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                           GENERAL ARTICLES   
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   FTSC Election   
   Ward Dossche - 2:2/1000   
      
   All RCs in all zones please be advized there is an election going   
   on for FTSC Standing Members. Your participation is important.   
      
   All RCs are entitled to vote. Each voter may cast one "yes"   
   or one "no" vote for each candidate. Voters need not vote for all can-   
   didates, a non vote will be regarded as "abstain" for that candidate.   
   Candidates must receive more "yes" than "no" votes to be elected.   
      
   The voting started Sunday, 27 February, 2022 and will conclude   
   Sunday, 20 March 2022, 20:00 UTC.   
      
   If you were listed as an RC in your zone's version of the world   
   nodelist.028 for 2022 then you're good to go.   
      
   These are the nominees.   
      
     Candidate             Node nr.      Nmntd by    Accepted   
     Rob Swindell          1:103/705      ZCC(NC)       Yes   
     James Coyle           1:129/215      ZCC(NC)       Yes   
     Tim Schattkowsky      2:2/29         ZCC(NC)       Yes   
      
   Voters are requested to copy and paste the form below, mark a   
   cross for each candidate in the "yes" or the "no" column for all   
   candidates they wish to cast a vote for and post it in FTSC_PUBLIC   
   addressed to "Election Coordinator with a subject of "Vote".   
      
   Voters need not vote for all candidates.   
      
     ----------------------------------------------   
    | Name                 |  Node nr    | Yes| No |   
    |----------------------|-------------|----|----|   
    |                      |             |    |    |   
    | Rob Swindell         | 1:103/705   |    |    |   
    | James Coyle          | 1:129/215   |    |    |   
    | Tim Schattkowsky     | 2:2/29      |    |    |   
     ----------------------------------------------   
      
   Ward Dossche   
      IC   
      
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   History repeats itself again and again   
   Ward Dossche - 2:292/854   
      
   From a prosperous, modern, well organized European-style democracy   
   and economy; an enemy without scruples has turned Ukraine into a   
   Moon-landscape reminiscent at how Berlin looked at the very end of   
   WW2.   
      
   War crimes have been committed, the proof is obvious but that   
   doesn4t make much impression on the rogue-state which Russia now is.   
      
   In spring 2019 I went to visit Oradour-sur-Glane in France, near   
   Limoges. On June 10 1944, 4 days after D-Day in Normandy, a unit   
   of the German SS entered the village and murdered hundreds of men,   
   women and children.   
      
   The destroyed village has been preserved as a monument.   
      
   I could not wrap my mind around it that these German SS soldiers   
   also had fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers and pretty well were   
   aware of the atrocity which they were committing without giving it   
   a second thought. I urge everyone to try and go to Oradour at least   
   once in their life ...   
      
   78 years later soldiers are again uselessly killing innocent   
   civilians because they were ordered to do so. Soldiers are good   
   at obeying orders, that's what they are paid for. Switching off   
   the brain. Follow the order and do not question.   
      
   It is 2022 ... a million and a half Ukrainian refugees, mostly   
   women and children, the largest refugee crisis since WW2 the UN   
   calls it and Europe is opening its mind and heart and its   
   bank-account for these people in need fleeing from ... from "what"   
   exactly ... A regime which has lost all sense for normalcy intent   
   on annihilating a peaceful well organized European-style democracy   
   and economy ...   
      
   The refugees will be safe and taken care of, but can you imagine   
   what the fate will be of the ones that remain behind in the homeland?   
      
   Rape is a weapon for submission, it is recognized as a war-crime.   
   But Russia has already committed war crimes the past week,   
   which they know are as good as unable to become prosecuted, and they   
   will not stop at this one. And Ukrainian women have already been   
   raped by Russian troops, Russian propaganda will call it ...   
   propaganda ... but Western human rights watchers still on-site paint   
   the actual story.   
      
   Hundreds of Russian soldiers have died and their families are without   
   news, mothers having lost a child and unable to mourn it or bury it.   
   It's all kept out of the media. And please do not call it "a war" or   
   you risk 15 years of imprisonment ... It seems that during the   
   darkest days of hard-core Russian Communism people had more rights   
   than in ... 2022 ...   
      
   Eventually Russia is going to do exactly as the Chinese did with   
   Tibet where the native polution was overwhelmed by an influx of   
   Han-Chinese and that way trying to destroy the age-old culture and   
   traditions of the Tibetans.   
      
   The same will happen in Ukraine, as a nation ... a people ... a   
   civilisation will be wiped-out. The country will be rebuilt by   
   ethnic Russians and hundreds of years of culture and civilisation   
   will be destroyed by the fire on pyres reminiscent of May 10 1933   
   when works of Ernest Hemmingway, Bertold Brecht, Heinrich Mann,   
   Ernst Glaeser, Erich Kaestner, Erich Maria Remarque and others were   
   deemed corrupted and decadent presaging an era of state censorship   
   and control of culture.   
      
   In the end the so-called de-Nazification by Putin will be   
   carried-out by strictly Nazi methodologies and policies ...   
      
   To stay mentally healthy, you look for rational explanations. But   
   some things are inexplicable. Western culture in the decades since   
   the Second World War has tried to explain everything, to be tolerant   
   and always to understand the other. But sometimes the other is simply   
   evil. Pure and simple. We had forgotten the existence of that evil.   
   Now we see the outcome of that mistake.   
      
   It is unbearable to see war as a simple product of an insane mind.   
   There must be a plan behind it, it must mean something. Who sets up   
   a catastrophe with their own hands, just because they can?   
      
   There's an interesting book explaining how Hitler could continue   
   his horrible policies against his own population ... "Hitler's   
   willing executioners" ... Who will write its sequel "Putin's willing   
   executioners" ?   
      
   Putin has noticed that his number of followers has dwindled in the   
   last two years, and does not know how to save his presidency in a   
   country that is largely integrated into the Western world. So he   
   does something so horrific that the whole world shuts itself off   
   from him. Then locks the door from the inside. People are arrested   
   for standing on the street with a blank sheet of paper in their   
   hands, it is enough to hold it and get beaten. Perhaps Putin will   
   soon reach for an Iranian or North Korean scenario. If the   
   country is locked down, explicit protest is almost impossible.   
   Then every discourse, like the minds of the people, will be   
   divided into two versions, as in Soviet times. You stick to the   
   official story if they can see and hear you. In addition, there   
   is the story that is told within the family.   
      
   We need separate what is happening in Putin's head and what is   
   happening in Russia. Russia is not a collective brain. All polls,   
   even those of loyalist sociologists, clearly show that the country is   
   not united.   
      
   Support for the war varies in a country where people aren't   
   exactly open to a man with a microphone asking them what   
   they think of Putin or the war.   
      
   Russia needs a change of leadership real bad but a revolution is not   
   really possible anymore there. Putin's state has been preparing for   
   such a scenario since 2011. They are ready to consolidate its power.   
      
   Putin claims he is realigning a brother nation in Ukraine after   
   being led astray by a "fascist" leadership. How long can that story   
   last in Russia?   
      
   It's the style of newspaper articles from the 1930s and 40s. In   
   a sense, there is already a civil war raging in Russia and the   
   riot-police are already there. Putin is trying   
   to drag the people into a dark past and forcing them to think as   
   if the ideas and circumstances of eighty years ago still hold   
   true today.   
      
   Half of all Russians know someone in or outside Ukraine who can   
   paint the real picture for them. So it will be difficult to sell   
   the idea of Ukraine as a Nazi state or historical slave state,   
   as Putin is trying to do.   
      
   Russians cannot continue to pretend that nothing is wrong and to   
   avoid "war" as the subject. Not talking about it but making its   
   presence inaudibly known is also a way to protest.   
      
   Sometimes silence is a statement on its own.   
      
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   --- Azure/NewsPrep 3.0   
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