As we all know, the President of Ukraine was a popular comedian before he ran for office and won election. He ran on the ticket of the “Servant of the People” party, which was the name of his television program.
This clip was made in 2014 or 2015. It was posted by author Cathy Young, who wrote the subtitles.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Very funny.
Zelensky is an example of someone who really rises to the occasion and became a great leader by putting his country first – true patriotism. I read the transcript of the infamous Trump phone call where Trump illegally pressured him to help his political campaign. Zelensky had done all his homework. He made sure to repeat all the flattering things about Trump that Trump always uses to describe himself – demonstrating he understood the psychology of this oafish, sociopathic man-child Trump. Zelesky was willing to play the Trump acolyte, but only up to a point. He wouldn’t say things that weren’t true as Trump and his cronies who had been setting up this phone call were demanding.
Comedians are smart folks. Much smarter than the average politician – especially the average right wing politician spewing bile.
Zelensky proved himself not just smart but a good man who cared about something bigger than himself and was willing to sacrifice for it.
Putin is willing only to sacrifice others and when his own comfort is threatened, he will fold. Unfortunately, right now only other people’s comfort is threatened and Putin doesn’t care even when it is his own people.
Let he who is without sin,
cast the first stone.
Whataboutism doesn’t count.
Example is the best precept.
Who started “it”?
It takes two to tango.
This ain’t no party,
this ain’t no disco.
Do not call for a
battle for which you
are not willing to
fight yourself. To do
otherwise, is to earn
contempt.
But “my” emperor
wears a white hat.
I thought you said
whataboutism doesn’t
count.
Ya, I was just comparing.
Comparing the mascots
of Imperialism doesn’t
end the bleeding or
stop the hate.
But “we” own the world!
Ya know, Manifest Destiny.
The special virtues of the
American people and their
institutions; The mission of
the United States to
redeem and remake…
How’s that “redeem and remake”
working at home?
Whataboutism doesn’t count.
Example is the best precept.
Actions speak louder than words.
Words are all I have,
to take your heart away…
Hitler would agree with you. After all, Hitler would point out the long centuries of Jews being massacred in Europe and use your “whatabout” argument to say “how dare anyone criticize me for annihilating 6 million Jews because whatabout…..”
Let he who is without Cardinal Sin cast the first Sharon Stone. Jaime Cardinal Sin, was the 30th Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila and the third Cardinal from the Philippines.
I apologize for being silly and off topic.
Yeah, No Brick. Sure. Let’s not censure politicians for making racist statements because that would be being intolerant of intolerance. Tolerance of intolerance is my motto! LMAO.
This is the worst bit of thinking since Descartes’ version of the ontological argument: I am thinking of a perfect being, God. If he didn’t exist, this would be an imperfection. Therefore, God exists. (Note that this argument can be used of any impossible or nonexistent thing: I am thinking of a perfect Easter Bunny. If Easter Bunnies didn’t exist, that would be an imperfection. Therefore, Easter Bunnies exist.)
Let me be as clear about this as possible. Here’s an example of “the whataboutism” argument:
Johnny Ne’er-do Well stole money from a children’s charity. But whutabout Miranda Goodheart? The State of Indiana once charged Miranda Goodheart for back taxes, but after Miranda died, the state discovered that the taxes weren’t in fact owed. So, the state stole from Miranda Goodheart.
Therefore, the State of Indiana cannot punish Johnny Ne’er-do Well for theft because WHATABOUT INDIANA’S THEFT FROM MIRANDA GOODHEART?
This is a terrible argument.
And, No Brick, how do you know that any particular poster is not willing to take on that fight himself or herself? To you have a secret window into others’ hearts and souls?
For all I know, a particular anti-Putin post of mine might rise to such attention that I will get a visit from one of the distributors of GRU fairy dust. It is not without danger to take on powerful enemies in print.
And, I’m an old man. But if I were younger, I might go to Ukraine and join this fight. I feel that strongly about it. We are at an inflection point in history. This needs to be the time when the world as a whole comes together and says, no, a U.N. cannot violate, violently, the territorial integrity of another U.N. state and no, it’s not OK to make war on civilians. These are crimes, and those who perpetrate them are war criminals. Those principles are worth fighting for. To me, this is like the Spanish Civil War. It’s an international cause, and an important one.
I would love to see every U.N. delegate rise and tell the Russian foreign minister, “You want to capture or kill Zelenskiy? I am Zelenskiy.”
An amazing transformation from comedian/entertainer to courageous president of Ukraine standing up to a vicious decidedly unfunny authoritarian sadist. Zelenskyy has remained in Ukraine with his wife and 2 kids despite attempts on his life and the indiscriminate bombing of Ukrainian hospitals, apartment complexes and residential areas.
We’ve had “entertainers” become politicians and president————Reagan and Trump. Ugh, Trump actually makes Reagan look good, but that’s not saying much.
In a perfect world countries would be allowed to be autonomous and determine their own destinies without interference from more powerful countries, but unfortunately that isn’t the case. Zelensky’s use of the social media to win his campaign is one of the reasons I’m deeply concerned about the push from Dems to moderate social media disinformation. I fear that a future populist reformer candidate like Zelensky might be barred from social media for “spreading misinformation”. It gives tremendous power to the tech billionaires who own these companies. Recently the youtube show “The Hill” was suspended for 7 days for showing Donald Trump’s C-PAC speech because the Don always says the election was stolen. This push to censor social media content scares the hell out of me.
Do you support youtube shows that have Nazi groups spewing for an hour about how the American Jews are evil and are going to destroy the country and how it would be a very good thing if all Jews were gone from the US? The videos would tell “truths” about what evil Jews are doing that are blatant lies but make people very angry. Should those shows be allowed to proliferate in the name of non-censorship?
Where do you draw the line? Anywhere? How about a lot of youtube videos about how ArtsSmart’s family is murdering children to make their stews for dinner that all the folks in your own see?
Does the truth matter at all?
Zelensky doesn’t spread misinformation. But if another Trump came around and said blatant lies about your family or the politician who was doing good things in your community so that folks were riled up and angry — because of LIES — then you think that is okay?
I don’t think you have to worry too much that Zelensky or someone LIKE Zelensky would blatantly lie and be banned. You do have to worry about Putin-funded folks pushing ugly right wing lies.
NYCPSP, “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”-Noam Chomsky You raise an important question to which I don’t have the answer. I’m not sure where we should draw the line when it comes to free speech. I wouldn’t be so sure that someone like Zelensky wouldn’t be censored on the Social Media for spreading misinformation. Youtube’s misinformation policies are open to interpretation.
The problem is that one side – the far right — spends all its time saying that the moderates and leftists are blatant liars and shouldn’t be trusted at all because everything they tell you is a dangerous lie.
And the other side says “both sides have equally important and valid things to say”.
Since the one thing that is accepted as “truth” by both sides is that the far right doesn’t lie and has worthwhile things to say, it is not surprising how many people believe them.
“Both sides” is very dangerous when one side blatantly lies and demonizes the other side, and the other side says “both sides have equally valid views that should be listened to.”
I think Noam Chomsky understands that, too.
Important post, Art Smart!
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a scholar
President of Ukraine
Education
Kryvyi Rih Economic Institute
1995–2000
Kryvyi Rih Gymnasium #95
1985–1995
Kyiv National Economic University
Zelensky has an undergrad degree, LLB, in Economics, and, a graduate degree in Law. See the universities he attended listed above. Some ignorant folks make fun of his career as a comedian. He ranks however as the favorite comedian in his country and on the level of US greats such as Charlie Chaplin, Billie Crystal, Robin Williams. He said he found early on that he was happier in theater than practicing law. IMO it is a disgrace for media to present him continually as merely a comedian…this is used as a put down.
He reminds me of Jon Stewart. I always thought Stewart would make a good politician, understanding how to call out the lies and absurdities of the right wing in an easy to understand way.
Al Franken was a “comedian” and also understood policy and politics because he was a very smart guy. Franken was the opposite of all those Ivy League educated not very bright Republicans who work for the rich and pretend to be for the “common man” do.
Thanks for this, Ellen!!!
He’s a breathtaking human. More like him!!!
Somewhat off topic, but Ukraine has a great summer camp program for kids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiBXmbkwiSw
There you go again: attacking Ukraine as fascist, in support of Putin’s genocidal war. You are something. Putin is a fascist. Do you care?
Why can’t dienne77 post about her concern for fascism and ALSO comment that Putin needs to stop this insanity?
Because she doesn’t want Putin to stop this insanity.
But the only reason she presents as why she doesn’t believe Putin should stop this insanity is a summer camp? Or Nazis?
How can dienne77 be anything but a troll? No reasonable person is really this demented to believe that the amount of destruction and deaths in Ukraine when Putin could stop right now is okay. And that is especially true if that “reasonable” person has spent the last 6 years holding themselves out as voice of morality against all the wars waged by Democrats and invoking about 150 times here about how concerned she was about Democrats “bombing babies”.
If that person really objected to wars, she would be objecting to this one, even if there were “bad” summer programs or Nazis in Ukraine!
So why is she so obsessed with justifying the bombings of civilians when Putin does it?
Can there be any other reason than being a troll? That’s a serious question — I really can’t think of another reason. Even the far left who is very critical of the US is also very critical of Putin. dienne77 never is.
Putin is a fascist. A kleptocrat. An extreme homophobe. A liar. A sexist. A serial murderer. A war criminal. An international terrorist. And Dienne’s hero because America, bad.
Dienne, there are online introductory classes on international law. Highly recommended.
Somewhat off topic but remember the marchers in Charlotte shouting “Jews will not replace us”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/16/charlottesville-neo-nazis-vice-news-hbo
Ukraine has 44 mil. people. In a democracy, obnoxious, fringe groups exist.
The U.S. has pockets like Kootenai County, Idaho.
What’s you point Dienne?
Glad to see you are Chekist-ing in, Dienne!
dienne77
By your logic this makes you a Neo Nazi too.
“Fact check: Quote tweeted by GOP congressman came from neo-Nazi convicted for child porn, not Voltaire ”
The quote and the link not the same. But both from the same vile individual .
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/12/05/christmas-photo-guns/
Hint, Dienne: invading countries on made-up pretexts, bad. murdering babies and grandmothers, bad.
“Putin, you came for our country, for our home, for our children. But they are not yours, and you will not win this.”
–President Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy, who is ten thousand times the man that the creepy little psychopath Putin is.
Here’s Putin being heroic: Waiting for the bodyguards to finish attaching the 40-pound pike shipped in from the aquarium to his hook so he can have a picture taken of what a manly man he is. Tsar Vlad: conqueror of fish. See his long tables? Nobody has tables like that! Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.
Let’s see. What do you call it when you paint an entire group of people with a set of extremely negative characteristics? Hmm.
I know!!!! You call it racism and xenophobia.
Not that those have ever been used as pretexts for the variety of mass murder that we call war.
Totalitarians hate comedy.
dienne77 hates comedy?
Flerp didn’t say say that.
Oh, I must have been confused. Folks that defend totalitarians like Putin even when those totalitarians are in the midst of acting in the most reprehensible ways are not totalitarians themselves? I think that’s debatable – I happen to think they are – but it’s not worth discussing as everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
Folks who defend Putin as he commits heinous war crimes may be naive or they may be paid trolls. Or they may have a sentimental attachment to the USSR, now Russia, no longer Communist, now led by the richest person in the world.
“Naive” is a word with a positive spin to excuse bad behavior and being complicit.
I have never heard anyone saying that the Germans who supported Hitler during the lead up to WWII were “naive”.
I have heard that the concentration camp workers who saw people dying in the gas chamber but still thought Hitler was okay described as “naive”.
But somehow, people who watch Putin laying waste to Ukraine and killing so many Ukraine civilians and who still won’t criticize Putin are “naive”?
Language matters. We have been excusing these folks as “naive” for too long — something we did not do with the German people, although arguably someone could write a book about how the only reason Hitler rose to power was that Germans were too “naive”.
^^typo:
“I HAVEN’T heard that the concentration camp workers who saw people dying in the gas chamber but still thought Hitler was okay described as “naive”.
YES!!! Well observed, Flerp!
But you must have missed The Collected Humorous Sketches of Rick Scott.
The show, “Servant of the People,” is even better to watch (Zelenskyy plays…a TEACHER!! & the rant that goes viral {because one of his students filmed it & then posted} causes him to be elected president: imagine…a mere teacher!}) I believe that I sent you the clip, Diane. Maybe you can post it here (my Inbox runneth over w/emails, & I’m constantly having to delete them: I’m NOT paying for “more storage!!”) Anyway, it probably can easily be found by typing Servant of the People into your search engine: it’s on YouTube, & a real pleasure to watch.
Has the Shusterman family (Michael Cohen’s wife’s family) weighed in on Putin’s war against Ukraine? Other prominent Ukrainians who moved to the states have.
The sane world is in agreement on this. President Zelenskiy is a hero.
I would love to see every U.N. delegate rise and tell the Russian foreign minister, “You want to capture or kill Zelenskiy? I am Zelenskiy.”
“The Right’s Selective Outrage on Antisemitism is a Scam”. The article’s author, Elad Nehoral cites as evidence the NYT. The paper posted one story about the recent AFPAC conference and 7 about Whoopi Goldberg’s comments on the View. When someone from the left makes a comment inferred to be anti -Jewish, msm which has a right wing bias despite claims otherwise, gets a lot of media coverage. When the right wing’s conferences and prominent spokespersons say egregious things that are antisemitic, the coverage is minimal.
IMO, Nehoral is missing a critical piece of the puzzle, the existence of well-placed individuals protecting the most powerful member of the alliance of conservative religion.