aramis87

Is it better for the children to go through a small period of acclimation now, or for them to spend their entire lives as outsiders in a country that no longer makes special accommodations for them?

It's not an unreasonable concern, no. But I'd rather the community be active and growing than address something that's not currently an issue.

When Russia occupied Estonia and other countries, they deported a large number of locals to Russia. That served the purposes of decimating local populations, decreasing resistance, giving the Russians hostages, and also giving them slave labor for their work camps. And then they moved in a bunch of Russian civilians to run the government in various levels, and insisted that all official business be conducted in Russian. The local Russian "elites" got special privileges, including special schools and special stores. There was some acculturation, but they generally had their own groups and didn't spend more time accommodating the locals, expecting the locals to conform to them instead.

When the Soviet Union fell, the previously-occupied countries were left with these families who had cultural ties with the Soviet Union, but who had been living locally for like 50 years. It was generally decided that those who wanted to repatriate could and the rest could remain; most people decided to remain.

In most places, the resurgence of local language and culture also accommodated the remaining Russian elements; documents were available in both languages, schooling could be in either language, etc. The countries didn't want to offend Russia, didn't want to truly upset their Russian neighbors, and it was easier to ignore it and focus on developing their countries. They figured the remaining Russians would eventually fully acclimate locally.

However, the local Russians have some resentment against the locals, as they've mostly lost their previous privileges, they have nothing to return home to, and they've had stressed relations with their local neighbors. In short, they didn't really want to acclimate, nor did their neighbors fully trust them. That left fairly insular communities of cultural Russians in previously occupied countries.

Russia has been using the existence of those communities to invade it's neighbors.

At this point - 80+ years since occupation and 30+ years since liberation - the "local Russian" population has had plenty of time to acclimate. If they haven't yet, that's their problem. For these countries, standing up to Russia and reducing future pretexts for invasion is significantly more important than a disgruntled minority who has little intention of integrating and who is already disconnected.

About how many supporters were there? Were there any counter-protesters? What was the police presence like?

That - that interpretation never even occurred to me ...

2024: Us: They're going to do Project 2025! Them: What? Us: Project 2025! Them: What's that? Us: Here! thump Them: tl:dr lol. Us: sigh. makes simple charts Them: Oh, he'd never do that! Him: I don't know what you're talking about! Them: See! You people are always taking things out of context and over-reacting! Us: Is it worth the risk? Them: Fucking libtard doomscrollers, tryin' to let everyone have things for free. votes [R]

2025: Them: Oh. ... Oh! ... Wait, no!

If anyone plans to go to any of his upcoming appearances, just fyi the Pearl and Center Street courthouses are literally right next to each other.

If they really wanted to make a change, they'd let prison firefighters become real firefighters after they got out of jail.

How do you handle returns, defective merchandise, warranties? If I buy something from you and something goes wrong with it, I'm not going to like being fobbed off with "hey, go talk to Tina". If they return-ship something to you instead of Tina, who pays to ship it back to Tina?

What's the stethoscope theory?

A bunch of Americans do, as well!

There are so many things parents worry about - is their kid doing okay in school, are they getting along with others, are they into drugs, are they pregnant/got someone pregnant, are they being peer-pressured into shoplifting or drinking or whatever.

This? This is absolutely not something a parent is going to get upset about, except for being concerned to your health, getting it fixed, and preventing it happening again. Talk to your parents.