The Ukraine currently experiences a little ruckus over supposed "fraudulent" Presidential elections. The Ukranian people (poor cold bastards) are in the street, going on six days now, peacefully protesting the fact the voting was rigged (can anyone say "Florida, or Ohio"?), that their candidate, the opposition leader (opposition to what?) Viktor Yushchenko, got the shaft from Viktor Yanukovitch, supposedly Moscow's boy, Russian President Putin's hand picked surrogate.
The name "Moscow" is a dirty word in Ukraine; at least in Western Ukraine, a place closer to Europe than Eastern Ukraine, a place closer to Moscow; heavily industrialized, and more akin to the great gangster state....Russia.
Thus, regional political dichotomy exists in the former "bread basket"of the old Soviet Union.
The West ("collectively indignant") over the "election fraud" weighed in last week with protest from the EU, going as far as sending representitives to monitor the elections, and to warn the sitting President, whose name escapes me (although i could look it up....however, what is the point?), of the dire consequences of a disruption in the spread of "democracy" in such a strategic place (NATO, after all, cares so deeply about the "rights of man").
The Americans are there too; members of the House of Representatives, each making five hundred to fifteen hundred dollars a day (courtesey of the Rand Corporation) adding American luster and legitamacy to a process as phoney as a three dollar bill.
Our present, Secretary of State, took the towel the Bush Administration stuffed down his throat four years ago, long enough, to denounce the "election fraud".
Everybody is concerned. The whole damn "Western World" decries the "shameful" way the unfortunate Ukranian "people" have to suffer at the hands of "them".
It is difficult to believe that people with the histories they possess have any illusions left. But there they are, standing in the street, and breathing the fog. They wave flags, pass the bottle around, and do what the Slavs have always done.
They wait.
Meanwhile, in America, it is the beginning of the season of giving.
America does love to give.
This year, Americans (in record numbers!) give the gift of "Elmo", a purple, furry talking doll. American kids love it. So do American adults. It is going to be the best seller of this year's warm and tender month. The month Jesus was supposedly born.
The month the night is silent.
The month American children (well, a lot of them, anyway....) will open presents by the fire, with smiles and eyes full of life, and hopeful promise.
The month Iraqi children fear a "knock on the door", and men with guns and huge flying machines, come to make their world "safe".
Given the mood of the people of Ukraine, you might think they hear the same knock.
Perhaps the sound never goes away.
Anywhere.........
very nice. Does no one else see the irony of our current Admin. expressing concern over the legitimacy of the Ukraine elections?
Posted by: Gale | 28 November 2004 at 03:16 PM