Listen to a reading of this article:
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Putin has launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the goal of which he claims is not to occupy the country but to “demilitarize” and “de-Nazify” it. We’ve no reason to put blind faith in any of those claims. Only time will tell.
As of this writing dozens have reportedly been killed so far. All war is horrific. We can only hope that this one winds up being the least horrific a war can be.
Some thoughts:
1. This whole thing could very easily have been avoided with a little bit of diplomacy. The only reason that didn’t happen was it would have meant the US empire taking a teensy, weensy step back from its agenda of total planetary domination.
I’ve seen people call it “sad” or “unfortunate” that western powers didn’t make basic low-cost, high-yield concessions like guaranteeing no NATO membership for Ukraine and having Kyiv honor the Minsk agreement, but it’s not sad, and it’s not unfortunate. It’s enraging. That they did this deserves nothing but pure, unadulterated, white hot rage.
2. Narrative managers have been working furiously to quash all discussion of #1, however. Like our good friend Michael McFaul here:
Please don't give Putin propagandists a platform on your media platforms. There is a time and place for hearing two sides of an issue. This tragic moment in European history is not one of them. Do not give false equivalency to voices of evil and voices of good.
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) February 24, 2022
This is one of the most influential Russia “experts” in the western world decrying propaganda while demanding media outlets enact propaganda. Saying what your government wants said instead of objective reporting the truth is the thing that propaganda is.
Please don’t report facts on your media platforms. Don’t let anyone talk about the known actions by NATO powers and Kyiv which experts have long warned would lead to this situation. You’re not allowed to talk about the known US/NATO/Ukraine actions which demonstrably led us to where we’re at. You’re only allowed to say Putin attacked Ukraine completely unprovoked, in a vacuum, solely because he is evil and hates freedom.
Your loyalty is to the US empire, not to truth. Whoever controls the narrative controls the world.
3. It’s funny how everyone keeps referring to this as a “World War 2-style invasion” instead of a “US-style invasion”. It’s not like examples of military invasions ended in the 1940s.
Speaking of which:
4. Look at this.
Kyiv and Kharkiv are being bombed. The largest invasion on our planet since WW2. Republicans are rooting for the Russians. God be with Ukraine and democracy.
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) February 24, 2022
These people actually believe it’s legitimate to call this “the largest invasion on our planet since WW2.” Just snip out all the pages from the history books between 1950 and 2003 to make western imperialists feel good about themselves. Unbelievable.
5. The primary risk of nuclear war is not that anyone will choose to start one, it’s that one could be triggered by miscommunication, malfunction or misunderstanding amid the chaos and confusion of escalating cold war tensions. This nearly happened, repeatedly, in the last cold war.
Cold war brinkmanship has far too many small, unpredictable moving parts for anyone to feel confident that they can ramp up aggressions without triggering a nuclear exchange. Nobody who feels safe with these games of nuclear chicken understands what they really are.
We survived the last cold war by sheer, dumb luck. We were never once in control. We just got lucky. There’s no reason to trust that we’ll get lucky again. We need to abandon this madness and pursue detente immediately.
https://twitter.com/KyleKulinski/status/1496708592619110404?s=20&t=jgPpaLgDrfUSO1jWAZPnAA
6. After the bombs drop and I’m dying of radiation poisoning, with my final breath I’m going to thank Joe Biden for denying Putin the moral victory of an assurance that Ukraine won’t join NATO.
7. Probably goes without saying but just in case: anyone who supports any kind of western military confrontation with Russia is an enemy of our entire species.
8. It would now seem the US power alliance has a choice between either (A) escalating aggressions against Russia to world-threatening levels or (B) doing what anti-imperialists have been begging them to do for years and pursuing detente. This is exactly where anti-imperialists have been warning we could wind up if the US didn’t work toward detente with Russia, while being called Kremlin agents and Putin lovers the entire time for years on end.
All the people who’ve called us crazy over the years for warning that cold war brinkmanship against Russia could lead to hot war are the same people calling to ramp up the brinkmanship now that our warnings proved true. Perhaps some serious re-evaluation is in order.
The solution to a crisis that was created by cold war brinkmanship is not more cold war brinkmanship. The solution to a crisis that was created by cold war brinkmanship is detente.
9. Assertions made by secretive government agencies based on classified intelligence should always be subjected to aggressively intense scrutiny, 100 percent of the time, without exception and without apology, regardless of the fact that those assertions occasionally happen to prove true.
10. It sure is a lucky coincidence that westerners have spent the last few years being persuaded to hate Russia by their governments and media. Otherwise the west’s dramatic response to this act of aggression might be difficult to get them to consent to.
11. Remain intensely skeptical of all news coming out of Ukraine. Since 2016 the western empire has been running an extremely aggressive narrative management campaign about Russia the likes of which we’ve never seen before. The news media have been fully complicit in this mass-scale psyop. Watch and wait for hard evidence of every claim made. Recall how snipers were used during the 2014 coup in Kyiv to kill protesters and pin the blame on the ousted Yanukovych government.
12. Unpopular opinion but I think those who are crowing that this marks the dawn of a multipolar world may be jumping the gun a bit. If the US empire can succeed in crippling Russia’s economy and fomenting unrest, balkanization and collapse there, it knocks out a key pillar of China’s support system, and China is the ultimate target in all these unipolarist maneuverings.
If it can do this (and that’s a big if, I know), at that point the empire can set to work on China without its guard bear there to protect it. Which of course would have been the plan all along. Which of course would be why the empire and its propaganda engine have been acting so weird these last few years.
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88 responses to “Twelve Thoughts On Ukraine”
Amazing. 12 thoughts on Ukraine and eight are “it’s the U.S.’s fault”. Do you ever leave the house? Go to a movie? A concert? Talk with friends? Do you have any friends?
Chaz. Please do some more homework. I think you have missed a BIG piece in here. Since Europeans began settling the north American continent the opportunity was seen as absis for an eventual new empire to dominate the world with a decline in dependence on any one or any grouping of European countries and their regimes. This was design an empire time.
The US of A is two entities, the one a slave within the grip of the other. An Industrial powerhouse, supported by Economic systems linked to the world suystem and able to dominate as needed by size (1929 and Subprime anyone) with a massive military to enforce physical compliance. What’s not to like for a Super Elite who control it all?
Ukraine is far more complex than most of the babble about it seems to consider. People arguing bits and pieces atre like the staff arguing which way to place the deckchairs on the Titanic (ooops the Olympic in truth).
Wag the Do is happening here too!! Heads up and get with the reality.
Russian propaganda will not defeat Europe this time. Putin took a chance and lost.
Caitin,
Thank you. I live in the U.S. where propaganda rules the day. It is extremely frustrating to have lies told about our heartless invasions around the world and then when Russia finally stands up to the U.S. and the Nazi proxies, nothing but more lies! Keep speaking truth! Came across a video worth sharing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHWmT6_QDJU&t=185s
Hope many check it out and thank you!
FOR THOSE OF YOU IN THE WASHINGTON, DC AREA:
Russia and NATO are within a hairsbreadth of coming into direct combat (for instance, by implementing competing no-fly zones over Ukraine) and antiwar protestors are nowhere to be seen in the streets of Washington, DC! Where are all the traditional peace groups? (If you know of any demonstrations in DC, please Reply All to this email.) I, for one, feel the need to make my voice heard before the end of the world, so I will be in Lafayette Square in view of the White House holding a sign reading “No War on Russia” tomorrow (Sunday, Feb. 27th) from noon on. I hope some or all of you will join me (For info, email nowarwithrussia@gmail.com or call me, Ken Meyercord, at (571) 287-0508).
N.B. For fair-weather activists (like me), the forecast for tomorrow afternoon is sunny, mid-50s.
Keep the word out, Ken! This war is just killing people with many better things to do.
…..the “media” are the canvas upon this continuous bullshit blob of multi-colored brush strokes evolve, the spectacular presentation of war as tv movie is clear……amerikkkants are loving it !..flag waving, shock and awe bullshit is marching across the minds(what’s left of them) of most amerikkkants now….getting their minds off all that “pandemic stress”…..5G…..gimme, god, guns, gold, and glory!…..coming to an illusion near you!…..the diffusion of this miniseries will have lasting impact, for the confusion that always follows will be sure to ensure that this all will happen again…..illusion, diffusion, confusion, the continuous cycle of the spectacle presented………a tool of that in my hands as i write this, absorbed into the abyss of the spectacle no one can confront because the senses inherent in all of us are compromised to ensure consumption…….common sense, the final frontier, has been breached, and now in the continuous process of being consumed…..as long as we don’t blow our and all other asses away in this latest tv show….
just stay fuckin’ tuned…. check your local weather report,( “climate change”) don’t touch that dial!……
I haven’t found anyone here (US) for a Ukraine, Russia war, the 26% may be our bureaucrats.
ASoory. Left off poll, no one here is thrilled.
https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/02/23/ukraine-pleads-for-peace-putin-ignores-appeal-poll-shows-only-26-of-americans-back-big-role/
Ukraine = Gaza strip and U.S. = Iran. Israel seeks to maintain a position of dominance while Russia is responding to a security threat.
Agree readily with all twelve, especially number seven.
” … If the US empire can succeed in crippling Russia’s economy.”
It was either Bell, Einstein, Sun Tzu or my Mom who famously said, “preparation is the key to success.” Russia is prepared, the Masters of Sanctions are anything but.
The neo-liberal express is about to get derailed.
As Mao said the US is a paper tiger — it’s run by a bunch of greedy cowards. The US can’t even bring Cuba, Iran, Venezuela or Nicaragua to their knees — it won’t prevail over Russia or China. Where it really triumphs is over its own defeated and divided brainwashed working class. The 2020 police brutality protests and the non-compliance with the covid bullshit are the first sparks of life in quite awhile.
people around the world ant the same thing. that’s why the rapacious globalist cabal suppress people’s opinions in every possible way.
people around the world ant the same thing. the fact that the rapacious globalist cabal suppress people’s opinions in every possible way is the proof.
From the Daily Mash:
‘Johnson announces closure of Russian cash pipeline’
THE prime minister has revoked the permit of the ToryStream 2 cash pipeline which spews banknotes into Conservative party headquarters.
https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/johnson-announces-closure-of-russian-cash-pipeline-20220225217752
Ooops – forgot the LINK
https://www.rt.com/russia/550546-zelensky-nato-ukraine-neutrality/
And there you have – just like I said !
Ukraine ready to surrender to Russia’s demands !
Russian military will be back in Russia by Monday !
There will NOT be a WAR because the ZIO/US/NATO are only capable of standing by and watching – just as they did when Russia vaporized 400 THOUSAND of their pet ISIS terrorists in SYRIA !
It is not an INVASION – it is a special operation to destroy ALL the Rothschilds financed assets in Ukraine – designed to not only destroy Ukrainians but destroy Russia as well !
The BIO WEAPON labs have already been destroyed and everything should be finished by Monday and Russia will return HOME !
Rothschilds had intended to do what they did to Palestine in 1948 – slaughter the rightful inhabitants and take over the LAND !
Russia said NO !
President Zelensky reported civilian and military death toll in Ukraine. Thank you President Zelensky for highlighting how important it is that civilians are not targeted by military or economic actions.
That reminded me:
Children 25% of casualties in Yemen.
Now mired in deadlock, the Yemen war has killed about 130,000 people – including more than 12,000 civilians – and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis (starving people are being bombed) in a country that was already the Arab world’s most impoverished nation.
Why pick on the poorest nation?
One of Hitler’s first acts was to order targeting of civilians in WW2. What? Retired Gen. James Mattis earned the nickname “Mad Dog” for leading U.S. Marines into battle in (city of) Fallujah, Iraq, in April 2004. In that assault, members of the Marine Corps, under Mattis’ command, shot at ambulances and aid workers. They cordoned off the city, preventing civilians from escaping. They posed for trophy photos with the people they killed.
It is important that civilians are not targeted by the military. Yet this is exactly what nuclear weapons are for. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were cities full of civilians.
Just heads up, the US has embarked on Nuclear Arsenal Modernization, that is estimated to cost $1.5 trillion dollars (the cost can only go up). I wonder if these will be targeting civilians?
Hiroshima and Nagasaki get the headlines everytime but B29’s were systematically FIRE BOMBING Japanese cities one after the other killing far more civilians than both nuclkear attacks combined by a large number.
Both UK and US heads of state loudly denied they were doing this.
The delay in Japan’s eventual surrender was to allow a compromise that kept the Emperor OFF the War Crimes list for trial and US and UK agreed. Meanwhile the war and the bombings went on. YEP heads of state truly do care about all the civilians.
Look at how governments traditionally treat soldiers returned from war in any country and almost without exception it is appalling. Even in supposed peacetime the foot soldiers get short shrift and form a large portion of the homeless and suicide statistics. YEP the top guys care. TIME WE CARED TOO.
Meanwhile, back in the old ranch, the ever virginal, sanctimonious and virtue signalling US of A prepares to kill thousands of Afghans without even lifting a finger. Can’t make that stuff up!
https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/fear-and-loathing-in-washington/
Whatever Pelosi and Clinton have to say, it’s unlikely Putin can compete…
Afghanistan will take all the US military equipment to China who will melt it down and send it back to the ZIO/US in the form of durable goods !
Afghanistan has joined the BRI – Ditto Ukraine and Poland !
THEY will have a future minus the Rothschilds !
For 4 years, Trump spent trillions, not billions, setting up a Nazi network…in his daddy’s footsteps…in partnership with his Zionist Ukrainian partners…not just Europe but the US as well…a Nazi driven civil war that is intended to sweep the entire planet.
Someone just stopped them. Let us give thanks to the almighty Putin
2014 was obomber presidency. not that Trump didn’t try to appease his zionist enemy as best as he could though with no benefits.
When is an act of aggression deemed an act of self-defense?
When the act of aggression is carried out by the U.S. or its allies – bought and paid for partners in political expediency.
The intent of the Cold War was all about NATO decapitating Russia, and all that would remain would be the U.S.S.A. (United States Surreptitiously in Asia)
And, by George, the U.S. almost pulled it off singlehandedly, by paying cash for everything, lock stock and barrel, back in the early 90’s.
Liars Liars Pants On Fire!
Is anyone else experiencing difficulties in accessing RT (Russia Today)? Very slow to load and drops out?
Yep … same thing here …. plus The Saker is out …
Hopeful sign? Maybe a few extra folks looking for something besides the corporate bs?
Yep… ever since hearing the FBI’s maxim “Follow the Money” I’ve been an adherent. Every single f**king thing leads back to it under Capitalism. It’s like a huge filter, put in politics, environment, minerals, race, religion… everything – start the machine… round and round it goes and at the bottom, in the dish, filtered out, is money = power, to create more ‘gelt’! Capitalism cannot function without fascism. They are indivisible.
Ukraine had become the West’s capitalist playground. The west is still smarting from losing Yeltsin’s devolution of Russia’s economy.
Power to people like Putin!
this war has taken care of the remnants of that era in Russia and Ukraine, with economic sanctions by NATO and vassals erasing all the stolen paper wealth and bankrupting Russian oligarchic thieves that have been undermining Putin and Russian people. pretty meaningful silverlining in my opinion…
this war has taken care of the remnants of that era in Russia and Ukraine, with economic sanctions by NATO and vassals erasing all the stolen paper wealth and bankrupting Russian oligarchic thieves that have been undermining Putin and Russian people. the reorganization of the economy will be finished without money-changers and mafia. pretty meaningful silverlining in my opinion…
These are probably unpopular observations at the moment, but sanity is not always popular.
While the World Focuses on Ukraine, Globalists Like the World Economic Forum’s Klaus Schwab Charge Ahead. So why aren’t these things charged for crimes against humanity especially when they brag about it. It’s obvious that it’s not empty talk.
Bombing: reports received that the airports have been taken out. Smart move Russia. Prevents folk who have no skin in the game posturing and escalating the situation.
Anyone who isn’t asleep has been aware that Kiev has been slaughtering ethnic Russians in the breakaway republics for years, unimpeded by any Western outrage. I’ve seen photographs of the carnage, and it wasn’t pretty, and they were civillians. No outrage from the West at all. In fact, the West inundated Kiev with upgraded modern arms to improve the kill count.
Russia recognised the republics, declared them allies that they were going to defend. Bravo. And “invaded”.
It follows the scenario of NATO/Kosovo, hopefully without the hundreds of thousands who were slaughtered by NATO in that hurriedly forgotten episode. So there is “legal precedent” for Russia’s move.
I am amazed it took Russia so long to help these people. Clearly they exhausted all diplomatic means to stop the carnage. The Minsk Agreement was never honoured by Kiev, or enforced by the EU, the two signatories to the Agreement. Though not a signatory, Russia insisted upon this Agreement being honoured.
Of course we know the outrage from Democrat politicans in the US is led by Biden and Pelosi, both of whom have sons involved in gas companies in Ukraine, along with Kerry and Bush. Another reason why they wanted the gas to continue to flow through Ukraine, and not on NordStream2. Biden can see a big hunk of his family’s gelt slipping away, and the despicable Pelosi has a whole lot to say about the “evil Putin” too. She should check the mirror.
Our concern should be that this escalates, drummed up by the lying MSM. It’s up to the pragmatic and educated of us all to block and counter their lies.
https://youtu.be/wh84hrS5mm4
300 miles from the border. Did Putin dub in the music?
Or did homeland security and the five eyes make it look like propaganda.
Anastasia seems good and real.
It’s Times like these that remind us just how fragile our lives always are.
We tend to ignore that. We believe we have other, more important concerns all the time. But without our very lives… we have nothing at all on this side of the Great Veil.
The Fools that sit in seats of power are once again playing with our lives and our Planet and our future. We have hoped and prayed that even though we know them to be mostly inept grifters… that They would retain one tiny bit of common sense to not do something so damned stupid one day to hit the Big Off button and turn our Game of Life to permanent fade-to-black.
You can only poke at people so long before they poke back. You can only insult people so long before they get really pissed.
Are All Those Inept Grifters about to prove that Ignorance and Stupidity are terminal conditions? And not just for Them, but for EVERYONE?
It’s never a bad time to give thanks for BEING alive. And to give thanks that you have been blessed with loved ones to share this Grand Experience with. And to TELL THEM you love and care about them. And to do that NOW.
Why? In Times like these, we may never get another chance.
Sooner or later, the bill for Stupidity comes due. It almost got paid back in 1962. We got lucky and cooler heads deferred payment on that bill. But, the interest on that Stupidity bill now has been accruing for another 60 years.
And damn those guys who created weapons that gave Them the ability to turn our Game of Life OFF.
Children shouldn’t play with matches. Nor should they ever have been give REALLY BIG MATCHES.
Best to everyone and may we yet have some Tomorrows worth living.
The Russian revolution was a world super elite engineered event evidenced by which western corporations were immediately helping the nasty reds (as we were being told) to get the country running after the fight – for profit of course.
Anyone dumb or unknowing enough to think the rhetoric daily drip fed to us about who is a baddy and who are the goodies is in anyway true deserves to be ignored – they know not what they do or of what they speak.
Just as the elites in times long past fought bitterly with each other, using the peasants to do the fighting and dying of course, and we should not assume it is any different today..
Unless we stand together to say not in our name and take the toys and the controls away, we will remain in a world geopolitical fight that could cost a lot of lives, mostly ours as the cannon fodder of war between the those who would rule over all if they can.
The Chinese left the former imperial city, blasted to ruin by British warship 100 years ago, as it has remained ever since. It is a reminder of what they call ‘The 100 years of shame’ never to be forgotten. The children of the western alliance are barely able to think beyond a few days, maybe a month if at all. Think about that.
Look to the BIG picture and the LONG narrative, in time spans of 50-100 years not a week to ten days which is the news standard today for front page stories.
My immediate reaction to the U.S. sending in people, back in the beginning, was that this was an attempt to weaken China. Seems even more the case now.
When Zelensky Crossed the Line
:
Ever hear of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances?
Now you have.
:
Not joking, this is Zelensky, February 19. 2022:
:
:
Who put the bug in Zelensky’s ear to talk about the Budapest Memorandum?
Here is WaPo, an unofficial channel for the Empire of Lies, February 1st, 2022:
:
“The agreement is not an official treaty. It is neither legally binding nor does it carry an enforcement mechanism.”
:
And the What:
:
:
And did this threat of nukes by Zelensky go unnoticed?
:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/president-zelensky-suggests-ukraine-may-pursue-nuclear-weapons-to-counter-russia-putin-responds
Thanks. Yes, all true. And Zelensky is merely a comedian who assumed a role in real life. He is pretty clueless, never honoured his election promises, totally controlled by oligarchs and fascists, and who knows of what they are capable.
Russia would have to neutralise a nuclear Ukraine. It has no option.
Watching Bidens press conference. Puss Biden cant take Russia out of SWIFT = rift in EU/NATO. Germany and Hungary refuses to send troops to Ukraine.
And ‘Russia has launched an unprovoked attack, ignoring attempts at mediation in good faith, etc etc.’.
And what of the USA’s attacks on Libya, Iraq, Panama, Grenada and elsewhere – countries that posed no threat at all to the US, unlike Ukraine with its Nazis and nuclear and NATO ambitions, right on Russia’s border? Strangely enough, not a word from Biden on any of that.
Brandon can just see his “10% for the Big Guy” going down the drain.
I find it astonishing how many people have gotten used to seeing wars taking place elsewhere.
Russia (and the Ukraine for that matter) have had Germany and France invading their homelands and commiting unimaginable crimes against the civil population.
In constant breach of the Minsk Agreement, Ukraine has gone ever more eastwards toward the russian border and have recently destroyed a border post. (no casualties)
What Russia has done now is prevent fighting taking place on their own soil. The importance of this point cannot be stressed enough. If the Ukraine (with its relatively weak armed forces) had tried to take the fight there, maybe in hope, to force NATO to aid them, we would have all out war right now.
Americans and Australians have become used to killing abroad before returning to the relative safety of their home countries, but here in Europe every country has actually experienced war, and the worst one was in Russia.
Real war on their own soil is unacceptable.
Also, of course, the US empire has never actually attacked anyone who could fight back so showing the will to do so, will hopefully disourage the american warlords.
Good point, Ukraine could have avoided this by observing the ceasefire.
Even more so, the entire situation could have been avoided if Kiev had agreed to representative government for the Donbass and Lugansk. Just for Brandon’s education, that’s called democracy.
Our incredible free press reported today that less than 1% of stock market drop was a thudding “crash” caused by Russia, while corresponding 4-5% rise in crude oil was not mentioned and not at all arranged by the CEO’s of Oil and Gas Corporations.
“Futures for gas delivered in the Netherlands, the benchmark in northwest Europe, jumped 30% in early trading to 115.25 euros, equivalent to $129.62, a megawatt-hour. In New York, U.S. gas prices rose 6%.”
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news/card/RqeevPATV5ci7ytY0fko (40 mins ago)
Whether or not CEOs arranged it, they’ll be gloating over profits to come.
Talking of radiation poisoning,
“No matter the genesis, the cause, or who started what, the reality remains that there are 15 operating nuclear reactors in Ukraine that, if conflict breaks out there, could be in peril.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/02/23/us-and-russian-physicians-warn-war-ukraine-risks-global-nuclear-catastrophe
And that’s before we get to the risk of nuclear weapons being used.
Were the situation reversed and Canada or Mexico were becoming a client state of a new Warsaw Pact the American invasion of Canada or Mexico would not have taken so long. This is only a thought experiment as the United States is in firm control of both countries.
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May the fates lead to a swift occupation of Ukraine so that there are no more deaths. (note: nothing new at my link. I publish on Fridays).
I’ve just heard almost the same comment about Mexico and Canada on BBC radio, in amongst all the unquestioning pro-Western stuff.
Mine is original. A statement of obvious and common wisdom, and a good reason for Biden to keep it in his pants.
I didn’t mean to imply in any way your comment wasn’t original. I was just rather pleasantly surprised to hear the same on the BBC – possibly from someone who’d just read yours!
WADR, the analogy of the US and its various neighbours has been expounded many times. It’s the only way Americans can get a handle on the situation.
Putin says he is will not occupy Ukraine. The strategy he is using is to take out the US taxpayer financed (why we can’t have nice things like #Medicare4All) military installations and industrial targets. Russia is tearing a page from Iran”s revenge for the drone assassination of Soleimani where they specifically targeted a US military base in Northern Iraq without killing a single US soldier. Russia is using this baby to do the job. Note how precise Kinzhal is. There is no comparison with Hiroshima and Nagasaki or any of the bombings the US were doing on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria et al. https://youtu.be/j-HAN3-y9Io
So Russia invades Ukraine and it’s the US’s fault. And when China invades Taiwan it will be the US’s fault as well. Sorry, Caitlin. This is bullshit. I don’t love the oligarchy running the world either. But all that blaming every bad thing that happens on the US does is reduce your credibility. Putin is a monster. This will start WWIII. And all you can do is point fingers at your arch-enemy, the US, and say, “You, see!”
What do you not get about 3 decades of eastward expansion of NATO, after promising not to expand “one inch”? What do you not get about a US inspired coup in 2014 that overthrew the democratically elected president of Ukraine, because he wasn’t sufficiently compliant with western austerity measures? What is there not to get about the US and NATO transforming Ukraine into a defacto NATO state via weapons sales (just what the poorest nation in Europe needs–weapons)? Putin is a nationalist, not “a monster”, at least not in comparison to our own leaders. Our presidents have lied, tortured, invaded, and droned the innocent. And given the history of WW2, after weeks of ignoring Putin’s reasonable demands to negotiate substantively on NATO, and the INF, Putin seems to have become convinced he had no choice but to invade, to prevent the possibility of nuclear-rearmed Ukraine with led or controlled by far-right/neo-Nazis.
The ways to defeat the oligarchic cultural hegemony of terminal capitalism are many and varied.
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If you want to know what Cultural Hegemony is, this is the best link I found to explain it https://youtu.be/QA9YxP0s1t4 .
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If you really want to neuter the US empire or any empire you need to understand how base can challenge superstructure.
‘Publisher and editorial director of The Nation, Katrina vanden Heuvel is president of the American Committee for U.S.-Russia Accord. She just wrote the piece “Putin’s Invasion.” While repeatedly condemning Putin’s actions, she writes: “NATO expansion provided the context for this crisis — a fact often ignored by our media. … Putin’s demand — essentially that the status quo, i.e. Ukraine remain outside of NATO — be codified was scorned as violating NATO’s ‘principle’ of admitting anyone it wanted.”
“One immediate result was to encourage parallel irresponsibility in Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky promised voters, when he ran for and won Ukraine’s presidency in 2019, that he would pursue a path to peace and end the war in the Donbas. Upon taking office, however, his government refused to implement the essential provisions of the 2015 Minsk Protocols — signed by Russia, Ukraine, France, Germany, and the EU — that essentially would have guaranteed Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity in exchange for Ukrainian neutrality.
“Now, sadly, Russia’s illegal actions will embolden the hawks and armament mongers on all sides. Already armchair strategists are calling for doubling the US military budget, for grasping the ‘strategic opportunity’ to bleed Putin in Ukraine while pushing the Europeans to build up their military forces. …
“What is needed is not a rush to arms and to hawkish bluster, but a return to intense negotiations — at the UN, at the OSCE, and among the signatories to the Minsk Protocols. It is time to recognize that there remain options that, if pursued in good faith, could bring the current crisis to a peaceful conclusion.”’
https://accuracy.org/release/ukraine-crisis-overlooked-facts/
Stalin was a monster and he stopped the last military empire who wanted to dominate all life on planet earth. Putin is just following in his footsteps. if you do not believe me, stop watching the propaganda on MSNBC or Fox and go ask the people of Vietnam (1960s) or Iraq (2000s) or Indonesia (1965) or Iran (1953-now) or Venezuela (1964) or Chile (1973) or Panama or Yemen or China or anyone from Hiroshima or any other of dozens of countries sanctioned or subverted or bombed or invaded by the crusaders of Western self-assigned “goodness”.
Fredrick, you are away with the pixies. The US State Department is up to its ears in all of the various issues around the world. It’s what they do. And NO, Putin is NOT a monster. Joe Biden is a monster, Pelosi is a monster, and one could keep truckin’ down the conga line of corrupt US politicians and their minions who cause every nasty little incident all around the globe.
Let’s hope the Truckers can wake folk up enough to throw the lot of them out and bring back some decency to Washington.
Nonsense. China won’t invade Taiwan unless the US uses it as a launching pad to threaten to invade China, and the US wouldn’t dare. The way Russia is doing it, i.e. in a precisely targeted way, will result in very little if any, loss of life. https://youtu.be/j-HAN3-y9Io
On Medhurst last night, Scott Ritter said Russia might just turn off the gas to the EU and Europe would freeze. Perhaps it’s time for the EU to shrug off the yoke of empire. When I read the Swawell text, it was so clear that our masters are not naive, but many of us are under their spell.
https://www.veteranstoday.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-intervention-how-nato-stirred-resting-bear-into-action/
Always censorship
Thanks for this one.
During World War 2 all governments (taking part in it) had to articulate to their citizens what they are collectively fighting for in the war, and basically Western governments tried to differentiate themselves from the Nazis by promising human rights for all after the war ends.
I think this is a great point in time to ask ourselves and our governments “what are we fighting for.”
I see no point in fighting for the unipolar hegemony by the Western Oligarchs. Not my fight – they are welcome to attend in person.
Biden needs to bail-out Albright & Hillary’s fracked LNG export pyramid scheme. Just maybe get his kid & Kerry’s back to work fracking 1.9 million wells after his Nazi/ Klan pals win House & Senate, with Kapital Kop Cosplay Coup candidates straight outa a “Justified” extras casting-call?
Just yesterday I listened to a lecture on Energy and Policy, to learn that all energy in the US is heavily subsidized. They can’t even estimate the true cost of a gallon of gas, because they would have to take all wars into account. But long time ago it was estimated to be $10-$20 per gallon in the US, however that was before the Iraq invasion.
It sounded like fossil fuel based energy production in the US is a (murderous) pyramid scheme.
When you add fuel (more than Ireland’s entire use) our military expenditure tops a trillion PLUS, all the pay-offs, graft, crappy F-35s cluster-munitions and propaganda, lobbying (MIC = cracker welfare) & how NOBODY equates Dixiecrats’ white-flight suburbanite New Deal hijack, as exactly when AGW went exponential (that, SAC and jet-set)
The US allies stand of with China in South China Sea at present is also about oil, offshore this time and place
Re: your 12th point. Could it, just a little bit, that besides waiting on their eventual military/weapon progress, the Russian governmental planners have also worked on ways to succesfully navigate the “crippling” western sanctions with the help of China’s rulers, who also are interested in keeping the Russian economy healthy with the view of having their back stable?
The sanctions have been going on for several years, and Russia has become almost totally self-sufficient, and what they can’t do themselves, they get from their allies.
Sanctions won’t worry them one bit.
South Korean economy heavily replies on electronics /car / ship building, which needs tons of various precious metal importation, and SK has lots of shops set up in Russia. SK govt changed position from “war unfortunate but we’re neutral” to “we join western sanctions regime” overnight. now Russia is ready to hit back on “weak links” like south korea hard. expect rebellions in the NATO sphere unless something gives.
George Kennan explained exactly why the US vitally needs perpetual war just a few short years before the end of the Soviet Union. What he said is even more true today.
“Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.”
To drive home the true seriousness of what Kennan said decades ago, we have the two options that Mr. Hudson has said that the US private war corporations offer to the US government when it comes time to decide what to do with the weapons that they have just created: “either drop them in the Pacific Ocean or you can drop them on Afghanistan”.
Why didn’t/doesn’t “the government” choose to drop them into the Pacific Ocean, year after year, perpetually, instead of conducting perpetual wars — wars which are going to inevitably lead to all-out nuclear war and all of its consequences?
It didn’t/doesn’t/and never will choose to drop them into the Pacific Ocean (the way it drops money and manpower and resources and manufactured stuff onto those 800 military bases around the world year after year after year) because this bald-faced insanity would be noticed by everyone who has even one single functioning brain cell and they’d ask “why are you doing that?” And then some Kennan-clone would have to say, if he spoke the truth (which he/she/it never will), exactly what Kennan said back in the mid-1980s — that the US economy would be unacceptably shocked without that “defense” spending of fiat USD going on literally forever. In other words, that the US whatever-you-want-to-call-it economic system could not continue to rob the rest of the world blind; keep tens of millions of US voters employed; and keep prices of stocks on the stock market and homes on the housing market propped up, if that DoD war-spending/borrowing did not go on, year after year after year, literally forever.
People might actually begin to understand that, as crazy as it sounds (and actually is), perpetual war is a dystopian jobs program in a psychopathic nation called The United States Of America. And, right along with that, the US military literally forces other nations to accept a literally infinite number of fiat USD as payment-in-full for their REAL products and natural resources. Under the present arrangement, the US Fed and other central banks can, literally, hand freshly-printed money to “primary dealers”, hedge funds, etc. to buy the world. Anyone else see a problem with this present arrangement?
Therefore, if China, Russia and other nations were to announce to the world in 2022 (in the exactly same way that Nixon announced to the world in 1971 that US treasuries were no long redeemable in gold) that in one week they will no longer sell their natural resources and manufactured products, etc. to US consumers and investors for freshly printed USD, and will henceforth only accept, say, gold (as final settlement), or proceed from that day forward on a strict barter system (for example, a certain weight or volume of oil for a certain weight of, say, wheat, etc.), the US’s war-based economy would collapse literally overnight.
IMO, this announcement would have a far greater effect on the world in 2022 than that of The Nixon Shock in 1971, but making such an announcement today would be far better in the short and long term, especially the former, than either staying the present course or conducting a slow-to-the-point-of-no strategy of de-dollarization, and inevitably having to either conduct a well-justified preemptive nuclear first-strike on the US out of self-preservation, or, more likely, retaliate in kind to a nuclear first-strike by the US, albeit after a long series of false flag “attacks on US national security, interests or foreign policy” (of robbing the world blind) to which the US will be forced to respond.
But China and Russia and other nations are not going to make such an announcement because the US is an important part of a “world market” for THIER exports (some of which is selling weapons to the non-US part of the world market). Doing that would almost certainly hurt THEIR profit-based capitalist economies, which, by vital necessity, must ALSO grow in perpetuity. Anyone else see a problem with this present arrangement?
It also does not help the cause of stopping the US’s behavior that investors of all types, from many places around the world, continue to buy US treasuries and, knowingly or unknowingly, by so doing, invest in US war corporations (or invest in mutual funds and other investment vehicles that invest in either treasuries or US war corporations). Anyone who does this is enabling and assisting/demanding the US to continue carrying out world-wide murder and robbery.
In short, the rest of the world has somehow got to stop feeding the Great White Shark and, ironically, figure out how to live, literally survive, without feeding its insatiable appetite for imports and using its USD. To me that means having to first develop a stand-alone economy and, only after that is accomplished, to maybe start trading with other nations – again, preferably using a good-for-good barter system rather than using national currencies as a means of final settlement.
The truly sad thing is that some people actually live, or have lived, their lives guided by the golden rule ……….. and then along comes/came either the Great White Shark or one of its disgusting pilot fish, with their take-it-or-die investment opportunities and their WMD-guaranteed rates of return (and ensuing SWIFT descent into slavery). What should they do? Defend themselves, of course! And how should they do that? Once again with feeling, do not in any way feed the Great White Shark! Starve it! BDS it! I think that Iran probably gives the best example of how to swim in the same ocean with the Great White Shark and survive…….. so far, anyway.
Thank you! I keep looking for an “up-vote” button. Death, deceipt, debt, delusions, debilitation, destruction… is what WE do.
To my mind, this is one of the most thoughtful pieces I have read in a while. I am not sure I can say anything sensible about it, but will try (out of vainglory perhaps).
Firstly, I think you have to bear in mind that we are killer apes. Fighting and killing each other are in our genes. I am not denying that helpfulness and co-operativeness are in our genes too, but this is not contradictory. Soldiers are helpful and co-operative and self-sacrificing towards their own side, while being murderous towards the enemy. It works, at least for the winning side.
Also, the truths of economics are true. The fact that the American economy may be heavily dependent on arms production and export, and the fact that the German economy may be heavily dependent on building up China by supplying high-tech capital goods that the Chinese need to out-produce and eventually destroy the Americans, don’t change the principles of economics.
Thirdly, an empire has to have an enemy. Hitler had to go on fighting until he crashed. So did Napoleon. So, I think, does the present American imperial establishment. (Our fate, as English-speaking peoples, is bound up with its fate, as we have just been reminded by the publicising of the AUKUS pact.) The Americans had to get the Moslem world to stand in as its enemy after the fall of the Soviet Union, despite the fact that it was woefully under-prepared for the job, but now the revived China-Russia axis of evil is ready to go again. (I think soldiers really do like fighting, as long as they are winning.)
I don’t know what anyone can do about it, because the organs of communication are controlled by the same people who control the U.S. and British military. The Australian Government hardly matters. (As some witty American writer said once in some small past crisis: “The Australians offered to send a boat. The Australians always offer to send a boat.”)
You touched on the fiat currency subject, and mentioned the fact that the U.S. dollar is, in a sense, forced on the world by the power of the U.S. military. To me, this may be the most hopeful factor in the situation. Even the power to destroy the world may not be enough to keep the U.S. dollar strong in the face of the sort of inflation the American central bank has been indulging in since the start of the new flu exercise. I wonder if the flu isn’t being used as cover for a financial collapse that will have to happen anyway. I wouldn’t over-estimate the extent of the disaster that may come about through a collapse of the currency. It will no doubt be horrible for old people like me who can’t get a job any more, and will probably starve, but human ingenuity will soon devise an effective new system of payment. Dr. Schacht pulled Germany out of a desperate situation in 1923, partly I understand by using an element of barter. (You shouldn’t exaggerate the idea of barter. I think it is a bit like a bankrupt person still being able to trade in cash, when he has any. There will still have to be a money of account, and it will need to have a degree of stability. It could be gold, or it could be bitcoin.)
We shouldn’t give up hope, but any solution to our problems may be only partial and temporary, and it must take account of the fact that, for members of our species, there are three ways of dealing with each other: by fair exchange, by force, and by deception. The people who live by deception will do their best to confuse the issue. They are probably the people who will be most responsible if we disappear in a cloud of radioactive dust.
Thank you for a very lucid description of the world economic system of today.
I saw it change; I saw my country go from a self sufficient trading member of the British Commonwealth with full employment to a client state with ever increasing unemployment and cost of living and a general feeling of personal insecurity.
The solution? How do we stop feeding the GW Shark? How do we re-educate folk and quickly? I’m all for it.
it’s not war economy to sustain itself.
it’s capitalist economy
that necessitates colonialism for “growth” for profits,
which needs military might to sustain,
which necessitates war.
these are almost instantaneous steps,
but nonetheless in that order logically.
Excellent, rational piece. It’s too bad there’s really no interest in truth “out there.” It’s all hysteria and propaganda in the MSM, nothing else allowed. That’s our reality on practically everything these days.
Reading Caitlin is like a breath of fresh air in the stinking rotten hurricane coming from the US rich man’s mafia.
I hope the attack on Ukraine is enough for Russia’s “defense” and they stop there and do not attack Republic of Moldova also.
Well that depends on what the West does. Have they armed Moldova? Does Moldova have a US military base like Romania? Have they made themselves a target?
Republic of Moldova has Russian military occupation in the region of Transnistria.
Just want to give you a big Thank You for the Ginormous Truth Bombs when most of the world acts like they just woke up Yesterday from a 20 year Coma,
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Thanks and it’s sad that the real losers here are the people that aren’t crazy still living in the ukraine.