I've been screaming about the risks of nuclear war (and nuclear energy) since I was 14 and had a dream that warships filled the bay in front of my house in Maine. Then the bombs were dropped and that was that. I woke up in a cold sweat. Cold war, cold sweat, cold nuclear winter... Sounds like a Hollywood blockbuster. Speaking of, I used to have this poster on my wall in college: https://imageobjecttext.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/gone-with-the-wind.jpg Most people accepted it as simply the way things were back then (kinda like now)...thought I'd share. Detente is a nice word, I'm sure it will be absorbed and released just like any other healing thought. Problem is, we're living in an age where geopolitics began in 2016 for most people. Seems like so many "woke" up around then. So any nuance is lost including the concept of detente. In my last comment on these pages, a couple of real gentlemen suggested I deserved a jackboot stomping of my head when I recommended something benign and healing. So I'm not sure there's much hope for detente in their minds. Where's the detente in our daily lives when we enter into any kind of debate about current events? I'm hanging on to hope but it's getting more difficult to find.
Good poster. There's a book out there called "With Enough Doors: Reagan's Reign of Error". The whole book is Reagan quotes, and the title refers to his idea that we could survive a limited nuclear exchange if everyone digs a hole in their yard as a shelter and uses their house door as a cover.
I started high school in 1980, and we always assume it was not a matter of "if" but "when" the bombs would drop. Since the 90s I haven't worried that much about it, and I'm trying to have faith now that somehow it won't spiral out of control.
We are pretty much the same age. It's possible that from the 90's up to 2016, for empires, being comfortable was more important than global domination.
Josh, you say: “In my last comment on these pages, a couple of real gentlemen suggested I deserved a jackboot stomping of my head when I recommended something benign and healing.”
I’m one of the gentleman you’re referring to. I did not say you “deserved” a jackboot stomping on your head. In that previous exchange, I was merely responding to what I perceived as your attitude to focus solely on what is good and beautiful in the world to the exclusion of all that is heinous and despicable. If I am mischaracterizing your attitude, then I apologize. But if that is indeed your attitude—and I can’t know that for certain based on a few sentences in your post—then it places you (or any adult) in greater danger. And I don’t want that for you or anyone.
Right at this very moment, as Caitlin intones in every sentence—we are in the most dangerous situation of our lives (and I remember the Cuban missile crisis and this is worse). I have had wondrously beautiful days, and I treasure those, and I treasure every remaining moment when I catch a glimpse of beauty or feel love. But, as the sage reminds us, there’s a time and a season for all things, including a time to dance and a time to fight. And, IMHO, this is a season when we need to be completely present, accurately assess the danger we all face, and take appropriate action. If you can do that while still catching those moments or days of indescribable beauty, I certainly don’t fault you. In fact, I admire you. But, I would argue, we still have to turn our awareness back to what is most ugly and terrifying and see that ugliness as clearly as we can, and we need to deal with it, right here, right now.
And right now, my own perception is that those leading the U.S. government have placed you and me and everyone in the world in more danger than anyone in history ever has, and that includes a long list of famous villains who systematically and brutally destroyed entire peoples and civilizations.
The jackboot I was referring to in my previous comment is not being worn by a Russian invader or any other foreign invader, it’s worn by our own Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, Victoria Nuland, and by Klaus Schwab and his psychopathic band of oligarchs who rule over us. I want to keep that jackboot from fully descending on my own head and on yours or anyone else’s head.
At this moment—and I’m not condoning for a second what the Russians are doing—factions of the U.S. government are the greatest danger and the greatest evil to all humanity. It is the U.S. that is escalating and luring Russia into nuclear war, when in fact there are perfectly simple and obvious diplomatic actions that could and should be taken by the U.S. government to save the lives of Ukrainians and the rest of the world. Detente, as Caitlin wisely notices, was once a real thing that saved the world, and it can and must be resurrected.
We will not have the peace we all want so long as we passively accept our own subjugation to The Empire that dominates and threatens all of our lives. I wish for you what I wish for all Americans, that we not only avoid the jackboot stomping on our heads, but that we create conditions where we can all get back to dancing.
Thanks for noticing. I wonder what people are actually doing about the horrors aside from posting comments on algorithmic social media platforms (and yes, I'd debate that Substack is becoming yet another social media outlet). It's a confirmation bias preach to the choir world we're living in. We could spend hours peeling the onion of how insidious the "narrative" has seeped into our homo sap sap minds. The documentarian Adam Curtis does a pretty good deep dive into this. Marshall McLuhan has made attempts at deconstructing our fluency speaking the language of television which is has now evolved into most of us speaking social media. Social media is an addiction and it's on some level paradoxically taken us prisoner, removing us from what we're allegedly all fighting for - connection, peace, joy, equity, life. So perhaps my benign attempt to refocus our attention is a revolutionary act that if enough of us adopt, then we won't be attaching our morphic resonance to endless warfare and geopolitical strategies that, let's face it, you nor I have very little power to change. Code Pink is out there. Extinction Rebellion is out there. I'd say besides picking up a rifle and heading to the front, we can do what the old school activists did, take to the streets. Are you out there every day? I'm also going out on a limb and suggesting that this constant cortisol producing ranting on-line is only contributing to the madness, not alleviating it. That's why every now and again you'll see even Caitlin herself post a poem or an essay that embodies the exact same notions I did in my invitation to dance in the kitchen and watch moss grow. And here's another notion - I call it "both and" - can we do both? Maybe so. I for one have done it all. We know almost nothing about each other and yet you wrote something ugly as a response to something I said. Then you apologized in part and then started sermonizing to me. That's fine. I don't know you. However, I'm 55 years old and have been in the fucking trenches for various causes through out my life. Social media is a failed experiment. I didn't even want to respond here because people do not listen. There's no real community. Talk about detente? Go look at one Twitter thread and tell me if you see any detente there. I'll tell you what, we can agree to disagree. I appreciate you coming clean here. I'm not positive you're a decent human being trying to make sense of things. But I'm not going to fall into this notion that the sky is falling. Because if it does, I know I've been shouting from the rafters about my causes since I was very young and I'm doing the best I can. If someone wants to place a jackboot on my head, I'll either fight back or turn the other cheek. Let's see if it really comes to that. I've actually experienced worse and fear doesn't rule my life.
-------"Western powers insisted that they were trying to prevent this war while doing everything possible to ensure that it happened. Now they say they are trying to end this war while doing everything possible to ensure it continues."-------
I remember when a cross was burned in our front yard and the Coast Guard had to evacuate our family and another from Elizabeth City, North Carolina because my mother had the "temerity" to give a ride to and from the base school to another chief petty officer's children who happened to be black. Not a peep in the local, state, nor national press, so I think this idea that American once was an open society is a fiction Hollywood sells because it's on the DOD/NED payroll. It never was. It's as Chomsky says, open debate within the allowed parameters, and you'll be shut down if you cross the line.
The school had to be on base because Black, Philippine, and other "Non-white" citizens were not allowed into the local schools, but Uncle Sam was okay with situating a base and all it's economic benefits right there.
More than just trying and doing your best, Caitlin, you're providing something unique that I for one need and I think many do. Expert analysis and criticism is great as far as it goes but ... for a couple of years now I've been saying that
>>> There Is No Emancipation in Narratives. I Need a Sermon!
And I'm a died-in-the-wool Darwin-thumping atheist.
I'm afraid the 'Western world' and it's propaganda towards Russia and the gullible masses are also saying, "Fuck your music, fuck your food, fuck your books, fuck your cats, fuck everything about all of you."
Alea iacta est -- the die is cast ( Julius Caesar). It's hard not to hearken back to the CIA's assassination of JFK as the day the die was finally cast in chromium steel. Eradication of the last clarion voice in US politics preaching detente was essential because American empire could not proliferate with that idea in the forefront. Therefore detente could not be tolerated when articulated by a US president. Back then, we mourned a man rather than mourning the real tragedy that the notion of an American democratic republic was complete rubbish. Kennedy was all too clear with his assertion that he sought NOT the infamous Pax Americana, enforced by military might, but a peace actually framed by international efforts at genuine detente.
Never judge events by the words spoken or written.
Always watch the actions taken.
Nobody has registered the possibility that this Ukraine thing is not actually a war.
Putin refers to it as Special Operations which imply a cessation at some point when the objectives are achieved. I think that Russia has no interest in annexing troublesome Ukraine, he is stopping the 8 years of military victimisation of Donbass and taking out the US controlled biolabs which threaten the health and security of the entire world. He is protecting Ukrainians from Neo-Nazi militia & mercenaries.
"I have done my very best. Come what may.” Caitlin
No question or any argument on this statement, Caitlin. You are a sane, but almost lone voice in the wilderness.
Your writings have made so many people realise how little truth there is available, truth being needed for all people who have a right to know what the hell is going on. Yes. So many readers of your articles share the concern that Ukraine may end up having thousands of unwanted casualties, the same readers knowing that Putin had grounds for his actions. It should never have come to this and the reason was the collection of the neocon mass murderers hiding in Washington, representing themselves as protectors of democracy when in reality, they are the opposite.
The really dangerous part is that it is almost all the elected members of both houses in Washington are cheering on the feeble Biden, wanting him to be even more warlike than he has been in his "control" of this carefully programmed matter. That means, in effect, that almost every constituentcy in the USA is now represented by a supporter of war, which must eventually mean nuclear war as each one tries outdo the previous one and this shows in almost all the comments that pour out daily via the corrupted servants of government, the media, right almost across the board.
In other words, the beneficiaries of any war, the military / industrial complex, the big investors like BlackRock and Vanguard, the Pharmaceutical giants who have created a climate of total confusion and death, are now controlling the world's actions….. but not quite the world's thinking....yet. But very close there as well.
The likes of Caitlin and very few others are keeping the doors open, just enough for the light to keep shining in, unreservedly accepting the supremacy of reason and truth.
None of us reading this have it within our power to halt the major decisions that are made.It is after all preaching to the converted,at least as regards myself.Getting the message to the people who influence events seems to be a lot trickier .Still getting it off your chest is worthwhile and educating the next generation of fighters has to be done.
While of course I am disturbed by the war, I am more disturbed by the large number of Americans, including supposed liberals, who have fallen for the propaganda. These are people who went through the lying that accompanied the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and some who can remember Vietnam, Serbia, and Panama, and they should know better. Instead they spend their time posting little blue and yellow hearts to signal their virtue -- to what? The Empire? The Empire operates strictly from Realpolitik, and does not care about anyone's virtue.
If the economic blowback from this scene is what many say it's going to be, they can celebrate their virtue with ten-dollar gas and twenty-dollar hamburger -- if that.
Putin is doing his best to break the bondage the zionist thieves and thugs have on humanity. let's do out bit to help he succeeds. the best thing we can do with limited resources and minimal risk is boycott, divest, and sanction.
When people reflexively say “we can’t give Putin what he wants!”, do they even know what Russia demanded from the West before they launched the invasion? It seems not. But the security guarantees treaties Russia proposed in December boil down to two things: return NATO militaries to their 1997 dispositions and return all nuclear weapons to their owners territory. Since no one in Europe felt insecure in 1997, why should we hesitate to return to those positions now? And why should the US and it alone be permitted to spread its nuclear arsenal not only into European countries but Asia and elsewhere across the globe? So long as these measures, plus the removal of sanctions, is all Russia is asking, why not “give Putin what he wants”? Peace movements across the West have no excuse not to embrace Russia’s proposals and to call on our governments to negotiate a new, peace-promoting security structure in Europe.
The issue is so fraught - I love that word - with the ridiculous that any objective observer would have to conclude we are all, or pretty well all, nuts. Sanctions have taken on the air of magic - a fairy with a wand, neutralizing everything in sight. Dostoevsky banned at a university, Tchaikovsky banned - if they're going to ban Russian music, they might as well ban all music. What the f..k? I've always believed we are essentially a non-serious race of beings who liberally mix fantasy and reality- but this is beyond irony.
And while most pundits preface their views on the Ukraine crisis with - "while we condemn Russia's illegal violence", they go on to compare it with the Iraq invasion of 2003: what the bloody hell? Where was the existential threat to the US, to anybody- especially in the West, 6000 miles away from a country with no nuclear capability? How do you compare the rapid brutal murder of a million civilians and ruination of a great country with an ancient history, to this situation? I find that not just absurd but obscene, non-productive, delusional, mad - and in its wild lack of relevance, a formula for armageddon.
I've been screaming about the risks of nuclear war (and nuclear energy) since I was 14 and had a dream that warships filled the bay in front of my house in Maine. Then the bombs were dropped and that was that. I woke up in a cold sweat. Cold war, cold sweat, cold nuclear winter... Sounds like a Hollywood blockbuster. Speaking of, I used to have this poster on my wall in college: https://imageobjecttext.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/gone-with-the-wind.jpg Most people accepted it as simply the way things were back then (kinda like now)...thought I'd share. Detente is a nice word, I'm sure it will be absorbed and released just like any other healing thought. Problem is, we're living in an age where geopolitics began in 2016 for most people. Seems like so many "woke" up around then. So any nuance is lost including the concept of detente. In my last comment on these pages, a couple of real gentlemen suggested I deserved a jackboot stomping of my head when I recommended something benign and healing. So I'm not sure there's much hope for detente in their minds. Where's the detente in our daily lives when we enter into any kind of debate about current events? I'm hanging on to hope but it's getting more difficult to find.
Good poster. There's a book out there called "With Enough Doors: Reagan's Reign of Error". The whole book is Reagan quotes, and the title refers to his idea that we could survive a limited nuclear exchange if everyone digs a hole in their yard as a shelter and uses their house door as a cover.
I started high school in 1980, and we always assume it was not a matter of "if" but "when" the bombs would drop. Since the 90s I haven't worried that much about it, and I'm trying to have faith now that somehow it won't spiral out of control.
We are pretty much the same age. It's possible that from the 90's up to 2016, for empires, being comfortable was more important than global domination.
Josh, you say: “In my last comment on these pages, a couple of real gentlemen suggested I deserved a jackboot stomping of my head when I recommended something benign and healing.”
I’m one of the gentleman you’re referring to. I did not say you “deserved” a jackboot stomping on your head. In that previous exchange, I was merely responding to what I perceived as your attitude to focus solely on what is good and beautiful in the world to the exclusion of all that is heinous and despicable. If I am mischaracterizing your attitude, then I apologize. But if that is indeed your attitude—and I can’t know that for certain based on a few sentences in your post—then it places you (or any adult) in greater danger. And I don’t want that for you or anyone.
Right at this very moment, as Caitlin intones in every sentence—we are in the most dangerous situation of our lives (and I remember the Cuban missile crisis and this is worse). I have had wondrously beautiful days, and I treasure those, and I treasure every remaining moment when I catch a glimpse of beauty or feel love. But, as the sage reminds us, there’s a time and a season for all things, including a time to dance and a time to fight. And, IMHO, this is a season when we need to be completely present, accurately assess the danger we all face, and take appropriate action. If you can do that while still catching those moments or days of indescribable beauty, I certainly don’t fault you. In fact, I admire you. But, I would argue, we still have to turn our awareness back to what is most ugly and terrifying and see that ugliness as clearly as we can, and we need to deal with it, right here, right now.
And right now, my own perception is that those leading the U.S. government have placed you and me and everyone in the world in more danger than anyone in history ever has, and that includes a long list of famous villains who systematically and brutally destroyed entire peoples and civilizations.
The jackboot I was referring to in my previous comment is not being worn by a Russian invader or any other foreign invader, it’s worn by our own Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, Victoria Nuland, and by Klaus Schwab and his psychopathic band of oligarchs who rule over us. I want to keep that jackboot from fully descending on my own head and on yours or anyone else’s head.
At this moment—and I’m not condoning for a second what the Russians are doing—factions of the U.S. government are the greatest danger and the greatest evil to all humanity. It is the U.S. that is escalating and luring Russia into nuclear war, when in fact there are perfectly simple and obvious diplomatic actions that could and should be taken by the U.S. government to save the lives of Ukrainians and the rest of the world. Detente, as Caitlin wisely notices, was once a real thing that saved the world, and it can and must be resurrected.
We will not have the peace we all want so long as we passively accept our own subjugation to The Empire that dominates and threatens all of our lives. I wish for you what I wish for all Americans, that we not only avoid the jackboot stomping on our heads, but that we create conditions where we can all get back to dancing.
Thanks for noticing. I wonder what people are actually doing about the horrors aside from posting comments on algorithmic social media platforms (and yes, I'd debate that Substack is becoming yet another social media outlet). It's a confirmation bias preach to the choir world we're living in. We could spend hours peeling the onion of how insidious the "narrative" has seeped into our homo sap sap minds. The documentarian Adam Curtis does a pretty good deep dive into this. Marshall McLuhan has made attempts at deconstructing our fluency speaking the language of television which is has now evolved into most of us speaking social media. Social media is an addiction and it's on some level paradoxically taken us prisoner, removing us from what we're allegedly all fighting for - connection, peace, joy, equity, life. So perhaps my benign attempt to refocus our attention is a revolutionary act that if enough of us adopt, then we won't be attaching our morphic resonance to endless warfare and geopolitical strategies that, let's face it, you nor I have very little power to change. Code Pink is out there. Extinction Rebellion is out there. I'd say besides picking up a rifle and heading to the front, we can do what the old school activists did, take to the streets. Are you out there every day? I'm also going out on a limb and suggesting that this constant cortisol producing ranting on-line is only contributing to the madness, not alleviating it. That's why every now and again you'll see even Caitlin herself post a poem or an essay that embodies the exact same notions I did in my invitation to dance in the kitchen and watch moss grow. And here's another notion - I call it "both and" - can we do both? Maybe so. I for one have done it all. We know almost nothing about each other and yet you wrote something ugly as a response to something I said. Then you apologized in part and then started sermonizing to me. That's fine. I don't know you. However, I'm 55 years old and have been in the fucking trenches for various causes through out my life. Social media is a failed experiment. I didn't even want to respond here because people do not listen. There's no real community. Talk about detente? Go look at one Twitter thread and tell me if you see any detente there. I'll tell you what, we can agree to disagree. I appreciate you coming clean here. I'm not positive you're a decent human being trying to make sense of things. But I'm not going to fall into this notion that the sky is falling. Because if it does, I know I've been shouting from the rafters about my causes since I was very young and I'm doing the best I can. If someone wants to place a jackboot on my head, I'll either fight back or turn the other cheek. Let's see if it really comes to that. I've actually experienced worse and fear doesn't rule my life.
Are you familiar with the Stockdale Paradox? If not, there's a very brief synopsis at https://worldtalkfree.com/2021/02/commentary/the-story-of-a-vietnam-war-veteran-the-stockdale-paradox/.
I agree with Admiral Stockdale. And I'll leave it there. Namaste.
Interesting, never heard of this. In the spirit of both and, I recommend Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. On the same spectrum methinks.
Yes, I remember having that poster. Got it on a CND march, a huge one in London 1980, I think.
-------"Western powers insisted that they were trying to prevent this war while doing everything possible to ensure that it happened. Now they say they are trying to end this war while doing everything possible to ensure it continues."-------
Truer words were never spoken.
Thank you Caitlin. May the world hear your warning before it's too late. And I fear that it's already almost too late.
I remember when a cross was burned in our front yard and the Coast Guard had to evacuate our family and another from Elizabeth City, North Carolina because my mother had the "temerity" to give a ride to and from the base school to another chief petty officer's children who happened to be black. Not a peep in the local, state, nor national press, so I think this idea that American once was an open society is a fiction Hollywood sells because it's on the DOD/NED payroll. It never was. It's as Chomsky says, open debate within the allowed parameters, and you'll be shut down if you cross the line.
The school had to be on base because Black, Philippine, and other "Non-white" citizens were not allowed into the local schools, but Uncle Sam was okay with situating a base and all it's economic benefits right there.
More than just trying and doing your best, Caitlin, you're providing something unique that I for one need and I think many do. Expert analysis and criticism is great as far as it goes but ... for a couple of years now I've been saying that
>>> There Is No Emancipation in Narratives. I Need a Sermon!
And I'm a died-in-the-wool Darwin-thumping atheist.
I'm afraid the 'Western world' and it's propaganda towards Russia and the gullible masses are also saying, "Fuck your music, fuck your food, fuck your books, fuck your cats, fuck everything about all of you."
Alea iacta est -- the die is cast ( Julius Caesar). It's hard not to hearken back to the CIA's assassination of JFK as the day the die was finally cast in chromium steel. Eradication of the last clarion voice in US politics preaching detente was essential because American empire could not proliferate with that idea in the forefront. Therefore detente could not be tolerated when articulated by a US president. Back then, we mourned a man rather than mourning the real tragedy that the notion of an American democratic republic was complete rubbish. Kennedy was all too clear with his assertion that he sought NOT the infamous Pax Americana, enforced by military might, but a peace actually framed by international efforts at genuine detente.
Never judge events by the words spoken or written.
Always watch the actions taken.
Nobody has registered the possibility that this Ukraine thing is not actually a war.
Putin refers to it as Special Operations which imply a cessation at some point when the objectives are achieved. I think that Russia has no interest in annexing troublesome Ukraine, he is stopping the 8 years of military victimisation of Donbass and taking out the US controlled biolabs which threaten the health and security of the entire world. He is protecting Ukrainians from Neo-Nazi militia & mercenaries.
We should be grateful.
It's a great reset mind fuck, ALL OF IT.
A clarion call with a relevant suggestion
"I have done my very best. Come what may.” Caitlin
No question or any argument on this statement, Caitlin. You are a sane, but almost lone voice in the wilderness.
Your writings have made so many people realise how little truth there is available, truth being needed for all people who have a right to know what the hell is going on. Yes. So many readers of your articles share the concern that Ukraine may end up having thousands of unwanted casualties, the same readers knowing that Putin had grounds for his actions. It should never have come to this and the reason was the collection of the neocon mass murderers hiding in Washington, representing themselves as protectors of democracy when in reality, they are the opposite.
The really dangerous part is that it is almost all the elected members of both houses in Washington are cheering on the feeble Biden, wanting him to be even more warlike than he has been in his "control" of this carefully programmed matter. That means, in effect, that almost every constituentcy in the USA is now represented by a supporter of war, which must eventually mean nuclear war as each one tries outdo the previous one and this shows in almost all the comments that pour out daily via the corrupted servants of government, the media, right almost across the board.
In other words, the beneficiaries of any war, the military / industrial complex, the big investors like BlackRock and Vanguard, the Pharmaceutical giants who have created a climate of total confusion and death, are now controlling the world's actions….. but not quite the world's thinking....yet. But very close there as well.
The likes of Caitlin and very few others are keeping the doors open, just enough for the light to keep shining in, unreservedly accepting the supremacy of reason and truth.
None of us reading this have it within our power to halt the major decisions that are made.It is after all preaching to the converted,at least as regards myself.Getting the message to the people who influence events seems to be a lot trickier .Still getting it off your chest is worthwhile and educating the next generation of fighters has to be done.
While of course I am disturbed by the war, I am more disturbed by the large number of Americans, including supposed liberals, who have fallen for the propaganda. These are people who went through the lying that accompanied the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and some who can remember Vietnam, Serbia, and Panama, and they should know better. Instead they spend their time posting little blue and yellow hearts to signal their virtue -- to what? The Empire? The Empire operates strictly from Realpolitik, and does not care about anyone's virtue.
If the economic blowback from this scene is what many say it's going to be, they can celebrate their virtue with ten-dollar gas and twenty-dollar hamburger -- if that.
Putin is doing his best to break the bondage the zionist thieves and thugs have on humanity. let's do out bit to help he succeeds. the best thing we can do with limited resources and minimal risk is boycott, divest, and sanction.
When people reflexively say “we can’t give Putin what he wants!”, do they even know what Russia demanded from the West before they launched the invasion? It seems not. But the security guarantees treaties Russia proposed in December boil down to two things: return NATO militaries to their 1997 dispositions and return all nuclear weapons to their owners territory. Since no one in Europe felt insecure in 1997, why should we hesitate to return to those positions now? And why should the US and it alone be permitted to spread its nuclear arsenal not only into European countries but Asia and elsewhere across the globe? So long as these measures, plus the removal of sanctions, is all Russia is asking, why not “give Putin what he wants”? Peace movements across the West have no excuse not to embrace Russia’s proposals and to call on our governments to negotiate a new, peace-promoting security structure in Europe.
The issue is so fraught - I love that word - with the ridiculous that any objective observer would have to conclude we are all, or pretty well all, nuts. Sanctions have taken on the air of magic - a fairy with a wand, neutralizing everything in sight. Dostoevsky banned at a university, Tchaikovsky banned - if they're going to ban Russian music, they might as well ban all music. What the f..k? I've always believed we are essentially a non-serious race of beings who liberally mix fantasy and reality- but this is beyond irony.
And while most pundits preface their views on the Ukraine crisis with - "while we condemn Russia's illegal violence", they go on to compare it with the Iraq invasion of 2003: what the bloody hell? Where was the existential threat to the US, to anybody- especially in the West, 6000 miles away from a country with no nuclear capability? How do you compare the rapid brutal murder of a million civilians and ruination of a great country with an ancient history, to this situation? I find that not just absurd but obscene, non-productive, delusional, mad - and in its wild lack of relevance, a formula for armageddon.