Another Cold War?

I'll tell you guys about the story of my night out with 3 American boys some other time. It was fun, but not anything particularly exciting, except that one of them was good friends with David Arkush and other NCHS people from summer camp, and he even went out with Lisa Scheidler! (this reference is only meaningful to the few high school friends reading this).

I am very happy that the Ukrainian Supreme court showed some post-Soviet balls and approved a new election. Of course I think Yushchenko is the better choice, but the important thing is just to have elections, and let the legitimate winner, whoever he may be, take power. I haven't been watching much TV lately, but the Russian news media, as well as Putin and the Russian government is just slamming the events in Kiev and elsewhere. Which is no surprise, as the Duma has already passed the first reading of a bill to take away the electoral element for regional governors, making them all appointed by Putin. On the one hand, maybe, from Putin's perspective, the Russian people haven't "earned" democracy yet, as he obviously and openly doesn't trust the people as an electorate, to make decisions for themselves. And, honestly, the vast majority of Russians are politically apathetic. Putin stole his reelection coming and going and no one took to the streets like they did in Kiev. Most people voted for Putin, just because. In contrast, the Ukrainians (okay half of them, because the other half is still very tied to Russia) have really demonstrated that they value political rights and will stand up for them. This is not the perspective of the Russians though.

A quote from Saturday's NY Times re the Supreme Court decision to hold new elections:

"The court's ruling reverberated beyond the nation's borders. The United States and European countries, having denounced the election results, welcomed the decision.
Mr. Putin, traveling in India, did not immediately react. In Moscow, Russia's Parliament adopted a resolution before the court's ruling that accused the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe of fomenting unrest in Ukraine. "

The Russian news media calls the protest, the "Orange Putsch", claiming that all of those 100,000 Ukrainians are being paid to show up and rally for Yushchenko. Of course they don't mention that it was really the Yanukovich people who were bussed in from other regions, and many of them are getting paid. I mean, lets talk about media bias here, people.

Okay, I'll confess. The outpouring of popular protest in Ukraine is really a CIA-organized, US government funded operation to bring down Ukraine, and then Russia. They're on to us! I wonder if the delegates in the Russian State Duma take themselves seriously. Are they just like the lackey's of the Communist Party? Do they really believe, or are they so power hungry that they can actively and automatically suspend disbelief and convince themselves that the world around them looks nothing like it really is? No, Putin hasn't killed millions of people, so far as I know, but at least the Communists tried to give the people an idea to believe in and get behind, as flawed as it may have been, and everything was at least veiled by the idea of the power of the people. But Putin has nothing to offer the people, except that he doesn't trust them as far as he can throw them. No wonder they're apathetic. I can't blame them.

Sigh. It makes me sad. I love Russia and I want to see it flourish, and its just going down the toilet.