Monday, April 11th 2022
Zelinsky talks about Russian cowardice and the price that will be paid when the Day of reckoning comes.
A very sad and horrific story about how the Russians dealt with Ukrainian prisoners
A brief glimpse inside the Russian war machine. Here is a very drunken propaganda minister. And no, this is not a slow down film.
More Hope from Zelinsky
Zelinsky and Boris. I do not believe in the benevolence of Europe and I certainly do not believe in the benevolence of the British, much less the conservative oil-funded British. But it made people happy to see this picture.
The reality of this film is up for grabs. But in it, a Russian soldier has quit and given up and calls his parents to tell them what’s going on. Again, I cannot comment on the validity of this but it seems the truth from my perspective.
And finally, they have Zelinsky on 60 minutes.
***
Good morning. It’s about 7:15 and I guess I’m just getting started here today.
I was pretty tired at the end of the day yesterday and could not make those baseball games. Pretty much the moment that the Mets game started, every muscle in my body said forget it and I went to bed. I haven’t even checked the scores yet.
I grew up a television watcher and my father was a dedicated TV watcher. If he was at home and not at work, he would be in a big comfortable chair staring at the TV. In his later years living in Florida, he would kind of Base his entire day about being at home for the 7:30 Boston Red Sox game. I just can’t do it anymore.
I think it has something to do with how physically tired you are. If your body has a ton of energy in it, you can sit and stare and get lost in a story. But when you’re physically tired and your muscles need to recuperate, video watching will kill you.
I’m saying this because I’m thinking back over the last year or so and how much time I have allowed myself to stare at videos. When I was in the hospital and just after, I was binge watching movies and TV shows. I watched every episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm and the Beatles documentary at least three times. And I watched NFL football. A lot of sitting and a lot of staring.
These days I can’t do it. I don’t have the attention span for more than a few minutes and to be asked to sit in one place, not move and just stare for a long period of time, I’m gone. Forget it. There is no chance in me taking interest in a long argument.
I’ll be honest with you. These links above, I don’t really think I watched any of them all the way to the end. If this influences something or if you want to think negatively of me, I apologize. I watched enough to get the gist of the content and then thought to pass it along. I’m not a hypocrite, I’m just giving a break from all of this text.
I did actually get an accusation sent to me secondhand. I was told that the latest troll/dismissal of my work is that I am being paid to do this. The truth is, I would love to be paid to do this. I would love to go back to having a regular income from writing. I don’t think I would sell my point of view or tell lies for money. I have been anti-corruption for 20 years so I really don’t think I would take a paycheck to back the oil business in any way.
Probably this is where the trolling comes from. The conservative side is notorious for looking for a simple insulting name to call someone in order to have people dismiss them and their relevance. This was Donald Trump’s key to success in 2016. He simply called people names and it was enough to have his side of the United States make jokes. Sad. “Dumb Donald Runs the Country”. This sounds like a great children’s book.
Specifically, I heard that I worked for the Communists. I don’t work for anybody specifically. I don’t work for any organization and I don’t receive any checks from anybody except a mild pension from the Belarusian government, thank you very much. This by the way is medical in case you couldn’t guess. It’s also not very much but without sounding too old fashioned, enough to keep me moving. Not enough to pay for food, but helpful. Again, thank you very much.
But this has nothing to do with my work either as an English teacher, a translator or this blog. I don’t get paid for this in any way.
This being said, I believe capitalism doesn’t work. This is a belief of mine that I have acquired over the years by being a writer and an observer and by having so, so many opportunities to write about malfeasance, corruption, abuse of power and the effects of negative propaganda on the people around me.
There is a Russian saying, “milk plus shit equals shit”. If you take it literally, it’s understandable enough but metaphorically, you can talk about any two things being mixed. Personally, I see it as a perfect metaphor for Russian occupation. I’m saying this specifically because I have a long enough memory to see what life was like here before 2014 and what it has become after. And certainly we are looking at an extremely horrific example of Russian occupying style.
But I’m also beginning to believe that it has a secondary metaphor in that anything plus capitalism equals shit. Money that is brought into any particular business turns it to garbage.
I got this from watching a film actually. It was a film that I did not fall asleep during because I found it to be an incredibly compelling film. It’s the story of a group of people who had been creating and selling cannabis illegally in California and what happened to them after legalization and eventually corporatization.
The film is called Lady Buds and is a pretty well made documentary of five women working in the Cannabis industry both before, during the process of and after legalization and eventually the corporate takeover of marijuana.
I am not a cannabis dealer or a cannabis grower, unfortunately. I am an advocate of decriminalized marijuana and absolutely an advocate of medical marijuana.
As a person of age with pretty much continuous pain, I find that the best medicine I’ve ever taken in my life is the stuff that comes directly from a plant with no corporate manufacturing necessary. It’s not a cure, but it makes everything a little bit better.
I’m not looking for a pity party, I’m just saying that alcohol is really bad for you, quite a bit of corporate medication is no more than a placebo and I think marijuana works. I am not a space traveler, I don’t get high to run away from life, I like to get high to participate in it.
And no, I am also not sponsored by the marijuana growers association of the Republic of Belarus. Though they need one or they would need one if we actually had a political situation that people participated in.
It was watching this film that got me to thinking about how giving the opportunity for the corporations to participate in profit making basically destroyed this for everybody. True, you can look at the McDonald’s argument and say that there is more pot available for more people. You could say that it’s a very positive thing to be able to walk into a dispensary and shop for what you want just like at any corporate outlet.
But it is the people who no longer participate in profit making. This has been true for many, many years in the United States. I was there for the rise of Walmart and Kmart and the destruction of local vested interest with the sweeping away of small mom and pop businesses in favor of corporations. That is exactly what this film is about recurring again in modern times. I’m also familiar with it here in the Republic of Belarus where, for the most part, Russia is now sending supermarkets and mega outlet stores to steal profits out of Belarus instead of allowing the local markets and small people to make money.
It’s monopolization, it’s the exact same story as what happened in the United States in the 1980s and ’90s and the result is exactly the same. Pinsk became impoverished even more than before and now people have the added responsibility of trying to pay off debts accumulated to pay for their euro home reconstructions using Russian building supplies.
If you can make the connection, this is the future of Ukraine as well when this war finally ends and ukrainians get to start rebuilding. Maybe there will be a lot of European contracts in there too. They’re certainly going to be quite a bit of Ukrainian slavery for many, many, many years in the future. And if the corporations have their way and the oil business keeps going, it will be for life.
One final thing that I noticed is that almost all of my trolling seems to be designed to keep me moving and working for some particular end. In this part of the world, they don’t worry about being sneaky or telling people that they are free. There is no argument that people here are not free and that we are obligated to listen to the words from above us. It is also a law that you cannot not work. It is illegal not to have a job.
I’m not complaining. I’m just saying that somewhere along the line, someone might have just decided that I tell the truth and that my word should have a wider audience. Somewhere along the line, perhaps someone should have allowed my voice and all of these like-minded voices I seem to be able to find all over the place take a larger role in civil construction.
I’m sorry, capitalism is a failed experiment. It doesn’t work. It causes misery and unhappiness. It causes pollution and the destruction of our environment and our social structures. Capitalism, designed obsolescence and the manufacture of garbage is the destruction of the planet Earth. Capitalism doesn’t work. Capitalism plus anything equals garbage.
C + x = shit therefore C = shit*
***
Okay, just two more quick thoughts. The first one comes when you take this idea of capitalism being a giant social experiment that has failed and juxtapose it against the words spoken in the media at the end of communism. The corporate news loved calling communism a failed experiment and putting the dumb Donald nasty name on it by filling people’s heads with the words “communism doesn’t work”.
This is exactly the same game that I talked about that Russians love to play. You say something about them and then they simply say that this is what you do.
And if Russian influence is not becoming more and more obvious, let me do a brief overlay for you of two separate protests. The first one was during the Belarusian elections when miraculously, protests were staged in which people, especially women by the way, were asked to dress in very clean clothing and stand on the road and wave at cars. This was ostensibly a protest for Belarusian freedom. They walked around holding giant red and white flags. I wonder who was responsible for asking them to go out on the road and wave at cars. You don’t suppose it has some connection to Russian oil, do you? Or that the opposition president used to work for a subsidiary of GazpromBank?
Now take this picture and line it up on top of these trucker convoys protesting for conservative values and theoretical freedoms. Can you please tell me why we need to use oil and gas to make public protests that end up on all of the new services? Certainly Fox News gave a lot of microphone time to our heroes driving trucks. The backbone of America, they said.
If you are wondering where this kind of thinking comes from, it comes from going vegan. I went vegan because I studied. I wanted to find out the truth about heart health and better health and I started looking for the truth online. I read medical journals and I read medical studies and I watched a lot of videos made by people who read medical journals and medical studies. I learned a lot about real studies, good science, good mathematics and bad science and mathematics pushed towards different ends by none other than capitalists trying to keep large industries like the meat industry going.
So finally, here are two more brief videos to have a look at. The first is from Dr Greger who makes a point of showing how the vegan diet has historically played a part in what we might call super athletes. We can consider Venus Williams amongst this group I guess. To
One More film is a bit more stylish and click happy but nevertheless exactly about good science and the question of whether or not dropping factory oil is good for you. I say it is. I try to do this as much as I can but I’m just one person and speaking anecdotally. But I am much stronger and do much more work by leaving the oil and fat out of the diet.
I eat nuts. I like nuts and seeds. I believe that dried fruit and nuts and seeds are the greatest bicycle food in the world. I think you called his trail mix. But when I do not cook with oil, I am sharper, stronger, recover faster and can do more.
And with this, I’m going to go get some breakfast.
***
Breakfast was what I guess you could call pancakes. Whole wheat flour and some ground up lentils. Some Chia and sesame seeds as usual were in there as well. They were tasty and delicious and I ate many of them with some napa cabbage. I’ve said this before but I think napa cabbage might be the greatest food in the world.
Now it is about 2:20 in the afternoon, many hours after breakfast and I’m still not hungry but I am a bit tired. I have been doing wheelbarrow runs all morning. The first half was from the forest and the second was more path building. I’ve made a dent on the project.
For working in the canals in the forest, I used a different method. Chopping up the ground and then using a scoop shovel is really uncomfortable with all of the roots there. Also, I felt a little bad causing damage.
I brought a 30 l metal bucket out there with me and used the bachi gata motiga like a scoop on a backhoe and just scraped the top soil into the bucket and then tossed it into the wheelbarrow for transport. It’s very light Earth out there, not like the well plowed Garden area. There is absolutely no life left in the land we got here. Hopefully, I’ll be infusing some with my natural additions.
Other than that, just really not much to talk about. I’ve been listening to music while working today and using an interval timer to give myself a break now and again. I did the math on a baseball game. This is just theoretical but if you take the amount of time it takes to play a baseball game, factor in the 2 minute intervals to change positions when the batting team goes out in the field and the Fielding team comes up to bat, you get 8 minutes of work and 2 minutes of rest. I set that up for 9 innings, a little bit over an hour’s work, and I’ve already done three sessions today.
I like knowing that I have regular brakes coming up and I like having some notion that I should be working. Bach is very good music to listen to when you’re working. Bach is relentless. He is beautiful but relentless and this is obviously the German idea he hoped to inspire of perpetual diligence for the love of God. I’m not exactly sure that this is what I’m doing but Bach works.
Right now it’s getting a bit colder. It’s been beautiful all day with mostly sunshine. There were a few moments of rain but not enough to mean anything. I set up one of the barrels under where water falls from the roof. I eventually figure out what to do with the rest of these barrels and my ex partner has informed me that we can get more. I think I’d be okay if this was our main water catcher but, they are going to need some plumbing.
My ex partner doesn’t quite agree with me on this point. She wants me to get an electric water pump that we can turn on and spray the garden whenever we want. Probably a good idea and of course, very comfortable. You know that if my ex partner likes something it is because it is comfortable.
My idea is to tie several barrels together so that when one gets filled up, it will automatically spill into the next one down the line. I also want to add a spigot at the bottom of the barrels to gravity feed the hose. We probably won’t have enough power to create any kind of a spray but we will very easily be able to fill buckets for spraying devices or watering cans.
I am in favor of the passive gravity system every time. Convenience is wonderful and I am not a glutton for punishment. I’m also not doing a religious penance by the way. I am just in favor of something that will continually work with the absolute minimum possibility of breaking down and becoming garbage. I’m also against something that requires electricity to run and I am diametrically opposed to using any kind of gasoline powered device. I know we don’t see eye to eye on this but we never see eye to eye because she’s much shorter than me.
Anyway, we have some Gray sky right now and a few drops of rain are falling. I think I’m going to take about an hour or 90 minutes off. I’ll see if I have the juice to come back and do one more set. Tomorrow I’m going to town so it’ll be a no dig day. Hopefully tomorrow goes well. I’m not worried about it.
***
Am I looking for some kind of redemption? This is a question that is attached to this blog. Have I done something wrong and this effort is some kind of a penance?
Penance: punishment inflicted on oneself as an outward expression of repentance for wrongdoing.
Redemption: the action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil.
No.
I genuinely don’t understand where I have caused harm. It is possible that through other people’s eyes, they perhaps didn’t receive something that they thought that they would. I myself have been sold a bill of goods, I’ve been cheated, lied to, abused and abandoned. All on more than one occasion.
The question however is whether or not I had it coming. To this, the answer is no.
I think I can say this with some measure of self-confidence to be honest. What this means is that I have seen enough people attempt to set me up for little games of blackmail or advantage. I’ve seen step by step the way they create their little games of chantage. I have literally just sat, watched and waited for the grand finale of whatever play that they were showing me. I saw it all coming and frankly, there was nothing I could do to stop it. They were not in this for any partnership, they were in it to get what they could.
In the play Pod Kablukom, there is an argument as to whether or not Nadia is playing the American. There are arguments about this from everyone in her family who sees the situation in their own way. Each would like a particular future, either for themselves or for Nadia. But I’m not exactly sure it’s clear what’s going on in Nadia’s mind. I don’t want to give away my opinion on this, you get to read or watch the play for yourself to come to that conclusion. All I’m saying is that it’s an argument. Was she in it for the money or was she in it for love?
A reluctant but decent answer to the question could be both. Yes, this is genuine love but some money would not be so bad. You could apply that to this blog if you wanted to. Certainly, we live in a monetary system, whether I agree with it or not or feel it best serves or unilaterally takes advantage of the population as a whole. Until such a day as we decide that human beings have the right to live as an axiomatic fact, this is all human beings and all animals, we have to make do with the bullshit that we have. Under these circumstances, please, where’s my check for my labor?
To this is the argument of why I am not more entertaining. I should be more corporate and smooth. For sure, I should pander more and agree that non-thinking pro staring people should be entertained. I should make this more glamorous and sharply focused and worry about my color palette a bit more. I need to show money to get money.
This seems to go against the point though, doesn’t it? How can you talk about living well on less, not contributing to the ecological catastrophe that is the world right now, not practicing exploitative practices or causing harm in a bright, beautiful and perfectly clean corporate Way? This is not about a new convenient thing. This is not about a party that we can all dance at. This is not about having the opportunity to show how much money you have or to show off how beautiful you are in your new dress. This is about physically agreeing to be responsible for the world on an individual basis. Not much glamor in that unless you understand what it means and are willing to take pride in your efforts.
Did I do something wrong when I left the United States? In the book Being Had I talk a great deal about my conversations with an executive at the United States embassy in Poland. We could talk about the overall political situation at the time. We could talk about George Bush being in office. We could talk about the war in Iraq that was being fought and new deals to put missiles in Poland. We all remember Guantanamo Bay and how the Polish were involved with that. All of this was going on at that very moment.
Did I have a right to go somewhere else? Yes I did. Was I deserting something? What could I have been deserting? I was not receiving any particular salary as a soldier or officer of any company. I was not going against any grain and I was spending my own money to go someplace and try to find a different living situation. Did I have the right to do this? Yes I did. The rules called for a Visa, I got the Visa and I tried to go somewhere.
Did I commit a genuine crime in Poland? They might say that I did but the absolute physical evidence available showed that the off-duty cop was full of shit and logic seems to dictate that the one year court process was most definitely politically inspired. Did I cause problems here or were problems caused for me?
Have I ever said that publicly that I came here for political reasons of any kind? Have I ever said anything that seemed as though I was representing special interests? In fact, other than taking sides in favor of ecology, fairness, allowing a vested interest in the communities and the regions and being wildly against the oil business and corporate globalism, have I ever actually betrayed any country?
Did I betray any friends by leaving? I don’t remember anybody following me out here. I don’t remember a great line of previous friends coming to see me even after making friends again and I don’t remember anybody sending me an airline ticket to come out and visit them.
Am I somehow bad because I gave up trying to make money in America? I don’t remember ever being paid by the American government for anything. I remember being harassed. I remember taking shit for trying to work to make my living. I don’t remember practicing any criminal activities. I don’t remember protesting and I do not remember doing any kind of action publicly or even really participating in any anti-government protests. I don’t remember having anybody tell me in any way that there was any reason I could not do what I wanted to do.
What did I want to do? I wanted to go somewhere where people respected each other. For a while, that was here. It wasn’t everywhere. The state bullshited me and cheated me and lied to me. State organizations blackballed me. I had people who work for government agencies literally have a laugh at my expense. But the general population was glorious. Being in the Open marketplace was heaven and I didn’t get rich, but I was well paid by local standards and my personal standard of living was okay. Not rich, not Euro style, no flashy suits or fast cars or drugs or oligarchical activities. Just a nice smooth 50 or 60 hour work week doing something I loved and believed in and working with people who had respect for me and what I did. I got what I wanted.
Now however, I get this smarmy obsequious smile from people I know in the United States. No open hands, no invitations for salvation, no great opportunities, just a lot of I told you so and well insulated laughter at a foolish man for not sitting in the pocket of the good old us of a.
Economic catastrophes have sucked. Russian intervention into our consciousness and our economy truly sucks. Russian inspired laws abusing belarusians like slave masters whipping us across the back to make us move more is alarmingly horrible. And of course, We are engaged in war crimes just over the border and the level of human suffering being created makes me do a double eye rub at least. I mean, am I paranoid? How can you possibly be paranoid during the war, right?
Do I need to have all my money stolen from me? This is the question that I asked when people tell me that I am doing some penance or looking for redemption. Do I need to be punished for something?
I don’t remember harming anybody. I don’t remember being in situations where I specifically caused harm. I don’t remember ever doing anything but taking what the world wanted to give me and saying thank you for the good and furring my brows and trying to be stoic about the ever-mounting bad.
Have I had some good times? Unquestionably. I had moments that y’all would be jealous of. 100,000%. I have had moments that you can go to your grave in jealousy because you will never see it or know it or do anything but dream about it. And I’m not even talking about anything illegal. And it wasn’t just me. I lived through moments of personal freedom that are impossible in the United States of America and I’m not guilty about any of it.
So what is the point of this? And especially if we’re talking about some serious ongoing labor. What is the point of this?
I really wish you had read my books and published them and played my plays or produced these films. I just wish you had read these blogs and given relevance to my words and thoughts. I’m anti-corruption. I hate abuse of power. I hate the unfairness of the economic system. I hate racial and ethnic Injustice. I am not a misogynist. I am an ecologist. I am science-oriented and I believe that we are killing ourselves with the damage we are causing our habitat and allowing ourselves to be brain fucked by a bunch of corporate assholes who care nothing except the money that goes in their pockets.
I am not the only one who thinks like this. I am not the only practical thinking human on the planet. I am not the only ecological person alive. I am not alone in my thinking or in my desire that things should be reasonable. I am not the only one doing this.
This is what I am doing. I’m riding every day trying to tell the truth and this year, I’m asking people to think deeply about the food they eat, where it comes from and the ecological cost of getting it to you. I am asking people to think about their lifestyles and how they walk on the planet Earth and how much damage they cause during their stay. I am asking people to think for themselves. I am not here to entertain anyone and I am not groveling. I am not beneath anyone nor do I profess to be over anyone. I’m just a man with a very big voice who prefers to tell the truth than to create games for my own gain. I am just a man, a human being for God’s sake, who believes that we should live fairly and decently during our lifetimes.
Take the good with the bad, talk truth to power and be righteous in your actions.
Do you really think it’s so simple? Can you even conceive of someone who will not beg?
I will not beg you. I will never be on my knees to anyone. I will just tell you what I see because that is what I was put on this Earth to do.
It would be nice to get some remuneration for all of this work. Actually, I’m not really looking for personal recognition or celebrity, but it would be pretty cool if my plays got played, the movies got made and the books got read. I believe that what I have to say should be in the public argument. I believe what I am saying is for the good of the community. And when I say community, I’m talking about a community of 8 billion.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case.
***
I’m an English teacher. I teach English to Russian speakers. I have been asked to teach Russian many times but I don’t really feel I’m qualified. If you’d like to learn some Russian, you can watch this video of intercepted Russian transmissions. It’s not pretty, it’s more than a little brutal but you’ll probably learn the words you’re looking for.
***
Okay, it’s about 9:00 and it’s time to close up shop. Dinner was nice. I could probably call it the usual noodle soup. I’ve been adding hot peppers to things lately. It was nice. And afterwards, I had popcorn. I haven’t had popcorn in a while. Yes, I know, you need cooking oil to make popcorn. I used the big skillet. It is the greatest multi-purpose cooking tool I’ve ever had. Very tasty.
I managed 32 wheelbarrow trips today. I made a big dent on the project. I’m a bit proud of myself really. It was a lot of work but really, it was just a nice day outside. I didn’t really want to be inside at all. I didn’t want to play with the Internet or talk to people. I just liked spending the day outside and the work was just incidental.
Things are getting a little complicated and I need to make some more purchases. Though I made a great argument about stringing the water tanks together, and we will, the more I thought about it, the more I like the idea of having a good water pump. We found a submersible pump that is very common here. It’s all metal with a long extension cord and it is strong enough to allow us to maneuver water from one place to another pretty easily. We can take water from the well and we can catch rain water and save it. We’re getting there. We’re not there yet but we’re getting there.
I like how the garden boxes are starting to fill up. I didn’t think I would ever feel like I’m getting close to the end of this but that’s what it looks like now. Also, you get used to anything in a couple of days. If you ask your body to do something, it will do it given a few days to adjust.
I did the work today without ever cracking up or getting crazy. One thing I did was to bring the stool to sit on and also I made a bench out of the corner of one of the boxes. I made a point of sitting down during my rest times. Yesterday I didn’t do this and stayed on my feet and maybe that was a mistake. It’s good to sit down and take a rest. I felt a bit like a boxer in this regard.
But maybe the most important thing is that you can see everything coming to life. Leaves are already appearing on maybe half of the berry bushes. Also about half the trees are showing buds and blooms. The willows are already quite full and the birch trees are starting to get their leaves. Spring is here, the Sun is getting warmer every day, there are thousands of insects all scurrying and the trees are filled with birds. It is a beautiful time of the year to be alive. I hope if you are reading this, you are able to get outside and enjoy the spring. I hope you’re not stuck inside or in a war. I hope you’re free to enjoy this like I am.
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