Well, boys, I have very bad news, here in Central Europe, while we were moaning under the Bolshevik yoke, we seriously believed in the good intentions of the USA, and that once we get rid of the Bolsheviks, then we too can be part of the Free World! The awakening took place in the last thirty years, to realize that the Free World only sees us as a labor force to be exploited, and our sons as hopeful cannon fodder! And the self-proclaimed leader of the Free World is an untrustworthy lying robber who, if you don't humbly take his word for it, then, as Hussein Obama said, "we will break his arm". The population of the USA, who is kept in the dark and ignorant by state propaganda, would be shocked at how much the USA's reputation has devalued abroad in Europe! Before you get it wrong, the common people of America are still respected, but we consider their leaders to be common law criminals! Returning to the propaganda mentioned in the above letter. Many of us had to learn the Russian language, writing and reading from elementary school, it is not such a big deal to revive what we have learned until a simple average American cannot even understand Russian letters. So, if I want to, I can read first-hand, e.g. the events on the Ukrainian front from the Russian and Ukrainian sides! Because I don't even believe what the American press is asking! As far as the British press is concerned, it is the subject of public laughter in our country ! I have one more question, if the US press is so sensitive, then why don't I see them speaking up even once that the Hungarian indigenous minority has been persecuted, threatened and banned from using its own mother tongue by the Nazi Ukrainian government for years in the Transcarpathian ? Then I didn't tell you about how Russian children, old people and women in Donbass are being murdered with HIMARS (sound familiar?) missiles ? Don't you want to light a candle or bring teddy bears to the nearly 15,000 killed civilian residents of Donbass, as the hypocritical West used to do when the victim was a Westerner ?
I know a few people from "Central" Europe, not from Hungary, who also seem in a state of confusion about all this. I quoted "Central" because I was corrected once by one of them when I habitually called it "Eastern". The person was adamant it was not that. It was a point of pride. But then geographically speaking it is closer to being Western Europe if it suits you well. Call it the center of the Universe for all I care.
But what's been amusing to me is how willingly the Eastern/Central/whatever Europe became lackey poodles of the superior races in the "true west". One could argue they were forced to submit to the Soviet Union - necessarily and deservedly so as a result of the WWII because of their collaboration with Hitler and participation in the destruction of the SU. But this time they've done it willingly. And most if not all seem to quite enjoy it still, with Hungary being a notable exception at least as far as its government goes.
The Baltics especially are Cerberus of NATO. The others too behave almost exactly as they did during 1930s. And then they'd whine about 1956 and 1968 as if from the point of view of the Soviet Union allowing those to succeed wouldn't result in an equivalent of modern expansion of NATO.
As far as I'm concern the modern Central/Eastern Europe's nose is so brown and stinks so bad it's not even funny. The whole thing is totally fucked up.
I think for many indoctrinated ideologues, like many indoctrinated Christians and Muslims and Jews, they don’t wear their core beliefs on their sleeves. That’s how a “very religious” country can learn about Assange, read the evidence that he released of their government’s war crimes, look away, and turn a blind eye to his persecution. They can’t embrace the truth with a lifelong mind block. For most of those “Central” Europeans, anti-communism was hatred of the Reds, of Russians, and the rabid ant-communism perspective of the Americans only made an attractive destination for thousands of war civilians that much more inviting. I think many of the current European political elites have those same bones. It is who they are.
Yes, communism was a convenient cover to be used as a means to break up SU. But Russia has not been communist officially since 1991 and unofficially since ca 1985. Yet now their hatred is maybe even bigger.
The point is - it is Russia as such that makes them squeal. It's been like that for centuries. There are many quotes, stories, verses from Russian classics detailing this. It's uncanny how this current thing is not new at all.
Yes. So easy for a capitalist to hate, even when they are not opposed to capitalism, per se. The historical Russian State, with all of its corruptions, was always inviolable to certain types of financial investor. German industrialists, British bankers and post-WWII Americans were all clear with their intentions, and the Russian State left no approach. So the U.S. served up a Cold War, and until Gorbachev announced communism was dead, western capital was unwelcome. The irony is Clinton and Bush imposed a Friedmanesque economic model, and a decade of hunger and poverty was enough to push out all of the western influence that west had waited so long to achieve.
The media sure have been acting weird. Radio silence about the Sy Hersh Nordstream report. As if they can ignore it and it will just go away, down the memory hole. Clearly they are expecting to never have to answer to anyone why they buried a huge story about an act of war on Germany.
INTERESTING THOUGHT: Sy Hersh may have over-sold/exaggerated that point! Is it a violation of NATO charter, if NATO "agrees", albeit behind the curtain (not the iron curtain, the freedom curtain), to blow up a NATO asset? Is it a violation or war crime if the parties agreed to do it (albeit behind the scenes)?
It’s a violation of the Norwegian constitution. Their electorate has never given a war for war, war hasn’t been declared, and elected officials never stood up and have a mandate to their military to commit acts of war.
So this terrorist action is gutting the Norwegian democracy too
“The media” are flat out propaganda outlets. All of them. Will no longer believe anything in them. If it’s not lies, it’s distractions from the real issues and facts.
Way of life. That is the default justification for aggression and destruction and murder at the hands of the military that represents less than .0001% of the “West.” If boomers reflect on how many times they have been told that what looks like belligerence or invasion or murder, is really protection of ...our way of life, it becomes a Groundhog Day moment. As Noam Chomsky so eloquently pointed out in 1966: If you can convince your citizens that sending half a million soldiers to the other side of the planet is a mission of defense, then your citizens are pacified and neutered. And if we go back farther, to the drunken Wisconsin Senator who was permitted to use his office to badger and browbeat and criminalize opinions that shun allegiance to the liberal-capitalist corporate god, the refrain of his defenders and facilitators was, “he’s protecting our way of life.” Tragic and ironic when a powerful government actor can be praised for scaring the shit out of the people he’s supposed to represent, and obscenely criminal of that same bully when he used the legal system to destroy careers and imprison intellectuals who broke no laws. I think it is important to see Joe McCarthy’s reign of terror in context of the times. Less than a decade after FDR bailed out the corporatists by according a modicum of economic justice to the working poor, after the right-wing industrial leaders were conspiring to get rid of him by hook or by crook, the blowback or the payback or call it what you like, was just getting underway. Truman, Hiroshima, McCarthy Hearings...the right was on a roll, putting FDR in their rear view mirror, and now we have, thanks to decades of tax-cutting, billionaires, aka oligarchs, buying elections, appointing judges for life. All investing in weapons and war...to protect THEIR way of life.
Exactly! "Their way of life"! Not ours. It truly is impressive manipulation of the people who buy the same bullshit story over and over again "it's for your protection" or "they are attacking democracy" always make the victims the guilty party!
Those are not "Special Forces Propagandists" - a specialty which may not actually exist. Those people are "Special Forces Military Advisers" - combat troops. You can probably guess what they are going to do. The US has a long and bad history of many things, including inserting combat troops into war zones and and trying to disguise their mission by renaming their MOS temporarily.
The difference between helping Ukraine to ensure it wins and helping Ukraine to ensure Russia loses needs to be understood clearly for the rank and file public to start opposing this dangerously accelerating proxy warfare.
If Russia loses, it will not be a win for Ukraine because the country and its economy has already been destroyed. It has already been sold to the Western megacorporations.
On the news, they will tell us that Ukraine has won, but that would be a lie because the real winner, if Russia loses, would be the US empire.
From this war, the US is not only profiting from sending weapons and not only weakening the ties between Russia and Europe (especially Germany), but it would have also achieved its geopolitical goal.
It would weaken one of its two biggest enemies in the geopolitical game. It would severely damage the possibility of a fair multipolar world, which is on the rise.
( I have a newsletter called "THE GREAT AWAKENING" which central point of discussion is how humanity is rushing toward annihilation and how we can ensure our survival on this planet.
We have many problems at hand - overpopulation, climate crisis, nuclear threat, animal cruelty, etc. We are creating hell on this beautiful planet and the reason is not this or that political party or economic system. The most fundamental reason is our current relationship with thought; our ego; our false sense of "I." That's the root.
Apart from talking about all these crises, all the propaganda we go through, we will also talk about spirituality (not in today' sense) because only that can transcend humanity into being a more conscious species.
If I were a Ukrainian politician looking to get NATO to come and save my bacon (and collect a fat commission in the process), that's exactly what I'd do.
I'd sell as much of the country as possible at fire sale prices to influential western financial institutions, then let them lobby for war to rescue their investments.
In a similar manner, J.P. Morgan became the biggest lobbyist for American involvement in WWI, after his bank bought huge quantities of British government debt and he wanted to make sure he got paid in full.
What’s revealing about the WAPO article is they speak of going back into the Ukraine as if nothing has happened in the last year ,blowing Nordstream never happened etc. their well laid out plan is still be carried out.
What a visible disconnect from actual reality.
They are stunned while carrying on to a certain failure shows their brain has vanished into the pure emotion of loving their own propaganda.
I’d be worried about what will happen to us or thrilled to see the evil being vanquished .
That's how the professional-managerial class work: "constructive non-recognition"* of reality is their job. "Fake it 'til you make it" is their class ethos. The only cure for that class problem is to cancel the cancelers right back.
* A term the British used to describe their policy stance which caused the HMS Defender incident.
This is really a tragedy. I showed this to a Democrat and they did not even see the swastika flag of the Nazis! All they could see was General Flynn and he was a traitor (I am guessing because he showed the flag?) along with far worse statements against him. The propaganda has won and I fear we are doomed.
You know this is really a sad situation because people have been brainwashed to the point of giving an automated response! If someone says you know your house is on fire and they are pouring gas on it! The response is "he's a Republican" or "he's a Democrat" not once does either side say stop the fire! This is just as bad as with the use of nukes it's not "Stop the Nukes" it's who says it! I just can't see any way to stop that part of the equation!
Subtlety is the operating principle of successful propaganda: beyond that only obvious force works, and that gives the game away. And that is called fascism. No doubt Russia, fascism's natural enemy, is well aware of this fascistic, double-down propaganda initiative in Ukraine, and will take it into account in its drive to protect Russia from long-standing Western machinations of which the Ukraine war is the latest manifestation.
Whatever else Noam Chomsky did, his takedown of Andrew Marr never grows old:
Marr: “This is what I don’t get, because it suggests that - I mean I’m a journalist - people like me are self-censoring.”
Chomsky: “No, not self-censoring. You’re, there’s a filtering system, that starts in kindergarten, and goes all the way through, and it’s not going to work 100% but it’s pretty effective. It selects for obedience, and subordination, and especially I think… [Marr: So stroppy people won’t make it to positions of influence] There’ll be behavioural problems. If you read applications to a graduate school you’ll see that people will tell you, he’s not, he doesn’t get along too well with his colleagues, you know how to interpret those things.”
Marr: “I’m just interested in this because I was brought up like a lot of people, probably post-Watergate film and so on to believe that journalism was a crusading craft and there were a lot of disputatious, stroppy, difficult people in journalism, and I have to say, I think I know some of them.”
Chomsky: “Well, I know some of the best, and best known investigative reporters in the United States, I won’t mention names, {inaudible}, whose attitude towards the media is much more cynical than mine. In fact, they regard the media as a sham. And they know, and they consciously talk about how they try to play it like a violin. If they see a little opening, they’ll try to squeeze something in that ordinarily wouldn’t make it through. And it’s perfectly true that the majority - I’m sure you’re speaking for the majority of journalists who are trained, have it driven into their heads, that this is a crusading profession, adversarial, we stand up against power. A very self-serving view. On the other hand, in my opinion, I hate to make a value judgement but, the better journalists and in fact the ones who are often regarded as the best journalists have quite a different picture. And I think a very realistic one.”
Marr: “How can you know that I’m self-censoring? How can you know that journalists are..”
Chomsky: “I’m not saying your self censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying. But what I’m saying is that if you believe something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.”
It's at the top of my list of perfect takedowns. How pompous and stupid Marr looks when he tries to make his point and how Chomsky tries to suppress his sneer as if saying "you fucking dumbass".
Now that European non-elected president Ursula Von der Liar vowed to eliminate all "Russian propaganda" from the media, prepare to see most of the remaining dissenting voices to disappear. I mean, it's easy to still watch RT if you want, but the majority of people dutifully complies (I've seen some idiots even claiming that it was against the law). I'm pretty sure our alleged "leaders" will put pressure on Substack and other platforms - actually, they may have been doing it already.
"The public wants what the public gets": The Jam, Going Underground.
Germany (at least there it is official) is on the way to another dictatorship, they changed recently the 'Volksverhetzungs'Law and are already clamping down on every dissenter (2 are already convicted or will be soon) and the rest that speak up are threatened with whatever they can come up with, the reputation is smeared, just the usual tactics - IT IS DISGUSTING!!! I hope people stand up ... (otherwise we are toast!)
Remarque's "Flotsam" and "Arch of Triumph" describe the atmosphere in the then Germany - I'm still to read the "The Night in Lisbon" as it's supposedly the final of the "emigre trilogy".
I’m expecting the German political elites to be shown the door for their cozy acquiescence toward the American neocons. The hideous excuse for exposing the Euro masses to war fever: “national security!” The ground is being laid for open fascist bully politics to replace the civil lameness that has characterized German politics since before Merkel. I don’t think the reasons for the economic downturn that is in progress are lost on the German people. Sleep with dogs and get used to flea bites. What will be lost is a unified German society. Fascists who will likely be neutral toward Russia will have a slight upper hand on liberals who have opened the floodgates to refugees, and kissed up to the warring Americans. But those liberals have global ties that translate to Deutschmarks, and the pseudo journalists will be carrying their water. Strap in for volumes of propaganda from all directions. Truth has exited.
Look at how the American sheep responded to the erosion of jobs and the flight of manufacturing. That put Trump in the WH. And there’s the Croatian President calling Ukraine a proxy war, and Hungary’s Orban condemning the sanctions. They’re both NATO member nations. France has a growing Marine Le Pen faction, and Italy has its most right-wing government since Mussolini had the trains running on time. Fascism doesn’t appeal to the comfortable or the savvy voter, but sheep are perfect, particularly when they feel ignored.
The censorship has been stepped up to keep pace with the fractures in the edifice. Owned media is easily controlled; social media cannot be easily unplugged! When Republican Jeffrey Sachs has to go to consortiumnews.com to call his government a liar, and Bruce Fein, a Deputy AG in the Reagan admin., has to go there to publish a scathing book review of a tome by the demented neocon Robert Kagan, it is very obvious that the histories to be written in this century will not be the word of the powerful. That is a ray of hope for real journalism.
There are 500k Russian soldiers at the border right now. Countless artillery, countless tanks and fighter jets. They start the roll over Ukraine in the next couple of weeks.
The USA and NATO can do nothing to stop it. The Ukraine will be crushed under Russia. And I feel sorry for their people.
Will this escalate beyond Ukraine?
The complete plans are being exposed daily.
Balloons for fucks sake? Make them afraid and it amazes me how many people fall for this bullshit. We got em with COVID, RELEASE THE BALLONS!!!
Six months ago I never would have believed this. But now? The devil marches us along into the gaping maw of fire, death and destruction.
Do I stand on the front lines or slip into a third world country with little infrastructure?
Put simply they are spying on Russia, bolstering up their malevolence towards it through other countries so as to have overwhelming support for their own aggression. We know where it will all end up.
1. There is far more involved than propaganda and crushing dissent. The surveillance State is designed to crush, suppress, or derail organizing and activism and any rise of solidarity. (the political equivalent of the US National Security strategy to block the rise of any competing major power).
2. The Clinton campaign did far more to promote trump's political candidacy than the Russians. They supported Trump in the primaries and the candidate they could beat. That hypocrisy must be recalled.
3. Caitlin - a recent column by Patrick Lawrence included a link to a talk by a former Australian foreign policy official. He made a compelling argument that the US military has laid the foundation form making Australia the proxy for the upcoming war with China. I'll try to dig up that link, but you must watch it!
Well, boys, I have very bad news, here in Central Europe, while we were moaning under the Bolshevik yoke, we seriously believed in the good intentions of the USA, and that once we get rid of the Bolsheviks, then we too can be part of the Free World! The awakening took place in the last thirty years, to realize that the Free World only sees us as a labor force to be exploited, and our sons as hopeful cannon fodder! And the self-proclaimed leader of the Free World is an untrustworthy lying robber who, if you don't humbly take his word for it, then, as Hussein Obama said, "we will break his arm". The population of the USA, who is kept in the dark and ignorant by state propaganda, would be shocked at how much the USA's reputation has devalued abroad in Europe! Before you get it wrong, the common people of America are still respected, but we consider their leaders to be common law criminals! Returning to the propaganda mentioned in the above letter. Many of us had to learn the Russian language, writing and reading from elementary school, it is not such a big deal to revive what we have learned until a simple average American cannot even understand Russian letters. So, if I want to, I can read first-hand, e.g. the events on the Ukrainian front from the Russian and Ukrainian sides! Because I don't even believe what the American press is asking! As far as the British press is concerned, it is the subject of public laughter in our country ! I have one more question, if the US press is so sensitive, then why don't I see them speaking up even once that the Hungarian indigenous minority has been persecuted, threatened and banned from using its own mother tongue by the Nazi Ukrainian government for years in the Transcarpathian ? Then I didn't tell you about how Russian children, old people and women in Donbass are being murdered with HIMARS (sound familiar?) missiles ? Don't you want to light a candle or bring teddy bears to the nearly 15,000 killed civilian residents of Donbass, as the hypocritical West used to do when the victim was a Westerner ?
I know a few people from "Central" Europe, not from Hungary, who also seem in a state of confusion about all this. I quoted "Central" because I was corrected once by one of them when I habitually called it "Eastern". The person was adamant it was not that. It was a point of pride. But then geographically speaking it is closer to being Western Europe if it suits you well. Call it the center of the Universe for all I care.
But what's been amusing to me is how willingly the Eastern/Central/whatever Europe became lackey poodles of the superior races in the "true west". One could argue they were forced to submit to the Soviet Union - necessarily and deservedly so as a result of the WWII because of their collaboration with Hitler and participation in the destruction of the SU. But this time they've done it willingly. And most if not all seem to quite enjoy it still, with Hungary being a notable exception at least as far as its government goes.
The Baltics especially are Cerberus of NATO. The others too behave almost exactly as they did during 1930s. And then they'd whine about 1956 and 1968 as if from the point of view of the Soviet Union allowing those to succeed wouldn't result in an equivalent of modern expansion of NATO.
As far as I'm concern the modern Central/Eastern Europe's nose is so brown and stinks so bad it's not even funny. The whole thing is totally fucked up.
I think for many indoctrinated ideologues, like many indoctrinated Christians and Muslims and Jews, they don’t wear their core beliefs on their sleeves. That’s how a “very religious” country can learn about Assange, read the evidence that he released of their government’s war crimes, look away, and turn a blind eye to his persecution. They can’t embrace the truth with a lifelong mind block. For most of those “Central” Europeans, anti-communism was hatred of the Reds, of Russians, and the rabid ant-communism perspective of the Americans only made an attractive destination for thousands of war civilians that much more inviting. I think many of the current European political elites have those same bones. It is who they are.
Yes, communism was a convenient cover to be used as a means to break up SU. But Russia has not been communist officially since 1991 and unofficially since ca 1985. Yet now their hatred is maybe even bigger.
The point is - it is Russia as such that makes them squeal. It's been like that for centuries. There are many quotes, stories, verses from Russian classics detailing this. It's uncanny how this current thing is not new at all.
Yes. So easy for a capitalist to hate, even when they are not opposed to capitalism, per se. The historical Russian State, with all of its corruptions, was always inviolable to certain types of financial investor. German industrialists, British bankers and post-WWII Americans were all clear with their intentions, and the Russian State left no approach. So the U.S. served up a Cold War, and until Gorbachev announced communism was dead, western capital was unwelcome. The irony is Clinton and Bush imposed a Friedmanesque economic model, and a decade of hunger and poverty was enough to push out all of the western influence that west had waited so long to achieve.
The media sure have been acting weird. Radio silence about the Sy Hersh Nordstream report. As if they can ignore it and it will just go away, down the memory hole. Clearly they are expecting to never have to answer to anyone why they buried a huge story about an act of war on Germany.
Scott Ritter was blindingly clear about the constitutional violation involved in giving the order to blow up the pipeline. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NXReh55QpU
The Constitution in the United States has long been a dead letter.
Right just ask George Bush Jr. Who said "it's just a piece of paper"!
INTERESTING THOUGHT: Sy Hersh may have over-sold/exaggerated that point! Is it a violation of NATO charter, if NATO "agrees", albeit behind the curtain (not the iron curtain, the freedom curtain), to blow up a NATO asset? Is it a violation or war crime if the parties agreed to do it (albeit behind the scenes)?
It’s a violation of the Norwegian constitution. Their electorate has never given a war for war, war hasn’t been declared, and elected officials never stood up and have a mandate to their military to commit acts of war.
So this terrorist action is gutting the Norwegian democracy too
“The media” are flat out propaganda outlets. All of them. Will no longer believe anything in them. If it’s not lies, it’s distractions from the real issues and facts.
Way of life. That is the default justification for aggression and destruction and murder at the hands of the military that represents less than .0001% of the “West.” If boomers reflect on how many times they have been told that what looks like belligerence or invasion or murder, is really protection of ...our way of life, it becomes a Groundhog Day moment. As Noam Chomsky so eloquently pointed out in 1966: If you can convince your citizens that sending half a million soldiers to the other side of the planet is a mission of defense, then your citizens are pacified and neutered. And if we go back farther, to the drunken Wisconsin Senator who was permitted to use his office to badger and browbeat and criminalize opinions that shun allegiance to the liberal-capitalist corporate god, the refrain of his defenders and facilitators was, “he’s protecting our way of life.” Tragic and ironic when a powerful government actor can be praised for scaring the shit out of the people he’s supposed to represent, and obscenely criminal of that same bully when he used the legal system to destroy careers and imprison intellectuals who broke no laws. I think it is important to see Joe McCarthy’s reign of terror in context of the times. Less than a decade after FDR bailed out the corporatists by according a modicum of economic justice to the working poor, after the right-wing industrial leaders were conspiring to get rid of him by hook or by crook, the blowback or the payback or call it what you like, was just getting underway. Truman, Hiroshima, McCarthy Hearings...the right was on a roll, putting FDR in their rear view mirror, and now we have, thanks to decades of tax-cutting, billionaires, aka oligarchs, buying elections, appointing judges for life. All investing in weapons and war...to protect THEIR way of life.
Exactly! "Their way of life"! Not ours. It truly is impressive manipulation of the people who buy the same bullshit story over and over again "it's for your protection" or "they are attacking democracy" always make the victims the guilty party!
Those are not "Special Forces Propagandists" - a specialty which may not actually exist. Those people are "Special Forces Military Advisers" - combat troops. You can probably guess what they are going to do. The US has a long and bad history of many things, including inserting combat troops into war zones and and trying to disguise their mission by renaming their MOS temporarily.
The difference between helping Ukraine to ensure it wins and helping Ukraine to ensure Russia loses needs to be understood clearly for the rank and file public to start opposing this dangerously accelerating proxy warfare.
If Russia loses, it will not be a win for Ukraine because the country and its economy has already been destroyed. It has already been sold to the Western megacorporations.
On the news, they will tell us that Ukraine has won, but that would be a lie because the real winner, if Russia loses, would be the US empire.
From this war, the US is not only profiting from sending weapons and not only weakening the ties between Russia and Europe (especially Germany), but it would have also achieved its geopolitical goal.
It would weaken one of its two biggest enemies in the geopolitical game. It would severely damage the possibility of a fair multipolar world, which is on the rise.
( I have a newsletter called "THE GREAT AWAKENING" which central point of discussion is how humanity is rushing toward annihilation and how we can ensure our survival on this planet.
We have many problems at hand - overpopulation, climate crisis, nuclear threat, animal cruelty, etc. We are creating hell on this beautiful planet and the reason is not this or that political party or economic system. The most fundamental reason is our current relationship with thought; our ego; our false sense of "I." That's the root.
Apart from talking about all these crises, all the propaganda we go through, we will also talk about spirituality (not in today' sense) because only that can transcend humanity into being a more conscious species.
If it sounds interesting to you, check here:
https://awakes.substack.com
Nobody of influence and authority in the West cares about Ukraine.
Take away Russia, and Ukraine would be a pariah state, if not an actual target of American aggression.
Exactly, they are already selling it off with BlackRock owning big chunks of it.
If I were a Ukrainian politician looking to get NATO to come and save my bacon (and collect a fat commission in the process), that's exactly what I'd do.
I'd sell as much of the country as possible at fire sale prices to influential western financial institutions, then let them lobby for war to rescue their investments.
In a similar manner, J.P. Morgan became the biggest lobbyist for American involvement in WWI, after his bank bought huge quantities of British government debt and he wanted to make sure he got paid in full.
And tra la la that's the way the war machine bounces! What a scam. If I had no morals and a dime jeeze!? Maybe I could be rich?
What’s revealing about the WAPO article is they speak of going back into the Ukraine as if nothing has happened in the last year ,blowing Nordstream never happened etc. their well laid out plan is still be carried out.
What a visible disconnect from actual reality.
They are stunned while carrying on to a certain failure shows their brain has vanished into the pure emotion of loving their own propaganda.
I’d be worried about what will happen to us or thrilled to see the evil being vanquished .
What a thriller.
That's how the professional-managerial class work: "constructive non-recognition"* of reality is their job. "Fake it 'til you make it" is their class ethos. The only cure for that class problem is to cancel the cancelers right back.
* A term the British used to describe their policy stance which caused the HMS Defender incident.
Keep in mind that most "knowledge work" is glorified symbol manipulation.
This retweet by Mike Flynn no less is marked as "potentially sensitive" by Twitter. See for yourself why.
https://twitter.com/GenFlynn/status/1624262024598286336?s=20&t=WhGfNTeFY5O6A9Zjr9aM_g
This is really a tragedy. I showed this to a Democrat and they did not even see the swastika flag of the Nazis! All they could see was General Flynn and he was a traitor (I am guessing because he showed the flag?) along with far worse statements against him. The propaganda has won and I fear we are doomed.
I see what you mean. Who isn't offended by gratuitous displays of the 🇺🇦 flag?
I'm not sure what his reasons are for showing this? I mean after all he is a warmonger so what is this really about? Political future use?
Maybe because he's a Trump guy and Trump has made stopping the war an issue for his re-election campaign.
You know this is really a sad situation because people have been brainwashed to the point of giving an automated response! If someone says you know your house is on fire and they are pouring gas on it! The response is "he's a Republican" or "he's a Democrat" not once does either side say stop the fire! This is just as bad as with the use of nukes it's not "Stop the Nukes" it's who says it! I just can't see any way to stop that part of the equation!
Subtlety is the operating principle of successful propaganda: beyond that only obvious force works, and that gives the game away. And that is called fascism. No doubt Russia, fascism's natural enemy, is well aware of this fascistic, double-down propaganda initiative in Ukraine, and will take it into account in its drive to protect Russia from long-standing Western machinations of which the Ukraine war is the latest manifestation.
Whatever else Noam Chomsky did, his takedown of Andrew Marr never grows old:
Marr: “This is what I don’t get, because it suggests that - I mean I’m a journalist - people like me are self-censoring.”
Chomsky: “No, not self-censoring. You’re, there’s a filtering system, that starts in kindergarten, and goes all the way through, and it’s not going to work 100% but it’s pretty effective. It selects for obedience, and subordination, and especially I think… [Marr: So stroppy people won’t make it to positions of influence] There’ll be behavioural problems. If you read applications to a graduate school you’ll see that people will tell you, he’s not, he doesn’t get along too well with his colleagues, you know how to interpret those things.”
Marr: “I’m just interested in this because I was brought up like a lot of people, probably post-Watergate film and so on to believe that journalism was a crusading craft and there were a lot of disputatious, stroppy, difficult people in journalism, and I have to say, I think I know some of them.”
Chomsky: “Well, I know some of the best, and best known investigative reporters in the United States, I won’t mention names, {inaudible}, whose attitude towards the media is much more cynical than mine. In fact, they regard the media as a sham. And they know, and they consciously talk about how they try to play it like a violin. If they see a little opening, they’ll try to squeeze something in that ordinarily wouldn’t make it through. And it’s perfectly true that the majority - I’m sure you’re speaking for the majority of journalists who are trained, have it driven into their heads, that this is a crusading profession, adversarial, we stand up against power. A very self-serving view. On the other hand, in my opinion, I hate to make a value judgement but, the better journalists and in fact the ones who are often regarded as the best journalists have quite a different picture. And I think a very realistic one.”
Marr: “How can you know that I’m self-censoring? How can you know that journalists are..”
Chomsky: “I’m not saying your self censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying. But what I’m saying is that if you believe something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLcpcytUnWU
It's at the top of my list of perfect takedowns. How pompous and stupid Marr looks when he tries to make his point and how Chomsky tries to suppress his sneer as if saying "you fucking dumbass".
Now that European non-elected president Ursula Von der Liar vowed to eliminate all "Russian propaganda" from the media, prepare to see most of the remaining dissenting voices to disappear. I mean, it's easy to still watch RT if you want, but the majority of people dutifully complies (I've seen some idiots even claiming that it was against the law). I'm pretty sure our alleged "leaders" will put pressure on Substack and other platforms - actually, they may have been doing it already.
"The public wants what the public gets": The Jam, Going Underground.
Germany (at least there it is official) is on the way to another dictatorship, they changed recently the 'Volksverhetzungs'Law and are already clamping down on every dissenter (2 are already convicted or will be soon) and the rest that speak up are threatened with whatever they can come up with, the reputation is smeared, just the usual tactics - IT IS DISGUSTING!!! I hope people stand up ... (otherwise we are toast!)
Remarque's "Flotsam" and "Arch of Triumph" describe the atmosphere in the then Germany - I'm still to read the "The Night in Lisbon" as it's supposedly the final of the "emigre trilogy".
Plus ca change.
I’m expecting the German political elites to be shown the door for their cozy acquiescence toward the American neocons. The hideous excuse for exposing the Euro masses to war fever: “national security!” The ground is being laid for open fascist bully politics to replace the civil lameness that has characterized German politics since before Merkel. I don’t think the reasons for the economic downturn that is in progress are lost on the German people. Sleep with dogs and get used to flea bites. What will be lost is a unified German society. Fascists who will likely be neutral toward Russia will have a slight upper hand on liberals who have opened the floodgates to refugees, and kissed up to the warring Americans. But those liberals have global ties that translate to Deutschmarks, and the pseudo journalists will be carrying their water. Strap in for volumes of propaganda from all directions. Truth has exited.
Won't happen. Germans are the most obedient and sheeplike people in a continent of sheep.
Look at how the American sheep responded to the erosion of jobs and the flight of manufacturing. That put Trump in the WH. And there’s the Croatian President calling Ukraine a proxy war, and Hungary’s Orban condemning the sanctions. They’re both NATO member nations. France has a growing Marine Le Pen faction, and Italy has its most right-wing government since Mussolini had the trains running on time. Fascism doesn’t appeal to the comfortable or the savvy voter, but sheep are perfect, particularly when they feel ignored.
Note that nobody of influence and authority raises a peep about fascists holding power in Italy, as long as they don't challenge the American Empire.
Marine LePen, on the other hand...
The censorship has been stepped up to keep pace with the fractures in the edifice. Owned media is easily controlled; social media cannot be easily unplugged! When Republican Jeffrey Sachs has to go to consortiumnews.com to call his government a liar, and Bruce Fein, a Deputy AG in the Reagan admin., has to go there to publish a scathing book review of a tome by the demented neocon Robert Kagan, it is very obvious that the histories to be written in this century will not be the word of the powerful. That is a ray of hope for real journalism.
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/07/01/ukraine-is-the-latest-neocon-disaster/
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/02/10/the-calamity-of-americas-divine-mission/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=32b91ed8-54a5-4708-809c-f23fb608c353
Where does the Pentagon get all its TRUTH? Hollywood?
There are 500k Russian soldiers at the border right now. Countless artillery, countless tanks and fighter jets. They start the roll over Ukraine in the next couple of weeks.
The USA and NATO can do nothing to stop it. The Ukraine will be crushed under Russia. And I feel sorry for their people.
Will this escalate beyond Ukraine?
The complete plans are being exposed daily.
Balloons for fucks sake? Make them afraid and it amazes me how many people fall for this bullshit. We got em with COVID, RELEASE THE BALLONS!!!
Six months ago I never would have believed this. But now? The devil marches us along into the gaping maw of fire, death and destruction.
Do I stand on the front lines or slip into a third world country with little infrastructure?
Humanity is a giant comedy.
Put simply they are spying on Russia, bolstering up their malevolence towards it through other countries so as to have overwhelming support for their own aggression. We know where it will all end up.
The Very Special Forces of cognitive colonialism will be eating working-class mucus for the rest of their lives.
If the US government wishes to contradict Russian propaganda, it should do it under its own letterhead.
Thoughts:
1. There is far more involved than propaganda and crushing dissent. The surveillance State is designed to crush, suppress, or derail organizing and activism and any rise of solidarity. (the political equivalent of the US National Security strategy to block the rise of any competing major power).
2. The Clinton campaign did far more to promote trump's political candidacy than the Russians. They supported Trump in the primaries and the candidate they could beat. That hypocrisy must be recalled.
3. Caitlin - a recent column by Patrick Lawrence included a link to a talk by a former Australian foreign policy official. He made a compelling argument that the US military has laid the foundation form making Australia the proxy for the upcoming war with China. I'll try to dig up that link, but you must watch it!
Excellent comments. Especially 2. Plus Killary sicked Nuland on Ukraine.