Listen to a reading of this article:
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A new article for The Irish Times by Virginia Tech professor Gerard Toal, titled “Ukraine risks being locked into endless war in bid for perfect peace,” contains a very interesting paragraph:
Ordinary Ukrainians on the front lines are divided on a ceasefire and negotiations. My Ukrainian colleague Karina Korostelina and I surveyed the attitudes of both residents and displaced persons in three Ukrainian cities close to the southeast battlefields this summer. Almost half agreed it was imperative to seek a ceasefire to stop Russians killing Ukraine’s young men. Slightly more supported negotiations with Russia on a complete ceasefire, with a quarter totally against and a fifth declaring themselves neutral. Respondents were torn when considering whether saving lives or territorial unity were more important to them. Those most touched by the war, namely the internally displaced, were more likely to prioritise saving lives. Other research reveals that those farthest from the battlefields have the most hawkish attitudes.
It’s the third from the last paragraph in the article, whose overall content cannot be remotely construed as sympathetic toward Moscow, but it’s very important information.
“Those most touched by the war, namely the internally displaced, were more likely to prioritise saving lives. Other research reveals that those farthest from the battlefields have the most hawkish attitudes.”
Those two simple sentences sum up so much of the attitude we are seeing toward this war, and it applies as much to those cheerleading continual escalation and bloodshed from the comfort of their homes on the other side of the world.
Unlike sofa warriors in the West and elsewhere treating people like plastic figurines on a board, Ukrainians most affected by the fighting tend to be more in favour of talks for a ceasefire and prioritise actual human lives over borders & land:https://t.co/Yh0dto1xPA pic.twitter.com/VcHJwLs6ci
— Branko Marcetic (@BMarchetich) November 3, 2022
“Other research reveals that those farthest from the battlefields have the most hawkish attitudes.”
Remember this as you watch pundits and politicians calling for escalations in Ukraine from Washington DC, Los Angeles and London.
Remember this as you watch armchair warriors and NAFO neckbeards dogpiling anyone who advocates peace talks.
Remember this as you watch progressives on Capitol Hill pressured into walking back even the mildest support for potential ceasefire negotiations at some point.
Remember this as more and more information comes out about the way bot swarms and astroturf trolling operations have been used to shout down and silence anyone who advocates peace online.
War is the single most horrific thing in the world. It is the most insane thing that humans do, by far. The most destructive. The least sustainable. The most conducive to human suffering. If people could spend even one hour in the cortisol-soaked mind of a mother trying to bring up her kids in the middle of the conflict, grieving people you’ve lost, worried about losing more, working out how to stretch the food and the fuel, trying to keep things as normal as possible for your stressed out children, jumping at every noise, trying to forget the things you have seen, peace would be achieved within that hour. Everyone and everything would be mobilized to stop this hell on earth as soon as humanly possible. It would be clear to all that the tragedy that is unfolding right now is not just causing enormous suffering in this moment, but every minute it goes on trauma is burning itself deeper into the subconscious of every single person going through it which will torment them and their descendents for generations to come.
But because we are primates who evolved in small social groups, humans often have trouble feeling empathy for that suffering until it enters into our own immediate circle. Our own city. Our own house. Our own sons, brothers and fathers going out to fight and never coming home.
So this war has become like a game for people. A vehicle from which to promote their political ideologies and masturbate their propaganda-induced Good Guys vs Bad Guys fantasies. A team sport where they can cheer on the total recapture of all annexed territories in eastern Ukraine from anonymous Shiba avatar accounts online to pass time in their meaningless lives.
The view that diplomacy is bad and the war should go on is held by former colonial powers in the Global North representing, generously, 13% of humanity. It's Global South states representing ~65% of the world's people calling for negotiations. Colonial reflex indeed. pic.twitter.com/GNHMO9qsWK
— Branko Marcetic (@BMarchetich) November 3, 2022
The passive team sports cheerleading spirit that this war has brought on is made all the more obnoxious by the fact that Ukraine is still accepting volunteers to fight on the front lines. If you think this war is good and should continue, the morally coherent thing to do would be to go fight in it, rather than sitting at home eating cheese puffs with one hand and tweeting with the other acting as a pro bono Pentagon propagandist between visits to Pornhub while other people die for your cause.
But that isn’t happening. People are happy to sit in the comfort of their own home and watch their remote war movie unfold on CNN.
This isn’t a game. This is a war the US empire provoked to advance its own strategic agendas and therefore has a responsibility to help end, but instead we’re being hammered by that empire with propaganda, censorship, bot armies and troll farms dedicated to convincing everyone that nuclear brinkmanship is safety and peace talks are danger.
Don’t help them do this. Don’t help manufacture consent for a proxy war whose continuation has less and less support the closer and closer you get to the actual killing. Find some other way to pass your time and scratch your itch for conflict and egoic gratification, one which doesn’t involve spending real people’s lives like video game money. Get a healthier hobby for God’s sake.
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66 responses to “The Farther People Are From The Fighting In Ukraine, The More They Oppose Peace Talks”
bleach always was good for sterilization
Caitlin, as per usual I agree with everything in this article but would like to add what I think is the elephant in humanities room.
While we do not bat an eyelid at the murder of 80 billion land animals with their cadavoirs dished up onto people’s plates to consume on mass per year not to mention trillions of fish abducted, tortured from the seas, while we think this is fucking normal we are not going to give a fuck about other human animals getting killed is some far away place. We have a lot of evolving to do, as Leo Tolstoy said along the lines of – while there are still slaughter houses there will always be battlefields.
Tack Caitlin!
En översättning till svenska av ovanstående artikel finns här:
Thanks Caitlin!
A translation to Swedish of the article above can be found here:
https://niclashallander.substack.com/p/ju-langre-bort-folk-ar-fran-stridandet
Elon Musk already spelled out his quite rational solution for ending the war in Ukraine: Ukraine must stand down and cede the parts of Ukraine to Russia that are occupied by ethnic Russians and which used to be an integral part of Czarist Russia, which all want to return to that standing. Basically, Musk echoes Putin in this entirely justified and sensible approach.
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Instead, Ukraine continues to massacre and repress those people to the most extreme level possible, and in the process are being decimated themselves because their own government headed by vainglorious Lord High Chancellor Zelensky considers Ukrainian life forms as expendable cannon fodder in just one more American proxy war. The United States, at the behest of its ultra-rich war profiteers, continues to facilitate these atrocities while extending the war and all of the collateral deaths by pumping in weapons, technology and money to Ukraine (which will never be paid back and which the American taxpayers simply cannot sustain in a real world) at rates never before observed in the history of Homo sapiens on this godforsaken planet.
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Musk initially touched upon employing the one solution that he personally has at his disposal to quite effectively stop the fighting by impeding Ukraine’s ability to carry out futile offensive “counter attacks.” The internet, cell phone service and land line service are effectively KAPUT throughout Ukraine–every modality of communications short of smoke signals and the one system that only Musk himself controls. Only Musk’s “Starlink” satellite service is keeping the Ukronazis in this horrid game, and he is providing the service for free.
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The Ukies use it to target Russian assets with their Himars, their drones and other smart bomb delivery systems using intelligence provided in real time by Washington. Without Starlink this would be impossible. Musk mused that he should shut down the service because of the money, because the Ukies were freeloading yet AGAIN upon anyone they could exploit. That is just what he should have done. The fighting would stop and lives would have been saved, but he foolishly said, “ah, let ’em have their service for free.” Perhaps Washington secretly threatened Musk with its well-known “JFK Option.” Or maybe he fears being put on Zelensky’s infamous “hit list” of planned assassinations. I dunno. But, Elon should know that HE, more than anyone outside of the American Deep State autocracy has the juice to stop the killing and bring justice to that region of the world–which is NOT the American-preferred scenario. Well, he is one of few who could try to walk the walk after dispensing the obligatory talk, talk, talk about how desirable peace would be. (You’re never gonna get to Mars, Elon, if you let them blow up the Earth first.)
True! The fact that for the last 80 years, every war the US have ever been involved in took place far away from its shores, the war mentality won’t go away. It is human nature. You caught us all out even though deep down, some of us do feel that the loss of life on both side in this case is totally heart-rending. At the same time, in any situation of this nature, there must be a just cause on the side of either one of the combatants and that can never be wished away and must be accepted as such. Let’s face it, the US’s actions since the end of WWII were bound to land the world in the morass it is in and that’s the truth. What remains to be seen is whether this will lead to the point where nuclear triggers are going to be pulled or not. We are all at the mercy of a rogue world monarch in the form of the US, supported by its fanatical vassals.
So what are you going to do with all that money?
I get it:
War Hawks are like NASCAR fans.
The film highlights are the most spectacular crashes and are most admired by those whose buttocks are most comfortably nestled in a seat cushion before the telly screen.
The USA is like Olympian skater Tanya Harding who couldn’t compete successfully against Nancy Kerrigan, and so had brake her competitor’s leg to make up for her inadequacy.
Trying to be King of the World, the US also has to cripple its competitors to win.
had to break her leg
The One Chart that Explains Everything. Containing China. “Humanity Embroiled in a Third World War” (11/4/22)
Excerpt: The context of a Third World War; a war that was thoroughly planned, instigated and (now) prosecuted by Washington and Washington’s proxies. That’s what’s really going on. The increasingly violent conflagrations we see cropping-up in Ukraine and Asia are not the result of “Russian aggression” or “evil Putin”. No. They are the actualization of a sinister geopolitical strategy to quash China’s meteoric rise and preserve America’s dominant role in the world order. Can there be any doubt about that?
No. None.
This is why we are experiencing the redivision of the world into warring blocs. This is why we are seeing the roll back of 30 years of Globalization and massive supply line disruption. And this is why Europe has been thrust headlong into frigid darkness and forced deindustrialization.
All of these suicidal policies were concocted for one purpose and one purpose alone, to maintain America’s exalted spot in the global system. That is why all of humanity is presently embroiled in a Third World War; a war that is designed to prevent China from becoming the world’s biggest economy; a war that is designed to preserve US global primacy.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/one-chart-that-explains-everything/5798138
Overthrowing other people’s governments: The Master List
Instances of the United States overthrowing, or attempting to overthrow, a foreign government since the Second World War. (* indicates successful ouster of a government)
China 1949 to early 1960s
Albania 1949-53
East Germany 1950s
Iran 1953 *
Guatemala 1954 *
Costa Rica mid-1950s
Syria 1956-7
Egypt 1957
Indonesia 1957-8
British Guiana 1953-64 *
Iraq 1963 *
North Vietnam 1945-73
Cambodia 1955-70 *
Laos 1958 *, 1959 *, 1960 *
Ecuador 1960-63 *
Congo 1960 *
France 1965
Brazil 1962-64 *
Dominican Republic 1963 *
Cuba 1959 to present
Bolivia 1964 *
Indonesia 1965 *
Ghana 1966 *
Chile 1964-73 *
Greece 1967 *
Costa Rica 1970-71
Bolivia 1971 *
Australia 1973-75 *
Angola 1975, 1980s
Zaire 1975
Portugal 1974-76 *
Jamaica 1976-80 *
Seychelles 1979-81
Chad 1981-82 *
Grenada 1983 *
South Yemen 1982-84
Suriname 1982-84
Fiji 1987 *
Libya 1980s
Nicaragua 1981-90 *
Panama 1989 *
Bulgaria 1990 *
Albania 1991 *
Iraq 1991
Afghanistan 1980s *
Somalia 1993
Yugoslavia 1999-2000 *
Ecuador 2000 *
Afghanistan 2001 *
Venezuela 2002 *
Iraq 2003 *
Haiti 2004 *
Somalia 2007 to present
Honduras 2009 *
Libya 2011 *
Syria 2012
Ukraine 2014 *
https://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peoples-governments-the-master-list
For France, he could also have mentioned 1968 that led De Gaulle to resign a year later.
The funny part is that you hear to this day scholars discuss the origins of May 68 in France and agree that nobody really understands. It started in Nanterre university on 22 March when a bunch of students demonstrated to have access to the… female boarding quarters (!) Then they added to this claim the end of the Vietnam war, which sounded more… universal. Then all through April, it built up into anarcho-syndicalism stuff with a pinch of dadaism but the workers wouldn’t have any of it until finally some left-wing politicians managed to convince the unions that a general strike would be good for their (financial) health – which it was. Yet all that while, De Gaulle seems to have known that it was pushed by the CIA who wanted him out of the picture for not being tame enough and having his own ideas about everything. Can’t do that! :o)
Pascal,
Could you provide any additional info on the “Nanterre university on 22 March when a bunch of students demonstrated to have access to the… female boarding quarters” ?
I’ve tried searching for it, but I am not finding those specific details.
Catlin you have it right
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In America war is a game.
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Boomers were raised on plastic soldiers that came in a bag. On G. I. Joe before he became G. I. They.
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In America war is not as you eloquently described as a mothers horror. In America war is the ultimate competition enjoyed with the endless lives of Wiley Coyote where only the enemies die. High school football on steroids. Unless you talk to a vet and they don’t like to talk.
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You got it right.
“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.” -William Tecumseh Sherman
Those who’ve seen war don’t generally talk it up, but when has humanity ever been especially concerned about someone else’s problem?
It’s shortly going to get cold in Ukraine and the US is going to do everything it can to maximize the suffering and death there. It’s going to keep up the pressure on Russia to continue its bombing, it’s going to keep funneling weapons and money to the Ukrainian government to keep it going as long as possible, it’s going to keep twisting arms and blocking diplomacy and staging headlines. The war has never been about anything but trading Ukrainian blood for Russian, a banal evil essentially admitted, and it’s going to continue until the Ukrainians who are left have had enough.
American Schadenfreude
“It is only those who have neither fired a shot, nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.” -William Tecumseh Sherman
Sherman was correct (if only the US would listen to reason). The North defeated the South with overwhelming odds and resources. Should Washington continue its headlong march to war, it may face a similar fate.
Hi.
Another aspect is this
The five largest companies in the world that manufacture weapons are all American: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics. In fact, half of the top 100 producers of arms are based in the U.S., while twenty are European.
In the aftermath of the Ukraine conflict, these five American firms saw their stock prices soar in a sign that investors believed profitable days were ahead. At a time when the broader stock market as measured by the S&P 500 had slumped by about 4%; Lockheed Martin’s stock price was up over 12% – with most of the gains occurring in its immediate aftermath. Northrop Grumman has jumped by 20%.
From an article in the, sorry (or should I be?) in the Tehran Times, which ends
with so much profit being made from the war, it’s not surprising that peace is not being pursued.
Can’t argue with that.
good information. as Smedley Butler said “war is a racket”. true then, true now.
That’s really where our “aid” money is going- from the taxpayers to the weapons corporations. And we don’t even get any shares for it! That’s some clever capitalism.
No you can argue with it. Nobody is stopping you.
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You can also howl in the wilderness.
“The five largest companies in the world that manufacture weapons are all American: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics.” And they will usurp the world if left unchecked.
“Head Girl Corporatism” is the big-sister-fascism, which has replaced the stern-father-fascism of WW-2. We see it everywhere: compliance and consensus-building without clear assessment or attempts to actually solve problems.
WAR-control-narrative helps justify this approach, as did pandemic-emergency-narrative.
Head-girl , Emily Oster wrote a piece about forgiveness, amnesty, but not for gross-COVID-deniers and anti-vaxxers. She seems to have meant well…
https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/head-girl-corporatism
Yes John,
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You got Head girl from Taki. Emily’s Atlantic article has cause ripples. I even have my own take on it here: https://chasingthesquirrel.com/
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If the software clips the link after the colon, click on my name. My article is titled: Beyond Collapse.
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It interesting how COVID censorship morphed into Ukranian war censorship isn’t it?
One of your finest, Caitlin. Thank you for your continued support of the truth told.
Yes. The real war isn’t in Ukraine, it’s here, in Washington and London and Ottawa and Canberra, Stockholm, Helsinki, Warsaw, Vilnius, Riga, The Hague . . . When your leaders are psychopaths, wars are inevitable; we’re ruled by a cabal of George IIIs, Mad King Ludwigs and wanna-be Napoleons.
No, we are ruled by servants/members of Mil Industrial Security corporations who need and thrive on war. War and chaos is the business model.
“War and chaos are the business model.” Yes, they are. If they can no longer dazzle us with brilliance, they will attempt to baffle us with bullshit.
These are interesting times. The West is at war with itself, Russia and China. By war I am speaking, financially, economically, politically and militarily. This is a destructive full court press that will not end well for anyone.
The history of man is conflict with neighbors. Economies fight. Policies fight, then troops fight. On an individual basis I agree with you but on a state level no. We survive simply because we never had the means to eradicate all of us. Now we do. These are mankinds most dangerous times.
Response to straight talk just below.
The same people who’ve been supporting the endless wars of Empire (US/London/Brussels/Tel Aviv) were outraged by the violence of Paul Pelosi’s recent attack. Mass murder? Blank check. Domestic violence? BILLIONAIRES’ LIVES MATTER.
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To give you an example of how just one billionaire can cause so much damage, take Randall Smith, CEO of Alden Global Capital. He alone is responsible for destroying the nation’s local newspapers, who often break significant stories since many of their journalists are still real. Then he takes that money and buys 16 mansions all closely connected in West Palm Beach, FL, (a couple of blocks from one of Jeffrey Epstein’s homes, by the way). Despicable.
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My point is that economic stratum has distanced those making harmful global decisions from their ramifications as well. 24/7 wartime ex-president Obama recently had to face the consequences of his decision to stage a 2014 coup in Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFtrinXsf_I
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Diana Joyce:
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I was recently staying in a hostel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. There were both Ukrainians and Russians staying in my dorm room. Tensions were high. A few days later, they were seen drinking and laughing together at the hostel bar. The power of travel: it opens one’s eyes to the fact that we, as human beings, have far more in common with each other, than we are different.
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War is not a natural human state, it is quite the opposite. Self-preservation, compassion and peace are desirable interactions. There is absolutely very limited legitimate reason in this day and age to fight another nation. This is why I am a pacifist. The world could use more compassion and love, and be less reactionary through fear, manipulation and indifference.
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And, yes, I know how ‘hippie-ish’ that may come across, but as a human species, surely we didn’t get this far by plundering and pillaging alone. We got this far through creating communities that we serve, and who, in return, serve us resulting in a mutually beneficial, symbiotic arrangement. Through rational debate on hot issues, instead of reaching for the nearest hot gun. Shouting, screaming and waving weapons around is surely a sign of losing an argument, and trying to gain one’s power back. Peace out 🙂
Diana Joyce, Well said!
And it’s not “hippie-ish” either! Cooperation, not confrontation should be paramount in teaching children as they are growing up and reinforced at schools from kindergarten through graduate school by teachers and professors.
Organized religion has been delinquent on teaching their practitioners the two “C’s” which is why they less credibility today then ever before.
Thank you!
International backpacking does indeed take the nationalism out of you. It would be a different world if everybody spent a year traveling around it.
“International backpacking does indeed take the nationalism out of you. It would be a different world if everybody spent a year traveling around it.” Oh, this is a great subject. I’ve hiked the Grand Canyon multiple times. Each time, just prior to reaching the rim, I swore I would never do it again (it is nearly impossible to describe the pain, effort, and energy you experience). And two weeks later…I’m ready to go again!
I enthusiastically agree with the benefits of nature! Sign me up for international backpacking (See wild animals; hear the birds chirping; watch the eagles grapple and soar; listen to the wind blowing through tree leaves; put your bare feet in the cool water). Man, I’m there right now. To HELL with war.
Thank you for bringing this up.
I also agree that there’s nothing like international backpacking to take the nationalism out of you and teach you that we are just one world and one people. If you’re American though – as you seem to be – I wouldn’t call hiking the Grand Canyon “international” – unless it’s been invaded of late, and I missed it. Beautiful place in any case, I agree but the Kilimanjaro would fit the bill better! And talk about the animals! Got ’em all: elephants, buffalos, giraffes, gazelles, antelopes, flamingos…
” I wouldn’t call hiking the Grand Canyon “international” It is international; it is just a point of reference (semantics). The two were juxtaposed to enliven the conversation. It was casual speak, and not a serious analysis.
The Grand Canyon is international to foreigners.
My plan is to fly into Nairobi, take the train to Mombasa, and climb Kilimanjaro on the way. Got the passport renewed.
I’ve hiked to the floor and back up in a day and if everybody did that the world would indeed be different because a lot of them would be dead.
The US government itself was never granted freedom of speech.
Even though I do agree with your considerations about war being the most atrocious collective experience on Earth, I’m actually surprised at the contrary: outside of Ukraine itself – and probably out of persistent resentment for thirty years gone Russian communist terror -, the people with their feet closest to the fire are the most warlike.
While folks in France, Belgium, Germany, Czechia, Spain or Italy demonstrate against Nato and the war, we don’t hear much from Ukraine’s neighbours in Romania, Poland, the Baltic states or Finland but we do hear war cries from their governments. Romania’s defence minister had to step down a couple of weeks ago for suggesting Ukraine should perhaps agree to peace talks. US military “Screaming Eagles” are now actually stationed in the screaming Romanian version of Hotel California where “you can check out any time you like but you can never leave”.
One may think that this is happening under duress, but Poland is also cheerleading on the warpath and has actually approached the US to ask them to station nuclear weapons on its soil, according to its president, Andrzej Duda.
That’s probably for people who never understood why there are Polish jokes. Apparently, M. Duda doesn’t realize that by doing so, he paints a target on his people. Nuclear weapons in Poland won’t deter the Russians from doing anything that they have no intention of doing anyway (first strike) but you can be sure that the first Polish attempt to fly a nuclear warhead toward Moscow will mean goodbye to that nation from Gdansk to Krakow.
The same goes for the Balts and of course the Finns and the Swedes who, after decades of wise neutrality, now want to join Nato and get themselves on the priority kill list for no benefit at all.
Even if they did shoot nukes and hit, against all odds, every living thing in Russia, the response would be automatic and the whole 6,000 + Russian nuclear warheads would rain on the world in one fell swoop, according to Scott Ritter, a nuclear weapons chief inspector.
On a more philosophical level, it’s interesting to note that all these countries, as well as the rest of the EU, are social democracies whose warmongering is only matched by their appetite for overt and covert censorship and propaganda.
It’s also interesting to note that, contrary to academia brainwashing, fascism historically came from the left, from social democracies before their far-right copycats. Hitler of course was a national socialist as well as Stalin but also the inventor of fascism proper (or corporatism), Mussolini, came from a socialist background. His socialist father gave him the middle names Amilcare and Andrea for Italian socialists Amilcare Cipriani and Andrea Costa and while becoming active in the Italian socialist movement in Switzerland, young Benito was deeply impressed by syndicalist Georges Sorel’s emphasis on the need to overthrow decadent liberal democracy and capitalism through violence, direct action and Machiavellian appeals to emotion through the power of myths which inspired both bolshevism and fascism. Food for thoughts…
thoughts like ‘we’d better stay in the center, on the side of the status quo’?
Your body, your choice :o)
There’s absolutely no question in my mind that neither Hitler nor Stalin were aiming at socialist ideals, especially Marxist ones – there’s also non Marxist socialism like Proudhon or Bakunin’s. What I meant is that they called themselves socialists. And there’s no getting out of that, I’m afraid. Beyond that, Is Kim Jong Un a socialist, Xi Jinping, Bernie? Were Mao, Castro, Enver Hoxha, Tito, Pol Pot, el Che? Which political leader of a country was or is a true socialist?
democrats have ‘democrat’ in their name, republicans ‘republic’. lot’s of ‘socialists’ in europe lost the focus on getting the means of production into the hands of the people long ago.
the test if any of the listed is in the vid: if they genuinly at least tried to transfer ownership of the means of production to the people, you could consider them socialists, i guess.
But the vid doesn’t give one single example of who
transferred the means of production to the people…
Does this relate to Ace Ventura’s famous quote: “If you were me then I’d be you and I’d use your body to get to the top?” 🙂
We are seeing centuries old hatreds coming into play. The european union is a facade over a roiling pot of resentment between EU members. Poland has been fighting Russia for centuries over what they consider disputed areas of artificially created Ukraine. The brits cannot let go of vestiges of the British Empire. Not to mention French and Italian resentments plus greece and turkey. There is alot more at play here than the distances from war.
Yes about Poland and Russia involved in a centuries old feud, as well as Poland and Germany but the fact is that the most warlike nations toward Russia are its neighbours. The rest of Europe is NOT a “roiling pot of resentment”. Tourism has brought the Europeans a lot closer than they were in the past and more understanding of one another. The people basically don’t care or want peace in spite of the media doing all they can to demonize Putin and Russia. The British and French empires were outside Europe – except for the brief Napoleonic one and Britain’s long feud with Ireland -, there’s no resentment between the French and the Italians and the centuries old enmity of Greece and Turkey – linked to the fall of the (Greek) Eastern Roman empire brought about by the Turks in 1453 and then the fights in the Balkans and the displacements of populations – is endemic and flares up at the slightest opportunity but is totally unrelated to the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Dont confuse the common people with the ruling elite class that pull the strings. Those who direct the politicians. Those rivalries and hatreds still exist for them.
This has been my mantra almost since the beginning of this conflict: the US needs to experience a war on its own territory to feel and see what horrors of war are like – the horrors this country has inflicted on so many other nations all around the world. America: the Earth’s cancer.
I suspect reinstating the draft would go a long way to creating a peace movement in this country.
When the sons (and perhaps daughters) of the affluent professional managerial decision maker classes start getting draft notices, attitudes to war will shift. Sure, these families will jump through hoops to get exemptions for their kids, and a lot will succeed. But not all.
As long as the majority of military enlisted are from the working class, and the poorer end at that, it will be tough to get a strong peace movement going. Sadly, many working class people have been thoroughly propagandized into believing that serving and dying for a “just cause” as defined by the government is noble. And the PMC gives not one rat’s tail about working class kids dying.
I am actually surprised someone has not filed a lawsuit making women register for the draft at 18. Isnt America a wonderful country where illegal aliens can live here and not have to go to war in the draft.
I had hoped that the greatest war-making collective on earth, while assembled in the Capitol Building on January 6, after having had a small taste of what they dish out to everybody else who is not them, would develop something that could pass for empathy.
No. It was really too much to hope, and not really expected.
“Other research reveals that those farthest from the battlefields have the most hawkish attitudes.”
Yes, this is due to the fact that the distance to the conflict acts as a buffer insulating the perpetrator from the negative effects of the conflict. An analogy would be a bully delegating commissioned fighting to lackey subordinates. The bully, physically unaffected by the struggle and outcome, simply walks away unscathed. This scenario describes the US’ enterprise in Ukraine. The US has fabricated the conflict in steps: through manipulative propaganda designed to engineer approval for intervention, infiltration, inciting destabilization through Washington’s sponsored insurgents and/or funded indigenous advocates, through bribes, tampering, intimidation, threats, fabricating internal political allegations that facilitate regime change, and lastly, imperialism. At this time, a suitable proxy, such as Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, implements Washington’s instructions. In this way, the United States has orchestrated the conflict on the opponents’ home territory, effectively isolating the US’ homeland from physical upheaval. Through the aforementioned conditions, it is easier to be a feigned courageous warhawk profiteering through the exploitation of others.
Caitlin appears to have totally lost it. Thinks appealing to people’s better nature will end war. Everyone I’m sure is aware that 80 to 95% of wars casualties are the totally innocent, women and children. UN sponsored relief agencies make a fortune out of it. There are two reasons for going to war. Fun and profit. For ‘fun’ read ‘adventure’. Profit can be monetary, advancement in rank, power, and territorial gains for resources.
A landlord chucking a mum and kiddies out in the snow doesn’t think twice about it. Same for warmongers.
In chaos… Profit!
Sorry Caitlin. I understand your reasoning and I think you know ‘Kind words do not turn away wrath’.
My great grandmother’s son died. She had several rental properties but still threw her daughter in law and two grandchildren on the street a week later so she could rent the property. Never met her but she sounded like a real peach.
All it takes is a few million people (and dollars) saying it can’t be done in order to marginalize those who say it can be done.
The good news by these means was ending the draft.
The bad news by these means was ending the draft and the institution of the economic draft.
No matter how cynical I get, its hard to keep up, said Lily Tomlin.
Wars are not fought for fun, but from either lust for power or fear of losing what power you think you have. And for profit, well of course.
However this war ends, we can guarantee that a number of things will be said. 1. The human cost was way, way too high. 2. It emphasises the need for eternal vigilance against the Bad Guys (Russia if you’re a Westerner, the West if you’re Russian). 3. There is no alternative but to spend more on defence, so it never happens again.
And we can also guarantee that (virtually) no-one will say: Wars are silly, can we talk about ways of not having any more?
For the record, Caitlin has not lost it: that’s the other guys. Caitlin is an oasis of sanity in a crazy world. Cherish her while you can.
Wars are fought for money, power, and resources.
If Caitlin has lost it, then she will find it. She knows exactly where the lost and found is located.
well, of course, guilt by association. How long have mafia type of groups have been leading nations? And, what kind of people does the mafia specialize in killing? The defenseless; the very old and the very young.
Very true, that’s why America is still in Iraq. And Syria. And a lot of other places. The people who oppose peace the most haven’t heard that zinging sound.
Snowden Says Shut Down DHS After Report Revealed Secretive Effort to Police Online Speech
The NSA whistleblower said creating the Department of Homeland Security “was always a mistake,” but “its plan to become the Speech Police is the final straw.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/11/02/snowden-says-shut-down-dhs-after-report-revealed-secretive-effort-police-online