Listen to a reading of this article:
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Well you’ll be shocked to learn that, while the Ukraine invasion we’ve been told for weeks was happening any day now still has not occurred, the US and UK have declared that Russia attacked Ukraine in an invisible and unverifiable way for which the evidence is secret.
“The White House blamed Russia on Friday for this week’s cyberattacks targeting Ukraine’s defense ministry and major banks and warned of the potential for more significant disruptions in the days ahead,” AP reports. “Anne Neuberger, the Biden administration’s deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, said the U.S. had rapidly linked Tuesday’s attacks to Russian military intelligence officers.”
“Technical information analysis shows the GRU was almost certainly involved in disruptive DDoS attacks,” adds a statement from the UK Foreign Office.
No evidence for this claim has been provided beyond the assertive tone with which American and British officials have uttered it, but that likely won’t stop arguments from western narrative managers that this “attack” justifies immediate economic sanctions.
https://twitter.com/kgosztola/status/1494797904556572675
You’ve probably also heard by now that President Biden announced at a press briefing that Vladimir Putin has made the decision to invade Ukraine and violently topple Kyiv “in the coming days,” citing only “intelligence”.
“What reason do you believe he’s considering that option at all?” a reporter asked Biden after his speech.
“We have a significant intelligence capability, thank you very much,” the president answered, and made his exit.
As we were reminded earlier this month in an interesting exchange between State Department spinmeister Ned Price and AP’s Matt Lee, US officials firmly believe that simply placing assertions next to the word “intelligence” should be considered rock solid proof that those assertions are true, and the press are expected to play along with this.
And indeed, a large percentage of the political/media class is responding to Biden’s unevidenced claim that Putin has decided to launch a full-scale ground invasion of Ukraine as though that invasion is actually happening.
It is beyond belief that in 2022, as we face challenges like covid & climate change, any national leader would start a war that could kill thousands & create millions of refugees. There is a diplomatic solution to this crisis. It is tragic that Putin seems intent to reject it.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) February 18, 2022
Two critical statements by Biden just now:
1. US has intelligence that Putin has made the decision to further invade Ukraine.
2. The invasion will go all the way to Kyiv, a city of 2.9m people.
Europe—the world—won’t be the same if Biden is right.
— Ivo Daalder (@IvoHDaalder) February 18, 2022
It is not even a tiny bit rare for US presidents to make incendiary claims about governments they don't like without solid intel. https://t.co/5wp4CBrlvX
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) February 19, 2022
There are also accusations of false flags amid the fighting in eastern Ukraine and numerous other claims about what Russia is doing as it prepares for this invasion it’s supposed to launch, and it’s all just being blindly accepted as objectively true in mainstream political discourse. Nowhere is it questioned. Nowhere is the fault of the US and NATO in creating these tensions between Russia and Ukraine ever reported, nor are the geostrategic benefits the US hegemon stands to reap from this standoff. Few even bother trying to articulate what Moscow would gain from invading Ukraine, except the occasional infantile “they hate us for our freedom”-style think piece about how Putin just can’t stand democracy.
If online you question the veracity of any of these claims in light of the extensive history these institutions have of lying to us about just this sort of thing, it’s treated as a freakish and bizarre interjection that is at best misguided and at worst proof that you’re an agent of the Kremlin. I haven’t received so many notifications from people calling me a Russian operative since 2018, which to me is funny because everything I was saying about western Russia narratives in 2018 has since been completely vindicated.
And I think it’s important while this all unfolds to take a moment to remind ourselves that the burden of proof is always on the party making the claim. This is a basic principle we all hold true in matters of logic and debate and in the legal system, and really anywhere that disputed claims are scrutinized, and it doesn’t magically stop being the case just because a claim is spoken in an assertive tone by powerful people about a country they don’t like. If you make a claim in an irrelevant time-wasting Twitter argument you’ll immediately be asked for proof that it’s true, but if the most powerful government in the world makes an incendiary claim of potentially world-shaping consequence we’re all just expected to accept it, even though that government has a proven track record of making false claims.
Amazing interview with of the former MI6 chief with the Atlantic Council's @B_judah (the whole gang present) where the intel goon *admits* that many western "intel leaks" media outlets are dutifully conveying aren't real leaks but propaganda messages designed to undercut Putin. pic.twitter.com/UOzBxG5F5H
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 17, 2022
The onus is not on anyone else to prove that the US and UK governments are lying when they make these claims, the onus is on the US and UK governments to prove that they are telling the truth. At some point after Donald Trump’s election it became a mainstream liberal doctrine that you can say whatever you want about Russia no matter how outrageous and suffer no professional consequences if it proved completely false, and nobody’s really been pushing back on that. So many people built entire careers out of suggesting for years on end that the entire Trump family was going to be dragged out of the White House in chains for Kremlin collusion, and when this failed to prove true everyone just acted like it was fine and continued on with their careers.
But it’s not fine. It’s not okay that this bizarre cold war hysteria environment has melted everyone’s brain over the last five years. It’s not okay that the most basic standards of logic and evidence have been flushed down the toilet. It’s not okay that we now have MI6 spooks and CIA mouthpieces openly acknowledging that the government is using the western press to wage an information war geared at undermining Russia when both the government and the press are supposed to be simply telling us the truth.
I don’t know what’s going to happen with Ukraine. What I do know is that it would be good to drag the Overton window of acceptable debate kicking and screaming back to the point where the burden of proof needs to be met even, and especially, by the world’s most powerful people. And where, if that burden is not met, their claims are treated with all the disdain they deserve.
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113 responses to “The Burden Of Proof Is Always On The Ones Making The Claim (Even If It’s About Russia)”
…..ted tripp…..it goes back to the routing and defeat of the christians in taking the “holy land”…….dark skinned people took control of the middle east, as they should, because they were semites indigenous to the region…..the euros never got over it…add oil, shipping lanes, and military outposts….well they didn’t get over it, but they’re going to take what they want anyhow…..what’s the current body count?…….
…..amerikkkan exceptionalism- the “art” of 530yrs. development in bullshit believed and promoted to the furthering of imperial conquests; the perfection in separation of myth and facts; the ability to harness the cognizance of a society based on only consumption and enrichment; to keep the the separation in place; to brutalize any resistance to the myth and erase the facts; to reshape the facts/data in the image/illusion of exceptionalism; to consolidate the basis of the white supremacist social architecture with concepts of innocence regarding historical facts……
You remind me that the Papal decrees in the 16th century essentially proclaimed the superiority of white European Christians over all others.
Finally.
Canada’s Justin Trudeau, to flood Ukraine with deadly weapons, though Canada has been sending military equipment in one form or another to Ukraine since 2015. Since 2014, Canada has provided Ukraine with more than $890 million in multifaceted assistance to support Ukraine’s security, prosperity, and reform objectives. Canadian troops have conducted more than 700 courses, training more than 33,000 Ukrainian military and security personnel in battlefield tactics, maneuver, and other advanced military skills.
https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/news/2022/02/canada-commits-lethal-weapons-and-ammunition-in-support-of-ukraine.html
Of course these weapons will be used on the people of Lugansk and Donetsk, if they cannot be evacuated in time to Rostov.
Ukrainian president saying that Ukraine may become a nuclear power again to protect itself.
“Today Ukraine will do it for the fourth time,” he said, stressing that he had ordered his Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba to request the consultations but that it would be the last attempt from Ukraine’s side.
“If they do not take place or there are no concrete decisions regarding the security guarantees for our state, Ukraine will have every right to believe that the Budapest Memorandum is not working and all package decisions of 1994 have been put under question,” Zelensky said.
https://www.rt.com/russia/549994-ukraine-threatens-renounce-memorandum/
It sounds like Zelensky is urging the West to become more proactive in the Ukrainian situation, which we all know could lead to war.
The dirty tactics have started already.
“Kiev has repeatedly used 120mm mortars banned by the Minsk accord, against the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR). Over the past hours, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s Special Monitoring Mission (OSCE SMM) said it had registered 222 ceasefire violations in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, and 648 breaches of the truce in the Lugansk region.”
https://sputniknews.com/20220219/live-updates-ukrainian-forces-again-fire-mortars-prohibited-by-minsk-agreements-dpr-says-1093165740.html
A nation’s ‘Culture’, steered by the elite is social engineering by the elite, done for the purposes of the elite. Once you realize that the elite have become corrupt, pathogenic and parasitic, then you can justify writing your own rules.
Insightful expose’ of why and how the American mass murderers are again slaughtering without restraint in Ukraine. Don’t expect them to stop as their entire dying and rotting system depends upon it. Don’t absolve them of a single death just because they recruit proxies to do their murdering. The Ukie Nazis may be pulling the triggers, but their American minders are controlling their actions. This absolutely DEFINES war crime. Bring Lord Biden to justice at the end of a rope!
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Read about it here: https://sputniknews.com/20220219/ukraine-implementing-minsk-accords–ending-conflict-very-last-thing-us-uk-want-ex-mep-says-1093176511.html
http://natyliesbaldwin.com/2022/02/russias-written-response-to-u-s-response-to-its-security-demands/
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Thanks to Natylie Baldwin for posting Russia’s written response to the U.S. response to its security concerns. It’s the sound of adults in the room.
Oliver Stone did extended interviews with Putin, which he made into a documentary. He criticized the U.S. myth-making. He was interviewed by Robert Scheer: https://scheerpost.com/2022/02/11/oliver-stone-american-exceptionalism-is-on-deadly-display-in-ukraine/
I watched the Putin interviews with great interest and they informed me how twisted the picture was that I had been given by the Western press. Note that Stone was vilified for not demonizing Putin.
I seem to recall back in the day, that the zio-uS regime had all kinds of ‘solid intelligence’ that Iraq had WMD and was going to use them to bomb Tel Aviv, or NYC with them..or something. They all sorts of proof. Yellow cake, mobile CW labs running in the desert, 40 to 50 divisions of troops on standby, they were oppressing some group called ‘the kurds’, (a fake ME pseudo-ethnic group that no one had ever heard before the uS professed their great love and concern for) or cares even less about today. Oh, and didn’t the uS have intel Saddam Hussein was somehow involved in some vague, nebulous way in the incident in NY in 2001?
Intel even some of the the uS regimes own high officials later admitted was ‘flawed’ *
*This admission of course came LONG after Iraq had been safety occupied and had plunged into the necessary levels of chaos and despair desired by the zio-uS regime. By then, the few low-key admissions that did trickle out of the uS (long after the fact) were of little consequence.
With a track record like that, I dont know why anyone would dare suggest this ‘Russian Invasion’ of the failed state Ukraine, a basket case by any definition, is anything other than a foregone conclusion. The CIA and a bunch of their press monkeys keep saying so, so it must be true….
I recall how the North Vietnamese were labeled as Soviet agents and how we Americans had to fight them there to stop them there. I also learned how the Gulf of Tonkin was manufactured or misappropriated as an attack on the US–even though the destroyer was in Vietnamese waters.
During our cross-country peace march, the Peace Torch Marathon, I recall one frightened dweller in Elko, Nevada, worried that the Vietnamese were soon to march down main street, making him do God knows what.
All this would be laughable except that these ******* Americans keep killing people.
A book idea to you all, ‘the mind game’ by Philip Day from UK (Credence publications ISBN 1-904015-08-5).
It is not a pretty read and in very blunt terms lays out why I could never accept Psychiatry and Psychiatrists – well mostly as I have found only a couple I will listen to and they mostly have abandoned psychiatry I believe.
So a couple of bits from this book – just a couple.
P 25 ‘Later, psychosurgery, or lobotomy – the surgical removal of tissues from the brain – would follow, along with electro-convulsive therapy to the brain (ECT) and psychotropic drugs to alter behaviour. Behind the scenes, the terror continued. Dr Elliot S. Valenstein reports that within a five year period in the 1930’s, insulin coma, methanol shock, electroshock and lobotomies were widely prescribed by psychiatrists worldwide. All caused physical damage to the patients. None ever cured.’
Not a bunch of crazed Fascists but socially accepted medical degree = psychiatry DOCTORS often in State Hospitals were doing this openly. And then….
Philip Day writes later that in Germany now fully controlled by the Nazis, there was money to be made by psychiatrists completing a questionnaire sent out to mental institutions for each patient to be evaluated. Psychiatric consultants under guidance check the questionnaires and put a red dot, to be killed, or blue dot, for those to be spared. By October 1940 the ‘consultant’ was receiving 100 marks per patient evaluation with bonuses for evaluations over 500 up to 2000 and 300 marks up to 3000, 400 for all above that. One Dr Schreek in records is credited with 15000 in nine months – slf confessed at Nuremberg trials.
On 24th August 1941, Hitler called a halt to the euthanasia killing by T4 (the government agency under chief Heyde). Why the halt? Researchers Röder, Kubillus and Burwell (Secret Activities of the Third Reich) surmised it was simply because T4 had actually reached its quota of 70,000 persons euthanised. In fact exceeded the target by 273. There was an apparent pause before the concept was hugely expanded into the death camps.
The point though it that the thinking, reasoning, concepts, and practices had been well established worldwide and was accepted by the professions associated including the staff assisting, nurses and orderlies as well as hospital administrators. This is amply illustrated in the quote from p25 though this but a snippet of the full picture.
If you are wondering how a medical system and hospital staff etc., can be recruited into a killing machine system these books chillingly make the way clear. Nothing is new including the financial and professional bribery used to finesse it all. Now ask yourself why an experimental injection even for healthy people and why the rejection of effective non hospital treatments – wht the bribery to doctors and hospitals today? Euthanasia
anyone?
Now ask yourself why all the sabre rattling and honking about threat of war with this one or that one? Perhaps a daily diet of distracting news to boost anxiety and have us all looking the wrong way. All cause mortality numbers have shot up 40% or more SINCE the rollout of mass ‘vaccinations’. Ask the life insurance companies who have been cancelling death benefit on life policies for a little while now. Ask the funeral directors. Ask your local hospital staff about survival rates with the now near 60-80% fully vaxxed who are in there now?
WAR and the threat of WAR are the biggest distraction and the excuse for more emergency powers. We ARE in a tyranny NOW and it taking lives right here in your town NOW.
So why does Putin tell people to get vaccinated? What’s in it for him?
Putin and the Ruskies pulled a fsst one and produced their own Vax which may or may not be an mRNA type. I suspect not as having their own kept the Pfizer / Moderna nasty stuff out, left Russia free of their binding supply contracts, kept the Vasx shot money in Russia and the locals, ie Putin, in full control.
I do not know whether to like the man (probably not) and I do not trust him and his gang as is the case with all politicians for me, as in guilty until proven innocent (dont hold your breath).
BTW if Putin did not tell Russians to get Vaxxed Russia would be severely restricted by the Globalists through the BIS, World Bank, IMF, WTO etc. etc. All coming to an end.
https://unlimitedhangout.com/2022/02/podcasts/russias-sputnik-v-and-the-wef-with-riley-waggaman-2/
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something I haven’t digested yet, interesting so far
Thank your Gregory,
It is vitally important that we all examine for ourselves just what is going on in anything. Years later for some the other info appears and sometimes turn it all on it head, but for the majority, the first narrative is it – enough for them.
My big question is why Putin? How was he popped out of the chaos to lead after the communists lost their grip, remember people, they did not disappear.
Try to say to people that the ‘official narrative’ on 911 attack event does not stand up to examination and they do not want to know. We can view reality through whatever lens we wish to use but in the end it is still reality that we are seeing, hearing etc., so if our view does NOT fit reality …. What then? We live in a reality no matter how we choose to accept it, explain it, define it, believe it.
Macron in France was a Rothschild’s banker so how did he pop out of nowhere without a poiitical party and shoosh, he got both and has the presidency and now acts as a tyrant. MMM? Repeat around the world folks.
I don’t know what leads you to suspect Sputnik V maight be an RNA vaccine, but that aside, why would Russia develop a covid vaccine at all, when, in your words, “there is NO COVID (ie No SARS-Cov-2)” (comment starting ‘Believe Gates? Er NO’, below)?
Svay, I suspect you are a troll.
Read the message again. Putin is playing the game. No vax programme and he gets hit from the globalists. Have a home grown Vax for the Covid shenanigans and he protects the Russian economy (for his support to rip off) against the rip off Pfizer et al (remember $32 billion in 2021). He might even limit the de-population somewhat as it is not the most populated part of the world. Putin even announced that Russia would lead the world and be fully organic no chemicals (read also no big AG GMO), which does much the same.
The issue of no virus is a separate one, not relevant perhaps here. Though if there is NO virus then whatever Vax will do just fine thanks so long as it is not from elsewhere.
Why does Putin play the game? Because he wants to help Biden start a war against him? How does that benefit Putin?
Thank you. Why didn’t I realise China and Iran are both developing their own mRNA covid vaccines because “whatever Vax will do just fine thanks so long as it is not from elsewhere”?
If there were nasty stuff in America’s vaccines, why wouldn’t Putin mention it? Again, what’s in it for Putin? Why is he protecting Biden’s grand conspiracy while Russia is being sanctioned by him?
you just answered your own question. Putin is likely part of the Globalist’s agenda
Aha! And South Africa’s copied the Moderna RNA covid vaccine exactly as the globalists wished, which is why it was too expensive for African countries in the first place. And, of course, that explains why the South African Moderna copy might run up against the patent system enforced by the globalists’ WTO. No doubt Malawi’s only pretending to be worried about polio because the globalists have some devious agenda there too.
Svay, Go and read up on the true history of the polio scam. No one has ever clearly shown how the supposed Polio virus migrates from the gut where it is apparently benign to a particular spot in the lower spinal grey matter to create its damage.
India kicked the Gates and Co. out after a huge WHO supported ‘vaccination’ resulted in massive death and injury in 10,000’s of children.
If you want to criticize be sure you have done the homework first. There is much more to the story than the so called ‘official’ BS.
‘Putin is likely part of the Globalist’s agenda’. I believe this is likely the case. Putin is at least going along with part of the globalist agenda, if not all.
do you think your dissent isn’t accounted for in the globalist agenda?
So Putin must be in on the conspiracy? There’s no chance that’s true.
Like there was no chance Wall Street financed the Russian Revolution? Like no chance the president of the Federal Reserve bank of New York was given a (newly elected) US Presidential order to take a bunch of financiers to Germany and refinance Germany’s WW1 reparations debt in return for getting to invest in the new Germany? Still there all through WW2 by the way.
So why John Knox do you say Putin cannot be part of this NWO conspiracy?
Isn’t it obvious Putin is terrified of ‘Globalists through the BIS, World Bank, IMF, WTO’ and will happily do absolutely anything to appease them?
How can you go on with laudable remarks about Putin and the vaccine and not realize that most if not all of the negativity applied to Putin are the results of Western demonization, i.e. propaganda?
I have an open mind on Putin actually. I am not sure if he is a puppet of the Globalists or not. I like a lot of what he says and occasionally some of what he says the Russians will do. But then many politicians say great things with no intent of doing them. It takes time for the shit to float to the surface for all to see – unfortunately all too often long after they have done their dirty deeds and died.
There is no such thing as a perfectly good man and many intending to do good are later judged to have actually done more harm whatever their intention.
There are a lot of very tough people in Russia, they don’t play games, and judgements can be both hard and swift. Anyone trying to lead that lot needs to be pretty damn tough as well. We fools in the west think our leaders are different – they are definitely NOT.
It’s obvious that the global elite are rolling out a massive stage of their big picture ‘one world’ agenda. The British Commonwealth was the previous template that they’ll tweak for the ‘one world governance’, if they win and get that far? Currently there are pre-war preps with all out war not far off. Eugenics, propaganda, increased surveillance, personal ID tracking, reduction of existing freedoms, snap state of emergency powers, lock-downs, mandates, coercing to get consent.
The ‘virus’ can theoretically be used to serve a multi-pronged roll including what I already mentioned. It could be used for basic things like rehearsal for waves of attacks from the West’s perceived enemy – China? Russia? Or, to actually provide vaccination protection from enemy bio-weapons, or, our own side’s bio-weapons that are potentially being released globally in strategic waves. Vaccines could also be used to – insert nano ID’s, time delayed eugenics. I think you get the picture on just how multi-purpose a state coerced or mandated vaccination (ongoing vaccinations) can be. There would be plenty of other ‘off-label’ uses, I’m sure, that would never even cross our minds.
The guy who developed Graphene Oxide suggest optimum ten years, reduced by how much you get – roughly reduce by about 10% per shot, so two shots 20% means 8 years goodbye ya dead. How nice of them to make believe it is to cure a viral pandemic from which 97+% will recover without serious side effects with no intervention, no drugs. Take the shot and get the lot, all the side effects you could wish for. – death included. And then there is PEG included too just to help you along and even Nano-particles as well. Yep, all in it folks ( just take care which batch or lot number you get. Did you not note it all down – what a pity.
The Globalists USE nations or countries, like they use all else including people. Its all just business. So to clear your head of national agendas and cultural histories think “how would anyone run the world using anything they wish to without border restriction or religions or politics or military boundaries”. Just control the money. Go see on YouTube if it is still up -The Money Masters – pretty much is the foundation of all we grew up with, assuming it as normal. While you are at it check out The City of London which is NOT part of the UK.
The Globalists are the reason China doesn’t allow any of its important resources or industries to be ‘bought’ by the globalists corporations/banks. That’s also why they are highly selective with what gets traded on the international stock market. Why they set the value their currency. That’s why they have an intranet that is not connected to an international internet. China maintains independence in many areas due to possible globalist influence and control. They’ve been burnt once by European powers trying to carve it up and they will never forget it.
Graphene Oxide – theyll probably blame the increased death rate on ongoing mutating covid strains. The poor diet many people have (high sugar and starch) will just be a bonus.
If Russia had been Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen or one of the other many countries the West and NATO would have already been bombed Russia to smithereens without warning. The big question why hasn’t the USA and NATO already started bombing Russia like they would have other countries that could not have defended themselves. My answer the USA and NATO are bullies and have no backbone all they do is threaten Russia to no end. The West may think that they control the narrative (propaganda) but I am sure that Russia (and China) will determine the outcomes.
It would be nice if Caitlin could apply this logic to THEIR covid narrative.
What say you Ms Johnstone?
I’m not her, and I’m no mind reader, but I’d like to point out the title of the article is about burden of proof.
No worries John. This article by Mark Krispin Miller led me here… I note that CJ’s response is that she “finds the whole topic boring”… sorry – not good enough when the local freedoms we have hitherto taken for granted have been under vicious attack… but LOOK! A Ukrainian squirrel
…
ACT LOCAL! https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/what-kind-of-left-attacks-the-working
“the big question …” – nukes?
If I were Vlad Putin,
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A clear win would be moving troops around and doing artillary target practice all along Russia’s side of the border, and just do this for years. What would be great would be if some ambiguous thing could happen so the threat ‘had to be taken seriously,’ just once every 4-8 months. It would be a cheap way to keep EU shitting themselves in disarray and spending money ad infinitum. As a bonus, EU or US might actually attack, giving pretext to “do whatever you want.”
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Everyone wants strategic advantage, and there are no points for being naive about any of it. The US is a third or fourth party, albeit a noisy one, in this “Eastern Front” dating back pre-WWI. As a hotbed, it goes back further even than the Ukraine-Polish conflicts of early last century to times older than the USA. And maybe when the US empire is as much a memory as the Flemish one is now (who remembers the influences of Flanders?), or the Rus, at that point the Eastern Front is one that is likely to still be a place people are fighting.
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Those two World Wars sure were hard on the British Empire, and the Austro-hungarians are pretty much forgotten. If we could just have Kaiser Wilhelm, The British Royals, and the Hapsbergs back instead of the Americans, maybe everything would be alright.
WE HAVE TRUDUE IN CANADA TELLING A GROUP OF WOMEN RECENTLY, THAT HE ABSOLUTELY, ADORES COMMUNIST CHINA AND THAT HE LOVES COMMUNISM, PERIOD. NOW THAT HIS TRUE FEELINGS ARE KNOWN AS WELL AS HIS GESTOPO LIKE ACTIONS IN HIS COUNTRY. WONDER WHAT NEEDLE HEAD JOE WILL DO? THEY ARE ALL CROOKED FROM THE SMALLEST COUNTY TO THE LOARGEST AND ALL RUN BY THE HIDEN SHADOW CONTROLLERS OF THE WORLD, REGARDLESS! ALL ARE LIARS, THEIVES ANS CRIMINALS, WORST THAN THE NUREMBURG CRIMINALS!
First question. How do the US military and the UK secret service people KNOW that Russia is hacking the Ukraine military and defense?
ERrr. Are the US and UK both hacking the Ukraine too?
Or are they working in concert with the rulers they helped get installed in the Ukraine?
Next question please. Oh there need not be as this one kicks the BS into the open. Always ask yourself the opposite of what is being said and see what that illustrates.
The western sphere of influence is highly likely under the control of the same group, whether that be the old European royal family ties, or, a new multinational corporatocracy family. The US, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand (five eyes – Anglosphere intelligence alliance) are definitely one group, acting (badly acting) as if they are independent sovereign nations. Installing puppet regimes are old routines for the Brits and Yanks.
What is important to understand is how all of these politicians like Mr. Potato Head, Schiff, Clapper, Comey, Pelosi, Schumer, Psaki, State Department spokespeople, etc. and the MSM “legally” get away with all of their lies. They get away with them because of legislation that was passed a few years ago that allowed the US government to legally propagandize (lie to) American citizens within the US and, not only that, literally pay the MSM to also do it. It was called the “Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012” Do yourself a big favor and read it.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-112hr5736ih/pdf/BILLS-112hr5736ih.pdf
A small part of the above (my bold for emphasis):
========
“112TH CONGRESS 2D SESSION
H. R. 5736
To amend the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 to authorize the domestic dissemination of information and material about the United States intended primarily for foreign audiences, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MAY 10, 2012
Mr. THORNBERRY (for himself and Mr. SMITH of Washington) introduced the
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
A BILL
To amend the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 to authorize the domestic dissemination of information and material about the United States intended primarily for foreign audiences, and for other purposes.”
Etc.
========
With the above relatively new legislation in mind, it is easy to understand why and how high-level politicians in America get away with (stay out of jail for) lying to Americans 24/7. Essentially, as long as the liars tell the truth while under oath in secret testimony before a judge, they can say whatever they want in front of TV cameras. And boy, do they do just that. What other possible reason could there have been to amend that act if not to allow what these VIPs are now doing 24/7?!
Once again with even more feeling, the purpose of this VIP+MSM propaganda is to maintain in the minds of US citizens the belief that the US has existential threats to its national security in the form of Russia, China, Iran and, believe it or don’t, Venezuela and Nicaragua! This is all done to maintain the war budget and its millions of jobs.
What the wise elderly and not-so-wise younger US Elite oligarchs apparently want is for the US to “go out” with a great big bang while it is still “on top”. They would prefer that they and everyone else in America and the world be dead than for them to play second fiddle to the Elite of China or Russia or any other nation or group of nations. In the words of 1960s, “great silent majority” Americans, “better dead than Red”.
The Fed will continue to print a literally infinite number of printed-out-of-thin-air USD to fund the military-industrial complex, which is the one and only thing supporting the “drone-standard” USD and forcing other nations to accept them as payment for their REAL goods. The reality is that the Terminator US is an existential threat to Russia and China, not the other way around and that it is politically incapable of stopping itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu0rP2VWLWw
While I’m typing, Russia, China, the US and all the other, for lack of a better word, “capitalist” nations have one common, ultimately fatal problem – the systemic need for perpetual population/economic/export growth, which is why China and Iran dropped their one-child policies a few years ago and Mr. Putin is congratulating parents of large families and actively promoting large families with various financial incentives. This issue is too off-topic to go into here in depth, but I bring it up because even IF the US were to miraculously completely abandon its effort at full spectrum dominance, close all its bases and turn all of its weapons into plowshares and never produce another one again, what would the US and all of its former adversaries do with their weapons industries and all of their employees? What is China’s belt and road initiative really all about? Growth. Perpetual growth. What Russian population will be large enough to satisfy Mr. Putin? Someone should ask him. Does China really need more than 1.4 billion people? Apparently so. Just exactly how much more do nations have to grow their economies — is there a number, a percentage?
If humanity is miraculously able to avoid a nuclear war, IMO, the issue of the SYSTEMIC need for perpetual growth will have to somehow be cured, and technology is not going to be the vaccine to inoculate against that need. Only fundamental systemic change can/will do it. One thing is for sure, the oligarchies of the US, Russia, China, etc. are not going to willingly provide any solutions, because a real solution would/could not allow a parasitic class of oligarchs to exist.
We can thank Obama for signing this bill, now Americans have access to our own propaganda.
Stop worrying. Things will take care of themselves in a few years when COVID starts to take care of the over population situation. AND, if you can believe the likes of Gates, far more serious viruses are in the making of Covid fails to perform as expected.
Believe Gates? Er NO. He is a De-Population maniac like his dad and mates. If you believe Gates than you have not been doing your homework.
There is no overpopulation on the earth just in specific parts of it but as there is NO COVID (ie No SARS-Cov-2) it will be the mRNA shots that have already started killing that will go on killing thanks to the Graphene Oxide with a little PEG to help out amongst other ingredients. Its the Vax folks that is decimating the population and I would not get too worried about the threat of more Bio-Weapons al la Gates.
If there is no covid, why is Cuba making a vaccine against it? What’s in it for them?
Maybe money? The Cuban shot is supposedly a more conventional style though I admit not knowing anything much about it. I doubt very uch they would have the technology to make a mRNA gene modification cocktail or want to.
Cuba is still attempting to operate under severe trade restrictions which likely includes serious banking difficulties, lacks the money to buy the big pharma jabs at the extortionate pricing and probably does not want them anyway.
Cubans learnt very hard lessons a long time ago and again when the CCCP collapsed and left them near starving. They are very resourceful and self reliant so maybe they are following Putin’s idea of make your own.
“legally” get away with all of their lies – They have been lying and making up their own rules a lot longer than 2012, if anything the legislation is a plan B if ever required (if the truth is exposed), or, to justify propaganda ‘legally’ to potential ‘Dudley Do-right’ ethical/moral whistleblower types.
One small difference to remember. Legally it may be within a national ‘legal system’ yet it is still subject to LAW so can be un-lawful at the same time. For example the ‘Legally permitted’ murders with euthanasia in Germany by the psychiatrists associated with T4 which were judged to be NOT according to Law.
A corrupt government can claim something as Legal yet in international LAW it is not permitted and is punishable. Everyone but everyone remains accountable, it just depends upon the Jurisdiction.
It sounds to me like they (Brandon and the CIA and MI6 dudes) take for granted that the American public (and the US vassals) are automatically on their side.
The reasoning behind that could be a true belief in tribal drive, in the Western fraternity (in spite of having fought all these wars for centuries), in the Rhodes tenet that Anglo supremacy is the best of a whole bunch of evils or even something like: “Look matie, imagine we wage war on Russia because they want to put their dirty hands on the fabulous riches of Ukraine that Marco Polo himself renounced to list because he knew it would take a lifetime and he’d already booked his flight to Beijing, can you imagine what your life will be like if you oppose us? First you’ll be jailed as a potential traitor like the Japs during WWII and if the Russkies get too close and shell your town, it won’t matter which side you’re on. Ideology will give way to purely geographical notions. Surely you’d rather be one of us for herd immunity, wouldn’t you? And because the Russians are bastards, absolute evil! Imagine the Devil himself… Now double it and you’ll begin to get the pitcher! Eat their children and all! You don’t know because thanks to the way we rule the world, you don’t have to deal with those creeps but trust us: you don’t want that to change! It’s all about democracy, you see? We have it and they haven’t had it since Putin took over from Ivan the Terrible in 1584. And he plans to stay on for another couple of centuries! Just to give you an example, imagine an Australian journalist leaked documents about Russian atrocities during their war in Afghanistan. The Russians would try to get hold of him by all possible means and jail him in Moscow – or Saint-Petersburg if he’s lucky! We, on the other hand, have him jailed in London! See the difference? They speak the language! Any Guantanamo detainee will tell you how horrible it is to be interrogated by folks whose language you don’t understand! By the time you get to learn the basics, you’ve swallowed enough water to keep a whole Bedouin camp hydrated for a year!”
The whole idea is to turn the target into a voodoo doll into which the American public (and the vassals) will stick pins as soon as they hear the name, the Pavlov way.
It seems to work pretty well too! The media at least has got it under control. If you want to keep your accreditation to the White House while your boss and his sponsors are supporters of J.R. (Joseph Robinette) – contrary to Orange Man Bad under whom you were welcome to horse around à la Acosta cos’ the swamp wanted him toast – you’d better know which way the wind blows and refrain from asking stupid questions that are not getting us anywhere near a pay raise!
I wonder if Team Brandon wants to exploit “the Savior” route (to win next election) that worked for Trump (I was told in all seriousness that Trump prevented a nuclear war when he publicly messed with N. Korea’s leader).
I have made a French translation of this text by Caitlin Johnstone, respecting her guidelines that I quote at the end of my translation. You can use this translation under the same conditions as her own texts, but you must also use her page as your main source.
All translation errors are of course my sole responsibility 😉
——————————–
https://cocyec.deblan.org/2022/02/19/la-charge-de-la-preuve-incombe-toujours-a-celui-qui-pretend-meme-sil-sagit-de-la-russie/
“The debunking off the BBC website today containing satellite pictures purporting to show the Russian military build-up in Belarus in preparation for an alleged invasion of Ukraine.” by Professor Paul Robinson.
https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/2022/02/18/pictures-of-an-invasion-force-not-so-much/
“You’ve probably also heard by now that President Biden announced at a press briefing that Vladimir Putin has made the decision to invade Ukraine and violently topple Kyiv “in the coming days,” citing only “intelligence”.
“What reason do you believe he’s considering that option at all?” a reporter asked Biden after his speech.
“We have a significant intelligence capability, thank you very much,” the president answered, and made his exit.”
Is this the same significant intelligence that George W. Bush used to attack Iraq because it, supposedly; had Weapons of Mass Destruction?
Bernie Sanders, you prominent political Judas who twice refused to defend what should be a most basic precept of “democracy”—election integrity—should be ashamed of yourself. You took donations from millions of people who could least afford to support a political movement and then turned your back on the,. Just for that alone you warrant deep criticism.
I wouldn’t say it’s “beyond belief” Bernie (because you’ve shown who you are), but your recent tweet reflects raw stupidity and pernicious deceitfulness. You wouldn’t know international diplomacy if it smacked you in the face. As sensible Russian entreaties escape your notice, so too does the shelling of Eastern Ukraine (fully egged on by Washington) by fascistic elements to the west. Those elements are in a position to do so because, you know, “Yats is (was) our guy.” Added bonus to Hunter Biden.
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In 2021, the internally displaced population in Yemen reached 4 million people, with displaced families facing an acute risk of famine. What say you, Bernie?
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There are 13.5 million displaced Syrian, representing more than half of Syria’s total population. 6.8 million Syrian refugees are hosted in 128 countries.
I guess Operation Timber Sycamore escaped your notice as well. Damascus suffered indiscriminate shelling from your paid terrorist stronghold in Ghouta for years. Syrians were graced with help from, oh my! the Russians, who don’t agree with the arming of terrorist mercenaries and the violation of national sovereignties. But all you can think to do is repeat mantric canards about Assad. What a moral wasteland your mind inhabits!
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We could continue this exercise, Bernie, with facts about sanctions and war and resulting refugees. We could look at Iraq, Venezuela, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. But with the size of the blinders you wear, I’m afraid the cause is lost upon you Bernie. Go revel in your asinine posturing or whatever you think you’re doing you sonofabitch, before reality slaps you in the face for the last time.
Killing people (even if it is by organized military) is not a sport, nor it is a team sport.
Individual should make their own decision based on what they consider it means to be a human, instead of thinking that they are on a winning team.
American psychologists advise that to raise successful kids it is great for them to play a team sport. Alas, I never played a team sport, so I am not going to join Democrats, or Republicans, (or insert your favorite country name here), in a national sport of killing civilians in other countries.
I agree with these sentiments. Please elucidate why they are expressed as a reply to my remarks.
Meaning that people decide what is true or not based on their allegiance to their team.
So Americans believe they are good guys, no matter what their/our government is doing in other countries. Because Americans are on “team America” they simply dismiss any evidence of war crimes or humanitarian crimes in Yemen. They will not even talk about it, by and large.
They vote Democrats or Republicans not because of the issues championed in the elections, but because they believe themselves to be a Democrat or a Republican.
There are many things I dislike about Bernie, one of them that he gets used by Democrats to keep “progressives” within the Democratic party. Democrats used him as bait and switch candidate in at least 2 elections that I know about.
Good comment, Greg. FWIW, Chris Hedges would not support BS (perfect initials for that “man”, don’t you think?) because “you can’t be an imperialist and a socialist at the same time”. I agree with Chris 100%.
I don’t know if you know the following about BS and his beloved F-35, but I post a link to it anyway.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51464.htm
Have a good one, Greg.
And many Americans as well as other nationalities, thought this guy would be a Whitehouse contender ??????? Good thing his true colours are finally showing. Must mean he’s given up on his W.H. aspirations.
“Earlier on Saturday, a law enforcement source said that two shells had exploded in Russia’s Rostov region, close to the border with Ukraine.”
https://sputniknews.com/20220219/fsb-border-service-in-russias-rostov-confirms-two-shells-landed-on-russian-territory-1093180939.html
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
American writer Kurt Vonnegut said so in 1962, sixty years ago in Mother Night
At the time, the Cold War was thrashing on to nearly 20 years. Stalin had been dead for ten. The warning was unmistakable.
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
American ideas after the end of WWII let loose an awful lot of toxic poisons into what was once a sturdy political culture. It had been chipped away at since the beginning of America under the statement “live and let live,” but America had a split personality – there were slaves whose labor was taken, there were the original owners of the continent whose land was taken, there were new settlements south of the US border who were not left the hell alone, and which have never prospered.
With such an advantage after WWII, and after Mauertag on November 10, 1989 the US faced again the terrible question of glory or conscience. It seems that glory inevitably wins in the hearts of people.
During the American Revolution, there was great sentiment towards being left alone so Americans could go about their business. Several founders expressed this as a moral dictum of the country.
Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.-Thomas Jefferson
Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.-Dwight D. Eisenhower
By Eisenhower’s presidency, the brakes were off the clown car, and it was hurtling towards the mess of today.
I could see that the US was eagerly screwing the pooch by 1990. There was an ecstatic sentiment that it was “VS day,” victory over the Soviets, like VJ day and VE day. But it was not a victory over an enemy, but the collapse of a reactive regime that had tried and failed. The US decided to keep on the cloak of empire rather than picking up the morals it was created with. Europe was not the “spoils of victory,” nor was Yeltsin’s CIS. The great duty of the United States was to help Russia stand up a government in the form that the people wanted. The United States, rather, was the godfather to Putin and traitor to the new European revolution.
Russia has been simmering in the humiliation imposed upon it for thirty years, a humiliation which was not only unnecessary, but un-American. Were Jefferson still around, he would have taken the last American tank and gun and airplane off the continent, except for those kept in museums to teach the children that there were once Americans on the European continent.
Once you f’ck the pooch, you’ve f’cked the pooch. Alea jacta est, the Rubicon was long ago crossed and there have been a series of less and less worthy emperors claiming a failed republic.
The MSM prattles away near-psychotic blather, and Americans accept it, as a way of numbing the senses. When you are desperate enough, you will drink mouthwash and brake fluid to get drunk. CNN and Fox belong in that list. They are not looked to like a fine champagne; rather, they help you get smack-in-the-head drunk and pass out.
The clown car is in free-fall, and it is at least 30years too late to change its parabolic arc.
I love your take on all things American, with the exception of your last remark. It’s NEVER too late to fight against and perhaps overcome evil in the world, your country, or yourself. If we lose the confidence, the faith, that we can turn things around despite all odds, then They have won; We have lost. What purpose has Dystopian thinking other than to shake us up and point us toward Utopia? Otherwise, dark visions are a dime a dozen and collectively a bore. The most radical position that can be taken right now is hope. Are we up to it?
There are two Americas, and one of them is British.
https://countercurrents.org/2021/07/the-clash-of-two-americas-the-unfinished-symphony-a-book-by-matthew-ehret/
Intriguing. The US tended to be at arm’s length to Britain before WWI. The US got hooked on “The Great Game” of espionage, intrigue and Empire from Britain after WWII. Every intelligence agency had a British doula.
If you read the article’s account of the goals of America for the common folk, that was smeared as “Red” in the 20th century. Interesting.
FDR exposed the attempt at a global bankers fascist dictatorship (Smedley Butler), greatly disliked Churchill (As He Saw It -Elliot Roosevelt), and many scholars feel once he was gone, the US was fully, finally, re-absorbed into the “West”, 5 Eyes type conglomerate? of today. Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech can hardly hide his giddy delight at a new AngloAmerican ‘special relationship’. JFK and many global leaders who ‘knew who’ tried again, but that led to another decade+ of assassinations, wars, bombings, ousters around the globe.
“Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to public opinion. This is the weak point of our defenses, and the part to which the enemies of the system will direct all their attacks. Opinion can be so perverted as to cause the false to seem true; the enemy, a friend, and the friend, an enemy; the best interests of the nation to appear insignificant, and the trifles of moment; in a word, the right the wrong, the wrong the right. In a country where opinion has sway, to seize upon it, is to seize upon power. As it is a rule of humanity that the upright and well-intentioned are comparatively passive, while the designing, dishonest, and selfish are the most untiring in their efforts, the danger of public opinion’s getting a false direction is four-fold, since few men think for themselves.”
-James Fenimore Cooper
Sally Sue – ‘There are two Americas, and one of them is British’. 100%, and possibly two western spheres of influence and one is British. As for Australia, Canada, New Zealand, definitely 100% British. The old British Empire/ then Commonwealth never broke up, it just became invisible.
Actually almost all countries are Corporate Structures now which is a large part of why political types in power can simply ignore the people who are listed (go look) as chattels in the regular corporate performance reports to shareholders and investors (the Australian one is 103 pages for 2017).
So each so called ‘nation’ has two identities, one we all recognize and ‘think’ is our country, and the Corporate Identity registered with the US-SEC in Washington D.C. which is NOT a state of the union, just as Ctiy of London is not part of the UK, and Vatican City is not part of Italy. Go look them up at the US-SEC – there are four for Australia and the separate states are also registered corporations all traded with company numbers.
peter – I’ve heard the USA is definitely a two identity system – The facade we all know and the corporation. And apparently ‘state’ evolved from ‘state plantations’, like the original 13 plantations/colonies. Would not surprise me if city of london has set up most nations/states as corporations, to put a fluctuating value on them.
Close.
It is not easy to express in simple terms a complex web of entities which lays across many differing legal systems. There are a whole gang of evolved entities tangled together, some deliberately created, some taken over from what existed or was displaced.
It is all to do with Jurisdiction. how many of us were taught that a judge leaving the court and then returning has changed the Jurisdiction? How many of us even were taught that different Jurisdictions exist? And how many of were taught how critical it is to KNOW exactly which Jurisdiction we are operating in at any given time?
The reality appears to be that a cabal of fincial wizards have done what old fsther Rothschild dreamed of and taken control of the issuance of currency and thus all economic activity and thus all governments and their instruments of control, national legal system, administration judiciary, military and health (sickness industry) systems at all levels using Corporate structures to replasce national governments andn using business entities as functional units of these.
Peter – Did you get that info from vyzygoth, the informer and james montgomery? That’s where I’ve heard bits of what you are referring to. All makes a lot of sense.
“The onus is not on anyone else to prove that the US and UK governments are lying when they make these claims, the onus is on the US and UK governments to prove that they are telling the truth.”
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Yes, but it is not going to happen. The lying is of strategic importance so anything goes. As government lies enter ears lies are not stopped. Nobody not understanding that government lies are common and easily justified will question what they hear, and they will take in the lie as truth. Here is why.
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It is impossible to live life without taking some things on blind faith. No matter how smart you are, you can’t critically evaluate everything you hear. You don’t have the time or the bandwidth. Do you wonder if your life partner loves you? Do you do it every day? You do not, to have a happy life with them you have to trust them until they give you reason not to.
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Government is a life partner. You have a relationship with government. Your bias is to trust. Don’t do it,
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Consider government to be like a life partner who is cheating on you. Question what they say to you, Trust has been broken. Don’t be in denial. Demand proof and question the proof.
Government is a life partner. You have a relationship with government. I emphatically do not concur.
DofA
Government is a latex-free sex toy. You do NOT have a relationship with government. It is your property. It, unlike another human, has no claim to equality with you. It is a sex doll for your amusement.
Consider government to be like a life partner who is cheating on you. Now, given my insistence above, this is a rather psychotic view towards government. If you suspect your lifelike sex doll is cheating on you, put it in the wood chipper and get a new one from Amazon. If you contemplate that your government is not working, it is not all that much different than if your toaster’s gone on the bum. Are you afraid of the guilt you will have, over the betrayal of your faithful toaster? Or iPhone?
Government is, after all, an APPLIANCE. Tom Jefferson said so. Just because it can talk like Alexa doesn’t mean you should be intimidated by it.
The liars in Washington and its associated provinces (intel agencies, the Pentagon) will keep flogging their lies about Ukraine and Russia to their dying breaths. They have no other means of preventing the total collapse of their empire. Michael Hudson has shown how the US has no significant economic strength aside from weapons manufacturing and sales. It’s just about all we export, and it ultimately amounts to “luxury goods”, extremely high priced and essentially unusable, because at this point to use such lethal weaponry, especially in the Ukraine against Russia, will very likely lead to going nuclear. So they know these weapons most likely will never be used, but that’s the whole point. Selling them is all that matters, because it props up the only economy we have still have. It’s a permanent war economy. So the talking heads at all the mainstream outlets have to keep propagating the lies they’re told by intel wonks and Pentagon parrots to hegemonic power over the entire world. Keep everyone is a state of perpetual fear so that Raytheon, Lockheed, General Dynamics and the rest of the war machine can keep raking in billions in profits.
There is a solution: to prosecute US Presidents as war criminals, that will end the war party.
And then prosecute the voters–namely, the vast majority of us–for listening to the MSM and electing those presidents/war criminals. The buck stops, as it always has, in our individual hearts and minds. As Thoreau observed, few of us propose greatly to do right, and the rest follows as a matter of course, does it not?
let’s find out what they do with their win, instead of hoping.
Nope, the Nuremberg trials clearly stated that war criminals are individually responsible and do not represent the state.
Who’s going to prosecute them? The same people who have been validating all their war crimes for decades? Every US president runs cover for their predecessor. Every US congress protects its presidents from ever being prosecuted. We the people have zero influence over this, or anything else they do. This is the furthest thing from a democracy anyone could ever devise. So, no US president will ever be prosecuted for war crimes. They’ll only be occasionally impeached for spurious, idiotic reasons, all of which will fail miserably because impeachments are just more political theater that never lead to anyone being removed from office.
In light of the history, it does seem that the US would have to lose a world war first, before POTUS can be prosecuted as a war criminal.
Unfortunately, the US won out in the WW1 and WW2, and this is why they are hoping to start a WW3.
WW1 and WW2 both resulted in destruction of the biggest empires. So, the US should keep in mind that the greatest empires are at the greatest risk of falling apart as a result of the world war, even if the US “won”.
Its the globalists all the time. They just shifted the game for supposed empire to another. Meanwhile they took over all economic activity boht inside coutries and internationally. The US of A became the preferred industrial engine, economic powerhouse ( City of London) and built up the military might to enforce over all.
I think it’s rather obvious to anybody who reads the news, something like this here with Caitlin, that war with Russia isn’t a matter of if, but rather of when. Two years ago I read where our country needed two hundred million of its citizens to die within 5 years, Covid just didn’t cut it, but it still might. Remember Trump bragging about all the dead Americans? What do you think he was talking about? Remember the Nazis? Short for the National Socislist German Worker’s Party? Did you read that nasty filthy word in there? Socialist? Socialism? That’s why they had to die, and that’s why Russians and Chinese have to die too. Both of those countries may or may not call themselves Communists, but neither of them really are,, they both have capitalism to an extent, but basically both countries are socialist, and therefore they must all die just like most Americans must all die to make room for the select few who will be allowed to survive. Whether we like it or not, we are nothing more than livestock to the people who run the so-called free word, free to die.
National Socialism has been presented to us de-politicized and psychologized, made over into a personality disorder independent of historical circumstances or political content. Everyone agrees: Hitler was a madman, Nazis were evil – end of story. But China today is successfully practicing a national socialist agenda, by which it has elevated hundreds of millions out of poverty while, unlike the communist system, allowing many to earn great fortunes based on their abilities and accomplishments. The huge difference from our system is that private wealth is regulated to the extent that its possessors cannot use it to control the state as our oligarchs do here. China is also building a global commonwealth of trading partners, rather an empire of one master and many servants, also mirroring German policies of the 1930s.
HISTORICUS – Varying types of Socialism or Democracy depend on what the respective ruling elite’s engineer them to be. Generally, both are facades for other ideologies. Both systems require ‘wage slaves’ the only difference is how generous or greedy their ‘masters’ of business and politics are. China seem to be doing a better job ‘currently’ of dragging people out of poverty, while the west is doing a better job of dragging more people into poverty, or at least to the ‘working poor’ eternal debt slaves status.
Six million dead at the hands of the Nazis because of their ancestry, and they were just getting warmed up. China didn’t do it, the Nazis did. Luckily for the rest of us, the Nazis lost.
We have intelligence that Russia is about to invade, is in reality we’re making this up and telling you its not made up because we want Russia to invade Ukraine so that we can roll out severe sanctions and stop Germany from using Nordstream II.
However.
The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had better think carefully on what he does next with regards to Ukraine and Russia, for two-thirds of Germans support the Russian Nordstream II project and the supply of Russian gas.
i wonder what the narrative will be when russia lets the ukrainians take the donbass (contrary to minsk II).
Sorry, Caitlin, but you’re plain wrong here. There is no ‘burden of proof’, as you effectively concede. Tony Blair and George Bush invaded Iraq to rid it of weapons of mass destruction – and what burden did they have to bear when it turned out they were lying through their fangs? Blair became some kind of Middle East envoy, no doubt urging the UAE and KSA to bomb Yemen, and got made a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, while Bush certainly isn’t languishing in Guantanamo. And as you write yourself, “So many people built entire careers out of suggesting for years on end that the entire Trump family was going to be dragged out of the White House in chains for Kremlin collusion, and when this failed to prove true everyone just acted like it was fine and continued on with their careers.” True, I’d consider a career like theirs a burden, but I very much doubt they’d see it that way. They’ve got off scot-free – in many cases, their careers have advanced.
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This supposed ‘burden of proof’ is something you can discuss with reasonable people acting in good faith. It’s ridiculous to say these warmongers and propagandists are going to shoulder any burden. The only way they’re likely to face any consequences for their words and deeds is if Saint Peter, or equivalent, really is waiting for them in the next life. They’ll be plenty comfortable in this one, and I’ll bet they sleep well to boot.
She isn’t wrong. You are both saying the same thing. She is approaching from the should angle, i.e. they should show evidence. You seem to be saying, they aren’t and aren’t being made to. Yes, to both. I think Caitlin is hoping that if enough people publicly challenge the narrative, change might be possible.
I’m of the opinion that something like your Saint Peter is indeed awaiting them…and all of us. While I’m at it, let me ask a question that has long bothered me. Why, for God’s sake, didn’t we invaders plant WMD in the course of destroying Iraq so that we could find it and “vindicate” ourselves? Had our so-called leaders bought their own BS that such weapons were there in some cave or something?
There were International inspectors for nuclear facilities that used to visit Iraq on regular basis to inspect its facilities. They knew all of the sites. The WMD in Iraq was just a MSM hysteria anyways.
I watched an older British documentary that talked about risk of WMD in Iraq (the films date is right before the invasion), they actually had a tutorial how to make a dirty bomb. At the end of the film you can see the name of the propaganda firm who paid for it.
And it is still on Amazon for all to watch.
I’ve also wondered why the US didn’t take some WMD to Iraq to ‘find’. It’s not like the US has none!
Didn’t need to. Why go to all that bother. Plant actual tracable WMD? Why? The media planted there in people’s minds. That was ALL that was needed.
Did no one get the point Knight of the Realm for an outright liar who ignored more than 60% of his national population who said no war for the UK.
Who is with whom here?
‘The media planted there in people’s minds. That was ALL that was needed.’ – YEP…. They only needed the initial support to ‘get the job done’ and justify it later in other ways, IF required.
Let me post here as a reminder how G. W. Bush’s extended family profiteered from him starting a war in Iraq. https://washingtonspectator.org/the-familys-profiteering-goes-unobserved/
Well, we know Biden’s son was already paid by a gas company in Ukraine, so I guess they are well positioned for a war in Ukraine.
We don’t need no stinikin’ PROOF! https://www.johndayblog.com/2022/02/stand-and-smile.html
Our economic life support system’s check-engine-light has been on for about two and a half years now. A whole slew of codes come up on the diagnostic port.
The usual mechanic says we need to sign the title over to him before he can fix it and give us the keys back.
We are dubious. We have gone to the Auto Zone and gotten the printouts of all the diagnostic codes. We’re considering our options. It still runs poorly, but sports lapsed inspection and registration stickers, so we’re keeping a low profile.
Rulers govern with the consent of the governed, which consent is lapsing in bits and pieces, for non-performance, for repeatedly violating the “social contract”.
Politicians in “western democracies” usually serve the owners by talking the people into doing what the owners want.
There is usually some carrot for the people, but lately it is all-stick, no-carrot and a future which is illuminated by the promise to use the stick on those who don’t go along with the good donkeys.
Those “Others” are making all the problems. Donkeys are fitted with blinders and are not permitted to converse about insurrection on social-media.
A bunch of donkeys are milling about in Canada without blinders, presenting an existential threat to the political-economic-life-support-system. They have stopped pulling their donkey carts. People will starve and freeze if the donkeys don’t get their blinders back on and start pulling those carts again, PRONTO!
Measures are being taken. Donkeys have been given written notice in their inflatable bouncy-castles. Their bank accounts and donkey-cart insurance cancellations are proceeding. Donkeys will starve first. Certainly, nobody wants that? Donkeys are still braying in the streets. You just can’t talk to donkeys. It’s not worth trying. The owners need those carrots themselves. It’s stick or nothing, Donkeys!
Some people are trying to bring some little carrots to the donkeys, but that’s got to be stopped.
People and donkeys do not a life-support-system make. The owners are the critical ingredient.
You understand that, right?
What if the people and the donkeys refuse to make the life-support-system work?
Everybody, including donkeys will die. It’s happened before, repeatedly.
You get it, right?
This is a critical point in time. The life support system is failing as supply lines are slowed and become hit-or-miss, intermittent.
The worst of the realization has not yet hit, but the mail is late, regular parts are on back-order for months, and there are no canned black olives at the grocery store.
Whatever the donkeys and people do now, the crumbling of the political-economy will continue, until…?
What happened last time? Oh, yeah, World War-2.
Well, that’s off the list of options now…
It’s off the list, right?
The owners need all of us people and donkeys to get back to the creaky carts and sparse stalls forever, no-questions-asked, or we will starve and freeze sooner, rather than later. We’ve always been able to trust them before, so we need to trust them now and in perpetuity. Implanting a remote-controlled kill switch is just an inviolable sign of our complete trust in our elected leaders and the important interests which they serve.
For people bringing carrots and donkeys playing hooky, the choices are to comply immediately and get a lighter-whipping, to riot in the streets and get killed because it’s absolutely necessary as a last resort, or to stand there and smile and be pleasant and present and unmoving, and just keep doing that, because there are really not enough resources to arrest that many donkeys and people, and they cannot, apparently be recruited from the ranks of other donkeys and other people.
Seriously, this has got to stop.Donkeys and people have never, ever been able to come up with new economic solutions, ever, all of the times that this has happened in the past. It has always been to beneficent owners and their loyal elected representatives who have solved the life-support problems, and they will do it again, if we will only give them our unquestioning and eternal support; 110%, just like in football.
If we don’t get back in line right away, our western political economy will pass a point of no-return (if it hasn’t already) and the fault will be completely our own. We will have nobody but ourselves to blame; nobody but ourselves upon whom to rely for food, water, fuel and bouncy-castles.
We’ll all be dead in five years. Mark my words!
That being said, I have a few carrots growing, and I planted some bush beans and tomato seeds yesterday, and I’m fixing up the inside of the homestead addition, which will be a good gathering place, sort of like The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Protest can evolve into revolution if the ‘authorities’ remain pig headedly pathogenic.
But WHY is the US cartel stirring up all this shit between Ukraine and Russia now? Here is pretty interesting and plausible answer
https://popularresistance.org/americas-real-adversaries-are-its-european-and-other-allies/
Very informative, thank you for sharing.
That it is. Nice to see obviously true MMT acknowledged and used to frame or at least provide background for the larger economic/strategic analysis.
A war directly affecting Europe would also be a good excuse for austerity and draconian restrictions of civil rights in the US – perhaps internment camps or house arrest instead of getting kicked off Youtube and Facebook. The US economy’s immiserating many within the Fatherland, and given a choice between abandoning neoliberalism or intensifying repression, US elites will probably go for the latter.
Yes, “allies” are tribute-paying… Gotta’ keep ’em down. But “we” can’t do that very well these days, so “we” just have to colonize the home populations to squeeze more value and compliance out of them.
This always works great.
Michael Hudson is about always right, though sometimes people argue that he’s a shade off from what they’d say…
It seems the US decided to impose sanctions on Russia to cut off energy supplies to China.
They need to cut China’s fossil energy supplies to win their war against China for the US monopoly of the world.
BTW USA usually imposes economic sanctions on a country for many years to weaken it before they attack militarily. Definitely have been done to Iraq, so it is not hard to see into the future what could happen after all this Russian hysteria.
We all know, more or less, what happened to the world when Europeans and then Americans “dominated” it. Killing indigenous people (using technological advantage), looting “the colonies”, slave trade, and literally eliminating more than 90% of all living organisms on the planet. European tourists to America even used to shoot buffalos from the trains for sheer fun of it.
Who even cares to live under such “hegemony”? I get to see it from my own windows: soon Amazon warehouses will replace open spaces and beautiful views, and (more excitement) Facebook warehouse on the other side of me from Amazon warehouse.
Technocracy is not only unsustainable, living in a technocracy is no life at all. I may as well spend my days and nights in a warehouse.
If the US is hoping to cut off Russia’s energy supplies to China, it’ll probably be highly disappointed. Russian exports to the rest of Europe might get cut off (though many Euroean countries aren’t too happy about that prospect), but neither the US nor the EU can do much to stop trade between Russia and China, short of nuclear war. On the contrary, without a European market for its gas, Asia, and China in particular, is where Russia’s going to go instead. Their ties are only likely to strengthen.
Keep it up Caitlin, you’re doing a great job of showing their weakness and it’s bothering them. You only take flak when you’re over the target, so keep on keeping on, maybe some of the brain dead will wake up and smell the roses.
Biden and Ukraine
It’s the usual grandstanding for an American public who think looking and acting “tough” in a country they can’t even spell https://time.com/12597/the-ukraine-or-ukraine/ or locate on a map ( https://time.com/52228/only-1-in-6-americans-can-find-ukraine-on-a-map/ ) is more important than appalling health care, pathetic longevity, abysmal child poverty, execrable social ills, gluttonous military budgets, abject racism and Western world-leading obesity. The US has already made Freedom into a pejorative. Freedom fries, freedom to behave like an idiot over covid, etc. Why not do the same for “tough”. Live it up. And enjoying being the world’s Pigpen, spoiling everything it touches. It may not have much longer.