#it was a whole scandal in Poland

[derichelieu]

Oho, I can feel the spirit of Eurovision entering my body

[ballet-symphonie]

what's the deal with joy womack ? I got into ballet after the whole scandal at the bolshoi and i've always heard bad things about her but I don't really know the story. Also she apparently lied about her position at POB?

Ooof I'll try to do the quick version based on what I remember, she is basically one drama after another, she tends to...misrepresent information. She left BT after saying she had to pay or even sleep with someone to get soloist parts. This was disputed by some, and confirmed by others.

After she went to work i the Kremlin Ballet Theatre of Moscow, she became a leading soloist with them, despite often calling herself a principal. There was some tension here as she was making vlogs filming class despite her coworkers asking her not to and occasionally sharing some no-so-nice information about her coworkers, things got messy when she divorced her ex and she left, even after she got promoted to principal.

After Kremlin, she won a prize at Varna in 2017, did some unsuccessful company auditions, and did short stints at Universal Ballet in Korea and guesting around Bulgaria and Poland. At one point she was going back Russian State Theatre Arts Ballet Pedagogy and Choreography (GITIS) for higher education in pedagogy. She has repeatedly expressed disdain for both the American and Russian systems, and there is a lot of speculation that this, along with her desire to be a principal *asap* hindered her career.

She was at Boston Ballet for a short period, but didn't like the setup, said she preferred being in Russian/European companies where they provided more individual coaching and often more benefits (housing) and with low layoffs...yet she has also repeatedly complained about the low pay/exchange rate when she was working in Russia. She left here when COVID happened.

After trying a couple of times, I believe she got a "contractuelle" position at POB, where you're generally hired for specific productions (eg, something with a huge corps, or for a specific choreographic nice that a dancer excels in). POB, with its extremely involved hiring and promotion systems/competitions, takes a while to move dancers into the corps sometimes. I'm not sure if she was offered a corps contract and didn't take it, or didn't get one, but regardless, she's no longer working with POB.

And now, if you go to her website she's starting a foundation and a school and company....? This is in addition to her freelancing around and the project prima bars that I think no longer exist and some film work. She's just a lotttttt and does not portray herself as the most self-aware or humble person.

As far as my personal interactions with her go, I know she came to audition at my company before I started my professional career and was not accepted. I took a couple classes with her in NYC by chance, the diva attitude was overtly present.

I didn't do much googling here, of course open to corrections of this mass of speculation

[kapacze]

I've missed the whole Poland Eurovision scandal this year. I've just heard the song that should have won inner contest and damn... we were robbed!

[mariacallous]

Former Orlen CEO Daniel Obajtek claims he’s not hiding abroad. However, many of his videos on social media were shot in a Budapest penthouse apartment owned by a company close to Viktor Orbán’s government. During the time we were watching the house, a man hiding his face jumped into the same type of car that Obajtek posted about. On another occasion, Orbán’s close aide entered the building.

In the morning  of June 1, a tall woman with colored blonde hair wearing a black hoodie stepped out of a beautifully renovated 19th-century building of Budapest’s elegant Andrássy avenue. A huge advertisement banner above the building’s gate reads in English: “luxury apartments for sale,” and “where values and high quality meet.” The woman crossed Oktogon, the Hungarian capital’s iconic eight-sided square, then disappeared onto a smaller street while talking to someone on the phone.

Twelve minutes later, a metallic gray Lexus ES 300h briefly stopped in front of the same building. At exactly the same time, the ornate brown wooden gate opened, and a man hiding behind a face mask, sunglasses and a cap appeared on the street. The timing was so precise that there was barely enough time for us to start recording what was happening: the man had already jumped into the back seat of the car and disappeared.

Later, when we analyzed the video frame-by-frame, we could identify the driver as a blonde-haired woman — one who looked extremely similar to the one who had just left the building.

Meanwhile, the tinted passenger windows of the Lexus successfully hid the man. The whole process seemed carefully designed and perfectly executed in order to protect his identity. The letters on the license plate of the car, however, signify that it comes from Warsaw’s Mokotów district. 

We had good reason for watching the house on Andrássy, even on a Saturday morning: VSquare and Frontstory.pl’s partner on this investigation, Radio Zet, has learned from its sources that one of the building’s residents is Daniel Obajtek. He is the former CEO of the Polish state-owned oil company Orlen, and his long tenure leading the Polish oil company is embroiled in scandal. 

Was the man who did everything to hide his face while slipping into the car Obajtek? We can’t know for sure. However, a few weeks earlier, on April 10, Obajtek’s official Facebook account posted a photo of him fueling a metallic gray car. Only certain parts of the car are visible in the picture – but from those very distinct parts, the type of car, Lexus ES 300h, is easily recognizable.

This past week, in addition to watching the building at Andrássy in the hope that we could meet Obajtek, we also thoroughly analyzed his social media content. With the help of sources with intimate knowledge of the various relevant locations, we successfully identified the places from which he has been posting his videos — at least since February.

This is how we were able to confirm that many of his Instagram videos are indeed recorded at the same building at Andrássy from a 147 square meter penthouse apartment worth approx. €1.6-2 million. The official owner of the apartment is BBID Ltd, a real estate developer company that turned the previously run-down building into luxury housing. The owners of the company reportedly have close ties to Viktor Orbán’s government and are even business relations with the Hungarian Prime Minister’s son-in-law, István Tiborcz. According to Radio Zet’s sources, the penthouse where Obajtek spends considerable time is rented out, although it’s unclear who is officially renting it.

Obajtek posted his first video from the penthouse apartment on February 19. In April, he even conducted a Youtube interview with a right-wing journalist  in what seems to be his secret Budapest home. Another recurring location in Obajtek’s videos is Budapest’s City Park (Városliget) at the end of Andrássy avenue, from which he appears to have posted multiple videos – including one mocking Polish media by suggesting he is not “on the run” from his scandals but rather getting into shape to face the “media’s attacks.”

Although the videos are carefully edited so as to not show recognizable landmarks, Hungarian text or anything else that would give away their locations, we could still identify them using open source research. 

Recently, Obajtek has been the subject of much attention from the public — as well as from Polish prosecutors, due to revelations about Orlen’s gigantic financial losses during his tenure as CEO. Polish investigators are currently conducting three main investigations into dealings under Obajtek’s leadership:

on the merger of the state-owned Orlen and Lotos energy companies and the agreement to sell a 30 percent stake in the Gdansk Refinery to Saudi Aramco

on Orlen’s huge financial losses, which were caused by the radical cutting of fuel prices on the wholesale and retail markets in autumn 2023 – and which may have been related to the parliamentary elections (the idea being that lower prices would boost the then-ruling Law and Justice government’s chances)

the unsupervised transfer of more than PLN 1.5 billion to OTS (Orlen Trading Switzerland).

So far Obajtek is expected to testify in the prosecutor’s investigation as a witness – he is not charged. Though according to Gazeta Wyborcza, staying abroad might be a preventive measure for him to avoid any potential charges before the European Parliament elections. Obajtek is running as the Law and Justice’s candidate from Podkarpacie (Southern Poland).

Obajtek is not the first person from outside of Hungary who, when scrutinized by their home countries’ authorities, feels that it is safer under Hungarian jurisdiction. In 2018, after he was convicted and sentenced to jail, former North Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski fled to Hungary, where he was granted asylum. In early 2024, facing charges at home, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro spent multiple days at the Hungarian Embassy in Brasília, as the New York Times has uncovered. Both of them reportedly closely coordinated with Hungarian government officials. 

There is no information on whether Obajtek also enjoys the protection of Hungarian authorities or communicates with them. However, shortly after 6pm on Monday, June 4, we spotted Viktor Orbán’s close personal aide Dávid Héjj entering the Andrássy avenue building. We have no information as to which apartment he went into, but he routinely typed in the gate code without any help, suggesting it is not his first visit there. There was no indication that Obajtek was also in the building at the time.

What is public knowledge, however, is that Obajtek knows Viktor Orbán: back in 2022, when Orlen and Hungary’s MOL oil company entered into a deal over acquiring gas stations in both countries, the deal was “welcomed” by the government and Obajtek was received by Orbán in his office.

We sent requests for comment to BBID Ltd. and the office of Viktor Orbán, none of them reacted before publication. 

Obajtek replied: “I have never made a secret of the fact that I conduct business talks not only in Poland, but also abroad. It is, therefore, natural that I have to stop somewhere during these trips. As a private person, I do not have to explain myself. Please do not look for sensations. I am not asking you where you are staying during your trips.”

[triviareads]

Any good historical romance based in Russia? Or even the hero or heroine being from there?

I haven't read a lot of HR with Russians or set in Russia even though I do have a passion for Russians in romance novels (Harlequin Russians hit different). But here's what I can rec you:

Prince of Dreams by Lisa Kleypas: Look if you know me you know my love for this book; the hero Prince Nikolas Angelovsky was exiled from Russia after killing the tsar's bestie because said bestie killed Nikki's brother. He tried to kidnap the heroine of the previous book (Tasia) because he thought she had actually killed his brother, then when he came over to England, gave his future heroine (the gal he kidnapped's now-step-daughter, who was then fourteen years old) a pet tiger for funsies and to fuck with her dad and basically marked her as his future wife. Fast forward to his own book, he definitely break up the heroine and the guy she likes, gets her drunk, sleeps with her, and then decides a marriage of convenience is the move even though he keeps jumping her after he thinks she's flirting with other men. He also gets knocked out for a solid quarter of the book and dreams he's his ancestor. It's great, would recommend.

Midnight Angel by Lisa Kleypas: The book prior to Prince of Dreams; Tasia is on the run from murder accusations and one crazy Russian prince (see: Nikki), and masquerades as a governess for an English nobleman's daughter, and nobleman immediately has the hots for her. She's also kidnapped and taken back to Russia at one point and the hero comes after her. Lisa also goes hard on the whole *Russian mysticism* thing.

The Perfect Scandal By Delilah Marvelle: So Zosia is a Polish countess BUT she is technically part-Russian (a part of the book's intrigue) also I'm pretty sure Russia keeps trying to invade Poland in this book (which is also a rather ribald joke the one (hot blond) Russian dude in this book makes and QUITE FRANKLY he should have gotten his own book). Zosia falls for the very proper, English Lord Moreland through her window, but then she's kidnapped/coerced into coming back to Russia by the aforementioned Russian dude.

Secret Fire by Johanna Lindsey: Dimitri is a Russian prince who sees English noblewoman Katherine on the streets and decides that he totally wants her. Cue servant confusion and ultimately she's kidnapped, brought to his place, drugged with an aphrodisiac, and obviously Dima has to fuck it out of her, and then OBVIOUSLY once isn't enough so she's thrown into a trunk and taken back to Russia (I'm sensing a Russian kidnap theme here).

[aondaneedles]

Omg, so true, I miss the old moderator too. Which ESC performance was your personal favorite/least favorite?

I just hope we get a new moderator that brings even half the attitude and love for ESC Peter Urban has.

My personal favourites this year were Norway and Austria (they were robbed!). I also liked Australia, Albania and Belgium. While not my personal favourite, Finland brought the batshit crazy energy ESC needs.

It's hard to declare a least favourite when there were so many strong performances (even if they weren't my style, they weren't bad). I strongly disliked Poland but I'm not sure if that was due to the song or my opinion of it being tainted by learning about the whole Polish selection scandal. UK was a bit underwhelming. Not bad, just... It was a fine song. Just not anything special. The fact that it came last probably didn't help.

[chicago-geniza]

Took Concerta to attend Zoom talk about Irena Krzywicka's house with my advisor's advisor then wrote This, copied from Twitter, sorry for line breaks. It was my fault for condensing my five-parageaph essay question into an incoherent and grammatically inconsistent mish-mash for character limit reasons and B is not a native English speaker so tried to explain what I wanted to ask here

Once again asked a run-on sentence of a question with three subclauses that free-associated disparate concepts using my personal echolalic shorthand and unsurprisingly the speaker read it and went "I don't understand this gibberish." I gotta stop doing this, is there a class you can take that teaches you how to communicate so your thoughts don't get stuck in your elbow. It wasn't just Endecja it was a bunch of guys with a mosaic of political ideologies who worked for the government ranging from Sanacja to Christian democracy to mocarstwo with everything in between but there's a character limit & we're post-'35, I'm being parsimonious lol. What I meant to say was to what extent was the design of Irena Krzywicka's house less of an ambiguous statement about modernism as a personal desire for light & open space (suburban locale, picture window facing garden) combined with 1) recognition of her human surroundings (her neighbors were political conservatives who hated her as a public figure & her house for disrupting the architectural continuity of their colonial/Zakopane/villa-style forest enclave); 2) not wanting to see or be seen by people who hate her (front-facing window covered by wooden slats, though side windows are still open to light, & house is set farther back from the road than others in the neighborhood, secluded from passing motorists); 3) also to what extent does this represent--albeit, in Irena's case, either subconsciously or aggressively pretending she's not doing it--Irena, who hates the city and loves the country, craves open spaces and natural light after spending her formative years ~na wsi then returning to a cramped Warsaw backroom apartment with exactly one (1) window, whose memoir devotes a whole section to the (lack of) relationship between Jews and land/nature, who for ~mysterious reasons doesn't credit her cousin Maksymilian Goldberg, by name, for designing her house in her memoir, calling him only "a famous architect who asked barely any money," when he went willingly to the ghetto in 1942 and Irena took refuge in the house he built, defying the Nazis' order, and had spent the 10 or so years before the war being called "Irena Goldberg" as a slur? Also: what does this say about discourses of "integration"? Irena and her house are interesting re: the [Słowacki voice] "Jaka [Polska]?" Discourse of the interwar period because instead of even moving to Saska Kępa, she goes explicitly where she is not wanted, to the ~elite suburb on the other side of Warsaw; she builds in the Modernist style, but it's not apartments for the urban working class, it's a country villa; Irena moves into Poland's upper social strata, marries a Polish man "collegially," a man whose own parents had a mixed Christian-Jewish marriage; she stakes a claim to light, land, "nature," open space, & "majątek" outside the city, all of which have been historically, literarily, and discursively/rhetorically/LEGALLY/"in the national imaginary" denied to Jews, but she does so WITHOUT assimilating to conservative Polish szlachta aesthetic conventions. This, to me, is more interesting than transparency vs. privacy as a model. Irena Krzywicka was profoundly bourgeois and profoundly modernist in her sensibilities. She accomplished an incredible amount by appearing to be a dilettante & cultivating sensationalism as an autobiographical strategy/courting scandal as a public persona. Her ego is the size of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth but a fair amount of it is earned & she's just as strategic about obscuring her work when she knows being credited would discredit whatever public image she's trying to uphold at that moment (see: she basically…line-edited and cross-referenced…the complete translations of Proust's Remembrances po polsku). She's vexed with contradictions!

[yourreddancer]

Edward Lucas

Monday November 04 2024, 12.01am GMT, The Times

Whether tomorrow’s election sends a transactional Donald Trump to the White House in January or the inexperienced Kamala Harris, our security is the loser. Years of dithering and timidity in Washington and of stinginess and complacency elsewhere have eroded, probably fatally, the network of alliances that underpinned global security for the past seven decades.

The decline is clearest here in Europe. In recent weeks I have been in Prague, Riga and Warsaw. The mood in these frontline states is bleak. War is likely, and sooner than we think. Assuming Russia beats Ukraine to a standstill, President Putin’s forces could be ready for more in two years, or less. Everyone still hopes that Nato will work and that the United States will come to help. Few believe it.

We are scandalously ill-prepared for this. Our armed forces lack the muscle, supplies or logistics to fight a real war. As a scathing report this year by Sweden’s FOI defence think tank pointed out, Britain could at best provide a “limited expeditionary force” that would have “serious issues with sustainability”.

Putin knows that. So do our friends, exasperated with our habit of over-promising and under-delivering. The Nordic and Baltic members in the ten-country Joint Expeditionary Force, supposedly UK-led, will give Keir Starmer an earful over this at a summit in Tallinn in December. These vital allies may start looking elsewhere for leadership.

Starmer should be even more worried that we cannot defend ourselves. This country largely lacks air defences to protect us against the missiles that rain down daily on Ukraine’s cities and infrastructure. On a good day, assuming (fingers crossed) one of our Type 45 destroyers is seaworthy and moored in the Thames estuary, it could protect London. But only for a few hours. Once that warship has fired its 48 Aster air-defence missiles it must reload from our skimpy stockpile. That would take most of a day, assuming (also) that we still have a functioning naval base.

We assume (again) that allies will protect us. But in the event of war, other European countries’ air defences will also be fully stretched. A minimum protective shield for southeastern England alone would cost £16 billion. What chance of that? The politics of taxing the rest of the country to defend one bit of it are tricky. But a shield for the whole of the UK will be prohibitively costly.

Self-deceit is our biggest weakness. We hollowed out our armed forces, disguising the damage with secrecy and boosterism. We fired Russia-watchers who told inconvenient truths to those in power. They include Keir Giles, whose defence analysis outfit was abolished in 2010. His new book Who Will Defend Europe? is a blistering account of our defence shortcomings. He tells me that he sees “no sign” the new government has recognised the urgency of the challenge.

Russia is attacking us right now, with sabotage and other mischief. A man from Leicestershire last month pleaded guilty to aggravated arson, carried out on behalf of the Russian mercenary Wagner group. Counterterrorism police are investigating a parcel bomb in Birmingham; similar incidents in Poland and Germany could have brought down planes carrying air freight. Mysterious blazes abound: at a Monmouthshire ammunition plant in April and this week at our nuclear submarine shipyard in Barrow.

“There have been other unexplained fires and incidents at other UK defence companies,” says Francis Tusa, the editor of Defence Analysis and one of this country’s leading military pundits. Officials and the companies concerned “clam up” on these topics, he says. But hushing up Russia’s mischief invites yet more mayhem.

Our clapped-out nuclear submarines, and eventually their delayed, wildly over-budget replacements, offer tenuous reassurance against the doomsday scenario of a full-blown nuclear attack. But they evidently do not stop the aggression we face now. We urgently need to boost our resilience to these “sub-threshold” attacks with better defences of our infrastructure, industry and institutions, public and private. We need a new arsenal of crafty, painful countermeasures too.

Some countries are prepared: Finland has six-month stockpiles of food, fuel and medicine, and spaces in bomb shelters for every resident. It responds with firmness to Russian mischief. A Finnish court is the first to enforce an international judgment on confiscating Russian property to compensate Ukraine. Estonia is spending a quarter of its defence budget on ammunition alone. Poland has the biggest and most effective conventional forces in Europe. These countries see an existential threat from Russia and will fight alone if necessary. They may have to.

Ukrainians are paying for our failures. They cannot defend their crumbling front line and battered cities against Russia’s onslaught because American aid comes too little, too late, and festooned with restrictions, preventing them striking at the invaders’ airbases and troop concentrations. But we will pay later.

We had the chance to counter Kremlin imperialism alongside a big, strong, united country. Scared of the risks and costs of providing real military support, we did not take it. Ukraine bought us time to build up our own defences. We wasted that too. Disappointment there is turning to despair — and fury. A defeated, hopeless, traumatised Ukraine will be a gigantic problem for all of Europe. Meanwhile, our safety and freedom rest on a fragile assumption: that the next US administration will care more about our security than we do.

[ancestorsalive]

The lacemakers of Koniaków, a circle of village matrons at work in the mountains, with a view of the Beskid range in the background, and a mountaineer from the Beskid Żywiecki region playing the bagpipes, 1977.

Photo.: Woody Ochnio/Forum

Koniaków, a village in the Beskid mountain range in the South-West of Poland is the home of a regional speciality nowadays famous the world over. The items of crocheted lace incite the awe of ethnographers, who call them a "world represented through talented hands”. The skilled crochet hook operators apply their imagination and sense of beauty and choose from a series of some 2200 patterns to convey the world that surrounds them. Gąsiorki (duckies), strupki (crusties), skrzydełka (little wings), kaczeńce (buttercups), and niezapominajki (forget-me-nots) - these are all names of the various stiches that build up whole works of art, both big and small. There are delicate and ornate napkins, crocheted coifs, white and creamy little round roses, liturgical lace, and caps. There are also items dictated by fashion and the market’s needs - collars, gloves, cupboard covers, wedding gowns, as well as earrings, cuff links, lampshades and screens.

The Koniaków village is situated right by the meeting point of Poland’s borders with the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The local artists, all of whom are women, reiterate that without crocheting, there would be no life. Their workshop is contained within a kiśnicka, a little wooden box which keeps the essential items passed on through generations of lace makers. Inside, there is a crochet hook, as well as thread, ready decorative motifs, and the one thing that is most important to the crocheters - eye glasses. All the remaining gear - that is, thousands of crochet patterns, traditional motifs and compositions are all contained in the artisan’s minds and imaginations.

The folk artists are constantly searching for ways in which to adapt traditional ornamentation to fashionable, contemporary forms. This search once resulted in the creation of crocheted lace g-strings, an item which proved controversial as it divided the community. In a talk with Culture.pl, Barbara Juroszek, from the Regional Cultural Centre, commented.

Some said that it’s a disgrace that the same lace that decorated altars and stoles would now decorate… well, something else. Others set themselves to work, creating a collection of women’s and men’s underwear, and the whole scandal basically won this local speciality some major publicity.

Another famous moment came with a 5-metre spread, which made it to the Guinness Book of Records. It took more than 5 months to make, weighed 5kg and used up 50 kilometres of thread. The thousands of elements which were joined together were later presented at the International Crochet Festival in Lepoglava, Croatia. Today's lace experts also shows no hesitation when pointing to the most talented and innovative crochet maker of modern times. It’s Beata Legierska, who has raised heklowanie to the height of high art, and has no equals when it comes to the meticulous precision of her work. She has been creating crochet laces from the age of 6, and has two generations of lacemakers behind her. Beata Legierska has also presented her work at a great many exhibitions in the Czech Republic, Germany, France, Romania and Switzerland.

Source: The World in Talented Hands: Koniaków Crocheted Lace on CULTURE.PL

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Persons who had been captured by Hitlerist propaganda insinuated that both France and Britain were divided at this period between a war party and a peace party, and that the European crisis was dominated by the struggle between these groups. This is precisely what Mussolini and Hitler contended, and the insinuation was a service to them. In reality there were men who had succumbed to the fascination of force, and others who were virtually making common cause with the dictatorships ; there were, on the other side, others who saw more clearly and realized where the continual concessions would lead, and who wanted, not war (who does?), but a policy of firmness: they knew well that Hitler would not go to war, and they knew the inner springs of his behaviour. The best proof of this segregation is that the psychological differentiation cut across party divisions: in France, for instance, M. de Kerillis was to be found in agreement with the Communists, and on the other side M. Flandin, who had sent a sympathetic telegram to Hitler, was supporting the views of certain well-known pacifist intellectuals who until then had been absolutely opposed to Hitler.

...

Thus the whole course of this acute crisis shows the tactical soundness of the principles here enunciated as determinants of the dictators’ action. Among other psychological features of the crisis was, above all, the rapidity with which, thanks to the technique of wireless publicity, reflexes were formed and reactions produced which determined behaviour. The Hitlerist and pro-Hitlerist propaganda in the democratic countries made full use of these new possibilities, especially by spreading false news or declaring false news to be true; this is a new aspect of struggle at moments of acute crisis in international policy, and one of which account must be taken in future; it is capable of producing entirely unexpected effects.

Of great interest is the behaviour of the masses and of crowds at the time. Excitation, producing anxiety, spread everywhere during the last fortnight of September, preceding the climax of the crisis; and this excitation was increased with the psychosis caused by Hitler’s broadcast speeches. Then came mobilization: at once, as though at a signal, there came an impressive calmness; a collective inhibition spread in a few hours, lasting some days, until 6 p.m. on the 28th. A general “thaw” followed, a wave of joy, a new excitation; not until then did the realization come for many people of the personal danger that had come so close to them, and it was then that symptoms of real fear were manifested. This was the phenomenon of the dis-inhibition of the conditioned reflexes which had until then been inhibited. Many of the very people who during the mobilization calmly said to themselves, “If the country is to preserve its independence, it is impossible to put up with the attitude of the totalitarian States; and if the worst came it would be better to fight than be enslaved”, afterwards became ardently pacifist, carried away by the wave of boundless optimism, and attacked those who showed more self-mastery and warned against excessive optimism. The events that followed a few days later threw a cold douche over the optimists. The necessity of urgent arming was proclaimed everywhere. Then came the entire destruction of the independence of Czechoslovakia, the anti-Jewish pogroms in Germany, the scandalous attacks on France in the Italian Parliament by irredentist Fascists, at the instance of the dictator ; and finally the invasion of Poland. All this had shown that the moment was approaching for the inevitable collision.”

- Serge Chakotin, The Rape of the Masses: The Psychology of Totalitarian Political Propaganda. London: George Routledge & Sons, 1940. p. 254-255, 257-258.

[lemonen]

Additional notes: the line they used on the sign was taken from football hooligans protests from about a decade ago, just switched 'farmbooys' for 'hoolingans'. They were strongly right wing, often participating in fascists movements. When Tusk's previous goverment anounced measures to control rioting on stadions and organised crime connected to football fans, they did mobilise and protest, and later took efforts to help choose a more conservative goverment later. This, and some other rhetoric used in the current farmers protests makes me think that there is a bigger unseen contribiution of right wing movements in these protests.

Farmers' protests and grain spilling has a long history in Poland and was first started about twenty years ago by a small movement which later created a party and became a part of the goverment. The face of desperate farmers, spilling their own grain on train tracks and roads became Lepper, the new head of the party and vice-prime minister. They utilised strong, graphic symbolism, mixed with older traditional motifs of polish culture. After a chain of scandals, their coalition goverment fell prematurly and their main partners tried to save their own position with conservative voters by putting Lepper as responsible for a lot of stuff, some would later turn out to be fabricated. He later killed himself, though many groups believe he was secretly killed by his previous political partners who managed to remain in the goverment.

However horrible it sounds, this may be less about ukrainian grain, and more about internal powerplays. The first voices started about 1,5 year ago, when people noticed that a lot of mysterious, new companies, usually tied to the then-goverment, would buy the grain (which officially was only getting transited) and maggically turn it into eu-law-compliant, locally-produced grain. The goverment spent months trying to keep it quiet, and ignoring farmers voices, which at that point still had no xenophobic rhetoric.

Then, we had ellections, and the spread of power in the country changed. The previous right-wing goverment became opposition and did not accept that result. They had (as always) a high percentage of votes from farming regions, and immedietly started a 'stolen vote'rhetoric there. On another hand, a small, but even more conservative and unhinged party (Confederacy) managed to get some seats, though underperforming in their previously prefered demographics. Their whole schtick for years has now has been anti-ukrainian propaganda and pro-russian sentiments, even after the start of the war. Suddenly, the last couple months, they got interested in supporting farmers' movements, announcing that all their problems are the fould of EU & Ukraine, as well as suddenly gloryfying Lepper and his legacy, the assasination-conspiracies, promoting idea of strikes on the border. The guy who had the now-famous pro-putin sign on his tractor had ties to their party and after getting arrested for this sign, he contacted their offices seeking help.

I believe that this whole situation is a disgracefull mess, that the economic situation of the farming sector is a part of what moved these people to go out and protest, but also that a lot of it is orchestrated by the conservatives trying to mobilise the countryside before the local elections this year.

Wersja pierwotna i poprawiona.

[derichelieu]

Once again, it’s killing me that Poland didn’t choose this song. He won the televoting by a landslide, but mysteriously didn’t do that well in the jury vote (people were booing in the studio, it was a whole scandal), aaand then we sent Blanka 

[the-platonic-charms]

[Crawls out of the sewer hole... ]

This is my first time requesting..

So to any mod available there.

if you dont minndddd... Can i request for a Rantaro Amami, Kokichi and Lastly Shuichi whos s/o is the Ultimate Phantom Thief..? I hope thats okay! ^_^

𝐒𝐇𝐔𝐈𝐂𝐇𝐈 𝐒𝐀𝐈𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀, 𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐎 𝐀𝐌𝐀𝐌𝐈 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐊𝐎𝐊𝐈𝐂𝐇𝐈 𝐎𝐔𝐌𝐀 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐀𝐍 𝐒/𝐎 𝐖𝐇𝐎'𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐋𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐏𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐄𝐅

Hi sweet anon! I hope you enjoyed these headcanons and that this won't be your last time requesting here :>

I wasn't sure what a phantom thief was at first, but after research, all I can say is: I love the idea of it. Anyway-- phantom always makes me think of the phantom of the opera,,

𔘓 ? You're a Phantom Thief?? The ULTIMATE Phantom Thief?! I'm not really sure how this works, but wouldn't it be a bit... Scandalous for the ultimate detective to be dating the ultimate Phantom Thief?

𔘓 Then again, that would be a very interesting dynamic. Enemies to lovers, 200k words, slowburn with a happy ending

𔘓 Whenever there's a case about you, he tries not to interfere with it much. He instead talks with you about it. Oooor, he is able to figure it out himself and then asks if you did it.

𔘓 You unintentionally help expand his detective skills. And your phantom thief skills evolve as well. You're going toe to toe, playing some kind of cat and mouse type game.

𔘓 I take it back, this doesn't even have to be an enemies to lovers, it's just a very interesting dynamic ~

⬥ Wow, impressive

⬥ That is... Quite the talent to have.

⬥ He is impressed, don't get me wrong, but Amami ponders on the morality of it.

⬥ You explain to him your rules and boundaries, he understands it more now. But he's still worried. For your safety, that is.

⬥ Being the ultimate phantom thief can be dangerous. So, when you come back home, very late at night, you're met with Rantaro crossing his arms. He knows it a part of being a phantom thief, but that doesn't mean he can't worry.

⬥ See, the cool thing about Rantaro being an adventurer, is that you often go on trips to various places all over the world. Which makes it easier to keep your identity a secret. Once the ultimate phantom thief is in Japan, next thing you know, they're already far away in Poland. You see what I mean? Inconsistency in their 'last spotted' location makes it impossible to figure out where they're from.

⬥ Which means you and Rantaro can live a kinda-peaceful life, only kinda.

♛ Oh. Oh?

♛ This is giving Ouma so many ideas. You're joining D.I.C.E, right?... You're joining D.I.C.E

♛ You're so cool- he means uh, you're, cool, I guess

♛ Ouma invites you to various adventures with D.I.C.E and outings. You're an important part of their group now.

♛ He just really digs the whole phantom thief aesthetic and the general idea of it.

♛ You're partners in crime ~ but this time, like, actually in crime

/ don't actually commit crime, don't be like Ouma, kids /

♛ No, but like, if this were a bad cop good cop type situation, people would assume you're the bad one while Ouma's the good one. Oh are they in for a surprise. /though, neither of you are really bad

♛ After some time and consideration, he decides to join you on your missions. It starts off simple enough with being some part of your escape plan but develops into becoming your accomplice.

[mariacallous]

Polish filmmaker Konrad Szolajski’s new documentary looks at nearly a decade of Russian sabotage, espionage and disinformation across Central and Eastern Europe, with an eery actuality.

“Putting the whole project together took a lot of time – it was very difficult,” Konrad Szolajski explains as we meet a few hours before the international premiere of his new documentary, Putin’s Playground, in Prague on June 10.

“At the time, back in 2019, many people saw the topic of Russian espionage and sabotage activities as something of a conspiracy theory,” the Warsaw-based filmmaker tells BIRN. “They weren’t saying they didn’t believe in it, but simply questioned whether there was enough proof and whether it was a good idea to touch the issue at all.”

Yet over the next several years, Szolajski and long-term collaborator and producer Malgorzata Prociak pursued different avenues of funding and partnerships, which soon saw the project – originally intended to focus solely on Poland’s “Waitergate” wiretapping scandal of 2014 – snowball and gain a regional dimension.

Gathering more evidence and backers, Szolajski was soon put on the path of Czechia, where an arms depot with ammunition intended for Ukraine was blown up in the small town of Vrbetice, with Moscow’s figure looming tall behind the blast in 2014, the same year as the eavesdropping scandal had shaken Poland’s political landscape and facilitated the downfall of the Civic Platform government and the rise to power in 2015 of the Eurosceptic Law and Justice (PiS) party.

After receiving support from producers and film funds from several countries – Norway, Czechia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Germany and Poland – “we finally knew we could make the film in February 2022”, Szolajski says, with shooting taking place over the next several months as war raged in next-door Ukraine.

Hybrid warfare

Originally released at the Krakow Film Festival at the end of May 2024, Putin’s Playground provides an overview of Russia’s eclectic “hybrid war” activities across the Central and Eastern European region.

In Poland, Szolajski and his team focus on the “Waitergate” scandal, in which recordings were made by a group of waiters at Sowa i Przyjaciele, an upmarket eatery popular with the Warsaw elite, and the Polish Anti-War Movement, while in Czechia they examine the Vrbetice ammunition depot explosion and the PRO party of far-right agitator Jindrich Rajchl.

The journey – where both Szolajski and Prociak appear in front of the camera for the first time – also includes a look at repeated sabotage operations in Bulgaria, the separatist yearnings of Moldova’s Gagauzia region, or Latvia’s linguistic dilemmas with its large Russian-speaking minority.

Asked during the post-screening Q&A why Hungary was conspicuously absent from the film, Szolajski responded that “they’ve crossed to the other side already” and would therefore not provide a relevant sample of a country still fighting back against Russia’s hybrid influence tactics.

The 91-minute documentary is now being rolled out in Czech cinemas, with more distribution plans in the works, and will also be screened at the Odessa International Film Festival to be held in Kyiv next month.

An updated version is also being prepared to include more recent events, Szolajski tells BIRN, including the dismantling of the Prague-based Voice of Europe disinformation and corruption network.

‘Useful idiots’

When it comes to the disinformation and influence strategy, “Russian tactics are both very complex and quite simple”, Szolajski muses, explaining that they largely look to capitalise on existing frustrations in any society to bring dissatisfied citizens out onto the streets.

“They take advantage of points of conflict and divisions in our societies – whether it be poverty, vaccination, war or gender – strengthen and exploit it, pass it on to their agents of influence in respective countries, and fund all kinds of propaganda material, both online and offline,” he explains.

According to the filmmaker, the scheme is fundamentally the same everywhere, simply adapted to different local and national contexts to target issues that are the most sensitive at a given time.

Supporters of Rajchl’s PRO party in Czechia or activists for the Polish Anti-War Movement “may speak in different languages, may come from the right or the left of the political spectrum, [but] the script is pretty much the same,” Szolajski notes, “and was written in the Kremlin.”

Russian influence and propaganda tactics also tend to avoid a key pitfall, according to the Polish director. “They don’t go out saying that Russia and Putin are great,” which wouldn’t resonate too well in countries with strong anti-Russian sentiments like Poland or even the Czech Republic.

“Instead, they say things like ‘Biden is old’, ‘NATO is aggressive’, ‘the EU is bureaucratic’ and so on”, a plethora of arguments often based on half-truths that make ordinary citizens “feel like they’re in trouble” and that coming to terms with Russia, even if there is little love lost for Putin or the Russian people, is part of the solution, he says.

As the scandal surrounding the Voice of Europe media recently showed, there is a thin line between ordinary citizens, social media users or people in a position of power parroting the Kremlin’s line out of political opportunism or personal belief, and actual agents of influence bankrolled by the Russian state through obscure and possibly illegal schemes.

Taking the example of the former national-conservative PiS government in Poland, Szolajski argues that “Russia especially uses those who are ostensibly anti-Russian”, describing PiS’s hawkish tone against Moscow as “lip-service” as opposed to many of their policies, including their Eurosceptic stance, and weakening of Poland’s counterintelligence network as playing into Putin’s hands.

For Szolajski, PiS’s guilt is clear, but the level and nature of the Kremlin’s infiltration is not. “It’s not clear whether this was done under the influence of actual Russian or pro-Russian agents, or merely because they were stupid enough” to play into the hands of their ostensible rival, he says.

In other countries explored in the documentary, including Bulgaria, Moldova or Latvia, the channels of Russian influence may be more clear-cut than in Poland or Czechia.

As a result of “complete” Russian infiltration, Bulgaria refused to gather evidence on Moscow’s involvement in the repeated sabotage operations, according to Szolajski. While in Czechia, former premier Andrej Babis “simply could not not reveal” the conclusions of the BIS counterintelligence agency which, in 2021, clearly pointed the finger at Russia’s GRU in the deadly Vrbetice depot explosions.

Outsourcing

Although not included in Putin’s Playground, recent events give the documentary’s focus an eerie sense of actuality.

Poland has in recent months experienced a series of suspicious explosions and fires, many of which have been linked to Russia. And although hard-based evidence still appears to be lacking in several cases, Prime Minister Donald Tusk has spearheaded calls to crack down on Russia’s increasingly aggressive actions on the territories of EU and NATO states.

Moscow’s increasing reliance on what analysts have described as “low-cost” spying and sabotage activities has also found an echo across the border in Czechia, where a foreigner was arrested last week for attempting to set fire to a depot of Prague municipal buses. Prime Minister Petr Fiala claimed it was “highly probable” Moscow was behind the attack.

Talking to the local investigative HlidaciPes media on Monday, BIS head Michal Koudelka said the attack showed Russia’s use of foreigners, “often people with some criminal background… who may not even know they were recruited by Russia”, was part of a new tactic.

The impact of such attacks should not be underestimated, according to the head of Czech counterintelligence. “They have a psychological impact on society, they’re a part of propaganda, based on the idea that the Czech Republic is making itself a target,” he said. “It has the potential to create tensions in society”, and undermine trust in the country’s security and intelligence services.

Crucially, the way governments communicate, the media cover or citizens react to these probable and very physical attacks on sovereign territory are key to whether the Kremlin will achieve its intended goal with these actions.

“The reason I made this documentary is because today war is not so much about tanks and airplanes,” Konrad Szolajski tells BIRN, at least not yet when it comes to EU countries. “It’s about influencing and subduing countries in other ways – ways that are very dangerous because people don’t realise that they are working for Russia” or pushing the Kremlin’s agenda.

Quoting a US Strategic Command officer interviewed for the documentary, Szolajski notes that “in military terms, NATO is strong enough, we are prepared today” to face Russia, including its hybrid military tactics used in the invasion and occupation of Crimea back in 2014.

But, according to the filmmaker, Russia uses European democracies’ greatest strength, “freedom of expression and information”, against themselves to shape public opinion, progressively change policies and, eventually, sap the strength and will of a society to defend itself against aggression. And here too, whether the main culprits are “agents of influence or ‘useful idiots’ is not always clear”.

“It’s an absolute nightmare. We cannot kill our freedom of speech for the sake of safety, but we need to find tools to defend ourselves without introducing censorship,” he says.

Circling back to Poland’s recent series of suspicious arson attacks, commentators noted that pointing the finger at Russia at every incident even despite little evidence could paradoxically play into Moscow’s hands, by creating a climate of panic among the public or giving birth to galloping and self-sustaining speculative bubbles.

A combination of fear, uncertainty, and perceived helplessness that Russia – regardless of its goals or strategy – would always be able to use to its advantage.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

idk if that has been asked before but what do different parts of the world think of the wru and the whole pet business in your story? (i believe you mentioned canada?) is the majority for or against the concept of pets? and are there (specific) programs etc. for pets / liberation / rescue in countries that are against the whole pet thing ?

Yeah! We've talked about it here and there since the whole thing kind of started unraveling into an entire universe of stories. So in MY BBU (and this doesn't hold true for anyone else's necessarily, every story is its own BBU with its own rules), Canada is a lowkey refuge country for runaways, but its dependence on American imports means that it tends to pretend it DOESN'T provide sanctuary, with occasional crackdowns and with no real path to a better life for those who make it.

They end up clustering in border-adjacent towns and cities like Vancouver, living in a kind of seedy underbelly seething with resentment and fear.

One thing that I have been VERY VERY lowkey about is that my version of the United States in the BBU is slowly falling apart at the seams, and the whole pet industry is part of the "the rich content themselves while the poor starve". It's a kind of control mechanism, offering a "way out" for those who are desperate - but also a reward to the very wealthy for their achievement of being fucking parasites. However, WRU pretty carefully sells itself as equally serving the middle class, so some of the worst aspects of the system are hidden from the vast majority of people, who go on about their lives because this is normal for them. It's always been this way. And even if they wanted to change it, they feel it's too dangerous to do so.

But not everyone feels that way.

Countries that make it either outright illegal or really difficult to participate in pet ownership include:

The UK (illegal, but known to happen under the table - except for Scotland and Ireland who are in the midst of semi-violent fights for independence and who have been known to forcibly free people and some of the wealthiest citizens have, um, vanished).

Germany - illegal but, again, known to occasionally happen.

Legal in Russia but so expensive only oligarchs can afford the system, and Russia has its own version of WRU and does not allow American-trained pets within its borders except in diplomatic circumstances.

Much of eastern europe - illegal, and they WILL forcibly free any Russian pet who makes it across their borders and then send Russia a bill for the hospital care.

Sweden - Legal but heavily policed and regulated

Finland - Legal, claims to heavily police, doesn't always live up to it

Poland and Switzerland - Legal. Switzerland doesn't allow citizens to purchase but doesn't care if you bring them with you.

Japan - Legal and has their own system with its own rules and its own companies, with three main companies competing heavily

South Korea - Legal, two family-led corporations operate the entirety of the pet system and are in a ferocious rivalry. One of their 'heirs' went missing a decade ago and the company has always held the other company responsible.

China - China so heavily taxes any attempt to import that its own companies do very well within its borders.

(the USA, Japan, and SK have all had scandals where top pop groups were revealed to be pets. It became normalized in the USA.)

My BBU has African nations essentially banding together to give a giant middle finger to the rest of the world when it comes to such a system touching any of their borders. I have had individuals attempt to start arguments with me about this and that I was essentially 'not allowed' to not have it be legal somewhere in Africa. Don't be that guy. This is a story I made up in my head. I get to decide what I am comfortable going into detail about.

Technically illegal in Brazil, but there are a lot of accusations of a thriving underground industry. Same in Mexico.

Strictly illegal in Iran, but it's known that some individuals have been abducted and forced into WRU, even flown to America to be wiped and trained.

Basically, I think it's a hodgepodge. WRU is known to utilize shell corporations and fake names - the Russian company, for example, ultimately leads back to WRU and makes it money. It has agreements with South Korea and Japan to provide them with training and equipment, so it makes money there, too. Trades and exchanges between the companies are common to keep people moving and sometimes to get them away from nosy families trying to discover what happened to their lost loved ones.

WRU, for the record, also operates a pharmaceutical arm. And a mercenary arm. And has a subsidiary that makes cars.

Attempts to bring them down or undermine them often fail - because WRU has made itself an enormous sort of Lovecraftian capitalist monster, with its tentacles reaching to every corner of the world and into every possible part of the economy.

[noreligionisgood]

BYDGOSZCZ, Poland — A committed Catholic who served from childhood as an altar boy, Karol dreamed as a teenager of entering the seminary in his hometown in northern Poland and becoming a priest.

“I had a deep faith and wanted to serve the church,” said Karol, now 26, recalling how he had discussed his hopes of one day becoming a bishop with his spiritual mentor, a priest at the Church of Divine Providence in the city of Bydgoszcz.

But that was before the priest raped him.

“The whole church has been poisoned,” Karol said in an interview, asking that his full name not be used by The New York Times.

His story, one of many that has stirred outrage over the years in the Polish news media, is part of a cascade of sexual abuse scandals that has plunged the Roman Catholic church in Poland into a deep crisis and eroded trust among young people. Polish youth are also wary of what many of them see as the church’s symbiotic relationship with the country’s deeply conservative governing party, Law and Justice.