[aaus-list] "Cult of corruption"... Why does this happen inAmerica? What should Ukraine learn from this?

[Max Pyziur]

On Thu, 16 Oct 2008, Kravchuk, Bob wrote:

> Dear Vadim:
>
> This happens in America beacuse the Hobbesian decsription of the human 
> condition is the same worldwide. That is,  there are scoundrels 
> everywhere, and they need to be pursued, and locked away. The lesson 
> that Ukraine will learn from this is that free societies like America's 
> will root out this cancer. Ukrainian political institutions are still
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Then why hasn't George Bush been impeached? And why haven't any of the 
members of his administration been tried for treason?

It's clearly false to assume that "free societies" deterministically are 
just. In the United States you had the slaves freed in the mid-19th 
century, yet it took at least another hundred years before there was 
any clear action against Jim Crow legislation. And then how 
long before it was implemented? And with what consequences?

Look at what happened to several hundred thousand  west coast 
Japanese-Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. All property 
- as in homes and land - was confiscated and never returned, and people 
were sent to concentration camps. The only restitution that they received 
was a judgement in the early 1980s to distribute ~$22k per person to 
settle any and all claims.

Much as there has been no restitution for injustices such as the 
deportations to Central Asia and appropriations of property in the 
mid-1940s to Ukrainians and other peoples, among other things, there have 
been no reparations to the descendants of African-American slaves. There 
is at least one organization working in this direction: National Coalition 
Of Blacks for Reparations in America - http://www.ncobra.org/mission.htm

At least, the Ostarbeiters, including several hundred thousand Ukrainians, 
got something - $2-3 thousand per head - from the governments of Germany 
and Austria, courtesy of lawsuit that was initiated in the United States.


> too nascent to do so effectively.

I guess 230 years is still a little young.

> -Robert Kravchuk

Max Pyziur
pyz at brama.com



> ________________________________
>
> From: aaus-list-bounces at ukrainianstudies.org on behalf of Vadim
> Sent: Tue 10/14/2008 11:22 PM
> To: aaus; ukrainians
> Subject: [aaus-list] "Cult of corruption"... Why does this happen inAmerica? What should Ukraine learn from this?
>
>
>
> http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/14/oil.whistleblower/index.html
> _______________________________________________
> aaus-list mailing list
> aaus-list at ukrainianstudies.org
> http://www.brama.com/mailman/listinfo/aaus-list
>
>
>