Restaurants offering free dishes

Every historical epoch or age has its religion. It may be a religion par excellence with a god or gods and a devil or devils, with a belief in afterlife, final judgement, reincarnation and what not. Such is not the only form a creed may take. Religions also assume forms of ideologies: apart from the beliefs in the otherworldly reality, man has also believed and continues to believe in the set of assumptions – laws – principles of his own making. Man’s strict observance of them transforms ideologies into religions. Humanity has had a number of such non-religious religions. This are socialism or enlightenment, human rights or the rights of the citizen, ecologism or globalism, with the list being by no means exhausted. One of the tenets of the last mentioned religions is the belief in the advantageousness of open borders. The argument is that man ought not to be restricted in his movement around the globe, that we are all one human race and hence citizens of the world.

The argument is false on a number of counts. For one, there are many natural borders of which language and culture are the most powerful in separating and dividing groups of people. Language itself makes runaways from one nation to another or one cultural region to another feel very much ill at ease. Hence, geographical or administrative borders merely reflect reality. It is very often recklessly repeated that nationalities only came into existence in the 19th century, but that’s not true. When you consider the borders of the medieval kingdom of France or England or Bohemia or Sweden, they somehow more or less overlap with the territory inhabited by the French the English or the Czech. The many German dukedoms and principalities along with kingdoms were still… German rather than mixtures of German and Italian or French nations. Sure, occasionally each of those political entities contained some ethnic minorities, but these were ethnic minorities and if they were bog enough, they sooner or later separated. The managers of the world seem not to be aware of all it. Also, the managers and ideologues of the world let themselves be seduced by their wishful thinking. But then who are they? Geniuses? But we are diverging.

Be it as it may, the concept of having open borders has been preached by today’s intellectuals as a kind of new commandment that has been etched into stone. The concept, however – just like about anything that has been born in the brains of the ideologues – is false and its falsity is glaring to anybody with common sense. What do we mean?

The Western countries have not merely opened their borders – doors – wide for anyone to come. That in itself would not be all that bad. After all, we have shops and restaurants and offices open for anybody and there is no problem with it. The Western countries have made it obligatory on themselves to provide for anybody who turns up with food and clothing and medical care and what not. The Western countries have not merely turned themselves into restaurants – offices – cinemas where anybody can come in and order something… in return for money. The Western countries turned themselves into such a type of restaurants – offices – cinemas where anybody who turns up is given food and beverages without having to pay for them. That’s the glaring falsity of the open borders ideology. It is not – let us reiterate it – that the restaurants are open: those restaurants have been turned into troughs regularly replenished with free-of-charge food, and naturally they act as magnets. Tens and hundreds of thousands flock to those troughs because why shouldn’t they?

Another falsity of the open-borders ideology consists in the fact that the Western ideologues provide the incomers with all the life necessities redistributing the wealth that is produced by of the host countries. It is not that the residents or prime ministers or the enlightened intellectuals give supplies to the needy from outside the Western world: it is that they take it away from their own citizens and redirect it to the aliens. Yes, the citizens of the host countries being brain-washed by the decades-long propaganda are generally in favour of aiding the aliens but herein lies yet another falsity. The citizens pay taxes and their governments funnel some of the money to the arrivals. Imagine now that not a penny is taken away from the citizens for the aid for the arrivals, but each citizen is asked to share voluntarily some of his income with all those Afghans, Somalis, Nigerians and Moroccans. How many people do you think – even among those who have been brainwashed – would support day in, day out the perfect strangers and how much money would they assign to the needs of the newcomers? It is one thing to have your money spent by the government when you have no say, and quite another to regularly and voluntarily deplete your bank account and transfer the money to aliens, especially those you are afraid or scared of every time you pass them by in the street of your town or city. How many helpers would we have under such conditions?

In other words, imagine running a restaurant and… having its door open to anybody who pleases to enter and… serving them all the dishes they wish without being paid for it! I dare say you wouldn’t like to do it even if you had money to burn. Especially – let me repeat it – if you were afraid or scared of your “guests”.

The legal case of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presidency

On May 20 Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presidential term expired, which poses a very interesting legal and political case. Russia does not recognize Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s authority any more. Which is not a malicious act on her part. The argument is that any agreement, accord, whatever signed by someone who simultaneously is not the head of a country entails grave political problems. Any next president of Ukraine may either feel bound by the agreement that Ukraine entered into with Russia under the presidency of Volodymyr Zelenskyy or may renege on it as signed by someone who did not have the legal authority to act as the country’s leader. Why should the Kremlin even bother to consider any talks with Zelenskyy if such is the case?

As of now, the West recognizes Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s power despite the expiry of his presidential term of office. Yet, the same legal case might be used by the diplomats in Washington, London, or Paris in any later development of events in Ukraine. They, too, might one of these days make a statement that they do not feel bound to honour any international settlement signed by Volodymyr Zelenskyy if only such a political move suits their purposes.

As is known, it is the interaction of the real military and economic factors that are at the disposal of the international players that matters. Diplomacy is merely a reflection of those real factors. Hence, if the West feels coerced to enter into an unfavourable settlement with Russia over Ukraine, it may intentionally make Volodymyr Zelenskyy sign it with the hindsight that the settlement is going to be revoked the moment the balance of powers tilts in the West’s favour. The fact that the legality of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presidential authority is questionable might be viewed as a wild card in any future diplomatic dealings between the West and Russia if the latter agrees to honour Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s signature.

At present, Ukrainian jurisprudence might recognize the current Ukrainian leader as the country’s legitimate president. That may change overnight. Particular legal provisions can be construed to mean whatever pleases the powerful. We all know that.

Nawalny the Saviour

Yes, it happened some time ago now, but it is symptomatic of our times, of what we can observe on a political stage, hence worth taking a look. It was Easter Friday this year when German Bishop Franz-Joseph Overbeck had a sermon that attracted the attention of the media, which are otherwise not interested in what the clergy say (unless some of them dare to challenge new morality, which they usually don’t). Why did the sermon attract the media’s attention? Well, in a long, longish text about truth and notions that are allegedly connected with truth, Bishop Franz-Joseph Overbeck compared the imprisonment and death of Alexej Nawalny to the trial and execution of no less a person than Jesus Christ. A breath-taking statement.

In his homily Bishop Franz-Joseph Overbeck used the word truth a hundred times or so, and intertwined it with – how otherwise? – love and freedom, not forgetting about democracy and ecology. He also drew a comparison between Alexei Nawalny with the assassins of July 20th, 1944, the White Rose circle, and the fate of protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. One more time to let it sink in: Alexej Nawalny was made to appear as a historical figure of immense dimensions and biblical proportions. He is the man who – Christ-like – represents or even embodies the truth, and who courageously stands up to his prosecutors – to his Pilate (read Putin). The listeners could read into the sermon also the comparison between the Russian Gulag (mentioned in the sermon), where Nawalny was imprisoned and the place of Golgotha (not mentioned).

What can you make of it? Why Nawalny found himself in jail – no word. He was incarcerated because… he defended the truth and was the embodiment of truth. He found himself behind the bars, and was later murdered just like the Scholls or Bonhoeffer or Stauffenberg the resistance fighters in Hitler’s Germany. In other words, he faced another Hitler and paid the ultimate price just like the German historical figures mentioned in the sermon. That was – as far as the mass media are concerned – the most thrilling part of the Easter Friday message delivered by German Bishop Franz-Joseph Overbeck.

As said above, the whole text is peppered with the word truth that occurs in a myriad of collocations which are made to put across meanings whose only purpose is to please the expectations of the listeners without regard for logical connectivity. Take one example from the very end of the bishop’s sermon, which reads: Truth is this power that comes from love and enables us to be friends with all people [Wahrheit ist jene Macht, die außer Liebe stammt und uns zur Freundschaft mit allen Menschen befähigt]. It certainly sounds nice to a casual ear of an average listener. But hang on for a moment and consider the sentence. The statement puts together and connects truth, love and friendship. Let us have a closer look at the trio. Truth comes from love? How can one say that truth comes from love? Truth is truth and love is love. Truth is about the correspondence between statements and facts, love is an emotion or also – especially as theologians and some psychologists want it – an act of will. Yes, Bishop Franz-Joseph Overbeck saying love, may have meant Christ himself, but Christ said about himself that he is the way and the truth and the life (not love), but with preachers you can never tell. Then we hear that truth enables us to be friends with all people [emphasis mine]. Really? Does it enable us to be friends with – dare we say it – Putin or Hitler himself? Judging by the contents of the sermon, it certainly does not! Hey, your excellency, has your argumentation just fallen apart in the last sentence of your homily?

Truth is truth, it has nothing to do with love and still less to do with enabling us to befriend all people. Everyday experience tells us that we are incapable of making friends with all people, and only hypocrites can say they respect each human. The truth which uncovers shameful or evil acts performed by certain individuals may just as well make us dislike (to put it mildly) those individuals in the name of… the truth about them.

Making use of such logic, a logic that combines the uncombinable, his excellency can “prove” whatever he pleases (in fact, whatever is politically expected of him because, somehow, the message overlaps with the political demand, does it not?), also a thesis that Alexej Nawalny is an embodiment of Christ while Pontius Pilate has reincarnated in Vladimir Putin.

This comparison between Jesus Christ and Alexej Nawalny is faulty at least in one respect. You see, Alexej Nawalny had the financial, political, psychological support of the whole West in his subversive activities against his motherland. At present this support has been transferred to Nawalny’s wife: Yulia Nawalna receives the same applause and lets herself be used as a battering ram against Putin just as her husband did. Did Jesus Christ enjoy support from a worldly power? Was his orphaned mother on anybody’s payroll? Were his disciples protected by any political entity? Why, no. It took some time and a lot of suffering along with personal sacrifice for their truth to be recognized as such. Alexei Nawalny and his adherents have all the acknowledgment, assistance and finances of the powers that be. They have even more than this: they have constant positive presence in the Western mass media. No need for them to travel long distances on donkey’s back, no need to fear persecution. Even in “scary” Russia they are not going to be crucified, are they? Really, his excellency should have known better while preparing the sermon. Even the Scholls, Bonhoeffer and Stauffenberg did not enjoy the West’s support. Worse, the world learnt about the Scholls and Bonhoeffer relatively late after the war. Your excellency, even your comparison drawn between Nawalny and the figures of the German resistance during the Second World War does not stand! Alexej Nawalny is not another Saviour (or Scholl, or Bonhoeffer, or Stauffenberg), as you would like him to appear, not by any measure.

He came down in history as great

Before medieval Rus’ split into its many parts, which in the course of hundreds of years led to the emergence of the present trio of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, deep back in the 10th century it was ruled by Prince Vladimir, variously spelt as Volodymyr, Vladymir, Volodimir and the like. What a coincidence that today’s two parts of the medieval Rus’ are also governed by men whose names are reminiscent of the most famous medieval ruler Vladimir, with one of them being Vladimir Putin and the other – Volodymyr Zelensky. The few variants of spelling show accidentally how much dissimilar or rather how much similar are Russian and Ukrainian, descendants of the language used in Rus’ in the Middle Ages. The difference may be like that between Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, or Czech and Slovak, in which case mutual intelligibility stands at 95%, or that between German spoken in Bavaria or Berlin. Linguistic classifications are – just like anything that allegedly is part of otherwise objective science or scholarship – subject to political pressure to the effect that at one time in history two varieties of a language are recognized as… precisely two varieties, while at other historical times they are all of a sudden viewed as two totally separate tongues. The same was true of the Serbo-Croatian language now mercilessly split into three “very much” different languages of Croatian and Serbian and Bosnian. It was no less a figure than Bernard Shaw who is credited to have said that the United States and the United Kingdom are two countries divided by the common language, but we are digressing.

The medieval ruler of medieval Rus’ – Vladimir/Volodymyr (take your pick) – is regarded by both Russians and Ukrainians as a founder of their respective present-day states or – as it is customarily (yet somehow misleadingly) said in the English language – nations. He was the one who held the many territories in his iron grip, but first and foremost he was the one who in 988 joined Rus’ (present-day Belarus, Ukraine and Russia) to the Christian family of European states by having Rus’ christened. When Rus’ was about to be baptized, a name like Ukraine did not exist (and would not exist for many centuries to come); instead, the designation Belarus = White Rus’ had currency. It did not, however, denote a dukedom or principality, a kingdom or any other political entity: it denoted the Western part of the vast territories occupied by and collectively known as Rus’. Apart from White Rus’ we had Red Rus’ to denote the souther regions of Rus’ and Black and Green Rus’ the denote respectively the northern and eastern part of the same. There was a common word that resembled today’s name Ukraine, but it meant edge, border, or borderline. It had and still has a lot to do with the Slavic word meaning cut, cut off. With time it began to be applied to territories that were regarded as a country;s edge or that were cut off from a country. Such was the birthmark of the appellative Ukraine. By the way, the same could be observed in the former Yugoslavia, where the borderland between Croatia and Serbia is known as Krajina (cf.: u-kraine). Just as Ukraine was the south-eastern edge of the once large Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, an edge protecting the Commonwealth against Turks and the Grand Duchy of Moscow, so was Krajina a strip of land, guarding the Habsburg Monarchy, which comprised Croatia, against the Ottoman Empire, which at that time comprised Serbia. But again, back to the core story.

Vladimir, the ruler of all Rus’, had a hard time deciding to transform his nation. Christianity was by no means the only choice that he faced. Also Muslims and Judaic Khazars vied for the ruler’s attention, while Christians had already been split between the Western (later known as Catholic) and Eastern (later known as Orthodox) branches. Yet choose he had to, because stepwise, Vladimir along with the governing elite had grown out of the Slavic heathen beliefs. Much the same would play out a thousand years later when the elites of the heathen Soviet Union would begin to slough off the economically and politically pagan Marxism-Leninism and steer their country towards the family of the majority of the nations of the world by (re)accepting the political (democracy) and economic (free market) and financial (capitalism) credo.

Vladimir, the medieval ruler of Rus’, had a choice, as mentioned above. He could opt for accepting the faith of the Khazars, Muslims, Eastern or Western Christians. That would have automatically meant his alliance with Khazars, Muslims, Eastern or Western Christians. Vladimir decided to choose the Orthodox version of Christianity. He and his entourage became Christian, very soon to be followed by the rest of the Rus’ population. Vladimir just wanted to join his state to the family of Christian states. Why, at that time Europe was almos all Christian, either Catholic or Orthodox (Bulgarians and Serbs). Vladimir simply wished to (or felt compelled, or felt attracted to) turn Rus’ into a member state of Christendom. He may have thought that step would protect his subjects from being molested by the Christian rulers. Alas!

The chivalrous religious orders – non-state actors on the medieval political scene – were not only founded in the Holy Land during the notorious crusades: they were also founded in the Iberian peninsula, where they combated the Muslim invaders, and along the south-eastern Baltic littoral, where they were supposed to fight Lithuanian and Slavic pagans (in modern parlance, their task was to bring democracy and human rights). It took Lithuanians more time to let themselves be baptized, but medieval Russians did it, as said above, already in the 10th century. Never mind that detail. Approximately two and a half centuries later – i.e. when all of Rus’ was firmly in the Christian grip – the German Livonian order would continue to make inroads into Russian territory, which culminated in the famous Battle on the Ice of 1242, when Alexander nicknamed Nevsky, one of the many descendants of the same Vladimir that christened Rus’, reported a big victory.

It is worth bearing in mind that the Livonian Chivalrous Order tried to suppress and subdue chunks of northern Rus’ at precisely the time when almost all of Rus’ was struggling with non-Christian Mongols also known as Tartars. One might (naively) think, Western Christians would have been more than willing to come to the aid of their Christian Orthodox brothers, especially when those brothers were existentially threatened by non-Christian tribes. Sadly, that was not to be. Rus’ may have been Christian and still this act did not turn it into an acceptable member of Christendom.

At the very beginning of the 18th century, precisely when Russian Tsar Peter I was hurriedly and vehemently turning his backward Russia into a westernized, Europeanized modern state, it faced an invasion of Swedes, who were only stopped at the Battle of Poltava in 1709 (south of Kiev). At the very beginning of the 18th century, when Russia as an empire whose elites almost preferred to speak French rather than their native tongue and certainly admired everything and anything French, when native-speakers of French as tutors to the children and the youth of Russian aristocracy and gentry were in high demand (leaf through Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace in the original and notice the many French dialogues inserted here and there, illustrating how firmly the French languages was rooted in high society), Russia was invaded by… a French-led coalition of European armies which managed to even capture Moscow (1812). Though two years later Russian armies marched into Paris, nonetheless Rus’ or Imperial Russia continued to admire everything and anything French while the West continued to spurn and denigrate Russia.

Fast forward to the 20th century and we see the same events and the same phenomena repeating themselves: yes, Soviet Russia repelled the Western invader and captured Berlin, but still and despite having been almost obliterated by the Western armies, and still and despite waging a four-decade long Cold War that ensued after 1945, Russian elites just couldn’t restrain themselves from kowtowing to the West and eventually trading their sovereignty for the promise of being accepted as full members of the Western, democratic, capitalistic world. You know, that’s the spell that MacDonald’s and Jeans and rock music casts on nations with an inferiority complex. This time, another Vladimir, better known as Vladimir Putin, tried to make overtures to the Western powers and clearly played up to them, offering Rus’ with all its citizens and resources as a joining fee. Even before Putin in his capacity of President, to please the West, Russia discarded and abandoned its communist (heathen, pagan) faith, dissolved the Warsaw Pact (the Eastern equivalence of the Western Atlantic alliance), let go of its fourteen republics which became separate, sovereign states, imbibed Western democratic political rules, internalized capitalist economic principles and even wanted to be admitted to NATO, while putting forward proposals of expanding the European cooperation from Lisbon on the Atlantic to Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean. To no avail.

Russia was rejected, spurned, and frowned upon. Yes, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia (all former Soviet republics, earlier also parts of the Russian Empire) could become NATO members, Ukraine and Georgia (also former Soviet republics, earlier also parts of the Russian Empire) were invited to join the alliance, yet Russia was denied. Why?

The medieval Vladimir, the ruler of medieval Rus’, had a choice between Khazars, Muslims, and Christians. Well, the present-day Vladimir has a similar choice between the Chinese, Iranians and the (post-Christian) West. A thousand years have passed and Rus’ – Russia – is faced with the same dilemma. A thousand years have passed and – as if nothing happened in the course of centuries – Russia is challenged again and again while its existence is threatened. Being snubbed by the West, Russia has gravitated into China’s embrace and has been made to ally itself with Iran and North Korea rather than becoming a NATO or EU member.

By the way, how did Russia become again pagan at the beginning of the 20th century, how did it become an atheistic Soviet republic? Why, while experiencing difficulties arising from the prolonged war, later to be known as the First World War, Russia fell prey to a series of events that today would be called colour revolutions: a more proper name for those occurring towards the end of the First World War would be calendar revolutions: the one that broke out in February is known as the February Revolution, while the other that took place in November – the November Revolution. How those revolutions come about? Just like the notorious Euromaidans in Kiev: Western powers (the British and the Germans) provided money and subversive activists (Kerensky, Lenin, Trotsky) to overthrow the ‘dictator’ commonly referred to as tsar, and then to topple the legitimate and democratic government. Just think of it: one hundred years apart, almost to the year (1917 – 2014) and the same scenario played out, earlier in Sankt-Petersburg/Petrograd, later in Kiev.

Whether Russia is Christian (from Vladimir to the outbreak of the October Revolution) or pagan (before Vladimir and during the time of the existence of the Soviet Union), whether it is capitalist or socialist, whether it emulates anything Western (French, American) or remains isolated, whether it expands its territory (especially under the rule of Peter I, Catherine I, Alexander I, Stalin) or shrinks, giving up on huge chunks of it (the 1917 Brest-Litovsk peace agreement with Germany, the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union), whether its is ruled by a tsar, a parliament, a secretary general of the communist party or a president, only one catchphrase rings in the Western mind: Ruthenia delenda est, come hell or high water.

A friendly reminder: the first Vladimir at the beginning of the millennial history of Rus’/Russia, the man who pondered whether to ally himself with Khazars, Muslims, or Christians, has come down in history as Great: Vladimir the Great. He is regarded as the father of the nation by Russians and Ukrainians and Belorussians. Which of the two present-day Vladimirs – the one ruling Ukraine or the one ruling Russia – will come down in history as great?

Transgender Day of Visibility

Jeez… not that this day of Transgender Visibility is celebrated for the first time, but still. It all began in 2009 with the blessing from both Obama and Biden, then vice-president. Among the initiators was one Rachel Crandall Crocker, an attractive (see pic) activist of the movement that has invaded the minds of the Western civilization. In 2014, the day was observed around the globe. Then in 2021, President Joe Biden proclaimed March 31 as a Transgender Day of Visibility. This – 2024 – year it coincided with Easter Day. What a clash!

The President’s Proclamation on Transgender Day of Visibility, 2024, reads, among others, that:

Transgender Americans are part of the fabric of our Nation [and because] they help America thrive [t]hey deserve, and are entitled to […] the most fundamental freedom to be their true selves. [Sadly] extremists are proposing hundreds of hateful laws that target and terrify transgender kids and their families — silencing teachers; banning books; and even threatening parents, doctors, and nurses […]. These bills attack our most basic American values: the freedom to be yourself, the freedom to make your own health care decisions, and even the right to raise your own child. It is no surprise that the bullying and discrimination that transgender Americans face is worsening our Nation’s mental health crisis, leading half of transgender youth to consider suicide in the past year. At the same time, an epidemic of violence against transgender women and girls, especially women and girls of color, continues to take too many lives. […] All of these attacks are un-American and must end. No one should have to be brave just to be themselves.

Notice that the said cases of suicide are offhandedly explained as caused by the hostile attitude of Americans with normal sex conduct towards those with sexual deviances, and not a thought is spared for the other explanation, namely that the high suicide rate is caused by the psychological confusion of not knowing which sex you are, but who cares?

Notice also how the president pontificates from on high and from the bottom of his magnanimous heart that all he wants to protect is the right to be… yourself. Tear-jerking . Yet, we all know what the president and the paymasters of his clique mean by being yourself: you may choose to be transgender, but you must not choose to be an advocate of the interests of white Americans. In this case the rules of self-determination need not apply: the usual selectivity in the omnipresent newspeak of the present day that we have long been accustomed to, but never mind.

The American head of state continues in the same document:

Now, therefore, I, Joseph R. Biden Jr., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2024, as Transgender Day of Visibility. I call upon all Americans […] to work toward eliminating violence and discrimination based on gender identity.

Some ostentatious pomp it is, is it not?! “I call on all Americans to eliminate violence and discrimination” as if attacks on people with abnormal sexual proclivities were part and parcel of American everyday reality rather than rising crime rates and a feeling of insecurity caused by the weakening of the police and open borders policy.

Towards the end of the document, the president says:

Witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-ninth day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-eighth.

You might know that Joe Biden is not merely a Christian but a Catholic. Catholicism is regarded by some as the strand of Christianity that is strictest in its moral demands. Catholic or no Catholic, the Christian Holy Bible does not beat about the bush when it comes to homosexuality, so Biden as a Christian and a Catholic, while invoking “the year of our Lord” (Jesus Christ is meant… yet?), should have had a moment of reflection, a moment of doubt, a moment of recollection of the following passage (emphasis added):

[Because t]hey exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator,[…] God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity.

Romans 1:26–27, New American Bible, Vatican site.

It may be that Joe Biden does not know his Bible; it may also be that he has theologians explaining the whole passage away, shedding a new light on it, as is practised nowadays with almost anything and everything regarding moral values: rather than being abolished or ridiculed, they are reinterpreted, deconstructed and construed to mean whatever pleases the managers of the world.

How could a Catholic president square his Transgender Day of Visibility coinciding with Easter Day this year? We may rest assured that the president’s conscience is not troubled in the least and that his theologians have told him that (i) St Paul did not really mean what he supposedly meant, (ii) that some of the apostles were transgender people (especially St John, who reclined on Jesus’ bosom/breast/next to Jesus – as the many translations have it – as evidenced in John 13:23), and that (iii) transgender people are our neigbours (in the religious sense of the word) and neighbours ought to be loved, which after all is the highest precept of Christian morality (second only to the love for God). Never mind all the other intricacies of the Holy Writ: Americans will not challenge such a theological claim, certainly not publicly, especially in the time when they are full aware that non-compliance with the new normal may cost them dearly in terms of their professional careers. It is not Jesus Christ, nor the pope, nor the Vatican, nor your local church community, nor your (Catholic or Protestant) priest, who are commonly feared nowadays: it is the likes of Rachel Crandall Crocker, whose denunciation will surely land you up in deep trouble and bring upon you the strongest, most severe societal condemnation or worse.

Through such decisions the world finds out what American values are at present. All transgender people in all countries either already know or will soon know that they can flock to the American fold and seek protection there against their oppressive governments that have not yet recognized this basic human right – a right to be yourself.

Look forward to the April issue of Gefira. We deal with the role of transgender people worldwide in American politics.

FED is not playing fair – can it go bankrupt?

The most important central bank in the world, the US Federal Reserve (FED), recently presented its financial report, which shows that it had a substantial loss of USD 114 billion last year. Why such a large loss for the FED? To explain this, one should first distinguish between two aspects of the central bank’s activities.

Firstly, the FED holds large quantities of US bonds, which in turn yield interest. Of course, in this case, this interest is income for the central bank. It is worth noting that since the FED began buying bonds on a large scale in 2008, interest rates have also risen considerably
Secondly, the Federal Reserve allows commercial banks and various types of funds to hold money in an account at the central bank. At the same time, it pays a certain amount of interest on these funds, which depends primarily on the level of interest rates.

Well, between 2022 and 2023, there was a series of interest rate hikes in the US. Eventually, a level of 5.5% was reached. This meant that the FED had to pay 5.5% interest to banks and funds (and there were a lot of them) that wanted to keep their money in a central bank account.

So on the one hand, the Fed still held a similar amount of bonds in 2023, for which it received interest rates close to the 2022 level (i.e. much lower than this 5.5%). On the other hand, it had to pay much higher interest rates to commercial banks or money market funds. This resulted in the loss.

You may ask: What happens when a central bank suffers a loss? From a purely financial point of view: Nothing significant happens. It is assumed that this loss will be covered by future profits. In the context of a central bank, it is difficult to talk about bankruptcy, especially as central banks can create gigantic amounts of money under the current system.
Gefira is critical of the monetary policy of central banks, but for completely different reasons. No one from the central bankers is commenting on the following questions:

1) Is it fair that the central bank only rescued and wants to rescue selected financial institutions simply because they operate on a large scale?

2) Is it normal for these institutions (especially banks) to hold their reserves at the central bank and safely receive a few percent interest in return?

3) What’s more – is it fair that unprofitable companies are kept alive by the central bank printing money, which in turn makes it more difficult for new companies to enter the market?

4) Is it good for the economy that unprofitable zombie companies are kept afloat in this way, which otherwise – in the real free economy – should have gone bankrupt long ago?

Pathetically piteous sight

A few days ago, Yulia Navalnaya, Alexei Navalny’s widow, gave a speech in the EU parliament. This is what she had to say:

Allegedly voters of the EU deputies ask them how they could help Yulia in her fight and the deputies relay those questions to her. Before answering the question how, Yulia said that Putin (she repeated this name more times than one can stomach, just as Victoria Nuland did in one of her latest speeches), who had begun the murderous war, had gone nowhere, and that everything had already been used – weapons, money, sanctions – with nothing working. Stop. It is hard to believe that Yulia Navalnaya wrote the speech on her own or, granting she wrote it on her own, that no one had a look at it before her address. Did they not notice the contradiction between “Putin had gone nowhere” and “weapons, money, sanctions (i.e. the support for Ukraine) did not work”? Obviously, she was nervous, but still she read the short text from paper. Never mind, let us scan the rest of her speech.

She said that that the worst had happened (again, so Putin has achieved something after all) in that people were getting used to the war (read: they became indifferent) and then, she said sort of disconnectedly, Putin killed her husband. Worse, she said. On Putin’s orders her husband had been “tortured for three years and had been starved in a tiny stone cell, cut off from the outside world and denied visits, phone calls and then even letters. And then they killed him,” she repeated, as if not sure that the EU deputies had understood her the first time she said Putin had killed her husband. Then, said Yulia Navalnaya “they abused his body(?) and abused his mother(?),” which only goes to show that “Putin is capable of anything and that you cannot negotiate with him,” at which point something weird happened (have a listen from this moment for a few seconds). Barely had the audience begun to clap as she said “thank you” – just as if she had it written in her speech text: applauds here, make a stop.

Yulia Navalnaya continued that many people believed that Putin could not be defeated at all, and still they kept asking her how they could help. Before answering that question Yulia Navalnaya saw it fit to describe the character of her husband in more detail. She said he was an inventor(?) with new ideas for everything(?), especially in politics. Then she reminded the deputies that soon they would be campaigning to get reelected. Imagine, she said, that all this political campaigning was impossible because no TV station would allow an interview with you, no money in the world would make commercials possible while the voters and the candidates would be arrested once they turned up at a rally. If you could picture that to yourselves, said Yulia Navalnaya, that was precisely Putin’s Russia. Applause.

An aside here. It was also a few days ago that we could witness how British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak publicly went ballistic and freaked out because in ONE British constituency ONE man (George Galloway) outside the establishment was elected by the local people. Rishi Sunak addressing journalists in front of Downing Street 10 repeatedly described the event as an ugly victory of the far right extremists even though George Galloway’s political proclivities are leftist. Most likely Yulia Navalnaya does not know about it at all. Yet, she should know, living for so many years in the West, that people get deplatformed and demonetized in the social media whenever they voice opinions diverging from the political correctness of the West. She should also be familiar with the fate of Julian Assange, Edward Snowden or most recently Gonzalo Lira. Gonzalo Lira was tortured, isolated and killed by Ukrainians because he dared to express opinions diverging from those propagated by the Kiev regime. These three men are not Putin’s victims so they simply don’t matter.

Despite all the hindrances, Yulia Navalnaya continued, Alexei Navalny managed to become the most famous politician in Russia (really?), inspiring millions(you don’t say!) of people with his ideas. How did he do it, she asked herself. Well, if you are not allowed to appear on TV, let’s post YouTube videos for all to watch (surely, Alexei Navalny would not have been deplatformed like thousands of others!); even in Putin’s gulag, she said, Alexei was able to “pass ideas of projects that would make the Kremlin panic” (Wow!). But hang on for a moment! Didn’t she say a minute or so earlier that her husband was “cut off from the outside world and denied visits, phone calls and then even letters”? The audiences would not have noticed that, for sure. So the answer to the question of how to defeat Putin, she continued, is simple: you have to become an innovator, you have to stop being boring(!). Ovation. You cannot harm Putin, she said, with another set of resolutions or sanctions (obviously). “You cannot defeat him by thinking he is a man of principle who has morals and truths.” That’s dehumanization of the opponent or adversary in its purest form, an attitude which the Western ideologues are otherwise so vociferously against. This time the principle did not apply.

“You are not dealing with a politician,” Yulia Navalnaya continued, “but with a bloody monster. Putin is a leader of an organized criminal gang.” Here she was interrupted by an applause after which she went on saying, “it’s good to repeat it again: Putin is a leader of an organized criminal gang.” To which she received more applause. This criminal group includes “poisoners and assassins”. The inference? The West needs to fight organized crime or mafia headed by Putin (Putin’s mafia in Europe itself? Gee…). How? By fighting the mafia’s associates who happen to be operating in the West(!), who help Putin and his friends to hide money (Where? Why can’t he hide his money in Russia?). In this fight the West has, according to Yulia Navalnaya, “tens of millions(?) of Russians on the West’s side, Russians who are against war, against Putin, against the evil he brings.” The West “must not persecute them [Russians], but on the contrary” the West “must work with them [Russians]”. Putin must answer for all that he had done to Russia and Alexei (in the Hague, I guess). “The evil will fall, and the beautiful future will come.” These were the final words of Yulia Navalnaya’s speech delivered in the EU Parliament.

Compare this address with the latest rant by Victoria Nuland. Putin, Putin, Putin said again and again with vilification, insults, vitriolic hate, and you name it. Dehumanization, bad-mouthing and immolation. Poor woman. She most likely believes in everything she said. And poor as she is, she was used in this séance of hatred by those who are beginning to taste a crushing defeat at the hands of the “mafia boss”. A pathetically piteous sight.