That which is distasteful to thee, do not do to another.

HILLEL – JewishEncyclopedia.com

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More than 450 Indian migrant workers in Qatar have died in the last two years, media revealed on Monday. Another upcoming report will show that 400 Nepalese have lost their lives scrambling to get the Gulf state ready for the 2022 World cup.

Qatar World Cup toll: ‘Hundreds’ of Indian migrant workers dead in two years — RT News – 2/17/2014.

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WANT TO know how badly U.S. Syrian policy is going, as President Obama works with international mediator Lakdhar Brahimi? Over the weekend Brahimi apologized to the Syrian people that their hopes for a resolution has come to naught, as the peace talks collapse. It’s made worse that Russia is blocking humanitarian assistance to the people, putting President Obama in a very tough spot.

Putin Plays Pimp of Sochi, While Ignoring Carnage in Syria – Taylor Marsh – 2/17/2014.

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The latest virtual manufacture in the world might be called “nested conflict dolls”, the creation of successive wars by proxy between Russia and the United States / NATO and played out between layers of Sunni and Shiite Islam within the Islamic Small Wars of the middle east and elsewhere, perhaps too between nationalist movements, at least one of which, Hungary’s Jobbik, claim far back Iranian roots, and the liberal-progressive do-good societies of the open democracies.

Predictably, RT’s rakin’ the muck — and no need to fabricate it — from the Arab world while Americans like Taylor Marsh (and myself) view Sochi (a $51 billion show) and Syria (for which Russia has pledged $10 million in humanitarian aid) side by side.

For Putin, Russia, and the rest of the world, Sochi, in memory and in fact, will survive Syria.

The jet set will go skiing, plan winter vacations, ape their own Olympic moments, take snapshots, and dine like royalty by the Black Sea while those punished by years of war and the destruction of their former lives will go on struggling along in the darker shadows of history.

Reference

Qatar World Cup toll: ‘Hundreds’ of Indian migrant workers dead in two years — RT News – 2/17/2014.

HILLEL – JewishEncyclopedia.com

Sochi Winter Olympics: criticism of Games reflects ‘Cold War’ mentality, says Putin – 2/12/2017.

Putin Is Playing a Game of His Own – WSJ.com – 2/14/2014.

It may be warm in Sochi, but these 5 things are chilling U.S-Russia relations | Updates | PBS NewsHour | PBS – 2/13/2014.

Putin Plays Pimp of Sochi, While Ignoring Carnage in Syria – Taylor Marsh – 2/17/2014.

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For thought on the role that money, big money, Ayatollah money, corporate money plays in political sports everywhere and on every issue:

“I’m happy to promote business, but I’m not one of those folks who’s going to be directed by billionaires and I think that’s one of the divisions we have in the Republican conference,” he added.

GOP congressman caught on tape blasting leadership as ‘directed by billionaires’ | The Raw Story

Republican Representative Steve King of Iowa voiced the above complaint in relation to U.S. domestic immigration reform; however, in principle, he’s remarked for all intents on the gravitational sway of wealth in its own right.  Whatever the lobbyists may promote, however they may define issues and do battle over them, the money has no conscience but rather a life of its own and the want of more (and more and more and more) of itself.

The three amigos of post-Soviet dictatorship — Putin-Assad-Khamenei — put on a good show and spread it around some through their systems of patronage, but as the web in English gets around, it may become ever more difficult to “follow the money” without also seeing the blood spattered across it and hearing the agonized crying of the suffering behind it.

Related: Reuters Investigates – Assets of the Ayatollah – 11/11/2013; Vladimir Putin Marbella villa in La Zagaleta – 1/19/2013; Assad’s palace: an empty, echoing monument to dictator decor | Art and design | theguardian.com – 9/11/2013.

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