Friday, February 7, 2014

“It’s just one crazy little czar who chose to throw money right and left in some kind of madness.” - As Olympics Arrive, Russia Experiences a Downturn - NYT


“it’s just one crazy little czar who chose to throw money right and left in some kind of madness.” 

» Newcastle street art protests against Russia's anti-gay laws - video
07/02/14 07:13 from World news: Russia | guardian.co.uk
A street artist in Newcastle paints a mural in protest at Russia's laws against gay propaganda, on the day of the Sochi opening ceremony

As Olympics Arrive, Russia Experiences a Downturn

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MOSCOW — After President Vladimir V. Putin delivered Russia’s successful pitch to host the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi — in English and a smattering of French, no less — he declared it aninternational validation of the Russia that had emerged from the ruins of the Soviet Union.
“It is, beyond any doubt, a judgment on our country,” he said then, nearly seven years ago.
Now, as the first events begin, the Games have for Mr. Putin and his allies become a self-evident triumph of Russia’s will. The avalanche of criticism that has already fallen, from minor complaints about ill-prepared hotels and stray dogs to grave concerns about the costs, security and human rights, is being brushed away like snowflakes from a winter coat.
“Its realization is already a huge win for our country,” Dmitri N. Kozak, a deputy prime minister and one of Mr. Putin’s longest-standing aides, said in Sochi on Thursday. He went on to use a phrase attributed to Catherine the Great when she intervened to halt the court-martial of a general who had stormed an Ottoman fortress without orders in the 18th century: “Victors are not judged.”
The Games are a crowning moment for Mr. Putin, a chance to demonstrate anew his mastery of the global levers of power, but perhaps not for the country he governs. With Russia’s natural-resource dependent economy slowing as commodities prices fall, and with foreign investments drying up, the Kremlin has already signaled that it would have to cut spending. The $50 billion or so lavished on Sochi is becoming a political liability.
Lilia Shevtsova, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center, argued that the International Olympic Committee awarded the games to Sochi — over Salzburg, Austria, and Pyeongchang, South Korea — when Mr. Putin was at the zenith of his powers in his second term but when the verdict on his legacy remained an open one. Many had been critical of his authoritarian instincts after he rose to power, including the tightening of news media and political freedoms and the war in Chechnya, but Russia had indisputably recovered from the chaos of the 1990s.
“At that time, Russia was ‘rising from its knees,’ ” Ms. Shevtsova wrote in an essay on the center’s website, “whereas now — in 2014 — Russia has started its downward slide.”
The stalling of the economy, despite the stimulus of Olympic spending, has raised worries about popular unrest directed at the Kremlin and a tightening of political freedoms in response once the Games are over.
Growth last year slowed to 1.3 percent, the lowest in a decade except for during the global recession in 2009, even as other major economies showed signs of recovery. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development recently called for urgent changes in labor policies, productivity and a government and legal bureaucracy that now stifle development — all long promised but not enacted.
“Structural reforms to improve the business climate are key to raising potential growth and economic resilience,” the organization wrote in its survey of Russia’s economy last month. “As energy prices stagnate and labor and capital become fully utilized, growth is falling behind pre-crisis rates. Making the economy stronger, more balanced, and less dependent on rents from national resource extraction is therefore a key challenge.”
The 2014 Olympics in Sochi are estimated to be the most expensive yet. While host cities hope the games will bring in a profit, they have more often than not created long-term economic burdens.
The sheer cost of the Games has suddenly become a liability even in a political system that allows little room for public debate about the wisdom of government spending.
“It is about a lost chance,” said Aleksei A. Navalny, whose Foundation for the Fight Against Corruption recently published an interactive website charting what critics have called excessive waste and corruption in the construction of the Olympic facilities. “It is about what Russia could have done with this money. We could have had a new industrialization along the same lines as the industrialization under Stalin.”
Instead, he added, “it’s just one crazy little czar who chose to throw money right and left in some kind of madness.”
Russia is not about to collapse. Nor does Mr. Putin’s rule face any foreseeable challenge, something even a determined critic like Mr. Navalny acknowledged. Mr. Putin’s approval rating, bolstered by lavishly positive coverage on state television, remains as high as when he first came to office.
Hosting the Olympics, however, seems to have lost some of the luster officials expected for Russia’s prestige at home and abroad, much to the frustration of Mr. Putin’s supporters.
The Olympics have refocused international attention on the hard-line policies Mr. Putin’s government has pursued since he returned to the presidency in 2012 after four years as prime minister, and prompted calls for protests and even boycotts.
The list is long: Russia’s support for Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, and its efforts to keep Ukraine out of the European Union; its prosecution of political opponents, real and perceived; its restrictions on foreign adoptions; the passage of a law last year banning the distribution of gay “propaganda” to children; and its recent campaign to choke off the only independent television news channel on the pretext of questioning the Soviet Union’s victory following the Siege of Leningrad, which ended 70 years ago.
“The Games are supposed to be outside of politics,” Aleksandr D. Zhukov, the deputy speaker of the lower house of Parliament and the chairman of the Russian Olympic Committee, said in a recent interview. “Those who try to pin some political tails on them are just being undignified.”
To many officials here, criticism of the Games has a pernicious undertow of Western hostility toward Russia, intended to deny the country its rightful place in the world order. It is a sentiment that shapes Russia’s foreign policy, especially toward the United States.
“I once heard a very good explanation from a very wise person about why we will never be able to explain ourselves completely in such a way that everyone will like us,” the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said in a lengthy interview with the newspaper Kommersant this week. Presumably he meant Mr. Putin himself.
“This wise person said, ‘Do you know when everyone will love us and cease to criticize us and so on, including criticizing us for no reason?’ ” Mr. Peskov said. “And I asked, ‘When?’ And he said, ‘When we dissolve our army, when we concede all our natural resources to them as a concession and when we sell all our land to Western investors. That’s when they’ll cease to criticize us.’ ”
Mr. Putin, for his part, has presided over the final preparations in Sochi seemingly impervious to the flurry of rebukes, from trivial mockery of the state of Russia’s hospitality industry to searing criticism from groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which has already declared two environmentalists arrested this week as the Olympics’ first prisoners of conscience.
He met with the presidents of Tajikistan and China on Thursday, the first of a series of meetings with heads of state that will happen on the margins of the Games.
“We have strong memories of the emotional, uplifting enthusiasm we felt during the 1980 Moscow Olympics,” Mr. Putin said, again in English, when he opened the 126th session of the International Olympic Committee on Tuesday, omitting any reference to the United States-led boycott that marred those Games. “And we feel truly joyful and positive because the mighty, inspiring spirit of the Olympic Games is once again returning to our nation.”
President Obama and the leaders of France, Germany and Britain may have declined to attend the Games, but they will end up in Sochi soon regardless. Russia will be the host of this year’s Group of 8 summit meeting, and Mr. Putin has decided to hold it there.
Read the whole story

· · · · ·

Merkel Condemns U.S. Diplomats' Comments on Ukraine-Aide

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BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel finds the disparaging remarks of U.S. diplomats about the European Union's role in the Ukrainian crisis "totally unacceptable", a spokeswoman said on Friday.
In a leaked conversation posted on Youtube, State Department official Victoria Nuland tells the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in a discussion about the strategy for political transition "fuck the EU". She has apologised to EU officials.
German spokeswoman Christiane Wirtz said Merkel appreciated the work of EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who has led the bloc's efforts to mediate between President Viktor Yanukovich and his opponents who have taken to the streets.
"The chancellor finds these remarks totally unacceptable and
wants to emphasise that Mrs Ashton is doing an outstanding job," Wirtz told a news conference.
(Reporting by Stephen Brown; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)


A Spotlight on Mr. Putin’s Russia

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The Olympic Games that open in Sochi, Russia, on Friday are intended to be the fulfillment of President Vladimir Putin’s quest for prestige and power on the world stage. But the reality of Mr. Putin and the Russia he leads conflicts starkly with Olympic ideals and fundamental human rights. There is no way to ignore the dark side — the soul-crushing repression, the cruel new antigay and blasphemy laws and the corrupt legal system in which political dissidents are sentenced to lengthy terms on false charges.
Maria Alyokhina, 25, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 24, of Pussy Riot, the Russian punk band, are determined that the glossy celebration of the Olympics will not whitewash the reality of Mr. Putin’s Russia, which they know from experience. Charged with “hooliganism,” they were incarcerated for 21 months for performing an anti-Putin song on the altar of a Moscow cathedral that cast the Russian Orthodox Church as a tool of the state.
Such political protest is not tolerated in a nation that is a long way from a democracy. In December, the women were freed under a new amnesty law that was an attempt by Mr. Putin to soften his authoritarian image before the Olympics.
But if he thought releasing the two women from prison would silence them, he miscalculated badly. On Wednesday, they told The Times’s editorial board that their imprisonment, and the international support it rallied to their cause, had emboldened them. They plan to keep criticizing Mr. Putin — they were hilarious on Stephen Colbert’s show the night before — and working for prison and judicial reform. Their resolve and strength of character are inspiring.
There is a lot of work to do, beginning with the cases of eight people who are now on trial, charged with mass disorder at a protest at Bolotnaya Square in Moscow in 2012 on the eve of Mr. Putin’s third inauguration as president. Amnesty International, which sponsored the Pussy Riot visit to New York, where they appeared at a benefit concert on Wednesday, has called for dropping the charges of incitement to riot against the Bolotnaya demonstrators. The Pussy Riot activists dismissed the charges against those demonstrators as baseless and more evidence of “Putin’s way of getting revenge” on his critics.
A Russian prosecutor has demanded prison terms of five and six years for the eight protesters, with the verdict expected a few days before the Olympics end in late February. Ms. Alyokhina and Ms. Tolokonnikova have called for a boycott of the Olympics, or other protests, to pressure the government into freeing the defendants. The most important thing is that the world speak out now, while Mr. Putin is at the center of attention and presumably cares what it thinks.
More broadly, the Russian penal system is in desperate need of reform. The activists described conditions in which prisoners are cowed into “obedient slaves,” forced to work up to 20 hours a day, with food that is little better than refuse. Those who are considered troublemakers can be forced to stand outdoors for hours, regardless of the weather; prohibited from using the bathroom; or beaten.
Their observations are reinforced by the State Department’s 2012 human rights report, which said that limited access to health care, food shortages, abuse by guards and inmates, inadequate sanitation and overcrowding were common in Russian prisons, and that in some the conditions can be life threatening.
The Olympics cannot but put a spotlight on the host country, and despite all efforts to create a more pleasant image of his state, Mr. Putin is facing a growing protest. On Wednesday, more than 200 prominent international authors, including Günter Grass, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood and Jonathan Franzen, published a letter denouncing the “chokehold” they said the new antigay and blasphemy laws place on freedom of expression.
Mr. Putin has unconstrained power to put anyone associated with Pussy Riot and thousands of other political activists in prison. But these women and those who share their commitment to freedom and justice are unlikely to be silenced, and they offer Russia a much better future.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

"Братья на век" или знакомые на один (исторический) час?



"Братья на век" или знакомые на один (исторический) час?

"Лошадь для нас – символ счастья и благополучия..." - "тройка мчится тройка скачет"...

"В этом году мы отмечаем год лошади по китайскому лунному календарю. Лошадь для нас – символ счастья и благополучия, и хочу вам пожелать удачи, успеха, чтобы вы вырвались вперед в решении и выполнении ваших боевых задач." 

тройка мчится тройка скачет - YouTube Search



"Тройка мчится, тройка скачет" Дмитрий Хворостовский


"Ницево, ницево; я и сам такое улибцивый... И всю дорогу тебе в цай писать буду..." или поздравления с годом лошади (а кобыла, чо, не человек?)



Два лиса; и кто ж кого лисе'е? 

И ЦЗИНЬПИН (как переведено): "Вы знаете, что в этом году у нас отмечается год лошади по китайскому лунному календарю. Лошади для наших людей – это символ благополучия и счастья, так что я хочу пожелать сочинской Олимпиаде удачи, успеха, а всем нашим спортсменам – китайским и российским – вырваться вперёд на предстоящих состязаниях." 



Рогозин, а ты чо: Калашниковым нацелился? А по ху не хо? 



"А я ведь такой, улыбчивый... Может и соблазню... That's my specialty, anyway..." 



"Ницево, ницево; я и сам такое улибцивый... И всю дорогу тебе в цай писать буду, а ты дазэ и не заметись (как и раньсе...) 

"I will outsmart him anyway, in due time..."


1/5 Фото пресс-службы Президента России
С Президентом Таджикистана Эмомали Рахмоном.
6 февраля 2014 года 
В.ПУТИН: "Тьфу on you, WEST! These are my Eurasian friends. And I will play them against you as much as I want..." 
Эмомали: "You just don't worry about me... I will outsmart him anyway, in due time. But I do love you, WEST; and come and see me and make deals with me as soon as you can. We can be REAL, not imaginary friends. Make me a part of you, and I know that you will, in due time..." 
4/5 Фото пресс-службы Президента РоссииНа встрече с Президентом Таджикистана Эмомали Рахмоном.6 февраля 2014 года 
В.ПУТИН: "Много просишь, друг... У мене стольки деньги нету... Всё в свой Олимпийский прикуп вложил... Give me a discount..." 
5/5 Фото пресс-службы Президента РоссииМинистр обороны Сергей Шойгу и Министр иностранных дел Сергей Лавров на встрече с Президентом Таджикистана Эмомали Рахмоном.6 февраля 2014 года
А Шойгу задумался: "И чтой-то это будет?..." 
А Сержик (матагым) всё знает, всё чует, и радоваться ему нечего... (Или очень даже есть чего...) 

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul has announced that he is stepping down and returning home following the Winter Olympics in Sochi | UN Panel: Russia Should Annul Gay 'Propaganda' Law | Russian bloggers have been increasingly subject to criminal prosecutions, physical violence, and administrative measures | Hundreds Evacuated After Russian Train Carrying Gas Derails

U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul leaves the Foreign Ministry headquarters in Moscow. Analysts tell RFE/RL that he did well in his tenure during a difficult period in bilateral relations.
U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul leaves the Foreign Ministry headquarters in Moscow. Analysts tell RFE/RL that he did well in his tenure during a difficult period in bilateral relations.

From Russia News Review 


» Recalling McFaul: Four Views On Outgoing U.S. Ambassador To Russia
04/02/14 16:00 from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul has announced that he is stepping down and returning home following the Winter Olympics in Sochi. RFE/RL spoke to two former U.S. ambassadors to Russia and two prominent foreign-affairs analysts a...



» U.S. Ambassador to Russia Resigns
04/02/14 14:49 from NYT > Europe
Michael A. McFaul, a former senior adviser to President Obama, has been criticized by pro-Kremlin media for meeting with opposition politicians.        

» After 2 Years In Moscow, U.S. Envoy Is Resigning
04/02/14 14:49 from NYT > Europe
Michael A. McFaul, a former senior adviser to President Obama, has been criticized by pro-Kremlin media for meeting with opposition politicians.    

» McFaul to quit as U.S. Russia ambassador after conclusion of Sochi Olympic Games
04/02/14 15:09 from Europe News: News and Headlines from Europe - The Washington Post
SOCHI, Russia — U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul, the architect of President Obama’s effort to reset American relations with Russia , said Tuesday he would leave his post at the conclusion of the Olympics to return to Stanford University. ...


» After Rocky 2 Years, McFaul Quits as Ambassador
04/02/14 16:00 from The Moscow Times Top Stories
Michael McFaul, who has served as U.S. ambassador to Russia over a two-year period marked by heightened tensions between Washington and Moscow, announced in a blog post Tuesday that he would be leaving his position as ambassador and retu...


» Hundreds Evacuated After Russian Train Carrying Gas Derails
05/02/14 07:04 from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
Hundreds of local residents have been evacuated after several dozen railcars carrying concentrated gas derailed and caught fire in the Russian city of Kirov, some 800 kilometers northeast of Moscow.

» Russia: 32 Railcars Carrying Gas Derail, on Fire
05/02/14 06:22 from NYT > Europe
Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry says several dozen railcars carrying gas have derailed and caught fire northeast of Moscow, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of local resident.   


» Nearly 700 Evacuated After Gas Tanks Explode on Train
05/02/14 05:50 from The Moscow Times Top Stories
Nearly half of a Russian freight train's 65 cisterns carrying natural gas through the Kirov region exploded around 4:30 a.m. Wednesday in a derailment that prompted the evacuation of nearly 700 nearby residents, authorities said.


» Bloggers Increasingly Face Violence, Legal Cases, Report Says
05/02/14 05:35 from The Moscow Times Top Stories
A report released by a human rights group said that Russian bloggers have been increasingly subject to criminal prosecutions, physical violence, and administrative measures - such as the restriction of internet access - Radio Liberty rep...



» UN Panel: Russia Should Annul Gay 'Propaganda' Law
05/02/14 07:16 from NYT > Europe
A U.N. committee on children's rights is urging Russia to repeal its law banning pro-gay "propaganda" that could be accessible to minors.     

» Pussy Rioters Urge Americans To Take Hard Look At Russia
05/02/14 02:40 from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
Two touring members of the Russian punk-protest collective Pussy Riot have urged Americans attending the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, to take a hard look at that country beyond the new sports facilities.

» Pussy Riot, in NYC, Critiques Conditions in Russia
04/02/14 16:00 from The Moscow Times Top Stories
Americans who will be at the Winter Olympics should look beyond the facilities created for the games and take a hard look at the host country itself, two members of the Russian protest punk band Pussy Riot have said.



» Moscow School Shooter Held in Pretrial Custody
05/02/14 02:38 from The Moscow Times Top Stories
A Moscow city court has ordered that a 10th-grade student suspected of a deadly school shooting be placed in pretrial detention, after his parents distanced themselves from the teenager's defense.

M.N. comments: Bullshit from a Bullshitter, most likely arranged and paid by Russians: 

» Russia's anti-gay law is wrong – but so is some of the criticism from the west | Marc Bennetts
05/02/14 01:59 from World news: Russia | guardian.co.uk
Sochi gay rights protesters may have noble intentions, but they are playing into Putin's hands The ferocious row over the Kremlin's notorious anti-gay law in the run-up to the Sochi Olympics has sparked a bout of Russia-bashing that is n...


_____________________________________________________________________________________________

» Sports of The Times: Terrorism and Tension for Sochi, Not Sports and Joy
04/02/14 23:15 from NYT > Europe
Never before has the pre-Olympic chatter been less about the athletes or the sports. And never before has the conversation leading up the Games been so grim.    


» Chemical Weapons Deal Strengthened Assad: U.S. Intel Chief
04/02/14 15:04 from NYT > Europe
Last year's agreement to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons left President Bashar al-Assad in a strengthened position, and there appears little chance rebels will soon force him from power, the U.S. intelligence chief told Congress on Tu...


» U.S. Spy Chief Says Assad Has Strengthened His Hold on Power
04/02/14 22:01 from NYT > Europe
James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, also said that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria had benefited from a deal to abandon his chemical weapons arsenal.  


» Scotland Becomes Seventeenth Country to Approve Same-Sex Marriages
04/02/14 17:49 from NYT > Europe
Scotland voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to allow same-sex marriages, becoming the 17th country to give the green light to gay marriage despite opposition from its main church organizations.   


» Gay Norwegian Minister to Take Husband to Sochi Paralympics
04/02/14 16:00 from The Moscow Times Top Stories
Norway's health minister will make a point about gay rights in Russia by attending the Sochi Paralympics with his husband.


» Draft Bill Proposes Ban on Surrogate Children for Single Men
04/02/14 16:00 from The Moscow Times Top Stories
A working group has prepared a draft bill that would ban single men in Russia from becoming fathers by surrogate mothers, a news report said Tuesday.


» St. Petersburg Deputy Targets Online LGBT Community
04/02/14 16:00 from The St. Petersburg Times
A journalist from Nizhny Tagil, a city in the Central Ural 1,700 kilometers east of St. Petersburg, has been charged with promoting \"non-traditional relations\" among minors following a report by the St.


"Вперёд, к победе ОЛИМПИЗМА!", - сказал великий Путин

В.ПУТИН: ...И конечно, я очень бы хотел, чтобы Олимпийские игры в Сочи были ещё одним шагом вперёд в развитии олимпизма. 

"Вперёд, к победе коммунизма - тьфу, чёрт; то есть Путинизма - вот зараза, опять обосрался; то есть, как его, во, во оно - (Вовочкизма?) - не, не; вот, вспомнил: к победе ОЛИМПИЗМА! (А также непиздизма, непердизма, анти-метеоризма, анти-чёрно-жопизма, новорусского консерватизма и Передне - а не Задне - традиционно ценностного и вполне азиатского Леопардизма (бывшего, но ошибочно - Кавказского)", - сказал великий Путин. 

"Вперёд, товарищи! Наше дело - центрально-правое! Победа (60 миллиардов доллАров и почётное захоронение у Кремлёвской стены, в уголке Олимпийских Олигархов - не дождётесь!) будет за мной!" 



В.ПУТИН (говорит по-немецки) [!!! !!! !!!]: Я выражаю Вам свою сердечную благодарность. 

See also: 


  1. Олимпизм Перед Сочи 2014 - YouTube

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCzkPpJrfr4

    YouTube
    7 days ago - Uploaded by sportkievtv
    Олимпизм Перед Сочи 2014. sportkievtv·701 videos. SubscribeSubscribedUnsubscribe 263. Subscription preferences ...

  2. Игры Олимпа - Олимпизм - это философия жизни

    www.igryolimpa.ru/olimpizm.html

    Translate this page
    Олимпийское движение придерживается принципов Кубертена. Сегодня, посредством образования, олимпизм является универсальным учением, ... 
  1. ОЛИМПИЗМ И НОВЫЙ МИРОВОЙ ПОРЯДОК

    trotsky-lev.narod.ru/left/olimpism.html

    Translate this page
    Олимпизм и "новый мировой порядок". Любодраг Симонович. Пер. с сербского языка на русский Татьяны Джурашкович. Издательство "Лорка", Белград ... 
  2. -
  3. The Olympian (a.k.a. The Great Teacher, Father of the Nation, Mother of all the World anti-gay movements and The Big Sister of Kleptocratic Olympism
Несколько странные но символические олимпийско-деревенские телодвижения 

-


- "Говорю тебе, как ведьма чёрту: 'Позолоти ручку!' " 
- "А тебе не хватит? Сама работай, клиентов много..." 

-


"Детей не отдадим. Сами их поимеем!" 

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

"Совсем плешь проели... Они ведь такие: ПЕРЕДНЕ-азиатские (а не ЗАДНЕ-); бывшие "Кавказские". Переименовали, и вроде полегче чуть-чуть, может не отгрызут..."



"Совсем плешь проели... Они ведь такие: ПЕРЕДНЕ-азиатские (а не ЗАДНЕ-); бывшие "Кавказские". Переименовали, и вроде полегче чуть-чуть, может не отгрызут..."



"Ну, ниччо; Я с моими котятами..."



"Мои котята меня берегут..."



"Но всё-таки надо поосторожнее, чтоб не откусили..."



"Они ведь такие..."


"Ну, ниччо, я ему башку отверну; чтоб смотрел в другую сторону и не соблазнял (и не домогался...) 



"Авось выживем, уцелеем... Нацелим их куда надо... Пусть там грызут..."

-

Sochi Winter Olympics: Vladimir Putin gets cosy with snow leopard - video | World news

1 Share
Russian president Vladimir Putin plays with a rare and endangered snow leopard in an animal reserve in Sochi to promote the regeneration of their population. The total wild population has been estimated at 4,510 to 7,350. The snow leopard is one of the three mascots of the Sochi Winter Olympics, along side the polar bear and the hare
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See also: MO(C)K Ceremony







We got "CEREMONY"; I got all my sisters with me



we are family (Si, Hermana!) 


Uploaded on Jul 19, 2009
(CHORUS:)
We are family
I got all my sisters with me
We are family
Get up ev'rybody and sing

Ev'ryone can see we're together
As we walk on by
(FLY!) and we fly just like birds of a feather
I won't tell no lie
(ALL!) all of the people around us they say
Can they be that close
Just let me state for the record
We're giving love in a family dose

(CHORUS x2)

Living life is fun and we've just begun
To get our share of the world's delights
(HIGH!) high hopes we have for the future
And our goal's in sight
(WE!) no we don't get depressed
Here's what we call our golden rule
Have faith in you and the things you do
You won't go wrong
This is our family Jewel

(REPEAT CHORUS TO FADE)