108 Comments

Americans think about the world in shockingly simple ways. Everything is a Marvel movie to them.

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Their adolescent ramblings about “winning” make me ill. I am as despondent about humanity’s chances of survival as I was in the 60’s. The animals are conducting the circus.

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The animals would do better.

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I'm not really routing for humanity much these days anymore. Our disappearance would be the best thing for the planet and all its other life forms.

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As the biologist E.O. Wilson said, if insects vanished the world would descend into chaos; if humans vanished all other species would thrive.

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Actually the eyelash mites would be profoundly fucked.

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Which would be mitey sad.

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Now, now... There are parasites other than our "elected" officials that'd have to evolve, having killed their hosts? Not as ugly, perhaps.

https://www.planetdeadly.com/human/disgusting-human-parasites

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That is profound and true.

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Won't allow me to like your post:(

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That should have been "rooting for." My literacy is directly proportionate to a sufficient quantity of sleep and caffeine, and it's been a rough couple of days with not enough of either. Apologies...

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We're all stoned and drunk, and demented too, kid!

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we just need to get rid of the psychopaths, maybe we need a real life Dexter or two

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And I thought I was dark! Acknowledged.

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I get your point, but a little sad contemplating a universe without Pink Floyd and Vincent van Gogh.

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No offense, but a single Marvel franchise movie has more nuance than the collective mindset of any 1000 of my fellow Americans allow themselves to have to see the world. They literally believe a talking point they agree with is a fact without having any context to give that opinion any weight, while at the same time they glance at a well researched article that easily skewers their belief system and believe all that's laid out is opinion.

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Regrettably true. As Barnum said, no one ever went broke underestimating….

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I am particularly shocked that the same people who fell for the lie that Iraq (or North Korea or Iran) could blackmail the world if they got ONE nuke now buy the lie that it's not at all dangerous to back the only other country with thousands of nukes into corner that looks like a threat to their continued sovereignty and existence.

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We believe that the fastideous, meticulously candid & disinterested journalist, who's likely risking lots more than their nightmarish, slap in the face "gig" while driving around through rocket attacks, to ask panicky Nazi substance abusers questions that could set off some unknown child trauma... are obviously paid RooskiBots, since nerdy people, who can't go along to get along with TV endorphin addicts simply got to be anti-Murkin Commie (raciist epithet deleted) lovers!

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This would be funny except right now it’s mostly right wingers like me against wars. The Democrats are all neocons now, even moonbat AOC wants to blow up “evil Russians”.

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I'm friggin OLD, and always had a real difficult time seeing much of a difference? LBJ was certainly a real Democrat. Motherfucker tried to dump me out of a Huey with a .223 into a jungle filled with REALLY pissed-off victims, who KNEW how to use their 7.62mm rifles? I don't see R vs L as much as them vs US?

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LBJ the rank racist who famously said when enacting his civil rights bill" I'll have every f*cking n***ger voting democrat for the next 100 years". Nasty piece of work.

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LBJ mistakenly thought people would still be grateful for Civil Rights and the Great Society when he cranked up the war.

Current Democrats are trying to crank up a World War without LBJ's domestic accomplishments to point to (which didn't work for him in the first place).

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That surprised me during the 2016 election when Hillary sounded like far more of a warmonger than Trump.

I have a suspicion there's a cold-blooded reason for the neocons moving to the Democrats.

The Republican Party has painted themselves into a demographic corner by demonizing Latinos and blacks (the latter to a lesser extent than in the past), as well as appealing more to rural as opposed to urban folks.

Those minorities and city people's numbers are growing, but Republicans can't reach out to them effectively without losing a big part of their current base.

Though at some point, I could see them doing a move like LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act, that switched which party people saw as the ally of African Americans.

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If Democrats succeed in being the ones to start a nuclear war with Russia, and a majority of Republicans in Congress oppose it, that could be such a sea change moment.

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I imagine Rooski SLBMs would vaporize NYC, withon a couple minutes. But, in real terms: any war to rescue fracked LNG sales will set off run-away AGW (and doubtless has, already?) So, it suddenly raining 6K thermonuclear warheads might save us all lots of suffering through what's about to happen with TWO Republican Parties: senile thugs & PSYCHO Nazi Klansmen?

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I'm in the single place ANYBODY is stupid enough to actually believe what media tells them they believe (UWS of Manhattan) & when you're alone with these deluded, sneering brainwashing morons... they're all kinda having a hard time wishing, pretending or lying (maskless) to each other, that buying-into lie after lie after intentionally blatant lie was a good idea? Maybe Princess Ivanka and Chelsea will save us?

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Kevin, it is not just Americans, we in the UK, and most of the rest of Europe also seem unable to think beyond "goodies and baddies".

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I call it the 'Disneylanding' of the public mind. Marvel fits quite well too. (I don't watch the now expensive comics(Marvel movies) I despised as a kid. I read Mad Magazine.)

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Yes, I was raised on MAD magazine. My father would bring it home. Brilliant!

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Ironically, the plot of a marvel movie is probably too much for them.

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Not just Americans sadly. Brits are just as dumb

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>Americans

As opposed to who, europeans? Asians? Latin Americans who are so enlightened, worldly, and deep in their analyses, amirite?

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Unfortunately you have just described 60% of grown adults. And even more unfortunately those 60% will never change their minds and will convince the 25% who are unsure to not question anything.

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That 60% your talking about it's probably higher but I get it your trying to stay positive.

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I've lived through several wars, proxy or otherwise, conducted by the U.S. empire. The propaganda around this one is beyond anything I thought possible before, and the effect on people who I thought were capable of at least a modicum of critical thinking has been astounding.

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This has been noted by a number of people, including a historian of media who said that there had been nothing like this madness since World War 1, when mobs rioted in order to get their countries into the war. Many people seemed to think then, as now, that the war was a football game or the comics. I don't know how to change people's minds (or lack of them) but in the future it will be something to study.

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What Future?

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Human beings have been noted for their ability to survive under the most horrible circumstances. Indeed, according to some observers, many are happier when things are desperate than when life is good. It may be, then, that they crave desperation and strive to bring it about.

I just wish they and I could live on different planets.

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If our schools taught critical thinking skills and basic auto mechanics (which surprisingly utilizes the same thing) we might produce a society capable of rising above a simpleton level, but of course, how would that help the oligarchy to thrive?

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It’s by design. They don’t want us to think too critically because more people would realize the system doesn’t make any sense.

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Ain't it so? Seems the system we have is specifically designed to see that the worst among us winds up in congress.

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If any school EVER attempted to "teach critical thinking" we'd soon discover where all those "missing" $85K rocket launchers have gone?

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Critical thinking skills?

There is now a Pew Research of America survey of American people which states……..

36% of American Republicans and 35% of American Democrats support US intervention against Russia in Ukraine.

50% of the US population thinks that Russia’s concern over their own safety and security is for some particular reason ........a threat to the USA, and

33% would be content to endure a nuclear war for the Nazi-dominated state of Ukraine.

If this Research is true, perhaps it is a bit late for critical thinking. It's not only the Israeli-controlled Congress that is the major problem but at least 1/3 of the whole of the USA.

Add that 1/3 to at least another 1/3 seriously influenced by the AIPAC funding of weak, corrupted politicians and the future for all of us is bleak.

The US government controlled media has had a big win. The world will be the loser.

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About the first statistic, at least 47% of all voters identify with neither republican or democrat. Since they are so completely disenfranchised, this is often overlooked.

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Calling Ukraine “Nazi-Dominated” is a long stretch. Let’s not be as ridiculous in the other direction as the irrational Putin haters. Azov Battalion is a small segment of Ukraine.

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I believe Israel has been lying low on this one. At least, that's what I've heard.

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Has anyone else seen Lara Logan go completely full-hog and expose the Ukraine situation? One of the biggest tricks the mainstream media has used is to just treat things as “current events.” In reality, this is the response to 8 years of diplomatic attempts to get the radical Nazis elements out of Ukraine.

Lara touched on Western Ukraine, which has historically been a Nazis stronghold. These were the guys being armed up and prepared to slaughter the eastern regions in full. Add in the biolabs and you have a legit full-blown operation to dismantle the fascist state they’ve create in Ukraine, which is even pushing to have nuclear weapons.

The real Anglo-American interests would love nothing more than to see Ukraine and Russia mutually destroy each other in a nuclear exchange.

In light of these things, among others, the Russian calculation was that to not intervene, after 8 years, would have much more dire consequences for them. But Western Ukraine’s Nazi tradition is very dark and very real. You start o wonder how longer a country like Russia, who lost 100,000,000 people in WWII, would have the patience to tolerate the rise of a new neo-Nazi dominated state on its border, hosting bio lands that had a special interest in collecting samples and information on Russian genotypes, but not Ukrainians. For some reason, the Pentagon operated labs were only interested in Russian genotypes.

Putin has talked about this in his speeches, which are very sobering.

https://gettr.com/comment/ct9kxcddcf

The most shocking part was that the Fox News hosts weren’t able to cut her off and she just literally dropped truth bomb after truth bomb on live tv.

A must watch.

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I enjoyed Lara Logan’s rant, and I wish it had been on FOX News instead of America’s Voice (but then Tucker Carlson is already on FOX countering his own network’s propaganda about the war in Ukraine). It’s good to see that Logan is still around. She’s made some rather severe journalistic mistakes in the last ten years, though one wonders if those aren’t related to the trauma she experienced during the Egyptian Revolution of 2011.

Just one other correction. During WWII, the Soviets did not lose one hundred million people. The estimates of deaths vary, but the most credible I’ve seen are between 25 and 30 million people killed, with the most recent estimate by the Russians themselves at 26.6 million…which is still, of course, an unfathomable tragedy. To put that into perspective, during WWII the U.S. lost about 430,000 dead.

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"The real Anglo-American interests would love nothing more than to see Ukraine and Russia mutually destroy each other in a nuclear exchange."

Ukraine does not have any nukes.

Lara Logan was not on Fox. She was on "America's Voice": https://americasvoice.news

They did not want to cut her off.

This bit chute link is better than the link from twitter: https://www.bitchute.com/video/Yx90vZnA3BDA/

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True it wasn’t on Fox News, my bad. Still impressive.

As for the nukes, I know Ukraine has no jukes, but that kind of insane future is definitely the kind of thing the oligarchy would like. And Putin brought up that threat in particular. They want Russia broken up at all costs. The neo-Nazi Ukrainian nationalists also want Russia eliminated, which is why the Western intel agencies have put so many resources into propping up the worst most violent factions. Hence, Russia taking the action they took.

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What they really want is Russia’s Afghanistan II with lots of contracts for Raytheon.

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As usual, Caitlin, the stone cold truth. I wish they would all read your newsletter!

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It's not OK for the West led by the US with British precedents to seize the high moral ground when it's up to its throat in a shit bog of human rights crimes. Russia has been too muted on the issue of its sacrifices for humanity, and the situation in Ukraine is part of that narrative. It is time for them to seize the narrative, honour and celebrate the 14,000 martyrs in Donbas who are a symbol of Russia patience and good faith. A special flag and day is needed to commemorate them, and Russia's present stand against the massacre that the West ignored, along with the 28 millions who died rather than nazify Russia.

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Unfortunately, the US government (including all the corporations including non-profits it or its subordinate states have chartered) has spent the last 70-100 years infantilising the American people, with gradually increasing intensity.

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Thank you for this. The effectiveness of their propaganda machine is terrifying.

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Excellent.

Go back just a minute ago and include all the covid/vaccine/measures - lies, manipulation and propaganda.

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Reading your column is like a breath of fresh air and a reminder that investigative journalism is not a dead art. As a former government lawyer and Director of Defence policy I have an appreciation of the many layers of subterfuge, misinformation, disinformation and blatant propaganda surrounding the ongoing Ukrainian issue by the West. From distraction techniques for Covid and cost of living, to financial profiteering by NATO and Arms Dealers on Ukrainian integration and standardisation of kit. To Germany being welcomed into the International Arms trade for the first time since WWII and the supply of cheap labour in the U.K. following the departure of Eastern Europeans by Visas being handed out as hoc to non European Ukrainians without appropriate Security or Criminal record background checks. The willingness and naivety of the general Public to play along and indeed actively participate in this coordinated abuse of power is startling even to this old cynic. Please keep up your excellent work.

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My question is WHY are western leaders, who KNOW better, lining up with my nation's idiocy? At what point does the world extricate it's itself from our shabby entanglement. People, millions of people have been KILLED backing our immorality. When is enough, enough?

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Because western leaders profit off of this is the unfortunate truth

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" All wars are bankers wars". It's a documentary online worth a look.

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"It's not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and not understand that starvation sanctions are acts of war deliberately designed to hurt civilians.” Caitlin

What we must never forget regarding US sanctions is that this covered everything they could engineer to bring the target countries to heel and to obey their dictates and this included foodstuffs, items required to repair major equipment, and the most needed item of all, medicines. They knew full well all the while that food and medicines would cause chaos and death. 500,000 children in Iraq alone. Can any thinking person believe for one second the US gives a damn about such deaths or the welfare of any country, anywhere? Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Yemen and Iraq. Notice anything? What part of the world are all these US targets? I didn’t forget Iran, currently being eyed off by the nuclear powered Israel with US approval and assistance by way of US drone killings.

The US didn't care about the millions of tons of illegal cluster bombs they dropped on Cambodia and Laos in another time, the thousands of acres of country ruined by the application of Agent Orange by the US and the deaths that caused as well. They didn’t care about the fact that phosphorous was used by Israel against Palestinians, probably supplied by the USA as were the aircraft that dropped the deadly chemicals.

Israel and USA, both morally bankrupt countries.

They do not care about anything except their power plays to achieve world domination and the use of sanctions being their main weapon. They dismiss it all as what they see as nothing more than a minor aberration which they call "collateral damage". Try that on for size.

As I have said before, any future commercial, contractual or required product dealings for any reason by any country anywhere, if you choose the USA as a supplier, you are asking for future trouble in the form of “deadly" sanctions. The alternative is to "toe the bloody USA line"

So, as a "grown adult in 2022", think on that ………..then choose.

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I cannot possibly be the only cat who was nauseated at Zelenskii's misappropriation of MLK Jr..

Dr. King was both a pacifist and a ferocious opponent of American militarism.

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I think this may be nothing more than cultural tone-deafness. He could have just as easily said, "All we are saying, is give drones a chance." But cringy as a Kamala Harris presser, for sure.

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I suspect that his (doubtless American) speechwriters were just cynical.

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I'll add one, from my own experience: It's not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and think that "Putin is one of us" must mean "Hooray for Russia, invading Ukraine and killing all those innocent people!" It really is as if the average person's ability to embrace nuance has all but been eliminated.

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One thing that jumps out at me through all this is a total absence of some sort of universal application of ethical standards re the international community. And this is what's sorely needed. The UN is hopelessly inadequate in this regard. We could start by applying the punishment for being a war criminal regardless of nationality, but as of now there is no structure or impetus for doing so. And so the hypocrisy goes on unchecked.

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"We'll Know Our Disinformation Program is Complete When Everything The American Public Believes is False" Jesus Gandhi King

This, hitting right before we're fed to BA.2/ DeltaCron, maskless to bolster our boss-landlord-creditor's sagging NASDAQ is simply to bail-out fracked LNG/ oil export, while 'Murikanz can't afford gas, let alone a usable used car to get to 1099 virtual share-cropping gigs (progressively indentured from cascading PASC as re-re-reinfected, by CCD "mistakes") this will be an interesting summer as Koch's DCCC runs reactionary kleptocrats, having all but crushed us evil BernieBro RooskiBot to populate Congress with crooks & klansmen straight outa a casting call for "Justified" extras? Librul yuppies NEED to constantly gavaged intentionally blatant lies & 1950's agitprop, due to substance abuse & unresolved childhood trauma. NPD/ BPD, removed from DSM V as meaningless as "snow" used to be to Inuit (remember snow?)

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