A Pigs' Funeral for a Dog's Breakfast - and other Christmas Tales

As Christmas comes to Ukraine and it approaches the second anniversary of its 'new' freedom,  there is not much changed to distinguish it from the mess the Maidan made.   While it is questionable that Ukraine would have changed had it not 'gone crazy' - twenty years of doing things wrong didn't teach many lessons about doing things right - for the mistakes, rather than being undone,  are  now magnified, more numerous and far more violent than they were before.

Neo-EUkraines' singular failure was to use the nationalist right wing extremists to unseat the former government.  No matter what 'cleansing' -  purely superficial -  the 'euro-technocrats' did to clean-up for the EU and the 'free world',  the fascist rump rules the country -  and terrifies them.  The touted 'reforms' - largely to mollify foreign investors and open Ukraine up to economic exploitation - fly directly into  the 'national power'  objectives of the right wing. The notion of making Ukraine strong by selling out to the IMF may play well with expatriots in the west, but to those Ukrainians at home, now being weaned forcefully from the 'ravages' of socialism, the switch to the higher start-up costs of a fee economy stand a good chance of forcing many of them to use an EU visa (if they ever get one) to head west like their 'betters' do, and have traditionally done.

In an apparent replay of a traditional Ukrainian form of protest, farmers descended on the Rada building two days before Christmas #1 and the 'festivus for the rest of us'   celebrated by 40 percent of Ukrainians. The funeral of a pig was meant to epitomize the effect of a new 'tax' system and the budget, on Ukrainian farmers. Farmers, formerly an 'honored' estate in the country,  are now not only expected to supply their sons for the siege of the east, they're expected to sell for less - to feed the revolution and to help the entrepreneurs sell something in Europe. Russia stops buying Ukrainian produce completely in January. Ukrainians can't afford to pay Russian prices and the EU would need an even deeper discount to take food they already don't need.   It could be the farmers see the advent of another economic 'Holodmor' more clearly than they see the coming of Christ. Both are equally as frightening - or 'redeeming', if you're 'doing lunch' in the Rada restaurant.

Meanwhile Poroshenko is off in Israel keeping warm (and looking for money)   He made a point of apologizing on front of the Knesset for the 'history' of the heroic cleansing of Ukrainian (communist) Jews during the last war. Things got a little 'out of hand' then, too.


 Meanwhile 'at the front' in East Ukraine:

                           “Adolf Hitler is together with us, Adolf Hitler is in each of us, 
                   and an eagle  (America?) with iron wings will help  us at the right time,”


Merry Christmas and more of the same next year?