injunjane

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.

(still trying to verify the info in this video, but even if it's a joke - it's a good one)

Ukrainian youtuber Vladimir Zolkin in his recent video about the deportation of the illegal immigrants from the US showed a new document that he claimed to be issued by the US government and recently published by Fox News (haha).

Among the countries to where these people will be deported are:

- USSR (non-existent since the end of 1991), 337 people
- Yugoslavia (gradually disintegrating up until 2007 when Montenegro separated from Serbia), 845 people.

I guess those people managed to live 'illegally' for 35+ years in the US, never changing their passports.

I hope the people who are 'USSR citizens' won't be deported to the Russian Federation, Belarus or Turkmenistan. Maybe the best place for them now is Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia (which are now in the EU) - taking that they know the language.
And the 'Yugoslavians' will go to Macedonia, there are really beautiful mountains there.