Listen to a reading of this article:
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Reuters reports that Facebook and Instagram are now allowing calls for the death of Russians and Russian leaders in exemption from the platforms’ hate speech terms of service due to the war in Ukraine:
“Meta Platforms will allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion, according to internal emails seen by Reuters on Thursday, in a temporary change to its hate speech policy.”
Twitter has also altered its rules against incitement and death threats in the case of Russian leaders and military personnel, as Ben Norton explains here for Multipolarista.
Last month we also learned that Facebook is now allowing users to praise the Ukrainian neo-Nazi Azov Battalion because of the war, a move that is arguably the most liberal thing that has ever happened.
Exclusive: Facebook will temporarily allow posts calling for violence against Russians, calls for Putin's death https://t.co/ZybE2Cn6t6 pic.twitter.com/DKMoY3npTA
— Reuters World (@ReutersWorld) March 10, 2022
Western institutions everywhere are rejecting all things Russia with such a savage degree of xenophobia it really ought to shock anyone who was born after the 1800s. Everything from Russian athletes to Russian musicians to Russian-made films to Russian composers to Russian Netflix shows to lectures about Russian authors to Russian restaurants to Russian vodka to Russian-bred cats to Russian trees to dishes that sound a little too much like “Putin” have been cancelled to varying degrees around the western world.
Normally when the US and its allies are involved in a war they’ll at least pay lip service to the notion that they have nothing but good will for the people of the enemy nation, claiming they only oppose their oppressive rulers. With Russia it’s just a complete rejection of the entire culture, the entire ethnicity. It’s a widespread promotion of hatred for the actual people because of who they are.
These are the people who are being smashed with crushing economic sanctions while western pundits proclaim that “There are no more ‘innocent’ ‘neutral’ Russians anymore” and ask “At what point do you hold a people responsible for putting an evil despot in power?” This even as the Russian people are being arrested by the thousands in anti-war protests, putting to shame our own western society that has generally slept through war after war in the years since 9/11 while our militaries have been killing of millions of people.
And this is all over a war that the western empire knowingly provoked, almost certainly planned in advance, and appears to be doing everything possible to ensure that it continues. Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp reports that Washington is still to this day not engaging in any serious diplomacy with Moscow over this conflict, preferring to strangle Russia economically and pour weapons into Ukraine to make the war as painful and costly as possible. Both of these preferences just so happen to nicely complement the US empire’s goal of unipolar planetary hegemony.
Meanwhile the entire western political/media class seems to be doing everything it can to turn this from a regional proxy war into a very fast and radioactive World War 3. Calls for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which would require directly attacking the Russian military and risking a nuclear exchange in the resulting escalations, are now ubiquitous. Claims that more directly confrontational military aggressions against Russia won’t start a nuclear war (or that it’s worth the risk anyway) are becoming more and more common in western punditry. Democrats are braying for Russian blood while Republicans like Tom Cotton and Mitt Romney are attacking Democrats for being insufficiently hawkish and escalatory in this conflict, creating a horrifying dynamic where both parties are trying to out-hawk each other to score political points and nobody is calling for de-escalation and detente.
As luck would have it, US officials have also selected this precarious nuclear tightrope walk as the perfect time to begin hurling accusations that Russia is preparing a biological attack, potentially as a false flag blamed on Ukraine or the United States. This coincides with Victoria Nuland’s admission before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Ukraine has “biological research facilities” that the US is “quite concerned” might end up “falling into the hands of Russian forces”.
All of this on top of the unprecedented wave of authoritarian censorship that has been tearing through the US-centralized empire as our rulers work to quash dissident voices around the world. It certainly is interesting that the fight for freedom and democracy requires so much censorship, warmongering, xenophobia, propaganda and bloodlust.
It’s almost enough to make you wonder: are we the baddies?
I am of course only trying to make a point here. Geopolitical power struggles are not contested by opposing sides of heroes and baddies like a Marvel superhero movie, though you’d never know it from all the hero worship of Volodymyr Zelensky and the self-righteous posturing of mainstream westerners over this war. Vladimir Putin is no Peter Parker, but neither is Zelensky or Biden or any of the other empire managers overseeing this campaign to overwhelm all challengers to US global domination.
The power structure loosely centralized around the United States is without question the single most depraved and destructive on earth. No one else has spent the 21st century waging wars that have killed millions and displaced tens of millions. No one else is circling the planet with military bases and working to destroy any nation on earth which disobeys it. Not Russia. Not China. Nobody.
The hypocrisy, dishonesty and phoniness of this whole song and dance about Ukraine is one of the most distasteful things that I have ever witnessed. Rather than engaging in click-friendly Instagram activism with blue and yellow profile pics making risk-free criticisms of a foreign leader in a far off country who has nothing to do with us, perhaps we would be better served by a bit more introspection, and by a somewhat more difficult stance: intense scrutiny of the corruption and abuses running rampant in our own society.
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78 responses to “Umm… Are We The Baddies?”
What’s this ‘we’ shit?
Does ‘our government’ have a mouse in its pocket?
I am a veteran of the USA’s illegal participation in the Vietnam civil war, and, as such, I can say for certain that, yes, we are the bad guys.
JUST SAY “NO” TO NATO!
The propaganda campaign for this war is being conducted on a level not seen since the full-on Yellow Peril output during WWII. Our western chant leaders appear to be conducting a russophobic race war as much as anything else I’ve seen suggested. What the hell Putin hopes to gain is beyond me. His stated goals were accomplished with the recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk. (John Hawkins over on OpEd News has an interesting recent interview with someone convinced it’s all about Russian Orthodoxy and boosting oil prices.)
Speaking of hate, I hope it’s okay to hate the kind of idiocy it takes for an American congressman to call for a no-fly zone. I wouldn’t want them canceled or censored, but if it’s not too late, having them neutered would just be simple good sense.
As for that silly CounterPunch pseudo-analysis discussed above, I think Johnstone says everything necessary about such smear jobs in the article these Comments follow.
The WESTS propagandists and social engineers have been let off the lease to run rampant. I’ve never seen so much theatre and bullshit in all my life, lol. Hang on for the ride people, this just keeps getting crazier. Hint, hint, people in a heightened state of anxiety and tension are much easier to cult program.
What happens when the rest of the world decides to hold the American people responsible for the actions of their evil leaders? Karma is a bitch.
The sanctions on Russia will just expediate the Rothschilds FREE BRI !
There is NO going back to the Rothschilds criminal banking cartel !
It is now Impossible !
I have been saying for many years – China and Russia have not been hoarding GOLD for nothing !
They KNEW this day was coming !
Counterpunch has been taken over by the CIA !
You – my friend are a complete FUCKING moron for even posting it !
Notice it was published ??
Russia have Zelensky completely fvcked !
Zelensky will own nothing and be unhappy !
See for yourself !
https://southfront.org/nationalist-fighters-in-mariupol-call-for-help/s
One set of ideologies pitted against others .Out come winner takes all ! and then what, the world can look forward to a rebranding of a new and improved eugenics movement
I doubt it !
Jack, I agree with your post 100%. Because of Russia’s enviable self defence abilities, their enemies KNOW they cannot attack them openly, so back door methods must suffice. BUT, the propaganda war waged against them, is a two edged sword. Whilst it may be succcesful in rallying western nations against all things Russian, it WILL blow back at the end of the day. When leaders of Western nations will HAVE to sit down with Russian leaders to negotiate a peace deal, the fact the vilification released against the Russian people’s will never be forgotten and will intrude into everything ever again discussed.
Don’t you worry. The Russians grew up with the SovCom Party, a fountain of bullshit spanning twelve time zones; bullshit du jour from Izvestia and Iskra which everyone parroted but nobody believed. (Think of American Republican Party) They know the game better than the West.
We can on behalf of decency and civilization stop this war NOW. Russia’s military strategy and goals are unfathomable. Unless they turn the whole Ukraine into a gravel pit, what can they achieve? More fighting makes for more dead Ukrainians, for a second Stalingrad in Kyiv. If Russia wins, they get a crippled, bleeding wreck of a country. Or maybe an Iron Curtain down the Dneiper with West and East Kiev, a living Cold War museum. If the people of the West demand a cease-fire, it will happen. The Russian Army has just pulled off a mighty Shitzkrieg, moving slower than Napoleon’s oxcart supply train when it went to Moscow. They will bargain to stop this mighty pratfall. Just stand up for peace.
Steve, it amazes me that you can claim to know what Russia’s military strategy is. Are you an analyst employed by the Australian Government and privy to information that we are denied ??? You state your confusion of their strategy, but in reality, have no idea of what that strategy really is. You are basing your understanding of this situation on information supplied to you, from highly compromised MSM sources and vested Western Govt interests, and totally IGNORE the FACT, Western nations have been building up the military in Ukraine ever since 2014. Providing them with military equipment and training at a time when there was no signs of confrontation. How come this was IGNORED by yourself and your cohorts ,who are now all raving on about Russia being the bad guys, when in fact this response from Russia was EXPECTED, and DELIBERATELY arranged to happen ? IMHO, folks like yourself and others who have swallowed the FANTASY being perpetuated by Vested interests, need to calm down, take a deep breath and reassess your view of the whole situation. IF, you continue to go down the road you are currently going down, I suggest you get ready to front up at the CONSCRIPTION office, when you are called to do so, don the Australian military uniform, and go throw your life away on behalf of the Ukrainians, who you seem to be so concerned about. Do YOU believe, THEY would do the same, if Australia were to be threatened ? L.O.L. Have I got news for you.
Yadda, yadda yadda. I’ve read Jomini and per his decent systems of analysis, the Shitzkrieg is a disaster. And Jomini based his analysis on simple principles of warfare. It doesn’t matter what babble is on the Internet. It’s a fucking disaster that will scorch itself in the history books. So be amazed. Be very, very amazed. Russia tends to field C+ grade armies, and I’m rather appalled that they haven’t changed. The US usually fields B- grade armies; see the Kasserine Pass and WWII in Africa. Be amazed I can tell shit from Shinola without reading the label. But the Shitzkrieg will go down in history with Agincourt as a battle that couldn’t be lost, but was.
Here’s how you can think about Operation Mars 2022 (the top secret Russian name for the invasion, shhh.) The southeast coastline of Ukraine goes from Crimea to Melitopol to Mariupol to the Rostov-on-Don in Russia. Mariupol is 200 km west of Rostov, Melitopol 250 km. west of that. Crimea is about 100 km. west of Melitopol.
Each end of this string is Russian territory with Russian armed forces. Yet neither Melitopol to Mariupol have been taken, even with full seacoast exposure.
Canberra to Melbourne is about 600 km, relatively the same distance.
Let’s say I’m the king of the Wangaratta-Wagga-Wagga kingdom, and Australia wants me out. The ADF have 150,000 armed forces split between Melbourne and Canberra, and thrust them at me in a pinchy-pinchy movement. But I’ve held them off for 15 days now. I’d say that it’s no state secret that the ADF (which actually only has 30,000 folks) is rather screwing the pooch in overthrowing my empire. So let’s sit down and have a few friendly glasses instead.
Even if I have ripping good top-quality military armaments.
Listen to someone who actually know’s what he’s talking about. Perhaps then have another attempt at a coherent comment.
We stood up for peace in Iraq when the ZIO/US/NATO slaughtered 2.5 million Iraqi’s for OIL !!
Caution: sarcasm.
Oh, good for you. Here’s a 2003 “Mission Accomplished” lapel pin signifying that you tried, once. It comes with an autographed picture of the cast of NYPD Blue for sneering at.
Advocating for humanity is relentless, thankless, frustrating and never-ending. You lose more than you win. Now how do we stop THIS war TODAY?
Not by promoting ethnic hatred.
?
Steve, the information made available to us cannot be trusted. And on the US side they unleashed massive info war on us with the purpose of simply upsetting us, I think we have to do what “successful” and “elite” do: to have a good handle on our emotional responses. I quit reading the news mostly, it seems the major sides to conflict do not want to negotiate, just want to scream about the other side being horrible. Once you don’t care, then you will be able to clearly see what the situation is (except we don’t have access to truthful news), and perhaps just tell all the governments involved to go take a hike – they want the conflict. The only way we the people can stop the conflict is to extinguish it in our own mind.
When the government propaganda becomes powerless, they will have to try something else, maybe.
I am not interested in the news. I am interested in the military progress of this war and any way that the killing can stop.
I am unpleasantly shocked how little Russian military doctrine has improved. All indications are of a Stalingrad 2.0 in Kiev. Perhaps the abandoned wreckage of the old city will be dubbed “Putingrad.”
There is no reason the people cannot stop this war run by their “leaders.” Children never die valiantly in a horror they do not understand. We know we can do Stalingrad or Nagasaki. Why don’t we arrest a war that can rival those “successes?”
“Last month we also learned that Facebook is now allowing users to praise the Ukrainian neo-Nazi Azov Battalion because of the war, a move that is arguably the most liberal thing that has ever happened.”
Perhaps it’s because a battalion is but a small force, 400 to 500 strong, that it is of such insignificance on this particular battlefield we can now cheer it on as an overwhelming underdog, no matter what its ideological make-up happens to be.
Similar to the Spartans, perhaps, who were hardly the liberals of their day, everyone in Greece, no matter where they resided on the Overton Window of the Ancients, was rooting for the small band of Spartans as they marched toward the pass at Thermopylae in 480 BC.
Led by Spartan unterKing Leonidas, often mistaken nowadays for the unterrated actor Gerald Butler, these 300 Spartans and somewhere between 700 and 1500 historical extras proceeded to get themselves slaughtered to the last man to no geopolitcal, operational, strategic or tactical gain.
In fact, there is a case to be made that unterKing Leonidas had the worst military mind of any commander of men in recorded history.
That said, what’s interesting for those of us who are actually following the current movements of the Azoz Battalion, it now appears to have been fixed in place, along with 50 other battallions, and the Russian Federation has lumped all them into a category increasingly being referred to as, the Azov Army, which is now trapped in what was known before Day 1 as, the Azov Pocket that has yet to be formed.
western pundits proclaim that “There are no more ‘innocent’ ‘neutral’ Russians anymore” and ask “At what point do you hold a people responsible for putting an evil despot in power?”
Well, in the U.S., we’re different. We don’t put an evil despot in power. Instead, we put in power a series of evil despots in power that still must answer, like puppets whose strings are pulled by the oligarchs who sit at the very top of the political, cultural and financial structure.
DeNazify Counterpunch!
DeNazify twitter!
DeNazify Facebook!
DeNazify the corporate US/Eu MSM Empoire of Lies media.
DeNazify America and Europe!
CounterPunch is a CIA / NED / NSA / FBI /DemoRep Empire Asset.
Yes Thomas, of course it is. Jeeeeeze!!!
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No doubt that led to them publishing the following article
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/16/the-u-s-did-not-defeat-fascism-in-wwii-it-discretely-internationalized-it/
Actually you’re right: something went wrong with CounterPunch in 2016. They began to suddenly purge select authors (like Caitlin Johnstone for example!) from their contributors. Especially any who were alt-right, such as Diana Johnstone, Mike Whitney (now at Unz.com), Craig Roberts etc. I think they were pressured by intelligence agencies to be more critical of Russia as they clearly went into ‘we hate Russia’ mode spearheaded by Joshua Frank who is, pardon my French, an obnoxious ass. He drove away many of the good contributors. There are still many good authors there, but it wreaks of a faux pseudo-left bent, i.e. they’re a bunch of shit-libs.
I’d like to see Johnstone’s response to Counterpunch regarding this article:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/11/a-closer-look-at-the-prose-of-caitlin-johnstone/
We can go on having endless conversations in attempts to expose obvious misinformation indefinitely. We have to recognize, however, that while we are doing so that thousands of people in Ukraine are being killed in horrific ways by Ukrainian militias, this would imply people of Russian descent currently living in Ukraine.
~
A better approach would be to post good information that helps the American public as well as the publics of all western governments see the situation for what it is, and I would posit that this is a situation that was initiated by the United States which is still fanning the flames of war within Ukraine in an attempt to topple Russia.
Sounds like this writer wants to steal Caitlin’s fans.
The author was doing well I thought until this sentence.
“I wonder how Johnstone’s dismissive condescension might strike the elderly people and children currently facing annihilation under the punishing Russian bombing campaign.”
There is no evidence yet, visual or forensic, of a single bomb being dropped by either side in this conflict, so the idea that a bombing campaign of some kind is underway, “punishing” or otherwise, does bear scrunity.
I would submit, that if the Russian Federation did in fact commit to a bombing compaign in Ukraine, fornensic evidence will not required for proof, there will be millions of pieces of evidentary data instantly available, a vast majority of which will be visual.
It is important to note as well, that not just the elderly and the children of Ukraine would be facing annihilation, but men and women of all ages would be as well, if indeed the Russian Federation chose to use their bombers. Today’s bombers are considered precision war implements by the various militaries that have them, they can drop their bombs, from even extreme altitudes, with enough confidence they will all detonate on impact within a predetermined “box.”.
But what these falling bombs are at prestent incapable of, is accurately determining the age or sex of any living organism that might or not be in this “box” when they detonate.
How could he be doing well until there? He face-planted at the very first examination of content regarding the relative success of the Russian campaign vs the Ukrainian defence. A well-regarded expert on the subject covers that topic within this concise but extensive summary of both the causes and the process of the engagement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRFjlnoMCeE&t=90s
The author of the critique is simply extruding recycled gruel for shekels. A nobody in both name and character. It’s notable that Counterpunch don’t offer facility for reader comment beneath their assemblage of hackery.
The author’s attempt to criticise Cailtin’s article is feeble at best.
His misunderstanding of her statement about the war not going well for Kyiv attempts to counter it by saying the opposite, but without any supporting evidence (either). It also reflects his ignorance of the tactics that the Russian army is using, not the usual ‘shock and awe’ ones that Western militaries use almost exclusively.
He then gets confused by her reference to Ukraine being a ‘US client state’ thinking that it denied its language or 1000 plus years history, and then sets off on a rambling diatribe about what he thinks Caitlin supports, and fails to make a coherent point.
And then he gets hung up on her use of the word ‘apparently’ without understanding the function or the meaning of that word in the context.
And on, and on, and on…….
He reveals his lack of understanding, knowledge and ignorance at every step of his long article. A brave attempt, perhaps, to portray himself as a debunker of misinformation, but from the start falls into the trap he tries to set, or as they say ‘shoots himself in the foot’.
Guy is too full of himself to ever notice that you are ridiculing him with his own pomposity.
Counterpunch has been taken over by the CIA !
You – my friend are a complete FUCKING moron for even posting it !
Notice it was published ??
I saw that article and thought: is this guy a Christian theologian? The way he misuses language and straw arguments while nitpicking at trivialities and vocabulary qualify him for graduate Jesuit status. My experience with his kind in the Sixties tells that men like him actually hate and fear the downtrodden masses they pretend to champion, the same way their lunatic hero Marx did. They seem to be madly in love with rigid Manichean doctrines because something is missing that manifests in other people as ordinary human empathy. Maybe they’ve outgrown the ancient superstitions of being the Chosen Ones or The Saved, but they seem to still need to believe something, anything to elevate themselves above the rest of their kind. Or maybe it’s just something to silence that relentless inner critic that won’t allow them to be at peace with just being one more bozo on the bus, no better or worse than any other. It’s a common problem in our insane consumer society!
*
Many years ago I lived for a time in Appalachia, on a farm with my new wife’s parents, and for this Boston boy it was a revelation. Down there some of the most decent people I’ve ever met had politics (and a certain angry, judgmental religion) I couldn’t stomach, while up here many of those I tended to agree with politically were such insecure phony-intellectual snobs I couldn’t stand them socially. I keep this lesson in mind.
+1
What an annoying pissant that one is!
For starters, that guy should stick to playing music.
My appreciation of you, Caitlin, has gone up several notches. Counterpunch has done a nice hatchet job! I read it – as I read just about everything, and the hatchet author has put out a slick, well written piece of propaganda refuting just about everything you have written. Through the perusal of one article.
Counterpunch has been slipping lately. I noted through its ‘clandestine’ support of Covid vaccines whilst railing against the manufacturers finances.
What has shocked me about Counterpunch is the same as Lenin felt when the good socialists in each and every country in Europe and beyond rallied behind their country’s war flag in WW1. Counterpunch has done the same. Article after article, Ukraine good, Russia bad. When put to the pressure test Counterpunch squeezed out pure Stars and Stripes.
Putin supports covid vaccines too. Be like Putin, get vaccinated.
Hatchet job? Tried but failed. Slick? No, confused and rambling. Propaganda? Certainly, he is spouting the official narrative, naively believing it to be true.
I wonder if he didn’t recognise himself as one of the ’empire apologists’ she mentions, and reacted badly.
I think the mask has come of the globalists here and we can clearly see they kind of people that they are. They will brutally kill anyone that opposes them. I need to emphasize that these people are a supra-national globalist cabal, and the American people need to understand that after they finish wiping out all opposition other than the United States that they will then turn their attention to the American people themselves. People in America need to inform themselves and start bringing pressure to bear on their state and national governments, by flooding their offices with mail, email and phone calls.
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https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57032.htm
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https://www.amazon.com/Documentary-Vladimir-interference-Director-Lopatonok/dp/B071L2FSPW
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https://www.amazon.com/Revealing-Ukraine-Oliver-Stone/dp/B0817CQDWG
Weird, I can’t mention rumbledotcom or my post gets deleted.
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See how completely censored the media is.
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The above videos are available on rumbledotcom as well.
Revealing Ukraine: https://www.bitchute.com/video/oyIrXISOHZvM/
Ukraine on Fire: https://www.bitchute.com/video/ojxAboKHI1UF/
…..to respond to a phrase….amerikkkants don’t kill by accident….it’s called “collateral damage” called GENOCIDE…..sure other scumbags had methods and means…..amerikkkants are just better at bullshit….hollywood anyone?……
My fellow Americans are a curious lot. They think they can deny others the right of free speech and still retain it for themselves. They fail to see why it must apply to all or cease
to exist.
……another great essay caitlin….your title question has this amerikkkants answer……YES!….since 1492…..perhaps even earlier….since the crusades……seeing all the “white” refugees……holy shit!….we gotta save ’em!…..seeing all the “black” and “brown” refugees….fuck ’em….let ’em freeze, drown, put ’em in prison camps!….. makes one wonder…..amerikkkant exceptionalism fortified with white supremist ideology going global in the latest marvel production of the “great reset”….what a fucking term that is!…..i will not be surprised at much anything else at this point….even the sprouting of mushroom clouds……no marvel productions as sequels after that……no more bullshit….just……………………………………………
Oh, Facebook is cool with death threats now?
+
Where is the Unabomber now that we could use his services over at Facebook?
+
Blast you, Mark Zuckerberg!
Great, European diplomat is calling for sanctions on Russian journalists … for disinformation.
There is only one hope – that the officials will get tired of themselves. Unlikely?
Pls explore the SMITH MUNDT ACT modernization in 2012. How many asses in seats would a SNOWDEN PUTIN ONE ON ONE garner ? Is Seymour Hersh still alive ? Yeah, I thought so,PUSSY!
I listened to a lecture on Emerson and American Transcendentalism.
Emerson lived at a time when US Congress passed infamous “Indian Removal Act” that was a legal background for “The Trail of Tears”, in present times known as Genocide (International crime).
Another trend happening at the time was dehumanization happening because of Industrialization, as well as a cognitive conflict between farmers and industrial workers because of the emergence of Money in a new role.
Self sustaining Farmers did not have or need much Money, while factory workers did not have any other source for sustenance except their income.
The new trend we are living in right now is Technology, and I am afraid that it leads to further dehumanization and destruction of society.
Actual social fabric is replaced by Facebook, Instagram, Twitter where conversations are adversarial, and often by some trolls fighting for their purported ideals.
While in person American people are nice and not violent, on these “social platforms” one can declare the whole nations to be their enemy.
Sorry, these are fascist “social networks” and anybody who treasures their remaining humanity should log out immediately.
Once I closed my FB account, they started to show me ads on Youtube asking me to come back. Not a chance of that.
Tocqueville remarked something to the effect that the United States had dispossessed the Indians of all their lands in the absolute respect of their Constitution. He also noted that “the need for a political majority has become virtually the only limit on government” and that “the democratic tendency leads men unceasingly to multiply the privileges of the state and to circumscribe the rights of private persons, often sacrificed without regret and almost always violated without remorse” adding that “men become less and less attached to private rights just when it is most necessary to retain and defend what little remains of them.” The fact that he said that almost two centuries ago doesn’t necessarily call for optimism…
In a Dec. 18, 1890, letter to The New York Times commenting on the conclusion of the Plains Indian Wars, Sherman expressed deep regret that were it not for “civilian interference,” his army would have “gotten rid of them all” and killed every last Indian in the United States. It is an unfair allegation that Indians were displaced from their ancestral homelands. They were merely placed six feet under them.
My parents lived through the Red Scare. In Catholic school, they passed out anti-communist pamphlets, we were trained to fear a Russian nuclear attack. Bond battled Russian assassins. My older friends served in Nam to prevent the domino effect, they all returned with PTSD. There was a pivot to the Middle East with babies and incubators, but the fear of Russia and China has been deeply ingrained. Putin controlling Trump was a surprisingly easy sell. With Ukraine, now the young folks get a taste of the fear and loathing, on steroids with social media.
ZIO/US/NATO can’t do anything – so they won’t – they would be humiliated !
Taliban retook Kabul in ONE week – bloodlessly and unopposed !
ZIO/US/NATO ran so fast that they left 80 billion dollars worth of SH!T behind !
Ask yourself – why would they do that if they were not SH!TTING themselves ???
Humiliation is the DEATH of a superpower and the ZIO/US/NATO militaries KNOW it !
And what happened to the ‘over the horizon ‘ BS that they were going to to devastate Afghanistan with after they left ???
Russia can stop ANYTHING they have !
As the punchline to an old joke goes, “What you mean ‘We’…”
We are being manipulated by control-narrative, and it is getting pretty loose, slippery and desperate.
The funding is jumping from old (COVID Pandemic) to new (WAR!) control narrative, but occasionally in history, in a corrupted regime, the truth gets out and gets some traction, and a decade of making sense of hard-times might begin. https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/just-passed-it?s=w
CONTROL-NARRATIVE PIVOT ALERT:
The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to pass a $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill that includes $13.6 billion in aid for Ukraine and European allies, and would fund the federal government through to Sept. 30.
Hours earlier, Democratic lawmakers scrapped the bill’s initial $15.6 billion COVID-19 aid provision, marking a major setback for the Biden administration who had pushed for weeks to have the additional funds approved.
“We’ve got a war going on in Ukraine,” Pelosi told reporters…
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/house-passes-15-trillion-spending-bill-136-billion-ukraine
So now it’s OK to talk about killing Russkies and especially Putin on Facebook and Instagram?! So much for so-called Hate Speech! “Holy Double Standard, Batman!”
Best,
Horror/thriller author S.A. Hogan
We were the baddies, nazis TRIED to emulate? We killed far more, here in The States, by accident, than Hitler murdered with industrial death camps, total war, SA, SS and Einsatzgruppen put together. Biden’s puppeteers are merely saving Albright’s fracked LNG export Ponzi scheme (and assholes like us VOTED these senile, zombie kleptocrats in, AGAIN!)
https://mronline.org/2022/03/11/when-did-the-ukraine-war-begin/
https://asiatimes.com/2022/03/bidens-russian-roulette-may-kill-dollar-dominance/
https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=94&v=OeeqooNWO48&feature=emb_title
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2022/03/05/bunny-rabbits-and-the-big-bad-wolf-ukraine-and-russia-through-the-lens-of-western-reporting/#comment-1055
When I did a search yesterday re >ukraine invasion could easily have been prevented<, one of the results that came up was a Telegraph article (published on Feb 25th, the day after the invasion kicked off) headlined 'SIUE Expert: Ukraine invasion could have been prevented', but it wasn't what you may have presumed it was about, but then again, it is the Telegraph after all! Here's what they meant – ie what their 'expert' says!:
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Watching the events unfold in Ukraine on Thursday was painful for Wilson who couldn't help but wonder what could have been done, even recently, to keep Russia from invading Ukraine.
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“Just two weeks ago, if we had offered military support to Ukraine, through NATO troops or other troops, I strongly believe that this invasion could have been prevented,” Wilson said. “But we said we’re too scared of Russia to do that……"
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So first it says blah, blah, blah 'who couldn't help but wonder what could have been done…. to keep Russia from invading Ukraine', and THEN immediately goes on to quote her as saying what she thinks COULD have been done, and that 'if' just two weeks ago 'we had offered military support to Ukraine' etc, she strongly believes the invasion could have been prevented, but we didn't because 'we said we're too scared of Russia to do that'. WTF is she on about! Who's this 'we' she claims said that 'we're too scared of Russia to do that'? It's just complete and utter B/S. I mean it's all such asinine nonsense it's really hard to believe they published such rubbish AND supposedly thought/believed their readers would swallow such bunkuml!
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Oh, come to think of it, I do now recall President Biden saying a week or two before the invasion that we'd like to send NATO troops to Ukraine to deter Putin from invading, "but we're too scared of Russia to do that". My apologeegees
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https://www.thetelegraph.com/news/article/SIUE-Expert-Ukraine-invasion-could-have-been-16946976.php
Reddit is also allowing violent torture fantasies if they are about Putin or Russians.
https://www.reddit.com/r/UkrainianConflict/comments/tbbbcd/facebook_temporarily_allows_posts_on_ukraine_war/i069b2b/
Reported to Reddit and told it does not violate policy.
Also, a school in Germany where children from former Soviet states study has been set on fire.
https://www.bild.de/regional/berlin/berlin-aktuell/wegen-putins-ukraine-krieg-brandanschlag-auf-internationale-berliner-schule-79418354.bild.html
It’s going to get worse.
I’m surprised they haven’t got out of the moth balls yet the old “soldiers gouging out babies’ eyes to play marbles” that the Brits invented in 1914 to trigger “Huns” hatred or “soldiers taking babies out of incubators to throw them to the ground” that the CIA invented in 1990 to trigger Iraqi hatred. I personally won’t settle for anything less than soldiers throwing babies against the wall or eating them alive. We’re in the XXIst century for Chrissakes!
Doug: me, 77.
This paragraph was the most profound and demanding of deep consideration that I have seen for a long time:
“Normally when the US and its allies are involved in a war they’ll at least pay lip service to the notion that they have nothing but good will for the people of the enemy nation, claiming they only oppose their oppressive rulers. With Russia it’s just a complete rejection of the entire culture, the entire ethnicity. It’s a widespread promotion of hatred for the actual people because of who they are.”
This is an extraordinary feature of the current situation. I have never seen anything like it in, what, I suppose 60 years of following current affairs. In the UK way back we had the IRA standing up for injustice in Northern Ireland carrying out bombing attacks actually in the UK, not in a faraway country which most people couldn’t find on a map, but I don’t recall mass hatred of the Irish. The twin towers were obliterated by Saudis; I don’t recall mass hatred of the Arabs being voiced, some general islamophobia yes, but. Something is seriously out of joint. What is it?
1.There is I think still some hangover from the days when the west was utterly brainwashed into believing that the USSR was about to invade and kill them all.
2. The degree of propaganda against Russia and China has been amplified by the MSM to an extraordinary extent in, shall we say, the last ten years, building up to an incredible level over the past five. It is difficult for people who do not look outside the Overton window to get a balanced view of what is going on.
3. And this is all driven by the utter fear of the USA administrations that they are losing their number one status, within a short time they will no longer be cock of the walk.
I have lost many friends and even fallen out with family in their belief that this all began two or three weeks ago. They simply cannot relate to the world as it is. I just despair, but as long as we have Caitlin, MOA, the Saker, Ron Unz and a few others we know that we are not alone.
DEAR GOD. WILL YOU PLEASE GET THIS WEB PAGE TO WORK O FIREFOX?
Nice post. Yes you’re spot on–many associates of mine have gone into ’emotional man child mode’ about Ukraine, i.e. they fly off the handle if you say the USA played a part in provoking the invasion. Here is one such reaction I got: “What!? You don’t understand the whole situation and listen to Russian propaganda. With your ideas you are against America–and that is your country! We are not in a neutral situation but near a war! In this case your opinions are absolutely unacceptable. You should try to live in Russia and then maybe begin to understand what is going on.” She can no longer objectively or rationally talk about Ukraine; only in dualities of evil/good, right/wrong etc. She cut me for dead after this exchange.
Quote, ““What!? You don’t understand the whole situation and listen to Russian propaganda. With your ideas you are against America–and that is your country! ” Unquote. Well after my own personal experiences in Vietnam, where my Government was co-opted to involve it’s citizens, whilst the politicians who arranged this, sat back with smug smile son their faces, considering what they can do with their financial windfall for succumbing to American demands. YES, I am totally against the U.S. of A. ever since, and unless they change their modus operandi, will be so for a very long time. B.T.W. I wonder what these folks supporting this crap would be, when they see their mates beside them being blown away in a foreign country, that had never lifted a hand against US, when THEY themselves, have the blood of these people on their own hands, then discover it was all for nought and a LIE ?
Truer words have never been spoken. The whole gaslighting operation is indeed disgusting with a magnitude of 8-9 on the Richter scale.
Fortunately the usual suspects make money out of it and legitimately hope to make even more.
That’s what Putin doesn’t understand. He hasn’t put Mammon into the equation and probably hasn’t fathomed how far the 7M (military medical mainstream media mafia’s mean motherfuckers) will go to make a buck.
The 7M themselves probably still don’t know. The Canadian bankers can give us an idea though. By cabinet order, they froze the bank accounts of the people who’d donated to the Freedom Convoy after the Emergencies Act was passed but not only. They disclosed yesterday in an exchange with Canadian House finance committee MPs that they also froze the accounts of individuals who never appeared on the RCMP blacklist of 257 names that they were given and will have all those guys’ files marked for life anyway. And here’s the best part: it turned out that some people’s accounts had even been frozen by mistake but never mind: it also turned out that the bankers would face “zero consequence” for freezing them (whatever consequences this meant for their victims) according to some law, just like the vaccine manufacturers were allowed unaccountability for not warning people about the possible side effects of their shots, including the deaths reported by the CDC’s VAERS which Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was even permanently banned for tweeting. Can’t make that stuff up! Official US government information! Unaccountability and arbitrary measures have always been the backbone of tyranny.
This is a formidable illustration of the aphorism attributed to Al Capone that “capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class” even if he forgot the best part: “in sheep’s clothing”. Because they’re the good guys (TM) and the good guys will get away with murder. Otherwise, what’s the point of being the good guys?
Yes, yesterday I learned that 2nd most powerful man in the world after the Potus is not Putin, but the Federal Reserve Chairman. From a course on Money and Banking.
I just read this about how the Feds paid, with taxpayers’ money, major media outlets to promote Covid vaccines also paid with taxpayers money. Can’t make that stuff up!
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/us-government-paid-major-media-outlets-promote-covid-vaccines/
Of course the fact that there’s never been as many Covid cases as since 80% of people have been vaccinated should not concern anybody anymore than the US Army being driven out of Afghanistan with no palpable results of its twenty years occupation other than having spent $2.2 trillion of taxpayers’ money there. i.e. $300 millions a day.
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/figures/2021/Human%20and%20Budgetary%20Costs%20of%20Afghan%20War%2C%202001-2021.pdf
If that’s not racket, I wonder what is…
I think the worst conflicts are the ones that they are trying to start in our minds.
As Byron Katie says, reality is kinder than our thoughts.
He who controls the printing presses is the First Amongst Equals, Philip 11 would often tell his son. This was long before his son came to be known as, Alexander the Great.
Alexander carried with him his father’s advice, as his tiny army advanced into heart of the Persian Empire circa 333 BC, seeking to do what in his time is known today as “freezing central banks assets,” which was to stroll through the gates the capital Persopolis, and physically seize the Empire’s gold.
One of the main reasons, in my opinion, perhaps even the first and foremost reason, the Russian Federation felt it could invade Ukraine, to realize whatever geopolitical aspirations they are seeking, is because they captured their own “independent” central bank in 2015, and made it their own, and now believe it is immune from any attacks the Federal Reserve and its Chairman.can make upon it.
It seems to have worked, because at the level of warfare two levels below that one, the operational level, the actual physical invasion Ukraine, the Russian Armed forces seemed to have achieved a stunning success, deflecting all the West’s attention to the Column of Immense Proportions now comfortably resting to the west of Kiev, while they go about systematically “reducing a pocket” in the Donbass, the first prioty on Russian General Staff’s plotting boards, almost unnoticed.
And apparently, FedRed Chairman Jerome Powell, is powerless to do anything about it.
The pocket will be reduced, this is a given, whether it will be reduced to the the “Zero Bound,” where the Fed’s interest rates have most often found themselves as of the last decade, has yet to be determined.
Obviously, the US, Russia, Ukraine, and most other governments play the Realpolitik game — nothing matters but power. Any moral or humanitarian or aesthetic considerations you see are propaganda for the masses. FB and Twitter are state organs. This doesn’t tell us what’s going on _now_. Let’s assume Putin and company are as rational and calculating as they are supposed to be; then the sudden invasion (or “special operation”) in Ukraine, instead of a mistake, must have been to preclude something similar on the part of the US. “Get there fustest with the mostest” is a principle of Realpolitik and the Russians may have done that. The situation is highly problematical for the US, as the sanctions will probably damage the US and its satellites more than they will damage Russia, so it was not rational to blow the situation up as the US seems to have done. It looks like the US ruling class is thrashing around and acting desperately. But what happened to occasion this reckless desperation? Things at my (prole) level didn’t seem any worse than usual a few months ago.
The racist/ xenophobic hatred of Russians, so easily turned on among Americans, especially liberals and progressives, is disappointing, indeed, irrational and infantile, but in spite of their vaunted individualism they are pretty easily led.
Yes, yes, and yes.
If you don’t see how you have been manipulated by MSM and your government then you are either very stupid, or part of this tyrannical
political system. Before Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine the media was reporting how corrupt and evil the Ukraine government and that Zelenski was a corrupt gangster – now look at what they are saying. Russia is doing the right thing, freeing the Ukrainian people of mobsters, rapists, drug lords, and most of all, their despotic government. The West’s propaganda is exactly the same as what thy did when they tried to bring down Syria with fake picture news reports and Russia thank god came to their aid. The West’s MO is always the same and now they are funding with our dollars this despicable regime and bring in their old buddies NATO White Helmets and al-Qaeda.
‘Before Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine the media was reporting how corrupt and evil the Ukraine government and that Zelenski was a corrupt gangster’
Were they?! I certainly don’t recall coming across anything to that effect. Could you post a link to one or two such articles. Thanks
No, but considering what other countries are moving toward [fascism, flaccid or turgid] and the globalization of everything (especially information), the US will probably go along to ‘stay competitive’.
I believe the US never came back from WWII and ‘crossed the Rubicon’ about twenty years back; we, collectively, have built our institutions, communities and lives around that ‘top-down authoritarianism’, with help from the organized church and the corporate press soothing the slow shift.
I believe theState is death, and one of the subtle expressions of the death instinct is willful ignorance-most of us don’t want to know what our government does. Deeper still, it seems we don’t want to know anything-where the bacon comes from, what’s in the vax, who funds IHME-and some/many/most turn away for the latest rerun of TheBigBowelMovement or RealHousewivesOfMarzapanBackMassagerCounty…distraction first, democracy second, if at all.
Seems US Government is afraid of introspection, social ties (as opposed to electronic ties like FB), and educated people (since US Congress transfers funds from education to military and even expects people to continue education in the military service as well as after it with the GI bill).
The anti Russian hysteria seems to be laying ground for genocide.
Genocide was made illegal by the UN in 1948.
FB sucks and people should just quit it, the FB literally wants you to be addicted to it while they show you ads.
Thank you for this. Seventy plus years in and I have never witnessed such a coordinated and accepted push towards hate in the USofA. It is disgusting.