I’m not sure I follow all the information you have given, but it is interesting and led me down a few rabbit holes of reading.

The famine is an interesting one, your first article seems to cast doubt on it, but later on you mention a journalist who risked his career to report it. In any case, the famine is historical fact, though both the US and Russia did try to dispute it.

You mentioned the allegations of genocide in Donbas which appear to have been false allegations, I cannot find any reputable sources that the Azov brigade did anything of the sort.

The article mentioning Stepan Bandera is interesting, it seems he was another figure “seen as a symbol of a revolutionary who fought for Ukrainian independence.” Though he had facist beliefs, at the time, I can see an impoverished people (and their later descendants) clinging on to any symbol of hope.

The information about Lebed and his later contributions to the Prologue Research and Publishing Association.

I admit I am not 100% sure where you were going with all this information, but it made for an interesting read with my morning coffee! <3

Archived link for the curious: https://archive.md/TzJBp

The article mentions this sort of thing happens with Russian soldiers as well, with a solder on video receiving a medal while wearing the totenkopf: https://archive.md/I4QGG

_The Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact with Germany in 1939, so it was caught by surprise two years later when the Nazis invaded Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union. Ukraine had suffered greatly under a Soviet government that engineered a famine that killed millions. Many Ukrainians initially viewed the Nazis as liberators.

Factions from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its insurgent army fought alongside the Nazis in what they viewed as a struggle for Ukrainian sovereignty. Members of those groups also took part in atrocities against Jewish and Polish civilians. Later in the war, though, some of the groups fought against the Nazis._

Not everything is as it seems, there is a lot of nuance and history here and I think it would be silly to say that Ukraine was a nazi country.

I have seen actual nazi rallies in the US and Australia, there are probably more across the world. White supremacists are a thing, the vocal disgusting minority.

The homeless were some of the first in the camps, as well as the disabled. Then the gays, other minorities, and the Jews.

Absolutely. There is a movie about a housekeeper during the holocaust who hid Jews in the basement of the commander’s house she worked in. When he eventually found out, she bargained with him, said she would be his mistress if he would say nothing and let them live.

After the war, when the dust settled, the commander was turned away by his wife and children for sheltering the Jews, and it was the Jews themselves he had allowed to live who took him in.

There were many people living everyday lives that had drank the coolaid and saw the extermination of the Jews as absolutely necessary and considered anyone who disagreed a traitor. Those people went on to raise children and teach them that sick way of thinking.

I am originally from the States but moved to Australia.

Before I moved away I lived in a bible belt state that was one of the 18 US states that have a “tipped minimum wage” of $2.13 an hour. In those states if you have a job that earns tips you get paid $2.13 an hour, and your employer is supposed to match that wage to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

However you can imagine if you are one of the lucky ones who has a job in the only restaurant in town, that asking your boss for those missing wages after a slow night is not going to get you anything but fired. There are dozens of other desperate people willing to take your place in a heartbeat.

I find a lot of people aren’t aware of the situation for large swathes of the US. The amount of people who are homeless or hungry or sick with no help is astronomical for a “first world country”.

What I find interesting is that after a cursory google search it would appear that China indeed has minimum wages, and those are interestingly not far off that $2.13 an hour.

https://www.china-briefing.com/news/minimum-wages-china/

The lowest hourly minimum wage in a province I could find was 16.5 RMB which works out to $2.30 an hour.

Now there are of course nuances here, like those jobs in China not being tipped, the cost of living, healthcare, etc.

I do think that things in the States are becoming more dire than most realise, and things in China have been steadily getting better.

In any case I feel very privileged to live in Australia and raise my children here.

Someone has of course beat us to it. Lets make it famous!

https://imgflip.com/i/4sl4vu

Here’s mine:

Remember to vote in all local elections. The more sensible people you get into office the more change you create. Look up all the candidates, even for things like education, water treatment, family court judges.

These are all offices that we vote (or not) into office.

When I went to look at who to vote for in the shitty midwest state I am from, (I am an expat. ) sometimes the choice wasn’t clear. Some had no party affiliation, but those who seek positions of power often move on to other positions of power. Starting at the bottom we must vote in good people.

So I looked up their campaign websites or facebook pages, and made my choice from there. Do I want the girl with little background in the subject who has republican affiliations supporting her campaign for the office?

Or maybe the guy who runs free name change clinics for people who need it and works at the local food bank.

The choice was clear to me.

I am sorry fellow Americans. This was an outcome I had greatly feared.

Don’t give up.

Archived link for the lazy: https://archive.md/84xvC

Then double check that you are registered to vote!!!

Awww cute