Link deleted…story was inaccurate.
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That last line:
Also, if you’re an aficionado of vulture capitalism, search “grain futures” on google or even right here on twitter.
the farmers & grain traders thirst posting about food shortages I MEAN high prices is really something to behold : /
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I get all that, but that doesn’t erase the racism on display here, as cited in several articles now. This is especially true, given the role the US and Europe has played in conflicts in the global south throughout the 20th century and well into the 21st.
Of course, Europeans are more likely to connect with other europeans, but that doesn’t excuse the incredibly racist reaction to the refugee crisis caused by western imperialism (in wars caused by that imperialism, and the current climate crisis that is hitting the global south harder right now).
No one is suggesting that Ukrainians should be stopped from fleeing or not treated with all the compassion and dignity they are due in this situation… but I also think that highlighting the racism aimed at people who deserve the exact same level of compassion and respect but were instead treated like shit in some cases, because of where they came from, should be noted and addressed. Everyone should be treated with this compassion, full stop. We need to start making better choices about these kinds of things, or else we’re all really fucked. The world is so interconnected now that we can no longer afford to make these kinds of distinctions when it comes to things like saving lives and condemning wars and violence. I do hope that that is another take away from the current conflict that we can all take away.
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I’ve seen plenty of migrants and migrant groups commenting online how the outpouring of empathy shown here actually hurts them when they remember how hard Europeans fought to keep them out when they were fleeing war, often European and American caused wards.
ETA
And I should have mentioned it’s come up wryly in a local place I hang
Yup, an extra couple of million would bring it to pre-famine levels. We’re looking at 50,000 from Ukraine I think, which is more than ever before but still not muck. I always think of before the second war, how much good we could have done taking in a couple of hundred thousand Jewish people. Even if it wasn’t exactly an attractive country to come to.
ETA - I replied I thought and It just came back in here.
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Interesting (and free for now) article from Foreign Affairs.
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Absolutely. No argument here
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“We deleted a tweet that took UN Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya out of context — the way his sentence was structured and translated tripped us up,” The Recount explained.
(Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Vasily Nebenzya had claimed Donald Trump was overthrown.)
From the bottom. The comments were apparently more bull about Ukraine’s current government. Raw Story appears to have been reporting that it was about Trump based on a since deleted tweet.
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Yep. It’s depressing.
I was listening to an interview with the great Berndette Devlin MacAlinsky not too long ago, and she noted that the population of Ireland has never fully gotten back to pre-Famine levels, and that there is no reason why they could not accept up to a million refugees on the island (in both the Republic and NI). She was correct of course. Same here in the US, same in Canada, and in lots of other places in Europe.
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I wouldn’t count on that. Russia has a lot of homegrown product that is popular here…So I’ve heard
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Putin ally Abramovich to sell Chelsea FC.
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At the time Russia and the American right were flooding the net with fake news stories and hoaxes to spike suspicion and islamophobia. Russia doesn’t have a demon frame to fit on Ukraine refugees, at least not yet.
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How low can they go? Jailing children for bringing flowers, is how:
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Oh, they’re sado-populists. They can go much lower yet. One of the things I gave up on during TFG’s years was the idea that there’s any such thing as rock-bottom for creeps like these.
Arresting kids is a startling development, by the way. Russian culture makes a big performative deal of the supposedly particular love it has for children. Given the slightest opportunity, they’ll go on and on about the topic in terms so sappy and cloying that even The Simpsons’ Helen Lovejoy would say “that’s a little over the top”. Word is going to get around about that very quickly, and not in a way that’s good for Putin.
@GagHalfrunt: thanks for the interview with Grigory Yudin. That is a particularly powerful and useful piece.
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This part of his statement is … interesting? Not sure what the net proceeds will be, though - lots of debt there.
I have instructed my team to set up a charitable foundation where all net proceeds from the sale will be donated. The foundation will be for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine. This includes providing critical funds towards the urgent and immediate needs of victims, as well as supporting the long-term work of recovery.
ETA The Guardian has reported
Roman Abramovich has confirmed he has put Chelsea up for sale and has written off the £1.5bn of loans he has made to the club,
FETA Being speculated by Bill Browder on BBC’s Newsnight a few minutes ago (a couple of hours after my original text above was posted) that Abramovich is so desperate to stay off the sanctions list that he will ‘sacrifice’ a few percentage points of his wealth (Chelsea) in an attempt to protect the rest, and consider it a good deal/price worth paying.
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Well most refugees do have the bad sense to be muslim /s
I went looking for percentages a short while ago and couldn’t see one on a brief look but even when I was a kid in the 80s most were Muslim.
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Arresting sweet old babushkas will go over only a tiny bit better than arresting kids. Way to go, Vovka!
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