(This article contains reports about child rape which might be intense for some people.)
Listen to a reading of this article:
❖
The Ukrainian government is quickly learning that it can say anything, literally anything at all, about what’s happening on the ground there and get it uncritically reported as an actual news story by the mainstream western press.
The latest story making the rounds is a completely unevidenced claim made by a Ukrainian government official that Russians are going around raping Ukrainian babies to death. Business Insider, The Daily Beast, The Daily Mail and Yahoo News have all run this story despite no actual evidence existing for it beyond the empty assertions of a government who would have every incentive to lie.
“A one-year-old boy died after being raped by two Russian soldiers, the Ukrainian Parliament’s Commissioner for Human Rights said on Thursday,” reads a report by Business Insider which was subsequently picked up by Yahoo News. “The accusation is one of the most horrific from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but is not unique.”
At the end of the fourth paragraph we get to the disclaimer that every critical thinker should look for when reading such stories in the mainstream press:
“Insider could find no independent evidence for the claim.”
A growing number of accusations that Russian soldiers are raping the youngest and most vulnerable war victims is the latest disturbing twist in a modern war defined by archaic brutalityhttps://t.co/fFFkGLmg7M
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) May 20, 2022
In its trademark style, The Daily Beast ran the same story in a much more flamboyant and click-friendly fashion.
“The dead boy is among dozens of alleged child rape victims which include two 10-year-old boys, triplets aged 9, a 2-year-old girl raped by two Russian soldiers, and a 9-month-old baby who was penetrated with a candlestick in front of its mother, according to Ukraine’s Commissioner for Human Rights,” The Daily Beast writes.
The one and only source for this latest spate of “the Russians are raping babies to death” stories is a statement on a Ukrainian government website by Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner Lyudmyla Denisova. The brief statement contains no evidence of any kind, and its English translation concludes as follows:
I appeal to the UN Commission for Investigation Human Rights Violations during the Russian military invasion of Ukraine to take into account these facts of genocide of the Ukrainian people.
I call on our partners around the world to increase sanctions pressure on russia, to provide Ukraine with offensive weapons, to join the investigation of rashist crimes in our country!
The enemy must be stopped and all those involved in the atrocities in Ukraine must be brought to justice!
This is what passes for journalism in the western world today. Reporting completely unfounded allegations against US enemies based solely on assertions by a government official demanding more weapons and sanctions against those enemies and making claims that sound like they came from an It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia bit.
The Ukrainian government is quickly learning that it can say anything, literally anything about Russia, without any evidence at all, and the western mainstream press will report it as an actual news story. pic.twitter.com/BYESIPwe1x
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 21, 2022
We cannot say definitively that these rapes never happened. We also cannot say definitively that the Australian government isn’t warehousing extraterrestrial aircraft in an underground bunker in Canberra, but we don’t treat that like it’s an established fact and publish mainstream news reports about it just because we can’t prove it’s false. That’s not how the burden of proof works.
Obviously the rape of children is a very real and very serious matter, and obviously rape is one of the many horrors which can be inflicted upon people in the lawless environment of war. But to turn strategically convenient government assertions about such matters into a news story based on no evidence whatsoever is not just journalistic malpractice but actual atrocity propaganda.
As we discussed previously, the US and its proxies have an established history of using atrocity propaganda, as in the infamous “taking babies from incubators” narrative that was circulated in the infamous 1990 Nayirah testimony which helped manufacture consent for the Gulf War.
Atrocity propaganda has been in use for a very long time due to how effective it can be at getting populations mobilized against targeted enemies, from the Middle Ages when Jews were accused of kidnapping Christian children to kill them and drink their blood, to 17th century claims that the Irish were killing English children and throwing them into the sea, to World War I claims that Germans were mutilating and eating Belgian babies.
Atrocity propaganda frequently involves children, because children cannot be construed as combatants or non-innocents, and generally involves the most horrific allegations the propagandists can possibly get away with at that point in history. It creates a useful appeal to emotion which bypasses people’s logical faculties and gets them accepting the propaganda based not on facts and evidence but on how it makes them feel.
Before writing this, the members of the @nytimes Editorial Board should have asked themselves who among them wanted to have their children, including babies and infants, raped by Russian soldiers, because that is what's happening in Ukraine: https://t.co/upsYpUmuyI https://t.co/UeCbCDTLfr
— Andrea Chalupa (@AndreaChalupa) May 20, 2022
And the atrocity propaganda is functioning exactly as it’s meant to. Do a search on social media for this bogus story that’s been forcibly injected into public discourse and you’ll find countless individuals expressing their outrage at the evil baby-raping Russians. Democratic Party operative Andrea Chalupa, known for her controversial collusion with the Ukrainian government to undermine the 2016 Trump campaign, can be seen citing the aforementioned Daily Beast article on Twitter to angrily admonish the New York Times editorial board for expressing a rare word of caution about US involvement in the war.
“Before writing this, the members of the New York Times Editorial Board should have asked themselves who among them wanted to have their children, including babies and infants, raped by Russian soldiers, because that is what’s happening in Ukraine,” Chalupa tweeted.
See that? How a completely unevidenced government assertion was turned into an official-looking news story, and how that official-looking news story was then cited as though it’s an objective fact that Russian soldiers are running around raping babies to death in Ukraine? And how it’s done to help manufacture consent for a geostrategically crucial proxy war, and to bludgeon those who express any amount of caution about these world-threatening escalations?
That’s atrocity propaganda doing exactly what it is meant to do.
Now on top of all the other reasons we’re being given why the US and its allies need to send Ukraine more and more war machinery of higher and higher destructive capability, they also need to do so because the Russians are just raping babies to death willy nilly over there. Which just so happens to work out nicely for the US-centralized empire’s goals of unipolar domination, for the Ukrainian regime, and for the military-industrial complex.
"Newsweek has not independently verified the claim." https://t.co/LdnZ8rLdRz
— Scott Horton (@scotthortonshow) May 21, 2022
And that wasn’t even the extent of obscene mass media atrocity propaganda conducted on behalf of Ukrainian officials for the day. Newsweek has a new article out titled “Russians Targeting Kids’ Beds, Rooms With Explosives: Ukrainian Bomb Team,” which informs us that “The leader of a Ukrainian bomb squad has said that Russian forces are targeting children by placing explosive devices inside their rooms and under their beds.”
Then at the end of the second paragraph we again find that magical phrase:
“Newsweek has not independently verified the claim.”
The Newsweek report is based on part of an embarrassing ABC News Australia puff piece about a Ukrainian team which is allegedly responsible for removing landmines in areas that were previously occupied by Russian forces. The puff piece refers to the team as a “unit of brave de-miners” while calling Russian forces “barbaric”.
ABC uncritically reports all the nefarious ways the evil Russians have been planting explosives with the goal of killing Ukrainian civilians, including setting mines in children’s beds and teddy bears and placing them under fallen Ukrainian soldiers. Way down toward the bottom of the article we see the magical phrase again:
“The ABC has not been able to independently verify these reports, but they back up allegations made by Ukraine’s President.”
Ahh, so what you’re being told by Ukrainian forces “backs up” what you’ve been told by the president of Ukraine. Doesn’t get any more rock solid than that, does it? Great journalism there, fellas.
The Ukrainian government stands everything to gain and nothing to lose by just saying whatever it needs to say in order to obtain more weapons, more funding and increasingly direct assistance from western powers, so if it knows the western media will uncritically report every claim it makes, why not lie? Why not tell whatever lie you need to tell in order to advance your own interests and agendas? It would be pretty silly of them not to take advantage of the opening they’re being given.
This is something the western press know is happening. They know full well that Ukraine is waging a very sophisticated propaganda campaign against Russia and seeding disinformation to facilitate that infowar. It’s not a secret. They are participating in that campaign knowingly.
The CIA Post is going full Babies on Bayonets already. Putin is going to round up and torture all the gays! https://t.co/OJspZdz37P pic.twitter.com/qPyhpHD1gp
— Scott Horton (@scotthortonshow) February 21, 2022
The mass media have been cranking out atrocity propaganda about what’s happening in Ukraine since before the invasion even started, like when they reported in February that Russia has a list of dissidents, journalists and “vulnerable populations such as religious and ethnic minorities and LGBTQI+ persons” who it plans on rounding up and torturing when it invades. Funny how we just completely stopped hearing about that one.
And this is all happening at the same time the western political/media class continues to shriek about the dangers of “disinformation” and the urgent need to strictly regulate its circulation on the internet, even after US officials came right out and admitted that they’ve been circulating disinformation about Russia and Ukraine. I guarantee you none of these completely evidence-free claims will be subject to censorship by the “fact checkers” of social media platforms.
The fact that both Silicon Valley and the mainstream news media have accepted it as a given that it is their job to manipulate public thought about this war tells you everything you need to know about how free and truth-based the so-called liberal democracies of the western world really are. We are being deceived and confused into consenting to agendas that could very easily lead to nuclear armageddon, and if we ever raise our voices in objection to this we are branded Putin propagandists and disinformation agents.
It’s getting very, very bad. Turn around, people. Wrong way.
______________
My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my American husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
66 responses to “Western Media Run Blatant Atrocity Propaganda For The Ukrainian Government”
The degree of darkness to which they have to resort to in their lying, is proportional evidence that the truth is not on their side. That the Western populace shamefully consumes this without question, is indication of how scientifically brainwashed they are. Hopefully the truth will prevail soon.
Here’s a comprehensive list of people warning about the consequences of Nato expansion eastwards (and just one such example):
Sir Roderic Lyne, former British ambassador to Russia, warned a year ago that “[pushing] Ukraine into NATO […] is stupid on every level.” He adds “if you want to start a war with Russia, that’s the best way of doing it.”
https://nitter.net/RnaudBertrand/status/1498491152592359426#m
Please share far and wide
Largely immaterial. Ukraine has long had ambitions to join NATO. Can you guess why? The West hasn’t been “pushing” Ukraine into NATO; quite the contrary. It’s Ukraine itself, both leadership and popular opinion, that has wanted that. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/us/politics/nato-ukraine.html
im guessing it stems from the successful coup the us instigated in 2014, and Zelensky backing down to the neo nazis at home and the US State Department.
“You can detect a Kremlin shill (or useful idiot) with the argument that the Ukranian regime is ‘Nazi’ or that the 2014 revolution was a Western “coup” – to quote Nassim Taleb (who seems infinitely better informed on this than you).Taleb has written quite a good article on this that you may want to check out (or not, I suspect): https://medium.com/incerto/a-clash-of-two-systems-47009e9715e2
Oh, right, so numerous people warning about the likely consequences of Nato expansion eastwards is ‘largely immaterial’. Now THAT’s *exactly* what a shill WOULD say, isn’t it! I take it you monitor this site and check out every comment the moment it gets posted. AND respond when ‘necessary’!
.
It matters not a jot whether Nato pushed, the outcome was foreseen and warned against by numerous people during the course of the past twenty-five years or more.
Just bear in mind that most Western leadership was/is reluctant to allow Ukraine join NATO precisely because of the awful prospect of conflict with Russia. But Russia invaded anyway, in a brutal, aggressive act. Too many people on here seem in denial about that.
Says David Edwards re-writing history!
.
Well if THAT’s the case, why didn’t Biden/Nato state explicitly in an agreement with Russia that Ukraine will never be allowed to join Nato???
PS It would be good if the time people post their comments was ALSO included (along with the date), so that we can see how quickly the shills respond to what someone said/posted. I know from other blogs I post on (that DO list the time), that the shills like to get their ‘retort’ in as soon as possible.
.
And I think a former British ambassador to Russia KNOWS what he’s talking about!
As John Pilger said in an article on Feb 17th:
.
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:
.
– 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)
.
These amount to a comprehensive draft of a peace plan for all of post-war Europe and ought to be welcomed in the West.
Glenn Greewald and Jimmy Dore. Good times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbCMQ00TtxM
Glenn on the recently departed – or never got started, take your pick – attitude of Nina Jankowicz; who is currently making the “weep for me!” rounds on Big State Media: “You know I’m gonna call the Homeland Security manager on you if you criticize me on Twitter.”
Too funny.
Good entertainment, no doubt – but if you’re more interested in FACTS than “owning the libs” vaudeville, see the endless lies and falsehoods from Jimmy Dore (the notable fraud) exposed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wRDLf54Scs
Dave is your side completely ascendant. You and your people have achieved total dominance in all aspects of life, why do you feel it necessary to piss on the funeral procession as passes under your victory tower?
I never understood that mindset. Life is short.. Enjoy yourself. Celebrate. The game is over, you have won, your opponent has been crushed into dust.
So party it up, or settle down with a good bottle and a fine cigar, or whatever is your preferred method for ruminating on how easy it was to destroy us.
But pissing on those that are in mourning? Come on, that should be beneath you – so to speak.
You refer to my “side” and my “people”, which is the old, UK reformist left (roughly of the type philosopher Richard Rorty refers to). In this context, it’s adherence to facts, and anti-imperialism regardless of the perpetrator. I’m anti- US imperialism (as in Iraq); I’m anti- Russian imperialism (as in Ukraine). People here are distorting facts to apologise for the latter imperialist aggression (Russia’s). I’d love to think that adherence to facts and a more general anti-imperialism was in the ascendant, but the evidence (on the web at least) goes against that – it’s flooded with the kind of propaganda one sees on here.
oh more from the “jimmy dore has a house, the horror” guy. i think he’s wrong. your side is losing on the ground, though for the moment you have won the propaganda war in the United States.
Never said anything about the ground Pretzel. I have made it clear on this blog since Day 2, that the Russian Army is fighting a mop up operation.
My only caveat being that this particular mop up operation is likely to be bloodier than most, because the Russian Federation seems intent on fighting it like they have a point to prove, that unlike the Brits and the Americans approach to war, they feel the indiscriminate slaughtering of humans is in the long run, counter-productive. .
I wouldn’t have a problem with Dore, frankly, if his $2Million L.A. compound came from money he earned honestly, rather than from his lucrative grift of promoting ant-vaxx lies & reactionary Fox-style bullshit to the gullible.
They’ll stop using absurd rabid propaganda when it stops working, but when did “brutality” become “archaic”? Brutality has never gone out of style.
It really might be time to be concerned we’re on Armageddon autopilot. War hysteria is bad enough with small enemies and conventional weapons, but this time the enemy is big and has 6000 hydrogen bombs and if historians agree on anything it’s that this kind of shit takes on a life of its own. The only world the MIC/MSM actually control is the fantasy world they live in, and they really might drive the real one over the edge this time.
Two lane bus transit rigtht up the pipe. Truly outsanding. Well done Emporer Xi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ii_TWPzFkM
The Army of Topariay Artists is doing fine work here as well. It ain’t easy keeping 110,000 miles of supehighways flowered up and looking pretty. Need a few more trees though on this route, but I understand, trees take time to grow, no matter how much loving care you give each and every one of them.
And you do treat your trees Emporer Xi much better than my country treats its citizens, no doubt about that.
Is China greater than Rome at its apex? Of course it is. The only question remaining is, by how many factors? Is it three times greater. Is it four?
Hell, China speed means four might get skipped and China might itself 5 times greater the next greatest civilization there ever was … by the end of this year.
This Ukraine shit is over, it’s mop up time, and mop ups are BORING! I’ve grown so very tired of watching Russia dominate this war at all the levels that matter. So let’s move on to China already. I could use some exitement. Let the WW IV propaganda wars begin!
The subways, the metros, the trolleys, the trams, the monorails, and obviously, the bullet trains, get all the glory, but give me a nice, quiet (electric!) dedicated bus option and I will appreciate this freedom of choice and indeed, I might choose it quite often.
Who knows. There are so many goddamn options in China I have no clue what I would do if I lived there. Play it by mood most likely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ1ZIMbgIZ0
Just in case you thought the two laner up the pipe was an anamoly, this two laner is elevated so it can ride right over the pipe in the middle of one of the world’s largest cities.
Can my country win the upcoming propaganda war, even on the homefront? Fuck no, not without shutting down a lot more than Twitter it can’t
Just don’t question the gas chambers in the German concentration camps. THAT atrocity war propaganda story is true. Just ask those first two American servicemen to enter Buchenwald. Who worked in the psychological warfare department, and documented their fine work in the (maybe not so well-known, for some reason) book Sykewar by Daniel Lerner. Or Hollywood director Billy (Samuel) Wilder, known for for example Some Like It Hot, who were flown over to make sure the horror film documenting the German crimes against humanity was convincing enough.
FUCK OFF NAZI SCUM.
Caitlin – will you please remove this shit – for good?
What Niclas writes is called “sarcasm”. You obviously don’t get it so you’re probably American. Come back on thread when you’ve grown out of your short pants, ‘kay?
the sarcasm depends on agreeing with the view that there were no gas chambers in the concentration camps.
Some people will believe anything that is said by the MSM ,as long as it demonizes the Russian state in any way possible. It is sickening !
Some people even believe the MSM “narrative” that Russia invaded Ukraine with missiles, bombs and tanks. It’s sickening.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the current atrocity.
I mean it’s an atrocity in itself, like the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and should be condemned as such. Too many people on here trying to deflect away from that.
Then your condemnation of the US should be overwhelming.
Cannot one country invade another to prevent a planned atrocity?
It is, and was. Unlike the HYPOCRITE Glenn Greenwald, who supported war criminal George Bush and his “security”/”protection” rationale for invading Iraq, and then changed his mind when no WMDs were found (like everyone with more than a few brain cells), but who falsely denied he’d supported the war in the first place: https://newsframes.wordpress.com/2020/02/26/strange-case-of-glenn-greenwald/
And let’s not forget the first Gulf war in 1990. I’m old enought to have campaigned against that war. Yet another aggressive war with a dubious rationale, like Iraq 2003, and the current aggressive invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
What, precisely, is ‘dubious’ about the ‘rational’ of Russia for invading Ukraine Keith?
.
And the ‘rational’ by Bush and Blair and Co for invading Iraq was HARDLY ‘dubious’. It was outright Big Lies. You know that to be the case, but you HAD to use the expression ‘dubious rational’ in respect of Iraq so you could THEN use the expression in respect of Ukraine. So let’s try it the other way:
.
‘Yet another aggressive war (as opposed to a non-aggressive war!) based on Big Lies, like Iraq 2003, and the current aggressive invasion of Ukraine by Russia’.
.
Iraq was based on Big Lies of course, whereas Ukraine is based on legitimate security concerns, and had those concerns been addressed, Russia would not have invaded Ukraine. Russia was deliberately provoked in to taking military action, and ever since they first invaded, just about every politician etc in the West – including Biden and Johnson and Stoltenberg – have been dissembling the Big Lie on a daily basis that the attack was ‘unprovoked’, and duping and deceiving hundreds of millions of people. as such.
I of course meant David, not Keith! Mind you, I can understand why I got the two of them mixed up!
lol no he did not deny. this is on a par with your mindless smear of Jimmy Dore’s work with the snide and meaningless assertion that he was a fraud because he owned a house.
Yet again, Mr Pretzel, you show how clueless you are when it comes to the facts. To the claim that Greenwald “supported the Iraq War and/or George Bush”, Greenwald himself replied “These claim [sic] are absolutely false.” He then goes on to make the ludicrous argument that he couldn’t have supported the war, since he wasn’t a journalist at the time. This is well documented, as you’d know if you had a clue. See, for example (in addition to link I already posted above): https://thedailybanter.com/2013/04/glenn-greenwalds-hilarious-denial-about-his-support-for-iraq-war/
once again you smear people who tell the truth about who caused the current atrocity, in order to deflect blame from the US and NATO. nobody is impressed with your crap arguments.
Zelensky seems to be the new Ahmed Chalabi. Just tell them what they are _gagging_ to hear and they’ll probably trash you in the end when it all gets too embarrassing.
Oh, yeah? Well, I have it on good authority that Zelensky eats Christian babies for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. This war is just like one big barbecue for all the Ukie orcs. It will end only when they run out of Ukrainians. Moreover, Biden gives every Ukie soldier a million dollar signing bonus plus a pension for life when the war is won for Washington. Why? Because he hates your freedoms.
~
There, maybe that will even things up a bit in the propaganda competitions. So far the Yanks and the Ukes are medaling every event.
The various “fact checks” about the seed bank in Ukraine being bombed is unbelievable. The usual headline is “Did Russia Bomb Seed Bank?” This is followed by assorted proofs that the seed bank was bombed. No where is any proof of WHO did the bombing.
Anyone who points out that there are two likely suspects is derided.
Just exactly WHY do the individuals that make up the MSM continue to publish and broadcast outright lies? For the very same way that other individuals rationalize their jobs. For example,………
Why do underground miners continue, day after day after day, to risk their lives going deep underground and mining whatever? Money. That’s how they “make a living”. They’ll do absolutely anything to keep their jobs. They will hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil when it comes to mining and miners’ daily lives.
Why do mercenaries risk their lives, day after day after day, killing and killing and killing whomever their bosses order them to kill? Money. That’s how they make a living. They’ll do absolutely anything to keep their jobs. They will hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil when it comes to killing whom they are told and mercenaries’ daily lives. They just aren’t interested in anything that would interrupt their devotion to their jobs.
Why do people employed in the cigarette industry, from tobacco farmers to factory workers to retail stores, continue to “market” a cancer-causing substance that will kill literally millions of people all over the world, year after year after year? Money. That’s how they “make a living”. They’ll do absolutely anything to keep their jobs. They will hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil about how they make their money and the cigarette industry that employs them.
Why do people employed in the whaling industry continue to risk their lives at sea, day after day after day, killing mammals that live in the oceans of the world? Money. That’s how they “make a living”. They’ll do absolutely anything to keep their jobs. They’ll keep killing whales until whales are extinct.
Why do people employed in the fossil fuel industry continue to explore for fossil fuel on land and at sea, day after day after day when they know in their heart of hearts that what they are doing is poisoning their Mother Earth’s biosphere to the point where Mother Earth will no longer support human life? Money. That’s how they “make a living”. They’ll do and risk absolutely anything to keep their jobs.
Why do people employed as “reporters” and “journalists” in the MSM say, write and print lies that they know full well are lies, day after day after day when they know in their heart of hearts that what they are doing is preparing the masses to demand WWIII to save the world from non-existent Russian aggression? Money. That’s how they “make a living”. They’ll do and risk absolutely anything to keep their jobs.
Why do people employed in the military-security-congressional-industrial complex, from the TSA/FBI/NSA/DHS/CIA/DNI/JSOC/USMC/USN/BIW/HS/NSC etc. ad infinitum, continue to do, day after day after day, what they do? Money. That’s how they “make a living”. They’ll do absolutely anything to keep their jobs. They will hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil about how they make their money in the war/security/regime-change industry that employs them. They don’t give a shit if they cause WW3. They are willing to risk absolutely everything — their lives, their children’s lives and the lives of literally everyone else on earth in order to keep their fucking jobs.
What specific behavior does “doing absolutely anything to keep their jobs” consist of? For example, what are all of these people going to do if they feel that their livelihoods are being threatened (they’re going to become “unemployed”) by candidates for political offices who have control over foreign (war) policy, energy policy, fishing policy, tobacco/asbestos/GM food/GHG policies? Specifically, which candidates for political office are they going to vote for?
THIS is EXACTLY why “things” are they way they are in the world today. WE are the problem, not THEM. WE have to figure out a better “system” (way of life), not THEM.
So instead of pointing fingers, let us, each and every one of us, start figuring out the specific details of that better way of life. On a day to day basis, just exactly WHAT does that better world “look like”? How does it “operate”? If humanity is going to survive for much longer, imagining and giving birth to this at-first-only-imagined better world is exactly what WE, not THEM, not SOMEONE ELSE, and definitely not the Elite, are going to have to do.
If I were you, I’d first try to “come up with a system” in which each and every person in the ways of life I’ve described above is satisfied that they’ll be able to “make a living” should that new system come into being. In other words, they’ll vote for it. That’s your challenge. Humanity’s survival depends upon your ability to imagine that world.
So, what will the “foundation stone” of YOUR imagined “system” be? Will it be “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”? Or will it be “greed is good” — the foundation stone of the present arrangement? If it’s the latter, there is no need to imagine anything new or tell anybody anything. Just sit tight and watch your home’s and investment portfolio’s “value” get miraculously pumped up by the Fed and wait for the thermonuclear bombs to “accidentally”, “unexpectedly” start falling from the sky.
I think it is probably a pretty safe assumption that people who on their own will become mercenaries are more likely than not psychopaths that enjoy killing.
It’s a job drawing monsters like rotting meat draws flies.
I actually think MSM “journalism” today has degenerated so badly and obviously that most people wanting a career there are careerist sociopaths too.
But with the journos it was not always like that.
With the mercenaries it was.
The Russians have still not taken out a single bridge over the Dneiper, nor have they demolished Ukraine’s rail network. Almost all it is intact, and as of yet, the Tos-1 multiple rocket launcher, the “thermobaric flamerthower,” the weapon system with the capability to launch a quick salvo and burn to a crisp everything alive or dead in an area roughly the size of six football fields, has not been used.
In my opinion, the gentlemanly methods by which the Russian Federation is fighting this war has many purposes. For instance, it is logical not to destory infrastructure nor to kill innocent civilians whenever it can be avoided, in a nation that is your neighbor and you are going to have to both rebuild and occupy for an indefinite period.
However, I believe the main reason the Russians have chosen to fight this war like they’re an Army of mellow yellow flower children, is to send a message to the Pentagon; indiscrimate slaughter is for amatuers who don’t know how to fight and win wars – and certainly not the peace that follows.
Are Russian soldiers raping and killing babies for joy and sport? If they are, I am willing to bet my afterlife that should any Russian field grade officer be made aware of such act, they will execute the perpetrator on the spot, and face no recriminations for doing so from above.
As a student of history, it pains me to see this Army so villified. This operation in Ukraine has no parallel in the history of organized warfare. Whatever I think about its incredibly soft approach (and I don’t think much other than the Russians are fucking crazy), it will either become the stuff of legend, or it will be mocked by future military scholars as the primary example of why you should never fight an existential war of survival with your gloves on.
I agree. Apparently Russian losses in soldiers and materiel are so light they have no need of ‘overwhelming’ measures. It is often said by Russian spokespeople that Ukrainians and Russians are the same people.
In ‘generalised’ warfare the overwhelming casualties, the victims, 90 – 95% are civilians.
Conversely, the safest place to be in a war, is in the military.
Russia appears to be going to extraordinary lengths to avoid civilian casualties. One can only applaud this.
Baby rapin Russians. Stories like this have a strong emotional taste. This one has the feeling of disgust. Babies and sex want to make you retch. Intellectually dismissing a story as nonsense does not take away the aftertaste of disgust. The next time a propagandized victim hears ‘Russian’ on a podcast or radio the disgust returns.
–
A question for the Catlin community. WHERE IS ANY DEMAND FOR PEACE. What the f*** happened to pacifism???????????????????
–
Did social media kill that too?
Be assured Keith that Biden and Boris Johnson and Stoltenberg et al are doing everything they can to bring about peace in Ukraine. Or hadn’t you noticed?!
Put a sock in it bro ffs!
PS Oh, and what ELSE did social media kill, TOO?????????????
I thought Biden and Johnson had been urging Zelensky not to negotiate with Russia. How would that help bring about peace?
Sorry svay, but I assumed it was more than obvious that I was being ironic….. you know, about $40 billion and more of irony.
.
What I was saying (in response to Keith) is that Biden and Co will NOT be stopped from fighting their proxy war against Russia, AND, that his slur against ‘the Caitlin community’ was precisely THAT – ie a slur.
‘
PS I’ll put an ‘irony alert’ in future so as to make it crystal clear.
It is getting extremely annoying to learn everyday about the gullible Western masses who kowtow to their rulers who in turn are being hoodwinked by their corrupt Ukraine puppets so dangerously every minute. It is being preached to those of us of other continents that our problems are a result of low IQ. Where is the benefit of a high IQ when you are being so blatantly misled to the point of a possible annihilation? What is wise about moaning about the corrupt Biden family while the US Congress of “we the people” are buttering the family bread even more by sending more money into the Ukraine bottom-less pit? Why are they complaining about corruption when their government are for it?
Caitlin, Thank you for, once again, shedding a bright light through the darkness of US propaganda, always reliably and uncritically delivered by the MSM. You are right to ask the people to wake up and reverse course of supporting this latest US war of aggression. I long ago gave up on the “American people”, as politicians like to call them. I learned during the Vietnam war era that most people in the US do not want to give up their myth of “American Exceptionalism”. I was shocked to learn how resistant many people (perhaps the majority?) just don’t want a critical examination of the facts. Fast forward to what was, prior to the blitz of lies told to gin up support for the Ukraine war, the most outrageous bunch of lies ever told to sell the Iraq war. I was absolutely certain that the exposure of the giant Colin Powell lying spectacle at the UN would result in a scandal (and, hopefully, criminal indictments) of the participants in that fraud. Nope, didn’t happen. The same with the outrageous defense by Madeleine Albright of murdering Iraqi children by US sanctions – on national television, no less. But, as usual, the moderator, being a good MSM servant of Empire, meekly let it pass without asking any inconvenient followup questions. And the people, rather than ostracizing Albright, as would be done in a decent society, continued to accept her as a valued public servant. There was no accountability for George W. Bush and his fellow war criminals. In fact, Bush Jr. has been “rehabilitated” and appears regularly as a respected public figure. As does Bill Clinton, the war criminal who facilitated the illegal Kosovo war. Now the majority of people in the US are waving their Ukrainian flags and cheering for more US support for the war in Ukraine (which was orchestrated by the US as a proxy war against Russia), completely unaware that by doing so they are supporting the killing of more Ukrainians rather than helping them. The majority of the “Americans” are willfully ignorant and eager to believe any and all lies fed to them by US propaganda machine. I have given up on them ever “waking up” to much of anything. They fall for the lies — every time.
Well, it’s a major war – atrocies are going to happen. Some will be trumped up for propaganda purposes, of course. The bigger criticism of US/UK media for me is the relative silence over atrocities committed in Iraq. Let’s not try to whitewash war or its main aggressors (in this case Russia). Meanwhile, current headlining story on main BBC news page is: “Only diplomacy can end Ukraine war, says Zelensky”.
*atrocities
At least the US/UK media went from cheering on the war on Iraq to admitting it was based on outright lies, even showing some of the photos from Abu Ghraib.
In the case of Ukraine, they’ve gone in the opposite direction, from exposing the Nazi roots of the Azov Battalion and similar gangs, to more or less denying there are or ever were Nazis or neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
The US and Ukraine both voted against a 2016 UN resolution condemning the glorification of Nazism. At this rate, it’ll soon be a hate crime to suggest the Aryan Brotherhood or National Action are anything other than innocent patriots.
and some lies about atrocities are going to happen, like in every US backed war since at least world war 2. keep pretending the main aggressor isn’t the US and NATO by all means, and keep pretending the war could not have been easily avoided by implementing the Minsk agreements. the bigger criticism of the US/UK media is the way they are lying about this war with even greater unanimity than they lied about Iraq.
You make a pretzel out of reality every time you claim the main aggressor isn’t the one waging the war (with bombs, missiles, tanks, troops). You’re a fool, or worse.
Says David, pretending that he is unaware of Nato’s expansion eastwards during the past twenty-five years! Perhaps you can remind us all what happened when Russia set about putting missiles in Cuba!
.
Needless to say, if the US hadn’t FIRST based nuke missiles in Turkey (which bordered the Soviet Union) in 1961, ‘Cuba’ would NOT have happened. In OTHER words, the US provoked Russia into reacting!
To Allan Howard,
You are right. However, I would add that Russia’s ally, Cuba, had also asked for Russia’s help in resisting the relentless US aggression against Cuba, including attempted assassination of Castro and military invasion. The shameful US aggression against this tiny country continues to this day, yet another example of the US manufactured “Rules-Based International Order”, summarized as: Follow US Orders Or Be Destroyed”. Anyone who fails to recognize that the Ukraine war is just the latest US war of aggression is ignorant of basic facts.
I appreciate Caitlin’s continued efforts to point out the MSM propaganda but it would also be nice to know what is actually going on in Ukraine. I expect that in the current environment, credible evidence-based information is almost impossible to find. I’ve been looking for credible reporting on Ukraine for the last 3 months. I’ve not found a source and have no idea as to what is going on there. Does such a source exist?
Just me having the knowledge as to what the reality is, won’t change anything but it would be good to know.
It’s arguably the “best” (most detailed) reported war in history, given that smartphones and social media usage are widespread in Ukraine. “Every tank, truck and troop movement gets tracked and added to open source databases – a country of 44 million people recording every move of the invaders, real-time data turned into real-time military strategy.” – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/06/social-media-turn-on-putin-the-past-master
Of course, how that gets filtered through the “mainstream” western media is a different story. But I think the raw data is there (along with video records). It’s just going to be a massive exercise to make sense of it all and finally report it coherent fashion. That will take real journalists (and, later, historians). In the meantime, we get sensationalist propaganda mixed in with highly edited news.
IMHO, you can’t beat The Duran when it comes to such credible info. Several informative videos are put out almost every day.
You can start with this; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFynJY_SeKc
I would recommend both Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett on Rokfin, thesaker.is, Greyzone on Rokfin, also see the Russian Federation´s presentation at the UN security council. Richard Medford on Rockfin. Also reporters on the ground; Patrick Lancaster, Graham Phillips, Telegram@JCCFergie, telegram @DPRTex.
Try the Grayzone, Consortium News, The Duran, Moon of Alabama, DrysenReport, Mintpress, Zerohedge – they all have various sources that help balance out the outright lies and mis/disinformation from the MSM.
Also on YT try New Atlas, Richard Medhurst and Patrick Lancaster, who is on the ground at the front lines.
You can start with this; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFynJY_SeKc
I would recommend both Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett on Rokfin, thesaker.is, Greyzone on Rokfin, also see the Russian Federation´s presentation at the UN security council. Richard Medford on Rockfin. Also reporters on the ground; Patrick Lancaster, Graham Phillips, Telegram@JCCFergie, telegram @DPRTex. Also the Duran.
Scott Ritter admitted that he was wrong about Russia rolling up the Nazis quickly. He said Ukraine troops are doing long term training on advanced NATO weapons systems in Romania and this war will likely drag on. He also said de-nazification may be unrealistic. In order to have hardcore Nazis, there must be a sympathetic population. I’ve traveled in Eastern Europe and got a very hardline, right wing vibe in many places. This is true in the US as well. As Dore says, there is no left wing party, the Dems are now a right wing party. The spin machine here is so good that regular, nonpolitical people think Putin is an evil threat to the world.
Keep in mind that most of what we hear about these events is filtered through these guys:
https://bitchute.com/video/gXE9QONmC9lV/
These hollow, shameless, news-media cretins that have doused their credibility in jet-fuel and set it on fire. Investigative journalism and truth are dead in the mainstream media, and yet their incessant wall-to-wall lies and blatant propaganda get broadcasted relentlessly, blanketing the world like an evil curse.
A nun doing pushups in a cucumber field is more credible in her stated motivations than any of these loathsome, miscreant, false witness “journalists”.
A classic mash-up. Thanks for it.
Here’s another a good one, about the need to create, as Saager Enjenti so eloquenty put it, ” a long, hot, burning war.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3pnFR7DeZA
Note: His partner at Breaking Points Crystal Ball agreed, believing what was necessary for the overall good health of the nation, was a “brutal, grinding, intractable struggle.”
Washington will never learn the necessary lesson unless America and Americans suffer some third degree burns in that struggle. All the dying cannot be done by its enemies, its proxies and its imbecilic European vassals or the monsters in Washington will simply become even more empowered.
~
Patrick Lawrence despaired that it will take generations (till the end of this century and beyond) to heal the rift between East and West because of this war–that we would forsake the critical collaborations needed to pragmatically address future crises that we might not even imagine yet. I think he underestimates the stakes.
~
The conflict will not simply be determinative of foreign relations wherein Washington makes the entire planet an encampment of gibbering vassals while the center of the empire thrives. If Washington is not made to see the error of its ways (by experiencing appropriate consequences for its madness) life will become an oppressive hell, not just for its enemies, but for all of the diverse lot of people it has been feverishly hoovering up at the gaping wound it calls an open southern border and claiming as its own new class of plebians or proletarians, call them what you will, but know they are superfluous and disposable, alive only at the pleasure of the plutocrats who can keep their clout in the coming great reset. The rebirth of Maoism and Stalinism will occur on American soil first and foremost.
~
Perhaps I should just stop caring about the hapless progeny of the current clueless Americans who are happy to ignore the terrible truths about their leaders and will continue to give them carte blanche for any travesties they care to inflict upon the world in the name of peace, tranquility, freedom, democracy and the rest of their mountain of lies. I think the only difference between the former Soviet Union and the emergent America of the 21st century is that the Soviet proletariat knew the score. They knew it was all bullshit.
~
Most Americans remain willfully ignorant, believing that only ignorance or opioids will bring them bliss. The few that will perceive some truth and try to act upon it will, sadly, direct their futility at the carefully cultivated fallacious binary of left-right, lib-con, Dem-GOP rather than all the villains living at the top of the mountain, whom they could never touch anyway. It’s not votes that count in the power struggle–those can be confected with a few keystrokes at a computer. It’s fiat cash that’s king, backing the so very official stocks, bonds, certificates of deposit, titles, deeds and other paperwork (now all computer files I would suppose) that establishes legitimate ownership in the so-called civilised world. The top 0.001% own 90% of the fungible property formally recognised on Earth. The 99% have squat. If Washington prevails in the war it intends to fight against Russia and China, you will have less than squat and a whole passel of new obligations to your loving plutocracy.
Well said and lets hope the dollar based finance cardhouse will collapse or at minimum suffer if the majority of the world living outside the so called international community turns towards new system created by China, Russia and India.
I recall studying how Woodrow Wilson followed the British lead in manufacturing the most vile propaganda possible against the German’s in World War I (George Creel and the early metamorphosis of Hollywood), something the British had long mastered. More of the same now, no more vile, just more technologically enhanced. Interesting how victims of similar propaganda on the domestic front, for example, admirers of former President Trump, are as likely to fall for this ludicrous kind of propaganda as are their most vicious opponents. Not a good sign for the United States, nor for the world, but who cares, it fits Deep State narratives and ambitions.