#he's going to try and encroach into Poland

[hussyknee]

Not so friendly reminder that Tankies are people who deny not only the genocides of Russia but also Vietnam and China (including the Uyghurs), and are apologists for the North Korean regime. They push Russian propaganda of "colour revolutions" every time a Global South country rises up against a totalitarian government because they believe totalitarianism is merely anti-communist agenda; deriding, dismissing and dehumanizing the liberation movements of our countries that come at great human cost. They're not anti-imperialists or anti-colonial; their chief issue with the imperial core is that it's not their ideology seated at the heart of it. They only care about Global South lives when it serves their ideology, and have no genuine concern or curiosity about the ground realities or agency of the communities impacted by imperialism and colonialism.

I also want you to understand that every major power player involved in this conflict is a genocidal fascist. Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis that are fighting Israel are funded by the theocratic Iranian regime headed by Ebrahim Raisi (begging you to remember the hundreds of Iranian girls and women killed for protesting it). Iran is also an ally of the notorious Bashar Al-Assad's regime in Syria, responsible for the genocide and displacement of millions of his own people while actively funding the Islamic State he wages war against. Both Assad and Raisi are allies of Putin, who is currently trying to colonize and genocide Ukraine and is terrorising Poland, Hungary, Georgia, Estonia, Latvia etc. However, Iran and Putin (half-heartedly) are also allies of the Armenians who are being genocided by Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is supported by the US, but also Erdogan in Turkey, infamous dictator that hates the European Union and is a close pal of Putin. Meanwhile the US's best friends in the Middle East is Israel, which hates Arabs, and Saudi Arabia, who doesn't recognise Israel as a country but is hated by most of the MENA and is currently in a Cold War with Iran.

*yanks y'all by the shirt and shouts in your face* THERE ARE NO GOOD GUYS HERE, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?? ONLY INNOCENT CIVILIANS CAUGHT IN A SPIDER WEB OF GREEDY, DESPOTIC, GENOCIDAL, FASCIST CUNTS. THERE IS NO POINT TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHICH ONE IS THE BIGGEST THREAT TO GLOBAL DEMOCRACY BECAUSE ALL THE FALL OF ONE DOES IS CREATE A POWER VACCUUM THAT WILL IMMEDIATELY BE FILLED BY THE NEXT BULLY.

These governments can only be toppled from within by their own people once external threats like war with their neighbours are eased, because militaries with nothing to fight are economic black holes that try to eat itself, and it's this economic stress that act as catalysts for coalition building and civilian revolt. Military losses weaken imperialists' coercive power and legitimacy over their own people, so the best thing you can do to help them agitate for change is preventing imperialist expansions from claiming any more victims.

[thunderboltfire]

In relation to the current political climate - nothing makes me as furious as random people on the internet playing philosopher and geopolitics expert, claiming that ‘we don’t know the truth bc everybody lies’ and playing the whataboutism game, sometimes even trying to justify the invasion, claiming that actually, Russia and Putin didn’t started it - that he was provoked. Usually, people making these comments are from the Western Europe or America, but that’s not a rule.

“But NATO wanted to put missiles on the very border of Russia!” Russia has nuclear-capable missiles in Kaliningrad, on the very border of Poland and expected everyone to be alright with that, yet I remember that when Poland negotiated with USA to install the anti-missile system the main problem was whether or not we’ll anger Putin by allowing NATO country, with whom we’re allied with to install a defense system in our country. The majority of what is going on in sovereign states should be nobody else’s business - especially if we’re talking about things like alliances and equipment of the armed forces, not clear human rights violations etc. Ukraine is not Russian colony - it doesn’t matter that Putin states otherwise. Russia already borders with several NATO countries and repeatedly violates their airspace, captures their vessels on neutral waters, and the Russian fighter jets even made a low-pass, similar to a simulated attack on an American warship, which was caught on camera. And that was years before the invasion.

No one would feel the need to defend against Russia, if they didn’t keep everyone on their toes. On purpose. And that’s why Ukraine also wanted to join NATO - because Russia has made moves suggesting that they won’t stop at Donetsk and Lugansk, or that they’re going to tear their territory apart, piece by piece.

I’ve even seen people stating that Putin only wants Ukraine to de-nazify its military and government (claiming that the current government is neo-nazi or something).

Apart from the falseness of the statement - what do You think he’ll do then? Respectfully retreat and apologise for incursion? Maybe even pay the war reparations?

Are there horrible people with far-right sentiments in Ukraine? Of course. So they are in practically every country. It’s still a half-true (in case of the government even fully false) bullshit used as an excuse to invade a neighboring country, kill civilians, shoot the refugees and bomb the shelters. And in case I was in doubt whether the tales of Russian bombing the refugee columns are true, a young Ukrainian boy who’s come to the model kit workshop said that as they were running there was a plane dropping bombs all around, but their [Ukrainian] plane appeared and shot it down. So yeah. It’s happening. Huge thanks to the pilot who had enough reflex and skill to save them, I hope he’s still alive.The 6, maybe 8 year old children here can tell you things they definitely shouldn’t witness.

And it outrages me, to see people who’s never lived next to Russia saying that “Putin needs to protect his country’s interests, and NATO is encroaching on Russia”. He’s been doing whatever he pleases outside of his borders - Georgia, Crimea, now Ukraine - because he thought that people will be too scared to intervene. And he’s been lying and lying all this time and people either didn’t hear about it or don’t even care.

Putins’ propagandists are hard at work, recently on the Russian TV show their “experts” said, that my country’s politics is hateful and criminal, and if we’ll act “too brave” our capital will be gone in 30 seconds. They threaten us day-to-day now, people who don’t live near the Eastern Flank of NATO don’t understand that every engagement that we do on a government level sending help to Ukraine is not because of USA, or because of some false sense of moral superiority - it’s because we’re next. Putin does make it clear that he deems Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and other countries Russia’s zone of influence. His rhetorics is so abhorrent, that I can’t believe anyone who has any different source of information even believes him. Murderer of civilians and children paints his own war as some sort of moral crusade against the “rotten” west.

Our president recently responded to the threats implying that Putin shouldn’t make that much effort to threaten us, or he’ll shit his pants. It seems irrational or silly, but it’s already known by everyone here that Russia’s leaders don’t really care whether we try to appease them or not - they’ve already decided that we’re their enemy. They won’t stop on our Eastern border, for sure not indefinitely. They will try to move further to the west, unless they lose in Ukraine, for which I still hope.

Anyway, thanks for reading this. And for all the Russians suffering because of the sanctions - I feel for You. I know many of You are not in the position in which You just can risk being arrested for opposing the regime. But truth be told, this is probably the least lethal way to stop this madness and I won’t stop supporting the sanctions until Putin doesn’t have any more pocket money to play war criminal among his neighbors.

[jesse-eisenberg-interview]

Jesse Eisenberg to direct ’A Real Pain’, will star opposite Kieran Culkin (exclusive)

Jesse Eisenberg has set his next feature as writer-director – A Real Pain – and is lining up a March 2023 shoot in Warsaw, Poland.

Eisenberg will lead the cast alongside Succession star Kieran Culkin. The story will follow two estranged cousins who travel to Poland after their grandmother dies to see where she came from and end up joining a Holocaust tour.

Dave McCary, Emma Stone and Ali Herting’s US production company Fruit Tree will reunite with Eisenberg after producing his feature directing debut When You Finish Saving The World, which premiered online at Sundance this year and went on to play Cannes.

Speaking to Screen about the main characters Eisenberg said “They have a funny, fraught relationship; it’s a bittersweet story, as we realise maybe we don’t fully belong together, but against the backdrop of this incredibly dramatic history.

“I’m trying to ask the question is modern pain valid against the backdrop of real historical trauma. I think I’m speaking to the experience of people [in their 30s] who go back and it’s foreign to them – and now suddenly real.”

Eisenberg said he is hoping to use “as much of the crew as I can bring” from his first film alongside Polish crew. “Luckily I’m shooting in a country that has an amazing film tradition.”

The actor-filmmaker comes from a secular Jewish background and his ancestry traces back to Poland. His acting roles include 2020 biographical drama Resistance, about the French mime Marcel Marceau’s role in the French Resistance during the Second World War.

Eisenberg is attending Sarajevo Film Festival this week, where he accepted the honorary Heart of Sarajevo award on Monday and has since participated in a ‘Coffee with..’ discussion and masterclass session.

Social status

Having received international acclaim and a best actor Oscar nomination for playing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in 2010’s The Social Network, Eisenberg’s first film as director has a lead character who is obsessed with his social media following.

However he personally avoids that realm. “I have probably the most cynical attitude a person could have – especially a person in media,” he said. “My attitude stems from the fact that I’m a very public person, so I really try to maintain privacy in my personal life. So I’m completely befuddled when I see somebody posting something about the personal life on the internet, because to me it seems like you have the greatest luxury in the world, of privacy.

“Why the hell would you put yourself in a bikini eating spaghetti on the internet?”

Regarding Zuckerberg and how social media has changed the world in the 12 years since the film, Eisenberg said, “I don’t feel that he was thinking of changing the world for the better. He’s not seen as this benevolent force for social change. So that is concerning to me – that something with so much power and influence didn’t start with the intentions of some kind of social benevolence. So that kind of worries me.”

He also addressed the encroachment of social media on the acting profession – specifically the issue of actors and actresses being asked to show social media followings when auditioning for roles. “I’m so lucky I started acting before that became a thing, because I would’ve maybe been at a disadvantage,” he said. “I guess now it’s just part of the thing – I don’t know, that’s sad.”

On casting the plays he has written and When You Finish Saving The World, Eisenberg said: “I would look up an actor and sometimes they’d write something online that was so strange. You almost feel like, ‘I wish I didn’t know that about this person. They’re fantastic, I wish I didn’t know that they have an opinion about this random politician.’

“It just feels weird and distracting, and takes away from this wonderful thing actors have, which is [that] you can be mysterious in your personal life, so that when the public sees you in a role, they can engage with it as something new. That has completely disappeared.”

A24 holds US rights to When You Finish Saving The World and has not yet set a release date. Eisenberg said he tries “to stay uninvolved” in all distribution discussions – “it has nothing to do with anything that I’m good at” – and doesn’t watch himself on screen. He added that sometimes he doesn’t even know when his films come out.

Sarajevo Film Festival continues until Friday (August 19).

SOURCE

[punkscowardschampions]

Jac & Amelia

Jac: So, you got your room 🙌 What other wins did freshers bring you? 😄 Amelia: Yeah, thank god Amelia: it's been full on enough without adding travel sickness Jac: Never going to fly when class starts either Jac: it's just slightly more inventive than coming down with the 'flu' every Monday morning, but not enough Amelia: bit intense to start crashing on my new friends floors too, I don't want to be THAT gay Jac: 😂 Jac: I doubt they'd mind Jac: but having a base that isn't totally covered in crochet decor is a plus Amelia: now that freshers is over and they're going to 🤞 they never see those hook ups again maybe Amelia: still, not the first impression I'm trying to make Jac: Oh God, tell me about it Jac: I am not trying to have people I've got to avoid for the next 7 odd years Jac: not trying to make it like home like that Amelia: very relatable Amelia: even though I have no need to count that high Jac: Is your course 3? or 4? Amelia: depends if I want to go to Canada, Denmark, Italy, Poland, Sweden, USA or the UK for a year Jac: Oh wow Jac: 🦪 Amelia: that emoji is the gayest Amelia: so yeah probably Jac: Very O'Keefe of you Jac: can't give up the 🎨 quite yet? Amelia: 😂 Jac: I've met THE perfect girl for you, oh my GOD Amelia: because I'm going to travel to Edinburgh for 🦪 after dodging a 3 hour commute Jac: She's American, you could convince her Cork has a lot to offer beside 🦪 Jac: but actually, she is UNBEARABLE, and I'm trying very hard to be nice and give everyone a chance rn Jac: she does Art History, despite the fact she seems to know less about art than I do Jac: doesn't stop her 🔊 Amelia: 💔 you put your mean girl years behind you too soon, I'm SO proud though Amelia: and I'm sure Savannah appreciates it just as much Jac: 😏 I can feel the sincerity Jac: I know though, talk about completely crazy Amelia: if you want sincerity I can totally believe she'd follow you there as if nothing happened Amelia: are you okay? Jac: I think the prestige probably beat the off-chance I'd also be there but I appreciate the belief Jac: Yeah, actually, I am Jac: it went well, better than I could've or would've imagined before Amelia: alright, that's a relief Amelia: not that it's been playing on my mind or anything since the ✨ livened up my feed Jac: I would've got in touch sooner Jac: It did cross my mind, that you'd see Jac: I also didn't wanna encroach on your freshers' experience at all, that idea won out Jac: It must've been a shock for you and all Amelia: I get it, because likewise obviously Amelia: plus you seemed like you were coping, and it's not the same as before, you have people to go to now if you aren't so Amelia: I don't know, it seemed too dramatic to come at you all !!!!!! Amelia: which is why I didn't Jac: I wouldn't have bitten your head off Jac: but I see and appreciate that logic Jac: not to mention previous experience would say I actually would so Jac: She's changed a lot too, in those 2 years Amelia: good Jac: Yeah, turns out she had a pretty rough time of it too Jac: which, obviously, but I wasn't really in a space to think too much about that back then Amelia: was likely to be more 🥀 than 🌹 living with her dad, and everything that happened with her mum Amelia: I'm not surprised even if I couldn't be very sympathetic then Jac: I can't believe I was zoned out Jac: I didn't even know about her mum Amelia: you had loads of your own shit going on, it'd be more unbelievable if you were tuned into hers Amelia: I didn't know how bad it was, or didn't want to hear it, whichever Jac: Jess made it sound like the world and his wife knew Jac: I feel awful Jac: but her mum is doing better now, and they're trying to mend their relationship, so, that's positive Amelia: it always feels like that in my 🏠 but I would've told you if I'd realised Jac: It isn't your fault remotely Jac: like you said, sympathy about it wasn't at the forefront of your mind Jac: and you can't be blamed there Amelia: I'm genuinely glad things are getting better, the last thing she needs is to feel like shit for leaving her mum again if they aren't Jac: I know you are, you aren't a monster Jac: even if you and Savannah had your differences, and the obvious situation from there 'til now Amelia: that's enough sincerity though, the last thing I need is Savannah Moore trying to be my friend again Amelia: you can keep her Jac: 😂 Alright Jac: about that though Jac: things have changed, between us too Amelia: okay Amelia: what does that mean? Jac: Well, I told her, this time Jac: that I'm not straight Jac: and neither is she Amelia: she really has fucking changed Jac: She hasn't also come out, there's no label on it or anything Jac: but she likes me back Jac: you deserve to know, and would, regardless of where we were in our relationship Jac: I'm sorry if it's not what you want to hear though Amelia: thanks, I guess Amelia: for not waiting for the 💍 announcement Jac: Things haven't moved quite that fast Jac: although, yeah Jac: I know Amelia: It's still Savannah, I doubt she's had a TOTAL personality transplant Amelia: you probably wouldn't like her if she had Amelia: so I'll keep an eye out for that post and put my congrats on it Jac: No, she's still her Jac: and I doubt her plans include a 💍 that could be bought on a student budget Amelia: true Amelia: I'll send some 💐 she'd NEVER put in the 🗑 Amelia: just the 💌 I'll actually bother to write, you know, like a normal person Jac: There goes the mystery Amelia: because of course you wouldn't recognise my handwriting Jac: I've checked your homework over enough times Jac: I doubt anyone else is rushing to send us a bouquet so Jac: process of elimination Amelia: there you go then Jac: but I have told my brother and that Jac: on the off-chance you catch him and he's dying not to bring it up Amelia: bit rude of him not to try and gently break the news Jac: Assumedly either thinking I've imagined the whole thing all over, or it'll all fizzle out before there's any need to go there Amelia: or I'm thriving so hard there's no need to bring me down 1 week in Jac: Obviously that too Jac: but you know that wasn't my intention, yeah Amelia: it's obvious you're not thinking about me, don't worry Jac: Okay Jac: do you want me to leave you now? Amelia: Why would I want that? Jac: Plenty of valid reasons Jac: to process, to not, you just don't feel like talking to me at this precise moment Amelia: what's to process? the bit about her not queerbaiting you the entire time is new, the rest isn't Jac: That's not nothing Jac: it changes the whole thing Amelia: not for me Jac: Alright then Amelia: you were hung up on her every second, what's changed for you is that was a least a bit mutual Amelia: I don't need to process any of that, it doesn't involve me Jac: It's still new information, that's all Amelia: not really Amelia: I probably should have guessed anyway Jac: If I didn't, I don't see how you could've Jac: she didn't even then so Amelia: too late to become a 🔮💎💫 gay, I hear you Jac: 🕵 is definitely a better idea Amelia: maybe I'd just really love to be able to say 'it's just a phase, mum' about something Jac: You've had plenty Amelia: name one Jac: [that boy band I said they liked lol] Jac: for starters Amelia: that wasn't a phase that was me lying that I cared Jac: yeah, okay Jac: you knew all the lyrics 'cos you cover was so deep Jac: no need to lie, they had some tunes Amelia: I knew all the lyrics because there was about 5 lines repeated over and over Jac: uh-huh Jac: you had badges all over your school bag Amelia: because you've never fully committed to a lie, oh wait Jac: There's no need to be a bitch Amelia: 😂 Jac: No, I'm not super ready to laugh about that time in my life, as it goes Amelia: okay Jac: I'm going to leave you to it now Jac: Good luck with your first proper day, hope it all goes well Amelia: actually wait though Amelia: I didn't mean that Amelia: I'm sorry Jac: Alright Jac: I know you're upset, or pissed off Jac: but being a better person doesn't extend to being a punching bag for you to get that out Jac: you can feel it, obviously, but that's just unproductive for you, and not gonna happen from my end Amelia: I know Jac: and I know that's what I did to you Jac: so it probably seems fair, or justified at least, that you get to now Jac: but it wasn't right, and an eye for an eye, you know Amelia: no, it's not fair, I wasn't being, that's why I'm sorry Jac: You don't need to stoop to my lowest Amelia: I'm trying, okay Jac: Yeah Jac: and I accept your apology Amelia: thanks Jac: should I not have told you? Amelia: I think that'd be worse Jac: I thought the same Jac: unless you were going to block me on the sly, then you would have seen Amelia: maybe I should now, I don't know Jac: If you want to Jac: to take some time Jac: or more permanently Jac: it's up to you Jac: obviously my offer of being friends still stands but I understand Jac: as I said, this changes things Amelia: yeah, if we let it Jac: You can't help how this makes you feel Amelia: but why should I let her take everything again? Jac: Savannah isn't actively doing that Jac: but if you want to keep trying, so do I Amelia: we worked hard at getting here, me and you, that's not about her Jac: True Jac: You don't have to be friends with her now, that's not it Jac: just accept that she's my girlfriend, and a big part of my life Amelia: does she know? Jac: About what happened between us? Jac: No Jac: she doesn't know a huge amount about those two years, for me Jac: I plan to tell her everything Jac: but it's a lot to throw at her in a sitting, especially unasked, you know Amelia: it'd really fuck with her freshers, for sure Jac: Right Jac: all for having the hard but necessary conversations Jac: but there's a time and a place Jac: I don't want her to feel like I'm trying to make her feel bad for me, either Jac: like 'look what YOU did' because nah Amelia: too 🥀🥀🥀 Amelia: it can wait, neither of you are going anywhere Jac: That's my logic Amelia: she'll get why you waited Jac: I hope so Amelia: come on, it'll be harder for you to say than it'll be for her to hear, she's a LOT of things, but she won't want you to go through that before you're ready to Jac: You're right Jac: it just feels like secrets, and that feels like 10 steps back Jac: but it isn't that Amelia: I'm sure even she hasn't had time to tell you everything, she'd need to be chatting non stop Jac: True Jac: if you're ever done talking about yourself and your life, that's gotta be a sign you need to get out more, right Jac: there's always more to say Amelia: right Amelia: stop being so virgo-ish about it and give yourself a break Jac: 😂 okay Jac: I just need lectures to actually start Jac: so I can freak out on that instead Amelia: same Jac: are you more 😁 or 😱 Amelia: 😕 Amelia: over 😣 Jac: You'll be fine Jac: let me know how it goes though Jac: I'm interested Amelia: okay �� Jac: Well there's a lot of overlap Jac: obviously, you can usually do them as a double discipline but I wanted to go pure Psych Jac: doesn't mean I'm not 🤔 Amelia: yeah Jac: 🤏🤓 fine Amelia: we're not strangers Jac: I remember Jac: so, what are your new mates like then? Amelia: great, obviously Jac: It's a good thing you aren't taking English Jac: that description leaves a lot to be desired Amelia: what do you want me to say? Jac: Isn't there anyone in particular? Amelia: there's a whole course full of people Jac: Yeah, I like one of my profs, he's really cool Jac: but I don't know anyone on my course that well yet either, they all seem nice enough though Amelia: of course you do Jac: it's so refreshing in comparison to the teachers at our school Jac: even if he acted like a base level human, it'd be a step up Jac: but he knows his stuff, and he's down to help me get ahead, what more could I want Amelia: literally nothing Jac: But I'm still not into dudes so I won't commit that cliche, don't worry Amelia: a real weight off my mind Jac: sure Amelia: 😏 Jac: I've already done loads of prep Jac: can basically chill in his class this whole term Amelia: you can but you won't Amelia: 🤓🏆⭐ Jac: we're not strangers Amelia: maybe we are 🤏 because reading's the only prep we were given but I've already done it Jac: Not really Jac: you just pretended you weren't 🤓 Amelia: no, I just actually wasn't 🤓 about school Jac: plenty of other things Jac: you can't hide the 🤓 Amelia: it's not 😳 I literally can Jac: not from me Amelia: that'd be 10 steps back Jac: try 10000 Amelia: no thank you, that sounds exhausting Jac: you've got a 🛏 Amelia: yeah, I don't know who's more thrilled, me or my dad Amelia: getting to pretend he's allergic to pets for another year at least Jac: result Jac: won't have to fake seduce him on your behalf either Jac: I'm most thrilled Amelia: Savannah is Amelia: undoubtedly Jac: Yeah, that ain't something I ever want to explain 😂 Amelia: she'd be less understanding about it Jac: None of us are understanding that Jac: sorry to your father Amelia: 😂 Jac: I think your mum would snap Jac: go full psycho Amelia: probably Amelia: they're very 😍🥰😘 right now Jac: that's nice Jac: bit gross but good Jac: she won't call you every 10 minutes Amelia: she can try but I won't answer Amelia: the friend I like best will be here soon Jac: Sounds promising Jac: I'll leave you to it for now, for real Jac: you better get ready Amelia: you're so Amelia: you Jac: what does that mean? Amelia: I don't need 👗👠💄 Jac: what's that, a humblebrag? Amelia: hardly Amelia: it's a compliment for you, you're cute for caring Jac: It's not cute, I just like to look nice Amelia: oh so you don't think I look nice? Amelia: rude Jac: everyone looks better for effort Jac: that's simple facts Amelia: anyway, I meant it's cute you care about my social life this much Jac: because I really need you being a loner to worry about Jac: no tah Jac: obviously I'm happy for you Amelia: you don't need to worry about me whatever happens Jac: It's not optional Amelia: okay Jac: I never stopped Amelia: you can stop now Jac: That's just what being friends is Amelia: I'm no expert Amelia: have to take your word for it, if anything Jac: I know you care about me too Amelia: but you're thriving so I don't have to worry Jac: I guess Jac: it's not just for the bad times though, is it Amelia: I hope not Jac: it's not Jac: come on Jac: pull yourself together and at least do 1 out of 3 👗👠💄 Amelia: fine, I'll put shoes on Jac: that's what I like to hear Amelia: 🙄 just because I'm ignoring my mum there's no need for you to take over from her Jac: I still can't do any handicrafts so unlikely Amelia: Savannah is unlikely to wear a homemade 🧣 so I think you're fine Jac: she loves anything thoughtful but I ain't gonna start there still Amelia: 💐 Jac: Naturally Jac: both our rooms look like a florist already Jac: makes up for the shabby walls and carpet you can't do much about Amelia: any time you'd like to fully lean into the 👵 I'll do you an embroidery hoop or something Amelia: very chic Jac: they do sell a lot of that sort of thing in the charity shops Jac: I'm sure your 🎨 will be better than whatever the actual 👵 decided to do 🖼 Amelia: SUCH a compliment, I have no idea how I'm not 😳 Jac: Charity shops are in Jac: I'm not going to call it thrifting, I'm not even half-American, wouldn't be able to take myself seriously Amelia: good, please don't Jac: vintage, upcycling, all acceptable Amelia: for my mother Amelia: I'll take how 'modern' my room here is Jac: I suppose that does make a change Jac: I love the buildings though, the architecture Amelia: 🎨 Amelia: yeah, would be inspiring if I had any time Jac: Is Cork by the coast? Jac: I know nothing about that area Jac: I'm like NEXT to the beach, it's incredible Amelia: it's one of the largest natural harbours in the world, if that doesn't make you want to come and visit me, well ?? Amelia: it has it's own lovely architecture Jac: You should work for the tourism board, honestly Jac: good speech, that Amelia: 🤷🏻 Amelia: I'm here for the 🤓 and you're already interested in that Jac: I'd go to Italy, if I were you Jac: but then, Denmark might have the most interesting criminal practices and laws, so that's a good choice too Amelia: you'll visit me there then, yeah? Jac: I forgot about Sweden, but those three are the real ones to consider Jac: and we can sort visiting when we're even a bit settled Amelia: okay Jac: we've only just left Amelia: thanks for that obvious reminder Jac: 😏 Jac: you know what I mean Jac: give me a chance to get my diary in order before you're saying I'm avoiding you or whatever Amelia: give you a chance to miss me, you mean Amelia: you've got one right now, because I have to go get ready Jac: Oh, if we had to wait for that, you'd never see me again 😉 Jac: have fun 👠👠 Amelia: 💔 Amelia: bye

[opedguy]

Biden Drives Russia into Iran’s Arms

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), July 22, 2022.--Traveling to Tehran to meet  83-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 69-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin dispelled Ukrainian intelligence reports that he was suffering from a terminal illness and on his last legs.  Even CIA Director William Burns took notice saying it was “wishful thinking” that Putin suffered from a life-threatening illness.  Meeting Khamenei and Iran’s conservative President Ebrahim Raisi, Putin was in Tehran to make deals or at leas coordinate economy strategy in the era of =crippling U.S. and EU sanctions for the Ukraine War. Khaemeni gave Putin a full-throated endorsement of his Ukraine War, saying the United States instigated the action by supplying Kiev with advanced lethal weapons.  Russia and Iran have much in common surviving U.S. sanctions.  Putin’s found a way to circumvent U.S. and EU sanctions, selling cheap oil to China and India.

Putin and Khamenei discussed a full range of regional issues, including the ongoing war in Syria.  Putin was greeted in Tehran by NATO member 68-yea-old Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has his own interests in Syria, where an 11-year-old civil war has decimated the country. Only after Putin got involved in 2015 in Syria, did the Kremlin beat back U.S.-Saudi-Turkiish proxy war that cost Syria over 600,000 lives, driving 15 million citizens into exile.  “War is a violent and difficult issues, and the Islamic Republic is in no way happy that civilians get caught up in it, but concerning Ukraine, had you [Putin] not the initiated, the other side [U.S.] would have taken the initiative and caused the war,” Khamenei told Putin. Khameni agrees with Putin that NATO has been a bullying force in Eastern Europe, now encroaching on countries like Iran in the Middle East.

Khaemeni sees that if Russian didn’t invade Ukraine, there would be no way to stop NATO encroachment in Eastern Europe and the Mideast. “NATO is a dangerous entity.  The West is totally opposed to a strong independent Russia.  If the way is opened for NATO, it will recognize no limits.  If it hadn’t been stopped in Ukraine, it would have later started a similar war in Crimea,” Khaemnei said.  Knowing Khamenei’s words, it’s hard to believe Biden actively seeks a new Iranian Nuke Deal, trying to reverse former President Donald Trump’s May 8m 2018 termination of the Iranian Nuke Deal.   Biden’s response to the Ukraine War has caused so much damage to U.S. and EU financial markets, sparking the worst inflation in 40 years.  Biden didn’t anticipate how a boycott of Russian oil [10% of the World supply] would cause shortages and skyrocketing prices, prompting Biden to beg Saudi Arabia for more oil.

Whatever happens to the Ukraine War, it’s going to be a cold day in hell before Biden reestablishes  pragmatic relations with Russia.  Biden’s done many things to provoke Russia and China, watching the worst relations in post-WW II history. Biden’s March 26 gaffe in Warsaw, Poland, telling the world that Putin must go, shocked world leaders, realizing the Ukraine War had morphed into a U.S. proxy war against the Russian Federation.  So, instead of resolving a border dispute between Ukraine and Russia, the world must contend with the U.S. seeking to topple Putin’s government. Biden’s foreign policy drove Russia and China into a close economic alliance. When Biden boycotted the Beijing Winter Olympics, Putin made certain that he would have the backing of Beijing.  Biden tried but failed to get 69-year-old Chinese President Xi Jinping to public denounce Putin.

Putin’s latest visit to Tehran indicates that Iran backs the Kremlin’s fight against the United States.  Tehran wants no part of any war against the United States but backs Russian Ukraine War, accomplishes the same thing.  Biden no longer has pragmatic relations with Russia and China, leaving the U.S. isolated on the world stage. All Biden can do is boast about his relations with the European Union and NATO, leaving Iran to seek membership in the BRICS economic bloc, including Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, all of which remain neutral on the Ukraine War.  Biden can’t get his coalition against Russia to extend much beyond the EU, leaving Putin plenty of opportunity to sell Russian oil into world markets.  Biden won’t admit that he’s lost the Ukraine war on the battlefield but, more importantly, the economic war he planned against the Russian Federation.

Biden has more complications in U.S. foreign policy, watching 68-year-old Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan join the meeting in Tehran.  Erdogan, a member of NATO, likes to play both sides against the middle, taking a benign position on the Ukraine War.  Erdogan has no love of U.S. foreign policy since Biden supports the YPG Kurds in Syria, a group Erdogan considers a terrorist grioup like the PKK, a group Turkey’s been at war with for 100 years.  Erdogan practically scuttled Finland and Sweden’s entrance into NATO because of support of Kurdish groups, considered an enemy of the Turkish state. Ukraine’s war has caused U.S. adversaries to join together in a coalition against the United States.  China is close to breaking off diplomatic relations to the U.S., coming to blows over Taiwain.  Unless Biden ends the Ukraine War soon, the world will look like a different place.

About the Author    

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

[dumbledearme]

chapter one

~~ read The Second Soul here ~~

It all started Monday afternoon.

Johanna spent the whole day constructing a 1/10,000-scale replica of the Empire State Building from boxes of adult diapers. It was a thing of beauty, spanning five feet at its base and towering above the cosmetics aisle, with jumbos for the foundation, lites for the observation deck, and meticulously stacked trial sizes for its iconic spire. It was almost perfect, minus one crucial detail.

“You used Neverleak,” Shelley said, eyeing her craftsmanship with a skeptical frown. “The sale’s on Stay-Tite.” Shelley was the store manager, and her slumped shoulders and dour expression were as much a part of her uniform as the blue polo shirts they all had to wear.

Johanna never wore the uniform, came in late, repeatedly and with the flimsiest of excuses; made shockingly incorrect change; even misshelved things on purpose, stocking lotions among laxatives and birth control with baby shampoo, trying as hard as she could to piss Shelley off. “I thought you said Neverleak.” She hadn’t. Shelley had been very clear on her order and Johanna had purposely made the mistake.

“Stay-Tite,” Shelley insisted, shaking her head regretfully. There was a brief but awkward silence in which she continued to shake her head and shift her eyes from Johanna to the tower and back to Johanna again.

Johanna stared blankly at her, as if completely failing to grasp what she was passive-aggressively implying. “What?” she said finally. “You mean you want me to do it over?”

“It’s just that you used Neverleak,” Shelley repeated.

“No problem, Shell.” Johanna kicked a single box from the tower’s foundation and, in an instant, the whole magnificent structure was cascading down around them, sending a tidal wave of diapers crashing across the floor, boxes caroming off the legs of startled customers, skidding as far as the automatic door, which slid open, letting in a rush of August heat.

Shelley’s face turned red and Johanna could see how much the woman hated her. And yet, no matter how incompetent Johanna pretended to be, Shelley stubbornly kept her on the payroll.

It was next to impossible for Johanna to get fired from Smart Aid. Any other employee would’ve been out the door a dozen minor infractions ago. But Johanna’s dad owned every single Smart Aid in Florida and had insisted that she’d work there during the summer.

Wading through the diapers, Shelley poked her finger into Johanna’s chest and was about to say something dour when the PA system interrupted her.

“Johanna Roseberg, you have a call on line two. Johanna Roseberg, line two.”

Shelley glared at Johanna as she backed away.

The employee lounge was a dank, windowless room where Johanna found the pharmacy assistant, Linda, nibbling a crustless sandwich in the vivid glow of the soda machine. She nodded at a phone screwed to the wall. Johanna picked up the dangling receiver.

“Yehanan? Is that you?”

“Yeah, hey, Grandma.”

“Yehanan, thank God. I need my key. Where’s my key?” She sounded upset, out of breath.

“What key?”

“Don’t play games,” she snapped. “You know what key.”

“You probably just misplaced it, you know.”

“Your mother put you up to this,” she said. “Just tell me. She doesn’t have to know, Yehanan.”

“Nobody put me up to anything, Grandma.” Johanna tried to change the subject. “Did you take your pills this morning?”

“They’re coming for me, understand? I don’t know how they found me after all these years, but they did. What am I supposed to fight them with, the goddamned butter knife?”

It wasn’t the first time Grandma acted like this. She was old, and Johanna thought she was starting to lose it. The signs of her mental decline had been subtle at first, like forgetting to buy groceries or calling Johanna by her mother’s name. But over the summer her encroaching dementia had taken a cruel twist and she was sure there were monsters coming to get her.

“Look, you’re safe, Grandma. Everything’s fine. I’ll bring over a video for us to watch later, how’s that sound?”

“No! Stay where you are! It’s not safe here!”

“Grandma, the monsters aren’t coming for you, okay? I swear. You’ll be okay.” Johanna turned to face the wall, trying to hide this bizarre conversation from Linda, who shot her curious glances while pretending to read a fashion magazine.

“You don’t understand, Yehanan,” she said. “No, no, no. You can’t possibly understand. I think I made a mistake not telling you, not talking to you sooner. It might be too late now, Yehanan.” Johanna could hear her banging around her house, opening drawers, slamming things. She was in full meltdown. “You stay away, hear me? I’ll be fine; cut out their tongues and stab them in the eyes, that’s all you gotta do! If I could just find that goddamned KEY!”

The key in question opened a giant locker in her garage where she kept a stockpile of guns and knives sufficient to arm a small militia. It had always been her favorite thing in the world: weapons. She was definitely not your regular muffin-maker grandma.

Johanna’s mom said this sometimes happened to people who had experienced traumatic things. Grandmother was the only member of her family to escape Poland before the Second World War broke out. She was twelve years old when her parents sent her into the arms of strangers, putting their youngest daughter on a train to Britain with nothing more than a suitcase and the clothes on her back. It was a one-way ticket. She never saw her parents or brother ever again. Each one would be dead before her sixteenth birthday, killed by the monsters she had so narrowly escaped. But these weren’t the kind of monsters she was imagining now; they were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don’t recognize them for what they are until it’s too late. Johanna guessed that after everything her grandmother had been through, she never really felt safe anywhere, not even at home.

“I really don’t know anything about the key,” Johanna said, repeating the lie her mother had told her to say. Mom had taken the key away from Grandma, afraid she would end up hurting herself or others.

There was more swearing and banging as Grandma stomped around looking for the key. “Fine!” she said finally. “Let your mother have the key if it’s so important to her. Let her have my dead body, too!”

Johanna got off the phone as politely as she could and then called her mom.

“Grandma’s flipping out,” she told her.

“Has she taken her pills today?”

“She won’t tell me. Doesn’t sound like it, though.”

Johanna heard her mom sigh. “Can you stop by and make sure she’s okay, Jo? I can’t get off work right now.” Her mom volunteered part-time at the bird rescue. She was an amateur ornithologist and a wannabe nature writer, which are real jobs only if you happen to be married to a man who owns a hundred and fifteen drug stores.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Thanks, Jo. I promise we’ll get all this Grandma stuff sorted out soon, okay?”

“You mean put her in a home,” Johanna said. “Make her someone else’s problem.”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Of course you have.”

“Jo…”

“Whatever, mom.”

Johanna hung up and called her boyfriend Ricky for a ride. She broke the bad news to Shelley and went outside to have a smoke. Ten minutes later, Ricky arrived with his mud-encrusted boots and his green hair. He saw her and leapt off the hood of his car.

“You fired yet, beautiful?” he shouted across the parking lot.

“I wish.”

Ricky kissed her with such enthusiasm that some people on the street turned to look the other way. “Don’t worry, beautiful. There’s always tomorrow.”

He kicked the car’s passenger door, which was how you opened it, and Johanna climbed in. The engine rattled to life in a cloud of blue smoke. The sky was turning the color of a fresh bruise as they pulled into grandma’s subdivision, a bewildering labyrinth of interlocking cul-de-sacs known collectively as Circle Village.

Johanna’s phone chirped with a text from her dad asking how things were going, and in the short time it took her to respond, Ricky managed to get them stunningly lost. When Johanna said she had no idea where they were, he cursed and pulled a succession of squealing U-turns as she scanned the neighborhood for a familiar landmark. It wasn’t easy, even though she’d been to visit her grandmother countless times growing up, because each house looked exactly like the next.

Finally Johanna recognized something or other and they managed to find the right place.

“Last one on the left,” she said. Ricky tapped the accelerator and they sputtered down the street. At the fourth or fifth house, they passed an old man watering his lawn. He was bald as an egg and stood in a bathrobe and slippers, spraying the ankle-high grass. Johanna turned to look and he seemed to stare back, though he couldn’t have, she realized with a small shock, because his eyes were a perfect milky white.

Ricky hung a sharp left into grandma’s driveway. He cut the engine, got out, and kicked Johanna’s door open. Their shoes hushed through the dry grass to the porch. Johanna rang the bell and waited. When there was no answer she banged on the door, thinking maybe the bell had stopped working.

“Maybe she stepped out,” Ricky said, grinning and pulling Johanna close. “Hot date.”

“Go ahead and laugh,” she said as he kissed her. “But she’s not good in the head. Something might’ve happened.”

The quiet was making her anxious. Johanna stepped away from Ricky and fetched the extra key from its hiding place in the bushes. “Wait here.”

“Hell I am. Why?”

“Because you’re six-five and have green hair and my grandma doesn’t know you and owns lots of guns.”

Ricky shrugged and stuck a wad of tobacco in his cheek. He went to stretch himself on a lawn chair as Johanna unlocked the front door and stepped inside.

Even in the fading light she could tell the house was a disaster; it looked like it’d been ransacked by thieves. Johanna’s heart sank. Grandma had really, finally lost her mind. Johanna called her name but heard nothing.

Then saw a gleam of light from the backyard. Running through the screen door, she found a flashlight abandoned in the grass, its beam pointed at the woods that edged her grandmother’s yard.

She shouted for Ricky and a moment later he came tearing around the side of the house. Right away he noticed something she hadn’t: a long mean-looking slice in the screen door. He let out a low whistle. “That’s a helluva cut. Wild pig coulda done it. Or a bobcat maybe. You should see the claws on them things.”

A peal of savage barking broke out nearby. They both traded a nervous glance. “Or a dog,” Johanna said. The sound triggered a chain reaction across the neighborhood, and soon barks were coming from every direction.

“Could be,” Ricky said, nodding. “I got a .22 in my trunk. You just wait.” And he walked off to retrieve it.

Sweat trickled down Johanna’s face. It was dark now. She picked up the flashlight and stepped toward the trees. Her grandma was out there somewhere, she was sure of it. Something seemed to guide her, a quickening in the chest, a whisper in the viscous air, and suddenly she couldn’t wait another second. She tromped into the underbrush like a bloodhound scenting an invisible trail.

She spied a narrow corridor of freshly stomped palmettos not far away. She stepped into it and shone her light around; the leaves were splattered with something dark. Her throat went dry. Steeling herself, she began to follow the trail. The farther she went, the more her stomach knotted, as though her body knew what lay ahead and was trying to warn her. And then the trail of the flattened brush widened out, and Johanna saw her.

Her grandma lay facedown in a bed of creeper, her legs sprawled out and one arm twisted beneath her as if she’d fallen from a great height. Johanna thought surely she was dead. Her shirt was soaked with blood, her pants were torn, and one shoe was missing.

Johanna ran to her, hands shaking, eyes watering, breathing turning harsh. She sank to her knees and pressed the flat of her hand against her back. The blood that soaked through was still warm. Johanna could feel her breathing ever so shallowly. She slid her arms under her and rolled her onto her back. Grandma’s eyes were glassy but the real problem were the gashes across her midsection. Johanna nearly fainted.

She heard Ricky shout from the backyard. “I’M HERE!” she screamed. Johanna looked down at her grandma again and noticed she was mumbling something, shifting between English and Polish.

“I don’t understand,” Johanna cried. “Grandma... Grandma, I don’t...”

Grandma’s eyes seemed to focus on Johanna, and then she drew a sharp breath and said, quietly but clearly, “Go to the island, Yehanan. It’s not safe here.”

“No. We’re fine. Grandma, you’re going to be fine. You’re going to-”

“Go to the island,” she repeated. “You’ll be safe there. Promise me.”

“Grandma-”

“Promise me, Yehanan.”

“Okay. I will. I promise.” Johanna closed her eyes; her tears were blinding her.

“I thought I could protect you,” Grandma said. “I should’ve told you a long time ago…”

“Told me what?”

“There’s no time,” she whispered. “Find the bird. In the loop. On the other side of the old man’s grave. September third, 1940. Emerson... the letter. Tell them what happened, Yehanan.”

With that she sank back, spent and fading. “No, no, no... Grandma... Please...” But then she seemed to disappear into herself, her gaze drifting past Johanna to the sky, bristling now with stars.

A moment later Ricky crashed out of the underbrush. “Oh man. Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus,” he kept saying, rubbing his face with his hands. He babbled about finding a pulse and calling the cops and did you see anything in the woods?

The strangest feeling came over Johanna. She stood up, every nerve ending tingling with an instinct she didn’t know she had. There was something in the woods, all right: she could feel it.

There was no moon and no movement in the underbrush and yet somehow Johanna knew just when to raise her flashlight and just where to aim it, and for an instant in that narrow cut of light she saw a face that seemed to have been transplanted directly from nightmares. It stared back with eyes that swam in dark liquid, furrowed trenches of carbon-black flesh loose on its hunched frame, its mouth hinged open grotesquely so that a mass of long eel-like tongues could wriggle out.

Johanna screamed and then it twisted and was gone, shaking the brush and drawing Ricky’s attention. He raised his .22 and fired, pap-pap-pap-pap, saying, “What was that? What the hell was that?” But he hadn’t seen it and Johanna couldn’t speak to tell him.

She dropped the flashlight, covered her mouth with her hands, took a step back, tripped and fell on her ass, too terrified for any other reaction. And then she must’ve blacked out because Ricky was shaking her shoulders and calling her name and that was the last thing she saw.

[newstfionline]

The World Wants You to Think Like a Realist

By Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy, May 30, 2018

One of the ironies of contemporary U.S. thinking about foreign policy is the odd status of realism. On the one hand, realist theory remains a staple of college teaching on international relations (along with many other approaches), and government officials often claim that their actions are based on some sort of “realist” approach. But Washington remains for the most part a realism-free zone, with few genuine realists in positions of influence. Moreover, the realist perspective is almost entirely absent from the commanding heights of U.S. punditry.

Instead of relying on realism, both Republicans and Democrats tend to view foreign policy through the lens of liberal idealism. Rather than see world politics as an arena where security is scarce and major powers are forced to contend whether they wish to or not, America’s foreign-policy mavens are quick to divide the world into virtuous allies (usually democracies) and evil adversaries (always some sort of dictatorship) and to assume that when things go badly, it is because a wicked foreign leader (Saddam Hussein, Ali Khamenei, Vladimir Putin, Muammar al-Qaddafi, etc.) is greedy, aggressive, or irrational. When friendly states object to something the (virtuous) United States is doing, U.S. leaders tend to assume that critics just don’t understand their noble aims or are jealous of America’s success.

I’ll concede that the Trump presidency presents a particular challenge for realists. Trump has shown himself to be many things thus far, but “rational” and “strategic” aren’t words that leap to mind when contemplating his foreign policy. Realism also emphasizes external factors, such as balances of power and geography, and downplays the role of individual leaders. But the Trump presidency is an eloquent and worrisome reminder of the damage that individual leaders can do and especially when they are convinced that they are “the only one that matters.”

Nonetheless, Trump’s singular incompetence isn’t sufficient reason to toss realism aside completely. For one thing, realism still helps us understand how Trump can get away with all this meshugas: The United States is still so powerful and secure that it can do a lot of dumb things and suffer only modest losses. More importantly, realism remains an extremely useful guide to a lot of things that have happened in the recent past or that are happening today. And as Trump is proving weekly, leaders who ignore these insights inevitably make lots of dumb mistakes.

In short, it is still highly useful to think like a realist. Let me explain why.

Realism has a long history and many variants, but its core rests on a straightforward set of ideas. As the name implies, realism tries to explain world politics as they really are, rather than describe how they ought to be. For realists, power is the centerpiece of political life: Although other factors sometimes play a role, the key to understanding politics lies in focusing on who has power and what they are doing with it. The Athenians’ infamous warning to the Melians captures this perfectly: “The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.” Quentin Tarantino couldn’t have put it any better.

For realists, states are the key actors in the international system. There is no central authority that can protect states from one another, so each state must rely upon its own resources and strategies to survive. Security is a perennial concern--even for powerful states--and states tend to worry a lot about who is weaker or stronger and what power trends appear to be. Cooperation is far from impossible in such a world--indeed, at times cooperating with others is essential to survival--but it is always somewhat fragile. Realists maintain that states will react to threats first by trying to “pass the buck” (i.e., getting someone else to deal with the emerging danger), and if that fails, they will try to balance against the threat, either by seeking allies or by building up their own capabilities.

Realism isn’t the only way to think about international affairs, of course, and there are a number of alternative perspectives and theories that can help us understand different aspects of the modern world. But if you do think like a realist--at least part of the time--many confusing aspects of world politics become easier to understand.

If you think like a realist, for example, you’ll understand why China’s rise is a critical event and likely to be a source of conflict with the United States (and others). In a world where states have to protect themselves, the two most powerful states will eye each other warily and compete to make sure that they don’t fall behind or become dangerously vulnerable to the other. Even when war is avoided, intense security competition is likely to result.

And by the way, thinking like a realist helps you understand why China is no longer committed to Deng Xiaoping’s policy of “peaceful rise.” That approach made sense when China was weaker, and it fooled plenty of Westerners into thinking China could be inveigled into being a responsible stakeholder that would meekly embrace various institutions and arrangements created by others back when China was weak. But realists understand that a more powerful China would eventually want to modify any features that were not in China’s interest, as Beijing has begun to do in recent years. Bottom line: Thinking like a realist is essential if you want to understand Sino-American relations.

If you think like a realist, you wouldn’t be surprised that the United States has repeatedly used military force in distant lands over the past 25 years and especially after 9/11. Why? For one simple reason: Nobody could prevent it. Americans were also convinced their global role was indispensable and that they had the right, the responsibility, and the wisdom to interfere all over the world. But America’s dominant position was the permissive condition that made this overweening ambition seem feasible, at least for a while. As Kenneth Waltz warned way back in 1993: “One may hope that America’s internal preoccupations will produce not an isolationist policy, which has become impossible, but a forbearance that will give other countries at long last the chance to deal with their own problems and make their own mistakes. But I would not bet on it.” Good realist that he was, Waltz understood that the “vice to which great powers easily succumb in a multipolar world is inattention; in a bipolar world, overreaction; in a unipolar world, overextension.” And that’s precisely what happened.

If you think like a realist, the crisis in Ukraine looks rather different than the typical Western version of events. Western accounts typically blame Putin for most of the trouble, but realists understand that major powers are always sensitive about their borders and are likely to react defensively if other great powers start encroaching on these regions. Ever heard of the Monroe Doctrine? In the case of Ukraine, the United States and its European allies had been expanding NATO steadily eastward (violating pledges made to Soviet leaders when Germany reunified) and ignoring repeated warnings from Moscow. By 2013, the United States and European Union were making a concerted effort to pull Ukraine into closer alignment with the West and openly interfering in Ukraine’s domestic political processes. Because the Obama administration did not think like realists, however, it was blindsided when Putin seized Crimea and derailed the EU/U.S. effort. Putin’s response was neither legal nor legitimate nor admirable, but it wasn’t surprising either. It is equally unsurprising that these events alarmed the Europeans and prompted NATO to shore up its defenses in Eastern Europe, precisely as a realist would expect.

Thinking like a realist can also help you understand why the EU is in trouble. The entire EU project was designed to transcend nationalism and subordinate state interests within broader supranational institutions. Its architects hoped the separate national identities and interests that had torn Europe apart repeatedly would fade over time and a broad pan-European identity would supplant them. European unity was facilitated by the Cold War because the Soviet threat gave Western Europe ample incentive to cooperate, gave the Soviets’ Eastern European satellites an ideal to aspire to, and kept the “American pacifier” on the continent. But once the Cold War was over, nationalism returned with a vengeance and especially after the euro crisis hit. Suddenly, populations wanted their elected officials not to save Europe but to save them. Despite herculean efforts by a number of European leaders and EU officials, these centrifugal tendencies seem to be getting worse, as the Brexit decision, the recent elections in Italy, and the resurgent nationalism in Poland and Hungary all attest. Those who hoped that European integration would prove irreversible have trouble understanding how their noble experiment went awry, but realists don’t.

If you think like a realist, you might not be quite so outraged by the support that Iran and Syria gave the anti-American insurgency in Iraq after 2003. You might not like it, but you wouldn’t find their conduct surprising. Their response was classic balance of power behavior because the United States had just overthrown Saddam Hussein and the Bush administration had made it clear that Syria and Iran were next on its hit list. It made good strategic sense for Damascus and Tehran to do whatever they could to keep the United States bogged down in Iraq so that Washington couldn’t reload the shotgun and come after them. Americans have every reason to be upset by what these states did, but if more U.S. officials thought like realists, they would have expected it from the get-go.

And if you think like a realist, it is obvious why North Korea has gone to enormous lengths to acquire a nuclear deterrent and obvious why a country such as Iran was interested in becoming a latent nuclear weapons state as well. These states were deeply at odds with the world’s most powerful country, and prominent U.S. officials kept saying that the only solution was to topple these regimes and replace them with leaders more to their liking. Never mind that regime change rarely works as intended; the more important point is that any government facing a threat like that is going to try to protect itself. Nuclear weapons aren’t good for blackmail or conquest, but they are a very effective way to deter more powerful states from trying to overthrow you with military force. And you’d think Americans would understand this, given that the U.S. government thinks it needs thousands of nuclear weapons in order to be secure, despite its favorable geographic position and overwhelming conventional superiority. If U.S. leaders think like that, is it any wonder that some weaker and more vulnerable powers conclude that having a few nukes might make them more secure? And is it so surprising that they might be reluctant to give them up in exchange for assurances or promises that might easily be reversed or withdrawn? Someone really should explain this logic to John Bolton.

Thinking like a realist also helps you understand why states with radically different political systems often act in surprisingly similar ways. To take an obvious example, the United States and Soviet Union could not have been more different in terms of their domestic orders, but their international behavior was much the same. Each led vast alliance networks, toppled governments they didn’t like, assassinated a number of foreign leaders, built tens of thousands of nuclear weapons (deployed on missiles, bombers, and submarines), intervened in far-flung lands, tried to convert other societies to their preferred ideology, and did what they could to bring the other down without blowing up the world. Why did they behave in such similar fashion? Because in an anarchic world, each had little choice but to compete with the other, lest it fall behind and become vulnerable to the other’s predations.

If you think like a realist, you are more likely to act with a degree of prudence, and you’ll be less likely to see opponents as purely evil (or see one’s own country as wholly virtuous) and less likely to embark on open-ended moral crusades. Ironically, if more people thought like realists, the prospects for peace would go up.

[flauntpage]

How Gymnastics Is Trying To Take Over Parkour And Make It An Olympic Sport

In the last several months, proponents of parkour, the obstacle course discipline of French origin, have been involved in a fight both with external foes and within their own community that might well shape the future of the sport.

But this fight isn't merely about parkour. It's about who controls the new youth-centric sports that are the Olympics' future. It's about whether legacy sports federations, amidst declining participation rates and popularity, can muscle their way to governing these new sports, even if the people who actually play them don't want that.

Parkour's fight, like many turf wars, is less an honest dispute than an invasion. In this case, it's between people who actually practice the discipline and the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), which has enlisted the help of two of parkour's founders to help them take over the sport.

If FIG's involvement sounds odd to you, you're not alone. Parkour is not gymnastics. The two sports have completely different histories, cultures, and purposes. Any overlap is superficial. Yet, this hasn't stopped FIG from going full speed ahead on subsuming parkour for its own gain.

Leading the fight against this takeover is Eugene Minogue, president of Parkour UK, which is recognized by UK Sport as the the National Governing Body for Parkour the UK. Minogue has issued several open letters to FIG and officially petitioned the IOC in an effort to have FIG cease and desist what he calls its "encroachment and misappropriation" of parkour.

"You lose all of that culture, that heritage, the authenticity, the very fabric that makes the sport and the community what it is and what makes it so different to other traditional sports," Minogue said in an interview.

Many other parkour organizations from around the world have signed letters supporting Parkour UK and calling for FIG to back off, including organizations from France, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Poland, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico, Sweden, Denmark, Argentina, and Italy. In a recent Inside The Games poll, 75 percent of respondents voted against the FIG's attempt to take over the sport.

Parkour's fight essentially began with Agenda 2020, the IOC's long-term roadmap for the future of the Olympics. Published in 2014, it called for the IOC to be more youth-centric: "We want to engage with them [the youth] wherever they are," wrote IOC president Thomas Bach. But, incorporating youth-centric action sports into the Olympic program presents a culture clash the IOC is still navigating today. There's a distinctive Manifest Destiny-like tone to Agenda 2020, an implicit assumption that action sports are for the Olympics' taking.

Fundamentally, parkour's fight is not about whether they want to be an Olympic sport, but about who gets to decide. There is a tremendous amount at stake for parkour. The future of the sport will be determined by who governs it. And if recent history is any guide, the outlook for parkour isn't good.

The IOC first required all Olympic sports to be governed by a recognized international body in 1920. Since then, existing federations have had tremendous control over organized sport. Whenever a new, popular sport came along, it was much easier and quicker for an existing federation to claim ownership rather than letting a new federation organically form.

Generally, this transition is done under the guise of helping the new sport's development, creating an elite level, which in turn promises to grow the grassroots. But sports historian David Goldblatt, author of The Games: A Global History of the Olympics, says, "the argument is always the elite layer somehow nurtures, encourages, and develops a broader grassroots. And it's not true. it's just not true."

When the aim of the burgeoning sport is expressly to become an Olympic sport, this acquisition process is more or less fine, like a startup getting bought out by a major corporation. The problem is when the new sport's culture and aims may not align with the IOC's, who nevertheless sees dollar signs in absorbing it. This is precisely the case with many action sports.

The IOC, a highly bureaucratic organization, has little in common with youth-centric, non-hierarchical action sports that prize experimentation while minimizing rules and boundaries. In many ways, the "Olympic Movement" and action sports practitioners could hardly be more different. Yet, IOC has pegged its future to these action sports.

Snowboarding, one of the first action sports eyed by the IOC, became an Olympic sport at cost. Photo by Andrew P. Scott-USA TODAY Sports.

The best way to explain what's at stake for parkour is to look at the history of action sports getting absorbed into Olympic programs. Perhaps the first prominent instance of this clash came in the early 1990s with snowboarding, about a decade after snowboarding competitions were first held. In 1998, the IOC included snowboarding for the first time in the Winter Olympics, but under the International Ski Federation's (FIS) umbrella, rather than ushering in the burgeoning International Snowboard Federation (ISF). In effect, snowboarding became a sub-discipline of skiing.

This went down with snowboarders about as well as you'd expect. Terje Haakonsen, one of the most influential snowboarders ever and the best in the world at the time, boycotted the Olympics in protest. "The thing is you have guys directing the sport who don't actually do the sport—people who are just in it for the commercial interest," Haakonsen told Snowboard Magazine in 2013. "You don't have the athletes involved who actually know about the sport that can make better progress in the sport, that can experiment with the sport, and make their snowboarding life a lot better. It's all about sports politics and commercial interest."

Haakonsen accused organized skiing of using its leverage to prevent the ISF from getting lucrative television contracts. This stunted the ISF's growth, according to Haakonsen, which made it easier for FIS to absorb snowboarding. The ISF shut down in 2002. Haakonsen described the whole process as "like stealing candy away from a kid."

From a cultural perspective, snowboarding has suffered ever since. Olympization of snowboarding fractured the community as some competitors perfected their skillsets for Olympic-style competition, while others like Haakonsen adhered to previous ideals of creativity and expression. In Haakonsen's opinion, this made the sport worse, and many view the standardization of competitions as detrimental to its founding values of riding whatever the terrain provides.

But the lessons extend far beyond snowboarding's experience. Damien Puddle, a PhD student at the University of Waikato who is writing his thesis on parkour, wrote a blog post outlining what has happened to other action sports. His post serves as a warning for parkour that there are few good outcomes—and mostly bad ones.

Take the three action sports debuting at Tokyo in 2020, the year Agenda 2020 is to be put into practice: BMX, skateboarding, and sport climbing. In BMX's case, the Union Cycliste Internationale—the same federation that governs all other Olympic cycling events—absorbed BMX because, well, they also use bicycles, despite their "independent cultural heritage," as Puddle put it. Now, BMX practitioners have little sway in what funding they receive from their national governing bodies because they're small fish in a big pond.

As for skateboarding, many skaters don't want to be in the Olympics at all. But that didn't stop the IOC from politely asking the International Roller Sports Federation (FIRS) to see about governing skateboarding so it could be included in the Olympics, despite the existence of the International Skate Federation (ISF, and I'm sorry about all the acronyms). FIRS and the ISF eventually agreed to jointly run the Tokyo 2020 Skateboarding Commission, a short-term Band-Aid to what promises to be a protracted legal fight over who owns skateboarding.

Sport climbing probably has it best of the three, since the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) gained official recognition and governs the sport at the Olympic level. But even the IFSC doesn't have total control, as evidenced by the actual sport climbing program. In Tokyo 2020, the sport climbing event will be a "vertical triathlon," which combines bouldering, lead climbing, and sport climbing into an aggregated score and a single medal. From a sporting perspective, this makes little sense, as the three events are very different and few practice all three. It also means climbers who ply their trade mostly on outdoor rock without pre-defined paths will have to practice indoors on standardized routes. But, for various reasons due to the IOC's bureaucracy and requirements, it was one of the few options available.

Nevertheless, the decision was made without IFSC consultation, which will have a trickle-down effect on how the sport is practiced. Fifteen high-profile climbers surveyed by Climbing.com unanimously disapproved of the format, with one climber likening it to middle-distance runners being told to compete in sprinting. Another simply called it "bogus."

Aside from the 2020 sports, Standup Paddleboarding (SUP) has had to postpone its Olympic inclusion while the International Surfing Association and International Canoe Federation battle over who owns it, despite Canoeing having essentially no legitimate claim to SUP. But, Canoeing has been involved in the Olympics since 1924, so the IOC won't tell them to back off.

With all of this precedent, Puddle wonders what possibly could be beneficial for parkour with FIG's attempted takeover. "If this is the experience of all action sports before us, why would anyone do anything but work with their own community?"

Here, Puddle may be indirectly referring to David Belle and Charles Pierreire, two recognized parkour co-founders (nine people have been credited with starting parkour) who are working with FIG and lending their takeover a minimal degree of legitimacy. Belle and Pierreire will chair the "FIG Parkour Committee" and provide some oversight on the sport's future. But, it's unclear how much power or influence they will have.

Belle, Pierreire, and seven others founded parkour in France in the 1980s and played key roles in parkour going mainstream in the 1990s and early 2000s. In its two decades of mainstream existence, parkour has established itself as one of the fastest growing sports in the world.

Although parkour is growing, it has barely had time to organize itself on a national level, much less an international one. This year, Parkour UK was formally recognized by UK Sport, the first such parkour organization to gain national recognition.

But many don't trust the founders now that they've partnered with outsiders. Holly Thorpe, an associate professor at the University of Waikato who studies action sports, told VICE Sports "many in the parkour community feel betrayed" by Belle and Pierreire and others who have aligned with FIG.

When asked for comment regarding their efforts in Parkour, a FIG spokesman sent VICE Sports links to previously published press releases and otherwise declined to comment.

But the debate is just starting. There are obvious reasons for FIG to move as quickly as possible to incorporate parkour. The faster it happens, the less time parkour will have to organize its own international body and challenge for ownership. But, perhaps even more importantly, Paris is all but certain to be hosting one of the next two Summer Olympics, most likely in 2024. Surely, the IOC and FIG would love to capitalize on the Summer Olympics being held in parkour's home country.

These are the types of considerations—hosting televised competitions, Olympic participation, and commercial viability—that parkour enthusiasts generally eschew, which goes back to something Minogue said during our interview. To him, this is about parkour's right to self-determination. Although FIG claims to respect parkour's traditions and understand the philosophy, its own actions belie that message. In trying to absorb parkour, FIG is violating one of parkour's central virtues. No matter what the environment, each person determines their own path.

How Gymnastics Is Trying To Take Over Parkour And Make It An Olympic Sport published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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Biden White House Pushes for War

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), Feb. 11, 2022.--Biden administration officials, led by 59-year-old Secretary of State Antony Blinken and 45-year-old National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, keep pushing for war with the Russian Federation.  Any suggestion of compromise with 69-year-old President Vladimir Putin is dismissed as rubbish, blaming Putin for naked aggression in Ukraine.  President Joe Biden, 79, former head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is itching for a confrontation with Putin, even if it means war on the European Continent.  Only self-avowed Democrat socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) questions the White House strategy of not meeting Putin half-way.  White House officials dismiss Putin as a propagandist, like he’s fabricating the amount of arms supplied to Ukraine by the U.S. and NATO.  How ironic that Democrats and Republicans agree on war with the Russian Federation.    In a weird interview Feb. 10 with NBC’s Lester Holt, Biden said he would not put boots on the ground in Ukraine because a shooting war with Russia would start WW III.  But from every word coming from the White House, it’s a belligerent, confrontational tone.  French President Emmanuel Macron, 44, spent five hours at the Kremlin helping defuse the Ukraine crisis, only to watch the White House push for war.  While the White House says it wants Putin to stand down, their approach is “gunboat diplomacy,” where only threats and intimidation are used to resolve the crisis.  Biden has warned the world for a month about an “imminent” Russian invasion, only to get the murky date pushed backed into an unknown date.  No Sullivan claims that Putin will invade “any day now,” perhaps before the Beijing Winter Olympics ends.  Sullivan’s forecasts so far have all turned out to be rubbish.    Buy pushing the “imminent” invasion narrative, the White House thinks that it deters Putin from taking action.  Reporting Feb. 7, the New York Times admitted in its analysis that the stalemate could go on for months contradicting Sullivan’s predictions.  “We encourage all American citizens who remain in Ukraine to depart immediately,” Sullivan said at a briefing today.  “We want to be crystal clear on his point:  Any American in Ukraine should leave as soon as possible, and in any event in the next 24 to 48 hours,”  Pushing back on White House panic, Ukraine’s 43-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky, who gets the same intel as Sullivan, since most of his intel comes from the CIA, pushed back against White House claims of an “imminent invasion.” Zelensky told Ukraine citizens and all foreigners not to panic, he sees no signs of a Russian invasion now or in the future.    So what’s happening with the disconnect between the White House and Zelensky on the inevitability of a Russian invasion.  Putin reassured Macron at his Feb. 7 face-to-face meeting that there’s no plan of any Ukraine invasion.  When it comes to the U.S. press reporting on the invasion, they parrot back leaked information from the White House always using confidential sources.  So the public has no clue what’s factual when it comes to anything imminent.  Sullivan’s announcements are more for the Kremlin than any U.S. citizen in Ukraine, hoping to bluff Putin into removing his 100,000-plus troops  near the Ukrainian border.  Biden told NBC’s Lester Holt yesterday that he would not put troops into Ukraine but announced today an additional 3,000 U.S. troops sent to Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe. So just as Putin asked that the U.S. and NATO scale back encroachment, Biden announces more troop deployments.    Sanders becomes in a sea of like-minded, neocon group-think on both sides of the aisle in Congress, the only rational voice asking war hawks to consider compromising or at least trying to see Putin’s side.  Former President Donald Trump, who represented on Nov. 3 Election Day, nearly 50% of U.S. voters, opposes U.S. intervention in Ukraine, saying, like Sanders, the U.S. has no national security business in Ukraine.  Yet if you listen to Biden, Blinken and Sullivan the Free World depends on the U.S. drawing a “red line” in Ukraine.  If that’s the case, why has Biden said on two occasions, Dec. 8, 2021 and Jan. 25, that he would not put U.S. boots in Ukraine?  If Biden is fighting for the survival of freedom, why preclude putting U.S. troops in Ukraine?  What’s become obvious to many, other than war hawks in Congress, is that Biden doesn’t know what he’s doing in Ukraine, risking war in Europe.    White House officials do everything possible to provoke a Russian invasion in Ukraine.  If Biden really wanted to defuse the situation, he’d do exactly what Macron did, sitt down with Putin and find areas of common ground and agreement.  Sanders urged his Senate colleagues, especially Whip Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to consider Putin’s concerns about NATO encroachment on the Russian Federation.  “If a Russian attack on Ukraine proceeds, is likely to begin with an aerial bombing and missile attacks that could obviously kill civilians without regard for their nationality,” Sullivan told the press.  Sullivan’s comments are so off-the-wall, so irresponsible, so reckless they must be called out.  There’s zero intel, facts or evidence that Putin would seek topple Kiev.  Only Russian-speaking separatist regions in the east would be in play, if at all. About the Author John M. Curtis writes politically writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnsit.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.  

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U.S. to Reduce Troop Strength in Germany

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), July 30, 2020.--Announcing a withdrawal of 12,000 U.S. troops from Germany, 74-year-old President Donald Trump made good on his promise to bring U.S. armed forces home from foreign deployments.  Since the end of WW II, the U.S. stationed over 250,000 troops in Germany primarily to stop anarchy in the wake to Hitler’s defeat Sept. 2, 1945.  As time progressed U.S. maintained its troop strength in Germany to halt the Soviet Union from making inroads into Western Europe, where Russian already controlled East Berlin and parts of Germany since the end of WW II.  With 42,450 U.S. troops in Germany, Trump’s decision was based on a strategic redeployment to Belgium, Italy and  Poland, but also to serve notice that the U.S. expects NATO countries to pay 2% of their Gross Domestic Product [GDP] for defense.  Germany has fallen below that figure with no intent of ponying up. 

            Since taking office Jan. 20, 2017, Trump promised to get NATO countries to up their contribution to the alliance, not expect the U.S. to foot the bill.  “We don’t want to be the suckers anymore,” Trump told reporters at the White House.  “We’re reducing the force because they’re not paying their bills; it’s very simple,” trying to get 66-year-old  German Chancellor Angel Merkel to pay up.  Merkel has shown no interest, like most EU countries, in playing ball with Trump, in part because he helped fuel the U.K. Brexit vote back in 2016.  Britain officially left the European Union [EU] Jan. 31, 2019, shaving off $2,7423,586 trillion in GDP off the EU, now standing at $18,705,132 trillion, about $3 trillion less that the U.S. at $21,439,453 trillion, shrinking rapidly under the coronavirus AKA SARS CoV-2 or Covid-19 global pandemic.  Trump’s decision to remove 12,000 troops drew predicable partisan reactions.       

      Concerned about Russian influence on the European continent has always fueled a large NATO alliance, designed to stop Russia’s old expansionist ambitions.  After WW II Russia continued to occupy Kaliningrad, once part of Germany before WW II.  Kaliningrad projected the former Soviet Union since 1945 into Western Europe, wedged between Lithuania to the north and Poland to the South on the Baltic Sea.  Trump wants NATO countries to shelter a larger portion of the military cost, something resisted by many countries.  Trump, who’s ancestry on his father Fred’s side comes from Germany, was especially harsh with Merkel because Germany sells products into the United States without tariffs, something not afforded in the EU to U.S. companies.  Trump has asked NATO allies to pony up 2% of their GDP for defense, something most countries resisted especially in the current global recession.       

      Defense Secretary Mark Esper, 56, said that most U.S. troops removed from Germany would be reassigned to other NATO countries, to continue to maintain vigilance against Russian aggression.  Putin’s March 1, 2014 annexation of Crimea sent chills in the NATO alliance, knowing that with Russia’s very capable land army, NATO countries don’t stand much chance without the U.S. stopping a Russian advance.  “A major strategic and positive shift,” Esper noted would “unquestionably achieve the core principles o enhancing U.S. and NATO deterrence of Russia,” laying to rest calls on Capitol Hill from Trump’s critics.  Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Ut.), one of Trump biggest GOP critics on Capitol Hill said, “The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Germany would be a gift to Russia, and that’s the last thing we should be doing,” leading bipartisan opposition to the withdrawal.        

     Esper said that a squadron of U.S. fighter jets would be moved from Germany to Italy, while some troops would be relocated to Poland, a fierce U.S. ally concerned about Russian encroachment.  Germany objected to Trump’s plans concerned that it would add to the economic distress that watched Germany lose 10.1% of GDP in the first quarter.  Germany said Trump’s move would weaken the NATO alliance but it’s clear that Germany worries more about its GDP than Russia.  Merkel was very clear July 2 that she would move ahead with the Nord-Stream Baltic Sea pipeline with Russia, increasing Germany already strong dependence on Russia for over 40% of its energy.  Trump tried to get Merkel to cancel the Nord-Stream pipeline with Russia, to replace it with a U.S.-backed pipeline from Turkey to Germany.  Merkel showed her allegiance to the Kremlin over Trump’s alternative energy plan.    

         Romney called Trump’s move to withdraw troops from Germany “a slap in the face at a friend and ally,” ignoring Merkel’s decision to move ahead wit the Nord-Stream pipeline with Russia.  Trump’s critics talk about the dangers of Russia but evidently that’s not a concern to Merkel’s plan to increase Germany’s dependence on Russian energy.  Trump go fed up with the claptrap about Cold War rhetoric about Russia when Germany has close economic ties, buying over 40% of its energy from Russia.  Trump most likely will use the threat to reduce U.S. military presence in Germany to gain more concessions from Germany and other NATO countries.  Trump said Germany was “delinquent” in meeting its financial obligations to NATO, expecting the EU’s most prosperous country to pay its bills for defense.  Despite the posturing, no one thinks much will change with U.S. troop deployments in Germany.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.