It would be funny to have the people’s approval rate for this “agreement” in the EU. I am thinking low single digits…

My readout is, Ursula started her arrogant lecturing about Russia, but the annoyed Chinese, who expected trade negotiations not lectures, would have none of it, and just walked away. Ursula concluded how this was “excellent”…

There was not much love in Swizerland for Americans to begin with and now there’s certainly even less.

Just anecdotal, but I noticed the comments on social media in general getting more pro-China and anti-US, which was unthinkable just a year ago.

I am counting on legendary Slovenian stinginess to win out.

BTW for those who don’t know, Melania Trump is Slovenian and her son Barron, speaks Slovenian fluently. Barron Trump could also vote in the referendum, being a Slovenian citizen himself. 🤪

If you know India, they are almost certainly BSing the Americans. Worst case, it will be rerouted through a 3rd country and they will just call it “diversification”.

Here’s machine translated and excellent article from a Marxist Croatian politician on a very popular Croatian lib portal, who had some actual success in politics, about the songs that were sung on this concert…

AFTER calling for a ban on Marko Perković Thompson’s concert at the Zagreb Hippodrome, Workers’ Front president and former parliamentarian Katarina Peović took to Facebook to list Thompson’s songs that she finds objectionable.

Below we present her announcement:

“Is it true that Thompson promotes national, religious and racial intolerance?”

‘Say, my brother’

Does anything more need to be said about Thompson than to remember his song ‘Say, my brother’ which he sings with Škora in which there is a line ‘but God forbid, so that they need us, the thick fog will descend again’ which is a reference to the Ustasha song ‘Spustila se gusta magla iznad Zagreba’ which reads 'it was not the thick fog above Zagreb, but the brave army of Poglavnik’?

The song to which Thompson refers celebrates Ante Pavelić ‘Poglavnik’ (‘Poglavnik gave them the name of the brave Ustaše’), the battle for Kupres (‘a thick fog descended above Kupres’) in which many partisans died in 1942, and celebrates the Ustasha Rafael Boban and the Black Legion (‘the leader was the knight Boban, a real Ustaša’, ‘Poglavnik gave them the name of the Black Legija’) whose units beat prisoners with clubs, stuck needles under their nails, ordered them to lick the floor and salt, were killed, robbed. Thompson celebrates the regime that had a children’s concentration camps.

‘Pukni puško’

Thompson’s song ‘Pukni puško’ from 1998 is a dedication to the Ustasha anthem and vigil ‘Puška puca’ which reads ‘The gun shoots and the cannon roars, thunders like thunder, Now the Ustasha soldier is fighting for the Croatian home’.

‘Spicy grass on a spicy wound’

‘Spicy grass on a spicy wound’ is a 1995 song by Poglavnik Ante Pavelić, the motto under which the Ustasha were founded, ultranationalists in World War II responsible for genocide against Jews, Serbs, Roma and Croats who were their political opponents [aka communists].

‘Jasenovac and Gradiška Stara’

Around 2003, Thompson was [unofficially] recorded singing the slaughter song ‘Jasenovac and Gradiška Stara’ in front of an audience. The song reads ‘Jasenovac and Gradiška Stara is the house of Maks’s butchers’! [“Maks Luburic” was Ustaše official who headed the system of concentration camps. This is an especially sickening song as it literally describes in detail slaughter of Serbs and revels in it.]

‘Geni kameni’

The song celebrates the Ustashas and denies the anti-fascist struggle. The lyrics in the song read ‘The 45th was bad, It scattered us across the world. And now a new vine is growing, The swallows have returned home’. The song also contains the racist line ‘…blue blood, white face, new children are being born…’.

‘Bojna Čavoglave’

‘Bojna Čavoglave’ greets with the Ustasha salute ‘For the homeland ready’ which the HOS members themselves associated with the Ustashas and the Ustasha movement.

‘Lijepa li si’

‘Lijepa li si’ from 1998 is a memory of the borders from Croatia that it had during NDH. Thompson dedicates it to Herceg-Bosna, Mati Boban, the creator of Herceg-Bosna – an artificial state that sought to establish a Croatian territorial unit in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was an attempt at Croatian separatism ended with the Dayton Agreement and the establishment of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, under international pressure.

‘Pictures of Bleiburg’

The song from 2025 equates the Ustashas with the Croatian army and the entire people, even though the majority of the Croatian people joined the Partisans and were on the winning side in World War II.

‘My Ivana’

The song from 2017 is a dedication to the Ustasha units in the Battle of Kupres in 1942, in which many Partisans who defended the homeland and fought against Nazi collaborators were killed. The lyrics read ‘That damned fate took Ivana away from us, took her from Kupres, near the white world. Only one strong desire remained, to sing the song of the hero of Kupres.’"

There are very few evangelicals in Croatia. It’s the Croatian branch of Catholic church, which is more right wing than the Vatican itself. Yes, I know how that sounds. Fun fact, no other country on Earth, including Poland, has signed such servile contracts with Vatican, as Croatian nationalists did in the 90’s, to win Vatican’s, and subsequently international recognition of their fledgling independent state. You know, like the Nazis did with Reichskonkordat in 1933…

Regarding the pogroms…it’s not that simple. The first pogroms were conducted by the rebel Serbs who kicked out cca 200k Croatians and occupied a third of Croatia, while also massacring Croatian civilians who “didn’t get the message”. Eventually, their military strenght disappeared and Croatian military grew massively in power. So, Croatians launched a huge offensive, but telegraphed their intent beforehand, which created a massive displacement of like 350k Serbs to Bosnia and Serbia. A small number of, mostly elderly Serbs that were left, were on some occasions, massacred. A lot of abandoned Serbian houses were intentionally looted and burned.

There was a lot of talk at the ICTY about the intent, because the secret tapes of Croatian president (unbeknownst to everyone, he recorded everything) and his cronies, revealed them basically “dog whistling” (and more) to each other about it.

Fun fact, a Croatian generals were put on stand at the ICTY for war crimes of excessive shelling of Serbian rebel cities in occupied Croatia during the offensive. This didn’t “age well” to say the least, given the present Gaza realities. Here’s Natopedia article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Gotovina_et_al.

Anyway, in present day Croatia, it is therefore a political suicide not to show up at the celebration of that offensive, while Serbs are each year, ofc, pissed off about it. Croatians maintain it was voluntary displacement or even forced displacement by the rebel Serbs authorities, and that absolutely nothing would have happened if they stayed fascist wink wink.

Could be just cope, but the word is, it was nowhere near 500k. That might be the number of tickets they sold, but not that many showed up, in fact, many were selling their tickets prior to concert for half price. What is certain is, that many came from Croatian diaspora and neighbouring extremely reactionary Herzegovina. There will certainly be a lot of talk about these numbers in Croatian media in the coming days.

The capital city of Zagreb, downtown in particular, is one of the more leftist places in Croatia. Zagreb is currently run by the ex-activist libs, who immediately capitulated to organizers who insisted on one fascist grandiose concert (ofc) instead of several smaller ones.

So call it cope, but I seriously doubt it was “13% of country”, since infamously Nazi Croatian diaspora almost certainly came in huge numbers.

Reporting…been reading since day one.

There’s way too much to correct here.
 Historical overview is overly simplistic.

Serbian nationalism was a big deal and not just Habsburg’s spin. However, so was Slovenian and Croatian nationalism. These nationalisms came to power with the crumbling economy and incompetence of the ruling communist party which was cozying up to the West/US and, as we know from Kissinger, that is fatal.

All this Serbian economic development is very exploitative, especially in the mining which is mentioned. An engineer from my family was sent as a punishment to one of these mining locations and it’s literally deadly to be there (they quit soon after).

Higher education is free, but only if you managed to get into a very limited “budget” slot. If not, you have to dish out up to 3.000 EUR per year, which is impossible for many families there. Not to mention renting has become incredibly expensive in Belgrade.

Vucic is a crappy, corrupt opportunists and a sociopath who puts Trump to shame. Not some genius who is trying to build bridges between East and West.

The fact Russians discovered he was delivering weapons to Ukrainian regime, is very amusing. He claims innocence, but everyone (and I bet Russians too) knows nothing in Serbia happens without his say-so, especially something like that.

He really did create an “atmosphere” of violence which is felt everywhere including in schools and even, for me personally very sadly, kindergartens. The author dismisses that, which is really disgusting.

Yes, he was cheating on elections and he was absurdly obvious about it. Regardless, it wouldn’t change much, because outside of the capital of Belgrade, he enjoys strong support…but he can’t stand opposition.

From what I know, it’s rediculous disinformation to try and make the connection between regime-change NGOs and students. To me, the situation students and professors find themselves in looks hopeless precisely because they have no support from anyone, including the Western regime-change apparatus. Also, they are no revolutionaries or IDK Bolshevik vanguard with clear goals in mind, which is why I fear they will not end up in a good place.

 “Students who just want to attend classes” are absurdly pro-regime actors. Many are not even actual students but were just paid by Vucic to pretend to be one. It’s absolutely absurd.

“Provocations” are made mostly by government actors, which sometimes created hilarious situations like Vucic on TV visiting injured policeman, vilifying students for their “violence”, even though this policeman was beaten while undercover, by the very same police he works for!

Calling this “orchestrated, mass hysteria” is just disgusting…

Just to add to it, all these professors and teachers that joined in on protests, were withheld their salaries for more than 6 months, which is blatantly against the law. Vucic decided to win by “starving” them out, but now he is losing patience and escalating police violence agains them.

I was born there and I am there every year or so. Most of the information I read here are half-truths or outright false.

In short, a glass roof on a newly built train station collapsed and massacred and killed a bunch of people, many of them young. Yes, the Chinese built it, but according to Serbian specs. Since Serbia is a massively corrupt mafia state, no one was held responsible, so some students held a minor, short and very peaceful protests. Vucic’s regime responded by sending masked goons to beat the crap out of them and some of them ended up in hospital. No one was held responsible for that either.

Now, it’s hard to overstate just how corrupt Serbia under Vucic is and corruption’s role in disintegrating civili society. If you want to have a glimpse of how genuinely horrific the situation in Serbia is, take a look at this video, but a huge CW for the faint of heart, because people are getting turned into minced meat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZZHctPA22c

So, basically those Vucic’s goons just beating the crap out of peaceful protestors was just the last straw and other students joined with them. Soon many professors joined in as well, since Vucic was beating up their students and they felt morally obliged to rise up as well.

So as the protests picked up, students went to great lengths to distance themselves from any political party or politician. IMO a wrong move. Basically all they want is not to live in a jungle, but in a place where laws are actually observed and applied, but their demands seems vague and (I think) they don’t have a clear goal in mind. They even stated they aren’t aiming for “regime change” (also a mistake IMO).

Meanwhile, Vucic has been regularly breaking a bunch of laws of his own country, and gloating about it too. He seems to be a sociopath and if you think Trump is bad, Vucic is far worse. The sh1t he pulled can’t fit in a book, much less forum post. That includes openly cheating on elections in (at least) Belgrade.

“The economy” is doing ok, but public services are all crumbling and you basically need to pay for everything out of your pocket. It’s a true “crony capitalism”.

He managed to create some kind of a client state, where he gives privileged government jobs and contracts to a bunch of people, which are then expected to bring themselves and their families to the voting booth. The rest are discouraged to vOtE and lost faith in democratic process a long time ago, so they keep winning. The same template I see in neighboring Croatia.

Anyway I have to stop there, but feel free to send more questions my way.

Not a good article. No need.

I have. I gave a mild criticism of it and got called a tankie by BE and his shills…how ironic.

Stumbled upon your channel for the Chinese nuclear submarine video.

What about Swiss Elmax? Any idea?

So, in I think 2021 North and South Korea were about to sign an agreement which would include an end to war. Then I think Sullivan wrote on behalf of the US that they do not agree with it fully and that was the end of it. Does anyone have a link perhaps?

So…if you were to vote in upcoming German elections, who would you vote for?

What a lovely day. First the Derpseek AI grift wipeout, and now Trump bullying the crap out of key vassal.

Here in Switzerland people are already squealing about US AI sanctions about to hit. „But we were such good dogs!“

The Empire is somehow accelerating its downfall and I am all here for it.

In a last-minute move, Biden sanctions what is basically the entire world regarding AI chips. There are now 3 tier countries, with tier 1 with unlimited access, tier 2 with 50.000 AI units limit and tier 3 countries with strictest restrictions. Tier 1 is (shrunk down list of) “always the same map” countries, Tier 3 China, Russia and friends, Tier 2 the rest of the world.

Interestingly enough, Tier 2 includes Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, all the Nazi Baltic states and Poland (heh heh). This could mean even gamers could have a hard time, or more likely no chance at all due to red tape, business demand, or inflated price, getting the upcoming Nvidia’s strongest RTX 5090s in those countries.

Bloomberg article on archive link: https://archive.ph/UKYTp