Protests in the DC world

Any and all discussion about Dark Conspiracy, the RPG of modern conspiracy horror
Locked
User avatar
ReHerakhte
Darkling
Posts: 1207
Joined: Sun Jul 23, 2006 12:30 am
Location: Australia, west coast. Hiding in the ceiling, waiting for the aliens...
Contact:

Protests in the DC world

Post by ReHerakhte »

DC pretended the world was bad but you don't have to look far to see that the world really can be a very shitty place some days.

Found this article while looking for something else but having just finished reading Zvezda's latest post (about UK Govt paying for young woman to work in sex clubs, post here), it prompted me to think that governments with limited finances would probably resort to hardline tactics to deal with any crisis, including protests.

The following page shows images from an anti-government protest in Kiev, Ukraine in February of this year.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ukraine-crisis ... ev-1437260
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ukraine-crisis ... rs-1437230

During the course of the protest, government forces used snipers to shoot at particular protesters. The protesters were asking for government reform and were demonstrating in Independence Square... where the government chose to suppress them - irony in lethal extreme.
The sequence of the images is interesting specifically for the final picture, which shows what I think would be an expected response to the treatment of the protesters. Of course, that leads on to all sorts of problems...
It's not whether you win or lose,

It's whether I win...
User avatar
Zvezda
Darkling
Posts: 1151
Joined: Tue May 09, 2006 4:57 pm

Re: Protests in the DC world

Post by Zvezda »

Since this is not a good place to discuss politics and for those not interested in my personal opinion about the Ukraine I have coloured the political part a greyish blue so you can ignore it more easily.

About that Ukraine thing…I try to keep it as neutral as possible. Due to the language difficulties I need to make clear that by no means I support the democratically elected President of the Ukraine Mr. Yanukovych. In my opinion he could be best described as a kleptocrat. All the problems the people in Ukraine face are real. However, there are several difficulties with the way the protest is covered by the western media. First of all, the Ukrainian fascists have the total hegemony over the protests. If you take a look at the dominant flags at the protests you will notice a blue flag with a yellow hand on it and the Slogan Swoboda (Freedom). I think it was in 2004 that the Ukrainian National-Socialist Party changed their name form that to Swoboda to become more respectable. They also changed their party symbol from a symbol similar to the Germanic “Eiwaz” rune (a symbol called wolf-hook in German and like the swastika is outlawed in Germany) to that hand which is now on the flag. They are still the same neo Nazis though. An other fascist symbol is that black and red flag often seen on the photos. That is the flag of the historic nazi-collaborators of WWII. If you like to, you can look the opposition leader Oleh Tjahnybok up. He is an open fascist who claims that a “jewish-mafia” is running the state and who makes no secret about his desire to take away the human rights of all those he does not consider as Ukrainians. Not all of the opposition politicians are fascists though all of them have an alliance with neo-nazis.

This brings us to the next point. Yanukovych was democratically elected and accepted by the west. He has considerable support in the eastern Ukraine. Many former soviet citizens who now live in the eastern Ukraine are ethnic Russians. And naturally they are not to keen in supporting an opposition which makes no secret about the fact that they will take away their human rights once they are in power. This is a very serious threat. Like many eastern European nations the Ukraine is ethnically divided. The support for the opposition biggest is in the cities in the east, while the support for President Yanukovych’s Party (which no longer supports mr. Yanukovych as I type) is largest in the east among the working class people. So by no means all of the people of the Ukraine are against the elected government. Not even a majority.

The last thing is shooting peaceful protesters. After weeks of severe rioting (for reasons unknown to me called “peaceful protest” by the same media who proliferated stories about the Iraqi WMDs) the fascist paramilitaries requested their supporters to bring guns to the protest. There are tons of pictures on the net with protesters firing hand guns. It is difficult to tell who started shooting. The fascists however have frequently attacked and hospitalised opposition supporters which they perceived as anti-fascist or too democratic.

That said, I must repeat that I neither support Yanukovych nor the Ukrainian police. A police force notorious for rape and brutality. Last year there were several occasions when riots erupted in the Ukraine because of the torture of women in police custody. All I want to say is, that things in the Ukraine are very complicated. The western media is not (or not always) deliberately lying about what is going on, but they are only covering small parts of the whole situation.


On the game dimension I will post some thoughts later.
Руки Вверх!
User avatar
ReHerakhte
Darkling
Posts: 1207
Joined: Sun Jul 23, 2006 12:30 am
Location: Australia, west coast. Hiding in the ceiling, waiting for the aliens...
Contact:

Re: Protests in the DC world

Post by ReHerakhte »

Zvezda, thanks for your insight into the Ukraine situation. When I posted originally, the only information I had was from the Western media and as you've pointed out, they may not necessarily lie or fabricate their news stories but they don't often try to get a balanced view of the facts either.

From the sources I have seen, no mention is made of the protesters bringing guns but it was implied that they started to bring guns after being shot at by the snipers.
All politics and real world nastiness aside, the way the Western media has performed is again, another classic example of how things could be in a DC world.
And again, DC (amongst a few other games) has really shown itself to be closer to the real world than I'd actually like... I'm just glad there's no Gates and Bloodkin here... yet.
It's not whether you win or lose,

It's whether I win...
User avatar
Zvezda
Darkling
Posts: 1151
Joined: Tue May 09, 2006 4:57 pm

Re: Protests in the DC world

Post by Zvezda »

Very good point. As a mattoer of fact I have no idea who started shooting. The Ukrainian police is notorious for its brutality so are the fascsist thugs.
From the very beining I thought that DC (probably due to the horror aspect) was always colser to my view of the future than CP2020 or other dystopian games. One thing for example is leaving "light ones" or any other higher force wich opposes the dark invasion out. The government is corrupted and so are the mega corporations. You can basically only choose the "lesser evil". I think that could be one of the selling problems of DC. It is not really heroic. Though of cause it can be played that way.
Now for the protests, in real life I think the DCish part will now start in the Ukrain. With 100 people dead and the dark elfs out the bloodkins will seize the power. Though some flags and Symbols will changes. As for rioting and protest in DC I think two factors are very important. First, the people should be banned from entering important places in the cities. Let them protest all they want on the countrysite. It is outlaw territory anyways. They can try and block the checkpoints to the corporate areas but if possible rioting should take place in the uncontrolled zones. From the point of view of the dark minions it is good to feed on fear. Fear is the best way to keep the cattle in line. Not that kind of fear dictatorships impose on their subjects but rather that kind of fear which is so common in democratic societies. Poverty and the life as a prole are results of individual incompetence. The poor are responsiblel for their poverty and they must be constantly reminded of that. Taking away their right to vote is a very good way of showing them their status. Way below a normal person. Depressions and a good Inferiority complex can be more usefull than snipers in the riot police. If you compare the 100 deaths in the Ukraine with the 500 crisis relatet suicides in Greece last year you see what I mean.

And now back to the Ukraine for a short while: They truely party like it is 1929. In many ways the current events in the Ukraine resamble the mach on Rome and the beerhall putsch. If you like to, you can have a look at the forces of evil. I assume as fans of conspiracy horror, delta green and the like you are fammilar with the black sun.
Руки Вверх!
User avatar
Zvezda
Darkling
Posts: 1151
Joined: Tue May 09, 2006 4:57 pm

Re: Protests in the DC world

Post by Zvezda »

It seems that things are going from bad to worse now. One might think that those in power in the Ukraine might be concerned about corruption, social welfare or health. Rather not. Instead they passed a law to repeal minority rights.
Руки Вверх!
Locked