Dear Readers:
As soon as the Russian invasion Special Operation began, millions of Ukrainians voted (with their feet) to join the European Union. At least on a personal level, trying to find a job and a place to live in some, any, European country. Under the rubric anywhere but there. Meanwhile, the elites who have misled that nation into the pit that it is in, have been for years holding out possible EU membership as a carrot to the discontented masses. Said discontented masses were led to believe that the moment they joined the EU they would start to live the Life of Reilly, as the Americans say. With great paychecks, shorter working hours, and a home on the beach.
And so it came to pass. Well, not really. Ukraine has finally been accepted as a “Candidate Member” of the EU, which means very little, but I reckon it’s better than nothing. And now it is time for those same elites to prove that they truly are Western Europeans. And thus, against my better judgement, it is time to start discussing the more intimate details of being a European, as opposed to a member of a more “traditional” society, as in the Orthodox world.
I have this piece by reporter Nikolai Storozhenko, and yes, he goes there. Right into the LGBT issues and all that jazz. Because EU membership involves certain … er… cultural requirements. The official definition is “respecting the rights of minorities”, including sexual minorities. Which used to just mean homosexuals but now entails a much broader spectrum of personal behaviors.
The legal foundation for the new rules was set on June 20, when the Ukrainian Supreme Rada voted (259 yays to 8 nays) to ratify the “Stambul [Istanbul] Convention”, affirming that they share European values. The following day President Zelensky signed the corresponding law. As the photo shows, this signing was so important that Zelensky even donned a brand new shirt, a polo shirt with a collar. For him this this is “fancy dress-up” time. What you don’t see is that, underneath the desk he has no pants on and is wearing his mom’s high-heel shoes.
So, what is this Stambul convention? On paper, it sounds good. It defends the rights of women and girls against violence and various forms of discrimination. Including some things which are still considered the norm in less “civilized” cultures, for example arranged marriages, child marriages, polygamy, genital mutilation. A lot of these practices still happen around the world, but the overall “European civilizational world”, which includes the Russian world, have long ago decided to ban them. I don’t have time here to get into the Marxist contribution to this common “European” heritage, except to mention that these ideas of personal liberty and gender equality were partially born from the Enlightenment, and also allude to Friedrich Engels’ seminal work on the connection between private property and the cultural subjugation of women. In other words, when Zelensky was sitting behind his desk signing this law, he probably didn’t realize that it was Commies who helped to invent woke!
When Woke Became A Joke
Over the centuries, thanks to the Enlightenment and other influences, European culture as a whole came to accept basic values, such as the equality of the sexes, which many other cultures around the world maybe don’t accept. More controversially, as an ancillary to women’s liberation, came the “homosexual liberation” movement. And many enlightened people came to see, increasingly, especially in a modern urban and cosmopolitan society, that the right of an individual to engage in certain private acts with other consenting adults, was really no business of the government. Hence it was logical to abolish so-called “sodomy laws” and the like. One of the first acts of the “enlightened” Bolshevik government was to abolish sodomy laws. (But they were re-instituted under Stalin, once the pendulum swung back the other way, towards more traditional.)
Note my use of the word “liberty” here as opposed to “freedom”. The distinction is as follows: “Freedom” implies a more group kind of thing, like the freedom of a nation or a people. Whereas “liberty” refers strictly to the individual person, and his/her rights within said group. And the two concepts can obviously be at odds with one another. Especially in “traditional” societies where the power structures flow downward, from the King to the Lord of the Manor, who is also the Lord of his family unit. Or in peasant societies, for example, which are based upon the strength and resiliency of the traditional family. Which usually implies a patriarchal scheme, and the women and children having to submit to the “Master of the House”.
Back to the piece I am reviewing: The reporter points out that such nations as Turkey and Poland, albeit EU members in good standing, already rejected the Stambul Convention. Turkey pulled out of it, and Poland plans to. Why? Because the Europeans started going too far. It’s one thing to defend women against domestic abuse and rape; or even to defend the rights of homosexuals to practice sodomy if that’s their thing; but then they started going too far with these lists of 10 or more genders and the pronoun business, and all this other ridiculous woke stuff. The concept of gender stands at the core of traditional thinking. In past centuries even homosexuals could cut a break by fitting themselves into the gender mold, for example, one man in the pair is actually the “woman”, also allude to “butch” lesbians, diesel dykes and drag queens. You know what I’m saying: It’s okay to be gay so long as there is still gender involved, at some level. But once the Europeans started mixing everything up and just willfully blending genders, that was the moment when a lot of even tolerant people just threw their hands up and went: No mas!
Do The Clowns Run The Circus?
Desperate as they are to join the EU, there are forces within the Ukraine which are not willing to pay the ultimate price, namely give up on the entire concept of gender. For them, that’s just one bridge too far. And we’re not just talking about the religious folks, and the Ukrainian or Russian Orthodox churches. Even a wily Europeanist politician like Julia Timoshenko, has come out against the Stambul Convention, for this very reason. And promises to fight in court to de-ratify it.
And then a new push-back from an unexpected source: None other than Presidential Advisor Alexei Arestovich, Lusya Karamelka herself!
Ukrainian LGBT community were expecting Arestovich, of all people, to support their efforts, but instead, during a youtube interview, he offered this rebuff: “I have said this many times and do not hide my opinion. I relate to the LGBT community as to people with deviations. In order words, their behavior deviates from the norms of behavior. In this sense I consider myself to be a conservative.”
Stung by this slap in the face, the “Kiev Pride” movement demanded of Zelensky that he fire his infamous advisor.
Arestovich struck back by tweeting the photo of himself in drag, in his Lusya Candy-Girl persona, and complained that he was the one being discriminated against: “The LGBT community is upset [with me]. But take a look at this photo and tell me, who has the right to be upset? I am the one being persecuted, no? I demand your tolerance!”
All of this Ukrainian drama is lot of fun to watch. But the reporter warns that, in this three-ring circus the whole gay/gender sideshow is probably just a deflection from the main show. Which involves the meat and potato issues of EU membership, such as the selection of judges, that sort of thing. Which is what allowed unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats to become the virtual rulers of a once-great civilization.
Awful Avalanche 
Sorry to be the one to tell you, but Turkey is not a member of the EU in good standing, or at all, and hopefully never will be.
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The Turks are Muslims and they only use them against their own people.
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Turkey must have been a signatory to the Stambul convention, though, even if it never joined the EU. For clarification, here is the paragraph from the piece I reviewed:
Несомненно, уголовное наказание за эти вещи выглядит само собой разумеющимся. Однако даже в ЕС есть страны, которые саботируют ратификацию Стамбульской конвенции. А Турция, которая первой ее подписала и ратифицировала, позднее изменила решение и вышла из конвенции. То же самое готовится сделать Польша.
TRANSLATION:
No doubt there are criminal punishments for these things [e.g., rape, domestic violence, etc.], that goes without saying. However, even in the EU there are nations which are sabotaging the ratification of the Stambul Convention. And Turkey, which was the first country to sign and ratify it, later changed its mind and pulled out of the convention. Poland is planning to do the same thing.
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The Ukrainians forget the racist history of white Europe with billions of deaths in just half a millennium with the conquests and black slavery, but apparently they were born for servitude and since Russia does not grant it, they look for their masters in the west. On the other hand they forget that Nazism is the highest stage of white racism and they as Slavs are out of the game.
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Europhiles always conveniently forget about the colonizations and slave trade; or insist that was just some excess from the distant past, not relevant to today.
It’s still relevant, though, because this is the way Western Europe accumulated a lot of the capital it still enjoys today. Why else would a tiny nation like the Netherlands be one of the wealthiest countries around today? For sure, the people there work hard, but that isn’t the whole reason, they accumulated a lot of their wealth from their African colonies.
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Actually the wealth of the Netherlands primarily came from Indonesia, then known as the Dutch East Indies.
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Good point! I was probably thinking of Belgium. Different colonies, same deal. Get rich by stealing somebody else’s stuff.
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with these lists of 10 or more genders…you are so ill-informed:
The term gender identity means how a person identifies themselves concerning their gender. It may be regardless of their anatomy or genetics. Thus, a person may identify themselves as male, female, none, both, or some other category independent of their genitals.
The idea is to make everyone feel comfortable in their skin irrespective of what gender they were assigned at birth.
72 other genders
https://www.medicinenet.com/what_are_the_72_other_genders/article.htm
Gender is a useless concept, it is nothing but an expression what someone feels about themselves at any given moment. It is just meaningless mindfuckery, subjectivism gone wild.
I define myself as a Habs gender: Hate any bullshit gender.
I stick with sex, and there are to my knowledge two basic ones, and if one looks into the karotypes that still permit a “normal” lifespan:
“The Six Most Common Karyotypes
The six biological karyotype sexes that do not result in death to the fetus are:
X – Roughly 1 in 2,000 to 1 in 5,000 people (Turner’s )
XX – Most common form of female
XXY – Roughly 1 in 500 to 1 in 1,000 people (Klinefelter)
XY – Most common form of male
XYY – Roughly 1 out of 1,000 people
XXXY – Roughly 1 in 18,000 to 1 in 50,000 births”
https://www.joshuakennon.com/the-six-common-biological-sexes-in-humans/
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72 human genders? oh my goodness! I am learning a lot about biology nowadays. It was colliemum who recently informed me that all snakes are females.
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Urgent update:
The number of genders has increased:
“Britain’s state-broadcaster BBC hired “trans and nonbinary inclusion” consultants to tell its staff that there are more than 150 genders and instruct them to police each other’s use of gender pronouns, the Telegraph reported on Saturday. ”
https://www.rt.com/news/557874-bbc-transgender-pronoun-training/
The BBC missed somehow that April fools day is long gone – or they are way early.
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The whole point of language evolution is to simplify an international lingua, not make it ever more complicated to learn, jeez!
Instead of forcing people to learn 150 pronouns, did it ever occur to these so-called “philologists” that they could eliminate gender pronouns altogether in English? Just call everybody IT. Including dogs and cats. I am told (I don’t know if it’s true) that Chinese for example, does not use gender pronouns. If tis true, that was a wise and prescient move on the part of the Chinese people, from ancient times.
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Because I’m a political animal and don’t like to just sit back and grizzle (Aussie slang for “complain”) about how events are going, I volunteer with the Green Party around election times, doing stuff like door-knocking, data entry and handing out “how-to-vote” cards at polling places. When the Greenies get together at the campaign HQ, they have an ice-breaker for group members to introduce themselves. Part of it is “What are your preferred pronouns?” That’s new; didn’t happen in past years.
I’m a non-conformist even amongst the alternative politics set. So I always say something along the lines of “my preferred pronouns are ‘Excellency’ and ‘The Majestic One’ but nobody ever uses the words that I choose.” (I deploy different ones on each occasion because who wants to say the same rubbish every time?) I announce this with an ironic but slightly sarcastic tone of voice. It usually gets a laugh and I’ve never been challenged for “taking the Mick” (a somewhat anti-Irish phrase based on the stereotype of Irishmen being witty jokers. If one wants to be impolite, the phrase is “taking the piss.”) It’s a way of showing that I do not take seriously their “pronounically correct” word games.
Mind you, I try to be politically correct, which is another way of saying “be polite to people and respect their differences.” One has to be when working amongst the mentally ill. I think this pronoun and 150-gender hoo-hah is a fad that will fade in less than a decade, especially as more important issues come to the forefront such as “it’s so hot that birds are falling dead out of the sky” and “where can I find food? I’m so hungry…” When one’s survival is at stake, word games are not so crucial any more.
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Nice. I think humor is the best way to address these issues. The silliness will eventually go away. But hopefully people will pull a least one useful kernel from this fad, namely the idea that other people should be treated with respect and basic politeness.
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What I find rather repugnant in this discussion, especially when it comes to children and sex changes is the fact that those severe interventions seem to be done with just no actual counseling matching this severity. ~
In olden times, maybe ten or so years ago, maybe a few more, when there was a case of gender dysphoria, there actually were people to help to find the causes of this unease, was it actually something based on biology (see the previous post) or something based on a psychological problem.
In any case, there was some investigation as to why and how to achieve a match of the feeling with the biological reality.
Now we permit the opposite: to match the biology to the feeling. To have the objective reality match the subjective feelings.
The logical consequence of that: I feel like a chicken, but have problems laying eggs. So let’s change that.
Or to be a closer to the human, nonavian condition: I feel like the famous Napoleon in the (whispers: loony bin) ward, so in order to match the objective reality to my subjective state, the medical profession and everyone else needed in such an enterprise has to help me create my little empire, let’s say, I take France, because of history.
Please someone tell me if I am nuts or those who think it is a good idea to match the objective to the subjective, with all intended and unintended consequences.
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You’re nuts!
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Thanks for your help. I always knew I was Napoleon. Now I just have to convince the Macron to drop his pretensions of being president. If he behaves, I will hire him to clean the palace…
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I am liberal/conservative in the sense that I believe that every person has an OBLIGATION to contribute positively to their society, no parasites, if you won’t contribute, you don’t/won’t have the freedom of those who do. Non-contributors can [and should] be isolated into areas that are of low value, they may gain their freedom when they can demonstrated that they have learned to be a functioning member of society.
I am liberal/conservative in the sense that I believe that every person who fulfills their OBLIGATION to contribute positively to their society is entitled to personal freedom AND public accommodation[1]. But, their personal freedom is not to be confused with imperial freedom, their freedom is premised on that it is not intended to be disruptive to society. Whatever sex and/or gender attire, don’t be a pain in the ass, live up to community standards of decency, don’t demand that people like you, if you want to be treated as the opposite sex, fine, do ALL the things necessary to gain that respect [see opening paragraph]. Because the cost is so high in many cases, a non-dischargable loan, similarly structured to a student loan, should be possible. To the best of my knowledge, in conservative Iran, this is done at state expense, however, I am not that liberal.
If obligations [see opening paragraph] are fulfilled and your behavior is accordance with community standards for decency then you have rights to rental, hotels, jobs, police protection and lunch counters. This was outlined in the SC Ruling of summer 2020, where the 1963 Civil Rights Bills specific wording, while probably not intended to gender issues, did in fact do so. As Trump said at the time, “I’m surprised…but the court has ruled on the matter”. Now for you CNN watchers, if Trump’s response doesn’t conjure up images of Hitler…I don’t know what will.
PS1 – I say this as person who knew a Vietnam era B-52 pilot who transitioned later in life, well respected before…and after. Contribute, live a decent life and you will get respect, it may come grudgingly but, it will come.
PS2 – The jackasses who declare themselves a woman, take hormones for 6-months and then self-indulgently eff-up Title IX sports have made it much harder for decent people like [mentioned in PS1]. Exhibition, being an exhibitionist is NOT private behavior and not entitled to the same accommodation/protection that people who have gender issues but, live within community decency standards should enjoy.
There, I pissed everybody off by trying to be fair.
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Actually I think what you said here is helping me to sort out some of my feelings on the matter, fwiw from a random stranger on the internet 🙂
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That’s nice! It’s great when people communicate honestly and without B.S. Even if people don’t agree with each other, sometimes a synthesis of ideas can be achieved. Especially when it’s intelligent people who actually listen to each other’s opinions and thoughts. This is why I value my readers so much, you guys are obviously so much more intelligent than the rubes out there who just watch CNN and MSNBC!
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on the “stambul”: it doesn’t hurt to get it in writing from a (former) country that’s well known for sex tourism, trafficking and kiddie porn. ironically, so is turkey (trafficking at least).
on “woke”: just classic corporate/blob divide and conquer nonsense spewed out by academics like judith butler and “x” kendi who just throw their thesaurus at the wall and see what sticks. it’s when marginal groups stop asking for rights and start expecting privileges. for example, a guy in a dress who calls himself “she” has the right to be left alone as long as he leaves others alone. what the TRAs want, however, is the (ironically usually white male) privilege of playing women’s sports and using their restrooms.
it’s also capitalism. when gay people got most of the rights and respect they’d been after for several decades (centuries?) it turned the gaycentric NGOs into solutions with no problems. they needed that sweet “social justice” cash so they started focusing on a minority within a minority. oddly, with all the gender critical stuff i’ve read very few people notice how COMPLETELY their tactics and rhetoric matches that of “israel’s” supporters and zealots. makes sense: israel “identifies as” a country.
in any case, the objections to homosexuality in russia and the other “slavic” areas comes from their orthodox christianity and ingrained prejudices. neither one carries any weight we me personally as most of the repugnant, horrible “people” i’ve encountered in life are “het” and many are ostensibly christian (while living their lives as a depraved materialist caligula compared to most of the world). i live in the dumb hick part of canadia and if these uber-straight and “christian” (and fat and inbred) people are the bulwark of the “righteous civilized world” then that world deserves a little disruption. there’s very little daylight between a guy in a dress who believes he’s a “woman” and a villager in the donbass who believes in “satan”.
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Excellent rant! But “dumb hick part of Canada” – really? I didn’t even know that Canada had dumb hick places. Well, to be honest, the only part of Canada I ever been to was Montreal, and the people there seemed very sleek and well-dressed.
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There are areas in Canada that are quite different. I would not call the inhabitants or members of the groups living there them “dumb hick”. They adhere to their beliefs and I had many professionally and private contacts with them in BC.
We have the Doukhobors from Russia, living mainly in British Columbia, we have areas in North East BC that are populated by Hutterites and nondenominational communes, and of course Mennonites of all kinds, we have the Bible Belt in Alberta around Lethbridge, there are Amish in Sasketchewan and Manitoba.
Most of those groups or communes I had contact with, and actual befriended some of its members especially from the nondenominational groups, the individuals were very open and did not try to approach one as you being the outsider.
In Canada, religious talk is something that you do in the privacy of your house, and different from the USA do not flaunt. You do not in casual conversations, without knowing the person you are talking to, mention your religion or ask what religious beliefs he or she adheres to.
I also, when working as a salesman for the last 8 years of my professional life, when the topic came up, openly could declare that I was an atheist, which sometimes when time permitted during a coffee break, led to a discussion.
As a specialist salesman for water supply, waste water disposal and heating systems, very often was directly involved in the design of systems for commercial or industrial applications, was invited by an extremely intelligent young Hutterite, a leader of the community in waiting, if I would join the community, because of my expertise with those systems, in how to operate, maintain and repair them.
I pointed out that I was an atheist, so I rather doubted I would fit in, but he just answered that was nothing to worry about.
Knowing a bit about the inner workings, having been guest in many other such
groups, I actually was tempted – complete social security, housing for free, some pocket money, ob security in a system that had been working for a few hundred years..and following a what could be called Christian socialist path.
In Canada, from those of the religious bend to farmers living off-grid in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, to the guide outfitters in the Rockies proper, to members of various religions, I have few encountered I would call hicks.
They adhere to their believes, but few are so intolerant to shun those who are of different opinions or try to convert you – aside from the usual suspects, but those are especially offspring of US groups, like the Witnesses or the Mormons.
Religious fervor that seems to need to exhibit itself nakedly and unashamed seems to be a US specialty, directly connected to the national belief in a historical mission and exceptionalism in almost all areas.
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That’s very interesting. I had no idea there were so many religious groups in Canada. I reckon it was a kind of haven for lots of different people to escape to. For example, I read that a lot of American slaves escaped to Canada, but I don’t get the impression they have a large African-American population there. When I was in Montreal that one time (it was just a tourist weekend) I saw a few black people, and they were all French-speaking. But I have no idea if they were the descendants of American slaves, or more recent immigrants, maybe from some French-speaking African nations (?) No idea.
I remember there was one rather attractive young black woman who served me in a coffee shop in downtown Montreal. She was quite rude to me, alas! Not trusting my French (I can read it fluently, but can’t speak a word), I addressed her in English, at which she glared at me with complete contempt and refused to communicate in English. Ouch! Everybody else I encountered there was cool about English. The moment you said, “good morning” they would understand you are anglophone and quickly switch over. I figured it was better, in general, to be unpopular anglophone, even with my horrible American accent, than try to struggle and make a fool of myself in French.
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I lived in Vancouver for four years as part of my exile’s journey, so I tried to learn as much about Canada as a furriner could. The prairie provinces and rural areas of the hipper ones all have rustic residents; same as any country. I met more than a few in the hospital where I worked. Not “au courant” like city hipsters, but not as arrogant about their non-adherence to “the latest thing” as American country folks. That was my perception, at least, which is flavoured by my anti-Americanism. Then there is the whole First Nations native vibe to the Canadian demographic, which is a whole ‘nuther aspect compared to our materialistic Anglo way of looking at the world. I’d call the country folk “salt of the Earth” — down here, the Aussie slang for the farmer mentality is “ocker.” Not quite meaning “redneck,” and definitely not “bogan,” which is the word for obnoxious backwoods (and also urban) jerkoffs.
Montreal is nicer about visitors who are not proficient in French, BTW. I was last there in 2013 and was treated nicely. I speak just enough French to do it badly. The key to getting over with Francophones is to initiate a conversation en Francais. Their sense of Gallic superiority will lead them to reply to you in English, proving that they are smarter in YOUR language than you are in THEIRS. Whether in Quebec or la vrai France, it’s a clever linguistic judo move to make them do wha you want.
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That’s a good tip about dealing with Francophones. I’ll remember it if I return for a visit. I never had a chance to see Quebec City yet, it’s on my bucket list. Also Toronto, which as I understand is Anglophone.
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ob….is superfluous, no idea who put that in there…
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The Lgbt vs Arestovych debate is the evidence of the vibrant pluralism of the advanced Ukrainian democracy, though I’m not sure AUF soldiers in the Lysichansk cauldron will get really excited about it.
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On the contrary, it’s the talk of the trenches!
🙂
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