You know, after all the trials and tribulations over the past year, to say nothing of my long experience with delving into the rottenness of what passes for “governance” these days, I’ve just about come to the end of my fascination with politics.

Furthermore, it pretty much seems like we’ve all collectively given up on the idea of democracy.

Democracy, at its root, comes in two flavors. One is the wacky original version from Ancient Athens in which every single government job, including the head of the military, was chosen completely at random.

Yes, I know, it seems almost impossible to believe, but it’s true.

Furthermore, there are still a few places where this kind of democracy still exists. For instance, I once knew a man who was mayor of a small town in New England. I was utterly floored when he told me that he had been selected randomly to hold the job for a year, at which point it passed onto someone else. And, for the record, the town did seem quite well-governed.

The other kind of democracy is predicated upon an understanding that the citizens are educated and informed. These educated citizens then vote to “hire” someone to represent their interests.

But now? Nobody thinks citizens are “informed” anymore, so it’s much simpler to just having a group of oligarchs decide everything, including what is and what is not “science.”

So it goes.

But the does result in some pretty funny theater.

Long Live the Communist Party!

The Republic of Moldova is currently set to hold parliamentary elections on July 11 of this year.

I could go into the details and subtle nuances of who is in, who is out, and who is making what strategic moves, but there’s no point.

All you need to know in order to get the “joke” in this situation is that the Communist Party is going to play a pivotal role in the elections.

Yes, that’s right, the original old-school Communist Party, replete with “hammer and sickle” logos, is back in the thick of things.

As such, the American Ambassador to Moldova, Derek Hogan, decided to meet with the Communists in order to bribe/threaten them into going along with whatever stupid goal the evil empire has going on this year.

And that’s what prompted this hilarious official statement after the meeting:

The American diplomat [Ambassador Hogan] “highly appreciated the contribution of the Communist Party to the development of the country, strengthening of its sovereignty, preservation and development of its national characteristics, culture and traditions, and confirmed [America’s] readiness for further relations with the [Communist Party].”

🤣 🤣 🤣

Multiple Shots to the Foot

Meanwhile, in other news, the Romanian government is continuing its idiotic fascist agenda to utterly suppress and destroy Moldova. And the way it chose to do it last week was with a trip to Ukraine (🇷🇴), of all things!

Let’s count all the hilarious aspects of this bizarre official visit:

1) It was held in Cernauti (Chernivitsi), the one place in Ukraine that has a lot of ethnic Romanians, rather than in Kiev (the capital of Ukraine).
2) The Romanian government ostensibly was there to deliver “urgently needed medical supplies,” but it was just crap like paper masks, of which Ukraine has literally hundreds of millions and no need for any more.
3) The Romanian official REPEATEDLY stated that Romania is committed to Ukraine’s “territorial integrity.” This was supposed to come across as an anti-Russian criticism of the annexation of Crimea, but for a Romanian audience, it just pissed off everyone who still dreams of reuniting Cernauti with Romania.
4) The REAL reason for the visit was to beg the fascist government of Ukraine not to ban the use of the Romanian language in schools next year. Ukraine, of course, refuses to back down on this decision, so the Romanian government got nothing out of this visit whatsoever (except dumping those unneeded masks).

But the real kicker was when the NATO bootlicker Romanian official threw in this little line (my translation) near the end of his visit:

Dan Neculaescu [Romania’s deputy foreign minister] praised Ukraine’s decision to recognize the distinction between the Romanian and so-called “Moldovan” language by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba during his official visit to Bucharest on April 23, and [Neculaescu] stated that Ukraine needs to quickly make an official determination that the Moldovan language does not exist.

Yep, that’s right. The Romanian government is officially asking Ukraine to officially decide that a language (Moldovan) does not exist.

What an excellent use of taxpayers’ money! *snort*

Let’s go to the videotape

Since I am apparently the only human being left alive on the planet who understands these things, let’s break down the significance of Neculaescu’s statements.

First, Ukraine is a huge country with many regions inhabited by “minorities” who speak a language other than Ukrainian. Up until recently, public schools in Ukraine could teach in a “minority” language, with only Ukrainian language classes being taught in Ukrainian.

However, the fascists in Ukrainian passed a “language law” a couple of years ago to change this. But in order not to piss off its “Western” friends, the law first only applied to Russian language schools. And since everyone knows Russians are subhuman garbage people, who cares if their children get an education in their own language, am I right?

But Ukraine’s language law also included a tricky clause that said, in a couple of years (which is now), all those other minority schools will have to teach in Ukrainian as well.

In terms of the European Union, the two biggest groups who were affected were the Hungarians and the Romanians since there are several schools in Ukraine that teach in those languages.

So part of Neculaescu’s mission was to (futilely) appeal to Ukraine not to outlaw Romanian in the handful of schools that use it, all of which are in the Cernauti region (where Neculaescu was visiting). That certainly makes sense.

But why would Neculaescu give a shit about Ukraine’s policy towards the Moldovan language? Remember, every single school in Cernauti is using Romanian, not Moldovan. Ukraine’s government provides all of the educational materials for these schools, and they all clearly state “Romanian” is the language.

But, to Romania’s eternal chagrin, in addition to the Romanian schools in Cernauti, there are also Moldovan-language schools in a different part of Ukraine (Odessa region). And the educational materials for those schools all say Moldovan is the language.

When you boil it all down, what you get is that Neculaescu was saying to Ukraine, “if we promise to hate on Russia, you have to give us one token thing in return, which is the un-recognition of the Moldovan language being used by a grand total of 500 human beings. Oh, and here are some useless masks.”

And Ukraine responded by saying “Thanks very much, now fuck off.”

Language Wars

Romania, you see, is hell-bent on destroying Moldovan culture, language, and identity, and it’s all to prop up its own fascist beliefs that everyone from shepherd kids in Macedonia to peasants in the Don Oblast in Russia are all “Romanians”, the Pure Master Race of the East (see Ion Antonescu’s insane book for more on this).

Unfortunately, Nikita Khruschev, the Soviet leader, screwed up Antonescu’s dreams during World War 2.

In 1940, for a bunch of complex and somewhat mysterious reasons, Khruschev (then the top Communist in Ukraine) convinced Stalin to do three things: re-acquire Bessarabia (more or less today’s Republic of Moldova), annex the Cernauti region, AND give Crimea to Ukraine.

Bessarabia had been part of the old Russian Empire since 1812, so that move, more or less, made sense. But nobody knows why Khruschev wanted Cernauti, other than perhaps because it was a wealthy trading town (conveniently emptied of all its pesky Jews thanks to Antonescu’s genocide squads) with a prestigious university.

Once both Bessarabia and Cernauti were part of the Soviet Union, the official policy became that the minorities in Cernauti were Romanian, while everyone east of the Prut River was a Moldovan. Soon, Moldovan got its own Cyrillic alphabet, while Romanian stayed with the Latin one (yes, even in the Soviet days), and the gulf between the two languages widened.

When the Soviet Union came to an end in 1991, both Ukraine and Pridnestrovie (“Transnistria”) kept the old policies in place: Romanians were Romanians, and Moldovans were Moldovans, and each group spoke its own language.

That’s why kids in Tiraspol (PMR) and Odessa (Ukraine) learn in Moldovan while kids in Cernauti learn in Romanian.

But Romania cannot allow the Moldovan identity to exist, otherwise, their fascist dreams of “reunification” will never happen, and soldiers from Bucharest will never get to again have fun burning Jews and gypsies to death in order to “purify” the region of dirty subhumans (non-Romanians).

That’s why Romania’s census does not allow respondents to identify as Moldovan, even when they are citizens of Moldova, but you can freely identify yourself as being an ethic “Swede” or “Japanese.”

It’s also why politicians like Traian Basescu (two-time president of Romania) refused to sign a border treaty between Romania and the Republic of Moldova. It’s also why Romania spends millions of dollars every year to buy off Moldovan politicians and judges with Romanian citizenship and other goodies.

And nothing threatens Romanian fascists more than the existence of the Moldovan language. Perhaps one day, when I get some time, I’ll explore this idea properly (which it deserves), but Romania is terrified that Moldova will get off its knees and establish its own identity, most definitely including its own language.

All I will say for now is that I learned Romanian in Romania, and it’s a language I still speak every day (yep, even here in Tiraspol). And I’m here to say that Moldovan is, without even a shadow of a doubt, a different language.

When I’m speaking Romania here in Tiraspol or in Chisinau, I’m almost always speaking it to people who are responding in Moldovan. And it’s way more than just “an accent” or how some words are spelled a bit differently. These are two very different languages.

In conclusion, here’s the patchwork of craziness that has resulted in how these languages are taught depending on what city you’re living in:

1) Odessa (Ukraine): Latin alphabet Moldovan
2) Tiraspol (PMR gov’t schools): Cyrillic alphabet Moldovan
3) The six “illegal” schools in PMR financed by Moldova: In reality, it’s Moldovan, Ukrainian, and Bulgarian teachers instructing Russian kids, but the administration is under the insane delusion that everyone in the building is an ethnic Romanian.
3) Cernauti (Ukraine): Romanian
4) Chisinau (Moldova): Officially Romanian, but in reality, most of the time it’s Moldovan. But if you say this to a university graduate, they’ll punch you in the face.
5) Edinet (Moldova): Latin alphabet Moldovan, and damn proud of it!
6) Iasi (Romania): Romanian with a Moldovan accent
7) Cluj (Romania): The “real” authentic Romanian
7) Bucharest (Romania): Romanian with an elitist accent and gypsy grammar

Fun times!