Interesting. It’s far more Bruce Sterling than Cold War this, isn’t it?
Of course that both sides are corrupt. I remember the last uprising in Ukraine, the so-called Orange Revolution. OK, they overthrew that government and installed a new one, which was also corrupt. The guys who were overthrown waited for the next election and won (the current regime). As it happens, they made a move that works for them better (bribes, kickbacks, etc) - they sided with Russians. Now the old “Orange Revolution guys” couldn’t wait for one more year to get elected and backtrack on the deal with Russians. No, they decide it’s better to go out on the streets and solve this “peacefully”. We know this is eastern Europe, there are no peaceful protests - no matter what someone turns to violence. I agree that the current regime is bad, but so are these protesters. At this point I certainly hope that the regime caves in, dissolves the parliament and holds the new election. But rest assured: there is no good guys here.
500 bucks. At least we know what the going rate is for astro-turfing. The equivelent of a couple trips to Costco…
I wonder if the $500 includes an extra charge for dealing with the cognitive dissonance arising from the fact that supporting Viktor Yanukovych puts you temporarily on the same side as Putin.
Any mental midget associated with (or that reads) RedState or Breitbart or Pajamas Media likely doesn’t know what that phrase means…
A fair percentage of them do like him (with intensities ranging from “At least he gets things done” to “Why can’t he lord it over us instead of that secretly-gay-married Kenyan Communist?”).
Take note of which bloggers and media figures on the left also decide to act as apologists for Yanukovich. Putin doesn’t care what your politics are so long as you carry his water.
[quote=“Purplecat, post:6, topic:23606”]supporting Viktor Yanukovych puts you temporarily on the same side as Putin.
[/quote]
The more fervid rightwing pundits are deeply in manly love with Putin; he’s a muscular authoritarian who poses shirtless! VD Hanson, for instance, has written exactly the paeans to Putin that you’d expect from his tendency to salivate over Sparta. So… no cognitive dissonance.
EDIT – I see I’m echoing allium’s earlier comment.
Kenyan Communist Marxist Fascist Muslim. Get it right! 'Merca!
I liked the part in the Buzzfeed story where Ben Shapiro of Breitbart denies being paid directly for his verbatim plagiarism of the talking points. Apparently the payments were properly laundered.
I’d be curious to know whether it was the payola that persuaded the bloggers to unquestioningly spout the talking points they were given, or whether at some instinctive level they sympathize with the alpha authoritarian in the room. As people have pointed out, Yanukovych should theoretically be anathema to red-blooded lovers of liberty … but maybe, just maybe he was talking the kind of talk they like to hear.
In other words, are they merely venal, or does it go deeper than that?
Perhaps you could offer specific examples. I’d be interested to know which ones to filter.
The other aspect is that the Obama administration was reaching out to the Ukrainian opposition at the time. So the automatic reaction from the rightwing noise network was to support Yanukovych and to demonise that opposition, in the cause of accusing then-Secretary-of-State Clinton of cozying up with criminals.
The Ukrainian money, and the effort-saving list of pre-packaged talking points… they were just cherries on top.
So far George Galloway and some fringe leftist outfits in Britain.
Who I suspect aren’t in yoru newsfeed anyway.
Whenever I hear about George Galloway supporting something idiotic like this, I have to remind myself that this is the man who agreed to have a television interview whilst sitting on his toilet.
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