Listen to a reading of this article:
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The country with the worst elections in the western world, whose government intervenes in foreign elections more than any other government on earth, is waging a dangerous proxy war to save democracy in Ukraine, a nation which is not a democracy by any reasonable definition.
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Anyone who trusts any government is a fool. Anyone who trusts the world’s most powerful government is a damn fool. Anyone who trusts the world’s most powerful government while it runs massive propaganda ops for a dangerous proxy war should be forbidden to use the grown-up scissors.
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It’s impossible to overstate how completely blanketed by propaganda distortion the Ukraine war is. US spooks saying they’re leaking disinfo to the press, Ukrainian war propaganda, the blackout on Ukrainian losses, the uncritical media acceptance of allegations against Russia, etc. This war is a propaganda campaign wrapped in a psyop.
There are only two possibilities: you either (A) accept the fact that the information ecosystem around this war is too polluted to know very much of anything for certain and adjust your perceptions accordingly, or (B) you believe false things about this war. That’s it.
Propaganda only works on people who don’t know they’re being propagandized. If you’re acutely aware that a historically unprecedented effort is going into manipulating your understanding of what’s happening in a strategically crucial war in the digital age, you’re more grounded.
And of course the propaganda cuts both ways. Obviously it does. Uncritically believing Russia-aligned sources about this war is just as sure to give you an inaccurate picture of events as uncritically believing US/NATO/Ukraine-aligned sources (i.e. all mass media). It’s psyops all the way down.
One thing that helps is rather than forming hard beliefs about what’s going on in this war, assign probabilities instead. Label different narratives zero, low, moderate, high or very high confidence like a spook analyzing intelligence. Might as well, because spooks are distorting it all anyway.
This is one of those situations where your own best guess about what’s happening is infinitely superior to what you’re told by the news media, because at least you know your own best guess is assembled in good faith while you know news media narratives are rife with propaganda distortion. If you’re genuinely interested in understanding what’s going on with this war, get as much information from as diverse an array of sources as possible, preferencing those who don’t appear aligned with any power structure and aren’t egoically or financially invested in any side.
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Complain less about linguistic changes around gender pronouns and complain more about linguistic changes like "weapons" becoming "arsenal of democracy". pic.twitter.com/WzgD4YbCOP
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) April 16, 2022
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Zelensky, man. The last time a powerful empire poured this much PR and perception management into the image of a foreign Jewish leader it involved stained glass and crucifixes.
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It was clear we’d reached a whole new level of Orwellian doublethink when it turned out liberals will call literally anyone in the world a Nazi except actual, literal Nazis.
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You know capitalism is totally working when there are people getting paid millions to help start wars by people who make billions from wars while Silicon Valley megacorporations are censoring those who try to end wars and everyone’s praying the world’s richest man will stop this.
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There are no “private” companies worth billions of dollars. In a corporatist system it is impossible to grow that big without becoming intertwined with ruling power structures. This is especially true for corporations of immense political consequence, like social media platforms.
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We are surrounded by propaganda at all times. Our entire civilization is saturated with it. When you say you support internet censorship to stop “Russian propaganda”, what you are really saying is that you only want your own rulers propagandizing you.
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The notion that some opinions are Russian is one of the most mind-destroying beliefs ever circulated in a secular society.
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This is the real goal behind all the punditry advocating hot war with Russia: to move the Overton window of acceptable debate so far toward warmongering extremism that entirely moderate peace advocacy like supporting a negotiated settlement becomes a fringe lunatic position. https://t.co/eXV9Xi4WUs
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) April 17, 2022
All the shitlibs yelling “Don’t listen to Chomsky!” for his comments about Ukraine will soon be yelling “Listen to Chomsky!” when it’s time to wheel him out again to tell everyone they need to vote Democrat.
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The weirdest thing about interacting with Ukraine flag accounts online is how seriously they expect to be taken while saying ridiculous bullshit. No I’m not an evil demonic monster for opposing nuclear brinkmanship and online censorship and saying the US lies about wars. Shut up, idiot.
If you look at their responses to criticisms of the establishment line on Ukraine it’s always like ten percent MSM propaganda and ninety percent empty outraged sputtering. Just vapid emoting. And they sincerely seem to expect you to take that seriously and treat them like adults.
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A mainstream news reporter is someone who uncritically publishes information provided by government agencies like it’s news and does investigative pieces on Twitch streamers who say wrong things about Ukraine and then wins three Pulitzers for their fearless hard-nosed journalism.
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Watching Hollywood movies is weird when you’re acutely aware that everyone on the screen loves Biden and supports internet censorship and wants a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
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61 responses to “This War Is A Propaganda Campaign Wrapped In A Psyop: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”
You make a very good point that we shouldn’t be taking any source as authoritative or factual during a war. Especially those sources which clearly come armed with an agenda, aiming to further their own political line, profit margins, nationalistic sympathies, or whatever the case may be.
If only you stood by those principles yourself, and took the utmost care to avoid relying on dubious sources, especially when trying to substantiate very contentious analytical or factual claims.
You failed to do so when you cited a very poorly argued and semi-informed piece to support your contention that Ukraine is “not a democracy by any reasonable definition.” The piece does not establish the absolutely essential political context for the decision by Zelensky to ban some opposition parties, without which the reader gets a very incomplete understanding of the situation. The two most important elements of that context it fails to note are: 1) Zelensky’s move to create a “unified information space” was largely motivated by his rage at Poroshenko, who had become very outspoken in his criticism of the president, even going so far as to call him a traitor who was preparing to capitulate to the Russians, demanding that his own (Poroshenko’s) political faction be involved in negotiations with the Russians. Given Poroshenko’s control over multiple media outlets that were pushing this narrative, Zelensky sought to stop those channels from continuing these attacks; and 2) The country is currently at war, historically most countries in such a situation, including countries most would consider “democratic”, have sought to do something similar to what Zelensky has done, to clamp down on infighting during a confrontation with a foreign foe posing an existential threat to the country.
This context does not mean that the repressive laws are all fine and dandy, we are right to be very concerned about any leader monopolizing power, even during a wartime situation. However without that context, the entire conversation is immediately derailed and uninformed. That context also shows that these new laws are far from constituting some easy “smoking gun” proof that Ukraine is not a democracy. Rather, the ongoing polemics between multiple political factions in the country show proof of Ukraine’s democracy at work, however dysfunctional it may be, mired by corruption, tainted by the influence of wealth etc. etc. Can any other democratic country be described any differently? Sounds a lot like America in fact. However the crucial point that you have missed is that this is analytically distinct from the situation in Russia, where such intra-party confrontation barely occurs, given the centralization of power in the hands of one party.
I still vehemently disagree with the Western media’s lazy characterization of Russia as a totalitarian dictatorship, but that’s another story altogether. However it’s just as analytically lazy to claim that Ukraine is not a democracy either, because of two wartime laws limiting political discourse. And given that you provide no other argumentation, does this mean that according to you, Ukraine WAS a democracy, up until Zelensky’s repression of the opposition?
I’ll conclude by saying that just as important as avoiding propagandistic sources, is to avoid attempting to counter propaganda by blindly or lazily arguing the opposite of whatever dominant propaganda position you find most distasteful. The real situation is always more complex than the propaganda story, so it won’t do to simply negate that simplistic story. To really counter it we have to step outside the shoddy thinking that can barely be assigned the adjective analytical, only then will we start to uncover the real story, that much more complicated and elusive affair we call the truth.
The following are a couple of clips from an article by Max Blumenthal and Esha Krishnaswamy posted on The Grayzone on April 17th:
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‘“One less traitor”: Zelensky oversees campaign of assassination, kidnapping and torture of political opposition’
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While claiming to defend democracy, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky has outlawed his opposition, ordered his rivals’ arrest, and presided over the disappearance and assassination of dissidents across the country.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has framed his country’s war against Russia as a battle for democracy itself. In a carefully choreographed address to US Congress on March 16, Zelensky stated, “Right now, the destiny of our country is being decided. The destiny of our people, whether Ukrainians will be free, whether they will be able to preserve their democracy.”……..
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Zelensky has further exploited the atmosphere of war to outlaw an array of opposition parties and order the arrest of his leading rivals. His authoritarian decrees have triggered the disappearance, torture and even murder of an array of human rights activists, communist and leftist organizers, journalists and government officials accused of “pro-Russian” sympathies.
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The Ukrainian SBU security services has served as the enforcement arm of the officially authorized campaign of repression. With training from the CIA and close coordination with Ukraine’s state-backed neo-Nazi paramilitaries, the SBU has spent the past weeks filling its vast archipelago of torture dungeons with political dissidents.
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https://thegrayzone.com/2022/04/17/traitor-zelensky-assassination-kidnapping-arrest-political-opposition/
I really hope you take what Caitlin says in this article to heart. DO NOT believe any propaganda of whatever side. It’s just as stupid to believe every word of a CNN story as it is to take the reporting of a Gomel-based (Belarus) website at face value. And yet the latter is exactly what Blumenthal and Krishnaswamy do in this story you linked. Many many claims are presented in their article with very limited evidence, or only evidence from war propaganda sources. At one point they say that “Russian authorities denied” accusations about mayors being murdered, and then use that “fact” to conclude that therefore the “Kiev line” has no supporting evidence. What amateur argumentation, clearly displaying that they will take Russian sources at face value, during a war.
The truth is that neither side has “supporting evidence.” Why? Because this is war! Everything must be taken with many grains of salt, facts must be rigorously triangulated across multiple sources with offsetting biases in order to establish anything concretely. If only Caitlin, and the vast majority of her followers, actually stood by the principles she sets out in this article.
Does anyone know whether strategic-culture.org has been blocked. Cant get access in UK. This Russian think tank publication is my fav online read and I am at a loss.
See dis is da way it woiks. Youse plays da game and youse reap da rewards, and if youse don’t play right youse get nailed, if youse rats on da Big Guy we destroys youse, and when the rats start to squeak we bomb them to shut them up. Biolabs? We blow you away. Money laundering? Big bombs. Man man apocalypse? Youse needs to just shut your yap and play before you ain’t no more, see? Da boys don’t like rats so we just blow away the rathouse and youse either wins with us or loses with them, see?
Exakory! (Exactly in English Chinese accent). The establishment is a variation of MAFIA, shabbily dressed up as altruistic government for their gullible citizens. Most of us can only do as much as gravitate (align) towards the least corrupt of the global MAFIA families. Choose your MOB is a type of double bind, damn, checkmate.
Here is the democracy in Ukraine at work:
https://thegrayzone.com/2022/04/17/traitor-zelensky-assassination-kidnapping-arrest-political-opposition/
Caitlin, you make it feel worthwhile to think.
I see so many goodhearted and intelligent people being fooled and getting on board with US militarism. My guess is that they are very busy with their personal lives and to them civic engagement is limited to getting information from main stream media and voting. Now they are enraged against Russia because of the constant propaganda they are getting. It is really sad. We have got to keep presenting the truth until people calm down and are willing to listen.
Just remember, either side of the Overton Window is taboo naughty naughty, even if it’s logical, rational and highly relevant. Why? Because it could expose establishment bullshit, illusions and hypocrisy. We are now lego people that must not think outside our lego boxes.
All the ZIO/US has left is some 53 year old BS story about going on an EIGHT day mission to the MOON and back !
Russia and China OWN space now and can disable ANYTHING the US has !
Which is why ZIO/US ‘nukes’ will never leave their silos !
Fuck war
Why do they have a giant statue of Shiva ( Hindu God of Destruction ) at the entrance of CERN ??
https://freetofindtruth.blogspot.com/2015/08/59-shiva-at-cern-unveiled-june-18-2004.html
Your microwave oven is a particle collider that heats your food when the particles collide – causing friction !
This is how they are heating up the Ionosphere and the jetstream causing monumental flooding over a targeted area !
CERN is just another Rothschilds de – population tool developed using Nikola Tesla’s discoveries !
The source of life is energy which then transforms into matter. As Lao Tzu puts it, “the Tao begot One [energy], One begot Two [the two opposite and complementary forces or negative and positive yin and yang], Two begot Three [the result of their combined interactions] and Three produced the ten thousand beings [the whole creation]”.
From the dawn of civilization, man has been busy channelling the Tao’s energy (the dam, the windmill…) and the whole industrial technology is based on storing this energy to produce motion when unleashed (the steam engine, the atom bomb…)
Rage is energy. According to a poll, 70% of people in the US hate their job. That’s a lot of rage accumulated that they can’t vent because the corporrupt media keep telling them that hate is bad. Hate speech (TM) can get you banned from social media and of course from your job if it’s directed at your boss. Don’t mess with that! Got a fambly to feed!
Still, you’ve got to vent that rage before it makes your life hell through psychosomatic diseases: back pains, stomach ulcers, cancers… Serious stuff! It’s like in With a Little Help from my Friends, only with hate instead of love: “I need somebody to hate. Give me someone to hate”.
Fortunately Big Brother, who is your friend, is here to channel it for you and George Orwell illustrated it in his novel 1984 with his genius Two Minutes Hate scenario, a daily ritual during which Party members gather in front of a large telescreen, vent their rage and suppressed emotions towards flashing images of Emmanuel Goldstein and enemy soldiers and feel compelled to shout, spit, and stomp in an unrestrained manner. A kind of collective proto-primal scream.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvGmOZ5T6_Y
Isn’t it amazing how, as the economic situation was deteriorating (at least for the 99,9% while the 0,1% was getting richer, in part through easy money labelled Covid bailout), we’ve moved seamlessly from Orange Man Bad to Russian Man Bad and from the Trump Derangement Syndrome to the Putin Derangement Syndrome?
Even if neither of these guys could qualify as saints, neither of them comes anywhere near the horrible characters this planet has produced through the ages, from Nero and Caligula to last century’s various state (Genrick Yagoda) or self-employed (Ted Bundy) serial killers.
Isn’t it amazing that, as Western societies are moving into economic hardships because of the ripple effect of the illegal sanctions their leaders impose on a country with which they are not at war (Russia) to allegedly help another one with which they are not allied (Ukraine) and which they have blatantly failed by neglecting to enforce the Minsk agreements to which they had presided and of which they were guarantors in international law, the Two Minutes Hate of Bad Vlad has become our daily routine, with the corporrupt media tirelessly fanning the flames?
Talk about fog of war and smoke and mirrors…
public service announcement:
the last video I’ve seen by Gonzalo Lira, an obviously distraught Lira blames the Daily Beast for snitching him out to the nazis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-sWV9HybKw
they took time out from their normal “fearless journalism” consisting of stories about porn stars fucking for crypto and selling useless bullshit to get an actual journalist whacked by nazis. I can’t verify this video is real but it sure looks like him.
For cryin’ out loud, the more I read you, the more it seems you were gestated inside my head, and I at some point physically manifested you from my brain. lol.
“Propaganda only works on people who don’t know they’re being propagandized.” You have some good one-liners in this essay as usual, Caitlin, but I think we should look hard at this one.
Do you remember being a little kid in church or school? You don’t know what to believe. You are being told that you HAVE to believe everything that you are told, with the implication that you will get a good strapping if you don’t. If it was in church, you were given to understand that God actually knew what you were thinking, and if he knew you didn’t believe in him, he would burn you for all eternity.
Then there are all the times like this one, when it isn’t as organised as a church or school class, but there is a kind of playground mentality that says something like, “We’re all gonna believe this and have fun, and anyone who doesn’t is going to get belted.”
It can be hard to resist either of those situations. You don’t have time to sit down and wonder whether any of it is true. Sometimes, part of it is obviously true, and they are telling you that you’ve got to believe ALL of it. There is no reason to doubt the grammar and spelling you are taught in school, or the arithmetic either, but they sneak a lot of lies in along with it. You believed me about two and two being four, didn’t you? Why don’t you believe me when I tell you that Jesus died for your sins? (I could give many other examples, but some readers wouldn’t believe me.)
Most people seem to come to a kind of pact with themselves that they will believe what is accepted in their community, and only question it if believing seems to be having really bad effects. Admittedly, believing all this nonsense about the Ukraine could easily have deadly effects, but they aren’t IMMEDIATE (so far), and they aren’t INDIVIDUAL. If the Americans accidentally start a nuclear war with Russia by trying to move their missiles right up to Moscow, it may fry us all, but that is only a possibility, and being condemned by our friends and family for doubting the official line isn’t a possibility, it is already an actuality for many of us.
Propaganda does work pretty well sometimes even if you really know it isn’t true.
Good analysis, and I think it tends to support my counterpropaganda technique of bashing people over the head with how stupid they are for believing it or, as you point out, simply pretending to believe it out of immediate self interest. Come down to it, collective long term interest is after all a fairly abstract sell, at least until the blast wave hits.
Caitlin, it is far worse than even I thought possible. I have always known people are gullible, very ignorant and not too smart. They are also so self absorbed they believe everything they read. But it hits home when your friends and family swallow it. Then you show them factual evidence to the contrary and they give you blank stares and no comment. Its as if their view of the world is so entrenched they can not absorb what they see. Eventually they tell you, they dont want to know because it stresses them too much. They are much more comfortable with the lies. We are the good guys and God is on our side. I believe if you forced a paradigm shift upon them, they would have a nervous breakdown.
Trauma Bonding (Bonding to your abuser, Stockholm Syndrome) is a real psychological thing. A type of complex automatic self-preservation survival mechanism. The Ruling Elite depend on it for survival, all they need are pervasive threats/ fear/ boogie men/ terrorists/ mass shooters/a menace/ food shortages/ climbing costs of living/ microbial threats/ the illusion of threats/ choose your phobia………………… Remember how the Wizard of Oz maintained power?
A person will believe anything if they think they will live forever because they believe somebody 2000 years ago was the son of a male sky god with an appendix, but one of the more absurd and effective propaganda claims is that the Russians are pursuing a campaign of genocide in Ukraine. Think what you want about the Russians, but with the firepower they have if they just wanted to kill Ukrainians there would hardly be any left by now. This is so obvious it seems even people could see it. In reality, the scale of the killing in Ukraine is far below that in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, etc. I think the most hamfisted atrocity meme is that the Russians are targeting maternity hospitals, which I thought hospitals just had maternity wards but anyway the notion that Ruskies are targeting babies begs the question of exactly why, given that they have actual adults shooting at them. I think the best way of countering propaganda is not with reason but by bashing people over the head with how stupid they are for believing it.
The line about stained glass and crucifixes is positively Carlinesque. OK Caitlin, you won’t be able to satirize a nuclear war afterwards so I think you should have a go while you still have the chance. Maybe carve it on heat resistant plates for possible future generations.
Yep, it’s lobotomy levels of gullibility going on. If genocide was their goal nukes would do it within an hour. They could use neutron bombs and keep infrastructure and buildings standing. Of course, they also have chemical and bio weapons, radio wave weapons.
On another note – Wouldn’t surprise me in the least if The West, Russia and China all have bio-weapons that appear to be a ‘novel’ virus that could wipe out selective groups that haven’t received a vaccine for the mystery ‘novel’ virus.
Russia could kill a lot more Ukrainians just by bombing their water treatment plants like the US did in Iraq, or they could put up a blockade like the US in Yemen, or they could use MOAB bombs like the US in Afghanistan, or they could use napalm like the US did in Vietnam. The US government ranting about Russia committing genocide is like Jack the Ripper scolding somebody for eating meat.
Yep, and this is why they are dumbing down the future generations, so they can’t see hypocrisy and and can’t identify holes in the ‘official’ narratives. Say goodbye to critical thought. Pick your least corrupt MAFIA to live under and cross your fingers.
The US calls for democracy everywhere they want a popular insurrection to destabilize the enemy du jour.
For the US democracy is just a tool to do a job. And when the job is done the tool is put down.
100% agree
Pick one:
(1) America has an unprecedented massively expensive and expert propaganda system that dwarves others
(2) Russia’s propaganda is the same as America’s : “the propaganda cuts both ways”.
The correct answer is (1). Even if Russia wanted to play the same games as the USA it lacks the capacity
With all due respect, “propaganda cuts both ways” doesn’t mean that it cuts the same. Hitler himself said in Mein Kampf that both the Brits and the Germans used propaganda during WWI but that the British one was infinitely superior, which is why he made it front and centre in his own later power grab.
All of the MSM has been weaponized for decades now. Your best bet is to reverse everything you hear and then you’ll be a little closer to the truth than taking it all straight as the ‘truth’. Anyone remember the absolute rag that was called the TRUTH newspaper? That was likely published to make you believe that the other MSM newspapers were the real truthful news. Clever psyop that one, still used today.
Sadly in Britain there is a bill going through parliament to ‘protect ‘ the public from ‘fake news’ which of course is a sneaky way of applying censorship and anyone having watched the BBC amongst others to call news media like RT fake really is taking the pi.s
It don’t make sense
Just a thought….! About the way the US imperialists work. I’ve often thought that it was like the Mafia, but am also wondering if their approach is like American Football which has always puzzed me. Isn’t it about blocking everybody else so the person with the ball gets a free ride? A sort of perverted reversal of the ancient gauntlet?
Keep up the good work from your positive Oz-US personal alliance
Imperialists are the original Mafia. At base, ‘nations’ are barely concealed protection rackets continually updated for the new generation. Just like the Mafia, some families (nations) are a little less corrupt than others.
See also:
„The US Power Elite: they are doing it again!“: https://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2022/04/09/the-us-power-elite-they-are-doing-it-again-die-us-machtelite-sie-tun-es-wieder/
The US deep state, beltway insiders, call them what you will have one goal: control of remaining world resources so the “non-negotiable American way of life” can carry on. At least for the 1% and the 10% or so vassal class doing the heavy lifting.
The remaining 90% will be screwed, as is the EU. Nuland said fuck the EU back in 2014; Europeans should haven taken her at her word.
Why are the 1%ers so fixated on space travel and trans humanism? Once they have sucked earth of all it has, they will head out in search of another planet to exploit. In the meantime, climate change is of no concern to them beyond taking advantage of propaganda to paint themselves as doing what they can to “save the planet.” And the more people who die, from disease, war, famine, the more natural resources are available for the upper echelon.
They are truly evil
What’s climate change?
The climate just changed. It was raining yesterday and now it is sunny.
Evil. God and devil. It doesn’t mean anything. Space travel and transhumanism. Government used to engage in space exploration, which is not a bad thing. Now, only the extremely rich can do it. Transhumanism is a scare phrase which doesn’t mean much, oh no, they made a robotic arm for amputees with a neural interface, it must be evil. The rich want to kill us off so there’s more for them. Another scare meme, but it does point out the limit of resources. How do we deal with resource depletion?
Simple. We deplete then revert to a simpler smaller population.
Russia Says Some Buyers Agreed To Rubles-For-Gas Payments
So now Putin has got rid of ISIS – Nazi’s – COVID and the Paris Accords !
Brilliant Vlad !
There is way more meaningful public debate going on in Russia, at least as regards Ukraine and WWIII level geo-economic and geo-political issues than there is anywhere in the West.
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2022/04/14/the-russian-way-of-war-part-two/
Meaningful is the operative word. Yes, over here we are allowed to “hotly” “debate” specified issues as long as they fall within the acceptable window, the perfect example being the question on all of our media’s lips, “should we risk nuclear war by pursuing Policy A, or should we risk nuclear war by pursuing Policy B?”
Infantile media nonesense* like that is very much allowed and indeed encouraged.
Note: As for Vlad the Marshmellow, the idea that he is some kind of international Machiavellian bad ass is an absurdity. I remind everyone once again, he was by calling a neo-liberal globalist, and there is no disputing the fact that it was on his watch that Nato rolled up to Russia’s borders, that his oligarchs pillaged the Russian nation of trillions of dollars worth of wealth, that his central bank openly committed treason against the nation he governs (caught red handed!), and evidently continues to do so to this very day, without any serious recriminations, let alone criminal charges being brought.
I could be wrong, but it is my opinion that the mood in Russia is changing fast at all levels of their society, including deep within the governmental superstructure itself, and Sleepy Vlad better wake up to this rapid – aka instant – evolution in the overall perspective of his nation. Seriously, more than 50 days deep into this crisis and Vladimir Putin seems to be the only Russian theoretically devoted to the nation-state, that remains unaware that the US goal isn’t just to eliminate him, it is to chop Russia into pieces and sell the bits off one by one to the highest Western bidders.
*Of course it is precisely this type of “infantile media nonesense” that leads to the death of worlds.
“Vladimir Putin seems to be the only Russian theoretically devoted to the nation-state, that remains unaware that the US goal isn’t just to eliminate him, it is to chop Russia into pieces and sell the bits off one by one to the highest Western bidders”.
You should send him an email to tell him. It’s important that he should know. As an ex-KGB officer, how would anyone expect him to be aware of this kind of things or to have read Brzezinski book The Grand Chessboard? Poor clueless Vlady… I feel sorry for him, all alone in the world and without even a brother to give him a bowl of soup, contrary to Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly…
I have seen several interviews by Putin. He is far and away one of the most intelligent state leaders in the world. The west should not underestimate him. That is why the US military is strongly suggesting restraint in this situation.
I liked the one by Oliver Stone.
Agree. Putin is clearly brilliant dude. He does his homework and he works his ass off – puts in 12 to 16 everyday according to Oliver Stone.
I could also be wrong. Maybe Vlad never was a neo-liberal globalist, he just played one for a couple of decades, because that was the hand he dealt when he came to power, surrounded as he was by neo-liberal globalists, with the long term goal always to rid his nation of this treasonous prescence when the time was ripe.
Well, the time is ripe Vlad the Grandmaster.
He is intelligent enough to get vaccinated against covid, and get the Russian army vaccinated too. Be as intelligent as Putin. Get vaccinated.
Et Carthago delenda est.
I remember listening to Grandfather tell stories of Japanese tossing babies into the air and catching them on the end of their bayonet. I thought it was bullshit when I was 10. I have since heard the same story told about other enemies from time to time. It must have been a popular meme in the 30s-50s.
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A lot of the news I see is on the level of that. It actually hurts credibility in my opinion whenever the media overstates things so hard. To believe CNN these days, you’d think Russian soldiers and generals had horns and pointy tails and were looking for children to firebomb.
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Never shame your enemies. Not unless you relish keeping them as the bitterest of enemies, forever.
~
Jonathan Pratt
Its so amusing to see Aussies calling for the West to invade Ukraine and drive out the Russians… while reading the Sydney Morning Herald, safe and sound thousands of miles away!
There’s nothing to stop them volunteering. If keyboards were assault rifles Ukraine would have won already.
I was wondering just like yesterday how come we in the US end up with absolutely the worst of political candidates as a winner of the race. I thought we must have the worst election system or worst abuse of the system. Thanks for confirming my suspicions that US elections are actually known to be the worst in the Western world. I decided I am not going to vote anymore.
I understand. It’s always poke in the eye with a sharp stick vs kick in the ass with a frozen boot. If you’re lucky.
There’s a funny side to it though. At election time, people in Langley worry about Russian meddling but none of them wonder about the real implications on the ground of the decade(s) long Epstein operation – which might just be one among others in the intelligence (aka deep state) community. The fact that Epstein committed suicide in his cell as well as his Paris associate, ex-modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, a few months later doesn’t raise eyebrows. Anybody wants to check if evoking the subject of paedophilia blackmail among politicians would get you banned from Twitter? I don’t have Twitter.
With Ukraine, most Americans have made this unconscious leap to the presumption that the US is now the guardian angel of the world, here to protect all that’s right and fair and democratic. “We must do something to stop Putin’s imperial ambitions” they cry, “and we are the only ones who can do it.” Or maybe Americans think we are some kind of Marvel comics Justice League, whatever floats their mentally unstable boat. Whatever makes them feel better in the face of massive self-loathing. At any rate It’s a big leap, considering our history of acting always in our self-interest, and not caring in the least how many people in other places had to pay for that agenda with their lives. It’s a leap they are willing to take, because coming to grips with this country’s criminal behavior is just too damn hard.
No public inquiry into Nam, Iraq, or Afghanistan. No embracing of the ICC. Have to protect the boatloads of American war criminals?
247 Russian tourists blown out of the sky over the Sinai !
Red Army Choir blown up when leaving Russia for a concert in Syria !
Massive shopping centre fires killing hundreds in Russia !
Russian diplomats dying mysteriously !
Russian air crew obliterated by Israel after they triggered Syrian air defence systems !
Mysterious oil pipeline leaks in Russia causing massive environmental damage – these pipelines were operated by UK/US oil companies !
Those oil companies didn’t pull out of Russia – they were ORDERED out !
I have a long memory and so does Putin !
Putin doesn’t say all that much – he just ACTS !
Russia doesn’t step on the same rake twice !
Since Russia entered Syria in 2015 – 400 thousand ZIO/US/NATO ‘proxy’ ISIS terrorists have been turned into fertilizer !
Russia has suffered 117 casualties !
Russia KNOWS how to do expertly strategic WAR !
EVERY major terrorist group that has ever existed has been a a product of the Rothschilds financed ZIO/US !
Putin is doing the world a massive favor !
Very disappointed in the EU. Sure they are still smarting from WWII but that was a good 3 generations ago +. The eagerness with which the US MSM leapt into their nauseating high-fiving “victory lap” was highlighted by their claims they are leader of the free world again. Was that really what the craven EU had in mind? I don’t think the US could lead a Brownie pack on an Easter egg hunt today. They sound like a maniacal Saturday morning cartoon villain in caricature screaming “ I wanna rule the world”, cackling…. well… maniacally. Yes, I do mean a cartoon of a caricature.
Yes, the EU has failed Europe miserably by allowing itself to be dominated and controlled by the US even to the point of destroying its own economy.
Any calm person who bothers to look can see the damage the EU is inflicting on itself for the US proxy war against Russia.
Its like telling someone to stab themselves repeatedly “don’t complain, just keep stabbing yourself, I’ll tell you when to stop – maybe”.
There is no plan A,B or even C. Europe is about to implode economically, even as the US tries to sell it more oil, gas and weapons at exorbitant prices, and the people are facing energy price rises of well over 100% in some cases. Inflation is beginning to spiral out of control as well.
The sanctions are hurting more and more people around the world, even in the US – which is still buying Russian oil and gas and defying its own sanctions.
Yet strangely enough, nobody is complaining. The voices of reason are, as usual, being silenced.
Wasn’t it obvious for quite some time that the imperial and ecocidal neoliberal system had become entrenched and impervious to any sort of revolution from “the people,” which it had dumbed down and divided? Thus the only hope for those of us who despise this system was that it would self-destruct, which now appears to be happening. If the system does not destroy the world in its death throes, space will be cleared for us to create a better, more beautiful way of life. As fraught with danger and uncertainty as this deconstruction is, as much suffering as it may leave in its wake, had systemic self-destruction not become humaniity’s last remainig shot to survive and thrive?
“Wanna rule the world” isn’t caricature. The stated mission of the US military is “full spectrum military dominance of the world”. It seems like you either have to decide the US government is crazy or the cartoon villains are sane.
The comment about not being qualified to lead a Brownie pack on an Easter egg hunt is Caitlinesque.
Good work Caity XO