Friday, 11 March 2022

Why would the Russian people support the war in Ukraine?

Hello everyone. This hasn't been an easy post for me to write as I have to talk about the war in Ukraine as that's all everyone is talking about right now. But where do I even begin? I think the best way to begin is with a quick lesson in Ukrainian so here's the phrase of the day: Пу́тін хуйло́ that reads "Putin Khuilo" and some people translate that as 'Putin is a dickhead' whilst others have used either fucker or motherfucker as a more accurate translation of Khuilo. Oh yeah hold on tight readers, there's going to be a lot of fucking swearing in this post so if you're easily offended by the word fuck, I suggest you go to the BBC and read their coverage on the war in Ukraine instead as the BBC journalists won't fucking swear like me. But if you're happy enough to hear what I have to say, then let me share with you some of the thoughts that I have had in the last few days as I watched the war unfold and focus on the reaction of ordinary Russians. 

Fuck Putin, I stand with Ukraine. 

My regular readers will know that I had the honour and the pleasure of working in Kiev last year as I did a shoot there, not only did I get some time to explore the beautiful city of Kiev, I also made friends with the people from the film crew as well as some of the local actors who were in the ad. So obviously, I wanted to make sure they were okay when the Russian invasion started. The Ukrainian film crew at Radioaktive Film I worked with were highly educated and English speaking, it is horrific to think that up till two weeks ago, they were just going to work everyday and now they find themselves in the midst of a brutal war. I exchanged some messages with them in a group chat but the last reply was from days ago. I do follow one of them on Instagram and I can see he is mostly posting political messages encouraging his fellow Ukrainians. I can't even begin to summarize the feelings I have when I read the news: I think the overwhelming feeling was that of guilt because I went on holiday to France on the 25th February - now that was planned quite a while ago and I was able to go to the airport, get on a plane, fly to France and have a lovely time there whilst the people of Ukraine were either trying to flee the bombings or fighting to defend their country. When I was in France, I constantly kept in touch with the news and there was never ever any good news, just more horror and bloodshed. There is so much I can talk about but I don't want to repeat stuff that I've heard in the news or recycle theories that have been explained in other Youtube videos (though I have included several here in this blog post). Rather, in this blog post, I am simply going to focus on one aspect of the war that most people have not talked much about, to give you some useful perspective on it. 

Some of you would have seen Youtube videos of Russian people who steadfastly refuse to believe that there is any kind of war in Ukraine at the moment because they are brainwashed by the Russian media. So unlike in China where there is extremely strict censorship when it comes to the kinds of news that ordinary people can access, Russian people can actually access Western media but yet they are still very brainwashed. Even when they ambushed by reporters and shown images of the horrific destruction caused in Ukraine by the Russian troops, they just go into total denial - they often say that they support Putin and trust that he is doing whatever is necessary for the good of Russia even if these ordinary folks are the ones who are going to be suffering the most as a result of the sanctions. Rich Russians like Putin have enough wealth stashed away to simply ignore the effects of the sanctions, but ordinary working class Russian folks are the one who will feel the pain the most. If you seize the yacht of a Russian oligarch, he will just buy a new one but as the Russian ruble loses 40% of its value as a result of the sanctions, then working class Russians will be forced to make really hard choices like whether to spend what little money they have on food or heating. Yet many of Putin's most faithful supporters are from the Russian working class and their support for Putin has not wavered in the face of increasing economics hardship, so what is going on here? Why are these people blindly trusting Putin? Can't they see what is going on? Are they so totally brainwashed, or is there something else going on here to explain why they are behaving like this? 

Russian media is very censored and they read what Putin wants them to read: fake news. 

During this war, Russia is increasingly becoming like China and North Korea - there is very tight control on journalists reporting the news and if you want a job as a journalist, you have to report what the Kremlin wants you to say, you have to write their version of fake news. News organizations (such as Dozhd TV Rain) who operate independently have been shut down for refusing to lie about the war in Ukraine - journalists are now threatened with jail sentences of up to 15 years for not reporting what the Russian government's version of the 'truth'. Russia is following the Chinese government on the issue, using a firewall to make sure that their citizens will increasingly find it harder and harder to access information originating from outside the country, so they can control the narrative of the news that is reported in Russia which still serves as the main source of information for the citizens. It then becomes harder for people to search for alternative sources of news which is not something that is obvious for everyone; most of the time, a lot of Russian news is local mundane reports and there's nothing all that controversial or manipulative in the vast majority of their reports about local events. If you want to find out what is happening in your town or region, there is really no alternative source of news as the BBC or CNN are not going to be present there - thus in amongst the accurate and truthful reports on what is happening locally for these Russians, they have a whole lot of lies and fake news about the war in Ukraine. Such is the nature of fake news - you present it in a mix with a lot of trustworthy news and the readers will believe the lies you wrote. 

Thus the vast majority of Russian media gives their consumer little reason to doubt their authenticity and accuracy: the local news is full of reports about events which they have witnessed themselves - the reader sees on the front page a report about the concert that the local school has put on last night and he thinks, "ah yes, I was at that concert myself because my neighhour's daughter Natalia was performing there." Then he sees an ad for the new local supermarket which has opened just down the road and he thinks, "oh yes I remember passing that place on the way home from the concert last night, I must pop in later to have a look!" The bulk of the news is actually very familiar and thus through the years, they have learnt to trust the news that receive from the official authorities, at least when it comes to obtaining local news. People are creatures of habit - that's just human nature, so in this case, when they hear that there's something happening in Ukraine, they turn to their favourite news source to try to find out what is happening. For me, that happens to be the main BBC news website which I trust but in the case for most Russians, it would be whichever local news network that they use for their local news and that of course, is totally controlled and censored by the government to pump out their version of events. If you trust the source of the news, then you're far less likely to try to find an alternative news source from abroad that may challenge that version of events - especially if doing so may involve having to use a VPN or even using Google translate to read news that has been published in another language. Hence this is how a lot of Russian people just end up being totally brainwashed by their government - without even realizing what is happening. 

The Russian media isn't that bad most of the time, it is credible and reliable most of the time. 

Time for an analogy: allow me to start this off with a person I know from work, let's call him Frank (not his real name, I chose it because of the irony as Frank can mean 'honest'). Frank is a liar who cheats on his wife: he would visit his lovers whilst he tells her that he has to stay late for a business meeting or rush over to see an important client at the last minute to solve a problem. However, he doesn't do this very often and most days, he plays the role of the good husband and father who would help his children with their homework or surprise his wife by showing up at her office at lunchtime with a box of her favourite sushi. In short, Frank does more than enough to earn her trust so that when he texts her with a message like, "I'm so sorry I must stay late in the office today to finish a report, please have dinner without me." She feels like she has no reason to question his intentions and of course, he then spends the evening with one of his many lovers. So Frank can be relied on to tell the truth 99% of the time, so when he does have to lie, his wife doesn't feel she has enough reason to doubt him so that's how he gets away with it. The Russian media is similar to Frank in that manner: when it comes to reporting non-political content from technology to science to health to sports, they are reliable and professional. Most of the time, they feel no need or compulsion to lie: let's take the example of the recent volcanic eruption in Tonga back on the 15th January 2022. The Russian media would have reported the bare facts of event as it had no political dimension to it: a volcano in Tonga erupted, it was a natural disaster. So people in Russia would learn about what happened in Tonga through their usual news networks - through such reporting they learn to trust their news. 

Such reliable reports of events like what happened in Tonga is the equivalent of Frank being a good husband and father and there's plenty of of examples of when Russian media can be really good when it comes to serving the local Russian people with accurate, reliable reporting of local news. Furthermore, a massive part of Russian media is about entertainment and many Russian people are addicted to their favourite Russian TV programmes and reality TV shows, so they don't view Russian media so much as a sinister government propaganda machine but rather as a great source of quality entertainment. If the Russian media had no credibility, say if it couldn't even provide reliable stories on local news and events, then people wouldn't even trust it and would then turn to alternative sources of news on the internet. By the same token, if Frank had been really nasty to his wife, then she would have had enough reasons to have left him a long time ago. Thus if the Russian government wanted to manipulate the Russian public into believing their version of fake news, then first of all, their media machine has got to be credible, reliable and popular at least 95% of the time, so like Frank, when they do tell lies and offer their versions of 'alternative facts', then the Russian people who regularly consume their news from the mainstream Russian media outlets do not question if what they are being told is true or not if they have been reliant on these Russian media outlets for all the other news that they consume on a daily basis. But then that's exactly how Frank gets away with lying to his wife, he has already won her trust so lying to her is surprisingly easy. 

Even if they don't like what is happening, they are totally powerless to change it. 

Actually it would be unfair to portray your average Russian citizen to be totally brainwashed, incapable of questioning the version of the news they are fed through the local media. Some are indeed cynical as there is plenty of evidence of things not going well in Russia - whilst it is true that the GDP per capita of Russia has risen considerably since 2000 (we're talking about average trends here over 21 years, yes there have been variations year on year in this period), the main problem is wealth inequality. Russia is the kind of country where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer - those stuck in smaller towns and the countryside have seen little improvements in their standard of living in the last 20 years and struggle to make ends meet. Some have moved to bigger cities like St Petersburg and Moscow only to realize that the streets of Moscow are not paved with gold; without the right connections, the right degrees and work experience, they are unable to access better paid jobs and find themselves stuck in terrible poorly paid jobs in the big city whilst observing the wealthy elite live in absolute luxury right before their eyes in a city like Moscow. So you don't need to be a specialist in Russian economics to figure out that daily life truly sucks for the working class in Russia - they are only too aware of that reality. Instead of redistributing some of this wealth to the poorer working classs, Putin is using his foreign reserves to fund this war in Ukraine and that is well and truly a slap in the face for his working class supporters - the question is: what can these ordinary working class Russian folks do after getting slapped repeatedly in the face by Putin? Let me teach you another Russian word: ничего ("nichevo") - nothing. The working class in Russia are totally powerless. 

Even before Russia invaded Ukraine, the poor working class in Russia have plenty to complain and protest about but Putin has become ruthlessly efficient in shutting down any voices of dissent in Russia. There are serious consequences for anyone seen as troublemakers - just look at the way 77 year old Yelena Osipova, a pensioner in St Petersburg, was dragged off the streets by the police when she peacefully demonstrated against the war in Ukraine on the 2nd March 2022. What she did was very brave because as a pensioner, she could find herself in jail or even have her pension cut off by the state as a punishment for what she did. A lot of Russian people are only too aware of the consequences if they dare to speak out - they could lose their jobs or place at university, they could be thrown in jail, there could be consequences for their families. Putin has created a system which protects those in power and punishes anyone who dares to show any sign of dissent, thus the result is a kind of political apathy whereby Russians who are frustrated by the system don't dare to do anything about it for fear of any reprisals and punishments. These ordinary Russian citizens know that they are simply not in any kind of position to try to take on the system to try to change change it; and if they did try, they would only end up in jail like the many other political activists and dissidents who are currently serving very long sentences in Russian jails. So for this group of people, it's not so much that they are totally brainwashed and believed that Putin is a respectable leader rather than a tyrannical dictator but they have simply given up on the whole dismal situation and shifted their focus to other aspects of their lives such as their careers, their families and even their hobbies. 

Those who don't like Russia find it easier to leave than to challenge the status quo. 

The sad thing is that many well-educated Russian people realize the problems that Russian society is facing and trying to take on the system is simply impossible - so many simply go for the simpler option of leaving Russia to seek greener pastures elsewhere. The problem is that the more people like that leave Russia, the less open-minded people there are left in Russia to fight for a better society. It takes a critical mass of people before any change can happen - allow me to present an analogy. Imagine we are in a small town where there is a factory which employs a lot of people in the town - this factory produces leather but the tanning process causes a lot of pollution and thus the environmental consequences of having this leather factory in the town are terrible. So if the majority of the people in the town are so angry about the pollution from the factory that they demand that the local government closes the factory down, then there is strength in numbers and you may be able to get the result you want. However, if the town is very poor and the people working in the factories are worried about being able to find another job should the factory close down, then you may find yourself in the minority as someone who is sick and tired of the pollution caused by the factory. In this case, trying to lead a fight against the factory as an individual or an individual representing a small number of people in your town would be an uphill battle you're unlikely to win. Thus in such a situation, the best option may be to just cut your losses by moving to another town where the environment is much cleaner and unpolluted. If the people fed up with the pollution keep moving away from that town, then it is more than likely that the status quo will remain and the factory will keep on polluting the environment. 

I live in London where there are a lot of Russian people; some years back, I have worked in a company where I had many Russian colleagues. These are Russians who have simply chosen to move to another country where they are free from the problems back in Russia; they may be critical of Putin's regime back in Russia but since they have settled here in the UK, they have little interest in trying to change things back in Russia. They are like the people who have chosen to move away from that small town with that leather factory that causes all that pollution. It is much easier just to move away from the problem rather than try to solve the problem. Russia isn't like North Korea - there isn't any kind of law to stop Russians from emigrating abroad if they wish. Those who have chosen to leave Russia simply get on with their lives once they have settled in another country like the UK, embracing their new found freedoms here. Thus if many of the well-educated, open-minded people who are not fooled by the government propaganda in the Russian media keep leaving the country, then the people who are left behind are those who are more gullible and trust the Russian media. This is straight forward mathematics: if there are 100 Russians in a village and 30% of them don't trust the Russian media, then only 70% of them are brainwashed. But if half of that 30% (ie. 15 people) moved abroad, then 70 out of 85 people in the village are brainwashed - that percentage is now 82.35% up from 70% previously. That's why the critical mass to trigger a revolution may never ever be reached as long as that percentage of brainwashed people remains high. 

It is just easier to go along with it as it helps you sleep better at night. 

I must point out that moving away from Russia isn't easy: the Russian friends I have in London are rich, highly educated and have successful careers - they are the ones who are 'economically mobile', so they can have the option of saying, "I want to move to (insert name of country)" and they probably have all the skills necessary to obtain the requisite visa for that country. Not everyone is in that kind of privileged position of course, you need to be from a fairly rich family in order to afford a quality education that will arm you with all those skills and qualifications to access good jobs. For many poorer working class Russian folks, moving abroad is simply not an option for them - a country like the UK for example would gladly issue a work permit for a highly skilled Russian doctor or engineer but not for someone like a hairdresser or a waiter. So if you belong to the latter category, it is easier just to accept that things are perfectly fine the way they are or simply none of your concern what happens in Ukraine. So people in this situation usually focus on the good things that the government has done for them that has had a real impact on their lives, such as the provision of new infrastructure where they live whilst shoving everything to the contrary into a huge blind spot so it doesn't bother them. This isn't a totally unreasonable response to the situation given how few options these working class Russians actually have and how difficult their lives are: what kind of alternatives do they have? They can't leave Russia to seek greener pastures abroad, if they protested against the government they will be thrown in jail. So 'going along with it' doesn't mean condoning Putin's regime per se, it just means learning to shove all your misgivings about Putin into that huge blind spot. 

But some poor working class Russians do truly love and worship Putin - why? 

There's a huge difference between ignoring Putin because you're a poor working class Russian with no real power to do anything and truly worshiping him like a god. So imagine if you're stuck in a dead end job in some small town in rural Russia, life is grim, you work long hours just to make ends meet and your future is bleak. You need something to give you hope and some people in such a situation will turn to religion to have some kind of emotional comfort that they are not alone in their struggles. Some Russians turn to Putin for that - after all, they are already Russian, they don't get a choice in the matter as they are Russian by birth. You need something to be proud of if you want to have self-esteem: were you a scholar at school? Were you a scholar from an elite university? Did you excel at sports and won many gold medals? Are you very popular on social media? Do your posts on Instagram get loads of likes and positive comments? Are you very rich and have earned a lot of money because you're so brilliant at what you do? Not everyone can answer yes to all of those questions - in fact some people can't even answer yes to any of those questions. When people have little reason to have any kind of personal pride, they could turn to patriotism as an alternative, so they derive that same sense of self-esteem based on their nationality in the absence of any kind of personal achievements or merit. This is hardly unique to the situation in Russia - I have observed a lot of people from different countries go down the same road when they resort to patriotism as the basis of their self-esteem and that is a really dangerous route because they tend to blindly condone all the evil things their governments do - from human rights violations to this horrific war in Ukraine now. 

Patriotism and nationalism are easy ways to exploit vulnerable poor people.

I am very wary about any kind of patriotism even in cases where it doesn't involve despotic regimes like Russia - after all, you have no say in the country you were born in, you don't get to choose your parents; we get what we are given. They are like our parents and this is when I am going to say something that might offend some of you: if your parents have done some bad things, if your president has commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, would you still feel obliged to offer unconditional respect to your parents and pledge patriotic loyalty to your president under such circumstances? Or would you choose to exercise your judgment under such circumstances and say, "this is totally wrong, I can't in good conscience condone what they have done." But why do some people have such a huge problem with taking that stance? Well imagine if a young boy realizes that his father is a violent alcoholic and his mother is borderline insane with a crazy long list of serious mental health issues. What can the kid do? Can the boy say, goodbye I'm giving up on you guys and I'm putting myself up for adoption, I hope I'll find a better set of parents? No, the boy is stuck with those awful parents he has and so he copes by learning to ignore the problems caused by his parents and he might even try to find some joy within that relationship, to make the best of an awful situation. Maybe when he is finally an adult, he can look back and say, "no child should ever have to go through what I did. I am removing myself far from this toxic situation." But until he is old enough to fend for himself, sadly he is still very much stuck with his parents, regardless of how terrible they might be.

Likewise for a lot of poorer working class adults, they are still completely dependent on the government for a lot of things. Let's take a closer look at the situation in the UK: if you're poor, you actually get a lot of help from the government, thanks to the welfare state. You get subsidized housing and in some cases, it can be totally free. If your kids go to school, they get everything for free from school meals to uniforms to books. If you want to look for a job, you get a job seeker's allowance. If you're too broke to buy enough food for your family - there's always the local food bank to make sure you and your family have enough to eat. There's free healthcare on the NHS on top of all that - in short, the government does take care of you if you're poor here. The rich have a very different relationship with the state here: they pay their taxes and then get virtually nothing in return as they use their own money to buy everything they need from the house they live in to their children's education. So if you're poor and dependent on the government, you would want to hope that the people in charge are benevolent, charitable and will take good care of you. But if you're rich, you're not dependent on the government for any kind of help at all - in fact, you might think, "I don't need or want anything from the government, I just don't want them to increase my taxes to spend even more on these unemployed bums." Rich people are self-sufficient, they can support themselves and their families whereas for poorer folks, well they are hoping that there's a big brother type figure looking out for them, taking good care of them. Now that figure could be someone like a local politician - in fact, many poor people in the UK went to their local MPs for help, when they were really struggling during the pandemic. 

If you don't have a real big brother to take care of you, then you invent one.

An alternative big brother figure that poor people reach for is 'god' or some kind of divinity - poorer countries tend to be a lot more religious than richer countries. It's not to say that rich countries are totally godless or irreligious but they tend to be secular whereas in these poorer countries, if you want a big brother character who will be on your side and take care of you, heck why not just bypass the local MP, go straight to the top by asking your god for help? Thus in the case of Russia, Putin is practically a god-like figure to many Russians given that he wields ultimate power in the country and he is smart enough to control every aspect of the country, including the Russian Orthodox Church and thus the church gives him full endorsement and support. Poor Russians who are reaching out for a big brother figure for help are thus directed to Putin and they place their faith in him, believing the narrative that Russia is the greatest country in the world, that Putin is on their side and will take good care of all Russian folks. When you look at the crumbling infrastructure and the lack of investment in some of the smaller Russian towns, the evidence suggests otherwise. But in this situation, some people simply double down and become twice as faithful when worshiping Putin, accusing anyone of doubting him as being a traitor to the state. Having this kind of blind faith in the 'big brother' figure you choose to worship can give you hope to get you through hard times, but it doesn't put food on the table or buy you that winter coat to keep you warm when the snow is knee deep. However, for a lot of these working class Russians, their faith is all they have left since they are very poor. 

Thus such is the mindset of some of the poorer Russian folks who have put their faith in Putin but there is one other dimension that really shapes the mindset of a lot of Russian people in this war: poverty. Thus Russia on the whole may not be that poor but the wealth is very unequally distributed and that means that there are a lot of desperately poor Russian folks - these people are often invisible. You won't see them in the news and even if tourists visit Russia, they will not come across such people as they are usually in smaller towns and the countryside. When you're that poor, you become preoccupied with daily survival - you're thinking about how you're going to pay the bills at the end of the month, you are worried that you're going to get sick with Covid the moment you have a sore throat. And if something happens far away, then you're simply less likely to care. If you're in a small town in Eastern Siberia, Kiev is a few time zones away: you probably have never been there nor have the money to travel that far away. You're also quite unlikely to have any connections with people in Kiev thus it becomes easy to just shrug your shoulders and ignore the war there because it may as well be a war in Africa or somewhere equally far away. So it's not like they lack basic compassion or humanity but they simply don't feel connected with something happening that far away from them and so it makes it easier for them to ignore the atrocities being committed by the Russian army during this invasion of Ukraine. Indeed for some of them, they already have plenty of problems of their own whilst living in abject poverty. Hence there is a sense of "how could you expect me to feel sorry for the Ukrainians, when nobody has ever felt sorry for me all these years when I was suffering?"

Understanding the Russian mindset isn't the same as condoning it. 

I'm not an apologist for the Russians, I am totally against the war in Ukraine and I hate Putin. But I think it would be simplistic to think that Russians are just plain evil warmongers who simply don't care about the suffering and distress that the Ukrainian people are going through right now. After all, I'm Chinese - well, British-Chinese who was born in Singapore but one look at my face and you know I have Chinese blood. I've grown up with people telling me how I should be proud of my Chinese roots yet at the same time, I am also appalled at the actions of what the Chinese government has been doing all these years. When I was young, it was the mass murder of innocent student protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989 and most recently, it was the violent repression of millions of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang. The Chinese communist government is fucking evil - I have always made it a point to condemn the actions of what the Chinese government does. Thankfully, I am well educated, well-informed and eloquent, so I have always been able to articulate myself on the issue. The same cannot be said about my father who is uneducated and very working class: he wants something for nothing. He wants people around the world to marvel at the rise of China as an economic super power and then offer him unconditional respect on the assumption of, "oh look he is Chinese, the Chinese economy is booming so this man must be worthy of respect." I simply shake my head in disbelief at the simplicity of his logic because it doesn't work that way - if you want respect, you have to earn it as an individual, rather than hope for people to make such a ridiculous assumption.

Can you try to understand a selfish monster if that fucking evil monster is your mother? 

I have also seen how my working class parents are completely devoid of compassion for others and again, it's not like I'm making excuses for them but I'm trying to understand why they are like that rather than just say, "they're fucking evil and dead to me, they can fuck off and die." My mother is shockingly selfish and incapable of empathy or compassion - the root cause of her behaviour was the extreme poverty she endured as a young child. She was born during WW2, in the midst of the Japanese occupation of Singapore and life was so hard that she witnessed her sister die of starvation and disease at the age of 7. Thus at the back of her head, there has always been a sense of, "why was my life so hard? Why did I suffer so much? When I was hungry, nobody fed me. When I was crying, nobody wiped my tears away. I got no sympathy, no help, nothing. Nobody gave a shit about me when I was so vulnerable so why should I care about others? I got no help, no compassion, so I don't feel obliged to offer any." Now you might say, your mother is in Singapore, she's Chinese - she is not Russian so how does this explain anything? Well given that I speak Russian pretty well (and manage basic Ukrainian), one thing that I have learnt over the years is that once you get past the language barrier, I realized that we all experience the same human emotions. Too many people would say oh I don't speak Russian so I can't understand what they think - well actually, you can. I'm not asking you to condone their stance on the war: I'm just telling you it is possible to figure out the Russian mindset because we're all people who experience the very same human emotions, regardless of the language(s) we speak, so I choose to focus on our shared humanity and not our differences. 

I would like to end with a reminder that not all Germans supported Hitler during WW2 but those who dared to oppose him were ruthlessly punished. Likewise, not all British people voted for Brexit (it was a 52-48 margin) and not all Americans voted for Trump. It remains to be seen how badly things will go for Putin as the Russian economy implodes under the double stress of both the economics sanctions and the cost of a war that has gone on for much longer than Putin had originally planned for. But in order to begin to deal with the Russians, a sensible first step would be to understand what the hell is going on in Russia and in the minds of the ordinary Russian people who do support Putin - I hope this blog post is contributing to that discourse. So what do you think about ordinary Russians who are totally in love with Putin then? Do you see any similarities in this awful situation with other poor working class people in other countries? Please leave your thoughts about this Russian invasion of Ukraine below in the comments section and many thanks for reading. 


30 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. You're wrong when you claimed that I am merely reproducing what others have told me or what I've read in the news. I have a major advantage over most people: I speak Russian really quite well and I also speak Ukrainian. Do you speak Russian or Ukrainian? No. I have friends in both Russian and Ukraine; I've been speaking to all of them over the period of this horrific war. This is quite unlike your situation - you're merely sitting at home reading what you're told in the media. Not only do I have the linguistic ability to do what most people cannot do (ie. access both the Russian and Ukrainian media without having to Google translate it), I also know people in Kiev who are directly affected by the ongoing war. You certainly can't claim that - you're merely passively reading the news.

      I'm not going to get into an argument with you about China - I hate the CPP and they are extremely evil. I shook my head in disbelief at what you wrote. I cannot argue with you if you are completely brainwashed by the lies you've been told in the Chinese media. China is just as evil as Russia and if you're supporting the other side, then I have nothing to say to you. Please don't read my blog, please don't come back here again as I don't wish to argue with you. Go away, don't come back.

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    3. You're totally right Sandra. I'm going to delete the comment. On one hand, I wanted to make a point about having done my homework about the Ukrainian situation - I speak Russian well and basic Ukrainian for crying out aloud, yet he had the audacity to suggest that I'm just brainwashed by the Western media? I can go to a Russian website, read the news in Russian without using Google translate. Anyway, I'm not going to argue with him - I'm deleting that comment as you have suggested but that means your comment (and this one) will be gone as well once I do that.

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    4. Oh whadaya know, our conversation is still here - however I can see the comment that I've just deleted above being marked as 'This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.' Whilst it was full of blatant lies about the Chinese government, I did think, "here's an example of someone who is clearly brainwashed, not by the Russian government but by the Chinese government." Brainwashing is real.

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  2. Hello Sandra and thanks for your comments. Allow me to respond to the points you've made.

    1. Yes the Russian middle class are hit very hard with the sanctions along with the massive devaluation of the Russian ruble. Heck, if your Rabbi's family has a way out they ought to leave because things are going to get a lot worse before they can get better as Putin is never going to back down now that he has started this war. However, for these middle class Russians who are educated and have good jobs, it is just easier to pack up and leave Russia rather than try to overthrow Putin. They stand to lose everything and end up thrown in jail for a long time if they dare to oppose Putin - contrast that to the option of working somewhere like Dubai, many would choose the latter of course. So if the people who have the most to lose decide to move away and leave Russia rather than stay and change Russia, then the status quo would remain for the indefinite future. Even when Putin dies, he would make sure he has someone who believes in his ideology to take over.

    2. The amount of wealth each individual oligarch has and stands to lose is now that straightforward. A yacht in a harbour is easy to seize but most of them have offshore bank accounts in the name of shell companies that are very hard to trace and link back to them. Money laundering is big business and so for every one luxury yacht they seize, there are still plenty of other assets hidden away. In London, a lot of that is hidden in plain sight as these oligarchs can buy London property through shell companies. So an oligarch's name would never appear on the property deed, but he would still own the London mansion - he can buy that through a shell company in somewhere like Bermuda or Liechtenstein and this route is designed to obscure the link between the oligarch and the property. British politicians are so addicted to Russian donations that they have allowed this for years. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/06/how-london-became-the-place-to-be-for-putins-oligarchs

    You're totally right about the poor working class who have nothing: no western brands, no foreign holidays, nothing to begin with. That's why they are Putin's core supporters, even in a Russia where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer - it makes no sense at all why they are supporting Putin when they get so little out of the deal but then again, I see these poor people in poor countries go to church every Sunday and give what little they have to the church. And I think, what do you get out of that deal? You're so poor yet you give what little you have to the church to make the church richer? But what they gain is that faith, that confidence that they have a big brother in 'god' to take care of them when time gets hard. I find it very hard to get my head around that way of thinking because I've learnt to depend on myself rather than any kind of big brother to take care of me.

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  3. Hi Sandra, I think the way you're looking at belonging to a church or synagogue is very much in terms "value for money", ie. £60 a month each but I get free child care and classes for the kids on Saturday - well it goes to show that you're thinking of "what is the childcare on Saturday worth to me?" Whereas the way I see it, for poorer people, religion is more like them reaching out for a 'big brother' figure who is always on their side and looking out for them. Believe you me, it works. Did I ever tell you that when I was in the army in Singapore, I was so very religious? I remember this horrific exercise when they were trying to punish us by running up this hill, we would get to the top and then run down again - this was repeated many times. Then on the last one, we were then told, we'll do it again but the last 10 people who got to the top will have a punishment. There were only about 40 of us so the chances of getting the punishment was 1 in 4 and we were all already so exhausted at that point. What I do to make sure I somehow found the strength to keep on running to the top of that hill? I prayed out aloud, I sang praises of Jesus, I thanked God for everything he had done for me, I wept tears of gratitude for Jesus being there for me and I imagined I was running up that hill with Jesus etc. Yeah when you're in that kind of situation, it wasn't money that I needed - it was that feeling that you had a big brother in the form of Jesus to push you through the hard times. I just needed some way to convince myself that I was going to make it back up to the top of that hill fast enough to avoid the punishment and having religion then was something for me to ignore my physical pain and exhaustion and feel optimistic about the situation. It worked. I reached the top of the hill comfortably beating more than 10 people, I was praying all the way and when you're in that kind of situation, religion really does help. You can't put a value on it, this kind of emotional support is priceless.

    As for poor Russians supporting Putin, yup, you've hit the nail on the head again.

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  4. A Russian told me this:
    Putin is a teddy 🧸 bear.
    The Ukrainians are Nazis.
    Zelensky takes cocaine.
    The Ukrainians have raped Russian women.
    The Ukrainians have killed Russian children.
    THERE IS NO WAR!
    EVERYTHING I KNOW IS WESTERN PROPAGANDA.
    RUSSIANS HAVE BEEN DEHUMANIZED!

    I am still traumatized by being scolded by this Russian who lives in my country.

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    1. Well I don't know if you've seen the exchange I've had with Sandra above but I had a reader who lives in Macau tell me that nobody got hurt at Tiananmen and that there isn't a genocide being waged against the Uighurs in Xinjiang at the moment. He is an example of a brainwashed Chinese person. Sandra said that I shouldn't engage him as someone who denies that anyone got hurt at Tiananmen in 1989 is as bad as denying that any Jews were murdered in the holocaust. I have banned him for good. He tried to leave a few more comments arguing his side of the story but Sandra is right - I have to ban him, you can't engage people like that. I am currently doing a part 2 about brainwashed people, akan datang, look out for it.

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    2. It's very troubling.
      When I was working in China, many did not know about the massacre at Tiananmen. They did not know about Nepal. Either they did not know or they did not want to acknowledge that those atrocities happened. Brainwashed.

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    3. Yes there's that aspect of it. There's also another aspect of the same problem: social skills. It takes a lot of social skills to persuade someone to change their opinion: I do this for a living. I persuade people to buy stuff - well, in my case, I persuade companies and individuals to invest their money with us. Persuasion is my key skill that I use to make a living. I do this by listening to people, getting to understand what their needs are and then explaining why investing with me would solve that problem. So for example, "ah Di, you have a son, he is about to start university, that's going to cost you a lot of money. You need to make sure your money works for itself rather than for you to work your butt off to pay for his university fees. If you invest what you have wisely, then you will have no money worries as the profit you make from these wise investments will substantially increase the pot of money you've set aside for your son's education. You've worked hard all these years, it's time to reap the rewards and let the money do the hard work - invest with me and you can relax, appreciate this amazing time when you see your son turn into a fine young man and a graduate." Oh yeah, this is what I do, I find your heartstrings then I play them like a violin.

      However, not everyone has skills like that. In a recent piece, I wrote about two autistic people (my dad and a colleague) who have atrocious social skills so even when they are right, I found their actions repulsive and they simply don't know how to persuade others to listen to them. https://limpehft.blogspot.com/2022/02/my-autistic-father-and-my-autistic.html

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  5. That's a very insightful piece you've written Alex. Many people forget that individual pride is a luxury not everyone can afford, and for the people who can't they turn to religion or patriotism to feel like they are part of something great. I mean in the US it baffles me that people who are against high taxes and putting money into social welfare for single mothers fully support the US fighting foreign wars and increasing their military budget. I didn't understand it at first because the former is investing into your own country while the latter is destroying someone else' country till I realized there isn't any patriotism with regards to social welfare because people hate sharing but somehow love fighting because sharing is considered "losing" while fighting is considered "winning."

    Btw I just had to LOL at the story about "Frank" haha. He is having his cake being a married man with kids, and eating it too by having lots of mistresses. I'm baffled that his mistresses don't really mind that they don't get all of him and haven't resorted to telling his wife, but it's none of my business I suppose.

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    1. Hi Amanda, it is sad when people feel like they have absolutely no choice but to be 'patriotic' - a lot of it is peer pressure of course. That's a double edged sword, let's look at Russia right now. If you're in an environment where you're surrounded by pro-Putin supporters, then you wouldn't dare to be different and speak out against the war; but by that same token, if you do support the war and praise Putin, then you will get the approval and acceptance of those around you - this means those who are clueless and dumb but simply crave approval and acceptance tend to do just that without actually understanding the situation and the moral issues to do with the way, they just want people around them to like them. We have seen that happening in the Nazi regime in Germany and the same thing is happening now in Russia.

      As for Frank, his mistresses (as I understood) tend to be cash strapped young ladies who badly needed the money - it was practically the relationship between a prostitute and a regular customer who pays well. It has nothing to do with 'love' but it is simply a financial transaction: sex for money. Thus these young ladies wouldn't slay the goose that lay the golden eggs as long as Frank pays well.

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    2. Oh yeah peer pressure is a huge factor. Nobody is going to get a megaphone, stand on a table, and say "I hate Putin!" in Russia. Even if they are against the war the most they can do is keep quiet. It's like going to a rural part of America and shouting "I hate Trump!" in public. But a similar thing occurs in the west where it is unPC to support Putin, so there is overwhelming support for Ukraine simply because it's the majority opinion. I'm kinda sad that there wasn't as much support for Afghanistan, but the US did send troops there for a while, all they did was withdraw that support last year.

      Oh okay so they're more like paid girlfriends he regularly visits rather than potential candidates for a new wife. Lately I've been reading this novel by a Singaporean writer called "Sarong Party Girls" about Singaporean women trying to get an Ang-moh husband in Sg. It goes into great detail about rich men like "Frank" and where they find women to entertain themselves, usually at high end KTV places.

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    3. Oh it's one thing to feel compelled to keep quiet when you are in the minority (such as in the examples you've stated above) but when young Russian kids in school pledged their loyalty to Putin just to gain the praise and approval of their teachers and peers, rather than because they understand what is going on and have made an informed decision on the topic, then I find that very much like North Korean style brainwashing - I remember seeing this documentary on North Korea where young kids were singing about how they love their dear leader so much they would do anything for him and I'm like, these kids don't understand a thing, they're too young and yet they're being manipulated into doing this - that's so wrong.

      As for Frank, oh it's never about love or emotions but about sex and power. He likes the power he wields over his wife who still believes that he is a good husband and father. He likes the way his 'girlfriends' shower him with love and attention despite the fact that he is an old and fat man - yet they treat him with such love and respect because they need his money. Forget love, forget emotions, forget being kind, I get the feeling that Frank thinks, "I'm so fat and ugly yet these young pretty girlfriends can't wait to jump into bed with me - this is the definition of power and I am powerful." It is a power trip for him. It has absolutely nothing to do with love. I think love is a wonderful thing but some people just aren't interested in finding love.

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    4. I never really understood patriotism in schools because I attended a private school where we were taught to criticize the government very often lol. I was a bit baffled when I first walked into a public school classroom and saw pictures of the president on the wall. Then I realized the government controls the public school system so they can use it to make people more patriotic if they wanted to. It's a thing everywhere I suppose, but even worse when the country is run by a dictator. Even in Singapore the Singaporeans complained about how they had to learn about Lee Kuan Yew and all his "awesomeness" in the classroom growing up.

      Oh you didn't mention that Frank is old and fat, I was assuming he was quite vain and hedonistic and uses his money to make himself look better while also enjoying himself. But there are different types of cheaters I suppose haha. Someone who engages in power trips is probably feeling very powerless in life though... Frank kinda reminds me of one of the clients in the blog post you wrote about the interview with the high end escort.

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    5. Well Amanda, having grown up poor and working class, I have seen a lot of people who have nothing they can be proud of - they struggled in school, ended up in terrible jobs, earn very little money, have no social status and for people like that, there's nothing but shame if they look at what they have accomplished in their lifetime. So that's why they become patriotic and use nationalism to feel good about themselves as they fills a gaping void in their souls where they would otherwise feel a deep sense of shame about being a total failure in life. This is why nationalism/patriotism has such a wide appeal as there are many losers out there - oh yeah, how many people out there are truly rich and successful versus the number who are poor and struggling? Successful people are in the minority in this world and that's why Putin gets away with his brainwashing propaganda.

      As for Frank and vanity - oh you're completely wrong on this and allow me to explain: if one is vain in terms of wanting to look good, people who do that tend to want to please others and get the attention of others by being attractive. This goes down the 'love' route whereby you want people to like/love you - again, you're seeking their approval. Frank isn't after love, he doesn't even want you to like him. No, it is the complete opposite. He wants to roll into his girlfriend's house at 2 am, wake her up when she is fast asleep - he can be smelling really bad, reeking of alcohol and very drunk but demands sex whether she is in the mood or not and because he is effectively a paying customer she has to say yes no matter how much she HATES him, is DISGUSTED by him but feels obliged to say yes to earn the money. Frank doesn't care if his girlfriend likes him - in fact, he knows she finds him utterly totally revolting and disgusting, but he isn't after her affection, no he gets off on the power trip, the control he has over her in situations whereby he can be totally disgusting, nasty and abusive towards her and she is still like a loyal puppy dog and does as she is told. This is when you're seeing things from your own point of view as you clearly have this desire, this need to be liked by others (and I share that too) but you have to realize that people like Frank don't care about being liked by others - quite the opposite, they get turned on by the power trip when they force women who dislike them and find them utterly disgusting to jump into bed with them. So by that token, Frank isn't interested in making himself attractive - he is very old and fat. Really quite vile and disgusting.

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    6. I can only assume that you've never met anyone as vile and nasty as Frank - quite frankly, that's good thing. But evil villains like that do exist in real life.

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    7. Oh I've met poor people without much to be proud of that turn religious. Heck it doesn't even have to be religion/patriotism, sometimes I just meet women of an older generation who don't command a lot of respect because they don't have an education neither did they get married, and they tend to turn into busy bodies criticizing small things other people do to feel important about themselves. Everyone feels the need to feel important, so I guess it doesn't surprise me the things people will do when they're desperate.

      Ooh Frank sounds like a mini consensual Harvey Weinstein type. Weinstein was also married with kids when he was abusing women who worked for him. I'm glad I haven't met anyone like Frank! Most of the time the horrible people I've met are just pathetic enough to try to get me to like them instead of forcing me to.

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    8. Yup, religion can function in much the same way. I can see how someone who works in a crap job earning peanuts would turn to religion because of the doctrine of "we're all special in god's eyes, Jesus loves you!" I pass two people on my way to work given the route I tend to take: I told you about one of them before. I pass a fancy cup cake shop https://www.lolascupcakes.co.uk/Default.aspx and the guy in there looks so freaking bored. He's being paid the minimum wage to get the cake you want, put it in a box and then handle the payment. It's a terrible job and he's earning peanuts. The second job is possibly worse! I walk past a very fancy restaurant Mimi Mei Fair https://mimimeifair.com/ and it's super expensive - they have hired a guy just to be the doorman whose job is nothing more than to say "welcome" and open the door for anyone entering. But they put him in this over the top uniform like he was a bellhop in a New York hotel in 1920 and you can tell he isn't exactly happy standing at the door of the restaurant dressed like that, having to smile at everyone who walks past. That must be an even worse job that the cake shop guy who has that look on his face which is, "what the hell am I doing with my life." Yeah people like that need something to feel good about themselves if they are not getting it from their work, so they turn to something else: football, religion, nationalism - anything more glorious that they can attach themselves to and focus on, so they can forget about their own personal failures.

      As for Harvey Weinstein, yup you've hit the nail on the head. Weinstein was an evil monster who wanted his power trip - physically he was grotesque and disgusting as well but that's got to do with the kind of cruel power trip he enjoys. He is forcing these women to do something they really hate and when he sees that mix of guilt, fear and pain in their eyes, it turns him on. He isn't trying to get the women to like him (eg. by being attractive), it's something far more evil than simply wanting their attention or affection.

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    9. Y'know that is a very interesting point about "we're all special in god's eyes." The thing about a democracy is that everyone gets a single vote. So a doorman in a fancy restaurant's vote counts just as much as Bill Gates' vote, exactly 1 each. When I watch those political rallies on youtube politicians sound almost identical to pastors at a church service saying things like "you are all extraordinary people!" The thing about churches and politicians is that numbers matter a lot, and they will take anyone with a pulse, because even if they can't donate a lot of money it still helps to have many supporters. Same goes for being a fan of a football team I suppose, there is a very low barrier to entry but an immediate sense of gratification that one is contributing something, however small, towards the success of a larger organization.

      Wow you're right it has nothing to do with love. Harvey Weinstein and Frank are under no illusions that the young women they sleep with "love" them, its all about being able to get what they want when they want it. Love does come with all sorts of strings attached anyway, its a two-way street than just a financial transaction, and requires a ridiculous amount of patience and "whatever will be will be..." But hey at least it's consensual between Frank and his girlfriends. The only thing I don't agree with is him lying to his wife and kids about what he does.

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    10. Aah but Amanda, when a rich billionaire wants to influence politicians, they don't do it at the ballot box. They would use the donation route - so if they back a certain politician, they would give the party or the politician regular donations, this would then earn them the attention of the politician who is in the position to make important decisions when it comes to things like tax breaks for the rich! So a mega rich businessman does have a lot more influence than the doorman in a fancy restaurant because of the role that donations play in politics. Indeed, the doorman can only vote for the politician who thinks will help poor people more but the rich politician can simply look at who is in power and then dangle a big donation in return for certain favours.

      Don't get me started on Frank's wife. I've met her. I feel really bad for her.

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    11. Lol that reminds me of Scientology and how one can pay for better perks. But nonetheless a rich businessperson still has to support a candidate with enough votes to get what they want. Like how Michael Bloomberg tried to run for president but just couldn't get enough votes despite all his money. But to a doorman the idea of democracy provides the "illusion" of fairness, one person one vote, even if it isn't really true.

      Frank seems like a "love-bomber" with the sushi surprise. Jeezus it seems like a terrible situation overall. I hope Frank's wife has other hobbies to entertain herself.

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    12. Well from what I understand, Frank's wife is from a traditional family and she genuinely wants to play the part of the good mother and wife - so she turns a blind eye to whatever Frank gets up to and focuses her attention on her children. There's an old song from 1989 'What You Don't Know' by an American band called Expose with the lines, "if you don't know, it won't hurt you" - it is about cheating on your partner in your relationship, ie. if the other party doesn't know what is happening then they can't get hurt. There's a lot of that with Frank and his wife.

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    13. Oh and a further anecdote about Frank's wife - she reminds me of this other woman I know because they are doing the exact same thing. Neither of them were particularly highly educated so they simply married a rich man to get access to his wealth. But in order to feel good about themselves, they've decided to be the best mother in the world and that means spending a LOT of money on their kids. So if Frank's wife needed to buy a pair of shoes for her young son, it would be the most expensive pair of shoes she can lay her hands on in London so she can feel good about just what a great mother she is. It's unreal but that's her using her ability to spend her husband's money to feel good about herself. We all need to feel good about ourselves and some people find weird ways to achieve that.

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    14. I think Frank's wife could leave him, but it just sounds like a hassle to do so especially when Frank is still a good father to the kids. The marriage isn't perfect but it seems good enough to not tear apart. Oh I think it's fine if they spend a lot of money on their kids, especially when it comes to things Frank's wife didn't get to enjoy growing up. Though it can feel a little bit overblown haha. A kid doesn't need Gucci shoes. It kinda reminds me of one of the Kardashian girls buying a luxury handbag for their 2 year old daughter. As if the 2 year old even knows and appreciates what they're holding.

      To be fair I think it's a little intimidating to be dating someone richer and taking their money/help. There's this guy who is lending me his car for a driver's license test, but his car is a luxury vehicle and I'm really scared to crash it. My god, growing up my dad had a Mercedes Benz and he never let me drive it. I'm a poor graduate student right now, but I hope to earn a lot more when I graduate so I don't feel dependent on anyone else.

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    15. Oh but she feels entitled to that money in exchange for looking the other way. That's why she doesn't feel intimidated or think that there's anything wrong with spending Frank's money. It's like how I sometimes wonder, "am I paid enough in my current job? Am I getting a fair deal? When do I ask for more money?" She clearly thinks she deserves something (money wise) for looking the other way on top of everything else she does as a wife and mother. Leave love at the door, it's all about money at the end of the day for a lot of people.

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    16. And whom am I to judge her for doing that? I kinda feel sorry for her but then again, she's older than me, she's an adult. She has made her choices and she's accepted the deal.

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    17. Lol then the marriage is kinda like a "job" rather than a personal life. A job is something you don't always like doing but have to do for money, while a personal life is something you don't have to do and get zero monetary benefit from but want to do. Raising children is a job though, I doubt Frank is around very much to spend time with his children if he spends a lot of late nights in the office. But if Frank's wife is not that educated, even if she were I'm not sure if she's the type of person who would want to suddenly have to work 8 hours a day just to not take Frank's money. I suppose their marriage "works" for both parties in this regard. The guy lending me his car works crazy hours every week, so much that he once joked to me he's thinking of quitting his job to look for a rich woman to marry so he can be a househusband who sits at home all day. That's basically the guy version of what Frank's wife does haha.

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    18. For some people, love is but a luxury, an ideal that they don't prioritize over money and they're willing to sacrifice if it means having enough money to live very comfortably.

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