Anna

Leaving politics out of your kitschy entertainment is totally fine (we all need our escapist fun after this year), but if you are bringing in politics in one case while ignoring the other, one cannot help but assume that you are waaaay less interested in human rights, international laws and all that than you’re putting on.

Russia invaded Ukraine; shot down MH17 in 2014, killing 298 people on board; shelled the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in 2015, killing 31 & wounding 108 civilians; shelled what was an agreed-upon humanitarian corridor after the battle of Ilovaisk in 2014, killing 350-450; etc., this list could continue for a while. This war has already taken more than 10,000 lives, and it’s still ongoing. Russia has spent several months this spring amassing forces on Ukrainian border, which wasn’t a fun time for anybody.

I’m not even going into what’s happening in Russia vis-a-vis human rights: the torture and murder of LGBT+ people in Chechnya, the regime poisoning its opponents, etc., etc. Authoritarian regimes that don’t care about human rights are usually not good for their own citizens either. I’m also not going into the Russian invasion of Georgia, their terrorist attacks in the Czech Republic, the poisonings abroad, the whole shebang.

So if you boo Israel “to send a signal to their government” while simultaneously cheering for Russia one can’t help but assume that

(a) either you don’t give a flying fuck about human rights violations perpetrated by Russia (in which case, please think hard why you don’t believe that Ukrainians, or, say, the LGBT+ people in Chechnya have the right to live);

Fictional characters might not be real, but our relationships with them are. 

Studies show it’s difficult for our brains to distinguish between our familiarity with characters on TV and our personal relationships with real people. The effect is so strong that just thinking about watching your favorite TV show can make you feel less lonely. 

It’s International Left-Handers Day. Thought you should know.

(via le-immortel)

@le-immortel