The bomb is their daily inspiration
Communists are dangerous folks. I know this from own experience of staying in the ranks under a red flag. There seem to be a lot of ideals and only two values: a great teaching (Leninism, Juche, Maoism, etc., at the believers’ discretion) and the current party chief. Communists are ready to do everything to foster these values – to bomb the world for the sake of universal peace and sell out their motherland or fatherland. They may wish their country to suffer a defeat for the sake of communist triumph and try to hold back power by colluding with the enemy – what really matters is materialist ideology multiplied by class hatred.
The North Korea crisis this spring has shown stubborn adherence to principles again. The Western press has nicknamed the blue-jacketed leader as Kim Jong Boom, and peaceful people have received a new chapter on warmongers. Incidentally, we did not much differ from North Korean comrades just a quarter of a century ago. Many missiles and not much food, a globe deflated to the size of socialist motherland, centralized distribution of benefits ‘to each according to their office,” etc., – that was the picture. We might be still brandishing, as Kim Jong-un’s subjects are, our nuclear bludgeon to the rich neighbors. A dream of communists and nationalists who are equally strong in military spirit on the opposite sides of ideological barricades!
And now those under the banner with a hammer and sickle or three fingers can watch what this season’s Pyongyang turbulence will end up with. No missiles of the regional Marxist country are so far capable of reaching America. But they easily fly as far as Japan, Russia, and China. They are worried over the situation as everybody would be if they stand next to a boy with a hand grenade. He will not throw it very far but will surely injure himself and others. For this reason, the old Asian adversaries are unanimous in assessing Kim Jong-un’s games and are doing their best to bring the dynasty’s heir to his senses. They seem to be aware that the guy is worthy of his father and grandfather.
The North Korean military machine has thrown, as the Soviet one once did, the country’s entire national wealth into making the bomb. Enriched uranium fed the Juche ideas and all those who suffered from them. In exchange for military nuclear program discontinuation, North Korea would receive oil, gasoline, rice, and other products from the US and Japan for its proud but permanently starving people. It looks like it is time for a new payment. What hints at this is the establishment of the Kaesong special economic zone. Further demands will follow soon.
According to our communists, we proved to be rather unsuccessful traders in continental security. We disposed of the old Soviet missiles just for a song. We shouldn’t have. Weapons are never junk. The cost of this “bludgeon” is measured by the number of potential victims’ heads rather than by high-tech design. With rich imperialist around, the price may go sky-high. But even in this case all the North Koreans will have to exert themselves in a concerted and unpaid-for effort for the military industrial complex.
THE IMPREGNABLE KERNES LINE
Protecting Hennadii Kernes with a streetcar ring is Kharkiv know-how in the struggle for peace in the city. Streetcars are not tanks, as Freedom Square is not Tiananmen Square, but still they are also, in a way, a gate of tranquility. Things went off very well: streetcar drivers and policemen, who are staunch City Hall devotees, saved Ukraine’s “second capital” from the shady schemes of undesirable citizens.
City dwellers could at last see the public utilities flex their muscles in earnest. Word has it that all the streetcars left the depot. This also means that there will be more rolling stock on city routes. This is good for the residents as well as for the bosses who are thus aware of the importance of keeping all sanitary-disposal, repairing, snow-removing, sweeping, and water-spraying vehicles on the go. Should the enemy show up, the public-utility motorized army will crack down on him with all the might of its gas, water, garbage, and fecal facilities. No one will resist.
But the founders of a public-utility political competition will earn not only the laurels. They will have to keep things moving during rallies both in heat and in cold. Now, if water suddenly stops running from the Kharkivites’ faucets and transport grinds to a halt, the city’s public will blame the mayor for this and will object to him spending public money for political purposes. Otherwise, they will cross the streetcar line.
WELCOME TO ICE-AGE PARK!
The “reset” button, which Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin tried to push for the benefit of the two nations, happened to set the time machine into motion. They pushed it and moved back to the cold war era. In response to the American Magnitsky List, the Russians drew up a list of the retired Guantanamo jailors and the prosecutors who convicted the arms sealer Viktor But. There is no symmetry, but the eye-for-eye rule is clearly discernible. If only they were exchanging lists! The global media note a growth of anti-American sentiments in Russian society, not in the least owing to state-run TV channels. The channel-emitted odor also outraged the Germans who are indignant over the showing of their chancellor’s naked body and the drawing of a hurtful parallel with those who seized the arrested Jews’ property. The aggrieved party was not Angela Merkel but German journalists who reminded their readers again about the past activities of a KGB agent in Germany and the current rehabilitation of young Putin’s professional achievements.
Now, after the well-known Hanover meeting, German newspapers and magazines are openly saying about the espionage war which Putin sanctioned against his main European ally. The conflict over the Konrad Adenauer Foundation’s impounded property is still simmering. The official Christian Democratic Union’s delegation, which arrived in Moscow, was denied all the planned meetings contrary to all the protocol rules. According to Spiegel, one of the most influential publications, this is occurring against the backdrop of an increased activity of Russian secret services in Germany.
Our neighbor’s reversal to the olden times complicates the already difficult problem of East-West negotiations. Losing friends beyond the Carpathians, the Russian side does not want them to befriend us. We in turn have no chances to keep quiet because tension between Moscow and the West is not accidental. While war is on their agenda, we should not close integration with Europe for a lunch break.
