#Soviet politics are a mess man

[aswegoalong72]

worldbuilding will have you looking up things such as “racism in the Soviet Union” which then leads to you almost entirely revising how you’re going to go about the Soviet power struggle in the 70s & looking into the rehabilitation of Khrushchev and Lenin-era policies

[jh-newman-opn]

The Moscow Fiasco

At the prodding of @quonunc, here is a quick overview of the incident I fondly referred to as "the Moscow fiasco" in a previous ask about the difference between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. It's a subject dear and horrifying to my heart after I wrote my undergrad dissertation on it.

In short: this is to do with how the Moscow Patriarchate (Russian Orthodox Church, hereafter ROC) is entirely in bed with the Russian government, and how Patriarch Kirill (of Moscow and All Russia) has been responding to the ongoing situation in Ukraine (and former Soviet lands more generally). Picture will make sense lower down the post.

The slightly longer short answer is that Patriarch Kirill is entirely in favour of the Ukraine war, and the ROC clergy are under significant pressure to support that as an official church stance-- my dissertation topic started to germinate when, completely by accident, I came across a 10-minute video of a ROC priest explaining very slowly and carefully that when he met the Pope, he did not talk about Ukraine. Will link this video if I can find it again, but at present it's proving elusive. (EDIT: found it!!! It was the Metropolitan Hilarion of Budapest and Hungary. This video looks like a hostage video honestly £10 says there's someone behind the camera holding a gun to this man's head for legal reasons this is a joke).

The foundation for this belief is obviously completely political (and the history of how the ROC and Russian state are completely entwined is long and complicated to say the least!), but officially the ROC stance is that it's about reclaiming the historic Slavic spiritual unity founded on the Baptism of Rus' in the year 988 by Vladimir the Grand Prince of Kievan Rus' when Slavdom become Orthodox. Proponents of this "Russian World" theory (Russkiy Mir') basically argue that it's the influence of the West that has fractured the unified Slavic people into different, opposing nations, and that by "liberating" Ukraine of this alien ideology of nationhood, the Slavic Orthodox world will regain its historic unity under the common banner of Orthodoxy. All I will say on this is that these people have a very rosy view of Kievan Rus', but that's a post for another day.

This has obviously caused friction within the Orthodox world. Ukraine now has two Orthodox churches-- the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which is in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is in communion with the Russian Patriarchate. They are not in communion with each other, and Constantinople's decision to grant autocephalous status to the OCoU caused Moscow to schism with Constantinople. Constantinople is also accusing Moscow of heresy (specifically, ethno-phyletism). Moscow obviously denies this. Obvious question for the Catholics among us-- does this mean Russian Orthodox christians are no longer Orthodox? No, because schisms between Orthodox churches are not particularly unusual, and they remain within the general cloud of Orthodox communion links.

The whole mess is then immortalised in the absolute monstrosity that is the Main Cathedral to the Russian Armed Forces, which is what I wrote my diss on. The YouTube video linked there is promotional material from Russian military-themed TV channel Звезда, and is one of the better sources of info on it-- a lot of English-language sources contain a lot of incorrect information on it-- either because they don't understand the cultural background, or just straight up lies from the Russian govt propaganda arm--, so take anything they say with a grain of salt. Kirill then gives televised sermons from this cathedral in which he talks about the glorious Russian martyrs of the Ukraine invasion, does his best to harmonise Stalinism and Orthodoxy, and oversees military parades for national holidays. This cathedral has a huge amount of weird symbolism and imagery, and I am super happy to talk more about the mosaics and propaganda going on there, because it's a lot (to say the quiet part out loud: pLEASE ask me more about this cathedral because the more I think about it the more scream-worthy facts about it I remember).

You may have seen memes with this picture of the Virgin Mary (below). Yeah that's from this cathedral. And it's a really really fucked up image. Like, more fucked up than you may think. Could have written my entire diss on this image alone and how shockingly awful it is. western orthobro converts who keep reblogging it as if it's somehow cool and macho are just showing how little they know and it's embarrassing.

The militarism of the ROC since this whole thing has also gone bonkers and there's a huuuuuge amount of corruption and weird stuff going on. The tension between the clergy and the laity has been extremely high for decades, and has spilled over most notably in Pussy Riot's Punk Prayer stunt, an exhibition called Осторожно, религия! (beware, religion!), and some shenanigans in church-building more generally. On this particular incident I would point to the blessing of nuclear weapons and the canonisation of a patron saint of long-range nuclear missiles as key moments. The cathedral also has matching mosaics of Putin and Stalin, a fact that the Russian government very much wants you to think never happened (officially the mosaics were removed, but they absolutely were not-- muggins here found them and has the pictures to prove it).

The main takeaway from this topic is that situation is obviously complicated and the repercussions for everyone involved-- particularly Russian and Ukrainian laypeople-- are unpleasant to say the least. It gives something of a window into the Putin regime and its propaganda arm (Epiphany swim, topless horseriding pictures, Soviet-style policies, I could go on) more than anything else, because the situation inside the ROC is still quite obscure. From talking to people who know Kirill personally, it's not clear quite what he thinks is going on or why he's involved the way he is. Either way. Fiasco.

[bookwormstarwarsfan]

A few days ago I saw some Ducktales here and decided to write about one of my favourite Hungarian historical moments, but then I realized that the anniversary is in less than a week, so I scheduled this post exactly on the 30th anniversary even for the minute, at 18:08 CET. (Edit: fuck Tumblr, it messed up scheduling, but second part is on its way)

So let me to present you the story of the Ducktales generation of Hungary, the children born in the 80s, who were traumatized by the aforementioned cartoon exactly 30 years ago, on December 12th 1993 at 18:08.

The year is 1993. The ill-fated little Central-European Hungary is barely out of the more than 40 years of terrible communist dictatorship, it only elected it's first in decades democratic government in 1990 and the last occupying Soviet soldier left the the country in the Summer of 1991.

The first media war is on full rage, meaning that there is still only two, government owned, tv channel, (and time to time HBO, if you were at the right place at the right time) but unlike during the socialism, Western programmes are allowed. This two facts together mean that every time there is a kid's programme on, practically every children who has access to tv, watches it.

Every Sunday afternoon is for Walt Disney, but most importantly for Ducktales. This one has a chokehold on every kid, the absolutle favourite. (Interestingly never became popular for any other generations in Hungary, unlike other iconic programmes, despite being aired a few more times in the following decades.)

So we get to the Sunday of December 12th. Allegedly 2.2 million children is in front of the tv, accompanied by many adults. The episode "A Whale of a Bad Time" is at its emotional high. Scrooge McDuck (or as we know him, Uncle Dagobert) is histerically jumping on the dinner table, because the ship with his money is lost. At 18:08 one of the most famous last sentence is said: 'A sea monster ate my ice cream!!!'

The screen goes black and white, the programme stops, blackness, then the grey channel logo shows up and Chopin's Funeral March starts playing. For long minutes nothing happenes, except of course for the hundreds of thousands of kids having a temper tantrum. By the time the March is coming to the end, even more adults are in the room, either because of the screaming kid or the sudden change of mood.

After 2 whole minutes again a moment of blackness, then a fat, old man in thight black suit comes up with a flag in the the background.

For many of the children watching, this was the first time to ever come to contact with politics, and for some of them, with death. Because the man, Péter Boross, who at that first moment still unbeknownst to the audience had already been the Prime Minister for less than an hour, had an important message:

'Fellow citizens, Hungarians, here at home and around the world. Destiny gave me a painful duty. Dr József Antall, Prime Minister of Hungary today after 5 pm passed away.'

Of course the passing of the reigning Prime Minister would be breaking news everywhere, especially if he is the first democratically elected one in more than 40 years, but this event became more important for a different cause.

[fuerst-von-argot]

Valery Legasov, there is no reason to be surprised or upset about this. Boris Shcherbina has known you for about ten minutes and you've done nothing but mess with the Soviet political leadership and put yourself in every line of fire you've found. No wonder the poor man has you guarded. He's probably more worried about you than he is about anything else.

[llittletingoddess]

WHERE THE WILD ROSES GROW 🥀

«When the night comes, the stars begin to shine and the greatest crimes begin to come into life»

part 2 of multiply

°•○ warnings: age gap, slow burn, original character, cursing, smoking, drinking, mentions of death, mentions of murder, mentions of abduction, manipulation, abuse, national hate, politics mention, discrimination

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

II. Too Far Gone?

Moscow, Russia

Leah sat in the dark room, watching her boss playing with papers. What was interesting in lots of documents? She always thought it was pretty boring, like bureaucracy at all. Why do they need to make everything way more complicated than it actually was? Instead of just giving an answer, your application should’ve been passed through at least three different departments. She stared at the grey-haired man signing some papers, stamping others - and giving not a single word about what he wanted from her.

“Konstantin”, Leah finally went out of her patience, kicking his table with her boot to make him pay attention to her. “Ya zhe znayu, zachem ya zdes'. Zachem ty tyanesh vremya? (I know why I'm here. Why are you wasting time?)”, she asked him with a cold tone, looking under her brows. She was a beast in a cage and he knew it. He always made her wait. Konstantin Vasiliev was too much into his friends and money than in the people who did the dirty work. Especially that stubborn American that thought she was special. Pathetic little bitch that was getting too good and too dangerous. Konstantin looked at Leah under his brows and sighed loudly, his facial expression showing all the contempt he had for her. Even if she would support everything russian and speak their language - they would still treat her like an American - an enemy, Pentagon’s spy and obviously connected to LGBTQ+. 

He left one more sign on the papers and leaned on his chair, crossing his arms and looking at Leah. “Ya ne obyazan otchytivatsya pered toboy, Leah. Tvoya zadacha - ubivat', a ne vmeshivatsya v dela tvoey kormyashchey ruki (I don't have to answer to you, Leah. Your task is to kill, not to interfere with the affairs of your feeding hand.)”, he said with a husky voice and reached for his table to take a pack of surprisingly cheap cigarettes for such a rich man - old-fashioned Soviet “Prima” in a red box. He lit it up with a way more expensive lighter - probably a gift - and leaned back on his squeaky chair, smirking to his guest. Leah hated him… she should have been obedient to a man with Soviet standards and a heavy hand. 

“The Wild Rose..”, Konstantin chuckled. He did this all the time he saw Leah in his cabinet. She didn’t understand what was so funny about her nickname. Truthfully, she loved it - it perfectly described her. Bennett was loved by her soft appearance but she has thorns that could kill someone who will reach too close. That’s why she never had a real lover. She was afraid that she would hurt her loved one with skeletons in her closet and preferred to stay alone, never letting her feelings be victorious. “It’s time”, Konstantin continued, placing a Los Angeles postcard on his desk. 

Leah gasped, looking at the colourful postcard of the west coast view. She can finally go home.. Breathe the salty air and see smiling people everywhere. She sighed in relief, pulling the postcard closer with her finger and turned it, looking for hints. In the right corner she saw a logo which made her hum. “Blackened LTD..”, she hummed, thinking what it could mean for her. Would the victim be some big boss or she’d need to destroy this business? 

“My bosses want you to kill the president of this company”, Konstantin said with a strong russian accent, lazily smoking his cigarette. He didn’t care how she would do it at all. “His name is James Hetfield and he decided to play some tricks with us. But you will show him that he better not mess with russians”, Konstantin continued, getting up from his seat. He slowly walked around Leah, watching her looking at the postcard and grabbed her neck, slightly choking her. “And it affects you too. If you’ll try to do something against the plan you will be dead with him, american bitch”, he said with a harsh voice, letting Leah’s neck off. 

Bennett coughed, rubbing her neck and stared at Konstantin with contempt. He’s not even her main boss and he hated her so much, then what The chain thought about her? If only she could’ve done something against them.. But what could she do? They stole everything from her to use her like a puppet - her documents, her life, her whole personality and they didn’t plan to stop. Leah travelled on her missions with a fake ID, each time it was different, but she couldn’t live like that. She didn’t want to have someone’s name or life, she wanted to be herself, she needed to be herself. 

Konstantin hummed in her silence, exhaling a big cloud of smoke with a smell of cheap tobacco before he sat back on his seat. “You won’t even say a word?”, he asked curiously, staring at Leah. She sighed, turning the postcard in her hands and looked at her boss with a cold look. “How much?”, she asked, laying the postcard back on Konstantine’s desk. He smirked and nodded, definitely liking Leah’s cheeky question. “Five. If you will do everything quietly and clearly they are ready to double the price. Your main task is to kill him quickly-”, “..and make everything to make tabloids think it was an accident and there is no Russia’s hand”, Bennett ended quickly instead of Vasiliev, making him chuckle. “Yes, you know everything, Leah. Do the job - and money is yours. They are believing in you, better not lose such big support on your side”, he advised her, relaxing on his chair.

Deep inside Leah knew that Konstantin didn’t care. She was just pretty useful for him and his friends, and his “advice” is nothing more than a cheap lie. After years of working under his guidance Leah learned that man. All he ever cared about was his dog, a german shepherd named Rem. He had his photo on his desk, told about his achievements and how he would kill his enemies using them. Somehow Leah found it pretty cute. “Khorosho (Alright)”, she said, taking the postcard in her bag. “When is my flight?”, she asked, watching Konstantine throwing his cigarette in the ashtray. He exhaled the smoke and sighed, coughing from the nicotine in his lungs. “Tomorrow at 4AM. You’ll get your ID in your post box”, he said emotionlessly, watching Leah get up. “You have three days for your flights and the kill, The Wild Rose”, Konstantin said with a chuckle. Bennett kept her face; Will this ever end? She sighed and nodded. “Not a big deal”, she said, walking to the door. Vasiliev held the door closed for a moment, looking at Marie with a warning look. “And don’t forget, Leah.. you’re working on Russia. Every American deserves to die, every one of them. But you’re not like this. I can guarantee Russian citizenship after this kill if you’re gonna be an obedient girl”, he said seriously, taking his hand off the door. “Do vstrechy cherez tri dnya (See you in three days)”, Leah said reluctantly, leaving her boss’ office. She took a deep breath and sighed in relief, a short smile appearing on her face. It was her chance.. One last chance to break her chains and escape this russian nightmare she spent years in. She will kill that stupid businessman and disappear from Russian radar, once and forever. She had enough money to buy herself a villa somewhere on the quiet island, far away from criminal’s eyes and start to live her life like she always wanted to. She would probably change her name, appearance and body to make everyone forget about her existence. She will never be Leah Bennett anymore.. Leah Bennett will die as a stray dog in three days and someone new will be born instead.

She walked out of the office that was hidden in the mall and sighed. Leah was so excited.. Definitely not an option that she will miss.. She put on her headphones, turned on her favourite heavy metal album and hid her smile, walking out from the building. Russians didn’t like your smile. If you’re smiling it means that you’re most likely a psychopath or under the drugs, and society will bully you easily. Bennett switched her looks with an attractive guy in the crowd and put on her hood, making herself invisible in the crowd. 

Who knows what all these people think of her.. Leah was curious - was at least one suggestion right? Probably they thought she was some hipster girl from the block or some shy girl walking from her workout? Maybe a hopeless romantic or a geek? If only they would know who Leah Bennett was.. a heartless killer who murdered her parents, hid from police, had some serious net connection with the government and was a slave for some big russian men.. Leah sighed from the thought but kept her head up. It will end in a few days.. She might not end the national hate but she will save herself from being the victim of russian nationalism. She walked down to the underground tunnel and leaned onto the wall, waiting for her train to come. Life has given her an opportunity to change something and Leah wanted to squeeze everything out of it. She was too far gone and she needed to be saved.

***

Los Angeles, California

James felt himself on cloud nine when he saw all his friends celebrating him. He was so confident after his little victory when he fooled everyone in the Russian monopoly, giving free access to their people secretly. Some promotion from russian bloggers, advertisements in the popular social networks and voila - his music platform got almost ten million new followers! And thankfully, most of them bought a premium subscription. 

Of course he would’ve made it that far! Why would he do this one clean? It was obvious that he’d go another way. Business was all about the audience and this move made James get a confident and powerful position on the Russian market. He was so damn proud and he threw a party to celebrate his success. Whilst his partners read the contract -  James already made money behind their backs, smiling them to their faces and shaking their hands. 

And what surprised him the most - there was no reaction! His actions were rough and fast, so they most likely were caught by surprise. Was it bad? James didn’t think so. Instead, it was his chance to show them that Americans aren’t that dumb as they thought they were. Turns out, the real losers here were Russians who missed such a big hit in their balls. Scary Russians aren’t that scary anymore. They are dumb. Grumpy, dumb and have no critical mind to prevent such attacks on his industry. Maybe their president had, but not the ones that were responsible for the music market. 

“Congratulations, buddy, it’s a big hit! Blackened rules the whole world now!”, Lars, his fellow buddy said. He was all the way there back in time. If it wasn’t Lars James might never make it in the business. They met each other in their teenage days, when James just tried his luck in music, teaching guitar playing and just thought about having a music market. Truthfully, it was Lars who pushed him to act. James smiled, hugging him and nodded. “It is. Ten million followers from Russia, this is incredible!”, he said, being visibly surprised by the results of his cheeky campaign. He looked around, looking for his wife and sighed, watching her flirting with some guy in the crowd. And who needs love when you have money? James made his choice and for now - he wasn’t too needy in being loved. Why would he? A couple of Benjamin’s can always solve this problem. 

Lars sipped his drink, looking in the same way James did. He didn’t say a word about what he saw, giving James some space for his personal life. “And what if they will react?”, Lars asked him, watching James’ wife sitting on the lap of the guy. Hetfield hummed with a smirk. “They better think about how to get back their audience. Our conditions are too comfortable for such a poor country as Russia. We have every big star’s music catalogues, and what do they have? Some stolen songs and demos? It’s they who have problems, not us”, James said with a sassy tone, finishing his drink in one shot. Lars hummed, watching him with a judging look. Lars might be younger than James and he wasn’t such a big man like James (in all meanings), but there was something in this man that always surprised him - and that’s his ability to think two steps earlier. 

“You’re too calm”, he said seriously, asking the waiter for another shot of whiskey. James looked at him with a questionable look whilst watching for the amber-coloured drink to be poured in the glass, covering the crystal clean ice cube. Lars grabbed his glass and turned to James, staring at him. “You might think that they are fools, but look at the political situation. They don’t hesitate to kill their own people, so you think they will stop because of a wealthy man from America?”, he asked, looking at Hetfield. “No money will save you if they will decide to have their revenge, James. Think about it”, 

James hummed, looking at his buddy. Truthfully, his words made sense at some point. He sipped his drink, gently spinning it in his glass and sighed, watching his wife coming closer to them. She took off her wedding ring from her fingers and placed it in James’ glass. “Can you keep it for me please? Thank you”, she smiled, walking back to the guy she definitely enjoyed more than James’ company. He chuckled, looking at the shiny ring in his glass, taking it away and looked at Lars. “If they would have wanted to kill me, they would’ve done it ages ago. But as you see - I’m still alive, still with you all and still the owner of the biggest music heist in history”, he said with a grin, taking a cigar from his pocket to enjoy.

“But now - it makes zero sense”, James said confidently, lighting up his cigar. “First of all, this is gonna be too suspicious for them, don’t you think so? We will announce the increase of price on our stocks and then the next day they will do something with me? They are dumb, but even Russians are clever enough to avoid such suspicious actions”, James assured his buddy with a relaxing tone, enjoying how nicotine poisoned his lungs. “It’s gonna be a big scandal if they do it. We are all approaching the third World War.. and my neutralisation is gonna be one more step to the start. I bet my wife that they won’t do anything about it”, James said with a grin, watching his significant other being caressed by the guy in the crowd.

Lars frowned, definitely disliking his friend’s point of view. He shook his head, sipping his whiskey and tapped on the glass, thinking. He was sure that James wouldn't listen to him or even won’t take his words as advice, so he needed a plan B. Just in case he will be right and James’ ass will need some protection. It happened pretty rare but sometimes he needed help, though he never admitted it. James was from that type of man that would never admit their mistakes - just like it was happening with his wife on his own eyes. He watched her cheating with a stone cold look and joked that she looked better from the side. Lars didn’t understand why he acted so light-headed with important decisions, but he knew that deep inside, under this shell of a successful man James hid his feelings from the world. 

Soon James took him back to reality with his sweet chuckle, making Lars look up at him and at the direction he looked at. “What’s up?”, he asked him with a confused tone, though he definitely was curious what could make a rich man laugh. Was he drunk? Did he meet a nice chick to spend his night with? His wife wasn’t made for this anyway.. “Have you seen how much Blackened raised in price after a new wave of customers?”, he said with a grin, pointing into the screen of his phone, on the little graph with a green line that rises up incredibly high. Lars whistled, looking at the price. “Wow. Is it after Russia?”, he questioned, making James nod. “I think we need to celebrate it. Remind me to call my assistant and organise a meeting in honour of our success. Maybe in three days? Gonna be nice”, James thought with a corporate grin he used for his diplomatic meetings. He was so damn proud of himself.. Finally, after years of hard work it took a big risky step to reach the top of this monopoly game. Was he too far gone? Oh damn he was, but how good it felt to watch everyone fail in their attempts to get as high as he was. “We need to announce the new Russian department and increase the salary of that SMM guy. He did his job really well”, James said with a happy smirk, texting his assistant. 

If only he knew how wrong he was.

[girlactionfigure]

From late 1941 through 1942, with the full knowledge of the Allies, the #Nazis methodically worked out a quieter, cheaper, and more efficient manner of killing the #Jews of #Europe.

The Nazis would use a prussic acid-based pesticide called #ZyklonB (bottom left) that would be released in large gas chambers to be built in death camps, mostly in #Poland. 

Using this process, the Nazis would be able to “cleanly and quietly” murder masses of Jews all at once, in a matter of minutes, and without a single shot fired.

After successful small-scale testing of Zyklon-B, the Nazis held the #Wannsee Conference in #Berlin on January 20, 1942, to discuss implementing the plan.

Surviving protocols and notes from the conference show high-ranking Nazis (including Heydrich and Eichmann, among others) discussed the use of short-term #Jewish #slave labor for the able-bodied who would be worked and starved to death, the separation of Jewish men from Jewish women at the camps, the mass deportations to the camps from across Nazi-occupied #Europe, and the mass gassing of the Jews to ensure an efficient and quiet “Final Solution to the Jewish problem.”

The less than 90-minute conference laid out the plan and gave the orders to carry it out. 

With at least 1.5 million (probably more) #European Jews already dead, the Nazis had now marked for death the remaining Jews of Nazi-occupied Europe, which they estimated at 5-6 million.

And so, the #gaschambers and #crematoria were built while Adolf Eichmann was put in charge of logistics for the mass deportation of Jews to the camps.

On July 15, 1942, the Nazis had made enough progress for the first deportation train to leave from #Holland to #Auschwitz (by Sept 1944, more than 100 trains would deliver more than 100,000 Jews of Holland to the death camps).

The very next day, on July 16, 1942, the occupied #French submitted to their Nazi overlords and began the roundup of #France’s Jews en masse with 13,152 Jews, including 4,051 children, in what is known as the “Vel ’d’Hiv.” 

All 13,152 French Jews of all ages were transported by train to Auschwitz in southern Poland while trapped inside locked, cramped cattle cars without food, without water, and without toilets.

These “round-ups” were not quiet, and Allied sources were well-placed in Holland and France. So, the Allies knew almost immediately about the mass deportations of Jews to the east.

Meanwhile, Eduard Schulte – one of the most powerful, prominent, and successful #German industrialists, who also enjoyed a career of unrivaled political access – secretly wanted to see #Hitler and the Nazis gone from power. He kept his intentions quiet while repeatedly using his access (which included Hitler’s headquarters) to gain useful information to pass along to the Allies.

In late July 1942, Schulte was once again inside Hitler’s headquarters when he heard Nazi leadership discussing the progress of the “Final Solution” including the status of the mass deportation of Jews to the camps in the east and the preparations for mass usage of gas chambers to exterminate all remaining Jews with Zyklon-B.

Schulte decided to bring this information to Gerhard Riegner, a representative of the World Jewish Congress who was living in neutral #Switzerland on August 1, 1942.

Riegner knew Schulte was a serious man. And Riegner was able to ask around and learn that Schulte was already a trusted Allied informant who had repeatedly passed them useful and truthful information (including the exact timing of the German invasion of the Soviet Union).

So, Riegner went to his friend, Paul Chapin Squire, the #American consul in #Geneva, and asked to use the #StateDepartment’s cable facilities to send a message to #Rabbi Stephen Wise – the head of the American Jewish #Congress and the most prominent American Jew at the time who was also friendly with several government officials, and who even met with FDR from time to time.

By using the State Department cables, it ensured Riegner both that his message would be sent securely and that the U.S. State Department would be an immediate recipient of his message.

The following text comes directly from Reigner’s cable of August 11, 1942:

Received ALARMING REPORT that in #FUHRER’S HEADQUARTERS plan discussed … according to which ALL JEWS IN COUNTRIES OCCUPIED OR CONTROLLED BY #GERMANY … should after deportation and concentration in east be EXTERMINATED … to resolve once and for all the Jewish Question in Europe … Methods under discussion including PRUSSIC ACID … Informant stated to have close connections with HIGHEST GERMAN AUTHORITIES and his REPORTS … [are] RELIABLE.

By this time, the State Department already knew of the mass deportations of Jews from #Paris, Holland, #Berlin, #Vienna, and #Prague to Nazi camps in the east. And, just four days later, on August 15, 1942, they learned of another mass round-up of Jews in France with 7,000 more Jewish men, women, and children being arrested and handed over to the Germans.

The U.S. government also knew by then that a minimum of 1-1.5 million Jews had already been killed over the last year during the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

In other words, the Reigner cable describing the purpose of the mass deportations of Jews eastward seemed a logical, if horrifying, explanation of the Nazis’ intentions.

The State Department then confirmed from its own intelligence sources that Riegner was “a serious and balanced individual and that he would never have come to the Consulate … if he had not had confidence in his informant's reliability.”

After sending the cable, Riegner next went to the British Consulate where he provided the same information and issued the same cable.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department discussed what to do with the information. By consensus, they decided to ignore the cable and also to suppress it to ensure it did not leak out to anyone else, and they marked it “unconfirmed information” to let everyone know it was to be ignored. Therefore, the U.S. State Department never gave the cable to Rabbi Wise.

The #British Foreign Office, however, made the opposite decision. While they ultimately deferred in many ways to the U.S., the British would (at least initially) not suppress or ignore the Riegner cable, and they even delivered it to the London branch of the World Jewish Congress on August 17, 1942, as requested by Riegner.

In fact, that’s the only way Rabbi Wise found out about the existence of Riegner’s cable. He received it from the London World Jewish Conference on August 28, 1942 – 17 days after Riegner had tried to send him the cable.

When Rabbi Wise read the words, “ALL JEWS,” “EXTERMINATED,” “PRUSSIC ACID,” and “RELIABLE,” his heart skipped a beat, and then he immediately got in touch with Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles – a man who had previously seemed sympathetic to the plight of the Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe.

But, though he did not say so at the time to Rabbi Wise, Welles was already very familiar with the Riegner cable, and he was even among those in the State Department who approved the plan to ignore the cable, suppress the cable, and ensure the cable did not reach Rabbi Wise.

Now realizing Rabbi Wise had found out anyway, Welles immediately instructed Rabbi Wise that he was not to share this information with anyone or allow it to be leaked to the press, at least until the U.S. government could “confirm its validity.”

Meanwhile, Riegner had been pacing the wood off the floor in his home in Geneva waiting for some sort of response. Since August 13, 1942, “neutral” Switzerland had begun forcing Jews, mostly French refugees that had escaped to Switzerland, back across the border to be included in the mass deportations.

Riegner had immediately done what he thought was the best thing to do to try to save as many of the condemned Jews as possible. The complete silence that followed his cable would later be described by Riegner as “my great agony.”

Meanwhile, during this same moment in the war, mostly British troops (and, increasingly, American troops) were facing off against the Nazis’ most decorated, successful, and respected general, Erwin Rommel, in the campaign in North #Africa.

This was one of the most dangerous points in the war when the scales could have permanently tipped in the Nazis’ favor.

Rommel was closing in on the #SuezCanal and eventually the entire #MiddleEast. Such a Nazi victory could have been enough to “checkmate” the Allies by cutting off their oil supply while leaving the Germans flush with as much oil as they could ever need along with control over the means to move it.

The British and American dependence on a #Soviet victory over the Nazis was, at that time, also very much in doubt.

The Soviets were locked in the most bitter fight of their lives with the infamous Battle of #Stalingrad beginning on August 23, 1942.

The British and Americans knew that the fall of the #SovietUnion to the Nazis meant the end of the eastern campaign, and a Nazi windfall of Russia’s vast territory, resources, and military capacity.

One could argue this was the most dangerous point in the entire war.

But the Allies received other horrifying news in August 1942. Only this news was horrifying enough to the Allies to cause them to take humanitarian action.

Specifically, the Nazi-occupied Greeks were running out of food and were facing a famine of biblical proportions that could have killed upwards of 2 ½ million #Greek citizens.

The Americans and the British took decisive action to save the Greeks from starvation despite all of #Greece being occupied by the Nazis.

Even in this decisive moment, the Americans and the British gave their time and diverted their resources to ensure 35,000 tons of food would be delivered into the hands of the Greek people (and not just stolen by the Germans) every month without fail for the next two years.

Great Britain was ultimately in charge of shipping the food, and it was all paid for by the United States to the tune of $30 million per year ($60 million in total).

Remember what the Allies did to save 2 ½ million Greeks “at risk” of starvation as you continue to read about the Allies’ reaction to the continued receipt of more and more corroborating and irrefutable information and evidence of the deportation and mass slaughter of the Jews of Europe.

Then ask yourself:

· What did the Allies do to help, as they did the Greeks, to save the Jews in Nazi concentration camps who were starving to death?

· What did the Allies do to save the enslaved Jews who were being worked to death?

· What did the Allies do to save the millions of Jews being marched to their deaths in the gas chambers?

The simple answer to all three questions is, “nothing.”

These Jews were not “simply” human beings “at risk” of starvation. They were Jewish men, women, children, and babies who were all marked for systematic, industrialized death by gassing simply because they were born Jewish; and both the Americans and the British knew it.

$60 million and countless diverted resources were spent just to feed the Nazi-occupied Greeks – a noble humanitarian gesture. But, in contrast, $0 was spent and no resources were diverted to save any of the condemned millions of Jews.

Even once the political pressure finally turned (after at least 4-5 million Jews were already dead) and #FDR finally acted in January 1944, his action was limited to setting up the small and dramatically understaffed War Refugee Board with the goal of saving at least some of Europe’s Jews.

After more than a year and a half in operation, the War Refugee Board received total funding in the amount of $11 million (a meager 18% of the amount the U.S. spent just feeding the Nazi-occupied Greeks).

And over the course of that same year and a half, the War Refugee Board save maybe as many as 200,000 Jews. And this is wonderful. But it does not change the fact that 6 million innocent Jewish men, women, children, and babies were dead, and they certainly did not all have to be.

In comparison, the Americans and the British fed the starving Greeks for two years and are said to have saved around 2 ½ million Greeks while a comparatively meager 200,000-300,000 Greeks were dead.

Meanwhile, the small group of Jews in Washington and London who were “in the know,” but who were sworn to secrecy, waited in nervous limbo to hear something, anything, from their governments about the truth of the Reigner cable and what great plans the Allies might have to help save the Jews of Europe.

They waited. And their days of waiting turned into weeks. Then their weeks of waiting turned into months.

During these months of waiting, the U.S. government was receiving report after report from all different sources – each one confirming the fate of Europe’s Jews, and each one ignored and suppressed along with the Riegner cable.

The deafening silence continued.

As one example, on August 26, 1942 (two days before Rabbi Wise even received the Riegner cable), U.S. ambassador to the Polish government-in-exile and a close personal friend of FDR, Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, Jr., wrote an 8-page, single-spaced memorandum directly to President Roosevelt, which he marked as having the “highest importance.”

Biddle wrote in painstaking detail of the deportations of Europe’s Jews and of Hitler’s Final Solution that would see the entire Jewish people annihilated. A few sentences from his memo sent directly to FDR follows:

"There is no precedent for such organized wholesale dying in all Jewish history, nor indeed in the whole history of mankind."

"This war is not being waged with bombs and guns alone, nor will the nature of the coming world be determined only by the outcome of battles. The victory of morality is the issue in this war. Should we succeed in no more than mitigating the enemy's foul design against his most hated victim it would amount to partial victory."

The memo was ignored. The memo was suppressed.

Shortly thereafter, the U.S. government received confirmation from another source who had just returned from a different European country.

Dr. Donald A. Lowrie was a well-respected American with close contacts in the federal government, and he had just returned from assignment in the unoccupied portion of southern France doing work for the #YMCA.

Lowrie had seen the deportation process of the Jews first-hand that was being performed by French #Vichy collaborators. And he understood those Jews were likely being shipped to their deaths.

Lowrie recalled with tears the way the Nazis tried to calmly reassure the French Jewish adults that they were merely being resettled to the east where there would be more room for them to live and more food for them to eat; and they were told their children would join them shortly, and together they could start new lives.

Then, Lowrie broke down as a recalled the agony on the faces of the Jewish parents who were tempted to believe the Nazis, but who were also terrified both of leaving their children behind and of helping the Nazis by bringing their children along to the likely certain death they faced.

The Jews who wanted to believe the Nazis, believed them. After all, it had been well-established for the prior 1,000 years that Jews were commonly expelled from their host European nations – it had happened many dozens of times, and each time the Jews managed to start over again.

But the French Jews were not stupid, and all of them had heard the rumors. They all knew of the Nazis’ brutality and their desire to rid the world of every Jew.

Deep down, most of them – whether they admitted it to themselves or not – knew that the only thing awaiting them to the east was death.

Lowrie recalled watching as these French Jewish parents agonizingly debated which fate was more likely and what to do with their children. Lowrie would later write that he would “never forget the moment when these truckloads of children left the camps with parents crying in one last gaze to fix an image to last an eternity.”

Lowrie’s story was ignored. Lowrie’s story was suppressed.

Meanwhile, all throughout these months of silence during August, September, October, and November of 1942, Riegner continued to receive further details on the fate of the Jews from reliable first-hand witnesses. Each time, he went to the U.S. Consulate and delivered a cable with the new information.

Every cable was ignored. Every cable was suppressed.

Next came information directly to the U.S. government from yet another trusted source. Specifically, a minister stationed in Berne, Switzerland named Leland Harrison ensured delivery of four sworn statements from direct eyewitnesses to the extermination of Jews every day in the death camps by the thousands using Zyklon-B gas.

After nearly four months of ignoring and suppressing the details of the Jews’ extermination, the U.S. government finally realized that the details were coming in too quickly and from too many different sources in too many different countries. The U.S. could not suppress the information any longer.

On November 24, 1942, Welles asked Rabbi Wise to come to his office, which he did at once.

Mr. Welles sat Rabbi Wise down and confirmed the truth of the systematic slaughter of every Jew in Europe was happening. 

Specifically, he told Rabbi Wise, the U.S. government had received enough documents and information (some of which he held in his hand as he spoke) that, “I regret to tell you … that these [documents] confirm and justify your deepest fears.”

Welles told a stunned silent Rabbi Wise, “For reasons you will understand, I cannot give these [documents] to the press, but there is no reason why you should not. It might even help if you did.”

No longer actively suppressing the information about the Jews’ extermination, the American government was still not ready to officially admit to it.

So, Rabbi Wise sat for a moment in thought. He wondered how many hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered by the Nazis as he sat quietly waiting to hear back from the U.S. government. And then he realized that even after all that time, the only thing the U.S. government was prepared to do was “permit him” to tell the press what he knew.

Rabbi Wise hastily called for a press conference where he announced that the State Department had confirmed to him that all of Europe’s Jews were in the process of being systematically slaughtered. He also reported his belief that at least 2 million European Jews were already dead (the number was actually much higher by then), and that at least 4-5 million more were in immediate peril.

The following day, on November 25, 1942, newspapers across the U.S. finally informed the American public that the Nazis were systematically murdering every Jew in Europe using gas chambers in death camps located mostly in Poland.

For example, the 

@washingtonpost

 headline read, “Two Million Jews Slain.” But this news was not big enough to make it above the fold. It was not even front-page news. The Washington Post did what so many others did. They buried the story on page 6.

Captain Allen

[thursdayisbetterthanfriday]

Cybernetics 控制論 with Chinese Characteristics & why we suck at the real Grand Strategy Game

If you’re someone who enjoys Crusader Kings, or Hearts of Iron, you’ll know the joy of Grand strategy games. Executing economic, political and military prowess, you can rule the world... well, just a model of it. But compared to the masters, you’re trash tier. The real Grand Strategy masters didn’t play Paradox games - they played the game of life. Imagine not just having to play the game, but building the computer from scratch and the software necessary to play the games. It’s time to introduce the real Epic tier gamers:

Everyone agrees living in the West is like living life on easy mode. Norbert Wiener and Stafford Beer were two of the best known cyberneticists in the US and UK respectively during the later 20th century, but what about those in the non-Anglo speaking world? We’re looking for the most hardcore players after all.

China is the perfect example. The country was a mess after the civil war - perfect conditions for a hard-mode run. Search for articles on China in the West and you will find plenty with titles such as “The country is perfecting a vast network of digital espionage as a means of social control” and “China’s increased surveillance capacity could be dangerous”. So who, was behind the rise of these surveillance style systems in China.

The answer, in fact, is the FBI.

Note: This is a less serious version of Dylan Levi King’s article. Link at end!

Enter Qian Xuesen ( 钱学森 )

Enter Qian Xuesen. Qian was described, by most contemporaries, as a genius and a quiet but serious man who asked very precise questions. Qian had been born during the fall of the Qing dynasty in China and had been a strongly academic child. He went on to study at M.I.T on a Boxer indemnity scholarship and found himself a position in the newly founded Jet Propulsion Laboratory during World War 2.

His contemporaries, included colourful characters such as:

Frank Malina – Stellar engineer, and later the director of the Division of Scientific Research at UNESCO and creator of kinetic artworks.

Jack Parsons – A talented engineer, and later an acolyte of Aleister Crowley’s Thelemite Occultism alongside L. Ron Hubbard. Yes, the Scientology one.

Together, with others such as Sidney Weinbaum, Qian was able to assist the US achieve it’s first rocket program.

Enter FBI

After the end of World War II, it became apparent to the United States that the Soviet Union would be its greatest threat in world politics. The rise of communism in Eastern Europe led to those such as Senator John McCarthy pushing to remove “communist influence” within the United States. Working with the FBI, the entire team of the nationally sensitive Jet Propulsion Laboratory were investigated.

Many members, such as Parsons and Weinbaum had discussed communist ideals in the past which were quickly unearthed and used to push them out of their positions in the organisation. Qian, on the other hand, was someone who didn’t particularly seem to care about politics. He mostly spent his free time at home with his wife and children, and one colleague described him as having a “typical aloof oriental attitude.”. Despite this, the FBI were able to find a connection with Malina and himself.

Sensing the changing public mood, Qian decided it would be best to leave the country and set off to return to China in 1950.

This was generally considered a bad move by the FBI.

Qian had been personally involved in:

Helping to create America’s first missile program

The creation of the Toward New Horizons report for the Army Air Forces Scientific Advisory Group detailing future advances in aviation

A seat on the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board

A consultancy role on the Manhattan Project (ie. Nuclear Weapons Research)

After realising the consequences of their actions, the Immigration and Naturalization Service forced Qian into a legal purgatory for five years in fear that he would leak important matters of classified national security to the Chinese. It was in this period, however, that Qian began a deep dive into the world of cybernetics.

He wrote a book, Engineering Cybernetics, published in 1954. In it, he technically outlined a field of feedback control systems for engineering purposes, inspired by the use of automatic missile control guidance systems. In his own words:

“The celebrated physicist and mathematician A. M. Ampere coined the word cyberne~tique to mean the science of civil government (Part II of " Essai sur la philosophic des sciences/' 1845, Paris) . Ampere's grandiose scheme of political sciences has not, and perhaps never will, come to fruition. In the meantime, conflict between governments with the use of force greatly accelerated the development of another branch of science, the science of control and guidance of mechanical and electrical systems.”

Importantly, he was able to build on previous work. He made the crucial step of moving away from fully assumed knowledge to systems

“...where no exact knowledge of the properties of the controlled system is necessary for the design.”

Finally released from detention, he moved overseas to China in 1955 to begin his career.

Enter China

Qian immediately set to work. The Science Planning Commission of the State Council had just begun drafting a 12-year plan for future progress in China, and Qian was quick to give his input.

From computing, to semiconductor technology, automation to wireless control systems and more he was key to the scientific advancement of the country. He was also keen to put his ideas into action, advocating for cybernetics and systems theory to be front-and-centre in agriculture and manufacturing. We can only speculate on what kind of Farmville player Qian would have been, but he definitely would have used a custom macro spreadsheet like some kind of freak.

It was in this time period that China began to import foreign based computing technologies which they sought to reverse engineer and replicate for themselves. Political instability, however, led to his ideas for cybernetics shelved for another decade, only to re-emerge in the 1970s. With the rise of Deng Xiaoping in the late 70s, Qian was able to take advantage of Deng’s opposition to the Gang of Four’s Maoist principles.

But what computing power would the cyberneticists use? Indigenous computers were, unfortunately, still pretty bad and the Chinese government had to use Soviet design machines and illegally acquired IBM machines which belonged to the Bank of China.

Not only were the Chinese cyberneticists eventually able to build their own rigs they stole their opponent's technology as well, like some kind of Dengist mainframe hackers.

In 1974, Qian and his team of researchers attended the Helsinki Triennial World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control and were astounded by the uses that Western, and Soviet, cyberneticists had been putting their computers to – namely economic planning. Inspired by Neo-Malthusian scholars at The Club of Rome, and their MIT led population overload models, Qian was instrumental in putting forward the One Child Policy.

Qian’s was also a pioneer of “legal systems engineering” – the use of cybernetics in law enforcement. The Public Security Bureau (PSB) set up Golden shield, a system which allowed law enforcement to access information on citizens tax records, personal details, criminal record and more. This is the system which has led to the current Chinese surveillance state in the 21st century.

Cybernetics vs Reality

Theory and reality don’t always mix. Qian was responsible for many policy successes, but some of his policies are responsible for a number of issues that China is experiencing today.

Take China’s One Child Policy. This is the ultimate example of theoretical idea combined with real world culture and consequences. The idea behind the policy is sound – keeping population within set limits to prevent over-burdening the country and its resources. The reality is more difficult:

The state apparatus needed the tools to enforce this policy. This wasn’t always possible, and in many rural communities many children were sent to orphanages and weren’t observable in the system of control.

Culture led to more women being aborted than men - a male child being more valued in society. This resulted in gender imbalances that still plague the country to this day.

This underlies the failings of many cybernetic systems: They cannot measure that which they can’t observe. In data-science terms, crap goes in, crap comes out. The Chinese cyberneticists were most successful where they were able to use reality to update their systems, and take into account how the bureaucratic systems functioned.

Qian, in his later years, was remote and distant. He refused to interact with anyone outside the country and eventually died in 2009.

Lessons to be learned?

So what can we learn from this?:

Persecuting people for no reason can backfire, and lead to the Chinese Nuclear Program. You would have thought people would have realised this after The Treaty of Versailles, but there we go...

Cybernetic systems are only good if they adapt to fit reality, otherwise they can make things worse. You may think that your economic strategy in HoI II is working, but if you don’t invest in your military in response to foreign force build-up then you’re fucked when they knock on the door with a blitzkrieg.

Grand Strategy Games are a great analogue for control systems - a simplified abstraction of reality. They often don’t model the difference between assumed input and what the input actually means in reality. Practical cybernetics need to take into account real world use of systems and societal/cultural/social implications.

The main fable behind this story is to do your research, and consider the real world implcations of your actions. You may be tempted to put your feet up and stick with a simplified understanding of the world - this is bad. The blind ideology of the McCarthy & his FBI investigators, and the lack of effective monitoring system for Chinese families by Qian, both led to bad outcomes.

One bad choice by the FBI led to not only Qian helping China advance technologically, but also it’s mass surveillance system and the One Child Policy and it’s now serious effects on China’s society.

Sources (I’ve missed some out, but can provide links on request):

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/02/china-surveillance/552203/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2023/01/10/china-surveillance-covid/

https://archive.org/details/fbi-file-tsien-hsue-shen/FBIFile_Tsien_Part1/page/n25/mode/2up

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0895717788904438

https://www.palladiummag.com/2022/10/17/the-genealogy-of-chinese-cybernetics/

[joyfulmagic]

Random Illya Things Part ?

1. Illya is ambidextrous but prefers his left hand ever since during KGB training his right hand got stabbed. 2. Illya is scared to make the first move even when 100% certain that the other person feels the same way about him. He’s afraid he’ll accidentally come on too strong, knowing Russian/Soviet courtship is fairly different than typical USA courtship. If he’s not courting an American, he’s much more comfortable as he feels a kinship.  3. He’s a polyglot in all verses, and always is working to learn more languages. 4. Illya would consider polyamory if his partner really wanted it, but personally keeps his non-monogamous “crushes” to himself usually 5. Illya has the degree equivalent of a masters in history/political science, however it is slightly outdated due to have been obtained while a young man. 6. Illya’s favorite flower are sunflowers, showing secret allyship with Ukraine. 7. Illya is double jointed (but I have NO idea how to write this) 8. Illya has a green thumb, however rarely stays in one spot long enough to keep a garden 9. Illya is ethnically Jewish, however he knows about the Old Gods of Rus and doesn’t mess with them. 10. Illya knows how to give amazing massages

[bigguy584]

Why Carry a Gun?

"My old Grandpa said to me, 'Son, there comes a time in every man's life when he stops bustin' knuckles and starts bustin' caps and usually it's when he becomes too old to take a whoopin'.'

I don't carry a gun to kill people; I carry a gun to keep from being killed.

I don't carry a gun because I'm evil; I carry a gun because I have lived long enough to see the evil in the World.

I don't carry a gun because I hate the government; I carry a gun because I understand the limitations of government.

I don't carry a gun because I'm angry; I carry a gun so that I don't have to spend the rest of my life hating myself for failing to be prepared.

I don't carry a gun because I want to shoot someone; I carry a gun because I want to die at a ripe old age in my bed and not on a sidewalk somewhere tomorrow afternoon.

I don't carry a gun to make me feel like a man; I carry a gun because men know how to take care of themselves and the ones they love.

I don't carry a gun because I feel inadequate; I carry a gun because unarmed and facing three armed thugs, I am inadequate.

I don't carry a gun because I love it; I carry a gun because I love life and the people who make it meaningful to me.

Police protection is an oxymoron: Free citizens must protect themselves because police do not protect you from crime; they just investigate the crime after it happens and then call someone in to clean up the mess.

Personally, I carry a gun because I'm too young to die and too old to take a whoopin'!"

Author Unknown

-----------------------

A LITTLE GUN HISTORY

PLEASE DON'T THINK FOR A MOMENT, THAT THIS COULDN'T HAPPEN IN OUR COUNTRY ALSO !!!!!!

In 1911, Turkey established gun control:

· From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

-----------------------

In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control:

· From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

-----------------------

In 1938 Germany established gun control:

. From 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

-----------------------

China established gun control in 1935:

. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

-----------------------

Cambodia established gun control in 1956:

. From 1975 to 1977, one million educated people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

-----------------------

Guatemala established gun control in 1964:

· From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

-----------------------

Uganda established gun control in 1970:

· From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

-----------------------

56 million defenseless people were rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century because of gun control.

-----------------------

You won't see this data on the US evening news, or hear politicians disseminating this information.

*Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws adversely affect ONLY the law-abiding citizens.

With guns, we are 'citizens'; without them, we are 'subjects'.

During WW II, the Japanese decided not to invade America because they knew most Americans were ARMED!

Gun owners in the USA are the largest armed forces in the World!

If you value your freedom, please spread this anti-gun control message to all of your friends.

The purpose of fighting is to win. There is no possible victory in defense.

The sword is more important than the shield and skill is more important than either.

· SWITZERLAND ISSUES A GUN TO EVERY HOUSEHOLD! SWITZERLAND'S GOVERNMENT ISSUES AND TRAINS EVERY ADULT IN THE USE OF A RIFLE.

· SWITZERLAND HAS THE LOWEST GUN RELATED CRIME RATE OF ANY CIVILIZED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!!!

· IT'S A NO BRAINER! DON'T LET OUR GOVERNMENT WASTE MILLIONS OF OUR TAX DOLLARS IN AN EFFORT TO MAKE ALL LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS AN EASY TARGET.

· I'm a firm believer in the 2nd Amendment! If you are too, please forward this. If you're not a believer, please reconsider the true facts. This is history; and if we do not want history to repeat itself, we must wake up.

[usunezukoinezu]

‘‘Joachim Gauck spent the first half of his life in East Germany. Once a pastor and later the president of Germany, he is a wise man with great life wisdom. When asked why East Germans who experienced Soviet oppression are now more pro-Russian and anti-American than West Germans, he summed up the following reasons:

Firstly, East and West Germany had different political cultures. It's not that East Germans have worse personalities than West Germans, but they underwent different training procedures to become citizens.

Under totalitarian repression, East Germans are less able to take responsibility for themselves than West Germans, as can be seen from the difference in the proportion of participation in associations and trade unions. West Germans lived under dictatorship for only 12 years (Nazi Germany), while East Germans lived under dictatorship for a total of 56 years. Therefore, civil society in East Germany was underdeveloped, as they lived under a democratic system for a much shorter period of time than West Germans.

Secondly, two generations of East Germans grew up under the dictatorship and formed an elite class in the army, police, state management, and judicial system. These newly formed classes enjoyed the benefits of the communist system. After the reunification of the two Germanys, most of them were integrated into the democratic system, but some harbored nameless grievances. For example, most officers of the People's Army now sympathize with the wars launched by Putin.

Thirdly, some East Germans suffer subconsciously from Stockholm Syndrome. Out of fear of the oppression of the former Soviet Union, they think that they must not mess with the Russians again, lest they be bullied again. They still have fear for the 1953 pro-democracy movement crushed by the Soviet Union, with many severely punished afterward. Then the democratic movements in other Eastern European countries were also suppressed. This chain of events allowed East Germans to "understand" Putin's ambitions.’’

- Joachim Gauck im Spitzengespräch: Trägt Angela Merkel eine Mitschuld am Krieg? | DER SPIEGE

- Extract by Sinogermane

[nanasalt]

Doing historical research on the lead-in to 1920s politics instead of preparing for my exam, and somehow I always forget what a political mess everything in the period between WWI and WWII was.

[fantastic-nonsense]

Sorry to sound ignorant, but I genuinely don’t understand what Putin could stand to gain from invading Ukraine. Can you shed any light on the subject?

He doesn't. That's the super frustrating part of this mess. Everyone with an ounce of knowledge about European-Russian international relations is scratching their heads going "what is this, and why now? He gains nothing."

A lot of people will blame this on NATO expansion concerns, but the truth is that NATO expansion has been a "concern" for years and nothing like this has ever happened (even the Invasion of Crimea in 2014 wasn't near the level of what's happening right now). Putin's not afraid of NATO; NATO's largely proved to be 'all bark and no bite' in response to repeated acts of Russian aggression since 2008. He's gotten bolder and bolder and tried to assassinate an ex-FSB agent-turned British spy on UK soil less than 5 years ago, for god's sake. Also, Ukraine's not even in NATO; if he wanted to be aggressive on that front, he'd go bother the Baltic states. If people think he's scared of NATO, they're not paying attention.

There's basically two answers that I can give that might make some sense:

Ukraine has a lot of natural gas and mineral resource reserves, and he could be trying to control them. He could also be theoretically be trying to gain control of Ukraine's southern ports, since having access to those waters been an everlasting Russian NatSec and trading issue for say......the last thousand years. That doesn't really make much sense considering the circumstances, though, especially since Russia already controls Crimea.

He's an ex-KGB officer whose pride was mortally devastated by the fall of the USSR and has been longing to recreate what was lost for thirty years. He wants to reinstate the Russian Empire (or at least the USSR as he remembers it), and he's tired of waiting for these silly little democracies on his western border to give up their "teenage rebellion phase" and come home to Mother Russia. It would explain Russia's ongoing attempts to undermine democracy worldwide (including in the US in 2016) and their cyberwarfare against the US and UK too, since a Divided West is a Weak West and a Weak West is a Beatable West. It's Russian imperialism at its finest, led by a man emboldened by his hurt ego, the West's appeasement tactics re: Crimea, repeated lack of consequences for Russia's aggressiveness on the world stage, and four years of Trump sucking up to him.

That's.....unfortunately all I've got. #2 makes total sense and is absolutely what's happening, but the way he's going about it and his actions over the past few weeks are really baffling me, because it's a completely irrational and politically stupid way to actually achieve his intended purpose of re-consolidating the former Soviet Bloc (and make no mistake because that is his purpose, which anyone who's ever listened to one of his annual speeches at the Kremlin would know).

So the only answer I really have for you is "he's finally gotten impatient waiting to re-draw the map of Europe by force and thinks he can escape permanent consequences by doing so now," even if it still doesn't truly explain what the fuck he thinks he's doing by invading Ukraine now with the strategy he appears to be using.

[punkahudsonia]

Okay, so. Let’s talk Goncharov (1973). One thing I think has been largely lost in the (deserved) praise of the film on tumblr is just how weird Goncharov is as a film in general (I mean, you can’t tell me the plot as described doesn’t seem doomed to be a confusing narrative mess,even if you have three hours to tell that story; it should not be the absolute tightly-wound banger that it is in practice) but also how weird it is as an example of a Scorsese film. This, I think, is inevitable, because almost everyone on tumblr is young enough that Scorsese has ALWAYS been a Big Name in Film. To see him attached to a masterpiece doesn’t seem weird in that context. And since very few people got to see this movie before it was digitized and widely distributed for the first time in the mid-aughts, it seems to have largely become viewed as a creation of Martin Scorsese, the master filmmaker. But. Martin Scorsese, master filmmaker, had made a grand total of two features prior to Goncharov (three if you count Mean Streets, but let’s come back to that). One, Who’s That Knocking at my Door, has some similar themes to Goncharov, but it’s a very rough film (hell, the only reason it got distribution is because Scorsese recut it as a sexploitation film). And the second, well, it’s called Boxcar Bertha and Scorsese made it for Roger Corman. It’s not what you’d call Great Cinema. By 1972/1973 Scorsese’s working feverishly on two films. One will become Mean Streets, which is a real firecracker of a movie. It’s compact, furious, and intensely personal, and here again we see some themes that also get deployed in Goncharov; a trio of two men and a woman as the central figures, an obsession with honor and loyalty, personal dissolution and power. It’s a masterwork and when it saw general distribution in the US, it deservedly made Scorsese’s name as a filmmaker. But the other film. Oh, my god, the other film is Goncharov. And it is so technically proficient, so richly written, so layered, so complex, and so goddamned beautiful to look at, and how the fuck, one wonders, did the same man make the scrappy indie crime drama based on his own childhood friends and neighborhoods, AND the complex meditation on grief and obsession and mafia and soviet politics, in the same goddamned 24 months?? How does one film feel like a fresh wound from a creator just launching his stardom while the other feels like the culmination of a lifetime of study of how to make a film that hits you where you live?

Okay, so. I have a theory on that.

We all know by now that Goncharov almost didn’t see the light of day, allegedly due to mafia objections to its distribution leading to the systematic destruction of the general-release prints. We know also that the producer of the film was Matouš Cimrman, grandson of the immortal Czech polymath and playwright  Jára Cimrman  -- hat tip to tumblr user @eightfourone on that, because their post is what got my wheels turning here. Of course Jára Cimrman’s son František Cimrman, Matouš Cimrman’s father, was a legend in prewar European cinema for his intimate dramas that drew on his father’s theatrical sensibilities. "Franta” fought with the Czech resistance in WW2 and then returned to filmmaking, though most of his work from the Soviet period (1948-c 1965) was virtually inaccessible to the West. In 1966 he was imprisoned and his films were banned and destroyed, and although he was supposedly released in 1967 he never made another film, and there’s no official record of his existence after the Prague Spring in 1968. Most people think he was disappeared by the Soviet Czech government, with a small minority thinking he was smuggled to the West for his own safety. His son has never, ever talked about Franta’s post-WW2 life in public. But I have another theory. While I’ve never been able to see his films in person with the exception of Pískle (”Spring Chickens”, 1933, but every film student’s seen that one) , the descriptions we have of his Soviet-era works talk about an increasing preoccupation with time passing, with fixing mistakes, with the magnetic pull of loyalty between men who can’t admit their attractions for one another. And, of course, Franta Cimrman shared his father’s gift for finely developed, humanized, well written women (I think any scholar worth their salt HAS to credit that to the huge influence of Franta’s mother/ Jára’s second wife, Karolina, and I’m not going to go on a huge ADHD tangent here about how cool SHE was, you’ll have to google, this is stupidly long already).

What’s the one thing you hear over and over when people discuss Goncharov, especially in contrast to Scorsese’s body of other work? How great the women are, especially Katya (my beloved, my pearl beyond price, my girlboss, etc.). Doesn’t it strike you as strange that he made a film with Katya in it, and then just . . . made the rest of the Martin Scorsese movies after that? For that matter, isn’t it a little strange that he managed to evoke the energy of worldweary inevitability so well when his prior films are, if anything, textbook examples of classic Movie Brat youthful auteurism and his next films seem to snap right back to that oeuvre? Say what you will about Taxi Driver, but it’s CLEARLY a film about young men’s discontent, not middle-aged disillusionment. Look. I’m not saying that Martin Scorsese didn’t make Goncharov. His fingerprints are all over the film visually and narratively, and we have recollections from the actors involved clearly demonstrating that Martin Scorsese was behind the camera lens and on the set on a daily basis. But one of the few concrete details we know about the NOTORIOUSLY secretive preproduction/scripting process is that the producer, "Mateo jwhj0517", reached out personally to Scorsese after seeing a rare UK screening of Who’s That Knocking at my Door in or around 1970 in Birmingham (and listen man I’m not going to judge him if he went to see it for the sexploitation scenes, they didn’t have an internet yet, you do what you got to do). I just don’t think it’s crazy to say that there was more than one Cimrman in those script meetings. I don’t think it’s crazy to say that an artist who had lived through the brutal first half of the 20th century, with a good chunk of that time under Soviet rule in Czechslo-fuckin-vakia, would perhaps be better positioned to create a masterpiece about brutality, failure, and the cruelty of relentless time. (I think it was Pauline Kael who wrote the essay on the Mafia’s parallels to the Soviet authoritarian governments? IDK it’s late I’m trying not to write a book here cut me some slack). I don’t think it’s crazy to posit that a man at the end of a life of creative vision would see something in a younger artist, and take him under his wing, and help guide his hands on the clay when it needed done. Anyway I look forward to the inevitable “Punka doesn’t believe Scorsese made Goncharov / Punka is pro-Soviet Czechslovakia / Punka thinks this film was made by a ghost and also is a homophobe for writing not one word of Gonch/Andrey in this entire novel of a post” callout.

[dailyavengers]

THE MEANINGS OF ALEXEI SHOSTAKOV’S RUSSIAN PRISON TATTOOS

1. OVERVIEW. Plus Vladimir Lenin’s face on his right arm.

2. SCORPION (right shoulder): he is not someone to be messed with, just like a real scorpion.

3. BIRD + COMPASS ROSE (left arm): while the bird means he longs for freedom, the compass rose tell us about his hatred for prison guards and law enforcement in general, according to Russian prison lore.

4. KARL MARX’S NAME (knuckles): homage to Karl Max, political theorist and Soviet idol.

5. TWO ROSES (right shoulder): the roses represents are a homage to his daughters. After all, underneath the flowers are two names in Cyrillic script, Natasha and Yelena.

6. COBBWEB (right elbow): traditional tattoo for someone who has done time in prison. It is often used to represent feeling trapped or tangled in the prison system.

7. EYES + CATHEDRAL (chest): the eyes are another common Russian prison tattoo which means that the wearer is "watching over you”, meanwhile the cathedral, despite its religious connotation, usually signify thievery, with the number of cupolas on the church spires signifying the amount of convictions they’ve had. Alexei has a lot of cupolas.

8. TWO-HEADED EAGLE (upper chest): The double-headed eagle was once a major part of the Russian Empire's coat of arms; this tattoo was done by prisoners during the Soviet Era to show rage and contempt against the regime.

9. A WOMAN’S FACE (collarbone): his tattoo of the face of a young woman resembles a lot Melina Vostokoff, his faux wife from back in the day. Underneath the face, it’s written (in Cyrillic) the word “love”.

10. THE RED GUARDIAN (back): Alexei has tattoo of himself as the Soviet hero Red Guardian on his back because he is a very humble man.

sources: (x), (x).

[mysynthfetish]

Путін хуйло

Well, I didn't really wanna get political here, but it's unavoidable really. What a fucking mess. First we have to deal with a pandemic that's in its third year now and not really showing signs of slowing down all that much depending on where on the planet you are. Then we get a goddam war to go with it. The title of this post is Ukrainian for Putin is a dickhead. This particular exercise in madness frustrates me because I am a Russophile. I'm a Cold War kid. I grew up with the constant, though well in the background, definite possibility that we damn well could have a nuclear war. Russia, well, the USSR, was The Enemy. The Bad Guys. That's just the way it was. Then in my late teens the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet Union disintegrated and that was that. Fast forward a decade and I find myself in Japan, where I found legit Soviet Era stuff in random shops and from online sellers and listed on the auction. Fucking COOL man! I have a small collection of Soviet shit. Then I found out analog synths were made in the USSR too. FUCKING NO WAY!!! And after a bit of searching, as luck or good timing would have it, I found a Polivoks on Digimart (an online aggregator where music gear shops from all over Japan can list items for sale all under one front end page). At the time it was the most expensive synth I bought, at around $1400. I was SO in love with that thing. Infatuated even. It was so weird, and different. But after a few years I used it less and less until I finally decided to clean it up a bit and see it off. I have another Soviet Era synth here that my friend Egor in Belarus sent to me, but it needs some TLC and there are some SERIOUS shenanigans going on inside on the main circuitboard that left me just shaking my head so it's been shelved indefinitely. Anyway, the war in Ukraine has saddened me for more than the usual reasons. It means in all likelihood that now I won't ever be able to visit Russia, which was a weirdo dream of mine. Fucking politicians. Fuck Putin.

Anyway, recent shenanigans here include me spotting an O1R/W on the auction for a decent price, bidding on it, and winning with no other bids being placed. The previous owner stickered the shit out of it though. Check this out.

WHO DOES THIS??!!?!?! Aside from the stickering, it's in good shape. Had a dead backlight, so I was able to use the LED replacement one I bought for the O1R/W I have that died on me. Took care of that this morning. It was really easy except for swapping out a surface mount resistor that was the size of three grains of salt really. Goddam do my hands fucking shake anymore. I'm getting too old to deal with parts I can barely fucking see. But I pulled it off and it works fine and looks good. See for yourself.

So yay me. Though at one point I did step on the soldering iron's cord and it fell on the carpet... I was able to quick grab the handle and pick it up before anything caught fire or melted. Dumbass.

Oh someone sent me an email about the Sony HR-MP5. I meant to reply to that but it looks like instead of archiving the mail I put it in the trash. Oops. So if you're out there reading this, shoot off another mail at me and I'll get back to you. Sorry bout that.

Stay safe y'all.

[lightdancer1]

Expanding a bit further on the Zuko-centric perspective flip of A Far Green Country and why it's Azula-centric instead:

The Zuko-centric story is a coming of age story with a deconstruction vibe where twenty-six year old Zuko learns his sixteen year old self wasn't nearly as smart as he thought he was, fixes his relationship with his friends, and grows up to learn his sister is literally not why his life sucks at any measurable level. It would be how the angry spiteful kid (not that he didn't have multiple good reasons to be) of the canon grows up to be a wiser, mature ruler and again contrasted with the ever more USSR/North Korea-ish Earth Kingdom sliding down the slippery slope to Hu-Ting's totalitarianism.

The process of getting there, of course, has reality hitting him in the face and nads with a nailbat in the form of an ATLA version of the 1905 Russian Revolution. Azula as ghost and actual person would linger over it, with the US/USSR WWII propaganda poster riff images of her as a backdrop to Zuko's actions and a blend of 'fuck you' and 'the Fire Nation will rise again', to say nothing of Zuko obsessively blaming her for everything that goes wrong for him out of a blend of bad conscience and the entirely valid (and in the end he's proven right when he was the only person in the four nations outside a very small number of people to know the truth) view that his sister might be alive and want vengeance.

She would loom rather larger in his narrative than he does in hers, due to the whole political obstacle thing and the six false Azulas in the Azula equivalent of the Dmitryads with the seventh the real genuine article would provide a Monty Python sequence of gallows humor ending in the Cerberus reversal with the genuine article finally showing up.

The reason I am telling this tale from her perspective and not his is 'society fucks itself up in a very long war it could have avoided and person who wins has to clean up the mess while dire forces gather around the edges' is the gist of my original fiction and I like Xaderavcal the Unifier as the protagonist of those stories better than I do Zuko.

Azula's 'powers are not your personality' theme works just as well for a fictional 1905 Revolution story and her confronting the reality that after ten years of pretending her legacy wouldn't matter to anyone if she closed her eyes and shouted 'LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU' doesn't work, well.....it works just as well. There's no escaping the reality of her wartime imperialism, and even after all her growth she has to deal with the full reality of her legacy and that the people who endorse it the most loudly do so for the worst reasons. And that hiding in a distant corner doesn't make that go away.

Azula confronting this and finding ways around it means that some of the same themes are there but from a very different perspective. Hence also why the whole 'simp' thing irritates me greatly because this is a story where she washes up on shore Dracula style and her awesome moments always have a distinct 'professional dog-kicker' vibe to them. She's reformed, not tamed, with her in-universe fanbase the equivalents of the Nazi Party and a satire of Josef Stalin that's not that far removed from the real man (in other words a horndog who neatly simultaneously serves as a satire of the people who IRL treat Azula as a waifu complete with 'no this wouldn't work in universe or out of it') vibe. This is what happens when someone is both the most successful soldier of one country *and* the person who neatly overthrew a monarchy to replace it with a commoner.

Both the would-be founders of the Conciliar Union (as in Soviet Union) and the NSDAP equivalent see what they want to see. They do not see good things, nor do they want to.

I consider this aspect of the postwar future to be more powerful if the person who serves as the great poster has to confront her past and to build her future directly, rather than filtering it through yet another rendition of 'best prince has to grow up and fix something profoundly broken'.

A good canon continuation story featuring Azula would have to face these themes and there are ways to do them that aren't 'not at all thinly veiled incest vibe mixed with incoherent scheme worthy of an Adam West Batman villain.'