Category: Thinking outside the box

Decent dissent within Putins Russia

If your Putin you try not to worry about the power of your opposition from within your own country you can always criminalising any that oppose your point of view and threaten all that oppose you with a 15-year jail sentence. The west finally has a cause worth uniting and fighting for whilst Russia on the other hand looks to legislate, dictate and indoctrinate those that are forced to watch and listen to why it thinks the invades of Ukraine is wrong.

While the west will not put boots on the ground or planes in the sky over Ukraine, Putin claims his war is not even a war and his occupation and bombing of civilians is not even taking place. One super power says it cannot commit, whilst another claims’ it has not committed to a war in Ukraine and the atrocities it clearly repeatedly does for Putin are not actually happening.     

Thousands of people have been arrested in cities across Russia for protesting at the bloodshed in Ukraine. New laws have forced the BBC, CNN and other media organisations to suspend their reporting from the country. They are not allowed to describe Russia’s assault on Ukraine as an invasion.

In a Russia, the truth of the war on Ukraine is available. The risk comes in sharing it. Putin’s Russia has brought a new intensity to its crackdown on independent news.

As mentioned it is now a crime — punishable by up to 15 years in prison — to publish “fake” information about the all-out attack on Ukraine. The government has blocked Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and news websites aimed at Russians, such as Latvia-based Meduza. It is a crime for the average citizen to publicly post information that contradicts the government line.

In a meeting on March 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke of a “necessary self-purification” and called on Russians to cast out any dissenting voice. 

“The Russian people will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and simply spit them out like a bug that accidentally flew into their mouths,” Putin said. 

Natasha Rastova, a former Russian journalist and author of two histories of Russian journalism, said the restrictions on free speech marked a turning point, even by Russian standards. 

“In a matter of days, Putin went from being the leader of an authoritarian state to becoming a full-scale dictator,” Rastova said.

Despite the new restrictions, Russians can still access news from outside. The risk comes in sharing it.

Russians who want outside news have to be adaptable. Facebook is banned, but with software called virtual private networks, users can circumvent restrictions. 

That said, special apps are not essential. Broadly, the internet still operates. Connection speeds might be slower after a leading internet service provider dropped its service, but Russians can read articles from the BBC, CBS News and other news organizations. They can watch videos on YouTube.

“Despite all the efforts of the Russian authorities to clean up the information space, alternative sources of information still exist in Russia,” said Viktor Muchnik, who ran the independent news website TV2 in Tomsk, Siberia, with his wife Viktoria.

We reached Muchnik in Armenia, where he fled after the government shut down TV2 on March 7.

Many younger Russians use the encrypted messaging app Telegram to follow Russian-speaking reporters they trust. They can see reports, photos and videos within the app, or open links they find there.

Russians know they might be stopped by police who demand to see their phones.

“In the event that someone is stopped and searched, even just having those apps on one’s phone could be risky,” said Paul Goode, the McMillan Chair of Russian Studies at Carleton University in Canada. 

Russians risk severe penalties if they are caught sharing banned information.

“Russians can be fined and prosecuted for facilitating the dissemination of ‘fake news’, discrediting Russia’s army, and supporting international sanctions on Russia,” Goode said. “This includes posts and re-posts made on social media, including even posts made by other people on one’s discussion thread.”

While younger Russians get their news from the internet, older Russians watch television.

“A lot of people still watch television, which is completely controlled by the state,” said  Anton Shirikov, researcher and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “These people tend to be older, from smaller towns or villages.”

Television delivers the government’s message. When Putin made false claims about the people of Donbas facing genocide at the hands of the Ukrainians; of the U.S.-backing bioweapons labs in Ukraine; and of Russia having “no other option for self defense,” that is what Russian television reported. 

The massive bombing of Ukrainian cities and civilian deaths are minimized.

When younger Russians show their parents videos of missiles hitting apartment blocks in Ukraine, they face denial. Michnik said it goes against the message their parents have been hearing virtually every day for eight years, since Russia annexed Crimea.

Jonathan Becker, a political scientist at Bard College, shared a message he got from a friend inside Russia. The friend’s wife installed Telegram on her mother’s phone. The mother is a Putin supporter.

“She still thinks that all the videos she watches are Ukrainians bombing themselves,” the email said. “What can one say?”

The Russians we contacted all said that these intergenerational splits are common. 

They and other observers also raised the concern that international efforts to pressure Russia economically could undermine access to outside news. When Visa and Mastercard stopped processing credit cards in Russia, that affected some internet users.

“It is increasingly difficult for Russians to pay for foreign services like virtual private networks, so it’s conceivable that this escape hatch could be closed off eventually by the impact of international sanctions,” said Goode.

There is also the fear that some of YouTube’s restrictions on advertising revenues inside Russia could make it harder for independent journalists to finance their work.

Russian journalist Mikhail Fishman was an anchor for the independent station TV Rain until he left Russia on March 3. He said unintended ripple effects could become even more important as Russians begin to feel the sting of economic sanctions.

“The more impact the sanctions have, the more will be the demand for alternative sources of information,” Fishman said.

21st Century War

To look into the global suffering of the world would be a very dark place to try and gain any insight from or find any truths concerning what had led to wars and what are the long term consequences for us all.

Truths are often taught or indoctrinated from the winners and learned by those who are left behind, concerning global events and across world history. I have been looking at a variety of sources in order to attempt to gain an insight concerning what was going on in the world prior to the invasion of Ukraine from a perspective of wars of the 21st century. There do appear to be parallels between the western war on terror post 9/11 with oil and gas grabs and Putin’s allegation of his needs to invade Ukraine.

Many people seem to state these days that care equally about the people of Palestine, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and Iraq as they do about the people of Ukraine but the international community and our media outlets do not care so much for the people of Palestine as it does for the people of Ukraine. Though I don’t think the bombing and murdering of one nation over the bombing and murdering of another nation is a competition and when one power occupies another or attempts to do so we should see one occupier as less wrong or of less importance than another. Two wrongs do not find a right.

I have also been reading articles on the natural resourses wealth of Ukraine and why these are strategic recourses that Putin desires and ones he thinks will provide him with tactical advantages in the future. The invasion of Ukraine and the plan to undertake such an invasion was not the first act of war in the 21st century.

Unfortunately the US and UK are not innocent in these land grab incidents, or oil and gas grabbing and occupying incidents, which appear to have emboldened Putin into thinking I could do something similar to that and have potentially got us into the mess where we collectively all are today.

Sadly the world’s economies are hugely addicted to oil and gas that is pumped out of the planet and our thirst for these resources that we need like a vampire nation feeding on the blood of oil and gas in order to sustain our modern form of existence means that we we have the potential to purchase oil from any regime at any cost to our society and biosphere. Like a junkie that does not know it has a problem or has an inability to reflect or count the cost of its addiction or know when or even if it can stop we continue to inject oil into the veins of our global mechanical, industrial economies. We claim that by doing so we sustain life and the economy, whilst in reality putting it all at risk.

Although ultimately Putin might see the actions and historic shaping of the globe as some of his reasons and justifications to invade Ukraine but only he is the one that acts on his impulse to inflict the horror of war on the Ukrainian people.

When the US and UK invaded Iraq it was seen as regime change and though the initial conflict was won swiftly the long-term war and casualties inflicted on the country if Iraq cost many lives. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. But the terrorist attacks in the United States changed forever the lives of Iraqis.

In their aftermath, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, swiftly deposing the Taliban regime that had been sheltering Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al-Qaida terror network blamed for the attacks. Only some 20 years later to leave Afghanistan knowing it could not successfully occupy the land allowing the Taliban to retake power there.

President George W. Bush identified Iraq along with Iran and North Korea, as part of an “axis of evil” and asserting that its brutal dictator, Saddam Hussein, was armed with weapons of mass destruction and had ties to al-Qaida. No evidence of either of it ascertains were ever found and no trials have ever taken place concerning crimes against humanity for the actions and consequences of the war in Iraq. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has spurred a decades of war, which has had consequences that reverberate across the region and the world to this day.

To Prep or not to Prep

Am I mad to consider prepping for a serious emergency or disaster or am I mad not to? It feels like thinking the unthinkable.

I have made some small changes to my life recently just in case there is nuclear situation that effects the Ukraine, Europe or the world, or a nuclear accident at a power plant in Ukraine which might risk people not being able to go outside their homes.

  1. I have empty water bottles in my kitchen stacked together that I could fill up quickly.
  2. I invested in a new pair of sturdy walking boots and thick pairs of walking socks in case I need to walk a long distance anywhere at any time for any reason.
  3. I have purchased a new first aid kit and first aid book as my old one was a number of years out of date.
  4. I have purchased a radio that can be recharged by a hand wind up and used in an emergency with no electricity. It also has a phone charger on it.
  5. I have a new windup torch again charges through a turning handle which does not need batteries or electricity.
  6. I have purchased a number of protein bars which I eat normally anyway but I have more than I would normally have just in case I am suddenly in need of food and shelter in my home.
  7. I am going to hopefully clean out an airing cupboard on the weekend too so that I could use it as a shelter if needed in an emergency.

This is stuff that I never thought I would have to do but I am fearful that we are potentially closer to  a nuclear catastrophe whether that be from a power plant accident in Ukraine or from the actual launching of rockets from Russia and it all feels so bloody unnecessary.

I feel guilty thinking and writing about this stuff. It’s easier to write down what I am up to on here than talk about this with others at the moment.  

Frank Turner – Be More Kind

Because it is our home

Such a simple answer to a straight forward question that speaks volumes about who the people of Ukraine are with their strength and resilience that they possess and why we must now all look to emulate, donate what we can, and advocate to who we can, our politicians and fellow citizens on their behalf.

This answer was to a question that was brought up by an extraordinary mother with 3 young children (who thought her self not extrodinary at all), she has a 4 month old baby and they were all presently sheltering in Kyiv in Ukraine. She was being interviewed on the radio today to listeners in the UK. Her husband is working on a checkpoint and she has only seen him once since the war broke out for 20 minutes when he visited the shelter too.

She talked about the collective of the people in those shelters how they took things only day at a time. Things we take for granted like food, life and liberty are all now in the balance for her and her family and the fellow Ukrainian citizens that seek shelter with her in Kyiv.

They don’t plan what is going to happen next week as they don’t know if there shelter will have been bombed by then or even if they will still be alive (those were her words and thoughts not mine) They also cry a great deal together but somehow find things to share to laugh about together too. 

Today this young mother went above ground to the shops to try and get some food and managed to get some bread and bits and pieces she also came across a sweet shop that was still open with two young girls serving at the counter who she bought some sweet and chocolate from and this is where she asked the young girls behind the counter the simple question “girls why are you here?” And they answered her by saying “because this is our home”.

Again I will now ask you, why are you here? The same answer ricocheting right back to me again. Which is, because it is our home.

Deacon Blue – Cover from the sky

Tsar Putin – The Gas Father

As Russian troops mass on the Ukrainian border and worries of the invasion grow, Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to peddle a familiar Russian line about the conflict: that Ukraine belongs to Russia and that the two are “one people — a single whole.”

All men are created equal [but some are more equal than others]

Not only that but his peddling his hate for the west from his regurgitating of his view of the history of the world he also now extends his views into the perception that he is the enemy of the west and he is the righteous good guy in the unfolding history of the world. Democracy smocracy who cares if you have freedom of thought for your people, freedom to vote by your people, freedom of speech about people, when in the past you used to be the bad guys right you gave birth to slavery, Hitler and colonialism.

Russia on the other hand has in the past starved and murdered its own people under the leadership of past Tsars and Communist leaders in the name of power and progress. No one is innocent under the magnifying glass of a historian, whilst at the same time no one should be tard with the same brush and we should certainly not aspire to repeat the mistakes of the past. If Putin has no intentions of rights wrongs of the past it’s all about power it has only ever been about power and will always be about power.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men. -John Dalberg.

In reality, Ukraine has long been distinct from Russia, and Putin’s current mythologizing of the Russia-Ukraine relationship fits a pattern of falsehoods designed to reconstitute imperial glory, and more importantly, to shield Putin from the threat of democracy in former Soviet republics — and possibly in Russia itself.

Putin is not the only old fossil on the block as he has huge reserves of natural gas to play with and presently supplies 40% of the European market. The more he has a hissy fit and continues to turn the screw on anyone he deems fit to then the greater the power to inflict pain on others he can flex.

 Ukraine, for its part, is distinct from Russia in many ways and has been influenced by a number of different cultures, including by Central European countries in the west, and present-day Greece and Turkey in the south. Over the centuries Ukraine was also conquered by a number of different groups, including the Mongols, Lithuanians, Poles, Austrians, and Swedes, as well as, eventually, the Russian Empire during the reign of Catherine the Great.

 You would not see Britain reinterpreting its own history to reinvade Ireland simply because some people in Northern Ireland see themselves as British and end up starting World War 3 off the back of it. Well that is exactly the position Putin is putting the world in due to his beliefs and propaganda around the Ukraine.

Gabrielle Aplin – Light Up The Dark

Happy Lunar New Year & it’s also my blogs birthday

The Lunar New Year celebration is intended to usher in a year of luck and prosperity. It’s time to close the chapter on the old one and welcome the year of the tiger.

It appears I find it easier to celebrate my websites birthday easier than I do my own. Congratualtions to me to writing in this space for another year, well done me! I don’t worry about my own birthday coming around so much, but I used to feel wow another year has been achieved well done, where as at the moment on new years day or my birthday it feels more like what the hell has just happened in the last 12 months, I hope that everyone that I care about is still ok. Whereas celebrating the maintenance and management of a blog is an achievement in itself.  

As a dyslexic that struggles to write a word let alone find time to have the energy to write a word down I am pleased about what I do here. I have never been short of imagination or thoughts, or at least I don’t think have. People often describe people like me as someone that thinks to deeply or over thinks things. But I like to see myself more as having an ability to say and do the simple things that I sometimes think we should all do like speak or write the truth to power and friends.  

You can always sugar coat a perception or opinion that is not one that a person sees or wants to see or might find hard to look at. At many times in many ways I think others view my perception on life as a little delusional perception of reality and at times they would probably be right but when you look at problems or ideas from different angel’s or view points you are nearly always bound to see something that the eyes of other either could not see or closed their eyes to.    

After all it would be boring if we all did and said the same thing from the same view point. Our opinions and views are shapped and born along the paths we walk alone as well as influenced from the views of those we know.

Villagers – Set The Tigers Free

All people should be treated equally

The following definitions of democracy are commonly understood and accepted

Government by the people especially: rule of the majority

A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.

All that sounds very straight forward and who would argue against that well if you watched any TV in the UK or picked up a so called News Paper then you might have been under the misimpression that we have a one state controlled media promoted through TV and written publications all singing from the same hymn sheet.

A picture of the UK has been attempted to be painted this week of  a county full of royalist worshipping citizens whom need to be reminded every 15 minutes through news bulletins, and documentary dramas that we have a monarchy they are very wise and superior to us mere mortals, intellectually, spiritually and genetically. There will be no talk of the future of the monarchy in anyway of whether we want, need or even should have one moving forward. If you are not crying at your TV because someone you have never met and never loved has died, then there is something wrong with you. It’s all quite an odd state of reality really.

The British Royal Family is deeply part of the political fabric even though the monarch is claimed to be above politics is still a deeply political position. The head of the machine of the states is our monarch and the tentacles of the state and our poorly unevenly handed media went into overdrive in the last week showing just how important to the system the promotion of the status quo is within the UK and chance of change or how such changes might take place in order to make our unwritten constitution and the construction of how our state works and to whom it works for are very remote.

Are we merely born into a system where the blood line of a head of state is more important than the blood line of any and all other citizens born with in it? If the answer to this question is absolutely yes, then this system is very much archaic and needs much needed reform which may never come.

We have a house of lords with some peers appointed from state supporters (none elected though the ballet box and some life long peers). They are responsible for keeping an eye on our political laws and ensuring due process is undertaking in parliament.

There are many who ridicule democratic due diligence, process and democratic political power. The reasons for these are often complicated and not easy to understand or even see. But most notably if you are not in favour of democratic due diligence, process or democratic political power it is because you have an invested interest and already receive power from an alternative form of government within which the ordinary man or woman does not have such power or privilege from.   

Van Williams – Revolution featuring First Aid Kit

Trump Supporters are coming to town

Trump supporters are coming to town, Tump supporters are coming to town

You’d better watch out you’d better not run’ I’m telling you why.

Trump supporters are coming to town, Trump supporters are coming to town.

Trump supporters are coming to town.

Their making a list and checking it twice, there goner find out who votes for Trump or allegedly stealing their rights.

Trump supporters are coming to town oh yea

You’d better not vote, you’d better not be elected, you’d better not follow the rule of law I’m telling you why, Trumps crazy supporters are coming to Capitol Hill.

Trumps time is done, for his chickens have come home to roost.

A truly disgusting day of many disgusting days in the time of Donald Dead Duck President Trump

All voters are equal

But some would have you think that some voters are more important than others!

Live lounge Allstars – Times Like These

I live in a society that started a new lockdown on Thursday 5th November 2020, the UK is a democratic nation with a Conservative government and although I don’t support all the policies of my government I am grateful for this lockdown. It will save lives maybe even my own and the lives of my friends and family. Then when the economic tsunami that will also hit our country comes I will hope it will be worth every penny spent to save lives. You can’t rebuild a nation with the bones of your dead, only with the strength and will of those who live through these times will we be able to do that.

Trump has and will continue to do very little in the USA to save, listen to or even now count for or allow to be counted the votes of his fellow American citizens. Trump acts like a child having a tantrum in a china shop that happens to have found and unpinned a hand grenade. I don’t know how long lived his damage will be to the nation of the USA.

‘If you count the legal votes I easily win claims Trump’, this is wrong and an incendiary statement; he’s a PR man of spin and certainly no political statesman of substance. If Trump losses and it looks like the writing is on the ballet wall for him then I will thank god and will also thank the US population that voted for Biden. Trump politically spins circumstances and lies about what he does, he does not have the depth or political know how to shape political circumstances or to unite people.

Trump is a man to slander and stop the other guy or opponent he is not a man of conviction or depth of his own views or others. Apart from dismantling and damaging institutions, laws and rights I really can’t tell you and nether can anyone else what he has built for the USA. Apart from a wall built by and paid for by the Mexicans and even that is a half assed blunder.

I am governed by a conservative government because they won the election and I respect that. If you can’t respect a democratic process then I feel a little sorry for you and the damage that view could do to your country.  

Turned my light down low

Simon & Garfunkel – The sound of Silence

Well as I write this its 18:10 and my brain in the last few days has become more silent. I am not saying that less horrible things are happening in this world or that I could not quickly find something terrible to tell you or terribly good for that matter.

But as for my ability or will to write about them now has diminished (for now). I have been working in my day job since lock down and am due to start my new job on the 13th July.

I have been preparing for this next chapter of my life. By walking into the city, shopping in the city and wearing my mask when I get the bus. But throughout all this preparation my will and ability to express myself on here has decreased.

It would be nice if the job goes well, covid-19 is defeated and politicians do the right thing by the whole of humanity and not just for their own pockets of supporters or potential supporters. I tend to criticise those in power the most because they are ultimately the ones that can actually save lives and make sh*t happen. The ones out of power are just peeing in the wind waiting for their next chance to get into office normally or at least that is how it seems to work in the UK from a shallow perspective.

I hope if you have got this far in reading this that you are well and continue to be well. I really have enjoyed writing every darn word and if you get bored anytime I dare you to look over old posts there is a lot of my heart and soul that has gone into making this thing.

I will try and continue to post on here but like I say my mind has become more silent of late and I don’t yet know what that means but it feels like a positive necessity to heal or recharge my batteries.

God bless us everyone.

Florence + The Machine – Shake it Out