The Better Angels of our Nature
Friday night in San Francisco : our big public bus rolling stock largely runs empty after 9:00. Like Kiev, our Metro/ BART rapid transit shuts down at Midnight/ 12:30. ASIDE from the Famous cable cars, there isn't a lot of soul in our public transit, we are moving at the speed of technology here. Ukraine keeps going the way it always has. They do know their maintenance. Even going to Lviv , Dnepropetrovsk, there's something so charming about the old cars grinding along on slightly misaligned track, great for soufflé music videos ))
As much as Ms Clinton is the presumptive Democratic nominee, and it seems certain she'd have square off against Mister Putin in the general primary, it is certainly a question wether her contacts with Mister Pinchuk in Ukraine will be an asset or a limited liability. Her eager campaign workers seem generally oblivious to the tangled web of issues regarding steel export markets, domestic steel production in the USA, and our labor unions. People as usual want to simplify it, that it's about energy and Geopolitical constraints. Yet Wheat production, steel, IT sector technology, and energy usage and production all play into a scenario with Ukraine shifting into the EU. Maybe it's not so much about the belt of Defense for Russia , but Pork bellies / the meat market. Really maybe it's all just about Russia feeling like the jilted lover ? It's been a horrid and useless war, and I am sure most people want things to get back to a semblance of normal.
How Ms Clinton, Mister Bush or "The Donald " will handle it is anybody's guess. Hearing rational people take a position that the Donald can be good for America, maybe it sounds bizarre , but it could happen, what will happen with the Crimean energy development ?? This annexation issue will drag on forever, certainly for a generation as I sense it. At best maybe they can hope for an emergence of autonomous statehood, at least economically/ since the Siberian republics in Russians Eastern regions want that, to reduce their subsidy of the managerial elites in Moscow.
The Clinton organization understands the American peoples yearnings for the way things were in the 90's / It was under Mister Clinton that Ukraine gave up the third largest Nuclear Arsenal in the world. A lot of Americans forget about, or fail to comprehend this simple fact, but it would be another backdrop in a Hillary Clinton presidency. How are we going to make the wrong done onto Ukraine's territory right ? Maybe the Budapest Memorandum was too open ended ? The lawyers didn't have a proper look at it..... Russia never would have done this number on Ukraine if they had a few Nukes still kicking around. In 2010 they worked with the US to remove the last bits of enriched Uranium/ plutonium from Ukraine, to be re milled in Russia. Given all the rancor surrounding renewal of the Naval base leases in Crimea, maybe it's not a secret Russia simply wanted Crimea back.
Having been in Crimea at the time, New Year's eve 2013/2014, having been there on a previous New Year, I could tell something was off, it was too quiet, too dark, and there seemed to be a sense of celebration of something hidden under the tablecloth. Yet the band played on : not many people really showed up for this little rally, most of them seemed like they were being payed, there weren't any young people, hipsters, techies or families with baby carriages....
Perhaps no one knew about the Amur River memorandum that was being signed by representatives of Moscow and Beijing in secret at the time? Maybe only now, through Ling Wancheng's defection to the USA are we learning it's murky details ? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/12/state-secrets-or-golf-secrets-murky-case-of-ling-wancheng-tests-china-us-ties If it does really exist, it's about a lot more than just a back door trade deal.
As much as Ms Clinton is the presumptive Democratic nominee, and it seems certain she'd have square off against Mister Putin in the general primary, it is certainly a question wether her contacts with Mister Pinchuk in Ukraine will be an asset or a limited liability. Her eager campaign workers seem generally oblivious to the tangled web of issues regarding steel export markets, domestic steel production in the USA, and our labor unions. People as usual want to simplify it, that it's about energy and Geopolitical constraints. Yet Wheat production, steel, IT sector technology, and energy usage and production all play into a scenario with Ukraine shifting into the EU. Maybe it's not so much about the belt of Defense for Russia , but Pork bellies / the meat market. Really maybe it's all just about Russia feeling like the jilted lover ? It's been a horrid and useless war, and I am sure most people want things to get back to a semblance of normal.
How Ms Clinton, Mister Bush or "The Donald " will handle it is anybody's guess. Hearing rational people take a position that the Donald can be good for America, maybe it sounds bizarre , but it could happen, what will happen with the Crimean energy development ?? This annexation issue will drag on forever, certainly for a generation as I sense it. At best maybe they can hope for an emergence of autonomous statehood, at least economically/ since the Siberian republics in Russians Eastern regions want that, to reduce their subsidy of the managerial elites in Moscow.
The Clinton organization understands the American peoples yearnings for the way things were in the 90's / It was under Mister Clinton that Ukraine gave up the third largest Nuclear Arsenal in the world. A lot of Americans forget about, or fail to comprehend this simple fact, but it would be another backdrop in a Hillary Clinton presidency. How are we going to make the wrong done onto Ukraine's territory right ? Maybe the Budapest Memorandum was too open ended ? The lawyers didn't have a proper look at it..... Russia never would have done this number on Ukraine if they had a few Nukes still kicking around. In 2010 they worked with the US to remove the last bits of enriched Uranium/ plutonium from Ukraine, to be re milled in Russia. Given all the rancor surrounding renewal of the Naval base leases in Crimea, maybe it's not a secret Russia simply wanted Crimea back.
Having been in Crimea at the time, New Year's eve 2013/2014, having been there on a previous New Year, I could tell something was off, it was too quiet, too dark, and there seemed to be a sense of celebration of something hidden under the tablecloth. Yet the band played on : not many people really showed up for this little rally, most of them seemed like they were being payed, there weren't any young people, hipsters, techies or families with baby carriages....
Perhaps no one knew about the Amur River memorandum that was being signed by representatives of Moscow and Beijing in secret at the time? Maybe only now, through Ling Wancheng's defection to the USA are we learning it's murky details ? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/12/state-secrets-or-golf-secrets-murky-case-of-ling-wancheng-tests-china-us-ties If it does really exist, it's about a lot more than just a back door trade deal.
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