Dear Readers:
Yesterday we read about Russian warriors resting in a special underground R&R bunker. Their leisure time apparently consists mostly of eating, sleeping, and reading books.
Today we learn about some less-wholesome pursuits of typical Ukrainian soldiers. This isn’t Russian propaganda. This is from the Ukrainian newspaper STRANA. Now, it has to be said that gambling has forever been the curse of every army. Idle soldiers always have a pack of cards handy. The Russian poet Pushkin knew that well, as he described army life in several of his stories.
Nowadays of course people mostly play games online, and can play and gamble right on their Smartphones. The Ukrainian soldiers are no exception. The article describes the resulting “igro-mania” (from Russian “igra” – “to play”) as a contagion within the Ukrainian armed forces.
The article cites a Ukrainian soldier named Pavel Petrichenko, an air-reconnaissance scout from the 59th Brigade. In his social media he described the “epidemic” of online gambling. People’s Deputy Alexei Goncharenko confirms the problem: “Nine out of ten soldiers on the front lines have a problem with the casino, and betting.
“Money is being lost. And then they gamble on credit. And so it goes. This problem is directly destroying the morale of the soldiers. And it also creates problems for later on. Let’s say a man spent a year or two at the front. He earned, let’s say, from 60 to 150 thousand hryvna. Later, instead of being able to buy a home, invest, or just put his money away — he has already lost it all. Later, he will return to civilian life as a pauper. With a heightened sense of self-righteousness. No understanding of civilian society. And with no money in his pocket. He becomes a perfect target of recruitment for the criminal world.”
STRANA did a poll of online soldiers and discovered that the gambling problem in the army is very real, and not at all hyped. An officer of the Air Defense forces:
“Almost everyone in my unit is gambling. Regular soldiers, sergeants, officers — everyone. And they are spending not just their own money, but other people’s money as well, with the promise of some future jackpot. They borrow money, and then of course they lose that borrowed money as well, the debts are never paid, this creates conflict within the unit, from quarrels all the way up to fistfights. In my company, almost half the men are compulsive gamblers, they are chronically in debt, but continue to play. It got to the point where their wives are calling me, frantic that their husbands have not been paid their salaries. I tell the wives: They are being paid. Don’t talk to me, talk to your husband, the one who is routinely gambling away all your household money. Believe me, I am trying to struggle against this curse. I even asked the chaplain to have a talk with the gamblers. But it didn’t help, the chaplain just shrugged and gave up. It got to the point where I regularly confiscate the men’s phones and wipe the gambling sites off them. But this doesn’t help either, as soon as I hand them their phone back, within half an hour they are busy doing online gambling again.”
Next: What is the attraction of the casino among soldiers?
[to be continued]
Awful Avalanche 
Well, it’s pretty obvious the Ukrainian soldiers have given up. That’s what this widespread gambling means. Sure, they’ll defend themselves against direct RF attacks, but their hearts aren’t in it at all. They don’t even care about family at home, because they know the country is essentially without electricity, so it’s every human for theirself. Soldiers have reached the point where the money they gamble isn’t real to them.
Given the attitude of neoconnery from Washington, the murderous behaviour of Israel to Palestinians and Iranians and aidworkers, the last ditch drone strikes out of Ukraine to kill Russians, the abject stupidity of idiots like Macron, I don’t see the world lasting long. Does anyone else? Truthfully?
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Well, we humans have been in some tough pickles before, but somehow we managed to survive. So, maybe we will survive this as well. But I am not betting on it. [get it?]
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On a warm summer’s evenin’ on a train bound for nowhere [Vladimir met Volodomyr]
He said, “If you’re gonna play the game, boy, you gotta learn to play it right”
You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away and know when to run
Every gambler knows that the secret to survivin’
Is knowin’ what to throw away and knowing what to keep
‘Cause every hand’s a winner and every hand’s a loser
And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep
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And, most importantly, as Vladimir scolded:
You never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table.
There’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealin’s done.
To which Voldemar replied:
I never count my money, ’cause I got too much to count it!.
It’s just sittin’ in the Cyprus banks and weighin’ half a ton!
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The fate of Volodomyr the Gambler has already been foretold:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkY48HUEQE8&t=6675s]
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It’s a rather apt analogy! Doktor Mabuse, like our Voldemar, is a theatrical showman, albeit not a standup comedian. And the good Doktor is able to hypnotize masses of people to see exactly what he wants them to see, and to do exactly what he wants them to do; all the while running an ever-shrinking criminal gang with a getaway car always handy…
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That’s a good observation.
A difference is that Zelensky is no mastermind like Dr. Mabuse. And there are no masterminds behind him either.
For a long time we all asked whether the West’s leaders had a cunning plan behind their actions or if they were plain stupid. We’ve got the answer. There’s no plan, they’re just as ignorant as they seem. And they certainly have no plan B now that everything comes crashing down.
It’s time to hit those Mormon web sites for prepping tips.
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Boredom. Most soldiers at the front spend countless hours waiting for something meaningful to do, and simultaneously dreading that outcome because death or maiming injury is on the menu of probably options. So fatalism comes to dominate the psychology of these men and gambling has proven to be an effective salve against this psychosis. They do not expect to survive, so gambling debt has no meaning. Gambling is also a metaphor for how men die in battle. A few winners and a whole lotta losers. And death is often a matter of chance when artillery is a daily occurrence.
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But if Soldier A owes Soldier B a certain amount, and wrote out an IOU, then say A dies but B survives and returns home. What is there to stop B from showing up at the home of Soldier A’s widow and demanding the payment? It could be legally enforceable.
Well, these are the things I worry about…. I mean, I worry about the widows and orphans, and what are they supposed to do now?
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Any soldier that would show up at the doorstep of a dead comrade’s widow and demand payment of a debt is the scum of the Earth and deserves any fate that the widow’s neighbors decide to mete out on the spot. No real man does that.
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Well, it was just a hypothetical scenario… I really don’t trust gamblers at all. Of all the vices known to man, I think that one is the worst. I’ll take an alcoholic or drug addict any day, over a gambler!
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More vignettes from hell.
Alexander Mercouris mentioned the Ukrainian army gambling epidemic about a week ago and I immediately thought cards and dice. But no, it’s online gambling. I’ve never been attracted to the gambling vice but online means just you and your phone? So not even the huddled companionship of brother gamblers? This war’s metaphors just get bleaker and bleaker.
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They’re willing to gamble with their lives, so why not with imaginary money (i.e. credit)? The ones who weren’t risk-takers got the hell outta Dodge before the conscription gangs grabbed them (or they weren’t eager to die defending a corrupt Nazi regime and skedaddled even before the involuntary draft boards became a thing.) As for the indebted ones, do you think that any of them have a last thought, before their lights go out, that “at least I’m not going to have to pay that debt off…” Nah, that dying thought is more likely to be “AAAAAH — it hurts!”
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But, like I said before, don’t debts carry over to the survivors?
My brother told me about a legal case he heard about, where a man died leaving a somewhat large debt to a credit card company. And wouldn’t you know it, that company started hounding the man’s widow, ex-wife, children, even distant relatives. Threatening them with their own FICO scores and so on, if they didn’t pay up.
This went on for years before the credit card company finally gave up and wrote it off (presumably). That’s the sort of thing I would worry about, and one of the reasons why I never leave a debt on a credit card. Because the debt is never actually expunged if you die. I mean, I have a credit card, you have to nowadays, and I use it as a convenience, but I always pay off in full every month, not leaving any debt or interest to pay.
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Because this is an aging post and a quiet thread (where my rambling is not likely to annoy anyone seeking intelligent discourse) let me tell you another tale from my life, which is intended to amuse you:
There was a time circa 2004-5 when I was living in San Francisco where I got to annoy bill collectors on the telephone, for months at a time. Jeez was that fun, jerking the chains of those annoying fucks! It began when I got an odd call from someone who was asking “Is this ______ ______” using my first and last names. We had a land line so there was no way to see the incoming number. Back then, people would actually answer their phones when they rang. Nobody does that now, in part because of the crap I’m about to describe.
Something about the call set my spidey-senses tingling. I’ve mentioned before how I’m on the paranoid side of the awareness spectrum. I asked “who is this calling?” and the male voice on the other end was cagey about identifying. Kept saying “first I need to know if this is _____ _____.” I flashed on a time when I was working at a halfway house for psych patients who had been released from a large state mental hospital in Florida. We’d get repeat calls asking for a particular resident, but because of confidentiality rules, we couldn’t say whether or not that person lived at the place. I asked the resident about it, and he said it was bill collectors. Lots of people with mental illnesses get in financial hot water.
After that, I developed an awareness of what the rules are concerning debt collection, such as the hours when they’re allowed to call. No ringy-dingys at 3 a.m. for instance. You know how it is when something sparks your interest in a topic and you start filing away info about it when you come across it?
In S.F., I decided to play a game. I said “I might be _______ _____, I might not be. What are you gonna do about it?” I forget the specifics, but on that first call, I got them to confirm they were from a collection agency. I didn’t have any debts. The Xwife #2 and I were on good wages and aside from our mortgage, we assiduously avoided anything that would make us pay interest to banks. We even bought our cars for cash. So I knew they had the wrong ______ ______.
Only, THE CALLER didn’t know that! They had a name and a phone number, probably gleaned from trolling public records like the telephone directory. My name is not super-common, so when some bad-debt company connected it to a number, they thought they had a stone from which they could squeeze some blood. And they weren’t going to let loose! Time to turn the tables and harass the harassers!
I acted like a defiant debtor, never disclosing that I was not the man they sought, but never lying and saying “Yes, I am THAT ______ ________.” I’d be all snotty and say “Why should I pay off this debt you claim I owe? How are you going to make me?” That initial caller got frustrated after a bit of this and rang off. But more calls kept coming for months. I told X about my spoof, and she played along, always handing the phone off to me but never blowing the hoax by saying “You’re got the wrong guy.”
I wound up winkling a lot of information out of the debt collectors instead of vice versa. The person who they were after had a middle name starting with the same letter as mine, which explained why they zoned in on ______ S. ______. Their debt was for some university in Minnesota. I even got the collectors to give me the name of the debtor’s grandparents. That’s because of one of their threats.
Ya see, they’re not allowed to OVERTLY say “we’re going yo tell everyone you know that you’re a deadbeat.” But they can HINT that. One of the collector’s voices that I recognised (it was not always the same one) was a nasty woman. She said “what if we told your grandfather ________ about the trouble you’re in?” I said “you’re forbidden by law from doing that. Get stuffed.” (I would not use curse words. Going gutter is too easy.) My game was to keep them on the phone for as long as possible. I reckoned that any minute of their time that I was wasting was a minute they weren’t bothering someone else. Jamming the gears of the system!
They’d threaten to garnish my wages, and I’d say “you don’t even know where I work.” They intimated they would put a lien on our house, and I’d reply “just try it. You’ll be in for a nasty surprise” like I would be able to harm them somehow. In reality, the surprise they’d get if they took it that far was to learn I was the wrong ______ _______. Which would have cost the collectors some fees they’d be spending on lawyers to file the lien. Anything I could make those bastards lose money, even if it was just the wages they paid their callers to chase me, was a plus in my book.
This went on for months, until finally there was one caller who came across as a decent person. His vocal tone sounded African-American, so perhaps he had more sympathy for debtors. I forget now what he said that made me think he was a nice guy, so I copped to the truth. Told him my real full name, that they were barking up the wrong tree and that I had been rope-a-doping them for the gits and shiggles of it. He said OK, and that they would take me off their list.
Which stopped the calls. For a few months. Then they resumed, from a different debt company! You see, what collectors do when they can’t get any results from a certain cohort of names is they sell the info to a new agency. Usually it’s done for pennies on the dollar. Company 1 might have bought the rights to bad debts by paying the original loaner 25 cents for each dollar owed; then they on-sell the unretrievable amount for 10 cents on the dollar. So I had been churned onward, most likely as part of a large list of names.
I started to play the same game again, but that ended not long afterward when we left the U.S. Stuff like that, though, the hostility built into the system, added to my distaste for the States. I’m sure it’s bad in other countries too. And at least it wasn’t some Mafia group that was after the person whose name was close to mine. If there was a chance I coulda been knee-capped, I wouldn’t have played around.
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Thanks for that story, Bukko. You are a hero in my book. Anybody who has the patience (and the sheer chutzpah!) to play a collections agency like that, is doing an important service to society. Debt collectors must be among the worst people in the world. Well, maybe some individuals only take the job because they are desperate for a job, but me, I’d take the job cleaning the sewers before I would work for a collection agency!
And it shows something about American society. A society whose financial structure is based on debt, cannot be a healthy society. Quite the contrary.
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One more thing to mention about the “debt after death” dynamic, in case you weren’t aware of this (lots of people aren’t) — if an American is getting health care through Medicaid (aka “socialised medicine for the Poors”) the government is legally allowed to seize their home after they die. And any other assets they have. Except they’re not likely to own much of anything, because you have to prove you’re REALLY poor to get Medicaid.
The legal justification for this is that if Medicaid had to spend money to keep a poor person alive, that poor person is responsible for sharing some of the cost. If they don’t pay their part while they’re breathing, then it comes out of whatever’s left behind in their last will and testament. So before the surviving kids inherit their dead mom’s house, the .gov gets a cut. Often meaning a forced sale of the house to satisfy the guv’s demand for repayment; sometimes a lien that will cloud the house’s title. It can never be sold to anyone else without the .gov getting its bit. You might die, but your debt stays alive. It’s like a zombie!
I’m not saying this is necessarily wrong. The “government grabbing a person’s house to pay for the medical treatment that failed to keep them alive” angle is a surprise to many people, though. It’s a standard part of probate law that when an estate is settled, debts have to be paid. So don’t max out that credit card for a round-the-world cruise right after you get the terminal cancer diagnosis! Unless a.) you have nothing left for the credcardcos to snatch and/or b.) you hate your kids and like the thought of screwing them from beyond the grave.
I don’t know which debts take priority when a dead person’s estate is settled. Probably the government takes its chunk first, for stuff like unpaid taxes. The .gov sets the rules, so they’re going to make sure they win. Whose interests come next? That’s where the politics of death-debt would come into play. I’d bet that banks — which probably includes credit card debt — would get their share pretty high up on the repayment ladder. Before online gambling outfits! Each American state creates its own probate laws, so who knows?
The case your brother cited about debt collectors coming after a deceased person’s relatives — I wonder whether that was tied to some last will and testament dispute? When my sister died in 2017, my daughter and I technically were not supposed to dispose of any of her personal possessions until probate was finalised. No selling her car or the huge duallie pickup truck she used to haul her horse trailer with, for instance. Even her furniture was supposed to stay in her house. (Nobody would have wanted it because it was all covered with cat hair. She took in a lot of rescue cats) Being charitable here, the dead-deadbeat-chasing collectors might have had that in mind. More likely, the collectors were just pricks. Musta been a huge amount if they kept after it for years. No company is going to do that for a card that’s $750 in the red. I also wonder where and when it happened. Because debt-hounds were so horrible, there’s now a national law — i.e. applies all across Amerika — about what they’re allowed to do. But if the episode your bro mentioned was from long ago, or in another country, it could have been even worse there/then than it is in the U.S.
And one MORE “one more thing” because I wrote the above when I was offline, and I saw the last bit of your reply now about a financial structure based on debt — money IS debt. I won’t go into a long discourse about the basis of money, but one of these days I’ll drop a link to a short video — using cartoons, so it’s easy to watch! — titled “Money As Debt.” In simple, but not simplistic terms, it describes how money is created. When a bank loans somebody a million dollars for a mortgage, it’s not like it has a pile of $100 bills in its vault that it moves from one safe deposit box to another. It creates that money by “loaning it into existence.” The vid lays it out, and it’s not based on any Q-Anon mysticism. Just how the system works, but most people don’t delve into that. The vid was created by a Canadian guy named Paul Grignon, and I had the pleasure of meeting him at the Vancouver “Occupy Wall Street” protest in 2011. Shook his hand and told him how much I appreciated his work.
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Thus, Reality is even worse than we ever thought! This gruesome thought of debt haunting people beyond the grave, it’s like something from Edgar Allan Poe. Something like the ghost of Roderick Usher, because he burned down the old mansion when there was still a lien on it. With the skeleton of his sister buried in the walls, and now her skeleton also owes money to the scavenging creditors.
I could see some futuristic nightmare where our planet spirals into infinite debt and infinite liability that can never be quenched, not even when the Earth hurls itself into the Sun.
Of course, there is a very simple and obvious solution: When the World Government of the Workers and Peasants mandates a universal Jubilee every 50 years. Then all debts are expunged, and if a bunch of banks go crashing down, well, sucks to be them!
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