There is another thing that must be said. The idea that negotiating to prevent war means consigning Ukrainians to the barbarity and horrors of war is illogical. That's what they're enduring NOW because of a refusal on the part of Zelenski, egged by the US powers and NATO, to engage in negotiations. (Many of the claims of atrocities are surely faked, but there is plenty of real horror, death, displacement--it's a WAR.) Anyone with real concern for Ukrainians (and Russians) should be speaking up for an end to this, which is likely to come either through negotiations--or Armageddon. People buy into this because, as Caitlin has mentioned so many times, they're subjected to a media barrage of fake news and distortion that ignores everything going on between Russia, Ukraine and the US prior to last February, and pretends that "Putin" (not Russia, since propaganda to justify war always demonizes the leader, personalizes it) is simply bent on conquest.
That's precisely right. Keep saying it. Tiny, tiny voice in a hurricane of lies and distortions but that's all we can do... keep telling it as it is.
The people are SO misinformed it is literally 'incredible' ; i.e. we can hardly give it credence, but it is true.
For instance in Ukraine: 'Russian invaders'. The ONLY technical 'invasion' in Ukraine right now is Kiev Ukraine invading Donbas Ukraine land. KIEV is the invader. KIEV is the aggressor.
But of course, you know that and I know that - but the masses don't.
The masses listen endlessly to the mantra of 'Ukraine' v Russia and 'Ukraine' doing this, asking this, getting that etc and every mention of the word 'Ukraine' is a lie.
Because in every mention it refers only to 'Kiev Ukraine' and omits the Donbas contingent - prior to this could have been estimated as up to 10 million. Which is the WHOLE point of the war.
The whole point of the war subsumed in a deceptive word play, an Orwellian 'newspeak' that is immensely powerful and has deceived millions.
To where we have the madness of millions either voting for or docilely accepting crazy futile measures intended to 'save Ukrainians' that actually encourage Ukrainians to Kill Ukrainians!
Yes there were 10 million Ukrainians , citizens of Ukraine. If Russia ( Putin ) was not involved there in 2014 when some groups anti-Maidan protesters started their justified protest against nationalistic new government, but also used force occupying cities halls, all that should be resolved inside of Ukraine. What was happening in Ukraine is not Putin's business. Because Puting involvement and sending his troops there we have all this mess.
Without Putin's involvement in 2014 in Ukraine, taking Krimia, actively supporting those secessionists in Donbas, and sending his troops there, there would not be any war.
You have the cart in front of the horse now, Gojko. The cookie dispensing Victoria "Fuck the EU! We want Yatsieniuk" Nuland was in Kiev no less than five times in November and December of 2013. That was two months prior to the coup that she later bragged about costing less than $5.000.000.000 (five billion dollars).
"Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 was galvanised not by prospective NATO membership, but by the prospect of Ukraine’s closer economic integration with the EU."
Is that all it comes down to? Thanks for that. I won't bother with it then. I find arguments about 'without this' and 'without that' generally specious and/or irrelevant. Reductio ad absurdum without these people or without those people there would be no war...
Not always but generally they are following that futile track.
And they equally generally are 'blame' finders and blame is irrelevent.
It comes from the theatre of children. A harking back to when you dealt with spats between your children.
Which child was at fault? Ah, now, okay, on that basis we apportion blame. Which means apportion punishment.
And it is about as rare as rocking horse ordure that the children feel justice has been done, taken both together.
i.e. it is a sham meant only to bolster the self esteem of the adult.
The irrelevancy is obvious: the point is not to follow that self justificatory and ego gratifying fruitless road but to find a better path for the future and stop as soon as possible any current harms.
In that context it is startlingly clear that Kiev and the USA are totally counter productive in having all their efforts directed entirely towards increasing suffering. They are in the wrong from that point of view, entirely.
This is not some fancy philosophic judgement this a totally realistic and pragmatic counting of the bodies.
A weighting of material benefits both gained and potentially to be gained.
Something like 150,000 Kiev Ukrainians, USA stooges, are dead and maybe 500,000 are injured. They have clearly benefited not at all.
The country lies bleeding to death.
Kiev and the USA's remedy for this is "More of the same, doubled and redoubled".
Prima facie that is ludicrous, beyond ludicrous, insane in its reasoning.
It requires no fancy logical figuring, no high level of mental agility, the essence is put plainly by the mad comedian:
To paraphrase:
'We will fight to the last man. With shovels for weapons if necessary'
Who is there that cannot see the madness, pathological madness in that postulate?
It is supposedly a chosen direction for the State in order to benefit the people of the State.
But there is no State without the people.
And it seeks to sacrifice ALL the people.
It says the ultimate benefit to the State will be when all the people are gone!
This the State's most glorious moment!
This is histrionic bullcrap of the first order.
Let the poets and the bards and the talking heads and the politicians, the black marketeers, the extremists, the Trawnikis, the fancy philosophers, the intricately detailed historians, the blame makers etc, let them go to the front lines and fight to the last man.
And good riddance to the lot of them.
But let the people STOP.
I say again:
At this moment there are NO allied forces in Kiev Ukraine.
ALL the 'invasions' are of Kiev Ukraine in Donbas lands.
Virtually ALL the fighting has to now been done willingly and well by Donbas Ukrainians showing clearly where their loyalties lay and what they want.
ALL the Donbas Ukrainians are still possessed of their land and property it is a total lie that Russia has 'taken' them.
STOP now and the Donbas Ukrainians are alright, not suffering any anguish or pain of terrible occupation by Russia.
STOP now and Kiev Ukraine is alright because happily lost in its own insanity and still in possession of ALL its own territory, property and with this new found popularity in the Western world and friends with two ideal companions: the USA and the UK. And Nazi Germany, etc, but put that to one side.
In summary STOP now and ALL Ukrainians still have their possessions, their land.
Excepting that which Kiev has stolen from Donbas.
And the death count is arrested. Tomorrow's deaths are avoided. Next week's, next month's, all avoided.
Thousands of lives saved.
Do NOT vote for this and you vote for them to die.
And I say to you: then you get in front of them and YOU die first.
I don't know if you're serious or just being sarcastic. Nowadays it's actually the norm to read sarcasm isn't it?
But just taking the comment on face value:
Send in NATO to do what?
Prevent Russia and the Donbas States from defending themselves?
Most people are unaware that the Donbas States still haven't recovered their own territory from the Kiev invasion but I imagine you are?
And, yes, 'Donbas States' is a bit of a misnomer because Zaporizhia and Kherson are not in the the Donbas but it's just a name of convenience for want of better: 'Victim States' perhaps?
Or perhaps 'The Invaded States' ?
Or perhaps, to get down to the nitty gritty: 'The States The Whole West Has Declared War On'. ?
I suppose that's why you'd send them in. (If you're not being sarcastic).
So that'd be good. In order to promote the Kiev cause: Two thirds of Ukraine doing its best to kill the other third - we now have the whole of Europe at war with Russia and that One third of Ukraine.
The death toll should rise dramatically.
That would please the USA enormously.
Good plan.
But what makes you think 'they' won't nuke?
I think the USA will not nuke because it will be prevented by The Rest of The World which has leverage over the USA.
But no one has any leverage over Russia any more. It has been pushed into a lonely corner.
And Russia is not prone to the threats anyway.
The threats that The Rest of The World could bring to bear on the USA are 'Stop pushing closer and closer to nuclear war'.
'Stop Pushing' - see?
Russia is NOT pushing.
ALL the push comes from the USA.
You can't stop Russia doing what it is not doing.
And you can't in the end stop anyone pushing the nuclear button and starting the end.
Not without taking the controls out of their hands and that seems somewhat impossible.
But the insane Americans are simply pushing and pushing a pushing and THAT can be stopped by appropriate actions and threats.
ALL Russia is doing is helping the Donbas States. ON their land. Which they haven't fully regained from Kiev as yet.
Sending in NATO would in fact be the USA defying these supposed 'commands' or instructions from the Rest of The World to 'stop pushing'.
Sending in NATO would be really the ultimate 'Push', or close to it.
I wait to see American bases all over the world being shut down. Being attacked by whoever, whatever, doesn't matter, could be China behind it, could be a mixture of the Rest of the World, could be openly declared or could be hidden behind a mask of 'local rebels' or 'terrorists' or whatever but America would know what it was.
They are really quite defenceless and sensitive, vulnerable. They are 700 weak points the USA has posted around the world to enable the world to put Americas fingers in the vice. 700 fingers.
They are supposedly outposts of colonial hegemony after the style of Roman forts of occupation.
But they don't, can't function in the same way at all.
They do not contain garrisons of troops sufficient to contain local insurrections, revolts.
They are actually expressions of American hubris, carelessness, profligacy and stupidity.
The simplest, cheapest and easiest way for 'The Rest of The World' to express its displeasure at the USA would be to start dismantling them.
Sure: that is not a military victory over the USA. It is nothing at all like a military conquest of the USA, nothing remotely like it.
But it would be a global catastrophe and demonstration of the limits, the turning point, of American global power. It would mark the time when the USA was made to pull its horns in and sit down and shut up.
America and the world would know that.
In future there would be no American bases without meeting the stringent conditions of the host countries. The narrative would have changed 180degrees. America would become the petitioner, not the stipulator.
I expect to see that a preliminary to America acceding to the Rest of The World's demands that it toe the line.
When I don't see that I think one of only two things must be true:
1. The Rest of The World has, unaccountably, NOT spoken, is still inert.
or
2. The Rest of the World has spoken and the USA has conceded and accommodated.
I think after reading his last statement he was serious. I would like to see what you think could happen with the rest of the world actually doing something to stop this crazy group of criminals but almost every one of these countries with a base has a corrupt US puppet government in control!
Do they really? 'Almost every one'? I didn't know it was so widespread.
I must look into it.
Corrupt US puppet governments is all to the good.
We have a puppet government in Australia but unfortunately we're not 'corrupt' enough.
In a thoroughly 'corrupt' country you can do anything. There's no restrictions, no organised opposition really, only costs. You just have to pay the right people. So that's no problem. It is all to the good.
Many such countries already have warring factions or ethnicities , religions. That can be used to place blame and even to recruit the activists that will do the damage.
Such countries are ideal. Soft targets.
Harder targets are such a Pine Gap in Australia. A well policed country with little opportunity for simply bribing access to the behaviours you want.
But even there something could clearly be arranged. Muslim extremists flown in perhaps Whatever.
And though a 'harder' target the ramifications might well be beneficial to the cause out of all proportion. For the Australians would be shocked to their core. Some of them might even wake up, though I wouldn't bet on that. But they'd universally scream for security, they'd be frightened and alarmed. There's always been a strong contingent anti-USA bases and they'd lead the clamour.
Once it began to happen they'd be jumping on the fashionable bandwagon all around the globe I think. America's status would plummet and I feel that of itself would shock them to the core.
It would shock the people who may well scream for military action (in all those countries?) and it would shock their manipulators who'd see much further and deeper and would want to put a stop to it as soon as possible.
They would come to an understanding. Okay, back off on the bases and we back off on this Ukraine thing.
That’s why I’m advocating for the war. There are 2 ways out of this: the “US” (globalists) secures a powerful global hegemony, even if the world remains “multipolar”. In this event, they solidify their totalitarian control and everyone dances to their tune, or else. The other way is we go to war with Russia and it goes fully nuclear. This ends humanity and equality and an end to inhuman atrocities is achieved. Personally, I feel like it’s be far more co passionate to just end it. I don’t want to be a slave under a totalitarian regime. I don’t know how I haven’t been black sited yet, because it’s pretty damn authoritarian right now, and I speak out against it pretty regularly. Maybe the fact that I haven’t is due to: they don’t really care about my grumbling because it doesn’t really challenge them in any meaningful way or 2) they just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Either way, I strongly object to this type of totalitarianism. I would not condemn my descendants to suffer as I have, so encouraging and supporting this war seems the best way to advocate for affirmative equality.
While China is staying out of it for now, if the US goes all out war on Russia, China will be forced to back Russia…..because China knows if Russia succumbs, then they China will be next on the US list of victims.
And once China and Russia are actively in this, there is no global hegemony for the US - only possible outcome is a world split into two blocs.
So this thing was retarded from day one. And the US Rand Corp/Pentagon strategy about “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia”, completely fails to see that there is no happing ending here, not even for the US. The only winners can be people who put ALL their money into Lockheed Martin and Raytheon stock - and even they will lose it all when the nuclear bombs go off.
So all of this is the worst excesses of a self-referential, utterly indoctrinated and blind power elite in the DC-VA beltway who clearly lack basic sense.
I don't believe you have listened to President Putin's last 2 speeches. He is fully aware of the corruption and criminal acts done by the Criminal Elite in this country. He also has a way out and the means to get rid of the scum altogether. We need to give him time! This is what these filth are so concerned about that they would risk direct confrontation with Russia over it.
You are naive or stupid if you believe what Putin is saying. That scum is part of his elite to whom he gave all power to control economy and he is part of that scam. He is the biggest scam of all.
I don’t trust authoritarians of any stripe. Until recently, he was buddy buddy with WEF bigwigs as well. I don’t see him as an ally to the proletariat and I don’t believe in any centrally controlled governments. The more power in the hands of the rank and file, the better, but that has to be predicated upon a well educated, well informed electorate. We have neither. So I don’t see any way out of this that ends well for the rank and file. It’s gonna be a scary world if the nukes don’t fly.
We cannot allow authoritarianism to flourish! There’s only one way that can happen. Otherwise, the nightmare continues. Now I understand lots and lots of people are fully prepared to endure the nightmare. We have a biological imperative to live. BUT, we also have reason, which for some of us, this existence isn’t worthwhile. Hence, global extinction is the only compassionate way forward. The other option is to allow this charade to continue. If this was has the potential to rid this world of the plague of humanity, I say we go with it
My logic about nuclear war is that, since the bigdeals will get roasted along with the rest of us, almost all of them feel that a full-out nuclear war is inadvisable. The bigdeals might not have minded sending hundreds of thousands to their deaths at Verdun or Stalingrad, but they seem to have very seriously minded that they themselves would join them. Therefore, while I think nuclear war is improbable, it is still dangerously possible. On the other hand, the same logic also works for limiting warfare. So the existence of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, may also reduce the chances of what we might call extreme or total war even short of the nuclear options. Of course there are individuals who would willingly give up their lives if they could just kill a lot of other people first, but by and large the _class_ of bigdeals do not want to sacrifice themselves and their families even for the pleasures of massacre. I think we could build upon this "failing" of the bigdeals by encouraging it in various ways and work our way down from fear of nuclear annihilation to fear of police beatings and capitalism. I leave the possible strategies for accomplishing this as an exercise for the student.
There are cities in mountains in the US built for CoG, and "the crazies in the basement", as Bush41 called them (read: neocons), think they will survive an all out nuclear war. THAT is one of the main arguments FOR an all out nuclear war amongst the people in the district of criminals.
I think you have not taken into account the fact that these "BigDeals" you refer to are in fact MASS MURDERING SOCIOPATHS! They do not care a bit about their own children or families and are criminally insane!
If they were as crazy as you imply here, then we would have had a nuclear war along time ago, and the perpetrators would be (1) great heroes, (2) knocked off a long time ago by an outraged population, or (3) both.
They care very much about having a broken, dependent labor class that stays broken and dependent. That's the whole joke of the human condition, right there. That's the "civilization" that cancerous DHS leeches like jamenta are here to promote. Socio*pathic*? No, that's pathetic. One could argue that they're socio*genic* and that we just don't happen to like the society they're generating. The implications for emancipation strategy are a bit different in that light.
The thought did cross my mind that the bigdeals wouldn't want a nuclear war. But they probably think they have so much control they will be able to stop it even though we're closer to the possibility than ever before. And I agree with Caitoz here: a situation might come up, either accidently, or unpredictably, where the bigdeals will realize they don't have as much control as they think they had. And then what?
If they just _realize_ they don't have as much control as they thought, they might back up. Or go crazy -- can't tell. We can't do much about it right now, but we can think about and try some practices to reduce bigdealism, Begin where you are, and go forward as you can. "Don't let the bastards get you down!" (No offense to actual bastards.)
I think the _class_ of bigdeals knows its highest priority is keeping most people's deals little so that the leisure-labor class distinction is safely reproduced in the next generation, that is, so that they can guarantee the total order of humankind under capitalist values. Under that theory, they would rather kill us all and some of their own than experience the despair that comes from their great works being ruined.
They need a working class. You can't have capitalism without a working class (and a PMC, etc.) Our present bigdeals are locked into the structure of things as they are. Yet things are not going well -- they must feel that their backs are to the wall to sign on the the present neocon adventurism.
The dialogue is tainted if not corrupted by ancient biases against Russia, no matter the situation. It's one thing to argue over a boundary: it's quite another to deliberately not consider a real existential threat to a country which is a world power that has contributed to our civilization's culture in music, philosophy and literature out of proportion to the size of its population. A country that has suffered more from Nazism than any other (John F.Kennedy, among many other witnesses) and might well have succumbed to it except for the extreme noble persistence and vision of its people. Don't ask such a country to bow to Nazism: you are asking the impossible.
Nobody has ever cared about your feelings, and that's why you had to get a job doing psyops for Western corporate interests. Go away you useless puddle of calculated corporate emotion.
Once you recognize that western leaders' behavior is indistinguishable from that of high-functioning (in the sense that they can fake empathy when needed) sociopaths, everything makes sense.
Let us pretend that Russia were in fact guilty of everything it is accused of. It isn't, but whatever.
How did the world react to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968? Did NATO charge into WWIII? Did the Warsaw Pact afterwards invade neutral Austria, which was not then and is not now a NATO member?
Back then the leaders were only couple decades past WWII and so much more reasonable. Had to be, even if unwillingly so.
The current crop - not so much. Quite a few, if not most, have their grand or great-grand parents somehow involved, and not in a good way. Thinking maybe they can avenge for them today.
We are where we are today in large part because of the 61 year old MSM lie that JFK stared down Krustchov until he pissed in his pants, took his missiles back to the USSR with his tail between his legs.
The truth of the matter is that the intermediate range missiles the US had already placed in Turkey were withdrawn in exchange for the repatriation of the missiles in Cuba.
JFK tries to de-escalate the Cold War in June 1963 with a magnificent speech...five months later, the CIA removes JFK.
Nixon brings in detente. A few months later, Watergate burglars, four of whom are CIA, begin the process to bring down the most popular president in American history. (Nixon won 49 states and beat his opponent by 18,000,000 votes.)
Trump signs 5 middle east peace treaties that haters never talk about. CIA and the deep state give Joe Biden 81,000,000 votes--most popular president ever!! (Whatever.)
Joe Mama then says he's running for reelection. Then his side, CNN, decides to take him out over the "document scandal." No one cares about documents, not when nukes are about to fly.
If you're an American, half of you think you live in a democracy. The other half are waking up that it's all fake, and the sociopaths would rather have their cronies in the military-industrial complex get rich, rather than get along with people.
Btw, in case you're wondering, I'm fairly right wing, mostly in the Ron Paul side of things. But I will side with anyone who wants to get at the truth, and is sick of all of the suppressions of our freedoms.
The whole right-wing ... left-wing ... paradigm has really grown tiresome. There is a lot that Americans can agree upon. For example: risking nuclear war is not a good idea for the future of us and our kids.
CIA is revealed to be running a global network of medieval torture chambers, and a worldwide private airline ferrying kidnapped victims to and from these torture chambers…..President Obama declines to prosecute, declines to send anyone to the ICJ at the Hague, and says “We tortured some folks, no big deal” in other words, nothing to see here folks, move along!
President Obama….stays safe and fulfils two terms in office.
Western culture is mentally ill these days. We simply do not see things as they are.  The population needs to wake up soon or we could face disaster 
Yes, it seems to me we are in disaster mode now. There is nothing to do but ride it out, although the names and faces of those who have brought about the present situation should not be forgotten.
Those who have never experienced war are always the ones urging the sacrifice of others while they bask in the comfort of their cocoons. These might be the morons who experienced drills to hide under their desks in 1961 and now know how stupid that was or are they younger and missed the horrific films showing pigs and sheep being vaporized? Those in power appear to be so stupid or delusional that even the potential to vaporize us all is ignored.
From my interview with the late David Brower in '78:
Brower: If the United States doesn't lead the world back from the nuclear brink to which it led it in the first place, then nuclear war will be inevitable. A nuclear war would reduce civilization to a few fragments of whatever capable cultures there were that were not dependent on high technology... if we don't defuse the nuclear threat to humanity, everything else is academic.
" . . . weird mental gymnastics to squirm and compartmentalize . . ." My observations of my generation (Boomers) tend to suggest the weirdest of those gymnastics, falling under the canopy of diversion denial. It's the "as along as I'm still around, I'm going to give my grandchildren the best lives I can . . . ." The implication is that climate change and our adaptive foot-dragging thereto may ultimately make those children's lives a misery. Also implicit in that view is the "luck out" scenario, that neither direct nuclear immolation nor nuclear winter will do the crime in the short term before biosphere destruction gets it shot as assassin. The amount of what I'd call tenuous-secondary-villain diversion denial seems significant.
(In The States) New Deal Dixiecrats kinda, sorta set off AGW 2.0 by trying to give the kids a better life? White-flight suburbanite sprawl, two-car, jet travel, corn fed barbecue, coal, oil, gas, green revolution, GE monoculture CAFO agribusiness, Powell Memo, WTO, WEF, CFR, AIPAC, Atlantic Council all trickled down as Goldwater girl, Reagan's Miracle yuppies cocaine habits mutated hippies into Debbie Wasserman Schultz & war monger liberal celebrity NEPOs told a generation of bottom-feeding substance abusers into the least self-aware, sneeringly brainwashed, speciously obsequious dead-eyed monsters ever to pontificate mindless denial,
It is quite depressing and dangerous that Mecklin and the Bulletin scientists are obligated to spew US war mongering propaganda as an essential element of their warnings. This is pure Cold War intimidation and a betrayal of the scientist's obligation to universal principles and truth.
And, BTW, the overwhelming majority of people who live in Crimea support Russian governance and reject the Fascists and corrupt Oligarchs who run Ukraine.
If they are true scientists in their fields with politics not being one of them, then it's difficult to demand deep knowledge of the context from them.
Albert Einstein, Stephen J. Gould, Carl Sagan, and many others had no problem squaring "deep knowledge" with broader consciousness (and narrow disciplinary silos of exclusion posing as deep knowledge is a big part of the problem).
Besides, you missed my point, which is about method and principle, not "deep knowledge".
If the mushroom clouds have a silver lining, it will be that our little planet will at last rid itself of the nuclear warmongers, propagandists and the hateful monsters and fools who parrot them. Not much of a consolation, admittedly, but it is not nothing.
It's been some years since I've read into them, so I could be misunderstanding, but from what I understand, modern nuclear weapons are fortunately (or unfortunately, I'm not entirely sure in this case) better than ever at piercing bunkers and causing damage even underground and to the soil. There are also specialised nuclear weapons specifically designed to pierce bunkers. Their chances may be higher than ours, but they've never been lower, either.
I'm convinced that the only thing that will get insouciant Americans off their couches and into the streets would be if the government re-institutes the Draft. Per Col. MacGregor the military is not coming close to reaching its enlistment targets and the active military is the smallest it's been for many years, maybe since before WWII. Those who can are getting out. My understanding is that feminists have won their court case, so young women would have to be drafted too. Would normie American parents, who have supported the war up to now, put up with their daughters being drafted and sent off to die for the megalomanic beggar Zelensky?
Yu. V. Andropov limited production of alcohol. It wasn't banned, but the upshot was that people started making their own booze, with predictable results. (In a lot of countries, the big struggle is to get people to stop drinking moonshine in favor of the legal stuff, which at least is regulated, predictable, and which generates tax revenue to the state. )
"Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said that his massive anti-alcohol campaign in the 1980s was too swift and sweeping, and combating heavy drinking" "Speaking on the anniversary of the May 1985 start of the large-scale — and largely failed — anti-alcohol campaign, Gorbachev said that it “was after all a mistake "
Perhaps influenced by a ruling class terrified by mobilized ideologically motivated students (e.g. Situationists 1968, Weather Underground, anti-Vietnam war protests, punk anti-consumerism, CND), the past 40 years have seen a coordinated subversion of mass education.
By the 1980s the elites had decided to hoard institutional credentials, reduce funding, devalue teachers, vocationalize learning, and jack up college fees; to exclude the masses and reorient public education to serve the needs of corporate consumerism; to train a population of passive consumers mesmerized by ephemeral popculture but incapable of independent critical thought
The end result is we've bred a generation of fuckwits with no understanding (or care) either that nuclear war equals unavoidable omnicide or that escalation to war comes in stages and it'll be too late to prevent the holocaust if we do nothing until the only Russian left to negotiate with is the Deadhand (https://www.wired.com/2009/09/mf-deadhand/).
There is another thing that must be said. The idea that negotiating to prevent war means consigning Ukrainians to the barbarity and horrors of war is illogical. That's what they're enduring NOW because of a refusal on the part of Zelenski, egged by the US powers and NATO, to engage in negotiations. (Many of the claims of atrocities are surely faked, but there is plenty of real horror, death, displacement--it's a WAR.) Anyone with real concern for Ukrainians (and Russians) should be speaking up for an end to this, which is likely to come either through negotiations--or Armageddon. People buy into this because, as Caitlin has mentioned so many times, they're subjected to a media barrage of fake news and distortion that ignores everything going on between Russia, Ukraine and the US prior to last February, and pretends that "Putin" (not Russia, since propaganda to justify war always demonizes the leader, personalizes it) is simply bent on conquest.
That's precisely right. Keep saying it. Tiny, tiny voice in a hurricane of lies and distortions but that's all we can do... keep telling it as it is.
The people are SO misinformed it is literally 'incredible' ; i.e. we can hardly give it credence, but it is true.
For instance in Ukraine: 'Russian invaders'. The ONLY technical 'invasion' in Ukraine right now is Kiev Ukraine invading Donbas Ukraine land. KIEV is the invader. KIEV is the aggressor.
But of course, you know that and I know that - but the masses don't.
The masses listen endlessly to the mantra of 'Ukraine' v Russia and 'Ukraine' doing this, asking this, getting that etc and every mention of the word 'Ukraine' is a lie.
Because in every mention it refers only to 'Kiev Ukraine' and omits the Donbas contingent - prior to this could have been estimated as up to 10 million. Which is the WHOLE point of the war.
The whole point of the war subsumed in a deceptive word play, an Orwellian 'newspeak' that is immensely powerful and has deceived millions.
To where we have the madness of millions either voting for or docilely accepting crazy futile measures intended to 'save Ukrainians' that actually encourage Ukrainians to Kill Ukrainians!
You mention logic. There is NO logic out there.
But we must persist with it.
Yes there were 10 million Ukrainians , citizens of Ukraine. If Russia ( Putin ) was not involved there in 2014 when some groups anti-Maidan protesters started their justified protest against nationalistic new government, but also used force occupying cities halls, all that should be resolved inside of Ukraine. What was happening in Ukraine is not Putin's business. Because Puting involvement and sending his troops there we have all this mess.
https://crimethinc.com/2022/02/15/war-and-anarchists-anti-authoritarian-perspectives-in-ukraine
Wow. I took a look. Big read. Didn't have the time for it tonight. You couldn't give me a synopsis could you?
That was really a short one.
I already gave you a summary:
Without Putin's involvement in 2014 in Ukraine, taking Krimia, actively supporting those secessionists in Donbas, and sending his troops there, there would not be any war.
You have the cart in front of the horse now, Gojko. The cookie dispensing Victoria "Fuck the EU! We want Yatsieniuk" Nuland was in Kiev no less than five times in November and December of 2013. That was two months prior to the coup that she later bragged about costing less than $5.000.000.000 (five billion dollars).
Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it!
Don’t argue with the fed void doing narrative control. It only gives them credibility.
What is obvious to me that you are smoking Putin's pipe.
I am very familiar and know all about that Russian propaganda,
their releases of intercepted conversations and their statements about American involvement in events in Ukraine.
https://bitterwinter.org/myth-of-american-coups-in-ukraine-3-euromaidan/ or more facts checking
https://www.thebulwark.com/what-really-happened-in-ukraine-in-2014-and-since-then/
and at the end
"Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 was galvanised not by prospective NATO membership, but by the prospect of Ukraine’s closer economic integration with the EU."
https://www.openforum.com.au/listen-to-ukraine-not-apologists-for-russia/
Is that all it comes down to? Thanks for that. I won't bother with it then. I find arguments about 'without this' and 'without that' generally specious and/or irrelevant. Reductio ad absurdum without these people or without those people there would be no war...
Not always but generally they are following that futile track.
And they equally generally are 'blame' finders and blame is irrelevent.
It comes from the theatre of children. A harking back to when you dealt with spats between your children.
Which child was at fault? Ah, now, okay, on that basis we apportion blame. Which means apportion punishment.
And it is about as rare as rocking horse ordure that the children feel justice has been done, taken both together.
i.e. it is a sham meant only to bolster the self esteem of the adult.
The irrelevancy is obvious: the point is not to follow that self justificatory and ego gratifying fruitless road but to find a better path for the future and stop as soon as possible any current harms.
In that context it is startlingly clear that Kiev and the USA are totally counter productive in having all their efforts directed entirely towards increasing suffering. They are in the wrong from that point of view, entirely.
This is not some fancy philosophic judgement this a totally realistic and pragmatic counting of the bodies.
A weighting of material benefits both gained and potentially to be gained.
Something like 150,000 Kiev Ukrainians, USA stooges, are dead and maybe 500,000 are injured. They have clearly benefited not at all.
The country lies bleeding to death.
Kiev and the USA's remedy for this is "More of the same, doubled and redoubled".
Prima facie that is ludicrous, beyond ludicrous, insane in its reasoning.
It requires no fancy logical figuring, no high level of mental agility, the essence is put plainly by the mad comedian:
To paraphrase:
'We will fight to the last man. With shovels for weapons if necessary'
Who is there that cannot see the madness, pathological madness in that postulate?
It is supposedly a chosen direction for the State in order to benefit the people of the State.
But there is no State without the people.
And it seeks to sacrifice ALL the people.
It says the ultimate benefit to the State will be when all the people are gone!
This the State's most glorious moment!
This is histrionic bullcrap of the first order.
Let the poets and the bards and the talking heads and the politicians, the black marketeers, the extremists, the Trawnikis, the fancy philosophers, the intricately detailed historians, the blame makers etc, let them go to the front lines and fight to the last man.
And good riddance to the lot of them.
But let the people STOP.
I say again:
At this moment there are NO allied forces in Kiev Ukraine.
ALL the 'invasions' are of Kiev Ukraine in Donbas lands.
Virtually ALL the fighting has to now been done willingly and well by Donbas Ukrainians showing clearly where their loyalties lay and what they want.
ALL the Donbas Ukrainians are still possessed of their land and property it is a total lie that Russia has 'taken' them.
STOP now and the Donbas Ukrainians are alright, not suffering any anguish or pain of terrible occupation by Russia.
STOP now and Kiev Ukraine is alright because happily lost in its own insanity and still in possession of ALL its own territory, property and with this new found popularity in the Western world and friends with two ideal companions: the USA and the UK. And Nazi Germany, etc, but put that to one side.
In summary STOP now and ALL Ukrainians still have their possessions, their land.
Excepting that which Kiev has stolen from Donbas.
And the death count is arrested. Tomorrow's deaths are avoided. Next week's, next month's, all avoided.
Thousands of lives saved.
Do NOT vote for this and you vote for them to die.
And I say to you: then you get in front of them and YOU die first.
Yaassss, show some spine! They won’t nuke! If they were, they’d have done so by now! Send in the NATO troops!
I don't know if you're serious or just being sarcastic. Nowadays it's actually the norm to read sarcasm isn't it?
But just taking the comment on face value:
Send in NATO to do what?
Prevent Russia and the Donbas States from defending themselves?
Most people are unaware that the Donbas States still haven't recovered their own territory from the Kiev invasion but I imagine you are?
And, yes, 'Donbas States' is a bit of a misnomer because Zaporizhia and Kherson are not in the the Donbas but it's just a name of convenience for want of better: 'Victim States' perhaps?
Or perhaps 'The Invaded States' ?
Or perhaps, to get down to the nitty gritty: 'The States The Whole West Has Declared War On'. ?
I suppose that's why you'd send them in. (If you're not being sarcastic).
So that'd be good. In order to promote the Kiev cause: Two thirds of Ukraine doing its best to kill the other third - we now have the whole of Europe at war with Russia and that One third of Ukraine.
The death toll should rise dramatically.
That would please the USA enormously.
Good plan.
But what makes you think 'they' won't nuke?
I think the USA will not nuke because it will be prevented by The Rest of The World which has leverage over the USA.
But no one has any leverage over Russia any more. It has been pushed into a lonely corner.
And Russia is not prone to the threats anyway.
The threats that The Rest of The World could bring to bear on the USA are 'Stop pushing closer and closer to nuclear war'.
'Stop Pushing' - see?
Russia is NOT pushing.
ALL the push comes from the USA.
You can't stop Russia doing what it is not doing.
And you can't in the end stop anyone pushing the nuclear button and starting the end.
Not without taking the controls out of their hands and that seems somewhat impossible.
But the insane Americans are simply pushing and pushing a pushing and THAT can be stopped by appropriate actions and threats.
ALL Russia is doing is helping the Donbas States. ON their land. Which they haven't fully regained from Kiev as yet.
Sending in NATO would in fact be the USA defying these supposed 'commands' or instructions from the Rest of The World to 'stop pushing'.
Sending in NATO would be really the ultimate 'Push', or close to it.
I wait to see American bases all over the world being shut down. Being attacked by whoever, whatever, doesn't matter, could be China behind it, could be a mixture of the Rest of the World, could be openly declared or could be hidden behind a mask of 'local rebels' or 'terrorists' or whatever but America would know what it was.
They are really quite defenceless and sensitive, vulnerable. They are 700 weak points the USA has posted around the world to enable the world to put Americas fingers in the vice. 700 fingers.
They are supposedly outposts of colonial hegemony after the style of Roman forts of occupation.
But they don't, can't function in the same way at all.
They do not contain garrisons of troops sufficient to contain local insurrections, revolts.
They are actually expressions of American hubris, carelessness, profligacy and stupidity.
The simplest, cheapest and easiest way for 'The Rest of The World' to express its displeasure at the USA would be to start dismantling them.
Sure: that is not a military victory over the USA. It is nothing at all like a military conquest of the USA, nothing remotely like it.
But it would be a global catastrophe and demonstration of the limits, the turning point, of American global power. It would mark the time when the USA was made to pull its horns in and sit down and shut up.
America and the world would know that.
In future there would be no American bases without meeting the stringent conditions of the host countries. The narrative would have changed 180degrees. America would become the petitioner, not the stipulator.
I expect to see that a preliminary to America acceding to the Rest of The World's demands that it toe the line.
When I don't see that I think one of only two things must be true:
1. The Rest of The World has, unaccountably, NOT spoken, is still inert.
or
2. The Rest of the World has spoken and the USA has conceded and accommodated.
I think after reading his last statement he was serious. I would like to see what you think could happen with the rest of the world actually doing something to stop this crazy group of criminals but almost every one of these countries with a base has a corrupt US puppet government in control!
Do they really? 'Almost every one'? I didn't know it was so widespread.
I must look into it.
Corrupt US puppet governments is all to the good.
We have a puppet government in Australia but unfortunately we're not 'corrupt' enough.
In a thoroughly 'corrupt' country you can do anything. There's no restrictions, no organised opposition really, only costs. You just have to pay the right people. So that's no problem. It is all to the good.
Many such countries already have warring factions or ethnicities , religions. That can be used to place blame and even to recruit the activists that will do the damage.
Such countries are ideal. Soft targets.
Harder targets are such a Pine Gap in Australia. A well policed country with little opportunity for simply bribing access to the behaviours you want.
But even there something could clearly be arranged. Muslim extremists flown in perhaps Whatever.
And though a 'harder' target the ramifications might well be beneficial to the cause out of all proportion. For the Australians would be shocked to their core. Some of them might even wake up, though I wouldn't bet on that. But they'd universally scream for security, they'd be frightened and alarmed. There's always been a strong contingent anti-USA bases and they'd lead the clamour.
Once it began to happen they'd be jumping on the fashionable bandwagon all around the globe I think. America's status would plummet and I feel that of itself would shock them to the core.
It would shock the people who may well scream for military action (in all those countries?) and it would shock their manipulators who'd see much further and deeper and would want to put a stop to it as soon as possible.
They would come to an understanding. Okay, back off on the bases and we back off on this Ukraine thing.
Sounds like a plan!
Concentration camps?
You guys in Australia already had Covid concentration camps.
That’s why I’m advocating for the war. There are 2 ways out of this: the “US” (globalists) secures a powerful global hegemony, even if the world remains “multipolar”. In this event, they solidify their totalitarian control and everyone dances to their tune, or else. The other way is we go to war with Russia and it goes fully nuclear. This ends humanity and equality and an end to inhuman atrocities is achieved. Personally, I feel like it’s be far more co passionate to just end it. I don’t want to be a slave under a totalitarian regime. I don’t know how I haven’t been black sited yet, because it’s pretty damn authoritarian right now, and I speak out against it pretty regularly. Maybe the fact that I haven’t is due to: they don’t really care about my grumbling because it doesn’t really challenge them in any meaningful way or 2) they just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Either way, I strongly object to this type of totalitarianism. I would not condemn my descendants to suffer as I have, so encouraging and supporting this war seems the best way to advocate for affirmative equality.
You miss one big issue.
While China is staying out of it for now, if the US goes all out war on Russia, China will be forced to back Russia…..because China knows if Russia succumbs, then they China will be next on the US list of victims.
And once China and Russia are actively in this, there is no global hegemony for the US - only possible outcome is a world split into two blocs.
So this thing was retarded from day one. And the US Rand Corp/Pentagon strategy about “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia”, completely fails to see that there is no happing ending here, not even for the US. The only winners can be people who put ALL their money into Lockheed Martin and Raytheon stock - and even they will lose it all when the nuclear bombs go off.
So all of this is the worst excesses of a self-referential, utterly indoctrinated and blind power elite in the DC-VA beltway who clearly lack basic sense.
I don't believe you have listened to President Putin's last 2 speeches. He is fully aware of the corruption and criminal acts done by the Criminal Elite in this country. He also has a way out and the means to get rid of the scum altogether. We need to give him time! This is what these filth are so concerned about that they would risk direct confrontation with Russia over it.
You are naive or stupid if you believe what Putin is saying. That scum is part of his elite to whom he gave all power to control economy and he is part of that scam. He is the biggest scam of all.
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/06/16/the-criminals-in-the-kremlin
I don’t trust authoritarians of any stripe. Until recently, he was buddy buddy with WEF bigwigs as well. I don’t see him as an ally to the proletariat and I don’t believe in any centrally controlled governments. The more power in the hands of the rank and file, the better, but that has to be predicated upon a well educated, well informed electorate. We have neither. So I don’t see any way out of this that ends well for the rank and file. It’s gonna be a scary world if the nukes don’t fly.
We cannot allow authoritarianism to flourish! There’s only one way that can happen. Otherwise, the nightmare continues. Now I understand lots and lots of people are fully prepared to endure the nightmare. We have a biological imperative to live. BUT, we also have reason, which for some of us, this existence isn’t worthwhile. Hence, global extinction is the only compassionate way forward. The other option is to allow this charade to continue. If this was has the potential to rid this world of the plague of humanity, I say we go with it
"As former Secretary of State Dean Acheson put it, humanity survived the Cuban Missile Crisis by "plain dumb luck".
There's no logical basis for the belief that we'll get lucky again."
Sure there is, we're way dumber now than we were 60 years ago, therefore our odds of encountering dumb luck must be increased as well, right?
Play Russian roulette often enough, and the odds that you will put a bullet into your own head approach 1:1.
We're so much dumber, the odds by now must be greatly in our favor!
My logic about nuclear war is that, since the bigdeals will get roasted along with the rest of us, almost all of them feel that a full-out nuclear war is inadvisable. The bigdeals might not have minded sending hundreds of thousands to their deaths at Verdun or Stalingrad, but they seem to have very seriously minded that they themselves would join them. Therefore, while I think nuclear war is improbable, it is still dangerously possible. On the other hand, the same logic also works for limiting warfare. So the existence of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, may also reduce the chances of what we might call extreme or total war even short of the nuclear options. Of course there are individuals who would willingly give up their lives if they could just kill a lot of other people first, but by and large the _class_ of bigdeals do not want to sacrifice themselves and their families even for the pleasures of massacre. I think we could build upon this "failing" of the bigdeals by encouraging it in various ways and work our way down from fear of nuclear annihilation to fear of police beatings and capitalism. I leave the possible strategies for accomplishing this as an exercise for the student.
There are cities in mountains in the US built for CoG, and "the crazies in the basement", as Bush41 called them (read: neocons), think they will survive an all out nuclear war. THAT is one of the main arguments FOR an all out nuclear war amongst the people in the district of criminals.
I think you have not taken into account the fact that these "BigDeals" you refer to are in fact MASS MURDERING SOCIOPATHS! They do not care a bit about their own children or families and are criminally insane!
If they were as crazy as you imply here, then we would have had a nuclear war along time ago, and the perpetrators would be (1) great heroes, (2) knocked off a long time ago by an outraged population, or (3) both.
They care very much about having a broken, dependent labor class that stays broken and dependent. That's the whole joke of the human condition, right there. That's the "civilization" that cancerous DHS leeches like jamenta are here to promote. Socio*pathic*? No, that's pathetic. One could argue that they're socio*genic* and that we just don't happen to like the society they're generating. The implications for emancipation strategy are a bit different in that light.
So the Big Deals are an even bigger deal than I thought!
The thought did cross my mind that the bigdeals wouldn't want a nuclear war. But they probably think they have so much control they will be able to stop it even though we're closer to the possibility than ever before. And I agree with Caitoz here: a situation might come up, either accidently, or unpredictably, where the bigdeals will realize they don't have as much control as they think they had. And then what?
If they just _realize_ they don't have as much control as they thought, they might back up. Or go crazy -- can't tell. We can't do much about it right now, but we can think about and try some practices to reduce bigdealism, Begin where you are, and go forward as you can. "Don't let the bastards get you down!" (No offense to actual bastards.)
We need to promote littledealism!
Absolutely. Harmless as doves, subtle as serpents.
I think the _class_ of bigdeals knows its highest priority is keeping most people's deals little so that the leisure-labor class distinction is safely reproduced in the next generation, that is, so that they can guarantee the total order of humankind under capitalist values. Under that theory, they would rather kill us all and some of their own than experience the despair that comes from their great works being ruined.
They need a working class. You can't have capitalism without a working class (and a PMC, etc.) Our present bigdeals are locked into the structure of things as they are. Yet things are not going well -- they must feel that their backs are to the wall to sign on the the present neocon adventurism.
"They need a working class. You can't have capitalism without a working class (and a PMC, etc.)"
AI is the answer to that one. 5G anyone?
The dialogue is tainted if not corrupted by ancient biases against Russia, no matter the situation. It's one thing to argue over a boundary: it's quite another to deliberately not consider a real existential threat to a country which is a world power that has contributed to our civilization's culture in music, philosophy and literature out of proportion to the size of its population. A country that has suffered more from Nazism than any other (John F.Kennedy, among many other witnesses) and might well have succumbed to it except for the extreme noble persistence and vision of its people. Don't ask such a country to bow to Nazism: you are asking the impossible.
This is quite eloquently put.
Especially when main nazi becomes Putin.
https://www.rferl.org/a/zizek-interview-russia-denazification-ukraine-war/32204259.html
You just lost all your credibility by posting US propaganda.
And Zizek, capitalism's court jester, has no credibility.
yes, for the fake leftists that support fascist Putin and justified his agression against Ukraine.
Nobody has ever cared about your feelings, and that's why you had to get a job doing psyops for Western corporate interests. Go away you useless puddle of calculated corporate emotion.
Sociopaths acre for none of these things.
Once you recognize that western leaders' behavior is indistinguishable from that of high-functioning (in the sense that they can fake empathy when needed) sociopaths, everything makes sense.
Scott Ritter has a wonderful piece at Consortium News today, outlines some important history.
Let us pretend that Russia were in fact guilty of everything it is accused of. It isn't, but whatever.
How did the world react to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968? Did NATO charge into WWIII? Did the Warsaw Pact afterwards invade neutral Austria, which was not then and is not now a NATO member?
Back then the leaders were only couple decades past WWII and so much more reasonable. Had to be, even if unwillingly so.
The current crop - not so much. Quite a few, if not most, have their grand or great-grand parents somehow involved, and not in a good way. Thinking maybe they can avenge for them today.
We are where we are today in large part because of the 61 year old MSM lie that JFK stared down Krustchov until he pissed in his pants, took his missiles back to the USSR with his tail between his legs.
The truth of the matter is that the intermediate range missiles the US had already placed in Turkey were withdrawn in exchange for the repatriation of the missiles in Cuba.
This is one of the topics never to appear on Jeopardy. I have fun quizzing Americans on this.
This lie was propagated, in large part, because it was thought that Kennedy had to answer to public opinion.
Interestingly, one of the reasons N.S. Khruschev was removed was because he did not take a harder line over the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Back then, they genuinely feared the Soviet Union. They didn't have to like it, but they surely feared it.
My "being reasonable" definitely includes it.
JFK tries to de-escalate the Cold War in June 1963 with a magnificent speech...five months later, the CIA removes JFK.
Nixon brings in detente. A few months later, Watergate burglars, four of whom are CIA, begin the process to bring down the most popular president in American history. (Nixon won 49 states and beat his opponent by 18,000,000 votes.)
Trump signs 5 middle east peace treaties that haters never talk about. CIA and the deep state give Joe Biden 81,000,000 votes--most popular president ever!! (Whatever.)
Joe Mama then says he's running for reelection. Then his side, CNN, decides to take him out over the "document scandal." No one cares about documents, not when nukes are about to fly.
If you're an American, half of you think you live in a democracy. The other half are waking up that it's all fake, and the sociopaths would rather have their cronies in the military-industrial complex get rich, rather than get along with people.
Btw, in case you're wondering, I'm fairly right wing, mostly in the Ron Paul side of things. But I will side with anyone who wants to get at the truth, and is sick of all of the suppressions of our freedoms.
"Right" and "Left" are butt cheeks of the corporate asshole.
Good one, Daniel! Ill have to remember that one when I talk about that false paradigm.
The whole right-wing ... left-wing ... paradigm has really grown tiresome. There is a lot that Americans can agree upon. For example: risking nuclear war is not a good idea for the future of us and our kids.
Disagree. Only in its fulfillment can we be free from the bastards.
Mao didn't believe so. Mao figured that leftism was simply a deviation. Left capitalism is no freedom.
CIA is revealed to be running a global network of medieval torture chambers, and a worldwide private airline ferrying kidnapped victims to and from these torture chambers…..President Obama declines to prosecute, declines to send anyone to the ICJ at the Hague, and says “We tortured some folks, no big deal” in other words, nothing to see here folks, move along!
President Obama….stays safe and fulfils two terms in office.
Just saying….
About JFK de-escalation you could watch this
https://youtu.be/Hstwqna_u9o
Western culture is mentally ill these days. We simply do not see things as they are.  The population needs to wake up soon or we could face disaster 
When everything the American people (now every NATO country) believes is a lie, our job is done.
- William Casey -
CIA Director under Reagan
The fact that you think we haven’t long been living in a disaster indicates to me you’re still a bit groggy yourself.
I agree our culture has been dozing for a very long time.  The consequences of that inattention are accelerating of late
Yeah. It’s much more noticeable when you’re on the bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum
Yes, it seems to me we are in disaster mode now. There is nothing to do but ride it out, although the names and faces of those who have brought about the present situation should not be forgotten.
Straight up fascism. Knight of the Long Knives 2: It Happened Again
Night*
Those who have never experienced war are always the ones urging the sacrifice of others while they bask in the comfort of their cocoons. These might be the morons who experienced drills to hide under their desks in 1961 and now know how stupid that was or are they younger and missed the horrific films showing pigs and sheep being vaporized? Those in power appear to be so stupid or delusional that even the potential to vaporize us all is ignored.
At our peril we have corrupt dipshits running the world.
From my interview with the late David Brower in '78:
Brower: If the United States doesn't lead the world back from the nuclear brink to which it led it in the first place, then nuclear war will be inevitable. A nuclear war would reduce civilization to a few fragments of whatever capable cultures there were that were not dependent on high technology... if we don't defuse the nuclear threat to humanity, everything else is academic.
"Mankind must put an end to war - or war will put an end to mankind." ~JFK
" . . . weird mental gymnastics to squirm and compartmentalize . . ." My observations of my generation (Boomers) tend to suggest the weirdest of those gymnastics, falling under the canopy of diversion denial. It's the "as along as I'm still around, I'm going to give my grandchildren the best lives I can . . . ." The implication is that climate change and our adaptive foot-dragging thereto may ultimately make those children's lives a misery. Also implicit in that view is the "luck out" scenario, that neither direct nuclear immolation nor nuclear winter will do the crime in the short term before biosphere destruction gets it shot as assassin. The amount of what I'd call tenuous-secondary-villain diversion denial seems significant.
(In The States) New Deal Dixiecrats kinda, sorta set off AGW 2.0 by trying to give the kids a better life? White-flight suburbanite sprawl, two-car, jet travel, corn fed barbecue, coal, oil, gas, green revolution, GE monoculture CAFO agribusiness, Powell Memo, WTO, WEF, CFR, AIPAC, Atlantic Council all trickled down as Goldwater girl, Reagan's Miracle yuppies cocaine habits mutated hippies into Debbie Wasserman Schultz & war monger liberal celebrity NEPOs told a generation of bottom-feeding substance abusers into the least self-aware, sneeringly brainwashed, speciously obsequious dead-eyed monsters ever to pontificate mindless denial,
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/01/german-general-kujat-warns-the-ukraine-was-is-lost-revives-the-stab-in-the-back-charge-against-the-us-and-nato-for-exposing-germany-to-russia.html
https://jessicawildfire.substack.com/p/were-never-getting-back-to-normal
https://mobile.twitter.com/MarkAmesExiled/status/1618251663437099009
Caitlin for president!!! 💓🙏
It is quite depressing and dangerous that Mecklin and the Bulletin scientists are obligated to spew US war mongering propaganda as an essential element of their warnings. This is pure Cold War intimidation and a betrayal of the scientist's obligation to universal principles and truth.
And, BTW, the overwhelming majority of people who live in Crimea support Russian governance and reject the Fascists and corrupt Oligarchs who run Ukraine.
If they are true scientists in their fields with politics not being one of them, then it's difficult to demand deep knowledge of the context from them.
Albert Einstein, Stephen J. Gould, Carl Sagan, and many others had no problem squaring "deep knowledge" with broader consciousness (and narrow disciplinary silos of exclusion posing as deep knowledge is a big part of the problem).
Besides, you missed my point, which is about method and principle, not "deep knowledge".
Hardly anyone is thinking logically period.
They're not thinking instinctively or intuitively either, or the wouldn't be dancing on the edge of the abyss.
Let’em fly, I say. I’ve come to the realization this is going to be the only way we are permanently free of the bastards.
Feel free to rid us of your cowardly tripe.
Perfect waste of a bullet, but can’t have it all.
If the mushroom clouds have a silver lining, it will be that our little planet will at last rid itself of the nuclear warmongers, propagandists and the hateful monsters and fools who parrot them. Not much of a consolation, admittedly, but it is not nothing.
Not so fast. Those neocons and neolibs who start the nuclear war will be safely a mile underground in concrete re-enforced well-stocked bunkers.
It's been some years since I've read into them, so I could be misunderstanding, but from what I understand, modern nuclear weapons are fortunately (or unfortunately, I'm not entirely sure in this case) better than ever at piercing bunkers and causing damage even underground and to the soil. There are also specialised nuclear weapons specifically designed to pierce bunkers. Their chances may be higher than ours, but they've never been lower, either.
It is our duty in the world's last moments to make sure they can't come back out.
I'm convinced that the only thing that will get insouciant Americans off their couches and into the streets would be if the government re-institutes the Draft. Per Col. MacGregor the military is not coming close to reaching its enlistment targets and the active military is the smallest it's been for many years, maybe since before WWII. Those who can are getting out. My understanding is that feminists have won their court case, so young women would have to be drafted too. Would normie American parents, who have supported the war up to now, put up with their daughters being drafted and sent off to die for the megalomanic beggar Zelensky?
There'd be instant revolution if the government banned porn or beer.
Gorbachev banned vodka. I'd never been in the USSR but I knew this was a big booboo.
Yu. V. Andropov limited production of alcohol. It wasn't banned, but the upshot was that people started making their own booze, with predictable results. (In a lot of countries, the big struggle is to get people to stop drinking moonshine in favor of the legal stuff, which at least is regulated, predictable, and which generates tax revenue to the state. )
"Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said that his massive anti-alcohol campaign in the 1980s was too swift and sweeping, and combating heavy drinking" "Speaking on the anniversary of the May 1985 start of the large-scale — and largely failed — anti-alcohol campaign, Gorbachev said that it “was after all a mistake "
Perhaps influenced by a ruling class terrified by mobilized ideologically motivated students (e.g. Situationists 1968, Weather Underground, anti-Vietnam war protests, punk anti-consumerism, CND), the past 40 years have seen a coordinated subversion of mass education.
By the 1980s the elites had decided to hoard institutional credentials, reduce funding, devalue teachers, vocationalize learning, and jack up college fees; to exclude the masses and reorient public education to serve the needs of corporate consumerism; to train a population of passive consumers mesmerized by ephemeral popculture but incapable of independent critical thought
The end result is we've bred a generation of fuckwits with no understanding (or care) either that nuclear war equals unavoidable omnicide or that escalation to war comes in stages and it'll be too late to prevent the holocaust if we do nothing until the only Russian left to negotiate with is the Deadhand (https://www.wired.com/2009/09/mf-deadhand/).