Just watched Vitaliy Portnikov's latest 'Politklub' tv programme on-line about the ever-increasing difficulties being faced by Ukraine's small and medium-sized businesses and traders as they are, to an ever-greater degree, being systematically squeezed by corrupt state officials, tax collectors and 'business raiders'. The atmosphere in the studio was sombre. Some called the process a second phase of 'oligarchization' of the country.
These are the people on whom the future prosperity of the country to a great extent depends.
Astonishingly, according to the programme, ever-more of their number are moving from Ukraine to Belarus to do business - there, they say, at least they know where they stand....
The small-scale entrepreneurs taking part in the programme feel very badly let down by Party of Regions and the president - they are at the end of their tether. You get the feeling that if the October elections are significantly 'fiddled' their anger may well spill out onto the streets..
2 comments:
The PoR commercials are running.
On the Savik Shuster show of Friday, June 29, 2012 - there they were, over and over.
All about "Orange chaos" and how the Party of Regions would take care of everything.
Puke
In the program, there was unanimous consent 1) that no one trusts the current "government" 2) that there is no point to turning to a corrupt government to protect one's rights 3) that the current "government" is not to be trusted.
In other words, they all recognize that Zookraine is a sovok mafia state - there is not other way to describe it.
1) The video from Odessa shows what how people literally live in a sovok mafia state. It shows 2 thugs, who have not been paid their bribes, literally squashing a basket of vegetables of a poor woman in a marketplace where people come to sell their fruits and vegetables.
Then, of course, there are the tax police, and building inspectors, and others who come around to squeeze businesses.
In other words, it is a sovok mafia state.
2) They talked about how the falsification of current elections has already begun - registration of dead people is one example.
And they talked about how Kernes was elected mayor of Kharkiv - the ballots were taken out overnight, other ballots replaced them, and a "re-count" was done.
3) There was talk of revolution, and of forming a legitimate parallel government.
But everyone was unanimous - Yanukonvikt and his banda have to go.
They agree that Yanukonvikt is not a legitimate president.
And one way to do that is to vote - as Ms. Kuzhel said, "bad governments are elected by nice people who don't vote."
One problem that I see is that there are so many organizations with the same goals, who - but they don't seem united, or at least they don't seem to be working together.
They do seem, however, to be more grass roots - in other words, it's not the same old pieces of the "political elite" in the same old kaleidescope where the pattern of the pieces may change, but the pieces and the "political elite" kaleidescope remain the same.
At least they're talking about things specifically and concretely, instead of in vague generalizations like it used to be (with feet firmly planted in the air, as P. J. O'Rourke has noted).
Vitaly Portnikov also noted the criminal matter which is threatened against Sonya Koshkina of lb.ua, for reporting on Roman Landik's brutal beating of a young woman in a restaurant which was caught on tape for all the world to see.
As you know, the 37 year old Roman Landik is married, has a kid and is a city councilman. He tried to pick up a young 20 year old woman in a restaurant, and one thing led to another, and he beat her and viciously dragged her around the floor of a restaurant by her hair for over 20 minutes.
His father is a member of Parliament, and he is the one who has brought criminal charges against journalists.
Everyone in the studio recognizes that Ukraine has been brutally robbed and pillaged over the past 20 years.
One woman asked "why", noting that communism was a very bad system, and things were supposed to get better.
The answer was - because no reforms have been implemented.
One reform - the sovok mafiosi must be removed from government.
Post a Comment