February 26, 2014

Victoria Nuland gets her man

We haven't heard much from Our Woman in Kiev, Victoria Nuland (wife and in-law of the numerous Kagans), since her tapped phone call regarding her opinion of the EU's tepid enthusiasm for regime change in Ukraine was leaked in early February. But, her pick for new boss of Ukraine, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk rather than right nationalist Oleg Tyagnybok or heavyweight champ Vitali Klitschko, appears to have won out. From the NYT:
KIEV, Ukraine — Standing before a crowd of tens of thousands in Independence Square, the epicenter of the three-month civic uprising that ousted President Viktor F. Yanukovych, the lawmakers temporarily controlling Ukraine announced an interim government on Wednesday night to be led by Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, a veteran public official who has served as speaker of Parliament, foreign minister, economics minister and acting head of the central bank. 
The public presentation of Mr. Yatsenyuk, who will serve as acting prime minister, and more than 20 other proposed cabinet members, was a frenetic effort by establishment politicians to win the backing of the street protesters, whose persistence in the face of the deaths of more than 80 people last week in clashes with the police, ultimately dislodged Mr. Yanukovych from power. 
As the names of the proposed ministers were read from the stage — with flowers and candles blanketing the square in memory of the dead — it became clear just how completely the ordinary people on the street had seized control of the direction of Ukraine. Desperate for the crowd’s legitimacy, officials felt compelled to present the slate on stage in the square before putting it up for a vote by Parliament. 

I know this sounds crazy, but I'm reminded of how in 532 AD the Emperor Justinian got into a long argument with the crowd at the chariot races in Constantinople. That was the main way public opinion was factored into Roman and Byzantine politics: by custom, the emperor had to appear at the games, where he was presented with petitions and the crowd's reactions to his responses were used as proto-opinion polls. In this case, Justinian was less than politically deft, and his arrogance led to the hooligan fans of the Blue chariot racing team and the Green chariot racing team uniting in a massive riot against him.

But perhaps there are elements of cultural continuity in Orthodox civilization?
The reaction from the crowd was decidedly mixed. 
Jeers and whistles greeted some established politicians, and cheers for some figures with no government experience chosen because of their role in the uprising. But with Ukraine hurtling toward an economic catastrophe, and no time for protracted negotiations, the gesture of deference to the crowd seemed sufficient to move the process forward. 
“We need to change these faces,” said Alyona Murashko, a 28-year-old marketing specialist who stopped in the square to watch the announcement, carrying groceries on her way home from work. Ms. Murashko said that she approved of the choice of Olga Bogomolets, a physician, singer and activist as deputy prime minister for humanitarian affairs, and of Tatyana Chornovil, a crusading activist and journalist to lead Ukraine’s anti-corruption bureau. 
Ms. Murashko, however, said she opposed Mr. Yatsenyuk and many of the other choices. “I wouldn’t like to see him even temporarily,” she said. “No one from current political parties.” Ms. Murashko said that she was glad that presidential elections would be held in May, but wanted parliamentary elections “as soon as possible.” 
Among those eliciting loud boos was Oleksandr V. Turchynov, who was elected by colleagues on Saturday as the new speaker of Parliament, and who has been authorized to carry out the duties of president, effectively putting him in charge of the country. Mr. Turchynov was not part of the slate announced on Wednesday night and will continue in his position even after the interim government is approved. 
On the whole, the makeup of the interim government suggested that Ukraine would now move more swiftly to improve ties with the West, potentially reviving the sweeping political and trade agreements with the European Union that Mr. Yanukovych scuttled in November, setting off protests in Kiev and other cities. 
Mr. Yatsenyuk is an ally of Mr. Yanukovych’s archrival, the former prime minister, Yulia V. Tymoshenko. ... 
Mr. Yatsenyuk, by contrast, is largely viewed as an able technician with a firm grasp of economic policy and foreign affairs. Ukraine’s economy is in tatters and it is in desperate need of a rescue package from the International Monetary Fund, which has said it will demand painful austerity measures and long-delayed economic changes in return for any assistance. ...

Mr. Yatsenyuk was one of three opposition leaders in Parliament who were among the chief organizers of the street demonstrations. Another, the ex-champion boxer Vitali Klitschko, who heads a party called the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform, has already announced his candidacy for president. The third, Oleg Tyagnybok, is the leader of the nationalist Svoboda party, which is popular in Western Ukraine but has limited support elsewhere. 
Among the crowd-pleasing choices in this regard were Dmitry Bulatov, the leader of a group called AutoMaidan, who was designated as minister of youth and sport, and Eugene Nyschuk, an actor who has served as M.C. from the stage in Independence Square throughout the protests and who was selected as culture minister.
  

52 comments:

  1. Body loses to the mind.

    In America, white southern Christian conservatives did most to support the GOP in the past 40 yrs, but the people who got the main prizes were neocons.

    In Ukraine, the nationalists provided the muscle, but the parliament is controlled by big money, and parliament whores went with money.

    Likewise, GOP will stab white conservatives in the back with amnesty.

    Black politicians do this all the time. In Detroit, some black local politician got blacks all angry over Arab businessmen. Blacks were marching and making lots of noise.

    Arab businessmen met with the black politician and provided him with funds, and then, he told the blacks to go home.
    He uses the masses as asses, and he got the prize.

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  2. It is funny and pathetic at the same time, this spectacle.

    This spectacle of political whores desperate to cling to their priviliges, private BMW cars, cheap women and incredible corruption.

    They were with Yanukovytch until they saw which way the wind was blowing, and THEN they made a proclamation that yes, they are with the new order, and that Yanukovytch is a war criminal.

    A day after he fled, if I am not mistaken.

    No schto, Ukrainskie muzhiki?

    Will you be slaves once again, a laughingstock for all the world yet again?

    Will you be like Egypt, where the people revolted and a pro American general took over - i.e. exactly what the status quo was pre-Morsi for decades?

    The sad answer is yes.

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  3. A lot of people, including some Jews, have said that Yatsenyuk is ethnically Jewish. A Jewish organization in the Ukraine included him in its list of most powerful Jews in the country. He denies it. He looks pretty Jewish though.

    In that Right Sector video the phrase "sellout politicians" was said right as a pic of Yatsenyuk appeared on the screen. Does that mean he should worry about being overthrown by Right Sector like Yanukovich was? No. Ms. Nuland isn't going to finance THAT, and by themselves a few hundred rowdy young men are not a force in big politics.

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  4. "Victoria Nuland gets her man"

    Yechh. All those big guys stuck in a political version of GIRLS.

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  5. Garibaldi's men did so much of the fighting, but the prize went to Mazini.

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  6. Animal Farm. Animals did so much to overthrow the humans, but piggies got the bacon.

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  7. Taking over the streets is always temporary power. In the end, it's decided by who takes over the offices. And street fighting man tends to be brainless in that regard.

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  8. Nuland's comments are going to follow her man like a piece of shit on a goldfish.

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  9. "In America, white southern Christian conservatives did most to support the GOP in the past 40 yrs, but the people who got the main prizes were neocons."

    You have on one hand, people from an intellectually oriented culture, who read and study voraciously and who spend their lives gaining degrees and credentials and on the other hand, people who hate reading, hate thinking and whose lives revolve around college football.

    Southern conservative Christians are tailor made to be exploited by neocons.

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  10. The Italian partisans who did much of the fighting against Germans and Fascists were Italian communists... but the prize went to the Christian Democrats who were favored by the US.

    The French Resistance was dominated by the the Left, but US helped the center-right elements to eventually take power in France.

    So, this is nothing new.

    http://youtu.be/sLwX8yhC3K8?t=4h41m44s

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  11. http://youtu.be/sLwX8yhC3K8?t=4h52m44s

    War is won. Hand over all the guns and trust the politicos.

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  12. Tough guys may do the street fighting, but in the end slick bankster types will do the ruling. Just like everywhere else.

    All hail our future Ukrainian corporate overlords!

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  13. Actually southern Christians did pretty it was the dim witted crotchety can't stop ranting about the Jews paleos who got their lunches eaten by the neocons. You think Ralph reed has to beg for money from his majority anonymous posters or will die dead broke like Sobran. I love when people on this site take a break from complaining about how much their lives suck and how hot girls won't talk to them to knock southern conservatives the one branch of conservatism that actually dominates major states government. But yea john Derbyshire and Daniel Larison are really just scrambling up the ladder of success.

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  14. If right sector is so dumb how come they can get chicks unlike the poindexters here. For that matter how come the least influential political movement in America is the paleocons. Robert Taft died 60 years ago and they still haven't found someone to replace him. Meanwhile there are a ton of conservatives from the south in the senate.

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  15. The Italian partisans who did much of the fighting against Germans and Fascists were Italian communists... but the prize went to the Christian Democrats who were favored by the US.

    The French Resistance was dominated by the the Left, but US helped the center-right elements to eventually take power in France.

    Guess what if the partisans has driven out the nazis by themselves then they would have gotten the power. Instead they played relative to the allied forces almost no role in the liberation of their nations.

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  16. Maybe Anon 5PM has a point, and we paleos need to direct "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Jews".

    If religious Christians can get ahead politically by making common cause with an old enemy, maybe we can too.

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  17. That they might get a "rescue package" from the IMF sounds like they'll be put into debt bondage since most of what is always termed "aid" is usually just a loan, not a gift. Eighty people dead for the benefit of a millionaire banker.

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  18. "Victoria Nuland gets her man"

    Because no one in the Ukraine could possibly want an experienced official to be interim prime minister bar that one of the Kagan claque manipulated them into it (or bribed them with NED money).

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  19. "If right sector is so dumb how come they can get chicks unlike the poindexters here."

    Right Sector gets the chicks, but Nuland gets the dicks.

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  20. but US helped the center-right elements to eventually take power in France.

    Because, you know, that would never happen without someone in the U.S. Embassy pulling the wires.

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  21. "If right sector is so dumb how come they can get chicks unlike the poindexters here."

    Actually it's Whiskey, aka Evil Neocon (at least his old nick was factual), who always whines here about not getting chicks. He's so thoroughly intertwined his neoconnery with his sexual frustration that the two are almost inseparable now in the eyes of regular readers of iSteve's comment section. We've all seen so many Whiskey comments that it's now difficult for most of us to think of neocon ideas without being reminded of total sexual failure.

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  22. Obviously, a man who has made his living getting punched in the head for the last 25 years is ideal for the job.

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  23. Klitschko's party is called UDAR (Strike). The sound of that word in Russian and Ukrainian is, appropriately, striking. Explosive too. Klitschko's ideology - vague mush as far as I can tell. In contrast, Tyagniabok is really right-wing, far more right-wing than Marine Le Pen, for example. But his party is called Svoboda (Freedom), which is the most anodyne thing you can call a political party.

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  24. The West is winning at the moment: a democratically elected government has been forced to flee, and cede control to the mob ;) Screw elections. Gotta love mobs and chaos. That combination inevitably leads to calm and peace.

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  25. The French Resistance was dominated by the the Left, but US helped the center-right elements to eventually take power in France.

    The French Left claimed to have dominated the Resistance.

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  26. Freedom is a very popular name for anti-establishment right wing groups. Freedom Front + is the Afrikaner Party in South Africa. Herut (the predecessor to Israel's Likud) means Freedom. Geert Wilders' PVV literally means Party of Freedom. Austria's Euroskeptic/anti-immigration party is the Freedom Party.

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  27. ATBOTL said: You have on one hand, people from an intellectually oriented culture, who read and study voraciously and who spend their lives gaining degrees and credentials and on the other hand, people who hate reading, hate thinking and whose lives revolve around college football.

    Hunsdon said: Kiss my white Southern Christian conservative ass.

    I wish you were wrong.

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  28. "If right sector is so dumb how come they can get chicks unlike the poindexters here."

    I'm happy with the wife I've got and I'm not into adultery. You wouldn't understand.

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  29. Might be worthwhile to remember how Justinian was able to save himself during the Nika Riots.

    Marry a tough woman. Have capable subordinates.

    Murder 30,000 people.

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  30. Apparently pro-Russian militia are raising Russian flags above the state parliament in the Crimea.

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  31. "The French Resistance was dominated by the the Left"

    "The French Left claimed to have dominated the Resistance."


    The French Left did dominate the French Resistance - because they betrayed the Royalist and Nationalist Resistance movements to the Gestapo.

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  32. It's not over childrens. It's just starting.

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  33. "Hunsdon said: Kiss my white Southern Christian conservative ass. I wish you were wrong."

    If you're competing with people who are naturally more sociopathic than you...

    make it a game.

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  34. "The Soviet Army was odd in that it didn't have many sergeants, who are the mainstays of Western Armies"

    Not having an NCO corps was always the big weakness of the Soviet Army. Thing is, if you're going to give a lot of authority over young soldiers to a bunch of intelligent, experienced and particularly capable individuals they have to be 100% loyal or it's too much of a risk.

    If they have a consenting Russian national army now then it becomes possible.

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  35. Kagan-American2/27/14, 2:33 AM

    Nothing left to do now but send some Harvard economists over there and "help" the Ukrainians reorganize their economy.

    I've always thought Ukraine's big problem was too few oligarchs.

    USA! USA! USA!

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  36. Anonydroid at 6:17 PM said: Klitschko's party is called UDAR (Strike).

    Hunsdon said: Worse, it's an acronym. Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform. Or Український демократичний альянс за реформи. I'd bet my bottom hryvnia that the acronym was concocted in English.

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  37. http://dujour.com/article/making-of-vikings-season-two-michael-hirst-travis-fimmel-tudors/40535/1

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  38. Did you guys here about the big scandal? Victoria Nuland said the "F-word"! Its in all the papers. Yes, that's the scandal all right.

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  39. Hunsdon said: Worse, it's an acronym. Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform. Or Український демократичний альянс за реформи. I'd bet my bottom hryvnia that the acronym was concocted in English.

    You're right. That it pure translationese.

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  40. Might be worthwhile to remember how Justinian was able to save himself during the Nika Riots.

    Marry a tough woman. Have capable subordinates.

    Murder 30,000 people.

    Bashar Al-Assad is the contemporary Justinian?

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  41. I googled, googled news and blog searched "Nuland Yatsenyuk" and only Steve Sailer notes that the Kagan Stooge is now the acting Prime Minister. No one in the entire MSM finds it intriguing that the man chosen by Victoria Nuland becomes the PM?

    It was heard on audiotape and there is no follow-up story? Lots of sheep in this country.

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  42. The idiots cheering the West's alleged success in Ukraine are the same idiots that were cheering the West's success in Iraq and Libya.

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  43. http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com.

    This man, Saker, knows its stuff about Ukraine and Russia.

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  44. Well, a lot of white Southern Christians are evangelicals that buy into the mega-church of non southern states like Rick Warren's church in Orange County Ca that why they are pretty pro-Israel and not pro-Russia. They spent too much on social issues that's why they elected George W Bush.

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  45. 2 Degress said (about UDAR): You're right. That it pure translationese.

    Hunsdon said: Spasibo! Never hurts to have my impressions seconded.

    Anonydroid at 1:19 PM said: I googled, googled news and blog searched "Nuland Yatsenyuk" and only Steve Sailer notes that the Kagan Stooge is now the acting Prime Minister.

    Hunsdon said: We're a led people, hate though I do to admit it.

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  46. If right sector is so dumb how come they can get chicks unlike the poindexters here. For that matter how come the least influential political movement in America is the paleocons.

    Wow - that is some really embarrassingly stupid shtick.

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  47. BB573 said: This man, Saker, knows its stuff about Ukraine and Russia.

    Hunsdon said: Thanks for the pointer. It's bookmarked and being read.

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  48. A lot of people, including some Jews, have said that Yatsenyuk is ethnically Jewish. A Jewish organization in the Ukraine included him in its list of most powerful Jews in the country. He denies it. He looks pretty Jewish though.

    He looks like a cross between Tim Wise and the Dalrymple character from Seinfeld.

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  49. Marry a tough woman. Have capable subordinates.
    True, Theodora was touch since he was a daughter of Acacius, a bear keeper and a big blues supporter and an ex-actress. Street tough. Justinian did two great things but has a big cloud over his shoulders because of Procopius.

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  50. Nuland has had a long career in the Foreign Service and has worked for both Democratic and Republican administrations. Very interesting.

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  51. Her brother-in-law Fred's wife is Kimberly Kagan, who is also a militarist pundit and adviser. Steve Sailer notes that the Kagan Stooge is now the acting Prime Minister. No one in the entire MSM finds it intriguing that the man chosen by Victoria Nuland .

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  52. Nuland has had a long profession in the Foreign Service and has worked for both Democratic and Republican organizations. Exceptionally fascinating.

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