Category: The Current Situation
And last, but certainly not least, is a Happy Mother’s Day to my own mom, whom I haven’t seen in person since December 2019, but whom I’ll get to see soon!
Arnie posted a video of an intense, impressive, and impassioned speech to the Russian people and government. It cites his connection to Russia through his idol, Yury Petrovitch Vlasov, multiple world record-breaking weightlifter, his work on Red Heat — the first American film to shoot on location in Red Square (and hey, who doesn’t remember “COCAINUM!”?)…
…and he even cites the story of his father, Gustav Schwarzenegger, who was a Nazi Brownshirt and took part in the attack on Leningrad in WWII:
Now let me tell you: When my father arrived in Leningrad, he was all pumped up on the lies of his government. And when he left Leningrad, he was broken, physically and mentally.
He lived the rest of his life in pain. Pain from a broken back, pain from the shrapnel that always reminded him of those terrible years, and pain from the guilt that he felt.
He also commends the people in Russia who are protesting the war, commending them for their courage (remember, protesting the war can land you a 15-year jail sentence).
The video is subtitled in both Russian and English. It was originally posted on Twitter, but copies have been floating around in various places online, and it will probably become hot “samizdata” if it hasn’t already done so.
As long as we’re watching Arnie sending important political messages, let’s watch his message on the Capitol riot of January 6th, 2021:
Before you buy into yesterday’s statement by Eric Trump — the dumbest of Donald Trump’s sons (and he’s up against some stiff competition) — that Putin’s KGB training allowed him to see that Trump was a strong person…
Eric Trump: Putin was in with the KGB. He can read people and he could tell that Donald Trump was a very strong person pic.twitter.com/1BqhstcUMP
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 15, 2022
…consider for a moment these recent headlines of Trump’s inability to criticize Putin in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine:
- Rolling Stone — Trump Refuses to Condemn Putin Despite Sean Hannity Practically Begging Him To
- Washington Post — Sean Hannity’s remarkable, failed attempts to get Trump to call Putin ‘evil’
- The Guardian — Trump ‘admired’ Putin’s ability to ‘kill whoever’, says Stephanie Grisham
- Vanity Fair — Despite Hannity’s Best Efforts, Trump’s Mouth Is Incapable of Forming the Words “Vladimir Putin Is Evil”
- Politico — ‘I got along’: Trump avoids criticizing Putin
- The Atlantic — Congressional Republicans Have Found Their Red Line
- The Wall Street Journal — Putin’s Groupies Walk Back Their Praise
- New York Magazine — How Trump and Putin Have Been Allies Against Ukraine
- The Independent — Trump dodges opportunity call Putin ‘evil’ in Hannity interview
- CNN — Trump has been on Putin’s side in Ukraine’s long struggle against Russian aggression
- The Daily Beast — Even Hannity Can’t Get Trump to Admit Putin Is ‘Evil’
- Business Insider — Stephanie Grisham says Trump greatly admired Putin and ‘wanted to be able to kill whoever spoke out against him’
- Business Insider — Ex-Trump national security advisor John Bolton says ‘Putin Saw Trump doing a lot of his work for him,’ so he chose not to invade Ukraine
- MSNBC — Trump demurs when encouraged by an ally to criticize Putin
Eric Trump is right, but not in the way he thinks. Putin did read Trump correctly, but Putin’s assessment wasn’t that Trump was a string person, but quite manifestly the opposite. Putin knew he was dealing with someone who was half-man, half-marshmallow.
Just look at the differences in their body language at the 2018 summit in Helsinki, where he chose to listen to Putin over the FBI about Russian election interference:
Trump has said far worse things about allies than he has about dictators. He admires dictators, in that way that weak people admire brutality, in the hope that maybe one day, they’ll get to be the oppressor. That’s not strength at all.
Also worth reading: A whole lot of links on Trump, Putin, Russia, and Ukraine
In the video above, Irina Maniukhina, a professional pianist in Bila Tserkva, a town 80 km (50 miles) south of Kyiv, said goodbye to her home by playing her piano before fleeing from further attacks.
I can’t blame her — if it were me, I’d also play it one last time, too. Her playing is quite good, and she’s not playing easy pieces, either.
A bomb had landed about 10 meters (about 30 feet) from the house, which was still standing but strewn with debris. With the notable exception of one of its “G” keys, the piano seems undamaged and only a little scuffed.
Maniukhina started by playing the first few bars of Schubert’s Impromptu Op. 90 No. 2, followed by Chopin’s Etude Op. 25 No. 1.
(It should be noted that Chopin fled Poland shortly before the November Uprising, a rebellion against the Imperial Russia.)
Her daughter Karina recorded the video and shared it on TikTok, where she captioned it with “Do not judge, my mother is a professional pianist and decided to play to let go of this case.”
As her mother played, Karina walked through the house to record the destruction. Here are some stills from that portion of the video:
Here’s a report that includes quotes from Karina: Ukrainian mum defiantly plays piano to ‘say goodbye’ to bombed home in heartbreaking clip.
An excerpt:
Karina said that her mother wanted to play to help forget about the war.
She said: “It wasn’t a sad moment. My mother just wanted to let go of unnecessary thoughts, and I remembered events in our house with a smile.
“She wanted to forget about the war and her worries for our safety. She’s been playing all her life and she even graduated as a pianist.
“Since there was a lot of ash and dust in the keys and everyone was in a state of shock, she could not play for a long time.”
Categories
Now THAT’s branding!
