Scandals and tolerance for corruption have chipped away at Mr. Zelensky’s popularity. Sixty-two percent of Ukrainians don’t want him to run for re-election, and if an election were held today, he’d garner about 25 percent of the vote — down from the 30 percent he easily won in the first round of the 2019 election. He’d still be likely to win, but the historic 73 percent he scored in the second round feels like a distant memory.
What, it's funny. They made such a big deal of suspending Russia. — StreetlightX
Just like Slobodan Milosevic was the protector of all Serbs in all of the former Yugoslav Republics. Now this actually would be totally natural, likely any country would hold some importance to people of it's own ethnicity. However with Russia, this is actively done by the intelligence services and used very aggressively. In a similar fashion as Milosevic protected the Serbs. — ssu
“we should not allow the misfortunes of people to be exploited by nationalists, whom every honest person must combat. We must not divide people between Serbs and Albanians, but rather we should separate, on the one hand, decent people who struggle for brotherhood, unity and ethnic equality, and, on the other hand, counter-revolutionaries and nationalists.
And how conveniently you totally forget, likely on purpose, that the whole 2014 crisis happened because of a trade deal between EU and Ukraine and the part that EU played in this. Even the student demonstrations were called EuroMaidan with enthusiastic waving of EU flags (which I guess I've rarely if never seen in the EU itself). Hence it wasn't just about the alignment towards NATO, it was also the alignment towards the EU. — ssu
According to the poll, Zelensky is the first choice of fifty-one per cent of Americans, followed by President Biden at twenty-three per cent, Donald J. Trump at seventeen per cent, and Senator Josh Hawley at half of one per cent. — Olivier5
The US has pulled out of the United Nations Human Rights Council, calling it a "cesspool of political bias".
Nikki Haley, the US envoy to the UN, said it was a "hypocritical" body that "makes a mockery of human rights".
Agreed. Which makes him continuous with every other American president in history. — StreetlightX
History is a tricky thing. The Serbs weren't the devils the West has ended up making them out to be. — Benkei
In this thread I've earlier discussed the emergence of the extreme-right in Ukraine earlier, which happened actually prior to the 2014 revolution. And what is again dismissed is that after elections the far right lost. But that doesn't seem to matter. Some people go with the line of Putin that nazis have a say in present Zelensky lead administration. It's similar to accusing the Biden administration supporting neonazis because the previous president said good things about them (or declined to condemn them).I suppose that if the US could've managed this without involving the Nazis and nationalists, things might have been different as the local support in Crimea might have been significantly lower. — Benkei
Even with Chechnya, Putin did start with differently: the focus was on stability and economic prosperity. That economic growth happened when oil prices went up. But what Putin failed in was to reorganize the economy and create genuine new growth. Coming from the class of robbers and putting his own people into positions of wealth and power didn't help when something new ought to have been done.If Putin had been waxing lyrical about the Russian empire since he came into power, I'd assess it differently. Now I just don't put much weight on it. — Benkei
In this thread I've earlier discussed the emergence of the extreme-right in Ukraine earlier, which happened actually prior to the 2014 revolution. And what is again dismissed is that after elections the far right lost. But that doesn't seem to matter. Some people go with the line of Putin that nazis have a say in present Zelensky lead administration. It's similar to accusing the Biden administration supporting neonazis because the previous president said good things about them (or declined to condemn them). — ssu
Even with Chechnya, Putin did start with differently: the focus was on stability and economic prosperity. That economic growth happened when oil prices went up. But what Putin failed in was to reorganize the economy and create genuine new growth. Coming from the class of robbers and putting his own people into positions of wealth and power didn't help when something new ought to have been done.
Hence I think his "imperial ambitions" started to gain track when the economy wasn't so fine anymore. When he couldn't provide more prosperity, then he started to provide more glory. And starting wars has always worked for him.
When you look at Putin's comments from when he rose to power and now, the rhetoric is amazingly different. — ssu
Yet Mr. Zelensky’s behavior, odd to the point of erratic, obscures a truth: He has no good options. On the one hand, any concession to Russia, particularly over the conflict in eastern Ukraine, would likely bring hundreds of thousands of people to the streets — threatening him with the fate of Viktor Yanukovych, the president overthrown by a revolution in 2014. Any decisive move against Russia, on the other hand, risks giving the Kremlin a pretext for a deadly invasion.
The show must go on, of course. The crisis continues. But the president’s performance — strained, awkward, often inappropriate — is hardly helping.
Q: We have learned that the Ukrainian government, in the name of a state of emergency and using martial law, has enacted a series of laws that severely restrict employees' rights. Employers can increase the working week from 40 to 60 hours, shorten vacations or cancel extra vacation days. Are you afraid that all this will serve as a basis for a more radical transformation of labour law and trade unions in the name of war?
A: Prior to the war, Ukraine already had a high unemployment rate floating around 10%, with a labour force participation rate of 65% in 2021. The issues of a highly uncertain future raised by the heavy student presence at Euromaidan have only been exacerbated due to further gutting of the universities, among many other public sector austerity programs. High informal employment rates for all age groups and non-existent pensions meant there was no way out of poverty for most of the population. In a stagnating and hopeless country, you knew your plans wouldn’t materialise, but they collapsed slowly and allowed you to pretend there were options and guarantees. War, however, completely disorients you, making you feel utterly powerless as you are thrown into a sea of new incalculable probabilities, with everything lost and everyone confused. A month in, I am still not sure whether I’ll ever be able to speak of the “after” of this war. It is future-destroying, not only by burning up precious stock market options and millions of careers but on a cosmological scale too. As comrades are swept into the ranks of another patriotic army, not only overwhelmed by the tradition of dead generations but celebrating its repetition, the possibility of liberation seems foreclosed.
That's why I am afraid the “temporary” labour laws have merely formalised already-existing practices. Nobody cares much about proper legal conduct as millions have left their homes and employers have suspended pay. The system was slightly disrupted, but quickly adjusted itself and asserted its reign once again: refugees are trying to find any work whatsoever, and exploitation limits can be dispensed with in such demanding times. It’s difficult to speak to the possibility of these restrictions continuing after the war. Still, it wouldn’t be surprising, considering the need to make the trickle of foreign investment find profitable industries. The unions are unlikely to oppose these laws, as there is almost no independent trade union movement in Ukraine, and official post-Soviet organisations are nothing but hollowed-out conservative structures. There haven’t been any strikes, even during the 2014 uprising, and largely patriotic unions are unlikely to undermine the nation’s war efforts.
The show must go on, of course. The crisis continues. But the president’s performance — strained, awkward, often inappropriate — is hardly helping.
The central tradition of mainline economics deals with only one way of making a living: namely, producing useful goods and services. But there is another way of getting ahead-- through conflict or the "dark side"--that is by appropriating what others have produced. Logically parallel or military aggression and resistance, the dark side includes nonmilitary activities such as litigation, strikes and lockouts, takeover contests, and bureaucratic back-biting struggles. This volume brings the analysis of conflict into the mainstream of economics. Part I explores the causes, conduct, and consequences of conflict as an economic activity. Part II delves more deeply into the evolutionary sources of our capacities, physical and mental, for both conflict and cooperation.
Once you start on the dark path, forever will it dominant your destiny, consume you it will.'''' -Jedi Master Yoda
where is the fabled 'agency' of the Ukrainians now? — StreetlightX
At the end of a gun. — Olivier5
we were talking pre-invasion. Very naughty of you — StreetlightX
where is the fabled 'agency' of the Ukrainians now? — StreetlightX
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