#and mass was in Ukrainian of course

[dickggansey]

i should have learnt ukrainian as a child i rlly should have it would have been cool languages are so cool

#grandma took me to ukrainian orthodox catholic church as a child but i never understood anything bc i don't speak the language #and mass was in Ukrainian of course #im not religious tho but it would be cool to understand what the fuck goes on #gotta go for easter again and I don't understand anything akdnskskks #i only understood when grandpa told me to sit down #and cyka obviously. i have cyka tattooed on my arm #and pryvit #but i don't remember the phrase for sit down #it was. not the one on google #my ukrainian family was quite rude. im sure they were telling me like “sit the fuck down bitch ass brat” but i didn't understand lmaooooo #still nostalgic tho #ANYWAYS what im saying is: you should always take the chance lo learn any language #and i had the chance and didn't take it #and now they're all dead wjdkksks #well grandma's alive and well but she's italian actually #she just had to learn some ukrainian bc of grandpa #and she came to Argentina when she was 10 and she's like 78 now so she doesnt remember much Italian either #so i only know insults 👍

[qqueenofhades]

-Runs back into the room from having been wrapped up in the Sub Shitshow- context PLEASE on what’s up with Putin!?

Lol okay buckle up:

Yevgeny Prighozin is (well, as of now) one of Putin's closest allies. He is Putin's former chef and now the CEO of Wagner Group, the Russian private army of mercenaries who have spent a decade plundering Africa and destroying Syria in the employ of various terrible local dictators. Since the invasion of Ukraine, Wagner has become one of the Russian army's mainstays, mostly because they're the only ones who seem able to actually do anything. Of course, it did still take them nine months to take Bakhmut, Ukraine's *checks notes* 53rd largest city with very little strategic value, but given what a shitshow the regular Russian army has been, that's good. Or something.

The Russian army is mostly good at destroying dams and bombing civilians, which are obviously terrible for many reasons, but not that useful in the military scheme of things.

However, Wagner are also -- I hasten to stress -- thoroughly terrible people. Aside from all the shit in Africa and Syria, they've done likewise in Ukraine and will continue to do so. Legally speaking, they technically "don't exist," which has allowed them to get around a lot of the usual rules and regulations that are supposed to "bind" (ha) the Russian army. They are obviously in Ukraine directly at Putin's behest and doing Putin's bidding, but it turns out that giving an ambitious and amoral psychopathic warlord his own private army of criminals, rapists, killers, and whoever else they can dredge out of Russia's prisons to throw at the front line and die en masse may not be a good idea?

Shocking, I know.

Anyway, Prigozhin has spent months ripping into the Russian Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, for what a whole shitshow clusterfuck this whole stupid war patently is. (Not, however, that this has stopped him from continuing to eagerly carry it out, since he's just as much or indeed even more of a zealot as the rest of Putin's government.) This has included blaming Shoigu for equipment losses, underprovisioning of Wagner troops, general strategic numbnuttery, etc. Prigozhin has not, however -- again, until now -- attacked Putin directly, or backed off from getting his losers killed in Bakhmut and/or wherever else. One suspects that Putin has been perfectly happy to let Prigozhin scapegoat Shoigu for the war's failures, since this means Shoigu can always just conveniently fall out a window or something if it gets too necessary to make a public show of displeasure, and not Putin.

HOWEVER, things took a turn VERY FAST today, within about 12 hours. Prigozhin has, as noted, spent months tearing the Russian military leadership a new asshole -- not because he's a good guy (he's a fucking war criminal on like, 10 different levels), but because it is plainly obvious what a shitshow this is and even a war criminal has his limits as to how much totally pointless murderous bullshit he wants to go through, I guess. (That includes telling the truth about why the war started -- i.e. to steal Ukrainian stuff/land for the oligarchs, and not any of Putin's other stupid excuses.)

Today (June 23) Prigozhin accused the Russian Ministry of Defense of orchestrating a rocket attack on Wagner's camp in eastern Ukraine (near the Russian border) and causing massive casualties;

We don't have proof of this yet, or indeed much else of what Prigozhin is talking about, BUT he finally decided to put his Coup Hat On and get serious about "punishing" Russian military leadership, i.e. presumably Shoigu, declaring that "there are 25,000 of us [Wagner soldiers] and we're coming into Russia to sort out this chaos"

So -- again, according to Prigozhin, who is not the world's most reliable source on anything -- he turned his army of yoinks around, left Ukraine, and marched into the southwestern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, where the Russian military command in charge of the assault on Ukraine is headquartered;

For a while, there was nothing but Prigozhin's various unhinged rants on Telegram to prove any of this, but it's now early tomorrow morning in Russia and there are indeed a lot of videos of what DOES IN FACT LOOK like Wagner mercenaries rolling into Rostov and storming Ministry of Defense buildings;

Firm information on what is going on is almost nonexistent, even for Russia, but Putin is clearly taking this seriously; Moscow is shut down, there are armored vehicles on the streets, Google is down in Russia, and Russian newscasters are interrupting their broadcasts to insist Don't Look, Everything Is Fine Here, Totally Fine, Do You Hear Swan Lake? I Don't Hear Swan Lake!

Nobody can find Putin either, allegedly, but don't worry! He has been "briefed on the situation and everything is under control!"

The Russian FSB (successor to the KGB) has meanwhile issued a warrant for Prigozhin's arrest, said they'll charge/prosecute him for treason and armed rebellion against the state, and ordered him to stand down/his own men to arrest him

This, uh, does not appear to be working

ANYWAY, Putin's basically fucked no matter how this ends. Wagner literally just led an armed mutiny, he can't feel good about sending his ex-bestie Prigozhin back to Ukraine with any confidence that his orders will continue to be obeyed, it's Russian-on-Russian open war in the streets of Rostov and God knows where else, he's totally lost control of the narrative, the war, the domestic political situation, Wagner, probably good chunks of the Russian military command/elite establishment, etc., and we all know what happens to dictators in Russia who can no longer dictate

(And yet the Russian army is still finding time to lob some missiles at civilian buildings in Kyiv tonight, because they suck).

This is obviously a huge lucky break for Ukraine as well, since if the Russians are busy fighting each other, they can continue to push for a big breakthrough on their counteroffensive.

So yeah. Pride Month really wheeling out the big guns here, after Putin was the top option picked for Lady Karma to do her thing on in my poll a few weeks ago.

Stay tuned.

#anonymous #ask #russia ukraine war

[snovyda]

I love how for some western leaders, Ukrainians dying and being mass deported, tortured and imprisoned in concentration camps in the course of a literal genocide is not "escalation". But Ukrainians trying to resist and fight back is.

#russia must burn #and i really want all these appeasers to burn with it

[alcestas-sloboda]

Why Ukrainians didn’t produce a Tolstoy?

there are a lot of things that can piss me off, today it was this tweet:

and all i wanted to do was to ask this person, why the fuck do we need a racist misogynistic piece of shit as a standout author if we have Shevchenko as our prophet?

but you don’t know who he is? of course, you don’t. that is the thing with imperialism: you destroy other cultures while promoting yours as the only way to legitimise your rule. even if those territories are of higher cultural development. but there is always a way out of it: kill them all. kill anyone who poses an existential threat to your hegemony. throw them into jail. forbid them to write and paint. send them to gulag. kill them. torture them. execute them.

if you don’t know Ukrainian literature, it doesn’t mean that it‘s nonexistent. if you don’t know "a Ukrainian Tolstoy", it means there is a Ukrainian Bahrianyi, who was sent to the gulag but ran away and was the first person in the world to openly criticise USSR in his pamphlet Why I am not going back to the Soviet Union. "I don't want to go back to the USSR because a person there is worth less than an insect"

there is a Ukrainian Symonenko and a Ukrainian Stus. there is a Ukrainian Lesya Ukrainka and Olha Kobylyanska. a Ukrainian Kotsiubynskyi, Ukrainian Drach, Ukrainian Olena Pchilka and Ukrainian Lina Kostenko. and so many more of the bravest people who despite all wrote in the Ukrainian language about Ukrainian people and for Ukrainian people.

there are thousands of beautiful texts that weren’t translated because this would’ve harmed the empire. that is why you are reading Dostoevsky and not Khvyliovyi.

but there are also thousands of texts that were never written. just how many more poems would’ve Stus written if he wasn’t killed by the Soviet regime? how many more texts would have Pidmohylnyi, Semenko, Yalovyi, Yohansen, Zerov written if they weren’t shot at Sandarmokh?

just how many texts have the world missed out on because Khvyliovyi committed suicide as he couldn’t live in the world with Stalin’s repressions. "today is a beautiful sunny day. I love life - you can't even imagine how much", - he will write in his death note as he shot himself with his friends waiting for him in the next room.

or maybe there was a Ukrainian Nobel Prize in Literature waiting for Tychyna? maybe, but he submitted to Soviet authorities and started writing hails for the regime, suddenly forgetting his own literary style and living his entire life in fear. fear of what? fear of getting caught. of getting destroyed just as all of the previous Ukrainian intelligentsia.

I’m tired of my people being silenced. I’m tired of my poets being undermined by "great” russian literature. it’s not worth a single Symonenko’s poem. it’s not worth a single paragraph of Bahrianyi‘s prose.

the greatness of russian literature lies on the bones of Ukrainian writers. to be this high, they killed hundreds and they are still doing it today.

the body of Ukrainian children’s writer Volodymyr Vakulenko was found in the mass grave in Izium in September 2022.

there will be a Ukrainian Nobel Prize in Literature, and there will be more Ukrainian books. there will be Ukrainian Zhadan and Zabuzhko, Liubka and Izdryk, Deresh and Kidruk. there will be Ukrainian literature.

another funny thing is that this person is Indian and let me tell you: the fact that you stand up for one empire even when your own country has suffered from the doings of another is evidence of deep colonial trauma and I hope you will cure yourself soon

#x #ukrainian literature #leo tolstoy

[cannibal-rainbow]

this is the same person who says the working class Ukrainians should surrender or unite with Russian proletariat to stop the War... without any weapons and tanks (bc no dirty western help silly).

this is also a very funny way of saying "imperialism is awesome when the right kind of people are doing it". Imverysmart Tankies like this are enlightened unlike the stupid masses. If all the soviets states were full of working class people who had their freedom to choose their political stances why the state had to send the tanks in when the people choose to protest? Weren't they willingly under soviet rule? ah yes, because those workers were not the right kind of people. Of course all good workers must choose to follow the purest of the ideology, there's no other option.

#leninism #stalinism #txttletale #ukraine #tankies #imperialism #soviet union #tankies gotta wank

[panimoonchild]

2 years

We remember. Ukrainians live in such a way that every day we have to commemorate the anniversaries of tragedies. And in the case of Mariupol. People specifically wrote the word "Children" in Russian so that Russians would understand. But of course, it didn't matter to them. And in general, the city was as Russified as possible (almost everyone spoke Russian). Russian culture is "transforming" modern cities into mass graves. Why we Ukrainians don't like to talk about such a cosmic lovely nation of theirs? What a waste of time.

#ukraine #russia #arm ukraine #stand with ukraine #genocide #stop the genocide #український tumblr #russia is a terrorist state #укртамблер #20 days in mariupol #Mariupol #russia invades ukraine #russian invasion of ukraine #russian terrorism #stop russia #russian imperialism #russo ukrainian war #armukraineasap #standwithukraine #russian colonialism #colonialism #colonization #colonial violence #imperialism #video #united states #photography #war is real #war in ukraine #russian war crimes

[yellowtomb]

Today is an important and dark date for any ukrainian. 10 years this day first russian armed forces units crossed the ukrainian border at the Kerch Bridge and the annexation of Crimea started.

In 4 days there would be another anniversary - 2 years since full-scale war with russia. I haven't posted a lot about war and in general here. Tumblr just doesn't feels right, I rarely go here to watch couple of aesthetic posts, but it does not make any sense now. And yet 10 years of war passed today. And I still see so much uneducated takes on this conflict. People around the world, left-leaning and radical left around the globe still think of this as a local proxy war of "american imperialism" and "russian anti-imperialism". You are right about america agenda, you may say the have geopolitical interests in this conflict and not just pure intentions or altruism. Thats not debatable. I would debate that so mane people don't even realise the level of atrocities committed by russians. Many still believe that images of Bucha are staged. Many still believe ukrainian forces destroyed Donbas in the last ten years. What a farce to read those takes for us, people of ukraine, for me personally, as I spent my first three days of russian invasion in the city of Kyiv, in my home (Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel are the suburbs of Kyiv).

This year ukrainian filmmakers compiled two important documentary films about those atrcities, committed by russians. One of them just earned two prizes on Berlin International Film Festival. And will run for Best Documentary nomination at this years Oscars.

Oscars mean nothing of course, its not a merit of truth. The merrit of truth are those films themselves. The documentary material they present. Award run is just an opportunity for more people outside of Ukraine to see those films. And I beg you to see it. I will tell about them in the next post. Its damn time for world to see this, for those blinded by russian propaganda especially. Photo by Evgeniy Maloletka. From the exhumation of mass graves in Kharkiv region. Dozens of civilian ukrainians killed by russian forces in 2022.

#war in ukraine #russian imperialism #russian propaganda #russian invasion #russia is a terrorist state #20 days in mariupol #intercepted #february 2024 #oscars 2024 #berlinale #war crimes #russian war crimes

[irithnova]

The Russian state using ethnic minorities as cannon fodder - with a focus on Buryats

Article written in 2022, update on the Free Buryatia Foundation in September 2023 given at the end of the post.

Putin announced on October 14th 2022 that by the end of October, his partial mobilisation process would be complete

The recruitment target was 300,000. 222,000 were recruited, and it was claimed that there'd be no more plans for future recruitment

The mobilisation process soaked nation wide outrage which lead to mass protests.

It drew in criticism from some of the Russian political elite

The mobilisation process disproportionately affected ethnic minorities/impoverished regions (many impoverished regions have a high ethnic minority population)

Tuva Republic

Regions that held high populations of ethnic minorities bared the brunt of war-related deaths.

Both Ukrainian media and authorities have levelled accusations at Russian ethnic minorities - that they committed war crimes in Bucha, Ukraine

This accusations was made in May 2022 by Lydmyla Denisova, Ukrainian ombudsman for human rights

Buryats and Chechens were being accused of this

This was a form of scapegoating (not to say they 0 ethnic minorities have committed war crimes in Ukraine of course)

The Free Buryat Foundation investigated this and produced a report that challenged the notion that Buryats were ever sent to Bucha, let alone being responsible for the war crimes committed

Victoria Maladaeva is the vice president of the Free Buryatia Foundation.

She said:

Dagestan, Tuva Republic and Buryatia Republic have the highest death tolls

Moscow, with 17 million, had >50 deaths.

Buryatia with only 980,000 had 364

A Buryat is 7.8 x more likely to die in the war compared to an ethnic Russian.

A Tuvan is 10.4x more likely

The biggest losses were at the beginning of the war and numbers gradually decreased.

Mobilisation was first and foremost carried out in ethnic republics

The day Putin announced this, authorities came to Buryatia at night, went into people's homes and took them from their beds.

No one was given draft notices

They even took men with multiple children, men from the same family

Endangered ethnic groups reside in Dagestan

There are very small communities of those people with populations of around 13,000

Despite this, those minorities were still drafted

There are also very small communities in the Sakha Republic.

They are so remote, helicopters are needed to be called for medical treatment

They almost never come because of how remote these communities are

Funnily enough, helicopters came immediately to draft those people upon Putin's announcement

Putin is a Russian imperialist through and through

None Russians are treated like second class citizens

Russian cultural chauvinism is seen even in small things - such as names

Putin would frequently mispronounce Kazakhstan's president's name. If you have an ethnic Buryat name for example, Russians are reluctant to use it, instead assigning you an "easier" Russian name

Kassym-Jomart Tokayev

Unfortunately, many of the people of Buryatia believe in the Russian narrative about Nazi ideology in Ukraine

It is one of the missions of the free Buryatia Foundation to help Buryats understand that this is Russian propaganda

The focus on Buryat/ethnic minority war crimes has a racial element

When an ethnic minority commits a war crime, their ethnicity is singled out

It should not matter the ethnicity of a war criminal

78 Buryat soldiers from the 11th air assault brigade were barred from terminating their contract

They were imprisoned in Luhansk.

Only Ilya Kaminskiy returned. The fate of the other men is unknown

The Free Buryatia Foundation knows they cannot help everyone but they do their best. They help people in terminating their contracts for example and have been quite successful in this.

The Free Buryatia Foundation was established to counter Russian propaganda and to protest the war.

People worldwide took an interest to this, so they founded the free Buryatia Foundation.

The Free Buryatia Foundation is the first ethnic anti war organisation in Russia

They aided in founding anti war organisations in other ethnic regions such as Tuva, Kalmykia, Udmurtia, Sakha

Many Buryats fled to Mongolia and Kazakhstan

Some men were able to come back after being drafted, some were not

The economic situation for Buryatia is dire. It ranked 81st out of 85 of Russia's regions when it came to living standards

Buryats had to spend money on a list of supplies for war that Russia did not provide them

Very recently, on September 1st, Russia banned the Free Buryatia Foundation, labelling them as undesirable and anti Russian.

Here is the website for the Free Buryatia Foundation:

And here is where you can donate:

Please spread around or give what you can.

#Russia #Russian imperialism #russian colonialism #russian invasion #Ukraine #invasion of ukraine #russian invasion of ukraine #war in ukraine #Buryatia #Tuva #chechnya #Sakha #Yakutia #Kalmykia #Indigenous people of Russia #Asian Russians #indigenous russia #indigenous russian #Native Russia #Native Russians #Russian ethnic groups #Free Buryatia foundation #Free Buryatia #Anti Russia #Russian propaganda #human rights #Russian ethnic minorities

[kazhanko-art]

It continues to astound me that westerners will say shit like “yes Russia has done bad, bUt uKrAinE hAs DoNe bAD tHinGS tOo”

The vast majority of people aren’t denying that Ukraine is an imperfect country. The majority of people are aware there are bad parts about Ukraine. The vast majority of people will not deny that there are bad Ukrainians.

Anyone with a brain will know that a the population of a country of around forty million is going to have people who aren’t perfect little saints about being invaded. No I would not be surprised to hear there have been Ukrainian soldiers who committed war crimes; quite frankly I’d be shocked if after all the looting, abductions, tortures, mutilations, rapes, murders, destruction and whatever other horrendous thing the Russians have done I found out not a single person maybe sought revenge for that (and no I’m not saying warcrimes are okay but Jesus Christ use your brain for five seconds. It’s a war, of course not everything will be heroic and nice)

Sure, that stuff will need it’s prosecution in due time, and sure, there’s probably things you could reasonably criticize the Ukrainian government and army for (incidentally, many Ukrainian journalists continue to do so, even in English, but who’s counting)

The thing is that most of you who bring up Ukrainian faults use it to distract from the fundamental reality of this war: Russia is invading Ukraine and committing genocide. The victims of genocide and invasion shouldn’t have to be saints for you to not treat these sides as equal. Because they aren’t.

Believe it or not that applies to the victims of imperialism, colonialism, and war in general. I don’t know why we in the west have this obsession with perfect victims, but it has to stop. Even when we advocate for victims we act as though they were these beacons of life rather than tackling the simple truth that genocide, mass murder, and oppression are simply not justified, regardless of how “good” or “bad” the victims are.

People are flawed, cultures are flawed, so stop with this shit of “who has committed the most sins” so we can get back to genocide being wrong, thanks

#ukraine #stand with ukraine #westsplaining #apologies to my non western friends and siblings #i’m sorry people here have such sticks up their asses about your suffering #genocide #war #fuck russia #colonialism #imperialism #ukrainian

[odinsblog]

T/W pedophilia mention

“Wow, this escalated. Let me explain.

Child-trafficking is a real issue that has been exploited to create undue influence aka brainwashing in tens of millions of people.

That’s why in the last 24 hours I’ve received dozens of death threats and thousands of accusations of being a “pedo.”

Starting in 2016, there has been an ongoing psychological operation to create fear about pedophiles—generally defined as Satanic Democrats led by Hillary Clinton but, importantly, a “pedophile” can be *anyone* identified by a cult leader.

The vast majority of child sex crimes are committed by family and friends. “Stranger danger” is a phobia planted through trauma—in the form of lies about “800,000 missing children per year,” adrenochrome, etc.

Pizzagate, QAnon and derivative groups have been distributing “trauma porn” depicting child torture for seven full years—while presenting people like Donald Trump as the literal savior of the phantom missing children. This is classic fascism: manufacture a problem, create a scapegoat, and present yourself as the solution.

The reason this post went viral is that it addresses the harm caused by lies about this subject which both resonates with people who have lost family and friends to Pizzagate/QAnon lies, and also people who suffer from undue influence themselves.

When cult members are presented with evidence that counteracts the cult doctrine, they suffer cognitive dissonance—literally mental pain. Seeing a post that questions what they’ve been terrified into believing is painful. So they lash out.

While I do not enjoy having my life threatened or being accused of child sex crimes, I also understand that people brainwashed with this powerful psychological warfare tactic actually believe what they say. And their cognitive dissonance keeps them in line.

I see the conversation about this as helpful and hopeful, no matter how many threats & accusations are wielded. We need to collectively understand the actual problem, with both real child predators, and those who falsely see them around every corner.

I also hope the NYTimes will begin to take more responsibility for what they publish. Presenting this film out of context is dangerous.”

—Jim Stewartson

How tf is anyone still taking Mel Gibson seriously, and why does he still work in Hollywood?

This is cult thinking and we are witnessing it in real time. Republicans and QAnon are using mass media propaganda for brainwashing weak minded, gullible white racists.

Also, it is Russia that is raping and sex trafficking Ukrainian women and children, but somehow the film is about sex trafficking happening in Ukraine?? (source ) (source)

And it is Russia that is kidnapping Ukrainian children for “adoption” back in Russia, but again, the film makes Ukrainians the bad guys?? (source) (source) (source)

And of course, the only people eating up this upside down propaganda are the usual suspects: Republicans and tankies

#politics #the sound of freedom #republicans #brainwashing #qanon #pedophillia #pedophillia tw #conspiracy theorists #mel gibson #pizza gate #tony robbins #jim caviezel #sex trafficking #russia #ukraine #disinformation #misinformation #propaganda

[sixty-silver-wishes]

with regards to the iran/israel situation and literally any other humanitarian situation that's going on right now, I just want to re-iterate some of my stances on current events:

I do not believe in wishing death on anyone. no matter anyone's identity or beliefs, I think that everyone should be entitled to basic human rights. I will NEVER advocate for statements calling for the mass death of civilians of any country, and detest seeing such statements made as jokes. I don't want to see "death to (country)," "burn (country) to the ground," "(country) needs to be nuked," etc. if you make those statements, think about what you're saying. we should not believe ourselves to be entitled to who gets to live or die. that is genocidal rhetoric.

WAR IS NOT ENTERTAINMENT. by that I mean I'm tired of people who have never experienced war treating it like fictional media. it's not strictly good vs. evil, it's not a sports game where you pick your favorite team. people die in war. and of course that seems obvious, but ever since the russian invasion of ukraine, I've seen people online, usually westerners with no connection to either country, treating a global conflict with devastating civilian consequences like fandom. express your support for ukraine by raising awareness for humanitarian causes, supporting ukrainian businesses, or learning about ukrainian culture and history, not making volodymyr zelensky thirst traps, goddammit. (and yes, I remember the volodymyr zelensky thirst traps. those were indeed a thing.) war is not meme fodder and entertainment, especially for those who are fortunate enough to be removed from it.

I do not believe in generalizing entire populations based on the actions of their governments. yes, of course there are civilians that support a government's actions, and there are civilians who oppose them. there are israelis who oppose the actions of the israeli government, russians who oppose the actions of the russian government, americans who oppose the actions of the us government, etc. the minute you generalize all civilians under a certain government as holding the same beliefs, you risk promoting rhetoric that is also used to justify ignorance and bigotry in best-case scenarios, and genocide in worst-case scenarios. people are not monoliths, and treating them as such can lead down a dangerous pipeline of attempting to justify the extermination of entire populations.

just because a government is committing atrocities doesn't mean the governments opposed to it are absolved of atrocities. powerful governments are not generally interested in human rights; they're interested in gaining as much influence and power as possible. ukrainians and palestinians are both suffering, but the international governments that claim to support either group of people are only doing so to support their own self-interests, such as global prominence or economic gain. we should not be cheering for the iranian government just because they oppose the israeli government; the mahsa/jina amini protests happened for a reason.

whenever there's a war, civilians always suffer the most. for those of us removed from war, we're removed from the full extent of this suffering. nowadays, with the rise of social media, we are able to witness atrocities in real time, but seeing videos of mutilated bodies and hearing the testimonies of survivors still doesn't equate to witnessing such atrocities firsthand. I don't believe that we should actively seek out graphic or distressing footage in order to alleviate any feelings of guilt, but we should treat these situations with extreme sensitivity, because we're not the ones experiencing them.

this goes with point #1, which is sort of where all of these points ultimately stem from, but I don't believe the killing of civilians is ever justified. even if one believes the ends justify the means, the lives of those people don't stop mattering.

please, going forward, let's be sensitive, compassionate, and kind. we need to be open to learning about different perspectives, as well as history, culture, and current events. there's already been so much suffering in the world in these last few years alone, and for those of us who are privileged enough to be removed from this sort of suffering, it's our responsibility to do our best not to make it worse than it already is.

[scarz-xo]

It's hard to write to a world that doesn't listen, a world that lives with double standards, I try to write but I just stare at the screen in utter disbelief to what humanity has come to.

Israel has bombed South Lebanon many times yet no one hears about it like at all.

The hatred & targeting of Palestinians all over the world right now just for being Palestinian.

Today Israel targeted & killed the 70 year old Palestinian woman who said she was older than the occupation.

No one is speaking, no one is talking, Biden came out in all his white saviour bullshit tweeting about Palestinian children who have cancer & about how he'll save them & get them proper help when he's the one funding the young children's displacement, the bombing of the hospitals & more

And of course we can't forget the Ukrainian president who should be on the side of Palestine cause they're both getting invaded yet he's with Israel going on & on about how the genocide in Palestine (which he didn't call genocide) takes the attention away from Ukraine.

Cause Apparently it's all about a fight for focus & attention not humanity & peace, but after all we can't forget he was an actor who did a photoshoot during the war so of course he's the best when it comes to having attention & focus on him.

Oh and let's not forget New York Times person Of The Year cause in 2022 it was Zelensky himself:

Cause yeah he's fighting a war against the Russian but this year we have mega pop star Taylor Swift, no Palestinians no, and before you attack me, I'm a major swiftie but this just shows the double standards cause as this year's person is not a Palestinian no, it's the same when people came out for Ukraine's support calling for actions against Russia yet no one is talking about Palestine like Selena Gomez who decided to take a break now but when it was Ukraine she was posting & talking about it.

All of this yet the result we get today is Starvation, no electricity, no water, bombing 24/7, hospitals out of control cause they no longer have the capacity for more, dismembered bodies, belongings getting stolen by the IDF & so so much more & what's worse is the Israeli posts their shit all over social media yet the world pretends it's blind!

Everyone have their eyes and ears covered, everyone is funding, some are not even doing the least as boycotting & you wanna see the result?

Here it is:

They took their clothes in December, tied them up, covered their eyes & preparing them for a mass execution, these are not Hamas or related to Hamas, these are Palestinian men, they're just men, just humans, like our own men, our guy friends, our boyfriends, our husbands, our brothers, out fathers, they're more than just "men" to their people.

But they're getting executed cause the world refuses to listen or see.

I'm so fucking tired over this.

#Palestine #gaza #israel #israel is a terrorist state #Zelensky #ukraine #new york times #person of the year #taylor swift #selena gomez #Biden #joe biden #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #this is where the American taxes go #lebanon #cancer #children

[gatheringbones]

[“Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, who endured Stalin’s Gulag while his brother was sheltering Jews, wrote that “a man can be human only under human conditions.” The purpose of the state is to preserve these conditions, so that its citizens need not see personal survival as their only goal.

The state is for the recognition, endorsement, and protection of rights, which means creating the conditions under which rights can be recognized, endorsed, and protected. The state endures to create a sense of durability.

A final plurality thus has to do with time. When we lack a sense of past and future, the present feels like a shaky platform, an uncertain basis for action. The defense of states and rights is impossible to undertake if no one learns from the past or believes in the future. Awareness of history permits recognition of ideological traps and generates skepticism about demands for immediate action because everything has suddenly changed. Confidence in the future can make the world seem like something more than, in Hitler’s words, “the surface area of a precisely measured space.”

Time, the fourth dimension, can make the three dimensions of space seem less claustrophobic. Confidence in duration is the antidote to panic and the tonic of demagogy. A sense of the future has to be created in the present from what we know of the past, the fourth dimension built out from the three of daily life. In the case of climate change, we know what the state can do to tame panic and befriend time.

We know that it is easier and less costly to draw nourishment from plants than animals. We know that improvements in agricultural productivity continue and that the desalination of seawater is possible. We know that efficiency of energy use is the simplest way to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. We know that governments can assign prices to carbon pollution and can pledge reductions of future emissions to one another and review one another’s pledges. We also know that governments can stimulate the development of appropriate energy technologies. Solar and wind energy are ever cheaper. Fusion, advanced fission, tidal stream power, and non-crop-based biofuels offer real hope for a new energy economy. In the long run, we will need techniques to capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

All of this is not only thinkable but attainable. States should invest in science so that the future can be calmly contemplated. The study of the past suggests why this would be a wise course. Time supports thought, thought supports time; structure supports plurality, and plurality, structure.

This line of reasoning is less glamorous than waiting for general disaster and dreaming of personal redemption. Effective prevention of mass killings is incremental and its heroes are invisible. No conception of a durable state can compete with visions of totality. No green politics will ever be as exciting as red blood on black earth. But opposing evil requires inspiration by what is sound rather than by what is resonant. The pluralities of nature and politics, order and freedom, past and future, are not as intoxicating as the totalitarian utopias of the last century. Every unity is beautiful as image but circular as logic and tyrannical as politics. The answer to those who seek totality is not anarchy, which is not totality’s enemy but its handmaiden. The answer is thoughtful, plural institutions: an unending labor of differentiated creation.

This is a matter of imagination, maturity, and survival. We share Hitler’s planet and several of his preoccupations; we have changed less than we think. We like our living space, we fantasize about destroying governments, we denigrate science, we dream of catastrophe. If we think that we are victims of some planetary conspiracy, we edge towards Hitler. If we believe that the Holocaust was a result of the inherent characteristics of Jews, Germans, Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, or anyone else, then we are moving in Hitler’s world.”]

timothy snyder, from black earth: the holocaust as history and warning, 2015

#timothy snyder #history stuff #cw genocide #cw racism #currently reading #terra preta

[pengychan]

I mean I get what you're saying, but you don't need to be American to care

Of course not, and a lot of people do care. I am personally horrified and worried for women/trans men/nb people in the US that will be caught up in this. But what's not what the point of the post was.

The point of the post was that expecting everyone online to be 100% up to date with USA issues and talk about nothing else is ridiculous.

I don't precisely see tons of Americans protesting the horrifying fact that people cannot have an abortion in, say, Poland in almost any circumstances - including Ukrainian refugees who were raped, which has recently been an issue.

I don't precisely see tons of Americans talking about the fact that in Italy - with the right to an abortion on demand supposedly guaranteed by law - finding a doctor willing to help can be a struggle because they have a right to pull the "conscientious objection" to refuse and still be allowed to work in public hospitals.

I didn't see anything about the little girl in Brazil, aged 11, who was raped and then almost forced to carry the pregnancy to term by a judge who wouldn't let her have an abortion.

I didn't see many posts (I didn't see any at all, really, though to be fair I have been offline most of the weekend) about the mass shooting during an LGBTQ festival in Norway.

I don't usually see Americans talking about the sheer number of African migrants who drown in the Mediterranean sea while trying to reach Europe, while our governments look the other way because the fewer make it ashore the better.

The list goes on for issues concerning pretty much any other country in the world, particularly non-English speaking ones. Americans are not expected to be talking about nothing else but those issues - and that is fine. No one can be concerned with everything happening everywhere 100% of the time, or even know about it all.

But non-Americans shouldn't be expected to do that, either.

[mariacallous]

In mid-February 2022, as Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin-backed authorities of the so-called “Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics” (“DNR” and “LNR”) announced a mass “evacuation” and began deporting orphaned and unaccompanied children to Russia. Since then, some estimates show that around 2,500 such children from occupied Ukrainian territories may have ended up in the Russian Federation. According to Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova herself, around 1,500 unaccompanied Ukrainian children were transported to Russia and purportedly ended up in Russian orphanages. (Both she and Russian President Vladimir Putin are wanted by the International Criminal Court for their alleged complicity in the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children, which is a war crime.) Media reports indicate others have been placed in foster homes or been “adopted” into Russian families. Before taking in these children, prospective “parents” are required to go through a special preparatory course. The independent outlet iStories learned what Russians looking to adopt or foster deported Ukrainian children are taught in this program. Meduza shares an abridged version in English.

‘Children with PTSD are difficult’

The first children forcibly taken from Ukraine at the start of the full-scale war were placed in foster families in the Moscow region in April 2022. Almost immediately, local authorities developed a special program to prepare foster and “adoptive” parents. Officially, the program says the children are “from the combat zone,” but from the content, it’s clear the children were brought to Russia from occupied parts of Ukraine.

According to the program’s description, prospective foster and adoptive parents must undergo an interview to determine their “motives, expectations, and understanding of the legal and other consequences of taking in children who have come from the combat zones.” In particular, they’re asked whether they have family or friends from Ukraine, how they think a child’s nationality affects their upbringing, and their views on the differences in raising boys and girls.

Ordinary programs for would-be foster and adoptive parents also have an interview component, but it doesn’t include questions about Ukrainian friends and family, an employee of a charity that helps orphaned children told iStories on condition of anonymity. According to him, the main goal of the separate program is to make sure families thinking about taking in children deported from Ukraine are well-informed of what awaits them, as not everyone can handle it.

“In the beginning [after they started bringing children from Ukraine to Russia], the guardianship offices’ phones were ringing off the hook — people wanted to take children into their families. Some did, and then they faced problems because children with PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] are a difficult ordeal for the whole family. It’s not like the child will say: ‘Mommy, I’m so grateful to you, let me wash the dishes.’ This is a child who’s more likely to misbehave, not listen, not clean up after themselves, smear feces on the walls, fight, or withdraw into themselves. It will be far from idyllic,” he said. According to him, out of every 100 people who take part in ordinary foster and adoptive training programs, about 70 drop out. Here, the rate could be even higher.

A rush job

Everyone who wants to take in a child brought from Ukraine has to go through the program. “It’s very strict now. You have to go through training and get a certificate — otherwise, they won’t give the kids to you,” said an employee of a center that conducts these classes. She believes having a separate program for those assuming guardianship of “evacuated” children is justified as many of the children are traumatized and find it difficult to adapt to another country. “There are lots of problems there. After all, children from those places are embittered children,” she explained.

Foster parents who’ve attended the course praise the program. “It’s necessary and relevant, in my opinion,” said Anastasia, who went through the training. “They teach everything possible given the current realities, considering our current understanding of the situation in these republics [Ukraine’s annexed territories] and of children’s psychology and their reaction to trauma. It’s a bit rough around the edges because it’s clear what events necessitated its development. It was put together hastily, on the fly, and it’s not as detailed as it could be.”

At least 50 of these courses are planned for 2024. Training center employees say between two to 10 people attend each. In 2023, there were almost twice as many classes. It’s difficult to say how many families completed the program during the two years of full-scale war.

One of the program blocks is dedicated to issues related to “national and cultural traits.” Prospective parents are taught to overcome “difficulties in interethnic differences” and told to “create a multicultural environment in the family.” But it’s unclear exactly how this can be done safely in the current conditions in Russia, psychologists told iStories. “How can you create a multicultural environment if people are arrested for Ukrainian songs? If a child says their country was attacked, how should surrogate parents react?” asked one psychologist who works with orphaned children and adoptive parents.

‘A second home’

In order to help a child adapt, say “specialists” who conduct the trainings, one has to understand the typical features of their “social and national-psychological profile.” “At any moment, a situation might come up, amidst certain political interactions, that touches both on nationality and mentality. The better we understand the mentality of this people and the mentality of their children, the more we can help the child. The child’s national identity is a reality that needs to be taken into account and worked with,” said an instructor at a training session for social workers. Attendees weren’t told exactly how they should work with the children’s “mentality.”

Anastasia, who went through the sessions for prospective parents, said the program assumes that the culture and language of the children deported from Ukraine are the same as in Russia. “It was put together with the understanding that we have one national identity. When kids from the “LNR” and “DNR” came, there weren’t problems related to culture and language. Mostly, there were practical problems because orphanages there aren’t as developed as they are here: the kids haven’t used computers or spent time in the kitchen.”

Some families find it too challenging to raise children taken from occupied Ukrainian territories. In these cases, these children, who have already experienced war and forced deportation, are orphaned for a second time: they’re thrown back into the system and sent to a Russian orphanage. “There have been cases where the family couldn’t cope, and they had to give up [the children]. [The parents] were so worn out, pushed to a nervous breakdown, and they pleaded: ‘For God’s sake, take these kids away. We can’t handle it.’ We had to remove the children,” recalled one employee of a training center. 

One child welfare specialist decried Russia’s approach: “Russia should have officially declared that it’s joining the international practice of not adopting children left without guardians as a result of warfare and that it will send information about each child to welfare services in Ukraine and make no decisions about the child’s fate without them. But if it were possible in Russia to do what’s needed from a professional point of view, there wouldn’t be any warfare.”

The program, however, makes no mention of trying to locate deported children’s relatives. Instead, parents and social workers are told to make a “second home” for them. “Children have come to another country, have found themselves in a situation where they have no home, no parents, no family,” say the instructors. “Therefore, our main job is creating conditions where the children don’t just become a part of the new family but also understand that they have a second home here which will accept them and help them overcome hardships.”

[evergreen-dryad]

Put in the language and form of a fable, it makes this tale immensely readable and accessible. What seems like a comfy tale of the English countryside and a farm and its animals with cute names like 'Bluebell' and 'Clover' quickly devolves from slight inequality (when the pigs keep the milk and apples for themselves, reasoning 'oh, they are the brain workers of the farm') to betrayal and the horror of a totalitarian government, once again replicating what came before the animals rebelled against men.

It's good this tale was told simply and clearly so no fancy word could be used to twist round it, like Squealer did as the propaganda. It's also a small thin book of 100+ pages. Plot felt very quick, true economy of word usage here. Characters are super memorable, each one distinct, and when there isn't a distinct one it's a mass of them. It's essentially post-war non-fiction dressed as fairytale, with no jargon, and it's described almost objectively? So there's no question of bias.

heart broke for boxer. no other words

when the sheep bleated 'four legs good, two legs bad' (the simplification of the motto) I kept dreading that this would one day be used against the poultry as discrimination. Oh nooo. It twisted to 'two legs better', reversing back horrifically to when they were still under men

I thought, Good for Mollie for escaping early when she did, she knew what she wanted and it was to live in the luxury she was used to. Even if that's depicted as a coward.

Squealer is good at what he does, and in turn describes how the media works, chillingly. 'Now when Squealer described the scene so graphically, it seemed to the animals that they did remember it.' I myself had to reread again just to make sure what exactly had happened. The animals didn't have the luxury of a reread.

it hurt to see the pigs keep twisting things around from a loss to a victory, a death to a celebration, a sale to constant enemies' persecution, etc. And of course, the changing of the commandments, the ideals which they had all worked for, to suit only themselves as the exception. The Constant Distraction of Events

i also thought it was good orwell had both insisted on no royalties for translations for countries too poor, and himself paid for Russian editions [APPENDIX II - preface to Ukrainian edition]

#animal farm #george orwell #books #additional thoughts: checked out ao3; very amused tht half is for homework and 1 entry is just to give free essays; and maybe like half are #pig yaoi yes u read that right #books-ed-read-2024