Boardman writes: "How about mediation to seek a peaceful solution of Ukraine issues? Mediation? Who would do the mediating? And how many parties would have to mediate? Where would any mediation take place? And under whose auspices? And so on...All good questions, to be sure. And all beside the point."
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. (photo: Reuters)
Calm in Ukraine, Who Wants That?
14 April 14
How about mediation to seek a peaceful solution of Ukraine issues?
ediation? Who would do the mediating? And how many parties would have to mediate? Where would any mediation take place? And under whose auspices? And so on � All good questions, to be sure. And all beside the point.
What�s the point?
The point is that no one of public stature is suggesting anything of the sort, from which it�s fair to infer that no one is serious about anything but stoking tensions until there�s a real crisis (not just governmental and media bloviating about a new Cold War).
You don�t think so?
Mediation, by definition, requires a neutral third party (to the degree that�s ever possible), namely the mediator. Bi-lateral or multi-lateral talks, whatever good they may achieve, are not mediation. Serious mediation begins with the assumption that all the parties have legitimate interests.
Does anyone involved in Ukraine�s turmoil grant that all the others have legitimate interests?
If there were a seriously peaceful party in the struggle, wouldn�t it be making peaceful suggestions? If not mediation per se, how about bringing it to the United Nations in a neutral form? How about UN peacekeepers in Ukraine, at least along the borders? How about UN observers for the May election? How about any other suggestion designed to calm things down?
If anyone is making such suggestions, you�d think we�d hear about them, somehow, from somebody. (Reportedly, on March 1, the US ambassador to Ukraine called once for observers in Crimea.) So why is actual solution-seeking so clearly off everyone�s table? Let us speculate:
RUSSIA feels threatened by the west, which is both real and paranoid. It took Crimea willingly, without firing a shot. It may also hope to take some of eastern Ukraine without firing a shot. It wants to get paid for its natural gas. It thinks it�s winning.
THE UNITED STATES feels almighty and self-righteous and sees bringing a military alliance (NATO) to Russia�s borders as God�s work or the equivalent. Having engineered a coup d��tat in Ukraine, it expects the government�s illegitimacy to be expiated by the May election. It thinks it�s winning.
EUROPE, which would include all the countries, the European Union, and NATO, feels trapped between the US and Russia, with no obvious way out of the trap, except maybe neutrality, which won�t be allowed. Europe is the Rodney King of this situation: �Can we all get along?� It doesn�t think it�s winning, but it hopes it�s not going to lose (at least not lose too much).
UKRAINE is angry about just about everything, depending on which Ukrainian you ask. Ukraine would like to be free, peaceful, not corrupt, and nobody�s puppet � but it has no consensus as to how that can be achieved. The hope and idealism of the Maidan has passed with the coup. Ukraine�s divisions are bitter and ancient. One measure of Ukrainian desperation is their turning over at least part of the government to oligarchs, who became oligarchs by plundering the government. If everyone left Ukraine alone, Ukrainians would go on killing each other, because the extreme factions have one thing in common: they think they�re winning.
THE UNITED NATIONS should be a place for possible conflict resolution, but Russia and the US have Security Council vetoes, so forget that. The General Assembly might try to achieve something like a just solution, but why would they? And even if they did, how much more effective would it be than what they�ve tried to do for the Palestinians? Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has seen the UN help his country (South Korea) recover from war, if not unite it. But he has not been a particularly assertive leader. Maybe he thinks someone is winning � or should win. It�s not clear.
On April 12, 2014, the UN issued the following �Statement Attributable to the spokesperson for the Secretary-General on Ukraine�:
�The Secretary-General is deeply concerned about the deteriorating situation in Eastern Ukraine and the growing potential for violent clashes.
�The Secretary-General stresses that further disturbances will not serve the interests of any side. He therefore appeals to all sides to work towards calming the situation, adhere to the rule of law and exercise maximum restraint. He calls again for urgent and constructive dialogue to deescalate the situation and address all differences.
�The United Nations stands ready to continue to support a peaceful resolution to the current crisis facing Ukraine.�
Like Europe says: �Can we all get along?�
Encouraging blue skies, nothing but blue skies, is not objectionable, but it�s not all that helpful either, and it�s certainly not a practical proposal. If anything, Ban Ki-Moon�s focus only on �Eastern Ukraine,� while rational it its way, is a focus on only a symptom and is more likely than not to make the disease worse. He expressed the same selectivity on April 4, saying he had urged leaders in Kiev and Moscow to de-escalate, but not a word about Washington (which should have de-escalated 20 years ago). That�s not serious statesmanship.
What is serious is that so many of the parties to the conflict think they�re going to win. That is a sure recipe for creating a lot of losers.
According to an unconfirmed report, acknowledged as such by the Voice of Russia on April 8:
The United Nations Security Council has, for the umpteenth time, considered the Ukrainian issue, and experts made a rather unexpected conclusion. It turned out that Ukraine has no official boundaries. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kiev hasn�t demarked its borders. Nor has it registered at the United Nations the demarcation of its borders as a sovereign state.
If it�s true that in some way, legally or geopolitically, Ukraine has no meaningful boundaries with some or all of its seven border states, that might be a good place to start sorting things out. In 2009, the International Court of Justice ruled on a maritime boundary dispute between Ukraine and Romania. The same court issued an advisory opinion in 2010 that a unilateral declaration of independence does not violate international law (that was Kosovo; the Crimean example has not been litigated). In its global summary of international border disputes, the CIA provides partial support for the Voice of Russia assertion.
Meanwhile, Russians users of Google Maps see Crimea as part of Russia, while the rest of the world sees the Ukraine-Crimea border as �disputed.�
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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You are thinking of Obama in the last...or rather first term. Have you not noticed that he is walking around congress and going straight to to people???. He is a lot more feisty now.
And Rove realized....a bit late...that he had nurtured a snake at his bosoom, and now it is BITING him.....a lot....I think he will have a hard time getting rid of it. For the snake...er...T party. may be too well ensconced in many areas.
I sincerely hope the republicans will not be able to get reasonable republicans.... if any are left... elected in the primaries. For we saw in the last election. That democrats will beat crazy T baggers.
The Democrats cannot win against them.
And don't accuse me of being a Republican. They are even worse than the hand-wring, issue-caving hypocritical Democrats with their snarly weaselly reactionary ways.
I am a Tea Party of one. Screw Rove.
(And please, get it straight, we live in a republic, not a democracy.)
Yeah, I know, this is a republic, not a democracy. But really, there's less of a distinction between the two than Tea Party members would have us believe. Here are definitions of "democracy" from Merriam Webster:
a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority
b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
So we have a representative democracy, also known as a republic.
Enough of this tempest in a teapot argument! (Sorry, I just couldn't resist!)
:-)
"a democracy' is a dictatorship of the majority, and as you said, majority rule.
A republic is rule by agreement of the people: essentially rule by equal law.
Dictatorships have different laws for the privileged. Equality under the law is liberty's path and needs a republic with a Bill of Rights). Special rules for special folk is a democracy for a ruling class dictatorship.
(Hint: China wants us to get rid of the 10 amendments we call the Bill of Rights.)
What the heck does that have to do with the price of rice in China???
Honestly, China wants us?.... did they say "Please"?
Yeah, I know, this is a republic, not a democracy. But really, there's less of a distinction between the two than Tea Party members would have us believe. Here are definitions of "democracy" from Merriam Webster:
a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority
b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
So we have a representative democracy, also known as a republic.
Enough of this tempest in a teapot argument! (Sorry, I just couldn't resist!)
:-)
Well, it's not that simple. A republic is basically ANY form of government whose political offices aren't either hereditary or (as with the papacy) appointive. Soviet Russia was a republic, one of 15 in the USSR. What we have is a democratic federal republic.
They MADE it
Your ignorance is showing. Our problem is thaat we tax too little and spend too little. Reagan led us down the garden path toward destruction of the country by slashing taxes on the rich and corporations and loading them onto you and me.
And we live, not in a democracy OR a republic, but a democratic republic.
Pure democracy cannot exist in a nation this large, and a republic would be an outright tyrrany.
The follow-up question is, which system do you want to be living in, if you see them at odds? I note that people who continually make a distinction between a republic and a democracy are often taking a back-handed slap at the democratic process. Is that the case with you? If so, why do you assert yourself over the majority? (It is a question I'd really like to hear answered.)
The principle argument should not be about whether we are a Democracy or a Republic, but how to make our system more democratic so it represents the interests and will of the people. How to eliminate propaganda and thus improve informed consent? How to protect both the individual and the majority? And especially, how to introduce democracy into our economic institutions, so that out lives are not (effectively!) limited to selecting which totalitarian organization to rent ourselves to-- under the false guise that we are free to choose
No one has the right to dictate to another. A dictatorship of the majority is still a dictatorship. The Bill of Rights shelters us, and protects our minorities from a majority mob. You cannot protect both the individual and the majority. It doesn't work. Either the individual will rule or the mob.
The founders wrote the Constitution to subvert the mob (and the king). That is the distinction. Those who desire to rule don't like it much. Screw them, we have a republic of laws, not a dictatorship of men. The Rove ruling class hates it. Me I love it. But, as Jefferson said, it often requires blood. (and the 2d)
God help you for your ignorance. Why would anyone want it different?
You tell me.
The founders utilized the electoral college system and instituted a conditional democracy because they didn't trust the will of the common people. Though they were relatively enlightened men, they were aristocrats, a product of the class divisions of their time. But our institutions are "living traditions," and must always be examined for their ethical and practical fitness. They are not sacred. I believe that eventually our society will change again, and introduce a form of economically direct democracy to accompany a more direct political democracy.
If everyone believed in their right to do whatever they want at anytime, believed that no one has any claim upon them for responsible behavior, then we would never have any laws. Only the rule of the strongest. A.S Neil refers to the notion of doing whatever you want as "license" not freedom. I hope that you come to understand the distinction.
Mind your own business is a good thing. So is do not impose on another man's life or property.
You might take your own advice.
Nope, you live in a Plutocracy, republic or not. The Monarchs of our time are the Robber Barons who dictate to the government what is done with your taxes.
Rove is a shadowy fink for whoever he feels "should" be in power for the clearest path to right wing totalitarianism -then you know what you'll have then, right!?
Now we are an empire, as we always have been since adopting the Constitution, which was originally billed, by Alexander Hamilton, one of its primary architects, in Federalist Paper #1, paragraph 1, as an "empire, in many respects the most interesting in the world...."
Only the incapable ignorant or the willfully self-deluded have ever been able to think otherwise.
So which is it, your bliss, or the truth?
This alliance with the unsavory is not anything new in terms of tactics. Nixon's southern strategy where racist whites were courted enthusiasticall y by the Republican party. They have not been able to shake the racism out of the party since. If the Republicans hope for greater success with this divorce they will have to ban Rushbo and the loonies, too. But Rove may find out that the Tea Party tiger has him in its jaw and he is about to be devoured. I can't say I wouldn't be pleased. He deserves to be tiger poop. We'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, the Republican establishment will have a lot of fessing up to do, mea culpas galore and radically change their message on vital issues. Are they going to tell Inhofe that he's teh hoax and not global warming. Much to do if they hope to become a credible party again.
I confess, as a spectator I love messy divorces.
Kind of nice to see all the blockheads and numbskulls who want the destruction of America for the benefit of the worst people and corporations fighting for the principles of ignorance.
Yes, flippancy, it is pretty funny and can only continue as Rove and his ilk try to bring the clown car back on the road. Only two problems: the loonies are driving the car and their fear is the fuel in the tank. Limbaugh's head is ready to explode with rage and Beck screams his irrationaliteis as he is flushed back to the sewer he emerged from. Idiots all, the Repugs are in for a wild ride and can't do much about it when in the back seat. After rolling in sewage, it is hard to ask for a hug.
Whether its a Tea Party candidate or a Karl Rove candidate makes no difference to us Democrats. Thyt are all nutcase candidates. We will destroy them in 2014
Aygen
Istanbul, Turkey
I don't think the Dems need to do much, if anything. Never interfere with your enemy while he is committing suicide.
All of us try to find solutions, but there are some things that just simply need doing (Senate rules change, prosecute bankers, put people into the budget) that only the elected representatives and appointed courts have any legal authority to do. And that is why we try to elect Democrats, in the hopes that somebody will understand. I heard, in person, a speech by Michelle Obama in 2008 where she said that her husband "gets it." I'm still hoping that much more is done, and a real agenda for change occurs. The headline on NBC this evening is how drones used against Americans is legal; beats me how the lack of Due Process is legal. I want our representative government to work, but it was founded on a system where one representative stood for far fewer people than today; in 1776 the colonies had less than five million people (hence, Senate and Electoral College imbalance wasn't that important then). Today, one Representative in the House stands for about a million people, more or less (less in low population states where there are more Senators than Representatives .)
They were just people who were fed up with the Government's current course and wanted to rein it in to a more Conservative/Cl assical Liberal bent, got hornswoggled into thinking the Republicans would get them there. They don't have a seat at the table, they are not kings, just knights errant given bad orders!
If you spent as much time learning about them, maybe meet a few, as you do making fun of them, you'd find they're the rebels WallStWallFlowe rGirl wishes for, they at least have the spine to stand up for their beliefs, knowing how much they will be ridiculed, instead of succumbing to apathy and "Why Bother" martyrdom!
One of those regulations was allowing them to sell directly to the people and pick their own agents to do so instead of selling their tea at auction to wholesalers who then would sail back to the colonies to sell it to retailers.
Now before an Tea Partier makes a comment, if you remove the regulations about wholesalers entirely then you just allowed that same Tea company to sell directly to the people and put a lot of people out of business. Which is what happened in the late 1800s and early 1900s as Big Fish bought up Small Fish and destroyed competition.
In fact, almost all the conservatives were on the side of King George III. That's why George Washington said he hoped America would always be liberal, since conservatives are poisonous when they have power.
If you have a disabled child, they cannot inherit enough to support them if the state has helped pay for medical care, because the state will take back all the money first. That is a Federal law, and it means that the Federal government would rather see an adult disabled person homeless than able to manage a little bit. That is only one example of the hypocrisy; everybody has experienced (or will experience) something of that kind.
You are right of course. But why waste your time casting pearls before swine? The redFcheckers are hopeless, their ignorance astounding. God save us. RSN won't.
"A house divided," Lincoln warned "can not stand" and thus why the children of his party are falling apart. As much as I love watching them implode and turn against each other, hoping Rove ends up the biggest loser of them all, there's not much to celebrate over because while the kings fight, the peasants aren't gaining a thing.
I'd like to see Democrats take advantage of this divide, get off their arse, and show some spine, but the People aren't doing themselves any favors expecting them to fight alone. This could be the perfect storm; a mutiny on the ship against the corporate captains... But where are all the rebels?
Wall Street's Barry Obama is still president, after all.
Sometimes Wall Street wins by--ahem--losin g.
But there will still be one problem - you will STILL not be able to work with whoever wins...but go ahead and root against the T-Partyers.
(By the way, please try to stay left of center - the country needs that)
Nahhhh, Stupidity retains stupidity!!!
Karl Rove is many things, but stupid isn't one of them.
Here goes: What we call "the political right" is often divided and confused.
The big corporations want to make and keep money. Period. To secure that end, they'll try all sorts of manipulative schemes. Which explains why, sometimes, the big corporations can behave in "liberal" ways. (If liberals want to buy organic foods, or contraceptives, the big corporations will sell these items. Why not?)
However: Usually, the corporations move to the right. But there are fanatics on the political right who have their own agendas. Including racism, patriarchy, promoting religious bigotry and conspiracy theories, etc. Sometimes these social agendas can be tolerated by the big corporations. Sometimes - as Karl Rove knows - the fanatics are "bad for business."
The Tea Party was supposed to support the Republican hierarchy. Some of the Tea Party leaders went to extremes and the Republicans lost influence in some places. So, now, it's time for a bit of discipline. Maybe it'll work for Karl Rove and the big corporations. Maybe not. (Hitler and Mussolini had some tricks of their own. What's possible for the Tea Party?)
Now for a real shocker, what we call Conservative nowadays USED to be called LIBERAL!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Liberalism
1.) The Government is supposed to provide protection from external threats (Military)
2.) The Government is supposed to provide protection from cheats and INTERNAL threats, not become them (Police)
3.) The Government is supposed to maintain what NECESSARY infrastructure the Private Sector could not feasibly/profit ably perform!
Tell that to Nixon--you know he founded the EPA, right?
Tell it to Reagan--you know he was the one who started handing out the "free phones" you blame Obama for and raised taxes?
What is your personal definition of not wikipedia?
I mean let's face it, even with the foggy description you gave us:
Obama and his department of State and Defense are doing their best to defend the country...of course they can only do so much if the Senate won't confirm a new Sec'y for him. Internal cheats and threats like...? And as for the infrastructure, you need to talk to a Republican run House about that and that would not be what you say is conservative-tu rned-liberal policy.
I believe, and this is my opinion, that you are a little confused.
But I believe anything you want, you will find a way to pay for. The real problem is that want and need USED to coincide.
Now only responsible people pay for what they NEED first, then if they have any left over, THEN buy what they want.
Losers buy what they WANT first, then if they don't have enough to pay for what they NEED, then they DEMAND others pay it for them! They don't have to use their bodies to get what they want, they can use yours! Work is for suckas, right?
If they'd put down some of their prejudices and throw away their labels, they could probably get with Occupy and make a good push against the ptb.
Which is who Rove works for, so, there ya go.
Elitists such as Rove, essentially looters and moochers, don't like it.
So we've got a front row seat to this love fest between the Teapublicans and the power base of the White Wing. It's the Stupor Bowl where the Inbred Cross-eyed Crackers take on the Card-Carrying WhiteMen Insiders. Well, it's gonna be a hellova game folks with plenty of bloodletting on both sides. It's a shame somebody's gotta lose this thing, but as we all knew from the first, there can be only one.
Citizens United, its whats for dinner.
Is there such a thing as a good repub these days? Will let them fight it out, continue their hate and fear campaigns against one another...maybe it'll keep 'em busy for awhile.