Yep. To make all these decisions concerning a war that'x killing thousands and destroying a country because of wishes to do harm to a man: Putin is ludicrous and horrific.
This is the way the 'grand game' is played is it?
'I will do THIS to hurt HIM' - and the thousands who lose lives etc. are of no import one way or the other?
It seems so.
ALL the commentators I read, professional or self styled, all use the same language. Sometimes it is not 'I will do THIS to hurt HIM' - directed at a man - but instead 'I will do THIS in order to hurt THAT COUNTRY'.
Makes no difference. Again, the people don't signify. Are not present in their calculations.
A 'nation' to them does NOT mean a collection of people.
It is some kind of abstract noun.
It becomes tangible when they draw riches and power from it.
The mad comic exemplifies it when he calls for 'fighting to the last man'.
But that call goes unremarked. Accepted. Swallowed whole.
The ludicrous premise: that a 'nation' exists after the last member of it has died is not remarked.
I consider this confusion between the reality of people and the ethereal abstractions of 'nation' to be the greatest single intellectual obstacle to rational progress between nations.
That and propensity to use the fortunes of whole nations in attempts to attack a single man. I don't know what to call that. Is it a very similar thing? I think maybe so. A propensity to confuse the identity of a single man with the mass of people in a nation. Perhaps, I'm not sure.
But I am totally sure you should not mount measures intended to harm millions because of your desire to hurt one man.
Any more than you should sacrifice all the members of a nation in order to make it better, stronger, healthier.
Madnesses, both of them.
But they go unremarked. They are, in fact, the norm.
" It is unfathomably, unforgivably evil, though, and it should outrage everyone."
Yes indeed. But no one is outraged. No one. What does this say to us? That we are not embedded in the human reality we thought we were embedded in. We seem to be suffering from some kind of cognitive disability.
I am OUTRAGED and I am someone, not " no one" . Many American people are outraged in fact. Our government is not only playing war games AGAIN, they are openly injecting bioweapons into our bodies and calling them vaccines. The American people ARE NOT the government and our government is off the rails, psychopaths.
What’s increasingly obvious is there are a lot of sociopaths in control of govt policy.
When you have a national security policy that mandates chaos and global insecurity for all 8 billion people on the planet, while treating your own country as an encampment itself containing a suspect populace that must be surveilled round the clock for the “crime” of merely existing, for which you then exile whistleblowers and imprison journalists for revealing this, then something has gone very wrong in the minds of a lot of governments officials for a VERY long time.
Yep. I've thought about 'uneasy lies the head that wears the crown' that it might not refer only to unease about the machinations of enemies of the kingdom or enemies within the court but to the king's appraisal of the masses: how obvious that he rules only because they allow him to divide them!
They rule over themselves! They imprison each other!
The King says 'Kill those amongst you who are thus..' and they go off and do it!
Kings must be amazed and incredulous that the masses could be so.
It seems that humanity, in the mass, has no humanity.
In America at this time is brewing a potential civil war it seems. And I think it is predicated on a 'Republican v Democrat' basis.
Whether this will ever be so or not, and one hopes not, the point is that the masses are willing and even inclined towards adopting, tolerating and even adopting such a course.
We can imagine in such a reality, which appears to be the one we've got, that in fact the only humanitarians are the so called monstrous and wicked rulers.
For a Hitler or Mao or Stalin may marvel and despair at the to him clear insanity of a population allowing itself to be divided and prey the one side on the other. Seeing 'from above' such people may well see it all and experience the emotion, the thought, the realisation.
Whereas the masses apparently see no such, experience no such, feel no such.
They never bring these madnesses to an end of themselves do they? I'm not sure. But I think not.
Apparently in Ukraine the humanitarian at this time is Putin. It is said he cost many lives in Syria by interfering in the conduct of the war on humanitarian grounds. The same accusation is levelled at him in regard to this conflict.
For everyone else; the military on both sides, the barking populations, the monstrous USA of course, the political observers and pundits, the main stream media, the arms manufacturers etc. etc.. the optimum course is more bloodshed, more violence, more war...
We saw in Canada in the Covid insanity a beautiful illustration I think.
Driven to action by the total madness of their government the people did NOT resort to the machinery of their Democratically organised sociopolitical system. No. They went to the streets, so to speak. Actually to the roads in their famous truck blockades etc. A 'passive' violence we could say perhaps. Though quite active and dynamic in preventing free movement and trade.
But the point: an immediate resorting to violence. To physical force, not reason or discussion or agreement. Just force.
And all across the Western world in that context. The most people ever did was assemble in the streets and march shouting slogans and waving banners and always on the edge of violence which could turn into riot.
Our people are primitive. It is noticeable that there's no education throughout the school years designed to address this.
It would be helpful if you provided a link for us to follow.
In a way though it doesn't matter because your posts seem to be filled with rage rather than reason. In which case, why shouldn't Mate ban you? (I don't think he should have, but I don't know the details yet do I?)
Well, in my perspective (which is of course partial and limited, as all perspectives are), the life-destroying immature ideology of extreme sectarianism pushed ruthlessly by blind unconscious anti-God christian-coservative republicans and right wing democrats (with their vile childish idiotic monstrous slogans "our national interests vs your interests") is the NUMBER ONE factor dividing humanity and destroying all security and peace possibillties on this planet.
In my understanding, their anti-God right-wing sectarian ideology is the number one factor creating hell on earth (not that they're the only ones pushing it, there's no shortage of stupid destructive murderous right-wing sectatianism and exclucivism everywhere, but the brutal and uncosncious american right-wing (and by rignt wing i mean both right-wing parties of the oligarchy, republicans and democrats) are by far the most arrogant and have the most capacity to impose their hellish sectarian hierarchical domination-based ideology on the planet and destroy all life on earth for their narrow sectarian interests and their sickening ideology.
They love to talk about so-called "security" yet theses bullies are the number one murderers on the planet and the number on casue of INSECURITY, and have been completely deceived and made blind to the FACT that the right-wing sectarian anti-life ideology (that ruthlessly and mecilessly works only for the narrow interests of the part, with complete disregard of the devastation of the whole), that ideology that they've been brainwashed with can NEVER ever ever bring about safety and security, blimd to the fact that their sectarian right-wing humanity-destroying ideology is the very thing that is bringing about INSECURITY for everyone, the very thing that creates the hellish world of conflict, separation and murder in the name of a nation and religion.
The horror of a world on fire and nonstop tribal/sectarian/religious/nationailst division competition, antagonism, hatred and violence is exactly what happens when psychologically undeveloped violent arrogant right-wing baboons run the planet.
It seems to me that who those who have fallen into the abyss of right-wing religious/nationailst smug sectarianism fail to see that their very actions to create so-called security and safety for only for the part, only for one exclusive group (my tribe/religion/nation) are the very thing that brings about INSECURITY for everyone!
TRYING TO CREATE SECTARIAN SECURITY AND PROSPERITY (SECURITY AND PROSPERITY NOT FOR TBE WHOLE BUT ONLY FOR THE PART, ONLY FOR 'ME AND MY GROUP') IS THE VERY CAUSE OF INSECURITY!!!
In my view, the democratic and republican parties and their globe-spanning humanity-dividing right-wing capitalist empire (with its war profiteering industry and propaganda media and censorship machine) is the biggest threat to life on earth. Traitors to the human race!!
And it seems to me that the only way they can do this is becasue of how dumbed-down gullible and ignorant and heavily propagandized most of the american public is...
They don't need to worry about convincing the christian-conservative fascists to go to war (they've been spoon-fed a steady nonstop diet of china-hatred by their thought leaders in their echo-chambers for many years and they'll happily murder for the capitalist billilnaires if DeSantis tells them they're fighting "evil commies" and "Jesus's enemies" and that it's the "patriotic" thing to do to go and kill for the capitalist billionaires), so the christian-conservatives are already salivating at the thought of an attack on China (and Iran) and need no convincimg, that's why the empire's propaganda and censorship machine is focusing on you liberals, you who once upon a time, in the not so distant past, used to be the anti-war party, used to stand up for peace and democracy and human rights and against the capitalist's war machine, now (after the intense disinformation blitz that the capitalists' intelligence agencies has performed on you for the last seven yeard) now you're the greateat war mongers on the face of this planet (equal only to the bloodthirsty anti-life anti-God christian conservatives)..
However, i think that the psychopath right-wing NeoConservative capitalists that run the american right-wing globalist empire (that run both oligarchal parties of the empire - the right wing conservatives and the right wing liberals) i think they'll probably wait until DeSantis is in office after 2024 (and the anti-life nationalist republicans control both congress and senate) to launch their attack on china and iran.
Why?
Because the backbone of the capitalists' executioners army (a.k.a the american millitary) is made up of indoctrinated dumbed-down and propagandized christian nationalists and conservatives (whom the capitalist billionaires use as cannon fodder in their attacks of plunder and global hegemony) and this demographic is unlikely to feel very inspired when Biden tells them to go murder for the capitalists, but when their own guy, DeSantis, tells them that they need to go and murder for "freedom" and against "the evil communists" and becasie that's what "god" and "jesus" wants them to do, then you can be sure that these dumb idiots will be extremely enthusiastic to go and murder and be used as cannon fodder for the billionaire capitalists (ooops, i mean for "freedom and liberty" of course).
In my view, the only way that the psychotic control-freaks NeoConservative capitalists and their war machine can be stopped from destroying life on earth for their narrow personal gain and for their global control over humanity and the planet's resources, is if there is a mass uprising in the american public against these anti-life anti-God abusers.
But i just can't see this happening in the current state of american society, where the indoctrinated conservative-christian-fascist half can't wait for the attack on china and the liberal half will believe and support whatever the professional pentagon manipulators on cnn/WashPost/msnbc tell them to support (i can already see them changing the ukraine flag on their profile picture to the taiwan flag).. and where anything that doesn't conform to the capitalists' war machine is censored and erased from existence..
I mean, just imagine for one second if china did even 1% of what the american right-wing capitalist empire does to it as well as across the entire planet (which most indocrinated americans are propagandized to believe is comepletly normal). Just imagine for one minute that china would surround the US with military bases from all directions, all across tbe canadian and mexican borders and and all along the atlantic and pacific
shores, that is would declare that it is doing this for its own defence against american aggression.. just imagine that it sent trillions of dollars in weapons to Hawaii to protect it from hostile takeover by the american capitalist regime..
just imagine it would impose strangling sanctions on anyone trading with US in order to destroy its economy..
just imagine it would carpet the entire globe with nearly a thousand military bases and dozens of warships colonizong every ocean on tne face of the planet and at least 17 extra-judicial torture facilities where kidnapped humans are held in captivity and tortured without trial..
all of this anti-life capitalist war apparatus existing solely in order bully, intimidate, terrorize, attack, bomb, murder, invade, occupy, kill, torture, brutalize and traumatize anyone who dares to put human life and well-being before profits for american right-wing capitalists.. anyone who dares to disobey that capitalists' orders to privatize their economy, resources, industry and service from tbe public domain into the private hands of anglo-american capitalists..
And also please imagine if china acted like the life-destroying american capitalist empire and funded, initiated and organazed dozens and dozens of assasinations and coups across the entire planet any time a non-capitalist came anywhere near to putting his people's well-being before the narrow self-interests of the american right-wing capitalists..
Now imagine china did all these horros (which is only a small portion of what the american right-wing capitalists are inflicting on humanity for their narrow sectarian self-intersst) while declaring they absolutely have to do it as "a defensive measure" (as claimed by the manipulative american capitalist predators and their disinformation propaganda media and censorship apparatus)
Thank you. I understand and largely agree, though to me it seems very clear that the greed of the oligarchy is a right-wing quality to the core (and i include in this both branches of the oligarchic empire - both the texas cowboys and the eastern yankees, both nationalist-fascist conservative and global capitalist liberal, both are right-wing to the core, though a little different in their strategies).
And i do very much think there is a very clear distinction between right and left worldviews and psychologies (only that the left is non-existant in america. There are only two right-wing factions of the one right-wing oligarchy).
For example, the greed you mentioned is very clearly and thoroughly part of a right-wing worldview and mentality. It is NOT in any way shape or form part of the left-wing psychology and aspirations. This greedy oligarchy (whether conservative or liberal) is obviously right-wing to the core, and it is obviously this right-wing greed and sectarianism that turns this planet from a potential paradise to an eternally warring hell.
So while i very much understand and respect your perspective i still fully stand behind my original comment and all that is elaborated in it :-)
If you think of Team D as the political expression of the PMC (with minorities as junior partners) and Team R as the political expression of local gentry (with white evangelicals as junior partners), American politics makes sense.
Well thanks for that. Very sincere and impassioned, quite clearly. A bit hard to understand for folks like me though.
I'm not full bottle on all these socio/politico appellations especially when accompanied by strings of qualifying adjectives. I mean things after the style of this perhaps:
"...the life-destroying immature ideology of extreme sectarianism pushed ruthlessly by blind unconscious anti-God christian-coservative republicans and right wing democrats (with their vile childish idiotic monstrous slogans "out national interests vs your interests")....."
I am too politically untutored and naive.
For such as I it would be good if you could somehow pithily describe the essence of what you want to say and put it up theee at the head of the chapter or each paragraph or something. Then such as I could perhaps scan those 'headings' and get a clue without having to strain ourselves working through long involved arcane descriptions of political/sociological positions.
What I am currently thinking is the core of your statement is that our capitalist system is hopelessly wrong and the fault is largely the dumb masses and it closes with a list of behaviours the USA manifests that it would not tolerate by anyone else.
Yes. I agree. :) It is a parlous state of affairs. In spades. Doubled and redoubled.
Arthur, you are a victim of Russian disinformation.
All you need to know is very simple: Russia man bad!
If you are an obtuse skeptic and need a little more information to support the war in Ukraine, well then there's this: Ukraine man good!
That's good enough for the majority of the American people--citizens of the greatest nation in the history of the Earth--so it should be good enough for you.
Actually is Putin the only bad guy here. We all agree that the USA is the aggressor. We all agree that peace talks broke down caused by the Americans. How far do you let a bully push? And while I don't agree with war, there was a very easy way out.
I call you out on obvious cartoonization of international affairs.
It’s not a story about “Putin”.
It’s a story about rampant militarism, foreign oligarchs aiming to take over Russia’s resources from Russian oligarchs - and missiles on Russian borders 5 mins flight from their capital.
Any adult with a brain should understand that when these are two nuclear powers involved this pits the entire planet at risk of extinction. Because the way this works anything interpreted as a missile launch means they launch too, at preplaned targets.
The easy way out is grow up and stop finding new locations to aim missiles at a nuclear armed country. Take that money and start building universal free education and free healthcare for US citizens at home. That might create a happier populace less likely, to shoot each other, less likely to vote for demagogues, and absolutely not likely to storm government buildings based on lack of faith in elections .
But we have half wits repeating pen cartoons on behalf of the MAD oligarchy. Because they know no better.
The pointless partisan drama of demagoguery, mass shootings, and subverted demonstrations all celebrate one of the most cherished mythical values of the capitalist state: competition.
According to real capitalist values, that's a feature, not a bug.
The whole world is a cartoon. Read the fucking headline. The point is that our clowns pushed their clowns into war. Yes to all of the solutions that will never manifest. Do you like an education system or an indoctrination system? You dont have an education system currently. Are you basing your world experiences on the twaddle taught in an american university?
Are you angry with me because you elected a half witted, senile, diaper soiling, pedo? A guy who started a fucking war? A person that offers you no peace.? Did you believe any government has solutions to your angst? I dub you full wit. Thank you.
As much as war is wrong, NATO and America were warned. There is no way the USA would allow Canada or any Central American country to have Russian military stationed in those countries. Countless coups orchestrated by the USA have taken place. Obama installed Trudeau in the north.
America has been trying to push into Russia for quite some time and instead of doing this through trade, felt they needed a weapons boost.
Seriously. We pushed him. We started a fight. Putin was minding his own business. America decided to install research labs next to Russia the usa decided to support neo Nazis in Ukraine. The neo nazis decided to attack and kill Russians in the Donbass region. America installed a puppet regime in Ukraine in a coup. Ukraine was going to join NATO.
"The tail wags the dog" truly describes US interventionism... This goes back for centuries in the US and the Collective West. As one YouTube commentator noted recently, Woodrow Wilson (the US President who loved the KKK, and segregated the federal government) had sent US military forces into Haiti to with the end goal of seizing Haitian financial assets during his reign.
Austin's comment using the phrase "further enriched" is spot on. Follow the money.
His clients, known to all.
Would like to give you the references to support my comment. They are there but one has to search back through the representations of BlackRock and the others owners of the USA to their investors, months ago but also as recently as Davos to see that overtures by Zelenskyy to such people as Laurence Fink (BlackRock) assure them that what they have in the future is worth investing in. It is called rebuilding the country and the rush is now on. Not just in Ukraine, with the largest percentage of arable land in Europe but in Holland and many other countries.
As you would know, the investments by the likes of BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard are so heavily involved in pharmaceuticals, military / industrials and the like that they command great influence in the USA but now spreading their wings to Europe. Bill Gates has also joined the bandwagon, his substantial land purchases restricted to the mainland USA. to date.
Every time Zelenskyy mentions his need for support, he stresses the "future opportunities" in his country. No doubt his associates in Israel are following his lead and watching carefully in the wings.
The new attraction, as I said, is land. Fairly cheap in Ukraine right now.
The Empire is menacingly brilliant in its execution of pure evil - they're destroying both the EU and Russia at the same time by spilling oceans of Ukrainian blood all over the place at almost zero cost. Obviously, once push comes to shove and we would have to pay for the Empire's evil, the dollar would crumble, the WW3 would be the only possible outcome for they're not going down peacefully.
The Empire's only mistake while the bloody orgy of death and destruction lasts? It does not share the loot with its people anymore - we're all Enemies of the State now. So the burning buildings of Bakhmut would soon be seen in Los Angeles and Chicago, even before we're all sent to Hell, the place we deserve.
These corrupt sociopathic, arrogant Elite idiots have managed to reignite the cold war not only with Russia, but China and the Middle East. And it will last for the next few decades - many of us won't even live to see the end of this new arms race. And you're right, what is coming next will be the collapse of the American dollar, once it no longer is the world's reserve currency. The fuckheads in charge won't suffer much - but the American population will continue to descend into third world living standards. Food insecurity, unaffordable health care, unaffordable education, increased crime -rampant soul destroying poverty.
The thing that doesn't get said enough, is that what all this does is kill tens of thousands of Ukrainians, render millions into refugeehood, and wreck their country. All the while these bastards wave the Ukrainian flag about and profess their love for Ukrainians. It;s standard propaganda policy to demonize the leader of the "enemy" but the reason they hate Putin is that he's a strong leader who won't sell Russia to US corporations. I suppose he is autocratic--but the US government's embrace of MBS, Modi, Netenyahu, Duterte and many other dictators makes it clear that this is not a real issue. They were not afraid of Russia attacking the US--that's a lie, underscored by their willingness to risk a nuclear war in order to advance their geopolitical game. But the Russian oil industry, yes they definitely wanted to knock that out, because it was a chief competitor with the US oil industry, which can dictate policy in Washington.
Keep in mind that, in Ukraine itself, any statement against the war, any recognition that they are being used as cannon fodder, is a good way to earn a visit from the secret police.
Poland under the PiS party, mind you, also has zero "European Values" and the ECJ (court of justice) stopped the payments gravy train from EU to poland.
(the whole reason why ever more eastern countries cry out to join NATO/EU). The EU promised payments are significant: ~EU75 billion available till 2027 just for Poland's allotment!. Not a small amount for Poland's GDP).
The payments were stopped bc Poland was completely undemocratic like Ukraine is under war. Well.....Von Der Leyen just green lighted it back on to Poland.
Take away Russia, and Poland would no longer be the Special Friend, but an insignificant but troublesome satrapy, like Colombia with delusions of grandeur but no cocaine.
The sociopaths in the State department are out of control. It will all backfire on them. I hope we can live through it and remove the slime from the WEF infecting the government.
Everything about this situation is sad in the extreme. The US position is indefensible: they have already sacrificed hundreds of thousands of Ukraine lives, many un-trained or ill-trained very young men. I even feel sorry for Zelensky: he was put in an impossible position by the US and Western overlords, and his probably dire fate is now sealed. How far will the US and West go to put themselves in the right, that is to them, the driver's seat? It's hard not believe that one of the several objectives was to justify the hardship Americans will face, and Europeans - to spread the austerity costs across the board.
I agree with the sentiment regarding the lost Ukrainian lives... but Zelensky willingly allowed himself to be put into this position first by the Ukrainian Oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky... He had no problem sitting down with the Banderites, turning a blind eye to violence aimed against ethnic minorities, the pogroms targeting the Roma, Jews, and not counting the laws aimed at creating violence against other ethnic minorities, including Ethnic Russians.
He can't be excused, but then he was threatened, quite credibly by Nazis with hanging, and he is no doubt worried about his family and their fates. Nazis cannot be forgiven, ever, but what would you do if you and your family were threatened by them? How can the Western players from a faraway desk, drinking fine wine and feeding their faces with lobster, ever be forgiven? These are the people, a species of Nazi, who "advised" him to drop Minsk, and not pick it up again.
Good point. But then again, why did he run for President? Why not ask the USA for protection for his family? Or why not turn to Israel for assistance?
There is no forgiveness for those who pushed war... In fact, all of the leaders of the USA and the Collective West must be held accountable, before another Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. But then again, this might be considered more of "pie in the sky" type of wistful thinking...
That's whats hard to wrap my head around. All those lives just gone - obliterated. Entire towns and urban areas shelled, and continuing to be shelled. And most of the destruction and death is being hidden from our view. The horror of war is intentionally being hidden and sanitized - so that people in the West, and in the world - are unaware of just how obscene, how sickening it really is. It cheapens all life. As if we are only meant to be expendable units for those in power. It's a sick, devaluation of our humanity - and it's what is being intentionally ignored the most by Biden and his group of neoliberal, neocon goon squad sociopathic killers.
There is a whole industry associated with the "fetishization" of war... in particular, how male children in particular get socialized to "love" war and "glorify" war... (it does happen for female children maybe to the same extent, but as a male raised in the USA in the late 1970s and 1980s it seemed more targeting towards male children)... the cost of war gets hidden from view on purpose...
There are all these first person shooter games, that glorify war and violence, even games such as "Grand Theft Auto," and the dehumanization of the "other." (Do not forget how they encourage the abuse of women... which really needs to be addressed).
So, Jamenta, you hit the nail on the head... The hatred of the other spans all political parties in the USA, and can be seen around the world.
Here in the USA there is no progressive party, and in Germany for example, the progressives, the "Greens" are quite the war mongers.
"War is a racket" where the profits are measures in "dollars and cents," and the costs measured in "the lives lost, limbs severed from bodies." This comes from Smedley Butler's work, where he realized that his military service for the most part enriched American corporations, much as the military interventions of European countries enriched their respective companies, and their own respective power elite.
I think there needs to be a differentiation between games of conflict, which have been played throughout human history - and as William James once said, can offer a type of relief valve for man's innate nature for conflict and even enjoy it - as we see in the novels written, movies made - including horror movies, war movies, murder mysteries - they all are conflict because conflict is quite interesting.
I admit, I enjoy computer games just as much as billions of people do around the world. As billions enjoy movies with good stories including war, spies, etc. And the ultimate story is when lives are at stake - or someone has been murdered, or when someone becomes incredibly wronged such as the Count of Monte Cristo. Without tension/conflict there is no story.
But here's the thing Francis: we all know the difference between *games* , *movies* etc and war. Even children know the difference. And there have been studies attempting to link the games we play with possible violent propensities and none of the studies have proven fruitful in showing any kind of connection. Because again, we naturally know the difference between what we read in a book, play in a game - and what it is in real life. And I think I also agree with what James said: that these games provide an outlet for our imaginations, without having to actually do the real thing.
So for me, I would disagree with you even on "Grand Theft Auto" - which I own. Along with other games - for example right now I am playing Solasta: Crown of the Magister. Which is a D&D game where you create a set of imaginary fantasy group of characters and you go about on adventures which does include the killing of monsters in all sorts of ways. I remember too, when D&D first came out - there was quite an Establishment angst against it, where church groups and other groups were insisting D&D would lead to all sorts of nefarious consequences for the kids who played D&D. But that's just it - studies showed it really didn't at all. D&D. Magic: The Gathering card game a very popular fantasy card game for decades now, based on conflict - there is no link between that and actual violence. Because, again - even as children, we know the difference when we're playing cops and robbers, cowboys and indians with toys - and the real thing.
In my opinion, it's not the games we play that leads to real world violence. But the propaganda we are fed, the ideologies we adopt that make us assume that we must also kill in real life. People are duped into going to war - but most of us know the consequences of this. In fact, those who do play games of war, know the consequences far more than those who avoid these games altogether.
Reminds me of a true story I read years ago, that when Steven Spielberg was making Schindler's List - Robin Williams would call him up, and they would play by modem then, a computer game of world war II fighter plane dog fighting. True story. So even while Spielberg made this movie, he was playing a game based on conflict. But that doesn't mean Spielberg or Robin Williams were warmongers in the least.
We have to avoid blaming game playing for war. The greater blame is the lies being told to us and fanatical ideologies that so many of us fail to question.
It's different for cats. Both males and females hunt, but queens are the better hunters, because they have litters to feed, while toms roam, fornicate and fight.
As noted, toms do most of the fighting, usually over breeding rights and territory. Queens usually don't fight so much, as long as there is enough food and their kittens are not in immediate danger. But approaching a litter of kittens is a good way for a tom to get his ears shredded to ribbons.
There's a reason that I don't go near a nest of kittens, and no queen that I know would give me the benefit of the doubt. Even that one little gray queen, she is scrawny, shy and unassertive. I might be twice her weight and the veteran of a lot of fights with cats that she would have run away from, but she'd fight like hell to protect her babies, and she wouldn't wait for anyone to demonstrate ill-will before she attacked and meant it to hurt.
As the war in #Ukraine is about to reach its first anniversary, I think it's a good idea to highlight the numerous incidents which proved that the US and its allies want the war to continue for their own interests.
-The war could have been prevented if the US empire didn't have other plans.
-Hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved if the US empire didn't have other plans.
-So much destruction could have been prevented if the US empire didn't have other plans.
-Nuclear brinkmanship could have been prevented if the US empire didn't have other plans.
The US empire simps are so dumb that they still think the US's aid to Ukraine is for the virtuous causes. The evidence is a proof their dumbness and the US empire's imperial mindset.
I also have a newsletter called THE GREAT AWAKENING - which talks about the various ways we are propagandized by the powerful to keep turning the gears of the status quo, which is bringing us closer to total disaster either through climate change or nuclear war. It also talks about how EGO is the root cause of everything that's wrong in our world today.
If sounds interesting, you can check and subscribe here:
Climate change??? What say you Harry regarding Climate change. Please expound on what your view of Climate changes is, pray tell. Thank you. I'm very interested to know YOUR viewpoint.
The term "Climate Change" has become pretty politicized. The way the governments has abused this term has made many people think that "Climate Change is a hoax." And I do not blame them, anyone can see that the "solutions" being implemented to tackle climate change are quite superficial and rather than bettering the situation, they are pushing us further and further into bog. Therefore, many people's logic is this: the solutions for climate change are fake = climate change itself is fake.
One can deny the current "solutions", but one cannot deny the climate change.
To deny climate change is to deny:
- that 200 species are going extinct everyday.
- that more than 50% of the wildlife has been wiped off of the face of the Earth during the last 40 years.
- that the insect population has declined by 90%
- that oceans are being choked to death
- that soil is losing its fertility
- that extreme weather scenarios are becoming quite normal.
- that forests are disappearing.
- that fish stocks are depleting at an alarming rate.
- that phytoplankton, which is a foundation of earth’s food chain, have been killed off by around 40% in the last 70 years.
All these things are happening simultaneously and quickly than ever before. Do you think it's not going to have any impact on the climate?
To all the climate deniers: Yes, the measurements being taken are phony, but the problem at hand isn't.
If we could live without earth's complex biosphere, then sure talking about climate change would have been an idiotic thing, but everyone knows that we can't live without Earth's environment.
Climate change is a tool of the oligarchy. The solutions are designed to crush the common man into total subservience. The uber rich have no intention of subscribing to these so called carbon mitigation policies they manifest at fraudulent" climate summits". We the people.e have a consumerist addiction that needs curtailing. If we can collectively, in particular the West, do that it would probably reduce the power of the 1%. And improve the natural world.
Caitlin, another excellent summary…until you get to this: “The US empire is getting everything it wants out of this proxy war.”
IMO, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, The Empire is getting nothing it wants, and it is losing in virtually every metric.
First, just on the military side of the conflict alone, The Empire is getting its ass handed to it, and is once again proving it is a the most expensive paper tiger in the history of the world (as if the Korean War, the War in Vietnam, and the most recent loss to the Taliban hadn’t already proven this). The US war machine, which has been spending ten times more than Russia for at least three decades, produces vastly more expensive weapons that are inferior to Russian weapons in both quality and quantity. Worse, the US (and the other NATO countries) lack the industrial capacity to produce their inferior weapons in the quantities needed to conduct an actual land war with a military peer. Indeed, Russia continues to prove that it is peerless, (with the possible exception of the as-yet-untested China).
Second, the Russian economy, far from collapsing, has proven to the world that it is so resilient that it can do what so many other countries want to emulate, which is to become financially independent of The Empire. The end of the dominance of the dollar as the world currency is already a sure thing. By this time next year, the dominance of the dollar will be a dim memory.
EU economies—Germany in particular—are crashing. The German economy will simply cease to exist without cheap Russian energy. Period. Clearly, the real loser in this war (after Ukraine) is Germany and the German people (followed closely by the other EU/NATO lapdogs, and even, eventually, the US itself.
Lastly, The Empire’s political control of the world is now in precipitous decline. If Saudi Arabia joins BRICS, and if India gets a permanent seat on the UN Security Council (and if one of the hapless has-beens--France or the UK--get booted from the Security Council), the floodgates will open and most countries in Asia, Africa, and South America will rapidly join the multi-polar world movement.
In short, the Russians (of which Putin is only one, albeit important player) and China are already spinning the axis of the world in a new direction. Far from winning this proxy war, frankly, it as if The Empire is intentionally self-destructing--an outcome that follows from unbridled hubris and stupidity.
One can only hope that we all get out of this without a desperate and demented Empire taking down the entire world with it by launching nuclear weapons, though, at the moment, that seems more probable than not. The more quickly The Empire loses this proxy war, the safer we will all be.
? How about Zelenskyy getting a mere 40 billion just for starters? How about Lockheed, Raytheon and the rest of the Military Industrial Complex? How about the Biden family bank account? I think there is a great deal of justification for what Caitlin said!
My comments were mainly aimed at that edifice I call The Empire. I agree there are plenty of war whores and corrupt politicians banking their unaudited USD in offshore accounts. If The Empire survives, it will need to nationalize the corporations that build weapons. The Russians have proven that is a superior model. The US once not so long ago used DOD federal employees in some of the manufacture and upkeep of weapon systems, so it is not a complete pipe dream that we could nationalize most of that industry. But it will take an enormous system change.
Regarding the Biden crime family, it has gotten too flagrant in its fleecing of Americans out of their tax dollars, which threatens the corruption practiced by all the smarter politicians. I expect the Bidens to all be retired and memory-holed as quickly as possible.
The Iron Law of Institutions: "The people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself."
What if what the USA wants is to regroup and consolidate their empire, so that they can remain big and strong enough to retain dominance over a smaller pond? If a multipolar international order is going to happen anyway, it is in the empire's best interest to consolidate and strengthen their position.
The military activity in Ukraine serves a few structural purposes. It provides pretext for the "temporary" imposition of wartime information management on the fatherland, clears out weaponry that lacks a kill switch, normalizes action against recalcitrant resource colonies, and enforces popular vulnerability through austerity and profit-driven inflation.
The more they talk the better the rest of the world understands why an eventual nuclear outbreak will occur. This is one benefit of the war being protracted.
"The rest of the world" has been clueless for centuries. No matter what anyone SAYS, "the rest of the world" will continue like everything is normal.
Have you seen "Titanic"? Not the Leonardo De Caprio version, but the one from the 1950's. The band keeps on playing, and the people keep on dancing because they refuse to face the fact that the ship is going down.
......, and there are no benefits in any war. Unless, of course, you happen to be a bankster. The more protracted, the less beneficial. Lives are lost every hour this war continues.
I'm not saying there'll be any action from the "rest of the world". Just that this spilling the beans by the western "elite" makes everything very explicit and easy to direct even the thickest skulls to.
That is, it's more and more difficult for the apologists to defend their case.
The rulers there are bought and work for the US thinking they'll be taken care of when the time comes. In the meantime they have created an analog of Gestapo to keep the population in check, similar to SA in 1930s Germany - recall Feral Finster's posts - according to him he has contacts in Ukraine.
And yes, a significant part of the populace there has been zombified, especially the younger ones.
The US Empire does seem more than pleased to put this available zombie army to use for its own ends.
Watching any zombie movie shows the gruesome ends that come to zombies. It's a horror that these zombies are real people with real lives, as are those whose brains the US has sent them to eat (to continue the metaphor).
If you only saw how the crop of their young "reporters" hound some older folks there and goad them into saying what really happened - that Ukraine, not Russia, initially attacked their own in Donbass in 2014.
To say it's painful to watch is to say nothing. To consider these young scum as the lowest of the low - again is to say nothing. To know what happened to those unfortunate people who couldn't hold back is impossible. Nothing good - that's for sure.
"...US diplomats have been steadfastly refusing to engage in diplomacy with Russia to help bring an end to this war..."
If you want to know whose hands are covered in blood, look no further than these US diplomats who steadfastly have refused to engage in diplomacy to bring about an end to this war. These are true sociopaths, the true monsters. They're not worthy of the title "human being." They are destroyers, ruthless killers. And, of course, they're probably some of the best paid and praised members of the Biden Administration, may they burn in hell. (Sigh.)
The ultimate and open election interference and meddling in other countries' affairs vs the ghost of Russian election-meddling they have been looking for years and could not find. It's up to Russians to decide who they elect as President, and they are too educated now on the topic of "orange revolutions" and their ultimate goal to fall for this trick. Their experience of the 90s is still fresh in their memory.
True, although Biden could fall back on blaming his sub-room-temperature IQ for his misdeeds (and this goes back to his youth, not just during this period of age-related decline).
All these others, including countless Rs, don't have that as an excuse.
(I assume guys like McConnell, Crenshaw, Graham, Kinzinger, etc., etc. have IQs that can at least top room temperature. Opinions may vary.)
Yep. To make all these decisions concerning a war that'x killing thousands and destroying a country because of wishes to do harm to a man: Putin is ludicrous and horrific.
This is the way the 'grand game' is played is it?
'I will do THIS to hurt HIM' - and the thousands who lose lives etc. are of no import one way or the other?
It seems so.
ALL the commentators I read, professional or self styled, all use the same language. Sometimes it is not 'I will do THIS to hurt HIM' - directed at a man - but instead 'I will do THIS in order to hurt THAT COUNTRY'.
Makes no difference. Again, the people don't signify. Are not present in their calculations.
A 'nation' to them does NOT mean a collection of people.
It is some kind of abstract noun.
It becomes tangible when they draw riches and power from it.
The mad comic exemplifies it when he calls for 'fighting to the last man'.
But that call goes unremarked. Accepted. Swallowed whole.
The ludicrous premise: that a 'nation' exists after the last member of it has died is not remarked.
I consider this confusion between the reality of people and the ethereal abstractions of 'nation' to be the greatest single intellectual obstacle to rational progress between nations.
That and propensity to use the fortunes of whole nations in attempts to attack a single man. I don't know what to call that. Is it a very similar thing? I think maybe so. A propensity to confuse the identity of a single man with the mass of people in a nation. Perhaps, I'm not sure.
But I am totally sure you should not mount measures intended to harm millions because of your desire to hurt one man.
Any more than you should sacrifice all the members of a nation in order to make it better, stronger, healthier.
Madnesses, both of them.
But they go unremarked. They are, in fact, the norm.
" It is unfathomably, unforgivably evil, though, and it should outrage everyone."
Yes indeed. But no one is outraged. No one. What does this say to us? That we are not embedded in the human reality we thought we were embedded in. We seem to be suffering from some kind of cognitive disability.
Arthur Broward
I am OUTRAGED and I am someone, not " no one" . Many American people are outraged in fact. Our government is not only playing war games AGAIN, they are openly injecting bioweapons into our bodies and calling them vaccines. The American people ARE NOT the government and our government is off the rails, psychopaths.
What’s increasingly obvious is there are a lot of sociopaths in control of govt policy.
When you have a national security policy that mandates chaos and global insecurity for all 8 billion people on the planet, while treating your own country as an encampment itself containing a suspect populace that must be surveilled round the clock for the “crime” of merely existing, for which you then exile whistleblowers and imprison journalists for revealing this, then something has gone very wrong in the minds of a lot of governments officials for a VERY long time.
Sociopathy. The word you are looking for appears to be "sociopathy".
Our leaders exhibit behavior indistinguishable from that of sociopaths.
Feral Finster
I agree regarding sociopaths and also believe we have some psychopaths in the mix.
The distinction, if it exists, is purely academic.
Would not surprise me in the slightest.
Thank you. Now what's the word for us, who let them?
"what a blessing for rulers it is that humans are sheep!" A. Hitler.
Note that Hitler did not like cats.
Yep. I've thought about 'uneasy lies the head that wears the crown' that it might not refer only to unease about the machinations of enemies of the kingdom or enemies within the court but to the king's appraisal of the masses: how obvious that he rules only because they allow him to divide them!
They rule over themselves! They imprison each other!
The King says 'Kill those amongst you who are thus..' and they go off and do it!
Kings must be amazed and incredulous that the masses could be so.
It seems that humanity, in the mass, has no humanity.
In America at this time is brewing a potential civil war it seems. And I think it is predicated on a 'Republican v Democrat' basis.
Whether this will ever be so or not, and one hopes not, the point is that the masses are willing and even inclined towards adopting, tolerating and even adopting such a course.
We can imagine in such a reality, which appears to be the one we've got, that in fact the only humanitarians are the so called monstrous and wicked rulers.
For a Hitler or Mao or Stalin may marvel and despair at the to him clear insanity of a population allowing itself to be divided and prey the one side on the other. Seeing 'from above' such people may well see it all and experience the emotion, the thought, the realisation.
Whereas the masses apparently see no such, experience no such, feel no such.
They never bring these madnesses to an end of themselves do they? I'm not sure. But I think not.
Apparently in Ukraine the humanitarian at this time is Putin. It is said he cost many lives in Syria by interfering in the conduct of the war on humanitarian grounds. The same accusation is levelled at him in regard to this conflict.
For everyone else; the military on both sides, the barking populations, the monstrous USA of course, the political observers and pundits, the main stream media, the arms manufacturers etc. etc.. the optimum course is more bloodshed, more violence, more war...
We saw in Canada in the Covid insanity a beautiful illustration I think.
Driven to action by the total madness of their government the people did NOT resort to the machinery of their Democratically organised sociopolitical system. No. They went to the streets, so to speak. Actually to the roads in their famous truck blockades etc. A 'passive' violence we could say perhaps. Though quite active and dynamic in preventing free movement and trade.
But the point: an immediate resorting to violence. To physical force, not reason or discussion or agreement. Just force.
And all across the Western world in that context. The most people ever did was assemble in the streets and march shouting slogans and waving banners and always on the edge of violence which could turn into riot.
Our people are primitive. It is noticeable that there's no education throughout the school years designed to address this.
The only law for the sociopath is force and fraud.
It would be helpful if you provided a link for us to follow.
In a way though it doesn't matter because your posts seem to be filled with rage rather than reason. In which case, why shouldn't Mate ban you? (I don't think he should have, but I don't know the details yet do I?)
Well, in my perspective (which is of course partial and limited, as all perspectives are), the life-destroying immature ideology of extreme sectarianism pushed ruthlessly by blind unconscious anti-God christian-coservative republicans and right wing democrats (with their vile childish idiotic monstrous slogans "our national interests vs your interests") is the NUMBER ONE factor dividing humanity and destroying all security and peace possibillties on this planet.
In my understanding, their anti-God right-wing sectarian ideology is the number one factor creating hell on earth (not that they're the only ones pushing it, there's no shortage of stupid destructive murderous right-wing sectatianism and exclucivism everywhere, but the brutal and uncosncious american right-wing (and by rignt wing i mean both right-wing parties of the oligarchy, republicans and democrats) are by far the most arrogant and have the most capacity to impose their hellish sectarian hierarchical domination-based ideology on the planet and destroy all life on earth for their narrow sectarian interests and their sickening ideology.
They love to talk about so-called "security" yet theses bullies are the number one murderers on the planet and the number on casue of INSECURITY, and have been completely deceived and made blind to the FACT that the right-wing sectarian anti-life ideology (that ruthlessly and mecilessly works only for the narrow interests of the part, with complete disregard of the devastation of the whole), that ideology that they've been brainwashed with can NEVER ever ever bring about safety and security, blimd to the fact that their sectarian right-wing humanity-destroying ideology is the very thing that is bringing about INSECURITY for everyone, the very thing that creates the hellish world of conflict, separation and murder in the name of a nation and religion.
The horror of a world on fire and nonstop tribal/sectarian/religious/nationailst division competition, antagonism, hatred and violence is exactly what happens when psychologically undeveloped violent arrogant right-wing baboons run the planet.
It seems to me that who those who have fallen into the abyss of right-wing religious/nationailst smug sectarianism fail to see that their very actions to create so-called security and safety for only for the part, only for one exclusive group (my tribe/religion/nation) are the very thing that brings about INSECURITY for everyone!
TRYING TO CREATE SECTARIAN SECURITY AND PROSPERITY (SECURITY AND PROSPERITY NOT FOR TBE WHOLE BUT ONLY FOR THE PART, ONLY FOR 'ME AND MY GROUP') IS THE VERY CAUSE OF INSECURITY!!!
In my view, the democratic and republican parties and their globe-spanning humanity-dividing right-wing capitalist empire (with its war profiteering industry and propaganda media and censorship machine) is the biggest threat to life on earth. Traitors to the human race!!
And it seems to me that the only way they can do this is becasue of how dumbed-down gullible and ignorant and heavily propagandized most of the american public is...
They don't need to worry about convincing the christian-conservative fascists to go to war (they've been spoon-fed a steady nonstop diet of china-hatred by their thought leaders in their echo-chambers for many years and they'll happily murder for the capitalist billilnaires if DeSantis tells them they're fighting "evil commies" and "Jesus's enemies" and that it's the "patriotic" thing to do to go and kill for the capitalist billionaires), so the christian-conservatives are already salivating at the thought of an attack on China (and Iran) and need no convincimg, that's why the empire's propaganda and censorship machine is focusing on you liberals, you who once upon a time, in the not so distant past, used to be the anti-war party, used to stand up for peace and democracy and human rights and against the capitalist's war machine, now (after the intense disinformation blitz that the capitalists' intelligence agencies has performed on you for the last seven yeard) now you're the greateat war mongers on the face of this planet (equal only to the bloodthirsty anti-life anti-God christian conservatives)..
However, i think that the psychopath right-wing NeoConservative capitalists that run the american right-wing globalist empire (that run both oligarchal parties of the empire - the right wing conservatives and the right wing liberals) i think they'll probably wait until DeSantis is in office after 2024 (and the anti-life nationalist republicans control both congress and senate) to launch their attack on china and iran.
Why?
Because the backbone of the capitalists' executioners army (a.k.a the american millitary) is made up of indoctrinated dumbed-down and propagandized christian nationalists and conservatives (whom the capitalist billionaires use as cannon fodder in their attacks of plunder and global hegemony) and this demographic is unlikely to feel very inspired when Biden tells them to go murder for the capitalists, but when their own guy, DeSantis, tells them that they need to go and murder for "freedom" and against "the evil communists" and becasie that's what "god" and "jesus" wants them to do, then you can be sure that these dumb idiots will be extremely enthusiastic to go and murder and be used as cannon fodder for the billionaire capitalists (ooops, i mean for "freedom and liberty" of course).
In my view, the only way that the psychotic control-freaks NeoConservative capitalists and their war machine can be stopped from destroying life on earth for their narrow personal gain and for their global control over humanity and the planet's resources, is if there is a mass uprising in the american public against these anti-life anti-God abusers.
But i just can't see this happening in the current state of american society, where the indoctrinated conservative-christian-fascist half can't wait for the attack on china and the liberal half will believe and support whatever the professional pentagon manipulators on cnn/WashPost/msnbc tell them to support (i can already see them changing the ukraine flag on their profile picture to the taiwan flag).. and where anything that doesn't conform to the capitalists' war machine is censored and erased from existence..
I mean, just imagine for one second if china did even 1% of what the american right-wing capitalist empire does to it as well as across the entire planet (which most indocrinated americans are propagandized to believe is comepletly normal). Just imagine for one minute that china would surround the US with military bases from all directions, all across tbe canadian and mexican borders and and all along the atlantic and pacific
shores, that is would declare that it is doing this for its own defence against american aggression.. just imagine that it sent trillions of dollars in weapons to Hawaii to protect it from hostile takeover by the american capitalist regime..
just imagine it would impose strangling sanctions on anyone trading with US in order to destroy its economy..
just imagine it would carpet the entire globe with nearly a thousand military bases and dozens of warships colonizong every ocean on tne face of the planet and at least 17 extra-judicial torture facilities where kidnapped humans are held in captivity and tortured without trial..
all of this anti-life capitalist war apparatus existing solely in order bully, intimidate, terrorize, attack, bomb, murder, invade, occupy, kill, torture, brutalize and traumatize anyone who dares to put human life and well-being before profits for american right-wing capitalists.. anyone who dares to disobey that capitalists' orders to privatize their economy, resources, industry and service from tbe public domain into the private hands of anglo-american capitalists..
And also please imagine if china acted like the life-destroying american capitalist empire and funded, initiated and organazed dozens and dozens of assasinations and coups across the entire planet any time a non-capitalist came anywhere near to putting his people's well-being before the narrow self-interests of the american right-wing capitalists..
Now imagine china did all these horros (which is only a small portion of what the american right-wing capitalists are inflicting on humanity for their narrow sectarian self-intersst) while declaring they absolutely have to do it as "a defensive measure" (as claimed by the manipulative american capitalist predators and their disinformation propaganda media and censorship apparatus)
There's no left.
There's no right.
It is the criminality of the American Oligarchy.
It is their greed.
Everything else you've written is a diversion that masks the problem.
Thank you. I understand and largely agree, though to me it seems very clear that the greed of the oligarchy is a right-wing quality to the core (and i include in this both branches of the oligarchic empire - both the texas cowboys and the eastern yankees, both nationalist-fascist conservative and global capitalist liberal, both are right-wing to the core, though a little different in their strategies).
And i do very much think there is a very clear distinction between right and left worldviews and psychologies (only that the left is non-existant in america. There are only two right-wing factions of the one right-wing oligarchy).
For example, the greed you mentioned is very clearly and thoroughly part of a right-wing worldview and mentality. It is NOT in any way shape or form part of the left-wing psychology and aspirations. This greedy oligarchy (whether conservative or liberal) is obviously right-wing to the core, and it is obviously this right-wing greed and sectarianism that turns this planet from a potential paradise to an eternally warring hell.
So while i very much understand and respect your perspective i still fully stand behind my original comment and all that is elaborated in it :-)
If you think of Team D as the political expression of the PMC (with minorities as junior partners) and Team R as the political expression of local gentry (with white evangelicals as junior partners), American politics makes sense.
That’s the trick. The puppet masters have you hoodwinked. Blue and red same same.
Well thanks for that. Very sincere and impassioned, quite clearly. A bit hard to understand for folks like me though.
I'm not full bottle on all these socio/politico appellations especially when accompanied by strings of qualifying adjectives. I mean things after the style of this perhaps:
"...the life-destroying immature ideology of extreme sectarianism pushed ruthlessly by blind unconscious anti-God christian-coservative republicans and right wing democrats (with their vile childish idiotic monstrous slogans "out national interests vs your interests")....."
I am too politically untutored and naive.
For such as I it would be good if you could somehow pithily describe the essence of what you want to say and put it up theee at the head of the chapter or each paragraph or something. Then such as I could perhaps scan those 'headings' and get a clue without having to strain ourselves working through long involved arcane descriptions of political/sociological positions.
What I am currently thinking is the core of your statement is that our capitalist system is hopelessly wrong and the fault is largely the dumb masses and it closes with a list of behaviours the USA manifests that it would not tolerate by anyone else.
Yes. I agree. :) It is a parlous state of affairs. In spades. Doubled and redoubled.
Arthur, you are a victim of Russian disinformation.
All you need to know is very simple: Russia man bad!
If you are an obtuse skeptic and need a little more information to support the war in Ukraine, well then there's this: Ukraine man good!
That's good enough for the majority of the American people--citizens of the greatest nation in the history of the Earth--so it should be good enough for you.
Your postulates, all of them, are completely wrong. I suggest you regather your evidence, re-examine and form new conclusions.
I agree.
Actually is Putin the only bad guy here. We all agree that the USA is the aggressor. We all agree that peace talks broke down caused by the Americans. How far do you let a bully push? And while I don't agree with war, there was a very easy way out.
I call you out on obvious cartoonization of international affairs.
It’s not a story about “Putin”.
It’s a story about rampant militarism, foreign oligarchs aiming to take over Russia’s resources from Russian oligarchs - and missiles on Russian borders 5 mins flight from their capital.
Any adult with a brain should understand that when these are two nuclear powers involved this pits the entire planet at risk of extinction. Because the way this works anything interpreted as a missile launch means they launch too, at preplaned targets.
The easy way out is grow up and stop finding new locations to aim missiles at a nuclear armed country. Take that money and start building universal free education and free healthcare for US citizens at home. That might create a happier populace less likely, to shoot each other, less likely to vote for demagogues, and absolutely not likely to storm government buildings based on lack of faith in elections .
But we have half wits repeating pen cartoons on behalf of the MAD oligarchy. Because they know no better.
They know better, they just don’t care because they want what they want. And it’s directly opposite of what the rest of us want.
The pointless partisan drama of demagoguery, mass shootings, and subverted demonstrations all celebrate one of the most cherished mythical values of the capitalist state: competition.
According to real capitalist values, that's a feature, not a bug.
The whole world is a cartoon. Read the fucking headline. The point is that our clowns pushed their clowns into war. Yes to all of the solutions that will never manifest. Do you like an education system or an indoctrination system? You dont have an education system currently. Are you basing your world experiences on the twaddle taught in an american university?
Are you angry with me because you elected a half witted, senile, diaper soiling, pedo? A guy who started a fucking war? A person that offers you no peace.? Did you believe any government has solutions to your angst? I dub you full wit. Thank you.
As much as war is wrong, NATO and America were warned. There is no way the USA would allow Canada or any Central American country to have Russian military stationed in those countries. Countless coups orchestrated by the USA have taken place. Obama installed Trudeau in the north.
America has been trying to push into Russia for quite some time and instead of doing this through trade, felt they needed a weapons boost.
Seriously. We pushed him. We started a fight. Putin was minding his own business. America decided to install research labs next to Russia the usa decided to support neo Nazis in Ukraine. The neo nazis decided to attack and kill Russians in the Donbass region. America installed a puppet regime in Ukraine in a coup. Ukraine was going to join NATO.
You are on to something.
“…Shortly thereafter, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that the goal in Ukraine is "to see Russia weakened."….”
So military industry lobbyist Lloyd Austin declared that conflict must be inflamed so that his clients can be further enriched.
Diplomatic public servants are absent or quiescent. Financial duties to the taxpayers, are abandoned.
Just in case it’s not clear, the tail wags the dog.
"The tail wags the dog" truly describes US interventionism... This goes back for centuries in the US and the Collective West. As one YouTube commentator noted recently, Woodrow Wilson (the US President who loved the KKK, and segregated the federal government) had sent US military forces into Haiti to with the end goal of seizing Haitian financial assets during his reign.
Hence the title "Operation Iraqi Freedom" rather than "Operation Iraqi Liberation." :-)
Also, good point Gene. Thank you.
Kudjoe
Austin's comment using the phrase "further enriched" is spot on. Follow the money.
His clients, known to all.
Would like to give you the references to support my comment. They are there but one has to search back through the representations of BlackRock and the others owners of the USA to their investors, months ago but also as recently as Davos to see that overtures by Zelenskyy to such people as Laurence Fink (BlackRock) assure them that what they have in the future is worth investing in. It is called rebuilding the country and the rush is now on. Not just in Ukraine, with the largest percentage of arable land in Europe but in Holland and many other countries.
As you would know, the investments by the likes of BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard are so heavily involved in pharmaceuticals, military / industrials and the like that they command great influence in the USA but now spreading their wings to Europe. Bill Gates has also joined the bandwagon, his substantial land purchases restricted to the mainland USA. to date.
Every time Zelenskyy mentions his need for support, he stresses the "future opportunities" in his country. No doubt his associates in Israel are following his lead and watching carefully in the wings.
The new attraction, as I said, is land. Fairly cheap in Ukraine right now.
The Empire is menacingly brilliant in its execution of pure evil - they're destroying both the EU and Russia at the same time by spilling oceans of Ukrainian blood all over the place at almost zero cost. Obviously, once push comes to shove and we would have to pay for the Empire's evil, the dollar would crumble, the WW3 would be the only possible outcome for they're not going down peacefully.
The Empire's only mistake while the bloody orgy of death and destruction lasts? It does not share the loot with its people anymore - we're all Enemies of the State now. So the burning buildings of Bakhmut would soon be seen in Los Angeles and Chicago, even before we're all sent to Hell, the place we deserve.
These corrupt sociopathic, arrogant Elite idiots have managed to reignite the cold war not only with Russia, but China and the Middle East. And it will last for the next few decades - many of us won't even live to see the end of this new arms race. And you're right, what is coming next will be the collapse of the American dollar, once it no longer is the world's reserve currency. The fuckheads in charge won't suffer much - but the American population will continue to descend into third world living standards. Food insecurity, unaffordable health care, unaffordable education, increased crime -rampant soul destroying poverty.
Have you connected the dots between state fetishism and them getting away with it?
imagine the suppression of voices for peace NOW within Ukraine. to voice it = azov knock on the door at knifepoint !
The thing that doesn't get said enough, is that what all this does is kill tens of thousands of Ukrainians, render millions into refugeehood, and wreck their country. All the while these bastards wave the Ukrainian flag about and profess their love for Ukrainians. It;s standard propaganda policy to demonize the leader of the "enemy" but the reason they hate Putin is that he's a strong leader who won't sell Russia to US corporations. I suppose he is autocratic--but the US government's embrace of MBS, Modi, Netenyahu, Duterte and many other dictators makes it clear that this is not a real issue. They were not afraid of Russia attacking the US--that's a lie, underscored by their willingness to risk a nuclear war in order to advance their geopolitical game. But the Russian oil industry, yes they definitely wanted to knock that out, because it was a chief competitor with the US oil industry, which can dictate policy in Washington.
Keep in mind that, in Ukraine itself, any statement against the war, any recognition that they are being used as cannon fodder, is a good way to earn a visit from the secret police.
1930's Germany.
"European values".
There is a reason that so many neonazis have made pilgrimages to Ukraine and idolize the regime there.
It's free for all if you're a Nazi. In my above post I failed to mention also:
SBU (Ukrainian Security Service) = Gestapo.
Poland under the PiS party, mind you, also has zero "European Values" and the ECJ (court of justice) stopped the payments gravy train from EU to poland.
(the whole reason why ever more eastern countries cry out to join NATO/EU). The EU promised payments are significant: ~EU75 billion available till 2027 just for Poland's allotment!. Not a small amount for Poland's GDP).
The payments were stopped bc Poland was completely undemocratic like Ukraine is under war. Well.....Von Der Leyen just green lighted it back on to Poland.
So much for the "EU Values".
Oh, PiS got the message, all right.
Take away Russia, and Poland would no longer be the Special Friend, but an insignificant but troublesome satrapy, like Colombia with delusions of grandeur but no cocaine.
For its part, Ukraine would be a pariah state.
There's a fresh documentary on Poland's role in between world wars, in Russian though: https://ok.ru/video/4594024974921
Иду, посмотреть.
The sociopaths in the State department are out of control. It will all backfire on them. I hope we can live through it and remove the slime from the WEF infecting the government.
God forbid a woman to abort an unviable fetus, but by all means, freely slaughter a few million humans to advance the empire.
Everything about this situation is sad in the extreme. The US position is indefensible: they have already sacrificed hundreds of thousands of Ukraine lives, many un-trained or ill-trained very young men. I even feel sorry for Zelensky: he was put in an impossible position by the US and Western overlords, and his probably dire fate is now sealed. How far will the US and West go to put themselves in the right, that is to them, the driver's seat? It's hard not believe that one of the several objectives was to justify the hardship Americans will face, and Europeans - to spread the austerity costs across the board.
I agree with the sentiment regarding the lost Ukrainian lives... but Zelensky willingly allowed himself to be put into this position first by the Ukrainian Oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky... He had no problem sitting down with the Banderites, turning a blind eye to violence aimed against ethnic minorities, the pogroms targeting the Roma, Jews, and not counting the laws aimed at creating violence against other ethnic minorities, including Ethnic Russians.
He can't be excused, but then he was threatened, quite credibly by Nazis with hanging, and he is no doubt worried about his family and their fates. Nazis cannot be forgiven, ever, but what would you do if you and your family were threatened by them? How can the Western players from a faraway desk, drinking fine wine and feeding their faces with lobster, ever be forgiven? These are the people, a species of Nazi, who "advised" him to drop Minsk, and not pick it up again.
Good point. But then again, why did he run for President? Why not ask the USA for protection for his family? Or why not turn to Israel for assistance?
There is no forgiveness for those who pushed war... In fact, all of the leaders of the USA and the Collective West must be held accountable, before another Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. But then again, this might be considered more of "pie in the sky" type of wistful thinking...
He was elected the prospector Minsk, and wanted to implement them: do you really think Israel would go against US instructions and evil interests?
That's whats hard to wrap my head around. All those lives just gone - obliterated. Entire towns and urban areas shelled, and continuing to be shelled. And most of the destruction and death is being hidden from our view. The horror of war is intentionally being hidden and sanitized - so that people in the West, and in the world - are unaware of just how obscene, how sickening it really is. It cheapens all life. As if we are only meant to be expendable units for those in power. It's a sick, devaluation of our humanity - and it's what is being intentionally ignored the most by Biden and his group of neoliberal, neocon goon squad sociopathic killers.
There is a whole industry associated with the "fetishization" of war... in particular, how male children in particular get socialized to "love" war and "glorify" war... (it does happen for female children maybe to the same extent, but as a male raised in the USA in the late 1970s and 1980s it seemed more targeting towards male children)... the cost of war gets hidden from view on purpose...
There are all these first person shooter games, that glorify war and violence, even games such as "Grand Theft Auto," and the dehumanization of the "other." (Do not forget how they encourage the abuse of women... which really needs to be addressed).
So, Jamenta, you hit the nail on the head... The hatred of the other spans all political parties in the USA, and can be seen around the world.
Here in the USA there is no progressive party, and in Germany for example, the progressives, the "Greens" are quite the war mongers.
"War is a racket" where the profits are measures in "dollars and cents," and the costs measured in "the lives lost, limbs severed from bodies." This comes from Smedley Butler's work, where he realized that his military service for the most part enriched American corporations, much as the military interventions of European countries enriched their respective companies, and their own respective power elite.
I think there needs to be a differentiation between games of conflict, which have been played throughout human history - and as William James once said, can offer a type of relief valve for man's innate nature for conflict and even enjoy it - as we see in the novels written, movies made - including horror movies, war movies, murder mysteries - they all are conflict because conflict is quite interesting.
I admit, I enjoy computer games just as much as billions of people do around the world. As billions enjoy movies with good stories including war, spies, etc. And the ultimate story is when lives are at stake - or someone has been murdered, or when someone becomes incredibly wronged such as the Count of Monte Cristo. Without tension/conflict there is no story.
But here's the thing Francis: we all know the difference between *games* , *movies* etc and war. Even children know the difference. And there have been studies attempting to link the games we play with possible violent propensities and none of the studies have proven fruitful in showing any kind of connection. Because again, we naturally know the difference between what we read in a book, play in a game - and what it is in real life. And I think I also agree with what James said: that these games provide an outlet for our imaginations, without having to actually do the real thing.
So for me, I would disagree with you even on "Grand Theft Auto" - which I own. Along with other games - for example right now I am playing Solasta: Crown of the Magister. Which is a D&D game where you create a set of imaginary fantasy group of characters and you go about on adventures which does include the killing of monsters in all sorts of ways. I remember too, when D&D first came out - there was quite an Establishment angst against it, where church groups and other groups were insisting D&D would lead to all sorts of nefarious consequences for the kids who played D&D. But that's just it - studies showed it really didn't at all. D&D. Magic: The Gathering card game a very popular fantasy card game for decades now, based on conflict - there is no link between that and actual violence. Because, again - even as children, we know the difference when we're playing cops and robbers, cowboys and indians with toys - and the real thing.
In my opinion, it's not the games we play that leads to real world violence. But the propaganda we are fed, the ideologies we adopt that make us assume that we must also kill in real life. People are duped into going to war - but most of us know the consequences of this. In fact, those who do play games of war, know the consequences far more than those who avoid these games altogether.
Reminds me of a true story I read years ago, that when Steven Spielberg was making Schindler's List - Robin Williams would call him up, and they would play by modem then, a computer game of world war II fighter plane dog fighting. True story. So even while Spielberg made this movie, he was playing a game based on conflict. But that doesn't mean Spielberg or Robin Williams were warmongers in the least.
We have to avoid blaming game playing for war. The greater blame is the lies being told to us and fanatical ideologies that so many of us fail to question.
Thank you for the perspective. :-)
It's different for cats. Both males and females hunt, but queens are the better hunters, because they have litters to feed, while toms roam, fornicate and fight.
As noted, toms do most of the fighting, usually over breeding rights and territory. Queens usually don't fight so much, as long as there is enough food and their kittens are not in immediate danger. But approaching a litter of kittens is a good way for a tom to get his ears shredded to ribbons.
There's a reason that I don't go near a nest of kittens, and no queen that I know would give me the benefit of the doubt. Even that one little gray queen, she is scrawny, shy and unassertive. I might be twice her weight and the veteran of a lot of fights with cats that she would have run away from, but she'd fight like hell to protect her babies, and she wouldn't wait for anyone to demonstrate ill-will before she attacked and meant it to hurt.
And a real big piece of American public!
I can see the new speaker in a couple of years time being asked about a defunct Zelensky,
"Who?"
"Zelensky"
"Well, we are doing everything to strengthen Taiwan right now"
As the war in #Ukraine is about to reach its first anniversary, I think it's a good idea to highlight the numerous incidents which proved that the US and its allies want the war to continue for their own interests.
-The war could have been prevented if the US empire didn't have other plans.
-Hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved if the US empire didn't have other plans.
-So much destruction could have been prevented if the US empire didn't have other plans.
-Nuclear brinkmanship could have been prevented if the US empire didn't have other plans.
The US empire simps are so dumb that they still think the US's aid to Ukraine is for the virtuous causes. The evidence is a proof their dumbness and the US empire's imperial mindset.
I also have a newsletter called THE GREAT AWAKENING - which talks about the various ways we are propagandized by the powerful to keep turning the gears of the status quo, which is bringing us closer to total disaster either through climate change or nuclear war. It also talks about how EGO is the root cause of everything that's wrong in our world today.
If sounds interesting, you can check and subscribe here:
https://awakes.substack.com
Harry
Climate change??? What say you Harry regarding Climate change. Please expound on what your view of Climate changes is, pray tell. Thank you. I'm very interested to know YOUR viewpoint.
The term "Climate Change" has become pretty politicized. The way the governments has abused this term has made many people think that "Climate Change is a hoax." And I do not blame them, anyone can see that the "solutions" being implemented to tackle climate change are quite superficial and rather than bettering the situation, they are pushing us further and further into bog. Therefore, many people's logic is this: the solutions for climate change are fake = climate change itself is fake.
One can deny the current "solutions", but one cannot deny the climate change.
To deny climate change is to deny:
- that 200 species are going extinct everyday.
- that more than 50% of the wildlife has been wiped off of the face of the Earth during the last 40 years.
- that the insect population has declined by 90%
- that oceans are being choked to death
- that soil is losing its fertility
- that extreme weather scenarios are becoming quite normal.
- that forests are disappearing.
- that fish stocks are depleting at an alarming rate.
- that phytoplankton, which is a foundation of earth’s food chain, have been killed off by around 40% in the last 70 years.
All these things are happening simultaneously and quickly than ever before. Do you think it's not going to have any impact on the climate?
To all the climate deniers: Yes, the measurements being taken are phony, but the problem at hand isn't.
If we could live without earth's complex biosphere, then sure talking about climate change would have been an idiotic thing, but everyone knows that we can't live without Earth's environment.
So, who are the idiots now?
Climate change is a tool of the oligarchy. The solutions are designed to crush the common man into total subservience. The uber rich have no intention of subscribing to these so called carbon mitigation policies they manifest at fraudulent" climate summits". We the people.e have a consumerist addiction that needs curtailing. If we can collectively, in particular the West, do that it would probably reduce the power of the 1%. And improve the natural world.
Caitlin, another excellent summary…until you get to this: “The US empire is getting everything it wants out of this proxy war.”
IMO, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, The Empire is getting nothing it wants, and it is losing in virtually every metric.
First, just on the military side of the conflict alone, The Empire is getting its ass handed to it, and is once again proving it is a the most expensive paper tiger in the history of the world (as if the Korean War, the War in Vietnam, and the most recent loss to the Taliban hadn’t already proven this). The US war machine, which has been spending ten times more than Russia for at least three decades, produces vastly more expensive weapons that are inferior to Russian weapons in both quality and quantity. Worse, the US (and the other NATO countries) lack the industrial capacity to produce their inferior weapons in the quantities needed to conduct an actual land war with a military peer. Indeed, Russia continues to prove that it is peerless, (with the possible exception of the as-yet-untested China).
Second, the Russian economy, far from collapsing, has proven to the world that it is so resilient that it can do what so many other countries want to emulate, which is to become financially independent of The Empire. The end of the dominance of the dollar as the world currency is already a sure thing. By this time next year, the dominance of the dollar will be a dim memory.
EU economies—Germany in particular—are crashing. The German economy will simply cease to exist without cheap Russian energy. Period. Clearly, the real loser in this war (after Ukraine) is Germany and the German people (followed closely by the other EU/NATO lapdogs, and even, eventually, the US itself.
Lastly, The Empire’s political control of the world is now in precipitous decline. If Saudi Arabia joins BRICS, and if India gets a permanent seat on the UN Security Council (and if one of the hapless has-beens--France or the UK--get booted from the Security Council), the floodgates will open and most countries in Asia, Africa, and South America will rapidly join the multi-polar world movement.
In short, the Russians (of which Putin is only one, albeit important player) and China are already spinning the axis of the world in a new direction. Far from winning this proxy war, frankly, it as if The Empire is intentionally self-destructing--an outcome that follows from unbridled hubris and stupidity.
One can only hope that we all get out of this without a desperate and demented Empire taking down the entire world with it by launching nuclear weapons, though, at the moment, that seems more probable than not. The more quickly The Empire loses this proxy war, the safer we will all be.
? How about Zelenskyy getting a mere 40 billion just for starters? How about Lockheed, Raytheon and the rest of the Military Industrial Complex? How about the Biden family bank account? I think there is a great deal of justification for what Caitlin said!
My comments were mainly aimed at that edifice I call The Empire. I agree there are plenty of war whores and corrupt politicians banking their unaudited USD in offshore accounts. If The Empire survives, it will need to nationalize the corporations that build weapons. The Russians have proven that is a superior model. The US once not so long ago used DOD federal employees in some of the manufacture and upkeep of weapon systems, so it is not a complete pipe dream that we could nationalize most of that industry. But it will take an enormous system change.
Regarding the Biden crime family, it has gotten too flagrant in its fleecing of Americans out of their tax dollars, which threatens the corruption practiced by all the smarter politicians. I expect the Bidens to all be retired and memory-holed as quickly as possible.
I do agree with you on the quicker these filth lose the better we will be.
The Iron Law of Institutions: "The people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself."
What if what the USA wants is to regroup and consolidate their empire, so that they can remain big and strong enough to retain dominance over a smaller pond? If a multipolar international order is going to happen anyway, it is in the empire's best interest to consolidate and strengthen their position.
The military activity in Ukraine serves a few structural purposes. It provides pretext for the "temporary" imposition of wartime information management on the fatherland, clears out weaponry that lacks a kill switch, normalizes action against recalcitrant resource colonies, and enforces popular vulnerability through austerity and profit-driven inflation.
Thanks for the reference to the Iron Law of Institutions. I was not aware of it being stated, although I have, at times, perceived it in action.
It seems to have a lot of explanatory power.
Trying to make sense of this from a Ukrainian point of view. Hmmm, nope, can't. People who select war over peace are really stupid.
I bet shrapnel, bullets, concussions, fire and big chunk of concrete really hurts if it doesn't kill you.
Who the fuck votes for this?
And all I have to do is not join NATO. Where do we sign? Now let's go for a beer or vodka. Gees that was easy.
Oh and as a favor I will close those bioweapon labs as well.
The world is really fucked up right now. I dont understand it at all.
The more they talk the better the rest of the world understands why an eventual nuclear outbreak will occur. This is one benefit of the war being protracted.
"The rest of the world" has been clueless for centuries. No matter what anyone SAYS, "the rest of the world" will continue like everything is normal.
Have you seen "Titanic"? Not the Leonardo De Caprio version, but the one from the 1950's. The band keeps on playing, and the people keep on dancing because they refuse to face the fact that the ship is going down.
......, and there are no benefits in any war. Unless, of course, you happen to be a bankster. The more protracted, the less beneficial. Lives are lost every hour this war continues.
I'm not saying there'll be any action from the "rest of the world". Just that this spilling the beans by the western "elite" makes everything very explicit and easy to direct even the thickest skulls to.
That is, it's more and more difficult for the apologists to defend their case.
It would be nice if the Ukrainians would get it through their thick skulls, blinded by ethnic grievances, that they are being played by the US.
The rulers there are bought and work for the US thinking they'll be taken care of when the time comes. In the meantime they have created an analog of Gestapo to keep the population in check, similar to SA in 1930s Germany - recall Feral Finster's posts - according to him he has contacts in Ukraine.
And yes, a significant part of the populace there has been zombified, especially the younger ones.
The US Empire does seem more than pleased to put this available zombie army to use for its own ends.
Watching any zombie movie shows the gruesome ends that come to zombies. It's a horror that these zombies are real people with real lives, as are those whose brains the US has sent them to eat (to continue the metaphor).
If you only saw how the crop of their young "reporters" hound some older folks there and goad them into saying what really happened - that Ukraine, not Russia, initially attacked their own in Donbass in 2014.
To say it's painful to watch is to say nothing. To consider these young scum as the lowest of the low - again is to say nothing. To know what happened to those unfortunate people who couldn't hold back is impossible. Nothing good - that's for sure.
"...US diplomats have been steadfastly refusing to engage in diplomacy with Russia to help bring an end to this war..."
If you want to know whose hands are covered in blood, look no further than these US diplomats who steadfastly have refused to engage in diplomacy to bring about an end to this war. These are true sociopaths, the true monsters. They're not worthy of the title "human being." They are destroyers, ruthless killers. And, of course, they're probably some of the best paid and praised members of the Biden Administration, may they burn in hell. (Sigh.)
The word "evil" exists for this, but it's worn down by the Hollywood garbage as to become trite and almost comical. Maybe purposefully so.
The ultimate and open election interference and meddling in other countries' affairs vs the ghost of Russian election-meddling they have been looking for years and could not find. It's up to Russians to decide who they elect as President, and they are too educated now on the topic of "orange revolutions" and their ultimate goal to fall for this trick. Their experience of the 90s is still fresh in their memory.
Biden is personally responsible for killing millions, including 10s of thousands of our own troops.
Thank you for aiding the national consciousness.
True, although Biden could fall back on blaming his sub-room-temperature IQ for his misdeeds (and this goes back to his youth, not just during this period of age-related decline).
All these others, including countless Rs, don't have that as an excuse.
(I assume guys like McConnell, Crenshaw, Graham, Kinzinger, etc., etc. have IQs that can at least top room temperature. Opinions may vary.)