A conversation about race

A brilliant movie about racism and political correctness in the US. A must see for everyone, especially Western Europeans and Americans.

It is really a widespread bias in the West that "if it's aimed against whites, it's not racism". White people have a complex of guilt against the rest of the world - while it's been the white Europeans who have created this globalized world we now all enjoy benefits of.
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This Blog on BBC World Have Your Say

This blog was quoted by BBC World Have Your Say on Friday. The topic was the racist statement by Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, where he said that the world economic crisis was caused by "white people with blue eyes".

BBC people wanted to call me for a comment on the mobile phone, but unfortunately I was in a bus on the way to a RusHydro Seminar on Hydropower in Uglich. What a pity! :(

Still, I'm glad that almost all people in the comments there supported the idea that Mr. da Silva's statement was racist and unacceptable for a national leader. Racism is racism, ethnicity-based prejudices are ethnicity-based prejudiced.
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Racist statement by Brazilian president

Brazil president blames white people for crisis

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Thursday blamed the global economic crisis on “white people with blue eyes” and said it was wrong that black and indigenous people should pay for white people’s mistakes.

Speaking in Brasília at a joint press conference with Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, Mr Lula da Silva told reporters: “This crisis was caused by the irrational behaviour of white people with blue eyes, who before the crisis appeared to know everything and now demonstrate that they know nothing.”

//FT

Now what was that for a second?

And this politician will get away with this openly racist (not?) statement? Oh yes, because as long as white people are libeled it's never called "racism". Should he have made a similar statement about black people, there would've been crowds of angry white (!) left-wings at Brazilian embassies all over the world.
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"European Choice" As A Ticket to "Titanic"

A translation of my yesterday's post to http://www.pozirk.org/ by the guys from http://blogs.tol.org/belarus

The "European Choice" as a Ticket to the "Titanic"

It is more than popular in the democratic community now to talk about European standards and that Belarus should follow the European path, introduce “European reforms” to comply with “European Quality Standards”. No one explains what it is, being European, making a “European Choice”, but everyone for sure knows that it is something attractive, sweet, warm, and tasty. Chruschov promised every family to have a flat and live in communizm by 1980. Like this, lots of naive people in Belarus suppose that Belarus should join the EU by ANY means, and the effect of this accession will be close to that of getting into comunizm waters.

Therefore when I read those calls to come to European March, I simply don’t know what to feel or think. Please don’t misinterpret me: we should go there - but for a different reason.

Calls for eurointegration resemble calls to provide everyone with free meet for the rest of their lives: here is an example of a typical logic employed today:

"Belarusian pension is something you can only cry on, not live on. Like an elderly lady who had worked all her life like an accountant asks why a German accountant who had worked at the same job, with the same responsibilities (but only in Germany) gets 600 EUR pension and can travel on that. Whereas she gets only 150 USD. They both worked the same time, with the same effort, but the Belarusian lady can survive only with her sons help, whereas the German Frau can travel around Europe. This cry shows all! The lady wants to live in Europe, get European pension for a European work . And the only thing that barrs her from that is that she lives outside Europe. Just a bit outside… "

So, what are we being offered now? That Europe is a magic key to all our problems. Should it come - and our life will turn into heavenly succession of problemless days. But it is never immediate. The German and the Belarusian accountants did DIFFERENT things as they worked for different economies. The Soviet woman worked for an ineffective socialist economy which was destined to die, sooner or later. This is the real tragedy, and not only of that lady in question, but of millions of people who wasted their effort to do useless work for a useless system. C’est la vie.

Democratization and europezation won’t GIVE people their long-wished well-being: they will ALLOW them to EARN it through hard work. It is difficult to fight agains Lukashist populizm without being a populist yourself, but democratic populism still remains demagogy, from whatever side it comes. Or may be Belarusian nation can not accept more complicated arguments?

No one asks a question how long European heaven will hold and what will it bring us. We just hear a “hardtalk” which all the time finishes in a conclusion that “we should move to Europe coz we are Europeans”, and that “when we join the EU, we will start earning like the Europeans”.

However, eventual accession of Belarus to the European Union brings lots of negative things as well. Bureaucratic apparatus created by Brussels weighs so much that the “old Europe” economy almost does not grow. This is the reality where shops are forbidden to work after 7 and where tax pressure exceeds 50% on average. These tax money are further redirected into such welfares when unemployed people get subsidies reaching an average salary in their country. They are also transferred into salaries of bureaucrats in Brussels. Salaries which are more than high.

This is a real social union. And social union (or state) is inflation plus unemployment, and that exactly what we see in the EU case. If it had been limited by just some states - one could carry that, but such standards are being imposed on all new members. Say, Estonia had to stop its several liberal trade programs and even increased import tax for some non-EU goods just because membership conditions required that.

European socioeconomic model does not simply deeffectize economy, but turns some categories of people into parasites (in a milder form than in social economies, but they still think that the state should take care of them in difficult situations).

And this is the main thing that immigrants living on subsidies in their ghettos learn about European life. And what is the awfulest thing here - that those people living on subsidies are RATIONAL in their behaviour: “Why should I care when the state will take care about me. Why should I work when the industrious pay half of their income to support such lazybones like me?”

// Source

Actually, there was also a second part of the post published today, hopefully they will translate it as well

UPD here it is:

Talented people were usually leaving Europe for America and Canada, and had been doing that till the very recent days. Entrepreneurs could realize their ambitions much easier in more liberal United States, Australia, or Canada, than in socialist Europe. Just recall Arnold Schwarzenegger who quitted his European Austria for the US dream.

Demographically Europe is dying, and after 50 years is going to turn into one big house for elderly people. That concerns not just the age, but also dinamism, innovativeness, proactiveness of position. Even now Western Europeans are the people who need nothing else from the world but to have their social guarantees and a croissant in the morning. They are sure the state will take care of them. And as a result, European culture is retreating under a passionate influence of active immigrants from Turkey, Africa or the Middle East.

Economically, countries of South-Eastern Asia together with the USA, Brasilia, India, and China are going to dominate in the world of the 21st century. Ok, adding up Russia whose oil influence will not decrease until Chinese economy is growing. The EU has no strategy for development, and has no clear view for the next 10 years. This might end in one of the 2 variants; either acceptance of liberal values and imminent economic and political increase, or a crisis with a post-acception of liberal values. Now Europe walks more the second way.


Once having joined the EU, there will be no way back. Accession to the Union means loss of state sovereignty. Once and forever. And this is not just about national honour, but about a simple ability to act as you want without a repressive influence of the social bureaucratic EU machine from outside. The machine which has no idea of what is going within. The Union is bound to centralize more as time passes, with local and national powers being left just with current-day questions to solve. As a small country, Belarus will have no weight inside the EU. And when joining, the EU will centralized more than ever.

Do we want Belarus to become part of such construction? After mere 15 years of independence to have come after 300 years of historical absence, do we really want to become pensioneers of this world?

There is a sence for Belarus to become a part of NATO. Accession to this organization will mean a guarantee for us that we are not going to assaulted again; this is a sign of democratic, choice in favour of freedom, democracy, and progress. A guarantee that not a single Eurasian empire will take our country out of that.

We need a non-visa and free-trade regime with the EU - exactly like with the other neighbors and in general with as many countries - as possible. But by no means we need to hang ourselves on the chain of eurobureaucrats, which depend on those social regime, and by no means we need to abandon our state sovereignty.

We should say NO to fetishization of the EU; we don’t have to behave like Georgia or Albania begging to accept us into the European family: we ARE Europeans. We should aim not at the EU accession, but at building a market competitive economy which would allow all people to earn decently and live with honour, which is based on democratic principles. Eurointegration might be a means on that way, but not an objective in itself.

There is only one valid argument in favour of European choice which can cross all arguments against. Pragmatic reality often dictates the choice which is far from the desired one. After years of anti-NATO ideology and in the wake of the fact of the NATO allergy people have now, the only option against new integration into an “Axis of Freedom” of some Eurasian dictators or into some new formation of the CIS which strengthened revanchist Russia will start assembling is a socialist, but at least democratic UE.

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The US Budget graphically

http://www.thebudgetgraph.com/poster/

Might sound shocking for a post-Soviet: 67% of American state expenses go for the Military and for National Security.

"Evil American Militarist Imperialism"?

No, just what a state is actually there for.
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Eurovision'2007

Eurovision Song Contest

Every year everybody says that Eurovision is crap and they do not want to see it. But still, for at least several days it becomes the most discussed topic in Russian media and blogs.

The winning song from Serbia is though not bad, but nothing special at all at the same time. Just an other whiny ballad in Serbian - I even liked the Bosnian song that took 3rd place on ESC'2006 more.

Ukraine's trashy Verka Serdyuchka - that's who was supposed to win! :)

The man (hm!) is famous in post-Soviet countries for his unfunny humorist shows and sketches, and only a couple of years ago he started to sing songs that were of bad taste too but still something good for moving one's body after some vodka on a village disco.

An important topic discussed in Russia is now whether it says "Lasha Tumbai" or "Russia, goodbye!" in Serdyuchka's song. Some Russian bloggers already proposed to boycott him just as they hysterically called for a boycott on Estonian goods a week ago because of Estonian government replacing a Soviet monument in Tallinn. Ridiculous and lächerlich! As most neighbors with a complicated history of relations do, many Russians and Ukrainians don't like each other. As I have noticed, Russians express this in rudeness and aggression; and Ukrainians laugh Russians off and put them in situations where they look stupid. This is a typical case.

Russia's Serebro and Belarus' Dźmitry Kałdun aka Koldun were nothing special at all. Just an other two Eurovision songs: not bad, but not brilliant neither. Much more I liked the songs presented by Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Ireland (I can't believe they got the last place!).

As to me, the very best song of this year's contest was Sopho Khalvashi of Georgia with "Visionary Dream". The promo video is as marvelous as the song itself!



That girl just broke my heart! The song got few votes - but that's because it's just too good for Eurovision, if you ask me.
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Europe's Extinction

Europe's Extinction

2007-01-06 08:08 / Aleś Čajčyc

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." (Mt. 5:5 KJV)

The Western civilisation and democratic culture seem to be going to their fall, and this fall might happen rather sooner than later. And it will not be an economic crashdown, it will not be some nuclear terrorist attack and will not be a third (fourth?) World War. It will be the West's silent physical extinction.

We are all used to the information about Europe's catastrophe-approaching demography. By 2025 40% of UK's population will be over 50 years old. Italy's population will fall by 2050 by 22%. The population of Germany is going to shrink from today's 83 Mio to approximately 70 Mio. Among them 10 Millions will be people aged more than 80, the average age of the Germans will by that time be 50 years. The annual difference between deaths and births will be about 600 thousands deaths over births, compared to already 150 thousands nowadays.

It is mostly spoken about the economic and financial consequences of the approaching demographic crisis. A bigger percentage of pensioners will have to be supplied by a smaller part of generative working power. Still, the modern economy seems to have found a possible solution for this problem as the pensions are more and more supplied by money invested by future pensioners into retirement insurance and private pension funds. Working people in the West start providing for their future pensions by own investments and corporate pension schemes, although it is very questionable whether all working people will be able to use this scheme. An other option is to keep on rising the retirement age.

One can imagine the further development of this process with Europe finally transforming into a society of renters. Less and less human resources are needed for the economy, as the industry is more and more outlaid to countries with cheaper workforce, lower ecological standards et cetera. The capital resides in London, Frankfurt, New York and the production is in India, China. Globalisation melts the whole world into one society, where new social classes will at the first stage be constructed on the base of nations, with the West, especially Europe, becoming "capitalist" and the rest of the world becoming "proletarian". The Western society will herewith not be interested in renewing the population: just remember the prognosis of Russia's income per capita growing drastically within the next decades because of a slight growth of income, but a drastic decrease in population.

Without speaking of the danger of a globo-social revolution, the obvious trend is that one day in several centuries Europeans will simply die out.

Certain political powers put a taboo on discussions of political and cultural aspects of Europe's extinction. But the problem is still there and unfortunately can not be ignored: the extinction of Western political culture will obviously threaten the global democratic progress. Even immigrants in European countries often face problems in accepting their new home countries' liberal values, forming isolated ethnic and religious groups that live and promote totalitarian ideology. The global progress of liberty and democratic transformations will not be able to continue without having a base of adherents who have grown up in democracy and have the values of liberty as a cornerstone, as an essence of their mentality and world-view. The further Europe's depopulation progresses, the fewer of these people-born-in-freedom the world has.

There is also a more individualistic issue in the problem. Solving Europe's demographic problem is a question of simply whether we want to survive as a culture and as a civilisation, whether we do care about anything further than our personal animalistic interests, or we don't. The living conditions of a country may be good or bad or even very bad, the living standards may be high or low or even very low. But as soon as there are physically people there in the country, there will be a future for the nation, there will always be a chance for the situation to improve. That is exactly the strategic advantage of the "developing" African and Asian countries over the "developed" Europe. Is Europe's time up? Or are we still there? Do we care about existence of the European cultural identity in the future? These are the existential questions that must be set and must be answered above all.

Different solutions to the demographic problems are proposed by the political elites. The mainstream left wing seems to prefer leaving the problem as it is. It simply tries to handle external symptoms of the problem by introducing new pension schemes burdening the private business and trying to compensate decrease of population merely by means of migration. the conservative right wing sees the problem more deeply, but their proposed measures are even less adequate. The conservatives' vision means regress and abandonment of liberal and democratic freedoms, going back to the Kinder-Küche-Kirche-formula of woman's role in society, putting restrictions on migration.

Here we see an acute need for a "third way" in solving the problem. Finding the solution will substantially be put on our generation's shoulders, as those around-50-years olds of 2025 are us, today's twens. It is going to be our generation who will bury the European civilisation and the global democracy by simply not giving new bearers to them - or will find out how to overcome this challenge. Everything is up to us.

Third Way
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Are you too selfish for kids?

We are less likely than our predecessors to ask ourselves whether we serve a greater social purpose; we are more likely to ask if we are happy. We shun values such as self-sacrifice and duty as the pitfalls of suckers. We give little thought to the perpetuation of lineage, culture or nation; we take our heritage for granted. We are ahistorical

[...]

There is no generalisation in this article, no matter how harsh, that would not apply to me. I care about my own life in the present. I think I should be, but - doubtless because I don't have children - I'm honestly not very fussed about what happens after I die. I'm proud of the Shriver family, but not enough to help to ensure that it outlasts me. As Nora pointed out, my genes are swell. But like my friends', my sorrow at not having passed them on is vague, thin and abstract, and no match for Be Here Now. I fancy I work very hard; in socially crucial respects, I am lazy.

[...]

Meanwhile, as the west's childless have grown more prevalent, the stigma that once attached to being "barren" falls away. Women - and men, too - are free to choose from a host of fascinating lives that may or may not involve children, and across Europe couples are opting for the latter in droves. My friends and I are decent people - or at least we treat each other well. We're interesting. We're fun. But writ large, we're an economic, cultural and moral disaster.

[...]

In its darkest form, the growing cohort of childless couples determined to throw all their money at Being Here Now - to take that step-aerobics class, visit Tanzania, put an addition on the house while making no effort to ensure there's someone around to inherit the place when the party is over - has the quality of the mad, slightly hysterical scenes of gleeful abandon that fiction writers craft when imagining the end of the world.

Not to disparage old people, but "senescent" is not a pretty word. Large sectors of western population have broken faith with the future. In the Middle East, birth rates are still sky-high, whereas Europeans, Australians and many European-Americans cannot be bothered to scrounge up another generation of even the same size, because children might not always be interesting and fun, because they might not make us happy, because some days they're a pain in the bum. When Islamic fundamentalists accuse the west of being decadent, degenerate and debauched, you have to wonder if maybe they've got a point.

// a very good article indeed

My dream is to have at least two or three children.

Also I'm sometimes visited by the idea of converting to Islam, for that part of my heritage has definitely a better chance to survive in the future. Why belong to a group of people that are on their way to extinction and do not have a slight desire to do something for their own survival...?

Yeah, I'm a true volatile Russian inteligentsiya who is never satisfied with the way things are going. Because things really couldn't have been going worse!
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Wafa Sultan: the Arab-American activist discussing with Islamic clericals

Wafa Sultan, the Arab-American Muslim secular activist discussing with Islamic clericals on the clash of civilisations. Wise and brave.

Because of her ethnicity she may say some of that true things that unfortunately could have been labeled by some leftist as "oooh! bad ugly intolerant racist lies!" if said by a WASP or European.
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Borat - meine Meinung zum Film

Habe mir endlich “Borat - Kulturelle Lernung von Amerika um Benefiz für glorreiche Nation von Kasachstan zu machen” angesehen.



Hier in Russland hat das Staatliche Kommitee fur Kinematographie den Film zur öffentlichen Demonstration "nicht empfohlen". LOL weil Kasachstan Putins großer Partner und Verbündeter ist haben die staatlichen Trotzköpfe es angenommen, besser zu wissen, was ich mir für mein Geld im Kino ansehen soll. Egal, stoppen kann uns keiner, außerdem kann ich mir kaum eine belachbare russische Fassung vorstellen (genau so wenig wie eine sehenswerte deutsche). Es gibt Filme, wo man den Pepp nur in der Originalsprache mitkriegt.

Im heutigen linken Europa kann wohl nur sexuell oder fökal gefärbter Humor als letzter als politisch korrekt gelten. Ach ja, Scherze über Jesus Christus, egal wie derb und unverschämt, sind auch willkommen. Von allem davon gibt es im Film genug, doch ist es nicht das, was ihn so amüsant macht. Auch begrenzt sich das durch den Kakao gezogene Auditorium nicht auf homophobe und chauvinistische US-amerikanische konservative Rednecks.

Viel lustiger ist es sich die Reaktion Kontinentaleuropäischer Sozis, die ich ja sooo gerne mag, vorzustellen. Linke Political-Correctness -Hysteriker brechen wohl zusammen schon nachdem sie tabuierte böööse Wörter wie "Jude" oder "Zigeuner" vom Bildschirm hören. Dann wachen sie gegen Ende des Films auf und schreiben in ihren Zeitungen, was der Film für eine schreckliche Tragödie ist. Ogottogott! Gerade gegen diese Menschen ist - ob absichtlich oder nicht - die versteckte Provokation des Films gerichtet.

Außer dem wirklich kasachisch klingenden Namen und der blauen Fahne hat Cohens Borat Sagdiyev mit echtem Kasachstan nichts zu tun.

In Wirklichkeit ist Kasachstan ein Land mit viel Wüste und Steppe, bewohnt von nomadischen mongoloiden Kasachen und Nachkommen russischer Kolonisten. Vor wenigen Jahren bin ich dort gewesen, auf einem AIESEC-Treffen in Almaty. Ich bin aus Moskau 5 Tage lang mit dem Zug durch Steppen und Wüsten gefahren - und das nicht ohne Abenteuer. War das ein Megarlebnis!

"Borats Heimatsdorf" wurde in Rumänien gefilmt. Was Borat als "Kasachisch" spricht, ist Hebräisch und seltens Polnisch (und zwar sind es allgemeine Phrasen aus einem Touristensprachbuch wie "Guten Tag!", "Wie geht es Ihnen?", "Sprechen Sie Englisch?". Das klingt sooo genial! :D ). Der Soundtrack besteht hauptsächlich aus balkanischer Musik, darunter Goran Bregovics Orchester.

Borat ist eine Parodie auf Osteuropa generell und wider Willen insbesondere auf Balkan, weil Balkaner die Farbenprächtigsten Osteuropäer sind mit ihrem grellen Cocktail aus Armut, Provinzialität und Temperament. Ein Vorgänger von Borat in dieser Hinsicht ist das weniger bekannte Projekt Molwanien, jedoch ist Borat vielfach starker und lustiger.

Man muss zugeben, dass keiner es im Westen wagen würde, sich auf solche Weise uber Afrikaner oder Araber lustig zu machen. Aber uns Osteuropäer darf man schon egal wie lächerlich darstellen, und der Film ist ein gutes Beispiel dafür. Und das nur deswegen, weil wir trotz allem ziwilisiert genug sind, um über sich selber lachen zu können, statt dänische Botschaften anzuzünden. Und so habe ich den Film auch empfunden, wo zwar grotesk und übertrieben, aber grundlegend viel Wahres von uns allen hier gezeigt wurde, weswegen man sich nicht beleidigt fühlen muss.
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