More Bad News for Canadians

[Puffaluffaguss]

@woodsroad Well my friend, yes I do like me some of what your saying, except when little girls and boys are allowed to change there bodies before they even know what being a human is.

Secondly, your a very privileged person to not have anybody you know been shot or killed by guns. Don't get me wrong I'll fight for the right to keep my guns but I can also be disgusted by the way some people use guns to hurt innocent people.

 

[georged]

Unchecked capitalism and unchecked communism/socialism end up in exactly the same place. Exactly the same social structure:

A handful of ultra-powerful, ultra-wealthy, ultra-privileged people on top, and everyone else scrambling to live hand-to-mouth below them.

Giving the pyramid different names---and the hand-to-mouth survivors fighting among themselves about semantic differences---accomplishes nothing except make the handful smile.

 

[Winnipeger]

how the USSR supported all of the countries attacking Israel in the '48, '67 and '72 wars.

Actually the U.S.S.R was the "first country to grant du jure recognition to the Jewish State". The Soviet Bloc also provided arms that were "crucial to Isreal in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War."

Link

Soviet support for Israel didn't last, as a result of the Cold War, but Israel was able to win the 1948 war as a result of support from both sides (Soviet and American.)

 

[woodsroad]

Actually the U.S.S.R was the "first country to grant du jure recognition to the Jewish State". The Soviet Bloc also provided arms that were "crucial to Isreal in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War."

Link

Soviet support for Israel didn't last, as a result of the Cold War, but Israel was able to win the 1948 war as a result of support from both sides (Soviet and American.)

View attachment 280869

The arms provided to Israel by the USSR after WWII were captured German weaponry. The only reason that the USSR helped facilitate some of those transfers was that they were being paid in gold. I know this because my mother’s best friend was intimately involved in the surreptitious triangle trade of converting donated US dollars into Mexican gold which then went to war-ravaged Eastern Europe to buy weaponry. I have one of the Czech Mauser rifles that made the trip to Israel, scrubbed of it’s swastika and emblazoned with the Jewish star. It was rebarreled in later years, after the 8mm ammo ran out, to 7.62 NATO.

While recognizing the new nation of Israel looked good in the international press, it did nothing to stem the institutionalized oppression, imprisonment and execution of Jews in the USSR.

 

[warren]

A handful of ultra-powerful, ultra-wealthy, ultra-privileged people on top, and everyone else scrambling to live hand-to-mouth below them.

When working in Russia I became very sick. My partner saw to it that I was placed in the "Party" hospital, reserved for upper level party members. I had a private room, with view of the river and was assigned an apparently well-trained/educated doctor. A multi-tiered society indeed.

 

[woodsroad]

@woodsroad Well my friend, yes I do like me some of what your saying, except when little girls and boys are allowed to change there bodies before they even know what being a human is.

Secondly, your a very privileged person to not have anybody you know been shot or killed by guns. Don't get me wrong I'll fight for the right to keep my guns but I can also be disgusted by the way some people use guns to hurt innocent people.

What did I say to make you think I support child sex change operations? Really?

Second, I don’t think I’m privileged at all. Most people in the US share my experience.

Thirdly, or tertiarilistically speaking, all that was just a setup for the crack about beavers and poutine, the number one killers of Canadians.

 

[Puffaluffaguss]

What did I say to make you think I support child sex change operations? Really?

Second, I don’t think I’m privileged at all. Most people in the US share my experience.

Thirdly, or tertiarilistically speaking, all that was just a setup for the crack about beavers and poutine, the number one killers of Canadians.

Wait!!! What? Nonono misunderstanding. I'm saying yes I do agree with you in that it would be a great thing if our government decided our beloved women can do with their parts as they please but at the same time if they were to do so also make it to under 18 no surgery weather parent consents or not.

And I also beg to differ, just because you don't feel very privileged doesn't mean you are not. The percentage of people who have been shot, or have shot, or know somebody who has shot, or been shot, is over 50% which would make you either really lucky or privileged. Yes "Privileged" sounds like an unrational term but I consider myself very privileged, and I was raised without a mom, have a cousin who was shot to death. a brother who overdosed, a cousins boyfriend shoot his own brother and more stuff that I won't mention. So it's a point of view issue it's either your from it or you not and I wish I could I was not.

 

[Winnipeger]

Wait!!! What? Nonono misunderstanding. I'm saying yes I do agree with you in that it would be a great thing if our government decided our beloved women can do with their parts as they please but at the same time if they were to do so also make it to under 18 no surgery weather parent consents or not.

And I also beg to differ, just because you don't feel very privileged doesn't mean you are not. The percentage of people who have been shot, or have shot, or know somebody who has shot, or been shot, is over 50% which would make you either really lucky or privileged. Yes "Privileged" sounds like an unrational term but I consider myself very privileged, and I was raised without a mom, have a cousin who was shot to death. a brother who overdosed, a cousins boyfriend shoot his own brother and more stuff that I won't mention. So it's a point of view issue it's either your from it or you not and I wish I could I was not.

Yep.

The arms provided to Israel by the USSR after WWII were captured German weaponry.

In the late 1940's, Europe was rife with captured Nazi armaments. So what? Those weapons though, were in fact, supplied by the Communists. I'm sure the Israelis were happy to have them, and the results speak for themselves.

Do you think that defeating Nazism in Eastern Europe, liberating Berlin, and at the same time suffering the largest number of casualties on Earth, and materially and significantly assisting in the creation of the state of Israel, gives the Russians and their former vassal states, or the citizens thereof, any right to be respected as...I don't know...what?...contributing members of the global community? Not just a bunch of antisemites to be painted with a broad brush.

Antisemitism seems, lately, to be equated with any criticism or lack of support for the policies and actions of the state of Israel. That's no surprise, as it is directly in line with Israeli propaganda and the PR agenda of the Isreal lobby in the U.S. But Jew-hatred, which is a deplorable evil, is not equatable with the pervasive criticism of Israel, which is a global phenomenon, based on the real-world actions of its government. I was against the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, as were a majority of Canadians at the time. But that's doesn't mean I "hate" the American people. Far from it.

While recognizing the new nation of Israel looked good in the international press, it did nothing to stem the institutionalized oppression, imprisonment and execution of Jews in the USSR.

Yep.

Which is to say history is complicated.

Unfortunately, antisemitism is prevalent across Europe and apparently is alive and well in North America too. My ancestors had to flee Poland and settled in Denmark, where they had to escape to Sweden when the Nazis captured Copenhagen. Those who didn't leave Poland...

...We know the story. I wouldn't be here if it were not for the fact that my Great Grandfather spent his entire life dodging jew-haters.

I hope we can agree that no one has the full story of what really happened in the distant past, or also, what is happening today. That seems like the barest minimum required for a rational discourse regarding...

Oh...

Never mind...


I wouldn't want this thread to veer into the realm of politics. I'd hate to see it shut down by our overlords mods.

 

[Winnipeger]

Thirdly, or tertiarilistically speaking, all that was just a setup for the crack about beavers and poutine, the number one killers of Canadians.

I concede your point in this regard.

 

[woodsroad]

Wait!!! What? Nonono misunderstanding. I'm saying yes I do agree with you in that it would be a great thing if our government decided our beloved women can do with their parts as they please but at the same time if they were to do so also make it to under 18 no surgery weather parent consents or not.

Agreed!
There is a reason children, by law, can not be abandoned by their parents, sent to work, war or sold into servitude. They are not developmentally capable of making important decisions on their own. The must rely on capable adults to make good decisions for them. Any parent that agrees to surgically or chemically alter their children to suit the child's whims (or the parents warped perceptions) is not fit to be parent or guardian.

And I also beg to differ, just because you don't feel very privileged doesn't mean you are not. The percentage of people who have been shot, or have shot, or know somebody who has shot, or been shot, is over 50% which would make you either really lucky or privileged. Yes "Privileged" sounds like an unrational term but I consider myself very privileged, and I was raised without a mom, have a cousin who was shot to death. a brother who overdosed, a cousins boyfriend shoot his own brother and more stuff that I won't mention. So it's a point of view issue it's either your from it or you not and I wish I could I was not.

Rather than feeling privileged, for whatever reason, I prefer to have compassion for those with more difficult lives than my own. I don't see myself as having some kind of gifted advantage, rather I see some other folks more or less fortunate. Although "fortunate" isn't exactly the word I'm looking for, since many times it has nothing to do with fortune and more to do with other variables such as fortitude, perseverance and innate abilities. I am also very grateful for what I have. Grateful to my parents, friends and coworkers who have helped me along the way. That's different from privilege. Very different.

 

[woodsroad]

Yep.

In the late 1940's, Europe was rife with captured Nazi armaments. So what? Those weapons though, were in fact, supplied by the Communists. I'm sure the Israelis were happy to have them, and the results speak for themselves.

Do you think that defeating Nazism in Eastern Europe, liberating Berlin, and at the same time suffering the largest number of casualties on Earth, and materially and significantly assisting in the creation of the state of Israel, gives the Russians and their former vassal states, or the citizens thereof, any right to be respected as...I don't know...what?...contributing members of the global community? Not just a bunch of antisemites to be painted with a broad brush.

Antisemitism seems, lately, to be equated with any criticism or lack of support for the policies and actions of the state of Israel. That's no surprise, as it is directly in line with Israeli propaganda and the PR agenda of the Isreal lobby in the U.S. But Jew-hatred, which is a deplorable evil, is not equatable with the pervasive criticism of Israel, which is a global phenomenon, based on the real-world actions of its government. I was against the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, as were a majority of Canadians at the time. But that's doesn't mean I "hate" the American people. Far from it.

Yep.

Which is to say history is complicated.

Unfortunately, antisemitism is prevalent across Europe and apparently is alive and well in North America too. My ancestors had to flee Poland and settled in Denmark, where they had to escape to Sweden when the Nazis captured Copenhagen. Those who didn't leave Poland...

...We know the story. I wouldn't be here if it were not for the fact that my Great Grandfather spent his entire life dodging jew-haters.

I hope we can agree that no one has the full story of what really happened in the distant past, or also, what is happening today. That seems like the barest minimum required for a rational discourse regarding...

Oh...

Never mind...


I wouldn't want this thread to veer into the realm of politics. I'd hate to see it shut down by our overlords mods.

I'm going to agree with you not to go down the rabbit hole on Israel.

I will say that the sale of former Nazi weapons by the Soviets to the people preparing for the future state of Israel was strictly a financial move. Political and military figures were paid handsomely for weapons in a time when much of Europe was in complete ruins, and paper currency was nearly worthless. It also helped get weaponry out of the hands of the Poles, Czechs, East Germans etc., who were otherwise ready to declare their independence from their overlords. Eventually, a lot of those guns went to Soviet colonies in Asia and Africa, as well as to the satellite countries, once the Soviets established control there. Those arms shipments did the opposite of establishing the USSR and a contributing member of the global community. It led to the slaughter of countless innocents. So...no. I see very little that the USSR or it's successors have done that could be even remotely characterized as altruistic on the world stage.

I have a cousin who grew up in post-war Ukraine. His father, my great uncle, was imprisoned in the Gulag, then transferred to a Shtrafbat (military penal battalion) during the war. His first-hand experience of Soviet institutionalized anti-semitism are enough to tell me that the USSR/Russians deserve as broad a brush as possible.

PS: Another great uncle of mine, and his family, also came to the US from Poland via Denmark. Maybe we're related. We are likely to at least appear to share some DNA, as my mom shows to have tens of thousands of DNA matches on Ancestry. They were from Skierniewice, between Lodz and Warsaw. The rest of that part of my mother's family were sent to their deaths in the Warsaw ghetto and the camps.

​

 

[Winnipeger]

Maybe we're related. We are likely to at least appear to share some DNA, as my mom shows to have tens of thousands of DNA matches on Ancestry. They were from Skierniewice, between Lodz and Warsaw.

My Great Grandfather, who I mentioned above, was born in Siedlecka (modern Siedlce), which is a 2 hour drive from Skierniewice. We may very well be related! (I have polish relations all over the U.S.) He fled Poland in 1905 as an itinerant musician, and even performed for the Tzar before the revolution. He spent years trying to support his starving family back in Poland, most of whom perished during WWI. Presumably the rest of them were rounded up by the Nazis later.

A distant Danish relation of ours, who happens to be a professional genealogist, published a 250 page book for distribution only within our family, about him. My family knew essentially nothing about him until 2018. My Great Grandmother came to Winnipeg with my 5 year old Grandfather in 1921 when he married another woman. She burned all his photographs and refused to talk about him, even on her death bed. Now we have copies of a lifetime of his correspondences (translated from Polish, Danish, and Yiddish), newspaper clippings, promotional photographs, performance reviews, etc. etc. It's incredible stuff. He lived a tragic/heroic/sinful life, surviving both wars, and siring offspring by at least three different women, trying to do right, sending money when he could, until he lost his entire fortune through bad investments in the 1930s.

My grandfather used an anglicized version of his father's jewish surname throughout his life, and passed it on to his own kids. When he got older, he changed his name back to its original jewish spelling. I asked him once if his father had been jewish and he got very defensive and said, "that's a stupid question." I guess that generation (at least in my family) liked to leave the past buried. I can sympathise with that.

When my grandfather volunteered for the army in WWII, he was a Danish citizen. He was granted Canadian citizenship by serving overseas, where he took shrapnel in Belgium, had all his teeth knocked out, and other wartime (mis)adventures. The irony was, my grandmother, who was born in Saskatchewan (to Polish immigrants) lost her Canadian citizenship when she married him in 1938. She became a citizen of Denmark, and later had to apply for Canadian citizenship, even though she'd never left the country in her life. Crazy eh?

 

[woodsroad]

What an amazing story! But yet so similar to many, many people of Easter European Jewish descent. You are so incredibly fortunate to have a geneologist in your family. I’m fairly good at it, and my wife has become quite adept at tracing DNA lineage (we’re both former newspaper journalists), but what you have from your Danish relation is above and beyond by an order of magnitude.

My grandmother was expelled from Poland in the early 1900’s for political/labor activity. She was sent to eastern Ukraine, near Kiev, where she met my grandfather. By 1905 she was in the US. To the best of my knowledge, she was the only one to emigrate. The rest were murdered in the Holocaust.

Interesting side note: The founder of Just Born Candies (Mike and Ikes, Peeps, etc) was from the same shtetl and was likely related. I had the opportunity to compare notes with his grandson, who was running the company at the time, and it all seemed to line up.

 

[sablebrush52]

It's very interesting to read these accounts. I have only the broadest knowledge of my family's history, but the younger generation is busy researching and documenting their ancestry. Some of it is truly fascinating.

Privilege is an interesting concept. Someone's "privileged" is another's "hard life". In some respects I was privileged because we had food, clothes and a roof over our heads.

I come from peasant stock who did what they needed to do to pull themselves out of abject poverty and to adapt to changing times.

For example, my grandfather was a barrel maker and a harness maker when he arrived in the US in 1906. He learned auto repair and eventually opened his own shop, Jake's Auto Body, in Waterbury Connecticut. BTW, it's still in business, though Jake sold it decades ago. All the kids worked in the shop after school, and top grades were expected or there would be hell to pay. Our family's mantra was get an education if you want opportunities. Pretty much still is.

Even though my grandfather had little formal education, he read widely, studied, owned a Talmud and various books on Biblical commentary that had been published by earlier generations of the family, spoke 5 languages fluently, owned a large farm, and never kept a dime in a bank. Too risky.

All of his kids did well and excelled in their chosen fields. And besides their intellectual achievements they all had practical knowledge, like being able to repair just about anything in the home. We're all good carpenters, which came in handy when I rebuilt the rickety horse barn on the back of the property I owned in Glendale, and turned it into an artist's studio.

In some ways we are privileged, but we worked damned hard for it, and when someone offered a helping hand we always honored that help by doing our best to make the most of that opportunity and to pay it forward.

 

[Puffaluffaguss]

Agreed!
There is a reason children, by law, can not be abandoned by their parents, sent to work, war or sold into servitude. They are not developmentally capable of making important decisions on their own. The must rely on capable adults to make good decisions for them. Any parent that agrees to surgically or chemically alter their children to suit the child's whims (or the parents warped perceptions) is not fit to be parent or guardian.


Rather than feeling privileged, for whatever reason, I prefer to have compassion for those with more difficult lives than my own. I don't see myself as having some kind of gifted advantage, rather I see some other folks more or less fortunate. Although "fortunate" isn't exactly the word I'm looking for, since many times it has nothing to do with fortune and more to do with other variables such as fortitude, perseverance and innate abilities. I am also very grateful for what I have. Grateful to my parents, friends and coworkers who have helped me along the way. That's different from privilege. Very different.

Yes it's hard to say words to people like privileged or fortunate without makeing the conversation awkward because nobody feels either or they feel both for whatever reason. And yes all those thing count as well as location and genetics and both of those could have altered any of us being born which is what I mean by me being both privileged and fortunate but in other ways I am also neither of those things. I'm just happy to be alive and also able to fornicate raise my kids smoke a bowl of multiple different things if I choose and be my own boss. Can't be much better then that.

 

[seanv]

Wow this thread went in a different direction that it started. Not saying that's a bad thing either

 

[woodsroad]

It's very interesting to read these accounts. I have only the broadest knowledge of my family's history, but the younger generation is busy researching and documenting their ancestry. Some of it is truly fascinating.

Privilege is an interesting concept. Someone's "privileged" is another's "hard life". In some respects I was privileged because we had food, clothes and a roof over our heads.

I come from peasant stock who did what they needed to do to pull themselves out of abject poverty and to adapt to changing times.

For example, my grandfather was a barrel maker and a harness maker when he arrived in the US in 1906. He learned auto repair and eventually opened his own shop, Jake's Auto Body, in Waterbury Connecticut. BTW, it's still in business, though Jake sold it decades ago. All the kids worked in the shop after school, and top grades were expected or there would be hell to pay. Our family's mantra was get an education if you want opportunities. Pretty much still is.

Even though my grandfather had little formal education, he read widely, studied, owned a Talmud and various books on Biblical commentary that had been published by earlier generations of the family, spoke 5 languages fluently, owned a large farm, and never kept a dime in a bank. Too risky.

All of his kids did well and excelled in their chosen fields. And besides their intellectual achievements they all had practical knowledge, like being able to repair just about anything in the home. We're all good carpenters, which came in handy when I rebuilt the rickety horse barn on the back of the property I owned in Glendale, and turned it into an artist's studio.

In some ways we are privileged, but we worked damned hard for it, and when someone offered a helping hand we always honored that help by doing our best to make the most of that opportunity and to pay it forward.

Exceptional.

It wasn’t privilege, it was earned.
Every generation stands on the shoulders of those who came before them.

The more family history I uncover, the more I realize just how intertwined the generations are. I am my father’s son. I embody so much of who he is, good, bad and indifferent. Nobody starts out in this life alone, whether they know it or not. Human history, not privilege.

 

[Simmerdown☕️]

We are privileged & more importantly should be grateful. I’m honestly grateful for our Mods letting this conversation go on. I mean we’ve bopped around initially beginning with the discontention of our Canadian members related to current & future tobacco legislation and the governmental repression that goes along with that. This quickly transitioned to Communism & the historical antisemitism that went with that. Then another diversion into what privilege means to one another which had potential to get chippy and you guys didn’t let it devolve into a horse finger pointing pissing match. Nice work! For that, I’m very grateful. Thank you! ️

 

[sablebrush52]

I'm grateful for the hardheaded practicality that my parents taught me. It's part of the reason I've had a career.

As I said before, we all learned how to work wood and other practical skills, and that woodworking ability is what kick started to my attempt to get into matte painting.

I was getting nowhere, after a few initial jobs, and a friend of mine thought there might be an opportunity if I could help out a friend of a friend of hers, Toby Rafelson, who was an Academy Award winning Art Director and Production Designer. Anyone seen Five Easy Pieces?

Toby owned a 19th century Pleyel grand piano that had belonged to her grandmother. Parts of the action were damaged, so the piano was unplayable, and Toby had been informed that the action was unsalvageable.

Enter moi.

I visited Toby at her amazing home in Doheny Estates and took a look at the piano. Parts of the action were shattered, but otherwise it was in good condition, with an intact pin block and cast iron harp, with the usual 19th century 3/4 plate over the pin block. All that was needed was to carve new action pieces, and since these were 19th century and not made to any modern standard, this would have to be completely carved by hand.

Piano actions are complicated, and every part, jacks, wippens, let offs, etc, has to be perfectly balanced, shaped, and responsive.

I took a section of samples from either side of the damaged sections, bought the maple and spruce, IIRC, and set to work. A week later I had the pieces done and went over to Toby's to install them and do what final tweaking was needed. I'd leave the final voicing to a pro. As long as the action was even and balanced we were good to go. Everything went better than I could have hoped with barely any tweaking. The action was completely restored and I even played some Bach on the rather out of tune piano.

Toby and I had a chat afterwards, she looked at my portfolio, and two weeks later I got my first matte painting job at Universal Studios.

I was taught that you don't run from challenges, especially if they might open doors, and aren't pointless.

 

[woodsroad]

We are privileged & more importantly should be grateful. I’m honestly grateful for our Mods letting this conversation go on. I mean we’ve bopped around initially beginning with the discontention of our Canadian members related to current & future tobacco legislation and the governmental repression that goes along with that. This quickly transitioned to Communism & the historical antisemitism that went with that. Then another diversion into what privilege means to one another which had potential to get chippy and you guys didn’t let it devolve into a horse finger pointing pissing match. Nice work! For that, I’m very grateful. Thank you! ️

How’d you do that?