It’s always a little funny to me when people judge folks like Snowden without even the slightest appreciation for what it must be like to be hunted anywhere on the planet by all the resources of the US government.
“He could’ve found a nicer place to save his life!”
Oh, could he? You know this from all the times you’ve been hunted, and have escaped from the US government.
The Lieutenant when he finds out that McNulty ran an unauthorized wiretap on 310 million Americans:
Now that he’s a citizen, he can probably be conscripted and sent to the front!
Sabotai
21088
Thank you guys for your awesome response and generous hearts. Our refugees can’t seem to grasp what is happening ( and frankly us as well a little bit: 6,5k in one day). They are so emotional of the outpouring of support and can follow the donations pouring in. They keep asking questions who all these people are.
We are aiming to get a generator of at least 10kW of power (which is 12-15 kVA). Prices start at € 7200 including taxes. It also takes at least € 500 in transport costs to get it to Ukrainian border. Since there is a run on generators (we were not the only ones with this idea), the hardest part will be hunting down a powerful generator for the right price. The one supplier we already have good contacts with is really light on stock. I will keep you updated!
Jaws_au
21089
Donated earlier today - my Aussie dollars aren’t super helpful in Euros but at least I’m confident you won’t spam me to death like UNHCR ;) You’re doing an amazing thing.
sharaleo
21090
Same, contributed yesterday as well. Keep up the awesome work, it’s an amazing thing you are doing to give part of your home and bring these people in.
I hear you, and see your POV, for sure. I just strongly disagree. You can’t claim moral high ground in revealing American dirty laundry, then go and swear allegiance to a state that is conducting an aggressive war chock full of war crimes, and which routinely, almost institutionally, uses murder as a method of political control. For me there is a huge difference in scale and scope here that renders any sympathy one might have for Snowden (and admittedly, I have very little to begin with) nugatory.
Again, there is some merit here but fuck him, he made his choices. You want to do civil disobedience? You go to fucking jail like Gandhi or King. I’d respect that. You don’t get to have your cake and eat it too.
meeper
21092
Echo this. Canadian dollars are a little rough to Euros, but happy to help!
I think it’s safe to say he feels differently, and so do I. I don’t see any meaning in going to jail for blowing the whistle on crimes committed against entire nations.
The only people who should be going to jail are the ones who authorized those programs in the first place.
Also Edward Snowden is Gandhi or Martin Luther King?
I don’t even begin to follow.
Tman
21095
@Sabatoi - You might look into a PTO generator if the village has a tractor or two. It’s a generator that you hook up to a tractor and let the PTO on the tractor turn the crank instead of a gas/diesel powered engine.
It cuts down on maintenance / spare parts and allows the generator to be far more mobile - since it can be whereever the tractor is at.
I use one for my house and I can’t recommend it enough. I got tired of having the gas engine always getting repaired on my old generator.
Here is an example of what I"m recommeding:
https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_119923_119923
I think there’s little profit in this discussion at this point. Neither of us is going to change our minds, and clearly I’m not getting my train of thought across adequately. I’ll leave it at that.
Sabotai
21097
Thanks for this great tip. We are going to look into this.
Timex
21098
And then pledging allegiance to a government that is literally committing crimes against entire nations.
… wondering if there is a PTO on a T72
jpinard
21100
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/12/3/7379076/
Ukraine’s Armed Forces kill more than 500 Russians and destroy helicopter in one day
Interesting and pretty distressing news in the religious facet of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (I searched for any other posts about this and didn’t find any; hope I didn’t miss anything).
Zelensky is requesting a law “banning” the branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church associated with the Moscow Patriarchate. The security service in Ukraine has already been raiding parishes, supposedly uncovering pro-Russian propaganda.
It’s not clear what such a law would actually do or who it would effect. The whole issue is crazy complicated. The Patriarch of Moscow, Kirill, is absolutely propping up Putin’s invasion with religious and patriotic rhetoric about reclaiming the “Russkiy Mir,” all but declaring it a kind of crusade. At the same time, the UOC-MP has condemned the invasion. Many UOC-MP parishes left early on after the invasion and joined the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which is now more connected to the Greek Orthodox hierarchy than the Russian. Perhaps the law is intended to squeeze the remaining parishes into bailing on Moscow as well. But these are Ukrainian believers and Ukrainian clerics–it must be asked if there’s any reason to think they are disloyal. As of a survey in July, the UOC-MP’s membership makes up about 4% of the population.
Meanwhile, in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine, Russia arrested two Ukrainian priests from the Catholic (not Orthodox) Redemptorist order, accusing them of smuggling weapons to help the resistance. The local Ukrainian Greek Catholic hierarchy there insists not only that they’re innocent, but that the priests’ rectory was searched by Russian forces after the men were arrested, probably allowing them to plant evidence. They also fear that the priests will be tortured to procure a forced confession. The motivation for Russia, they say, is retaliation for the raids and potential banning of the UOC-MP.
Donated and thanks for doing this.
My hostility towards pretty much all organized religion runs deep, but I share your concern over all aspects of this stuff. While I can see how Ukrainian authorities might not trust the UOC-MP, the legal and practical actions you link strike me as having deeper and maybe less savory motivations, possibly related to other internal power struggles of which outsiders may well be unaware. Though nothing is quite as bad as how the Russians are both deploying their Church as a weaponized theology, and simultaneously terrorizing people outside that community.
But then, maybe there is something in the water. I’m certainly familiar with the track record of oppressing Jews in that corner of the world for example…
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