injunjane

Yesterday I went to watch Avatar 3, presumably to replenish my positive emotion supply and be able to function through the year.

As a result, replenished the whole spectrum of emotions from the positive to the most undesirable - because too many associations with the current state of the world.

In Avatar 3 the beautiful story remains unfinished, and we don't know yet if Pandora continues its existence as paradise, or turns into ashes.

Still, it's incredibly beautiful and aerial as in previous two episodes.

Recent article by former commander, current ambassador Valerii Zaluzhny:

https://www.liga.net/ua/politics/opinion/polityka-i-viyna-realnist-proty-ochikuvannia

People who are trained to think in black and white (god/devil, democrats/republicans, pro-immigrants/anti-immigrants, communism/capitalism) risk to fall into a hole of loosing rational people to their cause.

Those people who know there is never a simple answer to complex questions.

Yes - sometimes it's necessary to simplify the situation, but not to the point when one starts calling commies 'antifa' or the disgust towards terrorism and misogyny 'islamophobia'

PS Still, I truly admire wonderful people who went to No Kings protests this week. Hope it will bear fruit and the USA won't turn into a fascist state. That would be a total disaster.

I feel like I finally need to say something about all this threatening tendencies in European communities - developing and reincarnating racism and 'anti-emigrant' fear.

I was born to a mixed-root family that traveled multiple times from Baltic sea to Pacific ocean and back within the lifetime of one or two generations. My father is a retired shipbuilder (who wanted to be a sailor) and from him I inherited love to the seas and far-distance travel. For such people as our family racism or extreme nationalism was impossible simply because we already belonged to several nations, but by traveling around the world we belong to many more.

Minimum one of which (if to exclude Jewish roots in my Ukrainian branch living in Odessa, which they deny but..) is not so-called 'white'.
That's why I was so infuriated by the US questionnaires I had to fill in during my stay in Virginia - how I was supposed to write my 'colour' if some of my ancestors were Slavic but some were Asian???

The whole concept of 'colour' is very alien to Ukrainians, we are used to the multi-cultural approach and to real things as 'peoples' and 'nations' that are identifiable and unique indeed. And yes, Ukraine is a multi-national, multi-cultural, multi-language country. Along with Eastern Slavic citizens, we've got Greeks, Jews, Crimean Tatars and many, many more.

But what disturbs me a lot, is a huge recent inflow of people whose culture seem not to support basic European values - such as human rights, gender equality, secular law, and systematic secular education in general.
Probably my generation won't face the dilemma 'should women wear hijab or not', but the generation of my niece or her future daughter(s) might.

So instead of creating witch-hunts for people of different skin colour (which has no direct connection to neither morality nor intelligence), ruling leaders should think about the more effective methods of cultural assimilation of people who might not support European idea of equality.

(actually, I would culturally assimilate a lot of Europeans sensu stricto into the group of 'normal sane people')

But it would require time that populists don't have. Much easier to document anti-immigrant raids than to spend money, effort and most importantly - brain resources to enlighten people who do not support equality and democracy.

Equally, it's much easier to wave rainbow flags and shout slogans instead of real education and developing knowledge system (my stone to the garden of the far leftists). It's hard to show people what's just and right not only at the moment, but for the future generations.

The world is about to burn to the ground, but those dumb-heads in the internet continue to pollute the environment with their cries about 'releasing Epstein files' (that will never be released because obviously there are way more important people than the current retarded-in-charge aka potus in them),

about transgenders who are very much alive and kicking, while only in Ukraine tens, if not hundreds, horrible deaths caused by Russian weapons happen every day,

about 'children of Gaza' who are of course suffering, while their parents continue to brainwash them and themselves with their stupid poisonous religion and irrational hate of Jews.

Get out of your warm aquarium and go see the real world outside your overconfident country, with your own eyes and not through the media. Maybe then you'll see the real danger.

In light of recent events I'm reading anxious facebook posts of some colleagues who currently live there.

One of them, who is a Jew and a former Russian citizen who emigrated to Israel at the beginning of the open phase of Russo-Ukrainian war, answered some of my questions and gave permission to cite him (anonymously). I think this is an objective opinion considering that he's a highly educated, politically neutral, empathic man and a good objective scientist.

The questions I asked him were:

- what do you think about Netanyahu government and their policy?
- why no humanitarian aid is allowed to Gaza?
- is it true that Israeli soldiers are raping Palestinians?
- what's going on in general?

That's his rather concise answer.

"...Disclaimer - from an Israeli perspective, I have extreme leftist views, while most Russian-speaking Israelis have rightist views.

(from a perspective of a European, his views are those of centrist, I wouldn't even say left-centrist)
( Read more... )

I have a feeling that the black and white picture painted by media (in particular, politically engaged media in the US and UK) is as far from Middle East reality as Mickey and Minnie Mouse from the real mice. People are paid to do their job well, but the problem is the real situation simply doesn't fit in any pattern currently present in their still sterilized-by-rational-and-mostly-Christian-mind Western bubble.

The problem is, this bubble is surrounded by cultures that do not fit in their paradigm neither mentally nor in terms of religious views. And those cultures number billions of individuals. If you continue to ignore this fact and measure everything by the standards of your small, warm aquarium, the shock of a collision with the ocean depths (which will happen sooner or later) will be very great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37UNVE7A6-M

My phrase of the day today:

вони усі йобнуті

You won't probably understand from the direct translation how bad it is.

My deep apologies in advance to the people who won't like this posting. I'm not so much criticizing but sincerely wondering right now.

I don't remember any European country where only two political parties existed, following each other in a mathematically regular manner, turn after turn. What's the point in the elections if you know that next turn will be the opponent of the currently ruling group, I wonder.

In Ukraine there are over 30 currently acting parties, and 19 banned ones (which are either communists or direct Russian puppets): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_Ukraine

In France with multi-party system there are 8 major parties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_France

For me European watching elections and post-election mess in the US is like watching Vorlons and Shadows switching turns in ruling the Universe. I'm desperately trying to figure out WHY there are only two major parties and not more.

Why the options are so limited and you can't be anti-Hamas and pro-Ukrainian in the same time (because that's either democrats who are 'pro-Palestinian' and pro-Ukrainian, or republicans who are the opposite). Why one can vote for social support for orphans, veterans and ill people but cannot criticize criminal situation among the immigrants. Why if the government is trying to solve criminal situation connected to immigrants, it starts to throw out everyone - people in dangerous situation seeking asylum, people without any criminal record (which is more than 50% of US illegal immigrants), people with only minor law breach like speeding ticket...Just why??

What kind of square-minded binary system is that?

Another thing that never made any sense to me is the necessity to indicate 'race' instead of nationality or citizenship. And not only in medical records, but practically everywhere including questionnaire for a university library.

Nationality and in many cases citizenship is an objective thing connected to certain languages and cultures. For example, by blood I'm half Ukrainian half Russian - with some Asians mingled in that tandem, probably during the Mongol invasion, due to the genes of whom I can't drink alcohol. I speak both UKR and RU as mother-tongues. I always list myself as Ukrainian (in terms of nationality, not only citizenship) because I hate Russian mentality from the bottom of my heart, as a person who spent part of my life in that goddamn country. So, these things mean something.

When I came to US for the internship, I had to fill in endless documents where I was asked to fill in my race, the options presented to me were: 'white', 'Asian', 'black' (which is dubious, because it puts together African people, Indians, Romas and Australian aborigenies), 'Latino' (which is not even a biological race!). There was no race for Native Americans (who actually ARE a biological race)

That was making me furious as hell each time I had to do that. Am I white, because I'm Ukrainian?? But what about my Asian genes, do they make me Asian? Do they treat Turkish and Chinese Asian the same or not? What percentage of 'Asian' should I have to be considered one?

I started to write 'I'll be white when I'm dead, you idiots!' in those papers. Meaning the colour of my dead body, of course.
And surprisingly managed to finish my internship without being arrested.

Anne Toulouse, a franco-american journalist, published a book about Trump's politics called 'L'art de trumper' (The art how to 'Trump').

Le mensonge est un péché capital aux États-Unis lorsqu’il est fait sous serment ou sur un document officiel, comme une déclaration d’impôt. Parmi tous les mensonges de Donald Trump, celui qui peut vraiment lui coûter cher est d’avoir fait une fausse évaluation de ses biens dans des déclarations financières. Dans la vie courante, les Américains ne sont ni plus ni moins menteurs que les autres et ne se font guère d’illusion sur les rapports de leurs élus avec la vérité. Comme je le raconte dans « L’Art de trumper », le Washington Post a créé une rubrique qui répertorie les mensonges politiques, elle décerne à ceux qui les pratiquent des « Pinocchio » par référence au personnage dont le nez s’allonge à chaque entorse à la vérité. Il y a une division d’élite, « les Pinocchio sans fin », qui récompense « ceux qui ont proféré si souvent des affirmations fausses ou trompeuses que cela s’apparente à de la propagande ».

In French, there is verb 'se tromper' meaning 'to be mistaken', 'to make a mistake'. In the context of the book 'se trumper' is rather 'how to bully the world'

WE UKRAINIANS ARE INFURIATED

Trump is such a brainless moron. He's just bowed to Russia, not even having a single direct clash between NATO and the Russian Federation.