This website contains and includes my opinions, hunches, suspicions, honest accountings of my experiences, and my extrapolations. This website is ALWAYS cleared by my First Amendment attorney.
Regarding the Facebook Group:
"Uniting for Ukraine"
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A bad experience....and a different take on the problems in Ukraine.
I'll be in Ukraine as a professional photographer starting December, 2022.
Pursuant to that, I wanted to get to know some Ukrainians through the Facebook Group called "Uniting for Ukraine".
This is a group designed to allow a forum for Ukrainians to beg for sponsorships from people around the world, but most ONLY want to go to America.
I started out with a few cursory, introductory posts, trying to help Ukrainians understand that, perhaps, just perhaps, America in 2022/23 was not the place they dreamed it was, but of course they were welcome to go and find out for themselves. I offered to describe living conditions in other countries also. I also posted a few tips about how to most effectively approach Americans for sponsorship, and a few more posts gently warning Ukrainians about some of the scams Americans might try to pull on them (and there are many).
The almost instant result was that I was attacked viciously by group members and told that I was not even an American, that I was a bot, that I was a thief, that I was a scammer, that I was wasting the time of the Ukrainian people, that they were going to "get" me (too many years in Federal law enforcement and more threats than I can remember so bring it on). I'm surprised they didn't add in pedophile but I'm sure they would have gotten around to it. I was told my account was fake, that I was a Russian spy, that I was there to trick Ukrainians, and on and on ad nauseam. In my narcotics enforcement days I would have called this an amphetamine-induced hysterical paranoia.
The vicious, irrational attacks didn't come from one person, they came from many. I've screen-shotted only two of their profiles, above or below.
After the first such attack, the admins properly blocked the attacker and allowed me to continue trying to get to know the Ukrainians a bit.
But almost immediately, the other attacks came on, and I countered them as best I could, reporting each attack to the admins.
In due course (an hour) I was blocked from the group by those admins.
I wonder now, what is the REAL purpose of this group?
Common sense and simple logic says the admins of a group like this would WANT to protect those clearly trying in their humble ways to help the people of Ukraine, and to get the trouble-makers out. That's a simple concept. But apparently not the concept of the two admins of that group.
I don't yet know and I don't likely care enough to dig into it, but I will post the ID's of the admins, as time allows.
I came away with two conclusions -- actually, three.
1. No good deed goes unpunished. How dare I try to actually help people. HOW DARE I!? Something like that MUST be denounced and punished, excoriated, insulted, lied about -- it MUST. Americans are plenty good at that, but it appears Ukrainians have them beat by a thousand miles.
2. Ukrainians appear to be, partly, or largely, nasty, vicious, argumentative, dishonest people. Sorry, that's my takeaway from this group and the behavior of the members and admins. What else on earth could I possibly think? I thought the exact opposite before trying to interact with this group. I was foolish, apparently.
3. It may well be that America has (as it often does) made a GARGANTUAN mistake in helping Ukraine, and for the first time, my hatred and loathing for Putin's actions in Ukraine has taken a new direction. I have begun to wonder if, perhaps, he knows far more about Ukraine and Ukrainians than we do, and he rightfully saw them as a distinct threat -- a great body of irrationality, illogic, corruption, stupidity and backward thinking, and he thought he had better control them lest their insanity penetrate into Russia.
That can't possibly be right, can it? I no longer am sure.
At this juncture, early December, 2022, I honestly don't know the answer. What I thought I knew about Ukraine and Ukrainians and this conflict has been tossed on its ear. I am thinking I was wrong all along. I haven't been treated badly by Russians, but I sure as Hell have been, by Ukrainians.
Only a small part of the Ukraine is at war now. 80% of the citizens have no urgent reason to leave. But it appears to me they are trying to take full advantage of the generosity of others, simply to be accepted into any other country that will support them. Their soldiers are fighting and dying for a people who only run away. That's disgusting.
As I said I'll be in Ukraine very soon, working with a Romanian Christian group, and I'll get a chance to see first hand what the true character of Romanians is. Will I go back to my original assessment of them? -That they were (are) a strong, strong people, with a moral fiber and a love of peace and good will? I don't know. The ministry in Romania tells me that they HAVE seen websites and groups purporting to "help" the Ukrainians by putting refugees and American sponsors together, but that a good many of them are up to no good, and are merely fleecing desperate Ukrainians. I'll sort that out on the ground over the next few months in Ukraine. But now I am wary of Ukrainians, nervous, and highly suspicious.
I'll document the war as I am supposed to through this winter, but all (all) latent, back-burner thoughts of getting involved in any way in any thing that helps Ukrainians has evaporated, because I don't know what's a scam and what isn't. It's hard to imagine how they could ever recover my respect again. But maybe they will. I think the answer I'm seeking lies with the Ukrainians on the streets and in the homes, rather than with crackpots running scam-sites or scam-groups halfway around the world. The Truth of the people will reveal itself in time.
As for the admins of this group, what are they up to? They even declined to post my message looking for paid guides in Ukraine. Ukrainians need money and this is a perfectly honorable job and position, not to mention lucrative by Ukraine standards. Yet the admins of this group blocked my offer. Why protect the insane and punish anyone genuinely trying to help the Ukrainian people? It boggles the mind and people want to know why.
The ministry has been made aware of this and also been made aware of this Facebook group, and are working now to find reliable, non-scamming guides for me. I hate to put them to that trouble but they are running continuous supply lines into Ukraine and they know the ropes. I knew the ropes in Vietnam, but that was lifetimes ago. This is a new age and a new war and a new people and a new region and a new culture to me.
Indeed, Facebook will allow ANY kind of group, and that's a part of America's waffly doctrine of free speech, but by God this particular group should be dealt with. It's a disservice to Ukraine, whether it turns out that they ARE involved in something not wholesome, or even if it turns out that they simply don't know how to treat decent people decently. Either way, they're a disservice to Ukraine.
To Americans thinking they might be doing something nice by sponsoring a Ukrainian, I say STOP! Stop at least for the moment, until this can get worked out. Come to a full and screeching stop with that kind of thinking, right now. Do not take another step until you TRULY do the research to find out what these people are and what kind of liability and backwardness you're opening yourself up for.
A year ago I talked to an American who had retired in Ukraine and is still there. Regarding "the people" he told me that Ukrainians were the most irrational, dishonorable, argumentative people he had ever encountered in all his travels all around the world. I dismissed that as nonsense. I figured, probably, that man was some cantankerous old curmudgeon who started fights every place HE went.
I have now learned to take him at his word. I was wrong, at least with regard to some portion of the population. I'm sorry. Even if I come back from Ukraine thinking the people are good and decent souls who need and deserve our help and kindness, I will never, ever forget the miserable, evil, horrible people on the United for Ukraine Facebook group. I'm a big boy, and I've dealt with a million souls of that caliber in my lifetime all around the world in many professions, and I can forget them because not all humans are truly human. But what I can NOT forget or forgive is being treated as I was by the United for Ukraine group. That was beyond the pale, over the top, and completely contrary to any manner or semblance of decency I adhere to and believe in. That just plain stunk.
I'll say this again: No good deed goes unpunished. I am truly sorry I tried to help. I'll not make that mistake again.
Folks, it appears to me, so far, that at least some percentage of these people are just plain whacked.
My advice: Stay. Away. At least for the time being.
At least for the time being: Stop ALL aid to Ukraine, stop your support, and even stop your well wishes. It could possibly be that Putin knows what he's doing and is doing the right thing. If those demons on United for Ukraine are ANY indication of what Ukrainians are, then America has severely, completely made an error.
Unfortunately I'll be in Ukraine most of the winter and will not be in a position to sit in a warm, safe home and write about my findings there. I will be involved, 95%, in photo-journalism. I did publish nine books on various subjects; maybe there's a 10th to be written about this conflict. But I won;t be able to update this page for quite some time.
The other 5% of my work will involve helping some of the ministry personnel choose those Ukrainians most in need of being extricated to surrounding countries, and in helping facilitate that. This ministry has homes waiting. No, they won't be in America, but I honestly do feel like transplanting Ukrainians to America, in most cases, is not a service to them. There are many reasons for that opinion.
In this group (Uniting for Ukraine) I have been attacked by Loons to a far greater degree than in any other endeavor in my entire life. I have found Ukrainians, the ones who attacked me in that group, to be augmentative to a degree that makes one wonder about their sanity. I have found them to be vile and vicious beyond comprehension. I have been accused of being a fake and a bot, and not a US citizen -- all as a disgusting punishment for me simply trying to help a people I perceived as suffering and in need of any and all help.
I no longer see them as being in need of help. I see them as being in need of psychotherapy.
Will I change that opinion in time? Assuming I survive, you'll know in a few months time.
Above is actually the most gentle of the insults I received. Quickly, they came to the point of threatening my life. Unfortunately, the Group admins, in their infinite wisdom, deleted all but what I had captured above.
More of the same from the fake account shown below:
I posted in the "Uniting for Ukraine" group on Facebook as follows:
I will be in Romania Dec. 8, then onto Ukraine. Can stay as long as I like. I'm a Third World type photographer of some modest success. Looking for a fixer/guide. Contact by personal message.
Here's the final message to the Admins of this group:
TO ADMINS: As you know, within minutes of creating my first post, it was attacked similarly by someone professing to be a woman. I visited her profile to find it completely blank, but listing four friends, not viewable to me. In any case, while you have this person and others actively working overtime to trash your group, I'm done with it. If you ever get this problem solved, feel free to get back to me. Maybe I'll return; maybe not. In any case, I've prepared a little website to document this bizarre exchange and it's posted at the following
URL:
Any further developments will be posted there. Good luck with this. These attacks will continue towards your other users until you decide to get aggressive with them. Hopefully you're up for that. But I'm thinking you're not.
Shortly after that communication to the Admins, I checked back to find the FIRST maniacal devil (Guti) gone. I therefore went back into the group and made a few new posts. I was INSTANTLY attacked again by the entity calling itself Myra Noceda and a handful of others. I was then terminated from the group. Great group. Great admins.
UPDATE, December 2, 2022:
I'm pasting in just a few images, below, to kick off what is now intended to be a full-scale investigation and accounting for this Facebook Group. I've never been so insulted, threatened or harassed in my long life, as what was directed at me from this Facebook group, "United For Ukraine" in the short course of a few days. I've honestly never experienced anything like it. The attacks were rapid-fire, coordinated, and frankly, completely insane. I've had more than my share of Facebook and other forum fights -- everyone has. But all paled in comparison to this. Nearly one hundred insults and/or threats in the space of a couple of hours at the height of it, apparently in retaliation for me very nicely suggesting that Ukrainians looking for sponsors exercise due caution when considering those sponsors. That's it. That's the sum total of my messaging in that group, and the insults and threats began within 30-60 seconds. I did notice a lady poster who advised the same thing in this group (be careful of scammy American men and westerners in general), and she received extremely insulting and threatening types of responses from what appeared to me to be of the "sex-pat" type of western males (sexpat is our term for them in SE Asia where they are chokingly disgusting and predatory).
When these kinds of things happen in a group, we expect the Admins to be intelligent enough to look at the exchange(s) and sort out who is up to what, and get rid of the instigator(s) and those harassing people out of the blue for no reason whatsoever. In this case, it appears the two Admins were simply not up to that task. That being the case, we have to wonder why? Why would supposedly intelligent people choose (consciously choose) to ignore the problem cases, and punish the innocent posters? Indeed, why?
It seems there are two possibilities:
1. They are simply stupid, or
2. These Admins have an ulterior agenda of some type.
What on earth could that be?
Let's try to break it down:
They actively blocked any and all help the innocent poster(s) offered, regarding the vetting of their prospective western sponsors. Tell the desperate Ukrainians, merely, to be careful, and the group comes down on you like a ton of bricks. THAT doesn't make any sense at all.
Or does it?
Why would they do that?
Why indeed?
It appears, in my view and now the views of others, to be a bold-faced fact that they (the Admins) do not want their members to receive any kind of common sense advice that might help them avoid scammers, sex-traders, or maybe even serial killers -- God knows America is now overflowing with all of these and much more.
The Admins clearly do not want their members to be forewarned about America's scum bags.
That leads me to only one possible conclusion, and if you give it ten seconds of elementary thought, I'm confident you'll conclude the same thing. It has been suggested to me, and I have as yet zero "official" corroboration on this outside of an unsolicited suggestion but it's an angle I'll explore in depth, that perhaps various Admins of various Ukraine groups are collecting "royalties" or "kickbacks" from the wealthier Ukrainians in cases where they find sponsors by using the United for Ukraine Facebook Group or others. Would that be a kooky notion to look into? Not at all. Ukraine is corrupt, and the US is corrupt, and where the two shall meet in dark places, there can easily be (will be) graft. That would, consequently, provide a possible explanation as to why the Admins of this group seek to stamp out a ridiculously sincere and helpful soul.
I've made my money in photography; I've traveled the world for nearly 20 years and I don't have to work ever again. My criminal record is 100% spotless (no-- I caught a fish illegally once in 1975). My credit is perfect. I spent too many years in Federal Law enforcement catching bad Americans. But these SOBs come at me with posts SWEARING I am a bot and a scammer and God knows what else. Sorry. I don't roll over for that crap.
So why did an orchestrated, vicious little mob come at me like that? Well, there are plenty of nasty, vicious, viperous little mobs on Facebook -- in fact that's nearly all there is. But why would the Admins of the group punish THE VICTIM? The victim that was trying hard to further their self-proclaimed cause of helping Ukrainians! THAT.....is the question at hand. THAT IS THE QUESTION AT HAND.
It has been said that no good deed goes unpunished and that seems to be more true within this group (Uniting for Ukraine) than in any other place or situation, I have ever encountered, anywhere in the world, and this is now my third circumnavigation of it.
I do see that two of the instigators of this online brawl, Louis Guti and the ever lovely Myra Oceda are gone from the group roster, but that's only two of half a dozen or more who engaged in this, and since both of those profiles are blank, we can conclude that they were fake profiles on Facebook, created for the express and singular purpose of attacking and threatening innocent, well-meaning people who sought only to help the Ukraine people in some microscopic way. Were they pit bulls "hired" by some Admins to get rid of posters who raised the caution flag about bad sponsors? They probably have dozens of fake profiles ready to be set to the same task again, and that will be tested, but the Admins don't seem to be able to figure this out. If you're gonna have a FB Group that is certain to be infiltrated by all manner of pond scum, hourly, you'd best have more than three brain cells and you'd best be on your toes and you'd best be capable of figuring out which is which -- the good guys from the bad guys. If you're clueless to that, you're doomed. This duo of Admins is either painfully lacking in those talents, or they have something else up their sleeves. It's hard to imagine people could be THAT stupid, but many many are, and it's hard to imagine people who could be THAT evil, but many, many are.
If "I" had a FB Group, for any cause, and I found that some member or orchestrated pack of members or a lone member with a drawer full of fake profiles was coming into MY group and harassing and attacking the decent people of MY group, I'd make an example of that person or persons or little Cabal of Fools and post every single one of their nasty, threatening, harassing, insulting comments in a place where Facebook could never reach them (a web page like this), and I'd advise every new member applicant to go look at that page and read it carefully and understand that if they acted like that in MY group they'd suffer the exact same fate. I'm sick to death of Internet Trolls and that's how you deal with them. But these Admins did exactly the opposite -- the blocked the victim. And now this is what they get.
I won't be able to pursue this case in any meaningful way for the next several months as I will actually be in Ukraine; I'll get after it with gusto at my next stop, which should be somewhat stable for a year or two. While in Ukraine, I'll be interacting all day, every day, with Ukrainians, and I'll report back to this web page, once back in the world, re my findings on their character in general. I pray to God it isn't anything even remotely approaching the stark and utter evil I experienced in the group "Uniting for Ukraine". If so, then my new mission will be to expose that disgusting behavior for all of America and the West to see, and I will spare no expense fighting to have all funding and support yanked from Ukraine. I can't sway that needle far, but I can sway it. If the nation (Ukraine) is made up of imbeciles like the two outlined herein, then NO country should be helping it out. Let Putin do his will. Maybe he's smarter than we think. The world doesn't need humans of the caliber of (fake names) Louis Guti and Myrna Oceda, nor does it need the efforts of what may indeed be a very nefarious Facebook Group called Uniting for Ukraine.
Here are a few screen shots, for the research perusal of anyone interested, or anyone having nasty encounters with these two fake names, or anyone being bullied and stomped on by this group and it's Admins.
The two Admins, at present (Dec 2022), seem to be:
What are they really up to?
Let's all find out together.
UPDATE, December 4, 2022:
I've been speaking with friends in both Ukraine and Romania regarding the bizarre treatment I received on the Facebook Group Uniting for Ukraine, described above. I missionary group in Romania that works to extradite refugees from Ukraine tells me they have experienced a lot of trouble with "Digital Saboteurs" and basically con-artists setting up groups and clubs and websites to "help" Romanians find sponsors, for which they receive kick-backs. The most lucrative kickbacks are to be had from deals between Ukrainians and American sponsors. They tell me this is pretty ugly business. The contact in Ukraine tells me that many of their friends have found American sponsors through these various groups, and that upon reaching America, they find things to be very different from what they expected, up to even the point of girls AND boys being indoctrinated into sex work in the US. No way to know if Uniting for Ukraine is involved in ANY of that, but the fact that United for Ukraine Facebook Group watched me being attacked mercilessly when I ever so gently suggested that Ukrainians be careful about choosing their sponsors in the US, and did nothing about it except to ban ME from the group, does, to me, speak volumes and volumes. It makes me super-suspicious of the group and their intentions. I'll try to contact people actually in Ukraine who have direct knowledge of this group to see what experiences I can document. I am NEVER surprised when I find leeches sucking the blood of those in need if, in fact, that's what's going on here.
For any readers who know me from Facebook, I'll be terminating all interactions on Facebook and my page will be deleted. The caliber of people there is just too low.
UPDATE: December 30, 2022:
I am in Ukraine now. Sadly, nearly all desire I had to help the Ukrainian people has evaporated. I'll explain in detail once back in The World. My advice in the meantime to all U4U potentional sponsors is to get away from any such programs now. Save yourselves the headaches, the heartaches and the financial losses. These people are not what you think or hope.