I can't help thinking about something that few folks -- and no neolibs -- will admit to. It's simply that the behavior of almost every US administration -- definitely those since GW Bush -- has behaved like Hitler in 1944-45. As testified by Albert Speer at the Nuremberg trials, Hitler desired to destroy Germany's infrastructure as the Allies closed-in. Excuse me, but doesn't Hitler's outrageous behavior toward his own citizens parallel what our war-mongering leaders are doing through neglect, investing wealth into weapons and wars rather than into their citizens' domestic needs, including infrastructure?
You wrote "Underlying all the smaller news stories about conflicts with nations like Russia, China and Iran, there's one continuous story about the US power alliance trying to secure planetary domination by relentlessly working to subvert any nation which refuses to *align* with it..." (emphasis mine)
The word "align" is a misnomer, in that "alignment" implies a commonality of interest and mutual benefit.
In fact, what the United States demands is not alignment but vassalship. They may offer benefits, but only when, if and to the extent that the Imperial Power chooses to do so. Slavish obedience, however, is demanded at all times, even to the point of being suicidal.
What amazes me is that anyone complies with such an order. Zelenskii, sure, he has abundant offshore wealth, as documented in the Paradise Papers. He'll high-tail it off to Miami and live The Good Life in exile.
But those poor schmucks being press-ganged into service? No wonder so many surrender at the first opportunity.
Murder-suicide, a hell of a lot worse than suicide. Ukraine was structured so that intentional murder-suicide was achievable, by creating an apolitical mass who lost hope, then infecting their permanent state with a criminal class, and creating a multiparty single pole state. If that sounds just like the USA, well there you go. The only difference is Ukraine was stopped before it became a nuclear power, the USA not so.
Scott Ritter gives the chance of global nuclear war among all nuclear powers being initiated between China and the USA before this year ends at 80%. Knowing China better than Scott, I'd say it's only about 50% by the end of 2023. However, I'm 100% clear which of these two states has been set up to initiate murder-suicide.
The problem is that we have already lavished so much cash, weaponry and P.R. upon Ukraine in general and Zelenskii in particular, so much propaganda and bipartisan and EU-wide kissing of the Little Twerp's ass, that Muh American Credibility will not allow us to agree to any resolution other than Total Victory.
This misuse of The Sunk Cost Fallacy is entirely intentional.
I agree on all points. I'm hoping that the shifiting of official US statements of "We are just following Ukraine's lead" and "Ukraine isn't telling us what is going on" continue apace. Yes, they are total lies, but a lot of the US public doesn't know that. When Ukraine - aka NATO aka the US - loses to Russia in Ukraine, the public needs to have been at least a little bit paced. Otherwise I fear a meltdown from the cognitive dissonance.
A likely amendment for Zelensky's retirement location.....it would probably be Israel, currently in there supporting him, boots and all and always available with their large numbers of nuclear warheads, perhaps now 400+.
His wealth expanding by the day. His country will have gone and so will a large number of the people but he will be laughing all the way to the bank. He is after all, a comedian. It is likely to be the nature of the agreed plan with his boss, Biden.
So now we see the Pompeo's of this world, waiting for their chance to rise again, a sort of second rising, perhaps even a Bolton or two, (they are after all thick on the ground in the US) accompanied by all the Iraqi Neocons in hiding, committed to and funded by Tel Aviv, the Casino owners, the military industrials, and of course, BlackRock and Vanguard, keenly waiting to take their ownership of the US to well over 50%.
Targets….Russia’s natural resources, Venezuela for 170 years of oil reserves….badly needed... and Iran, to help their mates in Israel who helped get them into office In the first place
Against this likely barrage we have the realists, optimists, the peace lovers, the tattered remains of those small numbers with common sense, public opinion (which used to count for something before media silencing) and the most important quality, rational thinking, which has never been much in evidence in the USA since WWII.
So it is uphill from here on. And in the background is Terrible Trump, large as life, still not in prison ( he has friends in SCOTUS, you see) and engaged every night studying 'Mein Kampf' to polish up his methods for the overthrow of the USA, currently seen as the only likely alternative to the Biden nuclear fanatics in conjunction with the plethora of NATO stooges, all plans now set and decidedly off the drawing board.
I think Zelensky will be happy to get out of Ukraine alive. The death threats to him from the Nazis in Ukraine are real. Zelensky's usefulness to the US lasts only so long as a plausible chance at victory can be sold (and that is already past it's "sell by" date).
Once defeat is eminant, Zelensky is VERY useful to Russsia alive to formally surrender. The Nazis will still want to kill him for surrendering. A dead Zelensky means his successor's surrender can be discounted in the west by claiming the person was compromised (I wouldn't want that job either). Having the Russians as the only power group domestically or internationally that wants you alive when you lose the war is not a great situation to be in.
There will be a small window for Zelensky to get out of Ukraine. I'd say the odds of him living to see his grandchildren is very slim. He obviously knows a lot. Better he has a boating accident than him possibly deciding in 10 years to write a book about what happened.
In my book, he would have no real dedicated supporters in Ukraine the whole country knowing he could have brought all this to an end on any day he chose by way of a simple phone call with no long term disadvantage, but didn't.
That's the crime, together responding to the promises of a selfish "exceptional" war terrorist named Biden, the real image of the USA today, together with his band of merry NATO men whose lives are controlled by wars and more wars.
Zelenskyy's boss is Ilhor Kolomoskyi, and Kolomonskyi is one of Biden's bosses. Biden and his son are both on his payroll. Trump has probably never cracked a book, but the people who use him have. Otherwise interesting.
Under this theory, which is certainly plausible, the sanctions taken by the Biden Administration in March 2021 against Kolomoskyi and his immediate family were simply the creation of a false trail designed to throw off the hounds (probably a tiny faction of FBI agents who still take seriously their oath to protect and defend the Constitution) who were on the hunt and who would have quickly found incontrovertible links between Kolomoskyi and the Biden amateur-hour crime family. I do find it telling that the so-called sanctions were not financial, but instead simply prohibited Kolomoskyi and his immediate family from entering the US--a near meaningless action since Kolomoskyi mainly lives in Geneva and Tel Aviv.
What I hate about this theory is that I have always preferred the illusion that the world was a tectonic struggle between competing ideologies representing Good and Evil, when in fact the entire history of the world increasingly seems nothing more than an ongoing shitshow between competing evils--i.e., oligarchs and crime families cloaked by totally corrupted, toothless and evil governments. Surely there must be more to history. Right?
The last thing Hunter or Joe wanted was Kolomoskyi to show up in USA and then be subpoenaed by a grand jury under a republican DA. This is not to say the republicans don't have their own Kolomoskyi rot, even if some are dead ala John McCain. One can say that the shit shows likes to use the same outhouse to put on their show.
I deposited the following on WaPo’s doorstep this am. It echoes what you are saying about the US Empire, in response to their caterwauling about the ascendancy of China.
“It’d be good for you. You’ve had a good run of ruthless, amoral and malicious exploitation, murder, invasion, theft, lying , cheating and stealing. And you can be content knowing everyone sees you’ve pissed it away by succumbing to all the worst features of human nature. The biggest being fraudulence? Why, you’re the neo 4-H club. Hubris, hypocrisy, humbuggery and HS.
Besides , they’ve achieved what they have honestly, more or less, and in record time. Despite you trying to thwart them. One of the lesser well-known is the way you addicted them to cigarettes, just like the devil-incarnate British did with opium in the 19th c.
The American Tobacco Company targeted them, kept promoting, decades after they knew it was poisonous, accounting for what? 150 million deaths? It dwarfs your other successes, like your Native American genocide, easily 50 million there, , and your massacre in your slave trades, ten million maybe?. The 3.5 million you killed in Vietnam to “protect them from communism” and the measly 2.5 million in Iraq to punish their women and children for having imaginary WMDs, are just baby potatoes to you, right?
You’re the worst thing that ever happened to the planet in other important ways. Notably by having been its biggest polluter for a hundred years. The energy pigs of the world, so to speak.
The New York Times asked Climate Interactive to calculate when Americans would have run out of fossil fuel if the nation’s population had somehow, at the beginning of the industrial era, been allocated a share equal to those of the rest of the world’s people. The calculation was premised on limiting emissions enough to meet international climate goals.
The answer: Americans would have used up their quota in 1944, the year the Allied armies stormed the beaches of Normandy.
But you did give the world Motown. I’ll grant you that.” But at least the Visigoths weren’t sanctimonious.
Some Russian put it thusly: "The only things that the United States has that I want are Jackson Pollock and Tupac Shakur, and I get get all I want of either without ever leaving Moscow."
This comment is not a criticism of Caitlin, who is spot on with this essay.
Caitlin writes, "Pompeo is serving as a 'Distinguished Fellow' at the Hudson Institute while he waits for the revolving door of the DC swamp to rotate him back into a federal government position." Indeed, if Trump is re-elected I fully expect the "revolving door" to sweep Pompeo into a renewed position of power.
As I've said before, Trump is an imperialist. The only disagreement between him and the Democrats dominating the permanent bureaucracy is who will control the Empire, Globalism vs US hegemony. For many in the MAGA crowd, this is significant. They fail to see that empire, regardless of who controls it, inevitably leads to totalitarianism. For us left-libertarians on the far, anti-totalitarian left, it is a fundamental reason why we support neither Trump, nor the Democrats, nor establishment Republicans. The MAGA empire is preferable to a globalist empire because it is weaker than a global empire. For that and other reasons, we tend to be more vocal in our criticism of globalists than we are of MAGA. This is misinterpreted as support for MAGA. It is not. I did not vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020 nor will I in 2024. We will not find our way out of this maze until we start supporting 3rd party candidates.
That's why they fight over abortion, as the duopoly are in favor of mass murder ex-vivo. Cornpop Joe's going to make Uncle Joe Stalin (who actually tried to do something to stop the "Holdimor" while fighting the west, unlike Cornpop today) look like a chump when it comes to mass murder by starvation.
What a skill you have, Caitlin, to bring all the scattered conflicts into one brightly lit focus. Your analogy of a think tank as an artificial enclosures for slimy creatures is an image that will stay with me!
And I thought Benjamin Norton's observation that they're out to destroy "any country that proposes a state-led, people-centered economic model" was very astute. Since economics is my jam, I just did an in-depth analysis of Putin's domestic economic policy from his St. Petersburg address (from Kanekoa's Substack)
I suspect that Putin's policies are informed by his economic advisor Sergei Glazyev because they're very well thought out with practical, measurable progress and clearly defined goals that are the opposite of the oligarch cabal. He eliminates the petty harassment and routine audits that were used by the corrupt to shake down small business owners.
He specifically talks about the 13% decrease in the birth rate and makes it the highest priority of governments at all levels to create an environment for families to thrive by looking at healthcare and education, along with the existing state support for every woman from the first months of pregnancy until her child is 17. It surprised me and might surprise you too:
Tereza, you provide a good synopsis of the major dissident thinkers on this crisis. First I heard it publicly proposed that Putin baited the US to confiscate Russian assets, though it did occur to me privately.
Thank you, a-r. I don't know that Putin baited the US to confiscate the assets of the oligarchs, but it seems like he laid a trap by leaving Russian gold in foreign banks. There was a lot of speculation at the time as to why he would do that when he knew that they'd freeze it. But he's playing the long game and foresaw it would give a way to break completely from the petrodollar system, while sending a message to all other countries they should do the same. You probably saw in my article that Putin announced:
"After the first five months of this year, the federal budget has a surplus of 1.5 trillion rubles and the consolidated budget—a surplus of 3.3 trillion rubles. In May alone, the federal budget surplus reached almost half a trillion rubles, surpassing the figure for May 2021 more than four times over."
I don't know how good of a chess player Putin is and whether he foresaw the seizing of oligarch assets, or whether that was just the cherry on top. With European countries needing to buy gas in rubles, what will they use to buy rubles? Gold of course.
Yes, I think he expected sanctions and other nefarious actions that would turn most of the world against the Western Empire. As to the reserves confiscated, it may not have been expected, but anticipated as a contingency
****I suspect that Putin's policies are informed by his economic advisor Sergei Glazyev because they're very well thought out with practical, measurable progress and clearly defined goals that are the opposite of the oligarch cabal. He eliminates the petty harassment and routine audits that were used by the corrupt to shake down small business owners.****
You'd suspect wrong. Do you even care to research this with an open, impartial mind? Russia's wealth disparity is tragic. The Russian Federation, Putin and the oligarchs abuse and neglect the unwashed.
****The policies of the Russian oligarchy completely correspond to the deadly logic of the capitalist ruling classes of the entire world, which put the interests of the super-rich and corporate profits above the right of the working class to live. The World Socialist Web Site has aptly characterized this policy as one of “malign neglect.”****
Hi, SBN. I had noticed in your Roe v Wade comment that you saw Putin as having "aided and abetted his own horrific demise. His Machiavellian machinations are going to come back to bite him in his botox-infused ass. He's going to reap his meddling whirlwind and the rest of the world will be his collateral damage." So I thought you might object to this.
Did you watch or read my post before responding? I know you couldn't have read his very long and detailed speech in this amount of time. It seems like an open, impartial mind would look at my evidence and logic before telling me I haven't done my research.
I was a fan of the WSWS for years and often quoted them on my radio show. But recently I've read things that struck me as 'off' and I read elsewhere that they're now captured. But let's look at the quote you cite.
According to Michael Hudson and others, Biden did Putin a huge favor by getting rid of the oligarchs he never could have ejected himself. The money they'd extracted and stored abroad was confiscated by the US. Suddenly they were declawed, in a matter of months. Here's one part of Putin's speech now that he's not ruled by the oligarchs:
"Social justice is the fourth principle underpinning our development. There must be a powerful social dimension when it comes to promoting economic growth and business initiatives. This development model must reduce inequality instead of deepening it, unlike what is happening in other countries. To be honest, we have not been at the forefront when it comes to delivering on these objectives. We have yet to resolve many issues and problems in this regard. …
"Let me emphasise that generating positive momentum in terms of household income growth and poverty reduction are the main performance indicators for government agencies and the state in general. We need to achieve tangible results in this sphere already this year, despite all the objective challenges we face. I have already assigned this task to the Government.
"Again, we provide targeted support to the most vulnerable groups – pensioners, families with children, and people in difficult life situations. Pensions are indexed annually at a rate higher than inflation. This year, they have been raised twice, including by another 10 percent on June 1.
"The minimum wage was also increased by 10 percent at the same time, and so was the subsistence minimum—a reference figure used to calculate many social benefits and payments—accordingly, these benefits should also grow, increasing the incomes of about 15 million people."
I wouldn't mind seeing policies like these in the US, with actual numbers and measurable results. Would you?
WSWS is sly. Nominally, they oppose US interventions, but they support the narratives that make those interventions possible. If you can generate views of Putin such as those expressed the SBN, that helps to soften people up to oppose Russia's intervention in Ukraine.
Putin has no control over the stolen oligarchic riches stashed in the West, but one of his first moves was to destroy their political influence within Russia itself. Mikhail Khodorkovsky spent 10 years in Russian prisons for his corrupt interference, and Putin's crackdown was a primary motivation for Bill Browder's fables.
The pensioners are the government bureaucrats and police and security services in Russia so of course he's going to placate them. His speech is words. Words are not deeds. We'll see.
As far as Biden and the Russian Oligarchs are concerned, as far as I know they still possess their real estate holdings in the West. McDonald has a lot of Russian Oligarch neighbors residing in proximity to Mar-A-Lago for example. I have heard no news that these estates have been seized as part of the sanctions. Apparently Biden isn't as serious about this as some say he is if scumbag Russian Oligarchs are allowed to continue to flaunt their wealth in Westerner's faces. Same goes for London. Russian Oligarchs pretty much own London and I have not seen any evidence that has changed.
Ah, I was looking at pensioners as synonymous with retirees, but you may be right. I don't know if Russia has a public pension like Social Security. But he's also raised the minimum wage and income limit for public benefits, which only affect the poor, and has given all mothers a state subsidy--no bureaucrats there.
There's absolutely no question that scumbag Russian oligarchs are completely in bed with the Davos elites. Their stolen wealth is what destroyed the economies of Greece and Cyprus, which I write about in my book, How to Dismantle an Empire.
A scumbag Ukranian oligarch, Kolomoysky, is who funded Hunter Biden and put Zelensky in power through his TV show, Servant of the People, with payoffs in offshore tax havens. BeliTsari, in Caitlin's comments, had posted links to Kanekoa the Great, who gave me the material I posted here: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-west-vs-the-rest
So those are OUR oligarchs and oiligarchs, Russian and Ukranian, on whose behalf we're fighting Russia.
The US objective was to use Ukraine to provoke a war with Russia for the purpose of regime change--something that's now been openly admitted, not just blurted out in a l-o-n-g senior moment by Biden. If the West supports the Russian oligarchs, as you and I agree they do, and the West wants Putin gone, it stands to reason that Putin is not the oligarch's friend. Yes?
Well, contradictions are possible. Putin, his friends and allies, and the oligarchs probably do not form a unified class. They do have some common interests, however.
I wouldn't say the West supports the Russian oligarchs so much as tolerates them and uses them and exploits their wealth. They're still Putin's oligarchs. Putin has relied on them to store and secure his wealth.
Trump elevated numerous idiots into policy making. Pompeo clearly doesn’t understand economics. The invasion of Ukraine didn’t divide Russia from China it United them. Russia exports oil China imports. Now China gets Russian oil at a discount to world prices while Europe pays a premium. Should Russia & China find a way to move oil from Siberia via pipeline to China then a new chapter would open up in their close economic relationship. Siberia has vast mineral and oil deposits. Just like Magnitogorsk which everyone knew about with its mountain of iron ore, no one in the private sector would risk capital on building the infrastructure to mine it. Magnitogorsk didn’t produce steel until the 1930s. By comparison in the US remote locations in Alaska were being exploited in the 19th Century with railroads built to them across difficult terrain even visited by a US President.
Siberia has two transcontinental railroad lines. The last completed under Brezhnev.
So Pompeii advocating more war in Ukraine more sanctions on Russia is ignoring the ability of Chinese capital to seek out these Siberian deposits for raw materials. If they do that successfully it is game over for the Kissinger based strategy.
This is another reason why I say that our US ruling class is incompetent. Capitalism here is at the same stage here as monarchism was in Czarist Russia.
Perhaps your readers in Australia will remember what Churchill did to Australian troops in WW1 at Gallipoli and not fall for confrontation with China in Southeast Asia.
Cool. A massive Chinese Belt & Road Initiative in Russia. I can't wait to see THAT. When push comes to shove in twenty years or less, China will just take from Russia what it wants versus Russia holding China over a barrel.
The printed word does not smell. But there is no better avatar for a turd sandwich on your plate than the words “think tank”. Your essay is an exception, redolent of the sweet smell of truth. Btw you could have mentioned how stink tanks are a tax dodge too.
The Belt and Road project is...a "form of imperialism"? ...in the opinion of a dyed in the wool imperialist with a "history of violence"? JHC. Is there no end to the sick irony?
How is Roe v Wade related to Russia and Ukraine? This is how. Here's Pompeo's statement on the recent SCOTUS ruling.
***I applaud the SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe v. Wade today. This is not the end of the fight to save the lives of the unborn. We owe it to them to joyously defend this most fundamental right -- the right to life.****
Pompeo, Abbott and DeSantis are competent autocrats who will lead the world to nuclear war if and when they are elected POTUS. The winner of the 2024 presidential election will be a Christian fascist and it will be either of the above three or Trump, and Putin will have aided and abetted his own horrific demise. His Machiavellian machinations are going to come back to bite him in his botox-infused ass. He's going to reap his meddling whirlwind and the rest of the world will be his collateral damage.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Pompeo was Trump's Secretary of State, was he not? And yet Trump was not mentioned once in this piece.
What happens if Trump is elected POTUS in 2024? Does he reverse all the NATO momentum? Surely all these European countries reinvigorating NATO must realize that if Trump is elected again in 2024, there goes NATO or America's contribution to it. If they are going to make this kind of investment, I would think they would have to prevent at all costs Trump ever getting reelected up to and including killing him. We'll see if it comes to that.
The Trump specter resides in the chambers of the brains of those captured by the imagined Dem-Repub narrative divide. Johnstone needn't mention the man. Johnstone's work breaks out of that mainstream media narrative and gives the reader the big picture, one more nuanced and incisive as to what is actually going on. I think Trump was a fool who upset the narrative makers and threw a temporary spanner in the works, but if anyone ever arises--which is doubtful in this unipolar party "democracy"-- and ends NATO, I will support its destruction. It is an offensive alliance meant to protect the excesses of capitalist accumulation and ensconce a small wealthy ruling call above the world. I think all supporters of democracy and a a world of cooperation rather than war should support its destruction too.
I agree with your position regarding NATO/Breakaway Ruling Class & Trump's character - but - I must implore everyone to actually take a hard look at Who Trump is. Trump Campaigned on 911 Truth and US leaving UN/NATO or Pardons for JA/ES or CM = none of which he did while in office. Many may claim the "Deep State" is too Powerful and prevented Trump from accomplishing these goals - I argue that Trump IS the Deep State. Remember, who's Hotel in NY did Hillary Clinton move into for her run to become a NY Senator? = Trumps. What disgraced former Canadian PM was singing "Irish Eyes are smiling" on election night 2016 to Trump = Mulroney. Who vouched for Mulroney in May 1994 when he was caught by US Customs in NY LaGuardia trying to leave to the UK with $325,000.00 CAD in undeclared cash = Trump. Which organization was a REAL threat to NATO = WTO - which had offices in the WTC Buildings. Rosie O'Donnell was slammed publicly by Trump for what??? = mentioning the curious case of WTC Bldg #7 on Live Television (The View) - this basically cost O'Donnell her job. The Jan 6th Hearings will lead nowhere - in fact, the legal excuse for NOT charging Trump is already imbedded in the hearings testimony by none other that William Barr = "Trump was detached from Reality" or Giuliani was "drunk". Trump was on both campaign trails with both Bushes trying to become their choice for VP. Trump is and has always been a member of the Deep State - which seems so obvious to me because the CIA would benefit from an American Globalist with Hotels around the world - he is a CIA asset in my opinion. In summary the US System is by far the most corrupt. These "leaders" compromised and after decades of overthrowing Democratically Elected Socialists in other Countries - the Ruling Class of America has now accomplished this domestically. The WWE style messaging coming out of Corporate Media is such a failure on it's face that I can't believe that anyone would tune in. Mike Pompeo/Intelligence Puppets & the Think Tankers will be the death of us all.
"A think tank is an institution..."
Groucho's evaluation of politics, also applies to think tanks, in spades:
Politics (Tank Thinking) is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Think tanks meet Russian tanks. Trouble found!
I can't help thinking about something that few folks -- and no neolibs -- will admit to. It's simply that the behavior of almost every US administration -- definitely those since GW Bush -- has behaved like Hitler in 1944-45. As testified by Albert Speer at the Nuremberg trials, Hitler desired to destroy Germany's infrastructure as the Allies closed-in. Excuse me, but doesn't Hitler's outrageous behavior toward his own citizens parallel what our war-mongering leaders are doing through neglect, investing wealth into weapons and wars rather than into their citizens' domestic needs, including infrastructure?
You always hit the nail on the head, Catelin. You are an international treasure!
You wrote "Underlying all the smaller news stories about conflicts with nations like Russia, China and Iran, there's one continuous story about the US power alliance trying to secure planetary domination by relentlessly working to subvert any nation which refuses to *align* with it..." (emphasis mine)
The word "align" is a misnomer, in that "alignment" implies a commonality of interest and mutual benefit.
In fact, what the United States demands is not alignment but vassalship. They may offer benefits, but only when, if and to the extent that the Imperial Power chooses to do so. Slavish obedience, however, is demanded at all times, even to the point of being suicidal.
"You're either with us or against us". Ukraine is committing suicide. No question.
Ukraine is ordered to commit suicide.
What amazes me is that anyone complies with such an order. Zelenskii, sure, he has abundant offshore wealth, as documented in the Paradise Papers. He'll high-tail it off to Miami and live The Good Life in exile.
But those poor schmucks being press-ganged into service? No wonder so many surrender at the first opportunity.
Murder-suicide, a hell of a lot worse than suicide. Ukraine was structured so that intentional murder-suicide was achievable, by creating an apolitical mass who lost hope, then infecting their permanent state with a criminal class, and creating a multiparty single pole state. If that sounds just like the USA, well there you go. The only difference is Ukraine was stopped before it became a nuclear power, the USA not so.
Scott Ritter gives the chance of global nuclear war among all nuclear powers being initiated between China and the USA before this year ends at 80%. Knowing China better than Scott, I'd say it's only about 50% by the end of 2023. However, I'm 100% clear which of these two states has been set up to initiate murder-suicide.
The problem is that we have already lavished so much cash, weaponry and P.R. upon Ukraine in general and Zelenskii in particular, so much propaganda and bipartisan and EU-wide kissing of the Little Twerp's ass, that Muh American Credibility will not allow us to agree to any resolution other than Total Victory.
This misuse of The Sunk Cost Fallacy is entirely intentional.
I agree on all points. I'm hoping that the shifiting of official US statements of "We are just following Ukraine's lead" and "Ukraine isn't telling us what is going on" continue apace. Yes, they are total lies, but a lot of the US public doesn't know that. When Ukraine - aka NATO aka the US - loses to Russia in Ukraine, the public needs to have been at least a little bit paced. Otherwise I fear a meltdown from the cognitive dissonance.
A likely amendment for Zelensky's retirement location.....it would probably be Israel, currently in there supporting him, boots and all and always available with their large numbers of nuclear warheads, perhaps now 400+.
His wealth expanding by the day. His country will have gone and so will a large number of the people but he will be laughing all the way to the bank. He is after all, a comedian. It is likely to be the nature of the agreed plan with his boss, Biden.
So now we see the Pompeo's of this world, waiting for their chance to rise again, a sort of second rising, perhaps even a Bolton or two, (they are after all thick on the ground in the US) accompanied by all the Iraqi Neocons in hiding, committed to and funded by Tel Aviv, the Casino owners, the military industrials, and of course, BlackRock and Vanguard, keenly waiting to take their ownership of the US to well over 50%.
Targets….Russia’s natural resources, Venezuela for 170 years of oil reserves….badly needed... and Iran, to help their mates in Israel who helped get them into office In the first place
Against this likely barrage we have the realists, optimists, the peace lovers, the tattered remains of those small numbers with common sense, public opinion (which used to count for something before media silencing) and the most important quality, rational thinking, which has never been much in evidence in the USA since WWII.
So it is uphill from here on. And in the background is Terrible Trump, large as life, still not in prison ( he has friends in SCOTUS, you see) and engaged every night studying 'Mein Kampf' to polish up his methods for the overthrow of the USA, currently seen as the only likely alternative to the Biden nuclear fanatics in conjunction with the plethora of NATO stooges, all plans now set and decidedly off the drawing board.
And very real.
I think Zelensky will be happy to get out of Ukraine alive. The death threats to him from the Nazis in Ukraine are real. Zelensky's usefulness to the US lasts only so long as a plausible chance at victory can be sold (and that is already past it's "sell by" date).
Once defeat is eminant, Zelensky is VERY useful to Russsia alive to formally surrender. The Nazis will still want to kill him for surrendering. A dead Zelensky means his successor's surrender can be discounted in the west by claiming the person was compromised (I wouldn't want that job either). Having the Russians as the only power group domestically or internationally that wants you alive when you lose the war is not a great situation to be in.
There will be a small window for Zelensky to get out of Ukraine. I'd say the odds of him living to see his grandchildren is very slim. He obviously knows a lot. Better he has a boating accident than him possibly deciding in 10 years to write a book about what happened.
"He obviously knows a lot"
Now that alone will determine his fate.
In my book, he would have no real dedicated supporters in Ukraine the whole country knowing he could have brought all this to an end on any day he chose by way of a simple phone call with no long term disadvantage, but didn't.
That's the crime, together responding to the promises of a selfish "exceptional" war terrorist named Biden, the real image of the USA today, together with his band of merry NATO men whose lives are controlled by wars and more wars.
That's all they know
Zelenskyy's boss is Ilhor Kolomoskyi, and Kolomonskyi is one of Biden's bosses. Biden and his son are both on his payroll. Trump has probably never cracked a book, but the people who use him have. Otherwise interesting.
Under this theory, which is certainly plausible, the sanctions taken by the Biden Administration in March 2021 against Kolomoskyi and his immediate family were simply the creation of a false trail designed to throw off the hounds (probably a tiny faction of FBI agents who still take seriously their oath to protect and defend the Constitution) who were on the hunt and who would have quickly found incontrovertible links between Kolomoskyi and the Biden amateur-hour crime family. I do find it telling that the so-called sanctions were not financial, but instead simply prohibited Kolomoskyi and his immediate family from entering the US--a near meaningless action since Kolomoskyi mainly lives in Geneva and Tel Aviv.
What I hate about this theory is that I have always preferred the illusion that the world was a tectonic struggle between competing ideologies representing Good and Evil, when in fact the entire history of the world increasingly seems nothing more than an ongoing shitshow between competing evils--i.e., oligarchs and crime families cloaked by totally corrupted, toothless and evil governments. Surely there must be more to history. Right?
The last thing Hunter or Joe wanted was Kolomoskyi to show up in USA and then be subpoenaed by a grand jury under a republican DA. This is not to say the republicans don't have their own Kolomoskyi rot, even if some are dead ala John McCain. One can say that the shit shows likes to use the same outhouse to put on their show.
I deposited the following on WaPo’s doorstep this am. It echoes what you are saying about the US Empire, in response to their caterwauling about the ascendancy of China.
“It’d be good for you. You’ve had a good run of ruthless, amoral and malicious exploitation, murder, invasion, theft, lying , cheating and stealing. And you can be content knowing everyone sees you’ve pissed it away by succumbing to all the worst features of human nature. The biggest being fraudulence? Why, you’re the neo 4-H club. Hubris, hypocrisy, humbuggery and HS.
Besides , they’ve achieved what they have honestly, more or less, and in record time. Despite you trying to thwart them. One of the lesser well-known is the way you addicted them to cigarettes, just like the devil-incarnate British did with opium in the 19th c.
The American Tobacco Company targeted them, kept promoting, decades after they knew it was poisonous, accounting for what? 150 million deaths? It dwarfs your other successes, like your Native American genocide, easily 50 million there, , and your massacre in your slave trades, ten million maybe?. The 3.5 million you killed in Vietnam to “protect them from communism” and the measly 2.5 million in Iraq to punish their women and children for having imaginary WMDs, are just baby potatoes to you, right?
You’re the worst thing that ever happened to the planet in other important ways. Notably by having been its biggest polluter for a hundred years. The energy pigs of the world, so to speak.
The New York Times asked Climate Interactive to calculate when Americans would have run out of fossil fuel if the nation’s population had somehow, at the beginning of the industrial era, been allocated a share equal to those of the rest of the world’s people. The calculation was premised on limiting emissions enough to meet international climate goals.
The answer: Americans would have used up their quota in 1944, the year the Allied armies stormed the beaches of Normandy.
But you did give the world Motown. I’ll grant you that.” But at least the Visigoths weren’t sanctimonious.
Some Russian put it thusly: "The only things that the United States has that I want are Jackson Pollock and Tupac Shakur, and I get get all I want of either without ever leaving Moscow."
This comment is not a criticism of Caitlin, who is spot on with this essay.
Caitlin writes, "Pompeo is serving as a 'Distinguished Fellow' at the Hudson Institute while he waits for the revolving door of the DC swamp to rotate him back into a federal government position." Indeed, if Trump is re-elected I fully expect the "revolving door" to sweep Pompeo into a renewed position of power.
As I've said before, Trump is an imperialist. The only disagreement between him and the Democrats dominating the permanent bureaucracy is who will control the Empire, Globalism vs US hegemony. For many in the MAGA crowd, this is significant. They fail to see that empire, regardless of who controls it, inevitably leads to totalitarianism. For us left-libertarians on the far, anti-totalitarian left, it is a fundamental reason why we support neither Trump, nor the Democrats, nor establishment Republicans. The MAGA empire is preferable to a globalist empire because it is weaker than a global empire. For that and other reasons, we tend to be more vocal in our criticism of globalists than we are of MAGA. This is misinterpreted as support for MAGA. It is not. I did not vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020 nor will I in 2024. We will not find our way out of this maze until we start supporting 3rd party candidates.
That's why they fight over abortion, as the duopoly are in favor of mass murder ex-vivo. Cornpop Joe's going to make Uncle Joe Stalin (who actually tried to do something to stop the "Holdimor" while fighting the west, unlike Cornpop today) look like a chump when it comes to mass murder by starvation.
What a skill you have, Caitlin, to bring all the scattered conflicts into one brightly lit focus. Your analogy of a think tank as an artificial enclosures for slimy creatures is an image that will stay with me!
And I thought Benjamin Norton's observation that they're out to destroy "any country that proposes a state-led, people-centered economic model" was very astute. Since economics is my jam, I just did an in-depth analysis of Putin's domestic economic policy from his St. Petersburg address (from Kanekoa's Substack)
I suspect that Putin's policies are informed by his economic advisor Sergei Glazyev because they're very well thought out with practical, measurable progress and clearly defined goals that are the opposite of the oligarch cabal. He eliminates the petty harassment and routine audits that were used by the corrupt to shake down small business owners.
He specifically talks about the 13% decrease in the birth rate and makes it the highest priority of governments at all levels to create an environment for families to thrive by looking at healthcare and education, along with the existing state support for every woman from the first months of pregnancy until her child is 17. It surprised me and might surprise you too:
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/russia-a-wrench-in-the-reset-gears
Tereza, you provide a good synopsis of the major dissident thinkers on this crisis. First I heard it publicly proposed that Putin baited the US to confiscate Russian assets, though it did occur to me privately.
Thank you, a-r. I don't know that Putin baited the US to confiscate the assets of the oligarchs, but it seems like he laid a trap by leaving Russian gold in foreign banks. There was a lot of speculation at the time as to why he would do that when he knew that they'd freeze it. But he's playing the long game and foresaw it would give a way to break completely from the petrodollar system, while sending a message to all other countries they should do the same. You probably saw in my article that Putin announced:
"After the first five months of this year, the federal budget has a surplus of 1.5 trillion rubles and the consolidated budget—a surplus of 3.3 trillion rubles. In May alone, the federal budget surplus reached almost half a trillion rubles, surpassing the figure for May 2021 more than four times over."
I don't know how good of a chess player Putin is and whether he foresaw the seizing of oligarch assets, or whether that was just the cherry on top. With European countries needing to buy gas in rubles, what will they use to buy rubles? Gold of course.
Yes, I think he expected sanctions and other nefarious actions that would turn most of the world against the Western Empire. As to the reserves confiscated, it may not have been expected, but anticipated as a contingency
****I suspect that Putin's policies are informed by his economic advisor Sergei Glazyev because they're very well thought out with practical, measurable progress and clearly defined goals that are the opposite of the oligarch cabal. He eliminates the petty harassment and routine audits that were used by the corrupt to shake down small business owners.****
You'd suspect wrong. Do you even care to research this with an open, impartial mind? Russia's wealth disparity is tragic. The Russian Federation, Putin and the oligarchs abuse and neglect the unwashed.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/19/russ-m19.html
****The policies of the Russian oligarchy completely correspond to the deadly logic of the capitalist ruling classes of the entire world, which put the interests of the super-rich and corporate profits above the right of the working class to live. The World Socialist Web Site has aptly characterized this policy as one of “malign neglect.”****
Hi, SBN. I had noticed in your Roe v Wade comment that you saw Putin as having "aided and abetted his own horrific demise. His Machiavellian machinations are going to come back to bite him in his botox-infused ass. He's going to reap his meddling whirlwind and the rest of the world will be his collateral damage." So I thought you might object to this.
Did you watch or read my post before responding? I know you couldn't have read his very long and detailed speech in this amount of time. It seems like an open, impartial mind would look at my evidence and logic before telling me I haven't done my research.
I was a fan of the WSWS for years and often quoted them on my radio show. But recently I've read things that struck me as 'off' and I read elsewhere that they're now captured. But let's look at the quote you cite.
According to Michael Hudson and others, Biden did Putin a huge favor by getting rid of the oligarchs he never could have ejected himself. The money they'd extracted and stored abroad was confiscated by the US. Suddenly they were declawed, in a matter of months. Here's one part of Putin's speech now that he's not ruled by the oligarchs:
"Social justice is the fourth principle underpinning our development. There must be a powerful social dimension when it comes to promoting economic growth and business initiatives. This development model must reduce inequality instead of deepening it, unlike what is happening in other countries. To be honest, we have not been at the forefront when it comes to delivering on these objectives. We have yet to resolve many issues and problems in this regard. …
"Let me emphasise that generating positive momentum in terms of household income growth and poverty reduction are the main performance indicators for government agencies and the state in general. We need to achieve tangible results in this sphere already this year, despite all the objective challenges we face. I have already assigned this task to the Government.
"Again, we provide targeted support to the most vulnerable groups – pensioners, families with children, and people in difficult life situations. Pensions are indexed annually at a rate higher than inflation. This year, they have been raised twice, including by another 10 percent on June 1.
"The minimum wage was also increased by 10 percent at the same time, and so was the subsistence minimum—a reference figure used to calculate many social benefits and payments—accordingly, these benefits should also grow, increasing the incomes of about 15 million people."
I wouldn't mind seeing policies like these in the US, with actual numbers and measurable results. Would you?
WSWS is sly. Nominally, they oppose US interventions, but they support the narratives that make those interventions possible. If you can generate views of Putin such as those expressed the SBN, that helps to soften people up to oppose Russia's intervention in Ukraine.
Putin has no control over the stolen oligarchic riches stashed in the West, but one of his first moves was to destroy their political influence within Russia itself. Mikhail Khodorkovsky spent 10 years in Russian prisons for his corrupt interference, and Putin's crackdown was a primary motivation for Bill Browder's fables.
The pensioners are the government bureaucrats and police and security services in Russia so of course he's going to placate them. His speech is words. Words are not deeds. We'll see.
As far as Biden and the Russian Oligarchs are concerned, as far as I know they still possess their real estate holdings in the West. McDonald has a lot of Russian Oligarch neighbors residing in proximity to Mar-A-Lago for example. I have heard no news that these estates have been seized as part of the sanctions. Apparently Biden isn't as serious about this as some say he is if scumbag Russian Oligarchs are allowed to continue to flaunt their wealth in Westerner's faces. Same goes for London. Russian Oligarchs pretty much own London and I have not seen any evidence that has changed.
Ah, I was looking at pensioners as synonymous with retirees, but you may be right. I don't know if Russia has a public pension like Social Security. But he's also raised the minimum wage and income limit for public benefits, which only affect the poor, and has given all mothers a state subsidy--no bureaucrats there.
There's absolutely no question that scumbag Russian oligarchs are completely in bed with the Davos elites. Their stolen wealth is what destroyed the economies of Greece and Cyprus, which I write about in my book, How to Dismantle an Empire.
A scumbag Ukranian oligarch, Kolomoysky, is who funded Hunter Biden and put Zelensky in power through his TV show, Servant of the People, with payoffs in offshore tax havens. BeliTsari, in Caitlin's comments, had posted links to Kanekoa the Great, who gave me the material I posted here: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-west-vs-the-rest
So those are OUR oligarchs and oiligarchs, Russian and Ukranian, on whose behalf we're fighting Russia.
The US objective was to use Ukraine to provoke a war with Russia for the purpose of regime change--something that's now been openly admitted, not just blurted out in a l-o-n-g senior moment by Biden. If the West supports the Russian oligarchs, as you and I agree they do, and the West wants Putin gone, it stands to reason that Putin is not the oligarch's friend. Yes?
Well, contradictions are possible. Putin, his friends and allies, and the oligarchs probably do not form a unified class. They do have some common interests, however.
I wouldn't say the West supports the Russian oligarchs so much as tolerates them and uses them and exploits their wealth. They're still Putin's oligarchs. Putin has relied on them to store and secure his wealth.
Trump elevated numerous idiots into policy making. Pompeo clearly doesn’t understand economics. The invasion of Ukraine didn’t divide Russia from China it United them. Russia exports oil China imports. Now China gets Russian oil at a discount to world prices while Europe pays a premium. Should Russia & China find a way to move oil from Siberia via pipeline to China then a new chapter would open up in their close economic relationship. Siberia has vast mineral and oil deposits. Just like Magnitogorsk which everyone knew about with its mountain of iron ore, no one in the private sector would risk capital on building the infrastructure to mine it. Magnitogorsk didn’t produce steel until the 1930s. By comparison in the US remote locations in Alaska were being exploited in the 19th Century with railroads built to them across difficult terrain even visited by a US President.
Siberia has two transcontinental railroad lines. The last completed under Brezhnev.
So Pompeii advocating more war in Ukraine more sanctions on Russia is ignoring the ability of Chinese capital to seek out these Siberian deposits for raw materials. If they do that successfully it is game over for the Kissinger based strategy.
This is another reason why I say that our US ruling class is incompetent. Capitalism here is at the same stage here as monarchism was in Czarist Russia.
Perhaps your readers in Australia will remember what Churchill did to Australian troops in WW1 at Gallipoli and not fall for confrontation with China in Southeast Asia.
Cool. A massive Chinese Belt & Road Initiative in Russia. I can't wait to see THAT. When push comes to shove in twenty years or less, China will just take from Russia what it wants versus Russia holding China over a barrel.
The printed word does not smell. But there is no better avatar for a turd sandwich on your plate than the words “think tank”. Your essay is an exception, redolent of the sweet smell of truth. Btw you could have mentioned how stink tanks are a tax dodge too.
I could not stand to listen to that bloviating End Times warmonger for more than 30 seconds before feeling the blood start to curdle in my veins.
FWIW, I would bet that Pompeo’s dramatic weight loss is the result of bariatric surgery.
I get a kick out of Q-tards when they hold up Pompeo as one of them. "Take him you morons. He's just another uni-party, globalist, hack."
Pompeo has lost weight, He is gearing up for a presidential bid in 2024.
Genius perspective, as always.
The Belt and Road project is...a "form of imperialism"? ...in the opinion of a dyed in the wool imperialist with a "history of violence"? JHC. Is there no end to the sick irony?
Look how they blame Huawei, while Cisco jokingly stands for what?.....CIA Intercourse in System Comms.
https://www.theregister.com/2019/05/02/cisco_vulnerabilities/
There's always a back story they conveniently hide, and tar and feather the other.
It's resource extraction without the imperialism part. China wants to dip its straw into the world's resources. The belt and road is that straw.
I drink your milkshake!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_hFTR6qyEo
I get a kick out of Q-tards when they hold up Pompeo as one of them. "Take him you morons. He's just another uni-party, globalist, hack."
He is sending them into the wood chipper. He promises to condole for them later, over whiskey by a warm fire.
How is Roe v Wade related to Russia and Ukraine? This is how. Here's Pompeo's statement on the recent SCOTUS ruling.
***I applaud the SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe v. Wade today. This is not the end of the fight to save the lives of the unborn. We owe it to them to joyously defend this most fundamental right -- the right to life.****
Pompeo, Abbott and DeSantis are competent autocrats who will lead the world to nuclear war if and when they are elected POTUS. The winner of the 2024 presidential election will be a Christian fascist and it will be either of the above three or Trump, and Putin will have aided and abetted his own horrific demise. His Machiavellian machinations are going to come back to bite him in his botox-infused ass. He's going to reap his meddling whirlwind and the rest of the world will be his collateral damage.
Just a tad hypocritical, I'd say.
The most rational assumption is that they are Devil-worshippers.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Pompeo was Trump's Secretary of State, was he not? And yet Trump was not mentioned once in this piece.
What happens if Trump is elected POTUS in 2024? Does he reverse all the NATO momentum? Surely all these European countries reinvigorating NATO must realize that if Trump is elected again in 2024, there goes NATO or America's contribution to it. If they are going to make this kind of investment, I would think they would have to prevent at all costs Trump ever getting reelected up to and including killing him. We'll see if it comes to that.
The Trump specter resides in the chambers of the brains of those captured by the imagined Dem-Repub narrative divide. Johnstone needn't mention the man. Johnstone's work breaks out of that mainstream media narrative and gives the reader the big picture, one more nuanced and incisive as to what is actually going on. I think Trump was a fool who upset the narrative makers and threw a temporary spanner in the works, but if anyone ever arises--which is doubtful in this unipolar party "democracy"-- and ends NATO, I will support its destruction. It is an offensive alliance meant to protect the excesses of capitalist accumulation and ensconce a small wealthy ruling call above the world. I think all supporters of democracy and a a world of cooperation rather than war should support its destruction too.
I agree with your position regarding NATO/Breakaway Ruling Class & Trump's character - but - I must implore everyone to actually take a hard look at Who Trump is. Trump Campaigned on 911 Truth and US leaving UN/NATO or Pardons for JA/ES or CM = none of which he did while in office. Many may claim the "Deep State" is too Powerful and prevented Trump from accomplishing these goals - I argue that Trump IS the Deep State. Remember, who's Hotel in NY did Hillary Clinton move into for her run to become a NY Senator? = Trumps. What disgraced former Canadian PM was singing "Irish Eyes are smiling" on election night 2016 to Trump = Mulroney. Who vouched for Mulroney in May 1994 when he was caught by US Customs in NY LaGuardia trying to leave to the UK with $325,000.00 CAD in undeclared cash = Trump. Which organization was a REAL threat to NATO = WTO - which had offices in the WTC Buildings. Rosie O'Donnell was slammed publicly by Trump for what??? = mentioning the curious case of WTC Bldg #7 on Live Television (The View) - this basically cost O'Donnell her job. The Jan 6th Hearings will lead nowhere - in fact, the legal excuse for NOT charging Trump is already imbedded in the hearings testimony by none other that William Barr = "Trump was detached from Reality" or Giuliani was "drunk". Trump was on both campaign trails with both Bushes trying to become their choice for VP. Trump is and has always been a member of the Deep State - which seems so obvious to me because the CIA would benefit from an American Globalist with Hotels around the world - he is a CIA asset in my opinion. In summary the US System is by far the most corrupt. These "leaders" compromised and after decades of overthrowing Democratically Elected Socialists in other Countries - the Ruling Class of America has now accomplished this domestically. The WWE style messaging coming out of Corporate Media is such a failure on it's face that I can't believe that anyone would tune in. Mike Pompeo/Intelligence Puppets & the Think Tankers will be the death of us all.