getting used to being off balanced
I think that for sure, Monday I did not want to look at anyone's mood on the metro. I had enough turmoil on my mind that I didn't want to cross the line of sharing. That lasted until Tuesday evening when I noticed that everyone had a wonderful mix of moods as they finished work and were going home, bright cheery, thoughtful. These people may start the day in a semi-monolithic mood, but they choose how they want to feel, rather than depend on external forces to shape their mood ; the job may own their work time, but not their feelings. One of the aspects of the war in East Ukraine is that people are mixing into Kyiv, my friends from Donetsk and other places are often uneasy, being dislocated from their homes and apartments by geopolitics, and worrying that people in Kyiv blame them in some ways, label them as part of the problem rather than an aspect of the answer. But I also see genuine gestures of welcoming, warmth and understanding being extended to my friends from the East. It just takes a little bit of self effacement, honesty about the sense of vulnerability they have and the dialogue opens up without pretense. It is obvious that the shortage of apartments in Kyiv is artificial, based on painful bureaucratic management patterns, lack of flexibility in the banking climate and other factors, energy efficiency. Yet I see easy money hanging low on the vines of Kyiv's infrastructure. People complain about too many police, government workers, yet isn't there some way to redefine their tasks, weed out a few of the bad ones, and increase their salary and productive benefits from their work ? But maybe win/ win answers are just impossible in Ukraine, at least for now.
The monkey on Ukraine's back continues to be Russia's aggression. Most of my friends from the East Probably didn't ask for chaos and disorder in Kyiv, and they didn't want it happening in Donetsk. A lot People in Kyiv didn't want all the fallout from this revolution , but they seem to accept it and are moving on, and of course many are moving elsewhere, I have at least one contact or two who'd considered ( a year or two ago ) setting up an E-Commerce/ software business in Donetesk , involving leasing property, hiring people, all the stuff associated to a business, and they are for sure feeling like they dodged a financial catastrophe. It was a nice clean, bustling proper city back then. The problem continues to be the often total lack of (apparent) perspective from people in Washington, that and just this antithetic subroutine between Obama and Putin. It's been said it was a matter of bad first impressions, some early delegation Obama was part of, it's also a clash of management styles, as we say a "cluster fuck". Now I am sympathetic to the Obama administration's restrained response to the crisis in Ukraine. It seems very similar to some sort of playground altercation : with his extended experience as the top Man in the Russian Playground, Putin has played the role of schoolyard bully, kicking the other kid's cool lunchbox, pulling his hat off and stepping on it in the mud : America had become Ukraine's "teacher's pet" maybe / daring Obama to pull a punch when Putin knows he didn't have the depth to engage in an open fist fight. And it's this mastery of mixed signals, aggression and open door back end diplomacy, like their opting out of throttling back the flow of Hollywood movies into the Russian market. These black belt Judo tactics were not in the Obama playbook, but there are a lot of smart people in Ukraine : they study Sun Tzu's "Art of War".
I thought the question was fairly asked by Mustaffa Nayyem about why Biden's son's job is giving the Russian's plenty of room for making hay about "pure cynicism" on the part of American ambitions in Ukraine. The Vice President isn't able to engage in some level of self effacement? Not even have a joke ready about it ? after all, good or bad, big publicity often tends to be better than silence. I guess that worse things happen on the scale of transparency. The Russians say they won't engage in paranoia, yet all these elements of perceived active market competition tend to back them into a corner, where at the end of the day, they hold the trump card of being able to reboot reality.
As to Ukraine's chances, I think it remains to be seen, if the people on the inside of corruption can really talk about how it worked in the past. Could they get immunity from prosecution, and is there enough bandwidth in the Prosecutor's office to go far enough, or the political willpower for that? For sure there is good mafia, bad mafia, good government workers, bad ones, decent multi national businesses and the nefarious ones. The question of what International businesses had paid bribes, and to whom, for what, and how bribes were often structured as barter arrangements.
Perhaps the sentiment trends towards leaving as much of it alone as possible, but is that a Democratic choice? In the past, when America reached a crisis, tried to address a major problem we had the phenomena of bringing in the former Presidents as a group, they could gather enough of them to work together that it looked cool in the media, and actually some of the time they got real results. In the political cartoons they'd all line up as super heroes with capes and insignia or whatever. Our issue for America is that besides Henry Kissinger (who in many ways is equal to a former President) we don't have anyone able to bridge the gap between Europe and Moscow. That Nixonian "Peace with Dignity" thing is perhaps where things need to go here. But there could never be a Vietnam style result here in Ukraine. it is going to have to be a unique hybrid formula, economics, military, social and educational.
THe cool thing is that the people forming the vanguard of Ukraine's new military are importing their own ideas into politics, they too are impatient, results driven, and freer of political constraints. Other than robust Patriotic sentiments, I don't sense much propaganda at all in Ukraine. Certainly, it's a vast contrast to the seamless propaganda style of Russian media. Of course, stories about the war are controlled. Of course Americans are manipulated by newsroom decisions to mix feel good stuff with scary, have to know it stuff. And of course our media is tied to the "big Board" of Wall street, where everyone wants to park their cash and risk the ride. I could not do it, I never had somebody to tell me when to get on and off that particular bus, like so many others maybe I am stuck with the slow grind, but worse things happen.
Yet in Ukraine there seems to be so much genuine reality, they don't need to control very much. A guy I know said that 11 of 26 men in his platoon were from East Ukraine, the areas occupied or near that, and "they were the best fighters" You got to imagine how tough that is, your cousin who used to live in the next town, calling you up and saying "hey what are you doing, how can you be siding with those Fascists" It takes courage and mental strength to go into battle, support your country when your close family is divided, especially when you are like 22, or something like that. But as I build some relationships and experience in West Ukraine, I see now how comfortable people are being close to Europe. I don't notice any overt signs of Neo-Nazi behavior or sentiment, if anything there is sometimes a bit of self effacement about it. Groups like Right Sector they are coalitions of people, some of them are extreme in their thinking, it's true. Yet like any coalition, they will either degrade or strengthen based on political and economic circumstances.
In fact, when at times I sit down for a beer or lunch with some friend who is leaning to the Kremlin, and they spout these anti-Zionist critiques of the Ukraine government, I find it a little weird. As much media as I come across, I often notice the Russians singling out Jewish oligarchs in lists, and both Ukraine and Russian media does focus unnaturally on the some times gilded life style of the chosen people. I have heard it blurted out by pro _russians that "the majority of Russians Emigres in America who make it big in business are Jewish" Are people so bored that they keep track of this stuff? Why should anyone care who your parents were ? Jewish mom/ or Dad, or Catholic , Christian, Buddhist or whatever ? Free and open economic systems benefit those with the best talent for exploiting them, and some benefit in any system because they are good at it, but accumulating wealth builds a base of business, and that base creates jobs, prosperity , in theory, we can all participate in commerce, without negativity and recriminations >
Aren't there plenty of Catholic Oligarchs? No one makes TV shows about the lavish life style of the Catholic high and mighty, not that I know about. If you are going to do it, then do it uniformly, show all the people worth over a billion, sort them all by religion, Rosicrucians, Atheists, Sultans, Russian Orthodox, Catholic, Born again Christians, Muslims, maybe there are some false flag pagans who pretend to be be 7th day Adventists ? Wasn't Michael Jackson a Jehovah's witness ? and why are there JW's hanging out trying to grab themselves some stray souls popping outside of the Kiev Metro ? How do they explain Michael J as "one of their own"? He was a billionaire too, and still is , as an estate.
It's just like people in the USA Far right who track affiliations in America on the left, these "lefty groupings" are again composed of a spectrum of people and often include people from the center right, who align with environmental or social dialogue issues. They often impose these sinister scenarios of liberal machinations leading to America's downfall. But at least the working people do get to choose, they can choose to vote to the Republican side if they think it will improve their situation economically, or vice versa. And that is the freedom people are trying to find in Ukraine, they don't want a monolithic State system of control of the media and the economic models, they want versatile, responsive government. They have to experiment in how to change so quickly from a corrupt system, it's a social economic revolution ongoing and unprecedented, which is what makes it interesting )
The monkey on Ukraine's back continues to be Russia's aggression. Most of my friends from the East Probably didn't ask for chaos and disorder in Kyiv, and they didn't want it happening in Donetsk. A lot People in Kyiv didn't want all the fallout from this revolution , but they seem to accept it and are moving on, and of course many are moving elsewhere, I have at least one contact or two who'd considered ( a year or two ago ) setting up an E-Commerce/ software business in Donetesk , involving leasing property, hiring people, all the stuff associated to a business, and they are for sure feeling like they dodged a financial catastrophe. It was a nice clean, bustling proper city back then. The problem continues to be the often total lack of (apparent) perspective from people in Washington, that and just this antithetic subroutine between Obama and Putin. It's been said it was a matter of bad first impressions, some early delegation Obama was part of, it's also a clash of management styles, as we say a "cluster fuck". Now I am sympathetic to the Obama administration's restrained response to the crisis in Ukraine. It seems very similar to some sort of playground altercation : with his extended experience as the top Man in the Russian Playground, Putin has played the role of schoolyard bully, kicking the other kid's cool lunchbox, pulling his hat off and stepping on it in the mud : America had become Ukraine's "teacher's pet" maybe / daring Obama to pull a punch when Putin knows he didn't have the depth to engage in an open fist fight. And it's this mastery of mixed signals, aggression and open door back end diplomacy, like their opting out of throttling back the flow of Hollywood movies into the Russian market. These black belt Judo tactics were not in the Obama playbook, but there are a lot of smart people in Ukraine : they study Sun Tzu's "Art of War".
I thought the question was fairly asked by Mustaffa Nayyem about why Biden's son's job is giving the Russian's plenty of room for making hay about "pure cynicism" on the part of American ambitions in Ukraine. The Vice President isn't able to engage in some level of self effacement? Not even have a joke ready about it ? after all, good or bad, big publicity often tends to be better than silence. I guess that worse things happen on the scale of transparency. The Russians say they won't engage in paranoia, yet all these elements of perceived active market competition tend to back them into a corner, where at the end of the day, they hold the trump card of being able to reboot reality.
As to Ukraine's chances, I think it remains to be seen, if the people on the inside of corruption can really talk about how it worked in the past. Could they get immunity from prosecution, and is there enough bandwidth in the Prosecutor's office to go far enough, or the political willpower for that? For sure there is good mafia, bad mafia, good government workers, bad ones, decent multi national businesses and the nefarious ones. The question of what International businesses had paid bribes, and to whom, for what, and how bribes were often structured as barter arrangements.
Perhaps the sentiment trends towards leaving as much of it alone as possible, but is that a Democratic choice? In the past, when America reached a crisis, tried to address a major problem we had the phenomena of bringing in the former Presidents as a group, they could gather enough of them to work together that it looked cool in the media, and actually some of the time they got real results. In the political cartoons they'd all line up as super heroes with capes and insignia or whatever. Our issue for America is that besides Henry Kissinger (who in many ways is equal to a former President) we don't have anyone able to bridge the gap between Europe and Moscow. That Nixonian "Peace with Dignity" thing is perhaps where things need to go here. But there could never be a Vietnam style result here in Ukraine. it is going to have to be a unique hybrid formula, economics, military, social and educational.
THe cool thing is that the people forming the vanguard of Ukraine's new military are importing their own ideas into politics, they too are impatient, results driven, and freer of political constraints. Other than robust Patriotic sentiments, I don't sense much propaganda at all in Ukraine. Certainly, it's a vast contrast to the seamless propaganda style of Russian media. Of course, stories about the war are controlled. Of course Americans are manipulated by newsroom decisions to mix feel good stuff with scary, have to know it stuff. And of course our media is tied to the "big Board" of Wall street, where everyone wants to park their cash and risk the ride. I could not do it, I never had somebody to tell me when to get on and off that particular bus, like so many others maybe I am stuck with the slow grind, but worse things happen.
Yet in Ukraine there seems to be so much genuine reality, they don't need to control very much. A guy I know said that 11 of 26 men in his platoon were from East Ukraine, the areas occupied or near that, and "they were the best fighters" You got to imagine how tough that is, your cousin who used to live in the next town, calling you up and saying "hey what are you doing, how can you be siding with those Fascists" It takes courage and mental strength to go into battle, support your country when your close family is divided, especially when you are like 22, or something like that. But as I build some relationships and experience in West Ukraine, I see now how comfortable people are being close to Europe. I don't notice any overt signs of Neo-Nazi behavior or sentiment, if anything there is sometimes a bit of self effacement about it. Groups like Right Sector they are coalitions of people, some of them are extreme in their thinking, it's true. Yet like any coalition, they will either degrade or strengthen based on political and economic circumstances.
In fact, when at times I sit down for a beer or lunch with some friend who is leaning to the Kremlin, and they spout these anti-Zionist critiques of the Ukraine government, I find it a little weird. As much media as I come across, I often notice the Russians singling out Jewish oligarchs in lists, and both Ukraine and Russian media does focus unnaturally on the some times gilded life style of the chosen people. I have heard it blurted out by pro _russians that "the majority of Russians Emigres in America who make it big in business are Jewish" Are people so bored that they keep track of this stuff? Why should anyone care who your parents were ? Jewish mom/ or Dad, or Catholic , Christian, Buddhist or whatever ? Free and open economic systems benefit those with the best talent for exploiting them, and some benefit in any system because they are good at it, but accumulating wealth builds a base of business, and that base creates jobs, prosperity , in theory, we can all participate in commerce, without negativity and recriminations >
Aren't there plenty of Catholic Oligarchs? No one makes TV shows about the lavish life style of the Catholic high and mighty, not that I know about. If you are going to do it, then do it uniformly, show all the people worth over a billion, sort them all by religion, Rosicrucians, Atheists, Sultans, Russian Orthodox, Catholic, Born again Christians, Muslims, maybe there are some false flag pagans who pretend to be be 7th day Adventists ? Wasn't Michael Jackson a Jehovah's witness ? and why are there JW's hanging out trying to grab themselves some stray souls popping outside of the Kiev Metro ? How do they explain Michael J as "one of their own"? He was a billionaire too, and still is , as an estate.
It's just like people in the USA Far right who track affiliations in America on the left, these "lefty groupings" are again composed of a spectrum of people and often include people from the center right, who align with environmental or social dialogue issues. They often impose these sinister scenarios of liberal machinations leading to America's downfall. But at least the working people do get to choose, they can choose to vote to the Republican side if they think it will improve their situation economically, or vice versa. And that is the freedom people are trying to find in Ukraine, they don't want a monolithic State system of control of the media and the economic models, they want versatile, responsive government. They have to experiment in how to change so quickly from a corrupt system, it's a social economic revolution ongoing and unprecedented, which is what makes it interesting )
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