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Darth Vader Runs For President of Ukraine

Posted by samzenpus on from the I-find-your-lack-of-voting-disturbing dept.

First time accepted submitter neuroscroll (579178) writes "An unorthodox candidate presented himself for the future early presidential elections in Ukraine: the Darth Vader himself is promising to make an empire out of a republic. He is the official candidate of the Ukrainian Internet party. From the article: 'The Sith lord, or at least an unnamed costumed protester often seen on Kiev's Independence Square flanked by his loyal stormtroopers during the winter protests, has been chosen as the official candidate of the Ukrainian Internet party (UIP) which has become known for its theatrical public stunts. "After winning intra-party primaries by a landslide, comrade Vader will be our party's candidate," said the UIP leader, Dmitry Golubov, who spent time in prison after being convicted of using the internet to run a credit card fraud scheme.'"

25 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. This is a TRAVESTY! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 2

    It's un-Ukrainian! Lord Vader should remain the enforcing power of the throne - not the occupant!

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
    1. Re:This is a TRAVESTY! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 4, Funny

      But now, who will run Google?

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    2. Re:This is a TRAVESTY! by ackthpt · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's un-Ukrainian! Lord Vader should remain the enforcing power of the throne - not the occupant!

      Not only that, the power which most resembles the Empire at this moment in time is Russia.

      In Soviet Russia the Force is against YOU!

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    3. Re:This is a TRAVESTY! by Aighearach · · Score: 3, Funny

      So then it makes sense, Darth Vader is running so that he can implement Emperor Putin's will.

      In Neo-Soviet Russia, force uses you!

    4. Re:This is a TRAVESTY! by ildon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You never see the true Dark Lord, working from the shadows.

    5. Re:This is a TRAVESTY! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No. The power that resembles the Empire most is the United States.

      Where was the referendum in Serbia, or Libya or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Panama, or...

      The US boot crushes the testicles of the world. Now, go drink your Pepsi, and read more self-congratulatory pap about the "free world".

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    6. Re:This is a TRAVESTY! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 3

      Emperor Pol-Putin. Awesome. Two puns with one hyphen!

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    7. Re:This is a TRAVESTY! by aevan · · Score: 2

      Didn't Palpentine have a lot of worlds he propped up with a puppet government that weren't directly in the Empire but might as well been, serving to refuel his fleets and such? Expanded Universe being rather confusing and such for the non-hardcore... but to my knowledge there wasn't JUST empire and rebels..there were a lot of 'neutral worlds' and other alliances and such..that just bent to the Empire due to military or economic power.

    8. Re:This is a TRAVESTY! by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      If you watch it frame by frame, you can see the scenes of wookie porn that was edited in to create the subliminal desire to mate seven foot tall hairy things.

      As a six foot seven hairy thing, I am eternally grateful. Who knows how many times I've gotten laid because of a wookie fetish.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    9. Re:This is a TRAVESTY! by VortexCortex · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Where was the referendum in Serbia, or Libya or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Panama, or...

      Did US annex any of these countries?

      Yes. The USA is owned and run by international corporations. Thus wars are fought at the behest of these commercial interests. When the USA destroys some place like Iraq or Afghanistan the US companies make out like bandits not only in the military industrial complex but also the mandatory US companies doing the unsatisfactory "rebuilding" effort to fix the unnecessary "shock and awe" damage. The economy itself is replaced.

      The borders of the country and its name can even stay the same. International corporations don't care much about borders. It's the economy that matters, and what they fight for is more privatization and deregulation. Thus these countries are indeed annexed by the rulers of the USA.

    10. Re:This is a TRAVESTY! by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2

      I seriously doubt that USA had the ability to crush the USSR in 1945, regardless of Patton's opinion. It didn't have enough nukes to use them as anything other than a terror weapon, and no ability to deliver them to where they'd actually serve a strategic purpose (e.g. to attack the industrial centers in Urals).

      The "whining" over Iraq is also not groundless. It's not just about what actually happened, but also about the justification for it. In all honesty, US should acknowledge it as a bad thing, a war of aggression masquerading as liberation on very flimsy pretenses, and actually started basically to satisfy the itch of a few people in power. Then apologize, and move on

      But that does not really change the fact that there's a big difference between Iraq and Crimea, so much so that any analogies between the two are rather meaningless.

    11. Re:This is a TRAVESTY! by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2

      I mean to suggest that Saddam was not in any significant way different from a dozen other dictatorial leaders in the same region, some of them of the countries that US considers allies (like Saudi Arabia). So using that as an excuse to invade the country only makes sense if you would also go after all the other guys.

      Then, of course, there's the whole balance issue. Taking out a bloody dictator in a nice, clean coup is great and all. A full-scale invasion and occupation with more overall civilian casualties than that Saddam guy killed in 10 years prior, not so much.

      In any case, the original excuse for Iraq was that it had some WMDs that it was just itching to use against US, not some human rights issues. That became a fallback story postfactum, once it was clear that WMD bait was basically bullshit through and through.

    12. Re:This is a TRAVESTY! by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2

      By "civilian casualties" I count the entire death toll post-invasion, including intra-faction fighting, terrorist attacks etc. This is only fair, since destabilization of their society was a direct outcome of the war, so every death that happens now because of that instability that didn't happen before has to be weighted against what Saddam would've killed. Note, I'm not saying that US leadership is morally responsible for those deaths - this is an utilitarian calculation, not an ethical one. That's why I'm not going to address your "invasion vs genocidal campaign" angle - dead don't care about the motivation, determination, or remorse vs lack thereof of their killers.

      As for your 1 million count, that includes all the deaths in the Iran war, which 1) didn't happen in the preceding 10 years, 2) being a war, is not exactly the usual state of affairs for any country, and 3) Saddam was significantly aided by US in that war. On the other hand, 100-160k count is actually on the low side, because that's the number of deaths that have been meticulously documented - it's basically a standard to which no other war or unrest of that magnitude to date has been held. The more realistic number, given that in most cases deaths do go unreported in such an environment, is several times that.

      Okay, I'll grant you that it's quite possible that the overall death toll is close to what it was under Saddam - maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less. We don't really know because we don't have the accurate numbers. Either way, this doesn't exactly look like a picture of resounding humanitarian success to me. Of course, we don't really have the final numbers, either, seeing how the Iraqi government is anything but stable, the sectarian relationships are still flaring with daily terrorist attacks, and adjacent countries (most specifically, Iran and Saudi Arabia) are treating it as a convenient place to hash out their disputes, keeping the fires burning. If it blows up into a full-fledged civil war - and I'm pretty much certain that it will, within a few years at most - what death toll is there now will be peanuts in comparison.

      Really, the only ones who have been the consistent beneficiaries of the invasion were the Kurds, who finally have their de facto (and soon, possibly, de jure) nation-state - but then their independence really dates back to the first war, and was maintained largely through the no-fly zone established afterwards - the new invasion only cemented it.

  2. "the Darth Vader" by kruach+aum · · Score: 4, Insightful

    which got me thinking, I guess Darth is a title but Vader isn't, so it would be analogous to say, "the King James", which makes sense only in reference to the King James Version of the bible. Does this mean there is a Darth Vader version of badly translated Sith teachings? If so, why am I reading this shittily written article summary instead of that?

  3. It won't help if he wins by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The power of a man in a Darth Vader costume is insignificant compared to the power of a Russian tank army.

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    1. Re:It won't help if he wins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      I find your lack of faith disturbing.

  4. Presidential candidates by daniiltimin · · Score: 2

    Also ex-prisoner and ultra-nationalist are presidential candidates in Ukraine, read more about it here http://russianblogger.me/presi...

    1. Re:Presidential candidates by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      Suddenly Vader looks quite like he was the humane choice...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  5. Imperial March by Akaihiryuu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Will Ukraine be changing their national anthem to the Imperial March? Cause that would be pretty awesome.

  6. Probably the most sane candidate out there by prizrak · · Score: 2

    This may sound funny, but I'm serious, compared to current candidate line-up - Darth is the most sane of them all, compared to Yarosh, Timoshenko and Poroshenko he is much less extreme. If I had Ukrainian citizenship - I would definitely vote for him versus other right and ultra-right candidates.

  7. Cthulhu should run for office, too! by Ihlosi · · Score: 2

    Why vote for any lesser evil?

  8. Makes sense. by Minwee · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When every other candidate is certifiably loopy, there's a pretty low bar for competing with them.

    Toronto mayoral candidates are currently running on platforms of smoking weed in office but not crack, getting publicly drunk without threatening to kill anyone, and only urinating in public where there are no cameras around.

    Sadly, all of these promises put them ahead of the incumbent.

  9. Just Great by quantaman · · Score: 2

    First they had fascists in the government and now they'll have Sith. At the very least they should get Magneto as defence minister and fill the army up with Cylons.

    --
    I stole this Sig
  10. Re:Masked Leaders by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    With some, a voice changer would actually be an improvement. Let alone a mask.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  11. What we know... by Livius · · Score: 2

    is that Darth Vader managed to commit massive violations of civil and human rights and have probably the two most costly military projects in history fail on his watch, despite which he was completely ineffective in his counter-terrorism policy. His career as a public servant was a series of disasters.

    So, about the same as most Earth politicians.