Ukraine has already lost the war. The fastest way to end the fighting is for the Ukrainian government to accept Russia's terms and surrender. However, I fear that President Zelinsky is being pressured by his US handlers to keep the war going for as long as possible. That serves American interests, not Ukraine's. Also, according to the Grayzone, Ze is under threat of assassination by Nazi forces within his own country. The man is in a tough position, to say the least, but he needs to do what is best for the Ukrainian people.
P.S. There's lots of media buzz about an upcoming Russian chemical attack. For Russia to do such a thing defies all logic. It could be that the US is preparing the ground for a false flag attack.
Thank you. The same people who so bravely post their Ukrainian flag avatars and demand that Putin be damned are often the same people who are afraid to leave their house because right-wingers or Black criminals or common cold viruses.
I call it sanctioned moral arrogance. Their so-called morals are sanctioned by their ideology, religion, or even ill-advised trusted media sources and talking heads. They feel free to get up on their moral high horses and condemn those who question their positions as being immoral, bad people because that is the only way they can feel good about themselves for just a few minutes. Critical thinking is not required; in fact, it is condemned whenever it questions what they believe in at the moment.
As for as Ukraine goes, none of them really cares about the fate of the Ukrainians themselves, only about their cause du jure. A few weeks ago it was Covid restrictions, before that it was Trump Bad and Russia Bad! Now it's segued back to Russia Bad! and Putin=Hitler, even though Trump is nothing like Hitler, or Stalin for that matter.
I refuse to say that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was immoral and illegal and all of that, because I know enough of the history there to think that if I were in Putin's shoes, I would have done the same thing he did. The Israelis justify their aggression in the Six Day War by saying the Arabs were coming at them with a knife, so they had to attack first. Ukraine's president was saying that Ukraine should get nukes, and I think that was the last straw.
I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the roles were reversed. I cannot be consistent with not blaming Kennedy for blockading Cuba by condemning Putin for invading Ukraine.
Kudos to you for putting up with all of the ignorant, propagandized bullshit hurled your way every day. Please keep fighting the best you can.
"I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the roles were reversed" - how were the roles reversed? The SU had been objecting to the US deployment of Jupiter missiles in Italy and especially in Turkey in 1961. Turkey back then bordered the USSR.
As a result of Soviets removing missiles from Cuba those Jupiters were gone too. I'm amazed at how many people don't know this.
Kennedy's hypocrisy began with the Bay of Pigs. He was forced to negotiate the removal of the missiles in Turkey in order to get the missiles removed from Cuba. The American public would have "freaked" had missiles stayed in Cuba. Unfortunately he came out looking like a hero
My last partner was a USAF brat, wondering why her mom was crying and packing at night, to fly back to Weisbaden. Turns out, her dad tried to get them on a C-130 to Kenya, but somebody pulled rank, so they'd left Mainz & hid in Alzey, as he stayed with the B-58s waiting to scramble, in Turkey.
During the Daesh reality infomercials of Kerry & Obama's post Hillary Idiocracy, it really just seemed intentionally blatant staged theatrics by al Saud, Israel, right wing Lincoln Project NeoConfederates? But, as we'd drifted towards 2016, it was more like a Ken Russell Babylon Berlin remake, on DOM or MDA? Kinda reminds us OLD dopers of Golan-Globus agitprop with Jamie Farr as the evil raghaid, crazy with unspeakable lust for Heather's pink, freckled breasts, until Chuck Norris and Charles Bronson fly in through the window, guns blazing, fists flying... Two porn sleazeballs, chased outa Vegas dun wrote 'Murikan Capitalism's death rattle.
It's fairly miserable realizing that if we do manage to somehow survive this current manufactured crisis, after years of normalizing Trump/Putin disinformation, internet censorship, and COVID authoritarianism, the mechanisms of political and free speech discourse will remain permanently ratcheted in an increasingly dysfunctional direction, just waiting for the next big thing to hit.
"Don't Be Evil" was Google's original short-lived tag line; America's may as well be "Nothing's Getting Better."
Spooky, to watch ProPublica & FAIR.org mysteriously turn into whataboutism & CorrectTheRecord, PropOrNot replicants as Moon Of Alabama, GrayZone & Naked Capitalism kinda throw in the towel as to finding anything, consistently reliable, by way of sources. Fact-checking sites all bought up, before the 2016 elections!
“I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration.”
Irony, circumspection & mindfulness are obviously our most insurrectionist, hated and treasonous shortcomings (drugs & sex, outside the nuclear family, no doubt?) Thanks, I was able to use my phones' speaker to peal the rust off my truck! If we offered free rifles to Libruls and meth to MAGA boomers, to go shoot Commies. Do you think thing they'd all notice there's no static line or parachutes in a C5 above Ukraine?
An excellent (and terrifying) piece of writing, Caitlin. "It's very unpleasant to be subjected to the 24/7 deluge of unbelievable vitriol and McCarthyism that speaking out against the west's role in this war gets you these days. I understand why more people don't do it." In my very first substack post I was subjected to such a deluge of hate as you describe here, simply for saying Putin is 'one of us', i.e. a human being. Apparently recognising an unpopular person's humanity is enough to make me pro-Russia, pro-war and the enemy of Ukraine. It is both shocking and dreadfully, dreadfully sad. Keep doing what you are doing. Thank God for people like you, the prophets of the new order, speaking truth to power.
Europeans learnt how to use diplomacy centuries ago; Peace of Westphalia, European settlements of 1648
US needs more Ukrainian deaths'; better optics to make Putin appear to be the evil despot they want him to be. they do not care how many deaths it will take, in fact more the better.
The US hasn't wanted a diplomatic solution to anything since the Vietnam War.
When George I was starting the first Persian Gulf War, 9 out of 10 Americans asked for a diplomatic agreement and didn't want a military approach. Didn't Bush say that "he was going to have a war whether the American people wanted it or not"?
Our entire economy is based on military spending. We've got to find a use for the weapons the military-industrial complex spews out. The answer is another war.
Calling for de-escalation and detente from a government which has been proved not to listen to anything that the people say is an exercise in futility.
We need to take our government back in our own hands and get it under control before we can do anything with it.
My understanding is that Russians will not apply Geneva conventions to foreign mercenaries. They will be properly interrogated and legally shot. You've been warned.
Once the psychopathic game of Realpolitik has begun -- as in the present case of Ukraine -- any reference to moral values, humanity, or even aesthetics, is simply not on the board. It is propaganda, decor. The players, whoever they are, wherever they come from, whatever their excuse is, have one and only one aim: power. Those who are not psychopaths will have their turn later in the day, when they have to pick up the pieces and clean up the filth and the gore, assuming they're left alive. Until then, they can try to shield or hide the innocent (and the not-so-innocent), recognize and help one another, or, most basically, stay out of the way and keep going: in the time to come, there are many who will need your help.
Ukraine has already lost the war. The fastest way to end the fighting is for the Ukrainian government to accept Russia's terms and surrender. However, I fear that President Zelinsky is being pressured by his US handlers to keep the war going for as long as possible. That serves American interests, not Ukraine's. Also, according to the Grayzone, Ze is under threat of assassination by Nazi forces within his own country. The man is in a tough position, to say the least, but he needs to do what is best for the Ukrainian people.
https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/04/nazis-ukrainian-war-russia/
P.S. There's lots of media buzz about an upcoming Russian chemical attack. For Russia to do such a thing defies all logic. It could be that the US is preparing the ground for a false flag attack.
Z is funded by Molonoisky, the same fiend that funded Zelinsky, and put him in power.
NOT true about Z .
It's Kolomoisky.
Thank you. The same people who so bravely post their Ukrainian flag avatars and demand that Putin be damned are often the same people who are afraid to leave their house because right-wingers or Black criminals or common cold viruses.
I call it sanctioned moral arrogance. Their so-called morals are sanctioned by their ideology, religion, or even ill-advised trusted media sources and talking heads. They feel free to get up on their moral high horses and condemn those who question their positions as being immoral, bad people because that is the only way they can feel good about themselves for just a few minutes. Critical thinking is not required; in fact, it is condemned whenever it questions what they believe in at the moment.
As for as Ukraine goes, none of them really cares about the fate of the Ukrainians themselves, only about their cause du jure. A few weeks ago it was Covid restrictions, before that it was Trump Bad and Russia Bad! Now it's segued back to Russia Bad! and Putin=Hitler, even though Trump is nothing like Hitler, or Stalin for that matter.
I refuse to say that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was immoral and illegal and all of that, because I know enough of the history there to think that if I were in Putin's shoes, I would have done the same thing he did. The Israelis justify their aggression in the Six Day War by saying the Arabs were coming at them with a knife, so they had to attack first. Ukraine's president was saying that Ukraine should get nukes, and I think that was the last straw.
I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the roles were reversed. I cannot be consistent with not blaming Kennedy for blockading Cuba by condemning Putin for invading Ukraine.
Kudos to you for putting up with all of the ignorant, propagandized bullshit hurled your way every day. Please keep fighting the best you can.
"I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the roles were reversed" - how were the roles reversed? The SU had been objecting to the US deployment of Jupiter missiles in Italy and especially in Turkey in 1961. Turkey back then bordered the USSR.
As a result of Soviets removing missiles from Cuba those Jupiters were gone too. I'm amazed at how many people don't know this.
I was a kid back then and I do remember being scared, but I didn't know these details.
Kennedy's hypocrisy began with the Bay of Pigs. He was forced to negotiate the removal of the missiles in Turkey in order to get the missiles removed from Cuba. The American public would have "freaked" had missiles stayed in Cuba. Unfortunately he came out looking like a hero
The hero of The "Cuban" Missile Crisis was named Василий Александрович Архипов
My last partner was a USAF brat, wondering why her mom was crying and packing at night, to fly back to Weisbaden. Turns out, her dad tried to get them on a C-130 to Kenya, but somebody pulled rank, so they'd left Mainz & hid in Alzey, as he stayed with the B-58s waiting to scramble, in Turkey.
It's "cause du jour." Otherwise I agree with you.
When I was a kid, we had to take old coffee cans around neighborhoods collecting money for UNICEF, MD, MS, March of Dimes...
Why not update those efforts and take a garbage can around neighborhoods collecting guns for Ukraine.
I believe if I found the correct neighborhoods, I could amass an armory. :-)
During the Daesh reality infomercials of Kerry & Obama's post Hillary Idiocracy, it really just seemed intentionally blatant staged theatrics by al Saud, Israel, right wing Lincoln Project NeoConfederates? But, as we'd drifted towards 2016, it was more like a Ken Russell Babylon Berlin remake, on DOM or MDA? Kinda reminds us OLD dopers of Golan-Globus agitprop with Jamie Farr as the evil raghaid, crazy with unspeakable lust for Heather's pink, freckled breasts, until Chuck Norris and Charles Bronson fly in through the window, guns blazing, fists flying... Two porn sleazeballs, chased outa Vegas dun wrote 'Murikan Capitalism's death rattle.
It's fairly miserable realizing that if we do manage to somehow survive this current manufactured crisis, after years of normalizing Trump/Putin disinformation, internet censorship, and COVID authoritarianism, the mechanisms of political and free speech discourse will remain permanently ratcheted in an increasingly dysfunctional direction, just waiting for the next big thing to hit.
"Don't Be Evil" was Google's original short-lived tag line; America's may as well be "Nothing's Getting Better."
But Riff, that our discourse will be increasingly ratcheted in a dysfunctional direction is The Plan.
Spooky, to watch ProPublica & FAIR.org mysteriously turn into whataboutism & CorrectTheRecord, PropOrNot replicants as Moon Of Alabama, GrayZone & Naked Capitalism kinda throw in the towel as to finding anything, consistently reliable, by way of sources. Fact-checking sites all bought up, before the 2016 elections!
https://www.propublica.org/article/in-the-ukraine-conflict-fake-fact-checks-are-being-used-to-spread-disinformation
I only believe regurgitated State Department releases broadcast on the MSM!
I don't go on FB to win a popularity contest and I'm not afraid of the blowback for criticizing the role of the west in this Ukrainian/Russian war.
I'm old enough to remember...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXl7Cu-IWVU
“I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration.”
― Hillary Rodham Clinton
Selective principles are something, but they're certainly no longer actual principles.
Irony, circumspection & mindfulness are obviously our most insurrectionist, hated and treasonous shortcomings (drugs & sex, outside the nuclear family, no doubt?) Thanks, I was able to use my phones' speaker to peal the rust off my truck! If we offered free rifles to Libruls and meth to MAGA boomers, to go shoot Commies. Do you think thing they'd all notice there's no static line or parachutes in a C5 above Ukraine?
If you're in Edmonton, check out the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician) Memorial: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/jewish-groups-call-for-removal-of-vandalized-ukrainian-wwii-memorial-1.6139297
Western leaders don't give a fuck about Ukrainians but they equally don't care about Westerners. They'll do anything to further their agenda.
https://nakedemperor.substack.com/p/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words-d54?s=w
An excellent (and terrifying) piece of writing, Caitlin. "It's very unpleasant to be subjected to the 24/7 deluge of unbelievable vitriol and McCarthyism that speaking out against the west's role in this war gets you these days. I understand why more people don't do it." In my very first substack post I was subjected to such a deluge of hate as you describe here, simply for saying Putin is 'one of us', i.e. a human being. Apparently recognising an unpopular person's humanity is enough to make me pro-Russia, pro-war and the enemy of Ukraine. It is both shocking and dreadfully, dreadfully sad. Keep doing what you are doing. Thank God for people like you, the prophets of the new order, speaking truth to power.
Europeans learnt how to use diplomacy centuries ago; Peace of Westphalia, European settlements of 1648
US needs more Ukrainian deaths'; better optics to make Putin appear to be the evil despot they want him to be. they do not care how many deaths it will take, in fact more the better.
The US hasn't wanted a diplomatic solution to anything since the Vietnam War.
When George I was starting the first Persian Gulf War, 9 out of 10 Americans asked for a diplomatic agreement and didn't want a military approach. Didn't Bush say that "he was going to have a war whether the American people wanted it or not"?
Our entire economy is based on military spending. We've got to find a use for the weapons the military-industrial complex spews out. The answer is another war.
Calling for de-escalation and detente from a government which has been proved not to listen to anything that the people say is an exercise in futility.
We need to take our government back in our own hands and get it under control before we can do anything with it.
My understanding is that Russians will not apply Geneva conventions to foreign mercenaries. They will be properly interrogated and legally shot. You've been warned.
The latest smear on Putin is that he's a Young Globalist Leader. Here's the real scoop on that: https://www.sott.net/article/288204-Play-time-is-over-Putins-message-to-the-Western-elites?fbclid=IwAR17BJiQBM6AODgZwqGdhfvif33OZf43NgxeydpCJLnKWofBZarDHD78kUI
Thank you.
Once the psychopathic game of Realpolitik has begun -- as in the present case of Ukraine -- any reference to moral values, humanity, or even aesthetics, is simply not on the board. It is propaganda, decor. The players, whoever they are, wherever they come from, whatever their excuse is, have one and only one aim: power. Those who are not psychopaths will have their turn later in the day, when they have to pick up the pieces and clean up the filth and the gore, assuming they're left alive. Until then, they can try to shield or hide the innocent (and the not-so-innocent), recognize and help one another, or, most basically, stay out of the way and keep going: in the time to come, there are many who will need your help.
Thank you -- for more in depth see below:
Podcast: Thoughts on Ukraine - by Darryl Cooper (substack.com)
https://martyrmade.substack.com/p/podcast-thoughts-on-ukraine/comments?s=r
Podcast: Thoughts on Ukraine -- Darryl Cooper (March 13, 2022)