A Letter to the Western Left from Kyiv: Why did so many leftists turn a blind eye to Russian aggression?

This was published in a couple of places: Dissent and Open Democracy. I want to repost it since it is important to the debate, and really doesn't just apply to the left.

I know why I was sort of silent on this topic. I didn't have the information on the Donbass. I stopped hearing from the people I knew in that area after the takeover. And, he's correct, as someone whose connection to Ukraine is the West (Lviv oblast) and the nationalists from that area, I could buy the fear of the Ukrainian nationalist segment by ethnic Russians in the east as a reason to be close to Russia.[1] Toss in that a lot of people couldn't imagine that Putain would be insane enough to attack Ukraine. I was correct that there would be resistance, but I was surprised that the resistance would be as wide-spread as it has been. That said:

A Letter to the Western Left from Kyiv
Why did so many leftists turn a blind eye to Russian aggression?
Taras Bilous ▪ February 26, 2022

I am writing these lines in Kyiv while it is under artillery attack.
Until the last minute, I had hoped that Russian troops wouldn’t launch a full-scale invasion. Now, I can only thank those who leaked the information to the U.S. intelligence services.
Yesterday, I spent half the day considering whether I ought to join a territorial defense unit. During the night that followed, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky signed a full mobilization order and Russian troops moved in and prepared to encircle Kyiv, which made the decision for me.
But before taking up my post, I would like to communicate to the Western left what I think about its reaction to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
First of all, I am thankful to those leftists who are now picketing Russian embassies—even those who took their time to realize Russia was the aggressor in this conflict.
I am thankful to politicians who support putting pressure on Russia to stop the invasion and withdraw its troops.
And I am thankful to the delegation of British and Welsh MPs, unionists, and activists who came to support us and hear us in the days before the Russian invasion.
I am also thankful to the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign in the United Kingdom for its help over many years.
This article is about the other part of the Western left. Those who imagined “NATO aggression in Ukraine,” and who could not see Russian aggression—like the New Orleans chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Or the DSA International Committee, which published a shameful statement failing to say a single critical word against Russia (I am very thankful to U.S. professor and activist Dan La Botz and the others for their critique of this statement).
Or those who criticized Ukraine for not implementing the Minsk Agreements and kept silent about their violations by Russia and the so-called “People’s Republics.”
Or those who exaggerated the influence of the far right in Ukraine but did not notice the far right in the “People’s Republics” and avoided criticizing Putin’s conservative, nationalist, and authoritarian policy. Part of the responsibility for what is happening rests with you.
This is part of the wider phenomenon in the Western “anti-war” movement, usually called “campism” by critics on the left. British-Syrian author and activist Leila Al-Shami gave it a stronger name: the “anti-imperialism of idiots.” Read her wonderful 2018 essay if you haven’t done so yet. I will repeat only the main thesis here: the activity of a large part of the Western “anti-war” left over the war in Syria had nothing to do with stopping the war. It only opposed Western interference, while ignoring, or even supporting, the engagement of Russia and Iran, to say nothing of their attitude to the “legitimately elected” Assad regime in Syria.
“A number of anti-war organisations have justified their silence on Russian and Iranian interventions by arguing that ‘the main enemy is at home,’” Al-Shami wrote. “This excuses them from undertaking any serious power analysis to determine who the main actors driving the war actually are.”
Unfortunately, we have seen the same ideological cliché repeated over Ukraine. Even after Russia recognized the independence of the “People’s Republics” earlier this week, Branko Marcetic, a writer for American left magazine Jacobin, penned an article almost fully devoted to criticizing the United States. When it came to Putin’s actions, he went only as far as remarking that the Russian leader had “signal[ed] less-than-benign ambitions.” Seriously?
I am not a fan of NATO. I know that after the end of the Cold War, the bloc lost its defensive function and led aggressive policies. I know that NATO’s eastward expansion undermined efforts directed at nuclear disarmament and forming a system of joint security. NATO tried to marginalize the role of the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and to discredit them as “inefficient organizations.” But we cannot bring back the past, and we have to orient ourselves on the current circumstances when seeking a way out of this situation.
How many times did the Western left bring up the United States’ informal promises to the former Russian president, Mikhail Gorbachev, about NATO (“not one inch eastward”), and how many times did it mention the 1994 Budapest Memorandum that guarantees Ukraine’s sovereignty? How often did the Western left support the “legitimate security concerns” of Russia, a state that owns the world’s second-largest nuclear arsenal? And how often did it recall the security concerns of Ukraine, a state that had to trade its nuclear weapons, under the pressure of the United States and Russia, for a piece of paper (the Budapest Memorandum) that Putin trampled conclusively in 2014? Did it ever occur to leftist critics of NATO that Ukraine is the main victim of the changes brought about by the NATO expansion?
Time and again, the Western left responded to the critique of Russia by mentioning U.S. aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq, and other states. Of course, these states need to be brought into the discussion—but how, exactly?
The argument of the left should be that in 2003, other governments did not put enough pressure on the United States over Iraq. Not that it is necessary to exert less pressure on Russia over Ukraine now.



An Obvious Mistake 

Imagine for a moment that, in 2003, when the United States was preparing for the invasion of Iraq, Russia had behaved like the United States has in recent weeks: with threats of escalation.
Now imagine what the Russian left might have done in that situation, according to the dogma of “our main enemy is at home.” Would it have criticized the Russian government for this “escalation,” saying that it “should not jeopardize inter-imperialist contradictions”? It is obvious to everyone that such behavior would have been a mistake in that case. Why was this not obvious in the case of the aggression against Ukraine?
In another Jacobin article from earlier this month, Marcetic went as far as saying that Fox News’s Tucker Carlson was “completely right” about the “Ukraine crisis.” What Carlson had done was question “Ukraine’s strategic value to the United States.” Even Tariq Ali in the New Left Review approvingly quoted the calculation of German admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach, who said that giving Putin “respect” over Ukraine was “low cost, even no cost,” given that Russia could be a useful ally against China. Are you serious? If the United States and Russia could reach an agreement and start a new Cold War against China as allies, would that really be what we wanted?



Reforming the UN

I am not a fan of liberal internationalism. Socialists should criticize it. But this does not mean that we have to support the division of “spheres of interest” between imperialist states. Instead of looking for a new balance between the two imperialisms, the left has to struggle for a democratization of the international security order. We need a global policy and a global system of international security. We have the latter: it is the UN. Yes, it has plenty of flaws, and it is often the object of fair criticisms. But one can criticize either to refute something or to improve it. In the case of the UN, we need the latter. We need a leftist vision of reform and democratization of the UN.
Of course, this does not mean that the left should support all of the UN’s decisions. But an overall reinforcement of the UN’s role in the resolution of armed conflicts would allow the left to minimize the importance of military-political alliances and reduce the number of victims. (In a previous article, I wrote about how UN peacekeepers could have helped to resolve the Donbas conflict. Unfortunately, this has now lost its relevance.) After all, we also need the UN to solve the climate crisis and other global problems. The reluctance of many international leftists to appeal to it is a terrible mistake.
After Russian troops invaded Ukraine, Jacobin’s Europe editor David Broder wrote that the left “should make no apologies for opposing a US military response”. This was not Biden’s intention anyway, as he said multiple times. But a large part of the Western left should honestly admit that it completely fucked up in formulating its response to the “Ukrainian crisis.”



My Perspective

I will finish by briefly writing about myself and my perspective.
Over the past eight years, the Donbas war has been the main issue that has divided the Ukrainian left. Each of us formed our position under the influence of personal experience and other factors. Thus, another Ukrainian leftist would have written this article differently.
I was born in the Donbas, but in a Ukrainian-speaking and nationalist family. My father became involved in the far right in the 1990s, observing Ukraine’s economic decay and the enrichment of the former Communist Party leadership, which he had been fighting since the mid-1980s. Of course, he has very anti-Russian, but also anti-American, views. I still remember his words on September 11, 2001. As he watched the Twin Towers falling on TV, he said that those responsible were “heroes” (he does not think so anymore—now he believes that the Americans blew them up on purpose).
Then the war began in Donbas in 2014, my father joined the far-right Aidar battalion as a volunteer, my mother fled Luhansk, and my grandfather and grandmother stayed in their village, which fell under the control of the “Luhansk People’s Republic.” My grandfather condemned Ukraine’s Euromaidan revolution. He supports Putin, who, he says, has “restored order in Russia.” Nevertheless, we all try to keep talking to each other (though not about politics) and to help each other. I try to be sympathetic toward them. After all, my grandfather and grandmother spent their whole life working on a collective farm. My father was a construction worker. Life has not been kind to them.
The events of 2014—revolution followed by war—pushed me in the opposite direction of most people in Ukraine. The war killed nationalism in me and pushed me to the left. I want to fight for a better future for humanity, and not for the nation. My parents, with their post-Soviet trauma, do not understand my socialist views. My father is condescending about my “pacifism,” and we had a nasty conversation after I showed up at an anti-fascist protest with a picket sign calling for the disbanding of the far-right Azov regiment.
When Volodymyr Zelensky became president of Ukraine in the spring of 2019, I hoped this could prevent the catastrophe that is unfolding now. After all, it is difficult to demonize a Russian-speaking president who won with a program of peace for Donbas and whose jokes were popular among Ukrainians as well as Russians. Unfortunately, I was mistaken. While Zelensky’s victory changed the attitude of many Russians toward Ukraine, this did not prevent the war.
In recent years, I have written about the peace process and about civilian victims on both sides of the Donbas war. I tried to promote dialogue. But this has all gone up in smoke now. There will be no compromise. Putin can plan whatever he wants, but even if Russia seizes Kyiv and installs its occupational government, we will resist it. The struggle will last until Russia gets out of Ukraine and pays for all the victims and all the destruction.
Hence, my last words are addressed to the Russian people: hurry up and overthrow the Putin regime. It is in your interests as well as ours.

Taras Bilous is a Ukrainian historian and an activist of the Social Movement organization. As an editor for Commons: Journal of Social Critique, he covers the topics of war and nationalism.
This article was originally published in openDemocracy.

Footnote: 

[1] I have a nationalist Ukrainian flag (trizub in upper canton). I told my Polish neighbours that I wouldn't kill them in their sleep. They laughed. My Ukrainian nationalist connections preclude me from getting Polish nationality.

Illia Ponomarenko on why this war is different.

 Stop trying to compare this to previous wars. There is new technology which is allowing real time distribution of information.

A Russian helicopter is being downed in Ukraine.
Stunning footage. pic.twitter.com/MKN1VxNNzg

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) March 5, 2022

 

People can thwart news blackouts:

How to access the BBC in Russia

To access the BBC, circumvention tools can be used, such as the Psiphon app (Android, iOS, Windows, Mac).

The Tor Browser also has a dedicated BBC site, on this URL: https://www.bbcnewsd73hkzno2ini43t4gblxvycyac5aw4gnv7t2rccijh7745uqd.onion/

Please note the BBC site for Tor works only on the Tor Browser or a similar browser, such as the Onion Browser (for iPhones).

If you find it difficult to get the two applications above from AppStore or Google Play Store, please send a blank email to get@psiphon3.com or gettor@torproject.org, respectively. You will then be sent an email with a direct and safe download link.

Как получить доступ к новостям Би-би-си

Для доступа к Би-би-си можно использовать инструменты обхода цензуры, такие как приложение Psiphon (Android, iOS, Windows, Mac).

Браузер Tor также имеет специальный сайт Би-би-си по этому URL-адресу: https://www.bbcnewsd73hkzno2ini43t4gblxvycyac5aw4gnv7t2rccijh7745uqd.onion/russian

Обратите внимание, что сайт Би-би-си для Tor работает только в браузере Tor или аналогичном браузере, таком как Onion Browser (для iPhone).

Если вам трудно получить эти два приложения из AppStore или Google Play Store, отправьте пустое электронное письмо по адресу get@psiphon3.com или gettor@torproject.org соответственно. Вам будет отправлено электронное письмо с прямой и безопасной ссылкой для скачивания.

Порада, як отримувати новини ВВС

Щоб отримати доступ до BBC, можна використовувати інструменти обходу, такі як додаток Psiphon (Android, iOS, Windows, Mac).

Браузер Tor також має спеціальний сайт BBC за цією URL-адресою: https://www.bbcnewsd73hkzno2ini43t4gblxvycyac5aw4gnv7t2rccijh7745uqd.onion/ukrainian

Зверніть увагу, що сайт BBC для Tor працює лише у браузері Tor або подібному браузері, наприклад у браузері Onion (на iPhone).

Якщо вам складно завантажити дві вищезазначені програми з AppStore або Google Play Store, надішліть порожній лист на адресу get@psiphon3.com або gettor@torproject.org відповідно. Потім вам буде надіслано електронний лист із прямим і безпечним посиланням для завантаження.

Useful videos on the Ukraine situation.

 

Former MI6 Chief On the Ukraine & Russia Conflict

 Russell Brand on Protests

 

Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky says "the invasion of Ukraine is suicide for Putin."

 Pretty much what I've been saying (English translation).

He would have laughed at the proposition that Putin would use nuclear weapons a week ago, but not anymore.

The only way to stop this is to get the Russian Oligarchs to depose Putin.

Gary Kasperov on Putin's Corruption & Troops in Ukraine

A bit old, from Michael Smerconish's show. I'm not sure how much I agree with what Kasparov says, but it is an interesting show.

 

Intelligence failure on Ukraine?

 Le Monde has an interesting article on how Western Intelligence Agencies had differing views on what Putain's intent was toward Ukraine (https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2022/03/04/l-invasion-russe-en-ukraine-un-scenario-qui-a-divise-les-services-de-renseignement-occidentaux_6116170_3210.html). The US and UK agencies had the scenario that Putain would invade Ukraine, while the European Agencies were under the impression that he would "negotiate" in some way.  The "Anglo-Saxon" agencies were pretty much certain that Putain would invade. On the other hand, the European Agencies knew what the level of Ukrainian resistance would be. Also, the "Anglo-Saxon" agencies didn't factor in that this would increase European Unity.

In my opinion, the "Anglo-Saxon" agencies were influenced by Russia and did not know that Europe would become more united. I think I may have said in another post that if Putain's intent was to keep Ukraine (and other former Soviet Satellites) out of the EU and NATO, that this would have the opposite effect. Of course, this neglects that Ukrainians have been independent since 1991, which is guaranteed by the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, and want to defend that independence. I have mixed opinions about the Donbass region and Crimea, but the fact that there has only been a "low-level" conflict in the Donbass since March 2014 makes me think that may be more Russian interference than a real movement to join Russia.

 

The Security agencies still are divided as to the best way to handle this situation. France and Germany, as of when the article was published, want to negotiate. Italy is on the sidelines. And the other agencies are pushing for a stronger military presence. Although, Putain has said he will use nuclear weapons if there is any military intervention. That means, the better way to act militarily is through deniable forces ("contractors" and "retired military") and supplies. Ukraine has the resistance already, and the resistance during World War II stole weapons from the Germans. The modern resistance is purported to have captured a Russian Thermobaric missile launcher.

I would add that Russian conscript soldiers are mutinying, which is what happens in that army. The Ukrainians are welcoming them as prisoners of war.

Sadly, the Ukrainians are once again being treated like the Kurds, who get hero status when it is politically expedient for the West. There were measures which could have been taken long ago to have ensured that Russia would not have had the resources to wage this war: one of which is energy independence. Sadly, neither of the two US parties was willing to work on changing its addiction to Oil. I think that will also change in the EU.

Putain has already lost this since the attack on Ukraine will ensure that Ukraine and other countries will want to be allied with NATO and the European Union. The real fear is that Putain has shown he is a madman who is willing to start World War III. How do we prevent this from becoming a nuclear nightmare? 

 

Garry Kasparov, a former world chess champion and prominent opponent to the Russian president's regime, said in an interview with Israel Hayom that "the war in Ukraine could put an end to Putin's 'Napoleonic plans.'"

"If Putin does not succeed in the coming days in achieving his military goals - a scorching loss awaits him, and a significant geopolitical loss is always a necessary element in the fall of tyrants," Kasparov said. "Once the regime looks weak in the eyes of its subjects, its end appears on the horizon. If the Ukrainians hold on for a few more days, and the sanctions ring tightens, and if the West does not shy away, it could be the beginning of the end for the Putin regime. On the other hand, in order to prevent a loss, Putin is liable to throw all his strength into the campaign against Ukraine, without restraint." https://www.israelnationalnews.com/flashes/569241

See also:

• Boss of Ukraine's largest energy firm tells world to stop buying gas and oil from Russia 
• Ros Atkins on...Russian gas and oil 
• Gary Kasparov Blasts Biden on Russia-Ukraine Crisis: Putin Senses ‘American Weakness’
• EXCLUSIVE: Voice message reveals Russian military unit’s catastrophic losses in Ukraine 
• https://kyivindependent.com/author/illia-ponomarenko/ 
• https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko
  

What now about Ukraine?

 I am surprised that this has lasted as long as it has, but then again, maybe not.

Putain has staked his reputation on this invasion and he is not the type of person to admit he made a major fuck up of judgement. Likewise, the stooges around him aren't willing to get rid of one person to save their country.

Foreign Affairs has an article by Alexander Vindman and Dominic Cruz Bustillos where he mentions an "unprecedented response" to this, but the west has been pretty tepid in how it has handled this. Also, this is War in the 21st Century where a madman can destroy the world, or at least make things very bad for anyone who survives, through nuclear war.

The Ukrainians are pretty good at handling the situation since they have been practising asymetrical warefare for a while. As I pointed out, Ukraine was the only Soviet State which had an active resistance. They could use some augmentation since they have pretty much activated any males into the "army". But the US has been sending in "contractors" for a while. Private contractors are better than active service military because of the deniability factor.

Likewise, Putain's support comes from the Oligarchs. Many of them have places in the west. I've heard Putain's daughter is in the west. Hit them in the pocketbook where it will hurt the most.

Sadly, Russia is the Soviet Union with a change to become more transparent in that it was an Oligarchy the whole time. Not much has changed. An officer from the KGB is in charge, but he's scared and knows he's wrong. But any admission of his making a mistake will hasten his being deposed.

As Kasperov said, significant actions are what matter now. There are many things the west can do short of actual "boots on the ground" and they need to be taken.

Let's also stop comparing this to previous wars

First off, this is the first war where a madman has nuclear weapons and made it clear he will use them if anyone tries to stop his illegal invasion of a neutral country. I'll break that down for you:

1. Ukraine is not a member of either NATO or the European Union
2. Ukraine is a neutral country, which could be the best solution to this problem
3. The aggressor has threatened to use nuclear weapons if there is any foreign military action to help the invaded nation. 
4. This situation is allegedly about Ukraine joining international alliances (EU and NATO), but is really about economics and energy dependence (Or Banderists, Nazis, and drug dealers).
   

Nuclear weapons takes this out of the "let's look at the past" category.  Putin intends to freeze Europe by blocking natural gas, or frying it with nuclear weapons.

No matter how Putin cuts it, his actions may backfire if he doesn't back down. He's already pushed Ukraine to ask for EU membership. It's also hard to ask them to not join an organisation which would guarantee their independence (NATO).

 

Europe is dependent upon Russian natural gas, which is something that needs to change prestament. And Lukoil is the second largest company in Russia after Gazprom, and the country's largest non-state enterprise in terms of revenue ( ₽ 4,744 billion). In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, LukOil was ranked as the 99th -largest public company in the world. Internationally, it is one of the largest global producers of crude oil. A boycot of Lukoil will harm its station owners outside Russia, but it is something which people need to be aware when they spend their money there.

The truth is that the West has no intention whatsoever of fighting against Russia to defend Ukraine. With the possible exception of Poland, NATO’s European members wholly lack the will to fight Russia unless NATO itself is directly attacked. President Biden and other leaders have made it clear that they will not do so, any more than the Obama administration fought for Ukraine in 2014 or the Bush administration for Georgia in 2008 — despite all the previous talk of partnership. The idea that Germany, France or Italy would do so is simply ludicrous. In these circumstances, to insist on holding the door open to future NATO membership for Ukraine is absurd, deeply unethical, and extremely dangerous both for Ukraine and NATO’s existing members.

The problem is that there needs to be a diplomatic solution to this instead of a military one, unless the military option is to use special forces to assassinate Putin. But that also has its drawbacks.

Short of a mutiny by Russia's military, we will see Ukraine fighting a much more powerful foe until the international community puts its foot down.

See also:

• Ukrainian neutrality: a ‘golden bridge’ out of the current geopolitical trap 
• Sur fond de crise ukrainienne, les Européens cherchent à réduire leur dépendance au gaz russe
  

Stop Knocking the Green New Deal: Ukrainian situation shows need for energy independence

Very Amusing this:

Despite what the one right wing Pennsylvania Representative says: The Green New Deal is not an off switch for the economy. If anything, energy independence is a necessity.

And clean energy is the path to independence. That's GREEN energy for the Fox News Pundits and other right wingers who need to do a twelve step on their energy reliance.

In fact, the United States should have learned its lesson about this back in 1973, but the myth that fossil fuels are somehow inexhaustible manages to hold on. 

The article that relates to the picture to the left points this out: https://investorplace.com/hypergrowthinvesting/2022/03/clean-energy-is-the-way-to-independence-and-huge-gains/

As someone who should have looked toward a career relating to the environment, I can tell you that the fossil fuel industry is already working to transition to clean energy. Note the amount of ethanol in your petrol the next time you are at the pump.

I've put my money where my mouth is and invested in solar panels.

Hillary Clinton should have said that failure to make the transition to clean energy will put a lot of coal miners out of work. People need to start looking to jobs in the clean energy sector.

But the above article points out something that the fossil fuel junkies miss:

Why the huge outperformance in clean energy stocks? The Russian invasion of Ukraine underscores the world’s need for energy independence. And clean energy offers the only viable pathway to TRUE energy independence.

It’s inarguable that energy independence is the ultimate goal for every country. No government wants their energy supply to be reliant upon another country – especially if said country is Russia, which provides about 40% of Europe’s natural gas supply.

At the end of the day, every country wants to produce its own energy. It’s cheaper. It’s more reliable and creates more jobs. And, perhaps most importantly, it’s safer.

I can go in depth about how Russia's best weapon against the west is its reliance on fossil fuels since

wars are becoming more and more about energy resources.

Maybe if the likes of Greg Gutfeld would shut the fuck up with their ignorance and learn something we might have a decent discussion here. But knocking something without any real knowledge of the topic is dangerous.

It's also the American way.

It's long past time for change.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has totally lost it

Wouldn't you try to avoid harming the people you are claiming to defend if that is your purported reason for illegally invading another country?

Not Vladmir Vladimirovich Putain!

Bombing Kharkiv demonstrates he doesn't give a fuck about anyone other than Vladimir Vladimirovich. Or that he has totally lost it.

While this city is not in the Donetsk or Luhansk territories, it is east enough that there is a significant Russian population (25.6%). The number goes up to 44.3% if you go on language (that percentage speaks Russian as a first language). There was minor pro-Russian activity post Maidan.

But, even though there are ethnic Russians in this area, they are Ukrainian enough to fight the invading Russian Army.

Sadly, no one really paid much attention to this area before Putain threatened his invasion.

But, given the resistance the Russian Military is facing, this will not be a blitzkrieg by any standard.

It will be another Stalingrad. Putain has forgotten his history as there were several battles in this city during the "Great Patriotic War".

This may be yet another "Great Patriotic War" where an imperialist nation, Russia, is overrun by a smaller defending nation, Ukraine.

See also:

• 10 Facts About the War in Donbass
•  It’s Probably Too Late for the Oligarchs to Stop Putin
• Putin is so angry about Ukraine's resistance to his invasion that he might launch a more aggressive attack, Western officials warn 
  

I would like to think that you heard this here first!

 Le Figaro asked if the invasion of Ukraine will be Putin's Afghanistan?

Yes, very much so. It will probably have a much worse effect on him than he expects. He has already shown he is crazy enough to start a nuclear war to protect his illegal war of aggression on a neutral country.

The most important contemporary rule on conflict is found in the U.N. Charter, which states, “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”

This wording is significant. The term “use of force” means what it says. Countries cannot avoid their international obligations by pretending their actions are peacekeeping missions, as Putin has said.

Putin only cares about his reputation. His willingness to start a nuclear war to protect his illegal act only shows he is unfit to be a leader of any form of nation state, let alone one which purports to be a "Super-Power".

I would add that the Russian forces have a long history of mutiny, especially when the leaders are crazy.

Putin's days are numbered.

Is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin insane enough to use Nuclear Weapons?

 YES!

Very Much so. He opened up this without too much of a threat from the west.

The invasion is harming the people he claims to want to protect: the ethnic Russian Ukrainians. So, he doesn't care about people or even his country.

Additionally, he is trying to distract from the fact that his troops are getting hit by Ukrainian resistance (https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-60542877). Western militaries have been training the Ukrainians on how to resist a Soviet/Russian attack for ages. The OUN resistance never went away.

But this desperate gamble will backfire on Putin. He is forgetting that war led to the collapse of the Tsar, Soviet Union, and will be his downfall as well. The mutiny may already be happening, but the rest of the world should not put their bets in a successful coup against Putin right now (https://londonlovesbusiness.com/belarus-military-officer-declares-mutiny-against-putin-and-lukashenko-saying-its-not-our-war-and-tells-troops-to-stop/)

See also:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60539113

No, you cannot compare Ukraine to anywhere else

There is quite a bit of history in this region: especially since it is between Asia and Europe. The term "Rus" comes from the Vikings since they owe quite a lot to the Varangians. Although, there is some controversy over the origin of the name "Rus": Is it a nordic term? Or a derivation from the Greek Ρωσία, which in turn derives from Ῥῶς?

While the term Rus may be up in the air, the fact that Kyiv is in the middle of a trade route between the Varangian Vikings and the Greek world is not. 

The reason I put in the picture of this stamp is that Ukraine has been a part of many different nations states over the millenium, yet there has been an interest in nationhood. What I will call the age of Nationism brought about the rise of people like Stepan Bandera who wanted their own land. Ukraine, like Poland, may have existed for some time, but it was never truly a nation for a good part of that existence.

Again, the map for refresher on European history and nationalism:

A very short form of Ukraine's history from Wikipedia:

The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC. During the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the loose tribal federation Kievan Rus' forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation into several principalities in the 13th century and the devastation created by the Mongol invasion, the territorial unity collapsed and the area was contested, divided, and ruled by a variety of powers, including the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Tsardom of Russia. The Cossack Hetmanate emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, but its territory was eventually split between Poland and the Russian Empire. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, a Ukrainian national movement for self-determination emerged, and the internationally recognised Ukrainian People's Republic was declared on 23 June 1917. The Ukrainian SSR was a founding member of the Soviet Union in 1922. The country regained its independence in 1991, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Following its independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state.

That was to just give a short taste of the complex history of this region. And, yes, it leaves out a whole lot of the story. Since I sincerely doubt Vladmir Vladimirovich Putin would have been so foolish as to have gone on this path had he contemplated Ukraine's history.

This was the land of partisan warfare, Vladmir Vladimirovich. They will lure you in the way the Red Army lured in the Germans in Stalingrad.

Threatening the use of nuclear weapons only shows your weakness.

Again, you cannot claim to be protecting the people of Ukraine, yet willing to destroy them in your imperialist war of aggression.

I mention the Banderists since they are what you have chosen to fight. You know them.

Why are you acting like an idiot, Vladmir Vladimirovich Putin?

Fuck you, Vladmir Vladimirovich Putin, Ukrainians are not using Children as Shields,

Man, you have a lot of nerve saying shit like that when you are putting the people you are claiming to save in danger.

But, you have everything to fear from the Banderists.

Payback is a bitch. we haven't forgotten who killed Stepan Bandera or the Holodomor, fuckwad.

Meet Stepan Bandera

He looks like a nice guy to me.

This little clip from a Czech site pretty much sums up the situation in Ukraine:

 Stepan Andriyovich Bandera (1909-1959) is an icon of western Ukraine and a symbol of evil for eastern Ukraine. He fought for a dignified life for Ukrainians caught between nationalist Poles and communist Russians. He didn't take the gloves off, murdered not only soldiers but civilians, liquidated Jews, allied with Hitler against Stalin, fled to the West after WWII, but eventually the Soviets found him anyway and killed him.

I'm pretty sure he was aware that his cousins, Osip and Maria, had just welcomed another grandson to the Bandera clan when he died, but that's just an aside.

Actually, the next portion of the article pretty much sums up the situation between the First and Second World Wars. It also explains why he had the bloodthirsty rep, which I believe Putin is well aware of:

Interwar Ukrainian politics and all its political and military clones found themselves in an intractable situation in a pincer between two left-wing deviations - German fascism and Russian communism. Politicians and soldiers cruised the rough seas of world politics, trying to at least save their skins after shipwreck, but very few succeeded. Those who survived the Soviet-directed famine and cannibalism, the movement of the front to the east, the front back to the west, the rampage of the Polish army and the Soviet secret police, the confused flight through Czechoslovakia and Austria to the Americans, were displaced to occupied German Silesia beyond the Giant Mountains. The Ukrainians were then victims of history, of stronger aggressive neighbours and, above all, of monstrous leftist ideologies. Five years under the Poles and five years under the Germans.

Lviv soccer fans at a game vs. Donetsk. The banner reads "Bandera - our hero"

 

 

 

Stepan was sentenced to death for complicity in a plot against a Polish governmental minster in 1934.  On appeal, the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. The reason for the many similar terrorist actions in which he was involved, or at least knew or could have known about, was the uncompromising position of the Ukrainian nationalist youth, who uncompromisingly demanded their own state, which was unacceptable to Poland. In September 1939, when Poland was invaded by Germany and the Soviet Union, Stepan Bandera was released from prison. Who helped him out of prison and why is still unclear. He remained in Kraków, which became the capital of occupied Poland. A few days after the invasion of the Soviet Union, Stepan Bandera declared an independent Ukrainian state.

We can get into the Ukrainian Nationalist Movement since he was a leader theorist of the militant wing of the far-right Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and a leader and ideologist of Ukrainian ultranationalists known for his involvement in terrorist activities. In fact there were two branches of the OUN, OUN-B (for Bandera) and OUN-M (for Melnyk). The older, more moderate nationalist supported Andriy Atanasovych Melnyk.

The far more radical and violent crowd supported OUN-B. The Czech article had some stuff that I didn't know about:

Significantly, Stepan Bandera himself secretly went to Bavaria after the end of World War II, but the terrorist activities of the UPA in the USSR were not finally suppressed until the mid-1950s. Fighting with the Bandera fighters, who tried to pass through and sometimes break through to the West, also took place in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Although in our country their only interest was to get to the Americans and escape the Russians, police regiments were deployed against them, supplemented by volunteers who chased them through the woods rather than actually fighting them.

The local people did not obstruct the Ukrainian rebel army and as a result the UPA did not attack civilians. With a few exceptions, this was the case in what is now Poland, Transcarpathian Ukraine and eastern Slovakia.

Throughout the period of socialism in Czechoslovakia, however, their alleged rampage was exaggerated to unbelievable proportions, the heroism of a few dead policemen was held up on a pedestal, and at the same time the banderos were associated in the popular mind with the German werwolfs, i.e. trained saboteurs who briefly operated after the Nazi surrender. Their reputation in the Czech Republic has also suffered because the word banderovci sounds similar to gang (of criminals, enemies of the regime, etc.)

Дякую, Алекс Тора!

I'm not sure how accurate the suppression of Ukrainian nationalism in the late 1950s happens to be, especially since Stepan Bandera was killed in late 1959. I was under the impression that Ukrainian nationalist "terrorism" in the Soviet Union lasted much longer than that. But I've been told it was enough of a scourge that Vladimire Putin knows about Stepan Bandera and his followers.
 

In fact, it's a fun exercise to read about Stepan Bandera on the internet since he's either a monster, or a saint, depending on your point of view. The neutral point of view is that he was a Ukrainian nationalist during a time of extreme nationalist movements (e.g., Nazism). He was also a shrewd politician he could have pounded Putin's ass in a second.

But the real point is that Stepan Bandera is still considered a hero in Western Ukraine and amongst the ethnic Ukrainians for his fighting for an independent state. I've been told that his home is a place of pilgrimage for soldiers heading to the Donbass. Putin should not have been such a dumbass as to assert that Ukraine and Russia are the same, but he will learn his lesson soon enough if he continues down the road he is heading.

Making more "Zinky boys" is not a path to strength, which is a lesson he should have learned in Afghanistan, Dagestan, and Chechnya. Maybe Russia needs yet another ass pounding to realise war is not a good idea. And I believe that the Ukrainians could still go back to Banderist tactics, which would hit the Russian homeland.

Dumb move, Vlad.

See also (or just do a search to read various opinions about him):

• Ukraine's turbulent past between hagiography and demonization
• Meet the Ukrainian Resistance Army 
• A few words for Christopher Miller about “Banderites” and Ukrainian history 
  
• Stepan Bandera | Military Wiki | Fandom
• Who Was Stepan Bandera? 
• Stepan Bandera | Religion Wiki | Fandom
  

за мир!

 I saw that there were protests in Russia against the war. The people want peace.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-60518268

You are making a very big mistake, Vladimir Vladimirovich. This is one bet you should fold on. And fold quickly since the cards you are holding are a very bad hand.

So, the "unthinkable" has happened.

 I'm not really surprised. Or that wrong.

Remember that Russia has been aiding the Donbas separatists (and other ethnic Russians) since the Crimea voted to "rejoin" Russia. The resistance within Ukraine's borders heated up after Maidan.

Toss in that if Russia really wanted to come in heavy, they could.

But does that make any sense given he's there to "protect the ethnic Russians". 

Nothing like a shitload of collateral damage of the people you are claiming to save to underline that Putin is a total asshole. If the dude had a brain, he would be using Ukraine as a backdoor to the EU and NATO.

I was under the impression that the KGB/FSB were somewhat competent. On the other hand, Vlad the Imputent, managed to make it up the hierarchy. Maybe it was the Peter Principle.

Anyway, this just began, there's plenty more time for Vlad to fuck it up.

Wotinthefuck is Vladmir Putin thinking (or not)????

You can’t really compare this situation to Hitler’s walking into countries since the locals aren’t going to give the Russians a warm welcome: unless you mean gunfire when you say warm welcome.

The problem with people in the West, particularly the US, is that they are ignorant of the history and what is going on. Me: I’m not sure where to begin, but it seems that Euromaidan might be a good place (and raises my question: was Fiona Hill involved in this???).

Anyone who knows me would know that I would be sympathetic to Euromaidan if it was indeed a popular rising. That is especially true since one of the goals of this uprising would be that Ukraine joined the European Union, even if I didn’t manage to get EU citizenship out of this deal. But, one of the upshots was that the Ukrainian majority became more militant and the Russian minority became scared. And most of the Russians are in the East, or Donbass region.

Did I say something about people killing each other over which language they speak, Дякую/dziękuję/Спасибо?

Anyway, one of the upshots was that the Russians in the Eastern part wanted to protect themselves, and thought maybe rejoining Russia was a brilliant idea. The people in the West weren’t so keen: especially since Crimea had been reannexed by Russia. That means there has been a low level armed struggle in Eastern Ukraine. A recap from a post I made earlier:

But we need to get a little history of the situation.

The US want to control Ukraine in order to establish US managed pipeline routes relating to the geopolitical competition over oil and natural gas. The US also wants to advance the US controlled NATO alliance to surround all of Russia’s European borders. The Obama administration and the State Department (which Hillary Clinton had built up from 2009 to 2013) assisted in the undemocratic coup in Ukraine which was led by neo-Nazi white supremacists in 2014. This Nationalist group violently took over Ukraine. The Nationalists attempted to make it illegal in Ukraine to speak Russian, a minority who are still a major force in running the Ukraine government.

In Crimea, where the vast majority of residents are Russian, the Crimeans, fearing the Nationalist regime that had just taken over Kiev, quickly voted to rejoin Russia and by agreement with no military action at all, Crimea legally rejoined Russia. There was no supposed ‘invasion’ of Crimea. It did not happen.

Likewise, the people in the Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine were also concerned with the Nationalist ethnic cleansing. An election was held, but because a similar annexation of Donbas into Russia would spoil western plans to dominate pipeline routes and control Russia’s border, the fascist government in Kiev immediately moved with its military, to by force squash the vote and stop Donbas from leaving. This resulted in a 2014-2015 civil war in Donbas, in which Russia lent military support to Donbas (but no formal troops) and the US lent mirroring military support to Kiev.

Putin, if anything, is there preventing a possible genocide. Additionally, the Aid being given to the Ukrainian forces is questionable given that it could result in a genocide.

Ukrainian soldiers are making pilgrimages to Stepan Bandera’s house before heading east.

Which would have any sane person of the Russian type thinking hard about the sanity of invading Ukraine. There are a lot better ways to make sure that ethnic Russians are safe than military help. In fact, given what I know about Banderists, that is probably the dumbest thing one could do.

It’s like starting an uprising in a Jewish Ghetto during WWII. We know how those turned out.

The problem is that Putin has put his prestige points into this gambit and he’s about to see any captial go to shit posthaste should war break out.

Seriously, Dude! Maybe you know my qualifications to be giving you advice. I know you are familiar with my family. Maybe the Banderas aren’t going to be leaders, but assassinating Stepan Bandera created a martyr. No matter how much your crowd try and discredit him: he has become a rallying point for the Ukrainians. And these people are the right wing, ultranationalists.

Sure you would have preferred Ukraine went with the Customs Union, but I would like to think you are clever and that Ukraine as part of the EU would benefit Russia as well. Maybe Ukraine in NATO is a stretch, but you can’t sabre rattle and not expect them to want some form of protection.

The Ukrainians have not forgotten the Holomodor and are going to fight you with all they can.

Remember that before you go any further down this path.

 See also:
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/

Ukraine helps to debunk Second Amendment fallacy of armed resistance.

CONSIDER THIS... This is just part of the known tally ...

• In 1929 the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, approximately 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Nevermind that this figure includes something the Russians call "the Great Patriotic War" and the rest of us call World War II. And didn't the Russians have an army where there was heavy fighting?

Toss in that I'm not sure how large the population of Germany was (the country which attacked the Soviet Union) in relation to the Soviet Union, but I would guess that there weren't as many Germans as there were Soviets. As Matthew White says (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/gunsorxp.htm):

Well, right off the bat I can see that whoever compiled this tally has a different definition of defenseless than I do. I myself wouldn't declare the largest military machine on the planet "unable to defend itself", but by adding 20 million from the Soviet Union, this list does. After all, Stalin's most infamous terror fell heavily on the Soviet Army, culling tens of thousand of officers, and executing three out of five marshals, 15 out of 16 army commanders, 60 out of 67 corps commanders and 136 out of 199 division commanders. In one bloody year, the majority of the officer corps was led away quietly and shot. It may be one of life's great mysteries as to why the Red Army allowed itself to be gutted that way, but obviously, lack of firepower can't be the reason.

 One of the nice things about modern technology is that we can see the Ukrainians preparing to fight the Russian Army. Sure, there are the pictures of people carrying wooden guns as they drill, but there are also the civilian reservists. As one person I know who is very close to Ukrainian resistance pointed out: "There will be 80 year old women defending their homes with AK47s."

That doesn't seem to be dissuading Putin from wanting to invade Ukraine. Again, from Matthew White:

This is what I call the Cold-Dead-Hands Test. If the only way to get someone's gun is to pry it from their cold, dead hands (literally or figuratively), that's not gun control. When Grant disarmed the Confederates at Appomattox, that wasn't gun control; that was taking prisoners. When the Soviets disarmed the remnants of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, that wasn't gun control either. Mao didn't come to power in China by tricking the populace into surrendering their arms. He pummeled his well-armed opponents in a stand-up fight. There's a big difference between unable to fight back, and fighting back but losing.

Personally, there are other ways to prevent a war. Toss in that I would like to think that Vladimir Putin isn't a complete headcase or total fucking moron. He was in the KGB: The dudes who killed Stepan Bandera. He couldn't be that much of a dumbfuck that he's forgotten that Ukraine was the only part of the old Soviet Union that had an armed resistance.

And while I'm cheering on the underdog, Ukraine; I don't have any illusions that any resistance they make against the Russians will be pretty ineffective. Again, from Matthew White:

Even most of the victims of Hitler went down kicking and screaming. The majority of the Jews and Gypsies were hunted down in countries like Poland and Russia that had been overrun in open battle, and if they were lacking guns, it certainly wasn't German laws that created the situation.

Frankly, this list is a pitifully weak argument against gun control, simply because most of the victims listed here did fight back. In fact, if there's a real lesson to be learned from this roster of oppressions, it's that sometimes a heavily armed and determined opposition is just swept up and crushed -- guns or no guns.

 It would be nice if Putin were able to read this because I would like to think he isn't a complete dumbfuck who is crazy enough to start a war in Ukraine. No one will win if that is the case and Putin's reputation will be total shit.

Не будьте идиотом, Владимир. Война - неправильный выбор.

Of course, no one listens to me anyway.

A unified language for Africa????

This is a furtheration of my thoughts on this topic. Yeah, there is an irony that someone who quotes Julius Nyerere would critique the use of Swahili as a lingua franca for a continent, but...

As a person who speaks both English and French, I'm always happiest when the conversation is held in English. Not to mention being in a meeting with a group of people, who included the head of Benelux, who just happened to suggest that we speak English since it was easiest. But, that makes sense from someone who speaks Dutch, a language which is really close to English. 

Actually, Frisian is supposed to be closer to English. One rhyme which purports to demonstrate. the palpable similarity between Frisian and English: "Butter, bread and green cheese is good English and good Frisian," which is pronounced more or less the same in both languages (West Frisian: "Bûter, brea en griene tsiis is goed Ingelsk en goed Frysk."). 

I've heard in a few places that the medieval Frisian folk hero Grutte Pier asked people to pronounce this sentence. He fought against the Dutch and Saxons. Only real Frisians can pronounce the sentence correctly, so enemies posing as Frisians were bound to slip up and get caught. Grutte Pier’s gigantic sword is still on display at the Fries Museum. I think that Dutch/Flemish is basically a shibboleth: especially after one of my friends said I did my phone message in German twice...

Anyway, I come at this from a European viewpoint, where people happily kill each other over which alphabet they use along with how they pronounce things.

Africa is probably worse, although one could blame the Rwandan genocide on the evil Belgians. Hey, I was just a kid when Grégoire Kaybinda established the independent republic, but didn't that follow a genocide of Tutsi by the Hutus? As I've pointed out in a previous post:

The ethnic groups of Africa number in the thousands, with each population generally having its own language (or dialect of a language) and culture. The ethnolinguistic groups include various Afroasiatic, Khoisan, Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan population.

There are a few reasons for writing this. One being that Pascal Paradou is interviewing a lot of African Francophones on Radio France Internationale lately in preparation for the Francophone summit (https://www.rfi.fr/fr/direct-monde).  French would be second choice for me, but I do have to admit I love listening to Africans speaking French.  Not that my vote would be for French as the lingua franca, but it would be a second choice. 

It would be a definite hands down over Swahili.

The interesting thing is that the Swahili article comes from the BBC, which was one of Tanzania's colonial rulers (the other being Germany). The Brits were actually latecomers, taking over the territory after the 14-18 War. Of course, the French are going to promote Francophonie since that is one of their foreign policy goals.

Yes, I am a member of the Alliance Françiase...

I really love Russell Brand and agree with him on a lot of things ("fings").

 

The problem with democracy in the US is that it isn't. The country that spent most of the 20th Century preaching about free and fair elections on a secret ballot has never done that at home. The Democratic party might want to live up to its name.

“I respect kindness in human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.”― Brendan Behan

Still more Russell Brand on US politics.

 Do this with a "French accent" and it's pretty much what I would say:[1]

"I don't know how people can get so whipped up by either side of the political debate when clearly both sides are engaging in nefarious activity and espionage and it's just accepted as a normal part of political life. For me, it's not about a a personal lack of trust in Hillary Clinton, or the evident dislike many people feel for Hillary Clinton. This is more about a total lack of trust in these political institutions and agencies. And a legitimate reason to feel cynical and sceptical about politics. For me, this is not interesting because he's like "what politicians aren't reliable". This is simply "see, what are you so excited about".

Another thing he mentions is that since both parties are culpable, they really can't criticise the other one. The ability to criticise comes from a true moral superiority because your side isn't engaging in these activities.

Anyway, one of the major problems with the US is that the two parties are pretty much the same: no matter how much you want to believe your side is somehow different. The reason US elections are interminable is that they is big money involved in all this. Foreign elections don't last as long, and have multiple parties, because there isn't the expense which is a major charateristic of US elections.

There is a post brewing on why Bernie Sanders would have been the best choice to have run in 2016, which is pretty much an undeniable fact no matter which side of the political spectrum you are on. The problem is that his popular campaign wasn't given the proper coverage since Hillary Clinton was going to be the nominee in 2016 no matter what.

That was the real reason Trump became president and it had nothing to do with Russian interference.

And in case you needed a laugh:

Footnote:

[1] The "French accent" is more figurative than literal, hence the quotation marks and this explanation.  As P.T. Barnum said, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people."

"It's high time we move from the coloniser's language."

And these people want to speak Swahili...

OK, I have to laugh as someone who speaks the two most common languages spoken in Africa: English and French. Portugese is the third.

Swahili, which takes around 40% of its vocabulary directly from Arabic, was initially spread by Arab traders along East Africa's coast.

It was then formalised under the German and British colonial regimes in the region in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, as a language of administration and education.

And though it has been spoken about before as an alternative on the continent to English, French or Portuguese as a lingua franca, or as a commonly understood language, there is now a renewed impetus.

What is getting lost here is that Swahili is also a "coloniser's language". The Swahili helped inland Africans trade ivory, grain, and even slaves, for the foreign merchants' knives, farming tools, fabrics, and porcelain.

Slave Trade and Slavery on the Swahili Coast, 1500-1750: Arab traders captured Zanj to enslave them, but generally speaking, medieval geographers rarely mentioned the slave trade on the Swahili coast, although they often did so for other regions, particularly western Africa. 

In other words, Swahili, even though it is a Bantu language is also culpable if we are going to talk about the slave trade. But the common link between Swahili, English, French, and Portugese is that they allowed diverse linguistic groups to get along. 

Africa has something in common with Europe and some other places: that is multiple small cultures speaking mutually incomprehensible languages (there's a post about that coming up). So, having a standard common language helps make things run smoothly. It's fun listening to ignorant people talk about language since:

Various colonial powers that ruled on the coast of East Africa played a role in the growth and spread of Swahili. With the arrival of the Arabs in East Africa, they used Swahili as a language of trade as well as for teaching Islam to the local Bantu peoples. This resulted in Swahili first being written in the Arabic alphabet. The later contact with the Portuguese resulted in the increase of vocabulary of the Swahili language. The language was formalised in an institutional level when the Germans took over after the Berlin conference. After seeing there was already a widespread language, the Germans formalised it as the official language to be used in schools. Thus schools in Swahili are called Shule (from German Schule) in government, trade and the court system. With the Germans controlling the major Swahili-speaking region in East Africa, they changed the alphabet system from Arabic to Latin.

I think I've mentioned how many different native languages exist in Africa, but it is a major shitload. And let's add this in for good measure:

But Ms Lankai's classroom at the University of Ghana in the capital, Accra, is some 4,500km (2,800 miles) west of Swahili's birthplace - coastal Kenya and Tanzania.

Dig deeply enough and you will find the major languages owe a lot to colonisation and trade.

And that includes Swahili.

Sources: 

• BBC: Swahili's bid to become a language for all of Africa
• Wikipedia: Swahili language

Yet another reason I don't really fit in the US.

Besides being multilingual. Tant pis pour toi si tu n’es pas bilingue.

My politics are pretty far left in the US, but pretty centre/centre-left in Europe. Case in point, I’m enjoying reading a couple of interesting stories in L’Express: “Se focaliser sur la race et le sexe a réveillé les furies et les furieux” and “Identité, “racisé”, universalisme… Rokhaya Diallo-Yascha Mounk, l’étonnante rencontre“. OK, L’Express is at the Centre of the French political spectrum, but one of the things I enjoy about French culture is the openness of the debate without the ad-hominems found in US politics. For example, “Trump supporter” or “Bernie Bro” being used to shut down the debate. With both sides being guilty.

The first article is a great discussion of that phenomenon. Although it’s hard to summarise, but I find the sentiment about identity politics very welcome. But identity politics doesn’t just include race, gender, or sexual preference–it also includes political and religious affiliations. As critical theory pointed out, the bottom line is power: whether it is racial, sexual, doctrinal, or relating to philately. Keeping people from talking to each other is the perfect means to preserve power. Things get dangerous when people start talking to each other.

The things you miss when you are stuck in one language.

Footnote: 

You can use a translator such as Deepl, but it will miss properly translating this comment about reparations:

Réparateur de tort, s'inventant des ennemis de vent, vivant dans le passé, Don Quichotte est le premier woke de la littérature ! 

Best translated as "Reparations make enemies of windmills by living in the past, Don Quixote is the first "woke" in literature".

Russell Brand on the Democrats and still more Russell Brand!

 This video needs to be seen since both parties like to demonise the other while neglecting their own faults. Meanwhile, people are being conned with "hot button" issues.

Seriously, how long would it have taken the US to have adopted serious gun regulation if there wasn't an obscure passage in the US constitution relating to militias?

Of course, it helps to have helpful people keeping the regime running.

There are a lot of reasons I left Facebook. One of them is the hope that we can bankrupt these billionaires who made their money off of us.

No, it's not socialism where people get money from not working: that's capitalism.

"What's a weekend?"

Greg Gutfeld on Whoopi Goldberg and CRT

I have a love-hate relationship with Greg Gutfeld. He says some things which are bang on sometimes. He also says some things that are a little off. I used to think I would get into a fight if we got together. Then, I realised he likes to shock the way I do.

 His monologue cuts to the heart of the matter here in that blacks are victims, which leaves out a lot. Given that one of the "Buffalo Soldiers" main tasks was to help control the Native Americans of the Plain, the concept that blacks are without sin in the "race game" is something which needs to be seriously examined.

If I am guilty for slavery as a white person, then aren't blacks guilty of ethnically cleansing the native American population?

A significant number of blacks left the south after the Civil War to make lives in other parts of the US. And quite a few of them joined the US Military.

And Idi Amin was one of the most notorious racists EVER. Even though Idi Amin may have been Ugandan, but ask an Asian who was deported from Uganda during the 1970s how well they were treated by his government. And wasn't that the beginning of the "taking a knee" thing?

Yes, blacks can be racist too.

And let's close with some Russell Brand on the Democrats:

Big Brother/Sister is watching you and you are giving him everything he/she wants

 You might find this interesting if you believe you support "capitalism":

Time to wake up because Big Tech is running your life.

Time to become a Luddite. This tells you the problem and how to fight it.

BTW,  Facebook's owner Meta Platforms saw its stock market value slump by more than $230bn (£169bn) on Thursday, in a record daily loss for a US firm.

The company's share price slide saw chief executive Mark Zuckerberg's net worth fall by $31bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The drop in Mr Zuckerberg's personal fortune was equivalent to the annual gross domestic product of Estonia.

Analysis of this from the BBC (https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60255088):

It's clear that Meta is facing a whirlwind of different problems.

Last year Apple brought in its App Tracking Transparency policy.

It lets people choose whether or not they want to be tracked around the internet by companies, like Meta, who can then sell that information to advertisers.

That is a major problem for Facebook, because finding information out about you and selling it to advertisers is exactly how it makes money.

Its quarterly results showed advertising income falling, partly for this reason.

 Get off of social media since YOU are the product. The Billionaires are getting rich off of YOUR information.

 

Russell Brand on Hillary Clinton

 Unlike Doggone, I KNEW that the Russia narrative was Rubbish. Russell Brand makes the truth easy to swallow:

Tulsi Gabbard captured Hillary Clinton best. “You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long…”

"Why are we even invested in this? Because the media continually tells us we are doing something valuable instead of telling us the truth: 'Look, It doesn't matter who you vote for, you're getting the same deal. That's what you're gonna be getting, That's what's on offer. Shut up and like it.'"

Everyone MUST WATCH this!

 Many a truth is told in jest. 

Brand may be a comedian, but he is saying a lot of things which need to be said.

Are you wondering what is going on right now? He explains things which need to be explained.

Please listen to him.

HEY MITCH, YOU MIGHT WANT TO WATCH THIS BEFORE YOU ATTACK NEIL YOUNG!

 Maybe the evil is capitalism...

"The point of this is to open your eyes to see possibilities you may not have imagined."

And this is an interesting footnote to all this:

The US really needs to join the rest of the World

 In this case, it's the metric system. There are a lot of really good reasons: one of which is trade. There are only three countries in the world using the archaic system of measurement used in the US.

The other countries are:

Country	2021 Population
United States	332,915,073
Myanmar	54,806,012
Liberia	5,180,203

 

You would think that if someone were really serious about "Making America Great Again" they would follow up by finally implementing a system of measurement that the founders approved of.

Immediately after independence, the United States used a variety of units of measure, including Dutch units and English units. The 1789 Constitution grants Congress the authority to determine standards of measure, though it did not immediately use this authority to impose a uniform system. The United States was one of the first nations to adopt a decimal currency, under the Coinage Act of 1792.

 In 1793, Thomas Jefferson requested artifacts from France that could be used to adopt the metric system in the United States, and Joseph Dombey was sent from France with a standard kilogram. Before reaching the United States, Dombey's ship was blown off course by a storm and captured by pirates, and he died in captivity on Montserrat.

OK, early adoption was rather abortive, but the US SHOULD have been a pioneer here (as well as in other technological advancements, such as high speed rail, but that's another post). Anyway...

Congress included new encouragement for U.S. industrial metrication in the Omnibus Foreign Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988. This legislation amended the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 and designated the metric system as "the Preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce". The legislation states that the federal government has a responsibility to assist industry, especially small business, as it voluntarily converts to the metric system of measurement. The legislation required most federal agencies to use the metric system in their procurement, grants, and other business-related activities by the end of 1992. While not mandating metric use in the private sector, the federal government has sought to serve as a catalyst in the metric conversion of the country's trade, industry, and commerce. Exceptions were made for the highway and construction industries. The Department of Transportation planned to require metric units by 2000, but this plan was canceled by the 1998 highway bill TEA21. The U.S. military has generally high use of the metric system, partly because of the need to work with other nations' militaries.

There are quite a few stories where differences caused by contractors to the US government using both systems of measurement to disasterous effects.

So, what's causing me to bitch like this since I avoid the "English" system of measurements used by the US? Actually, I don't use them normally.

I am trying to convert Liquid ounces, cups, pints, quarts, etcetera into metric. Metric is easy there are 1000 millilitres in a litre, 100 centilitre in a litre, and so on. On the other hand, a system of measurement which was based on the length of the monarch's arm has to be shit.

Seriously, once you get used to metric, you wonder how you ever bothered with the antiquated system of measurement. Trust me--it's much better.