Thursday 28 April 2022
Konstantin Kisin, the Anglo-Russian stand-up comedian, posted this on Facebook
(I saw Konstantin Kisin's one man show at the Edinburgh Festival in 2019, in the pre Covidian era. He is one of the two or three non left wing stand up comics. He is a Liberal Democrat which is left of centre but compared to most of the others he is far right.)Mindblowing conversation with an old friend in Ukraine. He was always pro-Russian to the point that when I spoke to him on the day of the invasion he said "Finally - everything is happening as it should".
His house is in an area that was close to being occupied in the early phase of the war.
Called him today for the first time since:
- "I pray every day for our brave Ukrainian warriors (воины)"
- "Everyone is united - the people believe in victory"
- "My (pro-Russian) Church is splitting off from Moscow"
- "People will not forgive the Russians for what they've done here. This wound will not heal for generations"
I was totally gobsmacked. He is the most stubborn person I've ever met (coming from me!) and he is a different man after 2 months of the war.
I've heard a lot of people in Ukraine say that Putin has done something Ukrainians have been struggling with for centuries: forged a nation.
I'm starting to think they're right.
Tirade - I am very cheerful by nature but I tend to sound very grumpy
Last night BBC World TV was broadcasting live Hillary Clinton's eulogy for Mrs Albright. So typical of the BBC which peppers its output with regular clips of Hillary talking about feminism. I don't want to go out of my way to speak ill of the dead unless it's necessary to do so, as with really wicked people like Edward Kennedy, but looking back now knowing about Afghanistan Iraq Libya etc., she looks an appalling warmonger, who became Secretary of State because of her sex not merit. I refer to Mrs A in case you're wondering.
This morning on BBC World I watched an interview with an actress starring in a film about abortion and 'women's sexual and reproductive rights' - she said she had grown from a young lady into a woman while making the film. The BBC man told her that anti-abortion groups would be offended by the film and the viewer understood that this was because they were bigots and small town hicks.
The BBC opposes free speech on the internet and worries about 'misinformation', while spreading a very great deal of it itself. We put up with 'misinformation' about Covid being banned on social media and hate speech of course ditto (extending to the speech by the leader of the German opposition).
England and all the West becomes less and less free, day by day.
With the tragedy and destruction unfolding so distressingly in Ukraine, we should remember the values and hard won freedoms that distinguish us from Putin, none more than LGBT+ rights. So let’s resume our series of tweets to mark #LGBTHM2022.”Homosexual acts were legalised in Russia in 1993, so he is not talking about freedom, which is something England stood for even in the 17th century, though it wasn't extended to include homosexual acts until 1967.
Come Musk and save us from this soft tyranny!
Tuesday 26 April 2022
Journalists against freedom of speech
I finally started to watch television a little after almost twenty years' abstinence. This morning the BBC covered Elon Musk buying Twitter as a bad thing and interviewed some young woman who explained that extreme speech silenced marginalised minorities. No counter-view was presented. Journalists on the BBC and the left-wing press hate free speech which is perverse if you think about it.
A Facebook friend in England quoted James Clayton, BBC Tech correspondent, commenting on Elon Musk’s buy up of Twitter. TWITTER WILL BE FREE BUT UGLY AND POISONOUS, OPEN TO HATESPEECH AND DISINFORMATION TOTALLY AGAINST THE DIRECTION OF TRAVEL OF WESTERN DEMOCRACY
Edward Perez, director of product management for societal health at Twitter, tweeted thirteen hours ago:If you're wondering what employees think, I can only speak for myself: It's a time of genuine discomfort & uncertainty. Most of us believe deeply that Twitter is much more than a tech platform; we have a deep responsibility to society. I hope our new owner gets that.
Sunday 24 April 2022
Christ is risen!
I just decided I shall attend the Greek Catholic Church from now on and celebrate Easter on the same day as almost everyone here. (It accepts Rome but resembles the Orthodox Church in everything except when it comes to dogma.)
There is now a Greek Catholic cathedral in Bucharest. Apparently it's the smallest cathedral in the world.
Is it really smaller than St Asaph's? It's 80 sq m or 262 sq ft whereas St Asaph's is 182 sq ft in length, so much smaller (and much smaller than the delicious old cathedral at Athens). It was taken over by the Orthodox Church in Stalin's time, like all the Greek Catholic churches, and restored to the Greek Catholics after a very long political fight. The Greek Catholic churches were suppressed by the Bolsheviks because their loyalty was to the Pope.
Friday 22 April 2022
Poor crucified Ukraine
We accidentally learn the number of Russian losses
This compares with 3,519 American servicemen and women who died in the second Iraq war. 179 British soldiers also died in that unprovoked, illegal and pointless invasion
Sunday 17 April 2022
Christ is risen!
Sunday 10 April 2022
When will the war end?
Friday 8 April 2022
German secret service provides evidence that Russians did commit atrocities
Sir Lawrence Freedman wrote the first draft of Tony Blair's Chicago speech in 1999 justifying interventions in foreign countries, and one must remember that. His son is a Blairite, but whatever the father's politics he seems an authoritative military expert.
Professor Freedman seems to me to have a great gift for synthesis and writes the best stuff about this war. He thinks Russia will lose this war, which is encouraging. C (the head of MI6) reads him.
'President Macron now also accepts that something has changed because of the ‘very clear signs of war crimes’ in Bucha, adding that ‘We can't let it slide’.....
'Yet what precisely has changed? Indifference to human life has been a hallmark of Russian strategy throughout this war. Thousands of civilians have already died because of being struck by missiles, shells, and bombs. There has been no shortage of reports of the appalling treatment being meted out by Russian troops. The ‘Bucha effect’ may confirm the phenomenon that after a certain point the casualties of war become statistics, the numbers so large that it is impossible to comprehend their human meaning. What makes the difference are images that are visceral and intimate, so that we can imagine not only the terror of the victims but also the barbarity of the perpetrators. It is one thing to fire into residential areas from a distance and quite another to go into those areas, look helpless people in the eye, and then kill them in cold blood.'
Agreed, but the Nato countries must at all costs not go to war with Russia, however many atrocities are committed. Russia has the bomb, which Ukraine foolishly gave up in return for a Russian guarantee to defend her.
Lord Macaulay's words about Frederick the Great come to my mind often when I think of Putin.In order that he might rob a neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of North America.
Putin's actions are indefensible, but not inexplicable.
Had Donald Trump won the presidency this terrible invasion would not have happened, because Mr Trump is not interested in extending democratic values (which is the same thing as extending American hegemony) and therefore Putin would not have felt threatened.
When he spoke in Warsaw about Western civilisation beset by barbarians Donald Trump had completely different evils in mind (he was accused by Democrats of racism for his pains).
Thursday 7 April 2022
Viktor Orban
Monday 4 April 2022
Peter Dickinson, publisher of the English language magazines Business Ukraine and Lviv Today
"Russia's geopolitical positions have become weaker. Everyone is seeing. This is a great threat to Moscow, because if they do not receive anything that can be presented as Russian success in Ukraine, their positions will be much weaker, and we can see the collapse of Russia itself within the next five years. There is a chance of such a thing. The war in Ukraine may become the catalyst of collapse."Journalist Peter Dickinson, whom I enjoyed meeting on my first visit to Kiev in February 2006, wrote this on Thursday in gazeta.uk, an online Ukrainian newspaper.
We are now witnessing chilling confirmation of Voltaire’s famous warning that those who can make you believe absurdities can also make you commit atrocities. Russian soldiers taught to deny Ukraine’s very existence and encouraged to regard all Ukrainians as Nazis are engaging in a campaign of coordinated war crimes that threatens to cross the threshold into genocide. Their twisted definition of a “Nazi” has come to include any Ukrainian who does not agree with them and has turned more than 40 million Ukrainians into legitimate targets.When the invasion began some people (not I) said that encouraging Ukraine to resist would lead to greater suffering. By now it is clear that Ukraine is resisting with some success.
....If Ukraine is provided with the necessary weapons without delay, the chances of a positive outcome are strong. Ukrainian troops have already demonstrated their ability to beat Russia on the battlefield and are highly motivated to defend their homes. They recognize that their country’s very existence depends on their ability to defeat Putin and are acutely aware of the fate that will await them and their loved ones if they should fail. Western leaders must now give them the tools to finish the job.
I thought Russian victory inevitable at the start and still think it very possible. I therefore hoped at the beginning for a negotiated peace, and still do, but a peace now would give the Russians time to strengthen and to attack in renewed force.
Russians rally round the flag
In short, it can be said that, over the past month, Putin’s dream of a consolidation among the Russian elite has come true. These people understand that their lives are now tied only to Russia, and that that’s where they’ll need to build them. ..The possible conclusion of a peace treaty is unlikely to change the mood of the Russian elites. "We’ve passed the point of no return,” says a source close to the Kremlin. “Everyone understands that there will be peace, but that this peace won't return the life we had before.”
...“All these personal sanctions cement the elites. Everyone who was thinking about a new life understands that, for the next 10-15 years at least, their lives are concentrated in Russia, their children will study in Russia, their families will live in Russia. These people feel offended. They will not overthrow anyone, but will build their lives here," says a high-ranking source in one of the sanctioned state companies.
Sunday 3 April 2022
Ukrainian thoughts
Saturday 2 April 2022
Digital trading platforms mean the age of dollar hegemony is coming to an end
Since 1971 the US dollar has not been linked to gold and yet remains what is has been since 1944, the world's reserve currency.
This means the USA can print money and doesn't need to borrow it.
Confiscating the Russian and Afghan foreign reserves and other measures taken against Russia suggest 'de-dollarisation' is likely but, interestingly, the era of dollar hegemony was anyway moving peacefully to its close, not because of China but because in the digital era it is much easier and much cheaper to trade less well-known currencies, such as those of Canada, Australia, Norway, Sweden, South Korea and Singapore than it was. This FT article explains.
Ukraine and Yemen: comparisons are odious
In reality, MBS deserved to be shunned from the moment three years earlier in March 2015 when, as Saudi defence minister, he led Saudi Arabia into a war in Yemen which has similarities with Putin’s attack on Ukraine on 24 February.
As with the Russian invasion, the Saudi action was supposed to be brief and triumphant, but seven years later it is still going on with 377,000 Yemenis killed directly and indirectly in the conflict according to the UN.