Dear Readers:
One of my esteemed commenters, AustralianLady, was reminiscing about beloved trips to Havana, Cuba; and mentioned the Island of Freedom’s tolerant attitude towards homosexuals. I should add to that, Cuba legalized same-sex marriage on 27 September 2022 after a majority of voters approved the legalization of same-sex marriage in a referendum two days prior. All of this goes to show that even a Communist government can adopt a live-and-let-live attitude when it comes to personal freedoms and individual choices. It is also a refutation of the notion that only NATO countries stick up for gays, which is one of the propaganda narratives of NATO itself. And, in general, proof that such private matters never need to be geo-politicized.
Except in Ukraine, that goes without saying. Where the two choices offered to the citizens are: NATO tolerance vs NATO intolerance! Put another way, NAFO or NAZI? Those are your choices!
A Not Real March
This past weekend (Sunday, June 16), Kiev experienced its first Gay Pride March (well, at least since the start of the Russian invasion, if not first ever). The editors of the Ukrainian newspaper STRANA recounted what happened. The piece also includes a few embedded short video clips.
The event took place near the Teatralnaya Metro Station. The organizers of the event reported that they had been given permission to march for only 100 meters.
The subway exit was guarded by numerous police. All of the participants had to pass through metal detectors. The procession was headed by LGBT from the military. As one can see from the photos, the marchers carried patriotic slogans such as Arm Ukraine Now!
The police were super-cautious: They formed a circular human shield around the gay NAFO demonstrators and shut off the entire Chikalenko Street, where the march took place.
The entire event was over within 30 minutes. Then marchers, like Schiller’s Moor, quickly dispersed back into the subway, hiding their LGBT symbolica as per the orders of their organizers, so as not to get attacked in the underground.
When all is said and done, these marchers could not have walked more than 20 meters total. The march of toddlers.
Nazis Attack
The LGBT marchers were smart to conduct their parade like an in-and-out hit-and-run type operation. However odious these NATO/NAFO creeps might seem to the pro-Russian crowd, an even more odious group of people had set out to do them some harm:
Namely, a group of ultra-right Nationalists had gathered on the Kreshchatik with the intention of breaking up the gay march and beating up its participants.
One of the embedded videos shows how the Neo-Nazi counter-protesters managed to break through the police lines and go storming down the street, singing their Nazi hymns and eager to shed blood.
Fortunately, by the time that happened, the gay marchers had already dispersed and were nowhere to be found. And thus violence was avoided.
As to whether this whole sordid affair (or maybe one could call it NAFO kabuki theater) was a success or a failure, obviously depends on one’s point of view. The LGBT marchers carried EU and NATO banners, along with the forementioned slogans demanding more military assistance from NATO. So, clearly these people are on the NATO/NAFO payroll. The intention, most likely, was to prove to the Western public that Ukrainian is a country that adheres to all the Western values, including deification of homosexuals.
On the other hand, Ukrainian Nationalists don’t believe in gay rights any more than Russian Nationalists do, and their attempt to break up the march sends a certain signal of its own. Namely, that they love NATO, but only up to a certain point, but they don’t buy into the woke stuff.
Will any of this affect NATO decision-making, when it comes to supplying Ukraine with more weapons or continuing the war against Russia? Highly dubious…
Awful Avalanche 
I still do not understand why displaying your sexual prefernces, caused by genetics
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rudely interrupted but continuing..
or environmental influences – the Spartan culture and their male’s attitude towards women and sexuality, which was strongly formed by the military environment they spent much of their youth and adulthood, in speak for also acquired/learned sexual preference – is a necessary sign of a democratic society.
I had, and still have the conviction, so well expressed by the former Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Trudeau, that “what happens in the bedrooms of the Nation is a matter between consenting adults” and do not see a need nor the have the desire to flaunt in public my sexual preferences, and cannot understand those who feel that waving your sexual organs during various parades is a necessary to defend your right to your own form of sexuality.
I simply do not care who and how you want to fuck, as long as it is a consensual act and in private. I do care that the right to privacy is maintained and that no legal restrictions are applied to any consensual acts, consensual meaning excluding the abuse of a position of power to elicit sexual favors of any kind.
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Peter, I agree with you 100%, I think people have the right to do whatever they do in private with other consenting adults, without the government interfering. At the same time, I never understood this exhibitionist need to display and march in public. And sometimes it gets quite vulgar, and I don’t like vulgarity either. But that’s just me.
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Gay rights does seem to be a rent a march group – willing to support the maddest ideas.
There have been gay rights marches before pre-SMO – I remember someone on Social media trying to explain to me that Ukraine was a woke place because the Police protected the Gay Rights marchers. He didn’t realise that the Nazis were far more powerful than the Police in Kiev.
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Yup. NATO is trying to juggle these 2 groups of mutually hostile people, both of which groups (NAFO & Nazis) they need for their purposes. Also, a lot of people who go to march in these gay parades and pride parades, are actually heterosexual. I know that for a fact. So, they are just doing it for political reasons, they don’t actually have a dog in the fight.
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Dovetailing with much of what Mr Moritz said.
The US, for all it’s faults has, under it’s Constitution, a system of checks and balances that can, when used correctly, stop the US President [yes, most people recognize that it’s a team of Hillary/Cheney/Obama operatives] from using the presidency as a dictatorial office.
“United States District Judge Reeves described Biden’s new regulations as “arbitrary in the truest sense of the word.”
Story from ZeroHedge news-feed: https://amgreatness.com/2024/06/18/federal-judge-blocks-bidens-rewrite-of-title-ix/
Let me be clear, I support civil rights for all people who shoulder their share of society’s burdens.
The Supreme Court’s Ruling of June of 2020 said that the wording of the 1964 Civil Right Bill, as written, included all sexual/gender minorities. So, that should have settled the matter once and for all. But oh no, Democratic “activists” [and I personally know some] needed to “agitate” for transgenders in order to keep sexual/gender minorities down on the Democratic plantation…so they started effing with the Title IX entitlements for women’s sports and coercing women to share locker-rooms with men who simply identified as “female”. These policies were promulgated cynically, for purely political considerations and they make no sense whatsoever.
These policies don’t represent what the majority of US citizens believe, nor, from my personal life experience, do they, in any way, represent the desires of the majority transgender people. Indeed, these idiotic policies have increased hatred towards transgenders and…I believe that was the plan all along, I don’t believe that’s an accidental outcome. Keep those folks down on the farm. The freaks the media focuses on are exhibitionists, not transgenders. The overwhelming number of legitimate transgenders would like nothing so much as to blend in with the rest of society and they go to great trouble/expense to try to do so.
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Exactly so. Most real transgenders are usually very shy and seek the invisibility of private life. The CIA seeks out and promotes the flamboyant/ exhibitionist trannies, just like they seek out freaks in the art world. The purpose being to confuse the public to the point where they will believe 2+2=5, just like in Orwell!
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”Ukrainian Nationalists don’t believe in gay rights any more than Russian Nationalists do, and their attempt to break up the march sends a certain signal of its own.“
It also sends a signal that’s intended to keep up the screeches of support for the _elensky griftclique. I get a strong sense of that from the pro-Ukie websites I read to see what the other side is thinking. Every time gays get bashed in Ukraine, that makes the segment of the Westie population whose main political motivation is based on sexual orientation, more fervent in it fandom for the Ukes. Ditto with news items about Russia anathemising gays.
“Putin hates gays, so we hate Putin! Putin hates Ukraine, so by the transitive property of ‘we love whatever is hated by the person we hate most’, then we love Ukraine. After all, they allow gay rights marches there, which Putin would never permit. Therefore, if you support gay rights, you must support the current Ukrainian government.”
Most people are not “poly-cause” with their politics. They will have one major issue that’s most important to them. With something as deep-rooted in an individual’s existence as sexual identity is, that tends to be the over-arching lens through which they form their political perception. So when they think about Russia and Ukraine, they’re predisposed to despise Russia because gays get bashed there. They’ve seen it on the news! And they’ve seen that Ukraine has gay parades. They haven’t seen “the rest of the story” (as Paul Harvey would say, but since most people alive today did not listen to his radio broadcasts in the 1970s and 80s, that phrase is meaningless. Too bad, because Harvey had a pleasant voice, and his short-but-corny segments always had a nice O. Henry surprise ending to them.) The propagandamedia only tells half of the story, based on whatever viewpoint they want to push. So they’ll never reveal that the march — really more like a flash mob — only walked for less than one city block before they had to scuttle into the subway while concealing their identity.
(Actually, most people are not political at all. In real life, I hang out with folks who are politically switched-on and like discussing current events. But there are other social groups such as my restaurant and environmental friends where politics is never discussed. It’s as irrelevant to their sense of what’s worth talking about as the European soccer championships are to you. I’ll generally toss a political bone into the conversation once or twice, to see if anyone wants to chew the fat off it. That’s tolerated, because I’m known as a wild-eyed fanatic. If nobody bites, which is how it usually plays out, then I drop it, because no one enjoys a zealot who can’t read social cues. I try to spark interesting chatter amongst the people I know, not uncomfortable tediousness.)
Manufacturing consent, as Chomsky termed it, still matters in societies. (For all his faults, like your disagreement with his linguistic theories and his recent Borgsimiliation with Empire propaganda, he usedta say some important stuff about challenging power. Chomsky’s about to die any day now in Brazil, but he had a good run in life.) If the majority of a population resists some action, there will be friction and the desired action won’t happen smoothly, no matter how oppressive the Police State is. If a power system can get a chunk of the populace to say “right on!” about a policy, or even just “meh,” that’s better than them shouting “fuck that!” Caitlin Johnstone is another writer who’s always going on about how important Narrative Management is to the Empire Controllers. She has remained righteous instead of selling out like Chomsky. It probably helps that she’s middle-aged instead of antiquated like Chompers. When your physical body gets old and weak, it often takes the fight right out of your mind.
So by highlighting “Putin hates gays but Ukraine lets them parade!” it manufactures consent amongst a portion of the American public. Maybe 10% of it, including an important part, the cadres who work for politically connected organisations. Because gay people are disproportionately represented amongst Congriftsional staffs and office-level work at corporations. Plus media and entertainment organisations. The message also resonates with people who are opinion leaders on what passes for the Left in Amerika. When I squizz that Balloon Juice Demo-fellating site, or similar others where I occasionally, the “Putin hates…” bit is reflected there. And they’re telling lots of NON-gay readers what to think.
The “flash-march” might have been a flop in Kiev. But I reckon it was not intended to influence people in Ukronazistan. The target was the rest of the world. The lefty-sympathetic part, that is. The homophobic Right will be contemptuous of the “march” but they would be considered a lost cause by that rally’s backers. One does not need to persuade 100% of a population to manufacture the necessary level of consent. All it takes is having enough to say “look — people like what we’re doing!”
I had more thoughts about the slick professionalism of these NGOs that did it, such as the printed banner begging for weapons. I compare that to the hand-made signs and big cloth banners I see at the weekly Gaza rallies here. There’s money behind the gayKiev effort, whereas the ones here are homegrown and organic. But enough fulminating! This is too long already.
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I had a hard time getting through all of your post [clearly a lack of acumen on my part] but, this caught my eye:
“The “flash-march” might have been a flop in Kiev but I reckon, it was not intended to influence people in [Ukrainia]. The target was the rest of the world..one does not need to persuade 100% of a population to manufacture the necessary level of consent”
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Excellent comment, Bukko. And it makes total sense as to the ultimate purpose within the “manufacturing consent” paradigm. Namely, manufacturing consent within the West to continue to see the Ukrainians as the good guys. “Oh yes, we must send these good people more tanks, just like they asked us!” exclaims the American philistine. “Because they are gay, and CNN tells us that all gays are the good guys.”
Russia, by the way (this is just my opinion) shot itself in the foot by banning homosexuality and being all fire and brimstone, when they could have just been tolerant, like Cuba. It’s because of religion, of course, the alliance of Orthodox Church and State. If they followed my advice (which they won’t), then the Russian government would allow “loyal, patriotic”, anti-NATO gays to be acceptable within society. Call it the “Tchaikovsky Brigade” !
Yes, I think Chompers will be remembered for that insight about the manufacturing of consent for terrible things, he made his contribution to American politics with that.
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Rightly or wrongly, Russia views the international homosexual movement as being foreign, specifically malign toward Russia (that is, aligned with NATO), and explicitly counter to Orthodoxy. And Russia has veered strongly back into the arms of Orthodoxy as a cultural counter, in large part as a counter to the West’s tidal wave of nihilism. This defensive hardening of the Russian cultural monolith CANNOT be overstated–it is a core identity pillar for the future of Russia.
What this means, however, is that while ejecting “political homosexuality”, if you will, individual preferences of the bedroom between consenting adults are swept up in the dragnet. In practice, such activities and how the State views them as offenses will only come to prosecution if the person(s) involved are otherwise entangled in anti-State activities, or make themselves quite odious in other prominent ways (such as the Moscow orgy some months back).
More or less along the lines of Beria’s “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime”.
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Marshal Zhukov: “I come to seize Beria, not to praise him!”
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On this topic I’m – as on the Trump vs Bidet “choice” – on Team Mercutio.
You know what I mean?
Having said that, since of the “protestors” held banners claiming that the LGBTACDEFHIJKMNOPQRSUVWXYZ movement was a “Kremlin plot”. That is,
“Putin made your son gay!”
To hell with the lot of them.
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Mercutio was gay! You don’t believe me? Why else would he swagger around in tights and a cape.
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Mercutio, Antonio, Tybalt…Shakespeare is crawling with closet queens.
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Even Juliet was a transvestite.
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