Listen to a reading of this article:
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Higher fuel and food prices are a sacrifice I’m prepared to make in exchange for a greatly increased likelihood of nuclear armageddon.
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Let’s be clear: you’re not paying more for necessities to punish Putin and save Ukraine, you’re paying more for necessities to fund an economic war of unprecedented scale geared toward collapsing Russia to help secure US unipolar domination of this planet.
It’s not “Putin’s price hike”. This was all orchestrated by the empire, from root to flower. The goal is to use economic warfare and a costly counterinsurgency against western-backed Ukrainians to either collapse and balkanize the Russian Federation or foment enough discontent to secure regime change in Moscow. This is because Putin refuses to kiss the imperial ring.
The western empire could not possibly care less about Ukrainians beyond the extent to which they can be used to roll out this agenda. There hasn’t been nearly enough public rage about the fact that the US government knew this war was coming, knew exactly how to prevent it with very low-cost concessions to Moscow, and chose not to. They made that choice in order to advance this agenda.
That’s what you’re paying for as your cost of living skyrockets. Not freedom and democracy. Not saving Ukrainian lives. Just the very mundane and unsexy unipolarist objectives of a few sociopathic empire managers. Empire managers who, of course, will have no trouble paying for things like fuel and groceries while ordinary people struggle.
And if you think these cold war escalations against Russia are hurting your bank account, wait til the imperial crosshairs move to China.
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One under-appreciated aspect of online censorship is how the fear of losing a valuable platform understandably causes people to self-censor, thereby widening the radius of the censorship campaign’s effectiveness a lot further than the actual censorship.
Never thought I’d be so worried about being censored all the time. Very carefully and cautiously watching what I say and how I say it, deciding I shouldn’t even say it at all. Some democracy we have here on the internet. Very healthy.
— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) March 12, 2022
It’s exactly the same as the “cooling effect” that the persecution of whistleblowers and journalists has on leaks and investigative journalism. People shying away from speech they could be punished for does a lot more to restrict speech than the punishments themselves.
If for example a chemical attack occurs in Ukraine and is blamed on Russia, there will be great fear of questioning the official narrative about it on YouTube for fear of losing one’s platform because YouTube has banned skepticism of official stories about violence in that nation. People will self-censor to avoid being punished for their speech.
This is the exact same principle as a king having an artist who spoke ill of him tortured in the public square in order to deter future acts of dissent. Just re-packaged to be more palatable for the modern world.
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When someone brings up bad things the US does in response to outrage over bad things Russia does, it’s not to defend Russia. It’s to get the US to stop doing bad things.
Bleating “whataboutism” at sincere attempts to get the US empire to stop doing evil things is just defending those evil things. You’re basically just saying “Shut up! Now’s not the time to talk about the bad things the US power alliance does, we’re on something else right now!” Okay, so when? Never? Nothing has ever been done about the crimes of the empire. No meaningful changes whatsoever were made after Iraq.
Russia invading Ukraine doesn’t magically erase the fact that the western empire has spent the 21st century slaughtering people by the millions in wars of aggression and working to destroy any nation which disobeys it. Putin would have to work very, very hard to catch up to those numbers. That still needs to be talked about, and it still needs to end.
EXCLUSIVE: Twenty years after 9/11, compelling statistical data suggests that the true death toll of the 'War on Terror' is a staggering *6 million people*: which is likely a conservative estimate. I breakdown the data for @BylineTimes https://t.co/YTV6IoZ3ic
— Dr Nafeez Ahmed FRSA (@NafeezAhmed) September 15, 2021
People talk about this like it’s something in the past, something the US and its allies did back in history but now it’s Russia doing it. No, this is happening currently in Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, Venezuela etc, and will continue to happen unless drastic changes are made.
The murderousness, tyranny and omnicidal recklessness of the US-centralized empire is a problem of unequalled urgency regardless of what Russia happens to be doing. You can’t just bleat “whataboutism” and make that go away. It’s a problem that urgently needs to be dealt with.
It’s an objectively good thing if more attention is brought to that urgent problem by someone saying “Oh you’re upset about this war? Wait til you hear about what your own government has been doing.” Any attempt to interfere in their pointing this out is facilitating mass murder. Either help draw attention to this problem or stop interrupting people who are drawing attention to it with power-serving gibberish about “whataboutism”.
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During the Cuban Missile Crisis everyone had a healthy fear of nuclear annihilation, and people wanted de-escalation above all else. Today hardly anyone even cares about the insane nuclear brinkmanship games being played, and all mainstream factions are calling only for escalation.
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Western leaders appear to have gone to the NYPD Academy of De-Escalation.
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Schrödinger’s Putin: Simultaneously a crazy deranged lunatic and also much too level-headed and rational to respond to western escalations with nuclear weapons.
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Love how shitlibs finally decide to become “anti-war” the second their “anti-war” activism has a chance to help manufacture consent for World War 3.
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Four years of demented propaganda about an imaginary Trump-Russia conspiracy, Kremlin Facebook memes and GRU bounties in Afghanistan turned liberals into a bunch of gnashing, frothing zombies starved for Russian flesh. Ukraine just gave them something to sink their teeth into.
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Always wondered how long it would take for DuckDuckGo to get absorbed into the imperial narrative management campaign. https://t.co/yRHoUQHxe3
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) March 10, 2022
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I don’t understand the common sentiment on the left that we need to spend a lot of energy criticizing Putin for this war in the same way we criticize our own rulers for their warmongering. Like even forgetting about all the things western powers did to give rise to the war in Ukraine, what specifically is the argument here? That the English-speaking world doesn’t have enough criticism of the Russian invasion, and has too much criticism of NATO aggression? That if more antiwar lefties scream about Putin he’ll go “Ah shit I pissed off a few fringe westerners, let’s cancel the war you guys”? It just doesn’t seem like those who make such claims have thought very hard about the position they’re trying to advance.
Our voices can do far more good criticizing the actions of our own governments, which receive barely any criticism, than those of someone else’s government which gets tons. It also can’t be denied that there’s a major propaganda push to manufacture consent for dangerous agendas which pre-date the invasion by many years. Is my voice better used opposing those dangerous agendas, or in helping to facilitate them by saying the same things everyone else is already saying?
Putin is bad! Putin is bad and his war is very bad!
There. I did the thing. Can anyone tell me what I just accomplished, apart from greasing the wheels for new cold war escalations? Did I plow any new ground? Expand awareness in any new direction? What specific good did I do?
None that I can see.
The fact that the Russian people are doing a better job of holding their government to account with massive antiwar protests than people in western nations have says terrible things about us and our obsequiousness to our warmongering masters. If you can’t criticize your government, you are more obedient than Russians living under Putin.
Criticizing Putin is the easiest thing in the world for a westerner to do right now. Low cost, maximum clicks, but has zero impact on the conflict and will save zero people. Criticizing the west for its role is hard; it gets you outrage mobbed, deplatformed and shunned. But it could work.
None of these outrage merchants would ever dream of going against their own government, because if they tried they would find themselves smashed against the invisible walls of our inverted totalitarian cage. On some level they know this. That’s why they project.
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60 responses to “This Ain’t Putin’s Price Hike: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”
I don’t know what happened to the central part of my last comment. I sent it thru in its entirety, but the middle part has disappeared, so my words there make no sense, because a whole CHUNK is missing. And I’m not repeating all of that. What a PISSER. This website must be glitchy, I don’t appreciate that I can’t edit/revise it or delete it either. So there you go, NOT my fault, something wrong with the website, in case anyone was wondering why my other comment on this article made NO sense in the middle. (sigh).
ZING! LOVE this one, Cait, my favorite lines from the entire article, hits me on a very personal level right now, gimme the GOOSEBUMPS, why don’t you? >>> “The fact that the Russian people are doing a better job of holding their government to account with massive antiwar protests than people in western nations have says terrible things about us and our obsequiousness to our warmongering masters. If you can’t criticize your government, you are more obedient than Russians living under Putin.” <<< Oh, SNAP! WOOP, there it IS ~ & I wholeheartedly agree. I criticize my own government every chance I get, but still it always just falls on deaf ears, so I don't see how I'm doing any good either, I FEEL you, sista. But that said, it begs the following question: What the blue fuck ELSE can we DO about this? And please, DON'T send me yet another photo of the Millennium Falcon & more weak BS about starting "grassroots movements" in our own communities, because it's a USELESS effort, when the majority people are far too lazy, apathetic, & complacent to even pay attention to what we are saying. They call us "CRAZY", & they really BELIEVE that. What's more, they JUST *DON'T* *CARE* >> plant an “INCEPTION” somehow <<< that kind of thing), because the depressing fact is that what worked in the distant past no longer works on all the mindless, braindead, addicted SHEEPLE. WHAT MORE can we DO? There MUST be something. I cannot ENDURE any MORE of what I am seeing & experiencing in this "Brave New World". I'd rather FIGHT & DIE than continue to TOLERATE all of the sheer insanity & blind hatred & ugliness. There may be no help for it, maybe WWIII is a foregone conclusion, I see no other way to put a LASTING END to all the pure SHITE. It's the only way any of these mindless idiots are going to get a CLUE again, is when it HITS them right HERE at HOME, in a real & VISCERAL way they can no longer ignore. What else can be said or done, when no one is listening? Do tell, because I can't take much more of the insanity.
Russophobia 101 – I want to see the next time Israel bombing unarmed civilians in Gaza for 120 days and someone says – “Stop it!” The world will answer – “Anti semitic!!!”.
Great comment!
Caitlin,
I know your views on Julian Assange and on the Ukraine, and to the best of my understanding, I think you are right. Can I ask what you think about the Yemeni disaster? There seems to be pretty much a news blackout on that one, and from what I can see, it is a real atrocity, but we can’t talk about it, because it doesn’t put Saudi Arabia or Israel in a good light. Excuse me if I have missed an essay in which you have covered this one.
Sophisticated people used to describe the political world as a sort of sandhill, with a big “moderate” leading edge, and tails of “extremists” at both ends, which looped around until they almost joined. I seem to be on the right-hand tail, not so far from you on the left-hand tail.
Who knows – you can’t believe a thing these KSA says !
They claim they are doing humanitarian relief while they bomb the SH!T out the SAME Yemeni women and children everyday !
Marib, Yemen, March 13, 2022, SPA — King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSrelief) on Saturday distributed 27 tons and 927 kilograms of food baskets in Marib Governorate, Yemen, benefiting 1,566 individuals.
This aid comes within the 2021-2022 project food security in Yemen.The project aims to distribute more than 192,000 food baskets weighing more than 20,000 tons to needy and affected families in 15 Yemeni governorates.
You couldn’t make this SH!T up !
Claiming to deliver humanitarian food baskets to Yemen on the 13th March !
Bombing the SH!T out of Yemen on 14th March !
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/184839/Saudi-led-coalition-launches-airstrike-on-Yemen
Just believe nothing out of any Rothschilds controlled media anymore because it is ALL complete BS !
Australian Defence Legislation Amendment Bill 2020.
Allows for foreign military and police to assist in emergencies within Australia – at the behest of the Australian government. This does not restrict or determine the scope of the emergency – and grants the foreign military immunity from civil and criminal liability.
The bill is aimed squarely at the US giving assistance to the Australian government of the day. If, for instance, all major cities go on strike or violent protest and the rank and file of our military is passive or does not want to shoot Australian protesters – the US can send troops to do the job.
Not kidding. This act is designed to stifle large scale protests, FOR democracy.
Given the total interoperability of our defence forces – meaning we have to buy US weapons and systems, I wonder if the defence forces tardiness in going to flood aid was because they didn’t have at hand a US general to sign off on the deployment? US officers sit on our defence procurements boards, two US Admirals on our Submarine Acquisition Board and other US officers on our F-35, Abrams tanks, and helicopter boards… Australia cannot effectively move or respond to an emergency without US input or guidance.
And to think, I once thought those kind of peacekeeping invaders would be wearing blue helmets.
Apparently YT just deleted 550 videos of Abby Martins “Breaking the Set” series. Maybe just a question of days until they go for the “Empire Files”. That is one more critical voice silenced (in that it will be harder to hear that voice) and it will hardly end there.
I ask again: Have you prepared for when they are coming for you? For now the censors are sticking with DNS blocking, which is easy to overcome (also it might be a good idea to post links to your work using IP-adress instead of fqdn).
Readers – get informed about DNS over https or DNS over TLS, DO NOT use Google or Cloudflare DNS servers. Also do not blindly jump on VPN services, most of those are operated out of NATO countries and the clients could easily be used to track you even better.
And if you think i am being paranoid here – good luck with that.
The words of Hannah Arendt are also particularly relevant:”There are,indeed,few things that are more frightening than the steadily increasing prestige of scientifically minded brain trusters in the councils of governments during the last decades.The trouble is not that they are cold -blooded enough to ‘think the unthinkable ‘but that the do not think” My view I will call it institutionalized insanity among the elites in the military-industrial settings who using social scientist to assist in ethnic,racial and culture profiling as a weapon.
Russia stopped the ZIO/US/NATO bombing countries for OIL !
THAT’S why we got COVID and the lockdowns – it is OIL consumption suppression !
ZIO/US is OUT of OIL and the economy cannot continue – so they are shutting the whole FUCKING thing down !
US uses 40% more OIL per day than China – which has more than 4X the population !
The ZIO/US has been destroying ME countries for 80 FUCKING years to keep their OIL dependent PONZI economy going – it’s OVER !
The CIA are in damaged control after China asked could they explain the 330 military Bio – Weapons LABS that they have worldwide !!
China has just confirmed what has long been suspected – the Rothschilds are KILING humanity using the Rothschilds ‘created’ ISRAEL as the driver – the ZIO/US and their lackey vassals are doing the Implementing !
They win by making you think you are alone.
https://www.opindia.com/2022/03/us-has-336-biolabs-in-30-countries-including-26-in-ukraine-alleges-china/
Viewed part of a conversation earlier between Peter Medhurst and a female Bulgarian investigator about all of these dozens of biolabs around the world, all supported with multi-millions of dollars by the USA and all containing BSL-4 grade microbial pathogens (the most deadly breeds known). The labs we’ve recently heard about in Ukraine and Kazakhstan are just the tip of the iceberg. What struck me was when she said most of the scientists, apparently recruited into these backwaters from the “civilised” West, are given diplomatic status and thus immunity from investigation or prosecution for their work. They drive official cars with diplomatic plates and none of their baggage or cargo are ever subject to search or seizure. Everything they do and produce in these hidden away lairs is rigorously kept from the public and especially from any relevant regulatory agencies. They are untouchable and may be spreading as fast as McDonald’s Hamburger franchises in its logarithmic phase of growth. I suppose it is feasible, whether true or not, to quickly start a deadly epidemic anywhere on Earth of the CIA’s choosing from one of these facilities. Bio-weapons labs are supposed to be outlawed under international treaties. To find such American-funded facilities ringing its proclaimed enemies (along with military bases and missile launchers) must be investigated and shut down, which, of course, will never be allowed by the Guardians of the Galaxy. Will they stop with exterminating just Russians or Chinese? Or is everyone in their sights? To even research the efficacy of such plans, let alone to ever deploy such a scheme must be a crime against humanity. Yeah, I know, go tell it to Fauci.
Jake Sullivan just said that any accidental rocket falling in NATO territory will be seem as a (“threat”?) and it would demand a full response from the block. I wonder if he is just implying about a written answer because it is a fact among top generals NATO does not have strength neither power to face Russia in an open conflict.
Sorry to contradict you, Caity, but I’m anti-war, anti-killing, anti creating starvation and anti-my government’s behavior. Have been for a very long time. It’s nothing new for me.
“Whataboutism” is a word made up by narrow minded people who can’t tolerate their world views being challenged.
This looks like a direct threat of WWIII by the White House because a former Nato base in Western Ukraine came under attack from Russian missiles. I would surmise that it was probably a receiving port for the Western arms being delivered to Ukraine. The base was a few miles from the Polish border and the WH rep said this:
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“If there is a military attack on NATO territory it would cause the invocation of Article 5, and we would bring the full force of the NATO alliance to bear in responding to it,” he said to CBS News. Russia fired an estimated 30 missiles at the base which lies a mere minutes by car from Poland’s border. “All I will say is that if Russia attacks, fires upon, takes a shot at NATO territory, the NATO alliance would respond to that”.
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My read on this is that if a single missile or artillery shell overshoots into Poland, World War III is on. Lord Biden must obviously have so decreed if his man says it’s so. Right? Glad to have the certainty of the world’s fate explained so clearly by our lord and master. No?
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Washington, always taking the reasonable safe middle ground for the sake of peace. No?
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russian-missiles-obliterate-base-near-poland-previously-housed-us-troops
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Questions? Comments? Observations?……….Complaints?
https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2022/03/russia-calls-western-arms-shipments-to-ukraine-legitimate-targets/
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“A top Russian diplomat said Saturday that Moscow has informed U.S. officials that it views Western arms shipments to Ukraine as “legitimate targets” for military attacks, heightening fears of a direct confrontation between the nuclear-armed powers.
‘We warned the United States that the orchestrated pumping of weapons from a number of countries is not just a dangerous move, it is a move that turns these convoys into legitimate targets,’ Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, told a state television outlet Saturday morning.”
“My read on this is that if a single missile or artillery shell overshoots into Poland, World War III is on.”
Sounds reasonable. Missile do miss their targets and they keep on going ’till they run out of fuel.
That’s the thing with the No Fly Zone “idea” as well, in order to establish it, by defintion, you must strike hundreds of targets deep within Russian territory.
The instanity is comical at this point. Americans think setting up a No Fly Zone over Ukraine will be as safe and easy as opening an umbrella.
I am really going to challenge the intelligence of The American People with a very difficult question.
How must The American People “un-elect” 536 elected Rs and Ds from the 3 branches of the Federal Government? Think real hard now. Should they,
A. Vote for an R the next time they step in a voting booth.
B. Vote for a D the next time they step in a voting booth.
C. NOT vote for either an R OR a D the next time they step into a voting booth.
You and The American People have roughly 8 months to figure out the correct answer.
Women in the U.K. said that if one spoils a ballot there, the reason the ballot was spoiled — you write something or put on a sticker — must be reported. A woman in the U.S. confirmed that that is true in her county (she didn’t say where she was). I am going to spoil my ballot in November and enjoy doing so. Now that the Dems are the Fascist Party, the Pedo Party, and the Censorship Party I will no longer vote for any of them. And if anyone says, Well, that’s also true of the Repubs, well, yes, but they don’t pretend otherwise.
Oil Producing Countries ( 1965 – 2020 ) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r2ZLyq5Yas
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https://sovren.media/video/ukraine-on-fire-893.html
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https://www.amazon.com/Revealing-Ukraine-Oliver-Stone/dp/B0817CQDWG
You can find it on rumbledotcom by searching for the title you find on amazondotcom
https://mises.org/wire/price-inflation-hit-new-40-year-high-february-no-its-not-putins-fault
is this accurate ?
This is an excellent article, all should read it. The Fed and White House is just using the Ukraine war as cover for the fact that the Consumer Price Index has been rising dramatically since 2021 and that it had nothing to do with Ukraine or Russia. In fact real wages have been declining by between 3.8% to 2.8% since March 2021.
“The fact that the Russian people are doing a better job of holding their government to account… ”
The mother of all coups de grâce, of all prior coups d’etat in the U.S., was the coup d’etat (illegal seizure of government power) of 2000.
Anyone remember that one, where the Supreme Court of the United States, no less, against the actual election vote outcome, for Gore, simply ordered that Bush the younger be anointed ruler?
People in the streets, in massive protests, against an anti-democratic vote re-count fraud?
It never happened!
The U.S. people, being the exceptions they see themselves as, have for too long permitted themselves to be deeply and thoroughly indoctrinated, so that they know, at the drop of the hat of the lead hypnotist, to point the finger for all the ills in the world, at ‘Others”.
When Julian Assange walks free again, to openly tell the truth to power; that’s when the same will happen with the populace in the global hegemonic Imperium.
There’s less chance of that happening, than waiting for rain in the Sahara, unless of course climate change is real enough that it brings change to the consciousness of humanity, in one fell swoop — rhymes with – – – – , loop, soup, whatever’s in the loupe
Well, it is quite obvious that Putin is deranged, isn’t it? He can’t even play the piano with his dick! What? Zelensky can!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-UiadUOrfk&t=92s
For five minutes too! Even Biden can’t do it even though anybody will tell you that every head of State worth his salt should be able to play the piano with his dick at least five minutes! Some might object that the tune is a trifle repetitive and nowhere near Chopin’s Nocturne #2 (or even #1 for that matter) but Chopin didn’t play with his dick (except with George Sand of course).
Zelensky is also a humorist, which Putin definitely is not. Everybody knows by now (except the rat labs – aka Western audiences – likely submitted to televised subliminal messages which can only account for the neurotic way they fight tooth and nail for CIA propaganda) that Zelensky is supported by nazis and that some of them have even been members of his government. Full-fledged nazis with the whole paraphernalia. There’s even a pitcher of him proudly exhibiting a yellow flag with a big blue swastika on it below his name here:
https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/who-wants-war-with-russia/
Can’t make that stuff up! For a head of State, supporting nazism feels like stretching it a shade, doesn’t it? Or displaying a weird sense of humor.
And yet, according to American Jewish outlet Forward…
https://forward.com/fast-forward/483533/zelenskyy-calls-russian-airstrikes-on-ukrainian-civilians-nazism/
… “Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, said in a Zoom call with Jewish American leaders on the 12th day of the Russian assault on Ukraine, ‘This is just pure Nazi behavior, this is Nazism. All of this happened during the Nazi times. This all happened when the German army rolled through Europe and everyone gave the Jewish people away, putting them into the ghetto. Look it up on the internet.’
Forward goes on writing: “Zelenskyy said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claims that he is intent on the ‘denazification’ of Ukraine is akin to the lies of Joseph Goebbels, the chief propagandist for the Nazi party. ‘I don’t know who his speechwriter is,’ he said of Putin’s remarks”.
Can’t make that stuff up either!
Still, if I wasn’t afraid of censorship or having a SWAT team (or SS-Sonderkommando if anyone can tell the difference) knock on my door – or blow it open -, I might wonder who is more deranged, Putin or Zelensky who also declared in a speech – probably written in Langley – that the Ukrainians were beating the shit out of the Russians who would soon have to go back home with their tails between their legs – or something to that effect in Ukrainian. All that while, according to reliable sources – even some American strategists -, the Ukrainians have as much of a chance of winning that war as of landing a man on the moon.
Some other people, however, say on TV that nothing has worked as planned for the Russians. How they know what was planned will probably forever remain a mystery. Could they possibly confuse art of war and wishful thinking? Is it just raw propaganda? Who knows…
US military technology is intensifying fighting. Russia (in for a penny in for a pound) must intensify the level of brutality to succeed. They will not fail so perhaps minimizing death might be the thing to do.
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Supplying weapons to Ukraine should be a war crime. I am not aware Russians view Ukrainians as any other than countrymen, so what oppression will there be? The sooner fighting stops the better. Supplying weapons to Ukraine should be a crime.
This global economic war, in which the Ukraine is an unfortunate pawn caught in the middle, is all about an attempt to gain control of Russia’s vast natural resources, the key to global economic supremacy. It is Russia’s minerals, gas and electricity that already fuel China’s burgeoning economy, the main and globally ascending capitalist competitor to the US-aligned block of subservient vasal states.
Ironically, US-led sanctions on Russia may well backfire big time, enabling China to aquire big chunks of Russian resources at fire sale prices and thus gain a huge advantage over the West in the global struggle for economic domination and control over world affairs.
Yes, economies should be run by intelligent people and not dumb war criminals.
Sorry, kid, it ain’t that easy. I don’t usually confront your narrative thread, but the news is much bleaker. There’s no “price hikes” or “war inflation.” This is a game that’s played by governments since the British Pound was first established as coin of the realm – and before.
Time was, a Pound Sterling was a pound of sterling. That’s about ₤200 some in modern money. So the value of a pound dropped to 0.5% of its previous value, by watering down the currency – using base metal like copper in the minted money.
In the US about 110 years ago, a $10 bill was worth $2000 in gold in today’s valuation. So the government makes money by diluting the money faster than the suckers can keep up. You get it?
The sad news is that there’s no inflation now. In fact, things are somewhat under-priced, and you should exchange government currencies for items of value.
This isn’t Putin’s inflation. It’s Uncle Sam’s bar bills for pumping out military expenses for 40 years. The US debt has gone up, but the suckers still think a buck’s a buck.
It’s a neat game. You can rip people off, even if they keep their dough under the mattress. And since the US dollar has been the medium of exchange in the world, well, the “inflation” rips people off even if they live in, say, Australia. As the buck drops in value, so does the Ozbuck.
And you, Caitlin, are paying off the debt incurred in the US by arms manufacturers who exported all that stuff and spent money to do things that, well, you didn’t vote for. Thanks! You’re putting in your nickle for the Iraq war, and the Yemen not-war and all that stuff. Thanks for your contribution!
But they need to let the air out of the balloon sometime, why not now? Blame it on that dastard Putin and his Anschluss! It’s all his fault!
Of course, when the prices go up at the pump in the US of A, people will be fair dinkum enraged and start saying “the WHO-kraine? What’s that? I’m not paying for that!” and pffft! There goes Z-Dog’s support.
All the people going “whoop-whoop-yay!” over the BRI aren’t getting the point. Xi and China are spending Disney Dollars that come out of the Peking Printing Press. Same as Uncle Sam. You start printing cash, some time the roof’s going to cave in on you. Imitation’s the sincerest form of penury. The Chinese were going to let the US spend itself into bankruptcy, but they got a whiff of watering-the-currency game, and wanted on-board.
Petrol’s going to hit A$4.00 a litre (sixteen bucks a gallon for Yanktown) but it ain’t going down. The Invisible Hand has let the market find its price, because the dollar’s been watered down.
So you’re right – it’s not Putin’s fault. It’s a pandemic, but it ain’t going away.
Big finale. Even if the world stops TOMORROW buying all war toys and the USA rewinds completely from every overseas base TOMORROW, will inflation stop? No. These are loans, in a sense, for expenses due from 20 years ago. Maybe the Russian economy will dodge the bullet, for having run a thrifty shop for 20 years. Like Calvin Coolidge. Don’t that beat all?
The professor of Money and Banking said you can read on a dollar note what it stands for: government debt.
And that inflation replaced the shaving of gold coins, that made kings richer instantly.
Inflation actually benefits government bcs they own all that debt.
Lol even my 8 y kid figured this out.
Thanks you with all my heart for crafting this language which true Leftists can use with the madlibs.
As we all know, this could easily have been prevented had Biden and Co and NATO addressed Russia’s security concerns, which they could have done years ago. Anyway, here are a few clips from various articles that spell out the reality, starting with a piece by John Pilger on Feb 17th:
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Setting aside the manoeuvres and cynicism of geopolitics, whomever the players, this historical memory is the driving force behind Russia’s respect-seeking, self-protective security proposals, which were published in Moscow in the week the UN voted 130-2 to outlaw Nazism. They are:
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– NATO guarantees that it will not deploy missiles in nations bordering Russia. (They are already in place from Slovenia to Romania, with Poland to follow)
– NATO to stop military and naval exercises in nations and seas bordering Russia.
– Ukraine will not become a member of NATO.
– the West and Russia to sign a binding East-West security pact.
– the landmark treaty between the US and Russia covering intermediate-range nuclear weapons to be restored. (The US abandoned it in 2019)
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These amount to a comprehensive draft of a peace plan for all of post-war Europe and ought to be welcomed in the West.
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And here’s a passages from an article on Counterpunch entitled ‘Russia Has Been Baited into a Repeat of the Afghan Trap’, posted on March 11th:
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NATO’s expansion into the former Soviet ‘sphere of influence,’ beginning with Bill Clinton in 1997, has always been recklessly provocative, as widely noted even way back then. A widely circulated letter by fifty leading academics, diplomats and retired military officers called the move a “policy error of historic proportions” which will “unsettle European stability” and “ultimately diminish the sense of security of those countries which are not included.” Even George Kennan, whose ‘long telegram’ in 1946 is viewed as a founding document of the post-WW2 strategy of Soviet containment, warned that NATO expansion eastwards would result in “a new Cold War, probably ending in a hot one.”
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And in an interview on March 1st headlined ‘Why John Mearsheimer Blames the U.S. for the Crisis in Ukraine’ John Mearsheimer said the following:
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If there had been no decision to move NATO eastward to include Ukraine, Crimea and the Donbass would be part of Ukraine today, and there would be no war in Ukraine.
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And Noam Chomsky said the following in a recent interview (re-posted on Jewish Voice for Labour website):
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The flood of invective might be accurate, but perhaps other possibilities might be considered. Perhaps Putin meant what he and his associates have been saying loud and clear for years. It might be, for example, that, “Since Putin’s major demand is an assurance that NATO will take no further members, and specifically not Ukraine or Georgia, obviously there would have been no basis for the present crisis if there had been no expansion of the alliance following the end of the Cold War, or if the expansion had occurred in harmony with building a security structure in Europe that included Russia.” The author of these words is former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Jack Matlock, one of the few serious Russia specialists in the U.S. diplomatic corps, writing shortly before the invasion. He goes on to conclude that the crisis “can be easily resolved by the application of common sense…. By any common-sense standard it is in the interest of the United States to promote peace, not conflict.
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Needless to say, the West deliberately forced Putin’s hand so that they could then do what they are now doing to Russia, and they don’t give a damn about the thousands that are being killed and all the destruction etc, as long as they achieve their objective of getting rid of Putin and replacing him with a ‘friendly’ regime so that they can get their hands on the estimated $75 trillion of Russia’s natural resources. And then move on to China!
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But it’s all a price worth paying!
Please, Caitlin. Be careful to distinguish real socialists, who are antiwar, from the so-called pseudo-left, who are the bandwagon jumpers you describe. The Socialist Equality Party, which I support and have done for more than 20 years, is against the Russian invasion of Ukraine and at the same time an opponent of the United States death dealers who want to rule the planet no matter how many people die. As a socialist, I oppose imperialist war absolutely, but as an activist and student of history who does not have amnesia, I am perfectly aware of the violent and murderous U.S. ruling elites and their maniacal thirst for death and destruction. Do not ever equate the term “left” with the stupid liberals who are out there waving their little blue and yellow flags and wearing coordinated outfits of blue and yellow and feeling all smug and righteous for doing so.
Agree 100%. I’ve also been a socialist for 45 years now and I know all about being shunned and canceled by erstwhile friends who self-describe as liberals. The one I still know about are shrieking bloody murder about Putin/Hitler while ignoring like programmed robots all the bloody hell the US has visited on the planet for a hundred years. It didn’t just start in Vietnam–see Stephen Kinzer’s “Overthrow” for the grisly details. And I’m also sick and tired of liberals being equated with the left. There’s nothing left or even vaguely socialist about a liberal, but no matter how often you tell most Americans that, they can’t hear you.
That’s “The ones I still know …” There’s a few of them.
You say your are ‘against’ Russia’s current action in Ukraine. Can you identify options other than the current incursion by which Russia might have resolved the existential issues pressing upon its direct border, which include the relentless killing of ethnic Russians?
I find it hard to fathom such opposition to this military in the complete absence of any defined alternative. It appears to rely upon an impossibly theoretical ethical framework. But I might have missed something. If so, please inform me.
While the left is scared of it’s own shadow, the right is scared of it’s own reflection. And this is why the Party of Fear always achieves it’s goals.
REAL leftists are not scared of their own shadows.This is why liberals hate us .
Blaming libruls for everything leaves the impression that neocons like Vicki Nualnd and John McCain weren’t the ones behind this from the start.
The neocons and liberals have merged post-Trump. It is safe to blame all of the above. The Dems and Repubs are the same party with different talking points. Policies are the same.
Well, well it looks like the free market’s magical Invisible Hand has magically determined the price of natural gas and gasoline must rise. I wonder if this came as much of a surprise, however welcome, in the energy lobby’s corporate boardrooms and accounting suites. Only a Red Russian Commie Marxist would claim that bean counters decide themselves to increase the costs we must pay for everything. It is purely coincidental that higher prices make the company stock more attractive to idle speculators who contribute noting to the common weal. Oh no, that would be crimethought, not to love The Hand is a great disgrace! It is our duty and privilege as free Americans (coz freedom isn’t free, you know) to provide our betters their due by returning more of the wages they generously give us for working in the businesses they own.
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And speaking of suppressing counter narratives, there is nothing in the media about this. On July 21, 2021, the Ukrainian Rada passed a race law – yes, an actual race law, in Europe, in the 21st century – which declared that only Ukrainians of “Scandinavian ancestry” eligible for full citizenship. It specifically denied the protection of civil liberties of Ukrainians of Slavic, i.e. Russian ancestry. The precipitate cause of Russia’s military intervention was Ukraine massing troops at the borders of the Donbas republics (whose inhabitants are of majority “Slavic” descent) to carry out a Nazi-style Final Solution of the Russian Speakers Problem advocated by Kiev.
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The neo-Nazi movement in Ukraine is not the equivalent of the US variety. It is not a few angry, alienated losers parading around in foolish costumes to upset the grownups. It is a politically powerful, well-organized and well-armed militant racist organization. Its paramilitaries received training from, of course, the CIA, which you may recall also created Al Qaeda to fight the Soviet Union, and supports ISIS in its war against another Russian ally, Syria.
You seem to believe that the bullshit the mass media talks about and how they feel is the way that us normal Americans feel. We don’t Mrs high and mighty Australian. Us normal folks just want to be left alone and leave these other countries alone to deal with their own bullshit. It must be nice though to have enough money to deal with the rising prices of everything. Most of the rest of us are just struggling to get by until the rich/elites wipe everybody out.
Her country is one of those that your country fucks with. She has every reason to be “high and mighty” just like the rest of the world because the US fucks with them all.
We in the US get the worst people rise to power. Victoria Nuland is #2 after Blinken. No doubt will become #1 one day soon.
IMO the US is even holding the entire UN hostage, as in expelling Russian diplomats to arrange removal of Russian delegation from the UN.
Keep your nationalist name-calling to yourself. It is the U.S. government that stirs the shit in this world and destroys other countries deliberately. I am an American but I am also an internationalist. If you think the U.S. is not an active participant in death and destruction, interfering in economies and slaughtering people, you are woefully ignorant. What exactly is a “normal” person? I am working class and we are the class that gets shafted by the ruling elite. Caitlin is on our side. So shut up, already.
My hippie surfer masseur just got back from an Ayahuasca retreat in Peru. He doesn’t care about the war in Ukraine because it doesn’t affect him. At least not until he goes to fill up his Silverado.
It’s important to remember that when everyone is thinking the same thing, then no one’s actually thinking.
‘Massive anti-war protests in Russia’: link goes to Al Jazeera article with reliant upon two images as evidence for its headline claim. Each image shows a single demonstrator in custody. The links in that article go to another that presents an image of captioned as ‘demonstrators’, but which shows absolutely no evidence of being a demonstration. More likely its a peak hour city crowd.
Caitlin, your extent of argument within the article is good enough without stretching it to this straw-man construction of comparative free speech standards. Your necessary, indeed opportunistic, reliance upon bland assertion by mainstream press for substantiation erodes the argument you often make otherwise about MSM duplicity and fakery.
Massive is certainly overdoing it, but I’m sure there are visible anti war protests in Russia.
Why wouldn’t there be?
The impulse to oppose war, any and every war, is fundamentally a noble one if genuine, even if, like all noble impulses, it can be hijacked and instrumentalized by evil forces for nefarious purposes.
I’m sure there are lots and lots of really well-meaning people in Russia who think that the West CAN’T be that bad, that it HAS to be possible to get along peacefully, that there HAS to be another, better way, that do not and cannot believe that the US Empire really will not stop until they are all dead or enslaved or until the US Empire is itself defeated.
Of course, the most naive of these people can perhaps be manipulated into blaming their own government, and into believing that maybe the west would stop trying to wipe them out if they had a different one.
Thankfully those are a minority, liable to shrink the more the western Empire shows it’s true racist, genocidal, psychotic face.
Then they will remember that the western anglo dominated Empire has dreamed of utterly destroying Russia as a nation since long before the Russian Revolution, from the days when Britain, not the US, was the leading anglo superpower.
The Yanks inherited this age old obsession ready made from the British Empire, after all.
I’m sure there are ‘visible’ protests. As there are in Western polities on various topics. The common factor is these all occur at politically insignificant numbers.
These current demos in Russia are a very poor, if not highly fraught, example to bring to an argument as a standard of anything meaningful.
There definitely have been large antiwar demonstrations in Russia. The World Socialist Web Site has reported on it and the WSWS has writers who actually live in Russia. Some of them are people I know.
What we don’t know is how many of them are CIA’s mobs for hire like in Belarus after the last election.
Exactly.
It’s as useful as a point of reference in this overall matter as an IMF loan is to national sovereignty.
‘Large’ as in a genuine reflection of a politically significant quantum within Russian society, or ‘large’ as in an NGO managed display mostly for western media purposes?
None of the media purporting the former provide any compelling evidence of it being so. The ‘evidence’ offered certainly does not support the total demonstrator numbers implied by those articles’ claims that many thousands of them have been arrested. Yet Caitlin references these evidence-free MSM reports as evidence to her assertion of a minor point that would not be missed if it were omitted from the article. This is neither sound nor sensible.
As it happens, polls indicate an increase in general support for Putin and for this specific action since it began. The percentage of support is heading into the high 70’s. Many, from all cliques of Western interest, will claim the polls are rigged. At the same time they’ll cite bland assertion within western media as evidence of the opposite. ?!?
It is also likely that WSWS is anti-Putin and, consciously or not, a part of the 5th/6th column action opposing the current governance structure. That speaks to their likely willingness to ‘colour’ their reporting of events. Without hard evidence this topic, along with the whole Navalny theatre, is nothing more than didactic farce. Unfortunately that has become the major learning conduit for modern western society.
I hope all the “Freedom loving” Americans are happy paying more for their “Freedom gas” to fill up their “Freedom machines”. #WarOnCars
Well, Caitlin, I’ve long admired your writing and the work you do: absolutely brilliant, well reasoned and spot on.
This series of posts by you on Putin and Ukraine deal with the facts of the matter and present them.
It is so sad that “population USA” is so propagandized that they have not been informed of the truths of events that led Putin to take the action needed to protect the people of Donbas . . .
I well remember when my contacts in the US were commenting on the US’s action against Assad and Syria . . . none knew the Russians had a huge naval based they had created (with their own money) there. And these contacts were wondering why the Russians were supporting the “evil Assad.”