“Well, that was fast. At the beginning of the year, it seemed apt to meditate on the catastrophes of a century past, and on the chance that we might, once again, be passengers on some Titanic of history, with a small flaw in the hull opened by some unforeseen iceberg. And it seemed worth stressing that what had brought the ship down—in short, what made 1914 happen—was, above all, the vulnerability of open societies to the panicked appeal to honor and the fear of humiliation.” >full essay
(c) THE NEW YORKER, 2014
delirium clemens 
What Putin, Lukashenko and Yanukovych Share
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Alexander Lukashenko, authoritarianism, Belarus, Eastern Europe, leadership, political commentary, Russia, Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, Vladmir Putin on 3 November 2013 by delclem“Last Friday marked the 10th anniversary of the imprisonment of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Meanwhile, former presidential candidate Nikolai Statkevich, leader of the Belarussian Social Democratic Party, will start the third year of a six-year sentence in a medium security penal colony. In Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko will have completed two years of her seven-year sentence for “abuse of power” and “embezzlement” unless released under the pressure of the European Union. All three are widely considered to be political prisoners. But while focus has often been on the wrongfulness of their detentions, less has been written about the motives of those behind them: Presidents Vladimir Putin, Alexander Lukashenko and Viktor Yanukovych.” >full text (c) THE MOSCOW TIMES, 2013
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