  This was at a time when Yanukovich was so unpopular with the Ukrainian population that he took over media outlets and prevented any sort of free or public speech.  Yet, Yushchenko was still more popular with the public.  So the pro-Putin thugs tried to kill him.

I encourage anyone that is truly interested in the history of Ukraine after its independence to read about those two men.  Read about them and other politicians and events from the 1990s and 2000s.  Don't just read one source, and don't watch TV today and form an "opinion" based on the chatter of American politics in the 2020s.  We have our own stuff going on here, and it distorts our view.

Most of us here in America don't know anything about Ukraine and its independence.  It just wasn't on our radars until recent events in American politics brought it into view.  But the fact that American politics are in play means that what we're really seeing is American politics in action, and that generates its own form of spin.  A lot of it is out of sync with what has been going on over there for the past 30 years or so.

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