Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley): The Biden administration has signed off on both F-16s for Ukraine and attacks on Crimea using US-made weapons. Both of these moves have drawn dire warnings from nuclear-armed Russia, and both would have been unthinkable a year ago.
Americans won't organize to do one goddamn thing about this, any more than they will about anything else existentially threatening. We don't know how to do that. We're all afraid of each other. Everyone has guns so no one wants to make a big fuss over something as weird and abstract as nuclear war when we all know guns might be levelled against us at any moment, just to shut up the troublemaker.
The Biden/Congressional lunatics know they have nothing to fear from the somnolent consumers fictitiously referred to as "citizens." We don't even discuss these things unless it's with a family member or close confidant who we know feels the same way. We abdicated our responsibility as citizens of a mythic democracy long ago. Now, we're mere spectators awaiting the conflagration we did nothing to prevent.
Agreed. But I am hopeful and believe Americans actually will eventually start to organize. Things may have to get a lot worse though, and the organization may not be for the better...
Agreed. The decline and fall of empire is never easy on the muttonheads who cheered it on. But I’m convinced that at bedrock, we are a decent people and can create a good country out of the rubble. My guy is RFK jr.
There are probably a few thousand Americans who truly want another Trump presidency, and maybe 8 individuals as demented as he is who actually want Biden to win a second term. Scarcely anyone really wants either of these two assholes, but the Uniparty is shoving them down our throats. Neither of them will let RFKJ anywhere near the White House.
The Dems preferred Trump over Bernie--twice--and scuttled his chances. They and their media sock puppets will do the same with RFK. Especially if he's brutally honest and seems incorruptible (like e.g. Kucinich). Then he's dogfood and they don't care who sees what they're doing. They're all right out in the open with their addiction to lies and corruption, and they'll ruin anyone who looks like a challenger to their power.
There's no hope coming from the ballot box. That was rigged and corrupted long ago. Maybe RFKJ can organize a real revolution, something Bernie the fraudster never could.
I’m close to agreeing with most of your statements. But I see daylight in the ballot box. For one thing, the people who have sabotaged our elections for the Neoshitlibs agenda are almost out of gas. The longer Biden stays in office, the more the shitlibs lose support. And yes the damn Dems prefer Trump—in fact put him up to running—and he is a creditable threat. But if he won, he would be fighting both the Shitlib offense of Rachel Rachel rachel of Russia Russia Russia fame, and the CIA. I don’t think he’d win in that tussle again. As to Bernie—he was spared by god from the presidency. I think he’s doing a good job now even tho people call him a fraud for not doing what they want him to. Plus, Bernie isn’t a fighter. Never has been. RFK jr IS a fighter. From a family that knows how to cheat for the greater good. Bobby is a real politician and is able to turn the interviews that attempt to sandbag him into victories. That Krystal Ball really came out badly in her attempt to smear him. And he couldn’t get a word in edgewise! He lets people hang them selves and hang themselves they will. Moreover, I think Tucker Carlson is going to be a great asset to RFK and independent thinkers throughout this next election cycle. I think that the Russians will put Zelenskyy in his place in the next 6 to 9 months which will have a major detonation effect on our election. I think Musk and Dore and maybe even Assange will have liberating effects on the thinking of our lost population—for the better. And even if RFK doesn't win the Resiliency, he will have a powerful effect on the American psyche in the next year. I’m voting for him no matter what.
Good points, though I think Bernie is mostly hot air. He means what he says about "the billionaires" etc. but as soon as the Democrats tell him to STFU he folds like a cheap suit and falls into line. He's like the antithesis of Eugene Debs, while purporting to campaign on the same political line.
The interview with Krystal was most distressing. A few years ago I thought she was really a leftist, but she ain't. I'm not sure RFKJ is either, not quite anyway. She's a left liberal and of course that now means she believes wholeheartedly in all the Fauci-Covid narratives, so she fixates on RFK's skepticism over that. Covid and Russiagate have divided more people than the Civil War. They've driven the whole country insane.
“The Dems preferred Trump over Bernie--twice--and scuttled his chances.”
I think that is not actually accurate. The oligarchs who own the DP found Trump tolerable and Bernie unacceptable. Sanders’ whole rationale for running as a Democrat was because he (naively?) believed that the DP, once the party of FDR, had lost its moorings.
What you describe as “...folding like a cheap suit...”, I think is much more accurate, because Sanders isn’t gullible to the point where he will bite the hand that feeds him and expect to go unscathed.
Well said. Caitlin writes in a way that brings us together. You are very right, we have to put our fears of each other away and focus on the real enemy to working people, the 1%. There is something very wrong when 600 people own half the wealth of the u.s.
I agree in general with your analysis. Nevertheless the terminology used paints a much BIGGER PICTURE.
"citizen" for example - look up The Act of 1871 and how it turner The united states of America into THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (CORP.) (including the constitution) including becoming a citizen of a corporation by consent by silence - I won't go through all the details but look it up on the web as long as it is still possible ...
And incorporating this move into a broader context of the Globalist Movement/Freemasons/Zionists/.... one starts to see the BIGGER PICTURE ..... maybe not right from the start but ....
Eustace Mullins, The Curse of Canaan, 1987 and the story of the author himself are truly eye opening ....
The only saving grace here may be that F-16s are so different from the planes that Ukrainian pilots have flown before that they have no chance of being capable of retraining their minds to make the split-second decisions necessary to effectively operate them. The idea advertised is four months, which from what I have read is an absurd goal. However, if the NATO countries supplying these planes supply the pilots as well, that saving grace disappears.
It is astonishing that there is no recognition at all in the US mainstream media or amongst its political class that we have created a situation analogous to the two-week long Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The only differences that matter are that it has been going on for fifteen months, and that every action and pronouncement of the US government during that fifteen months has escalated the crisis. We are on the brink of nuclear Armageddon, and the only person who matters who recognizes it, and has said so publicly, is Donald J. Trump. Of course, he says he could end the conflict the day he becomes president again, so he is as ignorant and deluded as he has always been. But, still...
Oh, I doubt there will only be Ukrainian pilots in those literal cock-pits. Anyone who believes that the US will stand by its claim to not use Americans in this conflict is a blithering idjit.
I will take "ignorant and deluded" over "demented and warmongering" any time. Since those are deliberately my only choices, in addition to "neither one". And even when considering that the presidency is pretty much ornamental now. Ugly tattered dripping ornament.
Starting to wonder if there will even be a next "election".
To be more accurate, LBJ was compelled to not seek a reelection by the national consensus against the war that was building, and the televised Democrat National Political Convention, which pitted the fascist Chicago Mayor against the anti war activists. The fractured DP handed the WH to the duplicitous Nixon.
Who do you mean by “we?” By the time the war ended, Nixon had almost doubled the number of dead Americans from the time he took office, and more than doubled the number of dead Vietnamese. Any victory you associate with Johnson leaving office was not reflective of a national appetite for peace.
I never claimed that! Jeez, get a gripe! I said we—the active anti war left—ran LBJ out of office! And we can do it again. Then you blowviated on that and I repeated it. I didn’t say we brought everlasting peace and happiness to the world. And how the hell do you know what the national appetite was? I mean do you really think that old war horse would have slunk away if he thought he could win another election?!?!!? You don’t know LBJ if you think that. I think we can put the run on this shithead damn dem too. Just by calling the White House. But if course you’d rather pointlessly argue about it than just do it!
You’re funny. And I love your cynicism. But I also know that you defeat yourself by trying to mock my solution. Circular Firing Squad. If you don’t like my solution or idea, don’t do it. But why denigrate it? What’s in it for you to shoot down other people’s actions. It would take you 5 minutes.
There will most certainly be an election held……because it is meaningless ritual and does not change the national agenda, regardless of which stooge is appointed!
That's true, extremely true. Which is one reason why "getting rid of Biden" does not take into account that the Dems have a long line of corrupt warmongers just waiting in line behind him. And the Dems have already said, in court, that they are a privately owned corporation and can name any candidate they want to name - which is actually what they have been doing, the primaries are merely money-laundering pep rallies. IMO, the party is more openly contemptuous of "democracy" now, it is just another campaign item.
I was just thinking about how I read somewhere that Zelensky is thinking of suspending elections, and I would Imagine Biden would be quite envious of that - something his predecessors had not dared to do.
I would say that the only saving grace is that the F-16s will have zero impact on the outcome of the war. These planes, if and when they arrive in Ukraine, will either be destroyed on the ground or shot out of the sky by Russia’s superior air defenses. Still, the stupidity and sheer recklessness of deploying them in a war against Russia is mind boggling. US military planners must realize that Crimea will not be retaken and Russia will not be defeated. Hence, I see this as possibly being a desperate political decision by a president who will be running for re-election next year and does not want the humiliation of a military defeat hanging over his campaign. As I said--stupid and reckless.
Hehehe, what a great convoluted view! The same kind of destruction done in China by the US? America really SUCKS don’t we? We suck so much that people are crashing our borders at astonishing rates never seen in modern times.
I don’t think you’re using “convoluted” correctly. But a lot if dumb guys do that—talk like they think smart people talk or use “big words” to make themselves sound smart. Also, immigration in the 1800’s was vastly greater than it is today. Probably your people came then. Fool
" ... streaming across the border don't know... " they believe the lies of THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN which is enough to keep them moving towards the abyss!
Trump notoriously says anything that he believes is in his ego-interest, but I think that alternative media and peace activists ought to run with the good news that the Ukraine consensus is beginning to fracture. It seems unlikely that Trump can maintain his 2016 base, which included a lot of fiscal conservatives who didn’t care for his anti-globalist rhetoric, but voted for him anyway. That group would be splintered by Trump’s announced opposition to the Ukraine War, and if Trump beats the anti-war horse too hard, I think Hillary’s prediction will prove accurate.
I don’t think that is a certainty. Trump’s former election victory included many fiscal hardliners who didn’t give a toss about social policy. Those votes are up for grabs, particularly if Ukraine is perceived as a “necessary” defense of America’s national interests.
Also, I think it is likely that a portion of the blue-collar support that Trump enjoyed in 2016 will evaporate. Four years of nothing substantial accomplished on behalf of his angry base will likely lead to some defections. If Trump can win the Republican nomination, I think his mention of Ukraine will be contingent on his audience.
"Four years of nothing substantial accomplished on behalf of his angry base will likely lead to some defections."
If Trump admits that he underestimated his opponents and got rolled in his first term, it would at least be a start in getting his entire original base back together.
But even that first step would require Trump to admit that he made a mistake, and we know how much of a chance there is of that every happening.
---
TLDR: And, of course, there are ways of admitting mistakes without making yourself appear to be an incompetent who cannot be trusted again. However, this requires an ability to express yourself with nuance. Again, we know how much a a chance there is of Trump being capable of doing that.
Not relevant maybe, but still powerful and still mean. Did you see that interview Jon the bend over king Stewart gave her? He was peeing his pants he was so afraid of her.
Trump says things, but he’s not honest. He’s a used car salesman who will say anything to get you to say yes, then switch it out to something else. If he doesn’t, the CIA will off him anyway, so he might as well stay true to his lying conman ways!
If only he had done one thing for working people, I would vote for him. Trump could win handily by creating single payer healthcare. 75% of voters want a working healthcare system.
That is the one thing he’ll never do. Trump is believed to not be an ideologue, but he’s congenitally anti-communist. For him socialism is synonymous with communism which he will never give a fair hearing. He’s anti union, anti corporate tax, anti regulation and this is all non-negotiable.
Trump is only a Communist when he needs us to bailout his failed businesses. Just like all the wealthy, we are shit to them until they need our collective monies to bail them out. We paid dearly for that Trump Casino failure.
Agreed. The only problem is that the environment will suffer enormous destruction at the hands of T-rump. Almost as badly as at the hands of Old Joe. I won’t vote for either one of them. If it was a 3-way slit, we could create a constitutional crisis which might actually be good for us.
The last election I wrote in Jim Earl a comedian friend ha. Nope I won't be voting for zero ever again. When Bernie said "Joe would make a great president " after taking large sums, very large sums of cash and work effort from me, nope not voting for either party. The crisis I think may be our only hope. I used to think as Marx wrote capitalism will evolve into something better even if slowly and now I think as Yanis has said Techno Feudalism has arrived.
I agree. But Yanis has hit a dead end and has no real solutions other than great analysis and criticism. I honor him but believe that political problems need political solutions. And just because the elites have made the ballot box seem corrupt doesn’t mean it is—it’s just massively weakened. The elites—especially the Rethugs want this because they know that the less people vote the more they win. The proof is sitting in the House right now. Nope, for me, the answer is get behind anybody who seems strong enough to challenge the status quo and stop feeling sorry for myself that all my hard work seemed for naught last time. That’s what the MSM’s wants me to think. I look at Lula in Brazil—straight out of jail and into the Presidency. And the destruction of the Amazon fell by 60% in his 1st few months in office!!!! Bobby has a shot and it’s not a vaccine. I’m working and voting for him.
At least rhetorically Trump is on their side, and I think that is gigantic.
The chattering class mock us as deplorable’s . The entire point of NYT, CNN is to encourage their audience to revel in a feeling of superiority. They mock our wrong headedness they call us racists and then invite their audience to feel that special tingle of superiority.
The problem with Trump is that he is a boorish lout and incompetent. These two traits encourage and amplify their sense of superiority and nasty self satisfaction. After all they are superior: better educated, better looking, better dressed, better food, better able to compete and win. They are our betters. But they are so very mean spirted.
Then along comes a bloviating Orange Man who calls them out: deindustrialization, opioids, illegal immigration, the ruination of late stage capitalism and the totalitarian qualities of woke ideology.
Why wouldn’t the unwashed revel in his caustic rhetoric. These people collapsed America, nothing less!
Donald Trump is the most significant president since Lincoln, he reordered the political landscape. All previous rules were broken.
“The problem with Trump is that he is a boorish lout and incompetent.”
I think you don’t want to look squarely at all of his problems. One reason that Trump supporters are labeled racists is because Trump promotes and rewards racists. He never uses overt racist rhetoric, but he has perfected dog-whistling. He goes on and on about law and order, a favorite white talking point. He hugs the NRA, goes out of his way to honor the cops who slay black non-threats, he invited Kyle Rittenhouse to Mara Lago, and his past New York interventions when he took out ads and offered to pay the legal fees for Bernard Goetz, the Subway Vigilante, and when he took out more ads to advocate for the death penalty in the case of the 1989 Central Park rape of a a white woman, where 5 black boys were charged, convicted and eventually exonerated after serving 10 years in prison.
If Trump had any redeeming qualities, he has hidden them very well. Hatred and violence in America have never been more fashionable. We all can applaud his shattering the false guise of civility that his political enemies so artfully wear, but this has not enhanced any lives.
At this stage, any F-16 or F-35 that tries to make it well into Ukraine { say east of the Dnepr R. } will be on a One Way trip. They won't dare send in any F-35s, cause once they start dropping - there goes billions in LockHeed Martin sales. Everyone will want the S-400 or S-500 systems instead.
Gets more and more obvious who the aggressors are. Russia "occupied" its own Crimea without a single shot and a single death. The place has not seen war since WWII. Now the "liberators" will have to kill millions to conquer it. Should Russia now "liberate" Eastern Germany?
We need liberating don’t you think? I mean, anyone who still has the idea that we in this country enjoy such a thing as free and fair elections is sorely lacking critical thinking skills.
Where at I pray tell? Where is our representation in the halls of Congress. Congress our entire government and the country as a whole even our western civilization is quick becoming an abject disaster and a failure.
Look around why is there so much turmoil, confusion and division on every corner at every turn. This is instigated, created by our intelligence agencies with a nefarious purpose.
on russian telegram channels they quote kirill budanov, ukraine's intelligence chief, as follows: "we got 3 million people who lived under russian propaganda. they are deformed people who will be physically annihilated for their actions."
If the US somehow prevails in "Ukraine", it will have to rapidly shift gears to prevent a genocide. I wouldn't want to be one of the millions of poor souls who would have to count on that.
(This is an urgent message that should be constantly repeated when discussing the war between the US and Russia being fought in Ukraine.)
The US will have to do something (1) IF it actually prevails in Ukraine (that is, forces the Russians out) and (2) IF it wants to prevent a genocide against ethnic Russians in the area.
(I wouldn't rely on the US for that second "if" (for the reasons you mention, among many others), so I hope that first "if" never happens.)
The "mask" was created by Western media and politicians - In country, Ukrainian's are openly Nazi fascists. That fact is just no longer is reported in western media.
article 16 of the constitution of ukraine states: "To ensure ecological safety and to maintain the ecological balance on the territory of Ukraine, to overcome the consequences of the Chornobyl catastrophe - a catastrophe of global scale, and to preserve the gene pool of the Ukrainian people, is the duty of the State." - pretty neat hu, 'ecological safety', chernobyl and 'preserving the gene pool of the ukrainian people' (by the state) in one and the same paragraph.
We're going to keep this sh*t up until we get our asses kicked again like we did on 9/11. Washington is totally out of control and dangerously bluffing their way through this conflict. They have no idea IMHO what they're facing. Russia does not bluff and with saying that, this will be the end of one, if not all of us.
Agreed. If we couldn't achieve our aims against a nation of poorly equipped tribal goat herders, we have absolutely zero chance of achieving our aims against Russia. If the goal is to keep spending a trillion dollars a year on our military and intelligence state, well, that is achievable. The question to me is, how many casualties can the Ukraine Maidan regime sustain before they collapse, and how much debt and inflation can the US sustain before it starts to collapse?
Quite a lot since the banks make bank on destruction. It’s called the Shock Doctrine and the Neoshitlibs have been riding that wave since Clinton and his Glass-Steegal repeal.
If you are surprised, don’t be this is yet another escalation by the U.S. and European warmongers.
Russia isn’t surprised they expected and planned for this very thing since the neocons are extremely predictable. Neocons only have one course of action which is to double down.
It is this very reason Russia has increased weapons and munitions production 7 fold. Russia has more than quadrupled its production of everything and continues to put new surveillance satellites in orbit, adding new submarines and surface ships.
Let’s keep in mind Russia also has several hundred thousand troops who have yet to be deployed on standby.
No one in America except the damaged brain dead should be trusting or believing anything the government and media spouts after the Covid-19 scam, mandatory vaccines and lockdowns not to mention 2020 election fraud.
Western governments have been controlled by a bunch of lying lowlife people we call politicians for decades. And today at this time it’s being confirmed for all the world to see.
Who are the people and what kind of people are they who rally behind and support this current regime.
Covid 19 was a dishonest scheme to introduce the lockdowns, the mask and the vaccines.
More folks were injured by hospitalizations (intubation) and vaccines than they were by a Covid 19 virus, which as truth continues to show it only threatened the same group that seasonal flus endanger each and every year; the elderly and the immune compromised
This is complete conspiracy nonsense that flys in the face of a mountain of empirical evidence that the Covid pandemic was, indeed, real and deadly, FAR more deadly than ordinary flu. Do you not recall the images of people gasping for breath and dying in the hallways and on the steps of hospitals, not only in the United States but all over the world? Perhaps you think that was all staged. What about the morgues bursting beyond capacity and the portable refrigerated morgues set up behind hospitals. Also staged? So stop with the Covid conspiracy narrative. No reasonable person believes it, only those who feel a perverse emotional need to believe it.
I will gladly concede that mitigating the effects of the epidemic and reducing the incidence of severe disease and death required a degree of social control, i.e. mandatory vaccines, masking, lockdowns etc. That's the price that society sometimes has to pay to save lives. Most people understand and accept that as being a necessary social good, not a gateway to tyranny.
P.S. Covid vaccines absolutely do work to prevent severe disease and death in vulnerable populations, which include hundreds of millions of people. And proper masks worn properly do reduce the spread of infection. There are excellent studies in the medical literature proving this, but you won't find them on Qanon.
Hahahhaaaa. Yes, the mountain of empirical evidence from the CDC, Fauci and the media lapdogs. A perfect example of suck-cessful bamboozling in the land of the free, the home of the ….. what was that again?
Listen, you fools, I actually follow the medical and scientific literature regarding COVID-19 closely. I am not informed by ignorant, politically partisan bloggers and other people with axes to grind.
We are way off-topic for this thread, so I will say no more on the subject.
If we weren't lied to about efficacy and transmission, masks and the lock down, I think people would have responded better. I nearly died May of 2020 before the vaccine. With the hospitals full at 03:00 on a Wed. the hospital said you can speak on the phone you don't need to come while I was so low on Oxygen I was hallucinating. Oxygen Deficiency Hazard training saved my life. A Virologist friend told me to sleep on my stomach and cough like my life depended on it and it did. With all of that, being told masks weren't necessary, the vaccine protected people now makes me doubt all the liars in gov. The vulnerable should have been protected and isolated 100% and yet we forced them to work in low wage occupations, 1.2 million died who didn't have to. Those deaths are on Fauci and the CDC. The truth would have saved lives.
You have been hose-fed the propaganda invented by THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN ...
... you are arguing out of your mental prison cell THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN has prepared for every gullible HUMAN MIND ready to walk into "voluntarily" out of its need of wishful thinking.
Nobody can take you out of your DARKNESS but you yourself by walking out of it on your own feet ....
After the major strikes on the Ukrainian's stores in Khmelnitsky and Odessa, the great counteroffensive appears to be off...plus Zaluzhny and other top brass were hit in their bunker. Reported to be in a critical condition (no one has seen the man who gave several interviews a day for 2 weeks).
Syrskii (commander of ground forces) has gone to ground...literally, hiding in a deep bunker in Slaviansk...Zelensky has run away too it appears. 'Touring' the world asking for weapons (His handlers got him out of the country fast...will he return?) This is what happens when you cross too many of Russia's red lines.
Bakhmut is Ukraine's Stalingrad...(no Russian army casualties at all, just Wagnerites. They deployed only 26,000 to the fight, according to Ukraine military Intelligence) 22 Ukrainian Brigades, rotated up to 3 times (around 1100 casualties each rotation...even conservatively..that's like the whole British Army of casualties!...)
Javelins, Himars, Patriots, Abrams, Leopards, Depleted Uranium shells (now dust heading over Europe) and the latest Wunderwaffen, F16's will suffer the same fate as the other Nazi army weapons used against Russia in WW2. And so, from the last few days we can deduce that Russia does not need to use nuclear weapons...to attack Poland etc.. the 'west' is coming to them and getting demiltarised in the process.
Our fake leaders don’t acknowledge facts on the ground. Spin is their ultimate weapon. When Ukraine is a parking lot, all talk of saving the Ukrainians will die as quickly as the “peace dividend” following Gorbachev.
Everyone on earth should be shouting to put sanctions on the US, call for war crimes prosecutions and so much more on the criminal filth in control of our government. Biden can't fall off the stage soon enough but the people pushing his buttons need to go sooner. I hear the sound of silence once again when there is no one screaming stop. What happened to all those 200 plus organisations at the anti war rally in March? The other issue is showing these criminals for what they are gets a brief ho hum and it's back to businesses of killing people and silencing any dissent!
lol. chill. i agree with your comment 100%. i was bein "sarcastic". it doesn't convey well on the netz. cheers. see....."they" have us ALL on hair triggers. "they" have the economy on hair trigger too..with all the artificial rate hikes. Good fun. (again, sarcasm). cheers.
happens to me too. "they" can sure put on a show! remember the war on terriers? 20 years. then poof...gone. set up for the next program. we have 12-13 years of internal psy-war to go so that they can remodel "society" and "culture" to their liking.
Ya. I think fear is the primary emotion of the middle class in America. Afraid of losing something they think they have or not getting something they want. People who hang on to their democratic government have courage. Look at Brazil. Those people had a lot more to fear than the FBI. But not us. We all have reasons not to take the slightest action required of a citizen, and wank on and on about how “we can’t” or…..some dire imagined boogeyman will get us. We deserve to crash limply to the ground. Thank god for the Misfits tho, we live in constant fear—mostly fear of what the middle class will do to us next out of their fear and cowardice, so taking action is not only a privilege, it’s a necessity. Christian Smalls is my hero, not you. Signed, Proud Misfit.
"Middle Class" you assume too much. I have always been dirt poor. Partly by choice because I do not "fit in" with the main stream or corporate state. I do what I can "outside of the system" and if you have not been paying attention the FBI is a real and present danger.
I am paying attention, and I didn’t say the FBI wasn’t a threat. I said threat or not, FEAR is the problem not the fibi’s. And spreading fear in order to excuse your choices is middle class—bourgey in fact— not how much or how proudly little money you have. And In fact, only middle class people can choose to be poor.
Russia doesn't have to nuke us. We're well on our way in destroying ourselves with our economic policies and sociopathic system of idolizing profits and the wealthy while fucking the working class Americans as much as sociopathically possible.
Sounds like a step closer to nuclear war. How are all the "western" interests who are buying up Ukrainian farmland going to make productive use of it when it is a nuclear wasteland?
Funny how I was just wondering the same thing! These clowns think that they are going to have something to make a profit from when they come back! Even that idiot Zelenskyy knows enough not to go back!
Perfect. I won’t worry about nuke war until all the mafia con artist leaders in DC and corporate hq’s get into their private jets and head off the Dubai. Like they did to Shrub during the 9/11 attacks. Reading his goat book.
The Russians won't lose much sleep over the actual types of Vipers being sent. Those F-16s will most likely be the old ones (A/B models) purchased by Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark and even Norway back in the 1980s. They are high-time aircraft that feature downgraded defensive electronic warfare systems, radar and avionics, as opposed to US F-16s. It will be telling if the F-16 package to Ukraine will also include Electronic Countermeasures (ECM) pods, for jamming Russian radars, like the AN/ALQ-131 or the AN/ALQ-184. We know that the AGM-88 HARM High-speed Anti-Radar Missiles are already in service with the Ukrainian Air Force (UAF), though without the AN/ASQ-213 HARM Targeting System the effectiveness of the F-16s will, like the UAF MiG-29s that were wired to fire the HARM, be limited in the air defence suppression mission against a fully-capable Russian SAM network. Also, runway improvements will be a dead giveaway to where these F-16s are based, and will put additional pressure on Ukraine's air defence assets which may be diverted from the battlefield and high-value assets in order to defend these air bases. Finally, a high level of training and coordination is needed to attack targets defended by integrated air defence systems. The Ukrainians might use drones alongside F-16s in their attacks, in something similar to what the Israelis did to the Syrians in the Bekaa Valley in 1982, but it is a different ballgame when facing experienced and highly trained and equipped Russian SAM operators as opposed to enemies equipped with earlier-generation monkey-models of such weapons systems. And then there is the Russian Air Force, with its superior and demonstrated Beyond Visual Range (BVR)-capable fighter aircraft, to contend with. Overall, the addition of the F-16 to Ukraine's warfighting arsenal is not going win the war for them, and one can bet on Crimea, which is the home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, will have the highest density of defensive weapon systems in preparation for any UAF air offensive involving the Viper.
With the level of extreme belligerence being displayed by the US, I am thinking that those F-16s may just take off from runways in the EU. The smell of desperation, cold-blooded desperation, is in the air.
And to think - all of this is really just for profits and crotch-grabbing and campaign material. Which sums up the entire US political and economic system.
Yeah it is pretty shameful and disgusting! And I hope the Collective West are really not that stupid since all countries that are next to Ukraine, with the exception of Moldova, Transnistra and Belarus, are part of NATO. Moldova's current stance is that of neutrality, while Transnistra and Belarus are aligned to the Russians. Any aircraft operating from the NATO countries that are next to Ukraine in order to conduct direct combat operations against Russian forces is an overt act of war. It will be the end of everything! :(
Very sound analysis, and one I’m sure the Pentagon has already made. No one with any actual military experience believes F-16s will have any noticeable effect against Russian air defenses. Obviously, the western military industrial complex views this war as an opportunity to expend inventories of dusty old weapons so they can cash in on refilling NATO’s stockpiles with less shitty (but vastly more expensive) new weapons.
The two questions that we all ought to be asking is 1) How did the Russians build so many superior weapons systems with less than 1/10th the budget of the U.S./NATO? And 2) Since the U.S. and NATO have virtually no manufacturing base, who will build all the weapons the U.S./NATO will need to restock?
In addition, IMO, in Russia the cost of building weapons may well be actually the cost of building weapons. As opposed to the cost of building weapons in the US, which is exponentially greater than the real cost, in order to generate more and more profit. Also, the Russians build the weapons in order to actually defend themselves against enemies who openly plot their demise, as opposed to the US, which builds weapons in order to generate profits and, IMO, assumes it just has to wave those weapons around in order to obtain obedience and subservience.
Wilhelm (German Mexican?) you really have the lingo down pat. Great post, thanks.
I have read, several times now, that these new weapons are very complex, the Abrams tanks, for instance. Giving them to the Ukrainian military, in a rush and with little training, greatly undermines the effectiveness.
American elites are clearly undaunted, they are willing to fight to the last Ukrainian. The political Gnosticism of the Liberal Imperial will not be deterred.
Just as an aside, I haven’t seen that term “political gnosticism” used for a very long time. I believe it had its hay day in the 60s/70s (after Voegelin coined it in the 50s). Is the term making some kind of comeback? If so, it will need to be updated by modern scholarship of early gnosticism to mean exactly the opposite of Voegelin’s original meaning, since we now know the early gnostics were the anti-Roman imperialists of their day and were suppressed and nearly erased from history in favor of Imperial Roman supported—some say created— Christian (and Rabbinic Jewish) orthodoxy.
I do not have a particularly deep understanding of Gnosticism, but I will quote Wikipedia regarding Eric Voegelin:
Gnosis:
“ a purported, direct, immediate, apprehension, or vision of truth, without the need for critical reflection; the special gift of a spiritual and cognitive elite.”
That totally sounds like the assholes that run our world .
Gnosticism :
“ a type of thinking that claims absolute cognitive mastery of reality. Relying as it does on a claim to gnosis, Gnosticism considers, it’s knowledge, not subject to criticism.”
I ask, how spot on is that!!!
My take: arrogance incarnate.
Question: why do we say lest we forget every Nov11? And for you Americans, we are fast approaching memorial day. What are we memorializing?
You see, lest we forget, is a sincerely held principle of not forgetting lives lost in war. But I think the more important meaning of lest we forget is remembering how we got ourselves into war.
Gnosticism is the best and most reliable accelerant for war.
Is not every American foreign entanglement, explained to us by our liberal elite as unfortunate but necessary for fear that “they”will wreck our privileged existence. Our enemies very existence is a threat to our way of life. Holy cow how many times have you heard that ! And then of course, we are told of our superhuman efforts to minimize collateral damage. We are just - it is justified - in our application of our special knowledge and while unfortunate, collateral damage is the price we must pay on the road to our idealized future.
My take: we are killing you, but it’s for your own good.
How many million people has the liberal imperium killed. (And then forgiven itself.)
Special note : this is true belief not cynicism. This is the part that our author Caitlin gets wrong. Love her but she needs a rethink on that score; greed and cruelty are weak motivators compared to truth and justice. Again: we kill you for your own good, that’s the liberal imperium’s affect, and the monetary rewards are the deserving effect of our ministrations.
That’s how I’m using the word Gnosticism . (Wish you never asked?)
“Wish you never asked?” No, I’m glad I did. And thanks for the thoughtful answer. My guess is that as readers of Caitlin, we have quite similar views.
With regard to Voegelin, he was an immensely important and prolific philosopher, but he used the term “gnosticism” as an invective, and, imo, to decieve. If gnosticism conformed precisely to his definition, I would oppose it, too.
My own interest in gnosticism comes from how thoroughly suppressed it was by the so-called “church fathers” of what became Christian orthodoxy and by the Roman Empire—the empire that never truly ended. Why were the powers of that day so ruthless and thorough in their suppression of gnosticism? I think the reasons for the suppression are nearly identical to our current era in which our U.S. empire continues to exert its power to destroy every truth and to control our every action and thought. The terms “heresy” and “heretic” were literally invented to describe the gnostics, and that technique almost precisely mirrors how the CIA term “conspiracy theory/theorist” has been used today to squash any and every thought or word that doesn’t conform to the official neoliberal/imperial narrative. So I now view the re-emergence of gnosticism as a primary and powerful counter to modern imperialism. But there are plenty of other ways to to resist or stay free. Hopefully, we all find the way that works best for each of us.
“ disobedience is the true foundation of the liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
Now 59 years on, I’ve come to the conclusion that our innate human nature renders us ungovernable. I strongly suspect that those people who came before us concluded the same thing: it is etched in their faces.
Thoreau again:
“ the civilized man is a more experienced and wiser savage”.
The real risk of escalation might be if the planes are based outside of Ukraine in a nation that is a NATO member, e.g. Poland. Russia would very likely attack the airbases. Would that trigger Article 5 of the NATO charter, which would require other member states to join the war in mutual defense? I suspect that lawyers will be able to wiggle out of that rule, as no other NATO member has either the appetite or the wherewithal to go to war with Russia.
it's a big "trade in your old phone" program. Uncle Sam says: "drop off your old fighter jets in the Ukraine depot, and we'll give you credit for F-35s 10% off". It sounds like a deal.
Remember, the US only nuked Japan to make a "symbolic" point to the Soviet Union.
Biden and Co. are cynically and derangedly (is that a word?) doing EXACTLY the same thing. It's an open - not even thinly veiled - threat. This is Kubrik live.
It is especially indecent. And the Japanese government, by accepting this masquerade in this martyred city, under the direction of the representative of its executioner, is disgracing itself even more. The time is long gone when Japanese youth revolted against the presence of the American army on their soil. And how Mishima misses this country which, by westernizing, is losing its soul.
UK already sent Storm shadows and cruise missiles, first to send long range missiles. I don't understand why everyone is not up in arms about spending our tax billions on this. Everyone is too busy protesting electric cars and fearing the Tufty Club trying to control us. Forget Klaus Square Pants it's all about money for the arms industry and US hegemony. They'll push to the brink of 'nuclear' and then move on to China to give some more British and Oz taxes to the US military industrial complex.
Americans won't organize to do one goddamn thing about this, any more than they will about anything else existentially threatening. We don't know how to do that. We're all afraid of each other. Everyone has guns so no one wants to make a big fuss over something as weird and abstract as nuclear war when we all know guns might be levelled against us at any moment, just to shut up the troublemaker.
The Biden/Congressional lunatics know they have nothing to fear from the somnolent consumers fictitiously referred to as "citizens." We don't even discuss these things unless it's with a family member or close confidant who we know feels the same way. We abdicated our responsibility as citizens of a mythic democracy long ago. Now, we're mere spectators awaiting the conflagration we did nothing to prevent.
Yep. I think you may be right. We've become spectators, peering out of our cages of corporate/state totalitarian control, masquerading as a democracy.
Basil, thank you. This is brilliant.
Agreed. But I am hopeful and believe Americans actually will eventually start to organize. Things may have to get a lot worse though, and the organization may not be for the better...
Agreed. The decline and fall of empire is never easy on the muttonheads who cheered it on. But I’m convinced that at bedrock, we are a decent people and can create a good country out of the rubble. My guy is RFK jr.
There are probably a few thousand Americans who truly want another Trump presidency, and maybe 8 individuals as demented as he is who actually want Biden to win a second term. Scarcely anyone really wants either of these two assholes, but the Uniparty is shoving them down our throats. Neither of them will let RFKJ anywhere near the White House.
The Dems preferred Trump over Bernie--twice--and scuttled his chances. They and their media sock puppets will do the same with RFK. Especially if he's brutally honest and seems incorruptible (like e.g. Kucinich). Then he's dogfood and they don't care who sees what they're doing. They're all right out in the open with their addiction to lies and corruption, and they'll ruin anyone who looks like a challenger to their power.
There's no hope coming from the ballot box. That was rigged and corrupted long ago. Maybe RFKJ can organize a real revolution, something Bernie the fraudster never could.
I’m close to agreeing with most of your statements. But I see daylight in the ballot box. For one thing, the people who have sabotaged our elections for the Neoshitlibs agenda are almost out of gas. The longer Biden stays in office, the more the shitlibs lose support. And yes the damn Dems prefer Trump—in fact put him up to running—and he is a creditable threat. But if he won, he would be fighting both the Shitlib offense of Rachel Rachel rachel of Russia Russia Russia fame, and the CIA. I don’t think he’d win in that tussle again. As to Bernie—he was spared by god from the presidency. I think he’s doing a good job now even tho people call him a fraud for not doing what they want him to. Plus, Bernie isn’t a fighter. Never has been. RFK jr IS a fighter. From a family that knows how to cheat for the greater good. Bobby is a real politician and is able to turn the interviews that attempt to sandbag him into victories. That Krystal Ball really came out badly in her attempt to smear him. And he couldn’t get a word in edgewise! He lets people hang them selves and hang themselves they will. Moreover, I think Tucker Carlson is going to be a great asset to RFK and independent thinkers throughout this next election cycle. I think that the Russians will put Zelenskyy in his place in the next 6 to 9 months which will have a major detonation effect on our election. I think Musk and Dore and maybe even Assange will have liberating effects on the thinking of our lost population—for the better. And even if RFK doesn't win the Resiliency, he will have a powerful effect on the American psyche in the next year. I’m voting for him no matter what.
That should be Residency. Damn spellcheck! 🤭
Good points, though I think Bernie is mostly hot air. He means what he says about "the billionaires" etc. but as soon as the Democrats tell him to STFU he folds like a cheap suit and falls into line. He's like the antithesis of Eugene Debs, while purporting to campaign on the same political line.
The interview with Krystal was most distressing. A few years ago I thought she was really a leftist, but she ain't. I'm not sure RFKJ is either, not quite anyway. She's a left liberal and of course that now means she believes wholeheartedly in all the Fauci-Covid narratives, so she fixates on RFK's skepticism over that. Covid and Russiagate have divided more people than the Civil War. They've driven the whole country insane.
“The Dems preferred Trump over Bernie--twice--and scuttled his chances.”
I think that is not actually accurate. The oligarchs who own the DP found Trump tolerable and Bernie unacceptable. Sanders’ whole rationale for running as a Democrat was because he (naively?) believed that the DP, once the party of FDR, had lost its moorings.
What you describe as “...folding like a cheap suit...”, I think is much more accurate, because Sanders isn’t gullible to the point where he will bite the hand that feeds him and expect to go unscathed.
Well said : ), you had me at assholes ha.
Spot on.
Well said. Caitlin writes in a way that brings us together. You are very right, we have to put our fears of each other away and focus on the real enemy to working people, the 1%. There is something very wrong when 600 people own half the wealth of the u.s.
@Basil Rathbone
I agree in general with your analysis. Nevertheless the terminology used paints a much BIGGER PICTURE.
"citizen" for example - look up The Act of 1871 and how it turner The united states of America into THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (CORP.) (including the constitution) including becoming a citizen of a corporation by consent by silence - I won't go through all the details but look it up on the web as long as it is still possible ...
And incorporating this move into a broader context of the Globalist Movement/Freemasons/Zionists/.... one starts to see the BIGGER PICTURE ..... maybe not right from the start but ....
Eustace Mullins, The Curse of Canaan, 1987 and the story of the author himself are truly eye opening ....
The only saving grace here may be that F-16s are so different from the planes that Ukrainian pilots have flown before that they have no chance of being capable of retraining their minds to make the split-second decisions necessary to effectively operate them. The idea advertised is four months, which from what I have read is an absurd goal. However, if the NATO countries supplying these planes supply the pilots as well, that saving grace disappears.
It is astonishing that there is no recognition at all in the US mainstream media or amongst its political class that we have created a situation analogous to the two-week long Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The only differences that matter are that it has been going on for fifteen months, and that every action and pronouncement of the US government during that fifteen months has escalated the crisis. We are on the brink of nuclear Armageddon, and the only person who matters who recognizes it, and has said so publicly, is Donald J. Trump. Of course, he says he could end the conflict the day he becomes president again, so he is as ignorant and deluded as he has always been. But, still...
Oh, I doubt there will only be Ukrainian pilots in those literal cock-pits. Anyone who believes that the US will stand by its claim to not use Americans in this conflict is a blithering idjit.
I will take "ignorant and deluded" over "demented and warmongering" any time. Since those are deliberately my only choices, in addition to "neither one". And even when considering that the presidency is pretty much ornamental now. Ugly tattered dripping ornament.
Starting to wonder if there will even be a next "election".
It’s not your only choose—you can call him. We ran LBJ out of office for his warmongering, we can certainly jettison this little fascist prick.
To be more accurate, LBJ was compelled to not seek a reelection by the national consensus against the war that was building, and the televised Democrat National Political Convention, which pitted the fascist Chicago Mayor against the anti war activists. The fractured DP handed the WH to the duplicitous Nixon.
Yes, as I said—we ran LBJ out of the White House. In fewer words. 😜
Who do you mean by “we?” By the time the war ended, Nixon had almost doubled the number of dead Americans from the time he took office, and more than doubled the number of dead Vietnamese. Any victory you associate with Johnson leaving office was not reflective of a national appetite for peace.
I never claimed that! Jeez, get a gripe! I said we—the active anti war left—ran LBJ out of office! And we can do it again. Then you blowviated on that and I repeated it. I didn’t say we brought everlasting peace and happiness to the world. And how the hell do you know what the national appetite was? I mean do you really think that old war horse would have slunk away if he thought he could win another election?!?!!? You don’t know LBJ if you think that. I think we can put the run on this shithead damn dem too. Just by calling the White House. But if course you’d rather pointlessly argue about it than just do it!
Trite.
"you can call him" - yep, dialing up right now... watch him gone shortly.
Running the bastards out by pushing some buttons™.
You’re funny. And I love your cynicism. But I also know that you defeat yourself by trying to mock my solution. Circular Firing Squad. If you don’t like my solution or idea, don’t do it. But why denigrate it? What’s in it for you to shoot down other people’s actions. It would take you 5 minutes.
You Cannot Be Serious!™
O what a brilliant reply. I gave you the benefit of the doubt but now I see that you have a limited and blinkered mind. Too bad. P.o.
Displaying some rational analysis is truly refreshing while looking down into the abyss!
The truth never fails to liberate!
There will most certainly be an election held……because it is meaningless ritual and does not change the national agenda, regardless of which stooge is appointed!
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf
That's true, extremely true. Which is one reason why "getting rid of Biden" does not take into account that the Dems have a long line of corrupt warmongers just waiting in line behind him. And the Dems have already said, in court, that they are a privately owned corporation and can name any candidate they want to name - which is actually what they have been doing, the primaries are merely money-laundering pep rallies. IMO, the party is more openly contemptuous of "democracy" now, it is just another campaign item.
I was just thinking about how I read somewhere that Zelensky is thinking of suspending elections, and I would Imagine Biden would be quite envious of that - something his predecessors had not dared to do.
Election?
Unlikely
Thus will go in with these maniacs until Russians display dead US mercenaries, volunteers and Pilots.
The Russians will strike back!
Poland?
Brussels?
Berlin?
You think China will let us try stuff in Taiwan?
I would say that the only saving grace is that the F-16s will have zero impact on the outcome of the war. These planes, if and when they arrive in Ukraine, will either be destroyed on the ground or shot out of the sky by Russia’s superior air defenses. Still, the stupidity and sheer recklessness of deploying them in a war against Russia is mind boggling. US military planners must realize that Crimea will not be retaken and Russia will not be defeated. Hence, I see this as possibly being a desperate political decision by a president who will be running for re-election next year and does not want the humiliation of a military defeat hanging over his campaign. As I said--stupid and reckless.
One of the most common traits of a criminal: reckless and stupid. Biden is no exception.
written all over his face.
Nah. Those great pentagon minds are just trying to offload outdated equipment on our allied cannon fodder. It’s da shekels baby.
All the new voters streaming across the border don’t know or care about the history of the country. Trump ignorant? Little Rocket Man didn’t think so.
Busy making immigrants the scapegoat - while your billionaire boss tells you to pull down your pants and bend over every day of the week.
Perfectly said, I welcome people to our struggle from all countries. Solidarity my friend. End Stage Capitalism will require us all to finish the job.
I think you mean streaming into cages on our side of wall after walking miles over hostile terrain because we destroyed their economies, right?
Hehehe, what a great convoluted view! The same kind of destruction done in China by the US? America really SUCKS don’t we? We suck so much that people are crashing our borders at astonishing rates never seen in modern times.
Hundred year droughts will do that when farms fail and sanctions destroy whats left.
I don’t think you’re using “convoluted” correctly. But a lot if dumb guys do that—talk like they think smart people talk or use “big words” to make themselves sound smart. Also, immigration in the 1800’s was vastly greater than it is today. Probably your people came then. Fool
" ... streaming across the border don't know... " they believe the lies of THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN which is enough to keep them moving towards the abyss!
Trump notoriously says anything that he believes is in his ego-interest, but I think that alternative media and peace activists ought to run with the good news that the Ukraine consensus is beginning to fracture. It seems unlikely that Trump can maintain his 2016 base, which included a lot of fiscal conservatives who didn’t care for his anti-globalist rhetoric, but voted for him anyway. That group would be splintered by Trump’s announced opposition to the Ukraine War, and if Trump beats the anti-war horse too hard, I think Hillary’s prediction will prove accurate.
I’m voting for RFKjr, the only principled man left in the US political sphere. And if he ran with Tulsi, I’d lick their ankles as well!!!
Trump is going to become POTUS again unless they take him out through illegitimate means - which is a distinct possibility.
Biden is a senile jack-ass and Hilly is no longer relevant whatsoever.
I don’t think that is a certainty. Trump’s former election victory included many fiscal hardliners who didn’t give a toss about social policy. Those votes are up for grabs, particularly if Ukraine is perceived as a “necessary” defense of America’s national interests.
Also, I think it is likely that a portion of the blue-collar support that Trump enjoyed in 2016 will evaporate. Four years of nothing substantial accomplished on behalf of his angry base will likely lead to some defections. If Trump can win the Republican nomination, I think his mention of Ukraine will be contingent on his audience.
"Four years of nothing substantial accomplished on behalf of his angry base will likely lead to some defections."
If Trump admits that he underestimated his opponents and got rolled in his first term, it would at least be a start in getting his entire original base back together.
But even that first step would require Trump to admit that he made a mistake, and we know how much of a chance there is of that every happening.
---
TLDR: And, of course, there are ways of admitting mistakes without making yourself appear to be an incompetent who cannot be trusted again. However, this requires an ability to express yourself with nuance. Again, we know how much a a chance there is of Trump being capable of doing that.
Not relevant maybe, but still powerful and still mean. Did you see that interview Jon the bend over king Stewart gave her? He was peeing his pants he was so afraid of her.
I referenced Hillary because she was recently quoted as predicting that a Trump victory in 2024 will be the end of Ukraine.
https://www.rt.com/news/576654-clinton-trump-victory-end-ukraine/
Hillary Clinton, the woman so maniacally interested in war that Obama had to hold the Iran agreement negotiations behind her back…..
That’s funny even leftists now starting to see that Trump has something to offer.
No. He doesn't "have something to offer." He just is more honest in one small area than the Democrats, who should not be confused with leftists.
Thank you for that Mary.
Trump says things, but he’s not honest. He’s a used car salesman who will say anything to get you to say yes, then switch it out to something else. If he doesn’t, the CIA will off him anyway, so he might as well stay true to his lying conman ways!
TRIBAL THINKING SHOWING BIG TIME - STANDING ON THE EDGE OF THE ABYSS both of you... this is hilarious!
If only he had done one thing for working people, I would vote for him. Trump could win handily by creating single payer healthcare. 75% of voters want a working healthcare system.
That is the one thing he’ll never do. Trump is believed to not be an ideologue, but he’s congenitally anti-communist. For him socialism is synonymous with communism which he will never give a fair hearing. He’s anti union, anti corporate tax, anti regulation and this is all non-negotiable.
Trump is only a Communist when he needs us to bailout his failed businesses. Just like all the wealthy, we are shit to them until they need our collective monies to bail them out. We paid dearly for that Trump Casino failure.
Agreed. The only problem is that the environment will suffer enormous destruction at the hands of T-rump. Almost as badly as at the hands of Old Joe. I won’t vote for either one of them. If it was a 3-way slit, we could create a constitutional crisis which might actually be good for us.
Do remember, Biden approved more pipeline and drilling in the Arctic, so it didn't matter in the end. Both liars.
Agreed. He makes me so mad I just want to 💩 on that 💩 but it would be a waste of good 💩. 😤🤯👹
The last election I wrote in Jim Earl a comedian friend ha. Nope I won't be voting for zero ever again. When Bernie said "Joe would make a great president " after taking large sums, very large sums of cash and work effort from me, nope not voting for either party. The crisis I think may be our only hope. I used to think as Marx wrote capitalism will evolve into something better even if slowly and now I think as Yanis has said Techno Feudalism has arrived.
I agree. But Yanis has hit a dead end and has no real solutions other than great analysis and criticism. I honor him but believe that political problems need political solutions. And just because the elites have made the ballot box seem corrupt doesn’t mean it is—it’s just massively weakened. The elites—especially the Rethugs want this because they know that the less people vote the more they win. The proof is sitting in the House right now. Nope, for me, the answer is get behind anybody who seems strong enough to challenge the status quo and stop feeling sorry for myself that all my hard work seemed for naught last time. That’s what the MSM’s wants me to think. I look at Lula in Brazil—straight out of jail and into the Presidency. And the destruction of the Amazon fell by 60% in his 1st few months in office!!!! Bobby has a shot and it’s not a vaccine. I’m working and voting for him.
At least rhetorically Trump is on their side, and I think that is gigantic.
The chattering class mock us as deplorable’s . The entire point of NYT, CNN is to encourage their audience to revel in a feeling of superiority. They mock our wrong headedness they call us racists and then invite their audience to feel that special tingle of superiority.
The problem with Trump is that he is a boorish lout and incompetent. These two traits encourage and amplify their sense of superiority and nasty self satisfaction. After all they are superior: better educated, better looking, better dressed, better food, better able to compete and win. They are our betters. But they are so very mean spirted.
Then along comes a bloviating Orange Man who calls them out: deindustrialization, opioids, illegal immigration, the ruination of late stage capitalism and the totalitarian qualities of woke ideology.
Why wouldn’t the unwashed revel in his caustic rhetoric. These people collapsed America, nothing less!
Donald Trump is the most significant president since Lincoln, he reordered the political landscape. All previous rules were broken.
“The problem with Trump is that he is a boorish lout and incompetent.”
I think you don’t want to look squarely at all of his problems. One reason that Trump supporters are labeled racists is because Trump promotes and rewards racists. He never uses overt racist rhetoric, but he has perfected dog-whistling. He goes on and on about law and order, a favorite white talking point. He hugs the NRA, goes out of his way to honor the cops who slay black non-threats, he invited Kyle Rittenhouse to Mara Lago, and his past New York interventions when he took out ads and offered to pay the legal fees for Bernard Goetz, the Subway Vigilante, and when he took out more ads to advocate for the death penalty in the case of the 1989 Central Park rape of a a white woman, where 5 black boys were charged, convicted and eventually exonerated after serving 10 years in prison.
If Trump had any redeeming qualities, he has hidden them very well. Hatred and violence in America have never been more fashionable. We all can applaud his shattering the false guise of civility that his political enemies so artfully wear, but this has not enhanced any lives.
https://tomdispatch.com/between-a-yoga-mat-and-a-hard-place/
Good post
At this stage, any F-16 or F-35 that tries to make it well into Ukraine { say east of the Dnepr R. } will be on a One Way trip. They won't dare send in any F-35s, cause once they start dropping - there goes billions in LockHeed Martin sales. Everyone will want the S-400 or S-500 systems instead.
A timely comment. Will they wake up ??
Gets more and more obvious who the aggressors are. Russia "occupied" its own Crimea without a single shot and a single death. The place has not seen war since WWII. Now the "liberators" will have to kill millions to conquer it. Should Russia now "liberate" Eastern Germany?
Yes, and what about us who will liberate us?
We need liberating don’t you think? I mean, anyone who still has the idea that we in this country enjoy such a thing as free and fair elections is sorely lacking critical thinking skills.
Where at I pray tell? Where is our representation in the halls of Congress. Congress our entire government and the country as a whole even our western civilization is quick becoming an abject disaster and a failure.
Look around why is there so much turmoil, confusion and division on every corner at every turn. This is instigated, created by our intelligence agencies with a nefarious purpose.
Is there not going to any outrage?
on russian telegram channels they quote kirill budanov, ukraine's intelligence chief, as follows: "we got 3 million people who lived under russian propaganda. they are deformed people who will be physically annihilated for their actions."
Nobody in the West would raise so much as a peep, if that were to happen.
If the US somehow prevails in "Ukraine", it will have to rapidly shift gears to prevent a genocide. I wouldn't want to be one of the millions of poor souls who would have to count on that.
(This is an urgent message that should be constantly repeated when discussing the war between the US and Russia being fought in Ukraine.)
Why will the US "have to" do anything?
I mean, the US gleefully assisted the Saudi genocide and the press corps barely noticed, when they weren't gushing over MBS like lovesick puppies.
The US will have to do something (1) IF it actually prevails in Ukraine (that is, forces the Russians out) and (2) IF it wants to prevent a genocide against ethnic Russians in the area.
(I wouldn't rely on the US for that second "if" (for the reasons you mention, among many others), so I hope that first "if" never happens.)
Agreed.
Wow. Ukrainian government official advocating ethnic cleansing. Mask off!
The "mask" was created by Western media and politicians - In country, Ukrainian's are openly Nazi fascists. That fact is just no longer is reported in western media.
Another example of Ukraine's fascist orientation. But this will not deter or much influence the West.
We have to keep our eye on the more important goal, getting rid of Russia Man Bad so that we can get Russia back in the International Order.
As for what the Ukrainians might do if we prevail, something about eggs and omlettes.
These are our democratic allies. The horror...
article 16 of the constitution of ukraine states: "To ensure ecological safety and to maintain the ecological balance on the territory of Ukraine, to overcome the consequences of the Chornobyl catastrophe - a catastrophe of global scale, and to preserve the gene pool of the Ukrainian people, is the duty of the State." - pretty neat hu, 'ecological safety', chernobyl and 'preserving the gene pool of the ukrainian people' (by the state) in one and the same paragraph.
doubt Charlie D'Agata will cover this on Murican newz.
it's how they quote him on russian telegram channels. the actual interview probably has more plausible deniability built into it.
I can’t say like to this but thank you for this information. It’s gut wrenching.
We're going to keep this sh*t up until we get our asses kicked again like we did on 9/11. Washington is totally out of control and dangerously bluffing their way through this conflict. They have no idea IMHO what they're facing. Russia does not bluff and with saying that, this will be the end of one, if not all of us.
Agreed. If we couldn't achieve our aims against a nation of poorly equipped tribal goat herders, we have absolutely zero chance of achieving our aims against Russia. If the goal is to keep spending a trillion dollars a year on our military and intelligence state, well, that is achievable. The question to me is, how many casualties can the Ukraine Maidan regime sustain before they collapse, and how much debt and inflation can the US sustain before it starts to collapse?
Now that Ukraine is drafting 14 yr. olds I think they reached that point months ago. All for NATO and nuclear weapons 5 mins. from Moscow.
Quite a lot since the banks make bank on destruction. It’s called the Shock Doctrine and the Neoshitlibs have been riding that wave since Clinton and his Glass-Steegal repeal.
9/11 was an inside job. No one’s going to attack us except ourselves.
If you are surprised, don’t be this is yet another escalation by the U.S. and European warmongers.
Russia isn’t surprised they expected and planned for this very thing since the neocons are extremely predictable. Neocons only have one course of action which is to double down.
It is this very reason Russia has increased weapons and munitions production 7 fold. Russia has more than quadrupled its production of everything and continues to put new surveillance satellites in orbit, adding new submarines and surface ships.
Let’s keep in mind Russia also has several hundred thousand troops who have yet to be deployed on standby.
No one in America except the damaged brain dead should be trusting or believing anything the government and media spouts after the Covid-19 scam, mandatory vaccines and lockdowns not to mention 2020 election fraud.
Western governments have been controlled by a bunch of lying lowlife people we call politicians for decades. And today at this time it’s being confirmed for all the world to see.
Who are the people and what kind of people are they who rally behind and support this current regime.
Oh, you had me until “COVID-19 scam.”
Yes, indeed
Covid 19 was a dishonest scheme to introduce the lockdowns, the mask and the vaccines.
More folks were injured by hospitalizations (intubation) and vaccines than they were by a Covid 19 virus, which as truth continues to show it only threatened the same group that seasonal flus endanger each and every year; the elderly and the immune compromised
This is complete conspiracy nonsense that flys in the face of a mountain of empirical evidence that the Covid pandemic was, indeed, real and deadly, FAR more deadly than ordinary flu. Do you not recall the images of people gasping for breath and dying in the hallways and on the steps of hospitals, not only in the United States but all over the world? Perhaps you think that was all staged. What about the morgues bursting beyond capacity and the portable refrigerated morgues set up behind hospitals. Also staged? So stop with the Covid conspiracy narrative. No reasonable person believes it, only those who feel a perverse emotional need to believe it.
I will gladly concede that mitigating the effects of the epidemic and reducing the incidence of severe disease and death required a degree of social control, i.e. mandatory vaccines, masking, lockdowns etc. That's the price that society sometimes has to pay to save lives. Most people understand and accept that as being a necessary social good, not a gateway to tyranny.
P.S. Covid vaccines absolutely do work to prevent severe disease and death in vulnerable populations, which include hundreds of millions of people. And proper masks worn properly do reduce the spread of infection. There are excellent studies in the medical literature proving this, but you won't find them on Qanon.
Yep sounds like you shallowed all that theater up didn’t you. It was psyops created, produced by the master of propaganda the United States.
Well Rob I can see you gotta long row to hoe. Keep tuned into MSM for more of the same!!!
Hahahhaaaa. Yes, the mountain of empirical evidence from the CDC, Fauci and the media lapdogs. A perfect example of suck-cessful bamboozling in the land of the free, the home of the ….. what was that again?
Listen, you fools, I actually follow the medical and scientific literature regarding COVID-19 closely. I am not informed by ignorant, politically partisan bloggers and other people with axes to grind.
We are way off-topic for this thread, so I will say no more on the subject.
If we weren't lied to about efficacy and transmission, masks and the lock down, I think people would have responded better. I nearly died May of 2020 before the vaccine. With the hospitals full at 03:00 on a Wed. the hospital said you can speak on the phone you don't need to come while I was so low on Oxygen I was hallucinating. Oxygen Deficiency Hazard training saved my life. A Virologist friend told me to sleep on my stomach and cough like my life depended on it and it did. With all of that, being told masks weren't necessary, the vaccine protected people now makes me doubt all the liars in gov. The vulnerable should have been protected and isolated 100% and yet we forced them to work in low wage occupations, 1.2 million died who didn't have to. Those deaths are on Fauci and the CDC. The truth would have saved lives.
Rob you had me ... till ..... !
You have been hose-fed the propaganda invented by THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN ...
... you are arguing out of your mental prison cell THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN has prepared for every gullible HUMAN MIND ready to walk into "voluntarily" out of its need of wishful thinking.
Nobody can take you out of your DARKNESS but you yourself by walking out of it on your own feet ....
Above are the words of a certifiable lunatic.
Whatever your scietism theory looks like - Better look up YOUR LUNACY
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1fa8562d-d6da-4813-8e7f-8dd882d0999e_810x820.png
😄😁😆🤣. Now now. No ganging up! 🤭
And also the young—who were in no danger from Covid but died like crazy after the jab.
I completely agree.
You’ll come around. With the 1st jab related injury to someone you love.
After the major strikes on the Ukrainian's stores in Khmelnitsky and Odessa, the great counteroffensive appears to be off...plus Zaluzhny and other top brass were hit in their bunker. Reported to be in a critical condition (no one has seen the man who gave several interviews a day for 2 weeks).
Syrskii (commander of ground forces) has gone to ground...literally, hiding in a deep bunker in Slaviansk...Zelensky has run away too it appears. 'Touring' the world asking for weapons (His handlers got him out of the country fast...will he return?) This is what happens when you cross too many of Russia's red lines.
Bakhmut is Ukraine's Stalingrad...(no Russian army casualties at all, just Wagnerites. They deployed only 26,000 to the fight, according to Ukraine military Intelligence) 22 Ukrainian Brigades, rotated up to 3 times (around 1100 casualties each rotation...even conservatively..that's like the whole British Army of casualties!...)
Javelins, Himars, Patriots, Abrams, Leopards, Depleted Uranium shells (now dust heading over Europe) and the latest Wunderwaffen, F16's will suffer the same fate as the other Nazi army weapons used against Russia in WW2. And so, from the last few days we can deduce that Russia does not need to use nuclear weapons...to attack Poland etc.. the 'west' is coming to them and getting demiltarised in the process.
Nice analysis.
The question is, will the liberation of Bakhmut be the US Tet Offensive 2.0?
It should be, but with US media so deeply in the tank, it is not likely to be. Where have you gone Walter Cronkite?
Our fake leaders don’t acknowledge facts on the ground. Spin is their ultimate weapon. When Ukraine is a parking lot, all talk of saving the Ukrainians will die as quickly as the “peace dividend” following Gorbachev.
that's TET offensive - for some reason I am unable to correct the typo.
Everyone on earth should be shouting to put sanctions on the US, call for war crimes prosecutions and so much more on the criminal filth in control of our government. Biden can't fall off the stage soon enough but the people pushing his buttons need to go sooner. I hear the sound of silence once again when there is no one screaming stop. What happened to all those 200 plus organisations at the anti war rally in March? The other issue is showing these criminals for what they are gets a brief ho hum and it's back to businesses of killing people and silencing any dissent!
we are all busy with culture wars. btw...i smell "wokeness" in you! turn it down.
"Wokeness"? What kind of nut job are you? Anti War, Anti-Capitalist means "Wokeness" to you? I think you need to reassess the term.
lol. chill. i agree with your comment 100%. i was bein "sarcastic". it doesn't convey well on the netz. cheers. see....."they" have us ALL on hair triggers. "they" have the economy on hair trigger too..with all the artificial rate hikes. Good fun. (again, sarcasm). cheers.
Sorry for that it is a rough ride for all and the bumps sometimes hit my head on the roof!
happens to me too. "they" can sure put on a show! remember the war on terriers? 20 years. then poof...gone. set up for the next program. we have 12-13 years of internal psy-war to go so that they can remodel "society" and "culture" to their liking.
Right on the money!
Call the White House. You may not think it works but it does.
I think that would be a fast track to the FBI's "List of Dessenter's"!
Ya. I think fear is the primary emotion of the middle class in America. Afraid of losing something they think they have or not getting something they want. People who hang on to their democratic government have courage. Look at Brazil. Those people had a lot more to fear than the FBI. But not us. We all have reasons not to take the slightest action required of a citizen, and wank on and on about how “we can’t” or…..some dire imagined boogeyman will get us. We deserve to crash limply to the ground. Thank god for the Misfits tho, we live in constant fear—mostly fear of what the middle class will do to us next out of their fear and cowardice, so taking action is not only a privilege, it’s a necessity. Christian Smalls is my hero, not you. Signed, Proud Misfit.
"Middle Class" you assume too much. I have always been dirt poor. Partly by choice because I do not "fit in" with the main stream or corporate state. I do what I can "outside of the system" and if you have not been paying attention the FBI is a real and present danger.
I am paying attention, and I didn’t say the FBI wasn’t a threat. I said threat or not, FEAR is the problem not the fibi’s. And spreading fear in order to excuse your choices is middle class—bourgey in fact— not how much or how proudly little money you have. And In fact, only middle class people can choose to be poor.
Spreading fear? OK whatever.
The DC Swamp really hates this country to escalate the risks of WW3 in this manner. They want Russia to nuke us.
Russia doesn't have to nuke us. We're well on our way in destroying ourselves with our economic policies and sociopathic system of idolizing profits and the wealthy while fucking the working class Americans as much as sociopathically possible.
Sounds like a step closer to nuclear war. How are all the "western" interests who are buying up Ukrainian farmland going to make productive use of it when it is a nuclear wasteland?
Funny how I was just wondering the same thing! These clowns think that they are going to have something to make a profit from when they come back! Even that idiot Zelenskyy knows enough not to go back!
Perfect. I won’t worry about nuke war until all the mafia con artist leaders in DC and corporate hq’s get into their private jets and head off the Dubai. Like they did to Shrub during the 9/11 attacks. Reading his goat book.
Back in 2015 I heard Condoleeza Rice say that the great majority of Crimeans want to be in Russia. It's on Youtube.
But they are fighting for "democracy"
"It's all about money." -- Marnie Powers
Follow the Money! Follow the Money!
The Russians won't lose much sleep over the actual types of Vipers being sent. Those F-16s will most likely be the old ones (A/B models) purchased by Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark and even Norway back in the 1980s. They are high-time aircraft that feature downgraded defensive electronic warfare systems, radar and avionics, as opposed to US F-16s. It will be telling if the F-16 package to Ukraine will also include Electronic Countermeasures (ECM) pods, for jamming Russian radars, like the AN/ALQ-131 or the AN/ALQ-184. We know that the AGM-88 HARM High-speed Anti-Radar Missiles are already in service with the Ukrainian Air Force (UAF), though without the AN/ASQ-213 HARM Targeting System the effectiveness of the F-16s will, like the UAF MiG-29s that were wired to fire the HARM, be limited in the air defence suppression mission against a fully-capable Russian SAM network. Also, runway improvements will be a dead giveaway to where these F-16s are based, and will put additional pressure on Ukraine's air defence assets which may be diverted from the battlefield and high-value assets in order to defend these air bases. Finally, a high level of training and coordination is needed to attack targets defended by integrated air defence systems. The Ukrainians might use drones alongside F-16s in their attacks, in something similar to what the Israelis did to the Syrians in the Bekaa Valley in 1982, but it is a different ballgame when facing experienced and highly trained and equipped Russian SAM operators as opposed to enemies equipped with earlier-generation monkey-models of such weapons systems. And then there is the Russian Air Force, with its superior and demonstrated Beyond Visual Range (BVR)-capable fighter aircraft, to contend with. Overall, the addition of the F-16 to Ukraine's warfighting arsenal is not going win the war for them, and one can bet on Crimea, which is the home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, will have the highest density of defensive weapon systems in preparation for any UAF air offensive involving the Viper.
With the level of extreme belligerence being displayed by the US, I am thinking that those F-16s may just take off from runways in the EU. The smell of desperation, cold-blooded desperation, is in the air.
And to think - all of this is really just for profits and crotch-grabbing and campaign material. Which sums up the entire US political and economic system.
Yeah it is pretty shameful and disgusting! And I hope the Collective West are really not that stupid since all countries that are next to Ukraine, with the exception of Moldova, Transnistra and Belarus, are part of NATO. Moldova's current stance is that of neutrality, while Transnistra and Belarus are aligned to the Russians. Any aircraft operating from the NATO countries that are next to Ukraine in order to conduct direct combat operations against Russian forces is an overt act of war. It will be the end of everything! :(
Very sound analysis, and one I’m sure the Pentagon has already made. No one with any actual military experience believes F-16s will have any noticeable effect against Russian air defenses. Obviously, the western military industrial complex views this war as an opportunity to expend inventories of dusty old weapons so they can cash in on refilling NATO’s stockpiles with less shitty (but vastly more expensive) new weapons.
The two questions that we all ought to be asking is 1) How did the Russians build so many superior weapons systems with less than 1/10th the budget of the U.S./NATO? And 2) Since the U.S. and NATO have virtually no manufacturing base, who will build all the weapons the U.S./NATO will need to restock?
Necessity is the mother of invention.
In addition, IMO, in Russia the cost of building weapons may well be actually the cost of building weapons. As opposed to the cost of building weapons in the US, which is exponentially greater than the real cost, in order to generate more and more profit. Also, the Russians build the weapons in order to actually defend themselves against enemies who openly plot their demise, as opposed to the US, which builds weapons in order to generate profits and, IMO, assumes it just has to wave those weapons around in order to obtain obedience and subservience.
Wilhelm (German Mexican?) you really have the lingo down pat. Great post, thanks.
I have read, several times now, that these new weapons are very complex, the Abrams tanks, for instance. Giving them to the Ukrainian military, in a rush and with little training, greatly undermines the effectiveness.
American elites are clearly undaunted, they are willing to fight to the last Ukrainian. The political Gnosticism of the Liberal Imperial will not be deterred.
Just as an aside, I haven’t seen that term “political gnosticism” used for a very long time. I believe it had its hay day in the 60s/70s (after Voegelin coined it in the 50s). Is the term making some kind of comeback? If so, it will need to be updated by modern scholarship of early gnosticism to mean exactly the opposite of Voegelin’s original meaning, since we now know the early gnostics were the anti-Roman imperialists of their day and were suppressed and nearly erased from history in favor of Imperial Roman supported—some say created— Christian (and Rabbinic Jewish) orthodoxy.
I do not have a particularly deep understanding of Gnosticism, but I will quote Wikipedia regarding Eric Voegelin:
Gnosis:
“ a purported, direct, immediate, apprehension, or vision of truth, without the need for critical reflection; the special gift of a spiritual and cognitive elite.”
That totally sounds like the assholes that run our world .
Gnosticism :
“ a type of thinking that claims absolute cognitive mastery of reality. Relying as it does on a claim to gnosis, Gnosticism considers, it’s knowledge, not subject to criticism.”
I ask, how spot on is that!!!
My take: arrogance incarnate.
Question: why do we say lest we forget every Nov11? And for you Americans, we are fast approaching memorial day. What are we memorializing?
You see, lest we forget, is a sincerely held principle of not forgetting lives lost in war. But I think the more important meaning of lest we forget is remembering how we got ourselves into war.
Gnosticism is the best and most reliable accelerant for war.
Is not every American foreign entanglement, explained to us by our liberal elite as unfortunate but necessary for fear that “they”will wreck our privileged existence. Our enemies very existence is a threat to our way of life. Holy cow how many times have you heard that ! And then of course, we are told of our superhuman efforts to minimize collateral damage. We are just - it is justified - in our application of our special knowledge and while unfortunate, collateral damage is the price we must pay on the road to our idealized future.
My take: we are killing you, but it’s for your own good.
How many million people has the liberal imperium killed. (And then forgiven itself.)
Special note : this is true belief not cynicism. This is the part that our author Caitlin gets wrong. Love her but she needs a rethink on that score; greed and cruelty are weak motivators compared to truth and justice. Again: we kill you for your own good, that’s the liberal imperium’s affect, and the monetary rewards are the deserving effect of our ministrations.
That’s how I’m using the word Gnosticism . (Wish you never asked?)
“Wish you never asked?” No, I’m glad I did. And thanks for the thoughtful answer. My guess is that as readers of Caitlin, we have quite similar views.
With regard to Voegelin, he was an immensely important and prolific philosopher, but he used the term “gnosticism” as an invective, and, imo, to decieve. If gnosticism conformed precisely to his definition, I would oppose it, too.
My own interest in gnosticism comes from how thoroughly suppressed it was by the so-called “church fathers” of what became Christian orthodoxy and by the Roman Empire—the empire that never truly ended. Why were the powers of that day so ruthless and thorough in their suppression of gnosticism? I think the reasons for the suppression are nearly identical to our current era in which our U.S. empire continues to exert its power to destroy every truth and to control our every action and thought. The terms “heresy” and “heretic” were literally invented to describe the gnostics, and that technique almost precisely mirrors how the CIA term “conspiracy theory/theorist” has been used today to squash any and every thought or word that doesn’t conform to the official neoliberal/imperial narrative. So I now view the re-emergence of gnosticism as a primary and powerful counter to modern imperialism. But there are plenty of other ways to to resist or stay free. Hopefully, we all find the way that works best for each of us.
Interesting thank you for that.
Henry David Thoreau:
“ disobedience is the true foundation of the liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
Now 59 years on, I’ve come to the conclusion that our innate human nature renders us ungovernable. I strongly suspect that those people who came before us concluded the same thing: it is etched in their faces.
Thoreau again:
“ the civilized man is a more experienced and wiser savage”.
The real risk of escalation might be if the planes are based outside of Ukraine in a nation that is a NATO member, e.g. Poland. Russia would very likely attack the airbases. Would that trigger Article 5 of the NATO charter, which would require other member states to join the war in mutual defense? I suspect that lawyers will be able to wiggle out of that rule, as no other NATO member has either the appetite or the wherewithal to go to war with Russia.
it's a big "trade in your old phone" program. Uncle Sam says: "drop off your old fighter jets in the Ukraine depot, and we'll give you credit for F-35s 10% off". It sounds like a deal.
The Hiroshima setting was intentional.
Remember, the US only nuked Japan to make a "symbolic" point to the Soviet Union.
Biden and Co. are cynically and derangedly (is that a word?) doing EXACTLY the same thing. It's an open - not even thinly veiled - threat. This is Kubrik live.
It is especially indecent. And the Japanese government, by accepting this masquerade in this martyred city, under the direction of the representative of its executioner, is disgracing itself even more. The time is long gone when Japanese youth revolted against the presence of the American army on their soil. And how Mishima misses this country which, by westernizing, is losing its soul.
But the US is not at war with Russia or anything.
In other news, All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Russia doesn't fear threats of outdated F-16s flown by fledgling pilots who have no landing strips.
They would not use hypersonics with nuclear warheads until it at least got as far one landing an attack on Crimea, Russia.
That's not to say this vapid attempt at brinksmanship isn't a reckless and stupid money-laundering scam at base.
UK already sent Storm shadows and cruise missiles, first to send long range missiles. I don't understand why everyone is not up in arms about spending our tax billions on this. Everyone is too busy protesting electric cars and fearing the Tufty Club trying to control us. Forget Klaus Square Pants it's all about money for the arms industry and US hegemony. They'll push to the brink of 'nuclear' and then move on to China to give some more British and Oz taxes to the US military industrial complex.