TD;DR (Too Downer Don't Read)I am reading Shirer's Berlin Diary <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Diary> as Mary reads Navalny's autobiography <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_(book)> (aloud to me) while our daily news rolls by this season (year? decade?) is pretty disturbing, but also comforting in a disturbing way. We read (Mary out loud to me) Victor Klemperer's Journals <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Klemperer> (nod to Jochen's recent reference) a few years ago.
<PriviedWhiteMaleSplaining> The *dis*comfiting part is really obvious I would say... watching, through first person accounts of how an otherwise functioning, and in some cases vibrant culture can slip into a self-destructive spiral, usually with a strong opening game of abusing some *other* group of scapegoats (non-White, non-Christian, non-MAGA) on the way down. Maybe invading your neighbors (Canada, Greenland, Panama?) Navalny's reports are most salient to some of the conversations here, notably glen's references to holding stocks as a strategy to keep tabs on our /evil corporate overlords/ and even (potentally) attend stockholder meetings or demand extra documentation, etc. It appears Navalny made this into a fine art in his early days of rising to attention and influence. *I* reduced all of my "blood stocks" to 1 share about the time of the election, some significantly before. My dirtiest financial secret was riding Elno's coat-tails some ways up, but did begin to distance myself well before he went full-MAGA before the election. And best I can tell, as Chomsky indicated about "socially responsible investing", they are *all* blood stocks. Some more than others. Palantir, Anduril, United Health, Purdue anyone? In Berlin Diary, I am just at the point where Paris has been occupied and the extreme contrasts THAT yielded. The French government (as many may know) withdrew and declared Paris an "Open City" meaning they would not attempt to defend it as they had other cities and villages in the path of the Nazi Wermacht. I was raised (anecdotes and history books) to believe that this represented some kind of moral failure of the entire French People (live to fight another day!). Shirer, an American, having lived/worked in Paris was very attached, and was "sent" into Paris (from Berlin) because all other foreign media had *fled* in the face of possible invasion (in spite of the Open City) status. His reports of the police and fire remaining (mostly) intact (albeit disarmed) directing traffic (mostly Wermacht vehicles) while hundreds of thousands of evacuees were suffering (unto dying) on the roads leading away was stunning. But the destruction of Paris itself (and the millions who did not flee) would not have served anything either? I also just spent 90 mins on a video chat with my Ukrainian colleagues (from Kiev) who have been unavailable since the invasion began. We avoided direct discussion of their "troubles" in lieu of strictly technical discussions of their developments. They did "let slip" that the bulk of their progress halted 4 years ago and they were just now trying to marshall those results into something marketable (e.g. triangular LED panels designed for constructing dome-sections at a scale from 9m to 90m (diameter)... knowing that they are doing this under the constant threat of kinetic attacks from Russia and some of their (previous) descriptions of how hard they fought as young professionals (in their 30s) against the systemic corruption of (post) Soviet Ukraine gives me a little more perspective. As for the daily news: I recommend the apocryphal Twain quote: “I never read the newspapers until at least two weeks after they're published — that way I can be sure the lies have been corrected.” and Tom Hanks' movie News of the World <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_of_the_World_%28film%29> for some perspective? Bottom line is "how good we have it" juxtaposed starkly with "this is how it all slides into oblivion", juxtaposed with "this too shall pass". Jochen (born in Cold-War E. Germany?) and Pieter (came of age through Apartheid), et al can probably speak more personally to these contrasts? </PriviedWhiteMaleSplaining> Interesting times?
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