Is Biden stupid enough to think he could get away with a limited nuclear war? Really, he is pretty stupid. The question is, are there enough adults in the room to take this insane posturing off the table?
I don't think Biden is running the show, but his administration is stock piled on many levels with neocons who will, and are pushing an agenda that could lead to nuclear war, and I don't think nuclear wars are limited. From the very beginning many thought the US intended to create a quagmire for Russia in Ukraine, and wear herself out. It happened in Afghanistan where our fighting force was the Mujahideen, and like Ukraine we supplied the weapons, and we did bring Russia to her knees, however fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, and I'm sure Putin knows his history, and we won't see that repeated again. We're playing with fire but the average American right now are thinking about the upcoming holidays. Personally I always thought this was on the agenda, ever since the Obama administration supported the coup in Ukraine in 2014. Look, they lied us into one war after another in the middle east based on a neocon agenda and I don't know if you know that before we even entered Afghanistan 7 other countries were on our agenda for war. So yes, we killed and displaced millions and destroyed whole countries and we learned nothing and either did the American people.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Jack Kennedy had his brother, Robert, Kenneth O Donnell, and Robert McNamara and Adlai Stevenson to help cool down the situation. All of these men worked toward peace between America and the Soviet Union. Even in Ronald Reagan's administration he had James Baker, another man who worked toward peace between America and Gorbachev's Soviet Union and later the Russian Federation. Today, the administration of Joe Biden are only rattling swords. People like Victoria Nuland, Antony Blinken and William Christol are catastrophes for America.
There are so many enemies and they all call the US their home. Tom Cotton, Pence, Trump even, the neocons are our enemies and I don't know how to fight them other than to open folk's eyes to the horrors they loose on the world. Ukraine being a good example these days. As long as they control the media the work will be long, and hard. Peace
The media problem is the big one! We do not have independent media and we do not have a free press. We have a Zionist and a Globalist media. We also have administrations that allow big-tech to censor you at any given time. It's as if the Constitution of the U,S. has been thrown out the window!
I think a picture of a hamster running on a wheel in a wire cage would exemplify Ol' Joe Buddy's brain and the way it functions these days, if even that. His wicked members of the MIC(military industrial complex) club stocked with neocons to the hilt and vying for control of the world along with Charles & his cohorts company of re-set imperialists, and Big Pharma to boot, are all killing us in ways yet to materialize. Then factor in the proxy war in Ukraine and my conclusion is that we're fucked.
Then we have the end of industrial civilization due to uncontrollable environmental factors which means we're double fucked. Take your pick of various scenarios of the 'end of the world'; one is just as viable as the other, we just don't know which one will occur. Sorry. Truly. Peace, The Ol' Hippy
The same cabal selling you winnable war propaganda have been the ones behind the climate crisis propaganda. Regardless of the truth of climate change let's at least agree it is a huge propaganda target.
Sorry. The "climate change" crisis is real. Before "they" were calling it 'climate change' it was known in the late '60's as global warming when I started studying it in junior high school. In fact it's been well know for well over a hundred years and has only accelerated greatly since the 1970's, post WW II really. I've read well over 3-4 dozen books on various aspects of global warming/environmental destruction, and all signs point to to the inescapable conclusion that, 1) Earth is severely overpopulated with humans; 2) humans have pumped well over 150 million years worth of stored carbon, as coal, methane, and crude oil, by burning it, back into the atmosphere by its burning, as easily available energy, to power industrial civilization for the last 270 years. There has actually been a cumulative effect going on for many more years than that but the industrial revolution really kicked it into high gear. (Since 1750.) If there was less than a billion people instead of almost 8 billion, the crisis would be manageable. World population has almost tripled since I was born in 1954, and more than doubled since I graduated high school in 1972. The trillion pound elephant no one wants to address. The root cause of it all, really.
As I say, I've studied this since the late '60's and somewhere along the way it was dropped from school curricula by intense lobbying from the energy industries. My guess is since the late '70's or so. Remember war and energy industries are highly profitable to industrialists(capitalists) and will remain so until the collapse of industrial civilization--coming soon to region near us all. Peace, The Ol' Hippy
I am as old and as educated as any old hippy so let's not be making claims of authority based on age.
Climate change has changed form multiple times, in each iteration it becomes more exaggerated to keep the attention focused on it. Environmental destruction in the form of pollution, over fishing and 100 other sins against nature are not analogous to climate crisis. That is an amateur mistake to lump all environmental problems under the umbrella of climate change/crisis. The claims of the climate crisis crowd have never come true, making predictions that never realize destroys credibility.
Paranoid conspiracy theories suggest that big oil is hiding the truth, meanwhile every elementary school student has a dedicated curriculum on climate change.
World population is already on a downward trend, all advanced societies are seeing falling reproductive rates.
I'm sorry to say your rebuttal reads like a litany of propaganda, the very propaganda you are claiming doesn't exist.
What planet are you on? Did you come from the fossil fuel industry? Have you ever seen a current video of the ice melting to the north or south? When was the last time you could cross from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the northern side of Canada? Who is putting out the propaganda here?
I will agree with most of your points, accept one, Russia to her knees. Thinking back on that history having lived in it not realizing at the time extreme propaganda existed then. Russia simply made a calculation of benefit verse allowing the u.s to die on the vine in Afghanistan? We did, they didn't.
I love your thoughts, I would like to hear more from you. I wasn't sure what the real goal of the u.s./NATO vs. Russia was in the beginning and then Nordstream 1/2 destroyed by the u.s. Now I believe this is about pure wealth extraction from Europe? I work in high energy so I have some understanding of what nuclear war will be. Crazy people think nuclear war is winnable, sadly, most of the u.s. believes it is. Landru Dark Matter Zombies.
Hi, I don't think most people in America think a nuclear war is winnable, but most are not thinking about it at all. Americans in general are not political. Many may turn on their favorite news channel that basically tells them what they want to hear, but certainly nothing to the contrary. Our agenda in Russia I'm sure is not helping European countries, especially having just dealt with Covid for a couple of years. I suspect that the break up of the US and Russia after WW11 was not only due to different political ideologies, but there was a lot of money to be made from that conflict in terms of manufacturing weaponry, and other technologies of war. I don't think we are out to hurt Europe, but those will be the consequences of this long drawn out "war" with Russia, and yes I don't think we care. Look at what we are doing to Ukraine, destroying it in order to remove Putin, and undermine Russia's role in the world. We have a government where corporate America is number one on our elected politician's agenda, since they take good care of them financially , and the American citizenry is quite secondary. The rich constitute 1% of our population yet own 40% of America's wealth. America wants to be number one in the world and if you read books by William Blum, or read Economic Hit Man by John Perkins, and others it's no secret. Sometimes I just think the future is dark and soon nothing will matter.
Yes, he is. Why because people have forgotten what a small nuclear detonation like Hiroshima looks like. Today the Biden morons think the iron dome for their personal bunkers will save them. For the first time in my life I think nuclear is MORE probably than not. While hiding under my desk seeing the pure terror in my teachers eyes, I thought people know this can not happen. There is no terror now, the video game continues for the oligarchs.
I remember reading something (I wish I remembered where so I could link it) where people in the US government were talking about maybe hitting Russia with nuclear strikes that would take out THEIR nukes before any retaliatory strikes could be launched. That seems like a pretty insane gamble to me; putting aside how immoral it would be to nuke anyone preemptively, could they really be sure they'd hit all the launching sites? But I guess maybe that's part of what happens to you when you're at the head of the country like the US; you start thinking you can do anything and get away with anything after getting away with so much else.
"This is like accelerating toward a brick wall and pretending it's an open road."
Well, the US is very experienced at following this course. Look at the Korean “open road", a failed episode. The end result, a small US base on the border of South and North Korea, affectionately known as a DMZ (demilitarised zone) now used as a far flung US outpost, one of 800 + around the world.
Then comes Vietnam, a painful retreat, humiliating with little strategic value as a result. The unforgettable pictures of the US departure being something to add to the children’s history lessons on how not to fail. 1. Don’t start a war in the first place, but if you can’t help yourself,….. 2. Know when to quit.
We don't stop there though. Afghanistan, the epitome of “open roads”, a 20 year failure with no benefit at all to the hegemonic US. Did they learn from British failures there. NO. Did they learn from Russian failures there. NO. Something of yet another failure in objective setting, project (war) management and like the others, leaving behind a house full of people who will hate what the US stands for (whatever that is, other than world power and total control), forever.
Throw into the history book the blustering Bush "shock and awe" great big lie philosophy, "the open road" of Iraq, realistically a real brick wall, with the US as yet unentangled from that quagmire. If Biden continues to use the mental capacity of all the Neocon advisers combined, it never will be unentangled until someone comes along and shows the likes of Biden and his corrupted cohorts that they should leave the area (as well as Syria) as the country is not theirs and there is a far better way to do things. In other words, Butt Out!
But don't count on that one. I did forget we are dealing with the exceptional USA.
PS While you are at it, skip all the others countries that have been, still are, or will be targets for your bored but dangerous Israeli-controlled Neocons and concentrate on getting your own house in order.
Last night's Tucker Carlson had him making many statements that sounded like he's been reading Caitlin, or like she's been watching him. He repeatedly referred to many media outlets as being absolute illusions. The NY Times, PMSNBC, etc., all have small audiences, but politicians of the uni-party are terrified of them, and do what they say. He thinks they are the reason that, time and time again, we land in these deadly situations. If we all just ignore them, they will lose all of their power.
It was unnerving, listening to him sound just like Caitlin. His themes were anti-propaganda, anti-intimidation, thinking for yourself, anti-uni-party, and avoiding war.
You may not like him, but when the apocalypse is at stake, I think we should take allies for life anywhere we can find them.
Tucker also occasionally has “lefty” guests like Jimmy Dore and Glenn Greenwald. The new populism that Tucker personifies finds common ground between traditional left and right. This is also why so many disaffected progressive Bernie fans voted for Trump (or against Hillary) in 2016. It turns out that your “anti-propaganda, anti-intimidation, thinking for yourself, anti-uni-party, and avoiding war” is neither left nor right. The fact that you watch Tucker AND read Caitlin—as I suspect many of us do—speaks volumes.
BTW, the next presidential election—if this country lasts that long—may be dominated by independents, namely Tusli Gabbard (who just became an independent) and Liz Cheney (who , if Trump runs, may soon leave the Rep party). I won’t be surprised if Tucker is also be on the ’24 ballot.
I see lots of crazy in the near future, maybe I won't live long enough to see its fruition, 'cause it'll be brutal and ugly. I'm too ill to survive it these days. Peace?, not in my lifetime, sorry.
I'm 45 and I doubt we'll see peace even in my lifetime, assuming I die of natural causes in thirty years or more. Because the world just keeps getting worse and nobody wants to course-correct.
EDIT: I should have said that nobody with the power to do anything about it wants to course-correct. Not literally true I guess, since there are exceptions to most rules, but when someone with power does try to do something then everybody else with power turns on them.
Funny, in my rational mind, I've considered and strongly rejected the kind of "left" "right" coalition you suggest, because the forces on the right are Fascist, and tolerance for fascist only feeds the movement.
But, while road tripping in rural Idaho in my small school bus - named "Green New Deal" and "Climate Chaos" where the "School Bus" banners used to be - I was approached by a pickup truck of hunters and beer drinkers (at 8 am!). I was initially extremely apprehensive, because I've almost been killed and been SWATed by these folks, some of whom I think are militia. During our conversation, they even admitted that they stopped to harass me. But, we had a very good political and scientific conversation about climate. Their climate denial has a plausible (but false) rationale which they let me demolish and could not defend, and they ended up agreeing with me on a lot of things about energy transition (but they would not accept the need for rapid change). Most "leftists" would not have even spoken to these guys. And frankly, we had areas of agreement in terms of disgust with selfish elites and a few good laughs poking fun at each other.
This hasn't convinced me to change my conclusion about left/right coalition, but it is a dose of humility in terms of learning how to talk and listen to people who you disagree with, but can agree with on some issues.
I believe at the end of the day, everybody who's getting screwed by the establishment and realizes it is likely to have common ground. More than one person my past self would have written off as "some asshole right-winger who believes the opposite of everything I believe in strongly" has pleasantly surprised me in recent years.
I would also say that if fascism is by definition right-wing, then most of the Democratic Party right now is right-wing, including the Squad. That's because fascism doesn't allow you much in the way of civil liberties, and these days the Democrats are as eager to get rid of people's civil liberties as Bush era Republicans were, with the same BS "we have to do it to keep everybody safe" rationalization.
With all due respect to Caitlin, this comment warrants a better response than "the TV man is not your friend" like she said to someone else who brought up the overlap between her statements and Tucker's.
To Caitlin, I'll say this: you know who I've hated for a long time? Ben Shapiro. That's because the first thing I ever saw from him was his tweet saying "Settlements rock" and because Israel/Palestine isn't the only issue he just gets completely wrong. But when I saw him say something about tech companies censoring too much more recently, I was like "Well, he sure isn't wrong or part of the problem THIS time..."
Tucker may be part of the problem when it comes to China. He might be part of the problem when it comes to immigration policy. But he is on the right side of this Ukraine insanity IMHO.
EDIT: Or to put it another way, without Tucker Carlson we would have a lot of people clamoring for war with both Russia and China. With Tucker Carlson, we have the same number of people clamoring for war with China, but a hell of a lot fewer clamoring for war with Russia. He's helping some, even if he isn't helping enough. And he's better on Ukraine than a lot of so-called lefty commentators.
Hasn’t every society that ever existed struck some kind of balance between the common good and individual self-interest? Every society has had some dominant form of ownership, from common ownership to individual property rights, but those also get blended. For example, in “capitalist” America, who owns the rivers or the national parks?
These ideological labels have always been mainly academic exercises. They have some limited use, but do they ever accurately apply to any real world society? They seem less meaningful every day. Is China communist or capitalist?
Worse, these labels now seem intended only to divide us and keep us at each other’s throats while the oligarchs from both "capitalist" and "communist" systems laugh all the way to their off-shore banks.
And Capitalism has? Actually, Communism/Socialism has worked fine in every country not attacked or overthrown by the US and Europe. Hmm... think about that.
Sorry, communism has never been tried as Marx prescribed. The Russian experiment Marx declared a failure before it started. Russia today is a resource capitalist country, China Industrial capitalist. Cuba is close but held hostage by sanctions. Spain has a very interesting path. There are other examples also destroyed by the u.s.
What Russian Experiment did Marx declare a failure? He died before either the 1905 or 1917 revolution... Also communism has and is currently being "tried" and it's silly to contend differently as though some pure marxism without capitalist intervention could exist.
After a certain point, the question becomes "what do we have to lose?"
That's not to say that communism is the only possible answer. I'm open to anything that at least seems to work on paper and is different from the current fucked up system that has ruined so many people's lives (e.g., getting them evicted and making them homeless).
It's a nice thought though. Too many yahoos wanting bourgeois trappings to see it through in this cruel world. We need an evolutionary breakthrough, a'la Stephen Jay Gould--punctuated equilibrium--the punctuation is upon us.
The World Economic Forum has a plan to save themselves from Climate Extinction by sacrificing the rest of the world.
They are the Elites based in Europe, USA, and other Anglophile countries. They recognise that we are all are about to become extinction within a decade or two, unless a drastic reset is performed.
Their reset is reduce the use of fossil fuel which is driving climate change, and to reduce world consumption by wiping out large swathes of human populations through war, famine, pandemic and loss of habitat.
They are using Ukraine to accomplish their goals.
They will not be successful because extinction through climate change is already to far advanced, not just for humans, but for all life on Earth. But the way they see it, is that the many must be sacrificed to save the few worthy and continue humanity and life on Earth.
Assuring people they aren't crazy in a world that seems crazy in every respect, is a very worthy objective. And it is crazy if human values are a consideration, if valuing human life and all life forms on this planet is sane, then it is crazy. But there is a method to the madness. It is no accident or coincidence. So how do we assess that? Well, the filthy rich are getting filthy richer. That's a clue. And democracy, never that robust, looks like a 90 lb weakling against a gorilla in the ring. It's absence isn't even excused anymore. Elections theft is just an add-on for personal profit. The whole system has been hijacked.
This parental identity of our countries is more important than we Americans imagine. Nazi Germany was a fatherland. Interesting that President G.W. Bush selected the non-binary “homeland” for U.S. national identity.
Well, after reading that article it turns out the origins of “homeland” are far more interesting than I thought. It gets complicated because of how different languages deal with gender. But, if we can believe this 2002 NYT article—an article that would never be printed today—the roots of the term “homeland” extend back to the ancient Hebrews…and to Nazi Germany.
Apparently, in Nazi Germany the terms vaterland (fatherland) and “heimat” (homeland) were both used. (Perhaps a German speaker can enlighten us as to modern usage.)
With regard to the Hebrew origins, the article states the term goes back to the book of Genesis, and that “‘Moledet,’ or ‘homeland’ in Hebrew, first came out of the mouth of God, when he told Abraham to lead his people to the moledat.”
Leave it to The Empire to use the most loaded word possible.
I must also note that “Department of Homeland Security” drips with as much irony as “Department of Defense.”
Caitlin, you've got a huge blind spot. The problem with my friend's kid's pronouns is what it's all linked to. Things you're missing: i) huge #s of kids' healthy bodies irreversibly harmed, ii) schools teaching blatant biological falsehoods and promoting a religious Cult, iii) erasure of women's sex-based rights--e.g. women are being raped in prison by men-claiming-to-be-women locked in their cells--YES, this is happening; iv) erasure of gains of LGB movement...e.g lesbians attacked for genital fetish for refusing sex with men-who-say-they're-women, e.g. training away the gay, e.g. T+ attacks on LGB-focused groups; v) implosion of the Left...enviro groups that say TransWomenAreWomen have lost all credibility and rightfully so, vi) Kids have learned that saving the world entails fixating on their "genders" and organizing mobs to get people fired for stating biological reality. Instead of solidarity and system-change, they're led by the Big Pharma funded Pied Piper of identity. I'm a life-long environmental and anti-war activist who also fights the Gender Identity Cult. Fighting that Cult is connected to making the huge systemic changes we need to prevent ecological and military Armageddons. And so much more.
You are not grasping that the anti-science religious indoctrination on Gender Woo rampant in schools is a prime example of the power of the oligarchs to undermine critical thinking skills. To get people to say War is Peace. You are also unaware that the silly people who just can't seem to keep themselves from objecting to mastectomies on 13 year olds and other outcomes of the Gender Cult....the people who stand up despite the mob attacks on their jobs and lives that will ensue....are meeting and talking about much more than the Gender Cult piece of the picture. Right now, the only hope I'm feeling about taking on the forces leading us towards nuclear and environmental holocausts....is the women and men I've met who are standing up against the gender identity madness. Instead of dismissing something you clearly haven't delved into beyond the narrative allowed by the oligarchs, check out what's happening. It's not about your friend's kid's pronouns; it's about what they're linked to.
Excellent. You have become my go-to on this "war." I'm sure you have, but do you ever listen to Brian Kilmeade's radio progam on Fox radio and his guests? They insist on the only option is "humiliating Putin," breaking up Russia, and destroying its military as the only acceptable results. Total nutjobs, and I'm on the right politically. Like you could topple Russia - Russia - and carve it up into pieces like the west have done in third world countries.
I hope many of you take the following quote from the article and apply it to your ideas about communism, Karl Marx, American exceptionalism, and Tucker Carlson having class interests that align with yours.
"Assuring people they're not going mad when it looks like everything they were told about the world is a lie and everyone they were trained to trust is deceiving them."
Peace in Ukraine is all fine and good, but it neglects the fact that there can be no peace in Ukraine without peace in Europe. This has to start with negotiations between the US and Russia over the security guarantees Russia demanded last December in the form of new treaties. By spurning these then, the US turned its rivalry with Russia into a military one, with Ukraine the country mainly made to suffer, at least for now. Talking only about Ukraine while ignoring the broader context of the conflict means blinding oneself to what is really required to bring peace.
It also bothers me greatly how few seem to be aware what's in Russia's treaty proposals. Their acceptance would be totally win-win: NATO rolls its troops back to their 1997 dispositions, Russia pulls its troops and most threatening weapons well back into European Russia, while the US returns to its territory all the nuclear weapons it bases in Europe (the US of course being the only country to base nuclear weapons on the territory of foreign countries).
* “Mass Psychosis—How an Entire Population Becomes Mentally Ill” by The Academy of Ideas in cooperation with After Skool (22 minutes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09maaUaRT4M
* “Mass Formation Psychosis: 5 Things You Need to Know” by J.P. Sears (12 minutes
Wokeness is indeed a problem when it results in, say, people seriously saying they want to see Dave Chappelle slapped like Chris Rock was, I agree. Or when it results in people making baseless accusations against Glenn Greenwald of transphobia.
I don't see the big problem with listing pronouns, though. If someone tells me I have to list mine then I'll probably get mad at them, but nobody's told me to do that yet.
Global communism makes as much sense as doing global facism Caitlin. Both do not recognize reality. The next worse experiment in human societal development will be the hybridization of the two.
In China now they currently call themselves the walking dead and the party is in charge. In the USA they are woke and masked and the corporate parties are in charge.
I would like to know where you are getting this information from regarding China and "The Walking Dead"? I spent over 2 months in and around Shanghai and Beijing and what I saw was major bustling cities with very knowledgeable and well off people. Hell my interpreter was better off then me and travelled just as much as I did. I was lead to believe a major crock of shit because any country the Criminal Elite can't overthrow must be the enemy!
Is Biden stupid enough to think he could get away with a limited nuclear war? Really, he is pretty stupid. The question is, are there enough adults in the room to take this insane posturing off the table?
I don't think Biden is running the show, but his administration is stock piled on many levels with neocons who will, and are pushing an agenda that could lead to nuclear war, and I don't think nuclear wars are limited. From the very beginning many thought the US intended to create a quagmire for Russia in Ukraine, and wear herself out. It happened in Afghanistan where our fighting force was the Mujahideen, and like Ukraine we supplied the weapons, and we did bring Russia to her knees, however fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, and I'm sure Putin knows his history, and we won't see that repeated again. We're playing with fire but the average American right now are thinking about the upcoming holidays. Personally I always thought this was on the agenda, ever since the Obama administration supported the coup in Ukraine in 2014. Look, they lied us into one war after another in the middle east based on a neocon agenda and I don't know if you know that before we even entered Afghanistan 7 other countries were on our agenda for war. So yes, we killed and displaced millions and destroyed whole countries and we learned nothing and either did the American people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8YtF76s-yM
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Jack Kennedy had his brother, Robert, Kenneth O Donnell, and Robert McNamara and Adlai Stevenson to help cool down the situation. All of these men worked toward peace between America and the Soviet Union. Even in Ronald Reagan's administration he had James Baker, another man who worked toward peace between America and Gorbachev's Soviet Union and later the Russian Federation. Today, the administration of Joe Biden are only rattling swords. People like Victoria Nuland, Antony Blinken and William Christol are catastrophes for America.
I hope they don't rattle the swords so hard that it will start a nuclear war.I absolutely agrees, and neocons all.
There are so many enemies and they all call the US their home. Tom Cotton, Pence, Trump even, the neocons are our enemies and I don't know how to fight them other than to open folk's eyes to the horrors they loose on the world. Ukraine being a good example these days. As long as they control the media the work will be long, and hard. Peace
The media problem is the big one! We do not have independent media and we do not have a free press. We have a Zionist and a Globalist media. We also have administrations that allow big-tech to censor you at any given time. It's as if the Constitution of the U,S. has been thrown out the window!
I think a picture of a hamster running on a wheel in a wire cage would exemplify Ol' Joe Buddy's brain and the way it functions these days, if even that. His wicked members of the MIC(military industrial complex) club stocked with neocons to the hilt and vying for control of the world along with Charles & his cohorts company of re-set imperialists, and Big Pharma to boot, are all killing us in ways yet to materialize. Then factor in the proxy war in Ukraine and my conclusion is that we're fucked.
Then we have the end of industrial civilization due to uncontrollable environmental factors which means we're double fucked. Take your pick of various scenarios of the 'end of the world'; one is just as viable as the other, we just don't know which one will occur. Sorry. Truly. Peace, The Ol' Hippy
The same cabal selling you winnable war propaganda have been the ones behind the climate crisis propaganda. Regardless of the truth of climate change let's at least agree it is a huge propaganda target.
Sorry. The "climate change" crisis is real. Before "they" were calling it 'climate change' it was known in the late '60's as global warming when I started studying it in junior high school. In fact it's been well know for well over a hundred years and has only accelerated greatly since the 1970's, post WW II really. I've read well over 3-4 dozen books on various aspects of global warming/environmental destruction, and all signs point to to the inescapable conclusion that, 1) Earth is severely overpopulated with humans; 2) humans have pumped well over 150 million years worth of stored carbon, as coal, methane, and crude oil, by burning it, back into the atmosphere by its burning, as easily available energy, to power industrial civilization for the last 270 years. There has actually been a cumulative effect going on for many more years than that but the industrial revolution really kicked it into high gear. (Since 1750.) If there was less than a billion people instead of almost 8 billion, the crisis would be manageable. World population has almost tripled since I was born in 1954, and more than doubled since I graduated high school in 1972. The trillion pound elephant no one wants to address. The root cause of it all, really.
As I say, I've studied this since the late '60's and somewhere along the way it was dropped from school curricula by intense lobbying from the energy industries. My guess is since the late '70's or so. Remember war and energy industries are highly profitable to industrialists(capitalists) and will remain so until the collapse of industrial civilization--coming soon to region near us all. Peace, The Ol' Hippy
I am as old and as educated as any old hippy so let's not be making claims of authority based on age.
Climate change has changed form multiple times, in each iteration it becomes more exaggerated to keep the attention focused on it. Environmental destruction in the form of pollution, over fishing and 100 other sins against nature are not analogous to climate crisis. That is an amateur mistake to lump all environmental problems under the umbrella of climate change/crisis. The claims of the climate crisis crowd have never come true, making predictions that never realize destroys credibility.
Paranoid conspiracy theories suggest that big oil is hiding the truth, meanwhile every elementary school student has a dedicated curriculum on climate change.
World population is already on a downward trend, all advanced societies are seeing falling reproductive rates.
I'm sorry to say your rebuttal reads like a litany of propaganda, the very propaganda you are claiming doesn't exist.
What planet are you on? Did you come from the fossil fuel industry? Have you ever seen a current video of the ice melting to the north or south? When was the last time you could cross from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the northern side of Canada? Who is putting out the propaganda here?
Putin knows his history but The US State department does not. As a result, State is repeating it.
Slo Joe is a sock puppet of the WEF.
I will agree with most of your points, accept one, Russia to her knees. Thinking back on that history having lived in it not realizing at the time extreme propaganda existed then. Russia simply made a calculation of benefit verse allowing the u.s to die on the vine in Afghanistan? We did, they didn't.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/brzezinski-vision-to-lure_b_10511358
I know Joe Lauria from Consortium News felt we were going to use the same tactics in Ukraine as we did in Afghanistan.
I love your thoughts, I would like to hear more from you. I wasn't sure what the real goal of the u.s./NATO vs. Russia was in the beginning and then Nordstream 1/2 destroyed by the u.s. Now I believe this is about pure wealth extraction from Europe? I work in high energy so I have some understanding of what nuclear war will be. Crazy people think nuclear war is winnable, sadly, most of the u.s. believes it is. Landru Dark Matter Zombies.
Hi, I don't think most people in America think a nuclear war is winnable, but most are not thinking about it at all. Americans in general are not political. Many may turn on their favorite news channel that basically tells them what they want to hear, but certainly nothing to the contrary. Our agenda in Russia I'm sure is not helping European countries, especially having just dealt with Covid for a couple of years. I suspect that the break up of the US and Russia after WW11 was not only due to different political ideologies, but there was a lot of money to be made from that conflict in terms of manufacturing weaponry, and other technologies of war. I don't think we are out to hurt Europe, but those will be the consequences of this long drawn out "war" with Russia, and yes I don't think we care. Look at what we are doing to Ukraine, destroying it in order to remove Putin, and undermine Russia's role in the world. We have a government where corporate America is number one on our elected politician's agenda, since they take good care of them financially , and the American citizenry is quite secondary. The rich constitute 1% of our population yet own 40% of America's wealth. America wants to be number one in the world and if you read books by William Blum, or read Economic Hit Man by John Perkins, and others it's no secret. Sometimes I just think the future is dark and soon nothing will matter.
Yes, he is. Why because people have forgotten what a small nuclear detonation like Hiroshima looks like. Today the Biden morons think the iron dome for their personal bunkers will save them. For the first time in my life I think nuclear is MORE probably than not. While hiding under my desk seeing the pure terror in my teachers eyes, I thought people know this can not happen. There is no terror now, the video game continues for the oligarchs.
I remember reading something (I wish I remembered where so I could link it) where people in the US government were talking about maybe hitting Russia with nuclear strikes that would take out THEIR nukes before any retaliatory strikes could be launched. That seems like a pretty insane gamble to me; putting aside how immoral it would be to nuke anyone preemptively, could they really be sure they'd hit all the launching sites? But I guess maybe that's part of what happens to you when you're at the head of the country like the US; you start thinking you can do anything and get away with anything after getting away with so much else.
"This is like accelerating toward a brick wall and pretending it's an open road."
Well, the US is very experienced at following this course. Look at the Korean “open road", a failed episode. The end result, a small US base on the border of South and North Korea, affectionately known as a DMZ (demilitarised zone) now used as a far flung US outpost, one of 800 + around the world.
Then comes Vietnam, a painful retreat, humiliating with little strategic value as a result. The unforgettable pictures of the US departure being something to add to the children’s history lessons on how not to fail. 1. Don’t start a war in the first place, but if you can’t help yourself,….. 2. Know when to quit.
We don't stop there though. Afghanistan, the epitome of “open roads”, a 20 year failure with no benefit at all to the hegemonic US. Did they learn from British failures there. NO. Did they learn from Russian failures there. NO. Something of yet another failure in objective setting, project (war) management and like the others, leaving behind a house full of people who will hate what the US stands for (whatever that is, other than world power and total control), forever.
Throw into the history book the blustering Bush "shock and awe" great big lie philosophy, "the open road" of Iraq, realistically a real brick wall, with the US as yet unentangled from that quagmire. If Biden continues to use the mental capacity of all the Neocon advisers combined, it never will be unentangled until someone comes along and shows the likes of Biden and his corrupted cohorts that they should leave the area (as well as Syria) as the country is not theirs and there is a far better way to do things. In other words, Butt Out!
But don't count on that one. I did forget we are dealing with the exceptional USA.
PS While you are at it, skip all the others countries that have been, still are, or will be targets for your bored but dangerous Israeli-controlled Neocons and concentrate on getting your own house in order.
It’s in a mess.
Excellent article. Nothing to add.
Last night's Tucker Carlson had him making many statements that sounded like he's been reading Caitlin, or like she's been watching him. He repeatedly referred to many media outlets as being absolute illusions. The NY Times, PMSNBC, etc., all have small audiences, but politicians of the uni-party are terrified of them, and do what they say. He thinks they are the reason that, time and time again, we land in these deadly situations. If we all just ignore them, they will lose all of their power.
It was unnerving, listening to him sound just like Caitlin. His themes were anti-propaganda, anti-intimidation, thinking for yourself, anti-uni-party, and avoiding war.
You may not like him, but when the apocalypse is at stake, I think we should take allies for life anywhere we can find them.
Tucker also occasionally has “lefty” guests like Jimmy Dore and Glenn Greenwald. The new populism that Tucker personifies finds common ground between traditional left and right. This is also why so many disaffected progressive Bernie fans voted for Trump (or against Hillary) in 2016. It turns out that your “anti-propaganda, anti-intimidation, thinking for yourself, anti-uni-party, and avoiding war” is neither left nor right. The fact that you watch Tucker AND read Caitlin—as I suspect many of us do—speaks volumes.
BTW, the next presidential election—if this country lasts that long—may be dominated by independents, namely Tusli Gabbard (who just became an independent) and Liz Cheney (who , if Trump runs, may soon leave the Rep party). I won’t be surprised if Tucker is also be on the ’24 ballot.
I see lots of crazy in the near future, maybe I won't live long enough to see its fruition, 'cause it'll be brutal and ugly. I'm too ill to survive it these days. Peace?, not in my lifetime, sorry.
I'm 45 and I doubt we'll see peace even in my lifetime, assuming I die of natural causes in thirty years or more. Because the world just keeps getting worse and nobody wants to course-correct.
EDIT: I should have said that nobody with the power to do anything about it wants to course-correct. Not literally true I guess, since there are exceptions to most rules, but when someone with power does try to do something then everybody else with power turns on them.
Funny, in my rational mind, I've considered and strongly rejected the kind of "left" "right" coalition you suggest, because the forces on the right are Fascist, and tolerance for fascist only feeds the movement.
But, while road tripping in rural Idaho in my small school bus - named "Green New Deal" and "Climate Chaos" where the "School Bus" banners used to be - I was approached by a pickup truck of hunters and beer drinkers (at 8 am!). I was initially extremely apprehensive, because I've almost been killed and been SWATed by these folks, some of whom I think are militia. During our conversation, they even admitted that they stopped to harass me. But, we had a very good political and scientific conversation about climate. Their climate denial has a plausible (but false) rationale which they let me demolish and could not defend, and they ended up agreeing with me on a lot of things about energy transition (but they would not accept the need for rapid change). Most "leftists" would not have even spoken to these guys. And frankly, we had areas of agreement in terms of disgust with selfish elites and a few good laughs poking fun at each other.
This hasn't convinced me to change my conclusion about left/right coalition, but it is a dose of humility in terms of learning how to talk and listen to people who you disagree with, but can agree with on some issues.
I'm glad that turned out pretty much okay.
I believe at the end of the day, everybody who's getting screwed by the establishment and realizes it is likely to have common ground. More than one person my past self would have written off as "some asshole right-winger who believes the opposite of everything I believe in strongly" has pleasantly surprised me in recent years.
I would also say that if fascism is by definition right-wing, then most of the Democratic Party right now is right-wing, including the Squad. That's because fascism doesn't allow you much in the way of civil liberties, and these days the Democrats are as eager to get rid of people's civil liberties as Bush era Republicans were, with the same BS "we have to do it to keep everybody safe" rationalization.
With all due respect to Caitlin, this comment warrants a better response than "the TV man is not your friend" like she said to someone else who brought up the overlap between her statements and Tucker's.
To Caitlin, I'll say this: you know who I've hated for a long time? Ben Shapiro. That's because the first thing I ever saw from him was his tweet saying "Settlements rock" and because Israel/Palestine isn't the only issue he just gets completely wrong. But when I saw him say something about tech companies censoring too much more recently, I was like "Well, he sure isn't wrong or part of the problem THIS time..."
Tucker may be part of the problem when it comes to China. He might be part of the problem when it comes to immigration policy. But he is on the right side of this Ukraine insanity IMHO.
EDIT: Or to put it another way, without Tucker Carlson we would have a lot of people clamoring for war with both Russia and China. With Tucker Carlson, we have the same number of people clamoring for war with China, but a hell of a lot fewer clamoring for war with Russia. He's helping some, even if he isn't helping enough. And he's better on Ukraine than a lot of so-called lefty commentators.
I think the same is true for Jimmy Dore. At least these few people with access are telling people war is crazy.
Caitlin exemplifies how using the brains we're born with one can become a force of nature.
Love your writing but communism has never worked and never will
But capitalism has?
Hasn’t every society that ever existed struck some kind of balance between the common good and individual self-interest? Every society has had some dominant form of ownership, from common ownership to individual property rights, but those also get blended. For example, in “capitalist” America, who owns the rivers or the national parks?
These ideological labels have always been mainly academic exercises. They have some limited use, but do they ever accurately apply to any real world society? They seem less meaningful every day. Is China communist or capitalist?
Worse, these labels now seem intended only to divide us and keep us at each other’s throats while the oligarchs from both "capitalist" and "communist" systems laugh all the way to their off-shore banks.
Fair enough, it seems the main problem of most societies has been out of control elites.
Dead right!
And Capitalism has? Actually, Communism/Socialism has worked fine in every country not attacked or overthrown by the US and Europe. Hmm... think about that.
Sorry, communism has never been tried as Marx prescribed. The Russian experiment Marx declared a failure before it started. Russia today is a resource capitalist country, China Industrial capitalist. Cuba is close but held hostage by sanctions. Spain has a very interesting path. There are other examples also destroyed by the u.s.
What Russian Experiment did Marx declare a failure? He died before either the 1905 or 1917 revolution... Also communism has and is currently being "tried" and it's silly to contend differently as though some pure marxism without capitalist intervention could exist.
After a certain point, the question becomes "what do we have to lose?"
That's not to say that communism is the only possible answer. I'm open to anything that at least seems to work on paper and is different from the current fucked up system that has ruined so many people's lives (e.g., getting them evicted and making them homeless).
It's a nice thought though. Too many yahoos wanting bourgeois trappings to see it through in this cruel world. We need an evolutionary breakthrough, a'la Stephen Jay Gould--punctuated equilibrium--the punctuation is upon us.
The World Economic Forum has a plan to save themselves from Climate Extinction by sacrificing the rest of the world.
They are the Elites based in Europe, USA, and other Anglophile countries. They recognise that we are all are about to become extinction within a decade or two, unless a drastic reset is performed.
Their reset is reduce the use of fossil fuel which is driving climate change, and to reduce world consumption by wiping out large swathes of human populations through war, famine, pandemic and loss of habitat.
They are using Ukraine to accomplish their goals.
They will not be successful because extinction through climate change is already to far advanced, not just for humans, but for all life on Earth. But the way they see it, is that the many must be sacrificed to save the few worthy and continue humanity and life on Earth.
Assuring people they aren't crazy in a world that seems crazy in every respect, is a very worthy objective. And it is crazy if human values are a consideration, if valuing human life and all life forms on this planet is sane, then it is crazy. But there is a method to the madness. It is no accident or coincidence. So how do we assess that? Well, the filthy rich are getting filthy richer. That's a clue. And democracy, never that robust, looks like a 90 lb weakling against a gorilla in the ring. It's absence isn't even excused anymore. Elections theft is just an add-on for personal profit. The whole system has been hijacked.
Yes it has by leeches that will never let go.
Russia my land of birth is either male or female pronoun, but not an ...it... please
.
Respect is to say mother or fatherland, her or his.
She or he.
Usually her.
Russia is feminine in Russian.
She is my mother
This parental identity of our countries is more important than we Americans imagine. Nazi Germany was a fatherland. Interesting that President G.W. Bush selected the non-binary “homeland” for U.S. national identity.
Yup.
We dont really have gender in English, nor you plural. Sir.
That's a philosophical as well as linquistic shortcoming.
Well, after reading that article it turns out the origins of “homeland” are far more interesting than I thought. It gets complicated because of how different languages deal with gender. But, if we can believe this 2002 NYT article—an article that would never be printed today—the roots of the term “homeland” extend back to the ancient Hebrews…and to Nazi Germany.
Apparently, in Nazi Germany the terms vaterland (fatherland) and “heimat” (homeland) were both used. (Perhaps a German speaker can enlighten us as to modern usage.)
With regard to the Hebrew origins, the article states the term goes back to the book of Genesis, and that “‘Moledet,’ or ‘homeland’ in Hebrew, first came out of the mouth of God, when he told Abraham to lead his people to the moledat.”
Leave it to The Empire to use the most loaded word possible.
I must also note that “Department of Homeland Security” drips with as much irony as “Department of Defense.”
Thanks for the link!
Caitlin, you've got a huge blind spot. The problem with my friend's kid's pronouns is what it's all linked to. Things you're missing: i) huge #s of kids' healthy bodies irreversibly harmed, ii) schools teaching blatant biological falsehoods and promoting a religious Cult, iii) erasure of women's sex-based rights--e.g. women are being raped in prison by men-claiming-to-be-women locked in their cells--YES, this is happening; iv) erasure of gains of LGB movement...e.g lesbians attacked for genital fetish for refusing sex with men-who-say-they're-women, e.g. training away the gay, e.g. T+ attacks on LGB-focused groups; v) implosion of the Left...enviro groups that say TransWomenAreWomen have lost all credibility and rightfully so, vi) Kids have learned that saving the world entails fixating on their "genders" and organizing mobs to get people fired for stating biological reality. Instead of solidarity and system-change, they're led by the Big Pharma funded Pied Piper of identity. I'm a life-long environmental and anti-war activist who also fights the Gender Identity Cult. Fighting that Cult is connected to making the huge systemic changes we need to prevent ecological and military Armageddons. And so much more.
You are not grasping that the anti-science religious indoctrination on Gender Woo rampant in schools is a prime example of the power of the oligarchs to undermine critical thinking skills. To get people to say War is Peace. You are also unaware that the silly people who just can't seem to keep themselves from objecting to mastectomies on 13 year olds and other outcomes of the Gender Cult....the people who stand up despite the mob attacks on their jobs and lives that will ensue....are meeting and talking about much more than the Gender Cult piece of the picture. Right now, the only hope I'm feeling about taking on the forces leading us towards nuclear and environmental holocausts....is the women and men I've met who are standing up against the gender identity madness. Instead of dismissing something you clearly haven't delved into beyond the narrative allowed by the oligarchs, check out what's happening. It's not about your friend's kid's pronouns; it's about what they're linked to.
Excellent. You have become my go-to on this "war." I'm sure you have, but do you ever listen to Brian Kilmeade's radio progam on Fox radio and his guests? They insist on the only option is "humiliating Putin," breaking up Russia, and destroying its military as the only acceptable results. Total nutjobs, and I'm on the right politically. Like you could topple Russia - Russia - and carve it up into pieces like the west have done in third world countries.
"a big part of my job here is just being the voice that says "You're not crazy. I see it too."" - and this is extremely appreciated.
One thing I wonder re this forum's participants - how many people are there around you that share this vision?
One or two
Nowadays this sounds plenty.
I do.
russian_bot asked How Many
I hope many of you take the following quote from the article and apply it to your ideas about communism, Karl Marx, American exceptionalism, and Tucker Carlson having class interests that align with yours.
"Assuring people they're not going mad when it looks like everything they were told about the world is a lie and everyone they were trained to trust is deceiving them."
Peace in Ukraine is all fine and good, but it neglects the fact that there can be no peace in Ukraine without peace in Europe. This has to start with negotiations between the US and Russia over the security guarantees Russia demanded last December in the form of new treaties. By spurning these then, the US turned its rivalry with Russia into a military one, with Ukraine the country mainly made to suffer, at least for now. Talking only about Ukraine while ignoring the broader context of the conflict means blinding oneself to what is really required to bring peace.
It also bothers me greatly how few seem to be aware what's in Russia's treaty proposals. Their acceptance would be totally win-win: NATO rolls its troops back to their 1997 dispositions, Russia pulls its troops and most threatening weapons well back into European Russia, while the US returns to its territory all the nuclear weapons it bases in Europe (the US of course being the only country to base nuclear weapons on the territory of foreign countries).
I thought people would like to know other people's theories as to how propaganda works:
HOW DID A MOSTLY NORMAL NATION LIKE GERMANY FALL UNDER HITLER’S SPELL? AND CAN WE GET OUT OF IT?
* “Is A Mass Psychosis the Greatest Threat to Humanity?” by The Academy of Ideas (12 minutes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojPcF-oLABE&t=608s
* “Mass Psychosis—How an Entire Population Becomes Mentally Ill” by The Academy of Ideas in cooperation with After Skool (22 minutes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09maaUaRT4M
* “Mass Formation Psychosis: 5 Things You Need to Know” by J.P. Sears (12 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQChw_Rk1Kk
* The Manufacturing of a Mass Psychosis - Can Sanity Return to an Insane World? by The Academy of Ideas (22 minutes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdzW-S8MwbI
Your analysis on Ukraine is 100% correct.
Also agreed, we treat our planet like garbage.
Communism, however, is never the answer.
And this woke bullshit *is* a huge problem that needs calling out.
Wokeness is indeed a problem when it results in, say, people seriously saying they want to see Dave Chappelle slapped like Chris Rock was, I agree. Or when it results in people making baseless accusations against Glenn Greenwald of transphobia.
I don't see the big problem with listing pronouns, though. If someone tells me I have to list mine then I'll probably get mad at them, but nobody's told me to do that yet.
Global communism makes as much sense as doing global facism Caitlin. Both do not recognize reality. The next worse experiment in human societal development will be the hybridization of the two.
In China now they currently call themselves the walking dead and the party is in charge. In the USA they are woke and masked and the corporate parties are in charge.
I would like to know where you are getting this information from regarding China and "The Walking Dead"? I spent over 2 months in and around Shanghai and Beijing and what I saw was major bustling cities with very knowledgeable and well off people. Hell my interpreter was better off then me and travelled just as much as I did. I was lead to believe a major crock of shit because any country the Criminal Elite can't overthrow must be the enemy!