SharanskyWailer

SharanskyWailer t1_jb8j0ok wrote

It's a not-so-well-kept secret. I had the pleasure of talking to 70-something year-old Finnish man at a fundraising lunch at the lodge there that there were so many in the area decades ago (into the 1960s and 1970s) that they still spoke Finnish with each other in everyday life.

Apparently, Astoria had one of the largest populations in the USA outside Minnesota and Wisconsin. Those who haven't passed away have mostly left the area. The same old man complained bitterly about the economic decline and how there is so much poverty and addiction in the area instead.

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SharanskyWailer t1_jaf34mz wrote

As it is, they've already had a de facto death penalty with settlers and Tsahal officers allowed to shoot Arabs for sport. Even countries that don't have or got rid of the death penalty, like Turkey, Russia, Colombia, etc. have it by other means with SWAT teams and brutally inhumane prison conditions.

Not all Germans are critical of this. I can guarantee you that AfD and Antideutsch are cheerleading this development, as well as very many Americans (including hardcore pro-Israel Democrats).

Remember that this kind of hardline dehumanization of "others" has a long history in that country. It was the kibbutzniks who would shoot at villagers to provoke retaliation, thus intervention by the Tsahal, and who would habitually torture captured returnees ("mistanenim") to death.

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SharanskyWailer t1_jaf14rv wrote

A former VKontakte friend, who unfriended me when last year's invasion started (so I blocked him in kind), explained to me the case for Russia holding onto Transnistria, which was that there was this extremely rare and obscure Turkic ethnic group that's majority-Christian that needs to be protected from "genocide".

Mind you, this guy could be best described as a "4chan tankie". Like, Eric Cartman-level immature, who used racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic language to defend the USSR, China, and Putin while bashing "Western liberal Russophobic fascists".

The Russian case for holding onto far-flung territories like South Ossetia, Transnistria, Donbass, and even fully de jure territories like Chechnya, the Kurils, etc. has always been flimsy, illogical, and incoherent. At this point, we can ignore all of their concern trolling and whining about the "mean old liberal NATO West" after what they did in Ukraine.

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SharanskyWailer t1_jaecl98 wrote

Poring over the Wikipedia stats, I can tell you that as a rural county that shares part of its land with a Native American reservation and has less than 8000 people, these stats should not come as a surprise. Some people might end up retiring there anyways, but of course, it is absolutely not a place to try and start a family unless you want to homeschool or something.

Great to visit though.

As for "worst counties", there are many other subjective measures, as those in Spokane would tell you "King County". But if we're talking overall misery, I think it's also fair to compare Ferry to those with larger populations.

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