Caitlin Johnstone

Erasing History To Own Putin: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Listen to a reading of this article: ❖ It enrages me that “westsplaining” is a word now. Fuck off you ridiculous NPR-addled shitbrains. The absolute gall to protect a murderous globe-dominating empire from criticism and accountability for its non-stop meddling and oppression using words disguised to sound like social justice jargon. Fuck you. ❖ “This…

Caitlin Johnstone
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Listen to a reading of this article:

❖

It enrages me that “westsplaining” is a word now. Fuck off you ridiculous NPR-addled shitbrains. The absolute gall to protect a murderous globe-dominating empire from criticism and accountability for its non-stop meddling and oppression using words disguised to sound like social justice jargon. Fuck you.

❖

“This war had nothing to do with NATO! They weren’t even gonna add Ukraine to NATO!”

Okay then why not simply guarantee that to Russia and avoid a horrific war with limitless potential to escalate?

“They just- well you just can’t give in to Putin. Not even on imaginary stuff.”

Really? ‘Not giving in to Putin’ as purely a matter of principle is something that’s worth thousands of lives and potentially risking nuclear war?

“Yes. You make concessions on one imaginary thing and next thing you know he’s demanding we emancipate the leprechauns.”

Are you quite sure that’s true? Because it sounds like bullshit. Are you quite sure the threat to add Ukraine to NATO wasn’t actively reified in numerous ways by western powers with the goal of provoking Russia into a war that could be exploited to topple Moscow?

“Shut up.”

❖

Putin is bad so Yuri Gagarin didn’t go to space and Tchaikovsky wasn’t a good composer and Dostoevsky was a lousy writer and Sputnik was designed by Lockheed Martin and Anton Chekhov was Welsh and Khabib Nurmagomedov was born in Minnesota.

❖

There’s nothing wrong in Ukraine that a little US military interventionism couldn’t make much, much worse.

❖

One of the many reasons the US sucks at winning wars despite its reputation is that a for-profit military system is as efficient and cost-effective as a for-profit healthcare system. Worse really, since trillions of dollars could never go unaccounted for in the Department of Health and Human Services.

It’s a lot harder to win wars when your military doesn’t exist for that purpose, but exists rather to generate profits. So the USA’s massively bloated military budget is not a great indication of how powerful its military actually is. They’re quite literally not getting much bang for their buck.

The US empire’s real might lies in its tactics of economic and financial manipulation, and even more in its unparallelled system of international narrative control. The way it uses Silicon Valley, Hollywood and the oligarchic media to manipulate public thought is unprecedented. This is what I’m pointing to when I say people tend to overestimate the power of the US war machine and underestimate the power of the US propaganda machine.

❖

The strongest argument against the US empire’s proxy war activities in Ukraine is not Nazis, nor biolabs, nor rising gas prices, but the fact that it is bringing the human species ever closer to an extinction-level event after which nothing else will matter.

❖

Those who deny that the brinkmanship between the US and Russia is putting us at unacceptable and ever-increasing risk of nuclear war are simply psychologically compartmentalizing away from the horrifying facts. The source of their claim is their own cognitive dissonance.

“X has to be true because the alternative is too horrifying to contemplate” is not a legitimate position to have on a very important issue. Get honest with yourself, man.

I found out about nuclear war in about ’84, when I was around nine. I snuck out of bed to watch TV and my parents were watching a dystopian flick called “Threads”. After about five minutes, I legged it back to bed, my heart thumping in my throat. In many ways, that was the end of my childhood.

For years after, the possibility of nuclear holocaust loomed over my little head with every passing plane. It ruined everything. Eventually though I found ways to reframe the threat, disassociate from the anxiety. Compartmentalizing away until it didn’t feel like a thing anymore.

It’s still a thing though. It’s a thing more than ever.

Cowardly people would say I “grew up”, which is a projection. Honest people would say I put in place some coping strategies that were helpful as a child, but no longer useful as an adult. Courageous people have eschewed those strategies in themselves already.

I am no longer a powerless child who has no say in what happens, I’m a grown-ass adult who can do something about it. To keep those layers of comfortable dissociation and soothing reframes in place is not only dishonest, it’s cowardice. Feel the fear and face the facts, even though it’s hard.

Whenever you see someone dismiss the very real possibility of nuclear annihilation, you are seeing a child telling you the fairytales they use to get to sleep at night. As cute as that may be, it’s also what keeps this from being seen, which is what keeps the madness in place.

Remember that kid though? Remember how you just wanted some adults to stop being crazy, and stop making those stupid things? You wanted an adult to stand up and make it right? You can be that adult now. You should be that adult now. You owe it to your little self.

❖

That you are is much more interesting than how you are. You could be nothing. Instead you’re a giant-brained biped that gets to walk around and look at things and think abstract thoughts. That’s light years more interesting and impressive than, like, having a university degree or being good at the stock market.

That giant leap from being nothing to being a sentient ape mutant is much, much more vast than the relatively insignificant click from being unemployed to being a millionaire. If you just spend your life really being here, truly relishing this gift, then that’s a life well spent.

An entity that’s never gotten to be a human would be much more impressed with humanness itself than with the specifics of what a given human has achieved and whether it has won the approval of its parents. Just be human. Just be here. Look. Listen. Breathe. Be.

This is amazing.

___________________________

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65 responses to “Erasing History To Own Putin: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”

  1. Tim Glover Avatar
    Tim Glover

    Putin made it clear what his red lines were and what his intentions are. His requests were entirely reasonable, and cost-free. The first thing to try is – believe him. You can only make assertions that he is lying when his actions do not match his words. It is the West that is not negotiating in good faith. The US spent tens of billions of dollars creating a Nazi army. They do not act out of charity – they want a return on their investment. The purpose of that army was always to fight Russia. The West chose that it would rather have a war between Ukraine and Russia than put their verbal assurances about NATO in writing.

  2. Tim Glover Avatar
    Tim Glover

    I love your epigram posts.

    Just one comment on your final paragraph about how amazing humans are. Yes, but… I think that animals are enormously underestimated in their capacity for emotion – joy and suffering. I actually believe the crimes against billions of sentient life forms committed by the factory farming industry over 60 years dwarf any other crimes against humanity.

  3. Bill Bowers Avatar
    Bill Bowers

    I grew up the son of a nuclear war planner. I was a bright kid and he clearly wanted to impress me into following in his footsteps, telling me of things that in later decades I found out were more than a little bit classified. Things like targeting priorities for a first strike, that the US at one point planned to nuke the Moon (“Just to show the Russians we could”), or saying he’d just finished a war game in which “We won—only 290 million people died, mostly in Europe”. He worked under Von Braun and other imported Nazi scientists, and became quite Nazi himself. Things were left around the house that became objects of my curiosity, such as this Nuclear Bomb Effects Computer that (precocious me) I taught myself how to use before I was ten: https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1215016

    I still have it, and the 700p tome it came from, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons. I took part in all the duck and cover exercises then done in schools, managing to keep my mouth shut as to their pathetic futility. Didn’t want to scare my classmates. They thought I was weird enough as it was.

    It was like growing up in a National Security Doomsday Cult. He thought he was inspiring me to follow in his footsteps and I took in all this information, but it didn’t have the effect he wanted—it ended up inoculating me forever against any idea of the US being any kind of shining city on a hill. Believe it or not I joined the Army to leave home at age 17—I knew my father would approve and it got me away from his alcoholism, rage-aholism and narcissistic misanthropy—only to receive training from soldiers just back from Indochina on how to wage the most racist, misogynistic, world-as-Indian-country kind of counterinsurgency warfare. Got out asap and devoted my life from then on to being a deep and uncompromising anti-imperialist.

    I did see ‘Threads’ when it came out. I was glad it was made as I knew it would wake a lot of people up to the nuclear sword dangling over our heads, even if it scripted the USSR as the first to use nukes (I knew from my father that it’d be the US—he’d “gamed” many, many such scenarios). ‘Threads’ was called “a film which comes closest to representing the full horror of nuclear war and its aftermath…”, but for all the horror it depicts I knew it to be far, far too optimistic.

    Today I still oppose and expose the war propaganda without compromise, though surrounded almost as if in ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’. My ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive’ friends and acquaintances, all intelligent enough but waterboarded with the tsunami of Russophobia, with great passion call for assassinating Putin, no fly zones and open support for Nazis. I escaped my upbringing into sanity, but the National Security Doomsday Cult has crawled out from its classified chambers and into full bloody bloom.

    Whatever its name or flag we need an uprising for life on Earth here in the US. However this crisis resolves—and the coming crisis with China next in line if we survive this one—we can only hope that somehow Russia and China manage to stop the Empire in its tracks without the nukes flying. Defeated and exposed in its lies, enough people may crack the propaganda shells around their minds to destroy the doomsday cult and the Empire in its lair. But for now we are on a terrifying cusp that far too few even imagine.

  4. James Avatar
    James

    I think that it’s good, and valuable, to highlight US and western hypocrisy on this issue, and the double standard that applies here – western countries accept it when the US invades other countries, but is outraged when Russia invades another country.

    *However*, that still doesn’t mean that it’s OK for Russia to invade Ukraine. I think it’s really important to keep on hammering home that message, too. Just because the US invaded Iraq and meddles in other countries’ affairs, does not mean that Russia should invade a sovereign nation, too. Just as “WMDs” was not a good reason for the US to invade Iraq, just because Russia didn’t like the idea of Ukraine making its own decisions about trade and defence alliances is not a good excuse for Russia to invade Ukraine.

    So by all means, keep on hammering away at US and western hypocrisy – but let’s also remember that two wrongs don’t make a right and that Russia should not be invading Ukraine.

  5. Cat Avatar
    Cat

    “I am no longer a powerless child who has no say in what happens, I’m a grown-ass adult who can do something about it.” My God this summed up my childhood. And has summed up my entire CND/Anti War adulthood. I’ve wanted there to be an adult in the room for arouund 40 out of my 50yrs. I’m still waiting. So, I continue to be one of the few adults in the room, trying to shout over the music, that we’ve already hit the iceberg.

    I can never get enough of your writing, I often feel that you take my jumble of thoughts, fears and feelings and make them coherent.Unfortunately you also make me realize that I’m not crazy, I’m not just a middle aged woman, full of fading hormones and rage at an increasingly alien world, but a normal human being, looking for a decent, happy world in which to live my life, stuck in an ever increasing dystopian nightmare.

  6. Steven Smith Avatar
    Steven Smith

    As a boomer old right American I want more than all else to force those in power to draw fully back inward so the most right populist of us can settle scores with them in route to isolationist utopia but then you do-gooders would cry about THAT. Do yourselves a goddam favor by dis-continuing to tell armed misanthropes they suck because they are mean people. We ADMIRE ourselves owing to our meanness!

  7. David Shipway Avatar
    David Shipway

    In 1963, at the age of 11, I became conscious of world politics. I was born and living in Hong Kong, and blond and blue eyed. And yet the Chinese were so friendly. My dad explained how the Brits and Americans liberated HK from brutal Japanese occupation by dropping two atom bombs on Japanese cities, and the Chinese were grateful.

    As kids we would hike up into the hills surrounding the city, and discovered military bunkers that still had human remains in them.

    One day I saw Nevil Shute’s book On The Beach lying on the coffee table and asked if I could read it. My dad said he knew the author from childhood and had read all his books, but this one really scared him. That just piqued my curiosity, so I read it. Yes, it changed me, ended my childhood. I could not believe that humans would invent such terrible weapons that could destroy the whole world. What was the purpose?

    That horror within just increased as the cold war with Russia went on, until there were tens of thousands of these evil weapons in existence, aimed at huge cities, all on hair trigger alert.

    I’ve spent my whole life knowing this beautiful and crazy world could end at any moment. In some ways, that has helped me live in the moment, to realize how precious this day is, and live it to the fullest.

    But it’s hard to be happy when the powers that rule the world are categorically insane, and are quite willing to maintain and perpetuate a global hostage crisis, to hold a nuclear gun to everyone’s head like this. It’s beyond obscene.

    Most people now live in a state of absolute denial. They cannot handle the cognitive dissonance that comes with full awareness. Perhaps that is the true existential crisis in this age of extinction.

    1. Inna Avatar
      Inna

      At about same age of 11 I watched a Japanese cartoon about events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki , and was really terrified to see a child catch fire and burn to ashes during the atomic bombing. I am still horrified that people working for the government develop new weapons to kill children.
      Now I am a grown adult and have no choice in that taxes I pay to the US government fund the war criminals and the whole MIC.

  8. Inna Avatar
    Inna

    From a lecture on importance of writers and poets in Celtic society, I learned that at the time they had the status equal to kings. And the poet’s main job was to make the king who hired them look good (early propaganda). But they also had a job of producing satire of the enemy. And their satire could literally kill the person who heard it and about whom it was written.
    It sounds like satire could be a great weapon against propaganda.

  9. Allan Howard Avatar
    Allan Howard

    Just came across the following, by chance, in the Express – ie the latest concoction dreamed up by the so-called Intelligence Services. I don’t know how widely it’s been reported in the MSM, but when I just now did a search, the Mail has gone with it too (and I’d be very surprised if the Sun hasn’t as well):

    Female Russian spies may pose as Ukrainians to launch Salisbury-style attack

    PUTIN is using the refugee crisis he created in Ukraine as a cover for sending spies and assassins in Europe.

    The Sunday Express has learnt that Home Secretary Priti Patel has been briefed about the threat by intelligence and security chiefs as the UK prepares to welcome thousands of refugees…….

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1583226/russia-spies-uk-ukrainian-refugees-visa-priti-patel

    The only surprise is that the clowns didn’t think of it BEFORE now!

  10. Nigel Lawson Avatar
    Nigel Lawson

    I am not an apologist for the US empire. Also, I am not a brain dead media stooge. And I realize that NATO expansion into Eastern Europe has created this mess. But that does not work excuse what Putin you is doing. When it come down to it, it was Putin who pulled the trigger. To deny that fact is to say that Putin has no agency, which is just plain silly

    1. Allan Howard Avatar
      Allan Howard

      If Biden et al had addressed Russia’s security concerns none of what’s happening would be happening. And the reason they DIDN’T is so that they could destroy Russia economically and totally isolate it, the objective being to bring about Putin’s downfall and have a ‘friendly’ regime replace him.

      As you say, NATO expansion created this mess. And needless to say, all the death and destruction and devastation….. is a price worth paying.

    2. Tim Glover Avatar
      Tim Glover

      Ukraine was about to launch an all-out attack on Donbass which would spare no civilians. Plus they had 30 bio weapon labs, and were testing the pathogens on Ukrainians. Plus they were developing a nuclear dirty bomb. In carrying out this action with so much care to avoid civilian casualties Putin has saved many tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian lives. He has won the Nobel Peace Prize – again.

  11. Nigel Lawson Avatar
    Nigel Lawson

    The problem with being afraid of Putin’s nuclear blackmail is that it incentivizes him to invade other countries. When it comes down to it, he may be killer but he is not suicidal. If he knows that he will be destroyed he will back down. That is why I am starting to change my mind about imposing a no fly zone over the Ukraine. If Putin knows that if his planes fly they will die he will forced to negotiate in good faith. Otherwise, where will he stop. Like Stalin, Putin will continue to attack other people. Backing down to him is the path of cowardice.

    1. Allan Howard Avatar
      Allan Howard

      Oh, and what countries would they be Nigel?! You really need to stop reading the Daily Mail, AND, start reading Caitlin’s articles!
      .
      As if you HAVEN’T!!

      1. Jack Tiscione Avatar
        Jack Tiscione

        Agree with you 100% Allan…..maybe Nigel doesn’t know that both he and his “country” are in great danger

      2. Steve Avatar
        Steve

        all the death and destruction and devastation….. is a price worth paying.
        Where do you live? Is it your children who pay the ultimate price?

    2. Max424 Avatar
      Max424

      Before Putin’s planes die American/Nato warplanes must enter an airspace bigger than the size of Texas, Olklahoma, Arizona, and Colorado combined, and systematically destroy hundreds of dug in and a layered surface to missile air batteries, along with radar installations, command and control centers, airfields, etc … while also successfully fending off Russian cruise, hypersonic and ballistic missle attacks that will attempt to destroy the airfields and carrier decks from which the American/ Nato warplanes are taking off from.
      If this part of the operation proves successful, and enough American/Nato warplanes survive, then yes, whatever is left of Putin’s airforce can, and will most likely, be finished off and destroyed.
      The Russian Airforce is not designed for offense, as it is outnumbered by at least 7 to 1. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation knows there is only one way for it to win an airbattle against America/Nato, and that is to defend an airspace, from the ground, that it has already established as its own.

    3. Steve Avatar
      Steve

      I don’t think this will end at the table. WWIII looks unavoidable. Bring it on.

  12. Jack Oliver Avatar
    Jack Oliver

    The good Doctor and Syrian President speaks.

    Doctor Assad is an Ophthalmologist and sees things very clearly !

    US empire collapse !

  13. Max424 Avatar
    Max424

    The Overton Window has been blown to bits. Its like you gotta find a leftover shard of glass to call your own, and call out in the enveloping darkness, Hey, I’m over here … this is what I think. Is there anybody out there? Maybe we can link up, and put a part of the window back together. What … do you think?

  14. Sid Avatar
    Sid

    After Col MacGregor did not follow the script as expected on FoxNews another one, a lieutenant colonel, came up in the opposite direction but announcing the very close victory of Russia coming to an end in the next week. His viewpoint matches with Scott Ritter, MacGregor about the Russian army is cornering the Ukrainian army like a herdsman does with the cattle. He almost came up saying this is a first in military strategy where 200K Russians cornered 600K Ukrainians soldiers with NATO training.
    Still, the MSM focus is to in Zelensky the greatest good guys leader-warrior against Putin the reincarnation of the anti-christ-hitler himself. The unexpected “short” war will make the good guys come up with something tragic – perhaps sabotaging American bioweapons lab – and making the Russians. take the blame. It’s above doubt Russia needs to improve PR. Just counting in luck and fate to make. the narrative to correct itself will not work out as it should.

    https://video.foxnews.com/v/embed.js?id=6301204874001&w=466&h=263Watch the latest video at foxnews.com

    1. Sid Avatar
      Sid

      These FoxNews links sucks.
      https://video.foxnews.com/v/6301204874001#sp=show-clips

      1. Max424 Avatar
        Max424

        “These FoxNews links suck.”
        Yeah they do, but thanks for them anyways. It’s fascinating. Fox does have a breakaway faction that is willing to challenge many aspects of this narrative.
        I mean Tucker has practically gone rogue.
        What this means, I have no fucking clue.
        As for false flags, in my opinion, it won’t involve the biolabs, it’s too messy and become way too complicated – mainly because the Russian Federation has been able to get ahead of it.
        However, there is a very simple method for “the U.S.” to go about false flagging this, just fire missiles from western Ukraine and take out one or more “high value” targets in Poland.
        The only calculation, how much death and destruction will be required to force the hand of the power centers inside the Beltway Complex that are committed to preventing WWIII.
        The ones that are prevailing at the moment, but do seem to be holding on by the thinnest of threads.

        1. Sid Avatar
          Sid

          True. I have no illusions about Tucker but in this aspect our viewpoints about the Biden administration are aligned. Same thing about the right wing Col MacGregor but his comments are precious because he withdraw from a long time position to make a stand against the official MSM narrative about Ukraine. There is. no love lost between us but it’s working out perfectly in this moment.

          1. Max424 Avatar
            Max424

            I never thought the old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times,” would ever get this out-of-control interesting, and for me, for sure, the MacGregor interview with Mate and Blumenthal was the most interesting thing that’s happened so far.

  15. Allan Howard Avatar
    Allan Howard

    After Biden took office he focused on China as the big threat to the US and, as such, ratcheted up the anti-China rhetoric, and I can’t help but wonder if THAT was a Blind, a deliberate ploy, because he/they knew what they had in store for Putin – ie what they had planned for him – further down the road. The following is a passage from an article published in August last year:
    .
    President Biden, on the other hand, sees China as the world’s single most dangerous comprehensive threat to democracy, individual liberty, and US national security. His administration hasn’t backed off Trump’s trade war. Sanctions and tariffs remain in place to increase US bargaining leverage with China in other areas…..
    .
    https://www.ekathimerini.com/opinion/1166043/us-relations-with-russia-and-china/

    1. WillD Avatar
      WillD

      “President Biden, on the other hand, sees China as the world’s single most dangerous comprehensive threat to democracy, individual liberty, and US national security.”
      Let’s re-phrase that, shall we?
      “I, on the other hand, see the US as the world’s single most dangerous comprehensive threat to democracy, individual liberty, and global security.”
      Better, don’t you think?

  16. K-Dog Avatar
    K-Dog

    NPR is a mouthpiece of the deep state. Criticizing NPR content assumes an editorial control that is not there. The same is true of social media. The deep state sets policies for them as well.
    –
    The deep state is a wholly owned subsidiary of the military industrial complex of the United States.

  17. Allan Howard Avatar
    Allan Howard

    Several days ago I did a search re >nato expansion< and came across the following article by Nigel Farage in The Independent, posted on the afternoon of Feb 24th, the day Russia began the invasion of Ukraine – but I only thought to check out the comments section earlier today, and I have no doubt whatsoever that the Establishment's paid shills were working overtime to discredit him so as to discredit what he said. Click on the 'most liked' option (there are 249 comments and, needless to say, I didn't read all of them, and probably read about 35/40 'most liked' comments, including the replies to them):

    Nigel Farage says Ukraine invasion is result of EU and Nato provoking Putin

    Former Brexit Party chief says the attack on Ukraine is a ‘consequence of EU and Nato expansion’

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-ukraine-russia-eu-b2022400.html#comments-area

    1. Allan Howard Avatar
      Allan Howard

      Correction…… make that 349 comments! And I just clicked on the ‘oldest comments’ option – ie the first comments to be posted – and many of them were the comments that came up in the ‘most liked’ option. I know for a fact the the paid shills make a point of getting their ‘narrative’ in quickly AND – as with the Daily Mail – give their comments lots of likes!

  18. John Knox Avatar
    John Knox

    The people who lied about Iraq faced no consequences, that’s why they are lying about Russia.

  19. Clint Avatar
    Clint

    Good Into.

    “Both Russian and Chinese media and state officials have in the last days been widely circulating a resurfaced video from 1999 wherein then senator Joe Biden bragged about being the first US official to propose bombing Belgrade and destroying the city’s infrastructure.”

    “on May 7 the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was struck by five Joint Directed Attack Munition satellite-guided bombs, delivered by U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit bombers. Three Chinese journalists—Shao Yunhuan of Xinhua, and Xu Xinghu and his wife Zhu Ying of the Guangming Daily—were killed in the attack. Twenty other Chinese nationals were injured, five seriously.”

    “China to NATO: “[W]e will never forget who had bombed our embassy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. We need no lecture on justice from the abuser of international law…”

    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/resurfaced-clip-biden-boasting-he-proposed-natos-78-day-airstrikes-belgrade-goes-viral

  20. Max424 Avatar
    Max424

    Are you quite sure the threat to add Ukraine to NATO wasn’t actively reified in numerous ways by western powers with the goal of provoking Russia into a war that could be exploited to topple Moscow?

    “Shut up.”

    Too funny. The fourth time I have laughed out loud since this exitinction level comedy began 30 days ago, which might not seem like much, but I don’t laugh out loud when I’m alone, and on Day 1 I removed myself from circuclation. I thought, well it’s here, time to hunker down at the board and see if I can be a postive ripple.
    So thanks, Ms. Johnstone, for providing me with three of the four laughs I’ve enjoyed during my hunker down. Jimmy Dore gets credit for the other. After our Speaker of the House explained to her audience that a 40 mile long column is an afront to her senses, and it has to be smashed, and if we have to throw up one of those no fly thingy dingies in order to do it, then we must give whomever can put that thing up there the necessary tools to get it done, even if it’s Snoopy flying his fucking doghouse, who fucking cares, let’s gooooooooo!!!
    After the stirring speech, as she began to carefully move toward the curtain stage right, no one taking her elbow, so a dangerous journey still requiring a dozens steps or more, Jimmy Dore said exacly what I was thinking, “That’s right Madam Speaker, now walk to the exit without stumbling.”

    1. Gregory Herr Avatar
      Gregory Herr

      As the old saying goes, sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying. Thankfully, Caitlin & Jimmy each tickle my funny bone enough to make that so. Pelosi’s ramblings do have that aura of alcohol intoxication. Or perhaps it’s just all that expensive ice cream.

      1. Max424 Avatar
        Max424

        Probably a little of both. Our Speaker and most humble public servant no doubt enjoys her Jeni’s ice cream best when it is smothered in Louis XIII Magnum Remy Martin liquor.
        Yes it’s $12,000 per bottle but when you rule over an Insider Trading Complex a bottle of Remy looks no different to you than a bottle of Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup.

  21. Zippie99 Avatar
    Zippie99

    Aren’t sanctions just theft? I remember working for a bank and read about money laundering. I couldn’t help thinking that reading “the rules”. It only applied to “non aligned”. Nations. Thanks for your columns – it is so refreshing to have some one cut through all the fake narrative.

  22. John Day Avatar
    John Day

    https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/worst-enemy?s=w Sorry, long…

    Diana Johnstone looks in detail at what has shaped Russia’s national perception of war, including the death of Vladimir Putin’s older brother under Nazi siege, before Vlad the lad was born.
    For Washington, War Never Ends
    “War” to a Russian, happens in Russia. “War” is real and personal.
    She closes with this.
    The American war aim is not to spare Ukraine, but to ruin Russia. That takes time.
    The danger is that the Russians won’t be able to end this war, and the Americans will do all they can to keep it going.
    https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/16/diana-johnstone-for-washington-war-never-ends/

    More important perspective on how an effective Russian head of state must approach war with the west, by John Helmer.
    Putin has to be as effective as Stalin was.
    What Joseph Stalin Said To Himself When Russia’s Survival Was At Stake:
    By comparison with Lenin, though, and the rest of the original Bolsheviks including Leon Trotsky, Stalin’s originality was in his grasp of the military requirements for Russia’s defence…
    By the start of the second world war, he had come to the certainty that “under conditions of capitalist encirclement, the Soviet Union needed a strong state apparatus to defend itself against external threats and internal subversion”. In Roberts’ review of the evidence of what Stalin said, what he read and scribbled inside his books, Stalin’s innovation on Lenin was as a warfighter…
    It’s a point which most Russians at the moment believe Putin reached in the nick of time, compared to Stalin on June 22, 1941.
    http://johnhelmer.net/what-joseph-stalin-said-to-himself-when-russias-survival-was-at-stake/

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said this in an interview yesterday:
    “One of the underlying trends is the United States’ desire – which has been much more manifested by the Biden administration – to come back to a unipolar world. And, if you wish, they are trying to take the melting pot concept from the United States soil and make a melting pot from the entire world, and they would be the smelters. The European Union already, I think 99 percent, stopped trying to be independent. President Macron, of course, keeps repeating that strategic autonomy for the European Union is his goal and he would be fighting for it, but my guess is that he would not succeed. Germany is already absolutely ready to obey instructions from the United State. The situation with North Stream 2 clearly indicated what exact place in world politics Germany occupies now, when the Americans in fact have “persuaded” the Germans and others that they, the Americans, know much better what Europe needs for its energy security than Europeans themselves. And there are many examples like this. So the sanctions drive is going to continue, they are threatening the fifth wave, maybe there would be another wave, but we’re used to it. I will recall that, long before the Ukrainian crisis erupted because of the illegal anti-constitutional coup d’etat, the sanctions were already imposed on us.” …
    “This is only the beginning of our economy getting adjusted to the new situation. After 2014, as I started to say, we did gain experience to rely upon ourselves. And the biggest lesson from this particular historical period is, unlike what we saw after 2014, that now,
    We will have to rely only on ourselves and on our allies who would stay with us. This is the main conclusion for Russia in the context of geopolitics.” …
    “We are not closing the door on the West. They are doing so. But when they come back to their senses and when this door is reopened, we will be looking at proposed projects of cooperation with a very important thing in mind to which I alluded to already – that we will be going into cooperation with them knowing very well that we cannot be sure that they are reliable and that they are credible as long-term partners.” …
    “The efforts were taken systemically to train military officers on the basis of radical Bandera and Shukhevich-style methodology. The purpose being – to make sure that they would not become friendly to Russia again and that they would build their nationalism, nationalistic feelings as the means to strengthen the statehood of their country.”
    “The purpose was always to make sure that Russia does not have Ukraine as a friend. It’s like Zbigniew Brzezinski in the late 1990s said, “Russia with Ukraine, a friendly Ukraine next to it, is a superpower. Russia with Ukraine which is not friendly to Russia, is just a regional player.” This concept is very deeply rooted in the minds of American policymakers, and it will take time to get rid of these negative legacies.
    Even now, when the armed forces of Ukraine are fighting, trying to procrastinate the crisis. The leaders of Ukraine with the help of American and other Western advisors have reformed the army in the way which puts these radicals, Bandera-like trained officers, to lead all more or less meaningful units in the Ukrainian army.”
    https://thesaker.is/foreign-minister-sergey-lavrovs-interview-with-rt-moscow-march-18-2022/

  23. Nigel Lawson Avatar
    Nigel Lawson

    Why are you in effect apologizing for Vladimir Putin’s actions!!

    1. pretzelattack Avatar
      pretzelattack

      why are you lying?

  24. Pascal Avatar
    Pascal

    I’m afraid there ain’t much we can do about the fact that nukes exist and will at best be bridled. I remember all those “no nukes” demonstrations in the 60s and the creation of the Green parties basically over that. Didn’t change nuffin’. Now the fashion is climate change, which all the media are ready to die for because, contrary to former “nukes” or “pollution” which pointed out tangible realities for everyone to see, climate change doesn’t mean a thing. It’s just something people will fight for like in that scene in Antonioni’s Blow-Up where the main character, Thomas, happens by chance in a concert where the guitarist soon smashes his guitar and throws the neck to the crowd. Thomas grabs it and fights for it like mad against the rest of the crowd from which he eventually escapes because it has turned into a regular fight where everybody has forgotten what it was about. Finding himself alone in the street, holding a guitar neck for which he has no use and that nobody else wants anymore, he throws it into a dustbin.
    Even after all the billionaires’ media handed a mic to Lil Greta, lent it a pen and invited her to rant at the UN cesspool – which in and of itself should have warned us of how red this herring was -, it didn’t get anywhere and hardly anyone was there last year to report her complaint, off the COP 26, that these phonies had done fuck all since the UN dog and pony show.
    All lies and jests… Anyway, talking about erasing history, I was thinking of late about why we (the US-led Nato) went to war since the beginning of the century and it was on various occasions because some governments “killed their own people”. The prototype was Saddam of course, who “gassed his own people”, the Kurds (with gas sold to him by the US but never mind that) and then Gaddafi in turn “killed his own people” to the general consternation (before it turned out that he had been framed). Then it was Assad who “killed his own people” before the ones who paid attention discovered that there were in fact snipers on roofs shooting at both the police and the demonstrators – half of whom were probably CIA mobs for hire anyway.
    Now, am I deluded or has the government in Kiev been killing its own people in the Donbass for eight years to the tune of 14,000?
    Have we ever concluded that Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk, who started that slaughter, had to be ousted and/or assassinated?
    Of course not! Why? Because they were “our men”, backed by neo-nazis eager to kill ethnic Russians like Hitler said? I wonder if Operation Paperclip didn’t kinda weigh rather heavily on the CIA’s values… Except of course in the US where they’re hell bent on catching “white supremacists”. It’s a bit like climate change, a political tool that comes in handy when the “good guys” (TM) need it.

    1. pretzelattack Avatar
      pretzelattack

      you started veering off into horsecrap land when you labelled climate change as a myth. fossil fuel companies are not your friends (one hopes) and catapulting their propaganda in no way helps to avoid wars for oil.

      1. Pascal Avatar
        Pascal

        @Pretzelattack: I’m not saying climate change is a myth. I’m saying it doesn’t mean anything. There’s climate in it. And then change. Well climate always changes, so what’s specific about this particular climate change fashion? It’s a red herring while everybody goes on polluting and making pots of money out of it and “climate change” themselves once in a while like the Cosa Nostra hitman goes to confession to seek absolution and recites the ten Hail Mary he’s been given for penance while on his way to his next killing.

        1. BB Benderhaus Avatar
          BB Benderhaus

          Mankind are lemmings and like any herd animal. Want them to go left, fire a gun to the right. Want them to self annihilate by running over a cliff to their death simply make them afraid. Climate change, covid, russia or anything else will do quite nicely.

          1. Pascal Avatar
            Pascal

            Exactly! Sheepdogs looks like a valid image. But sheepdogs… in sheep’s clothing that are leading them to the slaughterhouse under the pretext of keeping them safe :o)

  25. Gregory Herr Avatar
    Gregory Herr

    Nothing to do with NATO?
    ~
    In the last year, there has been a constant flow of lethal weapons to Ukraine; heavy weapons that can destroy tanks and shoot down planes. At the same time, Ukraine’s combat troops and officer corps have received regular training from NATO advisors. They have also engaged in frequent joint-military excercises with NATO units inside Ukraine and in other locations around Europe. (At least 10 more of these joint-military drills are scheduled for this year alone.) For the last 12 months, NATO specialists have been almost constantly on Ukrainian territory while their troop control system has already been fully-integrated into NATO. “This means that NATO headquarters can issue direct commands to the Ukrainian armed forces, even to their separate units and squads.”
    Also, Ukraine’s “network of airfields have been upgraded while its airspace is open to flights by US strategic and reconnaissance aircraft and drones that conduct surveillance over Russian territory.”
    In short, “Ukraine’s non-membership in NATO is (largely) a fiction”, as the WSWS’s author points out. The country has been stealthily integrated into the Alliance in every way excluding a formal declaration of membership. As a result, Russia faces a hostile army and its military infrastructure on its western border posing an existential danger to the nation’s survival. In Putin’s own words, “NATO’s military infrastructure is a knife to our throat.”
    ~
    https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/twice-in-a-century-russia-faces-a-war-of-annihilation/

    1. Realist Avatar
      Realist

      Clearly WWII never ended and Nato was never a defensive alliance of like-minded lovers of freedom and democracy.
      ~
      It was always just an offensive cudgel organised by the sole surviving lucky ducky hegemon from a bunch of mortally damaged has-beens to suppress one particular competitor that the hegemon feared and loathed above all else. Because the hegemon is itself now faltering due to its own avaricious failings and miscalculations, the godfather is calling in all promised favors for one last intendedly mortal beatdown of the demon it fears most.
      ~
      Freedom and democracy? Fanciful come on by con artists, or regrettable collateral damage. Take your pick, it won’t matter.

      1. Pascal Avatar
        Pascal

        ICYMI, an interesting take on the Putin-Hitler meme and why WWII really started beyond the freedom and democracy bullshit:
        https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-putin-as-hitler/

      2. Gregory Herr Avatar
        Gregory Herr

        It won’t matter, but I think you have it pegged correctly. Levels of freedom and citizen influence were briefly attained, but the destroyers of the civilization that should have evolved from human potential are con artists and much worse.

  26. James Avatar
    James

    Caitlin, I’m grateful as a mutant ape, still breathing and thinking abstract thoughts, that I can read your abstract thoughts and feel an emotion of connectedness with other humans who are still breathing. I hope we continue to live

  27. pretzelattack Avatar
    pretzelattack

    Americans have this movie running in their heads every time a new war product is rolled out. it shows scenes of adoring French crowds throwing flowers on the yanks liberating Paris from the Nazis (this was back when we were not supporting nazis).

    1. BB Benderhaus Avatar
      BB Benderhaus

      Funny thing is the french did not love us so much as their deep hatred of Germany made them cheer. That animosity exists even today.

  28. Inna Avatar
    Inna

    The New York Times recently published an editorial that America has a problem with free speech.
    Some people thought it was controversial, and started yelling that the editorial should be retracted, and the NYT editorial board should resign.
    It seems what some Americans are doing to Russia, they are also doing to the USA as well.
    It has long been observed that what goes around, comes around.

    1. Steven Bruns Avatar
      Steven Bruns

      The war ALWAYS comes home.

    2. Gregory Herr Avatar
      Gregory Herr

      Sad to say this remarkable bit of irony doesn’t register with many too many.

      1. Realist Avatar
        Realist

        Hate means never having to say you are sorry.

        Probably only those of a certain age will get that, but then they are the ones with the most to be sorry about.

    3. Sid Avatar
      Sid

      Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell released a surprising statement about America backing up. Ukraine.

      “Empires at the end concentrate on military force as the be all and end all of power… at the end they use more mercenary based forces than citizen based forces”

      “Empires at the end…go ethically and morally bankrupt… they end up with bankers and financiers running the empire, sound familiar?”

      “So they [empires] will go out for example, when an attack occurs on them by barbarians that kills 3000 of their citizens, mostly because of their negligence, they will go out and kill 300,000 people and spend 3 trillion dollars in order to counter that threat to the status quo. They will then proceed throughout the world to exacerbate that threat by their own actions, sound familiar?…This is what they [empires] do particularly when they are getting ready to collapse”

      “This is what empires in decline do, they can’t even in govern themselves”

      Here is another one below.

      CIA has been training Ukrainian special forces and intelligence officers at a secret facility in the U.S. since 2015. Some U.S. officials have played down the report by claiming that the CIA is simply training the Ukrainians in intelligence collection. Others say the program has another secret purpose, which I believe: preparing Ukrainians for an insurgency in the event of a Russian occupation.
      In the Yahoo News report, one former senior intelligence official explained, “That’s where the agency’s program could have a serious impact.” Likewise, other commentators have expressed hope regarding the outcome of a U.S.-backed insurgency.
      Those optimists seem to be forgetting the lessons from past U.S. efforts, including the CIA’s first attempt to support a Ukrainian insurgency against the Soviets in 1949, which ended in failure and a judgment by the CIA decades later that the effort was “ill-fated and tragic.”
      The challenges for a Ukrainian insurgency are no less difficult today.

      One former Collin Power staff chief also stated that NATO created all this scenario in order to find a new purpose for the coalition.

      https://news.yahoo.com/op-ed-cia-backed-ukrainian-110018281.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALVieO9-zi_Au71RAqgvUBJCu6IhKbt52ojuXuK56AOWimgPlt9qGM4QOjxWbRtkZGy5durS8dcgUyhq3qczx-FIdJdyWjLAx2EqNvV9qYuMkWm2gFRWXIVGLxATeDZfxAOJELyyOEI0yNh3o5NgS0XKwwAwlCmKzAAmGh9DRbHH

      1. Realist Avatar
        Realist

        I’m down with the collapse. Washington richly deserves it for being such a pack of oppressive, lying, hypocritical, sadistic sons of bitches who care only about money and themselves. It’s what happens during the after party that has me concerned, even if they serve cake for everyone.

        1. Inna Avatar
          Inna

          Actually SOBs hate themselves in the first place, and this is why they mess up this wonderful one life for all the rest of the living beings.

      2. Inna Avatar
        Inna

        I was surprised that Yahoo published such report, must have been a glitch.
        Or maybe they publish one true report for every 1000 fake news to appear legitimate.

        1. Sid Avatar
          Sid

          I was caught by surprise as well. But the big geopolitical game is running high in the background. Morocco and Spain reached today an agreement to end 50 years of a long dispute on Western Sahara. it’s a blow in the back of the militia backed by Washington there. Spain said – “We support the idea. of dialogue and diplomacy instead of unilateral decisions speaking for us. It seems the UN will become a BBQ restaurant instead of a chicken a la Kiev restaurant.
          Below a precious interview with ray and Scott Ritter yesterday on Sputnik. As usual Scott smacking around.
          https://raymcgovern.com/2022/03/19/scott-ritter-ray-on-same-page-on-ukraine/

  29. Sid Avatar
    Sid

    Any similarity is not a coincidence.
    https://twitter.com/MintPressNews/status/1504941467038453761/photo/1

  30. Robin Avatar
    Robin

    Thank you for consistently keeping your eye on the ball, Cait. Your perspective is so needed at this time of mass delusion. Blessings on you and yours. Lets all make a better world, now!

  31. Vera Gottlieb Avatar
    Vera Gottlieb

    Part of the Western problem is: being intoxicated with ‘Americanism’…

    1. Realist Avatar
      Realist

      And the crux of that matter is that, know it or not, all they are really doing is trying to run away from their petty conflicts, hatreds and insecurities, instead they just bring all that baggage to America where, if even dimly aware, they should learn the defects are with themselves, not the place. Anyplace they settle can be transformed into a hell on earth. Alas, most are too dense ever to catch on because, you know, America has simply been spoilt by all the others.

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