Tensions in Ukraine rise as Ukrainian Diplomat calls Putin a "Fucker"

[freshwest]

19. Nah he was just playing to the crowd and got the response he wanted. Putin has done the same thing.

But only when playing to his base.

Few people had heard of Vladimir Putin when Russia's then-President Boris Yeltsin appointed him prime minister in 1999. But the stern-faced former KGB officer triggered a love affair with the Russian population — by starting a popular second war in Chechnya later that year...

"If they're in the airport," Putin said, "we'll kill them there... and excuse me, but if we find them in the toilet, we'll exterminate them in their outhouses."

...Putin has often lost his temper in public. During a 2002 news conference in Brussels, Belgium, the president responded to a question that angered him by inviting a reporter to come to Moscow to be circumcised:

"We have specialists in this question, as well," Putin said. "I'll recommend that he carry out the operation in such a way that nothing will grow back..."

More 'Putinisms' down the page at:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90083829

http://metamorphosis.democraticunderground.com/1014767734#post4

Obama does not play that way, but he's called weak and spineless for not going the low road, which serves nothing but to whip up the frenzy of the voters and potential goons who act in mobs.

Such as those flipping over the cars and then jumping on them. It looks like primates at the zoo, but they see themselves as freedom fighters. It's tiresome seeing these kind of images, so much like our Teaterrorists here.

In my humble opinion:

#1: The Russians got their embassy attacked, which is the act of mobs in nations worldwide who feel slighted and have no other way to express themselves, and are often reactionaries fighting change.

#2: The f-word or d-word is inconsequential to the larger issues dividing Russia and Ukraine. They were once one nation and atrocities were committed. Those were in response to long ago atrocities.

The region is and has been a mess for centuries with some periods of calm and prosperity. It is the soil of infamous dictators and they didn't become what they were in a vacuum. It is a shame, as both the region and its people have great potential and resources:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017196879

They are generally a well educated people, like the Russians. I suspect their oligarchs, like ours, is more than happy to fuel the baser reactions of some of the people there, and for the same reason, to divide and conquer.

#3: Russia was within its rights to complain of its embassy being attacked, no matter how egregious some may consider the acts of Russia today or throughout history. If the vote was as reported, that the western powers said to give this a free pass, I suspect they won't bleat to anyone about their own embassies getting torched.

But on second thought, they don't fuss about that, really. They lick their wounds and try again, or break off relations. That won't happen in Ukraine.

I don't see it as freedom of speech or expression to cross the line between protest and mayhem. Some might excuse it as better than all out slaughter. Sounds like degrees of crime, some are acceptable, some are not to some. And a bit like the 2A guys calling their right to intimidate others with their guns the same thing as freedom of speech, when it clearly shuts down dialogue.

#4: The first OP shouldn't have been hidden since DU dotes on the word. And it was the video title. Someone doesn't want to have this heard. Or seen. Although I could have done without seeing just how idiotic mobs act, but it shouldn't be hidden.

#5: The reporter making a big deal of that one word and so very concerned about the effects of diplomacy, is silly. Tthe 'diplomat' playing to the camera doesn't appear to be the brightest light in the room and he's not the ultimate authority.

JMHO. YMMV.